Ukase

If I'm remembering correctly, on "live", the way it worked was this: On your character's first SSA, you could opt for a hero merit (if you had confirmed alignment prior), or 4xstandard reward merits (5), or a single accuracy SO, or 1 Astral merit. On your first run of each SSA, you had the same options. And, even on your second run of the same map (and only on the second run of the same map ONCE) you got the same options. After that, you had to wait 24*7 hours before you had the options for the merits. Example: First run of SSA 1 - 20 merits, First Redo of SSA 1, 20 merits Redo SSA 1 before a week is up, 5 merits First run of SSA 2 - 20 merits, Redo SSA 2 - 5 merits First run of SSA 3 - 20 merits Redo SSA 3 - 5 merits. and so on. But that was on live. If my memory of the short term is correct for HC, it's the same award table schedule with regard to the 4x5 merits. But, it would be nice to get a very clear explanation from an authority for those that lack the understanding.

For a time, I was playing my primary account, and having a second account afk-farm. Then I thought, hey, we're allowed to have a third account...why not? At night, I'd have 3 fire brutes doing afk-farming. It's just the asteroid map, so really, there wasn't much to do on my primary account. Craft and convert 4 - 6 recipes. (give or take). But, what I'd do is bring the 2nd account out, reset, put it back in, same with the third, then take care of the primary account. Put the primary account back in, then go to the second account, and whilst farming, bring out the work bench, craft and convert while the mobs burn around me. When done, sell, reset, the work on the third account, reset the primary account. Craft convert on the third account. Sell, reset. Bring out the primary, and craft/convert the 2-3 recipes it might have gotten, then log it off and play with the primary account doing actual stuff like tfs and what-not. In between missions, I'd reset - not craft or convert until the salvage was close to full. Clearly, this isn't for everyone. After a while, I just felt like I had more than enough inf and stopped using my primary account. Then, I ended up parking my badge character into a damage farm (both dishing out and taking it - took about 2-3 weeks) and played on the third account. After a time, the only reason I was playing the 2nd one at all was to farm threads for the super inspirations. Nothing quite like soloing an AV by grabbing super lucks, rages and ultimates at level 15. It got to be more work than fun, basically. So now, with my well over a hundred billion, I stopped farming altogether. I've been giving away about 1 billion a week here and there. And, the inf still keeps coming in from drops that I craft and convert. Certainly not the same pace, but who cares? I'm set at least for the next 100 alts.

You simply cannot go wrong with Ice blast for a blaster's primary power set. You get a lot of options as to how you want to play it, too. You may opt to go the "blast-troller" route, or "blapper" route, or the much preferred by me, the standard blaster route. For secondary, there are some who don't see a lot of joy in the ice secondary, but you can always go for plant, mental manip, fire, atomic, or any of the others. Or all of the others. For me, I like Ice secondary, simply because of Ice Patch. Very useful when soloing large mobs. Easily perma'd with one recharge IO, hasten and a few LotG 7.5%'s. Oh! And Frigid Protection. It takes no endurance and gives you more endurance recovery than Stamina. It's an excellent place to slot an EXTRA perf shifter, or Power Transformation chance to heal. The thing about ice is the animations are so fast, that if you slot for recharge, you're going to be the best single target DPS blaster, built properly - but that all depends on slotting. You likely are already aware that you can't have the highest DPS AND be soft-capped for s/l/e with solid recharge. Another reason why ice blast is so good is that, like many of the characters we play, unless they're ice armor, they have very little resistance to cold damage. And almost none of them have any large resistance to the inherent slow/speed/recharge debuff. You don't really even need to slot for that, unless you're considering pvp. You can solo easily, if that's your cup of tea - and not just on 0/1 settings. If you've slotted for the appropriate toHit and Accuracy, you can go +4/4 fairly simply, and if you've got good reflexes, you might try +4/8 in the 40's. I would not get Bitter Freeze Ray, though. It can be useful, but only if you're patient and solo. On teams...it's the one power that has an animation too slow to be really effective. Does great damage, but given the animation, you could do better with other attacks. Other than that, all attacks are solid and worth getting in my opinion. And..I see you went with ice/time. Let me know how you like the secondary. I've got a fire/time working on the day job in ouro at level 1 currently.

I was thinking about The Hollows, a "hazard" zone. Perez Park has Kraken. Crey's has Jurrassik Croatoa has JJack and Eochai IP has Lusca (and IP isn't a hazard zone) The Hollows, given it's nostalgic presence in the game, seems to me it should have a GM. There are Hydra there, in the Red River...don't suppose we could get Kraken to appear in the Hollows, too? Or maybe Bat'Zul? Just a thought.

