Ukase

The only thing I can think of that I discovered - which I have no documentation of - is when I was trying to find out what contact West was trying to get me to talk to, I switched alignments and ran Alexander's arc, and spoke with Frostfire within it to learn of his advocacy for mutants, missing or otherwise. I mean, the West arc was the only reason I clicked on him, to see if he had any information, and he was a contact who might know something. After Fusionette and Manti wouldn't talk, there weren't any contacts I'd done that involved Crey at all - which has already been hashed to death in another thread. Still, it was interesting that Frostfire had words on the topic.

I'm torn right now. For those that don't like my big walls of text, I've spared you. You're welcome. I guess I just go ahead and make it and build it. That's what all the slots are for, right? And this build is weak. Maybe strong on damage in some powers, but I'm sure it's gonna die before it does half of it. I have no idea how anyone can play a gimp build like this with any efficiency, but I'll soon see. FireTP - Blaster (Fire Blast - Martial Combat).mbd

I feel I should add...Martial Combat is an incredible secondary because of burst of speed, and inner will. I have inner will on auto-fire. I can't tell you how many times I'll look down at my power bar and see it fired, and I didn't even notice. That means I was mezzed (cuz my health didn't go down in that case) and didn't even realize it. Between inner will and sheer will, I only carry one break free now, in case of emergencies. I was able to proc out inferno and the snipe and still build for s/l resist cap and 25% melee defense. So, yeah, I like Martial Combat. I'd like it more if I could auto-fire hasten as well, but I've just bound it to the h key.

This is not a consistent supply, though. I've had challenge characters buy all they could and vendor them for profit.

So, to the question asked, my pros and cons. Cons: No carrot to make the donkey move. Newer players would certainly grab what they think is good and try things out. There'd be a lot of that, I think. Players trying new things. But consider the folks that spend hours fine-tuning a build specifically for hard mode stuff, and then suddenly, all those prismatics and MAs are just free. Or, alternatively, the stuff you'd get with them are free, so the coins of the realm are essentially nothing more than souvenirs. Addressed above in at least one post (haven't read them all yet) is the behavior changes. I'm no expert on behavior. But I'll share with you an interesting behavioral change in myself, which no coincidence, happened about the time the winter packs went on sale for 15M. The 10M sale the previous year helped me a LOT, but at that time, all I could do was buy all I could afford to buy. It certainly paid off, but even then, it wasn't until the 15M sale that I got to really take advantage. I still have another 600 or so to open. So, maybe I did better the first year than I remember. Anyway - the behavioral change was in regards to taskforces. I used to do them all. For the accolade, which I could get redside quick and easily, but mainly for the merits. But now..why? Why spend that time doing the same thing I've always done for some measly reward merits, hanging out with a pug group that may or may not know their butt from their elbow? So, I seldom do blue side tfs anymore. There's just no motivation. While everything might not be free to me, other than HOs, they might as well be. But even the most expensive of those can be bought by me whenever I wish, and I will still have enough to out fit every possible character I could think to create, on all servers. (assuming I use my usual way of kitting them out and not "buying now") Pros: People can try new things out. No more people farming just to outfit their zillion alts. They can actually just play. I'm also of the opinion that the auto-upgrade could use a tweak. I saw a build in these forums where a player asking for advice had all level 36 SOs, all of which were yellow. I can only assume they were level 37 or 38. But if they're wrapped up in some kmITF, all of those enhancements go red when they ding 40. All at the same time. A new player doesn't normally get the influence in stacks deep enough to replace them all at the same time. At least, anecdotally, I could only get about half of what I wanted. But that was on retail, a long time ago. I think it would be best to utilize Lemming's suggestion that they only pay a pro-rated portion, with the SOs they have being automatically sold, before they're upgraded, to take some of the sting out of it for the new player. My dad, who I think was smarter than my teen self ever gave him credit for would say, "when in doubt, do nothing". Now, I'm not sure that applies to every scenario, but if I look at this game, the market kept me interested in this game when the content did not. I'm not even sure I'd still play without the labyrinth. I think for now, making things free like on Brainstorm would be horrible for the game. A GM would spawn, and people would be like..."Eh, I've got that badge. What's the point?" MSRs...people might do those to level up, but I really only do those for the HVAS. The MSR used to be fun for me, but now it's very routine. Hami Raids? Heck no. If the HOs are readily available...who would do that? And when players stop doing these kinds of activities where there's some idle time for chit-chat and jokes and such, then connections between players are reduced. And that means player retention is reduced. Which means a drop in player population. Jack Emmert was a lot of things to a lot of people. And people don't like to admit it, but the dude is smart. He wasn't perfect, no. But his view that the purpose of playing this game was to team up, and if you weren't going to team up, there was no point. It wasn't because he didn't want remote workers to enjoy the game while they were supposed to be doing their jobs. It was because he wanted players to get to know each other, so they'd keep playing. Now, the game is free for us to play, so it's not that critically important. But, it is still important, because without the connections we form, this game would eventually get dull for everyone. Where that line is would be different for everyone, but eventually, it would just die. At least, that's my opinion.

