Rudra

I understand what you are trying to do. As I said earlier, I have no opinion on it. I'm fine with my KM, though I do understand others are not with theirs. If you can convince the devs to improve KM, I'm not going to complain. (Though I would like alternate sounds for the set. The sounds start out nice, but quickly become tedious.) The only part I intend to have in this discussion is what I have been posting about, that by and large the animation times for KM is in keeping with other melee sets. If some of the later powers in the set aren't up to snuff, they can be buffed. If part of that buffing the devs decide to shorten the animation time? That's their choice. (Edit: As for the new as opposed to recycled for animations? To me, if something is placed in the game but the original version of it is still there so now there are two of them? I call that new. However, I've had more arguments lately than I care to bother with, this is a minor matter at best, so I'm just going to say we hold different views. I apologize for the potential derailment.)

That is correct, yes. ... that requires new animations to be made... even if only sped up versions of the existing ones....

Yeah... I'm still opposed to just shortening the animations of the powers because the animation times for KM are not slow. However, the only way for a power to have a long form and a short form cast time is to have a long form and a short form animation to reflect said cast time. When the long form of the power is active, it uses the long form animation. When the short form animation of the power is active, it uses the short form animation.

If you would like to, there is a simple way of doing so. For Mercy Island, it helps to have a flier, but it isn't necessary. Approach the Longbow area of the city and watch the buildings. If you have not done the Operative Kuzmin arc, you will still see a burning building where you would have blown up the hidden Longbow base. As you get closer though, the building reverts back to not being on fire. For Atlas Park, take any character that has not done the Matthew Habashy and follow up arcs. Go to the industrial section of Atlas where you would fight Longbow and you will instead see Vahzilok, Clockwork, and Hellions. As you approach, it shifts so that the pylons appear and Arachnos is there. Now, for both these cases, and the other examples I'll let you explore in both zones if you want, once you complete the requisite arcs, those phased in effects and spawns go away. So you will only see what is actually there as opposed to what the game is trying to mask it with for those arcs. So as long as you do those arcs, everything stabilizes and you won't see anything. Now, apply the zone phasing to contact and mobs that are not removed or altered by any mission. So you have Villain A arrive in Mercy Island after having escaped the fall of Galaxy City. The current Mercy Island is the primary Mercy Island, so that player would see the zone as it currently is. Villain B however, arrived in Mercy Island after having been broken out of the Zig by Arachnos and instead sees the zone phased in original Mercy Island plus the current Mercy Island because of how zone phasing works. So they would have two Mathew Burkes, two Kalindas, and a few other contacts I can't currently remember. Or say they get the snake hunt mission. Because of how zone phasing works, they will either see the Snakes they are looking for scattered fairly prolifically around the zone only to disappear and be replaced by Longbow and their crates or Legacy Chain, or they would only see Legacy Chain or Longbow and their crates until they got closer and could see they are actually Snakes or Hellions or other faction. So the villain that went through the Breakout tutorial would run into difficulties in accomplishing street sweep missions, find duplicate contacts of which only 1 they can interact with, and be nowhere near the other starting villains when they first spawn on the map for having done a different tutorial.

They aren't subject to zone phasing. However, if you don't do the Operative Kuzmin arc and its follow ups? You can still see everything things like the burning building that you didn't blow up, the Longbow in Mercy in the city still disappear when you aren't in their vicinity, and so on. Same thing with Atlas Park where regardless of whether you do the Matthew Habashy arc and its follow ups or not, you can still see both the phased and not phased elements.

The only way for that to be done is for new animations at the shorter animation time be created for the power set to access like with Titan Weapons.

Okay, you're taking your tantrum too far. I'm asking you to engage in a reasonable conversation on this.

Oh!!! We have hook hands in the costume creator, right? What if the devs added wand hands too? (Not as in wands for hands, but adding wands to a fist for players to select for their characters. Emanation points may be tricky to work, but would it be feasible?)

Anyway, setting petty tantrums aside, @PeregrineFalcon makes a good point. Adding more auras that players can apply to their characters for various magic effects would help players better portray their magic characters.

Oh, so you're back on this again. Then I guess you should hurry back to the other threads where you agreed with me and remove those responses.

I do always get a kick out of the 'nuh uh' responses. 😄

Something like this?

