Seldom

For me, it's a mix of these:

• Character variety
• Teaming
• Gameplay openness

For character variety, this is both visual and mechanical. Both sides have only been improved with time. Costumes started varied, and have improved since then. Powers, even animations can be tweaked in most cases to fit a theme.

On the mechanical level, archetypes play differently. But more than that, archetype powersets play differently. Empathy is nothing like dark miasma. Dual blades and energy melee are different animals. More than this, different primaries/secondaries play differently. An electric/kinetic corruptor is a sapper extraordinaire. A fire/kinetic corruptor is a crazed engine of burning destruction. More than this, the build changes. You can have a energy/energy blaster built for extreme range that plays totally differently than an energy/energy blaster with the fighting pool and built for defense and blapping.

For teaming, you can bring just about anyone along for most content, and they can play along at whatever level. If it's lower level, you high character still gets their rewards. The lowbie doesn't get squashed. Beyond this, just about any team thrown together will have different interactions and tactics depending on the powersets and archetypes involved. You can do the same content 5 different times with the same players, and different powersets/archetypes will radically change tactics.

And finally the openness- you aren't stuck doing missions a, B, then C...there's enough content that you can play different arcs all over the place. If you miss something, flashback to it. Most content is made to be able to be done by anyone, so it doesn't matter how many come, what they are playing as, they can do it if they know their powers well.

I have a kin/electric electric themed defender, so sapping/electric is my shtick as well. Though this is for a scrapper which has its own mez protection, it should be noted that clarion radial should help your sapping with its +special.

I'm hoping they throw in a kheldian, just to add some variety to the group. Or for the mechanical approach, you have a group with one electric user, two psychics, one archer, one radiation, two super strength users, two energy melee users. (Babs cheats, using both) If they throw in something fiery, icy, or dark, that would add something new when facing the phalanx as a villain.

I hope they make a replacement that varies the group a bit better. If you include BaB, (which they do for the LRSF) The team has 3 tanks, three defenders, a controller and a blapper. With the new archetypes and the open archetypes, I hope they consider adding in something different. I'd like to see a kheldian, dominator, corruptor, or heck- even a long ranged blaster.

Oh, and I'd hope to see a bit more diversity. The team has 6 'guys,' and 6 caucasians. Mix it up a little. A Latina, or someone of Middle Eastern, or East Asian descent. (But only if they can write these characters as people, not stereotypes) Somebody who brings a new perspective to the team. Hey, an alien would be cool. An alien could be used to bounce the whole developing/deepening understanding of how aliens relate to paragon city, especially with the rikti revelations in mind. It could be used to differentiate between the good, bad and grey areas of those fighting against alien outsiders.

I try to have one of every set, so that leads to few repeats. That said, I have unintentionally made 4 dark armor, and 4 willpower characters, and my 4 radiation emission characters. Whoops!

Thank you, Placta for organizing this, and once again my thanks to those who came out to help.

Lanaru still evades me. I'm thinking he's the 'Mew' of the trials. Yet I still have to catch 'em all.

It took me 7 trials to get 14 of the nightmares. After 15 more runs otherwise, still sitting at 14 of 18, I got the 15th on our 5th try Sunday. I had to leave before the final run, so that's 2 more...so 29 runs and no Lanaru. The badge text for dreamwalker says this:

I would very much like to join in, real life permitting.

1. @Placta
2. @Ima
3. @Tenjoy
4. @BigMoneyHustla
5. @Ulysses Dare
6. @Koriel
7.@ChicagoDoodler, tenuously, expectantly
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The crafting/exploring/history badges are AT/power neutral, all you need is time and the ability to move.

The trickier side is if you want to solo lots of content, especially the ouroboros flashbacks/badges/etc, you will be facing repeated elite bosses, kill-all, defeats, hunts, etc. Even outside the ouroboros challenge badges, you will have to go back for the opposite faction as you started, to get the badges you couldn't while leveling/teaming on the other side. It's way easier to flashback than to wait for someone else to call out that they have "x" badge mission. Oh, and go for sets that aren't late-blooming. Those are a pain when exemplared, and between the flashbacks and the SF/TF misions, you will be exemplared.

