Ukase

So, you just glossed over my character that showed 1580 (and that was last year with a lower badge count than it has now? As stated previously, I'm not about to do Sister Solaris' arc 4-500 times. (there's a 5th badger of mine that still has a little work to do, but I'm taking some time off from badging. I need a break, lol)

Is there some reason why you wouldn't want a free power that saves you time to play more of the game you presumably enjoy? I completely get that some folks are accustomed to riding a turtle a dozen miles and enjoy the scenery. And that's you're right. I would have no plans to just dump the power on unsuspecting players. I'd basically stand under Atlas and shout in broadcast that anyone that wants it can have it. This isn't necessarily about me having teammates that can help me finish a tf faster, although that's a plus. It's about an inf sink. I have enough inf now where if all my builds on each character slot cost me 500M, I can get it. And I promise you, with all the character email I have with Winter-Os and ATOs, there is no build that's gonna cost me even close to that much. And, as a side note, if someone were to drop something on you that you didn't ask for and don't want, you should be able to right-click and delete it.

Regarding origin, I've felt like there should be a reason to choose one origin over another. And a reason to not choose that one, and choose the other one, and then the next. I don't think it can be a power buff, or folks would opt to choose the "best" one, and that's all they'd ever choose. What struck me was the Spelunker badge. On live, before Ouro, you'd have to be of Magic Origin to get this mission from a magic contact. Haley, Hugo or Trevor. And, it really galled me that if I opted to go a different origin because I'd forgotten about needing Spelunker for Atlas medallion, I'd have to pay close attention to chat. Back then, it was kind of like the Patron pools are now - offered up fairly often, but somehow, not always when you were ready for it. Having to rely on people in the community to offer these types of badge missions always rubbed me the wrong way. I never understood how Jack Emmert thought when it came to teaming. Most folks jump in a game to get away from the world, and Jack deliberately made it so I would have to engage with people. But, I digress. Teaming and getting to know other players is ultimately the glue that keeps the game going. There could be a specific mission that would require any AT, any powerset, any level - but one of each origin. That might be interesting, depending on the mission. At least then, folks would look at origin. But it should be more than that, and unfortunately, I'm not thinking of anything.

I am referring primarily to Team Transport. But, if I'm gonna give that away, I'd give away all the others, too, unless they don't need/want them. And yes, I sure could just give them all 10M inf. But then, I wouldn't know if they actually bought it. They might do something else with it. This is why I don't believe Cash is one size fits all in real life. Some people are foolish with their money - like one of my twin daughters. Crazy, one is super wise with it, the other is just foolish and drives me insane. Once, I formed a team for a shard TF and got trolled by someone, who accepted the inf, claimed to have gotten the power, and then when it was their turn to use it, they claimed something like, "Well, I got it, but I don't know where it is." Me: Press the word Powers and look in that list on the right. It should be in there. Them: I don't see it. Me: Dude, I gave you 10M to buy it. How is it that you don't see it? Them: I dunno. I don't see it. I had to laugh to keep from crying. I mean, 10m is chump change. But when you're on a 16 mission task force, you want all the team teleports you can get!

And you're right! About being wrong, lol. Here's the post from Speedrun.com. @bloodom...or is it @dombloo...this dude is playing on a computer system from 2030, and seems to have the eye/hand coordination of a fighter pilot, and knows the game well. The last time I was on a tf with him - he was fighting the boss at the back of the map by the time I was pressing "reveal" after entry. Just really fast. Now, I'm older, and can't recall too well, and am too lazy to look it up - but it's possible these times were from before the change to the SG macros. Now you have to be within 40 feet, or use a base teleporter to use the macro, or LRTP. Still, once you learn the tf, and know before the mission ends what you're going to be using to get to the next one, times will improve with experience. I was on a Shadow Shard TF a couple of weeks ago with the TFJ (Task Force Junkies), a global chat channel on Excelsior, and those guys would have one person go to the mission after the current one, then incan us to the door when we completed it, saving a lot of time. I can only assume those mission doors are in the same place each time and they have them memorized. I don't want to think how long it would take me to remember what I had for breakfast, let alone where mission doors are in a lengthy tf in the shard.

So, I fully understand that I can't and shouldn't make people play the way I would want them to play. We're all different. That said, last night, my SG had a "Shadow Shard Power Hour", where we'd try to do as many shard tfs as we could, within that hour. (lol, we got done with one, with about 15 minutes leftover. ) But, while I can trust these goofballs I've gotten to know a tiny bit over discord to actually buy the Team Transport power with the inf I gift them, the same cannot be said for the occasional PUG group. I think it would be nice if I could buy a few hundred of all of those temp TP powers and just give them away. Any way we can make this an option? It'd be a great inf sink, no?

