thunderforce

Not if you're selling your merits and other drops. There's a guide on the forums to making money that goes into a lot of detail. Also, if you're using sets in your powers you can get a lot of endurance reduction without compromising their effectiveness.

I've been thinking for a while it would be desirable to fork the Paragon Wiki into one specifically for Homecoming. Especially, it would be a good idea to do it before some (well-intentioned) person lumps us with Wikia again. I could easily arrange hosting, but I am basically skint and would have to solicit donations for the hosting costs (I expect they'd be very modest, but even so, I've more time than money.) However, I don't know if the HC team would be keen on something like this being ran by a random user outside of their control. I would hope the Titan Forums people would think this a good idea, to reduce the number of HC-specific edits being wrongly made to Paragon Wiki, and so would be happy to provide a dump of the underlying database. If not, it would still be straightforward to copy the whole thing (but it would lose the edit history). User pages and the like would have to be removed, perhaps reviewing them for the occasional guide that just happens to be in user space. Ideally updates to Paragon Wiki would be considered (there aren't a lot, 1-2 a day, typically) and copied across when desirable. I would hope this could be done with a tool like git cherry-pick rather than by hand. Thoughts?

Aha. On looking in Mids, am I right in thinking the DoT from fire is just gravy - as in, the upfront damage is (modulo resistances) no less than with other rounds, and the DoT's just a bonus? I often team with friends where we have a general agreement that knockback is hilariously awesome and there should be more of it, but that's handy to know, thanks. 🙂

I've made a DP/Sonic corruptor, and just respecced into Swap Ammo at 18 because it seems kind of a pity not to have it. But when and why should it be used? I hope it's not just a matter of memorising a vast list of who's weak against what. Chemical's -damage and Ice's -Defense seem like good things to have when I'm trying to pretend to be a defender and keep people alive, but which? Fire's DoT... eh, I'd rather do damage up front, but perhaps I'm missing something. And how do I deal with Suppressive Fire not knowing if it's a stun or a hold (should I always be using an ammo type so it's always a hold? Just stuff it full of procs and accuracy?) I'd appreciate any advice you can give me.

This is a rather different fact compared to the last supposed fact, and - is that true compared to whatever they could have done instead of the invention system? I don't know that, and neither do you.

Arc ID: 25717 Length: 3 missions Level Range: 33-54 Morality: Heroic Keywords: Solo Friendly, Comedy, Romance Warnings: I think I'm less funny than I think I am. Description: Azuria has become aware of the plight of Turndown Girl, endlessly rejecting Desperate Guy. Help her resolve the situation... while occasionally breaking the fourth wall and punching the Fifth Column.

