Captain Fabulous

My understanding is that if you don't have any powers from the Fitness pools when this change goes live you will automatically be given the inherents. So if you respec out of them now you should be ok. You don't have to wait.

Yes

Only partial mez protection and less damage than we could do before.

Try mailing more than one item at a time. Oh, that's right, you can't.

Giving mobs tons of DoT AoE damage that essentially neuters Stalkers.

You mean those watered-down not-even-as-good-as-the-tier-1-versions-other-ATs-get powers? Those? Oh yeah, and don't get me started on the "improved" version of Focused Accuracy.

Do people still play Kheldians? I haven't played my PB in over 4 years. It's just too painful.

I'm not looking to start a flame war, I'm just expressing my cautious optimism. I hope I'm wrong and this change comes with absolutely no strings attached.

Well, in all fairness sometimes we do get things "with no penalty", but they're usually done half-*****. And I'm not sure I would qualify making the Fitness pool inherent a QoL change.

No. If you already have powers from Fitness you won't get the inherents until you respec out of them. It doesn't matter when you do the respec.

You can't have the inherents and the Fitness pool powers at the same time, it's one or the other. Once you start the respec the inherents will unlock and the Fitness pool disappears.

Yeah, I feel the same way. In 6 years we have never gotten something for nothing. Every buff we've ever gotten has come with a catch. So I'm trying to be optimistic here, but I get this sinking feeling we're all going to regret begging for this.

Yes, it means that unless you re-allocate slots from other powers there won't be any extra slots for the 3 EXTRA POWERS you can now choose. Your choices are:

1.) Pick powers that don't need extra slots. There are plenty to choose from.
2.) Bite the bullet and shave a slot here and there if necessary.
3.) Invest in a few IOs to help shave off a few slots to reallocate.
4.) Don't ever respec that build -- problem solved.

Why do people always make mountains out of molehills?

Actually it's about you trying to force your opinions on others. Cause it's not all about YOU. YOU like it the way it is, so of course anyone that doesn't isn't entitled to their opinion, we just need to learn how to play better, right? Explain exactly how a new player is supposed to learn how to play better when they have 0 experience in the game? Yeah, go on, I'm listening. Oh yeah, that's right, you don't give a [MANURE] about anyone else's play experience except your own. So what if there are a dozen or more posts here and a few hundred in the beta forums complaining about the increased difficulty. Those opinions don't matter. Only yours does, right?

Let's also not forget that once field analysts are put in the ability to increase the difficulty goes up by a few orders of magnitude. Down? Not so much. So those that don't like this level of difficulty, who also plopped down their $40 and HAVE THE RIGHT TO PLAY WHATEVER WAY THEY WANT, have zero options. And you're ok with that. Sorry, but that attitude is obnoxious, arrogant, and unacceptable. Cause you're not the only person that subscribes to this game.

You sir, are a [MALE DONKEY]. You may now join GMan3 on my ignore list.

To summarize:

Those that think the difficulty is too hard are pushing for it to be reduced knowing that those who want more of a challenge will be able to up the slider and get it.

Those that think the difficulty is perfect as-is don't give a [COITUS] about what anyone else thinks or feels; they just need to suck it up or quit.

Did I miss anything?

And I'm done here. The argument is getting old and I'm over it.

You were on *1* large team against *1* particular type of group. I think you need to get out more. If you're going to make a broad sweeping comment about how you think the difficulty is ok you really should experience what others are complaining about first. Otherwise it's a tad bit disingenuous, no?

The problem with leaving the base difficulty of Praetoria as-is is that even if you drop the difficulty to -1 it's still going to be too much for most people.

I'm sorry if you feel you're entitled to a level of difficulty that leaves other players wanting to quit and never return. But I guess whatever works for you, right?

Again, you need to play more on large teams. It seems like those who keep saying "I don't see a problem" only play solo or in very small teams.

Let's also remember that we're talking about BASE difficulty. I imagine most of you are accustomed to playing with the difficulty turned way up and are used to the increased "challenge". But not everyone does that (honestly, everyone I play with runs on -1x2 well into their 20s). If the base difficulty in Praetoria is equivalent to +2x3 in Primal Earth, then that's not right.

