Luminara

The way the game used to work, travel power speeds increased as you leveled up On that character, who was leveled before the travel power update, my Jump Speed was comparable to or above Fly Speed at every level from around 12 onward. In the game as it is now, after the travel power adjustments in the last update, yes, it would be at a disadvantage at times. But not as much as it seems, unless it's a strictly numerical comparison (and even then, not always, because vendor jet packs/void skiff/rocket board still have the old Fly Speed limit). People, even now, when arriving at a mission can be as simple and rapid as one click, tend to spend as much time lollygagging as they do actually playing. They stand outside the last mission until someone reminds them that the next mission is up. They stop on the way to a mission to change a costume piece. They take a few minutes to train up to the next level. They go shopping. They go AFK for a smoke, or to walk the dog. They stop, and do not-mission things. "Be there in a minute, guys, I'm just <insert activity here>." Speed running every mission and mass teleporting teams door to door aren't the norm, they're the exception. Most people still play this game as it was intended, as a casual-friendly social MMORPG. They just don't care if you're showing up at the mission door first or last, whether you're using a vendor jet pack as your travel power or rocking SS and SJ and Teleport all in the same build. If it matters to you, then take a travel power. It doesn't matter to most of the people you'll meet and play with. I never arrived last. I typically arrived third. I couldn't allow myself to because I had to prove that my no travel power characters with Trick Arrows were just as good as everyone else. I made it my business to know how to go everywhere and reach everything; to reach any destination with the fewest zone transitions and shortest direct path; to get moving the instant the next mission was set; to go all the way to the top of maps, and navigate every maze of trees or sewers; to find every mechanical quirk and use it.

I've been through every zone in the game, every map in the game, with nothing but Hurdle and Combat Jumping. With set bonuses and two level 50+5 Jump IOs in Hurdle, you can hit 63.31 mph Jump Speed and Jump Height of 32', easily enough reach anything with a little practice (with the exception of the Top Dog badge. that is, after several years of testing and hundreds of attempts, the only badge i've found which can't be acquired without either a travel power or someone teleporting your character). Shadow Shard, PvP zones, Browntown, Shinyville, I've been everywhere with builds like this. These days, though, I just take Infiltration on most of my characters. Eight years without travel powers is enough, I'm moving on to other challenges.

Finding all eight exploration badges in a zone grants 5 merits. There are almost 50 of those rewards available, netting the player nearly 250 merits, and you can acquire most of them at level 1 by going to the P2W/T4V vendor, taking the free Athletic/Beast/Ninja Run power and running around. Install the Vidiotmap pack or @Shenanigunner's BadgeDRADIS or @AboveTheChemist's Optimal Badge Path Maps and start jogging. Merits can be used to purchase things which can be sold on the player market, such as boosters, catalysts, converters and unslotters, or they can be used to convert set IOs, which you can use, sell or squirrel away for alts. This is a simple, direct path to nearly unlimited wealth in the game. With the merits you obtain from collecting badges, you can net at least ~50,000,000 inf*, even if all you're doing is buying converters from the merit vendor and reselling them on the player market. Converter roulette is riskier, but can turn that ~50,000,000 into ten times as much with some lucky conversions (and knowing when to quit and sell, rather than keep converting). Merits are easy to obtain, even with the shittiest, least capable characters imaginable running story arcs solo at -1/x1. So go get your merits and get rich off of them.

Mental illness and a sub-poverty line income don't allow me the luxury of avoiding spoilers. If I'm going to spend money on something, I like being informed of the value of the purchase and likelihood of my enjoyment. And even the most detailed synopsis or longest trailer can't tell you everything that happens, anyway. A movie is more than a climactic conclusion, or a 2:30 trailer, or a synopsis, so I'm not bothered by knowing a few details.

Yes. During the Freakshow War arc, the mission which requires the player to locate and defeat the four team captains. It's also occurred for me at least a couple of times when on other missions which use that map. Running around, looking for objectives, critters will appear right as I enter their spawn point, or just as often, after I've passed the spawn point. It's only happened on that map, though. Never in open zones, never in office maps, never in tech lab maps, et cetera. I keep netgraph active at all times, as well, and there's never any lag spiking or high ping time when the oddity occurs. You're not crazy. Something's fucky.

I say "bacon" once and you two go on a posting frenzy. @Jimmy, put something in their kibble bowls. You monster.

