mechahamham

I feel like Council and 5th Column are some of the most dire enemies in game that it's *important* to defeat and arrest. Citadel and Council Cave maps drive me away from facing them as often as I should.

Discord hates me. About 4/5ths of the time, I struggle to log in, or am not able to log in at all. I avoid it in all but the most dire circumstances, where no other kind of communication is possible. Why does this happen? I know exactly why it happens. I use privacy tools. I use noscript, an ad blocker, a privacy-focused fork of Firefox and other tools. Why? I've had some pretty nasty issues with online stalking and was subject to some of the worse fallout from the 2014 Home Depot data breach. Both were nightmares to live through. Like a lot of big websites, Discord collects a ton of information about their users that they really shouldn't. Data mining is absolutely a thing, and a very profitable thing at that. Because they're trying to be THE end-all-be-all of online chat, they're also subject to the ills of people trying to take advantage of their position. Phishing, scams, and online stalking are very much ALSO things, and they absolutely happen on Discord. Collecting information on the people trying to use their service gives them a little leverage against those ills. Because I try to protect myself, that means I am persona-non-grata with Discord. Because I don't let them monitor my every mouse movement, I MUST be a data-scraping robot, or at least that's the nominal excuse given. Stuff presented solely on Discord might as well be lost to me, because I will likely never see it, even if I want to.

Because it had the potential to spark useful discussion. We HAVE to remember the past, bad things included, to successfully move forward. "Those who forget..." etc... Being upset at a word or concept is no reason to start handing out accusations, and its no excuse for attacking someone. In my OP I listed 3 kinds of microtransactions that bothered me. You had no reason to attack me, but did so anyway. I doubt you're a child, so stop acting like it.

Despite spending quite a bit of time learning about Asian cultures, Japanese and Korean cultures in particular, I've never really understood the idea of 'Losing Face'. It's a concept that just doesn't make sense to me, no matter how much I read about it, possibly due to my fairly abusive upbringing. If you're wrong, you admit you're wrong and then attempt to control any damage a poor decision has caused. I get that it's related to dignity in some way, but that's another concept that I have trouble with, simply by the way of never being allowed to have any while growing up. I thought about using the phrase in my OP, but instead I went with 'admitting wrong' because that's closest I can come to making an emotional or intellectual statement about the idea. I know (and am related to) plenty of people who refuse to admit that they're were or are wrong in any circumstance.

It seems like I worded my post poorly. I'm NOT looking for a return to microtransactions. I'm looking for a discussion about what people hate about microtransactions. Please don't assume malice. Also, way to immediately peg me as someone who doesn't donate. That's pretty damn insulting and more than a little hurtful. I try to donate every time I see the window open and have since I came to HC. You saw 'microtransaction' and immediately assumed that I was the worst possible person based on the word alone, apparently without even reading my post. That's a really braindead way of doing business.

I typically earn both the 5th Column defeat badges in missions or street-sweeping in Founders, so I've just straight up never thought to look at the counts while working there.

Fair enough!

This was the 'Urgent' timed Mission from Laurie Pennington: 'Stop Archon Morena & His Crew' in which you rescue a congressman and his 6 staffers from Council on an Outdoor map: Oddly, after defeating a transformed War Wolf, I earned 'The Beast Within' badge. My understanding was (and the badge text indicates) that this was ONLY for 5th Column Warwolves and not transformed Warwolves. Also note that I already have the 'The Silver Bullet' badge as part of my Atlas Medallion there. This is an old Issue-1 era mission, so maybe its Warwolves are still somehow 5th Columnists? -- Edit -- Below, Cobalt Arachne has indicated that this is WAI, and is in place to highlight the links between the two fascist groups. Either way, I get to punch fascists, so that's good enough for me!

This is AMAZINGLY horrifying!

