ClawsandEffect

The next 2xp weekend will be after the new issue goes live and before i16 hits. Generally they tend to do one 2XP weekend per issue, it got a little screwy this time around because i13 and i14 were originally the same issue. They added some stuff to MA that players wanted, so it got pushed back a ways and became it's own issue.

July actually seems like a reasonable guess.

Do not expect 2XP to apply to AE content, with the possible exception of Dev's Choice arcs. Patrol XP already doesn't apply to it, so there's no reason to expect 2XP to.

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People are paying for more charachter slots.

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They are paying for the ability to have more characters at exactly the same power level potential as everyone else. More characters does not equal more powerful characters.

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People are paying to rename their charachters,naming them differently.

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The name of your character has ZERO bearing on that character's effectiveness. Superdude does not do any more damage than Uberguy because his name is different.

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They are already doing this stuff to their charachters,as I have,and it all costs money.

Wouldnt all of this be unbalancing,using your logic?

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Not at all, neither of those things has any effect on gameplay whatsoever.

Okay, to put an example to it. The AT that would get the most mileage out of extra slots would be Kheldians. As it stands, anyone playing a Kheldian has to choose where their extremely limited slots are going to go.
They can focus on dealing ranged damage by heavily slotting Nova form.
They can focus on melee damage and tanking ability by heavily slotting Dwarf form.

What you're suggesting is giving a kheldian player the ability to pay extra money to 6 slot all of their Nova powers and all of their Dwarf powers, all while having all their human powers 6 slotted as well.

How would that be balanced compared to the player who can't afford to spend more than their subscription fee on the game?

All you're seeing is that people can pay money to get things. You're not looking at the GAMEPLAY impact of the things they are buying. I can buy as many character slots as I want, but all of those characters are limited to 67 enhancement slots, just like every other character in the game I can change my name 30 times if I want to, I will never get stronger because I did, no matter how many times I do it. I can buy all the various packs they offer and get the ability to teleport to a mission once every 2 hours, blow myself up, and tell someone's fortune randomly. Those things, overall, do not make me any stronger than someone who can't. I can't tell my own fortune, so it is not a power useful while soloing. If I blow myself up and have no self rez I either have to use a wakie or make a trip to the hospital. It's a power that doesn't do a lot of damage, and it KILLS ME. The most useful of the bunch is the mission teleporter. I can use it once every 2 hours. I seldom play for more than 2 hours at a time, so I can teleport, on average, one time per play session.

The ability to buy enhancement slots would make it possible for people who can afford it to have vastly more powerful characters than those who can't.

Also, if implemented, the devs would likely balance things around the maximum potential of 6 slotting every power. Because they would HAVE to. That makes the entire game unfair to someone who didn't spend the money. The round of nerfs your idea would cause would probably not kill the game, but it would be a fairly hard push in that direction. If every power in the game got nerfed because you can pay real money to 6 slot everything I would be calling it quits, and there are probably a number of people who feel the same.

The entire game is balanced around any character having a set amount of slots at level 50.

Because it is impossible to 6 slot every single power you have, you have to make a choice on what you are focusing on. A tank who spends all his slots on his attack powers will be less able to survive than one who spends them on defense. The people that can afford to spend extra money will have characters that are more powerful and more capable than the people who can't. That is, putting it simply, unfair.

Having the ability to teleport directly to your mission once every 2 hours does not make you more powerful than someone who cannot. Being able to blow yourself up to deal damage does not make you more powerful than someone who cannot. Being able to cast a short term buff that you have no control over does not make you more powerful than someone who cannot. Having 100 enhancement slots when everyone else has 65 makes you significantly more powerful. Being able to buy that would skew the game toward people who can spend extra money on it.

It's not a matter of "some people have everything and some don't" because the things they have or don't have don't change the way the game plays for them.

No one gets more power pools than anyone else, everyone is limited to 4 (5 if you count APP/PPP) No one gets more power choices than anyone else, everyone is limited to 25. As it stands, no one gets more enhancement slots than anyone else, everyone is limited to 65.

I use the Tsoo katana as a machete, since that is what it resembles more.

Take the holds, and use them in conjunction with Burn. If they can't move they can't run away from it.

Devastation gives a damage bonus, that would be a good place to start. Mako's Bite does as well, you can slot that in Fire Sword.

Other than that, I can't help a whole lot without a hero planner of some kind.

Yeah, that is pretty commonly seen on ((Virtue))

Guys. Everyone here is doing the same basic thing as arguing racial equality with a white supremacist. He's made it clear that he thinks anyone who roleplays is weird and/or subhuman. He's also made it clear that he is far too close-minded to have a rational discussion with about the subject.

