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Ukase

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Everything posted by Ukase

  1. If you see Shadeknight's reply to you - in fairness, I did send him quite a bit. I left his name off, not to call him out, or report him. Merely to show why I felt like I was walking on egg shells. When something I say that's meant to be fairly innocuous is so poorly received by so many, common sense says I should look in the mirror. And I did. I never intended for my initial comment to hurt anyone's feelings, only to illustrate the way things seemed to me. And reporting people is appropriate in certain circumstances. I didn't feel this was one of those circumstances.
  2. This is easier to say than to type, but I'll do my best and I can clarify tonight during the crawl. A few months back, in what I would call a fairly heated debate about some of the proposed changes in page 5, I basically said "Y'all are like a gal who, just as soon as she finds a man she loves, she wants to take him in for alterations". No lie - that's not an original thought of mine - it was a line I had to memorize in high school for the play, "Guys and Dolls". So, the setting is from a time when sayings like these are common place - along with words like humdinger and doozy - which are character names of mine, I might add. Apparently, some of our more immature crowd took offense to that comment. And when I say immature, it's kind of a dig, but I really mean the younger folks. This is just an example of one DM I got. I'll omit the name, because that's probably against the rules. **************************** This is a quote, by the way: ***************************** And then I got the privilege of hearing from the mighty exalted Veracor! And in that, he shared that he "always had a low opinion of me" and I'm not welcome in any content led by him. So, screw him and others like him. I will say things the way I wish. And I will apologize if I feel I'm in the wrong, but in that specific context, I wasn't wrong. And if folks got upset, that's not my problem. That wasn't my intention, but that's the way the cookie crumbles. And it's worth pointing out that no GM said anything to me at all about it, because anyone with common sense knows that while the comparison is dated, the meaning of the full comment was and is accurate and absolutely on point from where I sit. And I think that's what really pissed them off. That I dared to show them that they really don't like this game as much as they claim to. If they did, they wouldn't be trying to change it so damned much. And now - here we are...player log in activity is lower than it's ever been. So much so, that a lot of folks want the servers to merge. Torchbearer, Indomitable, Reunion - they might as well be a version of Rebirth or Thunderspy, given the population numbers. I even see some of the roleplayers of Everlasting switching to Excelsior because they're having a rough time finding a team over there, too. That's not to say everything is gloom and doom. The HC devs are doing quality work, even if I don't always like the direction they take things. Over time, the folks that stopped playing here, odds are - they'll return for a spell, probably after each patch. But then they'll go away again. And, to their credit - I raised a big fuss over the vet rewards not working in AE, and they changed that. So, I can never say they don't listen. Clearly, they do. We cannot go back in time. And reverting things back to the way they were, even if the HC devs were convinced it was the right thing to do would probably do more harm than good. I would just encourage them to measure twice and cut once. There's no need to install all the changes immediately or as soon as possible. Leave things on brainstorm for a few months. Give your busy casual players time to not only try what's there, but to actually think about how the change will impact them, and others they know. Limit the changes each patch. If HC ever gets any kind of licensing agreement from NCSuck, (I am not holding my breath), then they can open the floodgates of change. Until then, be very cautious. Because while the changes were implemented successfully, you can look at the increase in Thunderspy and Rebirth, and even Purrgatory and see that is where many of the players from here went. I have said to the Cosmic Council SG leader once - keep treating this SG like it's yours and soon you'll be the only one in it. So, I'll adapt that to this context: Keep treating this game like it's yours, and soon you'll be the only ones playing it.
  3. So, my advice would be to go to Ouro. Start wherever you like - the top or the bottom. And do them all. Then, and I know it sounds crazy - change your alignment the old school way. Using Null ...and trust me, I'm super grateful we have the option - but there are a lot of missions in those tips that were new to me. For someone like me who likes to zip through, they don't always make it easy. And you'll likely get tired of seeing Blast Furnace before it's over, but it is different content than what most of us have become used to. And after you've gone from Hero to villain (or vice-versa), go back to Ouro and do it again.
