ClawsandEffect

It's not when a certain amount of time passes, and it is not an automatic thing. Names are only lost when the devs specifically run a name freeing script, and you only lose a name if it is one of those affected and someone else wants it. If your name was affected and no one wanted it before you reactivated your account it won't be wiped.

To my knowledge the devs have only run the name script twice. Once a few years ago, when they discovered that the overwhelming majority of names freed were below level 6, and again a while later, when they only ran it below level 6 because of what they discovered with the first one. Any character on an inactive account above a certain level is safe.

I doubt it. The devs have been pretty staunch on the unique names stance. The plus side of it is the names are per server, not game-wide. So if you want a particular name you have 13 servers to try and get it on (Vigilance and Zukunft are only a feasible option if you fluently speak French or German)

They probably won't add the @Global Name visibly even if they did allow anyone to have the names. That could potentially lead to some malevolent griefing. If someone wants to give another player a bad name, all they'd have to do is create a character with the same name as one the target is known to pay and start harassing people. Since not everyone checks global names in those cases, it could result in the targeted person getting a bad rap and possibly getting ostracized on a given server. I know some obnoxious forum posters are convinced that several of the servers are dead, but they only have that impression because they've pissed a lot of people of on that server and no one is willing to team with them. Non-unique names would give griefers the ability to make that happen to people who did nothing wrong.

You clearly still don't get it.

If you have 5 empty bubbles and do non-alignment missions, it is SUPPOSED to fill those bubbles with reputation of the alignment you don't want.

If you are a Vigilante and everyone else is running Hero tips and you want to work on your alignment, you are forced to do them before you can team with the Heroes if you do not want to be penalized.

Basically, you have a choice: Fill up your bubbles BEFORE you team with non-aligned people -OR- Take longer to get your rewards.

You've made it clear that you don't like that. And you've made it equally clear that you don't comprehend WHY it is working as intended.

To put it as simply as possible: When you work with people your character would not NORMALLY work with, it is going to cost you something. Being able to ignore alignment differences means you can ignore the cost associated with wanting to team with characters not aligned with you.

Since the devs did not allow us to ignore the drawbacks of having differing alignments from the beginning, it is a very safe bet that they don't WANT us ignoring them.

Yes, you CAN do exactly that.

Now, if you can already do that, why do you need to be able to ignore the missions' affect on your reputation again. If you can already circumvent it, why not just do it that way instead of proposing that we be able to ignore non-alignment reputation?

And you still haven't answered my question. If you can just ignore any alignment mission you don't want to affect your reputation, what is the point of it different alignments even existing? If you can ignore the affect those missions have on your character, why not just be able to choose your alignment with no missions involved? Then you can be a Hero, Vigilante, Villain, or Rogue as the whim strikes you, and you will never have consequences for anything you do.

And it still doesn't make any thematic sense for you to be able to decide that crime you just committed has no bearing on how people see you (which is what the reputation bubbles are representing)

It doesn't have to be perfectly realistic, but it does make it more believable when your actions actually affect how people perceive your character. A Hero doing Vigilante missions starts to lose the public's trust, it is just stupid to suggest that a Hero should be able to go do all those things and have the public still think he's the perfect heroic character.

Neither does Empathy. They aren't supposed to.

Those 2 sets, more than any other, are the "I plan on teaming at all times" sets.

Pain Domination is much better for Corruptors, at least on them the damage buff a lot of your buffs give you is useful. Not so much for Masterminds, since pet damage isn't affected by thse buffs.

If it weren't a proposal that would allow players to circumvent a balance point in the alignment system, it might have been received better.

Your proposal, as it stands, would completely undermine the balance in the tip mission/alignment system.

I've already gone over it a couple times. 2 days is intended to be the fastest you can acquire the rewards for that system. Your alignment actually MATTERS in that system. If you run missions that are not of your current alignment, it takes longer to get those rewards.

If you can run all the missions you like of alignments not your own and just choose to ignore them as far as your reputation is concerned, then your alignment doesn't matter at all, and you can still get your rewards in 2 days, instead of being penalized like you're supposed to. If your alignment doesn't matter they might as well just get rid of the system altogether.

This is a very simple answer. Turning off your XP is a self-imposed penalty. You are voluntarily slowing down your progress.

On the other hand, turning off accruing alignment missions will allow you to avoid a game-imposed penalty.

Basically, you are allowed to penalize yourself if you choose to, but you aren't allowed to UNpenalize yourself.

Yeah, I saw it.

I also saw the part where you want to run missions that are not your current alignment and have them not count.

You don't want missions you run to count against the 5 you can run per day? Run non-tip missions.

