Ukase

My farmer. It should be higher, but I take breaks from farming. The afk is easy enough, I just get weary of converting. Takes time away from the badging and playing.

I seriously question the truth of your conclusion here. It is true in some circumstances. But I don't know about all circumstances, or even most circumstances. Maybe half the time. Less dps? Less survivability? The only advantage a scrapper has over a blaster is mez resistance. With the number of tactics to mitigate that, scrappers would be hard pressed to out-dps a finely tuned blaster. But, that brings up a second point...the point of being finely tuned. You may be a genius in slotting your scrappers and playing out optimal attack chains for maximum dps, while the blasters you may have seen or played weren't quite that well played or well made. It's just impossible to compare the two with numbers, because each person is going to play one AT better than the other, simpy due to experience, preference and who knows what other factors.

That may be what it means to you - but that's not what it would mean to me. It means to me, and I imagine most other folks, you're likely to play in melee range. There's no implication that things are going to die any faster - at least, not when I hear blapper. Now...an attitude...I suppose it could mean that, but I'd be hard pressed to differentiate that attitude from my own when I play my blaster. In melee when inferno's up and there are a cluster of mobs, but in range when there's just one or two. Just depends. They die every bit as fast no matter how you play, assuming you're slotted for that style. So, I don't necessarily buy the "make things die stupid fast". I expect that from any blaster, be they ranged, melee or what usually is a mix of both. For a fire/fire blaster, of course: FSC, inferno, burn, hotfeet. You should be in melee more often than not. But you're still a blaster. Other blaster powersets don't lend themselves so much being in melee. Doesn't mean things don't die stupid fast. So, while I kind of see what you're trying to say by saying Blapper, you say the same thing by saying blaster. And, since that is the name of the AT, makes sense to me to use it.

A valid point, given the efficiencies discovered and implemented when doing repetitive things. I'd once thought running a map for tickets, as opposed to drops was better - because the 125 map, without even clearing it, like - maybe 1 minute into it gives enough tickets that the completion bonus of tickets maxes you out. And at 60-70 tickets per recipe in the random roll section...you get a ton of recipes - a lot more than you would organically, but you'd get no very rares or pvps. Nor the salvage to craft them. I thought it might be worth doing one run every so often, but it took me out of the pattern/routine I'd established so I let it go. There is one thing I remember from playing video poker - and that's if you're going to play for the Progressive Royal, you have to let go of winners to keep the edge, as that edge is very, very small, and it requires perfect play. And you have to definitively know it. For if you have to take your time, the phrase "Study long, study wrong" comes to mind. The whole idea in this specific instance is to make a profit doing what you enjoy. But that profit should exceed what you would make in any safer job you could get and keep. But, I digress. Simply put, once you've found a path that makes you the influence you need, you stick to it - until you learn a path that will help you increase that influence with less effort, or less time, or more fun. Or some combo of all three.

A fair question, Andreah. That opportunity cost of TIME has made me question the wisdom of the crafting/converting/selling vs simply vendoring all but the very rare and pvp drops. And that's the rub in my motivation to test it. No idea really what the active non-market farmer is doing with their drops, not a clear idea anyway. When they say they sell it - are they selling them on the AH, only saving crafting time? or are they simply vendoring the red fortune recipes for 5k? instead of crafting and converting and getting at least 5M? Some might be, some might not. It's a difficult thing to measure, because there's probably a lot of variation in this loosely called "strategy". 1. Vendor the salvage when full. Vendor all but purples when full. 2. Vendor some salvage. Vendor some recipes, Sell rare salvage and pvp and very rare recipes on AH. 3. Vendor unneeded common salvage after crafting Red Fortunes, Titanium Coatings and Doctored Wounds (and other specific rare, very rare and pvp recipes that may drop ) The pure farmer who doesn't market may be laughing at all of the marketers all the way to the inf bank. But I doubt it. I think the afk farmers with multiple accounts that craft, convert and sell the drops fare better from an inf perspective. I would even venture the more successful of us have even taken a step back from aggressively afk farming. Maybe one or two accounts run in the background while we actively play on the other one - leading SG hamidon raids and having the sheer stupidity of tanking hamidon but forgetting to take an EoE before entering the goo. Leading various traditional leveling teams, trials, etc. I know one fellow made me jealous for a moment when I heard he had 8 accounts. He doesn't play in an office, it's more like a lair. He's got an array of monitors, and multiple PCs. At this scale, you could make the case that just the passive influence from simply going in, clearing for the most part on #125 (Asteroid), exiting, vendoring when full, resetting would outpace the afk-farmarketer, but then there are afk-farmarketers who may have a similar crazy set up that are must be a bit more of a slave to their farmer, as they must craft, and convert. There was a time - and still is, when I would simply clear, exit, SELL ON AH, then enter, begin to clear, craft, and convert within the mission, and sell upon exit after clearing. When you stash a few of each rare salvage in your /vault, you can pluck the rares needed. Or, just not craft those and wait until the required salvage drops. The problem is - while I'm clearing while I'm crafting and converting, it takes time away from badging and playing, and trying to be at least a semi-good citizen for our community. Helping folks with answers to questions, avoiding heated discussions in help channel over the whole use shards vs. threads debate, helping folks beat up on difficult EBs and AVs, and actually starting and completing story arcs. And the latter is why we all wondering into the area of farming and marketing in the first place, right? I don't think there is an optimal solution that would fit everyone. You just have to find the balance of optimal paths that works best for you, whomever you may be. I know someone who LOVES to farm. They venture out into the rest of the game only rarely. They're in my sg, and they don't want to reveal their lack of experience in the rest of the game. I'm still surprised that some folks have no idea where Firebase Zulu, and The Cascades are, nor how to get there. So much is behind the curtain left to explore for them, I'm a bit envious. But, they do know farming. I saw them with three accounts, two following the first, alternating judgements and destinies and when not recharged, using the one to throw fireballs and such. They like it. To me, it's interesting, but I could never do this for more than 30 minutes or so. Too dull for me. But, I've been there, when the inf gains and the drops would raise my dopamine levels and give me the motivation to continue. We're all going to do things differently for different reasons. If I can be helpful, let me know. I won't give you a large chunk of influence. But, if I'm ever asked how, I will share my methods. If I keep a secret, it's only because it may be something I've learned from someone else who told me not to share that secret, so I respect it.

