Ukase

Shhh....they'll hear you.

Maybe you should just buy all the mini-hamidons. Only 32 of them, and I'll have the only one! (except for the 32 you'll have) The crazy thing is, even though I could easily buy the requisite salvage, I'm inclined to wait until they drop organically before I craft this pet. I'm curious to see how many vet levels it will take before I organically acquire 20 hamidon goos.

I have no idea what I was expecting, but it wasn't this. 20 Hamidon Goos? That's hilarious. My questions are these: Will it change zones with me? Will it fly if I'm flying, or does it slide along the ground below? Can it be out with other pets, like my Dark Servant, and/or a mini Jurrasik? If I have the mini-pet versions of Jack and Eochai, will they fight each other? If not, can we make that happen?

Almost a full week ago, I was running content on gold side and we had some crazy, yet brilliant use of fold space. Someone lays out tar patch, and the other player uses fold space to move the mobs right into the Tar Patch, and then I'd drop whirl pool in the same spot and we'd all mash buttons until they were dead. Fold space has a place in this game. But, the folks that use it have to be smarter than me. I've got a couple of characters with it, but the main place I want to use it - during MSRs, it never works. The main user of it is my fire/ice tank. When they're ported, they're in an almost a perfect cone for Frost. I know there are players who use Fold Space far more effectively than I ever will. Like yanking weakened Hami out of the goo in Lady Grey. I would have never thought of it.

I could certainly be wrong, but just based on the characters I see, it's on account of the fairly successful show called "Lucifer". I've seen at least 1/2 dozen references to some variation of Morningstar.

Earlier today, I was making some adjustments on a new 50, and I noticed a discussion on the help channel. A player was asking some fairly good questions for a new player, mostly about the differences between enhancements, and how to create them, why to create them, etc. I'm reading the questions, and the answers. The player in question was lucky, in a sense. They got excellent replies. But, as good as the answers were, they fell short. With the new terminology to the new player, there was still a lot they didn't grasp. I'm asking myself, how do I articulate in a concise manner how a booster works, and how to add them, and in what cases would you not add them, and what cases you might want to. While I did drag a sample IO and a booster to the chat so they might better understand what I was talking about, I still am wondering if there isn't a better way. I have a memory of sharing my screen over discord with someone who was in my SG, and revealing various things I do in the market. And, then it occurs to me -- why can't I, or someone who already might be streaming content, do a visual primer on the following: The difference between a DO and an SO. Where they may be bought if you need them. The difference between a basic invention enhancement and a set bonus enhancement. Why D-Syncs, Hami-Os, and Titan-Os, and such are desirable in certain circumstances. What a winter-O is, the several ways to get them, and how to catalyze them to make them superior. Our HC devs have tried to educate our players in a simplistic fashion, and for the most part, the tutorial does a decent job at a basic introduction. But I believe many of our newer players could and desire more information that's clear and concise. Using the help channel is probably their best option at present. And even if we can make a fantastic visual aid, whether it be on Steam or YouTube, it may not get the views. Some of you are very creative and already do stuff on Steam and/or YT. So, there you go - the challenge has been put out. Create a video explaining these different things so that a newer player can readily identify how to find and use the various loot the game presents us with. Mind you - we don't need 20 of you doing the same thing, although that wouldn't hurt. Perhaps some of you might collaborate.

I want to thank you folks for taking the time to share your tendencies regarding a respec. I was all prepared to respec this one character...but then discovered Mids isn't quite done adapting to page 7. I've got a corruptor with Energize, and mids hasn't accounted for that yet. The character is quite good as is; and I don't really need to, but I've got a power that in practice just doesn't suit me. I don't quite grasp what good a minor control is, when as soon as they take damage, they're free to clobber you. I guess it ensures I get one good shot off, or I can stall until something better recharges, but thus far, that hasn't been a need or an issue. As for the 50 or so characters that were revolved around Rune of Protection, and/or stealth pool, they can remain as they are. I think re-rolling an alt is faster than making up my mind what to do with them.

