Jade_Dragon

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No I mean when you speed boost a pet and it now does nothing but make it run into the next mob and die faster, that will come as a nice surprise to live players.

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Well, therein lies the rub, doesn't it? When you slot a power for recharge, you expect it to effect the power, unless you stop and think about it. When you use a power on a pet, you expect it to effect the pet. But the two are actually the same thing. You can't prevent one without preventing the other.

Preventing players from slotting Recharge is as much a kludge as preventing Recharge from affecting pets. And given that so many ways were found around it, it obviously wasn't even a very effective kludge.

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Which tbh seemed right to me as it cost a lot more end over time than imps and can't move, seemed like how it was supposed to be. I was wrong lol.


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Don't forget that Lightning Storm also has a knockback component, and causes Fear, which Imps do not. Of course, I agree that effect isn't as strong as, say, Tornado, particularly since it is also linked to the slow fire rate of the Lighting Bolt. Still, it's in a Buff/Debuff set, I would expect its effect to be other than just damage. (Although the logic of giving it control effects escapes me...)

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1) recharge from set IOs affecting pet attack rate - This had been publically stated as unintended behavior, but not recently enough and in the clearest way possible.

2) recharge carried over from buffs on the player such as Hasten, SB, AB, AM - perhaps that had been publically stated as unintended behavior (I'm not sure - never saw it myself). It seemed a bit odd to me, but in light of all other in-game oddities it wasn't obviously unintended.

3) recharge placed directly onto targeted pets from outside buffs such as SB, AB, AM...I've never seen that stated as unintended, and in fact this type of buffing always appeared to be 100% intended to me.

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Agreed. I think that last one is why the devs hesitated as long as they did, and why "no one was happy with the decision", in Castle's words. The last one SEEMS correct, at least for true pets, it is a separate entity, and thus buffed separately. It may not be correct for psuedo pets, or at least those that are not targettable, as they should probably fire at whatever rate has been set for them. It's the other buffs from the player that should carry over to the pseudo-pet, but recharge is how often the player fires the "pet", not how often the "pet" fires.

The thought just hit me, that if a player is hit by AM, then summons a pet, then that pet is hit by AM, assuming the pet gets the player's recharge carried over, does that mean the pet now has the equivalent of TWO stacked AMs running on him? The AM also lets the caster summon the pet more often, but if he also passes his recharge buff to the pet, that means the damage is not just exponetial, it's cubic. (Actually, it's more like 2xAM^2, which is still squared)

Needless to say, it probably never got that bad (LS probably could inherit AM from the caster, but could not be buffed by it directly) but maybe trying to preserve 3) was a mistake. You still do get the advantage of more frequent summoning, except with Masterminds. And the AI was probably designed around foes, not pets and henchmen, so the devs didn't even bother to find out how recharge would effect it.

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what's done is done, but I can assure you most people will be surprised by this on live, your assumption of game knowledge and dev position by the average player is way off.

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Actually, I'm guessing if you walk up to a random player of the game and ask him, "Hey, if I slot Lightning Storm with Recharge, what's going to happen?" he will say, "It comes up more often". If he says "It fires faster -- oh, and it also comes up more often" then more than likely he already knows what you know.

You might run into the occasional player who knows enough about it to say, "Um... I'm guessing it either recharges faster, or it fires more often. Probably recharges faster. Yeah, that's probably it", then he knows enough to know the game, but not about that set specifically.

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Then can we get some official reply on the flipside of this issue... Which (if any) NPC pets will be affected by this, and has it been considered the impact this will have on players.

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I can't answer specifically which aren't effected, but it looks like LS and VS for critters are -- but they aren't targetable anyway. Likely, all Mastermind pets used in the MA and all pets which are summons of player pets will be effected as well.

Any NPC critter that is specifically not a player pet will NOT be effected. They're not on Arcanaville's list. So Clockworks summoned by Assemblers, the Slag Golems summoned by Callystix, Inferno's demons, Banished Pantheon summoned by Dark Shamans, etc., they will still be debuffable.

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Maybe it is just me, but I have never understood the value that so many people place in bringing "work" into what they do for entertainment.

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Maybe it is just me, but some people find using the system to maximize their characters as well as they can to be fun.

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It's true, there are people who really enjoy that sort of thing.

Not me, but I'm not going to say that's bad for anyone else.

