MTeague

Solution in search of a problem, I think. I've found veteran players to be reasonably generous when new players are having trouble affording enhancements. Now, yes, possibly there are some new players suffering in silence, without the gumption to speak up and ask for advice on how to get influence (Which then can easily get them an email donation...), but in all things, it's the squeaky wheel that gets the grease. [EDIT: that said, as long as we're talking a donation system and not some kind of tax, sure why not. I don't see any harm in it.]

As long as:

Remember that the Homecoming devs are in no way bound by the unfinished plans of the Live Devs. It is possible that the Homecoming Devs may already consider Incarnates to be finished, as is, with no intent to add any more, ever. Or they may plan to go the full distance, someday. I have seen no official word on the matter. I am sure that there's no upside to them saying "yea, it's on the list". Because then the fan base will ask "Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet?" even more than we already do.

I stand corrected.

Time is in a really good spot already. I'm not convinced any changes are needed. I wouldn't refuse it, but there are other Support Sets in greater need of love, imho.

Keep in mind there is a max number of tips, and if you're not interested and drop the tip, you'll probably just keep getting it and keep having to drop it. That said, I'm not really opposed to the idea. I just think some degree of unintended hassle is likely. But said hassle, would be quite manageable.

From a curiosity point of view, I'd love to sneak a peek at any kind of Sprint Plan / Kanban board / Trello / JIRA that they may be using to organize who's working on what, and what theirr big-picture view going forward is. But if I were a developer? I would tell me, in no uncertain terms, There is just no upside for the developers to give that information to the players. A statement that someone is working on something will be carved into stone tablets, and if the idea has to be scrapped or scaled back, players will scream "But you promised!!!!!" even if the devs were very clear nothing was ever promised. ndividually, I think most players realize this is done in the devs spare time, unpaid, and they all have other family obligations, other needs for their own downtime, and heck it's quite possible each developer can only put in 10 hours a week to this effort... if that. Or maybe they'll surprise me and they do clock in 20 to 30. I don't know. I'm sure it varies week to week, month to month. Real life happens to them, same as it happens to us. But I do know that in groups, users, and particularly gamers, have the patience of an ADHD five year old on a serious caffiene trip. We're all full of the Best Ideas that Anyone Has Ever Had, and it seems incomprehensible to many why certain things have not been implemented years ago. Because we don't really know the devs, they're just faceless account names to us, and we want all the Cool New Shinies.

I kept him alive easily on my Mind/Kin controller. I just spammed the Sheet out of Transfusion, Dominate, and Confuse. Royally sucked on my Scrapper, though. [EDIT: wait, my bad, it was General Aarons who I kept alive. Him pistol whipping everyone meant he was always in range for a Transfusion. I make no claims for Thunderhead.]

I play a fair bit of goldside. I've got 12 different praetorian characters. But the very first thing I do if I joins a goldside team is activate "No Xp". Because while I'll gladly help out anyone who needs a hand with a mission or four, I'm not going to accidentally outlevel my own story arcs. I do tend to be careful in Imperial City, though. I will not do Inspector Kang's missions until I've already done Dr. Steffard's missions, because I like the Katie Douglas missions, and I never want to miss those. Still. I would generally have another character who's already past that point who could help out for that case.

Blueside, I've never failed a timed mission even when soloing on my Mind/Kin controller, at levels where he did NOT have access to Fulcrum Shift. So, I don't consider timed missions an issue, at all. Now, "surprise" timers, are deeply unwelcome and should never exist. If I'm trying to squeeze in one last mission when I should ahve already been in bed two hours ago, the game should not surprise you with a timed mission. But I can only think of a handful of times I've seen that, and even those, the mission text says something like "once you've done that, you'll only have about an hour to do FOO", so as long as I'm reading, I can know in advance.

Debbie Downer now lives on Everlasting. Dark/Dark/Dark Defender, naturally. Villainous, because being heroic takes too much zip and pep.

