Mjolnerd

It's also possible to create one that uses the "button" for any other power already in the game, as well as several other icons: https://homecoming.wiki/wiki/Macro_image_(Slash_Command)

Not to brag, but a reply I made earlier today got two ramens and an accordion. Ladies.

This is clearly bait meant to start "my server is better than your server" drama. Besides, everybody knows Excelsior is the best server, because I play on it.

It's a consideration, absolutely, but the meta goes both ways. If slower-moving powersets like Storm Blast or Traps become more popular, that could shift the meta away from the current Zerg-rush, "no play, only kill" mentality.

It's almost as if the whole point of having different powersets is for them to be good at different things. What a strange design philosophy.

Pretty much the main reason one of the first things I do an any new character is to kill General chat. I'd rather not rely on /ignore because then I'll miss potential teaming opportunities later; just because someone is having a political discussion or is really upset about something silly and meaningless (see: puking guy thread) today doesn't mean I won't want to beat up bad guys with them two weeks from now. I save /ignore for the truly deserving, the people I'm certain I'll never want any association with whatsoever.

Honestly, I'd be thrilled if it just held my existing settings when I changed my title instead of defaulting back to a "dark black" and a "slightly darker black" every time.

I was just saying the other day in a different thread: It was purposely designed not to automatically be the best choice in every situation, to prevent power creep. It's a blast (zing!) to play, but definitely not something you can use on autopilot; it does require actively positioning yourself and choosing the right powers at the right times instead of just rote cycling through an attack chain. I know it has "blast" in the name, but that doesn't mean it can't offer something besides just the same thing as all the others but with a different debuff attached. And you know what? I hope we see more like it in the future.

We're... We're still talking about this. Somehow there are actually multiple sides, a pro camp and an anti camp, regarding this of all things. At least one person seems to still, months after the fact, be actively, legitimately upset at people taking the opposite position on the -- and I can't believe I have to call it this -- controversy. Oh, internet.

Not to deviate too far from the original purpose of the thread (irony? Irony!), but I think "how we form and join teams now" is the problem it solves. Because even when nobody is having non-team-forming conversations in it, the LFG channel... isn't. If anything, it's the LFM channel. You don't post in that channel if you're an individual looking for a group. Not with any reasonable expectation of success, anyway. There was a time, back on live, when that strategy worked, and was even the norm -- even before the dedicated LFG channel existed when we'd do it in zone Broadcast: Doctor Ducklips: Level 25 defender LFG <<Captain Snazzypants has invited you to join a team>> Or xxUnoriginal Namexx: Level 20 blaster LFT Tell from Leader-420: We're doing radio missions in Talos, want in? Sometimes it wouldn't work on the first try like that, but you knew that leaders looking to fill gaps in their team would, eventually, look at it. It doesn't work like that anymore. It never has on HC. What happens now is: McTankerSmith: Level 35 tank LFT or TF Then a few minutes later McTankerSmith: Level 35 tank LFT Then a few minutes later McTankerSmith: Level 35 tank LF anything Then literally, and I mean literally-literally not figuratively-literally, two seconds later RandomLetters69LOL: Level 54 PI radios any level welcome, 3 spots PST -- completely ignoring the person who asked for a team just seconds ago so don't pretend you didn't see it it's the line immediately above yours buddy McTankerSmith clicks on RandomLetters69LOL's name in a panic and sends a tell that just says "me" as quickly as possible because they know that even the tiniest delay will mean not getting that coveted spot on a team Then as they're pressing Enter RandomLetters69LOL: full And the person who already let the whole server know three times that they're LFG is still LFG. They let out an exasperated sigh and type Level 35 tank LFT a fourth time. That's how we form and join teams now -- it's just a race to send a tell as fast as possible. Nobody with an open spot on their team actually checks the LFG channel to see who's LFG. Trying to find a team by posting to it is pointless. If you want to join a team, you'll just have to sit and monitor the chat like an air traffic controller, finger poised over your mouse button to fire off a tell instantly when a leader posts that a spot you can fill has opened up. And you can't do anything else during that time -- shopping? Run a mission solo? Tweaking your costume? Crafting or converting? Even if you're checking back every few seconds, just the time it took to move your mouse from wherever it was back over to the chat window is going to cost you that spot. The team tab drop-down and search comment solve all of that. You're a player that's LFT? Cool, set your status and comment and then go busy yourself doing something else while you wait. You're a leader who's LFM? Great, check there first and see if someone of the AT and/or level your team could most benefit from is out there. It's not that the method we use now is better (because it isn't), it's just what everybody has come to expect.

It's like how Gotham City is both a 1930s noir setting with police blimps and everyone dressed like they're headed to a speakeasy, and a modern metropolis (not that one) with maglev trains and 5G cell coverage.

Crazy idea: Instead of a whole separate "Looking for Farm" channel, what if they just added a "Looking for Farm" option to the drop-down menu in the Teams tab? "The what?" I hear you ask. This thing. The one most players either aren't aware of, or have only a dim, half-remembered recollection of from sometime in the distant past, as if from another life, or perhaps a dream. The thing that would eliminate like 90% of the issues brought up in this thread if people would take the ten seconds or so to (re-)learn how it works. Just a thought.

This is brilliant. Absolutely Tsooperb.

Are the Tsoo puns irritating you? I'm Tsoo Tsoorry about that.

Yes, just like that! Good example.

No, they're just maintaining the status quo; acting as guardians, caretakers... Tsooperintendants, if you will.

Too Tsoon?

