TyrantMikey

First, this isn't another AE woe thread. Let's get this clear and out of the way.

However, having said that, I have a theory regarding a possible side-effect of the social aspect of AE that I'd like to present for your consideration.

A number of years ago, I remember a dev (I think it was Posi) mentioning that mobs in zones spawned behind heroes as they passed through. The characters that passed through determined the level of the mobs, up to the level cap for the zone. The comment stuck with me, because he noted that it was like you were "dragging mob spawns behind you" as you traveled through a zone.

The net effect of this was that badge hunters could get the mobs to spawn bosses by defeating lower-level mob groups and moving on. If they came back, a group of their own level should have been there. (Eventually.) I've seen this in practice myself many times.

And then came AE. (You knew it was coming, right? ) AE serves as a massive social hub for players, and the streets are largely deserted. You can pass from one end of a zone to another and rarely (if ever) see another hero. (Note that I'm talkng about during normal game time, not during double-XP weekends.) Because of this, mob spawns are suppressed.

This is not a whine. It's just badge-hunting. I will eventually get the badges. That's just a case of simple perseverance. But this intrigues me because, I believe that mob spawns are tied directly to the absense or presence of player characters in a zone, and with player characters so heavily concentrated in the AE buildings, mobs are not spawning as they should.

For example, finding Magmite Lords is virtually impossible. There's only one place I know of where you can find them (the Hollows). You'd be hard-pressed to get them to spawn at all in that zone. Arachnos Toxic Tarantulas are just as difficult to find.

Perhaps my recollection of the way that mob spawns work is fuzzy or altogether incorrect. It may, after all, have been changed. (If so, please correct me.) On the other hand, if it's right, the game is potentially less rewarding for solo players because mob spawns are far less challenging.

I don't know if there is a solution to this problem. I guess I just wanted to posit an idea, and toss it around for discussion (hopefully without inciting another AE flame war). I don't want to see AE go away (it has far too much value). But if my theory is correct this is an undesirable side-effect that may need some sort of attention.

Thoughts?

<ul type="square">[*]A huge, sweeping bug fix release.[*]A massive graphics upgrade. Not to make things prettier, but faster.[*]Translucent bodies for your characters.[*]Velociraptors in Perez Park, Eden, and Dark Astoria.[*]A monstrous mayhem taskforce, in which you go through every named monster known and must defeat them because they're rampaging through the city. Then, in the epic battle at the end, you must defeat them all at once, and the archvillain who is controlling them.[*]Epic space-based battles in an asteroid belt.[*]Time travel missions into the FAR future. What does Paragon look like 200 years from now?[*]Atlantis.[*]New mission objectives (traps, puzzles, etc.).[*]Weather.[*]New modes of travel.[*]The war walls come down.[*]The Rikti surrender.[*]The Coming Storm.[*]Improved storage. Recipe storage. Account-wide storage. Increased personal salvage storage.[*]"Suburbia." The areas between the zones that are filled with gangs and just waiting for street sweeping. Essentially a massive hazard zone, it should offer increased rewards for heroes brave enough to venture into it.[*]"Land of the Lost." A zone filled entirely with prehistoric beasts. Tropical, with a volcano or two, lagoons, etc. Watch out for the T-Rex, and the main base of the villain group who hides out there.[/list]
How could anyone think there's not much left to do? This is a game based on superhero comic books. You can do anything. It's not just QoL issues that make a release.

Hrm. Features. And only one, eh? And the one feature I want the most?

I think a transparency slider for skin would be very cool, but not everyone could use that. (The undead and dimensional shifters would dig it tho.) But it's not my favorite.

Supersonic flight rates really high. But not everyone flies.

An honest-to-God brawling set to go with Willpower. [joygasm] That's sweet. But...

A kinetic staff? Getting closer.

A recipe storage device for the base? Whoah nelly!!

