MTeague

It's been true if every MMO ever. Gnome Warriors were legendary anklebiters in EverQuest.

While it's not related to naming, for headcanon purposes, I've always pictured it that when my Peacebringer talks, you hear both voices, a human voice and an alien voice, in stereo.

the quick answer is of course "it depends". If your powersets include powers that already give you a good chunk of positional defense (Super Reflexes, Ninjistu), then focus on stacking positional defense. If your powersets include powers that already give you a good chunk of typed defense (Ice Armor, Energy Aura), then focus on stacking typed defense. If you start with nothing (blaster, etc), then I personally prefer focusing on Positional defenses, because there's only 3 kinds (melee, ranged, aoe), whereas there's lots more typed defenses. But there are people who will say (and are probably right) that because certain types of attacks are vastly more common, you may be better off stacking typed defense, because if can max evne a few of those types that can cover all positions of when that type is in play. Just be aware if you do start with no defense from your primary/secondary, you probably can't softcap ALL typed defenses.

I suppose there's also the issue of impact on any changes to Pets, too.

this is really where I feel it should be addressed. I don't think the end drain powers need to be buffed per se. I do think enemies should actually need to have the correct amount of END before they can activate a power, same as the players. now, sure, it may take several rounds of finessing to strike a balance the devs are happy with. Maybe enemies should have to pay same endurance cost as players, but boosted recovery, if that's something that allows you to maybe delay them from attacking with some end draining, but not necessarily city-of-statues on 50 mobs all at once just because you used one "Short Circuit". And maybe mobs should get a 50% endurance discount if that helps balance things. But the whole "Oh, I have one teensy sliver of END, therefore I can fire off my nuke" is .... kinda bullcrap.

well... here's the thing. the "among the worst" sets? Still WRECK FACE. People rag all over /Regen and how it's horrible and everyone should just reroll Willpower. But you can make a *very* durable /Regen character who still invokes Full Terminator Protocol. "He'll find her. That's what he does. That's all he does! You can't stop him. He'll wade through you, reach down her throat, and pull her f***ing heart out." People rag all over Electric Blast or Assault Rifle and how they're the Worst Blast Set. But they still melt spawns and most groups are never really going to notice the difference in kill speed. Now if you are a Speed King, and you literaly set timers and measure speeds of map clear? Okay. You might notice. I bet quite a big chunk of the player base doesn't time it, and won't really notice. It's just received wisdom that certain sets are bad, even though they work right fine for how most people play.

I think I understand your position, and I can respect it. I just don't agree with it. As long as anyone can solo pretty much all story arc content on any character, I don't think they should necessarily have the same experience on every character, or have the same set of weaknesses on every character. I think it's good that some characters face "can openers" that others don't. I think it's part of what keeps the game interesting. I really don't have a problem with certain Powersets being unable to provide mez protection to themselves but being able to buff the rest of the team, or certain AT's just never ever getting mez protection at all (until incarnates, and I can go verse and measure on what I think of them, but this isn't the topic for that.) By all means, you have every right to push for such changes and argue for them. I'm just um... *cough* gonnahopethatfailssorryman *cough*

QFT It should be noted, that <ObiWan> From a certain point of view</ObiWan>, even Blasters are entirely unnecessary. Sure, they kill stuff fast. But everyone can deal decent damage. and its' rare that speed MATTERS. Even if you care about clear times, if you've ever been part of the glory that is an All Defender Task Force, you still steamroll things mighty fast. Is your AT "not needed"? Sure. Neither is anyone else's.

no objection, but I can't stay I've ever really noticed / cared about the dust.

I get what you're saying. But I can honestly say I disagree with you post completely. prophecy and destiny being part of the world is not the same as "its the sum total of everything". I can also honestly say, I would probably never play any game you produce. But hey. Lots of people would not play any game that *I* ever produced. So there is symmetry.

I've long looked at AE as a venue for perhaps crowdsourcing new "official" story arcs. If I was the developers, one of the first things I'd have done was add a checkbox, which STARTS UNCHECKED, because really, that's how it should be, that says "If you check this, you give the devs permission to harvest this AE mission and convert + modify it to become official content, if they choose to do so." I mean, it's all a private server, so maybe they could already technically do anything they darn well pleased with any AE mission at any time. But it would keep a lot of feathers unruffled if it were done on that basis. And for all I know maybe there even IS already such a checkbox? I keep meaning to play around with Mission Creators and ... keep loading up other things instead.

Agree 100% I would however, be perfectly on board with it using my characters powersets and costumes to appear as an actual NPC to be fought in someone else's mission. Where I would not be in control of that clone at that point, it would just be the AI doiing it's best to use what powers it thought were most useful at any given moment. Looks like @FoulVileTerror already posted that idea 13 hours ago. Man I gotta learn to read the whole thread before reacting and posting lol.

yea. My preferred solution would be to eliminate void skiff, rocket board, etc as P2W powers, and put the animations in place as an alternate appearance / Power Customization choice for Fly. So you'd still have to take "Fly" as a power in order to fly, but if you want to suddenly sprout a Raptor Pack whenever you activate fly, you could. I am however, aware of the current limitations on combat animations for things like Rocket Board. I hope someday that can be addressed, and then also made into a Power Customization for Fly. I do have a rather extensive "It would be cool if..." list that will probably never be done.

