Ukase

This might be a stupid question. Heck, it must be! There's being "in game" and there's being logged in, on the character select screen. Does being on the character select screen count as multi-boxing? (for example, right now, I have two accounts "logged in", but no characters have been selected yet, with a 3rd account that's actively playing as normal) I usually do this for when Adamastor is about to be up. Log 'em in, they're already there and I don't have to sweat the commute. Occasionally, it's for transfer of various salvage or recipes. But for the most part, it's just one account at a time nowadays. I just want to make sure being on the character select page with multiple accounts is okay.

I last checked a couple of hours ago, and the price was close to what it was; from a little over 2M to a little less over 2M. I have thus far earned 470 prismatics, with another 24 characters to assess and see if they can earn them. As for the other accounts...well, I'm growing a bit weary. Perhaps I'll be refreshed tomorrow. Selling them might rejuvenate me, my math says it's close to 1B at 2M each. At least 850M after fees. I've been doing this in a strange fashion, not recommended. Solo. The reason being, having led leagues in ToT before, I know what a headache it is to have people come and go, even if they take the time to ensure a 50 is promoted before they leave. So, instead of being a nuisance in that fashion, I just join in the clobbering. As expected, I have to really focus on the dps; because anecdotally, if I don't dish out sufficient damage, I don't get credit for them. And those damn MMs have an unfair advantage being able to attack them before they even come out of the door. I really wish there was something that could be done about that. No matter. At 2M each, I suspect they won't really get any cheaper. At least, not much cheaper. I had thought initially these would sell for 100K eventually. And that may yet happen. But if people actually are hoarding them or using them, the price should remain fairly stable at 2M. That is, I can't think of any reason for the demand to increase. I should probably hop on brainstorm and see if there are any pricy costumes at Benovolabs coming around the corner.

A lot of alting and a lot of ToT - during parts of this first day, both Kallista Wharf and PI had full leagues. Whatcha gonna do with those prismatics?

I don't share builds that I haven't leveled to 50 outside of a farm, myself. But, I belong to the TaskForce Junkies discord channel, and in there, are hundreds of builds by players, most of whom know what they're doing when it comes to making a build. I will download them and look at certain stats, and if I need to tweak here and there, I will, but most of the time, while I might take a power at a different level, I will follow the build and be pleased with the performance. I used to go to brainstorm, but found that takes more time than just doing the respec. And if I'm playing it organically, there's no need to test it out like that. I can tell by level 10-12 how things are going to go for most builds.

This is another insanely odd way to award such a power for free. It only takes 3 suicides at level 50, but I don't even know that you can get this at level 1 because there's no debt before level 10. Why are these powers only available when you'd most likely have already purchased them? Someone has just created some arbitrary markers to award these for free, and it makes zero sense to me. It makes more sense for these little free methods to not exist than for them to be exist after these arbitrary metrics.

The irony of wanting to use Mark & Recall while doing the tip missions which were required to obtain it. Those stupid escort missions in some of those tip missions. Mark & Recall is now my favorite accolade! (except for when I have to escort idiot npcs)

There's really nothing to change. The Advanced mode TFs carry the same place in the weekly rotation that the standard versions do. So, you would get 2x the merits for 1* lady grey, just like you would for the standard version. It sounds more to me like you need to get connected with the folks that do advanced mode tfs.

So, when I read Rudra's post, the first place I looked was Paragon badge, the very page your link would lead me to. Nothing there said this would be free. And while the START page mentions this, I've never, ever seen this option at p2w/Start. Now, that could be because I've already bought it at level 1 in most cases. But I am seriously wondering when this became a thing. Granted, it's only 1M. I am now going to revoke the one I paid for and then see how it's reacquired with a character that has the badge. And now that I see this, I really call into question the judgement behind this lame implementation. What level 1 is going to have this badge, unless they use the same hack I would? And what kind of player is going to wait until they get this badge organically before they get ATT? I don't think I'm playing the same game as the rest of you sometimes.