A massive patch with tons of bug fixes, a graphics upgrade, and whatever cool new powers they can proliferate? I'm all on board, baby.

But a feature? An honest to goodness feature?

A zone, in space. An asteroid field. Zero-G combat if you move too far away from the surface. Takes the shadow shard to a whole new level.

Yeah, that'd be it for me.

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Secret Identity: Eve Salvatore


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And:
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Secret Identity: Edward "Eddie" Polstra


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/em raise_eyebrow

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We learn that the Rikti didn't destroy their own homeworld; no natural disaster occurred there. They were engaged in a protracted war with an advanced species from another world. In a last-ditch effort to save their own species, they jumped through a dimensional rift to arrive in our own universe. Their intention was to depopulate our planet and take it for their own. (Heck, it served them once before, right?)

[/ QUOTE ]The Rikti's homeworld wasn't destroyed... The Rikti invaded earth due to a Nemesis plot (seriously!)... Play the RWZ arcs

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm getting there. Either way... I'd still do something like this. &gt;=)

Doomsday Scenario Number 2:

We learn that the Rikti didn't destroy their own homeworld; no natural disaster occurred there. They were engaged in a protracted war with an advanced species from another world. In a last-ditch effort to save their own species, they jumped through a dimensional rift to arrive in our own universe. Their intention was to depopulate our planet and take it for their own. (Heck, it served them once before, right?)

The problem is, the race that was after them before has figured out what happened, and has come after them. Now, it's onto our existence. A race of cybernetic machines with NO MERCY whatsoever. They make every villainous group we've ever fought look like amateurs, like little kids afraid of the monster lurking in the closet. They won't be reasoned with, won't be stopped, and have one goal: the utter annilihation of all biological life.

Their techology is far superior to anything we know. The war walls don't stop them. Bullets bounce off of them. Their shielding is insanely powerful. They have no minds, so forget psionics.

Their one weakness is their unswerving devotion to the notion that all things must conform to an ordered pattern. They do not deal well with chaos and anarchy. Hence, the need to eradicate biological life. But their sheer relentlessness in the face of this anarchy makes them formidable foes who answer anarchy and chaos with swift, sudden death.

And they do not care what your allegience is. If you breathe, you die.

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While I like this idea, there is no reason for the Villains to get involved.The Rogue Isles are a fair distance away from Paragon City.

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I disagree completely.

In the Marine Corps, I was trained to plot the path of fallout from a nuclear explosion. Trust me, if the Terra Volta reactor went up, the Rogue Isles is nowhere near far enough away to be safe.

The last thing that the villains would want is for their precious island chain to become a nuclear wasteland.

Unless, of course, that's exactly what they wanted.

Okay, here's one for you:

Establish a set of underground maps deep underneath the city that lead directly between the Isles and Terra Volta. This is the lair of some as-yet-unnamed villain. This guy is a completely new villain. He's not exactly human. He feeds on radiation. He's woken up from a very long slumber. And he's VERY hungry.

Make him immune to radiation attacks. Or, make it so that radiation heals him and regenerates his endurance.

He starts making his way to the Terra Volta reactor.

Both heroes and villains must stop him from reaching the reactor. If they don't he'll wipe out the entire east coast.

If enough damage is done to him, he breaks out from underground and goes topside. (His preferred method of travel is underground.)

To dice things up, we can make him asexual, capable of spawning his own offspring. They're all just as mean and vicious as he is, only their size is much smaller, and they're faster. Razor sharp teeth, claws, and their attacks inflict radiation poisoning.

If he goes topside, he'll have to tear down the war wall. He'll do so by attacking the stone walls that support it. If he goes underground, he'll just come up from below.

Either way, pray he doesn't reach the reactor.

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The solution is simple. You know how EATs unlock at level 50, right?

Well, don't allow a new account to access AE until they get any single character to at least level 25. I think that's fair, and will give them time to learn the game. And I think 25 is just fine to open up access to AE.

