Wicked_Wendy

I look at thinsg the same way JamMaster does. Yeah I have 50 level DM/SD Scrapper that just tears things apart... I soloed most of the missions required and she is the ONLY charater I own with Dimensional Warder to pounds on all 13 of the Preatorians required. Okay on one or two she pulled out a Shivan or a left over WaarWolf to assist but with most it was pure damage and self buff.

That said I like trying new things and just can't see having an army of DM/WP... cause WP is, sorry, better that SD scrappers and never trying anything else. I guess part of that is because I like the challenge of developing strategies that work for whatever power sets I am using. I have a good friend I have played with for most of the four years I have been in game and he's an amazing herding Tanker. He has, I think, four of five of them and can Tank for me anytime. LOL problem is he creates a Scrapper or even a Controller and wants to play them the same way he does his Tank. I usually team with him using my ILL/EMP Controller and when he isn't tanking I spend half my time, or more, healing him casue he is racin headlong into mobs with an AT that has no business RACING into mobs. I was just as guilty as he is now at one point. I started out with a Regen Scrapper back before the nerf when the running joke was "A Regen Scrapper joins an 8 man team and they head into the mission. Scrapper tells the team.. wait here a minute and then after watching all sort of XP and INF add to their totals they get a mission complete. Scrapper posts in team chat.. Okay we can move on to the next mission now!" Well along with another friend we decided to try out Blasters. We'll he was yet another Tanker at heart and back then I was in Scrapper lock... we tried and tried but just couldn't get into the builds and for a long time I was absoluetly certain sooling with a Blaster, an Blaster, was impossible. Then I creates an Arch/Ice and by then I was actually playing with my powers and discovering the way to make them work best. I was amazed at the accuracy of Archery and Ice just made her tougher. Point is I now enjoy playing all sorts of AT with a variety of power sets.

Hey if all you are ever going to build is one DM/WP Scrapper after another nd you already have one or two to level 50... may as well cancel your account and go play something else. You have accomplished everything there is to do in game so why keep repeating it over and ove exactly the same way? Try something different and have fun!

I agree Okay so they came up with something new for me to do with my 50 levels (19 at the moment and 9 more in the 40s). I've never really retired any of them anyway. Sure I have plenty of lower levels I am moving toward "END GAME" but when friends get together and want to do a LGTF, ITF, STF, Hami raid, Mothership raid. or whatever I am in a situation where I ask.. "What do you need I have a 50 level in every AT?" My 50 level Taxibot recently started leading Task Forces on Friday night.. I'm talking Posi, Synapse, Siste Pstche, etc assisting other players in earning those badges.

Hey END GAME sounds like fun and give me something new I can do with all those 50 I grew to love as I took them up from the sewers of Atlas to exploring new dimensions through Portal Corp in PI. Will getting the END GAME content on as many as 28 level 50 characters take a while? Sure but I wasn't planning on going anywhere anyway. Hey it's new content. I have been here 4 years and have always heard people screaming for NEW content.. sounds like a good idea to me.

NOW, *grins wickedly* You really want to start a panic have them announce "Oh and by the way we decided to increase the maximumlevel to 60". The dust storm created by all the 50 levels coming out of retirement will block out the sun for months and start a new ice age. Hey there's an idea .. a new zone always frozen, ice and snow, with evil Penquins (the animal NOT the Batman character) and semi friendly Polar Bears drinking Cola! We could add new costume pieces like fur lined parkas with an option for the hood up or down and Mukluk boots. We create some Eskimo contacts and a special contact you can unlock.. some fat guy that hangs out at the very northen most part of the zone. He always wears red, has a white beard and laughs way too much. LOL Okay done kidding around.. but I do see End Game as a good thing but when I complete it on a character .. its still NOT the end of the game for any of them.

I have to agree with Westly. The system was kind of broken from the start the idea being to keep you and a friend at the exact same level.. fine I decided to try it with a good friend I'd known and played with for quite a while. We even figured, at the time, we'd level faster since we both had a tendancy to BE on at the same times so we'd be getting a lot of Full XP or better days (with patrol XP and bonises for logging in Police stations). Then the trouble hit. His "good" compuet died and he was forced to start playing on an older slower one that kept him from teaming with more than1 or 2 players or the lag was som bad he was useless. Unortunately his finances didn't make replacing the newer faster PC anytime soon and he finally gave up for a while and went off to ply WOW. Okay I was still in the pact and kept playing my low level TANK figuring I'd get us some levels to at least 20 so he'd be able to get stamina wthout all that popping blues and rssting every other mob. Well it was gonizing teaming and watching other players dinging left and right while I slower made my way from level to level. Then I finally hit 20 and still no sign of my pal.

