ZemX

I tend to agree. I only got my Iron Challenger up to about 21 or so but he had millions on hand from selling converters. Always enough for SOs at the least and even a few IOs by then. On the other hand, doing @Ukase's "Drop Challenge" is brutal. It's clear you can't get enough enhancements just using drops. At least not in the first 20 or so levels probably. Not without stopping XP strictly to farm dropped enhancements. The problem is most of what you get is either not for your origin or it's not a type that's useful to that particular character (like a hold enhancement on someone with no hold powers yet) . And some types seem almost never to drop too, like EndMod enhancements. I think if you go long enough to get enough IO recipe drops (and the salvage and inf to craft them) it eventually solves that problem but it's a slog definitely. So yeah I would think allowing buying enhancements at vendors and use of the upgrade button on the enhancement window is a good idea. Unlike Ukase's challenge, I would allow use of the Merit Vendor. Just no AH at all. If you earned the merits you can use them and anything you can get from them at the Merit Vendor. You just can't sell it on the AH. So no converters for cash or rolling IOs into high demand ones for making money.

No, I get the part about inheritance. What I mean is... when you referred to the Iron Challenge rules you said "drops only" which can be interpreted to mean you can't buy things at vendors or on the AH. i.e. You can only use drops from defeated enemies. The only use for influence would be crafting dropped IO recipes using dropped salvage. In other words: Are you thinking about restricting vendor or auction house usage? What about the merit vendor?

Sounds cool but can you clarify "drops only"? @Chainz's rules basically just amounted to "self funded". You weren't limited to just using dropped enhancements. You could buy at vendors or, if you wanted to, sell converters or converted IOs on the market for cash.

You assume incorrectly. Scrappers are quite common on teams.

Assault is their secondary powerset. Same is true of Defenders. You can't really talk about AT balance in isolation. You said they should do more damage, essentially, because damage is one of the things they do. Not really an argument. Outside of Controllers, EVERY AT has at least one of their powersets devoted primarily to doing damage. And comparing damage and support is a bit of apples and oranges. How much damage nerf is it worth if an AT has strong controls? Not easy to answer, but somewhere between an AT whose primary purpose is damage and an at whose primary purpose is support probably.

Well, you were right about the incendiary part at least. I had some words to say that were sort of blunt, but instead I'll just let these two comments from your OP sit next to one another for awhile.

For someone who claims to have been banned for this, it's a curious way to characterize your own actions. "Boot them if they do not conform to your demands simply because you are the team leader"? This is how I would expect the jerk who got kicked from the team to describe it, because what really happened was that you formed the team advertised as "no speed" and therefore everyone joining it is implicitly agreeing to these rules. It's not one person forcing their "demands" on the team. It's the team, collectively, agreeing to play a particular way. Then it's one jerk deciding to go back on their own word and subject everyone else on the team to something THEY didn't agree to. And you're defending the jerk.

So... to put it another way: Damage is NOT their whole thing?

I haven't played the challenge for a few days. The early levels are pretty discouraging. But I created a Kat/Nin Scrapper last week and got him to around 8 I think in Praetoria. I did not notice any better drops. At least not yet anyway. The drops were definitely not always my origin whether they were street sweeping or in mission and a couple SO rewards ended up being the wrong origin as well. He might currently be doing even slightly worse than my Rad/Rad Redside Defender. Ninjitsu on Scrappers, unlike Stalkers, has a +End click power. But yeah, Staff/Bio should have no endurance issues either with the added recovery of bio and the endurance discount stance of Staff. I'm a huge fan of Staff Fighting myself but I went with Katana for much the same reason as I did Rad Blast on the Defender, for the -def debuffs to alleviate poor accuracy slotting. Also Katana has 1.05x base accuracy. It's not a lot, but it helps with that initial hit and then the def debuffs take over. Also, Kat has the +def for melee/lethal attack. Staff has it as an AoE cone, but it' slightly weaker and longer recharge. Not as easily stackable. Still good though. Staff has way better AoE than Kat which is why I normally prefer it to Katana/Ninja Blade.

