El D

No permission changes as far as I know. My best guess is, given the recent flood of new folks in the Homecoming Discord, it might be due a batch of new players. Off the top of my head, I can recall a post involving a team that was made up entirely of One Punch Men that earned a GM/dev finger-wag. >.>

Temporal Warriors are supposed to make accessing PvP easier specifically without cutting folks off from the rest of the game's community or requiring undue playtime hurdles to use. Heck, given its reliance on PvE earned resources for high tier effectiveness it pretty much requires contact with the rest of the game's community/markets. If Temporal Warriors were shifted to a PvP Only shard, there's no PvE markets being run to build off of and it'd just further segments an already pretty heftily segmented population instead of encouraging cross-play among established shards. Basically, it becomes less of a 'Hey, come join in!' feature and more of an 'Out of sight, out of mind' thing that brushes PvP under the rug. That said I totally get the concern for possible loophole abuse, but this seems like an overall net positive - and if there are loopholes with the set-up, I'm pretty sure the devs would close them. xD

How does this give up from PvE experience? It does require that enhancements, IOs, etc. all be bought from personal resources gained the 'main game'/PvE side, yes, but that's just encouraging people to play PvE content and use the market as it already has been used. Once someone buys an IO from the auction house, it doesn't matter what they use it for - toss it in a new PvP only character, slot it in an alternate build for a PvE character, or just horde it in their base, the effect is still the same. Heck, PvP Only characters just seem like yet another avenue to promote more drops put it to the market, given that they'll also be earning recipes, salvage, and things. Also, given that the PvP Only option literally locks these characters out of all PvE content outside of PvP zones, I don't understand how it might affect power leveling either. Is it worry that Temporal Warriors will be able to easily power level non-PvP Only characters? That seems like a mighty tall order, given they don't have access to any mission content. IMO, if someone manages to use a Temporal Warrior to effectively power-level a non-PvP only character within a PvP Zone, with the massively shifted numbers and constant possibility of getting ganked... At that point they've earned it.

Hazarding a guess, it's because PvP as is effectively an 'optional extra' which basically functions as its own separate mini game. Were there actually a way to go from 1 to 50 in PvP this probably wouldn't have been put in but there isn't, and as is the only way to even try a PvP build to know if a player might like it is to go through PvE first. Which requires building for PvE first, which given that PvP operates on entirely different numbers via a heavily modified rulebook and requires a different skillset... It's entirely likely to invest in a great PvE build, only to find that it doesn't function nearly as well as a player wants it to in PvP due to slotting (Hell, that's why the option for multiple builds got implemented in the first place). Also, the fact that there's no 'game skipped' via a PvP only Level 50 like there would be with an 'Endgame Only' option. An Endgame-Only 50 button would be even more of a content skip than AE can be at its most egregious - a literal 'I Win' button - but PvP has no content. Sure, there's lore-reasons why the PvP zones and the Arenas exist, but those are just fancy backgrounds for the sole purpose of 'fight other players.' A PvP-locked 50 can't farm in AE, or PL alts, or run story arcs or TFs or anything else. The closest thing to content PvP has would be the badges and temp powers from the PvP Zones, which were just tools to coax PvE players into even going into them it in the first place (and often times aside from getting Warburg nukes those are either 'one and done' or ignored entirely anyway). Plus, given that the player still has to purchase a build for the PvP-Only character, it still requires time invested in PvE to earn the resources to make it really worthwhile. This option just lets players get a pre-emptive sense of 'Will investing in this even be worth it?' rather than the current system of 'Extensively research the massive, nitty-gritty of builds, playstyles, and numerical changes between PvE and PvP beforehand or suffer buyer's remorse.'

In Blackbeard's Pub, there's an NPC sitting at one of the tables across from the bar that's misaligned - butt hanging way off the seat. Also, a little odd that they're not doing the /e sitstool emote given, well, they're on a stool. >.> Also also, whoever had the idea of putting Bad Penny at the gambling tables? That's hilarious and you are the best.

Initially I was surprised by the sudden jump, but I can see the logic for it. If a player makes a character and can't get past level 5 with them in 30 days with this timeframe arrangement, what's the point? That's like 30 minutes at most for a DFB that cruises you into 'play at least once a year' territory (even less if you hop onto a higher-level team). With that timeframe, it breaks up the 'required log in time' into much more manageable chunks for folks with tons of characters.

That's a fair, accurate summation! I suppose I ought to have added the caveat in my prior post that it wasn't meant as a takedown of the Thor movies - I've seen them all and enjoy them (honestly like Taika's take the most) - mostly just grumblings of missed opportunities. A sort of 'I enjoy what the MCU has built with him, but it's also easy to see where things could have gone differently has the focus been shifted here or there' sort of deal. xD

In a general sense yes, the game can account for more color options - it's already got other pre-existing palettes that contain different suites of options, though they're only for select powersets. Other servers have already done things like expanding the color options available too (some to almost ridiculous amounts).

