battlewraith

Unless I'm misunderstanding the OP, I thought the idea was just to make the upgrades passives, not inherents. Like quickness in SR. You would still have to select that power while leveling in order to get the benefit. It's just that the upgrade would be automatically applied upon summons.

I didn't say anything about the role of the MM. I was talking about the secondaries, which were clearly not designed with pets in mind. First of all many of them existed before masterminds were a thing. Secondly, all of them appear across multiple ATs. Some of which feature no pets in their primaries or secondaries. Game design is an art, not a science. Yes, math is an important tool--but the entire point is to provide an enjoyable experience for the players. Somebody's fun hinges on a lot of subjective factors. And if it's not fun, people don't give a damn if the rationale behind it is mathematically balanced.

The secondaries are not designed to keep pets alive. They are meant to assist teams. And if I'm not mistaken, they are weaker versions of what defenders, corruptors, etc. bring to the table. So while defenders, corruptors etc. are helping teammates and blasting away at mobs, masterminds are apparently supposed to manage their pets activities, keep them alive, and be of some use to their teammates. If the team is performing well, the MM already losing damage because of the lag of their pets arriving at where they need to be in order to do dmg. For a lot of content, they are going to be left in the dust by other ATs. If the team is having issues, then the MM may have to keep a teammate alive instead of their pets. Then they have to pay a tax on their dps while the rest of the team can keep fighting. Then there's the late game content, things like the Battle Maiden fight where there are animated swords all over the place ands she's dropping large, hard hitting aoes that may be hard to handle without pets to worry about. People seem to be viewing this as a math problem. Which I guess would be compelling if I didn't actually play the game and see reasons why these complaints don't make sense and are punitive to MMs.

What was the point exactly? I thought the idea was to show that this proposal wasn't needed because it's so easy to keep the pets alive. You demonstrated this by having "lazy time" in a relatively low level mission, where you waited between engagements for the pets to heal back up. Going slowly on easy mode doesn't really support any kind of point as far as I can tell. How much faster? How does this make any sense? If you're able to keep your pets alive--then you'll have the maximum number of pets available throughout the fight. This proposal doesn't give you more pets. If all the tips for targeting, upgrading, healing your pets that have been mentioned here are legitimate, then this proposal is basically about QOL, not performance. If the fight is going poorly, and your upgraded pets are getting wiped--then having them upgraded automatically on resummon is not going to let you drown the AV in pets unless the recharge on the summons is nil.

So the key to success is not dark servant. It's an even more powerful entity...Father Time.

I played a //ff controller back at release. I had to refresh bubbles on people periodically, or just decide I wasn't going to be bothered. This was not a difficult thing to "master." It was just irritating. And eventually they changed it so that it hit everything at once--thus changing the game loop of the set. As far as I can tell, those controllers and defenders affected did not suddenly become significantly more powerful or valued on team. They just became funner to play. People keep saying "well if you know what you're doing, the pets shouldn't be getting killed." Okay, well if it's the norm that the pets stay alive--if that's the standard expectation--then objecting to this proposal makes no sense because you're not going to see a big increase in dps if the upgrades became passive. The primary source of damage, the pets, are assumed to be a constant in either case. So if it's that trivial to keep them alive, this doesn't constitute a major change in gameloop. If on the other hand, it is actually normal for the pets to die in the course of something approaching a meaningfully challenging mission, then this proposal is a dps increase. But that increase is only to the floor of what people here seem to be expecting as standard dps. It does not constitute an increase to the ceiling to what the AT is already accomplishing.

I'm curious as to whether dark servant was part of the equation. The ninjas + a powerful pet from the only secondary I think that offers a pet. Yeah I could see that rolling through low difficulty settings.

There's a very simple solution for a number of these complaints. One that is referenced in places like the sticky for the suggestions forum. If you don't like a thread, stop replying. Let it drop off the page. In my experience, the people that complain the most about divisiveness are the ones you can expect to engage with it. They can't simply walk away. And it looks like, from some of these comments, they want the moderators to step in and lock things down so that they don't have to.

