Ukase

I can't pretend to know what the code looks like; I've never seen it. I also can't pretend to be a mind reader. Well - I could, but I wouldn't be very good at it. I get the bit with the hive. But I don't get why you'd revert the RWZ cap to 50. Who cares if that's the way it was? They never had a p2w or an IO that made things Insta-cast snipe, either. Yet, we have them. Could you at least explain why RWZ was capped at 50, instead of 75? Think about the 3 task forces that kick off from RWZ. This reversion back to 50 makes less sense than having it at 50 in the first place made. Again - there may be reasoning I'm not smart enough to know - and some things are just none of my business. But you folks have been transparent so far, why not shed some light on the reasoning? I know I'd appreciate it.

I feel quite stupid. My badge toon is level 50 and simply never considered doing tip missions. There was so much other content to do, I'd already outleveled the stuff I really enjoyed, like Striga and Croatoa. So, I ignored the tip missions. Now, as my badge count gets higher, and I see certain badges I'm missing, I'm wondering how I'll get them. There's a number of badges that are apparently given in tip missions. I do not have an exhaustive list, regrettably. Is this available in Ouro? According to Paragon Wiki, it's a level 30 tip mission given to villains. How do I get this at level 50? Hamidon's Enemy - Defeat a total combination of 40 Devouring Earth or The Infested in the Inside Information mission

Apparently there are a number of these channels already created. Not sure how the stats work, but it looks like none of them have more than 13 people in them.

Look - I like reward merits, emp merits - all that stuff. But, I think if we look at the hamidon raid as it was "intended"...the original dev team never imagined that 4 leagues would just bum rush hamidon and win easily. It was never part of the thought process. 50 was the old cap, and now we have to adjust. If it were 100, really nothing would change, other than less lag. The lag was not the primary issue the HC team was addressing with this change. They simply fixed a mistake they made back in May. No more, no less. We basically got to take advantage of it for a few months. As for RWZ, that I could see being upped to 100, due to the multiple TF's that take off from that zone, and other contacts that are being utilized.

A zone cap of 50 for RWZ? This is just senseless. An MSR with a full league will be 48. Now, when someone tries to recruit for this, the entire league at some point will have to move to rwz2. There has to be a better solution. Hive cap at 50? That's fine. Maybe now a hami-o will be worth the effort.

I know I'm in the minority with some of these thoughts. We simply do not need new content. There's really too much content already. Without Ouroboros, we'd never see but a fraction of it. And with the 2xp option from p2w, many of us now see even less. In lieu of new content, how about refreshing some of the older content? The Numina TF has a string of "Defeat X" in Zones A, B, C, etc. These do nothing but take an appropriately long task force and at 30 minutes to it. From a story line perspective, it barely makes sense. I've no idea what the code looks like, or if it's possible, but let's snip those out. Or some of them. Or at least have the 5th Column stop beating up the Council so quickly in Boomtown. Task Force Commander - I see people with this accolade who have never led a task force or even a DFB. I think the original Dev team lost sight of what the term commander meant. Additionally, this shouldn't be awarded until a character has done ALL the task forces for their respective alignments. That includes Dr. Q, for blue side, too. Rumor has it the new "backdoor" base tp macro is going to be removed. I get why. But, please see my point above about the lengthy animation and recharge timer. Additionally - there should be a way to earn a drop point for base tp. I've no idea who decided that porting into Steel would place you on an exploration badge, fairly close to the North train, but a fair hike from Posi. Maybe if we earned the explores for a given zone, we could somehow place where our beacon would place us. (maybe the last place you used base tp in that zone could do it) Let's look at - reducing the ridiculously long animation times for base tp, pocket d tp and mission tp. There is no good reason they're that long. Let's also eliminate the need for recharge on them, too. What's the point? More Influence/Infamy/Information sinks. The summon pets, the hero/winter/villain packs are nice enough - but frankly I've got billions. As I play more, and pursue the t-4 of all 6 incarnate slots, each character I make ends up making more than I spent on them. So I end up with more. That's fine. But what in the world do I do with it? Even my characters in my teens are carrying a billion inf., and I'm still not sure I want to keep them. Either jack up the prices of the hero/winter packs, or give us more stuff to buy. Ouroboros could use a trainer and a p2w contact.

Just my .02 inf - but there is already a channel to address teaming needs - it's called LFG, and is in the game by default. No fuss, no muss. I can hear some objections: "But there are people there who are jerks!" - every channel has jerks. The Excelsior channel is open, and even if a jerk is booted, they can rejoin in an instant. So, nobody gets booted. "But if I broadcast on LFG - I have no idea if the players are competent." Get over yourself. This game is as easy as games get. The occasional incompetent player is the primary source of challenge in this game. Use it as an opportunity to cultivate a relationship and teach them. Use the LFG. It took about 20 minutes, but got up a pug for UGT and we did great.