Before anyone goes nuts...I burned through a metric ton of converters trying to reproduce this result and could not, so I didn't report it as a bug. I am actually thinking this is more of a server load playing games with my graphics, as right before this, I had converted a level 10 defense/end/recharge into a teleport protection, +res. And, honestly, I can't be 100% sure this happened, because I was in the midst of doing a fair number of conversion on my alt. I tend to pull out the attuned when my characters hit 47, and slot the 50's in it. But it sure looks like it happened. And for older eyes like mine - note the starting and ending levels of the enhancement.

We all know there have been some changes, particularly with the added challenging content and the changes to the council and CoT. Some folks have only a couple of characters that are 50, some have none, and have no real desire to get there. At least, not strong enough to play one character until they get there. Some of us have literally hundreds of level 50 characters, all IO'd out, t-4 in all the slots. And some of us rotate how we play those characters, while some serve purposes, like helping others and our alts get the mayhem missions and other stuff - but they don't really see any action, unless a friend is looking for a specific kind of help - which is coming up a bit with these mirror image badges and the variety badge, whatever it's called. I used to be a badger, but not really one any more. I just can't hang with it, it's not fun for me anymore. But, I digress. How many of you are going to respec your characters to better handle these changes? How many of you just re-roll a new character to adapt to these changes and leave the older model sitting? I have thought about going through my roster and respecing a lot of them, just to clean out the IOs, and delete them, as I don't play them anymore. I have no idea how much of a server's resources go to ensuring the data is there if I ever log them in again. The inf they carry, the badge count, the sg they belong to, the pieces of salvage in inventory...all of that takes at least some memory. Not to mention the name of the character. If it's a paltry amount of resources, then it's really not a big deal, I wouldn't think. But it might be of some use to me to have fewer pages of alts to sift through, a ready supply of cool names for me to choose from, since they're already names I have on my characters. Just curious about how many folks adapt to each patch.

I have made a couple of homage characters that, thus far, haven't got generic'd. Candidly, I don't think they will be or should be, but I don't make those decisions. I made Mr. Warmth, an Homage to Don Rickles. I have a couple of kind-hearted insults on a couple of macros should the opportunity present itself, and I have Carol Burnit an homage to Carol Burnette, who is one of my two favorite female entertainers, the other being Betty White - no homage to her yet, but as soon as I can think of the proper name for the character, I'll get right on it. The thing about those two, the costume creator is a bit limited on creating any kind of clone for them. I mean, a bald old guy for Rickles. That's fairly generic. And a red head for Carol Burnette. That's about as close to resembling them as I could get with my limited creativity.

I don't know what kind of difficulties there would be in making this possible, but I think it's a great idea, provided the capacity is adequate. As an example, my current character is crafting/converting every uncommon/rare it gets, and the ones that will likely be used in the next character get stashed in a specific bin in my base. One of the things that keeps me from joining sgs is the inability to access these items without logging in an alt to get them. I suppose I could just sell everything and rebuy it, but I'm too well-versed in the market to be so foolish. But..it would be super cool to have my own inf bank account instead of stashing it in market bids and email, too.

And, I see now I did read it incorrectly. Rhetorically, why can't they word that in a more clear fashion - "Debuffs critters damage resistance by 22.5%". I'm far too obtuse most days.

So, I could be misreading this - but I think this statement is..inaccurate. Tar Patch debuffs damage by 22.5%. Not Damage resistance. At least, that's what my detailed info tab shows:

So, because when Yomo talks, people listen, I happened to see this post. On Excelsior, I can confirm this delay of 20-30 seconds before a price history displays. On Indomitable, it's instantly. No issues, at least, not for me. That said, I think the lack of price history made me a ton of inf I might not have otherwise gotten. Who needs a price history anyway? Not me. 🤑

I'm most likely to fail this challenge. I can rarely make out any costume in sufficient detail to notice anything. It's an odd thing - I see screenshots of a costume and can see it well. But in game, I can hardly tell it's anything special. For example: What is there to notice other than pink hair, with shades of blue, black and gold? It was a random costume, all I did was change it from a fish face to a human head, really. The randomizer made it all black and blue, but I figured there should be some kind of other color. But maybe it my graphics card, or my eyes, but I just don't see anything clearly enough to note any fine attention to detail for evaluating a costume. Now, a bio - that's a different story. I do read and compliment amusing or interesting bios. But costumes? I'll try...but I'm no fashion plate.

