Agent White

I just use the snipe, usually one shots or almost one shots any white or below peep >>

It's not god awful damage, but it is noticeably lower damage than other ranged sets. It's got some decent AoE attacks though, dropping empty clips and bullet rain onto a mob will hurt them pretty decently so your single target attacks can clean up.

Yeah I hate how they've gated hunting Winter Lords in Paragon and the Rogue Isles and the Ski Chalet and Father Time behind the LFG with those huge team sizes. Must be terrible to not get to play in any kind of Winter event because of being forced to team for it.

Edit: Ok, I will play Devil's Advocate for a moment. So, what is the point of the Winter Lords now if they don't spawn access to Lord Winter's Realm? If they are going to take that function away then I think it SHOULD be replaced with some other reward, even if its just guaranteed candy cane salvage or something. Make it worthwhile to hunt them.

There is a good reason. As has been stated before, Lord Winter is designed to be taken on by the average player with more than 1 team. Yes, specific individuals are capable of taking their min/maxed peeps or incarnates or getting very lucky with just the right team and taking the challenge on with 8 or fewer. Not everyone has tricked out toons (or incarnates) or is that good a veteran player or has such a standard well coordinated team.

The forum has a very vocal minority that can make some impressive arguments based on their own skills and experiences, but they do not, and in fact cannot, speak for the silent majority of players that make up the game, silent both because they do not attend the forums and/or cannot because they're freems/prems and simply don't have access. So it's very easy for threads like this to crop up that are very slanted and biased towards one train of thought because "I could do this" or "my friends and I managed this".

if the minimum team size is 12, then it was designed to have a minimum of 12 average players. They are testing it right now and maybe testing will show that 12 is too high for casual pick up runs and enough testers remarking about it will see it lowered, as well as the difficulty. But it's faulty to assume that the minimum size is high *solely* because they want to gate this behind the Team Up Teleporter function as some means of 'training' people for the Incarnate Trials or whatever. The designers don't simply create the content and just kick it out into beta, they test it themselves and with their own closed beta testers before it ever goes to the 'open' beta the VIP players have access to. Their job is to make sure that the average player jumping into this event (and remember, it's got to be balanced from level 10+) has a decent chance of being able to complete this trial without too many deaths. They have 2 years of data from the past 2 times this event has been run so they can tell exactly how many success and failures were involved with the trial and what size teams were used in each plus whatever data they have from testing it this year before offering it up for the beta.

So I think it's a little presumptuous to just assume they're doing it for arbitrary reasons. But complaining just because "you don't like it" and "it's not how you play" is not really a compelling argument. Nor does "I could do this last year" because not everybody is 'you' and the designers are trying to make it accessible to the guy that just started two weeks ago and just got his new character up to level 12 and wants to try this new winter trial people are talking about. More than likely, the devs found that random pick up games of 8 or so character had more failure than success and that is not their intention.

And if you're really that displeased about it, then get on the Beta, run through some trials and tell the devs first hand. It gives them clear empirical data and proper player feedback about it. There's a system directly revolving around changing things *before* they get out of beta, so put it to use, the iTrial changes show very much the devs can and will listen to player input through testing.

Well, it still is. As I said, all the other content is still available and still in solo/small team form. The raid on Lord Winter's Realm is one small part of the whole Winter Event and one that doesn't even offer any particularly impressive reward. It's not locking content like powers or emotes or costumes, it's only a badge being gated behind a larger than average team requirement and being arguably easier to participate in than last year because the event can now be run at any time so long as there is enough people instead of relying on random chance and either having a team preformed or being able to pull together people in the allotted time.

Really, if you miss out on the trial, it's... really just an experience you're missing out on. Now, if there were some specific reward that you could not get any other way then I could see feeling so strongly for it. As it is, it's pretty negligible.

I also have to wonder how many people have actually run it on the Beta and how many are just doign knee jerk reactions. I'd rather see people that have tested it weigh in instead of people that just don't like the idea. It's fine to disagree, but I don't think you can offer constructive criticism on it since you haven't even tried it. You can offer past experience and personal preference, but everything after is supposition. I'd rather give the benefit of the doubt and see what testers are saying, we know Devs will listen to players that have actually tested it.

VEATs still have to start as villains and go through 20 levels their side before they can play tips and change sides. I don't have a problem with that, it's easy enough to reconcile that they've changed their ways and 'seen the light' after being so involved in Arachnos and the Rogue Isles.

But just giving Heroes access to the villain power pools out of the blue is just absurd to me. Why can I get the power to summon a Fortunata? because someone didn't want to turn villain to unlock powers.

I'd rather see gated Hero pools. Let the Ancillary Pools be 'neutral', and each side has their own patrons they can unlock pools for. Though I'd rather they be unique instead of just copies over from the villain pools. So, like Sister Psyche has a Psychic related pool, Back Alley Brawler gives a super strength pool, Chimera a 'trap' pool' etc.

I don't mind trials, but I think they should be designed like the House of Horrors. Not as XP farms, but as something fun to run through with an added optional challenge or two and some unique rewards. Like a Task Force, you want to run it at least once, maybe 2-3 times if the rewards are varied or just that good, but nothing like what is being done to DFB now.

I don't think they can make it work in instances. if they did it'd either mean finding some way to keep track of everything you were doing in the instance, which means objectives and spawns etc, or just yanking you out of the instance and resetting it. Same with the bases. It would seriously screw things up if you were int he middle of editing and got yanked out via the queue.

Ok, so how do *you* propose they keep A-merits at that level and not have people farming them en-masse with alts?

Given the event is pretty short it isn't much of a grind nor that back breaking, in fact the most time consuming thing about it is trying to go for the It's Alive badge. Spending 10-20 minutes of game time to unlock something instead of paying for it is worthwhile in my book. Game time is less valuable than real money, especially since I have a subscription anyway so I'm already paying real money. I'm happy to not have extra costs to unlock something like an emote or costume part.

I really wouldn't mind if it were put up on sale right this moment. In fact, I think it'd generate some cash for PS, it's a really cool emote and I'm sure a number of folks would shell out to have it. Though I agree with announcing it.

If it were up to me, I'd have most unlockable costume parts available on the market, while retaining the unlocks in game. That way someone can pay money to get it or work for it in the game for 'free'.

though I heartily discourage 'limited time' items. I dislike the idea because it punishes players that aren't around for the time frame, especially when its as narrow as 2-4 weeks.