UltraAlt

So in-game most the the LFG chat for a task force messages are simply : ABC LF2M. Send tell. It is not intuitive nor is it inclusive of the rest of the community that don't know what an ABC is or what level it necessary to participate. The tasks forces have changed to some degree and, honestly, I don't even know how some of these abbreviations even relate to the task force names that I was familiar with before the sunset. Task Force Name Contact Min Size Level Range Merits The Rule of the Three Positron 3 10 to 15 60 The Fall of the Clockwork King Synapse 4 15 to 20 58 Clamor and Destruction Sister Psyche 5 20 to 25 50 *The Kheldian War Moonfire 6 23 to 28 32 Citadel's Children Citadel 6 25 to 30 40 *The MegaMech Cometh Ernesto Hess 6 25 to 30 15 Smoke and Mirrors Twilight's Son 1 25 to 34 4 A Tangled Plot Katie Hannon 6 30 to 34 7 Following Countess Crey Manticore 7 30 to 35 32 The 5th Column Overthrow Mender Lazarus 1 30 to 39 6 Soul of the Woodsman Numina 4 35 to 40 36 *Time's Arrow Imperious 6 35 to 50 25 *Explorers and Exploiters Dr. Quaterfield 8 40 to 44 122 *The Legend of Ruladak Sara Moore 8 40 to 50 64 *The Saga of Faathim Justin Augustine 8 44 to 50 42 *The Saga of Lanaru Faathim the Kind 8 44 to 50 73 Ms. Liberty Task Force Ms. Liberty (Independence Port) 8 45 to 50 37+2+2 The Lady Grey Task Force The Lady Grey 8 45 to 50 37 Trading Places Mender Silos 1 46 to 50 14 So what if any of this has changed and what are the abbreviations for these task forces? Example. I look at this list and I have no idea what an ITF is.

I would like to see the game continue the way it is being run today - through donations as a non-profit. Keep the game free of P2W mechanics. I think this the best way to keep monetary corruption from damaging the player base. This includes gold farmers (the ones that sell in-game currency for real world dollars), elitism (there are going to be elite regards, but P2W mechanics intensify this behavior), and exploitation of those with compulsive behavior. The Homecoming team seems to have good judgement. If the Homecoming team believes that they need additional monetary resources or people-hours to work on specifici game projects, I would think this would work best if funds and personnel were raised individually for each cause. People volunteering to work on this game have the ability to prove what they have done to the rest of the gaming community and could very well be a foot-in-the-door for upcoming game programmers, zone creators, creative writers, scenery and costume designers, etc. Keeping the community small is a good thing. Keeping the game non-profit stops investors from forcing the game into becoming a money-reaping machine. And I am saying reaping versus profitable. The win for Homecoming is that it is not profitable. The game is more than adequately supported by the player base. Why so I say adequately supported? 1) The Homecoming team has enough to keep the servers operationational. 2) I don't know if it has taken more than an hour or so to get all the donations that the team needs for any given month. I would also like to point out that even donors really don't have a right to say, "I'm a paying customer, blah, blah" They are donating to something they support. They aren't paying anyone's salaries. They are volunteering their donation so that they can help all of us enjoy the game. There are many more that would donate, but the income need for the servers and operation is limited due to the non-profit status of Homecoming. The people that support this game love it for what it is. There is no need for big changes. There is no reason for it to move away from non-profit status. If legal licensing ensures that the Homecoming team has a continuing perpetual license to run game servers without outside interference then I can understand the Homecoming team wanting to do so.

I can almost guarantee that those players (insisting it needed to have rewards) were all players that had already figured out how to exploit and an build missions already to do just that ... and, at least some of them, were gold farmers knowing full well how much these exploits would give them rewards that they could turn into real world money. - Plenty of players would have used it without the xp and influence rewards. It would not have been orphaned, and the game would have been better off for it. But I "remember when" I found this on the City of Heroes forums ... (it isn't mine, but I saved it because...well, it should be obvious that it how so many felt) It was about a year after I had stopped subscribing because of all the AE PL/farming/abuse that was going on had ruined my gaming experience. I still would log into the forum from time to time to see how the game was going and hoped that there would be changes that would bring me back to the game. I'll try to be quiet about my feelings on the issue. This picture kind of sums it up for me even if it wasn't created for that reason. I've very glad that Homecoming is here and I am able to enjoy the game the way that I enjoyed it before I stopped subscribing. Thank you, Homecoming team.

