Greycat

I know I'd suggested something similar on live. I'd love to see it.

Skimming, you're sort f describing the IOs from the P2W vendor, but able to make a set from them (potentially,) only able to get pieces from (for instance) each "surviving 8" TF until you get them all... I'll re-read after having eaten and gotten out of workbrain.

I'm going to argue that nothing is really "scaled" for TOs. They've very little effect (popping a small inspiration has more effect,) and are really just a cheap way to learn "which color means what" and "what inspiration fits where." They basically make your enhancement window slightly more colorful than if they weren't there. Oh, and give a tiny bit of INF when sold. (a few hundred INF, I think, at best, now that they haven't dropped at high levels since sometime on live?)

Yes, hazard zones could use arcs too, but.... After zipping around in Echo:Galaxy (has some of my favourite badges to get, location wise,) I started thinking - wouldn't it be nice if these had arcs? Yes, there are some mobs to street sweep, but nothing else, and I think these zones present an opportunity - one of exploring backstory and old storylines. Not "Playing old content," we have Ouro for some of that, but touching on the history of the changed/gone zones, and perhaps reinforcing some of the "new" arcs. For instance, Echo:Faultline could have you investigating Faultline's father, maybe doing a last, desperate search for survivors, reinforcing the altered story that everyone believes before the "new" faultline arcs. Echo:Galaxy could deal with "Before they came..." - not just the Shivans, of course, but the Kheldians, as Shadowstar used to be stationed there. Maybe have the early days of the Warshade/Peacebringer truce. I think these zones could open up some interesting storytelling options if looked at like this.

As opposed to "One does not simply walk into Morder. One, of course, needs buffs." (Misspelling intentional.)

I enjoy the Kheld arcs enough to keep running them. Veats, I run to 10 for the cosutme slot and never touch the arcs again. Other than that? I want to find the Praetoria story enjoyable. I don't like it mechanically, though. Lots of things that are just not fun on a lowbie (not to mention "Hey, go pick some flowers..." feeling like a time waster.) I've gone through them, but getting everything done... I didn't get through it four times. (More, actually, if you want to do the "report to the other side" stuff.) Dislikes *tend* to stick out as single missions, though (like "Hey, deliver this CD to the person on the other side of skyway!" *delivers* "Oh, thanks, my kid needed these newspaper clippings." Really? Or the villain morality mission where you've defeated Frostfire in the past... even most of my villains wouldn't do something flat out stupid like that in the presented situation.) Other than that... *thinks* the "we're both idiots!" Willy Wheeler.

Not going to comment on the numbers, since (a) not a numbers guy and (b) I suspect it would depend, in part, on the powerset itself (for instance, T2 'bots providing bubbles...) That said, given in some instances I almost never summon T1s (MSRs come to mind - they die too quickly,) I could definitely see using this and this being useful in some builds.

The original Wing Commander is the one I remember most for being unplayable. 🙂

More assumptions and more assumptions. People don't learn the market either, yet it's part of the game. It shouldn't be removed. People don't learn the PVP system, yet it's part of the game. It shouldn't be removed. IOs? Guess what, *They're not needed for anything.* They are an *optional* component. They should also not be removed - but just like the other two systems, shouldn't be required. It's a simple concept. And part of the strength of COH, part of what people love about it, is the option to play how they want.

Aren't you just pleasant. "Forum warriors" (see: people who have been around the game since live) have been "spouting nonsense" (see: repeating exactly what the dev team said) because it's true. And nowhere did I say "IOs shouldn't be in the game." Stop setting up strawmen. As far as "properly building?" Play 1-50 with SOs to prove to me you know your powersets without capped-this, perma-that. Do it multiple times. And handle any 1-50 content in the game. I know *I* can do it. Because I have (and still do.) Playing with SOs (or common IOs, if you just want to do that and ignore the SO upgrades every few levels, functionally the same) is still "properly building" characters. I find it funny that you call the content laughably easy while insisting you apparently need IOs (given your "proper build" description.) Give yourself a challenge and play without them.

Yeah, that sounds like what I saw.

This, I think I could agree with. Otherwise, "How much do you want the buffs to decrease in return?"

... Illusion controllers? I think I saw them.

The flip side is I hate seeing people think they can't play without IOs or perma-everything, or thinking people not set up that way are "useless." The game, as mentioned, was balanced around SOs. And back when Incarnates were released, I saw people complaining they couldn't defeat Trapdoor even with their "builds" - where my SO'd characters were perfectly able to. Knowing you can play without SOs, knowing your powersets, is not a problem.

