Greycat

Defeat the mystic subs in their hidden land of orange bagels. Of course.

Subway trial: Defeat/toast sentient sub sandwiches. *nods*

New task force: You're sent to investigate an odd energy reading. It turns out to be a rift that hurls you far back in time. What looks to be a caveman comes out to meet you. (Your contact for the TF.) As far as you can tell, his name is Ug. The land is primal, verdant, full of energy - too much, actually. What you finally piece together is that someone did something in the wrong place - it's heck tripping over a ley line - and these early mages were devolved. It's also the reason the land *is* the way it is. Your task ends up being to bring down what's become the sentient energy of the rift/ley line. This will revert Ug and his friends as well as let you go home. And yes. The entire purpose of this is to mess with people looking for the "UG TF," because it's all that comes to mind when people shorten the Underground that way. 😉

Not sure about how these would work mechanically. How would it determine the "strongest" or "weakest" opponent? Can't just go by AT or powerset, for instance. Focusing on those already injured or not? Also, honestly, I'd want to see some things like - I don't know, "Messenger," where they'd alert either the next group or if they successfully run they trigger an ambush (calling reinforcements.) I'd like to see that *live,* too. It tends to bug me when *one* of a group runs right through two others and the other group's response is something like: "Hey, wasn't that frank that just ran by?" "Yeah. Probably had the fish in the cafeteria. Something smelled off about it." "But he was on fire. Should we check?" "Nah. The fish was really spicy." "OK. Going to the game this weekend?" ... instead of, oh, *reacting.*

... A sonic doign DOT (without making you sound like a werewolf) is not unheard of - see the sonic repulsion fields in Praetoria. Hmm. Lower the debuff, add a small Slow (for a non-Repel, non-KB emulation of repulsion,) and a degree of DOT? (Yeah, I know. "Should've said something during the beta." Idea just came up from this post. Happens when things are finally released into the wild.)

*Chases Solar with a baseball bat yelling "you're wrong!"* There. Preemptive reactive emotional rage taken care of. The thread may proceed. 🙂 (Honestly, the only thing I can say in anything close to rebuttal to any of this right now is that Disruption Aura's usefulness is going to depend entirely on playstyle. Those more into blapping will probably find the debuff handier. But I think Solar knows that. Since I tend to stay at range, I'll probably find it skippable, or a "well, I have to take something" power I leave unslotted.)

I'm not! Who are you again? What's this place? What's an MMO? Why is this little character on my screen dressed so funny?

Add that we don't really have many "degrees" of either stealth or perception. Stealth is already almost "all or nothing" - even without it you can stand there and stare at a mob while getting reasonably close before they react. Add just Stealth and you're on top of them before they react, put in Hide or Superior Invisibility and you *are* standing on them, dancing around and giving them wedgies. The flip side is mobs either have no perception, or a few mobs with Tactics - or things like Rikti drones that ignore stealth completely. Not a lot of shading - and not really a lot of reasons to *worry* about stacking stealth in PVE, for most of the game. (And then there's ambushes, which are either triggered to a spot they were anchored to, triggered to your location at the time of the triggering, or set up to just home in on you regardless.) I don't really know how to make that part of gameplay more interesting or flexible, though. Part of it would be in the AI, I'd think (having runners actually be a risk, alerting the next group - which might do something with perception, for instance.) But I don't envy anyone diving in *there* to address it.

Eh, I've just been PMing back and forth with him a bit, and with the little bit I've seen there... nah, I'd call it genuine, not a "look at me" gesture. (Assuming the him, there, sorry if that's wrong.) Yeah, there are definitely some - let's say bad wording choices adding color there he's not aiming for, but after chatting with him I do believe he's trying to be helpful and constructive with what he's saying, not throwing shade for the sake of it or for attention.

The question is, is that because people don't want to *do* the content or because they've seen it all before and are burnt out on it? I do see the calls out ... semi-regularly (not constant, but not so rare as to be surprising) to run DA arcs, but given things like WTFs and just *teaming* (and... granted, mowing down non incarnate enemies, but just being more fun with a group of people to BS with on the way,) I can see why it'd be empty. As far as the Shard? I'd personally rather see it as a hybrid. There's non incarnate content there. Give us more non incarnate content - with an Incarnate end game (you *are* in the mind of what's essentially a god, after all, and there are aspects we haven't seen.) I mean both in a task force and solo/small team content. Use the pre-Incarnate stuff to continue building on the story and lore of the area (and, honestly, just to remind people it's there when Quaterfeld isn't the WTF,) and post-Incarnate to finish with a bang. Just off the top of my head, Ruularu - who *devours* after all - "sees new sources of power (your Incarnates) and wants to either enslave (an aspect we've not seen) or devour *you* in order to break out of this little prison" seems like an obvious hook.

We don't want him *smart,* or he won't run in and take the hits for our squishy 'troller insides. 😉 (Won't argue with more models, though. The DE granite is... roughly stone tank granite, too, so...)

