Parabola

Had a quick play and found the free camera utterly disorientating. I'm not sure why that would be considered better by anyone but I'm pretty sure I'm not the target audience. I found the setting to put it back reasonably quickly.

No it's just that the patch notes are quoting the per tick value and the game is quoting the per second value. Both are correct but it's a little confusing.

The end cost is quoted per tick and it ticks twice a second. It used to be 0.39 per tick so 0.78 per second and it should now be half that.

Along somewhat similar lines I would love s.t.a.r.t options that throttle xp gain to 50% and 25%. No extra inf, no bonus of any kind, just reduce incoming xp. Periodically I like to try a 'smell the roses' run through the game and while turning xp off every 5 levels works it doesn't quite hit the mark. I like progress, I just want slower progress. In order for this to work I guess patrol xp would also need to be disabled or it would interfere with these options.

As I understand it they wouldn't be compatible. Homecoming have made a load of under the hood updates and improvements.

In the latest build controller telekinesis does not accept immobilize or controller archetype IO's. The power text says it does but I assume some setting is missing somewhere? Dominator telekinesis does accept immobilize and dominator archetype IO's though. (Hope this isn't confusing by the way - I didn't know whether to start a new thread or just tag it on to this one)

<snipped old problem>

I basically disregard trapdoor testing for this exact reason. If they are going to allow certain temp buffs or certain types of inspiration the whole thing is invalid. Allow everything or nothing. The character building game is one of trade offs, you accept limitations in one area to push your performance in others. By allowing certain limitations to be ignored they are favouring one set of decisions over others - it is no longer a level playing field.

Etc. Etc. Wind, writing in this voice does your arguments no favours at all. You might have years of experience with the powers and sets you are commenting on but in all honesty if I were a dev I'd struggle to not disregard your opinions out of hand because this just comes across so badly. One of the worst aspects of internet culture is that it teaches people that the only way to be heard is to make as big a noise as possible. In this kind of space it has the opposite effect though - I immediately stop listening and I suspect others will too. If you dial it all back several notches you might find people listen more. Mods - feel free to hide this post ... I just felt I had to say it.

Ah, it sounds like there is a bug then because it accepts accuracy on a controller:

Finally got around to having a quick play with telekinesis on test (better late than never). I have no great history with either mind control or the previous version of this power so I'm coming at it with fairly fresh eyes. I made a mind/time controller which strikes me as a pretty good combination as time can supply huge amounts of recharge and some extra control, both of which mind really benefits from. I levelled to 50, purpled it out (no incarnates) and then had a go at a couple of radio missions. Overall takeaway was that I liked it. It's unique and fun. I think this change has persuaded me to level one of these on live. There are quibbles - many times I'd tag the nearest enemy with the intention of pushing them back though their friends to pick them all up but the one I'd targeted would get stuck on some piece of geometry I couldn't see and they would just stay there. Also enemies that are repel resistant are a pain - if they aren't your target and you push until they are out of range they just drop down and attack. The power obviously doesn't prevent incoming fire and I imagine softcapping ranged and going into the psi epic for indomitable will are going to be popular choices. It presents you with an interesting tactical choice - use it to gather first before deploying a big control which opens you up to a lot of fire but creates a nice bunch, or deploy total domination or mass confusion first and then pick up the enemy which risks enemies being out of range for the control. There is nothing stopping you from spamming your single target confuse and hold as you are repositioning the spawn also. I found the interaction with levitate to be kind of useful. Mind needs the aoe damage so no argument there. I also figure that telekinesis is something that you are generally going to want to turn off anyway after the initial stages of an encounter so it can recharge for the next spawn (if you are clearing spawns too quickly for this you probably don't need it in the first place). But you do need to remember that this interaction exists, a couple of times I was spamming single target controls as I was repositioning and I accidentally hit the anchor with levitate and turned telekinesis off before I meant to. Driver error clearly and I'll soon learn to avoid doing that. There is a tension between wanting to keep telekinesis running to set containment and wanting to shut it off as quickly as possible after the initial reposition so it can recharge. I see tactical choices such as this as generally a good thing. But I have to caveat all this with the fact I had a LOT of recharge in my build (hasten perma with only one slot in it pre incarnates kind of recharge). Other secondaries may struggle with the cooldown a bit more. I did try exemping down to try a lower level mission (lv19 so no hasten or chrono shift). It was kind of ok there too but I'd need to spend a lot more time with it and I had bonuses and slots you wouldn't have levelling of course. Here I really was only giving a very quick blast of telekinesis at the start of a fight and then shutting it off as quickly as possible. I was able to go at my own pace and wait for telekinesis to recharge if necessary or just choose to engage without it. On teams I wouldn't expect it to be a power I'd use on every spawn anyway - just where there was some clear benefit to repositioning the enemy. Something I couldn't work out was whether it is auto-hit or not? It says it accepts accuracy enhancements which suggests not auto-hit? If this is the case could we consider allowing the slotting of immobilise sets? I get that the immobilise enhancement won't do anything but it cries out for recharge and endurance reduction, if it also needs accuracy that's a lot for non set slotting to handle.

