Greycat

Ehhhh... I could see "once they were introduced," which is what it sounds like you're saying, but even when I started playing (i3, so I missed the "one costume, no capes" issues,) it felt more like a "Have to do this to get through it" than "ooh, I can't wait!" to me. (Moreso since I started with the COH collector's edition... part of which included Prestige Power Slide (level 1) and the Cape of the Four Winds... which you couldn't use 'til 20 and finishing that mission. Which just made it even more annoying.) Same with auras at 30, which I often skipped. Heck, you can throw store unlocks in there, too, which you got at 30. (Though when we had to earn "Entrusted with the secret," at least the science store unlock mission in bricks - which no longer unlocked anything at that time, IIRC - would grant that.)

Did they have a lot of ambushes? ;)

Fingers for my characters.

For the in-game arcs? No, not to my knowledge. Then again, they're most likely "written" (as in plot, breaking into story chunks, tweaking or creating mobs, etc.) by a team. The only one I can think of that would probably have a known author would be Smoke and Mirrors. (Troy Hickman.) Mid-to-late live stuff that is an absolute ambush-fest probably had Sean McCann involved. >.>

You can *believe* that all you want. Reality, however, solidly disagrees with you. The powers are "correctly called" whatever they are called in game. Not what some completely unrelated webpage has to call it or say about anything else. The powers in game do whatever they're designed to in game, not what some schlub vomited out on a completely unrelated wiki somewhere else.

And where *in COH* are you getting this definition? You're copying from a wiki that has absolutely nothing to do with COH. "Superpowers wiki" means jack-all here, or anywhere other than itself, frankly. If *YOU* want to have that restriction for *YOUR* characters, fine. Don't try using it as any sort of support for what is or isn't generally or lore-wise allowed here.

... that "pixie chick in Ouro," btw, being Luna, a player who passed away. And personally, my "what to do with shards" is "get rid of them as a drop and use threads for everything" as an overall solution. But, yeah. I've got hundreds on some characters.

Wow, you're really reaching to try not to look silly with this argument, aren't you. We can already turn other things off. This would be just one more item on the list. Also, you did not say "something new to implement." This is another check on an existing list. You said "new tech," like it would require developing an entirely new system. See below, emphasis mine: No new tech was needed to not use your inspirations. No new tech was needed to play without enhancements- you could, after all, just create a new build (existing for ages by the time that difficulty system was put in) and just not have slots in it... yet it was implemented, and that back on live. And we know powers can be disabled. It happens when we exemp down. It happens when we go into PVP zones (on top of just altogether changing attributes of powers.) It happens when we turn on some temp powers. There is absolutely *zero* "new tech" here. Why don't you just say "I don't like it" and leave it at that?

It wouldn't be "new tech" to implement this OPTIONAL SETTING. Did you forget about this? We already have OPTIONAL SETTINGS to run without travel powers, to have enhancements have no effect ("Oh, but you can just unslot them," right?) and to have inspirations unavailable ("Oh, but you can just put them all in the auction house or not use them," right?) These OPTIONAL SETTINGS can already be chosen. This would just be an additonal OPTIONAL SETTING for people who want to use this OPTIONAL SETTING, just like they can use any of the other OPTIONAL SETTINGS. And maybe people don't want to not use inspirations, or travel powers, but the OPTIONAL SETTING to do so already exists. And nothing about what he says contradicts his first statement. It would be an additional checkbox at best for this OPTIONAL SETTING. If you don't want to use this OPTIONAL SETTING? You can OPT not to use it. That would be why it's called optional, versus "Remove incarnate powers from the game completely right now!"

Honestly, even ignoring PVP it'd be a welcome feature. It's been rare, but there have been times from live to now I've wanted to just *remove* someone and keep them from coming back while running an event. (Maybe 2-3 times in all that time.)

Honestly, as a back detail a good bit could possibly be done with the... er, back, though I suspect (purely a guess) that the placement's ... well, no, I was about to say the placement's limited to between the shoulder blades, but we have a cybernetic spine too, so that's not necessarily the case. Yeah. Spikes at the shoulders, option for the down the spine, bone lumps, bone ridges, bone plates (going straight out or to the side,) then go with additional options with, oh, solar panels, tech spikes (if possible, with electricity arcing down or across them) - plenty of possibilities. (Insert what seems to be the standard "oh but it's so much work the poor devs" complaint these days here.)

Where did I ever say "People only like to do one thing?" Let me save you the time: I didn't. What I *said* was that people would have to go from doing the other things they like - and gave examples - to go grind out badges for the reward - a reward which, from the OP's description, would have direct gameplay effects.

More of an "I think this would be nice to have" versus a need, but - what about a repeatable mission contact in Croatoa? Two reasons - 1. I play Croatoa a lot. Quite often I get to 28 or 29, and really am more interested in progressing in Croatoa than going to *another* zone or trying to find a TF or something, then coming back. (Especially for some of my magic-centric characters.) And 2. Badging. If you're not running on a team, street-sweeping to get the rest of the 333 each of the denizens of Croatoa gets tedious. (Honestly, some one-off actual *missions* or Croatoa-speciifc tips would be nice, too, versus the adlibs style tips we get, but, more work.)

... you realize base builders, RPers and AE makers *also* play the rest of the content, right? People don't just do one thing and one thing alone?

