Grindingsucks

I mean... I'm not sure how I'm hassling anyone about anything. As I stated in the part of my reply that you didn't quote, I don't care whether the zones are there or not. I'm just saying the reason that was offered for taking them out doesn't make any sense, given how the medi-porters function. That's not a criticism or even an opinion- it's a statement of objective fact. I don't care if they do. It wouldn't bother me in the slightest. Perhaps, after reading this, they will. If they did, then their own stated position on removing the zones would be self-consistent.

I don't mind that they don't have a taunt aura. I don't mind chasing mobs down. But, then, I'm one of the few that doesn't gripe about ranged characters using knockback, either. I think Scrappers compare quite favorably to Stalkers (I enjoy both AT's and feel they are relatively well balanced with one another). I do feel Brutes are too good compared to Scrappers, though. If you want more balanced melee AT's, I think Brutes ought to have resists lowered to that of Arachnos Soldiers, or perhaps raise Scrappers resists to that of Arachnos Soldiers. I think Tankers are fine for what they are created to do, it's just that the current power levels of the game make them relatively unnecessary in end-game content, since blasters and the like can destroy mobs before there's ever really much need to herd them. That's not a problem with the Tanker, itself, though. Brutes are the class that feel the most overpowered of the Melee sets to me. They can get damage comparable to Scrappers when Rage is full, and resists and hp's pretty close to Tankers. There is a reason Brutes are the most played class in the game and while, yes- a large part of that reason is that they make good farmers- it's not the only reason. They're a very powerful melee AT, in their own right. All of the above is just my personal feelings on the matter, of course. Your own opinions and mileage may vary. 😉

I don't mind losing them. I never used any of them, except for Echo Galaxy, to get the Ouro portal. Having said that, I do agree that the reason given for removing them (telport beacons not able to be used for time travel) doesn't gel. Considering that the medi-porter can pull you from the timestream back to your base, this is clearly untrue, both from a literal mechanical and from a lore standpoint.

The suspect in question...

Disney sends their chief negotiator, Mickey Mouse, to the DC Corporate office... "Say, pal, I heard you guys were going through a rough time. Have we got a deal for you! Huh-huh!"

It's a cool acronym. But, no, it doesn't make any sense. Not from a story point, at least.

Here's the actual answer to your question: Power creep in the game has made individual characters so strong, that it has largely made teaming and team-based AT roles irrelevant, unless your team self-imposes restrictions on their characters to keep the content challenging. When a team can blast all the opposition to dust before you've even got off a single hold or immobilize, it certainly DOES seem like there's little for Controllers or Dominators to do (there's more for Dominators, since they can actually dole out some impressive damage, but their controls still feel underutilized). And even if self-limitations are imposed, if you can take a Rad/Devices Blaster and complete an Imperious Task Force solo, with no inspirations, no amplifiers, the enemies buffed and yourself de-buffed (yes, a player has done this), then the level of challenge in the game has clearly not kept pace with the introduction of IO sets, Incarnate powers, and Powerset proliferation. Maybe try to run with groups that play at below level 50 and only use standard IO's, or something. Then, perhaps, you will feel like your Controller is actually valuable to the team. Other than that, and apart from the introduction of tougher group content (like the recently introduced Vazhilok/Freakshow missions), I'm not sure what can be done.

So this morning, I'm playing solo, doing that story arc from Vincent Ross where you're trying to get the Blood Coral and stomp on the Legacy Chain. I'm playing a lvl 25 Blaster. Now, when I run solo, I like to push myself. I've got my toon kitted out with SO's and three or four nice procs and/or global enhancements (Panacea, Kismet, that sort of thing). Difficulty is set at +3. Those red and purple Coralax are NASTY, especially when they start coming in waves. I die several times, then rethink my approach and start advancing slowly and cautiously, using teleport foe to bring them to me so I can battle them one at a time. I manage to work my way to the very end of the cavern, to the last Coralax Shaper that I'm supposed to take out, when one of our 3 kittens, Captain Meow, comes barreling into the room, slides across the floor, and slams into the surge protector, tripping the power button and shutting off my computer. 😮 I'm not certain, but I'm beginning to suspect that Captain Meow might be a Longbow Agent... 🤔

Ha, ha! I really like her. Makes me think of Titania or Big Barda. If only we could get more muscly female body types.

Okay, Fraulein, that almost made 2020 worth it. (But, yeah... not really. Still, anything that can help you laugh during hard times is okay by me. 🙏)

I see it a lot, actually. It doesn't make any sense, but it happens.

