rolandgrey

You're going to have to do some more explaining on that first part, because there wasn't much you had to do to pay for things in the Paragon days. You could run AE farms, you could run TFs, you could get lucky on the market, you could just play the game, run missions and complete arcs, and you could pool resources across your characters. What is playing the game in "odd ways" about any of that? The rest of your post is just further reinforces my point. We can get Incarnate abilities easily here, shards need not apply. Established characters can share Empyrean Merits with newly minted 50s and those don't convert to Shard salvage. If the Incarnate Shards have no value here, then why keep them around? If people like having them, then why not find something for them to do?

We had people grinding out missions in AE relentlessly since the private servers opened up. We've got people who speedrun through the content so they can stockpile the rewards they get at the end. There are countless ways that people are already upsetting the market, I don't see how fixing this would be so utterly devastating. Take, for instance, the Prismatic Shard salvage. The market price for those went down throughout October, but it hasn't even been a week since the end of the Halloween Event ended and their market price is already steadily climbing. PVP enhancement recipes remain practically gold compared to any other IO recipe, and Rare salvage remains a consistent couple hundred thousand a pop, even with a seeded market. Then there was what happened in the old Paragon days, when they decided to drop the Base Salvage and allow players to convert it all to Invention Salvage. I don't recall that having a devastating effect on the economy, either. I don't think the data bears out your concern.

Cool. Cool. Except we don't HAVE paid subscriptions here. We CAN'T have paid subscriptions here. I don't know why you're arguing old paradigms. If I'm being charitable, I would say you're just explaining why things are the way they are. However, none of that logic applies to today, and doesn't serve as a defense for the shard salvage. We have plenty of changes implemented by the HC crew that I'm perfectly happy with, but I don't understand why this vestigial thing is allowed to persist.

So explain the exchange rate, how shard materials convert to less than their value in threads in that equation. Or that thread Incarnate Salvage never converts back to shard Incarnate Salvage, or that shard Incarnate Salvage is never used in any of the other Incarnate Slots. Suddenly, the value of the shard salvage is dropping as a result of its lack of utility and the mechanics deliberately reducing their value. So, no, Shards are NOT roughly equivalent to five threads. A Notice of the Well should be as valuable as a Rare thread item, but can only be exchanged for a value of threads equivalent to TWO common thread items. A Favor of the Well, Very Rare thread salvage equivalence, converts to the thread count of a Rare tier item, but you don't get any of the rare tier items. At every turn, the game treats shards as being less than their thread equivalents. It's an unnecessary mechanic that isn't really contributing to the game.

See, this guy gets it. Either do something with them, or just get rid of them. As it stands, it's just a notification of disappointment as something clutters up our inventory and has a very limited scope of use. "Well, you can just convert them..." For an abysmal rate of 2-for-1, or a once-a-day expense of 1M inf for a single 1-to-1 conversion... And then we're just right back to the Threads, which I already have plenty of and they drop much faster than the shards do. Oh, and then there's the Notice of the Well conversion to Incarnate Threads, which takes a Rare-tier item and converts it down to the equivalent of two Common Incarnate Salvage worth of Threads. Cute. And don't get me started on the Favor of the Well's conversion. It's almost as if Paragon was punishing players for playing the new endgame content until they had new endgame content and never got around to rebalancing the system after the initial "Well, we don't want the Trial farmers to have an early advantage..." phase (not that it helped much, as it wasn't even a week before the very players they were concerned about had the new slots unlocked and stocked full of Tier 4 Incarnate powers). "You can convert it into a Transcendent Merit..." Gonna stop you there, chief. That's Empyrian Merits. I'm already emailing those to my other characters so my various 50s are already helping each other on that front. Shards don't convert to Transcendent Merits. Do something with them or get rid of them.

Yeah, I know we can build Alpha Incarnate powers with them. And that's it. They're otherwise paperweights for our characters and they're piling up.

I'd like to see more functional NPCs (like trainers and stores) that reflect other groups, like military, police, or scientists.

Welcome home, pal. Some things have been moved around, but it still feels right.

So, I've been playing through the Praetorian arcs recently and I've been finding that Praetoria just ends WAY too soon. I suppose it's fine that you get tapped to leave Praetoria at level 20, but the amount of stuff that you can do IN Praetoria could easily be extended another 5 levels. The arcs are so experience dense, that it's easy to miss out on content even if you stick with just one chosen path. I don't know if this is something that's actually possible, but it still bothers me when I have to turn off my experience gain just to do an arc I enjoy because if I don't, I'll be leveled out of it and miss out on that story.

