MTeague

Loyalist (Responsibility) and Resistance (Warden) are both valid good-guy option. For the Responsibility option, You just have to look at it from the perspective of a character who grew up in Praetoria, and who truly believes deep down to their toenails that the entire human race was literally inches away from going EXTINCT until Cole stopped Hamidon. It's very easy to forgive a lot, or to accept some things as unpleasant but as brutal necessities that the people just have to accept if you think the literal survival of your entire species depends on a few specific Praetors. You may be a PPD / Powers Division who's not comfortable with the Seers, and you may think Praetor TIlman is sick and that Praetor White is a thug. But if they're part of the last defense of the human race... (at least until you learn about other options on Primal Earth....), you may find yourself in a "The Good of the Many Outweighs the Good of the Few, or the One" position, and feel like you have to stop at least the extreme elements of the Resistance, even if you may privately sympathize greatly with the more peaceful elements within the Resistance. Inspector Kang is a great example of this.

I want a Looney Tunes travel power where your character can run through walls leaving a perfect cartoon cutout behind them. Okay, not really. But I just imagined out of control characters with 7 stacks of speed boost on the smacking into the walls, and.... yeah. 🙂

Part of me would like an "Opt Out" option to the Incarnate system entirely, for when you have a character who is not intended to become a godlike figure, but is just a normal human being with anger issues and some fancy gear. But I recognize that I can just ignore the incarnate slots and deliberately leave them all blank, and just spend the threads on Super Inspirations. As far as a new new server with a new ruleset.... I wouldn't hate the idea, esp if I liked the new toolset.... but it would add a supportability burden to the developers, as everytime they change something it would need to be tested in both arenas, and given thoughts to balancing them in both arenas. I'm not sure they want to take that on.

AE is only your really best bet here. Especially if you want your "Arch Enemy" to be one of your own alts. Yes, I'm one of those "Must have one of everything / there must be balance", so for every Hero I create, I create a corresponding Villain. They're not always mirror images or exact opposites, but I keep them balanced X many of each archtype for red and blue, approximately equal numbers of male and female, approximately equal distribution of origins, etc. and I have a mental headcanon of how a "Final Confrontation" would play out and who would defeat who in a giant Battle Royale. The OCD is very real, sometimes.

I remade all the first 10 of my Guardian Server characters. I got 8 of the 10 names as-was, too. 2 required slight renaming. Although, the character that was my Fire/Thermal Corruptor on Guardian server, was reborn here as a Fire/Fire Sentinel. I'd really wanted a Sentinel back in live but they didn't exist... I wanted him to be tough, made of living steel and fire, but I didn't want him to be summoning Fire Swords in melee. So in live I had to choose between Brute and Corruptor and ultimately chose Corr. Here... I remade him as what he was always supposed to be. Fire Blast/Fire Armor.

It was also fairly common to form teams to help other people finish their missions, even when you'd already done said mission, just to get more XP yourself to ding up to the next tier. It also allowed for a nice diversion to do some radio missions and get the mayhem / safeguard for that level range, back before it was possible to unlock them via Villain Disruptor / Hero Slayer.

if you hate large scale events like Hamidon, MSR, or iTrials, you never have to run them. ever. But there's certain badges you just won't get. If you hate morality missions and don't want to run them, ever, you never have to. But there's certain badges you just won't get. If you hate crafting and never want to craft enhancements or fiddle with recipes, you never have to. But there's certain badges you just won't get. If you dont' like Ouroborous and flashbacks, you never have to use it, but there's certain badges you just won't get. If you don't like PvP and don't ever want to set foot into a PvP zone..... It's a completely logical progression to me. You're never forced to enter the zone. You do get to choose for yourself if the reward is worth it to you, or not. And there's really no shame in saying "it's not worth it to me."

For recipe's sold to an NPC vendor (crafted enhancements cannot be sold to them, only recipes), perhaps. But if you post something on the auction house for a lower price than intended and it sold, no. That's too bad for you. The buyer has already received it and no backsies there.

Go run missions in the Night Ward. Exemplared down to content level. Have some fun with the Awakened. You don't lack for tougher content if you want to face it.

Re: original topic, ability to self-flag in other zones. I'd be fine with this, and consider it a good things, subject to a few conditions. A self-flagged PvP'er in a PvE zone should be completely immune to all effects from non-flagged people of the opposite faction. That is, if someone wants to fight you, they need for formally flag themselves first. Not just attack you, or otherwise, you'd have flagged people TRYING to be hit by somoene else's fireball in order to have them become flagged so that they could fight them. A self-flagged PvP'er in combat with another self-flagged PvP'er should lose all buffs from anyone who is NOT flagged, and should become immune to any heals from somone who is not flagged. They want to provide backup, they need to flag themselves first. A self-flagged PvP'er who is not in combat with another self-flagged PvP'er should retain all buffs and still be healable by non-PvP'ers. Outside of combat with other PvP'ers, you should be just like any other PvE'er,

Has there ever been confirmed Word-of-Devs on this? Frankly, if they have set that as a policy I consider it a mistake. One they of course have the right to make, but a mistake nonetheless. On one hand, okay, I generally do not PvP, and when I do go into the PvP zones, I'm looking for a Shivan, or a Nuke, or a Badge. But I've always considered myself "At Risk" in those forays, and I always considered it PROPER that I should be "At Risk" in those forays.

Totally on board with those being flypose emotes, AS LONG AS, you take 99% damage on flying into any building or hillside because you were too busy texting to look where you were going. 😄 Hands free cellphones integrated into your tech helmets people!

