Ukase

This is just anecdotal evidence, laced with perception bias. It seems to me that the random drop of the PAP is kind of like the purple/very rare recipe in one regard. I have a large number of alts. Anecdotally, yet certainly not every time, most of the time, if it's been a week or more since I last played the character, I get a purple. It had been a week since I'd played a certain ss/elec brute. I got a PAP after completing the first mission of a Morty Kal. On my badge characters, I tend to let them rest when they complete the latest new badges. So, when page 4 dropped, I went for the badges. PAP dropped in the midst of the new incarnate arc for one, for another in the midst of the new Steve Sheridan arc. Zip for a third character, but the 4th and 5th also got a PAP from a random drop. Each one of those got a very rare after their "rest" from the last page. Like I said, anecdotal with perception bias, but I'd suggest giving your alts a week's rest and see what happens - if they mean that much to you. But - here's a question: PAPs are selling for 7M now. I have to wonder, how much will the price go up when they intro the rest of the costumes? (My understanding is we've only seen the first tier; two additional tiers are to follow - but I haven't read that specifically, I just skimmed some things, heard some things, so nothing scientific about that, just conjecture. I know someone gambled big, buying 10K of them. No idea why. But if they go up to even 10M, that's still a 2M profit per, after fees. IF they go up.

I'm sure most remember that NPCs, when clicked on would give you a specific message, depending on what letter their name started with. For example, any NPC with the first letter M in their name would tell you how long you had been on patrol. (how many hours you'd played your character up to that point) I was in Cimerora, and got bored, so I saw this: You may not be able to make it out, but Gaia is saying that "there are 11 masks in this part of the city right now. " I would imagine that's designed for Talos Island...but I dunno...maybe they are talking about heroes or villains with masks.

Main probably means different things to different folks. Back on live, "Main" meant the character you played more often than any other. For me, it was basically the character I used to get all the badges, or on live, as many as I could get, having missed out on the first couple of anniversary badges. Now, for me, main is all but meaningless. I don't just play one, nor do I play one more than most. But the character that I will always consider to be the best is my ice/ice blaster. Numbers suggest fire/fire is better, but numbers can lie, as it all depends on the build and more importantly, the player behind the character. Given that on live, I played the ice blaster far more than any other character, and I'm still using the same key binds, I have my strategies and tactics down to reflex mostly. The only time I need to think about things is when encountering new mechanics from some of the more recent content. So, for me, ice IS better than fire. By a noticeable margin. Obviously, other players will do better with fire than I will do with fire, but I'm going to do as well with ice as just about anyone I can think of. The reason(s) that drew me into the ice blaster were partially due to @olepi's guide to ice/ice back on the live forums after I had leveled a fire/stone tank to 50. I used that tank to do quite a bit of farming, not realizing that fire/fire would have been a better way to go, as far as efficiency goes. But I did enjoy that Seismic Smash! Still, I wanted something different. Olepi made an informative guide and sold me on the versatility and power of the ice blaster. Freeze Ray, a hold that does very good damage with a very fast animation and a distinct in-game sound, coupled with blizzard, a welcome nuke that didn't require me to be in the midst of the chaos that is melee was icing on the cake. All the attacks in ice primary, except for Bitter Freeze Ray, have crisp, clean, fast animations. Even though the mag of a blasters hold is lower than that of a controller, with fast recharge, there's no reason I couldn't contribute on the green mitos on hami raids either, simply because of the fast recharge of freeze ray. And probably the biggest thing for me then was ice patch. Now, I don't really find much use for it, but when leveling, ice patch was an excellent "oh shit" button. If my holds missed, or I got over-run, the ice patch would always save me, except against the likes of Nesferatu who didn't slip like most other bosses. Always had to try and stay at range with him, and would often kite him as best I could just to get past him. Of course, this was all before inventions sets, so I had no defense. Never occurred to me then to take fighting pool or leadership. I was so ignorant, I didn't even know that I was ignorant. Still, just the memories of playing the character, even in pvp before travel suppression was a thing, I had a lot of fun with my ice blaster. The only thing that comes close to that fun now is my ss/fire brute, my shield/mace tank and my fire/fire blaster. But ice will always be the best if anyone asks, prefaced with the caveat of "There is no best", just "best for me".

