Remember that Halloween mission we did?  Leader uses the Que system (that LFG button by Team, League, etc), and if everyone is in the same zone it will just teleport you into the mission.  If everyone on the league ISN'T int he same zone, then the Leader can't even start up the waiting Que, let alone anyone get into the trial.  Pocket D anyone can go to so that's why everyone does it there (I've heard people whined on Virtue about it ruining their pretend party time, so there they do it at Vanguard).

  Don't go running off to somewhere else to do auction stuff or Crafting in your SG while you're waiting. (some people actually do that still -.-).
  People will just overreaction whine if you're not there to click the 60 second 'are you actually ready? Yes/Cancel' when the Que wait is over.

  However, while you may be thinking 'oh that's fine, it just means I have to wait till another leage', that is not true.  Due to the X amount of people requirements of Trials,  One person durping out trying to Form a LAM, can result in everyone getting sent to the 'needs less people at minimum, but is way harder' Keyes Island Trial.
  Thanks superstar. (Not that I'm bitter because that happened to a LAM I was trying to form or anything, that would be crazy).

  Another detail that is SUPER IMPORTANT I forgot to mention.  League chat was not visible by default, so make sure it's actually turned on for each character.  If you don't turn it on then you will end up 'That jerk who keeps ignoring what everyone says' on Trials.  This will take about as much effort as making sure HahaChat is on for any given character.

  I'm also suspecting they never fixed the bug where the leagues, and even who is leader, often gets shuffled around once you enter a Trial -.-  (It even did that on our Halloween Mission Run).  There are 'lock teams' buttons for leagues, but those didn't help there.
This message was last edited by the player at 23:15, Wed 30 Nov 2011.

Why didn't they read the trial post before doing trials?



Time budgeting has become a topic of much arg for Tim and I.  Put it on calendar a month in advance, tell family about it repeatedly, make it an ongoing thing every weekend at the same time every. single. week...  STILL get "so what you doing this evening?" from parents on weekends.  Every.  Single.  Week.

That's the only thing we bother scheduling any more because it's necessary to keep our "would be late for his own funeral" friend anywhere near reliable.  Most everything else, we no longer bother scheduling in advance.  Life has been so predictably unpredictable that we know with absolute certainty that if we schedule something important to us, something more important WILL crop up to cancel the appointment.

So prioritizing what to do next has long been on a moment-by-moment thing for us.  There's always piles to do with differing levels of urgency.  Work on art, research insurance, deal with money issues, take car to garage, do trash, watch a TV show, reply to RPOL posts, play some CoX, etc. etc.  Never nothing to do.

Speaking for myself, I literally don't have any free time at all unless I'm procrastinating on some RL thing that needs done.  I've had to learn the art of "OK sure, I'll get on that" (but not right now) delay tactics in order to ever do anything fun.  I'm rather proud of figuring out how to sneak RPOL posts printout into work and read / reply to them in the 10-20 second gaps of dead time I have to do so in between phone calls.  Then when home, type up the handwritten posts over reheated dinner during mandatory TV time with old man.  With this technique I've learned to squeeze a few more minutes out of my at-home time so I can do stuff I want to.  Again, only because I'm putting off fixing dad's watch or dealing with cleanup.

So when Tim and I have a moment of peace from "the gauntlet" downstairs, I'll ask, "So what you wunna do?  I'd like to watch the last of Cowboy Bebop so I can delete it off my HD."  Tim: "Well I'd like to get some accomplished on my comic, and there's these DA comments to answer."  Me: "I've got stuff to do too.  Lemme know if you decide on something we can do together."  Tim: "Joe's on.  Let's see if he wants to hang out on CoX."  Me: "OK."

CoX time has made the cut!  So it's time to focus on actually enjoying CoX.  Oh.  Char needs enhanced.  Meh.  Chore.  Not fun.  No time for that.  Time to play!  Inventory near full.  Uh... well... Joe hasn't logged on yet, probably juust enough time to dump stuff in AH.  Joe logs in about when inventory chores are done.  Score!  Let's XP.  Oh yeah!  Tips!  Great way 2 have fun AND earn CoX cash.  Fun with side benefit that would otherwise be a chore.  Score!