Would you believe I had to come back to this thread for a second character trying to get these badges? The difference 8 months makes to an old curmudgeon's brain. Silly me, skipped past the three rescues from Dream Doctor, now I have to do them through Ouro...

Seems to me, EVERY zone should have NPCs that are like this. They have the code, obviously. How hard could it be? What I'm not seeing is any downside from an implementation of this, but that doesn't mean there aren't any. I'm sure there's something, or they would have done it that way from the beginning. I will say, it's a hoot for me to find a +7 or +8 minion and slug/blast it out with them from time to time. Like those Nemesis Snipers on the rooftops in Founders, or PI. They're all alone, so no extra aggro to deal with. Pop a yellow, and see how I do. Four-five minutes, lol. A long time for only a fair bit of xp, given the level difference. Don't do this for the XP, kids!

I think you would be wasting your time. For one, there's [Return to Battle] a self-rez that likely everyone that knows about it, gets it at p2w when they start, unless it's their first character. Further, with the SG TP macro, if you don't have the self-rez, (or a wakie) you use that option to go to your base hospital and you're right back in the game. Most of those tp services were useful because we lacked travel powers until level 14. Now, we can avoid the npcs, either by flying overhead, zipping by them at Super Speed, which grants a measure of stealth, or just jumping past them. I'd be real curious to know this statistic: Average # of player defeats in the Hollows on a given day on HC vs Average # of defeats on a given day in the Hollows before the shut-down.

Yes, all task/strike forces can be soloed. But not by all characters. Now, is it easy? Are the builds going to cost a fortune? ...I really don't know the answer to that. All of my builds have at least: 1 Numina regen/recovery 1 Panacea +hitpoint/endurance 1 Shield Wall 5% res (All) 1 Glad Armor 3% def(All) 1 Steadfast Protection 3% def(all) 1 Unbreakable Guard 7.5% Hitpoints 1 Kismet 6% toHit (it says accuracy, but it's toHit) Each of the two ATO sets. (6 each) Some builds get one set broken up for the extra recharge or hit point bonus. Most get a set of Avalanche Winter O's. Some get a set of Blistering Cold For a beginning/returning players, I think that will cost you more than what's comfortable. For someone like me that's been playing since..I think late April, or early May.. well, I have enough to make about 100 of these builds easily. Most of it's in my character email from the winter packs being on sale last December, in the form of merits (which I cash in for converters, use the converters and sell the IOs that were converted. Positron has two parts. The first part is very easily solo'd. All my characters from a defender to tank has solo'd posi 1. My tank had some issues with Dr. Vahz. Just not enough DPS. He wasn't hurting me..but I couldn't get him down more than 1/3. If I'd have been smart, I'd have used the TP macro, entered my base and gotten some large reds...but I don't think the tp macro had been released in the wild back then. My blasters, with a large luck have very little issue with Vahz. Synapse and the Clockwork Lord is super easy. Any character can solo this. It's like he gives up when he's at half health. Yin and Clamor -- Clamor is fairly easy, too. Citadel and Vandal - Vandal is one of those that was a bit hard for my tank to do enough damage, same with my cold/cold defender. My blasters, brutes, stalkers, scrappers, they have no issue. Manticore is probably one of the harder ones to solo, simply because there are two av - Countess Crey, and Hopkins after you beat Hopkins the first time. Hopkins is a joke, misses a LOT - but when he hits, he hits pretty hard. Judicious use of inspirations is encouraged. The Countess doesn't hit that hard, but she's still tough. Definitely clear that room so you have room to maneuver if you need to run away. Nobody says you have to stand toe-to-toe with an AV for the entire fight. Numina's Jurrassik is not overly difficult. I usually have more trouble with the DE bosses and the toxic spit of theirs. Nosferatu as an AV -- the only way I've ever beaten him was with my brute and my blaster's that kite him from out of reach. Crazy vamp just jumps into a tree trying to get me, jumps down, repeats, while I blast away. Yeah, I feel cheap and dirty doing it that way, but merits are merits. Nemesis as an AV is a bit of a joke. Just a lot of HP on him. Indigo as an AV is brutal and has always killed me at least once. Silver Mantis is tough for me. Without some solid inspiration planning, it's not going to go well. ITF - Soloing this tf is not overly hard. But, I can't do it in 30 minutes like some folks. But I got the MoITF today on my fire/fire blaster, Ukase Fire just today, Took me about an hour. And I did head to my base after I beat Rommy the first time to get some reds. I'm at level 50, I have t-3 lore pets, with barrier, so not getting defeated was pretty easy. Out damaging the nictus heal was kind of hard, because I couldn't pull him away from the healing nictus, despite my best efforts. Finally, I realized I'd left behind Imperious in the air on my way to the courtyard, so brought him into the fight, and he helped just enough. Probably cheating, but I still got the MoITF. Eden Trial - This is one I solo'd with my ill/rad. An expensive build with perma PA. I underestimated how many ambrosia I would need, though. On a team, only a couple. With my ill/rad, and only the PA for dps...I needed 12. 12 minutes to beat that Crystal Titan. Took me half that time to get to that point. I am unsure how I will do if I try to solo Apex or Tin Mage. The spawns are automatically 54, and while my characters would be level 50+3, I'm trying to imagine handling Director 11 and all his proximity bombs, not to mention Bobcat, Neuron, and two War Walker AVs. Pretty sure I can pull Neuron...but not sure how I'd handle it if I got more than two of them. I'll find out soon enough. So, yeah, you can solo most tfs if you take your time, use inspirations wisely. Until you know you have a solid character, getting a Vanguard HVAC, or Shivan, or a Warburg Nuke - all are viable options, unless you're on a Master of Task Force effort. (No temps, no defeats allowed)

