Ukase

I miss the days when the recipes sold for 2M or less. Takes a lot of patience to get that now. Thing is - I would enjoy it if recipes were 2.6M. Plenty of profit in that. 3.2M or so after crafting, salvage. Converters - whether you use them or not depends on what you're trying to do. Just the big three, you're going to burn through a bunch. But if you're just crafting and placing them for sale for 5M...which is darn cheap for a pvp IO, historically speaking. Leaves room for the converter roulette guy to make some if they don't want to craft. Or the guy trying to finish his build and doesn't want to spend 7-8 for one of the big 3. I was seeing the Shield Wall's going for 4+M - the end/recharges, too! Even trash set PVP recipes were going for 3.4M That was fine over the MS even when crazy/drunk/blind/generous folks were buying them up at 15M. But at 7M, nope, not going to do it. What I found the most interesting was how many recipes were finding their way into the market. A LOT. Like 100 or so every 12 hours. and that was at my lowball point. Bidding higher would surely have gotten more, because I saw the higher bids in the history. I just don't think they were bidding for very many - which is how I got mine - at least, that's my thinking. I don't get pvp recipes every day when I actively play content (non-farm). Maybe when I farm, I might get one every couple of days. I guess...if I was farming all day, then yeah, maybe. Either way - someone was dumping a lot of pvp recipes in the market, more than I'm used to seeing - but then again, the MS event brought more players than I was used to seeing. It wouldn't surprise me to learn our HC devs have manipulated the supply ( drop rates) to keep prices low. But that's pure conjecture. I've always been fairly lucky with the RNG when it comes to drops. At least, I've felt lucky. For all I know everyone gets that kind of "luck".

Huh? Famous live player? No player was famous in the strict definition of the word. Perhaps well-known in their social group on the server they played on, but nobody was famous, sorry. One might make the case that Beefcake got fairly famous for presumable paying someone to pigg dive and build vidiotmaps. (That's a sketchy synopsis/summary of things I've heard - no representation of accuracy there) But that's nitpicky of me, for sure. I see different sides to this. When I make a new character, the first thing I think of are the sets I want to play, usually. Rarely, I come up with a name first. I was watching WWE and some lady wrestler was doing a promo, making fun of her opponent calling her "The Scary Queen of Scots"...no doubt a play on "Mary, Queen of Scots". So, I made a new character with that name. Lately, I've seen a Mary Queen of Scotch. A variation on the same theme, I suppose. We all do things our own way, and I can understand the frustration of thinking of this new theme/concept/idea only to discover someone else is using the name you wanted. It's frustrating. True story here: In grad school, I was considering pursuing a PhD. It would be expensive and certainly exhausting. It wasn't part of my master plan, but it occurred to me to at least consider it. I had this idea after watching a NASCAR race when the driver I was pulling for had to unexpectedly pit because of a flat tire. The year was 2003, and I was driving a 1987 Ford Taurus. At the time, it was a pretty popular, reliable car, and it was paid for, ran well. Seeing this issue with the tire caused me to ask myself, "Wouldn't it be cool if we could design a sensor to tell us when a tire is running out of air? I mean, that can't be that hard to do." Well, I found out after reaching out to a retired pit crew boss who told me the odds of any pit boss sharing information on tires would be very, very low, and that there was already a tire pressure sensor in the market. Someone had already thought of "my idea" and successfully designed, tested, manufactured and marketed it. Several years before I did. Driving an older car, and never needing to rent a newer car...I just didn't know this was already out in the market. There is nothing new under the sun. Someone has the same name you do, somewhere. You might have thought of it - but odds are, someone else has as well. It's not a great feeling to see your idea has been implemented by someone else. I get it. Trust me, I get it. Eventually, patents expire. There's nothing now to stop me from coming up with a new way to the same thing the current air pressure sensors in tires work. Your concept can still work, but you just have to approach it from a different angle. It's damned annoying, we all get it, but that's also a chance for you to show creativity. And I'm sorry, using 0 instead of O is probably okay, but using (as an example) Apache-Fire because Apache Fire is already taken...that's really annoying. Especially when I'm at ToT with that character, and then you show up with your character, and I am asked why I'm multi-boxing when I'm not. Yeah, I don't like that. Take that to another server or come up with something else. That said, nobody cares if I like it or not - and I don't have to like it. It's your game, too. I have been asked one time if I would give up a character's name - and I did. Didn't charge them any inf at all. I think they had big fun with "Big Kahuna" on Torchbearer. My character there was a PL'd controller, of all things, that at the time, I didn't have the inf to slot properly, nor did I really understand how to play it, which is why it was idle, and long forgotten since Excelsior had opened. I still like the name; but if I'm not using it, and it's not on the server I'm playing on, feel free to ask me.

