[Auction House fees: is there any point?]

Well...I'm not sure who thinks it costs anything to stash items in the AH. It doesn't. You aren't charged anything for placing items in the AH. We are charged a token fee for placing an item up for bid. If we priced it to high, we can remove it, place it for a lower price and pay a fee yet again. 

That's the whole point behind the fee - to encourage the seller to place the item at a price it will sell. (in other words - reasonably priced or cheaper) 

So..what's to be gained by removing the fee? 

Struggling players wouldn't have to earn a certain amount before selling a generous gift. So that's useful. 
Well-off players would become more well-off because they wouldn't pay fees. 

Eh, for me, 6 in one hand, half dozen in the other. Doesn't matter to me. I would prefer not to pay the fees myself. But I'm sure everyone would prefer to not pay the fees. But, I'd rather pay the fees than find some buyer outside the market, so it's worth it to me. 

[Contact mission offerings]

Soo...how do I put this...
Sometimes, I want a story arc from a contact. Sometimes, I don't want the arc. 

Case in point - Maria Jenkins or Tina MacIntyre. 
I might want Multi-Dimensional from Tina at level 41, but she is sure gonna have me take on some psychic Clockwork EB - no matter what. Fine. But the next mission - if you wanted multi-dimensional, there's a chance she may offer it. Or, she may offer something else. Or - she offers the arc. I accept, then abandon, ask again, and 20 times, always the arc. So I go and do it. 

Maria Jenkins is the same. Infernal is first, regardless. That's fine. But when I ask "what else is going on" - why can't she cycle through the missions? She'll do that - but once she offers the arc - there is no choice but to do a patrol, or the arc. I don't want the arc, I want the shrouded mission. I know I can do the arc, and she'll eventually offer it. But what's the point of asking what else is going on, if she never does anything different? 

Mind you - I'm fully aware I can get these missions through ouro. But on occasion, our SG does Accolade runs, and if they are too low, they can't participate. Also, if you're doing an ouro arc, and something like a Rikti raid happens, you're locked into the team you're on and it's a bit awkward trying to do miscellaneous things like that while in an ouro arc. 

Would love it if there was a way to get these two contacts to yes, offer the arcs - but also offer the other missions, much the same way the two mayhem and safeguard mission holders offer theirs. Give us a list, please. 

["The Game is not Balanced around IO's"..... should it be?]

11 hours ago, parabola said:

This right here is where there is a huge difference in perception driving the two sides of this argument. People who view the game as primarily a solo game with an option for teaming are of course not going to be all that concerned about balance issues affecting teaming. They just want to be able to 'solo all the things'. But those of us who see CoH as an mmo first and foremost and who view teaming as the bedrock of the game (or at least feel it should be), tend to be those expressing concerns about how the team experience is being affected by powercreep.

 

And don't misunderstand me, I play at odd times and really value being able to solo well in this game, but as far as I'm concerned soloing absolutely shouldn't be the balancing point. If the soloability of my characters takes a hit in a balance pass so be it, in my opinion the game would be healthier as a result. No one is suggesting that soloing is removed as an option, just that if people can solo at maximum difficulty it doesn't leave much room for teaming.

I want you to know I do appreciate your perspective. When making decisions in the real world, I try to think of what the best choice is not only for me, but for my family. And not only for today, but next month, next year and so on. 

As someone who's an officer in an SG, I completely understand that our community has a relatively large number of people who really, really want to team up doing...well, just about anything. They are almost thirsting for it. The pandemic may have some small measure of responsibility for that, but by and large, I think many people enjoy teaming with others more than doing content solo. If you have some amusing teammates, they can certainly make things more amusing than going the solo route. 

But, I have to ask myself how I would feel if soloing were no longer as viable. But, ultimately, I have to cede the point that it doesn't matter how I would feel. What matters is the health of the game and the community as a whole. I'm afraid I don't have a solution beyond me not really seeing a tremendous need for any changes. 

