Ukase

This is a complete list of the Hallowe'en badges. Note: Arriviste/Trusting are alignment specific. You can get the tip, then switch alignment to get the Arriviste or Trusted badge option. Also - if you're on a team, you're rogue, they're vig - doesn't matter, you'll have the option to choose Arriviste, and vice-versa. Tips (anecdotally) drop at the same rate, teamed or solo, but if you're teamed, you can choose any of the options you haven't chosen yet, without regard to what the team lead choses. You don't have to necessarily click on those glowies to increase the timer, because all that's required is beating the boss and the surrounding mobs. Anyone with stealth or just high enough hp or defense to ignore the mobs can zip through easily to the end. Sinister Summoner is new with the latest patch. BEFORE anyone enters the house, any on the team needs to talk with Devil Girl, choose the top option of dialogue each time, then talk to Bored Guy & Bored Girl (any order), then back to Devil Girl where the Black Whip will spawn. Seems like this Monster is harder than the AV at the end. Banners can be tricky in a populated zone. Kill mobs to make banners vulnerable. Optimally, you'd have 4 teams, one at each banner. Each team kills those mobs to make the banners vulnerable. It's timed, which is why splitting up is a good idea. When the banners are vulnerable: EITHER at least one representative from each team should be at each banner so that all teammates get credit for the badges, OR all teams tackle the same banner at the same time, then move to the next. The latter is generally for best results as far as badges go. It's quite easy with wise use of Incandescence. It's also wise to avoid IP and Nerva for banners just because of the size of the zone. And, it may need to be said - before you do any of this stuff, Trick or Treat until you get a costume, then toggle it on. If you're doing House of Horrors without a costume, and you're after the badges, you'll need to redo it, as one badge for beating the final AV is called "Tricked Out" and is only awarded if you're in a costume. Further, the Hallowe'en tips missions won't drop if you're not in costume.

Another one for you - but it's not exactly "only the team leader" gets - it's only the mission holder gets. I was taking three of my alts through Provost Marchand's 2nd arc, first mission. The badge is called "Long Arm of the Law". The story arc is called "A New War" The team lead in this case had the mission, but in collaboration, another characters identical mission was chosen. The holder of the mission got the badge, the other two did not.

I actually teamed up with Stitch and a bunch of others in Kallista yesterday evening - got all the badges for the banners, the zombies, all the tips...just needed a dozen more costumes before I had to call it a night. Oh, and it was so funny - another group was there, invited our team to their league - we outnumbered them, so they shifted our team leader to their team. On the Discord, it was met with laughter, but an undertone of "how rude!". I can just see the next post being about "league leader shifting etiquette".

Are you guys still jabbering on about this? Don't ya know the Halloween event started?

To me, this is the part that I don't understand. Why not just wait? You make more and have to do less. If you're concerned that the volume will run out, you can still make them and list them. Not like they're gonna disappear. With PvP IOs, which is an area I deal with a good bit, I obviously see that I can put lowball bids for the recipes in at X, and maybe they trickle in, and in 10 hours, I'll have 100 of them or so. Then I can craft, convert and list them at the price the market has said it's willing to consistently pay. So, I do that. Now, do they all sell in 24 hours? Not all. Sometimes - a player like me or you, or just a casual player will enter the fray and start listing these same items for 10% less. Some list them at half my desired price. But one thing I do know - whether it's you, me or someone else, the demand is there. It may take a week, but by golly, it will sell! With 200 slots in the AH, seeing a dozen or even 50 still waiting for a customer is annoying, but I don't let it stop me. I will fill the slots, and my enhancement tray and check back every 4 to 6 to 8 hours, depending on my day and keep feeding the AH. I still see the impatient folks listing theirs more cheaply and getting their sales, but by the time it's all said and done, mine have all sold, and I made mine. I also had to spend less time doing that and got to play more. Rather, focus on other things, like accumulating transcendent merits. Nothing is worse than doing incarnate trials AGAIN because not only are you enduring the same content repeatedly, you're having to wait on other people repeatedly. I'm okay with a few minutes here and there, but standing in ouro or pocket d waiting for 10-20 minutes ...no, I'm not gonna do that. Love that there's more than one way to skin the figurative kitty. But hey, if it's working for you, and clearly it is, carry on, my good man. Not like I could stop you anyway, lol!