I made my first (relative) chunk of change in this game back in 2019 or so...saw people paying 5m for catalysts. I cashed in all the reward merits I had - ignorant of winter packs, if they were even available, I forget - could have really re-invested that into even more. Once you get enough to reinvest and still outfit your upcoming characters, it seems to snowball from there. Like life, there are risks when you're essentially working for yourself. It was about that time the HC devs opted to seed salvage. Smarter players were paying attention on brainstorm and likely had a clue this was going to happen and I got sunk with more than a few slots. I didn't really lose inf, just listing fees, but the lesson was learned and driven home. The only guaranteed inf is the inf that comes from defeating npcs. The rest is an investment with typically low risk, and some higher risk. I knew from retail that farming was kind of fun. Unlike the world in Paragon city, built even half-well, burn would solve a lot of problems. And - the best part is - you get recipes and salvage with the only cost being your time and the opportunity costs of what you could be doing in lieu of farming. The latter carried a heavy price for me. While farming isn't terribly dull for me, it's not that much fun, either. Then I learn we're allowed to have multiple instances if the server pop isn't too high. Enter the alt accounts. Scalable farming- and the resultant marketing - I went from 800M to my first 2B in very short order. I made a ton more from the crafting and converting those drops than from the farming. These folks want to go at +4/8, go right ahead. I'll take 0/8 with my SO build, and slowly upgrade to the ATOs and WInter-Os. I think this is still where the steady stream of inf comes from. These folks that do these KMITF for an hour - I out produce that easily by crafting, converting and marketing - on a small scale, while the 3rd account gets to actually play. Enter the true evil geniuses like Yomo who spill the secrets (some I've stolen from his posts myself) and now it looks like everyone is just in the mix. But this isn't really what's happening, I don't think. I think we had a flux of returning players who didn't know how much IOs were going for. Some bid way too high (as evidenced by the PVP IOs going for nearly 3x the "new normal") and for reasons that escape me, someone or multiple players were spitting out LotG's at less than 4M. Some of that could have been altruism; some ignorance. Some just greedy noobs wanting/needing the sale "now". For me, the solution is clear. Play the game in any fashion you see fit that doesn't violate the rules. Marketing is kind of silly now, because we don't really need to. None of us do. We do it for the fun, maybe. But to fund your alts? Nonsense. Alts are self-funding as you play them - at least, for the most part. Your more established characters should have more than enough to get a starter kit going for your alt. As for having dozens of alts all at the same time - you do you - I've no advice for that. I don't know how people move from lowbie to lowbie and expect to retain what they learned while playing them, but I don't have the strong, agile brain I used to have. Too much good Ouzo and bad Scotch maybe. Or the lack of sleep. Rest is a weapon in real life. Be well-armed, if you can. Inspired by @lyrium, seeing what they did and wondering what I might do.. I just rolled a character with zip and it was tough because the way I might do it was conflicting with the niches my principal marketer was doing things. So, I had to find new niches, or compete with myself - and knowing the numbers, that didn't seem fair. Or smart. So, I found a new one, or at least, new to me. I started slowly with the melee AoE uncommon recipes - multi-strike and cleaving blow. I know as a crafter/converter type, most folks don't want to deal with rare salvage, as that shrinks profits. But, if I have the rare already from play...well, why not? At the time, rares were going for 400k. Big deal. So, I turned 10 of those recipes into eradication: chance for energy. The multi-strikes were annoying as they're only available at level 20 and up. Higher crafting costs. Still, instead of burning 2 converters to stay in the category, go out of category for 1. That's why they call it roulette, I think. Certainly a gamble. You all have read this movie script before. Nothing new to reveal, other than it can still be done. You win by playing the game. You can bid on a few things, 10 at a time, and you can make your way through the game buying all the loot you need to gear your characters. It's painful when you recognize you want the d-sync that has accuracy and recharge. But you don't want to spend 400M to get it. So you play the game. Grab more merits. Have fun. Then you win. before long, you don't even realize that you've been getting by with just the 50 accuracy IO instead of that d-sync. Keep the inf. Just play the game.

