DrZeus

Yes... I'm only using temp powers for travel. At first I bought a 5k jetpack to do some radio missions, and then used the jetpack from the radio... but ultimately just spent a million on a rocket sled because it looks so much like a stupid rich guy's toy. So... you intrigue me with the idea of procs on powers I don't use... why would I do that, if not using the powers? I did old school on live... never really got into a lot of inventions... any procs you'd recommend? I can throw luck of the gambler into targetting drone... not sure what to put on field operative, since it is such a versitle power (doesn't cost endurance, gives cloaking, defense, and massive end recharge)... Without needing any travel powers I so far have taken fighting for tough and weave, Medicine for... most of that... (debuffs, self buffs)... presence for soft holds (an underrated pool), and leadership for more damage and tohit. From the above responses... sounds like blaster was totally the way to go. I just wanted to get a targeting drone.

I like to make novelty characters. Melee blasters, characters whose attacks are only kicks (due to their big robot feet looking awesome when they kick) that sort of thing. Recently I made a character based on P2W... I figured I'd only ever damage people with P2W powers. Obviously, I figured this would be kind of gimpy, but a fun concept. A rich guy with no powers other than what he buys from others. I had made a farmer just to see how to do it, but then discovered none of my characters needed the influence because I just don't play that way. I chose a devices blaster - primary not important because I'll never use it, but I could use a targeting drone and a cloak. I found two surprising things. Firstly, he's not gimpy at all. Only using the cheap powers he has four high damage, fast recharging powers to cycle through along with a couple of good AOE powers. He can hit things well due to tactics and targetting drone, and in groups tends to be a boss killer. I'm sure he's not uber compared to people who run at max capacity, but he's a real slugger. Secondly... and the the thing I could use advice for... I'm not sure how to slot things. Keep in mind, I can't slot ANY of my attacks. But I can six slot targetting drone, field operative, tactics, assault, dodge, weave, intimidating presence, pacify, most of the medicine pool... but any suggestions on how to slot these without just simple SO's (or their invention counterparts after level 30)? If you had no reason not to six slot these types of powers... what would you put in them? Money and resources are unlimited because that's the whole point...

This is something I'm figuring out... I tend to run a LOT of alts. I can't even call them alts, because I have no main. So I've been in tons of positron task forces. However, yesterday I had a character high enough to do a synapse task force and they asked if people wanted to do a speed run. I indicated I did not. However... the speedy version we did wasn't that bad. Yes, we had one blaster who just kept trying to go through and clear all the missions for us. However, many of those missions are killalls anyway... and fortunately the rest of the team kind of ignored the blaster and just plowed through taking out bad guys left and right so eventually we either caught up with him or almost did... so we at least got to participate despite that blaster. Due to this... I'm assuming most Synapse task forces aren't speed runs, because it would be harder to do. So while I was assuming that a vast majority of the content is overrun with uber characters... it might have just been the majority of what I was doing. If I see someone inviting for a group, I'll usually jump in.. I love groups. But if PI is something to avoid... I should just avoid those. (I've been in several which leveled my characters way too fast) What content should be avoided in groups? Seems like Posi task forces are highly suspect... PI radio teams are as well... not sure what tinpex is, but i've seen it advertised over and over again. What would you suggest be avoided... and what would you suggest to look out for? (I've found so far the synapse task force and the SBB to be pretty participatory)

Any suggestions on nomenclature to use? Phrasing that will get more bites? I ask because of comments like dark dove.. He thinks +4/+8 is what everyone does.. Even though he is responding to a thread where clearly a lot of people don't like that sort of thing. People don't seem to use the lfg tool anymore, so I can't look there for lower level heroes... I'd like to let people know what they're signing up for in a quick way. I've tried the phrase street level hero, which I think is fitting, but it is not widely used or understood.

I'm still trying to figure out a way to avoid those people in game. I've learned how to avoid them on the forums.... probably in general avoid the forums. It seems to be nothing but people who game the system and are happy to tell you you're a cripple if you don't. Or they'll tell you that you're in their way... there was a thread recently about "how to have a bad time in a task force" that was all about "some people wanted to participate... newbs rofl" HC may be friendly... the forums aren't as nice as they used to be. Do you have any advice on how to avoid those people in game though? I want to group... this game does grouping very well. But most of the time I join a group and next thing you know it there are a few decked out 50's in there and we start running on +4/+8. Not my speed. I'm now useless, can't hit a damned thing, and I level so fast that the journey to the next level is just... gone. I don't earn anything at all. There's no fun in that. I'm thinking the solution might be with the roleplay servers... people who are interested in the play more than the system... maybe a supergroup? Maybe the days of PUGS are now monopolized by speed runners. Not sure, if you've any advice I'd love to hear it.

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When selecting a beastial head, the ear options suddenly change. The ear options are pretty neat... but different from normal ear options. I am hoping we could have monster ears on normal heads... and normal ears on monster heads. Frankly, there is one monster head ... Beast 5... that would look like an AMAZING beastial rabbit. But rabbit ears are not an option.

I admit, most of these rules seem odd to me because I don't consider them a challenge... I just always do them anyway. I never use the auction house.. I do buy enhancements, but you level so quickly now that you run or of influence really fast so I don't really worry enjoy enhancements until my 20's. The one part I don't do is only use things that drop. Good idea. ( and the hardcore mode) It throws me you'd say not to team because you're crippled. You're not. You're fine, just not trying to be uber. You're a street level hero. I could see being anxious about teaming but only because in hardcore mode... Death is more likely in a team, and obviously you'd want to avoid any powerleveling teams just because of death and the lack of fun.

