Rudra

Several of us have well more than just 10 characters, and your suggestion would require us to give them up. This has already been addressed. I'm going to go out on a limb and guess you don't have more than 1 page of characters. I play any of my characters I feel like playing on any given day. And I don't limit myself to just glancing at the 1st page of characters when I do. This statement is pure garbage. As someone who lost their character name back on Live when I went to remake a character, I get it. However, I still adhere to the first come first serve philosophy of names in this game. If you find someone doing this? Report them and watch their account get banned.

Okay, let's use your really cool room with doors of odd height analogy. My answer to that? Put up warning signs. That is the point of the tutorials. Want to add a blurb that starting at level 7 they can start crafting IOs? Then we ask for it and probably have it added to the basic tutorials at the end after the new player has experienced the benefits of the tutorial given free enhancements. Warning sign for the first door, check. Then you include a blurb to see the P2W vendor, though I have to wonder why a new player wouldn't just see the P2W vendor right there and go "Oh look! This game has pay to win? Well, that kinda sucks, but let's see what is there", though I digress. You include a blurb in the tutorial where they are already telling the player about enhancements and give the 2 free enhancements, that they can get even better enhancements for free from the P2W vendor that will be nearby when they exit the tutorial to help get them started. Warning sign for second door (or second warning sign for first door?), check. Then when they go through the level 6+ arcs (provided they choose to go talk to the automatically assigned contact for those tutorials), they get introduced to the market and the university already. And the market one already states that players use it to make money. So warning sign for third door, check. And since those tutorials also introduce the player to the university, they are already right there where the crafting tutorial is, so warning sign for fourth door, check. If the devs can be convinced to skew the drop rates to say 25% or 30% origin match? (Because I'm willing to bet they will never agree to the 100% match even with an arbitrary level cap assigned.) Then now you have a crutch as well to get into that room. Seriously, we have a tutorial that explains enhancement basics (the Break Out, Galaxy City, Outbreak, and Praetorian tutorials), another tutorial that again emphasizes enhancements as well as showing the player where they can find the market, how to access the market, and where they can find the university in the Twinshot and Dr. Graves arcs, a tutorial just for the IO crafting system available in Cap au Diable, Steel Canyon, and Imperial City available at level 10 (which I can agree should probably be available at level 7 since that is the earliest characters can slot IOs), and free enhancements that never degrade available from P2W. (Which is like right there when you enter the zone. Want them moved to be more visible? Fine.) New players have access to the information about how to get enhancements, how to get money to buy those enhancements, instruction for never degrades enhancements, and with a little bit of curiosity on their part, immediate access to free enhancements that also never degrade. The information is all there except for merit conversions and other tricks for maximizing inf' to buy their enhancements, and that information should not be presented to new players because like someone stated earlier, we can't expect it to stay that way. You want an extra crutch for new players? I can agree with a slightly improved DO origin matching from drops. Edit: Hells, you want to make it more obvious about the market being a source of revenue for players? Add a blurb stating that many things sell for more on the market than to vendors in the popup players get when they are sent to the market.

Introduce them to IOs. Not even set IOs, I'm just talking the generic IOs. We can even see about having IOs mentioned in the tutorials. (Both the game introduction tutorials and the level 6+ ones.) My best guess is that what is turning them off from "keeping up on gear" is they are mentally stuck on gear from games like WoW. Where your gear never stopped working as long as you kept it from breaking. The best thing I can say for those players is to point out that they aren't equipping gear as evidenced by the lack of changes to their characters, they get to keep their characters looking how they wanted because of that, and they can still get gear-like enhancements starting at level 7 if they craft IOs. Edit yet again: And what about pre-level 7? Take them to the P2W vendor and have them grab the prestige enhancements since they are basically free IOs. (And sure, maybe add a blurb in the pre-game tutorial to talk to the P2W vendor for better enhancements.) (Edit: Can maybe even ask that when the player is sent to the university as part of the tutorial, it includes sending them to the IO tutorial contact with an introduction of sorts explaining he is the one that will tell them about IOs at level 10. Or maybe instead just includes a statement as part of the 'this is a university' popup that names the contact and his minimum level.) (Edit again: And maybe lower the contact's level minimum to 7?)

