Nericus

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There was one unannounced patch on friday and now another one today. No notes for either. Any idea what's being changed/fixed?

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Hopefully the last mish of Cuda SF

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Well my main badger lost 76 badges yesterday. *sigh*

I'll be the first to freely admit I am not a game designer by training or profession. But I have to assume that my years of experience with this game and with badging in particular has given me some relevant knowledge in this area. With that knowledge it was painfully clear that many of the Issue 14 MA badges were either much too easy to get or in many cases much too tediously difficult.

I hate to say it but I seriously believe that if I had been given the task to take the original group of MA badges and analyze their requirements for game balancing issues that I could have come up with something more workable than the Devs did. I think I understand the fundamental idea that badges should strike a compromise between being too "easy" and too "hard" to earn. Most of the concepts for these badges were good ones. The problem with most of them involved the range of values it would take to earn the given series of badges. It seems the Devs wanted to make a few new epic level Empaths, Leaders and Immortals out of these which was basically overkill on many levels.

It's too bad the Devs handwaved some kind of vague "we don't like grindy/farmy badges" excuse as a pretense to completely remove all of these badges instead of taking a few hours to think about what was really wrong and make adjustments. We know the Devs have been willing to reasonably adjust the requirements of badges in the past when needed and have done so with at least 4 or 5 badges I can think of such as Empath and Zookeeper. But instead they just threw up their hands on this and gave up altogether setting (as Nericus mentioned) a very bad precedent for the future. Will the Devs now just willy-nilly drop any other badge they have the slightest bit of trouble with? Will all new badges be of the "do something once" variety (like the I15 Arena badges) thus making badging a very trivial pursuit from now on?

Mistakes happen and arguably there were mistakes made with the MA badges.
I'm just not sure the Devs' response to what happened was very rational all things considered.
Kneejerk style "we're taking our ball and going home" responses aren't usually very helpful.

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I do hope though that in the future that more reasonable badge requirements occur with new badges but that they also go back and look at certain other badges that are well noted as being difficult to nigh impossible to obtain, examples being:

1. The illusionst badge: does it really need to be 500 ?

2. Weatherman badge for villains, only ONE mission redside offers the chance for this, but it spawns only 3 outcasts with a full team and is too easily to "accidentally end" ie: grief. Should villains retain this badge or can we get some outcast missions put into the Paper?

3. The Epic badges: Empath had the extra zero dropped and that is great, but still leaves the arena as the most feasible method of obtaining especially for non healers. Immortal: can still only really be gained if someone sits over night after night soaking damage. Popular/Leader: ok these are only obtainable via gameplay with normal missions, however I still feel that the requirements for these two badges are a tad high. Trendsetter =100million, Popular =1billion, Leader =2billion.... I'm not saying they can't be obtained as some have them but again, how are they gained?: FARMING.

4. Fabricator: can't use Brainstorms to get this badge, and that was THE best way to get 10,000 crafts. Granted we now have the ability to see the actual progress of badges like this (thank you!!!), but still...10,000?

So here's hoping that they can devote some time in the future to evaluate all the badges and their criteria.

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To be honest I'm on the fence about the removal of AE badges as it sets a bad precedent for the future of badges (and possibly the game).

On the other hand, many of the AE badges were a tad excessive. Badges for completing x-amount of test missions? Virtual Ticket Badges? and perhaps the worst of the bunch: 50,000 kills in test mode.

Yes many of the badge titles were cool, no doubt. But the criteria for many of them wasn't all that great.

Now if say they have some of the badges return in the form of AE Ticket purchases that may not be bad, except its going to encourage ticket farming, etc.

Here's hoping that some of the cooler badge titles return in some form, some day

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by the same token. getting two badges for a single person running your arc is ridiculous

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No more ridiculous then some nerfed missions that had the biggest outdoor map with 100 glowies, 50 rescues, 50 items to blow up.

Mastermind's special power in the last mish of Barracuda SF doesn't seem to work against Reichman.

Last mish of Cuda SF: way too many ambushes. If team wipes and returns, then there is MORE ambushes, plus an armada of 5th column in the machine room with Reichman.

To be honest I'm on the fence about the removal of AE badges as it sets a bad precedent for the future of badges (and possibly the game).

On the other hand, many of the AE badges were a tad excessive. Badges for completing x-amount of test missions? Virtual Ticket Badges? and perhaps the worst of the bunch: 50,000 kills in test mode.

Yes many of the badge titles were cool, no doubt. But the criteria for many of them wasn't all that great.

