makerian

I don't think it was mentioned, but you can create 2 builds for every character you have.

What I suggest is that you could create a "kb extreme" build that has extra slots and enh for KB and maybe even a few other powers. I would probably use this as a default build, but then have a "team friendly" build, even if it has most of the same powers, your slotting might be different. As a plus, you can always consider a few more team friendly powers in the team build, like Assault or Recall Friend.

As for criticism on teams, I used to play a Nrg/Fire that I liked a lot. Never got complaints for teams that the KB was annoying.

Good luck and have fun!

Well done, overall. Making the price changes effective for stored items as well as existing plots was great. I think the intent behind most of this is going in the right direction.

Objective:
1. 5 bases that I'm a leader in.
2. 3 Hero bases and 2 villain bases. They were designed back when there was a smaller limit for characters in SGs.
3. We would put off rent until the last minute or until we realized our base power went off. Sometimes, we'd put off paying on one of the hero or villain bases since the other had teleporter beacons.
4. To avoid paying rent on a couple bases, we restricted the plots to free cost sizes.

Subjective:
1. My base salvage racks were collecting dust, but now that I can store salvage there, I feel they are too small.
2. My enhancement racks are useful, but our SGs weren't storing much in them anyway.
3. I use WW/BM for storing most things rather than the base. The base vault is really an emergency overflow due to bad planning or lack of other storage options.
4. The reduced rent is a boon. Even with the otherwise free bases, which we've since plot upgraded again, the cost is pretty reasonable. I understand the concern for newer players, or newer SGs, but the costs are pretty minor for rent, when taken with the other cost reductions.
5. I've found editing to be more interesting, and experimented with some of the ideas posted in the forums. I even recreated a giant robot like one player did. It was a bit frustrating, but neat.
6. We could really use some new art, tilesets, and objects. I believe that bases have been neglected since their inception, and changes made have alleviated some of the concerns (prestige+inf past 35, reduced costs for items, different and mostly lower rent).
7. I would like a way to consolidate SGs. Maybe make it account-based, supermajority vote-based, limit it to number of times per year or number of times total an SG can have another SG added to it. Permit a one-time name change maybe too. Something that would allow for older dual-SG bases to consolidate if they wanted.

Here's hoping that the Devs are concerned about bases and increasing their usefulness and importance without hurting non-SG players.

Btw, I think the auxiliary attachments are a great idea, that way you don't have to click on several different items.

Hyperstrike, there's a slider in the Merit Vendor to allow you to choose the exact level of the recipe you want.

What is missing, however, is price-adjustments for levels. I can see why Procs would be the same throughout (since they function the same regardless of level), but there should be some tradeoff for decreased effectiveness. Sure, there's set bonuses and exemplaring, but still, the prices should still reflect level to some extent. It's not like SOs or CIOs are the same price regardless of level, why should SIOs be flat cost?

I would like a command to sync xp.

I would also like the ability to level pact at the same level with another player. For example, most of my family had characters stopped in the low/mid 30s. We could get enough xp to be the same level, then pact.

I also think that if you could do same level pacting, that you could also permit 35+ (or whatever level is the first coop) Hero/Villain pacting. Kind of like they draw off each other or are different aspects of each other, even when not teamed (like Dark Crystal or other references).

I think to curb abuse of same level pacting, you could put a timer on how long before you could pact again after breaking it, say 1 week, 2 weeks.

Warning: Wall of Text below.

Objective: Instanced missions do not give out merit rewards
Subjective: Merit rewards should be based on 1 merit per completed door mission for each player on team[/color]. This would exclude “Talk to x”, “Defeat x”, and newspaper/radio missions. Adjust rates accordingly to reflect the more frequent merit drops.
Solution: rescale merits early in the process and set the baseline to be 1 merit : 1 mission. Additional merit rewards for story arcs, etc, can still be given.

Objective: Heroes have more options for merits.
Subjective: This encourages me to continue to play CoH more than CoV. Which means, that if others do the same thing, the CoV playerbase will be smaller than the heroside because of skewed rewards.
Solution: The lack of villain content for merits that could be alleviated by more cooperative content, or port some of the content in hero TFs to villain SFs with minor tweaks (e.g., keep the same missions, tilesets, villains, but change the text, contacts, stated objectives, etc.).

Objective: I have lots of alts.
Subjective: Ideally, at some point, I’d like to put IOs sets in my alts or at least something more than SOs and Common IOs. I feel this
Solution: Play a whole lot more to get my characters IO sets. Or adjust the design of this system to reflect the distorted player:character ratio, which is probably something like 1:10.

