sigma1932

This is why I always make two partitions on my harddrive (or even use 2 seperate physical drives)... put just the operating system on one, and install all programs on the other. I also keep a folder with all the drivers I need for my computer in it on this second partition/drive so I don't have to re-download them.

That way, if you have to wipe the operating system drive/partition clean (99.99999999% of the time this will get rid of any viruses/etc., which are usually tied to the registry, which is part of the operating system, and sometimes it's faster to just wipe it and start over rather than trying to clean things), you don't lose everything else in the process. I even have one machine with 2 physical drives (One SATA, One IDE), but one partitioned: one partition for the operating system, one partition for active installs, and the other physical drive (the IDE) just for non-active storage.

In the case of CoX, I never worry about losing any local personal data (i.e. screenshots, bind files, MA-stuff, costumes(?), etc.), but also the updates to the game that would have to be re-downloaded/applied before I can play again.

If you're only wiping the part of the drive (or a seperate physical drive) that doesn't have the game files on it, you can just rename folders and skip the download/re-apply update step after reinstalling:

1. Change "X:/City of Heroes" to "X:/City of Backups"
2. Reinstall the game from the disk to a new "X:/City of Heroes" folder
3. Delete the "new" installation folder
4. Rename "X:/City of Backups" back to "X:/City of Heroes".
5. Start playing right away without having to re-download/apply updates (well, the updater will update, but then it'll recognize that you have the correct game version).

FTR, I don't use ANY virus software, just the basic Windows XP Pro Firewall, and I haven't had to wipe my computer in about 3 years (and then it was a data corruption issue rather than viral issues). I should also note that I DO visit questionable sites occasionally.

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Inf lost to SGmode should count. Transaction fees (the inf lost) on the final sales should count.

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On the former point, if the "lost" inf. would count towards the inf. badges, then prestige shouldn't count towards the SG badges, because that's what's replacing the lost inf. when we're in SG mode.

On the latter point, nevermind that no inf. gained from sales counts, why should inf. not even given to the character count? The market fee portion of a bid that's over your selling price is taken out before you actually "acquire" the inf... so it's not really yours. Also, what's paid to the market when you first post the item, well, that's paid out, not received... so that wouldn't make sense either.

Perhaps I'm missing the point here, but these two points just didn't seem to make sense... even though the rest of the post that I edited out did.

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63 Month Vet Reward: You're FREEEEEEEM!'D
You've been playing for 63 months. What's wrong with you? You know what? We'll fix the problem right now. All of your characters have been reset to Level 1. All Enhancements, Salvage, Inspirations, Recipies, Costume Slots, Costumes, Freespecs, Respecs, Badges, and Costume Change Tokens have been removed. You will now require 10x the normal required XP to level up. You will no longer earn Patrol XP. Double XP will actually become Negative XP, and unlevel you. Finally, every time you attempt to train a level, you will have to face Blue Steel in One On One Combat. And we're going to tell him that you kicked his puppy before you fight him. Fnord.

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Just one question.... what the eff is "Fnord"?

I'd be happy with just being able to completely turn certain visual effects off toggles rather than just being able to change their colors. Especially for superspeed... that bright light coming from my feet really takes away from some of my characters.

Would be nice if they'd include something like this with i16... even if only for toggles and/or effects that linger after clicking (like the mini-deathsurge you turn into after hitting Elec-Armor's tier-9).

On the "stealth" idea... there are alternatives if you don't have a stealth power:

--start with the spawns right AFTER Lady J., and fight your way to the chest, then come back and get her.

--if you have an uninterruptible self-healing power that doesn't require a target, just put that on auto and just take the hits as you look for the chests, stopping to heal for a few seconds in a "safe spot", then clear the way back to LJ.

--pop Eye of the Magus/Demonic Accolades if you have them, or pop a stack of purple inspirations, find the chest, and clear the way back to LJ.

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The First Amendment gives me the right to voice that.

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This may sound nitpicky, and is very OT, but I have a moral obligation to correct you.

