Jet_Boy

Unless he wasn't on your team, sounds like he's a bit... um... "confused."

Don't hate on the Devs, hate on the exploiters. They're creating the cheating situations the Devs are then having to react to.

Also, the Devs could care less about farming, they just don't want you to exploit system loopholes using AE as a "hack toolbox" to do it.

There is another solution... GM Approved Posting only. You create and edit at will, however a a GM or Dev has to check the pending published missions (and any subsequent edited versions) out before it's made available to the public. That would stop all the exploit farms from ever being published, without ever needing to patch another thing.

Of course... there would be that pesky wait...

My take:

If you WANT a "healer" on your team, thats good... preventative measures are always smart.

If you NEED a "healer" on your team, that's bad... it means you're deliberately biting off more than you can chew. Turn the diff down!

My suggestion is even better. An options to say "no thanks" or to turn them off in the Options means the new players can still do them but us old players 1) can turn them off and b) don't out-level contacts that do offer other content after the ubiquitous "check out this new zone, check out the difficulty contact, check out the PvP zone."

So do I. Unfortunately these missions give you no choice but to do them, or blow a "skip mission" just to move on. And, at lower levels the chances of getting a second one after skipping the first one are pretty good. (My personal record is 4 in a row, including: Hollows, Difficulty, And two Security Chiefs. That's 12 days to skip them all, or four wasted trips and two hunts had I actually wanted to not skip them).

My point is these are great for new players, but giver the older players a break.

And since I forgot to include a suggestion of an easy solution for the Devs. Simply allow the contacts to offer an arc mission as well when they come up.

Nope, you're not wrong. A brute is a brute and a tanker is a tanker... two different animals. Your primary power set is as a damage dealer, a Tanks is as a damage taker. Taunt is an *OPTION* you can take as a tanker, a Brute... whatever. However it is not mandatory that you play "tank" as a brute or even to take "Taunt" for that matter.

If the team is going down, it's because they're biting off more than they can chew, not because you're Tanking badly.

Ok... once more with feeling: Just say "no" to characters that can't stand on their own two feet. If you *need* to have more tankage/dps/hold/control/healz than you can deal with... TURN THE GOSH-DURN DIFFICULTY DOWN (or check your build. Overspecialization is for ants)

Cool so far, and then...

If you'd have kept with "assumed " you wouldn't have illustrated exactly the problem.

You're more than welcome to limit a team you're forming to your "specifications," and although I think that's fairly anti-social and elitist, it's your $15 and your right to do so. However, unless it's *your* character, you don't have the right to dictate how it's built/played/slotted.

Personally. I'll choose the player that wants to have fun over the "perfect" build anytime.

But that's just me.

(PS: Just as an afterthought, I wish they'd give us back the system where we could hide our power sets and choices again. I think that would go a long way to reducing the need for resumes for teams. ))

As the others have already pointed out, this is untrue. Everyone has their opinion of the perfect (fill in the blank).

In any case, nothing disproves my point that a Tanker is neither right or wrong by taking or not taking "Taunt." It's a personal choice, one of many given to us by the Devs On High, and no one should be labeled as "bad tanker" simply because they choose differently than you would.

...which is what they are, and hardly a problem

... which is the point of MMORPGs, $15 a month + internet costs is an awful lot to play by yourself...

"Role" in this context is an ugly word, "Supposed to" makes it even uglier. I could be overly simple and say the only "role" anyone has is as a Hero or Villain, but I won't. If you wan to get pickey, as illustrated by the construction of the tanker AT, it's primary role is so soak up huge amounts of damage.

However, I don't recall anywhere is saying that a Tanker's primary role is so soak up huge amounts of damage for *you.*

If I take "taunt" as a power choice, that gives me the *choice* of being the "("I'll keep these guys busy,,, you get the hostage out!" hero-guy and/or the "boy, it's a good thing I was here, huh little buddy?" hero-guy. . If I don't that simply makes me the "Is that all you got?" type of hero guy. Again, it's all how I see my charatcer as "my" being the function word.

Many of the powers do have some small innate taunt, mostly to simulate the "Get the Big Guy" mentality of enemies. But "forcing" tanks to pulls the brunt of the damage is another thing all together. It's the same as saying "give all defenders "heal" or "no blaster should have melee powers." You might like that idea, but I very much doubt a lot of Tanker players would.