Objective: Merits do not give invention enhancements, they give recipes.
Subjective: If a character earned 250 merits, it should be for a completed item, like a crafted Enhancement, not a Recipe.
Solution: Convert recipes in merit vendors to enhancements. The worse alternative is to make even more expensive merit costs for completed enhancements.

Objective: Merits are not account specific or cannot be stored in account storage. They are character specific items.
Subjective: Merits should be able to be traded, sold, stored, and most importantly, stored on either a server or account level. If I earn say 5 merits on one character, I can’t do anything with that until I reach a number where I can use a merit vendor. I can’t auction them, I can’t trade, gift, or sell them. And I also can’t leverage other characters on my account. I can understand why penalizing low merit earners and compelling them to bargain on random recipes would be advantageous for the market, but I think it is too limiting, particularly because merits are so hard to come by for a casual player.
Solution: Allow storage, trading, selling of merits.

Objective: Merits were released with Issue 13.
Subjective: While I appreciate the direction merits are going, I think that introducing a brand new economy that is based on content and activities that have been around and developed from I1-I12 is frustrating. As a beta-era player, all of my past actions that today will reward merits have not been rewarded.
Solution: Give retroactive merits based on Souvenirs and Badges for merit level events (GMs, story arcs, task forces, badge missions).

Objective: Merit rewards for named recipes are noticeably more expensive than randoms.
Subjective: The basis for this is probably to encourage people to take a random roll rather than save up (12 randoms vs 1 specific is tempting). This in turn means that since most of the randoms will not be what someone wants, they get dumped on the market. This keeps the market alive for rares. The downside is that I think this will create a variety of deviant behavior, some of which I will probably participate in. Farming event GMs for lots of merits, even if that means hogging up a low level zone to do it (since the low zone is smaller and mobs are grey). TF events where characters who would actually earn xp in a TF are excluded because they slow the completion time. Veteran TF events that avoid new players or those that want to explore the content. OB arc repeatedly running, in particular if this is done solo, since other players can’t opt into the content midstream. This might also reduce the normal, log on and play mentality that makes CoH/V so great.
Solution: Make merits reward for regular team missions or adjust pricing.

Objective: Merit costs for recipes of different levels are the same.
Subjective: I can see the value of static costs, but I think this is not like any other system in the game. If L25 SOs cost the same as L50 SOs this would be fine, or L25 Dam IO recipes cost the same as L50 Dam IO recipes. I also understand that there are some exceptions, like “Chance for x” or “x Protection”. I also understand that sometimes a lower IO is better because of its use when exemplaring.
Solution: Scale costs, even if trivially. For example maybe a L30 is 220 and a L50 is 250. Or worse solution, maybe the middle is 250 so a L30 is 240 and a L40 is 250 and a L50 is 260.

Objective: Lusca rewards only 2 merits.
Subjective: The effort is considerably more involved with Lusca
Solution: Reward more merits for Lusca. Create a villain-side Lusca for villain compatibility.

Objective: Pool recipes are still in place.
Subjective: I think the rare and pools should be reconsidered in light of this fundamental change to the system. I’m ok with minion-only drops, common drops, mission completion drops. I think C/D should be merged. I also think that the crap rares should be removed, and I don’t think it’s too hard to figure out what those are.
Solution: If a recipe doesn’t have a power-10 (acc, dam, end, etc) in it, it should never be rare. And more importantly, if the type of set it is a part of is a minor set in the playerbase, like certain mez-oriented sets in particular, they should be moved to mission completion or common drops.

A side note about mez sets in general. I believe that like HOs we should have a single Mez set. That set can have as many of these previous sets you want to put in there, but any character with an Immob should be able to slot any mez set, any set with Fear, etc. Remove the procs even if you have to. I think the idea was to complicate the whole list with lots of crap sets, just like Enh vendors have lots of TO/DO/SOs that are basically not worth slotting. But after years of this sort of implementation, I think it’s time to make a fundamental shift, along the lines of HO mez sets that were put in place years ago. That doesn’t mean that mez effects should be standardized, you can still have Dis, Sleep, Hold, Fear, but make the sets compatible.


Random Subjective Observations: I do hear people talk about “I did lots of TFs before” but can’t help that what they really mean, is “I would get on quick Katies because it was really easy and fast and lots of people were farming them”. And then I hear that we’re losing players, either because of PvP changes or Merits. I also hear that people think Merits or Merit vendors are immersion breaking and I agree with that. I think it would not have been too hard to make this something you could do in a Lab or Invention Table, instead of a specific vendor.

