agentx5

As for this OP of this topic: I will begrudgingly point out that for many of us (myself included), perhaps from the inflation of prices, has meant we have to work more. Also it's gotten into peak season for many places of business anyways. The short of it is for several people in the community circles I frequent on Everlasting, I just don't have as much time to play as I would like. It's not because people are abandoning the game per se. Now what I thought this topic do would be to finally give us an updated numbers by archetype and powerset, but nnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnooooooooooooooooooooooooooo that wasn't what this topic was. #disappoint *sigh* I want to know what the popular powersets by archetype are, darnit @Cipher it's been two years!!! Please? Inquiring minds want to know! (also which powersets are under represented %-wise so we can get more of them created, or see what needs improvement)

When was it nerfed? Do you recall? (Cryptic has a history of over-nerfing things into uselessness. Like in every single one of their game titles. It's there thing. Release new with it being OP as hell, then multi-stack nerfs on it to make it nearly useless)

IMHO, damage #'s aren't the only things that matters when it comes to combat powers, it also depends on the endurance cost, activation time, and recharge time (to name 3 important factors) [Savage Leap] and [Shield Charge] and [Lightning Rod] are three examples of amazingly fun powers (basically teleport power with a little bit of PBAoE damage on impact) that could be more amazing with a bit less recharge time. If you went purely off their damage, you might think they were good for overall DPS, but that's false they're better for tactical positioning with the damage as just icing on the cake of awesomesauce. That said, considering they are all level 32 or 38 minimum level requirement top-tier powers in their respective sets, frankly they ALL could use to have their recharge time reduced and standardized between them. That way all three can be used more frequently (but you'd have to have the powerset of course), and it's more a choice of what theme would you like. And don't forget about secondary effects that not only help you but can help the entire team, such as -toHit, -DEF, and -RES. Or even soft mezzes like the knock-up and knock-back found in a melee powerset like Super Strength or Warmace, because sometimes pausing enemy damage output just for a moment is what you or your team most needs (i.e.: saving teammate who's about run out of HP and take a dirt nap) Basically there's a lot more than just posting some damage numbers. It kind of reminds me of when people ask on Help Chat in game what is the best damage. Best how? Single target? Ranged? AoE DoT (i.e. [Blizzard])? Is this with teammates doing debuffing? What power sets? What level range? Incarnates included? There's a lots and LOTS of factors to consider and there most important of all is this: Just because you have the build with all the enhancements equipped, doesn't meant that its optimal combat playstyle and attack cycles are things you know how to do (let alone doing intuitively); or even that it matches your preferred/natural combat playstyle. How the PLAYER themselves prefers to play, that's arguably the most important consideration when choosing archetypes and powersets. One of the things I love is when I see somebody discover a powerset or archetype they absolutely fall in love with because it so naturally fits how they prefer to play in combat. Even more so if if they were reluctant to give that archetype or powerset a try because they didn't think they'd like it. It's also while I appreciate a tool like Mid's Reborn and I frequently referrence the incredibly useful City of Data, it's not the only consideration. Some players can shift modes of play, like from passive support to scrapper-lock-like hyper-aggressive-leading-the-charge sentinel and all sort of other combat playstyle preferences around and in-between. In the case of Savage Melee, it just needs a bit of love & QoL improvements to make it on par with its peers -- to make it a choice more people will consider. Hemorrhage is just the most outstanding sore-thumb in the set power choices, so perhaps that's a single power to work on. 😄

In it's current form [Hemorrhage] is such a garbage power that I skipped it on my dragon tanker. I think it could honestly use all of those: + Base damage increased (permanent) + DMG bonus% (self) per bleed stack consumed + Regen% (self) per bleed stack consumed - RES% (enemy target) per bleed stack consumed Up to debate on how long those effects last, how much numerically they grant, or even if bleed stack limits should be changed. Heck even the name of the power could be changed, just so that people know it's not the same thing that it was, maybe make the name better fitting. But at the end of the day it's currently about as useless as [Enflame] from sorcery used to be. It's one of many underperforming powers that needs improvement to make it competitive with other sets, and seeing as I have a tanker who thematically would benefit far more from Savage Melee than Dark Melee, I'd love to see some improvements to the set as a whole. This particular power @Ravenwulfe has made this topic about is just the worst one in the set. And before anyone bemoans this response, I'll point out that the HC Devs have been quite active with improving powersets that are underperforming compared to other near-peer sets. It's not outlandish to ask for all four, it just depends on how much and how long for the variables. And that can be tweaked via playtesting.

