Luminara

I've been watching this trend develop, the accusations of conspiracy, the speculation that game changes are explicitly intended to force people out, that bug fixes are done exclusively for the purpose of ruining a few peoples' approach to playing, the unerring belief by the people making these statements that they are so incredibly important that everything just has to be targeted at them, that the only reason X change was made was to hurt them. Not for any other reason, but as an attack on them, personally, to drive them away. It makes absolutely no sense to anyone who spends a femtosecond pondering what's being said. Why would the developers spend three years making small changes to force anyone out when they could just make one change to nuke an activity or play style? Why would they have permitted those activities and play styles at all if they only intended to erode and destroy them over the course of years? How is it even possible to believe they're that sadistic and that good at planning out something that would take years to achieve, that they would do all of this in their free time, sacrifice their other hobbies and time with their families, just to rain on a few peoples' parades? Why would the closed beta be considered a huge secret, the foundation of a massive conspiracy to conduct development behind players backs, when the information on how to access it has been available since day 1, or anyone who wanted in could have just sent a PM to a developer? Why would anyone think that the people in the closed beta are rigging the vote, so to speak, to get these servers tuned to their preferences when they already have a server set up for their clique and don't want to play here? The HC team does something that benefits the majority of players, some of the few who aren't benefitted dump toxic shit on their lawns. The developers make a change which wouldn't even be known or noticed unless it's in the patch notes, self-proclaimed experts insult their intelligence and question their motives. The developers add something, some people who wanted something else go ape-shit. The moderators step in to pull a thread back on track or quell an argument and they're reviled, accused of supporting a hidden agenda, made scapegoats of those wild conspiracy theories. And anyone who tries to reason with these people is treated similarly. That's where the division in the community is coming from, the people who post as though they're certain that the members of the Homecoming staff and development team are "out to get them". "You only did this to kill farming!" "You deliberately made it impossible for me to get this MacGuffin!" "You want to stop me from playing my favorite content!" "You realigned the delta quadrifibrilator to synchronize with the lambda sequencer just to ruin my favorite power!" It's nonsense. Irrational nonsense coming from people who believe they deserve special dispensation. That they should be granted exemptions from changes to the game, and if they can't get that, the game should never change. That the game should never change at all, except the parts they want to be changed. That this game should be run, that development should proceed, that everything done should be in accord with their desires. That is what's causing problems within the community. That overwhelming attitude of entitlement. The freak-outs when a change to the game as a whole is regarded as a specifically targeted change to torment or ostracize them. The complete lack of compassion from the people who rail at the developers and moderators over shit in a video game, as though they weren't human beings, and then disappear without so much as a faintly muttered apology for over-reacting, until the next patch, when they come storming out to start lambasting everyone again, in an endless cycle of arrogance and abuse. That is not behavior appropriate of members of a community. Members of a community have to care about more than their own self-interest. To place others on the same footing they place themselves. To be willing to promote the well-being and happiness of all and take satisfaction in being part of something greater than themselves, even if their own gratification is delayed. People who lash out when they aren't given priority, who attack others when they don't get exactly what they want, who refuse to acknowledge that the developers and moderators can't satisfy everyone all the time and are doing their best, who take every fucking thing that the HC team does as a personal affront, those aren't members of a community, they're bad neighbors. I don't need to do any soul-searching. My conscience is clean. I'm not the one behaving like a spoiled adolescent, and I have no qualms about emphasizing the absurdity of that behavior. And it was hilarious.

Thanks. I copied it myself.

This, again?

Shield on a tank and scrapper, /Energy Aura scrapper, /Willpower brute/scrapper/sentinel, /Stone brute without Granite have all been solid for me against all of the EBs. I build heavy on Defense against Negative and Cold, though (hate ToHit debuffs and Slows), and these EBs appear to be skewed toward those attack types.

That's exactly what I just Tabbed out of the game to report. Guy was at a door near the one I clicked (gave him several doors' space to avoid potential conflict), fighting an Arisen Dickhead and Crone Matriarch, and when I clicked the door in front of me, another Arisen popped out right on top of the guy who was fighting the other two EBs. "My" Arisen aggroed on him like ticks on a hunting dog, it didn't come to me. Yes, I ran right over and helped deal with it. On a sentinel, though, I couldn't pull the aggro off of him, so he ended up tanking it, but I wasn't idle, I did my part. So, all of that now "solved", considering that we're now capable of spawning EBs right on top of other players, perhaps fixing that would be in order. I got lucky, the guy nearby was a melee character (Dual Blades, saw combo text going off), but the next one might be an unprepared controller, mastermind, et cetera. I can also see this being used as a griefing tool by less savory individuals, and when you're staring at a door or in the middle of a fight, you're not going to be looking around to catch names to be reported.