I can definitely understand why folks take issue with 'Current MCU Thor' - he basically got the Gimli treatment from the LOTR films. IMO the core issue, at least as far as MCU progression goes, is that while Thor was much more serious/accurate to the average comic portrayal in the beginning they never expanded on Asgard or much of the Nine Realms. The origin film took place mostly on Earth with a depowered Thor for most of the runtime, and The Dark World was... well, The Dark World. The Warriors Three were just sort of 'there' after the first film, Lady Sif got sidelined, Heimdal had a few cool scenes but not much else, Odin was relevant for a bit, but Frigga never did much (aside from that great appearance in Endgame). Loki was the only other Asgard-based character with an arc, so much so that he kind of stole the focus from Thor for a bit - even in his own movies. The sad fact is, as far as the MCU goes, Asgard getting invaded and the nuked in Ragnarok was the most interesting thing to happen to it. Had the first Thor been about Dr. Foster discovering a path to Asgard and the mortal science team helping Thor learn humility there, on a grand fantasy adventure (while Loki sneakily gathers intelligence on 'Midgard's protectors' from her, Darcy, and Selvig) things might have progressed very differently. Asgard might have been a place worth investing in, instead of a really pretty but flat background that was viewed as holding Thor back. An understandable view (again, Dark World) but also one that the MCU kind of did to itself.

Returning to this thread, I still think the most user-friendly implementation of this policy - given Homecoming's deliberately massive allowance of character slots across multiple servers and allowance of multiple accounts - is for a check-in option at the Character Select screen. It'd remove any semblance of 'time imposition' for active players while still immediately allowing for abandoned accounts to have their camped names released, and perhaps more importantly unambiguously lay the responsibility at players' feet to maintain the names they want to keep. If the name release timer is made minimally impactful to manage, any name lost at that point is solely the responsibility of the player - there's no 'The devs made it too obnoxious to deal with!' when it's made to function as easily as possible with Homecoming's 1,000 character slots per server. This would mean that some active accounts would end up keeping a higher number of names on low-level alts, but they're also still active accounts. If another player really wants one of those names, they can send a global tell and make a request. I wouldn't object to audits of problematic accounts, either. This easier option could, theoretically, allow for accounts to simply fill up every possible server slot with Level 1 characters and, so long as they logged in regularly and went through the check-in, still camp all those names. Abusive name camping being made explicitly against HC's account policy - effectively treating this as a deliberate misuse of the account system - could be considered a bannable offense. Or at the very least, grounds for having those characters immediately generic'd.

The bonus salvage on the left can't be touched because it's already gone to the Americans. Earnestly though, yeah, this is an issue that crops up sometimes when interacting with Salvage. Had it happen a few times when I was messing with Base storage/post-respec.

A change is necessary because AE is has become a singular monolith solely through overwhelming convenience. If players are willing to quit the game entirely, not because their ability to gain everything they want is removed but because they are asked to go through one extra loading screen and maybe 15 seconds of moving through another zone map, that is a problem. AE farming does not promote an attitude conducive to actually playing CoH - as is, all it promotes is staying in AE. The sheer, overwhelming response being 'If you change this, I'll quit' instead of 'Okay, I'll go get the exact same things and more in this other zone I can immediately access' proves that. That AE has become so convenient and so much of a default choice that making other 'equal' farms better in one single instance - an instance that AE still allows players reach faster than using those 'equal' farms in the first place - proves that. AFK Farming is really the epitome of this mindset. Through excessive convenience and grossly manipulated content, players can now log in and gain everything worthwhile the game has to offer... by not actually playing. AE, taken to the extreme that some players push it to (and they absolutely will, because it allows them to) quite literally takes the 'game' out of CoH. 'Log in, go in mission, do nothing, win everything you need to make a maxed-out character, move on to next character to continue doing nothing while gaining everything.'

I didn't bring them up as an example, and the fact remains that even after Incarnates were introduced players couldn't farm any end game materials with portal missions on Live. They can now on Homecoming. Which leads into the common comment of 'There's no difference between farming in PI and farming in AE ' - if there is no difference, where is the discontent coming from? That is an explicit admission that there's other farms just as good as AE that only take slightly longer to access. If the difference between PI farms and AE farms is so trivial as to be next to nonexistent, what's stopping everyone currently saying this makes AE 'not worth the effort' from going to other farms that still are? With this change, that makes PI farms better than AE farms, at least in that single respect of 'post-50 progression.' So, what's the issue with switching from AE at 50 to other missions that keep Veteran XP progression - or just leveling in PI to begin with? If all it takes is 'move to another zone' for these players to continue getting exactly what they say they want, yet instead they say they'll just stop playing entirely and that the game is doomed rather than go through the hassle of a single extra loading screen... What's the hang up? If the venue is that easily traded, why aren't people just trading it back?