When you see this, could you ask them a follow up question, "why?". I can understand them turning off general chat. There's no real limit to how inane some of those chats can be, it's why I turn it off myself. But the help channel? Why would anyone, particularly a newer player turn that off? There are dozens of ways to solve the growing pains of the newer player, but opinions are going to vary wildly from don't help them at all, to give them 1 million at level 10 to get them on their way. I personally think the defeated npcs dropping enhancements and salvage they can use is the proper path. It always annoyed me to be in DFB and get some lame SO like a confuse when I didn't have a power that could use it. Or worse, be in The Hollows, really needing an end mod enhancement, and getting one, only it's the wrong origin.

Anyone have any insights on how to make the most out of the Dark Servant, other than just to spawn him as a distraction? Does proximity and my current health level have any impact on whether he uses a heal, or is it his own health (or lack of it) that triggers the heal? ************************** Here's the longer version: So, I'm playing an ice/dark corruptor now. It's an interesting mix. As a fairly experienced player, I understand that toggles like Shadow Fall aren't usually what lead to endurance not being what I'd like, but the frequency of attacks. But, damn, this character drinks endurance like a drunk at a free bar. But never mind that - I'll sort that out, even though I already have the 3 end/stamina special IOs, like Numina, Miracle and Panacea, and the +end perf shifter, perf shifter end mod, AND a power transfer end mod in stamina. Thing still gobbles up endurance like crazy. But, I digress - the dark servant. I noticed this creature healed me. I can think of more than a few times when I sorely needed a heal and the dark servant was like me, a bit more focused on surviving themselves instead of worrying about a long-animation heal that also requires an accuracy check. The dark servant has a lot of abilities. Not a great aggro magnet like other pets - but then the Dark servant isn't a pet. I was surprised to see I can't slot pet sets in it. In a way, that's cool. But, the two sets I'm torn between setting in it...Cloud Senses and Basilisk, they're both lower level sets. They both cap at 30. Now, as far as percentages go, the boosts aren't that much smaller, but there is a difference. Poor dark servant won't really care. What do we know about the dark servant? I know I'm usually too busy fighting to pay him much attention. If I didn't need a heal, I probably would have never noticed him giving me one. I was probably just lucky and in the area. The description tells us he's an unwilling servant. He's all stealthy-like, so I can't really make out what animations he's doing to determine what he's doing. I know he likes to use a hold, those are quite good and timely, usually. We can't control him or tell him what to do. So what gives with the Dark Servant. What's the best way to manipulate it into being more useful?

I don't think I need to play anymore. I can just read Snarky's accounts of his playing and pretend it's me slapping a level 8 team leader.

On a character of mine, Uncle Artica, I was level 49, wanting to ding 50. I knew if we defeated Lord Recluse on the Jade Spider map to free Statesman, I would likely ding 50. I recruited 7 other folks and we stuck together for the most part, with a couple of folks running around locating where the heroes were needing rescue. We rescued them, and killed the Jade Spider. There was no difficulty in doing so that I recall; it was only a couple of weeks ago, maybe three. It's a necro thread, but I didn't bring it back to life! I don't know if it was changed since the OP posted his difficulty or not, but I don't recall ever having any issues with this mission. But, I do know the Lord Recluse as a level 54 AV on this map gives about 4-5 bars of XP. That could be because of 2xp and patrol XP together. Or I could be misremembering. But it was a lot more than I would have expected.

Forgive someone who is older, and likely behind the times. Is the term "wet chat" used here a typo? Or does it mean something? If so, what does "wet chat" mean?