Back on retail, there used to be an add-on called Blinkie Finder or some such, that used Demo Record to reveal where the glowies were, as well as the names of NPCs in the rooms ahead - like Void Stalkers, back when they were practically insta-death for a kheldian. To date, I still haven't been able to find a copy of this. I don't see any of these as "advantages", because NPCs are not competing with us for more xp/inf/loot/rewards. They're just pixels. We can do a Steel Canyon safeguard or mayhem mission for a free ATT if we like. I can't imagine anyone who doesn't just buy this as soon as they're able to anyway. Nobody has any excuse to not be able to afford these things, with all the guide on making inf available. Zero Excuses. The thing about the Auto-Defeat of the last remaining enemy - if it's me, I'd use that on each AV/EB in Maria Jenkin's arc just to speed things along. (unless it became clear I don't get credit for those defeats, and in that case, I'm sure there'd be cases to do something similar to get out of the hassle, like Nosferatu or Fake Nemesis, or Protean. I'm not sure how a leader would choose an npc stuck in a wall to auto-defeat, if they cannot target the npc. As useful as the ability would be, I'm not clear on how that would be used. Now - as the the idea of a "leader accolade" - that I like. It's long been my position that leaders should get something for their troubles. One useful thing might be to grab people from other zones; a special type of ATT to be used before a TF or team mission were selected. Grabbing that wayward lowby from Atlas to the mission in Striga, as an example. A team-rez power, regardless of teammates location on the map. (like a 2 hour recharge or something) Now, if we really want to annoy badgers, like myself, this new accolade could only be earned by leading full teams, and not retroactively earned. It would seriously piss me off to have to lead on my badger for 24 hours or whatever it would be. Might be worth doing it just for that. As it stands now, I can make a new character, and at level 1 have it invite one of my alts and they can both sit in my base and earn the current leadership badges.

Whatchu talkin' bout, Willis? ATT costs 1 million from the P2W (name changed to START vendor for reasons which escape me). In what world can you get this for free after leading teams for 12 hours?

My opinion doesn't really matter any more than anyone else's, but if I ask myself if I'd pay money for it, the answer would be no. As it stands now, I can't see my costume when I play, I can't see your costume when I play. I can barely make out the minotaur's weapon of choice when fighting, and sometimes not even then. A glow about it will do no good. Nobody will ever see it, except perhaps during a costume contest, so why? Just as an example of what I see when I play, on the advanced graphic setting: See my point? While this is a fire blaster, I can't imagine it would look any different if it were a mace/shield tank. Just seems like a waste of effort to me.

Wait - these voices are AI? That's pretty cool.

Is it rude to not play at some notion of better than average level? For my money, that depends. There are a collection of ...well...reasons people have for not being very good. Goals: "It's not my desire to whip out my e-peen for all to see. I'm just here to unwind after work". If I'm being honest, I do grasp the mental energy drain some parts of this game can have while playing. The ITF, with all that senseless screaming, can take me from being able to mow my grass, row 10k in 36 minutes, and a load of laundry to pulling out a tub of ice cream instead. The ITF is arguably my least desired activity in game because of that stupid screaming. Probably why they do it. I can't imagine it would be fun in real life to fight with people screaming like that, let alone in game. Still, unless I'm up for it, I avoid it. It's only a common courtesy for players who are just looking to "unwind" to not put themselves in situations where reading comprehension and fast key strokes are going to be recommended for best results. So, if you're wanting to unwind, and asking for an invite on an MoLRSF, you might be rude - if you're not going to look at the activity as something that deserves your energy. Badges are important to some folks. Strangely, very important to some folks. If you sign up for one and don't take your character's survival seriously, you are being rude. Granted, nobody wants to be the player that screws up. It's a mistake, after all. But, some folks while they don't want to screw up, take the mindset, "it's just a game". And while that's true, it's also time spent that went for nothing because someone couldn't be bothered to pay closer attention. That is time nobody can ever get back. That's even worse than wasting 10 bucks on a cup of coffee when you could have made it at home for 35 cents. I can always earn more money. I cannot get the time back. It's too early for a wall of text. I could come up with 5 or 6 more cases where people are probably being rude by being too cavalier about how their play impacts my play. (and it's certainly possible for the opposite to be true) Short answer, in some cases, yes, it's rude to not be a competent player. But not all cases.

