Astralock's Content - Page 22 (2024)

1 hour ago, Marshal_General said:

I think part if that is the stigma from other games where the leader is expected to know every nuance of the dungeon/TF. It is also what keeps people from being healers and tanks.

Yep. Tanks in particular, but healers also are expected to watch hours of video of each dungeon and raid before ever stepping foot inside of them and know them intimately. Screw that.

On 8/11/2022 at 9:54 AM, Ukase said:

The HC devs have already throttled down the farmer's earnings. And yet, still some of you cry for "less, less, less". A very few of you will not be happy until every farmer has left.

To those people, I present to you Rebirth. There are no vet levels. The slog of a grind on the incarnate path is very real for the solo player. Even doing Dark Astoria arcs will not help you much. You basically must do iTrials there. And it's quite cozy. Once you play there, you are essentially going to be teaming with the same people, day in, day out. It's like one big (but small) SG. They are all extremely competent, and they love to mock us as impatient, lazy children. They like to grind for it. And I've tried AFK farming there, and have not done so well.
There is no spines/fire combo. There is rad/fire, so I've got one in the works, grinding it up old school style. But, converters are hard to come by as they're not tradeable. You can get them randomly - maybe 20 on your journey from 1-50 will drop. Or you can buy them at 5 reward merits for 1, and pay 25K for the exchange.

Yes, the anti-farmer should go to Rebirth. You will like the grind, the different ATs and powersets. The only thing you won't like is at peak times, you might get 100 players. I doubt it, but you might. And because of that, most of you won't go where other like-minded players are. You'll stay here and try to drag the rest of us, kicking and screaming out of the farm and into your bloody mainstream content, with your "You'll play it my way and like it" attitude.

Good luck with that.

On 8/13/2022 at 10:45 PM, Ukase said:

Who in the blue F*** do you think you are, talking to someone that way? Shame on you!

You've basically stated that anyone who solos should just quit the game. Screw you and the holier-than-thou boat you came in on!

I just can't believe you would state that for all to see. That's seriously disgusting! Consider the taste slapped out the mouth of your avatar!

See, I was going to leave, but just for that, I'm staying!

So, telling people who are anti-AE farming to leave Homecoming and play elsewhere is just fine, but telling people that prefer to play solo that there are better video games for that is unacceptable. Got it.

Things that make you go, “Hmm.”

44 minutes ago, battlewraith said:

I think that's a reductive and ultimately destructive way of looking at things. A lot of people are fixated on how they think things should be. A lot of the talk about genre, balance, progression, etc. come across as this nostalgia for gaming in the early 2000s, as if this game were new and being freshly released into the world.

It's not new. It's almost 20 years old. And there are people playing that following their little niche obsessions. sh*tting on them and saying they are not playing according to plan is insane, especially when you don't have vast resources to do a whole lot with this antiquated game engine.

Age doesn't matter. At the end of the day, City of Heroes was designed to be a MMORPG, not an easy mode single-player game, no matter how much some people wish otherwise. WoW is almost 20 years old, that doesn't stop it from also being a MMORPG. Final Fantasy XIV, Guild Wars 2, and Star Wars: The Old Republic are ten years old+, and are still MMORPGs. At the end of the day, it's like complaining chess should be an easy single-player game because it's thousands of years old. In the end, it's nonsense as that is not what it was ever designed to be.

5 minutes ago, Excraft said:

You and others like you just don't get it. Some people don't want to be herded into running team content.

All rewards could be increased 10 times more and I still wouldn't want to team up. I'm not being anti-social, I just feel super on a team. I feel superfluous, just like all of the people who've made posts about how they don't feel useful running their buff/debuff toons in high level content. My brute or tank can't get an attack off before the rest of the team decimated entire mobs. That's boring for me. I don't want to be buried under layers of silly colored VFX vomit to the point I can't see what's going on. I want to go at my own pace, not the pace that others want to set. I'm playing this game to feel super, not to have to rely on other people to do stuff.

I'm not the only one who feels this way either as others have posted similar things in this and other threads. But we're somehow lumped in with the evil farmers and asked to just team up with everyone else. Well I don't want to. Like I said, I don't feel super on a team and trying to herd people like me into teaming isn't going to have the effect you think it is. Nerfing the emp merit conversion isn't an enticement to try teaming more. It's just going to make me farm even more to make up for that loss.