I know the Steadfast Protection Res/Def went as high as inf* cap plus because I specifically recall an interaction in a global chat channel in which one player was complaining that there were zero of that recipe or IO, at any level between 10 and 30, on the market, and after several other people rushed to the market to see if he was full of shit, and verified that it was bone dry, another player offered a level 10 Steadfast Protection Res/Def in exchange for 2B inf* plus certain HOs. It was in late December, 2009 or early January, 2010. The reason I remember that interaction is that I was, at that point, grinding a CoT radio mission with my TA/Dark, trying to generate enough inf* to pay for 5/6 Armageddon recipes, and there's very little else to do during an activity like that other than read global chats. Reading the debate on the ethics of charging more than the inf* cap, the complaints over the lack of Steadfast Protection recipes/IOs on the player market at that time, the discussion about parking characters at specific levels in order to generate a constant stream of recipes at those levels and the questions and speculations about where it was best to try to farm specific recipes provided far more stimulation than pressing 1 and 2 sequentially for an hour. And yes, they made the trade. The purchaser thanked him profusely in the same global chat channel. I thought they were both insane, the trader for asking that much and the purchaser for paying, but they were both satisfied, so no skin off of my nose. The market on the original servers was all about monopolies, and he/she who controls the supply controls the price. Steadfast was one of those things which was most definitely controlled, at every level from 10 through 30, recipes and crafted IOs, by marketeers, some of whom weren't hesitant to clear out the entire market by placing a few hundred 2B bids in an attempt to gain control of a competitor's niche, or to drive the price up even higher, or to protect their segment. It was the most glorious shit show I've ever had the privilege to witness. Pure 80's greed, uncontrolled, unregulated. That's why I say it was inf* cap plus. Regardless of what the price might've been when the recipe/IO was available on the player market (which was definitely not "always", not even taking into account that every level of the recipe/IO was unique in availability and pricing), it was being traded outside the market for inf* cap plus and that reflects its true perceived value in the context of the state of the game at that point in time and how it related to players and their expectations. If someone paid 2 inf* for a Steadfast recipe/IO, we wouldn't (then or now) value that enhancement at 2 inf*, we'd value it at whatever the market peak was (presuming a continuous inflationary cycle rather than a depression or repression (atypical in a video game outside of mass player hemorrhaging)). If that confused some people, my apologies.

All of the arcs in Faultline: ShortFusionette. DirectFusionette. Triple EB fight that doesn't feel cheesy or punishingFusionette. I think that covers itFusionette. Collateral Damage: But only on the second run, as a flashback. It's rewarding in a way few other experiences in this game manage to be. The Graveyard Shift: A fresh approach that uses old toys in new ways. Challenge without bullet sponges. Twisted Reflections and Through the Looking Glass: It really is all about me. And me. Versus me. All three The New Praetorians arcs: The companions are more interesting than any others I've encountered. The missions are refreshingly different without being obtuse or irritating. The alterations to Brickstown after everything's complete are a nice touch. Praetoria's Last Gasp: Nice maps. Interesting foes. Scavenger hunt. Oh, and the planet's trying to eat you. All five Pandora's Box arcs: This feels like the comic book experience. The episodic presentation. The twists and turns. The cliff-hangers. The over-the-top ludicrousness that, somehow, makes sense and feels perfectly connected and in place within the context of the game world.

75,000,000-125,000,000 inf* per purple recipe on the original servers. Steadfast Protection Res/Def - over the inf* cap (cap is 2,000,000,000). PvP recipes also traded for over the cap (Gladiator's Armor Res/Def went up to 3,000,000,000 inf*). Luck of the Gambler Def/+Global Recharge was around 100,000,000 inf*. A complete mix/max build with all of the trimmings could run as much as 30,000,000,000, fifteen times the inf* cap. Today, you can kit out a level 50 with five purples sets, one or two ATO sets (if you don't upgrade them to the Superior versions, they don't infringe on the rule of five for 10% +Recharge bonuses), one or two Winter sets and all of the uniques and globals you can cram into slots for less than 500,000,000 inf* (smart shopping can cut that almost in half).

@Cobalt Arachne refers to pathing nodes as bacon. If insufficient bacon is present in any given area, NPCs and pets will leave said area in search of the nearest bacon.

I rationalize it as taking a circuitous route to the hostiles to gain a tactical advantage while reducing civilian interaction as much as possible. That's my standard approach in other games (SS2, Deus Ex series, Half-Life series, Fallout 3/4/NV, Mass Effect series, Left 4 Dead series, et cetera). In this one, how I'd normally do it - avoid the frontal assault in favor of taking a slightly longer way around to surprise the enemy - is compatible with the inherent design of office maps, so I'm not nonplussed by that design. Eh. It depends on how those shelves and cubicles are arranged. Look at Left 4 Dead/L4D2. You're essentially on rails, but even within the boundaries of the ridiculously constricted corridor through which The Director allows you to move, you still have two, three, sometimes four different routes you can take. You reach a convergence point, then it branches off again into more paths to the next convergence or the safe room. It's not what's in a space, it's how what's in a space is used. I don't disagree that neither Cryptic nor Paragon were particularly... inventive or creative in map design or layout. They stuck to their pencil and paper roots and it shows. Later maps have some more interesting features, like those little side offices with opening doors, but they're still lacking in actual value. They're pointless set dressing. In, for example, Deus Ex, those little side offices would have ventilation ducts in them, which we could climb into and use to go around a checkpoint if we couldn't hack it, or avoid combat to reach the MacGuffin. Or they'd have special interactables which we could use to progress in some way. They'd be relevant, in some way, and their existence would be justified by something. I think that's the biggest problem with our maps, they're either little more than spaces which exist for no purpose other than to have somewhere for the action to occur, or they're packed with set dressing which is neither interesting nor useful in aiding progress. So I wouldn't complain if maps were more like the maps in my other favorite games.

