PoptartsNinja

Only if you want to instantly die because everything's still close enough to hit you with basic ranged attacks.

You put up PFF to buy yourself a second to activate Force Bubble and make space for your team to pop wakies and--oh. Wait.

Oh right, it was 3s before wasn't it? I saw the 2.772 Arcanatime and forgot it used to be even worse.

Stone Melee hits like a truck and has really pleasing sound design, it just needs an extra single target attack to weave in between the mallets. Tremor just needs to have its animation time cut down like Total Focus did. Forcefield was always really good, save for the mob-scattering Repulsion Field. I miss you, Force Bubble.

That makes me wonder if making Volty truly non-corporeal (able to fly and attack through geometry) would be a good choice. I know Singularity mostly just has trouble keeping up because it's so slow; which is exacerbated by a lot of its powers also rooting it for extended periods. Would it help if they were told to start following more closely? So, rather than staying within 15ft or whatever their current limit is, they try to stay within 5ft and start moving sooner when the player moves away from them? Either way, semi-permanent combat pets (i.e. Phantasm, Singularity, Voltaic Sentinel but not Phantom Army) really need to inherit their player's current speed on all movement modes. If they kept up a little better I think they'd be more likely to actually be near the player when they start moving down stairs and etc and less likely to get stuck forever because the player turned two corners or hopped over a railing. A combat teleport of sorts might help. Something like: if player is more than 50 Ft and growing, combat teleport directly towards (or possibly even adjacent to) the player to jump over any railings or etc. they might be stuck on.

Back in the old days there was no Hollows, and Vahzilok were terrifying because 'toxic' wasn't a damage type. Back then, 'toxic' damage was untyped which meant it bypassed all forms of defense and resistance. Edit: Oh yeah, and back in the day most Rikti were nudists.

This is a harmless change, why not? Bring in an out-of-costume Swan and Mynx too. And Praetor Duncan to heckle them like that issue of the comic.

Every giant monster in the game aside from Ukon Grai was implemented before Leagues. They were all designed to be fought by a team of 6-8 people and maybe one or two stray passers-by. Even the toughest one (Lusca) can be beaten by a single team. If you've got an entire league bonking one, it'll go down fast. It's got very little to do with power creep and everything to do with sheer numbers. The only way to curb that would be to make giant monster HP and status resistance scale with the number of people in the zone, and while I know that's something the game can track I don't know of any mobs with dynamic max HP values. It might not be something the game can actually do.

The recipe one I know you can earn indirectly via AE. One of the tricks for that one is to gather a bunch of AE tickets and then purchase random low-level recipe drops from the AE vendor with recipe auto-rejection turned on.

It wouldn't be great. The problem with anything that boosts influence without boosting the IO Droprate is: it increases demand (inf) without increasing supply (drops). So prices would increase and then likely fluctuate wildly for a long time before finding a new (higher) equilibrium depending on how many people are running the inf booster and how quickly the AH's current supply of IOs got depleted. That might also encourage people to hoard their crafted IOs to see how or if the demand explodes. If you went the other way (0xp = boosted IO drop rate) I'd be all for it.

Influence being hoarded isn't being circulated, so it's not really a problem that it exists. I like your ideas for "fun" inf sinks, giving the billionares a fun way to throw money into the void is a good idea and using inf to trigger zone invasions is fun. I could also see that being used to grief costume contests so they'd probably have to leave Atlas Park out off the list. That said? There isn't a need to tax people for using the AE. That will either create exploitative situations, deter casual players from using AE to make personal or SG stories, and drive away the farmers. All of which would be a long-term detriment to the game. Enhancement conversion already costs money, about 60-75k per converter. That cost just primarily gets paid to other people instead of vanishing into the void. Making inventions already costs inf based on the level of the invention. It's about 500k per IO at level 50.

The only badges that can be earned in AE are the AE badges.

