Memphis_Bill

Not quite. The VEAT, "somewhat," but you can't switch from being a Bane/Crab to a Widow/Fort. HEATs even less so - you're still a Peacebringer or Warshade with the Luminous or Umbral sets. You can't pick up the PB primary and WS secondary.

Taking or dropping triform (or any forms) does not make them a new character, any more than a blaster deciding to respec out of their snipe if they had one. It's simply a power choice.

And for the OP - I could swear I've posted this at least once since the forum change:

Bricks and Founders don't bother me, actually. IP, though - come out of the tram and see you have whatserface way down on the south, or the one guy on the other side of the zone with nothing else around.... tells you how much I run them, I can't even think of their names. And then there's the cape mission talk-to contact way north by the Natural store (which I also don't think O've gone to in years there.)

Then how about if I quote myself from earlier, a response to the same person you're saying has "no redibility or relevance" to the discussion:

PVP is *just not popular in this game.* Not because of its current implementation - it has *never* formed a huge following in this game, even with its constant evolution. The PVP zones have gone from a high of "somewhere on life support" to their usual state of "'e wouldn't 'voom' if you put a million volts into 'im," the most activity tending to be getting a shivan or nuke, farming in RV or, recently, farming for PVP IO recipes. The arenas I've seen "busy" only when there's a PVP event on (like - I think it's Champion that had the level 4 PVP stuff.)

PVP is roughly as popular as a ground glass sandwich with horseradish. And again - that's coming from someone who likes to participate in it on occasion. At least if I go into a zone, I know I'm there with others who are (a) aware of the risks and (b) consented, not someone who just logged in and wants to get a mission done quickly on their lowbie who has trouble with mobs, much less PCs.

Your experience does not match mine in the least.

Go create a team. Somewhere other than Atlas. Are you in a Supergroup? Why are they not teaming/doing task forces? Have you visited your server boards on these very forums to see what sort of weekly events there are, other supergroups if yours isn't "up to snuff" or the like?

I do real missions. I hop on the occasional task/strike force. I do radio missions to get to the next contact, that's about it. And every once in a while, hop over into AE, grab a non-farming mission and have a change of pace. (Ran a nice arc earlier today, in fact. Decently written story, close to the lore, and an interesting premise that still dovetailed nicely - a million eyes, I believe it was called.)

"Non AE mission team forming, level X-ish. Interested?"

Actually, they told us there were several powers that were just not being used or seen as effective (see also pets, stalker snipe) so alternatives were added. Of course, for powers that "weren't being used," direct replacement resulted in people raising absolute hell (and properly so.)

(Edit: And yeah. Apparently some of the APP powers give Castle headaches.)

Three badges, work towards Hellspawned, XP if you're low enough and fighting the hellions.

This is true. The preorder was one of four Arachnos helmets, which are now available as a vet reward. Note that no paid-for extra will be given away as a vet reward. (You don't pay extra for a preorder, since the price of the preorder is supposed to come out of - or total - the final price.)

The COH Collectors Edition was available for a limited time as they got rid of their stock of the CE. (Known as the "Hero gear kit," it included Prestige Power Slide, VIP badge and the Cape of Four Winds.) It aslo came witha PvP comic and a little Statesman heroclix figure.

The COV CE had multiple heroclix, in game cape and arachnos symbol (it fades to a different color, versus having an outline in the vet reward version) Destined One (I believe only if you have VIP,) and some other out-of-game extras (art book, CCG cards.)

All preorder items are now available as vet rewards.

I highly doubt you'll see the Collectors Edition stuff for five bucks.

I don't believe that, frankly.

Barring Illusion controllers, Doms and Controllers are not "pet classes." Their purpose is not centered on their pets, but the controls (and buffs/debuffs or, in a dom's case, damage) they can bring. The pet is a bit of icing (or just plain ice.)

Masterminds, however, were designed specifically *around* their pets. Not having them controllable would be roughly as annoying as having a Blaster whose powers randomly target and go off all the time. Pets (or, to be more correct, henchmen or minions) ARE a mastermind's damage, and health, and defense. *That* is why they're controllable.

I do also seem to recall that, in the past, we've been told by a redname - if they gave Controller pets the ability to be directly commanded, they'd be hit hard with the nerfbat to compensate.