  4. My thoughts are a bit jumbled. I have played here, of course. I played on Rebirth during the summer of 2021. I still play here, but only once a week to lead a small group, during which we seem to do our best to see if we can get the others to groan out loud due to the pain of bad puns and other off-the-wall commentary. When I load up Thunderspy - this is what I see: I do not get that impression here. I get the impression that I have to walk on eggshells here. Thankfully, I love the crunching sound under my feet. To HC's credit, they recognized that running the same content over and over for incarnate loot can get stale. Enter in the vet level rewards. Maybe they're too much. Or maybe they're just enough. Opinions will vary. They don't have that option on Tspy. In fact - there is no farming in AE on Thunderspy. Thunderspy has a much lower population. But so far, the only thing I haven't been able to do is a magisterium. We're still waiting on some Task Force Junkies to get something in lore & destiny.
  5. I should have been more precise in my wording. I've never truly "missed" 7x in a row. It would be like 2 misses, and 5 "deflected".
  6. More often than not, the circles I travel in lean towards -HP (Degenerative) or Reactive (-dam resistance). Now, I am only trusting that @Caddaric has some inside knowledge, because the game itself doesn't say so anywhere in any description that I've encountered, and the "pearl" was that only 5 interfaces will work on a given target at a time. So, it can pay to have some folks with t-3 and some with t-4, because they are essentially classed as different interfaces. Or, some with radial, and others with core. Either way, they'd be different. I have used Cognitive - and it works well, but it doesn't (anecdotal evidence only) work long enough to sit back and watch the carnage. They don't stay confused long enough to take any of the npcs out as I recall. (it's been since live, and while I am not "old", I certainly am older and may be having some sort of perception bias) A quick trip to brainstorm could show you. I've also used Spectral, and noted it worked because of the immobilization. If it weren't for my experimenting with these options, I'd be hard pressed to verify that these work in any fashion at all. There's probably some element of proof in the combat logs, but things process so fast in there, I'd have a rough time proving it. Still, I find most characters will choose something to strengthen what their positive attributes are. Farmers, for example, would routinely get reactive. My ice blaster would use degenerative for something like a Magi, but ordinarily would get Gravatic to aid in slowing the recharge. It's really difficult to know how well it works. Confusion, Immobilization, a tiny degree of endurance drain -- those are things I can see. But a -recharge is tough to see. Facing an NPC, outside of Elite Bosses and AVs, they don't last long enough to tell. And EBs and AVs are generally too resistance to such things. So, ultimately, unless it's a specific purpose like a RHW badge, it doesn't matter to me.
  7. It all depends on what you're up to when you play. If you're routinely out clobbering npcs at +4, then a higher accuracy is in order. Particularly if the npcs have a habit of debuffing accuracy or have particularly high defense. Think of Vampyri, Spectral demons for the former, and Rikti drones for the latter. When these npcs are +4 to you, it can be more than a bit annoying to hit "Aim" and then your t-9 and whiff. Repeatedly missing because your attack was "deflected". That nifty rule about only missing 3 times in a row doesn't seem to apply here. I've missed against a level 54 drone on my standard level 50 blaster 7 times in a row before I finally got him. But that was only with a kismet 6% and whatever accuracy comes with the global set bonuses. No tactics or Focused Accuracy. Anecdotally, I don't ever worry about accuracy because of the kismet. It's generally enough with the kismet, and when it's not, I can use the yellow inspirations.
