Ukase

Forgive someone who is older, and likely behind the times. Is the term "wet chat" used here a typo? Or does it mean something? If so, what does "wet chat" mean?

I'm probably in the minority. I got Aim on my ice/dark corruptor...and it never occurs to me in character creation to look at the animations of various attacks. That's just not something I normally do, as I feel like I've seen them all before. I know from experience if I'm going to do Bitter Ice Blast, I need to decide between types of shades/looks (crystals, skulls, noir, original, that kind of thing) to ensure I have what looks like a standard throw, instead of some fancy softball pitch. I execute Aim, and I see my character thrust their arm into the air...I've never seen this animation before. And I've taken Aim on several characters, if not dozens before this. So, if there's been a change in default animations, I have to wonder why. I'm sure this is MY fault, as I tend to gloss over the patch notes, mainly looking to see the major changes, not something so mundane like a power animation - which I myself might have triggered unknowingly during creation. But, if I didn't trigger it, my suggestion is that powers execute with a default animation. If there is a new option available, I would think folks who are interested in those changes would specifically look for those changes and take note. Unlike me, a rather dull person who would not. Just my two cents. I can't believe I've got to go to a tailor. An experience I just don't enjoy, to see if I can change this undesired change back to what it used to be.

The only way to definitively know for sure is to go back in time, using a specific character, (or team of specific characters) run through the same mission(s) with the same settings and do a tally. Repeat this effort 30 or more times for statistical significance. Then repeat the effort post-patch and compare. It's a small consolation, and may come off a bit harsh, but at least we still get the free 120 in the first dozen levels (minus the 3,6,9, and 12th level when we get the emps)

I'm sorry. What's a dance pad? Is that like a mat you play twister on? I genuinely have no idea what this is.

I think this touches something well worth saying. We have people in this game, who at times act as if this is a job, as if there's some kind of leaderboard tracking success and failure. And of course, as mentioned, we also have the opposite. I feel like I'm one of those geriatrics who've reached 100 years old, and the reporter asks them, "If you could tell anyone younger one piece of advice, what would it be?" My in-game self would say, "Don't worry about getting to 50. or getting t-4'd across all incarnate powers or getting all the badges. Do what is interesting/fun/amusing for you. That's why you're here, isn't it?"

The reasons may vary wildly. I'll just give my two cents, so to speak. First, there's a tendency to remember the negative more than the positive. Further, what fun is it to post about a team-up that went just fine, nothing to speak of? Secondly, it's got less to do with the intellectual capacity of the player, or their experience, but their attention span. If I had a nickel for every time someone's mentioned a cat on their keyboard, I'd at least have a roll of nickels! So, there's cats, there's babies, there's other family - some folks play at work and have to close the screen quickly. Sometimes, it's just a matter of the player falling asleep because the weed chilled him out too much. I've never smoked weed, but I suspect something like that is possible. I firmly believe that drugs are probably about 5% of the reasons things go crazy on some teams. Folks are drinking or drunk, or stoned out of their minds, or under the influence of some chemical. Maybe it's too much caffeine. In some cases, it's just a matter of someone who doesn't really pay attention for whatever reason. So many folks just do this to mindlessly pass the time, and they really don't care about your experience. If the phone rings, they stop fighting, get up and answer the phone. They'll leave the character wherever it was, and not care one bit if the whole team wipes. Maybe they come back in a few minutes, maybe they don't. So many reason for bad play. And those are the excuses/reasons for the good players! I spoke with a level 50+ player today who had no idea how little he knew. In his case, it didn't matter, because he didn't want to know! All he wanted to do was be able to run a farm on his own, instead of being just a hitter. I asked him why he wanted to farm. He said it just relaxed him. On Task forces and mission teams he had no idea what was going on. This just puzzles me to no end. I can't fathom how you don't know what's going on. It's pretty clear to me! But - I've been doing CoH in it's various flavors a long time. And I still learn stuff - like - who knew you could target through a portable work bench? I sure didn't! But during a Nemesis raid, too low level to have any pets, and I couldn't target a thing.. anyway, I digress. Our player base is filled with folks who may be sharp, but have trouble seeing various colors. Or just have trouble seeing. One guy I know is literally deaf. Makes Discord kind of pointless for him. And he's still a better player than some folks who have all their senses, except common sense! We never know what's going on the other side of the keyboard. But by and large, my vote is bad play is usually the result of drinking to a point where folks just don't care what happens. Some folks think dying is part of the attack chain. Some folks are just crazy.

