thunderforce

I remember the Hollows myself (been playing since EU launch), and yeah, it was ghastly, but between the revamp and early travel powers (and Super Sidekicking so half the team isn't comedically mis-levelled), it's fine now; certainly better than the mish-mash the early origin contacts send you to. On reflection, another thing about the current situation is AFAIK you just can't get introduced to the first contact in each Hazard Zone. That's odd, and is kind of hiding them away. (Another option might be to make it possible for them to be introduced either by origin contacts or by detectives in the normal way, rather than these special "go and talk to XYZ" missions). Also, someone on Discord was pointing out that whether you do the traditional or new villain contacts, or do the new hero contacts, you get merits early. You don't if you do blueside origin contacts because - Negotiator aside - none of them have anything. Sending people off to do some arcs early shows them the structure of arcs and means they net some merits just like everyone else.

Yes, you did. I asked if it would be an onerous requirement; you said yes (in spite of that being obviously ridiculous). I don't know what you're playing at, but I'm done playing it with you.

The claim that this would impose an onerous requirement, or indeed, affect you in any way that isn't utterly trivial. (If it would affect you at all; I don't know how often you level heroes 1-10 through the origin contacts.)

OK. Are there any sensible objections to this proposal?

How would it affect you? If you don't DFB to 20, and if you do the origin contacts not Habashy... you would have to jetpack from the statue of Atlas to the Hollows gate and back again. Is that really so onerous a requirement?

The Wiki still has some of this stuff, but yes - an existing contact in the old origin contact scheme that Habashy etc partly replaced would give you a mission to go and talk to the Hazard Zone contact who would offer, but not require you to do, their first mission.

Faultline's not a hazard zone now, but I'd include it in my list - it's got the usual pattern of 4 contacts, 2 in each of 2 5-level ranges.

I am level 33, exemplared down to 4. I have "XP While Exemplared" set to "No XP". You have defeated Fallen Gunner You gain 361 experience and 288 influence.

Not outlevelling contacts.

On live (maybe not in later issues), origin contacts would send you to talk to the first contact in hazard zones. Now, they don't. This seems a curious omission, especially given it would offer an alternative to fighting the crazy spawn levels in King's Row. I suggest this be reinstated. (Yes, I'm aware you can go talk to them anyway, but right now I'm more thinking of the new player experience since I'm teaming with friends who are new.)

Golden Roller, "Shut down the D-Rifter": "it's only a matter of time before it 'jumps' again. . The Goldbrickers ..." - two full stops, one in green along with "The Goldbrickers". Deific Weapon (orange salvage) is "A weapon lored to have belonged to an ancient god". "Lored" is not, AFAIK, a word.

(This came up in the giant incarnate thread, but is a separate idea which I'd like to propose.) I would find it very useful to be able to have an option to disable the 5 "grace" levels when exemplaring, losing the extra powers and set bonuses they bring, akin to the existing option to disable XP when exemplaring. I could be mistaken, but I believe this would be extremely easy to implement. It seems it would require adding an option to the interface (something HC manifestly can do), changing the 5 uses of EXEMPLAR_GRACE_LEVELS to be ((option set) ? 0 : EXEMPLAR_GRACE_LEVELS), and presumably something to make the value of that option visible in that code (but again, the existing XP-while-exemplar option does that). (As such, I hope we can skip at least some of the replies saying "I wouldn't use this". I don't expect everyone, or a majority, to use it - but if it _is_ very easy to implement, it could be worth doing anyway.) My motivation is that at the moment I often team with friends who are new to the game. Even if an exemplared character is slotted with SOs, they'd be strong; in the new world of "always buy attuned", they are very strong, even given that I am buying my friends their own sets as soon as possible. Getting 2-3 powers (and set bonuses) on top of that is just gravy. If I go all out, they'd be passengers; that's no way for them - or me - to enjoy the game. Losing those extra powers would help a great deal. ("Don't use those extra powers": that doesn't disable autopowers or set bonuses. "Start a new character": I could, but my existing characters are - after all - ones I enjoy playing, and surely much of the point of Super Sidekicking is to make it easy for characters at different levels to team together. "Use multiple builds and slot with SOs": perhaps my build slots are already used because I'm a VEAT, have a PVP build, am a defender with a soloing build with no team support powers...)

Also, while of course we don't want to go back to the old world where incarnates had nothing to do but grind incarnate trials, the SCORE-ism of making some things that used to be max level 44 be max level 45 (so incarnates work) means an awful lot of the late game is affected.

