Akisan

Seriously, @Without_Pause?! Yes, fine, my original post in our back and forth wasn't well worded, and fairly ambiguous. It is possible, with that wording, that I did say that farming is all about damage, which, yes, isn't true. That was NOT the intent of my post though, and since you're hanging doggedly onto that mis-wording after I clarified and elaborated on my position, I have the distinct feeling that you're deliberately mis-interpreting my posts.

And content doesn't have to be, and, indeed, shouldn't. While farming though, you should be running at the highest difficulty you can quickly clear - because at that point, lowering your difficulty is like leaving money on the table.

I would credit nearly all of that stability to marketeers, honestly. Farmers' deep pockets far outweigh their recipe contribution, so yes, farmers directly contribute to inflation. After all - if you're swimming in inf, and can get more easily, it's not a big deal if good recipe prices go up to from 50M to 100M. (And yes, by PL'ing people, you do aid in creating that market, but that also drives prices up because there's more demand) Marketeers, however, are taking advantage of one of the really, really big changes between the Live markets and our HC markets - the availability of Converters. On Live, converters were a somewhat scarce, RMT goodie. Here, you get 3 per reward merit. They're dirt cheap, time-wise. Our prices are more or less stable because of how easy it is to convert trash recipes to good recipes - I think it's worth noting that on Live, garbage recipes were often sold for less than a couple hundred inf on the market, as pretty much the only demand was people buying them to vender them. Here, they often sell for 2k+ inf, sometimes getting into the 20-30k range. On top of that, since the AH takes 10% of each transaction as fees, I'm sure the AH is culling an insane amount of inf. through the marketeers' actions. For all the money farmers make, I almost think it'd be interesting to know how much the AH culls in comparison.

I never stated that damage was the only thing needed, I said that you don't need balanced defenses or resistances (see quoted post below). If you're running a fire farm, you only need 45% fire defense, and 90% fire resistance (if on a brute or tank, less on other ATs because the cap's lower). S/L/C/E/N/P defense is irrelevant, positional defenses are irrelevant, S/L/C/E/N/P/T resist is irrelevant. HP regen is nice, but not that much gets through 45% def / 90% resist. Once you have enough regen (or recharge with a heal), and enough recovery to power your attacks, pretty much the only thing that affects your build is how much more damage you can cram in there (either through +damage or +recharge, or even fitting more AoE into your attack chain). As for your second comment: A) It's not secret that, AE or not, The Council are a joke. They only sling around moderate slows, minor -res, and minor -def, they have light CC (on some of the mobs, mostly bosses), and there's almost no change in that enemy group once you get above 30 (so they're really mid-game enemies paraded around in end-game). B) That was with a regular build. A specialized fire farmer's build with capped fire def/resist and very low all other def/resist is going to limp through a normal +4x8 mission, even against Council, IF they don't get outright demolished. A S/L farmer would probably be more or less fine, mostly because there's a lot of S/L gunfire in the average mission, but also partially because the attack tags heavily favor those 2 defense types (so a lot of hybrid typed attacks are deflected, even though a lot of them should really only be considered as the other damage type). This is getting addressed in the upcoming page, so that particular advantage won't be there much longer.

Nice misquote on me, too. I said "it's way not cool to change the text of a quote without noting that it's been edited". If you want/need to translate something, fine, but you need to note that it's been edited. It's extremely dishonest, and more than a little misleading, to say that so-and-so said "these exact words", when they, in fact, said "these other, possibly very different exact words". I have made no claims on how fun farms may or may not be. Again, the problem is that they're both demonstrably easier, and more rewarding, than other content. If, compared to other content, they were harder (with higher rewards) or easier (with lower rewards) that would be fine. I don't have problems with people running the same maps over and over and over again. Just because I don't find it fun doesn't mean they aren't having a blast. I do have problems when that same hypothetical person is getting significantly more rewards for significantly less risk.

