biostem

I think dual blades does have some nightsticks or billy clubs you can use, in lieu of the escrima sticks. I'm leaning more toward a super reflexes scrapper, with stealth and probably combat jumping with a stealth IO to stack on top of it...

I don't dispute your premise but that wasn't the OP's question - his question was how to handle wanting to essentially have 2 powers on autofire...

A simple fix would be to do something like binding S to move you backwards and to activate hasten. I'd rather make sure I have status protection up all the time, with hasten being a lower priority...

You are again confusing design intent with player choice. You can play however you like, but it is a fact that the game treats being defeated as a bad thing. Heck, even the badges extol your unwillingness to give up after being defeated, as the good part, not the defeat itself. In a way, it is - it is a self-imposed limitation you are placing upon yourself. As I mentioned above, the badges signify you coming back despite being defeated, not in celebration of that fact. Nice strawman, there. I'm merely arguing that debt in and of itself is a punishment as outlined by the game and by intent. As I've stated multiple times, you can play however you want, but don't equivocate a player's choice with what the game considers a reward or a penalty.

You are confusing game mechanics with design intent. Yes, it is a game mechanic, namely one that punishes you for being defeated. Badges signify some sort of milestone within the game, be it dealing X damage or accruing/paying off Y debt. It's no different than badges for day jobs, which you earn by being logged out. It still doesn't negate the fact that debt is a penalty against your XP gain. How do you get debt, again? By being defeated. I'd call that "doing something wrong" in the grand scheme of the game's design intent. If you personally place a lot of value on the debt badge(s), that's fine, but the game treats it no differently than if you randomly happened upon an exploration one. The XP rewards for earning badges is minimal, and outside of any personal value you may place on them, that is the ultimate gauge by which the game judges something as a reward, (excepting other reward items, like enh's or mats/components that badges don't grant in general).

You are looking at it from your perspective, and not from a game design one. If the player willingly goes in front of an enemy and is defeated, even if they receive great joy from doing so, the game still treats it as a defeat, and still saddles them with debt. As far as the game is concerned, XP is a reward, and paying off debt, thereby gaining less XP, is a penalty.

Generally games want to advantage the player, not punish them. There are multiple powers that, in fact, prevent you from accruing additional debt. It is also far easier and faster to accumulate lots of debt vs the time it would take to clear it.

I have an earth control/pain domination controller that is a lot of fun on teams. Solo, it's very safe but slow going...

Are you asking for the debt ceiling to be increased, or to accrue more debt from being defeated? If it's only the latter, then just get defeated multiple times...

Great! So we're done here - you acknowledge that Ouro can already do most of what the Op wants and that it wouldn't be simple or straightforward to implement in an on-demand manner like they're asking for...

The you should know it's no simple matter to just enable auto-exemping everywhere...

Yes it would be awesome. "Can" is a tough word, here - yes, given enough developer time and resources. I know one of the other servers has the ability to select MM pet appearance using your costume slots. That being said, the implementation is clunky and hasn't been implemented here, except for the "mirror image" version of PA, which uses your currently equipped costume...

I love gravity control - making enemies your toys, summoning junk from god-knows-where and firing it off - it's great fun! In a fast paced environment, its longish animations and less flashy graphics means you don't get to appreciate it if completing missions as fast as possible is priority #1. Similarly, I think energy blast has some some of the coolest, most iconic animations among the various blast sets, but I do not like the unpredictability of the knockback and having to "waste" a slot to make it knockdown instead. From a slightly different perspective, I enjoy playing masterminds, but in end game content, I seem to play the role of "cannon-fodder-dispensary" or fall back on my secondary set, more than I am able to enjoy commanding my minions to wreak havoc upon my enemies...

Sure, but if it's a "you" issue and not a "game" issue, then it's on you to make the change, if that behavior is becoming detrimental...

I believe it also affects the caster, if City of Data is anything to go by...

But that "pressure" comes from within, doesn't it? *YOU* don't "have to" do any of that grinding. If *YOU* cannot balance *YOUR* desire to obtain some reward NOW, and become burnt out as a result of that overexertion, isn't that due to your undoing?

It's always tough to balance the amount of time it takes to earn stuff vs player attention span or willingness to keep grinding - make it too easy, and people complain that they've done all there is to do, make it too difficult, and here we are. How do you strike that happy medium? As for the SG leaving, it's pretty much inevitable that folks will get tired and either take a break or leave permanently. Even when the game was live and there was a full dev team, players burned through content way faster than new stuff was added...

What the Flashback system does is put you into a pseudo-TF state, which outside of having a lower level teammate to exemplar you, is the only way to artificially and temporarily lower your level. The only other way of achieving this would be to do something like having a contact in each zone which, if you're higher level, sets you to the max level of that zone via a similar system...

I like the flexibility you get with the different ammo types, but in exchange you lose out on an aim power. That being said, you can benefit from the additional range 24x7 by staying in cryo ammo. At the same time, you'll either come to love or hate the flashy "gun-fu" animations...

There was an interesting Star Trek (TOS) crossover with the X-Men. Can't forget the Scooby Doo meet Batman episode/special, or TMNT vs Batman.

I mean, if you're getting to the point that the game starts feeling like a job or where you're getting burnt out, take a break or switch up how you're playing. Perhaps it's a matter of perspective, because for me, outside of a few NPC pieces I'd like to see ported over to player costumes, I really don't like the whole character model replacers...

Record of Lodoss War is the best D&D adaptation, unless you're super nostalgic for the 80s cartoon...

What would be neat is if you could do something similar to what the OP suggested, only instead of making it rain, a certain number of random NPC victims in the zone would grant their savior a little jackpot. There could be a zone announcement to that effect as well...

The problem is I've been in instances where I was nowhere near the battle, but because my teammates were, it flagged me as "in combat", and I couldn't swap Incarnates...

Y'know what would be cool for higher vet-level characters - an ability to swap alphas mid-battle or mid-mission...