Yomo Kimyata

So far my worst boo boo was accidentally bidding and buying a hundred or so brain storm ideas at around 500k each. I thought I was bidding on rare salvage. Whoops.

tl;dr -- I never understood AE farming before. It seemed to me to be a monotonous, horrible way to accumulate the currency you wanted to buy things in order to do something else. I totally get now that it's legit entertainment in its own right. However I may feel about the reward system, I'm A-OK with messing around clocking errant Comic Con fans for 15 minutes at a pop. My playing style is such that I rarely get on for more than an hour at a time, and when I do I rarely get to pay full attention to my CoH experience. I have a lot of alts, and I generally enjoy the leveling process. I team when I can but mostly solo. The other day, I was working (solo) on the Hollows arc with my lvl 12 staff/fire brute, Hellion Keller. I got the Atta mission and decided to put together an 8-person team, and it was awesome. We had a great tank and, honestly, I don't remember what other ATs were on the squad, but we melted mobs like butter. Then at one point, I accidentally went the wrong way from the tank and starting clearing some groups, wondering where everyone else was. It was easy and fun, like shooting fish in a barrel. It was like PLAYING A VIDEO GAME. I got DCed from that mission (stupid Spectrum internet) but gained 4 levels. Normally, I would teleport to Faultline and start that arc, but a little voice in my head said, "Feed me!" So after I had a snack, another voice said, "Hey, this is kind of a farming toon. Why don't you try AE?" My attitude on AE farming, as stated above, was not favorable. But I hadn't been in the AE building since Live, so I figured why not check it out. Also, for my own arcane reasons I wanted to see how easy it was to accumulate AE tickets. It was easy and fun, like shooting fish in a barrel. It wasn't challenging. It wasn't rocket science. It was beating up wave after wave of exquisitely costumed pixels, and it was fun. I leveled like mad (had double xp/no inf), and every five missions I'd visit Ms. Liberty and put IO sets in. By level 20 I was at 0/x8. By 26 I went to +1/x8, and by 30 went to +2/x8. I just took a break to open patron pools. I don't know if I am going to do any other content with this toon except for spacing out for 15-30 minutes every once in a while and mashing buttons without thinking about content or teamwork. I now have a new and different way of enjoying playing CoH. And thanks, ?@Brigg? for making the Comic Con farm. I have no idea if the economics of AE farming are good or bad, but I'll probably experiment with that when this toon hits 50. I don't love the fact that inf farming generates inf from nothing, which could eventually have consequences for the AH, but that's a different worry for a different time. I also cannot imagine how easy this would be for a well-equipped alt and a more experienced player. As far as I can tell, staff/fire brute doesn't even crack the top 10 of farming toons. I don't think I could physically push buttons any faster than I already am! Happy hunting!

Welcome! I think you'll find that inf is easy to come by and it's kind of fun to make interesting experiments.

I popped on yesterday and noticed last 5 enhancement converters were: 97,000; 95,000,000; 95,000,000; 95,000; 95,000. Was that you too?

I’ve got mine only a few levels ahead of you. I mostly solo, so your experiences may differ if you team a lot. I mostly immobilize mobs to keep them out of my face, then single target gravity power them to death one at a time. Generally, I’m only using freezing rain from storm at this point. I rarely use wormhole and never use hurricane at this point, but I think a great method for either teaming or for when you have some storm offense is to wormhole a mob into a corner, hurricane them to further bunch them up, maybe AOE Immob to keep them there, then let AOE damage from your teammates or lightning storm or tornado do its work. I’d definitely go with IO sets. I’m currently running with a few sets of Entropic Chaos and a few sets of Basilisks Gaze, both of which provide nice recharge bonuses. You can get a full 5-piece set of Entropic Chaos for 5-10mm, and four pieces of Basilisks for about the same. Money definitely well spent.

Anecdotally, I'd say that the need for a tanker role, i.e., attract attention and take the alpha, is certainly useful and desirable in a large team. I did a bunch of Yin TFs on pick-up teams when it was TF of the week, and found myself taking on that role as scrappers, brutes and controllers. I would have preferred someone else do it, but people seem to like having a point person to follow. In general, I think that tankers tend to serve that role best. I certainly like having one on my team, but it's by no means mandatory.

Someday, you may want to look back at this and say, huh, did I really kick up such a ruckus because they fixed the ATM machine that was spitting out 20s? Dude, send me a PM and tell me what you were exploiting merits to buy. I'll give you whatever you want so you can spend time with your family and spend less time defending whatever it is you want right now on the forums.

I *think* I would play CoH without the market, but I know I would play the market without CoH.

