TheOtherTed

I'm wondering if it's some sort of blanket attack. For a week or two, almost everything I log in to has been challenging me to verify that I'm me. I also can't help but notice that all this activity coincides with the lead-up to the U.S. midterm elections.

Or just vehicles. Heck, my 1940s era private eye would be ecstatic if he could just hail a cab.

I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that I don't think respecs, of any kind, should either require level 50 or be punishingly costly. First, by the time someone has hit level 50, the horse has already left the stable. IME dissatisfaction with powersets usually happens long, long before you get to end-game (if it happens at all). Thus, by the time the character hits 50, the player has likely already made the decision to stick with those powersets rather than re-roll or make an alt, so what's the point? Second, while I understand the temptation to link drastic character change with some sort of drastic expense, I'll throw out two counter-points. 1) If you can meet that expense once, you can do so again. The "expense" is really just time - and maybe one's own patience. 2) I'd personally prefer an in-game mechanic that grants you a respec, sort of like the Terra Volta TF, but maybe a bit more spread out like almost any other TF or a story arc. IOW, I'd rather feel like I've "earned" the right to respec in-game than, say, throw inf at it and call it done. Yes, it's still time-linked, but I'd be doing something I probably wouldn't do otherwise. Otherwise, I'm on board with the idea of a complete respec, although I'd go even more complete and allow full-on Archetype respecs. Disclaimer - I am not a min-maxer or an IO optimizer, and I have no interest in end-game activities or any type of farming. Disclaimer to the disclaimer - not that there's anything wrong with that.

For those whose cultural education is woefully lacking: ...just to add, I am often concerned about Regeneration's state of mind.

Ironically, that's also the definition of biological research.

I appreciate all the input - I'm not much closer to making a decision, but I've got more hay to chew on. I should have mentioned that my interest in enhancements pretty much stops at level 25 "workbench" IOs, so I'm not sure page 6 will hit me one way or the other. Unless they do something like the secret "Teleport Foe" nerf they did shortly after the Teleportation revamp.

Thanks for the suggestion, but the tanker is War Mace / Shield Def (because pipe wrenches and manhole covers are cool. IMO.) Plus, as a former Kinetics defender, my left eye still twitches when I see the word "Kinetic."

I recently re-created my brute as a tanker when I found out that tanks get controller-level bonuses for the Leadership pool. However, I'm kind of missing the Fury mechanic, so I'm considering going back to brute. I'm not a numbers guy, by any means. I also tend to solo, and I get that Leadership would be far better on teams. Both Leadership and Fury would make sense for the character concept (even solo), but I'm looking for input on which would be a better choice overall (and yep, it's one or the other - the brute Leadership numbers are as low as they ever were, AFAIK).

I'm sorry to have posted this barely tangential thing, but I had to get it out of my system. If it helps, though, Tom Waits is one of my all-time favorite entertainers. He's the archetype we never knew we needed.

There you go again, ruining the curve for the rest of - wait, who are you?

While making a character that was meant to break me out of my character creation habits, I ended up writing a haiku. I won't claim it's any good, because I have next to no idea how haikus are supposed to be constructed, but I suprised myself with a half-sob while writing the last line.

So a dumb question from someone who's at work and can't check for himself but needs to know RIGHT NOW - is the "sheathed axe" just a specific axe style, or can all weapon styles be sheathed?

A "combat only" option for the Microbial aura, please. Also, I'm still waiting for musical instruments as melee weapons. Ukelele or cello preferred, but at this point I'll settle for anything, even (ugh) oboe.

I'll usually get hit in the head with a character concept, juggle some ATs, powersets, and costumes to see what feels "right" or "cool" (which usually involves repeat deletions and re-creations), and then, once the dust has settled, I'll try to play with the hand I've dealt myself. The one exception involved trying to recreate my Skyrim vampire in game, and ending up with a Praetorian Darkness Control / Nature Affinity ...thing that I still don't know what it is. I just liked the visual weirdness of the two powersets together, and got a surprising amount of mileage out of that alone. On a side note, I would love to do something with the Microbial Aura. For some reason, it reminds me of the Lovecraft story "From Beyond," in which a scientist invents a way to let people see extra-dimensional beings (and for the beings to see people...). No idea how to capture that in game, though.

Just to clarify, you also don't need an optical drive (per huang3721's image). Those specs are from the days when games were still shipped on compact discs and came with printed manuals, and downloading a 4-6GB game could take up to 3 days on a typical dial-up modem. *sniff* I miss those days.

That almost goes without saying, but I'm glad you said it.

I count two strikes already: 1) It's a TV show based on a video game (I haven't seen a good game-to-"film" adaptation yet); and 2) it's Amazon Studios. On the plus side, however, one of the developers (Jonathan Nolan) has some writing credits that catch my attention, i.e., "Person of Interest" and two of the Chris Nolan Batman films. I haven't watched anything involving Lisa Joy, so no expectations there either way.

