ShadowsBetween

Even if they don't, the "rogue points" or whatever you have to earn to switch sides will probably be an issue. To switch from Villain to Rogue, you need X amount of hero points. Once you switch, counter is reset. To go from Rogue to Hero, you need Y amount of Hero points, and again the counter resets. So to switch sides and back again, you'd need 2(X +Y) total alignment points, and you'd possibly have to switch sides four times. Probably with different contacts and available zones for each stage. I doubt that it would be something you could do in a single afternoon. Of course, given the near impossibility of finding certain critters Redside for the defeat badges, it might still be faster to go blue.

One thing I'm curious to see is what incentive there will be for characters that don't switch sides. One of the interviews mentions that there will be some kind of reward for characters that pick a side and stick with it.

Actually, Plant has a Knockdown power that negates *itself* whenever they use it. Carrion Creepers. The vine critters have a knockdown power, which almost never goes off because the actual pseudo pet (the invisible thing that generates all the rest of the effects) has a version of Roots. On the other hand, I know a plant/storm who uses the -knockback ruthlessly. Root a big mob, then drop Tornado and Thunderstorm on their heads.

I've never tried Ice myself though. I could never think of a decent character to go with the powers - for some reason, all I come up with are lame variations on Mr. Freeze.

The restrictions on Trial accounts are just to prevent them from spamming. (The can't send email or tells. They also can't join SGs for some reason.) Even a trial account should be able to hear anyone else that's saying anythng.

Me? Run away from where? Here? Why? I like it here.

If the team is doing well, yes. An EMP should only be spending time to heal IF IT IS NEEDED. If no one is getting seriously hurt (not counting Regen scrappers, who seem to enjoy it) then I would be more annoyed at a heal-bot standing there, and *not* doing anything else. "But I'm a healer, I heal!" No, you're a /something Defender and if you aren't doing whatever that something is, you're a leech.

As for the TA/Archer, I'm pretty sure *most* of their /Archery attacks only do damage - the nifty secondary effect for that set is that things die. Most of the TA powers don't take damage, aside from Acid Arrow. Granted, trying to slot that one as an AoE blast would be pointless. But again, if the group is doing well, it's their character. And Acid Arrow is fairly decent as-is. (Additionally, if they're not max level, it's quite possible that they're dropped in whatever IO pieces would fit. I don't try to build coherent sets until at least level 25, and I know many don't bother at all until after level 40, if ever.)

Again, depends on the group and the player. If he's not whining about it, and no one else is getting killed (and he's not spending 90% of the time running back from the hospital) then I don't see why I would care. Maybe he's working on the debt or damage badges - I'd probably ask if it keeps happening. Maybe it's been a while since he played a Tanker and it's taking him a while to get back into the groove. Maybe he just did a respec because some Build Nazi told him that he did everything wrong, and now he has no idea what he's doing at all.


You mean more, or less than a Defender who ignores half their powers?

Oh, this is so amazingly wrong. I've been on solid teams of just about everything but Tankers and Defenders (I don't play either, so I'd be the odd one by definition.) Against anything but perhaps EBs or AVs, a full team of Scrappers or Blasters simply mauls things to death. Scrappers, Brutes, Controllers, Corruptors, Masterminds - I know people who regularly do full teams of any AT you can name, and they work fine. Even as pickup groups, unless one *player* is a dingbat.

And your own example undermines your argument. There's a team without healers, or debuffers or even much of a tank. If they had gotten an eighth Blaster instead, they probably could have found a tactic to absorb the Alpha anyway. (One Blaster couldn't take a full return strike. But if you pick off the stragglers, or attack different targets in the pack at the same time, you can split up the retaliation so that it *doesn't* all hit one person.)

And I call Bogus. I have a Rad/Rad Corruptor. Most of those amazing buffs/debuffs can run *while* I attack. I can amplify *MY OWN* damage along with everyone elses, thus increasing the effectiveness of the group even further. And again, those "useless" Rad blasts have a fairly nasty and totally automatic secondary effect, in addition to making things dead. And in this case, you really *are* gimping the team, since the damage set is a Corruptor *Primary* set. I suppose if you make a Mastermind, you skip all the pet powers to focus on the Secondary? It would make just as much sense.

Only if the team is taking such massive amounts of damage that people are actually dying. And if you're talking about a Pain heal of only 250, you're talking about the AoE, as I know for a fact that the single-target heals are *far* more powerful than that. And again, you could be throwing some extra glowing death on the enemy in between heals. *Edit* Reading over this, I just noticed that you said level 18. In which case your heals are fully slotted. And also generally overkill unless you're fighting an AV.

This game isn't WoW. It never was WoW, it never will be WoW. And frankly, comparing the game mechanics of the two is like comparing apples and pantyhose. At the level cap in WoW, tank-type classes can apparently have tens of thousands of HP. And you're going up agains Raid bosses with scripted invulnerability, and *normal* attacks that do thousands of points of damage. WoW was written from the ground up for the fantasy "holy trinity" as established by EverQuest - tank/healer/damage. And even then, people have some flexibility. Yes, many Shamans and Druids and Shadow Priests get to the end game and switch to "pure" healers. Some don't, and as far as I know, raids do just fine if some of the DPS or "other" slots go to such characters. (I'm not counting the psychotic uber-guilds that won't even start a raid unless everyone present is in Tier 5 gear or better. I'm talking about the groups composed of people that don't treat the game like their job, and real life as a hobby they do in between raids.)

