PeregrineFalcon

Tankers get, hold, and survive aggro in order to protect the team. That's their identity. Scrappers are melee damage dealers. That's their identity. Stalkers are stealthy melee assassins. That's their identity. Those are all specific roles that define their identities and, other than the fact that they're all melee characters, don't overlap. There's no confusion about who they are or what they do, and each of the AT's is the best there is at what they do. (Yes I know about IOs, yes I know about exceptions, etc, etc. Please don't try arguing the exception.) So what is the specific role that defines a Brute's identity? And what specific thing can they do better than any other AT? If we can't answer those questions then what should their role be? Don't we need to answer at least one of those questions before any discussion about numbers or changes or balance can happen?

Admittedly Frostbiter probably isn't in the same neighborhood as Arcanaville or Ascendant or Heraclea or Elvis. Sure if someone took that name it's probably just a fluke. Ok, but that doesn't apply to all names. Look, I'm not even arguing for or against purging names. I'm just trying to let everyone know the real situation, and that's there's no need to speculate about it because it's been confirmed, both by a GM and by someone who actually did it.

"What it actually says..." Please stop with the hyper-semantic nonsense. They clearly were implying that they made a large number of characters with the names of famous live players. How exactly would someone be mistaken for a famous live player? You'd fly around in Atlas Park with a character with that name above your character's head. There's just no other way that someone would be mistake for a famous live player. It's funny that everyone that wasn't you that read that post understood that. Let me quote that post again here: "I was fortunate enough to grab a good number of desirable names when HC first launched, and on at least one occasion have been mistaken for a "famous" player from Live because I had "their" name. The argument could be made that this other player is "more deserving" of that name than I am, although I would dismiss that argument on general principle. Had they loved this game as much as I do, they would have been searching for info during the blip like I was, and would have found out about HC in time to log in and grab that name. They didn't. It's a hard knock life, for them." Translation: I deliberately logged on to Homecoming, made a ton of characters with all of the famous names that I could remember from the live servers (or possibly looked at a copy of the old forums in case memory wasn't enough), and then flew one of the characters around Atlas Park while saying to myself "ha, ha, I got your name". So debate all you want about whether or when or which level, but understand that at least some of the people who are against this are against it because they are deliberately hoarding names and they don't want you to have them, and this has been confirmed by a GM.

People keep saying this in every thread on this subject. And my response is: "So what?!?" Ok, so there were more people on the retail servers. Ok, and? We had 20 or 40 character slots back then, or whatever it was. And you had to purchase each account. Here on Homecoming we have 1,000 character slots. ONE THOUSAND. And accounts are free. That means that it only takes 1 person, ONE, to make multiple accounts and spend a couple of days making characters with all of the cool sounding names that he can think of to cause this problem. And, as I've already said and I'm going to remind you again because for some reason people seem to have forgotten this, a GM already confirmed that this happened. I'm going to say this again. A GM already confirmed that there are multiple accounts with hundreds of unplayed level 1 characters with cool names just sitting there camping the ****** outta those names like professional campers on a reality show about camping. Here's the link in case you missed it in my last post. It doesn't matter what happened on the retail servers. It doesn't matter whether running the script on the retail servers freed up any names or not. The current situation on Homecoming is so different than on the retail servers that you cannot, in regards to this, use previous results to predict what will happen on Homecoming today.

That's not what I said. What I did say (that there are accounts that are camping hundreds of names each) has been verified by one of those campers and by a GM. There is a difference between accusing people of whining when we're simply discussing a subject and doing what I did, which was to make a verified factual statement. I'm sorry that you can't tell the difference but, as I no longer teach English, you'll have to have someone else explain it to you.

My idea is that Brutes would be tougher than a Scrapper but, only with the ATO, and you would have to really work at keeping them at that level. It would require some thought and timing. And, if you IO'd your Brute out with really high defenses then it would actually work against you because attacks that miss wouldn't contribute to maintaining Fury. Scrappers on the other hand wouldn't require as much work to play. It would be easier to maintain this level of damage output, but you wouldn't be as durable. It seems to me that that was the original intent of Brutes to begin with. Now, I flat out admit that I don't know how you'd do the math to balance this out, which is why I made the Arcanaville remark.

