plainguy

May 2

19 hours ago, Adeon Hawkwood said:

Energy is probably the strongest secondary for AR due to the way that Boost Range improves the cones in the set. Mental can work since Psychic Scream adds an extra cone to your arsenal, although Drain Psyche isn't great with AR. Tactical Arrow has plenty of self buffs and some area slows to keep enemies lined up for cones. Ice is ok since Shiver is nice for setting up your cones.

I still like Devices though.

Nice to see a post from the person who educated me on Defense and Defense cap 20+ years ago!

March 30

I've played on and off since this came back.
I had my own thoughts and comments on Masterminds and the changes and updates that should be made.
But would love to hear from a Dev team member what is the road map for Masterminds might be ?
Or are they just dead in the water because of how they were implemented.

I do know on the "Other servers" they have implemented some changes that do not sit well with the Devs here and I understand why. They are not just as polished as you might like it to be and more of a work around / kludge to make something work.

To me its apparent that from the updates it is much easier to create something for many sets then something more AT specific.
Further it appears from what was posted in the past, The implementation of Masterminds is just very convoluted code wise.
But this is all guess work without someone on the inside making a real honest comment about Masterminds.

Personally anyone who knows me, knows I would love the option for less pets and replacement power or the abilities for less but stronger pets.

March 30

The issue with a petless mastermind is the endurance. The high cost of endurance as you level makes this a very difficult build.
My builds have all been power leveled to 50 and I pay with mids to get defense capped.

I can do 3/8 setting with all my Petless builds. Again excluding certain mob types that are just difficult for most such as carni.

The issue might be someone who does min/max builds on a blaster/scrapper/brute/ETC.. They could clear out a mission or a farm in 5 minutes. For me it takes 10 or 12 minutes with a Petless build.

Here is the Positive or at least my notion on this build for everyone who has a negative comment.

On a ITF if you have 2 or 3 maxed out builds, everyone else is not needed. The extra players are of course helpful in a DPS perspective, but my simple point is that 2 or 3 maxed out players could do this without you, but take longer.

I tend to look at players builds in game.
I also in an attempt to increase my incarnate abilities for my petless masterminds have run TF on SO builds.. No one had a clue.. No one cared.. No one commented..

If you take the time to look at other players builds you will see or realize my Petless mastemind build can out do many of these build players make because they are NOT a min/max player..

They have no clue about defenses or resistance and could care less..

I have tried to run an ITF on my whips traps.. But my issue I could not out do the resistance or regen of the first 2 AV you encounter ( forget their names atm).. So it was like a stalemate. .I couldn't kill them.. They couldn't kill me. I tried a bunch of temp powers as well. I just could not do it.

Analogously, I have Beam rifle build that I literally fell asleep in a mission with mobs attacking me and woke up to them still attacking me.. They just could not kill me.

I did ask on torchbearer forum about doing a petless ITF and I basically got shit all over. So that went south..

But Petless builds do work..

I think if they reduced the endurance cost for masterminds, which is the highest in the game. You could level it in game much more easier.
I think if they gave you the option for something different instead of pets or less number of pets, this could be an interesting set.

As an an example you have ONE more powerful pet instead of 6..

But masterminds have not changed since this game came back.

August 12, 2024

I am a big Defense cap player. I feel defenses beat out Resistance..

That being said. I have a farmer that I use to level up my crazy Petless mastermind builds.
His fire resistance is 71 and his melee defense is 33. Picked up the build here on the forums.

Now I do a lot of 8/3 settings on my all my builds, that includes my petless masterminds. I will even say that any build I do MUST be able to do 8/3 setting.. I will not create a build unless it meets the defense and endurance requirements without out Incarnate power assistance, excluding Petless Mastermind builds due to endurance issues.

The reason I do 8/3 because it just is faster then doing 8/4 setting.
But on my Farmer I do 8/4 for the experience and influence.

Anyways..

I would say if you can create a build that can get smash & lethal to 70% resistance and Range to 40s. You could do good.
I can say I take a bit more hits with 33 defense then I would like in the comic con farm, so I think 40s is better as explained in the link in my bio. Also if you can pick up some sort of -To Hit that would also be helpful with increasing your defenses.

