BelleSorciere

Is there a difference in story content if you do that vs. leaving for Primal Earth?

You can defer taking the portal to finish those arcs as well as level above 20 in the process. I just took a level 22 Resistance character to Paragon last night. The weird thing was that the mobs would only spawn up to level 20 and no higher, but that's still the 20-24 range.

That long speech and then Aeon turns out to be an elite boss what a loser

The cut scenes in MLTF and RTF just make me so tired

"Working as intended" is not an argument in this case. I explained why the intended working isn't great for as it turns out, many more people than myself. If I say "this game mechanic as intended isn't doing its job," responding with "working as intended" completely fails to engage the argument as much as telling people to ask the team leader to turn the difficulty down. It's not engagement, it's just clutter and adds nothing. Since the content of your responses seem to boil down to "nuh uh" I won't respond further. Have a nice day!

There clearly is a quality of life issue that I described and others have concurred on. That you do not see it as such does not magically vanish it away. My point was that things are working as intended until it's not intended anymore. Your solutions aren't solutions to the issue I brought up. "Lore" isn't a meaningful justification since there is no standard which all sidekicks meet. It's not a mechanical distinction, but a story one. A game does not need to be beholden to genre conventions in books, movies, comics, or TV shows. In general, gameplay needs to be enjoyable and not punishing. If the outcome is to discourage to discourage people from teaming with higher level characters then there's a problem. I have my own fire farmer and PL whenever I feel like it, but I shouldn't have to power level every character to 50 in order to enjoy the game, and if that's what you believe people should be doing, I sincerely question your understanding of the game. More generally, I did in fact outline what the problem was, my proposed solution, and why I think my solution works. "This isn't a problem" isn't a persuasive argument in response to that. It's not even an argument, it's just threadcrapping. Also, making SKs the same combat level as the team leader or mission holder doesn't make them "peers." They still have a lower security level, fewer powers, and fewer slots. Making them the same combat level doesn't make them "peers" or "equals" it just means they hit more often for more damage, longer control, or better debuffs.

I think the Mastermind pet issue is a glaring issue that needs attention, and it's definitely impacted here more than most ATs. Yeah the -2 thanks to the +1 is weird. I don't see an issue with being -1 to the incarnate shift so much, though. Sidekicks *aren't* the same level even if they're fighting at the same combat level. "Lore" isn't a game mechanic, nor should it be one that causes quality of life issues. A lot of things in CoH were working as intended like exclusive toggles (Invulnerability, Stone Armor, Dark Armor), perma-unstoppable, and controller AOEs that could permanently lock down entire spawns. The ability to herd and AOE things down with no AOE limits were also based on mechanics working as intended. "WAI" is not a persuasive argument. Nope. Also, not an argument.

The purple patch from before issue one was implemented to encourage players to stick to fighting mobs within four levels of themselves. The current SK system, whether level 50 or lower TFs/SFs, can and does put people into a position where they're fighting +5 to their level. +4 wouldn't make them significantly more powerful, but it'd make teaming less painful without insisting that people change their play style or just not play certain characters with their friends. Notoriety made it so people could fight anywhere from -1 to +4 their level, regardless of the number of team members. I think that the -1 level has been out of date ever since the purple patch and the addition of notoriety.

This doesn't address my suggestion and isn't constructive. The point of my suggestion is to change how sidekicking works across the board. Asking individuals to take individual action isn't a real alternative, just a way to compensate for the current game mechanic works. I usually go on TFs with my SG, with people I've played CoH with since before sunset. If I do team with people I don't know, it's always on a character in the relevant level range.

The rest of it was a general response to other replies. I do apologize that I wasn't clear that the entire post wasn't a response to you. I do agree it was likely a flavor decision, I just think that the game's changed a lot since then (and sidekicking itself has changed a lot as well). Also the decision that sidekicks be -1 was made before launch so is a bit decrepit given the current game, how difficulty functions, etc. To the current discussion: The sneaked in stuff looks like an interesting way to go.

Frost Breath and Fire Breath in Ice and Fire Blast respectively have always felt like they have little to no impact. Frost Breath especially.

No:

'k

I invite you to show me where I said the mechanics are "vindictive." The rest of this is just individual solutions to a game mechanics problem. It's okay to change game mechanics and improve QOL.

It's not flavor. It's a mechanical choice that has a real impact on one's ability to participate in a mission or task/strike force I know there's always people who push back against suggestions with comments like "Just have the leader set the level lower" or whatever and I'm not going to engage that. I also don't even slightly care about "people playing ineffective characters leeching XP." It seems to me that could be solved by the leader choosing not to invite them to the team. 🙃 Plus SFs and TFs have level minimums so level 20s can't run ITF as far as I know. Since SOs are available right from the start I don't think that's really a good argument. Yes characters with more slots and powers are more effective, but if sidekicking didn't penalize players this harshly this would make much less of a difference.

Oh I meant 30% vs 48% with the change with the sidekicked character, but yes that's a very good point and I didn't think to compare to the 50 +1

After running an ITF on my Dark/Dark controller and dealing with +5 mobs all the way through, I find myself asking what purpose the -1 to team level serves, given the large gap between being -4 to mobs vs being -5. That is, if I read the table correctly, 30% effectiveness vs. 48%. I didn't really feel like I was doing much other than a few buffs and a minor amount of damage. Due to having a character that relies on control, buffs, and debuffs, I felt less effective than I ever have on any other character, even when sidekicking, and I'm not even sure the reasons for the -1 level are still true in the game today.

It is quoting, and doing it that like that - separating it into sections and replying to each individually is called "fisking," or at least it used to be.

I'll just point back to this.

They don't, though? Their primary is stronger than Corruptor secondaries meaning that slotting can have a different priority, meaning that Defenders can more easily slot enough procs to outdamage Corruptors while still buffing/debuffing at least as well and approaching Blaster damage. If Corruptors could leverage procs to the same extent that Defenders can, don't you think they would be?

Trying to think of an actually not joking answer to this and it's hard. So much of COH for me is making as many alts as possible. If I absolutely had to pick one it'd come down to my Dark/Dark Brute, my Inv/Dark Tanker, or my Ill/Storm Controller.

I love having six damage procs in irradiated ground but it does seem to be a bit much

I think the only rule you need to keep in mind is that you can only have any given bonus five times before it stops counting.

I miss it on my Brute, but the only use I ever really got out of it was pulling Neuron away from Bobcat for the achievement we didn't even get.

The game would be dead to me