UltraAlt

Oh, I did forget to post two buttons on the controller in the last post. There are three buttons above the sticks. Upper left - left mouse Lower left - (use not recommended) switches the sticks and d-pad Upper right - auto-run (since forward/back is on the left stick your right thumb is free to hit the auto-run button) [might as well check the auction house while you are auto-run flying across THE CITY) A trick with doors is to always try to park the mouse button on your character's back. That way you can just get the character in front of a door so that the hand appears and then click on the button for the left mouse on the controller. With his setup, I'm 80-90%+ hands on the controller with most characters. I use the mouse when I have to select a teammate before activating a power, when I have to click on a target location after selecting a power, or when I have to click on a door quickly. Of course, I use the keyboard for chatting (and who doesn't chat in THE CITY). I mainly try to chat out-of-combat. I sometime will hit F instead of using my follow macro. I don't use the F-keys all that often. Well that's on the basics of my setup and use of a Logitech F310. Next : the Buggy bits

Refer to the post above for tray positions and set-up. The active tray is the tray that labeled as 1 in the position and has the red circle around slots 1-4 and orange circle around slots 5-6 As indicated above, I have a macro in slot 8 of the active tray that I use to toggle the active tray between tray 1 and tray 2. Right face buttons Green button (bottom) - active tray slot 1 Red button (right middle) - active tray slot 2 Blue button (left middle) - active tray slot 3 Yellow/gold button (top) - active tray slot 4 Shoulder buttons (on back). Upper left - active tray slot 5. Lower left - jump. upper right - active tray slot 6. lower right - target nearest. Left d-pad North (up) - active tray slot 8 - tray flip macro South (down) - active tray slot 7 - inspiration heal macro - /macro Heal "inspexec_name respite$$inspexec_name dramatic_improvement$$inspexec_name resurgence" West (left) - target next East (right) - target nearest NE/NW/SE/SW (cornors) - not assigned. The Logitech F310 has two sticks. Left stick x-axis - strafe left/right Left stick y-axis - forwards/backwards Left stick click/button - greater travel power (active tray slot 10) Right stick x-axis - turn left/right Right stick y-axis - move the camera up/down Right stick click/button - lesser travel power (active tray slot 9).