  8. I play chess, too. Once, I saw my opponent take his bishop from g6 to b2 in an effort to capture a pawn and threaten my lazy rook that was still in the corner. If you look at a chess board, you can see that a "white" bishop (nothing racist there, it's the bishop that is allowed to travel on the white colored squares, diagonally) doesn't get to suddenly become a "black" bishop. (Nothing racist there, either. It simply denotes the bishop that travels on the dark squares. Not sure why they don't use dark bishop and light bishop. It's just the terminology used in chess.) As for the rich player "hacks", It can be difficult to find the specific inspirations you're looking for, particularly mid-fight! Just for me, when I play, all the purples are lucks. The yellows, I don't refer to them as "insights" or "imbuements", just yellows. Same with reds. So, when I see all these various names, I know they tend to be in alphabetical order, but I rarely know the specific name for them and always struggle to find them. If I think about it, I try to raid the email before the fighting starts, but even then, I'd use what's in the tray and struggle to pull the right ones from email. Not that I'm rich or anything...
  9. I like cookies. Well, most cookies. I do not care for those that have dead grapes in them. But I digress. If I like a chocolate chip cookie, and then the universe, in it's prolific wisdom begins to pay certain people to put out the message that the chocolate chip cookie name is offensive to all other cookies and should be called a chocolate pieces cookies instead, it's still going to taste the same, whatever it's called. - OR - You heroes that play corruptors and other traditionally villain ATs, you think you're being heroic. But you're not looking at the big picture. You're evil, you're just too ignorant to realize it.
  10. This is, I believe, a fair explanation. The quality of stories vary, and candidly, the evaluation is entirely subjective beyond spelling and grammar. I look at the HM ITF, as an example. It has some amusing things, interesting mechanics, and different strategies for various encounters. And yet, there are many of us that are reward driven, or driven just for speed of accomplishment. It's unrealistic to expect any new content to please everyone. The players would gobble up a new powerset, a new zone with multiple arcs within a month. And then there's a want for more. For a volunteer staff, they give us far more than I would have ever expected. Page 3...well, for me, it was really too much at once. But that's just my thought. Snarky is right on one point, there's a lot to read in the red side dialogues. There's also a lot of content in the Shadow Shard that often gets forgotten. Gold side - including First and Night Ward also have a fair bit of content, if you're inclined to read it. Another story line that may have escaped you is something that's not in Ouro as far as I know - the Kheldian story lines, if you're a PB or WS.
  11. I say no, until he apologizes for the way he treated me. He was a jerk.
  12. I leave it the same way I found it, except I click on "1" to make a chat box specifically for SG chatter.
  13. Me, I would have reported them - but not because it was a copyright issue, but because they were too lazy to come up with something on their own. I can get behind an homage type of situation, but a mini-HeroName isn't exactly in the same frame.
  14. I have more alts that are 50 than I care to think about. With the exception of 11 of them, they were all leveled up organically, outside of a farm. I don't know exactly how many, but around 200 of them are level 50, with maybe a dozen working their way towards it. Thing is - once I bench a character for any number of reasons, it can be months or more before I get back to it. A few of them were made for specific purposes. I have one on each account that do nothing but stand next to Schweinzer in Port Oakes to give my alts access to the mayhems for the invader accolade. I have a character on each account with Multidimensional mission, and Shrouded. Another character on each account with Anti-Matter and Seige. I have a fire blaster that aids with killing spiders and family in Port Oakes to satisfy a couple of the defeats for the high pain threshold. I have another parked in Ouro just to grab the Unlucky Artifact mission, also to go towards HPT accolade. I have one character on each account that has lowball bids for pvp io recipes. These characters will craft and convert them for no more than 15 minutes. If I'm not done, I'll finish the next time. I list them for what I think is a fair price and they tend to sell by the next day. I have a couple of others that bid low for various goods like boosters & brain storm ideas. I used to have a few tanks built just for Hami raids, but they're so boring, they don't do much of anything. The rest just reach 50, get t-4 in all, then they tend to sit, unless I have a desire to play them, which is not as often as I'd like. Some days, I think about clearing all the IOs out and deleting all but maybe a dozen of them. But then I'd have to list the IOs for sale, or make a new base. Either way, it seems like too much work.
