Ukase

@AboveTheChemist The character in question was not praetorian. Came up hero side. He's at 1548 badges, and to the best of my knowledge, only missing the Nemesis Plot badge to have them all. There seem to be a number of badges ONLY in the alphabetical listing that aren't highlighted, aside from Nemesis Plot. I assume now that they are gold side titled badges. But when I was looking for complicated and saw it, but also saw "Concussed" wasn't highlighted, I had a brief moment of panic, as I mentioned. The non-alphabetical listings show all badges but Nemesis Plot as highlighted. A very minor thing. I have zero complaints.

Yay! Appreciate 1) having the updated .mnu file so I don't have to deal with my anti-virus warnings from that presumably sketchy modder site. 2) also appreciate the file being so easily accessed from the first post. It's really a thankless task that often results in some folks letting their frustrations get the best of them and you have to deal with folks lashing out. (seems that way to me from the outside, anyway) So, I'm thanking you which is something I don't do often enough. I did want to share a very, very minor glitch that caused me to panic for a moment. I was checking to ensure I'd copied the new .mnu file over correctly, and I saw that concussed wasn't highlighted. I just knew I had this badge, but was still panicked. I double checked, took a big sigh, then noticed that Top Dog wasn't highlighted either. These seem to be Praetorian titles. Now - in the respective categories - they show as highlighted, only in the alphabetical listing do they not show as highlighted. Very minor, but I found it odd, so figured I'd share it here. And holy smokes! You added the option to add a thumbtack! Excellent and praiseworthy! Awesome idea, and great implementation. Just tried it in Siren's Call with great success!

So...DiB, I know with certainty is certainly soloable, as I've solo'd it. I would imagine DFB being the same way, although I haven't done that...yet. I suspect a level 50, exemped, would fare far better than a newer character, but I'm quite sure this is doable. All you need to do is lfg queue for it, and lock it to just yourself. And while this may seem like a bit more fuss than you should have to deal with - you know me in game; if you give me some advance notice, I'll happily either make a new character or bring a 50 in to help you get these badges - on red side, since that seems to be where you like to play. I much prefer blue side, as I find red side looks ....trashy. But to each their own. It's the same trial once it starts. But I suppose that's just a short term solution, as you'll undoubtedly make many characters. Have you tried to solo them yet? The system will let you.

A completely different thread, this thought here! I kind of miss Torchbearer. I got RHW and Avoids the Green Stuff, arguably the two hardest badges to get on Torchbearer, and got them before anyone on Excelsior. Can't really recall, but before Excelsior existed, I think. Or maybe it was shortly after. But Stan Lee! His signing off in the letters he wrote was Excelsior. I remember wondering..what does that even mean? My dictionary back in 1976 ( I was 10) said it was woodshavings for furniture. Now, it has Stan Lee's name in the definition. Upward and onward. Something like that. How could I not go with Excelsior?

So let me ask you - what metric would you use? What metrics are there? Vet levels? That immediately removes anyone who's on a 50, and there are a ton of players who have hit 50 many times over and playing alts that aren't there yet. Costume? Back story? While indicative of creativity, they don't necessarily show experience in the broad spectrum of what the game has to offer. And, being more than comfortable with my own inability to make a decent costume (that other people like - I like them just fine), I'm inclined to rail against those with great costumes as they suggest ( to me only) that they spend more time in the creator than achieving objectives. That's not bad - just different from me. The accolades - while they don't give a broad spectrum of what the game has to offer, they suggest the player that has them knows how to get them and puts the time in. It's that knowledge that suggests they likely understand other game mechanics - like soft-cap defense, resist caps, etc. What other metric could one use? SG name? I belong to a huge SG - primarily because they take anyone. There are rules that a player has to agree to before they get the invite. But that's the only requirement. Other SG leaders likely team with folks a few times - not bothering with any metrics, just looking for amusing or interesting people. Or maybe just anyone with a pulse that's willing to team routinely. Character name? Only teaming with punny character names? That would be every bit as hit and miss as any other strategy. I don't suggest for one moment that my badge bias is a good method. I just know that I have only very rarely encountered a player with a high badge count that was a poor teammate. Nothing scientific, just my own anecdotal evidence. And what's amusing to me - is I met you through my weekly Master of Underground iTrials. In my mind, not many folks are willing to suffer through a bomb badge effort that's merely a casual player. But that's just my addled mind, I suppose. And for the record - you were always a welcome addition to the league, always very helpful. Often you and the FCM were the folks I sought out to invite first. That had more to do with my knowledge from previous runs that you had both done the task we were setting out to do. But, when a leader leads for the first time - they don't have that experience to pull from. They take what they can get, pulling from global friends, etc, and then lfg. If they're fortunate, they get more global friends on a successful run. If not, they have some assessment to do.

