Ukase

I'm sure I'm in the minority. I see folks sometimes let their conversation meander a bit away from LFG, and get closer to a "help" kind of topic from time to time. Sometimes more of a "General" conversation instead of specifically LFG. Usually, left on their own, these conversations fizzle out after a few comments. But, many times, these folks are not left to police themselves. Invariably, someone well-meaning will chime in: "take it to Help" or "Plz take it to General Chat". Sometimes, I'm a bit contrary. And I'll chime in - "But I don't like General Chat! They talk crazy there." Obviously, I'm being silly - but if I were to really say what I want to say, I might get a touch of the ol' ban hammer. I will never understand why some players want to be the chat police. Well, maybe I get it. I like to tell folks there's no such thing as a guild or a quest here. And there are certainly no Luck of the Gambler enchantments as far as I know - but then I'm just poking fun. I usually add a 😛, so that makes it okay, right?! I mean, I can get it if it's something that's been going on for more than 2 minutes. But seriously, folks - what's the real harm? So someone asked a question in the wrong channel. Or said something in the wrong channel. It happens. It makes no sense for the offending party to re-ask their question in help when everyone saw the question in LFG. And if the question gets answered in LFG, I really don't see the harm. But, man, some of you are darn touchy about your chat channels. I wonder if maybe some folks have their channels set up a certain way - where too much chatter makes the recruiting calls scroll up too quickly? Is that it? That's the only thing I can think of. But, as we all know - the way I think and play - and the way others think and play sure isn't going to be the same. Am I missing something? Should I have been toilet trained at gunpoint? I dunno. Chat in whatever channel is open. Let people be. Ya don't like what they say, the /gignore works.

Sorry @Boyce. That question was for @Tellos. I should've been more careful.

If you're afk, why care about dps? I mean, beyond a certain point. Obviously, if it's too low, they kill you before you kill them. If they hit you, that is.

When my grandfather passed away, I was bequeathed a very nice ivory (and I suppose ebony) chess set. Really a beautiful set. The only problem was that the board had become horribly discolored and damaged. So, I bought some Maple and Mahogany and measured out the slats that would make my new chess set. I found the process of making the set quite interesting. A chess set is 8 x 8, and given the size of the chess pieces, I felt 2 inch squares would be the best way to go, and it would make the math easier than 1.75 inches. 4 slats of maple, each 2 inches wide, and 4 slats of Mahogany, also each 2 inches wide. Then, I'd just take slats 2, 4, 6 and 8, flip them over so the colors alternate as they should - then just glue it together. My big mistake was to not account for the width of the damn saw blade. I had this perfect straight line on the 2" mark...but after the blade when through it, it was closer to 1 and 7/8ths. My square board was no longer square! It came out "good enough", but it certainly didn't look right, playing on a board where the "squares" on the board weren't truly square.

Not the first post of it's kind - but we can all see the extra zero on the top. If it was anyone who reads this, reach out via PM... So I know what kind of cheapskate you are and can mock you with derisive laughter! How dare you try to lowball me? I slaved over a rusted out workbench just to get the people of paragon the IOs they need...and you would try to lowball me? Some nerve!

In the interest of providing more information than just what was asked, in my own effort to bring all of you horses to good drinking water, let me elaborate a smidge. Example: You have placed a bid for 10 identical items at the identical bid price, and for the sake of this example, let's say your bids were all 1,111,111. When someone places their item identical to the one you've bid on, the AH is expected to scan all the bids at that time and release that other players identical item to whomever has the highest bid out for that item. Lowest post price goes to the highest bid price. Is it possible that we've misunderstood how the AH rules process? Could it be this lowball price was in place before your bids and was processed at the time you were placing your bid, but the display didn't refresh in order for you to see it? It's a bit of a mystery. I think the easiest conclusion is probably the right one - AH glitch. I don't think there's a way that so many of us marketers have gotten it wrong all this time. Of course....maybe you also placed the lowball bid by accident? maybe you didn't put as many 1's as you thought?

I learned back on live to simply NEVER choose FA as a power simply because of the endurance. It's a great power - except for that end usage.

I'll say this: part of the end problem - at least with my level 50 widow that's weaker than a level 7 hellion - is the numerous toggles that are running to provide the incredible defense. Mask Presence: .14/s Tactical Training: .12/s Tactical Training Assault: .15/s Indomitable Will: .21/s Tactical Training Maneuvers: .14/s Combat Jumping: .06/s Personally, despite running .79/s of end - with my end recovery of 3.05/s, I don't worry about endurance unless I leave Super Speed and Sprint on - which I often do - because I like playing with them on. It's nice to "stick and move" when fighting. But, that's only possible with IO set bonuses. I don't think 2.54/s is quite enough for full attack chain button mashing. Generally, I find I need to have 2.00/s more than what my toggles cost to run. Mind you - this character doesn't have ANY of the accolades, as it leveled up on red side only and all we did was story arcs; not many tfs. Still, my issue with them is they can't punch their way out of a paper bag. They just suck. At least, mine did.

Well...I've had the reverse happen. I had a specific question about a badge and did a search and found I'd asked the same question a year or so earlier. Does that count?

