Stormwalker

Obviously, if someone is predisposed to interpret what you say in the worst possible way, then nothing you can do will prevent that. Even so, being polite is the best social tool we have for keeping discourse civil. It won't always work, but that's no reason not to try. IMO, anyway.

My viewpoint is that the more emotionally invested people are in their opinions, the more important it is to be polite. The combination of emotional investment and a "politeness is not needed" attitude is a recipe for conflict.

I think if you can logically refute someone's point, you don't need to say "this idea is dumb". You can just say, "Here are the problems I see with this idea," instead. Telling someone "Your idea is stupid" will nearly always be read by that person as "You are stupid", whether that was the intent or not. It establishes a hostile tone for a discussion, and contributes to the digging in of heels I mentioned in my previous comment. When making an argument, it's always important to consider how the things you say will be perceived by the person you are trying to persuade. Otherwise you are sabotaging your own ability to be persuasive, and thus sabotaging your own argument.

Here's my thoughts on those questions (which do not necessarily reflect the actual rules, but do reflect my view of polite discussion): My opinion is that actively insulting someone's comments (calling them "dumb", "BS", "drivel", "garbage", etc.) is pretty much the same thing as insulting the person who posted it. The moment someone stoops to name-calling - and using such dismissive terminology for someone else's stated opinions is effectively indirect name-calling - they've stepped outside the lines, IMO. If someone can't express why they disagree with someone else without resorting to name-calling, either they need to re-evaluate their viewpoint (because they're having trouble logically supporting it) or else they need to rein in their emotions (because they're interfering with their ability to make logical and polite arguments). And pretty much everyone crosses this line sometimes... but we should try our best not to cross it, and moderation should remind us not to cross it when we do. I have observed in this forum - and pretty much every other forum for every other online game ever, really - that there is a point in nearly any argument where both sides have said everything that they have to say and are just rehashing the same points over and over again. Ideally, we should all learn to recognize when we've reached that point and say, "Ok, we're not going to agree on this. We're at an impasse, and there's not much more to say that we haven't already said." Practically, this very rarely happens because new parties join the argument around the time that previous parties get sick of it and bail out, thus sustaining the argument as the same points get made again and again by different people. People on both sides of the argument dig in their heels and become increasingly confrontational, largely out of frustration and emotional investment. Ultimately, the moderator decides that everything that there is to say has been said, and all that is happening is that people are getting angry and civil discourse is failing, and ends up locking the thread.\ As for how much of the above is too much? That's... one of the eternal questions, really. If you cut off the discussion too soon, then people feel resentful because they feel like they didn't get to present their opinion. But if you let it carry on too long, then people feel resentful because things became very heated and they feel like the other side had it in for them. This is one of those cases where it's very difficult to make everyone happy. The ideal answer would be for those of us on the forums to try to recognize when we have reached an impasse and simply agree to disagree, but when we are passionate about the game it can be very difficult for us to do that. For my own part, I've started trying to bail out on threads when I realize they've reached this point so that at least I am no longer contributing to the problem, and I would encourage others to do the same. How do you tell when it's reached this point? Are you just rehashing the same things you've already said earlier in the thread (even if responding to different people)? Are the people responding to you just rehashing things that have already been said earlier in the thread? If the answer to either 1 or 2 is yes, you're probably at that point. If the answer to BOTH is yes, you're definitely at that point and it's time to stop. This is, of course, all just my opinion. YMMV.

Agreed. The rules are the rules. Or, as Mike Tomlin would say, "The Standard is the Standard." Now, lenience in terms of corrective actions taken for first offenses (or even for those who haven't offended in a long time) is something I do agree with... but the offender should still be informed that they crossed the line, so they know what they did wrong and what they need to change going forward. Of course, I am also not a fan of differential enforcement in the other direction. People who have long post histories shouldn't get off more easily than newbies do, either.

This is something I'd also really like to see if it's practical to implement.

I've been a moderator on a gaming forum before. It was a very long time ago (it was an original Phantasy Star Online forum, that should give you some idea how long ago it was!), and the main thing I remember about it was that it was a really difficult and often thankless job, though on those occasions when someone did take the time to thank me for it, that was a very good feeling. Having been a moderator is probably the biggest factor in why I don't often get warnings on forums. I get riled up plenty and I am frequently tempted to say things I shouldn't, but I have that little voice in the back of my head that says, "If you were the moderator, how would you react to someone saying what you're about to say?" and that leads me to bite my tongue in those situations. Though, I'll be honest, I've let at least a couple of things slip on this forum that I probably would have warned me for, so you're at least a bit more lenient than I would have been. The first thing I'd say here is... of the gaming forums I've been on, the current moderation here seems to be better than most. If anything, you've allowed some fairly intense disagreements to go on longer than I probably would have if it were me... and that's not necessarily a bad thing, because moderation is absolutely full of judgement calls. I'm not egotistical enough to think that my idea of when to step in is automatically the correct one. The most important thing is to be consistent and fair, and from what I've personally seen, you seem to do pretty well with that. I haven't read every single topic on the forums, but I've been deeply involved in some very contentious ones, so I think I've seen a reasonable sample size. So, so far at least, I have no complaints. If I do find myself with any complaints at any point, I'll let you know. I've never been terribly hesitant about speaking my mind (as I think a fair number of people can attest) - I just try my best to be diplomatic about it when I do (and I don't always succeed at that!) EDIT: Oh, and thank you. Both for doing what you do, and for actually asking for feedback on it. That you care enough about doing it right to ask says a lot in and of itself.