None of those farms ever progressed Incarnate abilities (ironically, which they now can on Homecoming), nor offered the sheer amount of drops that AE is capable of. Beyond that, those farms had their capabilities lowered precisely because the sheer velocity they were capable of advancing players was deemed too excessive. Those cited examples are the reasons why Tankers lost the ability to herd entire maps and had aggro caps put in-place to begin with. Sure, it's still possible to run those missions and farm them, but they're remotely not the broken gravy-train they used to be in the dumpster diving days nor are they remotely the even more easily accessible broken gravy-train that AE currently is. Another aspect that this comparison ignores is that AE is specifically player-made, and all those examples were Dev-made content. Players never actively manipulated the Freakshow missions so they only did one type of highly resisted damage or took away all but the least damaging ranged attack from Council mobs to hover-farm them with no threat. The effort from the player to find the mission that fit their character or playstyle best, while minimum (especially pre-ED), was still some active engagement with the game. They had to go out into what was the highest-level zone available and use only the content the game provided. Not purposefully manipulate it into the easiest form they could think of - or more likely, have it manipulated by someone else and then just thrown into their lap - right out of the starting zone. The issue isn't 'they're both farms' - it's that the player-made farms are made solely for farming, because players didn't want to run the dev content for its lesser rewards and lesser convenience. Yes, it's possible to farm in dev-made content, but that's not its purpose nor what it was meticulously modified to do (and only do) in the easiest way possible. Fair point! Blappers do count. My bad. xD

To make another curiosity post - I do not understand the reasoning behind 'This is the devs forcing a 'correct' way to play the game!' as a specific defense for farming The game already tells people how to play at every turn. Want to make a melee damage character? Have to make a Scrapper/Brute/Stalker. Want to buff your allies? Have to make a Defender/Corruptor/Controller/Mastermind. Want to fight the Kraken? You've got to go to Perez Park or run a Sewer Trial. Want to get the PvP zone exploration badges? You're going to have to go into the PvP zones. Every aspect of this game requires making a choice in the boxes it has predefined for the player. 'You want X, you have to do Y' is the default setting. Heck, AE farms wouldn't even exist if the game's predefined boxes didn't allow for it. The problem has arisen not from AE farms existing, but in the way the exist; compared to the rest of the game, they provide far too much reward far too easily for their level of investment. That anyone can multi-box multiple accounts of the exact same character, progress everything worthwhile about them faster than any other method in the game (including the specific methods expressly made for advancing those certain aspects, like Incarnate content), gather excessive amounts of supplies to fast-forward through yet more alts, all while not even having to actively play these characters or even having to leave a single zone - that's not a good thing. I'll readily admit, not everyone uses AE to that degree or to skip the rest of the game, but the fact remains that while that option is there (and remains as readily accessible as it is), players will increasingly be drawn to doing that at the detriment of everything else. Not liking the change because it makes progression take longer than it did before - that's fine! That's exactly what the change does. However, saying 'Don't tell me how to play!' while simultaneously posting about preferring to play the exact archetype and powerset combination the game prompts you into playing because that specific combo is the best fit for one particular, repetitive scenario seems counterintuitive. Fire Farms don't require /Fire Brutes, but if you want to do it the best, the way the game tells you to, they are the correct way to play that content.

Working as intended. Why do you think all the Mu mobs fly everywhere? 😛

With that 'Tickets for Shards/Threads' idea, the rewards aren't removed. AE would allow the same depth of progression as it does now, except it'd require that players choose which kind of reward they want to spend their time pursuing - like how every other piece of content in the game already works, rather than being the singular best, fastest option for everything. Even with that change AE would still more rewarding than it was on Live, back when vet levels didn't exist at all and AE didn't grant Incarnate anything. Requiring players to make a choice on what reward they want isn't taking away options, it's asking them to engage with the game itself.

