nzer

I'm not in favor of increasing inf rewards as a solution to this problem, but I do very much doubt changes in low level inf rewards would move the needle at all on inflation. A single fire farmer probably makes more in ten minutes than a new player's first character would make in its entire journey to 50.

That would only be the case if you couldn't level out of them. Because you can, whether they became more or less affordable depends on the ratio of the increases. If XP was increased more then inf gain, for example, they would become less affordable because you would level out of them more quickly.

I'm not saying you said the devs were infallible. I'm saying the argument you're making requires them to have been infallible, otherwise it's not a sound argument. There are like four different comments immediately above this one demonstrating that your reasoning is unfounded. Where's your proof?

No, they're not. Their argument was that the devs intended for players to be able to fill their enhancement slots at level 20+, and that is still their argument. They categorically can't be moving the goalposts if their argument isn't changing. You're trying to use the fact that the devs set the rates and never changed them as evidence that all the results of those particular rates were intentional. That's a reasonable argument, but it's still just a supposition, because the original devs were not infallible. So it is also reasonable for someone to disagree with that based on other pieces of evidence, which is exactly what's happening.

They're not moving the goalposts, your argument is genuinely fallacious. The original devs were not infallible, so you can't assume something being the way it is is concrete proof it was intended to be that way. Charitably, the disagreement is indeed just a difference of opinion.

Good thing their argument doesn't rely on that then.

This is such a ridiculous reason to oppose potential improvements. The game is not perfect, not even at what it's trying to be. And Homecoming is already different from live in a lot of fairly major ways, so this ship has sailed. If you're looking at Homecoming and having this thought, you're failing to recognize what "the game" even is.

This is a slippery slope fallacy, no one is suggesting removing all challenge from the game. In fact I don't see anyone talking about challenge at all, except the people trying to dismiss the suggestion. Again, the root of the issue here is the expectation among new players that they'll be able to fill the slots the game keeps giving them. It has nothing to do with difficulty.

Getting multiple warnings over this kind of thing when the issue being brought up is so completely uncontroversial, especially when it was ostensibly caused by a change you yourself disagreed with, should probably be cause for some amount of self-reflection. If it was me, at least.

Clearly not, based on the consistent stream of posts about this. If you're going to continue refusing to acknowledge any kind of criticism of the game at all on the grounds that the original devs could do no wrong and the game is perfect the way it is, we're done talking. We're also apparently going to just ignore that TOs are a thing that existed in the original game and were only removed here on Homecoming. Why exactly are we pretending that not being able to fill your enhancement slots is how the game was meant to be when it is only the case because the cheapest enhancements were removed?

Rudra, what on earth are you talking about? The problem here is that when the game gives the player enhancement slots to assign to their powers the player expects to be able to use those slots, while the game is (allegedly, according to you) actually designed around the player not using all of those slots. As I already said literally just minutes ago, misalignment between player expectation and design intent is a player experience issue. And both of the links you posted confirm this. So can you please not be aggressively contrarian about everything? It isn't productive for anyone in this thread.

That's irrelevant, because, as I've said multiple times now, this is not about effectiveness. It's about the player experience.

You have to realize it's obvious you couldn't have had time to actually read those articles in the 30 seconds between our posts, right? Take a few minutes and try actually doing that, and you'll see that misalignment between the player's perception of a mechanic and the design intent of the mechanic is a textbook player experience issue. Not that this is even relevant, since the point I'm making is obvious even if you don't know exactly what the term "player experience" means, but clearly you need something to be contrarian about. Yes, exactly. This kind of thing is poor design, which is why, more than a decade ago, spells in WoW were changed to be automatically unlocked at no charge when you reached the required level. And prior to that they were changed to not have multiple ranks, which made unlocking them immediately feasible with just the gold acquired from leveling.

Then you don't have a correct understanding of what the term "player experience" means, and I suggest you look it up. Equipment slots in WoW are inherent, you have all of them at level one. A better comparison would be if WoW required an exorbitant amount of gold to slot each talent point, far in excess of what you could actually afford by the level the talent point was earned.

Irrelevant, as the concern here is not about balance. It's a poor player experience to award things the player is not intended to use. This has already been brought up and addressed. Even with DOs, it's not feasible for a player to fill their slots without special knowledge about inf-making and the AH. If this is true, the expectation is ill-conceived and should be reevaluated. Players should not have to make use of an auction house to make use of basic game features.

