Ukase

To me, the biggest problem with %procs is I've got to plug the values into the spreadsheet formula to see their odds of firing. One minor issue is an experienced player has a huge edge over one not so experienced. (I could even swap out the word experienced for smart, or knowledgeable) I just learned 2 weeks ago that % procs let you exceed the damage cap. Silly me, I assumed all this time that we had a cap on how much damage a given attack could do. Apparently, there's still a cap - it's 6 %procs with enough fulcrum shift to get you to your character's damage cap, whether it's 675% or 400%. How many players know this? It's been covered in these forums, but me being more obtuse than most, it's taken me years to finally learn it. And I had to be told - verbally over discord - before I learned it. While I don't think anyone is keeping these things secret, it seems like more clarity could be useful. For me - I think a % proc should taper depending on how many other of the set is used. If you use the full set, you get 100% of the damage from the proc, every time the attack passes the ToHit check. If you only use 2 of the set, only 1/3 of the proc...that kind of thing. It'll never happen, of course. Some people tend to see builds with full sets and discount them as valid for elite play. (Fine for general purposes, of course) I just think incentivizing someone to use the full set is a good thing. Make the slots scarce. It's one of the few remaining challenge left in the game, creative slotting. As I'm learning more about the dps meta, the more I think it's really fascinating - but - it's also not a great thing for everyone. So many of our players don't want to think that hard when training and slotting. They want the fat xp, and like the sound and visual of leveling up. They want to visit a trainer, and candidly, some of our players would benefit from the trainer suggesting what power and slotting choices they should make. (Might make for a great challenge concept, lol. Have Fusionette in Kallisti Wharf tell me which power I should choose next) It's great that this game offers so many layers. There's so much behind the figurative Wizard of Oz's curtain! And most of it I still haven't seen. Or if I've seen it, I don't truly know what I've looked at yet. But the % procs...man, this game could certainly benefit from making them all work more consistently. Like..why does the absorb proc from Preventative Medicine work in a power that's inactive, but a numina unique has to be active? I know it's because they're different and work differently, but they should be consistent in how they work. Granted, neither of those are %procs, but the suggestion is still decent. Consistency, and transparency in how they work. Having to tab out (and I'm grateful for that effort, @macskull @Bopper and whomever else spent lord knows how many hours on it.) isn't something any of us should have to do to determine how effective the %proc will be.

So, I want you to know that you're not crazy. Some ATs take a while to come into their own. That brute of yours is going to do great...and then it will taper off a bit. At least, my brutes have, right in the mid to late 20's. If you can afford to, the START Buffs make a pretty large difference, at least, anecdotally. And at level 1, they're super cheap. They can't be too bad at level 13. The other thing I might suggest is mitigation. While Sands of Mu, Nem Staff and Black Wand are fine, the plasmatic taser is ridiculously good to use when solo. It sends 95% of the mobs flying, buying you a few seconds to take care of what you were working on before the extras disturbed you. It's a quick activation, and the results are nice. Another temp you might try is the phase shift one. It only lasts 30 seconds, but that's time enough to vacate the area without getting shot in the back. So, here's something else I'll say. Teaming can make things super easy, or super tough. A bad team will leave you shaking your fist at your screen, if not screaming at it sometimes. (Or is that just me?) A good team will make things ridiculously easy. If you're like me and can't always team without having to afk far too often, then going solo will lead you to pick up some skills that most other players just won't. A team hides many of your weaknesses with buffs/debuffs. That said, by and large, the content was designed for teams. Sometimes, the 0/0 setting seems to have no effect on what's actually in the map. <shrug> Hope you get it sorted out.

There's not enough room. That's why I had to make another account.

So, as much as I'd love to have a bank, I'm looking at the troubles with the new badge tracker that seems to always run out of memory on the more populated servers. Can you just imagine a player depositing their funds into the bank, and then someone like Yomo deposits all of theirs, and the bank runs out of memory and nobody can get their funds back, except for a brief period after maintenance, and maybe not even then? Nope. Don't get me wrong, I'd love it, but because of Murphy's law, I'm not sure it's something I'd encourage.

Just anecdotally, and I can't say definitively this is what happened in your case, but I'll have what I call a display lag. Happens to me when I'm in my base and unslotting an enhancement or three, or making ATOs or winter-Os superior. The enhancement that I pull out will not be in my tray, nor will it be in the power I pulled it out of. And sometimes, it's both in my tray and in the power I pulled it out of. When this happens, I just stop. I go to pocket D or RWZ and then things go back to normal. Something in my base seems to gum things up, so I try not to do too much stuff in there, except stash and pick up enhancements, or just pass through a portal.

