Lazarillo

The irony being now that I realize that, I'll probably want to avoid doing GMs so as not to end up with stray salvage confuddling characters' inventories. If it can be converted into Prismatics (sellable), just make it sellable, I feel like.

Did a few more tries on these guys since apparently not having it scaled to x8 on my last run didn't give me a good feel for the bosses. This time I was on a hoverblasting Fotunata, to see if, with the Tar Patches and Earthquakes, Group Fly was gonna be the new team meta for handling these guys. It did have an effect, but not the one I was expecting! As it is, it seems the Masters of Ruin and Death simply won't cast their ground-based debuffs if their target is in the air. But, and this is a little interesting to me, if I landed in order to bait them to cast it (or at one point when something hit me with a -Fly), the debuff would hit me while I was in the air above it! I'm not sure if this is WAI or not...for lower level Ruin Mages, notably, staying airborne stays out of their quakes, a method that really helps make stuff like Positron's TF or Drowning in Blood tolerable on some of my squishy alts. It's possible that these are special Earthquakes and such and specifically designed, while at high levels, not to be dodged so easily? If so, that still feels a little cheap...finding ways around these things is part of the fun for me, so just being told "nope it hits you" is a little disappointing. But then again, the point is to keep them challenging, so I could see why some might prefer it this way. That said, I strongly feel that even if it's WAI for high-level enemies, characters need the out at lower levels. Anyone want to climb into a DiB or similar and sometime soon and make sure that lower level Ruin Mages didn't also get a buff that, frankly, they really don't need (seriously, are any low level bosses as beastly even with the fly trick?).

It's preeeeeettier. Honestly, I can't say I noticed much difference, though I hadn't played it in a while. The cone on Psychic Scream sure feels small, though. Probably I'm just used to wider cones from playing other sets more recently. That said, I feel making it wider-but-shorter to be something closer to the Night Widows might be nice, if, based on the Thunderstrike changes, part of the idea is "consistency" among powers. One other relatively small element I noticed is that Fate Sealed does not appear in the Enhancement screen. Fair enough in a way, since at least as-is, it doesn't seem like it would benefit from any particular type of Enhancement. That said, to maybe lessen confusion on whether the power was taken and/or working, perhaps consider having it still show up as a zero-slot power (like Swap Ammo)? And/or give it something enhance-able, just for us OCD folks. But I'd settle for the former.

Quick question on the Thunderstrike update (since I don't have any alts to check): on live, as far as I know, some versions of the power (Dominators, Blasters, APPs too maybe?) do Knockback, while some (from the melee sets) do Knockdown. There's no mention of this being given the same "consistency" pass in the patch notes...has it been, despite this? And if so, is that particular lack of consistency intended, or simply an oversight?

Hmmm, coming back to the talk of First Ward earlier, is it possible that this is why those contacts also don't pop up?

Granted after more than a decade, my memory's hazy regarding exactly how it worked, but I believe you got the Doorman (or one of the others) auto-add popup leading you to the new zone on all characters, Primal and Praetorian, kinda like Hellewise and Maria pop up in the current server for Night Ward (which never made much sense to me, but that's a whole different tangent).

What's interesting is that such dialogue was in the game during its original lifetime.

Since you opened the door, what would be the odds of simply raising the level caps on each arc, since they're overtuned for their levels and yet so easy to outlevel anyway, to the point of adding an alternate experience that goes even further (at least for the players that want it to)?

Because Galaxy City is not really an effective tutorial.

Malta are one of the four main groups redside (instead of Arachnos), so maybe that put the idea in your head? I know I frequently got confused by it in Peregrine too for that reason.

You should probably post about this in the actual thread for related feedback:

I realize this is a little tangent, but just to beg a little, while all this proliferation is going on, can we maybe get a Shard Cannon that doesn't have the laser sights? Those always look so wonky.

You also have the option to call Harris out for this and/or betray him yourself. If players could similarly kill Strax and keep all the stuff you took, that'd be acceptable. And for that matter, Harris is also optional (as is all content), but if you find him distasteful and choose not to work with hom, it doesn't matter because he's the last arc in a chain, so thr choice does not cut you out of anything else. If you don't want to help nazis, you don't get to do Striga at all.

