Doc_Scorpion

At which point the character has 15 slots to fill - while Faultline's proposed cushion will only allow the character to fill a "mere" 33 slots. (Or, in other words, do the math.) It's a cushion, not an automatic winning lottery ticket.

o.0 SO's are expensive, but they're not that expensive. At 6k inf/per, Faultline's proposal gives a new player a "cushion" equivalent to 66 SO's - at a level where they'll have only nine slots to fill.

A sticky index... otherwise 3/4 of the front page gets filled with stickies, making it hard to browse - and seriously encouraging the threads to just go on forever and ever.

So long as the objects are non-persistent (that is, vanish on impact), this could be interesting.

^^^ Quoted. For. Truth. There's nothing wrong with making some badges a grind to get. Contrary to ArchVile's oversimplified version of things, there's more to it that just "creating time sinks". There's also "creating things the player values". They're also wrong about the game being "post-profit". Though the current setup doesn't require profit - it's still in the Dev's best financial interest to keep people engaged, coming back, and willing to donate. If it goes legit, that applies even more so. You have to keep 'em coming back. To many people badges aren't just shinies - they're a measure of accomplishment. New badges need to be designed with that consideration in mind.

Random thoughts on Faultine's thoughts... - I agree with moving people onto SO's as soon as possible, but funding a cold start toon (a newbie w/o a sugar daddy) is a big concern. Though a large part of that is how fast the lower levels can fly by (even playing normal content), I've sometimes had problems keeping myself in TO's. (This of course could just be me, or we could just accept it as a fact of life.) That seems to start easing around levels 6-7... - The AH is an inconstant source of income for lower level toons. Common salvage, enhancements, and almost all recipes are vendor trash. If the RNG $DIETY smiles on you and uncommon or rare salvage drops, then you're in like Flynn. - Hence I'm a fan of presenting the "budget option" right from the steps of City Hall. Wandering thoughts.... - My starter contact gifted me with an even level Yin-O, could that be +3 instead? - Haven't done enough door missions to get a random drop, but Yin-O's (+3 or not) at could be useful there too.

Turns out I wasn't quite done with Maple... Went back and recolored her powers for her Loving Sacrifice form. And finally worked out a Mecha God Maple outfit that I'm about 90% satisfied with, or about as satisfied as I'm going to get with the parts available ingame. Tried for an Annihilation version... But I bounce hard off of animal parts and gave up.

A [legal!] online streaming service - funimation.com

I have a half-built model of Yamato on my bookshelf.... Next to a figure of Mori Yuki. That's the one real complaint I have about the new series, the fanservice. It's not a big element, but it's there and was entirely unnecessary. OTOH, the number of female characters that weren't just set dressing was a gratifying change, so gotta take the good with the bad I guess. I was originally afraid to watch the new version. My wife had given me the box set of the original, and... as you say it has not aged gracefully. I even tried to watch the original (Japanese) series because the box set had both, and it was unwatchable. But I'm a huge fan of 2199. I think I've watched it straight through about six times now. Have you watched 2202 (the reboot of the Comet Empire arc)? I'm about halfway through, and it's pretty good. (It's currently available on Funimation.) 2205 is in production and is supposed to adapt the Bolar Wars arc.

It probably won't really have an effect... And if you're getting close to outleveling something, that's what the XP lock is there for. Personally, I usually fast level (radios, PUGs) to the max level -1 (I.E. 24 or 29), lock XP and then go back an run the content in that level band.

Encouraged by another poster in a thread that was going incredibly off topic... Many folks know and love the Star Blazers anime from back in the 1970's... what folks may not know is the classic series was re-imagined and rebooted in the early teens, and streamed on Funimation a couple of years back. The result was an amazing show, faithful to the original yet fresh and modern. When it was first being streamed, another blogger and I took on a herculean task of creating episode-by-episode reviews of full 26 episodes. https://apprenticemages.com/category/uchuu-senkan-yamato/ I hope you enjoy! And for those interested, it's still streaming on Funimation.

By that logic, shouldn't they get their own Cimerora rather than traveling to Primal Earth's.

Apples and oranges. Code changes aren't even remotely the same thing as an entire new set of animations.

