Dispari

There's a ton of factors you're overlooking here. It's not as simple as "spammer sends email to uninterested person who now has it blocked so nothing changes." There are a lot of ways that the email block will cut down on their business.

First, ignoring stuff isn't the same as blocking. There are a lot of people who will be universally blocking email. That means that no matter what the situation or outcome, they won't see the details. There IS a certain portion of the playerbase, whether we want to admit it or not, who just need the right motivation. Say a player is frustrated that their friends keep getting purple drops. They save up some money and try to buy something. They get outbid and don't get it. In annoyance they go to buy something else and overbid by accidentally hitting an extra 0 and lose all their money. After a scream and yell they look at that red "email" button and notice that influence prices are pretty cheap right now.

With a total block, that will never happen. It works the same way with email spam outside of the game. You try to set up a full block so you don't get any spam at all. The thing is, eventually something might slip through that catches your attention. Some people are gullible and might believe that they really won a contest, or realize they actually do need ch3@p m3d5 n0w. If you're totally blocked, there's never temptation and never an "impulse buy." If there's no product, there's no purchase. However, if you occasionally glance at the thing, temptation may eventually overtake you. The spammers don't want it blocked. They want to keep sending spam to people who don't want it in the hopes that one day they will break down. Then they've got you.

Secondly, having to deal with spam is free advertising for them. Doesn't matter to them if you want it or not. You have to deal with it. You have to delete emails and spend part of your day messing with it. Inevitably, what happens after that? You complain about it. Maybe just to your friends, but maybe in broadcast or on the forums. You complain that the email spam has gotten out of control. Someone comments that people must be stupid enough to keep buying because they're still in business. You may have just made a sale for them, because of all the people hearing you complain about it, someone may just try it out. Even bad publicity is good publicity.

Thirdly, there are people who will block email on principle and not because they've had any issues in the past. This cuts down the spammers' potential audience. There may be people who WOULD have bought things if they had seen the rates or how "easy" the spammers claim it to be. But when this is introduced, it never happens. It's a pre-emptive anti-spam ability that may influence what you would have done otherwise. Maybe if you heard from a friend, "use this to prevent all spam dealing with medication in your email inbox," you'd jump on the idea. But if they hadn't offered that, you might have bought the stuff. There are new players who will join the game who block email as soon as possible, preventing the influence of the spammers from ever touching them, even though it may have lead to a sale.

Believe me. The spammers want to hit everyone. Not just the people who seem to want their service.

I would definitely use it to double the duration of Demonic when I fight Rommy, the Honoree, and the final battle in the LRSF, among other things.

The whole point of the SSK is to make teaming and leveling easier for regular players. So we can all access the content of which you speak without as much hassle.

1) Unbalanced how? If you're talking about classes, it's up to the team leader to make that balance. If they can't do it when i16 hits, they can't do it now. With MORE people to pick from, if anything it'll be MORE balanced. I don't have to pick people just in the 30-32 range. I can reasonably pick people at any level. That doesn't mean I'm FORCED to bring along level 1s and make the experience awful for everyone. It means I can take someone who's 25, or 35, and not have to settle for what's available in my range. If I need a Controller, I can broaden my range, instead of having to wait for one to log on.

2) How? At worst people will just be SKed to -1 the leader. We can already do this.

3) This already happens, so nothing will be changing. Level 1s will still go try to get easy levels in PI, and be ignored. Meanwhile, the rest of us will enjoy the ease and freedom of a larger pool to pick up teammates from.

4) How will this make it take LONGER? I will much more easily be able to form a team out of the classes I need. And again, I'm not FORCED to bring people that are so low that they can't help. If the team leader is running a 40ish team and invites level 5s, that's their fault, not the system. It will only slow teams down if they're poorly-built, which is the LEADER'S fault.

5) Nothing will ever remove farming. But nobody ever claimed the SSK would eliminate farming.

Minor correction:

11 servers. 12 characters each. That's 132 character slots.