They are canonically "Destined Ones", not "destinied ones"; the quote around it has incorrectly enclosed a semicolon; the quotes are mismatched; the "due" following it has a spurious capital letter. I'm afraid if I review something, I proofread it. I played this as a Night Widow (obviously, exemplared down to 20). This made it easier than it might have been were I in the level range. I stealthed or cleared on a whim, which is how I normally play her. Briefing: I'm not sure why I'm ERROR: NAME NOT FOUND (let alone why he can talk in bright red). Perhaps it'll become clear. First mission: I appreciate Clockwork are unusual in the Rogue Isles, but I slightly felt I was being built up to expect something more unusual. Stealthed. Ah, it has become clear, now I think to look at my clues. OK, that's interesting. I hope something more is going to be made of this than just "well, it's buggy". Second mission (stealthed): "[NPC] Longbow Minigun: Me neither. Arachnos scares me." This is not normal for Longbow. Now, if later in the arc it turns out there's a reason, that'll be satisfying. (After completion; I feel this was an opportunity to give an additional clue based on how odd you thought that was.) I'd prefer it if Captain Baker had been always shown as an objective, but I guess you want to chain the lot to avoid me getting "Investigate further" before finishing the bombs. Suggest the main mission description could be changed from "Destroy the Longbow base" to "Defeat Longbow base commander, destroy base" or something similar, to make it clear there's a boss+guards. I do like objectives revealed mid-mission, in moderation, but "Investigate further" led me to expect a glowie, not a boss. Perhaps the clue could hint at an enemy to defeat? Third mission briefing: are the Snakes really "supernatural"? Their origins might be a bit, but I sort of expect people in City of X to have a much higher standard for what counts as supernatural, given psychic powers and fireball-flingers are everyday things. Also, the Rogue Isles "are" full of them. I doubt Arachnos has deemed it "sufficient" - "desirable"? "necessary"? Spurious capital in "Destroy". Cleared the third mission. Some good NPC dialogue. However, here I have the opposite problem - when I plant the bomb it tells me the AE system is not letting me leave, but I have a whole list of objectives. The contact even told me about the operative to rescue in advance. Reynard is level 10 for some reason (unfortunate choice of NPC type?) so I'm glad I found him last because he would have had a serious glass jaw. More generally I personally would suggest not using an escort-out if an ordinary hostage will tell the same story. It is during this mission I guessed what the plot was going to be. Exit popup - "test," wrongly encloses a comma. Fourth mission (stealthed): "Future Force," also has eaten a comma in a clue. Also, I appreciate you work with the map tiles that exist, but this is a nice-looking office and obviously not covered in slime. "I think I might have made an error guys" is missing a comma. One of the glowies seems to take a looooong time to collect. "Captain Vensworth," and "Bait and Switch,", same problem. The Altering Tether is just marked as one of the 5 clues, which again has the glowie/defeat confusion (this may seem trivial, but in the regular game the compass instructions are almost always accurate, even if that lets you peek ahead a bit with instructions like "1 device to destroy"). "[NPC] Captain Vensworth: You know, I expected more from a Arachnos Widow. Guess the briefings were wrong" is an odd thing to say when I've just yoinked off half his hitpoints. Is this perhaps meant to be dialogue on defeating me? Also, one of his guards ended up far enough away not to notice me in that fight, which increased the vexation of not being told this clue was a boss+guards. I'm slightly confused at the end of this mission. If the device I pulled from Captain Vensworth is all I need, what's the Altering Tether for? (And why does its clue call it a "Portal Tether"?) Fifth mission briefing: I think either one wipes out all the Longbow operatives, or one kills (or defeats, etc) every last Longbow operative. You don't generally wipe out a singular entity. It's a timed mission; the plot doesn't justify making it a timed mission, IMHO. I can live with one or two, but being given four bosses to kill in the objectives seems a bit overkill when it's a defeat-all. IIRC, compass text for defeat objectives is optional. I could be wrong. The real Longbow, who we are fighting now, don't talk about crisps. This is not consistent with their existing characterisation. This joke could be put in as a clue where you wonder if they're really that po-faced all the time, don't they ever just sit back and eat crisps? Future Force was much easier for me to beat than Warp Shot. This might just be a lucky matchup of powers for me, but I don't see the problem with making her an EB. She says "... With you going back into a cell!" - the capital W is spurious since this is part of her previous sentence. I'm afraid her corpse despawned before I could read her bio, but I found it odd that she is supposedly a member of Longbow but has a different appearance and uses a weapon Longbow don't use. (Warp Shot's bio neatly explains how he mixes up the usual procession of red and white.) I laughed at "As you return from your excursion into the real world, back into... well, the real world". I did not like the last "maybe it was all a dream" paragraph. I have "better things to do anyway", not "anyways". I gave this three stars. It's perfectly satisfactory with no particularly serious problems, but I think it could be improved. In particular, I think the same plot could easily fit into four missions, which would tighten things up considerably. It does follow a well-established and sensible structure for a City plot; you start on a routine assignment, a mystery emerges, it turns out to be a heroic/villainous plot, you go and give whoever's plot it is a good kicking.