Alright, I'm in a weird mood so let's see if we can't Eco-Friendly Powerset Recycle a VEAT. Arachnos Soldiers have always been a weird mix of weapons, battle armor, psychic powers, surprise leadership buffs, and weirdness. Y'know what other villain group all of that applies to? The Rikti. The Path of War leans more heavily towards tanking than any of the current Arachnos powersets, with a dash of mastermind and some minor controls/debuffs for flavor. Since "whirling weapon" powers look terrible with the Rikti models, the Path of War doesn't get one but instead steals the on-death PBAOE from the Heavy Assault Suit as a normal click power and a bunch of standing cone attacks from Hro'Dtohz. The Path of the Mind leans heavily towards controller, with some blasting, melee, and surprise team buffing. Since no Rikti have confuse, the Path of the Mind eschews confuse powers in favor of holds and a buff that turns them into a mini-Dominator for 10 seconds. Unfortunately the Rikti don't have a lot of powers to choose from on their base troopers, so I had to steal a few from the Heavy Assault Suit. All of the damage descriptions are taken from the Wiki and would of course need to be adjusted for balance. Rikti Infiltrator VEAT Inherent: Conditioning No need to rock the boat, no need for anything special. Conditioning is good enough. Rikti Infiltrator - Unlocks the Rikti Pistol and Rikti Sword right-hand weapons 1 - Pistol Blast Ranged, Moderate DMG(Energy), Foe Disorient 1 - Rikti Sword Melee, Moderate DMG(Energy/Lethal), Foe Knockdown 2 - Heavy Pistol Blast Ranged, High DMG(Energy), Foe Knockdown 6 - Radiant Aura PBAoE, Team Heal 8 - Fusion Pulse Ranged (Narrow Cone), Moderate DMG(Energy), Minor DoT(Energy), Foe -Resist(All), -Regeneration 12 - Greater Rikti Sword Melee, High DMG(Energy/Lethal), Foe Knockdown 12 - Mass Hypnosis Low-Accuracy, Ranged (Targeted AoE), Foe Sleep 18 - Fusion Explosion Ranged (Targeted AoE), Light DMG(Energy), Minor DoT(Energy), Foe -Resist(All), -Regeneration Path of War - Unlocks the Rikti sword-blaster combo weapon which modern Rikti use to avoid constant redraw: that's the sword that's also a gun, it's currently not available to players 1 - Blade Eviscerate Melee, Moderate DMG(Energy/Lethal), Foe Disorient 1 - Rifle Blast Ranged, Moderate DMG(Energy), Foe Knockback 2 - Touch of Fear Melee, Foe Fear, -ToHit 6 - Build Up Self +DMG, +To-Hit 8 - Sweeping Laser Ranged (Cone), Moderate DMG(Energy), Foe -Defense 12 - Heavy Blast Ranged, High DMG(Energy), Foe Knockback 12 - Blade Slice Melee (Cone), Moderate DMG(Energy/Lethal), Foe Disorient 18 - Blade Swing Melee, High DMG(Energy/Lethal), Foe Disorient 22 - Taunt Ranged (Targeted AoE), Foe Taunt 26 - Blade Carve Melee (Cone), Heavy DMG(Energy/Lethal), Foe Disorient Path of the Mind 1 - Repulsion Strike Melee, Moderate DMG(Smash), Foe Repel, KB (functionally the same as Martial Combat's Ki Push) 1 - Mental Blast Ranged, Moderate DMG(Psionic), Foe -Recharge 2 - Dominate Ranged, Moderate DMG(Psionic), Foe Hold 6 - Mental Domination Self +Magnitude(Hold, Sleep), +Duration (Hold, Sleep) (Like Power Buildup, except it actually boosts magnitude by +1 or +2 a bit like a mini-Domination) 8 - Psychic Scream Ranged (Cone), Moderate DMG(Psionic), Foe -Rech 12 - Levitate Ranged, Moderate DMG(Smash), Foe Knock Up 12 - Mind Probe Melee, High DMG(Psionic), Foe -Rech 18 - Psionic Lance Sniper, Extreme DMG(Psionic), Foe -Rech 22 - Terrify Ranged (Cone), Minor DMG(Psionic), Foe Fear(Special) 26 - Total Domination Low-Accuracy, Ranged (Targeted AoE), Foe Hold 28 - Mass Levitate PBAOE, High DMG(Smash), Foe Knock Up Infiltrator Training 1 - Rikti Infiltrator Armor Auto: Self +Res(Smash, Lethal, Energy, status effects (Same as Wolf Spider Armor but without the total Sleep immunity)) 2 - Combat Training: Defensive Auto: Self +DEF(Melee) 4 - Combat Training: Offensive Auto: Self +ACC 10 - Tactical Training: Maneuvers Toggle: PBAoE, Team +DEF 16 - Tactical Training: Assault Toggle: PBAoE, Team +DMG, +Res(Taunt, Placate) 20 - Tactical Training: Leadership Toggle: PBAoE, Team +ToHit, +Perception, +Res(Confuse, Fear) 22 - Mental Resistance Auto: Self +Res(Psi, Energy), +Def(Psi, Energy) 30 - Call Reinforcements (Summons 2 Allied Rikti Drones) Path of War Training 1 - Command Armor Auto: Self +Res(All DMG but Negative, status effects), +HP 24 - Reinforced Shielding Toggle: Self +Res(Disorient, Hold, Immobilize, Sleep, All DMG but Negative) 24 - Fusion Overload PBAoE, High DMG(Energy), Minor DoT(Energy), Foe -Resist(All), -Regeneration 28 - Monkey Portal (Summons an LT-Ranked Rikti Portal with a 20 second duration. The portal summons 2 Rikti Monkeys every second for the duration, to a maximum of 6 Rikti Monkeys at a time) Path of the Mind Training 1 - Dispersion Bubble Toggle: PBAoE, Team +Res(Hold, Immob, Disorient), +DEF(All) 24 - Accelerate Metabolism PBAoE, Team +Speed, +Recharge, +Damage, +Recovery, Resist(Hold, Immobilize, Disorient, Sleep) 24 - Indomitable Will Toggle: Self +DEF(Psionic), +Res(Disorient, Hold, Immob, Sleep, Fear, Confuse, Repel, Knockback) 28 - Drain Psyche PBAoE, Foe -Regen, -Rec, Self +Regen, +Rec