OTOH, constantly changing the characteristics and target goals makes for a continued requirement for maintenance for those who do want the "perfect" build. Personally, I feel that would be fun and maintain interest for such achievers, although I could be wrong.

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I think this happen more so because of the principle of it all (sneaking the recharge in) than more so having the recharge actually making noticable performance.

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This. I agree with what an earlier poster said, establish the baseline, then fix the powers that need work. Any attempt to fix LS or VS at this point would have failed because of the ability of specific builds to leverage the boost.

I think the AI problem was the MAIN problem, but this was a long standing error that was ignored because "it's not that bad".

This is a response from Castle on the question of whether critters' pets will be effected. Hopefully he doesn't mind my repost before he confirms it's okay.

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Some critter pets are affected by this as well, but not all. Generally, the ones affected by it were not target able to begin with.

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Two examples I think I've already seen are the critter Lightning Storm and Voltaic Sentinel. On the other hand, as Castle points out, VS isn't targettable and thus it shouldn't be possible for a player to debuff it. LS I don't know about since I've never used it, but I believe it's untargetable too.

So if Fire Imps or Jack Frost summoned by Frostfire are effected, that wasn't the intention, and hopefully it can be fixed later on.

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I referred to this as the GPN, the Global Pet Nerf myself in one of the locked threads.

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GPN V2. GPN V1 was when the ability to summon multiples of the same pet with sufficient recharge was removed for a lot of pet types. (But not all, apparently)

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I also have a question regarding the purple pet set (soulbound allegiance) which was designed specifically to increase the pet's rate of fire. Now that it no longer does this, will we see a reworking of said said at a minimum... one that makes it worthy of being a purple set?

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It's too bad you can't have a Set Bonus or Unique IO for that set that essentially just says "ignore all other recharge changes to pets, but allow this one".

Maybe a damage bonus to the pets would be a reasonable substitute.

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that would have been so much better, could have saved myself literally hours of going off the deep end trying to protect LS from the pet nerf. Only to find out LS "IS THE PET NERF" lol.

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Honestly, I think I and others had been trying to quietly and with as much compassion and understanding as possible explain that very likely Castle may not have consciously been thinking about LS, but while dealing with this other issue it might have effected his decision.

Of course, now we find he did know about it all along.

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Speaking of which, I finally reached the 50 merit point with two of my characters. One is level 48 and the other is level 47. I play a lot, but I have a lot of alts, so I'm not going to earn a total of 200 merits on one character for a looong time.

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I've been playing this game since Beta, and I only just recently got my first 50. Most of my characters are in the mid-30s. I consider myself a casual player, although I don't know if I'd fit the definition by some people's standards here. I do know that if I was serious about this game, I wouldn't be five years into it, playing constantly without dropping my account, and still have only one 50.

In all that time, I have never had a problem for lack of IO's. I IO'ed out my main, because I CHOSE to play a power set that was lacking soloability. I can't really think why I would even consider spending that much time and effort on IOs unless a) I was already 50 or b) I was trying to compensate for a weakness in the build.

The argument that the casual gamer needs IOs misses the point that the idea is that the casual gamer doesn't need IOs.

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Once Issue 14 arrives, I expect to earn FAR more skeeball tickets over time than merits.

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This is so true for me, as well.

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So I dont play [powerful toons I'm not trying to get merits for]. the team can live with the blaster i use to farm merits. A pooled merit system would allow me to bring the most useful toon for the team, not just the one I collect merits on.

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Now, that is an argument I can understand. It applies to other things as well, for instance, if I am trying to level a certain character, I will usually turn down offers for teams that aren't in that character's level. But I agree, it is an issue.

I'm not sure pooled merits is the best way to handle the problem, though. Perhaps a "mentor" relationship, where a high level alt can provide a portion of his drops to a lower level on, kind of like Levelling Pacts. Of course, you can't currently enter a Levelling Pact with two characters on the same account, but it's just a suggestion.

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Pre-issue 6 or should I say pre-issue 5 is when I still felt super play this game. Now most of my toons feel like they are slightly better than a luitenent playing the game.

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If you want to play Superman, you put the time and effort into it. If you want to play Luke Cage, you can be more of a casual player.

And I have never been in a situation where I didn't feel like I could take down a pair of Lts or a single Boss on any of my characters, including the weakest of them. (If anything, my Controllers are STRONGER since ED) Yeah, taking down three purple bosses, you need to be IO'd out the gills for that, but you hardly need them to take out a Lieutenant.

