Rodion

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I did want to comment on the issue of the relatively speedy change to costume issues versus server code issues like arena stability. Please keep in mind that the development folks who do the art are different people from the folks who do client/server code. So, while I don't want to diminish your point, I do want to point out that not doing the costume things wouldn't help speed up addressing arena issues.

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We should also remember that all bugs are not created equal. Certain kinds of costume bugs can be fixed in a few minutes. It's obvious what's wrong and it's obvious what to do and it's obvious whether it's fixed.

Fixing something like server stability is much more difficult. These kinds of bugs are often impossible to reproduce on the testing platform, because they're caused by heavy load or weird combinations of powers or characters left in an odd state (like "I teamed with a Kheld four hours ago").

If you can make ten thousand people happy with three hours of work, it's probably worth it. It may take hundreds of hours of investigation of arena problems just to reproduce certain issues under the right conditions to capture necessary data. You just don't know how long it will take.

I have a number of varied -- some contradictory -- ideas that I'd like to throw out.

If you're a member of a large and powerful supergroup, odds are you will have no way of making any personal changes to the base. Bases are particularly fragile, and if some inexperienced person accidentally deletes a salvage or enhancement storage item hundreds of hours of playing time can be thrown away in a flash.

Furthermore, unless you're the SG leader, you can be kicked out at any time. You can spend thousands of hours contributing Prestige to your supergroup, but you can be cast out for arbitrary and capricious reasons.

Even if everyone is playing nice, because of the 75-member limit, many supergroups constantly scour their membership rolls. If members aren't contributing "enough" prestige or playing too infrequently they get kicked out.

For people to be truly invested in bases, they a) need to know that the rug will not be pulled out from under them, and b) have to be able to put their own imprint on them.

After members meet some threshold (prestige contribution, perhaps), it should not be possible to deny them access to the base. This could mean removal of the limit on supergroup size and prevent them from being kicked, or it could mean that individuals can access bases directly, without being a member of the supergroup (similar to coalitions).

Members should also be able to add and edit their own rooms in the base. They should be able to use their own influence to pay for this, rather than using communal prestige. You should be able to have your own storage items, and grant permssion to access them directly to other characters (not use base permissions).

If you change supergroups you should also be able to take all your stuff with you. And you should have to rent a truck and haul it all over to the new base. Yeah.

Locating personal spaces within base plots would likely be problematic. For technical reasons they may need to be separate instances, making them essentially personal bases with a direct connection to the main base.

Each base would probably need to have another required item like the base exit portal: a door to personal spaces. Players would decide whether their apartment doors are "locked" or "open" to certain or all members of the supergroup.

Another thing to consider would be to make Prestige portable in some way. For example, once characters hit level 50 they tend to be played less, generating less Prestige. They are prime candidates for being relegated to a coalition supergroup (which means they can't access storage, edit the base, etc.).

In the "real" world, however, such venerable characters would be highly desired members. If they moved to another supergroup they would bring much prestige (with a lower-case p) to the new supergroup. But the Prestige rules don't work that way.

In fact, because of the trade-off between Prestige and Influence that begins at level 25, a level 1 character is more useful to the supergroup than a level 26 character, who is usually struggling to find enough influence to buy enhancements. (And please don't give me the "his friends should be buying him enhancements" line.) I really wish you didn't have to sacrifice Influence for Prestige -- it only seems to be an artificial attempt to reduce the amount of influence characters have at high levels.

If all the Prestige a character contributed to a supergroup went with him when he left (which is how it works in the real world when a senior partner in a law firm goes elsewhere), supergroups would be a lot less cavalier about booting members.

Another possibility would be to enhance the interoperability of coalition supergroups. If you could give the same levels of access to a base to specific coalition SGs, many of these problems would go away.

For example, you could have a level 50 coalition SG whose leaders could edit the "active" SG base. All members of the 50 SG could access the storage items and workbenches in the active SG.

Finally, you could be able to designate the SG in the coalition that you're contributing prestige to. That way my 50s could continue to make the active base bigger and better when I play them.

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Quicksand has a very nice defense debuff attached to it. So even if you don't care about the slow, it makes hitting things VERY easy. Also, it helps keep things on your earthquake/freezing rain longer, so is a good combo power with these.

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The defense debuff is, as they say, awesome. The Sands of Mu temporary power that my level 28 Earth/Storm has hits nearly every time on mobs in Quicksand.

The Sands will be soon be granted as a permanent veteran reward. With Sands and Air Superiority you can solo on invincible before you get your pet.

Bosses are particularly easy to handle. From around a corner hit the boss with Volcanic Gasses and Quicksand, then after a moment pop out and use Fossilize. The boss will probably be held, and you will be able to hit him most every time with the Sands. Throw in Freezing Rain and you will be doing near-scrapper levels of damage (no crits, of course).

Since knockback is so common, the lack of protection against it really makes this powerset undesirable. You have to either get CJ/Superleap/Acrobatics or three-slotted Hover for status protection that's a "gimme" in many other sets. Those costs are excessive.

I have a fire tank with Acrobatics and it's usable (barely) because tanks don't have to attack all the time -- they just have to stand there and take aggro. Brutes have to attack all the time to keep Fury up. With an endurance hog like Acrobatics, it makes for a lousy combination.

Grounded might be a good candidate for KB protection. since Static Shield already has End Drain protection.

I appreciate the intent of this, but if this is anything like Blaster Defiance, it will never be of any use.

The reason is that by the time my blaster has so few hit points that damage output is substantially increased, I have either fled the scene or a healer on my team has made it moot. I therefore have never seen my Defiance bar at anything other than zero in actual play.

The original release note for Defiance talked about "managing" your hits points so that you could maximize your damage output. This was optimistic at best. By the time your damage output is increased by a significant amount, almost any successful attack by a white or higher mob will defeat you. Furthermore, if it were actually possible to "manage" your hit points so that Defiance could be used consistently, it would be immediately nerfed because it is seriously unbalancing.

Similarly, if your SR scrapper defenses have been debuffed to the point that you're getting hit frequently, odds that you're up against foes that can one-shot you with whatever remaining hit points you have, even considering the minimal Damage Resistance you'll have at, say, 30% hit points.

So, if you're playing to stay alive or on a competent team, you will never see the upper regimes of this Damage Resistance buff, because you'll either flee or be healed before it comes into play.

Finally, the conceit of SR scrappers is that they have no DR; they just avoid getting hit. Giving them DR when their hit points get low is, to put it bluntly, a kludge. It goes completely against the grain of the powerset.

Adjustments like these are indicative of a design that has not been thouroughly considered or is unbalanced. Each change that you make requires another raft of changes, each of which in turn requires another raft of changes, etc., ad infinitum.

Enhancement Diversification seems to be the final nail in the coffin requiring DR for SR scrappers, but ED also required across the board End reductions, and probably reductions in recharge times on powers.

Playing at low levels is tedious because of the long travel times between missions and the long recovery times between battles (zero recharge time on Rest would be helpful here), in addition to constantly running out of End during battles. When you get into your 20s and you have Hasten and Stamina the game is no longer painful to play -- you can attack at will and you have the endurance for a whole fight. Then, in the 30s teams can move without pause from one battle to the next, given a good Empathy, Kinetic or Radiation controller or defender.

If the changes you're making force users to sit on their hands waiting to recover or to attack, they will vote with their feet.

I'm all for using CTRL+number to select entries in the third tray. The current binding usually just leads to errors.