Perfidy

I have badged before. I will badge again. And when I use badge as a verb, my intended meaning is to convey playing with the specific purpose of pursuing each badge there is to get, not just the convenient/easy ones. What I want to try and find is a route, or path to take that allows me to acquire two badges in particular "organically", that is - I don't want to hunt for them on the open map. I want to find them in missions at certain levels. My pattern of play usually involves getting invader at any time between level 4 and level 22 or so. Then, I usually log on an alt that's a fire blaster, team with the alt that wants spider smasher and gang buster badges in pursuit of High Pain Threshold. After I get that, I will do a moonfire and handle the Atlas Medallion. I've been able to add Shauna something or another, a vigilante specific contact in IP, in conjunction with Stephanie Peebles arc to acquire or minimize the hunting involved for Gangbuster (200 family minion/lt defeats) but I can't seem to grab a mission with primarily spiders in it - due, I suppose to my poor knowledge of red side. I have done Aaron Thiery's arc - it has a number of Spiders in it, but at that low level, I'm lacking the efficiency. It's difficult getting a team for an actual mission, as opposed to dfb or a frostfire. Do any of you know of a contact or even a radio/paper mission that might contain primarily the Spider Ops critters? Preferably in the teens or 20's when I tend to be thinking about such things. Because I tend to park a character at 50, doing these things at level 50 doesn't seem like an appealing thought. I'd like to use the accolade powers sooner than later. Waiting until 50 to get them, that just seems like a waste of time for me. Since High Pain Threshold is a villain accolade, what do you red-siders do to get this badge? Just play and eventually you get the defeats? Or are there any tried/true methods that you seek out, aside from hunting them. I can hunt them easily enough, and get both in less than 30 minutes, but when the server population is a little high, I don't want to risk breaking the multi-box policy, so I was hoping for a simpler method that would get me where I want to go without waiting too long. I can get the Hard Luck badge at 30, and commit suicide in Monster Island easily enough, but I tend to want to have those two defeat badges by 30. Any suggestions?

I wanted to revisit this comment of mine. When I made it, the character was in the early 20s. Now, at level 39, on a solo mission, while the slotting of Liquid Nitrogen hasn't changed, perhaps the strength of the attuned set has changed the outcome. I did see it do some damage. The thing is - when leveling and I chose the power, the description, and the detailed info let me to believe this was a big damage dealing power. It's not. I still think it needs some revision or editing. I was going to bore you with my thoughts on each of the powers I chose, but figured it's just one man's opinion. I share it, and I open the door for someone to tell me I'm looking at it wrong and should look at it from a different perspective.

For me, Combat Jump is always on, unless I get defeated. But when I rez, I turn it back on. The only time I might turn it off is when I'm in the shard trying to use the geysers. I remember something about travel powers impacting how far the geyser puts you, and I don't want to overshoot, or fall short of the mark. (Though, even then those geysers are erratic) In missions, I tend to turn off SS and sprint both. I'll turn on sprint and SS when teaming for a speed run, tho. Otherwise, I turn them off. I might turn sprint on to get to the elevator to change floors.

Or, more specifically, the temp power that gets awarded when you finish her arc. I clobbered Stephanie Peebles for her "Wedding Band", the same temp you get for completing her arc when you're a hero/vig. So most folks who are familiar with this temp know that it's a pretty good one, even though it does drain end pretty well. My question is, if I switch to hero/vig, and complete her arc, do I get a 2nd wedding band? Another 2 hours to the one I have, or is it a case of all you get is one, you greedy fool? It's not that I expect most of you to know the answer, but someone might. And now you also know completing Mage-killer's arc will have you face Peebles in the finale, and you'll get the temp. Unless maybe you already did Peeble's arc and the game doesn't let you get both. Also, it might be in the patch notes, but as you all know, the patch notes are quite long. But, I don't know what did it, but completing Orpheus and/Mage-Killer Tatiana's arcs opened up the Hess TF for me. So there's some new info for those of you that don't read the patch notes. Or maybe it was an unintended consequence? Probably not. Guessing they figure you're not likely to do both blue and red side content, switching back and forth as some sort of completionist. But, I could be wrong.

