Ukase

This is exactly what I need/want to understand more clearly in my feeble mind. I completely understand that there are thematic reasons or even at home/real life reasons why a player isn't out to be ..well....super fast. If the character is where you want it, then what is it that motivates you? After so many levels, doesn't something like War Mace's Crowd Control and it's satisfying crunch, doesn't that just get...old, stale? I have moods where the last thing I want to do are speed. And generally, I've found the squishier the character, the more likely I am to want to go more slowly - more order, less chaos. But, I'm not talking so much about in-mission tactics, but out of mission tactics. Is it just an old school preference to ride the slow turtle 30 miles to the quest door, a hold over from some game I've never played before? If that's it, that's fine - I just don't get it. And I don't have to, I'm just trying to understand it. I play a few characters that are "about the journey", not the destination. Oddly enough, I've learned to despise all three! A warshade, a widow and an MM. I chose the ATs because I hadn't played them before. Now I see why! Ordinarily, I'd just delete them, but they are each in a team crawl, so that would be letting the group down, so I suffer through it. My arbitrary list is exactly that. I've often heard that you have to measure something to know if there's improvement. So there's got to be a metric. Fun is subjective for all of us. It cannot be measured. We know it when we experience it, usually. But for me, because time is scarce, I want to be sure I'm not coming to the boards and complaining about people that don't deserve complaints, they're just...well, not in a hurry, whereas, I usually am. What really seems odd to me are the number of times the recruitment message is "speedy XTF", and there's usually that one player who never exits the map when the mission is over. Sometimes, it's just a long page load. Other times, they have scrapper lock and don't notice the mission ended. We'll yell in team chat, send tells, and optimally, use discord to ask what the delay is for. These are the folks that will make my hair gray. And one of the other folks are the ones with flight, have a celerity in sprint, but not realize that's not enough to let them zip by most mobs unscathed. You need super speed for that celerity:stealth to do you any good! And they die. And they wait there on the floor, as if some defender is supposed to tp them and rez them. The ones that do use the hospital, they miss the end of that mission, are late coming to the next one. In short - they prove themselves of no value to the team. Not even a joke as they lay there dead. It was advertised as a speedy run, and they are not speedy. Then THEY come to the boards and complain about how selfish we are. We're not selfish, we're just in a hurry, and our builds allow us to be in a hurry. We've gone to the trouble of making the builds, sharing it with friends, asking for their critical eye to help us make them better. We have farmers that allow us the resources to acquire anything in game without any hardship. It's so easy to do! And yet people say they hate it, can't stand it, it's ruining the game, etc. I stopped farming for one week on my accounts and suddenly the end mod perf shifter +end rises in price by 25%! Same with a number of other useful IOs that many of you use in every build. PvP IOs that I'd helped to reduce down to 8M are now back up to 10-11M as of this posting! Just because I stopped marketing for 1 lousy week. All thankless deeds, misunderstood by the casual gamer. But I digress. I just want to reach a place in my heart and mind where when I see someone who's playing slowly, I can instantly say to myself, "They're not stupid, Ukase. They just don't like the faster, more efficient way of play because X. And "X" can be anything, I just want it to make sense. Doesn't mean it will make sense to me, it's just what I want. And I may not get what I want, and that's okay. But if I don't ask, I don't get.

This may be something you're aware of and skip for thematic purposes, but if you have a character that has Schweinzer unlocked, you can get TFC in about 15 minutes. Simply log in an alt, or ride along with friends and do each mayhem bank mission and get the exploration within. You don't even have to defeat a single npc. In fact, it's advised you don't, as that would take the 20 seconds to zip in and out and turn it into a longer task. I have a character on each of my three accounts with Schweinzer unlocked and will typically get Invader, the red side equivalent of TFC on all my characters around level 15. Then, I switch them back to hero, and poof, I now have TFC. The only reason to suffer through those task forces that are repetitive and lengthy is because you want the merits, badge, or you derive some fun out of them. Or a combination of all three. But if it's just the accolade you want - invader is a faster, easier approach. Cosmic Council SG does a weekly/bi-weekly run for all 4 passive stat boosting accolades. Takes about 2 hours. Usually less if people are..well, speedy.

