thunderforce

Currently, you can use SOs and DOs at very early levels. Great! Except that only a small fraction of the drops you get are useful, and vendors pay a modest fraction of the buy price, so you are unlikely to be able to take much advantage of this as a new character belonging to a new player. (Of course, you can just get 5 merits by exploring and sell them, but you have to know that; or get a bushel of cash from an alt, but you have to have one). If the origin of DO/SO drops was more likely to match the character, they would be more likely to be directly useful. I don't see this would have any significant economic impact - it means a fraction of people (if you can just send a million from an alt, why bother?), mostly at low levels (anyone slightly in the know will transition to IOs anyway around 25), vendor slightly fewer drops and buy slightly fewer DO/SOs from vendors.

Neither I nor Parabola seem to have experienced any confusion about what either of us wrote.

Errrr, you did notice I was _agreeing_ with the T1 change?

On reflection I think I agree with this. Taking a slow-cycling attack at level 1 is a problem there will be a very early opportunity to address.

That's a nontrivial downside - we still have a regular churn of new players - and perhaps something to add to the way this change discourages sampling the pool powers.

OK. However, those of us who do believe there's a problem can discuss potential solutions, and I think it is safe to say that "remove the 5-level exemplar grace" is feasible in a way that "rework every good T9 power" is not. Of course you do get new enemy groups, and Council are perhaps unusual in their very wide level range and lack of variety, but even if enemy groups didn't change at all, there's a pretty limited chunk of the game that isn't watching nukes (and Ion Judgements) pop off and it would be nice if it didn't shrink. The slots themselves scale down - it's possible the on-level toon who just six-slotted Power X actually gets better Acc/Dam/Rech etc than the one exemplared down - but as you note that doesn't apply to set bonuses and in the Homecoming all-attuned world that's huge. Remove the 5 level power grace. 🙂

That seems like it would require a much more wide-ranging change, nerfing many blaster nukes, than the more specific proposals advanced here would.

I think that is because the lower-level content where they are newly available will be more changed by the most effective T9s than the least effective.

Second the motion. The +5 level grace there is just bad, increasing the degree to which examplars overshadow on-level characters. It would always have been good to remove it, but if it was removed along with this change, we'd go from seeing T9s in level 27 content to T9s in level 26 content. While we're at it, the -1 level when sidekicking is bad for much the same reasons, doubly so when SKing to 50+1 makes you 49. You've already got fewer powers, fewer slots, and less powerful enhancements; a level shift is just gratutious.

I'd put myself somewhere between Grueller and, er, Fairy. Standard grumble about incarnate level shifts here. Not having the forced T1 secondary power pick: great. It is a buff to sets where the T1 secondary is terrible, but the player joy it should spark is well worth it. "Dead" levels: not actually, in my view, a problem. There are a lot of pool powers to take and there are some I've only tried out because of "dead" levels which I've then come to appreciate and enjoy. T9s earlier: highly undesirable. (I know, playtest don't theorycraft, but it is hard for me to test the dynamics of large PUGs in a highly specific level range...) However, if eliminating dead levels is felt to be necessary, also removing the five-level grace for power availability when exemplaring would considerably reduce the additional level range over which T9 powers are normally seen.

I really hope this pun was intentional.

I had a think about this - the graph wasn't created by me but by macskull, and indeed it _is_ arse-backwards dates. So it's "from May", and that explains my daily/weekly confusion because I was looking at a graph with considerably more up-down than a week but with an x-axis that said it was a week. Editing the OP to reflect that.

It seems to be common knowledge some places that Homecoming's player numbers are gradually declining. Today we're about a month after Page 4; the live graphs on Discord tell me Excelsior peaked at 1043 players online this week, Everlasting 687, Torch 237, Indom 108, and Reunion 148. Given that the NA servers peak around the same time and Reunion then has about 100 online, that's a peak peak of circa 2150. (This paragraph is now less relevant given I thought initially the graph below ran from the 5th Jan to the 9th Jan '22). The graph below (captured by macskull, hence the MMDDYY dates) is interesting; now it's not clear what the exact numbers are (especially given the interesting decision to break the y axis up with lines every 166 2/3 players online) but I think (for example) the weekend peak for Excel is higher but the lowest in the week lower, and more generally the numbers look extremely similar. They're not as high as they were in 2019 (Dec 2019 has the lowest peak total players at 3,308) - but does anyone have 2020/21 figures? I suspect Homecoming player numbers flattened out from the initial burst of enthusiasm some time ago and now are more or less steady.

