Ukase

I agree, it makes sense. It just seems like a lot of things to have accomplished prior to getting a badge. Even folks who get "ALL" the badges may not have done the Freakalympics arc. It's a lot, especially if you look at how involved something like an accolade is - but with the accolade, there's a permanent buff. Of course, nobody put a gun to my head and said - "You must get this badge!", but when you're a badger, just having a new badge is pretty much just like that. 🤣

lol, I think the problem is that with the new patch - many teams now are all blasters. I'm not sure what you mean by the part I put in bold. Unrewarding for who? you, as the designer, or us, as the players? Jack Emmert, the original dev, made everything with teaming in mind. I never agreed with that, because teaming is more often that not a crap shoot. When you find a good core group of folks that beat the odds (which you wouldn't find without teaming) it becomes more enjoyable. But sifting through PUG after PUG to find that core group (or SG)...that's not fun at all. And even when you do find them, not everyone is available at the same time on a routine basis. This is why all content should be made without teaming or soloing in mind. How's that done? Beats me! I just hate to see content geared towards teams. Not everyone is a social butterfly. Is it odd that I found doing it solo more fun than on a team? Probably, lol.

When you are a badger, you tend to eagerly anticipate new badges. This was no different for me. While there was a lot to be desired with both arcs - I fully acknowledge I only have myself to blame. I couldn't be bothered to test the arcs on Beta. If I had, I might have mentioned that pitfall about Mistah-Static or whatever his name was, from the Freakalympic arc not being part of a badger's usual leveling path. But then - that's the beauty of it, isn't it? If each new badge were as simple as an exploration badge, most badgers would get bored. If everyone can get them easily, then there's really not much point in having them. I suffered through the Graveyard Shift on a team of 4 earlier today. Later, when solo, it was much more enjoyable as the mission holder. The maps were crazy - but fun, simply because most of them were either rarely used in game, or very different. It could be because when solo, I can take more time to look around, as opposed to trying to zip through. I think it's fair to say that both dev teams, old and new, have done fantastic things - and some things that leave many players scratching their heads wondering what kind of drugs were being used. In HC's case - these folks are not getting paid. I am grateful, as are most people to just be able to play. An SG I belong to had an AE origin story contest for our characters...and I made one. I promise you - creating cohesive arcs that are entertaining without being too easy, nor too hard - that's not a simple thing. If you think it is - I strongly encourage you to do some AE arcs that aren't fire farms. We could use some! (that is not to suggest my own AE effort was at all cohesive or entertaining. I did it for laughs) I get that the OP is trying to be constructive. The problem is - when you preface a comment with "as a new player", it can be difficult for other players to buy in to your perspective. But maybe we need to try harder. Without new players...the community doesn't grow.

My apologies. On discord, someone said the cells were full...but when we ran a second time, we were missing the freak from Freak-olympics. That arc offers no badge, so I never ran it. So, ran freak-olympics and re-ran the arc and got the badge. The requirements for this badge are kind of ridiculous, when you think about the steps we take to get the passive hp/end boosting accolades - which aren't as involved as this one badge. That said - the immature PPs are over the top and the best thing about both arcs.

This is really the most ridiculous badge requirement I've come across.

I think the issue maybe the order in which we originally dealt with Sun Xiong. It was over a year ago - no recollection on what order. But looking now to see who's missing, if any.

Every jail cell was full - no badge upon completion, other than the one for arc completion. And, I had every badge prior to this issue, so I know I've done all those.

I don't know whether it was a bunch of those bids folks use to stash influence, or if someone really thinks a level 53 HO micro is worth 250 million..but that's what they're selling for now.

It's been a long day. I knew only about 10% of read the forums, but I guess it never dawned on me how true that guess was until today. If I had a nickel for every player that thought their SG macro was broken, I would have a lot of damn nickels. Without exaggerating, at least 100 players. After about 15, I made a macro explaining it. Can we please have a pop up, upon logging in, to explain to the returning players who had no idea what was in the new patch regarding the SG base macro? or a link to the patch notes that explain it? Something?

Some get 'em, some don't. If they don't get them, it's because I'm trying the character out - I have no idea if I'm even going to play it the next day, if ever. So, I don't bother wasting time with it.

That's really the purpose of this post. What impact will it have? The number of converters in the AH is almost double what it was 2 weeks ago. Someone with a ton of reward merits is liquidating for the anticipated sale, perhaps. It will increase the amount of converting, as the larger supply makes for more competition, driving the price down a bit. This increases the number of IOs for sale that are in demand. It drives those prices down as players compete with market pvp. More Winter IOs will hit the market, and the competition is going to be steep. A number will buy the packs and keep the winter-Os. A number will keep them for several months, maybe 6 months waiting for the price to creep upward. Buy a pack for 10M, get one Winter-O, and sell it "cheap" for 11M. a month later, or for 22M six months later. Inf spent here is likely going to not be spent on other items. So it will be interesting to see how it plays out. We don't know how many people make LotG 7.5% and put them on the market. Suppose some of them stop and focus on winter-Os, where the profit on one would be larger than the entire cost of an LotG? The demand on LotG isn't going to go down. So, supplies decrease, prices of them go up. All manner of things like this "could" happen.