Okay, I'm not a dev and not familiar with the game models' limitations, but from what I see in the game and what I've seen from others that did this? 1. The effect doesn't look like blinking in the instances where anyone has tried this in other sources I have seen. Either in 3D modeling, admittedly with rather old 3D graphics programs, or in animations that can be found online, it winds up either looking like the eyes simply briefly disappear or some odd object appears over the eyes and then goes away. 2. Adding an object to the models that actually animates through a blinking motion, even if done faster than we can realistically see, can work, but only if the covering object is sufficiently... what's the word I'm looking for? It isn't overlapping, though that is a large part of what it does. The thickness of the covering model over the texture eyes has to be minimal, and still manage to not clip. I don't know what animation and 3D modeling software the devs are using, but that could be feasible. One thing I should point out? We already have blinking in the game. The Wailers blink. Particularly the Wailer Kings and the giant one. So whatever is going on with those, if it could be replicated on character models, would meet your desire. 3. Adding eyelashes to characters for the blinking? I'm not sure how well that would work in this game. In the instances where our characters already have eyelashes in particular since unless those model textures got revamped to remove them for adding animated eye lashes for the blinking, it would get weird. 4. Sorry, but I'm against an animated decal for mouth movements or even blinking. Every time I see it done? It is horrific. For mouth animations, the models would need to have the heads redone.

Why not? No one in this game is trading low level DOs, not even to alts. I can't imagine what the benefit of preserving this system would be. Someone said something about the goal of this thread being to teach new players how the enhancement system works and how to get the enhancements they want? Well, if all you do is just spoon feed the desired enhancements to the players and then they out level the arbitrarily decided cut off point, then congrats, all you did was shift the point at which the complaining starts. (Edit: I still remember when I was a new player and how jarring it was to go from TO enhancements to DO enhancements. "Huh? Why can't I slot these new enhancements?!" That was my honest reaction when I got my first DO drops back on Live after just experiencing TOs up to that point.)

I can get behind skewing DO drop rates to providing correct origin more often, say 25-30%. I can't get behind all drops should be usable. (Edit: By that character for their powers. Selling or trading? Sure. They already are. Not for every enhancement that drops for your character is always going to be the correct origin.)

Villain Movers Inc. "We move you in faster than the last guy moved out." (In game joke among players I know for when our paper or tip missions have us using the same door back to back. Often in triplicate.) (Edit: I think it would make for a good red side billboard too.)

True, but without testing it, I have to conclude it wouldn't change the system given that reducing price will also reduce gain. However, your comment to skew the drops to be usable by the player more often likely would have a positive impact.

Dropping the price of DOs will also drop how much they sell for, maintaining the current system being complained about. I didn't say that what you said was false because you didn't provide a fix. You're again putting words in my mouth like saying I am calling players that don't engage in chat assholes. Stop it. All I did was ask, what do you propose for a fix? We've been arguing in circles to absolutely no end, so all I want to know is what you propose for a fix. I don't know either, but I would hazard a guess it is likely the cost of the enhancement that you would be getting from a vendor for that new level. Which if it is, makes sense to me. And as far as I can tell, the inf' was also increased. Back on Live, minions gave more XP than they did inf'. Lieutenants gave slightly more inf' than they did XP. And bosses gave more inf' in relation to their XP. The biggest issue I see with HC's progression is that we constantly accumulate Patrol XP which shifts that paradigm until it has all been expended. Once you get past any Patrol XP you may have? The XP to inf' ratio looks just like it did back on Live to me.

Then just answer this one question: what is your proposed fix?

The fact that it's an extreme take of my comment makes it literally not what I'm saying. This is a textbook slippery slope fallacy. I mean think about it for a second. I already have all my slots filled at all times on all my characters, because I know how to make inf. Does that somehow invalidate the entire enhancement system? Of course not, how could it? Edited 13 minutes ago by nzer Except, by your own arguments, that is not a valid defense. Because you know how to make inf' and keep yourself stocked in enhancements. The argument you were trying to make earlier, is new players don't know how to do that. So how is your statement that you can keep yourself stocked a defense against my argument that simply making the enhancements available to new players wouldn't essentially be the same thing as simply removing the enhancements and automatically incorporating enhancement improvements into your powers as you level? The fact you defaulted to the very same argument being made against the OP boggles me. So is it a problem to get enhancements or not? Adding in previous admissions from those in favor of the OP that the game does not even need enhancements in powers until mid game, how are new players being hamstrung by the system? If the intent is to teach new players how the enhancement system works, and I am only talking about the enhancement system, then how is the current system failing to teach how to get and slot enhancements failing? The enhancement system is not failing even the newest of players if they did any of the tutorials and paid any attention to what the teaching contacts were telling them. The question then becomes, how to keep new players sufficiently supplied with DOs/SOs/IOs to fill out their powers. And the answer is either they turn to others for help either by requesting the requisite funds or requesting advice on how to improve their inf' gains, looking up a game guide or perusing the wiki, by doing the in-game tutorial arcs with their automatically assigned contacts at level 6, or they figure it out for themselves if that is their preference. Players don't know something? They can ask in Broadcast or Help or Local. They don't want to talk to their fellow players? There are in game tutorials that address it, though they don't specify tricks for conversions which they really should not. They don't want to go through the tutorials or ask their fellow players? There are game guides and the wiki and the forums. They don't want to ask their fellow players, go through the tutorials, look up game guides, the forums, or the wiki? Then what more can we do for them? Seriously, what? The information is already being provided. Edit: Absolutely serious when I asked "Seriously, what?". Because while there are comments that the enhancement system should be made simpler or that new players don't have access to certain information as a complaint? I haven't seen any proposed fixes in this thread. At all. The closest is my interpretation that new players should just basically get their enhancements automatically. Which at least to me is simply not an option.