While I can't dispute the math, an overwhelming truth that gets shouted throughout the forums is CoH is about fun. A subjective term, to be sure. But, when HC opened - the first character I made and played (after creating what would be my main characters from Liberty to reserve their names) was a Sentinel. Why? Because at the time, I had no idea it sucked. It was a Fire/Rad sentinel. And you know what? It was fun. It was survivable. I had no clue what that stupid "Opportunity" meant, and didn't really care. The AT was brand new, so there wasn't much information on it. It was my first 50 here on HC. Got about 480 badges, so it's still a trash character not to be trusted. (Nobody should trust any character with less than 500 badges, lol - at least, none in my stable) But, I played it quite a bit, vet level 30, I think. It was fun. I haven't played it in over a year, but I'll never delete it. I look at the build now and wonder how I played it. I wonder how I managed to only get defeated 4 times over the life of the character, given the lackluster numbers. And then, when I was playing something else, the negative talk about Sentinels began. Me, I was clueless. I had no idea. While playing (teamed for the most part from level 19 and up) I had no idea my dps sucked. I think a Sentinel is a fine character for anyone to play. But...if I'm going for a RHW badge, I'm probably going to wince if I see one on the league. It's the only character I've got that's ever failed a RHW attempt, lol. (others have failed, but only after succeeding, and trying to help others get the badge.) So, yeah, I know why folks would play one, and I think they should, if it's fun. But I don't think I'll ever play one again, until they get adjusted somehow.

There's been quite a bit of negativity on these forums lately. From folks like myself asking questions "Why do something like that?" to folks bashing a shard because of some unpleasant experiences they've had. So, what I propose is that we all take a moment to think - and post - about someone who has made your player experience better due to perhaps their generosity of inf, time, knowledge, badge assistance, or whatever. The first player that comes to my mind is @Yomo Kimyata Yomo is filthy rich as far as in-game currency goes. And, what's crazy, is I'm sure he's still giving away 20 Million influence to anyone who asks him for it through in-game email. But it's more than that. Yomo doesn't talk ill of those who are broke, or ignorant. He goes out of his way to share his knowledge with anyone, as evidenced by his guides in the market forum. It's my aim to revisit this post once a week and name one player who makes this game better because of the way they interact with the players around them. It'd be nice if some of you would do the same. Sometimes, good behavior is taken for granted, and we should probably do more to recognize these folks.

Of course I ask why. I ask why because I don't understand your perspective. Granted, I don't have to, nor do you have to understand mine. But why wouldn't you do all you could to be as good as you can be? You may think of it as elitist, but you say that like it's a negative. I am just trying to save time. It's like in the real world, and I want to hire someone. Do I hire someone with very little experience or someone with a lot of experience? I go with the person with the most experience. Particularly in this game, because I don't have to pay them - the game pays them. And while we all get the same rewards for the most part, the ones that go the fastest make more per unit of time. That just makes sense to me. But hey, to each their own. That said, I understand that folks will want to actually read what the npc/contact says, or perhaps ruminate on certain bits of dialogue. I have no issue with that. Just not on a speedy run, thanks. I can further understand that some folks, for thematic reasons may want to forgo a travel power when they play. I have such a character, newly created called Thong Kong. It/she is a gorilla, sort of, that wears a thong. Makes no sense for Thong Kong to be zipping about using super speed. So, it/she uses beast run. BUT - I do have Super Speed, and it/she will be using it on speed runs. And why not? Makes no sense to persue merits slowly. At least, not to me. But, if going slow is your cup of tea - savor it, if it tastes good to you. I have my moods where I'll go slower with certain characters. Particularly during the week when I might have to take a call and am solo. But, when teamed, I ensure I'm not a hindrance or anchor, at least to the best of my ability. Nobody owes me an explanation for anything. But it would be nice if I could understand that perspective more clearly. I'm trying to broaden my horizons. What about you?

Vitriol? Cruel and bitter criticism is how that's defined. Nobody was cruel to you. In fact, we were all supportive and encouraging. I get the feeling that you see what you expect to see. I'm rooting for you. I'll never team with you because your expectations are ridiculous, but other than that, I'm pulling for you.