Ha, I get it - but having large stacks of influence can be a bit annoying without a bank. I like stashing my inf in email. It's not like email has any other uses. I'm in the habit of crafting all the uncommon and rare and pvp and very rare recipes I get, and vendoring/selling the commons. I stash the purples...or I did, until my base filled up. I had made a couple extra bases, but it got to be more of a pain than it was worth, logging in the proper characters to get the desired loot and distribute it. Yomo can speak for himself, but I think he stashes certain amounts on certain characters, always has a certain amount tied up in active bids, and has other amounts tied up in "Inactive" bids, the stuff on the AH that doesn't actually sell, or if it does, it routinely sells at a higher price than he's bid for it - kind of like those level 53 Hamidon enhancements that didn't exist in game until a recent patch. All that inf, it has to go somewhere. If it's not going to go in my email, then it should be on my characters. Because I don't want to stash mine on inactive bids, I now have to make new characters to hold it. So, for me, 6 trillion would be the very most I could hold - 3 accounts, each character on the 1000 slots holding the 2B inf cap. Obviously, that's not going to happen because if they carry around 2B, they can't ever get any more inf. It would take a loooong time to do that anyway. I like the game and marketing, but I don't think I like it that much! It gets to be a bit tedious coming up with a new character that I might actually want to play. The easier solution is to come up with a new account and just stash them in the email, making room for another stack of emails. But, then I worry about not thinking about the 3 per server rule limitation. Don't want to get in trouble over something so careless on my part, but I could see it happening with me not even thinking about it.

You keep better notes than I do, or have a better memory. As I recall reading about it - and don't have the notes enshrined anywhere, the complaint was that folks didn't like the other pvpers getting their shots in and running away before the ones being smacked around really had a chance to react. And they came up with that. But they said as part of their reason was they couldn't separate pve from pvp. I have no recollection of reading anything about the change should enter pve as well, but that was just something we had to deal with. Since you have this clear memory and remember it - what's the reason for it being in pve? The NPCs were complaining about jousting in Perez Park?

Well...obviously supply and demand have impact on prices. But they don't impact things the way I would expect. Because supply is so simple to come by, and because of the way things are bucketed (a level 30 recipe being essentially the same as a level 50 recipe aside from the salvage used and crafting costs) there's never a true limit to supply. But, it's my theory, after the nerf, suppliers (and maybe it was you, but I don't think you're that shortsighted) started selling at a cheaper price. So, for the sake of discussion, why shortsighted? Because, for me anecdotally, the prices were what they were. There was no reason to sell more cheaply, other than in hopes of getting rid of them. But that begs the question - why make so many if you didn't want the going rate? Just list 'em for the going rate and wait for them to sell, as they will sell. So what if it takes another 6 hours? That's just my thinking when I see these things. It defies logic. From a cost accounting perspective, there probably is a price point where it makes more sense to sell 500 IOs at 3M rather than 200 IOs at 4M. After all, that's 1.5B vs 800M. Even with fees and such, you make more inf. But, you don't make more profit, and why spend all that time converting such things for less profit? Oh, I sincerely doubt it was you, Yomo, just based on that point. But, even if it was, no worries here. All of this is pure conjecture on my part and has no meaning in life, or even in game. I just find it all interesting. As for other root causes, the decrease in demand is probably the bigger culprit. For every vocally irked or upset farmer/player that used the NoXP/2xINF on these forums, there was probably a few that simply left for another server. I know Rebirth, despite being smaller still, got a noticeable influx of players from HC. I know because I was one of them, for about a month. But, I had to return to keep some of you in line!

