Greycat

Fun read, all 'round. Thanks folks - always good to see you!

The game *is* easy to continue playing. As far as "homework to play the game," *every* game from Tic Tac Toe or checkers on up means you have to learn *something.* And then build on what you've learned. Whether it's "Oh, if I move this piece here, I can prepare to jump multiple pieces of the other guy's" in checkers, "If I play this card first and hold off on that other one, I can pull off a really neat combo" in any number of CCGs (Magic, Pokemon, Sorcery, whatever,) or "Slotting *this* is actually more helpful over here" in COH. Expecting to play a game without learning anything - including how this is *not* WoW or Destiny or some other game - isn't realistic. (And as far as "20 or 30 more," it's just as likely to have most of us age out as it is for hardware to just not really support it any more short of some really hardcore retro guy running their own server saying "Gramps used to run this game" on... Holotwitch or YouBrainshare or whatever's running then. So saying "it won't last another 20 years" with or without conditions? *shrug* )

Aside from "You really don't need to be defense capped or perma-whatevered" ... I'd generally point *to* the individual AT forums for build ideas. But if you want to play with builds, the two things I'd point out are: 1. Mids. (Has its own subforum.) Much cheaper to move play enhancements around in a builder before committing to something, and 2. While you *are* playing around and experimenting, remember the rule of 5. You can only have 5 (active - 6th or beyond won't do anything, but you won't be stopped from placing something that gives it) of a percentage of something in set bonuses. (In other words, you can have 5 "3.5% noodle defense" set bonuses from any combination of sets stacking. A sixth won't add anything. A "2% noodle defense" will, a "3.5 mozzarella defense" will.)

I'd say the only thing close to "failure" here for those new folks is the lack of anything saying "We're different from other MMOs - we start at 1, not 50." But that in itself is a long conversation. We don't really go for "gear" - yes, we have enhancements, but you don't have to fight other players for them in a need/greed roll, you don't need "the best" to be able to do anything, etc. Nobody's running DPS meters on you. There's absolutely no reason to rush to 50. The vets know this. But the vets also often know "I can't stand MM's 'til I have all their pets and I want to skip everything in between." Or "This character has THESE powersets fit them, but I've played them already and just want to get them kitted out." Or "The content I like is in the 20s-30s, I just want to get there." And so.. PL/Farm/DFBDFBDFB 'til then - but we're doing that as a (hopefully) informed decision. Someone new isn't going to know why so many people are doing this and is going to likely assume it's like 'everywhere else' and everything before top-level is just filler. You can *try* to catch them in Help or whatever if they ask, sure. I know I've seen the occasional "new player looking for PL" and told them if they want to actually experience the game, don't PL, find some mission teams instead, but that's if *they* say something and someone catches it to let them know.

Distinctive, sure. But, how many people are excited to get a (say) teleport set? Besides. Slotting-wise, I don't see why these should be restricted to "just rezzes" (if that kind of category exists.) We have healing, we have accurate healing (some of which does damage as I'm recalling.) I might not mind a more damage/effect focused extra accurate-healing set, or *a* set or two that focus on both health and endurance recovery. But past that, this many sets I'd honestly just see diluting the drop pool.

Well, some of the various Corvette and Camaro models are pretty good. Absolutely hated the "beak" on the final FIrebird generation. Actually really liked the Beretta back in the day, fun car to drive, and some of the Bonnevilles, too. Never tried farming them...

I heard something about maintenance, having seen a few zones (talos, PD) with multiple instances.

It (and the other P2W attacks) are also unaffected by the Rage crash in Super Strength, as it's not "your" power. (And takes long enough that you're not "doing nothing" during said crash for very long.)

The "impossible to target" won't be helped with that, generally, since the game can only draw so many critters. You will either need to be at the edge of the mass of people in the bowl, or find something like a lore or Mastermind pet to target through.

You're aware that any "organizing" you do is only saved locally, right... switch systems (say from a desktop to a laptop, or getting a new system) and it's lost. So, hope you kept the file synced between systems that kept that order.

... but written completely in Resistance-speak.