I'm honestly amazed that this thread hasn't been modsmacked yet. Just leave War_Admiral to his little world of intolerance and let the thread die already. He already seems to have swayed the OP to his way of thinking, so he's done enough damage already.

Remember that you have to shoot a zombie in the head to kill it. Riddling the torso with bullets does no good.

Whenever I get sent a tell that says nothing but "lft?" I respond with: "lfm?" That tends to confuse people.

Or I'll say "idk brb lol"

One time I replied with "ssmtyfi"

I got back: wut?

I then explained what it stood for...."stop sending me tells you fudging idiot" (Only I didn't say "fudge" )

Oh, I forgot to mention, the same guy sent me 8 "lft?" tells in a row, followed immediately by an invite every time.

I had one person tell me: "I invited you, you HAVE to accept it!" Apparently they had never had an invite declined before. First time for everything.

I never have my LFT flag up,so I'm not soliciting anything. If someone sends me a polite, legible tell asking if I want to team, I will ask what they are doing and consider whether I want to do that right now.

If someone is going to be rude and assume that I want to team with them without any knowledge of what they're doing (or in some cases, what they're saying) I will respond appropriately, usually by being an intelligent donkey.

The only point in the OP I will agree with is that Cloak of Fear needs some help. The accuracy is atrocious, and the end cost is ridiculous for a power that only gives mitigation against minions.

Dark Regen on the other hand doesn't need much help, it's pretty good as it is. Sure, maybe reduce the endurance cost to, maybe 28 base.

With SO slotting of 1ACC/2-3ENDRED/2-3HEAL you should be in decent shape on it, since the game is not balanced around IOs.

Another point: With all the mitigation available to Dark Armor, if you need to hit Dark Regen so often it bottoms out your end bar....you're doing something wrong.

I have mine slotted with 5 Touch of the Nictus, minus the proc, and a Theft of Essence proc. Slotted like that I get 23 end per activation (If the proc hits 3 or more targets I GAIN end) and 812 points of heal from a single target. 2 targets takes me to full from almost nothing.

So, I can see a slight endurance cost reduction, but any more and the power becomes too good.

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(I think the non-sword attacks are fine. Incinerate is a little strange, but not a big deal. I am very glad that Scorch has its new animation though. )

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I agree with the Scorch statement. The new one is much better than the "reach out and gently place the fire on your target" look of the old Scorch.

As far as the swords go. Meh, don't really care that much. Would be nice if the set was a little more uniform, but it's not, so I deal.

I've duoed Jack in Irons with my Rad/Sonic defender and my wife's Plant/Kin controller. It took a long time, but we did it. Would have gone a lot smoother if we hadn't had to deal with that fear cone he throws out every 20 seconds.

Duoed Kraken a few times too. I'll eventually be able to solo a few of them, but my character isn't built for it yet, being level 45 with almost no IOs.

Okay. I have a level 45 Rad/Sonic defender. I am aware of my weakness against mez effects.

So what are my options?

I can:

A) Learn to adapt to situations in which I will be facing enemies with mezzing capability, in which I would use the 4 mez effects I have available to incapacitate them before they can do the same to me. Or use Accelerate Metabolism (oh, look at that, a power that reduces the duration of status effects) before engaging foes that I know have status effects available to them.

When soloing, the foes you encounter with status effect powers are in small numbers and are usually LTs. One Dominate or Screech eliminates the possibility of them mezzing me because they can no longer use those powers. If they hit me first? Well, that's what I get for not paying attention isn't it?

On teams, if you are getting frequently mezzed and there is a tank, a controller, or a defender on the team with you...either your team sucks, or you do.

-OR-

B) I could start a thread requesting that status effect protection be given to EVERYONE in the form of a pool power. Why not just go all the way here and request that status effects be completely removed from the game? That would get rid of so many of those annoying powers, and 2 entire archtypes to boot!

Point being, if everyone is made completely immune to status effects, what is the point of them even being in the game?

I enjoy playing my defender solo because it is a CHALLENGE. Which is something sorely lacking after 3 years of experience. I have to think about more than: Jump into the crowd and start pressing buttons, when everything is dead do the same thing with the next crowd. I have to actually decide what I am going to attack first, and there are consequences if I choose badly.