This First Amendment does not grant you any rights. The right to Free Speech is granted by the creator. The First Amendment prevents the government from infringing upon that right. To say that the First Amendment gives you the right is to say that the government gives you the right of free speech, as the Constitution is the document of government. This would then empower the government to take away that right, as it is granted by government.

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Well, technically, the government could take the right away by further amending the Constitution... though I kinda doubt that would happen, just sayin'... the groundwork is there, and it would be possible.

The sementics sort of don't matter since in this case either... "infringing on" is contextually the same as "taking away"... a right one is not allowed to claim is one they effectively don't have, even if the entity that originally gave that right isn't the one taking it away.

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Every Nemesis plot includes somebody calling it a Nemesis plot as part of the plot. Nemesis likes the attention.

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Maybe Nemesis used time travel to create a plot where he wasn't hugged enough as a child which caused him to develop abandonment/neglect issues which caused him to intensify his plot-making efforts in his future life... all of which would also be a Nemesis plot.

Also: Nemesis plot.

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(personally, I love the Freaklympics story arc and find a point to always do it on my characters)

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FTR, you don't need to stop gaining XP for this... it's in the flashback system, and IIRC, it's high enough level that you don't lose any raw enhancement value, just powers/set bonuses.

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Because the current documentation states otherwise doesn't imply anything other than when it was added to the manual, it was documented incorrectly.

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And the fact that the "incorrect" info hasn't been corrected despite numerous updates to said documentation since, and that other sources saying it's supposed to be different than it's working now were added to the game itself by the devs provides evidence that it's more than just a clerical error.

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The thing is there's been a contingent of players who never liked exemplaring going as far back as when it was introduced. They didn't see a good reason to and this was back when the debt cap was much, much higher and perma-debt was all to common. People crunched the numbers and found no advantage to their character when running in exemplar mode than not, including influence generation. But that wasn't the purpose of exemplaring, the purpose is to allow a higher level player to join a team of primarily lower level characters just as sidekicking allows a lower level character to join a team of primarily higher level characters. It was a method to facilitate teaming, nothing more.

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And it looks to me like it wasn't that they weren't at an advantage that cheesed them a little, but rather that they were at a DISadvantage that was the problem. That's shown right in the first post of the thread you linked. Social or not, there's no reason people agreeing to go down to a lowbie's level should be getting short-changed on their rewards, especially when they're already being short-changed on the power they're losing (slot-wise) when they go to a level below 32.

By short-changing people when they exemplar, aren't they really discouraging people from doing that instead of SK'ing lowbies up, which is also meant to be a "social" feature? It's really just another point that says it's not logically sound the way it's working now.

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It just ticks me off every time someone believes that some aspect of the game (sidekicking, exemplaring, leveling pacts) should grant benefits above and beyond normal game play when such features were added primarily as social benefits.

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And it ticks me off when some people's lips are so tightly glued to the dev's backsides on some issues that they can't consider the possibility that things haven't been working correctly all along despite the previously mentioned documentation issues, the fact that it's not logically sound from a risk vs. reward standpoint, and now we just added that they're discouraging their own features by short-changing people when they use them.

I can't speak for others, but personally, when I bring this topic up I'm not looking for rewards above normal gameplay to be given, but rather I'm looking for the rewards that currently are BELOW normal gameplay to be brought up to normal level (Katze: Thank you for getting my point on this), especially now that they changed the spawning code to make more short-changing mobs spawn.

Finally, the amount of time something's been a certain way in the game means absolutely nothing-- all you have to do to figure that out is look at the arena badges, which were supposed to be in the game in something like issue 4, but were first activated 11 issues and 4+ years later.

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your post is a nemesis plot

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Perhaps its a nemesis plot that you're saying my post is a nemesis plot!

*evil grin*

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Yup, I am thinking this was an oversight and they acually meant to make her cross faction but who knows... maybe it is a conspiracy against city of villians....

My friend thinks it is a nemesis plot.

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I think it's a nemesis plot that your friend thinks it's a nemesis plot... and also that it's a nemesis plot that you think your friend thinks it's a nemesis plot.