Righty-o, let's see here, this power's cycle time is <number>, and this one's is <number>, and this one... <number>. Ah, I can make a full attack chain out of these three attacks! *respec* *pew pew pew pause* What? *pew pew pew pause* Is that... a gap, in which nothing is recharged, in my attack chain? *pew pew pew pause* WHAT IN THE FUDGE POP FACTORY IS GOI-... oh. I factored for total cycle time of each power, rather than looking at the animation times in comparison to the recharge times. *sad-face re-respec* - Bonus round! After weeks of clearing, digging, pouring concrete, setting posts, pouring more concrete, I was finally at the point of actually building the floor of my cabin. Had the lumber laid out and started going at it with real enthusiasm. Got to the last board, a 16 footer, and for the life of me, I could not get it in without bowing out the exterior. Spent most of a day alternating between glaring at it, adjusting it and trying to figure out what was wrong, then gave up, nailed it in place and started putting down sheets of OSB. The next morning, as soon as I was awake, I knew what the problem was. I'd forgotten to account for the exterior boards' thickness. I should've taken 1.5" off of the 16 footer. No, I never corrected it. Yes, it still annoys me.

Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo, save me, Miss Francine!

|-|3110, I 4m 5n4rKy. Y u 57341 my n4m3, d00d? Wow. I think I just gave myself brain cancer.

+1 for the Miraluka option. +2 for Kelly Hu voice acting to go with it.

Irrelevant and deliberately obfuscating. You can slot a Stealth IO in Sprint, that doesn't make Sprint a travel power with a stealth component. You can slot a damage proc in Brawl, but I don't see any pitching a hissy over the fact that Brawl can't one-shot critters the way Energy Transfer can. You're deliberately adding variables to justify an unreasonable expectation as reasonable. Infiltration not stacking with a toggle Stealth power doesn't make it unusable, or inferior, and your argument doesn't carry additional weight when you add IOs to powers and point to the combined effect. You'd consider it ludicrous to argue that all powers in sets without -Def need a damage buff to compensate for lack of access to the Achilles' Heel -Res proc, wouldn't you? I would, yet you point to the Stealth IO and act as though that provides undeniable proof that powers "should" work in any specific way. I find it extremely difficult to take that as a serious complaint. I have no doubt that the HC team is no more convinced than I am. Are you deliberately portraying them as malicious, or are you misremembering what was said? They didn't make up an excuse, they didn't say it was too complex,, they never said anything about not knowing "how it should behave", they simply said the release was taking too long, they needed to move forward and they'd consider revisiting the issue later. "In a future update, we might look at doing something similar for stealth powers, but that's beyond the scope of this update". If you're dying of a terminal illness and this is the one thing you most want to see before you pass, then yes, I agree, they should make all haste and get this done (me, i'd want to see a whale shark up close, or have sex one more time, or pet a mountain lion, but whatever). If you aren't, then you can show a little patience, and respect for the people doing this, and use the key bind I posted earlier in the interim.

Second build of the beta? Third, maybe? I don't remember which. About three weeks after Page 2 went live.

You telling me that I lack objectivity when you're picking that goal post up and setting it back down in a baseball diamond in another time zone is hilarious. You're seriously comparing normal stealth suppression conditionals to Intangibility's "Fuck you, no player agency for you" rule. 'K.

Infiltration is 10% faster and has a lower endurance cost (0.46 Infiltration versus 0.57 Ninja Run).

It has Intangibility. That's not the same as having a stealth component, though Intangibility does, indeed, have a stealth component. And I don't mean that in the pedantic twat way (which i am), I mean it's functionally different. The 30s up/30s down limit on the Intangibility duration is, by itself, sufficient to disqualify it for comparison, since that would mean it only qualifies as a "travel power with a stealth component" sporadically. The 20' StealthRadius is also a flavor effect rather than an intentional use effect, given that being slightly more difficult to see but not as difficult to see as someone with a Stealth IO (30' StealthRadius) or Super Speed/Infiltration (35' StealthRadius) is of limited to no actual value when one is, you know, immune to all damage while Intangibility, and thus the stealth component, is active. It's just not applicable in this context.

/bind <key> "powexecname Infiltration$$powexecname <stealth power>"

Other than Super Speed and Infiltration, which travel powers include a stealth component? Answer: none. To say, then, that travel powers (plural) with a stealth component have created an expectation of non-exclusivity with Stealth/Hide/Energy Cloak/similar powers implies that multiple examples of these types of powers exist and that they all follow a pre-defined rule. This is clearly untrue. No pre-existing trend laid down any expectation that any travel power with a stealth component had to be stackable with Stealth, or Hide, or Energy Cloak, or what have you, because one power does not and cannot indicate a trend, a rule, or even a reasonable expectation of similarity. Infiltration is not Super Speed. Nor does it need to be. If anything, Super Speed should remain the only travel power with a stackable stealth component as incentive to take it. God knows, it's got shit else going for it (unless one enjoys face-fucking walls and being stuck on 1' terrain variations, in which case, Super Speed is probably orgasmic). Daft is expecting any two different powers to behave identically simply because they have some similarities.

Is this text or sex? I've lost track.