Ukase

As much as I think the Instanced MSRs are better, if you're wanting more folks, that's not the best path. Even though I avoid MSRs with my sub-35 characters, a LOT of players think any level 1 can show up (I've seen 'em!) and contribute. (I haven't seen the contribution, they're defeated fairly often) Still, it adds to the numbers, and if they're a buff/debuff character, scaled to level 49, if they have some of the key powers, they can be useful.

I feel like I should ask this: On your MSRs on Indomitable, do you allow any level, or just 35 and up?

There's a lot of reasons for a drop in game population. Most of them are things to be excited about. As far as a new game goes, never heard of it. The nasty covid business "Seems" to have waned. The news is showing less and less of it. I could elaborate, but it's not my intention to derail the thread about masks/no masks, vaccine, no vaccine, etc. Because of that, though, more folks are getting back to work. As in - driving to work in the office. And, it's Spring! In my area, it's a beautiful sunny 70 degrees. I have played precisely three missions, lasting about 30 minutes total today. It's just too damn nice to play a game when I could be outside walking, & listening to podcasts of Kristen Bell on Alec Baldwin's "Here's the Thing". I think it was this past weekend, maybe the one before - the donation notice went out, and it closed pretty quickly. I don't see the game going anywhere any time soon. But, as far as indom goes, I like it there. I have two farmers there. I put them there because it's not so populated. I see the calls for MSR and iTrials, but I don't go because there's really no reason to go. Merits? Don't need 'em. XP? Don't need that either. Fun is where you make it. If the mood strikes, I'll go, but the mood rarely strikes. I much prefer lower level stuff, leveling organically and playing various arcs I haven't played in a long time. And because of my work schedule, I am likely to go afk at any time, so I seldom team, except on weekends. Folks don't like it when you join a team and stop mid-mission and then the leaders wanting to go the next mission and my character's still idle. They'd have to kick me, and who wants to be kicked? Over time, I expect more will be leaving the other shards and joining Excelsior and Everlasting. It's just easier (I imagine) to get teamed up. If that's your cup of tea, why not? It's not like the servers look different. I dunno, but maybe there's a way to save an SG file and just port the thing over, contents & inventory and all and just transfer it. (I doubt it, but seems like it should be doable. We can save a costume, why not an sg base?)

I know I'm not alone in this - when you switch alignments, often times your hero event messages turn off - and villain messages turn on. But when you're rogue or vigilante, often times (at least anecdotally) the system messages get confused, and in my case, I'll see a notice about something redside, even though I'm on blue side, but see nothing for blue side.

I am not sure if this badge is a need, or not. But the thought occurred, so here it is. Kraken Paladin Babbage Council War Walker GM (ya don't really have to hunt him..but okay) Adamastor Eochai Jack in Irons Sally Lusca Death Surge Caleb Ghost of Scrapyard Arachnos Flier Jurassik Kronos U'kon Gr'ai Seed of Hamidon All these GMs...once you get 'em all - a nice accolade called "Monster Killer", or something similar. Of these, Kraken, Jurassik, Arachnos Flier are definitely ones you literally have to pay attention to system chat and hunt for. (And hope your alignment changes haven't messed with the notifications) I could make the case that Jack in Irons and Eochai should be included as well, but some swear you can trigger their arrival by facilitating the war between the factions in Croatoa. I'm not convinced of that, but if so, add them. Getting those could get a further badge called Giant Monster Hunter.

I think I've yet to do this on Indomitable and Reunion. I personally prefer waiting to 40% health on Tyrant, as it gives me plenty of time to "stick and move". When we start out with all the lore pets and inspirations...well, it's just over too quickly. Sometimes, Tyrant only gets one round of crackle off, and it's a lot easier for him to "glitch" and not respawn as a tiny version of himself, and it becomes basically a mis-trial.

No screenshots as I wasn't there. The way hamidon works, there are 6 mitos of each type surrounding Hami when he spawns. If these mitos are not defeated, and the league pushes the edge and tries to take out Hamidon, at 75%, another complement of 6 mitos each will spawn. Proceed further to 50%, and another 6 mitos of each type will spawn - which means you have 18 mitos of each type, and at 25%, another 6 of each type spawn - bringing the tally to 24 of each type. And at zero, suddenly, all the mitos just despawn, and then Hamidon Buds form.

