High_Beam

Bottom line up front so far, its perfect for Sentinels, not enough survivalbility by Sentinel standards to delude yourself into tanking. Stay at range, most likely survive. Sloppy testing of a Psi/Psi Sentinel with Some set IOs at level 30 street hunting In Bricks yields a need to juke and jump quite a bit waiting for the drains to recharge. Once you have a few stacks up then it gets better. Still working out the mechanics of most of the powers to better slot so I rolled up another and only bumped them to level 20 with select sets (commonly accepted norms; Panacea. Perf Shift, etc). On the surface, not gonna even bother trying to shore up defense beyond the standard Steadfast/Glad Armor at some point and instead focus on capping Resistance and finger crossing health. I wish that Psionic Wall want that tube animation, I would prefer a skin glow but hey, minor quibble there.

I like this group. Good challenge for high level. Its great seeing them use trip mines and such. Well done.

I shall run them again. Thanks. I don't mind a good conversation or longone; I have enjoyed the other work you've done (Braun and Stribbling especially) but there it just seemed a little overwhelming, thats all.

Cool. Thanks for the information. Fight hard.

Look. I am going to say this to get it off my chest just this once then move on. Every second I spend in Kallisti Wharf, testing the enemies, the missions and everything else, the more I hate whats been done. The mobs are ludicrous in size for size sake only and the spawns are everywhere, just polluting the joint. The villain group revamps just don't fit; the only cats that we should be seeing there are UPA, BWI, Crey, Malta. The absence of Longbow, like em or not is contrary to all previously established story. The BWI are a good enemy but they are new; not a revamp which is why they work. The name Altruitsts is terrible; might as well called them Stevia since they sound like n artificial sweetener or some new met for some disease. The whole explanation for why this OCP wanna be police (BWI) force rolled in absolutely pisses me off. The Warriors look even more clownish than they do on live after the last revamp; effing torn tuxedos, really. The Skulls so don't belong there, effing Goldbrickers do not belong there. They just dumped a bunch of power proliferated groups and said, sure, that's content. Not enough NPC civilians really make it so noticeable. I mean come on, eleven Warriors doing jumping jacks in the wide open. I did notice the lack of massive mob spawns around the more popular Halloween door farm areas 🙂 If the intent was to make it some sort of "here is where New Praetoria starts" deal then do that, which means don't dirty the place up. Wanna play the corporate machinations angle cool, then get the clown shoes out of the picture and stick with a clean veneer where the dirt is hidden, the effing Crey would not tolerate any of the bulk of the Mooks you have shoehorned in the zone. To use a common internet term, its been enshittified. @BasiliskXVIIICorrected my understanding of that. To use a Navy Chief's term, its been torn up by the chop chain. Okay I've said my peace. I love the devs and love the hard work they put in and will still play on Homecoming happily because it still stirs a passion in me. I know they have passion too and these changes are part of that and since I do not have the talent to do any better, I can only express my feelings based on my play and then say thank you when all is said and done.

Mission - Embarrass the Altruists - They are targetable, but don't attack even after you select the hostile dialog. Is that by design? Mission - Set bombs in warehouse - If you talk the full dialogue tree to whats his nut (spoiler avoidance) before setting all bombs the optional task to warn him remains. Clicking all bombs afterwards is mission complete. I second the way-point exit in the last mission. Also noted the continually cowering hostages. There are just too many long dialogue options to make heads or tails of. It became just a pile of noise clicking till something happened. Is there supposed to be some alternate result depending on the selection. If so perhaps a little bit of paring down and cleaning up. Pro's - Its new content Con's - Convoluted dialogue trees. Certain enemies felt out of place (Devouring Earth for certain). Anti-Climactic end.

Do the shield generators they deploy count for the badge like the Sky Raiders ones?

Okay additional feedback on the upgraded skulls. Please please if you you are still gonna call em buckshot and slugger and slammer then stop with the dark noir negative energy attacks and instead improve their weapons because they are all popping off like Bone Daddy's and Death Dolls which makes them just sloppy reskins. If you are gonna do that then make them newer costumes like the Priestesses and such and not call them Sluggers and Slammers, call them something like undertakers or since they wanna lean into Slavic pantheons, Banniks (sp). to @Velvet Violet, I hear what you are saying and will of course have a degree of "benefit of the doubt" factored in but if your explanation is additional story content at lower levels then you should have waited with this and done that, it breaks the flow of a character leveling up; exposed to the enemy, continuing to fight them, them becoming a arch or nemesis of sorts, and then the further up the food chain they progress they find out bigger and broader. Not, "wow these guys got powerful, I guess I need to call Mender Lazarus and go back to when the change happened." I am doing the Arc right now (just finished mission 2) so I will feedback over there. And please, don't take this as disrespecting your or others hard work but you asked for constructive feedback and I am trying to give that.

Tip not showing up in the mission computer by design?

I hear you. I use the mod installer for a lot of things (Demon summons is great, heavy guns) but I want symphonic sounds with Symphonic Control (the add-in of classical music is... is not enjoyed by me). maybe someday. I have failed in my efforts to try and do it myself because I am not the best at codey things.

Hahahah! So did Symphonic Control when it came to Brainstorm. A Beam can dream I suppose.

For me, it needs to be more sparkly. Not the bright white but the wonderful colors.

Man, I just ran a few street hunt mobs with my various controllers. What a difference it makes with my Phantasm and Singularity and especially Fire Imps (OMG those little bastards are finally on a leash!). A world of difference. Haven't tested it on Reverb but then again, reverb really did a good job of seeming to know who I wanted regulated (with the power of music). Also haven't tested with Jack yet. But man, this is straight up a top notch improvement to game play and enjoyment. The ability for me to focus their attacks gives lets me catch up a little to Dom damage. It is why I play a lot of doms because of that shortfall so now controllers get something unique to them, and doesn't displace Doms from their place as better damage dealing trollers. Please don't change it

Man, love the Advanced Shotgun. Tnanskf or the adds there, Arsenal and a few others gonna be getting new kit.