The concept of the AT's is not to define your role on a team, but help you create a character a bit more to your liking, and to simplify charatcer creation a bit for the developers by utilizing well know comic book "archetypes" (see what I did there? 8D) to narrow the choices into a more manageable (and marketable) subsets. It has nothing to do with team construction, with the exception that eventually most comic-book super-teams realize that a balance of abilities is a good thing.

And look at it another way. I'm suddenly forced to build my Tanker to be the enemy-magnet, that means the my defensive abilities also need to be enhanced to soak and survive wave after wave to balance it out. Since I now draw all the bad-guys to me, I can survive their assaults, and can eventually take them out... what exactly do I need "you" (meaning non-tankers) for.

Hmmmm... list time

1) I think most players try out all their powers at some time or another, why else would we have respecs? I think it's a big assumption on your part that most Tankers will skip "Taunt" and more so that they so because don't "understand" what the power can do. It very plane what the power will do for a Tanker... it will draw enemies to them and away from other players. I thinkk most people can read

Most of the people I know that did skip it, did it for conceptual reasons... they didn't see, for whatever reason their character doing that. It's Role-Playing, which is what the game's all about.

2) What constitutes a "Bad" Tank is your personal opinion based on how you think a tanker should be acting to be most useful to *you." It's not considering the other player and I pray its not something that you presenting to a new player as "part of the game."

3) Taunt is helpful to who? It's not very helpful to me as a Tanker... it means I get punched more, and harder, and by a lot more people. It's akin to wearing a "NASCAR Sucks" tee-shirt to a Daytona 500 block party. I hope you like running... I don't (I have a "Dwarven" physique.)

Humor aside, taunt *can* help out a team. It can also "hurt" a team as well, with even the most surgical uses having unexpected (and often overwhelming) results.

I personally use it very discriminantly, like when the blaster just AOE-Agroed an entire room of Warriors or I need to draw away a mob so someone can get a hostage out. I don't spam it to keep the party safe... I expect you know enough to run or yell for help if you need it. (And I might also let the group of Warriors beat the crap out of you so you learn not to pull damn-fool stunt like that again, but I'm a mean bastich 8D)

Nope... A Tankers role is to take a punch well, not be a meat shield for you, any more than a Emp Defender's role is to be a life-support system for a Tanker (and personally, I hope the Emps healing the squishies first, and not worrying about me so much... we're supposed to be able to handle hits well, and if I go down, then I bit off more than I can chew) or a Kin Controller's job is to keep feeding Speed Boost to you. It's an part of what a tanker can "choose" to do

And even then, it's hardly from the get go. The actual "Taunt" power is not even in the Primary Power Sets... it's part of your *secondary* Powers as a Tanker, and then not even available to you until at least 10th level (I think). And if we consider Secondary Abilities to be worth "two thirds" of Primary ones, then Taunt only represents about 5% of the capabilities that a Tanker can have, with many tertiary powers giving more benefit to a team than taunt.

Heck, mechanics-wise it's considered more important to a Brute, than a Tanker... after all at least is in his Primary sets, and he gets a direct benefit from it's use.

No... for a Tanker, Taunt is simply another choice you have with your character as you build it and not a requirement anymore than a "Buffing" power is to a Corr, or "Blasting" is to a Defender. It's a secondary power and shouldn't be a "primary" responsibility. If you're face-planting on a team, don't blame the tank (or any archetype for that matter) simply because he's not using "power x..." blame yourself because you overstepped your capabilities.

No. DPs fine the way it is. In fact it's probably one of the most well balanced sets I've seen in the game.

It's not, however the "perfect" power set.

Then again, the perfect power set would be boring as all heck

You had me to here. I understand that a Tanker's "Taunt" ability if a very good tool for them to have, especially with a team in mind. All my tankers have it. However... if Taunt was meant to be an innate power, it would have been made an innate ability. It's not, so the choice is left to the individual (Same as Petless MMs... I don't get it personally, but it's their 15 bucks): If they don't want the taunt power, nothing says they have to take it.

The only thing anyone in this game is "supposed to be doing" is having fun. Everything else is negotiable.

This... no other discussion needed. 8D

As people have mentioned, I've hit that bug several times where I've had to log on to a 50 to "reawaken" the epics. It usually happens right when I get the urge to make a new epic... so as a better part of valor I tend to keep a 50 hero and villain, just in case.

