Glacier Peak

Top 3: 1. Long term legitimacy. 2. Continued interest by the Homecoming team volunteers to make necessary improvements to the game. 3. Continue upgrading the old game files to make it easier for developers to implement changes that are desired by the community. If these things can be realized, I'll remain a player for years to come!

Interesting read Vegetableknife. Are Widows and Banes worth mentioning? All that perception, makes stalkers run to break sight. I stopped playing on live before they came out, so if they were or weren't popular or trending I wouldn't know.

I'm excited for the /Devices changes, thank you for your teams hard work!

Killawar, I don't know much about you besides you're disdain for everything that is counter to your opinions, but if you don't like the game meta don't play. It doesn't sound like you're having fun.

Hey Siph! I wasn't in that group, but I think we teamed at some point in time on live, either Victory or Triumph. I played a spines/regen that I'm having trouble remembering the name of. Did you recently get back in to the game?

PvP builds both past (on live) and current gain traction because of a combination of popularity, convenience and specificity. Popularity in the form of flavor of the month builds that proliferate zones, arena and fight clubbing. It is a logical decision for someone to roll a character that other people have demonstrated has utility in action. Attaining that level of competency with the build may vary however, and this may have the unintended effect of slowing down innovation. The convenience of a build comes from a combination of viewing PvP builds before the character is created and knowing the outcome ahead of time - imagine leveling a character to 50, attaining and outfitting 500+ million in IOs, accolades, Incarnates, etc. only to realize that the build wasn't what you thought it was. A lot of people choose that convenience over the trial and error method. Lastly the specificity of a build plays a huge role in its utility - taking pool powers like leadership benefit team environments in zones and arena, but offer minimal solo player benefit when compared to IO set bonuses (I would say Tactics benefits solo players when slotted with +Perc) - you can't use vengeance without a teammate. Now that the game is not as much of a time-sink (1-50 in 3 hours, Inf is easier to attain, incarnates easier to attain, etc.), as well as trying out new builds on the Beta server or private server ahead of time, and having a PvP community that is very supportive to new players goes a long way in making the game playable. Lastly, I wanted to point out that I have fun when I play my melee character!

I haven't seen anything out of the ordinary, but I can keep my eyes out for it. If it only happens in PvP zones, I would assume it was related to a PvP IO bonus. I'd have to see a screenshot of the details to narrow it down anymore than that.

Great points for discussion SilentMethod. My two cents: I think unless the HC team makes more changes to the current meta, we can expect damage to remain king.

Xhiggy, thank you for this. It looks like a lot of effort was put in to it, I appreciate it. It really shows how much you and other players are interested in making PvP more friendly to new folks. I really liked the links to all the streamers at the end - I had no idea there were that many. I also liked the details about emps (or pains) like what to expect, how to be an asset to your team, survivability, etc. All very useful information across the board in a convenient location. I think it should be stickied.

Cool, thanks for the update. I apppreciate the communication and I am excited to see where this turn of events goes.