As someone who solos more often than not, I can tell you - you're in for a long ride, and you're at the mercy of the RNG. There are 6 incarnate slots. Alpha, Judgement, Interface, Lore, Destiny and Hybrid. We get 120 threads at vet levels 1,2,4,5,7,8,10 and 11. You've seen the post that breaks down the vet levels that get you 5 to 20 emp merits. My suggestion, though unpopular, is to use shards for your alpha slot and threads for the rest. The reason is - while threads drop more often, you need more threads, too. Even still, threads outpace the drops of shards. But, you need 5x as many threads! Yes, you should do all the Dark Astoria arcs. Heather Townsend Mu Vorken Max Praetor Duncan Dream Doctor But don't forget about Sister Solaris, Number 6, Belladonna Vetrano and the fairly recently added Sister Valeria, also in Cimerora. You need to know that Max doesn't offer an award table, so personally, unless I want the associated badges, I skip as much of his arc as I can. So, all in all, that's 8 contacts. Each contact gives 1 emp merit, 1 random common component, and an award table. I couldn't tell you how the table is weighted, but being solo or teamed makes no difference. If you just run the 8 contacts that give an award table and an emp merit (not Max) you get 8 emps, enough to make a rare if you didn't get one in the 8 tables. And 8 common components (enough to make 2 and 2/3 of any t-1s you want. After that, you have to repeat the content through Ouro. How many times is up to the RNG and you. Now, if you have more than one account, and you check the server population, you can multi-box and collaboratively complete all but the last mission of each arc. Say you have 3 accounts. That's now 24 reward tables instead of just 8. Just be sure the server isn't over 1500, and really, because people can log in at any time, to be safe, I'd wait until the server pop was below 1000. And, be warned, it's tedious and not very fun. Far more fun for me to just do it with one character at a time. The vet levels come by playing, so sooner or later, you will get there. If the ambition is t-4 in all, then with the assumption you use shards for the alpha, you need: 5 very rare incarnate components or a combination of very rare components and between 30 and 150 emp merits. See what I'm saying? If you got a very rare from a reward table from 1 of the 8 contacts, that means you only need 120 more emp merits. You also need 10 rare components, or a combination of rare components and between 8 and 80 emp merits. You also need 10 uncommon components. If the RNG snubs you, you'll need 600 threads to make them. Or, you might get 8 uncommons and only need to burn 120 threads to make the remaining 2. Each t-4 incarnate enhancement will require 13 commons, or 260 threads. None of these values include the alpha. You can use threads for the alpha, of course. The level shift for a t-3 alpha helps a lot. But after that, I would definitely wait to do the rest until I finished the other 5. By that time, you might organically have the shards you need. And if not, you can mix and match as you go. If you can stomach teaming, a hami a day gets you 4 emp merits and usually, anecdotally, 1-2 shards. If the league clears mitos, possibly more. An MSR or any level 50 tf will get you shards as well - but we know you want to be solo, so no sense going over that, I guess.

No idea what you're referring to. I looked in the Graphics tab - there's no setting for Visscale.

I posed this question in beta forums - and was told I didn't understand the gravity of the situation. Silly me, I thought it had something to do with the geysers I was using to get to the top of the ski slope in pocket d.

So, this is what I did. And I'm approaching 60 years of age. Slowly, but still approaching. Not a million years like some of the undead around here, but old enough to find some of the technical stuff daunting. First, I downloaded the CityMod Installer. I didn't want to do this. I just wanted to manually update the specific pages, but the Bicentennial meant that was going to more work than I wanted to do. So, The CM install comes in a zip file. So, all I did was click on it. I don't know what it did, but it installed. Then I ran it. The only two mods I wanted were the new pop-menu BadgeSetList that was pretty much the same thing I'd been using, just had the new stuff in it, and the updated VidiotMaps. Neither worked. So, when all else fails, read the directions. Damnit! I hate reading stuff. I like to skim, gloss over. Not read. Anyway, once I uninstalled the old copy of VidiotMaps and deleted the old badgesetlist from the data folder where it used to be, the updated maps and the updated pop menu both worked. I have no idea how helpful or time wasting this was, but that's all I did. Seems like you could handle that. File structures is a fancy way of saying where stuff is on you computer. The instructions make it pretty clear where the default locations are. If you still have trouble, I suspect someone like you has friends smarter than me that can help you out. Worst case, find a 5th grader. This stuff is like super simple for them.