Cool. Honestly cant complain about this, its a pure QoL add. Machine needs a little de-rusting though.

So, things I liked. I liked the new Skull types, Death Knight (name isn't great though), Volkhv Priestesses are cool as are some of the others. If you are going to lean into the Slavic deities and thematic laid down my the Petrovics then call them Banniks or something. But I digress. My problem is they don't belong there, they are way over level range with no explanation for their massive jump in power. I get the statement that there is a movement in story for them but there is no real reason for what amounts to a 30+ level skip. And if you follow the Lords of Death Arc, it makes even less sense their becoming more powerful. now if they were bumped up to a follow-on zone from KR like say . . . Skyway and given their new power models, there is some sense, their relationship with Atta and the Trolls relating tot he sale of Superadine would make sense their being there. But KW? It makes zero sense (like several of the other villain groups). I haven't had a chance yet to test the story arcs but it is really irrelevant in this case because of the over leveling. But As I said, the addition of new enemy types in the Skulls is nice. Most are cool and an interesting fight so thumbs up there.

So, I just did a fly through and spawn attack pass of KW. Factoring out the argument from some about politicization (or not) I don't like the idea of there being a bad precinct as an excuse. That needs to be shit canned right away and replaced with one of a dozen different more game lore compatible excuses. There are Crey crawling all over and they wanted the Paragon Protectors to be a for hire force. Hero Corps (Rebecca Foss's group) originally was to be capes for hire till they got pushback. The concept of a district possibly outsourcing some policing functions to a corporation like we have with the prison system in RL and in some cities (San Francisco used to have Police Specials, trained but not part of the PD) is believable. PPD has always relied upon capes to help fill the gaps and the biggies. But yeah, I am not onboard with the bad precinct line. You really should re-evaluate the story line, my two cents there. Also, to be honest, there is a lot of garbage mob padding here. The fact that someone said this was the zone to deploy several upgraded enemy groups is a bad call. Explain the jump in Skulls skill from essentially King's Row 13-15 to Level 45. I am not saying that the upgrade is bad (Soul Harvesters, Volkhv Priestesses and such) but there is no lore or logical reason for them to move up in power like that, especially considering they are and continue to be tools of the Family (Lords of Death Arc) The Freakshow and Freaklok again should be more in level sync with the Fiendish Lab and Graveyard Shift arcs which was mid 20s and 30s respectively. And don't get me started with the Warriors, cause the level 50s keep spawning with some torn tux shit that looks terrible (terrible costume revamp on that faction as a whole; ruined them). They don't fit and there's way too many of them there. These mobs should have been inserted into the more appropriate zones to their presence, You have this new bad guy group and higher level Crey here, plus some Praetoria refugee stuff. Why did you need to pad? But here is some constructive feedback that doesn't involve tossing your hard work. Lower the enemy mob density and increase the civilians density. There were zero people in the University or outside and practically zero in Hospital. You have this shiny zone, that you are starting to fill so fill it with people first before you fill it with more purse snatchers than purses to snatch. I should see people milling about those outdoor cafes by the water front. On to other things in KW. The adding of music and such is Nice. Thumbs up there. The Skull Rave music from the Lords of Death Second Arc is freaking awesome. Its actually on my iPod. There are several locations with large loops of pedestrians, 347.2 55.0 2176 is one where they loop at the stairs at either end of the loop.

Saw some level 45. It just makes no sense placing them and certain other mobs that cap at certain levels here. There are plenty of other higher level fish here that you don't need to pile on with padding like this.

Hokie Smokes! So much to absorb. FYI the link to the Wyvern Revamp sends you to the Skulls like the skulls link does.

The big dumb two tier arachnos room like seen in Aaron Theory Arc early. That's like what two levels of like 8 doors each level? Now I am gonna have to flash back to check.

Look, I am certain your intent is good. Thumbs up. But that look that you posted is not good. And to alter the actually fun and pleasing look of the Carnival with that or anything like that would be . . . well . . . terrible. The devs botched the revamp of the Warriors; made them (The Warriors) now look like fools, and we have to live with that. Lets not delude ourselves, sometimes truth has to be told and it isn't always pleasant. You want to revamp the Carnivals design, then add more aesthetically pleasing additions that complement what we have, bring in more European style, which is what you see more often than not in "more exciting and modern circuses" such as Cirque de Soleil or Cirque Eloize. Also: As for this. By starting the thread you opened it for public discourse whereas you could have just as easily posted a simple line asking for ideas and such from like-minded individuals interested in altering the Carnival and have them PM you. Thus allowing you to formulate a more robust and detailed presentation. You chose to post here, thus opened the commentary to both complement or critique. So you haven't received any compliments, that doesn't invalidate the critique. Maybe compliments will come. Awesome! But even if they don't, critique can be helpful it drives us to do better.

Two pages of commentary and not one weakness to chocolate joke.

life doesn't gives you lemons . . . you stumble across them when you come home from work only to find your spouse has been drinking your really good retirement tequila with her sister in the back yard in a kiddie pool.

High Beam is a Savior-Pragmatist but most of my characters are Savior-Idealists. I have a handful of Ambiguous-Pragmatists and a few Destructive-Idealists/Pragmatists. I do not subscribe to Nihilism as a principal in game or in life; everything matters in some fashion.

You had me at Kevin Bacon.