Rudra

Here is the same group on that Positron TF at x1 setting: The ramping up of spawn size is the same in a TF/SF as it is for any other content when you choose to increase your difficulty. And while I can't say it is the same as for a full team of players, it is supposed to be. Regardless, the point is that like has been pointed out earlier in the thread, a player can opt to form a smaller team and still run at full team difficulty even on TFs and SFs. And players already solo many TFs and SFs. Even at higher difficulty settings.

Yes and no. While I can't attest to spawns not decreasing in size if team members aren't online, the TF/SF is not limited to team size. You can very much set your difficulty to a higher team size than you are running and get the full spawn. Below is a screen shot I just took of a test TF run by myself at x8 setting. As you can see, that is not a single player spawn size, but a full team spawn size.

As an alternate option? Sure. However, as an alternate option, it should also be available to all the other sets as well. (Edit: Though I disagree with a sand thrown in the eyes animation. Throwing sand in an enemy's face, while good for blinding them, is not exactly known for calming foes down.)

Barrier is not a requirement to complete 4-star Advanced Mode content. It is just the best means players have currently discovered. Players are free to explore other avenues to completing them, and I encourage them to do so. The problem I have with this is like I said, Barrier is not a requirement and imposing such requirements limits players' ability to explore options to dealing with a task. I support player freedom to explore and play how they want, not having to use specific builds because the game requires it of us. (Edit: That's why I am so vocal in my opposition to make more of the game fall in line with the current meta.) Agreed. So run your teams using alternative approaches to the content being played. The choice is wholly yours, or your team leader's if you aren't the team leader.

I have no clue. I know I've duo'ed a 1-star Dr. Aeon Strike Force. (I think we may have even done a 2-star.) And I've duo'ed a 2-star Imperious Task Force. (Not worth the extra time to duo compared to a 1-star in my opinion.) I sincerely doubt 4-stars are being solo'ed. (Or duo'ed for that matter.) I wouldn't be surprised if players were already clearing the 4-stars with smaller teams though. And players are currently already able to try if they so desire. Here's the thing. If you want the TFs/SFs to have a Hard Mode option tailored for smaller teams? You will either increase the likelihood those TFs/SFs can and will be solo'ed, or you will further reduce the ATs allowed on teams to tackle them. And this is on top of increasing the amount of work the devs have to invest in updating the TFs and SFs beyond their already stated goal of updating the other TFs and SFs that lack Advanced Mode (Hard Mode) to having an Advanced Mode for players to try. Barrier cycling. Smaller teams = less barriers. Incorrect. Setting up the TFs and SFs to have a limited team size setting as advanced difficulty will add more barriers as players decide they have less spaces available to burn on "charity picks". Edit: There's no reward other than personal satisfaction for making smaller teams. Designing content for small team sizes would allow the devs to proportionally reward players (D-syncs, aethers) for the increased difficulty. Edited 15 minutes ago by ... You will only get D-Syncs from doing Dr. Aeon Strike Force runs (or buying them from other players on the AH). And you are already guaranteed Prismatic Aethers for doing Advanced Mode content. Adding an alternative Advanced Mode won't change that. And players can already get those prismatics guaranteed on smaller teams by simply not trying to do the 4-star versions. Like I said, I've duo'ed 2-star ITFs. (Not worth the effort though. Just do the 1-star and run it more frequently. Though a 4-player team would probably make the 2-star version worth running for the prismatics.)

Summer Blockbuster and Dr. Kane's House of Horror. These trials are balanced around a team of 4 players already. Asking for more of these? Okay, sure. However, seeing as most TFs/SFs can be soloed by players these days, adding an option to limit team size isn't going to do anything. And as you said and @Ghost pointed out, players can already limit their team sizes for anything they choose to run.

