Captain Fabulous

I was specifically referring to the live game circa issue 9 when inventions and the in-game economy were released. Sorry, I have to call BS on this. There is no way you're making 2 bil in 2 weeks of just running TFs and not using the market. There are a lot more things to do in the game besides TFs. I have over 100 alts of varying levels that I rotate thru. I play a LOT. And I'd be lucky if I have 300 mil between all of them combined. TBH, running the same TFs over and over and over again gets old and stale real quick. What you meant to say is "if you play in this one specific way, earn tons of merits that you then convert to enhancers and sell on the market, then you too can be in-game rich. See, it's just that simple". But what if I don't want to play that way? Then what? While the divide is a lot smaller than it was on live, there is still a divide. You cannot earn the kind of INF you need to fully trick out your characters by just running radio or contact missions. There are very specific things you must do, and it always involves buying and/or selling on the market.

Dunno man, it's easier and faster than ever to get to level 50 even without the double-XP buff. And if you're a new player you should have to spend more time actually playing and learning how the game and your powersets work. Pretty much all MMOs have a steep learning curve, especially the older they get. Hell, jumping back into an MMO you haven't played in years is HARD, as so much has changed (I'm looking at you, GW2). You're almost better starting from scratch rather than trying to play one of your max-level characters.

I disagree. As long as the card is running within spec it shouldn't sustain damage whether it's used 1 hour/day or 24/7. I know gamers that have ruined cards by overclocking and overvolting them. I know miners that have never ruined a card running 24/7 for years because they run them at stock clocks and voltages. If you modify an engine to get more HP out of it it's no longer in-spec and likely to have issues down the line. But an unmodified engine that isn't abused and is well-maintained should last for years without fail no matter how much or little you drive it.

Honestly, Regeneration is in really poor shape and desperately needs a balance pass. It's a shadow of its former glory.

But it wasn't the mining, it was the environment that killed the cards. Had the cards not been in an overly-humid environment they would have been fine. As for your car analogy, the lack of maintenance is the issue, not the drag-racing.

Lord if we could finally be free of Travel Suppression and penalties on powers (the various T9s and Rage) it would make me a very very happy man.

I didn't mean it imply it was across the board, because I have a Staff/Nin Stalker in the same level range also with common IOs who also performs (mostly) just fine (endurance problems is the gift that keeps on giving). A lot depends upon who you're with and what you're fighting. Dark sets are ancient and probably need some love. Basically all I was trying to say is that it's still quite easy to have a sub-optimal leveling character who underperforms. We will just have to agree to disagree. I think ED broke the game and inventions as implemented did nothing but create a massive divide between the haves (those willing to spend time manipulating the market to amass obscene amounts of in-game wealth) and those that simply wanted to play and had no interest in being an in-game day trader. Those willing to grind and play the market got stronger while the rest didn't, and it was this schism that caused so many of the balancing issues that came after. We absolutely could have had some form of invention system without ED or an in-game economy. It just would have focused on other things instead of giving back what ED took away. It took so long to implement due to the behind-the-scenes in-fighting between Jack, who didn't want anything that defeated the entire purpose of ED (to make us and keep us weak), and just about everyone else who realized the players really didn't like not feeling super in a superhero game (along with finding a way to keep us grinding and paying). What you describe was not a power problem, but a targeting/aggro cap problem. You can still play this way. There is nothing stopping you from doing those missions and holding off using those features until you do. Same with taking travel powers prior to 14, etc. That's definitely part of it. But also lower-level characters are more powerful than they've ever been previously due to scaling to-hit, P2W attacks/buffs and DFB/DiB buffs. Also, I don't think Frosty spawns as an EB any more (tho I could be wrong, it's been awhile). And all it takes is one kitted-out 50 on the team to steamroll the entire arc, something that didn't exist back in the day.

I vaguely remember that story. No lies detected. 😂 I'm not entirely sure this is true, at least not how you're portraying it. ED was a hard nerf, plain and simple, because Jack felt that us being that powerful wasn't fun enough. It was purely punitive and intentional, not because he wanted to add other stuff but because he was angry we weren't playing his game his way. At the time there was no intention of ever giving back what was taken away. He wanted things to be hard. He wanted us to struggle. He didn't want us soloing content (he changed how XP was awarded to dissuade us from soloing and street sweeping). He also assured us we were still going to be able to perma Hasten, and of course lied, because we couldn't. ED was issue 6. Inventions didn't come till issue 9, and IIRC Jack was pretty much gone by that point and none of it was his doing.

That was Jack, Al, and later Floyd. I always used to say "Robin the snot-nosed wonder can take out a roomful of minions without breaking a sweat and I can't take out 3 without either getting clobbered or exhausting myself". All 3 of them had very funny ideas as to how a superhero should function.

Jack had some very, umm, unique ideas as to how his game should be played. And did everything he could to ensure we played HIS way, not ours. Things like travel suppression annoy TF out of me even to this day. Completely unnecessary and simply because he didn't want us to be able to run away from a fight. Anything he perceived as even the slightest deviation from his Vision™ he swiftly nerfed the hell out of it. Absolutely the worst way to run a game.