I feel like I've posted this before - forgive me if I'm repeating myself. Or don't, you know, it's your prerogative, I'm gonna post it anyway, you can't stop me. One night while driving home and stupid o'clock at night, the following song popped up on the radio. As soon as a certain verse played, the idea for a "biker angel" character hit me like a ton of bricks wrapped around a Harley. She ended up becoming a biker valkyrie in the costume creator, because, to be honest, I don't really like angels. Anyway, this is the song that kicked off my third favorite character, my War Mace / Shield Defense Brute: ...oh, right, the obligatory character pic:

My current "main" (who is really more my "go-to" character) is a MA/Ninjitsu (sp) scrapper wearing a long, dark blue coat (Cybertech Long jacket - which, by the way, got messed up with the latest update) over black clothes and sporting dark blue shades (Slick, black and blue). She's unstoppable. Smoothest attack rotation I've seen in this or any other game, with plenty of ninja tricks to keep her going. I've never settled on a firm backstory, but probably a former enforcer for some organized crime syndicate on the western side of the Pacific Rim. Likely a government-sanctioned agent before that. Quick, elegant, survivable - I honestly can't imagine playing a MA anything now without some kind of buttcape to emphasize the character's movements. She's also a bit of a troll. Her current badge title is "Unwelcome Guest" for a reason. She's infiltrated the hero side of things, and occasionally pokes fun at the good guys or otherwise makes snide comments in General chat. She hasn't teamed yet, but if she does, she'll likely ruin someone's day with her egregious use of Crane Kick.

Huh - I didn't even notice the AE buildings were removed from starting areas. IMO, that should have been the case 13 years ago. Considering farmers were willing to march their level 1 alts to PI back in the day, bopping over to King's Row or Port Oakes should have been a non-issue. Though it may be hard to believe, I'm not against farming. I always saw it was an alternate leveling path for people who played the questing game but didn't like it. And since farming was booming even before AE, it never needed to siphon newbies from the starting zones. Not that there are many newbies these days, of course, but that's another issue altogether.

On Live, my main character took the entire Leadership line - not because I was "selfless," but because I thought it'd be cool to build the character around the pool. And it was - I felt like I was bringing something unique and helpful to whatever team I was on. However, I never took any of the pool on any other character - and I'd consider myself a full-on team player back then. At the time, tactical meta-factors like situational awareness, watching your teammates' backs, and knowing the limits of your character had more value for me. Leadership is sort of a reverse "tragedy of the commons" thing: If everyone took it, it would be phenomenal, but the benefit of each power is hard to balance against the opportunity cost of a slot and the endurance drain. That said, I often consider working my way up to Tactics to make better use of silly things like my Dark/Dark Corruptor's Sands of Mu. I just haven't done it. Yet. I'm sure I will someday. Also, have the buff bonuses changed for the different archetypes? According to the only reasonably current wiki I know of, Tankers get the same Leadership toggle bonuses as other purely melee types (and Blasters).

My circular and half-sarcastic answer - when other players praise the costume. My personal interpretation of art of any kind is mostly based on whether it looks (or sounds) like it was fun to create. Naturally, that depends on my personal idea of what's fun, but I try to keep an open mind and see the art from the designer's point of view (even if the designer never directly expresses it). There are certain types of costumes I'll never create or use myself. The classical spandex body suit, for instance, is right out (my dark and terrible secret is that I'm not now, nor have I ever been, a fan of superhero comics, even after playing this game for so long). Likewise, I'll never have a character with a plethora of spikes or fins and other random sticky-outy bits. I'll leave that to other MMOSs. However, that doesn't keep me from appreciating a classic hero look, or a weird half-tree half-insect half-eldritch monster, as long as it looks like significant thought and attention to detail went into it. Not sure if that helps, so I'll throw out some random examples from other types of art. I would never want to even try to play The Burning Wheel RPG - but I appreciate that it's a true labor of love, and I've lifted several ideas for my own games. I never gave much thought to Cajun or Cuban music, until I heard the bands Beau Soleil and Buena Vista Social Club. And crime thrillers never managed to catch my interest until I saw the TV series "Mindhunter." Not sure if htat helps either, but, there it is.

Today I learned that the quote about their true purpose did not, in fact, come from Terry Pratchett.

I pop in now and again for a nostalgia trip (I played the h**k out of it when it was first released). Granted, those trips don't last long, but the tug is still there. I have approximately zero interest in fancy new ships, though.

Now that the formalities are out of the way, welcome to the CoH forums! And if you're new to the game (or even if you're not), welcome to that too. If you have any questions, the General Discussion section is the best place to start.