ShardWarrior

Help me understand you here. On one hand, you are suggesting it is toxic to post a negative review "before even seeing the product". That means anyone who has seen a trailer, but not the actual product in its entirety, who then posts a negative review is being toxic. Now, in your follow up, you are suggesting it is not toxic. What exactly can be "review bombed" if there is not even a trailer released to be reviewed or bombed? How do you know that these YouTubers you are so focused on have not already seen the product, or have seen enough of it to know that it is not good? I saw the trailer for Ironheart. I did not care for it and did not like it. I posted my observations and suggested that the story did not makes sense and I found the main character unrelatable. I did not care for her in Wakanda Forever either as I felt she was poorly written and developed. Am I toxic? Or should I have given the trailer a 4 star rating and a thumbs up because that is the nice thing to do? I can completely understand not liking a particular reviewer or their given modus operandi. Those people are very easily ignored.

Just so we are clear, does that include any trailers for said product?

So all of these fans who are not turning out to see the latest movie or watch the new streaming show are now "toxic" because they do not like badly written stories? Automatically ascribing the label of "toxic" to anyone who simply does not like poorly written characters, poorly produced content and poorly executed series or films is a statement too. You had several people in this thread calling others all kinds of horrible names in posts that have since been removed simply because they do not like a badly written character. That is toxic behavior. It reads to me that Glacier Peak did not care for how the character is portrayed. I agree. Does that mean we are toxic? Of course not. We are people who are intelligent enough to know a badly crafted story and badly developed, unrelatable character when we see it. The MCU is not doing as well as it used to and that is not because the content is getting better. The fans are intelligent enough to recognize that.

Having watched the first 15 minutes of this, I have no doubt you are right about that.

Right. No one is ever complaining about farming ever. HC has never made changes to the game because of farming. You have completely misunderstood my post regarding the use of Pylons and Trapdoor. Try reading it. How much damage and how fast a Tanker can clear the trapdoor map is a meaningless measure. I explained this already.

Right because there were just so many people complaining that some tankers can solo the Trapdoor map faster than a Brute or Scrapper can and that is just unfair..... Yeah... These measures are absolutely meaningless in a team setting. Most meta content runs do not even allow you to bring a tanker or melee in general. There are Hami runs going on all the time where people are discouraged if not outright not invited to the league if they bring something other than DPS. How fast or slow a tank solos the Trapdoor map is absolutely meaningless to them. I personally could care less how fast or slow one AT or the next solos a specific map. I could care less if tanks could farm faster/better/more efficiently than Brutes could. What I do care about is that my tankers now feel less powerful and thereby less fun and now take longer to run content that I like to run. These are disincentives for me, so as I said before, thank you for that. If the HC goal was to make tankers less fun, then well done. Mission accomplished. I can easily switch to a Brute or Scrapper, at least until someone decides their Trapdoor clear times are a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a percent too fast...

Of course it was.

A better question is why was this change necessary in the first place? Brutes are still farming just fine. If the intended goal was to slow down farming, then well done and thank you to the team here for making my non-farming solo play experience on my tankers more slow and thereby more boring. As I mentioned in the feedback thread, thank you for the disincentives to run my tankers.

Personally, I found Kinetic Melee fun while soloing, but definitely not for a team setting. The animations are far too slow for teaming to be of any use.

My main is Street Justice/Ninjitsu and has very little issue with any content in the game regardless of difficulty setting. It's very easy and inexpensive build-wise to cap positional defense (Ranged/Melee/Aoe). I will message you with the build I use if you like. I would also take advantage of using the Scrapper ATOs.

Yes if you have built in enough recharge to be running perma Rage on a SS tanker.

IOs and Incarnates are not the problem. The problem is that there is very little content designed and balanced for characters taking full advantage of them. 4 Star Hardmode TFs were a step in the right direction. The new Kallisti Wharf content is leaning toward that as well. It is not a "nothing burger" to have a different view than you. Speeding and doing maximum DPS is how you define feeling "super". That is not universally true for others. Some people do enjoy interacting with the game and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that.

Scrappers and Stalkers already fill that role. Brutes are essentially superfluous without any meaningful role in my opinion. Not quite a tanker, and out shined by Scrappers and Stalkers.

I have a question regarding these changes. Are these in part due to wanting to make Brutes more attractive? If so, then perhaps working on Brutes to give them more of a unique role or improving their ATO sets may be better than nerfing tankers?

Thank you for this. The City Badge Tracker is a wonderful and welcome addition. I specifically liked how it will tell you missing spawns for badges like Dreamwalker. Well done! 👍

Thank you for making the new Council slightly less tedious and annoying.

Rather than arrogant, I think a better word is unrelatable. When I saw the trailer, I too found it odd that she would seemingly be having difficulty finding anyone to help fund her. As was pointed out, there were many interested parties in the Iron Man technology which others struggled to re-create, so if there is someone out there who can replicate the technology, there would be interested parties trying to recruit her. As for Shuri, I am assuming that Riri Williams must have had some kind of falling out with the Wakandans since it would appear they are not giving her any help. We will have to wait and see what the story says about this, if it is addressed at all.

From the article - https://massivelyop.com/2025/05/29/into-the-super-verse-what-the-heck-is-going-on-with-balancing-in-city-of-heroes-homecoming/ I do agree with some of the points they make. Others, not so much. Interesting read regardless.

Thank you for the disincentives to play my tankers.

If you honestly believe that source like the NYT or other sources as you mentioned have never been sued for posting false information, I do not know what to tell you. Again, you can choose to believe whatever you like. Being in the entertainment industry, I have seen and heard firsthand how "friendly" outlets are favored over others, and those same "friendly" are incentivized with all kinds of compensation (not necessarily money) for their favorable reviews. Take that with however many grains of salt you like and believe whatever you like. I will stick with what I know. Feel free to disagree.

This is demonstrably false, but as I said earlier, you go right on believing whatever you like.

Whether you have seen it firsthand is irrelevant. Astroturfing is a real issue. It undermines credibility and erodes public trust in reviews. See above regarding undermining credibility and trust. You are certainly more than welcome to believe whatever you like, including that there are no incentives - financial or otherwise - for "professional critics" to write favorable reviews of a film or music album or book.

After you edited your post, yes. 😉

I never suggested that Critical Drinker or anyone like him are "truth tellers". Far from it. I kindly ask you not to distort what I wrote. Whether or not these were independent films or major studio releases is irrelevant. "Astroturfing" is a real thing and it is an ongoing problem across just about every industry. You may not recall, HBO was caught using fake accounts to undermine critics or their programming. Periodically, there will be social media posts showing the same word for word review posted on multiple different accounts to give the impression that a film or product is more or less favorable. This practice erodes trust in review sites and critics in general.

I do not listen to them either. I make my own judgements. The fact, which was lost on you it would seem, is that there are extremes on both sides of the spectrum. Many reviews on those kinds of website have been shown to be paid for by the studios. Same thing on Amazon. They are polluted with fake product reviews from people who were paid to leave positive feedback in exchange for free Amazon credit or gift cards. Yes, people can have their own opinions. However, a professional film critic heaping glowing praise on flop after flop after flop does tend to make one wonder.