UltraAlt

Do you have a reference for that?

I assume if we ever get to customize the henchmen, it will be an all or nothing thing. All Tier 1 will look the same. All Tier 2 will look the same. Of course, there is only one Tier 3. I think that would really complicate matters/programing. We will be lucking if we get to customize them for a character at all. And this is another good reason to go with assets that are already in the game. There are already female character models in enemy groups that would fit costume-wise for thugs and ninjas. Personally, I wouldn't care if they went the route of making them Prismatic Aether costumes for henchmen based on their tier. As long as the Prismatic Aether costume is turned on for that henchmen tier, they all look like that Prismatic Aether costume.

My understanding is one of the private/pirate/secret servers is Victory, Homecoming as been working with them, and they were to be added instead of merged into an existing Homecoming shard. I don't know why the people that set up private/pirate/secret servers named themselves what they did. Okay, so on January 4th there was this announcement (the big one) Then on January 17th there was this one: which includes "... Victory + Paragon + Homecoming As we mentioned in the announcement FAQ, we are working towards merging in some friendly servers - Victory and Paragon. Victory will be joining us as our 6th live shard alongside Torchbearer, Excelsior, Everlasting, Reunion and Indomitable. This will likely not take place for at least a couple of months as it’s a fairly complicated process, but we wanted to give you all a heads up so you aren’t surprised when it pops up! For those of you involved in Closed Beta testing, this will all be moving to take place inside Homecoming’s infrastructure, instead of being hosted by Paragon. As part of this, we will be setting up a new, straightforward path to join the Closed Beta process...." So Victory would become a 6th Shard. I'm assuming the complication is moving the Victory Shard onto an existing server. From what I can tell from a quick internet search, Victory's current location appears that it may be in the UK or the European Union. Based on that, I would think that it would move onto the same physical server as Reunion. The Paragon hosted shard appears to have been a test only server and would not be something added to Homecoming.

Yeah, found it... Number Six uses the term "The map cluster" instead of server, but I think I was essentially saying the same thing. Homecoming pays for use of space on that one server/server farm/"map cluster" for all the "servers"/shards except for Reunion.

There are only two actual servers. One in North America somewhere that "houses" all the "servers"/shards except for Reunion. Reunion is on a server running in Europe somewhere. Victory its own thing, and I have no information on them other than they were supposed to be added as a "server"/shard, and I had been assuming that would be on the same server in North America as the 4 "servers"/shards that are on that server. I don't know where the post is, but I had a discussion in a thread with a DEV that was talking about merging "servers"/shards. I'll see if I can find it without taking up too much time with search-fu.

I'm not complaining. I like that they don't notice it. If I remember correctly, doing damage is what causes enemies to notice an attack, and, as long as these aren't proc'd for damage, I don't think either of the do damage.

My understanding is that the "servers" except for Reunion are all running on a single physical server. Adding an additional physical server in another location would probably increase Homecomings costs to heading on 25-30% would be my guess. Honestly, if they added another one, I would say put it in Australia, but I don't know how many players there are around your side of the planet would play/support Homecoming.

Yeah, that's probably getting to be too many. Or if there are other already existing animal forms to mix/sub in. There are already a good number of them to choose from: Coyote, Panther, Liger, German Shepherd, Black Wolf, Shadow Hound, Spirit Panther, and Winter Wolf

So maybe that is the solution. Add 5 more costume slots that are for pet customization only. Just so they are balanced with the other two groups. I'm assuming you would only really need 3 - one per tier - but I don't know how "Gang War" might fit into the mix. Gah, now I'm thinking about "Call Hawk" having a dragon customization. Yeah, a small dragon, but still a dragon ... yeah, with clawing attacks and not breathing fire or whatnot.

Plant, Storm Blast, Water blast, Beast Mastery ... I think those are the only mixes I've done so far. I think really this set is somewhat limited as to what kind of character conception and VFX thematic-wise I can fit to other combos, but that is an Aquaman problem, and I'm not overly concerned if it can fill that niche. The 4 that can use it. In terms of character conception, visuals, or mini-maxing potential in the end-game? I'm seeing a good number of posts that only focus on mini-maxing for the end-game, so I'm assuming that what the question is about. I don't end-game, so I'll leave it at that. I really enjoy it. I wish there were more fish jumping around, but I have been having a lot of with it. I don't want to make comparisons with other sets, but this is one that is really fun to play ... for me at least. I made one of each like I did on test ... and then probably another one or two as the altoholism kicked in ... and then made one or two other characters because I made the marine affinity characters.

I see.

Not that I know of. I think it was even small supergroup that hosted it.

Yes. You have made that clear.

Yeah, Marine is an option now. I would go with Storm/Marine or Water/Marine (or vice versa for defenders), but I haven't seen the shark animation so I can't really tell you which would mesh best. I think the Storm/Marine combo has more terrifying FX so would probably fit the shark FX better.

It is to give end-gamers something to do. I'm not opposed to that. Let them grind and pay people for Prismatic Aethers. (I'm not an end-gamer, but I have unlocked about 6 Prismatic Aether costumes, but all but one are Tier 1) I use Stealth for ... ... characters. (I haven't reached point where I've unlocked Phase Shift on Homecoming yet, but maybe I did and forgot)

I end up using all of them. I alternate between Empower>Weaken>Attack Vitals Empower>Weaken>Sweep Unless I'm fighting a single target, then I just use Empower>Weaken>Attack Vitals I setup the combos in two trays, and tray flip back-and-forth (with a button push on my controller - thanks to macros for tray flips). I haven't played on for a while, but the different mechanic is fun.

I used to like the Naked Noob Races before the Sunset. unslotted Level 1 characters (and minimal clothing) start at Miss Liberty in Atlas and race across Paragon City to the center Portal Corps building in Peregrine Island. Planned path with monitors. No trams. Ferry to get to Peregrine Island. lots of fun and chaos

Okay, then ....

I don't know if it is intentional or not (I'm assuming it isn't), Prismatic Aether bought Prestige Costume Powers are staying active in PvP zones. Well, I only tested Recluse Victory, but I'm assuming the same thing would happen in all PvP zones. I tested with Spectral Pirate.

Well, that was the first time I went to a PvP zone with a Effect from Benevolabs running. In fact, I took in a character with Spectral Pirate. It stays active. I waited until I the character was fully in PvP mode, and it was still active. I went into Recluse Victory proper, and it was still active. Seems to be a problem that needs resolving.

Though I'm not against an aura that would make you look spectral, I do not think that a spectral aura should be allowed in PvP. At least I think this is the kind of thing you are talking about.

I see. Well, I haven't actually looked for it. But I see what you are saying. It might have been to complicated or caused lag to apply wet to moving targets the way say oil slick is applied to a surface that can be set off by fire or electricity to cause AoE fire damage. I'm assuming that cold would get some kind of bonus on wet targets, fire would have decreased damage, and nothing else would be affected ... at least I'm assuming water blast is fresh water and not salt water (in which case, potentially electricity could get some kind of bonus).

As I said, I see "+ wet" in-game on the power descriptions, but I don't see any icon showing "wet". where are you seeing this "flag" in-game?