Greycat

I *want* to say no to that, given they're... items, basically, as far as I know, but a GM could have dropped some there. Or it might be in a mission somewhere?

You mention soloability. I tend to be perfectly happy with my Emps solo, specifically *because* of those "can't affect me" powers - it lets me dip into other powers I might not otherwise take to buff up offense or whatnot. As far as the changes? I'd hate to have healing aura be a toggle, period. I can use it when needed. If I want a toggle heal, I'll run Pain Domination. (Honestly, most of the time when I read these suggestions that come up for Empathy, the first thing that comes to mind is "You actually want to play pain domination." 🙂 It's got a different focus. ) Absorb Pain is... interesting. It already invokes a cost on the empath (*you* can't be healed for a time after using it, but it's a large ST heal.) I do like the idea of it granting some Absorb to HA (honestly, might as well put HO in there as a beneficiary too, in general.) I'm not sure if the "click an enemy and they're confused" thing would be good or bad... I'd hate to get the attention of something because of a misclick. RAs to auras... I don't think I'd like, personally. While teaming, to me, this would chain you to the "biggest clump." RIght now, I can fire them off, and if I see someone lagging (maybe fighting a rearguard action on an ambush,) run over and assist quickly. It sounds like you're sacrificing team utility for soloing. But that's just me.

Are you in a SG, or with a group you normally play with? If not, get one started. Not only will you get through the "I've seen it" content faster, but (for me, anyway) the back and forth with others lends its own spin to whatever you're playing.

Never a "Boring treadmill," and I"m never dissatisfied. I had multiple accounts and hundreds of alts on live. I don't think the game would have kept me around as long as it did if it *weren't* for alts. Having only 3-5 characters? Just a few powersets? Looking like everyone else? I've walked away from *that* in numerous other games. Ignoring the occasional base-builder character (typically a level 1 Peacebringer, because fly,) or RP-centric "practically an NPC," the characters that get concentrated on tend to have "something going on." Either part of a recurring group (SG, "super team," theme team, that sort of thing) or I have some sort of project or other reason to concentrate on them (like the one I just got to 50 - remake of my first 50 on live, she was going to be my first 50 here.) On occasion I'll set a goal - get all the lowbies up to X level. Get all that are in *this* level range to *that* level. Alternately, you can give yourself projects - on live, for instance, I did "one of each control set to 50." Or just enjoy them wherever they are. It's not a race, and the only person whose judgement matters is your own.

I'm well aware of it. Not everyone has fly, or a jetpack. Or wants them. One of the incredible things about this game is *options* in what you take or what you want. And while *I* am aware of it, *not everyone is.* Not everyone is even aware of the P2W vendor, given the number of times it's asked about in help.

Not everyone has fly, those that do run the risk of getting smacked by a dropship, and if you're on a lower level, fighting them is... not particularly fun. (Yes, they "scale." They don't do it well.) Yes, I'm focusing more on the experience at lower levels here. There's a reason these don't spawn in Atlas, after all. Upper levels? Well, I tend to keep Ghost Falcon's unlock mission around because that *is* enjoyable - attacking hordes of Rikti on demand.

