Shinobu

I don't know if I buy that conspiracy theory, but I do know that the number for sale dropped fairly low this weekend, and the price went up. I've had a bunch of them listed for 7.1 million for weeks and they all sold this afternoon. Now, if someone listed them for 12 million... well good luck, because people can produce more to list for sale pretty quickly. ^_^

You can sift so for typed defenses very easily with winter O’s, so apparently the Homecoming devs decided that should cost more money. Winter O’s are expensive because the packs are. If the packs were all 10 mil then the most you’d pay for a Winter O would be maybe 15 million, since brute ATOs sometimes go for that.

So I have a serious question. I've slotted my Haten with a full set of Dr. Evil's Unbridled Loathing, but what else do I have to do to achieve Perma Haten? Just that set by itself doesn't seem to get me there.

So you're saying Fulcrum Shift is underpowered as is, and needs to be fixed....?

Let's just say I'm RPing as a Vigilante who knows that the #1 goal is to take Arakhn out by the most expedient means possible, and if Dr. Todd is going to get herself "defeated" (and transferred to the hospital, as noted) then it is not my responsibility to save her and in fact doing so risks my overall mission of defeating Arakhn as quickly as I can. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. If Dr. Todd has to die so that I can complete my mission faster, so be it. I'm a hero who sees the bigger picture, not one of those soft-headed types who thinks they can save every last soul. I don't want to lose focus on the main mission trying to solve everyone else's problems. If you can't keep up then get out of the way because I've got a job to do. If you ask me, heroes who take the time to escort Dr. Todd safely out of the caverns despite her near-suicidal willingness to attack everything she sees are the ones that should be penalized, because they are putting at risk the larger goal of stopping Arakhn. Telling me I should be penalized for being efficient and having my eyes on the more important end goal is pathetic. If you want to make an omelette you need to break a few eggs. Now, maybe I just like speeding TFs as quickly as possible. ;) But people keep telling me what the heroic thing is to do, and I don't buy it. Vigilantes and Rogues can do Moonfire too, and even heroes have to make decisions between rescuing everyone in danger that they see, or sticking to the more important mission of stopping the true threat. It's not as black and white as "if you let Dr. Todd die you're not a true hero". It never was.

You know you can slot stealth IOs into those, right? And that's it, and that was by design. Stating that "it was by design" doesn't take away from the fact that your original statement assumed that no enhancements would be allowed in the prestige sprints or preclude a critique of the design. Sprints that you erroneously call "passives" when they really aren't "passives" by definition (gotta turn them on!) My point is that the original game developers specifically disallowed the universal travel IOs from being slotted in sprint (or its variations) for game balance reasons. This wasn't an accident. But how about this? If they can code the game so that you could slot universal travel IOs into any sprint, but they only work when that sprint is on. I'd be okay with that. At most you're granted 4 points of extra KB protection, or a 20% slow, which isn't such a big deal, and you're paying for it with the extra endurance used, which is the same as using the stealth IOs.

You know you can slot stealth IOs into those, right? And that's it, and that was by design.

I don't get the leap in logic from "KB isn't that big of a problem in PvE" to "let's completely remove it from the game" which is what this proposal is suggesting. And calling that a small "Quality of Life" improvement is ridiculous. Also if KB isn't a big problem then why does there need to be a solution? If this is all about PvP, then I say go with the PvP-only solution. Regardless, I don't see this (allowing enhancements in five passive powers that nobody uses, or at most uses only one) happening any time soon.

Same for me. The two things that kind of drove a stake into the heart of the traditional Super Group for me were: A) Global Channels, and B) The way the game encouraged Altitis. The first one meant that a good channel could perform many of the functions of a SG in terms of allowing friends to be in communication with each other on a nightly basis and to work together or form teams with each other. It's not as intimate as "we're all in the same SG and we can meet in our base and interact with each other" but if you're not into roleplay, a channel handles everything else. The second one was a bigger problem for SGs I think, because I can only be in a SG if I have a limited number of characters. The more alts I have, the harder it is to be part of a SG even if they have networked SGs in coalition. Add to this the fact that I market and usually have a ton of cash, and I want to store IOs for my alts, and most SGs either don't believe in storing lots of IOs, or they gate them for the senior members, or if they don't then you have newer members walking off with anything they can sell... it just make a lot more sense to me ages ago to run my own private SG and be part of a global channel (or five, or ten) for the purposes of teaming with friends. And all of that's just become easier here on Homecoming. What I find interesting here on Homecoming is that, in some cases, even the global channels are no longer all that useful for teaming. I'm a member of MG's Taskforces, a channel for Multiple Girl II and friends, but the vast majority of the time people are talking on Discord and completely ignoring the global channel. They can form a team and run multiple TFs without ever saying a thing in the channel that is theoretically there to help them do those things. I imagine ours isn't the only group that works like this, so... far from there being no point to a traditional SG, sometimes there's no point to a traditional global channel either. ::)