In every portrayal of magic, magic is a force that is shaped by the user to achieve some effect. Whether in comic books, anime/cartoons, movies, novels, or anything else, magic is itself not a power effect, but the power source. Even when blasting a target with pure, raw magic power, it is a shaped bolt/blast of energy. It is no different than if someone were to blast the same target with a generic energy bolt/blast, except that the source of the bolt/blast is magic as opposed to some technological device utilizing an unstated energy type, a chemical reaction causing an unstated energy type, a racial ability to channel an unstated energy type, or a mutant power utilizing an unstated energy type. It is just a bolt/blast of energy where the type of energy has been defined as magic energy. It may have a runic circle appear as it is manifested, it may require specific gestures and vocal intonations to make it manifest, it may require the use of a rune stone, wand, or staff to manifest, or it may not require any special focus or effect; but it is still just a bolt/blast of energy. Every use of magic can be broken down into specific effects. It is no different than any other source of power.

This is bottom of the barrel priority, but I always found it weird that you escort NPCs all the way through the map to the mission exit, but instead of exiting, they run back through the map looking for an elevator door or a sewer door or some other door than the one they are already at to exit. Can that be fixed?

I don't pursue leveling speed either. (Like others, I turn off xp to avoid outleveling content regardless of blue side, red side, or gold side.) However, I'm curious as to what we are doing differently since when I make a gold sider I have to turn off xp to avoid leveling and just play through most of the content without xp. Something I don't have to do as much red side or blue side. Believe it or not, I get that. It's why my gold side characters are gold siders and not red or blue siders that are going to flashback to Praetoria to do the content. I'm not sure, but I think Praetoria was more of a proof of concept that allowed players to make Praetorians and see what the dystopia actually is like. Sort of a novelty that showcased more difficult foes and missions in a prettier setting with darker lore. Regardless, it is difficult to expand Praetoria without taking away from the flow of the zone as I see it. I'm open to more content gold side, it's just that with the lore of Praetoria, it is rather difficult to fit too much in without tossing Praetoria's lore. This could use its own thread like the "Red Side... Best Side? Right??" thread. Though it will run into your mentioned problem of further partitioning the player base.

Wouldn't be the first time I was wrong. Still, as quickly as gold siders level compared to red and blue, I'm still not understanding the call for a gold side DFB. It doesn't make lore sense and we already level up way fast there. (Edit: And if for some reason that is still not fast enough? Hit up START and grab a x2 XP booster, and rocket through gold side.)

Since the "breakfrees already deal with KB" was covered - this would be yellows. Yellows already grant +Perception. So they in effect already do the same thing.

You can already have a "patron". If you're in a large SG, the more affluent members are often willing to pay for enhancements for the lower level members (unless those members have their own 50s to fund themselves with). Hells, in my SG(s), my friends are often asking me if I would like them to buy my newest character enhancements. (Which I decline.) And we already have a mutual assistance system. Join a SG and they often grant members access to their shared salvage, inspirations, and even enhancements. At level 5, SOs should be the furthest thing from your mind unless you are willing to read and follow the various guides for making inf' in the game.

In the end it is up to the devs to decide. However, you can carry 20 inspirations in your inspiration tray and your e-mail limit in your e-mail. Plus you can still merge inspirations into any other inspiration of the same basic type. (That is 3 smalls into a small, but not a team, multi-, special, or medium+.) So you can feasibly, not likely but feasibly, keep your ranged character going on just range inspirations or recharge inspirations. (And if you keep the occasional blue, the recharge inspiration isn't a problem even if all you do is spam your nuke every 29 seconds.) This is partially offset by the fact adding two more inspiration types would dilute the inspiration pool, slowing down the ability to merge into what you need instead of what you have. So who knows, I think they are too OP, but maybe the devs won't and will think they are a good idea.

The Praetorian characters that work to get to 50 that I know of make prodigious use of Night Ward, not AE farms. Would love your data on this. I went to City of Data and looked up the reward scale of the enemy groups you face in the standard Praetorian 1-20 zones, (Syndicate, Praetorian PD, Ghouls, Destroyers, Resistance) and all have a reward scale of 1, meaning they do not have boosted XP at all. I don't have data on it other than the fact my gold side characters level faster than my red or blue side characters over less missions.

