Luminara

Enhancement reductions were enacted to deal with that. Having all of your slots, and having all of the enhanced value of all of those slots, are not even remotely the same in the examplar system. The lower one exemplars, the larger the reduction on enhancement values, and with SOs being available at level 1 now, there's a fair degree of balance between native level characters and exemplared characters. That's my main exemplared down to level 7. At native level 7, I had the same five slots in the power, but presuming less intensive slotting, we can still presume at least two additional slots in the power, allowing an Accuracy SO, a Damage SO and an Endurance Reduction SO, all at 33% values. That's definitely superior to this slotting. Allowing SOs all the way down to level 1 was probably the most impactful balance change the HC team has made to date, and it was the right thing to do, from this perspective. Even if we presume the native level character is using set IOs instead of SOs, he/she is still receiving slightly better enhanced values than the exemplared values. There's no big leap in performance for the exemplared character, that hit to the enhancements does a very good job of limiting us. What I'm getting at is that exemplaring has a powerful impact on builds. The reduction of enhancement values was specifically designed to be that strong because it was balanced against the additional availability of a few extra powers. You get two or three extra powers, but you take a larger hit on all enhancement slotting, creating a broad parity with characters at native levels. Granted, use of IO set bonuses can offset some of the losses, but there aren't very many +Accuracy, +Recharge, +Damage or EndRdx bonuses available below level 22. Most of the "good stuff" comes at levels 25 and 30, and upward, and going below 22 costs significantly in terms set bonuses. We still retain purple set bonuses, ATO bonuses, PvP set bonuses and certain globals, but, despite with the general availability of these now, we can't assume everyone's use of them. And even when we do have them, they're not opening a wide gulf between native and exemplared builds. This same character has only two 15% Accuracy set bonuses, and 60% global recharge. That total +30% Accuracy is just bringing the character up to the native level character's SO use, and I don't have a complete attack chain to make use of that global +Recharge, so I'm not hammering away with a complete attack chain, I'm falling back on my origin power, Brawl, vet temps, just like the native level character does. Those set bonuses are just bringing me back up to strength in comparison to that native level character. It's a fair and balanced approach to exemplaring, doubly so now that SOs are falling from the sky at level 1. It's also why the proposal in the original post is a non-starter. Allowing all powers to be available at this level would have exactly the impact you theorized. Having a few set bonuses is fine, but having a complete roster of powers with which to leverage those set bonuses would be broken. People complain about Incarnates being a problem... that's exactly the same kind of problem this would entail. This suggestion is one of those things that will never happen on these servers. We may not have the best balance in gaming history, but I guarantee that the HC team isn't going to throw what balance we do have into the trash by implementing this kind of change.

It's okay to go with other light colors, the Egyptians did have various dyes from sources such as berries, roots and minerals ground into powder and mixed with fats. What's important is how the dyed fabric would interact with sunlight. Light colors reflect more sunlight and absorb less heat, and that's crucial in a desert climate. A deep brown or red, on the other hand, would absorb heat, cause the wearer to sweat more and lead to dehydration and exhaustion. 11 is definitely closer to true linen than 10, but 10 wouldn't be physically debilitating, so if you like the yellow, use it. I'm poking around in the costume creator, and I'm seeing that the Black Knight 1 belt (Clean) completely covers the pouch (as long as you're not taking up-skirt shots), and is metallic, so it'll take a fairly golden color in one channel and allow you to add a splash of color in the other channel. There's a little clipping in combat stance, but not a horrific amount. I also played around a bit with Chest Details and noticed that the Imperial Dynasty detail has a great look on bare chests. I think that would work for pharaonic adornment, or an acceptable substitute for the scale chest armor I mentioned charioteers using earlier. That looks fantastic. The belt really adds an excellent touch. Something similar to that actually happened several times. At various points between Dynasties, power vacuums occurred. A pharaoh would die without an heir, or the heir would be too young to rule, or lack the ability to retain power, or just die before reaching maturity, and being so close to the throne, a high priest would step in as regent, or take the throne him/herself. And at least once, a pharaoh turned the tables on the priesthood. Akhenaten packed up all of his stuff, ordered the people of Thebes to follow him into the desert, and built a new capitol from which to rule, Amarna. He cast down the entire pantheon and proclaimed a single god, the Aten, and left the priesthoods of the other gods standing with their dicks in their hands in Thebes. They were, understandably, furious. Wealth in ancient Egypt was measured in arable, fertile land and the people to farm on it, so when Akhenaten turned his back on the old gods, he was also denying the priesthoods the people needed to plant, tend and harvest crops in their nomes, effectively rendering them paupers. After he died, worship of the Aten declined, and his son, the new pharaoh, was convinced to return to Thebes and re-institute worship of the old gods. Amarna was abandoned, Akhenaten's works torn down and recycled into other projects, and almost everything bearing his name destroyed (ancient Egyptians believed that not only did the soul go on to live after death, but also that one's name was just as important in keeping the soul alive. to have one's name scratched out was to consign the soul to destruction). You might recognize the name of that son. Tutankhamun. Yeah, that Tutankhamun. Oh, and Akhenaten's wife? Nefertiti. Uh huh. That Nefertiti. This is why I've spent 40+ years reading about this stuff. Tom Clancy, eat your heart out. I'd completely forgotten we have that option! Use it! Using tattoos as make-up, you'll want blacks, greens and reds. Black and green were used interchangeably, symbolizing life, and both colors were used for eye make-up (black on the upper eyelids, green on the lower). They made black make-up by crushing charcoal or galena to powder and mixing it with fat. Greens were made with malachite, again, crushed and mixed with fat. Red rouge and lip paint was made the same way with red clay. We know they had lapis lazuli and used it extensively in murals, statuary and glazes, and it can be mixed with fat just as easily, so there's nothing really stopping you from throwing some blues in, too. 7 is definitely working. 👍

How dare they.