I'm not at all saying Fire isn't awesome. It is. But, having played thousands of hours of fire and ice, I promise you, the mitigation from having a hold (freeze ray) that has a 1 second activation time trumps the very minor damage advantage fire has. We cannot just look at damage. We have to look at survivability. The ability to get through missions, quickly, efficiently. And while fire is capable, it lacks mitigation, unlike ice and water. We cannot just say "Fire is objectively best" without taking into account a character's ability to handle the various challenges on standard game play. Ice>Fire. Water>Fire. Fire is great. But it is NOT the objective best because we cannot assess a character's ability solely on dpa or dps. There are other metrics to be considered, such as survivability. And sorry, the mitigation potential of water and ice primaries outclass the fire primary, making fire great, but not best. Remember, skill levels of players come into play, too. We can't judge these based solely on numbers. Performance matters. So, I dispute this insanity claim. My claim says to think for a moment fire is best is discounting things like KB and holds as a very real lever to surpass dps. Opinions are going to vary. Mine says ice and water are better than fire.

Meta. What a stupid word to describe what is essentially more players preferred powerset choices. I mean, it's really a stupid word. It's so over-used and incorrectly used, it doesn't really have any accurate meaning. Kind of like meme. Those darn M words. What is the "best"? Subjective. What is most popular? While one of the GMs or devs could data mine and report which is most often chosen, what's not clear is if some of those selections were played for any duration, or just made and parked. It's not clear how much fun a given player is having with their choices. Ultimately, what's "meta" is meaningless. Because what's "meta" for one task may not be "meta" for another. Folks talk about "S-Class", and give these ATs rankings. It's enough to get a rise of bile in the back of my throat. This game is made up of a combination of Rock, paper and scissors, if I'm going to use an analogy. In some cases, you want an ice/cold corr, not an ice/fire blaster. In some cases, you may want a fire/fire blaster and not a dark/natty corr. In some cases, a Dark would be better. In some cases, maybe a kheldian is your best bet. There is no one best answer. Sorry - there's not. There are some ATs that are going to shine in a lot of circumstances, built properly, and played by someone with an IQ over 120. There are some that might require more ingenuity and experience to shine. Only a very few are so poor that they need a genius to shine. The problem is when you have 8 shiny lights, none of them really stand out. People are shy of time and as a result, they want the most dps with the most survivable combinations. I get it - but we need to stop trying to label what those are, and let folks figure out which of the hundreds of potential combos will work for them in a pleasing way. In some cases, the dps of fire is called for. In others, the mitigation of ice or water would be a smarter choice. For some folks, the natural transition to melee of a rad/mental blaster may not be OP, but might be more fun. And shouldn't fun be your metric? Enough with rankings! We have 1000 slots, make them all!

If it helps, I've never heard of you, and I'm on the forums quite a bit. But then again, I rarely look at names. or post counts. just the content of the post.

Well, Willpower is kind of like a muscle. The more you use it, the stronger it gets. Start small. Little victories add up.

Wait - you're pedaling while you play? That's great!

I like my fire/natty. And my ice/cold. They both are good with dps and have serviceable buffs and debuffs. The natty, at least the way I have mine built, is more capable of taking in damage, simply because it can accept all the buffs it gives. The cold can't put any shields on itself or frostwork on itself, so it has a rougher time of things, and the build requires a little more attention to defense because of that. Just anecdotally, when I was going for the spirit masks (Banisher badge), each character made the attempt to use Unai Kemen's initial mission set to 0/8. While the cold could handle it, I had to make a bit more liberal use of inspirations. The natty didn't have to do much but use it's own buffs, which were strong enough to not need any inspirations at all, except for the occasional break-free. Both are good in their own way, but I think the natty is better.