Ah, that makes sense! I guess kinda similar to the Mantle/Collar thing, if it's only supposed to be used with hats, maybe it's just the Patch Notes should be clarified (like it specifies for the stuff that's added to Half Helmets category, etc). Though yeah, it'd be nice if other Head categories got it too.

This is one of the combos that I've been looking at. Kind of a "back of my mind" character concept almost since Shield Defense was first introduced. Overall, appreciate the viewpoints, folks (anyone else, feel free too keep 'em coming). But to, I dunno, clarify, I'm curious what you feel makes the set particularly good for Brutes, specifically. Like maybe it's the fast-punching on Shadow Maul, or the...efficiency of movement, or just the fact that my very first 50 back in 2006 was a Dark Melee Scrapper, but DM just...seems to feel more Scrapper-y to me. Putting aside that if I wanna do the Psi Epic I have to do a Brute or Tanker, what about DM fits the Brutes and not other ATs, essentially, in your opinions?

The Patch Notes should probably be clarified that this is a "Mantle" design and not a "Collar" design (probably not on you, but since Collars are already a type of piece that existed, it'd probably reduce confusion...this stumped me at first too). Also, speaking of the notes, they mention a "Plague Doctor" option for Detail 2 for Male and Female skeletons as well. I'm not sure if this is supposed to be supplementary to the piece that's already in Detail 1, or just the same piece and two different ways to place it, but I'm not seeing an option under that category for that piece.

Just out of curiosity (for you or anyone else), is there something that makes Dark Melee particularly good from a Brute-y perspective. I'm trying to come up with a concept to go with the new Psi APP in the next update, and Dark feels like the closest, to me, for some reason, that isn't actually Psi Melee (which I hate), but I'm not sure how it'd feel on a Brute, specifically.

Apparently it is (as was noted in the topic I posted in the bug forum), but I can't say I'm fond of it. The game has too much poptext as it is, honestly, and it's not like you won't know you were knocked back. Doesn't feel too unfair to me. I compared it to Super Stunners earlier in this thread, who are also auto-hit and do comparable damage, and also inflict a massive debuff (the Galaxy version is purely damage as far as I could tell). They're rough on pets too, but 'tis what 'tis. If Pets are the problem then maybe they're what needs to be buffed to be resistant or something (similar to how they are unaffected by Battle Maiden's fire in Apex, or something). Or just buff pets. I think keeping the autohit in itself, is fine. Its problem for pets is a symptom of a different issue.

Is it possible that the doubling-up enemies are coming from different mobs? I believe the way AI rules power use is that two enemies from the same mob won't stack powers, but if you over aggro, then each mob can unleash one of each, and it is supposed to stack in those cases.

I mean, is that so surprising? Powers don't exist in a vacuum. If the idea is to make the sum total Storm Summoning balanced with the sum total of Cold Domination (and/or the sum total of any other set), that makes sense to me.

I mostly agree, but I'm glad the solution is to make the base experience a little rougher, rather than giving it parity with the annoying ones.

Not changing the minions makes sense, I guess. Less cool that way, but oh well...although now that I think about it, doesn't the fact that the higher ranks have big dark bubbles around them differentiates more clearly than the costumes anyway...?. Still, anyway. It ain't my call and I don't care enough to gonna press the issue. As for the Energy Punch, it's funny you mention the Praetorian resistance because I was fighting some of them earlier on "live" and thinking "oh, yeah, this is the same animation I saw on the Beta server, but man, it works so much better here since it goes along with the Energy weapons the resistance use, and their overall-blue color scheme". And while you making the connection as a lore nod does seem sensible enough when you say it here, it never occurred to me in-game to make that connection. If that's the goal, maybe just have a contingent of minions who also use the resistance rifles (similar to what the Family does), and/or give them some Resistance-oriented costume tweaks, so it doesn't clash as aesthetically?

I think it's one of those things that at least should be held off on for now. The intent behind it is good, but the implementation has some issues, and I admit, at least, I can't think of a good way to really make it work in a way that suits what I think about how teaming in this game is supposed to feel. I think that if you want more diverse teams, there's no real trick, only the "hard way"...have the ATs balanced in such a way that you don't have the majority of players all playing the same two or three (and good luck with that...it'd be the hard way for a darned good reason).

