Miladys_Knight

Ok Ex,

From what I understand Patrol XP won't work during double XP weekend.

Let's say I have 10 bubs of patrol XP available and I start out on the 2xp weekend.

Assuming that is correct. What happens to my patrol Bar as I play does it decrease as now because I'm earning double XP and the mechanic can't be disabled?

Does it disappear at the start of 2XP and then reappear when it is over?

Does it stay but is not used up by 2XP weekend?

If it stays but is not used up by 2XP weekend is it an "anti-debt" reservoir that debt comes out of but doesn't apply to earning the 2XP from the weekend?

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1) Disable the auto complete function. This would prevent people from "syncing up" their story arcs to get more merits than the system is intended to allow.

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Sorry, but no. Definitely not. Auto complete is great. If I have a mission that's too hard for me to do solo, and someone else is doing it in a team, I can join the team and get credit that way.

Now, if you want to say "no merit award when a mission is auto completed" (or when dropped), I can agree with that. But turning off this great feature just to ensure that someone somewhere isn't *OMG* getting more merits than they should get, that's the same sort of paranoia and bad choice that the developers have been doing, that have nerfed Katie to the point where few people want to do this fun TF because now it's all about the reward.

I do like the idea of merits for successful mayhems or safeguards, those are reasonably challenging and fun--and gives a reason for groups doing paper missions to actually keep going.

One thing, I don't see your solution doing, though, is fixing the problem you talk about, the market dying. It just is about getting more merits to avoid the market.

So, here's my suggestion...every time a TF or SF or trial is finished, a random roll recipe is added to the appropriate market. So people finish a Positron, a recipe is added to Wentworths from the 10-14 pool. It's priced at what a vendor would pay for the recipe. Level of the recipe is the top of the TF range.

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IMHO the whole problem lies in the TFs/SFs themselves and the way Merit rewards are calculated. I have never been on a TF where missions weren't ghosted, the content sped through or shortcuts taken. I've never been on a TF where a mission to defeat X critters didn't come up and the team leader said 'great we can find greys in Y zone', So off we go to waste 5-10 minutes and gain no exp defeating 40 greys we wouldn't normally waste our time on.

My proposed solution is simple and (IMHO) fair to everyone:

1) Rework the TFs/SFs to remove all of the Talking To missions and Hunt X portions. Any game content/story line that would be lost can be added as a Clue or as briefing/debriefing along the way. This way new players to the TF can read the background and experienced one can click OK and move on. This would speed up ALL of the TFs and make playing them more palatable and less tedious.

2) Reward Merits based on the number of foes defeated in the TF. This one is tougher because in some cases you're fighting hundreds of enemies and in some cases (Quarterfield) I would guess the number goes into the thousands. I can't think of anyone who would want to stay through ALL of those baddies but those that wish to can do so and get more Merits for their time. Those that wish to ghost through the TF (and who are likely the ones who blow the curve/datamine of 'average time spent') can continue to do so but will receive fewer Merits in doing so.

In order to do this Merits would be awarded at the end of the TF based on how many foes were defeated by the team. Each Minion would be worth (these numbers are completely pulled out of the air and just for example) 0.1 Merits, Lts 0.2 Merits and bosses 0.5 Merits each. Thus if the team plows through a total of 100 Minions, 25 Lts and 10 Bosses they get 20 merits.

If they chose the Devs could work it on a sliding scale where the team's levels could play a factor since an 8-man team of lvl 15s will take longer to defeat a typical spawn than an 8-man team of 35s.

Despite what others may say this is not some form of punishment for speeders...merely a way by which the Devs can finally balance the rewards given for ALL of the TFs. I don't want any of the content nerfed but if the players continue to farm Merits by speeding through content then the Devs may feel compelled to do so. Katie and Eden are prime examples.

I do NOT make this suggestion because I think that every mission in every TF should be a kill-all. But how on earth can the Devs ever come up with a average benchmark for how long it takes a team to complete anything, and thus a fair number of Merits to award, when there is simply no way to calculate how many players are going to ghost the content?

IMHO the only way to balance things is based on accomplishment, not time.

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You know the devs did exactly that with an existing system, influence. They evidently decided that they wanted a different system with TF's and trials for rewards, possibly because the influence system disproportionally awards damage dealers.

I'm not all that fond of the merit system as implemented (though I can work with/around it) but your proposed solution is potentially worse.

Quaterfield isn't a boring snoozefest because of the number of defeat alls. Most if the defeat alls are on small maps and go quite quickly. In my experience Dr. Q TFs take longer to travel to the mission locations than it takes to complete the missions themselves. The first third of the TF is defeat 50 of X mob around point Y missions.

If Dr. Q was in any zone other than the Shadow Shard it would take less than half the average time.

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1) Disable the auto complete function. This would prevent people from "syncing up" their story arcs to get more merits than the system is intended to allow.

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Sorry, but no. Definitely not. Auto complete is great. If I have a mission that's too hard for me to do solo, and someone else is doing it in a team, I can join the team and get credit that way.

Now, if you want to say "no merit award when a mission is auto completed" (or when dropped), I can agree with that. But turning off this great feature just to ensure that someone somewhere isn't *OMG* getting more merits than they should get, that's the same sort of paranoia and bad choice that the developers have been doing, that have nerfed Katie to the point where few people want to do this fun TF because now it's all about the reward.

I do like the idea of merits for successful mayhems or safeguards, those are reasonably challenging and fun--and gives a reason for groups doing paper missions to actually keep going.

One thing, I don't see your solution doing, though, is fixing the problem you talk about, the market dying. It just is about getting more merits to avoid the market.

So, here's my suggestion...every time a TF or SF or trial is finished, a random roll recipe is added to the appropriate market. So people finish a Positron, a recipe is added to Wentworths from the 10-14 pool. It's priced at what a vendor would pay for the recipe. Level of the recipe is the top of the TF range.

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The market needs to stay player controlled. Making the random roll more attractive will incentivise players that may not have used the market to do so (the market haters will still avoid it though no change there). Cutting the price of a random roll in half will double the supply of pool c and d recipes. Allowing the random roll to be at exact level for current merit price will allow more recipes in other level ranges.

As far as disabling the auto complete?

Why did you pick up a mission that was too hard for you to solo on a toon that can't solo? If your mission awards merits to all, then teams would be much more willing to help you complete them and you are much more likely to get a team with rewards going to all, with out the risk of too many merits being added to the system.

That aside if you really get a mission you can't complete solo and you absolutely can't find a team you can still use the mission drop feature every 3 days.

Objective Feedback: The market is bleeding to death. Not only has the merit system as implemented reduced the total number of pool c and d recipes being generated (and merits for story arc content is not making up for it since few pugs run story arc content and only the arc holder gets merits) but since recipes can be self determined by spending a much larger amount of merits to get exactly what you want fewer of the pool c and d recipes are making it to the market.

