Ukase

The towering inferno badge stumps me to this day. My understanding was one of the original devs had stated that there was no place a character couldn't get to with whatever travel power they chose. With no jet pack, and having combat jump and SS, I've yet to get to the top of that building. I'd thought I could hop up, maybe catching a foot hold or two on the window sills, but no such luck.

Opinions are definitely going to vary. My thoughts are - if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Last I looked, it wasn't broken. There's a reason the cap was put in place. Respect it. There is no reason to raise it that can't be refuted by some philosophical argument or another. (and the converse is true) I say that not to be contrary, but imagine this: Assume no obstructions. Two ships on a parallel path north, side by side. If the ship on the west (left on your imaginary map) takes an ever so slight turn of 1 degree to the west, it's barely noticeable at first. After a time, though, the two ships are quite far apart. So why this nautical tale? I picture the ship on the left to be HC CoH, and the ship on the right to be the CoH from shut down. We keep these changes up, and the game is drastically different from what it was. It's already changed so much, and some of these changes while fun in the short term for some, have led to disappointment for others. Fortunately, the game is still free for us to use. And we have the right to see if the way others servers do things is more to our liking. At this point, for me, I have a lot of time invested in HC CoH already and prefer not to go elsewhere. But I don't want to see all these changes taking place, just so a tank can herd the Eden trial into one room and a blaster can go Nova and explode a small fraction of the hundreds trying to eat the inedible tank. Sure it's fun, but it's only fun a few times, then it's kind of dull. (but that is likely just me) Do we really want to go back to a time when the only viable ATs are those that can herd and those than can nuke? I don't. Some may argue that a tank should be able to grab aggro off of a wayward teammate that gets into trouble. I respect this view - but isn't it time we placed responsibility on the shoulders of these careless players? Pay attention people! If the team splits because some of you aren't following the tank - it's not the tank's fault. They are not responsible for you anymore than the defenders/corruptors/controllers/MMs are to heal/buff you. (or those with incarnate destinies). You have inspirations in your tray for a reason. Use them if you can't pay attention. //end rant. Thank you. I feel much better now.

Yowza, Yomo! I "feel" like I'm close to your total. Just as you do, I'm sure, a healthy number of bids outstanding, sales pending, inventory, etc. Liquid Inf is currently: 197,853,842,712 I expect to break 200B tomorrow; the sky is the limit.

heh, as I stated, "Opinions vary". I said they could make the argument. I didn't say they would win that argument.

The simple truth is this: Opinions vary. Most, with proper motivation could make the argument that ANY one Archetype is useless in end game. Blasters? Great for dps - but so are scrappers, brutes, khelds. (in nova) and some corruptors. Corruptors - great for buffs, good for damage - but controllers bring a decent amount of dps with their pets in end game, and good buffs, too. Defenders bring better buffs, too. Defenders - the best buffs, not so great damage themselves, but some have great damage multipliers - kin, rad for example, Further, great debuffs, like dark. I could go on. And someone could come behind me and refute with their own opinions. Because we can all recognize that all of us are entitled to our opinions, the simple credo of "play what's fun for you" wins the day. Understand that some league/team leaders for certain content may not need your services as a tank. Don't take it personally. Just do something else. They may know something you don't - or they may not have a clue and you've been spared a miserable time. It's really none of our business. We have our own paths, wherever they may take us. An in-game friend who I consider to be quite knowledgeable thinks Fire/Nature corruptors are just the greatest. I made one. He shared his build, I saw his goal was perma-overgrowth. Makes sense. I kept the perma, changed the travel powers, a few other minor adjustments. But I remain unimpressed. It's okay, but I like the fire/rad corruptor better. Yeah, the animation of the debuffs sucks. But I still like it better. For reasons of our own - we like a slightly different flavor of corruptor. Neither of us are right or wrong. Do I think my debuffs serve a league/team better in the end game? Absolutely. Do nature's buffs serve a league/team better than my feeble radiant aura and AM? Absolutely. Are both characters obsolete in end game play? You can make the case for it either way. Just depends on how much you want to troll your friends.

Using a respec to get the SOs out to sell is an oldie but a goodie. There's no downside.

I confess, I'm surprised they're going back up in price so quickly.

The only thing I would change would be for Domination to go off automatically without needing to be clicked, or allow the dom to auto fire two powers instead of just one.

I almost stepped in that water. I restrained myself, mainly because I thought "Does it make sense to invest X to make X.5 to 3X when the X that I have is enough to last me ......at least 200 alts if I made no further influence. I do like the Experienced/Buff Amplifiers and the merits are great for making converters. So, I bought my fair share. But only for use, not really for profit.