This would Definitely be part of what I was looking for when making this thread. Advice on how to navigate these issues. Communication is key, which is one of the reasons I had noticed all the unneeded abbreviations. (Seriously, you're not on your phone... There is a keyboard right in front of you... We can type whole words). It hinders Communication, and as your appropriately facetious tone implies, communication is not common. On a similar note of lack of communication... Back on live people used the lfg tool. No one seems to now. It's a good tool. Any idea why no one uses it?

I think this is the mentality I'm talking about. You've played the game... so you play it in a way that hinders new players. Of course, as long as you're solo, that's fine. The problem comes when you attempt to group with this attitude. A wise poster above said " it also irks me when people essentially come across as "people should play the game in my prescribed way". That's essentially what this does as soon as you group. Seriously... do what you want by yourself, but once you're in a group there are a variety of playstyles. And a lot of people try to say that there is only one way to play the game. I've seen people ask others not to use knockback. And get really upset about it. Speedrunning in a group is similar. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure these speedrunners would not bother ever group at all in their speedruns if they weren't obligated to. Getting a group together just slows them down. But a lot of this content requires groups, leaving them to bring others into bypassing the game. As you can tell from my replies, I haven't put positive or negative valence on a lot of these observations and changes. There are advantages and disadvantages of each really. But this particular one... the willingness to try to game the system while in a group... I've never seen good valence in any game, and it is done in a lot of games these days. Perhaps a solution would be to have the P2W vendor have a setting you can get where you just get a million merits all at once. I mean, if content is to be bypassed anyway, just let people do it directly. Don't force people to play the game... or even pretend to. Just let them get their max level uber characters right from the get go, like they do with bases. Press a button, get the resources, and do what you like.

Keep in mind, I'm not suggesting they're doing it wrong. I like not having tons of endurance management problems at early levels. A stamina power for all is a good solution to the fact that almost everyone would take that optional power and burn through an ancillary pool to do so. Clearly this game has changed but then again so has the player base. Ever try to play an old NES game? They kinda suck. We just have different expectations of games now. Sure, I have nostalgia for those old days of spending a whole weekend renting a game like Astyanax, and enjoying the hell out of it. But it would be harder to enjoy those same things these days. We've changed too. I'm still undecided as to whether or not early travel powers are good or bad... sure, I like the convenience, as does everyone, but I also like exploring which you just don't do as much with travel powers. There's a reason other MMO's don't typically have them at early levels either. It lets you feel you're in a big impressive world. I can say that I think the ability to teleport from one zone to another with base portals available to all is a bit over the top. And of course... no one is completely pleased with every aspect of any game. But it's often best to be in the game with the most people so that you can group easily. Besides, I've got big respect for those who made Homecoming happen.

I wanted to share a few thoughts I had on Homecoming. As a quick history, I’m a big COH fan from long back. I played back from Beta, was a huge participant in the forums back in the day… heck, I was so involved I once even won one of the contests they had. (I made the “freak and ye shall find” movie that wound up on City of Villains) So I’m a fan… this isn’t a gripe post. I spent years trying to find CoH, hoping there would be fan servers after the shut down, and when I found it again about a month ago, I immediately jumped in and have enjoyed it as much as I ever have. Wish I had heard about it sooner. But there have been some changes, and they have altered the game significantly. The first part is the community itself. People have changed drastically. Abbreviations are more commonly used now in gamer parlance, and these are NOT newbie friendly. Every time I see yet another broadcast for “Posi1 TF LF3M” or “SBB”… I think of the damage these do to newbies. One of the things I always liked about CoH was the community – it was so newbie friendly, so welcoming and someone could jump in and find comrades almost instantly. Not so much now. Now you’re more likely to be turned away from a group because you’re not the right level and they didn’t bother say that on the broadcast… or wind up joining a task force only to find out that the heroes aren’t actually playing the game, they’re trying to skip past all the content and you’re stuck standing at the door. There was some of this in the past of course… truth be told it was the reason I never cared for CoV as much as CoH. The community was worse. I remember people… farming. Seems crazy to farm a game when you can play through content instead, but in CoV they’d farm missions. Start one, go through most of it… everyone leave, reset the mission and repeat. I learned quickly they were not newbie friendly. But now that is kind of everywhere. The people still playing the game are still there of course, it’s only about half the populace who seems to be trying to game the system instead of play the game. Perhaps that is inevitable due to how people play games these days. And the second part… which I think feeds the first are all the “quality of life” improvements. I recognize these weren’t generally done by the homecoming team, they were a lot of changes when CoH went free to play… Being able to level incredibly fast… and then for no drawback double that rate. Travel powers at level 4 instead of 14. Being able to teleport from one zone to another without ever really seeing any of them through supergroup portals or Ouroboros at level 1. Being able to pick up an additional 3 powers right at level one. These things make the game easier. Faster. But meanwhile… the journey is somewhat lost. I have fond memories of exploring King’s Row… trying to get to the rooftops to take out Circle of Thorns rituals – but no new player would ever do that. They’d just fly up. The game was SO clever. A new player would likely never see the details as they’re skipping past them. They might never know there are fire escapes to climb up… or that you can stand on window ledges and jump to the top of almost any building in the Row. Or that when fighting Vahlizok.. you can kill the doctors and then run away and the zombies themselves become mindless and stop chasing you (and won’t team up either, they’ll only defend themselves without the doctors around). They’ll probably miss that stuff if for no other reason the leveling is so fast they’re only fighting Vahlizok for an hour and then moving to the next villain group. I’m writing this to try to get other people’s observations. Have you noticed the same things? Have you noticed positive aspects of these changes? Obviously if the game were the way it was back in Beta then few people would play it now, as games and the expectations thereof have changed drastically, I’m certainly not pitching for that… or anything else. Just wondering if others had similar experiences when exploring homecoming, what else they found, and what they’ve done to mitigate the drawbacks.