Faultline

Caveat emptor: I'm not a powers dev. I am however involved in the dev discussions in the backend and want to address a few points that have been brought up. "Why even ask for feedback if the change is set in stone?" Truth is that no change is set in stone and continues to be discussed internally up to release and sometimes after. While the posts may not be directly replied to in the forums, that is because players as a whole tend to take any dev word as an absolute promise that shall never be broken, so it's better to not say anything while internal discussion is going on. But the feedback is being read and used in the internal discussion to see where the change goes. Something that may not be obvious is that the amount of feedback, in either direction, lets us know how much people care about a specific power. Realize that less than 5% of all characters have Rune at level 50; with Corruptors being the AT that takes it the most at 11%, and Brutes taking it the least at 1.7%. Compare to something like Afterburner, which was also modified this patch: 11% of all characters have it by level 50, with Blasters leading at 22% and Brutes in the back at 4% (Peacebringers are at 0.6% but we're ignoring them since they get inherent versions of it). So part of the reason why the Rune feedback was largely not acknowledged is that it was seen as a sidegrade (remember that it comes with a buff when used reactively) that affected a minority. So having many pages of feedback arguing about this one particular power lets us know that while it's only used by a minority, that minority is pretty serious about it, and we should handle it with more care. Now, for my own subjective take. The entire Sorcery pool was born out of the intention to sell origin pools for real money back in 2012. It had a single publish to the Issue 24 beta back then, and it has been completely (to my knowledge) untouched until now. The fact that one of the powers is something that squishies have been asking for a very long time (mez prot) is no coincidence; I am convinced that this was a deliberate decision in order to ensure the power pool sold well once it was put on the cash shop. The rest of the set is arguably subpar, but that one power was the set seller; those who spent real money for Rune were prepared to spend two weak power picks in order to unlock Rune. We don't live in that reality anymore, selling power pools is not what we do. Sorcery is receiving a revision at this time because of the travel power revamp, and that's why the decision was made, now, to bring Rune in line where the power developers want a pool T5 to be; losing duration in exchange of keeping the buffs when used reactively, coupled with the buffs to Mystic Flight, was seen as OK for a power pool that is not that popular. The power developers knew this wouldn't be received with super open arms, and there are plans to look at the rest of Sorcery to make it more well-rounded, but they believe this particular change is necessary to even be able to look at the other powers in Sorcery; as long as Rune stayed the way it was, the other Sorcery powers had to be there as gatekeepers. What those changes will be I can't say until they hit Brainstorm, for the reason stated above; I'm not even a powers dev, so I should definitely not be talking about future power changes that I'll be held onto for not implementing. But the message was received, and it's being processed.

This is normal and working as intended; the waypoints use regular pathing beacons to get you to your destination, which is why the work through doors (or don't, if you're in Mercy and Oakes) so something big detected "on the way" will cause the waypoint pathfinding to stop there.

https://hcwiki.cityofheroes.dev/wiki/Luna#Badges

You can preserve a base by using the /demorecord command; the entire base map including storage is saved on the demo file. Play back the demo to make sure it's there (easiest way to play back a demo is to go to the settings dialog in the HC launcher and adding the -demoplay command in the extra parameters).

Because if we make a booster that does +5 then it should cost 5 times as much and drop 5 times less, which means that a player who doesn't go out of their way to +5 everything and instead just uses boosters as they drop to get a +1 here and there will have a much harder time doing that. The change would indeed only benefit "the elite". Reducing the time it takes to apply multiple in a row reduces the nuisance factor without affecting casual players. (And no we wouldn't make separate +1 and +5 items; both because of code and UI cleaniness, and because it creates the impression that we're happy with what +5 boosting does in the first place).

It is certainly possible and there is at least one example in the game, Practiced Brawler vs. Master Brawler on Sentinels. I believe there was pushback on the idea because if you start doing that for a lot of powers it becomes a balance nightmare and looks clunky, so it wasn't even ported to other versions of Super Reflexes.

