Cavatina

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Anyone who's played either TF once likely doesnt wanna play em again. Theyre both at best 3 star arcs quality. And the AVs are buggy. and the battles can take hours if you arent prepared well.

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Eh. I run with a group that runs multiple TFs pretty much daily, and the 5TF is in the list we rotate through, so we run it basically daily. I'll concede though that it's nowhere nearly as fun as the ITF, even with its massive lagfest.

I want to concur with the folks saying that the reason no one was doing the BSF is because it was borked so that one of the most important powers for being able to finish it in times people consider reasonable was totally non-functional. Supposedly that was fixed just yesterday.

I like even a working version of the BSF even less than the 5TF, and I'm not that hot about the 5TF. I dislike the fixation on locking the temp powers in to certain ATs. "BSF team looking for AT X just so we can complete it in an hour" is asinine.

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especially since it doesnt do much to help popularize stalkers or masterminds in the pre-45 game. It just means MMs and stalkers are expected to suffer through soloing 45 levels just so you can complete the BSF in reasonable times, because they sure as hell wont get more team invites before 45

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No one wants the stalker, we want the ambushes turned off, the best villain teams are still a brute or 2 and the rest corruptors.

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Yes. thats my point. if the devs were trying to popularize al;l the Ats via the BSF, they FAILED

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Anyone who's played either TF once likely doesnt wanna play em again. Theyre both at best 3 star arcs quality. And the AVs are buggy. and the battles can take hours if you arent prepared well.

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Eh. I run with a group that runs multiple TFs pretty much daily, and the 5TF is in the list we rotate through, so we run it basically daily. I'll concede though that it's nowhere nearly as fun as the ITF, even with its massive lagfest.

I want to concur with the folks saying that the reason no one was doing the BSF is because it was borked so that one of the most important powers for being able to finish it in times people consider reasonable was totally non-functional. Supposedly that was fixed just yesterday.

I like even a working version of the BSF even less than the 5TF, and I'm not that hot about the 5TF. I dislike the fixation on locking the temp powers in to certain ATs. "BSF team looking for AT X just so we can complete it in an hour" is asinine.

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especially since it doesnt do much to help popularize stalkers or masterminds in the pre-45 game. It just means MMs and stalkers are expected to suffer through soloing 45 levels just so you can complete the BSF in reasonable times, because they sure as hell wont get more team invites before 45

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I wouldn't really mind no double XP in AE

I'm sure the populace will be disappointed, but it should hopefully motivate people to go out and do something other than play video games in a video game -_-

I always thought AE should have half normal exp anyways, from release. Oh well.

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If it had half normal xp, good luck getting anyone to ever play a story focused arc.

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As we were steamrolling along killing everything in sight in record time, newbie says: "If we had a real team we could be doing this a LOT FASTER. Wish this was a *real* team!"

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I can understand that anger, but if you could just have held onto your anger long enough to ask him what a "real team" would have been, that could have been comedy gold.

Personally I'm with you though, I'd have walked or kicked him if I was the leader. Come to think of it, if my SG was allowing someone to get away that sort of thing I might feel the urge to walk anyways.

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agreed. this sounds more like a case of a moron ruining your gameplay..not that thats too suprising on a pick up group.

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The learning curve with inventions absolutely slaughtering regular enhancements has been tough for her as well. There needs to be a more in depth tutorial to inventions before you get loaded with salvage and recipes. Or there needs to be a smoother transition or higher level transition from training enhancements to DOs to Inventions.

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Skip IOs until you (and she) feel comfortable with everything else new. Your toons still play just fine without them, nothing in the game has been ramped up to be harder because of IOs. Just sell them as they drop at WWs/BM and be done with them for now. This is not BS or bad advice I assure you.

AS for the teaming problem? You'll hear a lot of advice about making new friends who don't farm, joining an active SG, adding chat channels, etc. I've been working on doing those and so far my luck's been a tad poor, but I'm not giving up yet. It is rather an uphill battle I agree.