Now I start felling really guilty if I play the character, which I liked, because my buddy is a serious badger Sure I am getting him XP and influence but now as I level I'd be forcing him to time travel and even beg lower level teams to let him join to pivk up badges he'd missed while I was moving him along while off line. And when I say serious I mean serious .. this guy didn't have ONE character that was his badge toon he went after every badge on every toon he owned. This was also before SSK so to get those Task Forces and Bank Mission badges he's be playing for NO XP.. and spending even more time NOT helping me level at all. This doesn't even begin to touch all the recipe and salvage drops he wasn't getting because he was being leveled off line and the man loved to craft and play the market.

Finally when weeks rolled into months before he returned I sent him an email and just told him I was breaking the pact. I explained why and told him I'd love to team with him when he was able to return but I had to start making better XP and NOT feeling bad about what I was making him miss out on. Fact is now with SSK my tanker, now in her early 40s, could easily team with his Controller without any leveling pact required and I could even drop back and do HIS missions and still make good XP and INF. Hey with the level restrictions gone on most zones he could even do my missions no matter where they took us and pick up some defeat and other badges he'd normally have had to wait to even think about... As proof I tested this recently since I have 2 accounts and took a 15 level blaster to Striga to team with one of my 50 levels. I wasn't looking for XP, INF, salvage or recipes.. I hunted Warwolves and Vamprii with the low level in tow and in under an hour the low level 15 LEVEL blaster had the Atlas Medallion and a 5% increase in END. who is to say I couldn't do the same thing with him in TV for Freakshow Bosses and the Shard or Fake Nemis and get that same 15 level the Freedom Phalanx Accolade as well?

Multiple Pacts? up to 8 players? Hey I don't want to be the one player that can get on line a lot and painfully slowly earn XP taking 8 times the number of missions to accomplish it while the other 7 level at the same rate doing nothing. Sure I could take say a 10 level character and hook up with a 50 level team and make decent XP but then I'd be powerleveling and not just myself but 7 other players as well. And that's if I can find a 50 level team that wants my few low level ttacks when there are 30 and 40 levels out there looking for those same 50 level teams and they offer a lot better team support than I would. No I think the Pact is a dead issue I am sure ome people made it work but with what we have in place now who needs it? I can team with anyone at any level and earn everything I want or need at a normal rate so why plug along at 50%?

I fail to see how this is in any way helpful? Pool powers open up at level 6. At level one a character can take one power from their primary and secondary. At level 2 one from either and at 4 one more from either. That is, prior to level 6, a grand total of 4 powers. Now let's take a DB/WP scrapper for an example...At level one I can pick from 2 attacks in DB Power Slice or Nimle Slash. And High Pain Tolerence from WP. WHile neither attack will eventually be my most damaging what can I possibly ick up at level one from the pool powers that helps me more? And since High Pin Tolerence increases my HP and ability to heal with NO endurence cost why would I pass on that to take anything else?

At level 2 I pick up Ablating slice as an option in DB and Mind over Body (which protects against Lethal and smashing damage) as potions. Again which POOL power can you possibly suggest that I would want to take instead of an attacj that decreases my enemies defenses or adds to my defense against close range attack (since I am building a melee character)?

At 4 level I still have the option to take which ever one of the 3 attacks I haven't already taken or add Fast Healing (which again is always on and takes little end to use.

I'm just not sure WHAT you think is more important than powers like these.. Fitness pool? I still can't take STAMINA (IMO the most useful of all the choices there) until 20. Travel Powers? I still wont be able to get FLY, Teleport, Super Speed or whatever until level 14. Leadership Pools? Hardly.. all of them are end heavy and offer no more protection until enhanced than the defenses I already outlined. I sure am not about to gimp my attack chain in the early game to take anything from the Medicine pool and I can't see wasting powers at that level to take stealth?

