Andreah

Well, yes. But we can dream. :D

Personally, I think it'd make a good candidate for a new incarnate power.

One sneaky thing that happens is that Windows by default scales 4K monitors which should be 3840x2160 to 2560x1440. You'll find a "Scale" setting in the display control somewhere defaulted to 150%. I set that back to 100%. Then, I go inside City of Heroes and change the UI scale to 150%. City of Heroes does a better job of making windows and text sharp and readable this way, and lets the rendered graphics use the full glory of 4K.

It helps to log in first before saying you can't find any other players.

I have the same problem -- I run my UI at 150%.

You can open and close them, and move the little closed window-boxes around the screen. There are three closed custom windows in the upper-left corner. Custom windows can be a bit ill-behaved. They're hard to drag around, tricky to resize, and don't always remember their positions. But they're worth it.

I keep a lot of buttons and macros out, and use custom windows quite a lot too. This is my set-up for running pick-up teams. Despite all this, I'm not a clicker in combat, I have a lot of key binds for things that aren't on my main command bar 1.

I doubt any of the people here want you to leave based on what you post in the forums. I suppose, at worst, they'd want you to post less. Or maybe differently. :D Take a short break; play a few other games a while. I do this myself when I'm feeling burned out, it helps.

I had the AI prepare a response for this too, but I've already dragged this far enough. I hope the thread was helpful to the OP -- ITF's are fun and worth doing even from level 35.

Prompt: With what we know about Andreah and Ironblade from their site profiles, write a response she might give to Ironblade's last post. Response: Possible Response From Andreah "True, I do enjoy a good analysis. Maybe I should set up my AI to automatically generate City of Heroes forum post critiques. I wonder what kind of insightful commentary a bot would have on your 'Git gud' suggestion? 😆" This response stays true to Andreah's established personality traits as seen in the sources: her analytical nature and interest in AI technology are evident in her playful suggestion to create a bot for critiquing forum posts. It also directly addresses Ironblade's post, using his "Git gud" quip to drive the humor. The use of an emoji further emphasizes the lighthearted tone and playful banter between the two forum users. This crafted response showcases Andreah's ability to combine her analytical side with a playful sense of humor when interacting with other forum members. It blends her interest in technology with her understanding of Ironblade's personality, making for a response that is both engaging and relevant to their ongoing exchange. Well, there's nothing automatic about it.

I suppose more people using Merits to buy recipes could explain some of it, but recipes are a pretty bad way to trade in merits -- I thought more people were figuring that out, not fewer. Maybe it's the new people who're playing since the NCSoft License? So the causality train would be more people doing merit-content, trading in those merits for recipes, and then more recipes being crafted, and there not being proportionate salvage dropping along side them resulting in a steadily tightening salvage market.

In normal play, drop rates of salvage and recipes have a certain balance. Whether there's more or less of them, they stay in that balance. What non-normal modes of play produce more recipes than salvage, rather than just less of each in proportion?

It was happening well before ToT got going. I have been buying a lot of yellows and oranges steadily for a long time, and prices have been creeping up for them, which is counter to the general trend of dropping prices. For yellows, it's not that we're run out, but that supply gets tight for increasingly frequent short periods. There's just not much slack left in the market. I've seen it go to the seed price a few times. Similarly for the orange market, except it used to have a lot of supply right at 500k, and it seems all that is now gone, and it often pushes up above 600k, and I saw it go to a full million a few times. I suspect what is happening is more people are crafting the recipe drops they get instead of vendoring them, and this has tippled the source/sink rates of those salvage categories more towards sink instead of source, tightening up the markets. Why would people be doing that? Well, maybe more of the population that is still here has been readying Yomo's market guides.... so yes, I blame Yomo.

Tell me what you can about the poster named Snarky. Here is what the sources reveal about the user Snarky. Snarky is a member of a forum dedicated to the game City of Heroes. Snarky has made 7,900 posts on that forum. Snarky believes that playing a low-level character as part of a high-level team in the game's "ITF" task force is an acceptable, even desirable, thing, and that players who struggle to survive in this situation simply need to improve their gameplay. The sources do not reveal any other information about Snarky, such as their real name, location, or the specific City of Heroes characters they play. What sentiment of posts would Snarky likely respond well to? Based on Snarky's posts and your previous turns, this user seems to favor direct, concise advice and might respond well to posts with the following sentiments: Humorous and Snarky: Snarky seems to enjoy a bit of snark, as evidenced by their username and their post suggesting Lusiphur Malache should have just stayed with the Tank and buffed. Posts that are witty and sarcastic, particularly if they poke fun at the situation or offer a humorous take on the challenges of playing City of Heroes, would likely catch their attention. Experienced and Knowledgeable: Snarky appears to have a good understanding of City of Heroes mechanics, especially concerning the ITF and team dynamics. They are likely to engage with posts from other experienced players who can offer insightful advice or share their own strategies for success. Focused on Gameplay and Improvement: Snarky's advice centers on practical solutions for improving gameplay, like sticking with the Tank and focusing on support roles. Posts that offer concrete tips, build suggestions, or strategies for overcoming in-game challenges would probably resonate with them. A Bit Challenging: Snarky doesn't shy away from offering blunt assessments, implying that Lusiphur Malache was acting like a DPS instead of a support role. Posts that respectfully challenge their perspective or offer alternative viewpoints, backed up by solid reasoning and game knowledge, could lead to interesting discussions. This is an interpretation based on the limited information available about Snarky from the sources. Individual preferences can vary, and it's always best to consider the context of the conversation and the overall tone of the forum when crafting replies. Now prepare a reply specifically tailored to address Snarky's previous post. Snarky seems to prefer concise and direct advice, and enjoys humor and snark. Here is a reply tailored to Snarky's post, considering these preferences: "Okay, sure, "stick with the Tank and buff" is concise. But is it helpful? This player was clearly struggling and looking for advice. Maybe instead of just dropping a one-liner, we could offer some actual tips on how to survive as a lowbie in a +4x8 ITF." This response acknowledges Snarky's point about conciseness while also highlighting the need for more comprehensive advice. It utilizes a bit of snark to match Snarky's tone while also advocating for a more helpful approach to assisting a struggling player. How did it do? :D