Though realistically unless you want to spread yourself thin, you'll want to stick to one or two servers. If you solo it may not be as big a deal to spread out, but I tend to group with friends so I stick to Virtue. I have about 26 characters there.

Not to mention all the things that happen when the level cap is raised (new zones, new content, new powers, new ways to improve character, new missions/TFs) can be added WITHOUT raising the level cap.

One of the few things I do like about GW. Though on the other hand I do see how it might serve to invalidate healing more if nobody needs to be healed outside of combat. Heals are already downplayed enough that might stop people from shouting "NEED HEALER," but then again people would do that no matter what since other games have taught them otherwise. Oh well, I'm indifferent on this proposed change.

Still curious why the +5% recharge boost from Enforced Morale caps at +25% and interferes with people who have +5% bonuses.

The power will seem to only apply up to +25%, whether or not they have +5% recharge bonuses. Meaning if someone has 4x +5% recharge set bonuses, only one Enforced Morale will boost their recharge. If they already have five, EM won't boost their recharge at all. If however they have none, you can stack 5 EMs.

It's funny you call that cookie-cutter because I don't slot my powers like that, and I don't know anyone who does. Even if it were true, how is that worse than 1x ACC, 5x DMG?

Plus if you aren't using SOs, there's frankenslotting, and slotting for sets. And the sets people shoot for will vary, and the bonuses offered by those sets will vary.

You could build a Scrapper for:

+DMG
+ACC
+RECH
+DEF
+regen
+recov
+HP
+end

Or a mixture of those things. My Widow is slotted for +DEF, +DMG, +RECH. That's not counting all her procs and globals, of which she has many. And she's not loaded up on purples; she has ONE purple, which is a proc.

I guarantee you, if you asked 30 people how they would build a character, even if you provided the powers for them, none of them would be the same. There's no "cookie-cutter" build for IOs.

The replacement for Conserve Power still sort of does what the original did. It still grants an endurance discount. Using that as an example, they're far more likely to replace a time bomb power with a teleport bomb power than to replace it with a self-defense power.

If I had my way, everything would last for at least 240 seconds. I don't see what advantage or balancing factor appears when you make buffs only last for a short time, like 60-90 seconds, or pets you have to resummon once a minute. It doesn't really balance anything, it just makes it much more annoying.

TF is a weird one. It's tier 9 for Tanks, for some reason, but not for Brutes and Stalkers. TF is the SECOND most damaging power in Energy Melee so I don't know why Tanks get it last. If Blasters really had the "tier 9," that would be Energy Transfer. And that would be nutty, although possibly entertaining.

I've never been a fan of Conserve Power. It's super useful when up, useless when down. I had it for a while on my first Blaster and got rid of it soon after. Sure while it was up I had unlimited endurance, but when it was down I struggled. I'd rather have a midway. Half effect for half recharge would be nice.

Damage yes, interrupt no. Ideally a snipe should be something you use as an opener. A snipe with such a short interrupt that you can use it in combat isn't a snipe. I would dramatically increase the damage of snipes, but not mess with interrupt. Something that's actually WORTH using from far away as an opener would be good. Right now, I can get more mileage out of opening with Total Focus.

Not all. I sort of like my ability to kill all badguys in one go. I think the nukes are okay how they are. Some are different, like Archery (which I also like), but I still enjoy Nova and Inferno.

This I would like. Kind of a crappy tier 9.

Something more useful yes. +DEF, no. Devs don't like to replace powers. They'd probably, if anything, make a similar power. Omega Maneuver would be the perfect replacement though.

These I could get behind. But there's another thing I'd like to do for the pets. Increase duration to 4 minutes, with recharged changed to match. Having to resummon pets every 90 seconds is just an annoying pain.

This would probably never happen, and Subdual was changed to be in-line with the other Blaster immobilizes. Changing it would be unfair to the other sets.