Now if say they have some of the badges return in the form of AE Ticket purchases that may not be bad, except its going to encourage ticket farming, etc.

Here's hoping that some of the cooler badge titles return in some form, some day

Rest assured that unless there was a recent change with ish 15 (which I doubt) that if you put that proc into ANY end draining attack you will be giving stamina back to the enemy.

Quick Recovery, Stamina, and Kheldian transform powers are where it goes.

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A Mr E-Man Production

Featuring Cold Satisfaction or Mr E-Villain

Mission: Master of the Lord Recluse Strike Force
Contact: Lord Recluse
Location: Grandville

Date & Time: Thursday, July 2 @ 10:30PM Eastern/7:30PM Pacific

Level Range: 45-50

Combatants: Longbow, Malta Operatives, Freedom Phalanx, Vindicators

Arch-Villain(s)/Hero(es): Agent Crimson, Kronos Class Titan, The Slinger, Back Alley Brawler (x2), Numina (x2), Manticore (x2), Sister Psyche (x2), Mynx, Luminary, Swan, Valkyrie, Malaise, Ms Liberty, Positron, Synapse, Citadel, Statesman

Current Team Roster:

1: Cold Satisfaction: Ice/Dark Corruptor -or- Mr E-Villain: SS/Inv Brute
2: Teh Corrupted One: Rad/Dark Corruptor
3: Ms Burned Bush: Plant/Psi Dominator
4: Project 64B: Earth/Fire Dominator
5:
6:
7:
8:
9:
10:
11:
12:
13:
14:


Strike Force Stats:

<ul type="square">[*]This Strike Force requires an 8-person team to start &amp; I will set it to No Temp Powers (which includes Veteran Reward Powers) &amp; 0 Defeats[*]6 missions (1 talk to)[*]Badge(s): Servant of Recluse, Master/Mistress of Olympus, Annihilator, Master of Lord Recluse's Strike Force for No Deaths/No Temp Powers (no guarantees ) plus progress towards the Monkeywrencher badge for Zeus Titans [*]Merit Reward: 25[*]This Strike Force (by necessity) will probably be limited to just one team – if someone would like to volunteer to run a second team LMK[/list]
Mr E-Man’s MoLRSF Mission Notes:

<ul type="square">[*]Stick together, listen to instructions &amp; do not be afraid to offer your opinion on strategy![*] First Mission: Completely clear to all of the doors - including the turrets. Wait for &amp; clear the ambushes (3?) after kidnapping the scientist (you may need to move him to the door to get the ambushes to spawn. Clear the left side to Crimson - Pets on defensive to avoid Hero agro until we are set.[*] Second Mission: In the water to the Khronos Titan. Clear around the nearby mobs &amp; take out the Titan. Clear the mob in front of the door. Stealth &amp; TP to the end area if possible, if not stick together &amp; clear. Clear the two areas before opening up the door. After aggroing the Slinger, try to clear the surrounding mobs before taking him down to make it less hectic for when he spawns his bots.[*] Fourth Mission: After talking to Grillo (Third Mission), move to the base of the Atlas Statue. We may need to clear some nearby mobs first. Pull to the front foot of the statue (furthest from the Heroes). Pull/Kill order: Numina, Sister Psyche, Manticore, BABs subject to pulling circumstances.[*] Fifth Mission: Clear to the Vindicator door, while the rest of the team sets up back down the hall, someone stealthy should open the door. Pull/Kill order: Malaise, Swan, Luminary, Mynx, Valkyrie (x2) subject to pulling circumstances. Clear to the glowie. Set-up &amp; wait for the ambush. Clear to Ms Liberty. Use the rifle on her &amp; take her down.[*] Sixth Mission: Clear to the right side of the Atlas Statue (to avoid any cross agro). Stay together &amp; keep buffs/debuffs running. From this side, Pull/Kill order: Numina, Synapse. Clear to the left side of the Atlas Statue. From this side, Pull/Kill order: Sister Psyche, Manticore. From here, we can determine which side to pull from next &amp; which hero to pull. Of course this is all subject to pulling circumstances. [*]This is a work in progress[/list]
Come &amp; join in the fun and while you are at it show Statesman what you really think of him! Sign-up here or send a global to @Mr E-Man

Red Tomax Guide: The Future of Freedom Strike Force
Paragon Wiki: The Future of Freedom Strike Force