After much door clicking over the last few days, I can say with a high degree of confidence that the EBs don't like us, either.

None of these new critters seem to pose much threat to melee characters. Even my Ice/Willpower sentinel and Dark/Martial dominator don't have problems with them (because they're melee characters (yes, they are (i said yes, they are))). The most trouble I've had was running out of patience with the Ancient Dickhead who spawned a second Dark Ass-hat when a fight went on too long, the mummies having Irritate Player and seeming to be the most common spawn, and the particle count on the Hollow Reaper (particle slider at minimum, /priorityboost 1 and i'm still dropping to single-digit framerates when they lean in). If that had happened on one of my TA/* or */TA characters, though, I would've been pasted before I finished animating Flash Arrow. Would be a nice code variable to add for next year... IfMelee=Yes, SpawnMOAR.

Solo, Peregrine Island. I clicked on a door and... a Spectral Werewolf came up from behind me, followed by an Arisen Mummy, while a Crone Matriarch hung out in the street. As soon as I defeated the sneak attacking Spectral Werewolf, another Spectral Werewolf spawned and attacked. These weren't someone else's spawn. According to the spawn rules recently posted, ToT spawns aggro on the door clicker, and all four of these ass-hats came after me. They weren't following someone else and came close enough for Entropic Aura to Taunt them, they appeared on the street 50' away (Entropic Aura's radius is 8') and came running over to me. Not running after someone, they spawned in the street (i heard the Crone Matriarch's Hurricane activate behind me, which was why i turned around and saw the EB party starting) and ran straight to me. And there was no-one else running this ToT route, at least no-one I could see or hear (i pay attention to my surroundings when doing things in zones, i don't want to disrupt someone else's routine). Even if there had been, again, aggro rules for ToT spawns would've made it very unusual for those EBs to attack me instead of the door clicker... and even if the clicker somehow escaped the EBs and left them just within visual range of my character, there wouldn't have been that many EBs. One would be a possibility. Two, a stretch, but perhaps two "lucky" clicks in a row could do it. Three, all of which the clicker managed to evade and deposit behind me? That stretches credulity to the breaking point. AND all of the EBs stuck around long enough for me to defeat them (except the Crone Matriarch, because i forgot she was there, jumped onto the top of the building and Tabbed out of the game to write this. when i realized she'd followed me and was attacking, i Tabbed back and returned the favor, but she die-despawned before i finished her off). So clearly, all of these were my spawn, from that one door. They had to be, or at least two of them would've despawned before I got around to dealing with them (remember that the second Spectral Werewolf didn't even appear until i defeated the first one, and the Crone Matriarch just hung out, hovering above the street, doing nothing while i fought the Werewolves and Mummy). Something's fucky.

That's not how the exemplar mechanic works. It applies a reduction to total values. If you exemplar a level 50 character down to 10, a level 50 Accuracy SO (you couldn't slot a level 10 SO in an attempt to bypass the exemplar mechanic, the game doesn't allow it) will be worth 8.2%, not 33.3%. Slotting a level 10 Accuracy IO under the same conditions does not grant the nominal 11.7% Accuracy, it grants 2.9%. Same thing happens with attuned IOs, set IOs, ATOs, everything. Replacing that level 10 Accuracy IO with a level 50 Accuracy IO results in a 10.3% increase in Accuracy. The mechanic was specifically designed to function in this manner to compensate for the increased number of slots available to higher level characters. The enhancements have a lower individual value than a native-level character's enhancements, but the character has a larger pool of slots with enhancements slotted, creating a degree of parity between the higher and lower level characters. All slotted enhancements are subject to the exemplar reduction, and attempting to bypass the reduction by slotting lower level enhancements just makes the exemplared character worse than the slot-starved native level character. You're shooting yourself in the foot if you do this. Don't do it.

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I hate fighting the mummy, so if one spawns after I've received the badge, I've started running away, but I found that just hopping up to the top of a nearby building was a better solution. Arisen Homeboy can't jump. Probably works on the vampire, too.

That adage is applied when speaking about a person, a reminder that it's discourteous to bad-mouth someone behind his/her back. It does not mean, "Agree with me or keep your mouth shut".