Not always. By default, you should be able to. But it is crazy to me how many settings get borked either by the player or who knows what. Just a couple of days ago, an old retail vet came back to the game and was on an MSR. Dude couldn't find the pylons. I suspect they turned "special" off for some reason. I think there's at least one map where "special" being on hides a badge marker from vidiotmaps. Same goes with teammates or leaguemates. Courtesy screenshot, since I know you folks know this already. Just a reminder. I led a dfb this morning with a new player, and I was painstakingly describing what to expect in the most clear way I knew how, because I honestly have no idea what a new player knows, and what they don't. And after it was over, I felt like a 6 year old could have done a dfb as well as any adult if they read the instructions. Player quit right before Meinst. At least they didn't cost us the badge. Some days, you can't win by being patient or being a jerk. People can surprise us at any time.

Sure, I might get a level 53 Accuracy SO. But that's not really what I'm after. I don't play to get what I need. I play to get what I want. There's a clear distinction. I don't mind jumping through a hoop or two to get it. But I'm not going to grind for weeks/days/hours to get what I want.

I have considered doing this with more than a few players on these forums. But I never did. The reason why is because despite my distaste for their smug opinions, at least a few of them have shared facts about certain things I did not know, and probably would still not know if they hadn't shared them. So, I learned from them. One of them, I just couldn't stand. I hated his forum handle, I hated his forum icon/avatar, and I couldn't see where he was coming from with the opinions they had. But, as either I changed, or they changed, or the game changed, I began to see more of where they were coming from, and now I find myself in agreement with probably 30% of what they say now. Crazy, right? And even though I can't see myself being chummy with them, I do know that most of the folks that disagree with me aren't idiots. They have their reasons. I may disagree with their positions, but more often than not, they aren't crapping on me - just my idea. Several years ago, they proposed the change of not allowing vet levels in AE, and at the same time, they were going to remove the option to trade emp merits for reward merits. This was maddening to me, because I was burning through converters at the rate of about 3k a day. I needed all the darn merits I could get. And suffering through posi 1's to get them wasn't (still isn't) my idea of a good time. There were a lot of opposing views, and of course, many farmers were aligned with my position for their own reasons. Today, I see it more clearly. The change they made, even though vet levels are still allowed in AE, I no longer get them in AE, except on a farmer that PL's my characters from 30-35. It's just an awkward phase I don't want to play through. So, I don't. I tend to get my vet levels (and the emp merits from them) in the labyrinth. A lot more fun, and a lot faster, too. For me - that change, even though I hated it at the time, it forced/encouraged me to adapt. And the reason I bothered to adapt was due in no small part because the HC devs actually listened. It probably wasn't my post, but someone else more coherently summarizing it, but they still listened. It was the first illustration that they did take player feedback into account. They may not agree with 99 of my other opinions, but for whatever reason, they did make the choice to allow fools like me to get vet levels in AE if that's how we want to get them. But just feeling like I was heard was huge for me. I can't speak for Yomo. But for me, I recognize that the way I would change things would ruin the game because I'm just too short-sighted, and frankly too obtuse. Half the time when someone spells things out for me, I still don't see it. And given the fun I've been having lately with the labyrinth, (and this weird Psionic Armor on this tank I'm playing) I'm going to just trust in what they're doing. I don't need them to reply to anything on the forums. I'll see their responses, or lack of same on brainstorm.

The odd thing is there's an option in the tailor for "Metallic" that looks an awful like this undefined mode, but without the aura effects - which aren't available the way it looks with the costume toggle. Still, tailor token vs 1500 prismatics...

So, I was reading - because I know you're smart, and I'm always ready to learn something. But I stopped right here. I don't know about you, but this exchange would punish players across the board. The only folks who wouldn't really feel it...folks with stacks of reward merits safely tucked into their account email. There was a time, back shortly after HC opened the doors I would participate in the zerg, and the more patient clear 1-2 mito spawns method. I did that for maybe 6 months or so. I can't recall what distracted me from it. But on one tank I had 8000 reward merits. I eventually converted them into hero merits, and they're still hero merits on that tank that I haven't played in too long. I can only imagine how many Hero/Villain merits some of these mostly one character players like Cassie Knight and others have on their characters. To just pick this one tidbit out of your post is unfair of me, but it's just so awful to contemplate - after players like us already have tons of merits at our disposal - it's just not a good idea. It probably would just encourage me to do what I'm already doing - limiting the creation of alts, and trying to find my favorite 30-40 characters and just playing those. At that point, I wouldn't need converters because I'd already have my big stacks. So, it wouldn't really impact me. But I would feel awful for the new player trying to kit out their characters. Well, if I had a badge or a statue to display in your honor, I'd do it. You've improved the way so many of us play with your guides and your generosity. But sadly, I don't have that kind of influence, despite having 1 inf or so less than you.