Redside Origin of Power arc, Tarikoss tells you "It's power was such" - should be "Its". Dmitri Krylov's "Ask about this contact" says he "is rumored to be once part of a Soviet super-program..."; badly mangled grammar. Suggest "is rumored to have once been part of ..." When you call Ashley McKnight, she can say "Hi", "Howdy", or "Hello." Submit the full stop should be consistently used. The game can't decide if it's "metahuman" or "meta human", or maybe even "meta-human". I'm not listing specific instances, because grep exists.

Incidentally, I think that would be an excellent idea, the obvious straw man aside. Even slotted with the SOs that the game is still nominally balanced around, an exemplared character will typically be pretty strong compared to teammates. With the attuned sets that are now commonplace, they're incredibly strong. Getting extra powers on top of that is just gravy - at low levels, it's a _lot_ of gravy. I've been teaming, off and on, with friends who are new to the game. No-one likes to be redundant on a team, but if I just went all out, that's exactly the experience they'd get. (This is part of what's wrong with the incarnate situation, too; not only does it reduce players to irrelevancy, but the players it does it to are most likely to be relatively new to the game.) If there was an option to disable those extra powers I would use it (and, sadly, it probably does have to be an option because of the political impossibility of nerfing anything, no matter how absurd it is). I've anticipated two tediously predictable responses to which my replies are: "if you write that you'd better be able to tell me how to not use autopowers" and "yes, I could start a new toon; wouldn't it be nice to have a better choice between that and bringing one of my existing ones, especially if they are a good fit with the characters my friends have created?"

The Radio, "Force Tech to get codebreakers": on arriving in mission, you are told "You force your way past the outer defenses of the Arachnos base. Now their defenders should be here in force". Missing full stop. The game is full of missing full stops, but this one really jumps out at you so I'm reporting it.

I dunno if this is true for everyone, but in Pocket D, Turndown Girl's line always appears in "NPC dialog" _before_ Desperate Guy's line.

I certainly agree with the OP that there's a problem here (and of course the way the characters sidekicked up end up two combat levels below the Incarnates doesn't help). Given that it's going to be very difficult for Homecoming to nerf anything, no matter how absurd it is, the suggestion of having an option to disable Incarnates on TFs (and Trials, Ouro content, etc) seems the most reasonable one.

Angelo Vendetti, "Get shipping info and clear base". You recover a clue which says "This schedule lists what ships secretly hold Council Cargos". "Cargos" is capitalised spuriously. Vendetti's "ask about this contact" says he "is the scion shattered family of crime that can trace it's origins back to the days of the Medeccis". "scion of a shattered family", bogus apostrophe, and I guess they mean the Medicis. Furthermore they've worked against the Council and "it's" leader, another bogus apostrophe.

Mr Bocor, "The Book and the Burning": "I still want that book for my blackmail, and now I've had time to contemplate it's absence". Spurious apostrophe. Also, missing space in "No one knows why.I would suggest". In-mission NPC dialogue: "We can expect no mercy form a monster like that!" After-mission debrief: "And now the Legacy Chain have involved themselves due to the bumbling of those Hellion fools no doubt": semicolon after "themselves", comma after "fools". Next mission. "by force preferably" should probably be "preferably by force", or be repunctuated. "Destroy any opposition from those Legacy Chain gate crashers; and smash ..." - here we have a semicolon where a comma is wanted, and I think "gatecrashers" is one word or perhaps hyphenated. "I'm certain you can handle it, and you will be well paid as always" - another one of these run-on unpunctuated clauses, suggest "handle it; you will be well paid, as always". Also that mission: "Recover it from him, or from his body, however it all takes place I don't care" - another run-on unpunctuated clause.

In character creation, "Scrapper's possess Critical strike capability"; spurious apostrophe.

In the mission "Shut down all Time Accelerators", part of the 40-45 The Instant Army arc, "You begin to deavtivate the device". In the briefing for the next mission, "We want to rift you directly in and find out which one has amassed the larger army, because that is the threat we need to stead ourselves from." I'm not even sure what "stead" is a typo for. Part Nine's debrief after the mission: "Thier Marcus Cole".

Levantera's mission "Fight Rikti Raid" - "you find the that the fort is already under attack".

Living Tattoo (yellow salvage): This ink work seems to dance on the patch of skin its attached to. Should be "it's", and I personally think it would be better with "inkwork" (yes, it's a word).

The "Slot Machine" contact redside fairly consistently confuses "its" and "it's" - in "Ask about this contact" but also in mission text.