XaoGarrent

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He meant as in the least amount of work animation-wise. Being busy with color customization meant that he likely had very little time to create new animations for sets that'd need them (ones he's alluded to are the Broadsword AS animation and at least four new MA/SS animations)

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Well, he did talk about animations specifically...

How much effort/time does it take them to tweak numbers for sets that require changes stats wise? I remember it took them two tries just to get the Bruiser's hand clap to be knockdown, and in the last proliferation one of the sets got ported without removing the ability to slot taunt enhancements. I'm guessing that they wouldn't port anything that would take more than a bit of tinkering stats wise to get working properly, since whenever they rush things like that they seem to make mistakes.

I could be wrong though, we could see Warmth getting its radius chopped in half like Twilight Grasp or something equally stupid. With Pain Dom retaining it's full radius in Nullify Pain, that would probably kill it for me.

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BatsTarps is xtreme as it gets for MM'ing.

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Bats/Tarps?

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Don't get your hopes up.

I am expecting a gimped version.

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I wouldn't be so sure of that, BaBs said in another thread that the powers being proliferated were the ones that required the least amount of work, so I wouldn't expect too much to be changed about it, if anything.

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I wanted Cold...

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So did I, so did I... ...Kinda wonder if maybe we could talk them into throwing that into I16, or maybe shortly after. Would be nice if they got both Cold and Thermal sorta like how Brutes got Axe and Mace.

Mainly? I just want frozen robots. Their design combines with the ice shields so well. CRYO-BOTS AWAY!

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There are still many instances where CoD is more accurate or more complete than the "Real Numbers" (which is really just "Most Of The Numbers We Think You'd Find Important"). So much so that, unless you actually go and bring proof of your claims which can be reproduced, I'll believe CoD over you.

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Which, is funny, since I brought reproducible (Well, if you have a Mercs Mastermind, some Ach Heel procs and a Power Analyzer Mk III) evidence that it doesn't stack, complete with screenshots showing the values I got and how to get them yourself easily.

I could even FRAPs it, but it would be a waste of my time.

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I too can confirm it does stack just not from the same caster. Just as the other guy said you have to look at it from the standpoint of what the game calls a caster. I have it slotted in my jounin and my poison debuff power. The jounin power it self counts as 1 caster eventhough there are two of them so only one debuff gets applied there. If I used my mastermind debuffs on top of that we get 2 procs going at once because it counts as 2 casters. If the mercs slot it in all 3 pets and in the poison debuff that would make it stack 4 times because each tier of pet counts as one caster. I hope this clears it up because I have tested and confirmed this using that power analyzer thingie.

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Uhhh, no. I got the urge to test this myself and it in fact does not stack from multiple targets. At the very least, not multiple pets, I haven't yet tried putting it in my single target attacks, but putting it in all three Merc pet powers, I never saw a debuff higher than 20%:

http://img146.imageshack.us/i/mercsvsfreaktank.jpg/

http://img146.imageshack.us/i/achilliesheelx3.jpg/

I fired on and killed 3 Freak Tanks and never saw that value go over 20%. However, it was extremely consistent, with all 6 pets slotted for it. It gets applied within seconds and doesn't go away till the target is dead, that combined with Acid Mortar is just plain mean.

And yes, I am aware my slotting of the pet upgrades is stupid. Take a look at my Patrol XP, I haven't really played this guy much lately. He also doesn't have the custom binds and macros most of my other Masterminds have.

Heh, just a side note, the MA test function is great for stuff like this.

I'm with these guys, go Fire/SR. I've got one of those in the late 30s and it's a BLAST to play, quite literally.

...Too corny?

Anyway, Fire is a good choice if you are going for an atomic theme, especially with what is coming in issue 16 you should be able to make his fire GREEN! As far as the set itself goes, Fire Melee is just really good for doing what Scrappers are all about, pure unadulterated melee damage in large red numbers.

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I imagine that it would have a confirmation window, so you can't kill an unwilling teammate, and wouldn't leave a corpse (like Self Destruction from the Cyborg Pack) so it couldn't be used for corpse-bombing/veng-baiting.

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That would work, but if I was the one doing the power designing I'd make it work like the Mystic Fortune power: you'd cast it on them, they'd have to agree to it, and then if they did they would get a temp power. The temp power would basically be a Self Destruction clone, after you click it once you would strap the bomb on, hit the detonator, nuke the spawn and the power would disappear from your tray. Likewise, if you didn't use the power in 5 minutes (roughly the recharge time of the power when fully slotted for recharge) it would also disappear.

BACK TO THE POINT OF THIS THREAD
In any case, we've brought up a number of good builds here, some by humorous proxy, including EM/Nin, EM/Willpower and of coarse Ninja Blade isn't too bad paired with either. Ninja Blade is basically a Katana clone, so you get a fast DPS set with a couple of bursty attacks and a parry, one of the best things in the game as far as mitigation in primaries goes. Ninjitsu is just never a bad choice, it's one of those Dark Armor style sets where half the set is enough to make up all the defenses you need regularly and everything else is a bit overkill, either for spice or for when things get rough. Mind you, Dark Armor is just horrible on Stalkers. Don't even think about it.

Personally I would suggest something a bit more spicy, such as an Elec Melee of some sort. Elec Melee/Ninjitsu seems to be a popular choice since the gadgets provide the extra mitigation and synergy needed to fully unleash the sets AoE capacity. So if you are looking for something that rips a mob apart with random crits that do doubles of triple digit damage in addition to the natural single target damage that all stalkers have via AS, it's a good choice. Still, go EM/Willpower if you just want something solid that flies and does what Stalkers are intended to do well. It can be a bit endurance hungry at some points in it's life, though, but even with the increased animation of ET, and mag nerf of TF, it's still one of the hardest hitting sets in the game with good mitigation, and suits the Stalker playstyle almost too well. So it makes up for it it's few downsides elsewhere. Critting TF and ET will one shot most minions, as will AS, and when used in rapid succession on a boss or LT the results are spectacular, even if the animations are a bit lengthy.