You and others like you just don’t get that City of Heroes is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game, where teaming with others is not only encouraged, but expected.

If you want to solo as a super-hero, that’s fine. There are other very good video games for that. Batman: Arkham City, Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy, the just released Marvel’s Spider-Man which I understand is excellent…

33 minutes ago, Coyotedancer said:

In before "You should just bring a TEAM!" and "It's Incarnate content so it's supposed to be that hard on base difficulty!"...

On a supposed-to-be-the-Splo-path Incarnate arc,,,

That may be run by people who won't even necessarily have all of their level shifts yet...

Which is to say, I agree with you. Those beasts are pretty over the top at the moment.

To be fair, some people have been complaining for years about how easy the Dark Astoria content is once you have Incarnate abilities slotted.

1 minute ago, Yumichan said:

If I want merits yes. Converting let me earn by playing solo at my pace. I play odd time when not many playing online. I like to play solo now I can only get merits on teams which I do not like. This is a terrible change.

If you mean reward merits, you can them doing story arcs, either at level or via Ouroboros Flashback. They don't only come from TFs/SFs/trials, although that is definitely one of the main sources of them.

2 minutes ago, Ukase said:

To those people, I present to you Rebirth. There are no vet levels. The slog of a grind on the incarnate path is very real for the solo player. Even doing Dark Astoria arcs will not help you much. You basically must do iTrials there. And it's quite cozy. Once you play there, you are essentially going to be teaming with the same people, day in, day out. It's like one big (but small) SG. They are all extremely competent, and they love to mock us as impatient, lazy children. They like to grind for it. And I've tried AFK farming there, and have not done so well.
There is no spines/fire combo. There is rad/fire, so I've got one in the works, grinding it up old school style. But, converters are hard to come by as they're not tradeable. You can get them randomly - maybe 20 on your journey from 1-50 will drop. Or you can buy them at 5 reward merits for 1, and pay 25K for the exchange.

Yes, the anti-farmer should go to Rebirth. You will like the grind, the different ATs and powersets. The only thing you won't like is at peak times, you might get 100 players. I doubt it, but you might. And because of that, most of you won't go where other like-minded players are. You'll stay here and try to drag the rest of us, kicking and screaming out of the farm and into your bloody mainstream content, with your "You'll play it my way and like it" attitude.

Good luck with that.

Unfortunately, Rebirth is still 32-bit and does not have all of the background, technical changes Faultline, Number Six, Telephone, et al. made to City of Heroes over the years to make it more compatible with modern computers and modern operating systems. I was told that Rebirth does not have anyone on their staff that understands the C language. Also, I still have a couple of friends left on Homecoming that insist I play here. So here we are.

47 minutes ago, Top Gear said:

Thank you everyone for making efforts to collect data. I'm seeing a lot of "might be", "probably", and "should be". If you aren't going to be transparent and include how many people were on the map, what the team size and level settings were and your start and end figures, it's not really useful. Saying "these should be the numbers" without accompanying data isn't useful either.

Are there some metrics around just how many people are actually getting these "best in class" numbers? How many unique players have actually fully built with IO set toons that can get those numbers? How many people have turned off earning XP to earn more influence?

Let's also stop this nonsense about AFK farming. That was never part of the discussion until it became clear that the numbers for AE farming were only marginally better and only if you played #125 over and over. What metrics are there about how many people are playing #125 in AE versus the Carnie or FreakShow map? All of this is supposition and posturing to try justify a nerf to the rewards in AE without any clear indication that the emp merit conversion is even being widely used.

Again if the real target of this change is AE because the rewards are so much better than anywhere else, why isn't EVERYONE doing it? Why are people focused more on marketeering or running the same TF over and over again? Why is there in fact such a great balance of people doing their own thing throughout the game? I can't help but to question the very premise upon which the change is being based because there are no metrics I've ever seen to substantiate it.

There were people who refused to use the base macro despite its use being prevalent through the Homecoming community back in 2019 and 2020, because they realized that it was an exploit. Same thing here.