You're phrasing this as if it's an unreasonable thing, but it's not. The game already has a sliding scale of player power to cost in the form of the DO > SO > IO > IO set progression. I don't see any reason why an unsupported player should be unable to even use all of their enhancement slots on top of that. What does that add to the game? And with that statement, your argument devolves from the enhancement system is too complex for new players to understand (which I obviously disagree with) to new players should be able to always have the freshest DOs/SOs slotted in all their enhancement slots. Which at least to me, completely nullifies the purpose of an enhancement system. With that reasoning? The devs should simply remove the enhancement system and make all powers automatically progress as if enhanced as the character levels. My understanding of your statement is "do away with the enhancement system". May as well incorporate even set IOs and their bonuses as automatic into characters at this point, because new players should be able to just not have to worry about getting enhancements. An extreme take of your comment? Yes, obviously. It is still fundamentally what you are saying.

Edit: My completed level 50s are typically broke, so yes, any new characters I make and try leveling do not have the benefit of a cash cow character providing funds. No player has to figure out how to exchange reward merits into converters and sell them on the AH, or try to auction their salvage or DOs/SOs or recipes on the AH, or even interact with the AH at all to work with the enhancement system and figure out how it works. If they want to keep all their enhancement slots full with the newest DOs/SOs available to them at all times? Then yes, they will. Just playing with DOs/SOs? They can play the game just fine without interacting with the market. The game will get tougher as they go because they won't be able to slot too many enhancements unless they fortuitously drop from mobs until they hit a plateau where the challenge caps out for not doing so, but they can still do so just fine. And there is even a tutorial in the game that pretends to just be a story arc from auto-assigned contacts at level 6 that tells these players about the AH and that players use it to make money, so it isn't like the game doesn't provide them that information at all. No, you're misinterpreting how I used that term. I was using it to refer to the players I described in the preceding sentence, that being players who, for whatever reason, aren't inclined to reach out broadly for help. Here is an interesting (in my opinion) little bit of information. When I first started playing? I actively stayed out of chat and didn't even pay attention to it. Not because I wanted to figure things out like my friends do, but because I did not like interacting with others. (Yeah, yeah, not something anyone would ever think the way I post on the forums, but it's been a really long time getting to this point.) And for those players like me? The game has progressed well beyond what it used to be. The information that I didn't start getting until I finally started watching chat for when other players asked the questions I also had but didn't want to ask? The game tells the player most of that information now. Whether through Twinshot's arcs or Dr. Graves' arcs. It isn't as well defined as what those players will get if they actually ask more experienced players or look up a game guide, but the base information is still there and presented to players even if they choose not to engage with other players.

Nowhere am I calling a player that chooses to not engage in chat an asshole. So I very much do not appreciate you saying I am. What I am saying is that the information is available for the asking and the players that choose not to ask have their reasons for not doing so. And the people that I know and play with (in many games) do so because they want to figure things out for themselves. So they specifically avoid looking up game guides and they specifically avoid asking others for tips/advice. And as those are the only people I have ever met that are so adverse to asking for help or looking anything up, that is the type of person I expect to not ask for help in game or go looking for the information that we already have available to us. Also, bear in mind that I am a solo-oriented player and always have been since before I even came across this game and started playing it back on Live. And as a solo-oriented player, I am still willing to reach out to others for tips and advice. The insinuation that just because a player is more solo-oriented and prefers to keep to themselves in game and so is unwilling to even ask for help or advice, or go looking for information, is downright insulting to me.