I'd have to second Ukase's question on that - unrewarding for who? Is it just the balancing for when a single player versus a team runs it? Via AE, at least, after some practice it seems the scaling works decently for "solo to team," most times, but does involve a lot of work on the enemies (and old SGs would probably swear I built AE arcs JUST to find new and interesting ways to cause team wipes. Such as a group that was heavily time manipulation based...that when more than a couple of people was in pretty much made sure nobody had *any* powers ready to go. But, it was a 'reasonable' challenge when tested. Fun times.) Besides, we have a delineation - things designed with teams in mind are generally task forces or trials. People who *want* to solo them can definitely try, but if (generic) you want to say "no, this should really be done with a team," they should generally be there. Note, I am saying this without having (yet) played the new content - just haven't had time to jump into it with other stuff going on - so this is not a criticism of that at all. And no, I didn't play it on beta because I didn't want to spoil it for myself. So... less a criticism of content than a reaction to a statement with how it's intended to be placed should be handled? *shrug* Though, honestly, with the bits I'm reading, playing through it solo is sounding more and more interesting... (I end up not "getting" why people have issues with Trapdoor or the Honoree, for instance, or the "keep 30 fir bolg from escaping." Even on squishies, I don't find those all that challenging unless I royally screw up.)

If you did not want the community to respond, you should have sent in a PM, or a support ticket - something not public. Click on "Support" up top, with "Support requests," and you can do just that. You instead wrote this, not even in a feedback thread, but just general "suggestions and feedback," opening it up for everyone to comment. One could say... this is where you failed.

That would work - you only have one "I'm here to provide stealth" power. Steamy mist = stealth power. Super speed, the stealth IO and the empowerment buff are not. Someone else could have dropped Grant Invisibility on you on top of it and it would have taken (since it's not "your" power.)

Nope. Primary, secondary, AT and origin are baked into the character and not able to be changed.

You want tips, you need to work for it. I mean, we've been waiting on that pizza for 40 minutes now... >.> But yeah, hadn't really looked at them. Given there are plenty of high level groups (COT's still there, Malta, DE, etc.) a larger slate for variety's sake wouldn't be amiss.

Stalkers can stack, yes. Other than that, no, one will turn off the other. The only thing that won't (since it's not a "power," per se) is having a stealth IO in something plus stealth, and/or a granted invis (like from a SG buff station.) Stalkers have that because - well, AS. For the rest, generally the AI doesn't need much for you to be unnoticed until you're sitting right on them. I don't think allowing them to stack otherwise is *needed,* but I'm not really against it either. Is there something that's come up that leads to asking about it, or is it more a "huh, that's just weird to me?"

Same, at least two a night on Everlasting. (Chaos United runs them.) And double-Hamis in between. I'll see others pop up to run them at other times, too. If it's not the server, maybe it's time of day? (Yes. Honestly curious when and where.)

I'm *assuming* (I know) in part because PBs don't currently have access to equivalent powers (and they're kinda-sorta not thematic... on the flip side, the dwarf does have teleport.) That said, I kind of see White Dwarf as falling behind Dark slightly because Dark's heal is also a single target attack, while WD's is just... a heal. And the PBAOE does nothing to buff white dwarf. So... yeah.

I agree. The only issue to me is kind of a followon - some of those require plaques *for* the badges, and those aren't exactly named, so it'd be hard to tell which of those you need.

NO REMOVING THE QUANTUMS. Bad enough everything else has gotten nerfed or removed that used to challenge Kheldians. The Quantums are about the only thing left that actually makes it feel like the world is responding to *you* being there. Khelds are a story-driven AT (the "epic" in Epic AT.) You only see Void Hunters rarely now (I used to keep nice kill counts on my Khelds for them) and Cysts are pretty much nothing but shiny rocks now, the few times you see them. Hell, they used to do unresistable Nictus damage, even that got removed, and frankly their threat level has gone from "really need to watch out for them" to "ooh, that might have left a little burn, anyone have ointment?" It's one of the reasons (on top of a forced respec at 24 and a few other things) I don't find VEATs interesting. Other than a fairly lame storyline which is generic to all of them, there's absolutely nothing that feels like the world cares you exist. That same "epic" (again, story driven) feel isn't there. You might as well be another brute, stalker or dom. Kheldians? Yes, *you* are deemed a threat personally and *you* are the target of attempts to kill you that could come from anywhere. Remove or nerf them further and you might as well just roll an energy/energy blaster and occasionally play random AE missions.

There's one time I'll bring up "This game is staffed by a small group of volunteers." It's typically in response to complaints that content/changes aren't coming fast enough or that some giant change hasn't been done. Basically it's a reminder this isn't live and there's not a dedicated team pushing out at least an issue, hopefully two, per year, going over bug fixes, handling the forums, subscriptions, etc. Or IOW, "be patient." As a reaction to any criticism? No, it's neither fair nor valid. As for the OP? It's mostly vague and ... questionable, honestly, for most of the criticisms. And this should really be in the issue's discussions thread. But Solar and Shadeknight pretty much covered what my reaction would be. So - yes, we know it's staffed by volunteers, and I think we're all glad for what they're doing. But there are times that's a valid response, and times it isn't, and I'd have to say here it isn't, really.

*non serious* Nah. That's not hardcore. You die, your character's over. Then it deletes your other characters and starts a noninterruptable removal of the game. Your account is deleted, and you can't install the game on that machine again. It slaps your SO, drinks your beer/whiskey/wine, and drives off with your dog in your pickup truck, leaving you just an old beat-up guitar for your troubles.

I fear sewers over flowing, I hear the voice of rage and ruin!

I seem to recall the live devs looking at adding extra slots and having it break things badly. Plus, honestly, I rarely find myself wanting extra slots. There are some characters I've ended up slotting things just to get past that level. (And yes, I *do* play Khelds.) And no, I don't *want* all my powers six slotted, either. Frankly, I'd have to agree this sounds like overcomplication for not a great deal of benefit, at least to me. Sorry.