I know who you are. That why I said you weren't clueless. For whatever reason, you don't see the value in the accolades. To each their own. But - I restate - if I were recruiting for a master of TF and I had a choice between your character - having no idea who is behind the character - and another player with the same AT/powersets but with the accolades - I'd opt for the player with accolades. Why wouldn't I? They would have a greater chance at not being defeated simply because they have more hitpoints. That does NOT take into account skill level at all. There's no way to know that from a PUG situation. That is the context by which I make the statement. Not familiar friends, but unknown players.

I'm the same way. I absolutely slot ALL of my characters with the numina, miracle and panacea in Health (or elsewhere in certain situations) and they all get the Shield Wall 5%, The glad armor 3% def, the Steadfast 3% def, the kismet 6% toHit (it says accuracy, but we know better) and usually a celerity in ranged ATs and a 4 pts kb prot. in any character that doesn't get that from armor. And, the perf shifter end mod and +end. Also the ATOs - except some tank builds forgo the Gauntleted fist, and some doms may forgo a set as well. Just depends. But by and large, each character gets them if it's worth it bonus wise. They get these as soon as they can slot them. Levels 7, 10 and 17 and 27.

You show me a build that cost you a billion. I dare you! I will find a way to build it for half that. It might take me a long time, particularly if you're making crazy use of 53 Cytos and Micros. You might value a 3% def (all) Glad Armor at 8M, I value it at 4m. Why? Because pvp io recipes at level 10 can be bought pretty much instantly at 3.5-4M, and crafting it is 500-600K. You might look at an avalanche IO as costing 25M. I look at it as costing 7M, because of the winter pack sale. Catalysts have zero value to me, as while they're useful, they cost me nothing to get. Boosters are essentially a sunk cost. I don't think anyone in this forum would actually buy an enhancement booster unless they were pressed for time, or thought they could get more by relisting them. We use the boosters that came from the packs. Whether you're using attuned or level 50's for your build, you can still buy the recipes, craft them - then slot them, or sell them and re-buy the identical item attuned. It's quite nonsense to consider your buy it now price as the value of your build. Something is only worth as much as someone else is willing to pay. The 5 luck of the gambler 7.5% your build has - that you think are worth 6M each? They're only worth 6M total to me, because I can get a red fortune recipe for 1M - craft, convert and off I go. Converters come from packs to - plenty enough where I wouldn't need to buy them for converting some IOs to save some inf. I have often thought about offering to do the "shopping" for some sg mates. They pay me a billion, give me the build from mids, I give them all the enhancements for the build. I keep the change.

Nothing sad about tracking your stuff on a spreadsheet!

In my experience, they have all been not "necessary" but in some cases quite imperative. Say you're playing a Blaster. With 3 of the 4 accolades, you get a 10%, a 5% and a 5% increase in HitPoints. That can take a blaster from 1445 to 1685. (I just pulled up a random build I've used on a blaster) All other things the same, I'd rather have higher hitpoints. It's well worth the brief 90 minutes of tedium to get all 4 accolades to me. On a tank where Hitpoints are quite important, the boosts are even more significant, as they're based on %. On a lot of my brutes/scrappers, they'll be sluggish with end recovery, until I get that Atlas Medallion for the 5 extra points of Endurance. All the end recovery bonuses go off of that total number of endurance points you have, so more bang for the buck. Well worth it to me. As far as you being likely to be judged a casual player - probably just by me. I don't know anyone else who looks at players the way I do. And while that may rub you the wrong way - you are a casual player. Not clueless. But casual. You may invest hours into a costume and a back story, but not invest 90 minutes to make your characters better? You're doing what's fun/interesting to you - which is great. Not knocking it - but if I didn't know you - I wouldn't want you on my Master TF runs over someone who has them because you have fewer hitpoints than they do. That's assuming I know neither player. The badges impress me more than the lack of them. But that's just me. And, if you take my comment in context, it's a way to cut down on odds of a bad experience. Undoubtedly, this policy would "weed out" better than average players from time to time. Maybe great players. I'm willing to take that risk.

So..I ask myself, why does the Snarky want to remain at range? Because he wants to is a good enough reason, but be advised - those rascally NPCs will attempt to close in from time to time. So what's a ranged blaster to do? Ice patch! or freeze ray to stop them from getting in your face. The t-9 is a target AoE with a fairly safe range and it knocks most of them down and keeps them from messing with you. The ice primary is super fast. Once you try it, if you get to bitter ice blast, you will probably not enjoy many other blasters - but I could be biased, having played my ice blaster for literally 1000s of hours.