As someone who routinely makes a new character, starts them at zero, and "earns" or "markets" a billion before they hit 50 (generally reached by level 20-25, depending on weekend activities - both mine, and the population of the weekend), it's not easy unless you know how. Even if you've been playing for a few months, or half a year, depending on how many hours you've played, how high of a level you've reached...there's a lot to learn. I can say this because I have to remember all this stuff once a week or so. Let's say they're aware of the ol' standby advice "Convert merits to converters/boosters/unslotters/catalysts and sell on AH." Okay..fine. But they're gold side and level 9. And of course they used the 2xp buff. And they've only got 17k to their name. And yeah, they've got 18 reward merits, and after they get the explores for the zones that character can handle, sure. The 28 merits they convert to converters gets 'em around 5M, depending on what they list 'em for. But, suppose Yomo had his "noob traps" in for those converters, they see the last 5 sale price of 48k and all they get is 48K each? That just cost 'em a million if they use the last 5 as a guide to list the price for. Or they list them at 65K, and it's the same week one of the shard TFs is the weekly, and they're ignorant of the fact that converters are going to flood the market. So, they have to pull them off, and re-list. And let's also discuss the few IOs that seem to frequently give nice returns, like the Miracle unique. If they buy a heal set enhancement that's not in the miracle set, that 15 converter average could easily go up to 30 converters. I imagine the learning curve of when to buy an attuned IO to convert versus when to buy a crafted IO at a specific level is greater than zero for some players. Now, most of us that are here - we know these things already. And I think a lot of us forget that many folks don't know this. Or, even more dangerous, are armed with some of the knowledge, but not yet enough to have figured out whether it's a good idea or not to sell this or that. Heck, I'm seasoned, and some of what I see on the Market just makes me scratch my head. A superior blaster ATO for 4M? Really? Even if there's just one on the AH, I don't know if I can trust the AH last 5 sale price display. So, no, I don't think making things more expensive is going to do anything to benefit anyone. It's just going to raise frustrations for the players that are not rolling in it. Look in the US supermarkets now, and see the looks of concern on the faces of most people. That's real life, but who wants to have that same scenario play out in a game? Not this guy.

I'm fortunate in that mids works for me. Still, I learn things about how to use it fairly often. That said, the numbers are what they are. In game, most of us can discern that we're using too much endurance (or not recovering enough - and those 2 issues are not quite the same thing) or we're getting hit too much and/or too hard. And it's not that hard to address those issues. Mids is kind of like a nice to have thing, but it's certainly not mandatory. For me, the biggest thing is the damage output or tracking max HP, or some other attribute I'm aiming to get as high on the character as I can and still have it be able to function. If I can't use it, I'll just have an excuse to not get bogged down with the numbers.

If anything, I think too much content is rolled out at once. Sorry, bored folks, but there's way too much content in this latest patch for a player to 1. Create a character. 2. Level it up as you would on the server, testing this, trying that. 3. Doing the math if something seems off. There's just too much to do. And this is not new. All of the "pages" have been gigantic. They could have released half of what they did each time and we would have been fine, none the wiser. If we want to got more code savvy folks to work for free, perhaps it would be wise to reach out to a few university professors that teach programming and ask them if they have any promising students that would benefit from the experience. For all I know, it might make an excellent work study program for a few credits.