It's actually even harder for tanks, brutes, and etc. to earn the damage taken badges in normal play due to their resistance/defense toggles. It's a weird perverse scenario where the thing they're best at (mitigating incoming damage) is the thing they get the least credit for doing, because those badges don't track incoming damage they track how much that incoming damage made your healthbar move.

These and the healing badges are the worst in the game. They were explicitly put in by Jack Emmert as a middle finger to badge hunters. He wanted them to be basically impossible to earn via normal gameplay. Sitting in a fire for a week straight because Statesman was grumpy one week back in 2004 is pretty abberant game design. All those badges could use a review and a change from an exponential progression to a linear one that, say, topped out at 1,000,000 damage taken. A player might actually take a decent percentage of that 1,000,000 damage in normal gameplay.

If you're looking for an AE to run missions or RP teams from, I'd suggest using the ones in little-trafficked zones like Faultine, the Rikti Warzone, Brickstown, or Skyway City. They get so little traffic that you probably won't see another person at all, so they're great meeting places for an AE mission team or RP team to run an arc or two without anyone, farmer or otherwise, bothering you. If you're looking to make an AE mission without being annoyed by power sound effects, you can go into the the Quiet Room, which disables all powers (auto or otherwise). It's accessable via the 'Studio B' door next to the mission portal:

Detention Bubble.

Tanker Martial Arts Warrior's Provocation doesn't have the same on-hit effect as other taunts. It still taunts, but there's no visual indication whether or not the taunt was successful. Regular Taunts get the headsparks Warrior's Provocation gets nothing

Character name: Alex St. Croix Global: @Thunderchild Base or SG Name: Crash Castle Shard: Everlasting Passcode: CRASHCASTLE-26019 Item Count: 3823 at time of application, may be a little higher or lower because I tend to fiddle with things as the mood strikes and/or my frustration with base drift mounts Category for Contest: RP Base Under 7K Items Other associated contributors: None Additional Info / Must-See Areas of Note: A Freakshow-themed castle in Crey's Folly. Check out the scenic water purifier, fight club, car-tapult, outdoor stage, or even the dancefloor!

