[What IOs do you think are too cheap or too expensive for what they do?]

1 minute ago, Yomo Kimyata said:

Identical demand, but it is way easier to get the Steadfast.  Supply!

Why do you think this is way easier to get? Both are for sale at the AH. It's only easier to get because it's cheaper - if they were the same price, would it be easier? 

Or do you think it's easier because it's an uncommon recipe vs pvp? 

 

[What IOs do you think are too cheap or too expensive for what they do?]

On 7/21/2020 at 8:31 AM, Xcillion said:

Personally I fell that if your crafting something should sell for at least 1.5 times the cost to make. I see so many items that would sell for more at a seller then ww. on the otherhand I understand why some are listed low. people lowball the cost just for badges regardless of how much it cost to craft and that messes everyone up.

heres my way i price my items.

 

1- did it require 1 or 2 rare salvage to make. that's averages to 500k a pop in salavge *provided u don't have them on hand*

2- craft cost is average 500k *lil less*

3- add up your common and uncommon salavge. ranges from 100inf to 150k each

4- now times it by 1.5-5x

the most it should now cost any item to craft is 1.6mil alone.

so yellow recipes automatically go from 2m to 5mil

reds are 3m to 10 mil

and purps are 10mil to 30 mil

now to explain why red and purps would be higher is simple.

The rate of drops is far less. The demand has grown thus it goes up.

Yet somehow I see things that cost 1.6mil at most selling for less then 100k...

 

As both a vet player. a vivid farmer who enjoys the story content just as much and a ww market player This has me baffled.

And now that purple recipes have been decreased in how often they drop the purple prices in a few months will skyrocket to 50 maybe even 100mil.

 

What you have to understand is that when folks go shopping for Widgets, they never take into account the cost of manufacturing that Widget, nor the payroll required to keep the Widget workers housed and fed with enough to save for a future. All they care about is if the Widget is useful to them. 

So...you can craft as many rare stun recipes as you like, but (these are orange, not red on my computer) they are only useful to a small fraction of the community. Supply and Demand is what is influencing the prices, not the cost of crafting to some unknown person or people.  (We're all unknown people. Nobody has a clue what we crafted or put for sale. All they know is we're greedy for not listing them for 1 inf. 


Purple recipes may have dropped for you - but they have not dropped for me. I get them...pretty much every other day now that I've stopped farming. When I was farming, 3-4 a day was not a surprise. 1-2 a day was closer to average. If you search the forums - somewhere here I made a note of getting 4 purples within 11 minutes. Thought I broke something. Was just lucky. 

So, please, don't look at what dropped and assume that there was a stealth nerf. I promise you - you're just not that lucky. I, however, am that lucky. 

[What IOs do you think are too cheap or too expensive for what they do?]

On 7/21/2020 at 9:33 AM, Veelectric Boogaloo said:

It was decreased the same day as the global player accuracy nerf.

I believe this statement to be false. Show me the patch notes, because I think I'd remember this. 

[What IOs do you think are too cheap or too expensive for what they do?]

This is what I don't get: 

Glad Armor 3% Def (all) vs. Steadfast Protection 3% Def(all)/Resist

The glad sells typically 10-11M Sometimes, more, sometimes less. 

The Steadfast sells for 4-5M. Sometimes more, sometimes less. 

Both are slottable at level 7. While it's true the Steadfast caps at level 30, so the strength of the resist portion is capped at that level (unless you boosted, but it still wouldn't be a level 50 resist level protection), but the Glad Armor's extra only protects against tp in a pvp zone. Other than Chimera, I don't think any NPCs we face use a tp-foe. (And Despite all my characters having a Shield Wall and a Glad Armor, I still get ported in the Magisterium) So why should the glad armor be worth twice as much? Both drop in pve. 

Granted the set bonuses of the Glad armor are better, but still...

[Discussion: Disabling XP No Longer Increases Influence]

It's already been stated that inflation is a result of more funds being in circulation, thus diminishing the value of those funds. 

The solution is certainly not a simple thing, not the way CoH is set up. 

Suppose, for the sake of argument, there was a fixed set of influence in the game. (Scratching my head, trying to think how that would work). 
That would certainly limit inflation, but would it really help things? 

For the sake of argument, we cannot assume each player is granted a certain amount with their new account, lest scoundrels create multiple accounts to get multiple endowments. 
So...they start off with zero. And as of now - so do we! 