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All characters running, say, the Positron TF are going to be the in the same level bracket while they run it, even though they might have very disparate levels otherwise. They'll obviously complete the TF at the same time as each other, and they'll get the same number of Merits when they do.

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Is that true, or will they get a number of Merits based on their level? I thought that when you Sidekicked, you got XP and Influence based on your actual level, not the level you are Sidekicked up to.

I'm not quite sure about Enhancements. I think that you get Enhancements based on your level most of the time, but based on the TF level for special missions, like Task Forces. Maybe under those conditions you would get the same number of Merits as well. (You just have the option of purchasing lots of Recipes at your level instead of just getting the one you can't use, as before)

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Face it folks a bit of the CASUAL aspect died in this game when IOs were introduced.



[/ QUOTE ]Yeah I do think this as well. I could see if we were trying to purple out a warshade or something but this should be easier for the casual gamer.

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I agree, but then, the IO system wasn't really DESIGNED for the casual gamer. The whole concept, from the very start, was that it was not necessary to have IOs. You could go without IOs and have the same system that you had post-ED.

Now, IOs supposedly allow you to get close to the performance that we once had pre-ED. But that was what I felt the idea was. Remove the easy ability to cap your stats in return for the non-casual players gaining the ability to do this through IOs. (with a MUCH higher time investment) The casual player was at a somewhat lower level, but could still participate in the game.

If it was impossible to play this game without IOs -- or even get IOs at all as a casual player - I would agree totally. But it is possible to use lesser IOs and non set IOs. I know, that is the strategy I use.

Also, the ability to use Merits to purchase IOs, instead of having to buy them from the Market, I believe was meant to HELP the casual player. While the casual player can't fully IO out all his characters, he can choose a few critical IOs that he would NEVER have the Influence to buy.

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Never would I thought I would see the day when you get punished for making and playing alts .

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But if you create an alt, wouldn't you want to PLAY that alt? Why would you want to play some other character and earn IOs for that alt, unless you could earn more IOs that way than the alt could normally earn? (Because the main is higher level)

I guess I can understand transferring unused Merits to an alt, but in short, if you're tired of playing the game, what good is it to force yourself to play an old character, just to grind out more IOs? Why don't you either play the alt, or quit?

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Its their responsiblity to fix the issue where we cant select the level of the random roll. That in itself is one of the main reasons why people are hoarding merits and will end up hoarding tickets too. The system by design encourages people to hoard so they can select the specific level they want.

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Actually, I've been hoarding Merits simply because I can't really think of what I want. I only stopped by a vendor recently to see what's available, and Merits have been out for a while. I could cash some of them in and sell them on the Market, I guess, but I just haven't decided what I want to do yet.

This may be the bigger problem. There just isn't an encouragement to cash in the Merits you don't want to use, except to sell them on the Market. And I don't really see any way to get around this with Tickets either. You can't assign random drops with the MA because of the portion of drops that will be global.

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sorry the last post was more a sarcastic way of saying I understand. I probably wasn't clear enough. Sorry for the confusion

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Ah, thought you were still trying to make a counterargument. No problem. As I said, I think the idea of shared rewards is valid. It's just the exception, not the rule. (No one ever gets paid in just shares of stock in the company, and in this economy probably no one would want to. )

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Stretched logic is stretched. Your brother still can't use your vacation time to take time away from HIS job. I believe that was what Feihung was getting at.

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Yeah. I suppose if you earned a bonus from your job that gave you free TICKETS for a vacation, say a flight to somewhere, and you could take family members along, then that would be a "global" reward. You could then choose to take your brother, or your wife or kids, however many tickets you had.

And yeah, the use of the word "tickets" there is entirely coincidental. Sure it is.

Personally, though, I would consider rewards from creating a MA mission to be somewhat akin to a Corporation. Everyone in the Corportation benefits from the rewards. But they still earn their own salaries as individuals.

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Except that a vacation you take is also a vacation for your brother ( being he doesn't have you in the way ) thus 1 vacation for you = 1 vacation for your brother... thus a global share of the merits

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Your brother can't take time off from work just because you have some vacation time...

Oh, wait, I get it. You're saying not having you around is a vacation. Funny, but not really correct.

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if there are ways to purchase them through Tickets ( which are global) why can't we make the merits do the same? they are earned reward for playing the game afterall right?

