Ukase

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.

So, when you're coming out of a mission in ...RWZ, for example, when the zone is full, you see: Rikti War Zone - Full Rikti War Zone 2 Why doesn't the game just take us to rwz2 when we couldn't go to rwz1 even if we wanted to? Would love for this to be fixed. A minor thing, but certainly easily done. (I think)

There would be nothing wrong with that. The game is very, very easy.

Thanks, I didn't realize this had been brought up before.

I was going to make a PB on Gold Side...but apparently they're not on option, nor are the VEATs. What gives? I selected Going Rogue..wasn't sure if the PB would be melee or ranged or tank, but tried each playstyle option and no EATs to be found. (Epic Archtypes)

My thoughts went back to being a lowby on live .. before inherent stamina. Blues would be useful in that era.

I realize you're just saving yourself future grief, but ...to me, the ignore feature is for ill-mannered people, not people who just play differently. I enjoy speed runs. But not always. If someone ignored me just because I recruited for a speed run, they might miss out on a clear all Eden Trial. (as time permits, lol). I think you're missing out on some good experiences - but hey, you gotta do you.

I can understand this ...to a point. I was leading a Master of Underground on a couple of Sundays ago, and Excelsior crashed. We knew it might happen because my instructions given in chat weren't being displayed. But -- without Discord, most of the league would have had no idea about the impending crash, as they weren't typing, I was. So, instead of using League, I used Local - which worked for some reason. We were mostly on discord. A few were not for whatever reason. When the server did crash, Discord allowed me to tell everyone to rejoin the event in progress. Without Discord, I would have tried to rejoin it - and done so - but I don't think many of our members would have considered it. Maybe half? I don't know. But odds of success would have been reduced a good bit, I'm sure. Those few not on Discord - they didn't know to rejoin the event. I couldn't remember every name who was on the league, so I couldn't send them a tell. While it's certainly your right to avoid leagues where discord is encouraged, I think you're missing out. You don't have to speak, just listen to what's expected. While I know you well enough to know that you likely have a solid grasp of what's expected, hearing a leader explain things often leads to a better understanding for most. I would submit that every badge in game can be earned without discord, but I would further submit that using discord has made many badges much easier. I also would submit that often, the discord is full of chatty personalities that crack lame jokes, use profanity for no reason other than it's habitual for them. Some of them even pipe in a playlist of music for reasons that escape me. (I turn that music down all the way. If I opt to listen to music, I can do that on my own.) I would also submit that like any other segment of the population, you'll find some experiences on Discord to have value, too. Myself, I don't particularly enjoy using Discord to lead a trial. But, as a tool, it's darn handy. I don't know why reading is so challenging for so many players. I don't know how it is that some folks reach level 50, and don't even know there is a tiny L button to switch to league chat...and I'm sure I don't know why they don't respond to tells, or team chat either. But, I can't imagine everyone has experienced the same things I have, so I now use Discord to minimize the lack of understanding many people have about trial objectives. If I could just figure out pop-menus...but I'm sure I've got not enough or too many brackets..or some other syntax error. Until I do, Discord is the way to go. I don't have enough room to make macros for each step of a master of underground.

Welcome back. I guess I have to be the one to tell you. You're not allowed to stop playing on a daily basis. Aside from deployment, your own death, or major injury, daily play is required.

I am sure soloing the CoT is no longer a big deal, given the ability to click obelisks one at a time, instead of simultaneously. I also know I'm not the only one soloing these to get that partner badge for doing the weekly 50 times after you've done it once. It's fast. 3 minutes or so, or a touch less if you're super speedy. But - for those of you that solo these, have you noticed you get a medium inspiration each time you click? And have you also noticed that they are always blue? Well, not always. Of the 35 runs I did yesterday, I got one medium yellow. All the rest were blue!