gameboy1234

Street sweeping and random encounters don't really have the game play value they did 20 years ago. A lot of spawn in Mercy (mostly the green starting area, not the whole map) could just be thinned out. Spawn doesn't always need to be changed, some I think would be better just to remove it. The area between Arbiter Richards and Burke could have all its spawn removed, just like there's a large "safe area" around city hall in AP.

This is why I like having Kalinda (or some other starting contact) actually direct you to talk with other starting NPCs. If you get it as a mish, go there, and do it, you're less likely to forget later, and there's less chance of "too bad you missed it."

I think there's too much geometry red side, it's much too busy. That central area your talking about could have a few details removed, like the hedges and benches. Make is smooth and clean like the area under Atlas in AP. (Or smoother, it doesn't have to be completely flat.) Put Kalinda right in the middle of it. (No joke, I once helped a clearly somewhat experienced player who was new to redside and couldn't find the starting contacts. It's really hard to figure out if you don't already know.) Add a new mission from Kalinda to point you to the level up arbiter (Richards) and the arbiter store too. Then she can start her regular missions. Stuff like this is basic QoL and new player experience, and yet it never seems to happen. Kinda frustrating really.

I'd also like to see some of the Longbow spawn rates reduced. Especially longbow and I think it's the legacy chain were designed back on live for quick spawning new player quests, and their are just too many of them now and they respawn much too fast. Far fewer spawn, for starters. Then reduce the spawn rate after that is tested. Maybe "a few more snakes" could be done at the same time, the reduced spawn for Longbow and LC would leave room for the snakes to be added (but not too many!).

I mostly agree. My list of "do something with Mercy" would be different, but I agree that something does indeed need to be done. I think also it would be fine to make changes iteratively, and smaller changes as the Devs get time, that way it doesn't have to be a huge workload for someone. "Big changes" I think are what got Mercy into the mess it is in now. Smaller changes allow feedback after each change, so successive changes can learn from the feedback and make corrections when needed. One big change is putting all your eggs in one basket, and you might end up making things worse with no resources for additional changes. Small changes leave resources for later, after feedback can be heard. This is starting to be an almost evergreen topic, Mercy is so bad. Previous threads: Add an Ouro exit to Mercy. Can we fix Mercy island? And I know there's been other requests too, like in the Focused Feedback threads.

I'm going to +1 and bump this. I requested the same thing back with the license first got announced and some QoL on-boarding changes were introduced for new players. The current configuration of red side is very newbie hostile, in many respects. If you're an experienced player (and I think deliberately or not, that's who red side was designed for), zigzaging your way back to Mercy is no big deal. But if you're not experienced it can be a death trap. (Go to unfamiliar zone, get killed as you're a lowbie, go to hospital, now you're in the middle of a higher level zone with no obvious exit path. It's bad.) Add Mercy, remove I'd guess Nerva. Cap must stay, I think Port Oaks is good, it's another lowbie zone, and I like Shark as a travel point more than I do Nerva. It'll be fine, we can deal with it, but adding a quick and obvious route back to Mercy from Ouro I think is sorely needed on red side.

Personally I agree wholeheartedly. The money you get from selling your excess is pretty minor in the long run, there's far more money to be made by flipping crafted enhancements on the Auction House. I'd like to see all Enh drops become "universal" so anyone can use them. That way there's no problem with certain enemies dropping nothing. Plus I'd like to see all dropped enh except acc, end redux, recharge, and interrupt become "power" as well. Whatever a power does--damage, resist, defense, heal, etc. -- the "power" of it is enhanced. The exact values here will require tweaking, but the current Enh game design is pretty tedious, there's way too much minutia involved in dealing with even the reduced number of Enh we get now.

Alternately, the new Broadsword attack that summons a chandelier for you to swing from. Why TP to your enemies when you can swing in style?

I'm sure lots of folks would like to team up. Best place to do that is the looking for group channel, /lfg to send a message. Probably you should start with Matthew Habashy, just to the left of city hall (or Kalinda just to the right of the starting Arbiter in Mercy). He starts a set of mission arcs in Atlas Park, then Twinshot when you reach level 6, and then head to Kings Row for the next set. Eventually you'll find an easy task force, Death From Below, that lets you skip the intro missions and level up a new character more quickly. Good luck and welcome!

How does it end? I was soloing it and it just kept respawning more opposing guys. I think on the third respawn I finally just exited, too much boring samey fights. Don't understand what's going on.

I like this a lot. Rather than make everything work the same, adding a new attack style in Broadsword really would set it apart. I like Shield Charge a lot, not only does it do damage but it lets me reposition in a fight. Lunge with a TP-to-Target could do the same. I'd say go even further and add a TP to target with a wide cone (not a deep one tho, just a melee cone), so there's two tp attacks, to allow even more movement from broadsword. I still like the idea of adding a couple of "gather foes together" type powers in pools, just so there a bit more of it in game.

And yet, we are saying that Axe Cyclone does exactly that, and we're asking for more of it? Sorry I don't understand.

Not opposed to this, but are the sets really the same? I remember War Mace getting an upgrade around the same time Shield Defense was released and it preformed much better as a result. And /War Mace is my favorite tanker, so I have no complaints. (P.S. War Mace also does Knock Up.) Just thinking out loud, but for general interest, adding a "chain weapon" or something to the Fighting Pool that draws enemies in might be cool too, just let folks who want this take it on whatever. EDIT: since this seems to be a common "I want this" power, adding a few more power like this to pools might help, esp to cover sfx for players. A small radius targeted AOE to Sorcery, and one to Experimentation. Maybe one other pool ... I wanted a "gadgets" power but we don't really have one yet.