Why? They're just going to shut down the thread because my word count in the post isn't long enough and the words I use aren't convoluted enough. But seriously, why do I need to talk about something I know next to nothing about?

Not sure you understood my question. Let me try to be more clear. Say you're fighting this Fake Nemesis EB. What level are you, and what level is the EB? Is it -1? +3? If it's -1, I can definitely see it being rather trivial. If it's +4, if I'm on a well-built melee character, I'm most likely not worry about holds/stuns/sleeps, so really, it's just a big bag of hitpoints, no matter what level. Sometimes, there may be surrounding npcs that provide some distraction due to potential -defense or -tohit or -recovery. (or a combo of those and other negative attributes). The biggest challenge our volunteer staff has in finding a way to make these interactions meaningful and non-trivial, appropriately rewarding without being too demanding for the average player. But if I'm on my blaster, I do have to worry a bit about being mez/stun/held/slept etc. I have to carefully consider what inspirations are in my tray before the battle. The higher the level I am, the easier these fights are, because I can load up on appropriate inspirations, even to the point of overkill. I can use my base or AH to get enough super insps to cap my damage, toHit and resistance, with enough insps to keep them capped for another minute or so. So, yeah, an EB is trivial if I use even some of the tools at my disposal. And sometimes, if I'm on a particularly well-built character, it may still be trivial. But I don't worry about it because I know there are other players who find what I consider trivial to be too challenging. There's not many of these players, but more than I would have thought. Most are just kids,I suspect, newer players who still haven't figured things out, or older players who consider RotP to be a valid part of their attack chain. (or play in such a way as to make me think they believe it) And, for some, that's great fun, which is fine, just not my preference. I hate to retoggle. Again, it's up to us, the players to make things harder until such time our volunteer dev staff find a way to make that EB a bit more balanced between the scale of Boss and AV.

So...here's my thoughts: Certainly, as mentioned by others, not all EBs are the same. Some are easier than others, for sure. But what's not real clear is what level are these EBs that you find so trivial? And what AT are you using to face them? Is it the same with your defender as your brute? We can't (or maybe we can, but should we) change the EBs to make them more of an epic fight when there may be players that also like to solo who struggle with the EBs we have now. Part of the reason for the disconnect is there are still players who avoid the invention system because they find it too complex. There are also players who may not understand attack mechanics or strategy, and just run in, mash buttons and hit the hospital...over and over, in the hopes of overcoming their regen. Unfortunately, the burden to make an EB more challenging is on you. Consider buffing the enemies through Ouro. Or debuffing yourself. There's all kinds of ways to make things easier or harder. The only limit is your imagination.

That was my plan. I've waited this long, another few days won't kill me.

Thanks - my question was if you'd already defeated those entities before page 3, would you get retroactive credit. My character has already done Posi 1 & Posi 2. So, technically, should have credit for Doc Buzzsaw and Dr. Vahzilok. Went into the abandoned sewer network and got 6 (which gave me no credit, I suppose I already got those 6). Tackled Meinst in a DFB and got credit for him. But I'd already done DFB, so I should have already had credit for him.

The requirements are pretty clear. Dr. Meinst Doc Buzzsaw Dr. Vahzilok Newt & Salamander Malady & Pathogen Cortex & Grey Matter I'm on a character that I guess I got lazy with. Regardless, the closest to completion says I'm 6 of 9. I have the Cadaver Counter and Cleanser badges from DFB - but I just confirmed from clobbering Dr. Meinst that I now have 7 of 9. Did they not award retroactively? I'm sure they didn't (as evidenced by progress in clobbering Meinst) - but I can't specifically recall.

