AlwaysAPrice

Reposting my comment from the general feedback thread since this thread didn't include Suppression at that time: On the topic of Toggle Suppression, which is a wonderful/overdue change in concept, a still-suppressed period does make sense - prior to this change, you wouldn't have been able to reapply the power's effects until both the power was recharged and the reapplied toggle had animated. 8 seconds sounds right in the range of default recharge + animation time for most offensive toggles. ...but global recharge and recharge slotting in those powers reduces their recharge. So if my built-out Dark Miasmist gets mezzed, it'd be better for me to detoggle Darkest Night myself before using a break free if I want that back in effect asap. Can this delay be made to take the power's actual recharge + animation time into account instead of being a flat value? Admittedly there is still some benefit to not full-retoggling since I can be using that time on additional attacks and my toggle will come back into effect on its own eventually, but after how long should still reflect the actual time being saved as determined by my build.

On the topic of Toggle Suppression, which is a wonderful/overdue change in concept, a still-suppressed period does make sense - prior to this change, you wouldn't have been able to reapply the power's effects until both the power was recharged and the reapplied toggle had animated. 8 seconds sounds right in the range of default recharge + animation time for most offensive toggles. ...but global recharge and recharge slotting in those powers reduces their recharge. So if my built-out Dark Miasmist gets mezzed, it'd be better for me to detoggle Darkest Night myself before using a break free if I want that back in effect asap. Can this delay be made to take the power's actual recharge + animation time into account instead of being a flat value? Admittedly there is still some benefit to not full-retoggling since I can be using that time on additional attacks and my toggle will come back into effect on its own eventually, but after how long should still reflect the actual time being saved as determined by my build.

I appreciate the intent behind this feature, having some method to free up camped names is necessary with the effectively unlimited character creation we have by necessity of being unable to base one's roster size on subscription/slot purchase so that name collecting has an actual expense as it did on Live pre-F2P, but it really ought to just be account login based. If you're playing anything regularly you get to keep your stuff, nice and simple. Activity levels have dropped drastically from when this started, just hitting inactive accounts will probably free up a ton of names. Otherwise people with limited playtime get stuck spending some potentially significant portion of that limited playtime cycling through a roster of they already don't have time to play up to high levels, sitting through loading screen after loading screen just to be sure in case their next playtime doesn't come around for a while.

Tsoo Sorcerers, Rikti Guardians, Prophetesses, and anything "of Sorrow". Sorcerers for the nuisance factor on three fronts as teleporting Hurricaning healers. Guardians, Prophetesses, and Sorrows because they're generally the thing that, if left unchecked in sufficient quantity, will actually lead to my death when I'm running max diff against their groups. With Malta it depends on what build I'm playing - if I'm solo and have a bunch of end drain resist or soft-capped defense, I'll risk letting the Sapper get a shot off in favor of eliminating an Engineer first, just because turret clean-up is a chore. Though Rikti Guardians get a pass when I'm on something with an AoE confuse, because flying through Boreas picking up a couple bonus AMs from every spawn is a hoot.

Regeneration & Force Field. Only thing I think they both really need to be back up to snuff with their peers is something that provides an offensive benefit, as that's the main way I feel they've been left behind - they're both great at the things they're meant to do, that are central to their concept, but there are just so many alternatives, ones that provide +damage, +recharge, or debuffs or control tools while also meeting or exceeding their standards of survivability, that the classics have become a real hard sell.

I rather like this AT concept just because if it existed, I think it would actually shore up the Mastermind's "class identity" rather than detract from it. The Mastermind's Support secondary means it doesn't just empower its minions, it enhances its whole team's performance, treating other players as additional minions in a way. The Commander would provide a nice contrast to that with a focus on individual offense (I like the set-up of Assault Primary/Pets Secondary with the attacks in the pet sets changed to thematically appropriate defensives), and conceptually fits the different pet-centric role of lieutenant/elite henchman/squad leader that Mastermind isn't that good a fit for. The only thing I would want not to be overlooked is having Assault options that mesh with the themes of the pet sets, which could be a good bit of extra work since most MM attacks use weapons, which no current assault sets do (except for Martial, somewhat, which could take the place of archery powers to provide an Assault match to Ninjas).

