Grindingsucks

Spinning Strike, Crushing Uppercut, Foot Stomp, Whirling smash, Jawbreaker, Air Superiority, Flurry (when it hits), Arcane Bolt, Mighty Judgement power.

These may all be good arguments, but I haven't got access to any "ample wealth of data" from other games. I would be interested in viewing this data, and how that data proves that grinding, market systems, and RPG-style levelling positively affect player retention, if you would like to share it. Your one, specific example of Call of Duty might be helpful, if I could review said data, although it's pertinent to point out that a first person shooter and an MMO with RPG elements are not the same beasts, and may be tantamount to that old saying about comparing apples and oranges. I do dislike the market. I suppose, for me, this is an exercise in stating the obvious, by now. I want to be very clear, though- testing theories is not about moving goalposts. The goal has been, and ever remains, the same: Presenting a game that fixes or removes as many frustrating elements as possible, while adding as many enjoyable elements as possible, in order to retain the largest player base, for the longest amount of time, so that the game may continue to remain relevant and available for play. I would simply like to test the impact of removing buying and selling from the game on player enjoyment and retention. The downtime could also allow the devs an opportunity to squash bugs in the market that presently exist, and frustrate even those that want the market to remain, so that those issues would be addressed if the test had a negative impact on player retention and the market needed to be reimplemented. Anyway, I don't want to beat this subject to death with a stick and it occurs to me that the OP was specifically addressing ATO's, so my suggestion is fairly off-topic, anyway.

Thanks, @Techwright 👍

@Gulbasaur This was it for me, actually. I've been playing this game for over a year now, and only last week figure out that you can use one of your six starting slots to make a custom costume for VEATS at the tailor, as soon as you log in with the character. I was also put off by what I perceived as lack of power choice, not realizing (again, until very recently) that you could mix and max some wolf/crab abilities. There are so many aspect of this game that I'm still learning all the time, even after hundreds and hundreds of hours of regular play.

@Glacier Peak Okay, thanks. To clarify, does that mean I'll need to be a minimum of lvl 29 before I can access the 25-29 material?

So, I was trying to run a specific mission to get a certain badge ( "Eliminate Negotiator and Witnesses" in the Undesirable (Level 25-29) section) but when I access the Crystal my choices look like this: Does anyone have any idea why my 25th lvl character can access lvl 24 and lower content, as well as lvl 50 content, but not lvl 25 content? 😕

The reason I don't play on the test server is precisely the reason you inferred: Character wipes. I don't want to have to rebuild my character from scratch. Free enhancements or not, it's a pain in the ass. Your suspicions may be correct, but how does one know unless one tests the waters? A priori assumptions and anecdotes don't prove anything. Experiential evidence does.

@Ukase You make some good arguments and you could very well be right about them. It's almost certain that greedy marketers would take advantage of generous players. Here's what I wish we would do: Set up the regular play servers like the Beta server for a month or two and make all enhancements available for free. Make it known that this is a temporary test to see how it affects game play and player retention. If the player base drops off, reset to normal, with the future goal of fixing the market bugs. If it remains largely the same, and the player base remains and everyone is having a good time, then just have done with the buggy-ass player market and good riddance.

Dark/Dark is quite an endurance hog. If you can find a way to cut out a couple of toggles, managing endurance may be a bit less of a headache. I'm no build expert, by any means, but the best advice I can give you is to throw together a version without the fighting pool on Beta and take it for a test drive to see how you like it. That way, if you don't, you save yourself the grief of grinding levels and doing respecs later on.

