EyeLuvBooks

There is a system in place now for 'abandoned characters'. If you have a character under a certain level (10 I think) and you haven't logged into it for 30 days or so, the name is no longer reserved. It doesn't vanish, it simply becomes available IF someone else wants it. This helps combat the rather odious (to me and many others) act of 'name camping.' As for the 'select all' button I haven't used the Hide feature so I can't comment one way or the other.

Wait...I'm hearing that TW is this monster set for soloing single targets and now you're saying that it's better vs a crowd because it's easier to get at least one hit with an AoE opener? And it doesn't just 'suck' when you whiff on your opener, it changes ALL the math that people are using to claim that the set is OP. Sure, if you want to tool around fighting +0/X3 it's great but how many players do that? Most of the teams I've been on are at +2 in their 20s and +3 in their 30s or they think it's boring.

Again, let's see something on Test. Rather than worrying about the animation times and messing with the timing of an already difficult set, why not just dial down the damage for the top two powers that seem to be causing all the trouble? For my own sake the timing on the set is difficult enough without screwing with it. I'm willing to bet that 90% of the players wouldn't even notice the change

I want to thank you for taking time out of your busy day to contribute nothing meaningful to the discussion. Now I'd like to see numbers on how many players go through the DFB for even a few levels. BTW, I did that, and the AE, to get to a level at which I felt I could contribute to the conversation without wasting several hours leveling up. But again, thanks for spending the time and energy to be a jerk because we ALL want more like you around.

Part of this issue (and this thread) is based on 'feel' and part is based on numbers and to me THAT is part of the disconnect. I have an Invul/TW Tank at lvl 29 right now. He's got lvl 30 common IOs, no Performance Shifter (or any other recipe IO) and a couple of his powers have an empty slot or two because I'm lazy and I don't always want to stop and craft the missing IO. If I used this toon as my benchmark then I would say that TW is WAI but is not for everyone because of the various mechanics involved. It was MISERABLE to play for the first ten levels. The next ten weren't much better. The latest 10 were better after the IOs started getting slotted in but the character still finds himself sucking wind after 2 mobs without popping Blues. Defeating Orange Lts takes roughly the length of a Bible and don't ask me to fight red Bosses without a full IO tray. In order to compare apples to apples I created a TW/Regen Brute this morning (because the Brute versions seem to be the ones catching the heat). I went through the Gal City tutorial, emerged at lvl 2, got the 2 xp booster and swept the park for Lts to lvl 6. Then I did a DFB which got me to lvl 10 and then a short AE mission to get me to lvl 12. I did all of this just to get a good idea of how the early levels were as opposed to the high-end where every toon can be a monster if you have 200M Inf to spend. The DFB sucks for TW. I spent half the time spanking corpses and the first badge was a serious PITA because I had 1 non-AoE attack aside from Brawl. My TW Tank has the same problem at lvl 30 play because the team doesn't often need someone to herd the mobs and I usually get one attack chain off before the mob is dead. I can't tell you how many times I've started my windup and my target has vanished from in front of me due to KB. The animation has started so the attack goes off but the second one doesn't because my target is on the other side of the hall. Btw that thing about missing with your first attack and so having no Momentum for the second? Yeah...that nearly DOUBLES your 'out of Momentum' time and until you start slotting at lvl 22 you're missing at least a quarter of the time based on numbers. Another point (we were discussing this over on the 'Status Protection for Shields' thread): ANY attack that slows you down drastically reduces your time under Momentum. Fighting Vahz and lvl 5? Yeah...picked my nose for most of a whole spawn there. How many sets have resistance to Slow? At what point do you have enough Enhancements slotted to counter it? These are the reasons why many players abandon TW before it becomes really good. How many toons have TW versus how many HOURS are they played each week? With 1000 slots many players won't delete their abandoned toons they'll simply make new ones. IMHO the issues with TW are edge-cases, not the norm. Yes, at the top-end of the game TW outperforms. Isn't that the payoff for spending 40+ levels in the shitter? Yes Brutes with TW likely do too much damage WHEN the player has a clue what he's doing (I alternated when fighting spawns, one set using Brawl for keep Fury up and one not). Also, the ever-popular Brute trick of setting Brawl to Auto to keep Fury up? Yeah...unless you've got your timing down to the 10th of a second Brawl will fire right in the middle of your attack chain and there goes Momentum. Yes, in SOME cases, with the RIGHT circumstances, TW is too good. You don't see those circumstances looking at a spreadsheet. Can your EA-built, IO-infused TW Brute destroy a GM? Sure they could...but the same can be said for just about any other build in the hands of a skilled player. If TW is too good then it's not by any amount that I feel warrants action at this time.

