Grouchybeast

Pretty much all the old content is available through Ouro. The only missions that aren't in there are the single missions that are basically radio-style content filler.

This isn't quite accurate. Generally, with some exceptions, an IO's bonus will not work if the character's combat level is more than three levels below the level of the IO. However, it will work no matter how many level higher the character's combat level is. A level 10 Blessing of the Zephyr will provide KB protection all the way up to 50+.

I still have my old game logs, and out of curiosity I did a few searches. Most of the acronyms used now were also in use back on the Live servers, so I don't think that's changed very much, Which ones you see has probably changed, e.g. SBB was a late and seasonal addition, but there were plenty of IFT LFM posted back on live. Likewise with levels -- people didn't always specify TF levels in the past either. Speeding TFs isn't a new thing, either. That became really popular when merits were introduced and there was suddenly a significant reward for fast times. But also, it's fun. Back on live one of my absolute favourite things to do was speed run ITFs. Never got bored of that. CoV being the farm-heavy side isn't something I recognise at all. I'm sure people did farm there, especially before the market merge and side-switching, but not any more than blueside as I remember (although I only started playing with I13, so that might also be a factor). Or maybe it was server dependent? IIRC there were classic farms like the Demon farm blueside, and Atlas was the go-to zone for AE farms. CoX has always been a super flexible game that lets people play in so many different ways. New players are still going to be able to explore the world, solo, team, learn what parts of the game they enjoy and what they don't. If there's a problem with CoX, it's that people are too friendly. Newbies get showered with inf and offers of help and free farms, so they can miss the exploratory experience to some extent. I remember when I had to trudge back and forth to Wentworths just to sell my drops, barefoot through the snow, uphill both ways...

Have you tried the different low-level arcs on redside? There's actually quite a variety, with the newer ones. I really enjoy both Dr Graves and Lt Harris, but they start at level 5, so if you're deleting before then you won't have run into them. I also tend to play good characters, but when I'm playing redside I tend to look at it less as the charactering being an avatar for me, and more than I'm reading a story.

Rise of the Phoenix. The animation is amazing, and the pure joy of Oh, so you think that was it, huh? You think you won? Well, watch THIS! never gets old. It makes defeat a pleasure.

All-support team in CoX are kind of the opposite of this, though. You don't need to number-crunch, design a specific team, or come up with clever tactics or highly tuned builds. You just need to round up eight Defenders and stroll around the mission maps chatting, while the enemies melt and nothing gets to fight back because either they're all debuffed to heck, or you're all buffed to the hardcaps. Or both. It's basically cheat mode.

I got a left-handed Razer mouse for Christmas. The mouse itself works really well, and I'm enjoying the exciting novelty of a middle scroll wheel and other new-fangled gizmos (for context: I've been using a finger-operated Logitech trackball since roughly forever). The Razer software, on the other hand, is a pile of crap. From years of using right-handed mice with my left hand, I have right-clicking with my index finger so completely ingrained that I decided to set up the Razer to swap the left and right mouse buttons assignments. This does mostly work. The mouse respects my button switching everywhere I've tried it, except for on the Razer app mouse button assignment screen. It even works in the rest of the Razer app! I spent so, so long clicking on options and wondering why things were going wrong.

The serious answer is: merits. The arrival of merit rewards determined on a merits-per-minute formula made speed-running TFs extremely rewarding.

It also depends on how and when you slot. I tend to make a build plan early on with a character and, and slot it up with sets as I go. I also level quite slowly and solo a lot. So I get a lot of use out of attuned IOs. If you prefer to level to 50 and then give your characters a set IO build, it becomes more a question of whether or not you exemp. If you farm a character up to 50, slot them out, and never exemp, attuned IOs are pretty pointless.

I also suspect that this is the actual answer. Blue power obviously saps blue stat!

We duoed the ITF pretty easily with a fire/fire brute and an ice/cold corr. It wasn't MO, but then we weren't trying for that.

It could start by simply replacing any powers you keep in the same slots, and removing icons for powers you haven't taken. Any new powers can be placed in the tray later by the players. That would be vast;ly better than the current situation. At worst, the player might decide to /cleartray and start from scratch, which is no different to now, except that now everyone has to do it instead of only some people. We know the game already keeps the information during the entire respec process, because it can be cancelled right at the end and the trays are restored,

I'm sure that if you post in the Help subforum, someone will do their absolute best to take you through it and get it installed, (I would offer here, but I don't want to thread-jack.)

I use the trams a lot, too. Sometimes I even use the tunnel exits. I just like flying around the city, really. It's the thing I missed most during the shutdown.

While you still have to add the powers back, /cleartray will save the pain of deleting the apparently 238572361 temp powers that all my characters seem to pick up without my noticing..

(I kid!)

I duoed an Ice/Cold corr to 50 with a Fire/Fire brute, and can confirm its awesomeness. Very useful shields at low/mid game, solid end-game-relevant debuffs, makes good use of Scourge, extra fantastic once IO'd out with a bunch of +rech. Even Frostwork has its useful moments.

The LGFT is the culmination of the overall RWZ storyline, so making it level 40 would make it available to players before some of the story arcs that lead up to it. You can certainly argue that the CoX timelines are so FUBAR in other places it doesn't matter, but I think it's worth bearing in mind. It would be especially confusing for new players.

The LGTF is the culmination of the whole RWZ story arc. I know the narrative timelines of CoX are all over the place, and that got much worse towards the end of the game's life, but the least we can do to help players navigate through is not to make it worse. The LGTF should definitely not be lower level than the arcs that lead into it.

Back on live I wrote some Praetorian Clockwork-speak binds for my Praetorian Clockwork Defenders. The only one of them I can find now is: RCH.[ACL(MET)]=TRUE: CWK.USE.[ACL(MET)]

I don't think it was ever harder, just very time-consuming, especially back when the devs were making really new powersets and having to justify their budgets. A normal set needs animations for nine powers, using the existing player models. A MM set still needs nine powers + a model for every pet + multiple powers for each of those models + animations for pets being buffed, debuffed etc. I guess these days people would be more accepting of a new set cobbled together from existing assets, but back on Live that wasn't really an option.

I'm going to throw in another vote for Cold (Defender or Corruptor). Keeping the shields up is NBD these days, since they're AOE. The debuffs are delicious -- no mobs are shooting that your team mates because they're busy doing the landed fish flip-flop on the floor -- and no one is expecting heals from Cold. (I guess they can expect them if they like, but I recommend just shrugging and telling them that you're not that kind of Defender.) If you really want to lean heavy on the debuffs, you can pair it up with a blast set like Sonic. Rad or Dark.

Kinetic Crash. Much underrated set. Gives you adequate Acc/Dam/End/Rech, oodles of Knockback (seriously, KB is schedule D, it's awesome), some KB protection, plus 7.5% Rech when you six-slot it, and why wouldn't you? Also you get 4.5% Run Speed as the first set bonus. You're definitely going to need that.

I always thought it would be cool to let people advertise their supergroups through the ingame billboards.

BRB, rolling a fire blaster called HR Rep.