You do realize it's SIGNIFICANTLY easier to solo Praetoria than it is to run with a large team, right? If you're just soloing and not playing on a 5-8 person team then you're not going to see the problems others are.

And really, just because *you* don't see it means it doesn't exist? Too bad we're not on the same servers cause honestly I'd love to add you to a large team and show you exactly what we're all complaining about.

Vahziloks are CAKE compared to Clockwork, Syndicate, and Destroyers. The only thing that comes close IMO are post level-41 Longbow.

/em starts beating dead horse

Yes, cause plinking away at them one at a time from around a corner is not only FUN, it's SUPER. And it works great, that is until they rush and wipe you anyway, just for kicks.

I'm sorry, but pulling isn't a panacea for poor design.

You could try turning FSAA off in-game and on in CCC, but no idea how well that will play with the HDR effects. Worth a shot tho.

AMD puts out new drivers the last week of every month.

I just download and run the installer in express mode.

Nope. Never. It unloads the current driver during the install process, replaces it with the new one, and loads it on-the-fly. At least on Win7. I have no idea about XP. I seem to remember reading something about how Vista and Win7 can unload drivers whereas XP can't.

You might want to do a clean install. Completely uninstall the old drivers, reboot, and then install the new ones. You might also want to try a driver cleaner after the reboot but before the new install (this will wipe out any custom settings tho, so be forewarned).

I never have to restart after updating ATI drivers.

That looks like an issue with transparency AA (Nvidia) or adaptive AA (ATI). Try turning it off, see if that helps.

This is it. A lot of people are playing now, but the real test will be in a few weeks when the free month is over and people have to decide if it's something worth paying for.

Just let it go Dispari. It's not worth arguing over. As long as the game suits their liking they clearly don't care what anyone else thinks. And that's fine. You can't fix stupid.

Hmm, funny, cause I was just in Imperial City a few hours ago doing some odds n ends and there was a guy complaining in broadcast about how he was unable to complete his mission cause he was getting his *** handed to him in less than 5 seconds, over and over again, and he can't understand why it's so damned difficult and has no idea how he's gonna finish it.

Yes, it's VERY amazing what you will see when you stop and look.

And I do know that I had one brand new player on a team at one point this week, and he confessed he felt very confused, overwhelmed, and that things seemed extremely difficult (as we were experiencing multiple team wipes), much moreso than he would have expected just starting out.

But I'm sure we're all just the exceptions, right? Clearly it's the best thing for everyone to start new players in the hardest of the 3 starting areas. Funny how Blizzard, the #1 MMO developer in the world, is taking the exact opposite approach with their new expansion. Golly, what MUST they be thinking?

Whatever, there is no point trying to have a logical discussion with you. You stopped making any sense at least 3 posts ago.

Draw distance is what's killing you. I have mine set at 75%. Make sure water is off or on low and that bloom, dof, desaturation, and ambient occlusion are all off. You should then be able to turn FSAA to 4x and get decent framerates.

It wasn't a rant. Just stating the way I feel. I spent almost $80 on the expansion and I feel ripped off. So yeah, I'm very unhappy with the way Praetoria turned out. And it's enough for me to finally say enough and take a very long break. I don't see why I should continue to support a company that clearly doesn't give a rat's *** about what we think, and whose idea of fun seems to be radically different than mine. It's been a long time coming too, and GR is kinda the last straw for me.

I'm sure I'll be back from time to time for special events, double xp weekends, free reactivations and the like. But the days of me blinding paying $30 a month, month after month, are over.

Why? Dispari makes a great point. If you're new to the game, and just starting out, the game requires you to go to Praetoria first. You're not going to know that it's the hardest of the three areas, nor are you likely to make that first character, log it out, and then re-make it as a hero. I'm sorry but no one is going to do that.

The fact they are forcing new players into Praetoria quite literally means they want them to play there first. Which makes the increased difficulty even more baffling.

Prior to Ultra Mode the HDR effects (high water, bloom, dof, and desaturation) would completely break FSAA. With Ultra Mode it no longer breaks, but the performance hit is massive, at least for 4-series cards.