There's a word for that kind of thing you know. That word is STRATEGY

I get frustrated seeing people asking to be given powers to handle things that could easily be handled just by paying attention to what the hell they're doing. If you want to rush into combat without thinking about any kind of plan of action beforehand, you have every right to. If that leads to you getting mezzed and killed, well, maybe you shouldn't do that next time.

I get tells asking me if I want to join teams all the time on my higher level characters. Almost always when I am in Atlas Park. 9 times out of 10 I search the name and they are below level 15, and spamming broadcast that they are looking for members 40+ for AE teams.

They're not begging for PLs anymore, they're trying to trick you into it.

Erm. Fine in theory, but I use the Science store mission to unlock Ouroboros on a regular basis, even if my character isn't Science origin.

Yes, I am aware I could just get someone to open an O Portal for me. But I like doing things for myself whenever possible.

I'd say give us access to the store right away, but don't take the missions away.

My new warshade started in Galaxy, because that's where the warshade contact is.

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It's as bad as freaking out over clicking on glowies during the respec TF, this just doesn't die.

[/ QUOTE ] That's one of my favorites.

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I click glowies on respec trials all the time, just to watch people freak out. They never believe me when I tell em it's a myth.

They're all like: "But my friend heard from his friend, who heard from his friend, who heard from some random guy that it spawns more bosses in the last room! It HAS to be true with that kind of confirmation!"

Gullible people are amusing sometimes.

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Nice to see you've completely forgotten that you were new once too.

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There's "being new" then there's "being a n00b". There's a rather large difference. The latter doesn't require the former to be true.

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I am aware of that. Did you see my post after he clarified what he meant?

Thanks for clarifying. Put like that I actually agree with you, to a point. If someone is asking an honest question about something that isn't obvious I have no problem with answering them. If they want me to do it for them, I won't waste my time.

So many people call ALL new players n00bz that it is really hard to tell if they are aware of a distinction or not.

BU - AS - Placate - MG - SL - Dead boss (often the Siphon Life is unnecessary)

Why wouldn't you want to guarantee 2 crits in a row?

Nice to see you've completely forgotten that you were new once too.

Blessing of the Zephyr is a good one for ranged and AoE.

It goes in any travel power, including Combat Jumping and Hover (Recall Friend will take them too I think)

Slotting tw gives you ranged defense, slotting 3 gives you AoE.

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you have Stamina over slotted.

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Eh, 4 isn't overdoing it. I'd question 5 or 6, but I 4 slot Stamina all the time on many of my toons, usually with 4 Performance Shifters for the +End bonus (the 4 slot set bonus, not the proc)

That would actually be my suggestion for your Stamina, get Performance Shifter End Mod and 2 of the 2 piece ones. You'll lose maybe 2% of your recovery bonus, but an additional 2 endurance, on top of the 2.5% recovery you get (I think) from 2 slotting it, so you come out ahead.

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I'll put it this way. (assuming no +end bonuses)

2 lvl 50 IOs in Stamina = 45.8% recovery or 2.44 EPS
3 lvl 50 IOs in Stamina = 49.8% recovery or 2.50 EPS

So basically you spent a slot to gain 4% recovery or 0.06 EPS.

That's no to say any additional recovery is a bad thing, but rather I feel the returns for that slot investment would be better pretty much anywhere else.

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I 4 slot so I can put the Performance Shifter +End in it, without losing any recovery if it doesn't fire. I don't like relying on stuff that isn't guaranteed to work all the time. And also, like I said, I 4 slot Performance Shifters anyway for the movement, HP, and recovery bonuses. (I said +Max End before, I was thinking of Imp Armor)

I had it 3 slotted with the Performance Shifter proc in it and my end kept bottoming out because I would go long stretches without any bonus endurance from the proc. With just generic IOs and no recovery bonuses from anywhere else I have found that 2 guaranteed functioning slots is not enough for my playstyle. 3 is doable, it makes just enough difference that my character goes from almost unplayable to playable with difficulty.

I also have everything else slotted as much as it needs to be, so I have a slot to spare.

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If you do not ask, they are under no obligation whatsoever to inform you.

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Quoting myself here. Kinda feels weird.

Just wanted to add something I forgot.

If you DO ask, they are STILL under no obligation to tell you.

I know the real names (and addresses) of some of the people I play with regularly. Several of them know mine. I didn't ask them outright who they are or where they live, in most cases they volunteered the information. In a few others it was because I considered them enough of a friend to send them an invitation to my real life wedding, and the name and address was necessary.

There are other people I team with that I only know by their global name. They have never volunteered their real name and I never asked, because A) It's not at all important to my interaction with that person, and B) It's none of my business unless they choose to make it my business.