I have had a bomb badge fail in Underground several times - usually someone isn't paying attention, runs smack into a bomb and wonders what happened. Team chat is saying "stop", league chat is screaming "stop", and on discord, I'm screaming "Stop!". Eventually, I tried a different reaction - "Crap - kill it now!" - mixed results with that. Sometimes, we're fast enough - but when you do that, you kind of have to keep going. But once...the worst effort of all...the ugt failed while fighting the first War Walker AV...Des got some non-AV aggro, and for whatever reason, her hitpoints fell very quickly while we were all paying attention to the AV. This wasn't my run, but I knew better and let myself get distracted. Just as much my fault as the league leader's. Des dies, trial ends. We quickly re-queued and got Master - which makes the failure all the more appalling.

I've seen a farmer run 4 accounts at the same time -and since I knew them, I politely suggested they not - because of the rule against it. They thanked me, saying they didn't really understand the rule. And logged one off. The next day, they were back to 4. They no longer play. Could have been banned, could have quit, not real sure. I've seen one guy who I know went on to Thunderspy, who had 7 accounts running. I only discovered this because he let me tag along for a patron arc finale. It was hard to fathom that he would recruit for this one opening, but he did. I remember back on live, some chap was dual boxing and was recruiting for Manticore, and he never shared that he was dual boxing, just tried to sneak that by the team. "Alt account had to go afk for a second, he'll be back". Alt account came back just in time to exit after the first mission. We figured it out after the 2nd mission and all of us quit, leaving him with his two accounts. I have no issue with folks running 3 accounts if the population level is low enough to make it permissible. But, I would feel kind of sketchy trying to do this for anything other than just my own content. I'd only bring someone else if I was in someway doing them a favor - like the Dark Astoria arc collaborative completion gimmick. We all zip through the first missions, collaboratively completing all but the last. Then we each do the finale for each alt. In that context, those that only have the one alt still get 2 more reward tables than they otherwise would. And they would know beforehand. I mean, it would be obvious with Ukase, Ukase 2 and Ukase? all running around. Some folks might wonder about Ukase?, but I doubt it. But to just do something like tip missions or radios? I can barely play one character at a competent level, let alone 3.

I don't often try to have things make sense when playing this game. As for making sense of the Dark Armor, it's Dark. You don't really hit anything, you just kind of run into it with a glancing blow. Hard to see and all that.

