Seldom

Yeah, this messes up most of my arcs. I routinely put 'friendly' characters within missions...whether it's to interact with the contact character more personally, to rescue an 'ally' that betrays, to discover a conflict between warring factions, or to find join forces with someone with similar objectives, the 'ally' faction is a nice way to make stories 'deeper.' The developers knew this, they put it there.

When this feature came out, I went crazy with it, learning the ins and out, the limitations, making a good slew of arcs and missions. Some were better than others, but I put 1-2 weeks (including weekends) into each arc. I have a job, am involved in my community, and try to maintain a semblance of social life so this game time was all of my game time.
Then come the first slew of changes. My arc is invalid? No problem, adjust, go on.
Then the next changes. Drat, it doesn't work again? Adjust, go on.
The next changes. Adjust..
It got tiring.
Meanwhile, the server's weekly architect story night was petering off. First 5 full teams. Then 4. Then 3. 2. Finally, there were just 9 players.

The straw that gave the camel his back troubles was the original power rating change thing: tougher foes, or less reward. It tried it, but the council pushovers gave a far better reward than the custom enemies that were wiping teams. I looked at the powers that were 'required' for full rewards and asked myself "really? Really?"

I don't make my missions just for me. Though I do like getting my characters more abilities/stuff, I'm fine going through my own stories just to see them in action. But I'm not self-centered enough to make my friends do so without letting them get something in their time. They work, have lives, so the time they have to play is all the time they have to work on their characters.

I'm trying to give them something new/different/fun to try. I'd also like more people to find/use/enjoy the stuff I made. The gameplay I'm putting together I'd like to compare favorably to other portions of the game. My measure of success is this: if an in-game contact gave the missions, would people be glad to go through the arc? People can stand an interesting arc even if it's not the most lucrative in the game. But imagine if a player is given a mission by a contact that gives poor rewards based upon the time/danger it exposes them to? They'll /bug it, or complain about it.

I realized by this time that stories were now second priority, well behind their first concern: exploit repair. My weeks messing with new content is less important than somebody else's power leveling? That made sense at first when all people were doing was boss farms at the AE, but when they were still whacking my missions despite a great downturn in AE farming, it just seemed wierd. I accepted that my missions will be (by system design) inferior to the dev content, so I took a break until updates could make my stories a viable time alternative risk/reward-wise again, so I could try new stories and promote them. The announcements for updates of the MA in I17 got me hopeful they'd ironed things out again...then this.

*sigh*

I'll wait longer still. I personaly wish that the time/input of MA story authors was their top priority, (customers paying to give the devs new content) but can accept that as personal bias. This change is temporary, they'll get a fix for this change in a few months. Then I'll rework my stories to make them valid again, and maybe even try a new one or two.

Bleah.

Yeah...-defense is usually a 'meh' effect, but it's not 'worthless.' Here are some other cases where it's valuable:

AoE's: these start at lower accuracy, so having some good -defense helps them hit

Long recharge powers: a lot of the most potent powers in the game that need a hit check also have a longer cycling period. A fair bit of -defense goes a ways to ensure they land to do their stuff.

Pets: some pets for controllers and many pets for masterminds are often spawned at lower con than their summoner. If -defense is thrown around, their ability to hit improves.

Not hitting stuff lowers damage, so -defense ups damage...and does so particularly well vs. Shifty/High defense foes. Hit them once, the next -defense is easier to land, as is damage...soon enough the high defense enemy's mean of survival is nixed. They also act as a ghetto +acc when the team is under a -tohit debuff. The team may be a lousier shot, but the target is easier to hit, so it evens out.

I wonder. What if rescued ally's damage counted to player XP, as it does on many 'pet' allies in dev arcs, but was offset by the reduced XP for their presence.

To balance of course, the reduced XP would have to be persistent rather than flat. I wasn't clear, is this how the reduced XP for allies functions?

I don't want to go too off topic, but I think a lot of this goes to a simple shift in the game: when the game started, it was thought that people would play a loooong time to get to 50, so they'd play in their groups on a server, slowly leveling up the same characters. Or so went the design thought. Instead, people made lots of alts, needed to stay in touch with friends that changes characters, even servers. Global lists, yay! ...but the server friends lists stays put.

I think the devs are starting to realize the global way is getting bigger, the one server/one character thing smaller. They gave us 12, then 36 slots per server. They allowed free transfers. They bumped the number of characters per SG.

For QoL, I think the next big change would be to go more 'global' with characters/servers/SG members. I play heroes on one server, villains another. One server is bought out/maxed out, one is simply maxed out. The SG I play in is maxed out, with routine kicks/re-invites per session for alts to fit and use stuff. If they were global? easy. We'd have room to spare.

