Ukase

Not really sure how to take that. But, I did ask for opinions, and need to be open to all of them. That said, if I had left when I knew things were going downhill, it would have left the remaining players that were inexperienced in a deeper hole than with me sticking it out. I don't think that's cool at all, in fact, I think it's a selfish move. But I thank you for your opinion and your perspective. It's every bit as valid as mine.

Sleeps, Stuns, holds.

If I could remember how to plot a graph in Excel, and had thought to do this... Grats on your accumulation. Clearly you need more alts.

My best suggestion - click the tiny button that separates the map from the nav bar. Move it so that you can open up the Badges - closest to completion section is displayed. This way, you can monitor your progress as you go. I'd go over the marker, not get progress, I'd know to circle the area in tiny circles until I see the progress bar move. Only then do I proceed.

The more I play, the more the way I play seems to change. For quite some time, I would make a character, and play it through to t-4, one of each, and get all 4 blue side accolades. Get them t-4'd, then start the next character. Eventually, I transitioned to get 3 blue side accolades, and invader. Now, I get 2 accolades (Atlas, PJ) on blue and the equivalent of Freedom Phalanx and TFC (Invader) on red side. Some characters, I don't even bother with playing until they reach 50 - but I rarely do this, because I have less invested in them, and it's much easier to park them and forget about them. Still, I give them a specific use - like hold the Anti-matter and Siege missions for future alts. Even my incarnate play has changed. I used to do the countless Baf/lambda...but as soon as I realized we got random uncommons and rares for badges and Master runs (respectively) I won't do normal runs. Only badge runs. If I can get 4 uncommons, a rare and a reward table for one trial -- why the blue blazes would I waste time on a non-badge run? Why do any of us? Granted, not every run is a success, and MoM can't be done in one run, but the badge efforts still reduce the time invested in the incarnate process. Now my characters end up with a few transcendent merits to pass on to alts instead of just one. Eight iTrials - that's 64 emps I don't have to burn for rare salvage. To go along with that, lately, I've been badging a LOT. My "main" has them all already. But I have a second who's just lacking day jobs and events that require I wait until May. A third needs some redside and gold side stuff and all those horrid farming afk type deals - damage taken, damage dished out, inf earned, as well as day jobs and events - but still has over 1250. These silly efforts serve a purpose - to slow down so I'm not burning through the same content weekly like I was. With the badging, I still make other characters - but I just play them for a mission or two, use up the patrol xp and park them at another day job. As far as "Completion Percentage" goes...I have completed 1 out of 56, the one with all 1531 badges. As far as t-4 in each incarnate slot, I have completed 42 out of 56, so 75%. The other 14 are working on day jobs until I get to them, but often, I'll roll something new if it occurs to me.

I just made Buff Daddy on Excelsior. "I like big buffs and I cannot lie"

It's possible. It's easy. On blue side, I haven't been able to determine if it's the debuff from Positron (ranged Summons) or just his dps, but the summons pet is quite durable, and I often don't have to do much, if anything, other than spam my 3 attacks. That with Envenomed Dagger means you don't have to do much other than just carry a few lucks during the AV fights. I could make the case that the Clockwork King is easier than Vahz. Clamor in Yin is pretty simple for any decent brute/scrapper/blaster/stalker. Other ATs may require some rage inspirations. Vandal is cake, in my experience Manticore is difficult because after Hopkins goes down, Countess Crey comes in, and Hopkins will rez. So..with two, some players will have issues. Not impossible, but it's not over super fast like the others. Numina is simple...Jurrasik is just tall, not very challenging. My keys for success have generally been a summons pet for all but Manti. For Manti, depending on my character's durability, I might bring a Vanguard HVAS as well. For Vandal and Clamor, my brutes/scrappers/stalkers/blasters don't even need a pet.

I think you're on the test server to test. You report it and hope it's a feature that wasn't documented yet.

This pleases me to no end! I see folks like @Yomo Kimyata and others share genuine pearls and sage insight, and brilliant guides...and yet, during my days of playing, I seldom come across people who have actually followed the guides and are now, well, wealthy. Or at least, much better off from an inf. perspective. I seem to run across people who are constantly needing merits to buy a recipe - and then I die on the inside, just a little. So, very happy for you!