Ultimately I believe that the best way for the developers to address this would be to fix Fury so that, at its peak, the Brute's damage output is similar to a Scrapper's of the same offensive powerset. It should also be difficult to maintain it at that peak if you're not in the thick of it. I don't have any idea how you'd do that. A combination of incoming and outgoing damage I guess. I don't know. Someone pick up the red phone and see if Arcanaville is still answers. Then have the Brute ATO buff Regen and Endurance Recovery by the Fury value so that, at the peak, the Brute's Regen and End Recovery are noticeable. So not only would a Brute do roughly Scrapper damage, they'd be nearly unkillable as long as they're constantly fighting. Hulk smash indeed.

Tell ya what. When I start playing again I'll send you an invite.

Look, I'm not trying to insult you, Snarky. I meant it as a serious question. You're on the forums every day. How hard would it be to contact a few people, on the forums or on the Homecoming discord, and set up a time to team up together. C'mon man, you're a thousand year old vampire. Making a few friends isn't rocket science. If a grumpy jerk like me can do it you certainly shouldn't have any problems with it.

Ok, maybe this is a dumb question but here goes: Since you appear to dislike PuGs so much why not just make friends and only team with those friends?

I'm really starting to hate this thing that internet people do where they accuse people of whining whenever they discuss a subject that they don't want discussed. A question was asked and the subject is being discussed. People are giving their opinions. The only person whining here is YOU.

Entitled whining? He was just asking a question. Please explain to me, exactly, how asking a question is 'entitled whining'.

There have been many threads about this subject and they generally go down in flames. Mostly because a bunch of people logged on to Homecoming on launch day and created 800+ characters to name camp all of the cool names and all of the names of forum posters that they could remember. And this isn't just me guessing, a GM has confirmed that this happened. Needless to say, those people who are name camping hundreds of names don't want us peasants to be able to use those names which is why they freak out any time this subject comes up.

With the new Enhancements, Energy Transfer now affects teammates! For those times when you want to PvP inside an instanced mission! 😁

Now try this. Type: "/visscale 20" into chat, fly up to the top of the highest building in the zone and then look around and take a good look at the entire zone. 😁

So what? Why, exactly, should they care? People were told months ago that this move would be from the Closed Beta "Paragon" server to the new Closed Beta "Vanguard" server. This was said. Why should they care that you can't/won't read? The GM can't move your characters to another server. No one is required to care about you. Get over yourself.

If you were going to be suspended you'd have gotten an email by now. Trust me on that. I have a bunch of those emails. If you haven't got one by now you're not going to.

Well actually... https://www.walmart.com/ip/Winona-Pure-Popcorn-Butter-Theater-Style-5-Ounce-3-Pack-Delicious-Popcorn-Spray-with-0-Calories-per-Serving-Perfect-for-Popcorn-Lovers/2123328386

I saw something funny on r/Cityofheroes today:

I'm not convinced that subcontracting out trips to Spankyland is the way to go.

When I first read the OP my first thought was "What set him off? Is he in a closed beta and breaking NDA?" Of course my second thought was "I'm really hungry. Well, pizza it is!"

Gentlebeings, disagreeing with someone, even if done repeatedly, is not trolling. It's also not bullying, it's not gaslighting, it's not gatekeeping, is there a buzzword that I've missed? Well, it's not that either. Disagreeing with you is just disagreeing with you. Period. Now is allowing the buff duration to be extended a buff? Well, maybe. What people are proposing would increase the amount of salvage that has to be used for the same amount of time. And no one's asking for the power of the buffs to be increased in any way, just the ability to stack duration. All this proposal really does is reduce the number of times a player has to visit their base over the game session. I don't know if that really qualifies as a buff. And I don't know about you, but balancing the game around "how much aggravation will a player tolerate" just doesn't seem like good game design to me. But this is City of Heroes. There's a lot of systems in this game that any neutral observer would call bad game design.

Wait, what? It used to just be trips to Spankyland. Now you're actually harvesting organs? 😱