Unlike in Safeguards and Mayhems where the map is filled with objects to be destroyed by the player or the mobs, I think those destructible objects you see in King's Row are spawned as part of the Skulls or Lost spawn that is attacking it. (Edit: Yep. Just saw it in King's Row. Found a damaged car that someone cleared the Skulls from. Logged off to another character for a quick badge, then logged back on the checking character again. The damaged car was not present. Then a little bit after, a car spawned with three Skulls attacking it. Those destructible objects in King's Row are part of the spawns attacking it. Not always present on the map.) Edit again: Also, to the best of my knowledge, there are only 3 zones that have those objects. King's Row as part of the spawns that appear already attacking the vehicle that spawned with the mobs, Brickstown as part of the Prison Break event, and Nova Praetoria as part of the Protest event. (Edit yet again: Well, 4. The Longbow Chasers in the St. Martial event aren't enemies, just targets, so they count as destructible objects on the map too.)

No. (I was playing a Crab Spider. The Crab Spider auras are team buffs and are flagged to not notify enemies.) And even if I did, there is no way the distance between us given how far away their text bubble was through the wall was close enough for any character's aura to trigger them. After they detected me, it took them nearly 10 seconds to just get into the ship compartment I was in, let alone reach me.

There are some rather major flaws/problems with the OP. First, what does the character do when not controlling someone else's character or morphed into an enemy? Second, if the symbiote character can morph into any organic enemy, how does that interact with ambush spawns and how do the enemy mobs act when your character attacks them? Third, what do you do when your character is bonded to someone else's character granting them extra powers? If the answer is nothing, then why would anyone want to bond their character to anyone else's character? Fourth, while shapeshifted into an enemy, do you retain that enemy's HP, damage rating, and tier? (Thus making you extremely vulnerable when running around as a Small or Minion tier enemy.) Fifth, if you can shapeshift into any organic enemy, what is to stop you from simply shapeshifting in the Hydra, Jack in Irons, or the Seed of Hamidon? If GMs are not possible, then what is to stop you from turning into Maestro, Statesman, Tyrant, or any other AV? If both AVs and GMs are not possible, then what is to stop you from turning into Noble Savage or any other EB? (And I have no clue what you are talking about with the black parasite or pink one from a favorite anime series. So your lead in statement makes a huge assumption that fails. We don't all watch the same things.) Edit: Sixth, if you are controlling the defeated character of another player, is that character still at 0 health and so able to be rezzed but not further harmed? If not, how much health does the defeated character get, how long does it take to apply, and is there an untouchable period to get toggles back up (and can that character still be rezzed while you are controlling the defeated character despite the game no longer seeing that character as defeated)? Edit again: Seventh, how would you use enhancements? The mobs you morph into have different powers available to them, so slotting enhancements based on enemy available powers while morphed doesn't work. Players are even more varied and you aren't even running the bonded character while that character isn't defeated. So how would enhancements be determined/applied for the AT?

I specifically said "patrol", not ambush. The part you are quoting says "patrol" as the 4th word. The mission was to avoid the patrols while looting the ship. Patrols do not automatically track you. Just ambushes do. And yes, when the ambushes started after the patrol saw me through a wall, the ambushes all moved directly to me like they should. The patrol I was trying to avoid had no line of sight to me, detected me from one compartment while I was in another compartment, did so nowhere near the door, and through the wall.

I don't think this is a geometry error issue, but it may be. If it is, then I apologize for posting here. Anyway.... I'm doing the John Houston arc again, this time choosing rogue options. So I wind up on the Burgle the Family Money-Ship mission. I can't stealth, so I'm avoiding mobs as best I can. When suddenly the patrol I'm trying to avoid sees me through the ship's interior wall. They were in another compartment and still saw me in the compartment I was in. I backpedaled away, so the location I am providing will only be approximate. My apologies. Server: Everlasting Zone/Mission: CargoShip_Layout_05 Position: [246.6 332.1 1016.5]

To follow up on @Frozen Burn's post, you can do the same thing for a shrinking character the same way. So you can make a character that grows for combat or shrinks for combat by making use of the available costume slots and a few macros. (Edit: Or go nuts with the creativity and make a normal sized character, a max size character [possibly using the Huge model], a min size character, and then have your character be changing sizes between all 3 depending on the powers you activate with the macro. Though there is a time out between costume changes as a limitation on doing that.)

