Ukase

You want my theory? Too bad - you're getting it. I don't know the precise term, but in my head, I call it server lag. I will pull up accounts 1 and 3. Account 3 will list a level 50 Shield Wall 5% res(all) IO for 7m. Account 1 will try to buy a level 10 Shield Wall 5% res for 7m. (For earlier slotting) In theory, this should work. And it does work. But sometimes it takes the server up to 40-45 seconds for it to work. As far as reasons for delays beyond that, I got nothing for ya. No idea.

Winter packs, historically, have gone on sale the first Tuesday of December. (server maintenance/reset) I have seen nothing to suggest this sale will happen again this year, nor have I seen anything saying it won't. It's a strange thing. I fully expected a Nemesis event this Summer, to follow the previous years experience, but it didn't happen for whatever reason. So, we never really know. For a group of GM/Devs that are historically transparent, they sure aren't very transparent about Nemesis...but that's probably by design, a Nemesis Plot.

I saw this reply just now. And I see a lot of thumbs down. Historically, this may be the first time I agree with what PF is saying here. It is true. Those who are poor are more likely to commit crimes. At least in the US. Why? Because they don't have hope. I'm not saying that their perspective is accurate. I do have hope for them. But many of them don't see any hope for themselves. And their perception is their reality. That's not to broadly stroke ALL poor people with that brush. But statistically, it's true. We can debate as to why it's true, but it has a lot to do with the rich getting richer, and the revenue from the prison industry. Consider the algorithms at work in social media. You - the one who detested Trump even before he got into office - your algorithm shows you a certain set of articles and videos. That fellow - yeah - him with the hat - his shows him a completely different set of articles and videos. And that gal over there - all she sees is Lululemon, Margarita recipes and Bongo jeans. We all see different things because our algorithms are different. They show us a little bit of what we want to see, and a little bit of what they want us to see - for reasons that escape me, but I speculate it's for ad revenue and political motivations. But - this is totally off point, I just wonder why folks would give a thumbs down. Is it because you disagree, or you just don't like that statement? Both?

Yeah, the email limit per account is 100, confirmed.

You'd have to ask them. On Excelsior, it's been done both ways, success either way.

Anecdotally, I just circle around the zig. Doesn't take too long with a team. Can take 30 minutes to an hour solo.

Ah...I play as zoomed out as I possibly can. I want to see what might be coming from any direction without having to turn my character.

I'm going to bump this dead thread since it's the Hallowe'en season and it's relevant now.

So - here's a screenshot: If you leveled up outside of AE with a non-defeat badge faction - like the CoT Behemoths, then you could conceivable hit 50 with 9 badges. V.I.P. Each badge for hitting level 10, 20, 30, 40, 50. Each of the three gladiators: Nebula Elite Buckshot, (for reaching level 10) Button Man Gunner, (for reaching level 20) Fire Thorn Caster, (for reaching level 30) I don't see a path to get less than 9.

I have no worries. I looked through my inventory in my email. I've plenty. I looked at the Winter prices on the AH...and I can literally see the downward pressure on prices from folks trying to unload the winters they have before they go on sale again, and the prices drop to the lower price range of 3-7m (just going off memory - I didn't keep close track) I bought so many two years ago, that I gave away more than I opened last year. I know I gave my SG 400 packs just so I wouldn't have to open them. And I think they needed them to restock the base. In any event, I monitor this character routinely. I just have to figure out a number of new characters, or start to increase how much each character carries. My concern is if I do that - then I can't really take anything out of email - ever - without opening the AH and making a bid on something safe to unload some inf - to grab a higher amount from email. Or, just let the inf burn on the packs. Not like I'll miss the inf.

So, rather than make a new thread, figured I'd just post in this one. I have run out of room in email for all my accounts. So, I've had to resort to stashing on characters - which is...well, annoying, as I don't want to just make an character called "Inf holder Number 23" etc. So, I've been doing this: So, this gives me about a month and a half to decide if I want to get winter packs again. So...here's a thought...there are still over 3000 winter packs that someone bought and has opted to resell - obviously, for more than the 10M price that's coming in December (I assume). My guess is that they're all selling for more than 24,500,000, doubling the profit for whomever these sellers are, even taking into account the AH fee. But...honestly...that's a lot of packs to get sold within 42 days. I don't think they'll sell in time, but I could be wrong. At least not at the price they're at now. Now, if anyone wants to unload those - these bids I have are current! And I have many, many more on my other accounts & characters as well. Feel free to take advantage and unload those packs that aren't selling. But, I digress. The real purpose of my post is to wonder how the winter pack strategy changes now - seeing all the surplus packs. I suspect some of you aren't going to be buying any more packs...because you still have ....well, no idea for sure, but I suspect those 3k worth of packs are currently listed by only 10 or so individuals. Likely less. No real way for me to know...but it's always interesting to speculate. I'm currently poised to buy 1200 packs at 10M...but I think that's too damn many. I don't want to open that many, lol. And I couldn't resell it with a clear conscious because I know a single winter O is worth more when catalyzed than the cost of a pack at full price. So, where is the sweet spot? 10 of each Winter-O set in email? 12? 5? 25? A new character once a week, and I guess the most I'd want is 52...but I don't always use winter sets in a build. And certainly not entombs for any build, usually. The other items - amplifiers, merits - all quite useful. But I dunno...not sure the packs will be that useful this year to me. Maybe I'll lower those bids to 5M and bid on 2x as many, and if they fill, I could live with that.