One last question about it - for those that like it and use it - do you use it just as an opener to get the tohit buff, or are you using it throughout the fighting, or does it depend on where your accuracy is at that moment? I'm on Brainstorm now, trying to get used to it.

This is hard to answer because while I can see the set bonuses and powers chosen, I have no idea how they have anything slotted. I think the most creative impressive thing I saw was @sentenza on a petless MM with an envious badge count.

So...if you're in the labyrinth and getting drawn to the center - can you combat tp (as if I could do it quickly enough, lol. but, hey, I can practice ) to the mythic fog and prevent your demise?

Self-inflicted or not, it's kind of like an intersection where a lot of accidents occur. Does the city put in a traffic light to help mitigate this, or just say "User error" and let them keep happening? Granted, just like with most municipalities, resources are scarce. We'll just have to let the powers that be decide what's the best use of their time.

Thanks. I've done this method. But I'd always set it to -1/8. I just engage the first group, and kill everything that doesn't spawn a mask. It's usually 3 of them per group. I want to say they're "Ancient of " one thing or another. Then I engage the second group, kill all those that don't spawn a mask, leaving me with 6 of them that will spawn a mask. I tend to have enough survivability between destiny, normal defense and insp use to just stand there and swat the masks as they come. If I don't, I bring a natty in with a heal on auto. But in the case of the above character I was on, I was rogue; and I only needed about 60 more masks. And a level 50 just one shooting a level 26-28 boss, compared to waiting 90 seconds or so before the mobs in Unai's mission spawn more masks...well, I anticipate I'll be hunting in the zone unless I need well over 100. Not to mention it was bright and sunny in Echo:DA. I was having more fun there than I would in the mission. Oh, and I was waiting on Adamastor, too.

Oh...Dark Astoria, also not so dark.

Americans squat in this fashion, too. But only before we make them go to school. Look at a 5 year old - they intuitively squat. And we kill that by making them sit in a stupid desk for 6 to 8 hours a day. I mean, it's unreal. A 4 or 5 year old squatting will keep heels and toes flat on the ground, with the crease of their hips below their knees. And when we get older and try to replicate this without weights, well..some folks have trouble with it. And when we add weight before we get that addressed..well, injuries can happen. If you do nothing else, squat your own body weight 30 - 50 times a day, not even necessarily in a row. Maybe while waiting for the MSR or Hami Raid to begin! Your far in the future self will thank you. You current and tomorrow self might not.

Well, I appreciate it. Not having to run into walls or trees when hunting the BP spirit masks...knocked them out quickly. I used to just get 6-8 per lap around the cemetery, but now I get about 15.

Oh, oddly - there's a cut scene in Aeon SF where "Rodney" is told that everything belongs to "her". With this add-on, the dialogue remains, but it's a partly cloudy sky, instead of a darker screen.

Just finished (was called in) Aeon SF. Went to mission tp to West's first mission of her arc. Got this message. So, I've used mission tp to go to Sheridan in Bricks for Provost Marchand's (primal) mission before, so not sure why it wouldn't work for West.

Ouro looks different: And Echo:DA Moth Cemetary:

I know this isn't for everyone. But, just out of curiosity, after reading something someone on a team said about disliking the dark in CoH, they'd mentioned they loved the city modder add-on. I didn't ask for details, but after ATC updated vidiots, I thought, I'm here...let's look for it. It's called Never Dark Skies. I went to Echo:DA for Adamastor, and honestly, I thought I'd screwed up and gone to Talos or something. No darkness. No fog. Just a bright, sun-shiny day in Echo:DA. Now, it's easy to undo this, so if you've never seen Echo:DA without the fog, this will let you. And I gotta tell you, the Banished Pantheon Spirit Masks are much easier to find when you're not trying to dodge trees and buildings.