I don't think saving 10-15 minutes (or less) will make that much difference in leveling speed unless you're already powerleveling. At which point the difference is moot anyhow.

You don't need system mastery. You can make a decent character by the seat of your pants down at the local origin store. You want a top end fully tuned build, yeah, you're going to have to get into the nuts and bolts. But that's not the same spot on the spectrum as decent. And I find the creeping standards here disturbing... A couple of hours ago IO's were for optimized (by your definition of optimized) builds, and now they're prerequisite for a merely decent character. And we aren't going to get any better so long as you toss around terms like "n00b traps" and "false choices" and otherwise look askance at anyone who doesn't follow the One True Path.

Praetorians cap at 20. Cimerora and the ITF have a minimum level of 35.

Some of the things the OG devs said lead me to believe that origins were originally intended to have meaning and gameplay effects beyond contact chains... But that kept getting put on the back burner. Now? OK, it's not actually impossible the HC devs might resuscitate that effort, so I might be wrong there.

Dammit, I had to go and do housework and someone beat me to it. So instead, I'm going to go all fanboy nerd and point out that's not an Argo cap. This is an Argo cap. 🙂 🙂 🙂 (And the mods would probably kill me if I linked to my episode-by-episode review of 2199...)

I'm in firm agreement with this. Get rid of TOs. Get rid of DOs. Get rid of SOs. Replace them with a consolidated all levels system of AOs (All Origins). Use the IO model where the fixed level of benefit scales with the level of the enhancement, but they never actually "go bad" and cease to provide any benefit at all. Or use the current (T/D/SO) model, but instead of going bad and providing no benefit after a point - they always provide a minimum benefit equivalent to the current -3 benefit. The origin enhancement system is an irrelevant remnant of a game system that was never implemented and likely is never going to be. Keep it for flavor and to choose the "temporary" power, but sweep the rest of it into the dustbin of history.

My answer is - copy a character over to the Beta server and find out! (It should ignore IO's, but it's worth finding out whether there a bug or not.)

Agreed. Back in the OG days, that's why there was a constant cry for more content, especially at the lower levels. (Though deeply flawed in execution on a variety of levels, Praetoria was an excellent step in the right direction.) Though muted, and focused more on the upper levels, folks are still asking for more content. People want the game to be replayable. And with it's vast array of potential powersets, CoX is uniquely suited to answering that want. That's why I've been testing and spoken in favor of this change [to enhancements]. Revitalizing the lower level game is a key part of enhancing replayability.

Then obviously what I said doesn't apply to you. But you couldn't resist and just had to get in a dig at me. Of course, it's just not possible that the folks mocking me for not playing the One True Way are the ones lacking in understanding... To that end, I will repeat what I said there and have said many times before and since in the vain hope that it will finally sink in: Not everyone powerlevels. Not everyone uses XP boosters. People use the XP lock at a variety of levels for a variety of valid reasons. People play at all levels of the game. The game doesn't being at 50. It doesn't begin at 22. It begins at lvl 1.

Not aimed at you Caboose, just a general question that springs from the tenor of these particular discussions... Why the near religious fervor to "convert" people to the IO system? (Especially since at lower levels, IO's are markedly inferior in quality to DO's and SO's?) Why the constant subtext of "if you aren't using IO's, you're doing it wrong?"

SO's are already competitive - you're spending less money with IO's, but you also get less for your money. Those lvl 10 IO's are roughly equivalent to a -3 DO. Level 25 IO's are roughly equivalent to even level SO's. IO's don't beat even level SO's until lvl 30, and don't beat +3 SO's until lvl 40. (This is something that IO proponents forget to mention, if they even know that they're gimping their characters.) The intelligent choice between DO/SO and IO isn't just about money. In COX's case, it's not all development. It may not be development at all. Something... changed in COX's social meta during the Years Of Darkness. It may be due to the changes in the game made to suit a microscopic population. It may be due to the influence of WoW. But the current HC social meta is no longer "the journey is the reward", it's shifted radically towards "the game begins at 50". (I was all but openly mocked for testing Dark Melee in the single digit level during the Page 5 beta - that would never have happened in the OG.) That grind-and-raid mindset is particularly toxic in CoH because there is little to no endgame content.

It's still there, you can see it from his profile.