Ukase

Simply put, all of them. For one, that requires time spent in the costume creator (yawn) determining which choices to make. And, well, it's against the rules to recreate copyrighted characters. And, while I get that some like to present it as an homage, it's a slippery slope. Where the line is drawn is a bit subjective, so why not make the character that Marvel & DC neglected to make? Why waste my time?

A fair point!

So, before I make a suggestion, I'll check in here, as there may be a historical reason that escapes me why Rikti occur before level 35. I'm on a new-ish brute, level 31. I used to hop into Provost Marchand's arcs, but since that's what I usually do, I wanted to do something different. I have no recent memory of doing Philippa Meroux's content, so figured I'd take that path. The brute is Electric /Shield, so is quite capable of handling 1/8 so far. Ordinarily, I'd run through this stuff, knock it out, but I just finished the Maria Jenkin's arc a few days ago, and I want a longer break before I run through her arc yet again and get the 4th accolade, portal jockey. So, I'm at +1/8, not being real confident as the character hadn't encountered Rikti yet. So far, no problems, but then it occurs to me the reason why I don't do MSR's before level 35 - no Vanguard Merits. Why are Rikti available pre-35? I'm reviewing this post, and I realize I'm coming off with some sense of entitlement. Regrettable. But does it make sense to pursue Rikti at this level, when I could maybe defer the contact to level 34, hit 35, get the Vanguard Member badge, and then get VG merits while I go through the arc? As I ask, I now realize that even at +4/8, clearing all the maps, I might earn 100 vg merits, as they drop so sparingly outside of MSR. Even so, it all adds up, right? So, I am wondering if a pre-level 35 character were to complete a Rikti mission/arc, if maybe that shouldn't award some number of VG merits upon completion. Worth a suggestion? Shouldn't be that hard to implement, I wouldn't think.

A well timed Core Rebirth is the only thing I've found to mitigate that.

The problem here is what you think with regards to me is not accurate in this context. I don't have any personal goals in this game. My personal goals are about my IRA, my granddaughter's 529 fund, and my 2k time on the Concept 2 rower. No personal goals in this game at all. And, I don't think it's unreasonable to assume there's a population of folks that see things the way I do when it comes to combo attacks. If the benefit isn't clear, then the combo system for that powerset needs some clarification. And if the benefit isn't a clear advantage, then what's the point of it?

We already talked - don't you remember? Widows are trash. I say this being very aware that I probably did not build it properly. I probably pursued the wrong set bonuses. But - CoH isn't about the cookie cutter builds, while it can certainly have those and be fine. I'm supposed to be able to build it in a way that makes sense to me and be just fine. Maybe not fantastic, or even good, but adequate. On a team, I was okay. It was adequate. I rarely died, but that's because of the great defensive bonuses. But, the damn thing couldn't punch it's way out of a wet paper bag. I would never solo with it, ergo - it's trash. If you're not good alone, you're not adding enough to be worthy of a team. That's my philosophy when it comes to having a character. It has to be able to hold it's own alone and it couldn't. So - trash. Now you might make it a treasure - and that's great. But for me - it's trash. To make it so it's not trash would require more thought - and that thought would require time that I would rather not invest. It's easier to just park it on Reunion and repress the bad memories of it.

I'm bashing/zapping/slashing the npc. The only "bonus effect" I'm remotely concerned with is dps. I do not care about a surplus of endurance. I have proper slotting to address that. Will it boost recharge if I use it? Great. Will it boost accuracy if I use it? Good, but not required. I've already slotted for that. I do not see what good any bonus effect is if it doesn't help me win/defeat/kill vs the NPC sooner. What is the bonus effect? I've leveled a Brute & a Scrapper, both Savage/Shield to 50+3, t-4. I still am uncertain what clear benefit Frenzy was supposed to give. End reduction? It really made no difference to me. More damage? Um...no. Maybe something else. I say that with perception bias, of course. It just seemed worthless. Still, the brute was much, much better until level 50. And then, still better, just not much, much better. (For me)