So...I would encourage anyone reading this part to do some math. Or perhaps my reading comprehension needs work. Most anyone who's ever asked the question, "What do I do with reward merits?" has heard the stock reply. A. "Build a bridge out of them!" B. "Throw them into a pond!" C. "Go to a merit vendor, and type /ah into your chat bar. Look under Salvage, then Special. Within the top 6 choices are Enhancement Booster, Catalyst, Converter and Unslotter. See what they are selling for. Then check the merit vendor again and see what the exchange rate is. Do the math and see which nets you the most money." Short rebuttal is - it would be incredibly foolish to use merits for a pvp recipe. Converters are cheap, if not free! Even if you sold 300 converters (what 100 reward merits would get you from the merit vendor) for 50k each, you'd still have 15M. You can easily buy 4 pvp recipes with that. At 70k, which is pretty much the going rate, you'll get 21M. Anyone that tells you otherwise doesn't like math, or doesn't know math, or perhaps they are just in a hurry and don't care to bid creep and wait a few minutes for a sale to go through. Love people like that, because that's more market for me. Hopefully, I misunderstood, and made some baseless assumption. If not - it's a heinous thing to see such a thing written in the market forum.

You're entitled to your opinion, but I hope most will recognize this as such. You can be a dps beast and not a glass cannon.

As someone who plays blasters more often than not, I cringe whenever I read/hear the term "Blapper". Sure, it just implies the specified blaster plays more in melee, but that's a ridiculous distinction to make. Spines scrappers have Impale and a cone called...throw spines, if I recall correctly. Do they call themselves Scrasters? No. A blaster (any given player that makes one) can play their character any way they choose. Melee, ranged. Makes no difference as long as the opposing foes are defeated. They are still a blaster. If you play at range, you're a blaster. If you play in melee, you're still a blaster. There's no need to make the ludicrous distinction. Why would you? It's like introducing yourself as being left-handed instead of right-handed.

There are a number of missions where we rescue an NPC - Fusionette, the ones in Provost Marchand's arc, etc...and while their survival doesn't seem to impact much (except with the Fortune Teller in Spelunker), I'd do better at keeping them alive if I could tell at a glance how they were faring, without having to stop attacking and click on them to see. Maybe make them a pet? Certainly not controllable, but give some sort of status bar. Maybe like Desdemona in UGT?

I get about 3 to 1 common to all other categories. In an hour of afk, I'll get roughly 30 of the commons recipe drops. That's about 3M I wouldn't otherwise get. The only way I turn those off, is on a badge character looking for rejection badges. If you're crafting/selling between maps, you'll never need the space. For those farmers that don't craft, I still don't think it's a good idea. Every bit helps. Seems crazy to turn 'em off.

@Yomo Kimyata I sent you a DM for a look behind the Ukase farmarketing curtain. Some things are not for the general public to view, I hope all will understand.