I'll be going into how I set-up my Logitech F310, I started using it because it is set-up like a Playstation 2 controller. I like the feel and symmetry of the controller layout. I love to make characters. Some people may even say it is some kind of disease or maybe a mental illness that wants me to make so many characters. Well, I'm glad that I have what some might call the "Jack Kirby" disease or altitis etc. City of Heroes fosters it. For this reason, I have to have a way to make all the power sets basically have the same kinds of powers in the same locations. Sometimes I have another tray running across the top between the nav menu and tray 9 at the top right. I closed the Map and chat window on the left to protect the innocent. I have labelled where I usually have them (usually run about 60% opacity). Let's start with my main powers trays. These are set-up Tray 1 1-4 (circled in red) - quickest charging to slowest charging main attack powers. Generally single target. At low levels, range characters have brawl in 1 and range attacks starting in 3. 5-6 (circled in orange) - really slow charging attack/heal powers and AOE/cone attacks/heals - or - mastermind; 5 defensive stance and 6 attack stance. 7 - Heal Macro - /macro Heal "inspexec_name respite$$inspexec_name dramatic_improvement$$inspexec_name resurgence" 8 - tray flip to tray 2 macro - /macro try2 next_tray 9-10 (circled in purple) Greater and lesser travel powers Lesser Travel power - Sprint, Combat jumping, Hover, etc. Greater Travel power - Super Jump, Fly, flight packs, etc. I put tray 3 in between tray 1 and 2 in order for me because I like it there as a spacer between trays 1 and 2 which I'm setting things up to toggle. Using the number 8 button on tray 1 puts tray 2 in tray 1's position (the active tray) and leaves 2 and 3 in their current locations. Tray 2 Until I get too many powers that I have to click a lot in tray 1 slots 1-6, I use Tray 2 for a bit temp storage and slow charge buffs and powers that you have to click a location to activate. Since I have to take a hand off the controller to use the mouse button to do the location targeting quickly, I might as well click on the power with mouse before moving to click on the target location. As level up and I start getting too many single target attacks/powers (1-4) or aoe/cones/very slow recharge (5-6), I set-up slots 1-6 in the same manner as tray 1. Note I keep buttons 7 and 9-10 the same, so if I tray flip to tray 2 I still have quick access to the inspiration based heals and travel powers. The only difference in tray 2 is button 8. 8 - tray flip to tray 1 macro - /macro try1 prev_tray Tray 3 1-4 I generally always put a follow macro (/macro flw follow) in one of the first 4 slots. It starts in slot one and I move it over if there is some kind of buff or heal that I'm going to have to select a teammate before activating it. So in this screenshot I have the day job related heal (vitalization) in slot 1. 2-7 (circled in orange) secondary storage for toggle powers that I'm going to leave on most of the time. Armors, Leadership, etc. 9-10 Ancillary powers (circled in lime green) 9 - secondary travel power of some sort. possibly one that has a limited use time so I don't use it by accident. 10 - rest Tray 4 1-5 (circled in blue) General - toggle powers that I'm going to leave on most of the time. Mastermind - slot 1 empower minions power; 2-5 call minion powers 7-10 (circled in purple because I forgot I circled part of tray 1 with purple) - rarely used click powers 7 - Auction house (/macro Auction AH) 8 - day job resurrect power from having the Hospital and University related day jobs. [Yes. Every character can rez teammates. All you have to do is log off for the day jobs and spend more time logged off to get charges on the power] 9 - Buff pet 10 - generally Mystic fortune, etc. Those are my main power trays. Tray 7 (if it is open other fun stuff that I will mouse click) Tray 8 1-4 other macros 5 - Recall friend (if the character has it) 6 - Team mission telport 7 - Assemble team 8 - Wentworths Teleporter - this is a day job power you get from logging off at a Wentworths 9 - Oroborus portal - [Hint :: go to Flashback Galaxy City, take the train to Oroboros. Go to top of the spire for the badge and get the portal. You can do this at level 1] 10 - Base teleport - Torchbearer macro example - macro WARP "enterbasefrompasscode WARPZONE-4141" Tray 9 1-8 Costume changes 9 - starting Pick-up Group (aka PUG) macro - /macro PUG "lfg $level mission team lfm. Send tell for invite." displays your level in message to looking for group channel 10 - LFG macro - /macro LFG "lfg $level $archetype looking for team" displays your level and archetype in message to looking for group channel Now that you can see how I have the trays set-up. It might make sense why I set-up my controller the way that I do.

I don't see a post on this, but it might be something that some people might find useful. I use a Logitech f310 to play CoH. I've used one practically since I started playing CoH which was just before the release of Issue 2. The most important thing is the Global profiler settings. Once you go into this menu option, make sure that you turn on the "apply persistent profile" option. What this option does is to make the controller appear to be a keyboard to your computer. You can set up profiles for each game that you play. You want that "profile" to be selected when you are playing that game. I have profiles set up for 3 games at this point. Also make sure that the three "General Behavior" boxes are unchecked. When you first power up the profiler (activate the controller) after starting up your computer, make sure to hover the pointer over the profiler, and then swivel the sticks around their arcs and push the buttons. This sets the neutral points. If you don't do this, you might find the cursor moving around when you power up your computer. If that happens, unplug the game controller. The neutral points can't be reset on the controller before you get logged in to the computer. Once you have opened the profiler and are playing using the controller; if the controller stops responding, toggle out of the game, click on the profiler, swirl the sticks, click the buttons, and then go back into the game. This should reset the controller so it will function in-game again.

