MasterGabriel

I mistakenly put this out there on the PvP Negative forum. but as an alternative to travel suppression what if activating a travel put you in only affecting self status for the duration of that toggle running or for TP for a short time afterward you could only affect self. You could still move flee etc... but you can't fight. You would have to turn off travels to fight so you couldn't run and gun.

I was really just speaking about the US as I have no idea what is happening with the Euro servers. I should have made that clear.

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im not saying your wrong, but how come there are diff amounts of items for sell on diff servers. On justice I can buy just about anything i want if i have the inf, but go to like pinn and if im lucky some of the stuff is avalable? And if it is just one market across all servers then its much worse than i thought it was


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I really have no clue why different servers are giving you different amounts available. Lag in the WW / BM database. Bids filling in transition between servers reducing supply. Faulty methods of comparison. I really don't know which if any of these are the reason why different amounts appear available to you on different servers but there is only 1 market hero side and 1 market villains side. So theoretically if 12 different players on 12 different servers are all looking at the same item at exactly the same time the amount available should be the same barring lag in the WW / BM database.

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Worse still, there are particular pieces of Salvage that are more heavily used that others, which leads to a further imbalance, as prices are driven upward for those pieces (Alchemical Silver comes immediately to mind, though there are others).

It'd be nice if there was some way of "substituting" Salvage for other Salvage types. Maybe a 2-to-1 ratio of Salvage of the same rarity (for example, take 2 of any Common Salvage, and turn it into 1 of a particular Salvage). That would help stabilize the market, and make pieces like Regenerating Flesh actually worth something...


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The biggest reason why high level salvage is worth less is due to farming producing a lot of common salvage. I find it curious why with tools like Ouro portals and the ability to turn off xp we haven't seen low and mid range salvage farms.

I do however like the idea of salvage substitutions.

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Come on dude, im sry to be mean to you but you really have no clue. Just play the game and stop spending so much time on the forums and youll see what im talking about. go look at the markets on the diff severs and youll figure it out, maybe.....

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Actually there is no reason to go to different servers since their is only one market for all servers on each side of the game. There is one hero market and one villain market.

k 1 more for me then.

Arc 2nd Respec Trial Hero
Contact Captain James Harlan
Merit reward 20 (-5)

With the merits I got testing the new #'s got a Numina proc, Positron Proc, and a karma knockback protection. .....

And they are stuck on test

Arc 3rd respec trial Hero Side
Contact Major Richard Flagg
Merit rewards 20 (-5)

Special thanks to altaholic monkey.

Arc Ring of Peebles
Contact Stephanie Peebles
Merit Rewards 10 (+1)

Arc: A Faultline in the Sands of Time
Contact Agent G
Merit Reward 10 (+5)

Arc The Buried Past
Contact Doc Delilah
Merit rewards 3 (I was wrong +1)

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For those of us who like to actually play through the mission, and not stealth through every stealthable objective, it works out to be worse than that.

I don't know how you could fairly balance the stealth/invis and finish it fast vs fight-fight-fight crowd, it's similar to the speed TF argument. I would suggest at least increasing the story arc merits in many cases, the amounts awarded are anemic, and finding some mechanism to reward teammembers on story arcs.

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Yeah since I lead a lot of respec trials I under stand that. half my team just wants the merits and the other half wants xp. I cater what I am running to my teams tastes. If the team is mostly running for xp we clear. If the team is exemps we stealth a lot. I would like to see a merit reward multiplier for difficulty added. I am not sure their is a feasible non exploitable way to do this either but right now on speed teams it is all about the speed and their is little reason to go after other rewards.

I can really see a Mayhem safeguard awarding one merit per primary and side mission completed. Radio and scanner missions should not award merits but dropping a few for safeguards might give another reason to not just skip them(A practice I find boggling as they are great xp).

Master Gabriel

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I also see the other extreme with the respec run.
Why run missions when you can run a respec?

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For a team you are absolutely right. I run a lot of respecs 2-3 four or more days out of the week. The problem isn't with the respecs which can be failed but with the fact that story arcs are way under priced at 1 merit per 12 minutes. I think story arcs should be brought down to 1 merit per mission (2 if a defeat all) minutes to make them comparable and award those merits every few missions if not every mission to everyone on the team. I have a Blue side tank that I just got to 50 that has not done very many story arcs. I keep telling myself I should go back through Ouro and get those arcs done but merit wise it isn't worth my time when I could just run a respec.

Villain side arcs are particularly stingy and I really think the merit numbers need to be a little beefed.

Hooked again

Master Gabriel

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Blessing of the Zephyr knock back is more valuable because:
1. It is part of a Universal Travel set and therefore available to more powersets.

