Greycat

1. Impacting identity - no. Honestly I feel some of the Incarnate abilities have more of an impact/homogenization in this regard than any sort of powerset proliferation. 2. Since Sentinels now have stone armor, I'm not really waiting for anything to be proliferated. I have remade Rock Yew (Archery/Stone armor) and am satisfied with it. :) Any other powersets I can think of would take more work than just "proliferation" (dual pistol assault dom, we'd need some sort of melee, etc.) so I don't really count them here.

Heh. I actually like that one. Especially if you get the target when *they* aren't trying to animate an attack or something so they can do the "hop from foot to foot" reaction. "Toes toes toes..."

If you wanted to do it somewhat slowly, keep ouro'ing the first... *thinks* Peacebringer arc. There's always one there specifically to meet the (assumed Kheldian) player.

Make assumptions about people, and use that to insult them. THAT'll win people over. (I've made *plenty* of suggestions to change things in game since I started playing. That's pretty much the opposite of "any change to the status quo... is going too far." ) The "new player" game is *MUCH* easier than it was. And getting easier *still.* For instance... automatically getting respecs at every ten levels, and (if you do the patron pool arcs) unlocking a patron pool. Plus three trials. Plus alt builds. Or not having to burn a pool pick to get Fitness, or getting travel powers at level 4 without a prerequisite. I deal with the "new player" experience because I answer questions and talk to them when I can. In game, out of game, whichever. New player, mid player, whatever, I don't tend to hear "I need a dozen more respecs." I think the most common new-player-respec question is "Where is Jack Wolfe?" if anything (and that bit of text needs to be fixed .) In what way? There's nothing about it that would "streamline" anything. Joining the train lines back in the day? That streamlined things. Having a power that lets you travel to any zone you've visited, or one that moves the entire team to a mission? That streamlined things. There are a lot of things that *could* be done to make respecs themselves better. But "Make them free and unlimited" doesn't do that, or address any of the issues with respecs I could think of. "Let me undo the last level selection?" Sure. "Let me save the slotting to make that part easier?" Sure. "Put the scroll bar back on the big enhancement tray" or "Put my enhancements back in my enhancement tray if I don't slot them, instead of deleting them?" Yep. "Let me see my enhancements while placing slots?" Would make sense, and probably combine two steps into one - very much 'streamlining' the process. "Unlimited free respecs?" Not so much.

And you posted it in a forum, which means you're likely going to get some feedback, which need not be positive. Honestly, you're using foundational arguments that I'd have to find questionable at best (such as the in-game cost of respec recipes, which I'd addressed.) For instance - As mentioned, the question of financing one is, indeed, trivial - without having to look up how to "play the market." You state the free respecs "are not always enough" - according to who? What anxiety about access to respecs? That might have been the case *early* on live, when those earned three were all you had and you didn't have alt builds - it *certainly* did exist then - but I can't say I've picked up any "anxiety" about it through anything heard in game as a general vibe. And "complicated build demands?" You can play this successfully on basic enhancements. People have done so since before it went live. There are no "complicated build demands" that aren't self inflicted, and certainly no "need to use a hero planner." In literally hundreds of builds, I've rarely if ever used one, past just playing around when bored. When you're using these as arguments for a suggested change? The argument just isn't very strong. And just passing it off as "Well, it's a QOL change" doesn't really help. For instance, having the last few enemies or last glowie show up on the map was a QOL change that fits that definition exactly (even if the implementation doesn't always work.) "Piles of free respecs?" Not so much. There's not really anything it addresses or fixes, given the current fairly easy availability of respecs. It takes none of the above. The only characters I regularly respec are my VEATs, and that's because I'm *forced* to at level 24. If people *want* to plan out characters to whatever level, they can, but there's nothing in regular content or most TFs/Trials that require it... or "luck" or anything else.

Side note... 1 mil for a respec recipe is painfully easy to get. Do *anything* to get 10 merits, including exploring two zones (have you explored *all* of red and blue side, including the sewers?) Go to merit vendor. Pick up converters (30x... currently ~65k on the market) or two boosters (5 merits each, last 5 at 1m each.) Sell. Get respec recipe, with spare change left over. (Which is funny because the *merit* cost for the respec recipe is 50. Seems a bit overpriced, given at 100 I can buy a winter recipe and probably get 20 mil... and buy multiple respec recipes if I wanted.) (Also checking the market, of the last 5 respec recipes sold, two were at 1m, three were at under 500k.... and heck, I just put a bid in for the heck of it at 333,000 and had it filled in a few minutes while I was typing. This is a very easily attained price.) And as I recall the candy cane vendor carries some as well... don't recall the price there. Probably also "expensive by comparison." Honestly, I haven't heard this general hue and cry that more respecs were needed - we have a great deal now (the level-awarded ones, the respec trials, one if you do the redside patron pool, and if you don't mind stripping the other builds, three total builds - starter, level 10 and level 50 - to use.) That said, even if someone *did* need more respecs, I don't think giving them away daily or free at the P2W vendor, or that anyone's needing them that rapidly for each character. A week's cooldown on a respec trial before you can get another respec? That, maybe. If someone's saying they'r edoing something where they need multiple respecs a day, yes, I'd shoot them toward Brainstorm.