Behold The Brutinal: Double stacked rage is so strong it almost would work. I wouldn't like to level it though!

Eat greens: /macro_image "Inspiration_Health_Lvl_3" "Mmm" "insp_exec_name Respite$$insp_exec_name Dramatic_Improvement$$insp_exec_name Resurgence" Combine to red leaving greens: /macro_image "Inspiration_Damage_Lvl_1" "red" "inspcombine Sturdy Enrage$$inspcombine Insight Enrage$$inspcombine Luck Enrage$$inspcombine Break_Free Enrage$$inspcombine Catch_A_Breath Enrage" /macro_image "Inspiration_Damage_Lvl_2" "Red" "inspcombine Keen_Insight Focused_Rage$$inspcombine Take_A_Breather Focused_Rage$$inspcombine Rugged Focused_Rage$$inspcombine Good_Luck Focused_Rage" Eat reds: /macro_image "Inspiration_Damage_Lvl_3" "Boom" "insp_exec_name enrage$$insp_exec_name Focused_Rage$$insp_exec_name Righteous_Rage" Turn off protection, resurrection and all large inspirations at ptw. I also turn off mediums until my tray is large enough that they don't clog it up.

Not sure how general you're looking for. Brutes are fairly simple to build and play. One thing to note is that due to fury you can devote more slots to your armour set while levelling than other melee archetypes. Brutes are possibly the best low level characters because of that. Staff is fairly straightforward. Your secondary is super reflexes right? That's pretty straightforward too. I like it on brutes actually. Build for softcaps obviously and try to get a baseline of resistance in so the scaling resistance from the passives has something to build on. One tip that I find really benefits characters who lack a self heal is to make yourself an 'eat green inspiration' macro and put it in your power tray where you'd normally put a self heal power. I go a step further and adjust my usual 'create red insps' macros to leave greens behind so I can still fuel my offense while maintaining my emergency supply.

Given that many of the claw attack animations are basically punches I don't see the problem with this. I'd love more flexibility to use a set whose mechanics I love in different thematic ways.

I have a couple of alien type characters whose costumes only looked right with the female body but they aren't supposed to be female (or any gender for one of them). I'm all for unhooking the 'gender setting' from the body plan in the costume creator. I can't see any possible downside to this.

I've put some thoughts that are relevant to this in the thread below.