Damage becomes a concern in completing things quickly. Choose a character that's pretty well rounded in terms of capabilities, rather than a one-trick/focused functionality. You will be fighting crowds, ambushes, and hard targets. Choosing a very ST build will make kill-alls and hunts a real pain, going all AoE makes enduring vs. a nasty boss tiresome. Get invisibility of some sort (stealth io+superspeed or pool stealth) to get to objectives more efficiently.

Built-in survivability is going to help, as will some kind of soft/hard control. Built-in survival skill means you don't have to pull as many tricks to accomplish stuff, like relying on inspirations or temp powers. Those do run out, after all. Control is nice because it's a great way of dealing with the many different enemy abilities. If you can control your foes you don't have to worry as much about dealing with the nasty abilities they use, because they can't.

What side do you pick more than others?

Redside.

What play style do you prefer?

Hybrid. I have a low tolerance for builds that are one dimensional. Not that I won't play them, I just won't have abiding interest. The more varied the powers, the better. That said, I do like having a specialty with those Nope, no dichotomy there. I do lean toward control, then damage.

What power set(s) do you favor?

I likehaving one of everything. I favor my mind/psy dom and my fire/fire/fire dom, but I like to have any power set available.

What zones do you like the most?

Mercy Island, then Croatoa, then First ward, then Cap au Diable.

Do you usually play as a male or female (word of hatred) ''toon''?

My characters are 50/50. Though I spend more time on many of my female characters, just because some of them are more interesting.

Views on Role Playing?

I won't roleplay as an end to itself, but lean toward making certain my communication isn't uncharacteristic to the toon I'm playing. I'll say the same things I'd like to say, but with different vocabulary/tone depending on the "toon."

Servers?

In order or frequency: Champion, then Protector, then Exalted.

Mind Control. I tried starting another one, but here's my problem- it's on my main character. (A mind/psy dom) I play that character so very often, have built it with the best resources, know the set inside and out...I have no need to do it again.

I've tried it on an alt, but I couldn't do it. I just went back to playing my main again. If I want to play something other than my main character, it'll have different powers.

Redacting my signup.

Sorry, family thing came up.

Eh, significant for them and their rate. They altered 6 out of the 9 powers. Grav distortion, lift, propel, dimension shift, wormhole, and singularity all got tweaks. Some are significant, some not, but it's been awhile since they changed that much in any set at one time.

I have my Clarion ready to go.

Signups

Needs Badges
@Archdemon
@ChicagoDoodler~withdrawn

Helping Out
@Placta
@Amygdala
@Cobalt Azurean

???
@SteelDominator
@Ima

Unfortunately no description would prepare any player for their actual experience. Communities=players, and players are all different from each other, so your experience with a 'community' all comes down to which particular players you come across and how you interact and get along with them.

I play a lot on Champion, and my experience is that there are a lot of very helpful, nice, shameless min/maxing powergamers there. But that's just because I have connected to some circles with lots of experienced gamers that laugh at the toughest game content and have treated me nicely. I know for a fact there are others on the server who are brand new and don't know a thing about min-maxing. Or that there may be less civil (Or outright jerkish) players somewhere on the server too. It all comes down to who you play with, and that changes with people's playtimes and outside obligations.

A server description wouldn't do much in most cases to prepare a player for what to expect from the individuals they meet and play with. That they have to figure out by playing, talking, and teaming with people. In fact, any such description would set up false expectations and almost certainly some disappointments or misunderstandings.

I would echo the 'face detail masks,' 3d masks that stand out from the face, rather than simply patterns.

"Spandex" textures with slight wrinkles. Not baggy-like, but enough to differentiate from the 'every crack and cranny' bodypaint look.

Collars:



Swoop-pointed boots, and the pretty-darned common cape broaches with rope:


...and of course, the 'golden age' briefs. The ones that aren't painted speedos, but actually shorts on top of the spandex.

I could be wrong, but I think the devs might have been alluding to the gravity revamp as well as the dark/darkityness.

I would highly suggest those that can both test and leave feedback in beta. The things like power order and/or replacement can only happen there, they tend to lock such things down afterwards. On the plus side, there are so many 'dark' power pre-made in the game that swapping them in would mean far less dev time than in the case of most sets.

