MTeague

My only quibble is I don't like powersets to virtually REQUIRE a particular origin. I like Energy Blast, because the source of the energy is indeterminate. It can be magical. Or a mutant power. Or powers you gained by science, from a tech suit, or maybe you're an inhuman and it's natural for your species. Ditto with Energy Aura. By contrast, "Arcane Blast" with "Mage Bolt" or "Mystical Aura" with "Residual Magic" feel much too baked into Magic Origin. I'd just rather the powerset / power names be kept more fungible. Even if the combat effects would be exactly as you propose, I'd like the concept/naming to plausible as something that COULD be Magic, or Tech, or Mutant, etc. Yes, there is the Sorcery pool, but that's even labeled an Origin pool, and it's neither a primary nor secondary.

I'm absolutely sure I would come up with some inventive curses as I spent 20 minutes swearing at my computer screen. Then, I'd start laughing at myself and calling myself the Biggest Idiot Ever (though I tell ya, there's a LOT of competition for that title....) Then I'd realize 55 mil, while it would sting to blow it on 10 rare salvage, I can earn back with fairly little effort from a few rounds of converter roulette. I'm pretty sure it wouldn't bother me after that.

https://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/all-things-scottish/n10127

That's a fair point. I'll admit, part of me wanted to be snarky and read it in a Jeff Goldblum "Life... finds a way!" voice. But snark aside, you're right. Strictly speaking, we don't know. Maybe some computational algorithm, Siri version 98002, will actually become truly self aware, AND, able to make choices on it's own beyond what data and programmed responses were initially available. I'm ... HIGHLY... skeptical of this. I think we're really good (and getting better) and giving things versimialatude of seeming like it's sentient without actually BEING sentient, and I don't think we'll ever cross that bridge. (though, I admit, in my more cynical moments, I also wonder if HUMANS count as "actually sentient" and not just "looking like it"....). But if I'm going to be honest with myself, I has hunches and guesses and no clue what we'll have in the year 2525. Or even 2022.

The cel-shading doesn't do it for me. I don't want to feel like I'm looking a comic book. I want to feel like it actually IS the real world. But I definitely appreciate having the OPTION to turn it on or off.

I strongly suspect it's an issue with your internet. I don't think I've experienced rubberbanding, ever, since ... Oct 2019? Or so? and I've played it a lot this past year. I get that it's GOT to be frustrating as hell. I remember dealing with Rubberbanding issue in EverQuest, Diablo2, and WoW, and man o man, it SUCKED. I do not mean to pooh-pooh the issue. But I don't see how it can be an issue on the Homecoming side of things.

I've been a programmer for 25 years. I have ABSOLUTELY no fear of a Skynet situation. Experience has shown me, time and time again, that All Code Is Bad <--- not mine, but a HILAROUSLY TRUE rant If an AI does begin to emerge, it will die, choking on bugs, it's last thoughts being "Why? Why does bad code happen to good people!?" as the uncaring sky fades to black.

Scrapperlock Haiku!

Absolutely, right there with you. Once upon a time, I saw this mission wipe teams. We're talking before IO's. SO's only. No inherent fitness. And probably wasn't the best config'd team. The first few waves? Easy Peasy. Next few? Easy Peasy. Then people starting running out of END. And kill speed plummetted. And Red Caps were diving into the earth and promoting themselves to Lieutenants and Bosses, because we couldn't kill them fast enough while scrapping the bottom of the barrel in need of END. It hit a point of no return when there were over 8 bosses at once, throwing gnomes on our heads to blind us and dogpiling on. Later on, with a team that was actually prepped for that mission, and which had sufficient boosts to END recovery (Empath + Rad defenders), that team stomped the bejeezus out of it. Now, today? With IO's? Panacea Procs and Perf Shifter Proc's being almost standard? Not so much. Now, it's largely a joke. You're not going to hit a point where you start hemmoraging END and suddenly everyone's DPS hits the floor. But once upon a time? It was possible.

the chosen one who will bring balance to the equation?

