biostem

Look at things like alerts about the ghost ship or the zombie invasions - how much interest do you observe with people forming teams to participate in these, (outside of PI, in which people are already trick-or-treating). If an event is semi-rare and rewarding, you'll get lots of interest. If they are happening all the time, people will generally skip them, (maybe only doing it once to get any associated badges).

Do you mean "how so" in terms of the specific method by which one would balance zone events against the need for people to be able to access regular mission doors and such, or in the sense of why would such balancing be necessary at all?

It's also weird that the temporary pets from the blasts don't show in the pet window, but the ones summoned by soul extraction do, even though both are not under your direct control...

It'd be great if they could do that, or do something like how some seismic attacks change when you have seismic pressure - when you place the time bomb, the power is replaced by a "remote detonation" power, which lets you set it off whenever you want...

You need to balance zone events with individual player's need to be able to use a zone for normal content/missions. I could see something like periodic invasions of Coralax along the Talos island beaches, (maybe even being led by Captain Mako himself), but trying to flood the zone would be too much. Similarly, maybe Scirocco and his Mu Mystics could battle some CoT in Perez park or something, but again, keep it localized. Too many events going on at the same time only serve to thin the playerbase and interest in these events quickly wanes...

Champions Online allows freeform power selection. The end result was a lot of characters feeling "samey", since there are just some powers that are leagues above the others, if allowed to be taken in isolation of the AT or powerset they are a part of. I can't imagine how you'd possibly balance this type of implementation. Still, it's a fun thought experiment...

The amount of powers needed for a custom AE enemy to give full XP has been adjusted, so they need to be given more powers now...

Just gotta update the mobs' powers so they give 100% XP, (or as near as you can get), and you should be good to go...

I think the problem is that outside of domination, dominators just don't have the damage nor the raw control power to rationalize choosing one over a controller, who has both containment and brings along a support set. I almost feel like doms should get containment, and controllers should get domination...

Yeah - it needs to be reigned back or something...

Reminds me of one I threw together recently - "Buzzchill"

Yeah, but I mean the way it is now you're getting like 8 free powers just by taking the forms, (along with free initial slot they come with). As annoying as it is, it seems like a fair trade-off to me. Plus, if you count the multi-function aspect of the forms, you're getting even more functionality crammed in there. I wonder, given the uniqueness of khelds, if some exception could be made to allow you to trade a power pick for slots after about level 30 or so...

That's why I advocate for adding a 3rd upgrade power, which is unlocked upon selecting both the other regular upgrades, which encompasses both upgrades in 1 power...

It could just apply a buff or something, (think enflame from sorcery, experimental injection from experimentation, or even a dual-function, like injection from medicine).

Hell on Earth has you wrap your whip around the target, (one of your demons in this case). It shouldn't; be too difficult to allow it to wrap around an enemy to deal some DoT or have some other efefct, (especially considering the size difference between the demonlings and the prince). It'd be even simpler to use it as a buff for an ally due to the closer uniformity of player character models...

I rolled up a new necro/elec MM to try them, and they are very nice. I can even bounce the elec buffs off of them, (though they themselves don't benefit from the buffs). I don't know if I'd pair dark blast with the whips. I was kind of thinking combining the psi melee energy blades with the whip attacks for some range would be really cool. If we consider a power pool as having 5 powers, then you basically only need to come up with 1 other power, since you have 4 whip animations to work with, (corruption, lash, crack whip, and hell on earth). You could easily come up with some sort of toggle power - like a fire/negative energy/toxic armor toggle, which would be thematic, (give it tough's values)...

Do you mean mixing the whip attacks with dark blasts into a set, or allowing the whip attacks to summon temporary minions?

I'd like to see this, but I'd rename it "Executioner's Axe". I mean, if Bane Spiders can be stealth with Arachnos maces, why can't someone even more specialized at stealth do so with an axe...

The issue is that you get a bunch of powers for free by picking the forms. The only way I could see this working is if the form itself was a power, and you had to pick the attacks individually - so for instance, taking nova would grant the form with its inherent flight, end recovery bonus, tohit bonus, and damage bonus, but you'd have to pick all the attacks by themselves, which would work in both nova and human form, but only benefit from the extra bonuses while in nova form.

You may be better off posting this in the tech support/help section, but here's a few thoughts: 1. If you have more than 1 hard drive or partition, try installing the game there and see if it makes a difference, (it's a pretty small game, relatively speaking, so shouldn't take too long) - use a separate instance of the Homecoming launcher to do this. 2. If you have an antivirus or firewall installed, temporarily disable it while playing. 3. Close all other running programs. 4. Try the "run in safe mode" or -usetexenvcombine launch options to see if it makes any difference. Hope some of the above helps...

I like some of your suggestions, but I think they may be a little too lofty. For instance, are there any bear models in the game? Maybe spend some time on MM pet customization, and those shadow hounds and spirit panthers could be added as alternate options for beasts. Regarding the upgrade options, perhaps a simpler solution would be to add a special "combined upgrade" power, which becomes available once you have take the other 2, which applies all the upgrades to all your pets in one fell swoop. I don't know where you'd fit the MM armors you suggested. I wonder if bodyguard mode could be given additional special bonuses based upon your primary, or maybe they could be added as additional APPs...

Too bad you can't have one of your MM minions knock on the door, so they take the initial aggro...

Watch what happens once you train up to level 25...

Folks would then just be PL-ing for shards/threads/inf/merits. The only real outcome of allowing instant-50s would be people becoming bored faster. The effort required to reach max level, even if it is minimal, serves to attach one to that character, even if just marginally...

I rarely take it. It's a "nice to have", and can be a good fall-back if "ish hits the fan", but I think a lot of consideration needs to be placed upon whether arcane bolt or spirit ward, as prerequisites, are worth using a power pick on. That, frankly, is more of a concern for me than whether it's a good power or not, (I do think it is a great power, for the record).