Ukase

This is so very true. And, if I'm being honest, I am egocentric enough to dare sometimes think the high salvage prices are my fault. Not because I'm doing anything, but because I'm NOT doing anything. I used to afk farm with two other accounts while playing the third. Now, I just play the one account. I might occasionally PL an alt to get over a level bump, but that's pretty much it. Instead of buying converters, I'm hoarding them. And my farmers are not selling surplus uncommon salvage. As a result of me not doing what I have been doing for 4 years, uncommon salvage is up. Converters are much cheaper. Everything is cheaper. You're welcome. Of course, this may have nothing at all to do with me and everything to do with Yomo telling all our secrets to the world in his insidious guides teaching people how to make their own influence! It's all your fault, Yomo!

I'm not sure how much analysis you want. Players are motivated by different things from ToT. 1. Prismatics 2. Event badges 3. XP 4. Reward Merits 5. The team experience? For folks like me who are primarily after 1,2 and 4, Once I get 1&2, I can get more RMs outside of ToT. Certainly more fun ways to get reward merits than waiting for an incan to a GM and then back to the doors. A lot of lower level players certainly don't mind the 1,2 and 4, but are really after the XP. Because the EBs give extra xp, all those badge and prismatic hounds are really helping the lower level players out! And, as you point out, the lower level players are helping to up the mobs that spawn from the doors. Win/win, sort of. But - when the group that's after the prismatics and the event badges get them, that leaves folks who might have dinged 50 and feel like they need to re-pay, or pay the favors forward with their new 50's to lead teams, or those few players who've been waiting for this lag people reference to die down. And the problem is, there's just not that many 50's willing to be a team lead when the only thing they get are slow vet levels and a few threads and shards. They already have the badges, they already have the prismatics. If they are stuck as an anchor to incan the league back to the doors, they don't even get the reward merits. Kind of thankless, really. I list "the team experience" because as a kid, I always went ToTing with friends. It was always somewhat interesting/fun to compare candy/loot after a house. Pro-tip: if you can make a friend with someone who has peanut allergies, you can trade the lame hard candy for the candy bars which are all made in a manufacturing facility that used peanuts. Sometimes, they just hand over all the candy because peanut allergies are no joke. But I digress. Some players log in and they don't care about loot, they don't care about lore. They just want some company. But, often ToT leaves them alone in a crowd. In short, if you want KW to get more people for ToT, then the rewards have to be increased or varied. Suppose defeating an EB 20 times resulted in an incarnate shard (not a thread). Something like that might change up the whole trite threads vs. shard debate. Or, let's say that debate is too trite, defeat the same Hallowe'en event EB 25 times and earn a costume toggle identical to the EB you just defeated. Or make it 50. That would keep the events a little more popular for the 50s. Until our HC devs tap into what motivates various players, I don't see the behaviors changing.

The question posed by the OP had me reviewing just what were the factions one encountered 1-20. For blue side, there's Clockwork, Council, Hellions, Trolls, Vahzilok, Lost, Skulls, Coralax (though no contact has blue siders interacting with these for street hunts or missions that I'm aware of - yet they are found in The Hollows.) CoT, Arachnos through Aaron Thiery's & Twinshot's arcs, Igneous, Hydra, Family...I think that's it for blue side. Since I can't be sure I can provide an exhaustive list, I can only state the ones I recall. Longbow, Snakes, Legacy Chain, Arachnos, Coralax, Family, Council, Spectral Pirates, and CoT. I'm sure the list isn't exhaustive. The most fun for me: Trolls, simply because of the way they talk, when they talk. The most frustrating: CoT - because of the spectral ghosts always running off when they have a sliver of health. And they don't just run off, they phase and become invisible, so you're left with a choice of sticking around until they return (if it's a defeat all, and it usually is) or trying to find them after you've handled the rest of the map.

Only the first 132 times. After that, I kind of got over it.