So, noticed I still had 100 winters and 100 rogue packs on one of my characters. Given that Luna was open for business with the anniversary badges, I thought I'd unpack these and put them to good use for a future badger. I should have my head examined. Once/if the nemesis event happens, I'll have 4 characters with ALL the badges, and another 5 characters that are between 600 and 1215. I'm not feeling particularly enthused about badging now, but I get that way after I've finished one, and I recently did. I expect the mood will pass. So..1600 reward merits for a new level 1. There's only so many explores of a zone I'll feel like in a day, or even in the rest of the month. I have options. I could piss away 1 million inf for a reward merit. Yeah...1.6B for 1600 reward merits. Right. As former President Bush would say, "Not gonna do it. Wouldn't be prudent at this juncture". (I may be plagiarizing from a memory of a Saturday Night Live skit, I dunno) To me, seems easier to open these packs up. And since no man is an island, or even a peninsula, I figured I would share the results. I could have written down everything - but all I was counting was merits. Others have made the everything analysis before me. (and I've done so before, too, and posted those results already) So why post this here after all that? More data, I guess. Rogue Reward Merits Winter Reward Merits Packs 1-10 175 Packs 1-10 75.00 Packs 11-20 100 Packs 11-20 75.00 Packs 21-30 125 Packs 21-30 125.00 Packs 31-40 175 Packs 31-40 100.00 Packs 41-50 100 Packs 41-50 - Packs 51-60 50 Packs 51-60 150.00 Packs 61-70 175 Packs 61-70 175.00 Packs 71-80 75 Packs 71-80 200.00 Packs 81-90 50 Packs 81-90 25.00 Packs 91-100 75 Packs 91-100 125.00 Average 11 Reward Merits per pack 10.5 Merits per pack So, interesting, right? Conclusion - stick with hero/rogue packs for more consistency. Definitely stick with hero/Villain packs if you'd have to pay full price for winters.

The simple truth is that pugs are hit or miss. Ultimately, it comes down to how quickly you can explain things before the situation that needs explanation arises - AND - get confirmation that the explanation has been understood. I can chat explanations until I'm blue in the face (or red with anger!) but I have no control over getting the confirmation. Even in my own sg, there are newer (and older) players that are clearly not paying attention. Tabbed out moving a farmer. Away from the keyboard to tend to ...any number of things. Aging husband, messy toddler, a pet needing to go outside, a crying baby, an empty glass/bottle. These are the casual player that don't feel any responsibility towards any other players. They are unthinking at best. Selfish at worst. Totally oblivious to the frustration they cause because they're playing a game, and relaxing. They're clearly not immersed into role-play, they're plainly put, distracted. Or perhaps they're giving it their best effort, but the system they play on is the same one from when the game went live and they're still playing on Windows 95. (is that even possible? I've no idea) The best you can do is make a rating system so you know when not to include players on difficult missions/trials/tfs. Then you have to stick to it, which can be difficult. Sometimes your own sg will invite these idiots you've put on global ignore into the sg! And now you have to be careful about which events you want to attend, lest your sg become more like a pug experience. An SG really is just a PUG, though, but you have discord to mitigate most of the incompetence/ignorance. At least the one I'm in is a pug, because they'll take anyone. We've gotten some great people who are poor players, bad people who are great players and all combos in between. The same thing that can make you laugh can make you cry.