I'm running through the John Houston arc and I've been getting a lot of tips in the mission. At least 8 so far. They can't be explore tips for Striga Isle because all the tips are being gained inside the instanced missions. So I'm guessing they are alignment missions. Bearing in mind I can't actually check my tips right now because I am doing this as a flashback, but I thought the constant tip dropping was removed.

This isn't a constant thing, but running through John Houston's arc in the infiltrate the warehouse mission and the Port Noble Patrollers are firing their weapons while in the idle position with their weapons pointed at the ground fairly routinely. Like every 3rd or 4th attack routinely. At another point, a Brigadier Defender wielded his firing rifle like a club, swinging it at me. I think he was trying to use his Assault Rifle Butt attack, but he was shooting at the time. Made for a really nice effect, like a sword blade made of gunfire, but I don't think his shooting me was supposed to be rendered that way.

Not if the flying character uses his/her/their/its body weight and flight ability to offset the weapon's momentum. Sort of like how someone standing on the ground can do a "giant swing" with someone else. Fliers do things like that in comics fairly frequently.

I support this. Even Lightning Rod no longer requires the character to not be flying but merely near the ground. (A much needed and appreciated change.) Arc of Destruction should get the same treatment.

They do give the same missions. Always have. That way you could be sent to any of them and not have to worry about missing anything. They were supposed to be randomly assigned from the pool of contacts with the same content so that players would have variety when leveling rather than always being sent to the exact same contacts for their origin over and over again.

Oh, I already knew that. It's why I routinely carry garlic and a balsa stake around with me. Just in case.

I've heard that for a sufficient number of blood packs, @Snarky will run around with a player and at least pretend to care about the instructions being given. Does that count? 😜

Yes.

I wasn't suggesting damaging powers so... Unless you consider pool-quality confuse to be a significant DPS boost I guess. You asked about the meta. So I answered about the meta. I'm not saying you are asking for a DPS boost. I never said your proposal was born of revenge. What I said/am saying is that using Challenge's removal as justification feels like it. I don't care. If the devs like that idea, they will implement it. And I may or may not use it depending on my character. That's niche, but being niche itself isn't bad. So while I wouldn't use it, I'm perfectly fine if others choose to and the devs decide to make it. I thank you for looking into something that suits everyone's purposes. As far as confusion versus taunted, my guess would be that the mob would be confused since the mob would view us as friendlies. If anyone has the appropriate powers to check, they can confuse an enemy and then be in range for their taunt aura to possibly affect the confused enemy and see what happens. My best guess would be the taunt wouldn't affect the confused mob. (Edit: Which would probably make those auras OP....)

The meta revolves around doing as much damage in as little time as possible, often via damage procs. It decries powers that don't let them do so as being "bad", "useless", "worthless" or in need of replacing. Like the Presence pool since it does not contribute to the player being able to maximize damage output. So no, there is no meta that involves the Presence pool. Instead, the meta wants the pool to die in oblivion and be replaced "with better powers". What do you have slotted? Is it for set bonuses or to actually improve the power? Not theoretically; practically. Accuracy, recharge, and taunt/placate duration in Pacify. As an HO if I can get it. I do not slot sets into Pacify. I was there for that debate. I even participated in that debate. And as much as I hate to say it, the ones pushing for Challenge to be replaced had it right. Yes, I loved being able to choose to draw out a single target or a group as I saw fit, but even after Challenge was removed, players like me could still draw out single targets, just with our epic snipe power or our prestige power. And we did still have Provoke. And as @Luminara said, using a loss we opposed is not a good reason to impose such a loss on others for other sets. If anything, it reeks of sheer pettiness. An "I lost something I liked so others should have to suffer the same" feeling. The difference between losing Challenge in favor of Pacify as opposed to losing Pacify and Provoke to bring back Challenge plus some enhancements that if possible will give us back Pacify and Provoke's functions? Is that when we lost Challenge, we still had our taunt available in Provoke with no other requirements and the ability to selectively draw single targets out of a room with a ranged ST attack, whereas you are asking to take away powers with no recourse for achieving the same thing we already have except by having to take a power you prefer to have back with added requirements of needing more enhancement slots than players are already using with no other recourse. Not exactly a comparable situation.