I think the quicksilver end/run speed +5 is a better bargain, lol. Always take the merits at hami! There are some useful ones, but there are some real turds that make the risk too high for me.

On one hand, the idea of time sink really rubs me the wrong way. There's only so many hours in a day. But, in practice, let's consider the test server: Instant 50. Everything's free. The only downside is the likely wipe of your characters - which you can rebuild in a few minutes if you've made a copy of the build in mids. And yet...5% of the player base will visit it? And those, most are to actually test the upcoming patch. A few to maybe check how a character may pan out at 50, but that's a very small number of people. Things are easy here on HC. (relatively) Some may frown upon marketing or farming, but both are easy - even if you find them tedious or dull. You can get all the IO goodness you want, if you are familiar with the ways to accumulate inf. Even if you're not - you keep playing, you'll get there. But what keeps us playing? Sure, it's fun (a truly subjective word) to smash level 9's in Perez Park when you're level 50. As much as we may like our characters, and this game - one thing is true - there's not much that is new. Yes, a couple of arcs have been added, and a couple more are to follow. (as well as the Market Crash TF) So, in order to keep people playing there needs to be a reason to do so. As "fun" as a given tf is, there's going to be a limit to how many times someone will think that tf is fun. Most folks may enjoy the content, but they do it for merits. And they want those merits for various reasons. Some want to make more inf for their alts. Some want converters. Uses will vary. If everything is handed to us, then what's the motivation to sit in ouroboros doing nothing for 20 minutes until a league is formed? What's the motivation to have a character that's level 50+3, t-4'd? Sure it might be fun...but what do you actually do if you no longer require anything from the rewards offered? For some, the joy is in teaming and cracking jokes with in-game friends. For others, it's a sense of accomplishment. (or both) But if you take away the obstacles to certain in game privileges, then there's nothing to move towards. You're stagnant. Most will get bored. And log off. And stay off.

Interesting. My experience is I can abandon it whenever. I never even notice the timer, but I guess time gets added by simply running around. (escaping PPD/resisting arrest) And I'll share one more tidbit about this method: Atlas, Kings Row, Skyway, Founders - if they're not at the sub closest to Schwienzer, abandon and retry. No sense running about if you can get them closer. IP & PI - use the base macro to exit Founders - then use base portal back to Port Oakes - the chopper/mission entrance is right around the corner. Bricks is always way out of the way - use a TT or mission TP. Steel - I can't recall, but if it's not where you want it, you can try and get it at the same location as the first 4 or IP/PI, if not, you can use your remaining TT/mission tp.

I completely agree with you. Have you made a suggestion yet? Ya gotta figure Jimmy would give it some thought.

I get that it's the going price. But I'm one of those that happens to think that the posi set is pretty good. It should sell for more, but the market disagrees. It would gum up my marketing, but I'd be quite alright with pre-seeded prices of 2M for all rare IOs, and 1M for uncommons, and do away with recipes altogether. Now isn't that just insane thinking? Of course it is!