Looks like my other reply got eaten by earlier 'net connection problems.

TP Foe and Recall Friend are not the "worst" gateway powers. I'd give that to Jump Kick and Flurry.

TP Foe - Remove a problematic foe from a group. Yes, you can aggro the rest - you'll still have this single foe separated, probably around a corner, and dead by the time the rest get there. Warshades with half a clue do this with Voids quite often, and it works with other powersets as well.

And Recall Friend - you're *really* saying that's useless? Or one of the "worst gateway powers?"

Sorry, Sam, have to disagree. A breakfreee won't get you out of Caltrops or Quicksand, for instance. Teleport certainly will. And I have, indeed, used Teleport as a combat power on non-Stoners - many Controller AOE holds, for instance, are PBAOE, as well as several buffs/debuffs (it's a standard part of my Warshade play, for instance - TP/Eclipse/Mire - and I've done similar things with my Ice/Psy, given Arctic Air/Drain Psyche.) I *could* do that with sprint, sure - and eat plenty of incoming fire on the way.

I've also used it to *avoid* groups and get into a better position. I used to use it on one of my blasters to get from the ground up onto a shelf for a snipe.

Hell, I've even used the much-maligned Team Teleport - it's fun to have a group of Electric blasters hop in, drain (and stun - cheap procs can do nice things) everything in a good size group and then finish everything off.

Actually, they have indicated that they'd look into it, back when they were initially altered. Any set that didn't get a fifth power may, at some point, have one added. The ones that didn't get a fifth power tended to be popular and reasonably balanced already, though.

No timeframes, obviously.

<nitpick>

Not masterminds. For what I'd hope are obvious reasons.

Know what really bugs me about most I've tried?

Being like everyone else.Yes, you come up with this wonderful character, and within five levels you're in the same "I'm not quite a nooblet any more" armor with the same "hey, this is almost sharp enough to cut warm butter" sword or what have you. Sure, you might have a little color difference here and there, but overall, there's no point to customizing your look - as within five levels, if you don't dump all your stuff for new, you might as well be wearing cottage cheese for armor and throwing loosely wadded paper at the enemy.

Jumping.Or rather, the lack of ability to. Seriously, it seems like COH is the only game out there where a pebble isn't an insurmountable obstacle (barring EVE, where pebbles are generally what's left of the planet you just vaporized.)

The only other MMO I have on my HD is Guild Wars, and that's solely because of the lack of a monthly fee. I think I've played it for an hour - maybe two - since the beginning of the year. (Oh, and DDO... but again, free, and turned off quickly. Just haven't uninstalled.)

They have.

They use teleport.

Besides, why would a slow or immob affect Teleport thematically? It makes sense for the other powers to be affected - but you're not *moving* between point A and B with Teleport. You're simply ignoring the space between them and appearing where you want to be (or at the far end of range.)

Also, you can't be affected during travel with Teleport - If you want to move 200 yd away, a mob at 100 yd can't see you in between and attack. There's also no -teleport powers to affect you (there is, of course, -fly, -jump, and slow.) Yes, I'm aware of PVP suppression and Teleport, but (a) that's such a minor part of the game, and it just falls into the list of powers that 'nobody takes to PVP' now, and (b) Castle doesn't even like the solution (and is, or was, looking for a different way,) but doing a -range affected *all* powers on the character, not just teleport.

I'm going to second this statement, as it sums things up nicely - and this is coming from someone who *likes* PVP, on occasion. I've helped others learn what they're doing (or doing wrong) in PVP, had some good fights, written guides that have gotten people who weren't interested in PVP before into it.

I like my PVP *right* where it is, thanks - somewhere *I* choose to go to engage in it. PVP on or off flag? It's called entering or leaving the PVP zone (or Arena.) The most anyone can do when I'm not in zone is send me a /tell, at which time I laugh at them and, if they're being complete twits, put them on ignore. The people who really like it will spend more time there. The people who absolutely don't want it can completely and totally ignore its existance. I *like* that solution.

Well, it's not a "It's a farm = report" issue. Farms are not exploits, per se. Exploitive missions are typically set up as farms, but not all farms are exploits. (Just like sports cars are vehicles, but not all vehicles are sports cars.)

So - let's go with a *few* definitions.

