Greycat

"I can tell you what that sapper had for breakfast. Malta meal."

There *is* a middle ground, though. As I recall, the devs wanted something in place when they put in ED - remember how long the universities just sat there with no purpose anyone could tell? There's a wide range between "I wish we never had IOs" and "Gimme those purples." 🙂 But, as has been mentioned, the time for those adjustments is long past.

Grouchy pretty well covered it. There's a reason for the recent change. There's a reason we have INF sinks like AH fees, costume fees, crafting fees and the like. Money moving between players (through AH sales, costume contests, etc.) is great. Accelerating the rate money just shows up? Bad, long term. That's when we get things like 2b+ purples being sold off market (since the market can't handle more than that... which also eliminates the fees that take INF out of circulation.) As much as I love the game for growing "out" more than "up" (no level cap raises - and no, I don't want one,) once you hit 50, have your build(s,) have your costumes, there's not that much to spend money on. Work on your crafting badges? Sure, then you have those memorized (less INF going out at that point.) If anything, there has to be more things out there players *want* to spend INF on, especially at the higher levels.

Been asked for before, live and I'm sure here. I'd still like it. Especially when I'm in a rush or tired and find I've done something like three slotted Swift instead of STamina.

Lower levels? People who have just soloed a few packs of Mu and are out of blues? People who are tired? Musicians?

I'm thinking "in general, not without a giant rework." The body's... toned look? (or lack thereof) I don't believe is separate from whatever clothing is on the character. (For instance, you'd have to end up with "smooth bandeau" and "muscular bandeau" tops, versus "she's muscular, and then I put a bandeau top on her.") Definitely doubt it'd be a slider. I wouldn't *mind* seeing this being the actual body instead of a texture. But I wouldn't hold my breath. 'til then, I make them in Daz with my limited skills, or commission people to draw them. 🙂

Hmm. Interesting. All right, then, not Kheld specific. And I should've thought to check on Mystic Flight too. It does the same thing. Thanks!

Ehhhhh.... point of view. For the most part I agree. I don't really like what's happened with a lot of it, seeing it as power creep that could have been nipped in the bud, but it's the way the game is now - and honestly, doesn't affect me for the most part. Other than annoyance at people thinking anything without perma-everything is unplayable. For some things, though - and they're admittedly a small part of the game - I'd agree they were ruined. Sort of. PVP zones are generally empty - at least when they were newish and up through the i13 changes, the zones could still be entered and experimented with by a casual player. Now, between a dedicated PVPer having an IO build and powers not working the same way, there's a bar to competing in the zones. Of course, that is offset by practically never *seeing* anyone there, but on a theoretical level... 🙂

So, while testing for something else (the "can you craft empowerment buffs while in form" and "Do the timers tick down if you don't get the benefit," answer being yes to both,) I noticed something odd in Energy Flight. First, it kept stacking in Combat Attributes. Next, that it had a constantly shifting debuff from Energy Flight as one of the stacks - it went from something like -.14, to -3.x, to -14 %. Thinking it was something to do with the buff I'd created to test, I deleted that power. No change. Shifted, no change. This cycling flight speed debuff kept showing up (along with multiple energy flight bufs.) Switched to another PB to compare, nothing slotted to affect speed, no empowerment buffs. Saw the same thing. Also noticed it in Combat Flight. Am I missing a mechanic here or does someone have an idea what's happening? Or should I go ahead and forward this as a bug? It's minor, but *odd.* Those three are from the one I was testing on. (Didn't screenshot it still happening after deleting the buffs. All the "inccrease speed" ones.) This is a different character with nothing slotted for fly speed, low level, no global buffs (which should show up differently anyway,) nothing that should affect it and no empowerment buffs added, so independent from the testing. Combat flight did the same.

WS: Generally Starless Step them into a Gravity Well. PB: I tend to pick up stealth one way or another (IO or Stealth, not to mention the Bloody Bay / Siren's Call patrol rewards temps.) Toggle that on, target, queue Incandescent, do a flyby joust, clean up.