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They both contain the same information. Red-side, a Brute is going to be you best solo option, something along the lines of Super Strength/Invulnerable or /Willpower, others will pop in with their recommendations.

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I wouldn't suggest WP to a newbie... though Invuln is a good suggestion when someone's still learning the basics... it's pretty straightforward.

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At level 22 (as I think you mentioned you were at) you can buy Single Origin Enhancements from stores in Skyway City or Steel Canyon. Find the store that suits your origin. It will give you the enhancements you need.


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The pics he posted are from a level 50 character.

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So what? He should still at least make a new toon and go back to the tutorial and read what's said in it. He doesn't have to play the other toon, but it would answer a lot of his questions.

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First, the "wrong way" exemplaring has been quoted as fact for so long it's become part of the "race memory" of the players. That doesn't change the fact that it's incorrect.

When exemplaring, your character earns XP based on the character's actual level however, if you are in XP debt all of it, not half like normal, is used to pay off XP debt. Any left over or if you weren't in XP debt to begin with is converted at a 1 to 1 ratio into inf. You receive no normal inf reward ever while in exemplar mode, any and all inf comes from XP->Inf conversion. It has been this way since I first encounter exemplaring in September 2004 when Issue 2 was released.

So while it's correct to say XP debt is payed off twice as fast but it's not because you earn twice as much XP, the XP earned is simply not cut in half. The problem is too many people explain this as double debt reduction which is then interpreted as double the XP and then the "double" idea gets moved over to inf when not in debt and a myth is born.

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Ok, so sue me... I put "XP" in some places I should've put "Inf." The concept is still the same-- As Katze and I have both pointed out now, it says something different in at least two recently-updated official sources:

From the official online manual (updated as recently as issue 14):
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Higher level heroes can artificially lower their Combat level in order
to adventure with their lower level friends as well. This process is
called Exemplaring. The lower level hero in this case is called the
Aspirant and the higher level hero is the Exemplar. The Aspirant asks
a higher level hero to become his Exemplar by right clicking on them
and selecting “Invite to Exemplar” or by using the command /exemplar
. There is no level restriction on Exemplaring.




When you become an Exemplar you will fight at the Combat Level of
the Aspirant and lose access to any power you chose after the level
of the Aspirant. So if you Exemplar down to level 15 you will not be
able to access any power you chose at level 16 or higher. You will
still have all the Enhancement Slots in your powers, however the
strength of those Enhancements will be artificially reduced to the
strength of Enhancements you would have at the lower level.




When you receive XP as an Exemplar, you will receive an amount
appropriate to your original level. This XP can only be used to pay
off XP debt. If you have no XP debt, then you will earn influence at
double the normal rate.




Additionally, higher level heroes can enter lower level task forces
and trials through auto-exemplaring. It is similar to exemplaring, but
does not require another hero to bring you down to that level.

[/ QUOTE ]

From the loading screen tip (which was put in by Devs in issue 12):
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When you Exemplar/Malefactor to someone you fight at their combat level, losing access to powers you gained after that level. You will stop gaining XP, instead gaining double Influence/Infamy

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Considering that these official sources are far more recent (which lends itself to the idea that this is how it was supposed to be working all along), how are we quoting it wrong? We're NOT getting double the normal rate of inf. like it says we should (i.e. a 100% increase in all cases), but instead we're getting a 43% increase for weaker mobs , and a 50% decrease for stronger mobs. Nevermind that this isn't what we're being told we should get, but it also doesn't jive with the risk vs. reward mantra, which further lends itself to how it's working now not being correct.

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Seriously...you expect me to believe that someone cannot figure how to get out of atlas park? That a player cannot click the map and see the train or the tunnel out?

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Sad to say, yes, it is really that bad. Take a peek at the first few pages of this thread. Some of the experience with AE babies people posted there is just so stupid you really can't make it up...

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yea a new retail box in stores that you can't use the advertised feature to take advantage of double xp? that'll happen

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Hey, the fearture advertised only says you can make your own content, and people aren't saying they should shut down AE all together during 2XPWKND, just that they won't get double XP by using it.