Once you get a character to 25, then AE is unlocked for the whole account.

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I said this in the I15 thread, and was flamed for it, shame though, i thought it was a good idea

[/ QUOTE ]

/signed (with a caveat)

I'd open it at level 20.

However, I would also remove the AE buildings from the lowbie zones, remove the auto-SK feature, and I'd tie the level of missions available in the AE building to the zone. So:

<ul type="square">[*] You can't access AE until level 20 (or thereabouts).[*] No AE buildings in Atlas, Galaxy, or Kings Row.[*] You're not auto-sidekicked[*] The missions in the zone are appropriate to the zone in which the building resides[/list]
All this is with an eye towards getting new players to experience content outside of the AE building. It has nothing whatsoever to do with farming. Even removing the auto-sidekick feature is intended to do that (it helps to ensure that when a new player does get onto a team, it's appropriate to his or her level, and the player stays that way, unless a teammate sidekicks the player intentionally.)

It is a shame that we've reached this point. AE has so much potential, but the AE building in Atlas has just become an S&amp;M club, and finding teams outside of AE is extraordinarily difficult the vast majority of the time (on Virtue even, with a wide array of different archetypes). I'm disturbed that new players get to level 50 in such an astonishingly short period of time without ever leaving the introductory zone, and have no further knowledge of any of the other zones in the game:

- Galaxy
- Perez Park
- The Hollows
- Kings Row
- Steel Canyon
- Skyway City
- Boomtown
- Independence Port
- Terra Volta
- Talos Island
- Dark Astoria
- Striga
- Croatoa
- Founders Falls
- Eden
- Brickstown
- Crey's Folly
- Rikti War Zone
- Peregrine Island
- Pocket D
- Oroborous
- Bloody Bay
- Siren's Call
- Warburg
- Recluse's Victory
- The Abyss
- Cap au Diable
- Grandville
- Mercy Island
- Nerva Archipelago
- Port Oakes
- St. Martial
- Sharkhead Isle

Then let's talk about all the enemies they may be missing out on because they haven't moved out of Atlas (or Cap):

- Arachnoids
- Arachnos
- Axis America
- Banished Pantheon
- Bat'Zul
- The Cabal
- Cage Consortium Guards
- Cap au Diable Demons
- Carnival of Shadows
- Cimeroran Traitors
- Cimerorans
- Circle of Thorns
- Civic Squad
- Clockwork
- Contaminated
- Coralax
- Council
- Council Empire
- Crazed
- Crey
- Devouring Earth
- Dockworkers
- Escaped Prisoner
- The Family
- Fir Bolg
- Freakshow
- Freedom Phalanx
- Generic Heroes
- Ghosts
- Gold Brickers
- Hamidon
- Hellions
- Hydra
- Independents
- Infected
- Knives of Artemis
- Krylov's Creations
- Lanaruu
- Legacy Chain
- Longbow
- The Lost
- Loyalists
- Luddites
- Malta Operatives
- Midnight Squad
- Minions of Igneous
- Mooks
- Nemesis
- Nemesis Automatons
- Nictus
- Outcasts
- Paragon Heroes
- Paragon Police Department
- Paragon Protectors
- Prison Guard
- Prisoners
- Psychic Clockwork
- Red Caps
- Rikti
- Rogue Arachnos
- Rogue Island Police
- Rogue Isles Villains
- Rogue Robots
- Scrapyarders
- Security Guards
- Shadow Shard Reflections
- Shivans
- Skulls
- Sky Raiders
- Slag Golems
- Snakes
- Soldiers of Rularuu
- Spectral Pirates
- Spetsnaz Commandos
- User:StarGeek/Nemesis
- Trolls
- Tsoo
- Tuatha de Dannan
- Turrets
- Undead Enemies
- Vahzilok
- Vanguard Sword
- Vindicators
- Void Hunters
- W.I.S.D.O.M.
- Wailers
- Warriors
- Werewolves
- Winter Horde
- Wyvern

If new players are missing out on all this content, then yes, by all means we need to do something about it. Soon. I don't care if it's my suggestion, or something else entirely. But keeping them locked up in the introductory zone where they never encounter any of the zones or factions available outside of it is a Monumentally Bad Idea™.

