battlewraith

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.

So there's a lot of this type of response in the thread, which basically boils down to "I enjoy the content as is, therefore I don't support this idea." I'm not running a poll. I would be interested in some market research to assess what the actual playerbase as a whole would be into, but I'm not put off by the tiny portion of forumgoers not liking the idea. Imagine you had an idea for something like a new badge. And then I post that I'm a veteran player who feels that badges are a waste of time and actually detrimental to the game itself in a number of ways. Then imagine there were 10 of me in your thread saying the same thing. Is the idea therefore bad? No. It just means that rationally you should be talking about logistics of the idea and not people's subjective preferences. Reading this, I don't think you get the point. I've played all the ATs over the course of two decades. I've got expensive builds for most of them. Given the age of the game and the extent to which people grind things in it, my roster of 50s is paltry compared to a lot of people. So the notion that ooops I picked the wrong AT is silly. As is the notion that I'm not really interested in low level content--when I like most people can easily bypass it and this is a suggestion of what I think might make that content interesting to me. I'm an outlier here in terms of preference. I doubt that I'm as much of an outlier outside of these forums. But it doesn't really matter either way, it's just an idea. I also think you bring up another aspect to this--the plethora of prestige powers, buffs, etc. that lowbies can access to boost early level performance. The lowbie mobs weren't initially balanced for that either. But people don't like the grind, these things were added as a result, and now people take them for granted as part of the game balance. A strength of the game, part of it's enduring appeal, is that it enables people to creatively engage with it to tell their own stories. The thought there was that I would have a character that discovered he could explode. Initially he could only do it once in a while, but with training he struggled to control it so that he could do it more often and in a more limited capacity (eg blasts). Do you want to police that story? Would you read someone's bio ingame, then message them saying "sorry, I don't think the narrative implicit in the game mechanics really fits with what you wrote there."

These discussions to me are the gaming community equivalent of the Geico "don't become your parents" ads. "Toxic what??!?" "Why don't you just say asshole? That's a perfectly good word!"

This exact question was answered earlier in the discussion. It's not the same thing we have now, if it was people wouldn't be complaining. Or rather, people would still be complaining but not about the disruption to the leveling progression.

You don't like the idea. Lol I heard you. Just let it go.

Frankly it's a pretty basic concept. It allows for build combinations that aren't possible now, particularly at low levels. This doesn't sound appealing to you? Okay? That's you. That's your preference. I'm not going to sell you on an ice cream flavor either. You're not interested. I get it. I get that other people here don't like it. Why are you still nagging about it? "While I'm sure that there are some who don't want anything to change, I suspect that most people here welcome updates to the game. I'm sorry that your idea is no good and more people don't like it. " Thanks for the PSA. If you have anything new to add, I'm all ears.

Exactly. They don't want anything to change. And maybe...possibly...hypothetically...they may camp out in a suggestions forum and try to shut down ideas under the guise of "helping." Scary thought right? Oh well, people are weird lol.

I'm glad that even though you don't like my idea, it prompted you to do some ideation of your own.

This isn't some death sentence for the character that is set in stone. It's a gamemode that occupies a build slot, If they want to switch the character over and put IOs in there, they can do that. If they want to take an existing character that has IOs and play around in saga mode, they can do that. It's an option to play around with more build varieties, not some plot to disrupt people's min/maxing agendas. Those type of people have always been around from the beginning. Getting the travel powers early. Getting other powers earlier. Having 2x always available. Being able to respec without doing the mission, and so on. These are all things people would've complained about. I'm not concerned with how these people feel. I'm concerned with how the game actually is now. Is the proposal out of line with how things actually are now. For instance, some people complained that saga mode would ruin low level TF like Posi. Okay, so how long does it take a typical group doing that TF at this point to complete it? How much easier and faster does having IOs make it? I suspect that having one or more saga mode characters in the mix would maybe shave a few minutes off of the run time. I think people are more aghast at what they see as an attack on principles rather than actual impact on gameplay.

That looks like it would hit harder, at range, than something like total focus or headsplitter slotted with SOs.

Do you want to discuss it? Frankly I think the problem that you're pointing out is pretty ridiculous. It's like a distorted, worst-case scenario of what could possibly happen if something you don't like is implemented. It makes no sense to me. First of all, it's absolutely redundant. If someone with no knowledge of even the basics of the game gets pled to 50--they are in a situation where they have to make slotting/power choices out of ignorance (and presumably would make bad choices). Saga mode doesn't put them in that position, they are already there. Saga mode might make it more confusing for that person, assuming for some reason that this person with absolutely no knowledge manages to get pled to 50 and then immediately jumps into saga mode. Compare this to an extant feature: temporal warrior. It does not require a lvl 50 to unlock and is available on the character select screen. It gives you a lvl 50 character, with all the incarnate and accolade powers available and sets you in RV, the highest pvp zone. Where that newbie will be instantly melted if there are any actual pvpers around. If I was going to fret about the new blood that is going to sustain this game--that is going to be a bad experience. But I think the devs and the playerbase understand that this is a feature for experienced players and they don't have fantasies about bumpkins dropping in there, getting traumatized, and then fleeing the game. Now this: In the context of that thread, your post was a sarcastic retort about helping new players by power-leveling them, then sending them out into the game without the proper experiences or resources. is fucking hilarious. First of all, because you went to the effort to dig up some old post of mine from years ago that you think incriminates me. And secondly, it doesn't actually do anything of the sort and it doesn't relate to the thing I'm proposing. I don't pl rank beginners to 50 for those reasons. Saga Mode is not for beginners. It's for experienced players. It just so happens that I can't rule out somebody else doing this. I don't think it's really that likely, I think generally speaking the people that are here and getting pled either know what they're doing or have friends/family/etc. that they play with and give them advice. But let's say for the sake of argument, a newbie gets leveled straight to 50, and then immediately jumps into saga mode. I think there are 3 options. One is that they actually do alright and have fun with it. Two is that they have a meh build, but they team and the friendly players on the team help them along. Eventually they would learn the ropes. Three is that they really screw up and the character is unplayable. What happens then? Lol they try something else. I did. Back in the retail days, in the heyday of this handholding lvling scheme you're holding in such high esteem, I made bad power picks. Slotted things horribly. And most importantly, just did not understand certain ATs and misused them. When that happened, I set them aside and tried again. I did not storm off in a hissy fit and leave the game. And then when pvp was added, I learned substantially different dynamics. As did a lot of other players. So no, my incredulity was not feigned. The issue you're bringing up is so overblown and cartoonish that I cannot take it seriously.

I keep wondering what the level settings were for this scenario lol.