I have used AE to do stories in other locales. It doesn't let me create environments. It's hard to pull off "Ancient Egypt" (or central america, or other places I've set stories) in Yet Another Generic Cave or the options we have available. (Which would also be a side benefit - new maps, objects and characters - contacts and enemy groups - to bring in to AE. Set something in a museum. Use a desert map for anything from the southwest US to the Gobi to a ruined desert world, for instance.)

So as I'm playing yet another warshade, I'm reminded - there's no "Endmod/Heal" set. Or, on checking, even something like a D-sync or hami-o that covers it. This despite other powers that have been around since live that do precisely that (in rad, empathy and other sets.) There are other combinations like that as well. There's no damage/taunt. With Symphonic's damaging confuse, it can at least use a damage/mez d-sync/titan/hami, but there's no set for it. Yes, with some of these, you can frankenslot, but I think it'd be worthwhile to get some new enhancements - both in terms of hami or Dsyncs as well as sets (and, honestly, even one-off dual aspect "generic" IOs) to cover some of these uncovered bases. It'd cover some slot crunch situations as well as give a few more options for builds. Focusing on IOs here, I could see as examples: Endmod/Heal/absorb : Several ATs/powersets have powers that could use this. Probably have an option with damage and one without. Threat/damage: Just for a bit of variety. Accurate To-hit/Damage - There are a few powers that do damage that *also* buff your chance to hit. (Mires come to mind.) Again, more in the interest of variety for builds. (These would likely lean on recharge some, too.) Confuse/Damage: Since we have confuse attacks doing damage now, something other than the titan/hami options available as sets would be nice to add a little spice. Since right now this only covers one set (I don't believe seeds does damage off the top of my head,) maybe just one set would work here. *shrug* I'm sure there are other combos as well that currently just get frankenslotted or get one aspect enhanced to the detriment of the other. But these would be the start of getting a little more coverage on powers.

The only thing annoying about Freakshow is when you deliberately knock a Super Stunner away so it doesn't rez and a teammate goes chasing it like a hyperactive puppy chasing a rubber ball. Sadly we don't get to spray other players with a water bottle.

Except it *would* affect others playstyles. Tying it to some amount of badges means they'd have to redirect from what they *like* doing - missions, RP, whatever, and PVP especially comes to mind - to grinding badges out to that level for that reward. Frankly, it's no different from those games which had you pay an ever increasing amount to train up - sometimes on powers you already had and were just going to the next level on. It's one of the reasons I stopped playing the Old Republic MMO back in the day. I went from doing missions and doing story related things to "I need to grind out another million so I can go from 'Swing Lightsaber II" to 'Swing Lightsaber III'," and then I had OTHER powers I had to do that with to keep up with the content. It sucked *all* the fun out of it. Aion? Same thing. It got to the point of grinding to get powers and just keep up.

No introducing grind for powers, thanks. The incentive to play content is the content. The incentive to play content is merit rewards. (And in some zones - like the Hollows, Faultline and Croatoa - a merit *bonus* reward for finishing all the zone's content.) The incentive for *some* people are badges. Now, there are longer stories in game that go over several levels (not just the Kheldian/SOA arcs.) Small ones like Shauna Stockwell/Eagle Eye or Keith Nance/Jenny Adair, and longer, less obviously or more loosely linked ones that have been around since live. If you wanted to throw in a badge/accolade/merit reward for "investigating" those links across multiple contacts? That would be a way to reward and incentivize people for doing *content,* versus just "Well, I need three more hunt badges for some number of badge reward, time to kill a hundred of these guys and street sweep Perez for Skulls."

... I mean, what, Habashy's arc takes 5-10 minutes, gets you a few levels and gives you some merits, you could always do that...

*sigh* Oh look, the "but the dev time!" argument. The devs are big boys and girls, they can decide for themselves what they want to spend time on. And do. If you don't like it, just say "I don't like it" and don't hide behind "Dev time! Dev time!" That said, I don't even want to think about what this would do and/or break. *Anything* transferable? Inspirations are. I have 100+ characters. Will my shiny new level 1 have access to probably thousands on thousands of inspirations? How, and how am I going to sort that? Billions of INF? Each character can carry 70 enhancements. Am I going to scroll through over 7000 each time I level up and have to place slots? Even if the idea is something like "well, I can tab through my other characters," for some of us that'd *still* end up with a lot of tabs. I think the closest we'd see to something like this is a sort of "account vault" you can throw things in. It'd be more limited in how much it would hold, granted, but it'd exist independently of having an SG, storage, permissions, etc.

And Everlasting's there for RP needs (and multiple mothership and hami raids most every night - Zone raid, and we welcome all levels for the Mothership Connection... ) That said, I'm disappointed. I was looking for something to put on my spaghetti tonight. Subject line is misleading!

Are you aware those missions have an effect on the zones? The selection text ("Raid base to affect resistance") isn't just there for flavor. While the zones were active, they were used for that little bit of "extra" (damage, resist, debuffs) ... not infrequently. (You can see if someone's been doing any that affect you by looking at your buffs.)

Serve a stint in the Army. Time's up, go enlist in the Navy. You'll then be wearing a naval uniform, not your army uniform. Army's still part of your backstory. Widows and SOAs = different branches of Arachnos.

I must be on enough MSRs to just tune them all out.... but yeah. The option would be nice.