tidge

I'm sparing you a thumbs down reaction for this post, but this suggestion makes zero sense. Why do I write this? How would an "uninformed player" know what any of that means? Why would we want shards explicitly set up that have different things, that players can choose to ignore anyway?

Oh, I have added some Toxic/Psi, but as most know... it isn't that easy to work in after a build has been planed.

"These 1600 merits and 500 incarnate threads are an insult, and probably hiding my pet drops!"

IMO, the closest thing the "HC Devs" have done to what @Luminara describes... and it isn't close at all IMO... is the push to get everyone off of Tequila and onto HCLauncher. I have nothing bad at all to say about this push(*1), but losing functionality from Tequila (e.g. beta server access, requiring a special delivery mechanism for updates) is about the only thing that I can think of that comes close to the experiences folks have complained about with the new Mids. (*1) For what its worth, I think there is a spectrum of reasons for the launcher shift, ranging from well-motivated to *shrug*... I don't have any issues myself with the current HCLauncher.

I want to echo what @twozerofoxtrot wrote. I think having a "self heal" is probably more important for SR than chasing blanket resistances, at least for most content. The resistances picked up from set bonuses/uniques should be enough for a lot of the game. Yes, I have Tough, but it was picked at level 47, The most problematic attack type for my SR Tanker so far as been Nemesis' Toxic. Probably not a surprise, but it feels worse on my SR than on any other Tanker. I haven't tried tanking the hardest suff yet with my minimally-Incarnate SR Tanker, but when things are going pear-shaped, I have a high-recharge Unleashed Potential available. It doesn't help against auto-hits, but the extra Regeneration ends up balancing with the Scaling Resistances, and the +Defense definitely helps for when it is DDR that is causing me grief.

My experiences align with what @Sovera wrote, for pretty much every AT I experimented with: There is only one circumstance I found where I could see an improvement in clear times, but it is in opposition to a piece of advice written earlier: The circumstance is this: A Robotics Mastermind with multiple power slotted with the Annihilation %-Resistance piece in the MM attacks. Let me spell out a couple of things before I describe what I observed: A solo Mastermind with 6 henchmen is sort of like being on a team with "poorly slotted" teammates Robotic henchmen don't have great single-target damage, but they can make a lot of attacks in 10 seconds The same source of -Resistance will reset (extend) the duration of the effect The MM is spamming the AoE attacks (which include the Annihilation piece) against spawns, and eventually against hard single targets. When these circumstances align, the %-Res does improve the clear times for the solo MM... but I think the biggest effect is that the Henchmen aren't "nuking" spawns like some player ATs will be. The random nature of the %proc, combined with the randomness of which critters in a spawn get hit by both the MM and the henchmen lead to a general improvement in clear times. It also helps against hard targets, but the fight has to drag a bit to be able to observe this (see the comments above about pylon testing) I experimented with trying to use (multiple) "stacking" sources of (different) %-Resistance with the MM and I came to the conclusion that it was actually a waste of a slot. I didn't see any effect on other ATs that changed my mind. The %procs are inherently unreliable and the durations are short. I found it better for Tankers to just take Weaken Resolve, slotted for Accuracy, and if desired to add an Achilles' Heel %-Resistance piece to that. This will give a reliable source of -Resistance, plus a pretty good extra %-Resistance chance to be used against a single target... which will almost certainly be what the Tanker is left facing... assuming the Tanker doesn't sprint off leaving a boss behind for teammates to clean up. There is one more effect that I bring up in discussion of %-Resistance versus %Damage: (Non-AFK) Mission/map clear times are pretty much directly correlated with how many buttons have to be mashed. My play experience has been that for solo play, %damage is better at reducing the number of buttons that need to be mashed than %-Resistance.

I have a Spines/Bio Stalker, but not as a Scrapper. The /Bio Secondary makes the Stalker into a very effective PBAoE murder machine. The subtle differences between those two AT in the Primary give me a little bit of pause, mostly because the Scrapper won't have an Assassin's Strike, so as @arcane wrote the single-target damage may be lackluster for the leveling experience. A recollection of my Stalker leveling experience is that I wasn't impressed with Spine Burst. My final build has it delayed until level 12 and slotted with 5xArmageddon. I think it was that I found the animation to be a little clumsy.