It's hard for me to know if this is a bug or WAI (unless my search-fu is just failing me), but when the cast time for Total Focus changed, it changed in Energy Melee and Energy Manipulation, but not in Power Mastery.

Perhaps someone else got this already, but Lost Motivation is from the 25-29 Magic contact; Traditionalist Foil from Steven Sheridan.

I think a more useful comparison image would be with a pre-update Rularuu Hammer (obviously unsheathed). I hope if you have used it for years you have some screenshots to hand. The war mace designs vary wildly in size so comparison with a different model doesn't show much.

That's a lot of words to say that "I'm taking a break" wasn't true. You've backed off a long way from "taking a loss in one aspect of the game, in this case damage, for the sake of another option, is typically regarded as being punishment for using that option", which as discussed was obviously wrong, to the idea that somehow there is something highly specific about it being a menu option which will cause it to be seen as "punishment". You've no actual justification for that, but let's pretend that's a real issue (and furthermore that I suggested it be a menu option, when in fact I suggested it be "somewhere"); have the toggle be something you can put in your power tray. I say "straw man" when you write "Neither does that mean that a change should be blindly implemented because of the inevitably of others becoming upset" as if I had suggested anything of the kind. That's what a "straw man" _is_; when you make up something the other party didn't say and then argue against it. It's allowed, but I don't think it's useful or productive to make up stuff the author of a suggestion didn't actually say and then argue with that. I don't propose to engage with Rudra anymore, since they seem now completely detached from any commentary on the actual proposal. I think I've made three reasonable proposals for how the supposed game mechanical advantage could be overcome and am perfectly happy to discuss those.

As discussed, you said that quote, taking a loss in one aspect of the game, in this case damage, for the sake of another option, is typically regarded as being punishment for using that option, unquote. I gave an example of doing that very thing, which of course is not seen as punishment, and there are plenty of other obvious examples (carrying purple insps not reds, slotting an attack that takes hold or damage sets with a hold set, not taking Assault when offered a power selection) to the point where it's pretty clear that that is not "typically" regarded as punishment; you were talking nonsense. We should instead consider the specific question of whether having a whole new way to control KB/KD in addition to the existing proc would be seen as "punishment", given that a player could just continue doing whatever they did before and not interact with the new option and its damage penalty. I think the idea that it would needs a bit more substantiation than an obviously false statement about what "typically" happens. Next time please respond to what I write, not obvious straw men.

I'm not "reaching" when I say this is a straw man. You've literally just made it up (just like all the stuff about how the OP, me, just wants a free advantage); I never said anything like that would be a good idea. It's not a useful contribution here to just make stuff up and then argue with that. What you actually said was, quote, taking a loss in one aspect of the game, in this case damage, for the sake of another option, is typically regarded as being punishment for using that option, unquote. (Note that I can quote your exact words rather than making something up.) If I slot a Devastation Chance for Hold rather than a damage proc, I am taking a loss in one aspect of the game, in this case damage, for the sake of another option, sometimes being able to hold people I attack. Typically, you say, that is regarded as being punishment.

It's odd because until now any kind of "free advantage" was terrible. That's a really obvious straw man. This really doesn't make any sense. If I slot a Devastation Change for Hold rather than a damage proc, is that punishment? Did people leave the game when that proc was implemented?

It does; it illustrates that just because one aspect of a question can be quantified doesn't mean it dominates. I'm looking for _practical_ solutions. Which you said "works for you", oddly, but I don't think it's revealed any such thing; I think some players also recognise that this supposed advantage is essentially trivial on the scale of the game's balance issues. I'm not sure I can apprehend the confusion of ideas on your part here. _Any_ non-trivial change will annoy someone; fact of MMO life. As such, no change can be rejected on the grounds that _someone_ won't like it. Aside from the aforementioned someone, I don't see any reason why any sensible person would regard adding an _additional_ option for such powers as "punishment".

