Yomo Kimyata

you saw right through me

Nice! This is the sort of thing I like to do with scrappers. Two things: The overbuff of Dark Armor with the latest page is absolutely bonkers with respect to this, especially Cloak of Fear. Also, kinetic melee has a strong -damage debuff that tends to be overlooked, even though you'll only have one AoE -damage power as a stalker.

I certainly believe this, but I don't see what I would consider a lot of forensic evidence, and that is almost certainly affected by my biases. The best explanation I have is that people are storing their wealth in asset form, specifically enhancements. Every character can have their own SG, every supergroup base can hold 1800 items. I absolutely get that, and take advantage of it, but since I tend to categorize my wealth in terms of straight inf homie, I don't keep it in the same part of my brain. If I've got a thousand lvl 53 Cytoskeletons, I might be able to exchange that for inf or other items eventually, but I personally don't include that in my "rich-ness" although it certainly makes refitting new lvl 50 characters more convenient and it saves my having to buy 4-5 new cytos from the market. You can store inf in characters and you can store inf in emails, but that's limited to 2bn per character and 100 emails at 999,999,999 inf per email, per account. Don't get me wrong, that's a lot of inf, but once you get over a few hundred bn, you have to store it SOMEWHERE. Since I don't want to have thousands of characters or a dozen accounts, I store it in the /AH through bids that (currently) cannot be hit. That was my solution, and I haven't observed a lot of that going on in the /AH. I may not be seeing it, and the conclusion I've drawn is probably not the same as other oligarchs. I will say that there have been consistent "factories" in the PvP and purple spaces as long as HC has been public. I dip in there and skim off the cream every now and again, but if that is the work of one or even a small number of players, and if they have been able to monetize that in terms of inf rather than full SG storage bases, they might easily have several orders of magnitude more wealth than me. I figure it is so much work and there is so little to spend inf on that it wouldn't be worth my while, but they're kept it up for years!

Clearly, my doppleganger.

Because some jackass walked into a store, slammed their palm against the counter and thundered, "DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM?!?" I'm 0 for 3 so far, by the way.

If you're not having fun with a combination of powers by level 50, how is getting incarnates going to change that? But I will take props where I can get them!

Another meister balance balance meister! Good to see it! I don't like this, because the whole reason (IMO) procs got changed to a PPM was abuse of the flat percentage. Suddenly everyone is 6-slotting Parry with damage procs again. I'm ok with the current system, although I'm watching the advent of Adjustable Recharge with suspicion. I'm ok either as is or reverting having to go to special spots to open the interface. It's a tremendous convenience as is, and I'm not sure it's disadvantaging anyone as stands. Doesn't matter to me either way. I'm guessing that it's mostly used nowadays to store inf, but there are other ways to do so. I have no relevant experience or axe to grind here. I'd love it, LOVE IT, if there were some sort of governor on incarnate powers, which would help slow the power creep at top levels. My suggestion has been to limit incarnate powers to two characters per account. Want more? Make more accounts or retire one of your godlike characters.

This has come up a few times in the past. I believe the rationale for keeping it (and keeping it seeded in the /AH) was an overwhelming demand for it by roleplayers for some reason. But now, I heard from my doctor's receptionist's chiropracter's dogwalker that if you gather 100 Exotic Compounds, insert them into the magic slot machine in St. Martial, and cross your fingers, you unlock the secret room from the Atari 2600 game Adventure. But no, training enhancements needed to be deleted...

I like it! Walk into Image Inc., buy some enhancements, then when they ask you to pay you slap your hand on the counter and thunder, "DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM?!?!?!" I'll give that a shot at Whole Foods later this week, let you know how it turns out.

Nice and well written! I think a big aspect of this is that not only are we geared psychologically to like newer and better things, but there is no governor to keep the system balanced. It's kind of like (and bear with me on the metaphor), driving the kids home for dinner and they are screaming, "Take us to Chuck E. Cheese!!!!" because it's fun and the driver is saying, "No, we have food at home." When this was a commercial enterprise, there was an incentive for someone to be that driver, to keep everything running smoothly, to patch up any problems in Spines or to fix typos or to stop exploits. When HC came out into the public, I really felt that the drivers were saying, "Hell yeah!! CHUCK E CHEESE. F*** vegetables, nothing but pizza and ice cream!!!" and it was (and is still) difficult for me to justify that. Like I said, my impression is that they are walking some of their changes back, but it's difficult to be the uncool parent who says, "We have food at home, eat your Spines" rather than, "Hey, let's introduce new sets that make it easier to solo GMs!"

I remember this, and I agreed with you at the time. It was more efficient reward-wise to afk more farmers to 48 than fewer farmers to 99, and if one was doing this for cash or real assets, one certainly would. Where it all falls apart, of course, is at a very early point efficiency becomes irrelevant. I still wrestle with this -- I don't count anything as wealth except cold hard inf, and that's partly because I know firsthand the dangers of mark-to-market inventory management. And yet, there are plenty of folks who are Tier 2 or 3 "Rich" who are in the exact same position as me of being able to buy anything and everything without a care, and they aren't wrestling with anything at all!! Makes you think that maybe I'd be more content without all that rassling. Thanks for the therapy session, HC forums!!!

