Ukase

Yes and no. As for what it means, that's really tough to pinpoint with accuracy. We have a fairly generous community, which I think is by design. Arguably, one of the harder badges to get in game is "Avoids the Green Stuff". Unfortunately, if a player has this badge, it could mean anything from them being very observant to the incoming damage on Anti-Matter, to being whisked around by Incan - essentially meaning they could have lucked out by being on a good league. So many badges in game where a player with intention can get them, but it doesn't mean they'd be a great fit for a master run with no temps, no defeats. The only things that I believe badges convey are simply the player is invested in their character. The more badges they have, it suggests they are "Plugged in" with the community. At least some of it, anyway. Mainly because there are so many badges that would be very difficult to get without at least a few friends. It suggests they can cooperate, and at least for a little while, get along with others. The absence of badges certainly doesn't mean anything. But, on the off-chance it could mean the player has never played their character beyond AE...well, that's cause for concern. Is it rude to be so judgmental? Maybe. But when you're an older player, with less free time than you used to have, do we have to take the risk? Sure, we might miss out on one of the better players! But, we might also miss out on an idiot. Clearly the bias against "AE babies" is there for a reason. I don't think the reason is jealousy, or loathing of farmers. (but it could be, I guess, but that doesn't make sense to me) I think some players chose the AE route, left AE and learned things were different. And some of those lessons were also learned by those who hosted those players. It can't be too hard to imagine why some folks are cynical about a low badge count. I think the best solution is to try and team with these folks in trivial content before challenging content. Something as easy as a speedy Miss Lib can tell you a lot. Who has stealth? And who is used to killing everything in their path with the help of the 7 others on the team. And who apparently doesn't really quite understand what a speedy run is. And that clever bastard that knows to ouro out of the mission, instead of exiting the mission and then using an ouro portal. Yeah, you! How dare you be so smart and focused?! Edited to add: I feel I should add this: I know a player. I "met" them first through the help channel. I simply surmised they were new and still learning. I spent at least 30 minutes with them explaining how the incarnate system worked. Why one alpha might be good for one character, but not so good for another, and that everything depended on what they were looking for, and to never forget it acts like an extra slot filled with an enhancement that has the attributes of that alpha. Later, I learned they weren't new. Or maybe they were. But a year later, I ran into them, and despite having a badge count of around 1200, they were one of the worst players I'd ever encountered, before or since. Turns out they were closing in on 70, had grandkids underfoot, and well, the nicest way I can put it, they just didn't learn very well. I even noticed they would ask the same questions over and over. It doesn't mean they were stupid or not a nice person. It just meant they weren't focused. As much as they wanted the badges, they didn't want them enough to get rid of the grandkids and pay attention. So, high badge count certainly doesn't mean everything. This is the last player I would want to take on any kind of badge run. But, I learned this by teaming with them on more trivial things, like some of the ouro challenge badges.

Well, that's a sad day for CoH. The literal "Give me your stuffz" before you go, eh? The good news, he can always re-install. Everything will be right where he left it if he didn't give it away.

I should also add...I just got mark and recall on an alt. So, with the 5 vigilante alignment points, figured I'd try to reproduce these results of getting 5 vigilante points like I did yesterday. I only got one. So, that particular part where I got 5 pts, I don't think that was working as intended. The single point is probably more of what was expected. Not sure if I did something crazy through the dialog choices or not. Oh well.

Anecdotally, I have learned to do these badges within the first 48 hours, or it's unlikely to get done - unless you have some solid relationships in game with a lot of people. Certain SG leaders can just recruit for something, and fill a league within minutes. Whereas someone who doesn't routinely lead would never come close to filling the league. It's just the way things go sometimes. If you have an SG, you might ask your fellow members. If not, during the evening time for most of the US, like 7pm-10pm Central would probably be the best time to try and get something going. Also, some ToT league leaders are pretty good at getting the banners done. I'm not even sure who it was, but I got it done on 4 characters or so, and I wasn't even looking to get it done on more than one. Each time, I was doing the ToT league thing.

Just discovered this: As we all know, mark & recall requires 25 tip missions. So, I'm working on this, and because of Hedgefund's guide, I've sometimes been "buying" the tip missions instead of waiting for them to drop. And I see this: (look at the bottom of the graphic) Use Discount Coupon? I have 9 Invention Discount coupons! It would seem this transaction is viewed by the game as a crafting action, and as a result, it doesn't cost a reward merit!

I should add - those 5 points towards the Vigilante Morality mission - they do not count as alignment tip missions for badge credit, with regards to that multi-faceted badge, part of the mark & recall requirements for the accolade. Sure wish they did, lol. Would save a bit of time.

Well, I have an old hard drive that's not being used; still has Windows 95 on it, maybe. Not sure. It has that character info on it. The program, I think it was called Sentinel. I should probably take a look in there, because I'm pretty sure I had the Blinky Finder program on that drive. A fairly useful tool that doesn't seem to exist anymore. It used Demorecord in some fashion to scan the map, and then would give a display with an x or something where all the NPCs and glowies were, floor by floor. (You had to re-run it at each floor) Very useful back on retail when quantums and voids were a lot worse than they seem to be now. Or maybe I've just gotten better at building khelds, lol.

