ZemX

XP/time is the only measure which makes sense in the context of this thread. It's not "better" XP if cranking up the diff would net you x8 the experience per mission but take you 10x the time to complete said mission. And time is the thing we can't easily theory-craft on the forums as it depends on a full simulation of the combat and all factors involved. Or to put it an easier way, "You just gotta play it." 🤪

https://homecoming.wiki/wiki/Default_Key_Bindings As for future updates, I imagine they will happen the same way this happened, assuming anyone expects the defaults to change any further, which seems unlikely.

I still don't see why this is such a big deal. Isn't it just NOT saving the default binds and can't I just look that up online if I want that info now? This to me seems like more of a speed bump than a "big hurdle". What am I missing? https://homecoming.wiki/wiki/Default_Keybindings_From_Issue25_to_Issue_27_Page_6 People wanting to do more advanced keybinding than this are going to need a lot more than just to SEE these keybinds in the file anyway. So what's the big deal? If I want to edit a text file for a game to do some advanced tweaking, I ALWAYS look that shit up online anyway. Now, whether or not this new profile system is worth putting up with even a speed bump seems to me a much more valid argument, but somehow not the one we're having.

I've really only seen that in Twinshot/Graves. It looks like a following distance problem. Normal hostages seem to follow at a set distance minimum. But Twinshot/Graves NPCs actually look like they're trying to follow at zero distance, i.e. occupy the same space as you. Except that's not possible due to collision so they keep colliding with you. It's harmless... but annoying.

Not all of it. Not even most of it. Also because SR's DDR is enhanceable, it easily overcaps it. I just loaded up my SR/Staff Tanker in Mid's. It has 122% DDR, which is then capped at 95%. Removing the three passives dropped DDR to 82%, so not capped anymore but still quite good. Also had 50/43/42 defense left in melee/ranged/AoE and that's without replacing the lost passives and reslotting. I'm sure you could easily soft-cap and then some with a rebuild. Again, it's hardly optimal but that was a given from the OP's idea in the first place. So having a bit of fun with the idea.

So here's an admittedly wacky challenge in the spirit of the OP.... what kind of result could you get with an SR tanker that took only the toggles and the click mez protect? Obviously, you'd lose a portion of defense, DDR, and the big thing... no scaling resists. But what could you do with all that air in the build? Enough to make up for the lost powers in some interesting way? Maybe a secondary that has a +def power like MA, Katana, BS, TW, Staff? These would normally be overkill for a full SR Tanker. Staff btw seems an interesting choice both for +melee def and +res(all). Or one of the secondaries that has a self heal: Dark or Rad Melee. I am not calling this a "good" idea obviously. You lose a lot. But it might just be what you could call a "minimum viable" base on which to build a Pool Tanker taking only 5 powers and all by Level 12. (btw, Pool Tanker is probably taken but if it wasn't, you could grab that name and a Pool Cue in Staff Fighting... perfection!)

I did and I still don't get it. To be honest, I don't get what was gained by this change to profiles OR what was lost by it. His best argument might be good old, "It wasn't broke, so why fix it?" Maybe hearing from someone who uses the new profiles feature and loves it would change my mind on that. But otherwise, I probably am not touching it. But also, am not really put out by the change either since saving and loading binds on new characters seems to be working fine. Is the only thing you have to do here now is find an offline copy of the full default bind strings list if you want to go text editing yourself? I get that that's not as convenient as the game just dumping it all into the one file for you... but is it THAT big a deal? Also... is this really affecting a lot of people? I don't exactly see the forums lighting on fire over this and it's been a few weeks.

More than a bit, though to be fair it is cosmetic. The redraw never harmed Staff's performance but it sure made you THINK it was slowing you down. The set is much more aesthetically pleasing now that you don't redraw the staff every time you use a non-staff power. And on a clicky primary like my Rad/Staff Tanker has... that was a lot. Overall, of course, be aware that Staff suffers poor DPA. It feels best when you have a nice big group of enemies around you and are hitting them all with a chain of three different AoEs. But it still isn't winning a Trapdoor contest against Super Strength's one dumb foot. 😈 Long as you're cool with that, it's a fun set. I think you did a pretty good job listing what it brings to various primaries. I've done Rad and SR myself and am currently working up a Bio/Staff for the Reunion Tanker Tuesday (on a Saturday) Tour. The mix and match of stances is indeed silly. But it's nice to be able to be in offensive staff for the RES bonus and Defensive Bio for the survivability... at the same time. In fact, though it does give you those NINE modes of operation, I tend to always leave Staff in offensive stance. I'll probably cycle Bio stances as the need arises. Honestly, Invuln was on my radar for a while. I think I might eventually have to try one with Staff just to see what silliness can be pulled of with the resistances. It might be a case of having to do less with IOs if I can count on RES from Sky Splitter. Might even be able to chuck Fighting pool entirely. Imagine some other uses for those power slots. Not entirely having to take Focused Accuracy might mean better epic pool selection for attacks. Hmmm.....