Whichever one gives me the wrong look. Or talks back. Or mildly annoys me. Or moves.

I'll probably never watch this, since I can't justify streaming. But in my experience, no filmed story (movie or television serial) is 100% true to its source material. They aren't even true to their scripts, as those scripts undergo numerous revisions before and during filming, and typically fail to accurately represent the original author's intent. Sometimes the result is better, sometimes it's worse, but in every case, it's something different, and different isn't bad in or of its own merits. The reality is, every director has his/her own story to tell, every actor/actress has his/her own take on a character, et cetera. People make stories, and people have different interpretations of the smallest of details and largest of plot points. And everyone has their own imagined vision of what they read, how everything looks, how voices sound, what color the sky is... it's different for every person. Every Philip K. Dick story that's been adapted has been changed. Fight Club was changed. Watchmen and League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. Every author who's sold the rights to a novel and seen his/her work end up on the screen has also seen divergences from that novel. Sometimes they approve, other times, they hate it. Maybe Tolkien would've liked this one, maybe he'll claw his way out of his grave, walk up to the producers and ask, "WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING?!". Point being, what's written and what's shown can never be identical. Even if the writer is the director, set designer, cinematographer, costumer, acting out all of the parts, in absolute and unquestioned control from beginning to end, it's still going to be a different result, if for no other reason than because a novel can take days or weeks to read, whereas filmed stories are consumed in much less time. Even serials running for years can't do it, and many have tried. Turning on the television, or walking into a movie theater, and expecting to see exactly what was in a book is just setting yourself up for disappointment. Learn to separate the two mediums. Accept that they're distinct works. You'll be a lot happier, and discover that some things you assumed were trash weren't, or were improvements on the original, or had their own creative value in some way, or even that you just liked the different takes in different ways.

Cranium sliders. Whole bunch of sliders for the head and facial features, in fact. Right under the color box. Big it up!

You're straying into darker colors. That's perfectly fine, this is a video game, not time travel to ancient Egypt. Here's what natural linen looks like, though. That would be the base color for almost everything they wore. Again, we're not talking about putting on clothes and wandering around in Egypt circa 2400 BC, so it's not really that important, but I did want to note it. 5 is really good. If the uraeus can be colored gold without tinting anything else, you want to do that, but otherwise, that's about as accurate a model for a pharaoh you'll likely manage with the tools we have available. I'm favoring 4 in that series. That top is an even better match for the skirt than the leather top was, and the looseness of the fabric is a better representation of linen (it's never tight, tends to sag and wrinkle). I think adding the nemes to that one would be smashing, but it still works without it, and if your other Egyptians are wearing nemes, you might enjoy the change of pace. It's a damn shame we can't do the neck chain and the armlets. I run into that restriction sometimes, it's one of the few things that makes me abandon concepts. Scottish. I think 9 looks great, but I'd brighten up the globe on the staff. It's a sun symbol, it should be golden and shiny. Only children 6 and under would have hair (as a side-lock, a ponytail on one side of the head, not in the back). But, again, these are your characters and I'm not going to go find an archaeologist to hunt you down and shout at you. It's probably going to be very boring if you play all of them with nemes or cue balls, so I understand wanting to change it up a bit. So, magic in ancient Egypt. There actually was a god of magic, Heka, and Egyptians did use magic in rituals, funerary rites, ceremonies and observation of important dates and events. But there weren't any magicians. It was the priests and priestesses of various gods and goddesses who filled that role. And the priesthoods in ancient Egypt were, politically and financially, powerful, just one step below the pharaoh, and they dressed accordingly. But we're going to ignore that. We're not going to dig through six hundred costume options for this, because the Egyptian pantheon has handed us a ready solution. Give your mage a god/goddess to worship, and stick the corresponding animal head on him! A bird head for Horus, for example, or cat head for Bastet, or a canine head for Anubis, to list a few examples. Your mage isn't actually transformed into the embodiment of the god/goddess, because that would intrude on the pharaoh's divine right (the penalty for which would invariably be death), but he can have an animal head on as a prop, both to indicate that he's paying obeisance to his god, and to convince the god to give him magic. Also, priestesses were just a common as priests, there was no gender barrier in their religion, so you could use this as an opportunity to recycle some of the pharaoh's daughter designs (all of which have been very good). Stick an animal head on her and give her a god/goddess to worship!