It is the most likely explanation, yes. City of Heroes runs on Windows Server, and there are some very easy blunders you can make when you don't have years of experience managing Windows Servers. For example, an unexperienced server administrator will use Remote Desktop to connect to the server and manage it using just a username and password; this is a terrible idea, even if you have a fantastic username and password, as Remote Desktop has a history of new security vulnerabilities appearing every few months. They only need to get lucky once. Honestly, the best defense against cyber attacks is to assume that you will get hacked at some point, no matter what you do, and have a plan to deal with it. Usually this means having a very robust backup system in place, so even if your server is fully encrypted by ransomware or nuked completely for the lols, you can reinstall on a new server, restore from backups and just lose a few hours at worst. This is useful not just against hackers, but also hardware failures, earthquakes, the datacenter being set on fire, and anything else that can affect your server. Regular backups, stored in a different location ("off site"), using completely different security credentials in case the main set is compromised, and tested regularly to make sure they work when needed. If you run a server and you don't have a very robust backup strategy, you are risking losing everything out of nowhere every single day.

The vast majority of 'hacking' attempts are from bots. They don't know what they're targeting, they just look for servers that are running standard protocols like SSH (Secure Socket Shell) or RDP (Remote Desktop) and them spam them with logins trying to get in. I recently set up a tiny server to play Ark with a few friends, and this is what the SSH activity log looks like right now; all of these are failed logins from an unknown source: This is for a tiny server that isn't advertised anywhere and has nothing of value, and with SSH running on a nonstandard port (meaning it's slightly harder to find; if SSH was running on the standard port for it, the window would never stop scrolling with login attempts). The bots don't know what it is, they are indiscriminate in their targets; worst case scenario they may be able to add it to a botnet to attack other servers with and mine crypto, best case scenario they run into something actually valuable they can ransom. If you run a server on the Internet, you will see this traffic. It's just the reality of the modern internet; none of this is targeted. You have to expect intrusion attempts, and have a plan to deal with them. The longer you run a server, the more experience you get on how to protect it from these attacks, and eventually this becomes mostly harmless background noise, as long as you stay on top of security vulnerabilities.

Out of all the items in the Paragon Store, Boosters are the ones that most if not all devs agree crossed the P2W line and would love to nerf. So don't expect any changes that make them more accessible/less rare.

You don't need to edit out the commas - the parser will try its best to clean up the input into something useable. As long as it can recognize exactly three floats between [-100000 -2000 -100000] and [100000 2000 100000], it will make them into a thumbtack link.

They do stop dropping once you have the accolade for the map. However, if you received a mission, then went and got the accolade on your own (without using the mission) you have to dismiss the lingering tip yourself - it won't automatically be revoked.

Big shout out to @Nayreia who wrote the text for all those missions.

Powers Fixed a big bug with Banished Pantheon Lore pets ignoring combat modifiers.

You would know, Chef.

You can go to P2W and reclaim it for 0 inf if you have the Passport badge (which should be awarded from any of those Exploration badges). If you don't have the Passport badge then something went really wrong.

I'll look into it, but that icon is purely informative and doesn't affect progress in the slightest. It's a power granted on zone entry that displays the icon and nothing more; Cimerora and Recluse's Victory also have similar powers. The day job progress calculated at login doesn't use that at all and just checks what volume or map you're in; as long as you're not in a volume that grants a different day job, you get progress for the map's day job.

They do not, to my knowledge. Each set has a list of ConversionGroups it belongs to and there's nothing I see that would allow some sets to be weighted more than others.