You can get any non-purple, non PvP IO in the game for 2 alignment merits, which you get for Hero and Villain specific missions. That is intended to have a REAL-TIME GATE on it. It is intended to take you 2 days to get one merit. You also get 60 Reward Merits for reaffirming your Vigilante or Rogue status. Again, that is supposed to have a time gate.

Why is that relevant you ask?

Because the way the system is designed, you are supposed to be penalized for running Tip missions that are not of your current alignment. The penalty comes in the form of it taking you longer to get your merits if you do non-alignment missions. How many missions you actually run is not the point, it is meant to be a real time penalty. If you fill up your 5 missions for that day with non-aligned missions, it will take you an additional day to get your reward.

You want to run Hero tips with a Vigilante, get your missions out of the way first.

Don't get pissed at ME because I understand how the system is meant to work and you don't LIKE how it works.

You keep saying it's "not about the rewards" and what you're failing to grasp is that the entire system is balanced around those rewards that you keep claiming don't matter.

Ummm, NO.

Again, that completely undermines the POINT of the alignment system. The point of it being: Your actions have consequences.

You're suggesting we be able to log in on a Hero and run a bunch of Vigilante missions (which include things like letting people die, helping people blow up buildings, and outright murder in a couple cases) and then just saying "Oh, don't pay any attention to all the bad things I've done lately, I'm still a GOOD GUY and should get the rewards associated with being one."

A real life equivalent to that would be going out and deliberately crashing into someone with your car because they were speeding, and then having the cop ask you if you WANT that to be reflected on your driving record.

The more I read of this thread, the more I see people basically wanting to be able to do whatever the hell they want and get the rewards they want instead of what the rewards actually are.

What's next, letting us choose whether that recipe that dropped is a temp power or a Purple?

Sub-par?! Weaker mechanical set? So you're trying to say that a character must perform to a certain standard or it is an invalid character?

For the record, one of my CONCEPT CHARACTERS routinely solos AVs.

If I want something to be powerful, I look at what I can do to make the characters I enjoy playing more powerful. I have NEVER in the entire time I've played this game chosen a power set combination based on how powerful it will become if I min/max it. I choose them based on what sounds like fun, and what the concept for my character calls for.

I plan on rolling a Street Justice/Willpower/Weapons scrapper when the set is released. Sure, the first 2 are probably going to be good sets, but Weapons has been viewed as a horrible APP for a while now. Guess what? I don't care, and it's MY character. NOT yours.

That's the problem with the worst of the powergamers. They are absolutely convinced that the only correct way to play the game is to choose nothing but the most mechanically powerful ATs and power sets and then min/max them. And they aren't shy about telling you how wrong you are for playing a character that you enjoy regardless of how much mechanically weaker it is.

Characters have weaknesses and flaws. If you design something so it has none, you haven't created a character, you've programmed an algorithm designed to make a number get higher as fast as possible.

Airhammer quoted me in his sig a while back, and this calls for me to say it again. If numbers are more important than a story or other payers who are fun to play with, go play with a calculator instead.

Your stance here seems to be that if the devs make the game better for the powergamers, it will be more fun for everyone?

Bull****, plain and simple. The people who don't care that they could have killed that spawn 2 seconds faster if they min/maxed their powers outnumber you by a large margin.

Bottom line: I like my blasters just the way they are. I ENJOY the challenge inherent in playing one. I like using strategy to win fights instead of just bum rushing everything because my character is so overpowered and min/maxed that I can't be beaten. Making them mechanically stronger would suck out a lot of the fun of playing them for me. So, the idea that making them better automatically equals more fun for all is a load of crap.

Actually, when you have 95% DDR, you effectively CAN ignore defense debuffs.

A standard 7.5% defense debuff will only reduce your defense by 0.325% with that much DDR. The odds of you getting hit with enough of those to drop you below the soft cap before they start wearing off are very very slim.

I've never seen an SR build that was exactly at 45% defense. The majority of them have at least 46%-47%, which gives them enough leeway that, for all practical purposes, defense debuffs are non-existent for them.

Except when you are a Vigilante teaming with a Hero you AREN'T on the same side as them.

There is a difference between a Vigilante and a Hero. If there were no difference, the alignment system would either not exist at all, or it would be nothing more than roleplaying.

If you want Vigilante credit, do Vigilante missions. If you want Hero credit, do Hero missions. Asking to get Vigilante credit while doing Hero missions is asking to have your cake and eat it too.

That's where the sense of entitlement is coming from. You are literally saying that you deserve credit for things you are not doing. You aren't doing Vigilante missions? You don't get Vigilante credit, it is that simple.

Additionally, Roderick is correct. If you got credit toward you current alignment for running any mission you want, how is anyone supposed to switch sides? If you get Vigilante credit for running Hero, Rogue, or Villain missions, you will be a Vigilante forever. Furthermore, if you got credit toward your current alignment for running anything you want, how would you become a Vigilante in the first place? Your default alignment is Hero or Villain, you need to get Vigilante credit in order to become a Vigilante.