I completely understand that. I'm sure there would be days when I would do the same. Some days, however... But ..what if a corny chat dialogue appeared just as if it were an NPC - and they looked like an NPC - even though they were wearing their own costume? I think there'd be a way to disguise it...at least for about 10 seconds or so.

I'd have elevators go to more than one floor. I'd not be able to use elevators during a fire. I think it would be completely normal to enter a mission and find some other player doing their mission...it happened to me once on live...and it was scary, as they were all 10 levels or so higher...but would it be so surprising that two different clues lead to the same place every now and then? And...suppose you went to stop some bad guy from robbing the bank - and instead of Bad Penny, you run into a player's villain character. The difference being - the name wouldn't show like it does in PvP orange, but like a regular villain npc. Mission failures should be possible for every mission, no? And it wouldn't be with pvp rules. Both would have pve stats, and neither would know it was another player, unless they recognized the name. (or names if it were two teams meeting at the safe)

Why would you choose? Do both. It's not like you don't have enough slots.

Please don't misunderstand me - I do think the level 50 possibilities MUST be considered, of course. But it would be short-sighted to change those possibilities without considering the impact those changes would have on the lower levels. I do cede the point that there's no point in taking into account those players with inactive accounts. I'm talking about players who are active in game and on these forums who clearly state they don't go over a certain level for reasons of their own. While I'm sure they're in the minority - compared to level 50 & end game players, we shouldn't discount them.

So...37+ pages of mostly valid opinions, with a measure of well-intentioned testing. During my morning row - which was longer than I could truly enjoy - I was thinking about the test results of the blaster primaries with build-up alone being taken from the energy secondary. It was an impressive display of a curious mind, wanting to definitively know, or at least come up with a best guess of where the primaries are in relation to each other. I replied that the test was interesting, but determined it didn't measure fun. Fun is certainly subjective. Some days, on some characters, I want them PL'd to see for myself how they'll turn out. Mids' numbers are great to know before-hand, but it's hard (for me) to know if an attack chain will truly shine until I execute it under various circumstances. Other days, I feel the character should develop organically, Mids' be damned. I know enough about set bonuses to know if I should get more end recovery or more accuracy or more defense/resistance, etc. And then I thought - while I realize this thread is "Game Balance & THE END GAME" (emphasis added by me) - this is not the proper way to analyze and compare AT primaries. It doesn't show the full picture. It's common knowledge that there are more than a few folks who have never seen level 50 in their character. They claim it's not of interest to them (how they know this is beyond me - some explain it, but I don't recall how they know this). Other's have been there, consider it over-rated. Others go to 50, then stop, start over with another AT/Powerset combo. And of course, there are those who have done the content of red, blue and gold enough to know they don't want to do them anymore - even if they haven't done them in years. They want the end game- which is every bit as acceptable and fine as the previously mentioned groups of players. If we really want to test a set of primaries -we cannot only test them at the end game. Too many players never get there. We need to test them at level 12, 22, 35, 41 & 50 vs various npc factions, solo and teamed. I could be wrong about this - but I don't think I am. Determining one AT/powerset to be "OP" in a farm, ergo it should be nerfed, is just silly. What about the player that doesn't PL to 50 and takes them up through Gold and switches alignments willy-nilly after level 20? Every AT has growing pains at some point in the leveling path. It's probably part of the reason so many like to PL to 50 - to skip the discomfort. But before we can think about improving or nerfing any sets, we need the full picture. And that means playing the powerset/AT combo all the way through to 50 to get a hopefully more clear picture of what's really going on. Just my opinion, I could be wrong. (and no - I have no desire to roll all the AT/Combos necessary to see what's really going on - that would be a huge undertaking. I don't mind testing out a couple..but even still, that's a lot!

I am grateful for our Dev team. In no other game have I been turned into a garbage can.

As has been mentioned before - there should be a badge for defeating Hamidon. Additionally, I'd like to see one for beating Koagu, the AV at the end of Cavern of Transendence trial. (and that npc should have a look different from being simply a taller Igneous Lt. ) I've also felt like Frostfire and Atta defeats should be acknowledged, and perhaps even Atta's guards.