You're supposed to assume good will. What you're advocating is the opposite. Edit: You're basically calling him out as a liar because you can't relate to someone just wanting to have a conversation. Believe it or not, sometimes people do just want to talk about ideas. If it turns into a suggestion, you can disparage them then (why do players always want realism in a way that benefits them sounds like a diss anyway).

I'm not a mind reader. He said this: So I don't know why I'm supposed to assume this is a request.

Where is the request? I thought he was just wondering how it would work.

I haven't had a problem with the moderation. I think it's been reasonable for as long as I've been around, though I don't spend as much time here as other people. I guess my feedback is this: there is a community here in the sense that there is an aggregate of people who post on the forums. Within that group are an assortment of people with different interests, personalities, experiences with the game and so on. A lot of the people who are heavily invested in the game seem to crave social cohesion. They want a community in the sense of wanting a group of like-minded individuals. This is not a surprise for a game this old. But it's not good imo, either for the forums or the game. Be impartial. Don't gatekeep, Be tolerant, and resist the calls to police the crap out of this place. It would only make things worse.

The chance is zero. They're hovering in the air, The recoil would be pushing them all over. Which begs the question, if they have such advanced tech, why are they using machine guns?

I think most people aspire to to more than 0/+3. That's not much of a flex. I also don't think I've been on Lambda where people didn't scatter. I think that's the norm.

Woooosh. Another wall of text where you completely and dogmatically miss the point. This is your vision of the game. It's more or less an exposition of how you view things, which you then extend to the playerbase as a whole to try to make it sound more legitimate. You talk about people not wanting an I win button and people wanting to feel like they've earned something (hilariously this is in regard to lowbie content which is largely skipped over). For the majority of the lifespan of the game I was a pvper. I just logged in and played the game with my friends. We got jack shit in terms of rewards and those things that were pvp centered are now easily available to people who never need to pvp to get them. The question about chess is absolutely pertinent to this discussion. The reason you play chess is not about the rewards--it's because you enjoy it. Same with pvp. Same with throwing a frisbee. Your value system vis a vis this game is so fixated on grind that you can't see past it. That is your hang up that you're trying to saddle on me. You don't like it, you don't think it adds anything-cool. You've already stated your preference. But your arguments, that you keep rehashing here are silly. "Oh no. This option will make people stronger at the most fleeting of level ranges! And then they will be weaker at later level ranges! And if people actually have fun with this--it could destroy everything that we hold dear!"

Nukes aren't really what I had in mind for this idea personally, but you keep dancing with your strawmen.

You're nitpicking the crap out of an example. I don't care what it sounds like to you. You're justification for ruling out a change in progression order is backed up by you then dictating how other people should conceptually view those picks. You do you. Leave other people alone.

It's particularly easy if you're going to make a set of simplistic and unwarranted assumptions. If the idea is that the standard level progression is the thing that is keeping this playerbase here, simply do this thought experiment: Imagine that the PL options are gone. This lovely experience of working your way up with the measured progression is mandatory. I don't think it's controversial to expect a huge chunk of the population to move on. The reason the playerbase is still what it is now, has to do with easing away from that mentality. Because they've already been answered or you could figure it out yourself if you actually committed any brainpower to this. 1. Variety. To make the content that you normally skip over interesting. You want a break from pling. You're sick of dfbs. You want to try using using powers that you usually skip because the are subotimal or undesirable in light of how you usually plan things. This is largely a subjective issue. 2. What is the actual tangible benefit for playing chess. Or throwing a frisbee. Figure it out. 3. You could answer this yourself by looking at the options in the character creation screen. The fact that different options would be made available at different levels is fact. Whether or not you find this appealing is subjective. I'm not going to try to sell you on it any more than pushing you to badge, pvp, collect prismatic aethers, whatever. 4. You don't care what other people are doing. You don't have to min/max all the time. You want some kind of challenge. A break from the norm. Variety is the spice of life. It's funny how min/maxer people sometimes get on these forums when they encounter an idea they don't like. In my experience ingame (in pve at least) people are pretty cool and laid back. They don't build shame you or anything unless there's a real chance of failing the mission, which is not that common. I hope that answers your questions.

