macskull

Yes it does. Believe it or not, there are some people who have zero interest whatsoever in story or in this contact's arc or that contact's arc, or even for the most part the 1-49 game. Some people like to PvP. Some people like to run a lot of TFs at the level cap (ITF, STF, RSF, LGTF, KTF, BSF, Hami). Those playstyles are no less valid than anyone else's. I liked the ability to quickly powerlevel a character to 50 because it meant that I was able to get all the powers I wanted and see how it performed quickly, and if I didn't like it, I could just delete it without any feelings of attachment.

Of course, none of my opinions matter since I'm just a dirty PLer and I've obviously been exploiting the game since I've started playing. But, as your signature says, "If you're having fun, you're doing it right." Odd that I must be doing it wrong yet still having fun.

It's actually a very good power. You don't fight flying enemies all that often, really. Trust me. Unless you derive your entertainment from fighting custom mobs consisting of nothing but Longbow Eagles, I think you'll live. It's not like you'll have your pick of, oh, 17 or so other powers to neutralize that enemy.

I really enjoyed my Rad/EM on test - before they upped the recharge to 4 and 8. I tooled around with it once or twice after that but it just didn't feel like Rad Blast anymore. I was going to build a Rad/EM for PvP because the idea of slinging Neutrino Bolt from 120+ feet with 4 damage procs every second or so was going to be too good to pass up. If the recharges are lowered to 3/6 I might still begrudgingly do so, but if not I'll just try my hand at Psi/EM again.

My predictions for I16 PvP Blaster food chain used to be Psi -> Rad -> Sonic -> Arch -> Fire, now it's more like Psi -> Sonic -> Arch -> Rad -> Fire.

Yep, it's the same as adding a timecard, or buying any in-game item pack.

I do PvP with most of my existing stable of 50s. Do they all get equal playtime? Heck no - I bring things out as they're needed. My team needs an Emp? Great, I've got three to choose from. They need a Blaster? Awesome, I've got plenty of those too. Villain team needs a Therm, Pain, or Stalker? Can do. And the good part about being able to PL something quickly is if a powerset gets hit with the nerfbat, I feel no sadness at stripping enhancements and deleting a character to a new one in its place. That being said, I've never deleted a 50, though I've deleted a 44 and 37 that just weren't fun.

I do have a few 50s or other characters of various levels that were created before I started PvPing or that just aren't all that good under the current PvP rules. Some of them have been retrofitted or dual-built for PvP (my Earth/Storm and Emp/Dark come to mind), but many of them are there because I dig them out for specific tasks now and again, or because they have sentimental value. For example, my Kat/Regen Scrapper is my go-to character for Hami Raids, and my Night Widow is my go-to ITF/LGTF runner. My AR/Dev gets almost no playtime but he was my first character and I keep him around because he was a complete joke character when I first started that somehow managed to hit 50 (yes, through normal play, much of it solo). My Ill/Rad at level 42 is the only character I've got with the Illusionist badge farm and the Antimatter mission, both of which I need to accolade my PvP characters.

Another huge advantage to PLing, in my eyes at least, is knowing how something performs at max level without having to slog through the lower levels and give up early. If I say to myself, "hmm, how's this Grav/Storm gonna look?" I can know fairly quickly, and if I don't like it I can just delete it and try something else.

An observation, if I may:

Where did many players spend their time between I14 and now? The answer is, of course, MA farms. Why? Fast XP. Players like XP. The people who care more about the story than the rewards are like RPers and PvPers - still a valid style of play but definitely in the minority. If you take away the XP, you also take away the players who want that XP.

In short, if you're complaining right now that people aren't playing your arcs because they're all running farms, you'll soon be complaining that people aren't playing your arcs because they're off doing things that give better rewards for the time.

Stone Spears is a solid attack. If you're having problems dropping fliers you could just, y'know, mez them and drop them to the ground using the powers in your primary...

Hmm, well... there must've been at least some players who cared about XP/enhancements/drops, or they wouldn't've been added in the first place. I mean, wouldn't want this to be Bejeweled, would we?

I also don't give a damn how many arcs you've reviewed. Saying you've reviewed 150 arcs and know everything there is to know about the MA and its authors is like me saying I have 38 50s and know everything there is to know about the game and its powersets, or how I have more posts than you and therefore know more about the forums and the posters that use them.

I'm sorry that you can't come down off your perch long enough to understand that some people prefer to use custom critters as an aid to their story, not as a cover-up. If I wanted story, I'd read a book - story's nice and all but it doesn't help my character get any closer to level 50 or those purple sets I want.

Right, I'm aware of what I did.

* Using sleep uses electricity since the computer doesn't actually shut itself off.
* I can afford to wait 30 seconds for the computer to come out of hibernate.
* The computer is loud, I sleep next to it. I don't like loud noises when I'm sleeping.
* The computer desk is on a slight slant, and people moving around in the house can cause the mouse to move, waking the computer. I hibernate specifically because I don't want the computer running overnight.

I don't buy into the whole "this feature is new so EVERYONE must use it!" tripe. If something works, why move to something new unless that something new provides functionality I need?

The zombie crows in whatever Resident Evil movie that was? Those were scary.

I don't think "if you don't have every rank in your custom group, we'll hit your XP with a spiked bat" counts as "encouraging."

Back around I13 some players got together, gathered a lot of data, and killed a lot of mobs, and they found that the RNG for drops was decided not random, for certain maps at least (I'm thinking of Tavish Bell's demon ship map). That was supposedly fixed with I13, along with the issue of sidekicks getting more drops than their mentors, but it's possible things are still wonky. Note that by "not random" I don't mean "you always get this particular recipe, while your teammate will never get that recipe." Rather, I mean "the xth mob on this map will always drop something."

Basically, if you think drop rates are weird, there's a chance they could be, so gathering data would be prudent. I've been meaning to do the same but I've been quite busy the last few weeks...