Except I don't want a whole new set. I'm fine just using assets already available. I'd be happy if the HC devs decided to make a new set, but folks around here get all toxic whenever someone tries to suggest they make something new.

Okay, my bad. I didn't realize that costume SUGGESTIONS would be in Art and Multimedia. Kind of a weird place for it, but okay. As for why the pickaxes... Because it's just as unrealistic as most of the rest of the weapons used in the set. Because the moves used in the powerset are just as ridiculous as the weapons. Because it's an art asset that's already in the game. Because I want to make a character using twin pickaxes instead of twin axes. And in any case, the set has hook swords, which are also impaling weapons. The set has elemental blades, but we don't have any elemental effects for Dual Blades.

Just a costume suggestion. I built a Dual Blades character with the thought that we could use pickaxes in it, forgetting I'd only seen that on Scrapyarders. So, I'm making do with axes at the moment, because I was just tickled by the character idea anyway. I would have suggested this earlier, but got a little weirded out there wasn't a dedicated costume pieces thread.

Are you under the impression that wielding a broadsword is little more than picking up a sharp metal stick and swinging wildly? I'm having trouble taking your "constructive criticism" as such. True, though it would be a tad difficult to explain a power called "Hack" using a stabbing motion. Head Splitter, maybe.

With over 100 characters, I'm fairly familiar with how powersets work. Why don't I just pick "that powerset?" Because there is no "Shotgun" powerset. There's no "Sniper" powerset. There's no "Bullets Only" AR powerset. What we have is the Frankengun, the "try to please everybody" set, and if you ignore the powers that don't fit your "theme" you're selecting powers that are just taking up space like some kind of feat tax and you're unable to meet the action economy needs of the higher levels. Also, there's no powerset that has the cryo bullets of the Marksmen of the Council or Sky Raiders. Besides, this isn't about the "secondary" effects. This is about having a power selection to match your theme. Imagine having an alternative to Fire Blast's Flares that isn't burst fire pyrotechnics. Or go the opposite route, and have Fire Blast powers that are ALL burst fire pyrotechnics. Or go even further and have Fire Blast powers that are fireworks displays. Can we have Ice powers that aren't just throwing chunks of ice at the enemy? Can we have Broadsword attacks that aren't just wild swinging? Can we do all of this without forcing people to remake characters for new powersets? Well, that's a bit less than heartening. I'm not too happy to not know the "why," but knowing it's been attempted and caused issues that left the Homecoming Devs unnerved does dampen my passion for this idea.

Sometimes I see a power in one archetype that isn't in another. Sometimes, I see a power that should fit in another set, but for whatever reason isn't there. The main culprit off the top of my head is Assault Rifle. Enemies get all sorts of rifle rounds and rifle attacks, but players have to rely on the attacks of the initial Frankengun, that weird cobbled-together with duct-tape and bolts that no sane marksman would wield. So, to make a weapon that can accomodate everything and function as the "Mad Scientist's Weapon," the initial developers made the AR powerset just... Bizarre. Who the Hell mounts a flamethrower on their machinegun!? I'm not saying you should take away flamethrower, though. I think it should stay. For a superhero game, it fits the niche nicely. No, what I'm saying is that we should have MORE options. I think powersets could stand to be expanded. To use my assault rifle example, we can have more powers added to match a certain flair. Currently, if you want to play a sniper, you have to sorely limit your power choices. Burst, Slug, Bean Bag, Sniper Rifle, then you cram your build with everything else you can think of (though I also tend to take on Full Auto because I'm not completely insane; I just figure the weapon is like the Bozar from Fallout 2 or New Vegas). But imagine how much better it would be if we could get some of those cryo or pyro rounds the Marksmen enemies use. These options wouldn't be without drawbacks, however. In this instance, we wind up using the Arachnos Soldier rules, where a Crab Spider can't take Venom Grenade twice. Heavy Burst or Pyro Rounds would prevent a player from getting Buckshot, Flashbang or Rocket would prevent M30 Grenade, Cryo Rounds or Glue Grenade would prevent Beanbag, Flechettes (mechanically, an up-powered Buckshot), Suppressed Assault (the SCAR Heavy Burst used by Spec Ops Mercenaries) or Suppressed Snipe (again, the SCAR Snipe used by Spec Ops Mercenaries) would prevent Flamethrower. Essentially, you add power options to a tier, but they would lock out the other options within the same tier when selected. As a result, you can build toward a specific theme. For instance, if you're using a Shotgun character, then you would take powers like Slug, Buckshot, Beanbag, Flechette, Dragon's Breath and, to replace Full Auto, Auto Assault (a riff on the AA-12, though maybe I would make a better mental image by calling it "Hail Caesar").

