agentx5

I enjoyed reading this, please more dev diaries! 😄

I've seen many people who get "celebrity" status in a game get an inflated ego problem, but that was never my experience with you -- you were always willing to help out and go above & beyond to help others have good enjoyment with the game. Sometimes even a good sense of humor at misinformation ("Do you think we should tell him that +DEF does nothing against Hami?", definitely a oh... yep I'm wrong on that moment I'll always remember lol) Overall, excellent job leading a team or league. It was one of those "Oh Veracor is running this one? Oh heck yeah! Let's gooo!" So, a very good experience indeed (when I could be online early enough to join your team/leagues). Your steadiness and consistency was a huge asset to Everlasting and HomeComing as a whole, and you will be missed in your absence. I will honored to fight by your side again, whenever you decide to visit (and we're in-game at the same time). I know it may not mean much (might remember me by my main character, Alyssa Q'Uzixola), but sincerely: THANK YOU! YOU ROCK!

I wouldn't feel right accepting this, I'll pass, but thank you kindly. Give that influence to others who need it, such as giving ATOs sets to newbies to the server trying to level their 1st level 50. I want my data to be without any sources of competitive bias, and it's mostly just a benchmark to learn things about my builds or balance factors in the game. Comparisons can be useful, even if there's some flaws. My next task will be comparing two versions of my main character of my main characters (Alyssa Q'Uzixola, a Fire/Nrg Blaster), one with Fire Mastery and one with Force Mastery I also want to see how my Electric/Electric Sentinel does 😄

Character Name: Elizabeth Boudreaux AT: Stalker Powers: DualBlades/SuperReflexes/Soul Pylon Time: 189.1 Seconds 0x8 Time: 575.3 Seconds 4x8 Time: 1194.5 Seconds Comments: She's setup for single-target primarily, and has been used to solo ITFs in the past Character Name: HDJ AT: Blaster Powers: BeamRifle/Energy/Mace Pylon Time: 115.1 Seconds 0x8 Time: 197.5 Seconds 4x8 Time: 306.8 Seconds Comments: I do have "Spiderlings" as part of his normal powers, but most enemies were dead by the time they realized they were being hit it was over due to his extreme range (which is what he was designed for, and makes him play so much differently in combat than Alyssa, my main blaster) So I wanted to mostly start with this as a self-comparison between two of my characters that are intended to be boss-killers and drop high-priority targets in a group. Basically I wanted to settle a debate. I must say what surprises me the most is HDJ's Pylon time versus Elizabeth. And believe me, I tried multiple times with Elizabeth but she can't beat what HDJ does and it's a wide margin in time to kill. My guess is that his -RES and -Regen play a big role, and especially his [Disintegration]. But still surprising to me that a Stalker's Assassinate couldn't beat that. The times above are an from a set of 3 attempt runs each, just so I could clean up outliers I must say that running that particular AE mission at -/x8 is definitely not intended for Stalkers' playstyle. Meaning that while she had no issues surviving even against +4/x8 enemies, it definitely slowed things down considerably to clear it all -- basically the wrong tool for the job, I don't look at it like there's anything wrong with build per se. Her tactics are meant to be ambushing, flanking, and otherwise dropping one HPT (high-priority target) at a time to help out a team, while other ATs are doing their thing clearing the minions. Most of the time some of the group would run away and I'd have to go chase them down, which increased the time to clear it all. And when dealing with tougher enemies on +4/x8, I definitely wasn't just "scrapping it out" dangerously like a noob Stalker, but rather making good tactical choices with flanking and striking from Hide -- which while effective, definitely ballooned the time to "clear all" enemies from the AE mission map on +4/x8. She was never in danger when using tactical positioning wisely, and striking at the right time -- but it meant she couldn't be hyper-aggressive to complete the clear as fast as possible either. So I would conclude there's a problem with this test method, @AmrasNotHere, rather than a problem with her. For testing something like Blasters, Corruptors, Tankers, Brutes, Kheldians, Masterminds, etc it probably works fine. But not Stalkers, as they really shouldn't be played like a Scrapper. Also not sure it works well with controllers as the Pylon becomes a DNF, and while Debuffs, Buffs, and lock-downs with mezzes is amazingly helpful for a team they're not meaningful DPS. That's ok, that's not what a Controller is meant to do (except for maybe Fire or Plant); but after doing one run with my Grav/Emp Controller with this I've decided not to test her the rest of the way. Took way too long for her to clear +0/x8 than I want to waste doing it twice more plus 3 more of +4/x8. She has [Propel] working for her on the Pylon, but that's kind of it. PS: Not going to bother with "player name or global" since it's just me; x5 / @x5 / @agentx5. I wouldn't want to submit other player's results, and can't see any reason I would ever need to.

