Zhym

I was in PI for a while yesterday, and oh my yes it was laggy. And most of the time I spent trick-or-treating was in PI. But I started noticing the weird badge behavior in Kallisti (where I moved my trick-or-treating due to the lag in PI). It's possible that the lag in PI was so bad that I didn't get credit for costumes I had picked up in PI until I was running around in Kallisti, but (1) the times when the badge counter did increment were all right after I'd clicked on doors, (2) I had done a Dr. Kane TF in between the PI trick-or-treating and finishing it up in Kallisti, and (3) I only had about 25 costumes or so and still only have 27 costumes even now that I have the badge for 50. So it definitely seems like something is giving credit for having gotten a costume when you don't. My wild-assed guess is that it has to do with what happens when you would get a costume you already have. Maybe you don't get the costume, but you still get badge credit? (ETA: I now see that you said something like this above. That's what I get for jumping straight to the post that quoted mine instead of reading all the new messages in the thread.) I'd have thought that the fallback would be a different Treat (salvage, maybe), but maybe the "oops, already have that costume!" routine goes all the way back to the "trick, or treat?" decision point. Oh, and there were three times—all in a row, all in Kallisti—when I got a "Treat!" result but didn't get anything. No costume, no salvage, not even a Rock. And the costume badge progress didn't move, either. But I suspect you're right that the explanation could be as simple as, "Strange things happen when shards get massively lagged, even on other shards."

But the weird part is that the counter was incrementing when I wasn't getting any costumes, from any source. It was incrementing when I got "Trick" results—i.e., mobs to fight, not costumes of any sort. And costumes didn't drop when the mobs spawned (of course).

I just had a weird path to getting the Ostentatious badge. It's supposedly for collecting 50 classic costumes. The progress tracker was at 41 when I bought a bunch of costumes from Annah—but the counter didn't increase. I ran Dr. Kane's House of Horrors, then went back to clicking on doors to trick or treat. I didn't get any more costumes, but I did get the badge! The counter increased when I got "trick" as a result, not costumes. Is something weird going on with that badge, or do I completely misunderstand how it's supposed to work?

The incarnate system is pretty arcane and hard to understand. Fortunately, there are some guides on the forums. Here are three:

Thanks. I'd given up on MIDS a while ago since I couldn't figure out a way to get it to upscale (old eyes, tiny fonts). FWIW, I pulled the trigger on the upgrade and Homecoming seems to be working fine (now I just hope I didn't jinx it by typing that out).

It's a security thing—basically, one more speed bump in the way of malware. You might be amazed how much admin access isn't needed day to day. On those occasions when admin access is needed, I have a separate admin account that I can enter the credentials for. For example, most software installers will pop up a dialog box asking for admin credentials. The Island Rum installer didn't really grok that, so I think I had to install under my admin account and then fiddle with permissions to let is update under my non-admin account, but that's all settled now. So: do you think I should do a backup before upgrading? ;)

Okay, so I've been slow to upgrade, mostly because I've wanted to make really really sure I didn't break CoH. But I'm thinking it's about time to pull the trigger. So: how does CoH handle the upgrade now? Everything's 64-bit, right? Anything else I should watch out for? FWIW, my everyday user account doesn't have admin access, so I had to play with the permissions in the CoH and Island Rum folders to get everything to update right. I'm guessing if anything breaks when I upgrade, it'll be because of that. I'd appreciate any guidance. Thanks!

Here are two excellent guides on one way to solo through the blue side and red side content. These aren't the only way, and they favor the "newer" (and, IMO, better designed) story arcs over the "classic" arcs, but overall I think they lay out pretty good plans for touring the CoH content via the slow path.

True fact. I got the Signature Villain and Hero defeat badges when I lucked into an actual RV team on Excelsior. I managed to get the rest of the way to Back From the Future and Temporal Soldier by sneaking into Recluse's Victory in off hours and taking down a pillbox or three at a time. I got ganked a handful of times doing that, mostly before I learned to have the Heavy attack first and keep an eye out for the gankers' favorite times to attack (usually, right after I'd destroyed all the turrets and was stuck in place trying to claim the pillbox). I tried going toe-to-toe with the attackers once or twice. It...didn't work out. After that, I got really good at running away.

The poll doesn’t really matter (I’m more interested in the discussion anyway), but FWIW I set it up to allow picking multiple answers. I guess I could have said that in the poll, huh?