MM pets can't keep up with an MM that isn't using any travel powers at all. (Though they can SJ to where the MM is. They just won't unless it is 'necessary'.)

Wouldn't that be the Underground iTrial? (I know it isn't a low level TF and the OP is specifically for a low level TF. However, the Devouring Earth in Praetoria are intentionally leaving Praetoria alone per Hamidon except for the Avatar and its converted/support forces placed in the deep Underground where the iTrial takes place.) Praetorian characters already get more xp per mob because of the increased difficulty of those mobs. Making something like DFB for gold side will probably catapult the level 1 character to or near level 20. Also, the reason why there are no TFs gold side is because the only major threat is Hamidon and Hamidon is leaving Praetoria alone until Tyrant fails his promise in the trials. The reason why there are no TFs for the different factions in Praetoria itself is because Tyrant and his Praetors very ruthlessly exterminated all threats dumb enough to make themselves a major target. Even the opposition you see in the streets are "carefully" maintained by the Praetors for different objectives. For instance, the Destroyers as maintained by Marauder and Dominatrix. The ghouls that keep getting released into the Underground to give the Resistance a constant threat they have to work around. The Clockwork that serve as Anti-Matter's and Neuron's eyes and ears while cleaning the city and Underground, and helping keep the ghouls and Resistance more or less contained. Even the Syndicate and Resistance are doing their level best to maintain a low enough profile that Tyrant and the Praetors don't squish them in oblivion. (Despite how some Resistance cells try to make themselves a more visible threat by blowing up hospitals and police stations. Which gets thwarted by the players. And even if the players weren't involved, the Top Dogs of Marauder would move to deal with any threat the Resistance attempts that are deemed beyond the rank and file Powers Division's ability because none of them want an angry Tyrant possibly permanently removing them for threatening his deal with Hamidon.) If Tyrant can't keep the peace per his deal with Hamidon, and anything that gets major enough to constitute a TF would get Hamidon's attention for the sheer scope of events involved, Hamidon is more than willing to simply erase Praetoria and everyone in it. (Remember, the Avatar is intentionally nearby to monitor what is happening in Praetoria. And there are DE just beyond the sonic fence to maintain a visible threat for Tyrant to rally people around him and also keep an eye on Tyrant/the people of Praetoria. Even the Seed is well positioned in First Ward to help maintain some surveillance.) So while Tyrant and the Praetors can't keep total peace in Praetoria, they were successful enough that the closest you get to TFs are the zone events.

I'm not understanding what variance you are talking about.

It may be possible, but given how the zone phasing already fails, it may also be problematic.

So let's try addressing a few of these trees. We can set aside the Conceal inspiration because I've already addressed it. Instead, I'm going to address the other inspirations. Recharge reduction inspirations: Recharge reduction has a limit of +400%, which is 1/5 the recharge time of any given power. So you can have a character running around spamming Inferno for instance every 29 seconds. Not using Hasten or counting the recharge reductions I have slotted into my powers, my characters average +62.5% recharge reduction as a global effect. Slotted enhancements are around +92-98%. Anyone taking Hasten gets another +70%. Using a 95% slotted recharge bonus, that's +227.5% recharge. So popping recharge inspirations makes it very easy to get that nuke down to an every 29 seconds use. I can't speak for the devs, but I'm not inclined to think they would be in favor of that. Range inspirations: Range has a limit of 500%. For a Blaster's regular attacks, that is a range of 400 feet. Their snipe would hit out to 750 feet. This would let a ranged character pick off any GM or other critter (short of maybe Hamidon or any fliers that can pursue them) from a point of absolute safety. So between the recharge reduction and range inspirations, I think adding those inspirations would be too powerful. Now, as far as your additions go? As @Uun said, those can already be crafted at any empowerment station, and the empowerment station buffs last for an hour and a half. While I am not opposed to those inspirations per se, adding them will reduce the likelihood of having sufficient inspirations on hand to merge into an inspiration you actually need, and for a maximum of 90 seconds depending on whether they use the standard 60 second duration for most inspirations or the variable duration of the mez protection inspirations. So I would say it is far better to just craft those at an empowerment station. I am not trying to imply or say you do not already know the things I am stating in this post, but I feel I need to present them as a reference for why I am approaching this the way that I am.