I commented earlier about revisiting the kinetic melee. I made a Kin melee/dark armor stalker. Partially because I had just come off of making a dark armor brute, and wanted to see how it compared. For me, the stalker was better, well...a lot better with single target damage, at least as far as dishing it out. And, as you might imagine, not so good at taking it. The problem as I see it is it would only appeal to folks who enjoy the wind-up before the pitch. The pitch is fine, but the wind-up is just not suited for some players. The following is just my opinion, and certainly not to be confused with a statement of fact. As I understand it, the folks that work on the game, the devs, are all volunteer, as we are all likely aware. As such, as we've seen mentioned in numerous places, it stands to reason a volunteer is going to spend time working on things they're interested in. So, it also stands to reason they are just not interested in working on kin melee. At least, not at this time. It's an interesting set, and in the early levels, it really wasn't bad. I put the Chance to Hide ATO in AS, and the very interesting Build-up recharge chance ATO in my next biggest attack. I'm not sure that was the smartest way to play it, but it seemed right to me. As I leveled, it became clear that despite having access to the pricier enhancements, it just didn't pop as far as kill speed goes. Some of that could be due to me and my slightly better than mediocre skills in playing any character. Still, when I look at Foot Stomp, and then look at the KM AoE, I find the KM AoE lacking. Some of that could be due to just the powerful look of foot stomp, not sure. But my perception was this power isn't doing as much damage as I would expect from Foot Stomp. And, given that SS has rage and KM doesn't, that's fair. So, perhaps KM could use some help in the same fashion. Not really sure, just thought I'd share that while it's playable, it's not that efficient, even at single target damage compared to other sets like Broad Sword or Mace. But, that's just my opinion.

I have it on good authority that Snarky needs more cowBELL.

As mentioned by Snarky, I team with him on Saturdays. We get on discord, and I do my best to tell the worst jokes I can find, just to torture Snarky. And also because some of my audience actually like them. One of every 10 might be okay. The rest..well, not so good. I have long considered myself a better than mediocre player. I make Snarky look pretty good on some days, and make him look like trash on other days. He has his methods, and he learns quickly. One thing I do that many leaders don't do - and that's communicate. In fact, I over-communicate. Instead of telling you to spam clarion when fighting the Avatar in UGT, I will tell you all about the discordant spheres and how they will literally confuse you have the time if you don't have some stacked tactics, a large break free, or some clarion. I will tell you everything you ever wanted to know about the Will-o'-the-Earth and how it regens the AV for every league member caught in the swirl. Yes, I will tell you more than anyone would ever need to know. Poor @Solaris once had me lead one of her leagues, and she got so bored, she condensed my 7 paragraphs of instructions down to "Kill mobs, then crystals" So, if I ever have a problem with Snarky doing something foolish or inept, it's my fault for not communicating effectively. Mind you, Snarky is someone who sees mobs where most miss them. If the team is going to the right, Snarky might get distracted by some npc's neck pulsing extra heavy with that GOOD blood he likes over to the left, unlike these other schmuck NPCs on the right who don't offer him the same flavors. That's the only reason that has made sense to me. In the end, it's always fairly amusing. At least, it is to me. I mean, if it weren't, I'd just black-list him. That is what we do now, right? I also saw the recruiting for a **ITF and with the way this player was saying "Know what you're doing so we're not wasting our time!", I almost joined just to tell him I hadn't done any version of the ITF since I did a 4* back when @STiTcH was still running speed runs ad nauseum. But, I didn't join because the guy gave me the impression he was a jerk and would likely kick me right before the reward table if I told him what I thought. Just a guess, I really have no idea. But I am glad I didn't join. Mainly because ITF gives me a headache with those stupid guys screaming over and over. So, I tend to avoid ITFs if I can, unless they're speedy runs. At least that way, I only suffer with the screaming for a few minutes.

So...I looked at this latest build you have - and by now you've already moved on to something else. But, if not: The numina regen/recovery - I would take that out. You don't need it, you won't miss it. I would take that slot and put it with Super Jump, and add a Blessing of the Zephyr 4pt kb protection. Then, I would suggest you drop acrobatics and pick up either assault or tactics. But - that's me, and my playstyle. It has been since retail, the last time I took Acrobatics. It could be worth it to you, and you may know something I don't. It's a cheap toggle, and if you find you don't get held much, go for it. Assault or Tactics are a bit more expensive, but I am confident that if you change nothing - and just remove that numina slot to see if you miss it - you won't. There was a time when I ALWAYS used Numina. Somewhere in these forums, someone smarter than me suggested it wasn't that great. I check my combat logs, I see Panacea and Miracle and Perf Shifter - I rarely see the Numina. Not sure why. Maybe my eyes are tired. But, I took it out and don't miss it. I'm a player that relies on survival more than dps, so take my advice with a grain of salt. Since you stated what you're after, I didn't even look at the defense numbers. I just looked for the easy stuff.