I've gotten my badger to the point where he has almost all the badges except the event badges (really looking forward to Halloween and the Winter Event) and most of the PvP badges: specifically, the Arena badges and the ones for personally defeating other players (Forward Observer, Reinforcement, and Disruptor). It has me wondering: if you have a badger who got these badges, how did you get them? My guess is that most people just multibox, but are there lots of people who arrange duels or stalk the PvP zones for kills? And for those who didn't multibox, were the fights actual competitions, or were they badge-focused agreements to beat each other up enough times to get the badge?

Oh, right! I've saved the City Council (including one councilman with the on-the-nose name of "Alderman") enough times that you'd think I'd remember.

I'd like to see a plot where "villainous" factions—Arachnos, Crey, heck, maybe even the Family if they have the resources—come in and start rebuilding devastated areas of Paragon City. New Boomtown, brought to you by Arachnos? Faultline Reborn, a Crey Industries Development? What happens when an organization with evil goals mounts a PR campaign based on fixing problems that have festered under "heroic" leadership? Could be some interesting stories there. (Come to that, what is the leadership of Paragon City? Is there a mayor? A city council? Weird that the governance structure of a city of heroes never seems to be mentioned.)

My Dual Pistols/Martial Combat blaster was a hoot to level though nearly all the content (red, blue, then going back for gold in Oro). Getting Ki Push as a T1 power means you start with one of the most fun powers of the set: just try not saying, “Pull!” when you realize you can kick someone back and shoot them while they’re still in the air. The ability to swap ammo means you can choose knockback for crowd control when soloing in earlier levels, then opt for extra damage in teams or at higher levels without respeccing or reslotting. It’s just tons of fun.

Well, great. Now I'm never going to not see this. Although it would explain why my Emp/Archery defender is so ineffective at doing any damage.

You have to have the mission, but you don't have to be the leader of the team that completes the mission. What I've done on multiple characters is run the Dark Astoria arc all the way through then talk to Dream Doctor again to get the "Complete the Dilemma Diabolique Trial" mission. Once you have that mission, running DD with any group will complete the mission and award the badge.

From the old forum post about the removal of the badges: "We really didn’t want the Mission Architect to be an environment that encourages farming for XP, Rewards or Badges." Well, that didn't quite work out the way they've hoped, although I guess one out of three isn't too bad.

If you want to try the Apple mouse again, there’s a setting to turn on right-clicking. For whatever reason, macOS turns that off by default. The setting should be in “System Preferences” > Mouse. The other thing with the Apple mouse is that you have to lift your index finger or the right-click won’t register. The Apple mouse isn’t the greatest for gaming, but it works okay for me for CoH, at least.

That would definitely be an improvement—and a "pick the same powers I have now" button in the respec process doesn't seem like it would be too hard to add—but then, I haven't seen the code.

I'm still hoping someday for the "move enhancement slots between powers without doing a full PITA respec" function. I know...it's going to be a bit of a wait.

Okay, so maybe I didn't max my MA/SR's defenses enough—silly me, I thought the softcap would be a reasonable target. And usually it is, until I go up against ruularu. Then...not so much, no.

Why no mention of Martial Arts? Not enough AoE, or too reliant on S/L damage? I have an MA/SR scrapper that was grand fun to level to 50 solo, though -def debuffs can take him down. I haven't played him that often lately, having since discovered the joys of the DP/MC blapper, but I still think MA/SR is a good set that doesn't require too much key-clicking other than the attacks.

Interesting. I've always done the opposite: most of my toons have Stealth; this is the first time I've taken Infiltration, and that toon already had Stealth. I can see how Infiltration is a lot easier on endurance than Athletic Run + Stealth, though: 0.46/s (easily reduced with enhancements) vs. 0.89/s (0.32/s +0.57/s, the largest part of which is unenhanceable).

Not for movement rates it doesn't. I just checked, and the movement rates with Infiltration + Combat Jumping are the same as for Infiltration alone. Defense bonuses stack, however, as per normal.

This has happened to me too. I can't remember if it was carnies, but it was definitely a situation where I thought, "Hey, I can use this door mission to complete the hunt mission!" The hunt mission completed in-map; finished the map mission and...no door for the next mission following the hunt mission. So basically, don't let hunt missions complete in map missions.