Unfortunately - we have no idea if this statement is true. A reward merit could drop or rise in value at the whim of the HC dev team at any time. Remember invention salvage got seeded? I had a lot of rare salvage to pull off the AH. Not a big deal now, but it demonstrated to me that nothing is set in stone and to not put all the influence eggs in one basket. Right now, 1 reward merit = 3 converters. Back on live, if memory serves, it was closer to 10 reward merits for one converter. The converter is by far, the most useful of currencies in my mind. It can turn trash into gold and make a poor player rich very quickly. But there is something to be said for keeping the merits for hard times, because you can keep them, or convert to hero merits. I don't know for sure the cap on hero (or villain) merits, but you can certainly store more reward merits by converting to hero/villain merits. Though, I'd much prefer an account based bank system so my characters can withdraw (or deposit) from the family account.

In all seriousness - as I wasn't being entirely serious before - it's April 1, right? I think we have plenty of currencies. And as much as the idea of having a safe place to stash influence pleases me, I think we need worthwhile things to spend our influence on. Like a portable p2w for 10 Billion. A vanguard computer for the hvas, etc for 5 billion.

I am quite certain more people would use this than you think. I'm guessing most people have about 10 billion or so at least. It's outside of my imagination how they couldn't, unless they just started. But, I may have an entirely unreasonable perspective.

The p2w ranged summons (positron shadow/simulacron) makes light work of every Task Force Commander Accolade tf, including Sutter. I've done them with a brute, a scrapper, blaster, corruptor, controller, defender. Even Market Crash and ITF. I do make liberal use of Super Reds & team reds. The most difficult so far has been that big robot in market crash because of the gens - when you take time to take out the gens, the robot regens. So, had to use a LOT of reds.

In case our OP returns to the thread: The zones that offer bonus merits for completing the arcs in that zone are: Mercy Atlas The Hollows Faultline Striga Croatoa RWZ Except for Kallista Wharf, Pocket D and Cimerora, all zones offer 8 exploration badges only. Get all eight, you get an accolade badge and 5 reward merits. In Pocket D and Cimerora, there are only 2 explorations each, and in Kallista Wharf only one. Recently, we've been able to use a new power called Long Range Teleport for getting all the badges in a zone. This works for Pocket D and Kallista, but not for Cimerora. So, other than just being a badge nerd, there's no motivation to get those badges in Cimerora. There are a few other zones lrtp doesn't work for, but that's a tangent issue. If you think about the number of zones we have in game, and the ease in which you can swap alignments, there's a lot of low hanging fruit.

I think what's missing is not a coalition for the sg, but a coalition for the player. The leaders of my SG may have a history and fondness of the groups the sg is in coalition with, but I don't know who any of them are, save a couple, and one of them is in our sg with an alt. I can't fathom the type of headache this would cause in the coding, though. It's a nice to have kind of thing, but I don't see dev time being spent on it, as there are other things that likely will return more value. Opinions will vary on that of course. It's tough for a lot of us to have a real clue as to what would take too much time and what wouldn't if we're not looking at the code, and don't know null pointer exception from a garbage collection method. Many times a simple solution seen by an experienced programmer can result in a lot of uncompilable lines by one not so experienced. Kind of like playing a dark defender in pvp. In the right hands, quite efficient. In the wrong hands, chum bait.

I understand this limiting feeling you're having. When I use my base tp power and have to enter my own Personal SG passcode because the characters in that very large, lag-infested SG with teleporters that are further away from the entrance/exit portal than in my own, it annoys me that I can't simply choose my own base, but must enter in the pass code, or, alternatively, load into the character's SG base, then use my personal sg macro. Only takes an extra 10-20 seconds, but it still annoys me. But, as we know, coalitions are limited and not chosen by the membership, but by the leaders of the SG. So what solution is there? Try this: Make a character, and have no intent to actually play them. Put that character in the big sg you belong to, being sure to simply log it in once every week or so to keep it looking "active". Pull your main character out, place him in your own personal SG, then form coalitions with those groups you seek to coalition with. You would still be welcome to team with the SG you currently belong to with your main. You'd still see the big SG chat in the private channel they have given you access to. It's not a perfect solution, but it's a bit of a workaround. You'd still have to form your own coalitions with the type of SGs you mentioned, but you'd have that option. The only thing missing would be the name of the big SG that you currently belong to. You'd still have access to the SG base with the macro found in the discord, as well as your own base, and any you're in a coalition with that allows it. I wish I could come up with a better solution, but that's the best one I have.

If you find yourself bored on these kinds of teams, there are a number of solutions, but they require effort on your part. 1. Host specific challenge teams, whether it be a max of 4 players at a difficulty level you feel comfortable with. 2. Use Discord or some other voice platform. This way, even if the game play is boring, you can listen to the idle chatter of teammates who are more likely to talk than type while fighting. 3. Join or form a supergroup. Pin down the kinds of teammates you're looking for, and recruit those types of players if you form an SG, or share what kind of experience you're looking for and join a group that would be synergistic with that style of play.

