Mister Mass

Yes, I noticed that the new badges got implemented on the site this weekend. Thanks for your work on this! 👍

Yup - so 4 days & 4 hours, while not playing the character.

The first thing I did do when Issue 27 Page 7 went live was to try to run the new Piecemeal personal story on my main. After a few minutes of wondering why the payphone contact wouldn't give me the darn mission, I realized that my main was the wrong alignment. 😄 I switched to one of my villains who had run the prerequisite arc & got the payphone to cough up the mission. I was occasionally confused as to where I was supposed to go next because I would be trying to follow the mini-map pointer instead of actually reading the mission objective. 🙄 But eventually my villain got through it all & I earned the badge, only to discover that the badge tracking site I use hadn't been updated with the new badges yet. It was like a whole hour after the issue dropped & the volunteers in the community who update the site hadn't done it yet? Shocking! 🤯 Seriously, thanks to the fine folks in the community who support my badge-hunting addiction. I know you will get this updated in time. I can wait while you do your good work. 👍 And thanks to the dev team for all of their hard work in putting this new issue together. I enjoyed Piecemeal's personal story & its hints about upcoming developments in the game - & I loved most of the dialogue. Truly hilarious at points! 🤣 The future of the game seems to be in very good hands! 😎

I had an SS/Elec Brute on Live that was one of my main 4 Incarnates. It was a bit of pain at low levels before the RES started to kick in, so I relied on Fury (& inspirations) carry me through - but Fury (& inspirations) were plenty. As others have noted, the key is to get RES as close to the hard cap as you can, while accruing good Recharge & DEF bonuses as well. Power pools, set bonuses, & special IOs are key. I found my SS/Elec was quite sturdy in Incarnate material & could lay down the smack as well.

I'm on Torchbearer & there is noticeably more traffic. Since I am primarily a solo artist, this doesn't effect me much most of the time. But I have been pleasantly surprised at how much more quickly I can form a TF when I send out the call on LFG - even for redside SFs. Since none of my SGmates or coalition partners play much anymore, forming a TF more-or-less means PUGging it. But I have had good luck with my PUG TFs so far. Most of the lesser experienced players are willing to ask questions & follow directions, & the more experienced ones are willing to share their expertise - & carry the teams with their mighty builds. Some of the spam in LFG I could do without, but I can just ignore that, so I have little to complain about. (But since I'm a cranky old man, that probably won't stop me from bitching anyway. 😁)

So the greatest threat to you... is you? 🤔 (I bet you already knew that...) 😉

Whenever I run Posi 1 on a PUG, I like to call a team meeting before fighting the Shadow Simulacra - assuming any Leroy Jenkins in the group haven't already headed down the stairs. I ask the team if they want to try the fight the "smart" way or the "fun" way. The "smart" way is to identify which doppelganger is the most dangerous/annoying & have the full team dogpile on it first, & then work our way down the threat ladder. The "fun" way is for each character to take on their double & have a race to see who can take themselves out first. Most teams choose the "fun" way! 😊

I got slapped with the generic hammer on Live once as well. As one of my (all too many) alts on Live, I started a Dark/Dark Scrapper named Doc DarkNight, based on an NPC in my P&P Champions campaign back in college. In the Champions campaign, Doc DarkNight was Golden Age hero who was a melange of old school Batman & the original Doctor Mid-Nite. Blinded by criminals in an attack on his family, the good doctor had sworn to wage an unending war on criminals, & had developed the tools & skills to compensate for his blindness & aid him in this task. (Later in this campaign, his son would take up his father's mantle & become the Silver Age version of the hero.) The CoH version left out most of this backstory & his base costume didn't look infringing (& was often obscured by hos powers) so he went unnoticed for years. By that point in the game, I was beginning to use my additional costume slots for more variant costume designs. Many of my characters got a slot devoted to a Golden Age hero that had inspired the CoH character in some way, so Doc DarkNight got a Doctor Mid-Nite costume slot - which turned out great! Normally, I didn't wear these potentially infringing costumes in public, saving them for inside missions or in our SG base, but wearing this one really made me feel like a hero, so I would often race from mission door to mission door wearing it. But apparently someone eventually noticed, & the character got generic'ed. 😿 Here on Homecoming I have learned my lesson. I swear! 😉

Since Minerva is the Roman name for the Athena, the Greek goddess of wisdom, & Athena is traditionally shown with an owl on her shoulder, I was going to guess that it was a (really) poor rendering of an owl. But if so, that is the poorest rendering of an owl ever. 🤷‍♂️

Redlynne's Grav/Time guide might be old, but I think it is still a good place to start. I recall getting some good ideas from it when I was starting my Grav/Time Controller: And Redlynne's V.3 guide as well:

As I noted in Yomo's thread, I have multiple characters that were my main crafter at various points over the years That character would craft & vend enhancements until I had all of the badges, & I had another character that was ready to take up the mantle. Each of those main crafters averaged about 55K enhancements crafted & sold before I moved on to the next one in line. But I haven't had any characters heavily crafting in over a year, as I have made more influence than I could ever expect to spend in the game.