I do recognize there's a large spread between our speed runners and our "noob" or "newb" players. Heck, even a casual player is light years away from some of our speed runners who seem to flawlessly navigate through "cake rooms" (those bluish/gray cave maps) without muss or fuss. Some can't be bothered to improve to that level. Some can't approach that level due to just slow eye/hand coordination, and some lack the computer system to load pages fast enough to even think about speeding. And some just have fun hopping/flying/speeding/teleporting all over town and don't even try to kill anything. They take a free farm to get high enough to travel and are quite content to stay in Atlas and chatter for hours. 

I just don't see how changing anything with IOs will change that gap, because it seems to be that mindset of the players is what's responsible for that gap, not the IOs they're slotted with. But what the heck do I know? Not much! 

["The Game is not Balanced around IO's"..... should it be?]

8 hours ago, Brutal Justice said:

 You can solo in this game, but it’s not a solo game.  

You had me right up to this statement. HC CoH IS a solo game with an option to team. And that has made the game better. Better for people who may have to stop without warning. Better simply because it's an option.  

[The AT/Build you use for badging]

On 11/22/2020 at 8:15 PM, The_Warpact said:

So...I have a build for everything in game, GM killa, team player, solo, farmers, merit farmer, pvp, etc. I figured what better place to ask than here in the Badge section. 

 

BUT, I don't have an AT in mind for a badger, and I seriously want to start one.

I know you need heals, good aoe for defeat badges, survivability especially against AV/GM, pvp, etc.

What do you use for your badger, I had a Demon/Therm MM in mind but, I'm unsure.

 

Thoughts?

You do not need to have ANY heals for healing badges. A rebirth destiny can handle those, either in an MSR, getting the badges organically, or camping on the marching soldiers in Mercy, effectively farming the badges. 

In fact, you don't need any specific AT for badges. None of them are going to fare better than another for every badge. While something like a fire brute might be great for something like Tankbuster, most defeat badges aren't so easy to herd up and burn down. 

I have an ice/ice blaster with all of them. 
I have a fire/fire blaster that will have all of them, once Luna starts selling the anniversary badges in May. 
I have a shield/mace tank that will have all of them in May as well. 

My best advice is to find the AT powerset combo you like playing the most. Because you will have to play it a lot to get all the badges. 

["The Game is not Balanced around IO's"..... should it be?]

Just now, Marshal_General said:

If anything, it should be balanced around basic IOs. It a small difference from SOs, the unaltered difficulty should reflect this difference.

Why? 

["The Game is not Balanced around IO's"..... should it be?]

I have a thought about this and feel it's worth sharing. 

Let us assume (because we can) that HC had the resources to invest in the game and "balance" the game around IOs. What does that even look like? Does it assume everyone has IOs? Which IOs? 

It's common knowledge that there are multiple options for slotting most of the powers with various IO sets. Some franken-slot, taking 2 IOs of one set, 2-3 of another, etc. 
Some IOs are available at level 7, others not until 32 or even 50. 

So what does "balance" mean in this context? All players shall be able to handle 3 NPCs at +0 difficulty? 

I think some are forgetting the human part of this equation: Player skill level. 
Yes, we all know there's the guy who takes a blaster that's kitted out and solo's ITF at +4/8 in some reasonable time frame with no temp powers or inspirations. 

But have you thought about the guy who despite having the most optimum build he can get who can't get out of his own way? There are players who play this game so badly...it just boggles my mind how these folks are able to function in society - if they even do function. Maybe that's why they play this game, because if they go outside they might die from not looking both ways when they cross the road. Yes, and we also have players who may be quite smart, but lack the manual dexterity, the reaction time to mash their heal in a timely fashion. They lose the mouse cursor and can't execute the power fast enough. Some people use fingers on the number keys, others use a mouse. Boggles my mind how many options there are!

We could have the most balanced game in the world, across all levels, across all ATs - (because we'd all play Spines/fire brutes, with identical builds because nothing would drop again and all powers would be automatically slotted with the same thing in the same order.) 
Even if this happened and people kept playing for some reason, there would still be some players that could solo at +4/8 and others who would die at -1/1 in the same map and mission. 

Some play this game better than I do. I play this game better than others. 
How are you going to balance that? 
 

[Yo Framerate...]

My framerate is usually about 60 fps...nothing spectacular, but certainly not worth complaining about in MSR. I know most everyone plays on different systems, and every system bottlenecks somewhere...but my guess would be this is a user-side issue. But with that many people having an issue...I dunno. 

