Ironblade

That's probably part of the point. It's a role-playing destination and having a place with a dark atmosphere is just as valid as the Luau. A group of smugglers and pirates who haven't bathed in a week fit better in a dingy bar drinking swill than in a tiki bar with fancy drinks with little umbrellas in them.

In theory, I suppose this could be an issue. Realistically, though, I don't see this one change as being significant enough to noticeably increase the population in the PvP zones. I was in Bloody Bay yesterday, getting a Shivan Shard, and there was no one else in the zone.

Did not see that coming. I'm guessing that datamining showed tons of inactive characters at or near level 1. This seems like a pretty generous policy now. Thumbs up!

Good call (about this thread). I was going to suggest that this deserved it's own Focused Feedback. Having said that, the original AE change (no vet level rewards) was quite a dramatic change. Now that is reverted and we have this change, which is also quite dramatic. Based on these changes (about to try to guess dev intentions), it seems that earning Emps/Astrals in AE *AND CONVERTING THEM* is what's being targeted. I therefore restate my suggestion that I made in response to the original AE change - continue to allow the vet levels BUT FOR A LIMITED TIME (maybe 15 levels). This addresses the issue in a 'middle of the road' manner. Maybe 15 vet levels is too little or too much, but that's where there's room for debate. These all or nothing approaches don't seem great.

The Empyrean/Astral Merit to Reward Merit conversion has been removed from Reward Merit vendors. Huh. I'm sure I must have heard about this at some point, but I did not know we could do this. And now we're going to get Reward Merits for iTrials. Works for me. 🙂

Huh. Did not see this coming. Seems like a good way to let people check out PvP without a big up-front time investment to see if it's something they want to get into. Not seeing any downside at the moment (although someone may come up with one).

Whether you 'buy' it or not is irrelevant. As a database programmer, it is ABSOLUTELY possible that there is no way to do it other than querying the entire character database for that shard to see which link back to a particular account ID. Do I know that it's set up like that? No. Is that a REASONABLE way for it to be configured? Absolutely it is. And, since we were TOLD that it isn't practical, I'm guessing that's exactly how it's set up. Unless you've set up relational databases, you don't have enough knowledge to comment.

No, they keep the farmer but cycle through characters on a second account, farming the door-sitter to vet levels in the range of 15-75. Not claiming it's fun or the most efficient or some specific level is best - just saying I know people who currently do this.

Surely they would have a friend who could do it for them. I did this for someone in my SG back on live. They were going to be out of contact during the anniversary month and wanted the anniversary badge on their characters. (They were in the Navy and were going to be on a submarine.) So I logged in for them. Did that violate the terms of service? I think so, but who cares. It was the right thing to do.

Just bought all the yellow salvage I wanted at 1600, just 200 inf over my traditional price.

Cool.

I see a possibility of a slight improvement here since no one seemed to know the default range until Number Six told us. What if entering no number showed you your current settings AND the default so it would look like: "Your current chat range is 60 ft. (Default range for this zone is 100 ft.)

I didn't even think of this. Since it's stated as a "supergroup base style area" for people without supergroups, then it should be accessible from any base portal - as well as the P2W SG portal power.

Unless we foil your sinister plan! For example, in my case, I recreated 3 characters that I had back on live so that I wouldn't lose the names. That was 70 days ago. I can tell you that without logging in because I have a spreadsheet where I keep track of this. And my spreadsheet specifically has a column to warn me when I'm approaching the name release deadlines that I implemented when the policy was first discussed. YOU'RE NOT GETTING MY NAMES, COPPER! 😛

(shrug) I have exactly one badge hunter and he's personally carrying about 1.5 billion. It's not an issue to me, but it seems a mite grindy in general. Not terrible, but let's not have this be the first step in a downward spiral.

If it's intended as a "supergroup base style area", then it should probably also have a quartermaster and a . . . I guess 'medic' who would sell inspirations and buy your random junk like the corresponding base items (Tree of Wonders and Auto-Doc) or the nurse in the hospital.

OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG THANK YOU!!! I just tested this and it works perfectly. My Dual Pistols blaster is forever grateful.

I think this is a reasonable middle ground. Going from unlimited vet levels in AE to ZERO feels like a huge nerf. I personally know several people who have told me (I guess they could be lying, but why?) that they like to farm their new 50's for just a few (10-15) vet levels so that they don't feel completely useless when they start doing iTrials. They don't like the feeling of "Oh, now I'm 50 and get to do incarnate content and feel like I'm level 1 all over again."

hmm.... Not bad. Nice to have this as an option and some weapons look better than others. I don't think I'll be using this on my Ninja Blade stalker for two reasons: 1) The sword hovers pretty far off his back. 2) A sword should literally be SHEATHED (okay, maybe not a claymore or the crazy Rularuu blade, etc). So, really, there should be a sheath on his back that stays there at all times. So, a little disappointed this doesn't satisfy my specific use case but, overall, unconditional thumbs up. Maybe a future update will better address 'standard' swords.

My initial thought was this seems a little grindy, particularly for a badge being introduced YEARS after the game returned. Having said that, I'll concede that I can't really judge how grindy this is going to be. In maybe, oh, 3 months I should have a good grasp on typical Aether earning rates for my main and other characters. So, at this point, I think the dev team should just be mindful of adding seriously grindy badges at this point in the games life. Adding something like the original sets of influence or damage taken badges at this point would be completely outrageous. Possible slippery slope here that should be watched for.

Fair enough. I was going to voice my support for the 'by account' option but I am VERY mindful that you are an all-volunteer team and I agree that anything adding significant time or effort is basically a non-starter. Having said that, we move to the option of tweaking the 'Days Offline' ranges. Since even a single run of Death From Below can get even the most gimped character in existence out of the first bracket, I don't see it being a big deal one way or the other. Maybe go to 120 or 150 days on the 6-20 bracket? I've seen 180 days suggested, but that seems a bit much.

Yeah, that change seems to make the system more consistent across content types. With that change, I'd say this all gets a 'conditional' thumbs up. I can't really comment on the Prismatic Aether drop rates or costume costs until I go through . . . maybe 3 months of normal play and see where that puts me. I do a lot of regular content and Weekly Strike Targets but don't really have a feel for how much Aether that will result in.

That is not good. The overwhelming majority of my characters only have one offensive toggle (well, actually the majority have zero). In this case, the old system of having to turn it back on manually is superior and now I don't even have the option to turn it off and back on to avoid the suppression. The changes on Kheldians will make all of this a positive change overall, but that 8 second suppression really seems egregious.

I was thinking it might look better on the left. In the example shown, we have "Giant Monster" on the right and blank space on the left. I don't recall off the top of my head, but is there ANY enemy that uses the otherwise empty space to the left of their name and faction?

No, but the overwhelming majority used in combat do. There are concussion grenades, which kind of look like a spray can - i.e. a relatively flimsy casing. But most grenades that the military (and presumably terrorists, villain groups, etc) use are fragmentation grenades. These are characterized by a heavy metal casing designed to produce shrapnel. The classic one that most people would recognize is the 'pineapple' grenade. Here's a picture of the WW2 U.S. military Mk 2 that you've probably seen in a jillion war movies. Edit: Obviously I'm ignoring specialized grenades like smoke, flashbangs, etc which do little or no damage.