Defenestrator

Well, the big one is being able to run the Positron TF with Stamina now. I've heard reports of teams chugging through that one in 60 - 90 minutes with the -1 setting. Yep, that one's going to be nerfed so enjoy it while you can.

Can you use the -1 setting to get the "Master Of" badges? That would defeat the purpose of being a Master Of anything, wouldn't it?

Odd ideas come to me when enjoying a cool evening with Sam Adams Octoberfest.

It would also stay in line with the statement "we did nothing to change the drop rates." The RATES are the same but the way they're awarded is different. Not including this with other drops makes sense as pieces of salvage aren't going for 8-9 digits of INF like Purple recipes are.

But this is only a theory at this point. A hypothesis, if you will.

The questions would be: how many MOBs did you defeat? How big were the maps? Would running on +0 / 1 have yielded the same number of recipes?

I ran 3 small to medium missions today at +0 / 1 and got 7 recipes. And according to my math, this was about in line with what I should have received.

If you're running huge maps at 3/+2, you should have received a lot more than 8 recipes.

While anecdotal, it confirms my observations. Recipe drops are fine as long as you don't boost your difficulty.

I have a theory right now.

What if they added some sort of anti-padding code for recipe drops? So, if you pad a mission with 7 people, unlock the map, and then drop those 7 and clear the map, any recipe drops would need to be divided "equally" amongst 8 players. Now let's say that this very code is creeping into the difficulty setting as its ASSUMING that you have an improperly made team.

This needs to be tested. Can someone run a few missions at NORMAL difficulty (+0 levels, 1 hero equivalent) and pad the mission? I'd be curious to see the results.

The numbers I've posted in one of the other threads (all missions I ran today), suggest that there is still something bad happening.

In fact, the session I just ended: 376 kills, ZERO recipes.

Just an FYI -- the recipe drop rate (or lack thereof) is theoretically tied to being set to the higher difficulties according to the various threads I've been reading. Less recipe drops = less chance at purples.

I don't remember seeing anything this skewed, though. I've run some outdoor Carnie missions. Similar maps usually would yield, on average, 5 or 6 recipes and 1 or 2 rare salvage (and for some reason I keep getting Essence of the Furies and nothing else). It would also not be too uncommon to get 10+ recipes out of this map.

Since I16 I've run this map 3 times. The result? 3 recipes -- a Fly 50, an Endurance Reduction 50, and a Mocking Beratement -- and 3 rare salvage (all Essence of the Furies).

I've received more SOs as loot than I have recipes.

Drops on normal teams are theoretically currently in line with what one would expect. The problems seem to occur when you boost your difficulty up. I ran this map again on the "standard" difficulty (+0 levels and fighting as one hero). I got 3 recipes (including a Thunderstrike), Piston boots (LOL), and a Hamdion Goo. Of course, it was dead boring to snooze through this map.

This thought had occurred to me, but I won't have time to check it out until tomorrow.

However, doesn't this seem like a lot of trouble to code into the game?

I am also seeing a rather massive drop in the recipe drop rate. This does need to be addressed.

You already have alt-itis! Excellent.

Energy blaster is indeed a ton of fun.

Actually, I like Blasters for learning the game. Since you don't have to balance defense vs. offense (you're all offense) it's a lot harder to really muck up a build. By level 10 you should have a pretty good understanding of MOB mechanics, line of sight and how to pull (if you need to pull). Once you get into the low teens you start running into things that can mez you, so you start to learn how to deal with those (kill them fast!) and not get into TOO much trouble. If you group, you'll quickly learn about aggro mechanics, because blasters can gain a LOT of attention if they plow forward with AOEs too quickly.

Scrappers are definitely a lot more solo friendly, though, and are a good mix of damage versus defense.

Once you get the chat system figured out, I'd recommend the Victory Forum channel. Also, the guides section here on these forums has some good reads for new players.

And remember...Victory is better than Virtue.

They left the Freakshow out of the latest patch notes. Read the patch notes to see more.

Also, I think I know. I know. I was running missions last night. Non-freakshow. AE missions. And regular missions. Freakshow XP was changed. AE XP was changed. Regular missions were no different than what they were a week ago.

When I read comments like this:
That tells me that the person making them does not understand how teaming XP works in this game. This is okay. Not everybody understands every facet of the game. I would also suspect that the new auto SK features have altered the variables in the XP formula, so some people are seeing new numbers if all they did was power level and farm. This does not mean XP was nerfed, especially when they've been doing everything in their power over the past year to make people level FASTER (i.e. less accrued debt, less debt per death, "day job" XP, smoothed leveling curve, etc.).

I'll say it again...in the regular missions I ran last night that were NOT Freakshow missions, there was no change to the XP that I received in those missions. You might wonder how I know what the numbers were and are. When you run on a level 50 for as much as I have, the numbers get burned into your brain.

And it's already been tagged with "Tunnel Snakes Rule."

A+++ would read again

The doom threads go back to day one after launch.

People threatened to quit when a tanker's max resistance was dropped from 100% (yes, it was possible to make a tanker that could never be injured except by Psychic damage) to 90%.

There was gnashing of teeth and baying at the moon when they fixed a bug to Smoke Grenade that caused MOBs to have a 0% chance to hit.

People screamed bloody murder when Burn was nerfed so it could no longer liquefy huge numbers of MOBs in one usage.

I won't even go in to all the various Regen nerfs.

It wouldn't be a new issue without a good thread full of doom.

I think the higher priority should be a No FX option for Energy Aura. To this day I need to turn my particles down to zero on any Energy Aura character I have. That's the only power set in the game that causes my computer to bog down. The No FX option for Integration was necessary and I'm happy it's there.

A few things:

1) I wish they would show you the base colors of the power on the "Original" screen. I would have loved to get my blaster's Energy Melee attacks to match the Energy Blast powers. Instead I had to guess.

2) They still haven't come close to fixing the myriad of bugs that inhabit the Tailoring options. Going to the tailor causes a variety of my characters to "change" costume, meaning you have to adjust everything back to its original state. This is a pain when the face goes out of whack.

3) I loves the new Super Strength animation for Foot Stomp. The Ground Punch is totally awesome.

4) Likewise, the new metallic spines are insanely cool. I don't understand why everybody wouldn't switch to these so you won't look like you have bananas growing out of your body.

5) Ran through my "Husk" story arc last night to see if anything funky happened to it from the XP changes. I did end up toning a few of the bosses down a bit to make it a little more solo-friendly but still pose a challenge.

6) I missed the memo where they adjusted every character's difficulty down to "wuss." It took some messing around with the new settings to get things where I wanted them.

7) Now that controllers have access to a cold/ice secondary, I have to think if I want to reroll my controller.

8) You can't colorize ice to yellow. The immature kid in me died a bit.

The only XP nerf was to Freakshow. That's it. They were brought in line to normal mobs. Everything else you describe is exactly the way it was last week.