MTeague

I'm absolutely certain it does. I mean the other detective in the zone is Det. Fish. There's no way in hell that's not talking about Abe Vigoda.

I'm curious. What do you mean by "decentralized" in this context? What changes would you want?

Last restaraunt metaphor for me, I promise. If it's a place I've been to many many times, and it's always been good, then sure, if one waiter is rude, I may speak to the manager about that waiter, but I'd likely still be a regular. If it's my first time visiting them? Nope. Buh-Bye, See Ya. I probably wouldn't even tell the manager why. I'd say, nope, let Darwin sort out the good restaurants from the bad, not my job to try to save you. PvP is pretty much in that "First Impression" arena for me. I'm not a regular, I haven't enjoyed it in other games, so anything that makes it unpleasant has me decide "Nope, that's not how I want to allocate my limited gaming time."

Is it really that unreasonable? There's a bazillion restaraunts out there. Why should I give Chez MacSkull 3,4,5,6 strikes? It may not be fair to the restaraunt owner, or chef. But I guarantee you, real world, it's very often "one strike and you're out forever" in the restaraunt business.

Well. Let's face it, if staff at a restatraunt is rude, it's quite likely many people will leave and never come back. And it's not necessarily just the person the waiter was rude to. Patrons at nearby tables may also decide to vote with their wallet. That happens, in the real world, every day.

I very much prefer to eyeball and wing builds. I do not have Mid's at all. I've considered getting it... just so I could post what I've come up iwth in a language most of the player base can use. But generally I eyeball combat stats, and decide what I need more of, and then look to see what slotting I'm happy with, and what I'm not. I'm also perfectly fine and dandy if the result is Not Perfectly Optimized, but can still kicks azz. If I only have 2-3 LotG +7.5%'s slotted, and no Hasten at all, I'm okay with that. I prefer mixing up different pool powers and using different things on different characters REGARDLESS of what's most effective, just to shake it up a little and experiment with a varied toolkit.

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/molly-guard

I will never turn down new content, whether that's story arcs, whether thats changes to powersets, whether that's new features in base building or AE maps, etc. That said, I've also learned quite a bit of patience in the 7 years I waited for this game to rise from it's grave. And I would much rather have a well prepared omelette than a plate with some raw eggs and a slice of cheese and some chopped ham and onions. So if you NEED to take your time? Do so. I have no fear of the game "Dying" out from under us again if we don't get new shiny toys on a regular basis. Transparency is a good thing, but I get there's also the factor that this is a labor of love, and not a paying job, and people have families and other obligations as well. I can understand that while I as an end user might very much appreaciated some kind of blog or posted notes from scrum sessions of who's been working on what lately, what's starting to look good, what didn't pan out and went back to the drawing board, what's been set aside into the "sorry guys, we tried but no" bucket.... as much as I'd like that.... I can understand that from the standpoint of the developers, that might just be BEGGIN for non-stop criticism and "why didn't you do this instead" and the always 'helpful' suggestions of people who've never read the code and don't get why some things are not straightforward. So, if you guys WANT to do some kind of blog / weekly minutes update, whatever? I'll devour it, I'm sure so will many others. But if you'd almost rather saw your legs off? I get that too. And I'm fine with it, if you prefer to keep things behind the scenes. TL;DR You Do You, I'm here for the duration.

I'd be totally fine with Incarnate powers if they were only available in content that was created in the same issue or after incarnate powers were created. That is to say, not available, and not in effect, not even your alpha, in most 45-50 content. I'm well aware that the majority (or at least a vocal subset) the players Completely disagrees with me on that. I'm well aware that where which incarnates are in effect, is Highly Improbable to ever change. My solution to that is I solo the vast majority of 45-50 content. I just don't join most lvl 50 teams unless they really ARE doing truly incarnate content. And no, I do not count ITF's there. I'll do a low level ITF, run by people at 35-44, gladly. I do not join at 45-50 ITF. Even if that means people look at me like I have three heads. If even more incarnate powers were added... not gonna lie, I'd think it was a compounded travesty if they were also made available at 45+. But since I already have my own solution to that, I can no longer summon the Hulk Smash rage.

There could be a Tunnel Snakes splinter faction. And they could rule.

Not untrue, but I've been a strong proponent of "I shoudl be able to walk up to any contact, at any level, and be auto-exemplared down to the right level for their missions if I accept the mission" Hasn't happened yet of course, but I hold out hope nonetheless.