Before City of Villains came out, I had this idea that being able to play a villain might mean you could be a member of the Council, or a member of the Circle of Thorns, or of Malta/Knives of Artemis, or whatever. I didn't envision a completely separate set of zones just for villains -- I imagined villains playing in the same city as the heroes, but with their own small starter zones or bases depending on what group they aligned with. Having played Everquest back in the day, the idea of having multiple starting zones in one big interconnected world made sense to me. Anyway I still think that could be a cool way to go, although I agree that many people want to be independent villains and there ought to be a way to play from 1-50 where you're not working for other people and are doing your own thing, from small crimes to massive criminal endeavors. Obviously when it comes to teaming up with others on a strike force, that kind of thing is more difficult to do, but I certainly think that they could have designed an entire story arc from 1-50 where you were not being told by contacts what to do, but perhaps were choosing your own paths in the way you choose between paper missions, and maybe getting some missions from people who are brokers or suppliers of information or whatever, but who are not in a position to tell you what to do and when to do it. And I really think all of that should be happening in the same world as the heroes. ^_^ I'm sure there are a lot of other things I would like to see, but that's just one aspect that disappointed a lot of people about the CoV expansion that I'd like to see someone do completely differently in a sequel.

Cthulustoria is pretty cool though. I can like both if I want. ^_^

You and I remember Budapest very differently. ;)

No.

I disagree...(full transparency, I am one of those 'disaffected' slow progression people)...but this game has always had a significant population that just wants to lvl up as fast as possible. Even when there was no end game... And I think what you are saying is that before Incarnates, there was no end-game, and grinding content was all there was...but that would have been really long ago...Before Incarnates, there was AE Farming, before that Reward Merits, Very Rare Purple IO's , then Flashback, then Inventions/Marketplace, before that Prestige/Supergroup/Base Raids, before that Epic AT's, and before that Hami-O's. There has always been a big shiny that has made people want to lvl up as quick as they can. There has always been a sizable contingent looking to get to that brass ring as fast as possible. I also don't have a beef with any of this...but just pointing out that it has always been an issue... Heck, I remember that brief time when level 40 was the max level and people ran Abandoned Sewer Network over and over (without actually completing it I think) because it was the best XP anyone could find. And yes, I remember around the time that the Winter Lords showed up (WL babies came before there was ever an AE baby) was when they released Peacebringers and Warshades. I remember this because a couple of SG mates had Peacbringers, and they looked so cool and I wasn't 50 yet and I couldn't make one. I was kind of afraid to PL to 50 on Winter Lords, it seemed like that might get you nerfed somehow, but I wasn't too afraid to make a fire tank and herd and burn my way to 50 in as short a time as possible.

Every time someone says, "You shouldn't rush to level 50, there's not that much end-game content," I want to scream. The entire game is end-game content. Once you hit level 50 and have your alpha slot, you can run any task force you like. That means an ITF or STF or an Apex or Tin Mage, and it also means you can run Synapse and Positron and Admiral Sutter. You can run virtually any story arc from Ouroboros. You are not limited in what you can do because you rushed to 50 -- quite the contrary, your horizons are expanded to include the entire game. Anything you want to do, you can do. And the best part? You have a completed build to do it with. Certainly if you exempt down you will not have access to all of your powers, but there is no arguing that I'm still in better shape as a completed level 50 exempted down to run a Moonfire Task Force, than a level 25 character running the same TF. I have more slots, I have a more complete build, and if I've used any attuned IOs of any sort at all in my build (including purples or PvP IOs) then there's really no contest, the level 25 can't match me. Best of all, if I want to do actual level 50 content, I can. I can join hami raids, Apex/Tin Mage, incarnate TFs -- whatever. But in fact I do run a lot of lower and mid-level TFs with my friends, and it doesn't matter that I'm level 50. I don't know, maybe some people refuse to ever exempt down and don't see the point of doing a Hess TF once they've already done it. But the idea that there's little to do at 50 always strikes me as a very stupid statement -- there's EVERYTHING to do at 50. That's what makes this game so great. ^_^ Now, I do agree that a new player should enjoy the journey the first time through because you learn a lot along the way. But an awful lot of the player base has experienced this game before, so if you want to take shortcuts to 50, by all means. It's not as if you're skipping over anything that you can't go back and do later.