They say the first step is admitting you have a problem. What I can't tell is if the OP is bragging or complaining or admitting they have a problem.

When the sale started, the HC devs reseeded the supply to 10Million. So, only packs sold during this particular event. I wasn't smart enough to take note of the initial number last year - as I was lucky enough to learn about the sale, but only after it started.

As of this writing, 194187 packs have been sold. 1,941,870,000,000 influence has been "sunk", or spent, if I mashed the right keys on the calculator. I think they must be waiting on the full 2 quadrillion, lol. That's about 233K winter-Os in "circulation" (if we include those that stay in character email and in storage bins). Converters are in a higher number than I remember seeing them before - 64,726 currently, seeming to hold fairly steady at 70k. I did think Winter-O prices were going to drop more than they have. Will be interesting to see if greed gets the best of the new marketeers as they try to reclaim their investments. 1439 players on right now. An average of 135 packs per "account". No way for me to know how many are dual or triple (or more?) accounts from the same player. Kind of mind boggling when I imagine that half of those players probably have no idea what winter packs are, nor that they went on sale. Or is that a flawed perspective? 100 packs is a billion inf. 1.35 billion...the top 1% of the players must have a lot more than I thought they did. I better get back to marketing and farming!

Yeah, I can see how that would rub someone the wrong way. I did a villain arc, and on the second mission, the contact had one word for me. "Stupid". No next mission immediately popped up, no prompt to reply, (or retaliate). Served me right for going red side in the first place. Unfortunately, what you say is probably how things should be - an average build shouldn't have as difficult a time of it as you said. A PB (or Warshade) is literally starved for slots. Usually, you've got 3 forms, but you get the same number of slots, despite having a lot more powers that could use some help. And it's definitely harder at 25 with much fewer slots than exemped from 50. I think you're also correct in that a sturdier AT would fare better. Which is a shame, isn't it? Seems like any AT should be able to do the task with the right amount of problem-solving skills and reflexes. I hope you'll continue to play despite the lack of enjoyment you had. There's still fun to be had, particularly with the right bunch of folks to join you.

I can't speak about how failing this mission impacts the feel of the arc. I agree, there were some mission objectives that could have been made more clear. I had zero problems on my 2 blasters, corruptor or tank with those zombies exploding on me, in fact, I was thrilled because I didn't have to defeat them. They commit suicide, and they dealt me next to no damage. I was wondering why they were even there. (all were done solo) I think many of us have different arcs/npcs that we don't enjoy dealing with, story arcs we find tedious or ridiculous for one reason or another. Difficulty has yet to be a reason for me, though. If everything is a cake walk, then the game gets dull - and candidly, the game is already quite dull for more than a few of us, as far as difficulty goes. The community is probably the one thing keeping folks who feel this way playing the game. I've done each arc a few times, and after having been through them, I didn't find them remotely difficult. Thing is - my characters are built fairly well, with what I consider "the best IOs I can buy". I do think if I weren't soft-capped on defense or with max hp, certainly some parts would be quite challenging. If that is the case here - where you're just playing with common IOs, or SOs, or you're on one of the ATs that are late bloomers, or a kheldian that is designed for team play (note that you get buffs for having certain ATs on your team which suggests that premise) yeah, I can certainly see where it would be tough. But "unbalanced"? I'd like a little more explanation of how you define that, or what you mean by unbalanced. All that aside, sorry you didn't like it. Perhaps you could give an example of an arc you did find balanced, that you enjoyed?

There's one problem to this. Slotting. Some players will do the math and use procs to full advantage. In these instances, a water blaster could outdps a fire blaster. As could perhaps other blasters. Others have done pylon testing, but the issue of slotting remains the same. Further, NPCs tend to be more susceptible to certain damage types, while others are more susceptible to different damage types. It's all apples and oranges. Heck, part of the reason fire is so good is because of that very reason. Lastly, most tests look at final builds at 50+3, but don't even think about how the characters will fare at levels 10, 20, 30 and 40 and everywhere in between. Sure, a lot of folks PL straight past that, but a number of other players play through content to 50. There is no one, best answer. Attack chains, slotting, NPCs - all impact any answer.