So, I already answered another post about finding Dark Watcher, in pretty good detail, if I do say so myself. Check out your other post if you care to see how to find Dark Watcher.

So, allow me to try and shed some light here. Levantera is the first contact anyone gets in RWZ, regardless of alignment. She's a level 35-50 contact. Her first mission is to have you speak with Borea, and then Borea would have you kill 10 Rikti (I almost always go after the monkeys because I can one shot them most of the time) and then you return to Borea, who introduces the player to Serpent Drummer Gaussian Dark Watcher Lady Grey. So, if you had actually started any content in RWZ, you should know where Dark Watcher is. If you ever use the LFG, you can select Infernia's Story arc, and be teleported to her. I say to do this because, other than using a /loc - which might require an explanation of how to use a thumbtack (Dark Watcher is at 287.0 -56.0 -2123.3, by the way) I think this is the easiest way to describe how to find him. Fun fact: No sewers in RWZ. There are underground tunnels, but no sewers. The figure with the flaming head next to Teflon, (my alt), is Infernia. Simply shuffle to the left (facing Infernia) and Dark Watcher is straight ahead. As shown below: So now you know where Dark Watcher is. RWZ has some good content. I like DW's content. Good stuff. But some of his missions, if you've not done them before may leave you frustrated with a lack of direction. Especially when you get to the one that requires you to "Find mission exit". If you simply thumbtack your location upon entry when you get to the mission that looks like you're in the shadow shard, that might be something useful to do.

Yomo's one of my favorite people in this game. Driving me to become more and more rich, and generous.

If I were ever to try and look for a flaw in the way Yomo presents information, it would be in some of the 10 dollar words he uses, which make my brain go over budget.

There's not much to it, really. But it's not for everyone. It can be very tedious. For my SG, maybe 2-3 years ago, I shared my screen with more than a few folks, showing exactly how I would take a level 1 with zero inf to a billion in short order. After about 30 minutes in, I only had one player left listening. It's just not that interesting to most. I mean, who doesn't want to type /ah (or whatever macro or bind they use) and see all your listings have sold? And then to get that notice that you can't get your inf because you would exceed the cap? (I am fairly certain this is a new feature but no idea when it was installed, as I'm pretty careful about not reaching it.) Look for @dahle on youtube. His video is dated, but still applicable. Or, if you're more of a reader, go through Yomo's guide. All good stuff. I think the worst part is learning that losses are part of the process. Like..recently, I made like 100 of an item that was typically selling for 3-4M. Now, they're selling for 1-2M. I am not real clear on what happened, other than someone clearing out their stash and selling them cheaply. I'll wait it out, see what happens. But burning another 200-300 converters to change them all into something that will sell for my desired price..well, it's annoying. Had a challenge lowbie trying to make it to a billion, starting at zero. Went to winter packs, seeing they were selling for 18-19M, non-superior. Had some crappy luck on more than a few packs. (and some good luck) but overall, my average was closer to .8 than 1.2 enhancements per pack. Lost a good bit. There's ups and downs in the market. Just have to ride out the valleys and aim for the hills.

