Ironblade

Yeah, but he's just a huge bag of hit points that hits like a wet noodle. And there's no time limit on this guy.

1. When did you started playing CoX? Was it before or after the game shut down? Tell me a little about how you met the game. I started playing in May 2005. This was about 11-1/2 months after the game started. My brother discovered the game and he and his wife started playing and told me about it. 2. Have you played the game before the shut down in 2012? If the answer is yes, tell me about how you feel about the game’s “Death”. What was that experience like? At the time the shutdown was announced, this was the only MMO I had ever played. For a good portion of the game, my work hours were 8AM to 4PM and I had a 15 minute commute so I played a lot. News of the shutdown came as quite a shock. I made arrangements to stay in touch with a handful of people (email, Facebook, etc). Also, my brother and I immediately started looking for new games to play together since we had gotten in the habit of playing every weekend. 3. And when the game returned in 2019? What did you felt? Was it like a “Homecoming”? It was nowhere near as emotional as the shutdown. I had been in contact with many people from the game for the entire duration that the game was gone. It's wonderful to have the game back, but I play a lot of other games now also. 4. What was the first thing you did after playing the game for the first time in years? I recreated my main character and rebuilt my SG base. 5. What are your thoughts on the return of the servers? Did you brought something with you from the original server? (Avatars, builds, things like that) I brought a lot. I had full build details for every character I ever had (about 42 characters). I had every costume file saved. I had screenshots and demorecords of all my supergroup bases and all those where I was a member. 6. Do you like to play with a specific character? (can be more than one) If yes, what makes it so special to you? When I first started playing, back in 2005, the game took me about 3 hours to download. During that time, I read the game manual and decided a broadsword/regen scrapper would be a good starting character with high survivability while I learned the game. This character ended up being my favorite and the one I use for collecting badges. He's just fun to play and I think the fact that he was the first one I created is a major factor in becoming my favorite. I play other characters, and have taken every archetype to level 50. Typically, I will play a character to 50 and get them some incarnate powers. I'll only get them 'fully incarnate' if I think I will continue playing them. Then they semi-retire until I feel like playing those specific powers or I need them for specific content. Overall, though, I estimate that I play my main character about as much as all the others combined.

SOONTM

It looks like threads (120) are awarded at vet levels 1, 2, 4, 5, 7, 8, 10, 11. Empyrean Merits are awarded along with the badges every 3rd level as follows: 3 - 24 : 20 merits 27 - 48 : 15 merits 51 - 69 : 10 merits 72 - 99 : 5 merits The badges and rewards end at level 99.

"We still don't have Mastermind Customization after all this time" - What makes you think this is even under consideration? We don't have the Guardian class, either. Just because some other server did something has zero bearing on what Homecoming is doing and/or planning. "rewards so you can avoid the auction house reliance solo" - Not actually clear what you mean there. Anyone who wants to can ignore the auction house. "An option to save and use progress with badges on another character" - Never going to happen. Completely counter to the entire concept.

No Windows 11 for me until my next build. I have NEVER upgrade the OS on an existing system. It's just too much of a mess.

So do I. If anyone who actually knows how the annoying arena badges work wants to set up a run for the badges, I'd be in (and I have 3 accounts).

Eh. I actually clicked on it and saw that it allowed multiple selections, but I figured it confuses the results and a detailed post would be more useful.

Agreed. Most players have at least a passing familiarity with most of the content. I first created detailed instruction binds for the Abandoned Sewers Trial. Once upon a time (back on live), I announced that I would be running it and filled the team quickly. Much to my astonishment, more than half the team commented that they had been on multiple failed attempts and really wanted the badge. I don't recall ever being on a failed attempt. I mean, it gives you 90 minutes. I assured everyone that I had never failed it and that, if everyone followed my instructions, we should complete it in about half the available time. We did it in under 40 minutes and people were overjoyed (again, much to my astonishment). So it seems that some of the less-run content really does need instructions. And even some of the popular content - if, for example, you want to avoid a team wipe in Positron part 1.

I didn't vote because I've used both methods 2 and 3. For the part 2 reply - "or were they badge-focused agreements to beat each other up enough times to get the badge?" Yes. Basically a round robin beatdown back when the badge requirement was 400 points of PvP rep.

Are you aware that you can avoid triggering the ambush? It has to do with moving into a specific area at the top of the mountain. Keybinds are also good. I have a keybind that loads over a dozen additional keybinds onto my numpad for the Abandoned Sewer trial. And a keybind to erase them. Then one that loads a set for Mothership Raids. Etc. Popmenus are probably better, but they seem considerably more complex to set up.

Indeed. With the original quote being, "The blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb."

