Bionic_Flea

Is that it? No new answers for 5 minutes now.

Edit Nevermind. I just had to be patient.

And does anyone know if they are answering questions that were asked earlier today or just now? I asked a few questions earlier today but I haven't seen a response. Should I repost?

Pum, I think your analysis is sound for the initial setting of the merit rewards but not after the introduction of merits. Once merits replaced the TF completion recipe, min/maxers decided that things like Katie and Eden were no longer desireable and went out in search of TFs/SFs where they could leverage the best merit/time ratio.

Which is one reason why so many people run ITFs and LGTFs. Speed runs of both of those are close to 1 merit per minute. I rarely ever hear anyone asking to run Eden or Katie and when they do it's for the badge or just a good way to level up. Imperious and Lady Grey TFs are run multiple times every day on the servers that I play on, but not Katies and Edens.

And I think my supposition is supported by both Katie and Eden getting little bumps in merit awards. I predict that we will continue to see that kind of movement as the speeders distribute themselves across a wider array of tasks and away from those tasks that award much less than a merit/minute

These videos are epic. I can only hope that the show lives up to the hype.

DON'T DISAPPOINT ME, CAI!

You have hunger pains from the infestation devouring your intestinal lining and making transdimensional interfaces into visual companions while enjoying pickles soaked in prune extract overnight betwixt thousands upon thousands of gleaming spectacles vomiting extremely vile copious bile onto unsuspecting sentient cockroaches, which oddly feels like a hot roast beef/salmon entering a very cavernous mouth, and stimulates frenzied ferrets in perpetual, harmonized, synchronized, and, ironically, disproportionate proportions of reefer and cheese mixed with stuffed olives -- you

We got a nice little plug in an article in Popular Science, Is PC Gaming Dead. Their conclusion: No.

I think someone should, but I would hope that it wouldn't be confrontational.

I nominate Macskull and move to disqualify Black Barrier.

You have hunger pains from the infestation devouring your intestinal lining and making transdimensional interfaces into visual companions while enjoying pickles soaked in prune extract overnight betwixt thousands upon thousands of gleaming spectacles vomiting extremely vile copious bile onto unsuspecting sentient cockroaches, which oddly feels like a hot roast beef/salmon entering a very cavernous mouth, and stimulates frenzied ferrets in perpetual, harmonized, synchronized, and, ironically, disproportionate proportions of reefer and cheese mixed with

I'm not sure if anyone has mentioned it yet, but Synapse has discretion to add/subtract a few merits beyond the median time/3 formula to account for difficulty or other factors.

Does anyone do Saturday Night Fights anymore? Does Justice Radio still have a presence?

I guess they would be Coral Fruits.

Welcome to the City!

I hope you do make CoH your new home. There is lots to do and many friendly people to play with. And with out any doubt, this is one of the best forums on the Internet. Lots of information and intelligent discussion and a minimum of flaming (you can never have zero).

Regarding an endgame: There are several things that people do and many people do multiple or all of them.

- Continue to improve your character after 50. Many people spend a lot of time determining what the optimal power selections and enhancements for their character should be. Planning ahead and saving money to get the expensive stuff can lead to powerful characters becoming almost godlike.

- Start another character. This game has many, many players that would confess to have "altitis" a disease that causes them to continue to make new characters. With all the different missions available and the never-ending new missions created by players with the Mission Architect, you could level multiple 50s without duplicating content.

- Collect badges. CoH has lots of badges and there will be lots more with the coming expansion. Some of those badges are part of a set that grant the player an accolade, which is a new power -- sometimes an extremely valuable power. But most players have at least one character that they try to get as many badges for as possible.

- Complete every single mission available. Once you get to level 25 and get a badge relating to time travel, you will get a teleporter to access Ourobourus - a citadel floating in between time. From there, you can access some new content but you can also go "back in time" and play all the missions that you may have outleveled.

- PvP While our PvP community has shrunk, there is still a dedicated group that competes against each other, sponsor tournaments, and repeatedly pummel each other.

- Raids There are two raids that require coordination of a large numbers of players on an open world map -- The Hamidon raid and the Rikti Mothership Raid.