I have a fire/fire blaster and a fire/rad corruptor (as well as many other fire/* corruptors. There is no question that the fire/fire blaster does more dps. But, with careful slotting, over time, the corruptor's secondary & scourge can close the gap some. Often, I can't really tell the difference, but really - I'm not looking for a difference. When soloing, the fire/rad will often fare better in harder content because of the debuffs. But, I've slotted for that. That's why you play a */rad. The debuffs are noticeable.

There is a way! And it makes no difference where your power is in your tray slots. Use a keybind. /bind B powexecname Ageless Core Epiphany (in my mind, B is for buff, so I just use B for whatever my Destiny slotted power happens to be) But, as you say, you have multiple Destinies. And you don't want to keep moving them in/out of where they are. Then you just have to be more clever with the key assignments. /bind V powexecname Barrier Core Epiphany or whatever key makes sense to you. The hassle is in remembering which key does which Destiny. For me, with all my characters, it's better for me to just use B for buff, N for Nuke (Judgement) and V for Hybrid. The Lore requires a reticle click, and the rest are auto. So, those three keys are next to each other, and I use them for all my characters so I don't have to keep anything straight in my head when I change characters.

For me, I tend to take them on most characters - and I solo a lot. It's not about self-ish vs self-less. It's about the set bonuses. When you're a defender, Corruptor or controller - the buffs are a LOT better than when you're on a blaster or scrapper or brute. It's almost a no-brainer to get them, if you have the endurance to manage them. And, candidly, without clever slotting, not every build will. I've got a fire/time controller that struggles to run these constantly, and I have a build to respec into it for better endurance management, but respecs on a level 50 character I've leveled up cause me to hesitate, because 1) I hate to find out my new build is worse than the one before and 2) I hate respecs in general, having to clear the tray, replace powers in the tray, do something with enhancements the new build won't use, get new enhancements to replace those...it's quite tedious. The leadership pool is not all it's cracked up to be when you're running a brute, tank, scrapper or stalker. The value of these buffs are not very good at all. Better off grabbing weave than maneuvers. IF you can grab both, that's all well and good - but it's going to cost you access to another power pool. And that's not so easily managed, particularly if you love Combat Jumping and the control it gives you, Super Speed, and then of course, there's fold space. A lot of folks really, really like Fold Space. And who can blame them? I can do without it on some characters, but others almost need to have it. And then there's the fight pool that almost without exception, every melee character will take. Often, there's just no room in the build for the meager 2.X % that maneuvers gives. It's a great set mule, but it also drains endurance - and lets be open, many of us will zip through so many missions when teamed up, unless it's hard mode, nobody needs that buff. Useful? sure. Necessary? Certainly not. That's what inspirations and defensive amplifiers are for. Not to mention other teammates may have cold shields and such to provide. Stacking leadership is really only useful in difficult content like HM ITF & Aeon. Beyond that, it's kind of useless, other than as set mules for non-squish characters. And, really, that's what I use them for, set mules. I like Assault - nice damage buff I don't have to think about. Maneuvers has a nice set mule opportunity. Same with Vengeance. Tactics - meh. Useful for the challenging stuff, but beyond that, the kismet 6% is a better option for most of my builds. If I can fit it - and can handle the end drain, great. But if not, nobody is going to miss it. After all - they should all have the kismet 6% right? I mean, who wouldn't? You'd have to be really selfish to rely on teammates for your accuracy, right? See what I did there? In all seriousness, it's all about your build and what you can get away with. There are thousands (if not more) of ways to make any given character that are going to be quite good, depending on your playstyle. They don't all need to use leadership.