As far as I can tell two ATs are in dire need of a revamp. Heats & Veats. Heats are trash unless you go with Dwarf & Nova primarily (and forgo slotting anything in human form) or just human form. Dechs Kaison can scream "MFin' Warshade" all he wants, and the AT is fun, but it needs improvement. There just aren't enough slots for all three builds. And, if you sacrifice the sole purpose of playing human only, you lose status protection - which means you might as well play a blaster. Just a trash AT. Veats are also just plain trash. The only reason to play one is for the team buffs, but a level 50 Widow can't beat up a level 7 hellion without chewing damage inspirations. Okay...so maybe it's not THAT bad, but they're quite weak, at least the one I leveled up to 50 was. I moved it to Reunion, (along with my Warshade and there they will sit until they get some kind of attention from the HC devs. They were without question the most painful AT's I've played, and that included a Dominator I deleted at 48. To be fair - part of that is me, likely not really understanding how they should be built - but any character that is forced to do a respec at level 24 needs serious work. It's just plain trash, and I won't be convinced otherwise. If you like them - that's fantastic, but I find them feeble. They do nothing my blaster can't do better - aside from the team buffs.

I tend to organize them by AT on a given page - except on the first page. The first page has 5 badgers (that have all the badges but Legatus), and a few characters that I'm playing up to 50. When those reach 50 +3, all t-4, they will get moved to another page so I don't have to go looking for the newer character I'm playing. I always figured, while I might miss having control over a name, if someone got my name because I wasn't using it, that's fair enough. I can't say I'd like it, but I would understand.

Actually, I violated my own rule. But it was late, and I wanted to go to bed, but I wanted to finish things up. My rule is, if I don't get what I want within 3 conversions (on a 3 set), simply stop. Do something else for 5 minutes. Then come back to it. You'd be surprised how well that worked in Vegas on the video poker machines.

I think if they were to adjust the conversions in such a fashion, then the exchange rate of converters (1 reward merit = 3 converters) would have to change, but I can't figure out a "fair" exchange rate. I kind of think they are too cheap as is, but that's easy for me to say now that I've amassed...I dunno somewhere close to 400B, if not more. Rebirth has a 250K fee for each conversion and 5 reward merits gets you 1 converter! Seems real steep to me given the state of their awful Auction House. But that's they're problem. For HC, there's a small contingent of players that are still kind of new, still rather poor in inf, and balk at the exchange rate as it is. I'd love to see how many players get to 50 and have no idea what to use the converters for! I'm thinking a good rate would be 2 reward merits = 3 converters, with a 100k fee might be better. Or maybe waive the fee. On the bright side, I can't count how many times I've done a single conversion and gotten something great! So, as mentioned in the initial post, I am certainly not complaining. But that was certainly the worst RNG experience I can remember with converters.

Figured I'd check in on a marketing character. Hadn't logged them on in a few days. Some bids were accepted, so I went to work. 43 converters to get the 40k investment of recipe, salvage and crafting in...but the converting kind of hurt on this one. I will still profit, but a 3m hit on the opportunity cost of 43 converters...ouchie.

I'm the last one to ask such a question, as I tend to use the RNG function on the costume creator more often than not. But, as I set out to make a huge character, the heads all seem woefully small for such a huge body. Just wondering if there's any way to make the heads larger, more in line with the rest of the body.

I guess my question would be is why are we allowed to copy NPC names? I thought that wasn't allowed.

I knew it was one of those two!

Well, some proc builds are quite good. And they do give up a LOT. Seems balanced to me. Typically, I'll only use more than one damage proc in one power. Pursuing them beyond that gives up way too much to suit me. I think what would be better is to have more transparent details as to how often they'll fire in a given power. It gets to be tedious to see a build that looks nice in the forums, and then when I do the math on the procs in a given power, I see that the creator of the build clearly did not do the math, or they think an 18% chance of firing is okay. (That ain't me - I want at least 90-95% chance) There's a lot of confusion, I believe, about procs and how they work, despite a lot of effort from Bopper and MacSkull and some others. But I guess if they opt to change 'em up, that might explain why they're kind of vague and nebulous to how they work in the detailed info tab.

So...what I'm thinking is that you never burn any converters on any of them. Just keep collecting/crafting them and you should get the sets to sell. I mean, what's the point of converting into a full set when you know that you'll eventually get your full set? The more you collect, the more sets you'll get. The RNG is a fickle mistress, but I dare say you'd rarely exceed 8 more than any other. I base this off my own experience in just stashing purples.

I must be having a senior moment. I don't recall the servers merging. I remember they made Exalted, the VIP server...but no recollection of servers being removed/merged.