Likewise, I wonder about server things when the faction stuff comes around. I'd love to move characters to visit heroeside as villains across servers, but keep names, or visit villains as heroes. (names intact) With the way friends move server to server, a server 'visit' rather than 'transfer' would be awesome. We shall see.

Do not drag and drop to trade recipes or valuable commodities. Use the "invite to trade" option, so that what is being traded is easily checked. Likewise, even if you play with them constantly, don't give said things for a transfer to a casual player that doesn't understand inventory/buying/selling well.

*Looks at time I drag n' dropped an entire Ragnarök set to a kind friend, who couldn't find them and emptied recipes at a store. Redside.*

The nice things about 'heals' is that they keep a team member engaged in combat, most obviously after that team mate meets the full attention of a large amount of enemies. Forcefields/iceshields/defense in general make said member not take as much damage from said attention, making said member feel awesome that they can survive the onslaught. Sonics/fire/resist shields make them tougher, allowing them to outlive larger dangers. Again, making them feel awesome. Green number that you gave them make them think you're awesome for saving them.

This is why many think healers are awesome, in my view.

I don't mind if somebody takes fun from undoing enemy damage. When they handicap themselves by not taking powers that make their (and other players) job easier *cough*fortitude*cough* it only makes sense to mention how it might help. If they are spending time undoing damage when the team is not taking flack, asking if they could help in other ways (depending on their abilities) isn't crazy, but if they lack those, move on, let them have their fun. Don't tell 'em what to do, but tell them what the powers they skipped could do to help them, if they get a chance to pick 'em up. If they don't want to hear it, don't say it.

At this point they do what they want, but I'll avoid them in the future. Playstyles don't bug me half as much as people who refuse to learn/listen.

Heh. As far as 'passive' goes, my mastermind went all the way for medicine/leadership, and hasn't regretted it. But I have the pets fully bound, so I constantly call their targets.

As on offset, my second built took fighting/presence for more armor and constant taunting. Medicine is still there, but for a self-heal.

Both are tremendously fun, in their own ways.

Domination no longer gives a damage buff...you do domination damage at all times. The assault sets have also been rebalanced, so all secondary attacks do good damage.

*edit* Too late.

To elaborate on the secondary thing, energy assault is now quite respectable, /psy is less top heavy, and the rest are just a bit more 'punchy' damage-wise.

Oh, and the /psy AoE attacks now have a 16 target cap.

He'd heard of people getting 'lit up' after a couple drinks, but this was just silly.

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Personal forcefield is a nice 'get out of town' power, but honestly I've found little use for it. Masterminds are tough, Bots/FF are toughest of the tough. You throw on bodyguard mode, and stuff just can't do much, provided the pets have their bubbles. If you do want it, recharge is probably all you want in there. It caps you, but you can't do much else. As you can't do much else, you won't use that much endurance doing not much whilst secluded in your bubble. It's a long recharge, so if you do need it, getting it back can't be a bad thing.

Repulsion field: Do not take it. Force bubble is better control, and even less resisted, for more reasonable endurance.

Protector Bots: Do these things need to be slotted for endurance reduction?

You can, I don't tend to as they still work fine enough. For very long fight, give them a blue, or hit them with repair. (Repair gives them endurance.) On the whole, I find Bots/ff is tough enough to not need bonuses, so frankenslotting bots helps clear up space. For 'must hit' stuff, I use at least three acc/dam pet sets, and use some of the last slots for effects in protectors, or resist/defense set enhancements in the lower pets.

Mastermind Attacks: matter of taste, but I find them too high a cost for their effect. Photon grenade, however, is handy for the stuns, and stacks nicely with bot stuns.


Protector Bots, redux: healing is my choice, as defense can and will get unlucky, while you have an entire secondary doing defense. I also picked up manuevers/aid other, but find the healing is nicest.

Web Envelope vs. Web Cocoon vs. Power Boost: I took envelope/boost. Holding things seemed pointless when they barely hurt any way, or could be killed quickly. Envelope is nice as it keep them clumped for missiles. Power boost boosts single-target bubbles by 60% for their duration, making them very handy.

Protector Bots, addendum: See earlier acc/dam frankenslotting. Cheap, and saves slots.

That's my two bits, at least.

Hm. Out of my 32 villains, 29 will go rogue, 1 will go hero.

Out of my 16 heroes, 4 will go vigilante, one will go villain.

*pokes head in*

Hello. I play dominators and controllers a lot. Half of their powers bounce of of arch villains, and when used against widows are highly resisted, as they are by Cimerorans after their roar break free. Why? Because else-wise my controllers and dominators could play the game against helpless enemies. There are workarounds: enemies resistant to some mez are vulnerable to others. But with AV's/GM's, the mez is throwaway a lot.
They are control characters' Achilles heal. They make me want to get friends for help if they must be faced. In an MMO, your characters do have strengths, but they have weaknesses too. These help encourage you to get other players' help, or at the very least employ new strategies.

