BlueRaptor

Also, I respecced a 50, figured I could get myself Focused Accuracy now, for the concept of keen senses for the Acc debuff protection. Which of course costs lots of End but, gives some Acc. So (among other things) I had to reslot my attacks to have a little less Acc and save more End. Which turned out to be not enough, since the End use of attacks under a moderate End debuff is hard to guesstimate, so I ran out of End. So had to gather 500 Candy Canes (as everyone on my server was too busy with Winter Event to do a respec trial) and respec again. Which helped the issue some, but not quite. So I have to respec again.
Will I want to go through 3 or more respecs on another 50 anytime soon? No thanks.

It's not as easy as 'pick three awesome powers that you always forgot to consider' for everybody.

No, I am fine because I only have one main character that is all level-shifted and epic through casual play.
And I don't think it takes too long or mind if a team can't beat something or whatever whining you might complain about and actually find the bonus level I get is too much.
(I know, heresy because it contradicts the gimme-gimme-gimme! mentality.)

But graystar_blaster said in the original post he thinks the great boost makes chars that don't have it feel puny and makes it less fun to play his alt 50s that don't have it, while having a hard time bringing them all to that new level. And I can see his point and agree.

And yes, I still think removing the level-51-plus-extra-rewards for the tier 3 Alpha would make the game better.

Rest assured, it is just as exhausting to read it over and over from you...
But it depends on how much cooler the Jones' (???) are. As long as they are just a few % better than your basic-IO'd level 50 like it was before (please don't start "But SO's...". All basic level 50 IOs sell for very few hundred K if you can wait, and you make way more than enough money on the way to 50 to afford filling all your slots with them. And whenever I try to sell an SO I found they sell for spit and have 0 bidding. So please. You reach level 50 in no time these days and I don't know anybody who uses SOs then anymore. (And if someone complains the prices at the market are WAY too high but they never sell anything for those high prices and now can't afford IOs I can't help them.)) it doesn't hurt much to just go without that and split your time among several characters.
If it DOES make a LOT of a difference, like extra levels, let alone ones you cannot be sidekicked to, and what else I20 may bring, and suddenly everyone is twice as cool as you if you don't move along, then playing a lot of characters can become a lot less fun.

That's not the point though.
At least not mine, and I think not the OP's either.

My point is NOT that it is time consuming, but that it is such a big boost that it is quite a must have.

If it took half a year, and the reward was a shiny badge and a 5% bonus to an enhancement category of your choice, I think noone here would be worried. (And a lot of people would still happily work to get it! Myself included!)

But it's not. It is effectively one more level with the Level Shift, plus the bonus from the Alpha slot, plus more rewards because you can now defeat stuff as if you were 51 and get rewards as if you were 50.
Thus everyone that doesn't want to roleplay being not that super, and get less rewards all the time, will want to have it on their character.
And if the future brings more like this, the must-have-ity of it will even increase.

So did I. Good times.
They very deliberately sped up the leveling progress over the years. Even IF you play basic missions or just swipe the streets, to a point where it takes only few weeks to get to 50 instead of months. We have been kindly given an option to turn gaining XP off, so that those who DO want to experience the story and not outlevel a contact or zone after a few missions can do so.
I think players "blasting" to 50 that fast is intentional.

But why do they make the way to 50 something that you can blast through, and everyone to happily play as the level of the team leader minus 1, and then add content that takes you to levels above 50 that is supposed to be slow and that you can't be transferred by teaming mechanisms?
What good is being fast to 50 and allowed to be 49 in the meantime, when everybody is practically 51, 52, and so on?
And how are those extra levels that are not treated as such help speed-running TFs? When you pack tons of Incarnate stuff and Level Shift(s) but still read as 'level 50', imagine how fast you can blast through them THEN!

I'd like to get back to this.
In all those things mentioned and other power gains in the game I can think of, the gain is way less or comes at a cost.

- When you gain levels, you have to fight enemies of one higher level for the same reward and you have to move on to more dangerous enemies. You are too powerful for Skulls and Council recruits with SMGs and have to move on to Tsoo, Council Werewolves and Vampires, Rikti, Malta, etc. Otherwise it becomes a lot easier to defeat stuff alright, but at the cost of getting way less rewards too.
- When getting an Accolade it is either a minor attack or something that you can't use all the time, so it is a rather minor gain.
- When slotting a new enhancement the gain is gradual, enhances just a single power, and there is no extra gain but what you payed for.
- When going for IO sets that DO give some extra bonus, you even have to make a tradeoff. Slot the power for the functionality you want, e.g. 3 times Dam, 2 times Acc, one End/Rech, or get the set bonus but have to go with what the set enhancements give.