Hover is also great to help you get into range defense damage category.

The reason for the Smash/Lethal resistance is that MANY powers have this component in it.

Or simply forget all the talk about resistance and just go Range Cap Hover blaster..
Mind you I Power Leveled my farmer with my AR Device character that was exactly that Range Cap Hover Blaster but I used a jetpack as I didn't have hover. I did an S/L farm.

Again other AT might be more helpful in this category to obtain required numbers..

August 12, 2024

14 hours ago, Rudra said:

Why are you adding AVs to my list of AVs, EBs, and GMs? AVs are already listed.

Congrats! I don't need to see proof. Doesn't affect the discussion about being able to field pets and keep them alive, but good on you.

That depends on the enemy, the difficulty settings, and how you are playing. Like I said, I have fought many EBs, AVs, and even GMs, and never lost a single pet as long as I maintained active control. If I stop bothering with commanding my pets and just leave them there? Yeah, they'll die. A lot against some enemies. (Though against others, my pets still never die despite the foe being an EB or AV.)

Nope. Players are free to play however they want within the CoC. They may even find better ways to deploy their pets to keep them alive than what is currently being shared. However, MMs are a very complicated AT and they are intentionally designed to be a challenge as far as I can tell. So players that don't want to worry about those parts of playing MMs are free to do so, but they should expect to have difficulties until they find an approach that works for them.

Except I was considering it. In order to use your assault rifle on full auto, you have to click the Full Auto power every time. Once your pets are summoned, they keep fighting until they die or you make them stop. And MMs get 6 pets discounting any from their secondary. And they don't even need to be upgraded to be effective, though it definitely helps. And you can upgrade any of your pets even when they are going through the summoning lock out. Just click a surviving pet or a combat NPC following you around and throw the upgrades on them. It still applies to the newly summoned henchmen even if they are still under selection lockout. And if you need to summon pets against a foe that keeps AoE'ing? Summon them outside the enemy's attack radius. Make use of your secondaries buffs and debuffs. Actively command your pets, including ordering them in or out of combat. If you use the NumPad to control your pets? Okay. No one says you have to use the icons. So I don't get why you felt the need to point that out.

Edit: And as far as the pets being attackable for 10-14 seconds while themselves not being able to attack back? We both know that is a lie. Once the pets get through their lockout phase of being summoned, they immediately start attacking anything that is currently attacking them or the summoning MM.

What AT has to stand around for 10 seconds doing nothing while taking damage? Now if you're talking about ATs while they are Held or Stunned, okay, but that isn't part of this discussion. MMs do not have to stand around for 10 seconds doing nothing except eat damage. Even if they need to summon pets. MMs do have their own attacks they can use. MMs can be throwing debuffs on the enemies. And even if all the MM does is summon pets, that is 6.09 seconds. And those pets, as already stated, are more than capable of killing any foe even without their upgrades. So if you're in a tight spot and having to re-summon everything? Throw your summons, maintain your buffs/debuffs, and attack. Then summon new pets as needed. If you are just standing there twiddling your thumbs for 10 seconds and you aren't mezzed, that's on you.

The pets are only as defenseless as you choose to leave them. They may be useless outside of soaking up your MM's damage until they finish getting through their summoning, but they can still soak damage for you and you can still upgrade them even when they can't be targeted/selected by you. (By the time you finish using a summon power, any previous summon is already selectable for anything you want to do. So even your time frame is wrong. They are unavailable for at most 2.03 seconds.)

Devs already said they will not allow that.

The simple fact that your opening quote is complaining that I brought up AV twice clearly shows me that you are just looking to derail and just picking the fly shit out of the pepper.

I mean honestly.. The AV comment is up for debate now.. This is the direction you want to bring the topic to?

Then followed up by cutting my post in the next quote to represent me as giving misinformation or incorrect info clearly shows you don't to actually debate or discuss something here.. You just to post stuff knowing full well most are not going to read my full comment that you incorrectly took a snippet from to misquote me and of course based on that information, what you are saying sounds possibly reasonable or correct.