I think I've downloaded the latest vidiotmaps update properly, as I'm able to see the marker on the map for the recent changes to Silent Sentinel and Rookie in both Atlas Park and Echo: Atlas Park. Also able to see the Bicentenial plaque locations. Well done, soldier. Now...to update the pop-menu on my system..

So, here's what I did today. I just happened to be in Sharkhead grabbing explorations to fill up on patrol XP. Someone shouted a recruit message for Scrappy. (The Ghost of Scrapyard) We defeated Scrappy over 10 times. I had something else to do, and when I left, they were still killing him. So, what did I get? 6 reward merits each time. No diminishing returns. I got 66 merits, and 11 "monstrous aether particles". So what did I do with those "monstrous aether particles"? I went to pocket D. First, I checked in with the holo labs vendor and learned I could exchange 3 of the MAPs for 1 PAP. On the AH, PAPs were listed at a little more than 2.5M each. The holo lab vendor said I could exchange 10 of the MAPs for a random mini-monster recipe. Like those things are useless to me, but in this game, people love things that are cute and useless. I took the risk and got a mini Kraken. Tossed it on the AH and saw them selling for 100M 15 minutes of killing Scrappy repeatedly for 100M. Beats farming every day of the week. Granted, eventually those MAPs are going to be everywhere, and the price of those mini-monsters are going to drop to about 10K, not 100M, lol. But in the meantime, I'm having a good chuckle.

Actually, we didn't get any xp at level 1, but at level 2, we did. I have recent memories of being level 9, wanting to slap the ATOs in, but couldn't. A quick trip to Kings Row and Boomtown for the explores, and I was there. The xp wasn't so over the top, but it was enough to notice. But, that's just this one guy's opinion.

The primary thing I don't like about it is with it the way it was before - I got a system message telling me how much XP I gained. With this new method, if I have 1 bar to go to the next level, perhaps the few badges I got from exploring gave me a bar of patrol xp. Perhaps they gave me 1/2 a bar. I have no way of knowing. It's ultimately not that big of a deal, but it just makes me wonder - "If something isn't broken, why fix it?" It wasn't broken. At least, it wasn't in my experience. Worked just fine, especially when I'd be level 21 and just needed 1/2 bar to get 22 to slot my lotg 7.5%. Those explores came in quite handy. But now, if I'm in the same boat - I don't know if I should grab one badge, all 8, or if I have to go to yet another zone to top off. I could, I suppose, hover my mouse over the xp bar to tell me how much patrol XP I have, but, even then, it's going to change every level as it supposedly reduces the amount you can get as you get closer to 50. What was the point of it in the first place? It was perfectly okay before. Granted, this is just my opinion, it's meaningless. But they asked for feedback, did they not?

I just use the base teleporter, and if that's not recharged, the sg portal. I can't think of any circumstance where I needed access to my base and one or the other wasn't up. I can honestly say, that other than my badgers, I've never pursued these, as they aren't useful to me. I already have access to my base with the press of a button. The patrol xp in lieu of regular xp would be okay, except it tapers off as you level, when you'd want it the most - at level 50, pursuing the vet levels. The juice isn't worth the squeeze, in my opinion. At least, not just for that. But since the reward merits are still there, it'll have to do. Not a fan of the change myself.

I'm seeing where the modder installed the latest popmenu pigg file in my system. My launcher is showing the identical settings as displayed at the top of the thread. Yet, my pop menu is the same as it ever was. Do I need to remove/delete the old pop menu?

<doh> Why didn't I think of that? Thanks!