This is a great write-up. Good work as always. Radiation Armor is no longer the clear cut winner of "Best Secondary to prop up damage on full farming maps", but really hasn't changed that much. The change in Ground Zero was primarily to cut down its effects to the aggro cap, rather than affecting over ten times the aggro cap, so I'd call that fixing a bug. Most of Rad Therapy changes seem to be in order to change it from a power mostly useful as an offensive weapon through proc useage to one that fits in a defensive set. I really haven't noticed much of a difference other than kill rates are lower and character survivability is higher.

Thanks to both of you for this. @The Trouble I'm going to suggest you also look into scrapper secondaries as well. On that note, remember that the Crit Strikes proc only needs to go off once, so that when it is in a power that affects more than one target, the effective chance to trigger goes up. Example: you are looking at a choice between a single target attack that triggers at 75% probability, or you are looking at an AoE that can affect up to five targets at 50% probability (assuming 100% chance to hit for simplicity). If you are fighting one target, the first choice seems obvious to maximize chances of the proc triggering. But let's say there are three targets in close proximity. The AoE power can trigger zero, one, two, or three times, but we only care that it triggers at least once. So the odds of it NOT triggering at all is 0.5*0.5*0.5 = 12.5% and there is a 87.5% chance that it triggers at least once.

With respect to this game, I can see three types of "rich". 1. I can buy whatever I want, but I have to think about it, and I may have to postpone some purchases until I can figure out some inf inflow. I think this should be literally everyone at every level, but it isn't. If I'm a fresh level 2 straight outta Breakout and I want to load up on SOs and update them every level, I'm going to have to figure out how to finance that. Maybe I have a level 50 sugar parent who likes to run incarnate trials. Maybe I need to farm. Maybe I need to figure out how to read the guides on how to extract inf from the marketplace. Maybe I need to win costume contests. How many are this rich? Everyone. 2. I can buy whatever I want whenever I want it and don't have to think about it. Again, this *could* be everyone, but it takes a lot of prepwork and forethought. I just dinged 50? Great, let me go out and buy 20 catalysts to convert my ATOs and WOs rather than wait 20 sessions and have them drop. I'm respeccing and need three lvl 53 Threat DSOs? Let me pull them out of storage on one of my accounts and email them. Wait, there are literally zero Panacea procs on the market? Let me make one out of a pvp snipe recipe. How many are this rich? A couple of hundred? 3. I have more inf than any one entity can possibly use and I have passive or semi-passive methods to regenerate what gets spent. I have enough resources to completely destabilize the economic system if it weren't for the fact I don't want to or that others will stop me or that the system and laws in place are sufficient to prevent it. This is what I consider a real life equivalent of someone deciding, "I am going to buy every single chicken egg in the United States for the remainder of the year 2025 and see what happens". How many are this rich? Dunno, more than one, less than ten?

They made Highlander 2 and Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2. I think the question here is whether or not anyone thinks they can make an appropriate amount of profit. Seems iffy.

Do you think that if your build had pets it would be able to solo 4/8 with EBs as well? The crash periods that were built in so as to compensate for their extremely strong performance 11/12 of the time? I'm not picking on @Neiska in particular here, and I apologize for singling you out. However, I do not buy the argument that "some builds are *sobs* u-u-u-useless without four damage procs." Some builds are going to do more damage than others. Some ATs are going to do more damage than others. Some builds have more crowd control than others but WHO CARES because the meta and the evolution of the game only rewards damage? Well, that one's on the current devs and players. And let's be honest, every build is playable. They may not be enjoyable for you and your lifestyle, but you don't have to play them! One positive thing I will say about the current devs and this latest update -- they really seem to be working towards the goal of restoring some balance. Adjustable Recharge or whatever the moniker is again is designed as a proc killer, BUT it also massively increases the frequency of AoE crowd control powers. Was some of this imbalance and subsequent adjustments due to some of their decisions in the past that may have been short-sighted? *shrugs* I dunno.

What I like about procs: * A little basic knowledge of math and information on how the game works can have a big impact on the strength of your character. Reward knowledge -- I'm good with that. * You can get some fun effects that change powers. What I do not like about procs: * The math is inconsistent. Pseudopets v. pets. Procs on application v. ongoing procs. * The risk/reward balance is screwed up for a lot of powers. I'm fine with gambling on sometimes I get a bonus, but I don't think that (for example) four procs in an attack should statistically be the optimal outcome. I'd like to see PPMs drop personally, but that will get me tarred and feathered. I think it is very clear that the devs want to reduce the effects of procs. This whole adjustable recharge mechanic with a base recharge of a few seconds is a concrete example of this. I don't know what their mandate is, but I agree with a lot of it. I hate the meta of using powers as proc bombs. It feels like exploitation of the mechanics of procs as currently instituted and I feel like the devs are doing backflips to reduce the effectiveness of damage procs without unleashing the villagers with torches and pitchforks. If I were the benevolent dictator, which I clearly am not, I would cut some damage procs. Let people wrestle with whether or not a 2ppm slow damage proc is better than an alternative. For the record, the only damage procs I usually use are purples, because I like the high PPM. I'd personally rather have the consistency of 100 damage an attack than a mean of 100 and a standard deviation of 15. But what we seem to have is a mean of 110 and a standard deviation of 15 versus a consistent 100. I do use all kinds of other procs though. The knockdown and -res ones are bueno.