What I've come to realize: 1) I find playing characters below level 16 to be boring. Characters of that level don't have enough powers to interest me and the play consists mainly of hammering the same buttons, over and over. I like to be able to mix and match different powers and tactics in combat. By lvl 15-16, I typically have enough powers that play is fun for me. 2) I always use double xp. I always have a character concept and an imagined power level that goes best with that concept. I don't wont to grind for a long time in order to play the character I'm interested in RPing. 3) Sometimes the character I imagine is a street level hero (which I imagine as around 16-20 lvls tops. For medium to strong characters, I'll stop levelling at anywhere between lvl 35 and 45, depending on the AT and concept. For very powerful (but not god-like) hero/villains, I may go to 50, but will either not take any incarnates, or only take the 1st tier Alpha slot. For characters that are cosmic level heroes or deities, I'll take multiple incarnate powers and hit out with as many enhancement sets as I have patience to buy and slot. My characters also always have some procs and globals slotted. Maybe just two or three for street level characters, up to one or two dozen for very powerful characters. I often prefer cherry-picking and slotting procs and globals to chasing enhancement sets, as it's less expensive and time consuming. 4) I've often spurned incarnate level group play, because I find it too boring. I was recently introduced to AE 801 though, and am starting to feel differently about that, and thinking about chasing down more tough AE missions.

@Troo Okay, I see what you did there. 😁

I think I have one that someone in my supergroup posted. If I can find the file, I'll drop it here. It was an incredibly potent build, but I'll warn you that it isn't going to be cheap. Thinking about trying it out (or a variation of it), myself, as I haven't had great luck with SD in the past, when I've tried it. EDIT: Okay, so it was a Tanker build, as it turns out. Still, I think it could be adapted/tweaked to work for a Brute with a little imagination and effort. Here it is, if you want to take a look: Titanix_-_Tanker_Shield_Defense_V1.mxd

Nice work! I always wondered why the Banished Pantheon lore pets seemed so much better compared to everything else.

I list everything I sell on the PM a 1 inf, unless I'm trying to outfit a character with a lot of IO sets, then I'll sell them at whatever the list price happens to be at the time (usually between 10 and 20 million). I want to play City of Heroes, not the Wolf of Wall Street.

Whut? 😕

This is something that I find myself doing regularly, although it's not about expecting to get the best performance out of my character. Rather, I just have OCD issues with having every enhancement except one in a set. My character performance does suffer as a result, of course. It's hard, being neurotic, sometimes. 😁🤷‍♂️

@Tigraine OMG! I had no idea he was the voice actor that played Boss Nass. He looks like Voltan, even without the costume! 😂

How about letting us fill in the field ourselves? There are around 10,000 adjectives in the English language. No reason to limit us to a few score. 🤷‍♂️

@duane Ah, cool. Thanks very much! 😁

Fair enough. I'll take another gander to see if I missed them. Otherwise, just wait patiently until they find time to update it. Thanks, guys.

Is there any way we can get those as missions through the pillar of ice and flame? Or, maybe they ARE in there, and I just couldn't find them. Also, are the Freaklok selectable as AE mobs? If not, it would be swell if that could be arranged. I have done both the hero and villain missions, but I would like to revisit them, from time to time, try new strategies with the same toons, etc. The Freaklok at the end of the redside arc are just cool looking, and it would be neat to be able to add them to custom missions. Thanks. 🙂

@SnarkyAh, I see. I'm on Everlasting. It doesn't happen terribly often (to me, at least), so maybe that's why it seems so rude and jarring to me. Maybe some server hoppers that view it as standard practice, but don't realize it's not as common on a different server? Or maybe it was routine back on live and legacy players continue the habit, not realizing it might feel jarring to folks, such as myself, that don't have the same history with the game.

220 50's? Whoa. Okay, you REALLY like this game. 😁

Well, the part that gets me is he says that he did try to explain to the guy that invited him why he was leaving, but then the dude just told him to quit bitching and get lost before he could finish explaining. I mean... come on. 🤷‍♂️ But, yeah... cold invites feel intrusive to me. Most people at least send me a tell first, asking me if I'd like to join such-and-such, which I appreciate. But when the random invites pop up on my screen, I just close them out. Particularly annoying is when you get one, close it out, and then they send it to you again. Are you not getting that I'm presently occupied and/or do not want to accept your unrequested invite? 😛

What might be a cool alternative is the ability to clear out all mobs in a particular neighborhood. This could trigger a script that prevents the mobs for respawning for X amount of real time and earn the hero(s) that accomplished it a unique badge of some sort. Hm... but, then again, I guess that would interfere with people getting gladiator/hunt type badges. Nevermind. 😛