  15. Just the thoughts of someone who's made stockpiles of influence, most of it being through the sale of Winter-Os and PvP IOs: Buying one winter pack isn't likely a path to big stacks of inf. And that statement requires elaboration. First - last year, a LOT of packs were bought when they were on sale. Probably over 100K of them. I know I still have 1500 of them, plus or minus a few hundred that have yet to be opened. There's a ton of those Winter-Os in various peoples character emails. Large supply tends to suppress the price due to competition. Second - the rng is a fickle mistress. You might spend your last 25m on a winter pack and get crap. You can see in some of the older marketing forum posts where you get items you can't really monetize - like a tailor token or a snow beast. The snow beast is fine for lower level stuff, but it's not sturdy and will die fairly quickly at higher levels. You can't trade it or sell it, so it won't help you. So, if you are going to try and make profit - you need to be able to afford at least 10, I'd say. Or more, just to be safe. Even so, sales will be slow. A lot of those bids are genuinely bottom feeding bids. Like 1M for a superior avalanche. Every now and then, someone posts one for sale for like 1 inf and gets suckered into taking 1M instead of the 30M they were secretly hoping for. The good news is, if you're level 50, inf is easy to make. But it kind of sucks to get tailor tokens in the packs. The only way I've been able to make over 25M on one pack is when I get two of the winter-Os in a pack. But, since the average is 1.3 enhancements per pack, there is profit to be made, if you buy enough packs.
  16. So..here's the reason why I slightly disagree with your statement. A new player that hops in a farm is not likely to have a clue how to play their character. There IS a learning curve. It's not terribly steep, but it does exist. Giving these newer players a couple of levels won't hurt much - but some of these "kind" farmers will PL them to 50. Or perhaps more commonly, from 1 to 22-25 or so. I've even seen some farmers tell them to get the p2w no inf/2xp buff. So they get all those levels, but have zero influence. Now - a savvy player can either borrow from an alt, or like me - use the market to fund the new character, but a new player will not have any real plan. At least, unless they know someone who can guide them. But even then, being level 50, with nothing but the SOs that dropped during the farm - of which most are already red and useless - all they would have is the loot from selling the SOs and the recipes they got. Thing is - those recipes, if crafted, might be useful to them. But they may not be able to craft them, know where to craft them or know how to craft them. They are a useless character until such time that they learn how to outfit their character. So, I definitely would say that It's NOT okay for every other person to be PL'd. I'm not saying it's illegal, immoral or fattening, just not a good idea.
  17. This is probably the single biggest statement that makes a lot of the disparity in game apparent. Here in these forums are many pearls of wisdom that about 90% (just a guess) of the player base may never know about. I still recall on live, this gentle soul called "Mr. Sticky" who shared with me that there were forums. I'd had no idea. I knew next to nothing about slotting. I knew next to nothing about just about everything in the game. The forums are where the real treasure can be found. How to market. How to farm. How to do just about everything in this game, depending on what your own style of fun/interest is. But, people are busy. Or bored. Whatever, it's just a shame that we cannot force people to read the forums and gather the extra bit of information so they could do things they'd never thought about. But then again - at least half of those people would find a lot of those ideas tedious at best. If I had a billion inf for each player I chatted with and shared my methods for amassing piles of influence, after which they told me that didn't sound like fun to them, I'd probably have twice as much inf as I have now. Making sizeable chunks of inf quickly in this game is easy. But, unless you are in a particular mood or have a certain type of personality, it's not going to be fun. The faster it is, the more tedious it probably is. Opening those winter packs...sure, it can seem like playing video poker, in a fashion. The first year, like many of you on the second year, I wasn't rolling in it. I invested ALL of the inf I had in those winter packs and darn near tripled my stockpile, meager as it was. It got me to my first Billion, and the best part was a lot of that was made before the sale was over, so I could buy even