Also, IIRC, it says in the EULA that they reserve the right to make changes to the game in any way, shape, or form they want at any time they want, so they're actually within their rights to not allow 2XP in AE.

I got one once form a friend who I told to send me one explaining details about something we planned in game cuz we weren't gonna be on at the same time for a few days... and a few from someone else who asked asked how I managed to get 99% of old empath badge (i.e. 990+ mil healing points) in under 2 weeks (they saw the heal totals on the info kiosk).

Other than that, none really.

K, lemme rephrase then:
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Exactly, a $3 slice of pizza and 2 energy drinks = ripoff

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A 20 oz. (591 mL) bottle of pop costs around $1.25-$1.50 (potentially less if you buy it from a grocery store), and a 1-liter (1000 mL) bottle about $2.00-$2.50, IIRC. You can easily get away with one of the former caffeine-wise, and the latter can easily last a whole day.

Energy drinks are rediculously small and overpriced (they're almost as bad as starbucks) and don't really work. They don't do anything except give you a sugar high, and then make you crash and feel worse than before... plus, they take a toll on your body, which eventually builds up a resistance to all the extra sugar and caffeine. If you have to suck down two of them just to handle one class, then that shows just how worthless they really are.

Trust me, I know what I'm talking about here... When I was in college, I held two positions in my fraternity (one being pledge-educator, which was fairly demanding), I worked full time (3rd shift), I was on the football team, and, of course, I had a full load of classes, so I learned very well what worked and didn't work, what was real and what was just pyschological, and every other trick you can think of when it came to staying awake and/or managing sleep.

As for the pizza, $3-4 a slice is a rediculous ripoff. I could get a whole 14" one-topping hand-tossed pizza of reasonable quailty for $5 if I'm willing to just wait an hour or two for a gap in my schedule to get it (or grab yesterday's leftovers cold), and I'm willing to bet a similar deal can be found just about anywhere in the country.

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Heh? We never got regular inf while exemplared. It's working as designed and I expect this never to change since the XP value used is relative to the character's actual level and not the level they are exemplared to.

[/ QUOTE ]

And numerous manuals and online sources have also presented that we should've been getting "double XP" when exemplared (regardless of the character's "real" level), not to mention there was a loading screen tip that said the same (which the dev's would've had to put in when they added the loading tip feature to the game).

[ QUOTE ]
Now during double xp weekend are you not getting double xp converted into influence?

[/ QUOTE ]

IIRC, the last double XP weekend actually had things working almost correctly in that people were getting 4x the XP value converted into inf. while being exemplared-- double for being ex'd, and doubled again for the event. The only problem there was that it should've been using the inf. reward as the base value instead of the XP value converted to inf.

[ QUOTE ]
As for "risk vs reward", it use to be 3 minions per team member ( difficulty 2 and 4 adds bumps the count up one) and then substitutions are made to bring the spawn size down by exchanging minions for lieutenants and bosses at roughly 2 minions to a lieutenant and 4 minions for a boss. This excludes spawns with named bosses of course.

[/ QUOTE ]

I know how spawning worked before, and get how it works now. That's not what I'm talking about.

My point is that because we get the XP value translated into inf. when exemplared, when you kill a minion while exemplared, you get about 43% MORE XP than you would if you killed a minion of the same level relation at your natural level (the natural inf. value of a minion is 70% of it's XP value). When we kill a boss while exemplared, we get 50% LESS inf. we'd get when we're NOT exemplared and kill a boss of the same relative level because a boss's natural inf. value is 200% of it's XP value (i.e. it's XP value is half it's inf. value).

Here's a theoretical numerical example where the level relation with the player is the same in all cases:

Given a minion that's worth 100 XP:
--Rewards at normal level = 100 XP, 70 inf.
--Rewards while exemplared: 100 inf. (~43% increase)

Given a boss worth 1,000 XP:
-- Rewards at normal level = 1000 XP, 2000 inf.
-- Rewards while exemplared = 1000 inf. (50% decrease).