Just my thoughts. This is a game. A game that many people occasionally take more serious than others. I'm not going to say if anyone is right or wrong, but this is just a game. And for some, it's really not even a game, it's a mind-numbing time sink that allows them to forget about certain problems. As mentioned by others, some folks like to see the npcs flying about. Technically, this is damage mitigation. While the npc is flying, they're not attacking. This has a place in this game. Granted, knocking them down the hall makes things take longer. And when you've limited play time, that's not good. We have a global friends list and super groups for a reason, although many of us don't use them for that purpose specifically. If I accepted another blind invite when I ding 50 with some random SG, I could team with some of them, and I'm quite sure some would use fold space and remove the mobs I dropping blizzard on, making my nuke useless. Happens every so often. Or, I might find a scrapper whining about my using ice storm scattering their "herd" that they just used fold space on to gather. I'd have to remind them they're a scrapper with no taunt aura. The idea that they think they can keep a "herd" is silly. No taunt aura. Quiet, scrapper. Keep ignoring chat, and focus on that boss to the exclusion of everything else that's happening. No wonder people hate scrappers. Or, I might be on a tank, and a controller locks down the mobs before I've put them in a nice pile. See? There's always going to be some tactics that work well for one player that will annoy the crap out of the other. We cannot impose our inability to think and adapt on our dev team. These are skill issues, nothing more. In some cases, it's not even a skill issue, as the player would know what to do if only it occurred to them to do it. It's more of an blissful ignorance, assuming others would get the same joy. I strongly suspect the guy who's using Fold Space is thinking he's putting his 500M d-sync to good use. And he is! Just not for the guy who dropped blizzard on the mobs as they used fold space. The KB is the same kind of issue. You're a player that has an attack at the ready, you use it...and you get kicked or fussed at for doing what you're supposed to do? No. You're getting kicked for a lack of perception. You assumed that the other players would get joy or appreciation out of your 7-10 split on the bowling alley map. (did that paint the right picture?) Myself, I'm never going to use kb-kd unless I'm in pursuit of that set bonus for some reason. I'm smart enough to hover over head and kb them into the floor. And if I miss, I'll defeat the scattered mob myself. I'm also smart enough to not team with anyone that is so vehemently opposed to effective damage mitigation. I know where they're coming from, but I don't want to be where they're coming from. There's enough intolerance in the real world. Don't need it in game. Again, I understand the challenges dealing with kb. But they need not use an IO to solve it. It's just like working with cones...it requires positioning to get the most utility out of it. Look at your surroundings. Adapt, improvise, overcome.

Fairly straightforward. I've no idea how you folks are using the teleports without the beacons...but I guess you're just hiding them somehow. But my way works, and it only took about 2 minutes to set them up. And yeah, color coded. I suppose the blue should be a darker blue...but it's not like anyone else uses the base.

That's helpful. Seems too good to be true, but I've not see how strong the buff is in vivo just yet. Thanks.

So, I guess I missed something in the tome of patch notes regarding this armor. "Hitting any foe with this power will refresh all existing stacks you currently have". Stacks of what? My tank is only level 10 presently, but I've not seen any mention of "stacks".

It's right in the HC Wiki. https://homecoming.wiki/wiki/Custom_window_(Slash_Command) Now, anecdotally, it's weird. If I've closed the client, I have to reposition the window. And it was a devil trying to get it to work. I'm sure smarter folks who are good at pop-menus and such will have an easier time than I did. It is almost easier to just set up an empty power tray and put the macros in there, but when you hit 50 and have a slew of temps, etc..there's not often room for all that. So, you can make different custom windows - one for targeting GMs, and one for things like this. (Or opening super packs, or whatever) Now, I was initially interested in the custom window because I was told I could literally click the tab that had the macro I wanted to use (like scouring a zone for a GM without having to edit another macro on the fly) But..while it did do that when I first installed it - when I logged and came back, that utility disappeared. And, frankly, changing a target macro is pretty simple. Right click, and change the target name. And the mysterious lost functionality remains lost for me. Still, for entering SG bases that aren't mine for instanced raids and such, and combining insps...useful.

So, you're not the only one. Some of you have seen it before. Some haven't. The Custom Window above is what I click on to change 3 of a kind into a red, should the insps drop in that fashion. The arrangement depends on what the character is going to be doing, and what AT the character is. My */MC blasters only carry one break-free, the others will carry 4. Tanks that might do an MSR will carry 1, unless they have the sheer will accolade. Columns 2 and 3 are empty now because I used up the reds that were in the columns. Standing lowball bids to restock are always in play. I keep supers in my base for specific tasks like soloing a TF and would need extra damage.

You're not accurate here. When you boost an HO to 53, you need 4 of them. If your build requires 6 of said enhancement, the AH would need 24 of them. For at least a couple of them, they're not available. And, there's also the risk of losing one or more of them because the combo odds are not 100%. At present, there are only 9 Amlyoplasts on the AH. That's fine for one power, perhaps. But for some characters, not a full build. Only 18 Stereocilia. 3 of them are level 45 or below. For "Bad HOs", an ice/dark controller, I had at least 9 level 53 Stereocilias planned for the build. Even with 100% combo rate, that's only half of what I'd need. Bad HOs - Controller (Ice Control - Darkness Affinity).mbd

Yep.

I am wondering if the name is too ...colorful for some folks. That is the name of the character. Bad HOs. But someone will likely go there, lol.

When I'm zipping through content for mission objectives only, I don't need or use them. But - when I'm playing at +4/1 on a level 5, I use them all, and wish I had more. As for why my level 5 is playing at +4, it's a stupid idea I got from Yomo. Matthew Habashy's arc is great for it, because you really aren't fighting that many mobs. And when you call in the last mission, it's a nice chunk of XP.