Idea: What if it sorted people based on their time spent playing their character? From what I know, that "on patrol" time is tracked for all players as a statistic. While it's not a guarantee, it would mostly likely put the most veteran players at the top of the team lists by default (highest level or highest vet level 50's first). This should make it a bit easier to ensure that there's a higher level near the top, so that way there's less risk of having a team suddenly dropping to a lower level in the middle of combat due to a team leader disappearing from that team (i.e. due to an unexpected disconnect).

I second the motion to have this feature added to the game as necessary QoL functionality!

City of Heroes is often CPU bottlenecked on the client because it doesn't do multi-threading properly. Basically it's not your hardware, is that the game doesn't use your hardware to its full potential (namely your GPU is bored as mostly a single core on your CPU struggles to try to do it all) If you pull up your CPU usage details when the game is running, especially in busy league raid battles, you'll see just a single core bearing all of the pretty much all of the load (single threaded) and thus your frame rate is GHz bound versus that CPU. This is especially true if you have mouse "camera shake" turned on in setting (it's still the freaking default it seems for new players, for some insane reason) or if your particle/sprite count is high, or if your hit the 256 limit for simultaneous sound effects in combat. I run with max textures, in 4K, high view distances, sprite effects counts reduced, vis_scale, FXAA 2x anti-aliasing (but 4x works fine too, I just prefer smoother), max shadows, max reflections, max character detail, mouse camera shake off and the game runs fine as long as I use one of my 3 macros to adjust vis_scale distance factor. 4.5 to 5 GHz overclocked 4790K CPU with DDR3 as I recall off-hand. I have a a MIN 0.3, MID 3, and MAX 12 setup as macro button on power tray #4 or #5 for all of my characters. I usually stay on MID except in heavy raid battles where I click MIN to reduce things down so they run smoothly on things like the MSR "bowl" or HamiKazi's I've also forced my client to off-load some of the "heartbeat" telemetry to other cores, but sadly unless the Devs here do something I cannot do anything about the stack overflow lag issues from sound effects >255 or inefficient management of spite/particle rendering being handled by the CPU when it should be the GPU... Changing from OpenGL to Vulkan or DX11 would help resolve a ton of issues, but I don't see that happening sadly, we just don't have a team of engineers large enough (people x hours x pay) to make that transition. So all we can really do is to roll with it and adjust best we can on our clients. GM Impervium's advice is also solid, good advice. PS: Windows priority doesn't really do anything because it's not really competing much with background processes & services (or at least it shouldn't be, unless you have Symantec, McAfee, or similar bloatware & ransomware). Yes below normal isn't good, and glad you caught that; but it won't resolve the core issues

This is a good concept for an AE mission to be honest, and a potentially very humorous one! As far as the actual idea you're proposing, newspapers do seem a bit outdated...

I like this idea @Laucianna, and would love to see this implemented. From what I understand about the pets in the source code; however, that might be quite difficult to pass the inheritance information through the encapsulation of the functions in the source code. Not impossible, but I'm honestly not sure how much re-designing this would take. I do feel it's worth it though, for Mastermind's everywhere; and an additional cool reason to pick Mastermind. #supported 👍

Uh... No... Sorry @Troo This is a strong NO to this idea from me as well. I'm not sure why you thought this would be a good suggestion when you wrote it up on this past Sunday afternoon. Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it, as the saying goes. Putting people pedestals never turns out well, even if they are good people that are resistant to prideful corruption. I can only emphasize for what @lemming must have went through with that, as I've experienced similar stuff myself decades ago (omg has it really been that long ago? ugh I feel old now...) I also 100% agree with @Laucianna. I feel that what you get out of a game community is what you put into it, and no that doesn't necessarily have to be money. We can each contribute in our own way whether that's helping teach a newcomer the ropes, running raids or leagues regularly, building bases, running costume contests, serving as a community rep or game master, etc etc etc... It's all done for the love of the game. And that's really amazing and precious when you think about it! Financial donations is one of many ways somebody can step up for the community. I've see plenty of game servers out there in all sorts of games (Minecraft especially comes to mind) that just sit empty almost all of the time until somebody eventually pulls the plug to put the ghost town server out of its misery. There's money sure, but no players to play with. So yeah, people who can maybe on ever afford small amounts to donate can still make a big impact on the community's activeness and quality; just as much as those who do donate various financial amounts to keep the servers online. What we have going here is like breath a fresh air in the current status quo of much of the gaming industry out there. So please don't fart in the breeze! 😜