I don't think we're in danger of microtransactions ever coming back because it's widely assumed that Homecoming CAN'T make a profit off of CoH (or even break even) by reason of their license and NCSoft WON'T because that would be admitting wrong or even wrongdoing. However, I think the discussion itself has merit, if for no other reason than to find out, 'Wow, other people would seriously pay for that.' Lootboxes: We did that with Superpacks during the Live era. Now that they're part of the in-game economy rather than the real-world economy, I do every so often spend a sum on them simply to burn off excess influence. I don't even resell the contents. The primary source of funding of my characters comes from crafting. Some characters I want to pay their own way, so they have to craft up from 0 influence and buy their own ATOs. I wouldn't be horrified if another kind of loot box somehow arrived, but I would take it as a symptom of something very wrong happening with the game's balance. Costumes: This would be something that would be very difficult for me, personally, to say no to. I bought all the costume packs that came out during the live era. I don't want to go back to that, where you either had to grind for or pay for new costume pieces. I think that having all the costume pieces unlocked at character creation is a vastly good thing... but that's another discussion entirely. Max Level/Prestige Characters: This is my 'not just no, but HAYULL NO' button. Do not want. Very no. /jranger Some time ago, I heard something that stuck with me. It was a player recruiting on Excel for players to join their Brainstorm SG, which seemed bizarre to me at the time. After some time, the recruiter admitted what was really happening. They were frustrated with grinding and didn't want to do that any more. Brainstorm has the Freebies menu, but no real population and very few teaming opportunities. They were trying to build a group of players to team with on Brainstorm's relaxed testing rules. (Did they try farming? I dunno. It never entered the conversation that I heard, surprisingly enough.) I think if max level, or decently kitted characters were offered as a microtransaction, there would be a market for them from people like this. However, in the real world, we've seen that this is the 'last gasp' of other F2P games. It snowballs to the point to where if you make a new character, they will have absolutely no one to group with until they're max level. I personally feel that if you're not enjoying that basic game loop of 'Defeat enemies in interesting ways, gain even more interesting ways to defeat enemies', you're playing the wrong game. However, I can't in good conscience tell others what parts of the game they should enjoy or not. I don't EVER want the low- and mid-level game to die out, and microtransaction characters is the surest, quickest way to make exactly that happen. That would kill CoH for me far deader than any corporate-mandated shutdown ever did. -- Edit -- It seems like I worded my post poorly. I'm NOT looking for a return to microtransactions nor am I suggesting that it would be a good idea. I'm looking for a discussion about what people hate about microtransactions.

All player characters got wiped for 8+ years. Many were just... reborn. Many, many, many more rose to fill any gaps. (JFC, do some folks take those 1000 character slots to be a challenge....)

I like that. If we go by the availability/buff expiration thing, the new trial would want to start at 25, and the buffs would last until level 40. It's kinda important to remember that one of the purpose of those buffs from DfB and DiB is to balance out lower-level character's lack of enhancements. Buffs given to 25+ characters might need to taper off after level 30 or so, as a character gains more enhancers to round out their abilities. I've personally made peace with the idea that we'll never see more of the Battalion than Shivans and Neo-Shivans. I'm content to simply not have the Battalion in game. That may not be a very popular idea, but in my mind it's part of the price paid for extracting control of CoH from NCSoft. I like the idea, as with Bloody Bay, of repurposing a PVP zone's content for PVE. We could set a 25+ trial in Warburg and have the players fight Rogue Arachnos for control of the rocket silo.

On the Villain-side cape mission, which is now given by Mr. Rodney post i21 or so, he sends you off to Paragon City to steal said cape on behalf of King Midas: But then the clue you receive at the end of the mission tells you to take the cape back to Kalinda: I think this one dates back to the Paragon development era. The mission contact was updated when Kalinda was no longer in charge of newbie missions by default, but the in-mission clue never was changed to reflect the new contact.

I remember suggesting something similar back on the Live message boards. UI work is harder than it seems, especially because CoH doesn't use any kind of widget toolkit, but something like the suggested changes would make the Power window a LOT more useful and usable. Especially when you're doing events that result in lots of temporary powers (Halloween and its feasts of Costume temp powers), the Power window becomes almost completely unusable.

