FFFF

Praetor Duncan walks into a bar. As she sits down, she looks up and notices three pieces of meat hanging from the ceiling. She asks the bartender "what's with the meat?" The bartender says, "If you can jump up and slap all three pieces at once, you get free drinks for an hour. If you miss even one, you have to pay for everyone else's drinks for the rest of the night. Wanna give it a go?" Praetor Duncan takes another look at the meat, then says, "I think I'll pass. The steaks are too high."

It's fine actually. Fun enough that I donate. Just because I find one part lacking doesn't mean there isn't much to love. I think TFs are fun, as is pre-level 50 teaming. I also realize that the current Homecoming folks had nothing to do with current state, and due to dev priorities, we're likely stuck with drinking the dregs from a literal well to grow more powerful.

Superman - empowered by Kryptonian physiology + yellow sun; early version was strong only as a basis of his Kryptonian physiology Hulk - created by accident via gamma radiation Dr. Manhattan - accident gives godlike powers Thor - god Professor X - mutant Magneto - mutant Scarlet Witch - mutant Thanos - probably a god Galactus - cosmic being

We're just going to agree to disagree. I think the lore is what lacks imagination. The Well of the Furies could have been something more euphemistic instead it's literally a Well, and it's mystical. It's the literalness of the lore which I find confining. Sure, you can hand wave a lot of this away, but at the end of day, you're a McGuffin-empowered Incarnate.

One moment that shattered some of my treasured childhood memories was learning about Midichlorians in The Phantom Menace. Before then, the Force was a mysterious power bestowed to a very few, and was something mystical in the space opera setting of Star Wars. Explaining it as a mass of microorganisms took all the mystique out of it. I think in some ways, the reason why vampire and werewolf mythology works so well is that they represent a hidden world in our current belief of how the world works. I think you reduce it as some sort of virus infection or genetic affliction, it become less interesting. In sum, over-explaining some things makes it less interesting, not more. I find that progressing as an Incarnate to be rather lacking from a lore standpoint. Your progress is not only not original - as Incarnates have existed before you - but dependent on a magical McGuffin. It's rather immersion breaking to have my tech-origin Bots/Trap MM have to chase vestiges of the Well to grow more powerful. It's also clear there are individuals and organizations that have power scaling equal to or beyond the Well (Ouroboros, Dream Doctor, The Battalion, etc.) Most of my post level 50 characters feel shoe-horned into a lore that doesn't really fit. Now, I'm not complaining about the mechanics to enforce a uniform way to increasing power to post-level 50. I just wish the story/lore was more mysterious and open to more interpretation. It feels like taking away creative agency. Instead of finding enlightenment, discovering the anti-life equation, ascending to the Heavenly Realm, etc., you are Incarnate number 10,243. It's boring and I wish wasn't so.

A lot of people will recommend a scrapper or a brute, but I'd recommend a stalker. Stalkers can be made very sturdy, and they have mez protection in their secondary. Stalkers have a few big advantages that will be of interest to you: they can hide and dictate how each fight starts; with assassin strike, they can eliminate or heavily injure the biggest threat in each encounter; boss fights become trivial. Stalkers solo very well. If you have limitations in moving a character around, this will be a good AT for you.

I'm reminded how truly original my concept / costume really is

What level range are you looking for? There are probably a number of suitable maps, particularly villain side. For low level, some of the Praetoria missions would be honestly hard at +4/x8 (anyone game for hunting down Shen and not avoiding the ambushes?)

I don’t bother slotting IOs until level 27. That’s when the dual enhancements (acc/dam for example )start becoming greater than what you’d generally get for a single attribute enhancement (all damage for example). Even with SOs, the game is super easy at those levels. I think twinking more is kind of silly. I will slot anything useful that is self-found or comes out of something I converted that I was going to sell. But no full sets until 27+. I level up characters the traditional way. I do have a stable of farm characters but don’t like to PL my own heroes.

The converter economy makes self-funding characters really easy and makes farming not really necessary. It almost works too well, to the point that the abundance of IOs may contribute to balance issues. I play some on Rebirth and soloed a Tanker to 50 there. The influence scarcity issue was as rough as I remembered it on Live. Over there, the low level market is dead so that cool orange recipe that could be sold for millions here is vendor trash.

A 20-year old MMO won't have a significant impact on a whole multi-billion genre

I played my very first Tips mission just a few months ago. And played since day 1 of live service. I think that’s mostly related to my own experience. I think I largely ignored the morality sub system and just played either heroes or villains.

