Placta

The Ouroboros Portal unlocks with the Entrusted With the Secret badge, which per the i27 patch notes can be earned by: Completing any flashback mission from a Pillar of Ice and Flame Completing any of the Menders' story arcs Completing various missions involving time travel (see patch notes for the full list) Entering Cimerora, Ouroboros, RV, or any Echo zone The Long-Range Teleporter is earned with the Passport badge, which is now earned by either: Earning the exploration accolade for any zone with a base portal Earning the Pocket D VIP Club Member badge by spending an hour in Pocket D It can also be bought from P2W for 1m inf. You can teleport to any zone with a base portal where you've earned any exploration badge (I'm not sure how Thrill Seeker counts). Pocket D can also be unlocked with the Pocket D VIP Club Member badge.

I asked about this in the main thread. This was the response.

Galaxy City definitely kicked you to Atlas after a few seconds. I remember this distinctly because it took them a few patches to realize the arcane Galaxy beacon still pointed to Old Galaxy and not Echo: Galaxy, so until they fixed it my way of SG transporting to Atlas was to go to Galaxy and get kicked over.

Personally, Agent Watkins' dialogue was giving me a headache so I stopped trying to read after the second mission. Of course then comes the bit where the game punishes you for speeding through dialogue trees by forcing you into the busywork-heavy side of the arc (on top of already sending you all over the city like it's 2005). The actual mission difficulty? Well, ask me again if I ever decide to give the arc a second chance. I played this one on my purpled/Incarnated-out blaster, so aside from the massive Freak aggro on one mission due to a hasty decision, there shouldn't have been much that challenged me. (Okay, but I'll say the Zoombies were stupid. Hear them coming, fly up out of range of their bombs, watch them futilely run into each other under me until it gets old, zap them and get back to real content.)

With the new Mids, Is there a way to stop it from changing my slot levels? E.g., I place a slot in the level 2 power, it's labeled level 3. I later place slots in each of my level 1 powers, they're now labeled level 3 and the one I placed earlier is labeled level 5. This makes it hard to design a leveling build.

I don't either, and fortunately the requirement is so high a hero has to work for it (but I run tips a lot, so I figure I'll get the ones full of Longbow enough and eventually pick it up). I wish they'd changed the name and description when heroes could earn it without going red, or made it like the Day Jobs, Isolator, etc. where you need to switch to redside to get it. (All of this applies to Bloody Hands, except the requirements there aren't particularly high, especially since SSA 1-4 gives a lot of heroes to fight.) Oh, and I tested the Desdemona mission on the test server and you totally can zip to the end, take her out before the rest of her group, and get the badge for defeating her without completing the mission as long as you leave one of the enemies with her alive. It felt kind of familiar, so maybe it is what I did to get the badge. File that one with Deadly Combatant as badges I wouldn't have gotten if I'd decided not to do non-Hero badges but don't really bother me that I have.

This is what I'm doing with my badger, with some that you're skipping: AE - Okay, admittedly, I got the Rogue alignment one because I didn't check the alignment when I did a Hall of Fame arc (which there was nothing roguish about). I figured it's virtual to her, and a chance to consider how to do things differently from presented, so I went ahead and got the Vigilante badge too. Architect XXV came with those two. I don't have Bloody Hands but figure it's a matter of time. Ditto Reformed, because rogue Longbow show up in a few Hero tips. I have Whip Cracker somehow. I don't know how. I don't have the badge for Vigilante tips, so I didn't complete the one where you fight Desdemona. I can't imagine I went into that mission, fought her, and left without completing the mission; I don't know if it's even possible, and when I was running 20-30 tips I was expecting to go around the wheel so it would have been more work for one badge I'd eventually get. On the other hand, Cage (Goon Squad) and Snakes (Mongoose) show up in 20-30 hero tips and I was able to farm those. (Scrapyarders (Strike Buster) are in the Vigilante version of the one with Cage, but that's a Vigilante tip so I don't have that badge.) I won't do Max's missions to free Malta goons, meaning I can't get Determined. I have Deadly Combatant. It's not my way, but his, and I will respect that. (Prefer Dignified, though.) The Abyss is co-op and I have the badges from it. I'm currently at 1283, looking at 1291-1294 (Bloody Hands and Reformed + its gladiator are the three uncertain) when I wrap up non-event badges, and 1312-1315 when I'm done (not counting that by then there will definitely at least be a 17th anniversary badge).

It's probably Dynamo, the revamped version of Lightning Field. It's been reported as a bug for AE enemies; I've noticed when my elec/elec blaster fights a doppelganger the doppelganger takes damage out of combat and will defeat herself with no intervention needed.