If I had to settle for 24.3 million for 100 reward merits - that would be a downer. Selling a converter is a recommended approach for those who lack the time, inclination or the knowledge of how to make more.

I've got a mind/psi dom that I've slowly been leveling up for a bit. It's not a bad build, I'm sure it could be better. I'm hoping for perma Dom, and am confident I'll get there. What I'm not confident in are some of the powers these two sets have. Drain Psyche... I had this power on a blaster and it worked very much like a heal...but with this Dom..it boosts regen and recovery, what it says it does...but aside from that, it seems like I've got it as a set mule, rather than something useful. Regen is fantastic for farmers or for taunters in the goo in the hive - but with the low hp of a dom, regen is fairly irrelevant. And with perma-Dom, recovery from DrainPsyche seems useless as well. So..I must be missing something. I do have it six slotted, with Theft of Essence. I try to use it when going into fair sized mobs. Should I just get rid of this power? Doesn't seem to do much for me.

I don't think so - and the reasons why are these (pure conjecture on my part) : There is basically only one question - what's the biggest bang for the inf/buck? Many will simply say "converters". Not because it's accurate, but because it's the easy answer with quick math to make a case for the impulsive to head to the nearest merit vendor. The truth is that there are a number of ways to maximize inf - either over time, or over reward merit - but if I have a pattern of behavior that gains me more than 24.3 million inf per 100 reward merits, the likely result of my sharing that method results in me not making as much. So -- even if I have "enough" today, I don't know if I'll have enough in the future. It would be foolish to share those strategies. As for other questions that may come up about the market - like "Why are chronal skips suddenly going for more than 700m?" - the answers will be mostly conjecture, aside from "that's how much they're worth right now, because people are willing to pay that price". All of these are easily handled in the help channel.

Can't recall the name of the sg, but @sister corruption was recruiting for a villain side focused VG in the hive just last night. You can catch Sister Corruption lately on Blonde Bombshell, or maybe Sir Gawain 2.0. I know he/she does a lot of MSRs, leads them as well from time to time - so suggest you broadcast your interest in a villain group during an MSR.

I have to wonder why the devs came up with these enhancement sets that stopped at a certain level. I can kind of see why certain sets weren't available until later, but at the time, unslotters weren't a thing. One would either respec or slot over a previous set to get the sets that would actually go up to 50. I look at eradication; it's got some good bonuses - but I want the set to go up to 50!

When I follow the path to extract to, I don't see a folder called cursors, but a folder called Icon. Same thing? Do I create a folder called Cursors?

With regards to the new PvP sniper set - it's my fault for not getting to test server, but given that the enhancement in the AH is purple, the recipe in the merit vendor is purple, but the recipe in the ah is orange..I'm a bit confused as to whether or not a pvp io, say a panacea would convert into one of the new sniper enhancements.

There's no way that I know of to abandon an arc. Nor should you. There are merit rewards at the completion of the arc. If the content is now too low, the best option is to make a note of the date and time - auto-complete the task, and three days later, auto-complete the next mission, until the arc is complete.

There are a few more things to know, in particular, about shards vs. threads. Always check your shard inventory before you craft anything. Sometimes, these drop and you didn't realize it. So many people just ignore shards, considering them to drop too rarely to be of any use. I looked at my tank parked in the hive and found 37 shards had collected in the course of 2 weeks. (about 30 hami killings). There's a lot of good reasons to use threads for the alpha, of course. It's faster. By all means, use threads to go from an empty alpha to t-3. That gives you a level shift. In incarnate trials, you'll want that shift! But then...stop using threads for alpha. Focus on playing, and craft nothing until you're vet level 3, at least. Yes, you could craft and maybe go t-3 on judgement or even lore or destiny - but is that the right move? Suppose you did, and then you finish heather townsend's arc and get a rare reward table? Or an uncommon. Then you'll have used various threads to make the uncommon, and once you've crafted an enhancement, there's no breaking it down. Be patient. Let your threads accumulate a bit. At vet level 3, you'd have at least 240 threads and 20 emp merits, not including what dropped and various reward tables. With more ingredients on hand, the better choices you can make. You played for 50 levels without that judgement nuke. A vet level or two without it isn't going to kill you. Obviously, you do what's right for you, but I suggest you forgo judgement and interface until you have Lore and Destiny to tier 3 for those level shifts. While you have that first t-3 alpha crafted, you will get shards. If you do MSR's or a lot of rikti content, use those vg merits to get the Gr`ai Matter component. If not used in a recipe, they can be broken down into a shard. They add up! Why spend 100's of threads when you may already have the shards? And try to avoid breaking down emp merits for threads. Emp merits should really only be used for very rares, and maybe rares. Depends on how many reward tables you see. If you're doing multiple iTrials a day, you'll get your rares through those tables. The very rares are hard to come by, but if you do UGT - you'll get one or the other every time.