I'll try to hop on with the Major to join up with you guys. Been playing with other Blaster builds and working on bases, so I've been rather distracted, lately. And then, of course, there was the holiday. 😛

I have a very low level stalker that I want to try to take to 50 on Everlasting, but I'm presently distracted with other things. Mad respect to you guys that are able to get them all the way to 50 without crossing over to Primal Earth. Praetoria ain't no place for sissies, mang!

Not sure, honestly. It changes, periodically, as I discover some new aspect of a powerset or AT that I hadn't know about yet. For the past 3 to 4 weeks, I've become obsessed with blasters, after discovering I actually enjoy "Blapping" quite a lot. It's given me a new perspective on an AT that I had always previously run as a pure ranged at, only using the melee powers as a matter of last resort. Now that I've played around with a different approach, I'm really getting into the play style. It's aggressive and risky, with big payoffs for taking those risks, which offers a thrilling mode of play that I very much enjoy. Currently, newest alts are my Dark/Energy and Rad/Energy Blappers are providing plenty of enjoyment. Not certain what powersets I would try out if I went for Blapper #3.

Some of what you are experiencing is D&D legacy mechanics. Online games (including, alas, City of Heroes) use the zero-to-hero model of starting out with very little power and then growing slowly in power, over time, as you gain experience. Folks coming to the game with genre expectations for their character to debut with powers the way heroes do in the comics, will probably find themselves disappointed. I know I certainly did. I've played this excellent game (yes, despite it's various flaws, it IS still an excellent game) for about a year now. What I've discovered is that I don't find any class interesting to play until I hit about 15th level. By then, I have enough powers that I can mostly enjoy the character I imagined, conceptually, as an actual play experience. To get there as quickly as possible, I take double xp power from P2W, then head to AE and run Not Exactly Bads in Space farm, until I hit 15 or 16 (it's a five chain AE mission, which is relatively quick and easy, depending on which AT you're playing). Then I team and run regular missions normally, after that. The weird thing is, after you get a certain amount of experience at playing and building characters, you may find that team play becomes rather boring in in game content, because the foes and missions provide insufficient challenge to the team. For this reason, I've stopped pursuing incarnate abilities on my characters and try team with like-minded players, whenever possible. This keeps team play more interesting (IMO, anyway. Many- perhaps most- people feel differently about this) and challenging. I know you mentioned that playing ranged characters in melee feels counter-intuitive to you. I can sympathize with this. Until recently, I didn't play blasters much for this exact reason. But during the past few weeks, I've given them a second chance and experimented with what the old guard here calls "Blapping" (meleeing with your blaster like a scrapper) and it's quickly becoming my favorite style of play. When you get more comfortable with the game, I highly recommend giving it a chance. Particularly after you've learned how to make keybinds and macros. Learning how to make macro buttons and keybinds really helped me enjoy the game much more than I might have, without them. If you haven't used any yet, I recommend reading the wiki article and trying one or two out. Anyway, welcome to the game! I hope you grow to love it as much as I have. 😁👍

I agree. They all look really terrible, too. Ice sword is the worst offender, in this regard. But, then, pretty much all the ice power animations look really ridiculous.

Kind of depends on how you quantify bad, I suppose. It can be very subjective and may mean different things for different people. I selected all the epic AT's (HEATs & VEATs) b/c I dislike fixed powersets. Finding creative ideas is a big part of the fun of this game for me- including mixing and matching powersets in interesting ways. Those AT's take that away from me. I enjoy playing all of the other AT's to some degree. I would say that they're probably all fairly overpowered (at least when you hit incarnate- and maybe even at lvl 50 with strong IO sets), apart from Sentinels, which feel properly balanced to me, even when they have incarnate abilities.

How does it affect the end user, playing on an older rig? I've got a rebuilt desktop using an integrated graphics card, for example.

Yeah, old game artifacts that can be puzzling to new players and should probably be addressed at some point.

Not as far as I'm aware.

I think it's probably just a function of Excelsior being the most heavily populated server. More players = more chances to get an abrasive tool spouting off. 🤷‍♂️

Overall, I would say this game compares quite favorably compared to the communities of most games that I've been involved with. But hey, it's the internet- you're always going to get the occasional D-bag, right? 😛

Ha, ha! True, I forgot about that. 😁

I'll tell you why it sounds like a great idea to me: Because I could choose to click only on doors and always avoid those awful cave maps.

Three times in a row is repeatedly. He didn't say infinitely. As short as the cooldown is, though, it's the next best thing. But, yeah, people can occasionally be annoying. General tab is the most distracting to me, which is why I remove it. LFG and Help can be, sometimes, but I use them both and also like to help other people, when I'm able, so I haven't muted them.