That's what I recall, too. Just need to run it to make sure. So, the Troubled Times arc, Stribbling. Roughing up the hacker to get him to talk awards 1 vigilante point. Letting Thystle go earns a heroic point, and arresting her awards a villain point. Doesn't seem to be any middle rogue/vigilante ground with that discussion. Arresting Marcus awards 1 villain point and...5 heroic points? This can't be accurate, because I now only have 4 heroic points. Letting Marcus go awards a heroic point. Returning Marcus awards 1 villain point. Defeating Marcus awards 1 villain point. It's puzzling to me. I've run this 4x, a different decision each time. No vigilante points were awarded in chat or on screen in words, yet, my tips bar, which showed 9 vigilante points after roughing up the hacker, somehow filled up. It wasn't Thystle, and surely it wasn't defeating Marcus. Well, time to do a morality for 40 merits, I guess.

The primary reason Jack Emmert drove people into teaming in this game is because he recognized the power of relationship. If you do not have some kind of positive relationship (or enjoy having negative relationships - some people are like that) anyone is likely to leave the game. After all, while I think there's probably a lot of different ways to do the same things in game, most of us are wired a certain way, and while we could get through it, only parts of it are going to be fun/interesting enough to keep our attention. And even then, without relationships with others who enjoy the same thing, boredom is a certainty. It's just a question of when. Diantane, I have teamed with you before. Your style of play does not align with what I enjoy. Your opinions on the forums rarely align with mine. That doesn't make me right and you wrong, nor vice-versa. It just means we're different. If you find the 40-50 "grinding", you might try a quick transfer to Indom, use the 2xp buff from Start vendor, and I'm sure it will seem less grindy. 2xp from Start vendor stacks with the 2xp for playing on Indom. It's worth a shot.

I think there's a way to get them in The Graveyard Shift, too. Haven't run it in a while and wasn't paying attention, so I'll have to get on that and check it out.

About an hour ago, they were at 1.2M I am not sure which way it's going to go after ToT ends. I could squeeze out some more from my lower level characters, but seems like I should just wait until next year. My gut told me when they were first introduced that there would be a time when they might sell for the same as halloween salvage. I know there's a small minority that does the advanced mode tfs and are likely swimming in them, if they aren't using them for the mini-modes or selling them. And, there's probably about 250 put into circulation on Excelsior from the labyrinth runs -which seem to be once a day, at least as far as I can tell. But that's only about 7-8 per player, after a monstrous aether conversion. If I were smarter, I'd look at how many are in the supply and check again tomorrow. Not sure about other servers and how often they do Labyrinth. Probably the same, or less, but who knows. After ToT, these activities might increase. I certainly don't see the supply increasing after ToT ends, unless it's from hoarders dropping their inventory. So, it will be interesting to look back 6 months from now and see if the price is around 1 to 1.5M. That's my guess.

You might think Science can't - but maybe you don't understand the science enough - yet. It might just take a special type of candle... I mean seriously, of course it's not the same, but in game?

It's no secret that if you want to get 40 merits, you may complete 10 tip missions of the same alignment and then complete a morality mission. I'm sure I'm not alone with the realization that Mark & Recall accolade requires us to complete 25 tip missions. So, after you get your 25, there is an option to complete the next 5 tips and a morality for another 40. But there's another way, and I'm trying to piece it together, and could use some help. I know from Dr. Stribbling's arc, Troubled Times, level 30-34 that by making certain decisions you can earn a vigilante point. Possibly two, but I haven't determined what the right decisions are for that - I know regarding Thystle, if I let her go, it gives a point for hero, and if I defeat her, it gives a point for villain (and that could very well be the other way around) But perhaps there's a path in the dialogue to get a vigilante point? No idea. But there is certainly a way to earn one vigilante point by completing Stribbling's arc. So that would move the player that stops at 5 vigilante tips (like me) to 6 pts. I thought that Shauna Brown's arc would allow for a point, but when I chose to kill him, rather than have him face bribery charges, zip. Can you all remind me what other arcs provide alignment points? I'd much rather do a story arc and earn the remaining points as I go, rather than just do the tips, even though it would only take me 20-25 minutes to do the 5 tips and morality.

Yeah, but it's odd. I don't think we have many powers that work this way, if any, besides brine. I kind of backed into figuring that out based on the type of set it takes. (just the one kind, accurate healing) It's a really interesting powerset. I can tell a lot of thought and creativity have gone into it - and it looks like they heeded some feedback from the patch notes, too.