My perspective is likely different than others. I don't "feel" or sense any decline in numbers based on monitoring help and lfg chat. I do see a number of players I used to team with are no longer logging in. A lot of them, in fact. Most of that is due to things picking up due to the pandemic seeming to drop off the news coverage. Like it or not, the pandemic seems to be "over". At least the non-stop coverage of it seems to have dropped from the news. There are a collection of players that have found other games or other social outlets. Hopefully, it's other social outlets. Nothing against other games, but sitting and playing this game just isn't really a great use of time beyond a certain point. In my younger days, 14 hours a day playing this game was common. Now, I'd be lucky to hit 14 hours in two weeks. The pandemic probably gave a lot of folks an excuse to get on, as there wasn't much else to do, except maybe play other games. Now, there's football, movies, hiking, running and all other things to do besides waste time in a virtual world that doesn't give much of a return in the real world, beyond some "chill" time. Don't get me wrong, "Chill" time, or whatever you want to call it can be important. I just think beyond a point, there's probably more important things to do. I'm just glad I work remotely, or I probably wouldn't even be able to play what little I do.

And you are correct. I was nitpicking; no offense meant. My only purpose was to demonstrate that emp merits were not solely used for incarnate materials. The vet level rewards...man, what can I say about them, except I'm super glad we have them! I should add that I wouldn't know a non sequitor if it bit me in the backside. If you're gonna make me break out my dictionary, bring out more than one polysyllabic word so it's worth my while. And a phonetic guide, too. I've read the word before, but I don't think I've ever heard it aloud. Snarky will make fun of me if I mispronounce it.

This is a bit mis-leading. Prior to the change from this patch, you can't really say that using emps "as intended" was for incarnate progress only. Yes, it's certainly true before shutdown that emp merits were used for incarnate progress - but they were also used for other items - as shown below: That's just Emp Mike, and doesn't show Astral Kristy. Historically, emps and astrals were used for recipes and such just as well as incarnate progress. As for this change from last patch, some folks probably missed it, but the reason for the change had more to do with a few bad apples that were reportedly using the emp->reward merit exchange in a nefarious manner. It's still lost on me why our HC dev team didn't lead with their reasoning instead of having countless pages of debate over the issue. But, I'm just a visitor here. Not my game, I just get to play here. Someone did finally explain what was going on, but felt they couldn't share too much, lest some players take advantage of specific info.

I simply meant that while confused, because I'm solo, that's the only attack I can fire. And, you're right, doesn't do any good.

There is a Paragon Protector that dishes out radiation damage, and those rascals kill me if I don't see them in time. I mean, it's over quick. So, I try to target them first. There's another Crey NPC that gives me a confuse, which doesn't matter if I have a PBAoE attack, but if not, it's really frustrating because I can't attack anything. And I still don't know which one does that. This is one of those reasons I build my characters more for order than choas. It pays to be able to sit there and take the punishment for a minute at the cost of blowing them up in 5 seconds instead of 8 seconds.

So, I can't add much that others haven't already suggested. I hate to use the word meta...so I won't. But there are, in a fashion, a lot of different ways to complete the same objectives. When you're on a speed run, for me, it always seems as if someone is faster. Some guys are in the final boss room just as I enter the map. I can only imagine their load times are much faster than mine, and my system is pretty good. I think the only bottleneck is my monitor, which isn't really taking advantage of my newer graphics card. Darn monitor. No moving parts, so the damn thing will probably outlast the video card and the SSD. And my awkward key binds - using arrow keys to move, as it's far more intuitive to me than using WASD or any other system. Speed runs are annoyingly frustrating for a lot of players, primarily because they feel guilty because the 2-3 players that team together all the time are probably on a discord channel coordinating while the rest of the team tries to keep up. In some cases, everyone's on discord, and even then, there's usually the same 2-3 players that get to the objectives before the rest can do anything helpful. I think this was part of the reason HM TFs came into play. Even still, some of the TFJ folks are so competent, so fast, that I'm often left to just blast the remaining bosses. Opinions and character builds will certainly vary, but there are some speed runners who design a build for a specific purpose. The use of Tactics, from the leadership pool as an example. In the HM TFs, there's some math at play regarding toHit, and thus, impacting accuracy. You be damage capped at 400%, but it does nobody any good if you miss half the time. So, a fair number of speed runners will either pursue tactics, and accuracy set bonuses, and recharge. There's so many ways to attack a given task/strike force. Kill most, kill through, my favorite which is "speed-ish", meaning you're going to try to speed, but understand that you're just not that speedy. And there's the speed runs. I just feel guilty being carried on those runs, so I tend to not join those too often. And if a speed run isn't your cup of tea, I wouldn't worry about that too much. I think there are more people who like to just casually clobber stuff in the way than speed runners. Probably depends on the content. But try to keep an open mind. Speed runners I've run into have all been sharp players, often more than willing to help someone get a badge, or some other objective. And their understanding of game mechanics is usually excellent. So, even if you don't want to team with them, it's good to be friendly with them because they're quite knowledgeable.