Those are all good. I'd recommend 3, with solid blue on the nemes, and maybe a second costume slot adding the cape. I'd go with Strange for the hair, and add the Barbarian armlets (shoulder option), but lose the cape. While the pharaoh's daughter might also be one of the royal wives (yes, they did that), unless she ascended the throne (yes, they did that, too), she wouldn't be wearing animal skin. Great job putting together the top and bottom, that's a great interpretation of the kalasiris! 3-7 are all good. Most soldiers didn't wear armor, they went into battle wearing the shenti and not much else. Charioteers would've relied on the chariot to guard their lower body and carried a shield (bronze), or had a simple leather guard protecting the chest (not a full chest piece, but not a bandolier, either). The pharaoh would've worn scale armor (leather and bronze) and ridden in a chariot (they purportedly did fight, though, so it wasn't just for show). Most of the Egyptian soldiers were archers, for close combat they wielded spears and the kopesh. All of that is generalized, you understand. We are talking about condensing over 3000 years of culture into a single idea, so we're pulling from a lot of different periods. That kilt is an excellent choice. They didn't have polearms, though, and we don't have spears... but for a pharaoh's guards, I believe the Mystical staff would be reasonable. The appearance is suggestive of a sun rising and the wings of a bird, so we can draw connections to Ra, Osiris, Amun and Horus, and make a fair claim of verisimilitude.

As I said, both genders shaved their heads, as it was both more comfortable in the heat and more hygienic. Decoration of the head was symbolic of station. Starting at the bottom, practically everyone was bald. As a family or individual accrued power or wealth, he/she donned accordingly more elaborate head gear. The nemes was less expensive than a fine wig, and could be made at home, as it was simply cloth folded and pleated, and was the more common headdress in the lower stations. As we move up to the middle stations, women would typically change to a human hair wig, because owning and wearing one displayed their wealth. Some middle station men wore wigs, some stuck with the nemes, some didn't bother with either. Just below the pharaoh, head adornments were fairly represented by all of the options. The pharaoh him/herself was always bald, like everyone else. During public appearances, ritual appearances, in court and when discussing matters of state, the pharaoh wore the sekhemti, the royal crown with which we're most familiar. In his/her private time, he/she eschewed headgear or wore a wig. I should note that there was another type of "hat" which was also common, the khat, which was just a cloth wrapped around the head (not turban-like, a simple wrap with one or two passes) and left hanging loose at the back. Like a really long handkerchief. But we don't have anything like that (the Bridal option is waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too long), so it's not pertinent to this. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clothing_in_ancient_Egypt Because of the climate, clothing wasn't a good choice for representing one's station in ancient Egypt. And with gold's abundance, jewelry didn't signify wealth or power the same way it did in other cultures. So they used headwear. George Carlin had a great skit about hats, about how the richer people were, the bigger their hats were. That was actually true of ancient Egyptians, because it was one of the few ways they could show where they ranked in the social structure. That was also part of the reason they used make-up, a display of wealth and power. The poor might be limited to crushed charcoal or cheap kohl, the wealthy had a broader range of colors and applied them liberally. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crowns_of_Egypt The crown we all know and think of is the second to the last, the sekhemti. That crown was the result of Upper and Lower Egypt becoming one under the pharaoh. Upper Egypt's ruler originally used the hedjet, whereas Lower Egypt's ruler wore the deshret. When the first pharaoh (Menes) united the two states into a single nation, he merged the crowns to symbolize that unity. The golden snake (uraeus) and vulture were totemic adornments further representing each state and connecting the pharaoh further with the pantheon (the pharaoh him/herself being the living embodiment of one or more of the deities). So we have three crowns right there, but from a historical perspective, the crown of ancient Egypt was the sekhemti, as that was when the First Dynasty began. There's also the khepresh, a crown worn during combat or certain ceremonial observations. And the wives of the pharaoh wore a crown specific to their station, the vulture crown, which was similar to the nemes, but adorned with vulture feathers and fashioned to look like a perching vulture. And there were a few other crowns, like the atef (Osiris' crown). We're talking about a culture which spanned millennia, during which they were the power in the region and were the dominant culture, so they had quite a bit of time to come up with variations. Some did their own thing. Ahkenaten (careful going down that rabbit hole, you'll be lost for days), for example, dispensed with the sekhemti and typically wore a simple skullcap or circlet with the uraeus, symbolizing his break with the established pantheon and association with the Aten. Since this is a combat-oriented game, you'd want the khepresh, which was blue, bulbous, slightly winged and adorned with the uraeus. A solid blue nemes would be a close enough approximation for that, since the nemes in this game does have a uraeus.

What makes you believe we want to be on a planet where people wear clothes?