The truth is - opinions can, and do vary. For good reasons. Some folks have preferences, and the difference between my optimal and someone else's optimal could be 5 seconds clear time difference, or it could be 5 hours. (I afk-farm. If my brute finished faster than an active farmer, I think the active farmer is smoking some pretty bad stuff.) Why use dropbox when you can just post the build directly? Anyways - I looked at it. I suppose I need to know one thing. Is this for an afk build? Do you anticipate doing anything else with this character? ApacheFog - Brute (Spines).mxdYour fire defense is high enough for +4/8, (well, it should be higher. I would sooner use the Unrelenting Fury set than mocking beratement, it will give you more recharge than that taunt set.) Your fire resistance is capped. Just park the darn thing with burn on auto and go play the game on another account. Craft/convert/sell/reset/repeat. If you find yourself dying, it may be that you need to get the accolades to boost your hp a bit. Seems to make a difference to me on farm brutes I've got that don't have melee hybrid for the regen boost - but that could just be perception bias. I wouldn't take that feeble thing outside the farm though. I hope you get it power-leveled, because playing that thing up to 50 is gonna be super painful. You'll be sorely reliant on consume and ageless. Below is my all-purpose afk farm build. At +4/8, the only scary groups are Banished Pantheons (Ageless doesn't give enough DDR protection), Arachnos, and Malta (cuz, well, sappers) It can clear the 125 map in 2 minutes or so, using a lot of reds. Less than 4 minutes not using any. I am pretty pleased with it. Is it going to out dps a legit true farm brute? No. Not a good one, anyway. But for afk-farming, it's quite fantastic. And it helps me with the first two missions of Moonfire, it easily unlocked Schweinzer in Port Oakes for invader runs. It can solo all the TFC task forces on blue side. To be fair, any character in game can solo the tfc task forces, tho. But, it makes it sound really good, tho, right?

I use the term "Dumping" to avoid offending folks - but take a look you might see what I mean. My character is Humdinger...and immediately above.. a HUGE DUMP TAKER. Is it a coincidence they joined the SG the exact same day I did? I think not!

The benefit for the alt account for me goes beyond having a farmer to PL my alts if need be. It's the joy of not having to sift through page, after page, after page to find an empty slot to start a new character. I really should just delete the ones I haven't played in 100 days...but when I see the names, and think about what I invested in them to get various badges...just can't do it. There's always a redeeming quality to them. And - for those that lack them, I have already deleted those.

By and large, with common IOs (No set bonuses), badge players will sell these at a very low price simply because the amount of enhancements required to craft exceed the number of AH slots. And, well, frankly, there are a lot of folks who are badge enthusiasts. Some crazy folks have more than one character intended to collect all 1549 badges. 51 of them require crafting, and it's well over 600 common enhancements, not to mention the 2k worth of any enhancement. Add to that, there's a badge for selling 7000 items on the AH. And then there's the lazy crafter and the market manipulator. The lazy crafter just wants to be rid of whatever it was and can't be bothered to determine the going price, despite it being listed in the history for all to see (when it's accurate, lol). These silly people list items and want them gone immediately; however, if they ever try to sell confuse or hold common IOs at even 1 inf - those can take a while to sell! Nobody wants that trash. (well, very, very few people, and they tend to bit like 2 inf or even 1 inf - and they get the IO, too. The poor seller had to pay 5 inf to collect their 1 inf asking price. That's what laziness gets you. Some market manipulators might try to lower the price of certain IOs because they ...well, motivations will vary - but invariably, the smarter, more greedy marketers are wise to this foolishness and have had 100's of low ball bids in place that they check on every few days to re-bid for the same low ball price and relist the ones they got for cheap. Thanks lazy people/market manipulators. I appreciate the help! (Maybe my gloating will get these silly people to actually list items for the going price, but I doubt it)

Contact Start level Finish Level 2XP? Ouro? XP Gained XP needed Merits Wincott 6 8 Yes No 1440 Level 8 to 9 2680 7 5.3 Bars Flux 8 11 Yes No 800 9 to 10 3125 18 11 to 12 4995 1.6 Bars Julius 11 13 Yes No 800 12 to 13 6405 10 1.25 Bars 13 to 14 7400 Talshek 13 15 Yes No 1000 14 to 15 9093 30 .89 Bars 15 to 16 11184 Shauna Stockwell 15 16 Yes No 1800 16 to 17 13000 6 1.38 Bars Eagle Eye 17 18 Yes No 1800 17 to 18 15950 6 1.13 Bars 18 to 19 19200 Jim Temblor 18 19 Yes No 2000 19 to 20 23400 8 .85 Bars Penny Yin 19 20 Yes No 1600 20 to 21 28000 10 .57 Bars Doc Delilah 20 20 Yes No 4000 +4 1.5 Bars Agent G 20 21 Yes No 17920 +4 21 to 22 45000 25 3.98 Bars So, very nice to see the +4 trick worked. I'm quite surprised at the bonus for Agent G's arc, though. That's the largest bonus as a percentage so far, by a huge margin. I'm really curious as to why Talshek's arc - which rewards almost the same reward merits as Agent G's arc gives less than a bar of XP. I'm guessing the +4 magnitude is a factor in this: 4*.89bars = 3.56 bars In any event, it's quite interesting - to me, at least. Off to Striga!