For a master tf or trial run, at least 500 badges. Why? Because in my mind, it shows a commitment to badging. Even though those can be got by doing just the explorations, it still shows commitment, as opposed to someone who was just bored and wanted something to do - who didn't really care about a master badge in the first place. Not to mention, a higher badge count increases the likelihood that they've seen a decent cross section of what the game has to offer. They're more likely to at least have been exposed to various debuffs and game mechanics. No guarantees, but the more experienced a player is, the more likely they'll know to avoid jumping in a mob without a suitable strategy. On a master Kahn, and someone hops into that laser room out of curiosity and then dies - despite warnings to not go in there - they die and effectively tell the team they don't care about the other person's time. Time is important! Don't get me wrong, I don't insist everyone have TT. I just shake my head and wonder why they don't have it when it's so useful. I fully understand that there are players who like to do things their own way. I'm one of them. My way is just different. Some folks build a character for max dps. Some max defense/resist. Some max recharge. There's no right or wrong here. But there is definitely a faster and a slower, at least with regards to getting to missions. Why be slower? I get that for thematic purposes someone might forgo a travel power on their new gorilla tank, as beast run fits better in their theme. But, that's on you. If you want half the missions to be complete before you get there, should you be on a speed run tf of some kind - where's the fun in that for you? Now, some will just avoid those kinds of teams, and that's fine. Do you. I just think it makes perfect sense to go as fast as you can go unless circumstances warrant you go slower - like a traditional leveling team where everyone starts at level 1, plays for a set time, and meets again the next week. No need to speed something like that. Get there when you get there. But when you're level 50, you've got a new alt in mind, and you don't have the funds like I do, you need those merits, and you want them sooner than later. And there's only so much game time you have. By going slowly, you've just pushed that idea you wanted to try even further away. For me, the game is easy. It's no longer really enough for me to get The Really Hard Way Badge. I want to get it faster than we did last time. I want to improve. But I completely get that's just me, and I don't expect that of you. But it would be better for me if you did. Better for you? I'm not worried about that. That's your department.

I don't think it's ridiculous at all. TT is a valuable tool. It saves time. Most of us aren't kids any more. We have responsibilities, demands on our time. Anything that will shave minutes or even seconds on a task force is worth the influence to me. Anyone who's got the inclination can make 10M from the AH in minutes. The idea that EVERYONE doesn't have and make full use of Team Teleport is laughable. There's not one reason to not use it every chance you can. To see the same npcs robbing the same purses? To see the same buildings in the same cities? Seriously? Why? It's not new. (then again, most of the content isn't new either - but it can seem new with a new character and a new team. ) It's not like 10m is expensive. There's nothing in this flavor of CoH that's expensive, so why not?

Hmm....

@Solarverse Could you share which tf/mission you're talking about? I'm trying to think of various ones with bombs and an AV...LRSF?

The reason to go to that amount of trouble is with Ouro, you'd have to suffer through the preceding missions every time you wanted the badge. With Voltor's method, you keep the mission on standby for any character that wants/needs the badge. Saves a lot of time. Bear in mind, Voltor is like a select few of us that make multiple characters to get all the badges. Most folks aren't this crazy.

The big things in my mind for gold side: Need praetorian equivalents of the 4 passive accolade powers. Gold side needs task forces. I know my thinking here is off the beaten path, but I think alignment in this game is ridiculous. This whole idea of heroes "registering" with city hall, and villains openly approaching contacts for dirty deeds, it's all quite silly. You think there are crooks that don't enter into a given area? Sure, there are. But there are also other crooks who do, and freely, because they are better at being a crook and escape detection. The population, the police, nobody knows they're crooks. This idea that a stalker, who's basically invisible can't freely stow away on a ferry to Paragon unless they see some bird on a van in an inter/non-dimensional club that plays the same music on a loop...seriously? Lose the bird. Lose the van. Heck, lose pocket D. All characters should be able to access all areas regardless of alignment. I get that it will never happen. I'm fine with it. I am okay thinking in my head that it's just silly the steps we have to take, but am grateful I don't have to do 10 missions and then a final mission to switch sides. But the two big things remain. If you want to level up from 1-50 as a praetorian, you're at a disadvantage, compared to heroes/villains.

I have literally 10,000's of threads across a number of characters/accounts. But - wait! There's a RHW this Saturday! Every Saturday. The characters with all those threads already have The Really Hard Way badge, and Master of Magisterium. So, what to do? I just spent all my threads getting this newer character ready for RHW, getting t-4, etc. No more threads left! At least, not the 400 threads needed to get the inspirations desired. 4*30 ultimates =120 4*30 dual team red/yellows=120 8*30 Team reds = 120 4*10 solo reds = 40 400 threads That's a lot of threads unless you have done a ton of content with your newish 50. And generally, we use threads to make the common components needed, right? So, anecdotally, that's what happens in my case. I try to get my alts that are thread rich to stash what's needed in my sg base ahead of time. And generally do. But every now and then, I get busy and can't get that done. So, I end up over-paying for these inspirations. (usually buying them from my own alt, lol) Additionally, the staging area for iTrials is sometimes Pocket D - which doesn't have a Luna to sell them. Recently, folks have been using Echo Plaza, as there's a Luna there as well. This may actually cause the prices of these inspirations to drop.