In the good old days when someone was stubbornly standing on a teleport destination in DOOM... they had a different way of handling this. But sure... your way is fun too. 😈

I'd skip at least one of the first three attacks. When I ran a Rad/TW to 50, I skipped Titan Sweep. I might reconsider today but it would probably be in favor of skipping Crushing Blow instead. While it's true CB is the fastest of the "slow" attacks, it's faster than Defensive Sweep by all of 0.12 seconds and it only does less damage vs. fewer than 3 targets. Since I mostly build Tankers to tank for teams, I generally do not care much about ST damage output being optimal. With Elec Armor, you won't have a lot of other places to slot LotG:+rech. And recharge is pretty key here since you want that self heal up as often as possible. Elec Armor has some +rech, good slow resist (though you want to build more), and good endurance recovery and drain resistance. It's got the fuel to go fast. So go fast. I'd take Def Sweep and add LotG to it. Then Titan Sweep with FF:+rech. The thing to know and accept about Titan Weapons is the weird Momentum mechanic. If you are excessively worried about things like optimal attack chains, this set will drive you nuts. Momentum, despite the name, cannot be maintained indefinitely. You gain Momentum for 5s after performing a slow attack (i.e. timer starts after the slow attack finishes) or for 10s after Build Momentum. So now you have 5 or 10 seconds to perform the fast versions of your attacks, which is the ideal. But as @ZorkNemesis notes, it makes you want to do things like delay using Epic attacks and other powers until after Momentum drops so as to not "waste" momentum time. That's annoying because typically I want to use whatever is the most appropriate power for the moment. If I see some enemies making a bee-line over to gut the Blaster, I want to toss out a Taunt at them. Oops... that just "cost" me a fast attack. Or if you don't have taunt, you have to run over there to save your buddy. Re-positioning, healing, pool attacks, taunting, anything other than a fast attack wastes Momentum if it's up. To me, team tanking is managing chaos, not being able to run well-ordered and optimal attack patterns endlessly. If you are more into soloing, it's probably a different story.

Cool origin story!

As someone who uses the same keybinds on all my characters, I've never used anything but the default /bindsave and /bindload. And it's been quite some time since I've bothered to do a /bindsave since I'm pretty happy with my binds. But if I did do a /bindsave on one character, and a /bindload on another. What would be different for me in game as compared to before this change? I'm not understanding this at all from these posts of doom and gloom about the new way binds are being handled. Am I okay as long as I do not bother with these profile settings?

Television in Grandville. The one down in the gutter that's propped up on some cinder blocks and occasionally has random NPCs from various enemy groups just lounging there watching their daily recommended amount of Television.

Interestingly, these numbers aren't a whole lot different from the 2020 data here on the forums. Notably, Tankers are a lot more popular, but I think the 2020 data didn't reflect the buff they got yet, so that makes sense. Otherwise, tracks pretty well the list of active ATs (excluding Brute Fiery Aura) from before. The powersets would be a lot more interesting because they've changed more than the ATs themselves since then.