Did a little futzing around with solo Council missions, level 50, +2/x6. Kinda my "excellent solo" standard, at least, 'cause I figure there are probably enough people checking +4/x8 on radio teams. They honestly didn't come off a whole lot different than live most of the time, a little more of a bump, but fighting them plays the same way. That's good. Sometimes there's a confusion between being annoying and being challenging in content, and these guys definitely did not cross the line to "annoying". It was a little variant, of course, depending on how thick a mob was with Galaxy spawns (as a Kheldian lore lover, I kinda approve). The LTs and Bosses are both more notable and have a decent mix of abilities. The minions...did they get buffed? It seemed to me like they just stood back and spammed Shadow Bolt, same as they do on live. Might be an AI thing with such a quickly-recharging power, or might be I just missed it. Two cosmetic notes, but can we maybe get the minions and LTs to have looks modeled after the new boss look for Galaxy soldiers? It's sooooooo much better than the weird mucha lucha outfit they currently have. Also, the patch notes mention "Martial Arts' animations modernized with up-to-date animations" for the soldier types, but what I'm seeing is a lot of minions in those categories now throwing Energy Punch into the mix. Fair enough, I use that as sort of a "chi"-type MA theme on a character of my own, but I think the traditional Martial Arts attacks suit the Council better, IMO, or at the very least, maybe change the color of their punches if possible, the Heroic Blue clashes a bit and looks out of place.

Wrapping things up, with Mage-Killer Tatiana: Starting the arc as a player who knows who that is, oh no. Oh no no no, ohnononono. Y'all better not make me! It could make for an interesting callback to an off-the-cuff line from earlier in the arc, but that ain't how I roll! The comments about the Shivan Meteor being used by the Pantheon in this arc make me think it should maybe tie back to the ghosts/BP segment of the previous arc, in place of the Nictus-style Shadow Cyst. When scanning "rocks" on the second mission, the clickable area seems to be kind of finicky depending on camera angle. Might want to see if that can be adjusted. You made me. You bastards. She still shows up in-zone, dunno if she's meant to disappear like some of the Goldbrickers after the Aeon TF. I really wish I coulda betrayed Tatiana and changed sides at the end there. I wanna keep Striga a haven for the unwashed rabble, not beat up on someone who's still reasonably good to said rabble (even if I honestly got my tail kicked just as much). As a note, the boss uses the player version of Hurricane (which does Repel), rather than the typical NPC version (which does Knockback). Dunno if that's intentional or not. I like this alternative. Means his disposition wouldn't have to change much, but it'd be a bit more stomach-able. Alternatively, make it so you can just skip the first to arcs and start with Ragana. It'd mean skipping Francois too, and he's one of the highlights, but it'd still get some Striga life into characters. Since he hasn't popped up in this thread to say it directly, tell him "Mission Fragging Accomplished". Even if some of this was a little more "dark sided" than I really would've liked, it's IMO some of the best new HC content yet. A few final points, summaries, takeaways, and general zone feedback, some of it reiterating previous points but maybe worth bearing in mind. These story arcs are really written in the style that I enjoy most when playing this game. I know I'm a broken record but I really can't state my appreciation for that enough. Thanks to Headhunter (now that I know who wrote 'em!) and keep up the good work. I wanted something from Ernesto Hess. I'm a little sad I never got it. I feel like redsiders should at least be able unlock his TF, and maybe even make it a co-op experience. The Heroes don't have to know why we're going along with it. Maybe have Ragana give him an introduction? The start (having to work for the 5th Column) and the end (having to do that) are the weakest parts, probably, for a more Rogue-oriented player like myself. It'd be nice to have some sort of option or small rework to soften these two things. Finally, I'm going to re-suggest the point that I made based on observation even before playing the arcs, because I'm even more sure of it after doing them: there is so frigging much villain content in the 20-29 range, and so much of it is really among CoV's best, that this just overcrowds things even further. It makes sense, for these arcs to be 20-29, given Striga's setting and the villain groups involved, but I do think introducing even more to do in this range makes it bear looking at moving or extending the level range of some of the other arcs so that you don't have to permanently lock your level to sub-30 to experience all the great stories in this range. EDIT: Oh, wait, one more thing I was gonna mention but forgot. Near as I can tell, the only trainer in the area is the original heroic one, Ravenstorm. Given we duke it out with him twice over the course of the various missions...maybe that's a little bit of a stretch to ask of him? Add, perhaps, a villainous trainer hiding out in a corner like some of the early contacts, to help out the scallywags that come over.