Greycat

I watch too much youtube. I see "online builder" and start expecting an ad for Squarespace.

If you want to run a certain character, just enjoy it. Pretty much every set is going to have someone saying something bad about it, it's "weak" or "unplayable" or something. If you want to play it? Play it. And yes, I've done Nec/Poison (still have the character,) it's perfectly playable. Are you clearing entire maps in two minutes? Only if they're very small. So what? Poison is underperforming? Poison on a MM was the first set I accidentally soloed an AV on. Can it use some work or tweaks? Sure. Unplayable? Hardly. When it comes to "popular opinion" remember... McDonalds has sold billions of burgers. They're popular. Doesn't mean they're good for you. Take popular opinion the same way.

While not against it just for the sake of consistency... I would still say "skip it." Or, since you want it for an IO mule, "take and don't use it, if it doesn't fit your character." (Or grab Stealth instead in the meantime.) (And really, I tend to consider PA the actual "big deal" for the set. SI is nice, but... )

... hmm, might be an interesting challenge for the build types. "Build with only low-range IOs" - what are they normally, 10-35 or something, roughly?

... I'm amused by people just calling those Yinhancements now.

Generally... yeah. I wouldn't consider a DOT *necessarily* a "one shot," since there are two distinct tics of damage - you could theoretically pop a green *right* between them to counter them, depending on how far apart those tics are. And... yeah, the game plays with the definition a bit. The game's "oneshot code" will never let a player go from 100% to dead from a single hit of one type damage - not least from things like players TPing other lowbie players off the side of a skyscraper. That *used* to kill you, now it'd leave you with one HP. However, things like the Hellion burning building events in Steel Canyon are designed so that if you fail and the building blows up, it hits you *immediately* with three... I think it's 30,000 point damage sources, so you will not survive regardless of resistances, defense, etc. (though you can sometimes get in a blind spot and not get hit.) It's three 30k hits of damage, but they're instantaneous with one "attack" and thus a practical "one shot."

Which is still changing the difficulty and removing options. Those are *optional* content. Just like raising your difficulty. Opening a vegan restaraunt in town does not mean everyone in town has to throw out their meat, and providing *optional* content and difficulty settings does not mean everyone must run or build for it. "I don't like it" is the weak argument, not "People still play the way they want and I don't want them to." Nobody's holding anybody back. You want higher difficulties, you can change your OWN difficulty settings and/or build WITHOUT REMOVING THE OPTION FOR OTHERS TO NOT DO SO. Read that again. YOUR request would REMOVE OPTIONS. We do not want options removed. Whether YOU like that or not.

Possibly so some would be cheaper, or to avoid people just grabbing the "best" sets starting at level 10 and ignoring everything else. I'd wager there was some idea of "the economy" as well at some point, with having lower level sets dropping for lower level characters and still having trade/auction house value - and/or just being cheaper while still giving reasonable bonuses.

So what? And have you looked through the builds of "the majority of the player base" to say this? It's where the game *is* balanced. It's the lowest common denominator. It does not need to be raised because you don't like that.

People are slotting SOs as well. Hate to break it to you but no, you don't get to just raise the difficulty of the game for absolutely everyone because you don't like that.

Look at your first two sentences. You admit the game is *currently balanced for* SOs. Then you want to rebalance it over something stronger, making it ... no longer balanced for SOs, but balanced *past* that. If the game is *currently balanced* for SOs, then it's fine. If you slot something that makes you more powerful than SOs? You can change your reputation and make it harder. That option is 100% on you. If you rebalance to make it harder, you're making an *assumption* that people are slotting those things already. They may not be. They may not want to. There are people here who - you may want to sit down - do not like IOs, much less sets. Or who prefer an "old school" manner of play - there are even SGs dedicated to that. While you weren't addressing me, yes, I'm (reasonably) fine with the game having "2 generations better than what the game is balanced for," because (a) it lets people build as they want, and (b) they can alter their settings and/or play hard mode TFs to play at those higher levels without affecting anyone else.

Yep, you hit one of the nails on the head there - *current* (or "recent history") events. "Pandemicide" from what I can see is coined *specifically* to refer to recent political actions that were related to Covid. (Essentially it would be... well, like naming your character "Covid Man.") "Pestilence" is a much more broad term that isn't related to one specific disease or timeframe. "Genocide"... is questionable, - but it'd have a better chance of making it past than, say, "Auschwitz." (Actually, looking it up, Genocide's the name of a DC villain, so it'd probably get generic'd for that either way.) Common Cold ... I think I've seen taken, Spanish Flu is old enough to pr... *takes a moment to consider an alt, Spanish Lou.... wait, finish post* ...probably not get a second look, AIDS man would probably get their name hammered fast. So, yeah. Err on the side of caution.