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~

A Mr E-Man Production

Featuring Cold Satisfaction or Mr E-Villain

Mission: Master of the Lord Recluse Strike Force
Contact: Lord Recluse
Location: Grandville

Date &amp; Time: Saturday, July 4 @ 10:30PM Eastern/7:30PM Pacific

Level Range: 45-50

Combatants: Longbow, Malta Operatives, Freedom Phalanx, Vindicators

Arch-Villain(s)/Hero(es): Agent Crimson, Kronos Class Titan, The Slinger, Back Alley Brawler (x2), Numina (x2), Manticore (x2), Sister Psyche (x2), Mynx, Luminary, Swan, Valkyrie, Malaise, Ms Liberty, Positron, Synapse, Citadel, Statesman

Current Team Roster:

1: Cold Satisfaction: Ice/Dark Corruptor -or- Mr E-Villain: SS/Inv Brute
2: Teh Corrupted One: Rad/Dark Corruptor
3: Ms Burned Bush: Plant/Psi Dominator
4:
5:
6:
7:
8:
9:
10:
11:
12:
13:
14:


Strike Force Stats:

<ul type="square">[*]This Strike Force requires an 8-person team to start &amp; I will set it to No Temp Powers (which includes Veteran Reward Powers) &amp; 0 Defeats[*]6 missions (1 talk to)[*]Badge(s): Servant of Recluse, Master/Mistress of Olympus, Annihilator, Master of Lord Recluse's Strike Force for No Deaths/No Temp Powers (no guarantees ) plus progress towards the Monkeywrencher badge for Zeus Titans [*]Merit Reward: 25[*]This Strike Force (by necessity) will probably be limited to just one team – if someone would like to volunteer to run a second team LMK[/list]
Mr E-Man’s MoLRSF Mission Notes:

<ul type="square">[*]Stick together, listen to instructions &amp; do not be afraid to offer your opinion on strategy![*] First Mission: Completely clear to all of the doors - including the turrets. Wait for &amp; clear the ambushes (3?) after kidnapping the scientist (you may need to move him to the door to get the ambushes to spawn. Clear the left side to Crimson - Pets on defensive to avoid Hero agro until we are set.[*] Second Mission: In the water to the Khronos Titan. Clear around the nearby mobs &amp; take out the Titan. Clear the mob in front of the door. Stealth &amp; TP to the end area if possible, if not stick together &amp; clear. Clear the two areas before opening up the door. After aggroing the Slinger, try to clear the surrounding mobs before taking him down to make it less hectic for when he spawns his bots.[*] Fourth Mission: After talking to Grillo (Third Mission), move to the base of the Atlas Statue. We may need to clear some nearby mobs first. Pull to the front foot of the statue (furthest from the Heroes). Pull/Kill order: Numina, Sister Psyche, Manticore, BABs subject to pulling circumstances.[*] Fifth Mission: Clear to the Vindicator door, while the rest of the team sets up back down the hall, someone stealthy should open the door. Pull/Kill order: Malaise, Swan, Luminary, Mynx, Valkyrie (x2) subject to pulling circumstances. Clear to the glowie. Set-up &amp; wait for the ambush. Clear to Ms Liberty. Use the rifle on her &amp; take her down.[*] Sixth Mission: Clear to the right side of the Atlas Statue (to avoid any cross agro). Stay together &amp; keep buffs/debuffs running. From this side, Pull/Kill order: Numina, Synapse. Clear to the left side of the Atlas Statue. From this side, Pull/Kill order: Sister Psyche, Manticore. From here, we can determine which side to pull from next &amp; which hero to pull. Of course this is all subject to pulling circumstances. [*]This is a work in progress[/list]
Come &amp; join in the fun and enjoy the fireworks! Sign-up here or send a global to @Mr E-Man

Red Tomax Guide: The Future of Freedom Strike Force
Paragon Wiki: The Future of Freedom Strike Force

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Put me down for both Thurs and Sat for MoRSF, Bot/Trap MM. Should Thursday be a win then I'll bring an alternate for Sat

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Note XP and 2k users would have to do a clean install, while Vista users can install over the prior version.

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Meh, I'll be wiping the stain that is Vista off my system first.

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powerforge is working on a fm/sr brute, and his attack chain is incinerate-cremate-fs. that's all. he has breath of fire and fire sword circle for aoe's and isnt taking gloom

[/ QUOTE ]There's 40% global recharge difference between /SR and /Stone.

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Only 40%?

[/ QUOTE ]Oh, my. I just looked at Granite's full info there.

