FreckledAvenger

I assure you, your experience =/= everyone's experience. Speed runs are *not* standard. The reason Posi gives so many merits is because the data shows it takes the longest, on average, to complete. And by the way, merits are not the only reward in the game. Increasing your difficulty settings increases the number of mobs, which means you get increased inf/salvage/XP as well. Boom: increased rewards.

Yes, all true.

*facepalm*

"Now, for the sake of argument, let's assume that we have a tool (which the devs may or may not ACTUALLY HAVE) that proves my entire point."

We know that a lot of what the devs have is kludgy and old, and I would bet they don't have a list of all the available powers in a form that would be easily sorted like this. Would it be a good idea if they did? Of course. But you don't know they have that and therefore your "proof" is invalid.

But if you do, by all means, take the afternoon, compile your super-easy list, and send it on to the devs.

Standard code rant.

You have *ideas* about fixes that *seem easy* to you, but without knowing the code involved, you can't say that they definitely exist. Judging from Arcanaville's posts, it's not as easy as you think it is (and she probably knows more about this game's code than anyone who isn't a dev).

And for all we know, there is an actual specific reason why this fix needed to be deployed now, not "soon". Again, you don't know, so you can't say that there isn't.

That said, I agree that this patch breaks too many things that are not exploitative and either should be rolled back ASAP, or get the full fix in ASAP. Even if we have to wait for the full fix, since Dr. Aeon is putting at i17 release or shortly thereafter, that means 3-4 weeks, which isn't too bad in the scheme of things.

Okay, here you go: "sometime in April"

Re: EAT slotting -- yes, it's tight, but IOs made it a whole heck of a lot easier to get the most out of those slots. I can keep my triforms (and make each form kick-***) by frankenslotting the forms to save on slots without sacrificing enhancement. It does take a lot of planning, though.

When the discussion is about the specific level of specific enhancements, no. It's very relevant whether or not the actual level cap is being raised.

Which it's not. At least, I'm 98% sure it's not.

From Positron, May 2009:

I think it's pretty clear that anything that seriously screws up the risk:reward ratio counts as an exploit. Which these jellybean/buffbot farms did. You know how we got those? Because people were complaining about wanting to fine-tune custom MA critter powers rather than just picking Standard/Hard/Extreme. So they give us the ability to pick exactly which powers we want, and boom: jellybean farm.

The problem is, the devs want to balance giving us as much freedom as possible to tell stories through MA with restricting extreme exploitative behavior. Unfortunately, there will always, always be people pushing the envelope of the exploitative behavior, causing the devs to have to crack down on them. There is no way the devs could possibly have thought of all the restrictions necessary to prevent it (some, yes, but that's another issue). On top of that, there's a whole other priority list of what needs to be worked on, so things like this (that aren't technically *bugs*) aren't at the top of the list, and it takes time and resources to fix them. Which makes everything take longer. And then people start complaining that we haven't had a new issue in a while. Lather, rinse, repeat.

Tl;dr version: Exploiters are why we can't have nice things.

You don't think the Epic ATs have (at least on paper) more versatility than any one of the other ATs? Take the Kheldians, for example. You have a fragile, high-damage "blaster" form, a resistant, low-damage "tank" form (that also functions as a panic-button breakfree), and a midrange human form. Jack of all trades, master of none, but with IOs in the mix, they can be plenty strong at any or all of the three "roles".

And the widows and spiders with their branching capability? Plus, since we can dual-build, you can have one character that can be either a Fortunata or Night Widow (for example) depending on your mood.

If you really think that the Epic ATs are just clones of other ATs, you haven't played them. I'm not saying they don't have their issues, but to dismiss a PB as a "blaster wanna-be" is just ridiculous.

Well, true. I didn't say they were "good" storylines, just that the Epic title was meant to refer to that, not the actual powersets of the ATs themselves.

This. All of this.

As far as I remember, the "Epic" title refers to the independent storyline, not the powers of the character.

And Peacebringers and Warshades play completely differently! PBs are steadier but slower-leveling, completely self-contained, they feel blapper-y in human form. Warshades have high highs and lower lows, they're dependent on enemies around them to up their output, and feel more scraptroller-y in human form.

And I don't even know what to tell you about the VEATS. If you think a Widow or Bane Spider is "garbage"? I really don't know where your criteria are. I have one of each, and they're monstrously awesome.

This is true, but then it should only affect you once you've rescued the ally and if the ally is actually following you. It shouldn't be triggered by ally factions in battles or ambushes (they'll killsteal anyway) and it shouldn't be triggered if you haven't even rescued the ally yet.

Seconding this.

Ah, personal preference, got it. Like I said before, you prefer certain builds and styles of play. That's great, everybody does! What you don't seem to quite get, though, is that other people have (sometimes drastically) different preferences for builds/playstyles. And that is why some of the content is "unfun" for you. Because it is fun for someone else.

And that's the last I'll say about that, because this thread went circular a while ago and I'm getting dizzy.

I agree about the costume pieces; they should be changed so you can unlock them solo (Defeat x Cimeroran traitors for the Roman armor, for instance, or even just finishing the in-zone story arcs).

However, if you've been playing from day 1, shouldn't you have a zillion vet tailor tokens? I know I do, and I actually change up costumes quite a bit!

I'll have you know that my defenders, my controllers, and my few blasters are plenty damn active and participatory. Not once do they feel "boring" to me. You know what I think is boring? Running into a mob, punch-punch-punch-dead, run to the next mob, lather rinse repeat.

And "bottom of the feed trough when set IOs are passed around"? What does that even mean? Some of the best cheap IO sets are for immobs, sleeps, or other control/buff/debuff powers.

I get it: you love playing melee ATs. That's fine, and it is, as you say, purely subjective. What you're not understanding is that any AT can have an "active playstyle", and that it's a good thing that the content in the game is diversified so that no one AT can just steamroll through everything solo. Every AT and powerset has things they're good at, and things they're weak to. That is by design and it is a good design.

Stop generalizing and realize that it's your own narrow thinking that's causing these problems for you, not the game.

So because there exists content that is actually challenging (not impossible) for melee ATs, your conclusion is that it was not meant to be played by them?

If you don't like the arc, don't play it. But don't generalize everyone else who plays melee ATs into that box. Some of them, I know for a fact, were thrilled with the fact that they couldn't just steamroll through Vanguard, practically AFK the whole time, like they can with 90% of the rest of the game.

So you get Nemesis Automatons as henchmen?

Just wanted to comment on this part. You can put down traps while hovering, you just have to hover down to the floor to do it.

I usually angle myself downwards so I'm skimming the floor when I hit mobs, then drop Poison Trap/Acid Mortar, then back up and over my pets and start spamming caltrops/webnade.

Because it's meant to be a panic button, a "get away quick!" power, not an actual travel power.

The MMORPG article says "starting on March 2" for preorders, so I'm guessing that's when we can start pre-ordering.

My question: Will we be able to pre-order the "Complete Edition" at that time also?