Triumphant

Well, in all fairness, the mobs are never going to be "tricky", because the mobs A.I. is dumb as a brick. If you don't increase resistances, controls, debuffs, etc. how do you make them tougher? More hps? Hard combat AT's chew through those like a buzzsaw. Give the mobs a massive to-hit and damage boost? Maybe, but the players that like squishy AT's would moan about this. I mean, I'm no Dev, so I'm talking out of my wazoo to a large extent here, but it seems to me that you've got a limited number of tools to work with, unless you just want to leave the mobs as the ridiculously easy faceroll that they have been- which for endgame play, seems completely unsatisfying to me, personally. I know people say they want to feel "super" and yeah, I get that. But there's (IMO) a qualitative difference between being super (sure, gimme some of that) and an automatic "I win" button (no thank you).

No specific build advice here, but just keep two things in mind: 1) If you're having fun playing the character, then regardless of build stats or power choices, you're doing it right. 2) You have no reason to feel obligated to play the game with difficulty set at +4/8. If you're deliberately making a sub-par build for funsies, then also give yourself permission to dial the difficulty level up or down, until you hit that sweet spot of exciting/challenging but not overwhelmingly frustrating/futile. Also, on a good, well-rounded team, even a sub-par character can do okay in a high-difficulty PUG, assuming you've had enough practice at the game to get relatively competent at play (i.e. the game is very forgiving) and your teammates are sympathetic to your build choice (And I would say 90% of players I've teamed with are very laid-back and easy going about this).

Just wait until you've figure it out enough to get to T3 lvl incarnate powers. THEN, you have to figure out how to go up the ladder twice in the same set to get your T4's. Took me forever to figure that out and there's no clear instructions on how to do it. I love this game, but the way incarnates were implemented was, frankly, utterly confusing. It's reasonable that it's hard to get the powers. That's the whole point of end game content. The over-complexity of the system itself is poor game design, though- if I may be so blunt as to say so. Anyway, just stick with it and keep asking for help. You'll unravel this knot, eventually. Or like myself, you'll grow frustrated with it, give up on it, come back and try again a few months later, grow frustrated again, come back again a few more months after that, get frustrated again, rinse and repeat a half dozen times until you finally manage to figure it out. Have fun. 😄

Regarding new players: I think the most important thing is just to be as polite, patient, and non-judgmental as possible. When new players go into the help channel in-game, or the HC Discord, or here to the forums, and they ask questions or make a suggestion about something that they experienced in the game, don't immediately dog-pile on them and j/ranger them (they won't know wtf that means, anyway- other than someone is trolling them) and give them the benefit of the doubt as a new player trying to learn the ins and outs of the game. I think a lot of us that have years of play time invested in this game forget how many moving parts it has, how many unusual quirks (combined with changes that the devs have made over the years), that are either undocumented, unobvious, or a combination of the two. This can be quite confusing to new players. As with many MMO's, a new player may join a PUG to start experiencing the game and to learn the ropes. If they struggle and do noobish things, don't give them a ration of you-know-what by berating and start criticizing them. There's a learning curve to this game, and if we want to draw and retain new players, we need to be aware of first impressions and how they affect player retention. This bunch (meaning our collective player population) is pretty good in that vein, compared to other MMO games (IMO, at least), but it still is something to bear in mind.

Or, it could be a choice slice of hell. 🤷‍♂️ Enjoy. 😄

Sounds like an exercise in masochism, to me. It does make me want to design a custom AE mission for you though: Max Toggles vs the Malta Sapper horde. 😄

Shapeshifting: Take the forms of the different S.T.A.R.T. vendor travel powers (panther, wolf) + different creature types from the game (Spirit Panthers, Lions, Wotans, Hawks, ect.) and each power in the set changes you into one of these things, which in turn gives you different melee attacks and defense/resist modifiers, movement types/speed boosts, etc. Like Beast Boy or Changeling from DC. I like this idea, too. I feel like the various shuriken powers could be mated to new animations and repurposed for a set like this. I'm all about using existing powers, animations, and game models by mixing them in new ways, to add more power sets in the game. Seems like it would be less work than trying to build completely new things from the ground up (not that I'm opposed to the latter, but I recognize that the Devs have lives outside of the game).

This is a really tough question to answer, as there are so many different tastes, play-styles, and just different variables in the game itself. Knowing nothing about your play style or personal interests, I would say that either controllers or dominators allow access to the most toys (i.e. different kinds of power sets), which can make them the most interesting to play because there are so many different things you can do with them. Both are brittle AT's at baseline, though, and might prove frustrating for a new player to learn on.

I have to agree. It's a largely pointless currency, at the moment. The Devs have some freedom to really tinker with the game now. I imagine they will get around to addressing that at some point in the future.