So, for me, the Nemesis invasion event is one of the least interesting, least "put together" events of all the invasions. It's not that engaging, it's mostly "Oh, look, nemesis are spawning on top of me." For the "master planner" that Nemesis is supposed to be, it's... just a disappointment. It doesn't feel like you're fighting, or have fought off, an invasion - it feels like just another spawn writ large. Essentially, it feels like a GM was asked to "spawn some nemesis" and just wrote a script so they could get some fresh coffee made while it ran. I'd like to see these beefed up and made interesting with elements similar to the Rikti invasion and Halloween banner event. First, the whole "getting there and delivering troops." The Rikti have dropships. Nemeiss also has a troop carrier - mole machines. Now, these are kind of annoying in (I think it's) Black Scorpion's (?) patron arc since they're just giant bags of HP that take a while to wear down. So, let's give them a purpose that also affects the zones (and the troops.) MOLE MACHINE: 1. Has squad of troops defending it. (Standard Nemesis.) 2. Deploys from 2-4 Nemesis "specials" within 100 yard. Nemesis Specials are: a. About the HP of a Rikti bomb. b. Similar to a bomb, defeating (or doing significant damage) gives credit towards a badge. c. Generators of effects - Mole Machine health, Hero damage/acc/def/resist debuff (Destruction reverses the effect and gives a small *buff* to whatever was affected up to 5% while event is active, to some cap) Nemesis troops buff. (Effects go away on destruction.) 3. There are a set number of mole machines that deploy within the first 5 minutes (time is really just a placeholder.) The machines themselves *also* have a small zone-wide effect. 4. At the end of the timer, if all mole machines have been destroyed, a main Nemesis device is revealed as having been under construction. Similar to the old Paladin, you have a few minutes to keep it from being built. Device types vary - dip into Nemesis lore for it - weather machine, chemical bomb (debuff/damage,) some sort of "control the zone" item (no actual control effect, or at most a minor one - draws minion/lt NPCs within 300 yards to assist Nemesis.) - If they have not been destroyed, the machine is there, as is a gloating Nemesis/Fak to fight. Destroy the machine. - If the machine is built, a mole machine arrives with Nemesis. Fight. 5. If all mole machines are destroyed, an enraged (add buff) Nemesis/Fake Nemesis arrives with an army from one last mole machine. Fight and defeat. Of course, mobs still do the random spawn after some point (after the mole machine phase?) giving those who want to avoid it some warning to get out of the zone. I'd think this would feel more like an invasion and *event,* (with appropriate badges/temp powers/whatever) versus the current "oh. We're randomly spawning Nemesis mobs and some text" that we have now, and would make things more enjoyable - as well as more avoidable for those that want to skip the event and "just get to their mission/trainer/etc." While ti borrows some ideas from the other events, it also gives it its own lore-related flavor.

Wouldn't argue with that.

I feel the same way about the Nemesis ambushes (probably the most... blah, ad-hoc, slapped together feeling "invasions" in the game.) And, frankly, about the halloween event by the time the "eternal night" is about a week old. The Rikti invasions, by contrast, I happen to like. They feel like an *event* is going on. They're timed. They have a start date and an end date, which are typically announced. Just sit tight. Now, if you want to talk about bad dropship pathing, where you can't (for instance) exit the hospital in Skyway without getting blasted by a train of dropships, that's something else, and I'd say absolutely, ask that to be looked into. They *shouldn't* be getting that close to the hospital or trainers, and it's especially frustrating for a low level trying to get somewhere "around" the invasion. But otherwise, just remember it's timed and will be over soon.

It's rare that I see ambushes outside of (a) the costume missions (where I'm waiting for them) or (b) a task force where the leader has to go take "evidence" or whatever somewhere and the rest of the team is at the mission door waiting for the fedex to be done.

Of course, you could also just edit playernotes.txt I suppose, if you wanted to do this offline. Looks like the format is "Global" "Stars" "Known character names, with commas for each" "Note" Probably have to log off an dback on to the game for it to take effect, or at least get to the character select screen.