That is also a great idea!

Hmm... What you describe @Tax E sounds like a scalar array bug from a data type conversion(s), one that probably isn't necessary, not an actual limitation. But I would have to know more about. Considering how Cryptic Studios has been notorious for spaghetti code that does sloppy things like converting floating point numbers into strings and then into integers -- which results having things like object dift or numbers that don't quite seem correct on a combat log. And not just in CoH, they do things like that in ALL their games. And Cryptic isn't the only game studio with messy data structures, as many game dev studios suffer from high turnover. Heck even Microsoft seems to go through cycles on such things (good OS, buggy OS, repeat). In contrast, well designed code will be modular and the modules will follow a clear standard for interfacing with function calls, regardless of who the developer of the month is for that project. I don't envy anyone the bug hunt to fix that, but such things are always fixable. If Joker could fix all of Day-Z's memory leaks (often times from easily missed things like a Croatian 'A' not being the same as an US English 'A' in Unicode. Same thing to our eyes as humans, but a computer they are entirety different letters/symbols). TL;DR Honestly 300 isn't enough, but it'd buy some time and allow for more additions. Bug fixing would be the main thing, so it could be a big number like characters (which HC has set to 1000 without any issues). I'd think the global friends list database entries have got to be much smaller than any characters, or even bases for that matter (and we have probably close to 100k of those) IMHO, it comes down to this: An MMORPG is about community more so than a single-player RPG (i.e. Elder Scrolls, Dragon Age, etc), and CoH has one of the best communities. Low limits on the global friends list actually puts a cap on that social networking. Not everyone is going to reach the cap, but we've gotten large enough on HC that many of us have to go through removing people to add other people. *Shrug* It would be a smart QoL thing for this community, worth the time to take a good look at the code and database designs at least.

Oh HEEEEECK no! My main character is really good with doing acrobatic backflips while throwing her fire and lightning evocation spells at her enemies. Sometimes even a mid-air flyby [Inferno] and then landing down under cover of some ledge while the surprised enemies get hit with the nuke a faction of a second later. It's all about good timing and mid-air maneuvering, it's a lot of fun. Also having attacks getting cancelled because I got repelled or something would make things like enemies with hurricane even worse, especially if you're a melee character like a Stalker. Perhaps a better way to have made this suggestion would be to ask to have the self-root removed or reduced, or even better simply have the activation times of many powers reduced (with the animation sped up). Those might be good suggestions TBH, especially if they're slight enough to not break things but allow for a faster action-packed combat experience (especially for melee).

Not just on pets. I'm not a fan of orbiting icon symbols on players either. Making it optional client side would be a great QoL, especially if it can reduce the visual effects count too!

Third'ed! I too would like all ranged ST's & AoE's (regardless of AT) to have the same base 80ft ranges. PS: If we're that worried that makes them too much like blasters, I'll point out two thing... First, the corruptors already often overtake/outshine that in a number of circumstances due to their support secondary powersets. Second, raising the blaster damage cap closer to brutes would allow for them to distinguish that role's primary function (When you think about it, it's kind of bizarre that the highest damage cap is on a tanker-role. There's other ways Cryptic/ParagonStudios could have handled the brute's fury mechanic, but they went with a rather lazy-coding solution to allow brutes to overtake what should be Scrapper's melee-DPS forte, IMHO.)