I'm not taking that chance!

True, but if things go pear-shaped I'd rather own 200 Super Packs than one lvl 53 Hami-O.

I mentioned the MSR mainly because before the devs adjusted/nerfed the Vmerit/merit conversion rate from 10:1 to 30:1, there was a similar disproportional reward. I don't remember if that was before or after the cap limits were lifted. I suspect that fixing the cap limit for the RWZ was more about keeping the limit for all raid zones consistent rather than specifically trying to make the MSR less profitable. I hear the argument for lifting the limit on the RWZ because there is a lot of other content, but I imagine (I don't know for sure) that other instances would be spawned pretty quickly. If you can only get 20-30 into RWZ before it fills, then dogpile into RWZ 2. I can see how this could be inconvenient though. If you are running missions or TFs in RWZ, then it doesn't matter which instance you get in, and I think that if RWZ is full it will automatically spawn a RWZ 2, right?

First of all, it has been repeatedly stated that a cap over 50 was a bug and that they were fixing an error. Now, they could have just let that error slide, except that hami raids became a way to make several hundred merits an hour. Which was several times as profitable as that of the next alternative. I absolutely understand why the devs chose to remedy their error, if for nothing else, for the sake of game balance. Secondly, I'm sorry that this change so strongly adversely affects your ability to enjoy the game. I really am. Personally, I don't have the time or the schedule to earn lots and lots of merits, so I figured out other ways to enjoy my playing experience. I hope that you are able to find other ways to enjoy your experience. Thirdly, if you look, there are complaints about the "I win" nature of CoH on HC all over the place. It's an easy game that was specifically made easier on Homecoming for exactly the reasons you state -- people want an enjoyable experience for as little effort as possible. People should feel free to exploit bugs, but shouldn't complain when those bugs are fixed. For that matter, people shouldn't complain when the devs do anything to change the game. It's their server, I'm just choosing to play on it.

My thoughts on the zones reverting to their old size: It seems to me that people do things for two primary reasons in this game: 1. for the experience 2. for the rewards Although there is some merit to the argument that the Mothership raids and the Hami raids are a great social experience, let's be honest here and acknowledge that the reason these are so popular is because the reward in terms of merits/minute is substantially higher than any alternatives. Like many multiples higher. It is human nature to want the greatest reward for the least effort, and the "new" Hami raids were exactly that because of a bug which increased the zone size. If the devs want to encourage people to do other content, then it is well within their rights to adjust things in order to do so. One way would be to cut the merit reward on Hami raids; another would be to increase the reward on everything else. And people would complain about that too. Everyone seems to want an "I win" button. Heck, why not have a counter that gives you one merit for every ten minutes you are logged in and a purple recipe for every boss you kill?

I would totally play a Steam/Thermal controller.

Yup, 2bn a character.

They seeded rare salvage at 1mm. If you look at the items for sale, there are almost 10mm of them. Almost all of them are offered at 1mm. The devs wanted to put a cap, and felt that 1mm was a good level. In the AH right now, though, market conditions are such that you can buy all you want at 500-600k. If you think that rare salvage is too expensive, then you should take advantage of that by farming some and selling it!

It’s a pvp all right. You can absolutely get one from a panacea.

I’m glad I got out of that market when I could!

WP is great to set and forget. But if you get in trouble, you don't have very many options. That said, you don't get in trouble very often. Bio can be extremely active if you choose. Bio is probably a "higher performance" set.

If they made Regen more powerful, then what would we have to complain about in the forums!?!? I have a staff/Regen brute at 40 who mostly solos at +3/x5. Could he be at +4/x8 if he had a different secondary? Sure. But would I have more fun with it? Probably not. The best part was figuring out when I probably needed to “pre heal” before locking into a long animation.

Im not sure I agree that they are barely profitable. I’ve spent a few billion on these and I can pretty consistently net 25% profits. That said, it’s not my favorite way to make inf by a long shot. Too much micromanagement.

It’s made soloing grav controllers a lot easier.

It’s hard for me to judge the net demand for ATOs. On the one hand, you can use them a lot earlier in your build. On the other hand, I don’t feel like every build is using them. I keep meaning to get around to using them en masse, but end up slotting Kinetic Combat and Entropic Chaos and Basilisks Gaze instead. YMMV. If they doubled in price I’d continue to trade them but I find the higher ticket items are more difficult to flip in size.

One of my lowbies has been parking inf in bids on super packs that are under the 10mm buy in price. Much to my surprise, someone sold one back to the AH. I saved myself 1 inf!

Stupid darkness *shakes fist*