I feel like with the late introduction of both day jobs and merits, I’m camping most of my characters offline and may never play them again unless forced to (need a rad, or an emp, or TF that just can’t get a meat shield, etc.). So I’ve become a reverse altaholic, which maybe really is a good thing. I had over 250 badges on every 50 hero at one point until I decided that I couldn’t do it and just persisted with a single hero. Now I feel like I should avoid earning merits at all costs with other characters and focus on a single character because of the character-specific merit reward system. If there’s a GM, TF, OB arc, whatever, I’m logging my main merit earner.

I do feel like the merit system is good, despite the main flaws in its implementation (character specific, V/H rewards skewed, grinding, no retroactive reward for obviously verifiable accomplishments, really late introduction to a completely novel economy). I hope that there are ways being considered to make merits accessible to the casual player. I know it’s a participatory system, but I want to participate, I just can’t recreate the last 4+ years of time I’ve spent in this game to get there. Heck, I’d subscribe up front for 4 more years if they retroactively rewarded me for my heroic (and villainous) efforts for the past 4+ years.

Finally, I’m not sure how this will affect Issue 14. I think mission creation is a fantastic step in the right direction, but if merit farming is the standard, and mission creators I’m pretty convinced won’t have any say in whether their missions could reward merits, then I think I14 is going to be a big let down. Particularly for those that want to create new content. Because for most players there’s probably not much reason to play content that is not rewarding.

To UnicyclePeon: Please don’t require me to Defeat all to get a merit on a regular mission. I don’t think Radio/News missions should give merits, but if they implement that, create a system to account for, say 50%+ of enemies defeated, but not necessarily 100%.

Awesome, now just redesign the forums layout, in particular the color scheme. Or give us the option to choose skins, like a generic black/white color scheme that's not so blue or red.

I'm also interested to know whether creative commons material is permissible. Here is the beginning of the license text (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/us/):

"You are free:
* to Share — to copy, distribute, display, and perform the work
* to Remix — to make derivative works"

[ QUOTE ]
One of my questions is the same as Star_Dancer's:

Are we allowed to use either a) royalty-free music, or b) music that we have received copyright permission to use?

Other question:

In-game footage? Does this mean demo-recording is out?

Michelle
aka
Samuraiko/Dark_Respite

[/ QUOTE ]

Issue 11 looks great from the outset. Ouroboros with all the old arcs/badge missions plus new content is like adding another paper/radio to the game. And here's to hoping that Isolator (and yeah anyone silly enough to skip Jailbird...) are in the mix!

I do hope the Devs would consider making some more "really common" IO sets as well as "very rare" sets. We'll have to see how this plays out. It might even be nice to have at least one (maybe weak) IO set from each category available by doing University missions or straight out of the invention table or from crafting common IOs. Something that would allow us not to have to market-PvP as it were for all the sets.

Weapon customization should be a lot of fun. I hope future weapons additions won't be too much more effort now that the tech is in place to do it.

Also, what about powers like Fire Sword and Ice Sword or Devices/Traps powers? Any love for them? Probably not, but there's a chance they thought of that too.

I'm glad BAB came out to chat with the user community. Whether it was a conscious decision to let some of the devs comment about the info, or they just came to feel the love, it gives me a warm feeling.

It's like time to break out the champagne. Nothing but good news this issue.

Also, did anyone here whether there's a fee to use the flashback system yet? I hope it's just talk to the contact and get started, not something that requires me to pay to participate.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
For those who are "less than happy" with the look of the Dual Blade screenshots released, please keep in mind that it's still early in the release process with time to polish up features and you don't know all the features included in Issue 11 yet. As we move into October more details will be coming out so hang on to your hats (or blades, or whatever )

[/ QUOTE ]

How about passing on the concept of being able to chose your blades? Future, Relic, Mystical, Sammy, ect from the option menu? I bet that would quell alot of problems. I know Posi once said that the powers origin for blasts points and colors were "hard baked" but why not rework the new sets? Then see if you can backwards engineer it

[/ QUOTE ]

I liked what you've done here. You went from "how about Power Customization?" when we've been told time and time again why we won't see that in the near future, to equating changing the colors of blasts (which is the easiest part of the thing that will take dev-years to do) to changing weapon models, which I imagine is even more complicated.

