Biostem

Kinda reminds me of the line from Full Metal Jacket, where the Drill Sgt says "...If there's one thing I can't stand it's an unlocked footlocker. There'd be no crime if it wasn't for you..."

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Ah - so the Sk is determined by the rating of the mission - I had no idea. TYVM!

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That's not exactly true. A mission will *not* auto SK if it covers a level range that spans below and above the players' native levels. If, however, the mission designer included an NPC that *only* spawns at a specific level range, then the players will be auto-SK'd to the minimum level of that enemy's level range, or their native level, (whichever is higher).

For example:

Player is level 45.
Mission has no specific AV/EB.
Enemies in the mission have a level range of 1-54.
Enemies will be level 45, or possibly a little high if player's difficulty is higher.

Example 2:

Player is level 45.
Mission has a level 52 EB.
Enemies in the mission have a level range of 1-54.
Enemies will be level 52.

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As to how to start a team; really you just need to bite the bullet and take charge. Broadcast that you are forming a team for XX level mission, and see who's interested.

I've often found that I prefer running or being on a team that's run a certain way. More often than not, I am unhappy w/ how others run their teams, and so I frequently end up leading my own team.

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Its common sense. No one can say they didn't know what they were doing was wrong... they just chose to ignore it. There were warnings in place people could have heeded.

Stating its a position of arrogance is your choice, but abusing a system claiming ignorance in the face of facts is unexcusable by those who are attempting to justify themselves.

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This doesn't make sense at all. You get someone who wants to build a farm. They pick a mob type that gives a lot of XP. There was no moustache-twirling going on. These farmers were not laughing maniacally at how they're messing w/ the devs' game. All they knew is that the devs gave them these tools to do w/ as they wished, and they built a mission that helped them achieve their desired ends.

It would have been very easy for the devs to do things like not permit only 1 mob type in an enemy group, not allow only minions/LTs/bosses, etc, and avoided this.

But no... the devs decide that, after the fact, they are going to swing their big stick and scare everyone.

Where is the fix to correct the issue of overly powerful custom mobs? Where is the fix to resolve the issue w/ new team members not being able to enter an AE mission? Where is the fix to resolve team members entering into different maps when they all click the same AE portal? Their priorities seem to be out of whack...

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Growth would be so awesome. I wish we had gotten that instead of shields or DB

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Growth would also be phenomenally hard to do, give the limitation so the game engine and the environments we routinely play in.

How would your 20' tall character manage in a 9' tall cave? Would you disallow such powers in certain maps?

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Just like grant invis gives full invisibility w/ no downside, group flight should be made into a click, which can be canceled, and has no disadvantage.

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The only problem with Flying as a click power is, what if you are flying high over Steel Canyon, and poof, the duration runs out?

Although I can appreciate the humor of standing on the tram watching heroes constantly falling from the sky in the zone around you...

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It'd be no different than how IR from Kinetics can wear off mid-jump. You watch the icon, and when you see it blinking, you better land quickly!

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Hopefully, with the advent of dual pistols, they won't make the default Praetorian mob as lethal resistant as say longbow or arachnos?

I mean, it's fun that we got YAN smaethal set, but perhaps we could have customizable weapons in a not highly resisted by common mobs damage bracket?

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That's why I'm a big advocate of pistols having different ammo types. Council marksmen and Malta gunslingers have incendiary and cry rounds. Poison or toxic rounds wouldn't be out of whack for a super hero MMO. I could see an "electro-tracer" or taser round that does energy damage. The only damage type a pistol should not have is negative energy.

The other problem is we can't really have a flaming or energy sword powerset, since we sort of have those already (in fire melee, ice melee, and the talsorian blades).

I would like to see a "mystical martial arts" powerset; think Ryu/Ken/Akuma from Street Fighter - some punches, kicks, a flying spin kick, fireball, flaming-fist uppercut, etc.

I wonder if a "backpack" powerset would be too overboard; think of all the things that come from Crab Spiders. Your backpack would be a customizable costume piece, and it'd include melee attacks, ranged attacks, or both. The attacks could be fairly generic - like a fire attack, ice attack, energy attack, and there could be high tech, steampunk, and arcane looking backpacks.

Radiation melee and armor should be added. Electrical control and buff/debuff sets should be added. Dark control needs to be put in. Toxic blasts should be added.