Thing is, it doesn't have to. Yes, there are a number of kill-alls, but if the team is on the same page, making wise use of Team Teleports and ATTs, 40 minutes is quite doable. With a lot of AoE builds, even 30 minutes. If I'm thinking clearly, a group I know got it done in less than 20 minutes - but those rascals had special builds just for that TF. And ...look, I understand that not everyone playing has "arrived" as far as inf goes to buy these TP powers from p2w on every character. But, this is why when I would lead a Synapse I would share my own SG base macro, which is certainly no swanky place like Cosmic's public hub. If there were a way to buy 100's of them and give them away, I sure would.

Well, damn, that's genius.

I promise you, none of my builds cost me billions. Even if I needed a dozen of those acc/rec d-syncs. I'd run Aeon ad-nauseum until I got what I needed! I ain't paying anybody that kind of loot for an enhancement. I'm clever enough to do without a slot from somewhere else if I need to.

If I'm being 100% transparent and honest, I have some days where all I want to do is team with goofy folks I don't know. Some days, I want to team with folks I've teamed with in the past, who don't type much, but get the job done quickly. Some days, I want to team with folks who are interesting, somewhat humorous, and don't care if they live or die, or what content we're doing, so long as we're doing something and enjoying the absolutely putrid puns and odd pronunciations of strange words. and most days, I solo. Not so much because I like it better, but because I firmly believe you're not much good to a team if you've no idea what you can do alone. It's always been my biggest objection to teaming. Say you start off with a support toon, say a controller. You do a dfb or two, maybe a posi. Then, you're level 17 or so, and don't see anything forming that catches your interest. You think, Synapse is next on the TFC chain, let's try and form a group for that. 5 minutes go by, you've gotten one taker. another 5 minutes...one more player. Another 5 minutes, and you still have room for 5. The other 2 have been patient. But I'm not! And I don't want to do Synapse with three. This is why I don't particularly enjoy forming teams anymore, because I'm too damned impatient. If it doesn't form in a couple of minutes, I can find something else to do. And I do. And when I do...suddenly, I'm taking more aggro than I can handle. Not enough attacks yet. No pets yet, or if I have one, it's not sturdy enough. I thought I was super, but it appears solo, I'm super stinky. This is why teaming can be bad. You thought you were super, but you find out you're not. So, you need to find out how to make your character shine without team buffs. Without a tank/brute to gather aggro. There's a lot to learn if you're new, or playing an AT/powerset that's new to you. And a team can cover up a lot of those lessons. When you have a kin on your team, you may not realize you need to be concerned about endurance recovery. With any type of buff or debuffer, you may not really realize how strong or weak you are by yourself. The same way I told my daughters to not get married until they lived on their own for at least a year, I'll suggest to anyone not to team up until they gain a level outside of AE solo. Preferably several levels. There's a lot of lessons to learn. (maybe some of you are a quicker study than I am) So, for me, I'll solo if I can until I can learn what I need to learn. And because I go afk a lot during the weekday.

Picked up Corsair 1000w yesterday.

Yeah, after my post, I kept digging, and have read that the performance improvement from pci3 to 4 is small. I was concerned about the card fitting in the slot more than anything else. The old cards have an entirely different pin configuration, and my concern was that the newer cards wouldn't fit. My MB is from 2014 or so. And, well, technology advances pretty damned fast. My i7-4790 may soon be the bottleneck in the system. I expect, if I find the right deal, I'll get a new mb anyway. And while I'm at it go from 16 to 32 ram. I have always had a great deal of fun learning about the hardware; in many ways, the folks who designed these parts have really put a lot of thought into it - like how a memory stick will only fit one way. I promise you, without that kind of design, I'd have probably burned through a couple dozen computers and maybe a house or two. In any event, I've still a lot more reading/researching to do. I may wait until Windows 10 goes the way of the dodo, then just buy a whole new system. Just depends on what I read, and what the price points are.

In line with this topic, I've been doing some research into upgrading my GPU, now that they're in stock to some degree. That led to realizing a newer GPU would require an newer PSU. Then, I'm at Best Buy, I tell the guy which MB I have, and he says the best GPU I can put on my MB is a 1080. And I'm working with a 1050 now. (I'm considering a 3060) Further research on Tom's Hardware site shows a list of a slew of CPUs on Windows 10. Here is the link if you'd like to see where I got the quote below. So, while Win 11 may steal some performance with one hand, it may return it with the other hand. But, I'm no expert, and I could easily be misinterpreting what I'm reading. "We conducted these tests in Windows 10, which penalizes the 12th-Gen Intel scores. This is because Windows 10 doesn't target threads at the correct cores with the precision that we see in Windows 11. You can see the Windows 11 results in the album in the first album in the article." Oh - and I'm not actually going to buy from Best Buy, I just go there to learn more from the geeks, usually, unless they make me a deal I can't refuse.

It's a bit odd to read of a suggestion, and then following that, read how a random player might take advantage of the change, if implemented. Is this why we can't have nice things?