Their gender is equally unimportant. If someone I'm playing with makes a reference to a "hot guy" somewhere or another I assume that they are either female or gay. The possibility also exists that they are just staying in-character and are actually a straight man. In any of the above cases it does not matter, as long as they are not harassing me or using false information to acquire something.

I know a few female players that will not admit they are female in real life on a team full of strangers to avoid advances from adolescent boys who think that they want to cyber with them just because they are female.

Then there are the guys who ask ANY female character: r u hot irl? It never occurs to them that it might be a guy sitting on the other end of that question. I have fielded a couple questions like that. I answer: Yes, I am. Are you gay? Because I'm a guy. You have never seen a character disappear from your screen so fast.

You've listed enough pros there that I would play it if I didn't already

As far as your cons are concerned:


Story:

The storyline starts up in the Hollows between levels 7 and 15. The devs didn't put much story in the very early levels because they figured that people would be spencing their time learning the game rather than reading the story (just guessing here).

Make sure you read the clues and what your contact says before and after missions, that is where the majority of the storyline is found. Also, make sure you have NPC chat turned on (It appears as dark blue text in your chat window) there is more story that is contained there at times as well.

To really get the story: READ EVERYTHING. Lack of story is usually a complaint made by people who are used to their games having voice actors to say all the dialog. As such, they skip over all the text in the windows and have no idea why they're going to this warehouse.

Contacts:

When you finish, or outlevel a contact they will usually introduce you to the next contact. When they do so, the contact's name and location appear in your navigation window at the top of your screen. It will look like this if you are in a different zone than them

Paula Dempsey
Kings Row

If you are in the same zone their name will appear with an icon on your navigation bar. When you swivel your camera, the contact's location will show up as a yellow arrow with a distance meter on your screen. There is a drop down menu on your navigation bar that says: Map Contact Mission Badge
Clicking on any one of those opens up the appropriate window, so to locate a contact you already have you would click on Contact.

Travel:

You're actually lucky you started playing now, after all these temp travel powers were added to make life easier on people. When I first started playing you had to run EVERYWHERE until level 14. Navigating the Hollows at level 10 with no travel power really sucked.

Kinetics defenders and controllers get a pseudo travel power at level 6 and level 10 respectively. It grants something like Super Speed for a short time, but requires a to hit check on an enemy, which is slows down for the same length of time.

AI and enemy variety:

The AI doesn't get a whole lot more complex, but the enemies DO get a wider range of abilities later in the game that make them more challenging. You've probably encountered Outcasts by now, and may have encountered their leader, Frostfire.

Frostfire is still one of my favorite enemies to fight because he is a challenge for a low level character. He uses status effects (AKA mez) as a large part of his fighting, and very few powersets have their mez protection at the level you fight him, if they ever get any.

Later on, especially in level restricted zones, the enemies get tougher and have more ways of killing you. The game was made easy in the low levels so new players don't get frustrated by dying repeatedly. It does get tougher.

I will also extend a similar invitation, I play on Pinnacle almost exclusively, and I have one open character slot. If you want I can start a new character with you and run with you until you hit level cap for a trial account, answering questions if you have them. Or I can start a new character on just about any server and run with you for a while.

No, it turned into a flame war on the first page, and has been an argument ever since.

I can make blanket assumptions about large groups of people too! Wanna see?

2 men rob a convenience store. They drive away in a car.

Therefore, I conclude that all people who drive cars are criminals. If they say they are not, they are obviously lying because my conclusion cannot possibly be incorrect.

War_Admiral: Do you actually hold the rank of Admiral in the US Navy? Or any other for that matter?

If you admit that you are not in fact an admiral, then you are doing the exact same thing that actual roleplayers do: You are pretending to be something you are not for entertainment purposes.

If you say that you are in fact an admiral, and are later proven to be lying, then you are doing what the 2 people you mentioned were doing: Lying about who and what you really are when asked directly.

There is a big difference between roleplaying your character in-game and making people believe you are something you are not. Most players, when directly asked, will tell you whether they actually are the gender they are playing as. If you do not ask, they are under no obligation whatsoever to inform you.

I have several female characters that I occasionally roleplay myself. I don't flirt with male characters, nor do I state that I am female in real life. If I am asked about my gender I am up front about it.

At no point is it ever a requirement to tell a complete stranger in an online video game who and what you really are. I make guesses about other players' gender all the time, with probably a 60% accuracy rate. I have NEVER ceased playing with someone because I found out their real life gender doesn't match their character's. If I did that I would never have met my wife.