You have found some melee characters' Achilles heal. This is by design.

I'm sorry to say, but by level 45-50 characters have plenty of inspiration slots...for encounters like this, the players do not need to be softcapped or carrying huge inspirations. They just need to bring a couple rows of lucks if they plan to be in leeching/danger range. These are available for 50 inf. at your local AE, or in ouroboros.

Some good places to start:

You want to be self-sufficient, but with powers that will 'happen' to benefit the team as well.

Kinda Teamish:

Tankers can survive just about anything solo. They just take a little longer alone to defeat this. Everything they do grabs enemy attention, so they are helpful on teams where delicate folks want someone tough to hide behind. The high toughness becomes more valuable (or needed) in situations with more/tougher enemies, which happens a lot on teams. For soloing, shield/ and fire/ have ways of making your ability to defeat foes go faster. It tried something damagish on a Shield/axe, but it never compares to scraps/brutes.

Controllers are odd in that some primaries/secondaries solo well, while others really are best in a group. Things like illusion/ or fire/ or plant/ can do crazy stuff solo as they have some more offense in them, and I've seen some good ones at work. While fire/kin is a favorite, I'm ambivalent about it, though this from seeing some less experience handlers of that FoTM.

Defenders are underated solo. Sure they are best at strengthening/weakening, and have lower starting damage. Solo strong debuffing abilities to make your damage higher very fast, as do damage boosts. Radiation/, dark/, and traps/ are very survivable and good at weakening foes. Kinetics/ can boost its damage, but is a bit more vulnerable. Cold/ thermal/ and sonic/ have good debuffs, but after a bunch of team buffs. Forcefield/ and empathy/ shine mostly on a team. For secondaries: /sonic, /ice and /dark offer good survivability and debuffs, and radiation and /energy have some mitigation as well. pistols/ assault rifle/ and archery/ have damage, but a bit less mitigation for a soloist. Electric blast is awesome with anything that drains endurance, *cough*Kinetics*cough* a bit less so else-wise. I'm having fun on my kin/electric sapper, rad/rad is good as ever. My traps/archery is fun, though not Uber. Dark/Dark is pretty much a debuffy dominator with a heal.

Good at both:

Masterminds do this by always carrying a team, and they can add more and help those as well. They team the entire game, really. They just have minions that they can't control and take bio breaks once in awhile at times, but you have to use the 'invite' or 'accept invite' buttons to get them. I like my bots/ff, but it's so safe it's silly at times. Like when I got drowsy killing black scorpion as an AV.

Brutes are the more teamish scrappers: They gain aggro to help them with fury, and since this pulls attention from team members, it's helpful to both. Please don't use the word 'tank' on these guys. They just wanna have fun punching things.

Dominators have good damage and can stop foes from attacking them. Consequently, the foes they stop from attacking also won't attack team members. This helps them and teams. Mind/ has crazy lockdown, but my Fire/fire has the wildest AoE, paired with damage and control. Tis fun to be a safe pyro.

Corruptors: these guys have a lot of the same tools as defenders, but have more damage and less buff/debuffs. They get fire blast, but other than that have a lot of the same defender advice to go by. You can do what a defenders does, but stuff dies faster. Oh, no empathy, /pain instead. It's a bit more debuffy, and helps you more than empathy does. I like my rad/kin, as well as my sonic/sonic and rad/rad. My bro's sonic/dark is crazy good.

Blasters live by killing most everything else. Consequently, when they kill lots of things on teams, that saves other from being hurt by said dead things. They are a bit squishy, so having team members to help them survive things made angry by getting blasted away can help them as well. Still..solo /mental heals you and gives endurance and AoE's. I like it. /Em is still nice on its stuns/kb/damage. Arch/EM is devastating at range, fire/mental is fun for AoE AND some good single target. AR/Em has a lot of good tricks too.

Kinda soloish:

Scrappers still kill bosses very well, and can survive a lot. They aren't so good at helping team members directly, except by killing stuff- particularly tough stuff. for the whole soft-caping thang, /sr is pretty easy. You know about /shield....I'v ehear the fun that spines/dark and spines fire can bring, AoE wise. Electric/ the same, but more burst-ish, and fire/ more 'over-time' ish.

Stalkers are like a more focused scrapper, with the ability to kill stuff before it can hit back. They can also spread fear and debuff accuracy with assassin strikes. They gain extra critical for nearby allies, so they function best on melee teams when teaming. Not much I can say here...these I've played less. I had a bad time with /dark in some respects, though.