In the "To Save a Soul" arc, you get a clue called "Nathan Crane's soul". This refers to "the Carnival mistress" and "the Carnival Mistress". This should be capitalised consistently. Later in that arc (in a defeat-all): [NPC] Harlequin Fencer: We've got to find those tomes before $name does. [NPC] Attendant: We can't have him learning the truth. "Him" is incorrect; it should presumably use the normal facility for picking a word based on the character's gender. Same mission: "You found a book called, 'Introduction to Sanskrit.'" - floating comma. Also in books called "Newt: Pickled, Fried, and Fricasseed" and "Know Your Demons". Later in the arc: "There bones were covered with Cadao's rare herb!". Should be "these". (Not really a typo, but this arc is kind of malformed in that on two occasions you're sent to Cadao Kestrel twice in a row, which reads oddly since in all probability you went to him once then phoned it in, only to be told by the contact that in the last 0.5 seconds he's decided he wants to see you again and inexplicably decided to communicate this to you via the contact (who he knows has been brainslugged by the Carnival) even though you're standing right there.) First mission of Posi 2, the compass tip says: 2 Pieces of evidence to find, 'Retrieve' information from Constructor" The double quote at the end is spurious.

That's not a fact; it's sheer guesswork, especially given that we have no way of knowing what a like amount of development effort elsewhere could have produced. It might even have removed the "SO process of having to replace your enhancements every few levels" - like Homecoming is doing with volunteer developers. I don't suppose we could skip the bit where everyone who likes Inventions tells me they like Inventions (which I know; I acknowledge above that the vast majority of the existing playerbase like Inventions), tells me that I'm wrong for not liking Inventions (de gustibus non est disputandum, and all that), and rejects angrily the suggestion of removing them (which I didn't make)?

I agree too; I play the game we have, but I thought the game was best in terms of in-mission gameplay between ED and IOs, and particularly it's absurd to say the pre-IO game was "shitty"; it's a game I, and many others, enjoyed for years. There was a noticeable transition between pre-Inventions where you sometimes had to think about the current situation when teaming, and post-Inventions where you just had to know how to play your character - let alone now where big teams steamroll everything. I would at most have introduced a small number of specific special enhancements like modest knockback protection for squishies. Of course, I recognise that ship has sailed. Players who feel like me are much less likely to have kept on playing the game, so the majority of the playerbase at shutdown - and now - likes the Invention system. You're quite right about the effect on PVP, especially on live with brutally expensive PVP-Os. It's as if for every thousand chess games you played, you got to start with an extra pawn. (Indeed, the situation in Go is the opposite - you get extra stones against the master, to make for a more interesting game). The benefit of experience should be experience; no-one wants to stick their toe in when the game mechanics themselves are tilted against them. This got a lot of pushback from the people who had ground out PVP builds, but it's still true. No-one likes to play when there's effectively no chance to win. I'd have done the opposite - a dedicated "PVP build" slot always active in PVP zones, and enhancements and respecs for it are free or dirt cheap.

Mr G (Primal Earth), Cracking Faultline mission; the popup says "The Penelope's are fighting each other". Apostrophe.

Do not write in white text on a yellow background, it is hard to read? 🙂

I've just written a document about cross-alignment teaming, especially why one gets kicked sometimes, and invite comments or corrections. However, if you have a correction and you are not _absolutely sure_ of it, please if possible test it (perhaps using the beta server) first. I found some of the things I "knew for sure" weren't true in the course of writing this.

Fortunately, that's not the important bit, and a bit off-topic - the important bit is "relatively low server population means MM pet customisation is more feasible".

I went to the meet-and-greet in London last year. Now, my memory of the occasion is a little blurry - there may have been beer - but I think what was said is that it would cause performance problems in highly populated zones because of the huge number of different costumes visible. That might explain why it can be done on a server populated only by people who don't loathe 4chan.

This is not true. As soon as you respec (all your builds, if using multiple builds) the Crab backpack disappears. This is very easy to test on the beta server. Note that the bug where it turns up in the costume editor is still present, but you can add a cape to it and when you return to the game it's not there.

When I hit level 10, the trainer will tell me I have "attained the Security level where you can found a Super Group". This restriction is gone. When I hit level 12, they will suggesting playing in Super Group mode. This serves no purpose, short of oddball costume stunts that would be more use if we didn't have umpteen slots, and of course will be actively damaging at higher levels. At level 25, they will tell me that Super Group mode is costing me influence - a warning that could be kept, but revised to avoid the mention of Prestige, just telling us that on Homecoming, SG mode is basically redundant. At levels divisible by 10, the trainer could tell me I have earned a respec which I can use with the "/respec" command. (Also, if I do /respec with no respecs, the message that appears tells me about Jack Wolfe or the redside equivalent, because on live one had to visit them to use trial respecs. This message is misleading on Homecoming and a regular source of "Where is Jack Wolfe?" in the Help channel. The message that pops up saying "You can now respec your character! Visit Arbiter Sawyer in Port Oakes or Arbiter Lupin in Nerva Archipelago to respec your character." should also be changed.) At level 50, they tell me that I need to gain more experience for "Security Level 51". This should presumably read "Veteran Level 1". At level 50, they could tell me that the Incarnate system is unlocked. (I checked this carefully blueside, but the same issues seem to exist redside.)