Perhaps what dear @Shin Magmus is trying to say is more like this: "Because of various combat effects, including player RNG rolls resulting in MISS with a single-target attack/control that would have otherwise kept a specific Carnie from phasing, fights with large Carnie spawns feel peculiarly random in ways that fights with other similarly sized spawns do not." Maybe It was in reference to whether or not the enemy Illusionists phase before the player fires off an AoE against their spawn? Both are more annoying than any trick played by nuCouncil. We've all experience an RNG-cursed miss after a Build-Up/Assassin's Strike... but I think all the times I've missed with any attack/control against a phasing Carnie that if it had hit would have either face-planted them or held them, and I don't feel at all bad about those missed AS.

I build with level 50 in mind, but as a practical matter I typically only plot out up through level 32. While leveling: I don't honor what the final build will be in terms of powers or slotting, certainly not in set choices (because Purples, etc. aren't available below a certain level). Every once in a while I will make radically different choices in power pools while leveling up. I like to experiment, and respecs are plentiful. Some things I do while leveling: I often have more +Recovery than what a final build will have. I typically don't multi-slot powers like Build Up even if a final build has multiple slots. When I see a build posted that has Hasten before level 10, I can pretty much guess that such a build was not played organically. There are some powers that simply don't make sense to take very early. Hasten sticks out to me because it isn't commonly taken because there is some later power in the Speed pool that is being gatekept by needing to take multiple earlier powers.

IIRC, Freaks have generally lower XP because they can rez.

NuCouncil used to have no tricks, and were doormats compared to other groups. It is no secret that players would advertise "Council Radios in PI", I am not going to be convinced it is because the OTHER groups in radio options lacked "cool gimmicks". I think it is disingenuous for a "Live Dev" to throw shade at the most recent update to enemy groups when what we had on live was not exactly imaginative. KoV and BP in Dark Astoria... pretty good! Other groups that never got updated on Live? Pretty big blind spot IMO. Personally, I find the Carnies to be the MOST annoying (not the most difficult) at x8, because of the constant phasing, flying and running. NuCouncil, even with an occasional runner, is still easier to deal with. Even low levels have some highly annoying "classic" enemy behavior. I'm thinking of defeat all or even defeat specific spawns were the original CoT spectres go invisible and fly away. Tell me more about the classic non-boring play.

You can right-click on tabs (even ones you have added) to edit what appears in what tabs. I tend to have a dedicated tab that includes cutscene dialogue, npc dialogue, system and rewards... removing those things from the other tabs.

Trap or opportunity for learning? It's hard for me to recall my feels from the earliest days of Live w.r.t. slotting (mostly because debt was so burdensome at launch), but because the leveling experience was so much slower at launch, I remember being able to tell (beyond the red numbers on the enhancements) that my character was struggling upon leveling. I'd combine DOs and SOs all the time. I don't remember feeling like there was pressure to keep all my DOs/SOs at peak performance. Now with so many ways to quickly level by just playing.... I suspect the issue is that some (uninformed) players may want to both level quickly and have those quickly leveling characters perform at a peak levels. This is of course possible, even trivial, but it requires things like: Players need to know about the Invention system and the Auction House, and use them Players need to have a little bit of a nest egg (rather trivial for level 50s to build, assuming they vendor IO recipes) SG storage makes this much easier for multiple characters, but in-game email can also work Once a player gets familiar with those things, DO/SO will stop using head-space.