Yes

I'm hard pressed to think of any reason why you can't hit 50% success even without changing anything. The RNG with the untimely ports and regen ticks can certainly ruin things...but I'd think 1/2 fairly doable. I will have to see if I can't find a block of time and make sure I'm on when you run one. Maybe it's something that's more obvious from within the map...<shrug>

I appreciate this pro-tip, I'll definitely check this out! And some of the other stuff you posted. And I remember you when I tried to give you some pvp IOs last month. What a great name! Wanna sell it? 😛

Just anecdotally, if I don't see a designated zone in the mission title, I can't recall a time when I haven't seen the designated zone in the text dialogue with the contact. I can't say it doesn't exist in game, I rarely play that much attention. But from what I recall, the contact usually gives a zone or neighborhood. But, in this game, it's possible, I suppose.

There's no question, I see value in a leader attending other leaders' trial runs just to gain a different perspective. (Not that Oklahoman doesn't do this already - I've no idea). The players on Everlasting, like Excelsior, can be hit or miss as well. But the leaders there do make things quite clear for the leagues. One thought occurs to me - which may be out of bounds for @Oklahoman. Try a run without the RP type jargon. Use the speech you might use in every day life, avoiding words like "Varmint" and such. When you're having fun with it, it may come across as not taking things seriously. And if you're not taking it seriously, why should anyone else? While that may not be the case - my perception is my reality. That may not be fair, or even accurate to say that, it is true.

And this is part of the reason I usually avoid making one. I don't role play. I have never ever seen this game as an MMO or an RPG. If others see it that way - that's fine. I've always seen this as a game to play solo. The odd team-up can be great, or it can be a complete waste of time. A bio might be something I'll make for a character that has acquired a fair number of badges, (1000 or so). When you have 1000, ya might as well get the other 549. And when you invest that kind of time, invariably, some people will look at your bio, your build, your badge count. My few bios are generally trite, short, and somewhat amusing - to me, if to nobody else. But, I think I might have made...maybe 10 bios out of the 150+ characters. As far as other players go, I'll look at the first sentence, sometimes. If it grabs me, I might read more. But, I swear if you have typos or words that are spelled incorrectly, I'm going to just consider you an idiot. Spelling matters! And I will tell you that you spelled a word wrong. And I would expect you to correct it immediately. (but I can forgive a typo, of course) I love it when an SG member asks me "Hey, what do you think of my bio?" and I say, I dunno. I never saw it. "Well, read it, please." "Sure". (But I never read it) "What'd ya think?" "It was too long/short and not enough symbolism." "What?" "Damn, look at the time. Catch you later."

May I ask what graphic card you use, and what you're settings are at? I've got more than a couple fire blasters, and I've seen this aura on my characters. But, I never really noticed it, especially since it no longer deals damage when stealthed (and doesn't cancel stealth anymore). I tend to be more focused on the npcs I get to clobber, maybe. Because if you're seeing it that clearly, if the crypto miners ever leave something for those who game, I'm gonna have to get myself one of those cards you have. Mine used to be mid-tier, but now it's kind of old. (NVidia 1650, 5g ddr) I keep wondering what other people are seeing when they play. I mean, I wear reading glasses, but I'm 20/20 with 'em, I promise! Or maybe I'm just obtuse.

At no time, in my experience has a hunt mission completed by defeating the same faction of npcs in a mission map. That has never, ever happened to me before. I don't think that's the case. I think you should try to abandon the mission, and then speak with Harvey again. If you're lucky, he'll tell you go kill 50 carnies again. This time, do so in the streets of PI. (near the docks and along the beach area are where I generally find them. Occasionally spread around other parts of PI as well. If you're level 45, some of the carnies near portal corps may be too difficult. If he won't talk with you after you abandon the mission, that is very strange. The good news is there's always ouro - but heck, you've gone through this much of the arc, it'd be a shame to not get to finish it. Perhaps try to log out of the game, close it completely. Through the launcher, re-validate the manifest, & verify the files. Then log back in, and maybe you'll catch a break and things will work properly. Beyond that, if it's as you say, then perhaps reach out to a GM through Discord.

Now, if we could just get someone with helium nearby to chime in over the discord...

Oh my. Here's something I've been known to do. I will log in with 2 of my accounts and essentially converse with myself about the efficacy of a specific IO set on the help channel, and why it's a no-brainer. My alt will chime in with "Brilliant!" or some such. It is quite amazing how well it works. But, as you know, only for a short time. But then, I don't market it more than once, because I'm not in the habit of ever selling more than a few of any one item.

A lot of folks dislike Croatoa for the reasons you cite - but I actually like those arcs, particularly with Red Caps. Their dialogue is a hoot. Sure, I can do without the long intervals of waiting with some characters, but on other characters, I need all the time I can get. And, of course, there's always "auto-complete" if I'm in a yank.