You're not wrong, but Ukase's not allowing auto update so even if he had a DO to replace it with he wouldn't as then he has to hope another drops in the next three levels or that something better comes along. It's not worth worrying about the ~2% difference in strength. He crafted that level 10 IO from a dropped recipe using dropped salvage and now he doesn't have to worry about that slot going red. He can wait to replace it with another common IO recipe that's better later on. It will be a 20 or 25 probably either a common or set IO depending on what drops. Not a DO. I have to say, this challenge is brutal even without the permadeath. It looks like Ukase's turned the corner a bit on enhancements though by 20 with the IO recipe drops. That's huge in something like this because if he's shown anything with this it's that standard origin invention drops are unable to keep up with leveling. The RNG is a killer. The drop rate is already slow, but the drop rate of usable enhancements by a given player is miniscule. From what I saw, it was usual to fill an enhancement tray tab with drops and get maybe 0-2 enhancements matching player origin and then be lucky if even one of them was a type you could use. I trashed many tech slow, stun, range, etc. enhancements that my tech defender just didn't have powers to use or, as in the case of range, didn't really need more than I needed even the paltry inf I could get selling it. It's not how it was intended to be played, of course. The idea was that unusable enhancements would be vendored for cash and then usable enhancements bought with the proceeds. But it's interesting to see how badly broken the drops are if you had to rely on them. Origin-based enhancements weren't the original devs' best idea.

I just picked my main toon to be my "badger". I don't think it's build so much as desire to play that character. It's going to take a lot of time, so make it one of your most favorite-to-play characters, I'd say. Not that I am anywhere near all the badges. Don't know if I ever will be. But I'm about halfway there. Is this a comment on mortality? 🤪 Otherwise, I kind of just view badging as something to do when I'm not doing anything else. I don't plan rigorously, but I'll try to be aware of badge opportunities too. I downloaded a badge popmenu so I can quickly consult what I have or don't have and it certainly makes locating explorations or plaques dead easy.

Yeah, this wouldn't go anywhere. You can just look around at various kinds of challenges people are doing and see they aren't being done by very many people. A handful each really. We just tried this recently with an SO-only challenge and got only a few people interested so far. Speaking of which, you go most of the way back to a classic feel of the game just by doing that: Skip IO sets. You don't need a new server. No other single thing really changed the game as much as that did since probably Enhancement Diversification. It not only put some things ED took away back in play (e.g. Perma-Hasten) but it allowed ATs to get things their powersets couldn't normally provide such as mez protection, soft-capped defenses, resistance, regen/recovery, etc. What you find if you stick to SOs and play only with others on SOs is that you rely more on each other. The main problem we face is not having enough people doing it to really get that old balance back. To see if the game really is "balanced around SOs" like people keep saying it is.

The OP asked about difficulty and it hadn't really been addressed yet. I have to say, I think the "redside is more difficult" thing is generally overstated too. I think newer content is generally more challenging than older and to the extent redside is newer, it may have a few slightly more challenging missions. But I don't think it holds a candle to Goldside for troublesome enemies and many, many ambushes. But even then, pick some newer arcs Red or Blueside and you can find similarly challenging missions. It's clear the devs' approach to missions changed over time. For the better, I think. Still, I wouldn't worry overly much about difficulty redside. Certainly starting out I haven't had any real difficulty compared to blue. And as noted, it's easy enough to change sides later on.

I know this one can be done by anybody but aren't there some "talk to"s in TFs that can only be done by the team lead? Or am I imagining things?

So if read this correctly, if the answer to both is "yes".... you go make a cup of coffee?

I assume the OP has been away for a while and just noticed the patch notes about the various updates to the way powers root you during their animations (or don't root you) and likes what they see? Not sure what 11/10 is... score of 11 out of 10? Would post again?

I don't think there's one answer to that. Me, for instance... I can't ever see myself farming. I don't get it. I strangely somehow like to watch my characters develop as I play them. Maybe... I just haven't been playing again as long as some of you, having only just discovered HC this past March. On the other hand, I sort of think when I get tired of leveling characters up from 0, I will probably be tired of the game and set it aside. Why I mention that... I wouldn't want to be given hundreds of millions of inf. I'm already sitting on probably 400 million or so across my four 50s and have spent at least that much or more on their builds and those of various mid level characters already. I have no idea what kind of inf you end up with after being PLed to 50 in a farm, but I've found earning enough to self-fund a character the way I play is pretty easy even doing just the fairly lazy merits -> converters -> cash route and maybe occasionally crafting and selling in-demand IOs that I've been dropped or that I converted. But I don't spend a whole lot of time at that. Not like the real marketeers out there earning tens or hundreds of mil a day. But it's more than enough. My main 50 is accumulating wealth faster than I have been using it lately and that's just playing the game. Just piling up merits now and not using them even. My opinion? I wouldn't drop more than a couple million on someone at a time. Nobody needs anything to get started but it's a small enough amount (relatively speaking) that I don't think it would affect anyone's enjoyment at earning their own. I've done that, for example, for some alts where I just drop 1 or 2 million on them and it's plenty to comfortably jump start them into earning their own way. They can buy some conveniences in P2W in the tutorial at level 1 and their first couple rounds of SOs, by which point they've begun earning merits and making their own money. If I was sitting on THAT many billions, and knowing I wouldn't ever want to hand out more than a million or two at a time... hell, I'd probably just burn most of it. I mean you could just delete half of it and you wouldn't even notice it was gone. You're not using it.