So, here's the thing about using Decimation in Fire Blast: Fire blast has a 4 second base recharge without putting any recharge in it. According to @bopper's PPM list, the Decimation:Chance for Build Up has a PPM of 1. With just the proc, and relying solely on global recharge, it has a chance to fire 8.67% of the time. Each time. So, odds are sooner or later it might hit, but I think you'd get much more mileage out of a damage enhancement. Or a better damage proc, but I'd not go that route for the same reasons - just not a very big chance to fire. Decimation is also a set that tops out at 40. You'd get about 7 pts of damage more from a level 50 set if the decimation build up doesn't fire. If it does, you get 10 seconds of more damage. But again, over the course of a minute, the math says it might fire once. That's your call. Some folks might be okay with that. I would go with the apoc in Fire blast, or one of the ATO sets. Mainly because Fire blast is one of the earlier attacks chosen, and when you exemp, you might want that faster global recharge.

How much I pay attention depends on my role. If I'm DPS, I tend to look mainly at what the de-facto aggro management characters are doing. Sometimes, on speedy runs, the only thing I'm looking at is the map until I get where I'm going, and then the target. If I'm on your traditional kill what's in the way, I will keep the corner of my eye on the team list to see if someone is taking more aggro than they should and try to assist by targeting through them instead of just tabbing to the next target. If I'm the tank, I'm mainly watching the hitpoints of everyone to see if I need to be taunting more. If I'm on a character with buffs, I try to do this before the action, covering as many folks as I can. But, I'm not going to chase anyone around a corner. If I'm on a dom - which is rare, I might look for the one with buffs in case I need them. And call me strange if you must, but when I'm teamed with an emp, I keep the team buffs display up so I can see who's getting the AB and Fort love. I know AB in particular doesn't recharge super fast, so I like to see who they give it to. I got in the habit of doing that because an emp/elec defender was my first 50 on retail. Took me about 540 hours, lol. And I wasn't a very good one. Great at heal other...but beyond that, fairly useless. So - don't panic - if I play one, I play it better than I used to. But I still like to see how much better/different other emps play when I'm teamed with one. And, if I'm on a league and not the lead, the only thing I'm doing besides mashing buttons is trying to keep an eye on the chat to see if I need to do something different. But, if you're asking if I notice when a blaster uses a blast...maybe if I'm looking in that direction. I don't think anything of it. Do I notice when dark defenders debuff? Nope. Do I notice Tar Patch? Yeah. Do I think, "My teammate cast tar patch!". Nope. I tend to take all those things for granted. I'm just trying to complete the mission objectives and observing these things is done just as a matter of course; not really going out of my way to watch.

This hits me kind of hard. Now I feel badly. I have always tried to remind myself the player behind the keyboard could very well be a 9 year old kid. It's ridiculous of me to expect people to think the way I would. (and lord help 'em if they did - it hasn't always done me favors, lol) Still, is the onus of leadership to literally have to spell things out for players? Sure, some details. Like where it is. If it is true that most folks don't read patch notes, the only reason they even might be aware of the labyrinth is from word of mouth. So, I would think it a fair question to ask how they get there. The event itself is not intuitive. My first time in there, I'm looking for these historical plaques, and was ignorant of the fact they were in this "core", a separate room accessed by a special tp macro you get when obtaining the Conqueror of the Labyrinth accolade. (or using the follow to someone who's already there) I think the biggest issue with the entire labyrinth feature is that someone who's never done it before would fare much better with a primer on how things work. Or at least, how they can work. Stealth. Cobalt has (and correctly, imo) made some adjustments to allow for people without stealth to at least get some measure of it. Like an idiot, I always assume every single player uses superspeed with a celerity stealth in sprint. I can't think of but maybe 2 characters of my hundreds that don't. It's such a no-brainer for me, but then again - people don't think and play like me. At least, certainly not all of them. There are still some players trying to experience a lot of content just using SOs. I see players in this trial die repeatedly, and I know it's because they don't have stealth, OR, they see they're level shifted, target a mob and see them con grey, but miss the EBs hiding in the crowd and get slammed as a result. There's definitely a learning curve. And as painful as that curve may be for the first timers, if the people they team with are interesting/fun enough, they can push past the curve and get at least somewhat of an idea what is going on. And, sadly, for some folks, the awkwardness of that learning curve, particularly when it seems like everyone but you has already mastered things, it can be daunting. It's like you've gone from a Senior in high school to a freshman in college overnight. You're unsure, don't know where to go, and your league leader is just telling you it's normal to be confused and feel lost. Small consolation when you want to understand what's going on. Kill fogs? why? For me, the level shifts are meaningless. I want the reward merits! It's why I'm there. The level shifts are just a by-product. The HC Wiki says each fog gives 50 points progress on some level shift bar, which I'm far too obtuse to have noticed. Still, to kill fogs is how the level shifts are most easily acquired so that's what we do. For a player new to the trial, killing something that can't hurt you, doesn't regen, and is just sitting there...well, where's the fun in that? I can see where someone who doesn't get what's going on would be questioning things. Still, for me, as someone who was just as lost as anyone else the first time, (and I was reading the patch notes - but damnit, they're long. It's a lot to take in and absorb) I finally get it. I'm still trying to figure out how to hide behind a pillar and still be anchored to the mythic fog. But, thanks to lemming and the goddess, I've learned to place the mark and recall at the proper spot to get the league to "Uncle Touchy" (that's so hilarious). It was damned rough, I tell you. But we did finally get our 75 merits. I think it's kind of fun...and I promise you, it wasn't fun for me at first either. But I got there. As for those who may be functionally illiterate? It hurts me, but we cannot be expected to teach people to read. And to give the OP their due respect, clearly they can read and write at a level high enough to comprehend anything I've ever written, except maybe one of my papers in Quantitative Analysis. And even that wasn't too hard, I don't think.

