Tenzhi

Personally, I'd like to see any such inherent buffs (be they offensive or defensive) tied to the tank's aggro.

Oooh "the GARAGE"... Well, la-di-dah, Mr. Frenchman.

We have a couple of roads called "Parkways" here in Indianapolis. They're apparently in use all over the place in both the U.S. and Canada.

Unless you have a spider's view of femininity, in which case large, wicked, potentially man-eating legs are pretty spot-on.

While you have the Crab backpack in those pics, you don't have the Crab armor.

True enough, but the way it's generally understood is dancing around in an area of fuzzy, subjective definition. Which is to say that what one considers a "want" versus a "need" is largely subjective, which just makes the division all the more artificial.

Actually, I already argued that that is a want. You want to breathe because you want to live. And I must say that it's very selfish of you.

At its root, I'd say it's a long-dead issue unless the devs themselves ever decide to necro it. All us posters are doing whenever we bring it up is nailing that bird back on its perch.

It's absolutely OK to conclude that, regardless of whether you call them "wants" or "needs". As long as you understand that either way you're drawing a conclusion based on subjective desire and are comfortable doing that.

And it's not "by my logic" it's by the very definitions of the words. A need is a lack of something wanted, and to want something is to feel a need for it.

It's one conclusion that could be arrived at. One might also conclude that there's cause to look into why so many deem it necessary and take measures to fix the problem, such as it is, at the root cause. One might also conclude that a bit of struggle is more beneficial in the end and take the aforementioned desires as a sign that everything is WAI. Despite how much the parties involved would like to think otherwise, none of the approaches is necessarily more correct than the other - not even the one that actually gets implemented.

I find the problems that the OP was citing are most pronounced in the first 20 levels or so. Stamina at 20 certainly helps, but I'd say that SOs at 22 help even more to alleviate the problem. Alleviating said "tedium" would be beneficial independent of opening up builds, I'd say.

Need is nearly synonomous with want. Anything you could describe with one I could describe with the other. For instance, you might say you need air to live, but I would counter that you simply want air if you don't want to suffocate. Of course, if you want to suffocate you don't want air. "Need" basically just implies an If/Then of wanting.

That said, I "need" Stamina almost exactly as much as I "need" to play this game. With the current blue usage, if Stamina weren't in the game I probably would have given up on it. I certainly wouldn't have been able to make my Toggle Man-inspired character playable.

You're undoubtedly right, which is partly why I'm not really arguing for them to change it.

I don't hold it against them. In the scheme of things I must think they're largely doing things right or I wouldn't still be around.

Having lower damage because they are a team based AT is good balance. Paying more for their damage is not.

They do more *on a team*, and that's the only place it should cost them more if the cost is to balance that out. But it is implausible that the endurance cost per damage is doing anything to counterbalance it on a team. Especially in the case of Defenders.

I'd say that balancing team benefits by this sort of solo tedium is bad design from a sheer balance perspective, but serves well the intent to specifically nudge people who play those ATs into teaming.

I have no problem with their lower damage mods. That it's there to counter their benefits to a team is absolutely great. I'm not ignoring that fact, but (other than being the initial cause) it's rather irrelevant to the increased endurance cost per damage they suffer, which does little to counter their team benefits and more to inflict needless "tedium" on their solo game. You can ignore that fact all you wish, etc.

But I don't know how difficult it would be to adjust the costs (I suspect they would have to do so individually by power/AT, since it couldn't be a global modifier given that it should only affect damaging attacks), and to me it's a minor issue compared to things like the upcoming booster pack, Going Rogue, and even more power proliferation. Besides which, if they haven't done anything about it by now, I don't expect that they ever will.

That's fairly irrelevant to their increased attack costs even if one throws individual balance out the window, given that the team-beneficial abilities have their own costs (be it directly in endurance or, say, increased incoming damage).

Of course, it's moot given that the situation is unlikely to significantly change. Nor am I arguing for it to change here, I am merely pointing out plausible reasons for the endurance-based feelings of tedium. Thus there isn't really a "round and round" to be had here unless you're just looking to dance.

Many games have a passive fast out-of-combat recovery, which certainly helps with pacing.

In other games that have a blue bar equivalent, the blue bar generally scales with level in a similar fashion to HP. And that's on top of any equipment bonuses, such as we get with enhancements. Sometimes, the cost of powers go up as well, but it usually works out that you can use lower tier abilities more and more often as you level despite that. To put it simply, in other games it generally takes more and more blue to defeat enemies as you gain levels, but you have more blue to work with; whereas in this game it takes more and more blue to defeat enemies as you level, but you generally have the same amount of blue to work with.

To make up for getting relatively weaker in this manner as you gain levels, this game gives far more equipment slots to a character than any other MMO I've played. Which largely seems to work out well, and thankfully the equipment isn't a visible blight on character models ultimately turning characters of similar class and level into veritable clone armies.

However, in this game I believe the damage scaling of individual ATs is gradually worked in over the first 20 levels. And I don't think endurance costs account for their lower damage. This would mean that as, say, Tankers and Defenders go from 1 to 20 they'll be using more and more endurance as compared to ATs with a higher damage scaling since they would have to use more attacks to defeat enemies while spending a comparable amount per attack as higher damage ATs. One might point out that they can attack with a bit more safety, however that's irrelevant since their defensive abilities come with their own endurance costs (and in many cases probably don't quite make up for the damage loss). And while it's true that the issue becomes less noticeable on teams, that doesn't make it any less of an issue.

Given the hyphen in Thirty-Seven's own forum name, I took it that he was specifically referring to the . or ' nonsensically placed at the end of the name.

I've had it pop up with the 'name can't be checked at this time/service unavailable' message in both places, though it more often works for me from the character select screen (and then it works more often if I haven't already been to the one at the end of character creation and came back).

Of course, I rarely start with a name these days, so the end of character creation is where it would be most useful. I can't gripe too much about it, though. This game has one of (if not) the best character creators, and they seem to keep improving it. Any naming issues I run into are minor irritations at worst.

I better watch it, if I keep saying positive things like that I might blow some minds around here.

Fair enough. The ability to divine names will vary from person to person, not only due to differences in vocabulary, but also how one personally associates words with objects/people, as well as one's personal sense of aesthetics. I certainly can't fault a respectful disagreement on such a clearly subjective matter.

And kudos on making a plausible association out of "Armature Buttress". I am amused by it perhaps more than I should be, though it has me thinking along the lines of a robotic Elec/Warmace Tanker. But if he got Flight would he be a Flying Buttress?

Especially if they've already associated the name with the character in their mind. At that point, thinking of the character as a different name may be akin to thinking of an apple as an orange.

Among other potential characters. And a potentially terrible (or at best extremely random) name for yet others. Point being that only a relatively small selection of those "400,000" words will be deemed appropriate for any given character, and of that small selection there are even fewer that may meet aesthetic demands not all of which may be immediately apparent. All it takes is a handful of people with similar naming ideas to muck up the process.

Still, it only really bothers me when I do what you just (sort of) did and design a character around a particular name, only to find that the name is taken. And unfortunately the name-checking feature in the game doesn't work for me most of the time, meaning that I won't know if the name is taken until I make the character and try to enter the game.

You could also calculate the sheer number of possible letter and number combinations in the space provided and the result would be just as meaningful in context. Given the lack of connection to a character, a name like "Fghakslld56h8" is just as worthwhile as, say, "Armature Buttress".