Suffice it to say this is not going to happen. I agree with the poster above that what we see now is pretty much what we're going to get.

You don't have to like it, but realize that the workaround suggested is not going to happen for I11.

[/ QUOTE ]

[ QUOTE ]
Announcing the details of the next free expansion coming to City of Heroes, Issue 11: "A Stitch In Time"

Features include:
<ul type="square">[*] Weapon Customization: Players will be able to change their weapons in the same way that they change their costume parts![/list]
For all the details, please visit the Issue 11 Feature Page

[/ QUOTE ]

Sometimes it's right to be wrong

[ QUOTE ]
Don't the 5th column have their own symbol? You know, the red and black one with the skull? I highly doubt that this is the herald of the return of the 5th, as they simply have used the old symbol for us old timers.

[/ QUOTE ]

Look at the 'raised marks' on the image. Look familiar?

http://www.cityofheroes.com/gallery/..._1280x1024.jpg
http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/index.php/Council

I do think most of us are reading into this more than the issue designers, but it makes for great speculation nonetheless.

I want to say thanks for this guide as someone who only 3 years+ into the game finally made a Mind Controller (after leveling every other type of Primary Controller to 50). Of course, I've just found this guide 2.5 years later (and cforce may no longer be among us), but still, it's quite well done =)

And it's funny, although I haven't received any direct grief from using Confuse (or Ill's Deceive), I keep expecting it and was looking for something like this to back me up. I wonder if people are less critical of Confuse or just don't realize I'm doing it.

As an aside, I did try to explain to someone a couple times that a confused FF Generator is actually worth keeping around on a team, not an alpha target. Their response, "really, cool!"

That's also why they tend to 3 slot Swift from the Fitness pool.

Btw, there's a difference between -speed (movement) and -recharge (time powers activate). The more significant handicap is probably the recharge.

Without Rooted on (say you take Acro, or you have Clarity or Clear Mind being buffed on you), you can move pretty quickly with just Granite.

The event timing almost worked for me. Glad to hear there will be a few days of full on invasions again. The LGTF is good, but it should spawn in a hero and villain zone when it completes (not sure if that's how it works atm).

It was an awesome event. Much improved over prior ones (no debt, level-less mobs, multiple components, dramatic zone changes).

Great idea for an issue and really glad to see there's gonna be a server event. Hero / Villain Co-op sounds great. But I wonder if that means that trading and auctions will open up between Heroes and Villains by Issue 10. I sure hope so.

It's probably a little late, but how's about making sure that there are multiple villain groups in this zone.

How about Shivans, and Rularuu, and maybe even higher level Hydra outdoors because there's an extradimensional or extraplanetary conflict and it's not just the rikti this time.

What about Crey or Arachnos (but seriously 1-50 levels of Arachnos might be enough), or other groups interested in learning the secrets of this alien tech, or secretly setting up agreements to divide the spoils of war.

What about Devouring Earth trying to rise up and fight against the Rikti?

I realize that the RCS had Crey, DE, and Rikti in copious amounts, but they never interacted in any zone fights or anything like that.

Here's hoping that there's time to add some zest to the zone. Just Rikti would be sorta boring.

Thanks for posting this, I found it through Zombie_Man's Guide to Guides. Your diagram is a good visual. Even without a better radius (which empirically feels right but never paid it much notice), the ability to choose a spot other than an awkwardly placed mob is really nice sometimes, particularly if it is pre-aggro and the mobs are in their initial configuration.

I have played every Controller except mind to 50 and have a Plant and Ice dominator as well. I tend to prefer PBAoE holds primarily because of the ability to strategically place the hold. Occasionally it can backfire (triggers too early or you die before it takes effect).

As you mentioned with Ice and Fire, there is good reason to be in melee in the first place. And with Illusion it at least makes getting into Melee pretty easy. I also play a Grav/Storm and even though I can use my ranged hold, I still find that I often play in Melee to get the benefit of Thunder Clap on some groups (particularly after I toss them somewhere with WH).

Playing with Force Field or Storm (and usually Acrobatics) can increase the survivability of a player that wants to maximize the use of a pbaoe hold. Also, of course, you have team buffs and inspirations to help you in those situations. Finally, some travel powers are probably better suited for this than others. I usually use Super Speed (because I still like Hasten), but used to use Teleport on a couple builds, which can work nicely. On open maps or outdoors Super Jump can be used very effectively too.

Great post arcanaville, it's been a while since i read your stuff, but thanks to the dev digest bringing me across your path again, i find you're as erudite as ever.