The UI scrollbar issues are not limited to the Incarnate menu. See also the Recipe crafting menu, the Ouroboros menu, etc. As most everyone else wrote: The Incarnate system is possibly the most confusing aspect of "character building", as it includes unlocks, crafting, and multiple possible power picks. My own biases: I tend to ignore the Incarnate system and content. I like that I can now solo it, and earn it without grinding on PUGs as on Live. I will eventually slot Alpha, to get the +1 level shift, and to get more oomph of some set of attributes. The other attributes and tiers will usually only get slotted when I want to play with buddies in "Incarnate" or "Hard Mode" content. Personally? Originally (Live) I saw the Incarnate system as being mostly a way to get powers that my ATs couldn't normally have: AoEs, Heals, Shields, Pets, whatever. I used to like this, now I'm less inclined to think this is necessary, even for solo play. I never took Enhancement Diversification personally, but I won't ignore how Alpha can improve performance.

IIRC, the original DO/SO drops being usable by characters (by origin) were supposed to be handled by the character picking contacts that were offering specific enemy groups. This is manifest in the pre-40 content when introduced to (and before selecting) contacts when the player is informed which enemy groups a contact will offer missions for. Early contacts will be more explicit about which origins they align with. Back-in-the-day, there were more resources out-of-game to be able to learn which groups favored which SO/DO drops. The Invention systems (even common recipes!) essentially supplanted DO/SO. Mathematically, I see no real reason to worry about SO/DO once a character can slot level 25 common IOs. If folks want to play with DOs/SOs... I feel that those players have made a choice such that they probably shouldn't need the game to be modified to support a version of the original, unmodified version of the game. As an aside: because of the rewards associated with crafting level 25 and 30 common IOs, the market place (introduced at the end of the IO tutorial, should have plenty of enhancements at those levels, for relatively cheap.

Excellent point made: I can offer my own guesses as to why folks prefer farming... but they would simply be guesses. From my own, extremely limited "farming" experience, I can say I did it explicitly for: random drops, and "daily rewards" used to build up a "nest egg" that has been used in the many subsequent years to improve the play experience of subsequent alts I honestly never considered AE farming for XP... mostly because it is pretty easy to get as much XP as fast as I want otherwise... and I don't usually "want" fast XP. I can post my impressions what other "farmers" have liked during the assort "rage quit" periods... there is some number of "farmers" that simply want as much as possible for as little effort as possible (my words, not theirs). This was most noticeable IMO when the changes to Vanguard, and later Empyrian, merit rewards occurred (see also the "level 49 cheat") ... I write IMO because there is no in-game reason to have been hurt by those changes except in the raw accumulation of MOAR. The MOAR certainly can be used in different ways, but the in-game economy was being affected in some peculiar ways that the devs felt like they should step in. I think it is self-evident that many players absolutely will accept and migrate to content that they feel is offering them the most (in-game) rewards for the smallest amount of effort... this is human nature. It see it manifest in game quite a bit: Torchbearer's "Saturday Night Synapse" started as a sort of fun stress test of giant monsters in-zone, but the total number of players simply calling out in zone for "overflow" makes it somewhat obvious that some fraction of players are just there for the merits. The last several months don't look like "playing", at least not to me. The change to the Ghost of Scrapyard rewards, after Monstrous Aethers were introduced. It used to be incredibly difficult to get players to go to "red side", up until it became widely known that this GM could be trivially farmed. Torchbearer has hours upon hours of leagues constantly resummoning and defeating that Giant Monster.

