Zhym

This is a fun arc, start to finish. FWIW, I don't think the "Ocelot rule" really applies here when it's made clear at the start that your character is of a certain...archetype. BTW, the moment it went from being merely great to one of my all-time favorites was this: Perfect. :)

Maybe I like catching up with my BFF Ms. Liberty. You ever think of that? Seriously, though. Most of the time I just pop into the Excelsior Teleportation Zone to train, because I already have it macro'd for quick movement between zones. But sometimes it's nice to go back to Atlas Park, just because.

Dance for me, volunteers who keep this game running at no charge! Dance!

The only problem, which I realized only recently, is that Statesman was never the trainer in AP. It was always Ms. Liberty, wasn't it? So making him the trainer in Echo:AP doesn't really fit the known history. And that's part of why I'm not all that invested in Statesman—my toons never really interacted with him (except for saving his butt in the original Maria Jenkins arc).

Can you imagine what the final mission would have been like, if that PUG managed to get that far? (There's no way they managed to get that far.) Really, they did @Snarky a favor by showing their incompetence before he wasted any more time with them.

Had you read the thread, you might have seen that someone posted a link to that very AMA. https://forums.homecomingservers.com/topic/54934-do-you-want-statesman-to-return/#findComment-692180

Come to think of it—there are a lot of statues around. And they're all remarkably clean. Are there no pigeons at all in Paragon City?

I’d rather have Back Alley Brawler where Ms. Liberty is standing. Doesn’t seem fair that he’s relegated to a far corner (a…back alley?) of AP while she’s in both AP and IP. But Statesman should be in Echo:AP, at the least.

There are a lot of great story ideas in this thread. Anyone want to write them up in AE? @Darmian? @cranebump? @Ankylosaur? ("Are you crazy? I'm way too busy!" messages incoming in 3...2...1...)

Exhibit #1 that the forum "reputation" statistic doesn't mean what it says it means:

I figured it was something like that. When in doubt, assume AE limitations.

I just played this (great arc, BTW), and had trouble with that too. That room with the platforms confuses the heck out of NPCs, I think. Also:

You might find this thread useful:

I was finally able to get this toon (whose name I had on one of the Live servers) his name without a period or dash in it:

It may just be that the best way of identifying and rewarding good AE story arcs is what we have right now: people posting in this forum, either with reviews or posting about their arcs.

One minor note: I did have to do a bit of back-and-forth hunting in the Arachnos base map; it seemed like the AV spawned behind me and down a floor. Such is AE, though.

Fun arc. You had me at "[Note: Contains an Archvillain, but Fusionette will be there to help. If that counts as help.]" I found the ending fairly satisfying, but agree that it might have been...I don't know, explained just a bit more at the end. It's so hard for character dialog to do heavy lifting on plot resolution when you've got all those battle messages scrolling by. But overall, a fun, well-written arc.

I sort of like the idea of community "Dev/GM" awards. I mean, if the GMs don't want to do it, what's stopping us?

Also: If the Freedom Phalanx are that great, why aren't they doing something about all the crime in Paragon City instead of just standing around training people? There are purse snatchers less than 200 feet away from Ms. Liberty, and she just stands there. Positron's even worse: crimes are going on right next to him and he can't be bothered to do anything because they con grey to him—no XP. "Heroes" my ass. :)

Yup, I agree with you. I have basically two problems with the Freedom Phalanx* (and, to a lesser extent, the Vindicators): First, there's no justification for holding them up as better than any PC here. They're supposed to be CoX's version of the Avengers or the Justice League: Paragon's Greatest Heroes or whatever. But we never actually see them do anything. My main has saved the world multiple times, kicked Lord Arachnos's ass, and even helped thwart a multidimensional invasion. What did Statesman ever do? Who has Statesman saved? What crisis has he averted? What deeds of heroism and daring has he done to earn his status as the ultimate hero we're supposed to look up to (literally, now that he has a statute on Kallisti Wharf)? Jack squat, as far as I can tell. When it comes to the Freedom Phalanx, CoX has a serious case of telling instead of showing. More importantly though, they're unnecessary. The great thing about CoX is that it's not tied to a particular IP. If you're playing DC Online, you will never, ever get to be Batman or Superman. Not allowed. You will always be like a sidekick or a Mary Sue in their world. Same with Marvel: there are certain characters (lots of them!) who will always be the stars. But CoX doesn't have to be tied down by existing IP. We can be the greatest heroes of this world! Or we could be, if the designers hadn't thought we needed a cheap knockoff of the Avengers or Justice League. So, basically, the Freedom Phalanx and Vindicators are pretenders who haven't earned their status. That's why I don't really care for them. You could remove them from the game entirely and very little would be lost. Oh, and the fact that they're basically vanity characters for the devs (DM NPCs, to borrow a term from RPGs) doesn't help. * Except Penny. Penny is my bestie. Not coincidentally, she's also the best developed of the Freedom Phalanx characters, with an arc that shows her development and personality to an extent that no other FP member gets.