I see this a good bit, but I always attributed the difference to defeats. As mentioned, patrol XP could also be a factor. Never thought about day jobs, tho. Good thought. One thought that was referenced about patrol XP - "maybe they're getting explorations and not getting as much patrol XP". Conversely, exploration badges give XP. If one of you is getting them, and the other two are not, that's another reason to have more XP.

My comment is moot, but if they removed travel suppression from pvp, why is it still in pve? The only reason they brought it into pve was to slap it into pvp. To me, that and the initial burn nerf with fear were the two biggest snafus the original devs made.

For me - the biggest impact on the market, whether it be Perf shifters or other IOs was the big no XP/2xInf nerf. It really seemed instant that the prices of items that sold for 3m (Blessing of the Zephyr KB prot) suddenly were selling for 2m. LotG 7.5% that were selling for 8M, suddenly selling for 6-7M. Unbreakable Guards, Aegis, Numina Procs, Preventative Medicine Absorb Proc - previously selling for 4-5M, now selling for 3-4M. And sometimes less. PvP IO procs selling for 9-11M now selling for 8-9M. All because of that nerf. I looked at the market and said to myself, "Self, these crazy HC devs had no idea what they were doing. Now, my huge stack of influence is now 10-20% larger because my inf now goes further than it did before!" Now, the divide between players like myself and the "casual player" is even greater than it was! They may not have to spend quite as much, but I can still rake it in, hand over fist, and I don't have to spend nearly as much either, making scale of certain niches even easier and done properly, even easier.

For me, I have an invuln/stone, a rad/SS and several other tanks. But, tho Stone secondary offers a satisfying crunch, lately I've gotten quite a kick out of my fire/ice tank. The thing about fire primary - although Burn is by far one of the best AoEs in game, the armor is ...well, it's biggest issues are the lack of KB protection and the lack of defense debuff Resistance. But, I've found with some clever slotting, I can stack a number of KB protection points in the build and use Ageless for some DDR. I've got capped resist for fire, smashing, lethal, and really close to cap for energy and neg. And the combo of Burn with Frost...it's quite delicious. As for killing slow...no. Don't need a team, can farm, can solo the tfc tfs with wise use of envenomed dagger. It's a fun tank.

Maybe these folks are fire farmers who couldn't find any sitters!

I guess what I'm thinking is..well, all of my alts will use converters. I tend to start them off with a couple thousand. I mean, they're free. I go through 1000 a day, at least. Just seems crazy to put them in a bin. I'd be having to restock every hour.

Gotta go with ice/ice. There's nothing better. And, the character already has all the badges.

Just in case I'm missing something - why would you stash 100 converters in a storage bin? That's...33.3 reward merits. Surely every character has that many reward merits by level 15 or so...seems crazy to stash them in a base if you're in the practice of hoarding salvage/enhancements. Are you folks that do this only working a single account?

Here's your airport! At least, a runway and some planes.

As was referenced, I think a corr or a def. (if soloing) is the better use of rad blast than with a blaster. Try as I might with a blaster, I couldn't get it's debuffs or damage to be even close to the Echo:Positron summons pet. That may have been too high a bar to chase, but I tried. Obviously, someone smarter than I am might fare better, and my guy certainly lasted longer than the 4 minutes the summons pet did. The strength of rad blast is the inherent -def. May as well play a corruptor or defender and take full advantage. I think a blaster pretty much should be ice, fire or water primary - but those are just my own inherent biases coming out - obviously some folks really like dark blast, beam, etc. Just not me, lol. They're fine, but ice, fire and water will always be my go to choices for blast primaries, unless I'm just trying some gimmick out.

I love puns. The highest form of comedy.

You know, I tried, but it wouldn't let me send it to you. I think the 2billion cap is a myth, and it's actually 1,999,999,999. I thought about verifying, but it would cost me 1 inf to do so, and I'm too cheap. The time limit has expired for this poor soul, so I will share the screenshot. As you can see, they meant to overpay by 1-2M, which is why I was gracious enough to offer a refund.

