Ironblade

Yeah, not set bonuses. I got Worthy Opponent the day it went live and commented on these 'effects' still being active. (And when I say commented, I mean on voice chat so I guess that's how you missed it since you weren't there. 😛 )

Yep. Yep. I did exactly that back on live. I took every AT to 50. My other project was to take every tank armor set to 50. I had taken every armor set to 50 back on live (three times for invuln - that's my favorite) and I've taken radiation armor to 50 on Homecoming and my bio armor tank is currently 46.

Well, once upon a time, I was reading the manual while I waited for the game to download (took nearly 3 hours) and I felt broadsword/regen would be a good combination just for learning the game. So, I made Ironblade. He ended up being my favorite character. Maybe because he was the first one I created, or because I liked the powers. I don't have any other scrappers, but I have 22 other characters with a combined total of 124 vet levels. Ironblade has 127 vet levels. The proportion of play was similar back on live, with Ironblade getting about the same attention as all my other characters combined. I do have one habit that limits my number of characters. I don't make a character unless I think I'll take it to 50. At the moment, I have just six characters in the 1 to 49 range.

Flying? I want to ride the inner tube down the ski slope!!!

I actually found this one to be easier since you don't have to memorize your turns to plan them in advance; you can SEE where you need to go. There are only a couple of decisions to make. As I recall, the biggest help here is some form of 'air control' because you get going pretty fast and you can't let momentum make your decisions for you. Just like on the ski run, Inertial Reduction is a big help. You need to actually steer to stay on the track or your speed will flip you right off the edge. On a side note, since they changed the timing of the Teleport activation and animation, I wonder if teleporting along either of these courses is a viable method. I have not tried this.

Don't make me come over there! Because, by the time I get there, I'll forget why I was going there. And get off my lawn!

I played for 7 years on live and since HC brought it back and I still run into missions I have never seen before. Every so often, I encounter an entire MAP that I'm not familiar with.

The logistical difference is that Paragon Studios had a physical location while I'm pretty sure the Homecoming staff are spread out across thousands of miles.

I did this back in the day with no outside help (no kinetics assistance) and no second build, only using Combat Jumping to increase maneuverability. My method was to MEMORIZE the run. I found that counting the gates OUT LOUD made it easier to memorize which way I had to go so I could start my turns before reaching each gate. After getting the badges, I had a kin use Speed Boost and Inertial Reduction and, with the course memorized, I was able to get into the top 3 times on the leaderboard. Having said that, my plan now is to start off with Inertial Reduction as it really does make it a lot easier.

I was replying to the "After 2 hours, and 163 deaths" part. 😉

It wasn't anywhere near as hard as I was expecting. To be fair, I fired off the Chemical Burn and Biological Mutagens for the final fight, but I didn't even notice any temp pet powers being used.

They just added an entire task force (okay, technically a 'strike force') which, in my opinion, is far better than most of the existing task forces. One of the developers commented that this was his primary task for most of this year. So, yes, content is being developed and some of it is shockingly good. As for a road map, a lot of games just don't do this because if they miss a deadline they get yelled at. Or if something is deemed impractical (or impossible) they get yelled at.

Okay, but my understanding of the merit reward system is that it's based on AVERAGE time to complete (for a given difficulty level under the new system). So, the fact that it "can be completed in as little as 27 minutes" should not be the metric here. Can you tell us the AVERAGE and MEDIAN times for the lowest difficulty setting? As for the higher difficulties, sure, all those extra rewards are absolutely nothing to sneeze at. I haven't run it at the highest difficulties (and probably never will) but those rewards seem pretty good.

On the plus side: The content is top notch - the story, the dialog, the humor. Absolutely fantastic. Minuses: The rewards seem a bit stingy. They'll need to datamine how long it takes to complete once people get a little more familiar with it. And I don't mean the speedrunners; I mean the average time. Some of the badges are difficult to get due to straight-up bugs. Becky sometimes decides to walk through the wall and disappear, or gets lost when you go through a door. The blue patch in the Midas fight is buggy. Overall: I rate it a B+. It's not perfect, but it's way better than the average task force. It shouldn't be too hard to get it to just about perfect with a bit of patching. Note: I've run it four times so far. Once at base difficulty and three times at the second setting (i.e. minimum to get the optional badges).

It looks like that is a 'yes'.

Oh. General use. My first thought was spines/dark armor and see how many toggles you can run at once in actual combat. Like Toggle Man. FYI, I actually created this character on Everlasting and he's level 46 so far. Pathetic single target damage, but OMG I can wreck large groups with the AOE's and procs.

I kind of agree with Snarky. Or else my experience has been anomalous. Pretty much every failed MO attempt I've been on has been due to people getting careless, overconfident or just stupid mistakes. Like the MoITF where we had finished off Romulus and just had to pick off a few more random mobs to hit the total. And a defender waded into a group and died. Or the Lady Grey where the tank had the wrong inspirations when he went to tank the weakened Hamidon (he had Ambrosia from the Woodsman trial, instead of EoE). Most failures that I've seen, the person KNEW WHAT TO DO but got overconfident, or misclicked, or forget to activate something, etc. I see that Veracor agreed with your position. I certainly concede that he has been on a HELL of a lot more Master runs than I have. So, as I said, perhaps my experience is anomalous.

And it was time well spent. Just ran it for the first time. Damn! Top-notch content. Kudos to the zone designer(s) also.

I don't know. It's named after the location it was created, but so is cheddar, which I never see capitalized.

In an amusing twist, yes, I do. I bought a two pound wedge yesterday. And it's spelled jarlsberg.

Congratulations. At the time I'm reading this post, you're already a rookie.

We can't. It's like when you see a sign that says 'Wet Paint', you have to check JUST TO BE SURE.

Exciting? It's just one more example of The Man trying to manipulate us! We're like a bunch of lab rats hitting the button for a reward!

Unless it has been changed, the limit is 10. The main reason for coalitions back on live was that many SG's couldn't obtain all the 'cool stuff', generally due to not being able to earn enough prestige. So they would coalition with an SG that had every zone teleporter, for example. With prestige removed, this is no longer an issue. BUT some people do still form coalitions. My SG is in a coalition with another SG. Just one. Back on live, I was coalitioned with about 7.