Really what is it that you are going for here? If you absolutely must have PvPability Energy Melee is the clear winner here since it does exactly what you need it to do, and hit's hard. But if you don't mind sacrificing some of that or downright forgetting about it, you can come up with alot more of an interesting build. Like I said, Elec Melee is an AoE set, even on Stalkers, which is interesting on an AT geared towards ST damage, and it's still less resisted.

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Hey, you're the one insulting a group of people without provocation, not me. If they want to read the full log that those excerpts were taken from, they can do so here.

And keeping logs on everyone? No, just the people who show they have no idea what they're talking about. It's less of a "hey, keep tabs on that guy" and more of a "wow, look at what that idiot was saying in /help".

And get back to us when you solo some REAL AV's. Taking the weakest example and saying "lookit me!" doesn't do much for your credibility.

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First off, pointing out that Johnny Sonota isn't that big bad of an AV doesn't really do much for your credibility when we are talking about a level 39 Stalker running on generic ("Other" category) IOs. That's pretty damn good, especially considering the AV debuffs resistance pretty hard. Well, if he can hit consistently.

Secondly, I had almost forgotten about that conversation. I still find that people took that whole thing seriously funny, the whole time I'm mixing honest to god statements with complete and total nonsense, I even dragged it out and made my accusations more and more outragious the entire time and no one caught on. Some people from my Villain group at the time thought it absolutely hillarious and started egging me on via PMs and giving me things to say. It's not the first time I've pulled that crap with a bunch of ZOMG SERIAL PvPers in Help and I haven't done it in a loooong time because people never caught on and thus it ceased being funny. That and certain things have happened since then that have really fired up my hatred for PvPers.

What you fail to realize is you have no idea whether I was ever provoked by PvPers. And the fact is, I have been, both by people like them and them specifically. I've kicked plenty of them from Super Groups for causing all manner of stupidity, especially since CELESTIAL Elite went down the tubes just as I had gotten all the basics in the base and was beginning to maintain some active players. We had regular groupings 3 days a week and I was going to do some task force stuff on weekends when I had time. Unfortunately, pretty much half the Super Group left over, none the less, PvP Drama, go figure. And the worse part was this all went down when I was away for roughly a month, and the person whom I left in charge didn't seem to understand what the kick button was, decided to take a break from the game the same time I did, and caused everyone to effectively think I had abandoned ship, By the time I came back what was left of my SG was completely idle. I didn't even know there was ZOMG SERIOUS PVPARS in my group, guess I shouldn't have made is so anyone but the lowest rank could invite, huh? To make things worse I think one of the guys that started all the trouble was a guy I had kicked from the group earlier for the same kind of behavior, on an alt.

You also need to keep in mind not everyone shares your ideology about how the game should play, be played, nor how hard, easy or involved or relaxed it should be. Otherwise, everyone would PvP like you do, and the PvP zones would be as active as normal PvE. The problem here is, you are indeed the minority, and while I do agree that the devs made a bad choice in trying to fix something for a majority that has no interest in it, it doesn't change the fact that you are still the minority and the devs are going to *try* to adjust their game to suit the largest number of people possible. I actually like alot of the changes myself, however they wont bring me to PvP with the attitudes that exist there, and pretty much the rest of my opinion can be summed up by what is currently in my sig. If you think you've seen stupid on help from me, you obviously haven't seen some of the I'M QUITTING stuff that popped up on various servers shortly after the PvP changes hit Open Beta, which was in no way satirical. They were met with a nearly unanimous "GOOD RIDDANCE."

Anyway, we've outright derailed this guys thread, and probably served to do little more than confuse him. So I'm done bickering, I'm just going to ignore any further bull hockey that heads my way. I'm considering the source here, and seeing as you valiantly come here to defend the honor of PvP, the source of some of the most belligerent people I've had the displeasure to team with, I honestly don't see eye to eye with you and I wont.

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As far as PvP goes, just stay out of it. PvPers and rude and intolerable, and MMO PvP is all about excessive metagaming and is a huge gank fest. Unless you are an OMG SUPAR SERIAL PVPER you'll just end up being cannon fodder to some guy with 10 billion inf worth of IOs who cares about little more than getting rep, even if he got it from someone who was clearly outgunned and outnumbered. If you want to play against enemy players, play a First Person Shooter or something, TF2 is a good choice if you enjoy rock/paper/scissors gameplay.

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The irony is hilarious. Here's some other great examples of this guy's insight to PvP.

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01-15-2008 02:02:33 [Help] Xao Garrent: Stalkers need a PvP nerf

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01-15-2008 02:37:08 [Help] Xao Garrent: Because I can pound 3 stalkers with my 1 katana reflexes if they are on my level

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and one of my favorites
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01-15-2008 02:19:49 [Help] Xao Garrent: Dude, wake the hell up, insps in PvP zones are not a solution to any problem

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Yeah, I wouldn't listen to the guy who claims to hate stalkers and PvP in this game about anything having to do with stalkers and PvP.

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Oh wow, great job there taking stuff out of context from logs that are well over a year old that I don't even have because I don't bother to even use the logging feature but once in a blue moon.

Heck, even if I did I wouldn't have backed them up during my regular reformats because I don't have weird sociopathic preoccupations. So yeah, way to go showing a potential PvP recruit just what kind of people participate in your little world, he's going to feel awfully great knowing people like you keep logs on everyone. Bravo, bravo.

