Greycat

It doesn't. The slots unlock, but you get no effect until you do *something* with them. As far as the OP, lore and whatnot - Game-wise, I can't help but see the system (given when it was put in and how it was handled) as a "Grind to make people subscribe instead of play free" hook. Obviously not true now, but it has several remnants of that that could potentially be cleaned up (get rid of shards, we already earn Physical, Psychic, advanced, etc. IXP at the same rate now instead of having to do specific tasks for each, etc.) Lore-wise, frankly, I hate the "The well is granting you power!" thing. Back before incarnates, the Well was this vague "thing" that, as I recall, just captured and eventually released (paraphrased) the "potential" of mankind. Which was fine, it allowed "ages" of heroes and not, and still left quite a bit in your hands. These days, I pretty much ignore the lore for my characters - my electric-based characters, for instance, don't need the well to tell them how to keep doing what they're doing. Mechanically they get a little stronger at what they're doing. *shrugs* My biggest decision tends to be what lore pets to go and get, in terms of what fits the character. Gamewise, I think they're a bit OP in standart content and could be toned down, but not necessarily taken away (don't have Judgement outshine a Blaster nuke, for instance.) Keep the full Incarnate power for Incarnate content - and yeah, get more Incarnate content... but not that godawful Batallion nonsense.

Hmm. I'd say "RP and everything around it," for one. It's what I'm mostly doing. Even running MSRs, which ... for reward, sure, and the occasional hami, if it weren't for the BSing with everyone there, I wouldn't go. Specific content wise? Much of what's in the 20-mid30 range. Keith Nance/Jenny Adair, Croatoa, Striga. Croatoa has some nice self challenges (keep up the 0 fir bolg escapes, for instance.) (Also why I'll PL VEATs, for instance, to the mid 20s or so. That forced respec at 24 feels like I've wasted 24 levels of play, no matter what I do during them, and given I don't care for the VEAT arcs either - I'll just skip to that.)

Yes. We'd be closer to Romulus then, than he would be to the start of Egyptian civilization. As it is, the Path of the Dark (also nictus related) existed before Romulus. From the Path of the Dark bit on the HCWiki, Imperious sent Romulous with a contingent of men to investigate "dark ones" in some caves. Romulous joins with a nictus, kills the rest of the team, and attempts a coup. (Of course, we fight romulus after he gets Nicticized in the ITF... so the only way that makes sense is if he "joines" - as in allies - with the Nictus, and then is merged later. Which does somewhat fit the dialog, as he sees the Nictus that zaps him as a superior.) If I'm recalling the lore AMA correctly, Shadowstar was a Nictus when she arrived and came around to being what we'd consider a Warshade while on Earth.

Shadowstar's probably the most clear cut. I don't recall if Prometheus was mortal before or not...

It was well before shutdown. They wholesale replaced some powers in beta for ... whichever issue. Final result after *extremely* negative player feedback was having five powers in the pool instead of four. I agree.

Top of Posi's head. Redside, well... look for the feathers.

Now, that I could see. it wouldn't disrupt the fact you're being called in to *find* the bomb/computer/mutant cat-alien diplomat mage... of course, it depends on the tech working, as mentioned. 😉

Call it PLAEPVP and see who comes closest to being able to pronounce it.

... because knowing where they go ahead of time fits that mission (you *know* where you're going to plant them,) versus "you have to find X before it explodes/loads a virus/puts more pineapple on pizza?" Besides, the whole "Show last objective/enemy" thing is still flaky and would probably need to be fixed first.

Would it, though? That kind of leans on the "AE farming is for PLing," versus farming for drops/inf/etc. that happen to open the door so others can get XP at the same time. Besides, most of the time I end up on a farm, it's a friend/sgmate/etc. who happens to be running one anyway at the time and it's an excuse to BS. The XP is a side benefit. (Same holds true for doing missions, for that matter.) Granted, I'm *hardly* new to the game, so...

Yeah. I don't know if there's something wonky in the UI that prevents it, but it'd be nice to be able to adjust that splitter.