I'd like to see something like a Lycanthropy armor set; it'd start w/ a bunch of passive abilities which improve yoru overall performance slightly; think thigns like fast healing, quick recovery, high pain threshold, resist physical damage, some sort of heightened senses, and it'd culminate in a full werewolf form that'd be like granite. Although, one could argue that you can just make a werewolf form as an alternate costume and choose w/e powersets they thought fit best.

Just like grant invis gives full invisibility w/ no downside, group flight should be made into a click, which can be canceled, and has no disadvantage. In fact, for a 4th tier, this "grant flight" that would replace group flight, should also protect against -fly and immob effects.

Whirlwind, in addition to what it does now, should also grant a limited hover ability; I imagine the Flash spinning around and being able to take off during that.

Team tp should either be like the recall team power, or needs to be adjusted to grant the hover effect to teammates, when used.

Your argument doesn't make sense. AE is CoX's version of a super high tech video arcade. When you go to one, you go to play the games that are fun. Maybe you prefer 1 specific type of game to another, but how often do you go to an arcade and question the morality or motivations of the in-game characters?

If you're viewing it as a simulation that your character is undertaking to hone his or her skills, then I question why you're choosing scenarios that aren't appropriate for said character. It'd be like going to a rifle training class and you get upset that they aren't showing you how to build a fire...

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One of these again? The word is "empath", everyone understands, nobody gets their feeling hurt.

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Sometimes, just sometimes, I want a person on my team that is good at restoring HP. Empathy is probably the most often thought of powerset for this, but thermal, dark, kin, and maybe even storm can satisfy this.

Whether or not some people think the function of restoring lost HP is unnecessary or undesirable, others do not. For those people, this function is very much in demand. When this happens, they ask for a healer...

There is a saying that the higher your defense, the more each add'l % counts. If you don't have any other significant source of DEF, the 1-2% stealth grants you is meaningless. If you're hovering around 40-44%, then that add'l 1-2% is hugely valuable. To think of stealth as a DEF power is really not the best approach to take. Think of it as an aggro management and opening attack placement tool.

I think the publishing limit should be based upon number of missions, not slots. Let's say you make it 6 or 12 total missions...

The stealth power has a few benefits over the stealth IO:

1. It provides some defense (albeit very little).
2. It's a toggle, so you can instantly become visible if desired.
3. It doesn't cost millions of inf to get.

Disadvantages:

1. It costs a fair amount of end to use. If you run out of end, you become visible immediately.
2. It imparts a runspeed debuff.
3. The defense it grants drops to near 0 if you attack or take any action that causes it to suppress.
4. It is yet another power pick you may not be able to afford. It also ties up one of your 4 power pool picks.
5. It cannot stack w/ most other stealth powers, whereas the stealth IO can.

IMO, if you find one through sheer luck, or can afford it, get the stealth IO. The leaping one is usually a little cheaper and can still be slotted in sprint.

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I have noticed a lot of builds people have posted here that don't have a travel power. I have always been a fan of the travel powers offered and feel that they help you quite a bit and are fun. Obviously some people don't feel they need them. I understand the need to squeeze in many powers into a tight build. The jet packs are slow. Using ouroboros helps but is not going to get you door to door. How do you NOT feel like you are gimped without a travel power.

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The answer to your question is something only the player of a particular character can answer. I made at least one character that took swift, hurdle, and CJ, and basically did runs and hops to get from mission to mission. I basically played this guy like an extreme athlete who liked to hop from rooftop to rooftop w/o the aid of SJ/fly/etc.

It was fun for me, but only because it went w/ that character's concept. For the most part, though, it's just easier to take a bona fide travel power.

One thing you can never win an argument about is fun; if someone finds playing sans travel power fun, then let them be. Those players who are around for a while seem to have the best knowledge about getting around various zones...

I understand part of what you're saying, but I'm talking about being able to use them for custom critters, not for my characters. Where was it ever stated that this content would be exclusive for NPCs? Oh, well...

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As far as I know you have to buy the booster packs, just like for your characters.

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I had to buy the GvE booster, yet those costume pieces are available to everyone, even those that didn't buy it...

There does not seem to be a way to unlock the Magic Booster or Cyborg costume pieces for your MA critters. Is this intentional? You can unlock the GvE costumes, the preorder helmets, and the Collector's Edition pieces...

