Fritzy

Since completing the arc, I've gotten 3 additional shards in 12 hours of solo play:
- one from the Rikti raid in Cap
- one doing the Rogue Morality mish
- one from a group of Rikti standing around in PI.


If you have enough Vanguard Merits, you can use 150 to buy a Gr'ai Matter once every 20 hours. 4 of those can combine to make one of the other ingredients for an Alpha recipe.

Well, due to low-end hardware, I'm limited to soloing. So far, just 1 addtional shards in 8 hours lvl 50 play. It would seem more fair that if the qualifying arc can be solo'ed, the drop rate for shards would be as comparable for the solo players and the missions they can handle as it is for those who can handily team for TF's. Right now, it seems to be imbalanced towards the TF and SF content with the 50 solo content getting barely a token nod on shard drop rate.

At my current rate of getting shards, might can make my first common alpha by, oh let's guess, New Years Day....2012?

I'm running the game on a Gateway Netbook w/ Atom N450 but view everything on an Acer 21" widescreen monitor instead of the on-board screen. It can run CoH on Medium graphics settings but CoV and Praetoria run best on Minimal settings. Off course, it helps that I have a fiber optic (FioS) connection to the net.

I''ve been online with this setup since mid-August for at least 8 hours every day and have had no problems doing whatever I wanted to do including joining the large teams for the Rikti invasion. Lag is about the same as when I had a higher end desktop system.

Except for not being able to experience the game world in Ultra mode and considering the costs involved, for now, I am satisfied with this setup.

Edited to include the following: 2gb ram and Windows 7.

All the common IO's are memorized on one character so I have all the other toons send their common salvage to her for crafting into the top 8 marketable IO's. Usually, I can craft about 20-30 of those a day which I always post at the same price to sell for a small profit. Usually, I get much more Inf than I post for. For a few minutes invested at the end of each session, it is not a grind and progress towards the badge is steady and profitable.

I was AWOL from CoX when the invention system was implemented and returned only back in August of this year. Need only 65 to complete the Fabricator badge and it has been relatively painless to achieve.

Last night, I tested this on one Master Ill in an isolated park in PI. Needed 38 for the badges and farmed her for a bit over 40 minutes to complete the requirements. Her casts seemed to be on about a 5 minute timer. Remember, any damage to each illusion, phantom or dark servant before they vanish will give defeat credit for the badge.

Very impressed with this little app although the reporting is one count off from the CoX total. Reporting 565; Actual 566 on my main.

Having just completed full circle @ L50 from Redside to Blueside and back again, I preferred the Villain/Rogue alignment missions; the Hero/Vigilante Morality missions and the Blueside logistics for travel and convenience of having mish doors in whatever zone you happen to be in when getting the Tips.

I also play at -1/x0 but I am old (62) and don't consider myself to be an expert player, cetainly not a min/max'er. My goal since I re-enrolled in August (after a 3 year AWOL from the game) was to entirely solo a DM/WP Brute from Nova Praetoria to Grandville (L50) while completing as many story arcs as possible. Mission accomplished with only 3 L50 arcs to complete and 1 of those is Dark Watcher's Vanguard arc.
Soloing EB's was something I had to learn to do from scratch. Last time I played, AV's were not downgraded and IO's were a fantasy. But, learn on the job I did and managed to solo all the EB's but 2 early on (used auto-complete for those). I wanted a relaxing experience but the EB's were not relaxing for me. During an EB encounter, my hands start shaking so badly I often forget my key sequence. Somehow, I did manage to beat all those suckers.

So, to answer your question, Yes, I think all EB's should soloable. However, the upper level arcs do seem to have too many of them. I haven't unlocked it yet but Viridion's arc seems like it would be a nightmare for the solo player.

Dark Widow and her arcs were, IMHO, the most enjoyable arcs I played. I seem to recall having no problem beating her down. Lord Recluse, however, at EB level, was tough and I had to outlevel the mission by 3 to finally take him down.

My feeling after an EB fight is, whew, glad that's done. If I were a better player perhaps I would be more casual about the accomplishment but, at my player skill level, I am ecstatic to win those fights.

I have no knowledge of the Incarnate system. Will learn as I go after it is introduced.

After 3.5 years of being away, I've gotten back into the game by via the download client and NOT installing from my original CoH/CoV CD's. I noticed that the items in the CoH folder seem to be very different than I would get with the CD install.

