DrRocket

Currently with TFs you can't replace players that dropped for whatever reason, once in a TF you can't stop and do another mission with another group etc. I as thinking, how about removing these restrictions to some extent. For example say a TF rewards you with 40 merits and it is composed of 8 missions, why not award merits upon completing each mission , in this sample 5 merits per mission completed. If this is done, if a player drops (real life) of the team; the team would be stuck trying to finish with one or more players who dropped out of the team (I remember doing an LGTF and our 1 controller had to drop due to family emergency and then later had to do the Hami mission - it was ugly), by awarding as we go, and letting the leader recruit replacements, the ne player only gets a number of merits based on the number of completed missions they actually do. Of course, it would be reasonable if the number of merits for each mission be weighted instead of evenly distributed. Many players solo Oro - TFs, by being able to accept invitations from other teams to do their TF, they can switch and help their friends, and later finish their Oro TF mission. Those are 2 examples of relaxing the rules, provide a workable suggestion which may not be the best solution but it is offered as a "go by" I had thought about the AV situation in TFs, and would like to see a relaxation here, if playing in a team up to 2, the end boss would be a Boss? at 4 an EB, 5 and 6 calls for an AV. Doing this for players who play at odd hours where getting groups together is extremely difficult, still would be able to enjoy the game content in a casual manner. Not sure about the brackets, some ideas here would be awesome! If you all have any ideas on how to relax TFs and make them a bit more casual, would be awesome!

I think, a factor for the merits should also be based on the complexity of the TF's mission, such multiple AVs at a time such as Lady Liberty or Recluse for example, also the mobs and maps may be tricky. But I do agree how long may be a reasonable metric.

I noticed that Director 11 in his "I got to run mode" goes through the bins as if there was not an item stored in the bin. I noticed there is a particular "fake" storage item the Director 11 goes through as if it as not, after experimenting players could go through it also yet it is very very counter intuitive, since we should not be able to go through stuff. My request is to make those storage items real, so neither Director 11 or players can go through them, or remove them so they do not provide an illusory barrier. Regards

Explain how being able to transfer incarnate materials make the game itself easier? The suggestion makes it more convenient, not easier. The chances that players with excess incarnate materials are pretty good that they master the system to begin with. It is an obvious conclusion, that players making many alts, will be able to complete their builds quicker and then move on to the next. But once again, quicker is once more convenience not making the game easier. With regards to your bias to the Incarnate system... The IO system is a band-aid to a game class balance issues, specifically with Status Effect protection. In the beta days, it was agreed that melee needed status effect protection because they had to "go in" and get dirty with the mobs, and mobs then, only had melee ranged status effects. Later common sense prevailed and ranged status effect ability were given to mobs, the problem was that support alts were left out cold and got no protections (without major game class power set revisions) now that mobs had ranged status effect attacks. So the IO system was devised in part to allow support to enhance their defenses, so they could survive by not being hit as often. The IO system also provided for other melee type capability gaps as well. But the IO system was a band-aid, that helped but did not close the performance gaps, and thus the Incarnate system was developed in an attempt to level the playing field a bit more, which it did to a very large extent. I hope giving you some historical background as to the why, may help you with your bias by understanding its purpose a bit better Regards

I like others, love making alts, when I watch a movie or read a novel, it would without a doubt inspire me into creating a new super type. As a rule to slow down the mass production of alts, I require my alts to be fully IOd, T4D, have about half a dozen Accolades, a billion influence, and at least 115 vet levels before I would consider making a new alt. So the question, is one out of desired convenience, but not quite got to have. When it gets to the incarnate system, you just can't transfer anything about it to other players. Yet you can transfer to your account empyrean merits. In the incarnate system you can spend as many as 30 empyrean merits for a very rare (purple) piece of salvage and only 8 for a rare (orange) piece of salvage. So as I T4 my new alt, I am aggressively moving empyreans from one alt to another. It has occurred to me since those alts are vet 115+ they have accumulated lots of incarnate salvage that has no use and just sits there, you can' t transfer them within account nor sell at AH. So now that the background is done, why is incarnate salvage not transferable between accounts?

There is much to be considered, and thinking why Pocket D is over crowded, much ahs to do its a coop zone, so a farmer can assist both blue and red. There is RWZ in the vanguard, but it seems not to be of common knowledge, but RWZ is pretty bad for AE efforts since there is the never ending rounds of MSR which overwhelms the zone consistently and thus rendering farming over there moot. So I can agree that a ne coop zone for AE would make sense, so it can relieve the pressure on Pocket D. With regards to the acceptability of AE farming, that is quite a complex topic. I have observed in Everlasting a large portion of the population is focused in creating characters level them to 50, and afterwards making a new alt to repeat the process, with no real interest in placing IOs and optimizing the build which made it to 50, much less master playing the character. So it seems to me, to accommodate these players, the nurfing to AE for exp should be removed and let the "door sitters" level away and not abuse to bad the kindness of the farmer. Personally I do not farm, it is incredibly boring, I do use it to level a newly made alt but that is about it. I prefer to do TFs, TINPEX, and Hami to make lots of merits and convert the merits for stuff to sell in the AH Sincerely, if you know what you doing, influence is not a big deal in this game Regards

Matter of convenience, personally I use IP for my personal needs

I would have to disagree with this suggestion for the simple fact that status effects plays heck with support classes, giving variable mag effects would make a bad situation even worse. I suspect, this suggestion is one more of those efforts to make the game more challenging for the melee types. Perhaps a way to increase the challenge to melees is to have the point count towards overcoming Status Effect protection by melee is that all effect mags adds up regardless of the mix of effects used, so the tanks 12 protection can actually be possibly achieved in game. Not sure melee would like to actually find themselves challenged by the spammed status effects in the game meant for the support classes to endure. Game balance is a tough thing...