I have felt this pain. I typically find myself one of the last couple that are alive..while all these..these...PUGs are dead...and staying dead, just laying there, as if this defeat has impacted the player in real life. To be fair, I've also seen some use an awaken and quickly plant again. This is why I spend a ton of effort into making my characters independent, not needing buffs or debuffs. None of my guys are going to win dps character of the year, except a fire blaster with a specific build designed with specific teammates in mind. But they are sturdy. This is what I would tell you: A PUG is the exact same thing as an SG. The difference is usually discord, and perhaps, some familiarity with the rest of the team and the way the parts of the whole function individually - like knowing their powersets and perhaps a certain power you'd expect them to have but they don't, or vice-versa. The problem with discussing options in chat are a few. Most folks don't read. At worst, they never read it. At best, they see and respond quickly..but there are levels of in-game literacy in between. They haven't seen it yet to read it. They might be typing their own comment in. Several may be typing something in. The end result is usually a jumbled conversation that solved nothing. Eventually, you reach a point where you find a metric that has nothing to do with the actual ability of the player to gage this group's chance of success. Me? I look at badge counts if I don't recognize the global. On a master tf run, I look at their badges. If they have the 4 passive accolades, then I know that at a minimum, they've suffered through some tedium to benefit their characters. They are invested in them. If they don't have these, then while they may be fantastic players, they're not invested. They're casual. It's not important to them. This is my perception, mind you. Only they can verify it with words. But talk is cheap. If you're level 50 and have less than 200 badges and you have the 4 passive accolades...you didn't get them by accident. If you're level 30 and have one or two of the passive accolades, you're my kind of player. If you're level 50 and have over 500, you're my kind of player. If you're level 50, have one or two accolades and only 57 badges...you've pl'd that character. You're working towards making the investment in the character to be my kind of player. My only concern is if you have enough time/experience on that character to be better than simply competent. (Depends on the task, of course) I also look at their character bio, if they have one. If they don't have one - no penalty. If they do have one, and I deem it to be trite, stupid, or rife with bad spelling and grammar, they get a penalty in my mind. If they have one and it's either amusing, or interesting, a bonus point. Then I'll look at the costume. If they have a tail...just kidding. Anyone who knows me knows my heroes and villains are the worst dressed in the city. The times I've spent in the tailor seldom amount to anything productive, so I use the same 4-5 costumes. None of which would ever place in a contest with more than 4 contestants. Is my system fool proof? Absolutely not. But, it works for me.

This is an archived site; as such, there are times when I have to hit refresh to get it to load. But, it has all the macros for combining inspirations. https://web.archive.org/web/20120904041854/http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=125603

I can only speak for myself. I'm in an ouro arc or tf, so I can't team at that time OR I have the badge for that event, so there's no compelling reason to participate. With Nemesis, there's almost always a reason every time if you're inclined to pursue Freedom Phalanx Reserve Accolade. The thing is - this badge is easier/faster to get on redside, visit Null, and it converts along with you back to blue. I get that for some, randomly meeting in the midst of some spawning hordes is reward enough, but when you can't even target the mobs when they spawn - but the MMs pets and lore pets can, they are generally dead before I can target through them. "Target through a pet" is just fine in most cases, but when you want to do a positional cone, it's far more optimal to pick the target myself rather than let some stupid pet do my targeting for me. Personally - I like where the Rikti invasion is triggered by completing a lady gray TF. And, I've heard that the zombie invasion is triggered by completing Katie Hannon TF. I had read somewhere that there was something in the works about making the Nemesis event spawn from completing the SSA out of Steel Canyon, but that doesn't seem to be case at present. So, I do think some incentives beyond a badge would be nice once a character has completed it once and gotten the badges that go with it.

I thought we were talking liquid assets...hmm..if we want to calculate the worth of emps, hero, rewards, ATOs, Winter-Os, Purples, minor stuff in character email....I think my brain is bleeding. I could very well be a trillionaire. Well...maybe not. Never know how much you're gonna get for a rare salvage these days. Fast money says at least 400k. Patient money says 500k. 10's of thousands of those brain storm ideas across my 3 accounts. The 50 something of each winter-O...the 1000 or so very rare IOs. the 30 something of each ATO... I figure you can't really tabulate that stuff until you sell it. And when you sell it, you can never really know how much it will cost you to replace it, so I don't often sell those, unless they were bought/acquired on the cheap specifically to resell. The value of the in-game character email is more in how much inf it saves you, rather than the worth of the trinkets within. Ultimately, we're all rich because we get to play for free.

So...enthusiasm, hmm... Only played sporadically. Stopped playing just after NEW content and game mechanics were introduced. I don't see any enthusiasm. It seems to me you didn't like the game much the first time around. So - that may be harsh, so forgive me - I'll apologize and say I'm assuming things. Here's what you may not know: You don't need to slot anything in your alpha slot, or any other incarnate slot. You don't need to use the best IOs available. You can use level 50 training origin enhancements if you really want to. You don't have to use enhancements at all. When you start a task force, there's an option to debuff the players, or buff the npcs. Or both. You can opt to keep things easy - but mark your time and try to improve the next go around. So many ways to keep things interesting - assuming you enjoy the game in the first place. And I could certainly be wrong, but that isn't the case here. You didn't play every day. You played sporadically - and stopped playing when the game gives you new content and new figurative carrots to work towards. Granted, the way the incarnate reward system was set up wasn't polished. Shards, threads, astrals, emps.. too many currencies and none of them dropped at a particularly rewarding rate. But, when you're charging folks by the month, the reward system makes more sense. So, please understand, I don't mean to be demeaning or condescending, but what you want out of the game - that isn't what the game is. There is a server where things may be more your speed, outside of the homecoming servers. Another private server. I think they're running an issue 0 game - at least, I've heard there's one, but no idea what it's called. Certainly the Rebirth server has a slower reward system, so at least getting to 50 and getting all tricked out will take a lot longer than it does here. Perhaps that would be more suitable for you. If you do like the community here, you might just go for the more challenging runs and not use your incarnate powers. Forgo the use of non-AT powers. See how that plays for you. But to use the resources of an entire server when the options are already on these servers for you to essentially do the same things...isn't that a bit foolish?

