Gorgar

I saw that but had no idea what "PTS" was.

I don't know about groups for that sort of thing, but I work about the same way (my characters have personalities, generally, but not a lot of backstory, and I'm not really interested in plotting out stuff to happen to them; fiction-wise, I'm just a consumer), and I've had luck with teaming with more serious RPers in their non-RP moments. Since it's something they've worked at, light RP comes naturally even during downtime. They're relaxed because there isn't any pressure to do anything significant, and it's a lot of fun.

Male player, 7 of 24 characters are male. In fact, looking at the list, there really ought to be 8 of 24 as male, as one of mine is entirely uninspired as female and would work better as male. I may have just found a reason to buy the science booster...

I must simply just default to female, as of the seven, two are chat handles I've used, one is a real person, and three are, by concept, male. Leaving me with one (or two, soon) that I had an option on and didn't go female.

I would have expected there to be more female characters in game than male, as the women I know all run female characters, and the men vary a lot.

My ratio probably reflects my taste in comics. For every male hero whose presence in a series will influence me to pick it up, there are probably two or three heroines who can do the same.

For more safety, less damage, dark/sonic also works. Fear and a more reliable heal than Kinetics. And a bonus uncontrollable heal in Dark Servant...no appreciable damage from him though. Still more damage than some, in that Tar Patch helps. The way mine is built is soloable, on invincible, but only because I have a lot of patience. Teaming is great though.

I look forward to reading this. It may overwhelm anyone just wanting a quick idea of what Storm is about, but I've been playing the set for quite a while and I learned a thing or two up there myself, so I think it will appeal to people who want lots of information.

I agree that the ED part is applicable to all powers and should go somewhere outside the O2 Boost section. I'd also try to get the basic and advanced slotting sections adjacent.

And, while you're talking about slotting, something I always like to see in a guide is how important it is to slot, and what you'll get out of it, not number-wise but what effect it has playstyle-wise.

For instance, Thunder Clap will stun minions for a decently long time out of the box, so if you just want to use it occasionally, it'll be fine with X (insert your recommendation here), but with Y (more recommendation here), you can perma-stun minions with it.

Also, really like the advanced slotting section with the discussion of unique IOs.

There are stages:

Announcement - very exciting, play a bit more, talk with friends about how cool this looks.

Closed beta - usually scale back a lot at this point. Can't respec on test. Time to do other things; the game will be there and shinier when I come back. Still read the forums though, and poke my head in now and then.

Open beta - dive into that the instant I can, duh. Do all the respecs I need for the new issue (must always have free respec available), start any new characters with currently available powersets, then when I run out of stuff to play with on test, back to hiatus because the new stuff is too cool to play without, now.

Issue release - it's *on*.

So yeah, I almost always wind up with a little break from the game before a new issue, unless it's just content (sorry, it's powersets, costumes and QoL that do it for me). It's not my interest in the game that wanes, though, just my interest in playing during the lame duck period.

Getting rid of Mentor Tetris is going to be cool. (Nice term for it.)

I see a potential for griefing though, in that you could kick someone off a high-level team, stranding them in a zone they can't handle. Might need some way to get around that. Overall, however, this is a unexpected change that I've wanted for years. Very nice. I look forward to being able to play the character that is right for the team or that I just want to play, without having to do the level dance.

I was bothered by using the same credentials for the forums and the game until I noticed (had it pointed out, actually) that the login button submits the details via https. Thus, your password is encrypted with the same method other secure web sites use when it is sent to the server.

I haven't seen the code, of course, but I don't see this as a security risk. What is most likely happening there is that the web server takes those credentials, passes it to the back end, and if the login is good, gets back the account attributes it needs to serve pages (account status, user name, access levels, etc). It's done with the password by then, and in the end https shouldn't be any less secure than whatever the actual game client is doing.

I apologize for having brought this up earlier, as I didn't notice the https page the login button submits the form to. Bad form on my part. Note to self: read (in this case, page source), then post.

I'd like to have a slightly darker background option too for greater contrast. The new forums are pretty, but I do find them a little hard to read sometimes. And, like others, would love to be able to turn off just sig images, but turning off all images works too.

Slightly edited and out of context:

I haven't had time to explore too many features here, but one thing I really like: hovering over a subject title in a forum to get the first few lines of the first post. This is great for those threads titled something non-descriptive, "Hey I Just Had An Idea" or similar.

Yeah, I've seen this not go well elsewhere, and don't see what it adds. Seems a bit like a popularity contest.

Took me a while to figure out what the icon was I had to click on to enable quick reply. Don't really care for the second click, probably will get used to it.

Animated avatars means no avatars, for me. Too frequently abused. I don't want to watch tv; I want to read text. Images also turned off. I sort of like the point someone made about enjoying seeing people's Photoshop skills, but I'm not a graphics guy. I am a musician...anyone want to hear some roaring guitar when they load my post? Didn't think so.

So, those are cantankerous objections from someone who naturally tends to prefer text-only boards anyway. Disregard them.

But, seriously, don't make me use my game login for an insecure http connection. I've stuck around through all kinds of changes here, most great, a couple I didn't like, through most of the game's run...but if I wind up having to start over because someone hacked my account, I'd be done. Don't risk that! It's a security hole. Sorry to be so abrupt about this, but I think this is a really, really bad idea. Enable https and make it the default or don't force the game account password to be used.

Thanks for making this happen. Looks great so far. I predict renewed interest in my MA scrapper and a host of new alts.

Big red ball would be fun. Also, there are a lot of CoT wizards who would love to stop being my punching bag.

Most important thing to me, I think, is revamping missions. Partially randomly generated maps would help a lot. I don't expect (or want) a new reactor every time I do a respec, but for normal missions in offices, warehouses, etc, variety would help.

