Afterimage

Well, yeah, of course red side doesn't send you running off to all sorts of zones. Red side only has seven zones, plus shared pvp and cooperative zones. Blue side has over 20 zones.

Both red and blue send you to the first two PVP zones, neither sends you to the third.

The police radios blue side and the newspapers red side work the same way. You can't use them until you speak to your first detective/broker. After that you only have to speak to them to get a Safeguard or Mayhem mission. The only real difference is that red side you have to speak to them and win the Mayhem mission in order to get a real contact in a new zone. Blue side this is optional. I find the mandatory Mayhem missions really annoying.

Difficulty levels and the mission to visit the NPC in Kings Row were added before City of Villains came out. They learned something from that. Yes it would be nice not to have to go to Kings Row, but at least they reward you with experience. It would be nice if they dropped that.

I'm agree that the developers should make these kind of quality of life changes, but it requires resources. Someone has to track down the section of code, change it, test it, debug it, test it again. They do make these kinds of changes, recall when they moved a couple of the Kings Row contacts that were in really annoying locations? Its probably on their list, but on low priority.

I don't think that you are right about that. Except for Atlas Park and Galaxy City (I'm beating up Hellions anyway) I quit doing the Security Chief missions a long time ago, and I haven't been locked out of any content whatsoever. They are not mandatory.

If you aren't being offered a story arc mission, it means that either the contact doesn't have a story arc mission for you; or that contact doesn't want to offer his story arc to you until you have improved relations with him or her; or it means you already have the maximum number of story arcs open.

If you don't want to do the Security Chief mission, then do the other mission the contact offers. Every contact has non-story arc missions in addition to story arc missions. Of course if you don't like the contacts non-story arc missions, you are screwed. But that has nothing to do with the Security Chief missions. Sometimes a contact will offer up two of his or her non story arc missions, even if there is no Security Chief mission up.

I think that you are making a mountain out of a molehill. All you had to do was not pick a contact at the far end of Independence Port if you didn't want to make a long series of trips, for whatever missions, until the contact was willing to give you his call button.

Now if wanted to ask the developers to change something, it would be for them to give me the contact's call button when I get the contact's name. This is the twenty-first century, not the eighteenth century. I don't need face to face with someone, I need a mobile phone number.

Your level 15 contacts will send you to Faultline and the PVP recruiter. The PVP recruiter sits at the same end of Skyway City as the door to Faultline. Plan ahead. Pick two contacts in Skyway City, visit them one after the other, complete the missions, no muss no fuss. Bang you are done.

The level 20 contacts send you to Striga, and a PVP recruiter in Steel Canyon. No way to lump these two together, but you can minimize the pain by taking missions from contacts in Talos Island instead of Independence Port.

As someone else has already pointed out, these missions have a purpose. It is to direct new players to zones that aren't accessible from the train stations, once they are of an appropriate level to play in those zones. Just because you are already familiar with those zones does not mean that the missions should be removed.

The Security Chiefs are completely optional, you never have to take their missions, and not taking their missions won't block you from any other missions. If you contact only gives you Security Chief missions, then he or she is out of other missions.

The developers are well aware that experienced players are tired of the old content. That's one of the reasons behind Mission Architect, and why they have twice increased the rate at which players level in the lower levels. Once with experience smoothing, and once by giving more experience for levels 5-25.

I've no love for Claws either. I think that is why I haven't been able to level a Widow to 24 yet.

Sooner would be better.

You are right about that. I was responding to your comments without the context of the comment you were responding to. Still I think you are too vehement in your dismissal of the HEATs. I was in large part responding to your tone.

I do agree that HEATs are middle of the road. They are neither awesomely bad nor awesomely powerful. Frankly, that doesn't 'feel like fail' to me. That feels like the right place to be.

Where are Defenders in that picture? Controllers can do anything a Defender can do. Not as well, but well enough that a Defender is redundant if you have a Controller. Once Going Rogue goes live, Defenders will be doubly redundant, as Corrupters will be crossing over with the same power sets and more damage.

For that matter where do Scrappers fit in that picture? A Blaster and a Tanker is better than two Scrappers if you are leveraging AOE damage and aggro management. A team composed of one Tanker, multiple blasters and controllers will cover every required role. Aggro management, damage dealing, control, buffing, debuffing and healing. I have even seen some people put forth the argument that Tankers aren't needed either, since Controllers can completely lock down a spawn.

I'm not trying to disrespect Defenders or Scrappers. I'm trying to show that your analysis is biased against the HEATs. If you are going to treat archetypes as nothing but cogs in a combat machine, then pare out HEATS, Defenders and Scrappers. They might bring something to a team, but they aren't needed. I'm not necessarily refuting your argument, but I disagree with your conclusion, because you specify only the HEATs as being unneeded.

The original hero archetypes were designed to be parts of a whole. Tankers, Defenders and Controllers were all designed to do low damage, so that they would be discouraged from soloing. Blasters were given no defenses and low hit points for the same reason. Scrappers were the only AT designed for soloing, an acknowledgment that some people want to solo in an MMO.