For my money, it's brute all the way. Couple of reasons: 1. Higher HP. This means, for regen, higher regen rate. 2. Higher resist cap values (90% vs 75%)

Remember what I told you, Snarky. Lead with fireball. Always. Also, remember what Mr. Miyagi told Daniel-sahn. "Best way to block hit, no be there". If you avoid melee a fair bit, at least until you can get tough/weave going, you'll be better off.

So, if you want the leveled version, it's only available for levels 21 and up. So you can slot it at 18. But if you can get it attuned, you can slot it at 17. Not a big deal, the attuned will work just as well...but perhaps when you folks get a chance you can make things consistent.

The leader was likely training/slotting. It's a time saving technique, really. You use your base TP, your trainer and enhancement vendor are typically right next to each other very close to the base entrance/exit. Some levels are harder to figure out which powers, which slots, etc. I don't know how long the mission was being run before I joined, but it was at least a couple of minutes before the leader showed up. And while I can lead, I don't particularly enjoy the recruitment. I'd like to convey certain things, but it's too much information for most folks, they just want to team. But there are some folks who want to know what ATs are already there, what level is the mission, what's the difficulty, is it a cave map, killing most or speeding through - many are reasonable things to know, but problematic to convey sometimes. And the waiting...oh, I really need to work on my patience, because the older I get, the less I have.

If I had 1 inf for every hour I spent in DMs explaining to someone how to make influence in this game, well, I'd still have to market, but I'd have a token reward! In my mind, I'm divided. On one hand, nothing worthwhile comes easy, right? We get out of thing what we put into them. I look at DFB, and I remember clearly the first time I ran it. I was kind of excited about getting and SO at level 2. And...it was a confuse SO. At no time in my blaster's career was I going to get a confuse power. So, yes, I definitely agree that if Praetoria knows my origin and only drops enhancements I can use, I see no reason why the rest of the game can't figure it out. It still would not likely explain things to a new player the way I would, or the way Yomo or some of the other fine guides would, but it would help them quite a bit, I suspect. What's the downside, other than the time invested in making the change? Smarter people than me will have to answer that.

So, I was one of the folks that gave specific feedback about this change - I do not like it. I played a character every day this week. My main objective, aside from doing specific story arcs, was to make leveling as efficient as I could without farming. So, I teamed a lot more than I normally do. At the end of each day's gaming session, I would go and get the exploration badges, and the next day begin with what I hoped would be a full 10 bars of patrol XP. But - because the amount of patrol xp tapers off as you level, if I was, for example 8 bars into a level, I could see the next two bars were covered as far as patrol xp goes. But beyond that, I've no visual clue as to how much I have beyond the 2 bars. Now, I can right click on the xp bar and see how much patrol XP I have in numbers, but to my mind, the number is a bit meaningless, unless I go to the wiki and determine specifically how much XP I need for the specific level, then compare to how much patrol XP I have. Yeah. Like we all want to do that in the midst of our gaming. I did adapt, and kind of figure out that when you hit your 30's, you need to hit a couple of zones. In your 40's you need to cover 3 zones. I would have liked to wait and use the patrol xp for when I'm trying to get vet levels, but the amount of patrol xp offered at that level is so meaningless, it's not worth it, so I get them in the early levels when you can see the bar fill with each badge. I do like the exploration tips, and the dialogue that comes with most of them. (I just did Dark Astoria on a new 50 for fun). I just wish they dropped in a more rational order, instead of sending me from the west wall to the east wall, and then back again. I'll just use my vidiotmaps in the future to avoid this, but I thought I'd try it out. The OP certainly makes it clear that if you alt a lot and play different characters on a rotation - he's right. His patrol XP never runs out the way he does it. Seems like a smart way to level if you can remember the distinctions between each character - like which one did the weekly and which ones didn't. So, yeah, I'm in his corner on this. There was nothing wrong with the way it worked before.

