UltraAlt

I haven't tried it on live, but I could target teammates with white cap in beta. It wouldn't go off if my teammate didn't have an enemy targeted, but, if they did have an enemy target, the power "teleported" my character to my teammate's location and the damage goes off at their location - versus "teleporting" my character to the enemy targeted by my teammate. I guess this could be useful to back up melee characters or to get to a friendly character that needs heals quickly (but they would have to targeting an enemy for it to work - if it is working the same way as it did in beta).

And you were playing "City of Heroes". The game manual indicates "Creating a hero", and not "Creating a player character".

Yep, you choice the Galaxy tutorial, you do chose your alighnment in game. You also pick your alignment in game if you go Praetorian. However, if you don't pick the Galaxy tutorial or go Praetorian, the last thing that happens while you are still in the character creation window is pick your alignment. ... and then .... after you pick our alignment .... ... your asked if you want to "Complete character creation and enter the game?"

I have to disagree. Picking alignment is simply the last step of character creation, it is the last action you perform in the character creator before entering the actual game. ... and, when they were getting ready to add the ability to change alignments, I was strongly against it. But back to the retcon bit. Back on live I made retcons - of one of my more "main" characters - across all the servers. They had different origin stories, origins, power sets, gender, and slight costume variations. Enough the "same" that you could tell that they were all the same basic character conception but coming at it from different angles. To me it was like making the "multiverse" versions of the character. That is to say, I felt that they needed to have a "presence" in all shards/existences and followed the established comic book mentality of other universes/existences having similar characters but ones that are not exactly the same as the "prime" version of that character.

Comic book characters change alignments. (Honestly, I'm opposed to this on a pure mythological level. I would comment further on this topic but it gets somewhat political fast, so I won't. But I understand that some feel that the comic books need to be more "adult" or "literature" so they have to live in that grey area that makes Praetorian content so over-populated.) But you have to do a retcon to change origins in comic books. Make the retcon version if you need to change origins.

Gratz!

I use these macros /macro fx0 "noparticles 1" /macro fx1 "noparticles 0" If you turn the particle back on, the particles will not entirely come back until you zone, but they will come back enough to show some particles like the swirling field around a sg base portal, so you might be able to turn it on and off around the type of "portal" you are looking at and get some of the effects to return and then turn them back off after you use the portal if you desire.

suppress fx when close option actually does something at this point as well (seems to me it kicked in like a month ago ... or whenever it was I posted the bug post about not being able to see VFX in the tailor when trying to customize powers.) Might want to go into the options menu and turn that on as well. Noparticles and suppress fx when close do different things So I would try both.

So maybe this is the starting point where we need to evaluate what is going on. Incarnate powers can't impact team play below level 45, so there is that. My gut reaction is also that the higher a level you are, the greater the loss of additional levels of power above the level of the team. So right now you get 5 levels above the content regardless of how many levels you lose for being examplared down. What if you get exemplar-ed down over 10 levels, that you would only get 4 levels worth above the team activity level? 20 levels? only 3 levels worth above the team activity level? 30 levels? only 2 levels worth above the team activity level? 40 levels? only 1 level worth above the team activity level? I'm assuming this would be very difficult to incorporate into the game. The system is already setup to not allow lower level players into higher level task forces. That isn't there to be a punishment to lower level players. I'm assuming that the reverse could be done based on the same mechanic. So, in reverse, it shouldn't be a punishment to ban level 50's from lower level task forces. I know level 50s would hate it if they couldn't get merits for speed running low level (easier) task forces .... but maybe level 50's should be barred from being allowed on a task force teams say below level 30. And I understand that the reason for additional merits for the lower level task forces when they are WTF is to intentionally funnel level 50s into lower level content. It isn't funneling if a bunch of level 50's (a supergroup full, for example) speedrun low-level WTF for the merits. It just speed grind for the merits and isn't about inclusion of lower level characters for content enjoyment ... or even for those outside of their supergroup. Limiting the lower level content to those below level 50 does not stop a player from playing lower level content. A player you can't make many characters, and they don't all have to be 50. It is entirely a player's choice to only run 50's. The change would mean if a player wants to run the mid-level content down, the would need to make a non-50 to play that content. The power creep is there in the end-game, and it has trickled down into the game itself. I might not be the one to figure out how to resolve the issue, but something really needs to be done to thwart what some level 50 players are doing to ruin the enjoyment of players running lower level content. I know I already work to weed out the bad apples from teams. When it comes down to it, on the lower population servers, there are a lot fewer of them percentage-wise and the higher population servers. And, yes, I am saying that those that behave "that way" tend to flock to the most populated servers ... because it seems to me that is the case. I felt it was like that before the Sunset as well.