Subjective Feedback: The merit system has changed my play style significantly. I do much more soloing now and only story arc content. Prior to I13 I PUG'd about 20% of the time. (PUGing is how I met most of the players on my friends list and I would bet that's the way it is for most folks too). When I am teaming it is now only for Flashbacks or TFs where all participants receive awards. My solo capable toons receive lots of merits from both TFs and story arc content. My support toons that have difficulty soloing at a decent speed only receive merits from teaming and the only teaming that awards merits is TFs, flashbacks, and GMs.

Wentworths is starting to see shortages of tier 2 common salvage. I doubt that this is due to base storage of salvage being added and believe that more likely people are soloing story arc content and stealthing all that they can to get the merits at the end rather than fighting and generating salvage drops.

One reason that I am saving merits for specific recipes rather than taking the random roll is the ability to determine exact level for purchased recipes. My IO builds are designed to exemplar (I PvP only a little and not at all since the PvP changes have been implemented) but I do exemplar down to join my wife's toons and coalition and global channel folks. This means that I have to either park a toon at the level I wish to exemplar and attempt to get what I want through random rolls or to save far too many merits to buy the specific recipe I want at the level I want it with toons that have leveled beyond that point. Both of these are annoying rather than fun.

Proposed solutions: Rejuvenate the markets. To do this here are some ideas.

Story arc content needs to reward all players merits not just the mission holder. To do this and prevent gaming the system a couple things may need to be done.

1) Disable the auto complete function. This would prevent people from "syncing up" their story arcs to get more merits than the system is intended to allow.

2) Break down the arcs into smaller merits reward "chunks" each mission in a story arc would then award merits at its completion to all players.

A potential way to award them would be [*] 0 merits for delivery, talk to, patrol and hunt missions.[*] 2 merits for defeat alls[*] 1 merits for all other door missions.

Story arcs would need to be examined again to make sure the break down worked properly and didn't award too many merits or rewards and costs could both be upped across the board so that a finer break down could be implemented.

3) Award merits to players for paper/radio missions. No I don't mean give away the store. Players should receive 1 merit when they turn in their completed (non-failed) bank mission. A mechanic to do this would be the detective progress bar.

a) Disable auto complete.
b) Detective bar fills up.
c) Complete bank mission.[*] Failure empties the bar[*] Success leaves the bar filled.
d) turn in bank mission.[*] if progress bar is full it empties and awards 1 merit.[*] if progress bar is empty it clears the failed mission and does not award a merit.

4) Increase the market supply of pool c and d recipes. By doing one or more of the following.

a) Decrease the merit costs for random rolls and increase the merit cost of buying specific recipes by as much as 25%. This makes it less attractive to save though still viable. Here's how I would implement it.[*] merge pool c and pool d into a single merit pool.[*] 10 merits for a random roll on this pool. This functions exactly as it does now. You specify a level range and get the recipe at the level of your character or max level for that recipe set.[*] 20 merits for a random roll on this pool. The level of the recipe rolled is the exact level specified by the player. Recipes that can not be generated at this level (be they too high or too low) can not be obtained using this method. Only recipes that actually exist at the specified level can be generated.

-----OR------

b) Weigh the drop pools. Place all pool C and D recipes into a single merit pool and weigh them according to the number of powers in the game that actually use those sets. To keep from skewing the tables too badly add extra weight to commonly taken pool powers.

Almost everyone takes a travel power. Weight it based on actual pool break downs so that more of the most common travel type powers are awarded than the less common travel powers. Weight the universal set at the lowest of the travel powers.

Add weight to heal and end mod sets based on the number of players taking the fitness pool. (I'm guessing most people do take it. After all how many non-physically fit super heroes are there in the comic books? And of those few how many are not mentally fit to make up for it?)

Option B would mean that the recipes being generated would more closely match the number and type of powers that could slot the given recipe.

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it is not a precedence. if i remember right the Tier 9 from Willpower is the exact same way.

by doing it that way they are able to not have as bad of a crash and a constant recharge without having to make it so through the roof to prevent people from getting it to a perma state.

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You remember correctly. Strength of Will has a 5 minute recharge, a 2 minute duration and is also unaffected by recharge buffs.

Sleep - Damage no longer breaks it

Server: Justice
Zone: RWZ
Character name: Ebon Pearl
Time: 11:56 PM Central 12/06/08
Location: Any
Mission: NA
Mission Contact: NA
Bug Description: While hovering and fighting Rikti Mezzmerists my FF/dark/dark defender was put to sleep. My toggles stayed up and I remained in the air snoozing. I took damage and didn't wake up. I got hit 7 or 8 times while hovering and sleeping and didn't wake up. I was defeated without waking up at all.
Link to Forum Discussions: NA

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One With The Shield: It is has a base recharge of 6 minutes, is unaffected by recharge buffs and has a duration of 2 minutes

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Does "is unaffected by recharge buffs" mean that there is absolutely nothing the player can do to reduce the cycle time of the power below six minutes?

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That is exactly what it means, yes.

Miladys_Knight's I13 Guide to the Broad Sword/Shield Defense Scrapper as of 12/06/08

Milady's Knight's I13 Guide to the Broad Sword/Shields Scrapper

If you want a Scrapper set that is visually stunning with very cool animations, this is the one for you.

If you want a Scrapper with High Survivability that is very good at solo play or if you are a Scrapper player that likes to herd, operate at a distance from the team, or roam the battle field, then I would reccomend that you select a different mitigation set.

If you are the type of player that enjoys a challenge, likes to build characters using lots of set bonuses, or tends to operate near the rest of the team, then this set may be for you.

This combination of Primary/Secondary is one of the best, if not the best, for Shield Defense Scrappers.

The Pros - are some very nice hard hitting attacks, a PBAoE and 2 cone attacks (one is quite narrow), 2 hard hitting single target attacks, Build up and Against All Odds used together lets you put out extreme amounts of damage in the middle to late game, and the gem of the set, Parry which allows you to stack some extra melee defense early on when you really need it. Nice amounts of defense in the secondary.

The Cons - this combination pairs 2 very endurance hungry sets. The fitness pool is all but "required" since neither the primary or secondary have any extra recovery or regeneration built into them. The Miracle and Numina Uniques will also be quite helpful as will any other set bonuses/accolades that give +max endurance or extra recovery. There is very little secondary mitigation in this combination meaning that you will rely heavily on your defense and debuffs are the bane of this combination.

I will give slotting reccomendations for using SOs/common IOs and leave set bonuses up to the individual, though I will make some reccomendations on sets/set bonuses and pool powers that will be useful.

Broad Sword

Hack - a nice, hard hitting, single target attack. You will use this attack your entire journey to level 50.