So basically you don't want to debate or discuss fairly..

Mind you if you just simply addressed the whole, you know Plainguy, I did some looking and testing and what you are saying is incorrect.. Summon pets near a group of hostile mobs does not make them get attacked or that they are immune to mob attacks during the summoning or that the pets can in fact attack back during the animation. So you are wrong when you say pets cannot fight back during this summoning period and also testing the upgrade time you are incorrect. I could accept and debate that..

But not this BS.
You are going down this rabbit hole on your own..

August 12, 2024

On 8/2/2024 at 6:15 PM, Rudra said:

Technically, you do. It is the tier 9 power and it is called Full Auto. The difference being that you have to click it each time you want to use it whereas the MM pet upgrade powers only need to be used once per pet summonings.

Mind if I ask how you are deploying your MM and pets? Because I can solo AVs, EBs, and GMs and for most of them, never lose my pets. (Well, I haven't tackled any GMs since they got buffed, so maybe that has changed? Though active pet control goes a long way to mitigating pet wipes.) Some have really bad AoEs, and they get problematic, but you don't need upgraded pets to clear them. (You can also throw your summon location outside of the enemy's reach, and your pets will appear safely.)

Technically Full Auto is a NEW and DIFFERENT power..

Regarding your comment on Soloing AV and EB and GM and I will add in AV.. I can do the same on a petless master mind or with only one pet.. You can click on the link in my signature to see this.

But without a doubt you do loose pets.. What you are saying is a bit of a lie, you can and do loose pets even with a tankermind build.
But regardless we are not discussing outliers and min and max builds.. We are discussing the average player..

Unless the next debate is your doing it wrong..

Simple example to this I could NEVER play just using the icons to controls the pets in my power tray.. I MUST use the numpad keybind to do so.. I couldn't imagine someone doing it otherwise.. BUT players do..

Again you want to address something I said.. Please address the whole issue.. Not part of it as if didn't mention anything else..
What I mean by that is simply, the delay of summoning pets and upgrading them makes the pets attackable for around 10 to 14 seconds where the pets cannot return attacks.
So it NOT just the issue of a pet upgrade or a summoning issue, it is the culmination of both.

If they addressed the upgrade issue then maybe the summoning part would not be so bad..
Again just simply use this comparison to any other ArchType and imagine they had to stand around for 10 seconds not being able to do nothing while taking damage.. This is why so many players do NOT take crash powers and request to make the powers crashless and why the Devs have actually changed the crash powers..

Just like someone would not want to use a power and have all their endurance drained, No one wants to summon pets and upgrade and have them be defenseless and unuseable for 10 to 14 seconds..

At least now if the upgrades were required to be taken and they came upgraded, Then at least when summoned they would be ready to fight.. So 7 ot 8 seconds becomes more bearable or at least accepted ..

August 2, 2024

Two camps here for me.

Pet upgrades should just be automatic and replaced with 2 NEW Powers for the Player to be able to use.
- The issue is then you would not be able to slot IO sets into those upgrade powers anymore and the 2 NEW powers might not workout to have the right sets you need or needed before the change.. So that would upset everyone.
- Personally I do not slot any IOs in the pet upgrades on my builds.
- My simple gripe is no other AT has a semi useless power that is required to upgrade another power.. Meaning without the Pet Upgrade, you pets don't acquire new attacks and defenses.
  - Imagine creating an Assault Rifle character and needing an upgrade power just to be able to shoot full auto for example.
- At the end of the day having 2 new powers will not make you overpowered for the simple fact of the Mastermind Endurance issue.
  - Having 8 Petless Masterminds I can assure you, that you CANNOT level a Mastermind with just attacks and no pets.. The endurance cost just maket this task Impossible.
  - The only way I was able to achieve this is being power leveled and creating the right build in MidsReborn that covers the endurance cost at level 50..
Keep the pet upgrades as they are, but again once picked, they are automatic and do not need to be cast.
- The play here is basically like with any other Archtype, you upgraded the pets as you leveled.. So you improved you Robots, Your thugs leveled up with you to be stronger, ETC..
- Again no clue what the issue is here with this.. To me it falls in line with my gripe in number 1.. You got better.. You shouldn't need to reattach swarm rockets to your robot everytime..
- Again No other AT needs to do this. No clue why this was implemented or the gripe with it being automatic regardless.