@Dacy FTW!!! As far as HomeComing goes, I hope the HC Devs and GMs realize just how much "base building" is one of HomeComing's premiere claims-to-fame, a specialty that I'm not sure ANY other servers out there have going for them (at least not in the sheer magnitude of number of bases and quality of artwork sculpting them). And yes, the bases on HomeComing are totally a form of digital artwork! Many of them are absolutely jaw-droppingly creative. Truly, many of you builders out there are truly talented, I mean it! For some of the ideas here on this thread, Having NPC's that you can chose animations as a variable you can chose, or even yet customizable costumes for those NPCs? That would be amazing! Fixing base shift from the round-off errors when changing data types? Fixing up that database file structuring? That would be amazing! Shareable templates, such as a series of objects that are "copied" together, and "pasted" elsewhere, even saved as a file to be shared with other base builders? That would be amazing! For me, my personal dream for my specific "SG" base would be to have an outdoor/surface part of the Xzianthia base that is a warzone. One where visitors could actually see undead and demons attempting to (foolishly) continuously assault against the Xzianthia base while fully functional automated turrets and magical defenses (which are already objects in the base editor for use) shred them as they approach -- much like the Vanguard base in RWZ does, but all customized and such. Kind of something to highlight just how much the world of Xzianthia is actually acting as a dam to hold back forces of destruction and evil from spreading, really set the atmosphere.

Different sound processors handle it differently. I run sound effects at 10 or 12 typically and it's pretty balanced. Music oddly works up to 20, but no more. But if I run it off the RealTek audio processor built-into-the-motherboard, it's ear splittingly loud (and the Oroboros music "pulses" in volume/amplitude level, bizarre). I don't know WHY there's a difference, but their definitely is one. Maybe it's codecs? I kind of doubt it's hardware, but maybe the overall driver structure is different for different brands. Most people out there are using RealTek Audio processing (because it's a cheap and commonly produced chipset). What I do wish though was that certain powers has a bit more explosive bass-leaning oompf! (i.e.: Fireball, for example: D.A. fireball spell ) Fortunately some of this (like the beam rifle sound replacements, or assault rifle sound replacements) are available on CoH Modder

Already done that, it's hilarious with a league and pretty decent XP as long as people stick together and don't split up

This is a much MUCH better response than what I was going to write. Well said! As the saying goes "Sharing is caring!"

Holy Carp! That's a lot of names that could be freed up! Good grief!

Addressing the enemies looking stupid while their allies a short distance away are getting attacked. That's GREAT! All good except one thing: RAISE THE AGGRO CAP A LITTLE BIT PLEASE!!! Just 24 or 36 would do it. This give Tankers help in being able to protect the squishies on the team better from accidental flank aggro or even ambushes. All we've been asking for is just enough to be able to absorb the aggro of one more enemy group.

I don't know if it's been discussed or not here, but I have video proof that the same map by @brigg with both characters completely cleared on salvage, influence, and recipes that there's not just a XP removal on Brainstorm (Beta) versus Indomitable (Live) Salvage : about the same (51 Beta vs 52 Live) Recipes : about the same (20 Beta vs 25 Live) Influence : significantly less (a reduction of 30.14% less influence, or in this test it was a difference of exactly 3,329,611) Risk vs Reward : increased damage incoming due to enemies above aggro cap targeting at range, build will have to be stronger Here's a video clip: https://clips.twitch.tv/ResilientJollyWebAMPEnergy-2xzOq5YdQjtIKiBw To quote Mollymauk -- "fire farming is like Zen for some people, they just go an nuke all the things" Again though for me personally, to repeat what I said earlier, it's just means I can't reward people for my challenging incarnate-grade story arc AE mission. And in general I love my main (which is a blaster) because I love being a bit overpowered and taking on impossibly large swarms of enemies. That's a very SUPER aspect to a SUPERHERO game... Or SUPERVILLAIN....

