Lines

I've noticed exactly this and wondered the same. I seemed to get ECs sometime in the first mission or two of TFs and then never again. It can't be a coincidence at this point.

I'm so angry at this thread.

Actually, it's a bit different to this. The typing bubble is actually hijacking the afk flag. Usually that little bubble would read 'afk' when a player is stood still for a certain length of time or you can force it with the /afk command. You can give the little bubble custom text with /afk <custom text here>, and the bubble will read whatever you've written. So what you're seeing is people using it in a macro bind in conjuction with the startchat command when they hit the enter key to start typing. The bind might be something like: /bind enter "afk typing$$startchat" where 'enter' is the keyboard key being bound, 'typing' is the custom text in the afk bubble, $$ separates the two commands and startchat places the cursor in the chat box.

I should have mentioned your build formed the base of mine. There’s some small adjustment for theme and for how I found I was playing, but the biggest changes came in cost reduction. Patching up the defences without the winter sets took a lot out of the build. So I’m not trying to compete by any means, just being aware of my budget and using your outcome as a benchmark. When December roles around and the winter sets become available through playing the content (presumably), I’m sure the build will transform entirely, but this was my short-term aim. I definitely need to look back now and decide on new changes. Aid Self is very tempting if I could put up with the unthematic look of the pool. She dinged 50 last week and she’s quite a lot of fun when she isn’t mezzed. Urgently gotta get Clarion on her.

I have no idea; I’ve only ever used it on the hydra trial. It might be that it works when the map has no base portal or beacon. So the same thing might work in the Hollows tunnels for instance.

CoH also has beautiful world design compared with Champions. Champions seems mostly empty to me, with a few points of interest that don't really relate well to one another. Especially I-forgot-the-name city, where the city centre had those obnoxious, inescapably large, ugly skyscrapers and everything else looks like it could be 80's small scale architecture. Those skyscrapers were like a few shops (for superheroes) or an arena (for superheroes), it broke the immersion. Why were these hideous monuments erected? Why are significant buildings like the town hall and the superhero-group-I-forgot-the-name-again headquarters dwarfed and made to feel like a byproduct by these irrelevant monstrosities? I mean look at this nonsense. They don't even make sense against each other. One is future-art-deco and the next is a pair of long-ass tubes. I think there's a blimp on top or something. Paragon City, The Rogue Isles and Praetoria all hold together really nicely. The cities are designed with focal points in mind. The Atlas Statue, Cole's Tower and The Tangle are all great scales for the world around them and have the meaningfulness to back them up. Good world design goes a very long way to make the world feel engaging, regardless of the quality of the graphics.

I'm sorry if this is inaccurate information in any way. It's entirely possible that I've misunderstood the rules here, but here's my understanding: It's pretty circumstantial. Attuned means that any set bonuses you gain will sustain when you exemplar below the normal enhancement effectiveness range. For instance if you have level 50 sets, you'll lose those set bonuses once you exemp below level 47, but attuned sets will keep the bonuses. However if the set has a minimum level (Say, Obliteration, which has a minimum level of 30), then that cap is still in place and the bonus will stop working 3 levels below (level 27 for Obliteration). Usually, you will want to attune so that your bonuses come with you through as much of the game's content as possible. Boosted means that the effectiveness of that enhancement's normal properties are increased. A good application could be on hasten, where two +5 boosted recharge enhancements would do approximately the job of three unboosted recharge enhancements and saves you a whole slot. If you use this on a level 50 IO set, then their set bonuses will still only work down to level 47. You can't refund boosters or catalysts once they have been use.

They're the same thing. You use a catalyst to make an enhancement attuned. I guess some people might call that being 'catalyzed', but I've never heard that before. The catalyst can also make ATOs and WinterOs superior, but they were attuned in the first place. Maybe that's what people meant by catalyzed.

Taxibot MVP.

I replaced some of the Kinetic Melee sound effects with those from some of Reichsman's attacks, which are far more gentle to listen to but still have that 'momentum then whack' sound. Some trial-and-error later, they match up pretty well. However, after I got my KM/bio to 50, I just put them to bed and left them there. Even have half a mind to reroll them as a MA/Bio, just for how tedious the KM animations are. Having done it, I'd definitely not pick it for a speedster build.

If you're in an SG with a medporter in the base, the option to go to base will be available alongside the hospital option when you die. If you then leave the base through the normal entrance, it will plop you right outside the mission. This title gave me flashbacks to The Hollows in the early days.

I don't think it would improve quality of life at all. I for one would be lost all the time.

Phwoah, what a question... With infinite technical knowledge and infinite man-hours, I wouldn't say it's out of the question at all. Those are huge and obvious restrictions. I looked at the map for a while after reading this. There's a lot of space doing nothing in between the war walls and the zones don't actually tessellate. It could be resolved, but some stretching or extending of the zones might be necessary. Some new areas would be needed, such as the bridge/tunnel between Steel and Boomtown. If Peregrine Isle were added to this borderless city, then there are whole shores that would need to be considered. Thematically, some zones don't sit well together. Crey's Folly and Eden would be particularly odd zones to try to consolidate into their neighbours, right down to having a different 'tint'.

