Miladys_Knight

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  1. Quote:
    Originally Posted by DrMike2000 View Post
    I agree with Ultimo in some ways.

    Endurance management can be tedious, especially for new players. I dont find it a problem in the long term. I usually take Stamina, unless I've got an alternative plan, and my 50s sometimes run out of endurance if they really hammer their AoEs and other expensive powers still. But that feels as it should be. A superhero should be able to go all out and temporarily expend all their energy in a big sustained salvo.

    Back when I started though - hoo boy! Took me a while to figure out that turning sprint off was a good idea. And that was on high DPE archetypes, mainly Blasters.

    Its good to have limiting mechanisms, but endurance as it stands is slanted far too ehavily to the start of the game. The feeling of relief you get every time you hit 20 and get your END under control is not worth ther fact that the game is less enjoyable and more grindy than it should be in the 10-20 range.
    I agree and have done so before. End management in the low level game is pretty atrocious. You don't have the slots and the enhancements are only 1/4 (TOs) to 1/2 (DOs) as effective.

    2 things I have suggested before (and one of them I've seen suggested again) is to make rest have 0 (or greatly reduced) recharge. It still takes a finite amount of time to actually "rest" and fill up the blue bar so there is a penalty to poor end management it's just not so onerous. Once you hit level 20 (21 for 3 slotted, 22 for 3 slotted and SOd) and have stamina, resting becomes a thing of the past since you'll recover all or nearly all your end in the time it would take to rest anyway.

    The other thing that I have suggested is to take the sum of base recovery + stamina and change the proportions while leaving the net sum the same.

    I see no reason why base recovery could not be increased and the recovery value of stamina decreased, so long as the totals (with stamina 3 slotted with SOs) remain the same. This would have the effect of having Stamina "feel" optional, rather than feeling required.
  2. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Hyperstrike View Post
    Again, their property, their business. Does it suck for everyone else? Sure.

    What do you do when a millionaire decides he's going to spend all his money on hookers and blow instead of donating to charity or investing?

    Is it a shame? Sure. Is it any of your business? No.

    Again, upon rereading your original posts, I find the system proposed kludgy but workable.

    A couple things that haven't been addressed:

    • What about recipes that go for below the 240 merit mark?

    You've set the benchmark for the spec-buy token against the highest valued recipes. But there are other recipes available that could be bought in multiples for the price of the one "expensive" recipe. Or are all spec-buys arbitrarily now 240 merit-equivalent recipes?

    • Again, is this system automatic? If so, what happens if a roll is triggered when their recipe inventory is full?
    Do they just lose it? Is the roll triggered only if their recipe inventory is less than full? How do you deal with something like the Doc Q, that awards the equivalent of nearly 5 such rolls?

    I'd also ask the programmers how easily something like this could be shoehorned on top of the existing system. For myself, at least, there's a certain threshold of difficulty and tradeoff I probably wouldn't accept. I wouldn't implement the system "regardless of what else it hampers/stops/kills". I can't directly define what this "pain threshold" is, as I don't know what the options currently are.
    In a free market economy the millionaire blowing it on hookers and blow (leaving aside the legality issues of doing both those things) would still stimulate the economy.

    If the government (in our game economy this is the devs) wishes to encourage certain behavior they remove regulation and let the free market determine price. If it is a behavior that they wish to discourage they increase taxes and regulations and remove much if not all of the benefit of doing so.

    In this case we would be having the devs stimulate the rewards system by changing the way it functions (or more correctly by bringing it into closer parity with the way that the rest of the system functions). Hoarding merits is part of the problem, changing the mechanic so that this isn't possible fixes this problem without removing the self determination aspect.

    The mechanics for what you are concerned about all ready exist in the game. We know that it's possible to have more recipes than you "can hold" because of the market roll backs that happened early. The devs could potentially use this mechanic as a merit earned recipe overflow.

    The old claim recipe window could also be brought back. When you exceed the cap a nag window opens and won't close until you reduce the number of recipes in storage to accomdate the incoming recipes (and no this won't be a problem since merits are rewarded at the end of content so you wouldn't have to worry about playing with the pop up open). All you would have to do is get to the market/vendor to sell or delete some junk recipes, claim your new Pool C recipes and close the window to continue.
  3. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Jake_Summers View Post
    Thank you, that was a reasonable explanation and much more effective way of explaining your views. Now considering what I use merits for, getting specific receipes at the lowest level possible, this route doesn't really work for me. [Though once I get all of the Luck of the Gambler +7.5% recharges at level 25 I want, it seems a pretty viable route]. Unfortunately I don't see 10 random spins on the IO table being worth the 200 million or so it takes to buy a LotG +7.5% at 25 though (Do you have any data to prove me wrong?)

