biostem

I'm confused - you are running at a difficulty geared toward 4-8 players, then are upset when you run into issues doing it solo? There is an option for soloist - run it at x1. Even if you were able to handle the bulk of the mission without issue, you enter it with the understanding that it is geared toward more players...

I wonder why not - maybe some sort of ownership/rights issue or something?

On a somewhat related note, I noticed a contact in Atlas the other day who is wearing a pith helmet that I don't think we have access to...

I suggest you try setting both the launcher and the main exe to run in compatibility mode for windows 10, 8, or 7, and see if that helps. Perhaps also try running them as the administrator.

Some of the Crey armored units look to have shoulder pieces that could conceivably be launchers of some type. That being said, since, AFAIK, we don't have any powers that emit from the shoulder area, it's kind of a waste...

The problem with this is that the game is designed around how NPCs treat players and their powers/pets. Players know to go directly after the MM and ignore the pets, for instance. Powers are also generally centered around the kinds of resistances/defenses/mez protection levels that NPCs have. What you'd run into would be a game of stealth vs perception and defense vs tohit buffs - fundamentally different than the rest of the encounters one would run up against...

I think a lot of it boils down to needing to have PvP as a major consideration right from the get-go and having some form of "active refereeing" when it comes to game mechanics vs the spirit of the competition...

IMHO the best way to implement PvP in an MMO is not to do so as a direct player-on-player fight, (maybe leave that to some form of solo or team dueling), but instead have competitive events - like heroes having to defend a base against waves of NPC attackers while villains do the same against heroes, or some sort of goal/objective-based challenges - so you don't have to deal with powers working differently or people coming up against wacky builds that exploit meta-aspects of the game.

We have to think in terms of difficulty of implementation vs benefit; A basic "character-specific" (contrasted to entire account) block seems pretty easy, especially since every name is unique. Though there may be some edge cases where a name got freed up, used by someone else, so now you're blocking a completely different character. Maybe the name could be translated into a unique character ID block, so this doesn't happen. How would you handle the expiring or time-based block? Set some kind of timer when the block is removed? Maybe just allow the player to set the counter in hours or something? As for keyword blocking, my issue is people misspell or use abbreviations all the time, so I don't see it being all that useful - maybe allow wildcards or something...

The question is what info does the character select screen actually load-in. Perhaps a more practical option would be to allow us to add some notes to each character or perhaps have some sort of screenshot automatically taken upon last logout, for reference...

So I haven't really messed around with dual pistols all that much, and I had a concept that I thought would work well as a Sentinel. As I've been playing him and looking at the numbers, it seems that incendiary ammo's extra DoT is just too small to be worthwhile. I've been taking advantage of cryo ammo's increased range and slows to a lot greater effect. Am I missing something here? I suppose there are some enemies that are a lot weaker to fire damage, but besides that, which ammo do you folks find the most useful, (or is the ability to swap as needed really the best approach to take?). Thanks for reading!

My comment was meant to be tongue-in-cheek; You already have the ability I suggested - just don't go in there...

I could get behind this but only with the caveat that it is a 1-time, permanent choice, and you are henceforth unable to enter PvP zones or take part in any PvP content.

Strawman; The opinions of players on the forums in no way reflects those of all, or even most, players, nor should you necessarily take a "majority rules" approach with respect to how core game mechanics should work. But if the design philosophy was that "players should always have the possibility of missing", it does. An appeal to authority is only a fallacy when the authority being referenced is not so in the field being discussed - like appealing to a "doctor" for medical issues, when said doctor has a PhD in engineering or something. I think it is safe to assume that the original devs are a supremely qualified source to reference, when it comes to how the game functions and its core mechanics.

Appeal to popularity. Being able to miss was always intended; It's about what the design philosophy of the game was, not doing something simply because that's how it's always been done.

Appealing to popularity doesn't make your case any stronger. Caps are just as much a part of the game as being able to slot for ACC or TOHIT. Irrelevant - THIS game WAS made with always having a chance to miss being a part of it.

The game is immensely based upon chance. You may call it "random bullshit", but that doesn't make it so. Are you in favor of removing tohit checks at all? If not, why not, and how can you then justify this change? How does removing a degree of uncertainty, no matter how small, add to the game? Knowing that your powers will always hit does not, IMO, make the game more fun - it makes it boring.

I disagree with your points. If you miss, you now need to wait for that power to recharge. You now need to fall back to your other powers in order to overcome your opponent. You may not see that as increasing the challenge, but the fact of the matter is it does...

Players also hate being defeated, or hate not completing a time challenge. Sometimes YOU need to adapt to the game, instead of the game catering to every players' wants or desires. You ask what it adds to the game - it adds challenge and needing to be on your toes - you need to anticipate that you may in fact miss, and be able to act accordingly.

I've been enjoying my bio/savage tanker a lot lately, but for RP purposes he has Leviathan Mastery. I wanted a way to make him a bit more durable, so I used the 2nd build to make him a bit tougher and took Energy Mastery on that one...

There should always be a chance to fail. Even using the example of the "helpless target" above, there's always some other factor that could get involved. What I would like to see implemented, however, is that missing an attack could have other repercussions - like maybe missing with a ranged attack won't always alert the enemy, or a miss could hit another nearby target, or a near miss would only inflict "grazing damage", etc...

Shortly after posting about 'Meg' above, I decided to create a male version, 'Don'. I actually got him to 50 first, and he's my 1st tanker on Homecoming that I did so with. His friends call him "Megalo Don". He just call his enemies "old chum"...

Even if they were just a weapon replacer for pistols, they'd be an awesome addition!

Here's my "olive drab" take on your character, (she's a nature/pistols defender "Pistols 'n Petunias"): pistols 'n petunias1.costume pistols 'n petunias2.costume *Edit: I decided against adding any makeup or facial pattern, as I thought you could customize that yourself. I ended up using a small mask over her eyes on mine, though...

Maybe lower the target cap, recharge, and intangible duration, so you aren't just sitting there waiting for enemies to phase back in, but at the same time, it is more readily available to handle problem enemies on a case-by-case basis...