This is Jim 'Thunderhead' Bartlett: He's a hero who fought in World War 2 against the Nazis. Your contact tells you this about him: Given that the minimum draft and enlistment enlistment age in the U.S. was 18 at the end of WW2, and that 1945 was 80 years ago as of 2025, this storm/electric defender who likes to melee against 5th Column super soldiers is AT LEAST 98 years old. In 2004, when this arc was brand-spanking new, his minimum age would have been a slightly more realistic 77 years. (I've personally met people that age who remarkably still play tennis.) 21 years later, his appearance and behavior is a little less believable. But this is a game about superheroes, time travel, and other impossible shenanigans. We have several immortals in the cast of characters for Paragon City and its surrounds. I suggest that we alter the text of the mission to reflect Mr. Bartlett's advanced age. "Mister Bartlett is amazingly spry and active for a centenarian, perhaps because of his powers. If he tries to help you fight the 5th Column, keep that in mind. Your priority will be getting him to safety."

Khelds: Very tied to the story and to get any traction at lower levels, it seems like you need to be willing to use the different forms. I DO NOT WANT my characters to look like alien crabs or squids. I've heard of people levelling human-form Khelds, but it seems like a real pain in the tuckus. Spiders: Very tied to the story, even moreso than Khelds. I don't HATE the playstyles, but I do dislike psi blast, which nixes Fortunatas. I'm not super-excited about the Crab animations nor the Bane mace animations. With villains you can either take or leave the 'Toady to Arachnos' story as you want, but with Spiders, it's much harder to leave that behind, and that's unappealing as well. After the shutdown, I promised myself I'd never make an MMO character tied to a particular in-game story again. I've yet to find a character idea that makes me think Spiders or Khelds would be the way to play that idea. Tanks: I hate herding. I've also found that I dislike being responsible for agro. Dominators: I dislike the 'Feast/Famine' playstyle of Domination, and the only alternative to that seems to be Perma-dom. Additionally, if I want sheer DPS, Blasters are right there. I consider myself a career Blaster. If I want control, Controllers are great and come with a ton of debuffs or buffs. Defenders: Seem so middle of the road to me. If I want to buff or debuff, Controllers are there and come with control powers. If I want to blast, Blasters all the way. If I want to play with pets, I don't loathe masterminds. So no real dislike, it's just there are always better options for me. Corrupters: Same issue as with defenders. I have a few more corrupters than my 1 defender on Excelsior and have even levelled two of them to 50.

There's always a noodle of spaghetti touching something it shouldn't in CoH. For the most part, I feel like this is reasonable. In other games, if pets go down, it's a very big deal and you need to drop everything to get the pet back up ASAP. CoH has a little of that, especially for MMs who spend their time in bodyguard mode. And I agree that 'zerg rush' tactics suck. They're not fun to play. They're not fun to watch. They're 'cheaty' in that they break the *intent* of the game mechanics if not the rules. Especially in the later game, though, mastermind pets just tend to go splatter, though. (That's something that keeps me, personally, from playing non-monster masterminds. The limp bodies of the summons make it feel like I'm failing at something, even if I'm doing okay.) Frequent resummoning is just a thing. If Page 3 makes them more durable against 35+ enemies in general, that's great, and I think the system as it exists here is reasonable and it *shouldn't matter* if there's a nominal recharge or not on the upgrade powers. If Debuff-type Masterminds are still resummoning during or after every fight in 35+ content, that kinda says to me that the durability is still not where it needs to be.

A thought about the henchman upgrade powers. They all have zero recharge time and a moderate endurance cost. Even if you chain cast an upgrade on already summoned minions, it takes a bit for it to deplete your endurance bar. At this point, why are the upgrades not auto/passive powers?

I re-tested Necromancy specters spawn and despawn time with a stopwatch on that same 28 mastermind, and they last just right at 30s now as of Build 2.