Well, they're still missions. Ghost falcon's always fun if you just want someplace to keep churning through Rikti. And if you don't have an Ouro portal by 30, the Science store contact will unlock it, since it's time travel related.

All winners will be shown to the costume they like. The costume will then award itself to the player it finds most pleasing! ... also, sure, NOW one of my machines is getting plenty of WUs for both CPU and GPU. (Pity it's the slower laptop.)

Well, if anything the upgrade system might do that! 🙂 (More compelling than the time-consuming and "can fail" combining thing you do one at a time.)

Conversely, I'd be perfectly happy if they dumped Shards completely.

Don't know how I'd missed this before. With a theoretical legit COH, I'd want what I'd want out of any "live service" game - updates. And updates that make sense. New power sets, yes. New cosmetics. While I'd love to see the character models updated, that'd be a good bit more work. I'd like to see old, abandoned ideas (I've mentioned the Blood of the Black Stream, as a storyline if not as an AT) picked up and revisited. As always, more content, 1-50. More paths and groups to investigate, partway (like skulls to family) or fully (like the COT) through that range

Honestly, low level I don't think power creep is going to be that big of an issue. After all, you're still dealing with barely any *powers* and barely any *slots.* And we've already been getting SOs low level for a while - via DFB. That impact, I don't think I'd worry about. I'm not honestly sure how "compelling" getting SOs is these days, where we'd have to worry about lessening their impact. Granted, there are fewer milestones these days (nobody blinks an eye at hitting 20 any more to unlock Stamina and earn a cape, for instance.) But I don't think SOs are, or have been, one of them for a while. Probably a victim of IOs, even common ones.

Hmm. Wonder how this is going to interact with people using 2xp (and getting no dropped inf) at lower levels... Granted, INF isn't *hard* to get, even with that. I think what'll be more - interesting? Valuable? - will be comparing it against generic IO 15s at level 12 and 25-30s at 22/27, cost-wise, as those are completely set and forget.

Think most of my answers had been given elsewhere, but: - No class is needed. - Corollary, no class is useless. - And 10 characters from the same AT won't play the same unless deliberately built to. - PVP isn't forced. - Teaming isn't forced. Yes, there's some team content in task/strike forces, MSRs and the like, and the original devs forgot this when Incarnates were initially released, but I can easily solo 1-50+ - The game grew "out" instead of "up." You didn't find yourself suddenly having to try to catch up with new loot and 10-20 more levels, and newbies always had people to team with because the old hands weren't 200 levels away. Heck, old characters would drop back down to get new badges, see new contacts and the like. - Characters are unique, even if they're not dragons. In all the time from i3-sunset on live, I ran into someone with a similar costume (colors, pattern) ... once, that I can think of. And I had two accounts (more, at one point) with a ton of characters. My characters were *mine.* - No grind. (No, seriously, there's not. Contrast, for instance, Aion, where to keep competitive even in PVE - and PVP was typically mixed with this - you *had* to try to grind out money for, for instance, wing upgrades, or for one specific good suit of decent armor you had to get 5 characters (one piece fell per character) up to some level or other... and then try to trade for stuff for your class on whichever one was going to get the armor.) - On live, the most common answer would probably be "the community." Hoping that remains the case here. There were many subcommunities that - from various comments - felt safe or felt 'home' in the COH community. - You don't (some Incarnate content excepted) need any "loot." You don't *have* to have a multibillion inf purpled out build to do anything. - Most content is instanced, and that stuff that isn't, generally is either populated with NPCs enough everyone that needs it can do it or comes back quickly enough others can get it. (As opposed to, say, "boss sniping" or having a bunch of people sitting and waiting for a spawn. Wish I still had my Tabula Rasa beta screenshots with this loooooooong line of people waiting to get their first... I forget what they called them so I'm just going to say "rune" or "glyph." It was funny, but annoying.)

There was a script the devs ran twice. They didn't bother to do it again because so few names were freed up (at least that people wanted.) Details here: https://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Character_Name_Policy It was altered to "Characters under 5" the second time because that's where it had the most - but still very limited - impact. You might not care about it, but there are two things to remember - Live was around longer, with more people over its run than we've had so far, and the second time the script was run was to prepare for server transfers, where (presumably) there'd be more chance for "collisions" of names.

You forgot one. "Oops," which also knocked *you* back. Got that one twice. 😄

No DPS on it, but take your pick, otherwise.