Frankly I don't see any need to change the way it is. I am not sure WHAT you are building but I don't care what AT or what powersets we are discussing.. I fail to see any pool power that is going to make any HUGE difference over the liited choices I have rom my own primary and secondary pools at those low levels. All I see is a chance for an uneductaed player to GIMP a build even more. I have seen Defenders that advertised themselves as PURE Healers.. with a grand total of one attack and the entire medicine pool in addition to EMP. I saw one player that had FLY, TELEPORT and SUPER SPEED....someone explain to me why anyone needs to waste that many power selections on travel? No I don't see this as a good idea at all. There is no benefit from it and all it does is allow players like that to put together even stranger " Concept" builds that do nothing to help themselves or anyone they team with.

I agree with Claws .. I have EMP Defenders. heck I have EMP controllers, but I also take ever attack power in their secondary and enhance then for damage and accuracy. No I am not going to do Blaster damage and I certainly am not rushing head first into a mob and trying to fight face to face like a scrapper or tankers but I do offer team added damage and can solo. These days with dual builds I even specialize and have on build dedicate to team play, heavy of enhancements for heals, buffs etc, and the other a solo build that eliminates things only a team benefits from and add things that enhance my ability to survive and fight... No Rez, cant use it on myself so why take it, No Fort or CM for the same reason. Add things like leadership that add to my defenses and damage output. When they get high enough I even like to pick EPIC based on soloing and teaming taking ones that add pure damage and defense for solo and ones that add holds. ect for teaming.

It all depends on what you want to do in game. I enjoy soloing and teaming so I do both. If a player wants to just solo then stick with ATs that do it easily... Tanks, Scrappers, Blasters and Controllers (not all power sets but I have ILL/EMP 50 levels that not only solo well they solo MALTA). Defenders are, as the name implies designed to DEFEND but even they can solo. Myself I love Task Forces and Trials, Battling Giant Monsters, and taking on AVs in Peregrine and most of those require a good strong diverse team. Yeah there are the exceptions... There are people that battle GMs and win soloing but frankly I am not spending the Influence to enhance and the TIME to do that...not when I can earn the came badge as a member of an 8 man team in a fraction of that time and move on.

It all boils down to what does an individual player want to do. Me I like to try different things I have 40 characters I play and that includes Tankers, Scrappers, Blasters, Controllers, Defenders and Warshades. I have different powersets to see what they do and so I can devise strategies that make them all work. Some solo just fine, others thrive in a team environment while others can do both well.

The game is designed to be played by teams even though some ATs can colo nicely. There are TFs and Trials no solo artist will ever be able to do unless they break down and join a team. There are specific missions, although avoidable, that require 2, 3 or more people to click glowies at the same time.. if you don't have AT LEAST that many team mates along there is no way to succeed. If all we had was 100,000+ players running around soloing constantly they might as well have made the game something you could upload onto your PC and play offline. Now would I be hurt and dismayed if the Devs suddenly decided to give my Defenders damage like a Blaster or increased the damage resistance of my Blaster? No not a bit but I think (heck I KNOW) they purposely designed weaknesses in each AT to make teaming more appealing.

It all depends on the strategy you plan to use Fyre and as for IOs and Accolades the point I was making is take a 50 tank and a 50 level Brute .. neither has any IOs just SOs and neither has any accolades adding end, hp , etc to boost their effectiveness... The Tanker has more HP and a better taunt. Of course if someone spent 6 months farming Purples enhancement and was buffed to almost GODLIKE level they are going to be more effective than that same exact character that is only running with SOs.

There are two basic strategies I have seen used on the ITF... run headlong at Romulus, after clearing everything in fornt of him and just outdamge him. The other involves taunting the healing Nictus far enough away so it doesn't heal Rommi and beating him repeatedly until he devours all the Nictus to REZ. I have been on teams that made each strategy work fine and I never said a BRUTE couldn't taunt and be effective in that role... a TANK is just better at it and since he's taking a ton of damage while doing so the TANK wins out if available.

All I was doing was illustrating to the OP that despite his claim Scrappers and Tankers will NOT be replaced completely by Brutes once GR hits. Both have unique skill that will always be desirable to team leaders.