/remembers the other day when Tim and Joe did trial with only minor hitch in the time it took me to nap.  /also remembers only ;.; was Emmy picked the "wrong" reward.  Eh.  Whatevs.  Don't have time now to bother with looking up what the "right" reward is.  Maybe there'll be time when waiting in that que thing.  Worse comes to worst, I'll just have learned how to survive a trial without having picked the right reward.

*Reskims Joe post on trials*  Picking rewards sure looks complicated.  *Skims for "SUPER IMPORTANT"  Oh yeah!  Turn on League chat.  Done.  Oh!  Time to get started!  I didn't expect it to be so fast.  I guess if there's something important, it'll be mentioned in the trial...

Trial goes well!  We win!  /desperately try to figure out what pick to take before exiting.  Another trial forming already?  /guesses a pick.  Exits.  Immediately taken to next trial.

Trial goes well!  We win!  /desperately try to figure out what pick to take before exiting.  Another trial forming already?  /guesses a pick.  Exits.

3rd trial a no go.  So now I get to find out how badly I picked while Tim figures out what he wants to do next...  Starts looking...  Joe super unhappy even though trial went well, threatening to murder brother.  Oh.  Obviously he's being silly.  But Tim took it seriously.  Did I miss something here?  When did Joe suddenly become serious business in CoX with his "won't ever use set bonuses" and his "let's facepalm at Freepyface for his 'wah wah i fail because i can't solo cape mish on +4x8'" and his "stopping to shoot the breeze in the middle of XP missions even though he hates losing HP" etc.

Joe insists multiple times, "This is the one thing I arg over."  OK.  So he's serious business about the one thing.  But didn't ask us before trial started if we were ready for the one thing that matters so much to him that he's making death threats after a successful trial.  Oh he assumed we had studied the post carefully.  So we explained, "no time."  Now I feel like he's calling us liars because we do tips rather than read up on trials.

/heavysigh.  Of course I'd made assumptions too.  Here I thought "SUPER IMPORTANT" meant "I want to save you some hassle so I'm going to go to the effort of text dump what I learned the hard way.  Your loss if you learn the hard way too" (which is appreciated) not "I will all caps 'light strangers on fire with my mind' if they dare fail me in this one thing."  Tim and I were thinking, "If we ever get the rare opportunity to do a trial, we'll likely be very fail at it, get screamed at by serious business players, read up on Joe's post to find out what gives because the screaming people aren't being helpful, then be a little better prepared for the 2nd go around."  Neeever crossed our minds that Joe would be among the screamers.

How does one accurately describe "what we didn't even realize was super important to you was so low on our priority scale that it barely even registered on the to-do list?"  Me, I do not enjoy pouring over game mechanics.  I enjoy playing games.  I barely put up with pouring over game mechanics when doing so improves my enjoyment of the game.  When the effort of game mechanics pouring > than the increase in fun, I put it off till I have absolutely nothing better to do, such as the time when thanksgiving dinner was over and I had my netbook with gamma world books on it, so I read that.  (Discovered to my delight that Gamma World was originally a very simple system for chargenning if you don't houserule it.  Then return and find out "piles of effort required to play with Seth.")

So.  Reading up on game mechanics low on priority list, even when friends make it clear it's required.  Will bump up to "won't do trials till after reading this" level priority if said friend says, "Trials?  Did you read the part about Acid?  I'm not starting until you read that part."  Problem solved!

EDIT:  This picture illustrates what I think is going through Joe's mind... http://img.photobucket.com/alb...well/riddlerooms.png

Big guy: "You pick NOW to read the book on translating the hyroglyphs, not BEFORE we entered this place?!"
This message was last edited by the player at 06:05, Tue 06 Dec 2011.

  Even though you aren't insane 'serious business' players, I still hold you to a higher standard than the bleh players who ignore mid mission requests, or assume healer on team =they should be invincible, why didn't you make me immortal Imma ragequit! sort.

