Starjammer

My very first character was a blaster. And while I enjoyed being able to dish damage, I hated that so many battles turned into tactical exercises. This was back in '05, mind, before any form of difficulty adjustment was brought into the game.

Then I rolled a tank and got him over the End hump. O. M. G. I could wander through maps and take on all comers. If a hidden critter popped out and piled on... meh. Okay, yeah, I had no range and had to chop down Lts and above, but who cares? I wasn't face-planting and debt-capping every time a tough end-boss happened. No perma-Stuns or chain-mezzes. No friggin' Jack Emmert touting getting killed as a power-up strategy.

My only real regret is that I didn't get to play a tank back in the days when they aggroed and herded entire zones into dumpsters.

To take this off on an entirely different tack...

Part of what makes for mental age is the way the brain physiologically behaves at different points in your life.

For instance, it's documented that starting at puberty, the brain ages kind of back to front, with the emotional/impulsive bits in back "growing up" first and the logical parts up front coming in around 21-25. Which is why teenagers tend to have poor impulse control and a heightened sense of personal drama.

As the brain gets older, neurons become less plastic, making it harder to lay down new pathways, which contributes to people becoming set in their ways.

My point being, I would imagine that an immortal would be drawn to a person whose "neurological age" most closely matched their own, however it is that their brains operate.

So my guess is that Marcus Cole probably thinks and acts like a man in his mid-30s because that's where the magic of the Well froze the development of his brain. He probably also relates to others in that fashion and that's probably the level of maturity he seeks in potential companions.

Then, as they age, he ditches them and cons them into thinking he's not calling because he's captured in another dimension. Meanwhile, he's just hanging out in Independence Port. You're really "Statesman's Pal" because you repeated the story to Maria Jenkins.

I think the game needs much better inf sinks than the ones we already have, because inf obviously flows into the game at a much higher rate than fixed costs and character retirement/abandonment take it out.

I think the easiest way to provide a massive inf sink (and also insure a marketers' riot) would be to allow purchasing Merits with inf at some stupid high rate of exchange, like 1M inf per Merit. That would set a de facto price ceiling on the rare non-purple drops in the 200-250M range (well, not really, since people buy common recipes for greater than table prices all the time) and take that inf out of play instead of just moving it around on the market.

If they did that, then added purples and PvPs to the Merit Vendors for ~500 Merits, then it'd be like draining the swamp.

I also think it's needed. Yes, all of the players who have been around for any length of time and care to spark two brain cells together can virtually manufacture inf; I do it as well. But I sometimes imagine new players who don't know the market or have a dozen 50 alts, earning their hard-won 20K and then getting sticker shock when they try to buy a Luck Charm for a single Acc IO.

Well. Take that, Posi, and your economic projections, too.

Thanks to those who provided feedback. I've added some clue text to flesh out the back story and tweaked a few things, and also decided what I didn't want to change, which is also useful.

So, the arc is in its final form, until the dev team breaks it with the next "exploit fix." I have one or two more ideas I may try. Until then...

Off the top of my head:

Impervium Armor has a +3% Psi Resist as part of the set and 3.13% Psi resist as the sixth set bonus.

Aegis has a Psi Resist/Status Resist that gives 3% Psi resist and does not incur Rule of Five when stacked with the Impervium Armor Psi Resists.

Crushing Impact has 2.5% Psi Resist when six-slotted.

There's more but those are the ones I generally use. Combined with +Regen and perma-Dull Pain that's usually sufficient. If you can get the Psi protection accolade from the Rikti invasion badges, I've used that to solo Carnie bosses without trouble.

As general policy, they don't post patch notes for updates that don't have player-facing changes.

In other words, it was something internal to the servers that doesn't affect game-play.

None of the Temp Mutation power icons blink before expiring, even when Don't Blink is unchecked.

Pain Tolerance values possibly off

Character name: Sphinxia
Archetype: Scrapper (Claws/WP)
Level: 48
Bug Description: The values for Pain Tolerance in the info screen don't match up to the values listed on the combat monitor. End Redux is supposed to be 30%, monitor lists it as 23.07% Status Resists are supposed to be 50%, monitor lists them as 33.33%. Regen values appear to match, though.

Here's one: I used Ctrl + Mouse-click to set Secondary Mutation on auto while Tough Hide was active. I noticed that when the icon reset, the power didn't fire. I manually clicked it and it told me the power was recharging. I got the info on Tough Hide from the Powers screen to check the duration remaining and it reported 49710 days. As I was pulling up this forum to report it, the power auto-cycled while on background and I now have Acute Senses with a standard duration.

Objective:

I did growl with my angel-winged sphinx-girl and found to my dismay that her wings were down over her face.

Is showoff supposed to spread the wings? Because it didn't spread my angel wings.

Subjective:

Showoff really should spread the wings, if it's not meant to. Agree it should be slowed down.

On the Mutant != Furry front, my mutant energy blaster will be very happy with Energy Morph. My illusion/ controllers will have much fun with Dimensional Shift. Don't have anything for which boiling is appropriate but I can see the potential for those who like their heroes in the Toxic Avenger mold.

Objective: The faces need to be included with the Special Helmets from CoV/Vet Rewards.

Quick subjective impressions:

Organic Armor really needs Organic Claws.

The Bioluminescent skin texture, and the Organic Armor to a lesser degree, had me thinking one thing over and over again:

"Oh no! The heartbreak of psoriasis!"

Once again, we have overly-specific and inflexible costume sets that don't play well with others.

While I agree that Mutant does not necessarily equal Animal/Bestial/Furry/Whatever, I think we all can agree that this is an area where the costume sets are sorely lacking and has been an area of high demand for a while. I've been wanting a raptor head for ages, myself.

You (dev) guys knew this and went with this stuff instead. Epic fail.

I'm coming up on City Traveler in about 3 months (I should hit 57 sometime this Friday).

I know for sure that I have one scrapper that I'll be respeccing out of Air Superiority. But mainly I want the ability to mix and match. For instance, I have a couple of support types who will then have Recall Friend and Flight (my preferred movement power). Or a Flight tank that might do better with Combat Jumping. Also, the ability to mix SS and SJ without investing 4 powers and at low levels, should I so desire.

Things like that.

I published my first story a little over a month ago and got no takers. I polished a few things based on private suggestions and hope I've got it better now.

Unfortunately, each mission in the arc involves either a rescue or in the last mission, an ally. So, the XP "fix" is an issue. However, it's primarily story-based.

Arc # 416094 -- As If You Saved The Entire World

Background: Deirdre Willows is an old friend who is a member of the Midnight Squad. When she disappears on assignment, Montague Castanella calls you in to help again. A series of flashback missions in progressive level ranges shows your history with Deirdre, from your rescuing her from the Hellions as a teenage runaway through her struggles with dealing with her magical heritage. Then you go on to aid her in her current circumstances.

The flashback missions are all stock enemies. The enemies from the later missions are custom but I tried to balance them for an overall even difficulty. The last mission has an AV Boss but also an EB ally to balance it.

Love it or hate it, I'd just appreciate somebody giving it a try and letting me know. Thanks in advance.

I don't have a build handy, but in my experience playing a couple of /DB tanks, END usage is key. Don't be fooled by low end costs on the attacks, DB is a blindingly fast set and will eat your blue bar.

When I did DB, I went WP/ and Elec/ for the End management.

OTOH, the first time I played a wp/db tanker, there came a time where I forgot I was running a tank and thought it was a scrapper, in a good way.