Eiko-chan

I've gone through Praetoria myself. Once on live, four times (one for each track) on Beta. Late Beta, so the gameplay was more-or-less the same for both.

Key missions where it took five or more defeats to get through because of the set up of the mission or the enemies, however, were not a fun part of those playthroughs. Ambushes need to be examined or enemy capabilities need to be examined. Or both.

I'm guessing you think the Barracuda and Lord Recluse Strike Forces are laughably easy, and anyone that fails the Imperious Task Force should just quit playing. Am I far off the mark?

The thing I love the most about this game is that they don't follow the design philosophy of "many MMOs". They follow the philosophy of "the game should be fun". Beating your head against unbeatable content because you have the wrong combination of powers or don't know the perfect, pre-designed tactic for tackling it, is not fun for me, and I suspect it's not fun for most of this game's players.

If you're looking for difficult content with great rewards locked behind it accessible only to the elite few capable of completing it, this game will probably forever disappoint you. But it pleases many other people, and is one of the things that sets this game apart from its competitors.

You don't run into Spectrals under level 10. I'm not sure you run into them under level 15, either.

Where did you learn game design, anyway, that you can possibly think this is even remotely good design? Difficulty sliders exist for people like you. Use them, for crying out loud!

Thank you. Can we expect other Praetorian groups to get looked at in future patches?

Resistance members having Defence, for instance, pretty much negates the entire point of the Beginner's Luck buff that was added in. Just looked at the numbers while fighting Wrencher in the tutorial; he has 10% defence, taking my first-level accuracy from 90 down to almost baseline, 80.

If the Syndicate hit too hard, wouldn't the same philosophy suggest that the Resistance avoid too much damage?

Wait, wait.

You're Blue Steel?!

Back on topic from the tangent: In the case of my namesake main character, her Praetorian version is what she might be like if she was the product of a loving, committed marriage between her parents, rather than the twisted genetic experiment of a demented geneticist with an obsession for his lab assistant.

What this makes her is a well adjusted young woman who wishes to protect and defend the people of her world, instead of destroying and ruling over them. Unfortunately for Primal Earth, this includes protecting the people of her world from outside incursions, and does not include protecting the people of other worlds from hers.

So ultimately, in the end, she still ends up a Villain, because she values the lives of Praetorians infinitely more than the lives of Primals.

There are these things called "friends" and "teams".

Even a hardcore soloist like myself knows and uses these things from time to time.

At the end of Jessica's arc, she goes to spend more time with her crippled boyfriend, so she wouldn't logically be standing around TPN any more.

Only if Vigilantes are willing to blow up entire cities, or bomb Parliament.

Might be an aspect of limited exposure to Hispanic culture, maybe? As someone living in the Southwest, I instantly knew the OP was male, because Latino/Latina is a word that changes based on gender. A Latina would never call herself a Latino.

I was going to say "buy new shoes", but I've been beaten to it.

Veteran Rewards are costume pieces at months 3, 6, 9, 15, 18, 21, 27, 30, 39, and 51.

They are base items at months 12, 24, 30, and 36.

That's all the "exclusive item" aspects of Veteran Rewards.

As for your suggestion; it'd be a nicer system, but it still doesn't fix the problem of newcomers not being able to make the character they envision (or even come close, if that vision includes wings, or a guy in shorts.)

While I think every 15-30 minutes might be a bit much for the inspiration power, I otherwise think these are all fine ideas for veteran rewards.

SCR on the teleport powers, though. Contact is probably a lot easier than anywhere.

1) I already have most of the veteran reward costume pieces. I'm not arguing on my own behalf. I really wish we could get over the personal insults when these discussions come up. I won't call you selfish, elitist bastards, but you need to agree to stop calling me a greedy, impatient child.

2) Because I'm willing to stake my reputation that the sale of a "Veteran Reward Costumes Booster Pack" would result in 0 veterans quitting the game, and I'm equally willing to stake that reputation that lack of wings at level 1 has cost at least 1 customer.

Cryptic did vet costumes, not Paragon. Paragon has never added a costume as a vet reward.

As for them not being intended for the average user, I call giant shenanigans. Especially the early costume rewards were among the most requested costume items from players in the long period before Vet rewards were started. Players really, really wanted things like trench coats and wings for their characters, and then came veteran rewards to grant them to "everyone" (since, at the time of announcement and implementation, almost every player was due some veteran reward time already).

The costume Vet Rewards were put in place in an era before the Booster packs, and adding costume pieces has never been a huge priority for issue releases. In a way, Veteran Rewards were the first booster pack, except a new player can't buy them if they want those pieces - they can only wait.

We'll never know for sure how many players that has cost, but I will guarantee you that number is higher than the number of vets who will quit over there being some method to unlock vet costume pieces other than waiting for vet rewards.

I defy you to name even one tiny legitimate balance issue caused by someone having a costume piece. Costume pieces have nothing whatsoever to do with balance.

Your proposed system does nothing to fix the issue of locking away unique (samurai, anime) and iconic (wings) costume pieces from new players. Your "tier" system still keeps costume pieces out of the hands of newcomers for no justifiable purpose.

I wish someone had asked a more pressing question - what happened to Mods 9 through 11?