CFIndustries

Discord is a company I refuse to support for similar reasons why I don't use Twitter, Facebook, or any other "social media." Corporate over-reach, nefarious activities allowed, etc. Using it supports it in my mind, so I don't use it. I don't even trust them to handle security and privacy appropriately…so heck no. But I'd also avoid ANY voice because it breaks immersion. It is absolutely weird when the voice does not match the character (especially the gender benders out there). Like reading a good story you read where you make up voices and looks in your head, I do the same thing in-game. Granted, the chat doesn't always match either, but I can imagine most of the time, or mentally cordon tat off for sake of immersion. I used some voice (Ventrillo?) back on Live a couple times and it was too bizarre. On the upside, no one has ever asked/forced me to Discord on a team. Downside is HC Support really encourages its use, so it makes getting issues resolved a little awkward sometimes.

Never did like leading on Live, less so on HC (or as I call it, City of Gods). Causes me anxiety, quite literally. More relaxing to let others lead. Of course, I don't like leading people IRL either…making it virtual doesn't change people's behavior towards leaders and often makes it worse. All my "leadership" experience has been decidedly negative. I'm sure it's a case of 99% of people are great, 1% are bad. But I have a knack for attracting that 1%. Or maybe I just have less tolerance for *sshats than most people? (A comment to which I won't disagree.) I do really appreciate those brave souls who think leading is easier than joining…wish there were more like you! *bows* I also really appreciate the leaders who repeatedly allow me to tag along, I'm quite grateful.

Definitely would have lost my mind… Finding HC in the midst of the mess the world is—COVID, fires, smoke from said fires, earthquakes; all just in California where I live—has been my therapy. It was therapy during an emotionally brutal divorce back before the snap. It's cathartic to get to play a good guy and make a difference beating-up evil goons. It's equally cathartic to play a villain because "why not, the real world seems like that, F'em!" It's therapeutic to play a robot or an animal instead of a human being, to remove yourself from yourself. Cheap. Therapy. Something more positive to concentrate on for a while. Someplace to escape to for just a couple of hours. Escape.

I'd say "depends on your playstyle." I enjoyed playing a Mind/Psi dom through 50, even limited to SOs. More of a team setup and playstyle, solo'ing him isn't as much fun to me. Turned-around and rebuilt him as permadom (with the help of a friend, and on a relative budget) and enjoy him even more. I find my playstyle and this build meshed well: lots of AoE control to help teams, fair bit of damage when control isn't needed. I control or blast (or melee!) as the team/circumstance allow. Very tactical. I've played an SO-only Earth dom and those are (BOOM) just alot (RUMBLERUMBLE) of fun (GURGLEGURGLE).

@jubakumbi, love your SIG. I always remember the version Lisa says to Bart on the Simpsons (likely paraphrased or slightly butchered in my memory): "How non-conformist, in a conformist sort of way..." I find this topic interesting because yeah, HC seems to be (from my perspective) rich (more-influence-than-God), IO-decked-out, AH-playing, PL'ing/farming, min/max'ers. And since I don't fall into ANY of those, it does sometimes feel like I'm on my own or somehow not effective enough for "teaming with the gods." HOWEVER, I don't expect anything to change due to my lament…was like that when I arrived, that's what the culture is. I was happy enough to play, so I play over here in my little "oldschool" corner and enjoy myself while gods walk by. Thankfully I got some starter cash at random for a cool costume, kept my old Hero Builder files (made by someone else; I'm inept at it), and re-created a couple of my IO'd incarnates. That will keep my cash flow up for playing all the alts that will never walk with the gods (will never see an IO set or incarnate content), but will still be fun to me. Not sure why I should try to force my "culture" on the obviously prevailing one; or why others keep raging against the machine. I already know I wouldn't change any minds here. *shrug* As others have hinted: you enjoy your style, I enjoy mine. We might not agree, but we don't have to in order to have fun.

On Live I had a lively group of friends (oddballs all of them) and we had two themed SG's and costumes, think it was on Virtue: "Evil Girl Scouts" (redside) A group all dressed in matching pink-n-purple, all females, all small and girly, shoulder cats, and all manner of silly cuteness. I generally play animal alts, so I played a little pink-n-purple cat that was the mascot that was run through the Gene Splicer 2000 (how else would you get a cat in those colors!?!). Second costume was the cat turned into a big drooling monster (never let the girls at the GS2000 without supervision). All had Girl Scout cookie names or otherwise thematic names. The only "adult" was a "huge" body type in the same girly costume but looked like a guy…named "Den Mom" who RP'd pretending to reign-in the supervillain kids. And we'd stand around sometimes and accost, badger, threaten to kill, bully, and all sort of related RP (in Local) to sell cookies...near the ferries. "Flock of Seaguls" (blueside) We all had white-n-grey costumes, birds, and white-n-grey power colors. And real corny seagull pun names. Steven Seagull, Gene Seagul (two thumbs up!), you get the idea. Instant laughs when enough of us gathered in one place and started shouting "MINE!" in local. I haven't developed a set of friends like this on HC (yet); that takes time. But those days *were* a blast and Virtue was always "RP light"-friendly for this sort of thing.