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Its easier than it sounds, actually. A lot of good SGs are out there. just check the forums for the server you're on, or maybe even post that you're looking for a good, casual friendly SG and they'll probably point you in the right direction

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So this last week a new issue comes out so we thought lets try again. We logged on excited to play the new TF. We get our villains and head to Grandville. No one there, no one setting up a group, no one interested in doing a group. And we couldn't play with just 2 people. This is just a couple days after the issue goes live and no ones doing it?

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The BSF was well known to have bugs that made it difficult for many teams, especially PUG teams, to finish it, so nobody was really running it.

The new Kahn TF is easy, but dull. Yawn, more Council, on the same old Council maps. Other than Reichsmann, I'm not really convinced this is more interesting than running, say, the Citadel TF, which is dullsville. And even Reichsmann, with a good team, is mostly a matter of a standard AV beat-down, coupled with having to beat down the other AVs that spawn -- but nowhere as interesting as fighting the entire Freedom Phalanx in the LRSF, say.

The ITF, by contrast, is awesome, and for many people, remains fun even after repeated runs.

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This.

Anyone who's played either TF once likely doesnt wanna play em again. Theyre both at best 3 star arcs quality. And the AVs are buggy. and the battles can take hours if you arent prepared well.

why on EARTH would people be running new content over and over if it isnt fun?

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I've tried not to comment on the farm/AE business overmuch, but I think I'll do so now.

The AE has tremendous potential. I have written several arcs (and will continue to do so) that I think are pretty neat because they tell actual stories. However, they rarely get played. I've tried broadcasting for a team with the caveat that it's not to farm, and no one ever joins. I've tried selecting people, but 90% of them refuse, or are already on a team, usually a farm.


The AE system has spawned the farming craze. My god, there were recently missions in which the foes DON'T even fight back (mitochondria, anyone?)! Anyone who thinks this hsan't affected the rest of the game is deluding themselves.

It IS harder to get teams together. It's still possible, but it's much more difficult. Having 70 people standing around in the AE building in Atlas DOES cause serious lag.

I don't know what the solution is, but it seems pretty darn obvious to me that there is a problem, and anyone who can't see it is blind.

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or, y;now, had no problem finding teams because they dont associate with broadcast team seekers and just form groups out of their global channels.

I've never once had an issue forming a team at any time of day.

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Did you notice the part of my other post that I've highlighted for you? Finding groups IS harder than it used to be. BUILDING groups IS harder than it used to be. You can argue about the reason for this, but it seems pretty obvious it's because the AE has taken people out of the regular game.

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No. Its obvious to YOU. Not to everyone.

For me, the AE hasnt affected my game at all because I DONT pug. EVER.

Pugs are usually horrible. Theres little to no advantage to trusting 7 strangers to NOT be inefficient or morons who think you need empaths to survive a mission.. Therefore, my activities of teaming with my SG, Taskforcing with my global channels, roleplaying, and marketeering, havent noticed any change at all excepot less people screaming in broadcast or throwing blind invites at me to powerlevel them.

Has it affected the game? Sure. But only in that its killed the Radio Mission pug, to which I say Good riddance.

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RMT and the decreased drop rates of purples is what is damaging the market. If anything, AE is increasing the supply of a lot of the rarer salvage.

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The market, overall, is pretty wonky right now. It's not just MA that's responsible for that, but it's clearly a big contributor.

Rare salvage seems to have evened out across the board. That's good in some cases, bad in others. Hey, I can get a Platinum for 500k. That's great. But now I have to pay that same amount for Black Blood of the Earth. Not so great. On the other hand, that's good news for lowbies playing regular content, selling their drops. Long and short of it: mixed bag.

Many uncommon and common salvage pieces have gone kooky. Particularly on blueside. This is mostly bad news. Especially for the impatient.

However, for the patient, there's a lot more Inf to be made on common IOs these days than there used to be.

Set recipes are drying up. Immediately after MA's release, there was a tremendous glut, and prices crashed. Now supply is dribbling in at a seemingly slower rate than it did before MA (which is pushing prices up). Still trying to figure this one out. I think a lot of factors are involved.

People are playing regular content enough to bring in a slow but steady supply of costume piece and temp power recipes.

...but they're still not playing that content at 50, because the purple shortage continues to worsen (Merits started that problem).

