AmazingMOO

As someone with a 50 Elec/Elec Brute, I'm actually pretty happy to hear about the Conserve Power -> Energize change, regardless of when the power actually lands in a build order.

Electric Brutes have the odd problem of being able to resist a lot of damage just fine, but then having no way to regen the sliver of damage they do take. In any kind of group situation, that damage adds up quickly, challenging even strong healing teammates.

Willpower makes Electric look so weak by comparison, that it's hard to justify taking Electric armor. Despite having Conserve Power and Power Sink to make wasting a slot on Stamina look silly, many electrics feel that they HAVE to take a self heal of some kind, either Aid Self from the medicine pool, and/or slot the ever-loving tar out of Health.

I personally have opted for a hybrid approach-- I've got said affectionate petroleum slotted in Aid Self, such as a Numina's unique to boost my regeneration rate. I chew on my tricorder as often as I can to keep myself healthy.

With the change coming to 'Energize', I may well be able to consider dropping medicine. Although I'm pretty used to it by now and try to use my heal abilities between groups, I can definitely consider changing my slotting so that my regeneration bonuses apply to the uninterpretable Energize rather than Aid Self.

Any firm data yet on how this will affect TFs, Posi?

In particular, if I take a level 35 to Cimerora and group him with a team of 50s for Imperious' Taskforce, will he join at 35, 46, or 49?

Other than that, good on ya and the devs. This sounds like a really worthwhile fix!

-- Edit --

Eh, I have no complaints about leveling speed these days. All my characters get two macro buttons upon creation now:

/macro NoXP "optionset noxp 1"

/macro XP "optionset noxp 0"

Besides TFs and since the old exemp feature is still in game, my only real concerns are about how certain characters will perform against different enemies. Cimerorans are fantastically more difficult than any other meleers in the game. Carnies will be brutal against a team that has mostly level 15 mez protection

Why?

I've avoided Twitter up until very recently when there appeared to be a lot of real news coming out over it. I'm typically distrustful of 'Web 2.0' tech because so very much of it makes the assumption that:

a) You neither want nor value personal privacy

b) You're willing to run Javascript or take other security risks whilst web browsing

c) You're willing to be tied to an internet connection for things that might not really require them (I'm looking at you, Google Docs)

However, over the last few weeks, I've been reading the devs' Twitter pages simply as I would used to glance at the Dev Digest. I was curious if they were talking about this game or if they had any new information to share.

Twitter is certainly not as 'Web 2.0' as some of the other more intensive websites out there. However, it introduces pretty serious annoyances. I'm not talking about the 160 character limit associated with Twitter posts, although that has some serious implications for the health of the internet.

The first is the the tendency for users to not only not care about their privacy, but assume that others are interested in the boring minutia of their lives. The problem infests not only the 'blogosphere' where discussions of interesting topics have to be winkled out of what are essentially the pages of personal diaries, but also covers Twitter like a fungus. People don't have ROOM to post anything interesting.

The more serious problem, and the one that annoys me most, is that Twitter obliterates one of the most useful features of the internet: Context. It's full of replies to statements that are meaningless to individuals who aren't part of the conversation. For example, one of Positron's latest posts reads:

Not badges I'd like to have, but badges that I literally dreamed I saw in the 'Badge' window:

"Meteor Fist"

This is apparently for intercepting an incoming meteor and tossing it away or back into space.


"Meteor Masher"

This is for attacking already landed meteors and crushing them up until they're the consistency of guacamole. Purple guacamole for some reason. (While I was mashing up said meteor, another player came up and commented on how they thought badging was stupid.)


"Moon Mouse Catcher" and "Moon Cat"

No clue on these, although they were in the defeat tab. They scrolled past too fast for me to read. I think I may be anticipating a space-themed issues. The icons were a piece of cheese on a blue and green backgrounds, respectively.


"QFXDD1STNX|"

Like many dreamers, symbols tend to change shape on me while I attempt to read them. The description for this one was "Defeat 100 Rampaging Gang Members" before it changed shape as well.

I just got all my defense powers zoning from Pocket D to PO and then Pocket D to Sharkshead. Maybe it's Pocket D specific this time?

Quoth Posi on Power Customization over at MMORPG.com

Here's a good example image showing why we NEED the ability to select a direct RGB value for costume tinting.

This character is using the 'Desire' top with 'Sleeve' wrists and the 'Disco' bottom with 'Heel 2' boots. The model's skin is a mid-range tan color, and all costume pieces are tinted with the same top-right white color in the pallette.

Note the color discontinuity between the 'Desire' and 'Sleeve' and 'Disco' and 'Heel 2'. The 'Tops with Skin' and 'Bottoms with Skin' options are slightly blended with skin color whereas the the boots and sleeves are not. It's distracting and takes away from the costume.

