MadScientist

On a positive note, I'd like to take a moment to praise the new map tiles that have been added with this issue. The narrower hallways create a great challenge, and I love the warehouse with the conveyor belts. Very nice stuff.
I hope we're getting more tiles in every issue. Variety is always good. A few new large rooms would be really good.

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For example, it's nice to be able to look at some Hero/Villain and see that they've explored such-and-such a place. I do *not* need to know that the have a slide reward they can claim.

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In a feat of great irony, you can't see the rewards they have claimed on their power lists. I would be interested to know if a particular person had chosen the Axe or Sands.

As has been suggested elsewhere, giving the rewards a blank badge artwork would fix this. They wouldn't look like badges, would clearly not be settable as a title, and would then end up invisible on the /info screen. In fact, that claim button could be moved and made bigger and put in the badge artwork spot.

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The higher level you get the faster the boss can trash the safe and then its all "stop the peons and boss from fleeing".

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I think the safes need to scale up in level, so an AV faces a slightly more challenging safe inside the bank.

now that there are explore badges in Pocket D, can we get a Teleporter Beacon there?

Something is odd with the COT portals. The travel portals, not the summoning ones. When I go thru one, the camera jumps around 180 degrees as I walk thru, then it cuts to the other side of the portal where the camera jumps around again as I do a short "walk thru the door" animation as if I came out an elevator. I no longer just walk in one side and out the other.
If these now work like elevator doors with the animations, can we just get them to be clickable like the doors? Maybe this is caused by the combination of the played animation with the positioning when it triggers?
These portals were also completely black on the mission map. Could have been just one particular portal-connected hallway, though, I haven't run enough COT missions to see every portal variation.

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Vet Reward badges with a clickie button are not really badges, they are reward selection windows. They just happen to use the badge graphic in the window.

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Perhaps some of the confusion could be cleared up if the Devs gave us a specific "reward" graphic for the items we can't select as a badge title. Or simply no graphic at all.

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The contacts list needs VERY serious cleaning up, organization-wise.

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Amen.
If the list would at least sort itself by level range, the new police contacts would all get burried with the other contacts I no longer need. and the higher-level ones I pick up early by sidekicking would not be lost when I try to find them later on.
A more advanced solution would be to create a contact tab for each level range. Some people have suggested tabs for the Detectives, I would prefer levels unless you could go all out and break apart: each of the Origins, Detectives, PVP-zone, and each unique zone (Hollows, Faultline, etc).

Are you aware of this?

There seems to be an extra blank title in the middle column. That shifts everything down and creates a scrollbar where there probably wouldn't be one. I can select that title and it adds a space to the title row, shifting "The" over to the left.

stupid question - what makes a Veteran Respec any different for that? do normal (non-/respec) ones fail, too?

I get the roleplay aspect of these. That's fine.

The thing I don't get is why the crash is a fixed time.
If I invest in slots in Stamina, or find a teammate with Speedboost so my End recovers faster, then why does that +Recovery not affect my post-nova downtime?

I would love to see these reworked to negate X amount of recovery ticks. So if my recovery is faster, I'm floored at 0 for less time.
Maybe the baseline unbuffed downtime needs to be enhanced so average 3-SO Stamina user is still at 15 seconds.
Maybe even allow the Novas to be directly slotted to reduce downtime. Have the downtime be part of the End cost, and so reduced by End Reduc slotting.

I mentioned this on Test, but couldn't quite confirm it in that environment, but now on Live in "normal" gameplay situations, I can say for certain - Fly's suppressed speed is too slow. The power description says it suppresses to Hover speed. In practice, it may as well have me immobilized. It's not moving at the new-and-improved-Hover speed.


Not to come here just to complain, let me also give a big /em ThumbsUp for the boost to Hover. My characters with 3-slotted Hover and a Fly Speed in Swift are seeing a HUGE boost in Hover speed when all that buffing multiplies the 10%. I like it.

as interesting as that sounds, I think the end result would be 1 base editor hogging 5 roster spots in the SG.

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How about a new base item that's a bank of lockers. Each player gets a "door" in the locker to hold their stuff (enh, insp, and salvage)

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I'm still waiting for someone to explain to me how that system would react to someone being kicked out of the supergroup.

If your stuff goes with you, how do you go back in and get it? If your stuff instead gets detached from the base, so you don't have to go back in, then what's the advantage in attaching it to the base in the first place instead of giving everyone a lockbox at the many banks scattered around town?
If the stuff stays in place, is the SG paying anything for this storage space for a person they got rid of? If space is limited, dose the SG have the ability to delete your stuff, or to reposess it? What if they don't pay upkeep and you're locked out of the base?