On the subject of better communication around beta testing I think we could also do a bit better at dev feedback to player testing. There is a level of antagonism in some of the feedback threads that I believe comes from people feeling they are being ignored or that other players opinions are being favoured over their own. Take the latest update that has changed the team composition bonus from a prismatic aether to a badge as an example. The patch notes simply state the new system without explanation. The old feedback thread was closed with a 'thanks for the feedback' which is a good start but could have gone much further. As it stands the new feedback thread has seen a few 'well the whiners won' type comments which I believe could have been avoided. Imagine if this change had been accompanied by the following message: 'Thank you for the feedback and lively debate over version 1 of the team composition reward mechanism. We acknowledge good points on all sides. We believe that the core idea of encouraging diversity in team composition is a worthwhile one, while acknowledging that the way archetypes work in this game is complicated. We also consider it important to avoid any possibility of incentivising antagonism in game. Therefore we have decided to try a new version of this mechanism with a lower key reward that will encourage both diverse team building and the long tradition of single archetype teams. Please let us know your thoughts. We are also aware that having extra rewards for completing task forces and getting more aether into the economy were popular ideas, just that there were drawbacks to adding them in the way version 1 did. We will look into alternative ways of doing this in the future. Thank you all again for your feedback on this.' Or something like that. Acknowledge people's feedback and try to make them feel listened to. At the moment there is a lack of feedback on the feedback which leads to frustration. I would also like to see more of this kind of communication in the feedback threads as they go on. Currently various feedback threads are awash with players repeating the same things over and over again because that feedback isn't being acknowledged. It becomes even more frustrating when a dev does drop in but only to answer an isolated technical question. To get more of the type of feedback you want you have to acknowledge the feedback you get. Perhaps you could try reserving the second post in each feedback thread for feedback acknowledgement and commentary and then sticky it. Then use it to echo the feedback you are receiving with any relevant commentary from your side. 'We acknowledge that some epic pool powers now have significant recharge times and are considering it internally'. 'We understand that the lack of immobilize in arsenal control is a sticking point for many people, our intention was to design a control set that will work without an immobilize and we will adjust other powers until this works'. I can sense the frustration with the beta feedback process on the devs side and I sympathise. The endless spinning off into arguments is exhausting to read through even when I don't have to try to comb it for useful information. If you put better communication into the process however, you will hopefully get better communication out. You might benefit from some sort of 'game development community representative' who can act as a bridge between the devs and the players when it comes to this kind of communication.

SS would be my poster child for a set that exemps badly, particularly on tanks. I want aoe early and something that approximates to an attack chain. Dark, claws and savage would be where I'd start looking. Armour sets are all a bit too reliant on having all their pieces in place to be really effective at low levels. Some are of course better at it than others though. I've been impressed with the revamped stone armour at all levels. Rad is also notable for being good against vazhilok which is useful early. Dark armour can do quite a lot of early tanking with heavy investment in dark regeneration. Ice is also a set I feel is better early on, it achieves decent defence numbers and the aura really helps.

I've raised this a few times over the years. I understand the blank canvas argument but I don't think the benefits outweigh the drawbacks. Open beta testing is quite limited in terms of really getting to grips with how to use a new set. Without a bit of forum wisdom about how a set works and being able to play with it in mids I'm frankly lost. All I could do would be to build and play it like another set it most resembled and make comparisons which if you're trying something new isn't the most helpful thing. In building the set the devs clearly have a vision for how it's supposed to play, what it's supposed to be good or weak at, what synergies it may have with other sets. Tell us. Endless feedback of 'it doesn't work like other sets' is pointless if you've specifically designed the set to work differently. It also makes it hard to distinguish 'it doesn't work on it's own terms' from this background noise. Yes, there will be arguments about the design vision. But we get those anyway and they might be currently amplified by the irritation of having to figure out that design vision rather than being told it. Trust your players with more information. I'm a developer myself and whenever I hand over a new piece of software to QA I always take them through how it works and why the design is as it is. It allows me the opportunity to explain technical limitations that shaped the design and also to point out any areas that need particular attention in the testing. My testers are still going to try every random thing they can think of but expectations are shaped and time and effort are saved.