They're not asking for auras, they're asking for existing costume options like the Cyclops Visor to have an alternate option with a paint swatch that works the same way Spectrum and the Cyborg eyes do. I'm all for that. That's a fun idea to proliferate that adds options but doesn't require making actually new models. There're a lot of parts that could use the Spectrum treatment. I'm sure there's a technical limitation taht prevents it or something, but the 'circuitry' texture pattern could use a "glowing" version too.

Just like with traffic, adding capacity doesn't decrease congestion. Adding storage capacity won't decrease your need to store inf, and if you're storing billions of inf the problem is a lack of anything worthwhile for you to spend that inf on. Part of that has to do with how bad the game's IO drop rates are, that a "complete" character often needs to spend half a billion inf or more just to feel capable of attempting the new hard mode content. The amount of effort it takes to farm 3-4 purple IOs on a single character is roughly equivalent to the amount of effort it takes to level from Level 1 to Level 50; but the amount of inf you'll make for that effort is often enough to buy more than just 3-4 purple IOs. I also understand people just like to hoard because bigger numbers make people happy. Now, we can't really have a "throw inf into a hole, get a badge" solution because the moment the last badge is achieved people will stop throwing excess money into a hole. We could add special IOs that are functionally identical to the normal ones but have a special rim and cost 10x as much, but once you've got a character fully kitted out with prestige IOs you're right back to needing storage capacity. Prismatic Aethers were supposed to be a time/inf sink but the number of things you can buy with them are still limited; and because they rely on the AH most of the money spent on them (90%? I forget what percentage the AH takes) stays in the economy. Would anything make you want to spend some of your billions of stored inf? Would you spend a variable amount of inf to have one of the generic hero statues in the city replaced with a statue (or statue-sized hologram if that's easier for the devs to program) of your character? Something where you could bid inf on but if someone came along and outbid you they could replace you? I could see that being fun but I could also see that causing bitter rivalries to form. I could also see that eating up a lot of dev time since the server would have to accept costume files and you'd essentially be spending billions of inf to upload your costume. Or, what if your new storage option was itself a form of influence sink? Would you still buy 'storage salvage' if it cost more to buy than you could resell it for? Like, let's say one salvage piece cost the maximum amount of inf a character can carry (999,999,999?) but you could only sell it back for 500m? It would give you a safe way to store the inf that didn't wholly rely on the mailbox or the AH, but you'd effectively be paying a luxury tax to do so.

Regen's biggest issue is that only Moment of Glory gives the actual regen powers time to work. Everything else requires dipping into pool powers since regeneration on its own is really slow. It could use a +absorb-over-time toggle, like a stronger version of Blaster Martial Combat's Reaction Time. Give it some fairly small stacking absorb tics but a high cap (say 50-60% max HP?) so it can spend a little time out of combat between fights bolstering itself up. Absorb is a slightly weaker version of +max HP but coupled with +absorb over time it also becomes a weaker version of a heal-over-time power where even in an extended fight mobs have to chunk through some absorb HP before they hit actual health with each attack. That would give the set's regeneration a chance to actually do its job. Coupled with moment of glory to give you a chance to regen and reacquire absorb stacks and I think that winds up being fairly elegant. Stick 15-25% +absorb on reconstruction to make it even more of a buffer power and I think you wind up with a set that's still killable while also feeling much more durable. At that point the hard-ish choice between defense and resistance also becomes a little clearer since defense gives absorb-over-time longer to build up.

Manipulation/Manipulation, just be the weird single-target pseudo-control half-melee jack-of-some-trades you always wanted to be. It even comes with a built-in name: the Manipulator!

That would be a real challenge, since NemSys Archtecture has a stranglehold on building design in Paragon City. The city loves them because they file all their TPS reports with clockwork precision but their designs are more like the same 30 or so general designs configured in slightly different ways that resemble works of brutalist art more than functional architecture. I really think there must be some sort of NemSys plot going on behind the