more. When last year hit, I had read that they very likely wouldn't sell them again for that price, so I stocked up. It was at least 1500 packs per account. I still have 500-700 packs left on each account. They're just not fun to open, or I guess I'd open 'em. I mainly do it for the boosters, because those things don't drop and reward merits are generally only for converters. But I recognize that not everyone gets a dopamine rush out of seeing those 10 catalysts you got from reward merits sold for 5M (the first 6 months) each. I felt rich with 50M! Not everyone is willing to create a second account to not only PL your alts through rough levels or setting up for Invader, Seige, Anti-matter, Shrouded, Multi-Dimensional, so each alt can get most of those passive accolades when it's convenient instead of going through the same arcs with each character. We're all different. But I can no more hate on people with spiffy costumes because they like them than any of those who don't like the marketing/farming game hate on me for what I like to do. The big difference though is my meta game garners me stockpiles of inf, while the other ways don't. And on HC, inf is fairly important. Not as much as live was, with the 200M+ for a single purple or 2B for a single pvp Glad Armor 3% def (All). So, if you want to make inf, read. Research. Review. Invest your personal time for your character. In the end, it's all pixels, so you have to pick your battles. You cannot take it with you. I think Snarky has the right balance of doing the minimum amount of crafting to satisfy his alts plus the odd impulse purchase to help someone out. As for me - I have huge stockpiles because I not only farmed with multiple accounts, but I also marketed. I also badged. (5 characters with all the badges, so far) I also do kill most team ups, theme teams, and a lot of other stuff. Everyone has to find their own way.
  18. If you want to play a version of CoH without Null the Gull (to switch alignments), without P2W, and "mostly" without AE, head to Thunderspy. They do things differently there. You don't use AE there to farm. Why? because the missions there, except for the very few that are ranked Developer's Choice, only award tickets. No XP. None. Powerleveling/farming is done in PI and Dark Astoria, depending on the mission. That's not to say it doesn't happen, but your condition was No AE - but I really think you meant no farming. The key difference is most people don't want to play that way. The journey to 50 there is ...well, superior than it is on HC. But the journey after 50 is much worse. Worse is probably subjective, so I'll shed some light. There - they don't have the population that HC does, as most of you are aware. On a Tuesday morning, I did a /search and there were only 4 people logged in (but there may have been a few hiding, I don't know). You can likely find more than 4 on Reunion at it's lowest. There is practically no marketing on Thunderspy. If there is, I can't see it. If you want loot, you just create a new account - no email required. You can get 60 hero packs, so you start with a slew of reward merits from those packs, and possibly all the ATOs you might need (but only the first series. And they won't convert to the other type - you have to spend hero merits or reward merits for those - or maybe you can get lucky like I did and buy three of them on the AH for 100 inf each. I used to think it most foul to suggest people play on other servers. I've changed my view on that, depending on context. I played on Rebirth in the Summer of 2021. It convinced me HC was superior to Rebirth, simply because of the grindy feel of it, which I suffered through on live with the company of a few folks here and there. The people were interesting - the game was always a bit grindy on live. But, I kind of like Thunderspy and plan to play there more than here. Until I hit 50. Then, ick. I'll probably return.
  19. I can go along with everything but the first sentence. You are entitled to your opinion, of course. But I have seen far more toxic things than helping some random stranger skip the lower levels. See? It's all about perspective. Some may see it as denying them the joy of "the struggle", where they learn how to get a new contact, how to acquire enhancements, etc. Others see it as being helpful. To be transparent, I am not in the habit of letting anyone on my farm maps. Mainly because when I farmed, I would so afk. The typical sitter wants none of that. I just try to answer questions and hand out pvp IOs and the odd super pack from time to time. Being nice is difficult though. Some people make it hard to be nice. It doesn't come naturally to me. I'm too busy judging you for your low badge count and/or lack of passive accolades.