To be fair, I can LRTP to Pocket D, hit up Gull, and then Ouro back in probably less than a minute, so it's not quite so outrageous a suggestion really. I'm not sure if anyone would have objected to trying Talos either. It seemed like a pretty easy going group. Now that I'm aware it's a sticking point, I might even bring it up with teams I join if I know there's a transit mission coming up.

I thought about asking the team to step out of Ouro and go to a real tram station but... again, it was late. I might have tried that line earlier in the day. It's funny how lazy stuff like the Ouro portal has made us. I've seen people port to Ouro when running to a tram would have taken less than 30 seconds. And it's unusual for it to take much longer. One can also go to Ouro and back to Talos and be dropped right next to the tram station.

That's the thing. Everyone has a line. I don't see a team lead kicking one stealther as a problem. If it was advertised no-speed, and that person got reminded it was no-speed and they STILL won't listen? Boot. It's not hurting anyone. They're already fighting without that jerk anyway.

I'm being a little facetious here. If it had been earlier in the evening and I was really enjoying the team, and they were actually willing to wait for me to switch, I might have done it. And yeah, I'd have gone Vig certainly. Speaking of Gull, I need to switch another vig to rogue just to see that great line about, and I can't remember it exactly, but it's something like "Congrats! You're a Rogue now. The devs don't hate you anymore. They just ignore you." ETA: Or was that said only when going Villain to Rogue? Hmmm...

Eh... if someone wants to post such an obviously self-aggrandizing comment as that, let them. It says more about them than anybody else.

If they want to tell me it's literally never sunny (or at least partly cloudy) there like there's literally never a clear patch of blue sky in the Rogue Isles, that word would be a lie.

Thing is, anything that is repeatable and has a decent pot of gold at the end of the rainbow is going to be something most people want to do quickly. So that's most TFs and Trials. The exceptions are when people tell you it's a "casual" or "kill most" or "kill through" which all basically mean "we're not speeding". But that still may involve a high powered steamroller team depending on what mix you end up with. Radio missions teams are usually this way. They aren't there for the end of mission rewards. The defeats along the way are the whole point. You might find mid-level radio teams tolerable. "Casual" specifically (usually) means the lead isn't concerned about speed OR high-difficulty, so people interested in that stuff stay away.. mostly. Beyond that, it sounds like your best fit is a contact mission team. This is someone doing story arc content from someone on their contact list. It can be somewhat varied. It might take you to different zones. But people doing them are usually not in a hurry to complete. And you might try striking up some banter while on such missions to see who bites. It can be a fun side thing. The game, let's be honest, doesn't provide a great deal of story to engage with. But here's the bad news... this is about the least common type of mission team I've seen advertised. If you want this sort of thing, you may have to be willing to lead it. Send out a request for team to do "contact missions". Maybe give the contact name, zone, and level/settings you're running at. That's always good info to have. But be prepared to not always fill that team quickly. Best do it blueside for the larger population, sad to say. Lastly, RP teams on Everlasting seem to be very casual in terms of the gameplay and difficulty. You don't see them that often in public LFG channels so if you're interested in that I'd go investigate RP forums and talk to people. There's probably channels to join for more of that, though you'll want to be sure just what kind of RP you're getting into. There's... different kinds. I ended up on a casual RP team last night on Everlasting that wasn't advertised as such and it was a lot of fun. Just someone doing mission arcs in First Ward who advertised they were doing so if anyone else wanted to come along. It must attract the sort of person who enjoys a bit of in-character banter while doing missions because we all ended up doing that.

It's interesting. It actually ends up with a somewhat larger area and one could argue it's easier to hit a spread of enemies without having to stand off as far. But it also looks like compared to the other AT versions it's been nerfed a bit in scale damage to bring it in line with the other Sent 90s nukes. And whereas the radial nukes in other sets have an inner radius where everything is hit for extra damage, Full Auto gets its extra damage as a 16% chance effect on any enemy in the cone. I get where they came up with that number. The inner radius of the other nukes represents 16% of the outer radius area, but a Sent with a radial nuke and a packed spawn in simply going to do more damage now than an AR sent with Full Auto. It's only equivalent when the spawn is evenly distributed over the whole 25ft radius. Just add it to the list of somewhat baffling decisions that went into the current version of Sents, I guess.