ForeverLaxx

Yeah, that doesn't make any sense to me and really sounds like a personal problem considering I have zero issues playing without amplifiers or DFB passives. Turning off exp to avoid over-leveling for mission content isn't really an issue either so I don't see why you think that's a negative on a TF where you have lots of other people around to "compensate" for your lack of 1 or 2 level-ups.

And how does having amplifiers slow you down? Isn't their purpose to speed things up? Again, I solo my characters exclusively, barring TFs that I run for merits (to convert to influence via auction to afford generic IOs), up to level 22. At that point, I get generic IOs and a few useful global procs like Perf Shifter/Panacea and continue soloing. I spend 90% of my time doing contact missions, story arcs, and only turning off my exp to finish a contact so I don't miss potential badge missions that aren't part of an arc. There are no amplifiers in anything that I do and I've never seen them as anything more than something to spend influence on at a higher level to creep your power just that much more than a full build allows. Rest recharges so fast these days that you can use it every 5-8 spawns and never "worry" about endurance while leveling. You can toggle things off that aren't terribly helpful in the moment, such as an armor power that doesn't guard against what you're fighting or a damage aura that isn't going to do much because you're only fighting 1 or 2 minions and not a boss. While I'm not arguing that amplifiers aren't useful at low levels, I am arguing that they're far from this necessary addition that others seem to believe them to be and I suspect the point of argument is actually from people who just want to buy them early to save money while still getting time with them at the level cap. They're just hiding behind the "noobies are being left out" argument because it's more appealing of an argument than "I don't want my toys taken away." For what it's worth, I never thought the amplifiers should have existed in the first place and would lose no sleep if they were removed.

I see this argument as another "we were spoiled by the enterbase command" situation than it is an argument about actual need and "accessibility" when applied to the amplifiers. I sit here reading a deluge of people saying how low level gameplay is such a chore and so difficult that you "need" these amplifiers to even bear doing it at all while I'm literally playing new characters from level 1 to level 22 without enhancements or boosts of any kind. I really don't think I'm that exceptional of a player that I can navigate what's really a pretty simple game without enhancements or boosters during the stage of the game where enhancements tend to matter the least with regard to enemy stats. In fact, the game has gotten even easier despite my methods never changing due to the Beginner's Luck boost, the free enhancements from the P2W vendor that have small damage procs, and even the Prestige Attack "temp" Powers you can also get for free. Not to mention the buffs you can get from running DFB (which itself gives you 5 SOs every run). Then again, I would always run my characters through the Hollows arcs, including Frostfire, solo just to see if I could. Outside of needing breakfrees and purples for Frostfire himself, it was never a true problem and that was when you still couldn't get a travel power until 14. If you need boosters on top of that just to survive the lower levels, you're either stepping way outside your depth or are trying to power through those levels as fast as possible. If you're already trying to "skip" all that content you may as well just PL and stop pretending you're doing anything else. Then again, I only ever hear about these amplifiers being suggested to players who are looking to get powerleveled as a cost-saving measure since they'll have tons of time to use them once their PL is done. If you ask me, this isn't about "noobies losing their goodies" at all.

I don't really see that as a problem, personally. The whole set got bumped with the Shock mechanic, essentially making the entire set better by default. I think most of the complaints are from people who want Tesla Cage to be a stronger, more "reliable" AoE damage button instead of a Hold and I don't think they're going to get that. It's just a bit of residual, extra AoE in a set that already has 3 AoE buttons to its name. A single-target Hold is decent for a Blaster, though only if you can stack it with other Hold effects (usually). Luckily, Blasters have access to Holds in more than one place so that shouldn't stop people from taking this power for its intended purpose. I think we're just seeing people who are upset that the changes to Tesla Cage aren't changing the power's entire identity, making it still a "bad choice" for people who only play this game with maximum enemy saturation so they inherently undervalue anything that doesn't delete spawns in 3 seconds or less.

Powers that were auto-hit in PvE but still accepted Accuracy Enhancements was for using those powers against players. The split there made sense and didn't impact anyone who only PvE'd or only PvP'd. You never had to use accuracy in those powers until you stepped into a PvP zone/arena. I agree that splitting these powers' accuracy checks based on enemy rank is a step too far. Powers that work differently, with different rules, based on what you target in PvE, is not a precedent I really want to see set. This isn't an issue of higher ranks having higher resistance/protection, or a villain group with certain powers that make things harder for all characters of a certain type, or even an issue of AVs with their Purple Triangles -- this is just straight up different rules for AVs for the sake of having different rules for AVs (and I guess GMs). Having reduced effectiveness on powers vs "raid targets" is one thing. It's expected behavior because that's how everything else works in the game. The tougher a target is, the less effective mez, debuff, and damage tends to be against them. Making "raid targets" require accuracy checks for a specific type of mez simply because they're "raid targets" actively punishes players who can go their entire career with an unslotted sleep (since it's auto-hit and sleeps tend to last long by default) when the rules suddenly change and now they need to slot Accuracy. I don't care if most of the Set IOs and Set Bonus Suites include a bunch of residual Accuracy in them. I'm sure the dev team doesn't think this will be an issue because of how IOs are designed, but I don't want more decisions about this game's systems to assume everyone builds the same way or PLs up to 50 and skips low/mid-tier content. AVs exist at lower levels where slotting is at a premium, and many players (myself included) don't bother with Set IOs while leveling. You're just punishing these people for no reason whatsoever.