I was poking around the Wiki and just realized that "Base Entry Permission" on the super group permissions list actually means that someone can create the code used for /enterbasefrompasscode. It sounds instead like it's permission use the base portal and enter the base, for members. This is an absurdly poorly named feature. I'd suggest something like Create SG Passcode instead, it would at least give folks a chance to actually figure it out.

This is a self-fulfilling prophecy though. Not spending time fixing things is the reason for the low population. This especially. The whole game needs it, but if the Devs could start with red side, that would give a boost to red side as players check out new stuff and the devs could get some experience implementing that sort of content. I came here to add: Super Group Registrar. Easily accessible from City Hall blue side, much more inconvenient red side going to port oaks then hiking to the Marcone building. (Also inconvenient, this building doesn't even have a name. It's just "the Arachnos building in central Port Oakes" on the wiki.) A registrar or building could be added to Mercy.

The option in Options -> Window -> Pets -> Hide Other Pet Names doesn't do anything, regardless of setting. I can still see other MM pet names. It's a bit of a pain trying to declutter my screen with these still on. Obviously a "show on Mouse Over / Selected" would also be useful.

I'd agree that it's intentional. I think there is a design aesthetic there, and I also think it's supposed to be a warren of jumbled buildings and dark alleys. But I don't think it's good game design. It's hard to navigate, easy to lose your way, and each part of the zone often looks like every other part, making it hard to orient yourself. At least in a game that's about action and the "bad guys" succeeding, that's not what you'd normally design. (if this were say a horror game where the player is supposed to feel lost, confused, and without power, it would probably be about right.) There's other issues like certain features, buildings and whatnot, that look like maybe they were intended as distinct buildings and markers are way too tall, never in view, and it's hard to notice them as zone landmarks. There's a central building behind Kuzim that's got Arachnos banners all over it, but those banners are about 50' in the air, way too far up to notice when you've got the camera at a normal angle for playing.

Another idea: trying to fix the "tram" in Mercy would require a lot of effort. If a black helicopter were added next to Dollface in Mercy, just behind Desslock, it would make her dialog make more sense (she's the only one I think not actually at a day job location) and also give players more straight forward access to travel.

I'm going to +1 this, I think that Mercy detracts a lot from starting a red side character. I was on about two months ago and answered questions from a player who seemed experienced but couldn't even find the starting contacts in Mercy. That's a problem, if you're not in the know then discoverability is very poor. Mercy has very poor sight lines. From Atlas Park, without leaving the safe zone around Ms. Liberty, you can see Vanguard, City Hall, Wentworths, the tram, Fort Trident, and with only a little more effort the Tailor and the Hospital are visible too. It's far easier to navigate around and find things in AP than it is in Mercy. As a quick fix, I'd like to see some facilities moved closer to the starting spot. Vanguard in particular since a lot of folks like to jump on Mothership Raids, but moving some others if there's time. The Hospital in Mercy is in a good spot, leave it. I think trying to fix the geometry in Mercy to improve sight lines would take too much effort, so this is a second tier idea. The spawn in Mercy is way too thick (just the green starting area, not the whole zone). It needs to be trimmed down, I'd say by a lot. Longbow and Legacy Chain especially, and I'd like to see some of the RIPper spawn reduced too. Kalinda, Burke, and Kuzim should all be added as starting contacts so players can just look there, and the starting Aribter (Richards) should make reference to them the first time you talk to him (if that's too hard, just have him reference those contacts whenever a player talks to him and doesn't need to level up).

I've seen this suggested before, as well as calling it /unstuck. The Temp Power from START isn't a bad idea either, as it might make newbie aware of the option. Both would be best. /unstuck should try to verify that a mob is indeed stuck before doing anything. As temp power it should have a cool down to prevent server load spamming problem (and maybe also a slash command, like /cc has a cool down). /unstuck without a target might search around for mobs and see if any appear stuck. This could unstuck mobs that you can't target. So you'd stand close to the target and type /unstuck and the mob should be moved close to you. Just occurred to me-- as a stop gap: a 100% to-hit Teleport Foe as a Temp Power with a 30 minute cool down (or even longer). Abuseable, but not much because of the huge cool down. Keep it handy and only use it when you really need it.

At one point they fixed Penny Yin's arc too so her dad follows no matter what. So that's a good AI template to copy too.

Extra Plus Bonus Annoyance: Maps with jails. Die on this map and you'll go to jail! Be separated from your team! Wait for them to bust you out or try to solo what is probably far too many mobs for your character to handle! So just sit and wait instead! Yeah no...

Ashley McKnight again, Cap au Diable, her second mission at level thirty "Midnight's Hand" part 2, her mission intro text is: "We don't have the man power like Vanguard" Merriam Webster says this is usually "manpower."

Ashley McKnight, red side contact, called her by phone at level 30. "Howdy, PlayerName. What brings you by?" as her opening text.

I think it's supposed to follow Matthew Habashy's arc, which is mostly trying for lots of action and "rush around doing stuff!!" type of gameplay, while also showing off some of the new features of the engine like spawning a character other than your own so you can be "in disguise" during a mission. I think Twinshot is meant to pick up after that and reinforce things you maybe weren't sure about, even if you've experienced them before. But also to experience some gameplay first so that the tutorial wasn't just theoretical at that point. The locations thing is mostly about Day Jobs. You go to City Hall and the Hospital and the Police Department and Wentworth's to learn there are special locations to log out. The level up thing actually gets you over to Kings Row to talk to Blue Steel, so you can learn there's more than one trainer and also how to use the Tram. It's not terrible. The plot, I'll grant you, is a little weak. And the AI personally bugs the heck out of me. But it kinda is what it is. I'd like to see work done on it, but I can see how it's not a priority.