  I figure we're all around roughly the same area of expertise/knowledge.  We play with mids, we look at sets if they actually interest us and seem convenient to get (Well, okay Chris is better than me and Tim combined there), and the normal content we run at non max all purples lol we make beg for mercey usually.

  Alloy's request of "Check your temp powers for Acids, to use on the portals. Keep Two by exit open for now", of course was ignored by basically everyone in the Trial. (Two were done by one person who had two acids... Then in the last 5 seconds before the end someone decided to finally use theirs).  The randomized nature of who gets the temp powers also reduces you to wild accusations, instead of constructive things like 'player X, you have Acid/grenades, please help us out'.
  The general populace attitude towards Acids also has grown worse,  the Speed Lam (Slam) seems to have become the default, where people can't reduce themselves to not dogpiling Maurader ASAP intent on gunning them down before the infinite reinforcements from the portals grow too big to handle.

  So, there's the double whammy of 'This ONE things! aaaarg!' (I've come out of Longer than an hour In Mission alone Underground trials only to fail at the last room with merely a shrug by comparison.), and 'Oh well, at least Tim and Chris will listen to me about Acids and the screen filling 'throw grenade now' prompts... *asks about temp powers post mish*'
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hbOjS0Ah7_o

  Back on my reaction, 'I will *censored* murder you' is probably too straightforward a comment to pass the 'crossing the line into nonsensical'.  Plus I've been reminded how said comment hits close to home with bad memories.  Definitely sorry for that one.
This message was last edited by the player at 06:37, Tue 06 Dec 2011.

LOL at the link! But yeah. Said sorry a number of times. And again, sorry. XD again, thinking it was those crafted temp powers (since I'm not used to "here have a temp power on us" happening much and the new craftable temp powers range from guns, to hammers to healing people, I thought there might be a crafted acid power). On the bright side, this is obviously something I won't forget next time. But I was serious about reading this thread thoroughly before touching trials again.

  A wild resubscriber has appeared!

  Raikoo Baphomel used Titan Weapon! It was super effective!

  Baphomel Leveled up!  Baphomel is now level 15!... And somehow also has twice as much prestige earned as T'Shock as well, go figure.  Granted they had help for half those levels.

  Yes, of course the one day you haven't been on City lately, guess who was back?

TIMING!

http://na.cityofheroes.com//en...s/WinterMTX_logo.jpg

  This pic is for self reference as I look into the exact parts needed.  Koo said they were trying to make a costume 'like the Xmas Elf on the far left'.  I thought they meant the  one you give candy canes to.  This pic is basically only reachable by clicking a link in the NCsoft launcher, and it's not always there.  (I discovered the Cane Elf has unique pattern for default Martial Artist one... So my 'you can't make same robe Elf has' I told Koo was false sad news)

  I must make a list of parts (though, dont think Koo has the MA pack, or the Origin Capes).  I recognize but can never remember the name of those shoulders.

EDIT: Warrior Fire Robe, Autumnal Cloak (Origin Capes), Koo already got the Xmas Booster.  shoulders are Organic. (a default shoulder, not part of Mutant Pack).  If you see Koo before I do, please pass this along, and point out he can buy the individual costume pieces if need be.  6 Levels be damned, I still feel like I let them down.

EDIT THE SECOND: Whaaaa ;.;  They cheat on the face.  No face that detailed exists for PC usage.  The 'doesn't exist' skin color can be faked via Tights/ 'All' face pattern, (Noh plus darker green skin would have pulled inverse to get the eye makeup right... but your would then have darkgreen around your lips)

  So, you can get everything BUT the 'they cheated' face.  I know because I built the thing... on Furious Skull's third costume slot.  Don't judge me.

Incidentally, Female face 18 seems to have freckles.  But I can see why you use spots pattern for Alexis, as they are veeeeery faint ones on Face 18.
This message was last edited by the player at 09:00, Fri 23 Dec 2011.

Side note of goody goodness;

Remember when Titan Weapons expansion weapons was free? Well it's good we got it when we did. It's now 240pp.