But in all seriousness, I'm both a little amused and a little creeped out you have logs on me and you knew just where and what to find. What did I say that was so jarring you felt the need to find and stock up ammunition against me? Or do you REALLY keep logs on everyone?

Oh, and for the record, I love Stalkers since the PvE buff, I'm now on my 3rd one, at least if you don't count the ones I deleted pre-buff. They are now as survivable as Scrappers when played correctly and can put out solid burst and DPS. And Issue 15 is bringing some PvE Dom buffs, looks like I may have to revisit some abandoned concepts.

So... ...what is Issue 15 doing for you PvPers? Bet you got some cool buffs, rrrrriiiiigggght...?

In any case, I have a level 43 EM/Willpower Stalker, so I know what the crap I'm talking about. He soloed Johnny Sonata as an AV with the help of purples and the Willpower Self Res.

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What type of PvP?

Not that it matters too much. While /nin isn't bad for zone PvP, /WP is probably the best all around for what you're looking for

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I would imagine mostly Arena duels. Willpower just seems like such an odd set. It doesn't seem like it excels at anything, managing moderate regeneration, with defense/resistance mixed in. How does this perform in real-life tests?

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Very well. It's basically the "I wanna be an invisible Scrapper that crits on command" set. The reason that Willpower doesn't excel at anything is because it doesn't need to, it's a layercaked set that does a little of everything well and the effects cascade to produce a rather durable set that ranges from good to great. The only real differences between the Stalker version and the version for other classes is no Quick Recovery, but one less toggle sucking down Endurance since you get Reconstruction instead of Rise to the Challenge.

However it should be noted that that set isn't really anything super special, it's very durable and can take alot of abuse, but it doesn't have toys like Ninjitsu, defense is somewhat limited compared to other sets meaning pulling off timed ASes is a bit trickier than with Super Reflexes, Energy Aura or Ninjitsu, and the set, like all other versions, while it may have a very high level of standard performance, it doesn't get a spike of power most other sets get in the form of a powerful T9. Basically it's just a good all around choice that makes a durable Stalker that doesn't take alot of effort to play.

As far as PvP goes, just stay out of it. PvPers and rude and intolerable, and MMO PvP is all about excessive metagaming and is a huge gank fest. Unless you are an OMG SUPAR SERIAL PVPER you'll just end up being cannon fodder to some guy with 10 billion inf worth of IOs who cares about little more than getting rep, even if he got it from someone who was clearly outgunned and outnumbered. If you want to play against enemy players, play a First Person Shooter or something, TF2 is a good choice if you enjoy rock/paper/scissors gameplay.

To the OP:

While I think you could have written and phrased that a bit better, I do agree with your sentiment. I feel the same way, and alot of recent events have me wondering if Jack was really the problem here, in fact, it further enforces my long running belief about game development teams: When they fail, they fail together, regardless of the circumstances. In this case, as with some others, everyone pins it on one of the lead guys.

Even I have more or less decided I'm going to stick around until Going Rouge, stick my foot in the door for Champions and see which one floats my boat. If Champions sucks, I'll stay here, if it's good, I'm not going to be spending money on two online games about the same thing, so I'll probably cancel my subscription here. If Jack screws that game up I'll probably resub here. My allegiances only extend as far as whoever has the product and service I like better, and I think alot of people feel the same way. Discussions I have had with both friends and random strangers in game support this, alot of people I've talked to about this have already applied for Beta. Heck, I'd apply for the Champions beta if betas were actually treated like betas. Unfortunately most Betas past a point now-a-days are more of a marketing tool.

Oh, and as far as DCUO goes, screw Cannon MMOs, they rarely work out for the better, I'm even wary of Stargate Worlds despite being a fairly big fan of the series. Not to mention DCUO isn't going to cater to people like me who tilt more towards the Anime and Sci Fi type stuff, whereas City of does and Champions looks like it probably will (There are some screenshots on the site of some distinctly Ghost in the Shell type Cyborg gun chick IIRC).

Basically, to put it simply, I'm pretty disgruntled about a very large deal of the decisions and the games recent focus. I really haven't been too impressed with anything in this game since issue 12, save VEATs, and unless Going Rogue comes with something that really strikes my fancy I probably wont be sticking around much longer if there is another option. There are also long running problems in the game that the devs are either unable or unwilling to fix, such as the lackluster AI and lack of power customization due to deep seated engine limitations. Things like the recent change to Mastermind pet recharge really piss me off, even if I wasn't greatly effected by them, just because of what they represent, a ham handed solution because it's easier than a surgical and elegant one.

Just to ring a few off I'll give 3 examples of stuff I'm not satisfied with that I had very high hope for. This doesn't even begin to go into the stuff I'm just downright irritated with, such as the MA changes or Mastermind stuff:

Merits - Badly implemented, hard to get, expensive to spend. I don't want to grind TFs, and pretty much everything else that gives them gives a pitiful amount. I find it an issue that doing a story arc in Oro that takes between 3 and 4 hours to complete (Tina Macintyre arc) gives close to the same as a 1 hour ITF.

Power Proliferation - Pretty much all the sets I wanted to see proliferated weren't. Pretty much the only ones I've made real use of are Fire Melee and Fiery Aura. Yeah, yeah, I know, alot of people want alot of different sets proliferated, but that doesn't change that we really should have seen something more proliferated by now given previous statements by the devs.

Shields and Pain Dom - I was pretty psyched about both, from different perspectives. Both turned out to be a let down. I wont even roll a Pain Dom (No Fortitude style strong ST Defensive/Offensive buffs? Aggghhh... I'd rather just roll a Thermal!) and Shields is a set that has huge potential, but is riddled with so many little issues leveling and playing the set is a pain. The worst part is it works with alot of my pre-existing character concepts, but I am torn between liking it because of concept and hating it because no matter how cool you look and how awesome your concept is, you look like crap sucking on concrete or huffing office building wall to wall carpet!