Of the two, physical storage is insanely cheap. And when I look at demorecords of old bases - some of which could get pretty complex - none of those (uncompressed text files, honestly) even approach 1 Mb in size. Mind you, 1 Tb hard drives are under $100. So even if we had everyone back from live (what was the max, 250-300,000 players) and each of them managed to build three massive bases, and they were stored they way demorecords are (mind you, they're probably compressed instead,) we'd ... still be able to have them all on one cheap drive. Even if we found the most expensive 1 Tb drives with all the enterprise relaiablity features, etc, *plus* backup drives that were complete images... it'd be cheap. I don't think space taken by bases is honestly an issue. (Oh. Looking at a demorecord? After a header filled with gibberish (to us,) you see things like: 0 1 NEW "Mystic Advisor" 0 1 NPC v_base_object 0 1 DYNLIB basecntrlauxarc_advisor01_f_N_P 0 1 POS 328 0 360 0 1 PYR 0 -2.343922 -0 0 1 MOV READY 0 0 2 NEW "Magic Axis" 0 2 NPC v_base_object_unselectable 0 2 DYNLIB basecntrlarc_sngstones_f_N_P 0 2 POS 334 5 384 0 2 PYR 0 1.583068 0 0 2 MOV READY 0 0 3 NEW Carolyn 0 3 NPC Citizen_Biz_Fem_33 0 3 DYNLIB Vanguard_TrainingDummy_Rikti 0 3 POS 310 0 377 0 3 PYR 0 -1.570796 -0 0 3 MOV READY_2HIPS_LOOK 0 0 4 NEW Gregory 0 4 NPC Citizen_Biz_Male_05 0 4 DYNLIB Vanguard_TrainingDummy_Rikti 0 4 POS 310 0 391 0 4 PYR 0 -1.570796 -0 0 4 MOV READY_XARMS_LOOK 0 0 5 NEW "Icon Employee" 0 5 NPC Model_IconEmployeeB 0 5 DYNLIB Vanguard_TrainingDummy_Rikti 0 5 POS 311 0 384 0 5 PYR 0 -1.570796 -0 0 5 MOV READY_XARMS_LOOK 0 ... and so forth. Oh, but what about storage? That's likely not adding that much - just databases saying what's where and who can get it.)

Currently running a Ryzen 7 1700 and (regular) 1080, so... (And I'm thinking more of multiple, multiple GPU setups.)

Just so you know, there are three "Categories" mentioned in the first post - The top 10 contributors to the team each month will receive 500 Reward Merits and a permanent costume power of their choice The #1 contributor each month will receive an additional 500 Reward Merits The #2 and #3 contributors each month will receive an additional 250 Reward Merits 10 randomly chosen contributors with at least 5 Work Units complete (outside the top 10) each month will receive 500 Reward Merits and a permanent costume power of their choice 10 randomly-chosen contributors with at least 1 Work Unit complete (outside the top 10) each month will receive 500 Reward Merits and a permanent costume power of their choice I finally cracked 10 million last month, and have sort of crawled back from 50 somehow (not sure...) so, for me, at least, I have to cross fingers about the last two categories 🙂 Basically, as long as you didn't start in the last half-day of the month and had the client running, you *probably* have at least 1 WU (assuming, of course, one was assigned - not always guaranteed) you're in for at least one possible random win. Yeah, I can't put the money (or space, or money for power...) to set up a 'mining' type setup to get anywhere near the top 10. (Even if I had the cash to throw at it, I don't think I could get one set up - not technically, but space and noise wise! I am *literally* renting a master bedroom in someone's house, which serves as bedroom, work-at-home PC office, my normal PC, bookshelves, guitars... no room for that sort of thing.)

May want to say hi down on the Everlasting server board - it's the unofficial RP server here.

Were they online at the time or off? I didn't see those, but nobody was on from my list at the time.

They know, they're just asking for the ability to add a note. All you can see is if they're on/offline, what server, teamed, etc. RIght click and you can only remove them or send them a global message. Local, by comparison, you can right click and "edit note." I think that would be useful, yes. Or at least tie the two together - if you have a local note already, you can see it in global, otherwise you can add it.

Yeah, in my experience, practically instant. And I agree, verify you sent it to your @global name.

Yep. One of the ones that got me well before patron arcs was one of the villain morality missions - where you're told you had the choice to share power with frostfire or take it all, regardless of what it meant. I *believe* it even said that at the time, you knew sharing would make the mission go better or something... Didn't fit my characters at all.