Amend my prior post to 85% then. Didn't realize Granite was that much of a debuff. Definitely makes my decision to delete my Stone tanker much less heartbreaking now.

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?! Granite should be a 65% recharge debuff.

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A more mobile stoner in battle with enough recharge IO to counter granite penalties, thus not having to rely on a kin corr all the time is quite useful and deadly. Especially since there are some kin corrs that just dont understand why a stoner is always calling for SB, and some kins that refuse to apply the SB.

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This.

I've got my Stone/Stone set up that way. It can run at 20mph with granite or rooted on, has no -rech penalty and has tons of +recovery. The only thing it needs a kin for is Fulcrum Shift.

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Same with all my Stone Brutes and Tanks. Why should I bother being practically symbiotically joined to a kin corr when IO's can lessen if not remove Stone's penalties? Why should I have to tolerate some imbecile running a kin corr that is being a jerk about applying speed boost?

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Just decided to roll a Fire/Stone to tank SFs and whatnot and was wondering what powers might be viewed as useless in that regard.

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As said before, Breath of Fire is pretty skippable for a Brute.

As for Stone, all of the armors are skippable except for Granite.

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Ah grasshopper, remember though that some of the stone armors are defense armors which means certain gems like Luck of Gambler 7.5 global recharge and Gift of Ancients 7.5 run increase can fit into the them. Nice IO's for compensating for Stone's speed issues.

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lol @ 7.5 run increase. Ya, you can waste your slots just to get a little more run speed. I'll just teleport to places without needing to buy a useless IO.

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A more mobile stoner in battle with enough recharge IO to counter granite penalties, thus not having to rely on a kin corr all the time is quite useful and deadly. Especially since there are some kin corrs that just dont understand why a stoner is always calling for SB, and some kins that refuse to apply the SB.

I have a fire/kin controller that could hop in on this.

90% recharge from IO bonuses PLUS 6 slotted hasten will give you permadom plus permahasten. hasten once activated will come up about 1 second before previous Hasten wears off. Removing even one of the recharges will strip you of permahasten.

Depending on your power sets and the powers you have chosen you can have a nice functional build and still devote the 6 slots to hasten to achieve Permadom+Permahasten.

As you gain more IO's to increase the IO recharge bonus you will be able to remove slots from hasten and still keep it Permahasten along with Permadom.

Correct, the unique numina and miracle do not affect the enemy. Instead you get the 2 minutes worth of the effect of the Proc on your character each time you use the power.

Or you can stick them in Fitness/Health and have constant benefit from the Procs for as long as the character is logged in.

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Just decided to roll a Fire/Stone to tank SFs and whatnot and was wondering what powers might be viewed as useless in that regard.

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As said before, Breath of Fire is pretty skippable for a Brute.

As for Stone, all of the armors are skippable except for Granite.

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Ah grasshopper, remember though that some of the stone armors are defense armors which means certain gems like Luck of Gambler 7.5 global recharge and Gift of Ancients 7.5 run increase can fit into the them. Nice IO's for compensating for Stone's speed issues.

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One of her first 3. They are not available through flashback. They are a large Kings Row-like map with several carnival tents in the north section.

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Thanks

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Madeleine Casey, lvl 40

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Been trying to get a good Carnie mish for some of my heroes. Any SPECIFIC one from this contact that is best used? Looks like she is pretty much all Carnie mish.

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If we dont plan on sleeping them then we need someone who really knows how to pull one at a time on the last mission. ive only seen one person successfully pull only 1 or 2 at a time and never been able to do it myself.

[/ QUOTE ] I've done this a couple times with E and he saw me pull them one at a time. Maybe it was luck, and I'm not promising anything.. but I'd like to try pulling first and using sleep as a backup for whoever comes with the target Hero.

The one time I saw somebody trying to sleep them all, they got killed pretty easily several times when the sleeps stared to wear off and the stacking "missed".

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I've got my Sleep Purpled Out and ready for duty. Just tell me where and when.

[/ QUOTE ] You... I would trust. lol

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WOOT! Also respec'd my pvp EM/WP Brute for this mission so if needed we can rock the house.

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lol - I respec'd my SS/Inv Brute yesterday (while at work)...I am working on getting some additional IO sets for him, just in case we need him...

I chose the GW patron pool to gain access to darkest night for the AoE to-hit &amp; recharge debuffs - thought it would help with survivability...

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Been awhile but I'd definitely love to join on this. Sign up my bot/trap MM with my ss/fire as an alternate.