Once each on 20-some-odd of my characters.

Yeah. What I would say is that if you are in a situation where your ability to win the fight is very marginal, then it can be helpful by giving you a bit more margin (in terms of ending the fight a little faster so that there is less time for things to go wrong). Considering it doesn't cost all that much, that's probably fair utility for price.

My DP/Martial is only level 21 but she's been a blast so far, and does not at all feel weak compared to my other blasters (It's not Fire/Fire, obviously, but what is?). She's much more fun than my DP Corruptor (who I created first) has been so far.

I don't know enough about Masterminds to comment on the specific powers (I only have one, and he's still low level), but I like it from a concept perspective.

When I soloed the Synapse TF on my Energy/Energy blaster, I tried to use one of these for the King, thinking he might tank for me, but he couldn't hold aggro and really didn't attack all that much so I had to do pretty much all the work myself. Though the King turned out to be a lot easier than I expected (I did have envenomed daggers, but what I had been worried about was tanking his hits on a Blaster and as it turned out I was able to do that much better than I thought I could), so it wasn't really a problem. It probably did help end the fight a bit faster so I didn't have to tank quite as long as I might have So, my experience is: it'll add some damage, which can be useful sometimes. It won't tank for you. I probably wouldn't spend the cash for another one, though.

Rock Blast! (Not to be confused with Seismic) (borrowing from one of my favorite very old webcomics): (You're not standing at all, Ardam! Quit lying down on the job!) I think it'd need new animations to really work, though.

Heck, my entire concept for why my Energy blaster was limited to weak blasts at low level was that her control was not fully developed and she had to hold back a TON because she was afraid she'd accidentally hit someone too hard and kill them, so she had to err on the side of caution. As she gained experience her control and confidence IN that control improved, so she could hold back less, thus stronger blasts. Much like Superman, she is never NOT holding back, though.

I'm not entirely opposed to the idea, since I think it would narrow the gap between Energy Aura and SR (and also between Shield and SR) a little bit, since both of those sets outperform SR (though neither by a large margin). On the flip side, though, the only sets that give Recovery buffs do so for reasons (though it's not really apparent in the case of Regeneration, since Regeneration's Recovery buff is an artifact of when Instant Healing was a very expensive toggle power rather than a click; back then, Regen really needed that extra Recovery. Not so much now). What I might suggest as an alternative is that you work the Recovery buff into your attack set concept somehow. The Recovery buff would be a bit more thematic for a Speed-themed set, because speedsters need an accelerated metabolism to maintain that rapid pace. Perhaps do something like Staff, where your attacks apply a small self-buff?

Man, that really does suck. What kind of person thinks doing something like that is OK? And in a freaking superhero game, too. Of all the environments you might think would discourage theft...

I suspect that one reason people may think SR's endurance costs are higher than they actually are is the free 20% +recharge that SR gives. This makes it easier to attain high global recharge, which enables more aggressive attack chains which are substantially harder on endurance. I know when building my Claws/SR and my DB/SR, I absolutely had to build in extra endurance management (Physical Perfection, Conserve Power - though the Claws/SR doesn't really need Conserve Power, as previously noted - she's just barely end-positive without it) to account for their highly demanding attack chains (Claws less so, because Claws lighter on end, but if you push it hard enough it can still get pretty tight. My DB/SR, on the other hand, required going to great lengths to tame her endurance usage, but that's because she has truly absurd amounts of global recharge (her final build will have 285%, but she's not quite there yet). But my other /SR scrappers, like my MA/SR, are not nearly as hard on endurance because they don't need the same degree of recharge to make their attack chains go that my Claws/SR and DB/SR do. Those high-recharge attack chains tend to be very, very rough on endurance. That's not SR's fault, though. It's just that SR makes getting to those levels of recharge a little bit easier than it otherwise would be.