I think that's fantastic! When I started playing this game way back when, movement for me had basically stopped. When the game shut down, I started walking and moving around and the weight came off. Now, I refuse to sit on my keester for hours on end, having learned the body was designed for movement. For every hour I play, there's 1k of rowing to look forward to the next day, above my standard 8k. I just wonder ...during the more intense parts of the game...do you find yourself walking faster?

I have a rad/stone tanker myself. Understand, I'm not a true tanker. I tend to play blasters and brutes, because, well, damage. Now, this is just my opinion, based solely on my own experiences. You can go at +2/8 solo, but it will take you seemingly forever to kill the bosses. The only reason my tank doesn't go +4 is because of the time it takes to whittle down the health of lt's, let alone bosses. I can't show you my build, because then I would have to find a way to upload my build from the game, magically, into Mids Reborn. Since I can't do that, I can simply share this - the key is in Particle Shielding. Get your recharge on that as fast as you can reasonably make it. You should be at s/l resist cap before you hit 50, easily. You should find a way to fit the ATO sets in your build. The bonuses are fairly good. I do like Unbreakable Guard, four slotted for the defense bonuses. There's so little Psi damage in game, I know if I'm facing it, I'll be in an iTrial or a team situation and will rely on buffs to get me through it. The other 90% I can handle with my build just fine. I would take hasten much earlier - like level 8 or so. I'd also take Combat Jump a lot earlier, too. The proc's you're using, Steadfast Protection - it's great - but why not take it in the teens? This way, when you exemp, you'll have that. If you did a low level tf, and exemp below 23, you lose that bonus. Maybe swap out the Def proc with the psi resist proc? There's a lot of other things I could say, but it's just opinion.

I thought that was limited to character/account. That said, I have never tried to send any other characters that weren't an alt reward merits. And I wouldn't forget about @Raveor @Foxfyre, nor for that matter some of our more unsung heroes that aid in the process on a regular basis: @master charge (no holds barred) @SimianRetro, @Tax_E and @Freakenstein and a slew of others. I just confirmed - tried to send you a hero merit, Foxfyre, but the message came back that I can only send to my alts.

Trying to move salvage from personal storage to vault reserve - despite moving the slider to as many pieces as I have, I can only move one at a time. I tried logging out, back in, same issue. I tried to move two - only one moved. Tried to move three, only one moved, etc. Same problem with all types of salvage and with multiple characters. Filed a petition and was asked to report it here. So, I am. As things go - given all the zeroes and ones that work together to make up this game - if this is the biggest problem I have, I'll call myself blessed.

Lag. That seems to be the big factor in all this. What if we just changed our perspective? Perhaps we should just imagine the lag as one of Hami's defenses to overcome? Then what? My point is - we've been successful against Hami despite lag, more often than not. Way more often. I have no expectations of the Homecoming team to fix anything, because it's all working as expected. As intended originally? probably not. But we expect it. And most of us are still functioning just fine with it. Not great, but certainly good enough. The idea of a zone cap of 50, in my mind is too small. I think 100 would be just fine for both. That's more than enough to win against Hami in both the Abyss and The Hive. Lag has always been a part of CoH, and likely always will. Technology being what it is - there is always going to be a bottleneck somewhere. Got a new video card for $2k? Great! Guess what though - your cable company is throttling your download speeds... Switch to U-verse by AT&T? Great - while your vid card and internet are now great, your cache size is too small, and you're still using an HDD, instead of a solid state drive. When's the last time you formatted that? Your system tries, but you turn it off because you're still playing.. You get the point. Homecoming could spend billions of their own money to magically smooth the code so it has no lag, and someone would still have lag because they're playing on a system that simply isn't that good. As for the lack of rewards, if there were a way for me to personally give 80 reward merits to @prophet, I would. The man is generous with his time and knowledge and should get a badge for it. But that's just my two inf.

Yes, there is a list. It's under Guides. Here's a convenient click.

Guess I'll start bidding 11 inf, then.

Now that some time has passed, I think it's safe to say that 10 billion would be considered a lot. Less than that - well, you probably have a life outside the game and aren't concerned with the game within the game - making inf. The market didn't exist when I started playing. I enjoyed the dopamine from the sounds and visuals from leveling up. That was really enough for me. But now - with the market...noticing that I can plunk down 60 million for a hami-o to give away...that's pretty nice. What boggles my mind is that there are people who would rather play the game than the market. I just don't get people. Kidding!

Well now I'm a bit ...disappointed. I just got my second defender I've ever made up to level 29; Atlas Medallion already, and have already done the explorations and plaques and defeats for FPR, aside from the fakes. And now I read that I should have made a corruptor instead? Well...I made this toon to learn more, and I guess that objective has been met. Guess it's easy enough to respec the goodies out of the character and PL a corruptor..but I'm going to hate having to redo synapse.