And along those lines, I now have 3 more weapons m'self because there's a new tier 9 VIP thingy! The weapons included in the "Fire and Ice" pack apparently apply to titan weapons as well as normal weapon slots (such as dual blade)!

In other good news, for those of you not yet at tier 9, the website claims that the Celestial armor set will still be available for a while before being "cycled out", BUT!! There's this beautiful parenthesis saying (To return at a later date)!! So don't worry too much. Even if you don't become tier 9 before celestial armor goodies vanish, the plan is apparently to bring them back later.

WHY THE HELL IS THE DIGSBY FOLDER 69 MEGABITES and over 4k files. (Aim is 17 MB, by comparison).  Also, WHY THE HELL CAN'T I SEEM TO GET RID OF DIGSBY!?

Make it go away ;.;
This message was last edited by the player at 10:12, Thu 12 Jan 2012.

http://forum.digsby.com/viewtopic.php?id=116

I'm convinced that all chat programs are evil.  Especially MSN and Yahoo.  This is why I refuse to install them on my PC and instead use my netbook for such dirty work.  I've been running Pidgin on it for months and months now without much issue: http://www.pidgin.im/

*looks at task manager*  the memory used by Pidgin fluctuates.  Anywhere from 400ish K to 1,600 K.

Opens install folder...  Uses about 50 MB of disk space.

 [Broadcast] Stepe: hello, I'm a lvl 17 brute looking for a team to play with please send a invite if insterested. Thank you.


....Wow!

The old SG base plans:

https://docs.google.com/spread...wcFJUZ1Y0Q0hYS2luTmc

The idea was to maximize the bigness feel.  Biggest Power Room!  Biggest Computer Room!  Entrance right next to the giant room of bigness!

Various Cleverness:
http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=190447

Waterfall:
http://boards.cityofheroes.com...t=126358&page=57

The biggest Tech Control thingy "autonomous expert system" takes 4x2 room units.  The tightest fit is the 4x3 room.

Has a magical equivalent, the http://wiki.cohtitan.com/wiki/Mystic_Orrery


Fusion Generator (5 MIL prestige!)
has a footprint of 4x4 map squares meaning the smallest room it will fit in is the 4x4 Energy Station or 4x5 Secure Generator Room.

Dimensional Vortex
This item has a footprint of 4x4 map squares meaning the smallest room it will fit in is the 4x4 Energy Station or 4x5 Secure Generator Room.
This message was last edited by the player at 06:21, Fri 20 Jan 2012.

Also, so I don't forget and stuff:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...mp;feature=endscreen

    *  Temporary CryoniteArmor.png Confusion Resistance
    * Temporary CryoniteArmor.png Fear Resistance
    * Temporary CryoniteArmor.png Fire Resistance
    * Temporary ResonanceDisrupter.png Grant Invisibility  (Stacks with Celerity and Super Speed!  +25' PvE stealth.  Tech preferred salvage: 1 Silver
Salvage IceShard.png 1 Nevermelting Ice
Salvage Gold.png 1 Gold )
    * Temporary SelfBuffAttackSpeed.png Increase Attack Speed
    * Temporary AntigravityMatrix.png Increase Flight Speed
    * Temporary JumpPack.png Increase Jump Speed
    * Temporary WeddingBand.png Increase Perception
    * Temporary SelfBuffRunSpeed.png Increase Run Speed
    * Temporary CryoniteArmor.png Knockback Increase
    * Temporary CryoniteArmor.png Knockback Protection
    * Temporary CryoniteArmor.png Lethal Resistance
    * Temporary CryoniteArmor.png Sleep Resistance
    * Temporary CryoniteArmor.png Slow Resistance
    * Temporary CryoniteArmor.png Smashing Resistance

Teir II

#  Temporary CryoniteArmor.png Cold Resistance
# Temporary CryoniteArmor.png Disorient Resistance
# Temporary CryoniteArmor.png Endurance Drain Resistance
# Temporary CryoniteArmor.png Energy Resistance
# Temporary CryoniteArmor.png Immobilize Resistance
# Temporary Mayhem SelfBuffEnd.png Increase Recovery
# Temporary CryoniteArmor.png Negative Energy Resistance
# Temporary CryoniteArmor.png Toxic Resistance

