Justaris

Bueller?

Logged on tonight when I got off work, but there wasn't anyone online. Looks like, aside from Green Fellow, no one had logged on at all today. Are we dropping the Thursday teaming nights?

The link to my guide found below in my signature is now working again. Hopefully the links in this thread will be fixed soon, for those who haven't been taking advantage of Maynia's workaround (which is awesome).

I have so many that I love, so it's hard to choose, but I think I'd have to say my original Warshade, Iscariot, remains my favorite name.

I just find it ironic that the OP seems to be upset that MMs on his teams are making missions take "20 minutes longer". In my experience with pickup teams, usually the worst offender for making missions drag on is the Brute who insists on herding / leading every single action the team makes.

Which isn't to say that AE Baby MMs aren't a nightmare - it's a powerhouse AT but probably the worst disaster to screw up on either side of the game. Most other ATs just get themselves killed when they suck, but a crap MM can seriously louse up a team's day.

While I agree that sometimes the "Freedumb" bashing gets a little carried away, I'm with Memphis_Bill on this one. People complaining about 'ghost towns' or 'dead servers' get little sympathy from me.

If a person simply must have the high population, they're free to make characters on Freedom and/or transfer their existing characters. Yes, the latter option costs money. But since with a modicum of effort you can team just fine on all of the servers, I don't see a problem.

Sometimes people talk like if you're not on Freedom you can never do a Task Force, never participate in a raid, never get a team, never level past 2. It's just not true.

I think it would be more accurate to say that, because of the changes to the inherent, various popular build variants are more balanced now in terms of their damage output.

If you were playing certain variants then this isn't a change (in fact, the changes to Dwarf Mire might actually have decreased damage output a bit for some), but if you were playing other variants then this is a considerable increase. The net result being that the different build variants are now more on par with one another in terms of damage output.

Which, for an AT that has always had a good variety of viable approaches to build as one of its major selling points, is all to the good, IMO.

If you mean Desdemona, Maelstrom and Emporer Cole, no, those are NPCs.

If you mean the Demon Summoning and Pistols powersets, yes, those have already been confirmed as upcoming additions.

Not sure what you're asking here since "the new characters show on the page" is a bit vague.

Can't make the meeting, sorry. Normally I get in somewhere between 6:30 and 7 pm EST from work, so for future reference that's not a good time for me and probably other people that are on CST time.

This particular coming Thursday (7/30) I won't be online at all. I'm on call and I won't be home all night, so I'll be missing both the meeting and the play session. I'll catch up to whatever level we reach.

Yeah, as usual, merging the servers is a terrible idea. Pretty much the only reason people seem to be able to come up with aside from just 'they should' is that it would increase population and make finding teams easier.

However, there are a couple of problems with that. First, you'd lost a lot of people over the fallout from a server merge unless you could somehow find a way to resolve character name and Supergroup issues in a way that's fair to everyone (good luck).

Second, there's no need to consolidate people in this way because the simple techniques for getting teams work well on all the servers. I've used them on every server there is and they work just fine. There's no need for every server to be a clone of Freedom in terms of activity.

Third, many players would prefer that every server were not a clone of Freedom in terms of activity.

And this isn't even getting into the lag issues or the (false) message that server consolidation sends out to the public - i.e. that the game is in jeopardy or dying, which it is not.

It's all very well to have differences of opinion, but with so many good reasons against and so few good arguments in favor, it's difficult to take that contrary opinion very seriously.

Furthermore, a competent Warshade should be able to adapt based on the team composition, not pre-screen all teams to a specific setup to cover for deficiencies in his/her own setup. Especially a Warshade in the 40s.

I tend to ask a few questions myself, especially if I got something on the order of "lft?" (assuming I dignify that with a response at all, it depends on my mood and how much patience I have on hand at the moment).

That said, the exchange in the OP is well over the top and well within rights to simply refuse to group with the person. I don't even usually ask about team composition.

If I'm going to join a pickup team I generally want to know only two things: what we're doing (TF/arcs/scanner/AE) and the level at which we're doing it. If AE, I also ask about farms and decline the team if the team is intending to farm/PL.

That's as far as it goes, but I've had people label me as 'interviewing' before just with that. Some people seem to get upset whenever you don't just automatically accept any invite thrown your way - and, if I have "PST" in my search comments, it means I want information. "lft?" or "mish?" is not information. At least, not much.

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Can someone tell me what other MMOs have as an "End-Game" that they consider it so dull here?

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For many games, it's a raid culture. This means (and this is an oversimplification) you must grind for the best loot so that you can contribute and play your role during a raid, join a large clan/guild/etc so that you can do the raid at all, and then attempt the large-scale raid to get the rewards. At some point, there's a level cap raise and new raids introduced and all of your stuff is now worthless.

Repeat the above process.

Now, these raids are designed to be done by large groups of players and some of them have very impressive stories to tell and general spectacle to see. In other words, some of those raids are pretty damn cool. However, the underlying design is one that keeps you perpetually grinding to reach the next carrot, only to have the rug yanked out from under you once you've finally managed to gather all your loot. Personally, I'll pass.