Just thought of another place that needs something like this... Brickstown. Since we started teleporting to the Base Portal, Brickstown no longer has that second location that is closer to the mission doors and contacts in southern Bricks.

I'm sure some folks might want to see this sort of thing elsewhere, but it's Independence Port that REALLY needs something like this. Independence Port is deceptive. It is a lot larger than it looks at first glance and it can be irritating flying, running/swimming, jumping, or teleporting from East to West in there. And it's ALWAYS East to West. Typically, by the time you've leveled up to be in Independence Port, you've snagged yourself an Ouro Portal, so the next time you finish a mission or meet one of the couple contacts in IP's West Side, you just Ouro the Hell out of there. It's not very fun to traverse IP is what I'm saying. There are a couple ways this could be mitigated. One: A third tram station, this one in Independence Port's west side. Just right smack dab in the mid-point of that region. It's still a bit rough hoofing it north or south, but not as bad as hoofing it from the east side. Two: Transporters. We've got Praetorians and all of their snazzy technology running around now, we can install some hero-use transporters next to the tram station that can zip us across the zone to certain points (NW IP, SW IP, TV Entrance) like the in-base transporter points.

*drool*

Yay! Now I have to figure out how to livestream! 😛

I don't know if this has been an ongoing issue, but here is what I've been seeing: Whenever I change the Assault Rifle on my Dual Pistols Blaster, one of the Pistols disappears. When I put the Pistol back on the costume, the Assault Rifle disappears. This continues into gameplay, causing my character to be firing LRM Rockets without a rifle. The character is Dual Pistols/Martial Combat. He also used to operate with Arachnos Mace Mastery. After a respec, the Arachnos Mace remains as part of the costume editor's weapon options and it does not disappear like the Assault Rifle and Pistol do.

The only thing I can suggest at this time is that there should be more Shooting Stars when you do the prison break mission on the new arc. I understand that at this point Flambeaux has gone ditzy-doodle and is pretty much horsing around on her solo career as a morality yo-yo. Then, of course, Proton had his mental breakdown at the end of the Shooting Stars arc, so, their absences are understandable. However, Twinshot could (nay, SHOULD) have been recruiting in the meantime. One character that comes to mind is the low-level martial artist No Mind, who shows up in the third Shooting Stars arc. You could have tossed in Frostfire or somebody from the Mayhem missions. The main thrust is that the fight should be more challenging for a larger sized team... Or for a team that does something crazy like I did, and duoed the arc on x8 (initially, it was just to spawn more Paragon Protectors, but then I forgot to turn it down two-thirds through the next mission and since my buddy and I were doing fine, we just ran through the rest like that).

Corruptors would probably normally be considered a superfluous archetype except for one problem: they demonstrate how a simple transposition of power sets can fundamentally change the experience. Even without the Scourge ability, their damage output is still rather decent. Coupled with the ability to provide some very decent buffs to the team or debilitate the enemy (or, for a few sets, both), Corruptors wind up being the workhorse archetype, or perhaps the "Jack of All Stats" archetype. Sure, Defenders have them beat on buff and debuff strength, but then the Defenders fall WAY short in the damage output department. Blasters may beat them on damage output, but they are pretty much just walking artillery anyway. The melee archetypes are their own issue entirely. Corruptor buff/debuff ability isn't really that different from Controllers and Masterminds. Really, about the only bad thing about Corruptors is the the name. "Scourge" would probably fit them better. In any case, I've tried my hand at a number of different Corruptors. A couple Assault Rifle ones (AR/Traps, AR/Poison), I remade my archery Defender as a Corruptor, I'm toying with a Water/Ice one and then there's my Beam Rifle/Time one. About the only one I haven't rebuilt from the Paragon days is my old Dark/Dark Corrupter, and that's more because of storyline reasons that occurred during the interim (meaning he's dead in my mind). It's fun.