There are often times when I've had items not post for me, but they remain in the slot in the AH, and usually it's due to a lot of things going on - like I'm trying to sell the 20th EoE I've gotten before hami spawns. With all those GMs and players about, it's not a surprise. But this glitch, I've never encountered before. I'm sorry it happened to you, and I know you're aware of how the AH works, so I'm not going to fuss about pictures, even though you provided them. All that said, I've no idea how they can address this, other than a refund. I mean, where would they find this bug? How could they reproduce it? I'm without a clue here.

Science is just magic that we now understand. Isn't it?

This is not the way I look at it. XP is not to be chased. It happens when you play. Do I kill/defeat stuff for XP? Sure. But not unless I have to, or on those rare occasions I might want to. Why should ANYONE kill everything on the map? There's only going to be more maps, more missions, more npcs to defeat. ALWAYS. There's never a good reason FOR ME to kill all/most unless it's a mission objective. For me, the goal is NOT XP. It's reward merits, or occasionally emp merits or incarnate rewards. Take Frostfire for example. Most folks are familiar with that mission. The mission objective is simple: Defeat Frostfire. Now to get to him, all you have to do is destroy an altar, and defeat Keystone and his few minions around him. Then you can run right by all those goons and go direct to frostfire, mash a luck, a break free, and a red, and kill him, and the mission is over. Then you go on the next mission with the next contact. More npcs to kill, so what you've done is you've moved on to the next story. You've collected your reward merits. And, you've gotten those merits a lot faster than if you'd killed everything. More merits per metric of time = more inf per metric of time. It does not pay to kill all/most. This is actually a good rule of thumb. I follow this, unless I'm about to get defeated, then I'll exit. But, this rarely ever happens because I don't join kill all/kill most unless I'm leading a crawl team.

So, I appreciate your suggestions. The thing is - if I put TB on auto, then I have to manually click hasten (although, fair enough, not as frequently) I have already changed my posted build maybe 4 times in the past 24 hours. As I'm leveling up, I'm noticing how the value of the ATOs and IOs are now getting stronger, making the 4 slots in (really only 3 that actually boost end) in stamina are too many. I should probably wait until 30 or 40 or even 50 to use ATOs, but some of those bonuses seem very nice to me. So, I tend to use them when I can. (and my base is crammed full, and I'm still trying to clear out older characters that I'm confident I'll never play again) Look for some pretty good IOs to go on sale CHEAP in the weeks ahead. Well, cheap compared to prices 18 months ago, lol. Whitecap should have 6 slots, but not with sets, but with damage procs. Or at least 3 of a set and 3 damage procs. Or at least, that's where my mind is at. This is actually one of the more interesting parts of the game right now, finding that balance between dps and res/def. It's going to be different for everyone because of differences in playstyles and skill and content. And other factors. At least, that's my opinion so far. Again, thanks for the suggestions and taking the time to put things together. So, looking at the build you shared, thanks again - I am confused about something. Brine, you have a couple of HO-s for acc/heal. This is a debuff. Not sure how slotting for a heal is going to reduce HP on an npc. Doesn't seem like it would do much good. I mean, it's takes only those kinds of sets, so I guess it works in ...reverse? Weird, but not your creation, lol. Numbers wise, your build looks very compelling, a lot better than the trash I put up.

Why? Do the damage procs not work the same whether they're level 25 or 40 or 50? Or is that just something you like to do?

For those that don't know, this is a pun. It may not have been intended, but it is a pun. See, I was just typing up about the rng dice and all that...dunno how Maelwys knew that...but he nailed it!

I want to echo this. I also want to say that no matter how much accuracy/toHit you may have, you're going to miss. And sometimes, it's going to seem like you put the wrong kismet in, or the wrong kind of enhancement in. While it's in an odd way true that perception is reality, this game and it's rng "dice" will have you swearing off gambling for sure. And then it'll have you getting a 2nd mortgage to head to Vegas and put it all on snake eyes. In this fashion, procs are strange. We slot them, and even at 90% chance to fire, sometimes they don't. I'll ask myself STUPID questions like, "is the fact that I converted this from something else making it fire less often than it should?" or "This damn thing is attuned. Should I take it out and put the level 7 in?" Or maybe that's just me. I'm hyper-sensitive to the whiffs.