Archaeology, specifically ancient Egyptian archaeology, is one of my life-long interests, so this happens to be a topic I've already researched. Clothing was made of linen, so natural near-white colors in the beige through yellow range would be appropriate. The higher you go on the social hierarchy, the more likely you will find color, but that color would be ochre, umber and blue, colors available to them, used strictly as ornamentation. Splashes here and there, not monotone. No blacks, no deep, dark colors. Light colors were more comfortable in their environment (hot and humid). The basic style of dress in the First through Eighteenth Dynasties tended to be a simple wrap around the waist, the shenti or shendyt, for men and women. The Talons skirt is actually an excellent match for that. Some, those of lower station, didn't wear any more than that, and slaves were typically naked. Not sure if there's an equivalent skirt for males in the game, but it won't hurt to look. Nudity wasn't frowned upon in that society, so many womens' clothing styles left the breasts exposed, but they were also made to cover the breasts, so we can work with that. One type of women's dress, the kalasiris, was little more than a long tube of fabric, held up by a strap over one shoulder, sometimes two. Another was... basically like fishnet shirts, but they hung down to the calves or ankles. You'll want the shenti on the lower body, since we don't have fishnet skirts. The sleeved garments left the shoulders exposed (and sometimes the breasts). Some lighter, more sheer weaves were sometimes worn by women of higher station (Desire and Disco are good examples of this. Frost is a good substitute for fishnet, Mesh isn't because it covers the arms). When you reach the pharaoh, it becomes a bit easier. Most ancient Egyptians spurned animal skins and textiles (wool), but pharaohs would wear them, leopard skins for instance, as a sign of their prowess and station. They were also the most clothed. Clothing itself was an indicator of wealth and power, and none was more powerful than the pharaoh, so they dressed accordingly. Also, bear in mind that some pharaohs were women, but they dressed like men (Hatshepsut routinely appeared in court and public wearing all of the traditionally male accoutrements of her station, and was bare-chested, as they would have been, to give one example). The nemes, the striped headdress we have in the game, was common for all Egyptians. Those who didn't wear them either wore wigs or were bald. They routinely shaved their heads to control lice and remain more comfortable in the heat. Egyptians of higher station wore wigs, made with their own hair, hair from other people, and sometimes palm fibers as a substitute or supplement, in social situations. The wigs weren't elaborate, generally straight, shoulder-length, with bangs. The pharaoh would've worn various crowns, culminating with the famous double crown (which displayed their rulership over Upper and Lower Egypt), but we don't have that. Don't sweat it, just use hair, the nemes or go bald. Bald was the default setting for that culture, and we happen to have that in-game. Jewelry was very common. Gold was easily obtainable, silver was rare. Rings, bracelets, armlets and necklaces of all types are on the menu, go haywire, but make most of it gold. For jewels, lapis lazuli, turquoise and amethyst were frequently used, but really, any shiny or pretty rock was satisfactory. Some jewels weren't even jewels, they were glazing (the same thing that makes pottery and ceramics shiny and colorful), so you can go any way you want for that. They even made jewelry out of flint, and had gold finger and toe covers, like finger cots (those little condom-like things you put on your fingers when you're not using gloves, but need to keep a surface clean or protect your fingers), so there's not much you can't do with it in the game. Pile it on, they loved the stuff. Make-up was heavily used by both genders. Blacks and greens for the eyes, red for the lips. Footwear was seldom worn. They spent most of their time barefoot. When they did wear something, it was a simple sandal. I think the Roman Sandals work well as a substitute, even if they aren't historically accurate for that period and culture. At least you'll have toes. Once you leave the Eighteenth Dynasty, you're looking more at Roman and Greek styles, intermingled with traditional Egyptian. The toga can be used without concern for historical accuracy from that point on. I'd lean heavily on the Talons skirt for both genders, and go from there. If your characters are exclusively male, they can all be bare-chested with varying amounts of jewelry to indicate their stations, with an animal print cape/cloak/bolero for the pharaoh. If female, go with as close to topless as you can for the lower stations, something light and diaphanous for the middle station, then back to topless for the pharaoh, but throw a dead animal's skin on her. Fishnet top with Talons skirt would also work for females. Just keep it simple, don't go crazy with color and remember the climate they lived in, and you should be able to cobble together plenty of fitting costumes. 👍