Don't get me wrong, I think personal storage is a good idea. I just don't see how it would work putting personal stuff inside group space.

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One of the failing points of bases was that it didn't actually cause supergroups to coalesce into grand alliances, it just meant that all the small supergroups had to jump through a lot of hoops to access the new functionality, and many found it not worth the bother.

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And there is the heart of the problem.
At the end of the day, there still aren't the large server-moving SGs that the Devs had envisioned. Why?

I think some debates such as this thread are partly an effort to separate cause from effect.
For example, I don't think everything is too expensive and don't think we need more Prestige per kill. I think the perception of too little prestige is a *result* of the lack of really big SGs, not a *cause of* the lack of SGs. (Note: I believe some individual items/rooms are not cost balanced. I'm saying the general costs seem about right.)
On the other hand, Bases are by themselves a detriment to really big SGs. As a SG gets more worth, in this case assets in the form of Prestige, Salvage (including crafted items) and a well-built base, it becomes harder to share that with more people you don't know. The lack of base usage is a result of the SG design. SG design did not evolve at all to accomodate bases, and that's what really has to be looked at, IMHO.

I don't think the cause of the problem is a general dissatisfaction with the base system, that attitude is a result. I think the cause is that it's too hard for the base system's intended audience to use them fully. Or in some cases, impossible to use the base functions because raids are too buggy and the IOP trial is MIA, but that's going on a tangent...

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I think most people would just like either
a: a personal storage locker in base
b: a personal storage locker in base

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I need a place to store my HO's!

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and how would storage in a GROUP base help that? What happens if you get kicked from the group?

personal storage would be much better handled by giving us access to the various banks around town. Let us rent a storage locker there.

States,
I'm still not seeing how adding a feature for individual housing will do anything to address the current issues with a Group's collective space.
To draw an analogy, it woudl be like adding more PVE content to distract from PVP imbalances.

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My second concern would be the use of global handles. Quite frankly, at no point in time would I want everybody that joins the SG to get my global id, and I think many others would like to see that privacy ensured as well. If this is done, I hope that the option of creating a SG ONLY chat handle will be included.

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There would be ways to group SG Membership by global without actually showing the global.
There would also be ways to communicate to someone globally without using the gobal chat. (For example, I think email should be received by the account, regardless of what character you're on.)

but I think the real solution would be to adjust a SG Permission. Ability to see a global would be given out as a permission. That way you don't have to let any new recruit see who you are.
Now, does a new recruit have to reveal their global? Maybe have a personal setting to hide it. Maybe a loss of a bit of anonymity is a requirement for joining a particular SG - just go find a different SG that doesn't ask for it to be shown.

my point is: you have valid concerns. I hope they are factored in to the improvements instead of letting them hold back SG improvements.

I don't like the fact that base editing is so vital it denies people positions of leadership. It's amazing to see SGs giving out Kick permissions to Rank 4, but not Base persmissions until Rank 5.

again, to be constructive, the solution seems 2-fold. 1) Prevent deletion of crafted items when they are removed. 2) Keep a log so we know who trashes the base - after all, it tracks who PLACES every single item, why not track who removes it?

an alternate idea, without adding in all the globals, would be to have both active and innactive rosters.
Innactive members can't enter SG Mode, can't use the base, can't talk on Coalition chat. Pretty much can't do anything except reactivate themselves. (This gives you something to trade off if you're innactive.)
Tie the ability to activate/innactivate members to the ability to promote/demote. (Plus, obviously, you can deactivate yourself.)
Limit the active roster to 75 characters, still keeping the limts the Devs need, like for how many people fit on one map. The innactive roster could then be pretty much unlimited.
All this is simply a way to rotate characters in and out of the 75 character roster without having to worry about join-on dates and prestige totals, without having to track down someone online to re-invite you, without having to get re-promoted after a re-invite. etc. etc. Just gives an easy way to do the type of micro-managing some SGs already do with alt groups.

I tend to decorate rooms while saving up for other stuff. Everyone seems to understand that the banners and such will disappear in favor of something functional. Not too much time goes into this, just enough to give the base a little life. This accomplishes the following...
1. the illusion that we're broke and need to work harder for more prestige or new recruits. ;-)
2. hides money that could look like it's available for rent. (You'd be surprised how many people ask why we're not paying rent. a lot easier to answer "we're broke" than to explain the rent system.)
3. gives an excuse to stop and re-decorate often. this usually drums up a few new ideas. also acts as somewhat of a poll - where I hear "hey, where did that cool decoration go?" I know it's something popular that should find its way back into the base.