Remember before AE was released when the DEVs said in the forums :: "Code of Conduct Reminders: * NCsoft has the right to ban any mission that violates the Rules of Conduct or User Agreement. * Please click on the aforementioned links for full details. * Parodies and derivative works are not allowed. * NCsoft has the right to ban any mission that contains words that attempt to bypass the Profanity filter. Repeated violations by an "author" may result in account closure. * NCsoft has the right to ban any mission and author that use the Mission Architect system for solicitation of business or advertisement of commercial services or activities. * NCsoft reserves the right to ban any missions that contain any exploits that provide unintended statistical advantages. Players and/or "authors" that advertise exploitable missions through our forums, in-game chat system or through the Mission Architect system may be banned from the Mission Architect System or may have their game account closed. * NCsoft reserves the right to remove or modify any item, NPC, Mission Map or any other element related to the Mission Architect system for any reason. o o Mission Architect changes may invalidate "Published" mission, in which case the author should "edit" their Published mission to preserve its rating. "Unpublishing" an invalid mission will result in loss of any earned ratings." .... and after the release of the AE when there was a mass banning of players and account closures because of farming missions .... ... and the DEVs caving and deleting their post of this in the forums? I do. And saved their post before AE was released because I had a pretty good idea what was going to happen. * highlighting is for emphasis. formatting has been removed.

Back detail > Full Mantle > Long Cape > Scarf

I'm confused as to what people are typing about has anything to do with biting the heads off of chickens.

I would like to see Hero-side Minion types. Some of the current minions are fine for Hero-side (in my opinion) Beast mastery, Robots and Ninja. I understand the complication of creating new power sets to fully integrate more Heroic type minion powers/SFX, so perhaps only a minion cosmetic change for a start. Examples : Demon :: Celestial/Angel Mercenary :: Law Enforcement/Longbow Thugs :: Sidekick/Mirror Character (with size body build variance) Necromancy :: (no hero like option I can think of, but perhaps a Hydra and/or Devouring Earth variant) At some point, it would be cool to see these conceptions fleshed out, but I do think it would suffice to have the same power sets only with different minion appearances would go a long way in the kind of character/power customization that CoH if famous for.

Honestly, I have no pains paying the lower levels. The P2W stuff takes the grind out of it. I don't even always take the x2 XP boost - in most cases I don't. I tend to like playing the lower levels more than say level 43+. This is when things really seem to get redundant and a grind to me. Not because I don't like running missions with my character or that they are necessarily too long, but that it tends to be the same kind of fight over-and-over. When I get on a level 50+ team (I've only been on one a couple of times since I have been back, but it immediately reminded me), the higher levels are just bulldozing everything so it might as well be an AE farm at that point. Also it turns into a huge light show. I don't enjoy the combat as much for both of these reasons. I'm not against some massive battles against Giant Monsters. That's always fun. But I'm mostly a PUGer. I enjoy running with different people with different power sets and game styles and watching a group come together as a team. That never gets old to me. I do really like the early story arcs. Some are wonky. But the original origin story arcs are a lot of fun. One thing that the lower level stuff does is give you a chance to explore THE CITY, get a bit scared of a new group you have to fight, and (after leveling up) defeat those foes that seemed so hard to battle. Running/flying/jumping around THE CITY never gets old to me. I like the way the different zones look, so I enjoy the view while traveling. It also feels like a bit of a race to get to the mission first!] Ah, well. I guess I'm old school.

Thank you, DEVs, for standing up to protect the International Community. I saw the comment "Everyone can be a hero. Homecoming supports equality, freedom, and justice for all, no matter who they are." and "Black lives matter." and I had to come here and post how much I appreciate you making that stand. I am in agreement with you. I don't mean to belittle or undermine what needs to be done in regards to Black Lives Matter. I think All Lives Matter, and believe that the underlying problem in this case is racism projected through (general) police brutality. I believe the two are interlinked and stem from economic, community status, educational, medical, sexual, etc. disparities. A hero works to uplift those in need (regardless of the type of need). We are all better when we uplift and support one another. I believe this on a global as well as local level (along with all the levels in between). Thank you.

But if I do that, I lose the bird attack powers - which was my point in the post.

Certificate updated! Yahoo!

1) Character conception 2) I like playing blasters (and most archetypes for that matter - Kheldians not so much) 3) Most blasters can be built with a hold power that can hold a mezer 4) I've been on plenty of successful teams with no melee characters 5) Explore the game (all the powers and all the archetypes - and all your ideas!)