I'd specifically preclude damage toggles and toggles which don't directly contribute to damage mitigation. Sonic's Disruption Field, would not suppress because it doesn't directly contribute to damage mitigation (more rapid defeat of foes is arguably a valid interpretation of damage mitigation, but it is not direct damage mitigation in the way -Recharge, -ToHit or -Damage is). The goal isn't to improve "kill speed", but to instill an objective balance between functionally comparable powers used for damage mitigation (+Def and -ToHit, +Res and -Damage, etc), so a more thorough and stable game balance can be achieved. I'm on the fence with mez toggles. They should offer significant damage mitigation in and of themselves... but they're easily detoggled by anything outside of their AoEs, or anything not mezzed in the AoE, which compromises their utility and value. I think suppressible mez toggles would inch over to the power creep side, but if we added an additional factor, such as increasing the suppressed duration beyond the mez duration, it might be possible to avoid the creep. Superficially, yes. Functionally, eeeeeeeeehhhhhhhhhhhh. Example: Weave nominally has a value of 1 for the number of targets it affects - the user. Functionally, though, it affects everything the user interacts with, and that number of targets is theoretically infinite. It doesn't matter if there is a single enemy, or 17 enemies, or 100 spawns all attacking, they're all affected by the damage mitigation provided by that toggle. Until that toggle is suppressed or turned off, it affects everything attacking the user. That's the basic nature of self-affecting buffs in the game. They have two target vectors, self, and everything else. The stated number of targets is 1. The number of other targets affected is ∞. These powers are, essentially, just graphical representations of equations performed on the fly, and there are no bounded exceptions or special variables in those equations which alter the math for actions beyond target caps. There's no sub-equation or engine component which does that, either, of which I'm aware. Nothing in the game tells Weave, "Your user somehow managed to get 19 enemies to make simultaneous attack rolls (did he/she forget to bathe this month?), and that's three over the AoE cap, so your Defense buff won't be counted for the following list of enemies: Hellion Bob, Skulls Clara and Snorflemog the Unclothed". Instead, the game says, "Hit rolls? Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah, whatever, just apply the Defense to everything and stop bothering me. I'm trying to finish my script for Blade 19. The Daywalker (Daaaaaywaaaaaaaaalker. Daaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyywaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaalkeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeer!) is beamed up by the Millennium Falcon and has to help Walter Bishop fight vampires on Arrakis. It's an art film, you wouldn't understand it.". Click buffs of this type are functionally identical, from that perspective. This X affected | ∞ affected functionality isn't a phenomenon exclusive to toggle buffs. When someone pops Grant Invisibility on your character, that character's Defense is increased for an infinite number of foes, like Weave or Combat Jumping does. If a */Sonic corruptor drops Sonic Barrier on you, you have that extra Resistance against an infinite number of attacking enemies, exactly the same way a Fire scrapper's Fire Shield provides for him/her. Your damage buffs aren't limited to increasing the damage of your attacks only for foes at or below the target cap, they increase the damage of your attacks regardless, and the game relies on other mechanics to limit you, such as animation times, target caps for attacks and range. Even toggles and clicks which seem to be entirely self-contained and appear to have no interaction with enemies, such as heals and regeneration buffs, have that second vector. You don't regenerate only the damage taken from the foes near you, or foes up to the target cap, you regenerate all incoming damage, independent of source or type. When you click a heal, the engine doesn't look at the list of foes who attacked you and prevent you from healing damage from any attacks which came from a number greater than X, it just restores a specific amount of HP. And some self-affecting toggles/clicks have effects which restrict them to target caps below infinity, but that's actually a third vector. Those are the powers which use a scaling variable based on the number of foes nearby or hit. The effect which most of them provide, such as +Res and +Def, or increased regeneration, is still completely applicable in the second vector, in that even if the toggle/click is saturated, additional foes are still affected by the attribute which was increased by the scaling variable. That +Res or +Def isn't dismissed on foes beyond the target cap. That extra regeneration doesn't halt if you're attacked by one more foe than the aggro cap (or ten more, or ten thousand more). Those effects continue to apply, regardless of the number of enemies attacking. We all remember dumpster diving. That only worked because these buffs affected all of those enemies, in this unlimited way. Not the first 10 enemies, or a maximum of 16 enemies, but all of them. Hundreds of enemies, all piled into a dumpster, swinging and missing at the character with capped Defense, or plinking with single-digit damage on the character with capped Resistance, et cetera. Everything ever herded into a dumpster was affected by those self-affecting buffs which, superficially, only affected the character on which they were cast or toggled. So even though these powers "only" affect the user or recipient, they also affect an infinite number of foes. And that can be leveraged. In fact, we have an archetype based specifically on that leverage, the tanker. The tanker provides damage mitigation for teammates by engaging enemies and utilizing that unlimited mitigation through exactly this dual-vectored approach. Target and threat caps provide constraints (now) by denying that tanker the ability to engage and hold the attention of an infinite number of foes, but they don't constrain that dual-vector functionality of the toggles themselves. There's no code written for the game to do that (again, of which i'm aware). So those self-affecting toggles actually provide a measure, and measurable amount, of damage mitigation to entire teams, in a lateral way. That's the foundation for the tanker archetype. In the absence of the aggro cap, the tanker proved that self-affecting buffs were functionally unlimited in how they aided survivability. Regardless of how many enemies were attacking, the buffs worked at full strength against every enemy. And because it was easier to simply limit the number of aggroed targets than it was to rewrite how buffs worked in relation to attacking enemies, we now have an aggro cap. So yes, buffs only protect the user or the recipient, but when viewed in light of their overarching functionality, they also protect the entire team by permitting the buffed character damage mitigation beyond the caps imposed on debuffs, via that unlimited protection provided by buffs not having a cap on the secondary vector. As long as the buffed character can hold aggro, and stay upright, the team benefits from that character's buffs, and they do so even when faced with a theoretically infinite number of foes. We can also look at this from the other side. If we summarize this as, "buffs offer a limited number of teammates mitigation from an unlimited number of damage sources", we can make the corollary statement that "debuffs offer an unlimited number of teammates mitigation from a limited number of damage sources". If the game didn't have limits, or had significantly different limits, then each would have broader usage, as well as more specific usage (debuffers for Hami raids, buffers for small teams defending against overwhelming odds, et cetera). Cryptic made a distinct effort, when they implemented target and aggro caps, to ensure that debuffs were as close to parity with buffs as possible in that context, but in practice, the limits tend to favor buffs over debuffs... or, more aptly, tend to allow buffs to reach a greater degree of their unlimited potential while confining debuffs to a small fraction of theirs. The content to leverage the full extent of debuffs' mitigation potential doesn't exist, and, in truth, can't (we all know how the engine chokes when large numbers of player characters are in a small area together), so this particular oddity of the engine is something that will always be present. We do, though, have much greater numbers of enemies (two for every one player character, in a full standard team), so the existing content, and likely all future content, allows buffs to leverage their flexibility more fully. Note that I'm not suggesting that click and toggle debuffs should have their target caps removed. Nor is any of this to be construed as negative commentary on caps, a call for new or different caps, or a complaint that buffs should be redesigned with caps on their secondary vectors. I'm simply pointing out that a self-affecting buff (click or toggle) is inherently more effective than is immediately apparent by looking at the stated target number. The existing target and aggro caps are generally effective at limiting the secondary vector of buffs and providing a reasonable degree of parity with debuff target limitations (bending the aggro cap rules is possible, but extremely work-intensive and prone to failure with the least mistake or fraction of a second mistiming. not many people bother to juggle enough enemies to surpass the aggro cap, because it's slower than just kicking ass and moving on, and in the current game, many players are experienced enough and have sufficiently powerful builds to manage stray aggro when others are at their respective cap). There are functional target number differences between buffs and debuffs which go beyond the expressed number of targets, but they're relatively well hidden by things like spawn sizes, team sizes and caps. And I like to talk about this kind of thing, so everyone has to suffer through my long-winded, pretentious yammering. Sucks to be you guys! 😄