Ah, I love this topic. So rich in varying degrees of opinions. I heard something in league chat a couple of weeks ago. And it's paraphrased. Wish I had the quote. (paraphrased) I find there's more than enough inf just from playing. But, to each their own. Now, in the context of the discussion, I took that to mean they have plenty of influence and don't struggle. I didn't pin them down, as it wasn't the right time, and frankly, I didn't have a strong enough relationship with them to push back on their thinking. There's a player that I thought was a newer player. They needed help with something fairly simple - determining which of the 6 arcs in Atlas they hadn't done. A trip to ouro and I helped them figure it out. Soon, they complained, or perhaps it was just mentioning that they needed 100M to get the Will of the Controller set of ATOs. I was dumbstruck. 100M? I checked the AH. Those pieces were going for 8M. Then they said Superior WotC. I explained as best I could, as English isn't their first language that you simply buy them standard and make them superior. Then the next day, I see them on an alt with over 100 vet levels. I've no idea how someone gets to that kind of vet level and not be just rolling in influence. But, I can't see what they're doing, or how many alts they have that lay unenhanced because this player has no concept of how to use the market. Currently, I've made a character on Victory. Helped someone do a Frostfire. While I was waiting for the recruiting, I did some crafting, converting, enough to buy my ATOs at level 15. But, I know how. Some of it I knew from retail, some I stole picked up from Yomo's guide, and other posts. By far, I made most of my inf from the winter-O pack sale. Like some of you, I make my characters earn their way through. I don't often drop a chunk of inf on them, send them to START and plow forward, full steam ahead. (sometimes, I do) In this case, I'm experiencing more difficulty in amassing the stacks of inf. It's coming, but more slowly. Now, clearly it's competition. There's a ton of it. PvP recipes, which I still have lowball bids out for - literally 1000's of lowball bids on, are selling for 4M and more? Someone clearly is competing with some others to get into that niche. I see those crafted recipes selling for 5 to 20M, just depending on the keystroke errors of those in a rush, or those who have more inf than patience. (or sense) It's a tough niche if you don't watch your converter cost. Or even if you do. And I think that's where the rub is for some of these players. Most don't mind slapping some converters on the AH to grab some quick loot. They don't necessarily mind spending 100 merits for a winter (even though the case can be made you'd make more profit using the 300 converters you'd get with those merits) some folks just want to kill stuff. That's why they're here. To live vicariously through their alt. Ultimately, it leaves me with one conclusion: this game just isn't for everyone. And that's okay. HC has made the market so much better than it ever was in retail. The barrier of entry to do things on scale..that barrier isn't nearly as high as it was on retail. But, it's still high. Farming - my only beef with farmers is when they PL someone without having any idea or care if that person understands anything about the game. Other than that, farm away. Doesn't bother me in the least. I farm my own alts, usually from 30 to 35. And sometimes from 41 to 45. Just depends on the character. But, I don't bug anyone - except for that player that really wants to team up and can't get a team. That player might dislike farmers for not playing the way they do. And that's not to say they don't want those players to ever farm, but to stop and help them and then go back to farming after their string of missions they wanted to do is over. Some things in game, like the universal damage sets...I wish they could be earned other ways instead of just that specific content. And I suppose, indirectly they could be. You'd just have to blow through reward merits at an heinous exchange to get them. For now though, I think we leave well enough alone. I've been going out of my way to gift chunks of inf to newer players, trying to gauge how much assistance they want.

It's already been mentioned. Jack Emmert, love him or hate him, stated clearly that the only reason to play this game was to team up. Trinity aside, their intent was to have people team up, and make friends as they played, resulting in continuing subscriptions so you could keep teaming with your friends. And maybe experience some interesting content while you're at it. Not sure which issue it was, but sometimes around issue 4-5, or maybe before, there were fire tanks telling other players "I don't need you". And the controllers and defenders were left outside in the cold, having to find a desperate scrapper or blaster to aid them in reaching their goals. (Pre CoV, you know) It wasn't long after that, they put fear into burn. Suddenly, a controller that could lock down a group had some utility. I myself reaped the benefit of a grav troller who would use repel, forcing family into my burn patch. Fun times. Sisterhood player, college student destressing before her finals. No idea what happened to her in real life, but a nice person. Now, just because it was always like that, and planned that way to discourage soloing, doesn't mean it has to remain that way. But I am not smart enough to find a way to allow controllers to reap the same benefits as a blaster solo, without them being a true force multiplier on a team, to the point of ridiculousness. I'm not saying controllers shouldn't do more damage. Maybe give them a damage buff when they're solo the way defenders get one. At least before level 30. That's over fast enough anyway.