IronYeti

Globals (friends list and channels) were acting very, very strangely. They just took the servers down for maintenance a little bit ago, hopefully these are among the issues they are addressing.

Check out Flash Arrow at City of Data. Notice how all the effects say "Effect does not stack from same caster".

Don't believe her! She's a NARC!

There is a similar XP loss when anyone in the game who is not on your team damages anything, anywhere. The enemy -- which you might potentially have gotten to eventually and defeated for XP -- despawns, and you get none of that XP. Gone. Lost.

Obviously, you did not consider that XP to be "yours" in the first place, and thus do not consider this a "loss". The question is, why do you consider the XP to be "yours" when an enemy you confuse damages them and causes them to despawn? Do you consider every enemy in a mission to be your defeat as soon as you zone in? (In that case, you lose lots of XP if you stealth a mission.) At what point does the XP given by an enemy go from something you have to earn (not yours yet, no loss if it goes away) to being yours (so that it counts as a loss)?

That's the issue Enantiodromos is getting at. To him, you don't earn the XP until you kill the enemy, and you can't lose something you never earned. That seems sensible to me. My question is, how else would you put it? At what point do you claim to have earned that XP, such that you can "lose" it? Sure it can go away, out of the game, but that's the game's loss, not yours directly. I can see how confuse can make the game lose XP, but I don't see how it can make a player lose (earned) XP.

Since the Cosmos is everything, even Assault Rifle has to do with it. I could call an AR/Dev blaster "cosmic".

The word "Cosmic" is like "Magic" or "Technology". It's an idea, better suited to an origin than an archetype or powerset. Make a Kheldian, or an Energy blaster, or a Radiation defender, and name yourself "Cosmic Lad" (add "X" until the name is untaken on your server), and poof. You're cosmic. There's no need for a new powerset for every adjective in the world. We have plenty of powersets that fit many concepts.

Seriously, what would "cosmic" powers be? What specific powers do "cosmic" characters have that others do not, other than metallic surf boards?

I have long considered Grav/Rad and Grav/Storm the best combinations for holding my interest in Grav, but have never had a concept that fit them well enough to play (I'm one of "those" kinds of altoholics). I currently have a Grav/FF with a sci-fi theme, I've wanted a Grav/FF for thematic reasons since I bought the game, but it's a tough set to stay with. Right now I'm hoping that "juggling" will hold my interest, lots of KB/KU. We'll see... it's a pretty weak form of control, the enemy is out of the fight for barely longer than you are (due to the animation).

I'm serious in asking what the Grav lovers see in it (pre-Wormhole, and beyond picking a strong secondary). What makes it worth playing? I want to find the fun! But all I do is weak damage, weaker control, and running out of end.

So, Shyft... how do you come up with enough control to keep things locked down during levels 1-25? Or do you have some other playstyle? (damage? team support?) I'm really curious. I've tried Gravity several times and never found what I contribute to a team. I want to know your secret, because I really want to get to Wormhole and Singularity some day. Running myself out of endurance with wimpy single-target damage has not been entertaining so far.

If I set the "threads per page" in my user options to the maximum, 500, no page that actually goes that high will load. They all show up as a blank white screen and stop loading (this is with Firefox on a PPC Mac). If I drop it down to 100 I can read any thread without problem.

I haven't noticed the effects being reversed. What are you seeing?

Sounds like a great project for Paragonwiki, where many people can contribute what they know about specific IO sets and anyone can fix it up when things change. That would at least be better than waiting for one person to write Frankenslotting combinations for the whole IO system in one go, and freezing that in time.

How can you have any
If you don't eat your

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Now you can collect social security checks in the mail.

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I do that already.

...wait, it's supposed to be from my mail?

That's four words, a comma, and a smiley.

My favorite, bar none, is Council Adjutants. The ones with the martial arts kick. Seeing them turn around and one-shot their minions right in the head is priceless.

I think it is appropriate, on both sides, that "Shield Charge" and "Parry" are single powers rather than whole powersets. Yes, shields can be used to strike, and swords to block. Nevertheless, shields are primarily defensive tools, and swords offensive ones. Before we get around to making them powersets for their backup roles, there are plenty of more intuitive powersets to be made (quarterstaff, crossbow, pistols [coming, hooray], etc.).

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Wow I got a lot of hate.

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Don't mistake a lot of words for a lot of hate. Just because I have a lot to say on the issue doesn't mean I'm mad at you.

Random strangers are what politeness exists for. Your friends and family are generally going to put up with you, for instance, if you forget to say your "please" and "thank you". Random strangers have no such trust built up.

The devs promised us an updated, cross-platform, game-integrated Mids' Hero Builder with offline costume creation as part of I16! You heard it here!

DOOOOOOOOOOM!!eleventy!! if we don't get it!