All told, based on everything I've been seeing, the market today is a very different animal than it was pre-MA, and the trend right now is that it's getting much more expensive to outfit a character. Especially a level 50. And especially if you want the high-end stuff.

That upward trend is probably going to continue into and beyond 2XXP weekend.

Ultimately, I don't think we're going to have a clear idea of how MA itself is impacting the market for the long-term until well into August.

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Its decently simple why set IOs dried up.

They capped tickets to 1500 a mission.

And most of the smart marketers realized that with such a cap, salvage was way more profit-friendly.

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Perhaps CO will be balanced around PVP from the outset, at least that allows you to pick and choose powers. While I’m sure the l33t d00ds will find the best set ups, at least you can still be an original in that upcoming title.-not that I’m putting much faith into CO but it does look promising. Hopefully the DEvs learned a lot from their experiment and moving forward apply this knowledge to future titles.

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Champions Online already sucks as far as I'm concerned
<ul type="square">[*]It is not "Champions the RPG" Online. The mechanics of Champions the RPG is what made me love the game.[*] It is based on the "Champions the RPG" Signature Characters and Universe. This is the thing that I liked least about Champions the RPG. In fact, I never played in an Champs RPG game that used them.[*] Microtransactions. This needs no explanation.[*] Created by people that quit CoX because they thought that they could make a huge amount of money with Marvel Online and then made a travesty of one of the best and well balanced RPG systems ever created.[/list]
When it first came up, I would have been willing to pay to check it out.
When I found that they were just using the Signature characters and threw out the system, I might have checked out a trial.
Once I found out it would have micro transactions, it isn't even worth checking out as far as I'm concerned.

Statesman's a traitor. It's time to write him out of CoX.

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er..not to play devils advocate...

But 1: Champions the system would liklely be a horrifically hard mess to balance even moreso than what theyre using now.

and 2: Microtransactions exist in CoH as well &gt;.&gt;

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(Only read the first 2 paragraphs and skimmed the rest)

Theres more to do at 50 than just farm. You could get badges, do TFs, do trials, run some missions with other 50s, PvP, IO yourself out, etc. Or you could always make a new toon.

Personally, once I get a toon to 50, the only time I really ever play them much is for TFs and stuff with friends that need high level toons. My Ill/Rad and Thugs/Poison (my first two 50s) have not been played much in over 100 days. I play my others more (expecially my Brute and Scrapper), but I still prefer lower levels when I have a choice.

And fyi the reason people farm at 50 is usually so they can IO out a build.

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I use my 50's for roleplaying and TF runs and marketeering. Not so much for grinding.

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Yes there is a level 40 restriction on the zone. . . and as far as people getting around there, I garuntee you people would learn how to do it on lowbies, same as the did with PI (that or get teleported) but the important thing is it would no longer be easily accessable to new players. . .

First time players would still see the content before they run into "Oh yeah, there is this way to go from 1-50 in under 7 hours of game play. . ." sorta like we all learned with the old drek farm, and werewolves and such. . .

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Co-op zoning the Shadow Shard is a good idea.
And, yeah, with level 40 access the low level players would have a hard time getting around - they couldn't get in at all.
That would stop the power-leveling completely, but not the farming - however, it, at least, would not be in the lower level zones.

Other than conceptually not really fitting in the Shadow Shard - its a great idea.

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It'd also kill the idea of using the AE for anything except farming, really, but oh well?

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You're suggesting that I've got to be at least level 40 to use the AE since it would be exclusively in the Shadow Shard.

Very Bad idea. Sorry.

Last but not least, it pays to do a little research on the zone before making a suggestion like this, seeing that you expected to see lowbies in there.

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Quite obviously you'd need to remove the level restriction on the zone.
And even more obvious is the fact that this isn't a serious solution, but more of a way to get people to think outside their tiny little box.
Ah well....

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one issue anyhow. The Hero side jetpack vendor is in the shard. so theyd never have to use those silly jets.

Though I wish our vendor wasnt in the damned shard. &gt;&lt;

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I'm against farming and PL'ing in the MA/AE.
As it has been stated repeatedly, the DEVs are against it as well - and clearly stated that MA/AE was not to be used as a farming or power leveling tool - and - that players that did so would be punished for doing so.