That's some serious search-fu. The only time pvpers annoy me is when I'm trying to get the nuke. I do not want my codes stolen after all that hassle. Fortunately, while I don't like pvp, most of my characters are somewhat suited for it. The problem is usually only having one travel power.

Oh yeah: It is mind boggling to me how many people enter the labyrinth and never take the time or trouble to right click on these black icons to see what they're about. They just ask for tp. Lazy! On the one hand, I get it, but on the other hand, lazy! Reading is a skill, too. So is reading comprehension. I'm still trying to master that one.

So, I have to call BS on this. There is skill involved. Skill in developing the build. Skill in using the tools at our disposal - such as, Popmenus provided to us by other players. Skill in navigating the maps and recognizing patterns. Skill in recognizing positional awareness. If there were so very little skill involved, then the group of us that got clobbered by "the suck" (despite my best efforts to hide behind a pillar) have less than very little skill. And I just don't buy that. You'll never persuade me that speeders have very little skill. I get it, zipping around, ensuring you have an active stealth empowerment buff from the buff station that's across the hall from the labyrinth entry point, and using a draught of fog inspiration to get even more stealth so pretty much 90% of the bad guys in there can't see you - that kind of thing isn't for everyone. And it doesn't have to be! We had an MM in the labyrinth tonight. And when we were finally able to convey how to use Follow through the Fog, the malevolent fog was defeated and we went looking for more. I suspect this player was expecting to be with the league as a whole - not running off on their own looking for something they'd never seen before. (Malevolent Fogs) Now, we could easily have each team sticking together looking for fogs, but here's some issues with that: 1. a number of folks are looking for motes, and only shout out fogs if they see one. I get it. Initially, I confused the motes for the history plaques and thought I'd get a badge once I got all of them. Now I've learned they give tiny buffs. Nifty, but not necessary. It slows things down. I completely understand that some folks like a slower pace. But that can be done after the mino is killed. (and you're not worried about him clobbering you) 2. Time. To be fair, I don't think it's been tried yet, so not real sure how much longer it would take. As it is, when the fogs are announced, players port to the fog and help clobber it. The result is more fogs are beaten in a shorter span of time. At least, that's how it seems to me. When you have 8 players on a team, all with varying travel powers, their ability to traverse through various maps is going to change. Add to that - not all doors are going to lead to the same place for everyone. They're random. So, it would be pretty rough to keep the team together without using Follow through the Fog. And since we'd need to use that anyway, might as well have everyone run off and look, right? 3. Given the temporary nature of the buffs, it makes sense to get them as fast as you can and clobber the mito before they wear off. Being leisurely in this trial doesn't align very well with a smooth run. At least, I don't see how being leisurely could work out well.