I'm not sure if this is where you are going, but I would love alternate animations for fire and ice sword attacks. I think they are hideous and I'll skip powers because of them.

By the way, I've got a 2bn inf bet on which thread gets locked first. Not telling what side I'm taking!

I've come to realize that there are two arguments that really get under my skin, and they seem to be on opposite sides of a theme which feels like a contradiction to me, so I've been really thinking about what they have in common and why they grind my gears. 1. "If you want everything for free, go to Brainstorm and play there. It already exists." This is certainly true, and I see all these arguments about why people are afraid their character will get wiped. For me, the reason I wouldn't want to play on Brainstorm is because I would HAVE to play solo. And I think the aspect of this argument that grinds me is that the assumption is made that if I want to do this, I have to put myself outside the system and therefore I am not a part of the community. 2. "If you want things to be more difficult, make things more difficult. Play with SOs, or with no enhancements. Play blindfolded and left-handed." This is certainly true, but there is no system in place to enforce it. If I want to play hardcore no-death mode for example, I can't play it within the game. I have to put myself outside the system and therefore am not a part of the community. I can see that this is similar to roleplaying -- you can always roleplay, but the system won't enforce mandatory roleplay (although I certainly have gotten a lot of negative feedback if I play on Everlasting and don't roleplay, but that's another kettle of fish entirely.) I see the theme now, and I understand that is my personal take on things, but it also explains to me why I try to put so much care into trying to figure out what is best for the system and for the greatest number of players, and why I get so confused when people /jranger for the simple reason, "ME NO WANT THAT." I think increasing the number of options that are supported by the system and the community would be great, but I don't have an easy solution. Certainly not one that is going to please everyone. *shrugs* self-knowledge works for me, at least!

I think it would be neat to get Blaster and Dominator secondaries on some other type of AT. It would help me to get more familiar with them, and it would also make it easier to weed out the overpowered from the underpowered.

I kind of like it, but then again I really only use four or five powers from the set. Insight isn't a very good mechanic and not, in my opinion, worth trying to take into account. I hate the look and feel of psi blade sweep but like the other psi blade powers. Mass Levitate is a game changing power, but doesn't really feel like it meshes with the rest of the set.

Little known fact: LotGs are made from the tears of filthy casuals.* *No filthy casuals were harmed in the making of this post.

Yomo 3 is a real jerk

I'm glad someone else made this thread, because I have no moral obligation to try and be neutral. I'd like to look at this from three viewpoints. 1. What does Yomo want? I think that there is way too much *stuff* out there, and that it is way too easy to get the stuff you want. This is partly because I get more enjoyment out of gaming experiences where I solve puzzles and earn progression because I am smart enough to do so. So I'd like to see drop rates of inf and items cut. I'd like to see enhancement converters to become more scarce by at least an order of magnitude, say ten merits gets you three converters. I'd like there to be real tangible rewards for the select few who have labored for fun and profit to remove excess money supply from the system, and none of this repurposing costumes that are buried in the code bs. Let me buy my own personalized title in 50 point font for a trillion inf. Let me buy Bug Hunter badge for 500bn. And anyone who complains that they can't get the same thing, well buck up, follow my #%$% guides to the letter and you can and will get the same thing. 2. What's good for the system? In Live, the economy was fubar for two reasons, imo. First was that early players were able to generate lots and lots of inf and had nothing to spend it on so prices were high for certain goods when the player-generated economy was introduced. Second was that it was relatively trivial to manipulate very specific sectors, like luck charms or level 10 Shield Wall proc recipes. We are in my opinion still suffering from the first point, and I think the fungibility of salvage and recipes/enhancements by level was a stroke of accidental genius on the part of the SCORE board. But let me be perfectly honest, this economy is still pretty small. If you gave me five more Yomos, I could tie up every single aspect of this economy and tie knots in it and make it dance to my tune. I don't because: I don't want to cause pain to others -- I don't get off on being a dark triad type of sociopath; at least one of the six Yomos would get pissed off because they had too much grunt work and would turn on the rest of the Yomoverse and ruin their collaboration; and I have zero control or effect on what the devs are going to do, because... 3. I have zero control or effect on what the devs are going to do. Could I buy every single piece of yellow salvage that is seeded at 100k? Sure, if I wanted to spend literally months clicking buttons. But then they push one button and put another 10mm out there at 5k this time around. Change drop rates on Threat DSOs? Push of a button. I don't know any reason WHY they would do such a thing, but they are commanding this universe and their actions are not there to maximize subscriber revenue, or even to keep the game running. Their motivations are to do whatever they want whenever they want for whatever reasons they want. Fair enough, it's not *my* secret poker game. But at the end of the day the devs are going to do what they do for whatever reasons they will do it. And that has exactly zero to do with me, what I want, or what I think would be best for Homecoming.