This issue above doesn't seem like a big deal UNTIL you are playing against AVs and Elite Bosses ETC and you discover you can't even buff them and upgrade them fast enough because they are getting wiped as soon as they are resummoned.

Basically you can buff them, they will not attack, BUT THEY CAN BE ATTACK and DAMAGED.
I made an old post on this several years back. I did some timing and it was upwards of 10 seconds where they can't do anything between being summoned and upgraded.. Again that is a LONG TIME..

The common answer is run away and resummon. But again no other AT needs to do this..

So this where this automatic upgrade would kill this dead space of 10 seconds to some degree.

Personally Now if I get a wipe on ROBOT MM.. I summon the other bots and then the Assault BOT but use the 2nd upgrade FIRST so the Assault Bot will fire off Swarm which makes mobs run away and then I try to resummon the other pets because now I have some breathing room.

In the end Masterminds are or can a difficult Archtype and get limited support because Masterminds are not the games bread and butter.. Even from what has been explained in the past the coding is different compared to other Archtypes which makes it difficult to enhance or improve.

I think this is just something when playing a mastermind you have to accept and live with..

August 2, 2024

My 2 cents on this.

Originally the complaint was that the coding for Masterminds is so different then everything else and how the minions are created, it is sort of all baked in, that it was impossible to do this.

We know this is now a lie or not exactly the truth since other off shoots of this game have found work arounds to make customizable minions. Also to be clear no one from Homecoming ever expressed this but original developers did.

It is 2024 we should move with the times even if you have personal opinions otherwise.
I understand enough about technology to say a few simple things.

Now I do not want mods and homecoming team to be policing this stuff.

What should or could be done is have a tic box when creating a Mastermind and deciding to CUSTOMIZE ( and customize ONLY ) your Minions instead of going with the standard look or something beyond changing color.. They make a small ULA that says if you do anything offensive you will be PERMA banned. That includes your account, email and ANY other accounts that we can associate to that IP ADDRESS. You have to tic the box to proceed that you acknowledge and understand..

So if your a parent or a young teen and screw up and get CAUGHT.. You have screwed over everyone in the household that plays the game as well.

No email from parents saying, sorry my child was a stupid for doing this.. Please don't punish all of us.. ETC, Blah, Blah, Blah.
We don't know and we are not going to investigate to figure this all out.. It is a total ban. Refresh your IP address, Get a new email address and start all over..

Now will it stop someone from being a deviant and creating such a character and then going into their base and role-playing some sick stuff out? No..
But it also cannot be seen by the public.
BUT the MINUTE you screw up and someone sees something and can take a screenshot of the text or an image of you doing something inappropriate with Mastermind character customization. YOU SLIPPED UP and YOU ARE DONE !

I have done enough cyber investigations and subsequent arrest in my past career and have done enough cyber investigations in my current career to know we have enough logs to enforce this.

Some might think this is harsh and a bit overboard.
Personally I think this is what you deserve for being a savage and violating this unique rule which is only in place to give players an option they wanted so much and for so many years.. Again you don't bite the hands that feeds you..

This why it should be a savage ban hammer..

June 6, 2024

Petless and Semi Petless masterminds..

June 1, 2024

13 hours ago, Frosticus said:

Dominator (Arsenal Control - Psionic Assault).mbd 42.79 kB · 2 downloads

Very impressed...

I was expecting to see some defense cap but you have none...
As I am a big defense cap player on everything.. This is impressive and nice eye opener..

May 31, 2024

Would it be possible to see the build?

Very nice..
Going to sound silly but since the beginning of this game, I never knew you could still attack from behind the column..

Let me add that Tricannon is a beast !!