Now that I plan to be back for a while, should I go ahead and do the CD installs?
Are there any advantages or disadvantages for doing so?
Will it improve performance?
Will I need to re-DL all the issues?
And any other problems I may encounter....
Thanks for any advice you can give.

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Playing Devil's Advocate then, what are we supposed to do with our Level 50s then? Delete them? What about when they exhaust all their missions from contacts?

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I run missions from the contacts in the Shadow Shard. Those contacts never run out of missions. I'm using Shard contacts as a reliable source to earn prestige for my small SG. A small LT Col Flynn mish set on Rugged yields >800 total prestige.

I am perfectly clear on your point. Last year, CoH had a 3-day pre-order headstart. I did not buy a pre-order code but my son did. I was not upset when he got in 3 days earlier than me because I knew he would and I wouldn't even though we both picked up our retail copies on the same day. On the Official Launch date, I setup my NCSoft account, entered my retail code and have been playing ever since.

They did not re-invent the wheel with the CoV headstart - they did it just like they did previously. The CoH headstart did not prove to be dooooooom for CoH and neither will the CoV headstart be dooooooom for CoV. I am certain that then, same as now, a small number of people felt inconvenienced for the same reasons you have expressed and loudly expressed their feelings.

I made it a point to learn the details - it was my responsibility to find out about the details - if I had misunderstood something about the details, it would have been my failure and the fault of no one else.

You, Sheboygan, need to accept the responsibility for your failure to learn the details of this marketing promotion and stop trying to find someone else to blame.

I'm still curious how you figured out the 2-day pre-order headstart date (launch date minus 2) and still claim ignorance of the actual launch date. Boggles my mind.

You should be upset with yourself and no one else.

Here's the plan. As soon as CoV is released, all the regener's need to go out and deliberately lose badly in lots of PvP matches then cry angrily on the boards about how regen sucks in PvP. After a few weeks of everyone confirming the awfulness of using regen in PvP, they'll leave us alone.

Ho-hum. Same song, 1000th verse - it ain't no better and it ain't no worse. Same old feedback from dev - same old complaints from players. And here I am happily playing my lvl 50 and lvl 36 regen scrappers as if nothing ever changed.

Maybe I am not discontented with recent changes because I almost always have played conservatively within my characters' limits. If I start taking too much damage, I back off and heal or use a different tactic. I assess every mob group to determine the best tactics to use for the fight - much like a field officer does in the military. Do the same regardless of teaming or soloing.

The bottom line is that Geko, Statesman, et al, are businessmen who are not out to ruin the product the provides them with their personal income and profits for NCSoft. Their ultimate goal is to grow the userbase so that their products gain market share. As good businessmen, they have a long-term plan for reaching their business goals. It is to be expected that there will be bumps and potholes along the way. Fortunately, their products can easily be adjusted to remain viable forces in the gaming market. I don't expect them to always make perfect decisions anymore than I expect Ford to make vehicles that never get recalled or develop a product that satisfies 100% of the buying public. That's just the way it is in business.

Proceed, Geko, do what you feel is right for your products. If your decisions are correct, the buying public will let you know with their +$$$$. If you are wrong, the public will let you know with -$$$$$. It's a risky business - this gaming world - with lots of competition. I admire the Cryptic staff for their willingness to take risks rather than sit at their computers and play it safe by not taking any risks.

I sincerely hope your risks pay off in the long run. But remember (and this is something developers tend to minimize and forget), ultimately, it is the consumers - who with their $$$ - will tell you whether you were right or you were wrong.

Good deal on reducing the damge that can be done by AV's. Today, Neuron was hitting our guys for 2500+ damage - that's enough to one-shot any AT.

Best wishes to your brother! I also have friends in Iraq or deploying soon.

Your communications are just fine by me - I appreciate a straight forward approach to speaking what's on one's mind.

Hey, CoH like a stage script - there are going to be differences of opinion between the creators and the actors. But in the end, a fine show can be performed by all. Keep up the good work!

Well, I was amused by the look of the Trick Arrow set. Heroes in high tech costumes shooting little toy bows like they were playing at being Robin Hood hunting baddies in Sherwood Forest. A more high tech appearance of the bows would seem to better fit the overall theme of the game.