Megajoule

Kalisti Wharf reliably crashes my client on settings that no other zone in the game seems to have an issue with. Particular problem spots are Statesman Plaza (which I can't even get to render properly (at lower settings), despite deleting and reinstalling the client) and the power station in the far corner (where the "new" TF sends you). I've resigned myself to simply never going there for any reason.

They didn't forget. Working as intended.

They definitely did stuff like this a few times, like "Visible Sounds" in 2008 (that's where "FREEM!" comes from).

No, what I mean is that April 1 is when everyone on the entire Internet who thinks they're a wit (about half of them are right) does something allegedly funny. People with little tolerance or patience for silly and/or stupid s*** would probably do well to just unplug for 24 hours every year. I make no value judgments about this. I simply acknowledge the reality that I can't trust anything I read or see on this date.

Fixed that for you.

I bet you failed the "take care of an egg" assignment in school, too.

Catching up with this thread, so please understand if this is way behind: I submit that the average player doesn't actually need purple IOs.* And if they want them, they can get them through merits and Inf earned through regular, non-farming play. Like I have. On several characters.

Also, if it helps, you might like to know that you can get onto Discord through your web browser rather than downloading the app. I think this is a valid link ; it works for me at least. Someone may be able to supply you with a better one.

FWIW, the reason that "Canadian Shield" is probably taken everywhere is that it's a pun on a significant geological feature. A thesaurus variation probably will not satisfy the OP, because it's that pun that they're after.

Disingenuous clickbait title for suggestion that's bad however many times it's made. I want my 2 minutes back.

Pfft. Stand aside and let a trained professional show you how it is done: 😉

As someone who enjoys KB (see userpic of FF/EB main, who took and loves Energy Torrent!), I'm all for something to make it (more) useful on teams. A big part of the issue (I won't say "problem") is that right now, the team meta is very much about AOE spam: herd 'em up and/or lock 'em down, and then obliterate them with Judgments and regular AOE attacks. If you've got enough overkill (and most do, these days), the first part is optional. Anything that interferes with, or slows down, carpet-bombing enemy spawns is seen as a negative. The same would be true, I'm sure, of any suggested changes that would make this not the quickest/optimal way to clear missions. tl;dr no one hardly anyone wants to work the angles and terrain or do combat maneuvers, they just want to spam nukes/fireballs.

At the risk of stating the obvious/common knowledge: eventually we're gonna have to deal with the unfortunate fact/accident of history that, after breaking Regen, the Paragon devs put it back together and called it Willpower. So any fixed Regen is inevitably going to end up looking a lot like/stepping on the toes of the successor/replacement set that is, essentially, sitting in its spot.

In fairness, I don't think anyone asking for the restoration of Prestige wants to force a grind on those who don't want one. Rather, as far as I can tell, they want a metric they can use for bragging rights to others who care about such things. It can be otherwise meaningless and entirely disconnected from the rest of the game. They want a "high score" number. That's all. Does it sound a bit silly? To you, maybe; to me, definitely. But some people live for this sort of thing. If it harms no one, might as well give it to them. *shrug*

I still have my original CoH and CoV boxes. Sitting on a shelf within arm's reach, even.

There are people in this world (and in this game) who just aren't happy unless they're competing and/or achieving. I'm not one of them, but I acknowledge that they exist, and that their desire and enjoyment of those activities is genuine.

A majority of players would probably be in favor of an "Instant 50" button. That doesn't mean it's a good idea.

The second idea has been asked for before. Several times. Mostly, it seems, by people who want to farm their way to 50 and then switch to something else without having to do it again (and again, and again...) The first, at least, is new (as far as I know).

Stalkers. Back on live, they were like point-blank Blasters, or honey bees: sting once, then die. Optimized for (solo) PvP, something I have little or no interest in. Widows were, IMO, superior in every respect; they had survivability and contributed visibly to teams. (A full team of VEATS, mixed Widows and Spiders, was actually one of the most brutally effective I ever ran with.) I'm still trying to wrap my head around the version that exists here.