So, I'm one of "those" people who have more alts than I care to count. Most are level 50. I can't be sure, but pretty sure it's over 150 level 50s. And, yes, at least 125 of them leveled from 1-50 doing content, not in a farm. In any event, I have never played a crab before. I mean, I'm crabby, but never been a crab. So, I look to make the new crab play goldside, and well...I can't. It's not an option. Now, this probably saves me from making a terrible mistake. I'm sure there's a reason. No idea what it is, but I trust there's a reasonable explanation. And, further examination reveals that not only are veats unable to begin in praetoria, but heats are also prevented from starting there. It probably has something to do with starting contacts and lore, but I just thought I'd suggest they be allowed to start in Praetoria.

Dude, please - choose a different text format. That's really hard to look at. But - I thank you for mentioning the Discordant Spores. I routinely tell people they're confused half the time and the Spores prove it! I actually made a pop menu for The MoUGT, but it was so large, I had to break it into two parts. But then, I also included stale jokes.

Since you asked, I took this screenshot maybe 3 minutes before the servers shut down - on Liberty. The top SG on Liberty at the time of shut-down, was mine, because I'd burned through all my influence which was in the billions, and figured why not. Not like I could do anything with it. And, also because Frosty Frozone and High Voltz were in The Paragon City Saints. Highly skilled players, but they could be terribly annoying in PvP, (and in chat, if you ask some folks) particularly Frozone. So, yeah, there was some spite to it, lol. I was not a proper fire farmer, nor a proper marketer by any stretch. But I did farm, and I did market. But I mainly did SSAs for hero merits with multiple characters and used the merits to get the pvp IOs and sold them for 2B every chance I got. I did play with converters a bit, but they were a lot more expensive at that time.

So, I'm just going to say this out loud. Two things can lead to disappointment. Unrealized expectations and Unrealistic expectations. When a player leads a team for something as straightforward as Frostfire, all the non-leaders are there to do one primary thing - complete the mission. Some make a beeline for keystone and the altars to get to Frostfire ASAP, and some want to kill every single npc they see. You're clearly someone who wants to run point, and you want the team to stick together. You have a method, like most of us. Some leaders want to always go left whenever there's a path that diverges into different directions. Some like to go right. Here's what I think may be frustrating you - not every reads chat. Also, not everyone agrees with the choices a leader makes. Most of us will go along, and as soon as the mission is over, without telling you the real reason why - we leave the team. I left your team a couple of days ago because you seemed to think we were children who needed to be told what to do. You're in your sg base, presumably training, meanwhile your team is running your mission. You weren't there, and yet you expected PUGs who've never teamed with you to go the same path you would. I think that's being unreasonable. In my defense, (if I need one) I came late; the mission was half over. I knew where the team was - because on my map, I saw where there was still fog, and where there wasn't. Now, I get that lower level players and even some incarnates LOVE killing every thing on every map. That is what they are there to do, and that's great. But dude, if you're not even on the map, and I've never teamed with you before, I have no way of knowing how you want to do anything. You're having unrealistic expectations. Communicate that you want people to stick together. Allow for times in between missions for people to train. Use team inspirations before tough fights. Use ATT if some of the team has gone the wrong way. Use macros to communicate more quickly if you think it will help. Crack jokes. Don't bark orders or give instructions unless it's for a badge. Make suggestions. Teams in CoH are not a benevolent dictatorship, they are a collaborative effort. But, that's just my opinion, and opinions vary.

