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It seems to me that's fairly unequivocally a bad thing! Without IOs creating such a wide gap in toon effectiveness, the same content could be pitched to provide a similar level of challenge, but no player with a good build and solid play would be excluded.
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No way! These enemies where just as hard and already in the game long before IO's where there. You can win without IO's. Lower the repp if you need to or just get help.
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I think you're talking at cross purposes. I'm just saying IF there is content in the game that can't be played without IO-tricked-out builds THEN that is a bad thing, and without the IO system that same content could be pitched to be accessible to anyone with a solid build and good play.
I don't myself have an opinion on whether such content exists. Razor does think it exists, and you can argue the toss with them if you like...
Games don't take skill, let alone MMOs.
MMOs ARE about time, because they are designed to keep us interested forever so we'll sub until we die!
Very few games are about skill. Fighting games and RTS are the only genre I think that need a certain degree of skill.
(And no before anyone interjects, FPS games do not take skill, just basic motor skills to move your thumb and aim)
You might as well go play world of warcraft, even though technically it is ancient and is one of the worse MMOs i've ever played.
One positive, is it's easy mode and you can take advantage of/manipulate the playerbase quite easily.
Oh and in response to your phrase "people don't buy infamy' I say, open your eyes my friend.
1) Go to goole
2)type in 'buy cov infamy'
3) ???
4) Profit!
(steps 3 and 4 were a reference to 4chan, don't mind them)
If you want your characters to remain bad, simply slot them with SOs or basic IOs and forego the whole 'putting in effort to improve yourself' thing.
If you don't pvp you'll be happy playing on the 'hard mode' some guy suggested a few posts back, and when my chars are purpled out I'll have fun plvling my friends and burning through TFs.
And after that, everyone's happy! I think after all's said and done we should just agree to disagree.
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Games don't take skill, let alone MMOs.
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This is absolutely 100% wrong.
Of course some games do take more skill than others, but concepts like controlling aggro, identifying targets and even just hitting the right buttons in the right order quickly do take skill.
Basic motors skills are skills. Hence the name. And some people are better at that than others, as well as being better at identifying threats and working out tactics and combinations to defeat them.
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Games don't take skill, let alone MMOs.
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As someone who's played NetHack for the last decade and a half, I may have to disagree with you there.
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MMOs ARE about time, because they are designed to keep us interested forever so we'll sub until we die!
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Thanks. Perhaps you could also inform me about the Pope's religious beliefs?
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(And no before anyone interjects, FPS games do not take skill, just basic motor skills to move your thumb and aim)
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That is obvious nonsense (indeed the sheer absurdity of "FPS games don't take skill, just ... skills" is very pleasing.)
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Oh and in response to your phrase "people don't buy infamy' I say, open your eyes my friend.
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This is an obvious distraction. The original context was "when we go to buy them". Neither of us buys influence with cash money. That was not the kind of buying you were talking about.
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And after that, everyone's happy!
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No, because we exist in the same game. It's most telling in PVP, where the people who actually would like a level playing field for PVP are in direct conflict with the people who want the amount of grinding you have done to be a significant factor, but even in PVE, as soon as I'm not soloing, there's a conflict between my desire for a challenging game and the grinders' desire to grind away and d--- the effects on gameplay.
Well you're not going to get a level playing field in pvp. People who have grinded and farmed for their purps will own you in pvp because they put more work in.
This 'level playing field' you speak of is simply where you can be even with other people despite little or no work.
These people who grind and spend more time deserve to be rewarded equally.
There's a reason people who have been playing for years, farming constantly are better than you and I.
And As for the PVE issue, that's different. I as a grinder don't want an easy play. You seem to assume grinders want PVE to be easy.
Grinding, by definition (well, my definition of grinding as a grinder) is doing things that pay well as fast as possible to maximise reward for time taken.
If I want to farm the same map as someone else, but quicker, with the same amount of reward, I have to beef up my char so it can tear through the mission.
You, on the other hand seem to think grinders like me just want an easy ride, which isn't the case. The game can be challenging, but grinders will always find it easier because to grind you have to be good to begin with.
(That or put up with slow reward:time ratio)
All this said, I shall withdraw my earlier offering to agree to disagree, if you want to argue this out til one of us concedes defeat, I can play that game 
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Well you're not going to get a level playing field in pvp. People who have grinded and farmed for their purps will own you in pvp because they put more work in.
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That is yet another fact I am well aware of, as should be completely obvious from my previous post.
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This 'level playing field' you speak of is simply where you can be even with other people despite little or no work.
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Well, yes. If I wanted work, I'd go to _work_. I get paid for it and everything (and being a UNIX sysadmin is actually less boring than grinding purples, to boot).
No-one considers it remarkable when you play a fighting game or an online FPS that there is no "work" you can do beforehand to improve your chances. You just have to be good at the game you are actually playing. Why should MMO PVP be any different?
