Greycat

... as a side note, at level 1, you won't get XP from the explore badges. Sadly the stuff I wish I knew when I started... some's not as relevant. Like, oh, the old Hollows, where "The fastest path to the mission is not always a straight line." (Now you just mission-teleport. Ah well.) Still... general stuff? - Yeah. No need to rush to 50. Yes, you can get 2xp! (and no INF.) If you haven't played before, or played much? Skip it. Visit the contacts and play arcs. Look around. - You don't need to cap-this, perma-that. The game's not that hard. Doing so is optional. - Nothing wrong with playing at something *other* than +4x8. It's a game. And the difficulty's not set in stone. Move it around a bit if the mission or enemy group calls for it. - There's more to life than the Council. - Some zones with a self-contained story, such as Croatoa, will give a merit bonus when completing all the arcs. More reason not to rush past and get farmed to 50... - No, your power combination is not "wrong." They all work. Some work together better than others, sure. - Try all the gameplay-adjacent stuff. Build bases. Waste INF in the costume editor. Write AE stories. Write bad ones. Write good ones. Run a SG. RP.

Yes, but words *do* have actual meanings. Yes, sometimes they have multiple meanings. In this case, we do not have to guess which one is meant. We were told exactly what was meant by the "epic" in "Epic archetype" by the people who made them - the devs on live. And they were very specific that it was "epic" in the terms of a story. It doesn't matter if Epic has other meanings. You choosing to use a different one and argue there's some issue with them because they don't (to you) meet the definition *they were not aimed at* just means you're both stubborn and incorrect. They also used a second definition of Epic, after all, in the power pools you get after 41 - they aren't very (your definition) epic, but they fit the (their chosen definition, more like D&D's at one point) devs definition just fine, which is still different from the definition they used for the EATs. (It doesn't help that they waver back and forth between that and "ancillary" power pools.) The definition *they* chose to use at any given time is the correct one for whatever's being talked about. You may not like it - but bluntly, I don't care. And I don't find them to have "arduous gameplay" in the least. That's 100% a you thing as well.

Side note, if you want better captures of those attribute windows to compare: - Open window so everything's visible. - Use /screenshotui 1 - Take screenshot You can turn the UI in the screenshot off after with /screenshotui 0 Much nicer than trying to deal with a camera and the screen. Just trim them down in Paint or whatnot to just the window. Like so (though this isn't a CA window, works the same) -

As mentioned, the devs aren't going to do that again. But going human only already gives you something - you skip the power and have *multiple* slots available to you that you now don't have to allocate piecemeal to either human or form powers. You'll be able to slot the human-only form more completely. As the live devs have always said, they used "Epic" in the sense of "Epic of Gilgamesh" - they are tied to a story, to a piece of the lore. They have their own 1-50 arcs exploring one bit of lore (the Kheldian war) much more in depth. They fulfill that quite well. Traces of what was to be another - the Blood of the Black Stream - lay scattered through enough of the game I'm sure they would have been as well. (The ones for the VEATs... bleh.) And the others they had planned - well, the Coralax certainly have lore that would have been interesting to play through (though there's no sign of the VIrtea, save one unnamed reference in a Striga mission,) the Avilians were abandoned early, unfortunately - again leaving only one reference, this time in an early Hollows mission, and Incarnates were turned from and EAT into the systems we have now. Can't help but wonder if they might have better served as an EAT sometimes...

Did a guide on this back on the live forums. Edit: Yes, I did copy it back over here. Glad I checked before doing it again...

Because that's what they feel like playing. No other explanation is needed.

OK, no, I'm not fleshing out individual sets here, but there are a few things I'd love to see. I've mentioned some before, but it's been a bit, and fishing through the AH brings them back to mind. No, none of these would replace current sets. They should be additional in the category. Yes, some can be done with frankenslotting - and possibly more efficiently. Don't care. Generally following the one-lower, one-higher (10-30 or 35, and 30-50) pattern. 1. Accurate healing - with damage. There are several, primarily melee, powers which are both attacks and heals, across a few ATs. I'm sitting on a Warshade at the moment, so Essence Drain comes to mind - but Dark armor, Necromancy, and I *believe* Dark Blast have similar powers in them. Being able to slot a full set instead of frankenslotting to do both healing and damage, with a smattering of accuracy, would be nice. 2. Accurate defense debuff - with damage. There are a number of sets that do a defense debuff as a secondary - and enhanceable - effect. (Much of a Peacebringer's power set, for instance, as well as a number of lethal damage sets.) Shake things up with this - add to that -def, get the acc an attack needs, and do damage. 3. End mod / Health / Absorb Yeah. This one I've talked about before. I'd still like to see a set that focused on enhancing both these attributes at once. There's not (to my knowledge, at least - I don't recall one) a hami that does this either. And this would be an option for *everyone.* After all, what does Rest take? This could probably have a set with and a set without an Acc component. Honestly, I could see two sets like this, with one being a smaller 3 piece set. (Probably the non-Acc one.) 4. Accurate def buff. Assuming there's more than Parry that would use this - I think there is, but I can't recall it. Accuracy, damage and defense focused. Just for a few more options in slotting. 5. Accurate teleport. For TP foe and fold space. One set would probably be fine on this, with a bit of recharge. Figuring bonuses would probably lean into whatever's not enhanced as much for the main point of the set - so if slotting ended up with (say) 45% damage, 40% healing, 10% Acc, it'd have bonuses to boost the acc and/or tohit a bit.