As much as I love the auto-upgrade feature, it is a sad fact that when a newer player uses it, all of their SOs go bad at the same time, and sometimes...they often lack the funds to upgrade all of them. And they are probably oblivious to this because of the chaos in the "bowl" of the MSR.

It was a 60 second timer. I didn't see any point in beating him. Already had Unveiler badge. I just ported to my base.

I feel I should add this tidbit. I tend to join the MSR at 2pm Central; it's run well. Typically Goddess Laucianna, but lately Queen Maya. The amount of merits I get on their msrs is consistently more than I have gotten on anyone else's MSR. And those other folks are also doing instanced. And GL and Queen open it to any level. And I seriously did have a level 1 on my team, and made a note: "This player feels no shame in bringing a lowbie to an event that is best for characters 35 and over." But ultimately, it's not my MSR, and I keep my trap shut about it. (except here, obviously) It's just that during that weekend, led by someone else, there were about half the team under level 20 instead of 1-2. I still had my own fun, I just didn't get the 1200 vg merits I typically get on their MSRs. Closer to 850. Now, that may have nothing to do with lowbies, and all that. It could have more to do with the number of tanks and such pulling the rikti into the bowl. They're just easier to blame. A bit of perception bias, I guess.

Here's my thoughts: I'd heard something in broadcast from another player saying something like, "Good luck with West. I couldn't figure out how to get that one badge". So, I was really trying to pay attention. I even switched alignments after the first mission, ran Alexander's arc, and spoke with Frostfire about some missing mutants, thinking that maybe those were the team I was leading that disappeared. Some of this below may not be helpful but if you want to know where my brain was, feel free to read about it. But anyway - it's just my opinion that if you want to implement a badge like this, you'd want it to be done using contacts that are far more intuitive to refer to. Those contacts? Never would have ever occurred to me.

I've spoken on this before. I'll just try to shed some additional light. I'm someone who, when the mood strikes would play this way with my characters. But, I never sought out others to join me, mainly because this part about people planning the attack before you jump in...who's really going to do that? You'd take a 20-30 minute frostfire mission and turn it into 5 hours. Most folks just don't have that kind of time. And then - when someone like me disagrees with player 2's idea of a strategy: "You're the blaster, pull Lord Recluse to this spot here" - my character is thinking - "Dude, you're the tank, why not taunt him?" It would turn out to be City of Scaredy-Cats. (And I'd be the super-scaredy-cat. Hmm...an alt name comes to mind, but I digress) I had a player reach out to me because they wanted to play this way. I told them no because I tend to have to afk at random times on some days. It wouldn't be feasible to team up without being rude by going afk and leaving folks stalled because I'm still in the mission. Not to mention, an ambush might come while I was afk. It just wasn't and isn't a good idea for me to do this with others. This is one of those things that IS a good idea that can be done by folks at their leisure within CoH's framework as it is.

I just deleted and freed up "Tough Mudder" an earth/kin controller I hadn't played in over a year.

It certainly can be. But, the key is to turn off XP so you don't level out the contacts. And I completely get why some would not want to do that. I know I don't like to do that. But, as that's an option, that was really all that needed to be done. Just shut it off for a few missions. Turn it on for one. Turn it back off.

Just a few thoughts: it's a fine idea when they introduce a new powerset. Other than that, I don't see the logic behind it. Now, the pros of 2xp are - new players might get invested in a character they've leveled up, and continue to play. And we might get more new players. It blew my mind when in the abyss, we got a system message from a gm to not dual box at all, as the population was approaching the 1500 limit. It's a good message to get. Other positives: seeing an all dom/controller team in a dfb, with the exception of a couple of tanks - both psionic armor. The folks that like to create new alts eat this 2xp up. They love it. The cons however are sometimes really negative. Like - I'm sorry, bringing a level 1 to an MSR? Sure, I saw you whipping your nem staff around. At least you weren't afk. But some folks want as many vg merits as they can get, and players like this are not good for that effort. Same with Rikti and Nemesis invasion league. But it's still a negative when you have over half the league bringing a character that is low in level, and in many cases, not even slotted. Like, not at all. And they die routinely, essentially contributing nothing but vengeance bait. It is fair to say that some folks do this even with standard XP. (which is still quite good compared to retail) The other con is for some people - lag. More players, more lag. I don't know why people are playing on dial up, or the machines they were playing with back on retail, but clearly some of them are. Beyond those scenarios, I can't really think of a reason for or against the idea.