Slotting reccomendation - (1) Accuracy, (1-2) Damage, (1-2) Recharge Reduction, (2) Endurance Reduction
Utility 10 out of 10

Slash - a low to moderate damage single target attack. This is the least useful attack power in the primary and even at that it is still a decent attack. It recharges fairly quickly though it is fairly expensive on endurance for the use that you will get out of it. This attack is one that you may want to take early in the game before you have nice fluid attack chain and then respec out of some time around level 35.

Slotting reccomendation - (1) Accuracy, (2) Damage, (1) Recharge Reduction, (2) Endurance Reduction

Utility 7 out of 10

Slice - a very nice cone attack. It has a nice arc and does decent damage. To get the most out of this attack allow the enemy mobs to bunch up a bit, target a mob in the center of the group, take a step backwards, hesitate just a bit, and then trigger this attack. You will be able to get the largest number of enemies in the damage arc this way.

Slotting reccomendation - (1) Accuracy, (1-2) Damage, (1-2) Recharge Reduction, (2) Endurance Reduction
Utility 9 out of 10

Build Up - what's not to like about a 100% boost to damage for 10 seconds? This power, Against All Odds, the build up proc from the Gaussian's set and a critial hit from the inherent is a thing of beauty that will even make Fire/ Blasters jealous of your big orange numbers.

Slotting reccomendation - (3) Recharge Reduction
Utility 10 out of 10

Parry - the jewel of the set. This power does a little damage and gives you a nice boost to melee and lethal defense at a modest endurance cost. With a small amount of recharge you can stack the melee defense this power provides with the defense from Deflection and have soft capped defenses (95% of, normal accuracy, enemy attacks will miss you) even in the early game. If you are having endurance woes prior to getting Stamina you "can" turn off Deflection and rely on this power to provide all of your melee defense. In the late game if you have focused on using invention sets to soft cap your defenses you will use this power only in rare situations when you want to halt a defense cascade failure. Even in this case the power is an excellent place to keep a Luck of the Gambler global recharge IO.

Slotting reccomendation - (1-2) Accuracy, (1) Recharge Reduction, (1) Endurance Reduction
Utility 10 out of 10

Confront - The least useful power in the set. The only feature that might potentially be useful is the -range component that was added to the power in I13 but in the late game opponents have greatly increased ranges and this nullifies what little advantage this power gives. In practice, it is just too situational to justify a power pick. Against All Odds has a decent taunt component in it and makes this power pretty much redundant and I would reccomend that you rely on it instead.

Slotting reccomendation - Skip this power
Utility 1 out of 10

Whirling Sword - a very nice PBAoE attack. Using Build up, Against All Odds, and chaining Slice and this power will allow you to eliminate all the even con minions in a group. Critical hits, the Gaussian's proc and damage bonuses from sets make this chain even better.

Slotting reccomendation - (1) Accuracy, (1-2) Damage, (1-2) Recharge Reduction, (2) Endurance Reduction
Utility 10 out of 10

Disembowel - This is the set's best single target attack. Not only does it do lots of damage but the Knock up component of the power provides decent mitigation.

Slotting reccomendation - (1) Accuracy, (1-2) Damage, (1-2) Recharge Reduction, (2) Endurance Reduction
Utility 10 out of 10

Head Splitter - This power is a hard hitting cone attack. It has a narrow (20 degrees) arc but it is possible with some practice to hit 2 or 3 targets with it. The Knock down component of this power provides additional mitigation.

Slotting reccomendation - (1) Accuracy, (1-2) Damage, (1-2) Recharge Reduction, (2) Endurance Reduction
Utility 10 out of 10

Shield Defense

Deflection
This is a toggle power that provides the majority of your defense to melee attacks and all of your resistance to smashing and lethal damage.

Pros - This power has a very nice amount of defense especially once you can slot SOs. Soft capping melee defenses in the late game using IO sets is fairly easy.

Cons - This power contains the majority of your melee defense and all of your resistance to smashing and lethal damage. This means that you must pick and choose what to enhance as there are 3 things this power provides that really need enhancing, defense, damage resistance, and endurance reduction

Defense provided - moderate
Resistance provided - low
Slotting reccomendation - (3) Defense Buff (2) Endurance Reduction (1) Damage Resistance
Utility 9 out of 10

Battle Agility
This is a toggle power that provides the majority of your defense to ranged and AoE attacks. It also provides the majority of your defense debuff resistance.

Defense provided - moderate
Defense Debuff Resistance provided - low/moderate
Slotting reccomendation - (3) Defense Buff (2) Endurance Reduction
Utility 10 out of 10

True Grit
This is a passive power that provides all of your reistance to Energy, Negative Energy, Fire, Cold, and Toxic damage. It also provides a low/moderate boost to total health.

Resistance provided - low/moderate
Health increase - low
Slotting reccomendation - (2-3) Damage Resistance (2-3) Heal
Utility 7 out of 10

Active Defense
This is a click power that provides your protection from status effects. It also provides more of your resistances to Defense Debuffs. Two +3 level SOs is enough to make this power "perma" with control+left mouse click. Sheild Defense provides very little resistance to recharge slows however, so I would not reccomend only 2 slots in this power. Extra recharge and hasten allow this power to be doubled stacked for a limited amount of time. While double stacked this power does provide double the amount of status protection and double the amount of defense debuff resistance (Double stacked active defense coupled with battle agility provides ~50% defense debuff resistance)

Status Protection provided - good
Defense Debuff Resistance provided - low
Slotting reccomendation - (3) Recharge Reduction
Utility 9 out of 10

Against All Odds
This is the best power in the set and the reason that all of the attacks are under slotted with damage enhancements, more damage would be redundant. This power is always useful, provides a tremendous return for endurance spent and everything in your design/build should attempt to highlight or focus this power. This is an offensive toggle power that can greatly enhance the damage that you deal to enemies that are within melee range as it buffs your damage for each enemy in range up to a maximum of 10 buffs. It also slightly debuffs the damage dealt by enemies within melee range. The power has a low/moderate taunt effect which helps to keep the enemies within range for both the personal damage buff and the enemy debuff. *I reccomend caution with this power especially against defense debuffing enemies* until you can increase your defenses through set bonuses and pool powers. This power can cause quite the devil's choice trade off of +damage with increased aggro. It is an oscillating, knife edge balance, type power. With proper and careful use this power will make you a damage dealing juggernaut. Improper use can cause fast trips to the hospital.

Damage buff provided - moderate to extreme
Enemy damage debuff provided - low
Slotting reccomendation - (2) Endurance Reduction
Utility 10 out of 10

Phallanx Fighting
This is one of the thematic powers in the Shield Defense set. It is a passive power that provides a low amount of defense to all positions and provides an additional amount of defense based on the number of nearby allies. The allies must be within 8' of the shield weilder and the power provides it's maximum benefit from being within range of 3 allies. This power is extremely situational. To get more than the base amount of defense you must be on a team and have allies that stay in melee range of you at all times. This power conflicts with Against All Odds since each ally that is near you providing you with a defense buff is also preventing an enemy or 2 from being effected by the damage debuff and you don't get the damage buff that having those enemies nearby provides. I wouldn't reccomend skipping this power as it is useful to soft cap your defenses but you can put this power off until late in your build. This is another excellent place to slot a Luck of the Gambler global recharge IO.

