Ukase

Look, I didn't mean to bug anyone by what I wrote. I was lucky - quite lucky. But I see a purple at least once every two days. But - I have a farm toon that works while I work. So, it stands to reason it would see more. The characters I actually level up, they're still quite fortunate with drops. I had a scrapper playing at +3 get one at level 45. The next day, got two more. And that wasn't farming, it was just going through the Sig Story arc out of steel canyon in pursuit of merits. The reason I say make them drop less is because they are too abundant. They should be VERY RARE. They aren't. Heck, we have a trial that every first time character can run and get one, guaranteed! All that said - one man's drudgery is another man's fun. I don't consider it drudgery; I would consider it a challenge. It is quite possible that my characters are just luckier than yours. Evidence certainly suggests so. A copy of my petition: September 25 Windows: Let me start by saying - I don't know if this is an exploit or a cheat. If it were, I wouldn't have been doing it. But, it seems to me FOUR purple recipe drops (times Central US) 6:48, 6:48, 6:52, 6:53 - that seems it would be worth a look. Context: in an AE map, set to +4/8. (Comicon Cave map) Just running through the map like usual. I had just gobbled about 6 medium tier rages.

So...I have 7 mains? That kind of defies the meaning of the word main..

My Two inf: Yes, and no. With AE, either you, or someone else can make a mission with npcs that are specifically designed to be more susceptible to your offense, and less able to handle your defense/resistance. So, it's easier to go +4/8 for a fire farmer in AE than it would be for that same avatar in a Carnie or Banished Pantheon mission, for example. That said, the XP in that fire farm will give less XP than the same difficulty vs a "standard" contact given mission.

Last night, you announced you were forming up, and I was near the end of Dr. Q. I figured there was only 10-15 minutes left, and tried to lfg "join events in progress" and nothing happened after 7 minutes, so I just figured you guys were already done, or lfg just didn't want to work. The hami raid is also suffering from a lack of attendance, so my guess is it's the halloween thing.

Um..have you ever heard of crafting? Don't make your alts craft for themselves. Each character can grab the required salvage from the storage within the base, run to the crafting table and create that very recipe for your alt. Stash the IO in the base and your alt can pick it up when convenient. So easy! You don't need to send recipes through email. Every day, you should craft the recipes you get. Don't have all the salvage? Check your stock. Still don't have it? Place a bid or wait until you do. Problem solved!

Hate to break it to you - but if anything, the drop rate should be decreased. I got 4 in a span of 7 minutes. I even sent a petition to see if there was some kind of bug, as even though I like purples and want them to drop - the purples, the reward merits, the influence - it all comes so easily, so quickly, that I'm actually in the hive and saying to myself - why am I here? I already have 10k merits across three of my more-often used 50's; I have transcendant merits stashed for my next 50s, I have billions of influence. There really is no motivation aside from badges and to read silly commentary from the players around me. So...no! I've gotten 60 purples over the past 3 weeks. I just gave away 4 sets yesterday because I have no use for them. I'd sell them - but I don't need the inf, either. And I know some folks haven't made their billions and don't want to tank the prices for those that rely on them. Purples should indeed be very rare. A farmer who farms day and night should only see them once a week or so, in my mind. That said, the reason purples just sit in my base is the bonuses, unless you're chasing recharge...they're next to useless. No defense or resistance buffs in any of them. They should sell for 5M or less. They're just not that good. My ill/rad, Dom - they love 'em. My PB and WS will love 'em too. But the rest of my toons...meh.

I have this problem on certain maps. Change the map. All fire farms are basically the same npc, just a different costume.