I'm probably in the minority. I got Aim on my ice/dark corruptor...and it never occurs to me in character creation to look at the animations of various attacks. That's just not something I normally do, as I feel like I've seen them all before. I know from experience if I'm going to do Bitter Ice Blast, I need to decide between types of shades/looks (crystals, skulls, noir, original, that kind of thing) to ensure I have what looks like a standard throw, instead of some fancy softball pitch. I execute Aim, and I see my character thrust their arm into the air...I've never seen this animation before. And I've taken Aim on several characters, if not dozens before this. So, if there's been a change in default animations, I have to wonder why. I'm sure this is MY fault, as I tend to gloss over the patch notes, mainly looking to see the major changes, not something so mundane like a power animation - which I myself might have triggered unknowingly during creation. But, if I didn't trigger it, my suggestion is that powers execute with a default animation. If there is a new option available, I would think folks who are interested in those changes would specifically look for those changes and take note. Unlike me, a rather dull person who would not. Just my two cents. I can't believe I've got to go to a tailor. An experience I just don't enjoy, to see if I can change this undesired change back to what it used to be.

The only way to definitively know for sure is to go back in time, using a specific character, (or team of specific characters) run through the same mission(s) with the same settings and do a tally. Repeat this effort 30 or more times for statistical significance. Then repeat the effort post-patch and compare. It's a small consolation, and may come off a bit harsh, but at least we still get the free 120 in the first dozen levels (minus the 3,6,9, and 12th level when we get the emps)

I'm sorry. What's a dance pad? Is that like a mat you play twister on? I genuinely have no idea what this is.

I think this touches something well worth saying. We have people in this game, who at times act as if this is a job, as if there's some kind of leaderboard tracking success and failure. And of course, as mentioned, we also have the opposite. I feel like I'm one of those geriatrics who've reached 100 years old, and the reporter asks them, "If you could tell anyone younger one piece of advice, what would it be?" My in-game self would say, "Don't worry about getting to 50. or getting t-4'd across all incarnate powers or getting all the badges. Do what is interesting/fun/amusing for you. That's why you're here, isn't it?"

The reasons may vary wildly. I'll just give my two cents, so to speak. First, there's a tendency to remember the negative more than the positive. Further, what fun is it to post about a team-up that went just fine, nothing to speak of? Secondly, it's got less to do with the intellectual capacity of the player, or their experience, but their attention span. If I had a nickel for every time someone's mentioned a cat on their keyboard, I'd at least have a roll of nickels! So, there's cats, there's babies, there's other family - some folks play at work and have to close the screen quickly. Sometimes, it's just a matter of the player falling asleep because the weed chilled him out too much. I've never smoked weed, but I suspect something like that is possible. I firmly believe that drugs are probably about 5% of the reasons things go crazy on some teams. Folks are drinking or drunk, or stoned out of their minds, or under the influence of some chemical. Maybe it's too much caffeine. In some cases, it's just a matter of someone who doesn't really pay attention for whatever reason. So many folks just do this to mindlessly pass the time, and they really don't care about your experience. If the phone rings, they stop fighting, get up and answer the phone. They'll leave the character wherever it was, and not care one bit if the whole team wipes. Maybe they come back in a few minutes, maybe they don't. So many reason for bad play. And those are the excuses/reasons for the good players! I spoke with a level 50+ player today who had no idea how little he knew. In his case, it didn't matter, because he didn't want to know! All he wanted to do was be able to run a farm on his own, instead of being just a hitter. I asked him why he wanted to farm. He said it just relaxed him. On Task forces and mission teams he had no idea what was going on. This just puzzles me to no end. I can't fathom how you don't know what's going on. It's pretty clear to me! But - I've been doing CoH in it's various flavors a long time. And I still learn stuff - like - who knew you could target through a portable work bench? I sure didn't! But during a Nemesis raid, too low level to have any pets, and I couldn't target a thing.. anyway, I digress. Our player base is filled with folks who may be sharp, but have trouble seeing various colors. Or just have trouble seeing. One guy I know is literally deaf. Makes Discord kind of pointless for him. And he's still a better player than some folks who have all their senses, except common sense! We never know what's going on the other side of the keyboard. But by and large, my vote is bad play is usually the result of drinking to a point where folks just don't care what happens. Some folks think dying is part of the attack chain. Some folks are just crazy.