This could be corrected, or at least matched more closely with a better color picker.

This is an artifact of the new testing restriction. Since the new issues centers almost entirely on the character creator, they're apparently not allowing non-beta users to log in.

Before I begin, please note that I am not in i16 beta. My feedback is based entirely what I've seen from publicly-released screenshots and photos from sources such as Soulie's great post which links to photos taken at Comiccon.

Breadcrumb Bar: This bar apparently allows players to navigate back and forth between the different stages of character creation so that they can adjust all aspects of their character's appearance and build before committing to character creation. It's somewhat reminiscent of the various screenshots we've all seen from the alpha character creator. This is a positive change, but there are a few glaring problems.

First off, the bar itself looks pretty ugly. It's too large and rendered in the Red Circle font which is ubiquitous on the character creation screen, but then disappears from the game. The names of the various functions squish together, and are in a slightly difficult-to-read font. It could used to be resized and separated in a more readable and visually appealing function. It's not entirely necessary to get rid of 'Red Circle', but I recommend going to a less decorative font.

They also apparently don't have any attached description of what they do for novice players. We all know what 'Origin & Archetype' refer to, but players who've only ever done fantasy RPGs are going to be looking for options like 'Race', 'Religion', or 'Class'. Popup tool tips containing short versions of the text found on the existing 'Create your Hero' or 'Create your Villain' screen would go a long ways towards helping clarify that menu.

Incidentally, the current long help for 'Origin' reads, "Origin determines what types of Enhancements your character can use and what villain groups they will face the most." That's fairly outdated, and could use to be modernized. I recommend something like "Origin determines which kind of non-crafted enhancements your character may use as well as suitability to temporary powers."


Screen names are confusing and oddly ordered: We see "Origin & Archetype", "Primary Sets", "Secondary Sets", "Body", "Costume", "Powers", and "Register".

A novice might be confused when he selects his powers in 'Primary' and 'Secondary', then builds his costume, and then builds his power visuals under 'Powers'.

I recommend renaming them in a more intuitive manner. I suggest the following:
"Archetype & Origin", "Primary Power Set", "Secondary Power Set", "Body", "Costume", "Power Visuals", and "Register Name & Bio"


The 'Check Name' button should appear on some form in most if not all of the character creation screens. At the very least, the Name and Bio screen needs to be revamped so that it allows for a non-commit version of the name check.


Same old dreary blue (or red) backgrounds: These backgrounds, frankly, suck for designing a character against. They will suck even moreso when trying to determine which colors look best for power effects.

We've SEEN screenshots that show that code exists to place different lighting effects over and backgrounds behind characters. These are mostly in dev tools, I think, but we could really use at least a basic version of these in the character creator. 'Indoor Bright', 'Indoor Dark', 'Outdoor Day', and 'Outdoor Night' would be highly useful. Letting us select from 'Cave', 'Office', and 'Lab' would also be highly regarded.


Lists should be top-aligned rather than center-aligned: It seems like this would not only look more appealing, but make scrolling and spacing more intuitive.


Show 'Detailed Info' should display a pop-up rather than replace the contents of another container: This has always felt rather tacky to me, but it's a sign of a redesigned-in-use interface. Since the whole thing is being revamped, it seems like the button should be moved to a more intuitive place, such as next to the power in question, and a moveable, closeable pop-up should appear.


Color choice is too limited: It seems like the primary reason for this is social rather than technical, since previous experiments have shown that the engine will support any RGB color tinting costume textures. I assume that the same is true of power textures. The limits imposed have been done so precisely for that reason, to limit the player's ability to make costumes that would be troublesome for support staff to deal with.

I've always felt like this is rather a slight to the player community, but I've also seen horrible abuses come out of the costume creator anyway. New and uncommitted players do stupid things.

My suggestion is to allow 2 year+ veterans the ability to access an 'advanced' color picker, with the option to type in RGB values directly. This would allow veterans who are a bit more protective of their accounts do to things like match the colors of the 'Wedding' tops to regular bottoms, and vice versa.

Constructive thoughts on anti-RMT features:

- Flag large inf transactions for GM review and/or statistical analysis.

- Flag inf transactions made from asian IP addresses.

(Combining the above two would give you a relatively high hit-rate to train a Bayesian-type statistical analysis filter)

- Publicly ban some known offenders ala Rikti-doll 1-50 exploiters.

- Prohibit logins from known spammer IP addresses collected from other methods and reports.

