Luminara

PEBCAK.

The entire game, plus launcher, can be installed to an external drive. I have it on a USB-C 1TB SSD. And Windows allows folder redirects. I've pointed my Documents, Downloads, Pictures and Videos folders to the same SSD. I ain't losin' nothin' now... unless my cabin is sucked into another universe. Or @Snarky tries to perform basic file operations on my laptop... that would probably be more catastrophic.

Other games have much more restricted character development. They can do that because they tightly control how powerful any class can be at any given level, how strong the gear is, who can use the gear, how much gear the character can have at a time, any and all special bonus effects from the gear, et cetera. The people developing those games can create content with extremely specific expectations, based on the limited, controlled character development they've allowed, and have a significant degree of assurance that it will be palatable based on the limitations they've imposed in character development. Co* has 98 gear slots and 34 gear categories, compounded by 15 classes, each with its own gear category, and the only controls over character development are being locked into a single primary and secondary, not being allowed to access more than four power pools, and only one *PP. You can't have gear checks in a game with this much gear and this little control over character development, not without completely overhauling it from the ground up. It's was deliberately designed not to have gear checks. It's not those other games, it never was and never can be.

They're lateral progression. They were designed and implemented as ways players could make their characters better, without raising the level cap. They were never intended to replace other systems, such as SOs, but to supplement them. As such, they're neither pointless nor superfluous. They were made to do something, and they do exactly what they were meant to do.

IBT@Snarky.

Sunlight. Firewood. Hugs and kisses from the cat colony. Saw a titmouse. Happiness.

Fascists use the same tactics militaries, governments and religions have used for millennia, appealing to peoples' need to belong to something greater than themselves, and accusing someone else of being responsible for the bad things in the world. It happens every day, all over the world, with no crazy mind control gadgets, or weird chemicals, or telepaths or anything but a basic understanding of how to manipulate others. How did you think the Nazi party gained power in Germany? Micro-chips in peoples' brains? Magic? Hypnosis? No, they used basic psychology. There are fascist organizations doing exactly the same thing today, even I've seen mention of them and I'm about as disconnected from society as one can be without going feral.

Or Endurance Reduction.

Some random stranger who I've never heard and doesn't think much of our game probably isn't going to be playing with us? I'll try to squeeze out a tear later.

You posted that just so I'd watch Popeye tonight. This is some kind of insidious mind control device at work, isn't it.

Shags? Shags?

I average 5-6 minutes per zone doing it by setting the map to maximum zoom and manually dragging it around to find a badge, then right-click on it to set a waypoint. I'm willing to bet that the time it takes to open the Contacts list, click a badge tip and accept the mission (which automatically sets a waypoint at the badge location) is within 1 or 2 seconds of the time it takes me to do it my way (and i'm even leaning toward it being faster, since exploration tips are always placed at the top of the list, and the dialogue window can be dismissed while traveling). I'm also willing to bet that the reason you've convinced yourself that tips are slower is because you're a stubborn, crotchety old fart... just like me. And that's fine. But this is one of those things that you should at least test before pouring a cement slab over the conclusion. Try it before you deny it.

If it takes you three years to accept a tip, you have bigger problems to worry about than badges.

That's just death. Even if it's eternal death with no afterlife, it's still kinder than keeping someone alive and in chains.

Nemesis/5th Column/Council are the most evil. The others just want to kill, corrupt or pervert everyone alive, but these bastards want everyone to be alive, going about their daily lives without interruption, but enslaved. They want absolute control over everyone's actions, and even thoughts, but they want them to be aware that they're not in control, that they're pawns, that they exist solely at the whim and for the purpose of serving their masters. Subjugation, on every level, is their goal. The utter and complete abolition of freedom. There is no greater evil.

Citing an example of something you didn't like being done as the thing to do doesn't support your position. Nor would shitcanning Pacify "fix" the pool for the majority of people who avoid it, because Pacify isn't what's making them avoid it. The Presence pool is disliked because it has three different status effects, none of which are synergistic, and players are required to take at least two non-synergistic powers in order to work up through the tiers. They don't complement one another in any way, and the Taunt, when it works, actively opposes the goal of causing enemy action to pause momentarily... the pool's a clusterfuck. That's why we ignore it. And before you get any more attached to that Confuse you want, take a long, hard look at blasters' and masterminds' Possess in the new Dark Mastery APPs, which drops a shit-ton of debuffs (30% -Damage, -Defense, -Endurance, -ToHit, -Movement, -Special) on the caster. For 30 seconds. And after having been reported as a bug twice, it still hasn't been changed, nor anything said by the developers regarding this, implying that it's supposed to be that way. You should understand the powers structuring of the game by now, with power pools being at the bottom, so you should also realize a power pool Confuse would have to be even worse. So if you did succeed in having Pacify taken away from the players who use it (which would be a dick move), all you'd get in return would be an even less useful power. You wouldn't be able to stack it with anything (unlike Pacify, which can be stacked with Misdirection), you wouldn't be able to stack it with itself (the APP Possesses don't), and you probably wouldn't even be able to survive after using it, since the self-debuffs would almost certainly be stronger. Intimidate changed to be available at level 4 and Invoke Panic set to one power prerequisite so it wouldn't feel like deliberately hamstringing yourself when you went deeper into the pool. That's all the Presence pool needs.

No.

Pretty sure they would've named him Martha.

I wasn't even trying. Yay, me! 🏆