Soyuz

This, basically. I like the architecture and general feel of the Redside zones and a good villainous origin story can be a joy to write. The actual missions can be problematic, however. I only ever went over there for Masterminds and Dominators, in truth. Now that those AT's are available to heros, there's little to draw me back there.

target_enemy_near is bound to the ` key, which on a UK keyboard is just above TAB and to the left of 1 (and possibly on others too? I don't know). That gives me an option when the scrum becomes too much to see through. Other than that, I keep targeting pretty standard. F to follow is very useful on melee characters, not so much on ranged ones. I also swap the "turn" and "strafe" keys with each other, just because I prefer them that way, and I disable the default binds on function keys F5 and above, mainly because they prevent me from using said keys to change volume levels on my laptop.

Soloed Hess on my blaster just to see if I could. I was in the level range for the TF at the time and on SO's only (and didn't know how to get Shivans), so it could have been a lot easier. Nevertheless, hover-blasting and a tray full of purples did the trick. Some will be a lot harder, of course. Archon Burkholder is particularly vulnerable to the hover-blasting tactic, I think.

Specifically, Agent Watkins' arc. He can be found in Steel Canyon.

On Reunion this morning. Not a big deal as the team just powered through the arc to the mission "Stop Kronos Titan & entire crew", so anyone who wanted the badge got it that way instead, but I thought it was worth reporting.

This has always puzzled me a little. Why did NCSoft buy the property in the first place? Surely they must have done their market research and known this ahead of time. Were they just trying to break into the western MMO marketplace and the Korean product was a sideshow?

I love these threads. They always take me back to the first time I rediscovered the game. I downloaded and installed it, created my account and then logged in, full of trepidation. Surely it was too good to be true? It wasn't. In fact, it was everything I remembered and more.

A pity there doesn't seem to be a story reason for it, but thanks for the reply.

I saw the oddest thing in Kings Row today. I had a mission there (one of Indigo's) which was pretty close to the Clockwork Paladin's stomping ground, so I popped around the corner to see whether he was in and wanted a chat. He wasn't, but I spotted a couple of people being held hostage by a group of Clockwork and stopped to help. Yes, they were all grey but I can't seem to not rescue people when I see them in trouble. It's why I take Flight so often, it's the only way I can cross a zone without getting into about sixteen pointless fights. We all have our issues. Anyway, this was my Pool Power Challenge character, so AoE is in short supply. While I was bopping the other four on the head, the Tesla Prince decided to bolt. I gave chase, dropped him to a sliver of health with Arcane Bolt and was just catching up to him when an electrical attack from above finished him off. I looked up, expecting to see a low level hero - but he'd been taken out by a Cannon Knight, lurking on an AC unit a couple of floors up. It then jumped down to finish off the Gears that sprang from the wreckage of the Tesla Prince, which seemed quite happy to fight back. Has anybody else seen something like this before? Is this normal? Have I just been playing this game for years and somehow not noticed? It's entirely possible, I'm very absent minded,

I'd like to see hazard zones given the Zig Jailbreak treatment, where the mobs always con the same way to you regardless of your level. The code to do that already exists, so hopefully the work involved wouldn't be too ridiculous. Stretch goal! Have everything in the zone con according to your difficulty settings. Like missions, it would presumably be set on entry to the zone. You couldn't affect spawn sizes this way, but you could affect the apparent level of the enemies. This unfortunately doesn't happen with the Zig Jailbreak event, so presumably would be new code. In either case, XP should remain scaled to the zone, not to the character. Taking on even-con Hellions is hardly the same thing as tackling even-con Malta, so the XP rewards should reflect this. Ultimately I'd like to see something like this done with all outdoor zones. I've never understood why a Hellion with a gun literally can't touch me if I'm level 40-50, but a Crey agent with a very similar handgun can.

I look forward to being body slammed across the map by Warrior Shield Maidens.

I hadn't known that and it's disappointing, actually. They basically are Hellions 2.0.

While it would be nice to see the Warriors change up their game a bit after all this time, I tend to agree with Grouchybeast - having the Warriors break their own code and veer away from the philosophy that defines them would be a little disappointing. From a philosophical point of view, they're not boring at all, in fact they're one of the more interesting groups out there. Everyone else scrambles for whatever scraps of power they can get, but not the Warriors. The only other gang that comes close to this ethos is the Outcasts, but they were born with their gifts. They didn't have to work for them like the Warriors did. There are certainly some options that aren't currently being used which could make the Warriors more interesting or challenging. Starting with pool powers, the whole of the Fighting, Leadership and Presence pools would be appropriate options for them, along with parts of the Concealment pool (but see below). The Warriors strike me mainly as filling the Scrapper niche at present. They hit very hard, they prefer an in-your-face approach to problem solving but perhaps don't feel as tanky as some other groups in the level range. There are plenty of valid options there that have come along since the group was first created back in issue 0. Staves and Shields have already been mentioned, and I'd love to see a Warrior boss using Shield Charge. How about some Ninja Training or Martial Combat options from the Blaster secondaries? Anything you can pass off as just better tactics would seem to be in their wheelhouse. I'm not sure if they'd go full Archery Blaster on you, because I'm not sure it fits their ethos, but they might if it helps them to handle the Freaks and the Tsoo. Same goes for Stalker tactics - it would work, but they might see it as being beneath a true Warrior to strike from hiding. There's another problem with Warriors using archery and TA though. Mainly TA, if I'm honest. Where exactly do you draw the line between the Natural and Technology origins? How many gadgets are needed before the group starts to feel more reliant on tech than training? It's the same issue with magic artifacts, of course, and to a large extent has to be left an exercise for the individual reader.

To be fair, the Family do display actual superpowers, most notably with their psychic bosses, so I suspect there's an undercurrent of that running throughout the whole group. I think the Warriors are there in part to justify the Natural origin. To show that sheer hard work and learned skill can triumph over shortcuts to power, making them tougher than groups like the Hellions and the Trolls. Then of course the Freakshow come along and steal their lunch money, so...

I know, right? Dialogue options with the potential to lead to a peaceful resolution wouldn't necessarily work for all missions - if I'm busting into a Council base to foil their latest Evil Plottm then by definition I'm up against a bunch of ideologically motivated nutbags in the middle of commiting Crimes Against Humanity. They're not likely to be talked out of it. But the Warriors? They're motivated by more... practical concerns. I suspect the real reason is that the technology didn't support it when the game launched and it would be a lot of work for the Homecoming team to do. It'd be nice to see it crop up just occasionally though.