No reasonable person could possibly disagree with that. 🙂 (re the OP, I think Hasten does need a pretty serious nerf and hence I wish they'd decided to argue for the other side, because "anyone who argues to do so is merely arguing to keep their current *build* as is" is a perfect example of poisoning the well and an excellent way to make people dig their heels in.)

For some of us, it's been well over a decade (off and on) and we're not bored. We didn't get bored when getting to 50 was the end in terms of character improvement; we went back to Outbreak, because the game offers an extremely wide variety of meaningfully distinct powerset combinations. How quickly is "quickly"? Paid for games are forced to artificially extend longevity by putting speedbumps in the way. A completely free game can just let people play as much as they want to.

I completely agree that this is a problem that needs to be fixed and, while there might be a better solution out there, the solution you outline is not obviously flawed. (However, I feel that - while this is one of the bigger ones - there are a number of extremely cheesy things one can do with builds, and seriously starting to fix them all would open a giant can of worms. For example, I would agree with the statement upthread that global recharge is basically a bad thing, and favour giving it sharply diminishing returns - but I can't see that being popular, either.)

Missing Melvin and the Mysterious Malta Group contains a clue that tells us that Melvin was "pouring through old documents". This should be "poring".

I think I'm enough of a descriptivist to say it is widely used enough to no longer be an error. Levantera, Rescue Arnold Decker; you get a clue at the end ("Robotic Remains") which says "It must have falsified it's orders ..." - its/it's again.

Fair point; I did some EBs like that back in the day on defenders - Frosty and that one on Striga come to mind. Unfortunately, I suspect with some ATs (in the early days) "several" is so many that this is of limited use - every time you do it you've got a story arc slot tied up for a long time, and hence it won't actually do for more than a fraction of the AVs out there. It gets us the bailey of "technically soloable" but not the motte of "always about the solo option" - that it's technically possible sometimes doesn't change the way the early game was designed around effectively forced teaming and this was bad. ... which, briefly reapproaching the suggestion itself, is still why I think an AT so focused on teaming would be bad.

You certainly can do it _now_, but I think I can promise you with complete confidence you couldn't in the early years of the game. (More seriously, the CoV ATs are, as said, much more solo-friendly on average - and invention slotting means even if arch-villains did turn up automatically solo, you could just fight them...)

(Bolding mine). This is turning into a classic motte-and-bailey defence; when the expansive (and untrue) statement that the game "has always been about the option to solo" is challenged, you retreat into the much less dramatic business of pointing out it wasn't literally compulsory to be on a team any time you earned XP - which is true, but so what? It's true of any MMO, as far as I know, and it doesn't actually justify the expansive statement. Let's look at the pre-Containment Controller. Most of your secondary doesn't even work on you, and if you happened to take Fire primary, until level 32 you have a slight advantage over most Controller primaries in that you merely kill monsters extremely slowly. However, before the great Controller nerf, one thing you do excel at is control - you can lock down considerably more than solo-size spawns, and do it for a long time. Your secondary wants team-mates, your primary wants team-mates to do the damage, and your primary provides control capacity for team-size spawns. Everything about this says this AT is designed to team, not to solo. It only has the option to solo, design-wise, in that you aren't actually prohibited from doing it. It is not in any sense "about the option to solo". Don't let nostalgia blind you to reality. The City was ahead of the game for MMOs with one very solo-friendly AT and a great deal of content that could be soloed, but that didn't make it perfect, and the contrast between the blueside ATs and the redside ones drives home how it was flawed. I think I'm done, so by all means write another rambling screed, make up another obviously-wrong number, and proclaim victory. Or take off the rose-tinted glasses.