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I read this thread thoroughly ...

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Statesman, did you also go through this thread in the base forum? There's a lot of interesting stuff there, particularly from the POV of SG Base Editors.

In addition to what I've said there, a quick comment on this...
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There’s no such personal property in the base. We thought (on paper) that the “personal items” would do the trick, but it isn’t really the same thing, is it?

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Personally, I think the problem isn't that people *won't* build a base, it's that most people *can't* build a base. Allowing a personal item here or there a) doesn't address that particular problem, and b) creates a different problem.
You see, a SG goes through a lot of trouble to either coordinate base design, or to limit design so they don't have to coordinate. A system that allows anyone to drop random "personal" items into the base adds unpredictability, which is bad when you have a large group of people who really don't know each other.

I think you could get more base personalization if you removed the SG's vulnerability to permanent losses, and vulnerability to unpredictability, and added a bit of protection from griefing, and maybe add a bit to facilitate communication and group-wide planning. That would open up options to let SG members edit the majority of the base, not to just drop a single item once in a while.

Anyways, there's a lot more in that other thread, from a number of very wise base builders. I hope you have time to read it. Thanks for taking the time to come back here - a lot of us sometimes wonder if Devs come back to read responses to them. Good to know we're heard.

as I said when this was mentioned in another thread, this doesn't solve the problem, it ignores it.
you still have a core SG base that only 1 or 2 people in a SG are allowed to decorate.
*adding* a personal space per player does not change the problems with using/decorating *group* space.

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I know of several SGs who have all 75 slots filled by a couple donzen friends and all their alts. That's how they want it, that's how they like it, and there is no reason to impose sanctions on them simply because they choose to use the tools given them - and which they pay for - to enrich their game experience in a way not in line with the preferences of others, especially including the designer.

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Let me once again clear this up so you're not ranting about something I didn't say.

You would not have to change how many alts people use!!!
If everyone wants many alts in a SG, then the system needs to adapt to the way people play it. Change the system, don't try to force different behavior.

As it currently stands, SGs are not as active as they were expected to be. The Devs have said as much, and gave Prestige boosts. I think that's because hte Devs never expected SGs to be full of Alts.

So without changing the way people play, what's the solution? Clearly, you spell out the problems of one possible solution in your post. There are 2 other ways to adjust SGs to account for Alts...
Accept that SGs are smaller and scale down the system. Lower costs, bump up Prestige. As I've said in another post here, I don't like this scaledown idea, it's losing sight of the large group features the Devs tried to give us.
The best option in my opinion is to allow SGs to account for alt enrollment. Maybe expand to 300 roster spots and just balance it by the odds of never having more than 50 members on at once. Or change from 75 Chars to 75 Globals. or something along those lines. If you do that, you'll see more people online in any given SG at one time, and you'll see more Prestige, and be able to upgrade faster, and have more SG events happening, and so on. Players would not have to change, their friends lists would just get larger.

that better for you?

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acknowledge that an 80 CHARACTER SG may be less than a dozen PLAYERS, and scale bases accordingly.

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I disagree with your conclusion.
Instead of adapting bases to the current state of SGs, I think SGs should be reexamined so they can become the collections of 75 *players* that they were originally envisioned to be.

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The problem is that in reality more average sized sgs are a dozen or so people with multiple characters. If it really were reorganized in a way in which you could only put one character per account, I think SGs would be worse off. This is a game of alts. It's not really realistic to expect a person to only have one sg and not allow them to bring the other alts they play into it. Most people at least play two other alternate characters a week.

You're never going to get 75 dedicated players who don't play alts. And if you're playing an alt that's not allowed to be in your main's sg, your main's sg is losing that prestige to the other sgs you play in with your alts.

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There's plenty of talk around about expanding rosters to hold 75 Globals.

I wouldn't want a 1-char-per-account limit on a roster. No way. Never said anything like that. Never said to limit alts.

I said "no REAL explanation"
Yeah, it's some exploit. No one seems to be able to figure out what would be that serious. As others have said, it would be good to get a few more details.

Don't you think after a year to get this out to us it would be a bit of a priority to keep it there? Especially with little else to encourage bases - that huge selling point for the COV box.