Teir III

#  Temporary CryoniteArmor.png Hold Resistance
# Temporary CryoniteArmor.png Psionic Resistance

  Yeah, the Fine print regarding the Resonance disruptor (gained during a mission) "Duration: 30 minutes of use or upon return to contact".  Not as bad as the '30 minutes realtime or return to contact' disguise=stalker stealth powers.  But the real problem here is On top of that it's permanently missable anyways with no Flashback access.

  The Cryonite Armor is also one of the powers that you CAN'T get in the first place if you miss, or get a weaker refill of via Flashbacks.

  Mayhem self endurance buff... Uh, yeah.  That's a Bank mission 'once ever gained' temporary buff.  Heroside has one too.

  Antigravity Matrix is like Goldbrickers jetpack (also, another 'can't get via Flashback' one).  Also like Goldbrickers Jetpack, you can't get it via Flashbacks if you miss it in the firstplace.

  The Wedding band is a popular one that CAN be gained via Flashbacks (Weaker version for regains).

  The 'attackspeedbuff' is so vague that I have no idea what that could be from.

  But, yeah. Pesky details.

http://wiki.cohtitan.com/wiki/Temporary_Powers
Powers with the time portal symbol are good.  Gold=You either keep it or anytime you go back to get another is full strength.  Silver=When you go back to get another one it's a weaker version.
!= talking to mission complete contact makes them yoink the power even if it has time or charges left (like the lost cure wand).

I think the Ghost slaying axe having a gold symbol is an error, recall notes talking about how the regained version is weaker one (ala the veteran version, plus it's a case of talk to contact=lose power)
This message was last edited by the player at 22:34, Fri 20 Jan 2012.

I've been in the mood to RP CoH again lately, but I'd rather try to avoid "haha game mechanics". So let's try to treat this like a generic superhero comic book. :)

Meaning we're not limited to what we can do in the game.  Sweet!  This means that my electric armor makes me able to pull Magneto stunts...  *Gets curb stomped by a herd of Edwards.*

Kidding!  Was only... kidding.

Idea for big rooms:  Flight course.  Ground obstacle course.  Maybe even a Sonic R style race course for different travel modes.
This message was last edited by the player at 20:15, Mon 23 Jan 2012.

http://boards.cityofheroes.com...?t=280149&page=2

Sounds cool!  With 40% S/L defense, i'll be near invincible and wade into huge +4x8 purple groups, shrugging off their attacks and laughing like all those nifty uber tanks do that i've seen in soooo many teams.

not so.

after spending piles of inf, i got up to 36% and decided to hold out on the 1.5 billion unique for the last 3 or so %.  Jumped into an +4x8 mission and got torn to pieces with my million toggles going.  didnt hardly get a chance to eat an insp.

try 2: open with judgement!  survive long enough to use heal power!  die horrible death.

try 3-5: drop diff down to +0x8.  try insps.  die horribly.  Last time to 3 whole enemies.  normal con enemies.

try 6:  switched back to my tried-and-true build.  survive more than twice as long!  At least I killed a boss before biting the dust again!

try 7: tim's had enough of freep and logs out.  complete mish!

so i stick to old build +0x1 on my missions and finish up.  on the last mission i'm looking at my old build's stat monitor.  S/L defense jumps from 0 to over 17!  Whaaa?  Defensive Sweep hits again and it jumps to over 34!  Waaaait.  I thought it was only +MELEE defense!  It MUST be.  Otherwise forum guy wouldn't have made it the last power pick and only put 1 afterthought enhancement in it...   *Looks*  There it is.  Power adds huge chunk of S/L defense, invalidating the entire point of that other build.

http://www.motifake.com/image/...oster-1245384435.jpg

So yeah.  Lesson learned.  Though I still wonder how those other brutes and tanks can just walk right into a +4x8 group and laugh.