I'm having a blast on my Staff/Willpower scrapper. She's lvl 29 though, so has a few more powers available to her. Staff is going to be a little be AE centric no matter what. You'll MOW down a wall of minions in an enjoyably short time as you ThunkThunkThunkThunkThunk away. When you're down to just the boss, you'll be a bit slower to take him down than say, a MA scrapper. But it's not that bad. If you find yourself having End issues, Form of the Soul can work as a short term fix. @Vulpoid is correct, once you CAN, then Form of the Body is generally superior, you'll likely switch to that and never look back, unless you're doing some kind of RP concept. But if you're sucking wind and running out of End, Form of the Soul fixes that pretty quick until you have more slotting available to you. Mercurial Blow is meh. I respecced out of it, haven't looked back. Precise Strike is a decent single target hit. Nothing snazzy, but hey, it's a T2. What do you expect? Guarded Spin on cooldown. It's your Parry. Live it. Love it. Eye of the Storm, if surrounded, use on cooldown with 3 stacks / orange ring. If not, can still be worth it for chance of Knockdown. That's saved me vs bosses in close fights before. Serpents Reach, good solid single target hit, decent shortrange strike, decent chance of Knockdown. Plus, if you use the bladed staff, looks like you're stabbing with it if used point blank. Innocuous Strikes, strong cone. use if guarded spin is on cooldown. I don't have access to sky splitter yet. Some things of note: No BuildUp for you! the sads. 😞 But you do have some constant on bonus damage in Form of the Body stacks. Consider Tactics and Gaussian's proc toss in some -RES debuffs where you can. Fury of the Glad for sure. when you can spare the slots for it, toss in a Force Feedback proc into Eye of the Storm and/or Serpent's Reach

I am sufficiently bad at statistics / probability calculations that I'm withholding judgement. I don't feel that I'll be able to really grasp it until I did it out and played it. But I do wonder the result will just be too unpredictable / unreliable to trust. After all, if the AV can 3-shot my Controller... and the Envoy of Shadow certainly did take me down that fast, first several attempts....then 4 out of 100 uses feels... like most of the time, I'll be taking the Hospital Express, and I'd never actually SEE an Overwhelming Overpower. Thats' kind of why I was suggesting some kind of "Sluggish" debuff, ... I'd suggested -Recharge, but -Damage might work too... that could allow for *some* reliable degree of mitigation without neutering the Big Bad completely.

the only problem with Scirocco's patron arc, is if you're a more-or-less decent guy, you kind of want him to succeed. And the arc has NO option for that. That's one thing I wish you could do. TRY to back him, even if the game then railroaded you into failure. I get that in terms of storyline he *cannot* succeed, but the player should be allowed to TRY. (even if they must also hardcoded fail at that attempt)

Depends on the Sentinel. My Fire/Fire/Fire sentinel lives in melee a lot, between Burn, FireSwordCircle, Cremate, Inferno, point blank fireballs, stepping back a step or two for Fire Breath, Consume, etc. My Ice/Dark sentinel does tend to stay at least at midrange though, even without Hover.

I haven't used Claws/EA, but I do have a Claws/SR, and there's a fair bit of overlap. Note: depending on your influence, how fast you make it / farm / enjoy marketeering, etc, you may see some of these as pricey. That's fine. Build them up over time. They can be goals, not necessarily something to slot right away. But if you're rolling in the dough, hey, sugar-daddy away. Steadfast Protection +3% defense all, Gladiator's Armor +3% defense all. Get ASAP. You get two Resist Damage passives in EA, so you don't even need to pick up Kick/Tough. For Maintenence Heals that just passively happen: Panacea Proc: big help vs endurance, too Power Transfer Proc: when I can afford a slot for stamina, I like. Maybe also good for your clicky-End-Leech power. Shield Wall +5% resist all proc: because it's literally too good not to slot Reactive Defenses Scaling Damage Resist: same. /EA is Typed defense, so slot with that in mind Kinetic Combat, good Smashing/Lethal defense at 4 slots Eradication, good Energy/Negative defense at 4 slots Winter-O's generally have nice Fire/Cold defense, esp Avalanche. Naturally, work in your ATO's in there somewhere. When you can fit them, I like having a few source of -% endurance cost of all powers. Unbreakable Guard is a good source of this to tuck away in a Resist power (either one of your passives and/or Tough), you'll want it's +7.5% Max HP unique anyway Annihilation is a source of this, and comes with a -RES debuff proc, never sucks. Reactive Defenses is a source of this, and if you six slot one of your defense toggles with this, you get +8.75% recharge for your trouble. not too shabby. Preventative Medicine is a source of this, and the Absorb proc is always worth slotting even on it's own. This one might not be feasible to work into /EA though, trying to remember. You'll probably end with a moderate weakness to Psionic defense. It's hard to stack big numbers for Psionic defense specifically. But you should have very good numbers for the other types, and the set bonuses providing half-positional-defense vs corresponding type helps a lot too. For your attacks, Focus and Shockwave are very nice. I actually skip them, but that's for OCD reasons where I want to make physical attacks with the claws rather than have waves of force. By the NUMBERS though, that's a bad decision for me. I should be taking Focus and Shockwave. Spin is happiness and light. Eviscerate, many people hate the length of the animation. It hits QUITE hard on a scrapper though, I'd take it.