Also, comparing marketers to farmers is like comparing apples to oranges. Marketers use and manipulate INF and inventory stock. Farmers create INF and inventory stock. That's a huge difference between the two.

Rewards from AE farming is much better than rewards from other content, not "marginally better." as America's Angel has shown. You're also not taking into account those multiboxing AE farms. Multiboxing regular content can be done, but it's quite a bit more difficult and can't be as easily automated as multiboxing AE farms. Unfortunately, multiboxing AE farms can be easily automated. Also, FWIW, turning XP off doesn't earn more influence anymore... that changed two years ago.

11 minutes ago, Shred Monkey said:

In truth, the biggest boost from Incarnates comes from the first slot. It gives you a +1 level and, assuming you take damage (which you probably should) it adds a full enhancement worth of damage to your attacks beyond the ED cap. If you're fighting level 54s, the difference between a level 50 hitting using an attack with no incarnate and a level 50+1 with tier 4 muscular using the same attack is quite significant.

With only a few exceptions, the other incarnate stuff kind of fluff because it is either: 1) situational use only 2) too small to matter, or 3) complete overkill of something you didn't really need.

See Also

Legend of Krystal Forums • View topic - MiM (hacked)

I'd say Destiny has just as big an impact as Alpha. You have people cheesing the Vanguard heroes fight in the Dr. Aeon SF by having the team cycle Barrier Destiny. Clarion Destiny is a complete game changer for "squishy" characters, and can make or break Rikti mothership raids and even Hamidon raids. Many character builds rely on the Ageless Destiny, which is a life safer for endurance starved builds, and then there's the DDR on the radial side. Then there's Incandescence.

1 hour ago, Uun said:

Other than Sleet (incorrectly) have the same strength across all ATs, why do so many feel Cold is better on corruptors? All the other buffs/debuffs are substantially stronger on defenders. I have a Cold/Beam defender that's fantastic on relentless Aeon, 801, etc.

Defender buff and debuff values are largely overkill. Damage is king. On a team, a Fire/Cold Corruptor will both do more damage and be just as useful to a team as a Cold/Fire Defender.

3 hours ago, Erhnam said:

What do you mean with this?

Sleet will eventually be standardized and lowered to 22.5% -damage resistance on Controllers, Corruptors, and Masterminds, much like Tar Patch was on Dark Miasma/Darkness Affinity.

Personally, I only play Corruptors, not Defenders. Like Tankers, I just find Defenders too safe, too slow, and too boring. So take this post with a grain of salt.

As others have said, Cold Domination and Kinetics are superior on Corruptors. Force Field is as well, thanks to the higher magnitude mez protection from Dispersion Bubble. I would dare say that Trick Arrow is better on Corruptors as well. Scourging Oil Slick is yummy. For primaries, Archery, Fire Blast, Ice Blast, and Water Blast are better on Corruptors.

That said, I would not rely on Cold Domination not getting the Dark Miasma treatment. It is only a matter of time.

4 minutes ago, Neiska said:

Moreover, I find it quite illuminating on how the people who hold aloft Live and "The Devs" are pretty silent on many other matters. Including but are not limited to -

The Auction House being accessible from nearly anywhere.

Costume piece changes.

The addition of a new AT.

The addition of new powersets.

The changing of old powersets.

Multiple changes in class mechanics.

Changes in PVP.

Changes in Enhancement Sets.

And much more. And not so much as a peep about "THE DEVS" or "But back on Live!"

• If it were up to me, I would limit the /ah command to developers and GMs only.
• Certain costume pieces should have remained locked in order to incentivize running related content.
• The Sentinel AT was a mistake. Honestly, it should be deleted from the game and give all Sentinels a token to choose Blaster, Scrapper, or Stalker instead.
• I am fine with the new Power sets. Why my phone capitalized Power, I have no idea. One of the new Power sets is one of my favorites.
• Certain old Power sets really need to be changed. Titan Weapon was overpowered. Trick Arrow and Energy Melee needed buffs.
• Tankers were overbuffed, however.
• I don’t care about PvP. Only forum PvP matters.
• Most enhancement set changes were done by Paragon Studios in the Issue 24 beta. Now as for the additions, meh.