    Currently everything in the game works well enough for me to equip all my toons (and mostly on red side at that) in the manner I like (From completely purpled out toons to simple red IO builds).

    More tasks that forces you to take a random drop would likely help the markets, but I would not support people being forced to spend their merit in this matter. AE ticket rolls are a good start, another good addition would be the ability to buy random drops with Vanguard merits.
    Smurphy and TopDoc both did some work on this. Smurphys work was quite a bit earlier so it may be a bit out of date. TopDocs stuff is recent enough that it's probably still entirely valid.

    Bottom line is if you are patient enough to accumulate 20 LotG +7.5s worth of merits you are marginally better off making 250 rolls and being patient at the market than simply buying 20 LotGs out right. There are other high value recipes (Numina, Miracle, and Kinetic Combat to name a few) that off set the randomness. All you have to do is sell them and buy the LotGs that you didn't get with your rolls.

    The market let's you do what you are doing now, slighty faster than the way you are doing it, and it leaves you with a tidy sum of left over influence. The only problem you potentially face is the randomness of the RNG but over a large enough sample that randomness is virtually eliminated.
  4. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Hyperstrike View Post
    But it's so CUUUUTE!



    I would ask how other players are screwed by player "@ScrewUMarket" spending his earnings how he wishes? Are you screwing other players when you vendor your vendor trash?

    In there is the basic assumption that @ScrewUMarket owes it to other players to perform in a manner most beneficial to the market/them.

    This may not be what you meant but it is more or less implicit in how you said it.

    ***SEGUE***

    Okay! Had a longer reply worked up but actually took the time to go back and re-read the original again. Not sure if I just missed it, blocked it out, Alzheimers or what. But I completely missed the "freebie token" secondary mechanic.

    Yes. I was dropped on my head (extensively!) as a child.

    Given the secondary mechanic, I could see this working better. Still kludgy, but workable.

    My main worry is that this tracking metadata is increasingly abstracted from the main game system and I worry about tracking so people don't get screwed over. I mean, I've had count-tracked badges (Isolator and Zookeeper to name a couple prominent ones) revert counts and the badge disappeared from my list. This would be another level or two more derivative.


    You'd be wrong.

    Don't make assumptions. A simple misreading of your post sent me off on a snipe hunt here, and I seriously doubt you're any better or worse than I am. So I would ask that you not deign to speak about my ersatz "nefarious" motives

    My position (and dislike) of the merit system, if the posts haven't been purged, has been established since before the system was implemented and my predictions for effects on the market pretty much born out if you're looking at the current state of affairs.
    The idea of course is to make the thing that makes the market healthier also the thing that is in the best interest of the individual player. Goals are then synonymous. Rolling random (and as a secondary effect increasing market supply) IS what provides the self determination. It's a win/win for the market and the player base. (On a side note this is the same reason that Vigilance is broken, since what is in the best interest of the team, being buffed, eliminates the benefit for the player who is doing the buffing).

    I'm glad you went back and re-read the original post. That's the reason we seem to have gotten off the track of market health vs self determination. There's no reason we can't (or shouldn't) have both simultaneously.

    I too predicted the current situation with merits and the market at implementation. In fact at one time I suggested something similar to merits. The devs how ever were quite stingy in their final setup (if they had gone with my idea a roll would have been 10 merits and the weighting would have been left alone).

    The ability to store up merits is the reason that the low level market is unhealthy. Automatic rewards with a side mechanism for self determination is the way to fix the low - mid level market.
  5. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Ultimo_ View Post
    Well, I've been away for a while, and I've been trying a number of other games. Today, I came back for a bit to see if I wanted to buy Gong Rogue, something I'd been looking forward to. It revealed something to me that I've said before many times.

    This game is tedious. Compared to other games, it gets really tired, really fast. I word it that way deliberately, because I'm talking about endurance use.