I know. I was one of them. It could have been one of the best things. Easiest fix. No XP gain. No Influence gain. Then only the people that wanted to enjoy creating stories and playing stories would have had a use for it. Isn't that really what it was made for? The DEV post that I posted in my original post indicates to me that the answer is "yes". Alternate leveling path? Possibly. Definitely not created to power level past all content or generate huge influence rewards. ... but this is probably a discussion for another thread at this point. So do you "remember when ...", it was just before the CoV beta server was shut down?

yep. My point exactly.

I remember long, long ago on a server long since probably discarded even possibly before the sunset, that I had a defender. My character was like in the mid-teens or twenties level-wise. I didn't have enough influence to buy enhancements for most of my power slots. This was in those sometimes forgotten days when there was no Wentworths. There were no crafted enhancements. You might win a costume contest, or some good soul might give you some influence. The character was stuck like that. I couldn't even level as fast as the rest of the team because I was an empathy defender. I was healing people most of the time and the xp came from killing things. Everytime I managed to level, my gear was getting weaker and weaker. I was outleveling its usefulness and the new enhancements cost even more than before. Not only couldn't I benefit the team as much by healing, I was having a harder time getting what few kills I could because my attacks were less accurate/powerful. It really did suck. I kept the team alive and they leveled faster than me because I was keeping them out of debt by healing them. (but I alt jump, and alt jump I did) Then things changed. There was Wentworths and the University. I could craft my way to enough influence for gear. I think it took a good while for them to fix the XP gap so that I could actually level at the same rate as my teammates. Things were looking better. At some point, you don't need to have trillions of influence. You shouldn't need it. Honestly, I have more than I need, but I still like to play the market game (best PVP that THE CITY has ever had). I don't farm. I don't turn off earning XP to get more influence. I am really sorry to hear that Gold Farmer tried to attack COH in these current incarnation of the game. I do consider Gold Farming to be an attack. Possibly this is one of the reasons that I have such a strong dislike for AE farmers (really any type of farming). And I'm really glad that I don't have to start every play session by putting the new batch of gold farmers on ignore ... every single day. So, I don't know what you are doing correctly to keep them at bay, but I really appreciate all the DEVs that have put work in keeping them away. Thanks.

The Buggy bits I love using a controller, but, on rare occasions, there are issues. Logitech has done a great job of improving the construction and durability of the Logitech F310 over the years. My last Logitech F310 started going south after about 3-4 years. It was getting short in the wire leading out of the main body and not more than 3 inches out. Generally, they have ended up having a button or two wear out in about that amount of time as well. Every time that I have had one wear out during the Logitech warranty period they have replaced it (I prior years, I have had this happen several times). Hardware aside, there are some software issues that I have run into. The controller losing focus This is when the controller stops registering clicks. Fastest resolution for this in most cases is to toggle out of the game. Swirl the sticks. Click the buttons. Go back into the game. And it is generally immediately fine. Sudden weird button press changes This is one that really is weird/bizzare controller behavior; example - my target nearest button suddenly starts targeting target farthest ... when I don't even have a keybind set for target farthest. Too weird, correct? When this happens, I have generally been running youtube with Chrome in the background. I close out all my Chrome windows. Open up a fresh window. Clear all the cookies, close Chrome, and this seems to resolve the problem 90-95% of the time. The times that this doesn't resolve the issue either by running (my virus checker) Webroot's Optimizer (which cleans some of the registry) and/or restarting my computer. It is rare that I have to do this, but it is the final solution. Prevent Terror on Window start up Avoid the issue. Make sure the settings in global profiler options for General behavior are turned off. If you have it set to "Start profiler on system start up", it does this before you even try to log into to Windows or other operating system. Sometimes a controller will lose focus when a computer is first turned on or reset. The computer sometimes can't figure out where the neutral position on the sticks are located automatically, and it will immediately think that you are entering information in the keyboard - as you have set the global profiler so that your computer thinks it is a keyboard and the sticks are telling it you are entering information as they are not in neutral position. This can be very disconcerting. You can try swirling the mouse buttons and that may help the system figure out where neutral is on the sticks. Worse case - unplug the controller. Avoid the issue in the first place. Make sure the settings in global profiler options for General behavior are turned off.

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.