Defense provided - very low to low
Slotting reccomendation - (1) Defense Buff
Utility 3 out of 10

Grant Cover
This is one of the thematic powers in the Shield Defense set. This is another highly situational power. It is a toggle power that provides a very low amount of defense debuff resistance and recharge debuff resistance to the shield weilder and nearby allies. It also provides a moderate amount of defense to allies (but not the shield weilder) that are within 15'. For solo use the small amount of personal resistances provided are not worth the endurance cost. On teams, the small area of effect means that the teamates that can best benefit from it will be either too far away or exposed to an unsafe amount of colateral damage from enemy Area of Effect attacks. When slotting sets, a Winters Gift Unique IO will provide more resistance to recharge debuffs than this power, global recharge bonuses and hasten will allow double stacking of the defense debuff resistances in Active Defense and additional defense from set bonuses will greatly reduce the benefits of this power. Grant Cover is the most skippable power in this set.

Defense provided (self) - none
Defense provided (allies) - moderate
Slotting reccomendation - (2) Defense Buff (1) Endurance Reduction

Solo
Utility 2 out of 10
Teamed
Utility 4 out of 10

Shield Charge
This is one of the thematic powers in the Shield Defense set. It is a click attack power that provides very good levels of mitigation due to the very high chance of knock down that it causes to enemies. It is also one of the most fun powers in the set. Using the power can be problematic since it suffers from long recharge and using it to go father than melee range causes the shield weilder to lose the majority of the defense provided by Phalanx Fighting, lose the damage bonus from Against All Odds, and can cause allies to lose the defense provided by Grant Cover. The power can be difficult to target for players unused to teleport and is further hampered by the teleport reticle problem especially on uneven terrain. Sheild charge does not benefit from Against All Odds unless it is used in melee range (which esentially eliminates the coolness factor of the power). The Teleport travel power plus any other mid-high damage PBAoE is arguably a better choice since the combination is available more often and allows the selected PBAoE to benefit from Against All Odds. If you have a fluid attack chain and are not in need of another attack power you can easily skip this power.

Mitigation provided - High
Damage provided - Moderate
Slotting reccomendation - (1-2) Accuracy (1-3) Damage (1-3) Recharge Reduction (1) Endurance Reduction

Solo
Utility 5 out of 10
Teamed
Utility 3 out of 10

One With The Shield
This is a click power that increases resistances to all types of damage except psionic, increases total health, and increases endurance recovery. It is has a base recharge of 6 minutes, is unaffected by recharge buffs and has a duration of 2 minutes. It provides levels of mitigation similar to Will Power's Strength of Will but has a 60% endurance depletion that is less harsh than other tier 9 crashes. If you are using set bonuses to soft cap your defenses you will use this power much less frequently, though it will still be useful in heavy defense debuff situations.

Smashing/Lethal resistance - Moderate/High
Fire/Cold/Energy/Negative Energy/Toxic resistance - Low/Moderate
Psionic resistance - none
Health Increase - Moderate
Endurance Recovery - Extreme
Slotting reccomendation - (2-3) Damage Resistance (2-3) Heal (0-1) Endurance Modification

Utility 6 out of 10


Reccomended Pool Powers


Travel Pool

Teleport and Team Teleport

These are both very useful powers for the shield weilder. Taking teleport as a travel power allows the user to get "double use" as it were for travel and as a replacement for the Shield Charge power. Using Team teleport allows you to keep your allies within the area of affect of both the Phalanx Fighting and Grant Cover powers.

Fitness

Health and Stamina

Shield Defense is a power set that has low/moderate mitigation and high endurance use. The added benefit of increased regeneration and recovery are not to be overlooked and are more important for Sheild Defense than most other power sets.

Fighting

Tough and Weave

These 2 powers from the fighting pool can help add survivability that this set lacks especially when solo. Endurance consumption becomes problematic when running these 2 higher end use toggles however.

Medicine

Aid Self

This power will allow the sheild weilder to get back in the battle faster and reduce down time, especially valuable when solo.

Reccomended Set Bonuses

The Shield Defense power set will benefit from the following global set bonuses listed in order of benefit

Extreme

Endurance Recovery
Positional Defenses
Regeneration
+Max Endurance

High
Resistances
+ Health
+ Recharge
+ To Hit
Accuracy


Moderate
Debt Protection

Greetings and Welcome.

Greetings and welcome.

Base Repricing

1) How will the repricing of bases affect you personally?
I will be able to easily expand to the next higher plot size. With our current rate of prestege earning we would have been able to do that in early January anyway.

2) Will you dismantle your base to gain the additional prestige from the repricing?
My base is designed around function and functional form first and decorations second. I won't be dismantling any crafted items at all though I will be able to fit the last teleporter that we need into the expanded base. Post release I will immediately recover the prestege for plot size and non-crafted items however.

3) How long would this process take you if you were to engage in this practice?
We will be adding the last bit of missing function and some rooms exclusively for decorations it will takes several tens of hours (but less then 100) to get it the way that I want it.

4) What are the positive and negative concerns regarding repricing?
Not many really. It's trivially easy to get to fully functional especially since (with the exception of the pocket D beacon) no additional functionality has been added.

5) How will this feature affect you long term and short term?
My maximum functionality base will happen in January or at I13 release. Reduced rent means that I will be stockpiling prestege that I won't really need for function and won't be able to use up in decorations.


Base Salvage Exchange to Invention Salvage

1) What is the negative effect on your base for this feature implementation?
Dramatically reduced use of empowerment stations. Higher out of pocket influence (ie: non-group/non-prestege) costs for any crafted items desired due to substitution of invention salvage. Impact of drastically reduced storage of event salvage.

2) What is the positive effect on your base for this feature implementation?
There are none.

3) How long will it take you to adjust to learning this new system?
All ready adjusted from open beta.

4) What side effects to this system do you currently see from transitioning the old to new system?
Negative impacts on the market especially in combination with dual builds. Increased security issues since base construction now uses invention salvage. Direct out of pocket costs to the base architect for base construction.

5) What security concerns do you have regarding this change?
Rampant theft issues due to permissions problems and lack of bin security.


Additional Notes:

30 pieces of salvage per bin is not nearly enough to allow for base construction, event salvage, and empowerment station use.

It's a scale of 1 to 10 (there are 10 smileys). It's based on how well the set utilizes the power in question or how good the power is in respect to the rest of the set and it's based on the play testing I did in closed beta.

Milady's Knight's I13 Guide to Shields (Open Beta - release version)

If you want a Tank/Brute/Scrapper set that is visually stunning with very cool animations, this is the one for you.