Winter sets....so, some of us that have been here since HC opened up, well, we have a bit of an advantage. I think it was 4 years ago when HC offered Winter Packs at a discount during the Winter Event, for 10M, instead of 25M. A lot of marketing took place, you can be sure. Folks would buy as many as they could. Some would relist them for 15 to 24.9M, unopened, and wait until the event was over and make a very easy, but patient 5-15M. Many folks would open the packs and sell as many as the goods inside as they could. Then, the next year, the devs said they were going to have the sale again, but for 15M, and this would be the LAST time. I think they felt there would be too much push back if they just didn't have the sale..not really sure. But it was clear the HC team wasn't too happy about the results of the sale, for whatever reason. The idea behind winter packs is an inf sink, as another player doesn't get that influence, it gets dissolved into the AH. And when players resell the contents, 10% of each price also disappears. In any event, those days of the discounted packs are supposedly over. Myself, I still have at least 1000 of them unopened across multiple characters. My emails are FULL of dozens of each winter O, except maybe the entombs on some characters, which I converted, catalyzed and sold for a ton of profit the first year - so I could buy more packs before the sale ended. But the history lesson doesn't do you or anyone else much good, does it? What do you and others do now to get these items cheaply? Or as cheaply as you can? I recognize that these items sell for a nice chunk, especially if you're starting out and not sitting on a stockpile of influence. This is what I would do: First. I'd look at all the non-superior winter-Os. The AH is acting really wonky now, in particular when looking for the last 5 prices the item sold at. I have no solution for that. But, what I would do is probably focus on the entombs. These non-superior ATOs are generally cheaper than the others. When I weigh the cost of converting into one of the other sets - Avalanche, Blistering Cold, Frozen Blast, Winter's Bite - the odds are 100% you'll get a Winter-O that has more value than the Entomb. But - the market is silly sometimes. And unknowable. Just like people can be. So, you have to check the AH and see. Like any other item - you have to look at outstanding bids. Some of those bids are from people who are no longer playing that left "noob" traps. Essentially, very small bids. In any event, as you look at bids, look at how many are for sale. It stands to reason that you are likely to make more inf from a sale of an item that has 5 for sale with 100 bids than an item with 67 for sale and 40 bids. So, when you get the entomb, you convert it, and then you use some unslotters (that you undoubtedly have from the winter packs) and you slot the winter-O, and catalyze it, then un-slot it and sell it. That's where the value is added. It's crazy. I can't look at the AH at this moment, but the last time I did, I saw a non-superior winter selling for 15-18M, and the superior version selling for 22 to 30M. A catalyst USED to sell for 5M, if you can believe that. The price stabilized at 2-3M for a long time and suddenly in the past year, it plummeted to the current 800K to 1.1M. But, that's what I'd do. I'd buy the common winter-Os, convert and catalyze (not necessarily in that order if your marketer has a hold power) and sell it - and when you have sold enough to make enough to buy more packs, I'd repeat that until I felt comfy actually using some of the winter sets in the packs. You won't make so much inf that you won't ever have to farm doing this unless you're exceptionally patient and can handle the tedium of opening a lot of packs and plucking things like boosters and unslotters from your email. Not to mention the brain storm ideas. You can use those to craft rare salvage and list it on the AH, or use the salvage. I think you get more value using the salvage. Just selling BS ideas is..well, kind of lame. I think you save more using the salvage. But the salvage from BS ideas IS random, so it all depends on how much storage room you have. Some folks believe that using 100 reward merits for a winter-O is the way to go. If they can sell the winter O for more than the price of 300 converters, they're right. And, if they take the time to catalyze it, they're even more likely to be right. If you're inf poor and merit rich, this is definitely a better path than just trying to lowball bid for an entomb. But, if you have the inf and the patience, I think a lowball bid creates more profit than the 100 reward merit purchase. But, hey, if you've got the merits, are a bit impatient, no harm, no foul. You'll still get what you want. And probably a bit sooner. Hope that helps.

Thank you for the correction. Some time ago, I know there was talk about changing that, but I thought they tabled that until later. I guess it's later now. I'm still holding stashed transcendent merits and the change went right by my notice. I haven't needed any converters for a while. I guess I can t-4 my next few alts a little faster now, lol.

Thanks for taking the time to reply!