Ehh, I don't think so. Foot Stomp and Psy Shockwave both have stats higher than they're supposed to be already. Buffing either one is probably not going to happen. The power has merits of its own anyway, like recharge debuff and stun. And the end cost is comparatively low.

I always thought that myself, since KO Blow has TWO secondary effects. I think, though, the reason it was changed is because KO Blow has no other holds to stack, while Energy has tons of stuns to stack. You can already hit mag 4+ easily with other attacks, so having a power that does mag 4 off the bat is a little nutty.

While I don't like the fact that a Blaster gets not one, but TWO AoE "kill me" toggles, I don't think they'll replace one. Also note that no Blaster set has a "tier 9" attack in it, because they'd do a tremendous amount of damage with it.

Ew, no. FE has a way longer recharge for just an added +25% damage. And if your primary isn't also fire, you lose damage.

Wishful thinking. I never did like Conserve Power. Without the heal it might be doable.

These I can agree to.

Probably wouldn't hurt. Although the way inherents work with epics is kind of hit and miss. I'd like it if inherents worked with all epics on all ATs.

It's not a party until you have 8 Thug/Traps MMs.

At least, you could do that, but the level 41 autopower Couch Potato is mandatory and prevents you from using all your other powers.

Yeah, sorry, was working off memory. Now that I think about it, it may be the jackets WITH sleeves. Although you can still make your jackets WITH sleeves not have sleeves... for some reason.

I keep hearing this, but I don't remember where it originated. Was this confirmed somewhere? It seems like, if true, Blaze Mastery would be vastly superior to all other Scrapper epic options.

You are incorrect, sir. Most of us enjoy progression. It's been said many times in this thread, however, that it's entirely possible to have progression without raising the level cap.

Consider that CoH is a game where most people have a lot of characters. If the devs add something new, like new enhancements or alternate powers you can take (in epics), people who are already level 50 can opt to work toward these new goals while doing new content if they choose. If however you raise the level cap, all level 50 characters on the entire server are invalidated, and would be forced to level up to the new level cap to continue to do new content. You kill the grab-and-go ability to do things like the new Task Force. If you want to do it on all your characters (and some of us have more than 25 characters), you have to first gain another X levels. That sort of "progression" is nothing more than a time sink.

Alternate builds, IOs, HOs, accolades, and the speculation of "universal enhancement slots." All of these things exist and can be expanded upon without raising the level cap.

As I mentioned above, the key is that these things do improve your character, but are optional. If the devs introduce a new zone that's for level 50s and has new content, everyone who already has a level 50 can go. Whether or not they have IOs, HOs, or accolades. A "regular" level 50 is still a valid character. If you instead raise the level cap and make a new zone that's for level 60s, you're requiring extra, pointless effort by everyone who has ever gotten their characters to 50.

The thing is, nobody knows how they would work. But we also don't know how new levels would possibly work either. The power gain curve is already skewed oddly for the 40s and ends with an epic pool. What could you possibly gain for level 60? Just more of the powers you already have? A second epic pool? More enhancement slots? More inspiration slots? Just more HP? All of these effects would feel shoehorned into the current system.

We don't know how universal enhancement slots will work, if we even get them. They may well be something easy to earn, or story-driven. What we do know is that they'll be optional to play new content, unlike adding levels.

Lots of speculation on what they could do. I would guess they'd add to your base stats. Many characters can already be made extremely powerful through IOs, though, so it's hard to say how far they'd take it.

I can do you one better. Confuse takes away experience if used poorly. All status effects that slow or prevent enemy attacks hinder Fury gain and make pets in defensive mode stop attacking. Let's be realistic though:

Having played numerous characters with knockbacks, I can agree with you only to an extent. Single target knockback is pretty manageable, and in most cases pretty useful. As far as AoEs go, I could fully agree with you if the AoE knockback powers were reliable. But they're not.

