AlwaysAPrice

A little thing I find neat that seems to be news to lots of players (and admittedly sometimes the game's writing...) when I reference it is the fact that Cap au Diable and Port Oakes are respectively the west and east halves of a single large island. Going Rogue implemented more natural open world zoning tech on the borders of Praetoria's three city zones. If it's possible to add that tech to older maps, setting it up on the border of those two zones specifically would be real nifty.

Anniversary, Architect creation (as in publishing and testing badges, not the ones for completing objectives in published arcs), and Bug Hunter should be account-wide, those are more for player actions, not things a character does in the course of being played in the game. Just about everything else that grants a badge represents a waypoint in a character's individual journey, places they've physically been, deeds they've personally accomplished, ordeals they've survived. Your badge collection is supposed to be different from character to character. If you want a character to collect 'em all, they have to go out and do that.

Pretty sure it's just the first 100 groups created and still in existence. I have basecode -20 on Everlasting and it's on there, and the handful of entries that have their code in their description are almost all 2 digits. 1 is in the 130s, which seems low enough that it might have just been bumped up to the top 100 as older groups have been deleted over time.

In your Homecoming install directory under /accounts/<loginname>, there's a file called playerslot.txt that tracks your sorting. Delete or rename that file and the game'll go back to ordering your characters by creation date.

Love the profile art feature, especially that art pins and worn titles are two separate features so I can, for example, equip 'The Beast Within' under my name without also plastering a Fifth Column logo on my bio. Tested with long character names & origin/archetype combos vs. wide art and narrow window size and it all looked great/layered readably (names reduce in font size when the window's narrowed enough to compress them and edge a little too upward when they do, but I had to name a character wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww to make it do that and figure that's behavior unrelated to this update anyway). Patch notes might want to mention that the art does not update automatically if you have your bio open when you change it, you need to reopen Personal Info to confirm the change for yourself. Sometime in the future it'd be nice to see the origin promotional art added to a set of badges so they can be pinned for aesthetic/roleplay reasons regardless of build origin - or maybe just made individually settable via /info_pin_badge?

I do wish events would go back to the two-week period they generally ran for on live. Yes, the full month makes it more likely everyone gets a crack at the goodies while the event is on, and I usually enjoy the easing off of pressure so I can keep doing other things I like in the game without feeling like I'm missing my one chance at the event, but every year it seems like after the first two weeks burn-out sets in for most and the numbers of people around PuG-ing the event in the later weeks dwindles anyway, so good luck if you're interested in banners or invasions or Winter Lord or what-have-you in the back half of month. While I've never actually bothered trying to compete with it in my groups to say for sure, it's also always struck me that month long events probably aren't great for RPSGs? Everyone being unavailable for group events for a couple weeks while they capitalize on a rare event with special rewards seems understandable and a good duration to plan a break from SG stuff around, but a whole month of it has always just seemed disheartening/disruptive to me. But then again I've just spun up a spooky-themed VG so I'm poised to capitalize on the entire month next year, so whichever way future events shake out I'm good.

Just putting in a request that old Power Surge get the mutually-exclusive treatment with its new version. Was enjoying a casual climb up on a recharge-heavy almost-only-Power-Surge scrapper build for funsies.

May have already been mentioned but I'll just point out that Tanks, Brutes, and Sentinels (also Blasters, MMs, and VEATs from my quick check through Mids, but those don't sound on the table) get access to a power called Static Discharge in the Mu Mastery patron pool, which is an electricity cone with a pretty nice range and width that deals respectable damage. I think outside of epics it's only available to /elec Dominators. I use it for Palpatine fingers on a Sith-inspired character but if you don't mind the animation not quite fitting (I'd say it's close enough when you're viewing your character from behind) it could make for a very nice lightning breath.

This is an option already actually, for epic pool Energy Torrent at least, I'd guess for Energy Blast as well but haven't looked. Would certainly like to see it available on more cones though.

Imagine OP's made their decision by now, but: I'd say go for the stalker even if you're already doing one just because DB's combo system sets its play apart enough from most other sets that it shouldn't feel like too much of a retread, and the stalker version of Dual Blades is very fun and pairs especially well with the Stalker ATOs. On a scrapper I will usually end up skipping combos altogether for a tight, Clawsy attack chain, but the stalker's combos fit into its playstyle a lot more naturally and feel like they contribute to your effectiveness instead of distracting from it. IIRC Stalker Empower & Sweep both begin with Build Up > Assassin's Blades, so proccing Assassin's Mark can refresh the cycle on those.

Ice/Street was my first Tank to 50 and is still a favorite. Became my first fire farmer by accident: I loaded up on Winter IOs for their procs purely on "ice character" principle before I noticed how much Fire Def/Res they added, and also found Spinning Strike with Force Feedback is hilarious. (also for a long time the Blistering Cold Hold could proc off Gauntlet so sometimes I would Crushing Uppercut someone so hard the guy next to him froze solid.) I've also got a Street/Dark Stalker that I like but haven't finished, rolled just cos I wanted to see how Spinning Strike paired with Cloak of Fear and AS's occasional extra AoE fears (probably will go Control Hybrid for even more when I get back to that one). So far the /SR Brute I've got hasn't thrilled me versus the SR/SS Tank version of the same character and mostly just exists at this point to maintain a side base, and I've binned a couple Street Justice scrappers that didn't hold me but not due to any complaint over that version of the set, more those characters just happened to not be keepers or got switched to a different combo. Stalker version is my least favorite but only because it doesn't get Rib Cracker, possibly the most satisfying attack in the game.

Beam/invuln did it for me. Two sets I'm not particularly thrilled with on any other AT but the sentinel version of Invuln is great and Beam seemed to synergize well with the AT's gimmick. Quickly became a favorite build overall, not just favorite sentinel, and is a fun & functional ride all the way up.

Usually T3 Alpha, T1-2 Judgement and Interface, T3 Lore & Destiny, then T3 Hybrid. Determined more by the order they unlock in than their comparative utility, really. For characters I'm going to full T4s on, priority after that is usually Lore, Alpha, Hybrid, Destiny, Interface, Judgement, but it can vary when a power's super on-theme for either the concept or build.

Not every time, but I frequently nope out of Levantera's bombs around the PTS mission. I couldn't even articulate what I find so tedious about that one but my reaction is always "ugh this shit again" when I get to it.

Honestly, as a lover of Group Fly, I'd totally welcome this change even if it wouldn't be my ideal approach. The current implementation produces a lot of sometimes quite valid whining that I'm always worried will lead to changes to a power I like just fine the way it is. If it was off by default no new characters would ever have to experience that jarring moment of loss of agency that leads to said kvetching in the first place and these threads would quickly dry up. People who aren't frustrated by the mechanic could go turn it on to continue experiencing it in the wild, and people who would be bothered by it would just never realize it's there in the first place.