Basically imagine about 50 or so more little or large gripes with few things to counter balance them, all slowly festering over time causing me to enjoy this game less and less and grow tired with it. Now compound that with the fact I just watched VALVe rebound from a potential massive PR nightmare by reimplementing milestones for the Spy and Sniper unlockables while leaving the random drop system in for people who like it so everyone is happy and enjoying the update, AS PER THE EXACT WISHES OF THE COMMUNITY. Meanwhile, the City of dev team more or less continues to sledge hammer away at their newborn infant the AE despite the distress of both minorities and majorities in the games community while the farmers sit back and laugh at the devs attempts to swat them away and all the FUD they caused in the process (And no, they literally are laughing at these attempts, I'm not being figurative here). It's funny how watching two completely separate projects progress parallel to each other can completely change how you view the downfalls of one when the way that they are handled is so polarly opposite.

The two aren't so different in circumstance, however: TF2 did it to remove achievement grind and cut down on achievement servers, which isn't too different from adding new content to City of and trying to cut down on farming missions clogging the AE system. Oddly enough, VALVe went thru all this trouble for a game they don't even make a monthly fee off of, and when the community hated the idea instead of giving out questionable explanations and then ignoring the community when they tear them to bits, they simply told the community why they did what they did and put the old system back in place while fixing the new one. Now we have both systems, and everyone is happy, even if the drop window is a little annoying. They didn't have to do any of this for a game their already existing playerbase has already payed for.

And most importantly, not at one point did Robin Walker or anyone else come out and say "I'm going to start banning accounts associated with people running achievement servers and these new idle servers popping up that people are using to get unlocks much, much faster than intended." Heck, they didn't even take the unlocks away for a week from people who were using the Achievement Manager which is a borderline hack like they said they were going to. They also posed it as a joke by associating it with the games infamous announcer instead of lashing out at the community in a serious tone.

Sometimes the customer is wrong. Usually the customer is right, even if they don't really know what they want. The recent rebound from VALVe is a great example of how to handle when the community doesn't know what they want, but they sure as heck don't want what you've handed them.

Edit: It occurred to me a little late that there is one other somewhat large thing I've enjoyed recently; the buff to Stalkers and Blasters. They really hit the nail on that head with those two. I'd probably enjoy Blasters better if I'd bother to play them more often, I just don't quite like to be so squishy.

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That would be because Brute attacks/auras have a Taunt Component.

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Why is it everyone automatically assumes everyone else doesn't know anything about this game? Oh, by the way, you forgot to mention how Brutes have a threat rating of 3 against a Stalkers 2.

All of that is irrelevant: Most of my Brutes are NOT speced for Agro Management. Heck, the Brute I'm thinking of is a Stone Melee/Willpower mezzing DPSer who's only AoE is Fault. So when I'm fighting something I can't mezz with Fault (Nemesis, for instance, if the Fakes get their disp bubble up before I can hit them with SS) there is going to be some agro leakage. RTTC is just pitiful for agro control, I really wish they would buff the aura taunt on it.

I'd like to test this out again, but my friend moved his Stalker to Freedom (Don't ask why, because I don't know) and all my Brutes are on Virtue and Infinity. If it was fixed before it went live and not after then it might just be the LR pseudo-pet has very weak agro potential. Normally an AoE attack that does triple digits grabs agro regardless of ATs unless you have a Brute or a Tank Taunt spamming. It's the reason why a Blaster often goes SPLAT if their nuke doesn't kill enough of the spawn.

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imo, I think you've got it the wrong way.

powerset proliferation would be the new shiny

a few add-ons to AE and two TFs would be the nice extras.

Proof? people begging for new proliferation since i12, and complaining about issues that don't continue it.

personally, I'd be surprised if proliferation and pistols / demons weren't a part of i15 or at least stretch goals. if they aren't, I seem i16 coming out quickly after i15.

two TFs and some AE changes would be imo even weaker than i13

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You DO realize Issue 15 isn't really even meant to be a full blown issue, right? We might get something else that's not on the list, but I doubt we will see anything proliferated or any new sets, unless they've had some secret project tucked away since before I14. It's possible, but I wouldn't hold my breath, basicially this is just an issue for them to wave around a big flag that says "Look how long we've been around!"

Also, if you look around the forums at some of the other topics here you should find they've more or less said "Pistols? Demons? What...?" when people asked about them personally. Of coarse there is the standard speculation that they are working on it but not talking about it/admitting to it, but that's all it is, speculation.

You're expecting a full blown issue from something that is meant to just be a quick throw together of stuff that has been in the works for a while, and if people keep this up this might be the last time we see the devs do this. I wouldn't mind more small issues with just a couple things dotted between the bigger ones to keep things fresh over time, but if people start complaining that every issue isn't OMGWTFBBQAWESOMESAUCE we may not see this kind of thing anymore.

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And anyone who thinks Shield Charge is a problem, I'll refer them to the Tier 9 in Electric Melee.

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Which does make it a problem. Two powerful AoE TeleNukes that don't notify? Uh...

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Uh... they do notify. A Stalker using LR today won't drop out of Hide, but every mob he hits will aggro on him immediately. If he's quick, he can still get his Hide crit following the LR, but he's due one Hide crit anyway at the start of a fight so really, it's not about extra damage or getting away with something an Elec/SD Brute can't already do.

Next?