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Friday run wasn't a succes, In the last missh Heroes prove to be [censored] to sleep &gt;

Will run it again Monday night 9pm

Also if a don't need to go out tonight will try one today.

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Fire-kin ready

You can appeal however many times they will stay the course.

That character doesn't look like Ms. Marvel nor really even the golden age Marvel character Miss America.

But the name Marvel likely is what did it.

Someone I know had a character named Max Steel and didn't look a thing like the DC character Steel but was generic'd for the name Steel in his name. Go fig.

Dom Sniper power = io recharge mule using Sting of the Manticore for 7.5% recharge boost.

As for building outside of combat, I just cruise through mercy/port/cap and decimate the enemies in those areas until Dom bar is full

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Then I'll make it hurt a tad bit more.

I've been setting badge titles in costume change binds for years and the one gotcha that's not obvious is that just about every time a patch comes along that adds badges to the game you have to recheck your /settitle binds because the Devs have a bad habit of sliding new badges into the "middle" of the list making all the badge numbers above them increment higher.

For example lets say there was a badge A with settitle number 200 and a badge B with settitle number 210. If the Devs decided to add badge C they might shove it into the list as number 205 but that would also make badge B now number 211.

Frankly I've always though it was pretty silly to do that because their mid-list additions have never followed an organized pattern (like even alphabetical?) that made much sense to me. Why they couldn't just add them to the back of the list I'll never know. Bottomline if you decide to start using /settitle binds you typically have to go back and recheck them after every patch. *sigh*

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I've noticed that this mainly occurs with the EPIC damage/heal/money badges. They always get pushed out to new set title numbers when new badges are inserted.

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As you point out those particular badges get shifted often because they are already near the end of the list (they are currently /settitle numbered 1000+).

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Hm, wonder if AE badge removal will lower the set title numbers for the epics?

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That's actually a good question.

Turns out based on what I've seen recently in the Issue 15 beta the badge /settitle numbers have once again INCREASED, not decreased. I assume that has to do with the addition of the new Issue 15 Arena badges.

So it would appear that while we are losing many AE badges from characters the badges themselves are going to remain in the game "under the hood" so to speak. I imagine leaving them in the game would make it easier for the Devs to perhaps someday rework and reoffer these badges again in some form as they have already alluded to as a possibility.

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Ah but why have the set title numbers of the epic badges in a group from the more normal versions of said badges?

Wouldn't it be simpler to have for example:

Damage badge as say set title 500 to 506 depending on which badge title you want to use? (Presuming you have them all of course).

Thus the numbers don't change with each issue of new badges.

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Off the top of my head, why even give trial accounts an option to email? Limit it to paying customers. If you want to email, join SGs, hit level 50, pay the subscription.

[/ QUOTE ]Trial accounts can't email at all, and have not since the restrictions first went in. I confirmed that with a redname. Any information that says they can email at level 10 is inaccurate.

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There have been reports that the no-email function of the trial accounts hasn't worked right. If this is true, then lets hope it is fixed, otherwise please give is the option to shut off email or only accept email from global friends.

We now have the option to Block Architect Emails, but Architect feedback was subsequently changed to global tells. However this shows that email can be given a block option.

Worst case scenario: shut down the email function completely until the block option can be safely implemented.

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Then I'll make it hurt a tad bit more.

I've been setting badge titles in costume change binds for years and the one gotcha that's not obvious is that just about every time a patch comes along that adds badges to the game you have to recheck your /settitle binds because the Devs have a bad habit of sliding new badges into the "middle" of the list making all the badge numbers above them increment higher.

For example lets say there was a badge A with settitle number 200 and a badge B with settitle number 210. If the Devs decided to add badge C they might shove it into the list as number 205 but that would also make badge B now number 211.

Frankly I've always though it was pretty silly to do that because their mid-list additions have never followed an organized pattern (like even alphabetical?) that made much sense to me. Why they couldn't just add them to the back of the list I'll never know. Bottomline if you decide to start using /settitle binds you typically have to go back and recheck them after every patch. *sigh*

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I've noticed that this mainly occurs with the EPIC damage/heal/money badges. They always get pushed out to new set title numbers when new badges are inserted.

Hm, wonder if AE badge removal will lower the set title numbers for the epics?

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Amusingly, the "damage nerf" to Psychic Shockwave just about evens out when you consider the damage buff to Dominators as a whole.

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This. I've tested my fire/psi on a few test runs. No major issues.