Thanks for the updates. 
Go ahead and auction off the Halloween salvage (or use it yourself, if you have need of it). It was only there because I was transferring it from one character to another, and thought I needed 10 of each to buy a new costume slot, but it turned out I only needed 1 of each. I don’t think it’s expensive enough or in-demand enough to bother storing.
I’ve had to engage in some foolery to make the techy invention table and merit vendor look less out of place.
The invention table surface now appears to be sitting atop a stone pedestal. Alas, hiding the computer tower and monitor with other objects seems to be beyond my current skill level.
For the merit vending machine, I’ve put some special effects on it and declared that it actually exists outside of the base. But via a strange mystic portal, we can access it remotely. I’m imagining pedestrians near the actual machine witnessing our disembodied hands operating it.
This just in: revived CoH reportedly not only has NCSoft’s permission to remain open but also continue development!
That’s great news!
I’ve actually been playing some lately again on Homecoming, now that my kids are old enough to play too.
I still play, sporadically, but my main is in CECIL. The game is still fun.
I still play on the Torchbearer server. Saw a huge uptick in players in the past couple of days. Atlas Park and King’s Row have instanced second versions because of so many players. General and help chats are spamming big time.
My main is in CECIL. By the way, the base is beautiful, much thanks to whoever is maintaining it.
I’m mostly just play my main (American Dream, Tanker: Willpower/Kinetic Attack). I’ve been doing Ouroboros Missions, replaying all the story arcs I’ve missed. I’ve completed all of them under level 20 and slowly working my way higher.
Also been having a lot of fun with my kid, who’s playing a Blaster, by mentoring down to their level and doing the missions together. Early levels are much easier when you have a pocket tank soaking up everything.
I’m glad they decided to load balance the servers better. Even our server Everlasting was getting laggy. Now it’s common to see all the servers at “yellow” population.
I’m still a little frustrated by the Incarnate system and top tier enhancements. They both require more time commitment than I have available. But it’ll take me another year to complete the Ouroboros stuff, so I can’t complain too much.
If you’re taking time to do every mission in Ouro, you can level your incarnate powers that way. I usually get my incarnates maxed out in 1-2 weeks.
I play on Torchbearer. I’ve kind of developed a factory system for my alts. I’ve got a second account for PLing my noobs. I made a Darkness/Fire Brute that works really well for AoE damage, so I go to the AE outlet in Pocket D, search for “fire farm”, team up with my noob in the mission, and run through it a couple of times until the noob gets at least 15th level. Then I take the noob to Synapse Saturday Night – an event where 6 teams in a league do the Synapse TF simultaneously. Once we finish the Clockwork Lord stage, we stay until the raid leader calls us out to find our Babbage. All the teams assemble their Babbage together in a central location and kill them for 6 reward merits each, then go and finish the final stage of the TF. With the 2x exp bonus buff from the P2W vendor, my noob will easily gain 9 levels. Some players will have a 2nd account solo the TF until their Babbage spawns, then keep it on hold until all the teams are ready. We’ve had as many as 18 Babbages that way.
With all the new players, it’s easy to find TFs and other mishes in LFG, so I’ll go that route until I get to level 35. Then I go to Rikti War Zone, do the “Welcome to Vanguard” mish, and get a Vanguard badge. On Friday nights, there’s an instanced Mother Ship Raid that involves destroying 18 pylons, then assembling in the big bowl after the shield drops. Then it’s nonstop Rikti slaughter for a half-hour until the event ends. Then we chase down the mothership, and whoever gets the killing stroke gets 100 million inf. I’ve only managed to get the kill one time, and that was with a healer. At any rate, it’s good for gaining 4-5 levels and a bunch of Vanguard merits which you can convert to Reward merits at 30:1.
You can do the lower level TFs. Your level will be capped, but you still gain good exp. Plus, there’s usually teams in Peregrine Island doing mishes for exp, and you can even join them at noob level. The folks who run these missions have done them hundreds of times, so they don’t mind exp leeches. Stay in these until you hit 50, then fill out your Alpha tier, and you’ll be good for Hami raids, which happen every night starting at about 6pm EST, usually 2 raids of three rounds each. Hami drops your choice of 4 emp merits, 80 reward merits (40 each after that), or a Hami-O. I usually do the 4 emps + 80 +40 rms route. The emps can either buy rare and very rare Incarn comps, or can be converted to Threads. The merits will eventually pile up to where you can afford the level 50 I/O sets and/or the Attuned sets. The nightly raids also give you more Incarnate exp. My farmer goes to the 2nd Hami run and is up to 70+ vet levels. Gaining vet levels is good for more threads (120 a pop) and emp merits.
I can usually get an alt to 50, + maxed-out Incarnates, fully boosted purple I/O sets, and Super Attuned sets, in less than a month. Plus, it’s fun to hang out with other players waiting for the league raids to start and tell dad jokes to make them groan.
