Coyotedancer

I suspect I'm going to end up missing the extra enhancement slots more than I like having access to more powers, honestly. Having an extra power or two while lacking the slots to make them (or something else-) useful is just a recipe for Sad Coyote. 😫

One of the complaints about this is that it will make the experience of having exemplared 50s joining a lower level team "even worse". That (and as a general reaction to any "Just make the goons harder!"-type suggestion) is why I brought builds into it. An exemped 50 with attuned sets like I use on my support characters, who were explicitly designed in some cases with the idea of running with mid-level teams in mind, aren't really a fair balance point. A native-level character in the 30s who's running a well-engineered set-build isn't either, really, if most of their at-level team-mates are rocking a bunch of SOs and maybe a couple of specials or procs. For those less well-built types, having a stronger power pick at a lower level might be a Good Thing, where it could seem like over-kill on the better equipped one. The point is just that when it comes to what's an acceptable set of buffs for the goon squad, we have to consider that it's a pretty complicated landscape out there in-game. The playing field isn't level on the player side, and really CAN'T be with all the variations possible between individual characters. Designing for the high end leaves the low end struggling. That's not a fun thing.

If you buff all the goons to counter high-end builds you make them absolutely awful for anyone who ISN'T running one of those min/maxed nightmare characters. You just can't "design for the high end" while forgetting that the mid-ranks and low-end "running on SOs or Commons only"-players have to exist in the same space, and will face the same opposition.

Taking my DP/Energy Sent out for a short spin on a radio mission... I don't hate the click. It's actually nice to know exactly what I'm tossing that Vulnerability effect on. Also "moar damage" may sound like a really boring way to change things for our Sents compared to other suggestions that have been made, but on Aken it was both noticeable and welcomed. I'll have more time to tinker and poke at things in detail this weekend with my other Sentinels. but as a quick-and-casual first impression? I like this. It seems like a solid improvement.

Tinkering around with my zen-mode farmer, Ossuni (Active-only type Claws/Fire Brute)... I have to agree with the general consensus here. The recharge on Burn is longer than it needs to be. I don't have it on auto with Suni. I trigger it manually when things cluster in close, and I tend not to use it in a constant rotation. I still found the timing slower than seemed reasonable. Being a zen-farmer, I'm not in any particular hurry to clear maps, so I didn't take careful note of my time on the first bit of Fire City, but clearing individual groups was definitely somewhat slower than on Live currently. I should have more time to do some detailed test runs this weekend, and I'll time those just to see exactly what difference the Burn changes make.

Kai and Ajda - The LIbrary “It’s been pretty busy in here this morning,“ the dark-haired girl answered. “‘Bunch of people in and out. I don’t remember seeing anyone who was green, though. Kai?” The other girl closed her book and added it to the stack, shaking her head. “I’m afraid not. There was a blue android looking for the Cambridge translation of Metamorphoses over in the 3000s… and a little red Abyssal Servant picking up something at the reserve desk for its summoner… Oh, and those twins with the green *wings*… But I haven’t seen anyone with green skin.” “Gods, those wings… They really need to watch where they’re putting those things in tight quarters. ’Nearly knocked a couple of people over just turning around. It’s worse than people with backpacks on the train. But… yeah. Not green skinned.” The girl grinned. “I’m Ajda, by the way. Ajda Dare. Applied Metaphysics. Most of my classes are at Salamanca, but Central has a better library. This is Kai.” The brown-haired one nodded. “Kylie Stolver. I’m in the History and Secondary Education programs.”

If you join one of the big Motel of Murder leagues, sure... It's a little different if you're solo/duo or with a small team.

[ It's been quite a while since I tried forum roleplay... but... Why not? I do have two members of my crew who are Paragon University students, after all. Although one of them is only visiting the main campus. Ajda's from "spooky U" over at the Salamanca campus. 😝 ] Kai and Ajda - The LIbrary One brown-haired girl with wire-frame glasses and a stack of books half the height of a wailer queen piled around her looked up briefly, and then returned to flipping the pages of a dusty history written in Latin, quietly grumbling something about Caesar Divi Nervae Filius Nerva Traianus Optimus Augustus and exactly what he could do with his conquest of Dacia. The taller, darker-haired student next to her snorted, holding back a laugh. “That sounds more like something the Greeks would have tried,” she whispered. “Poor Democritus… So, still nothing about Pendalexius or his ship?” “Not a word. I think conventional history miiiiight not be our best source if information this time. We are going to have to go more exotic.” The brown-haired girl’s accent was odd; a soft blend of French and English and Caribbean that could only have come from the Etoilean islands. The other was pure Paragon. “The Midnighters?” “I think so.” “Damn. That means we have to reshelve all of THIS crap... Binks'll murderize us if we just leave Rome all over the table.”

It's kinder to "bus your beasts", so to speak... Go T-o-Ting near an AE, ferry or train station and just lead the thing to a drone if you're on a character who has trouble with EBs. There are several good locations like that.

I've mentioned it before, but... Yeah. I'm a "for fun" fire farmer. (Goodies aside, I really do just enjoy doing it for its own sake.) Logging in Ossuni, turning on my playlist and running through a bunch of goons zen-style is relaxing. I also like going out to the Shard zones and just flying around, looking at things. And doing endless rounds of Prezzie-opening in Talos during Christmas... (That tends to be a zen-thing for me, like the farming. I used to gather crafting materials in Aion the same way.)