Chains (I think) should be just one alternate weapon look for a Whips set. <Obligatory 'Whips and Chains' joke goes here> I'd like a variety of such looks, to allow for an Indiana Jones bullwhip, or the Desdemona fire-whip, to something like Spawn whipping a length of chain around a foe. I wouldn't mind a Hawkman Ball-and-Chain.... .... but perhaps that should be under War Mace. I have no idea how much resources and time that would take to produce. I suspect it's not trivial just to decide what types of attacks would make for a balanced set comparable to other melee sets, and then produce the animations. I suspect we're talking a serious time investment. There is a fair bit of demand though, evidenced by the Petless-Demon-Summoners.

Somehow I missed this thread all year long. I gotta say, I ... will have to roll up a Kinetic Mele Scrapper, just based on the original post alone.

Just please please please when Redside content, writers should keep in mind "Team Evil" is not very team-centric. Lord Recluse wouldn't give two spits what becomes of the Restructurists in principle. It's not "Enemy of my Enemy is my Friend". It's "Enemy of my Enemy is a Useful Stooge". Recluse should only send forces to aid them if he stands to benefit in some way. Now sometimes, that would be preventing Vanguard from forming a lasting peace treaty, to keep things shaken up so he has more room to move, and keep Vanguard's forces occupied. Sometimes, that might be because he sees a good opportunity to nab some tech for Arachnos. Sometimes it might be because he sees an opportuntiy to assassinate someone on the opposing side who's been a pain. But it should never be to support the Restructurists JUST for the sake of doing so. There should always be an ulterior motive. For that matter, as much as possible, the missions should also be written to provide an ulterior motive of personal benefit to your redside character. Sure, RECLUSE may want to use them in his game of chess against Statesman Lady Grey. But why would my stalker give two spits what Recluse wants, or what benefits Arachnos? What's in it for me?? Redside content that doesn't cover those angles would barely be worth playing.

Automatic upvote for RUSH

My brother jokes that if we're ever invaded by high tech aliens that we have NO chance against in battle, we should just give them free subscriptions to MMO's and enslave them all that way, because they'll be too busy doing progression raiding and having infighting over who deserved what piece of loot to finish us off.

This makes me a bit more sympathetic to the Circle of Thorns, actually. It sounds like the Spectral Daemons would properly appreciate Wierd Al's #WordCrimes video.

Escort missions aren't especially irksome to me on a stalker. But I do admit, ever since the gloriousness that is Assassin's Focus, I kind of build my Stalkers as Scrappers. They still have the OPTION to use hide, for particularly nasty openers, but most of the time, they're unhid, diving into piles of foes and doing the "stab stab stab Stab Stab Stab STAB STAB STAB" bit Once in awhile they Pay The Price. But generally they wreck face. And the /Regen stalker pretty much always ends every fight at max health and laughes evilly as he dives into the next group. The defense based ones can be a bit more touch-and-go, but the IO procs give them very good maintence heals as they go.

I like MOST of the ideas here. But I cannot support the proposed changes to Instant Healing and feel it's a complete deal-breaker and destruction of the set. A third Click Heal, even with short-to-no-cooldown, would be vastly less useful to me than the current sky-high regeneration boost that IH provides. I would leave IH exactly as it currently exists. Mayyyyyyyybe drop the cooldown a touch. Maybe.

Cel-Shading does that? jeez. If it wasn't already in my "no thanks" bucket, this kind of thing would be enough of a deal breaker for me to put it there.

I can totally see that. My brother and I created accounts on Project 1999 (EverQuest classic + Kunark + Velious, no other expansions) and played around with it for a couple weeks reliving some of the nostalgia. But the grind broke us in fairly short order. Feeding coin into Tradeskills. Only really being able to level up by getting a team and setting down in a 'Camp' to kill orcs or gnolls or what-have-you in the same area as they respawned again and again. Faction grinding. The "You Can Never Go Home Again" was very real for EverQuest. Homecoming has managed it, though, in no small part because CoH was always designed to be vastly more casual friendly.

Magical Sonic attacks are a thing in tabletop dungeons and dragons gaming. But it is rare that it gets used. Rare enough to earn this honorable mention: https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0345.html I do agree 100% on Traps and Assault Rifle / Beam Rifle / Dual Pistols. I've seen suggestions on toher threads to make use of rifles and pistols just one more "weapon" choice, and instead also allow wands or staves or casting animations, or allow wrist mounted beam emanation points for a more technological hardsuit look if you wanted, etc. I have zero expectations of that. But I really do with the original devs had put in more animation / looks to allow even THOSE sets to have passable analoges for each Origin.

Well, there's a lot of shades of gray along the way, too. I don't like Incarnate powers being available in all 46+ content. I think it should be pretty much iTrials only, or any lvl 50 content that was introduced with or after the incarnate system, no other exceptions whatsoever. I'm never going to get my way on that, but that's where I would have drawn the line if it had been my choice to make. But I do think Attuned enhancements, Converters, and the way the auction house pools resources into fungible pools is wonderously good. And I do like largely unrestricted sidekicking. I never minded doing missions to unlock capes or auras, BUT, if something like Wings were restricted, and I was trying to do a Birdman concept, I'd have been ticked. And if my character concept involved having energy claws, but those claws were not available until I'd defeated X many mobs to unlock that look of that weapon type, I'd have been ticked. So I don't mind costume pieces being all unlocked. I like having Inherent fitness. I like being able to choose Fly without first having to take a pre-req. But at the same time I would absolutely remove things like Void Skiffs and the ability to buy 8 hours of jetpacks at a time from P2W vendor. I sort of feel like characters *should* take a travel power. I'm never going to get my way on that one either. I'd definitely remove all the amplifiers (offensive, defensive, survival) from the P2W vendor. And same deal, I'm never going to get my way on that one either.