MisterBernie

Oof... the balance between immersion and convenience/QoL is a difficult one. Even more difficult in an MMO. In contrast to a game like Skyrim, where your personal choice to install a No Fast Travel mod effects no one but you, it's a bit much to ask to directly inconvenience other players for your benefit, or because you can't resist the temptation to go for the convenient route (this is directed at me, someone who likes to be immersed but also likes to instaport into a portal base). Immersion is also very subjective... apart from the inconvenience, for me it's also not exactly immersive to go "inventory full, gotta go sell real quick" in the middle of being hot on the trail of Countess Crey instead of silently hitting /ah for half a minute. For me, the office maps are way more immersion breaking than Wentworth's being empty. The problem with empty Hazard zones already existed on Live as well afai remember, especially those that had no dedicated story arc(s).

Yeah, it's not bad, though I don't really use it as part of my regular play. It's more of a "whoops one mob too many, press x to not die" button. But yeah as long as incarnate powers are available to me, I prefer to save Barrier as my primary get out of jail card instead. So not garbage, but not exactly a gem either.

To be absolutely clear, crafting a different incarnate power for a certain slot doesn’t overwrite the current one. When you’re in the slotting tab of the incarnate power window, you get all your currently crafted powers in a list and can switch (with a timer). So you can have in theory all top tier powers and as Lines said be very adaptable.

That of course is also an important point to keep in mind. I can understand not wanting to overinvest if at this point it could all be rendered for naught with a C&D. Still, one can dream and hope and try to spread the mood that reviewing old content would be a great step no matter how tempting it’d be to add completely new content 😉

Personally, I agree on the point that old content, especially blueside, is in dire need of an overhaul. I've slowly, patiently leveled my first toon to 50... and had to turn off XP quite a few times b/c I wanted to run the arcs at their appropriate level range instead of having to go through Ouro for the badges where possible. And I gotta say, while it was all very nostalgic and brought back some good memories, I don't exactly feel an urgent need to replay a lot of the content for my next toon, either. A lot of old content is just a tedious slog through same-y missions, same-y maps, and annoying structuring (defeat all blue cave in Zone A, talk to contact in person in Zone B, defeat all blue cave Zone A, delivery in Zone C, escort hostage in Zone D). I'd be all in favour of overhauling older missions and storyarcs to integrate newer mission features (more complex and unique maps, interactive text boxes in mishes instead of clues, cutscenes, choices, etc), even before adding new content. I don't agree on saying AE needs to be removed, either, though. Especially after going through pretty much all old content recently, I can understand wanting to quickly get to a point where you can run fun power fantasy incarnate content, even if I myself don't exactly jump at the prospect of powerleveling my next toon either (because I too feel like I want to "earn" my 50 through the progress of building them up). Also, while farming is obviously a very prominent, very contentious subject in the community, there are people who like to create their own stories. I mean, there's also farms with stories. And personally I like creating a personal background arc for my favourite toons, both old and new, even if I'm the only one to play them (which is not a complaint, I'm just not a good advertiser). ETA: If, as you put it, you have to force players to go through certain content, and that's a sizeable part of the player base, that should tell you that there's a problem with that content instead of a problem with what they're preferring to play.

There’s a contact (cosmetic surgeon) at every tailor that allows you to change the body scale sliders, or choose a different body type. A similar contact is in Pocket D and the Rikti War Zone.

I doubt a secret tally would be well received by many people (we like to see our stats!), but I agree wholeheartedly that I think it'd be interesting if the alignment system could be better integrated with the rest of the game. Retrofit the old missions and story arcs with choice points, and voilà... in the Madeleine Casey arc, for example, do you try your best to save her, or do you decide not risk it and cut her down before she becomes a dangerous asset of the Carnival?

Hollows, Striga and Croatoa also unlock tf contacts which also contributes to their popularity, I'd assume. I also see Faultline arcs advertised semi-regularly, and imo that's one of the better written arc collections. I think Indigo and Crimson in particular suffer from being against Malta. And so damn long.

I have admittedly not run Apex on a brute as I only have a tank at 50 atm, but as strong tank lover I've run it a few times now and while it took me a bit to get used to it, I now actually really appreciate that I don't just have to stand there and look pretty for the mobs to wail on me rather than my teammates, which is like 90% of classic tf tanking.

As for Harris, I guess it depends a lot on your pov whether you consider killing Captain Friendzone villainous or not. My vigilant turned freshly „villain“ (it’s a misunderstanding over how to deal with irredeemable villains get off his back) saw working with him as a necessary evil to get Longbow off his trail, but he was certainly in need of punishment afterwards....

I had one of those back on Live, guess I should remake him at some point... Good thing I never deleted those bio screenshots I took back then 😄 He also had a, er, Primal Hell counterpart who was a decidedly less brutal, but very cheery maths student in Paragon.

when you target a Sapper, hit your version of build up, run up, hit him with your highest damage attack (and if necessary finish him off with another) only to be hit by the Sapper you’ve just run past.

R I G H T. Sorry, I haven’t used power costumisation per costume before/didn’t quite realize that existed. So that’d actually be more convenient 😀

Definitely an interesting idea; I'd strongly suggest going for an opt-in though. Privacy opt-outs aren't popular, at least not with me *coughcoughfacebookcoughadvertisingcookiepopups*.

For my werewolf who uses beast run in wolf form and ninja run/regular sprint in human form, I gotta object As A Roleplayer 😅 I do like the idea of being able to alter the flypose without emotes.

... not being allowed to play Superman or being criticised for being "uncreative" is not actually akin to racism (though I agree that the latter behavior is unkind). While I'm personally neutral on the issue, drawing parallels to like, actual oppression isn't gonna win sympathy points with all that many people. This is not being a systemically marginalised minority in any meaningful sense.

For me, I'm mostly a story content player, so I'd look forward to more work on that aspect. To be more concrete, while I certainly support the idea of new content (for all levels, and also specific ones for rogues and vigilantes) and a dynamic development of the world (instead of maintaining a story status quo), I'd love to see a reworking of the older story content, particularly blueside. In my opinion, this would mostly mean updating older arcs by integrating some of the newer mechanics (dialogue in missions; choices in missions (with impact later on in the storyline/another storyline); more interesting/complex goals), but also spicing things up with the odd cutscene. The old blueside storyarcs really do not compare all too favorably in comparison to Praetoria or the later storylines (e.g. the clones arcs, the newer turorial arcs). I'm not pleading for a merciless cut of content (I quite like the stories being told), but rather adapting it to be more enjoyable. There's also a lot of room for improving the structuring of older arcs (so e.g. less "mission in zone A, in person meeting in zone B, mission in zone A"); again, blueside is particularly bad about this, but it's also present redside. As a more original idea, it'd be interesting to integrate the alignment system a bit more into the existing arcs. If you implement choices in missions, some of those choices could then award an alignment point. And maybe spice them up with some more accomplishment badges to make playing them more appealing.