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Hey You watch the game last night? huh? well did ya? It was good right? right?

I always go around wentworths trying to start conversations.

The world wasn't exactly well distributed before AE came along. There were still dense concentrations of players in certain areas. Often non-AE farms. It's not a whole lot different now. A bigger effect was the sidekick system overhaul, which allowed everyone to zoom up and down the level range instead of playing sidekick tetris and getting carried. It made those concentrations accessible to everybody. The effect that AE had on the economy on live was very destructive [edit: I'm kinda rethinking this statement. Inflation is a terrible problem across any MMO economy that hasn't thought about managing it]. Many IOs became the sole territory of powergamers. HC have addressed this in more way than one, we're seeing a more stable economy for now and I'm sure more methods would be introduced if it does start getting out of hand. If it does remain stable, then farmers only give the entire community a surplus - which is great. I agree that the rewards of the world content are worth thinking about, but I think this needn't be limited to XP or Inf.

There's literally like two people in this thread saying anything like this. And the OP isn't even one of them, though their suggestion would have that effect. edit: and both got instantly shot down.

Mate, again? You voice the same opinion as most of the community and then laugh at the community. It's weird.

It could be. There's a delay before the badge was awarded. And yeah, we heard about the same thing from the SCORE notes. Absolutely didn't happen; maybe slipped past HC somehow? Or maybe trying to fix a bug by bugging it is just a bad idea.

Nah, we figured this out over a lot of testing. Basically, Swiss Draw is not about the winning or losing. It’s about the taking part. Taking part before everyone else. In a group of 8 (and don’t do this with more than 8!) the organiser will never make it past round 1, regardless of if they win. On the invitations list, only the people in the 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th slots will make it to the semi finals. 6, 7 and 8 are eliminated. Then, again winners being irrelevant, invitee 2 and 3 will go head to head in the final. The winner (actual, bonafide winner) will get the badge, but they need to stay on the map until its awarded. So make sure the person you’re giving the badge to is the first person you invite to the event. Once they’ve won the finals, make sure they stay in the map when the score screen appears. Once we figured out the logic (insofar as CoH PvP can be logical) we got the badge for all 8 members with only one anomaly where the finalists got the countdown but the match never started. W̘͈̟̫͈̰̫͖͘͠o̵̸̢̞̭͇̙͉͓̜̻r̶̘̪̱͓̘ķ̫͎͎͢i̜̜͇̳̮͡n̸͔̬͚̼̗͎͎̲͠͠g͞͏̵̰̻̦̗̳̱ͅ ̡̠̭̳̥͚̪̩͈͝A̲͈̬̥s͏̪ͅ ҉̸͎̮̺̦͖̝͟I̱͔͚̗̫̻͇̕n̮̤̖̠ț̨̠͖̀e̡̮̬͙̮͖̯n̝͔̣̮̜̮͈̲͎͜d͎̫͉̙̺͘͘͢e͕͓̫̹͉̕ͅd̶҉͈̮̣̯̠͟

I’m in favour of the OP’s suggestions here, but that’s because I’m coming from the school of protestant work ethic and I like the sensation of unlocking stuff. For me, it’s an immersion thing. An RPG should at its core use the character as the liaison between the player and the game world, with the player’s interactions done through the character. Little things like the /ah command do break that contract, where the chat box takes the role of the character. But that’s a niggling thing; I use the /ah command all the bloody time so I can hardly fight this corner. As for hazard zones, I absolutely agree they need to be reevaluated. I think we’re beyond the days that levelling up is either a grind or a reward, so I don’t think they should be viewed in that scope. A new approach would be to look at what makes the MSR and Hami Raid popular, in the way that they reward players. Could hazard zones become co-op, each have a unique unlevelled raid, rewarding a type of currency (let’s call them City Merits or something) that matches Vanguard Merits in income-per-raid and exchange value? The events needn’t be more complex than the MSR, with similarly ludicrous amounts of murd— arrests. This would be something that is rewarding for everyone up and down the level ranges, attract people to the zones and give them back a sense of danger. edit: gimme

While AE may be a contributing factor to the empty zones, I think this issue is the result of a lot of changes. I think that radio missions and the newer sidekick system had a much larger impact on zone use than AE does, as does the ease of travelling around the city now. Rather than eliminating the dense concentrations of the players in the game, the fix here is to make those zones attractive somehow. I'd love hazard zones to be given a overhaul.