I'd rather have one for the convenience. Sometimes I'll pick for other reasons - Fold Space, for instance - but it's convenience for me fairly often. Then again, I do also play a number of Khelds, so I don't have to worry about it in that case.

I don't particularly care about mids. Most of my "keep it interesting" has really been RP and what develops, trying to come up with our own storylines to play through. That said, back on live one of the projects I (mostly) enjoyed was collecting "sets" - little challenges or whatever you want to think of. One of each AT to 50 (... hated VEATS, but got there,) one of each control set to 50, think I was working on melee on shutdown... I have *yet* to get a Katana to 50. Edit: Another was to make anti-FOTMs. no, not "the worst" sets, but taking the theme of a combo and using the "wrong" powers, or flipping them around. For instance, as I recall Ice/Energy blasters were a thing... so I'd make Energy/Ice. Fire/Kin? Sure, I have one of those... Fire tank with Kinetic melee. There were, at times, some *interesting* results.

Pretty much anything can run it. *shrugs*

I wouldn't call it reward creep. It's not pushing everything - it's increasing for something that takes more time and effort (and as I mentioned, if we lowered Adamastor to 6, he'd be in line with every other single-entity GM.) Lusca is, in essence, a set of GMs as opposed to one (and a set you need to chase between a few points and dedicate more time to to defeat.)

One team can handle Lusca. Only reason I ever see a league is that there are more than 8 people interested. But I agree - Adamastor should be down to 6, Lusca needs to be higher. No.

Nah. Teams aren't so rare you should have to go through some type of legitimacy test to play. And no team leader is so good anyone should feel they have to be this tall to ride or anything.

"Tell any healer not to heal you!" - Ridiculous live dev advice to the glass cannons. Yeah, I went into DA, dropped from a skyscraper into a canyon and blasted whatever was down there. It was amusing for a few seconds. But that's about it.

It's the only way to *do* a branching story, yeah. I don't think I have any live right now that do it. But, yeah. Put it in the dialog, maybe in the end dialog and/or souvenir. Also, if you need more AE slots, just put in a support ticket and ask for some. You're not locked down to 3. (Click on "Support" up above.)

You can always right-click the inspiration in game and pick info and see what it does, too. They're all color coded.

... Um... it does tell you? "Complete all 6 task forces ...." "Obtain this badge by earning the following badges?" Or are you looking at once they're earned? Or which *ones* you have on the list? The latter would be useful, at least. Or I'm completely misunderstanding you.

6, same as the other GMs. Lusca should give more than that, though, yes. He's not significantly *easier* than other GMs - he's just average, and now doesn't have a "cost" to summon him. So give him the average.

Honestly, Adamastor's not worth 10 merits. I could understand the "bonus" back when you had to get the recipe to summon him, as it was something extra, but now you just go there, click, remove hit points for 30 seconds, bam , 10 merits. That's pretty much the entire "special" draw for him. Flip side of that? Lusca should be worth more than 6 merits. That actually takes time and some effort to take down. (And, relevant to the discussion, can't really be camped - she has multiple spawn locations in a large zone, after all, *and* moves during the encounter.)

Badges. And it used to have more of an impact. It used to be the same inside a mission or out in the open world. It used to have a cap twice as high as it went now. (I had a blaster back in I3-I4 who went on a hami raid after hitting 50 and went from 0-1.1 million.) The slowing penalty used to be fairly bad when we didn't have more content - same blaster spent entire levels in debt in the 30s, it seemed, and ran out of content at 38. That said, as far as a cost for dying, even early on it was a "cheap" penalty - we have no equipment to lose, we don't have any debuff other than slowing leveling for a little bit (or losing some patrol XP.) Other games have equipment get worn out or lost, or have annoying "OK, you died, now y ou have to run back to your equipment at -20% damage/health/speed, even though what killed you is still there." Would you *like* it to do more?

First reaction is it "feels" like too many tornado-alikes, but a second browse through.... they're all doing something different, and would at least have visual differences, which would offset that, feel-wise, I think.

I seem to recall there being jetpack vendors...

I would *not* make them incarnate zones. Put in some incarnate content, sure, but leave the range as it is. Personally, even though they're *large* zones, I like the Shard in general, and think it's a shame that (a) there's not much to do there and (b) people don't use the geysers to get around more. Possibly because everyone's in such a rush to do things. The task force design can use a little updating, sure, but it really needs *missions* and *arcs* to explore while there. I generally don't like "make it a coop zone!" but... yeah, there's not really any reason this wouldn't be. (Just have to explain why SuperHeroDude isn't punching EvilVillainGuy in the face when they cross paths.) So, what I'd do: - Go over the TFs, streamline a bit where *absolutely* needed (sometimes you *do* have to defeat a bunch of stuff in a bunch of places, after all.) - Create missions, both regular and incarnate. Give people reason to go and keep going besides a WTF. - Let Kora fruit give something special. They got nerfed back on live, as I recall. - Badges for travel-by-geyser. And for falling. >.>

I'm thinking more long term. Short term, yes, they should be booted (and if possible, merits after some period removed. Don't leave them with their profits.)

... more extensive rework if this is becoming an issue - Instead of summoning, it pulls the team into an instance where you fight Adamastor. When finished, you appear back on the platform. But yeah, it's lousy that people are AFK-"farming" him.