ZacKing

That's not at all what I said. I didn't say we should add this into the game here. Please don't put words in my mouth. I was only saying that IOs and Incarnates overpower players in a game that wasn't designed for it. The game got shut down before content could get added that was designed for and balanced around higher end IO builds and Incarnates. You've got some of that here now with hard mode TFs and such. Even those are being speed run farmed already. These used to be considered challenging content. They're not anymore, and that's largely because of IOs and Incarnates.

I'm going to disagree with this. Yeah, IOs are cool and so are incarnates, but they vastly overpowered the people using them for a game that wasn't designed for it. You can't seriously suggest that two people on a team where one is only SOs versus someone fully kitted out with IOs are on the same level. They're not. Not even close. Just look at any bit of content that was once considered the hardest content of the game and a real challenge - Miss Liberty TF, Hamidon Raids, LRSF etc. All of these are trivial now. Hamidon is being farmed now several times a day and can essentially be annihilated without even taking out a single Mito due to Incarnate Lore Pets and buffs. We're already capable of creating way overpowered characters here with the tools we have. Look at how new abilities like Fold Space are creating a whole new meta build here for even higher DPS.

Not going to lie, I think even a 2 is being generous.

STO has both an AFK Penalty and Leaver Penalty for TFOs (TFs here). If you're AFK and don't contribute any damage, then you're considered AFK and are prevented from joining any further TFs for a time. Same thing if you quit one after it started. The AFK Penalty has proven to be problematic because people hop into them with uber-DPS ships that wipe the entire map in a matter of seconds, leaving others with little to no time to contribute sufficient DPS, so they're hit with a penalty. We don't need badges or any kind of penalty thing here IMO, especially given reasons as you have. Not everyone who quits a TF does so out of malice or to intentionally grief others.

It's no less a strong assumption than the one you're making. You've no idea why people may be quitting a TF. You're just assuming they're doing it to grief you. You could have given your idea a little more thought and came to the conclusion that it's just going to further incentivize people to quit TFs by giving them even more of a reason to do it.

So you want to penalize/discourage people from quitting TFs by providing them an incentive to quit a TF to get a badge? That seems self-defeating to me. You're also making a big assumption in that people quit TFs because they're jerks. I'm guessing you've never been on an exceptionally bad team who sets their Posi 1 to +4 with no support on the team? Maybe you'd like to slog that out, but not everyone will and I don't blame anyone for quitting a badly run team. So no, I personally don't support this quitter badge idea.

Ok so it's abundantly clear you just don't grasp the concepts of inspiration or creativity, or are just looking to argue for the sake of arguing. Here are a few words you aren't familiar with - in·spi·ra·tion /ˌinspəˈrāSH(ə)n/ noun noun: inspiration 1. the process of being mentally stimulated to do or feel something, especially to do something creative. cre·a·tiv·i·ty /ˌkrēāˈtivədē/ noun noun: creativity the use of the imagination or original ideas, especially in the production of an artistic work. Images can be posted here as a means to provide inspiration and get the creative juices flowing. They don't need to be asking for anything in specific. This is a very simple concept to grasp. You aren't in charge of the art department here and no one on HC needs you to be running interference for them. Let the creatives in charge of working on new costume pieces look at pictures people post in these threads and derive inspiration from them. You might not understand what artistic inspiration is or where it comes from or how to be creative, but that doesn't mean everyone else doesn't grasp the concepts.

Who said anything about directly copying anything? Where exactly does it say in their post "copy these pictures exactly"? Do you not understand the concept of artistic inspiration? I'm not even an artist and I can look at those pictures and already find inspiration for a bunch of new characters. Maybe you can't and that's fine, but if you don't understand that providing photos can be just for giving some ideas and providing inspiration, then that's a you thing. You didn't ask for clarification. You said the poster was "throwing random pictures on the request thread". If anyone from the HC team sees those and has questions about anything specific, they can ask. They don't need you or anyone else here running interference for them. Stop derailing it then.