Actually, Action #1 Superman didn't have any vision powers either. His X-ray vision was introduced later, & the original explanation for his eye beams when they were first utilized was that they were generated by "the heat of his X-ray vision". Heat vision would only be recognized as a separate part of his power suite later.

For grins, I checked most of my characters to see how many enhancements I have sold on the AH - & the total is 283,927. I stopped crafting enhancements (other than for badges) over a year ago, but apparently my various crafters each crafted & sold about 55K before I moved on to the next one. I usually just crafted for 15 minutes a few times a day - in the morning before work, after getting home from work in the evening, & before going to bed at night. I found crafting a restful diversion from the game, but now just do it to get each of my alts the crafting & vending badges. I long ago made more influence/infamy/information on the AH/BM/TH than I would ever spend in the game, so I have no need to make more. Let the new guard do their thing & reap the benefits!

I think this topic was discussed in the thread above.

I choose which side to start on (& which tutorial to run) based on the character. I try to keep blueside, redside, & goldside balanced. I try to run more-or-less all of the contacts by shutting off XP at each level band - although on blueside I will often skip some of old contacts, as most of them just have generic missions instead of story arcs or badge missions. I take my time & don't rush through the level bands. By rotating which side I start on, each side feels almost fresh again when I get back to it. Since I long ago made my fortune on the market, I kit my young characters out with the best enhancements as soon as they can slot them. Obviously this makes low level play a lot less painful. I'll join TFs/SFs as hey become available, but usually turn off XP, so that I don't inadvertently outlevel contacts in a level band. So I level up much as I did on Live, but with better enhancements - & without having to try to max out debt in order to stay in a level band.

I use graph paper to track my characters' invention badge progress as well. And since (unlike IronBlade) I do invention badges on EVERY one of my alts, it runs several pages. I have thought about building a spreadsheet to track this, but I have a graph paper notebook with plenty of unused pages, so why not use it? 🤷‍♂️

Heh. I was on one of my villains on Torchbearer last night. I might have been part of that magic number! 😈

There has been a lot of good advice on this thread (before it got derailed a bit 😉) to the OP about how to deal with the issue of not having the favored version of one's character name available. I would add a suggestion to that list - adding a title or the like to the original name. One of my characters on Live was named Buckeye, but that name (& any reasonable variation like Buck-Eye) wasn't available here on Homecoming. So I named the character Agent Buckeye & was able to exit the character creator happy (especially since part of the character's background was that he had been an agent of Longbow.) So adding a title to the preferred name might help the OP to reclaim his desired appellation.

Well, I am sure that original Devs would have responded "that is why we have Ouroboros". 😉 It is worth noting that both the newer low-level blueside & reside content had contacts which would lock you out from doing the story arc from another contact in the same level range/zone, but that they added badges for doing all of the story arcs in that level range/zone - so the only way to earn the badge was to Ouro the excluded contact. So it shouldn't be surprising that the Devs were expecting that this would be the approach goldside - especially considering how few of the playerbase is willing to shut off XP & level progression just in order to experience more low level content. That said, as someone who has run 4 separate characters that started goldside & was able (more-or-less) to complete all of the contacts (& undercover work) on all of them, it can be done - & was, for me, a fun approach. On each character I tried to follow a different pathway through the contact trees, so each run was a bit unique. For example, one of my Praetorians reinforced all of the "moderate" (Warden & Responsibility) factions' alignment missions, while betraying all of the "extreme" (Crusader & Power) factions' alignment missions. Another Praetorian did the exact opposite. It was very helpful that the existing guides pointed out the potential roadblocks, so that I could plan the pathways in advance. But occasionally, I mucked something up, either by not planning correctly - or worse, by not actually following the plan. 🙄 In those cases, Ouroboros later filled in the gaps. But Ouro just isn't as fulfilling to me as running the arcs as a starting Praetorian. Right now I am running the Praetorian arcs via Ouro on a non-Praetorian, & I miss part of the feeling that I am navigating a complex world where betrayal is a way of life.

This! I have done Goldside on 4 separate characters, changing starting factions & on what missions I switched sides each time. There is a lot of replayability there, if you look for it.

If you do intend to replay Praetoria, I suggest perusing @Redlynne's guide - Loyalist <-> Resistance ... switching alignments EVERY TIME for Praetorians - as there is some good advice in the original post (& in the subsequent posts from other players) about how to maximize your Goldside experience. (I confess to enjoying betraying the extreme factions (Power & Crusader) whenever I can. 😁)

Welcome to Goldside. If you are willing to read the mission text, it is the most fulfilling low level experience in CoH. I hope that you enjoy your additional runs through the material. There is a lot of replayability built into Praetoria, so feel free to explore its many options!

I I had any skill at this, I would upload the Sting "I will him!" 😠 scene from Lynch's Dune. But since I don't, I submit to your Keanu Reeves clip. That's Ted, right? 🤔 😂

I love your posts @Luminara but those are fighting words! Recant, or I declare kanly! 😠

Out of the blue, a former coalition mate from the old CoH sent me a message that she had heard that the game was back. Apparently one of her old coalition mates had informed her & she was passing the word on. She had no idea how to get in the game, but I did some research, found out about Homecoming, & got us in. It has been a joy to me. Thanks to everyone who made this happen!