You're right, we are coming at this from different perspectives. Because for me, even when I was a new player and during the times I was assisting new players, enhancements and figuring out what to enhance when, what to prioritize for my play style, especially knowing that I was obviously not getting enough enhancements just from drops or influence from defeats/mission awards to buy enhancements to keep my character slotted; that was as much part of playing and enjoying the game as figuring out how to manage my endurance, how to utilize my powers, and how to tackle the different factions I was encountering as I progressed. Even now, as a veteran player, because I don't typically interact with the market system and because I don't use merits the way others recommend to make inf' to get enhancements, even at level 50, my characters have huge gaps in their enhancement slotting. (Yes, I have completed, fully incarnated 50s that can provide funds to my other characters, but that is a very limited supply. I am not awash in money in the game. Just like a new player, when I make a new character, I have to be choosy about my enhancements. To me, that is very much part of playing the game.) I only ever had 1 character that always had enhancements slotted in every power. And that character always had the highest level enhancements available for the character slotted. (Well, almost. Sometimes I couldn't afford to replace all my enhancements when I got to within 3 of the next SO, just most.) And this was before there were IOs and before ED. How? I was playing a Dark Melee/Dark Armor Scrapper. I couldn't use more than one of my armors at a time. Even with multiple accuracy enhancements slotted, I almost never hit same level minions (or even -1 minions), and so I was defeated a lot. I had roughly 5 levels of debt accumulated and I couldn't reduce that. (Which can't happen any more because of the debt cap the Live devs added to the game.) Because I had so much debt, my leveling was severely stunted. Because my leveling was severely stunted, I was amassing lots of influence for each time I leveled up so I could just go buy new SOs each time I got within 3 levels of them. (Not something I would recommend putting new players through. However, it does serve to illustrate how learning for your own play style what enhancements are your priorities for your priority powers is very much part of playing the game to me.) (Bear in mind, I finally encountered someone who told me I was running a Dark Melee wrong, and following his advice, I stopped losing. The advice? Slot my attacks with 5 red enhancements and forget accuracy. Suddenly, even +3 mobs were just curling up and dying. Then ED hit and that strategy for enhancing went out the window.) Yes, I'm sure new players to the game would appreciate being able to just slot enhancements as they go, but if that was possible, then why even have the enhancement system in the first place? Someone earlier in the thread said this wasn't like a Mario game. And I agree. Nothing, not even enhancements, should be an immediate "Here you go, just keep slotting these" because at least to me, that very much undercuts the whole reason of having the systems the game has in the first place. New players will get enough DOs to interact with the enhancement system and learn it just from drops. They also have immediate access to 5 varieties of damage/recharge/damage proc enhancements for free to give them an extra leg up on the game. And the tutorials explain to them what enhancements are, what they do, and how to slot them. They may not be able to maximize their powers, but at least to me, figuring out what to prioritize and managing your power enhancements is very much part of playing and enjoying the game. Edit: As for new players that don't think to ask for help from the other players they can see running around in the game and know are out there because they chose to download and play an MMO, and because there are chat channels immediately on their screen that with any amount of investigation shows there is a Help channel? I see no reason to bend over backwards to cater to them. To me at least, they obviously don't want the help because they are confident they can figure it out for themselves. So in my opinion? Let them.

Sorry, but I'm still not seeing the problem. Except for buffs/debuffs, armors/shields, and heals; a damage/recharge/damage proc can be slotted into any character's starting powers. Even Controller and Dominator starting primary powers inflict damage and can accept the enhancements. (With Dominators being able to slot them into their secondaries as well.) Shields like Cold Domination's Ice Shield and the various armors can't use them, sure, but at low levels you aren't really hurting by not getting free enhancements for those. Particularly with the armor sets as their cumulative END costs don't start being noticeable until you have several running at once. Same with heals, buffs, and debuffs. Those aren't in any real need for being enhanced at low levels because their base amounts are more than enough to make low level mobs near ineffective. By the time a player's character gets high enough in level to start having enough powers those free enhancements are not really helping any more, the inf' saved by not having to procure those free enhancements (pretty much ever until you're ready and situated to replace them) coupled with just mob dropped DOs (and occasional SO), mob awarded inf', mission/arc awarded inf', arc awarded merits, salvage and recipe drops (at least when you get above level 6 for recipes), and merits gained for exploring the zones; players should be able to get either some basic IOs crafted at the universities or DOs to keep them afloat. (Edit: Especially if the concern is getting new players familiar with the enhancement system. The crutches available to us now for low level characters is absolutely amazing.) Edit again: I'm fine with finding ways to make the information more available to new players, but other than overhauling the tutorials and again forcing players through them, I don't really see a way to do so. I mean, that's why game guides exist in the first place. Whether MMO or stand alone. To give players more access to game information than what can be crammed into a tutorial. And that is the biggest advantage of playing a MMO like CoX. New players can ask other players for tips, tricks, and other guidance.

