Ukase

When doing "volume", I was told that I would develop callouses. I did, but I'd still blister up. I found that some weight-lifting gloves with 1/2 finger sleeves work great for absorbing the sweat and preventing blisters. For the really long rows, like 1/2 marathon, I use NexCare waterproof tape, the brown stuff. It's like a second skin and if it weren't 3.32 a roll (which lasts about 4 rowing sessions), I'd use it instead of the gloves.

Some of you are just ...puzzling with your expressed thoughts. You blame the farmer - because they make influence by playing their characters? Suppose....just suppose...they played actual content the same way, outside of AE. They'd still make influence by playing their characters. And guess what - all of you who play your characters can make that same influence. The game does need something else to spend influence on, to absorb the humongous billions many of us have stashed on our alts, in our email and in bids on AH on things that don't exist in game. But to blame it on anything other than the game itself is just....puzzling.

Posi 1 and 2 can be solo'd easily. Synapse is still long, but also easily solo'd. Penny Yin TF is super simple to solo. In fact, all the TFC task forces are simple to solo. In many cases, even easier to solo than doing it with a team. Numina takes me about 40 minutes, solo. Posi 1,2, Yin about 20-25 minutes each. Synapse, with the kill alls (and my characters also needing gear smasher and running the first two missions at 0/8) still takes me about 2 hours. Manticore and Citadel are about an hour. When I say solo, I mean nobody else is on my team - but I do use envenomed dagger against the avs, as well as a lot of large reds and purples. And, the character that solos them is usually a brute or a scrapper, or my ill/rad controller. I also feel free to use a vanguard heavy if I have one. Or even a Werewolf or Katie Hannon temp power. Shivan's too.

I'll never play a bots or demon mm because of the noise. Kinetic melee is awful - in sound, and animation, so I'll never play that, either.

The main "hobby" I partake in is rowing. My feet would get really sore from jogging and even walking when I was going 5 miles or more a day, so now I row. Yesterday I did 18k, broken up into two sessions - one, a real killer called "Death Row", where you set the rower up for one minute intervals with no rest. The first minute, you chill; you aim for 150 meters. The 2nd minute, you're still chilling, aiming for 160 meters. You increase your target by 10 meters each minute. By the 11th minute, you're aiming for 250m, which isn't that bad. Not a great amount of fun, but ...when you get to 15 minutes and are looking for 290 meters, this is when the actual workout begins. If you get to 16 minutes and go for 300 meters...then you can call yourself a hero. I've gotten to 300 meters once...I usually stop at 290 because of the inability to take in enough oxygen. Should you find access to a concept 2 rower and try this - what I was told was, "Go hard. You won't die. [dramatic pause] You'll pass out first." And because the approximate distance of 4500m during this workout isn't really enough volume, I'll do a slow, steady state row in the afternoon of about 10-11k, to give myself 15 to 18k a day. (There's almost always a warm-up row before any anaerobic work gets done, about 2-3k)

I like 'em both. And then, there are things on both that annoy me. Ultimately, they are exactly the same, because so many people play on all the servers.

While you're just beginning - here's some things I've done that have panned out well. Over the weekend, it would seem there are players who simply haven't the patience, or the time to wait. So they pay more for various IOs. Sudden Acceleration KB to KD for example. Over the weekend, they sell for over 3m, during the week, a little closer to 2m. This is the same with Numina and Preventive Medicine "procs" as well. (I call all the chance for this, that and the other procs, because it's just easy for me) The LotG is simply a stable IO...almost anyone will get 5 of these, if they have the powers to slot them in. They are in such demand that people will select powers they won't even use much, if at all, just to slot them. So, all of that to say this: try stashing a couple of each 10 or so IOs in your base. List them on Friday. Check your sales either later Friday Pm or Sat. AM. I suspect your prices will have been met. Don't get greedy, but aim for just 10% above what they sold for on, say Tuesday. Some players will be wise and creep their bids up in small increments of 100-10k inf if they want it "now", but some just place bids in increments of millions. I stash about 10 out of every 100 drops after I've crafted. This didn't start out to be a strategy, but a way for my main badge toon to make more sales for badge purposes. Turns out if made me a bit more inf by waiting on the weekends. Oh, and I don't think I've ever bought low demand IOs for the purpose of converting, unless you count PvP IOs. And that's just because I can't bring myself to pay 10 million for any IO. (somehow I can bring myself to pay 25 million for a winterpack...but the merits in those generally put me ahead.) I'd sooner pay 4-5 million for something less popular like a glad strike recipe, and burn 10-30 converters to make the glad armor 3% def IO and the other 2 popular ones, than fork over 9-11 million. And the crazy thing is I can afford to pay a lot more, I'm just cheap! I find it best to just convert the drops I get. The converters from reward merits are what I use, or from Winter packs, so I don't really spend money, other than on crafting and AH list fees. Last count I've got 15 billion or so.