To me, it's rather simple. The choices are: 1. Leave it as is. 2. Buff Hami - but how? Perhaps more KB against those trying to kill mitos and those trying to buff taunters. More end drain from all mitos. Enough where ageless would be required. 3. Debuff players - remove the use of Incarnate powers other than Alpha. The level shifts from Lore and Destiny are already gone - the powers should go, too. 4. Leave as is, but reduce the zone cap to 24. (the other folks can form a second instance in Hive 2 if need be) For me, Option 4 is the best option, because it would encourage those who might not lead to do so, and it limits the steamrolling of hami, and would require more focus. And, it leaves incarnate powers alone. A stinkier option is to reduce the reward, but that would have the wrong impact of reduced interest.

So...I'll be transparent. I didn't buy that many winter packs. At least, not as many as I had planned on. Last year, I don't really recall how many I got - I think it was 10B worth. And I had a lot of Winter-Os remaining in my email stash. So, this time around, I only got 5 Billion worth. Honestly, there's nothing in the packs that I don't already have in abundance. I did a tally of all my characters, knowing how much inf they each carry, and checked the emails. While I don't have a trillion yet, I think, if I were to actually focus on it, I could get there in about 6 months. To what end, though? A wise marketer can start ANY character at zero inf, with no help from alts and still get inf cap in a couple of days easily. (if not sooner) So what do I really need big stacks of it for? I often feel like the cat that brings a dead bird to its master. I have the killer instinct; I can make the kill, but I'm at a loss of what to do with it after. Converters are dumped on the market and are easily gotten via reward merits. Reward merits are easily gotten through TF/arc/explorations/conversions. Inf is super easy to get via farming, marketing and just playing. I am still boggled by the folks that don't understand how easy it is - but these are the folks that can't be bothered to read the excellent guides by Yomo and others. Crafting is super simple; converting is as well - but damn does it get tedious when doing it in large numbers. The content...well, thank goodness for different alts providing differing experiences, despite the same storylines. I know I'll take heat - but I think it is only matter of time before the HC devs take steps to inhibit or prohibit afk farming. I've no idea how they would do this, but I think it's in the near future. The notion of taking a day to get to vet level 99, converting 400 emp merits to 4000 reward merits to 12k converters, (840 million if sold at 70k each, not including fees) or other goodies. I just can't see that being allowed for too much longer. Notice I put that last bit at the end. A nice tip if you've never thought about it, right at the end for the patient reader. Please don't quote it. Let's reward the practice of reading.

You could still get your return, just not as fast, nor as much as you would have hoped. Even at the 10M price, I'm able to get about 60% profit.

So...I submitted this as a bug this past April. The response was clearly by someone who just didn't know any better, as they told me it was not a bug, but as intended. I gave them the benefit of the doubt and assumed they misunderstood my post. But it's been fixed in this latest patch. Oddly, I don't remember seeing anything about it in the patch notes, but there was a ton to sift through, and could have missed it.

I have played a couple of scrappers. They're fun. But a brute, to me - seems to dish out more damage and have another 1k worth of hp. Yeah, scrappers have crits. And at level 50, they do dish out more dps over time. But - while leveling, I think the brute is better. Probably the way I slot them. But I'll take a blaster over any of them.

The dom on your team should have been able to do a hold on one weakened mending mito after several applications of that one target hold, particularly if domination was built up.

Just my opinion with isn't worth much - but I see no need for a scrapper to have a taunt aura. Sounds like the OP just needs to roll a brute or a tank.

Clearly, you're mistaken, or imprecise in this comment. There definitely is one thing that you did get right - it's a playstyle thing. Some people enjoy the play of doms and/or controllers more. Which is fine. But to say they solo a hell of a lot easily than a corruptor or a defender? That's only the case if you mean more slowly/safely when you say "hell of a lot more easily".

The actions on the AH that I see make me ask a lot of questions, as there seems to be very little logic to it. Sometimes, the "buy it now" seems to be at play. Sometimes, it's an extra 0. Sometimes, there's a badge pursuit. But usually, people are just lazy and/or ignorant. They don't even consider comparing the price between crafted and not. The same folks that spend hours making their costume who tend to be the ones who complain about the price of IOs don't know/care to check the market. Love those people. It's their ignorance/laziness that has helped me amass my little pile of influence.

Probably a new thread might be better for this question - but what if HC got a license to legitimately run CoH? I mean - it's worth asking, isn't it? Could streaming be allowed then? Would they charge money then? If so, would we expect new content on a routine basis? Would they then chase the non-legit servers with C&D, or leave them alone? Would a meaningful portion of the current players here now leave for the free servers if they did start charging money? I wonder how all that would play out. Conversely - suppose there is a day in the future when NCSoft says, "No, you can't legitimately run our game." Serving C&D papers at that point would be easy. Does the "Whack-a-mole" then begin?