Cobalt Arachne

Most aura particles I've looked at are static size and don't scale with model size, so that is likely working normally.

5000 Vanguard Merits only equates to about 4-5 decently successful Mothership raids, it's not really that big a grind for something we see run daily, sometimes even multiple times daily on many servers. Tier 1 costumes are extremely easy to get, most people should be able to buy many Tier 1 costumes by just doing low difficulty (1-2 star) TFs regularly and Incarnate Trials. Tier 2 costumes are meant to be a little costly, but something most people can get fairly reasonably by saving and doing regular content that rewards Aether. Tier 3 costumes are meant to be an 'oh wow' accomplishment, something somebody spent a lot of time grinding (or spending a lot of influence on the AH) to get, in a game where literally everything can be unlocked in hours on a new character if you've got a stockpile of resources. Since the currency is unbound you can do content on various characters and move the Aether salvage to the characters you want certain costumes on. Lots of people have mentioned having dozens of max level characters and wanted something to work towards with them in a game where getting to max level is nearly effortless with little-no max level things to do that give worthwhile rewards; this was something they can work towards as a goal if they really want it. You really shouldn't feel like you need to get Tier 3 costumes for any reason unless you just like the way they look, they are just a vanity item, nothing more.

The reason for the gap is that, currently, back items do not have the ability to scale, so they had to be placed on the character with a little space to account for character's who max out all the size sliders with big torso options like jackets to ensure the weapon didn't end up half-way inside their back. If we ever enhance the models to support back item scaling, I'll implement it into all the sheathed weapons. Shields is on my radar, but is more complex than every other weapon set because it puts the player on a totally different sequencer and alt animation sets, I'm planning to take a crack at it, but it'll be after all the other weapon sets get sheathed support. 👍

For those asking, the reason only Assault Rifle got proliferated with new models is because I started with getting Assault Rifle's sheathed modes done, and ran face-first into the desync knee-firing rifle bug, which would happen on everyone using the sheathed ranged weapons. That forced us to pause proliferating and adding sheathed stuff to Beam Rifle, Pulse Rifle, Archery, etc. until we squashed that FX bug, which ended up being a really nasty hard-coded child FX attachment logic problem. We got it squished, but by that time, Page 4 was nearly finished. Expect proliferated weapon models and sheathed display on the ranged weapon powersets next Page.

Time commitment. If you've never done the ASF on 4-Star vs. default, the normal difficulty ASF can be completed in about ~30 minutes, a run completed on 4-Star will take you closer to ~2.5-3 hours. If you can complete highly difficult content requiring the entire team be maxed-out incarnates consistently, that is the more rewarding option, but we want flexibility and options.

Insurance fraud investigation. 👀

The reason was so that brand new players must learn how to move between city zones before they can be powerleveled to max level, nothing more. Everyone doing their PL'ing in those other zones is expected.

👍

If you're going to do Hamidon later that day and you see somebody advertising for one earlier in LFG, you have to decide to either join the earlier raid, or use a different character on one of the raids. You can't join both on the same character and get full rewards, it's no different here. It's about respecting time commitments; If you decide to do the same content multiple times in a single day on the same character, that's a decision you made, other content in this game has already has the exact same restrictions on their rewards. It also provides some benefits to having built alt characters, which this game is all about.

Good suggestion! I'll adjust the Advanced Difficulty modes so that you always get the max reward for the content you do even if you join a lower difficulty TF earlier in the day, akin to how the Incarnate Trials are set up. It'll still be capped per content, but after adjustment means if you complete 1-Star ASF you'll receive 2 Aether, and then after if you immediately complete 2-Star, you'd receive the difference, which would be 5, for the same total of 7 that is reward total for completing 2-Star outright. Expect this change next build. As for why add goals to the game for players work towards? That's what makes the game healthy and sees people playing regularly. If you're asking about why we don't give everything to everyone for free, that's because we already do, that's already available for literally everyone at all times on Brainstorm. Everyone is welcome to go play on Brainstorm where they can experience everything this game has to offer without any restrictions or effort. As has been mentioned this is purely for vanity costume powers, if you don't care about them, then you can ignore them and sell any Aether you get on the auction house, it changes nothing about your gameplay experience. They don't provide any buffs or make your character stronger. Why have them on a cooldown? The reward restrictions are to introduce some sanity, so people don't feel pressured to repeatedly do same content over and over and over for the rewards. The entire game has always done this, you can't get infinite Hamidon Enhancements doing the same content back to back in the same 18 hours, it's no different here really.