Well, it's Monday now...and I've no idea if you've gotten the answer. If not - what server are you on? Perhaps, inviting someone else may help. If it's Excelsior or Torchbearer, maybe I could help - I've done his arcs with several characters. His first arc is always via Dr. Sheridan, in between the hospital and the Crey's gate in Brickstown. What's the title of the mission?

So, years ago, when the game shut down, I'd asked myself if there were any reason to keep CoH on my computer. Eventually, I deleted it. Some time later, Codewalker (possibly with the help of others) came up with Paragon Chat and Tequila was the launcher used for that. So, I ended up reinstalling the game - but for whatever reason, the installation wasn't neat and tidy, creating a CoH folder, it just all dumped into my documents folder, of all places. I'm able to play the game, I have the issue 23 version of Vidiotmaps - but since I've already got all the exploration badges on my badge toon, I'm not sure a fresh install is worth the time it would take - until I read about various tools used to aid in the creating new characters on Justin server for testing. I don't think they'll work because I don't have any folders from downloading Paragon Chat. (and that's been years now, it may have been a link to something else that downloaded the game for paragon chat to work.) I even have old copies of CoH, CoV and Going Rogue. I suspect using them would be pointless, and I'd have to just use the HC manifest and wait until it's done. Obviously, download times would vary from system to system, and with internet speeds being different - but can someone give me a ball-park guess as to how long it would take? An hour? 6 hours? 3 days? Thanks.

Well, given this game is all about creativity, and suspension of disbelief, poetic license and all that...everybody gets points! But as Drew Carey says in Whose Line is it Anyway, the points don't matter.

I led 2 back to back raids last night, with a scheduled start time of 10pm Eastern. I think it was the previous night, I couldn't get in to the first run, despite being 30 minutes early. Last night, I had planned to lead three - but with the zone caps, (fewer people) it takes longer to clobber GMs and get Hami to spawn. That seems to be the biggest time sink - having to kill GMs for the EoE. I don't mind saying - standing on that big rock waiting for the league to form isn't my idea of time well spent. We only have so many hours of play time! But- there is an element of fun reading the teasing and jokes in broadcast. I used /search to check the hive population at 8:30pm Eastern - a full 90 minutes before scheduled start time - almost 10 people! Then I rechecked maybe 20 minutes later - and almost 30! So, how would things have played out if the leader doesn't get into hive 1? I don't know. Guess I'd have had to wait for folks to get to hive 2...and not sure if that would've been a waiting game or not. Could be someone else would've stepped up for Hive 1, while I'm in Hive 2 waiting for a league to fill. As I mentioned - I don't like waiting. So, I entered at 9pm Eastern. The league filled at 9:28pm by my watch. I share these thoughts to give folks my thought process as to why a scheduled start time simply means "a latest start time" for me. If I'm scheduled to lead, it's my intent to begin when the league fills, as I see no reason to wait for the schedule start time, when it's clear nobody else can enter the zone. If there's a reason to sit around with a full league in a capped zone...I dunno what it is. If someone has a better way, I'm open to suggestions.

Actually, Abe didn't say that first. Unless he's older than I thought. It's from Proverbs 17:28

Well, call me a fool. Since HC CoH came out, I've gotten two tanks to level 50+3, t-4. Tanks aren't necessarily my favorite AT, but if I play one, I want to at least be competent, in build, if not in my own performance. So, I was reading about the recent suggested tank changes...and I came across this term called bruising. This is a term within CoH I've never heard before. How is it that I've leveled to 50 twice and never come across it? I'm wondering what else is there that's escaped my eyes and left me with an incomplete picture of what being a competent tanker is about. I'm familiar with positioning, I've recently learned about punch-voke, and how to take aggro away from a brute or tank - if I've got enough recharge and can dish out enough damage. But how can I tank full advantage of bruising? Given certain attack chains, I suspect even with bruising, using tier 1 attacks is probably not the best dps. Or is it? Is there any recommended reading I should look at? Thanks in advance.

Dooooooom! Can't you just disable it in PvP zones? The problem is - now that we've tasted this treat, the "regular" base tp is awful. What's the point of that ridiculously long, interruptible animation in the "regular" base tp? And what's the point of the long recharge? It was annoying before - now it will be super annoying because we know it's possible for it to be practically instant.

In the "sticky", a post pinned to the top of this section of the forum is a badge tracking spreadsheet. All you have to do is go section by section, and check off the ones you have - which, yes, is tedious. But, once you've done that, you can see pretty easily which badges you're missing.

In the "closest to completion", my progress bar said 14 of 17. If you have 18, I'd be curious what the extra one is. Per Shadeknights reply above, looks to me like there are only 17.

Thanks. I am almost completely ignorant of villain content, so I wouldn't have recognized a villain tip from a normal villain arc. I'll look through the list and run 'em all if I have to.

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.