I accept no shame. What I did instead was to click ad-nauseum for a few minutes until I got the 180 boosters the sg-mate was looking for and gave them to him. They were willing to pay, but I refused to accept. I already made my share of inf.

Well, you remember Snarky said he was going to stop posting, right? Someone had to pick up the slack!

Same. While I enjoyed reading the comics, it would be far less immersive. I remember watching my screen when I was installing the CoV edition. I thought the graphics were going to get this major realistic upgrade! And then, that turned out not to be the case. I do not want the game to look more comic book like, rather less so. As an example - in this image below, Batman looks a lot more realistic (to me) than Wonder Woman. That would be what I would prefer.

Honestly, I've only had these issues very rarely - like twice. When claiming, I get a system message that says "Please wait a moment", and then I can claim again. It's certainly not bad enough to lead me to buy a winter from the market when I have 1000's in my character email. That's madness. If we're smart enough to avoid "buy it now" prices, we can wait 10 seconds to claim the next item from email, no? Or - are the problems some of you having much more severe than what I described? If so, I am left to wonder why.

I'm 55. I deal with C-suite executives pretty much every day as an executive recruiter. I've no idea how such a thing would play out for me in the long run, but I seriously doubt it would instill any of my clients with confidence. As far as my real life friends, I don't think I could tell them I spend too much time playing a computer game. I would be truly embarrassed. I wouldn't tell them about Madden NFL, nor this. They might know I play chess online, but they know I travel to chess tournaments when I'm not quarantined. So, no. Not going to do it.

Anecdotally, as soon as I zone anywhere, provided something like burn or heal aura isn't on auto, I can slot a newly crafted incarnate power. If I'm on a team, I zone to my base, because no telling who's got what power on auto-fire.

So, the question posed is "Do you incarnates disappear over time?". The answer is no. Some of us are no longer seen, and you might think we disappeared. But, no, we just haven't logged in. Some of us are hidden, and possibly playing on a different server, but I seriously doubt any of us have truly disappeared over time. But, given the premise of a lower population player base, I can see why one might ask the question.

Phantom Army will never get the benefits of any inspiration or buff (or debuff). They are unaffected by everything, except, for some stupid reason, Hamidon and the Crystal Titan can now kill them after a couple of shots. I'll never understand that, as they're supposed to be indestructible for a minute, but I guess that's too overpowered in the minds of some folks. But I digress. Dark Servant can benefit from team inspirations, as will MM pets, even your Summon Pets like Positron from p2w will benefit from team inspirations, provided they are within 20 feet of you and there are less than 16 allied characters in that 20 foot distance.

So...I thought I needed a new video card because I would see costume contest winners (while I wouldn't win, place or show) and wondered if it was my graphics setting. SG had a contest to find certain items, and the only way I could find them was on max settings. In any event, because of the wafer shortage (and crypto-mining) driving GPU prices up, I went to a cyber-cafe and took a look at the game with top of the line specs. There really isn't that much difference. I mean, if I look at your screenshot with your top end machine on my mid-tier machine, I'm still not seeing what you see - but there's just not that much difference. Now, if you have a bottom-tier machine, I wouldn't expect there to be a great deal of difference there, either. But, I would definitely try to find one of those places that lets you play video games on their PCs to get a look at how things would be before you shell out the loot IF the only reason is to play CoH. Now, if you're going to stream Netflix and do other stuff, then by all means, go ahead and upgrade your system. But just to play coh? That's a bit of an over-reaction in my opinion, whatever that's worth.

For me, the mapserving can certainly be annoying, but I do have characters on other servers, so I can switch gears and play on those servers if Excelsior is down. But, that said, as for how much is too much, it depends on how long each dc lasts. If I'm able to instantly get back on, I can handle those fairly well. The longer it takes me to get back on, if I get back on and DC again, I'm likely to only suffer one per session until I move to a different shard until things get stabilized.

Last month, I made a couple of SS/Fire brutes. Both with Fold Space, but different objectives for their build. I just couldn't really get the apples to apples comparison I wanted on the Test Server, due to lack of scientific methodology, really, and some randomness with various spawns. In any event, one build had burn and foot stomp proc'd out. The other didn't. To me, there are two reasons (and only two) to go with SS. Rage, and foot stomp. To not use rage, you might as well give up Foot Stomp and go with something else with a decent AoE - but that's just my thinking. When I proc'd Burn and Foot Stomp, (sorry, and Haymaker, too) because the rage crash didn't impact the procs, despite the crash, I was able to fill those 10 seconds with good dps. If they ever change how proc's work, I might just have to re-visit SS and delete those characters. But until then - filling up the attack chain with proc'd attacks (and the nice KD mitigation of Foot Stomp) seems like a winner to me. It's a fun combo. I can get how some folks don't like rage crash - I certainly don't like it either, but using the KD and filling up the 10 seconds with a few attacks that aren't impacted by the crash seems like an easy fix for superior dps.