I think I understand this. I'm what you might call "goal-driven". I look for ways to challenge a given character to keep things interesting for me. I seldom use p2w 2xp because 1) it's at the cost of influence & 2) it removes opportunity to discover how well certain powers are slotted and working within the attack chain. This "smoother" experience you're speaking of, it's in the game already. Or maybe I don't understand what you mean by smooth? Your xp per kill goes up as you level up. But, because we have more powers, it stands to reason that the next level requires more xp - there's more to learn! As for deleting 50's...I've never done that. I just let 'em sit. And I guess I certainly could respec 'em, get out the IOs and then delete them and start over - but each character of mine gets the 4 primary health/end boosting accolades. I don't really want to delete a character that's had that time invested. I think your problem is that you're simply bored with certain characters. And that's fine. You look to AE to get you over certain hurdles because it's effective. Heck, why do you think so many use AE? Because it works! Perhaps you need to consider not looking for levels. Look for badges. This will cause you to seek out content and to stop looking at the XP bar. XP will come! You don't need to seek it out. Now with Vet levels, it never stops unless you stop it.

I am not one of those folks who farm reward merits to make inf to go to the tailor at level 5. or 10 or even 50. With the exception of one character that I made too short - none of my characters have ever needed to go to the tailor. It's not like I can really see their costumes anyway. Most are stealthed, and the ones that aren't are buried in a pile of npcs. Is there a trick to this "spend 50 million" at the tailor? I just redid everything, and it cost less than 2million. I have ZERO interest in spending hours on this. I just want to give the tailor 50 million and be done with it. Is there a way to make it more expensive? Not to mention the 50 some odd free tailor tokens that will remain unused... What options cost the most?

In my mind, I always felt like those with high badge counts were simply....better. Better players. Better teammates. Obviously, it's not a 100% correlation, but in my experience in playing, the people that have the higher badge counts know more about the game, the game mechanics, and are almost always willing to help someone else get a badge to the point of near selflessness. Just anecdotal, of course. Opinions will vary.

I've played a couple of Sentinels to 50 +3. There's just one thing that doesn't make sense to me about the AT. Scrappers have the same resist cap as a Sentinel, yet Scrappers get to dish out a LOT more damage. The damage output should be pretty much the same for both. One is primarily melee, the other ranged. Other than that, the damage output should be the same. It really is that simple in my mind. May as well play a blaster. With IOs and the Epic pool, the two ATs are not that different, aside from mez protection, but with Clarion and Rune from sorcery pool, a blaster can work around that pretty simply. Something needs to change with this AT.

@backfire led this league. I can tell you, Backfire (as Alexander Hamidon) is a fairly clear and fast communicator. There's a discord available, but he doesn't need it. He can relay the information and if he uses macro's, I can't tell. When others were leading for the first time, and not communicating very quickly, others could see @backfire's suggestions/directions if they weren't sure what to do. He certainly does a better job of it than I do. But as far as using pets - that's nothing new. We always use lore pets (and mm pets, etc). As for strategies, same strategy we've been using since the hive re-capped at 50. Not to take anything away, but it wasn't like it was an 8 man team. (which has been done)

The pursuit of the shiny is never-ending, it seems.

I completely understand that. If it's any consolation - ultimately, damage dealt, damage taken, time spent stunned, influence earned - all of the non-badge arcs still give at least some credit towards those longer term badges. And, it seems like there's a number of badges that require all the story arcs of a given zone. Pretty sure that's an I-25 deal, I don't remember those from before. Mercy, The Hollows, Atlas Park, Faultline - I know those zones give a badge if you do all the arcs in them. There may be more, those are just off the top of my head.

Well, I appreciate your correction. I had gotten the information from that badge spreadsheet in these forums. The correct information was a lot easier than the wrong info, for sure.