-

I was grouping with a friend doing newpaper missions in Cap au Diable yesterday evening. She was trying to keep the team full, and there was a lot of chatter in the zone, so she sends a broadcast message like this once after every mission:

"Level 18 NON-AE mission team looking for 3 more"

We got a few and lost a few as is the way of running PUGs.

Then one really sensitive and caring individual sent her a tell:

"r u running a farm?"

She replied, "No, we're running newspaper missions."

"Then NO TEAM!"

The simple fury of the rebuke stunned us all.

Why not share your 'Worst of DXP Weekend' moments?

Mr. Id, a level 40 Dark/SS tanker
The Underfiend, a level 20 SS/WP brute
The Electric Hamster, a 50 Elec/Elec brute is indeed a humanized rodent with lightning powers

The Star Sisters, children of Dr. Larry Star and his wife Veronica:
Holly Star, 50 Energy/Energy/Force
Ivy Star, 50 Elec/Elec/Elec
Star Whisper (Formerly known as Simon Star before she started her course of antiandrogens), 50 Earth/Storm/Fire

The youngest daughter, Chrysanthemum Star, is a powerful precog, but is still an infant.

Twilight Racoon is a 25ish Dark/Ninja stalker, and a member of the Racoon Clan of ninjas.

Wow, entirely different meaning of the 'Purple Club', even when used in MMO context.

Once upon a time, I played a different game with the initials 'E' and 'Q' made by a large multinational electronics conglomerate that begins with 'So', ends with 'ny' and somehow manages to conceal 'Greedyunethicalprofiteeringmobsters' in the name.

Anyway, in this game, there was a very, very small buffer of 'unconscious' hitpoints, that occurred when you lost all your regular hitpoints. Most people never noticed their hitpoint bar turn purple, especially as they leveled past the area where they could measure hitpoints on two hands. If an enemy over level 2 hit you hard enough to defeat you, they almost certainly tore right past this 5 hp barrier into 'LOADING, PLEASE WAIT...' territory.

However, there were certain clerics and other healers who started keeping lists of people they'd healed who had 'near death' experiences. They fell down, apparently dead, but stood right back up again as they were inducted into 'Club Purple'.

A few cruel souls even made a game of it and let their tank types know in advance that they were going to try to induct them into the 'Purple Club'.

During a zombie invasion team in the hollows this evening, I had a level 40 and a level 50 both report they weren't getting experience on a team with low level players. The zombies did not appear to be scaling correctly.

Hi, english-speaking Euro-types! And you other Euro-types who don't speak English, but can figure out what I'm saying anyway.

I was helping a relatively new player who was leveling via AE in Mercy. He was level 20 and was complaining that the AE ticket vendor wouldn't sell him an End Mod DO. I verified his findings at the Mercy and Cap AE vendors. Every other DO is sold except End Mods.

Disclosure: I group with Bayani fairly frequently. I have, however, taunted him by saying that Escrima is the not-so-ancient Filipino art of hitting people with sticks.

'Pagkagising ng Kaluluwa' is a fun, exciting arc with a lot of story, some great mechanics, and truly inventive martial-artist enemies. Each of the enemies, named in Filipino, have a detailed description and varied abilities. The story is involving, asking you to retrace steps of a famous martial artist, involving you in a fight against organized crime in Manila at the same time.

I've done the arc twice so far, once solo with a MA/Regen scrapper and then again in a group of four, with a stone tank, two blasters, and myself as a BS/WP scrapper. In both cases it was challenging and exciting without being overwhelming.

This arc TRULY deserves the five stars I gave it. I encourage others to seek it out and play through it.

Issue 16 is going to have a revamped character creator, yes?

In the process of creating this character creator, can you guys PLEASE make the effort to separate hats and hair meshes?

(I went to go design a new costume today for my fire/psi blaster and discovered a) The Renegade hat is not available for female models and b) There are no default wide-brimmed hats for the female model that do not include at least shoulder-length hair.)

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He's now level 15 from the crazy XP that rolls from invasions

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The XP in these things never seems to be all that great to me. My level 14 character got 1.5 to 2 bars from one today (well, technically yestreday now). And in that time could've done a mission solo for more XP.

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It's relatively good exp until about level 20 or so simply due to the fact that you've got a great deal of bosses and lieutenants mixed in where you'd only be fighting mostly minions at that level. After 20, it drops off sharply compared to doing missions.

I wish I'd thought to grab screenies, but I was too busy chasing them around.

I personally felt really bad about it because I told everyone to gather at Castle in broadcast without knowing about the new drones. After mine and Shadow_Fire's team bapped about 6-7 heavies in a row, everyone else came out to join us.

I personally really enjoy them, especially when you have right at about 2 groups. With that many, it's a challenge to fight all the Rikti that come in without being a slideshow.