As I pointed out, the comic book is no longer binary good versus evil. It used to be very much that - especially when it was tightly controlled by the Comics Code. As for Batman, that may be now, but that wasn't in the fact in the Silver Age and most if not all of the Bronze Age. He did kill some villains during the Golden Age, but most of them were psycho killers - it is debatable if this is hero or villain as he was a vigilante as he was not law enforcement. I have no idea how Batman has been portrayed for like the last 15 or so years, as DC Comics had editors that ruined the comic books that I read and I cancelled my subscriptions. (I still have a large comic book collection). Back before the crazies started making Lex Luthor president and turning the Green Lanterns into some kind of Rainbow Brite/My Favourite Pony fantasy (sorry, but that's how I feel about it. Love the Ret-cons if you like. To each, their own), Batman was definitely fought crime along side of Commissioner Gordon and wasn't hunted by him. There were periods when Spider-man was hunted by the police, so, technically, a vigilante, but he was not a criminal even if J Jonah Jameson wanted him to be. He doesn't rob banks (as far as I know) Hulk was created to be a monster. Hulk was the combination of Dr Jekyll/Mr Hyde and Frankenstein's creation with a dose of vampire thrown in. Originally, he reverted back to "normal" when the sun came up. He was pure rage and destruction. Bruce Banner had no control at all. Later, like Frankenstein's creation, Hulk was portrayed to have a gentle side which when this state set in calmed him down enough to revert back to Banner. When he was a member of the Defenders, Doctor Strange placed mystic incantations on him to keep him in Hulk form but in a much calmer and controllable state. The Hulk is only really a hero when he is in this controlled state. Is Hulk a villain when he is in his uncontrollable state? Then I ask is Godzilla a villain? Hulk isn't going to rob banks or join a group of villains trying to take over the world. Going Rogue does. CoH and CoV doesn't. There is already a path to change sides. Don't force everyone to have access to both sides just because you want to have the ability to do so without having to become a villain in order to behave like villain. This is a role-playing game and you have to role-play the change. If you don't want to play a role then you might as well stay in the AE and fire farm all day - once again, my opinion.

I just wish they could make beast run leap look like the leap from the panther form leap. The current beast run leap always looks to me like a cat that took a leap and is stuck on a screen door. You could get speed or experimentation travel pool. Both have super speed running.

Not "officially" safe until they update the certificate. I would say "Caveat emptor; but this is F2P so - "Cave canem". (translation: I would say "buyer beware", but there is no charge to play this game so - "beware of the dog" (hackers).) I'm assuming that they certificate will be updated during the day, or may have been updated by the time I finished posting it (I hope ... finger crossed)

I posted pictures of it in the Help & Support sub-forum.

Because say, you just want to use the bird attacks out of the animal mastery sets because of your character conception - for example.

I definitely think that supergroups are more for individuals or close friends. There is a much greater advantage salvage/enhancement storage-wise to have your own base. I saw some of the other posts and I do think that coalition is really the way to get the kind of connection that super groups used to be in THE CITY before the sunset. One function that could work this way as well is having a Global channel for people that tend to game as a group frequently And, of course, these days Discord probably goes along way of having supergroups in its own way.