HEATS were introduced early, and followed the same team design concept. Since all roles were already taken, they were made to be the generalists of a City of Specialists.

The current developers have abandoned that design philosophy and have buffed several of these ATs. They encourage teaming, but don't try to force players into teams. They have shied away from complete redesigns, preferring to tweak the existing designs. They aren't likely to go back to that design philosophy, to create an artificial role for the HEATs.

The VEATs on the other hand were designed recently. The VEATs were designed to augment a team, to encourage teaming, rather than be buffed up by a team, as a penalty for not teaming. And all Villain ATs were designed to be more independent than most Hero ATs.

Some players cling to that system of reducing ATs to cogs in a combat machine. It is undeniably efficient. I find it boring. I'm glad that I can solo my blasters, or find a team. Likewise I'm happy that my Tankers can scrap or taunt.

A team can play and have fun with any players, or they can focus on efficiency and spend the extra time and effort to build the most efficient specialist team.

I like my HEATs more than I like my VEATs. I won't try to justify my preference with any arguments that the HEATS are better. I just like them better. I'm well aware a specialist can outperform a generalist in the specialists' specialty. But sometimes I prefer to play generalist.

It doesn't look to me like she was implying anything. She stated a fact. Her use of the word 'you' wasn't directed at you, it was directed at the anonymous person who gave her the negative reputation. In fact her usage of the words 'somebody' and 'you' neatly avoids using gender specific pronouns. She could have said 'she gave me a negative reputation', but that would have implied that she knew that the gender of the person was female.

By the way, what is this 'reputation' stuff good for? If you get enough can you trade it in for something good? If you lose enough, do they take something away? I never noticed it until the last couple of days.

I forgot about glowies that grant temporary powers. They are pretty rare. Still, most of the time, clicking on a glowie does not help or harm. The original poster didn't specify such glowies, so I still assume that he meant any glowie, not just a glowie that grants the clicker a reward.

There are no standards of behaviour that determine 'team etiquette'. Every person who responded to the OP, has slightly different opinions about courtesy, politeness and etiquette. And until a 'Miss Manners' steps forward to write such a guide, and gets the majority of the players to adhere to it, people are going to disagree about what is 'team etiquette'.

IMO, the best way to handle these kinds of situations is through communication. Talk to your teammates before a conflict occurs. Don't assume that anyone looks at things the same way that you do.

Yes it is your misconception.

Without some kind of etiquette guide, there are no standards of behaviour to follow with regards to the items you brought up. Each person approaches such a situation with his own preconceptions and experiences. There is no right or wrong where there is no help nor harm.

With the exception of farm missions which are never completed, it does not matter who clicks on glowing items. The mission owner is not injured by another player clicking on a glowie. The mission owner may have a perception that it the glowie is its personal property, and that by clicking on the glowie, the other player has somehow robbed it. But if the other player doesn't share the perception that a glowie is property, it has no idea that the mission owner would be offended.





(BTW, English has a neutral pronoun: it. It is usually not used to refer to a person but to a thing. But we can change that if we like. This is conversation, not a grammar class.)

HEATS - Designed very early in the game, by designers who expected them to always group. They have an inherent ability that buffs them, but only works in a group. They originally had a group of arch enemies whose weapons did triple damage, unresistable damage, and included both stun and knockdown status effects. (This has been toned down somewhat.) They were designed to fit the tanker role in Dwarf form, the blaster role in Nova form and in human form, a scrapper/defender role (Peacebringer) or a scrapper/controller role (Warshade). Jack of all trades and master of none. They can fill out any gaps a team may have.

VEATS - Designed much later in the game, by designers who expected them to be played solo, as well as on teams. Instead of being buffed by a team, they can buff the team.

HEATS have a well written series of story arcs, with a new one every five levels. These story arcs serve to give HEATS an interesting history. VEATS have a not very interesting series of missions that don't really do much more than justify inserting them into the Project Destiny story arc in Grandville.

I don't think that HEATS were intended to be a challenge to play. I think that they were intended to make teaming more interesting. I think that failed, as people prefer to team with specialists, and there is no shortage of specialists hero side. So HEATS solo more than intended, and that became a challenge. And the only people who maintain interest in the HEATS are those who enjoy the challenge. And VEATS are not as challenging to play, as they are very powerful. Some of those people who enjoy the challenge of HEATS, seem to find the VEATS rather dull in comparison.

All Peacocks are male. The females are Peahens. If you remove the 'Pea' from the name, you get the traditional fowl genders. However don't try this on the forums or you will be bitten by the foul language filters.

Anyway, one more vote for Clamor. I find a lady with an interest in recreational surgery, fascinating.

Just summon Singularity in the middle of a group of foes if you want him to tank for you. He starts out with aggro, so he doesn't need to steal it. Pick out the one you want to defeat, slap that one in a gravity distortion field, then launch Propel.

Personally, I only did that with Elite Bosses. Most of the time its simpler just to use Wormhole to stun, and whack 'em before they come out of it. But I was playing a Dominator, not a Controller, it may take longer with a Controller.