Favorite storyline? Mysterious General Z. It opens with a fantastic rescue mission where the people you rescue are all heavily armed. I miss the version from before the RWZ, where General Aarons still had an assault rifle. If you rescued all of the hostages, you wound up as a proto mercenaries mastermind. Fun times. Now, Aarons just has his pistol. Also, Ambassador Alwani's guard has been turned into a "Diplomat," a heavily armed "Diplomat." I think this was the Paragon devs subtly hinting the guy was actually with the Malta Group, but the Sky Raider attack was so far out of their plans, they decided to let it slide and work with the rescuing hero(es). It would explain why Alwani and the nameless diplomat vanish from the rest of the arc. Sadly, the rest is built with old technology and features a bunch of fetch quests and Defeat Alls, but the writing is superb, introducing a world of political intrigue to the playerbase and showing the Sky Raiders are more than just lackeys to the Nemesis Army like the lore hints. Least favorite? Henri Dumont's Disturbing the Dead. First, you need to unlock the contact, which takes beating up a bunch of the miners. Then he sends you on a boring series of standard fetch quests and a hunt mission before sending you into a generic cave to deploy a magic bomb... Which does nothing but finish the mission. No special enemies, no unusual mechanics. Just a bunch of enemies who otherwise act the way they would in any other mission. The dialogue is perfunctory and uninspired, the assets are all generic for when City of Villains was released... It's so bland compared to Doc Buzzsaw, another unlockable contact who pits you against weird and strange Freakshow enemies with hilarious dialogue (both from her and the Freakshow).

The game was designed for SOs and never adjusted after the introduction of IOs and IO Sets. If you're able to play well with SOs, you're only going to be able to play better with IO Sets. There is no need to farm ALL THE MONEY to cram every single Purple IO onto all of your characters.

The Arachnos Soldier was what I was expecting when I thought of "Epic" Archetype. The Kheldian was an extremely thematic, story-linked archetype. It was made to be balanced with the game, and in doing that, the original devs overcorrected and made a pair of cumbersome archetypes that take a LONG time to even BEGIN to feel powerful. Not so with the Arachnos Soldier. Wolf Spider or Blood Widow, then Bane, Crab, Night or Fortunata, it doesn't matter. You feel like you can kick butt right off the bat. To begin with, it has what the Kheldians lack: MEZ PROTECTION. These are clearly frontline ATs, what with their combination of medium range blasts, a generous helping of melee attacks and a nice combination of defensive and resistant powers, it only makes sense that archetypes meant to be in the thick of battle have Mez Protection. After that, the Arachnos Soldiers have excellent base team synergy, with a smattering of archetype-based Leadership powers that they can then link up with the standard Leadership Pool. This creates a stacked Leadership effect that only becomes MORE pronounced as other players bring in their buffs. A team of Arachnos Soldiers becomes a supremely viable, even overwhelming, attack team. It's much more effective than the Kheldians, which for a long time couldn't even synergize with each other, and even when they did, the effect wasn't particularly effective (10% Recharge Slow Resistance? Yaaaaaay... So, with a team of Kheldians, no glue will keep us from shooting back and THAT'S IT). Everything after that is gravy. Bane and Crab Spiders get robots, explosives and the Venom Grenade, adding elements to the fight the game, quite frankly, wasn't designed to deal with. Night Widows and Fortunatas gain Stalker-like sneak attacks and more team buffs. Each version of the archetypes operates in different manners as well, with Bane Spiders performing like Rambo, Crabs are walking weapons platforms, Night Widows are stealthy assassins and Fortunatas are team leaders. It's an absolute thrill to play these guys. That said... The only real drawbacks I can think of are cosmetic. The crab spider backpack, for instance, is sorely limited. It would have been nice to see alternative weapons systems that make use of the technology or architecture (rocket launchers, Rikti blasters, heck, even the Meat Doctor Backpack). Instead, every "supervillain costume" of the Crab Spiders uses the same Arachnos-labeled Crab Backpack. You can't even get rid of the Arachnos logo! Every Bane Spider uses the Arachnos rifles ONLY. If it weren't for the Celestial Hammer, they'd only use Arachnos Maces, too. I get the power animations can't change, but that can be handwaved anyway. The weapons options being so severely limited REALLY harms the immersion factor, especially when the characters are ostensibly being incognito in their non-Arachnos outfits. I get the options being restricted in the Arachnos Uniform outfits, but the non-uniform outfits should really have their options opened up. And that last point brings me to the last thing that bothers me about the Arachnos soldiers. Their non-uniform outfits are entirely divorced from their uniform outfit. This means you better not have changed your height slider on your initial outfit, or you're in for a slightly jarring camera shift every time you change to another outfit. Even if you did see a surgeon to change your initial costumes, of which for the first six you need to start entirely from scratch, you'd best have remembered what you set your height to. Changing costumes shouldn't be such a roller coaster ride.