I should. I'm not going to use any of the P2W amplifiers though. Logical or not, it's a thing.

I'm mostly okay soloing my Blasters, but am stuck on one particular First Ward mission at the moment. (the one were Katie teleports you into the Asylum and there's endless waves of laser guided seers). Admittedly, it really doesn't help that I've got it set at +1x2 with Bosses, and I'm being a Stubborn Idjit who refuses to consider lowering that. But I was able to manage every prior mission in First Ward that way, so realllly reluctant to accept reality now.

Most of my Sentinel's live in melee range anyway, so the existing toggles are fine by me. It may vary a bit depending on your primary.

If you have a character that is a shapeshifter (concept wise, of course...) Use Assymetrical Gloves Then use the Cosmic Corsair Hook for both right AND left hands. Then use Savage Melee. It looks significantly more brutal.

Uncomfortable animations. Knocking down a male enemy with Eye of the Storm (staff fighting) and then using Innocuous Strikes, jabbing him....well... someplace you don't want to be jabbed... with a BLADED spear. Astonishingly, he got up after that and kept fighting! THAT's some serious hardcore training for the D.U.S.T. Soldiers.

So, May is the "Anniversary Event", like October having Halloween, or December having the Winter event. I can work with that.

If it affected combat, I would have to tell them. If it doesn't affect combat in any way shape or form..... it becomes much easier to rationlize

"Sprocket Man" (and I think it's gonna be a long, long time...)

I .... like.... these missions.... most of that though, I guess is really nostalgia from doing them before IO's ever existed. At SO's, on a medium ("Rugged") difficulty setting, I saw them give a few teams trouble. Never again, after all the changes that have happened since then though.

There's already a stone-like look. The texture isn't 100% the same, but it's not bad.

Female boots with non-high-heel options, and that didn't SOUND like heels when moving. I mean, if she's wearing COMBAT BOOTS, or Sneakers, why it gotta sound like heels?

This is a huuuuge part of why I use the option to disable XP so much. It's not the only reason; as much as I know I *can* go back later to do Safeguards and Mayhems I missed levelling up, I do like them, and I don't want to miss any as I level. but it's so easy to completely outlevel phase 2 of a long story arc (croatoa, striga) while you're still only doing phase 1. and I like doing several story arcs in each level range on the way up.

Now I have an urge to see if Mitten Man is taken.

I'd create Traffic Jams. No. Literally. I mean exactly that. It's a CITY. There's no morning / evening commute? What's up with that? We have a sunrise sunset. It ought to be possible to have certain streets have backed up traffic at certain times of day. Also, I'd fix NPC Civilian Distribution in Independance Port. There's a complete HUMAN WALL of civilians marching north / south along the eastern sidewalk by the zone to Brickstown and north a bit frokm there, because they apparrently have NO IDEA where else they can go. I mean, I guess they're not going to go hang out in Perez Park. But that one stretch of sidewalk just can't be THAT happening of a neighborhood. I'd figure how to distribute civlians around the rest of the zone, or I'd slash their numbers by at least 75%.

Yea. As much a I would have liked to have had the game for all those seven years? I totally get why it was treated as Double Top Secret Classified. They're fairly little fish in a great big sea, and who needs an army of lawyers going up places you really don't want armies of lawyers going? Were the worries unfounded? People can armchair quarterback that back and forth for years (and will, I have no doubt) but without the benefit of 20/20 hindsight? I might have made the exact same choices if I'd been in their shoes. And that's even assuming HC = SCORE, which I've never even been sure is true. All I care about is I have the game NOW. And Homecoming is doing their level best to get an above-board agreement hammered out with the legal owners of the IP. And I've seen nothing but professional and reasonable behavior from them since I found this place. I don't see any benefit in obsessing over coulda/shoulda/woulda for what might have been during the Snap.