Anyway, that's my two cents.

Okay, so I have a SS/WP tank, approaching 40, and I want to get him slotted with IOs. The build, as laid out in HeroPlanner is at the bottom of the post.

I'm looking for suggestions for improving him, and filling in the weak spots. I can see from the planner that he's vulnerable to psionics (who isn't?), but also to another of other effects I didn't think he was really all that susceptible to. (Then again, the combination of WP's Quick Recovery + Fast Healing and the Fitness Pool have likely been making it fairly moot.)

Anyway, here's the build. Any advice for shoring it up, and IO set recommendations would be most welcome.

Tanks in advance!

P.S. Please ignore the weird enhancement slot stuff at the end. I shuffled a few slots around on a whim when I realized they were in odd places at level 50. Since I'm not there yet, I'm not sweating it.

Hero Plan by Mids' Hero Designer 1.401
http://www.cohplanner.com/

[u]Click this DataLink to open the build![u]

American Argonaut: Level 50 Mutation Tanker
Primary Power Set: Willpower
Secondary Power Set: Super Strength
Power Pool: Flight
Power Pool: Fitness
Ancillary Pool: Energy Mastery

Hero Profile:
Level 1: High Pain Tolerance <ul type="square">[*] (A) Resist Damage[*] (3) Resist Damage[*] (3) Resist Damage[/list]Level 1: Jab <ul type="square">[*] (A) Accuracy[*] (7) Accuracy[*] (15) Taunt Duration[*] (34) Damage Increase[*] (36) Damage Increase[*] (48) Accuracy[/list]Level 2: Punch <ul type="square">[*] (A) Accuracy[*] (7) Accuracy[*] (15) Taunt Duration[*] (34) Damage Increase[*] (36) Damage Increase[*] (48) Accuracy[/list]Level 4: Fast Healing <ul type="square">[*] (A) Healing[*] (5) Healing[*] (5) Healing[/list]Level 6: Air Superiority <ul type="square">[*] (A) Accuracy[*] (11) Accuracy[*] (31) Damage Increase[/list]Level 8: Indomitable Will <ul type="square">[*] (A) Defense Buff[*] (9) Defense Buff[*] (9) Defense Buff[/list]Level 10: Haymaker <ul type="square">[*] (A) Accuracy[*] (11) Accuracy[*] (33) Taunt Duration[*] (34) Damage Increase[*] (36) Damage Increase[*] (50) Accuracy[/list]Level 12: Rise to the Challenge <ul type="square">[*] (A) Healing[*] (13) Healing[*] (13) Healing[/list]Level 14: Fly <ul type="square">[*] (A) Flight Speed[*] (33) Flight Speed[*] (33) Flight Speed[/list]Level 16: Quick Recovery <ul type="square">[*] (A) Endurance Modification[*] (17) Endurance Modification[*] (17) Endurance Modification[/list]Level 18: Swift <ul type="square">[*] (A) Flight Speed[*] (19) Flight Speed[*] (19) Run Speed[/list]Level 20: Health <ul type="square">[*] (A) Healing[*] (21) Healing[*] (21) Healing[/list]Level 22: Stamina <ul type="square">[*] (A) Endurance Modification[*] (23) Endurance Modification[*] (23) Endurance Modification[/list]Level 24: Mind Over Body <ul type="square">[*] (A) Resist Damage[*] (25) Resist Damage[*] (25) Resist Damage[/list]Level 26: Knockout Blow <ul type="square">[*] (A) Accuracy[*] (27) Accuracy[*] (27) Taunt Duration[*] (37) Damage Increase[*] (37) Damage Increase[*] (48) Accuracy[/list]Level 28: Heightened Senses <ul type="square">[*] (A) Defense Buff[*] (29) Defense Buff[*] (29) Defense Buff[/list]Level 30: Taunt <ul type="square">[*] (A) Empty[*] (31) Empty[*] (31) Empty[*] (37) Empty[*] (46) Empty[/list]Level 32: Resurgence <ul type="square">[*] (A) Endurance Modification[*] (43) Endurance Modification[*] (43) Endurance Modification[/list]Level 35: Strength of Will <ul type="square">[*] (A) Resist Damage[*] (40) Resist Damage[/list]Level 38: Foot Stomp <ul type="square">[*] (A) Accuracy[*] (39) Accuracy[*] (39) Accuracy[*] (39) Taunt Duration[*] (40) Damage Increase[*] (40) Damage Increase[/list]Level 41: Rage <ul type="square">[*] (A) To Hit Buff[*] (42) To Hit Buff[*] (42) Recharge Reduction[*] (42) Recharge Reduction[*] (43) Recharge Reduction[/list]Level 44: Hurl <ul type="square">[*] (A) Accuracy[*] (45) Accuracy[*] (45) Accuracy[*] (45) Taunt Duration[*] (46) Damage Increase[*] (46) Damage Increase[/list]Level 47: Focused Accuracy <ul type="square">[*] (A) Empty[/list]Level 49: Laser Beam Eyes <ul type="square">[*] (A) Empty[*] (50) Empty[*] (50) Empty[/list]------------
Level 1: Brawl <ul type="square">[*] (A) Accuracy[/list]Level 1: Sprint <ul type="square">[*] (A) Empty[/list]Level 2: Rest <ul type="square">[*] (A) Empty[/list]Level 1: Gauntlet