I am positive that both Yomo, myself and many, many others have well over 200 Billion, possibly more. I stopped counting at 286 Billion.

What a crazy question! If you have to ask, you don't have enough! The truth is, maybe, in this game you can have enough. That number is different for everyone. Someone that doesn't bother with IO slotting and just uses SOs may find 100M to be quite enough. Ultimately, I think 100 Billion is the lower threshold for wealth in this game. If you don't have that much, you're really not even trying, are you?

@AboveTheChemist Is there a method to adding the new Anniversary badge, "Legendary" that any schmuck can do? Seems unfair to drop the burden on someone else.

Just my .02 but neither consume, nor RotP are worth taking. There's no reason for your tank to need endurance if you slot well, assuming you pursue the accolade powers which boost stamina/recovery. And of course, you'll want to make use of the many procs that give a little extra endurance. But that's just the way I do things. Consume is a nice little AoE, and honestly, just one acc/recharge is quite enough should you feel you need it. I never take it, simply because endurance has never been an issue. When you slot with IO sets, they often have end reduction in them, making more stamina unnecessary. Of course, a lot depends on if you're teaming or solo. Solo, you might miss some of the nice team buffs. But even so, with proper forethought, stamina isn't an issue. RotP - at the risk of sounding condescending, if you have this power, you need to rethink what you're doing. Why would you be defeated? Live and learn. If you find yourself defeated, there's a reason why it happened. Learn from it and make tweaks in the build to ensure it doesn't happen again. Sometimes, tho, it can't be helped. You're in the deep end and haven't mastered how to swim yet. And that's fine - but taking a power expecting to fall in battle? That just sounds like you've lost before you've started. But that's just me. Some folks like the AoE stun/kb etc, after it fires off. The way I see it, if it killed you once, as a blaster you might get a nuke off and come out of it. But as a brute/tank? What killed you before is just gonna kill you again, most likely. A self rez for a power pick, when you can get return to battle from p2w? Nah. Skip it.

When faced with decisions like this, I often make both. To me, it's not so much how they play at level 50+, but how much fun are they getting to 50+? A lot will depend on your playstyle. A lot of the brute's claim to fame is the fury bar. But, if you often stealth missions just in pursuit of story arc completion bonuses, then your fury bar rarely sees much action. Generally, by the time it builds up, the fight is over. But - the brute has higher Max HP, higher damage cap, a taunt aura. A scrapper just has the random critical. And candidly, in my experience, even though I love seeing double damage, it's just not enough for the trade off to suit me. But it does suit my playstyle more. So, I make both. And then I try to get a feel for which one is more fun. Then I'll delete the other one after I take out the enhancements. So far, the brute has won 10-4 over the scrapper. The dual blade, Katana, broadsword and fire ...to me are better on the scrapper. But opinions will vary.

I just checked in to see of any mention of this happening has leaked out. I am going to wait until this next Tuesday before I get really antsy about it. Thus far, I've got 3 characters that only need the Nem event to get them all the badges. One already has it. I will try pretty hard this time around to get the badge on my more enjoyable characters. I think doing it one badger at a time is no longer the way to go. It'll drive me insane, perhaps, if I'm not already. But it'll beat waiting for them. I'm trying to talk myself into burning 1600 merits on some prospective new badge toons -- which may be older characters I've shelved to try new sets.

I carry a lot of extras. I love the ranged echo version of Positron. Some serious debuff/damage with that temp. I'll use them against AVs primarily, or certain ouro challenge missions. (No enhancements, etc - just not the no temp one. ) But yeah, each of my characters, unless they're a challenge character that has to make their own fortune, they all start with 120 charges of envenomed dagger. But, interestingly, certain origins get a nice beginning power, Apprentice Charm that deals -res. -3.25% for 8 seconds. I will use it when I can fit it into the attack chain.