Ukase

I've gotten it after the Tuesday resets on 4 different characters in the past month and a half. So, if you're in a position to be able to play after the reset, it's a fairly quick and easy thing.

What kills me is the leader - who leads a LOT of these - asked if, as leader he would be allowed to ask people to turn off group stealth. I sent him a tell stating that it's his raid, he could certainly ask, but that if he did ask, he would be asking for no legitimate reason as group stealth doesn't impact aggro.

I find it...well, not amusing, but really interesting that there seem to be a LOT of people who see the value in the PvP set bonuses enough to want them...but they don't do simple math. Once you reach level 50, assuming a previous 50 granted you the catalysts, or you got them straight away from the AH or a merit vendor - the cats drop fairly often. At least once a day, anecdotally. My farmers certainly have a ton of them. While I understand why - I don't "get it" - they don't just buy a level 10 recipe (cheaper to craft), convert to what you want, slot it and catalyze it. Even though the cat is about 2.3m, 2.3+3M is still cheaper than 8-9M. (using average prices) As far as just listing the uncatalyzed level 10 IO, and then having an alt buy it at that price - that has never, ever, ever worked for me. Never. I mean, I'll list it at 1:00:00, and then tab out, and try to buy the attuned version at 1:00:04, and it has never been available at that same price, or even 1 inf over. Never. So, I just bid creep and often find myself paying about 1-2 million more. Suppose that's better than losing a catalyst, but catalysts aren't my market and they drop routinely and I have more than enough for new alts, so I will use them in this fashion to avoid putting my inf into the market. Last thing I want is to fund my competition!

My niche (well, one of them) has been buying level 10 pvp IO recipes, crafting them, converting them to the usual ones that sold frequently for what I think is an excellent margin. I used to just bid a low-ish price on each recipe, for sale or not, hoping to snag what I could. As success ensued, I began to bid for more than 1, up to 5 of each recipe. Eventually, crafting all of these, despite my having the salvage stashed on the AH in tidy numbers of 5 each, I noticed a soft-limit that was difficult to manage - a limit of my time...crafting 100 recipes when you already have all the salvage in inventory is not time consuming. Converting them can take some time, depending on the rng. But due to the volume and the limit of what you can hold - and the number of AH slots, I would have to divide this one niche into a couple of characters at this volume - and further reduce my actual play time doing this. To what end? I have all I need, and the pile continues to grow, despite what I think are frequent sizeable philanthropic donations. While doing this, I would often notice my 3m bids would often be outmatched by 1 inf, or 10 inf. Since I know my costs of salvage and crafting, I know how much room there is on the margin, and I also am aware of opportunity cost. The margin has to be large enough or the time/inventory invested can be used elsewhere. Kind of like when they shut down CoH. Yeah, it was making money, but was it making more money than could be found in the market, given the investments of resources? So, at what level is the profit no longer profitable ENOUGH for you? There are some who delight in taking a niche and then leave it behind after a period of time. You don't know if it's an "ebil marketer" or some lucky soul who blundered into it after running Dr. Q multiple times on 3 different accounts and has now found themselves with 2100+ merits across three accounts and thought your niche was unreasonable and wanted to make it more reasonable. I see this all the time with Sudden Acceleration: KB to KD. They sell for 3-4m, then someone who I suppose hates to encounter KB unloads a good amount of them for about 1m. Soon, the market runs out, and the price goes back up to 3-4m. So, your choice is to wait, or increase your bid price to a point where the niche is no longer working. Doesn't matter who's on the other end. The smaller the margin, the less likely it's one of us, I would think. There may be some who aim for high volume, low margin, but I would guess most are looking for more margin with less volume. We'll never truly know for sure. Ebil Marketers may often lie to manipulate the less ebil so they can make more inf.

The thing is - just because you're stealthed doesn't mean you're not in the bowl. The game knows you're there. If this were true - the rikti wouldn't spawn at all when folks have steamy mist/arctic fog on. So, chalk that up to "bro-science" which is usually a complete fabrication based on misunderstandings.

HA! Like anyone can see costumes in the messy bowl of an MSR, stealth or not.