    Characters in this game go through endurance way, way too fast. It's especially bad for characters that rely on toggles, such as Defenders and Tankers, but as a general principle, endurance use is prohibitive. That means we spend a lot of time standing around, either waiting for our endurance to recover, or using one or two powers for fear of running out and detoggling (which usually means instant death, at least at higher levels).

    As a rule, it's more fun to be using your powers and fighting the enemy than it is to be standing around, often as a punching bag for the NPCs because you lack the energy to fight back. In no other game is this problem so pronounced. Other games have power usage, but it's prohibitive here.

    I've said it before, I'm saying it again. Endurance use needs to be recalibrated. It should still be part of the game, but it should not be so prominent. It's not in keeping with the source material (when was the last time you saw the Thing gasping for breath out of exhaustion), and it's just not fun.


    (All comments reflect my opinion. You may disagree, and I welcome any thoughtful posts that do so, but try to avoid flaming. The point here is to see if there is a significant percentage of the population that feels as I do, and if so, to be able to show that to the devs for consideration.)
    Yes, in many ways you are correct and the devs know this and have been making things easier on end use all the time though getting to the point that you have no end woes is a long and expensive process.

    2 accolades increase your max end (this increases your recovery) they are time consuming to get. 1 Accolade temporarily increases your recovery by 100%. It's only useable a small portion of the time since it's on a long recharge. It isn't easy or quick to get either.

    IOs set bonuses can increase your recovery and your max end. They are not quick or easy to get.

    Certain IOs (Miracle + and Numina +/+) drastically increase your recovery.

    A vet temp power now exists that allows you to cast a pet that increases your defense and recovery. Time consuming to get though easy to use once you have it.

    SG base empowerments that last for an hour exist. They are easy to come by and relatively cheap to use requiring only that you have access to an SG base that has them and the appropriate salvage bits to use.

    The devs recently added Physical Perfection to a scrapper APP.

    I17 brings a new temp power Recovery Serum.

    The devs know that things cost too much end and that end management is not fun especially for those who aren't numerically inclined. They have added things to relieve this problem but the solutions aren't quick or easy to attain. This is by design.
  6. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Jake_Summers View Post
    No seriously, I would really like an answer. You now have the choice to educate me and perhaps turn me around to your point of view, thus making your arguements valid and perhaps turning another small portion of the player base around to your way of thinking.

    Or continue to be a ******. Your call.
    To give a simple to understand answer:

    If you have 250 merits you can make 12 random rolls. If the pool you are rolling in has only 32 possible recipes in it the chances that you get the one you are looking for is good though certainly not assured. It's because your sample size is too small.

    Most people don't want just a single recipe though. If you have enough merits to buy 3 Pool Cs that's 750 merits or 37.5 rolls. If things work perfectly you'll get 1 of each type recipe and 5 extras. So not only will you get all 3 of the recipes you are after but you'll also have 1 of each of the others many of which you'll also want. The larger your sample size the more likely you are to get all the Pool Cs you want.

    The Pool Cs that you don't want can be sold on the market for lots of inf. Inf you can then use to buy the recipes you didn't get making the ramdom rolls.

    In the time it takes to buy each pool C recipe you want you would have generated enough recipes to outfit multiple toons. The problem is the time it takes. People want what they want NAO. Most of them don't have the patience to use the market to their own advantage.
  7. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Jake_Summers View Post
    How is a player getting the exact receipe they want at the exact level they want a waste of their earned merits?
    If you have to ask, you don't understand prob and stat, and are part of the problem, rather than part of the solution.
  8. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Fulmens View Post
    ... what recipe costs 440 merits?
    Repaired that typo, thanks for the catch, hit 2 and 1 instead of 1 and 1.

    250 merits generates 12 recipes or it can be spent on a single one. 11 recipes therefore never exist.
  9. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Hyperstrike View Post
    Bulldinky.

    Those players are not owed the fruits of said player's labor. What if the player used them on his own (or other) toons? What if the player hated the market so much he just vendored them?
    Man do you love hyperbole. Not anywhere in my post have I ever said that anyone is owed the fruits of someone else's labor. If the player hates the market so much then this solution has absolutely nothing to do with them as it won't impact them one bit. (except perhaps to teach them a bit of prob and stat). If they really hate the market that much that they just vendor stuff anyway no solution to the problem will do a thing for them or us. It's a null sum that has no bearing what so ever on this discussion.

