Mezmera

The most identifiable player handicap feature of Relentless is the removal of inspiration use other than rez ones. Surely the devs identified a big over performer. Relentless comes with this standard handicap which you get much higher increased rewards from doing a Relentless settings run. You can force handicap yourself in other legacy SF's by selecting no inspiration use but you don't see any increased reward from doing that. There's been a congruent return to desire support in teams with this setting which seems to address one issue of support becoming meaningless. Sure looks to me like they are trying to give higher options with great rewards for attempting this type of play which would be steering. I could care less what someone does with their time or that they feel they achieved something special through abusing the email system to get damage equal to having two kins on their team along with two cold shield buffers and two sonic shield buffers. Having an unending supply of damage, defense and resistance does come off as a tad cheap. Again don't nerf it, let people do with their time what they wish, but for future content don't be upset Relentless style is the way forward. I agree though with @Bill Z Bubba's sarcasm, with your thinking there's absolutely no reason not to have an instantaneous nuke all in map power.

My main is a Mind/Nrg dom. We know perma doms can solo the LRSF easy thanks to stealth/ST confuse where I won't even need inspirations. Just sit there and spam confuse until there's one target left, seems pretty mindless to me. There's nothing to prove doing this other than you have the extra free time and choose this for your activity for the day. Having an unending supply of inspirations makes it so you don't have to leave the map to grab more in which time the target you need all of this for has likely regenerated. There's nothing particularly difficult about it other than knowing how to email yourself stuff and in an order that makes sense to you. No complaints though just pointing out that it's just pretty cheap tactics to get an unending supply of buffs that even a team of 8 wouldn't all be able to provide. Which it seems like the devs agree with hence the Relentless settings for their future content.

Ah well yeah certain toggles canceled the other yes like flight over hover. That's a nice little add-on to the detoggling quirks.

Not so sure people are as concerned about inspiration usage in of itself. If you achieve something with the inspiration tray at its max using just what is in there good on you. But the tutorial doesn't mention you can abuse the system by having an infinite amount of inspirations available at your disposal through emails. Even the villain tutorial doesn't mention this and they would seem to be the craftier ones to point this out. I do think it's a little cheap but hey if you got the time to want to do all of that cool for you. I'm on the fence about email inspirations, I don't feel they should change things retroactively but I do like the limitation for future content i.e. Relentless Aeon.

This was done on Live. And yes this and inherent fitness were some of the best QoL changes implemented from the old crew.

I've enjoyed the revamp to all of the energy powers but I'll have to say this latest release is my favorite so far. With the new Aeon SF and all of the new mechanics it really feels like the game is moving forward. Even though there's little else in the latest release that interested me the SF alone stands out as a great achievement, not to say all the other stuff added isn't good it just doesn't interest me but I've already gotten most of the powers that I've wanted, so I still see all of the extra stuff they were able to add onto the last update as so much icing on the cake for everyone. Definitely this latest release. It sets the bar for future releases going forward and gives my energy characters more to do.

I'll have to agree on this one. I was running a relentless Aeon for the special Vanguard fight like normal and it went really well for the whole team in general. We had most of the usual things for it but it felt different and I never had the pleasure of having a TA/DP defender on the run. The next day I went and created one and looked at all of the possible stats it brings to a fight and man no wonder the team did so well that thing is a debuffing machine. Between my tanks capped resists/defense and that TA/DP's -dmg my tank hardly felt a tickle in this fight. I went ahead and made this my first defender and I am not disappointed. It is a very busy set but really powerful and quite a blast to play.

Your HUD would make Iron Man jealous. Then again maybe not since he'd understand there's some necessity in actually seeing your target...

I don't want to see this become an industrialized game again. But I'd like to see the people working on this to see some industrial standard gaming compensation beyond the donation ceiling and "pat on the back", along with being able to be recognized for it by having it be allowed to officially be on their resume.

I'm much happier with allowing this to stay in the hands of people that cared enough about the game to learn the inner workings of the game on their own time to sustain its life and to be able to create such great new stuff. No to another commercial venture. Yes to being able to see these volunteers being more recognized and well compensated. And may all of the other offshoots thrive as well.