The long and short of it is that, while exemplared, we're getting a 43% "buff" in reward for fighting weaker mobs while getting a 50% "penalty" in reward when fighting stronger mobs... thus the risk vs. reward doesn't jive.

With the spawn-code changes fit into this is since, I'm assuming, we're supposed to see more bosses than before, and bosses give a less-than-proportionate reward while exemplared, it would be nice if they'd fix the exemplar rewards.

Now they just need to fix the whole "double XP when exemplared" thing.

As it stands now, we only get a mob's XP value as inf. without getting the regular inf. reward when exemplared... which means we're only getting a quarter of the inf. from bosses as compared to what we get at normal level or SK'd, where the Inf. reward is double the XP reward for a boss. Meanwhile, fighting minions while exemplared gives a 30% bonus to inf. rewards because their XP value is 30% more than their normal inf. value, but since there are likely fewer minions spawning now, we're getting less inf. for more risk.

Now with bosses spawning more frequently, this dosen't really jive with the whole "risk vs. reward" mantra.

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$10 for a slice of pizza and an energy drink is highway robbery!

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I did say or 2 about the energy drinks, and thats what I usually grab and have both downed by the middle of my next class. Plus this is in college, what do you expect?

[/ QUOTE ]
Cheap food and a 1.3x markup over standard MSRP in the bookstore.

[/ QUOTE ]

Exactly, a slice of pizza and 2 energy for about $10 = ripoff

[/ QUOTE ]

Fix'd.

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Just run the Positron TF 4 times, and you'll be able to buy one with the merits. You can have it in 4 days, if you want.

[/ QUOTE ]

Unless he's playing a villain....

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Thanks I will go to the Ouroboros and fight solo till I get it.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah, I wouldn't recommend banking on one dropping... The chance of any recipe dropping off a boss is already only 8%, and the chance of that recipe being a rare is 1/41, or about 2.4%... so the chance of a boss dropping a rare would be about 0.192% (1 in 520 bosses). Then, when you factor in that you'd need it to be the one rare out of up to 100 possible, you're looking at about a chance of .00192%, or 1 in 52,000+ boss kills, and then you have to consider that it's a healing set, which isn't calculated as all that useful by most AT's/powersets (you're much more likely to get damage instead), and it gets even worse.

Yeah... it's just not practical to purposely wait for it to drop from a boss, and you may never get one that way since there's no "streak-breaker" on what recipes drop.

If you REALLY, REALLY want a Miracle +Recov, I'd say you're best off going for the 240 merits and buying it outright, and if not that, go for merits and make random rolls, or even just buy it from the market. If, while you're earning all those merits, you happen to get extremely lucky and have one drop, well, then more power to ya, but if I had to put money on it, I'd say you'd hit the 240 merit mark long before you have one drop.

EDIT: Fixed my faulty math. It's still bad though.

If you're just looking at the power description on your enhancement management screen, then the section of that description that you're looking at tells what IO set types the power will accept.

The difference between "To-hit Debuff" and "Accurate To-hit Debuff" is that sets of the latter type will include IO's that buff the accuracy of the power they're slotted into, and can, IIRC, only be slotted into powers with that type of effect that require a to-hit roll to affect the target.

So, for example, Gloom is an attack that has a secondary effect that debuffs the target's to-hit value (makes them less accurate), but it requires a to-hit roll to see if the attack hits the target. If it misses, the debuff doesn't get applied. Because the power requies a to-hit check, it can accept IO's from "accurate to-hit debuff" sets, and can also accept regular to-hit-debuff IO's.

On the other hand, a power like Radiation Infection, a power with a to-hit debuff effect from the Radiation Emission powerset, is auto-hit, so it doesn't (again IIRC) allow accurate to-hit debuff enhancements (at least the in-game documentation says it doesn't), because it doesn't require a to-hit roll to effect the target.

A few thoughts/responses:

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QR

Instead of 3 months, make it one character, 3 levels. First character to hit level 4 unlocks AE for the entire account. After that, they can even take a brand new character into AE, if they want.

That way they've talked to a contact, done at least one door mission, and had experience with both choosing powers and placing slots.