Those that continue to abuse the system are the problem.
They take it upon themselves as a right to abuse the system. It is a right that they do not have.
They have harmed the game in many ways. The abuse of the MA/AE is the tip of the iceberg of problems that their abuse cause throughout the game.
<ul type="square">[*]As you have noted they are causing extra server down time. This is directly related to the DEVs working to disable farming and PL'ing in the MA/AE.[*]They are also ruining the new player experience; something that they could remedy simply by moving their farms to the higher level zones. They refuse to do this. It is not their right to ruin new player experience.[*] They are having a horrible effect on the Markets. Inflation is out of hand. This is due to multiple things.[*] They are drawing a different type of character to the game. Ones that apparently don't care what genre the game is as long as they can abuse it. These individuals are of a low moral persuasion if they are only here to abuse the game. Do you think that these players have any moral obligation not to purchase inf from the RMT'rs?[*] They have created a horde of inexperienced players that do not know the game, think they know the game, and think they know how to play their characters. I have heard tell about level 50's that don't know where a trainer is.[*] There are players playing epic archetypes as their second character and maybe even on their second day.[*] ..etc.[/list]
None of these things are good things.
The thing that you pointed out is just the most direct effect that is so completely obvious that it can't be missed at the server log in screen.

I think that...
"not being able to log in because fixes are being installed to stop farming and power-leveling"
.... is the smallest of my worries regarding the rampant farming and power-leveling in the MA/Ae.

In fact, that helps ease my worries a bit.

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How exactly is the market ruined, and its not like the previous Atlas/mercy experience was any good. Unless you found endless screaming and lolz jokes and chuck norris references immersion creating.

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It seem to me that talk of adjusting the rewards is beside the point. What MA has really done is shown that a lot of the game content isn't actually fun for the players, at least not after the first couple of times.

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... but killing hamidon mitochondria that can't fight back is fun again and again and again?

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to some people? apparently yes. Do you honestly think people powerlevel to 50 because they DONT find it fun to do so?

I say dont give it to the AE simple so we can have a couple days on the forum without the constant "WAAAAAH AE KILLED TEAMS I( CANT FIND ANY" posts.

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Maybe its just me, but I'm curious how it was "obvious" to anyone but maybe the devs that Mitos would not have attacks when extrapolated to other levels. After all, no critter ever had that option before I15, so it's not as if that outcome was in any way form or manner obvious.

And of all the critters to test, why would anyone think to test Mitos? As long as their powers actually work, they're a huge pain to interact with.

(Note, this wasn't a rebuttal against Hyperstrike. He's just who made me think to post this.)

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well, actually. thats a good question. why the hell were mitos, a mob that never spawns below 50, ALLOWED to spawn below 50 anyhow, when no OTHER mob gets that special treatment that i know of? I cant force spawn lvl 1 carnies.

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Who says you HAVE to transfer EVERY character you have? Oops, there I go, telling you how you have to play. Sorry.

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Freedom's a horrible server anyhow. Its hardly a solution to tell people "omg, just leave the server you like to satusfy a gameplay type that the devs fail utterly at"

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wow just saw something surprising and awesome. went to atlas and for the first time in a long while i actually saw a congregation of people under the atlas statue. saw frantic messaging about STF runs forming and masters forming and kraken teams. out of curiosity i went into AE and there was just a few players. glad to see a little light in this tunnel we are in. makes me feel all squishy inside

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This stuff happens on Infinity every day, so I dont see the tunnel at all.

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Actually, no, it doesn't. I've been on Infinity for hours at a time every day since I becamer unemployed (months now), and it's RARE to see groups under Atlas. You do see a few people at Ms. Liberty periodically (leveling up, no doubt).

In four hours today, as an example, only one person stood under Atlas for more than 2 seconds. ME.

(In case you're wondering why I was there for a long period like that doing nothing, I was housecleaning while logged on)

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who cares about Atlas?

Atlas has always been a pigsty of horrible teams and bad players.

I find as a general rule, 9/10 teams formed out of broadcast are more likely to give me debt than give me anything resembling fun.