If we're talking Tri-Form in both cases?

The WS is going to pull ahead in larger mobs, such as an 8-man team on high difficulty settings. With enough mobs to fuel the Mire and Eclipse buffs, the Tri-Form WS is a juggernaut and Stygian Circle ensures that the juggernaut never stops rolling. So that's the upside.

As previously mentioned, the WS has some trouble with single tough bosses, especially if the boss in question is tough enough to outlast the initial round of buffs. The Tri-Form WS will buff up with Mire and Eclipse on the boss's mob but will soon take all of them out. At this point there's only one enemy left (the boss) and that's not enough to get a good buff from either power. This can make for a long, drawn-out fight in Dwarf. So that's the downside. For some EBs or AVs you may even need teammates and/or temp powers to win out.


A Tri-Form PB also puts out significant AoE damage but doesn't have the scaling buffs of the WS. Build Up doesn't last nearly as long and is therefore more difficult to use in forms (you lose a significant part of your Build Up time just shifting). So the PB does good AoE but not at the level of the Mired WS.

By contrast, the PB's R-Strike and I-Strike help to deal with bosses, as do the self-heals. On the boss question the PB has the edge since Build Up, Essence Boost, Reform Essence, Conserve Energy, etc all give the same benefit whether you're fighting one enemy or fifteen. So you don't have the dropoff you see with the WS.


Again, I want to stress that these are general trends based on the way the powers work. I'm not saying you can't do great AE damage as a PB or take down hard targets with a WS; these are just the natural strengths of the ATs. Build is a huge factor for any Kheld, as is playstyle.

Fair enough. I suppose I'm just having trouble with your characterization of the game as 'stagnant' or even 'stagnant for characters at 50'. I've been playing since launch and I still play my 50s. I do TFs, I badge-hunt, I play the market, I badge-hunt and I do a fair amount of socializing (okay, a lot of socializing). Also I badge-hunt.

Pretty much the only things I don't do much of are PvP (which I loathe) and RP (which I'm not particularly good at). As I said above, I'm certainly not opposed to more stuff to do at 50, but neither do I see a clear and present need there. We just got a new 45-50 TF on each side of the game. Neither has been getting what I'd call rave reviews, but nevertheless it's new stuff to do at the endgame.

I'd argue that a far more pressing content hole would be the 30-35 game redside. There really needs to be an SF with that range.

It's not a valid question. In terms of PvE, the bosses and big groups questions are highly build-dependent. It's not PB vs WS.

It's Tri-Form PB vs Human/Dwarf PB vs Human/Nova PB vs Human Only PB vs Tri-Form WS vs Human/Dwarf WS vs Human/Nova WS vs Human Only WS.

It's not really possible to make a blanket PvE statement about PBs or WSs, therefore. In general terms, the WS is going to feed off of large mobs because of the scaling buffs in Mire, Eclipse and Circle, while the PB has more self-heals and hard-hitting ST attacks.

A WS may have trouble with single bosses if they have to take them cold, but a good WS typically won't do that but will instead try to take the boss down using buffs from other mobs in the final room. This is more difficult when EBs/AVs are involved, of course.

I wouldn't say either flavor of Kheldian would be unable to do either type of PvE, it's just a matter of how fast you're able to do it with your particular AT, build and power choices. Both the PB and the WS have the potential to clear masses of enemies and to take down single boss targets.

Well, PvP is in a certain amount of flux right now, but generally speaking Kheldians are not the best-suited AT for PvP.

Of the two, PBs are the better choice for PvP because of more/stronger melee attacks and greater self-contained survivability. Several of the Warshade powers require enemies (alive or dead) in order to function, which works out to a disadvantage in 1v1 combat when there's nothing to fuel powers like Mire or Circle.

This isn't to say that a Warshade can't PvP, only that the AT isn't ideal for it, meaning that build and player skill have to be correspondingly better to make up the difference.

Okay, a couple of things

1) Characterizing the game as "young and growing" is not really erroneous. There's a new box on the shelves and we've got an expansion on the way. This is not EQ. In MMO terms we're still relatively young and we are most certainly growing. Speaking of the game in the past tense or characterizing it as dead/dying/stagnant is a significant overstatement, to the point of hyperbole.

It's not just 'roll an alt'. In addition to Hamidon and Rikti Mothership raids (the two 'classic raid' style content pieces we have), there are a plethora of TFs, there's badgehunting, there's Inventions including the sought-after Purple recipes, there's PvP, there's a number of social events run by players, there's RP and there's a regular infusion of new content to try.

If a player is one of those that simply must be getting 'phat lewt' or leveling up in order to feel a play session is worthwhile then this probably isn't the game to be playing. There's purples, of course, but the game isn't centered on having them the way a raid culture game like WoW is. You don't need the phat lewt to participate in the top-tier content. You don't need it for anything other than bragging rights. The additional power is nice but not necessary. The day the Devs turn away from that fundamental design philosophy is the day they lose a lot of players. And I mean a lot.