I'm trying to figure out "why increase the population of the villain side?" I played before the sunset. I played in the CoV beta, was there when they shut down the CoV beta test, and bought CoV when it came out. I made characters ... not anywhere near as many villains as as heroes. I can't even remember if I made it to 50 with one villain character. Maybe one. Maybe just into the high 40's. I would only play villains when I felt like being a villain which wasn't all that often. The most fun I had was in the bank heist missions (opposite of the safeguard missions). (or - as usual - just making the character) So I had a bunch of characters that I made as villains before the shutdown that were kind of fun to play, but I never really enjoyed playing them as much partially due to the population. So I can can understand why people playing villains would want more people to game with. I made one villain since I have been back. Not fun at all to play the low levels. The map is horridly overpopulated for a low level character not in a team. The area really isn't enjoyable to run around in. There was no one else there. It just wasn't fun. I made some of the character that I had made as villains as heroes. One of the things that really dishearten me about some people's need to get more people to play the villain content with the is the dropping down of walls between the two sides. Honestly, I don't even really like the concept of "Going Rogue" and, honestly, between that and - what I saw - as a downslide in the quality of gamers that farming in the AE, Power-leveling through AE, and the game opening the F2P option ... I stopped playing a good 6-9 months (at least) before the sunset. I was over it at that point. The game I had loved had had some great improvements over the time, but the quality of gameplay I was experiencing had dropped drastically (and I will say again - from my view point). Comics were very ... I hate to use the term these days, but ... black-and-white. Heroes were heroes. They were good guys. They stood for high moral values and did good things for the benefit of society and not themselves. Villains were villains. They commited crimes for their own game. They would sacrifice their flunkies to save their own skins. They were bad people and you were supposed to want the heroes to defeat and imprison them. Comics have strayed far away from those ideals to be uplifting and inspirational. They mire in muddy grays. Heroes are villains. Villains are heroes. A villain can be President. Playing City of Heroes - like reading comics - is an escape for me. An escape to a place where it is obvious what is good and what is bad (I say "bad" because not all villains are necessarily "eviL" <--- a discussion for another day). I don't like seeing mingling of heroes and villains. I don't like calling the sides "Blue" and "Red". They aren't "blue" and "red"; they are Hero and Villain. Like I said. I have played villains. If someone wants to play a villain, that's fine. But don't drag down what it is to be a hero so that villians, can be villains and still run the same missions as Heroes. If villains want to game with heroes, make a hero or follow the path to go rogue. For myself, I'm not going vigilante with any of my heros, and I really don't want to be forced into that status because there aren't enough people playing villains. To each, their own.