Apples to Oranges



Taken from: http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=112232

An even level minion villian has a base 50% chance to hit you if you have no defense and no buffs or debuffs from friends or foes and the villian has no 'to hit' bonus and no 'to hit' buffs or debuffs from friends or foes.

An even level leutenant has a base 62.5% chance to hit under the same conditions as above.

An even level boss has a base 75% chance to hit under the same conditions as above.

If you activate a power that supplies you with 5% defense (like Combat Jump, Hover or Hasten), then looking at the base numbers above, an even con minion now has 45% chance to hit you.

If a villian is 1 level above you, then he gets a 6.5% bonus to hit you. If you you are 1 level above the villian, you get a 6.5% bonus to hit the villian.

---

OK so... the damage mitigation of a SR tanker vs an EVEN LEVEL boss is... 75-41=34% chance of being hit for full damage.  So effectively, 66% resistance to all damage.  Not bad.  But vs a +1 boss, that effectiveness diminishes by 6.5%.  So 59.5%  Vs +2 boss: 53%  Vs +3 46.5%  Vs +4 40%.

Anyway, did this little bit of research for this thread: http://boards.cityofheroes.com...=4131764#post4131764
This message was last edited by the player at 23:24, Sat 25 Feb 2012.

Not to mention <broken record> Trial enemies have a +10% better hit chance on top of all being level 54</broken record>  And there are a zillion of them taking shots at you at once.

  Plus, there is the 'Streakbreaker' mechanic.  Basically, after X misses (apparently it's easier to bork up your odds of it kicking in with PC attack chains) you get an automatic guaranteed hit.

/macro TL "team Looks like $target needs more lasers!$$e bringit"

or,    /macro MACROBUTTON "team Bath Time! $target$$e getsome"

Issue 22.  Supposedly hits Tuesday.  No wonder people have been market gouging.

No official confirmation of Staff fighting or Beast mastery yet until they put up patch notes after the patch.
This message was last edited by the player at 10:51, Sat 03 Mar 2012.

Last night after you left on City I got...

  -All the way through the Maria Jenkins Arc, finally getting Dominatrix Cred and Statesman's pal (They dont have you fight Tyrant anymore, just an AV Olympian guard, laaaame).
  -Fake Nemesis Badge, therefore Nemesis rifles (and matching Steampunk costume set up).
  -The former leading to Freedom Phalanx Reserve +Health Accolade.
  -Hit Level 50.
  -Unlocked Alpha slot. (used 5 astral voucher)
  -Ran and won a single BAF and LAM each.
  -BAF success got siege cred, therefore portal Jockey Accolade +Health, +Endurance done.

Today...

A mix between leading and following...
Two out of three BAFs failed.
Six out if Six Speed LAMS failed.
BONUS!: Since you skip so many kills in a Speed LAM, while I've barely unlocked Judgment, I still haven't unlocked Interface, which is the side LAMs give EXP towards.

One Regular LAM (advertised as constantly, people still didn't get it, as USUAL).  People whining, complaining, gnashing teeth about how sloooooow it was, and having to forcibly recall friend people into the labs.  THAT was a Win.  Go figure.
This message was last edited by the player at 22:48, Sun 04 Mar 2012.

Woot gratz on infinity accomplishments! Sadface on sadface day. ;.;

S'why I'd rather just hang with you and/or Chris on CoX. Accomplishments are a wonderful, wonderful thing. But fun times with a friend is incomparable. :)

Granted, solo has its own fun. Such as reading all these badges I collect, getting myself drenched in the CoX lore. XD Even as I write this, I turned on a youtube playlist of the entire CoX soundtrack (One of CoX's shortcomings is that the soundtrack doesn't loop, so most the game is soundtrackless. WoW and FFXI had nonstop soundtracks.)

Chris mentioned how little there were for sets that boosted range.  Well, he's right there.  Here's a link to all FOUR of them (not listing the Archetype Enhancements)

http://wiki.cohtitan.com/wiki/...s_that_improve_Range