I see the misunderstanding. I am specifically referring to the placated mob, not anything else. If the placated mob is affected by something that notifies the mob of your presence, the placate is broken. Confuses are odd ducks in that even if a mob knows you are there while confused, the mob will not react to you. So it is not the taunt itself in those auras, it is that those powers notify mobs you are there and affecting them with your aura. So if a placate proc were to be slotted in say RttC, and that proc placated an enemy, that enemy would keep attacking you because the toggled aura is constantly affecting the target mob(s) every assigned increment of time. Is not a reason to take something away from players like me. Trying to make a power set fit with a specific group of players that decry anything that doesn't fit their preferred play style (the current meta) at the expense of players already using said pool is not a good reason in my book. If you were trying to make the pool more appealing to others without stepping on other players like me, we wouldn't even be having this discussion. Can be done without taking powers I am personally using in the game and that others are using in the game away from them. So still not a reason for the proposal. Has been pitched by players like @Luminara without stepping on players like me already using the pool. SO that doesn't really hold up as a reason for the OP either. Has its own problems that you do not want to address because of the multiple Brute discussions elsewhere. (And which I am willing to bet will never happen because of it.) Which is still done at the expense of players like me that are already using the Presence pool by requiring us to have to devote an extra enhancement slot to get back a function we already have without that enhancement for the sole stated purpose of imposing an enhancement tax. And intentionally imposing an enhancement tax on players to get back what we already have is not exactly a solid reason to pitch things. Which can be done without stepping on players like me by taking away powers we already have and are using. You can still propose procs that don't exist in the game and propose enhancement sets without taking things away from the players happily making use of things currently available in the game. So that is still not a reason for the OP. Why should players playing the game right now be required to change how they play the game is the reason I am asking for. Why should something that already exists in the game simply be removed is my question. And saying that a desired author created enhancement tax would be available to restore that function is not an excuse to remove powers from players using it. Because you are still imposing something on the players they don't have to do right now in the game, devote an extra enhancement to a power to get a power's function they are currently using without having to slot an enhancement to get.

Is it actually wiped-out by non-damaging notifications, though, or just suppressed/ignored? It goes away. Like a sleep effect when someone damages the target. I've never seen an enemy that I placated and then damaged by any means resume being placated for any part of the remaining 8 seconds. A placated enemy that is notified via any of your powers of your presence is no longer placated. Via the power itself. Yes, its "notifies mobs" part. And you are talking about constantly being applied toggle effects. As I said earlier in this post, I have never seen any enemy I placated that I affected with a power that notifies them, typically an attack, that stayed placated. So I would like to know what powers that notify mobs don't break placate in your experience. Edit: In order (separated by semicolons): there are benefits whether you denounce them or not, such as giving players the option for single-target taunt in a pool while maintaining the ability to make it AOE; it would entice the people who have asked for pool confuse or Intimidate/Invoke Panic without having to take a taunt or placate; reconsidering slotting depends on if you already slot Pacify and/or if you take both Pacify and Provoke as of current; I've addressed how to try working this in given what currently exists but, of course, suggesting basically anything falls into SCR territory, and for the "no reason" refer back to the "no benefit" section. Then please explain the benefits and the reason. Because what you have stated as benefits so far are not to me. They are intentional nerfs to my characters and any future characters I make (which I routinely do) that may want to use the current abilities without having to sacrifice something to get back current functionality. And I have asked you for a reason for the proposed change many times in this thread and you have yet to give one that actually says why the proposed change should be done. (Edit again: Why should players like me already using the Presence pool have to change their characters and their play style to accommodate this proposal? Why should players be forced to change how they approach the game for this proposal?)

RttC notifies mobs. So does Against All Odds and Invulnerability.