No question a personal SG is the best path, but as far as "managing" hundreds of alts, this is quite the time sink. It's by far easier to just move inactive alts to a different page. Inf has never been an issue for me, once I learned ways to turn merits into influence. The idea of removing enhancements from an alt for another alt is just a waste of time for me. I have, however, done a full respec of characters that I definitively know that I will never play again, and stashed those enhancements into my sg bin. The problem for me is determining how to organize the bins. I've thought about having one SG for characters 1-24, another for characters 25-40, and another for 41 to 50. I've thought about having one alt remain in the sg base to distribute items as need be - and collect them. Instead of moving 50 feet to the workshop, just target them and press G to give them whatever I'm trying to unload. But this seemed to create more work than I really needed to do. Now, I plan the build out for a character, stash the IOs in a given bin and the character picks them up as needed. Occasionally, changes are made, but that's infrequent enough to handle without too much fuss. Like in real life, money (or inf) results in more choices. No sense spending time unslotting characters of their enhancements, really. Inf is way too easy to make. The time it takes to unslot a character and transfer these IOs, even in a base, you could make most of the funds needed for most new characters. Obviously, if you want to go whole hog, you may need more time, but if leveling the character organically, no reason that you can't get the resources in 15 minutes a day, if it's well spent. Maybe 30 if there's not many folks on.

While I can appreciate what you're saying on its surface, I don't think you're really getting what the OP is disappointed in. It's not the difficulty, it's the idea of a game mechanic altering a character useless for what seems like an eternity - allowing the NPC to be clobbered. I suspect without the suspension field, the OP or any other soloist would have had at least a chance to taunt, toss a fireball or some other aggro collecting attack to get the ambush off the NPC hostage. In case it needs to be said - although I'm not sure it does, I'll state it here: CoH has a lot of different types of players. None are playing in a "better" fashion than anyone else. It's just a different way. Until you have solo'd a lot of difficult content, it may be difficult to understand what the OP is having an issue with.

That's useful. Not only have I not run the healthbar script, I didn't even know there was such a thing! Thanks. I'll see if I can't start running this as I exit the character creator.

I think I understand the frustration. I know, anecdotally, I've had missions fail due to things like this. I even had a character fail to rescue the fortune teller. I was surprised to say the least. It never occurred to me this could be failed! My character did just fine, but I was on a brute - with no taunt, heck, didn't even occur to me the fortune teller was in trouble, because there's no way to tell how she's doing unless I target her, and if I'm targeting her, I can't effectively clobber any of the ambush. Some times, there will be a mission objective, and I'm just in there clobbering, not really trying to speed through like normal, as I'm looking for XP, or perhaps I need these family goons to die for Gangbuster badge, and prefer to get it organically, rather than hunt for them. And suddenly, mission fails because I neglected to keep some hostage alive, and I wasn't even looking for a hostage. Now, that's my fault for not paying attention, but I do think a health bar, like the one Desdemona gets in the Underground trial would be useful for missions like this.

With regards to salvage being seeded and the patch notes: It's hidden at the bottom. Here: Granted, it doesn't specifically mention that a Chronal Skip listed on the AH can suddenly convert to a Psionic Manifestion, or any other rare salvage simply because someone bid a price higher than the chronal skip listed. So, I'm literally poring through the HC Discord to see if I can identify and paste any references to that specifically. While I saw nothing in this search effort by a GM or HC Dev, I remember seeing something about it back when it occurred. But, my search-fu is weak. Someone else may have better luck. But, someone did post this, which sums up what was already stated in this thread. Wish I could be more helpful. And it's clear that the AH code can be a bit fussy. It's quite amazing that it works at all, so I'm not complaining. If you're having issues with selling a 3rd rare salvage item, but the 4th rare goes through for the same price, I can only assume there's a mysterious reason for it, but I've no idea what it could be.

I almost bid 2M on a recipe by mistake just now...focused smite, I think it was. I caught myself at the last second. So easy to goof when you're in a hurry!

Well, that clears that up, thanks!

