SwellGuy

Originally Posted by Captain_Freak

Maybe post less and play more?

Originally Posted by UberGuy

I think they recognized that having a different carrot on TFs, generally unavailable elsewhere (until Gold Ticket Rolls), was an effective way to get people to keep running TFs. I think it worked - people ran TFs way more post I9 than pre I9.

Now, we can get into a pretty deep discussion over the merits (pun sort of intended) of intentionally giving people reasons to re-run the same content over and over. That said, the merit system definitely opened up better variety in what people ran. Networking effects do mean that people tend to flock to scenarios that offer clearly superior rewards, and that meant that there were scads more people running Katies and Eden runs than anything else. Nowadays you defintely see more variety. Unfortunately, Katie and Eden are pretty much bottom of the heap - I've only seen people run them for the badges since merits came along.

Originally Posted by Eva Destruction

Merits were a gigantic nerf to people running quick Katies. To people who actually wanted to run other TFs, or maybe even run actual story arcs instead of grinding papers, they were very much an improvement.

If you assume that everyone who plays the game is a crazy min-maxer who ONLY cares about the most efficient time/reward ratio, then yes, all the merit system did is move the farming to a different TF. However, my personal experience has shown otherwise. I see discussions like "Who wants to do Sara Moore?" "I think so-and-so's forming up a Moonfire:" namely, people playing whatever they feel like and still being rewarded for it, in a manner that is far less punitive towards players that value fun over efficiency than the old "20 minutes for a Crap of the Hunter vs three hours for a Crap of the Hunter" system.

Originally Posted by EmperorSteele

Nah, just trollin' a bit. Though I do seriously wonder how high the merit rewards would have to be before everyone would go from "this TF stinks" to "This tf ROCKS!". The first half can't be more than 19 merits, otherwise people would just run that over and over without technically finishing the job. Dunno about the second half... can that be run over and over if you've done the first mission once? If so, i'd say 19 merits for that, too. I don't think either half should be worth a full reward roll, but maybe that's just my GM-like mindset.

Besides which fact is, even with smaller rewards now, redside players are still griping about the merit dispairity. Raising the rewards too high would only make the whargble louder /=.

Originally Posted by FredrikSvanberg

Okay, I didn't mean to say that it didn't happen. Just that you can talk all about how badly it works for you and I can talk about how great it works for me, but what good does that do?

Originally Posted by Miladys_Knight

Oddly enough all these suggestions have been made before and the devs don't like them anymore now than they did the last time.

This means that new or at least innovative suggestions are going to be needed rather than making the same suggestions over and over that will continue to be rejected.

Originally Posted by mintmiki

am i missing something? Aren't Goatrule #1 and Goatrule #2 the same? Are all the Goatrules the same?

Originally Posted by Nethergoat

mmhmm.

maybe costume drops made 'em gun shy about drop rates low enough to be meaningful.

Originally Posted by Ironblade

Yeah, I think that really irks some people. They can see that there is one for sale and they can almost feel it in their figurative hands. So they keep bidding higher and higher until they get it.

Originally Posted by StormSurvivor

That's kinda what I was getting at.

I remember thinking 'Expansion! Power Customisation! Nyaaah!', and then getting all excited when they announced i16. Power Customisation came sooner than I thought, and looking back on it, it's a sign of how quickly the time's gone. Power Customisation's such a normal part of the game now that trying to think of a time we didn't have it is difficult for me.

Originally Posted by Nethergoat

I have a mental image of a grim, stalwart UberGuy gripping a sweating, crying Another Fan by the shirtfront while smacking him like a metronome.

whap!
.
whap!
.
whap!
.
whap!
.
whap!
.
whap!


Picture Frank Miller's Dark Knight trying to slap some sense into one of Joker's idiot lackeys.

Originally Posted by GavinRuneblade

I was seeing at least 20,000 bids most times while moving my canes. Not bids for 20k inf, I mean 20,000 bids showing. And it broke above 100,000 bids several times while I was selling mine last year.

Originally Posted by Nethergoat

Uber, I have no idea why AF isn't on your ignore list at this point but I am hugely enjoying the methodical rhetorical beating you're laying on him.

Originally Posted by Nethergoat

My comment was a way to let low information browsers know the could make vastly more inf by sitting on their canes instead of selling to you.

We couldn't dump enough canes to make a difference anyway, demand as the event approaches reaches an insatiable fever pitch.

Originally Posted by UberGuy

What an incredibly self-serving argument. How convenient for you it is to lump people who don't like crafting or playing "City of Day Traders" with people who actually like doing those things but are unhappy because there's a new interface for doing so that has new issues.

People in the former category don't want to play because they somehow feel they have to use the market but often claim they can't (and don't want advice on how to). People in the latter category know how to use the market and consider doing so a big part of their play, and are depressed because it's been degraded.

I'm not sure if you need to wake up and smell the coffee, or if someone shouldn't just pour some on you.

Originally Posted by FourSpeed

I'd say:

PvE/PvP/Arena: PB
PvE: WS

Of course, I'm kinda partial to PB's - that whole "siphoning corpses" necro thing
that WS's do is a bit gruesome, and offputting to me...

Not to say it isn't powerful, or even fun for some folks, but I'll stick with PB's
myself (my highest WS, after several attempts to like them, is only in the mid 20's).


Cheers,
4

Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison

Stun is the guaranteed attack, and the majority of the others stun more often than they don't. Stun->TF->Bone Smasher->ET should have anything stunned much more often than it doesn't.