Just to point out the flaw in this example - you've lowered its defense by 50%. So your attack is now *TWICE* as effective, and capable of doing decent damage. And last time I checked, *everyone* in the Army is at least taught how guns work so that if there's an enemy nearby that needs killing, the soldier isn't standing there trying to figure out which end the bullets come out. For unarmed military, I believe you're thinking of the Navy.

In most online games, you are intended to be fighting NPCs of around your level. If you find a *flaw* in their AI that allows you to dispatch NPCs that are orders of magnitude more powerful than yourself and gain XP from it, with *no* chance of retaliation, that is pretty much the definition of an exploit.

As near as I can tell, it's based on how the Seekers die. If they manage to zoom in and blow themselves up without being attacked, then they register as defeating themselves. If an NPC attacks them, then that NPC gets added to the pet "Avenge me!" queue. Sometimes this will happen even for an attack that hasn't landed by the time the Seekers go boom. (In the same way that pets in Defensive follow will sometimes aggro on an NPC that doesn't appear to have attacked you yet. The NPC has become aware of you, and probably queued up a melee attack or a short-ranged attack like the shotgun burst. Your pets register that it is hostile, and has an attack that is targeting you. Fire at will!)

Agreed. A favorite trick seems to be to put them much higher or lower than ground level. There's one in Founder's Falls that is actually in a tunnel that runs *under* the main map, and that you aren't likely to notice. Especially if you're just aiming for the green Vidiot badge. And there's one in Faultling that you'll probably never find without assistance, unless you are *very* observant, extremely patient, and possibly also very lucky.

According to you. Based on what real evidence, exactly? (Note: "I never see anyone in game" is not evidence, it's an anecdote. I still sometimes play WoW, on a server that is routinely listed as High population. I rarely see any players outside the cities. I *know* they're in there somewhere, just not in the areas I can access. I'll have to assume they're all in instanced dungeons, or in an area where I can't go, or rarely visit. Like Northrend.)

Fact: By I 16, the AE had resulted in a large number of players being visibly concentrated in a very small number of zones. With the changes made in I 16, those players no longer had any reason to be there. The changes to AE make it counterproductive to run MA missions at all if your only goal is XP per minute, since all but the most challenging enemy groups yield somewhat less XP than their standard game equivalents.
Assumption: Some of them almost certainly quit once their "Easy" button was revoked.
Assumption: The remainder (whatever percentage that may be) have split up and gone to other zones, since that is the only way to find content in their level range that yields "excellent" XP per minute.

Fact: The changes to the difficulty system allow the Fire/Kins and other uber-builds to go quietly run massive farms for hours, with no need for other players at all.
Assumption: Some of the farm leaders have probably switched to this mode, and have effectively removed themselves from normal gameplay. They're still in the game, but they have no reason to come out unless they need to vendor/market all their loot.
Assumption: Some of them probably still include friends or other players in their farms for various reasons. (I've been invited along by a farming friend just so they'd have someone to talk to. And since I don't doorsit, they find my attempts to fight level 53 Battlemaiden henchmen with my level 26-but-sidekicked Peacebringer amusing. Especially since when I manage an epic faceplant, I don't whine about it.)

Fact: During the height of the AE craze, some players that *didn't* want to be constantly bothered by AE farm teams looking for fillers switched themselves to hide from searches.

Fact: Some players were set to be hidden from searches before this, either because they wanted to hide from spammers or just prefered to solo.

Fact: Using the Team Search tool to get number of players in-game is *wildly* unreliable, since it *only* returns the number of characters that match the search parameters. Anyone hidden automatically fails to match any search parameters and is excluded. Characters from the opposing faction are also excluded, except possibly in Co-op or PvP zones (I've never checked so I have no idea how it functions in these areas.) If you search by zone, anyone inside missions is excluded. If the list is truncated, it only returns the number of characters that were actually shown, and anyone not on the list is excluded.

Fact: All the servers have been upgraded substantially. An in-game population that might have locked a server when the game first launched could very likely still register as "green" at this time. (Only the devs know what the approximate population cap is for each server. I'm not aware that they have felt it necessary to share this information with the player base at this time.) In any case, the server load indicators are also not a reliable way to gauge the number of people playing the game.

Fact: In North America, the school year just recently started for many students that don't attend school year-round.
Assumption: Some of the people you aren't seeing are indeed, not in the game. But these people would still consider themselves active players if asked. They just consider "not flunking" to be a higher priority than teaming with you at this time.



Query: Coming to the forums and shouting "The game is dying, the sky is falling, DOOOMMMM!!!" is meant to accomplish what, exactly? If you have a suggestion that you're certain would increase the size of the playerbase, the Suggestions forum is over that way. <--> Otherwise, I'm not certain what you intend to accomplish, other than to mildly annoy some people. (I'm assuming here that mildly annoying people is not actually your primary goal.)

So I would add -maxinactivefps 5 to the shortcut that launches the game? Also, now that I know the command, I checked the wiki - if I set this in-game via /maxinactivefps 5, is the setting "sticky" or will I have to re-enter the command each time I load the game?