A point that may have been made already but if so I missed it: TW does Smashing/Lethal damage unless I miss my guess, right? S/L are the two most resisted damage types in the game aren't they? If everything I've said so far is true, rather than comparing raw numbers (and by raw I mean untyped), should we be considering the TYPE of damage in there somewhere? If TW does too much damage (I haven't seen the numbers but this is what's being said), how much of that is counter-balanced by the damage TYPE being heavily resisted? This point might account for some of the discrepancy we're having regarding 'feel' and so forth.

Bio and TW are two of the newest sets. Old veterans (like me) who played on Live likely had a Claws/Regen and played them to death (I know I did). Water is also likely a popular set for the same reason. How many Nature toons out there right now? Same thing. The oldest are less popular because they've been played and to death (plus Wolverine isn't nearly as popular as he was 15 years ago).

I've long been a fan of allowing MMs to use the models from assets already in the game before trying to create new ones simply because of all the headache that causes. I would LOVE to have my Thugs look like Family goons. My robots can look like Clockwork? Sign me up! And so on. As for 'false equivalence' my points still stand. If the ONLY reason not to allow female MM pets is that a few twisted players might use the existing emotes to make disturbing images, I'd say it would be easier and better to remove those emotes.

I'm willing to see ideas on Test because more data is almost always useful. However, how about we split the difference? Cut the DPS for the most egregious powers in TW first and test it before making gross changes. If that brings the performance more into line without angering thousands of players it might be enough

And in reply I can honestly say that this is NOT my experience. Does it put mobs into walls? Yep...sure does...and so does EVERY OTHER KB POWER IN THE GAME. I've seen it on DFB for Heaven's sake. As for no one letting you 'waste time' herding mobs maybe that's because the old method of 'tank herds mobs, everyone attacks' become obsolete past a certain level of play. This is true for everyone, not just Stormies. Heck, run a Tank on a mission post-40 with a team of all Controllers or other ranged toons...you'll find most of the spawns dead before you get there. Just because Hurricane is less useful (or necessary) in higher levels is no reason to improve it. Just because teams don't want to wait while you (unnecessarily) herd is no reason to change it either.

I have to agree that the most popular suggestion for a fix seems the least invasive which is a good thing. I'm simply not convinced that the change is necessary. Yes, changing ALL the other sets to bring them up to par is more work but as JFK once said 'We choose to do these things not because they are easy, but because they are hard.' We shouldn't shy away from the RIGHT choice simply because it's the hardest one. That's laziness

And I'd like to point out that a significant portion of the players don't use Crafting or the Market AT ALL. This is not an option for them. Also, unless you already have a sugar-daddy character to bankroll you, the sets mentioned are among the most popular (and therefore expensive) IOs in the game before getting into the PvP and purple sets. Sure...I can fix my problem for 10-20 million Inf...or I could IO out almost another whole character with it. I have never thought that using recipes to solve flaws in the game's design to be a good solution. Thanks for mentioning my other suggestion though. I really don't want to wholesale change parts of the game unless it's terminally broken. As has been discussed here, click Status ISN'T really bad, simply less desirable and more difficult than the alternatives. Small problem = small fix which was what I suggested.

'TW has at least 10% more damage than comparable sets.' That's nice...doesn't seem game-breaking though. Certainly not nerf-worthy. 'The record on Pylons runs is held by a TW/Bio Brute.' Also nice...but I don't see anyone screaming that Bio needs a nerf. There are TWO sets at play here so we have to consider BOTH. Etc, etc, ad naseum. Face it...TW was one of the last sets implemented on Live (along with or close to Staff and Street Fighting IIRC) so we have the least amount of data on it. So more people like to play it...so what? How much of that comes from 'I can have a weapon bigger than my whole body!'? How much of it is just for the cool factor (something which TW has a lot of, you must admit)? Until we see a much larger gap in performance ACROSS THE BOARD (because some sets just perform better when fully IO'd out and that's as much the IO mechanics as the power set's) I'm dininclined to mess with something. Good Lord, people...we JUST got our game back! Can we NOT mess it up for a while at least? Players are having fun. LET THEM HAVE THEIR FUN!

