tidge

This feels like a narrow and poorly considered request: Both Winter Sets, as well as "Purple" sets appear alongside the PVP and non-VP sets, and none can be converted to other sets of the same type either. I think fewer categories in the AH tree are easier to follow.

I have found the Gaussian's %BuildUp to be pretty mediocre in any sort f "Tactics" Aura unless I am playing: 1) A Crabbermind, or, 2) I am playing a DPS toon that pretty much exclusively lays with teammates It procs fine... but it doesn't really help non-DPS characters (including MMs) because of damage scales. There is almost always a better use for the slot. For the OP: If I don't need Maneuvers to 6-slot something like Reactive Defenses, the powers are either getting a few slots of HOs, or are simply muling Defense IOs.

OK... so I understand the scenario you describe... but I see the marker as setting off a sort of gold rush, at least among those who want to make sure they get their piece... and I foresee some fraction of folks being those who can (and will) take out Giant Monsters ASAP. I suspect some players would see a league chasing monsters and decide to "PVP" to other zones to take out GMs before the league gets there. Please don't forget that the Holiday GMs can be VERY easy to defeat... and that they insta-respawn. I was present when an entire league or two was murdering Scrapyard... this behavior is what I think would happen again if players knew where monsters were by a casual glance at the map.

I certainly wouldn't hold my breath... but with the Beta change to Invulnerability's T9, I suppose anything is possible. Unstoppable is probably a poor example, as it has been an absolutely poor choice of a power for about 20 years, and we've had plenty of examples of armor T9s that weren't handicapping players for a long time. The powers team certainly knows how to design sets that "cover all the bases", and then some... sets like Marine Affinity are shockingly good because of the approach taken towards making the powers useful in different ways. A big problem Empathy has in this era: Incarnate powers that anyone can take are probably providing at least as much utility as Empathy, and certainly allow for Inspirations to bridge any remaining gaps. From my PoV: Empathy (as a set) is probably single-handedly standing in the way of a rework of the Medicine pool. It seems wrong to ask for simple reworks of Medicine while Empathy (and similar powers in other primary/secondary) as so miserable.

Ultimately: Empathy needs to be better than Inspirations... and inspirations already affect the challenge curve of the game.

I don't understand this comment, or how it supports favoring a GM marker. 1) Adamastor always spawns at the exact same location, which has a map marker... so in fact, people can beeline to it. 2) There is an announcement when Adamastor spawns, and it will despawn in 20 minutes if not defeated. 3) It takes less than a minute for a multi-boxer to "solo" Adamastor, it takes my solo singleton under 2 minutes to defeat it, with Lores. For other zone GMs... there will be an announcement, but they are mostly on 4-hour timers. Folks who solo will beeline to the GMs, and wipe them. For folks who cannot solo, or don't mulitibox GMs, I observe the following behaviors: They LFG notifying everyone about the monsters, and stick around while hoping for a team to carry them They leave them be. There are far more multi-box Adamastor 'waiters' then multi-box GM hunters... but I'm convinced this is because Adamastor is an extremely low-effort, high reward spawn for a few minutes. The effort for OTHER GMs is finding them and/or summoning them (e.g. Goliath War Walker). For most monthly event GMs... they can take less than 2 minutes each, without using Lores. Certain zones would become free-for-alls. For some GMs... I think the marker idea would also contribute to people not cleaning up (Croatoa, Kings Row, Crey's Folly). People interested in finding a GM won't be incentivized to zip through the zone checking for GMs (and cleaning up any additionals) if there isn't a GM marker... and people who only want the GMs will skip checking for additionals... just like they do now. We're somewhat lucky right now in that most GMs don't have daily limits... and this is because they aren't trivial to find. Say good-bye to "Saturday Night Synapse" when GMs get 24-hour limits on rewards.

Perhaps Ironically: You can purchase the alignment and level-appropriate tip missions at a cost of 1 merit each.

The radio/paper and Mayhem/Safeguard have EXTREMELY LOW "rando factor"... The mayhem/Safeguard missions in PI have none, as they always have the full suite of side missions. I'll back that guess. The only variety among morality missions is if the player really has changed alignment and is progressing through different alignments on each side... but ZOMG that would be mind-numbing (for me, to do again).

Care to take a guess at how much Inf an even-level boss at level 50 drops?

Why didn't you lead with "My number one YT subscriber is Diantane"?

IIRC, the Mapserver GM is tagged to appear on the open world maps. and has since it was introduced... so ultimately "PLZ mark GMs" is a suggestion that hasn't been implemented for reasons.

I don't think the first is necessary; I think the second is exaggerated. Henchmen defense comes primarily from proximity to the MM (improved by slotting) and choice of secondary powers. I think this is a good observation:

I want to echo this advice (for Touch of Fear). There was a time when there was a small chorus of voices discussing how poor Touch of Fear is with %damage from procs... and I'm sure that advice is still present in some older threads... but as @Uun notes, it is actually an excellent power to use for %damage procs (if that is they way you roll) provided the player picks the ones that can effect the most enemies.