Can we please have the global friends list limit increase? What would it take to increase the max size of the global friends list? Because for myself and a sizable number of people I know, we have to frequently look for somebody we have to remove -- not because we dislike them or anything -- but because we simply don't have any room to add new people we meet. Often times for me, this means removing people who I've not seen in-game in awhile on Everlasting, which means when I visit Excelsior or Torchbearer or something I won't have those people to connect with and team up. With so accounts and my knowledge of the server-side code being limited, I'm wondering how feasible this is. Sadly this was not added to Page4, but I would still like to have this added in a future patch... It's something I have to do almost everytime somebody sends me a global friends list invite. I know I can't be the only one...

I thought about this thinking it a good idea at first, but after awhile I realized it's maybe not such a good idea. My reasoning being that I can think of a number of player characters where the player has died, in real life. Out of respect and honoring them, unless they wished the name to be passed on, I'd kind of like to see it retired and not expired as long as it's a level 50 character they loved But looks like there's a technical reason this can't happen easily, so I guess my point is a moot one regardless

This is a long-overdue wish-list change I've been looking forward to ever since it was first announced. I know I'm not the only one either, for example: And then there's voluntary name release threads like these: So yeah this has been a thing that's been asked for the past couple years, but because it would have to been done manually (according to @Jimmy back 2020) it wasn't really possible. Looks like they've gotten something to automate that process now, and I thank all the HC Dev team for doing so, it probably wasn't easy to code. Thank you! PS: might want to make the time-spans on low-levels a bit shorter, just so it frees thing up just a bit quicker

That's because I'm also confused and trying to figure this out as I go... Apparently it's even more complicated than that: for that specific .dll there's a 64-bit version in System32 and a 32-bit version in SysWOW64 , which is where I was getting confused because at first it doesn't seem to make any sense. What this .dll essentially does is act as a translator of sorts between 64-bit and 32-bit. Basically I was using a 32-bit version of the program on a 64-bit OS and for whatever reason it wasn't able to translate automatically using that .dll it was calling for, probably because it was an old version compiled in 32-bit with an older Windows OS and I'm using Window 8.1MC x64 with Classic Shell. This is one of the thinks that irks me about .Net framework stuff. Fortunately with some help I was able to recompile and I've got it working to where I can view all the internal directories: yay! However it does NOT seem to let me extract the entire thing all at once, and not because I'm low on SSD storage or RAM -- apparently the program itself has an upper cap to the amount of memory t can request to allocate. Yeah right @ System.OutOfMemoryException 😄 LOL! (when I killed the executable, RAM only dropped about 1 GB) I'll continue tinkering with it, and sorry for the confusion @AboveTheChemist and @PsiBug >_< The gest of it is I did get it working for the most important part (which was seeing how HomeComing has the file directory structure laid out so I know what to name things and where to place into the data override folder for client-side customization (which I'll then get up on the CoH Modder for everyone to enjoy once I'm done).

Related but could be off-topic, but I bet it would help if there was a Hami-O version of the D-sync Threat/Accuracy/Recharge , because due to very low supply and high demand the price on those are astronomically high! As long as the source from non-AE game content balances it out versus time-spent, I guess it doesn't matter overmuch. There will always be something people grind or farm. My concern is the precedent this sets: a slippery slope of removal of alternative ways people can play the game. PS: While I was looking at the i27 page3 patch notes, I am reminded of some of the really GOOD game-changing things that don't get as much praise as they should, such as the Shocked mechanic that turned my Electric/Electric Sentinel from a character I gave up on playing, into one of my favorites because of the combo between **[Power Sink]** and other -END powers in those sets combined with that Shocked mechanic's damage proc's. Praise where it's due! 😃

Speaking of I love it that Arachnos freaking blew up and leveled the AE building in Mercy. That is HILARIOUS!!! (and in-character for them, after Aeon's recent shenanigans) For those that don't know, if you got to the old coordinates of the AE building on Mercy on Pineapple/Beta you'll see a pile of burning rubble. The fires don't do fire DoT though, they should fix that. There. Feedback! 😄