So...I'm a bit embarrassed. There's either something wrong with my literacy skills, my math skills, or both. I'll pose my question, and maybe I'll sort it out while writing it down, but not likely. I'm having a problem with the AccMods formula. AccMods = the power's inherent Accuracy × (1.0 + the power's Accuracy Enhancements + all global Set Accuracy bonuses) Specifically, I am looking at this due to my perception of whiffing with Fault, on a Stone melee scrapper. Unslotted, detailed info shows a base accuracy of 80%. I only have one slot in it, a Frozen Blast Accuracy/Damage/Endurance. Per the Detailed info on this Winter-O, the accuracy boost is 18%. Per my combat attributes, my total accuracy set bonuses are 9%. So... AccMods = .80 X (1.0 +.18 + .09) AccMods = .80 X (1.27) AccMods = 1.016 So...what's this showing? Why does my math show 1.016, and the detailed info showing accuracy of .94? (FYI - I unslotted the enhancement to see this same detailed info tab to get the base accuracy of .80, then re-slotted it) What terms/numbers have I confused here? I don't think my math is wrong, but I must be missing something - is the accuracy value in this detailed info is representing something else?

This is just my own opinion, and shouldn't be presented as actual facts. If you're going to play a scrapper, there are two basic types: Resist-based armor and Defense-based armor. Go for the defense based armor. Why? Because a brute has a higher resist cap, and arguably, with proper management of fury deals out more consistent dps, with more survivability, and as I stated - that's only based on my own anecdotal experience. Some players are way better at optimizing dps on a scrapper, using the ATO procs for the most benefit. (I guess) It's odd. After making a few scrappers with fire, invuln, rad, bio...they're just not that good with higher level mobs & mob count. (+3/8, +4/8) The defense based scrappers however, SR, Shield....they hold their own, much to my surprise. As far as the primary goes, I don't think it matters, though I've heard Dark Melee has a few issues, and Stone, as fantastic as a Critical from Seismic Smash is, there's talk that the dps is underwhelming compared to other sets and you'll need to pursue more recovery and/or endurance discount set bonuses to maintain longer battles unless you're teamed with some recovery buff teammates, or make prodigious use of Recovery serum or Survival amplifiers from p2w. And, I'm someone who monitors End recovery vs end consumption via combat attributes. I've got the usual procs in Health & Stamina, and still, I've got end issues. Only level 29, so hopefully when I get the next couple of accolades, that will help.

Thanks, but @peacock gave me a huge assist months ago.

When the servers are down for maintenance, I can get wordy. So, here's my conclusion first: I would say, if you're still fairly new to the game - go the way of the brute. It's a lot more forgiving of error than a blaster or stalker. My other thoughts leading me to that statement: So...here's the deal with Flashback missions...for any mission that the game would organically give you in the level 10-15 range, like "Rescue the Missing Fortune Teller", in Ouroboros, the level range is a bit off - it's in the 9-14 range. But, in order to do it through Ouro, you'd have to have outleveled it, or be higher than 14. But, if you wait until you're level 20, you'll get the benefit of those extra slots and those couple extra powers. And at 50, while you only get the benefit of a couple extra powers, you get the benefit of having a lot more slots. So, as an exemped 50 - this will be a much easier path than as a native character leveling up through content organically. So what's going to be best? Depends. How would you define best? Fastest? or Easiest? Is easy the same as fast? Is fast the same as easy? Not talking about my ex-wife, now. (Kidding! She's always been real slow! Too soon? Sorry, honey.) As someone whose done these arcs through ouro more than a few times, with blasters, dominators, controllers, brutes, tanks, scrappers, stalkers, to me, there's a bit of an anecdotal tie between the stalker, the brute and the blaster. Stalker has that super stealth Hide, right from level 1. Makes a lot of things easier. Lacks the Resist cap of brute. But, if you choose a defensive set, the defense soft cap numbers are the same for all ATs, so you should go with a defensive armor, in my opinion on lower resist cap characters like Stalkers, Scrappers, Sentinels. Brutes have the highest resist cap, (tied with tanks) and fury. Makes the early levels cake. Blasters...well, if you can afford to slot them "properly" and know how to do so, they are just incredible. By "properly", I mean the build has to be right for you, specifically & individually as a player. In my case, I like Super Speed with combat jumping, and using a jet pack to handle the vertical. But, with the teleport pool being revamped, it can be quite fun, if you can get used to using it. But some of those powers - like fold space, when you take that, what offensive power are you not taking? At 50, it's not a real big deal, but for flashbacks, when you take this kind of power, you'll want to keep that in mind when you choose your powers. Using the fortune teller mission as an example, if you pursued fold space too early, you might mistakenly omit your status protection until level 22, and then not have it against the CoT boss. That could be a mistake! And from where I sit on the occasional pug, a lot of players make this mistake. Yeah, like the guy who's on the Sutter TF, capped at level 40, with no travel power because he picks them last, because he never plays anything until he's level 50! And, fun is subjective. I know one player - the ONLY AT I've ever seen him/her on is a brute. That's all they'll play. They like brutes. Some folks prefer melee. I prefer ranged. It's just easier for me. Having to use fold space to herd, or hitting the F key when I need to, it just seems like a wasted step to me. But that's me, and I promise you, the way I think is much different than the way others think.