I will only do this with a few characters I really like. My dom and tank have 3 builds. My dom I take more serious so I have a teaming build with leadership that also exemps well so that I have perma dom at 25, I have a second build with Mass Hypnosis and Patron pets for soloing and if the team needs the mass sleep and my last build for my main high level content. My tank has a main tank everything build, a damage build and then a for fun build which she flies and shoots laser beams outta her eyes. Beyond your main if there's some specific things you'd like to have in your kit but can't fit into the first build then I can see having multiple builds but its rare. If you play the character a lot sure options are always good but the money is usually better placed on a completely different AT entirely so you have that option for your team as well. Multiple build options is great. If ever there were to be a revamp to pvp I'd like to have a 4th build accessible if they can make that happen.

The one I feel most bad about is the last one where your team can't be allowed to get touched by the blue. I get the mechanics of it and all and have this no problem but it really is a hard one for the team to achieve out of all of these badges particularly if you don't congregate with people that badge and communicate well enough. I was up late the other night just goofing off around Aeon and had one of our Korean gamers ask me to help them get that badge. Between the language barrier, the mechanics and having to depend so much on teammates paying attention I felt bad telling them that it's much tougher than just me being able to help, they'll need a team aware of how best to get this one, which would be harder to get people for this so late on a pug. Of all of the badges I'd like to see this one toned down, it can create tension and animosity.

Just be careful what you say. Without that badge if you go insinuating her clothes look a lot smaller on her nowadays she'll rip your soul out right then and there and send your team back through the ripple. Yes choose your wording carefully, when leader has that badge they will pick the bottom text, don't overdo it. Also to get the dummy you'll need to save Hero 1 for last (which would probably naturally happen anyways) and take out Incandescence first she wrecks.

Haha yeah we go way back to the first days of HC. Odd couple playing off of each other for sure. This fight is the only time I wasn't tickled to see his scrapper die knowing we needed all hands on deck.

Yeah it was the first run on the server for that fight which no one on my team knew about that I had to convince them there was let alone most had not even run a relentless run, so I was letting people play their best character they were most comfortable with as long as we could get t4 Barriers and some good debuffing. I was on my tank, we didn't have my dom since my tank was the one with the Mo Aeon badge at the time. I'd have loved to use my dom on that run it was a pain listening to one of my friends ask 'are we there yet', which he was the scrapper always ruining the badge runs for my dom. Thankfully they changed that ripple no death badge. The dom with all the aggro control makes the whole sf go much faster and smoother, just not most optimal for this particular fight, not terrible but I just have to stick to my role here, where a controller brings buff/debuff. There's lots of viable combinations. I don't doubt a PB can hang in there. The devs did a smashing job to make it feel like whatever your favorite character is as long as it's well built and well played can be a very viable option.

If you let Gaussian get going with summoning boss Vanguard pet after pet without clearing any of them they start to make a big difference. Some of those bosses heal people. Which is where it's good to have one monumentally good control teammate to turn those pets to your side or hold them off if you're not killing them quick enough. Dark Watcher is a pain as well in this fight with those illusion pets. Sometimes how the fight is going and team composition dictates the target sequence after Incandescence goes down. Generally after Incan I like to get Lady Grey and Dark Watcher put to bed that way all of the debuffs we have stacked on the rest of the team seems to pay out. I like Corrs and Defenders for this because of the values they bring along with scourge but I do like a few great blasters who can rev the engine until scourge kicks in for the others. My Mind dom for Aeon overall is great but yeah you can't sleep them and when I use her in this fight I'm usually the only control so I focus on doing that and spam my aoe controls especially on Gaussian's pets. Dom's are mini blasters with good ST damage but you have to risk melee on some to get the full worth out of what they can bring, it's the only time I will bob and weave in and out of melee with my dom, that Excalibur hurts! It doesn't look like you had too divergent of a team makeup between the different times so like @Cobalt Arachne is alluding to it could come down to bad luck and letting Gaussian get out of hand. The fight is hard and I'm glad for this challenge, neat side addition.

Yes it is very much layered. First and foremost on the tougher difficulties you want to get as much survivability as you can no matter if you're the lead tank or follow along melee. There's much more aggro than the tank can entertain so it's good to have a survivable character yourself. With my Shield tank I take One With the Shield and the melee resist hybrid so that I have extra resistance in reserve so if they ever go debuffing my resist it generally stays near the resistance cap for everything. Shield tanks have better access to capping their positional defenses but not in the harder difficulties so I took Unleash Potential to get me back over the top in case the team is light on defense buffers and maneuvers plus I have Demonic just in case. The only thing shield doesn't really bring to the party is a heal so I make up for it with Rebirth and Unrelenting. Even with all of this I can only put my heel into the ground for so long if the rest of the team takes a wipe and isn't around to help get rid of targets for a prolonged amount of time. As high of a layered balance you can get is optimal playing to your strengths of the AT while also getting as best damage you can.