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There's a reason people who have been playing for years, farming constantly are better than you and I.
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If you mean they enjoy a game-mechanical advantage, that's also obvious.
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And As for the PVE issue, that's different. I as a grinder don't want an easy play. You seem to assume grinders want PVE to be easy.
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No, that's not what I'm saying at all. Grinders prefer grinding to being challenged in ordinary PVE. They might _like_ hard PVE, but they don't like it _as much_ as they like grinding. I expect vehement denials, but the simple fact is that if you grind a lot most PVE content becomes very easy, and if you minded that consequence enough you'd have to stop grinding.
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I agree with all of this (well not the chucking out IOs bit)
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Really?
I know it's a radical proposal, but by your own account, you like smashing up mobs and reading a bit of story. Excellent. So do I.
Now, what takes up valuable smashing-up-mobs time? Oh, yes. Selling junk. Buying junk. Placing bids. Scrounging up salvage. Sorting through salvage. Running to six different kinds of shop to sell stuff to the game.
And what do we get from all that? Very little, except sometimes the game's too easy and you have to bump the difficulty level up to put you back where you started!
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Very true by my own preferences i should hate IOs with a passion (i never do the running to different shops bit everything gets dumped at which ever shop i happen to be at at the time)
but there's just something about them they let me do that little but of internal roll play on those characters that are slightly more cerebral than my average brute I also get a special kind of joy from playing my dark/fire there's just something about delivering a shadow punch / smite combo that's charged with fury and the 2 build ups and then having the joy of the procs all firing at once i just love it special when its against a boss.
Also some times its nice to have a aim i know deep down ill never make any of the uber builds i design on mids but its the grail of those builds that draw me on in the dark times when smashing thru mission like a crazed rhino in a china shop just isn't enough.
P.s
there's also the joy filling in those annoying gaps my fire/stone brute would be miles less fun if he didn't have all that +run speed.
Yes, but doing the same boring thing over and over again is the job of a grinder. The good ones (I like to think myself one ^^) can do it whilst bored, and without complaining.
So while it's true I don't mind doing the same apparently easy stuff again, I DO enjoy hard pve.
Afterall, if EVERYTHING was so easy, I'd have nothing to test as a punch bag with my purpled out chars ^^ The next step to improving a char more is to find out what your limit is (i.e when you get knocked around by some hard mobs) then set yourself another target.
And also, if everything I mentioned was so obvious from your posts, expect me to write about it. And in turn, I'll expect you not to cherry pick quotes from me when you whine about me stating the obvious.
Call me captain obvious if ya want. I'm used to there being people too stupid to pick up anything unless it's pointed out to them, so yes I do often state the obvious, it may be a bad habit but it's one anyone who talks to me will learn to live with.
So if you want to make a point about grinders prefering grinding to being challenged in pve, what do you want me to say? Sure, some will prefer easy grinds and big drop rewards than a challenge.
I however, am the kind of grinder who grinds to get better. After one thing becomes easy because my character is uber, I look for the next milestone to improve myself to. And after I reach the maximum potential, I move on and do the same with a different character.
The result? Tons of uber purpled out chars ready for use in powerlevelling alts, friends, or ripping through TFs.
Sure I need to grind a few mils of inf every now and then, but that's not really a crime.
I'm not one of the grinders who spams people tells for farm invites, before those accusations start flying x3.
If nothing else IO's gave people something to do post 50 (and pre 50 as it happens) but either way i think they gave the game a bit of longevity for a lot of people.
Overall i think they were a very good addition to the game, because they are completely optional, if you dont want to go the whole grind route, dont bother, if you do that's great.
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The good ones (I like to think myself one ^^) can do it whilst bored, and without complaining.
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So you've turned the game into something you personally find boring, and you're wondering _why_ I don't share your enthusiasm for the current state of the enhancement system?
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I DO enjoy hard pve.
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Where do you _get_ hard PVE? You've reduced the potentially hard content to a handful of high-end task forces.
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After one thing becomes easy because my character is uber, I look for the next milestone to improve myself to.
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This sounds very jolly, like an athletics shoe advert. Unfortunately, all it means is going round the same little circuit in order to play the same game with bigger numbers. I recognise some people find that very satisfying, but it doesn't really involve any improvement in playing skill [1]. Use set bonuses to improve your HP, Defence, Resistance, and Damage - then use the difficulty slider to +1 all the mobs. You're just back where you started!
[1] I'm not saying your playing skill might not improve at the same time.
Where do I get hard pve? From taking on huge numbers of bosses at a time.
If that doesn't work, I make ridiculously hard MA missions. (I also enjoy creating playable stories from them!)
Since I am somewhat of a hardcore player, I tend to make extremely difficult solo maps.
They only pass my quality control if I can't do them. 9and of course when the story is consistent and there are no grammatical errors! :P) Personally I've never made it to the end of one of my missions, but my friends Soul Taker (UBER SS/WP) and Effy (uber night widow) have gotten pretty far.