My point being, nothing gives you something as powerful as a level-up for free.
Yet with the Level Shift you get that as you can beat up 50 as easy as if they were 49s and still get rewards as if you were still 50, and it is always active.
Nothing ever was as powerful and making such a difference as a Level Shift. That mechanic IS quite a change imo.

I have it, and I find it is way too good and useful in every situation to not get it. And it would be very inefficient to first play a ton of level 50 stuff and THEN get it, as you wasted a lot of effort and rewards that way. So sure, I want it on a 50, and if they come up with more Level Shifts for more Incarnate stuff that works the same way that would even widen the gap between having them and not having them, and thus increase the incentive to get them. All. Fast.

I'd prefer the Incarnate stuff to be a cool thing to have, maybe coming with a downside even, not uber kame hame hair over the top stuff that makes non incarnate 50s looks puny. That's not nice, and breaking how nicely little difference bit stuff did and how nicely characters with billions spent on them and low budget ones could play together in this game before.

Oh, and it's not like I think everything will be DOOM that way. I just think when sticking to the old concept it would be even better.

I keep seeing this a lot. "But you can just opt to not do it and suck."
Maybe I am alone with that, but I don't particularly want to suck and get less rewards for higher risk and harder defeats.

You cannot ever make any assumption based on any 'origin' that will be true for even most of the characters that are labelled that way.

Also:
Yes, back when contacts actually meant something in the game, people noticed.

Yeah, I could see that.

Could also help them having to come up with ever-yet-another-vet-travelling-power.

Aside from that, free transfers and free respecs are given to us very conveniently whenever content changes make them highly desirable, so we really should be happy.

Perhaps... because the Midnighters and Orouboros would feel very stupid if you can just teleport through time?
Just a wild guess.

Does a +50% red inspiration do 1.5*(Base Damage+Fury) or (1.5*Base) + Fury on a brute anyway?


Yes, aside from all the numbers (and that I never found it broken that a fully furied Brute can do more damage as a Scrapper, given the Scrapper never goes below that while the Brute has to get there first, must not take a break, and that I have a hard time keeping the aggro to gather that much Fury when there's a Tanker on the team or lots of ranged artillery that shoot way beyond where I can reach or mez everyone so that they can attack), I also find it rather annoying that the Fury bar always shows a should-be point that I can never reach - because going there requires a power that I do not (or even cannot!) have.

The game has one PvP zone that is appropriate for your level and doesn't do weird exemplaring on top of the already weird and utterly different PvP rules.
Aside from that the only PvP is beating up someone else for no reason but to beat someone up. That is like PvE would only consist of one mission each for level 20, 30, 40 and 50 and street swiping.

Unless your villain is not a human or wants all humans to die or is a Rikti or from another dimension or wants to destroy earth for whatever religious, demonic, revengeful or insane reason or as part of his plan.
But that is another discussion somewhere. As long as such content doesn't take over, it doesn't do much harm. But now Heroes and Rogues(still counting as villains) and Vigilantes(still counting as heroes) and Villains can team for every kind of content. They are becoming one big hugging mass. Villains teaming with Heroes is fine and exciting as an exception, but it is becoming the norm.

I understand your concern about PvP though and agree that PvP should not be forced upon those who do not want it. Just like PvP and teaming isn't forced upon you now. It's part of the content and you'll miss out on some things, but there is tons of great stuff to do if you don't like those.


What about some content like this one though:

-Villain will threaten to blow up some plant.*
-Villain does long row of preparing missions.
-Villain gets to chose a lackey faction**, that he will get a few spawns of to send around.
-Villain can pick a team, and puts up a message that heroes will see once they get notified.
-Villains submits, and Heroes get a notification with a timer. They can click to see the message (e.g. long villainy rant he'll blow up the thing unless get tons of money.), the name and picture of the Villain (and maybe the team?) and how many villains there are.
-Villains have to do one last mission while the counter already runs. (So they dont get bored)
-Heroes can then decide to sign up, up to the number of Villains.
-When the timer is up, the mission starts. The Villains and Heroes that signed up can click to enter.
-Each Hero gets a single spawn of Longbow to send around. Both Heroes and Villains must now reach and activate some glowies that have a long interaction time. (e.g. Villains try to set to overload and then wreck the controls, Heroes try to shut the facility down and lock the console) When team A gets half of the glowies clicked, a timer starts. If team B doesn't get all the remaining glowies before it ends, team A wins. (The very last glowie remaining might get an extra long interaction time)
-Heroes win: Villain gets big reward***, Villain team mates get nothing, Heroes get reward.
-Villain wins: Villain gets twice the big reward, Villain team mates get reward, Heroes get nothing.