And you can't say "Oh, just let us choose what alignment we want credit toward". if they let us do THAT, you'd see all kinds of people playing as Vigilantes and Rogues collecting alignment merits they aren't supposed to be getting.

It seems to me that you have failed to understand the POINT of the alignment system. the alignment system was introduced to offer gameplay options to something that was formerly nothing more than a roleplaying concern.

You want to be a Vigilante, deal with the consequences of being a Vigilante. If you want to increase your reputation as a Vigilante, well, maybe you shouldn't be doing goody-goody stuff.

Agree on Slash and Confront. Could not disagree more on Slice. It is REALLY easy to hit your maximum 5 targets with it, as the cone is very wide. Also, it is another attack that counts as a PBAoE for slotting purposes, so if you want another place to slot Scirocco's Dervish for AoE defense, Obliteration for Melee, or (my personal favorite) Eradication for Ranged AND AoE (also gives you more endurance and more max HP, both good things for a SD character to have)

Phalanx Fighting is FAR from useless:

A) it gives you a place to slot a LotG +Recharge and/or a Kismet +Acc ( I like slotting the Kismet in it, since the power is always on, you don't need to remember which toggle it's in)

B) it's 3.75% defense that you don't have to get from IO sets. That is one less set of Mako's Bite, Obliteration and Scirocco's Dervish you will need to slot to get to the soft cap. Yes, ONE power will save you 17 slots. You will need to slot 6 Mako's, 6 Obliteration, and 5 Scirocco's to get the same amount of defense that Phalanx Fighting gives you in an autopower. It's a no-brainer.

And you get that 3.75% bonus all the time, solo or teamed. People will pay 2 billion influence+ for an IO that gives you less defense than that. You're having it given to you for free in a power that needs no additional slotting Why WOULDN'T you take it?

Why are you facing S/L damage?

Scorch, Incinerate, Fire Breath, and Fire Blast give you the attacks you need to keep xp at 100% and they are pure Fire damage.

Set it up with minions getting Scorch and Fire Blast, LTs getting Scorch, Incinerate and Fire Blast, and bosses getting all 4.

Ironically, I hate farming, I just set myself up one to get my Claws/Fire past the rut he was stuck in. I can't do more than 2 runs in a row before my brains start leaking out of my ears from sheer boredom.

You can still be killed with capped resistance. Especially if the enemies have Fire Sword or Cremate (which your capped Fire resistance doesn't help much with)

Adding some Fire defense means you will be hit less frequently, and there will be very little chance of being hit so many times that it overwhelms your resistance.

I agree that slotting in the expectation of there being an NPC buffer present is a bad thing though.

The 5th Eradication is pretty much useless as far as set bonuses go. The 5 slot bonus is debt protecton. I slot either 4 Eradication, or the full set. There is no sense at all in stopping at 5.

Pretty much guaranteed we're getting a freespec when the issue goes live. Too many changes to existing powers and power pools to NOT give us one.

It's not going to change so much that the basic idea and the sets you use will be completely altered. They will still be able to use probably 90% of any sets they slot now.

I don't know if I would respec right now, but they probably could if they wanted to and not end up screwed by it later.

I'm going to clarify this for the OP a little bit. If he's only 2 weeks into the game he may not understand what soft-capping is.

So here goes.

The soft cap is something usually used to describe defense. The defensive soft cap is 45%. That is because an enemy's base chance to hit you is 50%, and teh game will not allow that chance to go below 5%. So, getting more than 45% defense does you no good. It doesn't matter if you have 45% defense or 200% defense, the enemy will still have a 5% chance to hit you.

When streetlight was talking about S/L/E defense he means defense to attacks that have a Smashing, Lethal, or Energy damage type. If you soft cap your defense to those types, anything using an attack of that type will only have a 5% chance to hit you.

I quoted you because it is still a problem with high defense with non-SR characters. I have a soft-capped BS/DA scrapper, and he has major problems with cascading defense failure when fighting Romans. I have frequently found myself hitting negative defense when fighting them.

I was making the point that even if you do get hit enough times to stack debuffs, it won't have any effect on an SR. Not the case with characters with less DDR.

This.

A remarkable number of players that are actually in the game couldn't give a gold plated crap less if people on the forums think their character is useless or redundant.

They play their characters because they are fun to play, not because they are what forumites tell them they should be playing.

And that's really the bottom line to it. You can tell me whatever you like about the AT and power sets I chose to play, if I'm having fun playing that character I'm going to completely ignore you and keep on playing it.

Just remember, if you slot the Reactive Interface DoT it will break the sleep of Mesmerize.

You have to make a choice with that power where interface is concerned: More damage or a useful mez power.