Nah, keep doing what you're doing. If my math is right, everybody wins.

I realize we already have weekly tfs, which are great for double merits and a notice. I was thinking though..what about some love for the other story arc content? When HC came up with some new arcs, they gave double merits, if I'm remembering correctly. Why not continue in this fashion? A lesser known contact that's unlockable, like 204 in Grandville (the Spider that tells you how much trust you have based on the Toxic Tarantulas you've defeated) might be one that a lot of folks aren't even aware of. I suspect there are more than a few contacts with story arcs that are off the beaten path that could lead folks to different parts of the game. Like Blue Cerulean on the Gold Side, etc.

I do get it. I think when HC first opened up shop, I wasn't sure which way to go with playing the market. Other than Very Rares and LotG, I wasn't sure what flavors of IO were going to be popular, so I invested heavily into Rare salvage. Easy enough to get via AE tickets and just drops in general, and then the HC devs seeded them, effectively putting a damper on my plan. And if they did that - what might they do next? Seed the lotg 7.5%? Put a ceiling on the cost of every IO? They could still do that! Mind you - it would just make my stack ridiculously larger in terms of need. But there's one thing I do know - if you step away from the AH, even if you have plenty - there may come a time when certain rules change - like emails being limited to 10 days, or a month. (I believe it was like that on live) So what would I do if that happened!? I'd need to make about 300 more characters pretty damn quick! Not to mention, when you step away from a niche, things change! I just checked - PvP recipes are ALL selling for more than 2.5M, up from the usual 1.5-1.8M. And they're barely holding price on crafted IOs at 8m. Someone is being competitive, as @Yomo Kimyata likes to talk about. And he's right. It's good for the community for folks to get more for the recipes and for other folks to pay less for the crafted IOs. But I digress.. I know I can make more, even if I were stripped of all my storage, all my inf. But I much prefer to do these things when I want to, instead of being level 22 and needing/preferring to optimize my character with an LotG 7.5%. I don't team often, but when I do, the last thing I want is to head to a trainer, level up and then determine what/how I'm going to put in the slot. I like to have the IOs already in my tray at the ready. And without "plenty", I'd be struggling and letting any prospective teammates down with a sub-standard character. I know a number of folks have no issue leaving things unslotted until they have a chance to take care of these things. But most of those folks are nicer people! Me? I'm a grumpy curmudgeon type. If I don't at least come to the party with a kitted out character, I might not ever get a task force done, unless I do it solo, which is fine, but takes longer.

<smh> In my mind, I'm appreciating the info. But in the back of my brain, I'm saying, "Fools! How much MORE could they have made if they didn't take the time to post these things?!" Some time ago, a post mentioned a guess at the total amount of inf. Just tallying it up is an opportunity cost. Can you really be an "ebil marketeer" if you take the time to measure how high the gold pile is? I say, if you have more than 50 billion, you probably don't need to market any more - unless it's just fun/habitual/interesting. Clearly, for some of us, it's quite interesting. I have been trying really hard to leave it alone and explore other facets of the game. But old habits do not die easily.

I know I'm not alone then. I have misread and misinterpreted my fair share of posts.

Ha! I knew it! In truth, I don't believe this for a moment.

It isn't? Then I'm not at all clear what it is about. The shortcomings of the costume creator? As I said, glad you enjoy the CC. To me, despite it's numerous, probably billions of options, I lack the patience and the inclination to see how close I can get to a comic book character. To what end? Just to see? And then not be allowed to make it? I'll just label myself illiterate and/or lacking in reading comprehension, then. As for righteous indignation, that's nonsense. I was just trying to be helpful.