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Worth noting that it didn't take 6 months to redesign Energy Melee. It's taken that time for the team to be in a position that they can consolidate page 6. I doubt PPM changes will arrive in page 6. It sounds like they've started looking at it conceptually so far.

Why have crowd control when the crowd controls itself?

I don't necessarily think the powers themselves need changing (though, if they did, then fine. I shaln't be remiss). But I think enemies could do a better job of not obediently waddling into a bunched up group.

I'm not sure we have any way of demonstrating it other than hypothetically. Even a mathematical comparison of nerf would be hypothetical until implemented. With upcoming nerfs and buffs, it'll be interesting to see the results. I think the question of balance being pointless isn't quite the right question if you want things modelled - it's too binary and the absolute answer is obvious. If there were a melee set where each attack was ST only did 1 damage and had 2% accuracy and another where every attack was a 0.2sec recharge, 0.1 sec cast, 500pt damage Ranged AoE, I think it'd be hard to argue against some balancing needing to happen, up and down respectively. The question really is what is a acceptable tolerance for misbalance. That's where things can get debatey. From Bopper in the recent balance thread: We could debate if that threshold is acceptable. It seems HC think it isn't. I don't have a horse in that race, though, so can't really comment.

Agreed with above posts. Ending up with 10 or more incarnate powers - more than the 9 we get from power sets - would be the saddest way to expand the game.

I feel like I do see variation more often than I notice a high population of a few well performing sets. In fact, I'm not even that sure I know which are the high performing ones. I don't hang out in AE, though, which might count for something. I feel like I'm reading a fear that balanced sets lead to homogeny. This would be true if the aim is to balance sets against each other. But I don't think that's the right approach (except in PvP, but that's a whole other thicket). In PvE, the aim should be to balance sets against the content. That means that sets should be able to engage with the content by their own virtues but without trivialising it. When you look at it that way, there's no need for them to become the same. Similarly, content can be buffed or nerfed against the set. The nice thing about that is those adjustments are optional to the players. I'd love to see those options expanded, especially if NPC AI could get more sophisticated.

This coming from the person who started this thread's specific derailment.

This is really comforting to read. It feels like the goals are in the right place for me. 🙂

❤️❤️❤️They're so beautiful!❤️❤️❤️

Not sure how you managed that, Emmy.

60 merits/hour doesn't sound too crazy. That's quite a monotonous method, too. I wonder how high the returns can get with a full team, though. Might be worth testing in depth?

Ah, you're right, I should have looked harder. It looks like as a general rule that Nova Praetoria arcs award 5 merits, Imperial City and Neutropolis award 9. According to the wiki, some offer only 2 (spotted Neuron and Mr G), but I don't see why. They could do with being catalogued.

Why yes!

Yeah, that part of vigilance is a bit odd across all the defenders: The better you're doing at your job, the less end discount you're getting out of it. It's meant to be there as a sort of panic offset. Outside of that, Vigilance doesn't have a lot to offer.

Just for clarity, are you asking about animation time here?

Neither exist on Praetorian Earth. There was a suggestion about making it work not long ago.

Have you given the Dominator set a proper go, Troo? The energy release mechanic isn't particularly intrusive. It's not like Dual Blades and is mild even compared with Street Justice.

Devs still hate redside confirmed.

Welcome Home!!! 🎈

I think it's well known that Hamidon is out there. What isn't known is that it's intelligent and struck a deal with Cole.

Larger Praetorian arc level ranges has been high on my wishlist from the start. It gets really messy really fast when you outlevel a contact.

Butterscotch pudding. (He did specify just ONE person. I saved the thread!)

We can all agree that Regen needs to be nerfed though, right?

Assuming no technical obstacle, would alternate animations suffice?

I think this is an extremely difficult metric to define and even harder to measure. Maybe even too abstract to be useful? Say we had the hypothetical clearly-way-too-OP-set and some people loved it, but it gets nerfed down to a baseline. Of course you'll have voices rise up against the nerf, but what you won't have are people explicitly stating they're more content because the game has no longer been made overwhelmingly trivial by other players. People don't tend to express positive sentiments as verbosely as negative sentiments (edit: I think the world would be a better place if they did). There's no way of knowing whether the change that has been made has affected more people for the better. Even less so from the players' perspective. Having said that, I don't think every nerf has been good (looking at you, EM), nor do I think every buff has been good (looking at you, incarnate powers).