Nope, that's exactly why ED happened. I remember Jack saying he was annoyed that everyone was slotting everything exactly the same way and only using a small number of enhancements that were in the game. ED was his way to force us to use things other than accuracy and damage. The secondary effect of this is that our damage output was cut in half, regen & recovery were cut in half, and the defense nerf made sure we got hit a lot. IOs were a way to restore some of the functionality that was taken away but we had to work hard for it. Which of course was the point, to keep us grinding away month after month while paying the sub fee.

Meteor is quite a satisfying power and I will NEVER apologize for the knockback 😂

Yeah, I think a lot of people have lost sight of how an "average" build performs, and that leveling up is a lot more challenging than they remember. I pulled out my lvl 36-ish common IOd Dark/Dark Stalker the other day and it was a shitshow. Constantly running out of end, constantly missing, getting my ass chewed up by minions and LTs because I have trivial defense and only 30% resistances and still getting knocked around with a Karma IO. it wasn't fun.

Speccing out of fire isn't going to happen, it's wholly thematic. Honestly I think any loss is negligible. Link minds isn't a huge defense buff (4.25%) , and Psi doesn't have any big hitting AoEs. Ice gives you a nice chunk of defense, but only S/L. Sleet & Ice Storm are good powers, but they have long recharges vs. Fire Ball and Rain of Fire. IMO it's a wash, and I don't necessarily need to be godly at the expense of theme. In terms of cost, I guess it depends upon what one considers "cheap". I'm looking to spend around 100m INF. I can further cut costs by purchasing recipes and crafting them myself and/or using upgraders. So if you have a Fire/Psi/XXX Dom build that's pretty good, regardless of cost, I'd appreciate seeing it.

Apparently still alive and kicking.

Yeah, people sometimes forget that other people have power effects too. Just because you can make your powers excruciatingly bright and/or fluorescent doesn't mean you should. I find myself on way too many teams where I can't see a damned thing because one person thought bright green was a good choice, another thought bright red was just what their powers needed, and yet another thought megawatt electric blue was perfection.

I guess it depends upon the system(s) you're talking about. I'm fairly sure ED is a database function that can be changed. If not it can be circumvented. Defense calculations are in the database, as are target caps and travel suppression. Things like the auction house and Architect you can't "rip out" but you can block access to them, essentially removing them from the game. You wouldn't need the revert to the original code. Wasn't there a group that was working on reverse-engineering the server code as it was in I3? I don't remember their name or have any idea of their current status. IIRC the goal was to create a server that would be functional with the client that was released on disc back in the day.

Honestly I kinda miss the days of Hovering across Kings Row or The Hollows for 20 mins to get to a mission. There was a certain charm... 😂

Most of these things are done via the database and in theory shouldn't be difficult to remove or circumvent. Time consuming tho.

The login for the game is not the same as it is for the forum. Make sure you're using your game account name (listed on the password reset page) with your game account password.

This. All of this. The live game also hugely benefitted from people grinding away endlessly for threads and INF. It kept people in the game playing and (hopefully) paying. That need no longer exists, so no reason to make things overly difficult to obtain. But to be fair, a full build of the best IO sets can easily cost upwards of a billion INF, which is not something the average player is going to have access to. Now this is not to say it's not possible to have a solid build for far far less because it is. But there are still thresholds that simply cannot be reached without the extreme wealth that comes from playing the market. The game is as easy or difficult as one wants to make it. I've never understood people who go out of their way to make themselves godly and then complain the game is too easy.

I'm not sure I agree with this assessment, but it's not for me to decide.

Indeed. I'm not "defending" Hasbro. I'm merely providing a non-kneejerk unbiased commentary. Hasbro is free to change the license in an attempt to monetize D&D. Content creators and consumers are free to patronize another game. That's exactly how it works. Another thing that no one points out, a draft proposal is just that, a *draft*. A work in progress. Subject to change at any time. It wasn't the a final revision.

And that's the thing, just because they once allowed you to play in their sandbox for free doesn't mean they're required to do so forever. Licenses can change at any time. Privileges once granted can be revoked at any time. People profiting off the IP without any compensation did so solely by WoTC's and Hasbro's grace. The changes would have affected only a tiny percentage of people who make and sell D&D content. They're not coming for you or the campaigns you and your buddies create to play on weekends, nor are they expecting you to pay any royalties to do so. Kinda a moot point now as they've rolled back the proposed changes anyway. But if Hasbro is really intent on doing more to monetize D&D they're gonna find a way, and the next time it might be even less palatable and affect more people. And they're probably going to be less inclined to roll back the next one regardless of how much people who don't have a lick of understanding about what they're complaining about complain anyway. Y'all can dislike my statements all you want, but the funny thing about facts is that they're not going to change no matter how much you dislike them. Devin's video does a good job of explaining why all the moaning, groaning, crying, wailing, and hand-wringing was over a big fat nothingburger.

So you expect to be able to use an established IP for your own profit without any compensation to the IP holder?