Fire_Away

Is there any truth to the rumor that there will be a new badge called Super Packer (guy with cheesehead) for buying more than 50 packs? That will surely spur sales.

I'm kind of in hostile territory here (the base construction forum) and I fully expect disagreement with my views below but I'm going to give them anyway along with some clumsy analogies.

The words "base love" get thrown around a lot. There's universal agreement on the player side that we need "it". But when it comes down to what "it" is (despite our "lists") in terms of what can and should be accomplished, there are many conflicting opinions.

This happens in the real world too all the time. Both the Endowment for the Arts and Habitat for Humanity want and need resources. I'll tell you up front that I'm a Habitat for Humanity kind of guy. The Pyramids of Egypt have a timeless beauty... but they were built on the backs of slaves and today serve little practical purpose other than tourism and archaeology.

If you really want an exercise in frustration with the devs don't be an elite basebuilder. No sir. At least those guys get to "ooh and ahhh" over each other's work, receive dev praises/promotion via contests, and organize to push their agenda. Again, I'm not saying this is a bad thing... to a point. But for a real sense of frustration try pushing for something for the lowest ranking person in a supergroup and his or her life in an SG or base.

IMHO the whole supergroup / prestige / base thing has become woefully distorted. The "little guy" out there has either (1) given up, (2) gone his or her own way or (3) submitted (to the hopefully benevolent will of the SG leader). What's left are the elite basebuilder cries for a new exclusive basebuilding system as the definition of "base love". :Sigh:

IMHO this whole thing needs a shake up. We need to get back to our roots... if it isn't too late already that is. That means supergroup activities, rewards, functionality, convenience, and yes... even decorating... available at the lowest level. If the supergroup concept collapses then the prestige to build super decorative bases should collapse with it.

I've been accused on more than one occasion of rubbing people the wrong way with these opinions. I've been told to be more diplomatic and patient. I've been told that if I just "go along" with the elite decorators (since they have the "ear of the devs") that eventually the kinds of things I'm looking for will happen. Well... so far... they haven't. It's only getting worse.

Now back to our regularly scheduled program. A call for a new base editor!

Ok I'm curious. How much work do you think this would be? Who would benefit (be honest... not who could... but who would)? What should be the priority (what doesn't get done to accomplish this)? What's the impact on the play experience of others (servers, instanced missions, etc.)? How much would it contribute to the bottomline? I'm no expert in any of this. But I'd bet real money that the people who are, and are forced to think in these terms... would find a new base system based on the AE "experience" (which isn't Paragon Studios' biggest success story either) would not pass whatever such considerations they use to proceed with development.

Personal lairs - I've always been pro this whenever the subject comes up (and yes the subject has come up often... both with and without the personal prestige angle). Latest dev resistance to the idea is based on the impact on the servers... there are already mumblings/ grumbling on the amount of server storage and instanced impact existing highly decorative bases are having... no real desire to add to the problem with giving "everyone" their own "mini base".

New base system tied to AE "text" files - I've heard about this too a lot lately and every time I do I scratch my head. Bases and AE are "stovepipe" systems developed at completely different times for completely different purposes. By all accounts this would be a major undertaking. So what's the priority on something like this?... to do what?... more decorating? No thanks. Let's try and do more with what we have.

Selling prestige on the Paragon Market - That's a new one on me. It seems to me that could help jump start the "low end" of base building. Of course on the "high end" we have a more pressing problem (mountains of prestige and nothing but decorating to spend it on).

Compared to the winter and especially the fall event this is way lower on the fun scale. Started out getting sent to the Ski Lodge door for a mission which I could not enter. Then got hung with the Botched Ritual nerf for almost a day. Then it was a do over for the co-op mission. Then got a bunch a v-card drops I could not deliver anywhere because of my alignment.

Not a rant but... this needs a rethink if the goal is to put it on par with other holiday events.

I'll try to help. I'd like to see a lot more fear, groveling, and hopelessness from the general public as a villain. Surely that could be written in more into villain events somehow. By the time you reach Incarnate stage you should be viewed as the ruthless master of some kind of domain. Instead we have some punk regular guy picking up a rock at the TPN and you go into an immediate face plant. What's up with that?

I'm for anything that makes bases more fun and functional for supergroup members. If the devs are so bent on this idea of "multi player content" (and they sure seem to be) for bases then it would be nice if they did something to foster that. The only and closest thing we have is the current CoP and it isn't really an SG activity with SG rewards any longer.

I took a survey at the last player summit where they asked what was my favorite thing about CoH. My response was "Doing stuff with my SG... and the fact that you have done little to promote or encourage that makes me cry."

I have a related question. Do Incarnate to hit debuff powers effect each other? If I have an Alpha Intuition Radial Paragon that includes a 20% to hit debuff, will that apply to Diamagnetic to hit debuff? If so how (does the 20% increase mean the to hit debuff goes from 5% to 6% or 5% to 25%)?

As primarily a soloist with an incarnate Stalker and a long time advocate of functional improvements for bases and a short term interest in improving the team up teleporter, I'll say without hesitation I'm very jazzed about I22. Great stuff devs!

You know... maybe I'm the only person who was at the summit who felt this way but... it sure seemed to me that there were serious concerns on the dev side about doing ANYTHING (customized pets, female pets, you name it) that had the potential of dramatically increasing the MM population in game near term. This is the the whole "one MM with six pets equals the server impact of seven players and the need to consider the effects on the play experience of others" argument. Let's say, for the moment, that female pets would be as wildly popular as many have implied. Would that mean Lag City for all of us?

BTW, for the record, I'm not opposed to female pets per se personally, the above is just my take on part of what the devs had to say on the subject (and yes worries about 'abuse' of female pets was mentioned as another possible issue).