peterpeter

The AE got off to a rocky start in some ways, but maybe you should poke your head back in. I haven't gotten around to running the Guest Author missions yet, but I'm really looking forward to them. I also have a bookmarked list of the winners of that last AE contest that I'll run as soon as I get around to it.

Right now I'm focusing on the Kheldian story arcs, which I've never run before.

Thank you. I stuck a note in the middle of the ParagonWiki Task Force page with a couple of these details. It sounds like my team will be just fine.

When you are at the NCSoft store, looking at the pack, it shows four screenshots which you can blow up by clicking on them. Also, the links for the emotes go to little movies showing the emotes in action.

They keep changing the way TF's and levels work, and I don't run them often enough to keep track. What's the current deal?

Specifically, what happens if a bunch of level 23 characters run a TF (Moonfire) which goes from 23-28 or so? What level enemies will we face? How will that change as we gain levels during the TF? How do the leader's difficulty settings affect that?

Woohoo! Well done! This was your first win?

I didn't even try this year because I'm taking a class in the evenings after work.

Tray 1: click powers. Mostly attacks. Vet attacks go here during the low levels, then move off. Spot 8 is always a damage buff if I have one, and 9 is always a self-heal if I have one. This tray is always in the bottom right, the default location.

Tray 2: directly above tray 1. Toggles go here, generally, or important but situational powers. On most defenders, the last couple of powers are vengeance and a rez, with something like fallout thrown in if I have it.

Tray 3: runs vertically on the right side of the screen, next to the map. Travel powers go here. Vet base teleporter, vet recall team, Pocket D teleport, WW Teleport (purchased or day job), Mac pack mission teleporter, VIP jump jet for characters who can use it, the vet reveal power sometimes if it fits, the Safeguard travel powers at low levels, recall friend if I have it (which I usually do), an actual travel power like SJ or SS or Flight, a travel power precursor like combat jumping or hover, walk, ninja run... yeah, I run out of room here.

Tray 4: horizontal across the bottom center. Extra powers go here: vet pets, shivans, snowbeasts, warwolves, vet attacks, and all sorts of temp powers. Yeah, I always run out of room here too, so sometimes I add another tray directly above it.

Tray 5: Runs across the top of the map in two rows. I put fun stuff here, mostly macros for favorite emotes specific to the character. Also costume change binds and random stuff that didn't fit elsewhere.

I need a bigger monitor.

He can't be talking about purples. He said they only get a few thousand influence per mission. A level 50 earns that much for each enemy.

There are two sides of the puzzle. The first is demand. What kind of IO's do you demand?

1. Common IO's: the generic accuracy, damage, heal, etc. These can actually be cheaper than SO's.

2. Frankenslotting: buying inexpensive set IO's and mixing them together to get really great enhancement values but no set bonuses. Putting in acc/dam IO's instead of acc and dam SO's adds up to a free slot or two for each power. You can probably do this for 10,000,000 inf per character.

3. Good set IO's: Here we are trying to get some good set bonuses as well as good enhancement values. Pick one or two set bonuses that will really make a difference to your character (recharge and defense are popular) and buy sets to stack those bonuses. This can be expensive, especially if you are buying the most popular sets for the most popular types of powers.

4. Insane performance: purples, pvp IO's, the old LotG 7.5, and some other special pieces can add up to AV soloing madness. Of course, people used to solo AV's before IO's even existed. Still, if you spend a fortune than you can make a very impressive build.

So what is it you are trying to buy?

The second piece of the puzzle is supply. Specifically, your supply of stuff. If you play in the AE, you'll get tickets. If you play story arcs and TF's, you'll get merits. Any time you play, you get inf and drops. The more time you spend, the more stuff you get. You don't need to farm. You just need to spend time playing. More time ==> more stuff.

Of course, some ways of playing are more efficient than others. A level 50 fire/kin will earn more inf and more drops per hour running the same mission over and over than a level 40 character following Indigo and Crimson back and forth between zones, or a level 8 character trying to cross the Hollows and failing over and over.

Still, as long as you keep playing, then you'll keep getting inf. It adds up.

It adds up faster if you use the market wisely. It will also vanish more slowly when you're shopping if you use the market wisely. There are quite a few guides stickied at the top of the market/invention subforum.

Where did I put that little scrap of paper? I think it was the back of an envelope...

I was poking around looking at seldom-played alts and I found one with 1,000 candy canes in his pocket. I remember buying them in bulk at the end of the last Christmas event, when they were cheap, so I could resell them for a profit when the event comes back. But I can't remember what I paid for them! 1,000? 10,000? 100,000? I have no idea! I can't work up a proper ebil chortle if I don't know how much of a profit I made.

Does anyone remember what canes were going for at the end of the last event?

I always thought the Hamidon would be a nice supergroup raid. Start it through that SG mission computer thing, get your own instance, have fun. Coalition members could join in, but the whole thing would be invisible to outsiders. It might exacerbate existing sg drama, but that seldom impacts the rest of the game very much.

Yes, it's unfair to people like me who aren't in the kind of sg that would run the raid, but I still think it's a reasonable thing to have in the game. Right now we have content which is scaled for individuals, and content that is only suitable for teams, and content which an entire server can join in on, but nothing that's really designed for supergroups.

Doesn't the architect addition come with a code for one of the booster packs too, which is worth $10 by itself?

M opens and closes the map.
N makes the navigation UI appear and vanish.
C does the same for chat.
T toggles your targeting window.

I hit those by accident all the time. I'm not sure if there is a single key shortcut for the menu/health/end/xp UI, or the powers tray. If there is, I never seem to hit it by accident.

Another hazardous fluke:

Put an item in the market. Enter a price. Do NOT push the "post" button. Now, pick up some other item and drag it into the market window. Drag it over the "post" button on your way to a transaction slot. Ta-da! You just posted your item.

It probably doesn't happen very often, but I listed a LotG 7.5 for about 100 inf the other day by doing this. Luckily it sold for a good price. I bugged this more than a year ago but apparently it hasn't made its way up the priority list.

This is one of those cases where they made up a story to explain a technical limitation. The city needs to be divided into zones because you can't have every character in the same zone all at the same time. The in-game explanation is just "color".

I think the Philotic Knight's Combat Handbook is what you're looking for: http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=124308

Personally, I think communication is the most important thing. The majority of team wipes I see occur when the team splits apart.