I definitely don't want to diminish the dedication of folks working with legacy code for a rather complicated problem... but I long ago stopped using MIDS variants for personal reasons: It seemed like it needed a LOT of extra resources to install (and run?), far more than I expected for what should be essentially a database tool For me, someone who is familiar with the sets usable for powers, and can reference other sites (City of Data!), the primary value a tool like MIDS would provide would be to see relatively tiny fractional changes between relatively major changes in power/slot choices. It was during an attempted MIDS install, during a period when I was feeling like I should give it another chance, that the HDD it was being installed on bricked itself. In reverse order: (3) This is the most personal, and it isn't fair to assign blame to MIDS, but hey... it happened! (2) I am not now, never have been, and at this point incredibly unlikely to become the type of player that sweats out an extra point of damage, or 0.3% defense, or tries to build a "perfect" attack chain, or similar. I don't want to yuck in the yum of players who want to go "crunchy", but my perception is that such players often present this attitude with such an intense level of detail and content constraints that I find myself wondering how mellow they would be in other, less structured, content. (1) From the outside... this is very hard to gauge, but having worked professionally on a significant number of software projects, most of which involved legacy code, this project feels like it needs to be refactored. This is a nearly impossible thing to ask a team of volunteers to do, because folks will work on the parts they want to work on. As for how would I refactor/redesign such a tool? #1 I'd start with the Pareto principle and recognize that "80% of the development effort is focused on 20% of the features"... so delay/eliminate the 20% of the features that are going to consume huge amounts of coding. It is fine to put hooks in place for future efforts, but don't try to develop a core that does everything. If I had to guess what 80% of teh user base wants: A graphical interface that allows, once an AT is selected Choice of primary/secondaries Power choices (including from pools, etc.) and slot placements Appropriate/allowable enhancement slots for chosen powers, plus set bonuses "Totals" for powers (considering ED, natch) and "globals" (including "toggles") Saving/exporting/importing builds Things like "DPA", even though it is considered critical to some players, could probably take a bake seat for 80% of the user base. Heck, even though I use procs, I'd probably be able to live without an explicit calculation for "%proc" chance to start. Even though *I* go for accolades... and even Incarnates... these are other considerations that *I* think might complicate getting a smoothly working product. #2 is more code-specific, and likely unfair because of my unfamiliarity with the code base... I'd try to make the database (of classes, of power sets, of enhancement sets, etc.) completely standalone and "distributable" such that a local version of the database could be relatively trivially installed/modified/updated locally by users... and if necessary refactor the database. I want to believe the database is relatively well-constructed, because of how well City of Data shows things... but years ago it felt like there were a number of database issues with the MIDS variants. Similarly... get the core UI working, and come up with a way that it wouldn't need to be tweaked.

Does he remember how needlessly grindy the original Live Incarnate content was? Does Phil ever recall the other level 35+ groups? The nuCouncil and nuCoT are no more "annoying" to fight that Rularuu, Nemesis, MoG PP, Carnie Illusionists, etc.

Hard disagree. I'll describe a just-this-week experience of getting a blue-sider to level 24. I'll note I have "starting funds" and a stocked SG base. 1) Launch the character in Outbreak, bought some START stuff (AoE temp attacks, 8 hours of buffs (24 Kinf at level 1), some travel stuff, disabled some drops... but no 2XP) 2) After Outbreak, went to AP. Still no 2XP. Did a scrub arc and the first Matthew Hasby. I want to note that while in Atlas (and later zones) I was careful to never have more than 10 bars of Patrol XP (mostly from exploration) 3) at level 5, I went to KR to do 3 radios and then the first Safequard. 4) Went to Hollows and completed the Flux arc 5) Went back to KR and did the second safeguard to unlock the "Save the Fortune Teller" contact. 6) After these, I was at level 15 (leveraging patrol XP), so started Montague's arc (still haven't finished it) because I then did 7) 3rd Safeguard... and I verified that if you already have Montague, detectives in neither Steel canyon nor Skyway City will give a new contact! 8 - Joined a Positron 1 9) Did the 4th Safeguard (Summon Teammates!), started doing TIPs (which are fun content IMO). This isn't a trash experience! Notice I didn't include a DFB, and I barely touched "regular contact" missions. I've already out-leveled the "newer" content in the Hollows, Steel Canyon and Faultline... and I have only the first TF completed. I still have many zones to use for Patrol XP (also, day jobs). My experience red side is very much the same, except that PUG SFs are fewer in number. If I feel like I've entered a doldrums period after level 30, I'll do the PVP zones content, Ouroborous initiation, join some more TFs, etc.

Don't try to drag me into whatever the "freedom" argument is. I'm exercising my freedom to not care.