Common cards by weight: Inspiration: 26 (1 for each card) 20 Brain Storm Ideas: 6 25 Reward Merits: 6 Free Tailor Session: 1 Experienced: 4 Enhancement Converter: 6 (H&V/R&V) 3 (LOW) Enhancement Unslotter: 6 (H&V/R&V) 3 (LOW) 5 Candy Canes: 6 (LOW) Restore: 2 (H&V/R&V) Revival: 2 (H&V/R&V) Build Snow Beast: 4 (LOW) Uncommon cards by weight: 40 Brain Storm Ideas: 8 50 Reward Merits: 1 Free Tailor session: 1 Experienced: 2 5 Enhancement Converter: 8 (H&V/R&V) 4 (LOW) 5 Enhancement Unslotter: 8 (H&V/R&V) 4 (LOW) 10 Candy Canes: 8 (LOW) Restore: 3 (H&V/R&V) Revival: 3 (H&V/R&V) Build Snow Beast: 6 (LOW) Rare cards by weight: Enhancements: 78 (see previous post) 60 Brain Storm Ideas: 5 75 Reward Merits: 2 Enhancement Booster: 8 Enhancement Catalyst: 4 Character Respec: 2 Experienced: 4 Windfall: 3 Defense Amplifier (H&V/R&V) / Frosty Aegis (LOW): 2 Offense Amplifier (H&V/R&V) / Frost Bite (LOW): 2 Survival Amplifier (H&V/R&V) / Winter Ward (LOW): 2 Very rare cards by weight: Enhancements: 78 (see previous post) 80 Brain Storm Ideas: 6 100 Reward Merits: 2 3 Enhancement Booster: 8 3 Enhancement Catalyst: 6 Character Respec: 2 Experienced: 4 Defense Amplifier (H&V/R&V) / Frosty Aegis (LOW): 4 Offense Amplifier (H&V/R&V) / Frost Bite (LOW): 4 Survival Amplifier (H&V/R&V) / Winter Ward (LOW): 4 Experienced exists in all rarities because originally it was 25% XP booster (uncommon), 50% XP booster (rare) and Double XP Booster (very rare) but because HC made those free in P2W they were replaced with Experienced at the same drop rate.

The first two cards are always common. The third card is 1/5 common, 4/5 uncommon The fourth card is 1/5 uncommon, 4/5 rare. The fifth card is 1/5 rare, 4/5 very rare Only Rares and Very Rares drop Enhancements, and the weights are set to the same regardless of pack. Rare: 78/112 are enhancements Very Rare: 78/122 are enhancements For the Heroes & Villains / Rogues & Vigilantes pack, every enhancement is weight 1 always, equal chance to drop regardless of card rarity. For the Winter pack, because there's a lot less enhancements, they have higher weights and change by rarity: Rare: Avalanche, Frozen Blast, Winter Bite have weight 3; Blistering Cold, Entomb have weight 2. Very Rare: Avalanche, Blistering Cold, Entomb have weight 3; Frozen Blast, Winter's Bite have weight 2. Yes, this means Avalanche is the more likely to drop. Can't be helped without adding another set to even the odds. Non-enhancement drops are tuned to hit specific targets over large pack openings; for example, Reward Merits are weighted 6/59 in commons (25 merits), 1/34 in uncommons (50 merits), 1/54 in rares (75 merits) and 1/58 in very rares (100 merits) to get it as close as possible to 10 merits per pack; the exact rate is 9.83 per pack. Full breakdown of all drops in the next post. Bopper posted a nicer breakdown here: https://forums.homecomingservers.com/topic/24719-psa-super-packs-probability-of-drops/

Or you could just ask...

Guide writers hate Praetorians.

That is intended to be added as a Null the Gull option once we're back from break.

Those were added on September 13th 2011. https://archive.paragonwiki.com/wiki/Patch_Notes/2011-09-13#Contact_Icons The yellow state ("has mission available") was bugged because it expected the player to have access to the Paragon Store, which obviously no longer exists. Remnants of the Paragon Store were removed in i27 and that caused them to start displaying over contacts' heads again. They can be disabled from Menu > Options > General > Miscellanous > Hide Contact Icons.

Going to have to put that bug in the priority queue to figure out once we're back from December break.

Bugfix, they were never meant to be black, they (along a lot of powers) lost their palette information. The good news is that it should be possible to make them customizable in the future, and then you'll be able to make them whatever shade of black you like.