Dugal

[ QUOTE ]
Just because you're in SG mode doesn't mean you automatically get Prestige. You still have to do things.

[/ QUOTE ]

It is interesting to me, that all the developers keep pushing this to conform to their vision of how the game should be played. First we weren't teaming enough for them, so they almost enforce teaming, to where solo gets you less xp, and some builds are almost inneffective without support (I am thinking Mind controllers and FF defenders mostly)
Now, that is not enough, and in CoV, we have to 1) be in an active SG, 2) be in costume, and 3) be doing things that the devs think is necessary for a base.
Forgive me, but Superman's Fortress of Solitude was not built from the JLA, Batman's batcave did not come from teaming with Robin.

The devs are gearing this game, in this aspect at least, to those who like to team with huge supergroups, and have that be a large investement of their time online. I have a family, I cannot do that consistently, I play with friends or solo when I can.

Do I have to join a SG I don't like, just to have a base? Do I have to try and invest x number of hours, just so I won't be kicked, or do I create a SG, and lead in absentia, only collecting what my members put in?

It just seems like those of us who have managed to play the game at odd hours, (like after midnight), or involve ourselves in what our char is doing, not necessarily what a SG is doing, should not be completely left in the cold.
Yes a big SG who is active should have a huge base. Yes, it should reflect the time they spent. Yes, tohse of us who don't have a big SG should have smaller bases, but influence covers that well. a 75-person SG has hundreds of millions of influence, posiibly billions; a small team only has ~100 million.
That is how to balance it. That allows more people to enjoy the aspect of the game that their time investment (=influence) shows.

Okey Doke, 1 post, here we go:

1) Please datamine and give those of us who defeated Jurrasic in the Numina TF the badge for him. It is inconsistent with the roaming Babbage in Boomtown, to give Clockstopper for either the Boomtown babbage, or the Synapse TF Babbage, but not the Solution for either the Crey's Folly Jurrasic and the Numina TF one. I got the Kraken in PP first, so I don't know if the Hydra version would have also given it to me

2) Once #1 is implemented, please give Lady Siren the badge ;-))

3) There should be some way to go back and get the Isolator badge. Perhaps a Time/Space Portal mission, where you are transferred back to level 1 in the Outbreak zone. This could be instanced, or the real tutorial one.

4) A pop-up of data on each of your badges would be great. Something like the desription and graphics is shows now, along with maybe nice looking charts as to dates when you got them, timelines of kills/damage/healing, or even what it means to the player. Some are good - "Taken 1 million points of damage", but some like "Talk shows are calling you all the time" don't mean anything if they just appear. Please put in the game mecahnics reason for getting it.

5) Rename the 10k monkey badge, so it is not re-attainable, but at least exists for those who already spent the time to get it. Everyone else gets one for 1k monkeys (which IS "grandfathered" to those of us who were insane enough to get the first)

And various badge ideas:
6) Bugswatter badge, for KILLING THE SWARMS. Along with Head of the Hydra, and Heart of the Hamidon, this should give you the RAID accolade, which allows you to NEVER AGAIN BE AFFECTED BY THOSE DAMN SWARMS ;-)))
7) Something for Knives of Artemis kills
8) Sewer Urchin - x hours in the slime of the sewers
9) Cartographer - Cleared out x% of the fog of war from the maps
10) Paratrooper - Dive from x specific buildings to smash into the ground.
11) SunBather - Spent x hours in water. Could come with sexy bikini costume option
12) Nearsighted - Missed x targets
13) Avon Lady - clicked on x doors which did not open
14) Lost in Paragon - clicked on x citizens
15) Area 51 - visit a position on the Rikti Crashed Ship

Just some ideas

Hey, can we get it so that you are not absolutely required to go visit Lt Wincott in the Hollows when you get your second contact? He/She will not give any other missions until you actually go visit him, regardless as to whether you accept Wincott's missions or not. I have made dozens of alts, and following the contacts, ALL have had to travel to the Hollows for a visit. I don't need to be "introduced" to the Hollows anymore. Just make it so that the Hollows visit is one of two options to chose as a mission, and you are done.

Actually, for one alt, I got frustrated, and leveled him up just so I could get introduced to a new contact rather than take the visit the Hollows mission.
/minor-rant

PS I really don't need to visit the Hero Corp rep for the difficulty slider any more either.

If it has not been put in before, Croatoan was the word inscribed on a tree at Roanoke, NC at the Lost Colony where the story of Virginia Dare began. The entire colony vanished and that was the only "evidence" that could be found. Croatoan was possibly a nearby Indian name for an island, and according to what I remember from NC history class, a later investigation of the descendants of the people on that island (50 years later) showed that some had European features like bue eyes, etc.

A history link is here:
History of the Roanoke Colony

[ QUOTE ]
But it didn't explain why she keeps losing the Arc of the Covenant, the Holy Grail, etc.