If you want a Tank/Brute/Scrapper with High Survivability that is very good at solo play or if you are a Tanker/Brute player that likes to herd or a scrapper player that likes to operate at a distance from the team, then I would reccomend that you select a different mitigation set.

If you are the type of player that enjoys a challenge or tends to operate near the rest of the team, then this set may be for you.

I will give slotting reccomendations for using SOs/common IOs only and leave set bonuses up to the user, though I will make some reccomendations on set bonuses and pool powers that will be useful.


Deflection
This is a toggle power that provides the majority of your defense to melee attacks and all of your resistance to smahing and lethal damage.

Defense provided - moderate
Resistance provided - very low
Slotting reccomendation - (3) Defense Buff (2) Endurance Reduction
Utility <->

Battle Agility
This is a toggle power that provides the majority of your defense to ranged and AoE attacks. It also provides the majority of your defense debuff resistance.

Defense provided - moderate
Defense Debuff Resistance provided - low/moderate
Slotting reccomendation - (3) Defense Buff (2) Endurance Reduction
Utility

Phallanx Fighting
This is an auto power that provides some defense to all positions and provides an additional amount of defense based on the number of nearby allies. The allies must be within 8' of the shield weilder with a maximum benefit provided by 3 allies.

Defense provided - very low to low
Slotting reccomendation - (2-3) Defense Buff
Utility <->

Active Defense
This is a click power that provides your protection from status effects. It also provides the rest of your resistances to Defense Debuffs. Two +3 level SOs is enough to make this power "perma" with control+left mouse click. Sheild Defense provides no resistance to recharge slows however, so I would not reccomend only 2 slots in this power. Extra recharge and hasten allow this power to be doubled stacked for a limited amount of time. While double stacked this power does provide double the amount of status protection and double the amount of defense debuff resistance (Double stacked active defense coupled with battle agility provides ~50% defense debuff resistance)

Status Protection provided - good
Defense Debuff Resistance provided - low
Slotting reccomendation - (3) Recharge Reduction
Utility

Against All Odds
This is a toggle power that can greatly enhance the damage that you deal to enemies that are within melee range as it buffs your damage for each enemy in range up to a maximum of 10 buffs. It also slightly debuffs the damage dealt by enemies within melee range. The power has a low/moderate taunt effect which helps to keep the enemies within range for both the personal damage buff and the enemy debuff. *I reccomend caution with this power especially against defense debuffing enemies* the power can cause quite the devil's choice trade off of +damage with increased aggro. It is an oscillating, knife edge balance, type power.

Damage buff provided - moderate to extreme
Enemy damage debuff provided - low
Slotting reccomendation - (2) Endurance Reduction (0-2) Taunt
Utility <->


Grant Cover
This is a toggle power that provides no benefit at all to the shield weilder but does provide a moderate amount of defense to allies that are within 15'. It is absolutely no use solo and can be a mixed bag when teamed due to it's small area of effect. This is the most skippable power in the set.

Defense provided (self) - none
Defense provided (allies) - moderate
Slotting reccomendation - (2) Defense Buff (2) Endurance Reduction

Solo
Utility
Teamed
Utility <->

Shield Charge

EDIT - This power can not be used while hovering or flying

This is a click attack power that provides very good levels of mitigation due to the very high chance of knock down that it causes to enemies. It is also one of the most fun powers in the set. Using the power can be problematic since it suffers from long recharge and using it to go father than melee range causes the shield weilder to lose the majority of the defense provided by Phalanx Fighting and can cause allies to lose the defense provided by Grant Cover. The power can be difficult to target for players unused to teleport and is further hampered by the teleport reticle problem especially on uneven terrain. Sheild charge does not benefit from Against All Odds unless it is used in melee range (which esentially eliminates the coolness factor of the power). The Teleport travel power plus any other mid-high damage PBAoE is arguably a better choice since the combination is available more often and allows the selected PBAoE to benefit from Against All Odds.

Mitigation provided - High
Damage provided - Moderate
Slotting reccomendation - (1-2) Accuracy (1-3) Damage (1-3) Recharge Reduction (1) Endurance Reduction

Solo
Utility <->
Teamed
Utility <->

True Grit
This is an auto power that provides all of your reistance to Energy, Negative Energy, Fire, Cold, and Toxic damage. It also provides a low boost to total health.

Resistance provided - very low
Health increase - low
Slotting reccomendation - (2-3) Damage Resistance (2-3) Heal
Utility <->

One With The Shield
This is a click power that increases resistances to all types of damage except psionic, increases total health, and increases endurance recovery. It is has a base recharge of 6 minutes, is unaffected by recharge buffs and has a duration of 2 minutes. It provides levels of mitigation similar to Will Power's Strength of Will but has a 60% endurance depletion that is less harsh than other tier 9 crashes. Activating this power while solo will bring you up to or somewhat over mitigation levels that most archtypes with a damage mitigation primary/secondary typically enjoy outside their tier 9 mitigation power.

Smashing/Lethal resistance - Moderate/High
Fire/Cold/Energy/Negative Energy/Toxic resistance - Low/Moderate
Psionic resistance - none
Health Increase - Moderate
Endurance Recovery - Extreme
Slotting reccomendation - (2-3) Damage Resistance (2-3) Heal (0-1) Endurance Modification

Solo
Utility <->
Teamed
Utility <->

Reccomended Pool Powers


Travel Pool

Teleport and Team Teleport

These are both very useful powers for the shield weilder. Taking teleport as a travel power allows the user to get "double use" as it were for travel and as a replacement for the Shield Charge power. Using Team teleport allows you to keep your allies within the area of affect of both the Phalanx Fighting and Grant Cover powers.

Fitness

Health and Stamina

Shield Defense is a power set that has low mitigation and high endurance use. The added benefit of increased regeneration and recovery are not to be overlooked and are more important for Sheild Defense than most other power sets.

Fighting

Tough and Weave

These 2 powers from the fighting pool can help add survivability that this set lacks especially when solo. Endurance consumption becomes problematic when running these 2 higher end use toggles however.

Medicine

Aid Self

This power will allow the sheild weilder to get back in the battle faster and reduce down time, especially valuable when solo.

Reccomended Set Bonuses

The Shield Defense power set will benefit from the following global bonuses listed in order of benefit

Extreme

Endurance Recovery
Positional Defenses
Regeneration
+Max Endurance

High
Resistances
+ Health
+ Recharge
+ To Hit
Accuracy


Moderate
Debt Protection

[ QUOTE ]
I love Vig.... I never pay for anything with this... heck, with no End Red, i still never have End problems unless facing sappers.

[/ QUOTE ]

Try playing something other than empathy.

FF/ and cold/ can soft cap the teams defenses. They take 5% of the incoming damage and you get no break from vigilence.

Dark/, rad/, and Storm/ can all reduce an enemy's to hit values so far that they do the same.