Mechanical parity between otherwise functionally identical powers doesn't equate to "play the same". You don't seem to understand that, which is why your proposal to hard-cap Defense at 40% hasn't gained any traction, as it's not parity of any kind, it's a hypothesis conceived of in a vacuum and so narrow in scope that it ignores the basic functionalities of Defense and Resistance, and every variable that affects them. You were counseled on ways to refine your idea, you told everyone to piss off. You were given opportunities to revise your suggestion, you continued to post it without revision. And when people, including myself, finally turned to sarcasm to show you how little traction you were gaining, you became angry and went on a tirade of revenge down-votes and vitriol. You don't care whether your idea would work, you don't care if you've approached it from the correct perspective, you don't want to consider the possibility that there were oversights and mistakes, you just need to be "right". To "win". Even if it means damaging your own reputation and standing within the community. But that's fine, too. If that's what makes you happy, go for it. I don't even have to see it with you in my /ignore list. Down-vote everything I've ever posted and cut loose with the most vile shit you can compose if it makes you feel good. And I mean that. Having spent so many years of my life feeling miserable, it's not something I wish on anyone, certainly not people with whom I've had mild disagreements over ultimately meaningless crap in an Internet forum.

"Lazy" was intended to convey a lack of slotting, not a lack of effort. Blaster T1s deal nearly twice the damage of defender T1s, as an example, and Defiance buffs them further. They don't have to put in the same effort (expending slots, using enhancements, creating and refining the build). And I'm not bitter, I'm irritated. There are deep-seated problems with how support archetypes are supposedly balanced, which have never made sense, but which have also been rigorously enforced. Bitter implies that I've given up. I'm not a quitter. Real balance. If I play a Trick Arrow character, I can use Flash Arrow and Poison Gas Arrow to debuff entire spawns, and I gain the benefit of that action. Someone playing a Force Field or Sonic Resonance character, on the other hand, has ally-only click buffs, which do not benefit that character. There is no "If target = Trick Arrow debuffer, ignore debuff" flag. There is no hole in debuffing. There is an "Ally Only" flag. There is a hole in buffing. That hole was deliberately left in place throughout the entirety of the game's original life, and is still there today. That's not balanced. If it's perfectly acceptable for a support character to mitigate incoming damage one way, there's no logical or rational reason they shouldn't be permitted to do so the other way. Damage mitigation toggles on non-support characters suppress, and have a functionally unlimited number of targets because they're self-affecting. Toggles on support characters do not suppress, they shut off. And they have maximum target caps. That's not balanced. That the characters with the highest HP pools and status protection can be permitted to use suppressible damage mitigation toggles with no target cap, but support characters, who have half to a third the HP pool, are required to turn toggles back on, thus forcing them to wait out the recharge time and the animation time, and have target caps which guarantee failure beyond a certain amount of aggro, is not logical or rational. Zero status protection for most support characters. Target caps on toggles which drop frequently, have long recharge and animation times. Low HP pools. Disparity between buffing and debuffing support characters. These are absolutely not balanced within the archetypes in question, nor in comparison to the non-support archetypes. Balance points are not measured by how much shit a player will endure before giving up, they're measured by how well things perform in comparison to similar things, and we have obvious discrepancies in performance between comparable things here, which, to date, have been ignored. I don't care if the solution is doing a pass on everything in the game to reduce the overabundance of mez; or restoring toggle mutual exclusivity in concert with non-stacking buffs; or adding a "Lumi's playing, ignore those debuffs" flag; or removing the ally-only flag from buffs in concert with permitting damage mitigation toggles (-ToHit, -Damage, -Recharge/Speed/Fly) to suppress; or just giving support characters better access to status protection so they're not scrambling every time a minion with a mag 2 mez glances at them. I care that it's done, and that's all. I want real balance. I want parity between click buffs and debuffs. I want parity between toggles. I want different support sets to they work on an equal basis so they actually can be balanced. Many of us spend hours arguing about balance, turn small threads into monstrous arguments, and we aren't even talking about a game that's truly balanced, we're ignoring gross imbalances like these and hissing and spitting at each other over damage output and soft capped Defense and telling ourselves that we're protecting an existing balance... that does not, in truth, exist. And that's why I'm irritated. I've said all of this several times in the last 18 months. I said it to Castle several times on the original forums. We have some of the brightest gamers alive playing here, now, but when I point out problems like these, everyone shrugs. "Eh, whatcha gonna do?" We should be screaming in the HC team's ears, but we're bitching at each other about power creep and damage procs, and it gives me the impression that we don't care about balance, we care about keeping the game from changing. Well, imbalances lead to poor design decisions, such as over-buffing and nerfing. Over-buffing and nerfing lead to imbalances. We ran around in this endless circle for years on the original servers, and as soon as we come here, we jump right into the circle and start sprinting again. Yes, fixing real balance problems would mean some sets, like Rad, which has hybrid mitigation/combat efficiency toggles, might overperform. That can be addressed. But it couldn't be addressed as long as some support sets are sadly lacking due to arbitrary, nonsensical rules, while other sets are comparatively overpowered due to not sharing the same rules. I would happily give up all of the TA recent improvements to see one FF or Sonic player self-buffing with his/her ally-only bubbles, or one Dark Miasma player with suppressible Darkest Night, because that would be equable parity between support sets. That would be balanced.