Stifling the freedom to speak isn't a solution. Taking away peoples' liberties isn't an answer. Excising the right to converse, discuss, debate, and even argue vehemently won't fix any problems. All this would do is foment unrest and incite rebellion. Open up any history book and see how well this tactic worked for institutions which attempted to use it. It would also make more work for the developers, because instead of having the mods keep a hand on threads, the developers would have to dig through every post to locate specific feedback amongst the edited-in arguments. Right now, they can rely on the mods to keep threads loosely on topic, log in with a secondary account and see the results and relevant feedback very quickly and easily. With this approach, it would be like flipping through the unabridged version of The Stand to locate specific passages, without having read it before.

I have copies saved on the laptop, tablet and phone, just in case! ... However, lacking adequate access to small children, I've been forced to use cats to appraise our plans. We're working on a ball of string plot at the moment, one which they've assured me will permit total domination on a global scale.

That's why we put the mango grove there. Ask the people who asked too many questions... oh, wait.

I'll start a conference call with the Organization of Really Evil Organizations and let you know what we decide. Until then, carry on, lieutenant.

Goddamn it, we're going to have to move Antarctica again.

"Sci-fi". Exactly. No-one knows it was a documentary, thanks to us. Continue the good work!

That's a different organization. Evil Organization is the one that put the "EEE! AYIE! EEE! AYIE! OOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHH!" in Old MacDonald.

We're going to stream it on Twatch.

/cleartray

Worry not, my fellow conspirators, I've taken steps to ensure that they cannot read this. We may speak freely. Now, down to business. As you will all recall, some years ago, a concern about undesirable elements was raised, that they might disrupt our plans for a New World Order. After prolonged discussion, we agreed that the best approach would be to welcome them, embrace them like brothers and sisters, and make them feel comfortable in our regime... only to lower their guards so we could implement a years-long insidious plot to drive them away. It would require patience, perseverance, cunning and deception the likes of which many cannot imagine possible, but nothing which was not within our capabilities. From the outset, we would adopt and maintain identities as "the HC team", each of us posing as different members of a fictional development organization, so none of what we were doing could be traced back to us. Under the guise of "the HC team", we would garner "donations", which we would pocket (faith, comrades, in another century or two, we'll all be millionaires). We would implement minute adjustments and alterations to the game, specifically targeted at them, designed to frustrate and anger them, to make their experience in the game, their approaches to playing, so infuriating that they would leave. My loyal friends, I am pleased to report that the plan about which I just diabolically monologued is working. They are displeased. In another decade or three, they will all become so irritated that they will abandon the game, spending the rest of their lives wishing they had never picked it up again. However, some have asked why we did not simply refuse their petitions to join us. Why we did not take the expedient route of shutting off all XP and inf* in Architect content and implement timers to everything which could be farmed. Why we could not just as easily make badges unobtainable. Why we bothered to create a thriving and stable economy when we could have turned it into a hyper-inflated mess right away. Why we improve powers and sets when we should be nerfing. Why, essentially, we did not make them unwelcome in the first place, ban them, destroy what they loved and deny them the happiness they sought, rather than bother with a plan which would take decades to reach culmination and take up so much of our infinitely valuable free time. Well, the people who asked those questions are buried in our mango grove in Antarctica, because they were stupid questions. We are an Evil Organization, we use obscenely intricate plans with numerous failure points to create schemes which otherwise would only exist in fiction. This is how we do things. Remember that, or you, too, will disappear to become mango mulch. It has, however, come to my attention that some of them have begun to see through our clever plot and question the validity of our fictional personas, their motives and, surprisingly, even suspect that there might be a secret organization behind all of their misery. Go out, then, and sow discord amongst them. Keep them rattled by comforting and reassuring them, even as you scheme and plot behind their backs. Shake the very foundations of their belief in reality, so they may never know our true sinister purpose. Stay the course. And if anyone blabs, I'll eat your babies. As ever, Your Evil Overlord

You omitted a critical detail, that the feedback thread was inundated by people saying "Y U NO MAKE FF MY WAY DEVS?!?!?!", which was the reason the thread was reined in, and PK's posts were purged because they were part of that derailment. It had nothing to do with him, personally, he wasn't targeted, and it wasn't disrespectful, it was enforcement of the rules. Rules apply to everyone, big name or first-time poster. No favoritism or bias, not even for those of us who have been around "forever".