UberGuy

Money is flowing into the game population at some rate, X. That rate has, provably, increased over time. This is not speculation. Even if we assume that average defeat rate of foes/time has not changed (a poor assumption, IMO, but I will get back to that), the reward / defeat has been increased several times. "XP smoothing" increased rewards at +0 over many levels which probably have an insignificant influence on inf production rates, but less well known, it increased the reward for over-level foes (while decreasing that for under-level foes). Significant numbers of level 50 characters I knew even back then played on Invincible/Relentless, so that was a pure reward rate increase.

That was before I16 gave us personal farms with its difficulty settings. Before I16, I couldn't get enough foes in my missions to actually challenge most of my characters. My reward rate was actually throttled not by my own performance, but by the limited availability of foes. I16 changed that - I could fill my missions with enough foes to optimize my kill rates, which optimized my reward rates.

And that was before I16.5 doubled the per-foe inf reward rate for being level 50.

And while the I16.5 doubling watered down it's total contribution, let's not forget common recipes, which let us all print inf in roughly 100k denomination at 50, and which didn't exist before I9.

As for increased defeat rates, we can pretty safely surmise that IO builds have increased the overall rate of inf production by enabling more "farmer-like" play from more characters. Everyone doesn't partake of IOs, but what matters is that some people do, and some of those are our most prolific inf producers.

Incarnate powers added yet another potential boost to kill rates. Of all Incarnate abilities, the Alpha Slot's level shift was pure free inf to anyone who wanted to bump their difficulty by one mark - more reward for exactly the same difficulty.

How does any of that relate to my exploit examples? Because those exploits produced increases in the money supply. Yes, when the exploits were removed, the money supply rate dropped, and so did prices. But none of the "non-exploit" money supply rate increases I mention above this have gone away. If a short-term boost in the money supply rate creates short-term price increases, then why wouldn't long-term supply rate increase create long-term price increases?

Ehh. I build some pretty tough characters, and I would be much more comfortable being damage sponge to some of the iTrial baddies on a Tanker. The UGT stands out in particular to me. A buffed and/or IO'd Brute can probably do OK, but I would not want to try it on most Scrappers.

Siege and Nightstar? Yeah, I've "tanked" them on non-Tankers. Hell, I've "tanked" Keyes Antimatter with a Dark/Dark Corruptor, at least for about three minutes (the combined durations of Demonic and Power Mastery/Force of Nature). But I wouldn't recommend it to the vast majority of players.

Mot was also mentioned in one of the scanner/paper missions. I forget which one, but I ran it relatively recently.

One of the exploration badges in original DA also mentioned Mot slumbering under Moth Cemetary. I do not know if this was the original badge text, however.

I don't. Let's see, they...

• Have higher base damage.
• Have higher self-damage buff scale (for things like Build Up).
• Have things other than Build Up.
• Don't need to pay any attention to something like Assassin's Focus.
• Have more HP.
• Have access to often desirable powers in powersets that Stalkers lost to make room for AS and Hide.

Are Scrappers unambiguously superior to Stalkers? Heck no. That's why this change is so wonderful, because before it, I think most people would have answered "yes, Scrappers are superior". Now, they are comparable but different. That's a good thing, not something to feel sorry for them over.

No, you (the player) need to man up and get over this idea that steamrolling makes ST damage pointless. When I started playing this game, I got on a "mostly solo" kick pretty early on. By the time I found a group of people I enjoyed playing with, it was with a group of fellow min/max-heads who mostly play 50s and who make a point of steamrolling everything. "Speed", "fast" or "quick" TF/SF of choice is our default play.

I've been playing with those people for something like five years. Most of my characters are heavily single-target oriented, especially my melee ones. Sometimes that's an accident of early powerset choices, sometimes it's an intentional decision. Yet I have never had a meaningful issue finding a target someone else wasn't killing, even on our ridiculously fast killing teams. I am one of the people in the fray first beating on something, and my doing so is what's contributing to it being dead as fast as it ends up being.

If you're worried about steamrolling small team content that's not a TF or trial such that there's a low percentage of boss (or higher) foes but your team has powerful AoEs, OK, maybe that creates an issue where ST damage is especially limited in ways to add value. That sounds like a pretty narrow focus to me. I don't see an issue.

Would I love the sets that had at least one AoE to get it back. Abso-damn-lutely. That's not the same as this "oh noes, I has no AoEs!" spin.

I'm looking forward to it working correctly. Right now, it seems to have some strange overlay issues if you have a very high recharge attack chain. I get weird things like I re-hide 5-6s after my last AS, or just before my next AS (which throws me into the interruptable version), flickering in and out of hide, etc.

It seems the Devs do have some idea what's wrong, so here's hoping it's made more consistent soon!

Oh, my.