More prisons.

Sister Romanghostwidow’s arc uses the first half of the Cimerora map from the last mission of ITF, and I think it’s a defeat all. I never knew about it. I really, really enjoyed exploring it by myself and seeing the detail of the map. It’s a fun one, I think because there is so much verticality to it.

It’s the badge awarded to players for winning a costume contest, made available to everybody. I guess it puts a value on winning costume contests, and that value should be high.

That explains why I couldn’t find it! I don’t know about others, but I’ve stopped even noticing the XP bar. I’ve clocked somewhere around 600 level ups on HC so far, they’ve become something I don’t celebrate anymore. I no longer rush to the trainer after each ding unless I know there’s immediate value in doing so. I even had a few hours before I realised one toon had hit 50 and was well into their Alpha slot. And that’s without AE, just regular content. XP just isn’t a significant part of the game for me and I don’t notice the grind as it stands. I have a petless MM which I levelled petlessly (and realised, far too late, what a terrible idea that was), and I ran her through the Tunnel Witch AE farm maybe a dozen or so times to get her through the teens. That for me was significantly more painful and grindy, and I was waiting for that XP bar to grow so I could get on with playing her. I know folks feel the complete opposite, that doing normal* content 1-50 is the grind and AE farming is the relief. OP has noticed that this can create an irritating dissonance, but it remains a very personal issue. *is there a better term than normal or regular that we can use, as though AE were abnormal or irregular? Vanilla, maybe?

Correct on both accounts. You’d need to craft the new incarnate power. You’ll notice on the equip screen for incarnates that any powers you have crafted will be listed on the right and one can be slotted at a time. Having multiple incarnate powers can make you quite adaptable. And incarnate powers are slotted independent of respecs.

Your protestation confused me, because I took to clearly mean Don't play [the game]. Which I snapped at with a retort of the same extreme sentiment but about being part of the community if you feel that way about this one niche. I found that extremely narrow minded and dismissive of any critique to AE or any part of the game. I realize you meant Don't play [the part]. And exclaimed a long 'ooooooooooh', and will profusely apologise. I'm sorry for misreading that. That's a whole different notion and I agree with it, obviously. I stand by that the notion of nerfing AE isn't the popular one, though it's bound to come up regularly, so I think it was still misplaced to be cracked up by 'the community'.

As I understand it, and I may be wrong here, the chance of the different enemy ranks dropping anything at all is different. So a boss has a higher drop chance than a minion. Then, the rarity of that drop is another... (This is where Riverdusk ninja'd me with actual numbers and research)

Because the suggestion to leave the game if players find things they dislike is essentially the same. I have plenty I don’t like about the game and will raise them as they’re discussed, and I don’t want to be told to leave the game for that.

I can’t find the thread in suggestions easily (stuff in there gets buried quick), but Leandro gave a pretty decisive no to this idea. I feel that both HC and the Live devs have made 1-50 easy enough, but that’s coming from someone who likes the levelling process.

But this thread has never been about this and not many people support getting rid of or nerfing AE. Even the OP didn’t suggest it. The other similar thread currently on page 1 of general did, but is still clearly a minority opinion. I think it’s a long way off representing the community, who by and large either use AE or are ambivalent. These conversations prompt good discussion about how people play the game and the challenge and reward of older/non-AE content. I like talking about that; it’s interesting to me.

I think the drop rate is 1/5000. That’s plenty; super-rare is exactly that.

A softcap is when you can increase the value beyond a certain point, but it has no effect (defence softcap is 45%) You can go higher, but the only benefit is that there is a buffer if you are debuffed. a hardcap means that the value stops at a certain point. Resist hardcap on a tank is 90%, it doesn’t go higher.

Absolutely, but there is in assuming that everyone else in the community has that point of view, even though most seem moderate at worst on the subject, and then treating that point of view as laughable.

If you don’t like the community, don’t be a part of it.

I’d like to see Hazard Zones become more significant and for street sweeping to be a viable and enjoyable progression path for some level ranges. I don’t know how you’d accomplish this, maybe giving hazard zones a strategic ‘PvP-zone-esque’ map event for large teams.