I'm not a fan of this, it's the lazy-coder's solution. That's not an insult by the way, coding takes time and sometimes it's wise to use a simple solution because it's faster to implement. But this specific solution is the same kind of lazy-coding as by trying to making things harder just by adding insta-death gimmick mechanics or giving bosses stupid extreme amounts of HP to prologue the fight into slow boredom equivalent to punching a tree until it finally breaks from fatigue stress. Cryptic is notorious for doing that, I saw it all the time in Champions Online, please don't be like Cryptic. Full disclosure, I hadn't played CoH until 2019 but I had played Champions Online since FFA started. Once they were bought by Perfect World Entertainment, it all changed. Not right away of course, but the "On Alert" patch ran off a lot of the population, for understandable reasons. Their developer staffing was severely cut in favor of Star Trek Online and then later Neverwinter Online. And along with that, the quality of the updates and patches has suffered. With absolutely NO ability to create custom missions like AE in that game, the content dried out and the skeleton crew of developers tried what they could do... And things got really lazy with vehicles and coming up with new missions that always had to add some "you have to have this to win" gimmick that shut out diversity on solutions to those missions. The worst one, IMHO was the Eidolon in the newer QWZ that was added. After the population of the game dropped enough, we simply couldn't get enough of the right maxed-out builds and players to fight it except in rare circumstances. Most zones remained empty, and the grind increased (or you could always spend money gambling) HomeComing's brand of CoH has been a breath a fresh air for me. A game funded by donors, not gambling addictions. A game with an amazingly helpful and active community, so many wonderful people here. The GM's and dev's here deserve high praise, especially as this is a non-profit. So please don't misunderstand me, I'm soooo much happier here than on Champions Online. But I do see concerning parallels with suggestions like this one on. Maybe it's the right call, but it's... I dunno.... for me it's kind of yuck?

@GM Impervium any chance we can finally get an update on that data? I've been asking every 6 months. It's information we could all benefit from knowing (even if we want to know which are the least used powers, power set combinations, or archetypes; so we can try to understand why).