    Quote:
    Oh yes and what if they were crap rolls nobody wants anyhow?
    The odds that all the rolls that they have to make to get the freebie being crap are vanishingly small. Evilryu's Pool C thread makes that clear and that, by the way, was done before drops were weighted. The odds are much better now.

    Quote:
    See above. This is dangerously close to telling these people how they should play the game and what they should do with the fruits of their own labor.
    The goat has all ready answered this better than I can.

    Quote:
    Please note, I'm displeased with the effects the Merit System has had on the market as well. But if you're going to be awarding points to someone instead of a true random drop at the outset, I believe it's up to the player to determine how they spend their own currency. Jacking it around until it's nearly identical to the old system of automatic awards (by way of Rube Goldberg) is Just Plain Awful.
    It's not identical. Do the math. Self determination is still maintained and the odds that they get the recipe they want from the random rolls (especially post weighting) before they spend the freebie token is quite high leaving them the freebie token to spend on a different self determined recipe. how is this aweful? The greatest problem the market faces is peoples perceptions (or misconceptions).

    By the way with the exception of MA tickets (which are also part of the problem) EVERY other crafting related reward in the game IS STILL ON the automatic system of rewards (Pool A's, Pool B's, Pool E's, salvage, even Pool C boss drops) Merits and tickets break the system because they don't award automatically. They attempt to circumvent the system which is why there is a supply problem.

    Quote:
    MA also doesn't allow you to spec-buy recipes.
    I didn't say it did. I said it skewed the rewards and it does. From my DA runs I learned that I have a 1/6 chance of receiving the rare salvage drop that I'm interested in, in about an hour of farming. Doing the same thing in MA for the same amount of time (yes I did check, thanks for asking, I essentially created DA in the MA, to test my assumptions) I can generate 6 of the exact pieces of rare salvage that I want in that same hour doing the exact same thing that only nets me a 1/6 chance outside MA.

    Why is that a problem you may ask? Well because all of the other things that would have been generated (pool As, pool Es, and common, uncommon salvage, and the 5 other types of rare salvage) were never created and never hit the market. That reduces supply and raises prices. High prices are pretty universal complaint around here.

    Quote:
    How long does it take to run say, 5 Synapse TFs to get up the 240 merits for the most desireable recipes? And if said recipe is going for multiple hundreds of millions?

    In an equivalent time, how many tickets could you rack up? Now how long does it take to actually PROCESS all those recipes generated? And if 99% of them are vendor trash?
    On the off chance that you aren't being facetious, the merit rate for TFs is supposed to be 1 per 3 minutes. Using that as a base the devs expect 5 Synapse TFs to take a total of 14 1/2 hours (leaving aside diminishing returns).

    In that amount of time in the MA without even trying hard (I can design content specifically geared to be easy for a specific AoE heavy toon) I can easily generate 45,000 tickets. Oddly enough I won't be doing it all in 1 play session which is the best way to market things.

    How long does it take to process all that? it depends on what I'm going to do. Some I'll craft and slot, some I'll craft and store for my or my Wife's alts. If I want to maximize my gains I'll craft and sell the good ones at very near to the going rate. If I want to push them through quickly I'll offer them at 80% of going rate.

    If I have alot of duplicate mid value recipes I'll leave them as recipes (they'll all be the same level) and set them in Wents in stacks instead of singles. If I'm not in a hurry I'll list them at going rate if I am in a hurry I'll list them at 80% of going rate.

    6000 - 9000 tickets in Bronze rolls will fill up all my market slots (deleting recipes I know to be junk on the spot). On my field crafter I can process that many tickets in 5-10 minutes. On blue side it will all sell over night expecially on Friday, Saturday, or Sunday.

    And I have never, ever, ever, gotten 99% junk or even close to 99% even once.

    Quote:
    I'd like to repair the market. But I don't think this is the way.
    Given your posts I doubt that you wish to repair the market. You seem to only want self determination to remain in the destructive mode it's in, and I highly doubt that you've gven it much thought.
  10. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Hyperstrike View Post
    No. PERIOD.

    One of the benefits of Merits is it allows one to spec-buy IOs for themselves.
    You completely destroy this ability while only flooding the economy with more vendor trash.
    Lots of hyperbole there.