Yes, you could. When Galaxy was removed and DA revamped, old beacons to both zones were changed* to point to the echoes (and you could place new echo beacons). * Eventually. For a while after i21 the arcane beacon for Galaxy still sent people to Galaxy-That-Was, which was set to kick them to Atlas after a few seconds.

TUNNEL to Night Ward. Enter Midnighter Mansion. Base portal to Croatoa or FF. Enter Midnighter Mansion. Take the crystal to Ouroboros. Oro portal back to Atlas. Just did this on a level 2, mostly fresh out of the tutorial (I took the time to get Atlas Tour Guide) character. No combat the whole way. (It might be tougher redside.)

Not exactly. Angus McQueen's arc features a Lost in the final stages of transformation (the first time you meet him, he's a Lost, then the next, he's a Rikti) to drive the point home, but I think it's meant to be something where you connect the dots playing a new character and wondering if you ever learned what the Lost's deal is.

I'm basically done. Aside from the first category, everything I have left either requires grinding or something I'm waiting for:

I sure did. I just ran that arc a few weeks ago, too.

There are two: The Envoy of Shadows and Terra, both in 35-40 arcs. Also, Ubelmann was an EB when I ran that arc, a rather unpleasant surprise. He may be an AV naturally. Zoning only at physical crossings or by monorail. You have to use the monorail as it originally was: Yellow Line (Atlas, KR, Steel South, Skyway North) and Green Line (Steel North, Talos, Indy North, Brickstown – no FF and Skyway South, those were added Issue 9). For 35 and 40 SOs, you have to unlock the respective seller in FF or Brickstown. No Shivans.

FBZ (just about anywhere) for Natterlings (and Overseers, if you didn't have that one yet), Cascade Archipelago (Crimson Falls) for Brutes. Also Crey's Folly (far NW, can't remember offhand if that's Carnival Town or The Circus) for Freak Super Stunners. Remember to whack them in melee so they get back up and they count twice.

Originally, Hero Merits were the reward for completing Hero Morality Missions as a Hero. Fort Trident, which was only accessible by Heroes (not Vigilantes or Rogues), was the place to redeem them – this was the incentive for staying a Hero, instead of going Vigilante and being able to play redside. The Task Force contacts were an extra bonus. Homecoming has changed a lot about how merits work, and that's left Fort Trident without much purpose. But it had one when it was created. (Also, Task Forces weren't in the LFG queue when it was introduced. Also, back in the before times I don't think you could queue solo and teleport to the contact; there were minimum team sizes for TFs that had to be met.)

I don't know if this badge is supposed to have a progress bar, but it didn't for me (neither in Events nor Closest to Completion). It does award as expected. Also, earning this badge awards the Red Cap gladiator.

I did Operation World Wide Red on x3 and got ~120 in one run and finished at about the halfway point of the next one. There's probably diminishing returns on how much cranking team size helps because of the one per group limit on Sappers, though.

There's Always One: Be the last to click "Accept" for your queued event ten times.

Hami zones: The Hive The Abyss Related: Monster Island They have wards against this sort of thing: Midnighter Club Fort Trident Whatever the villain one is Time travel: Cimerora Ouroboros Echo zones (Atlas, Galaxy, Faultline, DA, RCS) The contract with DJ Zero forbids it: Paragon Dance Party (no explores)

In the meantime, going to Echo: Faultline and grabbing a badge there will open it up.

For the Dark Astoria arc, I skipped Max's optional missions and went straight to the finale. I also did Max's personal story. Now, I still have Max listed among my active contacts, but if I call him, I get the expected "no more missions" line. ("You try to call Max, but all you receive is a message informing you that the line has been disconnected.") The latter part is as it should be, but I don't know why he's an active contact if he's not offering missions. (I don't remember if it was like this in the before times or not. I don't think so, but I've slept since then.)

I keep turning back to dominator: good enough damage that soloing in the 20s and 30s isn't going to suck, good crowd control to make City of Ambushes and closely-packed enemies in the underground maps manageable. I'm finishing up the GR launch Praetoria stuff on an elec/elec dominator; the early going was generally okay as long as I remembered to rest (and didn't get ambushed while doing so), and then Static Field is the best power ever for a soloer. One of the last characters I made in the before times was a sonic/sonic defender to run through Praetoria. Never got around to playing her, and don't think I mind.

It even made the official enemy group writeup:

Back in the before times, I would usually come up with a character bio in the 20s-30s. I liked tying my characters to lore groups: my main is distantly related to the Cabal, another character had a brother join the Lost, and my two villains who I played enough to write bios for had reasons why they were in the Zig. (One was arrested by Flambeaux; I noted Kalinda might need to get her third eye checked.) For Homecoming, I've decided to lean into the idea that my alts are all part of the same supergroup and make their bios their supergroup profiles. The ones I've recreated have kept the same basic story, even if the character's changed powersets or archetypes.