MTeague

To be fair, that issue isn't lack of ZONES. It's lack of varied CONTENT. I think @Yoru-hime is spot-on here. We need new villain story arcs, spanning different aspects of villainy. I'm fine with it if the "Contact" for such arcs is something like a tip as opposed to a regular contact we run back to. Maybe each mission complete, it removes that tip and adds the next tip for the "arc"?That might help keep the immersion factor going that it's YOU planning it, not Marshall Brass, etc. We have plenty of arcs where the character is a simple brute looking to smash to make a profit. Those stand well on there own, so please do not bother creating any similar arcs until there's a better parity of content. Villain story arcs where the player is making a grab for power.... ON THEIR OWN BEHALF. Not something to strengthen Arachnos. Not helping Victor Von Grunn do mad science, so that HE can have a devouring earth army (seriously, what's my motivation to help a potential rival like that?) Not for something as simple or tawdry as coin. But something where I'm looking to become king of the hill. lower level arcs, maybe you just flatten some lower level rivals... Family, Legacy Chain, etc. mid-level example: what If *I* find out about the ChonroMetroTron and make a play for it? Sure I can't get it, or if I do, I'll find out Penelope Yin already told it not to work, but hey, what villain wouldn't at least make a go for that? Again, not for Arbiter Sands, not for Arachnos, but for for personal power. lvl 50 ish, I'd want to actually attempt to DEPOSE Recluse. Or attempt something Darrin-Wade style that would make Arachnos entirely irrelevant. Even if I have to be predestinted to fail, scripted to be defeated, and then permitted to live to savor my defeat, or allowed to live out of respect that I'd had the stones to make the attempt. At least let me TRY, even if I have to be thwarted by a railroat plot twist. Villain Or Rogue arcs to build an alliance of NPC's. like Echinacea, or Polar Shift, maybe even Flamebeaux. And Definitely Zephyr and Crosscut. Those guys were fun to work with. I'm "meh" on the rest of the Hearts of Darkness but Zephyr and Crosscut? Yes please use them more. And make sure to give me OPTIONS during the arc. Give ME the choice to honor the alliance if my villain values his word of honor, or options to betray the alliance, if I'm more "thank you for being a useful idiot". I'm seeing this mostly in a Magneto-y way where he builds up his Brotherhood of Mutants. It would allow each villain player to have his own personal timeline where THEY get to be the big bad organizing it. Some Revenge Arcs would be good, but.... those are tricky. Everyone's villain is going to have their own motivation for what they want to strike down, and why, and the why may be several times more important than the what.

I haven't done much interactive roleplaying since my tabletop pen-and-paper gaming days. 1990-ish. I'd at least be interested to get my feet wet with it, test the waters, <insert metaphor here>. I don't know if I'd enjoy it on a recurring basis. I guess it depends how it all works, what others players are expecting of me during such an event.

Some thread necromancy for sure. But hey, why not. The topic can still be of interest, and the older posts no less valid. I will probably never join a "real" SG. I made my own SG just so my characters would be joined as "already belonging to a SG" so I could stop getting invites and needing to decline them. It's just.... after 4 years of being in a EverQuest guild... and then 8 years of being in a WoW guild.... no, I'm sorry. I'm done with guilds. I have zero interest in any kind of "Guild Activites" or "Guild Events". I feel no great desire to have lots of "guild chat" going on. I do not want to powerlevel my characters, and I have no interest in helping PL anyone else's. I wish them well, just don't look at me as a resource to that end. I do not "raid" anymore. iTrials hold very little interest for me. I'll do some here or there, but story arcs and alting are what drives me. I am allergic to anything even close to a whiff of a regularly scheduled group. I'll team when the mood strikes me, and generally I always enjoy it. But EQ and WoW both ended up becoming full time jobs, and I found them becoming a recurring obligation that was beginning to control my life. Never again. Never. I'm content to operate on a PUG basis, night-by-night, if I choose to log on that evening.

Poison is a fun set, and you get some very strong debuffs pretty early, so I really like @Strawberry and @Peacemoon's idea of leveraging that from the thread title. Masterminds: If I was going to do an MM in Praetoria, I'd need something where the minions are not human. The power should reside in MY character, not them, or otherwise why didn't they get conscripted into Powers Division as their own character? So I would avoid Thugs, Mercs, Ninjas. But I could still justify Beasts, Demons, Necromancy, and Robots. Corruptors: Stronger Blasts, weaker debuffs. And Scourge might save you if you're an idjit like me who likes doing +2 with bosses when soloing Praetoria. Some of those laser-guided ambushes get....nasty. Defender: Stronger debuffs, weaker blasts. I'd be leery of soloing a defender in Praetoria. Esp if you have stronger enemies and not enough slots yet to really proc-monster your way through things. Controller: Now, we're talking. Oh, I know, I know. Controllers are even Less Damage at low lvl than Defenders you're saying. Well. Kinda. But if you do a set that gets a Confuse.... like, say, Mind or Dark, or Plant....then those really strong Praetoria bosses will be on your side and help you mop up the ambushes. So my vote is Mind/Poison Controller. Honorable mention for Plant and Dark, but Plant much as I love it, Seeds of Confusion may not recharge fast enough to stack it on bosses. So if you use solo bosses = Yes, the bosses may hurt quite a bit. On Mind, Confuse should definitely cycle fast enough to stack confuses.