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Fixed PvP rewards to function once again. Now, influence, inspirations, and other normal rewards occur on every PvP kill, while PvP IO recipes can only be rewarded on rep-valid kills.

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.. And the Fusion Generator become possible again :-)

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It wasn't? My sg went ti a secluded area and just smacked each other 750 times, and save a few people trying to give us a hard time by griefing us, we got it in maybe an hour?

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You're not doing much to prove the pvp-ers point wrong about pve players not really wanting to pvp, but wanting it to be ezmode when they do.

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If you PvP on a low pop server and the drops are that rare than no one will have the PvP IO on the low pop server and there will not be any balance issues. I can see the main reason people farmed them in the arena is to sell them for outrageous prices on the market.

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The markets are shared between servers. and this change will make the prices skyrocket.

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I've tried not to comment on the farm/AE business overmuch, but I think I'll do so now.

The AE has tremendous potential. I have written several arcs (and will continue to do so) that I think are pretty neat because they tell actual stories. However, they rarely get played. I've tried broadcasting for a team with the caveat that it's not to farm, and no one ever joins. I've tried selecting people, but 90% of them refuse, or are already on a team, usually a farm.


The AE system has spawned the farming craze. My god, there were recently missions in which the foes DON'T even fight back (mitochondria, anyone?)! Anyone who thinks this hsan't affected the rest of the game is deluding themselves.

It IS harder to get teams together. It's still possible, but it's much more difficult. Having 70 people standing around in the AE building in Atlas DOES cause serious lag.

I don't know what the solution is, but it seems pretty darn obvious to me that there is a problem, and anyone who can't see it is blind.

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or, y;now, had no problem finding teams because they dont associate with broadcast team seekers and just form groups out of their global channels.

I've never once had an issue forming a team at any time of day.

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Here's my compromise:

All AE arcs, once published get treated as "Probationary Arcs" and critters defeated within give 50% of normal reward. To get the arc upgraded to full reward either get X number (5? 30?...Whatever) of ratings (might be difficult if it rewards only 50% of normal, as fewer people might want to play it) or hit a "Submitted for Review" flag to get a GM to eventually see it, review for whether it's a blatantly unbalanced XP-Fest or not and turn on the full rewards earlier.
Unpublishing/Republishing would still reset to zero ratings and reset to Probationary.

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And the only missions ever played would be the older ones out of this probationary period (or arcs from people with a lot of game friends.) There'd be no motivation for newer players to make arcs that will hardly/never get played. It'd be the voting cartels but much worse.

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Not true. See the bolded part.

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because Y'now. GMs arent busy as hell every day dealing with thousands of complaints , 99% of which are idiotic [censored].

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wow just saw something surprising and awesome. went to atlas and for the first time in a long while i actually saw a congregation of people under the atlas statue. saw frantic messaging about STF runs forming and masters forming and kraken teams. out of curiosity i went into AE and there was just a few players. glad to see a little light in this tunnel we are in. makes me feel all squishy inside

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This stuff happens on Infinity every day, so I dont see the tunnel at all.

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-snip-
I guess you haven't run into the Level 50's that don't know where the trainers are yet.
You will.

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Or the ones, "looking for the respec guy" - in Port Oakes... *sigh*

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How dare people get to 50 without having to respec.

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Poopy, if you miss this, i want you to get glasses

THEY AREN'T TRYING TO FIX PVP


They made changes in I13-15 to make the pvp for carebears, now they have to GET these carebears to TRY the new pvp, now the carebears will hate it and go away, and yes prolly farm pvp ios, but who really cares?

THis is the same [censored] as pvp badge

"ZOMG THEY KNAT FRAM TEH PVP BADJE TEHY MUST EARN IT!!!"

/e facepalm

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I always found this argument funny. especially in a game like this or world of warcraft. why?

ALL PVP IN COH IS CAREBEAR.

HARDCORE PVP INVOLVES ACTUAL PENALTIES TO YOU WHEN YOU DIE, SOMETHING COH PVP HAS ALWAYS LACKED.

If you want harcore pvp? Play EvE or Ultima online or something.