For those of you that solo more often than not, or lead teams frequently, this is likely not an issue for you. I am usually in the former group, rather than the latter. I solo quite a bit. Because of this, I tend to do story arcs and get a fair number of reward merits. Usually about 250-400 reward merits, depending on how many TFs I might do while leveling. This new patch has me playing a dom. The dom reaches domination faster in a group. I do not know why, but it does. And a dom's damage, particularly in the early levels is fairly low, at least compared to the brutes and blasters I normally play. So, there may be some perception bias on my part, fair enough. In any event, yesterday, after a DFB got me to level 7, I found myself in The Hollows, accepting an outrageous invite for a +4 frostfire. Turns out, the team was still doing Wincott's arc, and hadn't even gotten to Flux yet. By the time we finished Frostfire, I was level 19. And, normally, I'd use reward merits for converters to change the unsavory recipes into enhancements and into better enhancements. Well...hmm...I don't have any reward merits because I was riding on someone else's team. Nothing to stop me from talking to Wincott, except the team I was on would have had to repeat a mission. They're not an sg, no idea how well that might have gone over, but I could have asked, for sure. But I didn't. Collaborative completion is an awesome feature, because it allows for each player to get the merits at the end of a story arc. And yet, as far as I know, very few people take advantage of this. Perhaps most folks are unaware it even exists. Before I made a suggestion for HC to promote it's use, figured I'd just ask here first - is the juice of collaborative completion worth the squeeze? Imagine having to redo a mission or two to get someone joining your team after you've started so they can get paid as well. Is this something you're okay with? Would it just depend on what level you are, what the contact is, what the mission is, etc? I'm just curious. With the way explorations are giving out patrol xp instead of xp, it's causing me to slow down on the explorations, so it's limiting my ability to do things the same way I'd normally do them. So, I guess I'll have to learn more patience and wait to form my own teams and explain to people how to get to Kings Row from Atlas. and how to get to Pocked D from Imperial City and that kind of thing. I'd rather not, but it looks like I'm going to have to do that, unless I can find a way to collaboratively complete story arcs with pugs.

So, a couple of things (so far) about the patch. Arsenal control and arsenal assault on a dom are ..interesting. But, there's some sort of disconnect between the description when you're about to choose Liquid Nitrogen and what you actually get. The description suggests some decent damage. But, from my combat log, it doesn't do any. Not even when they fall and bounce. It does accept damage enhancements, so you'd think you would see at least some sort of damage. A minor personal dilemma with the patrol xp for exploration badges. The notes do mention it tapers off as you level. What's not clear to me is if I'm a bar from leveling, and the remaining bar is filled, I have no idea how much patrol xp I got for the last several zones of explorations I did. I can adapt to only getting a few explorations at a time, until I ding next, but I guess my point is..with xp, you got it. You know you got it, because there was a system message telling you, and you could see the xp bar fill up. With patrol xp, you don't get a message. You don't know if you're already capped. Perhaps there's a better way. Granted, it's not at all a big deal, just a minor personal annoyance, but I imagine I can't be the only one who thinks it's a bit...off-putting.

No, it certainly seems reasonable. Perhaps a time-challenged person like myself would be better served with a deadline. And the no xp for explorations? Did I miss that in patch notes? It's certainly not a big deal, I'm just curious.

I am most likely in the minority. While I appreciate the tireless efforts to keep us all amused/interested with new things to do, I do think this patch came to soon. I only today asked my SG if they wanted to go to Brainstorm and test the LGTF in hard mode. I know there are people that seemingly play this game all day every day, but some folks simply can't. Now it's here, and I'm too late. I looked through the patch notes and I've either glossed over it accidentally, or it wasn't mentioned. Previously, we'd get XP when landing on an exploration badge. This no longer seems to be the case. These are the things that sneak through the cracks when you push things through when you could have easily waited until Summer. It's not like you have an overlord insisting on new issues every few months. Or..do you? What does this new license with NCSoft entail and require? (rhetorical) Again, I appreciate the efforts, particularly since I'm not forced to pay to play. Still, I'd rather explorations no be moved, as it just causes returning players to ask even more questions. I could get behind it to allow for a more uniform 8 explorations per zone, but now..just swapping badge locations? Seems like a waste of time to me, but perhaps there are things I don't know.