Wow this was an amazing read! Every one of these is fascinating and I could make this an extremely long post about each response to each question (and yeah I did read every word (and there were a LOT of words being said!) I especially like the insight into the game philosophy, and hearing a little into what I always wondered about regarding the other unfinished incarnate tiers (Thank you Tim "Black Scorpion" Sweeney) Although I must admit that the Synapse TF is my least favorite TF in the game (Dr. Q 2nd least), and most favorites including all of the FirstWard & NightWard arcs, Dark Astoria (just wish kept the creepy fog from the Echo:D.A.), the Number-Six arc (post-Magisterium-iTrial), along with the classics that are the ITF (especially with a kill-most b/c Cimerorans are fun to fight against), TinPex, and all the iTrials. I wish we could give those Synapse and Dr.Q an overhauls to make them fun. Incremental improvements, made with love for the game, to bring fun to this unusually awesome community! But anyways I digress, and speaking of missions & content to battle against: I would like invite anyone here (players or devs) of who would like a fair challenge (beatable, but legitimately dangerous enemies that use debuffs like players do), you're welcome to try my (imperfect, probably still needs edits, but a fun teamplay challenge) Alyssa TF "That Which Should Be Dead" (AE arc ID #47111 by @x5) with the custom factions of undead and demonic enemies (warning: it's intended for incarnates) from my very own Xzianthia lore meta-verse crossover. I would like to especially invite Floyd "Castle" Grubb to try after reading his responses above; as I was pushing the limits of what I could do in AE, and perhaps it could change/shift his opinion about AE content? Honestly the ability to create elaborate SG base maps (works of art, really), and make your own custom missions; however limited, is something just amazing to have in CoH. Anyways, while I'm relatively new to the community, it's great to be a part of it and I'm blown away by what's been accomplished both in the distant past and recent past by game developers that clearly believe in bringing forth a fun game to share with the world and bring happiness to so many! Maybe one day my baby daughter can play too! Have a great one, stay safe everyone!

These were exactly what I was going to ask as well! Ah well... An additional question then! (and spoiler tag so I don't ruin lore for people who haven't played the arcs I'm referring to):

Thank you @Cipher for the transparency as always! Thank you all (Devs, GMs, and donors) for everything done to keep this community alive and healthy! Rock on!

I can't disagree overall, what you said is true. However, Super Reflexes seems to stand ahead of other defensive/resistive sets on a Stalker or Scrapper more so than on a Tanker or Brute. This may be due to the stupid streak-breaker mechanic, where in if you've avoided being hit too many times in a row the "streak breaker" combat code will essentially force you to take auto-hits. It can be infuriating and fatal when it happens, which it does without warning. Then again with the extra hitpoints you might survive a streak breaker better too so... meh?

Of what I consider the top 5 tanky players on HomeComing, they either use Bio Armor, Invulnerability, Stone, or Shield Bio Armor in particular is arguably OP in the right hands, just like how a skilled tri-form Warshade is insanely powerful -- the key lies in the versatility, in knowing when to switch mode. I would agree with @twozerofoxtrot in that you should give BioArmor serious consideration, and if that's not enough consider that he highest Veteran Level in the entire HomeComing server group uses Bio Armor (with Titan Weapons). As far as the attack powers, honestly it's whatever you like. Sure the -toHit of Dark is excellent, but so is the knockdown/knockup of War Mace or Titan Weapon or Staff. Or the -DEF of Rad. Or the DoT of Stone. Also speaking of Stone Armor, that's very viable in HomeComing because of changes to the teleport pool (especially [Fold Space] which brings them to you) Shield also gets a lunging charge (teleport with PBAoE damage) and what is essentially a taunt aura