It doesn't, but it does help address the feeling that you're running content with sub-optimal rewards. And again, one of the big problems with fire farms isn't with how fun they may or may not but, but about how low-risk they are. If they were running farms populated with, say, Malta Agents, I'd be A-OK with AE giving normal rewards, because that's at least a balanced enemy group. But they're not, because why run hazardous content when easy content gives the same (or better) rewards.

Gonna have to go with @MoonSheep on this one - it's way not cool to change the text of a quote without noting that it's been edited. Even "simple translating" adds bias to the quote (usually the translator's), as even similar words can have very different connotations.

Yes, they are. Each individual enemy may be "full" strength, but an enemy group that only ever dishes out a single damage type is almost always *much* weaker than the normal enemy groups in the game - because the player doesn't need to have capped resistance and defences for most or all types, just that one damage type, which frees up quite a bit of space for whatever else you want to do on that build.

Except that lack of risk is exactly why Fire Farms (and many of the other farms) are so lucrative - the enemies are so precisely weakened, that you don't have to invest in balanced defenses, resistances or even have much HP recovery, just damage and more damage. I *hate* the typed AE farms, and I'd be a lot less hostile about them if the main farming builds could get anywhere near that clear speed running any other content. And before the non-AE farms are brought up - one of the big reasons that a large chunk of those got 90 minute time limits back on Live was so they couldn't be farmed indefinitely.

This is great! I've wanted to roll up a rogue Malta Gunslinger (DP/Devices blaster) or a ghost pirate (Sword / Dark Scrapper), but haven't because I don't want to shell out halloween salvage every other week just to stay in costume.

There's enough in the Origin power pools that I feel that they probably should have been Epic pools, and tailored to each AT, but that's a whole 'nother can of worms. There are ways to raise difficulty, yes, but all of that's optional, and I almost never see those run except on teams that are looking for a challenge instead of the usual PuG steamroll. In this case, I was talking about general buffs to the enemies - more varied powers & damage types (like what happened with Crey). Not that Crey needed a buff, from my perspective - they're still all 50% resistant to Lethal damage at level 45+, and take forever to kill.

That would indeed be the difficulty I was referring to. Seeing as that's at the maximum difficulty too, we should be looking to either reign in the power creep, or find ways to raise the difficulty. And since it's substantially harder to raise the difficulty without also locking weaker builds out in the cold, my vote's for stopping as much creep as possible. So, I'd prefer to have the restrictions on pools reinforced, and the level requirements put back to be a consistant 6/6/14/14*/20 (travel powers included). As far as "wasted power picks", there's a couple of ways I'd be fine going about fixing that: Buff the mule picks. The oft-mentioned fighting pool did get some love in that regard, but still suffers from the same problem that, in my experience, all pools suffer from - uncompetitive base damage. Can't speak for anyone else, but any Pool attacks I take are either for CC or as filler in my attack chain. They just don't do enough damage to justify using them as a straight attack if one of my AT powers is ready. At base values, Kick does about the same damage as my T1 and T2 attacks - with an animation that's 50-80% longer, *and* is melee instead of ranged. Weaken builds in general, especially with regards to global recharge. Boxing and Kick are valuable for their short recharge (2.5 and 3 seconds, respectively), and high global recharge removes pretty much all of that value.

Ideally, this would be nice to be able to do, but there's a pretty big problem with this argument - if someone does just what you're asking, and skips the powers/bonuses that are making everyone else OP, they're suddenly less powerful than their peers, sometimes significantly. Case in point here would be my main (Archery/Ice/Fire blaster) - back on Live, before Incarnate content was released, I was pretty high on the power curve at +2x6. Now? Between a more knowledgeable & specced out playerbase, and general power creep, that number's looking kinda low. If I restore that build, I'll struggle to make a meaningful contribution to any random PuG running at +4x8, which is a pretty common preference at 50. I don't know about you, but I'd like to be able to team PuG's from time to time without looking for slower, less powerful groups or having a dedicated secondary build.