People using Kheldian (particularly PB) powers and playing as a non-Kheldian has been a thing since live. I've also done it the other way and had "fake Kheldians (typically Energy/Energy blasters and Gravity control characters) - usually either the result of Nictus experimentation, "force of will" or something else (it's a bit of a long story. 🙂 ) Including a mix - grav/energy dom.

OK, with testing I can answer two questions. 1. What happens if you use the empowerment table in squid form? Hopped into Squid. Went to table. Crafted lethal resistance. (PRovides 5% resist for an hour.) It didn't show up in combat attributes, but did show up in my powers. Dropped to human, it showed up in combat attributes. And what I was wondering: 2. Does the timer still count down until the end of the power while in form? Yes, it does. So if you craft the lethal resistance like I did (5%, again, not huge *there* though it would buff human and dwarf... actually let me check something.... nope, only resist buff in Dwarf is Dwarf.) and are in form for 45 of 60 minutes... you've wasted 75% of your buff since it counts down with no effect. ... also my flight speed is doing something odd, cycling a -.14ish to 14% negative, listed as "energy flight," every few seconds... huh. Anyway. Yes, if you're in form, you can craft the buffs, and if you stay in forms, they can expire with you getting zero benefit for the salvage cost.

First villainside 50 back in the day was an Energy/Energy Brute. That cloak made it fun, PVE and PVP (especially PVP, having "that stalker!" cussed out in broadcast. That and people repeatedly trying to TP Foe me... which Energy resisted every time.) Played that character like a heavy Stalker without then (then much heavier - COV release) reliance they had on AS and Placate. The OP mentions Clamor, so I'm wondering how high the Brute is - have you not gotten to take Energy Drain yet (28?) Or was it skipped? Because yes, as mentioned, it's really rather designed with taking it in mind.

OK, haven't added to this yet. Mostly working on renders I like when I have some time... Therra Arcson. First 50 on live, later turned into my first PB, first bit of art from Graver, all sorts of things. This little render in the sewers - well, she has shorter hair now, and I need to find round glasses. Anyway... (Current version - an Elec/Elec sentinel here - Daz render run through PS Elements "comic" filter. Just for something different.) That piece by Graver 13. He liked the result but hated doing that knotwork around the edges of the background. 🙂 And yes, I love this piece. Sketch, as well. Dagger flattened out her glasses a bit, which... I go back and forth on minding. But it works.

What gets me are the people complaining and saying it's stupid and wasting time to take 2-3 seconds at most to reposition... whether it's KB, a cone, whatever. Whenever I bring that up, you'd think I'd kicked their dog into their grandmother before running them both over with a truck or something. (Oh. And the bonfire thing earlier from the other person? Of *course* people loved putting the KB-KD IO in there. Unlike, say, Ice Slick, it also does damage. And fire control is all - well mostly - about the damage. Death is the ultimate debuff, after all.)

So, I like running the SSAs, generally. Easy merits once a week. When you finish one, you get a choice of four rewards. I just finished #1 on one of my characters, the 10-20 arc. What were the rewards? 1. 4x reward merits. Yay, 20 merits, at least if you haven't run it in 6 1/2 days roughly! 2. An Astral merit. But only if you're 50. 3. Threads. But only if you're 50. 4. One accuracy SO. And "Choose nothing." All right, so the rewards are all right. You're getting 5 merits regardless, and 20 if you haven't run it for about a week. This is probably the most popular option. If you're running this while leveling - you're not 50 yet - options 2 and 3 might as well not exist. That leaves... option 4. One Accuracy SO. Not even "Pick an SO." You're getting accuracy, and you're going to like it. We used to DREAM of living in a corridor, it would have been a palace to us... And at the level of the first two SSAs, that SO doesn't last very much. The reward at level 10-20 (and beyond, really) - since you're getting 5 merits anyway - is almost a worse option than picking "Choose nothing." These were released late enough in the game's life that an SO wasn't really a great reward *then* (and again, you don't even get to choose which one.) This should be changed. So, some options: 1. At the *very* least, pick the SO type. I mean, you get to pick one a week from the SSA. I doubt this will break the burgeoning market for SOs. 2. Go to the nearest usable level of common IO instead. Heck, even make it crafted. You might get a level 10 or 15 in that first SSA, sure, but at least it won't expire in 3 quickly-reached levels. 3. A combination of random salvage. Two common and an uncommon. OK, you're getting salvage while killing things (unless you're speeding through.) Some combination like that, I'm not dead set on the numbers. 4 Random "special salvage." Some tailor tickets, some AE tickets, a piece of Halloween salvage or candy cane out of season, even one of the "replacement piece" salvage for use in the PVP zones. 5 Some nifty temp power. A one-use hero/villain summon (like Sky Dragon or Shock Treatment.) Probably at boss strength, roughly like the PPD/Arachnos reinforcement, not the Phalanx summons. (You can get multiple charges, but it would take multiple weeks.) Or some new temp power related to the SSA you played - for SSA 1, a mini obelisk that taunts the Circle specifically, for instance. (Or something else.) Regardless, the one SO ("and only of this type, and you're going to LIKE it, you!") is ... kind of weak and not up to the other rewards. (Some of this could also be applied to the Sirens Call rewards post as well, actually.)

