Astralock

The base macro was an exploit. It was never intended for players to use. It allowed people to cheese Master of * runs, and PvP. More importantly, what few people knew up until the exploit was closed, was that because the command was never meant for players to have, it let you literally go anywhere in the game. Including other people's missions and Incarnate trials. The base macro exploit had to go. And yes, some people did use it to do exactly that.

Yeah, Scrapper’s Critical Strikes really could use a nerf.

It’s not condescending. It’s a fact that many players (of any game), are both lazy and only care about rewards. Nothing else matters to them. So you occasionally need to string a carrot.

Prior to Page 2, there was literally no reason to have a Controller on the team. A Mind Dom or Plant Dom, sure. A Controller? No. Why would they when Blaster's controls were nearly as good, and they do a ton more damage? I've also literally seen multiple Advanced Difficulty ASF leaders state that Controllers were a "carry" slot only on their respective teams because their controls were considered useless and they didn't do enough damage compared to Blasters and Dominators.

IIRC, the only changes made since Page 2 that required a respec is for AFK farming. And well, AFK farming shouldn't exist and GM Jimmy publicly stated a couple of years ago that one of Homecoming's goals is to eventually find a way to kill AFK farming without significantly impacting other activities.

Homecoming has 38,053 people in their Discord server, and only 1,306 in game. That's about 3.4%. That's really no statistic to go by.

Yes, play on Thunderspy and enjoy the overtly anti-Semitic and racist remarks on their Discord server. Thank you, but no thank you. Tried it a while ago and bailed shortly after, after seeing stuff like that on their Discord server. Nope, I’m good. It’s a shame, because the Thunderspy developers are indeed talented and I like what they’ve done. Also, I recall one particular City of Heroes rogue server admin bragging a couple of years ago that his server expense was only about $200 per month, alluding that the Homecoming staff was profiting off of donations. Except that server never had more than a couple dozen or so people on it concurrently, and didn’t have a beta server. Also interesting to note that it had no security and had no backups either, and had to shut down as a result. Coincidence that it was so cheap in comparison, I am sure.

But can they be used as a flamethrower? You know, for next April Fool’s Day, Longbow should launch flaming Pop-tarts at you.

Here you go. You will need a BitTorrent client and 7-Zip or Bandizip.

There is no best server.

The game has already lost about 75% of its population compared to two years ago. A good many of them (not all, probably not even most, but definitely a good many), including most of my friends (dozens of people), that played back in 2019 and early 2020, are long gone because they felt that SCoRE's changes made the game too easy. They're right. So by doing nothing about the power creep for so long, Homecoming has already lost a lot of players. You're right, it's a no-win situation. But by doing nothing for so long, Homecoming has already lost people, and they'll continue to lose more. I hoped that some of my friends would come back to check out the ASF, but not a single one did, as they all moved on to raiding in different games. A couple of them came back to check out the Advanced Difficulty ITF, hoping finally for some challenging content, but they saw people cheesing it by cycling the Barrier Destiny instead of using anything resembling strategy, and noped right back out.

Yes, undoubtedly. The game was simply not balanced for that level of accessibility. Some things being rare and relatively inaccessible were part of the balance equation. That balance was broken by the greater accessibility enabled by SCoRE. For the past three years, there's been all kinds of complaints both here and on the Homecoming Discord server. "This game is too easy." "People keep throwing Judgements all over the place." "Blasters are tanking TFs." How do you think that these became issues?

If you really want to get down into it: Mistakes made by Paragon Studios: Side switching, adding a new tutorial area (Praetoria, despite that I actually like it). Mistakes made by the Homecoming team, (most of which were the result of trying to rush Homecoming out): PvP IO enhancements no longer remained gatekept behind PvP. ATOs and winter origin enhancements became too freely available. Veteran levels giving out Incarnate threads and Empyrean merits. AE having the option to give standard drops. Sentinels. Free 50% XP boosters. Double XP boosters, period. What you're seeing with Pages 3 and 4, and will undoubtedly continue to see with pages 5, 6, and so on, are attempts to both correct the serious power creep enabled by Homecoming's decision to rush out the SCoRE codebase to the general public, and provide additional difficult content to make use of said power creep.

Homecoming will never do that for good reason. It would be way too much manpower to handle divergent codebases for multiple servers for an all volunteer staff. Your best bet is to play on the Rebirth server. It is closest to what City of Heroes was like prior to sunset.

Yes, Radiation Emission, Dark Miasma, or Time Manipulation are your best bets.

Incarnate abilities in general are not the issue. Destiny is. Particularly Barrier. Alpha, Interface, etc., are all fine.

See my thread.

No.

The Imperious TF has always been rough on Masterminds. I suspected that Masterminds would be a complete no-go on the Advanced Difficulty Imperious TF. FWIW, Masterminds are just fine on the Advanced Difficulty Dr. Aeon SF, (despite whatever you may hear). So it’s not Advanced Difficulty that is the issue, it’s the Imperious TF.

"Just lead how you want." Sounds great, except that doesn't work out in practice. Most people are inherently lazy and will always take the path of least resistance. "Join the guy who is asking people to use strategy, or just join the guy who will let us spam Barrier so I don't have to think? I know which one I'm joining!"

Before any more Advanced Difficulty TFs or SFs are added to the game, please nerf Destiny outside of Incarnate trials. Right now, both the Advanced Difficulty Dr. Aeon SF and Imperious TF are cheesed by cycling the Barrier Destiny ability, removing both challenge and the need for strategy. People are even demanded to have a tier 4 Barrier Destiny ability prior to joining. I would suggest possibly cutting the buffs from Destiny in half outside of Incarnate trials, or prevent Destiny abilities from stacking outside of Incarnate trials. That would open up diversity of Destiny abilities, and add challenge back to the Advanced Difficulty TFs and SFs.

Because Super Speed is both faster than Athletic Run, and you can slot it for endurance reduction so it doesn't use near as much endurance in comparison. Fire farmers tend to be endurance hogs. Plus you have to take Hasten anyway.

They were task forces back on live. They were changed to standard story arcs by SCoRE during the "secret" years when they combined the blue and red Ouroboros zones into one zone.

The top secondaries for Dual PIstols are Atomic (for reasons stated), Mental (for reasons stated), Temporal (for reasons stated), and Sonic Manipulation. Especially now in Page 4 since Sonic Manipulation's -res toggle no longer drops if mezzed. Sonic Manipulation because it's melee-heavy and Dual Pistols wants you in melee, and the -res ring will help offset the high lethal damage resistances mobs have. Personally, I say nay to both Devices and Tactical Arrow. Those are both ranged secondaries, and Dual Pistols wants you in melee. There's little synergy with either.

You do that at the Merit Vendor ATM, not Luna.