[Automatically assign powers and slots]

There is a command on beta to get you to 50 instantly. But a button or power to click on, instead of a user having to sift through the forums and finding the macro to do so would be useful. 

And, candidly, it would be useful on regular servers as well. So many players just PL past 1-50 for whatever reason. I see no reason to not just let them do so. That would certainly remove a lot of characters out of the AE, and if need be, free up those resources that I hear AE uses up. 
I don't think I'd use it that often, but it would certainly be useful to a lot of players. 

[There's Farming and Farming.]

Even cheaper still! More profit for the farmer. My point was it is indeed worth crafting every uncommon and rare recipe you get. Craft, convert & sell (or keep if you can use it).

I have been using Emp merits for converters so, other than doing courtesy buys of converters for sg folks, I haven't bought any from the AH in some time. It's so easy to make influence in this flavor of CoH once you know how. 

[There's Farming and Farming.]

On 1/21/2021 at 5:10 PM, tidge said:

Thunderstrike is an Uncommon recipe, so I don't think your example is proving that it was worth consuming Rare Salvage to craft Rare recipes.

Sure it is; absolutely. Rare salvage is costing 400k now. And it's not like any farmer has to buy it. It drops freely in the missions. Perhaps not the one you need, but eventually it will. You can just craft what you can with what drops. You need never buy any salvage. 

But let's say you did buy it ...500k because it's artificially cheaper than normal now at 400k "get it now" price. 

Cost to craft:               490,400

Rare salvage:              500,000
Uncommon Salvage:     2000
Common Salvage:           500
Total:                         992,900

Converters (costs can very): 70k per converter, average 15 converters per attempt to get something decent. 
70,000 x 15 = 1,050,000 + 992,400 = 2,042,900                 

Perf shifter + end = 3M, less 10% fee = 2,700,000 = 657,100 profit

Granted, not a killing, but it's worth while especially if you're crafting and converting all your drops. And when you consider no smart farmer is buying any salvage because they all drop during the missions, it's even more profit. The only cost is the 490,400 for crafting, and the opportunity cost of converters, that you could sell for 70k each. 
            

[There's Farming and Farming.]

5 hours ago, tidge said:

I have never joined an AE farm to get XP, but here are my thoughts:

• Lvl 50 Orange (rare) recipes have relatively little value compared to Common recipes. There are very few Rare recipes that are worth crafting, as opposed to crafting Uncommon recipes and converting. Presumably the request is being made about PVP recipes, see next bullet.
• The request for PVP/Purple recipe drops I could almost understand, but I don't have much sympathy.

My observed odds of these pieces dropping (for lvl 50+ characters) are approximately 1 per hour (either PVP or Purple) of near-constant x8 content. It feels like PVP recipe drops are slightly more frequent than Purple recipe drops, but that could just be personal observation bias. Increasing the level of enemy mobs above 50 does not increase the chance of drops.

 

I have gotten Purple drops on characters below level 50, but this has only happened on characters where I could turn up the number of enemies prior to level 50 and I was running (solo) a lot of arc missions relatively close to each other (basically, Portal Corp missions from Unai Kemen or Maria Jenkins)... and running such content usually ends up with a level 50 character PDQ, so there aren't many hours of this activity below level 50.

 

So.... since AE missions aren't going to get more spawns, I can sort of understand why a farmer would "beg" for any PVP or Purple drops, because the "one lucky drop" might go to a different player. The reasons that I'm not so sympathetic are:

• "Purple drops are not guaranteed"
• Any level 50 player can run non-AE content for merits and/or a (better personal) chance a "lucky" drop
• I expect that typical AFK farmer builds are unlikely to be doing that much in an AE farm mission anyway, so just how much reward is expected for so little effort?

If the farm build is fully kitted with enhancements, why even ask for a PVP/Purple recipe drop as payment? It's not as if there is supposed to be an arbitrary limit on the amount of "paying it forward" there is by letting people door-sit for XP and/or Influence. If a newly leveling toon gets a good drop, let 'em keep it.