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lol I met a newby 2 nights ago, had no vet badges .. him n his friend, they were leading a team of lvl 8-12s in kr n decided to go to sky for scanner missions, i didnt want to be the go here do this type so i followed along i had my lvl 10 blaster..

When in sky they spoke about seeing a detective for a scanner, mind you he had scanner in kr lol, so i sent a tell explaining nicely that once u have a scanner there is no need to see the det. in evry zone untill its bank time n he asks to see u... BTW he was a lvl 12 tank

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I was under the impression you did need to see the detective once to "get the frequencies" for the zone. Is that incorrect?

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You only need to talk to ONE detective ever, but what they say indicates that you need to talk to one in each zone. Damn liars.

[/ QUOTE ]THIS, ding dong dagnabbit, THIS!!!

Fershlugginer weevil-tongued sidetalkers, the whole lot of 'em!

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Who brought the gully dwarf?

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All one really needs to do to avoid the chat bug is have a look at his or her chat line before typing. If there is garbage text in it, hit escape and retry. You'll write over the garbage text at next chat activation. Not to say it's not a bug or not annoying, but it's hardly ridiculous.

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For me, it's basically the difference between being able to type in combat and not being able to. Which is pretty big. I can type a sentence or two quickly... doing it twice or trying to remove three lines of '12439834275989889873wwwwwwwwwaaaaaaaa', not so much.

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Wow. This explains why, especially since I15 went live, my powers will suddenly stop working for brief periods of time in the middle of combat. It's not lag, because everything else is working just fine. I can see everyone else moving, and their powers are firing and the foes are moving as normal. I'm not rubberbanding--it's like my keystrokes are disappearing.

If I'm right, it's the chat bug interfering with my ability to fire off my powers in combat.


&lt;THEORY&gt;
The chat bug isn't exactly a chat bug, per se, but a keystroke queueing bug.
&lt;/THEORY&gt;

/em puts on software developer hat

Keystrokes are generally queued. As the main application thread handles events, it grabs the next keystroke out of the event queue and handles it. Once it's handled, it is supposed to be removed from the queue. This is supposed to happen in first-in, first-out order so keystrokes appear on the screen in the right order.