I run discord for a once a week event. I recognize it for what it is, a tool. The pros: I was leading an MoUGT. We had reached the point in the trial where we were about to snipe or zerg (i forget which, it's been a couple of years) the bombs in the long hallway, where they are 75 feet apart, and on both sides of the hall. We ALL got disconnected due to a temporary server glitch. With discord, we were all aware it wasn't just us. We were all advised to log back in when the server came back up (a few minutes later) and to "join event already in progress" upon entering the game. We were able to finish and get our Master of Underground badge. The cons: It's not very user intuitive. Initially, I got a lot of complaints. I actually just deleted about 2 pages of complaints with little stories about each one. Kind of cathartic to type it all out. But I chose to remove all those unasked for details. You're welcome! If Discord were to somehow determine each user's setup and fine tune things accordingly, it would probably be easier. But when you first join a discord, there's no way to know if your background noise is too loud, or if you're being heard properly. And lastly...noise cancelling headphones are just damned uncomfortable to wear. In the Summer they make my ears sweat. I despise them, which is why despite being bullied and begged to run big events on weekends and daily activities, I'm not going to do it. Once a week with those damned things is already as much as I can stand.

I remember the first (and only) SG I joined on HC. There was a 2nd (or 3rd, I've no idea) account a leader had that was set up behind a counter where members were told they had an option to drop off recipes, inspirations, whatever on that character. Meanwhile, the base was filled with enhancements of just about any kind. ATOs, Hami-Os, Very Rares, even Overwhelming Forces. It didn't have EVERYTHING, but most things you'd want. Kind of a need a penny, take a penny, have a penny, give a penny type deal. It gave me the idea to make a 2nd account for my own solo SG that could retrieve or deposit items as needed. I've since dropped the idea, as the population size makes in untenable at times. But nothing works quite so well as a solo SG where all of your characters are members. With the global chat channels like Taskforcejunkies and the like, the need for an SG isn't really what it used to be. Mind you, I understand it isn't the same. Having an SG with people that you actually like, and have gotten or are getting to know over discord, that's hard to beat, and it's what keeps a lot of players interested in logging in to play. So, anything that would serve that purpose would probably be a good thing.

So, as a marketer, I am fond of players like you. But, at the same time, it amuses me. I know it's not real money. But - time is money, is it not? The time you spend accumulating that influence to get those purples... Have you considered buying the recipes for about half the cost of the enhancement and crafting them? Or, buying a cheaper very rare recipe, crafting and then converting into the more expensive ones? I have never mentioned this, but I've often thought about setting up shop as a build enhancement provider, for lack of a better term. You share the build you want on mids, and tell me what you'd pay for the enhancements in that build. You give me 24 hours, I give you the enhancements, and you pay ME the inf you would have paid the AH for that build. I would make a killing - except occasionally folks want a d-sync I don't have stored in my base and that would make me weep, running an Aeon just to satisfy a player's desire to eke out an extra .05% boost. (I just made that number up, don't know what it is, but it's marginal) It costs you 1B or so, because you're just buying what you want when you want. You're not bidding for these items when you create your character, but when you've dinged 50 and you want it "now". You're not crafting from recipes when it saves inf to do so. It's your character, your inf - do it how you like. But just because it CAN cost 1B, by no means does it HAVE to cost you 1B.

Correct.

Opinions will vary. I would play it how you think it would be the most amusing/entertaining. As you play it, you may find certain tips and tricks that would lead to a more optimal path. Sometimes, an optimal build leads to optimal amusement - but not always.

I will NEVER cut out CJ from a build. I refuse. It's too useful as a set mule, and in the early levels before I can slot it, I feel the difference. I can certainly stomach losing the fight pool on certain characters, like a tank that might not need the extra resist from tough. But my characters require at least some kind of s/l resist from somewhere. Granted, we can have four pools. But, I require superspeed - that's one pool. CJ - that's another. Fight pool, that's 3. And Leadership. Yeah, I can squeeze in maneuvers at least. And I can turn it off if I'm not on a team so my endurance isn't drained into nothingness. But give up CJ? You must be putting some Bailey's in the coffee or something. That's just madness.