EvilGeko

You're trying to trick us. You didn't say they would be craftable, you said they would theoretically be craftable. I don't want any of your legal mumbo-jumbo, I want to be able to craft my NoTW NOW!

And what is this about having to actually defeat NPCs? You didn't say I had to defeat NPCs to earn these shards. You said I could complete content. My Stalker is perfectly able to stealth these glowie missions, but I'm not getting shards.

Or did you?

What was Praetor Berry working on again....

Another thing on this point. When discussing the Incarnate content, we're talking about SOLELY level 50 characters. They are the only ones who matter in this discussion since lower level players can't engage the system at all. So the question is whether the majority of persons who play at level 50 are casual or not. Not whether the playerbase as a whole is.

That devalues the trials. The trials are difficult. Only one team succeeded during the first sneak peek window. If you give people a "slower" route, then you'll have some team based players who figure out if you exemplar to level [X] and farm in area [X], that you can get very close to the same reward rate as trial players without the messiness of actually needing to learn the encounters.

The devs set the rate very high to make it so that the team path is not only faster, but so obviously so that only the most ardent soloers will choose that path.

The only real option for a solo path is to create a content based path which can't be easily farmed and is of similar or more difficulty than the team based content.

The last time we heard that IIRC was over 3 years ago.

Have you ever wondered why that is? I have. I used to play this SOE game called Everquest Online Adventures. You simply could not solo effectively past level 20 in that game. Most quests at that level and above were too difficult to complete without at least 1-2 other people. I used to be angry about this. But then I started looking into why MMORPG developers promote teaming.

And no matter how hard people try to ignore it, for the majority of people teaming experience, engaging with others to complete tasks, tend to be the experiences that people who play these types of games find the most rewarding. Sure, this doesn't mean everyone thinks this way, but it's enough people that MMORPG designers have almost to the one decided that while soloing is an important playstyle that should be supported, grouping should always be preferred. Read the blogs of MMORPG developers, read the scholarly articles. It's all there.

There is no personal vendetta. There is folks trying to get people to look past their tortured sense of entitlement to see that the developers shouldn't and won't give people who refuse to consume the content they provide a pass.

The Isolator situation was significantly more unfair than this IMO. Folks whose characters existed before badges COULD NOT earn that bad in ANY way. And it took 5 issues (from 2-7) before there was ANY way to do it.

Here, people are gating themselves from the Notice.

Oh it's never that bad. Lady Loot can be mean on occassion, but over time she always takes care of you.

Three weeks at least.

How do you ensure that the top tier group players don't immediately log in and wind up with everything because their shard earning rate is so much higher?

EDIT: BTW How are soloers being treated poorly exactly? People who solo aren't prohibited from joining groups. That's the behavior the developers are trying to encourage. Why do you believe they should not be entitled to encourage that behavior?

I did say almost.

Then just take either of the paths open to you. Either group for a TF or grind shards until your eyes bleed. Your choice.

It only take 88 for the people who refuse to do a TF or raid ever. If you're willing to do even a Mothership Raid, you can earn a few shards + enough Vanguard Merits to buy Grai Matters. Even if you don't need that component, you can break it down into more shards. If you're on a server that raids Hami, that's almost a guaranteed 7-10 shards for a very limited group commitment.

Then of course, you can cut this whole thing out, by simply waiting until there is a TF that you like and doing that. I think anyone who buys a Notice from shards alone is mad. IMO, that cost represents Positron and Co. evaluation that the reticence to grouping is unreasonable. And it is. Last night I was on a Kahn and there was a player who had connection problems and it appeared kid problems as well. This mythical casual gamer that you all want to protect so much. Well, the group was quite understanding and we even had her/him sit at the door last mission so he/she wouldn't DC during the final mission. The player was an empath and we could have used the buffs, but everyone decided that the player getting their Notice was more important and we didn't want her/him to take the risk of losing out.

Pure soloers have their path and it is punitively expensive. But there is an alternative that is so much easier in comparison that I have no sympathy.

Yup. For Cardiac, Nerve and probably Spiritual it's almost certain that most players won't be enhanced to the cap anyway so they'll get no great benefit from going Ultra-Rare. I know most of my characters don't get much out of it.

Yes, and we hashed this out during Issue 18 beta. It is very, very difficult to design an endgame system for soloers. Let me ask you. How do you design a task that simultaneously is a challenge for a well geared Illusion/Rad player with expert skills and an Empath/Psi player with average skills and average gear?

You make it possible for the Empath/Psi and the Illusion/Rad will run over it.

Make it a challenge for a team and the group can smooth out the outliers. This is just one problem, but there are others. But IMO, this is the big one. You have to balance the difficulty of the tasks so that the average reward rate you want is hit. That's not anywhere near easy.

It's not like you're stuck there. Go Rogue, do some stuff with heroes if you want nice things.

Yes, really. There are several recipes you can buy for 1 alignment merit that sell for 100M+ influence. Quite a few of the 2 alignment merit recipes sell for 100M+ influence. But, of course, that doesn't fit your fantasy of the devs screwing over casuals so carry on.

Why do you need a very rare? Seriously. You get the level shift from the rare. The Ultra-rare doesn't add that much for most characters.

You can make 100 million in 2-4 days of casual play running tips.

I was just getting to this post, and seeing GG great responses. I wanted to answer this. Freedom is the default status IMO, because everywhere people have tried to take it away they ultimately fail. They might succeed for a time, but tyranny is inherently unsustainable. Even when tyrannies are replaced with new tyrannies, this is the case.

This suggests to be that there is something about the human condition that is inherently intolerant of [X] amount of restrictions. Cross that threshold and eventually your time will be up. Hosni Mubarak figured that out recently.

None of what you posted after this expletive in any way contradicts what I said. If you don't like the Barracuda SF, then don't do it. Lady Grey is up next. Then Sister Psyche. You are responding to a point I didn't make. Follow back the discussion trail.

Weakened Hamidon ends in a tank n' spank.

Mr. I Am Nictus ends in a tank n' spank (although a quick one).

Recluse ends in a tank and spank (with adds) and it often takes longer than Reischman because he's locked at 54 which lowers damage to about half.

Untrue. There are plenty of scripted encounters where you have to do X, Y, and Z and then the encounter turns into your standard tank and spank. Like Reischman.