That fight is the toughest 8 man endgame fight at the moment, does it not deserve some sort of reward? They could have awarded something as mundane as spoiled milk and people would still complain they are gated and can't add this item to their base fridge. It's a cute little toy that does nothing for those that have a thorough build for such a challenge, I'd much rather get rewarded with more powah since this fight has more appeal to powah gamers. It's a base item that travels with you for when you want to take out your frustrations, like when devs add some seemingly impossible challenge for an item you wanted since issue 1.

And how's this fight not "putting in the work"?

And I'd like all accolade abilities instantly accessible. At least they didn't make it some must have ability that'll boost your abilities in game. Which I'd MUCH rather they tied into this fight since it'd take much less time to do than most other accolades but I understand how gated it may be to others, which is why there's not even a badge tied to it. If you want this pet let me know I'm on Excelsior running Relentless runs and that fight quite a lot. Just talk to EV. Though it'd be preferred if your character can withstand the punishment and can bring a t4 Barrier.

What's stopping people from organizing one themselves and announcing they are looking to run a casual run on lower settings to get a feel for the story? This is new for a lot of people so most will understand the want for a casual run to immerse yourself in all of this new stuff. I've been organizing Vicious runs getting a lot of first timers and people that only ran it on lowest settings. If people were so interested in the new story they'd have done it by now so this seems like a cop out to say it goes by in too much of a blur to understand what is going on when all you have to do is put out that disclaimer to start and its more on the lead to give them the grand tour. When I have some new people to this I make it a point to not go Incandescencing people around at every turn so they can get a feel for how this one runs. We haven't had any new endgame content since the game shut down so I'm not going to begrudge them the want to go a little over the top with setting up more story. Also being able to incorporate new harder challenges for those that want more impactful things to do with their favorite high level character in their full capacity while also still leaving the floor as easy as ever is quite a good accomplishment which I'm looking forward to more of. They are just starting with more stuff to do, sometimes the setup can be a little long winded but it really doesn't seem like much more than what you'd have to ascertain from LRSF and STF when they were introduced. This is the beginning of more endgame stuff to do, I'd bet they've got shorter stuff in the works as well for those wanting Apex style runs.

Agree. If you want the badge I'm certain there's someone else looking or willing to help. Obtainable badges are a way to sway people towards certain activities if they want to show off all of their flair. The creators of all this content wanted you to experience everything they created, even those scary pvp areas. But as a non-badger, unless it's tied to an accolade, I rather do like the idea of all badges being purchasable from Luna. Let us billionaire's earn it the billionaire way. Hardwork, time and effort?! Pfft! Though I'm surprised Amazon hasn't wanted to get in on this yet. Move over @Bloodom and @Kwof 1581 here I come!

Yes Meh Sure I don't take either power but whatever gets the masses to have new shinies to play with sure why not. These shouldn't be so good they are required though, there's enough good stuff already in the set. Yes and/or some kind of self buff. The aoe confuse in Wind Control on other servers gives +endurance. That confuse is broken good too but that extra ability is a nice quirk. Yup Honestly they're just about right, we don't need any one control power becoming as outrageously OP as nukes currently are. Some kind of adjustments for the Controller AT would seem adequate and someone mentioned before that damage formulas on Dom's could be raised, particularly melee.

And that's where we get into the weeds with how harsh you want to go gutting it. That's where I offered earlier that if we don't want to go pissing off a bunch of people completely then maybe adding a self buffing ability to Mass Confusion could be the better alternative along with some nerfing on Seeds. Mass Confusion's recharge and how the power operates on the surface should not be adjusted.

Yes Mind Controllers could use a specific look into because of how little aoe damage opportunity there is with how containment works for them. Bonfire is very much broken with that hax IO. Take that away and your Fire dom has so very little control, then you are getting spiked stupid hard and can't push out that damage. You're handcuffed to how OP one power is when you slot a specific IO. You can take away any one of Mind's aoe controls and you can still adapt to control things while you wail away at the mobs. As for the Seeds suggestion that's just an easy identifiable starting point. Yes the contagious confuse will still dictate that it does well. How narrow you make the cone will have a big impact as well. So 10 is just the starting point. Creepers and Seeds are two of the most OP controls in the game and they are on the same team, the only other really broken control needs a specific IO for.