Why don't we just remove every effect from the game that isn't directly damage, a buff or debuff? No more KD, KU, stuns, -def, repels, holds, chances for holds, nothing for anyone to have to learn to use strategically or cleverly. Then we can work on getting rid of all the graphics people complain about. Hurricane can be a big transparent plate, all the armors - self-affecting and team - can just be icons on the buff bars. We can be "City of people running around causing numbers to appear on NPCs." Until people complain about those numbers appearing and ask for those to go away. "City of mysterious NPC deaths." Wheee...

I wouldn't hold my breath.

Whenever I hear someone advertise themselves as a "healer," I cringe, regardless of side. Defender or Corrupter, you *should* be doing so much more. (Still, as a direct answer? It's bodies that aren't yours soaking up incoming fire.) As far as corrupter vs blaster? *shrug* Depends what it is, what you're fighting, how you're playing maybe. I know my Seismic blaster pretty well chews through anything.

Man, I've been an advocate of using multiple builds, and I don't think I've ever wanted a fourth. 😄 That said, unless there's a technical reason it would be problematic, I don't see why not. There's not even a UI modification to worry about, really. (Cue someone saying how adding a line of text to it at the trainer would be oh so hard for the poor developers and they should be working on other things in 3...2...)

Menu - options - controls (and possibly keymapping.)

Dang, working then. (I've got *ideas* but am rather daunted by the process of actually *implementing* them.)

While I don't *think* it's happened here, I remember Live having issues with one or two (or several) shards. Always seemed to have this conversation: "When is (server) going to be back? I want to play!" (sometimes adding the "what am I paying for?!") "Why not roll an alt on one of the servers that's up? They say it'll be down for a while, at least that way you'd get to play." "All my characters are on (down server!) Why should I play somewhere else?" "... because that server's down and the others aren't?" Like I said, I don't *think* it's happened here, but it's one of the reasons I tend to go for server diversity. 🙂

Yeah. Those have been... overdue for a change. I don't know how hard it is to update the list they pull from, or if some have specific lists, but... yeah. Question is what to update them to. "Strange goings-on in Dark Astoria! StrangER goings on, I mean!" "City official says nothing broken, loud noise was from facepalm of multiple developers after change called easy!" Do we try to put page/issue updates in as newsie items? (Trying to turn those into lore-sounding items can get ... cringey.) "Multiple Sentinels accused or being stoners! Investigation underway!"

Given the auction house slots for each character change depending on level (and, as I recall, badges,) probably not particularly easy or ideal.

As an instance or a *very* brief time, maybe. "For a month," absolutely not. DA's supposed to have a certain feel to it (and FWIW, I liked old DA better, environment-wise,) and "Oh, just light the whole thing up" would ruin it. (Also, the whole *point* of new-DA is hunting and defeating something worse than just a monster - Mot.)

Rezzing a three year old thread. How do you slot for that?

I *have* alts on other servers, but I go to them somewhat rarely.

Yes. Sometimes it's deliberately duplicating a character on another account for RP purposes. But in general, if my character needs X/Y powersets to express who they're meant to be, they get those powersets, whether I've made a bunch of them previously or not. Defining the character is what counts to me, not "oh, I've played a bunch of X," most of the time.

If this were *optional* and *only visible to the player,* maybe. I mean, we do track stats for things (or used to - apparently the kiosks tracking things took more behind the scenes horsepower than we think.) I'm frankly *against* any sort of bonus, other than a badge (which we get already for some of this) being given, as this would discriminate *heavily* against some powersets and/or ATs. Bonus for damage dealt or percentage of team damage? Why would I bring my controller to anything if I knew I had far less of a chance of a reward than the IO'd out brute that goes rushing off to kill the other half of the map? Why would I bring a sonci or rad, when there's no way to "credit" them for lowering enemy resistances (and making them easier to kill) and knowing they'd get less out of the TF? So... yeah, as optional and with no rewards other than potentially badges? Sure.

Honestly, I'd have to think about what I play regularly. I think most of mine are hero, just because. There are a few that would specifically either (a) need to go back and forth for one reason or another or (b) would *fit* the idea of a rogue or vigilante, and so get that alignment. And I'll usually do that switch through Null. As far as tips? Eh. 40 merits. I'm not particularly fond of most of them. Redside, they probably bug me the most, as the actual alignment selection missions can railroad you into "you're doing something utterly out of character and flat out stupid" that my characters wouldn't do. I just grit my teeth and get through them.

Not giving it to brutes or stalkers? 🙂

Well, I think the main issue isn't anyone being "forced" to join, but how few people would show up to begin with.

If you did it early (when I enjoyed it, frankly) then, yeah, you know this wasn't always the case... and was part of the reason (when introduced in I13) that the PVP population dropped. (The zones used to be a *lot* of fun, even without a "PVP bulid.")

Fitness became inherent in issue 19, F2P was 21. (Honestly, I thought inherent fitness was earlier than that. Go figure.)