Two arcs. *nods* 🙂 Honestly I'd lean more into "depends on what/how extreme it is?" I mean, we have plenty of grey area "official" characters, especially with Praetoria.

Well, there's "imagine it yourself," but people generally want to know what the person suggesting the powerset (or whatever is being suggested) has in mind. You don't need to give numbers - I never do on things I put out there - but more of a concept than "This thing" is helpful. For instance, if I say "We should have metal armor" and leave it there - what am I talking about? Things like medieval plate armor? Iron man type armor? Armor inspired by heavy metal music? Scrap metal? You don't know if I just leave it at "metal armor." But if I give a rough sketch of "Well, you could start with chain mail, then X, then Y, then Z," you know I'm talking medieval type armor, or "You could start with road sign, it could have an AOE of 'scrap cyclone'" I'm talking about armor made up of scrap metal. You don't have to "be a developer," but it's nice having more input showing what you have in mind.

Side note about missing information while on a team - While you do (I believe... have to double check) miss souvenirs, if you hit the "I" to the left of the mission name in the nav bar, you'll get the information the contact's giving - the wheres and whys for the running around you're doing. (I find people tend not to know about this.)

Yes. Aggro caps were introduced... eh, back in the single-digit-issue days. I (gladly) remember the shift from tanks saying "OK, everyone but the emp stay here while I herd" to ... actually getting to play my characters. AE wasn't a thing - I don't think villainside was a thing yet.

No.

1. HELL NO to prestige. I wish even mention of it in the SG listings was gone. Prestige was nothing good, and was nothing but restrictive back on live. 2. No, it's not going to subscription. It's a volunteer team. And likely couldn't go back to it due to NC.

I'd say the way @Techwright is leaning there is probably right. And that there's *probably* a little more leeway in AE vs player characters, on top of how they're used. An AE that.. say... winds up in a fight between an army of Donald Trumps and Kamela Harrisses... Harrisi? ... would probably get stomped on as soon as it was known about. Living people, current events, etc. Going back to save Abe Lincoln - who's almost more a cultural icon than "person" at this point, if you understand what I'm getting at there - from Nemesis would probably not have someone bat an eye at it. Given AE is "fiction" and in game-reality we have alternate universes and such, *depending on how someone's used* even a more recent person might be OK. Using Macarthur? Explore what happened in Praetoria in his time. Even Manson... say there's someone who wants, for whatever reason, to cause chaos, but in this alternate dimension people love Chuck's Choice flower shop and he's peaceful and *nothing* like he was in our dimension? It might be a little weird feeling as you go back to save that version from being turned into how he was here, but it's also a few steps removed from everything. If that makes sense. As far as GM guidelines? I *suspect* you'll run into "We can't give specific lines not to cross, because people will get RIGHT up to that line." (As well as .. well, it is, in part, a sort of vague, "we'll know it when we see it," and case-by-case judgement.)

- Don't be in a rush. The game doesn't "start at 50." Especially with early characters, just spend time getting to know how things work. There's plenty of content on the way up - Don't assume because you don't like how one powerset works in an archetype, you won't like the archetype. Two different powersets can have wildly different feels. - Don't worry about some superbuild or IOs right away. There are useful tools, like Mids, to help with "builds," but you don't need to have something ridiculous to finish content, nor do you have to run it at settings you're not comfortable with. It's a game. Play however is fun to you. - You have 1000 slots per server. Use them. Experiment. Do "Sounds stupid but looks fun" stuff. - ... don't make your first character an "Epic AT" (Peacebringer, Warshade, Soldier of Arachnos or Widow.) They were initially meant to be unlocked at 50, and have some quirks and complexities to them. - If you're not sure what someone's advertising for in the LFG (Looking for Group) channel, ask. Team requests can often just look like a string of random acronyms. - I *personally* wouldn't start "goldside" (Praetoria - the Going Rogue option.) It can be fun, but also has quirks to it. - Have fun. There are plenty of different ways to do so.

