tidge

Thanks for all the work @Shenanigunner, I've used your resources to improve my own CoX experience.

Which circle of Hell am I being damned to for having: a) Only 1 level 50 b) exactly 14 c) about 50 d) exactly 78 e) 1000 and not a character more I hope it has free WiFi!

We really should rename "Melody" to "Demeter" to transport the living dead to Peregrine Island!

Yep, that's pretty much it. I don't why some people think you can't figure things out. Is this when Matlock gets the judge to pause the trial?

The one character I play every day, I kinda have to pay attention to merits... and incarnate threads... and monstrous aethers... and salvage... because that one bumps up against the ceiling for those things rather frequently. AFAIK I'm not anywhere near the 1000-per-server on characters. When I get a flashing "character limit exceeded" I'll probably start paying attention to such a thing. I pass no judgement on anyone for not knowing what the upper limit on things like salvage storage, merits, etc. is.

My comment was more along these (hypothetical) lines: Let's say the team is working on new power sets, changes to (control, tanker) powers, Gian Monster updates and new zone content. With good CM and branching, they could decide to rollout some subset and then branch in the other stuff at another time. I don't know that they aren't doing this, but the sheer amount of changes in i28p2 makes me wonder why we didn't get something more piecemeal like (an attempt to tie certain things together on my part): 1) New armor sets, tanker changes 2) New Control sets, control set changes (including adaptive recharge) 3) Khallisti Wharf 4) etc. I can speculate why, but for testing purposes, there was a hella much in this most recent page.

Me too... but folks will ask for things "for free", and the Dunning-Kruger effect is observable, which is why I've been impressed.

Both! (although the initial summons isn't something I pay attention to, so *shrug*). Slotted Recharge has no effect on henchmen, except the ability to recast the summons sooner. Even with the MM/pet global pieces, I find there is a need to slot Accuracy/Damage/Endurance reduction. the T1 henches need more Accuracy than the T3 because of level shifts, so it becomes something of a balancing act. Usually each tier of henchmen gets 2 pieces of Mark of Supremacy.

I get that it is a volunteer effort... but it is probably better to describe this as an amateur effort. This isn't meant to be insulting! I'd be an amateur myself if I tried to mess with the code (n the development side, although I have been paid for database design and GUI design/coding in another life). I've managed dozens of software development efforts, with budgets ranging from a few thousand dollars to nearly a million dollars... so from that PoV I think I can genuinely say that I'm unimpressed. Since I long ago stopped using it, I'm not qualified to point at anything specific (see @Luminara post above, I guess) but from many years back I could see that MIDS was being really sloppy and resource-intensive... and (again, from long ago) I felt that the package should have been a lot more "local" and less reliant on requiring users to install development kits or .NET frameworks, or whatever. I'm capable of doing those things, but even in 2020 it felt like this was a losing battle (for me, obviously I can't speak for the folks messing with it). I use a simple excel template where the only smart thing it does is count slots and add up whatever bonuses I want to track (Recharge, Accuracy, KB protection, whatever). I've somewhat internalized the enhancement values from the sets I typically use, and if forget (or don't know) the base values of a power I'll double-check City of Data against the game. It isn't providing anything like the functionality of MIDS (of any era) but it suits me. The one thing I used MIDS for was from an earlier era of the game when I'd specifically try to optimize attack chains with timing and recharge effects... but in practice I found I couldn't really trust such numbers (except at ~50) so I kinda gave up shooting for perfect min-max attack chains. For some powers that I commonly use in different builds I've probably only got (at most) three different slotting choices (at level 50), each one solves a different 'problem' better than the other two choices.... so in many ways I've already constrained my build choices without need MIDS to convince me I've made the 'best' choice. I am aware that I make one common 'mistake' (waste really) that a program like MIDS would help me minimize... I occasionally have overkill on slotted accuracy (+global accuracy, +ToHit)... but in practice this just means that I could change something like a single piece from Accuracy/Range to Damage/Range... and I figure this out from in-game testing instead of trusting the computer.

More like a happy person that doesn't count good days.

I think there is some wisdom here: We probably could have gotten only one of (three? four? I've lost count) major updates present in i28p2 and things would have been copacetic. Obviously the dev team has to keep track of branching and leverage some good configuration management practices, but I sort of expect that, even from volunteers.

It's honestly not something I think about. To me, they are characters and not possessions.

I'm impressed that no one has flown in a demand/suggestion that the HC team make their codebase available for free... for purely charitable reasons of course.

If the game provides you so little enjoyment, we can provide as much snark or @Snarky as you want here. I can play about two hours a day, if I'm productive with the rest of my time and don't have something else cooking in RL , so it isn't as if I'm 24/7 stealing pennies earning inf from little old ladies AE.

It would be nice to get Martial Combat on some other ATs... not sure what the best path forward would be.

Why don't you show your e-peen first? EDIT: I swear, this sounds like a 1980s BBS edge-lord question. The answer is "I have the right number, until I unlock another" I have level 50s, I played them across content before they were 50, I play them after they hit level 50. I've played them full-kit, I've played them only partially slotted. I've respecced many times. At no time did I stop playing because I couldn't have something I wanted. I don't judge people based on if they have more or fewer level 50s than I do. I've never had a problem joining any content because of slotting or power choices. I can only play for about two hours a day, but I don't judge folks that play more or fewer hours than I do. My time isn't spent in the AH (except to dump drops) or AE.