Getting all the exploration badges in a zone nets you 5 merits plus the Passport accolade and Long Distant Teleporter power. Assuming, you toured 3 zones, that’s 15 merits. Edit: I think that tour is one of the best ways to help new players. The second best is having players switch to villains for all the mayhem badges that switches to the Task Force Commander when they return hero side.

“The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.” - Mender Lazarus So I'm one of those weirdos who plays through the low level contacts on each character. As I articulated in this thread, I start with Matthew Habashy, his follow-up contacts, do Twinshot's story arcs, head to the Hollows, and then head to King's Row for Shauna Stockwell and Eagle Eye. For most, I'll head to Faultline to start those story arcs unless I partake a Positron Task Force. Since I started on Homecoming back in April of last year, I've done this over 20 times, for each new character I've created. I think it's fair to say that many people will think this is quite boring. I've done this enough to know most of the glowie locations, and where hostages are kept (even on the large Troll maps). I completely understand the perspective of someone who no longer want to see this content and use Death From Below to blitz past these levels or just power level a character into the mid-levels or even to 50. There is no orthodox way of playing this game, and I'm not suggesting that playing through the content is the official, standard or orthodox way of experiencing the game. "A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step" - Tub Ci "Woah, I know kung fu!" - Nebel Elite Fist What is interesting to me is seeing a character progress. Powers which are terrible with the default slot and at low level can change dramatically when investments in them are made. I was amazed to learn that mass immobilize powers take on a completely different dimension with the ability to supplement them with procs. This wasn't something that was considered standard practice when inventions were launched. I still remember how many players considered procs to be under-powered compared to more traditional slotting conventions. Similarly, seeing a character start off weak and steadily grow in power by gaining new powers, new slots and enhancements is where I derive the most joy. I have power leveled a couple of characters to 50, tricked them out with the best enhancements - typically in the 500-700M range - and then been completely bored by them. I just don't have the same connection with them, and they are my least played characters. "Do or do not, there is no try." - Lord Recluse What Homecoming does really well is be a sandbox. Due to merit-based economy, I can quickly craft/sell to fund any variety of character I want. The same low level content poses very differing levels of challenge depending on AT and power choices. A character with ranged attacks and hover makes the Frostfire mission a cakewalk. Similarly some power sets seem just designed to overcome these easily. My level 11 Traps/AR Defender easily overcame Frostfire and then the elite bosses in Eagle Eye's missions at level 13. My level 16 Electric/Storm controller couldn't do enough damage to easily overcome the early elite bosses without resorting to prestige attack powers, lots of red inspirations and blues due to how quickly he burned through endurance. "You're a wizard, FFFF!" - Jean Luc Picard, Circle of Thorns Ruin Mage Seeing these differences first hand, and watching your low level character steadily gain power is what is interesting to me. Compared to some of you, I'm still a bit of neophyte in this game. Though I played quite a bit during Live service and spend quite a bit of time here and on other servers, I'm probably vastly underestimating how much some folks play this game, to the point they are quite tired of seeing some of the content. However, for me, there's quite a bit to explore. I haven't tried every power set or haven't had much experience much with certain ATs (Dominators, Arachnos Soldiers, Warshades, Stalkers). I know that there are some of you who continue to play due to a desire of seeing concepts take to life, or because you use characters as a means of story telling. I think we are sort of similar in that we appreciate this very familiar sandbox to see our creations grow. Anyways, thanks for reading this rather long meandering of why I play here. "Live long and prosper" - Sp0cK, Freakshow Tank Smasher

We have found Homecoming’s Forest Gump!

I think you could get pretty far with just the Carnival of Light options in the costume creator. Combine with the Gunslinger and perhaps Barbarian options and I think you can get very close to what you want without using Aether Particles. Here's a quick mock up.