It sounds like that's not happening: keystrokes remain in the queue, and that's why they suddenly appear in the password field, or the chat window, or they get selected first when you tap an attack key during combat. If you're in combat, and the next available keystroke in the queue, for instance, is a W instead of a 1, you'll move forward one tiny step instead of firing off the power in the first slot of tray 1.

Granted, this is all wild theory and speculation. I haven't seen the code. But based on how event-driven software works (and almost all software today is event-driven), it sounds like a pretty stable idea. It certainly seems to fit the symptoms, especially given that I've encountered the problems with text appearing in the password field, and powers not firing off in the middle of combat sans lag.

Fascinating.

&lt;QR&gt;

I feel that it's only fair to point out that this was meant to be sarcastic, and even funny. Clearly, as some have posted, that didn't come through the way I intended.

Oh well.

Le sigh.

Okay folks. Let's clear some things up.

Going Rogue
<ul type="square">[*]You can switch loyalties, from good to evil, or vice versa.[*]You can be a spy, using your abilities to work undercover.[*]You can be a vigilante. You don't feel that heroes are working on the right jobs, so you take it onto your own shoulders to do the jobs that need to be done, by whatever means necessary.[*]You can sommon demons. [*]You can dual-wield pistols. [/list]
Going Rouge
<ul type="square">[*]You can don a fabulous costume that makes you appear to be the opposite gender.[*]You can use your fame and over-the-top personality to garner the attention of millions. You know, like Liberace, Prince, or the Sham-Wow guy.[*]You can be anything you want to be, as long as it gains you the adoration of millions. And interviews. There's no such thing as bad press. You are, after all, a superstar. [*]You can summon your loyal entourage. These merely weep and scream "LEAVE BRITTANY ALONE!" at their foes.[*]You can dual-wield your cellphone and teacup chihuahua. [/list]
*sigh*

Get it? Rogues are those who've switched loyalties. Rouge, on the other hand, is makeup.

Class dismissed.

/signed

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So options for dealing with this kind of situation is good?

OK, lets have options . . . many options.

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Slot your toon with IOs that grant mezz resist.

Move on, dude. Seriously. My blasters have tons of mez resistance.

Been at the game for a while, and one thig has happened repeatedly over the lifetime of the game that has pestered me because it breaks immersion. It's not anything really earth-shattering, but it would be really nice if we could get it fixed, but I'd like to clarify that I'm aware that doing so would not be simple. It would require touching the mission-generation code, the city maps, and other things I can't even imagine.

With that out of the way, here's the problem.

I'm doing an arc for one of my Founders contacts the other day. She tells me that the Council is trying to steal some artifact from the Museum. I'm off to recover it myself if I can, before they get their grubby mitts on it. The mission is in a warehouse.

It reminded me, as I stood there, that this mission, like others, should have sent me to an apppropriate landmark building in Paragon City. Not all missions should just send you to some random office, warehouse, or cave. In fact, we should have, at certain points in the city, certain buildings that represent major institutions:

<ul type="square">[*]Museum of Fine Arts -- Any museum mission should spawn here![*]Repertoiry Theatre -- A great target for Carival of Shadows missions![*]Memorial Hospital -- Larger than standard hospitals, a point for missions to spawn in[*]Department of Motor Vehicles -- We've all been there. We might not want to save this building, but it's what heroes do. Deal.[*]Office of Extranormal Affairs -- Where Azuria supposedly stores all those objects we entrust to her care. Where a staff of experts conducts experiments into the supernatural to figure out what's going on. Where the dead communicate with the living to warn us of upcoming unholy terrors. All of this stuff cannot possibly take place in City Hall.[*]Paragon Department of Antiterrorism -- Consolidates miscellaneous contacts for antiterrorism (who are normally found unguarded and just standing on the street)[*]Central Intelligence Agency -- Where does all of that information we get for hot tips come from, anyway? [/list]
Those are just a few ideas.