So, Ukase is far too embarrassed to ask this himself, so while he was on a call, I snuck on here and typed this out. He's at his wit's end coming up with a gorilla with a thong for reasons that escape any rationale I can think of. So..this is gonna sound super strange - but what he wants is the closest thing he can get to a gorilla. And, heaven help those whom he teams with, a thong. He claims it's impossible to have monstrous fur and a thong. Nor any gorilla/ape/monkey type heads. But he wouldn't really know - he just hits the random button most of the time. But, I'm sure some of you know the costume creator better than he does. Maybe it's hidden in there somewhere. I will see to it that you're rewarded if you submit a file I can download for him when he's not looking, if yours is chosen. Thanks!

This comment made my night. Thank you.

I disagree with this idea of folks routinely dying during any TFC task force being an experience that's "as intended". To me, defeat means you're doing something wrong, either tactically, or poor execution of an otherwise sound tactic. Unless it's your very first or second character. In that context, I can understand growing pains. Learn from it, you win. You don't, you lose. But I'm sure that's just me. You do what's fun for you. But me? I'm with the OP on this one. That would be torture, in more ways than one. I can't fathom sitting down for more than 90 minutes at a time. My legs get stiff and my feet start bouncing up and down, telling me to move!

So...I'm not quite sure what to make of this. I read your rules, and you lost me with the word rule. You're entitled to your conditions, but I'm not surprised we haven't crossed paths, particularly since I play a blaster more often than not. Then I read about this ...condition you're in. It made me feel badly about instantly mocking you in my head. With all the physical issues you have, it's not a surprise you find yourself ignoring a lot of people. You must be truly miserable, physically, if not emotionally. And I find it hard to believe the two aren't connected. I do want to encourage you on the weight loss. I know it's not easy. I was 280# when the game shut down. Probably the best thing that could happen to me, suddenly having extra free time. Now, I'm 215 and in the best physical condition of anyone I know, and winning indoor rowing competitions across multiple states, including collegiate rowing teams. And I'm 54, making college rowers wonder what I'm doing differently than they are. I bust my ass, is what I do, And I diet with purpose. But I didn't get in this shape overnight. I started walking 2.5 miles a day. Increased it to 10 miles a day. That was taking too long, and I discovered the indoor rower. I'm really too short to ever be world class in it, but worked at it, and got very good. I know this is harsh, and I don't mean it that way. I mean it to be serious, though. Whatever you're doing to lose weight - please keep doing that. But also, consider limiting your play time in all games. They're just recreational, and there are better ways to recreate until you get your weight in check. Even if you're 7 feet tall, that's way too much stress on your heart & your joints to carry around for too long. Try to be active in some way, every day.

Consider a spines/fire brute. Properly built, in most cases, you can put burn on auto and just chill. Doesn't need to be a fire farm, either. With Melee defense focus, there's very little to worry about, except in an ITF when cascading failure can easily happen - but with inspirations and healing flames, you can see your way out if it rather easily. But for most content, you can snooze your way through, if that's what you choose.

Had a brief discussion with someone about this yesterday. I will ask you what I asked them. How often would you like to see a contest? What prize do you see as acceptable, sustainable over time?

Team inspirations are the only ones that will help an MM pets - UNLESS you literally click and drag an inspiration to your MM's stat bar in the pet window. And even then, they have to be within 20 feet of you. This is why I often disobey our league leader during RHW runs, as I tend to wait for teammates to be within that 20 foot radius. For most of these fights when solo, other than the reds, I'll just use them just before I engage the AV, to hopefully mitigate the alpha. I'm generally not worried after the alpha, and just want to clobber the AV as fast as I can. Thus, the reds. In a way, it's interesting to me to hear others thoughts on these "tools" at our disposal. The team supers cost 30 threads. The individual ones only cost 10. And yet, The supers often command a 4-5x price point. (and, lol, sometimes they don't) The game seems to think that 10 shards, converting into 10 threads (once per day! ) is worth 1 million. Could that suggest that, given our old Paragon Studio devs tendency to look for inf sinks at every opportunity, they thought 10 threads was worth about 100k? Or a million? Ultimately, they're worth as I stated initially - as much as someone is willing to pay. With Luna, and the abundance of players with farmers on second (and even third or fourth accounts), threads are all but free, outside of the opportunity cost of time - which is often paid by pursuing XP, drops, whatever. The threads are a bonus. I think this is the only thing keeping the price of these sky-rocketing to 2M or more. The demand is definitely there. I sell out routinely. My poor farmers are rebelling, having been stripped bare of their emp merits, and now their threads. (no, they aren't really rebelling. But sometimes..I swear they are looking at me cross-eyed like I'm an evil slave master. ) In my mind, the single supers are worth no more than 500k, and the teams no more than 1.5M. Crazy, right?