Of course, I understand some folks prefer to solo and explore every nook and cranny. I used to be that way.
That’s primarily how I play. Though I have enjoyed every time I joined up with a group to take on a task force. There is so much freedom in the way you can create your character and players have a lot of imagination, so every time I’ve done one it looks like the most insane superhero mishmash crossover you could think of.
Mostly @Mister_Rik , I think. His Flaminatrix is currently the SG leader, and he’s got well over a hundred alts now.
On Everlasting, there are a couple of non-instanced Mothership Raids every day, after the 7:00 and 10:00 Hamidon raids. The non-instanced version is open to all levels. I’ve seen characters go from 1 to 19 in a single raid, though of course it slows down at higher levels, and you get (almost) no Vanguard merits below 35 (I think you still get them from the pylons, dropship, and maybe U’Kon even without the badge).
I’ve got all the basic Incarnate stuff. I’m blocked by stuff like “Notice of the Well”, which I think requires doing a particular trial. I rarely play more than an hour at a time, so unless it’s soloable over multiple days, it’s beyond my reach.
But only a minor complaint. I’ve gotten completely over the altitus I used to have. Busting heads for a bit every now and then with my tanker is fun enough for me. I don’t actually need Incarnate stuff.
If you unlock your Alpha, you get a new contact who introduces you to Dark Astoria. It’s a huge mission set that can be solo’ed. You’re helping to keep the dark god Mot from conquering the world, and you meet some interesting NPCs along the way. When you finish one mission arc, you get introduced to a new contact. Each arc reward is a random Incarnate component, which ranges from white to purple, which is the equivalent of a 20 thread to 30 emp payoff. There’s also another NPC you find who can assign you daily missions (20 hour window) that rewards you 10 threads. They pile up.
There’s 5-6 NPCs that give you mission arcs, and each also has a bonus “personal story” mish that gives you a badge reward. One of these is Praetor Duncan, who confronts all the people she betrayed in the past as they try to guilt-trip her, and she keeps blowing them off until she meets her dead mother at the end and completely loses it. She’s such a brat, but I love her.
I recommend converting shards to threads. You can convert 10 shards to 10 threads for 1 million inf every 20 hours. Use threads to buy your Alpha incarnate comps. Threads drop more often that shards, and you get bonus threads when you advance vet levels. Really, filling out your incarnate levels isn’t as hard as you think, and your toon will get so much better.
Maybe the wiki is wrong, but it says a Notice of the Well requires a trial to complete. Lack of that specific component is what is blocking me.
https://homecoming.wiki/wiki/Notice_of_the_Well_Component
But thanks for the heads up about Dark Astoria. I haven’t touched that zone yet.
A Notice of the Well requires that you do one of the weekly task forces. Every week there are three of them to choose from (at least two of them available to heroes and at least one available to villains), and they change every week. Every task force or trial with a contact shows up on the rotation at some point or another, and they’re all different lengths. The shortest, Cavern of Transcendence (from Karsus), can be done by a group in about two minutes, and the longest, Explorers and Exploiters (Dr. Quaterfield) takes 2-3 hours for a group. They’re all, in principle, soloable (some easier than others, of course-- Most end with a fight against an Archvillain), and even if that would take you over a week, you can just time it so you finish during that week.
You can also avoid needing a Notice of the Well at all by using the other, thread-based recipe for your Alpha powers, but I wouldn’t recommend that, because it’s so easy to get Notice of the Well.
I had actually kept my shards to build my Alpha before. When the rest of the tiers opened up, I had enough threads & emps to fully flesh them out before I could even complete Alpha. There are no shard rewards for advancing Vet levels, like there is for threads and emps.
Since then, I’ve converted my shards to threads and built Alpha with those.
You could “mine” NotWs using Chronos’s method, then downgrade them to shards. Don’t know if there’s a waiting period, but it’s a thought.
Tip: type “/macro INC windowtoggle Incarnate” in your chat bar, and you’ll get an icon that will open the Incarnate window without having to go through Combat Attributes.
Another Tip: you can send Reward, Hero/Villain, Empyrean and Transcendent merits to your alts. First, open a new Email, then drag the merit from your salvage to the attachment window in your email. It will automatically populate the address field for you. No more having to remember your global address. Yay!
Thank you for pointing this out! I didn’t know there was another method, because the interface is unclear enough that I never saw the second recipe. I’ve many Incarnate Threads, but no time, so that second recipe is exactly what I need. Got my first rare-level Incarnate power just now.
Nevermind. I’m not sure why Discord took this thread off Tracking.
Which Server was CECIL on again?
Everlasting.
Whereas I’ve had the opposite experience. If I get impatient and use threads for alpha, then when my other slots open up, I find that I don’t have enough threads for them. And converting shards to threads and then using the thread recipes for alpha is like selling Target gift cards for cash at twenty cents on the dollar, and then using the cash to go shopping at Target.