I would also personally remove the Long Range Teleporter, Mission Transporter, Supergroup Base Portal, and Team Transporter. They make travel powers superfluous and you are expected to have and use them by teammates.

Cap au Diable is the hub zone of red side, not Mercy Island.

Honestly, a starter zone also being a community event zone is a bad idea. It's one of the main reasons why I avoid Atlas Park. Too much going on, too many people, and the resulting lag (at least on Excelsior), gives a terrible first impression of the game.

17 minutes ago, starro said:

i gladly will try this out. My cursor hides in plain sight with these old eyes.

Please do. It's easily one of the top mods in the game along with Vidiot Maps, IMO. It's helped me tremendously as I had a very difficult time keeping track of the cursor as well.

2 hours ago, Ukase said:

On the other hand, ask yourself why HC installed veteran level rewards in the first place.
Because of the small player population. Look around! Incarnate trial leaders will tell you that they burn 10-20 minutes, if not more, when forming for an iTrial, except maybe during peak hours on the weekend. I never had to wait more than 5-10 minutes at most on Liberty back in the day.
The HC devs understand that solo play is the primary method of play. More soloers than folks who team. Team play is in the minority. This is largely due to the wider age gap, I think. Most of us are grown adults that can't often commit to the iTrial train of BAF, Lambda, Keyes.

We can't just assume the way the original Paragon Studio devs installed things was the right way for the player base. They did get shut down, remember. Despite having a profit, it was minimal profit. NCSoft knew this; they would make more money just putting the investment in the stock market than in CoH. So, clearly, Paragon Studios, despite our love for them because of the wonderful world they created, they did a lot of things less than optimally.
I'm sure there's a number of players that would like to go back to SO only days, before enhancement diversification. Then they bring in the invention system...so which did they get right? Pre-ED SOs vs invention system...they installed the IOs well after SOs, which are still available. Did they get SOs wrong? Or did they "relent" and allow for more variation with the invention system where almost no two builds are alike?

It doesn't matter how incarnates were originally designed. We're here now, at this point in time, with a much smaller player base that doesn't want to rely on incarnate trials for incarnate loot. It's that simple. The question is, "Will the HC devs insist players mostly rely on Incarnate trials and hardmode tfs like Aeon and the upcoming ITF?"

Clearly, a lot of time and effort was spent on these two new Hard Mode tfs. Of course they want the players to spend time playing them! But to make changes in the game where a player feels pushed towards "main stream content", when they were perfectly happy doing AE...what's the point of that?! It's silly. Further, it doesn't make sense to me. (and it doesn't have to, but I really want it to)

All this talk about folks wanting reward/risk to not favor the farmer - just buff the rewards for non-AE stuff. It's that simple. That way, folks that are complaining about farmers getting rich doing nothing can go make more than the farmers by doing content. And the farmers have nothing to complain about because nothing they were doing was impacted.

It's just a common sense solution, really. I fail to see why so many of you can't see it.

Again, as has been stated earlier in this thread and has been stated a few times by other people in other threads over the years... Homecoming didn't add veteran levels. The SCoRE "secret" server did, for a population a fraction of Homecoming's. I'm talking about a fraction of even the Reunion shard's population. Homecoming's population is hundreds of times larger. Homecoming took what SCoRE had and rushed it into production after the Bree server went offline.

Oh no, you have to wait ten to twenty minutes for a trial or raid to form. The horror! I think sometimes people need to be reminded that City of Heroes is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game. Massively multiplayer.

Also, you can't buff things to match extreme outliers. You need to reign in the extreme outlier. You can (and probably should), still buff rewards outside of Mission Architect a bit, but in the end, the rewards from AE need to be nerfed as they are an extreme outlier.

3 minutes ago, gameboy1234 said:

Just popped into Ouroboros and noticed that the links to Echo Atlas Park, Galaxy City, and Faultline are missing (maybe others). Only Dark Astoria and Rikti Crash Site are available.

Did that change? Am I missing a badge? (Could be it didn't transfer over from live.) If I am missing a badge I'd prefer to see it listed on the menu anyway, with a "Locked" text tag next to it, and greyed out. As is now folks won't know what options they are missing and won't know to ask around how to unlock it.

What alignment were you?

Yes. Put the files under:

data\texture_library\GUI\Cursors