On that, I'm pretty sure I got confused with one of the other private servers. Thanks!

By all accounts I've seen: The first step to making a popmenu is creating the directory the game will look for them in: <game install>/data/texts/english*/menus I can only assume "<game install> is the name of the folder CoH is installed in. If so, on my system, there is a sub-folder called data, but when I open it, there is no sub-folder called texts. Even though English is my first language, the last thing I want to do is create some folder called texts within that data folder and have something blow up. Is that what I'm supposed to do? And I've looked in game to enable the pop menu, as I disabled it when I made the character, but I don't see an option to enable it, now that I'd like to take another look at it. What tab is under within Menu-Options? Thanks.

Um..you can email merits in bulk. 50 at a time, as hero merits. Can also email emp merits 50 at a time as transcendent merits. As for getting rid of shards, why would you? I got ...40 of them, I think in the past two days, enough to get myself from an unlocked alpha to two t-3s. Granted, I did two ms. libs, a kahn, and a couple of itfs, and opted for shard components if the ones offered were in my shard crafting tree (for lack of a better term). Shards are fantastic! A lot of folks disagree - but those folks are doing more itrials than I am. I get you want to use what you get from the rng, but because you're not getting any, don't take my stuff!

I wanted to chime in here. On the first pass, I was a bit irritated, but then I opted to take a step back and actually think about this. Unfortunately, my response has less to do with Vet Rewards/Emps/Threads than it does the differences between HC's flavor of CoH and the original. There are a number of differences between HC and Paragon Studio's respective versions of CoH. Paragon HC Converter exchange : 10 reward merits for 1 Converter Converter exchange : 1 reward merit for 3 converters Packs were available via real world cash Packs are available, seeded on the AH for in game inf. Vanguard merits were good for limited items, storage, HVAC, Vanguard merits are also convertible to Reward Merits Costume unlocks. PvP recipes are only available via drops in pvp zones, and via PvP recipes & IOs are available from drops in PvE, no longer purchased by hero merits (or villain merits) Hero/Villain & Emp Merits & Wentworths Only ATOs & Event IOs (Overwhelming Force, Winter Sets) are All set enhancements may be attuned, either from purchasing them from the market already attuned, or using a catalyst. attuned. Vet level Emp & Thread bonuses didn't exist Vet levels give Emp & Thread bonuses. Unlocks of incarnate slots only get progress through iTrials & Incarnate unlock progress is gained in any content. other specific incarnate content (Apex/Tin Mage) (to be transparent, I've only done the Mender Remiel arc to unlock alpha. I have no idea if this was unlockable doing non-incarnate content) I didn't mention the seeded salvage, which prevents certain salvage from costing 2-10 million inf in HC's version. There are a lot more differences! In my mind, the biggest are the converter exchange, the attuned IOs that we can slot and maintain the set bonuses, and the ease of obtaining PvP IOs, compared to live. So, now, I have to ask myself - what is it that makes something "detrimental" to a game? In my own experience, the game is simple...the way I play it. I do play at +4/8, sure. With my characters that can handle it. I *could* play that way with some of my blasters, but since they're 50 already, there's no point. To what end? Challenge you say? At my age, I'm no longer trying to bench press more weight. I'm trying to lift the same weight I lifted last year, but lift it the same reps in a faster time. It's about speed for me. If I find I can solo Silver Mantis in less than 20 minutes, only then will I raise the difficulty one more notch. Is the ease of outfitting the characters with IOs detrimental? Is it the ease of gaining t-4 in a given incarnate slot? I don't think "ease" implies a detrimental impact. I think what makes these things detrimental is that we make progress so fast, that we reach that point where we're "done", and it's time to start over. But the journey is so fast with these changes, that