Why have so many different way of paying for something? we already have Inf and merits why do we need to add a 3rd way with Tickets? just give Merits to people who play and create MA content and vote.

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Tickets are both global and specific to a character. When the MA earns tickets for you, they are global. When you earn tickets with a character, those go that character.

One reason for the difference, obviously, is just that. Merits can't be earned globally, they don't have a mechanism for that. The mechanism needed to be created, and rather than try to kludge it into the existing Merit system, they created a second one.

The other reason is that they're trying to distinguish rewards you earn from the MA from regular rewards. Not just to prevent exploits, but so they can tweak and balance it separate from the "real" mission system so they don't break Merits trying to adjust Tickets. Plus, Tickets combine the rewards of Merits, Recipe drops, AND Badges, that you can't get with the MA.

(Hm... could it be made possible to buy Badges with Tickets? I suppose it's not necessary, but might help with the fact that you can't get certain Badges that way)

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So I guess being forced to play as limited a pool of characters as possible if you want anything more expensive than a random roll is Working As Intended?

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... I may be misremembering/misunderstanding, but don't you typically get Merits only from situations where previously the only option was random rolls..?

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That's true, but entirely irrelevant to my point.

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Your supposition is a false dilemma. There are still other ways to get desired recipes and enhancements, such as the market. There will also be a way to purchase them through Tickets.

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I would say probably that the original point, if looked at objectively, is correct. The devs want only those characters that the player chooses to concentrate his actions on to be able to avoid the random roll mechanism.

This reduces the amount of unwanted IOs on the market, since there are people who will skip getting them, but will not eliminate them entirely. There are other methods, which may produce more random IOs, as you said. This provide a supply for those who perhaps do not want the highest quality IOs, and want to use those that are less popular.

Not that I'm an expert on the matter, but that would be my guess at the economics involved.

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So if it makes sens for the MA to have the reward be global, why can't the time spent getting the merit while playing on my account be put into a pool that I can then decide where on which character ( from my account) I spend them?.

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I think I can answer this. Because YOU the PLAYER designed the mission, while you the CHARACTER go through it. You are not a character when you are designing a mission, your character is just the interface into it.

Theoretically speaking, you could go into the logon screen and select to edit a mission straight from there, and upload it to the game, without selecting a character. You're only selecting a character and going to where the MA exists in the game world for convenience.

When you earn Merits, though, you're earning them as the character. You spend time on that character. While you can say, "Yes, but I'm still the player", that's kind of the opposite. You are basically expected to be a character unless you can't be a character. (Because there's no way to associate the MA with a specific character) Not expected to be the player except when you decide to give something to a character.

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What about this then, as sort of a compromise? How about letting us finally get account based storage like all the other MMO's have. Do this for salvage, enhancements, recipes so we dont have to form personal super groups or get a second account to get the most out of the invention system. Any chance we can get this?

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You already have it, it is called a Solo Base. (well except for the recipies but you just build those into IOs)

[/ QUOTE ]Didnt you read where I said personal SG. People shouldnt have to do this to get IOs.

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While I can understand that you already pointed out the workaround, it seems to me it's more of the way the feature is supposed to work than a workaround. In other words, I kind of see what you're saying as "I want to be able to use the Internet without buying a computer." That's sort of what a computer is FOR.

Sure, it could be easier to create a personal SG than it currently is, but obviously the devs make that fairly difficult because they DON'T want inter-account trading. Questioning whether or not that's easy with the tools available doesn't address the simple fact that the devs don't want you to do it.

And I don't believe anyone has said that it is impossible to craft IOs without trading between characters on your account.

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The idea is that, since creating MA content is account-wide (anything you write can be "published from" any character on your account), that the tickets generated from other people go into a pool. You can then claim tickets out of that pool on any character on your account.

HOWEVER, when you PLAY Mission Architect content, tickets you earn are exactly like Merits. They are earned ON that character, and can not be traded.

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That certainly makes sense, and I think I understood it. The Mission Architect itself is sort of a global thing, attached to your account. (Probably you as the author are identified by your global name) So it's not connected to any individual character or even server.

There has to be some means for your rewards to be earned for your account for that. I don't know if there are tickets for actual mission creation actions, but I believe you mentioned some badges would be global to the account. So tickets are the same way, some are per character, some are global to the account. (At least until you pull them out of the pool)

Can you pay for Mission Architect features out of the pool, or do you have to pull them out on the character you will be using to go into the editor?