Hello to all UNDEFINED_ORGANIC_TARGETS waiting in here! We're hurdling towards- <TWITCH CLICK> All hail Lord Nemesis! ...Issue 27, Page 4's reveal! In the meantime, seems like this thread could use a- <CLICK WRRR> ...little pick-me-up, so enjoy this early preview of one of the new rewards from the upcoming ERROR:TEASE_DEFINITION_NOT_FOUND system being added with Page 4:

For kicks and giggles one time, I loaded the game up in VorpX on my Oculus Rift and played first person in VR. It was kind of neat, until I got into a mission, remembered I was playing a Scrapper, and phew... Playing melee in first person is not ideal. 😱

Development is still fully underway! The original plan was that we were going to release a small 'Page 3.1' update in January that would've included the almost done things that missed Page 3's release date. However due to circumstance and availability on our dev team changing unexpectedly, it had to be delayed and it was rolled into Page 4 instead. Page 4 is nearing completion and everyone on the team is very excited to pull back the curtain and show you guys what's coming. It's already looking to be a massive update with a plethora of long-time feature requests. This upcoming Page 4 update is a full blown page, and includes a huge amount of stuff beyond what would've been the Page 3.1 update if it had happened in January. The reason we can't commit to dates/reveal things until they're closer to release is because our timetables are not directly under our control. We're all unpaid volunteers who donate our time and expertise to work on the game for free, but how much time we can donate varies a huge amount on a day-to-day basis. We can't commit time that would cause our personal lives to suffer, as that's not long-term sustainable, so we work on the game as much as we possibly can as unpaid volunteers. Our love for this game/its community is the passion that continues to fuel us to work on it, and I can promise you there is no shortage of it on the dev team. Homecoming prides itself in the consistency of our updates, operations, and running the game in a very professional manner, comparable to the game's quality when it was a retail service backed by a publisher. That being said, oftentimes that gives players the impression that our content output should also be equal to a professional development studio, but unfortunately that's not possible since we're not able to work on the game full-time, 40 hours a week, like a paid team would. We thank everyone for their patience, it's not easy waiting sometimes, but we are doing our utmost to ensure it's worth that wait! 💙

It is haha, but it's also not a new animation; At least not on a certain body type...

Fiiiiiiiiiine; Only one more though! 🤔 Me walking to go post a teaser: Also me when my walking IS the teaser... 👀

Sheesh, really twisting my arm, eh? Fine here, take it! 😔

Sounds like we're in need of an infusion of TEASE! 😏

As others have mentioned, we ignored many of the usual balance considerations when it came to what a mob can or can't do because this was a for-fun event and the expected size of the groups fighting this GM would be league-sized (sometimes even two leagues!). 😱 Rest easy, the various crazy things that the Dreaded Mapserver™ did would never go into normal, permanent content. The GM was a flavor wild card thrown into the event to liven it up with some bizarre-level nonsense. Given it's drop reward was a tiny fraction of the event's overall income and most times it was dead minutes into the zone's invasion, I don't believe it had any impact on the event's success.

Phew! Thanks to everyone's combined efforts to hold back the Dreaded Mapserver, our hard-working server engineers had the time needed to suppress and contain the dangerous sentient code! Invoking an ancient ritual known only as CTRL+X&CTRL+V, we have sealed the glitchy threat away on a very secure USB thumb drive that we hid in the janitor closet, where it will surely never be unleashed again! Definitely. 100%. Nobody ever goes in that closet anyway! We hope everyone had fun and walked away with a few extra levels under their belt!

Oh my! I've received reports that GM_Bot has once again begun accepting tells and distributing costume upgrades in-game. I'm sure everything will be fine...

