Wobegone

I'd think Accolades are a better indicator rather than badge count. I have one badge character and many with all of the Accolades. I like joining MoTFs for a bit of a challenge that has nothing to do with additional badges. I have a badge character who already has that badge. This makes sense looking at a fresh level 50 with 46 badges...but not really with a Vet level 12 with 223 badges.

While on rare occasions I use ignore, this seems a bit extreme. You're equating wanting to powerlevel a now decades old game with incompetence. Yea, sure, some of those folks constantly spamming annoy me...but I think most folks just wanna skip some levels they've done dozens or even hundreds of times.

Playing the game is: Logging my main and doing a bit of market work, mainly buying yellow recipes, crafting, and rare roulette, although I do this less and less nowadays. Getting on my farmer and jamming some music, although I do this less and less nowadays. Creating a new character and doing some solo missions for a while. Leveling one of my many solo projects. Playing missions and Task Forces with whichever alt tickles my fancy.

Yes....which is why I included it in my post. Seriously, I wasn't gonna respond to this but your condescension sucks. There are several reasons why the Redside population has been consistently lower then Blueside. Some of them have been covered in this and several other threads on this topic. That doesn't mean one of the reasons is many people prefer not playing a villain. With SWtoR there were morality decisions which made running Sith characters palatable for me. The Inquisitor starts as a slave...hard to say he/she starts as a villain. But the only one with a satisfying ending was the Imperial Agent. If I ever play SWTOR I won't be playing a Sith character again. I did the same with City of Villains. I roleplayed two characters that were redeemed and went Blue side eventually. They were fine, but after that, I had no desire to play a Villain again. The story arcs and morality decisions available Redside simply don't offer me palatable choices.

Apologies for the doube post.

I'd say the number of likes counts as evidence...perhaps it's anecdotal, but still evidence. He obviously speaks for a lot of folks reading this thread. I also think your interpretation of Lightside Sith as not 'good guys' is your personal slant. Not mine. That was the only reason I played any Sith character. It was the same for KotOR or Mass Effect. Same for every tabletop RPG I've ever played. I don't want to play evil/selfish/villianous characters. I never have. I've tried a time or two but I found the experience....distasteful and unsatisfying. Increased rewards won't change my mind.

This is true for groups like the Repeat Offenders who purposely stacked buffs and debuffs(and trivialized most content). Pre-IO PUGs...not so much.

How do Scrappers, Brutes, and Tanks differ without IOs? How much do IOs effect the performance of Scrappers, Brutes, and Tankers relative to each other?

This has been an interesting thread to read. My own take is when I reached around 8 billion. It was a meandering path(this is a tribute to Yomo's Meandering path to a billion thread) I started by accumulating merits with a couple of solo projects. After they reached 50, the next several alts got to level 22 via the AE accumulating tickets, which turned into hundreds of low level IOs. After transferring 50 million Influence to each character, those IOs were then rare roulette. Anything I couldn't slot were sent to my main via base storage. This worked pretty well for most of my early alts. Frankenslotting works quite well for mid level characters. After doing that for a couple of months I adopted @Yomo Kimyata's method of each alt being self sufficient. Once I reached around 8 billion Influence I started just giving it away. I started by buying large amounts of Performance Shifter and Miracle procs and giving them to any character I encountered who didn't have set bonuses. And my 8 billion didn't budge. I continued to have each alt be self-sufficient, while doing occasional market work on my main, and started accumulating ATOs via Superpacks, occasional runs with my farmer for purples, and the rest of my time spent leveling alts. My 8 billion hasn't budged, while my supply of ATOs and purples have filled my base. Simply put, once i reached 8 billion, I never had a need for Influence again with minimal effort playing the market, while still giving away rare procs on a daily basis.

I love my Dark/Dark/Dark Defender. She's not only my favorite character for high level content, she's also my badger which means I'm comfortable soloing lower level content. My one caveat to that is I sometimes wish I'd made her a Dark/Fire/Dark Defender. In fact I'm going to make that combo at some point. Dark Defenders are wonderful characters for nearly all content. Fear is extremely powerful, comes early, and is capable of neutralizing an entire spawn, especially at high levels when your defense is high(my Defender is soft capped vs all positional). Combine that with a strong heal, -resistance, and -regen, and they're also perfect against hard targets. i like my Dark/Dark Controller, but he's only level 24 right now. He's great for teams but is rather terrible solo....simply not enough damage yet.

As for powersets specifically, as you said, that is much more difficult to quantify. With the force multipler classes, those with -regen and -resistance are better against single hard targets, while those with +defense +resistance, and -ToHit are great for large mobs. The more I think about it, the more complicated it seems. Other things like +recharge help against both hard targets and large mobs, but so might +defense, +resistance, and -ToHit. As for solo powersets, I've found that either hybrid defense/resistance or defense sets are the best solo. Yet even that doesn't exclude several melee defensive sets from being premier solo characters. Again, IO sets blur that line.

I think each AT could be categorized as having a niche, but IOs blur that a bit. For instance, as @oedipus_tex indicated, Defenders, Controllers, Masterminds, and Corruptors are clear force multipiers with teams. But Any AT can have -resistance procs. Also, the other ATs could take the Leadership pool for additional force multipliers. Obviously a Defender with the Leadership pool and a -resistance proc would be the ultimate force multiplier for teams. My brief time with Repeat Offenders really changed the way I thought about team composition and effectiveness. Multiple force multipliers makes most content trivial. Blasters have a clear edge in damage over any AT with teams. Force multipliers magnify this exponentially. As for solo play, Scrappers and Brutes are clear winners in my experience. This doesn't mean that other ATs can't solo even the most difficult content. It just means that my most successful solo characters are either Scrappers or Brutes. Successful being easiest. (Special plug for Tankers solo-They may not be able to dish out the damage of the other melee ATs, but they can successfully solo almost anything). Caveats: I have little experience soloing Masterminds and Stalkers. The above was simply my personal experience.