I was just gonna comment on another person's conclusion: [ QUOTE ]
[E]ither it's [defiance is] designed for blasters who cannot control their battles and are constantly getting into the red on health or its designed for very, rare situations [biting off more than one can chew].... either way it is lacking. I understand that we are getting a tiny buff no matter where the health lies, but I think it says it all that a poster had to test to find that out and inform the rest of us, because we sure weren't seeing it on our own.

[/ QUOTE ]

Another viewpoint is that it's designed for those players that can intentionally put themselves in harm's way and reap the rewards. So contrary to concluding that it requires an inept blaster, it might also require a very skilled player that can manage inspirations, knows how to avoid heals and intimately knows the limits of the archetype. Other ATs also have to subject themselves to a noticeable amount of aggro to receive their benefit (fury and domination), although arguably with a lot less risk.

And on balance, defiance is still probably more useful than the Defender inherent, where you are rewarded only if you don't do your job well. At least blasters can expect to do damage and receive damage. Of course, they can blame the incoming damage on their teammates (notably Tanks), but they are expected to get aggro.

I read about half the posts thoroughly and skimmed the rest. I like safeguard missions. I think they are fun. I like that the pace is set by the mission and less by me and my team (like mayhems where you sorta have control over the order you do stuff as long as you have enough time).

I still feel that I want to destroy things, particularly in the beginning when I zone in, usually because I'm looking to get more time (but the timer hasn't even started yet). It's just a habit, but easy to break.

There's enough of a similarity between mayhem and safeguards to make the transition relatively easy. For example, I know there will be side missions and side missions are opened by defeating an unusual villain group (e.g. if most of the map is clocks and you see skulls, take them out). I also know that completing side missions give good time bonuses.

I don't particularly like the high perception of the villains in the missions, it makes it more hectic, which isn't always bad, but also seems like it's different enough from other pve encounters in missions that it should be addressed. I feel it is the same in the mayhem missions, too, but I've mostly done those with a stalker, which can actually hide from mobs in those missions.

I've run out of time in the lower missions (Atlas Park and Kings Row safeguard) with teams, so not sure how typical that is. With better teams I've been able to complete everything. I've been able to complete the main mission every time.

I think it's pretty balanced, but spawn sizes might be too close or too large sometimes, particularly because of the perception problem.

I agree with some people, that it might be nice to have a side mission like "Enter the boat and destroy the cargo" or "Enter the villain lab to destroy the robot factory" as instanced side missions that would have lots of destructible objects in it. Heroes want to destroy stuff too (sometimes).

Another thing I forgot to mention.

I remember back before bases were fully announced and after any beta implementations. Two things I was really hoping for:

Influence[/Infamy] bank.
A personal room that I could decorate with my souvenirs.

The souvenirs still bug me. Why is it that we have these things called souvenirs and not even so much as an icon graphic like salvage items have? Why can't I display them or place them somewhere? Even if it was just the character log on screen and completely personal to me, it would be nice to see some representation of these rewards.

This should go in suggestions, but I'll mention it alongside the above comment:

Perhaps as a "personal" room idea, could have designated building in a zone and be able to enter it like an instance mission. It would not be very customizable, but just be able to have some furniture items and the ability to display souvenirs and maybe temp powers, that sort of thing. At least then we could take screenshots and show people or allow at least 1 other player to enter at a time.

Also, I like the idea suggested above that it's like an elevator door that you click on and can enter your own personal room that otherwise is not linked to the base plot (to avoid 75 additional rooms).

And the plaques that could have text entered, the SG roster, and other features all sound good. They take development resources, but maybe not a lot depending on how they are implemented.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Obviously because the cost of bases is not 'minimal'

[/ QUOTE ]

... the cost exceeds perceived value. The current ability to customize a social space for one’s Super Group isn’t thought to be high enough to justify the Prestige amounts. ...

[ QUOTE ]
... in making a post-mortem of the Bases feature implementation you seem to emphasize it's lack of popularity is more due to the fickleness of players, than the bugginess or kludgeyness of the product. ...

[/ QUOTE ]

We (Cryptic) assumed a certain value to bases which clearly doesn’t match up with players’ perceptions. We assumed that customizability, some gameplay features, layout control, etc. would be considered worth X, but players think it’s X-Y. That means WE were wrong. No fickleness involved, just something we didn’t identify well.