When you make your own AE mission (and you totally should try!) you will begin the process and see in orange a bunch of errors. Simply click on the top error and go all the way down, filling in fields as you think appropriate until the errors go away. When it comes to maps...they have some names and you'll see pictures (outlines of them). Plenty of office maps, outdoor city maps. I get the frustration of getting stuck on a rock or corner. It's just the price of afk-farming, imo. I knew a guy who used to broadcast for a lowbie with flight. He'd tell the lowbie to fly overhead through the map while he would tab out and watch tv or work from home, no idea really. I just know he would press f for follow on the lowbie and the lowbie would fly around the map. The lowbie gets their levels, and he got the map cleared. Win/win, I guess. Not sure either one had any excitement or fun, but that's their business. There's a lot of ways to do things differently, for sure. Here's an example of a map in AE: If you look on the left, I can choose just about any map we have in game - and it's not like these maps are special or require anything to be unlocked. Just pick the one you want. I suspect you're looking for the same as the Atta map, but without the debris. I would have no idea where to refer you, as that would involve me testing each map to take a look, and well, it's not that important to me to do it. Sorry. Someone else might be able to suggest a map and describe how to find that map, with the decription of small, medium, large, etc. and then the description of that map.

Made a new character. Yesterday's character didn't feel right. Respec'd at level 22, stripped of enhancements and moved to the far right alt page. Storm/Sonic corruptor. So far, I like. Only level 8, so time will tell. Did a DFB. We get to the Dr. Meinst section, and team leader simply says: So, for the nitpicky - Kicks and Grins is my character. I do not have fireball. Perhaps in the epic pools my character might get an option for fireball, but I doubt it. So, I was joking. But I did cooperate, as I respect the desire for badges. And, because my chat is organized in an odd fashion, the rewards go in a different pane/box than team/league chat. But, note the time stamp to help verify veracity. No pep talk. No prep talk. Dude just types in "badges" before heading straight towards Meinst and everyone cooperated. WE EVEN HAD AN MM ON OUR TEAM! Yes, I scream because I'm elated, surprised and really, couldn't care less about the badges. I'm marveling at the beauty of a pug playing as if they've been playing for many levels. Silly banter, and not one stale joke or pun from me. I'm just taking it all in, like an aroma of freshly baked bread. Anyway, before you pug again, you should look at this. No idea if any of them will take me up on my offer to 4*lgtf when we hit 50. Imagine, 2 tanks an MM and a useless storm sonic corruptor on a 4*LGTF. It could work, but it sure wouldn't be ideal. There was a blaster, too. Ice blaster, at that. And, well, anyone that knows anything, ice blasters are great for 4*LGTF. But, I digress. Enjoy the maintenance period, folks!

On a new character, they seem to get General chat enabled by default. So...usually, the content in general is unsavory enough where I remove it as I'm creating a macro or two for various purposes, at level 1, before I've even moved my character from the initial spawn point. But..yeah...where's our knocking empty halves of coconuts emote? So many other silly things, but not this? What do you folks have against imitation horse-step sounds? Or is the coconuts? Nobody said anything about putting it on your pizza. Just a simple emote.

I have been wondering this for at least 3 years. I was in Costco, and sure enough - they are in a fancy zip-locked bag. So, I decided to ask the stocker there why. They had no idea either. I thought about calling the manager, just to waste their time, but thought better of it. When I dared to ask Google, there was a suggestion it was so folks could try them on without destroying the packaging! Yikes!

I imagine they would just despawn after a period of time. I can't imagine why this would ever be an issue. Not that I mind ensuring these rascals are all defeated - but what's the point? If they're there, it's not going to stop the event from spawning again, I wouldn't think. Just basing that on a premise that it would be rare for these to be cleared during/after each "war of the grim vale" every single time, yet they continue to occur. So, what's really going on here? I am open to the idea that I'm wrong, but if it really is required to clean these mobs, and if one is left alive, the event doesn't happen again until the server resets, wouldn't you find that to be a bit silly? Surely they would have thought of that. I would suspect if their collective defeats were required, the merits wouldn't be awarded until all of them were dispatched. But that's just me, kind of thinking aloud. I typically tab through and look for even con or yellow mobs on my 50's and typically never see any. And when I do, I'll blast 'em for the badge count.

So...just my two inf - for free. Never listen to anyone else about what's good or bad. Most of the time, this kind of analysis, while potentially accurate, the difference between good and bad might be too small for most folks to ever notice. I have played sonic on a defender and a corruptor. Candidly, I couldn't tell you that I noticed any difference in the buffs, de-buffs or survivability. I remember being fairly surprised to see how easily they both reached the resist cap. The only pain point for me was some end issues, but that's fairly common in the 30's, at least, it is for me.