This is my usual set up; I have the incarnate stuff in tray 4 set to keybinds - the same keys activate the same incarnate powers on each character.

And so - have we resolved anything in this 7 pages of nonsense? I see a few thumbs down to posts that I see as being helpful. And some thumbs up, as well. To me - the only "wrong" I see is when folks don't adhere to a leader's clear instructions. If the leader doesn't give those instructions, I don't see any harm in folks doing whatever they see fit to complete the mission. After all, each is there to play the game and enjoy themselves, not just the leader. But some seem to think the leader shouldn't have to state anything, and that their methodology and preferred way of mission completion is "normal" and only deviations from that norm need to be clarified. Can we not reach an agreement here?

So..here's where the disconnect is: "so we could do the mission normally." So. the thing is - that's YOUR normal. It's not my normal. I tend to avoid ITF because I dislike all the screaming npcs. And the surgeons. Most annoying thing in this game is those damned surgeons. But, I've done that tf countless times. I can count on one hand the number of times we literally beat a path from the door to the AV. My god, it was sloooooow. But, hey, some of you like all that xp and such - that's great. But it's not "doing the mission normally" for all of the player base. It's killing through/kill most. That's a perfectly fine way to do this or any tf or mission. But it's not everyone's "normal". At level 50, most folks have already made their influence, so there's no need for xp, no need for drops, just the merits. May as well get it over with sooner so they can go on to do LRSF or MsLib, or Kahn or whatever floats their boat. Again - killing through is perfectly fine, but to suggest that's normal - it isn't. While I get that you didn't advertise as a speed run, a speed run is not what a lot of folks think it is. A speed run is when your team actually practices the tf, analyzes the type of damage that the npcs are most susceptible to and PLs the optimal AT/powersets for that specific task. As an example, on Ms. LibTF when you beat up the "security chief?" - if you don't reset when you don't get the key from the first "security chief?", you're not speeding it. Now, that's a lot different from just using ATT or incan to the AV on the map. What you're describing is fairly routine. The only way it's a kickable offense is if you've made it clear from the beginning that it's a kill most/through kind of task, and they broke your rules. And heck, even then, kicking is harsh. You could easily lay waste to the av and then clear the entire map, and allow that one fellow who was in a rush to leave, merits in hand. No harm, no foul. As I've said before - if it's your team, you're the leader, simply express your expectations at the beginning, prior to starting the tf. Then, if there are issues, you know you were clear and it's the other folks being the jerks. If you're not clear - then that's your shoe to wear.

Fair point. But anecdotally, if not mathematically, in the early, more painful levels of 1-28, brutes seem to me to far more resilient, and do more damage. No math to support it - just anecdotally. If I were to PL to 50, there's a case to be made for rolling the scrapper, but after having done that, and not ever getting invested in the character, I stopped doing it, as there was never any satisfaction behind it, just boredom, tabbing in/out to see where the progress was while I actually played on another account. But, that's just me. I just inherently know/feel/think/believe that a brute fares better earlier, allowing me to be more invested in it's future development. Add to that, the lack of taunting (aside from the goofy provoke power), to me, and for me, the brute's a better AT. Just an opinion, no science at all behind it.

Ha! I see what you did there. I personally don't sweat such things. If I'm on a team, I follow the directions of the team lead. If not, I should be kicked, and that's fair enough. The OP (and I suppose you and some others) seem to think that someone joining these teams implicitly understand what the lead wants. I don't know how I can be more clear: if the team lead makes their wishes known, those wishes should be respected. If it's a tf, those wishes should be expressed prior to starting. When I join a pug - which other than an MSR I have not done in over a year, aside from Patron missions, I do ask if no directions are given - "We speeding or killing through or what?". If I don't like the answer, I excuse myself and leave. I'm just trying to be helpful and share why people might do things that are in opposition to the OP, and to inform the OP that not everyone will play the way they do. And yes - not everyone will play the way I do, either. That's why we have a team chat - to express these expectations prior to beginning. Makes for a better experience for everyone.