On the contrary, there is something very satisfying about my character never truly being finished. 8)

Why are you doing this to another thread about the market? The market is currently an absolute mess. The lower tier IOs aren't worth crafting because the higher tier IOs are selling for so cheap courtesy of converters. Again, not a real problem. People can afford builds for their characters. I don't consider this an "absolute mess", in fact it's a much healthier market than we ever had on Live.

1. You can certainly get merit rewards more than once in a pack. 2. You can certainly get brain storm idea rewards more than once in a pack. 3. You can certainly get zero ATOs or Winter Os in a pack. Otherwise, yes this strategy works and the nicest part of it for me is having all of the other stuff in e-mail for use when you're on a lower-level alt and need extra help. But on the whole, I find making money a lot easier and faster doing the craft/convert thing. ^_^

It's true that certain rare recipes are unlikely to be bought, because they're not worth crafting. Changing crafting costs across the board does not fix that problem at all -- the reason they're not worth crafting is because you can craft uncommon recipes cheaper, and convert them into rares. Previous to converters being added to the game, it was uncommon recipes that were nearly impossible to sell on the market. So I'm philosophical about this problem -- sure it makes less sense that rare recipes can be harder to sell than uncommon recipes, but you're ALWAYS going to have something that won't sell well, and the current way things work with converters makes it much easier for people to get to the build they want. Overall it's better now.

I know there's one redside mission where you're supposed to capture some guy, and he immediately runs for the entrance, and if you don't have a way to slow him down you have to chase him and pound on him while he keeps running... very easy to fail to take him down before he gets away.

Of course you can. If it costs you 500k to craft it and you list it for 1 inf, there's every chance I'll buy it with a lowball bid of 100. If someone has a higher bid than me, they would get it but their bid might be 101. That isn't an indication of worth but it is the selling point. That means your cost was higher than the value, not that you sold it for too low of a price. If you spend 500k crafting useless recipe x that won't sell for more 1000 you sold it for what it's worth. A pound of gold is worth more than a pound of sea bottom timber, even if you spent more to get the sea bottom timber than you would spend to get a pound of gold. Buy It Now Price =/= what the item is worth, or will sell for It's entirely possible to sell something for 100,000 influence, even if the average going price is, say, 10 million.

They moved the sub when they consolidated zone transfer points. It's now west of the ferry, not too far from where it was but on the other side. All of the smuggler's subs go to the same points now, so you can get to the Abyss from a heroside smuggler's sub.

I wouldn't want to tell other people how to market, and "worth" is in the eye of the buyer or seller... but you certainly can sell it for less than it cost you to craft it or craft/convert it, or much less than it typically sells for. I would say a rule of thumb is: 1. If it sells instantly, you probably sold it for less than it normally sells for, or less than most people think it's worth. 2. If it doesn't sell in 24 or 48 hours, you may be trying to sell it for more than it normally sells for... more than most think it's worth. Also I keep saying this, high number of bidders does not always indicate high demand. It can just mean a few players are placing a high number of very low bids, hoping to get lucky. But if you want to place your faith in the market and believe that you can't possibly sell something for less than it's worth, be my guest. I'm one of those people who likes to place a lot of lowball bids. 8)

I agree. There's a lot of talk here about people will leave if they get bored, but not enough talk about people will leave if they get frustrated (because a game is too hard). Both of those are true. ^_^ I think a lot of people gravitate towards games they can play on their phone or ipad or computer that are not so easy as to be no challenge at all, but not terribly difficult. My mom plays a form of spider solitaire every day, and sets it to two suites only because that's pretty easy but not as simplistic as one suite. I know because I've done exactly the same thing. You can win most of the time with those settings, but lose once in a while so it's not a cakewalk. And I think that's fairly comparable to the people who run the same farm mission every single day, or always run an ITF every evening, or organize six MSR's in a row, or six Hami Raids, or whatever. Challenging, but not really difficult. That's what many people want or like.

Nobody thinks of themself as the bad guy... but bad guys certainly think of themselves.