I was on a PUG Positron 1 last night, and the team was a MM (no idea on secondary), a Traps Defender, me (on Mo'Hawk my Electric/Storm controller) and the rest melee, a mix of scrappers, brutes and tanks. It was a pretty great setup. With the FFG, Steamy Mist and various Leadership toggles, the group was above the defense soft cap. No one took any significant damage in any of the fights...as long as we stayed together. So the TF goes absolutely flawlessly. No one is taking any damage. Acid Mortar, Freezing Rain and other debuffs were making kill speed really fast. Anything that didn't die fast was either flopping around like a fish, locked down via a hold or trying to run away. This is when one of the brutes gets cocky. He leaps out of our huddle and dives into a big group of Clockwork. Goes to red hit points immediately and screams "heal!". Well, I'm the only "healer" on the team with an O2 Boost single-slotted with recharge. I run to the edge of the protective huddle and heroically hit him for 60 points of healing, moving him from red to dark orange. Didn't help much, and one of the Canon Princes pretty much puts him into the dirt the next hit. Now, that of course didn't teach him any lessons, and the sheer ease of the combat encouraged a couple of the other melee to follow his lead. They all face planted pretty quickly. Meanwhile, the characters sitting in the FFG/Steamy Mist peloton pretty much were still killing fast and weren't taking any damage. This repeated a few times, and few runs from the hospital later, everybody stayed huddled up. No one died again until we ran into the copies of ourselves. Note, kill the storm controller copy right away. He (me) used Freezing Rain on us as the opening move and we wiped.

Buy the cheap rare recipes and convert those. Buy at specific breakpoints - level 20, 25, 30, etc. Because some of the valuable enhancements such as Miracle +Recovery don't show up after 40. The lower level recipes are also cheaper to craft and on the average use cheaper rare salvage. You can convert uncommon recipes but the only ones that seem to sell are defense and resist sets. The folks who do this seriously buy as many recipes, converters and their associated salvage as they can, log off that character and then check back after awhile. Patience can save you a huge amount. I generally don't do that. I'm too impatient. I'll get a few cheap rare recipes, usually matching the rare salvage I have banked, use merits to buy converters and set aggressive prices to sell fast. I'm not maximizing potential profit, but I make enough to kit out any character as much as I want.

Look in Guides. This is the thread you should read:

My fave thing to do is save a low level hero who is struggling against the Hellions right outside the fences of Atlas Park proper. With the current Excelsior, there are fights that break out all over the place. I’d never steal a kill or anything that obnoxious but may hit them with a well-timed O2 Boost just as they hit red in hit points.

Two servers above 1,000 players Definitely exciting times. Very likely a lot of returnees mixed in with the newly curious.

That won't be the headache you think it will be. That's actually a strong setup. Anything Traps with large cone AoEs is a murder machine. Defender strength mortar + flame thrower. Anything that lives get a Full Auto. Snarky should stick with his blaster fantasy.

Outbreak -> Kill one or two Hellions -> sell the large inspirations for starting cash -> Atlas Park exploration badges -> convert the merits to converters and sell for more starting capital. Then I go through Matthew Habashy -> Aaron Thiery -> Hollows -> Shauna Stockwell -> Eagle Eye. All those missions are really good and have a modern (except the Hollows) feel to them. You'll have well over a hundred merits after running through those arcs so at that point, you've self-funded yourself. I usually start buying / using SOs at level 9-10. Before then, they make too little difference. At that point, I diverge quite a bit. I may do Twinshot's mission arc if I did her early arc, I could solo at Posi 1 (which is really easy for just about any AT with SOs). I do Laura Lockhart, Graham Easton and the FSBA contacts if the character is in the Talos Island range. After that I level casually until I lose interest in the character. Most of the time, I get to 50, get a few incarnate powers and call it a day.

The early game can be dull. You have very little in the way of powers. Some ATs only have 1 powers-based attack, brawl and a temp power. That's not very good. As you level, you gain attacks/powers quickly. I'd say play to level 10 or so, you'll have 5 power selections and can get a decent sense of what a character can do. The early contacts / mission show their age - they were introduced in 2004 and the devs didn't quite understood their own game. If you want to see a better example of when the devs started to get it, play villain side (missions are a lot better, more interesting, but you have to be a bad guy) or Praetoria (wait a bit because the difficulty ramps up a lot compared to being a hero or villain). City of Villains was implemented a full year after game launch and it shows. Praetoria implements the morality system, and you'll have choices on how to end key missions. Praetoria missions is probably the standard in which the devs wanted their missions to feel, but they never went back and updated their earlier work. Why I play? The game is a sandbox. You conceive a character and the character designer and selection of powers enables you to create it very accurately. Want to play Superman? This game allows you to pick fly, laser eye beams, super strength and invulnerability. That's pretty flexible. Wolverine? Claws and regeneration. With that said, your own original concepts (in my opinion) will be more fun rather than a homage / copy of someone else's.

Inv/claws tanker is a great choice. Tankers on Homecoming do very respectable damage. That character will solo well. Come back when you’ve leveled it a bit. There are all sorts of things you can do to trick it out with IOs.