Ukase

You're not accurate here. When you boost an HO to 53, you need 4 of them. If your build requires 6 of said enhancement, the AH would need 24 of them. For at least a couple of them, they're not available. And, there's also the risk of losing one or more of them because the combo odds are not 100%. At present, there are only 9 Amlyoplasts on the AH. That's fine for one power, perhaps. But for some characters, not a full build. Only 18 Stereocilia. 3 of them are level 45 or below. For "Bad HOs", an ice/dark controller, I had at least 9 level 53 Stereocilias planned for the build. Even with 100% combo rate, that's only half of what I'd need. Bad HOs - Controller (Ice Control - Darkness Affinity).mbd

Yep.

I am wondering if the name is too ...colorful for some folks. That is the name of the character. Bad HOs. But someone will likely go there, lol.

When I'm zipping through content for mission objectives only, I don't need or use them. But - when I'm playing at +4/1 on a level 5, I use them all, and wish I had more. As for why my level 5 is playing at +4, it's a stupid idea I got from Yomo. Matthew Habashy's arc is great for it, because you really aren't fighting that many mobs. And when you call in the last mission, it's a nice chunk of XP.

Ah, I love this topic. So rich in varying degrees of opinions. I heard something in league chat a couple of weeks ago. And it's paraphrased. Wish I had the quote. (paraphrased) I find there's more than enough inf just from playing. But, to each their own. Now, in the context of the discussion, I took that to mean they have plenty of influence and don't struggle. I didn't pin them down, as it wasn't the right time, and frankly, I didn't have a strong enough relationship with them to push back on their thinking. There's a player that I thought was a newer player. They needed help with something fairly simple - determining which of the 6 arcs in Atlas they hadn't done. A trip to ouro and I helped them figure it out. Soon, they complained, or perhaps it was just mentioning that they needed 100M to get the Will of the Controller set of ATOs. I was dumbstruck. 100M? I checked the AH. Those pieces were going for 8M. Then they said Superior WotC. I explained as best I could, as English isn't their first language that you simply buy them standard and make them superior. Then the next day, I see them on an alt with over 100 vet levels. I've no idea how someone gets to that kind of vet level and not be just rolling in influence. But, I can't see what they're doing, or how many alts they have that lay unenhanced because this player has no concept of how to use the market. Currently, I've made a character on Victory. Helped someone do a Frostfire. While I was waiting for the recruiting, I did some crafting, converting, enough to buy my ATOs at level 15. But, I know how. Some of it I knew from retail, some I stole picked up from Yomo's guide, and other posts. By far, I made most of my inf from the winter-O pack sale. Like some of you, I make my characters earn their way through. I don't often drop a chunk of inf on them, send them to START and plow forward, full steam ahead. (sometimes, I do) In this case, I'm experiencing more difficulty in amassing the stacks of inf. It's coming, but more slowly. Now, clearly it's competition. There's a ton of it. PvP recipes, which I still have lowball bids out for - literally 1000's of lowball bids on, are selling for 4M and more? Someone clearly is competing with some others to get into that niche. I see those crafted recipes selling for 5 to 20M, just depending on the keystroke errors of those in a rush, or those who have more inf than patience. (or sense) It's a tough niche if you don't watch your converter cost. Or even if you do. And I think that's where the rub is for some of these players. Most don't mind slapping some converters on the AH to grab some quick loot. They don't necessarily mind spending 100 merits for a winter (even though the case can be made you'd make more profit using the 300 converters you'd get with those merits) some folks just want to kill stuff. That's why they're here. To live vicariously through their alt. Ultimately, it leaves me with one conclusion: this game just isn't for everyone. And that's okay. HC has made the market so much better than it ever was in retail. The barrier of entry to do things on scale..that barrier isn't nearly as high as it was on retail. But, it's still high. Farming - my only beef with farmers is when they PL someone without having any idea or care if that person understands anything about the game. Other than that, farm away. Doesn't bother me in the least. I farm my own alts, usually from 30 to 35. And sometimes from 41 to 45. Just depends on the character. But, I don't bug anyone - except for that player that really wants to team up and can't get a team. That player might dislike farmers for not playing the way they do. And that's not to say they don't want those players to ever farm, but to stop and help them and then go back to farming after their string of missions they wanted to do is over. Some things in game, like the universal damage sets...I wish they could be earned other ways instead of just that specific content. And I suppose, indirectly they could be. You'd just have to blow through reward merits at an heinous exchange to get them. For now though, I think we leave well enough alone. I've been going out of my way to gift chunks of inf to newer players, trying to gauge how much assistance they want.

It's already been mentioned. Jack Emmert, love him or hate him, stated clearly that the only reason to play this game was to team up. Trinity aside, their intent was to have people team up, and make friends as they played, resulting in continuing subscriptions so you could keep teaming with your friends. And maybe experience some interesting content while you're at it. Not sure which issue it was, but sometimes around issue 4-5, or maybe before, there were fire tanks telling other players "I don't need you". And the controllers and defenders were left outside in the cold, having to find a desperate scrapper or blaster to aid them in reaching their goals. (Pre CoV, you know) It wasn't long after that, they put fear into burn. Suddenly, a controller that could lock down a group had some utility. I myself reaped the benefit of a grav troller who would use repel, forcing family into my burn patch. Fun times. Sisterhood player, college student destressing before her finals. No idea what happened to her in real life, but a nice person. Now, just because it was always like that, and planned that way to discourage soloing, doesn't mean it has to remain that way. But I am not smart enough to find a way to allow controllers to reap the same benefits as a blaster solo, without them being a true force multiplier on a team, to the point of ridiculousness. I'm not saying controllers shouldn't do more damage. Maybe give them a damage buff when they're solo the way defenders get one. At least before level 30. That's over fast enough anyway.