- Supergroups and SuperTeams Super groups (SGs) and Villain groups (VGs) are the equivalent of guilds in WoW. You can join one or start your own after level 10. Some of them are very active with their own websites, regular events, and a offer a steady, familiar group of people to play with. SuperTeams are a little different. This is a group of players that decide to create a team on a theme and seek to leverage stacking similar buffs. One of the first was a team of Fire/Radiation controllers that raced through the game, tackling the most difficult enemies and tasks with ease and incredible speed. These could also become an SG or VG but is frequently just a group that meets on certain days and times.

That's just a few of the things you can do. And just when you think you've done it all, our developers add all new content and concepts that make it all new again.

But how does Black Scorpion feel about Television?

We need to know these things!

I believe it started at 7 and was bumped up to nine. Eden trial started at 2 merits.

I played on a pentad league on Justice before I13 (so I acknowledge that difference). People died left and right. Now granted that we didn't have super-duper elite test teams, but we did have a few decent PvP'ers sprinkled throughout the teams.

It was an interesting concept, in my opinion: create 5 new toons, fight on Saturday evenings and you had to meet and not exceed the weight-class. So each week we went up one or two weight classes (arena level groupings) and fought 2 opposing groups in best two out of three 10 min matches with points for win or draw.

Everybody gunned after the squishies of course. While there was only one blaster, there were lots of webnades and stun nades being tossed around to let the melee try and get a hit in. And everybody has at least one range attack. Sure, folks would phase or hibernate but you just switch targets for a few seconds and then come right back to them while they're waiting for recharge or still in "nophase."

I played Emp/Ice and my team won the league. We got yellow titles in game from Ex Libris or Niviene. Go me.

I have to correct the assumption that speeders are getting a greater reward. They aren't. They are getting the exact same number of merits that everyone else who completes the TF/SF in whatever amount of time gets. AND the speed group gets less XP, influence, salvage and recipes than the group that chooses to complete more.

Second, every player and every team gets to decide what speed they are going to use, or at least attempt. I can't speak for other servers, but Justice's global channels frequently advertise speed runs as well as "kill mosts" and "kill alls". My personal favorites are middle of the road "kill mosts" -- complete the objectives by clearing a path to them, not stealthing around everything, but you don't have to look in every nook and cranny and wait for the last ambush.

Finally, some people don't have two or three uninterrupted hours to dedicate to playing the game. Should they be excluded from TFs entirely?

One additional little tidbit that the merit calculations don't account for is preparation time. Statesman and Recluse SF frequently involve getting shivans, or nukes or both, and that time is not accounted for at all.

I also don't think that the time calculations include attempts that failed, which is rare on most TFs but not uncommon of RSF and STFs.

Hello, Black Scorpion and welcome to the forums!

I think it would be a good idea to give certain badges a merit bonus. So that when you first complete a TF or trial you get a little something extra for your effort.

I also wouldn't mind a bonus for killing more on a TF/Trial. I'm not sure if the game calculates the percentage of critters defeated, but if it did, that would be a good measure. Barring that, perhaps a we could have a counter that awarded a bonus merit for every 100 or 200 foes defeated.

That said, I feel that Eiko-chan has a definite bias against speed runners. Eiko seems to be dictating how people should play the game when he or she has the same choice everyone else has -- do it as fast as possible, clear every mission, or some where in between.

You have hunger pains from the infestation devouring your intestinal lining and making transdimensional interfaces into visual companions while enjoying pickles soaked in prune extract overnight betwixt thousands upon thousands of gleaming spectacles vomiting extremely vile copious bile onto unsuspecting sentient cockroaches, which oddly feels like a hot roast beef/salmon entering a very cavernous mouth, and stimulates frenzied ferrets in perpetual, harmonized, synchronized,

You like green butterflies but not purple ones.

I prefer one night events to on-going, set teams. I have done both.

The problem is getting everyone on and ready to go at the same time.

While I certainly play a lot, I frequently have to go AFK to help my wife or kids with one thing or another. It's usually not a big deal PvEing to step away for a bit, but that's not feasible with PvP.

That said, I offer my services on an emp as a sub. I'll need to get him some more -kb IOs, but that shouldn't be a problem at all.