Farming - Running one specific piece of content (a mission, a map, an AE mission, etc.) repeatedly, with no (immediate) intent to finish it (traditional missions) or move beyond it (as some farms are "finished" in AE to get an end reward, and this can also be done with Ouro and task forces.) Running it specifically TO repeat it for whatever reason.

AE and Ouro thow a bit of a wrench into what's been "traditionally" a sign of a farm - *almost* finishing a mission, resetting and going at it again and again. With AE, after all, you can just re-pick the mission. Ouro (and task/strike forces) can do a mission or entire arc over and over.

Farming is also hazily defined by intent. I, for instance, was having a lot of fun a while back with one of my tanks dealing with Warrior Earth. I exited and reset just to fight them again a few times. By a strict definition, that's probably farming - but I wasn't going for any reward, or even paying attention to drops, just having fun (and did complete the mission and move on after a couple of times through.) Typically, someone's going to point out intent in "farming" (at least the complained about ones) as trying to maximize a chance at a specific reward, or because it's being used to powerlevel. AE, again, has added to this as various exploits get found - and then dealt with by the dev staff, often affecting those who used the same mobs or objects (in a standard, non exploitive fashion) as part of their mission.

As an aside, it need not be repetition in all cases. Some badge farms require just maintaining a specific situation for a set amount of time, such as healing or damage farms where a player can leave a character in place overnight, sometimes over several nights.

A Farm, then, is easy to define - the mission or situation which is being used for farming. It doesn't HAVE to be in a mission (witness "rep farms" and "PVP IO farms" which take place in PVP zones.) A farm can either be - I suppose we can say 'natural' or 'artificial,' natural being developer content that someone's just rerunning, artificial being a player-created situation specifically for farming. (Edit - yes, also refers to the group that is doing the farming.)

So far, we're not really at something "to be reported." They can be irritating at times, especially those used to PL (with chat, /tell and broadcast spam,) and can lead to reportable situations - but in general, it's not something that a report will do anything about.

What's reportable are exploits. The developers have told us - and very understandably so - that they will not give a strict definition of exploit. For instance, if they said "Getting from 20-30 in 30 minutes" was reportable and bannable because it's obviously an exploit - people would just wait at 29 until 35 minutes have passed, and then argue that they were within the limits set by the developers for "non exploitive" play.

Some may say it's slapdash or too subjective - I say use some common sense. If you're going, say, from 1-25 in one mission, or hitting 50 in three hours - far beyond what general play would do - you're involved in an exploit. You're going way beyond a sensible reward rate. If you're able to go through and finish a mission at zero risk, or with risk tilted very heavily in your favor with almost any build (as opposed to, say, a fire tank facing fire based enemies,) you're probalby in an exploitive situation. (The recent "lvl 49 Healing mitos" farms, which were full of an enemy that gave reward yet was incapable of fighting back, or Cimeroran surgeons (no attacks,) or - from the Architect beta - Vampire capsules (I think) or the crystal room from Silver Mantis (?) strike force giving tons of tickets for no risk- all of these would be heavily skewed towards "no risk/high reward.")

They can't?

*checks AE* "Random common salvage." And cheap, too.

As for the prices, yes, some are high, but have been for... well, I suppose we can say "years" quite literally, at least blueside (Luck Charm, anyone?) but, again - "random common salvage." Did a quick run through a mission, just churned salvage and got eight of them. Put them on the market for 5 each. It's not (just) the flippers who inflate it, after all. Someone had a standing bid for 35 to 60k.

Plus - hey, great reason to run a lowbie. Keep them at effective Perez level and just run back and forth defeating Hellions. *shrug*

The market's not the only source of salvage. I use it as a dumping ground 90% of the time.

The only thing I'd like to see are alternate recipes that don't use the currently in demand stuff, or more use of less-used salvage.

Edit for last comment and clarification on price.

/nitpick

Dark does not exactly have an identical heal - and just like Dark's, Kinetics heal would be much less useful with some primaries. Dark's heal centers around the caster, Kinetics around the target. With a ranged set, say, Bots, Kin's heal would be "meh."

That said, just run some Kin MMs in AE. (There's one Bot/Kin in Hero Corpse *cough*) - while the SB'd pets are amusing, it'd either be rather annoying to play or horrendously overpowered, without a lot of in between, I think.