Of course I could. But other than the xp - which is mostly useless to me, as I'm after reward merits, there's no motivation to do it, other than to get it out of the way. It is true that the psychic clockwork king awards the Emancipator badge - but other than my badge characters, it's a useless badge. Doesn't count towards any stat boosting accolades, so there's not much reason to pursue it. And it doesn't make much sense to tackle Infernal before the arc from Maria Jenkins, because we just face him again towards the end of the arc.

You can try this with Maria Jenkins, Tina MacIntyre - you name it - they will not start the story arc. They insist on side missions before the story arc. Without exception, Maria Jenkins is gonna have you clobber Infernal before the story arc, and Tina Mac will have you dispatch the Psychic Clockwork King before her arc. Every time, no matter what you do.

Literacy is a pre-requisite when you visit the forums. It IS mind-boggling that players forget to use these items IF THEY EVER KNEW ABOUT THEM. My mind is still boggled. Can't you tell? I mean, I told you it was mind-boggling. Clearly, I meant it. And any dismissive response isn't going to make me less mind-boggled. It's not like anyone forgets 2xp buff. They may forget to refresh it, but they don't forget to get it - if they know about it and intended to use it. I do not "expect" anyone to do anything, but to play the way they like. I do, however, expect them to pay attention when an answer is given to their question. I also expect them to just gloss over, or ignore what I say if it's not helpful to them. I do not expect them to reply in such a way as to put words in my mouth. The Whip in question is a monster, not an AV. They should probably just make it an AV instead. But - nobody is putting a gun to anyone's head saying they MUST make the pact with Devil Girl and convince two bored NPCs to eat candy. If it's too hard or too dull, too long - just don't do it. Or do it for the badge, vent and we'll all understand. But we will try to be helpful and suggest such things as envenomed daggers. They are cheap. Now, the p2w selling them - that may not be common knowledge. And that's why we mention them. Over and over again, we mention them. Did we mention envenomed daggers yet? They're real nifty for negating some of the regen monsters and AVs have. They're cheap and available at p2w. Everyone that knows about them and struggles with Monsters and AVs should get some!

One brute or tank coupled with one buff/debuff AT. That's all ya need. I like a fire tank with burn on auto with a fire/rad or water/sonic corruptor. But - be advised - juggling multiple accounts on the same machine can result in the occasional glitch. I've had it where I was on a tf - with my farmer account on the background...and suddenly, I couldn't target any bad guys. I'd tab through, and select them, but when I went to fire - the cursor would move to an ally, and I'd get a message "invalid target". And I wasn't confused. Had to close the other accounts to get controls to work properly. Re-start the alt account and things were normal. A strange thing, has happened maybe twice in the past couple of years. Other issues are sound. Game sounds just no longer work on one account - but they work on another. No big deal. Close alt game, re-start, and it's all good. These are rare occurrences, but they happen.

It is truly mind-boggling that players forget about these - if they ever knew that p2w had them for sale at an affordable price. I can't recall, but it's less than 100k for 30 of them. To me, it just seems like a simple thing to go to p2w after you come out of the creator - and unless it's a challenge/concept character, buy everything you can afford. All my characters carry a set of 120 unless they're specifically created for a challenge/concept.

There must be something that can be done about this in your graphic settings, because almost all of my characters get Maneuvers, if not Assault as well - and I have no idea what graphic effect your talking about. I never see any effects on my characters, unless it's a Fire Shield or that blocky ice shield cast by a teammate. Have you tried reducing your graphic settings to performance or recommended?

Unfortunately, I know of only two approaches: set to -1/1, and load up at p2w with summons, backup radios, buffs, etc. .. and just speed through everything as fast as you can. Or Make a night of each arc and create an event. If I were in your shoes, I'd put something in my SG's discord and see how many friends/fools would join me. This way, it's still boring and tedious, but at least there's a joke every so often.

A fair suggestion. The only issue is when someone is roleplaying a very annoying character!

I won't say you're not a weirdo, but I do think you're not outside the norm by much, if at all. I'm too much of a weirdo to make the call. Why? Because I don't mess with costumes outside the creator, unless it's in pursuit of a badge. I'm so dull.

I swear I read that post twice looking for a question!

Dude, you've had like 6 people tell you precisely how to fix that and you keep going on like you can't see their replies! I am totally yanking your chain. Sorry, couldn't resist.