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What kills me is that they already have an extremely cool travel power in the game that most people haven't seen, meaning the power slide which you can only get from ordering the collector's edition or having pre-ordered the game when it first came out 5 years ago. Slap some extra speed on that baby or at least an endurance reduction so people will have a reason to chose it and it'd be sure to be a crowd pleaser.

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As what? It's sprint w/ a different animation. You can stack it w/ SS, SJ, CJ, swift, hurdle, etc. What would a slide powerset bring to the table?

Anyone have a video of a team w/ no defenders or controllers running and successfully winning a STF? Oh, and extensive use of temp powers, aid other, etc, invalidate that as "your team" isn't really winning, then...

I just don't buy that you never need any kind of heal whatsoever, apart from respites, for some of the hardest content in the game. I've been on teams w/ an ideal makeup, (like a kin, stone tank, rads), that didn't succeed, so you'll have to prove to me that you don't need them.

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Bio, take it from my FF defender. You are flat out wrong. With the exception of psy attacks that bypass force-fields entirely, the number of times anybody on my team takes more damage than they can sustain without an outside heal/regen buff do not warrant a power selection.

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That may be true for 90% of the content, but you cannot run a STF/LRSF w/ FF alone. You cannot run a MA mission w/ lvl 54 enemies w/ FF alone. I know I'm picking on FF here, but there aren't many sets that are *only* buff/debuff w/ no heal whatsoever. I can only think of: FF, Sonic, TA, Cold Dom. Even traps has a +regen buff, and storm has a heal-other.

There are times, even when you have great buffs/debuffs/controls, that you just need someone who is good at restoring HP or increasing the other players' regen rate. These are the things I look for in a "healer". Even if they only have 1 power, as long as they have it slotted out and can use it often enough and at the times it's needed, it'll suffice.

That in no way means that "healorz" are the end-all be-all of CoH. It just means that even w/ all your FF, Sonic, and other buffers out there, you're gonna get hit and sometimes respites aren't enough...

No, this isn't about the MA rating system; or rather, it's about how a rating system should be added to the dev created content. Allow us to leave feedback and rate dev-made story arcs, TFs/SFs, and trials. Perhaps this would be a way for the devs to hear, first had, what players do or do not like about the stuff they've made.

I want to be clear - this would not be a way to whine to the devs; they should only read worthwhile feedback - not 'arc sux' type of stuff.

I also want to emphasize that this feedback may not necessarily be acted upon; but if they start getting 100's of feedback notes that the Posi TF is too long, or send you to too many different zones, then perhaps they'll get the idea.

Having run MA Farms for a while now, I have come to the conclusion that there are 2 types of farmers:

1. Those that want max xp/inf/prestige/tickets per unit time, and anything less is unacceptable. These people can be stubborn at times, since they usually want a very specific team makeup and no lowbies.

2. Those that want to level up faster than normal, and usually want to experience a new or different powerset on a fully developed character. These are the types of people I run my farms for. I recognize that at some point, you simply don't want to have to go through the low levels, and want to play w/ a travel power, stamina, and SOs. My farms don't yield the kind of rewards some are looking for, but they are able to be run on less than ideal teams.

I don't use exploits, and I don't aim to have my missions be team-killers.

I put a lot of work into my custom characters and think the custom group I made has a lot of style.

If you want to check it out, it's 154150.

Have a great day, and remember to have fun!

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Honestly, I'd like to see a single pistol blaster; I just see a character holding and properly bracing 1 pistol as a whole lot more dangerous and skilled than someone wildly firing 2 pistols.

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I'm guessing you haven't played Left 4 Dead then.

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Oh I have. I still wouldn't say it's "skill" use of pistols, though. One thing they did do well is the ability to pistol whip and rifle butt w/ your weapons.

It seems to be that "hidden" is a flag that can be added to different power check. The devs then add a conditional flag that says "if hidden, then apply additional damage X". That, to me, seems to be how Night Widows/Forts can have a power that doesn't crit out of stealth/grant invis, but does out of mask presence...

You can get a very nice rig for about $300 online; that is including a decent video card (like an Nvidia 9800GT). If you would like more help, send me a PM and I'll throw something together for you to look at...

Happy hunting!