    One of the probems with market supply is that people can (and do) WASTE 230 merits buying a single recipe.

    The ability to do so isn't being destroyed (hyperbole again on your part) it is simply being streamlined so that the ability is still there. You forget that in the 20 rolls required to generate the freebie that the IO that they seek is likely to have been generated.

    As far as "flooding the market" (more hyperbole) with vendor trash what's the real difference between 30, level 50, Numina End/Rech that only sell for 1000 or 300 (oh, look, I can do hyperbole too), level 50, Numina End/Rech that sell for 1000? Trash is still trash whether it's a flood or a trickle. At least this way low level abitraguers can still buy stuff cheap at the market and run it to the vendors for starting cash. (not only that but I have yet to see a thread complaining about too much supply on the market. It is invariably that prices are too high which is directly related to supply being too small)

    If you really want the devs to eliminate vendor trash ask them to BALANCE the reward tables rather than merely weight them. Balancing them will make it so that the average number of each type recipe demanded is equal to the average number of each type recipe supplied. After all that's exactly what they keep doing with the number of merits awarded based on time anyway. They keep balancing it on the mean time to run x content. (By the way good luck with that dream.)
  11. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Eloora View Post
    I've gotten a fire/ice into the early teens, and so far so good. It's quite fun, and the damage is refreshing after having played everything BUT major damage dealing AT's for a while.

    I am still a little hazy on the optimal power priority, especially from /ice, while leveling. I plan on skipping both melee attacks, but I've read some positive things regarding Chilling Embrace, which is really only useful at close range, so I dunno. I'm not so good with making decisions on "situational" powers, and there are seemingly so many in Blaster secondaries!

    I haven't really decided what pool powers I should go for either. Hasten doesn't *seem* to be necessary here, although SS sort of works the best with my concept. I'm leaning toward my tried and true favorite hover/fly. I assume I'll want Stamina at some point. Other than that, what are the popular choices? Leadership and Fighting maybe? the D3 I roll with a lot has all 3 of the Leadership buffs, but they do stack right?

    Any more thoughts on this are welcome.

    Thanks.
    A blaster is a damage engine, dev designed to be fragile. Their design is to kill things quickly before their lack of mitigation allows them to be killed. Their inherent causes them to do additional damage the more damage they do and the faster they do it.

    With those things in mind what you need as a blaster is:

    1) Recharge to fuel defiance.

    2) Recovery and end reduction to fuel the recharge.

    3) A way to positon yourself safely to line up the maximum number of targets before unleashing your alpha.

    4) A way to survive/recover from their alpha.

    So for my blasters:

    1) Hasten is a must. It's tailor made to fuel defiance. +rech set bonuses and IOs are also nice to haves.

    2) Health and Stamina are needed to fuel that level of endurance consumption. Miracle + and Numina +/+ are also nice to have.

    3) The Stealth Pool and Super Speed are good for this one as is the Force Mastery Epic (PFF). Stealth from the stealth pool can be replaced later in your career by a stealth IO.

    4) Medicine Pool for aid self. This can be used proactively to reduce stun duration before unleashing your alpha and afterwards to heal up. Stealth Pool for Phase Shift if you get in over your head. Force Mastery Epic Power for Force of Nature and PFF. Leaping Pool for Combat Jumping and Acrobatics. Acrobatics can be (and probably should be) replaced later (or sooner if you have the means) in your career by a -KB IO (or 3, not 2 as 99% of KB that isn't stopped by 1 -KB IO isn't stopped by 2 either but is stopped by 3.)

    Things that you don't want (unless you are making a concept build or experimenting with IOs) are things that drain alot of endurance like toggle powers.

    Fighting pool, leadership pool, and acrobatics fall into this category. They are huge endurance drains for relatively little benefit.
  12. Quote:
    Originally Posted by GavinRuneblade View Post
    I'm confused on this part. If the issue is not enough random pool cs generated, wouldn't dropping the price of gold rolls increase the number available?
    Rolling Gold is generally a waste of tickets because it takes too many tickets comparatively to create a gold roll. All those tickets spent on a gold also means that Pool A's, Pool B's, and salvage that would have been generated from dev created content and sold on the market don't exist. That decreases supply and raises prices.

    Running story arc/TF content not only results in the creation of pool Cs but at the same time creates, Pool A's, Pool B's, and salvage. If run at level 50ish it can also result in the creation of purple recipes.