I think you are underestimating the value of a rare (orange) recipe. 
Sure, they vend/sell for only 10k at level 50, and they cost 490,400k to craft. But they are worth far more than the piddly 100k you get for a common. They are worth essentially as much as someone is willing to pay for them. 
In my experience, once I convert them from uncommon to rare, then to a better selling one. 
(Thunderstrike: Accuracy/Damage/Recharge successfully converted to Devastation: Damage/Recharge) and then from
 Devastation: Damage/Recharge successfully converted to Performance Shifter: Endurance Modification
Performance Shifter: Endurance Modification successfully converted to Performance Shifter: Chance for +Endurance. (sells for about 3m)

My farmer does this for every uncommon drop. And for every rare drop that doesn't sell well. Yes, it "costs" me converters, but converters are free for any farmer, as emp merits drop freely. When you hit a vet level where they don't drop in high enough numbers to keep up, you re-roll a farmer. Very simple. (1 emp merit = 30 converters - can get 400 emp merits from vet level 3 to 99 = 12k converters) 

That said, it sure isn't for everyone. It's not even for most farmers. Most just vendor/sell that stuff, and go on the next map. To each their own. 
When I do "recycle" a farmer, they all get a couple of purples in their run to level 50. I can just about guarantee it. 

So to me - it's why I don't share a farm. But if I were, I think handing over the good drops is a fair deal, even though I would never charge it, as there'd be no way to definitively know if they got anything. And it is kind of a cheesy thing to do. Certainly doesn't seem heroic. But, it's not like I'm under the delusion that my thoughts are typical. 

 

 

[Probably Too Easy]

Isn't it supposed to be easy, though? We're playing characters that are "super", aren't they? 

[Can you reach them?]

The towering inferno badge stumps me to this day. My understanding was one of the original devs had stated that there was no place a character couldn't get to with whatever travel power they chose. With no jet pack, and having combat jump and SS, I've yet to get to the top of that building. I'd thought I could hop up, maybe catching a foot hold or two on the window sills, but no such luck. 

[What should the aggro cap on Homecoming be?]

Opinions are definitely going to vary. My thoughts are - if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Last I looked, it wasn't broken. 
There's a reason the cap was put in place. Respect it. 

There is no reason to raise it that can't be refuted by some philosophical argument or another. (and the converse is true) 

I say that not to be contrary, but imagine this: 

Assume no obstructions. 
Two ships on a parallel path north, side by side. If the ship on the west (left on your imaginary map) takes an ever so slight turn of 1 degree to the west, it's barely noticeable at first. 

After a time, though, the two ships are quite far apart. 


So why this nautical tale? I picture the ship on the left to be HC CoH, and the ship on the right to be the CoH from shut down. We keep these changes up, and the game is drastically different from what it was. It's already changed so much, and some of these changes while fun in the short term for some, have led to disappointment for others. 

Fortunately, the game is still free for us to use. And we have the right to see if the way others servers do things is more to our liking. At this point, for me, I have a lot of time invested in HC CoH already and prefer not to go elsewhere. But I don't want to see all these changes taking place, just so a tank can herd the Eden trial into one room and a blaster can go Nova and explode a small fraction of the hundreds trying to eat the inedible tank. Sure it's fun, but it's only fun a few times, then it's kind of dull. (but that is likely just me)

Do we really want to go back to a time when the only viable ATs are those that can herd and those than can nuke? I don't. 

Some may argue that a tank should be able to grab aggro off of a wayward teammate that gets into trouble. I respect this view - but isn't it time we placed responsibility on the shoulders of these careless players? Pay attention people! If the team splits because some of you aren't following the tank - it's not the tank's fault. They are not responsible for you anymore than the defenders/corruptors/controllers/MMs are to heal/buff you. (or those with incarnate destinies). You have inspirations in your tray for a reason. Use them if you can't pay attention.  //end  rant. 

Thank you. I feel much better now. 

[Ebil Tuesday #12 - A New Year, A New Ebil Awaits?]

Yowza, Yomo! 

I "feel" like I'm close to your total.
Just as you do, I'm sure, a healthy number of bids outstanding, sales pending, inventory, etc. 
Liquid Inf is currently: 

197,853,842,712

 

I expect to break 200B tomorrow; the sky is the limit. 

[Tankers useless endgame?]