Players shouldn't need to ask other players for money making strategies to be able to use basic game features. We're not talking about affording full builds of IO sets here, just keeping your slots filled with enhancements of any kind. I like this idea as well. Yes, they do. They might not need to be enhanced just to play the game, but enhancement is a fundamental game feature, and players should be able to make use of it. It is poor design to give the player tons of slots that they can't use without reading forum guides about how to make inf. Again, if the goal is to have a sliding scale of power, the right solution is to have several tiers of enhancements. And there's no reason why players should not be able to fill all their slots with the lowest tier with just the inf they make from leveling.

No

I'm skeptical that this is the case, given the frequency at which non-IOs need to be replaced.

If the intent is that players will need to do research and engage with the AH just to keep their slots filled, then I think that intention is unreasonable. A player should be able to keep their slots filled playing blind, even if their enhancements are of lesser quality.

No, money making ability is dependent on knowledge.

Of course you should be able to get enough inf just from leveling to keep yourself fully slotted. The game gives you the slots, you should be able to use them without having to google around for money making guides or mooching off randos in atlas. If the goal is to create a sliding scale of effectiveness based on money-making ability, the way to do that is to have different tiers of enhancements in which cost is proportional to effectiveness, not to deny players the ability to use the slots they have. This is something that already exists, and it's a problem that even the lowest tiers are still prohibitively expensive for a new player who's experiencing the game blind given they have to be replaced every six levels. I can't think of a reason why this should be the case.

I don't see how. I gave you very specific arguments which you are actively choosing not to respond to. The workaround isn't "completely effective." I've already explained why, and instead of responding you decided to act like I'm not making any sense. If you need me to explain something more clearly I'm happy to do so, but you need to tell me what it is you're not understanding first. I don't expect you will though, you seem much more interested in insulting and dismissing people than in having actual discussion. And I don't care whether multiple autocast is implemented, for what it's worth. Most of my characters wouldn't even need it. My problem is people shooting down perfectly reasonable suggestions for silly reasons that don't stand up to even the smallest amount of scrutiny. This is so rich coming from someone who literally wrote a guide explaining how to mimic multiple autocasts with binds. By all means, explain how one changes fundamental aspects of the game while the other doesn't. I don't think nature-of-game reasons stand up to scrutiny, because the game already gives players tools to significantly automate gameplay. You can, for example, use binds and macros to create a system where by spamming a single key you automatically target enemies, move to them, and cast all your abilities. You can literally create a system in which all you have to do is press F over and over, and the game will mostly play itself. If multiple autocasts aren't allowed because they change the nature of the game, everything that allows for that scenario needs to be removed from the game, but I don't see anyone arguing that, and in fact your own guides explain how to do all of those things. So if it's not a nature-of-game concern, it instead becomes a question of the practical value of restricting the player to a single autocast. And that's something I don't think anyone in this discussion has fielded a compelling argument for.

Are you going to make some kind of argument, or am I supposed to read your mind? I'm aware of that, but I don't see how it's relevant. You aren't queuing abilities literally 100% of the time, so there will be moments where something gets delayed because an autocast fired. In fact, this also means your autocasts may not fire right away because you're inadvertently preventing them from firing by queuing abilities, which is yet another way autocast is less optimal than manual activation.

I can't find a single thing in this comment that is a response to something I'm arguing. How does anything I'm saying only apply to endgame, slotted-to-the-gills players, and how is asking for two or three autocasts instead of one the same as wanting "unlimited power"? I provided very specific criticisms of the way this is currently accomplished. Do you want to attempt to respond to them at all? Autocast has absolutely nothing to with any of this. If you have enough recharge to make the buff perma, it will be perma whether you're autocasting it or not. If not, it will not be perma whether you're autocasting it or not. The balancing of these powers has nothing to do with whether they can be autocasted, full stop. They're stronger than toggles because you have to invest into them to get more uptime, often to a staggering degree. Toggles, by definition, don't need recharge slotting plus five LotGs plus hasten plus set bonuses to be perma. Your conclusion here is so completely backwards. Autocasts remove your ability to decide when to recast a buff, interrupting your attack chain unexpectedly, and you think that makes the player more effective? It doesn't. In fact it is strictly unoptimal, and is purely a convenience. The only way autocasts could possibly shift the balance of the game in the player's favor is if players are consistently unable to reactivate their click buffs in time without it. Do you think that happens? How far off would you guess the typical player is, on average? Keeping in mind that most builds only have one or two click buffs and that there may be twenty seconds or more between when the ability recharges and when the buff falls off.

Again, I don't see what's bizarre about that. Arguing that the "auto-ness" of the game is already a matter of degree seems completely reasonable to me. If colorful examples are all it takes to scare you away from an argument, I guess I may end up using more of them.