we're looking at the same content too soon. Generally, most of us pick up little tricks and tactics - like kiting BatZul, so you can solo him effectively at level 20. No super inps or Summon Pets required. And, once you happen upon that little trick, every time you do it, it will be that much easier. (assuming your character has the dps) It's up to us to be creative and make our own content through AE (which because of farming has nerfed rewards, never pays reward merits, or non-AE badges, except damage and heal type progress badges) or slow down the progress we make, or find a different path with different content. Because even if HC came up with an entire zone, with 4 contacts and 6 story arcs and a tf within that zone, there are still a lot of players who would exhaust that content in a month and ask for more. (while it would take a lot longer than a month to create that content) As far as Emp & threads & vet levels go, I'm fine with it. I know what to expect. I'd prefer to have the threads stop at vet level 14, or even 17. But that's because I am getting so weary of iTrials and the lazy way some folks choose to do them. "Slamda"? Some folks are completely unaware there are mobs around the facility that can be cleared for iXP. They just want the reward table as fast as they can get it. And, yeah, I'm getting bored with iTrials in general, too. It's been the same thing with over 30 level 50's...all I need now is the t-shirt.

So...I have a clear memory of the challenges of getting all the badges I could back in live. It was tedious at times, to be sure. So much so, that this time around, I wasn't sure if I was going to take up badging, beyond the 4 passive accolades - Atlas, Freedom Phalanx, TFC, Portal Jockey. Sometimes between August 2019 and November, I finally got back into, and finished getting all of them. What I've noticed in playing on HC, compared to live is that even without p2w 2xp buff, since I'm always pursuing the big 4 accolade powers, I'm always doing Maria Jenkin's story arc for each alt. And since it's so fast and easy to level up, I'm doing the arc about once a week - sometimes once every two weeks because the rng doesn't always cooperate with the rares and very rares on the random reward table when I'm trying to t-4 the incarnate slots. I say all that to say this: I'm thinking about making a second badge character to pursue getting all of them. I think it will slow down the alting, as I'll have something else to focus on. That said, upon looking at the badge list of all available badges - it makes sense to me to do certain things before other things. Doing the TFC TFs before I go running around trying to kill clockwork bosses for gears and freak tank bosses makes sense to me. More than likely, completing a Synapse would result in a completed Gearsmasher, and a 34-43 respec would take care of the Freak Tanks. Yin just gave me about 1/2 of them. I could certainly wait until it was the weekly and do it again to help with the partner badge, or do the Market Crash or the 34-43 hero respec. Running the Ouro content before I worry about most of the other defeat badges makes sense to me, too. Are there any suggestions as to which badge efforts would be more efficient to work on sooner as opposed to later? It's always bothered me a little bit to find myself doing some task force or story arc for merits...when I'd just spent 20-30 minutes hunting the very same NPCs for a defeat badge. As an example, working on a damage taken or dished out badge...this doesn't make sense to me to work on these two until I've already got about 1500 of the 1531 available (not counting bug hunter or Flames of Prometheus) If there are specific story arcs you know of that you use to satisfy certain defeat badges, I'd be very curious to know which contact, and what level range in ouro it would be, as well as the title of the arc that ouro has it listed under. Particularly on red side, as even though I've been through most of the content once with my first badger - I barely remember it. (another good reason to run through it again)

While this is true, Echo:Faultline has a LOT more of them and are much easier to be found.

I like the bit in Constellation Row in Echo:Galaxy City.

The only one I have (was able to get!!) off the top of my head is Lagniappe, a Water/Time Corruptor.