When I play my Blaster, I can attempt to aim or position enemies, but it doesn't matter. If there's a wall or I make sure to shoot them all in one direction, that sounds good on paper. But only 40%-60% of the enemies I hit will actually be knocked back. That means half go in the direction I want, and half don't. Instant scatter, no matter how good my aim or positioning is. A second volley will only make matters worse. I can more or less get around this issue by quickly throwing my attacks in rapid succession to knock back as many foes as possible at once, but I find that doing this is only struggling against the secondary effects of my own powers.

I have a Rad Corruptor. A Peacebringer. Archery, Assault Rifle, and Traps. I find myself almost always avoiding the AoE knockbacks, because even if you do as you say and aim the powers, or try to position them, scatter is inevitable. Doing so in an outdoor scenario is even worse, as there's no practical limit to the knockback range in a single battle. PBAoE knockback is even worse, because you have to either sit on the outskirts of a group and probably miss many of the foes, or scatter them in all directions.

I've played scores of characters, with all the status effects and scenarios you've mentioned. While true immobilize can be a problem if you use it blindly, in my experience, even used intelligently I feel like I'm holding the team back if I use AoE knockbacks. I've never been on a team and quietly hoped that someone would somehow prevent me from being able to stun or hold enemies because it's just such an annoyance. Even in tight areas with nearby walls, knockback causes scatter just because of the simple fact that around half of the enemies won't get knocked back, and are thus now farther apart than they were before.

Additionally, the major advantage to knockback which is to prevent enemies (including mez-resistant bosses) from attacking for a short period, would still work if it was knockdown instead of knockback. As for positioning enemies and rounding them up, we have powers that are much better at doing so, which have a 100% success rate rather than a 40%-60% success rate. It's like chaining Will Domination to keep an enemy asleep. It theoretically works on paper, but the instant it fails you're going to slap yourself in the forehead and wonder why the power is just designed to not cooperate with itself.

Reliable knockback AoEs with 100% success rate? Good. Unreliable AoEs that do completely-manageable knockdown? Good. Completely unreliable and random AoEs with (high) mag knockback, especially in PBAoEs? Very very bad. It's even crazier to think that the AoEs (especially PBAoEs) scatter enemies so that they can't be hit by further AoEs. Possibly the most self-defeating power concept ever.

Of course, the above is just one person's opinion. Your mileage may vary.

Elec has 1.5 AoEs, I suppose. One real one (cone), and one PBAoE that doesn't really do much damage.

Elec: 1 cone, 1/2 a PBAoE
Energy: 1 PBAoE
Fire: 1 cone, 1 PBAoE
Ice: 1 cone, 1 PBAoE
Psi: 1 cone, 1 PBAoE
Thorn: 2 cones, 1 PBAoE
Earth: 1 targeted AoE, 1 PBAoE

Really, Elec lags behind everything but Energy. With the powers proposed for Earth Assault, it will be the only Dom secondary with a targeted AoE. And it should be pretty nice.

I suppose I'm not a fan of knockback. It's the only status effect that can actually be detrimental, and the only real way to get by is to negate it entirely. If the only way I can use TS is to make sure enemies don't get knocked back first, that defeats the purpose of the secondary effect entirely. I feel that way when I play my Energy Blaster. I feel as though I may have well just gone Fire, because I try to party with Controllers who can negate my knockback, at which point I'm not even contributing anything but damage.

Yup. Was about to post that. Full paragraph:

Emphasis mine. Makes one curious. Is the article merely an error, or are we really getting new pools?

You can sort of do that. If you use vests without sleeves, the bolero fuzz is one of the shoulder options available.

I think that all content in Praetoria should be virtual content issued through terminals where contacts usually are. The only way to do "real" content is go talk to a person in the AE building.

My recollection of the reason is that there's a rule about not having more than one moving option on the body. You aren't supposed to have two capes, or capes and wings. It generates too much traffic on the servers to process all the movements of all the people doing it, and while it's not an issue if it's occasional, if everyone was doing it and there was, say, a costume contest, mothership raid, or hami raid, everything would run really slow and start punting people.

One reason why we'll probably never get flowing hair, unless it locks you out of capes and wings too.