I play a lot of leveling content. Let's put this way - I pretty much never play end-game stuff. I'm not the only one that can fully load out my slots including some IO set parts and ATOs by level 20. There are a good number of us long time denizens of the city that play lower level content because it is more enjoyable to us for each our own reasons. There are new players. And, yes, some of them probably are running around not entirely slotted at level 20. They are challenged additional because of that, but that doesn't mean that they don't want to fight the content and defeat things instead of watching some level 50 running around "Hulk, smash"-ing everything. Yes, because they are trying to figure out how to use their powers, and they can't do that if a level 50 is "Hulk, smash"-ing everything. This seems to be clearly what players playing higher level characters - mainly players running level 50 - don't understand about their "party crashing" lower level teams. It is this simple. Let other players that want to enjoy playing the leveling content (the game) play the game at that level. I go out of my way to avoid bringing in characters that are much higher than a team. I don't even like to bring in characters that are 10 levels above a team. No way would I bring a character to a team would be 15 or more levels higher than the team, but that's me. I have plenty of characters to pick from. If it is a matter of a level 50 being bored and just wanting to do something, they have plenty of slots to make low level alts for when they are bored enough with their end-gaming to want to mix in with those that like to run the lower level content at level. Heck, they could even lead a team with their level 50 and see who might want to join them instead of disrupting someone else's team.

No. You are correct. I've run on leveling teams were a level 50, 1) ran through mobs only taking out bosses and whatever might fall to collateral damage to leave the rest behind for the actual team to clean up. 2) ran away from where the team was to destroy everything in their path - solo - until they had cleared out that branch of the mission and then returned to trample what the rest of the team was fighting and rampage to the end of the mission not caring about anyone else on the team. 3) Stay with the team, but destroy mobs completely before teammates can use two powers (or so it seems). You shouldn't feel weird about it. Think of how many characters are excluded from content because the character isn't high enough level for the content. But you aren't saying "Nah, you can't come have fun with us", you are basically saying it would ruin our fun to have someone much too high for the content. Think of it like this. There is a pee-wee flag football group and the ask if anyone else wants to join. An NFL linebacker gets a s***eating grin and says he wants in. Then he commences to trample the other team into the ground ... literally ... with steel spikes on. Is he trying to have "fun" with the other players on the team, or is he trying to prove "what a big man" he is? For me, take that [insert whatever here] to the end-game and stay there with it, and let those that like to level characters have fun in the actual game, because they want to play the game. When someone is recruiting for a lower level team, they are doing that so that they can run that content at their level and have a challenge doing it. They didn't ask to doorsit or get power leveled; they can ask for that in /lfg and some end-gamer will be more than willing to show how much of an end-gamer they are and power-level them to 50 in farm. Nor did they join any of the many level 50 tip or radio mission teams that seem to do a lot recruiting "any level welcome". They actually want the challenge of playing at their own level with other characters around their level. End-gamers should respect that, but I know there are many end-gamers that don't. It is aggravating to me that I have to announce that I'm running a leveling TF instead of a speed TF because every end-gamer decides that every TF is a speed TF because they only want the merits. Even if I announce it while recruiting some end-gamers will try to speed it anyway. I warn, but I will use the boot, especially if some end-gamer tries to give me grief for leading the team that I spend the time recruiting ... and, no, you can't have the star because you are level 50. If someone with a level 50 wants to join a leveling team, they have plenty of slots to make a new character.

Agreed. I do to, and I like them to have a challenge. I saw the /lfg for it, I would get one of my 150 characters that is around the level of the character running the team and send a tell for an invite. I think I have done it once in the past where I got some heat for it from a level 50. Guess, what happened next? [HINT: look below]

I'm assuming the ones that you run into that are "ballistic" are the exception and not the majority of players that you game with. Some people are just jerks.

Thanks for the info. The internet gossip is just misinformation most of the time. I should have known better than speculating based on one reddit thread.

I see a thread was shutdown about "No FX" for all powers. I can't agree with "No FX" for all powers But the post did land on something that I can agree with "No FX" for Leadership power pool should be an option. The only reason to have the VFX would be for PvP and from another thread .... If looking like something you aren't isn't an impact on PVP then I think that the Leadership pool not having a "No FX" option wouldn't impact PvP either.

As for Paragon, I'm sure you read:

Nice. Thanks, @Michiyo Did it start in Europe? or was it always on that server? It would be interesting to have the history of Victory and Torchbearer in the wiki.

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