I wonder if "Video Game Villain Knock-off" is too many letters. Surely it's not taken. I'm kidding. I have a character called Emancipist. One of the few characters I actually made a bio for, and didn't use the RNG to make the costume. It's also the title of the longest book I've ever read, over 1000 pages in the ABRIDGED version. Historical Fiction. To date, Bible aside, it is my favorite book, followed by Count of Monte Cristo. It literally has everything in it. A boy and his dog. A boy and his girl. Guy gets girl, guy lose girl, guy can't get girl back, so finds a girl that looks just like her. Guy goes to prison, guy escapes from prison. Guy saves a young girls life, becomes a hero, gets time served, goes to work, becomes rich, or an "Emancipist". I still read this book about once every 10 years. It's out of print now. Finding a copy may prove difficult. It's historical fiction, too. I learned about the potato famine, all about how half the continent of Australia is pretty much filled with descendants of convicts and prison guards. So, I can also be accused of being a knock-off artist of sorts. The difference is - I am friends with the author on Facebook. I actually got permission to use the name, lol. She worked on that book for over 8 years! And she's been working on her second book even longer. So, please know, I was kidding. I can understand how certain characters we see or read about might influence the characters we create. It just pains me to see someone use something like "Super-Man" because it's technically not Super Man. What's hazy for me is to see something like Pal-el, and see one that looks just like Superman, only with red hair, claiming to be the step-brother of Kal-el. Apparently Jor-el couldn't keep it in his pants or something like that. Was it Jor-el? I can't recall. I've always been more of a Marvel guy. DC seemed to be for a younger audience. I don't honestly know where the line should be drawn. It's probably different for all of us. But I know bad form when I see it.

That's a fair point. Which is the only reason I don't get snippy with them. If I'm wrong and misjudging them - they'll likely never know. In my case, I have the name Apache Fire. I ran into Apache-Fire. To me, the hyphen suggests to me that they tried Apache Fire first, found it was taken and opted for a workaround. I have no way to definitively know that, of course. But it seems suspect to me. The workaround may be clever enough, but when I click on the bio, and there's not even a story there, it tells me there's no concept that they just had to try out or anything like that. They just thought well...fire control...patchy fires all over the place. Apache-Fire. Just a coincidence. Right. I'm sure it wasn't personal. So I didn't take it personal. I just didn't appreciate it because it's so similar to the name I was using. What if they quit a tf before it's over and someone mistakes them for me? What if they make rude comments to vulnerable people, or in some other way do something that someone might think they were me? Hopefully, a global check would show it wasn't, but who knows?

So..I have a different take. I don't look at them as fans, but as copycats that need to learn some creativity. I treat these people with disdain and try to avoid them as best as I can. And I hope they behave themselves and people don't get the two of us confused.

You probably are aware, but maybe not. Assuming nobody has disturbed the area prior to your visit in the past couple of minutes, there should be 8 of the ww bosses to tackle. Roughly, the /loc for them are: [2417.4 0.0 3781.0] [2334.6 0.0 3963.1] [2591.9 -0.5 4039.9] [2879.3 -0.5 3571.1] [2529.5 0.0 3569.6] [2426.6 -0.0 3672.5] [2432.9 0.0 3885.5] [2625.8 1.0 4446.0] My strategy is generally to zip in between missions. If there are players there, ignore them and move on. Usually there's nobody. I just circle through, get the 8, then re-circle, and usually a few have respawned. Repeat 10x, and done. Usually. Sometimes one more trip, sometimes, one less.

What really needs work is that tiny stack of inf. Not even a billion on that damn character! Soon, tho.

I suspect some do use Fold Space. I did see someone mention that they may need to adjust slotting of Fold Space to include two accuracies, as opposed to just one.

I took this snip during today's MSR on Excelsior. By default, with my celerity in Sprint, and having super speed on, I'm at 65 ft Stealth. In the bowl, idle, I was at 70 feet in parts of it, and 100 feet in different parts. But as soon as I attack Rikti, the stealth drops to zero. How can I convince certain tanks that Shadow Fall is NOT impacting their ability to taunt? Anecdotally, I have noticed on my tanks that I have to taunt more often than I normally would, as they seem to lose interest in short order. Part of this is because I have super speed on, and move away too fast. But when I turn it off, they still lose interest after I've traveled about 30-40 feet. And this is before I even get to the ramps. And it's with 6 slotted taunt, all boosted to +5. Is it fair to say that at +4, some npcs are more resistant to taunt? Seems like it would make sense, but I've never heard of taunt resistance. If it's not Shadow Fall, or Arctic Fog, what is impacting a tank's ability to bring the Rikti into the bowl. They swear it's the stealth, but it shouldn't be, given that stealth suppresses upon attacking.