Since I've already met my goal of 20B, I'll share how I did it. It wasn't really planned, I just knew that I shouldn't put all my eggs in one basket. When the game first came out, Catalysts were seen as more valuable than they do now. They were selling for 4-5M on the weekends. So, that was where I made my first real chunk of loot. After raiding hami for a week, I had 800 Reward Merits, hit the vendor up, and converted to Catalysts and converters. The reason I got converters is this: Whether it's through hero packs or just buying ATOs off the AH, in order to make them superior, you have to slot them. There were more ATOs than I had level 50's of any particular AT. At the time, I had my fire/fire brute, before I learned Spines/fire was where it was at if you wanted to AFK farm. I honestly thought AFK farm meant you could go get a drink, come back and resume playing. I didn't realize it was something you could do for 15-30 minutes at a time. So, you presumably buy from AH the cheapest ATO you can get your hands on. I placed low bids for 6M. Some went through instantly. Others, took a day or so. But, since I didn't have my first billion, I was a bit cautious, stopped at 20 ATOs. I bought them, converted to brute. I unslotted my own superior ATOs, slotted the new ATOs, catalyzed them, then sold the ones I just pulled out. 6M (ATO) + Catalyst (opportunity cost 5M) =11M Sell for 18.78M. Most of the time, I'd get 20M within a few minutes. There were only 3-5 for sale. I know I wasn't the only person doing this, but with only a few for sale, whoever else was doing it, wasn't doing that much - which was fine by me. Fewer units for auction imply scarcity, which creates the illusion of higher demand and/or value. I got about 140M within a couple of hours, while I just ran the drecks map. Then, I set out to make sure I had a level 50 blaster and scrapper, too, so I could avoid using THAT many converters. Eventually, I got a Corruptor, a Defender, a Tank & a Sentinel to level 50 as well, so even fewer converters were needed to use before slotting & catalyzing. The sales on these were far slower, and the profits weren't as good on the back end, but the investment cost of the ATO was cheaper. Still not as good, but at this time, I hadn't really figured out how to afk farm. Just figured people were exaggerating, as most folks tend to do. I made my first billion doing this. Took me less than a week. Now, I just craft & convert any drops I get. 20B and counting.

Ok, now you've just gone and made me think I should roll an alt called [Redacted] - with the brackets.

Hamidon's Enemy is supposedly a tip mission given automatically to villains when they ding 30. So, I've got a character, currently villain, but is level 50. Do I have to roll a character on an alt account and have them get this mission and invite my alt? Find some other villain that's just turned 30 and ask for an invite - or is there a way to do these through ouroboros? I've looked, and I could be looking in the wrong place...

I think you and I are on pretty much the same page. I have zero issues with everyone going off in their own direction if they can handles themselves. This is because I know ALL of my toons, even down to my emp defender, can handle themselves solo. In many ways, I think the problem that a lot of people have with this wandering off solo is they need your ability to manage aggro where they are. Not everyone can handle themselves with a minion or two. I listen on discord to some folks while we play, and I cannot fathom how they managed to level a character up. They seem helpless and clueless about the simplest of things. I just remind myself that a dozen years ago, I was a guy who had no idea what to slot. I thought that the "enhancements allowed" meant I was supposed to put one of each of those enhancements in the power. So every power got as many slots as needed to slot every allowed type of enhancement. While the savvy folks were slotting 1 acc, 4 damage, 2 recharge or similar, I was slotting 1 acc, 1 dam, 1 end redux, 1 rech, 1 slow, 1 range. Then suddenly, about level 26, I have this new power that takes 8 different kinds of enhancements, but I could only fit 6 slots. I thought the game was broken! So, I try not to judge ignorance harshly. Two things lead to disappointment in life: unrealistic expectations and/or unrealized expectations. Let's just do our best to define those before things start.

