Xeph

To me this is a very interesting perspective. Because in my opinion, seriously just an opinion not a fact, you can never complete this game. There is always something you can come up with to do... thus the reason I have 45 characters and only a few 50s. And while you aren't wrong, MORE content would make the game more enticing, it's not a realistic expectation. The Homecoming team is a bunch of incredible volunteers. They don't get paid, they don't get time off, and havens knows all us folks complaining on the forums ARE NOT a benefit. If they were a fully supported and funded team I'd jump on and agree with you - there should be more. But frankly I'm genuinely grateful with what has been offered despite the scenario we find ourselves in. Several new power sets and power pools to explore along with a really cool new story arc. I don't wish to insinuate anything on your behalf but your statement suggests yourself and your comrades tended to take a very similar approach to content. This game is pretty sneaky in how it hides missions away out of common sight. To this day I'm still occasionally tripping across a contact/arc and heck, even maps, I've never seen before. One other really great option is AE - while I haven't played through tons of AE content there are some fantastic Arcs hidden away in there (admittedly buried under all the fire farms...). Content that is on par with much of what the original Devs had made. There is one minor grievance with taking the AE approach to leveling though - you'll never get any merits. I'm by no means suggesting they SHOULD give merits but it is certainly a disadvantage. I hate to harp on the same point I made earlier but ultimately it's up to us to make the best of it.

Haha, awesome. Look forward to grouping in the future.

I know I was discussing the personal perceived benefits of 5 man teams but I'd never wish for that in general. I'm grateful for the 8 man team size. And frankly I'd be more interested in increasing the size than shrinking it - but that's an entirely different discussion. There are two inherent problems with forcefully reducing the team sizes. It's bad for the social environment of the game. Having a team size greater than 5, even if it's not "fun", still provides a benefit to everyone involved. Especially those running SG groups or big groups of friends. By having larger teams we avoid getting stuck in the rut of all other MMOs HOLY TRINITY setup. Because as long as we pile enough on of SOMETHING it'll work out in the end. But if suddenly everything was restricted to 5 man teams we'd see tons of teams with 1 Tank/1 Brute, 1 Healer/Support, 3 DPS. It'd be horrible. Among many reasons, I've played this game to avoid that. What a great name for the team style. From now on when I do one of my 3-5 man teams I'll call it such. "LF2M for Level 12 Star Team, PST if interested." Initially I know I'll get a bunch of "What the heck is a star team?" in LFG but if enough of us do it frequently enough, eventually people will get familiar with it. Silly... but fun. I suspect some people will lash out in LFG telling me how dumb I am too but honestly I'm fine with that. As long as we're both having fun, in our own way, nobody is wrong. They just won't be star material. 🙂

First I want to start by saying I agree with the OP. +4x8 with a full team end game is easy - zero effort required. While this is fairly obvious status quo the important question for each person is, "Is it fun?" I agree with many folks throughout this topic. Everyone is just being polite regardless of the actual experience. And some of those folks probably did genuinely enjoy the time. I'm more like you though and there are some TFs that I'm just brain dead following along so that I appear to be participating. There are also times I'm the toddler on a sugar high though depending on what character I'm playing. Bottom line... it's EZ merits. But again begs the question - "Is it fun?" I agree, IO sets are a double edge sword. But I'd be sincerely disappointed if they were nerfed or removed. While I'm not a true min/maxer I do enjoy tuning my character to my play style. Nothing beats the feeling of getting everything setup the way I want and feeling... Heroic! ...or Villainous depending... But in many instances I have seen general controller builds being largely useless due to Time to Kill being so low at this point. There are some exceptions to this, as with everything, but broad enough for a generalization. Buffs and Debuffs less so because they do impact things even if they do feel some what superfluous. But still the question remains... "Is it fun?" You've kinda nailed my experience right here with this last part. The levels play a big part. As you hit the final stretch you get all those enhancement slots and truly flesh out your character. You start making strides to the pinnacle of power. But I think that's the smaller part of the bigger problem. The balance in this game is totally lost when you're in a team of 8. All the bonuses, buffs, debuffs and sheer volume of damage is more than any mob can generally handle. But... if you limit your team size to 3-5, something I saw someone else mention in a post as well, then you hit an idealistic medium. Everything feels impactful and nothing is meaningless - especially if you keep the difficulty cranked up to +4/8 even with a smaller team size. Even at level 50 with everything maxed out, you'll strain yourself a bit to keep up with an encounter designed for a full team. Speaking from personal experience, it feels great regardless of what level I do it at. If you haven't guessed by now the reason I kept asking the silly question, "Is it fun?" is that this issue is LARGELY subjective. Some people care, some don't and many more probably aren't even aware of it. The Homecoming team has brought a great boon to us by granting us all a chance to play again but, in short, it's ultimately up to us to make it fun.

I picked up Molten Embrace and noted that despite being a toggle it's activation sound never ceases. Fire Shield has it's start-up sound and then goes silent but the Molten Embrace continues the smoldering sound persistently regardless.