Some players take nerfs way too personally. It's an attitude I've never fully understood. There have been cases where Devs have gone too far, but on the whole, nerfs to powersets have been fully justified in all the games I've played. I not only understand the need for balance, I agree with the desire to achieve it. Those who don't kind of baffle me. It's not personal. In the grand scheme of things it's also not important.

What if the problem is untrained levels combined with a specific IO slotted? Or some other obscure combination? We know there are occasional respec failures, and we know that the three solutions are 99% effective in solving the problem. I've never had a failed respec, but I also can't recall a time when I did a respec with untrained levels. The one example in this thread with a confirmed failed respec involved untrained levels. I wouldn't call that a red herring.

I'd like to apologize to the OP for derailing the thread,, the community, and especially to @Infinitumfor my being unreasonably aggressive and emotional. I'm embarrassed and ashamed.

Okay, last time I'm gonna address this topic. The 'Tanker's role' is pretty well know by everyone by now. Both CoH and WoW have been around long enough for one generation, DnD and other PnP games for the previous generation. I've lived through both. I know what a fucking 'tank' is supposed to do. I know their role. CoH in it's current incarnation simply doesn't need a Tank. That role is not necessary. How many times have you joined a team lately and not seen a Tank and thought 'Hmm, we need a tank'? The answer is never. Look, I love Tanks. I love the idea of Tanks. I actually miss the need for Tanks. But that isn't the current reality for the current game. Every time I hear one of you lecture that 'The Tankers role is' such and such I wanna scream. You're pedantic fools.

In regards to the stealth topic I'd like to add one more thing. Tanks are largely superfluous in todays game, outside of low level content. This is the elephant in the room no one likes to talk about. I've tried to stay as relevant with my Dark Tank as possible, he's tough as nails, can absorb enormous amounts of punishment, and feels like a tank. But in most endgame content he's just another character. Yes there are specific Task Forces where a Tank is necessary, but they aren't often run by the playerbase. Although I've always loved CoH specifically because you dont need a trinity to succeed, more and more I've found my favorite tank being less and less useful. So I made him a stealth specialist for when the occasion called for it, and he's good at it when I turn off certain toggles. Anything to feel more needed in a team. Perhaps my experience is unique, and I'm just a fool. Won't be the first time.

Friendly playerbase, Epic customization, Fun fast-paced combat.

These two statements appeared in the same friggin' post for cryin' out loud. Tanks are perfectly capable of effectively stealthing most content. I occasionally do with my Dark Tank. Every bit of evidence you've presented regarding perception applies to every other AT. You've even admitted you don't or won't turn off Taunt auras. Of course why would you when you don't consider stealthing a Tank's job? The crux of your argument is basically 'Tanks can't stealth because that isn't their job'.

I'm just speculating here...but is the problem more with fear of streaming that's monetized?

I just want to clarify a little more. I like the current system regarding IOs converters, and recipes. I've been successful using the current system to outfit all my alts and have a LOT of leftover influence. I'm rich....by no means the richest player, but I have billions in cash and billions more in stored ATOs/Purples/Winter IOs. But I still have reservations on the current system because the friends I've recruited to play have been at best lukewarm with the same system, and have ended up leaving the game. Perhaps this simply wasn't the right game for them. One thing in common though is they were extremely casual players with limitied play time. They didn't want to spend extra time 'playing the market'. I just wonder how prevelant that attitude is, and want to make it as easy as possible for new players to enjoy he same benfits with as little effort possible. It's entirely possible I'm just unlucky regarding my friends. This simply wasn't the right game for them. That doesn't take away the sting of seeing them play for a few weeks and leave forever. I don't have answers unfortunately. But I continue to have questions.

This is true. I only have anecdotal evidence to draw on, but one of my friends wanted nothing to do with the market...so he vendored recipes. When it became clear his tanker was "cute but squishy" according to a teammate he quit and hasn't been back. What if we get rid of recipes altogether and instead received enhancement drops? Would that incentivize folks like my friend by simplifying the entire IO process?

For clarity, I'm not suggesting getting rid of converters entirely. There's no question converters have lowered and stabilized the cost of the most expensive IOs. There's also no question that most of the 'starter' set IOs have increased in price because of converters. Also, after re-reading my post, I used a bit of hyperbole. Yellow enhancements generally go for a few hundred thousand. Yellow defense and resistance IOs are consistently over a million.

This isn't entirely true. Yes, high volume commonly converted enhancements like Luck of the Gambler would skyrocket in price. Just about everything else would drop significantly, as there would no longer be competitive bidding on yellow enhancements for conversion. It's a mixed bag. Those that take the time to convert can easily finance every build they want. Those that don't need to find other means of gaining influence. New players, aside from having to learn how to use the market with little or no help from game tutorials, find themselves looking at what used to be cheap enhancements going for millions. I think the new SO drop changes was a step in the right direction for new players, and generic IOs are still cheap. I love the idea of a comprehensive market tutorial, but the (one time) reward for a new account should be significantly higher than what's been suggested so far.

Indeed! I didn't convey that in my earlier post, but the danger was thrilling...quite unlike most regular content. Early Vahz fights come the closest as far as incoming damage, but the enemies are faster, more aggressive, and more numerous Goldside. I went almost entirely Resistance-Warden last time. Gonna try again with a Mind Controller Loyalist next time. Should be fun.