What @Sunsette said... The in-game power details can't handle certain conditional effects so it sometimes just adds them to total damage. For example, they'll always say Corruptor attacks deal 2x damage when in fact the extra Scourge damage is only a chance that starts at 0% when the enemy is 50% health and increases to 100% chance when they have zero health. It's because the in-game detail window just ignores some conditionals in the effects list. It seems to get "if your AT is this" right but not random chance to occur effects like Scourge. And that's what's happening here. Though it's considerably more weird than Corruptor Scourge. Here is the full detail on Brawl from the powers database as displayed by City of Data: https://cod.uberguy.net/html/power.html?power=inherent.inherent.brawl (Unfortunately we can't select Tanker for the AT here for some reason so we have to look at the raw numbers * modifiers and cross-reference the modifier tables). Brawl does base 0.37 * melee_damage modifier. For a Level 18 Tanker (like you are showing here) that modifier is 24.914. Which works out to the 8.97 damage you see listed at the bottom of the power detail in game. But then it also has a weird effect down the page that is in a section tagged "Hidden in in-game info". Actually lots of weird effects but the key one is the one that can execute Plasmatic Taser's effects 11.1% of the time. So Brawl does a bit of extra damage rarely? So what does Plasmatic Taser do? Well, 0.66 * Ranged_Tempdamage Energy and 0.3 * Ranged_Tempdamage Smashing. Ranged_Tempdamage for a Level 18 Tanker is 39.8077. So all this ranged temp damage works out to an extra (0.66 + 0.3) * 39.8077 = 38.215 damage. It can also proc some Fireworks? Maybe? Kind of looks like the April Fool's joke maybe. Not sure. Anyway, add that to the base 8.97 we had before and you get.... 47.18. So the in-game window is telling you what would happen if all the conditional effects fired along with the base damage. You'd do 47.18 damage with that punch. Over the 0.83s animation time that's 56.85 and averaged over 2.83s (cast + recharge time) it's 16.67 damage. tl;dr: You're going to hit for 8.97 damage. Also, never read the in-game power description. Refer to City of Data instead. It's much more likely to be correct... if you can figure out what it is saying. 🤪

It's settled then. I will roll an alternate reality version of my Rad Armor tanker as an Energy Aura Stalker whose sole mission it is to eradicate all Family Consiglieres. I'll make it look like an accident.

I might hate nothing more than the Singularity change just because of what it did to Family. It's a damned good thing I don't get motion sickness or I'd have to excuse myself from any team that went after Family. It's completely ridiculous because it's EVERY spawn and many times multiple bosses in a spawn and it's always their first move to summon the damned things. Ran into four of them at once yesterday and just about wanted to punch the log out button once I'd gone through all my break frees. It wouldn't be so bad if they just pulled you towards them but the juggling in the air crap is too much.

Yeah, but they were soooo acute, weren't they?

It's really interesting to look through all that. Monster effort. And those pool attacks mixed in really highlights how bad some powersets are for DPA. Or maybe how too-good some pool attacks like Moonbeam and Crosspunch are. It's sort of funny because I'm sure the original Live devs thought they'd struck some balance where pool powers weren't as good as primary/secondary powers but... oops... they never understood DPA originally. Not until players explained it to them.

Depends what people want to do with their Brute or Tanker, I suppose. But that's also what I can't get people in this thread to admit: That just choosing a metric to look at is an opinion... not a fact. If I'm a team Tanker, I would give a rat's ass about Pylon times, really. If I had some special project to build a AV/GM killer than can survive anything? Okay, maybe now I care. But I've never done that and probably never will. And I also think that's pretty rare among the playerbase. Probably why SS is as popular as it is. It does really well attacking groups of enemies and people have managed to deal with the crash in order to reap the benefits. They've looked at that bargain and said, "Okay, sure!" Not everyone has. Obviously ParagonKid hasn't. But that's a matter of opinion, like I've been saying all along. Not fact. But the other point is that it's one thing to note which set is where on Ston's tests for one's own information, but it's wholly another prospect altogether to say a set should be rebalanced by the devs because of it. I've said this and have yet to hear a counter-argument. I've just been ignored: NO set has ever been balanced by Ston's test results. If SS were to be balanced because of what Ston's tests say then ALL powersets should be. So no, this ain't a simple fix.

I expect most people did what I did and assumed when you said the population could be divided into two camps meant ONLY two camps and that you then went on to describe the criteria that would put a player in one or the other. Will anyone think me less a roleplayer if I do not have a sufficient number of complex keybinds?! 🤪

I'm not trying to be insulting (sometimes I am WITHOUT trying.... because that's how good I am at it!). But the whole post was so, "I just thought of something!" about a topic that's been debated and discussed at least since MUDs were a thing. Bartle's Taxonomy is usually where people start and then start discussing whether it applies as well to other kinds of games or whether there's a better way to talk about gamer motivations. Putting people in buckets is, I think, generally frowned upon in both psychology and more specifically in gaming probably. This part in particular was just so bizarrely specific, that it left me looking for the hidden camera. "I'm on TV aren't I? Aren't I?!"

I... can't even tell if you're being serious here. It's just THAT weird.

I only look at City of Data as definitive for describing what powers do. Even Mid's is not great. The in-game power detail windows are least reliable as they don't seem able to parse ALL the details, like conditional effects, and the like. Thought to be fair, even figuring out what CoD is saying can sometimes be a challenge.

I wanted to believe!