I've always enjoyed LB3K's trials. He has a way of talking about the Avatar of Hamidon that's pretty strange. It always cracks me up. That and the "Go make a sandwich" if you don't have a snipe. Sadly, he doesn't play much anymore. Or if he does, it's fairly late at night after I've logged.

Short version: Allow the Echo: Dark Astoria (and the other Echo: maps) to be searched for other players. The longer version below:

Now THIS makes sense. And while I'd like to have had access to my old characters, all my influence went into artificially boosting my SG's prestige to make my SG number 1. A solo SG was on top of the leaderboard on Liberty when the lights went out. And the characters I've made on HC to replicate them already have better builds and higher badge counts. I would have wanted them on day 1, but now..no need. It would be a curiosity, and a nice to have. Just not sure what I'd name them. Since someone has access, they could do me a favor and look up the original Ukase creation date. I'd be curious about when that was. But each server had one. Pretty sure the first one was on Liberty. But, it wasn't like I was an original beta for CoH and could proudly display the earliest date possible. I came into the game just a few weeks before Issue 4.

That explains that. I might have looked at Reddit a couple of times, but it all comes down to yes, YTA for everyone, no matter what the situation. I'm not at all sure how that site ever caught on. Fun fact: Until HC opened the doors, I had never heard of Reddit or Discord. Thankfully, I'm not required to look at Reddit to play. (Don't think I'm required to look at Discord either, but there is at least useful information found there, and it is a very useful tool for certain badges.)

I confess, I am one of the 37 subscribers to @Projector's channel ProjectorCoH on YouTube. This player, whom I barely know, has often bent over backwards (figuratively) to share with me certain insights about the Hard Mode content. He doesn't know it yet, but eventually I'm gonna have him carry my slightly better than mediocre Fire blaster, water/sonic corruptor, Fire/rad corruptor and maybe even my shield/mace tank, and my mace/invuln brute. Oh, and my Grav/Earth Dom, my fire/ice tank, and maybe even a couple more characters, if I ever get them to the 1620 or so badges, where that's all I need are the last two from advanced lady gray. Now, hopefully, 700k of you will find his channel, click on it - let the video play to the end, subscribe, make a comment and give a thumbs up - make him rich, and I'll tell him he owes me for all the love. Go ahead, I'll wait. In all seriousness, if you want a primer on hard mode stuff, the dude has some compelling content.

@lemming You've been so helpful to those that enjoy the labyrinth, as well as in other areas, it is likely you're onto something. I suspect you're one of those folks who, although may not do the whispering in the alleys, out of sight, but might be in position to hear those whispers. I think I read about a year or 18 months ago, that there was a server that was going to be merged with HC, Victory, I think. And that may have something to do with the naming policy update. Now, I'm not in the loop to understand HOW that could impact this, but anything is possible where coding is involved. The power of zeros and ones to ruin things is filled with potential. I used to think this way. But, having seen folks that literally just come out of AE, run a 90 minute 4 passive accolade run, and then an MoTF/SF train...I kind of had to change my view, and be open to the idea I was in error. And I have only recently realized this. I have to be willing to appear inconsistent and change my mind when evidence tells me I'm incorrect in my assumptions. There's probably something to this, however. I'm just not sure how relevant or significant of a factor it is. The longer HC runs, the more players will have run the lower level content. And, well, the more likely they might get tired of doing it and just skip past it, either through farming, ToT or whatever. Some will stop farming at the teens, some at 30, some at 50. And some of these players are, sucks to be me, but better at playing their character than I am at playing mine. Not all of them, of course. I'm sure I play better than some of them, lol. It kind of makes me sad to think that people are so openly rude as to denigrate people who's character info doesn't align with their own specific ideals, whether it be creation date, costume, bio or badge count. I completely get thinking that way, but to actually tell someone something negative based on something as benign as character creation date...that's harsh. You must have heard something I didn't, or I forgot about. Whenever I hear someone said something unsavory, I tend to be more surprised about it than anything else. Even when it's me being unsavory!

I think it would be mixed results, depending on the corruptor secondary. I absolutely love the fire/natty and ice/cold combos for corruptors. The damage boost from overgrowth, in conjunction with the debuffs make the damage seem better. Anecdotally, I can tell you the mistake I made with my fire/dark and ice/dark corruptors is I didn't plan for enough end reduction and/or end recovery. Incarnates made a solution, but no build should rely on incarnates, because when you exemp, you're a bit gimped. I hate using short term solutions like inspirations or temp powers for long term problems. I need to at worst respec mine, or at best, use some unslotters in some clever fashion. I think you'll be fine with your dark style whichever way you choose. There is one thing about fire that I like more than ice, and that's the sound fx and the snipe. Ice doesn't have one which has always been a big downer for me. And there's something pretty awesome about the sound of fire. The ice "whistle" is okay, but the fire sound is more than cool to me. Water, to me, has to be cleverly planned out, ensuring a smooth attack chain. Ice and fire seem to have that no matter what I do, but I have to be more deliberate with water. I usually plan for more recharge in water builds to make the proc attacks available more often, as well as the rest of them. Candidly, if it weren't for the procs, and the bouncy nature of the attacks, not sure I'd even play water. But that's just me.