May 31, 2024

I play all my builds at some defense cap.
My signature has a OLD,OLD post that should be still active about defense cap and why it is important. For me back then ( the post is dated) was when my eyes were opened to the game mechanics in this game.

Some have said they don't like it. I can understand or relate.

But the simple reality is you just last longer in a mission with Defense cap..

Unfortunately there are only so many inspirations you can make and combine to get the inspiration you specifically need sometimes. Similar if you can make defense IOs you can make damage IOs..
Again it is a play style of choice.
I can personally recall several times during my gameplay where many on the team had no clue of defense cap and wondering why I was surviving.
https://github.com/LoadedCamel/MidsReborn
MIDS is a must to building out and creating builds for end game.

I couldn't tell you the difference in damage wise between a fire fire non defense cap and a fire fire defense cap build. But I can't imagine it being massively different.
I can tell you I play a lot on my AR /Device which is the weakest power set in the game and I can open up with full auto kill all the minions and then slug shot the LT hat might be alive. So I do not see that earth shattering bad..

I mean how much damage do you really need to do and how much overkill do you need? If they have 100 HP and you do 100 HP in damage it is the same as doing 200 HP in damage.. You get get nothing for the extra 100 HP damage you did..

May 27, 2024

All of them do..

I think every power set should allow you to pretend its something different then what the set is.

EG Poison set..
Give the player the ability to color it bluish and change it up a bit and the player can pretend they are shooting ice type powers instead of poison.

May 21, 2024

19 hours ago, Bjorn Stoutarm said:

Hello.

I just accepted the latest update to Mids' Reborn, and now none of the prior builds will load. That includes all legacy builds, even if I select Lagacy under "Open". I get a message indicates an "Unhandled Exception", something about unable to find the specified file. The files are there and are displayed when I use Open. I'll try to attached a screenshot.

Any ideas? Or how can I return to the prior Update?

Thanks!

Bjorn.

Uninstall and reinstall and it will work..
Just did it and it is working..

May 21, 2024

Getting the same..

I am going to try to uninstall and reinstall from scratch

May 7, 2024

Hey trying to set Field Operative to show me numbers while in combat to see where I need to be for defense cap numbers but when I go into options and change suppression to attacked, hit by foe, damaged.. Either ticked or NOT.. The defense numbers do not change.. I also don't see the defense numbers in Field Operative so I can just divide them in half..

So anyone have a clue on what to do here to keep the build in combat mode so I can review numbers this way?

May 3, 2024

On 4/25/2024 at 7:55 PM, BrokenGods said:

Do Petless MMs exist and thrive? The Demon MM was a hard powerset to imagine up consistent ideas fitting with the power set. There is a shortage of other whip animations to borrow. The beast MM was complicated, too.

I have 8 of them. I have Semi petless as well, Either last mob or Tier 2 pets.
EG Robot Boy - Boy with his Giant Robot. Another is like a tech fighter with Protector Drones. Thug and Tier 3 Pet ( 2 brawling brothers)

The issue leveling them up petless is Endurance I think I got into the 20s ( I want to say 25 ) before I went for the PL route.
The endurance drain is massive..

But if you IO them out at level 50. I am telling you I can solo 8/3 on all of them against the common squishy mobs. So no Carnies or Malta.
A link to my thread is in my signature.

April 17, 2024

Notice that I still have Time Bomb instead of Remote Bomb.
I did pull in an old AR Device build so I am wondering if that pushed Time Bomb into the database and replaced Remote Bomb.

Mids' Reborn v3.6.6 rev 3

Database: Homecoming
Database Issue: 27 Page 7
Database Version: 2024.2.717

Running under .NETCoreApp,Version=v6.0 / .NET 6.0.15

April 17, 2024

6 hours ago, Saiyajinzoningen said:

what you are describing is called

<drumroll please>

Virtual sickness or cyber sickness or simulator sickness (take your pick)

it affects up to 30% of the population (i am one of them)

I cant do VR glasses or 1st person shooters.