I think this needs to be resolved, if possible. But, I'm not quite sure if it can. I present this information as true to the best of my knowledge. It's anecdotal, not scientific. But if I can trust the combat attributes, what some people are telling me makes no sense. If you've done an MSR, you've likely heard/read this, or something close to it: "Turn off group stealth! We need the Rikti to see us!". Now, today, for the first time ever, I was playing a character with group stealth, Arctic Fog. It's a toggle, and I keep it on, the same way I would keep on Plasma Shield or Caustic Aura. This is what I know with certainty: A tank/brute with taunt is seen by the npc and others nearby when that tank taunts. But the taunt only lasts for about 6-8 seconds depending on the slotting of taunt, and perhaps the level of the npc. So, higher level foes may require more taunting to keep the attention on the tank (or brute). I say this because of my experience in playing a tank. When a tank is smashing an npc and taunting, only three things will stop that npc from continuing to attack the tank. 1. Another character is doing more damage than the tank. 2. The tank has moved too far away for the npc to see it. (sort of - hide in a dumpster, and they can still find you, even though they couldn't see you. ) 3. The npc is dead. If you monitor combat attributes, you can see your level of stealth. The higher the number, (which makes no sense to me), the greater your stealth. BUT - once you taunt, or attack an npc - you can see your stealth number drop to 0. I was in the bowl, and despite my having arctic fog on, my stealth dropped to zero. I'm dropping sleet, soul drain, blizzard, ice storm and burnout, and repeating the attack chain. So - why is it that people think the Rikti can't see them when group stealth is on? Are they not attacking? If not - why would they care? I would think if they are just buffing, they wouldn't want to be seen. If they are dishing out damage, they target and fire. If they are tanking - they are not staying in the bowl, they are leaving the bowl, herding 16 rikti, returning to the bowl, the rikti follow. The league kills them. It's baffling to me why people think this group stealth impacts a tank's taunt, or even a tank/brute's taunt aura. It doesn't. So, am I missing something? I've never had an issue bringing rikti to the bowl when group stealth is running. When I was tanking in my last msr, I heard the cry for turning off group stealth and stated in league it made no difference, keep it on. And it made no difference - at least, not to my tank. I got about 1000 vg merits, so it couldn't have been that bad. When I played my tank in msrs, I never had an issue with my celerity stealth in sprint and super speed running. When idle, my stealth is 65 feet. When I taunt or smack an rikti, it goes to zero. So why is it that people are continually believing that group stealth is a problem for tanks? Are these tanks just not slotting anything in taunt? So, if you're one of those who think group stealth impacts aggro - please explain your position so that I understand it. If I'm wrong, I can admit that - but I can't explain away my anecdotal experience.

From blue side, trying to get villain disruptor, I found that doing Provost Marchand's 2nd arc did it for me. If you look it up on the wiki, you'll see that you get 4, I think on the first mission and 7 on the second. I just reset it and redid it until I got it.

My rule of thumb is: if soloing, play the defender, else play the corruptor. Granted, I don't always play with just my thumbs. For whatever reason, up to this point, I prefer the corruptor. I will give the defender a second look, though. Thanks - I was wondering what the next project was going to be!

I just learned about this during the latest week during which CoT was the weekly. It saved a fair amount of time. All you have to do is be able to see the obelisk and you can click it. It never occurred to me to try before, and someone told me about it. It's likely a glitch, but I'm okay with it.

I think I understand the desire of some folks to go back to the way it was. I remember clearly, starting the game in issue 3. I was fairly ignorant of what to expect, in fact, I thought it was a single player game, not really paying attention to, or knowing what MMO stood for, if you can believe that. I eventually settled in to the game, and then issue 4 happened. I didn't understand why they took a perfectly good game and added things to it. After playing the game so long, now, I get it. I still thought ED was a mistake. I thought IOs were a mistake. But I don't think so anymore. The truth is - the old CoH model was geared to keep people playing - and paying. That's why you had to "earn" your way. It wasn't just so you would appreciate the reward at the end. It was to keep you subscribed and paying. After HC came out, I was quite pleased, if a little irritated that people had been playing all this time and didn't leak the code immediately. I mean, intellectually, I understand the code we're playing on is essentially stolen intellectual property. But - I rationalize it with having purchased my copy of the game. I paid for my right to play it. Of course, there's the mice-type in the EULA to shred my argument to bits, but I'm old and even with reading glasses, I'd be ignorant due to myopia. (Willfully ignorant) But, damn, you have the code, leak it right away! You think NCSoft would do more then than they're doing now? I don't. The cat would be out of the bag as it is now. But, I digress. After...I think, it was a year, I'd leveled up a good 30 characters from 1-50, at least 27 of them by doing a dfb, maybe two, then hitting the Hollows, Steel Canyon, Striga, Talos, Bricks, Founders & PI to tackle Tina Macs and MJ's arcs. It was getting dull. My badger had all the badges..so it felt like there wasn't much left. So, I went to Rebirth. I like to solo, and it was certainly easy to do there. The people on Rebirth are knowledgeable, and friendly for the most part. On a percentage basis - most of those players know more than our players. But, unless you're running with a group on a routine basis, Rebirth is going to be a true grind. There are no vet levels to give you emp merits and threads. Astrals don't combine to make emps, but you could use them to get PvP IOs, or other rare recipes. Hero/Villain Merits were earned by doing SSAs and tip missions. 65 of them to get ONE pvp IO, because they don't drop in pve. It was a lot to get used to. And you want your own base - better make some extra accounts and invite 15 more alts for that 20k prestige boost. It took me about a month to get a barely functional base with all the ports. Oh yeah, you have to get all the explorations in a zone before you get access to the beacon, too. Want an insp dispenser, you better roll a character that heals. And get used to earning less influence, because you need to play in SG mode to get that inspiration dispenser. After a month or so, when I got my base up and running and then got a villain base up and running, I came back here. I know what it's like to grind and I see no reason to do so. Do the same SSAs once a week for a hero merit; can only do 5 tip missions a day, so every two weeks, you can earn 7 hero merits. If you don't do iTrials, it's going to take you a long, long time to get ONE Glad Armor 3% def(all). And I needed a good dozen of those, the panacea +hp/recovery, and the shield walls. I really don't need to beat my head on a wall like that. The idea is to feel super, not inadequate. On HC, I feel super. On Rebirth, I felt like a hamster running in that spinning wheel in a cage. So, while I get it - HC is terribly easy - I don't want to go back to that grind.