    The real problem with the market at the moment is that the devs went overboard on self determination to apease the market haters. My suggestion merely seeks to restore the balance with out removing self determination.
  13. Quote:
    Originally Posted by SpittingTrashcan View Post
    This looks a heck of a lot like a set of suggestions I've been schlepping around as of late, though having rolls accumulate points toward a non-random choice is a new twist and one that addresses the least popular aspect. I'm not clear on why the cost of a random roll needs to be boosted, unless you consider the extra 5 merits as being banked toward that non-random pick. And I'm also not clear on why gold rolls need to be removed, or why bronze roll prices need to be boosted - all you're really doing is making the pool C/D supply problem slightly worse there, while also reducing pool A supply. That there are a lot of pool A recipes is not, to my mind, a problem in and of itself.

    Other than that, it's more or less what I've been saying, so yeah. I'd add in that merits should be pooled at the account rather than the character level, so there's fewer merits collecting dust on various alts. I'd also throw in the ability to bid across a range of levels while we're at it - it's not much use to increase the spread of levels a recipe is available at if you can't leave a bid up for exactly n recipes between x and y level.
    Yes the extra merit cost is to accomodate the people that only save for a specific recipe. I doubt the devs will just make it free (I can hope, but all previous dev patterns concerned with the market have reduced the available Pool Cs at each and every step not increased them) but 20 rolls at 5 extra merits per roll is still less than saving 250 merits and it assures that there were 20 randoms generated geting there.

    Adding 5 to the random roll accounts for this. Right now there are 3 possibly 4 schools of thought.

    1) A player rolls only random rolls with merits. Frequently these players will store up to the maximum possible to hold and then roll them at 50. That has caused a dearth of supply in the lower levels.

    2) A player hates the market and only saves up to buy specific rolls. This player is essentially screwing the market and all the other players out of 11 recipes that otherwise may have made it to the market.

    3) A player rolls randomly until they get almost all the recipes they want for a build and then saves up for the specific ones they need. Not as bad as 2 but still extremely wasteful.

    4) A player is a fully IOd out level 50. No need to spend merits so they accumulate waiting for the next merit shiney to be released so that they can "buy it nao" with the accumulated merits as soon as it is released.

    All these things reduce (some times drastically reduce) the supply of pool Cs reaching the market. The rolls under my proposed solution don't "really" cost anything extra (and the freebie only costs 100 merits now instead of 250). What it does is make all players roll randomly without removing self determination from the mix.

    As far as the MA. Let's be honest. The MA over rewards, period. Mainly because of a higher level of self determination that isn't available in dev created content. Tickets concentrate your earning potential and skew the rewards produced.

    In the time it takes me to generate enough merits to roll a Pool C in dev created content, I can make far far more inf rolling bronze from the amount of tickets earned in the same amount of time (and have done so frequently)
  14. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Eloora View Post
    Thanks for the reply. I'm seriously leaning towards fire/ice ATM. It always seemed like a good pairing, but I could never come up with a costume/concept. Now that powers can be recolored, it's easier to reconcile odd power pairings (for those of us that actually care).
    Fire/Ice is an excellent choice for a first/learning blaster. It also fits all your criteria.
  15. Yep, it's broken and here's why:

    1) Lack of low - mid level pool c supply (because you can hoard merits.)

    2) The ability to waste multiple random rolls worth of merits on a single IO (self determination)

    3) Mission Architect (diluting/skewing the rewards pool)

    4) XP smoothing.

    5) Repair of the inf exemplar "bug" (50s generating yet more inf)


    We really need a repair for issue 1, 2, and 3 to solve the problem.

    The solution -

    Increase the merit cost of a random roll by *5 merits (to 25) [bear with me and don't freak out there's a reason].

    Eliminate hoarding by causing a recipe to be rolled everytime 25 merits (or a multiple thereof) are earned. This will increase the supply of low - mid level pool C recipes.

    Introduce a slider on the "merit ticker" that allows you to select any level between +3 to your current level (because that's what you can slot) all the way down to level 10. When the merit ticker reaches 25 a random Pool C is generated at the level the slider is set at.