The problem is that the Bruise mechanic was small enough that the damage cap for Brutes totally overwhelmed it. When was the last time anyone ever said 'Boy that (fill in the blank) was tough. Glad we had that Tank along to debuff his Resistance!' What's much more likely is 'I'm glad that Brute was along with his 800% damage cap!'

No. While Resting you're vulnerable to taking damage. My team and I pause between missions and half or more go afk. All of us still have toggles and defenses on. With the OP's suggestion, all of us would go into Rest and if a patrol stumbles upon us (or just some guys on the street) we're ALL toast. Also sets up too many opportunities for griefing others by pulling enemies into them. Not needed at all.

To the OP: Most folks here are tl;dr. I suggest you come to your point sooner to get it taken seriously. That being said, maybe we should have a thread JUST for small art changes? Red's airfields will (sadly) likely never get fixed but there are plenty of other things that might be...

Oh yes. No sense in having the stuff scattered all over when we can make a home for it here

You said 'Hovertanking was for p***ies.' I like hovertanking. Therefore, you called me something terribly uncouth and offensive. Don't call other people fragile because you got called out for being a jerk. That being said, the crux of the problem is KN Resistance versus KB Protection. It's also a corner case versus Recluse and ONLY him it seems like (unless any other posters here can cite anyone other enemies in the game having this kind of KB power). Seems to me that suggesting a bunch of changes to powers when the issue is that one guy is backwards. Just fix that one guy. It has already been suggested to reduce the KB buff from 40 (insane much?) to 20 so that a Tank can be properly buffed to resist it and do their job. So...why not put it on Test and find out? Isn't that what its for? Get some players together, fight Recluse with different teams with different Tank builds and find out. Heck, send out a hue and cry and ask the player base for help and they'll likely volunteer for it! I want to get away from the 'good old days' when you HAD to have a Rad or Poison to defeat an AV or a GM. I don't want battle in Recluse to turn into 'the ONE guy with the buff for the Tank is down so we're doomed!' That seems a bit ridiculous to me.

Okay, people...let's take a real look here. If we were REALLY worried about the kids playing the game then there would be no OFF switch for the profanity filter. It would be on and that's that. Is there a big difference between profanity and sadism? Sure there is...but don't go all 'slippery slope' on me when any kid can stand in Pocket D and overhear Local speech that would make a porn star blush or hang around Atlas and listen to F-Bomb tirades all hours of the day and night. You don't want your kids exposed to this sort of thing? Don't let them play the game. It came with a rating for a reason. That being said, the folks screaming about making it easier to do repulsive things in the game have yet to stand up when female toons do it to their male pets so sit down and shut up. If you REALLY want the game that clean then start a thread to remove the repulsive emotes from the game for EVERYONE. Personally, I would be happy if some of them were gone anyway but then I also don't think we need 7 different forms of Dance anyway. Not having female pets is sexist, plain and simple. We have female enemies in the game already. Mother Mercy's rack has been the topic of conversation since Incarnate triels were a thing and I don't see anyone lobbying to blur THAT out. If you automatically assume that every guy is going to be terrible then guess what? They WILL be. Use the same system we have now for offensive characters...reporting them. If someone does something terrible then that character gets deleted. Repeat offenses results in a banned account. Don't limit the creativity of the many just because you're afraid a few might do something terrible with it.

We have every other form of Storage in bases, so why not Recipes? As to the Triggered poster who didn't want to give up any of his precious Base space for stored items: Now who's hoarding? You bit a guy's head off for a siple QoL suggestion while you sit in your (I'm pretty sure) solo SG base editing all day and HE'S the issue? Yeah... Yes, I also remember Inf muling and all the headache it caused. Some of the ideas Emmert implemented made me think that he honestly hated the player base. Why make a basic feature so difficult? Back when you needed Prestige to buy Base stuff having limits made much more sense. Now that we start out with unlimited Prestige, who cares? Design a Recipe rack with a limit of 100 just like all the others and limit it to 1 per base. Problem solved.

I would support this, especially in the higher levels where I don't even summon all my pets during ITrials because the T1s will just melt anyhow. It's not like you still can't destroy the pets with TWO massive AoEs...