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I also get a special kind of joy from playing my dark/fire there's just something about delivering a shadow punch / smite combo that's charged with fury and the 2 build ups and then having the joy of the procs all firing at once i just love it special when its against a boss.
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But throwing away the IO system need not mean throwing away some of the funky effects. I've outlined a system where you just slot powers and then select the proportion of each enhancement effect you desire. Obviously many procs just fit nicely into that system.
Slots could also be spent "outside" powers to open up opportunities for various global [1] effects like knockback protection.
[1] I am not using the term in the technical sense that describes certain classes of IO.
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If nothing else IO's gave people something to do post 50 (and pre 50 as it happens) but either way i think they gave the game a bit of longevity for a lot of people.
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Traditionally post-50 one went back to Outbreak. But, let me be clear here, I've already said the decision to add them makes commercial sense; a lot of the MMO market clearly does want to press the lever for the food pellet all day.
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Overall i think they were a very good addition to the game, because they are completely optional
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As mentioned, I don't really think that's the case, especially in PVP, but whenever you end up interacting with players with different levels of grindyness. No-one likes to be the weak link on the TF team, for example.
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If nothing else IO's gave people something to do post 50 (and pre 50 as it happens) but either way i think they gave the game a bit of longevity for a lot of people.
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Traditionally post-50 one went back to Outbreak. But, let me be clear here, I've already said the decision to add them makes commercial sense; a lot of the MMO market clearly does want to press the lever for the food pellet all day.
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Overall i think they were a very good addition to the game, because they are completely optional
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As mentioned, I don't really think that's the case, especially in PVP, but whenever you end up interacting with players with different levels of grindyness. No-one likes to be the weak link on the TF team, for example.
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Well they made pvp a moot point when they [censored] it up for 90% of the people that did it.
As for being the weakest link, i cant ever remember anyone being dug out in a team for not having so and so set.
Dont take it all so personally mate, if you dont like IO's leave them alone, i cant see how they impact on your game to be honest.
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Well they made pvp a moot point when they [censored] it up for 90% of the people that did it.
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Who were a small core of purple grinders. That's exactly the problem I'm talking about. PVP can't be got right _because_ there is no level playing field.
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As for being the weakest link, i cant ever remember anyone being dug out in a team for not having so and so set.
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I did not suggest that that was the case.
That doesn't mean I don't enjoy being an effective and useful part of a TF team (and that means I end up five-Frankenslotting and generally spending more time in WW/BM). I also enjoy a stiff challenge from a TF - something I now get very rarely.
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Well they made pvp a moot point when they [censored] it up for 90% of the people that did it.
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Who were a small core of purple grinders. That's exactly the problem I'm talking about. PVP can't be got right _because_ there is no level playing field.
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As for being the weakest link, i cant ever remember anyone being dug out in a team for not having so and so set.
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I did not suggest that that was the case.
That doesn't mean I don't enjoy being an effective and useful part of a TF team (and that means I end up five-Frankenslotting and generally spending more time in WW/BM). I also enjoy a stiff challenge from a TF - something I now get very rarely.
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Oh well, so it goes, the game gets on my nerves at times too
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Well they made pvp a moot point when they [censored] it up for 90% of the people that did it.
As for being the weakest link, i cant ever remember anyone being dug out in a team for not having so and so set.
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Maybe they felt sorry for you 
Seriously though I've never come across any stipulation by anyone that you need IOs in any TF.
Maybe a Master of... TF people might be expected to have a great build and to be fairly compotent (hence why I don't do em, the latter scuppers it for me) but it doesn't really matter otherwise.
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Well they made pvp a moot point when they [censored] it up for 90% of the people that did it.
As for being the weakest link, i cant ever remember anyone being dug out in a team for not having so and so set.
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Maybe they felt sorry for you
Seriously though I've never come across any stipulation by anyone that you need IOs in any TF.
Maybe a Master of... TF people might be expected to have a great build and to be fairly compotent (hence why I don't do em, the latter scuppers it for me) but it doesn't really matter otherwise.
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Bahhhhhh, there's nothing wrong with my builds, most of them anyway! 
That's because you "borrowed" so much inf from us all!
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Against 4 AVs... Sometimes you just need to beef your character up.
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With a pre-Inventions build a character with an decent build, without some peculiarly appropriate powerset, with a tray of insps - can fight an EB version of an AV solo and win.
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This is not completely true.. Sometimes you just need / forced to... team. The higher levels have enemies that are like this. Or lower youre repp.
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It seems to me that's fairly unequivocally a bad thing! Without IOs creating such a wide gap in toon effectiveness, the same content could be pitched to provide a similar level of challenge, but no player with a good build and solid play would be excluded.
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No way! These enemies where just as hard and already in the game long before IO's where there. You can win without IO's. Lower the repp if you need to or just get help.
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