That's more workable, and could allow for some much deeper pools, with more powerful things mixed in (like an actually damaging nuke that requires level 38, with 3 in this pool, and 6+ taken elsewhere). Kinda erodes the ATs' distinctions though...

I'll agree that several of the pools should definitely be shuffled and/or completely reworked. I do also have to agree with @TheZag here - there's already so much QoL in the pools, we really don't need more. Honestly, I feel that there's been too much QoL creep in the pools, and a lot of pools should go back to 6/6/14/14*/20, as there are *very few* leveling builds that should be taking a pool power at Level Four. (And yes, travel power at 6 is a bit of a pet peeve of mine - you don't need a dedicated movement power that early). That sounds an awful lot like Champion Online's system, and as I recall, led to a lot of very specific, very cookie-cutter builds. That, and it'd be a metric ton of power creep here - as written, I could take Super Jump as my pre-req for Tough and Weave (and then take as many other 2-prereq powers as I want), which is really not far off of "why even have requirements". For reference - my main has 14 pool powers across 5 pools. I'd be so very happy, and more than a bit overpowered, if I could take CJ + SJ, then any 12 pool powers.

These probably aren't gonna happen, as they'd require so much work, even possibly an almost full engine overhaul, but here's my big 3 costume wishlist items: Tertiary+ colors on costume pieces. So many pieces have a Primary, Secondary, and one (or more) un-dyeable accents on them that can easily break a color scheme. And on the flipside, quite a few pieces have just primary/secondary colors, and have a matched jewel or inset in them that would be an excellent place to splash an accent color. Damage indicators - flag certain pieces (like armor & overclothes) to be scuffed, stained, dented, torn, sparking, broken, or even fully removed/destroyed when damaged. Heck, even reducing the robot arms to smoking stubs would be in line with this. Bonus points if you can choose if healing restores the pieces. One of my alts is an old-fashioned sword & board knight, and coming out of a really hard mission with his plate mail all scuffed up and/or dented would be awesome, especially for RP. "It's gonna take weeks to repair my armor after that fight against Nemesis." And yes, there *are* a bunch of costume slots, but this would free up space for more variants or even completely new looks (and no, I really don't want to roll multiple copies of him). Being able to remove/modify ears. Scarred, maybe with bullet holes, mis-matched or even fully removed (with and without scars on the side). While extreme, it's not unreasonable for my villainous rival to have pulled a Van Gogh. (And some characters have ears on top of their heads, and are tired of either covering up, or wearing a human-ear headband.)

Has that been changed recently, or do they have a different mask power? I distinctly remember getting double hit by that debuff in a bank side-mission (they're not supposed to stack it, but a pair of them will sometimes cast simultaneously). I also remember having to stand there, held and immob'd, at 0/13 endurance until they killed me (didn't take long, at -100% def), since there's no fighting back through that much -Max End. It may be, but in this situation, death is the preferable outcome. Debt is negligible, I have a damaging self-rez (Rise of the Phoenix), and it *usually* clears debuffs. And while it hurts, Mask of Vitation isn't the enemy power I'm asking to be nerfed. I'm saying that Nectanbo's Curse of Weariness shouldn't stick around through death, as no other crippling debuff is as persistant. At that point, it's really just a Vanguard merit sink (for when you're running Vanguard missions of all things).

Hey, my Empath on Live did just about that (no full medicine, but did get the 2nd rez). I at least had the decency to take as many Stuns as I possibly could though, so that I could lock enemies down while I wasn't healing. Did get real boring to play as soon as a 2nd support joined the team, or all the time after the Incarnate system got past Alpha. As far as worst thing someone can do? Griefing's pretty far up that list (PvE and PvP). Deliberate Mo fails come to mind. I've even had a couple people in PvP zones single me out, one of them even to the point of trying to get into the blue-side hospital in Sirens Call as a villain so they could spawn-kill me (that guy did get banned for that one. at least).

