Epsilon Assassin

You made the declaration of kind first. You can't demand evidence of me for refuting points you made under the same presumptions. You've yet to list a single major PvE implication of this issue that I haven't specifically outlined. Are you just here to troll the thread, or actually discuss something. So far all you've done is vaguely reference costs that you are unable or unwilling to outline, then troll people attempting to figure out exactly what you mean. If I may, please contribute to the conversation or refrain from trolling it at the very least.

So do I, however the caveat is that maybe two dozen, probably less people, would have to respec even a single slot for this change. It would be, but most people wouldn't be getting even a single slot out of this change. Let alone 3. Then let me; It's a worse idea. It is more work then this proposition, for less effect. Except, as we've covered, there is next to if not no PvE downsides to this suggestion, and your suggestion is more work.

One; he has acknowledged just about everything in the thread. Yes, perhaps more abrasively then is necessary, but Barrier is inherently an abrasive person. Two; You are ignoring almost every point and post saying you're wrong, and explaining why you are. So in a sense, you're projecting. Quite a bit actually. But, let's get to the meat of it, and lay this out in the simplest terms possible. The "Costs" of this change in PvE: Knockback IOs is handled in PvE builds in, mainly, three ways; One Knockback IO in their travel power of choice. This change would allow them to slot a Micro into this travel power instead, increasing the rate that they move (Meaningless in PvE content for the most part), and giving them around .2 end/second in combat, if they choose to run their combat powers in combat. This is the case that applies to around 99.8% of PvE'rs Acrobatics. Most people running Acrobatics are running it for the Hold Protection. This change has zero impact on these cases. People running 2 KB IOs to avoid specific knockback powers in specific TFs or on specific farms. In this case it would save one entire slot out of an entire build in the worst case scenario. So for about 99.8% of players, this would mean a colossal buff of .2 end/sec cheaper for a travel power running in combat. For about 99% of the remaining .2%, it would mean no change. For the rest of the people, likely of which could be counted on two hands, it would mean an entire extra slot. No one has ever said that there wasn't a cost to these changes in PvE. What has been said is that these costs are minimal, have no large scale effects or costs and that it would improve the game more then it would hurt them. All you have said is referenced, vaguely with no real point, argument or attempt at two way discourse, that everyone is ignoring the "Costs" and projecting your issues onto others. I won't defend Barrier and say he has made all of these points in a tacit and civilized manner. He hasn't. However, at the same time, he is not wrong. That is important. This is very similar to Stamina being made an inherent. In fact, Stamina becoming inherent was far more impactful thAn this. Yet it happened anyways, because the benefits outweighed the negatives. The same in this case. Yes. It is power creep. No, power creep is not a blank check buzzword like you use it. It is not inherently bad, nor good. This change does remove cost. However that cost is near-non-existent and negligible in almost every/all cases.

Slow resist in general is an entirely different discussion and a whole different basket of fun that probably needs to be looked at in general for PvP.

It doesn't though, is the problem. The issue here is sets, such as Ninjitsu, and some variants of Fire, just as examples, cannot build enough KB resist to actually be viable in certain PvP modes. Where as most builds can. This change doesn't remove KB from PvP. Anyone who knows how to PvP is already playing a build that is, effectively, immune to it in PvP. What this change does do is allow other power sets to come into the PvP world that would, otherwise, be rendered useless because of KB. Regardless of whether this change goes through, or not, does not improve the viability of KB. Anyone smart is going to pay the KB tax. However what this does do is make it so I can play Ninjitsu instead of EA on my stalker, or Fire instead of Bio on my tank.

As far as PvE goes, the one slot provided in one travel power already gives, effective, as much protection to KB as the potential 5 KB protection provided by this change. So while, yes, it does throw the design of arbitrarily difficult KB protection IOs out the window, that is not a bad thing. neither does it unbalance PvE as you specifically said early. Yes, it is "Unbalanced" in general, but it doesn't change anything PvE wise except making it so I dont have to spend 4k inf on salvage every 2 hours on a KB Protection buff. Thus, that being said, since all this change does is remove pointless tedium that adds nothing to the game in any way, shape or form. Is it bad?

This doesn't unbalance PvE. KB is a literal non-factor in PvE. One KB IO nullifies like 98% of PvE KB. Acrobatics nullifies 99% of the remaining 2%. The 4k inf base buff for +10 KB Protection invalidates the rest of it. This is a change that retains some investment in KB Protection in PvP, while making it significantly less impossible for several builds.

Regardless, I think there's something messing with the XP/Inf gain and drop rate in AE. (Found another issue that caused this) In addition, I'd like to note that prior to AE going down, I had received dozens of PvP/Purple IOs from AE standard rewards each afternoon farming. Since AE has gone live, I have yet to receive a single one of either. Which is far and beyond what should be expected of reasonable deviation/margin of error. There are a couple of bug reports and a bit of conversation about it in the respective forum.

I wouldn't be surprised if the drop rates somehow to sent back to old-live values due to server migration shenanigans. On the other hand, AE is giving quite a bit less raw inf then it should, and that's undoubtedly an unannounced nerf, or bug. On the other hand, I'd be curious. I'm still doing AE missions, and despite hundreds of IO drops, not a single PvP IO has dropped. Any chance anyone here has seen, say, a Purple from AE or a PvP IO from any farm content? The more information gathered, the quicker they can fix the bug, if it's a bug, or spill the beans if intentionally nerfing something.

I can confirm something funky is going on with the drop rates, along with Inf/XP drops. While I can't tell, exactly, what's wrong with the Drop rates (I haven't seen a purple *or* PvP IO since AE came back up, and neither have the three other farmers I play with, which is extremely odd.). The Inf/XP rate seems to be understandable though; AE XP went from 100%, to 50%, when the global XP/Inf rate was set to 150%. Meaning it's true value was 75%. Now that the global XP/Inf modifier has gone down to 100%, the true rate of XP/Inf rate of AE is ~37.5% as opposed to 50%. (Mission content gives ~2.7x more XP then AE content, which means it's set at ~37% XP. 37.5*2=75, 75=150%/2) My theory. To further posit on this, I'm wondering if the SCORE team switched to the old "Live" drop rates in addition to the old "Live" global Inf/XP modifier. This would explain the lack of PvP IO drops and Purples in AE, along with the number differences between Mission content and AE content.