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You know... I think that's more succinctly true than anyone has realized. The people complaining the most aren't unhappy about making less, they're unhappy about the potential for prices to be less. They want inflation, because the higher prices climb, the more "elite" they envision themselves for being able to afford the most expensive IOs. They want IOs which cost more than the inf* cap, because having them will make them "important", construe an air of wisdom, knowledge and exceptional capability. For some reason, I find that very amusing.

In far too many games, you have an automatic attack, and interrupt that attack with keyed abilities, and all of those abilities use either a fixed cooldown rate, or a very limited cooldown reduction stat system. Co* uses a player-oriented combat model, eschewing the use of auto-attacks and placing complete control over keyed attacks in the players' hands. I've played a lot of games over the past four decades, but Co* is the only one I've ever played which gave me the power to create my own attack chain. That one thing restructured my approach to gaming in general and elevated my expectations of games to such a plateau that nothing else has even come close. Like System Shock 2 and Deus Ex, Co* treats the player like a thinking entity and works to enable that player as fully and effectively as possible. And that makes it one of the landmarks in gaming, in my opinion.

Who has time to test changes when there's doom-mongering to be done? Priorities!

Quoth the Jimmy, nevermore.

Summation - HC: "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. Or the one." Many: "Cool. Let's see how this goes." Few: "That's not how it works, and John Nash was an idiot!" One: "AAAAAAAAHHHHHHH *headsplode*"

I have to pee next to a tree (no indoor plumbing).

Any set. Load up with procs and recharge enhancements. Hit one of the proc monster threads to figure out how much enhanced recharge (not global recharge) for each proc to hit your sweet spot (25%, 33%, 50%, etc).

*waves banana* 🙂

*prepares Tetanus arrow* Bend over, buff incoming!

Congratulations on your species reassignment surgery, Bill. It takes a truly courageous person to accept himself as a Rikti monkey, and your willingness to take that leap to let your inner self shine should serve as an inspiration to everyone who... Oh. >.> <.< Um... happy farming?

Chips, dips, chains, whips, you know, your basic high school orgy type of thing.

You are the protagonist in Co*, not Statesman or Recluse. You. This is your story, not theirs, and anything that happens to them is incidental. They're plot devices, nothing more. There are millions of other plot devices waiting to be used.

I've always been slightly out of the loop in regard to news and current events, so it was only a couple of days ago that I learned how many people have died trying to capture "selfies". Death by train. Death by electrocution. Death by drowning. Falling from great heights, self-inflicted gunshot to the head, grenade (GRENADE!)... all in the hope of winning the popularity contest which social media accounts represent (in my opinion). I'd much rather be alive and unpopular than famous for winning a Darwin Award.

And became a walking fusion reactor! Now, he fights crime and teaches people that only justice (and the power of the atom) can prevail!

They're villains. Violation of laws, societal and natural, is what they do. It's in the job description. And the handbook.

Steel Canyon is the best place to play chicken with the ground.

That would depend on the voice actor. Clancy Brown? He'd own Recluse, figuratively and literally. Rainn Wilson? Recluse's shoe-shine boy.

Defenders are what I consider good generalists.

The inherents of brutes, stalkers and corruptors always felt underwhelming to me, and lacked a compelling differentiation from corresponding heroic archetypes. Dominators and VEATs lack coherence. They're trying to be all things to all people, and being none well. Masterminds were designed better, but they aren't sufficient to compensate for the sense of disappointment I always experienced when traveling around the Rogue Isles. The zones lack the immersive scale and thrill of places like Steel Canyon and Skyway City. Hero-side zones are grand, imposing, exciting to be in and move through. Villain-side zones are... arbitrary filler between mission doors.

Haikus... not my thing. I like nice, long sentences. And paragraphs... mmm...