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Huh, didn't know they fixed that. The last time I teamed with an Elec Melee Stalker they didn't seem to gain agro from LR, when did they change this? I'm going to have to get my friend to log on his Elec Melee/WP Stalker and test this out, maybe it just doesn't draw enough agro to pull enemies off a Brute.

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Neither does RttC. Porting armors to Stalkers has always involved a little rework. They don't get damage and taunt auras as a general rule, although Dark Armor for Stalkers did retain its fear and stun auras which DO in fact interfere with a Stalker's stealth. So it's been done. Precendent has been set. AOO is not the problem.

The only other potential sticking point is Grant Cover. They could dump Grant Cover for Hide (it has to take the place of something) and modify AOO to remove the taunt and defense debuff auras, perhaps strengthening the damage bonus to compensate or adding a slight self def buff.

And anyone who thinks Shield Charge is a problem, I'll refer them to the Tier 9 in Electric Melee.

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Yes, I know that porting armor to stalkers generally requires changing something, but in this case it's a bit more complicated than "swap this out for this." Shields is bad enough on other ATs so I have a feeling it would fold over like a cardboard box on Stalkers, and that is after we figure out what to replace AAO with, and I do say replace since I doubt they would give us a power that grants a buff that scales to mob size without tossing in a Taunt aura. I mean, it's conceivable since it's not a defensive buff as much as an offensive one, but if you want to talk about "setting a precedent" we'd be more likely to get some kind of fast recharging Build Up clone that gives a 50-60% buff in it's place much like Willpower got Reconstruction. Although, I don't doubt that was also partially because HP regen based powers are a little broken on Stalkers because of their low HP.

As for Grant Cover, yeah I could see them dropping that, but then they would have to move the defense debuff resistance into something else and that would cause everyone to whine that their AT has to pick up Grant Cover for the defense debuff resistance. That's not to say it shouldn't be moved out of Grant Cover now, though, I still think it's just dumb to put Defense Debuff resistance in an optional team buff inside a defense based set. But the point is they would be setting themselves up for yet more work and whiney players.

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Which does make it a problem. Two powerful AoE TeleNukes that don't notify? Uh...

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Spines/Fire Scrappers have two build ups and two damage auras that when used together with thier AoEs can kill all the minions and LTs in a spawn in seconds, but because the build ups are on a long recharges it limits how often this is useful. An Elec Melee/Shield Stalker would be about the same, you'd have to either use them together and deal with the long recharge or use one per mob and put yourself at risk after the initial attack. Either way you find yourself attacking normally at some point.

Edited for clarification.

I feel the need to chime in here with my agreement on the subject of letting the players fill in the blanks as far as concept goes. I completely and totally agree on that this games double standards are arbitrary and stupid (yes I know, "double standard" and "arbitrary and stupid" are redundant) and should tossed out with all the other bad decisions made early on, and that the devs should stop worrying their pants off about whether something is right or wrong for either side of the pond. I mean, just to name two really obvious cases, Batman is a heroic Stalker (Well, sometimes anyway) and Magneto is a Villainous controller: at this point we're talking about ATs, which is an even larger issue when it comes to concept than specific powersets.

And besides, if someone wants to make a clown/pirate/werewolf/robot, it's going to be kind of hard to stop them, and with that considered we are already past the point of no return. I mean, why bother nitpicking about the little things like whether Shield would make sense on Stalkers or if Empathy can be villainous when you have clown/pirate/werewolf/robots running around?? You've already lost before you've started.

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Also, as funny as the MGS references to "It's just a box!" are... in all seriousness Shield Defense wouldn't have anything more to do with HOW the stalker hides than Regen or Willpower or Electric Armor currently do (which is to say, nothing at all).

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This is EXACTLY the point. It would have as much to do with how the Stalker hides as any of those when you start to take in to consideration how far concept can be bent and stretched. Regen stalkers could be said to shapeshift to blend in with the enemy, Elec or Energy Aura could bend light around themselves to become invisible (incidentally that is what Conductive Shield's description says it does, after all light is Energy), Willpower could basically do it the same way Ninjitsu does, with intense concentration and skill, or maybe you just look so average that no one notices you (Ok, that's a stretch, but still, THE ADVENTURES OF AVERAGE MAN!). Shield Defense could easily be explained away as some sort of stealth tech or magical invisibility relic as Regen could shapeshifting.

[shameless plug]My theory as to the REAL reason Shield didn't get ported to Stalkers? It's bad enough on Brutes and Scraps, the set would have required a major reworking to be even tolerable on Stalkers. That and AAOs wouldn't play nice with Hide.[/shameless plug]
To be honest that set only has a few issues, and I still think it should have a shield bash cone, but that is a rant for another post in a different thread.

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Trying to improve characters will usually require some type of strategy to produce resources whether by farming or learning to work the market. I am saying that using the MA to create farm mishes is a waste of its potential to me. As I said finding ways to farm in game content and custom creating content for that purpose are two very different things.

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I wouldn't say it is a waste of the MAs potential as much as an unintended use of its potential. At the worst it's a misuse of its potential, but I wouldn't put too much weight into that, mainly because there are plenty of other examples of leveraging game mechanics to do something unintended or impressive and for the most part not much has been changed because of them. Partially because they are in the minority, partially because fixing them would mean breaking or hurting something else.

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Hopefully you are correct that the farms will remain just a single aspect of a much larger and more rewarding game experience. You most likely are but I believe the first step to avoiding the worst situation is acknowledging the potential for it to happen however slight.

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If it became a real problem then something would be done about it, there is no doubt about that, but it's statistically improbable that MA farming would destroy real content and gimping the MA just to prevent something that has a infinitesimal potential to happen is a bad idea. The MA just isn't going to cause everyone to drop the normal game content to farm.