A (not so) quick word in defence of fault. I find it an effective aoe and would never dream of not taking it. The control it offers is worth the pick alone and the damage they have added is gravy. One thing that isn't obvious is that it is now effectively two powers fired with a single click. The first power is the classic radial aoe stun and knockdown the power has always had. The second power is a cone aoe damage power that on tanks has a decent arc. This creates a couple of important nuances. Firstly the powers roll to hit independently and the damage cone actually has the standard accuracy modifier. The radial control has an accuracy penalty and it is this accuracy value that is showing in mids. Both powers aim at the target you highlight but as they are different shapes it is possible for other mobs to be in the area of one and not the other. With the tanker arc bonus taking a step or two back from the pack and targeting something in the middle will hit most things with both powers. The other thing to be aware of is which of the powers fire which procs. Knockback, stun and taunt procs all fire from the radial control power. Ranged aoe procs fire from the damage cone. I slot it with two winter pieces (acc/dam, acc/dam/end), three damage procs (I go the taunt and kb procs with one taoe proc but I tend to pack a lot of global acc/to hit and so am happy with accuracy of the radial control power) and a ff+rech. If you have decent global recharge and you hit enough mobs the ff proc will cycle this power very effectively. The stun is mag 2 with a chance for mag 3 (I forget the percentages). So it will stun any minions and some lieutenants which thins out the incoming damage considerably. Even if damage itself isn't an issue it's always useful to stop some annoying debuffs. Watching sappers stagger around drooling never gets old! And last but certainly not least fault is just so satisfying to use. It's loud, visceral and exactly the kind of thing I'm playing the set for in the first place!

I've been thinking along these lines too. I totally get the idea that they don't want player a using a power from an epic pool outshining player b who has that same power from their primary. But, a lot of these powers are pretty marginal in the first place. You can easily tell that by how infrequently you see them. The earth epic for brutes and tanks is a case in point. Are there really a secret legion of characters out there using these powers and making earth controllers feel bad? I've never seen it mentioned. We should be encouraging people to branch out and select interesting epic powers not rendering them all not worth the opportunity costs of taking or using. I'm smiling to myself a bit because I take focused accuracy on 99% of my melee builds and that has actually been buffed. I often want to use something else but the debuff resistance is just so useful. Now I'll be able to run it more cheaply and have even less interest in the alternatives. I really don't think this is the right way to be moving though.

I'm still waiting for the assault sets to be rebuilt across the board to be more user friendly. I appreciate that isn't going to happen but I can dream!

The issue of how rigid role categorization isn't a great fit for this game can easily be demonstrated as follows. Which of these teams has more control? Team 1: Tank, blaster, defender, scrapper, scrapper. Team 2: Tank, blaster, defender, scrapper, controller. Should be team 2 right? The proposed rules certainly consider team 2 to be more diverse. But what if the powersets are as follows: Team 1: Tank (dark/stone), blaster (ice/ice), defender (dark/dark), scrapper (psi/dark), scrapper (ice/stone). Team 2: Tank (fire/fire), blaster (fire/fire), defender (emp/fire), scrapper (fire/fire), controller (ill/emp). In team 1 the enemy would be almost permanently controlled. They would be stunned, knocked, slowed, feared, immobilized and held from various sources. There is even a confuse. There is no control AT but barely anything would manage to get attacks off. Team 2 however has a controller but very little control. They have single target hold and confuse but they have to stack mag with themselves. The every spawn control consists of a fear which is going to be constantly broken. Team 2 would probably be a lot of fun (and very burny) but in no way does it have more control than team 1. I'd rather be able to look at a team I was joining and say 'this team needs some control, I'll bring a controlling tank, or a controlling defender', rather than needing to bring a controller to fulfil arbitrary criteria. Similarly with tanking. I've successfully 'tanked' general content using blasters, controllers and defenders. The capability of a character is not rigidly defined by its archetype in this game.

I also suspect there is a certain level of nervousness about turning on the name release system, and if there isn't there should be. People who can't get what they want become upset. People who had something and have it taken from them get UPSET. I don't entirely disagree with the policy but I wouldn't do it if I were them.