Red_Raccoon

Then you should be pleased to know that twice a week (Mon & Fri) are the norm. Maintenance is scheduled for 2 hours, but I find 1-1.5 hours is typical. I am also a morning person, and would have preferred a different maintenance schedule, but at the same time I haven't found it to be too much of an issue to adapt. I hope you can too.

If it seems like the maintenance is excessive, that's probably simply because it happens to coincide with your playing schedule. Many players rarely if ever even notice the maintenance down time. They probably think "wow, this game has hardly any maintenance at all!"

Cool, ALL weekends should start on Thursday, not just double XP weekend.

To be honest, I think that was pretty much my role from the beginning, and I was okay with it. I earn prestige, he provides a nice base. If he's willing to hold up his end of the bargain again, I'm more than willing to hold up mine.

This could work fine, too. The only thing he ever seemed interested in was tinkering with the base. If he comes back, he might be more than happy just to get the base editor job back. He might even prefer to have someone dependable who will stick around and keep the group going stay on as the Super Leader. I guess I can discuss all this with him when/if he ever returns.

Sorry, it's on Champion.

Ah, that would explain it. The toon I used does have an armor toggle with a perception boost. I didn't realize +perception negated their vanishing act. I thought they also sometimes went right through the walls, and I didn't see that happen either, but could have just been random.

Sadly, I guess my toons without perception buffs will have to continue putting up with vanishing ghosts.

Maybe I was just lucky. I did several CoT missions over the weekend and none of the ghosts vanished, just fled across the map where I could still see them and chase them down. I thought it was a deliberate (and much appreciated on my part) change in their behavior. If not, too bad.

I'd like to think Bill Gates would keep the salvage, enhancement, and inspiration storage nicely stocked. Though I'd bet even he would set some kind of limits on the storage permissions.

Maybe a better question is: If you ran a super group that included toons owned by players other than yourself, would you freely give influence to any and all of them? Or just your own toons?

If you're apt to be more generous with your own toons than other SG members, that suggests that sharing influence is more of a metagame action than a legitimate roleplaying one.

That aside, an account-wide bank might be a nice addition, and there certainly seems to be plenty of people who want such a feature. Personally, I kind of like the idea of starting with nothing and having to work your way up. I'm not sure I'd like or even use an account-wide banking system, I'd be afraid that it might trivialize the experience by making it too easy for my lowbies to get everything they need & want immediately. But I think I might be in the minority in that philosophy.

I thought they neutered AE to keep people from taking advantage of exploits that broke the intended reward/risk ratio? I also thought there was plenty of teaming going on in those AE exploit farms.

Personally, I like to solo a lot. I certainly hope the developers don't do anything to force people to team. Or kill one of the servers that I play on, for that matter. Fortunately, I don't see them doing either anytime soon.

Emphasis mine.

I notice that many of the complaints I've seen about server population don't claim that there's a problem finding teams so much as there is a problem finding 8-man teams.

I guess I don't understand--what's wrong with smaller teams? Why is a team of 6 or 4 or even 2 no good? Why is 8 the magic number? Just because it's the max? What if they increased the limit to 10? Would teams of 8 no longer suffice?

If they were Starbucks, they'd be in the hazard zones too.

And there's be one on each university campus, too.

Apparently, it is more ambiguous than I had thought. Just as I think some people underestimate how confusing the Faultline tunnel missions can be.

However, I can assure you that the first method does work for the Fir Bolg mission, because that's exactly how I did it, and recently. If you keep defeating Fir Bolg who are running for the henge gate, eventually you will get credit for mission completion, at which point they stop coming (even though there may yet be plenty of Fir Bolg spawns still left on the map). It does take a while, but I didn't pay attention to just how long it took.

I'm not sure what triggers mission completion, but I suspect it might be defeating X number of Fir Bolgs. In which case either method will eventually rack up enough kills to succeed. Method #1 is safer, because you prevent escapes while racking up defeats, but #2 is probably quicker, at least if you have high damage toons that can mow through mobs, since there's less waiting.

However, there is this additional note:

"Although the stated objective is to stop 30 Fir Bolg passing through the portal, the real objective is to defeat all Fir Bolg on the map before 30 can enter the portal."

That's interesting, because I completed the mission and that's not how I did it. I get the impression that perhaps there's two ways to complete the mission:
1) guard the gate and stop escapees until they finally stop coming, OR
2) clear the map of all spawns first, which sounds like it will also halt the exodus.

Can anyone confirm this?

Does the roam and kill method really help toward the mission objective? I got the impression that the Fir Bolgs standing around the map do not break for the gate--the ones that try to escape spawn periodically much like ambushes. Is this correct? I do know that after you beat the mission, there are still plenty of spawns all over the map. I have tried attacking Fir Bolg on my way to the gate, but not only does this not seem to help reduce the number of escape attempts, but also allows time for a few to escape before I can get there.

And you're right about them getting credit for escaping just for getting close. Many times I've defeated a Fir Bolg a few feet from the gate and it still counted as a loss. Not fair at all!

It's not a defeat all, at least it wasn't the times I did it. Just make sure less than 30 Fir Bolg get to the henge.

I actually enjoyed that mission, because it was very different and required some creative strategy. And while I can see where some players might get confused, I think the mission briefing does give you a pretty good idea what you need to do.

It can be difficult to solo, though, if you don't have any holds. For once, the enemies don't want to fight, just run. First time I soloed that mission I thought my tank could stop them with taunt, but not much luck there. I failed and had to come back later with my ice blaster--much easier with holds and AOE damage and slows. I recall someone on this board boasting that they could solo it with any AT and complete with zero escapes, so I imagine it can be done.

I'm going to have to disagree here, that briefing offers players little insight into what they are actually supposed to look for. The only thing in there that even hints at the possibility of underground terrain is the reference to sites "recently excavated", but by this point in the game most players have undertaken dozens of subterranean missions (troll caves, CoT temples, etc), all of which were probably accessed by a cave door located on the surface of the map right where the waypoint indicated.

Honestly, I'm baffled how anyone could be expected to glean from the briefing that:
1) The mission door is located in a hidden tunnel level underneath the map, and
2) The entrance to the tunnel level is located rather distant to the actual mission door.

The player should figure out the first item as soon as he/she is standing right on top of the door location and notices that the wayfinder is still pointing down. The real problem is #2. Early in the game, there are several locations with multiple levels (Skyway, for instance) where a little searching is required to find the actual door. But this is the first mission most will encounter where the indicated door location doesn't even offer a good point to start looking. I remember the first time I did the Faultline arcs, I zeroed in on the mission location as shown on my map and then began systematically fanning out, scouring a large portion of the terrain before I gave up, thinking I must be doing something wrong or else it was just a bug. As it turned out, I quit just shy of finding the entrance by lift H. I would have kept on had I known I was on the right track, but I really didn't know and I didn't want to comb the whole of Faultline only to find there really was no secret entrance.

Fortunately, I came to this wonderfully helpful board for advice before I reached the point of frustration. But I understand the OP's pain. I think the designers could have done this a bit better. I'm fine with missions that require puzzle solving and exploring, but for many players this is the first mission that really requires much of either, and absolutely nothing is offered in the briefing to indicate that this mission is any different from the hundreds of others that have come before. Don't change the rules without telling the player. A puzzle is much more fun if you know you're trying to solve one.