For myself I have an end-game-type AE Story Arc ("That Which Should Be Dead") made for teams of incarnates that I really REALLY wish could give Reward and Empyrean merits to people who actually finish it. It takes approx 2 to 3 hours, and it would be good to reward people for that time. With this change I kind of fear nobody will ever play it now... I already lost the 6 Reward Merits people got for taking the time for fighting the Undead Abomination (Jack in Irons with custom description info stuff), and had to make that into an "optional" instead of "required" mission goal. And I mean on the 5th mission the players actually fight a deity-level BBEG... I mean that has to account for something right? It's a story arc that is a lore-hook link between my Xzianthia characters and CoH HomeComing (specifically). I put a lot of work into custom character appearances, descriptions, and balancing of the enemy powers (to make them quite challenging, but not at all impossible with a decent team of incarnates) This is the same arc (#47111) VividMuse streamed Live on Twitch the day I first published it, but it's had balancing improvements and typo corrections since then. But I plan to have it fully complete soon, it's almost ready to be changed from Work-in-Progress to Completed. So no @EmperorSteele, for some of us AE is the only means we have of actually adding new story mission content into the game that we can share with others. And yes I have a couple "active farm" too, because if you don't nobody will take you seriously as an AE mission creator and they serve a functional purpose. If I had more than 3 mission creation "slots" I could actually get more, not sure how you get more. But why play an AE story mission when it doesn't grant Reward or Empyrean merits? For some, it will be because they want to do something they've not done before for the novelty of it. For some it's because they are just looking for any other challenges for their maxed out character. And for some they'll only spend the limited time taken away from IRL stuff that they have time to play, if what they play gives them progress on rewards such as Experience, Threads, Influence, Reward Merits, Empyrean Merits, rare salvage, and/or rare recipe drops. There's a reason Hamidon is so popular, it's good rewards versus time spent in return for some good teamwork and a bit of risk it could all fail catastrophically -- but nobody is forced to bring particular power sets or archetypes. With regard to the conversation here in this thread: Pardon? I know several people (in fact I'd say it's the far majority) who "farm" occasionally who also join weekly missions, iTrials, etc. It's an important supplemental thing for alt-itis players. And I know a few people who, believe it or not, actually enjoy just active farming to music after they get off work IRL and don't really like teamplay outside of AE. Now that's more rare, but I promise you it's not a one-off either. It is a dangerous precedent to say that there is only one "true" way to level up, which is the message you are hearing from people in-game that this beta patch announcement has unfortunately stirred up. The "danger" is because there are people who play this game in all sorts of niche ways, such as people almost exclusively play this game to be in the roleplaying clubs (customized SG bases) just to have fun chatting. Or people who make those bases, saying that their passive farming on another account while building is invalid. I personally love the teamplay combat, and don't personally fully understand why you'd want to solo missions or only-RP or whatever; but I respect others in that they can do their own thing as long as it doesn't infringe on others enjoyment of the game. For example, a player griefing a raid with Incandescence, or the league leader stalling an entire raid for everyone for >15 minutes on purpose just because they went on a power trip and want to "discipline" a single "leecher" on a not full zone. But again, as long as we're being mature adults and showing respect for one another's time & effort and personal character, I don't really care what others do. Pardon if my examples are weak, but hopefully I'm communicating effectively what I'm trying to say here. HAHA! This is comedy gold! The real kind, not the Fool's Gold kind. There is certainly a lot more stuff even just in the domain of AE that needs attention! From basic things like the contact NPC not turning into a generic hologram (that was a bug introduced with Page3 as I recall), To medium things like actually being able to better chose the spawn locations and having more glowie & destructable object model types; or adding in missing power sets like stalker assassination attacks and hide, or water blast, or enemy actually using their healing abilities (like check out how terrible an empathy NPC is in AE). Colorable NPC powers too. To more advanced things like allowing SG base custom maps to be imported for use in AE missions and a GUI redesign that would allow all players to make missions just the the real TFs ones with custom trigger entities and such (Wouldn't that be amazing! Your favorite customized supergroup base is under attack from zombies! Let's see if those turrets actually work!) Aww, you got put on PR Damage Control duty? 😜 (just kidding lol) But joking aside, it should be relative common-sense that anything that gets perceived (directly or indirectly) as forcing people to play a particular way on a game -- especially one that that follows a donor-funded financial model, rather than a game funded by micro-transactions and abusing gambling addiction (i.e.: Champions Online with the lockboxes & keys) -- it should be pretty Captain Obvious that it would be "controversial", to put it mildly. The 16+ pages of replies (at the time of me writing this) should be testament to that. Thus, good & transparent communication is absolutely critical, and it would not be wise (IMHO) to take a wait & see approach with an after-action debriefing-style dev diary. This is one of those thing it's better to get out ahead of, for the good of the community as a whole, before the conversation gets poisoned with toxicity or misinformation. I can do my part to help spread the correct information in an unbiased way, but as a team y'all gotta get a clear message to share. Right now the best answer I have for the "why?" your team decided to go this path is this response you made later: So a few things from this: 1. That explains a lot, and good find actually! I just though it was because you could pack a lot of mobs in AE, and that using all the XP buff things was just what you did when you were short on time and needed to level up. 2. How about buffing the rewards for TFs / SFs / iTrials / zone "street-sweeping" / etc instead of nerfing AE? ( We all know Veracor will still hit 20000 Vet Levels sooner or later 😄 ) 3. The last sentence of this reply has a passive-aggressive subtext/tone to it. I didn't pick up on it, as I usually don't b/c of my A.S.; but after a friend pointed it out to me I can see how it can come off as something like "well I knew a few of you all must have known about this and kept it to yourselves, so now we're going to teach all you farmers a lesson about not reporting exploitable loopholes" (not a quote, just how it can come off as sounding). Probably not what you intended, and again with out transparent reasoning it leads to some speculation this was just wanting to hate on people who enjoyed causal active farming while they chat on voice comms with friends (one of many ways to play the game). I want to be clear though, I think this change actually has it's benefits but needs to be review.