That statement is patently false. I was in issue 3. I slotted one SO of every type allowed. It's true! I'm not saying that was a good way to go - definitely not. I just didn't know any better. I didn't know the forums even existed then. It wasn't until ...I think it was snipe, on my elec/elec blaster (I really need to try and remake one of those) where all the allowed enhancements exceeded the number of slots. It was quite confusing. I thought the enhancements that were allowed HAD to be slotted. It never occurred to me to slot anything else. A teammate once asked me how I was able to keep a mostly full endurance bar. I had an end reduction SO in every power I had just about. In some cases I didn't because I didn't have enough slots to slot that particular power yet. That was when they told me I needed to get to the forums and read and educate myself. We can look at our teammate's powers, but we never had a clue what they actually had slotted. So making such a blanket statement is likely not precise. While it's true the vocal majority suggested such, there were a number of players who never did things like that. Some by design, and some out of ignorance.

It's a question of semantics here. If I am "on a team", there are different ways to contribute to the team without actively working side by side. I see this routinely in this week's weekly Dr. Q. That damn tf has what...16 door missions. Some are kill all, some are just kill the boss & his men, and some are kill the boss & his men and some glowies. In that tf, it would be just about a kickable offense if all 7 players followed me around a map instead of splitting off in different directions in pursuit of the mission objectives. That's a part of the reason that damn task force used to take 3-4 hours back then! Going off to pursue one of the mission's objectives while another teammate pursues another is very much working together as a team. But, again, it's semantics. Look up the word teamwork. There's nothing that requires a player to be in the room with you to be working for the greater good of the team. Of course, opinions will vary - and you're quite entitled to yours, and to feel the way you do about it. You're not wrong, you're just coming from a different perspective. That also means the rest of us aren't wrong either. Just understand that the playstyle you seek others to engage in is not the only way to satisfy "team" requirements. There's nothing unfriendly about this type of play, either. But - try to realize that most of us that played before, we're likely to be between 35-50 years old. We've got family distractions, work, who knows what else that would occupy our time at a moment's notice. The days of us being able to give something our complete attention for hours is over for most of us - until we retire, if we even get that option. If I did a cooperative effort for each mission I had, I'd be hard pressed to get certain task forces done in an hour's game session. There are times when your preferred style is perfectly fine with me. But there are other times when it is woefully slow, and not feasible due to time constraints. But that's just me. Clearly there are a handful (at least!) of folks who like this playstyle you like. Look for each other in game and enjoy.

Back on live, I started this game in issue 3. I didn't know what MMO stood for, and continued to play the game despite it being an MMO, not because of it. It was a much simpler time, because you'd get various enhancement drops, and if they were your origin, you could slot them, if they were something you could use. Very much unlike now with "Reward Merits, Emp Merits, Astral Merits, Transcendant Merits, Catalysts, Converters, Boosters, Unslotters, ATOs, Winter-Os, everything but Spaghetti-Os. So, you're going to have some adjusting to do if you want to fit in with this newer style. Or, you'll have to be one of those who types more than most on the lfg when you describe what it is you're wanting to do and how you're wanting to do it. We just have so many more tools in our tool box that playing in the fashion of the trinity is just ...well, boring for some of us. I say that not to be discouraging, but to give some perspective. The playstyle of people back then ...with the much vaunted @pickle having determined after scouring through combat logs that hamidon was held for a short time eventually turned into a strategy of having controllers (no such thing as Dominators back then) spamming holds on hamidon to beat him. Having never done one of these raids, I'd finally hit fifty and wanted to help hold hamidon with my blaster. I had two holds...freeze ray and bitter freeze ray. This is where I learned about things like magnitude. Controllers had a higher mag with their holds than a blaster did. I was summarily told to go kick rocks, as my blaster's holds weren't good enough, and I'd just add to the lag that everyone suffered from back then during a hamidon raid, despite most of us having a minimal costume with no capes. Players back then would search high and low for "heals", "dps" and "tank". That was literally all they'd want on their team. "Blaster? Nah, we got two scrappers already. Kick rocks." Is that the teamwork and strategy you're looking for? Having some punching bag herd a group up, while a blaster uses a nuke and an empath heals from a safe distance? If you take just a little time and explore the many guides on these forums, you'll find this is still possible, and still done - but that many players who play blasters use the tools like Mids to create builds where a blaster can have as many Hitpoints as some scrappers, and deal out more damage with more defense. (not all, some. A very well built blaster can certainly out-survive a poorly made scrapper.) Why should the Fire Tanks of issue 3 have all the fun? Why shouldn't the Dark/Dark Defender with a fast recharging nuke and super high defense play around in the same fashion as some tanks? It's not like it's hurting anyone. I recognize that you're playing a game and you want fun. Just realize that your version of fun may not be everyone else's. I hope you find what you're looking for, a group of kindred spirits who will enjoy things the same way you would. But, I also want to encourage you to think outside of that tired box. There's countless hours of learning & fun to be had, and more than one way to play. The good news is - none of them are wrong, as long as you're enjoying yourself!