Doc_Scorpion

Going all the way back to my days in UO - across time one thing that nearly the entire non PvP community agrees on, no PvP unique rewards with PvE effects. That's seen (not entirely incorrectly IMO) as an attempt by a minority to gatekeep the Good Stuff and to force unwilling victims players into PvP zones. The consignment store made it a little more palatable in the OG days, but only a little.

Quoted. For. Truth. There is no One True Way.

The folks that think we don't need to test the lower levels need to spend more time in King's Row... Because people do spend time running content there, and I see them all the time when I'm running radios to grab the Heart of the City badge. More than once I've had to help out someone take down Chernobog. Whether in the tutorial, Atlas Park, Mercy Island, or Nova Praetoria - the game starts at level 1. (I started testing at lvl 7 because I had a DM/shield Brute on Live that was lvl 7...) In this case, as Shadow Maul is available at lvl 2, it's particularly important to test at low levels and get a feel for how the changes affect low level play.

I can see that reading... but to me, "offense" is "damage" and "support" is "+DMG".

Shock/ is a Defender Primary... it's a support set, not an offense set. Offense for Defenders is found in their secondary. Yes, some Defender primaries have offensive capability along with their support elements... But by no means do all Defender primaries have that characteristic. Yet Defender primaries without offensive aspects (rad/, emp/, nature/, etc...) remain popular.

There's been at least two attempts by players (on HC) to start a wiki, but both appear to have withered on the vine.

Something many people don't grasp is that what's "good" for the players isn't necessarily "good" for the game. The two are not the same. So. Much. This. Went on a Mender Silos TF the other night with my rad/rad defender and for the bulk of the mission my role was occasionally rezzing another player. I got my full set of debuffs off exactly twice - against Lord Recluse and against Jade Spider. And no, leading a team and increasing the difficulty settings is not an effective option. Even if I did enjoy leading, all too often we end up steamrolling. When we don't steamroll and folks die because they use steamrolling tactics against mobs that demand tactical play - they complain the settings are too high. It's getting to the point where I wonder sometimes I wonder why I even build or take out a support toon. The DPS builders, the optimized builders, the folks with nothing but high end IO's slotted, the folks with all the finesse of a thermonuclear weapon... They may be having fun, but that fun comes at a cost.

In the interest of full disclosure, testing done for the day I took out the toon I had on Live... And I didn't so much notice the decreased recharge as I did the decreased arc. So, still mixed feelings.

Starts to feel pretty good in DO levels once I can start slotting some recharges. Still a bit "gappy" and rough, but workable. Will play with SO's, probably in a couple of days. Busy day tomorrow and won't be home in the evening.

You don't need any synergy for a ranged blaster - all the tools you could ever want are right there in your primary powerset.

Certainly you have a right to a personal opinion, nobody with any sense would debate that for even an instant. But, from having been in the same kind of position, you have to know that posting with that blue highlight of officialdom around your post gives it additional weight. Rightly or wrongly, your position is perceived as having a certain level of "officialness" behind them. (And that perception is aided by the fact that "official" accounts are often used for exactly that purpose - to lend weight and "officialness" to their posts. The blue highlight attracts attention by design.)

Yes.

What I'm doing is the equivalent of "balancing around SO's" - checking and testing Dark Melee's baseline capability. That capability has been affected both positively (increased arc) and negatively (increased recharge time) by this change. With the small numbers and low power levels of enemies encountered in this range, the negative change weighs heavier on my mind than the positive. It delays the ability to build a smooth, enhanceable, attack chain and potentially costs me a slot (for a recharge) at levels where slots are precious and few.

Yes, let's be honest - we're running around with a villain group that vaguely resembles Nazis. And equally honestly, that's totally irrelevant to whether people are bothered by naming a powerset after something that's deeply offensive to them.

I'm testing Dark Melee - not P2W.

Just happens I rolled a dark/shield brute just the other day and he was sitting in Atlas Park at lvl 7. Took him out for a spin on Brainstorm... and Shadow Maul's increased recharge time really effs up low level attack chains. I'll get him up to DO levels later and see how it feels there.

- Selecting "G" on the chat bar and typing a message returns "Unknown command: gc" - Selecting "A" posts a message in Local, on the live servers is posts a message in Coalition for one toon, on Local for another... What exactly is "A" supposed to do anyhow? I don't recall ever using it on a live server.

It might not pop up on a CTD... I missed that.

Best to post this in the Focused Feedback thread!

Did you submit a crash report?

Did you submit a crash report?

Not sure where else to put this... In the Feb 18th patch I experienced both a hard lock up and a crash loop as detailed above. This does not happen with the Feb 25th patch.

The way I'm reading it this is a generalist support set (as opposed to a more specialized healer, buffer, or debuffer). That is to say, not all Defender primaries carry full team or powerful heals - nor should they. It should go without saying that "Defenders are not healers".

I don't. In a game this complex, with so many moving parts, it's very believable that a minor bug would go unnoticed for a very long time. Especially since a good chunk of those years were spent with a dramatically shrunken playerbase and dev team.

With the caveat that I haven't seen much of any philosophical nature from any server's dev team... (and am open to linkage and correction) The whole "active and open source" ideal seems to come from the player community. It seems to be their desire, not a goal of any server's operators.