I don't use MIDS, so I don't know if this applies or not to the build: I kinda hate Thunderstrike as an attack, except on Tankers. I like it more on Tankers because of their increased AoE... I tried to make it work on a Dominator, and it was (on that character) essentially a mediocre ST attack with a very low chance of actually adding any damage to any other critter that was not the original target. It comes early enough as a power pick that a Scrapper ought to be able to test in out through regular leveling, so don't take my word that it may be a skippable power. Lightning Clap is an interesting power. I feel that it needs a KB->KD piece in it for the melee types, but beyond that you have options. I like to have it 5-slotted with Absolute Amazement, but you could do some minimal franken-slotting to leverage an Explosive Strike %Smashing piece to get some damage from it. I tend to not add Forced Feedback %+Recharge procs, but many people swear by them.

I see the fine line that is trying to be walked by using the adjective "self-imposed", but as far as I am concerned there is no practical difference between self-imposing a player cap (on something like a TF/SF) and self-imposing a time limit for "how long am I going to recruit for ____?" Writing only for myself: I don't like to spend more than 6 minutes recruiting for TF/SF. Unless I feel the assembled group is under-powered for the task, I'll launch with team sizes of less than 8. Also like others, I absolutely play with buddies where we occasionally don't open smaller teams on TFs to the public... this isn't because we're elitist, it's because we are cornballs who don't mind more of a challenge for game content we've all played many times before.

I'll admit: I actively avoided trying the page 6 Storm Blast... mostly because it felt like it was "the flavor of the month", and a little bit because it seems like it took particle effects to eleven. From the outside, peering in at Storm Blast, I wonder if this is one of those sets I'd like more on an AT other than Blaster. For a point of comparison, I like Beam Rifle a lot more on my Sentinels and Defenders.

One things I was disappointed by over a recent weekend was a single player reacting very negatively in LFG to requests by players to be sitters in AE farms. The public hostility was not really needed. Personally? I don't see the fun or necessity to be a farm sitter. The game has so much content! I would prefer to play with folks that have explored their powers and build choices through experience, but another player's lack of experience or bad build choices doesn't affect my fun. Every once in a while I end up on a PUG where another player has (what I perceive as) a peculiar sort of opinion about "how the game works"... it could be because they remember some old advice from Live, it could be that they only know other MMO, it could be they have lived a rather sheltered experience in CoX... I don't think *I* have failed them because their perspective is different from mine.

The Fear and Threat sets are quite deficient. Each has a pair at level 10-30, and a pair at 20-50. Far fewer options than any other "control", hard or soft. (snicker "several") With the exception of the final piece in the 10-30 pair, each set offers exactly the same enhancement elements, so no practical variety of options for enhancement. Each Threat set only one Accuracy boosting piece, despite the large number of threat powers with actually require Accuracy (Presence Pool, most auras, Tanker attacks, etc.) No Threat set includes an Endurance reduction boosting piece. The set bonuses for slotting the 10-30 Fear sets are incredibly similar. Neither Threat nor Fear has a Purple, Winter, or PVP set. The HO/DS options for Threat are severely limited, the options for Fear are slightly better. For comparison: Sleep, Confuse and Stun have Purple enhancement options. The only things that I can see Threat (or if you prefer, the original "Aggro") and Fear have in common are that over the decades the way the critter AI reacts to those two effects has been modified... yet even after the Live aggro changes, there really was no reason to keep the enhancement options for Threat to be so pitiful... even considering potential PVP affects, which always seemed to be a bugbear for the Live devs. Now that HC has reworked "Threat", there is IMO a greater need than ever to add some variety to its enhancement options. Fear is in a somewhat better state for enhancement boosts, with an obvious gap: There is nothing available for slotting single-target Fear powers that makes them useful for late-game play. In comparison with other "control" sets: A single-target Confuse can be slotted with a purple %Contageous Confusion piece, which offers the chance for the single-target to become a sort of AoE A single-target Hold can be slotted with a %+Mag piece, which offers the chance to Hold a boss (without having to cast two different holds) The Immobilize purple set offers a %Hold (on top of the immobilize), which can be an additional stack of Hold magnitude Holds have a kazillion %damage options, which allow single-target Holds to become damaging attacks