But it shows human behavior (and this was the point of my talk): people LOVE individuality. They’re willing to express it. But they won’t consider (in game) it worth a lot of time/effort to create a space that’s customized for group identity. Clearly, people don’t mind group identity (hence, super group costumes) and they love their own personal costume creation.

[/ QUOTE ]

I edited two of the quotes and your responses.

I feel that the cost to customize a "social space" is relatively affordable. The cost for "decorative rooms" is affordable and so are most "decorative items". The problem is the exorbitant costs of plot upgrades and certain functional items in the game.

Also, some of the badges that unlock functional items in the game seem to be too high. After a year, I still have yet to be in a base that has unlocked all the heal badges for SG mode.

Finally, base defenses and creating them seem to be out of the reach of even relatively serious SGs. I've played the entire year in SG mode, have 2 or more SGs listed in the top 100 on Infinity, and I can barely afford to make a defensive base with defensive items. I think that's embarassing and demonstrates that if it takes more than a year to even approximate a raid-ready base, the prices are too high. Make them within reach and people will use them.

There are other play problems like raids that can take lots of development time to implement, but adjusting prestige costs, rent, and badge requirements might go a long way toward improving morale while you work the kinks out of the playable functionality.

As a side note, the server I play the most on, Infinity, has it's top listed SG at only 56 million. Base # 10 is at only 21 million. That's a 35 million spread between the top 10 and everyone else comes below that. The largest plot in the game is 137,812,500 million! And that's with nothing in it, how unobtainable did you want bases to be?

So to recap:
1. please adjust rent by either reducing it, lengthening it, eliminating it, or giving reverse rent (compensating players monthly for having people in an SG, similar to the reward that occurred several months back)
2. Please reduce [/b]significantly[/b] the costs of Plot Upgrades and some of the Room costs.
3. Make defensive bases more accessible to a larger player base.
4. Make badge requirements less severe so that players can attain them within a reasonable amount of time. These SG badge rewards should not be relegated to the department of badge farmers, OCD players, and massive SGs.

Thanks!

Great guide.

Two typos: 'cicle' should be 'cycle' and 'loose' should be 'lose'.

One other error: you start on the Alpha Isle (with the green gem) in the NW. The isles with obelisks are, clockwise, Beta (NE), Gamma (SE), and Delta (SW).

Great job anticipating and answering people's questions. I know the timing part helped me understand what was going on.

Too bad they're trying to make it an online game. The freedom to make more compelling and absorbing stories (where you really matter) is a lot easier when you're not affecting the world of thousands of other players. Plus, certain powers and effects (like grappling and tossing) are probably easier and less problematic when there's no PvP or other players involved.

Players let em check up on it, watch it while he check up on it, uh dip it, pop it, twork it, stop it, uh check on it tonight.

Sorry that probably sounded funnier in my head than on the pixeled page.

So good to hear some promising news.

I hope this means that my Force Fielders have a chance at having useful powers again.

So here are some preliminary questions, some already mentioned above.

1. Do Def+ inspirations work the same way?

2. What happens after 5+ levels? How does defense degrade from there? Is it based on the old defense scales players have predicted?

3. Does Def+ still increase for -1 and lower mobs?

4. Do Team and non-team buffs have the same Def calculations that you are referring to in this change? E.g. Force Field Insulation and Deflection shield.

5. Have all Def powers been accounted for in the game on the Hero and Villain side? Including PB's/WS's?

6. What about PvP? Is it fully implemented there? In particular, what about being hit with a Def Debuff power when fighting critters nearby? How does Def scale then?

7. Are you all pretty confident that the current standards for Def values in the powers are fine with this change? Most of the values seemed too low, but this change might make Def sets viable now. I'd bet many of us are fearing the nerf coming down the road once you find that, in fact, Def sets don't get crazy damage (if that's possible even with these changes).

8. Does this mean that critter Def also works the same way? E.g. do AVs/Hamidon/Mitos/other critters that have Def armors have the same scaling changes or is it just for players?

I'm sure there are more problems that others will spot, but as always, inquiring players want to know.

I was still hoping for a telepad answer, but I'll comment on this as well in the meantime (ahem, bump)...

High level heroes can be noticeably faster at defeating white minions, given the right AT. Making loads of alts would probably be less profitable (other than the fact that at the end you'd have loads of alts) than getting a character to the right level and have them farm an especially lucrative area of a zone or a good mission. Maybe grab some perma-debt along the way, and you could even up the difficulty of a mission as you level to keep it viable for several levels.

Or you could just play the game in SG mode and let time do its thing.