[/ QUOTE ]

Not really.

Sewers - 15 minutes, tops. Level 10 works better, IMHO.

[/ QUOTE ]

Even at level 10, it might be too low... they haven't even gotten to DO levels yet... I'd say 20-25 would be better... it would make them play at least up until SO-levels, which means they'll see that there's increasingly higher-level zones... 25 would get them all the way to Talos/IP and Sharkhead, IIRC.

Also, level restrictions should be that they can't enter any of the buildings... that way they can't have friends who already unlocked it bring them along in their missions to PL them.

[ QUOTE ]
You can usually tell [a player's skill level and game knowledge] by the [vet] badges they have.

[/ QUOTE ]

Nevermind that they could actually have a few vet badges without leaving AP, and they might actually not be an idiot if they only have one or two vet badges, but you also can't see how many they have through the search tool, nor can you tell that if the person is in another zone.

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I actually agree with the idea that the MA -should- have been limited to people who had level 50s already, despite the general whining and bickering that would have caused.

But I think the idea of forcing that kind of restriction on the thing -now- would be amazingly unlikely. The backlash would be apocalyptic...

[/ QUOTE ]

People would have just PLed the old fashioned way to their first 50. I don't think it would have changed many of the problems people are having other than the people would know how to get to PI/Grandville.

[/ QUOTE ]
Yes I realize it might not have prevented the MA debacle we have now.
But at least it would force people to leave AP/MI for whatever that's worth...

[/ QUOTE ]

Perhaps they can make it a "souvenier count" type of thing so they actually have to do their own contact's missions (even though I like Redside more, this number would have to be higher for them because they have so many more arcs). This count would include souveniers from TF's, but not AE souveniers, so ultimately it would be based 75%+ on a players own missions from their own street contacts.

This would force them to have passing exposure to different villain factions, more zones, the merit system, and potentially TF's and Ouroboros as well (if the souvenier count is high enough to make them level 25+), while not making it possible to just be PL'ed and hit the MA.

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Then you don't team with those people.

Don't deliberately make the game non-fun for yourself.
Do what you need to do to have fun in this game and let others do what they need to do to have fun.

[/ QUOTE ]

Ah, yes, because everyone who goes 1-50 in AE has a glowing icon next to their name that says "AE Baby." How silly of us all to miss that!

Oh, wait, there's not?

So, pray tell, short of being psychic....

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Look at the info on a toon and then look at their badges. If they're all AE with absolutely no vet badges, then it's a pretty sure bet these toons will suck.

[/ QUOTE ]

Still can't see that through the search tool or if they're not in the same zone.

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So what if someone fills their account with 50's that never leave Atlas. SO WHAT. If they enjoy that, that is their fun time.

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I'd be right with you if those people would STAY in the MA, and then not potentially badmouth the game in RL to people who haven't tried it when they get bored.

The problem is that they don't stay there, and they start ruining everyone else's playtime who plays the "real" game, with their inept play because they didn't actually learn the "real" game. It's one thing to just be a bad player... it's something totally different to not know how to get to a higher-level zone using the trains, think enhancements don't matter.

This is why people are suggesting that people be forced to experience a little more of the REAL game rather than falling into the MA trap because they don't know any better.


That, and well, you can't be a "writer" without first "reading" something, and the MA is supposed to be about "writing your own stuff".

If you can't see this, well, there's no real point in trying to explain things to a brick wall.

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The old Hollows built character.

[/ QUOTE ]

Darn straight!

Back in my day, we had to RUN to our missions, full speed, uphill, both ways, and sometimes that wasn't even enough if you made a wrong turn and got stuck at the bottom of a cliff. All this while being chased by angry Trolls and Outcasts, and having to Dodge freakish rock monsters, and the mind-controlling weirdos in robes trying to sacrifice us to some demon goddess or whatever... and if we were carrying too much stuff, we had to run BACK into TOWN to sell it.

You youngin's have it way too easy sitting in your cozy little VR dohickey... GET OFF MY FRIGGAN LAWN, PUNK! *shakes super-cane*

Heh. K, I'm done now.