They are told by the game to interact with the enhancement system. And there are free enhancements that grant a damage/recharge bonus with a damage proc that they can just walk up to the vendor and grab to slot in their powers. Using those enhancements is interacting with the enhancement system. And even better for the new players? They are absolutely free with no apparent limit to how many they can grab. (They just can't sell them.) Edit: DOs drop randomly from enemies starting at level 1. The tutorials give players two free level 1 enhancements and tell them how to slot and use them. P2W gives players an unlimited number of free damage/recharge/damage proc enhancements until level 19-20. How are new players not interacting with the enhancement system? And why are free IOs only a band-aid to learning the system?

I'm not understanding how they wouldn't be aware there is a red side though. The game lists villains as available to play on the very first page of character creation. And when you finish character creation, if you choose to skip the tutorials, it flat out asks you if you are a hero or a villain. And if you choose to go through the tutorials, there are three different tutorials with a handy guide right there explaining one is a hero tutorial and one is a villain tutorial. If they choose neither of those tutorials and go with the third? They get flat out asked in the tutorial if they choose to be a hero or a villain. So how is there a lack of awareness of red side?

There are 5 free enhancements that players can grab starting at level 1, are listed as some of the best enhancements available in the game up to level 21, can be grabbed as often as the character wants without limit up to level 20(?), and the bonuses never degrade as you level up. Problem of low level enhancements solved. Just need a way to let new players know to talk to the P2W vendor and grab them. (Edit: I mean besides using the Help channel, using Broadcast, or just in general asking others for help that I wonder why they aren't options to expect new players to use.)

Jason Maxwell is always at the start of the map. He is the collapsed figure on the ground. However, if there is no collapsed figure near the entrance doors guarded by a couple of PPD, then yeah, there is an issue. (Edit: And I think he can despawn if ignored for too long because he dies. I'm not certain this is the case, but I believe it is.)

Our red side characters, even the VEATs to an extent, are not part of Arachnos. Arachnos maintains lots of secret bases, even in the Rogue Isles, but characters are not made privy to them because they exist for specific purposes for Arachnos, which our characters are not part of. Same thing with the Longbow presence in the Isles. Our blue side characters are not part of Longbow. And though Longbow is willing to work with our characters as they deem necessary, their bases/facilities are not made available to blue side characters to use because they are for specific Longbow operations of which our characters have no involvement.

The Suggestion Engine, of which you can only keep the projector and Arachnos gets the engine itself, is not a confusion ability or other form of mind control. It is strictly a persuasion enhancement device. So if the target is hostile to you and already attacking, it isn't going to help you. You need time to talk to the target to convince the target of what you want. So it isn't a combat usable device. (Edit: Well, I guess you get the Suggestion Engine itself and it is the power supply for it you don't. So, my mistake. It still isn't mind control though. So not a confusion ability.)

Okay, so first, this really needs to be on the Website Suggestions and Feedback forum here: https://forums.homecomingservers.com/forum/63-website-suggestions-feedback/ Second? My recommendation is to ask for the SG thread for each server to be pinned for ready access on their respective forum.

I just tested on Everlasting on a level 50+3 in Peregrine Island. Went out and got stomped by a few monsters out north, and was able to rez at my base normally. Do you have any other information to maybe help troubleshoot what happened to you?

I stay off the beta forums since I don't spend any time on the beta server (which I don't even have access enabled for), so all I have available for reference is this thread. And the very first post on this thread is a complete power set being pitched by the OP asking for feedback. If the author posted actual data for the devs? Great. The fact the set still made it to open beta still tells me either more feedback approved of the set as is or the dissenters failed to include relevant information to sway the devs. Like I said to @Lockely, I avoid the beta forums most times because I don't have a beta presence. And the only feedback I've seen, which I admit is just this thread, is destructive, not constructive.