Now this is a suggestion I have no argument with. More options for stuff to put in the base is good, and these seem like very reasonable additions to me. I mean, some of my heroes have accelerated metabolisms that can eat pretty much anything and stay in shape (and the regenerators probably require enormous amounts of protein), but... not all of them do! Some of them definitely need to include some fruits and veggies in their diet.

Sentinels are a pretty different beast, though. Blast sets tend to have very high endurance requirements (this is one of the reasons Blasters need sustain powers).

I don't see a need for a Recovery buff in the set. I wouldn't object to having one, because one of the reasons I like Energy Aura better than SR is the combo of Energize and Energy Drain, but I don't usually find Endurance to be a problem on my SR characters once they get to high level (and at lower levels, every set that isn't Regen struggles with Endurance). I did take Conserve Power on my Claws/SR, but that was mostly as a measure of defense against actually getting hit by one of those Recovery debuffs that takes your Recovery all the way down to zero (see: IDF), and a Recovery buff wouldn't help there because the mag on that debuff is so huge it's taking you to zero regardless.

I'm with you on this. I love skilled players who make use of their Knockback, and one of my co-mains is an Energy blaster and I love my knockback. But I hate NPC's with knockback, because they have no intelligence and use it completely indiscriminately to oftentimes detrimental and occasionally cataclysmic effect. See also: Serpent Drummer knocking enemies into the next spawn and then chasing them. And I swear, it seems like almost every helper NPC we get in the game has KB, too. Drives me nuts.

I have actually played one and only one MMO in which I liked the PvP. And that MMO was designed for PvP first and the PvE mechanics were built on top of the PvP mechanics. Unfortunately, the company that ran the Western version of it went all-in on the P2W and killed the game. I'm not going to name that game on the grounds that I probably shouldn't admit having played it (let's just say it wasn't best known for its gameplay 😛). But the thing to know about it was that PvP was largely a team-on-team affair and good team tactics were required to succeed unless you massively outnumbered or outgunned the enemy, and that was what made it fun. A small group using guerilla tactics could actually wreak havoc on substantially more powerful forces. The other thing that was good about it was that since the PvE mechanics were build on top of the PvP mechanics, you used the same build and the same gear for optimal PvP and PvE play. This meant you could be out and about doing PvE objectives, come under attack by enemy players, and be perfectly well equipped to defend yourself because you were already rocking your PvP kit. This is something that basically every other MMO ever gets wrong. Well, actually, there was one other MMO with good PvP, but only in its 1v1 Arena mode, and that was Blade & Soul. I actually had a lot of fun in B&S's Arena. I avoided world PvP like the plague, though.

I had exactly this same problem recently when trying to create an "alien" character with a non-human skin color. Some pale tints of purple, blue, green, orange, etc. would be a nice addition to the skin color palette. Had no problem creating a dark red skin tone for another character whose combat body is a magical construct (her name is Shadow Ruby, so her colors are deep red and black), but lighter pale tones outside the human flesh-tone range are pretty much impossible to achieve. So, yes, I'm in favor of this.

Super Reflexes is already one of the best defensive sets in the game. It doesn't need to be overhauled. This is speaking as someone who has been maining a Claws/Super Reflexes scrapper since before IO's were a thing. Super Reflexes has... End costs are no higher than those of most armor sets, as already observed. Easily soft-capped defenses to all positions. Scaling damage resistances One of the best mez protections of any armor set (because, as a long duration click, it can be stacked and it doesn't drop if you get detoggled... not that this is likely to happen to you unless you are really careless or very unlucky since soft-capped defenses provide excellent protection against endurance drain). The best defense debuff resistance of ANY armor set in the game. 20% free recharge buff, a movement speed buff, and 40% slow resistance, all in an AUTO POWER. The only thing I wish for when playing my SR characters (I have many) is Terrorize protection, and I'm pretty sure it isn't getting that anytime soon. The only armor set I like better than SR is Energy Aura, and the margin between them is small. SR is just fine as it is. Also, not everyone who takes SR is a super-speedster, so I see no need to tie those two together conceptually. NONE of my SR characters have Super Speed. Not one. I don't have a strong opinion one way or the other on your proposed attack set. I wouldn't use it, but there are lots of sets in the game already that I don't use, so I have no objection to adding more of them.

As I have said before, I define the AT's by narrative role (which is what the archetypes' inherent powers are intended to represent), not by capabilities. Rogue acts like a Scrapper. She's an aggressive fighter (thus not a Tanker), and she doesn't rely on building anger to fuel her might (thus not a Brute). Specifically, the role she filled is that of a blitz attacker. That's a Scrapper's job. Also, just to point out... Iron Man is a Sentinel and he goes toe to toe with everyone. There is more to AT differences than your resist caps. Also, as I already said, I'm not getting drawn into this argument again. I've been 'round and 'round on all these points enough times already. I've said what I have to say. So I won't be replying to any further comment on this.