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Also farms are much easier to produce since they don't require as much effort or writing. That may be why, at least in my experience they seem so prolific at the moment. They also seem to be advertised more. I get many more tells from people asking me to farm than to run story arcs. Somewhere in the middle are tells from people asking me to try the arcs they have written which can be either a farm or story.

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I'm not seeing it. Most of the arcs I see when I open up the list are player written stories, meant to be played like all other content. How great they are is another story, though: I'm not having an issue finding player made content, but it is hard for me to find good, well written content. Alot of the stuff currently up is just self insert stories and uninspired dry content that was written just to have something up. That was expected, however, and can't really be counted against the MA as a feature.

As an inverse, I could argue that while farm content may be easier to make, player written story content has a much larger potential for variety than farm content. Farm content mainly relies on intelligent use of game mechanics, how much can be done with that is limited and as the best techniques become better known the number of farm missions will decline sharply. Story content, for which the MA was written for and designed around, has a much larger scope of use and is far more abstract, and the number of technical tricks used to produce certain effects are much larger for story content as less stories will be trying to achieve the same thing.

I've been asked onto alot of teams to test out peoples story arcs since it went live, although I will agree people aren't publicly advertising their arcs as much as they should. For some reason there is a stigma going around that if you advertise your arc over broadcast you are likely to attract negative attention and get it one starred.

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As far as your story arc: what you could do to get it out there is write all the missions on Local. I don't think there is a limit there. Do them in sets of trilogies maybe. Put one out for awhile and then rotate the others in. Of course if your hoping one of the ones that needs rotation will get HOF or Dev's choice then that throws a wrench in the works but it is an option to get the story out there.

Im very intrigued by such a large scale arc. I hope you do write it. If you do PM me and I'll definitley give it a run. Hell, I'll help you test it if you want.

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Well, my idea is so big because of what it is. I was thinking of making a "choose your path" kind of thing, one arc leading into a choice between 3 others and those arcs all leading into a choice between 2 different endings. I always thought it was kind of lacking that players didn't have a choice in how they progress thru content. For instance, in the Vivacious Verandi arc you are sent to steal a bunch of stuff and blame it on different enemy factions by planting it on them. At the end of the arc you are sent to talk to Hardcase who tells you she's been trying to get them to break an obelisk that protects Johnny Sonata from the Whailers with all their fighting and that if you don't go and stop them from doing this he's going to sic his cronies on you. Now I don't know about you, but I wanted to tell him to go suck an egg, I even entered the mission with the intent of letting them wreck the obelisk, unfortunately that isn't an option. Even letting the obelisk be destroyed and then explaining away whatever would have happened in some deus ex machina would have been preferred to no option at all.

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And you know,I don't think I have even been to the Shadow Shard once! I'm glad you mentioned it. I have to check it out.

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It seems not alot of people have, unfortunately. It's a high level hazard zone-ish place with really weird other dimensional enemies and is completely made of freaky floating islands. The main thing that drives people away from it is the fact it's difficult to get around, I wish they would give the gravity geysers some love, maybe grant Super Jump to everyone in the zone as an autopower. After all, you'd think with no fall damage the gravity would be really low there. It would also be nice if they made it a co-op zone since the Rularuu really don't benefit heroes or villains and added some more mission content, the good mission content is mostly wrapped up in Task Forces which aren't always the easiest thing to get people to sign up for, even with the huge amount of merits the Quarterfield Task Force does.

Regardless the place is really cool and is a breath of fresh air around the time you can enter the zone. You can get there off of PI, it's marked "Fire Base Zulu." If you have trouble getting around using the gravity geysers you can buy a temp jetpack in the zone as well.

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I think the custom farm mishes are sad and are more damaging than realized. If you can create a cutom mish designed to level your characters and to reap maximum amounts of Xp/inf/Tix then how much would you still populate the real game? Why explore the well crafted COH mythos when you can reduce it to a bunch of Xp and money pinatas.I'd like to think most people would want something more, something creative, imaginative and engrossing but the proliferation of these farms on the AE says that they don't. Forming your own mishes in this way is akin to a massive cheat code which I find to be exploitation.

Finding missions within the game that you can utilize for gains is one thing but creating them for that purpose from scratch is quite another.

I also think it a sad waste for such a great tool. I admire the players who take the time to enhance the COH mythology and game experience by ingesting their imagination,tales and characters into it. This breathes life into the game and is the real beauty behind the system. Taking something like that and just using it to Power Level your characters seems wrong on so many levels.

How many people are given the opportunity to write original content for a well established mmorpg?
It just seems to me that when people are given an opportunity to express themselves and become part of a well established mythos and choose to ignore the potential and possibilities that can be explored in such a rare storytelling context, it's just really sad.

Yea I guess people are going to do it. I strongly hope they are the minority.

Hats off to all of you who have written real stories requiring effort and thought. The AE is meant for people like you!Keep em coming! Drown out the Farms!

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AUTAUMNFYRE, I think you are making the mistake assuming all anyone does is farm. That just isn't so. Yesterday evening I hopped on my Katana/SR soft capped Scrapper and ran a few MA farm runs to help some lowbies get from level 1 to 14. After that they ran off to Faultline and I did a few more to rack up some tickets so I could buy more unlockable content and go for a few recipe rolls. But before that I was jumping around the Shadow Shard, bouncing from gravity geyser to gravity geyser and doing Shadow Shard missions on my DB/Willpower while listening to psychedelic electronic music. It's a shame more people don't like that zone, to me it's one of the coolest places in the game. After the farming, today that is, I ran a few MA arcs that had potential for good content. One was kinda dry but ok, one was pretty cool, and one was challenging yet not over the top while having an awesome story with great dialog. There is more to this game than farming, and it's a bad idea to assume people are just going to ignore the rest of the content to farm.