The dots won't get smaller. There's a limit to how many it will show. On one test, I made *many more* than 160 (16 "pages" x 10 characters per page.) It maxes out at 20 "dots." But what you will see is that past that it starts to skip - "Character page 1" to "Character page 3," etc. as you go dot to dot. That said, it *does* scroll to the selected "dot" already. Small area for the dot, but it does do that already. (Note, yes, this was on a test, so nobody start complaining about names at seeing that... unless you were *really* wanting aldka1234.) Personally, I wouldn't want to log out to the "last played" character - aside from the impression I get that it wouldn't really know, it's a little odd apparently as to what's shown (or showable) on the character select screen vs in game. Might be wrong about that, though. Honestly, though, the entire character screen needs revamping. The search by name/powerset/AT is helpful (and where I'll usually just find the character if I'm looking for one - I've got quite a few alts myself,) but an overhaul to allow things like filtering by level, or SG, or being able to pull in extra info to show on an "info" tab (some people want to see things like iNF that I think would just clutter things up, personally) are common requests.

This post was running steamy mist, I think. 😉

... so to repeat the question, are you sure you're not just teaming with Snarky? 😉

It's a "feature," yeah. (And yes, I find it annoying.) It's the "modern" control scheme. You can pick between classic, modern... think two others... just a sec, I'll find it. Classic gives the old behaviour. (Though I seem to recall that switching these resets everything, if you have custom binds.) Classic has "Rotate camera" set to "Middle mouse button." Modern has "Quick look" set to "Middle mouse button," which I believe is the view that snaps back.

... geez, that has been three years already (plus a month.)

... that's... kind of the point of rikti drones and the couple of others? Which on the whole don't make up a huge percentage of the game...

However, this is a video game, not tabletop. There *is* no DM there to ratchet things up or down depending on how the players are doing. And I mean that either as characters ("well, if I keep doing this, a team wipe is coming," for instance, or "ok, they're really cruising through this, time to throw a curveball at them") or as people ("ok, I'm putting off what I had planned for this encounter, Steve's really stressed over something and is not in the mood for it.") Plus the game's ... not that bright, mob-behaviour-wise. Ambushes, for instance, do one of three things: - Zero in on the player (or whichever player triggered them) no matter what, and nothing the player can do short of leaving the floor or mission can break it (and sometimes going back in just sets that target on them again,) - Zero in on where they player *was* when they were spawned - Go to/spawn at a predetermined point and stay there. They don't deviate. They don't really do anything clever (or to make the player feel clever.) I've rescued/kidnapped someone and avoided an ambush by... stepping 10 feet down a side hall and watching them all run by. Related, unless you have a debuff aura on a critter, they don't alert *anyone* as they run by at 5% health away from whatever was fighting them. "Hey. Was that Frank?" "Yep." "Was he on fire and bleeding out?" "It's Wednesday, he does that." "Ah, OK. Hey, going to the game this weekend?" Unless they're supposed to be absolute doofuses, I don't think any DM would have this as a common "thing," or that many players would find it all that satisfying (talking tabletop again.) While it's fine to have ideas inspired by tabletop, it's not always a good argument for (or against) something, since the only thing going on behind the scenes are simple algorithms, not someone judging you for the quality of the pizza you brought for the group. 😉 Not your call. Look through the forums at how many people want to play "street level" heroes. The game has room enough for both SuperUltraMan and AngryManWithStick. Just like trying to say who can and can't post, you probably shouldn't be deciding for people who should and shouldn't be playing the game. Frankly, I have more fun with my not-that-super characters. It's also part of why I don't do "builds." Yes, I could easily do defense-capped, recharge-capped uber characters - I'm well aware of how, and can fund them fairly easily if I chose to, but I don't find them particularly fun 98% of the time. Even my few farmers aren't hyper-optimized (but I don't AFK farm, where that'd be a bit more important.) You're being willfully obtuse here. But I'll explain anyway. A single player game is not "I happen to be playing an MMO alone." Especially one with the variety of ATs and powerset combos we have here. A single player game tends to be fairly restricted in what a character can be, and has *much* more control over what they'll face and when. It's designed with and tailored to *a* single person playing. Nobody's going to confuse a single player game - from Zork to Assassin's Creed to Dragon Age - with an MMO someone's playing through solo. It has nothing to do with people losing network connection or not wanting to wait for you to read something.