One thing you need to be careful of - is blindly copying macros down and using them without knowing what they do. I have heard stories of people having their power tray cleared for using a deliberately malicious macro.

I basically just limit my teaming to those times when I don't have to go afk at random times. The idea of playing another game...well, I didn't when CoH shut down, beyond trying the other games at that time. They just didn't do it. This one does. So, I'll keep playing - afk when I need to, and team up when I choose to and can commit to solid blocks of time. But that's me. The game didn't change because of my scheduling conflicts. It changed because the private server that only a few new about had to change because only a few were playing. I don't know how HC would change things if they suddenly got the blessing of NCSoft to run the game as they saw fit. It would be an interesting time, indeed.

When you say classes needing classes...what you're really saying is that players need other players. This is a fairly significant irritant for not a small number of players. A lot of us are working from home and have to routinely tab out and take a call or do some other work related activity. Or maybe they have kids, or maybe they want to do what they want to do when they want to do it. The BEST thing about HC's flavor of COH has been not requiring players to rely on other players to get things done for their characters. While technically it's "reasonable" to ask - for many the answer to that request is "No". I've led trials within a large SG. I've led them as a PUG. Regardless - they take a long while to gather the bodies necessary to start them off - and that's on Excelsior, arguably the most populated server. In many cases, it takes longer to form the league than it does to actually do the content. For that reason alone, the reasonable ask becomes unreasonable. CoH is no longer an MMO, if it ever truly was. You'd need literally hundreds of players on a shard to cross into that distinction. HC isn't there. My post, to this point, is a major digression from the topic of this thread, I'm aware. I'm also aware that if a melee character is so kitted out that a buff or debuff character isn't needed, then it has to make us wonder what's the point of creating the non-fotm AT/Powerset? I get it. A player makes an emp defender, and wants so badly to be of value, they don't take any attacks until the game forces them, and even then, they take pool powers like TP Ally, Grant Invis and perhaps a few out of the Leadership pool. Then other players chime in that they need to be able to be good on their own before they can bring any substantive value to a team. They can't win! But, unless I read incorrectly, this is the kind of discrepency between various AT/Powersets the HC devs are trying to address. It's a complex problem and I think we're being insincere if we don't acknowledge that some folks are going to be disappointed no matter what the HC devs do, even if they opt to do nothing.

Here's a suggestion. What I've done is make an alt account and create a character called Base Storage Manager. He hangs out in my own personal SG. My alt that's in another SG gets a bit frustrated with not having its own storage space, so I just hand the stuff to the character in my personal base, and then go grab it when it's time to craft. (and also grab salvage needed from my personal base if needed) Yes, it can get a bit tedious if you're going for crafting badges. But other than that..it's been helpful.

So, I read through that, with much interest. There was one metric that wasn't assessed. Which primary was the most fun? I originally had written a vast response, then realized that one question sums it up better. Those tests are interesting, yes. But, ice is sooooo much more fun to me than any other primary. Fire is second. But a distant second. And no math or silly comparison with poorly slotted characters is going to change that.

I like to split them up for the 3% hp buff. I particularly enjoy playing a character with max hp.

I suppose changing a Master's badge requirements at this point would get more than a few folks in a bit of a tizzy, and rightly so. It just seemed to me that if you get a master run - as opposed to another group that didn't - you deserved a few more merits. But, I hadn't thought about the ouro arc challenges for badges, master runs without inspirations, and runs at +4/8, etc. I guess ultimately, the badge IS the little bit extra.

All valid points, that candidly, I hadn't considered. It would be a mess. That's probably why it doesn't work the way I suggested. I'd actually be okay with the master of tfs being +4/8 myself. I probably would struggle to get my build just right in certain tfs, but that would certainly make things more challenging.

This has probably been suggested before - but ...if you get 40 merits for doing Apex or Tin Mage, why don't we get extra merits for getting Master? There's at least a few folks who don't care about badges (I know, crazy, right?) and it would be nice to have something to motivate them to accept the challenge. Maybe 10 to 20% more.