As further incentive for Heroes, the reward for defeating a villain at such a thing might rise each time that Villain succeeded in a row, showing there's an extra bounty, and maybe even allow more Heroes to join than there are Villains. (they'd have to share the bounty then, of course)

If no Heroes want to fight a random Freedom Phalanx as Elite Boss might come with a load of Longbow, and for those that don't want to PvP there may be an option to take that right away (or even challenge a certain canon Hero) but rewards for winning would be less than for winning against an unpredictable (set of) player(s).


*maybe the can decide on when to start that and what to do, or they get tip drops that allow it.

**maybe they choose that during the preparing missions and have to 'convince' said faction to lend him some guys in those missions, or maybe the Villain needs to find a "Masterplan" tip from the right faction and pick that, or maybe it's a random faction.

***for the threat alone makes him/her INFamous, and it took lots of missions to prepare it so they deserved it

Probably a good alternative if it doesn't happen in the dev-created content.

But I agree that it would be nice to sometimes find something new when following a random tip, or even a TF. Rather than "Oh, it's Council. Apply tactic C, and if it's a TF, brace for 6 missions full of council in their happy well known halloween mix of werewolves, vampires, aliens, and wannabe-nazis, all in each spawn.
SOME missions arcs / TFs / SFs have that, having a canon (fodder) group as filler but in the end something epic that you have never seen before, like the eye of the Liviathan, Bat'zul, the psi crystal caves, or even the Thorn Tree vines.
But it would also be nice to encounter a group of critters you have never met before, having to wonder what they do or why or who is behind it. Even if the group has hardly special quirks nor many different types, and the guy behind is just another villain who wants to blow up the earth or transdimensional thing or what have you, it would still be refreshing for not being one of the groups you know by heart already.

It is a good thing imo (at least as long as they dont include the freight ship ride to Striga in it).
Why? Because it makes bloody sense and goes along with the game world. How would normal people in the city get around if those systems weren't somehow connected at some hubs anyway? And switching train lines at Paragon Central or getting into the bus that boards the ferry is something that we can assume to be uneventful and that doesn't make any difference. It leaves the game world and sense of location in place.
Hero boards transport system, hero gets off transport system. Perfectly fine.

I'd even vote for (and already did suggest) more train station per zone. Going from Indy Port North to Indy Port Docks e.g.. For somehow the citizens have to do that too.

I would however appreciate that the for example the Orouboros portal spit you out to where you came from like the base portal. Because sneaking a free ride from any spot anywhere to a different zone with a built-in shop is not the propagated purpose of your time-travelling connection to there.


Well it seems a good deal of players don't see any danger here and rather appreciate having ever more as a good thing. (Though I don't quite get why some act like the game could never be played before some of those changes, ever.)

(and yes, I admit that no access to Stamina before level 20 was annoying. But having access to that earlier doesn't require to make it, and Health, and Swift, and Hurdle free and mandatory. Why not just allow to take them earlier?)

Yes, that is the only reason I can see to still take Flight now. And that makes you pay power choices for a costume option. Which isn't fair.

Tentacle aliens don't count, as they are Ben10 anyway.

Ah, dont get me wrong there.
I am all for everyone being able to CHOOSE some of all that whenever they please. Just not of everyone having them ALL. (in a horrible future)
I got nothing against having some power picks moved from later levels to level 2, and allowing to pick Flight and powers from Fitness pool then. Or something else.

Now THAT is something I could get behind. But what would those be?
Maybe they could include a new Fitness pool, that allows you to still have above-standard-hero level Regeneration, Stamina, speed and jumpability through a power pool, so that the inherent old Fitness pool only means you now can slot for those without having to spend a power pick on it? That sounds nice.

That is true, but I am concerned about the future.
NOW it's not ALL bad yet. But free stuff and eases keep coming and coming. Giving this temp power, making this inherent, making that mostly obsolete, making this easier, removing the need to have that. Will it still be fun when every power is either inherent or obsolete or can be replaced by a combination form a ridiculous amount of thousands of temp powers? And if not, when will the giving and for-free spree stop?

So in conclusion, the endurance mechanic, traveling and damage that doesn't regenerate instantly after you cleared a mob should be removed from the game. Because all of that is unexciting.

But no! Of course you never meant that!
But where is the border? When does making everything that was once part of the game obsolete stop? You can already level to 50 in AE now if you want, buy your inspirations there. Would you want the entire game to be like that, without any travel needed in the actual game world? It would make the game world obsolete, reduced to some nice to look rooms that noone ever moves through, if you never have to travel it. It would make travel powers obsolete. It would make every mission location meaningless. It would make contacts TOTALLY obsolete if their whereabouts have no meaning anymore and you can buy and sell whereever you are.

All I say is I like the game as it is, or was, and am afraid all the free stuff and quality of life things cut away things that once made it an interesting and meaningful game.