I think either of those would be great. I also think, and I already know it won't happen, that some attention should be paid to the current TFs between Level 22-30. After doing Sister Psyche above level 20 all we see until we hit 30 level is Council, Council and Council.. Moonfire, Hess, and then Citadel! Okay I get the idea Council are considered a MAJOR Villain Group in COH and even in COV, although none of those TFs are available to Villain side, but 3 straight task forces involving the same group while they completely ignore Warriors, The Family, Tsoo, Banished Pantheon, and even COT? How about a TF in that level range involving a battle between the Family and Tsoo for control of Indepence Port? Or one involving Banished Pantheon and Circle of Thorn over control of some Demon?

I enjoy doing the Moonfire because it helps get me the required Vamprii and Warwloves I need for the Atlas Medallion. I DO the Citadel because it's required for Task Force Commander but I think I have done Hess all of once in more than a year and on a character I have dubbed my TF Queen since at level 42 she has done every TF available to her at that level including the ITF. But I'll be honest after doing Moonfire, Hess, and Citadel almost back to back to back .. I didn't even like seeing a radio mission involing council for a while. They created all these other Villain groups why didn't? Why Don't they use them instead of the same thing over and over again?

I'd love to see something between 30-50 involving Nemesis. Supposedly everything is a Nemesis plot right? But between 30-45 All we get is Crey (Manticore), Devouring Earth (Numina and the Eden Trial) and Freakshow (if you do the second Respec). Nemesis is all over the place at those levels.. Snipers in Founders Falls, teams of them in Crey's Folly and Eden and they roam the streets of Peregrine Island. Oh they show up breifly in the Numina but we really don't see much of them at all and Fake Nemesis are one of the requirements for the Freedom Phalanx Badge (which usual leads to anyone wanting it farming them in PI or the Shadow Shard).

When the game first started we had about 1 TF per level range supposedly to help you get there faster than running contact missions. If you didn't do it in THAT range (using Posi as an example of the old system 10-15) You exemplared down and got no XP. With the new system, wish I love by the way, I did Posi at level 36 and actually made amost 38 by the time we finished. So if we have more TFs than we need to level BIG eal.. its another way to get any character for 1-50 as long as they are above that minimum skill level for that TF.

BUT, BUT.. if they did something so vile and disgusting as that there would be a rash of Noobs running about asking rediculous questions like... My Contact told me to go see Dave Wincott.... where the heck is Dave Wincott at? I can't find him here in Kings Row anyplace.

Imagine the horror those X Month Vets that do nothing anymore but stand around in Atlas Park showing off their 50 level and planning the next Lag infested Costume Contest would feel over someone not knowing where Dave is.. and actually caring where he was to begin with. LOL Oh wait those guys LIKE to pick on Noobs anyway... okay let's try this radical new concept and advertise the game.

Sorry I found a Tier 3 Sarcasm Inspiration and had to try it out. HAHAHA

Very true however the SG wouldn't have that prestige and all the nice TOYS it bought without the members staying in SG mode and earning it. I have 50 levels that never left SG mode from level 2 through 50 and earned the group more than 600,000 in prestige. NOW you go to Atlas Park and check the exchange rate for BUYING prestige using influence. It's 1 Million in influence to purchase 2000 prestige over or 500 in influence for every 1 prestige.. so that's like saying I donated over 300 million in influence to my base. Is there anyway I personally can use that prestige? Well aside from using the telporters, med bay, and storage items provided inside NO but 600,000 prestige is enough to have built my OWN little base with all the toys so saying it was never mine to begin with and eluding that I have no right to say NO I don't want the base to move from say Freedom to Infinity I like it here is NOT a good idea.

There are small SGs now with basically 4-5 members with a LOT of Alts in the same SG. If those 4-5 players all agree to move an SG fine but as mentioned above there are SGs out there now that have been around a long time and have more than 100 members. Getting 100 people to agree to one new sever would be a nightmare and it doesn't seem very fair to say well 40 people agreed to Infinity, 25 to Virtue, and 20 want to stay here so we move to Infinity. What that means is 40 people got what they wanted or were talked into it and 45 (?) were slighted? Last time I checked 45 was higher than 40 so a MINORITY got to decide the base was moving to a new sever and to which one? And now 45 members that don't like the move at all either pay to transfer their characters or leave the SG and go look for a new one that HOPEFULLY won't decide to do the same thing. And to top it off whi knows how much of that bases prestige was a direct result of those 45 players playing the game in SG mode to help build the base to begin with.