Same goes for spawns. What I'd love to see most is all the enemies have a purpose. The game has come a long way, and I think this would give new life to missions and make them more compelling. So, for instance, rather than a warehouse full of Family all standing around in little groups of roughly the same composition, you could have: some low level guys constantly on the move (running errands, essentially), some guards at key points, guarding, possibly a group or two practicing like the Warriors like to do, etc. Bosses might be lurking in the back, or keeping an eye on the mission objective, or supervising one thing or another.

This would make missions much more lifelike. Also, it would provide another way to make groups differ from each other. Skulls and Hellions probably aren't very organized, and mostly just wander about or stand around in groups like they do now. Council, however, might have much more organized defenses, which would make them tougher to fight without just making them impossible to hit.

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2./ Yes, you can run the four Willpower toggles on QR alone. But in doing so, you negate the chief advantage of picking Willpower. Let's face it, the endurance mechanic is the least fun aspect of the game, and anything you can do to minimize its impact will make the game more enjoyable. Take the mez protection toggle (Indomitable Will) early, and take the regeneration toggle (Rise to the Challenge) early, but wait until Stamina is in place before picking up two more toggles, and your character will be more fun to play.

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I didn't do this, and had a decent amount of fun. I finally picked up Stamina around 35, which took me from needing occasional blues (or just to stop attacking for a moment) to pretty much never running out of end. I guess I preferred to feel more survivable at the lower levels, and be able to use some of the early slots on defenses. Mileage, vary, etc.

I had forgotten about Terra Volta. I actually like KR, for the same reasons some people don't, but IP and TV are just such pains. I wouldn't mind the size of IP if they'd done it like Talos with all the relevant stuff in a small area and the faraway bits left as something to explore or not, as desired.

Though, I have to say the octopus is neat, and I really like the long bridge, and the bits of rocky shoreline. So it's not all bad. Then again, I like Dark Astoria, too.

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I know not the ways of programming, but I am fairly confident this would be an Epic Pain in the Buttocks to create. The most you might be able to ask for is Inf, though I would love to see a Day Job bar for each character.

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I'm not sure how I'd explain why I think that would be easy to a non-programmer. I wrote up an example, but I don't think it was very clear, so I scrapped it. Short version: all that stuff is just in database tables, and if you know the player id (which you do if he's logged in), you can get everything else. I'd be amazed if the database views to support that aren't already in place, but maybe I just write a lot of views.

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You're second request...Confuses me. I am probably reading it totally wrong, because it sounds really dumb. Elaborate.

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M'ye second request was, in fact, simply that I'd like to be able to see the data for all characters not just from the login screen but also while logged in. The game knows who I am. It should know who my other characters are. While it's not particularly realistic to go see what salvage character B has while logged in with character A, there's no reason the game wouldn't be able to tell that sort of information, and I don't see what advantage they'd get from making you log out A and log in B to check.

This one interests me. I don't know much about art, but I found myself looking at this for a while. It looks like a view into a larger area, as the borders don't go around the outside of the piece. It makes me think about perspective, and engages the part of the brain that wonders what the rest of the area is like. I knew I sort of liked some abstract art, but I never expected to even slightly like anything that is, on the surface at least, this simple.

In that way, it is similar in effect to ambient music, which I've been getting into lately. Quietly shifting textures without melody or apparent structure. Drives some people insane because it doesn't *do* anything. I can understand that reaction.

Regarding the original topic: both Steel Canyon and Kings Row remind me of bits of Chicago and Milwaukee. However, I spend so much time in Talos that it feels most like home. Come to think of it, it does feel a bit like Madison, WI, where I spent some formative years.

I'd love to be able to see the inventory of each character. Inf, recipes, salvage, enhancements. Currently to see any of this we need to log each character in, then log out and look at the next one.

As a matter of fact, it would also be really, really handy to be able to see this while logged in as well.

My elec/elec doesn't have Power Sink yet, and I find Lightning Field useful. Whether I still will later, I'm not sure, but it is definitely helping now, so my intention is to keep it. I notice a difference, especially in slowing their end gain once Short Circuit wears off.

Electric Blast and Fire Armor aren't the sort of sets that go equally well with every option, in my opinion. I have an elec/elec endurance drain blaster, and while I'm reasonably happy with it, I don't think I would be with most of the other secondaries. Would not ever pick elec for anything but an end drain build.

Every Fire Armor guide I remember reading pretty much said you needed the Fighting pool to survive. Does not appeal to me. I skipped it, and though I had taken all of the defenses in the primary, my fire tank was pretty squishy, to the point of logging in an invuln tank many levels lower and SKing up in order to tank for a group. I think Fire is a specialty powerset that either requires a *lot* of care and feeding to stand with other tanks, or is better geared towards a secondary tank role. Is it underperforming or just different?

Martial Arts really needs something, I think, and I hope it's not a change to Cobra Strike. I like the control aspect. In fact, I'd rather add *more* control to MA to keep it unique than up the damage and make it more like the other scrapper sets. For instance, Crippling Axe Kick could animate a bit faster and stun instead of immobilize, so that it's easier to stack stun. As it is, though, it's not really that hot at control, and other primaries I've tried seem vastly more damaging.

tl;dr version: Electric Blast, Fire Armor, and Martial Arts all try to do something extra (end drain, damage, control), to varying degrees of effectiveness for both goals. None of them do it as well as Dark Miasma, though.

Fire Blast (useless secondary effect)

Willpower (too balanced)

Broadsword (cone attack comes too early)

Dark Miasma (all the powers are weak except Black Hole, which I keep on auto-fire)

Illusion Control (not all the Phantom Army guys are the same size)