Auroxis

I suppose my primary concern isn't the manual testing, it's rather the Homecoming community at large being disconnected from design decisions up until after quite a few people have spent time working on the new feature. You can keep the testing of potentially bug-inducing code in closed beta (though i wouldn't unless you have professionals), but the Homecoming community should be in the loop regarding concept and design before time is spent developing and testing. Right now the only community in that loop is the same community that kept the game hidden from us for years. Take the Dark Melee changes for example. If Captain Powerhouse simply stated his intentions for Dark Melee and opened up a dialogue before putting the time into adding it into the game and testing it, a lot of time and effort could have been saved.

For the same reason you don't hire family and friends to critique your work. Very narrow feedback resulting in development cycles often disconnected from the userbase. Also, if (big If) Leandro is still recieving donations to run his SCORE server, he's essentially providing early access to Homecoming code for money, incentivizing people to continue playing there and donating to SCORE instead of leaving completely to Homecoming. This could result in code staying there for a while to maintain interest rather than being deployed to HC beta. Anyway, I don't want to derail this topic into conspiracy theories. Jimmy can clear things up if he wants.

As far as I'm aware, development and the internal testing server is still being led by Leandro and the SCORE team. My concern is that the same people who played on and financed the SCORE server are the ones being given exclusive access to the early development pipeline, not just the SCORE devs and the Homecoming team.

How long have these tests been ongoing? On what criteria are these internal testers being selected by?

What these tests will end up showing was already discussed while the changes were in beta. A buffed (or fully built) Tanker will be pretty much the same as a buffed (or fully built) Brute. This could have been avoided by focusing more on buffing the tanker's "team anchor" role as I requested, but that didn't end up happening.

Holy Light is great. However, TSpy would never give their permission and it would create more drama than it's worth to copy it. If you want Holy Light just play on TSpy, you're not limited to a single dev team nowadays.

In the past I've suggested making Placate use the Focus mechanic, where it consumes 3 stacks and deals PBAoE damage(with a pseudopet) at full stacks. That way you can choose between burst DPS or burst AoE, which makes primaries with high DPS but almost no AoE (common Stalker issue) more relevant.

To make Clear Mind AoE exactly the same as Dispersion Field you'd have to remove it stacking from the same caster, which is actually a useful function in the ITF (and in the GW fight in STF, though power creep made that mostly irrelevant). Also let's not try to make Force Field a lot worse in comparison, the effortless league-wide CC protection is one of the few things it has over other defense buff sets (one of which is Empathy).

For all those wanting RA's to turn into Passives or Toggles, please be aware that Hamidon raids heavily rely on RA stacking before spreading to succeed. If you wanna make Empathy less clicky, buff CM and Fortitude's duration to 4 minutes so you could apply them to the whole team without casting every 15 seconds. It would also let you apply PB Fort to the whole team if you invest into it, rivaling Time's Farsight.

Well Homecoming isn't really making the game harder with the veteran levels system and the Tanker buffs. That being said, let's not turn this thread into a server war please. We as players (who can enjoy all these servers) deserve more than that.

From my experience playing a Tanker with doubled aggro cap on TSpy (they added it for Tankers only), I can say that it's a welcome addition and definitely not game-breaking. However, with Tankers being essentially Brutes AoE damage-wise in this server i could see it being a balance issue.

It's mostly for mobs, but it can handle hard targets (and there are always lore pets if you're struggling).

Due to having two damage auras (which benefit from Fury but not crits) I'd say yes.

I like Hasten being a long recharge power that adds a goal to strive towards when planning your character, much like reaching the defense softcap, endurance stability, and resistance hardcap. These type of "breakpoints" add depth to the end-game, as your decisions advance your character exponentially and thus feel more impactful. Thunderspy even added more such powers that you can only perma if your build has constantly capped recharge (which is possible there, with sacrifices). What I dislike about Hasten is that it takes up an auto-execute slot. I don't like that I can't auto Rage/Domination/Accelerate Metabolism/Mind Link/etc with it. I think the correct approach would be revamping the auto-execute system by adding a couple more auto-exec functions, with the restriction that you can only automate "very long" recharge powers with them and a priority system(for example green>teal>blue) in case they conflict.

I have no idea why you keep spouting this misleading nonsense. You keep ignoring stackability, achilles' heel (and the two other procs) do not stack from multiple casters while the sonic attacks stack from the same caster. In reality there's a very high chance that rad blast build using achilles' heel applies zero -res since it's such a popular proc, while Sonic can easily stack up to -80% and go even higher. You keep forgetting that Sonic DOES have a Fury of the Gladiator proc (with Dreadful Wail), and CAN get an achilles' heel if it wants (with weaken resolve, which isn't even that beneficial for reasons stated above).