I should have been more precise. I used the search function in the HC wiki and came up void of results. (before changes were made) And, I do try to add a note to the HC Wiki when doing so won't impact the progress of team play. Generally speaking, I tend to do the same things, so I don't usually run into new territory.

Anecdotally, I find I tend to get t-4 in all sooner, but I'm not just doing regular content. When I do iTrials, I try to do master runs only, aside from Lambda, as that requires multiple runs. The reason, for those that don't know is each badge towards the master awards a random uncommon, and each master earned awards an additional random rare - all in addition to the reward table. Cosmic tends to run the Master of Magisterium on Saturdays, or at least has been prior to September. And following that, will run additional Master of iTrial efforts. Getting those badges leads to the extra drops, which makes things more efficient. I still look at reward merits for completing these as gravy, as that's not why I run them. But I do need to pay attention to them, because if those diminish for different itrials, then I've really got to ask myself why they want folks to constantly be alting out to another character. I know some folks do that as part of their routine, but I rarely have had multiple characters being developed/leveling at the same time. That just seems like a boring way to play. Do a dfb a few times on one character, log off and repeat it for another? Who does that? Then log in another character and repeat again? Not saying that's what they want, or that's what anyone is doing, but it sounds like that's the way they want us to play. Well, the weekend is here, so I'm not gonna sweat things out of my control. I'm just gonna row for a couple of hours and maybe go to Costco. I love watching the Customer Service folks take heat from customers. Last time, a chick was returning a sweater because of static cling! And, as you might expect, Costco gave her another one, no charge.

Anyone recognize who this might be, and what she's doing with the Warriors (Mortimer Kal SF)? To the left is a twin of this girl. They look kind of Cimeroran, but I certainly have never seen women hanging out with the Warriors before. Anyone familiar with a lore reason for this? Just curious. Edit: Looks like her name is Persephone, and the gal to the right is Aphrodite.

But that's t-3. I go to t-4. When the RNG doesn't show favor, the number of emps for the t-4 (30 for the VR) is obviously a larger requirement. I'm on my tank right now, ready to t-4 my alpha, and I did it all with shards. All of it. I will need two more Notices, tho, and will have to wait a couple of weeks - 1 notice from kahn, 1 from Mortimer Kal (prometheus conversion) ...and I'll see what the weeklies are the next couple of weeks. The threads I save from using shards saves me a fair number of threads to go towards the t-4s. And I'm sure we all do things our own way - but I am in the habit of t-3ing Destiny, Lore and Alpha before even bothering with any of the others. Then I'll t-3 the rest, and then t-4 Lore, then destiny and the others - and by that time, I generally have enough shards to finish t-4ing alpha, but will need the Notices.