I don't love you. I've been having an affair. With the water heater. We're leaving together. I'm filing for alimony. You can keep your floozie blow-up dolls. 🤪

Your entire premise is based on this piece misinformation, and it is patently and demonstrably untrue. Prior to merit rewards, on the original servers, a Trick Arrows defender or controller could generate 7.5-10 million inf* per hour running radio missions. Below x4/x8. Solo. Trick Arrows. This was how I financed all of my alts and paid for multiple multi-billion inf* builds. On the Homecoming servers, one can generate 2-4 times as much inf*, without counting merit rewards. A build using common level 25-30 IOs was less expensive than a build using SOs, and slightly more efficient, on the original servers. On the Homecoming servers, recipe, salvage and crafted IO prices are aren't even a tenth of what they were. Frankenslotting with select inexpensive set IOs is even cheaper and significantly more efficient. On those two points alone, your assertion is disprovable. Going further, you imply that, for some reason, anyone "needs" to generate an inf* income of multiple millions per hour. This is fallacious. Inf* requirements are dictated by each individual player's preferred pace and performance level. Someone who prefers casual radio missions has no inherent need for an "uber" build with multiple expensive IO sets and maximal bonuses, and is therefore generating inf* at a pace appropriate for him/her. In fact, not one player, in the history of this game, has ever "needed" inf* generation on the scale you think should be mandatory. There is a finite limit to spending, after all, and beyond that, accumulation of inf* is little more than a goal unto itself. Additionally, this game was, and still is, an MMO, with an ingrained necessity for player retention. One of the ways this is accomplished is through controlling progress by careful regulation of things like XP gain and inf* generation. This is not theory, this is science. We, humans, typically place very little value on that which is obtained with no effort or time. We lose interest in the shiny toy and leave to find another shiny toy. This behavior is detrimental in an MMO, resulting in a notable decline in player retention. Furthermore, your proposal would result in wildly spiralling inflation. People would be playing significantly less to acquire the inf* to achieve their goals, which would lead to fewer recipe and salvage drops. Prices on everything would climb rapidly when the existing supply of recipes and salvage diminishes and is not replenished at the previous rate. Even with merits, converters and the Homecoming team seeding salvage, the market would experience massive fluctuations and increases in prices across the board. In the end, your altered inf* accumulation rate would do no real good, because everyone would be right back where they were before. The only notable difference would be the additional zeroes on the prices. No-one "needs" 500,000,000 inf* per hour. No-one needs 30,000,000 per hour. In truth, no-one needs 1,000,000 per hour. All anyone needs is enough to pay for the enhancements they want, and the game already supplies that. People have to play for more than an hour to get it, but, in all honesty, if waiting more than an hour to kit out a character is such a hardship for anyone, they probably shouldn't be playing an MMO... or anything more complex than Checkers. Lastly, "income inequality" is inapplicable in this context. There is no glass ceiling here. There is no differentiation based on color or sexual preference. There is no limitation imposed on one player which does not exist in equal measure for every other player. Everyone has the option to play the market, or farm in AE missions, or run task forces back to back. Everyone can achieve equal inf* generation rates. There is no inequality in Co*, income or otherwise, that I have ever witnessed.

Surprisingly, none, despite my interest in several comic book heroes. My characters were always designed around a specific costume piece which sparked a new concept. Co* actually pulled me out of comic book hero obsessions and drove me to explore my creative side.

You think everything needs procs. You added procs to your washing machine and turned your super-suit into a fishnet body stocking. You dropped out of medical school when you discovered that proctology had nothing to do with procs. You even tried to "enhance" oatmeal with procs (those scars really don't look too bad, by the way). 😛

Emotional development isn't a product of puberty. It's a result of time, experience and intellectual capacity. The timeline of the game indicates that his confrontation with Blue Steel occurred in August of '02, and it's only a couple of years after that when players encounter the Clockwork King in his present form, so he is still, essentially, an adolescent or early adult at that point. Point being, he can grow up, meaning, learn to behave in an adult manner, given time. A lot of story potential there for a future task/strike force.