This bothers me because Numina didn't actually die. Her body was obliterated in the fight with the Red Threat, but her spirit was durable enough to stick around and keep the Red Threat locked down from the inside. From: https://homecoming.wiki/wiki/Midnighter_Archivist_Badge#The_Death_and_Rebirth_of_Numina It makes sense that something that's effective against spirits, like the Ghost Slaying Axe, would be effective against her, but if something is effective against the unholy, say Holy Shotgun Shells, it probably shouldn't do extra damage against her. Problematically, we don't really have a distinction between 'Spirits', 'True Undead', and 'Unholy' in the game. Perhaps we should take this opportunity to make one?

Testing on a 28 Necro/Cold mastermind. The patch notes and power description both say that the spectre pets now last 30s. I can't get mine to stay around that long. They seem to reliably poof after 25 seconds, even if not being attacked. Is this maybe being level-scaled, and higher level MMs have longer-lasting spectres? Subjectively speaking, 30s seems too short a duration for these summons. 90 is too long on Live IMO, but 30 is not quite long enough to finish an even-con fight, especially for MMs who have to watch end usage by rationing their attacks. My suggestion is that a flat 45s, regardless of MM level, is more along the lines of what is appropriate. -- Edit -- I thought to boost my MM's level to 50, and sure enough the pets do last at least 29s at 50.

The bug is that the NPCs are too far away to be identified and are getting LOD culled on top of that. This seems like something Lore-important rather than just scenery.

So, looking through the chainlink, with character detail turned all the way up, I still had to be told that the people inside were from the original cover art. LOD is culling MOST of their appearance at that distance. Zooming all the way in, where a single chain link is obscuring most of the view, their heads are maybe a single pixel or two wider. If you're watching the 'System' chat channel, you can see their names: Mighty Monk, Goldie, and Kamakiri. Again, I had to be told who they were. Also, 'Leave it to the professionals.'?! Punk! Do you have ANY IDEA how many Shivans I've splattered? I was tossing these guys into the dumpster at level 1, literally. And you're a Vanguard Captain? What are you if not a professional?! I really want one of the NPCs here to offer an explanation as to what's going on, or even who's fighting inside, and this is the only thing any of them will say.

This is a reasonable way to do things, IMO, as I mentioned in a post up above. I don't like it, but that's a personal dislike and not a 'I think you're horribly wrong'. What would be unreasonable would be something similar to 'People have been asking for X, so we've added X only to this new max-level content. You're expected to create a character and then level before you can have X'. (Warcraft is SUPER guilty of this with their 'Allied Races' shtick. Let's not go down that same path.)

I think we don't know yet exactly how much 'grinding' or 'gating' is going to be required. Going to Unitas' argument about the Witch Hats, I feel like that's a valid way to do things even if I don't personally like it. If you have a special costume piece that's obviously tied to one faction, but then more generic versions, then getting the generic versions at creation and then the specialized version as a reward is reasonable. The problem comes when the costume pieces are pivotal to a character concept, as Kitsulot mentioned. The generic witch hats didn't come out until MUCH later than Katie's TF. If you wanted to be a witch with a witch hat, you had exactly one way to obtain one. A good example here are the various wings that were introduced way back when. For probably most characters that have them, wings are a body part rather than a costume to be worn. If I want to make, say, a fairy pistoleer, and fairy wings were still tied to a very rare drop recipe, grinding and grinding, or paying huge sum of influence would be the only way to have such a character. In fact, to my recollection, the biggest complaint about making the wing recipes more widely available was entirely about having a wing recipe drop no longer be a huge financial windfall. If a class of costume pieces arises that inspire new characters, but those characters can't really have that look until they're effectively 'raid level', then those costume pieces may as well not exist. They're for bragging rights only and not about roleplay, character ideation, or the like. Going by the screenshots, this particular set of pieces looks to be very gladiator-themed, and we already have the Roman costume pieces. Characters can at least be created with a similar look. I can't be in other people's heads, so I can't imagine how important a particular piece is to the idea of their new characters. If we EVER end up discouraging someone from creating a new character because they can't start with a costume piece that's integral to their idea, I think we've failed.