Adeon Hawkwood

Additionally MMs have a steeper learning curve and Controllers solo poorly at low levels so locking them out decreases the chance of a new person coming in, rolling one (because they sound cool) and consequently having a poor initial experience.

I can see a few reasons for doing it the way they are.

The BIG one is a desire to avoid encouraging a F2P/VIP segregation. Free to play players are more likely to stay and become subscribers if they feel that there is already a decent community of subscribers. If the devs set up separate F2P servers those servers will end up populated primarily by F2P players since VIP players are unlikely to actively transfer over. This in turn makes it harder to retain F2P players since it gives the impression that the game is primarily populated by non-subscribers.

Setting up a separate VIP Server is a way to provide an exclusive playground for those who desire such a thing but requiring VIPers to actively transfer to it in turn helps encourage VIPers to stay on their own servers. This helps to encourage F2Pers to integrate into the community instead of feeling like second class citizens and, as such, they are more likely to subscribe/spend money.

No matter what decision Paragon makes with regard to server access for F2Pers they are going to end up upsetting some portion of their player base. Given that I think the decision they have made is probably the best option from a business point of view.

Don't worry, current subscriptions will get automatically converted to a VIP Subscription in the new model.

It either doesn't increase it at all or only increases it for the duration of the power boost. I can't recall which be either way it isn't really useful.

Not at all, I'm in a similar situation. I've leveled a Tanker and a Scrapper to 50 just to test them out but at the end of the day the conclusion I reached is that I really do not enjoy melee ATs. For the ranged ATs I enjoy them all to various degrees.

This is slightly misleading. While the Hellfire Gargoyle (second LT pet) does have some resistance debuffs it's primary usage is really AoE damage. The true debuffer in DS is the Demon Prince who provides decent control (ST hold and AoE sleep) alongside some pretty useful recharge debuffs.

I know, it's really weird isn't it?

Freedom and Virtue (the two yellow servers) are more heavily populated which does make it easier to get a team. However, it is still reasonably easy to find teams even on the low population server, especially f you use global channels (check the server specific forum for details on what global channels are used there).

Not really. It's pretty hard to completely screw up a character and even if you do you can always respec him to fix it. If you need advice on a specific power set combo someone on the forums can probably give you a quick list of which powers you want and which you can skip.

Well the big new end game thing is the incarnate system which allows you to accquire new powers beyond what a regular level 50 has. Ina ddition you can spend time and effort equipping your character with Invention Origin enhancements if you want (basically gear). If that doesn't appeal you can use supersidekicking to exemplar down and run lower level content (either with a normal team or using the flashback system to run story arcs). And of course there's always the old standby of shelving you high level characters and starting new characters to try different power sets.

In some ways that probably would be a better option (like the Stealth procs). However, I think it's a bit late to make that change now unless it is determined that it's a major balance issue.

That is a fair point which I didn't consider, however I don't think it's a major concern. As you noted the majority of the pet sets aren't particularly good (in terms of set bonuses) anyway although Blood Mandate and Sovereign Right have decent defense bonuses.

6-Slotting a RIP set (for defense and recharge) is probably not a good option for a MM since those sets don't ED cap damage anyway. Four slotting a set is more useful so a side effect would be to allow a MM access to 3 more 6.25% recharge bonuses. That is a buff, but probably not a game-breaking one.

But Sunstorm is in Atlas Park, not Galaxy City.

That is a large part of it (especially for level 50 salvage). Other aspects include the market merge (villains generate more low level arcane salvage than heroes) and the AE (which served to normalize to costs of rare salvage).

Ok, through the magic of the auto level bump on the beta server I decided to test it. It turns out that the ext I was remembering is from the trainer at level 40:

Actually it's literally impossible to get it perma (doing so takes 456% recharge and recharge caps at 400%). Having perma-hasten gets you about 50% uptime.

Heal Other is a better emergency power to help a teammate who got hit by a spike. However, unless something else is done to slow/stop the incoming damage it's very hard to heal them fast enough to save them in the long run. Healing Aura, on the other hand is a good power for topping up the entire team and keeping things moving. Both powers are useful and whichever you take you will at times wish you had the other but I would rate Healing Aura slightly higher in general play. For one thing it helps keep you alive, having Heal Other does nothing for your teammates if you are defeated.

I'm sorry you had a bad experience . Unfortunately there are always going to be jerks in game, the best option is to ignore them and try to find better players.

As for being afraid of 1-starring people, why? The nice thing about player notes and ratings is that you're the only person who sees them. 1-starring a lot of people isn't going to cause you any problems from other players (since they won't know) and you can still team with them if you want. A low star rating basically serves to remind you that you've teamed with that person before and had a sub-optimal experience.

Let the rampant speculation begin! What nefarious reason do the devs have for not doing a name purge at this time? Was Positron locked out of his account by the updated security system leading him to block a name purge while he tries to find his original CD key before his characters all lose their names? Is War Witch using the lack of a name purge to camp the name "Lady Godiva" in expectation of the release of animated hair in Issue 23?

See, my first thought was that it was some new form of Rick Rolling.