Well, on blue side the loot is called influence. I've got a fair amount of it. And as I try to consider this term, I think it's fitting. I can influence any battle with my influence. Summons, Super Insps, START vendor temp powers..I really ought to look into trying to get to 50 without using any attacks of my own. Just START vendor goodies. But that's just silly. And it's probably been done by someone already. It's just a good thing the inf we earn from drops or wherever comes out of thin air, otherwise, I suspect even Recluse would have to sell his helmet to be able to afford to eat. And what's the guys name that has a cut scene about coffee? Arbiter Sands, I think. Yeah, that dude would not be getting any primo coffee at all. He'd be broke.

Well, when I stated there were probably 5-10 players that could articulate...you're one of them. At least in my book. So, based your insight - why do you think things remain as they are instead of different? Just a lack of desire on the part of the dev team, or are there opposing views? In all transparency, the reason I don't play stalkers and scrappers is because I lack that detailed knowledge you mention, and frankly, melee is just more difficult for me than ranged. Ranged is easy street, especially on a blaster, because if I want to go in to melee, I can. And if I want to play it safer, I can do that too.

It's no secret I'm not the smartest person when it comes to these nebulous terms like "balance". One person might play these ATs in a way where they appear balanced. Another would have a different experience. So many of us lay out these comments as if they're true for everyone. The ATOs are what they are. The ATs are what they are...until we change a few things. Is it time to change the ATOs, instead of changing the ATs? Who am I to say? What's clear to me is there might be 5-10 folks who post in these forums who can articulate why something should be done a certain way, and they'd have the knowledge and experience to back up their premise. The rest of us...I'm not saying we're clueless, but the articulation is lacking. For me, I know there's a lot that I don't know. I've been playing blasters since I started this game, and I still learn new stuff. There's a lot of layers to this game. I just want to try to have more fun with it, and argue/debate less.

Have you heard anything in the dark whispers of Beta?

So, they are expensive for the average player. But, it's not impossible to get them. 100 RMs each? Consider an hour in the abyss. 5 runs, if you grab the merits each time, that's 240 reward merits. And..well, if you do it every other day, you could leave the reward unclaimed and get 280 merits for 5 runs. What I've done is create characters specifically to buff the league, and they rotate duties. If there's low attendance, sometimes I can swap and snag an extra 40. I suppose it depends on your definition of insufferable. As for me, my characters can snag those out of email because I've been around since before they put those winter packs on sale for 10M and bought a bunch. Still have some I haven't opened.

Well, while I think my idea is super silly, the market just isn't ready for it yet. There simply aren't enough of a certain HO available on the market to build this character as planned. So, my choices are to bid and wait..or to scrap the project. Hopefully, just my posting will encourage our dev team to at least take a look at the drop rates of certain HO/D-syncs.

Well, the way things are now; nothing is broken. Sometimes it is indeed best to leave well-enough alone. But, I do think it would be much simpler to allow certain HO/D-Syncs to drop a smidge more often.

My understanding is there's some "code limitations" preventing this from happening. I've no idea what that specifically means, though. Maybe it's just we don't have a volunteer programmer willing or able to code it. Maybe there's some other issue preventing it from being a thing. No idea. But, if that is the case, they could easily re-visit the drop rate, and where/how these enhancements drop. As of now, what I imagine a low demand enhancement - the stereocilia/Deceleration (bucketed as the same thing) there are only 14 of these for sale. 8 of them being level 50. Now, there's 361 people bidding on these at a price, presumably lower than 16M. No way to know other than sell a bunch for cheap. The Cyto, one of the more popular ones Only 37 total Cyto for sale, with over 1/3 of them being lower than level 50. There are 2400 bids for all of them, collectively. The Acc/threat/Rec Only 23 of them in total - and I'd bet more folks would bid on them, but they're the most expensive. 850 bids for them, collectively. Conversely, 1306 Centrioles are available. (across all levels) Looking at the price...amazing there are any outstanding bids at all. From a marketing perspective, someone might be buying them, combining to make 53's and relisting. Never know when someone who doesn't know any better is going to come along and pad your pockets. I could go on, but the point is pretty clear. There are players that would use these if they were more readily available. I'm not saying make the Acc/threat/Rec as easy to get as a dam/mez. I'm just saying look at the drop rates for all of them. Even some of them out. Amlyoplast, Stereocilia, the cytoskeleton - all three could use a little glance and see if their drop rate odds could be improved.

I posted this in the controller forum. I was having a chat with some folks in The Abyss about how the rng is just a very fickle beast sometimes. I've gotten my share of acc/dams, sure. But I do feel at a loss when I get something like a Golgi or a ribosome. Someone in the league mentioned Golgis are great for spirit ward. Like when would I ever use spirit ward? You'd have to take the sorcery pool for that. Eww! I've hated that pool ever since they nerfed adjusted the recharge on Rune of Protection. So, maybe it's time to just put the sour grapes on that aside and try to make lemonade out of the many lemons. (peroxisomes and endoplasms) This is what I've got so far. Probably not the finished product. And the scary part is - with IO set bonuses, I could probably make fade permanent, making this controller very interesting to play. I've no idea if there are enough stereocilla's to actually do this build. Maybe one day, the powers that be will revisit the HO drop table. Because Lady Grey TF is just too long with some pugs, and on speed teams, I can barely keep up. So, I'll spend the inf - but hard to do when they're not available on the AH. For now, it's a decent joke for me to grin at. Bad HOs - Controller (Ice Control - Darkness Affinity).mbd