I have the game installed on an external SSD. Had a problem with the OS spazzing out and telling me that the SSD was full a few weeks ago, and my entire character list had defaulted to order of creation. That's the only issue I've had that's even close to what you're experiencing, @Crysis. I have occasionally accidentally dragged a character to a different slot, but I was paying attention and moved it back immediately each time. Open your playerslot.txt and run a quick search for the character's name. If it hasn't been deleted, the slot number will be next to the name and you can find it that way. Might also log onto each of the other servers, just to see if you moved it without conscious recognition of what you were doing.

I wish I could turn back time, sit you down and make you play a TA before Issue 7. Not because I dislike you (i don't), but so you could understand how bad defender life can be. But the time machine is on the fritz again, so I'll try to do it with words. Here's how I look at it. Power is the money. Desirable content is the goods. Power creep is the inflation. Right now, we have comparatively high inflation, generally speaking. The amount of money circulating has compromised the price of goods in various ways (made some content too easy, made some content less "optimal", made some content uninteresting). But that inflation isn't applied equally. Most archetypes have reasonably good purchasing power, despite the inflationary nature of the economy, and leverage of that purchasing power (wider variety of content which can be easily completed, wider range of difficulty settings to make the game feel "challenging"). Support characters, on the other hand, have low purchasing power. Their low damage output, (general) lack of status protection, imposed time penalties due to (general) reliance on clicks and debuff toggles instead of self-affecting toggles, and (general) problem with toggle dropping adds up to lower purchasing power and lower ability to leverage the purchasing power they do have. Is the solution to this inflationary issue, then, to lock support's purchasing power at the lowest level and prevent them from accessing the same goods as other archetypes? We've recently had newer, harder difficulty settings added, which increases the value of some goods, but it imposes a still higher purchase cost, which support archetypes may not be capable of paying. Does it make economic sense to continue to impose purchasing restrictions on support archetypes, when more expensive goods are on the way? I don't think it does. If we were talking about a real economy, we'd see those with the lowest purchasing power emigrating to places where they weren't as heavily restricted, where they had higher purchasing power and better quality of life. Or staging riots, revolts, regime over-throws, walk-outs, marches and other tactics to improve their situation, which, historically, have also been accompanied by a significant amount of bloodshed, but since this is a video game, we can assume no-one will be decapitated or shot. That's why. The end result of shackling support archetypes under a "no more power creep" clause will be the gradual loss of support as players stop playing them, opting instead to play archetypes which aren't restricted as heavily and, from the players' perspective, oppressively, or just leaving to play less restrictive games. The inflation problem is being addressed for the majority, the archetypes which are already rolling in their surplus of money, through the addition of increased difficulty and new content. Imposing further restrictions on support archetypes, locking or reducing their purchasing power, won't encourage players to support you with support archetypes, it will encourage them to say, "Fuck it, I'm done." Or chop someone's head off. If you want to fix power creep, bring the support archetypes to the same degree of creep as the rest of the archetypes, then address it by making content that everyone can enjoy, or improving existing content so it's more enjoyable despite the creep. Or nerf the entire roster of non-support archetypes into the dirt to accomplish the same goal from the other direction (probably not a wise choice, given the reactions to such in the past). Holding support archetypes down won't fix anything, unless the goal is to remove interest in playing them entirely.

But that was always the case. Before PPM, when procs were fixed at specific rates, they were still better in AoEs than in single-target powers. It's the simplest of maths in this case, more targets will always equate to more chances for procs to trigger, and greater likelihood of more proc triggers per power use. The PPM mechanic didn't change anything in that regard, and even if the PPM mechanic were drastically altered to reduce AoE probability even further, AoEs would still benefit the most from procs, due to that greater number of trigger rolls. The HC team could peg AoEs at a ridiculously low proc rate and they'd still be best-in-use, because they hit 10-16 foes. Yes, a typical defender cone/AoE attack, optimally slotted for damage, deals ≤ the damage of a single typical proc. Does that says more about the design of defenders, or about the design of procs or the PPM mechanic? I have my opinion, and I've made it known (loudly and vehemently).

That's a valid and constructive point. The PPM mechanic encourages a different slotting schema, one which is not intuitive, and is contrary to the design intent behind the game, slotting in general and IO sets. Deliberately avoiding Recharge Reduction, breaking sets and losing set bonuses, relying entirely on set bonuses and additional proc slotting to compensate for poor slotting, none of these behaviors were intended. Do they work? To a degree, because the Invention system is robust and flexible enough to absorb the slotting differential and compensate, and the overall design of the game, with buffs from third-party sources, bolsters the design. But they aren't necessary optimal, and, again, that counter-design approach that the PPM system encourages is... messy. And when they do work, they're not profoundly better than ignoring PPM entirely and using the traditional approach to slotting. The PPM mechanic allows proc-heavy builds to work, and it urges some players to explore its limitations and try to find loopholes (perfectly normal behavior), but it doesn't allow them to work so well that we're fools if we don't use them. And that's a key factor. Proc-heavy builds aren't running rampant over traditional builds, which relegates them to "just a different way to do the same thing". As long as that remains true, I see no justification for anxiety.

Worth noting that the commentary there is specifically about PPM, its counter-intuitive functionality in intuitive slotting, and performance differences between AoE and single-target. Not a whiff of "nerf procs", not a single alphanumeric character about cutting damage from procs, just an intent to clean up the PPM mechanic so it's neither encouraging players to slot in a manner which fails to appropriately improve powers, nor penalizing players for playing single-target/overly rewarding players for playing AoE-heavy sets.