There's no question the Ultimates are primarily used for Really Hard Way and serious speeders on speed tfs/trials. Same with the super rages and intuition imbuements (the team super dual red/yellows) When I solo tfs and fight an AV, I will use a boatload of the super team reds, (for the summons or lore pets) but never even think about using the ultimates, and I have no idea why. I will also use the super lucks on master runs, just in case, or to shore up any numbers when facing AVs. But, you make a point, it's often over-doing it, as their chance to hit is floored with a small luck in most cases, but I can never be sure about debuffs.

Ice/ice blast is super fun. I think it's the best in game - but the numbers say I'm wrong. But, anecdotally, it edges out my fire blaster. The thing is - it all depends on how you slot the characters. One character might be fantastic with one build, but sheer trash with another. But overall, I think ice/ice blast is a great way to learn to blast. You have a nice hold, that's super fast, to help mitigate incoming npcs, and an ice patch for the ones you can't get to. Proc 'em out, and they can really shine. But, all depends on playstyle, and how you build 'em.

So...my character emails are filled with winter sets and ATOs, and my sg has 10 bins for purples - one for each kind. When I get a purple, I don't convert them, I just craft and drop it in the appropriate bin. Oddly - Apocalypse and Armageddon are easily the least dropped - at least for me, anecdotally. Have never kept a specific work sheet on them - but over time, it's curious how I have 80 something of all of them except Arm & Apoc. Only about 50-60 of those. I thought maybe it was because of slotting..but I seem to use more Hecatombs & Ragnaroks. But now - a curious question since some of you are bored. We all know an item is worth as much as people are willing to pay for it. But, I have a farmer with close to 10K incarnate threads. That's only 333 super team inspirations I can get. Sometimes, they go for 2 million, but you'd have to be fairly patient to get that. Presumably mostly on the weekends. 1. What do you think they're worth? 2. Why do you think they're worth that much? With an IO, we have seeded salvage that can put a cap, ultimately, on what the salvage is worth, plus the crafting cost. So, we do have a general sense of what an item is worth. It's the perceived utility of that IO that drives the price up or down. Common IOs that cost close to 500k at level 50 to craft are routinely sold for 300k or much less. This is often due to insane people like me, who badge. When the game has you craft literally hundreds of common IOs and you don't want your AH slots filled with items that will never bring you more than 300k on average...you may be inclined like me to sell them cheaply, take a loss just to be rid of them. The salvage is seeded to put a cap on what they are worth, and they're also bucketed to further suppress the demand, which keeps the cost on the AH down. Not to mention all the winter packs that were bought with who knows how many damn brain storm ideas that are still left in emails. So, supply and demand seem to be the primary drives of the price of super inspirations. The large, despite their low resale value at the vendor can usually claim 25k up to 100k, depending on the supply/demand. But the supers...they don't drop, unless someone claims it as a reward, but you only get one. Seems odd that someone would claim those anyway. I thought maybe I would "upgrade" some shards to threads...and pay 1m to upgrade 10 for 10, but 10 threads won't get me a super team, only a super. And those...occasionally you might get 1m, but seems like those are usually selling for 250k, or thereabouts. Only rarely would it be worth it to sell those, in my opinion. I think I did see the super reds sell for 500k about a month ago. And candidly, since I have so many, I don't really keep track of the prices. But, I think the super teams and the ultimates are the most popular, as far as AH goes. Thoughts?

I have done this challenge before, and made it to level 50 +2, vet level 2 until I foolish went to a hami raid and got over-eager and jumped in GM scrum for EoE. I figured since I was level 50, I had already beaten the challenge, so I kept the character. Most of my characters go this route, except for the immediate delete. I tend to respec the IOs out first. Deleting a build...that's just nuts.

See, I generally only play with what drops. I rarely buy stuff to convert or craft and resell. I might, on occasion buy some IOs that I normally sell that some foolish person is listing for cheaper than they usually sell for and relist. I can do that all day long. They will sell at the regular price in a day or so. When I do buy recipes, it is, indeed in bulk, and makes me about 300-500M a day. But it's so tedious and time consuming, I tend to only do that with characters that need crafting badges. (2k items crafted takes some time, lol!) And - they are generally pvp IO recipes, where I know I can make some inf.