This seems simple to implement, barring the complication I used to hear that the UI code is in a particularly deplorable state nobody can/wants to work with (this is an old thing I heard, no idea what the state of UI manipulation is in Homecoming). We have statuses already in the form of search comments, we have a friends list. Add a column to the expanded friends list that displays current search comments, done. Until a conventional "status" implementation like that exists though, setting a search comment does provide the same functionality, it's just a matter of educating your friends that the search window is even a thing they can use (I really don't think most players know it is a thing since /lfg makes it pretty obsolete).

I've only got one concern about the snipe changes, which is to recommend their endurance cost be lower when fast sniping. Something that became apparent really quickly on my corruptor when I first rebuilt them for fast snipes is that having a snipe in your normal attack chain is brutal on your endurance, which might come as a nasty surprise to everyone who'll now have their snipe ready for instant fire from the moment they pick it up (admittedly it won't be a huge impact until they've slotted up their recharge). If the end cost can be scaled to match the damage changes, that might be more forgiving.

The movement debuff is a pretty minor inconvenience that suits the power concept of just...moving stealthily (though in fairness the character with it I've played the most is SR and has Quickness to offset it). Why not remove Stealth's suppression of half its Defense bonus in combat instead? I imagine there's a concern about having too much Defense available but builds are still limited to 4 pools, one of which almost always goes to Speed for Hasten anyway. Having one more option for a small but consistent chunk of Def alongside CJ, Hover, Weave, or Maneuvers would increase build flexibility, give people more room to build for concept while chasing mechanical performance. Though, wording question about the Invisibility change: does 'most of your Defense will suppress' mean it'll suppress your overall Defense when you attack with Invisibility on, or just most of the Defense granted by Invisibility itself? If it's just the latter and some of it remains in effect on top of whatever else you have, then that could make Concealment a viable contender for build space anyway, albeit at the cost of an extra power pick, especially if the unsuppressed value falls between CJ's (1 power pick) and Weave's (3 picks).

Name policy's goofy, but better than nothing. It's the 1000 slots that enables hoarding and making people sit through a few load screens a month to keep their camps isn't that much of a deterrence. Just drop the cap down to 50 so camping a name actually takes up some of a limited resource and make +1 character slots a reward for level 50 and/or purchasable for several hundred merits.

Excelsior seemed more fitting to me, being named in tribute to a storyteller (and doubling as a reference to an in-lore drug), but I'm also just fine only using it to make a bunch of "Stan Lee Presents" over-alliterated AU versions of my characters.

We might have a lot to talk about! I played the Androgyne - we actually met once on a PuG around the launch of Issue 10 and chatted about the possibility of bringing the character into Nation way back then, funnily enough. The timing never quite worked out, but the character still wound up there the long way: after a Vanguard-aided reform and years spent blueside, RP brought em into contact with remnants of Nation in 2011. Androgyne spent the last year of the game stirring the movement from dormancy, rehabilitating its reputation, and recruiting new and old blood, before formally assuming the role of Exarch the day after the shutdown announcement. Nation ended the game on a high note by squeaking into a non-state observer seat at the U.N. General Assembly, and a bunch of us have kept some measure of Nation's Virtue continuity going via forums and IMs over the years, as well as a short-lived reboot in Champions.

3 would be more than a little extreme, but maybe 36 or 48? I think one of those was the maximum you could buy up to before shutdown. Something reasonably generous but still restrictive enough to discourage people from wasting their limited amount of slots on inconveniencing others.

I SEE PEOPLE I KIND OF KNOW. @AlwaysAPrice on live, just @Ani here for now, primarily of the League of Misfits, the Reciprocators, and Nation. Helped admin VirtueVerse (...I should really look into where that's gone...) and had lots of fun with Virtue's swarm of IC Formspringers, who I see some of here (DBF!).

Seeing "Slots Used: 0/1000" on the select screen maybe made me drool a little, but if the character cap isn't lowered SIGNIFICANTLY for the "live" launch (if this isn't it) a lot of names are probably going to end up taken out of circulation by collectors and trolls.