2. It is a rare set after all. Karma and Steadfast are uncommons and available from uncommon drops in the right level range and therefore easily farmable through Ouro or by turning off XP. Blesing is a pool C.

Hope that helps.

Master Gabriel

Even still I don't think it justifies the cost merit wise for this enhancement. I could see if it worked the same as the stealth enhancements where they work regardless of the level so long as you have the power but with these if you go more than 3 levels it cuts off. That in itself greatly reduces overall value to a lvl 50 who the merit system is mainly targeted for.

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There are a lot of rare recipes whose cost in merits far outweighs their usefulness across AT. Many of those recipes are far less valuable than Blessing of the Zephyr. I can agree that all of the rare recipes that are over priced simply for being rare should be reevaluated. I am not sure that the Merit system is meant to be utilized only by level 50's I think the merit system just has its greatest advantage to level 50's who can outfit themselves via merits in an endgame fashion.

Master Gabriel

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There are two issues i have with the merit system. The first one is the outrageous cost of the Blessing of the Zephyr Knockback Protection recipe when compared to the Karma and Steadfast Protection variants. I'd like to know what justifies the difference.

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Blessing of the Zephyr knock back is more valuable because:
1. It is part of a Universal Travel set and therefore available to more powersets.

2. It is a rare set after all. Karma and Steadfast are uncommons and available from uncommon drops in the right level range and therefore easily farmable through Ouro or by turning off XP. Blesing is a pool C.

Hope that helps.

Master Gabriel

Aha found it.

Master Gabriel

Yes Ascendant your fans wait impatiently.

Master Gabriel

BlueBattler your stories should come with a warning label " may cause whiplash by taking you somewhere you didn't expect by the end of the first sentence"

I love it man keep it up.

Master Gabriel

By the way you started a story about BlueBattler after he lost his hero of the city status. I can't find that thread. Don't suppose you could help a fan out and add a link in a response.

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Hi:

While its true that my proposal does not address the desirability of some recipes over another, at least it does allow for any recipe to drop, which at this time is not true for TFs and Trials no longer drop recipies but offer merit awards instead.

A possible suggestion would be to reclassy those obviously not useful rare ones such as Pacing of the Turthle, Trap of the Hunter, etc from "Orange" to yellow. Thus if my proposed drop system was to be used, then a higher use that a truly useful rare would be received.

Hugs

Stormy

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Freedom is one thing Stormy, but deregulation is not freedom. If everything came down to a flat drop chance off of enemies then farming would be the most efficient way to get drops and drop rates would have to be adjusted around that high end abuse of the system. everything would come down to how to get the most chances the fastest. Unless taskforces gave a ridiculous number of drops there would be no reason to do one. Drops per critter should be the least effective way to get drops because they require no prep or investment. Story arcs and taskforces require a bit more investment and should be rewarded commensurately.

The reclassification of limited use recipes will help to bring down the price of good shinies since supply has increased. however by moving them to the uncommon pool prices for multipurpose uncommons would go up as supply is decreased due to the greater diffusion of drops over a wider pool. It also does nothing to make these other limited use recipes valuable as more of them would be dropping. I think your idea is better than the status quo in regard to this concern but can be improved upon.

Master Gabriel
I13 a lot of really great ideas implemented poorly

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Try buying some certain Positrons Blast and Sting of the Manticore IO's on the market right now. Both crafted and recipes are dry from lvl 35+.


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I bet you can find plenty of glimpse of the abyss and malaise illusions though. My point exactly with merits allowing players to ignore the market and the market being inherently unbalanced under the current system shortages will increase in frequency and severity until something is done about the core problem with the market. The Players playing the market minigame need a way to target specific types of recipes to meet demand.

Master Gabriel
Issue 13 Lots of really great ideas poorly implemented.

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I know, this may souond a bit odd, but why have these crazy pool choices. Why not? just have "white", "yellow", "orange" and "purple" drops, one big pool where anything can drop.

So regardless of what you doing, TFs, Threads, Killing stuff in the streets, or what not you coulod actually get any recipe in the game; its a matter of luck to receive which color, and then another random luck for which of all the ones in that color you get.

I think if we simplify the drop pool system we have now by ridding ourselves of pools, lots of problems would get fixed rather quickly.

Also remove any artificial measures on acquiring drops, such as certain AVs gives you nothing for your effort. I feel things need to be normalized, thus any AV has a much higher chance to drop a purple tha any other mob would have. The table, suggested, would offer for each type of mob the percent chance to get any colored recipe:

............None.....White..Yellow..Orange..Purple
AV...........0........ 40......30.........20.........10
GM.........20........ 32......24.........16...........8
EB..........40........ 24......18.........12.......... 6
Boss.......60........ 16......12...........8.......... 4
LT..........80...........8........6...........4... ....... 2
Minion....90...........4........3...........2..... ..... 1

This change will increase the supply across all types of recipes to be available in the market, thus restoring the market volumes. Also the table above, gives meaning to addressing tougher mobs. I always felt it was dumb that killing a minion would yield more loot than an AV.