Interesting stuff. I did like looking about for the faultline stuff when HC came out...and have to say, I don't think I'd be even a half-decent badger back in the days before vidiot maps. I just don't think I would have taken the time. Or maybe that's all I would do. I dunno. Appreciated all the comments. As for the couple of you that may appreciate the "harder" version of CoH, there are other private servers. I've played on them. One of them, I still do - but primarily only when HC is down for maintenance. None of these private servers are "the same" as it was, because none of them have the player base we had back then. Even HC is a small fraction of that community, and it's easily got 5x more than any other private server that I know about. (at certain times, anyway)

A proc in various NPCS would not be noticed by me. They either hit you or they don't. In the chaos of battle, I hardly think when I take that 1700 pt slam from Bobcat in Tin Mage that I'm going to recognize why the hit occurred. Why not just raise all the npc ToHit 5%? We'd never notice, not really. Except the farmers who were on the margins of soft cap.

When you're a new level 50, and you're ready to start the DA arcs...I have no idea why the original devs did this - but can we please not de-toggle our characters by doing Nolan's mini-story? Or is there a way to toggle everything with one button? I realize this may sound petty, but I've got 10 toggles - sprint, super speed, combat jump, tough, weave, maneuvers, assault, tactics, Scorpion Shield, Cauterizing Aura. This is why I try so hard to not die! I know I can speak directly with Townsend and forgo this bit, but I'm wanting to be sure I don't miss out on a badge. For some reason, I'm thinking there is one to be had here.

A very nicely led two runs by @sundew!

While looking for various badges on an alt, I stumbled across a plaque in RWZ not associated with a history badge, so it wasn't on my VidiotMaps overlay. That got me to thinking... In some ways...I kind of wish Beefcake and others had never done the pigg diving and made things so easy. I can't fathom how difficult it would be for some to find things like "egg hunter" in Faultline without vidiotmaps. And, I am making an assumption about Beefcake. I didn't know him/her/them, and am assuming that's how the precise locations were found. It would have been interesting to see how long I would have actually spent searching for such things...and not even knowing if they were there to be found. How long would you search for a badge if you weren't even sure there was one to be found? Or where it would be found? This is the kind of thinking that kept me out of the better schools, as it's completely unproductive. But, I can't go to lunch with my crew of hot soccer moms, so I'm asking this question instead.

This may have been brought up previously, but 10 pages is a bit to sift through. I am not sure why, but I've decided to get all the badges on a second character. In pursuit of this, I just happened to notice a plaque in RWZ, and the caption reads: "This plaque commemorates Lovers' Point, the most popular spot in all of White Plains for a wedding proposal." /loc is 1469.3 16.7 -5409.4 I share this here because the plaque doesn't show up on my version of VidiotMaps. And I'm fairly certain I've got the updated version. Has there been more than one update? Nevermind. A quick search reveals that this plaque isn't associated with any history badges. I'll leave it here so others don't make the same mistake I did.

I have transferred a fire/rad corruptor, named Pundit, t-4'd in all the right places to help out. I also have my farm brute parked next to luna with a ton of threads to assist those who may be squeamish about dishing out hundreds of threads for ultimates and team supers.

I went with 3 Preventative Medicine, 3 Perf Shifters. The usual heal procs are already in Health. I am fond of PM's Absorb Proc. I won't miss the recharge much. Just threw me off when I checked the Combat Attributes. I still don't know why it accepts heals when nothing shows up in combat attributes. But, now that you've said it, I do get a 30.11 heal every few seconds from it in my combat log. Guess that's why it doesn't show up as regeneration, as it's a heal. Thanks, Nemu!

As a player who enjoys playing the Blaster AT more than the other ATs, I found myself surprised when HC opened that blasters had a toggle in the secondary. With ice secondary, it's Frigid Protection. With fire, it's cauterizing aura. While I was considering which IO set to pop in, I noticed that CA accepts heal sets, as well as end mod sets. While I like preventative medicine's absorb proc, as well as most of the bonuses that come with a set of 6, with this blaster, I'm focused on hp and regen primarily. Because of this, I can stop at 3, and either slot 3 perf shifters, or 3 numina's. (or maybe something else). Because I had the Preventative Medicine's in my base, and I wouldn't turn down another 8.75% recharge, I thought I'd check to see how much improvement it would give my regen rate. So I pop open combat attributes, and I look....and CA doesn't impact regen rate at all. I checked to make sure CA was toggled on, and it was. So...why does CA accept Heal IOs if it does nothing to benefit regen or health points? A free mule space? Guess that's it, but I'm a bit puzzled about it, figured I'd ask if anyone knows why.