Apparition

The ones who drop from teams not at +4x8 tend to be AE babies, (this includes those who do PI radio Council farms). They have absolutely no idea of how to play the game and assume that one level 50 character (no matter the AT even), can carry them through everything at +4x8. I have noticed a rather disturbing trend over the past few months of a lot of people treating Strike/Task Forces like radio missions where they think that they can come and go as they please. The vast majority of SFs/TFs/Trials that I have done since around November have had people either silently log, try to switch characters, or say something like “Thanks for the team, take care.” and quit the team halfway through. I now form SFs/TFs/Trials, expecting to lose at least one person by the end.

I love it, because without Null the Gull the vast majority of my friends would never play red side content with me at all.

No, no. What I meant that the +dmg Eagle's Claw gives on Brutes *now* is wasted, and it would be nice if it did something else on Brutes.

Eagle's Claw needs something on Brutes. The animation is fine, it's that +dmg is pretty much useless on Brutes.

I played on live from February 2005 through November 2012, with the exception of a break of one year in 2007. I primarily played red side, and ran LRSF numerous, numerous times. Up until last year, I had never, ever not sped through LRSF, even way before Incarnate abilities. Neither had any friends of mine. It's just the way LRSF was and is run. Same for MLTF/STF. Doing those two TFs/SFs non-speed is pretty much unheard of. So for PUGs to assume a speed run for those two is pretty natural, IMO. My friends and I ran a non-speed LRSF last year, and it felt weird.

Reports on Discord indicate that it's been fixed.

Yeah, both The Hive and The Abyss are locked to level 45+, as they should be as they are raid zones. Monster Island is not.

With SOs available at level 2, everything gold side should now be soloable except for Masterminds and Stalkers.

It's been a bug in game since City of Villains beta. The same thing happens with Mercy Island.

I have a Rikti farm that is good for Electric Armor Brutes and Tankers. Electric Armor can also fire farm as well, just not as well as Fiery Aura.

From reading the tea leaves, I'm pretty sure that the developers have no intention of touching Hasten. The reaction by the player base to any change to Hasten would make the reaction to the Global Defense Nerf fifteen years ago seem like a wet firecracker in comparison, and unlike back then there are other alternatives to go to. Instead, they plan on changing little things here and there to make Hasten seem less desirable and make it seen as less necessary. See: Rune of Protection.

Something changed back in a patch in February 2020 which significantly lowered the sound of glowies to the point that they are barely audible. I had to replace the sound of the glowies manually with a much louder one.

Yes, it is. Interface effects only stack up to four times, so having more than four of the same Interface type on a team is a waste. Being able to see what Interface abilities your teammates are using is helpful, so you can switch to a different one if need be. It would also let you see if your teammate(s) switched Interface abilities as everyone should at least have two. All with a quick glance without having to take the time to ask.

I hear you. Most of my friends have long since stopped playing, so I've been relying on PUGs more and more... and ugh. I honestly think a lot of it is the shard though. Excelsior has become Freedom in all of the worst ways. So I've been mostly playing on another shard as of late. It's not 100% better, but it is better. I played on Champion prior to sunset, which was a small server where everyone pretty much knew everyone else. Like a small town. So it had its fair share of drama like small towns, but it also meant that everyone was accountable. On a large shard in a free-to-play game, that's not the case.

You also need to see if the teammate is using an Incarnate Alpha (for the Apex TF and Tin Mage TF), and you also need to see if the teammate is using an Incarnate Interface and what kind, so showing mez status alone wouldn't work.

There was a level 40-50 gold side zone planned called Neo Tokyo. It would have been the last pocket of civilized humanity in Asia and shown how things were going against the Praetorian Hamidon there. Hint: not good. Then, as I said before, there was an Incarnate gold side zone planned where you finally took the fight to Praetorian Hamidon himself and dealt with him. However, both the developers and players at the time were hit by Praetoria fatigue, so they decided to take a break from Praetoria after the Magisterium Trial, deal with the Battalion for four or five issues, and then come back and finish the Praetorian story line with Neo Tokyo and the Incarnate Praetorian Hamidon zone. I'm sad, because I would have loved to have seen Neo Tokyo. A bunch of Praetorian refugees also settled in Brickstown, not just Kallisti Wharf. Malta also now has Praetorian technology... Battle Maiden's nanites. They were meant to become Incarnate level foes with said nanites.

If I recall in the various AMAs, after The Battalion was dealt with, say Issue 29 or so, the next big threat would be an Incarnate Praetorian Hamidon. There would be a new Incarnate only Praetorian zone where you deal with him once and for all.

Welcome to Paragon City and the Rogue Isles! To answer your question: They don't know any better. To seriously answer your question: Part of it is due to rose tinted nostalgia glasses. Hero side launched a year-and-a-half earlier than the villain side. Part of it is due to some people feel icky playing a villain, and only want to play the hero. Part of it is that some people don't like the dressings of the Rogue Isles and find it too dark and grimy. Part of it is that some people feel that their characters have little agency in the early game story lines. Combine that with some people that prefer to play where the more people are, and you have the vast majority of people playing heroes. The player number disparity between blue side and red side is worse on Homecoming than prior to sunset because the villain archetypes (which are better designed than the hero archetypes IMO), are now available hero side as well. All of that being said, there are still quite a few people that play villain side, including myself. I play villain side exclusively. It just takes more work to get a team villain side, unfortunately.

Yeah. The rewards aren’t considered worth it.

Removing amplifiers would have a substantial negative impact on the game’s economy as that would give myself and many others an extra 2.5 million INF per hour to play with and raise prices of everything on the auction house.

Yeah. It’s why many Brutes and Tankers take Speed of Sound instead of Super Speed, so they keep their full threat while zooming in missions.

Getting enough people for my instanced MSRs isn't a problem. I average about 40 people and 1,600 Vanguard merits per run. The issue is that running a zone MSR (especially nearly 24/7 on the Excelsior shard), effectively locks out and breaks up teams trying to run other content in the RWZ when there is an alternative option to run the MSR available. Raising the RWZ zone cap isn't a solution, as it will just fill up with more people for the MSR, still locking out people trying to do other things.

That is how it works in beta because it is bugged. It will be fixed so recharge doesn’t work on it at all.

I hear you. Honestly IMO, it's a bit rude to run a zone MSR and say "who cares about stuff other people are trying to run," while the instanced MSR exists. Especially during weeks where Apex TF, Tin Mage TF, or LGTF are the weeklies. But, as I said, it's mainly an Excelsior issue, which is one of the reasons why I've also been playing on other shards as of late.

Honestly, I'd rather see the zone MSR sunsetted in favor of the instanced MSR. The instanced MSR is better than the zone MSR in every single way, yet people won't use it because it locks out lowbies who bring little to nothing of value to a raid anyway. Also, this is more of an Excelsior problem than a Homecoming problem. All of the MSRs ran on Indomitable server are instanced, while I think MSRs are only ran on Torchbearer every other Friday evening. Meanwhile, zone MSRs are ran on Excelsior nearly 24/7, causing chaos.