Which is one reason even though the penny I'm offering you not to is quantifiable, the question of what you do isn't dominated by the quantifiable elements of the situation. I'm not aware of any existing solution to the problem discussed in the OP (I like KB, I'm willing to turn it off when teamed with people who don't, it's not really sensible to fiddle with unslotters every time). "Why not have a complete second set of enhancements and use up one of your limited supply of Multiple Builds slots?" is not as impractical as "why not become a developer and fix it?" (as discussed on page 4 of the thread), but it's up there.

As discussed (the time you said you were done, which I predicted wouldn't be the case, and here we are) it's not an advantage to me. Nothing has changed since then. You've also dodged from the general to the specific here. You said "I am completely against taking any proc and automatically incorporating it into the power sets"; it's clearly possible to imagine a situation where a feature is first added as a proc but it becomes clear it should then be given to everyone, in a way similar to how Fitness became inherent. Why you would be "completely against" that is unclear but it doesn't seem like a sensible basis to make design decisions. Just because something can be quantified doesn't mean it is the dominant factor. For example, suppose I offer you a penny not to comment in threads after you say you are done; now that penny is a quantifiable thing, whereas how you would feel about that is not, but nevertheless I doubt you will take my penny. Aside from the factor that any change to any MMO of any kind will consume someone with outrage, I don't see that as a likely scenario. The existing option of slotting a proc wouldn't go away, and it _already_ consumes a slot which could otherwise be used to increase damage. This does not address the difficulty discussed in the OP - KB lovers who are willing to turn it off as and when they are teamed with KB haters. (It also sounds rather like the "free advantage" which apparently would pose an overwhelming balance issue if the slot currently used for the proc could do something else.)

The result of this is that if some useful and obvious feature which should be available to everyone is first implemented as a proc, you will oppose any later recognition that it was a useful and obvious feature that should be available to everyone. This seems unfortunate, essentially saying "if a mistake has been made, we must continue to make it forever".

Also "make it as a" - the "as" is spurious. "On the onset of your work together, she tasked you with" - an "onset" is the very start of something unpleasant, like the "onset" of a disease. Even if later events in the arc were unpleasant, the word is not appropriate here. "First, she gave you the task of" would be less needlessly verbose, too, and avoid "tasked" which is a pretty ugly verb. "raiding on the outskirts". "on" is spurious here; "on the outskirts" is an expression, but it's not right here. (Indeed, I don't much like "outskirts" by itself; suggest "Cimerora's outskirts". "These former Romulus-allegiant soldiers" - ouch, that is clunky, and did their allegiance change or did they stop being soldiers? "would take heavy wounds, and come back" - the comma is spurious. "cavern, and aside" - suggest "cavern; aside". Oddly we find "a map, a sybil, and a Shadow Crystal", but then we can take the fight to General Sideris (where'd he come from? IDK if this is a second mission, but either way, having his name pop up as if we already know who he is is not great) and the Sybil, who has gained a capital S. She should be capitalised consistently. "Undeterred, after reporting back to Valeria, the map proved" - this says the map reported back and was undeterred. "Undeterred, after reporting back to Valera, you found the map was a more reliable path forward, although it seemed to make little sense." "She sent you" - and again the phrasing means the map is doing it. "Valeria sent you". "the Traitorous Cimerorans seemed eager to ally with" - missing full stop, and the capital T is spurious. "Cimeroran Traitors" can have a capital T since it's the name of an enemy group, but not this. "discreetly dress you up" - what, did she give you individual changing rooms? Suggest "opted to disguise you as". "Enlightenment, who exposed your lies" - I'd like to see this without the comma, and the nictus exposed our deception (which might include lies but definitely includes the disguises). I'm afraid I haven't had a chance to play this so I'm just proofreading the chunk of the souvenir that got posted.