Coyotedancer

You're not allowed to punch Nazis. Punching is overpowered and has been nerfed. You're only allowed to tap them lightly on the nose with a rolled up newspaper now.

They actually do... The lighting changes aren't as noticeable as they are with the regular skies, but they are there. I remember being surprised by that when I was doing that huge screenshot project of mine just prior to the live game's shutdown. I had to wait around a few times for the lighting to change back to the brighter phase, which I hadn't expected to be an issue in the Shard zones.

Dual-boxing? 😝

It's really not that bad... It seriously isn't. If you can wrap your head around how the game works in general, you can handle picking Incarnate powers. 😝

FCM and I have run into this over the years with pairs we were leveling together. Even being very careful to always have the same missions and contacts, one will sometimes end up ahead of the other... We never have been able to figure out why it happens, but it absolutely does.

Can we just get a sticky somewhere to address this? I swear it's started to seem like we're getting this exact same question on a weekly basis... I mean, seriously. Even if people have a pathological terror of using the search function for some reason, you'd think they would at least look at the first couple of pages of the forum just to see if someone else might have had a similar question in the recent past. But... I guess not. 'Too much trouble or something. o_0

I just tend to go contact-to-contact, finishing everything one will give me before moving on to the next one in the chain. I have a few favorites I always tend to run, and I do basically treat every mission as a kill-all. I don't turn off XP or any of that. I like to let the leveling happen organically, even if that means not finishing the complete content of every contact I get.

Kai seriously needs her motorcycle.

If they actually start wanting my support-oriented Defenders instead of asking if I could bring one of the Blasters instead, ultimately I'm for it. 👍

Oh, I have no doubt at all that the intentions are good... I even agree with them, since I prefer to team on my support characters (Who are well-nigh-useless to current end-game teams-). It's just going to be interesting to see what happens when those new "optional" modes become available to that not-minor segment of the player bases who will always go for the biggest reward per task chosen. Unless they put a real hit on completion speeds, the odds are good they'll eventually become the default.... Sort-of like +4/x8 when running Council scanners. (Or really anything, for most of the power-player set-)

I'll just be curious to see how long it takes for the new settings to go from really being optional to becoming the de facto assumed norm. If there are any kind of increased rewards on offer, you know it's going to happen,

Isn't the rule "Always go left"?

RE: DA and it's intended audience... Regular teams (full-eight or otherwise) were absolutely considered in the DA design. It wasn't "solo only". It was just non-League. (When DA was in closed beta, the dev crew specifically encouraged people to hit those arcs with teams as well as on their own, to see how they scaled. FlyingCodeMonkey and I originally tested the arcs as a duo. We didn't get a chance to see them with a larger group until it hit open-)

It would be nice to be able to do something more interesting than inspies with all of those extra threads... Conversion or not, we need more options.

That would hinder DA's purpose. The place isn't entirely 54+ because it was designed to be the non Trial-Centric way to unlock and build Incarnate powers. The design assumption is that people are going in there and starting those arcs with, at best, an Alpha unlocked. (And yes, some of us actually DO still use it for that intended purpose, It's not all fully-kitted 50+3s power-leveling their friends running around out there. Hard to believe, I know. 😝)

The furries are the least of your worries in there....

Nope. You can unequip the Incarnate toys if you don't want to use the shifts.

Oh, sure. Female characters have more hair options... But does that really matter when the majority of them are just butt-ugly? 😝

'Just got a new one... a very complicated conquest-style game with gorgeous miniatures called Ankh. I'm sitting here grinning over the game pieces, trying to wrap my head around exactly how to use them all in play.

Be careful painting with too broad a brush, there... Not everyone with a higher-level character is a potential menace who'll demand your star and force you into a speed run. When I team, it's typically with my support types. They are (Like almost all of my crew at this point-) finished, fully-equipped 50+ characters. I still tend to run them almost exclusively with lower- to mid-level teams rather than at end-game, though. They were even built with that level of play in mind. Why? It's not to "show off" or spoil your fun. It's because those lowbie and midbie teams are the ones that benefit the most from HAVING an attentive support character running along with them. End-game teams these days just don't need me. They're typically all very self-sufficient individually, and would be better served having an extra damage-focused character along instead of one of my support-focused Defenders. So, when I want to get my classic Rad or my Dark or my Sonic or my Thermal on, I jump in with a 20- or 30-something PUG. I buff. I debuff. I pew pew the bad guys (Or the good guys, as the case may be. 😝 ) and have a great time doing it. I'm not there to solo the map. I'm there to make sure we collectively kicks butts as stylishly as possible.

Never have I... ... actually finished leveling a Warshade. I've tried. I really have. Multiple times, with different builds. Human-only. Bi-forms. A full-on MFing tri-form.... But no dice. I hated every single one of them and ended up abandoning them all somewhere along the way. There's just no livin' la vida purple for me.

I was thinking "Yep. This right here? THIS is why it's just better to stay solo when I'm not on a Support-type."

It'll be interesting to see how this hits powersets that rely on grouping things up, like Willpower. "Hey there, Mr. WP/DB Tank. Your armor is working well! Hope you weren't actually planning on hitting anybody with those swords, though. Your Focused Accuracy isn't ALL THAT, buster. " 😝

Agreed. It gets really, really crowded up there sometimes. The pile of people just camping out on the portal can make it difficult to click back out.

Here's a fun one... Middle CoyoteNephew (aka "We are the Champions") is proud. He's been having way too much fun sliding around on that ski slope. 😄