Now, I woldn't want every mission to take me to one of these buildings. But a few missions of select types should always take you to one of them. If you have to secure an artifact from the museum, you go to the museum, and not a random warehouse. If you need to get mission information, you go to the Central Intelligence Agency, or to the Office of Extranormal Affairs.

Changes like that ground the world a *bit* more in reality.

I know we're playing in a world where people fly, throw fire around without setting their clothes on fire, and have alien symbiotes living within them. But a little more stability within the game would help to ground it just a little bit.

Thoughts?

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Do the Devs have today off for the 4th on Saturday? If not, any chance of getting the Science Booster out? I have $9.99 burning a hole in my pocket that I don't want to waste on fireworks.

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We should only be so lucky.

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This may seem wierd, but up until either I13 or I14, I never recalled seeing a zone name at the top of the security entrances to the Hazzard Zones.
I don't mean at the guards you click on to go into the zone. I mean at the top of the War Wall entrance. It's just something I never really noticed before.

Thank you for the time...

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That's been there for quite some time, actually.

What *is* annoying about entering a hazard zone is the guessing game you have to play with the guards.

"Let's see, which part of your anatomy do I have to click on today with the gropy blue hand to gain access to this zone? OH NO! NOT THERE!!!!"

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Sofa King

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wut?

[/ QUOTE ]I'm sure Sofa King Stupid is taken...

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I'm looking for the Digg this comment up button.

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3rd time trying to post this. Thanks Comcast. (BOO! HISS!)

A few suggestions for more challenging missions:

<ul type="square">[*]The House Is On Fire! A mission in a burning building involves two main ingredients: fire and smoke. Fire does fire damage, and smoke does toxic damage as well as provide a to-hit debuff. The fire damage only occurs if you enter a hot-spot. However, a building that's on fire may have falling debris. If the debris hits you, you may take fire and smashing/lethal damage. [*]Bombed Buildings. Fairly close to burning buildings, except that a bombed building is a mangled mess. Think more along the lines of a twisted mass of wreckage, nowhere near as clean and neat as an office building. Harder to navigate. Herding gets harder. Further, the building is far more unstable. The chance of being hit by falling debris is far greater, and there's a reduced risk of taking damage from fire. However, there might be a lot of smoke/dust. Missions in bombed buildings would almost always be timed, since you'd have to rescue the survivors or retrieve vital evidence before the building completely collapsed.[*]Level 14 Rogue LFT! Add traps to missions. A trap can produce just about any offensive power effect, from a fireball to summoning an ambush. However, a trap can be disabled by locating its accompanying device and clicking it. Note, on the other hand, that neither the trap nor the device that disables it glows like a normal glowie unless your character has a high enough perception. In that case, you can locate the device (which isn't necessarily in the same part of the map) and disable it. I'd even create a badge for successfully disabling X traps.[*]Everybody Loves a Cave. Revamp the caves: make them truly cavernous, with massive stalagmites and stalactites, crystal veins, magma pits, and geysers. When a character falls into a magma pit, the character takes damage. If a character is in the AOE for a geyser, they take toxic damage. (And when I say cavernous, I mean really cavernous: big, big, big open spaces.) And make them DARK. Caves aren't lit up like a supermarket.) And add neutral vampire bat swarms, while you're at it, just for the additional risk of poison damage.[*]Wolves Among the Sheep. Every now and then, have one of the panicked civilians in a mission turn into a villain. In truth, the civilian was always a villain, just running around watching for your arrival. [*]Nowhere to Go But Up. Introduce random anti-gravity zones. These are small in size, and affect both NPCs and PCs equally. When entered, the character is propelled towards the ceiling; vertical movement is reversed. Controller hold powers pin characters to the ceiling instead of the floor.[*]Leveling the Playing Field. Introduce random power dead zones. Like anti-gravity zones, these would affect NPCs and PCs equally. When all characters are reduced to relying on brawl, munitions fire, and inspirations for combat, it gets really gruesome really fast.[/list]
And my personal favorite:

<ul type="square">[*]Fill a map with velociraptors. Rescue the hostages from the velociraptors.[/list]
Seriously, though, I think part of the problem with creating "challenging" missions is that the notion of "challenging" is different from one group of players to the next. After all, Jack Emmert's idea of "challenging" certainly wasn't my idea of challenging. To me, challenging is a mission where I have to think my way through it. Just slogging my way through tons of foes that are harder to kill than I am...not so challenging.

I am not always as eloquent as I wish I was, so I am probably not saying this as well as I think I am. For that, and the inevitable confusion that will arise from it, I apologize in advance. The truth is, a lot of folks enjoy the challenge of facing tons of foes in a massive mob. And I admit, sometimes, that's tons of fun. But I don't want to do that all the time. Sometimes, I want to be faced with a mission that is challenging in a different way: I want it to make me stop and think about alternative ways of reaching my goal. Is there another way of rescuing the hostage aside from beating the snot out of every single foe on the map? Is there some better way to have the team work together? Is there some way I can learn something new about my character's abilities, some new strategy that I've never seen before, or never considered?

To me, that's challenging, and rewarding. But each of us have our own opinions, and it's *really* hard to make a game that satisfies everyone. In point of fact, I'd guess that's impossible.

You'd think that after 5 years in the game, I'd know this stuff. I admit it, I don't. IO's are SRSBZNS, and I've never really gotten a really firm grip on them. I get the gist of how they work, set bonuses and the like. I have a few 50s under my belt, had a tank done completely in IOs, and was unimpressed by his performance. (For some mysterious reason, I found that a lvl 35 SS/WP tank using singles outperformed the IO'd lvl 50 SS/INV tank. Still can't figure it out.)

So, I'm giving the IOs another shot. I have a toon selected, and my goal is to take him back through Oroborous and get all his badges for defeats, taskforces and the like. But one thing confuses me.

Let's say I slot him with level 40 (or even 35) IOs.

What happens to those IOs when I flash back to a level 15 or 24 mission?

I'm completely confused regarding this.

Could one of you folks that knows this stuff like the back of your hand throw me a bone? I'd really appreciate it.

TIA

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Take Hasten, and slot the heck out if it with recharge reduction.[/i]

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It just needs 3 slots.


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That's pretty much a given, thanks to ED.

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Another piece of advice that I'd give is this (though others may disagree): Focus more on accuracy before you worry about damage. You will naturally do more damage if you can hit your target more often. DPS increases when you hit the target; if you can't hit the target, you won't do any damage, and you'll just be wasting endurance.

If you focus on damage, all you're doing is waiting on that one lucky shot that you may never land, but which, if it does land, really frickin' hurts.

Accuracy, accuracy, accuracy. Then, recharge, recharge, recharge. The damage will follow. I have a number of 50 blasters, and this has always worked very well for me.

YMMV

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You don't really need to build for accuracy in pve. When building for other things (especially recharge, and especially if you use purples) , you will naturally get accuracy set bonuses, it's really a non-factor. Build for recharge, damage, and ranged defense. Capped hp (1606) should also be included, and is not hard to achieve.

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Naturally, you're free to disagree with me about needing accuracy in PVE. I, in turn, am free to disagree with you.

Anyone who's faced mobs with massive debuffs can attest to the fact that having the additional accuracy helps you to overcome those debuffs when you're being hammered by COT Spectrals, and their ilk. I spent a lot of time faceplanted before I learned that my problem was accuracy, or the lack thereof.

When I learned that simply not hitting them was the problem, and I corrected that problem, I found myself licking cave floors a lot less frequently. Granted, debt is a lot less problematic these days--some would even say it's a laughable factor of the game--but why slow your progression when you can actively take steps to prevent it?