I don't know if there's any in game setting that will help you

perhaps @Rudra does (our resident under the hood genius that he is)

however irl there are a few things u can do.

Dramamine or some other motion sickness medication works great if you can fight off the drowsies (not the dark elf kind)

Amazon.com: Hion Motion Sickness Glasses - Relieve Carsickness, Airsickness, Seasickness - Anti Nausea Vertigo Glasses, No Lens Liquid Glasses for Adults or Kids (1 Pair Without Bags) : Health & Household

lastly the most difficult thing that i know for sure works is, exposure therapy.

just do a little bit then a little more etc..... until your body kinda get used to it

be warned that because this is a physiological issue the exposure therapy is not permanent.

of your stop exposing yourself to the stimuli your body will start rejecting it again once re-exposed

To be honest. Too much to do for a game.

Not gonna take pills..
I wear glasses already, not going double glasses.

But i appreciate the effort and time in all of this.
I might have both cyber and motion as boats make me sick as well.

April 17, 2024

59 minutes ago, Greycat said:

Honestly you'd probably be better off asking (or "also asking") folks who can mod the game to see if they can create, alter or disable the animation.

If the devs create an alternate animation, they'd likely have it as a power customization - which means the person using it would have to change it, and there's no way for them to know "oh, I'm going to be teaming with so and so" (and even if they did, no guarantee they'd change the animation... or wouldn't use it on purpose. With Sonic's original graphics, once it became known it was triggering migraines in people, some ... *individuals* took great joy in applying it, *especially* to people who asked them not to.)

With a mod (via city mod installer) it doesn't matter what they do, you'd see the mod graphic instead.

Without a doubt that would be doable. Even if there was no graphics..

April 16, 2024

I brought this up about a year ago.

Yea I am light weight, for some reason over an extended period of time I start to get cold sweats and upset stomach looking at my screen with this power on. I can't play first person shooters either for this reason or go on looping roller coasters.

Wondering if Whirlwind could get a optional graphic of just wind spinning around the character like a mini tornado.

I just found this in a Skyrim post and thought it would help describe what I am saying

March 6, 2024

I don't create anything unless I can get it defense capped in some way at level 50 in Mids Hero builder.. Along with the required endurance ratio needed.

March 6, 2024

The only issues I ever had were environment..
One TF ( don't recall the name) used to drag mobs as the mobs would run through the tunnels if you TP to the boss.

The caves are an issue for bots and larger pets. I have had people look to leave a team I was on with my robots.. I left instead of breaking up the team.
The sewers are much better for game play for Masterminds.

Teams are fast moving, so nothing that requires setup such as Traps.

Though not crazy about the animation of nature, the HOLD toggle in nature is very, very good.

March 6, 2024

On 2/24/2024 at 10:19 PM, Grave Knight said:

The Crab Spider Arachnos Soldier has robot spider pets. That's probably the closest we'll get without them adding another Epic Archetype. There is also some issues if you switch Alignments. I can see Widows and Mu Sorcs going Rogue but not Hero or Vigilante (at least not enough to justify an MM type archetype). The same problem with Longbow or PPD.

Praetorian Clockworks can work since we've seen how vulnerable they are to hacking in lore, but I think it would work best as an Epic Archetype. Maybe one based on the PPD Shell's Hardsuits (with the arm mounted gatlin guns) that get Clockwork robots as pets. A Warwork version of the Archanos Soldier.

You know a Spider pet Mastermind wouldn't be bad either.. They have all the different spider pets already..

February 16, 2024

On 2/7/2024 at 9:39 PM, Captynrj said:

I'd love to see Lighting storm have some ability to follow the caster around...sorta like storm cell.

On 2/8/2024 at 9:20 PM, Clave Dark 5 said:

I dunno... it would be nice, sure, but it would be nice if I got a hundred merits every time I logged in, too. This feels like a power creep to me, for a power that's already pretty powerful. My first impression.

I think it would have to be at a lower DPS

And it would be a great OPTION for a player..

Sign In

Profiles

Forums

Events

Store

Articles

Patch Notes

Posts posted by plainguy