Just my point. That's not nearly enough time. Heck, that's enough time to get the word out - not enough time to test things and consider how the changes will impact things. At least, not enough time for folks who only play a few hours a week, with some of that time already ear-marked for specific events. That's just my point. Making them available on the AH was just stupid. Not complaining - as I bought them at just about the lowest point because I could for my primary badge character. Still have 4 more badgers that aren't in a rush. I just don't think it was a good idea. We'll just disagree on that, and it'll be okay. I hope that's not the takeaway. I'm not disappointed in the release. I'm disappointed in the diminishing returns on different content, something I'd have pointed out if it had been on Brainstorm for more than a minute. (yeah, that's exaggeration. Still, 6 weeks isn't enough time. Granted, just my opinion, but 3 months would be better. Why the rush? ) I fully recognize that I'm a guest here. And the GMs are volunteers and the HC devs are also volunteers. I've also given proper kudos and thanks for them actually listening (and acting) on the vet rewards in the AE maps. Generally, the only thing I look for when I come to the forums is insight into the "why". When I know "why", it makes the "what" a lot easier to digest, and I really wish they would lead with the "why". Heck, 30 pages of AE squabbling could have been prevented if they just led with "why". (well, at least a couple of my posts, anyway) And remember (or realize, if you haven't heard) I can be obtuse. I want things spelled out by HC. I don't want to read between the lines. And no, thank you! I made a billion inf over the weekend selling the pvp IOs! Damned tedious, but it only took 4 sets of 15 minutes. Now if I could just get my competition to stop outbidding me on the recipes, I could lower the price some more!

So, no need to worry. I don't even know what stress is, really, unless it's on the erg. And this is where text loses something when someone like me is writing. Intonation, pitch, etc - without it, some things get lost. I'm really not that upset over the prismatic. The only thing that I'm finding a bit annoying was the rush to publish. Got a day when you think an issue/page is ready to go? Wait another 60 days. If they had waited, I could have seen more stuff in brainstorm and expressed my concerns. Heck, it was only a couple of days ago, my obtuse brain learned how to actually see what was new on Brainstorm to know what to test. It is true, the prismatic is a minor thing for me. But what's also true is I still need a lot more of them for various badge characters. It bugs me that because of poor planning on the devs part (it's my thinking - not an absolute truth) I get a penalty for doing more than one iTrial on any given character. I find it so obvious that this isn't a good idea, that I'm struggling to understand why they went about it in this fashion. With that, opinions vary. Mine isn't going to always be based on logic. Sometimes, it's just because I'm irritated. I did a BAF after a Lambda, and no prismatic. Not the end of the world. But it's damned petty. So, I'm not going anywhere. But even if I did, pretty sure nobody would even know I was gone until they tried to buy some pvp IOs and saw the prices creeping up.

75% of the player base is gone? oh really? While I'm sure some folks have left, others have joined in. I have no way of knowing the numbers, and I'm curious where you're getting them from, and how accurate they are. Something new in game for people to work towards...what? The prismatic? Who cares about those? The only reason to care about those is the three badges. You think that's what the devs were after? To get us to work towards those three badges? While that's possible, that doesn't mean it makes sense or was a good move. The reason Jack Emmert wanted people to team up when they played CoH was in hopes that people would form friendships, so that when the game didn't necessarily fill their needs for adventure or fun - the friendships would. That's the reason why so many SGs use Discord. Sure, it's a fine tool for challenging content - but the real reason is the leaders of those groups are hoping the goofy jokes or conversation about some strange character called pokeman will keep the people coming back. (I have no interest in this porn character called Pokeman, and I cannot understand why my SG has a channel in the discord just for that. But hey, if that's your kink, no shaming here. ) Beyond the people, the single best thing to keep people engaged aren't things to earn, it's new content. Which is tough, really tough, because once you do new content, it's not new anymore. After that, the next best thing is a new powerset. New currency? Do I have stacks of these? I certainly could - but because I can buy them. But now is not the time for that, because the price is too high - meaning, I can get them more cheaply in the coming days. I wouldn't use them as a store of value like I might a converter or a hero pack. Again, while this new currency may have been introduced so that everyone was on even footing, it's flawed logic. I have billions and could have been one to spend all that inf for 150 of those prismatics to get the badges. That's not even footing. I've got the inf. If it weren't for the badge fighting the two robots in the hardmode itf - the only reason to do it is because it's new. Once I get that badge...there's no motivation. It only took 5 runs of 4*Aeon (going for combat dummy) to get those three costume badges. So..um...no. It wasn't really a great move. Reward merits would have done the same thing.