I think dev time is better spent on other things than fixing something that seems to have an easy solution. Train up before doing a respec. Perhaps it should be written into several different places so more people are aware of this prior to doing a respec. Like a pop-up window that says "Be sure you're leveled up before you're trained". I couldn't say for sure, but it would seem (to me) that would be easier than testing, testing and retesting to determine a root cause and implement an eloquent solution.

Lord help me, but I had a thought about an influence sink. Experienced temp powers should be seeded by the devs on AH or at p2w. As for how much they cost, I believe a scaled cost of 500K for a new character up to 10M for a 50.

To me - for sheer efficiency's sake, it seems beneficial to wait until 50 to do the gold side stuff, primarily because the arcs are so short, you can chip away at them a little at a time, and since almost all of them are only 4 missions long. If you had to quit the arc, you wouldn't lose that much, unlike something like Freaklympics, which would take a fair time investment. Still going to have to do 3 of the 4 patrons' arcs through ouro, but it may be worth it to try and get one done at 35, work through that, then visit rwz for those arcs you can do before you hit 50. A friend pointed out that every badger should do Pither's Efficiency Expert as soon as possible, simply because if you have an issue (like your video card melting - true story, it happened to an sg mate.) you don't want to be 1400 badges in and realize you're going to miss one. The more I think about it - I don't think there is going to be one right answer for an efficient path for everyone. But I'd appreciate everyone's thoughts just the same.

I mistakenly put this post in the Guides section yesterday and have since hidden it because I couldn't move it or delete it. At least, I wasn't smart enough to figure out how. But, anyway - If we're in here, it's presumed we're a bit nuts about badges. There's a number of folks making their way through their first character to the current badge count of 1547. There's a smaller number making their way through a second, third, even up to a 5th or 6th badge character. I've completed one, have two waiting for Luna & her event badges, and 3 more bringing up the rear, with one of those three having just over 1400. But, I got to thinking...maybe there's a more efficient way...a path. Not just focusing on arcs and Accomplishments & Accolades before worrying about Achievements & defeats, but outlining a path where a majority of badges are earned just through game play, as opposed to farming or hunting. I set out to make a document, with timely turning off of XP, to ensure not out-leveling contacts. It then occurred to me that this isn't terribly efficient. It takes the character a long time to level up (not a big deal), but if the character starts gold, it would still have to do the blue and red content through ouro. And of course, there's still the challenge badges. There is no clear path. And I'm not sure there's a complicated one let alone a clear one. But, before I just opt to level a character fairly normally, and then just do the ouro arcs from low to high, one alignment at a time, I would just ask if someone has laid out a fairly efficient path so I don't have to reinvent the figurative wheel. If leveling through content, as opposed to AE, do you all try to do the zone arcs (Hollows, Faultline, Striga, Croatoa, RWZ), and go back and tackle the Mercy Island arcs through ouro? Or level up gold side, and then do blue and red through ouro? What's your approach?

I think I know the problem the OP is trying to solve. I've seen it so many times. Team leader is IO'd to the gills, and armed additionally with a lot of experience running a given trial, tf or story arc/mission. A couple other teammates have similar experience and proficient builds. One or two teammates might have a celerity in stealth, but they don't have super speed, and their stealth is insufficient to get past the groups of mobs that are in the way. They are faced with three options, none of which are enjoyable to them. 1. Attempt to fight through 2. Sit at the door 3. Quit the team and look for something else to do. The dilemma is simple to identify. For whatever reason, some players think a character is better enjoyed by them if it "fits" a theme they have in mind. They take flight, which currently gives vertical, but no real other advantage. They like hover, for reasons some of us can understand, but they don't take the invis pool, and for other reasons, they simply cannot stealth. A number of players could take the typical combo of cj/ss with celerity in stealth, but for reasons of their own, they think they shouldn't have to. There's a true disconnect between these two players, regardless of how well they may get along outside of these tfs/missions done in a speed fashion. The disconnect is caused in some cases by a lack of knowledge, a lack of influence, or a lack of desire to play in the speedy style, or a combination of all three. The thing the OP is not thinking about is the players who speed through - they don't need the paltry xp boost. They're playing for the adrenaline, I think, the challenge and joy of steamrolling through everything in their path with little thought to their characters health or endurance. They may want the merits, but most are wealthy enough to not slow their game down for a paltry influence gain. Just my opinion of course, I may have misunderstood completely what the OP was trying to achieve. The only solution I have would be for the slower/kill all type folks and the speed type folks to appropriately identify themselves as such - the same way we might flag ourselves as helper/non-helper. And for those that enjoy both, flag as such.

I prefer to keep it simple. It should be called, "17th anniversary badge". And badges for 1-16 should be appropriately renamed to 1st -16th anniversary badges.