Think I just saw you mention this in help. I can't htink of any voiceover other than the tutorial (and, really... could that just be pulled?) and while there are mods for glowie volume/type ... yeah, this'd be nice.

I'd be fine with that. And in co-op zones, especially the RWZ.

Well, no, even when it was more lengthy, it was just sort of "there."

Well, there's also the itrials for multi-team content. I don't know how much work goes into designing those - we *do* only have two "raids," per se. I don't think I'd want to see a *lot* of them added, or just thrown in willy nilly, but something different could be interesting. Of the two, I rather like the MSR just from being the capstone (somewhat) to a set of story arcs, or at least related. A setup like that, I enjoy. (Plus it's a social spot with people BSing for a while.) Hami is ... ok, but it's just sort of *there,* by comparison.

I don't particularly like 40 or 50 as a level to get bumped up to. Just as a personal gut feeling. 30, though, I might consider. Mostly because - well, yes, it's roughly the halfway point (Yes, I know, numerically that's 25, but given it takes more time to eat a hamburger than to get up several levels early on...) and when I see people complain about certain ATs early game being frustrating or annoying... the mid 20s to 30 bypasses that. (I'm thinking specifically of bypassing the weakest, kind of most boring and frustraing part of MMs, and of VEATs and the ridiculous and annoying forced respec at 24.) (Honestly, personally I'd have 20, 25 and 30 options, and I'd personally probalby use 25 for the above reasons, plus the 20s are where the content I particularly like tends to reside. Especially for magic characters, natively going through Croatoa's a thing. I enjoy that, and the keith nance/jenny adair duo.)

No, and anyone who says you're holding a group back or "gimped" or whatever needs a swift kick. I don't theorycraft, I don't do anything special in builds, don't perma-this or hyper-recharge-that or cap whatever and will still end up being an effective rolling nuke (depending on character... obviously my ice/emp isn't.)

"No" isn't strong enough of a reaction to this.

Yes. Shivan runs, temp powers (I'll grab those instead of stealth pool powers,) and nuke runs are things that happen. Also hunts for NPCs - masks in BB, for instance, or obviously Shivans. (Not sure if you were counting those in the "aside from badges" or not.) As far as "bumping the characters to 50?" What good would that do? If I go into BB at 15 and get "bumped" to 50, I'm still a level 15, with level 15's worth of powers, partial slotting, and a much smaller enhancement tray - and easy meat for a real level 50, who now has their full suite of abilities. Honestly, I think the SK change done on live broke Siren's Call for me (almost as much as I13) - I enjoyed BB and SC because they weren't T9-offs, and once we had "SK = level +5 worht of powers,) primary T9s cam einto play. (Also skewed BB from a 15-25 zone, which at that level range is *already* an issue, to an effective 15-30.) Bumping Warburg up I don't think would really be as big a deal. *shrug*

This is wonderful... if you have, oh, maybe ten alts on one server. I believe I mentioned before, it takes me *days* to go through both accounts, with alts on all servers, logging on and off (which takes more than about half a second) to tag them all with the anniversary badges.

*headdesk* I know that. I just didn't type it well. :D That should have been a "just like" - basically, both options for both sides. Brain-finger disconnect. *chuckles.*

I have a few. May not be "level 2" but are typically sub-level-10, often sub-level-5, depending on if they need a travel power or not. (I'm not counting base builders here, given the names are part of the reason for asking, I doubt anyone will by dying to get "Base builder 27" or whatnot.) Often if they get any level after 2, it's from fighting things to kill time. I have zero reason to level them (well, other than the pending name release, in which case PL-in-a-farm.)

Honestly, since Patrons came out, I've thought that - yes - we should be able to "sign up with" the FBSA branches (sort of fits more than "a patron,") and redsiders should also get non-Patron Epics for those that don't want to be someone's lackey.

Whichever one feels right for that specific character. *shrug*

Having missions where you had to specifically *not* defeat everything? If used in good story context... yes.