I wouldn't want anything like that something to pay aether for. (Or merits of any sort.) No paywalling costume parts - no matter what it's being paid with. That said, I think the only reason we don't have this is technical - I vaguely recall something about only a certain number of points to attach/wear things being available. They'd probably have to create/modify some of the belts for holsters (or sheaths... sheathes? or scabbards) for this instead, if possible.

Heartily recommend you not start trying to tell people who can and can't, or should and shouldn't, post. And whose experience should anyone base their opinions on other than their own? Fire/spine tanks would like to talk to you. Or brutes. Or scrappers. Or /rad. Ever hear of CEBR? It was a farm type on live for a while, designed because a claws/elec brute (C-laws E-lectric BR-ute, thus the name) could make short work of low level enemies n a farm - as in single digit levels - and farm *very* effectively for a while. They haven't removed those powers - and thanks to level availability changes, more powers like that are available early on. So, pretty much all of melee is not "in the lurch," given the number of powersets with AOEs like that - that's ignoring cones, that's ignoring Khelds just spamming Nova AOEs (also single-digit-level.) And what would the OP's suggestion get us? Basically... visual spam. A bunch of single-hit enemies with little to no XP to make up for it, eating up the target cap. And I'll go from *my* experience - even ignoring the gas clouds they leave, the Rikti Monkeys are this already... and I hate seeing mobs of them standing around. Since they're not *worth* the time, but I do have to clear them - and that's when I'm not on a MM, where I might as well prepare to dismiss and resummon pets instead of trying to wrangle them from wherever they've gone (but that, again, specific to the gas clouds. Though, what else are these other mobs going to do in theory? Explode like cadavers? Something else?) About the only characters of mine I could think of *loving* this wouldn't do it for "making you feel super!" as the OP thinks it would (and what if you're not *supposed* to be?) but my Warshades. Group of quickly killed underlings filling my Mire up and jacking up my damage? Or my Eclipse and capping resists? At little risk, since I'd be teleporting in, firing off what I need to and killing them? Cheaper than inspirations! And if anything *does* hit me, I've got a bunch of Stygian fuel there to top up health and END. (Mind you, I'm talking just lower to low-mid levels. As many other characters get higher, they can get the same sort of "surround with enemies and buff" - especially in the dark armor/dark APPs. Dominators /psy has also been notorious for its AOE buff to regen/recovery... which I'm blanking on the name right now.) If this were a *single player* game, I'd call this much more doable. Fitting, even. Even squad based, where everyone's at some sort of balance - thinking, say, L4D's survival modes - it'd fit in. But here, where you can't just say (for instance) "A controller will...." because all you have to do is switch what secondary you'er putting with what primary can radically change performance... I don't really see it.

I'm not sure I'd want a melee character to stop. Though, granted, I don't tend to have a target on "follow." This has been a staple (including the "drifting past, though the attack is actually underway") for me for dealing with enemies like Protean (avoiding his AOE buff/heal) or (say) a PB getting the first strike on a Quantum/Void. I'd be wary of any adjustment to the behaviour on "follow" breaking it when not. It would have a *decided* effect on survivability.

Hmm?

Any, really. I'm more interested in the player being fun to play with. If I wanted to worry about numbers, I'd have gone into accounting.

Take your power off of auto so it gets rid of the shield, for one. No reason for it to be out when you're nowhere near combat (ok, I suppose it could be a permanent part of you, but it doesn't have to be that way by default.) Besides, shield's the only powerset I know of that can turn walk into baywatch-run. That said, wouldn't argue with other stances for it. *shrugs*

While helping someone out, we noticed that offline members don't show up for player created chat channels. While this is fine for regular members, for admin purposes being able to see who's "in but not on" a channel could be helpful. There's also a command, channelmembers, which I thought would help - but it also just shows who's on, even as admin. We've already got other channels (such as global friends and SG) that automatically show a full member list, whether they're on or off. The name's there, just greyed out. Would it be possible to do the same with player created channels, at least for admins - at least as an option? Other channel management slash commands would be useful as well.