3 hours ago, Ironblade said:

I can't agree here.  I think that calling any AT useless is such an extreme position that we can consider it WRONG and not merely a matter of opinion.

One could argue about which AT is the best at something.  One could argue about whether any AT is actually needed.  But to say that any AT is literally useless, i.e. adding zero value, is right out.

heh, as I stated, "Opinions vary". I said they could make the argument. I didn't say they would win that argument. 

[Tankers useless endgame?]

The simple truth is this: Opinions vary. 

Most, with proper motivation could make the argument that ANY one Archetype is useless in end game. 
Blasters? Great for dps - but so are scrappers, brutes, khelds. (in nova) and some corruptors. 
Corruptors - great for buffs, good for damage - but controllers bring a decent amount of dps with their pets in end game, and good buffs, too. Defenders bring better buffs, too. 
Defenders - the best buffs, not so great damage themselves, but some have great damage multipliers - kin, rad for example, Further, great debuffs, like dark. 

I could go on. And someone could come behind me and refute with their own opinions. 

Because we can all recognize that all of us are entitled to our opinions, the simple credo of "play what's fun for you" wins the day. 

Understand that some league/team leaders for certain content may not need your services as a tank. Don't take it personally. Just do something else. They may know something you don't - or they may not have a clue and you've been spared a miserable time. It's really none of our business. We have our own paths, wherever they may take us. 

An in-game friend who I consider to be quite knowledgeable thinks Fire/Nature corruptors are just the greatest. I made one. He shared his build, I saw his goal was perma-overgrowth. Makes sense. I kept the perma, changed the travel powers, a few other minor adjustments. But I remain unimpressed. It's okay, but I like the fire/rad corruptor better. Yeah, the animation of the debuffs sucks. But I still like it better. For reasons of our own - we like a slightly different flavor of corruptor. Neither of us are right or wrong. 

Do I think my debuffs serve a league/team better in the end game? Absolutely. Do nature's buffs serve a league/team better than my feeble radiant aura and AM? Absolutely. 
Are both characters obsolete in end game play? You can make the case for it either way. Just depends on how much you want to troll your friends. 

 

 

[Making the change from SO’s to IO’s after update?]

Using a respec to get the SOs out to sell is an oldie but a goodie. There's no downside. 

[Ebil with benefits]

I confess, I'm surprised they're going back up in price so quickly. 

[What Would You Change About Dominators?]

The only thing I would change would be for Domination to go off automatically without needing to be clicked, or allow the dom to auto fire two powers instead of just one. 

[Brother, can you spare a billion?]

I almost stepped in that water. I restrained myself, mainly because I thought "Does it make sense to invest X to make X.5 to 3X when the X that I have is enough to last me ......at least 200 alts if I made no further influence. I do like the Experienced/Buff Amplifiers and the merits are great for making converters. So, I bought my fair share. But only for use, not really for profit. 

[Brother, can you spare a billion?]

They say the first step is admitting you have a problem. 

What I can't tell is if the OP is bragging or complaining or admitting they have a problem. 

[Winter Packs still 10M]

When the sale started, the HC devs reseeded the supply to 10Million. So, only packs sold during this particular event. 

I wasn't smart enough to take note of the initial number last year - as I was lucky enough to learn about the sale, but only after it started. 

[Winter Packs still 10M]

As of this writing, 194187 packs have been sold. 
1,941,870,000,000 influence has been "sunk", or spent, if I mashed the right keys on the calculator. 
I think they must be waiting on the full 2 quadrillion, lol. 
That's about 233K winter-Os in "circulation" (if we include those that stay in character email and in storage bins). 

Converters are in a higher number than I remember seeing them before - 64,726 currently, seeming  to hold fairly steady at 70k. 

I did think Winter-O prices were going to drop more than they have. Will be interesting to see if greed gets the best of the new marketeers as they try to reclaim their investments. 

1439 players on right now. An average of 135 packs per "account". No way for me to know how many are dual or triple (or more?) accounts from the same player. 

Kind of mind boggling when I imagine that half of those players probably have no idea what winter packs are, nor that they went on sale. Or is that a flawed perspective? 

100 packs is a billion inf. 
1.35 billion...the top 1% of the players must have a lot more than I thought they did. I better get back to marketing and farming!