Wish I could help - but I just made a storm/storm and so far, only know enough to know I don't really know what I'm doing yet.

The game is strange. In one moment, the game can be a place of great humor and amusement. In the next, it can be a source of frustration. I actually wrote about 8 paragraphs, describing in too much detail different interactions that led to many different feelings. But, nobody needs to read all that junk. Right now, this instant, the game is a distraction, and an unwelcome one. I have rowing to do...rowing I was supposed to do 90 minutes ago. But who's going to look forward to a 10k time trial on an indoor rower? A blistering 1:50 pace can get me in the top 10 for my age. Or it could kill me. I'll find out too soon.

How would this be defined? In any event, just today, leveling up a kin/dark scrapper for the first time, because..well, they suggested kin needed some help. Well, I suppose it could..a little. But in any event, one group I'm always concerned about is malta. No endurance, can't do anything. So, I tend to avoid them. But, in order to progress in this certain arc, I had a malta defeat all. Well, I know sappers will drain end. And I know one of them drops that super-annoying auto-turret. I never paid attention to which one, because, well...the times I actually fight malta are very few. So, I went to HC Wiki. This is what I found: Note at the bottom, Kevlar. So, I can see what kind of armor they have and the damage they're vulnerable to. As far as I could tell, this data is available for every type of Malta, and I would assume every type of NPC we had in the game before shutdown. Now, it's not original work by me - someone else risked their endurance bar to get this data - not me. But, while I don't do this for every faction, I will do it if I'm on a character that I still have a lot to learn about and I'm tackling mobs I'm not real comfortable with.

As of late, with the more frequent occurrence of Nemesis invasions, getting the FPR on blue side is really almost faster and easier than HPT on redside. The problem has to do with your luck - did an invasion happen when you could take advantage of it? If not, then you have to wait until your level 40 to have any kind of real chance to stack up 100 fake kills. For whatever reason, the only time I see fakes under level 40, is in Anton Sampson's missions, and then, they're just the boss at the end you have to clobber. Even set to 0/8, you get 1. Mind you, that's anecdotal evidence, not to be confused for a verified factual statement. There may be better contacts, with better missions; I just haven't found them yet. I mean, you do a pos1 - that will get you gearsmasher. No need to suffer through a synapse unless you just want the merits or just like lengthy kill-alls. A yin TF - will get you on your way for Tankbuster. And if you don't get it there, by the time you're 40 and hit market crash for your free purple, you'd likely finish that badge. And of course, there are a number of contacts that have freaks in them, so there's no doubt in my mind, and proven by my own experience you can get this badge naturally, just playing the game. No need to hunt. The fakes are always the bottle neck for me. For whatever reason, I feel ineffective unless I can get the accolades as soon as I can get them. Sometimes, I feel like my build needs the stat boosts. Sometimes, it's the goal I'm chasing. Either way, I'd rather get it sooner than later. The High Pain Threshold, for redsiders - you simply can't get it before level 30, unless you're just fortunate enough to get on someone else's team for The Unlucky Artifact badge mission before you hit 30. The contact that gives it is a level 30-35 contact. And you usually have to do a few missions before he'll give out the badge mission. Even if you try the abandon, reselect a mission hack, sometimes he'll still give you other stuff before that one-off badge mission. As for XP debt - the patrol xp that we get from explorations has made any debt insignificant and meaningless, other than the lessons you learn from the defeat. (like don't slam a shot of whiskey and run into Hro-Dotz with your blaster. It's just not wise. It can be great fun, but still, not a good idea) The worst part about the HPT is the debt badge. It's annoying going into monster island just to commit suicide 15 times or however many it takes to reach it. Could just wait to level 50 and die 3x. But, waiting to 50...might as well go FPR instead. But, that's just me. Opinions and preferences will certainly vary.