Where's the difficulty in understanding that some pics can be posted to provide design inspiration? People don't need to post photos and say "copy that". It's not rocket science, geez.

It's not a great solution though. Everyone knows there's IOs to convert KB to KD. That's not the problem and you're missing the point. What you're essentially telling people to do is sacrifice build slots to correct flaws in how the game is built. Again, KB seems great on paper, but in reality it tends to cause more problems than it solves. Tiny cave maps and office maps with narrow hallways - which there are a ton of - aren't conducive to "finding the right angle" to knock things into walls, and even if you can, quite often stuff gets knocked into holes in the walls or floors where they can't be targeted. I even linked to a post earlier a GM made about this being a common occurrence in the DFB cave map. That's annoying and we shouldn't have to slot an IO to fix that problem. KB should get fixed. I don't think telling people to choose between gaining the last set bonus in a complete IO set and an IO to stop them from knocking stuff into holes in the maps is a good tradeoff or a good solution. That's more a bandaid to me than a fix. KB and the amount of KB in general should be addressed. We all get it. Someone from HC said getting rid of KB is not going to happen. Whether that's because HC doesn't have the people to do it or they don't think it's broken or NCSoft won't allow them to make that kind of change doesn't really matter. This is just a discussion.

At least you can admit that your example is a grossly exaggerated strawman ... I don't buy the "people will just use the extra slots for damage procs" either. Most damage procs are unique, so you can only slot one of them. KB should be addressed IMO for the sole reason of it not working well with all of the geometry errors on maps where there's a high degree of probability stuff gets knocked into walls or objects. Asking players to sacrifice builds to fix a problem with the game geometry or just deal with stuff getting knocked into the environment doesn't work in my opinion. There has to be a better way to address it.

Yes I know. I'm the one who made the post and I know what I wrote. What I said in my reply to you was whether or not there was a report is irrelevant, so arguing semantics is pointless and doesn't lend anything to the topic at hand. This is kind of what I was trying to say earlier in the thread in that I don't think the original power designers thought all of this KB through in terms of how it's going to impact team play. KB looks good on paper, but in practice maybe not so much.

Whether or not a post was or wasn't reported is totally irrelevant. Regardless, someone else "feeling" one way or the other about words someone else typed doesn't make them right and Snarky wrong. I don't think it's a good idea to delve too deep into content moderation here as that's not going to accomplish or change anything.

Just remember one thing - someone reported you because you upset or offended them by something you said. Them being upset or offended doesn't make them right and you and your opinion wrong.

That's true, but I myself don't think that should be an excuse to not give KB (or any game system) a second look. I'm sure there are a lot of melee players out there annoyed by KB just as there are a lot of melee players out there annoyed by nukes and fold space pulling stuff off of them. There are those of us out there that don't particularly like knockback regardless of what AT we're playing. I'm ok with knockback when its effects can be mitigated, such as having sufficient space to knock things into a wall or fly above them to knock them down. Quite a lot of the time this isn't always feasible given this games love of small cave maps and narrow hallways. Even with situational awareness, KB has a very annoying proclivity to knock NPCs into walls or other objects, making them get stuck and un-targetable and holding up everything. There is an amazing number of maps in this game with geometry errors that things can get stuck in. That's annoying and at least to me, a big part of why KB should be toned down and/or adding a toggle to let players make their own choice whether they want it or not. As for people being "bullied" if a toggle got added, people are being "bullied" right now over KB, so providing a means for people to make their own choice to avoid that other than sacrificing slots or leaving teams is a better option in my mind. It's putting the agency in the players hands. Some folk seem to be assuming that if there were a toggle, there would be tons of people who wouldn't jump at the chance to use it on a team. I can't speak for anyone other than me, but I'd welcome a toggle and wouldn't have any problem turning it on/off as needed.