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no one really thinks about farming a mission for fun and no profit. Although many would say maximizing their XP/inf gains is fun. The eye of the beholder I suppose.

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Most people don't farm because it's fun (although there are times when jumping into an 8 person mob solo and just destroying everything in sight is quite entertaining), they farm so they can get the money and supplies they need to enhance their experience in whatever their favored content is. I've tanked Romulus on the ITF twice and even stood toe to toe with Lord Recluse (although I had a bunch of squishies healing and buffing me) when our tank DCed on the STF. That STF probably would have failed otherwise. Neither of these would have been possible if it wasn't for the fact I spent some time running a Council map to rack up the money I needed to soft cap.

If you want to stop farming for good, you're gonna have to convince the devs to increase the drop rate of IOs and merits to such a point where farming is obsolete. Good luck with that, though. We're more likely to manage talking the devs into wasting time on full power customization before we get them to do that. Heck, we already tried, there was a whole bunch of threads on "Merit per mission," "Merit per clear," "Super rare drops are the worst idea ever" etc, etc...

On a semi-related note, despite having a cool story mulling around in my head and a really nifty idea of how to implement it I still haven't bothered to use any of my MA arc slots. Why? Simple, my idea needs alot of arc slots, more than currently available. My guess is many other people are currently facing the same or similar dilemmas and haven't published an arc yet, or just published a crappy one to test the system out while waiting for things to improve. This could explain some of the blandness.

And lets try to keep civil here, and not let this devolve into a flame war, please?

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Here's something I ran into tonight.

{ }'s Farm (name omitted)

Description: This is { }'s farm. Satndard Rates Apply.


Send Off Dialogue: Rate Five Stars.


18 people did.
(Custom Group nothing but 1 Lt. with "Kill Em" description)



There is no difference between this and those Spam EMails advertising PL services. And there is page after page of this.

How do you think those "Enter Title" Missions gete three people giving them 5 stars?


I give it three more days before the Devs put a complete moratorium on open Publishing rights, possibly coupled with a complete wipe of all mission currently published. With the devs then having to pre-approve what gets published. Otherwise, the MA system will be populated solely by farmers as farm mission become the only thing people can readily find.

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I give it three more days before Moderator 8 locks your post.

Heh, I'm just messing with you, but in all seriousness now, I gotta jump on the train with these others, you are overreacting. Maybe I can take the edge off this a bit:

Basically what you are seeing right now is the flavor of the month effect. The MA is new, and right now there are alot of really badly designed missions because of this. It's similar to the kind of effect that happens whenever a new set or two comes out that turn out to be great. Remember all the DB/WPs that were running around after I11 Launch? Not so many of them online right now, despite still being a good combo.

Right now you are going to see alot of farm missions, but with time they will fade. Players will likely figure out what works best and most of the farm missions that are underpar or duplicate will flow down the list or be unpublished, and all the really offending ones that are left may or may not be picked off by the GMs depending on how the devs decide to handle this.

The farm missions aren't even the most offending thing on the lists right now. What I find to be far worse are all the player trap missions. You know, the "Are you a bad enough dude...?" type missions with 10 AVs that spawn multiple ambushes a piece. They will also die down with time, as will all the bland missions with lame or nonexistent story that players created just to test run the system and all the horrid missions with factions that are basically random costume parts slapped together and painted all the colors of the rainbow.

As for the farm spam, yeah, that does annoy me. I really don't see any real problems with PLing and Farming anymore, thanks somewhat to merits and especially to tickets giving us new options, but the farmers need to shut up or at least dress their broadcasts up a bit so they aren't as irritating. One really good thing about MA farming you should be happy about, however, is that with the ability to spawn large ambushes of controlled enemy groups, the need for anchors may become extinct, so no more "can u fill 4 a sec plz?" tells all the time in the upper levels. The tickets being so ridiculously easy to get also has the potential to make the market deflate a good deal, making it easier for non farmers to get stuff off them. I haven't done any real math, but so far it seems easier to get good random rolls in the MA then it was to organize Katies, and it's less boring since every MA mission is a potentially exciting new adventure.

And to all the beamingly happy MA farmers out there right now: Please, try and be low key. Whenever I hear someone advertising an MA farm I cringe, at least have the common decency to not bother all the nice people trying make and find interesting content, and try to have some self control so this new feature doesn't get nerfed to slag before the hype settles down and we start seeing all the really cool content pop out of the woodwork. And while you're at it, add some amusing dialog to your content, just because it's a farm doesn't mean it can't be funny.

A QUICK ADDENDUM: Also, if you are looking for guaranteed good content, there is always devs choice. Sure you don't get tickets, but if you're in it for the story normal drops should be sufficient.

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War mace is an awesome looking option for brutes.

Mind you I haven't seen anyone pull off the bone or wood club look with success.

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I saw someone with an awesome caveman brute that used the wooden club on Infinity. He kinda reminded me of Zangief from street fighter though, but with cavemanish clothing.

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I don't care if they get even moar damage, if I have some chance to see them. The routine of AS/run like a girl gets old fast. I don't die but can only kill them if they are n00bs.

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I know the feeling, I hate runners with a passion. I usually only PeePeePee when I can get an easy fight of some sort, since heroes only play when they can win in PvP zones.

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fIxEd-

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Oh yeah, this reminds me the other reason I don't PvP in zones much, thats where all the net tards are.

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QR: The best entertainment is the people who don't actually read the article, and still post. What a riot.

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Oh, yes indeed. I'm laughing far harder at the people frothing than the original joke, and it really was lulz-worthy. The devs and all the other NC people must be reading through this thread and simply HOWLING.