I get what you're saying about getting in, getting out. I think the reason it's so large is because of the traffic that goes through there.

Here is the pure, unvarnished TRUTH about shards. They are not useless. They drop, and they drop fairly often, given you only need 12 for a t-1 vs 60 if you went the thread route. So, the big question is - do threads drop 5x more than shards? Hard to say, when folks do a variety of things - like iTrials and lower level task forces. Vet levels 1,2,4,5,7,8,10,11 give 120 threads - but no shards. UGT and TPN both give 60 threads midway through the iTrial. Shards don't drop at all during incarnate content, but threads drop during incarnate content and normal content - so clearly, odds are threads will drop more than 5x than shards. But shards DO drop. And they drop a fair amount, particularly during MSRs and Hami Raids. For every 18 mitos, (1 run of 3 per night) I get about 3-4 shards. So during the excelsior nightly raids, I tend to get enough to craft the t-1. You can only use what the rng gives you. Some of you are in different time zones and/or don't enjoy msrs or hami raids. You like the iTrials, so you rarely see shards. That's fine - use your threads. Me, I recognize that only one incarnate slot can use shards. It makes perfect sense FOR ME to run Mender Remiel's arc to unlock the alpha slot, use a transcendent merit, break it down to emps, and use threads to make the t-3 alpha immediately. But - to get to t-4? FOR ME - it's shards the rest of the way for alpha. Your game experience will certainly vary, as will your rng results. But if you are using threads to go from t-3 to t-4...I would encourage you to consider changing your ways. It makes no sense, because unless you're ONLY doing iTrials and incarnate content and never do weekly TFs, you're using resources for alpha that could be used for the other 5 slots. And please, stop telling newer players that shards are useless, when CLEARLY they can be used, if you get enough of them. And if you play often you WILL get enough of them. Perhaps not all in one day, for each character, but you will get them. They are not useless. For me - they are quite useful and they drop as often as I would expect them. So clearly, it's not a redundant currency. It has a purpose. BUT, I do get the point about newer players being confused by shards vs. threads. Candidly, it's amazing new players get to understand this game at all, given the overwhelming information on IOs, different drop rates of recipes, etc. Instead of removing it, maybe the shard recipe should be at the bottom instead of the thread recipe. If they did opt to remove it, then the weekly Notice of the Well ...would be replaced by what? Nothing? An emp merit? 4 emp merits?

Not really sure how to take that. But, I did ask for opinions, and need to be open to all of them. That said, if I had left when I knew things were going downhill, it would have left the remaining players that were inexperienced in a deeper hole than with me sticking it out. I don't think that's cool at all, in fact, I think it's a selfish move. But I thank you for your opinion and your perspective. It's every bit as valid as mine.

Sleeps, Stuns, holds.

If I could remember how to plot a graph in Excel, and had thought to do this... Grats on your accumulation. Clearly you need more alts.

My best suggestion - click the tiny button that separates the map from the nav bar. Move it so that you can open up the Badges - closest to completion section is displayed. This way, you can monitor your progress as you go. I'd go over the marker, not get progress, I'd know to circle the area in tiny circles until I see the progress bar move. Only then do I proceed.