I don't have any particular attachment to the Forum Badge System, nor do I really care about the ability to rate posts, though I do find it rather humorous that some people want to get rid of all the "negative rating" options because of "potential abuse" or whatever. If all you want is positive feedback or no feedback, perhaps being social, on the internet or otherwise, isn't really for you. Negative criticism, even if it's just a simple "no" with no fluff, is valuable. Disregarding it because you aren't given an essay on why they don't agree, when you're not likely to even care what they have to say because they disagreed with you, is just silly and shortsighted. Sometimes, your idea just isn't that important to warrant the effort. As an aside, it's rather interesting that one of the people complaining about the "thumbs down" reaction is busy thumbing down most of the people here who disagree with him. I can't tell if it's just a lack of self-awareness, hypocrisy, or an attempt to "prove his own point" by being the abuser he claims others will be. None of them are particularly good, but it is kinda funny.

You might approach Snarky with a proposition as an apprentice. Even if he says no, that's just the first test. Follow him around anyway.

On the flip side, as someone else who levels "the old fashion way" and entirely solo, I've never purchased them a single time and have had no real issues. Maybe I'm just too patient and willing to wait/rest every few spawns. Then again, I don't think the P2W amplifiers should even exist at all.

Nothing quite like having "first post, 10th post, and 500th post" badges award all at the same time.

Maybe the forums are following in modern gaming footsteps and instituting "seasons" wherein every 3-6 months your rank is reset and you've gotta regrind all those rewards. Gotta keep that forum engagement up!

The sets that still taunt only really do so because the powers that have the taunt effect depend on having foes in range to get their effects. The sets are balanced around a certain amount of enemy saturation for those powers and having the taunt attached to them lets them function more appropriately. Scrappers without those powers tend to not have a true taunt aura in their kit otherwise and it seems the devs have no intention of introducing "scales with enemy saturation" player toggles in the Scrapper toolkit. Since Scrapper Mud Pots does not buff the Scrapper based on nearby foes, there's no need to make it taunt things outside of a desire to play a Scrapper like a pseudoBrute with Crits.

Well they still have titles attached which kinda suggests your character "wearing" the badge, but you do only get to choose one. The rest go on an ever-expanding wall in some basement somewhere, lost in a sea of near-identical designs and sometimes nonsensical "sorting."

Honestly I think the whole badge UI needs an overhaul. However, I'm very aware of how much work something like that would actually be and I don't expect it to happen ever.

I thought they stated that trying it didn't really work the way they wanted it to and to not expect such a thing in the future. Instead they're going to give more toggles to enemies so that sleeps can still be useful as a way to knock toggles off mid-combat more frequently than the AoE holds can.

I see no reason not to do this if you're able to at the moment, particularly because it sounds like if it doesn't happen now then it probably won't happen at all for a very long time. It's an optional setting that doesn't impact any player who doesn't want to do it and I can find no reason to keep it out of the game.

So let's call it "Rock Drop" and we can stop arguing about which phase said rock should be named after.

People bothered to take those? Weird.

I think Grounded (from Elec Armor) also works if you're close to the ground when it used to only work while standing on it.

Can't expect much else from people raised on social media who actively avoid normal human interaction. I'm asocial and I still get more interaction with real people out in meat space than the kids today do. I don't know what to think about this.

This might be a minor nitpick, but I don't like that the various sub-badges related to the ASF all use the same graphic. Is there not some way to differentiate them based on appearance, even slightly?

The best thing about these changes is that they're localized and optional, but I'd really like to know if the dev team will be collecting any Use data regarding them, if such a thing is even possible. For some reason, I'd like to know how many people are completing content at these difficulties so I can really see how much of the "I want harder content" crowd is putting their money where their mouth is.

I don't disagree, but I'm speaking with regard to an average "power gamer's" mentality. I usually am one, so I feel I can comment on that, at any rate. For these players, the toughest difficulty just means they either feel required to build a character to handle it, or they curate their team in order to handle it and screen out everyone else. I would see this at times regarding Incarnate content with "higher" Defense softcap that went far above the more standard 45 into the 56/59 territory to offset enemy buffs/debuffs. Now obviously, the amount of buffs the AI has at this new difficulty will make building to "trivialize" them solo wholly impractical if not downright impossible, but the psychological effect remains: "if this AT/Powerset can't handle Relentless, then it sucks." I just don't think that mentality should be encouraged.

Exactly, but as is often the case, when a new "harder" setting is introduced, many players only seem interested in how that specific setting performs and treat it as the new baseline for character performance.

Dehydrate "pulls" water out of the target, so there's a "beam" of sorts in that regard. Whirlpool is just a damage zone that other blast sets have like Rain of Fire or Ice Storm.

Well, Stone Melee has a larger amount of single target "big hitters" compared to other sets. It's always paid for this in endurance cost, recharge, and lower AoE damage. The increased number of higher damage hitters probably meant that something needed to have its crit damage reduced in order to prevent Stone from completely shattering the damage records if you got a string of crits on all of them.