@Seed22 I'll agree that you've got some bad apples here. I will also agree that General Chat can be a toxic mudhole, where other muckrakers' go to find one another and, for this reason, I typically edit/remove general chat out of my chat box whenever I make a new character. But general chat seems to be where most of those types of players gather in pretty much any kind of game, so that's where you are going to find the most abrasive players. That's true of anywhere you go on planet earth and an unavoidable side-effect of interfacing with other members of the human species. But a great many of us play here on this old game, even in preference to playing on newer games, because we feel the player base is of a completely different kind than those we encounter on other games. That's a statement of subjective personal experience, sure- and you're perfectly entitled to have a different opinion about it (your experience is your experience). What makes this game notably different for me, is that when you get the General Chat bozos causing trouble in a PUG, other members of your team will typically take them to task for their douchebaggery and have your back if they give you any trouble. Team leaders will often not tolerate such behavior and will kick abusive players from the team. There is (IMO) a spirit of 'we look out for one another and take care of each other here' that I just haven't found in other gaming communities. I mean, it could even be a sample size bias thing. Maybe games with a larger player base have a correspondingly larger number of jerks that make the players of those games seem more unpleasant, when they really aren't. I don't know what the actual explanation is, I just know that people have (over all) a very different vibe here than they do on other games that I've tried. Now, having said that, don't misunderstand: There are some forum members here that can occasionally push my buttons (And sometimes, I may have that effect on others myself- albeit unintentionally. Personalities are personalities. Sometimes they clash). I try not to let that distort my view of the player base as a whole, though (or, for the most part, even those players that push my buttons. Maybe they just have a very different personality type than I do. Maybe they're just having an off day. Etc.).

I'm not gonna downvote you, but you're dead wrong on that. This community is one of the best of any game anywhere. You've got bad apples anywhere. This topic (however you feel about it), doesn't make the players worse than WoW players.

Very strange. Maybe try asking on the Homecoming Discord, as well? Might be someone on there that could check into it for you.

I say that, because I already essentially said everything in your reply in the second part of my post. So, the only two real possibilities are either 1) You didn't read the 2nd half of my post or 2) You lack the mental acuity to understand it. I wanted to give you the benefit of the doubt on the second one. Thanks for erasing all doubt.

Try these: /bind lshift+lbutton powexecname combat teleport /macro Bamf! "powexec_location target Combat Teleport" /macro Back! "powexec_location back:max Combat Teleport" /macro Up! "powexec_location up:max Combat Teleport" Combine with tab-targetting nearest enemy and/or specific enemy target macro's, this will change your life as a melee combatant. 😎

Hey, thanks for this. 🙏 I was not aware of this slash command.

Homecoming doesn't have to allow anything. You didn't read my entire post.

Weird. Looks like your last post was about 7 hours ago. Have you tried it today?

You can make a similar looking character with a different name and background, but you still need to make the costume notably different in some way. Or you you can make a parody character (parodies are protected under free speech). So you CAN'T make Bruce Banner, The Incredible Hulk. But you CAN make, Spruce Planner, the Unbearable Sulk. Here's the bottom line, though. This is a private server, and you are a guest here. If the people running the server are not comfortable with the character you're playing and are worried about running afoul of copywrite violations, and those same people tell you to change the appearance or name of the character for those reasons, you really need to respect their hospitality by complying, or else go find some other place to play. Just one dude's opinion. This is a great game and it's free to play. I don't wanna rock that boat, mang.

Yeah, I had two instances of both Brickstown and Kings Row last night. Probably server maintenance, yes.

About 90% of my characters utilize Combat Teleport (along with the macros needed to properly leverage it in battle). This is one of the most effective movement powers in the game, and once you get used to having it, it can be (IMO) almost painful to do without, most especially if you're playing a melee toon. It really is one of my favorite powers in the game and you can get everything you need out of it by only slotting a single enhancement in it (though I often put a set of 2 Winters in there, to get the slow resistance and a bit of fire/cold resist).

If I'm playing on a PUG, I always assume that I'm playing with people of varying levels of skill and experience, so I just suck it up. It's not worth the emotional investment to throw in with a group of randos and then be irritated when they don't play the way that you want them to play or if you get the occasional jerk face (an unavoidable consequence of interfacing with the human species though, as a misanthrope, I do sympathize with your feelings about this). Also, I'm a fairly mediocre player, so I may be one of the people causing the problem for you (though, not in this particular case, as I don't use wormhole/fold space). You've got basically 3 options when you're playing an MMO: 1) Play solo. 2) Play with a group of buddies that you know and trust to play the game the way you like to play it. 3) Suck it up, Buttercup.

Here's what I reference. Covers pretty much everything I need w/regard to teleport macros:

It was a bizarre choice for a powerset with an otherwise extremely cool-looking set of effects (Noir may be the best looking themed set in the game, IMO). Would love to see a no effects option for those rainbow/sparkly powers, agreed.

I avoid the dodgy Japanese translation problem by using descriptors in the Kung-Fu movie or G.I. Joe tradition: Snake-Eyes, Steel Fang, Storm Shadow, Striking Death, etc. Or some other, even more comic-booky gimmick. P.S. But, Ninja Clan SG is a cool idea. I approve. 😎👍

Yeah, those spectral demons can be a pain. Definitely pays to take them out as soon as possible.