What has this got to do with anything? My attitude wouldn't change if I had 500 on each server or 10 on a single server. My next characters were self-sustaining after my first one hit 50. I don't care how many level 50s a player has, but if the player is whining that they have no inf or merits and has more than 10 level 50s... I might think that they haven't figured out the game. I suspect that is where @battlewraith is... maybe they figured out MIDS, maybe AE, maybe not much more.... because if you are PLing characters via farm in AE, you should be collecting drops along the way. It should only take 1 hour of x8 farming to get a PVP or purple recipe drop. Having said that: I'm pretty sure I've done a level 50 respec on each of them, many of them have unlocked Incarnates but I generally don't bother slotting post-Alpha incarnates on a character until the character joins some Incarnate content. Several of my characters have multiple level 50 builds. I have had a few level 50s that I delayed the level 50 respec on simply because I wanted to set aside time to test some more things before the final respec... but I am comfortable testing on both Live and Brainstorm pre-50, which it sounds like @battlewraith is not.

Ma'am... this is a rewards-based game for playing the game. If a player doesn't want to play the game but want rewards, use Brainstorm. If a player can't figure out how to earn merits or Inf with ANY of your full-kit characters, consult the guides section. I get it... @battlewraithdoesn't like being told they can't have a thing, @battlewraith doesn't like being told to play on a server that will give them stuff for free. @battlewraith thinks those of us who enjoy playing the game and equipping our characters with pieces you daydream about are the bad guys. I'm not the one being stubborn... I like the game as is and I don't find it to be a chore to enjoy. Trying to dissect @tidge approach isn't going to make anyone feel better about their opposition to my PoV... because I've played the game in a huge number of ways... although I'll admit that any PLing has been limited to seasonal server events or rapid-fire TF participation. I'm not imagining I speak for anyone else in the game, but I have tried to play the game a lot of different ways... and if I wanted to play the @battlewraith way... I certain could, because I'm clever enough to have figured out several ways to have stuff ready for my next 50 alts. @battlewraith wants to judge me for playing one character and using it to get the next one ready... that's being judgemental. When I simply want to test a ful-kit, I go to Brainstorm. I'm sorry @battlewraith is triggered because other players don't have their self-inflicted problems. I'm actually thinking that the OP was made from a point of "OMG someone help me stop making Inf on the market" as much as (or more than) a place of "help people get full kits for no effort."

I guess it's time a variant of this semi-annual post: I stopped trying to use MIDS many years ago (circa Dec 2020?) because the overhead (in terms of both local and networked connections) became too much for my taste. I can understand the inertia trying to keep this thing together, but it should have been refactored years ago. I'm sorry that the folks who want to keep using it have so much trouble with something that ought to be as relatively easy as an update/install, but from the outside this looks to be just one more piece of evidence that this effort needs a serious rework. Even if maintaining/updating it is a hobby... I think it is probably at the point where the hobby needs to level up.

IMO, %damage in henchmen and pets should only be considered based on how many attacks the henchmen/pet will make that might trigger that %proc. City of Data and the Wiki can make this clearer. Dark Servant has a def debuff component in almost all of its attacks, so the Cloud Senses %damage piece is a good choice for it. Some specific advice for pets that have a variety of controls: The Hami-O pieces that incorporate "control" will work to improve all of the control aspects, as opposed to a set-specific control. In other words, if a pet has both a sleep and a hold, you could choose to use a HO to boost the duration of both, instead of slotting just for Hold duration or Sleep duration. For MMs, I almost always try to slot the %BuildUp piece in the T1s. If I have room, I like to have the T1s also slotted with the Overwhelming Force KD piece

I can't speak for everyone else, but on my Blasters I've learned to use DoT attacks in specific circumstances like: Hit a Fake Nemesis before they bubble Hit an enemy who might otherwise 'summon' to keep interrupting them Players who are face-rolling their keyboards might not pick these sorts of things up... and if someone PL-ed up to level 50 without facing a wide variety of content might not pick these things up, but some of us have. From my PoV, Knockback is more than just 'that one power someone else used that upset me that one time'... on my characters that would be specifically bothered by knockback, I have made choices to mitigate uncontrolled knockback. Combat Teleport works well (also works for PUGmates who can't help but spam Fold Space), as do (almost all) AoE immobilizes.

I probably have about 8 pages of characters. Not all of them are 50s. I have 50s with over 300 vet levels. I play my original main every day. The characters that aren't 50 don't have Purples or Superiors obviously. If I was desperate to check their performance, I'd go to Brainstorm. If I had a bunch of 50s I wasn't going to play, I'd strip them for parts. If I had a thousand level 50s I wouldn't need a bunch of free stuff because I wouldn't be playing them. I'm a player not a hoarder. I'm not critical of the way people play... but if a player wants an infinite number of 50s with full kit... I don't know why the game should be changed to support someone's MIDS addiction.

Sorry, I was thinking the suggestion was that the game would automatically gift the seed money to new accounts, not other players/characters. In-game, I see no problem with gifting (or asking!) for Inf. Obviously I see accumulating Inf (and merits, and blah, blah, fishcakes) as no big deal as I simply play the game... it looks a lot like the make everything free request is mostly supported by players that simply don't want to bother with asking or accumulating via play. I mean... I can believe that a player wants to create an unending stream of alts, all full-kitted with wagyu IO sets at level 50+, but that feels like more of a grind to me than simply taking one new character on a 1-50 journey to learn how the powers work, establish macros, etc. I mean... if you already know what a Superior Winter's set is going to do in a power at level 50, I don't see what the rush is to get to that point.

Um... how about "Why should Brutes should have performance equal to Scrappers in terms of +4x8 DPS, by whatever measure?"