If the OP is talking about the Mercs that I think were based on the original Ideazon Zboard, the "butterfly" keys for the movement keys (WASD+QE) are an ergonomic touch that dropped out gaming favor for some reason (the equally ancient Ideazon Fang falls into this category). I have my first Zboard still in use and a brand new, never opened stored in the closet as a backup bought years ago. Wish I could find a Fang at a decent price. I would be really sad if I lost access to my butterfly keys for gaming. 😞 Not sure why the gaming keypads these days don't use the butterfly shape/arrangement as it is MUCH more comfortable on long gaming sessions. I also find it less likely to cause mis-keying during movement as well.

+1, if you're lucky enough to have Parallels already. That's what I did. I was squee'ing too because I can't make an IO build to save my life, but I saved all the MIDS files for ones a friend made for me back on Live (when I had a dedicated gaming PC). The PC died about 6 years ago, but my current Mac will play CoH as well or better than that PC anyway. 🙂

Okay, I have to ask the obvious: Besides the Vidiot Maps and the sound mods, what other mods are there? For example, has anyone made an in-window clock? I used to use HeroStats for that; always found it annoying not to know what time it was IRL while playing. Feels like Vegas, where they try quite intentionally to keep you from the current time. 😜

FF/FB defender here (redside). A whole 14 of us! My forum reading would lead me to believe FF is superfluous in an IO-dominated game. So far though, he's quite the terror. 😈 I plan to take him to the incarnate game just to see how the build performs. Apparently my habit of building based on theme has me building lesser-used combos…

I've never had one with an IO build or permadom but I did find earth/earth actually great fun, nonetheless. I'd love to have one really kitted out. Just...have to run with the speakers turned down low. LOL.

I'm on Torchbearer, if my 2¢ worth has any relevance… Until last night, hadn't seen another Mind/Psi dominator (which I thought was odd, the forums mention them plenty). And it seems to be the most popular dom combo according to the stats; I guess I just don't play in the same circles as these folks, or they all exist on some other server. Or possible I just didn't notice (though psi AoE noise is tough to miss). Of course 388 isn't alot by any measure, spread over five instances? I've played a Claws/DA to 50 three times prior to HC, and am working on him again on HC. I doubt I saw this combo more than a handful of times in those long years. And yes, I played this back in the days of the looping /DA sounds. Only 17 of us on HC, so I guess I'm as much an oddball on HC as I was on live. I remember on Live meeting another Claws/DA was like "hello brother, you sadistic soul!" Seriously, two Claws/DA's seeing each other would stop, take time out, and say hi. Not sure why I enjoy the combo so much…maybe it's because his concept and visuals are just so much fun.

+1 to this. I'm a button-clicker too and use a fair number of trays. Really a pain when I slip-click in the heat of battle and simply end-up hiding the tray I need. *bleh* (I never got into the number/macros thing for attack powers because I have so many alts and optimize the trays for each playstyle. My visual system has always trumped muscle memory in this case.)

Ah, thanks for correcting my faulty memory. Good to hear PCSAR survived in some form, was a great group of people. My lasting memory of the last day on Live was I re-created CFI-MEDIC911 for nostalgia's sake ("going out as I came in") and literally got re-invited to PCSAR seconds before the servers were shut down. It was very fitting. 🙂

This is happens in corporations with great regularity; Marketing being possibly the worst offender? I could name off many examples, but this might sum it up best: I'm always stunned that people can speak this gibberish with sincerity like it actually means something…

Snopes is your friend: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/irregardless-merriam-webster/

Paragon City Search & Rescue (PCSAR) supergroup on Virtue--and I think on other servers--back on live was one example. Taxibots was the other common one. The Hollows was a really scary place back then, everyone loved the assistance. And we didn't just sit, but actively patrolled the more common pathways in the zone so people could make it to missions without dying. This was also back when you could create a pre-ED "pure empath" (yeah I can see the eyerolls now) they were really useful and sought after back then. The Hollows patrol was quite common. Once ED hit though, such patrolling declined quite a bit (since it nerfed the "pure empath" as a concept). Not sure at what point the mission arcs stopped forcing us all to the Hollows, but when that happened, patrolling medics and taxis lost their jobs. 😜 Given the option, everyone skipped the zone. I did my time patrolling back then with CFI-MEDIC911, but I'd never create such an alt now. Really doesn't make sense in the current landscape of the game (IMHO). But I'm also not going to discourage you either. I enjoyed my time being "hero to the heroes," some of the most memorable I've had since I started playing. You might feel the same way. Let us know how it turns out?

Except in some cases, I want both Beast Run and Ninja run separate on the same alt. I have a cat alt who uses Beast Run as a travel power, idle animation, etc., and combines Ninja Run + Dual Blades for some great synergistic animations during combat. Also, someone mentioned making it so Sprint can't be combined with NR/BR and...please no. I combine Sprint + NR/BR for more speed while traveling. On animal alts I often never get a "real" travel power and rely on Sprint + BR.

Yeah I figured Delvkai, and was afraid it might be a custom texture. More just wanted to provide of an example of what I was aiming for. I've been in awe of the cleverness of some base designers using existing pieces for unexpected purposes, so figured I could ask. 😀

This area in Atlas Park, just off the SG base beam-in is more what I was hoping for...

This one has been driving me to distraction lately. I am building an outdoor base with a huge forest. I have specific paths I want to make through the trees. The ground is a grass plate, but looking for some way to show a worn path through the trees. I don't want rock slabs or signs of human habitation; the base theme is nature-only. So think a worn footpath through the forest, or a deer trail, etc. Any pieces, tintables, upside-down, etc. that can give a facsimile of this kind of look? Also open to alternative ideas of making a path like this "obvious" yet not immersion-breaking.