You should probably make it clear that, even though the buff is called 'Grant Invisibility', it does NOT give actual invisibility - only stealth. If you stack it with Super Speed or a stealth IO, THEN you will have 'full' invisibility. It won't work against snipers, Rikti drones, etc. But it's complete invisibility against everything you encounter in the Cavern trial. Also note that clicking an obelisk suppresses the stealth. I normally use the combat stats on my characters to monitor my PvE stealth radius to see exactly when it unsuppresses. The Grant Invisibility buff gives you 25' stealth. You need more to be 'invisible' to most enemies. I forget whether it's 50' or 55'.

Basically, yes. IO stands for Invention Origin. Technically, you can get a respec recipe and temporary powers and craft them, which are not IOs. Here's a summary of the system. https://hcwiki.cityofheroes.dev/wiki/Invention_Origin_Enhancements

On a side note, I'd like to point out how this particular quote is taken out of context and most people think it means the OPPOSITE of what it originally meant. Everyone says, "Jack of all trades, and master of none." as if to suggest that mastering one thing is the best course. But that's not the wisdom that the saying conveys. The ORIGINAL quote is "Jack of all trades, and master of none, BUT BETTER THAN A MASTER OF ONE." So the original guidance is that being a jack of all trades is SUPERIOR to being a master of one.

Right. Converting them to 'Superior' doesn't make them lose any benefits. They just become like purples - only slottable at 50.

If it pisses you off, just keep scrolling. It doesn't piss everyone off and some people go out of their way to be helpful - even to people you might dismiss as lazy.

Dump it (except for the rare). My base has like four salvage racks. One is empty and is used for transferring stuff between characters. One is full of Halloween salvage. Then there's one for common and one for uncommon. The main purpose of the common is for using the buff stations. The uncommon rack is for the stuff you ALWAYS need, like Carnival of Shadows Mask and Living Tattoo - they show up in all kinds of important recipes. So I just normally dump most of the common and uncommon at the vendors. When I need it to craft, I buy it then. It's dirt cheap compared to everything else. The rares I always keep or, if I have multiples of something, sell on the auction house since they're decent cash. As for recipes, I only craft what I am absolutely certain I will use - stuff like Luck of the Gambler +recharge, Performance Shifter proc, etc. Oh, and purples. I always craft and store purples. I can convert them later to the purple I need. Finally, since my badger has the crafting badges and can craft common IO's cheaper, I keep a supply of level 50 IO's in the base - but just the important ones (recharge, end reduction, end mod). Generally not stuff like accuracy or damage since my characters get that from set IO's - which each character buys and crafts for themselves.

Yeah, we're usually busy and miss it. Yesterday we noticed the initial announcement so we put in $100 to make up for the missed months.

Firstly, someone did a bit of a necro here, but I'll reply to the original post. ehh...... You don't really need any of those things. You need a character to be your FAVORITE. Back on live, one of the top badgers on Infinity was a mind/emp controller. He sent me a tell one day that it was really hard doing some of the Ouro flashbacks with the challenge settings and asked if I wanted to duo them with him. My badger is a broadsword/regen scrapper. So we duoed most of those badges. There are ALWAYS other badgers around with whatever power you don't have, who would love to work with someone to get the badges. Having said that, any AT/build that can solo fast is a top choice. Because there are over 1500 badges and you WILL be soloing a lot because you're going to be doing less popular content, grinding arcs, farming enemies, etc. And, one additional thing that makes some badges easier - make a second account. If you MUST have some particular power or AT, PL a character on the second account. This gives you a lot of versatility. It lets me work on some badges when hardly anyone else is online.

Both are fun sets. I took MA to 50 on a scrapper and SJ to 50 on a tank. I've only ever taken one stalker to 50 because they always lose something to get Hide. Without having some idea of your play style and what you enjoy, it's hard to make a recommendation. Although I guess scrappers, stalkers and brutes are really quite similar.

I don't recall there ever being a way to skip the login. Not in this game or any other MMO I've played.

Not seeing an issue here. Unless I miscounted, you end up with 24 powers, so you can have ALL of the primary AND all of the secondary, with six left over for pool powers. You can clearly take every secondary power without gimping your 'primary function'. And, since most sets have one or more skippable powers, you have even more leeway.

On a related note, if you're going for the 'assist' badges (i.e. do a weekly strike target again AFTER receiving the bonus for running it that week), this is absolutely the best way to get it. When I was working on the final badge (50 assists), there were a couple other people also working on that badge and we could easily recruit additional people who just wanted to run once for the bonus. i.e. We could easily recruit people whose Team Teleport had not been used already. With multiple invisible people, we wanted to see how far under 2 minutes we could get the completion time. Our best run was 1:26 (86 seconds).