I've heard of one person who has a habit of doing something similar. Think I've seen them once and just had someone mention it was something they did, often for ... non family friendly purposes. In all the time I've been playing, I've run into someone who had an almost-exact replica of a costume I had (obviously ignoring intentional copies and things like "Jeans and a T-shirt") ... once? And that was pre-COV release. In that case, it was 100% happenstance, we laughed it off and I don't think I ever saw them again. Regardless, I'd go with the intent. If it seems like they really liked it... talk to them, who knows, they might have something interesting you can incorporate into your setup, you might have someone worth adding to the SG or the RP storyline. If it really bothers you, ask them to not make that copy. If it seems malicious, make sure you've screenshotted it (and you can grab bio info, open it up, /screenshotui 1 to grab what's on screen,) and ask them to *not* due to the issues you've mentioned. I'd screenshot and/or get date/time of when you asked, too, to back it up. If they don't, get a GM involved.

Just as an aside... this was always just *weird* to me. The only place it really seemed to work was in the (tiny) amount someone gave you on the street for rescuing them. One of the "If I could..." things I'd do is just call the whole thing cash or credit or whatever, and maybe have the "INF****" be something that would start influencing your rep in an area, affecting the discounts (or not...) vendors are willing to give you. Granted, it wouldn't help the "give ways to burn excess money at high levels" - it'd work directly against that, really - but still. Anyway, aside done, carry on 🙂

Well, Tank primary/Controller secondary wouldn't work directly. The Tanker primary is their armor set, the Controller secondary is their support set. While some Tank primaries do have damage auras, very little as far as a Controller secondary would. (Imagine trying to level an Invuln/Empathy. You'd have ... brawl, and whatever temps and pool powers you'd pick up.) You'd have a character that would be *painfully* slow to level (and I say that having leveled an Earth/FF controller... ow,) and given the way the game runs these days, would likely be passed up in teams. (Granted, some farmers might like them - a shielded buffbot? And maybe some very specific content, but other than that...) Controller primary/Sentinel (or just control/armor) secondary would be more viable, since you'd be able to ... well, do something 😄 Though I expect the set would be less control-heavy in favor of giving some direct *attacks.* (Yes, I know, many controls do damage.) How they'd specifically look or be laid out, I couldn't say. But of the two varieties, yeah, I'd say control/armor would probably be more likely.

Yeah, as far as work? Set up a template or two (for things that need to go to two pages,) with columns, the "Paragon Times" header and spaces for things like the date, spot for a headline photo, the columns, etc. so it's just set and ready to go. Yes, there'd probably be time spent on what events - either a new release, or announcing things like Halloween coming through again, anniversaries of events or whatnot. Yes, there's a little time writing something up, proofreading (and having someone else check as well,) getting a good screenshot and setting everything up, but I highly doubt that it would have any real impact on anything else getting done in the game. And it would be a way to increase both immersion and involvement - go ahead and have the players come up with what they want in it, even for little ads on the side for in-game things. Those always seemed to be popular on live when they came around. (Granted, they'd probably have to be generic vs. SG or server specific - less "Weekly MSR results!" and more "Sheherizade's Sher-the-love buy 1 get 1 free sale!" but still.) Granted, there are people that seem to hate the fact lore even exists, despite this being an MMO*RPG,* but as far as dev time? I don't think "it would take their time" or "be too much work" really would hold that much water. (Besides, Devs spend time on what they *want* to spend time on, we're not paying them to be on a schedule or have to release X much content per month/year.)

There's a whole thing roughly sketched out between how the Wells, Ascended (and Dimensionless) interact, including Prometheus being a bit jealous and trying to hold back the players because - basically he doesn't want to be replaced. And as far as the well - well, wells - they're all independent of each other, so losing *a* well doesn't seem to affect the others, but would affect the species it's tied to. However, they're all "buffers" between the species tied to them and the Source (which is why beings like DJ Zero and Ruularu, who aren't going through wells but doing things on their own, are "concerning" - the Source is a *lot* of power. As in universe-writing or destroying.) And I didn't find any info right offhand about "what happens after?" for Praetoria if it goes post-Hami-defeat. Especially with other bits mentioned about Cole replacing Statesman here. *Personal* headcanon kind of wants to link his "redemption" to being able to reclaim Praetoria and defeat that Hamidon, but... nothing backing that up. I just think it'd be an interesting way to tie the story together, wrap it in a bow, and - really, just let them recover.