  20. You lie. The truth is not in you.
  21. Oh, the Snark is real with this one. Asking why is a question that should not only be anticipated, but it should be answered for anything that will impact player finances. As well as a host of other issues. It just kills me that about 90% of players don't bother to read the forums. Heck, I read them, and I still miss a lot of good stuff. But one thing I really miss are the reasons why. They never stated why the packs weren't going on sale. I just assume they were pissed at the lazy marketers that bought them for 10M two years ago who then relisted them at some price of 20-24.9M immediately after they got them and waited for the fat loot. So, last year's sale was 15M, and I think we were lucky to get that. I don't know, but I suspect they didn't want to put them on sale at all last year, but felt like it would be poor form to not put them for sale when pretty much everyone was expecting them to do so. Again, that's conjecture. Our GMs don't share nearly as much as they used to. It's no longer "our game", but "their game that we get to play".
  22. This behavior carries its own set of risks. Let us consider the stockpile of loot (Enhancements, converters, etc) vs stockpile of inf. Some may say, inventory is meaningless with sufficient influence. No. This is not true. That is, not completely. If we were to look ahead, and if the writing is indeed on the wall and the population will drop, suppose you're someone who may have sold everything because when the music stopped, you wanted to be sure of a seat. For whatever reason, you return to the game after a departure, and you still have your stockpiles of inf. But where will you turn for the very rare or the avalanche that you need? You may certainly exchange merits for them...if you had some before you left. And suddenly, you look to the AH and ...there's no inventory! Other players came along and bought them, and nobody replenished the supply. After all, it's a ghost-town, right? Granted, that's pure conjecture and highly unlikely to happen. At least parts of it are highly unlikely. Still, you never want to unload everything on the off-chance you may return. You cannot take it with you. And that's a shame. I'm playing on Thunderspy now, and I'm broke. Still, even if I could take it with me, they don't have a lot of stuff I'd want on the AH. Most of the good stuff seems to be seeded at a set price. There's very little to market here. I bought my blaster ATOs for 600 inf. 100 inf for each piece! But, I digress. Whether it's in the form of converters, reward merits or inf, you should be fine. And purples..well, eventually, I'd expect the price to increase. Slowly. Or, it may be that they're eventually seeded, or included in hero/winter packs. Who knows? These crazy devs are likely to do anything! As for my thoughts on the market, who knows? It ain't me. I'm not even playing here except on Fridays.
  23. I'm fully aware that Praetoria isn't the place where all the cool kids hang out, but I was looking at the various day job powers and it's pretty clear that Praetoria is the figurative red-headed step-child of alignments in CoH. Often ignored, treated with disdain, more often than not. It would be nice if there were a spot to log out and get temp jet packs like on blue and red sides. It would be nice to at least have access to those zones and not get booted out completely back to Nova in the alternative. Yes, I know it's easy to buy one from p2w. But I was making a challenge character and it dawned on me that the limited zones, limited options are just some of the few reasons why this area is typically ignored.
  24. I have to agree. And how in the blue hell, or in Paragon City, for that matter would anyone do that? You'd have to know who the judges are. Their global name. Possibly their sg name, if they have one. You'd have to know when their contests were, with enough time to spare to actually get there and discover what the theme was, if any. At best, you'd be skimming through the forums and chat channels, and discord looking for contest announcements, and then marking time on a calendar to be there. It's not always evident who the judges are, in my limited experience. I was on a panel of judges for Cosmic Council's contests a few times. I found it interesting that my vote would never count because my tastes were so drastically different from everyone else's. None of my top 5 were in anyone else's top 5. There's taste variance, sure. And then there's the discrepancy between what you see on your screen and what I see on my screen. Those that are playing with the better video cards, with the newer monitors that refresh at higher rates would probably see something slightly different than someone who's still working with a 15" boxy monitor, because the damn thing won't die. Truth is, if I want to hold one and reward the ones I think have the better costume, I can do that. Nobody can research my past judging efforts, that's for sure. But I'd never do that. Costumes are too subjective. If I'm going to award based on subjective matter, it would be on a punny name and bio that amuses/interests me. One of these days, I'll get around to it. All costumes are bland. Except kitty and turtle costumes. Those are boss, right?
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