This. OMG, this. IIRC, it's one of (if not the only) non-story related debuff that doesn't expire when you do. A lot of the other truly game-changing debuffs can be mitigated to some extent, even if that extent is "die and then rez yourself". Side note - the other -50 End debuff (Dark Carnie Ringmistress' Mask of Vitation, 60s duration) also carries a -50% defense penalty, but at least it has the decency to not stick around when I (almost always) die to suddenly having no defense (and likely no resists if/when my toggles drop).

@TygerDarkstorm - that one's already in-game! Options > General > Team Options > Auto-accept level changes above/below by... <slider>. It's rarely an issue, but sometimes... let's just say I don't accept blind invites anymore when fighting Malta in PI. Oh, and if you remember that forgotten topic, start a thread! More ideas are always welcome, even if the devs can't (or won't) implement all of them! I've only started 4 threads in the suggestion forum. No luck yet on implementation, but a girl can dream, right? 4 build slots - seemed to be (mostly) well received, will hopefully get implemented someday... Orange Inspirations - I still think those things need a (substantial) buff to be competitive with purples Flashback to Tip Missions - Bit of an edge case, wanting to flashback to see minor lore instead of leveling a new character. Would still be nice to have though... Side Ears - Probably not going to happen, since it requires re-doing meshes, but it'd be nice to have more than the 3-ish human-ear-hiding hairstyles to choose from. @Tailcoat put it better, her thread's here.

Seconding @Infinitum's Shield/Electric, especially if you take Teleport as your travel power. Ran that pairing to 50 on Live, and it was absolutely awesome being able to teleport slam into every group (sometimes after banking teleports off of walls to get around platforms). With the boost to Tank AoE here on HC, I bet he'd be an absolute monster with those slams. And, as an added bonus, why taunt runners when you can simply drag them back to you with teleport foe?

Case in point, thank you. Great example of what I meant by "very selfish behavior". As several others have mentioned though, as long as they don't endanger the rest of the team, they can have at. I also won't be going out of my way to help them if they get in over their head, since that's 100% on them. Also 100% true. You never *need* any specific AT, and a fair number of teams don't even need any aggro management to do well - they just keep everything debuffed, locked down, or simply roll on through with raw DPS. If your tank (or whoever else has point) is herding though, (great alt-tactic on that, btw) they're absolutely setting the pace of the mission by doing so.

Oh. God. No. I'd never be able to play my Empath/Ice/Dark defender again (well, not without a complete overhaul). She hovers ~10ft up, 5ft back from the tank, so she can easily hit the team with the AoE heal (when needed), and keep Oppressive Gloom on the melee mobs. Any AoE stun lobbed at the tank would hit her, dropping her right into the pack. That aside - this would make Stun so much more deadly than the other CCs - doubly bad since Stun and Sleep are the only 2 CC effects you can't get any permanent protection from, unless your primary/secondary already grants it. (And no, break frees are a stop-gap measure, not a serious source of CC protection. I would also like the option to run a Destiny that *isn't* clarion.)

Yeah, following the tank/brute closer might help, but that's not the entire problem here - Yes, it is the tank/brute's job to set the pace of the mission, but it is also their responsibility to make sure the team's not overrun. If you're tanking, and the team's not following fast enough, you should slow down to a pace the team can handle. @KaizenSoze is right - it's very selfish behavior for any player to just run ahead and leave the rest of the team behind like that, especially when they're the lead (or only) tank.

And I'd agree with you there - we don't need any more gap closers. What would be more useful would be Confront preventing enemies from moving further away from you - completely stopping runners, and severely limiting the options of enemies that are approaching your (somewhat squishier) teammates. Yes please, especially if the same treatment is applied to Slow Snipe, since that draws aggro on a miss, and, IIRC, AS doesn't.