I think it was an error to have AE removed from Atlas, I would think, putting it back would help with this Regards

You still did The question is simple, do you think giving mobs certain abilities by the devs that nullify character signature powers legitimate? I used an example of what I thought was a signature ability, you happen to disagree, so what? Its irrelevant to answering the question. I did not give a sense of how bad the nullification was either, which in fact as some had brought up, is in fact a very good point.

In my previous post, I sought to bring up or provide insights to what were the thoughts of the creators of the game. At some point, the developers became aware of the huge unbalance, and sought "patches" or "band-aids" to deal with it, and that is why the IO system came about, was it a perfect solution, frankly it was not, but it did serve a purpose reasonably well. A support character today who has IOd well, is now reasonably survivable, and thus narrowed that gap. Are the IOs balanced, that is an opinion each us would have on that subject, I personally think thy favor melee classes for what melee normally needs they can get with the first set of 3 of a kind, while the ones support desperately need requires sets of 5 or 6 which goes hard during design phase. Of course the IOs did help a bit with the survivability of support, but did not help melee with much increase in what they really wanted "DPS" So the developers produced the Incarnate system, this is narrows the gap even more, it does not close it, but it does narrow it considerably. For example the greatest burden on support is the spam use of status effects, with the introduction of Destiny Clarion and Hybrid Melee the support now had a reasonably good, in game, survivability versus the abusive use of status effects. It is not enough, but they did made further strides by the introduction of Rune of Protection as an auxiliary pool beanie and lately added Sheer Willpower to close the gap even more. The IOs did provide in Alpha and Hybrid a meaningful boost to DPS for melee to take advantage, and the other powers helps them with reduction of defense, enhanced accuracy, and what not which are of very high value to a melee class. So in some ways, the game has a sense of balance, but itis very dependent on how the TFs/SF and inherent powers given to mobs are used, too many mobs have an un-resistable, auto-hit defense de-buff, which opens up the gap greatly and torpedoes the IO system balancing act. In general mobs with Auto-Hit abilities are particularly cruel to support types who suffers a disproportionate impact by this tactics which are sadly becoming the rule of thumb for increasing challenge... Just sharing my observations on how the game has evolved... You may or not agree with me, but the purpose was to share aa perspective Regards

Missed the purpose of the post entirely...

At first when I saw the topic, I went yeah, I can get into it... But the suggestions were not really of balancing nature, as I would define it. I have been advocating for class rebalance, which is greatly needed in my opinion, specially with regards to Status effect protections Having been in Beta and Live, had the opportunity to share thoughts with Jack Emmett, and a lot of the initial settings for it made sense. In the original days, status effects were melee ranged, and because of that the Tank would need a lot of protection, the scrappers would need decent protection and support considered to be essentially ranged needed no protection. And if you look at how status effect protections were delivered followed this philosophy. The problem is that status effects did not stay melee, all minions and above have ranged status effects with a number of them having snipe range! and boy do the mobs spam them! Frankly, it made no sense for status effects to be melee ranged only, so making them ranged (not sure about the snipe ranged) was logical. The problem was that with such a major philosophy change, there were no changes in behalf of the support classes who now were getting bombarded with status effects! There were those, who claimed just fill your entire tray with break frees, which was a bit callous. No class should be forced to depend on inspirations to be functional to begin with. So the question in my mind, is how you correct this unbalance? I had thought, to let support get over the only affect others handicap, which is arbitrary in my opinion. So for example many of the mez protections support has to become PBAOEs so they can get some degree of protection and keep the game otherwise balanced. Also by being a PBAOE the benefit is shared much more efficiently. Other philosophy issues from the Jack Emmett days, was with DPS. Emmett's thinking was let DPS be proportionate with how much risk of defeat the individual class would experience. That is when essentially immune tank did very little damage and the totally vulnerable blaster had big guns. But when it went to support, they had all the vulnerabilities and no DPS to balance it. Take a Controller, it depends on their status effects just to stay alive, but they are weak against Bosses or better, taking 3 or more rounds to control a boss is too long if the boss has your number! It could be argued that the Tank should have the aggroe under control, but I seen way too many tanks that don't even bother with taunt, so is it fair to have many classes so totally dependent on another melee class? Today with IOs and good design, Tanks can go in and do not need support at all! And you call this balance? If by emmets no guts no glory DPS philosophy, controllers should do considerably more damage! I just threw some thoughts on balance, its your opinion over how valid they are and that is fine. Just wanted to get you thinking and considering potential changes Regards

I remember in live days, playing at the time a much community despised Storm Defender going, yay BAF has prisoners and my hurricane can help herd them, block them, and thinking, boy! I'm gonna finally get some love for the community! So I join a BAF all excited full of anticipation, only to learn the Devs decided to make the prisoners immune to my repel! I was totally heartbroken over it! Later when Homecoming resurrected this great game, and remembering my sad experience with BAF, I became a bit sensitive to this topic. I was really aggravated at my Tank's taunt being essentially pointless with Director 11 and Battle Maiden; then my Controller's holds/roots despite being spammed and having other dominators and controllers joining in to have our holds and roots combined to be essentially disabled. I get the Devs want to make the TFs/SFs challenging, but if the way to create challenge is by disabling signature abilities from classes as a method truly legitimate? Anyone out there have any thoughts on this topic? Look forward to the commentary

This would be hillarious! Love it