Luminara

We have an inspiration tray because we're civilized. We don't eat our inspirations out of a bowl in the ground, like animals. Use proper cutlery, too. And wipe your mouth. Savage.

I interpret that to mean dominators will receive a balance pass, or numerous dominator powers will be adjusted in some way, in a future update. Keep adding to the list of powers in need of attention.

That's a point that's often raised, but in my estimation, it's a perspective inapplicable to the broader game. In Paragon City, running story arcs, scanner missions, tips, most of the content does feel unbalanced. It's easy. And when it's not easy, we can opt out and find something to fight that is easy. Malta? Nah, dawg, ain't nobody got time for that. Queue up that Council mish. One of the complaints about the Rogue Isles is that the enemies are harder to defeat. Arachnos, Longbow, PPD, groups like these hit harder than, and don't fall over as easily as, something like Freakshow. Even with IOs, they can become overwhelming. And look at Praetoria. It's even less popular than the Rogue Isles. Yes, it has a number of limitations that hinder its appeal, but one of the big reasons is that the enemies aren't pushovers. Go running full-tilt into a +4/x8 spawn of Drudges, Awakened or Resistance and you may be having a very bad day, even with a fantastic build. We have to dial it down, watch our aggro, split spawns, play smarter. The game with IOs feels unbalanced against some enemy groups, but not against others... if we choose to fight them. The balance for IOs is in the game, it's just not utilized because it's not mandated. Most of us don't pursue it. We're comfortable in our blue zone. Hell, people fought the developers when they buffed the Council and CoT, because they were easy and fast. So I don't think we can say IOs broke game balance when we deliberately avoid the enemies which are capable of defeating us even when we're fully kitted out with IOs.

Why is dealing damage a prerequisite for advancement in a... combat-oriented game... Hm... Shit, I got nothin'. It's a complete mystery.

This thread isn't what I expect from something titled "bad hos".

5th Column moon base being shielded by an overcompensating Ill/FF controller. At least it wasn't a giant scrotum hanging off of the hitch. Points for originality.

That would require 3 moderators working 8 hour shifts, of 4 working 6 hour shifts, or 6 working 4 hour shifts, et cetera, unpaid, to monitor the forum, communicate with the developers and respond in a timely manner. Or locking every post as soon as it's made, followed by a review by a moderator when available, discussed with a developer, and either re-opened or permanently removed. Which would be... fascism.

How we use IOs now was always the intended goal. Both Cryptic and Paragon were convinced that the key to the game's longevity was lateral progression, allowing players to continue to develop their characters without level cap increases and content churn. Seeing as we're here, now, playing the game and still talking about it after 20+ years, they were clearly on to something. The enormous difficulty of acquiring IOs back then, though, seriously hindered their plans. Hyperinflation skewed prices within days of IOs and the player market being added to the game, and they were positively sluggish in their response. They spent the remainder of the game's live run adding things or making adjustments, then spending long periods just... waiting, hoping the problem would fix itself. It never did, until HC picked up the gauntlet and made some major changes. So did HC's changes "break the game"? No, not really. Easier access to converters/catalysts, bucketing in the market, these things definitely made IOs significantly more accessible, but all they really did was remove the hyperinflation barrier that kept most players from using them. And they were right to do so, because as I said, this was always the plan. We weren't supposed to be at the mercy of flippers who kept driving prices upward on cornered IOs and recipes. Character growth wasn't supposed to be restricted to the wealthiest or luckiest. Unchecked inflation wasn't supposed to be a control on IO accessibility. If anything has broken the game, it's time. We're all older now, we've had decades to play, plan out builds, refine strategies, perfect our characters. We know so much more than we did back then. We've been through every mission more times than we can count, and can do some of them in our sleep. We've learned to use IOs effectively. They didn't change, and they didn't break the game, we changed and we mastered the game.

You mean the burden of comprehension is on the speaker, not the listener. And I agree with that. But this isn't about having an extended, in-depth conversation in which two parties are attempting to express complex concepts. That's not the purpose of emoji, nor the intent behind their use, and decrying that use because they fail to fulfill a markedly narrow constraint of communication is disingenuous. And this isn't pedantry, it's placing things in context. Some people just don't want to talk. Some people don't have time to debate. Some people feel that emoji are sufficient for their communication requirements. Some people don't feel that they can communicate any other way. Whether or not the listener comprehends what the speaker is saying is irrelevant in this context, because the right to speak is more important. Everyone has that right, even if it's only through emoji reactions. Their voice, their choice.