I set it to auto-accept, because I hate having to find my cursor and click the button when it pops up. And among the family SG it definitely gets used. There's some fun just seeing which buffs people get. The only thing I hate about it? I *always* seem to get The Fool right before I walk into one of those twisty-turny Oranbegan maps. Which means I'm going to spend time getting caught ON EVERY SINGLE TORCH in the place. I do not like the extra movement speed on those maps. 😝

I'm not at all sure we needed EBs added to trick or treating,,, but... BadgesBadgesBadgesBadges

"Damned straight," Grey Kestrel says, signing the form. "Like all of us who work our butts off to keep this rock in one piece are *human*."

I've done some City characters that were concept-first and some that were build-first... and others that were a combination of the two. I'm sort of an oddball, though. While I can and have built some over-engineered min/max nightmares, I typically don't. I rarely give a rat's rosy red bum what's considered The Best by the power-builders. This game just doesn't require you to have exactly the "right" power picks and the "right" build choices. It gives us plenty of room to play around with (*gasp* *horror*) suboptimal choices. That makes Concept First a lot more viable and fun. Okay, yes. It's good fun to tear a hole in the proverbial world with UberL33TMan or his sidekick Meta-Monster.... But it's also fun to see if you can make it through the game with a AR Sentinel or a tri-form Peacebringer. Or some randomly-rolled combination of AT and powersets from the Slot Machine Challenge. Or a 'unicorn' combination that you've never seen anyone else try. You could even build that character WITHOUT TAKING TOUGH AND WEAVE. OMG. The heresy. 😆 But yeah. Let go of that need to stick to Only What's Best. This is an easy-mode baby-game, remember? UberL33TMan is overkill. He's fun to play with, but so are a lot of other things.

I *wish* we had a rooster tail... Currently, alas, we don't.

My were-chicken is Not Amused. (But I am! 😆 )

I'm all in for bird tails of whatever design. A rooster tail would be great for my totes-not-a-were-chicken character, but at this point I'd be happy with any bird-tail not made of fire.

Yeah... They're not unheard of. One tabletop Ars Magica group I considered joining out here in the Real World did that, too. I found it a little odd, but in the end it wasn't strange enough to make me do more than raise an eyebrow. I ended up being invited to join a different game before I ever got around to filling the silly thing out. 😝 Here on Homecoming? I've only been involved with one group that tried anything like that, and it was very short-lived. The SG was supposed to follow a fairly specific theme, and the "application" was designed to reenforce that point. It seemed a little nit-picky to me, but I'm a Dirty Casual when it comes to City RP so... Different standards and all that.

Just something to consider... If every single group you've run into is problematic, the "problem" may not be completely with them. Given your reaction to this recent rejection, and what you seem to classify as abuse and harassment on these players' part, you could also be reading a lot more hostility into the situation than is really there. Past experiences can color your perceptions and expectations in ways that may make misreading another person's intentions way too easy.

I'm going to be a little harsh here... No one is required to roleplay with anyone else. Especially not someone they aren't comfortable dealing with. Full stop. It doesn't really matter *WHY* they aren't comfortable with you. The reason doesn't need to be "fair" or justified or even rational. They don't even have to give you a reason. Because it's not all about you. You don't get to tell other players who they let into their group. Just chalk it up to not fitting in with that particular group and move on.

That one Freakolympics mission on the big King's Row map is just prone to that. Some of the boss groups won't spawn immediately and have a habit of showing up in areas you've already explored. It's been that way since the Live days. It doesn't seem to happen on other missions using that map (In the Terra Conspiracy arc, for instance, or a few missions from The Instant Army-), so it may be something about the mission design rather than the map or the game engine.

Vorkan, as established in his DA Personal Mission, definitely WANTS that job... But he wasn't the one who was going to get it according to the AMA.

While Kinetic Melee is considered questionable on other ATs... KM Stalkers hit like a sack of bricks. Having a real BU makes a difference, and Burst right out of Hide is great fun. Kai, my main here, is a KM/Bio/Dark Stalker. My very first Praetorian character, Shade in Shadow, was KM/WP and soloed all the way through gold side back-in-the-day. The original version of my old Liberty main was a Dual Blade/Willpower/Mu Stalker. Kestrel was leveled mostly solo on the red side and that also went pretty well. DB is Lethal damage, though, so that slows things down. A lot more things will laugh at those swords in the mid-levels. KM's Smash and Energy are much more fun against DE rock and crystal monsters, robots, Circle spectrals, armored Crey goons and that kind of thing. The DE mushrooms will still think you're funny, though. And at higher levels the Hydras will just barf on you a little more. 😆

People on Ev are, in my experience at least, a lot chattier than people on Ex or Torch (The other two shards I've spent time on-). I couldn't believe at first just how quiet Excelsior teams were after I'd gotten used to Everlasting. 'Whole taskforces done without anyone saying a word to each other in the team chat... No mention of being on a shared Discord, either. That was a pretty big difference.

Everyone's got to start somewhere. The real estate market is crazy these days. 😝