F2P vs Subscription based games We have to look at the mentality of a F2P player versus a subscriber. Obviously, we don't have subscribers in CoH any more, but I would argue that there was much less power leveling when CoH was subscription only. People were paying to enjoy the game, so the were working to explore the game and enjoy all the aspects of the game that they could. Paying for a subscription means and breeds loyalty. People would stand around and chat. The Pocket D was full of characters dancing and hanging out. Each zone was a new experience that allowed you play differently and enjoy a different sub-genre of comics/super-heroics. F2P players tend to be pass through players. They are playing multiple games and aren't focused on just one. They don't have time to enjoy the scenery, they just want to get to "the cool stuff" or "the end-game". That is to say they don't want to play "the game"; they just want to get to the content slapped onto the end of the game that is there to give the highest level players something to do. F2P players are also less likely to Alt. They are there to play their (one) character and not their to create or to explore the environment at a level that it would be "fun to play" or a challenge at their current level. The AE of Power Leveling First big blow against low level content was, of course, the exploitation of the AE and the DEVs not standing up and using the 40-ton Ban hammer on the players that exploited it (and/or devising means of tracking and disabling excessive xp again). Almost as soon as AE was released, characters were standing at the door in AE missions and getting a free ride 50 without doing anything (which I define as a "leach") This was bad enough with subscriptions, but as soon as F2P hit the door, a large majority of players would go to the AE and stay there for 2-3 hours until they were level 50 and then would have to ask how to get out of Atlas Park. To elaborate on that, the AE-powerleveled new players has no grasp on their powers, the mechanics of the game, or the feeling of joy of out-leveling a foe type that you had to struggle with and find yourself able to beat them down easily. (The joy of each "ding" is lost as it isn't gained through struggle). It may very well have been the best option for the DEVs to have made the AE level 50 only. Maybe allow low levels to create, test missions (as if they were level 50's for no XP gain), and post missions, but only allow level 50's the ability to play AE missions and, even then, cap the xp and infl gain per AE mission and/or mission set/adventure. None of this stops power-leveling through level-ranged sidekicking. The L337ness of Eng-game aka "I just want to be Uber(wo)man" Some players simply don't want to play the game (aka "the leveling content") because they just want to feel like they are the best of the best. The thought is like this :: Obviously, I'm a better player (because I power-leveled to level 50 with my one character) than that person playing a level X (that hasn't hit 50, is probably an alt, took Y times as many hours to get to level X as I did getting to level 50) and I'm playing the end-game and they aren't. Most players (seem to) just want to feel like they are super-powerful and feel that nothing is a threat to them and/or just want to have all flashy stuff without working for it. God-complex (or helping out a friend)? Of course, the low level character can't bypass all of the low level content (or even know how to bypass content by alternate means - street sweeping, tasksforces, etc.) without someone to power-level them or show them how to quickly gain levels without really struggling for it. I'm sure that this just started with some players wanting to game with a friend (which is what sidekicking is for), but they wanted their friend to be at the same level and the mechanics of sidekicking could be exploited to power level characters. Next level of his was "I'm a bored 50, so what now". So the 50 decides that they will gain standing in-game by powerleveling other players characters to 50. "I'm cool. I'm the guy that is going to take you level 50 the quick way" (massively augmented by AE farms). This makes the level 50 feel good, but it robs the new player of the joy of the content and level progression. The Game is getting old Some players that have played the game a lot get jaded - even those that can't stop making Alts. They either just don't want to do content that they already did or (even if they don't want to farm or use alternate leveling paths) don't want to get put into a mission arc that is going to drag them halfway across the map and back or from one zone to another (which is all good for showing off the glory of THE CITY, but it takes away from the quick combat fix that most F2P gamers need to keep their attention). The fewer players there are playing at lower levels (and running teams), they shinier and more alluring the need to powerlevel/leach to level 50. The real issue : Power-leveling and Leaching There will be ever fewer people to play low level content when 1) new players are looking to bypass leveling content to get to the end-game and 2) level 50's (could be a player who has only played a couple of hours) is willing to help get another player to 50 as quickly as possible (which the leveling content won't do). Too late to fix the insta-50's It's too late to stop the mechanics that caused this. The lower zones aren't populated. A new player would have hardly anyone to game with if it wasn't for the sidekicking mechanism, but if they sidekick, then they bypass the low level content. It's a two-edge sword. Even if they just want to find a team, they are pulled away from experiencing the lower level content. So how do we fix it? The only way to fix this in the current game format would be to level cap characters to the zone's level cap so that all contacts are available to any character in the zone. Potentially the door missions could be regulated based on the the max level. Influence gain would probably need to be increased for the level 50's to make it worth their time. There are many great missions and taskforces in the leveling content and all that hard work is wasted because players are lured into bypassing it by powerleveling/leeching and then it is simply too late to have access to it and/or simply hate it because they don't have access to all their powers. The best fix appears to be giving level 50's an incentive to seek out lower level players and be mentored by them in order to run the lower level players missions - perhaps merits? What is that thing that a high-level character wants once they have everything? (I don't know. I'm not an end-gamer. I'm an alt jumper who loves making new characters, trying out different power sets, learning new tactics, etc.)

Hover covers what Combat Jumping does. It's extra defense and lower power consumption. Fly is a bit slow, but you can slot it up and there is another power in the pool to make you fly faster. The basics of why Fly is slow is because it is the safest travel power. There aren't a lot of villains flying around in the air in most zones (none on the lower level zones), so you can get somewhere without being attacked! Super Jump keeps you in the air, but you still have to land somewhere. i would agree with the change to allowing purchase of the main travel power at the same time as it's lower level defense related travel power, that flight should allow you to move faster a bit faster. I see friends going with the sorcery pool to get the flight with built in teleport. That appears to be a bit faster if you use the teleport. However, I will still make characters with fly due to character conception, but then I'm a character conception type of player. I like experiencing the game through the character I'm playing at the time base on the way that character would relate to THE CITY.

Anyone can get Stimulant from the Medicine pool. Empathy can use Clear Mind on others to help them resist holds, etc. Kinetics has Increase Density Radiation Emission has Accelerate Metabolism that makes an ally somewhat resistant. All of these are usable on others. Help your teammates out and maybe one or two of them will help you out in return.