But...we are able to continually defeat mobs for xp and influence. And the mobs respawn, missions may get reset, so the path to inflation lies with repetition. right? 

All that said, I think a solution is fairly obvious. Since the current cap a character can hold is 2 Billion, why not find a way to limit that across all characters? 

Just suppose that ALL you could hold was 2 billion across all accounts? All those emails I have with 900 million in them, across my three accounts - I wake up and *poof*! All gone, except for for 2 Billion in each. Well, that certainly gives me an advantage...but suppose HC stated that only one account is now allowed. Or, that they encouraged all to have three accounts to make things equitable and fair. 

 

How might that play out? Well...I certainly would be a bit peeved at losing over 100 Billion. Costume Contest resources from player hosted events would either stop, or have drastically reduced prizes. 

The more I think about it, the more I think the Influence/Infamy/Information has run its course. We should exchange it for reward merits - the metric that truly defines how much we've actually played the content in the game. There's no rule that says an AE map can't award a reward merit or three, provided it met a certain level of difficulty. 

The problem is the smallest unit of measurement is 1, and who'd want to pay one reward merit for a piece of common salvage? 

Do you folks see what I'm getting at here? 

This in-game economy stems from...a GAME! It's really not that serious. I thought about writing a few more pages, but I think that would be TOO cruel. 

What I would encourage those that disagree with this nerf do is come up with a viable solution that allows entry level players to play the game they'd like to, rather than the way someone like me tells them they need to, just to afford the IOs to have the better build. (and if you're one of those that says SOs are just fine - they are - if you want to struggle more than otherwise. Candidly, IO set bonuses are a game changer for most players. You might be fine with 'em. If so, great. Me, I like the set bonuses and will keep chasing them. 

[Incarnate Threads yo]

I've been in your shoes, Kiramon. Trust me on that. I used to strive to get to t-4 for each slot - and still do, but now, it's not nearly as challenging, and here's why:

I've been badging with my latest 50. Not sure what possessed me, as I already have Ukase, my ice blaster with all the badges available, 1531. (no bug hunter, despite my best efforts) 

Made Ukase Fire 2 weeks ago, and already have over 1000 badges. But what has really made the difference has been Master of Incarnate Trials, and the Dark Astoria path. Just play your character, and everything else will take care of itself. 

 

For those that don't care for the details, don't sweat it. But if you want more detail - it's in the spoiler. 

 

Spoiler

Apex and TinMage also give out an incarnate award table, as does Number Six, out of RWZ. 

 

For each reward table, that's at least 20 threads I don't have to spend. 
 

And here's what I think has made the biggest difference. When I hit 50, of course I went to Mender Remiel and unlocked my alpha. But, in the pursuit of badges, I ended up doing several task forces: 
an MoITF (opted for the Nictus Fragment, worth 4 shards) Collected several shards along the way, a Master of Ms. Liberty that required a restart after facing Numina (not my defeat, for the record), and a Master of Barracuda. What these basically did was give me all the shards I needed for my t-3 alpha, and then some. I also did a red side tf for a notice which completed the t-3. 

Along the path I got several vet levels, and had lore and destiny unlocked before I'd even crafted anything. So..what I had was a lot of threads and a fair number of emps. So, I burned threads for commons, making all but Hybrid t-1. I didn't have any uncommons and opted to not use threads for that. 

Through the Dark Astoria path, got the uncommons needed, burned some emps for rares, and got my t-3 in lore and destiny, with Judgement and interface still at t-1. 

Did an MoDD, got a random rare and 4 random uncommons, plus another uncommon from the reward table. This helped get judgement, interface to t-2, and hybrid to t-2 as well. 

An Apex/TinMage gave me a rare for each, so, I was in pretty good shape as I still had 300 threads or so. 

3 MSRs and a hami raid (3 rounds) that gave me enough shards where all I'm waiting for now to t-4 alpha is next week's weekly, as I got the notice this week already. I've even upgraded shards to threads twice, mostly due to the hami raids and msrs. Shards and threads dropping from doing all the blue side task forces, not to mention vet levels for emps...