I was on an 8 man team today. There were 2 defenders me (FF/dark/dark) and a sonic/sonic/power. I have all my blasts and shields slotted at or near ED capped end red. I have numina +/+, and miracle + slotted in health. I have stamina slotted with a common end mod, pshifter end mod and pshifter proc and a few other +recovery bonuses and I don't have hasten.

I and the sonic/sonic/power kept running out of endurance because no one on the team was taking any damage.

Once the Fire/kin on the team figured out what was going on she spent less time concentrating on imps and kept us speed boosted which finally relieved the problem. Vigilence certainly didn't.

[ QUOTE ]

There is a reason for the rejoicing in Paragon City and the Rogue Isles. It is official – NCsoft has completely merged the two games into one game universe. All current subscribers who only had one of the games (City of Heroes or City of Villains) now have access to the features of both games. Additionally, all City of Heroes and City of Villains games for sale at retail or online will grant access to both games.


[/ QUOTE ]

I'm looking forward to the point in time when they are truly completely merged as in:
[*] The market is one market.[*] My hero can give items and insps that I can't use to a villian teammate in a coop zone.[*] Going to my base, orobouros, or the hospital doesn't kick me from the team in a joint holiday event or co-op zone.

That's when I will consider them merged. Here's to looking forward to more steps in the right direction though.

Cheers.

[ QUOTE ]
I'm not getting this behaviour from bosses...but fleeing smallfry is rather annoying, especially on my nin/nin stalker since I really want everything in melee with me. Plus chasing things down often ends up in agro from other spawns. Picking up Soaring Dragon with its knockdown helped, but even so, it's a pain.

It's not much fun.

[/ QUOTE ]

I get this on bosses. Freak show bosses, especially with my blaster. If I don't have the Tanks immob'd, and they are out doors they will even run far enough away that they despawn.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
What the heck is "snood," anyway?

(Seems like this board is developing some of its own conventions and terms, what with "snood" this, and "drinking tears" that. Would be nice if someone would write up a FAQ for the, dare I say it, casual forum reader…)

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snood is a term for a hairnet which sounds kind of funny. Squez made a character that included the word. It went off the tracks from there, but not due to Squez.

[/ QUOTE ]

Less well known is this.

Turkey

A turkey is either of two extant species of large birds in the genus Meleagris native to North America. Turkeys are classed in the order Galliformes. Within this family they are placed on one branch with Tetraonidae. Turkeys have a distinctive fleshy wattle that hangs from the underside of the beak, and a fleshy protuberance that hangs from the top of its beak called a snood .

<QR>

My wife, daughter and I were playing tonight and this was really noticeable on the midnighter arc mission where you have to defeat Ci'don the first time.

I was a level 31 MA/regen, my wife was playing a level 31 ice/ice blaster, my daughter was playing a level 27 ice/storm controller side kicked to me.

I had a threat level of 3 and they each had a threat level of 1. I would wade in and use Provoke (from the presence pool) and hit a guardian or a comm officer with cobra strike. After I picked up aggro my daughter would drop snow storm on one of the mobs near me and my wife would drop ice storm at the back on the drones.

I would then use Dragons Tail on the mobs near me and as soon as they got up they would run away, literally scattering in all directions. They would not return to attacking me but would stream past me to the left and the right aggroing on the blaster and the controller and as often as not ignoring further provokes from me.

My daughter and wife would have to drop Ice patch and ice slick where they were standing and back up and I would have to back up and start fighting in the ice slick. As soon as the ice slick wore off and the mobs could regain their footing they would stream away from me in all directions again and then return once again passing me on the left and right and heading straight for the blaster and controller again. I could stop one with Air sup and the wife and daughter had single target holds but most of the time we didn't survive the second "run away!" because ice patch and ice slick weren't recharged.

Once the mobs had taken out the rest of my team they would make a bee line for me and all pile on the rabbit but not until I was all that was left. Once it was only me the run AI wouldn't kick in at all and they would stand there and pummel me until I won or ran out of insps and dropped.

/bug

Icons.

Server - Justice

Character - Caveman

Level 19 Willpower/Stone Melee Tank

The icons on the icon bar for Quick Recovery and Rise to the Challenge were diplaying correctly pre-patch. Now, post patch those icons no longer have a transparent border they display their border as solid black.

[ QUOTE ]
My issue is that if you want salvage you can get the salvage. But getting salvage is counter intuitive to teaming. If you team someone else gets your drop or the drop you would sell to buy your drop. At the same time the rate in which one IO's out their 50 is in a matter of days. So saving up for that day becomes difficult because of storage limitation unless you make mules.
So why team if you are producing your own goods. That is part of the reasons why cov has fewer teams. Because not everyone can afford to team because of drop rates.

Recipe drops from taskforces is another thing. The prices of the taskforce rares went up after the recent changes to how the mobs spawn. It made it so the production of the rares everyone wanted cranked out at a decent pace. I've done my share of Cap SF's. I've dumped a lot of stuff on the market just because none where listed because they sold for crap. The only way to make these taskforce drops more reasonable/accessible is give villians a Kattie Hannon like tf.

Nerfing power leveling only lowers the amount of influence people will have access to and will only drive prices up more.

The real issues isn't the market or the system but the rate in which we want to finish IO'ing out our toons versus the Dev's time table for that accomplishment.

[/ QUOTE ]

As far as the KHTF goes, to balance it in respect to the Cap SF, (and all the blue side players will hate me for this) the easiest thing for the devs to do would be to add about 4-10 minutes to it. A couple of things that should be fairly easy to do to cause this to happen.

Add 3 keys and 3 doors to the Amy Johnson mission. That means that you have to clear a Fiend and his spawn in 3 of the rooms to get the key to open the door to the next chamber. Solo stealth + recall team gets the nerf here since you will have to have 3 folks with the vet power or a player with recall friend. That should add about 2-5 minutes to the TF and prevents the timid door huddle of the non-stealthers.

Then all the devs have to do is give Katie tactics. That is enough + perception to cause her to aggro on the nearby mobs and it means the whole team has to come free her and wipe the mobs in her vicinity that will add about 2-5 more minutes to the TF. Which would make Katie and Virgil about the same amount of time.

The rest balances out. Virgil drops tier 1 salvage but has a better chance of dropping the "good stuff" due to minimum level requirements. Katie drops tier 2 and tier 3 salvage but has the full range of junk available due to minimum level requirements.

[ QUOTE ]
Part of the underlying problem is that the public doesn't have a very standardized idea of 'value' and that means that the market can careen wildly. For instance, as a general rule of thumb whenever you buy something, use it, and go to sell it used, you can expect to charge about half what you paid new for. The price of selling a dropped piece of salvage to a vendor could be thought of as that half-price value. Thus, the more ideal price for any piece of salvage on the market would be 2x the vendor price: 500, 2k, or 10k. Something that gets used more than other things, for instance Luck Charms, should be scaled off that. Realistically, a Luck Charm should be worth in the range of 2500 to 5000 influence, not 80k.