Honestly, I don't think a CoH2 will ever happen, even if there's a few new successful MMO's. I'm not saying there couldn't ever be another super-hero MMO. But I don't believe NCSoft will ever bless use of the CoH intellectual property beyond what they have already done with Homecoming. So if a next-generation game comes out? It won't have any NPC's or landmarks you associate with CoH. Archtype names will be different. Powersets will be different, if indeed they separate powesets from archtype at all. And whoever developed it, will want to quickly recover all of the costs of developing the game, so there will either be a substantial monthly fee, or it will be chock-full of "technically" optional microtransactions, like Diablo Immortal, or worse. Yea, I'm channelling Debbie Downer (.... which now I have to go check if that name is available on Everlasting...), but.... for major projects like creating a new MMO, "follow the money" is a great rule of thumb. What gamers want will only be occasionally be paid attention to. It's amazing to me that people don't understand how good we've got it here.

They're very low hanging fruit to slot the +3% defense all uniques. For my EM/EA Brute, I skip Boxing/Tough/Weave, slot the +3% uniques in those, and nab Manuevers rather than Energy Cloak (because I want to see my own darn costume!), After that, 5 piece Unbreakable Guard, depending how tight I am on slots. I want that +7.5% HP, and I'm a sucker for any +% discount to all endurance cost bonuses.

I've played on Excelsior and Everlasting. So far as I can tell, they both appear to be populated primarily by human beings. General Chat sometimes entertains, sometimes makes me roll my eyes, and sometimes I turn it off for a few days. LFG Chats are generally all business. Help chat is pretty help-focused, but some questions will spawn discussions. People seem able to fill groups no problem during prime time, but struggle overnight, and definitely struggle during the normal workday. (I have wierd hours, so sometimes I'm on then). I find Everlasting has a good base of Redside players, but still never gonna touch Blueside numbers.

Eh, ... even "bad" damage types... aren't that bad. Teaming there will be enough debuffs flying around that you'll still wreck face / meaningfully contribute. Soloing... I guess if you focus a lot on solo farms, and you really care about clear times, it can be an issue. I don't, and I don't, so it's not an issue for me. My Claws scrapper still kills things plenty fast enough, my Assault Rifle Blaster still drops targets fast enough, and my Savage brute still rips enemies a new one (literally) plenty fast enough, and my Ninja Blade stalker never felt slow killing anything. I don't think Lethal is as big a deal as people tend to think. Your milage may vary, feel free to decide I don't know WTF I'm talking about.

Now, it is very true, that For Purples, generally I'm doing a whole set, so I will leave them hexagonal, so that the set matches, and I can boost them. But if I'm putting just the Damage Proc and nothing else in a power? Or a Panacea proc but not most of the set into a power? Then I will buy them attuned. I cannot abide having a mix of circles AND hexagons in the very same power.

They're probably not going to let us summon Tyrant instead of Statesman. Although it would be fun.

Clearly what we need are Signature Summons for Fusionette, Flamebeaux, Dillo, Zephyr, and Arbiter Sands.

As it is, I already wish the forward facing heals of Marine and Nature would turn to my selected target. I'm not expecting that to change. I will suck it up and adapt, and grumble each time I waste a cast. But it's not my favoritest of all possible mechanics.

I do think the TF badges should be restricted to players who were there for the entire Task Force. Should not be awarded if you jumped in for the final mission. That said, a pro-rating of the reward merits based on the number of missions you were present for, doesn't seem like a big deal to me. Also, I don't know code-wise if this would be trivial or a massive PITA. No harm in asking, though. Worst case, they say no.

Oh, I think I remember that guy!

Mixing debuffs just for the ouro badges can still be done, but I still like Snarkys terminology on majors and minors. Don't combine majors unless you have this thing for pain. But you know, there is this song that says "Some of them want to be abused...." Keeping the same challenge settings for the rest of a character's life, or at least, for a really long time ... /salute, but I would not do that thing. I would totally join for the odd mission if someone needed/wanted a hand, but you crazy, mon. Of course, crazy, can be a good thing.

More Importantly, finishing Operative Kuzmin's arc puts Arachnos back in charge of Fort Darwin, as it should be.

re: popularity. If any kind of benchmark is to be used for that, I hope they consider hours spent logged in on the character, or the number of missions completed on the character, not the simple number or characters that exist of a given archtype. Characters powerlevelled to 50 and rarely touched again, are not something that should influence this. Also, if popularity is to be used, I think it is best used to refine things down to specific powerset combinations. If there's 6x as many Marine Affinity characters getting actual playtime as there are Empaths getting actual playtime, that may inform some decisions as well.

Have you tried paying them a decent salary, maybe offering a good 401(k) plan? You really don't want high employee turnover during a crucial project.