The key element that is missing prior to 90% of all team wipes is communication. This game is not hard. The challenges stem from the players themselves. A level 16 tank with 4 travel powers comes to mind. A player that turns left while everyone else goes right. It's never really quite clear to me why teams split when it's not a speed effort. Someone got to the intersection first and chose a path. I suppose some have Reveal, others don't. Some are paying attention, others aren't. Ultimately, it's the people that make things harder than they have to be. Without these people, the game would be so simple, nobody would play. It would be dull. Embrace the suck of the PUG. It is through PUGs that friendships are made, sometimes through a baptism of fire, wasted time and debt. Of course, it is also through PUGs that we learn that some players are so inept that they can't even handle a blaster using kb to mitigate damage they would take if they couldn't use kb. See - if you're melee and you just read that, your heart started to race, because you hate players that use kb! (well, only some of you hate it, others just find it annoying/inconvenient) Still, it's our ability to cope with these challenges that make the game more interesting. The other perspective suggests the player with the kb adapt and not use the kb, either through procs or different tactics. People are different. Expect these kind of issues if your leader isn't communicating while the team is forming. It's not a guarantee that things will go roughly if they don't type out direction, but when expectations are laid out prior, most people can temper their own expectations and have more fun. AND don't be afraid to drop from a tf before it starts if you don't feel right. But don't you dare drop once it starts. That's just bad form. I make notes on people who do this and refuse to team with them or let them participate in the stuff I lead.

I don't want to think about how much time that saved me. I don't have the latest vidiotmap patch because of the game being downloaded in my documents folder; it's a mess. I should do a fresh install of the game, but I've no idea how long that could take with my internet.

Let me just say this: I appreciated the accuracy of the Batman reference. Even with the screenshot, not knowing the WEB like I should, it took some time to find it, even knowing the loc. I'd get 2 out of 3 of the xyz close to correct, but was always off. Finally found it.

Guess I gotta keep drinkin' milk to get on this list. Still, glad you've got it. Might be just the motivational carrot I need.

I really have to applaud the diligence of taking notes on what you're selling/buying, etc. I don't do that at all. That said...here's my observations: Selling anything for 1million? That's just not worth the time. I want sales of at least $3M for each IO. So, I burn through a few more converters. But it's paid off for me. Always take note of how many are on the auction block. There are people who played the market back when the HC CoH first came back, and prices were much higher. Numina's proc used to sell for a lot more than it does now, that's certain! I don't take notes, so I can't say, but pretty sure they were close to 8M inf. So, stands to reason that a percentage of ALL the typical money makers are for sale, but will likely never sell, because they're priced too high for today's market. If there are less than 30 of the items for sale, you still have to look at the other IOs within the set. You don't want to be too greedy, or people will buy the cheaper IOs within the set and convert, leaving you without a sale. If they're all pretty low in inventory, you can probably afford to sell at a good price. One that's fair, not excessive. I think 4M for any damage resistance armor is about as high as you should go, but not as high as you could go, as an example. Currently, LotG 7.5% seem to be dropping in price..for now. Whomever is selling them is either wanting to manipulate the price, or is just wanting super quick sales. I have a number of these for sale at what used to be the going price. I aim to wait out the cheap sellers, because the LotG 7.5% are simply worth the 7-8M price. They're so valuable in my mind, I really think they should be going for 10M, but the market disagrees. So, I price to sell in the 7-8M range. If the market says they're not worth that much over the long haul, that's fine. I have characters that will level up and use them eventually, and I'll save inf instead of make it. Interesting that you use level 31's, presumably to save on crafting costs. But, you have to be careful. Some recipes are going to be cheaper in converter costs by using level 41 recipes. Or level 10's. Etc. Some of you will immediately know what I'm talking about. I'm confident the rest of you will figure it out in due time. Really, though, I love the diligence of taking notes, just wish I had been doing the same.

I have done Apex a number of times on my blasters. It's a hoot, and I rarely suffer defeat. Very rarely. I think Apex is one of those that you just need to run a number of times before you can appreciate the challenge/fun of it. I credit the scrapper that solo'd it...I dunno if my brute could. Might be fun to find out! That said, as a I play my blaster, super speeding about, ignoring the swords when BM runs away, and focusing only on the Champions/Mourning NPCs, I ask myself how miserable it must be to be melee in this part of the tf, and am thrilled to be on my blaster.