Enough speculation. Enough of the "procs are gonna be nerfed" doom-crying. Enough of the "we all know" nonsense. Prove that there's a problem before you say one more word. Define the nature of that problem, set yourself test parameters, document results and lay down incontrovertible evidence that this problem exists, what the problem is and how the proof can be reproduced. We've been rehashing this thread for years now (years. multiple), and not one person has conclusively proven that procs are a problem, or the problem, or that a nerf actually is coming, or that a nerf is necessary, or that there even is a problem. In fact, no-one has even given a solid example of what could be construed as a problem. On the contrary, all existing evidence has indicated that there is no problem. The HC team has never made an unwarranted change to proc behavior, despite those years of proc panicking and fear-mongering, and we're still on this same ridiculous merry-go-round? What the fuck? An unusually open and cooperative development staff has been the hallmark of this game, from its first days on the original servers to the HC team we're blessed with now, people who granted us insight to the game's systems and mechanics in a way unprecedented in MMORPG history... and this is what we do with that legacy, wring our hands and bemoan an imagined future of proc nerfs that we don't even know will happen, much less given any reason to expect, like we're a bunch of WoW players. You want the proc system changed? Prove that it needs to be changed. You believe there's a problem which needs to be fixed? Define what the problem is, prove that it exists and show exactly how it's detrimental to the game. You want ridicule and scorn? Keep doing what you're doing, I'm right here.

That was the original implementation of the PPM mechanic. It was changed because we aren't always in control of our global +Recharge. Example: You and I team up, you have a specifically crafted proc build which works exactly the way you want it to... and I buff you with Accelerate Metabolism, throwing your build and proc chances into disarray. You are, understandably, displeased with that result, and write a strongly worded missive to the development team (Paragon, at that time) saying so. Perhaps even posting about what I total dick I was, buffing you with AM when you didn't want to be buffed. That's why the PPM mechanic was redesigned to ignore global +Recharge. Penalizing players for being buffed is bad design, not just for making players happy, but for promoting teaming.

Individual problems should be addressed individually, not with mass quality of life reductions. If there are problems with some powers being slotting in certain ways, we address those powers and slotting possibilities, because a global attack on the problem doesn't actually change the situation. Those individual powers will still be outliers when the dust settles. Nothing's fixed, and no-one's satisfied when it goes down that way. I addressed that scenario thoroughly in the last two proc nerf-herd threads, showing mathematically that the final result was not, in fact, grossly more powerful. Will that high damage attack hit harder when it's used? Most likely, yes. But it's also usable less frequently and has a higher cost associated per use, and in the end, we're looking at a miniscule improvement, a few damage per second. The end result is negligible in terms of DPS, expensive in terms of endurance, requires jumping through multiple slotting hoops, imposes a longer recharge time on the power, and in the end it's still only "winning" the imaginary dick measuring contest by a millimeter or two (and then only if the player doesn't hesitate to use that ultramegaboomy attack every time it's up, rather than hold it in reserve for the bosses). In essence, it's just playing the game a slightly different way. As many times as I've seen you step in to have your say when others are demanding that we all play their way, or that the game be redesigned or rebalanced to force us to play a certain way, I know that's not your preference or position. And given your adamant opposition to ED and GDN back in the day, it's hypocritical of you to advocate global nerfs to address outlier situations now. You're better than that. I know you're passionate about balance, but this isn't the way to achieve it.

I completely and wholeheartedly agree. Damage-dealer archetypes are still dealing more damage, and procs don't benefit from inherents, such as Containment, Scourge or Vigilance, nor are they guaranteed to trigger, despite the misinformation happily thrown around by people who either: require real-life validation from pretendy-fun accomplishments in a video game ("my procs are absolutely reliable and always trigger, i'm awesome!"); or who are determined to see damage procs nerfed ("your procs are absolutely reliable and always trigger, you're awful!"). They are improved by -Res, but applying -Res requires additional time and the characters leveraging procs in that manner aren't winning any races, they're simply not running as far behind as they would be without procs. A defender can sometimes deal almost as much damage as a lazy blaster, after a lengthy set-up and dependent on randomized occurrence, and some people believe we just have to nerf damage procs into the ground to stop that, so those lazy blasters don't lie awake at night, agonizing over imaginary dick measurements. Because, of course, it makes perfect sense to impose massive restrictions on everyone just to prevent a few peoples' fragile egos from being lightly bruised. The emotional equivalent of a paper cut is the end of the fucking world these days, after all. Some powers can be slotted as "proc bombs", and the proposed solution by those same people is to grind damage procs into dust, rather than address the powers themselves to make them perform less like outliers, because kicking entire archetypes in the balls is a better solution than bringing individual builds into line, and even that is predicated on the presumption that these people can reasonably prove that there is a problem... which, to date, no-one has done. The attempts to do so have been shown to be deliberate efforts to misrepresent the entirety of the situation, with facts swept under the rug, cherry-picked datum held up and loudly proclaimed as the end-all and be-all of evidence... the epitome of scientific misconduct, which would have those people permanently barred from publication if they tried to submit the same "research" in a respected scientific journal. It's all nonsense.

I expected a picture of Bill to be significantly more grizzled... and less anus-rockety. Guess those Texan chilis took their toll.

Huh. Never seen a flying turtle before. 😁