No I can see this idea causing an uproar in game and on the forums and frankly it won't work. If a base Superleader decides he doesn't like the servers his SG is on he is free to buy a transfer and move to a new one but that base belongs to ALL it's members and they have the right to keep it right where it is. Let him go and start all over again if he wants but tranferring his base with him is not fair and I really don't see NC Soft ever agreeing to it.

I have to agree with Aett while it sounds nice there is no way to accomodate more than 100,000 players with HOW many different characters? I just hit the 48 month mark and, not bragging just using myself as an example, I currently have nineteen 50 levels and 6 more characters in their 40s on Virtue. So the Devs are supposed to look up the profile all 19 of my hereos and create and placea statue for all of them? Now I know for certain there are 60+ month vets that put those totals I just gave to shame so we'd need to create practically a whole new zone devoid of buildings just row after row of statues and that probably still wouldn't be enough.

The crowd suggestion? Let's eliminate the roaring crowd after simple ever day missions completely and just discuss Task Forces and Trials. At any given time on Virtue there almost always seems to be someone forming a TF someplace day in and day out. That's an awful lot of code to create and an tremendous amount of lag to deal with just for a momentary rush of appreciation. When I am on a TF I have as many as 7 team mates to offer congrats and a Good Job when the final mission is complete I don't need a huge crowd of NPC citizens greeting me at the exit to cheer me on. Think about this... We are costumed heroes and yeah we are sanctioned by the local government to operate but basically, like Batman, we are still vigilanties working just a little outside the law to get the job done the Police can't. I have a "secret identity and i most cases I on on an "undercover" mission from my contact to begin with. Do I want 40 civilains showing up when I complete the last mission to cheer for me? and if it's a secret how the heck did they know exctly where to be to cheer me one to begin with? TheDevs do what they can to give us a little appreciation. I have seen NPC text uncounted times quoting my character's name and referencing some mission I just completed. And that even includes radio and safeguard misions.

Mow if they really want me to feel more appreciated... How about coming up with a way for NPCs to walk polietly around me instead of shoving me all over the map while I am standing in PI trying to train. I don't need a pat of the back how about you just stop trying to run me over with your car?

Of course the Devs official stance would be that during any mission you gain inflence which they swear in not money but an increase in how the public view me as a hero. Uh HUH and when was the last time you bought a new pair of jeans by going to the store and telling the clerk "I want to take these home wth me and everyone loves me so it's okay" My other question on this "explanation" the Devs use is Okay I have 20 million in influence.. Boy people really like me and then I hit Wentworth and buy a few pieces of salvage I need and craft some recipes to make me stronger and suddenly I only have 5 million iin influence. HEY I didn't run over the Mayor's dog Fluffy with my car I invented some things. So why all of a sudden am I 75% less popular than I was half an hour ago? It's a Nemesis plot I swear! LOL

Early on in the game if you do any street fighting and say you save the lady in Atlas who is fighting with a Hellion for her purse they will come up and say something nice after you defeat the baddie and you get a small influence boost. That does continue all the way to level 50 if you take out some villains in PI that are harassing a citizen. That about as detailed as the Dev's can get without spending weeks or even month writing new code. The REAL recognition is from team mates and friends that offer a gratz when you level or earn a new badge and add you to their friend's list so they can look you up the next time they are searching for a team mate. An NPC is nothing more than a series of code doing what it's programed to do.. a team leader sending a tell thanking you for doing a great job Tanking or Healing/Buffing during a task force.. that's another human being and player, like yourself, ackowledging your accomplishment and your skills. I'll take that over a statue I have to spend a week trying to locate.. cause I am sure they aren't going to email every 50 level and say "Congratulations on level 50... your new Statue is lotaed in STEEL CANYON at just 150 yrds NE of Wentworths. Sorry it's next to an entrance to the sewer system but it was the only spot left to place one without putting them in the street."