Well if you want to hand me more rewards I won't exactly refuse them. I've never needed much motivation beyond "it's fun" to do them. Although I admit, I solo them much more often than team them. Especially the low level ones (Atlas Bank/Kings Bank).

I accept that this can be true. "almost always".... maybe I'm giving people the benefit of too much doubt, but I want to say you're reading way too much into what people post/chat. In any event, if you feel there are posters / people in chat who fit this profile, probably the best thing is just add them to an ignore list. Bam. For one right click on their name, they're out of your life. Trying to "prove" entrapment in a game chat arena ... difficult to say the least. I understand why the GM's would be loathe to take action. They'd essentially have to become Praetorian Seers, acting as thought police and trying "read in" what someone "probably" meant. They'd have to assume guilt until proven innocence to make any kind of dent in this behavior and but the cure would be worse than the disease.

It's not, but I think it should be Strike Force Tributa. Why? Because it's "taxes" (more or less) in Latin And Death is "Morte". And the mission is given by Mortimer Kal. so you can get the whole "nothing is certain but Death and Taxes" going on 🙂

Someone posted the same general idea regarding the [Body Armor] power. At the time, I opposed the idea. On further review, I was wrong. Back in the day, I think this made sense for it to exist exactly as it was. It was a lower dmg resist. but it was still the two most common damage types and it was FREE, always on, could not even be detoggled by an enemy. And, for many many many issues, Blasters DID have to contend with Endurance issues. Nukes with Crashes, etc. Body Armor was a nice alternative to an toggle with an END cost, at that point in history, Now? With Blasters..... basicallly not having END issues anymore? I suspect the vast bulk of the player base would gladly swap it out for a toggle that either also included another couple of damage types, OR, reamined Smashing/Lethal only, but with higher numbers for Smashing/Lethal. Would everyone agree to that? Probably not. There's always that one guy. (and frequently, it's me 🙂 ). I suspect some, perhaps particularly in PvP-land, may appreciate that it's an Auto-Power and cannot be de-toggled. But I think there's probably a good case to be made that this no longer cuts the mustard in a world where blasters have crashless nukes and end recovery toggles.

QFT: soloing, as a controller, you should be able to lock most things down fast enough, unless you're trying for x8's or something. And when you're NOT soloing? Well, then either the team likely has a tank or brute to take most of the brunt, and you don't need to worry about everythign targetting you, OR, the team probably has other support classes who may be handing out Defense buffs anyway. I don't really need to have all 45% defense be native to MY character. Just "close enough" that the FF Bubbles, or Ice Bubbles, or Widows, or stacked Manuevers, or Traps FF Bubble, or Steamy Mist, or Shadow Fall, or something, can make up the rest. Heck, I don't even care if "the rest" comes from a bunch of Dark Blasting or Darkest Night or Hurricane. As long as the equation comes out right, it's all good.

To the OP though. Okay... sure.... I don't think those are the only categories you could draw, but if for the sake of the argument you wanted to run with them.... fine. So what? Okay. People want different things out of a game. Why is that a bad thing? Admittedly, the small volunteer dev team we have cannot satisfy everyone with all that they want. If anyone was expecting that they could, well, they were being foolish, and they will have opportunities to temper their expectations as months and years go by. It can be a good life lesson for them to reflect that you can't always get what you want. There will be some changes I like, some changes I look at and wish it were undone. I already look askance at half of "Help" chat who are constantly asking what's the "best" powersets for a given AT, or who ask what's the "best" way to pile up inf or merits, and shake my head saying "okay, same planet, different worlds." Because my stock answer, which they are entirely un-interested in, is that "Best" NEVER MATTERS in this game, just pick something you have fun with. And okay, if you get all the "Best" characters and rush them all to 50 and gear them all up.... then what? If you're a powergamer, do you just stop playing the game beacuse you've done it all? Why not take time, level slowly, and enjoy the trip? Again, "Same Planet, Different Worlds". What I value is clearly not what they value, and vice versa. I don't really need to convince them, and they don't need to convince me. I will say if you want to bring back some serrrrious endgame progression challenge to the game, best bet is grab 7 others who feel the same way, and start using things like "No Enhancements" challenges. Or rules that, for these characters, No IO sets, period. You do it oldschool style. Levelling vs +2 mobs with bosses. Will the rest of the world be facing the same challenge? No. But why should you care? If you have a serious challenge you have fun with, what's it matter if someone else is facerolling a win? Like a soldier or artist who simply doesnt' care about the opinions of civilians who do not and will not ever get it, you don't need to care if other people want other things out of the game than what you want.