Pfft. The sets don't have to be 15 years old for that. When the live devs wanted to revamp villain patron pools and we saw what they did on live (well, live beta) with replacing powers "that weren't popular" or "nobody took," the pitchforks and boiling tar came out. Thus we got power pools with *five* powers instead of four.

You know, I don't think I ever tried the empowerment buffs. Yeah, since these have a salvage cost and a time... Does the timer keep running down on them or are they paused? I should check... anyway, yeah, those should be active in forms. They are similar to - let's say very long duration enhancements that way, in that you are using up a resource (yes, you get salvage and insps back, but can't exactly guarantee you get the same stuff.) Leadership powers have been asked for. I don't know if there's a technical reason we don't have that working or not - I mean, you can't change or edit costumes when shapeshifted, either. I suspect that's a technical rather than lore or ... "executive decision" reason, but obviously I don't know. (Also, yeah, technically secondary mutation *shouldn't* work - you're a remembered energy form in nova or dwarf, not something biological to mutate...)

Just so you know... the winter pack price (as well as the heroes and villains / rogues and vigs packs) are not set to that price by the players. As far as the winter IOs? Looking at WInter's Bite, the supply is in the single digits, the bids in the hundreds. Same as I'm looking at frozen blast. People are *listing* that high because other people will *buy* them at that (not all, obviously, with 100+ bids sitting there.) I'm not sure if these drop at all. The packs are meant to be INF sinks, to begin with, so don't expect that to change much. Though they are higher than the other packs. The IOs? Maybe they need to be a drop to ease that supply problem. Because those are some fairly lopsided numbers.

It was suggested to open one room up a bit. Room 1 is "open sky," but with interior lighting. As a sort of map - the base is laid out (mostly) in a cross. N goes to transport - hero, coop and villain. Stage 1 is south - open sky. Stage 2 is East - closed, catwalk (ish) . Stage 3 is west - plain, basic stage and central winners/judges/whatever platform. (Seriously. Only decoration in this room is the number 3.) Edit: Also for those last minute "Gah, I didn't fix that color," Icon and Facemaker representatives have been confined convinced to donate time to help out. Plus there are two ATMs.

Exemplaring doesn't care about when the slots were placed, just the level you took the power at.

Croatoa ends at about 35, so he should be 30-35. (Gordon Bower and SKipper Legrange are the first two, 25-30, then Kelly Nemmers and Buck open up at 30.)

Just since it seems costume contests always run into the sun not being up in Atlas and affecting colors and the like... Very non-fancy base available. Three stages which should be enough for most contests, as well as travel to both sides (and co-op.) One's a plain stage, one has a bit of a catwalk, one has a stand for whatever you want to use it for, all have tiered stages around the edges for contestants. Stages-13625. Let your contestants be seen the way they were meant to. (I'm not a fancy base builder. But this doesn't really need it.)

... welp. Just crashed on the female reptilian going into SG settings (double checking a base code.) Saw the motd, hit next, crashed. Going to change from that costume, obviously. 🙂 Picked another random character, went through the settings just fine. (Non-reptilian skin/texture.)

I leave India.