[/ QUOTE ]

See my sig. The ancient Romans had it all figured out over 2100 years ago. Our CoH public has it figured out. No one has to pay 80k since everyone can produce their own luck charm especially since Flashback was added.

If enough buyers think that 80k is worth it that's the price it will be. If no one thinks that 80k is worth it then a luck charm priced at 80k won't sell - ever. Especially considering that in 20 minutes of Flashing back you can pick one up your self if you don't like the price.

If you just said in your head "20 minutes! I can make way more than 80k with my level 50 fire/kin in less than 20 seconds!" Then you understand why the price is what it is.

If you didn't say that then you need to get any toon up to 50 and play out of super group mode for an hour. You will understand why luck charms sell for 80k and you will also, at that point, realize that the price of luck charms will never be 5k unless the devs make some fairly substantial changes to recipes, drop rates, or content. None of which seems that likely to me.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Why even have the +Stealth IO exist at every level above 15? If I had been designing this part of the game, I'd have made all the stealth IOs exactly level 15. (Perhaps the recipe would need to be level-dependent, to work with the current drop system. But the crafted IOs should all be the same level...)

[/ QUOTE ]Only one level of each unique IO would be great, they all do the same thing anyways. And yeah, the unique recipes should still have a specific level so you can't slot a miracle +recovery before level 17, and probably some kind of tag as well to make them only drop between 20 and 40.

[/ QUOTE ]

Not exactly. As a for instance the unique - steadfast resist/+3% defense does indeed provide more resistance if you use a higher level IO. The +3% defense part though is the same no matter what.

Ok so Posi still doesn’t want to merge the markets….. but we know from Ex that there are disparities. So I’m posting these with the hope that they may help things on the red side market or at the very least to give the devs a more solid reason to merge the markets instead of waffling on it.

Everyone should by now know that I am pro-merger but I think the most important thing is, that what should be an integral part of the game, function well for as many people that play as possible. If these ideas are implemented and solve the red side problems that’s fine and dandy because then the markets wouldn’t need to be merged.

So here is the list of potential problems that I see and a list of ways to fix them red side with out screwing them up blue side while applying the same changes to both sides so that a merger could still be a possibility if these ideas prove not to work out. I’m also listing both the pros and cons of my proposed solutions as I see them.

1) Lack of supply. This can actually be broken down into some sub categories and I will do that.

A) Reserves. Reserves are in essence total amount of goods available on the market. The higher the population the larger the reserve, larger reserves turn over faster and larger reserves usually result in lower prices. Red side doesn’t have enough reserves to hit the “mystical critical population” mark. The question is how to get more reserves with out increasing population or merging the markets. Total reserves in this case is the number of items available which directly relates to the number of players using the market and the total number of transaction slots available to each market user.

Solution – increase the number of available transaction slots on both sides.

Pro - On the Red side this may get them up to “critical mass.” On the blue side there should not be much difference as they are all ready at critical mass. Limited slots means that players will only list the items they receive that are high to mid value and once they are out of transaction slots may simply vendor the rest. More transaction slots means that items that are mid to low value can be listed with out the risk of clogging slots that are needed for items a player feels are higher priority.

Con – Transaction slots can be used as additional storage. This gives a greater ability to hoard which is all ready a problem on red side. I believe that the extra transaction slots may be used to hoard short term but this may not be as much of a problem on reflection. People who wish to increase their hoarding can all ready do so simply by using a second account and dual boxing to effectively double their storage.

Implementation – I believe that between 5 and 8 extra transaction slots per character may be enough to push red side up to critical mass. This can be approached cautiously and slots can be doled out in stages to make a smooth transition rather than an abrupt one.

Thoughts on how to do this: add 1 extra transaction slot to each character per 10 levels. At the time of implementation a level 10 character would gain 1 more transaction slot than the current total, a level 20, two more etc., up to 5 extra slots for a level 50.

Add a SF/TF or trial on each side that has the BM/WW employee as the contact for the SF/TF/trial that should average between 1 hour to 1 and ½ hours to complete. This could be similar to the respect trial as it could appear in 3 different level bands against 3 different factions which could be arcane or tech droppers depending on what data mining says is required or dev preference. Give the usual reward table for this SF/TF/trial but add a selection (like choose respec) that would allow the player to permanently gain an additional transaction slot (3 slots in total).

B) Salvage – this seems to be in short supply especially for arcane and especially in the tier 1 and tier 2 range but tier 3 seems to have a glut except for rares. XP smoothing seems to have exacerbated this problem since players now spend less time in these tiers which reduces the number of drops received in tier 1 and tier 2 but increases the amount of tier 3 salvage on the market.

Solution – change the drop rates for salvage and make the changes higher in the low level bands. Currently the drop rates are identical in all tiers with the drop rates as following

Minion - 8%
Lieutenant/Sniper – 10.64
Boss – 25%

I propose the following changes

Level 4 -19 (tier 1 salvage only)

Minion - 12%
Lieutenant/Sniper – 17.5%
Boss – 40%

Level 20 – 25 (mix of tier 1 and tier 2)

Minion - 10%
Lieutenant/Sniper – 15%
Boss – 35%

Level 26 – 34 (tier 2 only)

Minion - 9%
Lieutenant/Sniper – 12%
Boss – 30%

Level 35 – 39 (mix of tier 2 and 3)
Minion - 8%
Lieutenant/Sniper – 10.64
Boss – 25%

Level 40 + (tier 3 only)

Minion - 6%
Lieutenant/Sniper – 8%
Boss – 17%

This could do much to solve the lack of supply in these levels. These numbers are examples only I recommend data mining to determine appropriate changes.

Pros – Gives back a certain number of drops that were taken away by the introduction of XP smoothing and debt reduction. Players that do not use the market will have a little more influence to buy TOs and DOs in the level ranges where they tend to be cash strapped. Slightly reduces the glut of tier 3 salvage.

Cons – XP smoothing may not be the only source of this shortage. Farming, Power Leveling and Side kicking/Lackeying may be large contributors to this problem that would not be remedied by this proposal.

C) Pool A and B recipes. Same problem as salvage. I recommend the same solution with an increase in the lower tiers and a slight decrease in tier 3. Data mine for appropriate figures.

Pros – Gives back a certain number of drops that were taken away by the introduction of XP smoothing and debt reduction. Players that do not use the market will have a little more influence to buy TOs and DOs in the level ranges where they tend to be cash strapped. Slightly reduces the glut of tier 3 salvage.

Cons – XP smoothing may not be the only source of this shortage. Farming, Power Leveling and Side kicking/Lackeying may be large contributors to this problem that would not be remedied by this proposal.