Before this game, I wasn't an MMO player. I'd played text MUDs back in college, in the 90s, and UO and EQ were just more of the same but with eye candy, in "sprites" and "low-polygon 3D" flavors. I had no interest in more MUD-style gameplay, or a setting that was Generic Extruded Fantasy Product, or paying a subscription rather than buying a game outright (I mostly played offline, single-player games back then). Even Star Wars Galaxies failed to catch my interest, despite being a big fan of the movies, because I knew the actual experience wouldn't be like them. My gateway into online, multi-player, subscription games was a fun and silly little browser game, Puzzle Pirates. Then, about the same time that left Beta, CoH also launched. And despite its long and troubled development, I started hearing from friends that it was actually good. I held out all summer of '04 before finally giving it a shot, borrowing a friend's account to do so. My computer was close to minimum spec, and at first I couldn't even run it, until I updated my video drivers. But I finally got into Outbreak, made a test character... and I was hooked. (When I got my own account a few days later, I kept up that sub for the duration - even when I wasn't actively playing every day, and even after the game went F2P - right up to the end.) My entry date was about the middle of Issue 1, so the level cap was already raised to 50, but I got to see iCon, capes, and respecs added to the game. My first "real" character and main, per my userpic, was a Force Field/Energy Blast defender, based on a tabletop Champions character I'd made years before but hardly played. "Inspired by" might be a better way to put it; while the powersets were nearly an exact match, I had to make changes that ended up grounding her in this game, this setting, and making her someone distinct. After NCsoft killed "sunsetted" CoH, I did entertain the notion of bringing things full circle by re-creating her in Champions Online; but after trying that game out, I realized I had no interest in continuing - certainly not enough to justify paying to unlock the archetype ("The Impulse", for the curious). At the end, 8 years later, I had a total of 18 characters, all on Virtue (I've always been a roleplayer) and all 50 (though it was a near thing; my Fire Melee/Fire Armor broot, who I made shortly before the announcement, got leveled in an awful hurry - in one day I pushed him 15 levels, 26 to 41, and that was without double xp or AE). I've recreated some of them here, including Miss (now "Ms.") Megajoule and the Spirit of the Row, Stone tank and protagonist of "Faces of the City" ... but in most cases, their story has ended. Mostly I've made new ones, concepts and/or powersets I never had a chance to try out back then, and I'm profoundly glad and grateful for the opportunity to do so. More than that, I'm glad that everyone else has the chance too.

Part of the issue, IMO, is that in these days of IOs and Incarnates and massive AoE spam, by the time your Big Wind-Up Attack actually lands, your target and half or all of the spawn are already dead. (This is hardly exclusive to MA, of course.)

Sounds to me like the OP doesn't even care so much about the items in question being powerful as much as being (nearly) unique; they want there to be "haves and have nots", to satisfy those players for whom Chasing The UberShiny, and being one of a single-digit number on the server to possess it (and the accompanying bragging rights), is what draws them to games like this. Personally, I've never been one of those, so aside from the above mildly derisive remarks in their direction, I have no further comment.

(with the obvious caveat that this may not be technically possible in this engine, though DCUO has it:) "Cosmic" skin/texture - body part appears to contain black star-filled space. Surface may be slightly reflective/glossy, as if made of glass. Tintable.

IMO the problem is the mindset and/or the game design that makes Tough, Weave and/or Combat Jumping "mandatory" for a "decent" build. They're not, IMO. But the prevailing meta is that any weakness, any "hole", must be covered. Not by teammates, no; everyone must be a tank-mage, sufficient (and uber) unto themselves. If a given AT was designed around the notion that e.g. "70/30" is balanced, that must be brought up to "70/50", if not "100/80".

I've never used those "free" enhancement slots, so I don't really care. More to the point, I really hope that (not) deciding whether to entirely retool Prestige Sprint(s) isn't holding up the Fx work, which has been requested by me as well as the OP and many others. Please do that part now/ASAP, and make any broader changes later (if ever).