Confirmed & found the source. Rikti Monkeys got a bump by mistake while creating the stronger versions that went into the event monkeys used in the Mapserver Madness invasions. Will be fixed next patch.

Mapserver Madness! (Four-One 2022 Invasion Event): After GM_Bot went rogue last year and was subsequently suppressed by our capable server admins, we thought all was well!...We thought wrong. 😱Small bits of the unknown and mysterious code that suddenly gave rise to GM_Bot's sentience have escaped and begun proliferating itself! We've now received reports that it has manifested within the various mapservers that run the zones of our fair City of Heroes!We do our best to keep our mapserver instances happy and healthy, but as you are all aware, the map server can be a fickle beast. Often disconnecting unexpecting victims at a moments notice, we thought it was likely just bugs in the code, but new information has arisen that shows there may be more...Something unnatural, more malevolent...The crisis we now face threatens the fabric of our world! The mapserver has gained sentience, and become the Dreaded Mapserver!™ It has had enough of our super-powered antics and has deemed all player life as requiring immediate extermination! Assembling the most terrifying, under baked, and volatile code it could conjure, the Dreaded Mapserver has assembled a violent army of glitches, bugs, broken scripts, and other abominations to attempt to wipe out all life as we know it!It is up to the brave players of our world to rise and combat the sentient Dreaded Mapserver, drive back its wicked and unstable minions, and to exterminate the fiend's sentience with a hard reboot! Those who muster the courage to face these aberrant distortions will find themselves as much as tenfold times more experienced than they were before, with an untold bounty of influence, infamy, and information that comes with such triumphs! We wish you noble souls the best of luck as you work to save our world! DISCLAIMER: This is a short, for-fun invasion event! Thus, there are no unique badges or rewards that can be missed, but we hope you will enjoy the x10 reward scale! Level some characters! This silly invasion event will run through the weekend until regular Tuesday maintenance time. ~FREEM! Author's note: The mapserver has stocked up on a lifetime supply of Blue Spider© brand Hero Repellant™ and Dr. Caretaker's© Signature Costume Bleach™; Beware!

Fragmentary Veritas - New Release: Chapter 2, Page 17 - 'Finally Seeing Eye To Eye': http://fragmentaryveritas.webcomic.ws/comics/32 Can't commit to any kind of release schedule, but still enjoy finding time to work on art when I can. 🙂

We're waiting to see how many badgers get desperate enough to defeat Romulus one hundred times. Naw, just kidding. 😉 It's still coming! January was, unfortunately, busier than we had hoped for many members of the dev team. The reality of being volunteer developers is that we have to ensure the responsibilities of our personal lives are met first and that comes with sometimes having less (but sometimes more!) time to work on the game than we expect. Good stuff is still in the works, rest assured! Stay tuned!

Events The Spring Fling event is now active. NPCs Pocket D Ganymede, Scratch, Jessica Megan Duncan, and Arbiter Hawk now have the proper Contact NPC FX rings. Dram and Chilly now have the proper Vendor NPC FX rings. Tasks Spring Fling 2012 - Arbiter Hawk: 'The Widow in Red' Revamped Virgil Tarikoss's dialog tree to better fit his character, as the previous dialog tree was copy-pasted 1:1 from the hero contact. The obol contact now provides a few vials of mana-infused blood which are used in the ritual instead of the player character cutting themselves. DJ Zero's involvement in this story arc has been removed as it violated his 'absolute neutrality' rule. Mercedes Sheldon (in Pocket D) has inherited his role with a rewritten dialog tree. A few lore inconsistences, typos, and mistakes were corrected in the arc's text. Spring Fling 2012 - Jessica Megan Duncan: 'The Widow in Red' The obol contact now provides a few vials of mana-infused blood which are used in the ritual instead of the player character cutting themselves. DJ Zero's involvement in this story arc has been removed as it violated his 'absolute neutrality' rule. Mercedes Sheldon (in Pocket D) has inherited his role with a rewritten dialog tree. A few lore inconsistences, typos, and mistakes were corrected in the arc's text.