The problem with the cape mission is the part at the end where you have to protect some artifact from being destroyed. If you're solo, you're (a) less likely to trigger the attack before you realize it, (b) there are fewer enemies attacking the artifact, so it takes longer to be destroyed, and (c) you can more easily distract all the attacking enemies at once. On a big team, the fight preceding it often aggros the enemies to attack the artifact. They then quickly massacre it, causing the mission to fail, because there are more enemies per spawn. Furthermore, if you do catch on to what they are doing and try to attack or distract them, it is easier to miss one or two who finish the job before you defeat them.

So, yeah, it's a problem on teams and much easier solo.

I have to say I'm somewhat surprised at Smurphy's statements, because I've teamed with him many times and never found him rude. Then again... I don't think he's ever left one of my teams without announcing it. It's not something he does all the time. And I certainly would appreciate it if he continues the trend of not doing what he just said he does...

How would you like it (Smurphy, or any of the other "I'll just leave" folks) if you're playing a board game -- Risk, Monopoly, whatever -- and as soon as it becomes clear who's likely to win, one of the players walks away without a word (whether they're being a smug winner or a sore loser)? That's rude. I team to play with you. As a team member. If we were playing board games, sports, whatever else in person, you wouldn't walk away from the game without a word. Computer games need not be any different.

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Why are Practiced Brawler and Active Defense click powers, where all other mez-protection powers are toggles? The click seemed like a disadvantage before, but now that toggles don't drop while mezzed, it seems even more egregious. Can anybody explain this?

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They are different power sets, and thus have different strengths and weaknesses. It is not egregious that Super Reflexes has no toggle mez protection, any more than it is egregious that Willpower has no self-heal. Variety is the spice of life.

This question isn't clear to me. What is not appearing? The other person? Their /info screen? The background tab on their /info screen? I could perhaps answer this if you spell out exactly what happens (sometimes you follow X steps and see Y result, other times you follow the same steps and see Z result instead).

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Pain Domination is entirely based on mental control. You don't actually 'heal' anyone, you just make them ignore any pain they might be feeling.

Kind of like how someone hopped up on PcP can demonstrate feats of 'invulnerability'.

Which is why it's a villainous powerset.

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Right. We would never give heroes the ability to Dull Pain as a combat ability. That would be off-theme. In other news, Aspirin is evil.

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I've always been annoyed that controllers got plant control. I mean Controllers had their own primary (Illusion) and doms had plants, but then they gave it to Controllers and Doms didn't get illusions? I felt cheated. Not necessarily because I wanted an illusion dominator it was just a matter of principle. I mean proliferation gives you some odd combos and sometimes it give you some very weird ones as well. Dual Blade Stalkers (who don't seem to work) and Ice Brutes (I know they never made the final cut) come to mind. But sometimes I like that a class has a power set to themselves. Too much proliferation of the power sets and the individuality of the archetypes seems muddled.

And before anyone goes off on this I know if you played a Stone/Stone Tank and a Stone/Stone brute they'll end up very different but I still like the idea of archetypes having their own power sets that nobody else gets.

Oh well, at least Masterminds will always have their own primaries .

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<reductio ad absurdum>
I've always been annoyed that Huge characters can have Energy Blast. My normally-proportioned Male characters just don't feel unique enough. I have a Male character who's an Energy Blaster, and every time I see a Huge character with Energy Blast I just die a little inside. Why play a Male Energy Blaster if someone else can play a Huge Energy Blaster?
</reductio>

I do not believe that this argument makes any more or less sense if you replace archetype with body type, hair color, gender, origin, or whether your character's name begins with a vowel or consonant. Powerset combinations are not "unique". Other people can play them. They can play them on characters similar to yours. They can play them on characters different from yours. "Archetype" is just one more variable. If someone can play the same powerset as you with different power choices, power pools, slotting, enhancements, body type, gender, costume, name, and origin, why does the last thing they can change -- the archetype -- suddenly make all the difference, and make you "not unique"?

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For those not smart enough to figure it out, I deliberately provoked people to see who is naughty and who is nice....i now have several messages from people who did not post that were ALL nice. I have a list of the smart ones who i will help upon request and a list of people who are obviously not worth teaming with!

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And how "nice" is it to deliberately provoke people? In the real world that's called harassment. As is calling people who merely ask you to back up your claims "not smart enough".




Back on topic... AE is not "inherently evil". But it doesn't provide as much of a tutorial as the rest of the game. In the AE, one contact won't lead you to another. The contacts won't send you to other zones. They won't sell you enhancements. They won't do a lot of things which, though annoying to veterans who've seen all of that, nudge new players to go see it. That's why "regular content" is better to see first. Once you get the hang of it, sure, play AE as much as you want. What I'd love to see is the developers add some of this to the AE, so that a new player who wanders into the AE (for whatever reason) would get just as many hints to go see the rest of the game's content as a player who never sets foot in it. And, of course, non-AE content should contain hints to go see the AE as well.