I usually 'feel out' a build up to 50 rather than plan ahead, with the exception of my Warshade who uses the popular human-only build found here and a nearly-petless MM where I wanted to make sure it could work. I usually eat through at least two respecs per character. That MM needed high end IOs slotted as soon as possible in order to be effective. She needed a respec around about lvl 38, but even so I could keep most of the stuff i had slotted and either store/sell anything that I'm no longer using. It's pretty expensive for a casual player, but it's really fun having access to bonuses and that extra 'oomph' from sets. I think my 50 defender, however, is yet to use a respec but since they were my first 50 on HC and I've barely touched them since, they're still on an SO build. They'd need a respec if I wanted to kit them out properly.

I have issues with Twinshot/Graves, but difficulty isn't one of them. I'm sure I remember dying a few times on the Manticore mission, but I don't equate that to bad design.

This is a cool idea! I might try a character themed around the four elements and have them change between elementally-themed outfits as their relevant power is used. Would just need to figure out a build that makes use of the elements through pool powers and epic pool powers.

Onga Bonga!

I don’t think there’s any solid reason to change what AE does, but I disagree with OP and a few others that the rest of the game needs to be accelerated to match it. (Edit: reread and realised OP wasn’t actually saying this directly. Sorry to misrepresent) XP in normal content is only bad in relation to AE farming, but in of itself the pace of the game is great. I’ve been playing with dxp, but might drop to 1.5x or 1.75x just to pace things better. Maximising efficiency isn’t the same thing as playing the game to me. I’m in no rush to create level 50 characters; the game starts at level 1 for me. I don’t feel like I should be earning something for every minute that I play. I enjoy traversing the city, it’s part of the game and I don’t want missions to be delivered to me at the snap of my fingers. Heck, I even enjoy Oranbega and the Shadow Shards and I hold an issue with some of the ‘QOL’ travel options, which water down the immersion to me*. I much prefer to do contacts when they’re available at my level rather than through Ouroboros. AE is a great option for those who play the game for the high end content, but don’t keep taking the game away from those of us who want the slower pace, immersion and adversity (what little of it is left). What would be the point of this wonderfully detailed world if we’re encouraged to avoid it? *I’m talking about the TUNNEL network giving access to Firebase Zulu. Portal corps has an enormous, clearly expensive and insanely high-tech portal in their headquarters, with sandbags and watchtowers ready to stop Rularuu invasion forces. One day some jesters turn up like ‘plop’ here’s a piddly little yellow thing in the centre of populated areas that does the same job. It bothers me greatly.

I'm talking about those actual lmgtfy links that you see now and then. Maybe it's just me, but they've got a patronising tone to them. Pointing someone to the right wiki article is no bad thing, especially when there's a lot of information to devour. There are definitely other wrong ways to deliver information too and as you say, some topics are significantly hot. DfB for instance brought out the worst in people for the first few weeks of HC and that was rife with new players or players trying to refamiliarise themselves with the game. But there's degrees of the issue here - a discussion like this one of two different opinions is fine (until it clogs up the help chat, then maybe it just needs to go to tells) but when it gets to childish name calling then there's a whole new problem. Usually the questions asked don't have space for differing opinions ("How do I get to Peregrine Isle?") or they might be questions that can't be found online or just need confirmation ("Can I unlock patron powers blueside" (You can't)) I'd not advocate that someone who doesn't want to stop and hand-hold a new player be forced to take the time to do so in any way. But I like to feel helpful.

On more than one occasion I've seen folks ask for help over something and be met with a cascading torrent of information. The AH, enhancements and crafting tend to be the biggest culprits here. The trouble (or the really great thing) is that everyone approaches these things in different ways or engage with it to different depths, so a lot of the advice that you get is dramatically different. Some folks, as you've seen, are a little more zealous about their approach than others. So you'll get guides that give a quick overview of a subject that makes whatever it is you're trying to learn seem simple, or you'll get a guide that talks about the same thing buts scrutinises it down to, like, hexadecimal memory addresses. You'll see all sorts if you look through the builds here on the forums. I dunno how Devil's Avocado you're being, but I can't agree with this at all. There are topics that are too in-depth to go into in game and need a good solid guide, but if you don't know how in-depth the question is you're asking I don't see the harm in asking the help channel. Besides, it's always a good conversation starter if nothing else. I get more angry at those 'lmgtfy' links. They're just so snide and dismissive.

I think they meant 'many more people than prior to AE' or 'than on live' rather than that there are more people who PL than those who don't. I'd take a lvl 50 newbie over an overpowered veteran who storms ahead of the team without communicating it. I can deal with wipes better than I can deal with unsolicited ghosting of missions.

I went through the exact same thought process. My only reservation is that now I'd have a power slot per character that I won't know what to do with.

Speak for yourself.

You can double-click on the name of the option you want to play and it should launch right then and there, regardless of what the launcher is doing.

This seems to happen when changing resolution settings to borderless. I just swapped between monitors and all of my settings reset then and there.