2) WoW is an aberration. Comparing this game or any MMO to WoW is not a valid comparison. Arguments that say "this game could be like WoW if it did X..." are usually invalid. WoW is the phenomenon it is because it's made by Blizzard. It's based on the known and popular IP that Blizzard introduced in the RTS Warcraft games and, more importantly, Blizzard has a huge bank to sink into promotion, demo CDs, advertisments, etc to promote the game.

No other MMO has anything close to that and no changes to the gameplay of any MMO is going to give it WoW's numbers unless you can put a bankroll comparable to Blizzard's behind it. This MMO is a success by the standards of the industry. The fact that NCSoft bought the IP and is further developing it supports this.

Some more stuff to do at 50 wouldn't be a bad idea, but we already have a good deal of things to do for those that choose to take advantage of them. Changing the game over to an endgame-centric raid culture like that of WoW would be a serious misstep.

If people want to farm and/or PL and rush to 50, that's fine. There's negative fallout associated with that, but it's manageable fallout and the Devs have a long history of curtailing the worst offenders in that respect to keep it manageable. It's not the innocuous activity some pro-PL/farm people often try to pretend it is, but it's not nearly as bad as exploits.

If people want to PL to 50 and then complain there's nothing to do, that's retarded. They skipped over nearly everything there was to do.

As for exploiting, that's not the same as farming. Exploiting is taking a bug and using it and it's reprehensible. It's against the rules. It's tantamount to cheating. The difference is that, while PL and farming are frowned on by the Devs, they are abuses of WAI systems as opposed to exploits which are abuses of broken/bugged systems.

That, and exploits tend to have drastically larger rewards, drastically reduced risk, or both.

I'm hoping Khelds will get in on the next round. Until I see a Dev post saying we're not getting customization, I'm going to assume that we're on the queue somewhere.

It'd be a huge boon to the Kheldian community since a major reason many people don't like to play Kheldians is the way the forms make you look just like everyone else. Since we have such great customization in every other aspect of the game, it'd be a coup to get good customization in the forms as well. I think that alone would cause a boom in people playing Khelds.

Well, they changed the Quantums and Voids over a year ago so that they no longer deal special damage to Kheldians, so apparently the Devs agreed that the disadvantage was too great. Q/Vs now deal negative energy damage, which Kheldians get two powers to resist (four powers if you count Dwarf form and Light Form/Eclipse, with the bonuses from the inherent on top of that).

Even before the nerf to Quantums and Voids, they never 'completely wrecked' a competently played Kheld. Now Q/Vs are so trivial that they're almost a joke. Hardly a serious disadvantage.

You may want to update yourself on the current state of things.

Assuming that the above solution doesn't resolve your problem, it's possible that it was just a glitch. Make sure you weren't in a contested area such as near the rez chambers or it may read as progress towards Caregiver rather than Cimeroran.

That's my best guess based on what you've said - either you weren't in a good spot or it's a glitch.

That's from my guide. This is actually covered in the guide thread if you read all the way through it, but I'll give the answer here as well.

You need to retype the bind. If you copy/paste you get the 'smart quotes' which CoX doesn't recognize. When I eventually publish the next version of the guide I'll correct this, but the edit window has long since passed on the current version so I can't change it there. All I can do is post it in the guide thread, but you're not the first and you won't be the last who doesn't read that far.

In other words, it needs to be this:

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/bind t "goto_tray 2$$powexec_toggle_on dark nova"

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and [u]not[u] this:

[ QUOTE ]
/bind t “goto_tray 2$$powexec_toggle_on dark nova”

[/ QUOTE ]

Microsoft Word 'helped' me back when I was editing that version of the guide for posting. I'm more careful about double-checking any changes Word makes on my behalf now.

My schedule's pretty erratic, so I can't say for sure how much I'll be around (and apologies in advance), but I'm going to speak for Luminary if there are no objections.

I'm making Lustre, an alternative Luminary based on steampunk robotics. Elec/Elec Blaster.

All Merit Vendors are exactly the same. Basically, here's your options for getting a Miracle: Recovery (or any IO) - <ul type="square">[*] Buy it on the Market with influence/infamy. In this case, a lot of influence/infamy.[*] Buy it from a Merit Vendor (any Merit Vendor, there's one in every zone, and there is no difference between them whatsoever aside from their appearance) for Merits. 240 Merits in this case.[*] Take a Random Rare Recipe roll from a Merit Vendor for 20 Merits and get lucky (you must roll in the correct range, so 20-24, 25-29, 30-34, 35-39 and 40-45 would all have a possibility of giving a Miracle, but a 46-50 roll would not).[*] Take a Gold Class Recipe roll from a Ticket Vendor and get lucky (you must roll in the correct range, so 20-24, 25-29, 30-34, 35-39 and 40-44 would all have a possibility of giving a Miracle, but a 45-50 roll would not).[*] Get it as a drop while fighting a boss in the 20-40 level range. If you are above level 40, you would probably need to use Ouroboros to do this since gray-con bosses do not give drops.[/list]