D) Pool C and D recipes – These are a problem because the drop rate is nearly impossible to change as it is 100% each TF/SF. Quick TF/SFs like Katie Hannon and Virgil Tarikoss are run to rapidly gain a recipe while excessive TFs like Dr. Quarterfield give an identical reward giving rise to complaints of risk vs. reward. Since time is the real currency in CoX this is a valid complaint. There is also what is perceived to be a large amount of “junk” in Pool C that makes this time balance even worse. Some players believe that the Pool should be weighted to take into account the number of powers that use each set but I believe that I have a better idea that would solve or reduce several problems at once.

Solution – Task force “tokens”. These would be salvage. They could be tradable like candy canes or non-tradable like vanguard merits. I believe that there could be possible problems with them being tradable but I believe that it is minimal. At the end of a SF/TF when the reward table comes up a set number of TF tokens would also be awarded. This number would be a permanent number that would be based on the data mined average amount of time it takes to run the TF in question (approximately 1 token per 30 minutes) and not the actual time of each individual TF (because it could be gamed) other factors could also be weighed in or taken into account when awarding TF tokens. Katie Hannon is a preferred TF on the blue side not only because it is one of the shortest TFs in the game but also because all the enemies drop arcane salvage in tiers 2 and 3 with out facing arcane mobs that “mez”.

As an example the Katie Hannon TF may drop no TF tokens. The Virgil Tarikoss SF and Ernesto Hess TF would each drop 1 token the Dr. Quarterfield TF would drop 16 tokens all of this in addition to the regular reward from the drop table at the end of the TF.

Once received, TF tokens could be redeemed by speaking to Statesman on the Blue side and Lord Recluse on the Red side. A certain number of tokens would get you a random roll on the TF rewards pool exactly as if you had clicked on rare recipe at the end of the TF/SF. As an example 3 tokens would give you a random roll with the level of the recipe also being random between 10 and 30 from the recipes available in that pool. 4 tokens would get you a random roll with the level of the recipe being random between 31 and 40 from the recipes available in that pool and 5 tokens would get you a random roll with the level of the recipe being random between 41 and 50 from the recipes available in that pool.

The same system could be used with Pool D (which has supply shortages on both sides) though I would recommend that the 2 salvages be different and non-interchangeable.

Pros – supplies more recipes in Pool C and D and supplies a greater proportion of them at lower level since it takes fewer tokens to get a recipe in the lower tiers. This will somewhat balance the out leveling of desirable recipes due to XP smoothing. It also makes lower level Pool C recipes available through drops to players that have out leveled that tier. Some what balances out the disparities in time require to receive a reward that exists between blue side and red side with out requiring the addition of a great deal of new content. Eliminates the need to weight the drop tables since “getting crap” for a long TF is one of the perceived problems of the current system and this solution allows more rolls for completing longer TFs.

Cons – none that I can foresee.

E) Teaming Penalties – these are decreased drops due to team size and are caused by pauses for recruitment, travel required, and defeat speed (large teams may be defeating larger mobs faster but much of the damage may be over kill). They are also caused by the random number generator having the ability to award the same person repeatedly while not reward other players on the team.

Solution – increase the base mob drop percentages based on team size (perhaps by ½% per additional teammate). Add a “streak breaker” to the drops. Maintain the randomness but cause it to exclude the person who received the last drop from this time’s random roll.

I.e.: on a 3 man team if player 1 receives a drop then the next time a drop is rolled only player 2 or 3 could receive it. If in that case it is player 3 then the next drop could only be received by player 1 or 2 etc.

F) Power leveling – This reduces the amount of pool A and B recipes because the player that is side kicked/lackeyed is receiving drops that are not in the tier that they are in. This reduces supply in that tier and increases it in tier 3 and gives the player being power leveled drops that are potentially more valuable in terms of total influence than if they had been playing normally in their actual tier.

Solution – code drops so that drops received are based on actual player level rather than mob level. If the team is clearing out carnies for example the level 50 would be receiving prophecies and spirit thorns while the side kick would be receiving lament boxes and luck charms the side kicked/lackeyed player would also be receiving level 10 recipes worth a couple hundred inf rather than 100,000 inf.

Pros – creates items in the tiers that have shortages by forcing drops into native level. Has the potential to reduce the amount of inf RMTr’s have to sell by reducing the amount they earn while being paid to power level. Allows the mobs to be coded as simply arcane, tech or mixed and could allow different mobs in the same group to be coded differently. Rikti conscripts could be coded as tech while the Rikti Magus could be coded as arcane for example and CoT mages could be arcane while CoT guides and defenders could be tech or mixed.

Cons – does not assist in the production of Pool B recipes in any tier since Power Levelers reset their maps rather than complete the mission. Possibility of large amounts of recoding being required.

G) Farming – support toons receive fewer drops than multiple pet using and AoE heavy toons. Blue side ATs have a larger number of AoEs available to them compared to Red side ATs. This gives the blue side a higher supply of salvage and Pool A drops in the same amount of time. Farming also reduces the supply of Pool B recipes on both sides since farming maps are reset rather than completed.

Solutions - Code drop percentages based on type of attack that defeated the mob. Mobs defeated by single target attacks would have an increased chance of a drop while mobs defeated by an AoE would have a reduced chance of producing a drop.

Pros – Could slow down RMTr’s inf production by reducing the amount received per unit time. This would somewhat balance the disparities of drops received by red side as compared to blue as well as support toons compared to AoE “mowing machines”

Cons – Will upset players that play AoE heavy and multiple pet using ATs specifically for the reason of receiving the additional drops. Does not assist in the production of Pool B recipes in any tier since farmers reset their maps rather than complete the mission. Possibility of large amounts of recoding being required.

2) Lack of teaming opportunities – This is especially prevalent on the red side and a solution would provide more benefit on red side than blue and narrow the gap some more. There have been several good proposals on making teaming easier. I recommend implementing one of them.

3) AT Utility - Going hand in hand with lack of opportunities to team is the fact that stalkers are not as useful on a team while Corruptors and Dominators progress slower solo. Master minds and Brutes work well in both circumstances and account for 2/3s of all villains in play (that is from my population spot checks.) Stalkers need a buff while teaming in PvE and Corruptors and Dominators need a buff while soloing in PvE.

[ QUOTE ]
Please use this thread to discuss the below announcement:

NCsoft NorCal is proud to announce a new feature for the City of Heroes® and City of Villains® games; that of Visual Sounds. Visual Sounds are based on the comic book staple of onomatopoeia, or the use of a word to replace a sound. Classic comic book examples are “Pow” and “Ka-Boom!” in colorful bubbles while heroes and villains are slugging it out. City of Heroes takes a huge stride forward by replacing simple sounds with the exciting new visual medium of Visual Sounds.

Click here to read the full announcement!

[/ QUOTE ]

Dang! I clicked on the link and this isn't a Rick Roll. What's the deal?