Oh nd here's another question for you. *Takes a deeo breath and prays this doesn't start a flame war over FARMING again. Before they nerfed AE missions we had players bragginit from level 1-50 in hours doing nothing but mission after mission filled with Rikti Comm Officers and such. They never completed a single Task Force, Trial, ran a radio mission or a safeguard, or even left the AE building in Atlas. Heck during the 5 year celebration when every Giant Monster and all of the Signature Villains from COV were attacking they were in broadcast complaining that "OUR" chatter while defeating Lord Recluse, Black Scorpion, Ghost Widow and ever GM from Kraken to the Kronos Titan was making it hard for them to find team mate to FARM! A once in life time chance to get a ton of badges and XP/INF and it was an annoyance to them. THOSE 50 levels deserve the same statue I get for earning the Task Force Commander Accolade? (including the dreaded Positron TF). I've battled and helped defeat the Hamidon in the Hive, Raided the Mothership in the RWZ, taken out Romulus in Cimerora, and defeated what used to be Hero one on the Lady Grey TF. I helped defeat all of Recluses Lieutenants and then took down the Arachnos leader himself on the Stateman TF but a guy or girl that sat in Atlas pounding on one Rikti Comm Officer after another gets a statue JUST like I do? Okay rant done I have nothing against Farmers I have said it before there are hundresm maybe thiusands of ways to get from level 1-50 and none of them is THE one way. Just illustrating a point.. what criteria do the Devs use to decide who gets a statue since there is no way they can possibly erect say 300,000 (and that's probably very conservative) so that every 50 that ever player has gets a statue someplace in game. Looking at it another way lets say they decide a 50 level MUST have all of the following badges to qualify! (HUGE list of TF, Trials, GMs, etc follows) and the very next thing you see on the forums is some poor guy saying" Hey I only get to play a few hours a week and its at times when most are in bed. I soloed my way to 50 with my Scrapper and don't have any of those badges but it took me six months of hard work to get there why am I being excluded?" and guess what? He's got a point! It doesn't matter if you soloed from level 1-50, farmed from 1-50, or ran every type of TF, Trial, and door mission imaginable to get there.. You defeated enough villains and earned enough XP to get there.. so they all deserve the exact same amount of respect.

Now I don't think this is a viable way to give a pat on the back for say completing a radio or safeguard but how about at the end of a task Force or trial they have a short film clip of your contact, Positron, Sister Pysche, Manticore, ect.. come on and give you a short "Thanks for a job well done" speach. HEY I have done numerous Positron and if anyone needs to thank me for lending them a hand after what he puts level 10-15s through it's HIM! LOL I have done one Doc Q TF in the Shard that guy needs to set up my kids with free medical for the rest of their lives after that marathon!

Want another? Okay we have numerous ways of unlocking special weapons or costume pieces in game how about this... A player complets a Task Force, Trial, takes out a GM, or completes a instance badge mission they earn a small costume piece that allows them to wear that BADGE on thier uniform in the same was that the military awards decorations to its soldiers. And here's a novel idea since we are talking a LOT of individual badges how about those are FREE at any tailor or better still FREE at from the City Rep in Atlas Park! We just saved the city from the likes of the Clockwork King, Babbage, and a host of other bad guys so you'd think the Mayor would at least be willing to srping for the cost of the medal he just gave us! Okay that would mean MORE code so the City Rep was another sort of tailor let's just keep it there at Icon but you get the idea.

How about a few more accolades that grant powers. I succesfully stopped X number of bank robberies defeating 25 or more signature villains, saved more than 20 Police Officers, stopped 10 robberies, broken up 10 arms deals, prevented 5 arson fires, and stopped 10 sets of villains from blowing up portions of 9 different neighborhoods in the city. and I get 2 worthless accolades that that grant me no added power to continue battling evil? Okay one of thoseis for touching an exploration badge in all 9 zones but the other required me to take down some bad guys and save the lives and property of the citizens of Paragon City.. can I at least get a buff/debuff/attack/defeanse/ or something for all thise good deeds? How about a NEW accolade with a power of some sort? I defeated Kraken, Babbage, Lusca, Adamastor, Jurrasic, Eochia, Jack in Irons, and the Kronos Titan (Let's not include Sally in this anything I can defeat with one hit using brawl with NO enhancements is not a REAL GM LOL) but I battles and defeated the big 8 GMs all over Paragon City.. give me an accolade. let's call it GIANT BUSTER for lack of a better idea right now, and include some sort of special use power I can add to help me later on down the road.

There are plenty of ways to get pat on the back without assigning a crowd of NPC to show up and physically PAT my back after a job well done.. so lets try creating them. A heck of a lot easier to code and research than building what is probably closer to half a million or maybe even a million statues to every 50 in game.