Plant/Psi Psi assault is not the strongest damage, and can have some issues vs zombies / robots, but it's still pretty good and you can use TK Thrust / Roots / Procs to handle robots Seeds of Confusion / Carrion Creepers are both Happiness in a button Drain Psyche being your own personal -Regen debuff is HUGE Drain Psyche and Spirit Tree make you very resiliant as you level up.

Is that even a question? Of course any notices / messages from the GM's are going to come through unfiltered. If a GM is telling someone they're crossing a line and to stop, if the tells were quashed by this filter, that person would probably end up with a much more severe action / ban than if they saw the GM's warning and ceased and desisted on the first warning.

You can ask. But only the devs / mods can choose to change it, or not, based on whether they consider it political, or not. In any event, .... putting it right out there .... the HC team is actually under no obligation to be neutral and fair minded on all matters. If they choose to take a stance that they feel is in accordance with their beliefs, they can... because these forums and the servers are privately owned. They are in no way obligated to provide equal time or opposing viewpoints, etc. Generally I thnk they do a good job of trying NOT to get into it. But if you're truly deeply bothered by a three word sentance in the gmotd, well, you have decisions to make for yourself.

Honestly, it's pretty enjoyable half the time. (when politics is NOT being discussed, and people are talking movies / TV / trivia / things they've cooked recently, etc.) But as we approach November, yes, I expect there will be more and more days where someone just HAS to go there, and segway the conversation into a bout of "The Other Side Sucks!"

If you don't have a Praetorian Double? You ARE the Praetorian Double. They just altered your memories, just like they did to Proton in the Twinshot Arc.

A twenty four hour ban is over soon enough. If you truly feel it was completely unjust, unmerited, and an overreaction, well, put yourself in the shoes of the GM's for a bit. It's probably not the most fun job in the world, and I know for certain I've seen people doing what looked an awful lot like trying to push the bounds and see juuuuuuust how much they could get away with, to try to push someone else's buttons. Maybe it was wrong place / wrong time. And maybe not. Take it for what it is. Try to avoid certain topics of discussion in the future. Yes, you may firmly enjoy speaking your own mind on any topic you please, but at the end of the day, the Homecoming servers are not a public facility, and there is no guaranteed right of free speech on any topic. We are all essentially, guests. If I am a guest, and host makes it quite clear I should avoid certain topics and I keep going back into them, well, why should I not expect the host to become displeased, and to perhaps show me the door?

Thank you guys, SO MUCH, for being willing to deal with what some chat channels can often devolve into. I would find that the most odius and thankless task in the world. "Herding Cats" doesn't even begin to describe it.

Not sure about "most", but certainly willing to concede "many". And it can vary a lot by social groups / people currently present. That said, there's some kinds of behavior that should be given a "boys will be boys", and there's some behavior that absolutely should not. I'd certainly expect people to back off and apologize if they get tells that saying that they're genuinely offending someone. And at a minimum, to just silently stop, even if no apology came. There's really no excuse to continue to bother someone after being told you're causing them genuine distress.

I would not expect such mercy from any PvP'er. I'm firmly in the camp of "you went into the zone, you stayed long enough to get flagged, whaddiya really expect?" I'm NOT actually a PvP'er myself. I'm diehard PvE. But anytime I do enter, for a Shivan, or for some RV badges, etc, I do so knowing I can be ganked, possibly repeatedly ganked to the point where I simply choose to strategically retreat and try again at like 3:30 am, one random night if I get a bout of insomnia. (Insomnia SUCKS, but sometimes, hell, if I'm gonna be awake ANYWAY, I might as well try to use the time....)

I've never used the Ignore feature for anything except the goldfarming bots that existed back in LIVE. I have an overdeveloped sense of Voltaire there. ("disagree with what you say / defend your right to say it") I will report someone if I see them using a racial slur, but not until I scan the conversation and try to capture full impact of how it was used. And that primarily because it's directly against the Code of Conduct and because I don't want people like that sullying the CoH community. But... when it's purely political.... "MAGA" and the like.... yea, political speech may be against the code of conduct, but I just can't bring myself to report anyone for that. I have immediate family with political views that I ..... cannot..... fathom.... for the life of me. But I'd rather try to understand what makes them tick, how they got to where they are, etc, than try to shut people down. I don't feel any pity when I see a GM show up and tell them they'll start handing out silences if people don't drop it. That's the GM's enforcing their rules as the people hosting the game. And I would feel exactly zero shreds of pity if some folks were permabanned for going off politically in chat for a half an hour. But that's qualitiatively different from me issuing a report on political speech that offends me, which.... is a line I just can't bring myself to cross.

50% of the time, General chat is fun and useful and worth reading. 50% of the time, General chat is a toxic morass that .... I question why I have it in my channels at all. I'm pushing 50 and I have never in my life seen people so politicized and so circling wagons thinking anyone with different political views is an inherently bad person with nefarious motives, and that one great joy in life should be to taunt the other side. THAT's the real problem, and I have ZERO clue how that gets fixed or even begin the process of some kind of Detente. But it spills out into General Chat. A LOT. Short of having someone permanently assigned to monitor General Chat and slap it down each time it comes up, I don't know how you can stop it. Sure, political speech in chat channels may be against certain rules, but unless you start silencing / banning people I don't expect it to ever stop. And I'm not really thrilled at the idea of having to have people silenced and banned, either. And god knows I would not want to be stuck with the thankless job of having to monitor general chat or become percieved as the Speech Police. A filter would be nice as a way that doesn't need someone who has to be watching it all the time, it just happens silently in the background. But a big big question is "just how much resources / time woudl this take?" If it's a small lift, something that can be banged out quickly, sure yes, please, do it. If not.... I can't justify asking for even moderate dev time if it's a medium-or-bigger project.

I don't want to sell you deathsticks... I want to load up CoH and play my blaster....