ZacKing

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.

Are you counting only damage procs? Because if you aren't, there are more than just those three sets that have procs that can be slotted in Power Burst.

I am very comfortable saying that beyond any shadow of a doubt this is going to be a complete steaming pile of garbage. Star Trek is a dead property. Hopefully someone at Skydance sees the potential of it, kills everything in development for a good while until they can find people who actually give a shit about it.

Huh? There are way more proc IOs you can slot in Energy Blast attacks. Are you referring to a specific power in the set or the set as a whole?

I have to disagree if I'm being honest. If you're going by the very first post, then yeah, maybe. If you read through follow up posts made, it's pretty clear what the intent is. at least to me. Seems like it is for others too. Totally agree and it's fair to say not everything that gets added to the game is great. That's true regardless of what server is doing it. Again, that would be true if follow up posts didn't show otherwise. Anyway, to get back to the topic, it would be nice if the color pallette could get expanded here one day.

Are you completely sure about that? 😉 Super Atom beat me to it. 🤣 Anyway, yes, HC has made some nice pieces. So have other servers and trying to paint everything here as "perfect" or "not jank" and everything every other server does as crap is disingenuous. But like I said, I think you know that already, you just don't want to admit it.

If it's an option to choose between KB or KD, your concept isn't affected at all. You can use the effect of your choice and others can use the effect they choose.

That's great that you took the time to compile a list. It still doesn't change the fact that there are many costume pieces here, regardless of whether HC made them or not, that have clipping issues and other "jank". I think you know that, but just don't want to admit it. Like I said, I know its tempting for some to crap on anything not HC, but to try and paint everything other servers do as crap or "jank" is being disingenuous, and I think you know that too. I don't see anything "janky" in the video clip posted above. It looks nicely done and well implemented to me.

Yeah there's no costume pieces and such here that have clipping issues or other such "jank" whatsoever .... right. lol 🤣 There's some very cool and quite extensive quality costume additions and improvements on other servers. I know it's tempting to try and crap all over anything that isn't HC for some people, but painting all the work other servers have done on the costume editor as "jank" is intentionally misleading.

I read the post back when it was first made. I disagreed with it entirely back then and I still entirely disagree with it now. It's essentially saying "I like KB, so tough." That's fine and there's nothing wrong with that. It's their server and they can do whatever they want, and we just have to live with it. We don't have any say in what goes on here and our opinions don't hold much weight, if any at all. Again, nothing wrong with that. HC can do whatever they like here. I just disagree fundamentally with how KB is implemented in that it doesn't take into consideration how it affects team play. Also, being worried about people with KB getting "ostracized" into being forced to turn on a toggle doesn't make much sense, given that people are already "ostracized" for any number of reasons for things like Group Fly, Speed Boost, Sonic Resonance, brightly colored powers, Fold Space etc. Singling out KB as a concern for ostracizing is a bit silly and doesn't make any sense. I also think the idea of adding powers that help corral knocked back foes (see Fold Space) is totally bizarre. They're so concerned with a minor increase in DPS by changing KB to KD, but then add stuff like Fold Space that exponentially increases AoE DPS? It's also a very convoluted way to fix the problem in my opinion, not to mention causing all kinds of headaches and bad feelings on teams when mobs are teleported away from them. Seems to me it would have been simpler to just add a way for people to select KB or KD or to toggle between them, but that's just me. The folks running the show here are of course welcome to make whatever changes they feel are appropriate.

I understand that. My point was that there's really no "lost opportunity" with the "cost" of foregoing a couple of middling powers or pool picks for mules in favor of taking FS. Unless I completely misunderstood you, the net gain in taking FS clearly outweighs by an enormous margin any "lost opportunity", so it's not even relevant. If people are worried about a toggle or option to use KD instead of KB is going to somehow break the game because of "huge" DPS increases, then I think it's silly given the current META of teleporting huge mobs without even needing to move as much and have a far, far greater impact on DPS than any KB > KD toggle would ever have. I can only speak for myself, but these threads generally tend to stem from people ranting about KB and how it annoys teams and they either had to kick someone or were themselves kicked from a team because of KB. This happens when people don't know how to use KB effectively. If you have even the slightest bit of situational awareness, you can be knocking things into walls or knocking them down from above so as not to push them out of range of your attacks or away from anyone else. Granted, that's not always feasible in places like caves or offices and such, nor do I think people should be forced into taking Flight or buying rocket packs just to be able to use KB effectively. KB in a team setting is one of many problems in my opinion, mostly stemming from very poor design choices and the assumption that people will use things "correctly" in the way the original power Devs intended. Most people don't and never will, and that's something that should've been taken into consideration in my opinion. It fails a basic understanding of what some (and I would argue most) people find enjoyable in the game in my opinion. You're of course welcome to disagree. I find KB is fine for soloing. Hellion golfing used to be a favored past time of mine. I have quite a few Energy Blasters, /Martial Blasters, MA scrappers etc. who all have KB and it's fun when soloing. There are times when KB is beneficial, but that's rare in my experience. I can completely see where KB can be annoying for a team when you have people knocking mobs out of range of AoEs or away from the aggro of a tank. Personally, if I'm on my Energy blaster, I try to position myself so as not to disrupt the team flow as much as possible. It's the same thing with Fold Space. I can't tell you how many times I'm on a team and engaged with a group of mobs only to have them FS'ed right off me toward another player. That's annoying, especially when unannounced. 99.999% of the time you're told "Fuck you" if you politely ask them not to do it or at least try and grab other mobs and leave some food on the plate for you. Those very same people are the ones who will then complain you're hot dogging when you run off to solo stuff because you're "not helping the team". Yeah, that's great they can use FS and just nuke the mobs for faster XP, but just getting faster XP and inf isn't what's the fun part of the game for me. I actually enjoy engaging with the content and fighting stuff. It's why I make the investment in time and resources in building characters. I think that's true for a lot of, if not most all people too, but that's my opinion. Having stuff teleported away from or knocked away from you goes against that grain, and that's something I think the original Devs didn't take into account. Again, my opinion though and you're welcome to disagree. Anyway, I don't see a problem with adding a toggle for KB > KD. I personally wouldn't mind losing some DPS as someone suggested earlier in the thread if this toggle were turned on. It's not like we're talking a ten fold increase in DPS or anything if someone goes from KB to KD, and it helps solve an ongoing problem of people complaining about KB on teams.

So if we're to believe the news out there, test screenings haven't been faring well for this. I'll remain cautiously optimistic, but it certainly isn't sounding too good right now. They still have time for changes though.

Hmmm.... let me see. Choose between a couple of single target attacks with middling DPS at best or maybe another pool pick to use as a mule, or choose taking FS that will help vastly increase my overall DPS. Where's the sacrifice again? I'd believe you if there weren't tons of people doing exactly this because its the new DPS meta and if you ask them why they took FS, they all say its because it increased their DPS. Sorry, try again. As far as the whole KB slows your DPS because it pushes stuff out of range forcing you to re-engage, that doesn't work either, unless you don't know how to use KH effectively. People who understand how to use KB effectively are knocking stuff into walls or are flying above the target to knock them down instead of back, so they're never out of range.

You all should run Synapse on Saturday evenings over on Torchbearer for the SNS league. Always great fun. Last week set a new record - 31 Babbages at once!