[/ QUOTE ]

Oh, was she looking for those? My bad. I have been using the ark as a decorative planter in my living room for a couple of years since I bought it at a yard sale. I managed to talk the guy down to $12.00 on it!.

[ QUOTE ]

Type 2 PL'ers have played since Beta and have a neat new hero they want to try. The power they want to try/test is a level 32 one. They PL to 32 and then go on thier merry way, playing the game like everyone else. They don't hurt anything, in fact they help a lot of people in a lot of ways, we'll come back to them later.


[/ QUOTE ]

I happen to agree with the above quote, but perhaps P/L'ing to level 32 just to try a build is the wrong way to do so. Put in a Virtual Reality station with SimStim (TM) technology so that for a modest amount of influence, your hero can jack himself into a VR station that presents an instanced mission, with an archetype and level selected to "play". Not to go all "13th floor" on this, but the sim within the game would allow those players who have played enough to earn some influence an opportunity to try out other builds, other powers, and even possibly, a quicker respec test environment. This might ammeliorate some of your type 2 players from leaving, and might actually make some players more dedicated to a "nerfed build" knowing what they are capable of in the future.

Yes, bad call by the leader, but his intention WAS to P/L the warshade and blaster. He knew what he was doing, they were SG members with him. I am sure he knew that even if the mission was not completely finished, just as if it was the Dreck mission or Warwolves, that the P/L objective would be done.

The results were:
Two 45+ chars got lots and lots of debt, not uncommon, not even new, but debt.
The warshade only got benefit while harming the rest of the team, he leveled once, and based on the mobs size, probably got close again. He did not contribute, yet received reward

The following happened to me recently, and pointed out to me very quickly how bad P/L was for a team as a whole:

I was on a team doing a number of missions. It was a pickup team and I was not leader. As we went through some A/V missions in PI, my mission with Tyrant came up. Tyrant is a difficult A/V, not Diabolique, not Mother Mayhem, but very difficult none the less.

The leader decided to invite some people over a 5 minutes span, and I walked away while he was recruiting. When I returned, I saw that we had gained a warshade and a blaster, both Side Kicked to higher levels. Running down the list on the green bars in the team window showed everyone in the 45-50 range. With a team of 8 we enter the mission.

During the fight, the warshade does almost nothing. The blaster never fires her nova blast. I begin to wonder. It is not a big deal, since the rest of the mobs are goign down ok, but some battles (on inv) are taking 10 minutes. With 8 level 45-50's it should not take 10 minutes.
So, I realize that I can right click on the chars and read info, and lo and behold, the warshade is level 7 and the blaster is level 31 . The leader had invited a couple of his SG friends onto a high level mission to P/L. What did it mean? When we fought Tyrant, the warshade and blaster had not had enough enhancement slots to boost accuracy significantly and were missing a lot. Their damage may have scaled, but they had no high level powers to do significant damage through! The Blaster did not have his high damage nova blast, the Warshade was simply standing either across the room, or somewhat nearby with those whirling black ring of dots (I don't know the power). Both were just about useless.

The end result? a) Our scrapper went down 4 times, piling up debt. b) Our HEALER when down over and over becuase the battle lasted FAR longer than it should have, and she had to concentrate on Rezzing and healing, not buffing and debuffing.. c) We could not do enough damage to hurt Tyrant down to even 60%. d) We left the mission uncompleted after beating on Tyrant for 20 minutes and without A/V or mission xp.


(I came back later with a very similar lineup of A/T's but all between 45 and 50 and took out Tyrant in under a minute)

Yes, I know to check "info" now to see actual levels (although it does seem like this is in place only to hide the low level people from immediate inspection), and I don't invite people to my teams who cannot contribute, and are only sucking up xp, BUT, you cannot always do that. You join other teams to work on a number of missions, you round-robin missions to cover a number of folks, and you can ingore the requests, but in PI, you get them repeatedly around 42-45. They are very annoying. They do not read your team message about "not accepting bridging". I would LOVE to see a level restriction on PI to keep low levels from popping up in your missions, and sitting and doing nothing.

The fact that mission distance is infinite is important in buildings, most outdoor missions, and so on for regular missions, but all the P/L requests I saw generally came from Warwolf herders or Freakshow herders in instanced missions. There was no restriction on distance in there, and therefore, no impact from this change.

I know firsthand how hard a controller is to level. I know the level grind, especially from about 24-38 is very hard for some A/T's. A couple of musings on improvements any or all in combination:
<ul type="square">[*]The overall range for a group could be constricted so that everyone has to be within 12 levels to get xp, s'/k or not[*]The level range could shrink after level 40, because you have to wind up playing your character SOMETIME[*]Maybe the missions could have minimum levels or level ranges. [*]Doing the same mission over and over and over yeilds less and less xp until you reach 0. After all, if this is experience how much additional should you get when you know how to clear out a mission already or fight the same enemies repeatedly?[/list]

I don't care what starting hero you are, facing a level 50 Infernal A/V when you are level 5, sidekicked or not, and your best power is "create underwear stains"