    * once 20 Pool C recipes have been generated (either by that toon or account wide. It doesn't really matter since we can email things to our other characters now [provided they are in the same faction, a notion that still strikes me as patently ridiculous, the Pope could easily buy things from Osama Bin Laden on Ebay and neither one would have to know who sold or bought it]) give the character/account a "token" that can be redeemed at the merit vendor for any 1 Pool C recipe of any level desired.

    Remove Gold rolls from the MA and make Merit content/boss defeats outside MA the only way to generate Pool Cs. Then increase the ticket cost for Bronze rolls by 25%

    Poof, all of our current woes are lessened or eliminated.

    We retain self determination for the market whiners, increase the level spread of generated Pool Cs and the number since fewer merits are consistantly wasted/remain unspent, and remove one of the most annoying problems created by MA.
  16. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Umbral View Post
    If you really want more AoE damage, I would take it. It's not much work to quickly bounce out of melee to let loose with the cone based mayhem and then jump back in, especially when you consider that it's your highest damage AoE by a remarkable margin. The knockback can be a bit annoying, but, even with that, it's just a manner of finding a wall or corner to direct enemies at. I would agree that it's probably skippable, but you would also be skipping a remarkably powerful AoE simply because it can knock a few targets back.
    I wouldn't and didn't. A moderate amount of recharge will give you a seamless PBAoE attack chain without electron Haze that will wipe out everything up to and including lieutenants in the first itteration if you use Aim and Build up. Fire sword, Cosmic Burst, X-ray beam, and Neutrino Bolt are the attacks you use to finish off the boss in the spawn. You usually don't have to use them all either. Just pick the one or 2 needed to put out the damage required to end the encounter.

    Including the damage from Hot Feet, a Rad/Fire using Aim + Build up, Irradiate, Combustion, Fire Sword Circle, and Neutron Bomb kicks out 1290 damage in 8.5 seconds without accounting for the damage boost from defiance. (Assuming all powers are ED soft capped for damage)

    Atomic blast only does 1103 damage (again sssuming ED soft capped for damage) and takes 3 seconds to cast.

    All the Rad/Fire has to do is survive the Alpha Strike and then mop up the burning and fleeing bosses.
  17. The billionaire badge.

    To receive it you simply click on the button and it deducts 1 billion inf from you and opens up the solid gold tycoon costume.

    The multi-billionaire badge. When you click the button again it deducts another billion inf and opens up the "Gold Rolls" travel power. Which is just mission teleporter but it works on the entire team. A gold rolls pulls down the street, stops at the team, the doors open and the server shows all the members of the team entering the Rolls. The entire team then zones to the mission door.

    Recharge on the power is 15 minutes. Each time the power is used 100k inf is deducted from the owner for fuel. You can cut the recharge down to 5 minutes by installing a hybrid engine the price for which is 1,000,000,000 inf.

    Raffle tickets - The Devs hold anual Dev events (like Manticore's wedding - which was a fiasco the way it was done) and use the market to raffle off "tickets" to the event at 1,000,000 per chance. Lucky winners are allowed onto the test server for the event using the same mechanism used to allow entry to closed betas.

    Base empowerments - should be converted into an inf cost per level or better yet allow both mechanisms to be used. Not everyone is a computer geek and assembles their own computer. Some people pay much higher prices to have the finished product delivered to their door.


    The possibilities are endless. It just takes some dev attention to the problem and some dev action to implement a solution.
  18. You'll most likely want to try Smurphy or Fulmens.

    Don't expect it to be a 1:1 trade though. There is a conversion rate and profit for our forum money changers and with the potential exodus from red side to blue come GR I doubt red side inf is holding its value well.
  19. My doms are moving out of the third world country that is the Rogue Islands and over to Paragon City permanently.

    I started an experiment utilizing Wentworths and the Black Market, starting characters from scratch, and no twinking or inf transfers.

    The experiment was to run merit generating content, freeze at 30, and then IO out all the powers I had at 30 using the merits earned for random rolls and the market, once all powers had their recipies set aside, then unfreeze, go to level 35, and repeat, again at 40, then again at 45, and finally arrive at 50 fully IO'd.

    I was doing that with a Plant/Thorn Dom and a Plant/TA controller since the builds would be comparable just to check and see how the speeds compared. Lack of teaming opportunities on red side, lack of TF content in the appropriate level ranges, and an anemic black market have pretty much made the experiment an exercise in frustration and I'm bringing it to a close without completing it.