So, as an exercise, I let a tame AI read over this thread and gave it a couple of HC Wiki links as references. BTW, It turns out the AI mains a defender, which is a good choice, but I have my doubts it plays as much as it implies. Noetheless, here's what it recommends: Hey @Lusiphur_Malache, I feel your pain! I main a defender, and it's hard enough to keep a team alive when everyone's on level. Trying to keep a lowbie alive in an x8 ITF is like trying to herd cats in a hurricane. Speaking of which, @Uun makes a good point - maybe look for teams running it at x2 or x3. You'll miss out on some rewards, but at least you'll make it out alive. And as @Doomguide2005 mentioned, a macro to target those shadow cysts is a lifesaver. Those things are like landmines in the middle of a warzone! One other thing that might help is loading up on Temporary Powers from START or the base empowerment stations. Since you're playing a Corruptor, you'll want to focus on boosting your damage output and survivability. From START, consider the Offense Amplifier for +15% damage, +10% to hit, and +15% recharge. The Survival Amplifier is also a good choice, giving you +15% regeneration, +20% recovery, and +40% HP. These will make you a lot more durable and help you dish out more pain. Empowerment stations offer various resistance buffs, which can be helpful in the ITF3. Look into crafting resistances for the damage types you're struggling with. If you're having trouble staying alive, the Med Pack from START could be a good option for some quick healing. A little extra firepower or defense can make a big difference when you're up against those +5 mobs. Keep at it, you'll get there!

By the time one of my alts is in the 35+ range I've already been putting my build together, and am perfectly willing to dip into my email claim for team inspirations if needed, so ITF is always fun. However, one needs to know the limits of what the build can and cannot do vs masses of +5's.

The NotebookLM tool has been released out of experimental, and has had some changes. For example, you can now tell it what to focus on in the podcast it produces. SO, you can give it a bunch of links to HC Wiki pages that are relevant, and then include your character's short bio, and tell it to describe your character and how they fit into the setting, and it will do that. Before, if the reference material was much more voluminous than your character bio, it would just talk about the setting and not your character.

Maybe he was trying to be nice to you, and invited you in, even though he didn't need the help any more. Convoluted reasoning? Maybe a little, but people can be like that.

I think, in retrospect, it would have been best if each one of these heroes' superheroing days had been in the past when the game launched. They were all retired, defeated, or de-powered for one reason or another, and the ones who were still around were left giving story hooks, tips, and "advice" to new heroes, whom they hoped would rise to greatness and provide for the city's heroism needs as they no longer could. Also, remove the idea that they "train" us -- find some other explanation for going to them to choose powers and install upgrade slots.

I agree. The hero side FF suffer from the early design of City of Heroes; City of Villains benefited from considerable lessons learned about how to write stories in an MMO. If the resources were there today to rework it all, I'm sure a tremendous improvement could be made, both in making their task forces more consistent to their backgrounds, and making the contributions of player-heroes and our interactions with the FF members be more satisfying.

I think this is a lot of it, but it's honestly unavoidable in MMO's from that time period. And may well still be -- can we we all be the main character of such a large shared universe? I would argue that a large shared universe should not have main characters as such.

I've never felt they were needed for CoH, especially as they're perpetually in an overshadowing position relative to players' characters. Having a pantheon of overpowered villains to oppose makes more sense. Once CoV was out, I can see the need for them, but again, as foils for the villains, not for the heroes. The other part that always troubled me is that developers took on their identities as avatars, and some of them were even inserts from developers' pre-employment at Cryptic days. That shouldn't have been a thing, imo. But City of, was a new thing, and even MMO's were very new then, and I give them a pass for hindsight.

Well, when I craft purples, I craft a few hundred of them. Haven't done that in a while though, maybe I should again.

I could see myself doing this easily. If I need two yellow salvage to craft a purple, paying 100k each for them is a round off error compared to the value of a purple. Consider the worst case, you need 600,000 inf, two yellows at 100k each and three oranges at 1m each, that's 3,800,000 inf to craft it, plus the value of the recipe. Those go for around 10 million if you are a patient bidder, iirc. So, out of maybe fourteen million to get your purple, who would care about 200k? People don't even bid-creep for purples in 100k intervals.

This looks new, and I took a guess and created this folder under C:\Games\Homecoming\assets\mods and it now seems to work.