Point 1) I hate click Status powers because, like many players, I make a lot of alts which means LOTS of characters in the teens and low 20s. In order to get your typical click status protection to perma you need 2 lvl 25 SOs or IOs. That means 20 levels with a hole in your status protection that Tanks, Brutes, Scrappers and Stalkers don't have. Point 2) Any sort of -Recharge power widens this hole. My lvl 30 Shield Brute has been mezzed because he was Slowed and his timer ran out. This is something else that the other melee sets don't have. Point 3) For those that say 'Mez isn't a problem until you're high enough to make it Perma anyhow' I cite Buckshot Hellions being able to knock you down at lvl 1. Point 4) I would like to suggest the following change: Simply having the power grants a lvl 2 Status protection for the character as a passive. This means that Mez at or below Lt level will have no effect. The player will have to actually activate the power to have the full effect. With this change Bosses are still a threat (as they should be) but missing the activation of a power won't kill you when the last few Minions are running around. I would be curious to see datamining on this to see if the sets with click status protection are measurably less popular than the other sets.

If we get one more animation before some of the more important issues are fixed I'm gonna send someone virtual faceslaps. As someone who tires of a whole team dancing around Ms Liberty when I'm trying to train I'd advocate a zone where such animations DON'T work. How about an area with increased camera controls and fewer light effects so players trying to get that 'perfect shot' can be happy and the rest of us can just play the game in peace?

I'm not going to read through all 24 pages of this thread. I DO believe that Brutes have eclipsed Tanks with regards to viability. Checking any forum that discusses builds and everyone who asks 'Tank or Brute' will get tons of 'Brutes because they're better at the top-end' replies. IMHO part of the problem is that the Bruising mechanic is largely unknown and unheard of. Nobody seems to read up on any of the Inherent abilities unless they have a visible bar attached to them or a fancy indicator (looking at Brutes and Scrappers/Doms respectively here). Part of the problem is that Brute damage at the top end is SO much greater than a Tank's that Bruising doesn't seem to matter. If you doubt me, think back to the last time you heard anyone say 'Boy, that guy was tough! I'm so glad we had the Resist Debuff from that Tank!' I'd guess never, right? I DO think that Tanks should hold aggro better, full stop, end of discussion. My suggestion for that would be to increase the Taunt cap for Tanks somehow (I'm not a programmer...we have people for that) as well as Taunt duration. Right about the time a Brute should be losing aggro on the fringes of the spawn, the Tank should be sitting pretty. I would go so far as to increase the cap on the Tank version of the Taunt power from 5 to 6 and increase the radius a bit to encourage Tanks to take it and not rely on their AoEs. I would be fine with the damage cap on Tanks being raised to a point where they could equal Scrappers but only with extreme buffing from the team. If you're willing to put in THAT much effort then there should be a payoff. If Scrappers are at a 5.6 and you want to make Tanks 4.8 or whatever that's fine too. I also agree that Tanks need more Debuff Resistance. If Brutes are going to be the 'yay we have melee damage!' then Tanks should be the 'Yay that AV that's been debuffing us to death can't do that to HIM!'. Tanks are SUPPOSED to take damage so let them DO that. I don't want Tanks, Scrappers and Brutes to become three flavors of the same thing. As it is now, precision players can play Scrappers and hope for the Crit while high-speed players can play Brutes and keep the Fury bar high. Sadly, this leaves Tanks out in the cold.

The first thing that I want to avoid is all of the sets becoming homogenized. CO went that way and it was a disaster. That being said, I'm also open to trying new things because I was one of the ones on Live pointing at VEATs at saying 'See? The Tanker-Mage WON'T break the game! I love the Sentinal AT as well as the Nature and Time power sets. So, let's find a middle ground and at least try it. Idea #1) We allow the caster to use their shields on themselves but now they are no longer AoE to cast on the rest of the party. This would prevent using them on everyone all the time from becoming too easy. However, on the downside the players loved this feature and messing with it will likely cause upset. Idea #2) Everything remains as it is now except that the shields provide an UNENHANCABLE buff to the caster. Many of the new sets provide unenhancable buffs now so there's precedence for this. It allows the Dev team to examine the typical use of the power and cap the benefits at a sane level rather than promote power creep. Idea #3) Allow the ST shields to affect the caster but the AoE shields do not. Again, there is precedence for this in the Shield set where one power provides Defense for nearby allies but not for the caster. This change means that players who solo often (yes, we still have them) can skip the AoE shield completely and still protect themselves.