So...the winter event will soon be upon us! Adam Smith, economist now long dead, suggested rational self-interest in a free-market economy leads to economic well-being. While I don't pretend that the AH is a free-market, given the seeding the devs do, nor am I proposing all players act in rational self-interest (crazy badgers), I do think part of this premise will have an impact in the coming months. With the assumption that the sale repeats itself, many of us are going to do our best to act in our best self-interest in an effort to enjoy the meta-game of the AH market. Some of us are going to buy anywhere from 1 to maybe even 10000 or more winter packs when(if?) they go on sale for 10M. So what impact will this have on: Catalysts Converters Boosters Ability to team for weekly tfs Unslotters Rare Salvage (due to brain storm ideas) and of course, Winter-Os. I have no idea what many of you will do. I'm still mulling it over in my head what I will do. I can say that from what I got last year, without selling too many of the Winter-Os and using a fair number of them in my alts, I still came out ahead. Plenty of reward merits allowed me to only team up for tfs when I wanted a notice of the well, as I no longer have a need for reward merits, having so many in my email from them. My farmers give me all the catalysts I need, so the ones I get from the pack may get sold, or used on winter-os if it's easier than having the farmer trade them off to my alt. Boosters will probably drop a bit in price, too. Unslotters...sheesh, I still have over 4000 of these. Guess I should just flood the market with them. Rare salvage...thanks (or not) to the seeding, I think no matter what happens prices will never go up over 500k for very long. But the big value in the winter packs has always been the winter-Os. They currently range - non-catalyzed - from about 18-23M, depending on when you catch the sale. The superiors are still going for 25-30M, sometimes as high as 35M or as low as 5k. (that I've seen) But this sale will be different from last year, I think, in that more players have more inf. I know I do. More players will also know about the sale, too. So how will they approach this and what impact will it have on Winter-O prices? I think for the most part, prices on Winter-O's will drop a bit, as demand will seem to drop as people wait for the sale. Then when the sale hits - most folks will dump their winter-os on the market, trying to recoup investment. Others will stash the O's planning on using them, or waiting for the market to pick back up and make more profit. Last year, prices picked back up, I think it was in May. This year, I expect them to stay lower, longer, but I could be wrong. Others will certainly bid low on these in anticipation of playing a mid-run game and reposting them at a higher price. How low will they go?! 7M? 10M? I think they sell for what they sell for now, due to the price of the pack. So, I suspect Entombed will drop to about the same as a kheldian ATO. Blistering Cold will be about the same as a brute ATO. So, 6-10M is my guess...until folks buy them up too fast, then the price creeps up to about 12-15 and it'll stay there, due to uncertainty about how much inventory is stashed in emails out there. Nobody wants to be the guy who has to pull the item of the market because it's not selling, so there's going to be uncertainty for sure. I just wish I could remember how it played out last year. I confess, I'm mainly buying them for the Experienced, the Amplifiers and the reward merits. The cats and converters, boosters I can use or sell, doesn't matter. I'll never use a fraction of the tailor tokens, nor the respecs. The windfalls have proven to be glitched in some way as far as 25% more inf goes. When making a character, I'm often torn between the very rare for the recharge, or the superior winter-o for the defense. I wonder how many are equally as torn. It's tough to predict what others will do when you have no idea if they think like you. So, I can really take or leave the Winter-Os on all but my farmers. And since farmers bring me purples, and not Winter-Os, it's an easier choice. Ultimately, I suspect afk-farming will be addressed in some fashion, in some way - without impacting active farming, so the demand for these may drop at some time in the future. But for now, farming is fairly popular, still lucrative and likely to continue. So what are your guesses? Use this opportunity to share your insights with us mere mortals who aren't yet in the trillion inf club. Or mis-direct us! Or speak of nerfing regen!

I expect more than a few players to have good success on this strategy - but you'll have to be really, really fast. I think that there are a number of players who had deep pockets and did bids like this - but have stopped playing for whatever reason. And their bids will remain in place forever - until filled or the game crashes to a close. How many? No idea. Some of you will be lucky, (or just smart and quick) for sure.

The angry farmer in me says "that's what you get for only trying to bid 1 million for a rare in the first place." They should ALL be worth 2 million, but that's just my narrow minded thinking. Could have been much, much worse. I once paid 400 million for 4 Micros. (1.6 Billion! for the math-challenged folks)

Like most folks, in the low levels, I grab Sands of Mu from p2w to get some kind of attack chain while I'm waiting for my two powers to recharge. But Sands of Mu...so annoying when it misses...and as much as I'd like it to be auto-hit, I know that's not a real solution. But, since the CoH we all knew is now dead, and there's this new flavor of CoH by you HC folks - could we implement some kind of mechanic where when you use Sands, or Flurry that if the rng says you miss, you don't miss all the punches? Is it at all realistic to fight someone, and they dodge 8 punches in a row? I mean, I know they're telegraphed with poor form with the head down and swingin' away like a 6 year old who got his candy stolen, but all of them miss? Argh! How about just the first three? Then the streak breaker can clean things up, let you hit at least one shot in there.

I am in the habit of verifying/validating the manifest when, for whatever reason, my mouse cursor - when it turns into a hand to grab a piece of salvage or an enhancement doesn't turn into a fist. Never am quite sure for a moment if it's user error or mouse glitch - but when I verify, it goes away. In any event - using HC launcher, I click on those 3 very tiny little dots and scroll down to verify, and it says, "verifying", but after 5 minutes...there is no progress. This seems odd to me, as typically with Tequila, validating files take about 30 seconds. After 10 minutes, still nothing.

The big irritant I have with the chance from Stun to Power Crash is the reduction in recharge time, and the change from single target to cone. While it's probably going to be a plus...I have Touch of Death %Neg Energy, and Glad Strike's % Smashing, Mako's % Lethal and Perfect Zinger's % psionic. (The plan is to unslot the Mako's and toss in the -res Fury of Glad., take out the Glad Strike % Smashing and throw in the Eradication % energy....but I'm thinking the change from melee to cone will throw off the odds.) And I get to keep them in there...if I don't ever respec the character, if I understand the patch notes correctly. Seems like a strange thing.

If I only count the time the AH window is open, I make about 500M every 5 minutes. The problem is - I only have the window open 2-3 times a day. And the inf made isn't made the first time I open the window, but the next time I open it. And sometimes it's 300M, others close to 700m. On average, about 500m, and while the window's closed, no telling what inf is being earned because I'm playing the game and not using metrics to track it. People have varying interests - but I don't understand why more folks aren't marketing AND afk-farming. The two go hand in hand quite nicely.

So a badge specifically for ATs with pets? How's that going to go over for the badge hounds that don't have pets?

At this time, no. Not to my knowledge.