I guess that's where I'm different from folks. I might think something like that, but I would never say it. I just happened to notice it because I dusted off over 50 characters for the halloween event that didn't have the EB defeat badges. I remain proud to display that most of my characters are 4 years old or so. I even have some that are in their teens that are that old. I keep waiting for a change to regen on one of them, lol. I still think this was poorly implemented, no matter how sarcastic hedgefund gets. People should be proud of their character creation date no matter when it was. If people don't like it, tell 'em to kick rocks while they rub it in their chest. As they say on the block, "Release those nuts".

Privacy? It's when a character was created, not the player's address or favorite color. Hardly something to be kept private. It should be public by default, and if folks want to be all secretive and private, let them toggle it hidden. It's fine to have a choice. But the implementation is the opposite of the better way. But that's just my opinion. Now I have to toggle it on every character I play. I have to be inconvenienced because some folks want to keep this minute detail private? That makes zero sense to me. I do not understand why this would be something to keep private. Again, if that's what you want to do fine. But it seems to me the implementation should be the other way around. Won't be the first time this game did something that made zero sense to me. Won't be the last. I've got to add this, because, why not? Someone had to be irritated/irked/annoyed at having the day their character was created on display for this change to have been made. And they presumably made some sort of cohesive argument for it to be changed. I am stretching my brain trying to determine why they don't want it displayed, and all I can think of are the judgements that someone might have, when looking at team comp for something like a master of TF run. A leader looking at a players info and seeing they just were created yesterday, they don't feel so good about the character, thinking they're a noob or something because they were literally born yesterday. In some cases, that's a vet player who just pl'd. Fairly meaningless. I do not get it.

Just a pro-tip regarding Tunnel Rat and mission 1. Use mark & recall, she ports right with you to the door.

What gives with this? I always thought the day the character was created was a bit like a birthdays. Why do I have to click to have this display, instead of the other way around? Is there an option I missed I was supposed to check?

Congratulations! You have confirmed this is a problem. Now, the only solution is for players to stop worrying about their own fun, and to join whatever is being recruited for in that moment. Right?

When I was suffering through the Ouro badges on my characters, I tended to aim for DPS, aggro management and buffs. The ATs used are irrelevant. All I aimed for was one from those 3 categories. If we were allowed to play 4 accounts on the same shard, I would have added debuffs.

I would guess they use email or a phone to reach a specific contact they have.

Well, upon reading Voltor's guide, I think this is working as intended. So, you'd have to run the arc 2x. Arrest him both times. That would fill the vigilante points to 10. Each run gives you 20 merits. Then run the morality for 40 merits. Each run, if you take 5 extra seconds and look to skip M1dway (the trip to Striga - which I neglected to skip 2x cuz I was clicking through to quickly) takes about 10-15 minutes. A time saver for me was using Mark & Recall on the first mission. It only saved me 20 seconds or so, but I told myself it saved me some aggravated maneuvering. There's a smaller door you have to get through, and sometimes, there's too many npcs to get through it quickly. Still, 15 minutes x 2, plus the morality, that's not bad. 80 merits in 40 minutes. Not nearly as good as a hami or a tinpex, but if you're solo, you can break up these activities and afk and such. Not too bad.

So, on my third run with this. Thus far, I've killed Marcus, Returned Marcus, now Arrested Marcus. And I want to say this happened the previous runs, but I didn't notice it until now. I check my alignment progress and see this: I just had done the 25 vigilante missions prior to this loop hero badge effort, and my progress was at 5 vigilante points. Now it's full. And, according to my SG computer, I can "buy" the morality mission and I can only presume when I complete it, I'll get paid my 40 merits. Is this WAI ? If so, this little arc, taking 10-15 minutes to run (faster once you run the 2nd time) is a lot more profitable than just 20 merits.

I appreciate the list. On one character, I was catching it up on the badges since page 7; and I was doing Ashling Corlett...whatever her name is. And I got the opportunity to earn 2 vigilante alignment points. I foolishly thought they'd count. They don't. Just an FYI for folks who might have thought the same thing. Gotta run two more.

The key for me in this question is "relatively stress free". Now, I'm been on a meteor farm with a blaster at +4/8. Killing speeds were nice. But it was NOT relatively stress free. First, because I've never been on any blaster that could get resists much higher than 60%, and still have any kind of defense, I felt I had to start with some inspirations. Having to use the insp combination macros, while keeping my eyes on my health and my defense and resist stats...well, it just wasn't worth the effort. I can just park the brute in the middle and play the characters I wanted to play on my other account while that was happening. So, for me - the answer is no. Someone smarter and more creative than me, with a different appreciation for paying keen attention may come along with a better answer. I would suggest making the un-preferred fire tank or brute, putting burn on auto, then tabbing out to the ranged character you prefer to play. Then tab back in, sell the drops and repeat.