IIRC, detonator is based on the damage slotting of the henchmen... so detonating other items is possible, but not particularly useful AFAIK. (I don't take it). IIRC, the current Open Beta has restricted the number of items in Traps that can be targetable (by a MM).

So this was a proposal aimed at players you don't know involving content you aren't familiar with? At this point it sounds like I play more papers/radios/safeguard/mayhem... and I don't want or need extra merits from them.

There are already "small rewards" n the content you are discussing. The primary concern about merit farming, as expressed by devs in words and deeds, has been to not introduce more ways to get merits with so little effort.

You are being intentionally misrepresentative, and insulting. If a player is playing the game City of ___, and not the "Game of MIDS" (which AFAIK does allow players to build sub-50 characters) AND they are aware of enhancement sets planned in a level 50 build.... I believe with some certainty that the player is going to slot some of those enhancement sets before level 30.... with my one stated caveat if a character is being power-leveled then I can see why it might not occur to them to want to slot enhancement sets before level 50. Which specific sets do YOU want slot-able before level 50, and why? Per Chesterton...

What Senator Rudra is referring to when describing weariness about "I'm just thinking about the new players" is that the suggestion forum is filled with suggestions that are simultaneously dependent on new players: Playing the game in some very specific way, as described by the suggestor, that "harms them" in some way, as judged by the person making the suggestion There is no evidence that "new players" are actuallu being harmed by things like "not knowing where a Giant Monster is", "not having a full suite of Purple IOs", "not having a cool SG base", not having merits/Incarnate powers/fishcakes." There are hypotheticals proposed... but no one making a "but what about the new players?" argument comes out and says anything like "I'm hurt, and I wish the game hadn't hurt me because I chose to play the way I did." I can think of ONE forum member that explicitly makes that argument, so at least that guy is being honest... even if they won't take suggestions from literally everybody else on the forums how to solve their problem. It would be refreshing to have more people admit that they did something without recognizing the cost, and asking for suggestions of how they could do things differently instead of getting suggestions to change the game so that their past self didn't have to pay the cost of their past (informed or uninformed) choices. I get it... people fall in love with their own ideas and will defend them to the death... however its not like this supposed groundswell of "new players that only play paper/radio missions, yet somehow get to 50 and realize that the game offers things for Influence and also that merits are another form of currency" can't be addressed by playing content that actually gives merits... which is something every contact so-and-so who "has contacted you" (while leveling) does. It's ok to want MOAR REWARDS for the content YOU WANT TO PLAY. It is disingenous to suppose that there is some huge player base that ONLY plays in the way being described.

At level 45+, if you have defeated 25 heroes (for villains) or 25 villains (for heroes) you can infinitely loop each of the mayhem/safeguards with no extra effort. EDIT: I mention 45+, because that is when the last of the maps unlocks, provided you have the correct badge.

I look forward to your future requests to have Carson also offer reward merits in lieu of Tailor sessions.

"Being broke" doesn't follow from "got to level 50 by doing missions". If a "broke" player reaches level 50... there is plenty of content that reward players with merits at 50... not even counting TFs (like SSA... some of which have 3 doors and can require as few as 5 defeats), Incarnates, or Ouroboros It's not as if the mobiles in the newspaper/alignment missions stop giving Inf at 50. If there is an annoyance about newspapers/radios... it is that (originally) these were the ways to unlock contacts (who offer arcs with merit rewards). The morality missions' original purpose was to change alignments (and get merits for that mission). You may as well be asking for merit rewards for all those non-arc missions from contacts. If a player is only playing radio missions and not leveraging the contacts they get... well, I dunno what to say to that except that there is a LOT of game they are missing. It appears you may be new to Homecoming... the devs have a (well-motivated, IMO) focus on not making it "too easy" to get merits. They've curtailed many "convert to merit" options. They've rebalanced merit rewards based on completion time (for arcs, TFs). They aren't meanines about this... but they aren't going to roll out merit rewards for single missions that can be completed by clearing one Lt and 2 minions. There are some pretty easy ways to collect merits... but the mission-related means all have some sort of time investment. This is pretty much the HC approach, and it is one that makes sense to me. YMMV.

Those bullet points aren't orthogonal binary choices! I didn't see anyone saying it "dumbs the game down" (for anyone)... for myself, it trivializes part of the game in a way that I don't think @Mystoc recognizes. There hasn't been any evidence provided that such a change promotes teaming... It really feels like a hypothetical motivated by monthly event annoyance that we know whena WL spawns in a zone, but we don't know precisely where in the zone the WL spawns. It is valid to feel annoyed, but the "solution" is at best adressing only a limited subgroup of players who might have that annoyance... it doesn't actually solve any in-game problems.

We can't get rid of Hassel... as he and Lord S are the only way to access safeguard/mayhem missions that have been out-leveled. The are also a convenient way to refresh certain useful temp powers. This is a solution in search of a problem (that doesn't exist). 1) Anyone can collect all the exploration badges in (almost every) open-world zone for 5 merits. 2) Anyone above a (rather low) level can re-run single Signature Story Arc missions for 5 merits, as often as they want.... and one repeat-per-week (after the first completion) for 20 merits.