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Yeah, I'm laughing my [censored] off as I read this, so they must be splitting their sides over some of these hastily written paniced replies. Especially the guy who just registered here to make his first post in this thread, that was priceless.

To be honest, I want some of what ever the devs are smoking, because what ever it is, it must be awesome stuff.

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I REALLY REALLY REALLY hope this is an April Fool's joke. Because if not, this kind of negates everything else for me.

I like my sounds!!!

Booooo

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The chances of it being an April Fools joke are... ummm... mighty mighty MIGHTY high. Their research indicates that many people building new computers tend to forget to include sound??? Video yes (fargin 6150 not-cards) but sound? And how would this look on a team of 8 against over a dozen enemies? And why is LIghthouse posting this in the wee hours of the morning? (A bit after Midnight in Hawaii, I suspect)

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Yeah, there is so much wrong with that article I don't know how so many people are getting caught off guard. I mean, just look at the sound effects they picked as examples, and the screen shots look like they were pasted together in photoshop.

I guess there really is a sucker born every minute. XD

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<QR> In keeping with the perceived slight of redside always gets less, Villains will not see Freeeeem, they shall only see Freee. Evil Ka-Boom! is pronounced Ka! Also, all stalker text shall be invisible.

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In Issue 12 they are changing Assassin Strike to Assassin Heal, didn't you hear? Stalkers now heal the enemies.

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I don't care if they get even moar damage, if I have some chance to see them. The routine of AS/run like a girl gets old fast. I don't die but can only kill them if they are n00bs.

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I know the feeling, I hate runners with a passion. I usually only PvP when I can get an organized fight of some sort, since people run like pansies in PvP zones.

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Hate to break the news to ya, folks, but "running" is part of "manuevering". Standing toe-to-toe with an opponent who outpunches you isn't butch, it's stupid.

Well, okay then, I guess it IS butch.

That said, granted the Super Jumping (which actually happens much more than "running away", since SJ is the preferred movement mode of PvP weenies) can be very annoying, but what's most annoying is the fact that Assassin Strike has an animation time almost as long as the four-second Travel Power Suppression period... which starts when they implement the attack, not when it's resolved.

That means they get an incredibly powerful whomp on you and can move away immediately. You may get one return strike on them before they are gone. If you don't stop them somehow, look for more of the same until you die or get bored.

And if the Stalker has a high Stun rate attack power (like Energy melee) you will be wobbling helplessly for the few seconds it takes him to finish you off. What fun!

Add this to the fact that their perfectly reasonable Hide power can be combined to UNreasonably STACK with other Concealment powers, and you have the most childishly imbalanced PvP AT in the game.

Well, PvP is for kids anyway, so I guess that's all right.

Dasher

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I do agree with this assessment, on both parts. But there is a big difference between running like a chicken and a tactical retreat. I will often run behind a building to get a better handle on the situation (Usually either to ambush an opponent, use something interruptible, or pop some insps in an sneaky way) and then jump back out with guns blazing. Stalkers run like a chicken, because just about anything that can see them can kill them, but then again the same can be said about many other squishy ATs, but stalkers are the only one that gets such a cheap mechanism, damage mitigation and mezz protection. Even blasters that are way too overpowered take skill to play, and even then all you need to do is stun them or force them into melee range and they are screwed.

It would be ok if they couldn't stack stealth IOs, stealth and Hide, or if they were visible when they went to strike, but as it is it is just completely unfair, I can stand anything but hide. I'm fine with permadom, gimped brute fury (although that should be fixed), blasters, poison MMs, controllers confusing my masterminds, you name it. But when it comes to Stalkers I end up leaving the zone, they usually show up in retarded numbers and swarm a single target. Not even a tank stands a chance against 3 stalkers, and you can't see them coming without stacked perception, so by the time you realize they are there you are screwed.

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uh... Isn't today some kind of goofy sorta holiday? Trying to remember more details....

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It is, and hopefully this is a joke.

But hey, just look at Travel Power Suppression, Enhancement Nerfification, Prestige and dropping the ball on the Faultline and Cathedral of Pain Trials.

The Devs have NEVER needed April Fool's Day to do something galactically stupid and call it policy.

The sad truth is, after four years in-game, I have come to believe they will do something smart only AFTER it happens.

So call me gullible, but the safest course of action when you see something absurd like this is to assume some clown at the Head Office actually does think it's a good idea.

"Hey, I know! Let's make everyone slow to a crawl for four full seconds after any action! That'll make long animations (like Assassin Strike, as it turned out) really overpowered and short animations almost useless and slam the brakes on what up to now has been a dynamic, free-flowing game! Woo hoo, we Devs like this idera!"

Direct Quote from an Admin after massive amounts of customers complained and many cancelled their accounts over this bonehead move: "The Devs like the way it (Travel Power Suppression) works and there are no plans to change it."

So, never mind the PLAYERS, the customers who PAY to keep the game running, who cares what they want? The DEVS are happy. Oh, lucky us to be their Beta-Test slaves.

I will only believe they aren't screwing up the game with this latest nonsense when they actually don't do it.

Whatever the Devs announce on one day out of the year means nothing to me, because I have seen four years of them acting like Fools each of the other 364 (365 in Leap Years).

Dasher

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I'm still holding out hope the will change alot of the mistakes. ED was a good idea but it was badly implemented. Some things don't need to be effected by it (I. E. Travel powers), some things really needed it (Regen) and some things it should be eased on (Scrapper Invulneribilty). I really think they should go back and do it over, correcting the sets and powers that got hit adversely by it.

Travel Power suppression was just a dumb idea in the first place, I dunno who decided it was needed but I'm hoping that person comes to reconsider that decision.