My personal suggestions to the devs, as per the beta thread;

1. Dark Blast
2. Smite
3. Gloom
4. Nightfall
5. Gather Shadows
6. Chill of the Night,(CoT ghost -acc aura toggle power, also used by dark servant) -30% acc downgraded to -15%
   or
   Dark Pit, revamped to be a medium damage neg. nrg attack, but only a chance of a mag 2 stun.(mag 3 in Domination) Perhaps renamed to "Shadow Pit" or the like to avoid confusion.
7. Life Drain
8. Moonbeam
9. Midnight Grasp

Secondary option:

1. Dark Blast
2. Smite
3. Gloom
4. Nightfall
5. Gather Shadows
6. Moonbeam
7. Life Drain
8. Chill of the Night(CoT ghost -acc aura toggle power) -30% acc downgraded to -15%, radius increased to 15 ft.
   or
   Dark Pit, revamped to be a medium damage neg. nrg attack, guaranteed chance of a mag 2 stun.(mag 3 in Domination) Perhaps renamed to "Shadow Pit" or the like to avoid confusion.
9. Midnight Grasp

Minions:
KoA caltrops, sapper blast, mu electric attacks, Warwolf AI/mez resistance

Lieutenants
Tarantula mistresses' -def psy blast, Overseer perception, Nemesis sniper blast, longbow sonic grenades, vengeance

Bosses
Nictus crystal's summon, master illusionists' phase shift, vanguard curse of weariness, Longbow warden self-rez, succubus confuse

Considering that nukes have NEVER been adjusted directly that I know of, their only changes coming from archetype/system wide adjustments, I can't see why the things haven't been adjusted until now. When most were made, you could slot nukes fro +200% damage and wipe out literally whole zones worth of enemies. At that power, a crash and the current recharge made sense.

The whole 'up to 200% +damage' also made snipes' recharge/damage/interruptability more on-par. Now they can barely finish a minion on their own.

Then they implemented ED, and put in the target caps. Yet these powers still pay for the ability to do what they cannot do anymore. Yay?

Glad to see the devs have gotten over their resistance to more civilian-type costume parts. I am glad to hear that in most cases the female models are getting not just the 'girly' stuff, but the unisex stuff too. As to guys not getting unique stuff, that's cool. At least in the pocket D pack's case, ladies wear both dresses/pants, most guys only wear the shown male stuff, so that makes sense.

I'm an altoholic, though when I had a family account, my rad/rad defender took my attention, followed by my ill/emp controller. When I had to delete/reroll for my own account with CoV, I remade the guy, but haven't played him much since.

It wasn't because of his glory days, or because the character was bad, or because his play was boring. It was because the poor guy had been remade too many times. With his first iterations, icon wasn't around. I played him to 10ish 3 or 4 times, deleting him each time when colors/textures weren't quite right. I finally got something I liked, and icon was released! Hooray! I got him to 30...Then when CoV came out, it was time for me to get my own stuff. Goodbye, little guy, time to tread the ladder again. I got him to 30 once more, (this was solo) but I made myself do it. (This was still in the Jack grindy progression rates)

I did it, but it was old hat. Meanwhile, the new archetypes called...specifically, my dominator. It was my 'Main' villain, my first 50, and still my main character. My defender has survived almost 8 years of time and so many rebirths, but he still sits at 35. I think it's been about two years since I've played a mission with him.

Meanwhile, now being across two servers with 30+ on my main server, I still play my 'main' villain 2-4 times a week, every week. Not getting old. Besides the two 'mains,' I've had my handful of solid #2's. (Strangely enough, my 'secondary' controller was my first hero 50) They are all 50, and played between new alts and my dominator, but none so consistently as that 'main.'

Hmmm.... a toggle intangibility seems like it will be similar to mass hypnosis on steroids. Many decry that power as pointless and such, but almost every indoor map has a point where more than one spawn is created next to each other. With a toggle phase, you can toggle the side group if it aggros, wait until the first group is thinned, then have at the before phased group. This is identical to mass hypnosis' use, where you sleep the side group until ready for them. With sleep, you attack when ready to kill them. With phase, you had to either (a) wait for them, or (b) be surprised when they were suddenly no longer harmless. With a toggle, no surprises, and you can 'release' them when ready. I'm not seeing a downside.

And I do think I recall phasing enhancements increasing mag, so they might actually get some use. I am very much looking forward to making a new gravity character or two, when this hits testing...