LMAO. Pot meet kettle? Everything seems to be an "I win" button to you. The orthodoxy has to be preserved because at it's core, it seems like you will feel like you've been cheated if someone else does something different from what you're grow accustomed to. If you think this is an asteroid strike onto a well-established ecosystem, you need to explain that. Pouting about one specific use (eg. nukes on lowbie) and elaborating why you don't get the appeal doesn't establish the supposed threat. Moreover, the notion that this suggestion poses that kind of a threat entails the assumption that a substantial number of people would be interested in it.

And this is a generic response that can be leveled at more or less any suggestion that has scope (not just QOL or a cosmetic change). You want a new content >> how long is it going to be before you're bored with that content. A suggestion that is intended to make the low level content more interesting, is not trying to toss that content out. That would only be the case If I accepted your Chicken Little sky is falling mentality that it would somehow destroy the traditional level experience for everyone. It would not. You would not be required to engage with it in any way. And the strident objection to it on this front is indicative of an undercurrent of fear--that this option actually would be really popular with a lot of people to the extent that it would become impactful to crusty old timers. Don't see that happening.

There have always been people you can't convince. There are people who could never be convinced to pvp. There are people who can never be convinced that PLing is ok. There are probably people who can't ever be convinced to play red side for some reason. That's not an argument, it's just someone's bias. But it is hilarious to me how divorced this is from the actual motivations I have for this proposal, which is about doing something different in terms of power selections, builds, leveling than what I typically do. And this is in a game that is over 20 years old and with areas of content (red, gold) that are largely unplayed. Ooooooooh this guy wants good stuff now. As opposed to what, waiting another 20 years for the fruits of your dogmatism to blossom? Trying to discredit "the very peculiar reason, un concept" I mentioned regarding the narratives we apply to game characters really shows how myopic you're being. You sound like an authoritarian child trying to gatekeep what dolls are allowed at a tea party.

I understand. And I said repeatedly that I didn't expect this to happen. It's meant to be representative of the type of change I would like to see. It's ideation. It's not a feasibility study.

This indicates you're not listening because reiterating a point I made earlier and don't seem to get it. The balance and progression you're holding so dear has been changed over the years. Not only have powers become available earlier, powerful set bonuses, procs, and even powers like the ones you mentioned can simply be bought from the vendors. But ermagard at someone under certain circumstances having a nuke early. Again no. This is a mode that people who had unlocked it would experience. It has nothing to do with balance across all the game's content. That was even a criticism leveled at it--that once you passed those early levels the character would probably be weaker than one with IOs. Well what I would really like is for you to take your suggestion born of ire and make your own suggestion thread about it, so that it can be discussed on it's own merits. If it's just you being sarcastic because you don't approve of my "rationalizations", grow up. Move on. Follow the advice specified in "concerning this forum." The sooner people stop complaining, the sooner it will go away.

You're not adding anything. You were one of the first people to speak out against the idea. If you can't remember anything, go back and reread the thread. If you actually don't understand the idea at this point, I can't help you. If you just don't like it--again I can't help you. I'm not here to sell you on it subjectively.

I don't mean this as an insult, but I think this is a very clear indication of your mindset. You're viewing that behavior from a standpoint of "do they deserve it?" "Is that miniscule amount of xp actually properly earned"? I think you would absolutely see people throwing around nukes at that level because it would be fun. And different from the 100s if not 1000s of DFBs where you got your 2x xp buff and then dutifully pulled out your sands of Mu and blackwand and then ran through a bunch of the same mobs again. You're looking at this as an easy win in the same world where someone can sit in a farm and do nothing at all and get far better rewards. Even joining a higher level team is more lucrative and would be more or less the same. If I run with a bunch of powerful characters in PI, that nuke is not going to make a damn bit of difference. It is about amusement for the person doing it, not the traditionalist bystander who is shaking their head at this breach of the proper way.