Squez

Well, I for one have tried to live my CoX life by that great BillZBubba principle: "Solo, there is no waiting; only killing."

Slotting up a bunch of stuff as early as 22 puts me on cruise control to more killing. Some builds I haven't even bothered swapping out the lvl 25 stuff.

Lvl 30-33 stuff is much better in many ways, but getting back to the killing is always a good thing.

I'll echo some of the other responses, but I thought of one particular example as I was heading over to the boards: Stone tanks.

Rooted is run, and Granite is more fun, but after reading GrudgeRockhorn's guide a long time back, I slotted up to the gills on run speed; it's downright enjoyable. Getting those bonuses in as early as possible literally makes the journey to 50 go by quicker (or at the very least, getting to the next thing to pound).

I'd think that if you're not trying to buy a specific piece NAO (merit-wise anyway), this should be a case of having your cake and eating it, too. Random rolls yield plenty of stuff a character can't use; off to the market it goes. The advantage of a dedicated group is doing it faster.

I'd also think that with the new SK rules that levels can be fairly flexible. Then it becomes an issue of building good super teams that can fly through good merit generating activities.

A note on channels. A long time ago I (or it may have been someone else in that discussion) suggested a Black Market Liberation Squad channel (BMLS). I haven't seen chatter there for awhile; we might be able to repurpose that one if it's okay with those folks still subscribed and if enough of the people interested in this new SG/VG still have BMLS in their current set of 10 channels.

Uh, this is not logic class, young son. Your proposal is what we call the deficit model of things. It's easy to offer what is not the case (i.e., not tying random merit rewards to level--a deficit).

Asset model to problems focuses on what we do have. We have a slider. And as the current system can't deal with the privation (as you noted), just turning on the existing mechanic is more focused on what exists already.

Most importantly, though, I'm not getting my stuffs fast enough. However, this will increasingly mean that someone stands to make a decent chunk of loot from me. This is an asset model I think we can all get behind.

Or positively stated, simply have the devs turn on the level slider for random rolls.

I have been doing my part with my parked lvl 33 electric scrapper vainly trying for a couple Obliteration: Damage pieces. Run a couple Freaklympics, roll a few times...everything but (good stuff, too, but sadly Posi won't let us slot influence).

We did?

*runs off to check*

I had forgotten all about that; it's nice to have reactivated brain cells.

Now if I could only remember exactly who the original poster was...

I've run into Cat, Mac, and Smurphy in game, but I gotta say, the best was being one of the many fortunate Triumphites that attended Cat's in-game wedding.

I was doing this with Alchemical Gold during the AE heydays. Very heartwarming indeed.

That's a bit of a bummer. Smurphy rocks. Here's hoping a little well-applied rouge will bring him back...

To be fair, some folks transform this one into "Hi, I'm a #7; here are some things that MUST BE CHANGED NAO in order to save the game."

Excellent point.

And also getting over a heart attack from a red name posting in Market.

Not quite sure what this means. Any guesses/explanation/2012 doomsday predictions?

I have often had this dispute with a pal: Who's the more lazy? The person who drives around a lot to find the closest parking place (less walking), or the person who parks immediately (less driving) and goes in.

It's the first option, btw. And hence, I will often do a lot of frankenslotting on money powers from level 12+, and then ride those puppies to 27 (unless I feel like getting a performance bump at 22 for fun).

I'll echo a little bit what Uber said: On rare occasions I drop an SO in a power if I have one and could use one NAO. Most times, however, on fast leveling teams I don't even bother training since I've been IOed for so long on each character.

SOs to cover some market fees; IOs for much fun.

Good grief, you remember that?

Well, to you and the OP, I totally take my own advice. The Proculator (each power has 2 slots for triple aspect enhancers, then the rest procs) is a blast, but then they released a whole ton of new procs and I lost track. I'm a pseudo-OCD enhancer, and when I start seeing different colors of stuff, it's hard to keep track, even with Mids (and some procs like PerfShift need to be bid well in advance; the less I can keep track, the more I get to pay). I made it to level 30 and eventually I'll come back and storm through Croatoa.

I have 2 other "joke" characters based on IOs: Mocking Beratement, a tanker designed to use 3 full sets of Mocking (lvl 27 currently) and Krapof the Hunter, a dirt/TA troller designed to use as many sets of Trap of the Hunter that I can. Good fun, level 41 currently.

If only the devs didn't give me rad blasters and electric scrappers...

As an aside, from those of us with wives that can't stand video games, and indeed grew up (very allegedly) thinking that girls in general just didn't grok that world, might I suggest that you sit back in the recliner and bask in your win that your wife would do that on your behalf.

Apart from that, you may want to try the tips happening in the thread with twists, like getting Field Crafter at level 10, attempting to amass a fortune with just the sales of the tutorial insps, or the Level 50 Challenge II with a bubbler, all of which will earn cash but do it in unusual ways.

By the by as you amass cash, while pursuing more cash, try some wacky stuff like making a character that has all pool powers, then try to max set bonuses for each power. Build an uber character that uses all the worst selling sets to maximum effect (kind of like a Magic weenie deck).

One longer term thing you can do as well is try to guess how Going Rogue will affect market sales. Stockpile now since your 7 months should cover it and see if you guessed right.

And Gaseous Win, and Solid Win, and Plasma Win...

May all the wins get here well before Soon(tm).

I was similarly doing fine in this regard on my new elec/elec scrapper. And then my internal typing filter shut off and I paid 13 mil for an Impervium.

I made it back by Sunday night, but perhaps I put a little too much NAO into the buying there.

Glad to see that Nethergoat talked you into Part II.

Perhaps a d) could be added? I know that a lot of stuff will get vendored anyway in b) (generic IO recipes, some of the common salvage that now is in abundance, and the poor-selling set IO recipes), but perhaps a footnote for the things that will get marketed.

Someday, I would love it if the devs said, "Y'know folks, when we made CoH, most MMOs at the time were Fantasy games, and darn it, we didn't want to use their monetary conventions. However, we're tired of trying to say the above with a straight face, especially now that we market and uber loot to go with our pre-existing stores. So even though we know comic book characters don't carry this stuff, y'all are now carrying Gold Pieces."

A couple hundred years' worth of immigrants to the United States chuckle warmly at this highly unusual statement. I'm sure other countries can chime in with similar folks.

Heck, I'm sitting in an office made possible by a German immigrant who came to the States with close to nothing and worked his way up to the top of his industry over 60 years ago.

Here's what Forbes (courtesy of wikipedia) has to say on the matter, though. A cursory look at the list will show some people indeed got the money the easy way. Everyone else had to work for it...or perhaps do some very clever flipping.

Kinda wishing you hadn't said that. But I scampered off to read the thread anyway.

Modern dev team seems to be in give/punish mode. Give AE, punish for it. Give diff settings, punish for them. Perhaps we need a betting board as to what punishment will happen on account of Rogue.

Either that or reenact the SNL pirate sketch wherein everyone wants to be punished...

Sweet. I guess I can finally quit my job that I hate and wait for chance and random circumstance to hand me some cash. If someone could email all the other folks out there working hard for a lot of cash, I would appreciate it (since I won't have email).

I imagine Basilisk positively blows your mind. Induced Coma, however, I'm willing to bet doesn't. Basilisk is all kinds of shiny, Induced Coma is...Induced Coma. Basilisk's high ubarness and low supply will make it always very much in demand by players, and thus higher priced, even though both cap at 30.

The devs did send a nod your way, though. Merit rewards are up. My recent rad blaster has been surfing that wave to the tune of 139 merits at level 27 (old system I would have been able to snag 80 by lvl 33 when I would cash them all in).