I was just about to post that very link, because I find that page invaluable. There was only one thing I wanted to add, and that was my answer to this first question: 1. What % chance is too low to make it not worth slotting (not talking for set bonus reasons)? For me, if the odds of firing in a single target attack are less than 80%, I don't slot it, unless slapping a nucleolus or damage enhancement takes it beyond ED limits. Then I might. The only time procs are really valuable is on difficult single targets. Otherwise, they're going to melt pretty fast anyway. So, for things like AVs, GMs and Pylons, procs are darned useful. But for run of the mill play, I don't think they make any noticeable difference, unless they're in a power that typically does low or no damage. Those are the best ones to proc, imo. For AoE, a lot depends on the character. If I anticipate large groups, then I'll settle for a lower %, like 20%. If I don't, I'll settle for 50%.

This is clever, even if it hasn't paid off for you yet. I was thinking about character names earlier today. And, apparently I still am! We have the implementation of this naming policy taking effect fairly soon - a couple of weeks, if my memory serves. I hope it frees up a fair number of names that will mean more to someone who's actually going to play. But, I am wondering...we've had the discussions ad nauseum, but if there were a way to tell how many days (hours) a player on an account played in total across all characters, in addition to the last time they played...that would be super interesting to me. I mean consider this, someone pops in May of 2019, and then pops out a couple of days later and hasn't come back. They've played a total of 2 hours in that time. Is it really reasonable to hold their name in perpetuity, even if they reached level 50? Again, the discussion has been had, probably to the point of beating a dead horse. But I would weigh in with not only wanting to know the last day they played, but what was the first day they played as well. Because if they only ever played one day, and they haven't come back in 5 years, odds are pretty good they never will. Now, the odds of someone like that getting someone's fantastic or sentimental favorite name are probably low. Very low. Still, it's something I'd be curious about, though they'd certainly never share the info with me, even if they knew a quick and easy way to find out. I hope everyone gets the name they want! Unless it's mine!

So, the nifty thing about this temp is it does 100% damage. Boss, lieut, minion, whatever. So, my typical procedure is to scout the mission, see how many higher level mobs there are. This past time I had 14 lieutenants (just running at +1, no bosses, still getting used to this marine affinity secondary) the other 15 or so were minions. First LT, I use Aim, then the temp....miss. It aggros the lt, so I have choices. I can run away - no real need to do that. I can munch a bunch of yellows, or I can debuff the lt myself with Shoal Rush - it reduces defense, so may as well return the favor. I check my buff bar - the debuffs are gone, and I miss again with the temp. Now, I completely get this can happen, and that this is probably an outlier. Overall, of the 20 charges, only 14 hit the target. So, why not give us 10 charges and make 'em autohit? Something. But this whiffing is inclined to make me start drinking again.

So, I'll start by saying I wouldn't expect or want ALL temps to be auto-hit. But this one, you get 20 shots. The ghosts in this mission already debuff the to-Hit, so once that happens a single miss can cascade into multiple misses, of both the temp and the rest. And it can take an awful lot of keen insights to get back into the positive numbers for accuracy/To-hit. Since it is just 20 charges, I think an auto-hit for this temp would be a nice thing.

I remember a couple of times when we had to deal with multi-blooms - and the solution is simple, though problematic in relaying to the rest of the league. Have an EoE, buff up as before, and only aim to take down 2-3 mitos before we head back to re-buff and redeploy until the mitos are gone. You may trust me when I say I remember how things were with Foxfyre and the rest of the gang wanting to stick with their method. Back then, their position was to not be more efficient because they felt the HC devs would either nerf things for the characters, or buff Hami. I kind of miss Foxfyre. For whatever reason, people would tease him relentlessly, and some of the jokes were pretty funny. I only asked because when I would go into the hive, I would never know who is leading. Because if I knew who was leading I could ask them why they are waiting until 45 past to invite when the zone is already full. It makes zero sense. We're all here, let's start!

May I just say that "Fright Club" is a clever name for it?

As for the OP suggestion, my only caveat would be to recognize in certain council cave maps, you can enter a hallway at the wrong angle and find yourself behind some pipe, and you have to back up and try again, or TP out. I once made a fire tank on retail that was a tall as I could make it, and that was always an issue.