That cat is like "I will destroy you, human. You have to sleep sometime, and I will waiting."

generally you can get +Def as a 5 or 6 slot bonus to many Control IO sets. Maybe your ATO's, maybe Hold sets (Lockdown), maybe a Confuse Set (Malaise?), etc. And of course the two +3% defense all uniques. And likely Combat Jumping or Stealth. Weave or Manuevers are also options for more. I do not have my controller actually softcapped vs ranged defense. But +30% defense still takes an *awful lot* off the top, and *enough* of the enemies miss him that he can lay down controls and stop most mobs from ever getting a second or third attack. I also have like +55% resist to a few common damage types (smashing/lethal/psi), somewhat less if I exemplar down too low and don't get my epic armor toggle.

My priority for set bonuses +Recharge is top priority unless you're /Kin, then it's #2, because Kin will already get boatloads of +Recharge from using Siphon Speed on Cooldown. +Ranged Defense is next, unless you're /Kin. If you are /Kin, +Ranged Defense is 1 and the Recharge is 2 +Acc to All Powers is a tasty third priority. Missing Sucks, esp if you're trying to stack lots of Hold mag on an EB/AV. then probably Melee and AoE defense then +Max HP then +Max End +Resist is never a bad thing, but it's more target-of-oppurtunity, squeaking it in where I can. exception: the Shield Wall +5% res all and Reactive Armor Scaling Damage Resist (minimum of +3% res all) are both Too Good not to slot.

I missed Armstrong's walk on the moon. Born in 1970. But Columbia and Enterprise and Challenger I remember quite well. I always did want to see Rush perform "Countdown" live as well, but the concerts i made it to never included that particular track. Great song though.

I'd settle for a building with windows you could look outside of, and see an approximately correct landscape in. Or an office building with Stairs as well as elevators, and the stairwells and elevators are right on top of each other. But since those will never happen 🙂 Moon + Moonbase map. As soon as you enter it, you are constantly under the effect of Inertial Reduction.

Psychic Shock Wave immediately leaped to mind.

Why do they all have to get the power at the exact same lvl? Some controllers get AE hold at 18.... some at 26. Some tanks get their AE quite early.... some quite late. What's really wrong with a bit of variety? I suspect though, it was a question of what power would you give them earllier, and/or just a question of what the OLD powerset looked like, BEFORE they gave each blasters secondary a +Recovery power. They likely just picked a toggle or click power to grant the effect to, and decided that would cause less disruption, AND require less enforced respecs, than if they actually shifted around what level you get each power at.

Oh god I can only hear the Village People in my head. Time to pour a large drink.

Wait, I thought company softball, you swung the bat one handed and carried your beer with you as you ran from home to first. Which slowed you down, but every infielder had to manage their beers too....

I don't feel this is valid criticism. This isn't WoW. This isn't somethign where your Best-In-Slot Mythic 25 man raid drops can ONLY drop from specific content, are immediately Soulbound, and might only drop once after 6 six weeks of focusing the same raid set while 12 or more people want that same drop. Purples are shiny. That easy. It's entirely understandable why people want them. I would caution them that purples are NOT always your best slotting choices (melee attacks I'm often happier with Touch of Death, etc). But I still get the desire for the perceived "best stuff". They ARE playing the game. Maybe not as many hours as you or I clock. But they're playing the same game. The good news is any player CAN still get the drops. It just might take them longer. Absolute worst case, 100 merits gets you a purple recipe. Now if you want 6 full purple sets, yes, thats 6x6x100 = 3600 merits. And, to be clear, I would NOT buy that many purples directly with merits. But it can be done, by anyone, no matter how casually you play the game, even if it might be the project of a half a year because you can only play a few hours for a couple nights a week. Me personally? I would use Converter Roulette to earn the Inf in a fraction of time, by crafting Uncommon IO recipes, using Enhancement Converters to convert the result to valuable Rares, posting them for sale, then buying whatever purple recipe / IO was cheapest, and using MORE Enhancement Converters to change that to the one I want to slot. I'd only directly buy purple recipes with IO's if I wanted something now-dammit-now and was sitting on a pile of 1800+ merits. (which, some of my characters are).