I don't know, I think their power level is Tsootable for the zone.

I've always been a fan of Seer Marino's "Oh, Wretched Man!" arc, which is available a lot sooner (15 or so?) and felt like a "Ghost Widow patron arc" before Ghost Widow even had a patron arc.

I mentioned upthread that I do exactly that. Because I don't, personally, care about what's happening there, but also don't begrudge people using the General chat channel for general chatting. I simply take my leave without complaint. Given that both channels are enabled for all characters by default, I don't think it would be unfair to presume that anyone aware of one is probably also aware of the other. At the very least, someone asking for advice on a particular in-game subject in General is likely to be gently directed toward a more focused, topic-specific channel where they can get more focused, topic-specific answers. Either way, though, that (obviously) wasn't the point I was making. My point was, if someone has a game-related topic they want to discuss, there are dedicated channels already in place for most of those topics -- Help, LFG, Arena, et cetera. And those players should absolutely take those discissions the appropriate channels. But the purpose of the General channel is, again, just to be... well, general. It's the "whatever" channel. Unless we're going to advocate for the unnecessary, draconian step of demanding that nobody ever use in-game chat to discuss any topics not directly related to the game, General is absolutely the right place for idle communication and socialization. As long as they're not posting anything to it that's harmful or otherwise a violation of HC's rules -- and as long as they're not flooding the chat with multiple lines at a time and preventing others from using it -- then whatever people are posting, whether or not you or I personally care about it, isn't "spamming," it's just chatting.

Great White Shark reminds everyone to stay delicious safe at the beach over the holiday weekend!

I usually start with a name. That likely suggests a look and/or powers and I go from there. So concept first. Sometimes I'll get it into my head that I want to try out a specific powerset instead, and I'll try to find an available name from there, but more often than not that's an exercise in frustration -- especially with sets that sort of demand a name that refers to them instead of basic/generic ones. (If I'm trying to make a character with fire powers, I want a "fire name." If I'm trying to make one that fights with a stick, there are a million different directions I can go so it's easier.) So that usually ends up tabled. It's the reason I still don't have a high-level Plant controller or dominator despite having desperately wanted one since the set debuted with CoV. Once I've got a name and a concept and a costume, I'll start actually playing. Run through the tutorial for the badge, followed by soloing the Matthew Habashy (or equivalent redside) arcs to get a feel for the powersets without the pressure of pulling my weight on a team. Maybe refine the idea a bit. Oh, I like these powersets but I think I'd prefer them on a brute instead of a tank, or vice-versa. That kind of thing. If feel like I need to, I'll delete and remake the character; by then I've probably only invested about an hour into it so no big deal. After that I'll grab a team if I can. DFB, level-appropriate contact missions, 50+ PI radios, whatever's happening at the time and will have me. My work schedule means I'm sometimes on at relatively quiet times so maybe instead I'll end up soloing the King's Row missions up through Veles too. I try to pick up TFs when I'm able, but if the next one on the list isn't forming up right now, oh well. I'll go back and do it eventually. At this point, whenever I level I'm probably just picking whatever powers seem fun or useful or concept-appropriate at the time. Once I hit 20-25 or so that's when I know this is a "serious" character, so I'll scour the forums here for a build, modify it to suit my tastes (usually just trading out travel powers or replacing epic powersets that don't fit my theme -- enough with the ice armor already, people), and respec into that. I fill slots with attuned IOs when I'm able, but mostly I use SOs as placeholders until I hit 50 and then slowly replace them one at a time. I don't join other people's farms, but I do have a solo farmer that funds all of my alts. So any time one of them is too broke to use the "upgrade all" button on the enhancement screen I switch over, run the Comic-Con fire farm once, sell the drops, and email the resulting 4-5 million inf to myself to be claimed by that lowbie and keep their SOs green for another couple of levels. Takes about ten minutes. Then I leave that alt parked at level 30 or so, create a dozen new ones, and never go back to that one again.

That's more of a Help channel discussion, isn't it? General chat is for, well, general chatting. For what it's worth, last night my team spent an entire TF conversing about music and all I did was show up with a character whose name vaguely reminded someone of a song title. It's a subject that gets people talking.

There's a reason it's become kind of a cliche around these parts to point out that every powerset or combination of powersets can be good depending on... well, a lot of factors. Less so nowadays with the player balance shifted more to the hardcore/performance-focused end of the scale as a result of the game dying and coming back. Recently I've seen a lot more "Kinetic Melee only does 95% as much damage as most other sets, it's broken and unplayable" or "Storm Blast takes twenty entire seconds to completely clear a 54/x8 spawn, what were the devs thinking releasing something so worthless?" kinds of sentiments than I ever did on live. But... eh. They're both fine. Perfectly cromulent sets that are fun to play even if they aren't "I win" buttons. Anyway. I have a Street Justice/Regeneration brute that's also fine. Regen may not be as totally unstoppable as some would like, and it could definitely use a going-over next time someone wants to look at improving existing sets, but it's absolutely workable as is. Even the "worst set in the game" is still a solid 7 out of 10. In fact, building for recharge so I can always have the clicky powers in Regen up when I need them means I can also activate Spinning Strike more often, and that's maybe my favorite individual power to use in the whole game -- the clicks-to-joy ratio on that one is through the roof for me. She won't be tanking Lord Recluse solo or anything, but she stays upright and does awesome spinning kicks that knock whole groups of bad guys on their butts, so I'm happy.

You're forgetting who you're talking to -- if Snarky were to form a TF, he'd quit immediately after it started just out of habit.