Signaling is a form of communication. So... communicating.

Single-click works for marketing enhancements. UI is just slow to update because it's interfacing with the market database.

Making things up, lying when asked to provide verifiable data, deliberately skewing facts, manipulative bullshit playing on peoples' emotions to push an agenda for the sole purpose of the poster in question's personal satisfaction. And attempts to control who can speak or how they're allowed to speak. Why do those things bother me? Why wouldn't they?

In context, that sentence was a reference to the fact that farming and power-leveling is condoned on HC, which means that, in conjunction with modern gaming expectations of "the game" being what happens after hitting max level, there is no assurance that the player would garner the requisite experience in basic interaction with enhancements when using "sage mode", even if the gate were having one or more level 50 characters. In the context of that post as part of an overall discussion, I expected that you would comprehend the issues that I presented, without them needing to be explained, as you've stated before that you power-level all of your characters to 50, which indicates that you're well aware that farming and power-leveling are normal activities on HC and could have an impact on player experience. In your own words: In the context of that thread, your post was a sarcastic retort about helping new players by power-leveling them, then sending them out into the game without the proper experiences or resources. This establishes that you were, in fact, aware of the potential problems with your idea, and the accusation of patronizing behavior and expression of incredulity were feigned. Now, do you want to discuss the objective assessment that I posted? If not, I have funny cat pictures to look at.

I said that the game was designed to follow a format that requires players to learn how enhancements are used in order to progress effectively, and bypassing that format would leave players without that basic educational tool, not that players need to prove anything. In fact, I stated that there's nothing in the game that requires that players prove knowledge in order to progress specifically in response to the suggestion that the option be gated and only to explain why gating it wouldn't work. And you yanked that out of context and tried to misrepresent it. Whatevs.

I was so caught up in watching the footage from Blue Ghost (i've been so focused on Artemis 3 that i didn't even know about Blue Ghost until yesterday) that I wasn't aware that there was an eclipse. Not that it mattered, since the weather turned last night. Oh, well. Back to counting the minutes until Artemis 3.

Were this something the development team had any interest in adding to the game, it definitely wouldn't start below level 20. The game is scaled in the 1-19 range to give player characters the advantage. For example, a single use of an unenhanced T2 attack at level 2 is sufficient for several archetypes to defeat a +0 minion. As the character levels up, the player has to either enhance that T2 attack, or use another attack in conjunction with it, to defeat a +0 minion. Eventually, even fully enhanced to the ED cap, that T2 attack only deals a small percentage of a +0 minion's HP. Permitting players to take multiple stronger attacks in lieu of the standardized allotment wouldn't just be deleterious to the balance of the 1-19 game, it would also create a problem for inexperienced players by directly contradicting how and what the game currently teaches about slotting enhancements. The early game is designed, and makes an effort, to gradually ease players into the process of building characters by offering slightly stronger powers at certain levels and enhancement slots at other levels, and requiring them to learn to enhance powers. This would sidestep that, giving them nigh unlimited power from the outset, which would make the first 20 levels really boring, and then everything really, really hard, for someone who doesn't understand the systems and mechanics that they need to know later in the game. And there really isn't a way to gate this so inexperienced players wouldn't fall into the trap of failing to learn how to use enhancements properly, unless the gate is so exclusionary and arbitrary that it's impossible to pass through until they're veterans. We don't have DPS check fights, short of GMs and AVs, nor can they exist in Co* due to the extremely wide range of build variations, so nothing in the game can be used to make players prove that they know how to slot and use enhancements effectively. Putting an actual time gate, like XXX days, on the unlock would generate complaints, so that wouldn't be on the table. That only leaves things like badge collecting, or simply having X number of level 50 characters, neither of which is actually indicative of a player's grasp of enhancements and slotting. I just don't see this as something HC would use. It works against the ongoing efforts to bring in and retain new players.

Just eat your SG-mates like a normal person.

Back in the day, when the game was being maintained by a full development studio with a comparatively large staff who were full-time employees, Cryptic and Paragon didn't typically address player requests in this amount of time. But, hey, maybe if you crack the whip a few more times, the HC team will conform to unreasonable performance expectations.