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Hi Stormy,

In theory I like your idea since it allows everyone to play the way they want to play to achieve the rewards they want. we are still however comparing apples to oranges because it is not the rate of drop per classification that concerns me as much as the weight of drops within each classification. I mean on all of you characters on a server how many of them could not use a Numina's proc now compare that to how many could use a Call of the Sandmans chance for heal. Both of these are out of the rare drop pool but are obviously of two different values since so few toons proportionately can and do use the latter. yet in the current pool system and even in the mass pool you are proposing no consideration is given to the weight of recipes. In your pool system a farm team splattering demons now has a chance to get anything they want. Okay I guess that is good since it also means the guy running story arcs has a chance as well. but now that farm team or that guy running story arcs wants more Numinas, Call of the Sandmans, or interrupt recipes whatever it doesn't matter. To increase the production the players will have to grind more content and under an equal weight system such as we have now more waste recipes will be produced which flood the market and devalue specific use sellers such as call of the sandman. If the market could naturally correct itself by slackening production of specific recipes that are in over abundance the situation would correct itself. This correction is not possible under the current system since players have no choice in what they produce. The merit system was supposed to allow this but do to the spectacular overpricing of some recipes, the reduction in awards for some taskforces hero side and most villainside, and the stinginess of merit drops the problems have compounded. Now we have a famine of high weight recipes due to the lack of production which is causing prices to spike higher. low weight drops are still valueless, reducing the buying power of the character further. until their is a way to balance for weight of recipes the market and merits will be "Ebil"

to put this in real world application this is the same as a manufacturer upping production of a hundred products just because one product among a hundred is selling well. a lot of resources used to increase production is wasted producing unwanted goods. that situation was I12 farming now when we add I13 merits into the mix resources that were being used to keep everyone stocked in a desired good are rerouted to being able to pinpoint a desired good the market are now being horded. Shortage again.

Master Gabriel

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Yeah. That's the worst part of the merit system as it's currently done...it rewards tedium and grind. The Shard TFs and most of the original 7 TFs have desperately need revamping since I3 when Hess showed what a fun TF could be

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You nailed that one. Back in I4 when I went through Hess for the first time I was blown away compared to all of the previous taskforces. Hess for its time was fun fast paced and interactive. Then Katie Hannon came out and the worst complaint about it is that players thought it was so fun it should be longer. As much as I love IO sets I almost wish we could go back to the days where taskforces were done for fun and no one tried to punish you for doing the fun, fast, taskforces.

Master Gabriel
I13 Lots of really great ideas poorly implemented.

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They either need to convert half of the av's to Ebs or add a 2 min delay between mary's. The only reason it is so fast is that they force feed you av's. The speed of the tf is dictated by the design. A 2 min delay would add 18 min base to the tf. all of a sudden your 40 min tf becomes 1 hour. I happen to like the fast paced respawn, tedium does not make for fun. Welcome to city of timeclock

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You mean like the Respec trials? Maybe when they get around to nerfing the merits on the respec trials and the ITF they can slow katie down so it is worth a whole 10 merits. Before Issue 13 whenever I did a Respec trial the team and I would sit in the reactor room comparing the long delays to Katie and how we wished the waves came in faster. I think this "city of timeclock" metric needs to examined. It seems like every task force and trial I like is in danger of being nerfed with the taskforces left to do become increasingly uninteresting and archaic yawnfests.

Master Gabriel

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(3) Make the Random Rolls a better chance. Remove some of the garbage so our odds are reasonable of, if not getting a recipe we can use, at least one that someone will want and we can sell on the market.


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I could not agree more the Pools are outdated, antiquated, and frankly filled with useless crap. One of the problems with the drop system is we have too many Malaise dropping and not enough Numina's just but powers available to archetypes certain sets are going to be more popular than others. I think the Pool C and D should just be combined and placed at 15 merits per roll and other pools should be added.

Here are my suggestions

The pools I would go with would be

Procs
contains all procs including Numina, celerity, etc...
cost 30 merits

offensive
contains melee damage, range damage, targeted AOE, PBAOE, Pet Damage, Sniper attacks
Cost 28 merits

Defensive / debuff
Contains healing, Accurate healing, damage resist, defense,
cost 30 merits

Debuff and control
to hit debuff, defense debuff, endurance modification, taunt
cost 20 merits

Mez effects
Confuse, Sleep, Slow, Immobilize, Holds, fears, stuns, Knockback
Cost 15 merits

And for goodness sakes just award 1 merit per mission on story arcs to ALL team members dispensed at the end of each mission.

Master Gabriel