My, who's a nosy bastich? 8D

Well:

a) I like some of the names I've had for... well, forever and I'm a selfish j... er... I like to reuse them from time to time.

b) I like to try different takes on characters I've played previously, such as "I wonder what Crossbow would be like if he was a ice/Rad corr," and I'm not nostalgic enough to have a obsessive need to keep version one when I'm ready to try version two. (and I use MIDS for my builds, so I can always "re-live the magic" if I want.)

c) I play on most of the servers, but certain characters just fit certain servers... for example, I tend to play Heavy RP toons on Virtue simply because the majority of the role-playing goes on there.

U brok mah game. I workd hard 2 get 2 ehpik and now u ruined it I hate joo coecks sucks cause they broke mah game anti proton is a n00b.

8D

If you're being private about it, than it should be a non-issue.

However, here's a couple of points you might want to consider:

a) This is a "Teen" rated game. By that very concept, MRP/ERPing is pretty much out. Your opinion of what should or should not be acceptable in a Teen-rated game, even in private, has no bearing on it... you play the game, so you agree to play by the rules of the game. If you're doing anything that might be outside that rating, City of Heroes/Villains is not the place for it.

With that said... if you keep it in non-public chats, such as team chats with *consenting* participants, private channels with *consenting* participants, or private areas with *consenting* participants (meaning, say an ERP SG's base. Not the Pocket D) then the only ones you may have problems are GMs which enforce the games various rules, including Teen-acceptable behavior.

Keep in mind that *consenting* is the key word here. If seven of the 8-member team would like to ERP, and Person 8 indicates that it makes them uncomfortable... then you have two options: Have them leave the team, or follow his wishes. But regardless, he is still well within his right to petition the behavior as a violation of conduct and the GMs are still well within the right to enforce the "TEEN" rating... even if it's in the privacy of your chat or SG area. You agreed to that when you loaded the game and clicked "I Agree."

OH... and a side note. If anyone involved is under the age of consent... even if they they give consent, your still in the wrong. there are just as many 13-year olds posing as 40-years olds as there are 40-year olds posing as 13-year olds. However talking dirty to a 40-year old pretending to be a 13-year old won;t get you investigated or arrested. When in doubt, better to just keep it PG-13.

Just FYI

b) As "Uptight & Hypocritical" as it may seem to you, a public affirmation/advertisement of a lifestyle, even if not actually demonstrating that lifestyle, opens you up to public opinion and regardless of the immaturity or "conservative" tone of that opinion... you invited it.

Example: I proudly wear a Flogger from my belt... err... I mean a T-Shirt that proclaims "I love Red Cars." If I wear that T-Shirt eventually somewhere, at sometime, someone is going to challenge that opinion. I may have to put up with the gamut of response from serious inquires about red cars to immature responses to my statement such as "Get a Blue Car jerk," "Red Cars Suck," or "Playing with a Red Car is going to land you a one-way ticket to hell you kilt-wearing freak!" All because I publicly announced my love of Red Cars. Sure it's my right to do so, and I'm not actually driving it around, but I still made it apparent of my opinion in a public way. If I hadn't worn the T-Shirt... then my love of Red Cars, wouldn't have been open for public discussion.

Believe it or not, I sometimes take heat because I choose to put the statements "I RP but not ERP" as well as "I prefer Real Missions to MA Missions" in my search note. Occasionally is someone with a legitimate inquiry, but mostly it's such enlightened statements as "lolrp," "why not like MA, h8ter?" and "We're adults here. Get over it and go back to freedumb."

My point is that - right or wrong - people will have opinions about anything you might believe, even if you don't actively solicit their opinions (ie even if you're not wearing your "I love Floggin... err *Red Cars" T-Shirt).

You have a choice. Get a thick skin and ignore them, or remove the public channels from your chat.

Um... Jay is a very good artist. I think he's fairly amazing and seems like a nice guy. But, Jay is also an employee of NCSoft. If NCSoft "Boss A" says we need 35 animal body pieces to Jay... Jay has a choice. He does 35 animal pieces to the best of his considerable ability or he has a very good chance of being given the "opportunity" of finding another job.

This is how the real world works. Very few of us out here in the real world are in a position where personal opinion plays a large part into what you do for a living, that usually being very limited to those that are a) very wealthy, b) Very Influential, or c) very hungry.

((Not meant to insult or cast aspersions on Jay at all. I'm pretty sure Jay knows how the real world works... I'm just not sure that some of the posters on the forums do. 8D ))