The more I play, the more the way I play seems to change. For quite some time, I would make a character, and play it through to t-4, one of each, and get all 4 blue side accolades. Get them t-4'd, then start the next character. Eventually, I transitioned to get 3 blue side accolades, and invader. Now, I get 2 accolades (Atlas, PJ) on blue and the equivalent of Freedom Phalanx and TFC (Invader) on red side. Some characters, I don't even bother with playing until they reach 50 - but I rarely do this, because I have less invested in them, and it's much easier to park them and forget about them. Still, I give them a specific use - like hold the Anti-matter and Siege missions for future alts. Even my incarnate play has changed. I used to do the countless Baf/lambda...but as soon as I realized we got random uncommons and rares for badges and Master runs (respectively) I won't do normal runs. Only badge runs. If I can get 4 uncommons, a rare and a reward table for one trial -- why the blue blazes would I waste time on a non-badge run? Why do any of us? Granted, not every run is a success, and MoM can't be done in one run, but the badge efforts still reduce the time invested in the incarnate process. Now my characters end up with a few transcendent merits to pass on to alts instead of just one. Eight iTrials - that's 64 emps I don't have to burn for rare salvage. To go along with that, lately, I've been badging a LOT. My "main" has them all already. But I have a second who's just lacking day jobs and events that require I wait until May. A third needs some redside and gold side stuff and all those horrid farming afk type deals - damage taken, damage dished out, inf earned, as well as day jobs and events - but still has over 1250. These silly efforts serve a purpose - to slow down so I'm not burning through the same content weekly like I was. With the badging, I still make other characters - but I just play them for a mission or two, use up the patrol xp and park them at another day job. As far as "Completion Percentage" goes...I have completed 1 out of 56, the one with all 1531 badges. As far as t-4 in each incarnate slot, I have completed 42 out of 56, so 75%. The other 14 are working on day jobs until I get to them, but often, I'll roll something new if it occurs to me.

I just made Buff Daddy on Excelsior. "I like big buffs and I cannot lie"

It's possible. It's easy. On blue side, I haven't been able to determine if it's the debuff from Positron (ranged Summons) or just his dps, but the summons pet is quite durable, and I often don't have to do much, if anything, other than spam my 3 attacks. That with Envenomed Dagger means you don't have to do much other than just carry a few lucks during the AV fights. I could make the case that the Clockwork King is easier than Vahz. Clamor in Yin is pretty simple for any decent brute/scrapper/blaster/stalker. Other ATs may require some rage inspirations. Vandal is cake, in my experience Manticore is difficult because after Hopkins goes down, Countess Crey comes in, and Hopkins will rez. So..with two, some players will have issues. Not impossible, but it's not over super fast like the others. Numina is simple...Jurrasik is just tall, not very challenging. My keys for success have generally been a summons pet for all but Manti. For Manti, depending on my character's durability, I might bring a Vanguard HVAS as well. For Vandal and Clamor, my brutes/scrappers/stalkers/blasters don't even need a pet.

I think you're on the test server to test. You report it and hope it's a feature that wasn't documented yet.

This pleases me to no end! I see folks like @Yomo Kimyata and others share genuine pearls and sage insight, and brilliant guides...and yet, during my days of playing, I seldom come across people who have actually followed the guides and are now, well, wealthy. Or at least, much better off from an inf. perspective. I seem to run across people who are constantly needing merits to buy a recipe - and then I die on the inside, just a little. So, very happy for you!

I completely understand that. I'm sure there would be days when I would do the same. Some days, however... But ..what if a corny chat dialogue appeared just as if it were an NPC - and they looked like an NPC - even though they were wearing their own costume? I think there'd be a way to disguise it...at least for about 10 seconds or so.

I'd have elevators go to more than one floor. I'd not be able to use elevators during a fire. I think it would be completely normal to enter a mission and find some other player doing their mission...it happened to me once on live...and it was scary, as they were all 10 levels or so higher...but would it be so surprising that two different clues lead to the same place every now and then? And...suppose you went to stop some bad guy from robbing the bank - and instead of Bad Penny, you run into a player's villain character. The difference being - the name wouldn't show like it does in PvP orange, but like a regular villain npc. Mission failures should be possible for every mission, no? And it wouldn't be with pvp rules. Both would have pve stats, and neither would know it was another player, unless they recognized the name. (or names if it were two teams meeting at the safe)

Why would you choose? Do both. It's not like you don't have enough slots.