    The Plant/TA has been a fully IOd out level 50 for months, so I started an Earth/TA controller and it's a fully IOd 50 as well, I then started a Kin/Ice defender which is a fully IOd out 50 and the Sonic/Ice I started after that is a level 47 that has all the IOs waiting for when he hits 50. I started a Rad/Fire that's a level 35 now and will be unfreezing and moving on in 2 more pool C recipes.

    The Dom is still level locked at 30 and has been for months. I got a Miracle +, and an Oblit Quad today after a Silver Mantis SF, and I'm still 9 Pool C recipes off of being able to switch to AE to generate the Pool As I need.

    I'd like to say I spent the exact same amount of time playing on blue side as I have red side in this experiment, but that would be a lie. I've spent about 25% more time red side and am much less than 25% along on the build.

    So when GR comes out all my villians, but especially my doms, are saying toodles permanently to the black market and the isles.
  20. I love my Rad/Fire. You'll want some defense bonuses from IO sets though.
  21. Miladys_Knight

    Good combos?

    I'm kinda meh on it. With the earth primary the extra slows and -rech from the secondary become largely redundant.

    IME the best part of the pairing is power boost which becomes vastly less important if you build a perma dom.
  22. Fire/Rads are good for soloing or teaming but I'd have to say that if you want a controller for teaming, aren't afraid of, or better yet enjoy being in close/melee range, and you want massive team support the Ice/Rad will be your go to toon.

    Don't plan on defeating much of anything your self but you can pretty much count on the team needing nothing else in the way of support (barring any Leroy scrappers on the team) if you play it well.
  23. Miladys_Knight

    Nuke My Survey!

    On blasters I always take the nuke, on defenders I have never taken the nuke with the single exception of my Kin/Ice.

    Something no one has yet mentioned is defiance. It's easy to defiance buff your nuke.

    Find a nuke worthy spawn, target the boss, pop 2-3 purple insps, hit Aim + BU, spend the next 6 seconds throwing out single target attacks on the boss while their alpha bounces off your purples and they surround you and your defiance builds up, and then pop your nuke.

    It's not hard to get an extra 40% damage out of your nuke that way since Aim and BU will not have worn off while you are doing your ST attacks. The damage from the nuke + the single target attacks on the boss will wipe out the entire spawn with the exception of the 5% of stuff you always miss. You'll still have 30 seconds of insp duration left after the crash passes off. You can simply stand there and wait to start recovering again, pop a blue and smack the remainders, or waltz over to the next spawn with the little bit left over from the spawn you nuked tagging along for your next round of AoEs.
  24. Miladys_Knight

    Crazy Idea

    I could go for a way to cut exp earned by half and double the merit rate earned.
  25. Quote:
    Originally Posted by EmperorSteele View Post
    hmm, i wonder....

    Is the merit reward for both parts combined too low in GENERAL, or "too low to bother trying to exploit and speed-run"?

    Think hard before giving a knee-jerk, defensive answer. Because we all know that if the rewards were any higher, you'd all be finding ways to run the tfs as fast as possible to farm them just for the rewards. Instead, you're letting "low rewards" stop you from constantly replaying probably one of the best missions the game has offered up so far (and mind you that doing both missions does give you enough for a roll).

    The missions are simply fun, but you're letting your fun get dampened by a percieved lack of rewards. That don't sound right to me.
    Too low in general. KHTF is an excellent example of this. Your team faces an extremely annoying AV that scales up in power 10 times. The only reason it's set at 7 merits is:

    1) People selected/built toons/teams with the mob's specific weaknesses in mind.

    2) People then IO'd out those toons at the appropriate level to maintain all their set bonuses so that they could further increase the rate at which recipes were produced.

    3) The number and types of powers available in the KHTF (Level 34) are far greater than those for the posi TF.

    Bottom line is that merit farmers will grind the most lucrative TFs out. This skews the data mining on those TFs and the devs reduce the rewards below (in some cases far below) the completion time that an average and non-IO'd out team will run. (Bear in mind that the game is still supposedly balanced around SO use but the current round of merit nerfs pretty clearly doesn't take that into account)

    Net result is a global decrease in merit and pool C recipe supply, an increase in prices at the market, and still more "average" players coming here to complain about prices at the market.