I'm curious as to what other solutions people would accept. 'Leave AE alone' is likely a nonstarter, as the devs seem determined to deal with this problem of 'AE grants far too much reward for too little effort' somehow. Definitely agree that other content (task forces/story arcs/hazard zones/etc.) could use a modified reward scale to prompt more activity, but just buffing other content doesn't resolve the issue of AE still being the best/fastest. Adding any gates to accessing AE, such as a required tutorial/certain amount of time invested for new characters, would likely take more effort than it's worth - in-addition to probably being liked even less than this change. @Marbing's post about utilizing Tickets to earn Incarnate Materials seems the most interesting thus far. Even without Vet Level progression it'd still allow for AE content to fully progress Incarnate abilities (removing the complaint most folks have had in this thread) but do so at a much more controllable rate vs player investment/time spent playing (which theoretically absolves part of the on-going problem). It'd give AE Tickets more of a purpose too and serve to limit the overwhelming benefits that can be gained from AE. Players would need to choose if they want to farm Tickets or Standard Rewards, without the possibility of getting everything all at once while progressing also Incarnate powers - that'd be the benefit of running actual end game content (Dark Astoria, iTrials, the new Cimerora stuff, etc.).

Those people aren't paying a subscription either. A subscription or lack thereof isn't relevant to the fact that AE is, objectively, the most over-rewarding option in the game and has, continually, taken over 'What CoH offers' when it comes to new players. By abusive, I mean that AE allows players to skip over every other bit of content and still reap all of the rewards as if they'd done it. That the current mindset being shown to new players is 'The only downside to AE is not to play it.' No other subsystem in CoH allows players access to everything else. If a player wants a certain badge, they have to run the required mission. Want to unlock the patron pools, requires running a patron arc. AE is a way to play CoH, but it shouldn't objectively be the best way - because then it quickly becomes the only way.

If the only content someone does is AE, and just AE, they've essentially alienated themselves from the entire rest of the game's content by their own volition. That is not something that should be spread to new players - both for their enjoyment of CoH and for the health of the population. AE is only one way of playing the game, and it doesn't become a singular monolith of 'It's the only way I play' without personal choice. Making that choice as a result of not having more time to game is unfortunate, but that then getting attached to 'so I'll exclusively use the fastest, most rewarding, most abused subsystem in the game, to the point of bypassing/ignoring every other piece of content' is the issue here. As is that this approach all too easily sucks in new players, leaving them ignorant of how the game works. Don't get me wrong - enjoying farms is fine. Using them to play while casually chatting is fine. AE eclipsing all other content in the game, to the point that it's seen as the default, singular 'thing to do' that makes new players ignorant of (or old players completely apathetic to) anything else the game offers? That's not fine.

That's unfortunate, but makes sense. 😕 Would a 'check in' option on the Character Select screen be doable instead? That'd still require folks to check in individually for each character, without the rigamarole of logging in and back out ad nauseum - possibly over multiple servers.

The end game powers are the incentive (along with the badges and story content). AE was never meant to be, and should not be, a replacement for playing everything else in the rest of the game. Even with this change it's still the best farming option in all of CoH, still the fastest way to get from 1 to 50, and still unlocks Incarnate slots. Requiring that players actually do end game content to earn end game rewards - or do literally anything else the game has to offer via earning vet levels - is as tame a nerf as could be given.

AE content as it was could effectively replace everything else in the game. Level 1 through 50? Fully Incarnate out your character? Grind for inf/IO drops/salvage to market? You could do it all in AE, never leaving from 1 to 50, getting more drops at faster rates than any other content in the game, on top of fully kitting out your character with end game stuff without ever actually playing the end game content. Something had to give. Having to actually play the end game content to enhance end game powers - or anything other than AE, since everything else still gives vet XP - is a pretty tame compromise.

I've been wanting to swap around the Walk stances ever since the power hit Live way back when. This is fantastic and my Female model characters who've always wanted to walk normally thank you (as do the various Male characters who would have enjoyed sashaying around).

I definitely like the idea - though I think as is, without some kind of 'flagged account' aspect to activate them, the proposed 'time offline' flags should be extended before full implementation. Off the top of my head, doubling to 60 days for levels 1-5 and 180 days for levels 6-20, while levels 21-49 stay as is at 365 seems more reasonable. Provides a larger grace period, yes, but Homecoming also purposefully allows a thousand slots per server as a distinct 'make as many characters as you like' selling point. Setting the tag rates too low turns that into a detriment to active players instead of keeping the focus as a consequence for abandoned accounts that camped a ton of names X years ago. As a certain point yes, even active players will invite a ton of 'maintenance time' on themselves if they make a truly excessive number of characters - but with servers set up as they are, they invite making a ton of alts by-default so the system shouldn't feel like utilizing what's provided becomes a punishment. Perhaps there could be some kind of 'check in' option to satisfy the tag from the Character Select screen? It'd still require active attention/curating from players (moreso than just going past the initial log-in screen) and would still free up names that have been completely neglected - just without forcing active players to cycle through pages upon pages of alts in a continual race against the countdown timer.