I'm now sitting on t-4 in all incarnate slots, plus a t-4 in rebirth, and working on incandescence, too. With 57 emp merits, too. (will likely pass those on to an alt, but only vet level 27 now, so more to add to that)


So I don't care what anyone says: If you play non-incarnate content, it makes no sense to use threads for your alpha - that's 360 threads that you won't be able to spend on the other slots, if you count the 8 emps for a rare, 3 emps for the uncommon to get your t-3. 

If you only do iTrials, then, of course, use threads, because you're not going to get shards doing iTrials. You can only work with what the RNG gives you. But if you do ITFs, using threads for alpha is just foolish, or the result of impatience or ignorance. 

 

[Servers full or down?]

There's a tab to click on at the top of this page called "Server Status". Click on it, it will tell you. 

[Request for the Complete Guide to PvP Recipes]

A pvp recipe may drop in any content, AE farms, Task Forces, Strike Forces, Street sweeps, hunts, ..and in pvp, of course. It's all random. They drop as often as any rare recipe would. 

 

As far as percentages go, I have no idea, nor concern. If I want one, I buy a level 10 pvp recipe (or as many as 50 of them at as low a price as I can) at level 7, boosted by inf from another character. Craft, convert to the one I want, slot it. The rest are sold as they are for 9-10m. They pretty much all sell within the hour, unless I got too greedy, or someone posted some seriously low prices for reasons that escape my logic. Then, if it's not a proc, like say I want to actually use the glad armor set for it's set bonuses, I'll catalyze them. 4m+2.5m is still cheaper than 9-10m from the ah. (And that 2.5 is opportunity cost, as I use ones that drop, borrowing from alts, as they only drop for level 50 characters.)

[BUG REWORD 4x merit]

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. 

 

[Proctology]

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. 

[New Blaster Suggestion]

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. 

 

 

[Zone Monster]

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. 

 

[Dark Astoria Mission badges]

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...

[CoH must have sucked]

On 12/7/2019 at 5:02 AM, Clave Dark 5 said:

Maybe some areas should get stocked with "level-less" foes that will provide a reasonable fight to any hero or villain, like the Rikti during invasions.

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! 

[TP Healers in The Hollows]

On 7/13/2020 at 12:49 PM, Dafydd Hywel said:

Anyone recall  back in the day, bunches of folks would sit out near Hollows gate.

 

If anyone died in the field, those good samaritans would port them back to gate and rez them.

 

From reading a few posts elsewhere it looks like Hollows is now too easy to need this but.....I will investigate and may revive an old tradition😁

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.  

 

[Can you soli]

On 7/13/2020 at 12:44 PM, Dafydd Hywel said:

As I like to just Take time to explore and just enjoy the whole ethos of the game I pretty much always play solo. Back in the original game I took various alts to level this way no problem but......apart from the odd Giant Monster I never did any of the task forces or anything.

 

CAN those actually be done solo or do you HAVE to have a minimum number of players to even access them at all?

 

If you CAN access them solo, how hard is it to actually beat them?

 

I assume you would need to be WAY over levelled compared to the normal.

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) 

[A quick question on Pop Menus]

5 hours ago, AboveTheChemist said:

 

 

I'm not sure what you mean by enabling the pop menu in the options, though. Custom pop menus are activated via either a macro or a keybind (using the /popmenu <menu_name> command). I am not aware of any pop menus that are enabled/disabled via the options menu.

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

[A quick question on Pop Menus]

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. 

[Weekly Discussion 59: Veteran Level Rewards]

4 hours ago, Lines said:

Totally this. Why MMOs ever decided they need so many different currencies is nuts, let alone currencies that do the same thing.

 

(Though I know threads and shards only aligned their use with homecoming, but even so. Get rid of those dang shards.)

 

If we could email merits in bulk too, then the larger, obsolete merits could be phased out as well.

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! 

[Weekly Discussion 59: Veteran Level Rewards]

21 hours ago, Apparition said:

the gifted Incarnate threads and Empyrean merits are having a detrimental effect on the game.

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. 

 

[Badges for alts]

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) 

[Destroy 100 Clockwork animated gears to earn this badge -- doesnot count up]

On 5/1/2020 at 2:55 AM, Jacktar said:

Hi, go to Skyway and run along the elevated highways and you will find numerous Princes to defeat for the gears to spawn. A real easy street sweep way to get the badge.

Fast kills to you..👍

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

[Favourite Piece of In-Game Music]

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

[Share your Puns/amusing Character Names]

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

[Curious about very early CoH]

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)