It's not ignorant, and I am fairly certain at some point, most folks that play a blaster have encountered this problem. There are a lot of ways to solve it! Some solutions are not as good as others, and there's bound to be some subjectivity as to how good each solution is. You're probably hoping for a toggle, but while some sets mitigate mezzes differently, to my knowledge, other then teaming, or using clarion when you're level 50, or using the break-free, you aren't going to find anything that will completely mitigate holds/stuns/mezzes, etc in the same fashion the armor's available to melee will. The powerset secondary, Atomic Manipulation is probably the closest thing in my mind that a blaster is going to get to ease the duration of these mezzes. 1. The best defense is a good offense. When get held/mezzed enough to get defeated, take that time before you hit the hospital or rez until you identify what/which npc held you. In my experience, it's usually a CoT mage, a Tsoo fighter of some sort, an illusionist, or potentially a stun from any number of melee npcs. I don't know what kind of blaster you're playing, but each one should have some tool to be pro-active about getting held. In the case of ice primary, it's freeze ray and bitter freeze ray. And candidly, it's also bitter ice blast. And blizzard. If they're dead, they're not mezzing you. Anecdotally, I will open with bitter freeze ray and follow up with freeze ray since BFR has a longer activation time on bosses that mez. Or sappers, or freak stunners. You get the idea. They're now held. I can follow up with Bitter Ice blast and they're dead. I've dropped ice patch to cover me if the rest come to bash my face in - they slip and bounce until I can deal with them individually. 2. The best defense is a good defense. If you're soft-capped to attacks, only 5% of the mezzes will reach you. So, that's worth considering as a mitigation technique. It's not at all easy for me to get these numbers before level 50, but the closer I get, the less mezz I have to deal with. 3. P2W is your friend. There's a thing called "Defensive Amplifier". It's a buff that you buy from p2w, by the hour. The higher your level, the more it will cost. I believe it caps at level 50 at a cost of 2M per hour. For a level 50, this is literally chump change. Complete a mission and sell the drops, you've covered the cost. But, if you buy 8 hours at level 1, and top off at the start of each gaming session, you'll find it's much, much cheaper. If you've the resources, buy some hero packs, as they are randomly found within. You'll also have a chance at other types of amplifiers, like the Survival and Offensive Amplifiers as well as ATOs and a plethora of other goodies. 4. Misery loves company. Find a teammate with the sonic powerset for Clarity. Or Traps powerset for the Force Field Generator. You get the idea. 5. Lastly, as already suggested, make a Sentinel that has armor built in to protect you. The damage isn't as good, but if you're dirt napping as a blaster, your damage is going to be better than that, lol.

Every time I see someone in a mask, riding a unicycle playing flaming bag pipes, I think of you, Snarky. And you've no need of resources. I hear you have a whale on your friends list who has no issue giving large stacks of inf.

I would politely reply to them the same way I handle the multitude of charities that call my house. When my father passed and left me some funds, I chose to donate some of it. This was a big mistake in some sense, as it would seem a number of these charities sell contact info to other charities, as instead of the two charities I chose to donate to, I now get calls from 8 different charities. Routinely. I finally opted to just drop my land line and only use my cell phone. But I digress. When those parties would call, I would tell them that being in a position to give is a blessing. But to give when asked, most nice people do that already. In order to get any real blessing from giving, it must be the giver's idea, not the one receiving. So, I tell them, in a nutshell, I never give to anyone asking for funds. The giving must be MY idea.

So, a total of 4 accounts. About a month ago, each account had 100 emails of 999,999,999 attached. Plus, each character carries 1,000,000,000 at a minimum. New characters simply make their own billion, generally by level 4 or 5, depending on how much I'm playing. But, last month, I was on Indom and just started giving away anywhere from 50 to 200M because there were so many new players that were seemingly starving for influence. I did the same thing on Torch and Excelsior. I even gave a billion away a few times just because I was bored. I don't know if I ever got to a trillion, but I know with 100% certainty that I had about 800Billion last year, so I'm pretty sure I got close. I made a tank and did spend entirely too much on some d-syncs that cost about 100X more than I would have liked to pay.

After looking over the numbers, I'm definitely going to pursue what seems to be easy enough to get, "perma"- Earth's Embrace. And with nothing in any of the armors except the lotg and the glad armor 3%, the Steadfast 3% and the Unbreakable Guard 7.5% HP, the numbers aren't that bad. I could still use another 7 more slots, but it's interesting deciding which juice is worth the squeeze.

Interesting. I have been considering vigor because of the heal aspect. I've noticed that Earth's Embrace gives ...maybe a 50% increase in HP, and candidly have been thinking of aiming towards a higher regen rate, with higher recharge, to keep the HP as high as I can keep it. I often find myself doing very crazy things with a build on Mids, then on Brainstorm and laughing at myself for spending a couple of hours on something that doesn't work at all, lol. Not that this is a crazy thought, because I'll never know if something works unless I try it out. Mids is a great tool, but often I've seen a build look great, but when I make it, I don't like it for various reasons. Hmm...that will give me something to do while waiting for things to get back on line.