Dispari

No. We got Time for free and the devs have said more free sets are coming.

For the first paragraph, if it's useful or not is subjective. And someone would still buy them even if they were $200 each, so I don't think "people are buying them" is ever a valid excuse. The actual questions they should be asking are A) how many people are buying them at the current prices, and B) would more people buy them if the were cheaper (and how many), and C) would that equal greater profit.

The cheaper things are in a microtransaction system, the less people think about buying them. Interesting economic studies on things like that; you can give one person a $50 bill and another person 50 $1 bills, and the one with the 1s is far more inclined to spend the money. That can lead to a larger profit for the company if they capitalize on it. CoH's microtransaction system is actually somewhat strange to me. Usually games will have tons of super cheap things that are a few cents to a dollar so people don't think twice about tossing a few quarters a day at things, until they don't realize they've spent $50. I don't know of any other games that mostly focus on big-ticket items that are generally $10+ each, with no real "candy" items that people blow loads of cash on without realizing it.

And for the last paragraph, I sort and organize my characters and their costumes in various ways. I sort and organize the powers on my tray and the inspirations I use. OCD rarely conforms to the expectations of onlookers. The order and what needs to do what rarely makes sense to anyone but the person doing it.

If I wasn't used to it I wouldn't be around. I always have something to complain about. And I don't always get my way. But feedback is what helps improve the game. <>

Also I seriously doubt 48 characters is anywhere near the average. Even for the types of people who would be buying costume slots. I'm one of those people (I have a character with more than 40 costumes), and I only have 20 characters. I imagine the average number of characters per account is a lot closer to a single digit.

I do have to buy all five at once. Because I'm OCD. Even if I wasn't, $7.50 per slot is overpriced. If it's overpriced for all, it's overpriced for one. I'm not looking at "What can I get for $x?" I'm looking at "What's the value of these items?" The value is too low. I'm not looking to see how many slots I can get for $x. I'm looking to see how much they're asking per slot. Which is still too much.

In other words, I would happily spend $12.50 and get all five slots. I might consider buying all five slots for $25.00. Otherwise I'll be buying zero slots.

Maybe they'll let you buy 10 points!

To be honest, I'm right handed too and I can play CoH entirely with my left hand. And quite often do.

I keep my left hand on homerow, which means on ASDF. I can reach 1-6 easily, 7-0 with a little moving. With the addition of alt and ctrl I can get 12-18 power clicks within easy reach. Being on homerow also means I can move my character around easily, and jump. I do however use ESDF instead of WASD (that's the same thing, just shifted one key over so my index finger rests on the home keys). I normally don't have to move around much mid combat. Ranged characters handle this easier, but even on melees I just tab through targets and use a follow key (bound to G). I also have V bound to "target nearest." All of this is done with just one hand, without much movement from the home keys. With a little bit more movement you can hit the F keys for inspirations.

The only time I'd ever need to use my right hand would be to click on something. Normally my right hand is just resting on a mouse. I might be fiddling with the zoom or volume or something. Sometimes when my other computer is up I may be typing on it. Yes, I can type with one hand. Anyway, my right hand isn't necessary for play. 99% of the game including combat and just getting around can be done with one single hand on homerow. He might have to move his hand to click on NPCs and glowies but that's about it. And this is just a setup with a regular keyboard with no special binds.

Hope your friend finds a configuration that works out for him.

I'm not sure which Shadow Meld you're using, but the one my Scrapper has lasts 15 seconds (not 8), gives 32% DEF if slotted (not 14), recharges in 90 seconds (not 3 minutes), doesn't anchor you in place, can't be interrupted, and is only 5 endurance (not 30).

Why you...

More like:

1. Death From Below
2. At level 22, buy SOs

I don't know about the new stuff, but you've been able to kill off contacts since Praetoria.

I would buy that just for the bow if it's a head detail and doesn't lock me into a specific hairstyle to use it.

But at least Strike Forces aren't powers.

Now I feel compelled to stand in Virtue and try and confuse every single person who says sewer trial in broadcast.

It's not our fault the devs decided to call it Street Justice instead of Street Fighting. Even after at least one of the devs commented on an article about how devs should be more mindful of the inevitable abbreviations of things they create, and how they made a mistake with allowing three different zones to be abbreviated SC. Yet somehow they decided to have the set be SJ (and confusable with Super Jump) instead of allowing it a non-confusing acronym of SF.

I actually like Thunder Strike and was glad to see more sets getting melee TAoE attacks. With my Elec/Invuln Brute I prefer Thunder Strike's mechanics because I can toss an AoE where I want instead of it always being centrally focused. I can always put the AoE where it will do the most damage, instead of just hoping there are an even number of guys on all sides of me.

I wouldn't call it crappy. Yeah it's not Foot Stomp, but nothing is. Foot Stomp has a 15 foot radius. Most PBAoEs are 8. I also don't think building a combo level is going to be a problem. All it requires is for you to use some ST attacks inbetween the AoE. Unless you normally just put your AoE on auto and don't attack inbetween uses, it's going to be about the same.

The combos also have incremental bonuses for different combo levels. If your recharge is high enough you can spam AoEs it's quite possible you'd get more DPS out of doing level 2 combos repeatedly. Unlike DB it's not a "3 or bust" system.

Purple sets excel at neither of the things you just mentioned. They excel mostly at recharge and accuracy. Unless your friend is packing heavy recharge to bring up powers that give him more damage or defense, it wasn't the purples making him do that.

Purples are good at recharge, which can be a useful thing for some builds. My Dominator has a couple purple sets because she has a lot of long animation times and click powers. My best character however, my Widow, has plenty of room for purples but I don't use them (except one set in her ranged AoE because there's nothing better for ranged AoEs). Instead I use Makos and Obliterations to get +DMG. She has +30% DMG through set bonuses; something purples can't really do (one set does +4% DMG but that's it).

If you want defense, you should look at Thunderstrike, Kinetic Combat, Mako, BotZ, and things like that. Purples don't really add any defense. My Blaster is outfitted with a bunch of Thunderstrike and Mako. She has like 35% ranged DEF. None of that is due to purples.

Don't fall into the newbie mistake of thinking that purples are the answer to your build, or that purple = best. Depending on what you want you may be more inclined to totally avoid purples, or just use a few here and there. If you only care about recharge, purples are good. If you want accuracy, you can generally get enough without resorting to purples. If you want damage, HP, DEF, or a variety of other bonuses, you'll find them in much cheaper sets.

For those too lazy to search:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FHn3bPhYn_0&t=1m00s

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYYl4ZJvl_I

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_49zvv8mvsQ

Also you get a respec for running a patron arc (which requires you to be redside for a bit but you can come back if you want).

They did update the animal pack with a few additions. Maybe they'll do the same for this one.