It looks like the new manifest is up. Thanks!

This is the first time that "days or weeks" has been given as the timeframe for updating the manifests. All the previous patches have included manifest changes almost immediately (or at least, quickly enough that I never noticed a delay). And as of about three weeks ago, Island Rum was still listed as one of the two ways to access Homecoming on a Mac: I had trouble installing LaunchCat last time I tried it, due to issues having to do with my normal user account not having admin access for security reasons and LaunchCat not coping well with the CoH files being in a custom directory—although it sounds like at least some of those issues have been addressed (or at least have hackable workarounds). And if at some point you're going to stop updating the manifest entirely (or add a "days or weeks" period after each patch during which Island Rum users won't be able to access the game), I'd suggest giving us some warning that Island Rum (not Tequila) will not only be "unsupported" but will no longer work as a way to access the game. So if y'all could prioritize getting the manifest updated so that Island Rum will still work for now while I figure out how to give a LaunchCat installation another try, I'd appreciate it.

My Island Rum installation (version 090420241) isn't loading today's patch. I get the "Checking for Update" message, then "Loading Manifest," then straight to "Ready to Play." But when I try to log into a server, I get, "Wrong game version, run patcher and reconnect, server 20240916_6320, client 20240730_6307." Is there something I can do to force a patch? Is there something wacky going on with my particular installation (which is always a possibility)? Or do I just need to wait a while and it will fix itself? ETA: It looks like the manifest at http://patch.savecoh.com/manifest.xml hasn't changed with this patch yet.

Fair points. But for OP, who finds the whole enhancement system overly complex, this is definitely way beyond what they're wanting to do. Thus my general advice of slotting enhancement sets and not worrying about the nuances needed to get maximum damage.

I have good news: you really don't need to go into that level of minutia to have a fun character that feels powerful. Here are some general guidelines I'd suggest: 1. Use enhancement sets—(almost) any enhancement sets. The great thing about enhancement sets is that you don't actually need to do all that analysis of complex interactions. Because of the way enhancement sets work, just picking one (say, a cheap Uncommon set) and slotting it is going to be better than slotting with IOs. Enhancement sets have two big benefits: (1) they give bonuses to multiple aspects of a power in a way that avoids diminishing returns (see below), and (2) slotting sets gives further global bonuses. Which benefits you get under (2) is what all the optimizing is about, but any enhancement set will give you bonuses that are useful. I say "(almost)" above because there's one thing you'll want to watch out for: attuned enhancement sets (which are the ones you should buy) have a certain effective level range. Some cap out at levels 20 or 30. For the most part, you'll usually want the ones that keep scaling up until level 50. There are exceptions if you're looking for specific bonuses or procs, but as a general rule, choose the higher-level sets. BTW, if you're on a budget, I'd skip the AT sets and buy a bunch of uncommons instead. The AT sets are expensive—you can buy an entire six-piece Thunderstrike or Artillery set for the cost of one Blaster's Wrath enhancement. So save the AT sets for when you can afford them on top of the other sets. 2. If you need to use IOs, keep Enhancement Diversification in mind. Enhancement Diversification (aka Diminishing Returns) has been mentioned in the thread, but I don't know if anyone has explained what it is. Basically, after you've slotted three of any SO or IO into a power, any further slotting of that same SO/IO will give you only an extremely small benefit. So as a rule of thumb, never slot more than three of any SO/IO into a power. Use those extra slots for other powers that also have benefits, like Accuracy, Recharge, and Endurance. 3. If you're having endurance issues, use procs in Stamina and Health and slot endurance everywhere (that uses endurance). Others have already talked about slotting procs in Health and Stamina; these will help a lot. But it's also important to add endurance reduction enhancements to individual powers, especially those that burn a lot of endurance. You'll get that for "free" if you slot with enhancement sets, since endurance reduction is part of most sets. But if you aren't using enhancement sets, make sure to set aside at least one slot in each power (that uses endurance) for an EndRed enhancement—maybe two for very expensive powers. 4. If you want to further tune a character, search the forums for a build. For most ATs, someone has probably already made one and tuned the heck out of it with Mids. So shamelessly copy their work leverage their experience, and use that as a starting point for your build. Or post your build in the AT forum and ask for advice.