I think a Tanker will have a wider-area AoE attack that can hit more foes per activation. But the Sentinel may have 4-5 different AoE attack the can chain together, vs a Tanker having like, 1, maybe two if they got Crosspunch. Sentinel armor sets are Scrapper levels of durability; Tankers and Brutes can build up higher. But that said, a well built Sentinel, much like a well built Scrapper, can still take an awful lot of incoming punishment. They won't be able to hold aggro well, but a Sentinel or two to soak the alpha strike and a mix of other AT's coming in right behind them will do right fine for most content.

When I lead teams, I never go above +3, because if anyone lower level joined, they'll be sidekicked up to -1. Because any +4's to me, would be +5's to whoever is sidekicked. That's just unkind. I know, many players will view it as "but I can kill them all easy, sidekicks should just sit back and enjoy the easy XP". And I can respect that view. But it's that whole thing where I absolutely LOATHE the feeling of being carried, and when I lead, I assume (correctly or not) that anyone I invite probably feels the same way. Frequently, I'll have it set at +2 and no higher unless requested by the team, particularly if there's a bunch of MM's on the team. If I plan to do a specific story arc, I absolutely advertise that up front, so that players know it will be that arc, and not a round-robin of missions from each player.

I do enjoy cutscenes. I think the ones in the game, are generally speaking well done, particularly First/Night Ward and the various "Choices" in Praetoria's 1-20 arcs. I'd be willing to give audio a fair trial; however, I'm nervous on audio, because of just how incredibly BAD I consider the Galaxy City Tutorial to be. The audio there is so horrendous, I've actually developed an entirely irrational hatred for the character of Blue Spectrum, even if that hatred should be more properly directed at the NPC blaring over the radio at you. When character concept demands someone start in Galaxy City, I mute my headphones for the duration. Seriously the Galaxy City tutorial is a textbook case of how NOT to nag a player, for it's entire duration. Plus, you'll have some players who simply are deaf, or hard of hearing, or who's playing situations (sleeping baby, etc) require them to play without sound. So as long as I have an option to disable audio and use close captioning, then sure, experiment away with audio. Lord knows they can't do worse than Galaxy City, short of actually using nails on a chalkboard.

So, a major shift to focus on the Family?

Many people spend all their time on a Lvl 50 doing Peregrine Island, ITF's, iTrials, and an occasional Dark Astoria. But many other people may spend the same amount of time on their nominally level 50 character exemplared down, doing Ouroborous Marathons. "endgame" varies by player. If you'll be exemplaring down a lot, then those incarnates may be completely out the window for you. Someone who mainly exemplars basically has no Clarion, no Ageless, No Barrier, no Lore pets, your Alpha doesn't matter, no Hybrid, etc. That may shift the math a lot to how much you might keep feeling blasters as squishy vs not.

I acknowledge this produces mathematically superior numbers in many situations. I can't do it. I keep feeling a great disturbance in the force, of millions of potential set bonuses that cried out, and were suddenly silenced.

I'm okay with AE having that level of detail as an option.... but .... keep a "Baby's First AE Builder" option too lol to just handle the 10 thousand details that go into a stellar base that most of us are simply too unskilled to use properly lol

Aw man, for a half second, I thought you meant Indomitable will came with a Power Boost effect, and I'd been Captain Oblivious all this time, never knowing what I had lol. (and was wondering how in gods name anyone would ever take any other epic, if that were so....)