The /Poison corruptor should be plenty able to kittenize / debuff particular targets. Nothing wrong with bringing Envenomed Daggers, but I don't think you should need them unless you exemplared too far down for the Corr to have their debuffs. "Arachnos Soldier". this could mean a lot. Crab Soldier with lots of Pets? Stalker-Style Wolf Spider? I think it can be made to work, but hard to tell how I would have expected that person to be adding to the group by just "Arachnos Soldier" alone. But with the tank holding most things, I'd expect the Corr and Soldier and the MM saying "Kill THIS target ignore eveyrthing else" should have been enough to burn down the imp. I'm making assumptions I probably shouldn't make, but I'm thinking maybe pets were uncontrolled / strictly on defensive mode? And the Soldier may be a more pet-oriented / AE focused build rather than someone meant to take down a single hard target? Also: how IO'd out is this team? Expectations would be different between "all tricked out" and "still levelling so only SO's". Is a biiiiig difference in performance. I love the Green Machine idea @Psyonico lays out. Massed empaths go from "Aw, an Empath. That's cute" to "That rabbit's got a mean streak a mile wide! Look at the BONES, man!" Basically you want Alpha Soaker / Preventer: Can be a Tank or Brute, can be a Controller or Dominator depending on their sets, can be a CrazyIdjit Scrapper or Stalker or Sentinel. You can even load up multiple sources of Energy Blast or other Knockbacks and go wtih the Ragdoll Special. As @The Philotic Knight mentions in his treatise on FF, mobs that are flung on their butt are not doing any damage to anyone. You can make that your "tank" if the team is willing to roll with it. Debuffer: technically optional but makes everyone's life muuuuuch easier. Poison is an excellent choice here, as long as they're good at deciding what is the most important target to debuff at any given moment. Poison has a very limited Splash Area on their bread-and-butter debuffs. There's always a temptation to use them on a cloud of adds vs keeping them on whatever needs to die Now-Dammit-Now. Buffer: technically optional but again, force multipliers are Good Things. Empath is plenty good choice here, but many options exists. Trash Killer: minions, lieuts, reg bosses. Something with decent AE damage, or, perhaps, very fast-cycling single target damage. Boss Killer: for the Big Nasties. Some bosses, but mostly EB's and AV's. Typically you want high single target damage for this, esp with debuff sources layered. Now that's 5 "tasks" but realistically most AT's should be able to contribute to more than one of these tasks. Take a look at your group config and figure out who's doing what. And if you have a gap where no one is best suited to a particular thing, then what's the fallback plan / how do you compensate? Ie, if you had no debuffer, do you have multiple DPS'ers with multiple -RES proc IO's? If you have no boss killer, make sure people are saving multiple Red Insp for when it's time to burn the big guy.

I'd love it if inspirations affected MM henchmen by default. I'm thinking it might be considered OP, but I would not darn them to heck if they made such a change. as @ImpousVileTerrorsaid, P2W or Superpacks. I tend to get mine from Superpacks. I never have a giant supply, but those I do have, go to the MM's. But also note, as @Major_Decoy said you can't combine them. If you have too many team +greens? you cannot combine them to a make a team +purple or a team +red. Also, to best of my knowlege there is no such thing as a team +wakie.

a) i disagree that this was a dramatic change, even remotely on the same scale as evicting someone from a dwelling b) what would advance notice have really permitted you or anyone else to do? If they were firmly committed to the idea and NOT going to change their mind regardless of feedback? I get frustration. I get that I'm also quite removed from the issue, and don't feel it as I never did farming or double-inf generation by this method. I always kept XP on, and went for Incarnate slots, or Vet Levels Just Because, or moved onto a new alt. So maybe me not really using it ever is leaving me 100% blind to the impact of this change. But I really don't see what advance notice would have allowed anyone to do. Not if they were of the firm opinion that it had to be done regardless. At most I guess you could have spent the last X days before the deadline in full-farming mode? What opportunity do you feel was lost because they did not do advance notice?

Anything that boosts HP total is very nice for boosting any Regen effects, in addition to the "you have that many more HP before you keel over" part.

Ding 50. Keep earning XP. Gradually you will unlock your incarnate slots. There are no other true requirements. That said, Mender Ramiel's Arc (ouroborus) still exists, and is a nice intro storyline to it. It USED to be required to unlock your Alpha slot. It's not required anymore, although it will unlock it right away whether or not you earned enough XP to get it otherwise. I would also encourage you to, at some point, sit down with a strong cup of coffee and try to digest as much of you can of this thread: A Comprehensive Guide to the Incarnate System There's TONS of info in that. You will NOT absorb it all at once. But it's a very good read, and worth coming back to a few times as you get your feet wet.