I think the reason is that, at this point, most other ATs that seem to have had a some broad dissatisfaction associated with them have had balance passes to improve them. Stalkers are one of the ATs that have had very vocal complains, and which the devs themselves have acknowledged some issues with. In I22, Stalkers get an extremely impressive (IMO) buff in their core role of melee damage dealing. But perhaps more significantly, this buff comes with a modification to their conceptual design: until now, Stalkers have been required to conflate their melee damage dealing with their stealthiness. While this option has not been removed, a completely new mechanic has been introduced that lets Stalkers ignore it.

One theory (which I buy into) for why Blasters have suffered real, measured performance issues in the past is that they basically have an AT definition that calls for them to have team support to reach their peak performance. If you really need that support, then you are at risk if you are solo or if your team does not provide adequate support (due to team composition, skill, etc.). No other AT labors under a similar role definition that provides this limitation of scope - while they may need support on a powerset-by-powerset basis, they are allowed to have powersets they let them operate fine without support.

The I22 Stalker change is a trigger for me personally because it suggests that the devs are currently open to changes in such AT design assumptions. I believe that the Blaster's "role" is part of its issue, so I think now is a good time to see if that role revisited. It's not because I think the problems with the AT are new, or that they have suddenly come to a head. It's because now seems like a good time, strategically.

To give an admittedly extreme example, my Dark Miasma characters can often wait out a mez without resorting to a Break Free because their own mezzes and/or debuffs have crippled their foes' offense, Tar Patch makes it hard for foes to reach my character, or because foes become engaged with my pet (or all three).

Hugely off topic, but I do want to point out that they did something I'm not sure any of us expected them to do: unified the currencies. All the posts predicting potential economic doom, some of which were very well thought out (though none convinced me the a merger wasn't worth the risk) assumed heroes and villains would have their own separate money supplies with only the market acting as a conduit between them. IMO they undercut all the doom scenarios when they threw that limitation out.

That's a fair point.

What you are claiming I said is not what I said. Moreover, what you say here is not what you said when I responded to you.

You said, and I quote again:

I responded to that exact quote. (I quoted it in my earlier post, too.) That quote makes a false assertion. Actually, it makes two false assertions, both of which I already responded to.

I made no claims about whether or not it was fruitful. In fact, I disclaimed any agreement with the results of the effort. But what you said was still not correct.

Indeed. All of which refer explicitly to essential goods, or to goods of unqualified essentialness immediately after an emergency or disaster.

Seriously, if you don't get it now, I don't see how I could possibly make you see, but since you asked, I'll try, once.

You posted a bunch of links about commodity prices.

(a) Nothing on the CoH market is a reasonable analog to a real-world commodity, not even salvage. Salvage is only required to build CoH's luxury items. You don't need IOs to play, so you don't need salvage to create IOs. Salvage is closer to ivory or raw jade. You use it to build things people want but do not need.

(b) Because of (a) real-world commodity pricing information has no meaningful lessons for us here. The example of paying $6 for milk was never meant to relate to the real world, which is why you posting a gob of links about real world milk prices has no bearing on the discussion. While CoH's market observes supply and demand well enough to make broad informed decisions (exactly like the one about prices being about to crash), its structure causes significant deviations. Over the weekend I sold a level 49 of something for five times the cost of a level 50. Why did someone buy it at that price? I don't know, but the long-term sales history supported it, and apparently that person didn't price compare. (I should also note that they payed twice what I was asking.)

The long and short of it is that people have far more in-game money than patience. If I want money, it makes sense to capitalize on that, literally. If they click "submit", I have not ripped them off. I didn't force them to type in those numbers and click that button.

I have zero problem with you campaigning to make folks more aware. Which is pretty convenient, since I can't stop you anyway. All I object to your moralizing about the people who do it. I can't stop you doing that, either, but I can argue with you about why I do object to it.

Ah, but it's not. That's not what the thread is about. It's not what you posted in your OP. You posted a question.

Obvious meaning: Why are those of you who are doing this doing it?

This thread is about your objection to the practice. It's not a warning. It's not about whether or not it makes sense. It's about you griping, and then arguing when people answer the question in the title.

You saying it's a warning is you completely moving any goalposts implied in your first post. Don't get your undies in a knot when people respond to what you posted instead of what you would rather they focus on.

Yeah, OK. I looked at it. Read the whole section about the standards on milk pricing. You're still missing the point entirely. As in you clearly have no idea at all what the rest of us are saying.

Book knowledge, or even trade knowledge, is not serving you well here. You are misapplying utterly. (No pun intended.)

The only thing I'm not knowledgeable of here is why you think anything you have posted is relevant to what I said.

Are you trying to make the point that no one would buy $6 milk? Because if you are....

I hate to tell you this, bud, but that's not a crime. If you pay $6 for a gallon of milk that you could have gotten for $3 somewhere else, that's on your head, not the seller. If people keep going to the guy who is selling $6 milk instead of going somewhere else to pay $3, then apparently that guy is on to something, and he's not evil for charging $6. He's smart.

If he built a wall around a community that electrocuted anyone who tried to leave and charged $6 for milk at the front gate, that would be evil. Inefficient as whiz, too!