Back on live, my... third? Maybe fourth character was an electric/electric blaster. Therra Arcson. Created in Issue 3. First screenshot is dated 2/26/2005. If I'm reading the time right, 8:29 PM. This is .. the third. She's there in low res innocence, not knowing a debt cap wasn't a form of headwear (and that the busses do not run in Paragon.) I nearly deleted her early on since I felt bad about accidentally killstealing at one point. As in, she was still in the single digits. I'm glad I didn't, as she became a vehicle for really experiencing the best of the game. I made friends through her, co-led a supergroup (Shadow of the Storm, Pinnacle,) got into RP through her. Found that I'd helped someone with some personal issues deal with them through her - they could talk. It was odd, but rewarding. She was a blaster, so of course, she hit the debt cap. Stayed there through level 38 and 39, which was a slog - I'd run out of content. And of course, she was my first 50, early early on my birthday, july 14th, 2005. I then continued her story, rolling her up as a Peacebringer - and leading to an even more involved storyline. (Plus falling in love with Kheldians. Yes, even with old-school Qs, Voids and Cysts.) She's also the subject of one of my favorite pieces of artwork - think it's in my "old and new" thread, by Graver13. So, fast forward to homecoming. I'm heavily alted. New characters and old. I have a couple in the 30s and 40s... and Therra. Here, an Elec/Elec/Fire sentinel - she volunteeers to fly top cover during rikti raids, since she can deal with the blasts. Debt cap? Haven't come close. Time-wise? Old T hit 50 in something around 300+ hours... I want to say 380, but I didn't record it. Here? 58. >.< Working her way up it honestly, not just sitting in AE. Mind you, I do have some that sit in AE for a spell. I've seen this content a *lot,* after all. So remakes with the same sets tend to get a boost. Anyway. Here's to doing it again. (And just being able to.) 🙂

I went through and refreshed my memory on paragonwiki. The entry mentions this: Bug! The Hydra Enhancement award option can be selected by any character that successfully completes the trial; however, only characters within the 38-40 level range will actually receive it. Characters above level 40 who select it will not receive the Enhancement or any Reward Merits. ... was that ever fixed?

I *did* say "According to google translate." 🙂

I want to say it's a max of 150 characters.

Possibly by having a dropship kill them. You know, like the thing the OP was complaining about to begin with... Not if they're getting killed, which happens when a dropship flies directly over and kills them. And going to another zone does not let them finish the missions they have *in the zone.* Also, the bombs these drop do quite a bit of knockback - not a worry for a higher level character with some resistance, but for a lowbie (level 7 was mentioned,) the possibility of "Try to avoid - get blasted - get bombed and get knocked back - get killed by NPC or second blast (or dropship right behind the first)" is very possible.

However, some missions and content take you to zones which are being invaded. There is no option to, say, complete your "Talk to Kung Bao" mission in any zone other than the one that contact is in. If the person cannot, say, get to the train station, does not have one of the various teleporters, etc. they're pretty much stuck in the zone... the one being invaded. You cannot choose where your mission door is. So, no, other than logging out entirely, there's no 100% "I choose not to participate" option. As far as the request, No, as they happen zone wide, just like you cannot opt to not be engaged in PVP if you're in a PVP zone. That said, you can *dodge* invasions - more so in some zones than others - by being under "things." Overpasses, building edges, etc. No, it doesn't help with trainers - since most of them are right out in the open (I can't think of any off the top of my head who aren't, other than War Witch in Pocket D,) but it's certainly worth requesting that the dropship paths be reviewed and changed to *not* hit people who are at the trainers. There are already police drones by them to hit hostile mobs that come too close, and now most NPC trainers will fight, as well, so the idea of a trainer being a "safe zone" (especially since you're in a full screen interface that blocks the world) is not unreasonable. Alternately, let them kill you, but have a rez station in your base. Don't have a base, make one - doesn't have to be fancy, a plain room with a medporter, trainer, quartermaster, etc. there will work. Die, choose to rez in your base, use the trainer there, and either wait or use a teleport to go elsewhere. And of course, you don't get debt by getting killed during an invasion. Edit: There's one sort of "opt out," if you're trying to do tips and alignment missions - do them in Atlas. If the alert comes up, dodge over there and run them, as Atlas will not have an invasion, ever, but you *can* turn in your tips and such there to get door missions. *Usually* they will show up in the same zone. So you can make some progress there while waiting for an invasion to end in the zone you want to go to.