Ukase

You'd have to define lucrative. It certainly can be, but it depends on your source of the enhancement. This particular market can be tricky. You can do the math, buy the 4 level 50 Special-Os necessary to make a 53 at a price which may make you some profit, but when you try it with a level 48 to combine with a 51 or a 52 or even a 50, sometimes...sometimes, the RNG laughs in your face for your greed. This happened to me once on the cytos, which for reasons that defy any logic my poor mind came up with, the history showed several bids of 120 to 130M. I don't use them, had some in the base taking up space and tried to be greedy. On the one hand, a 52 still sells for a nice chunk. But losing that one 48 cyto still cost me about 40M. Maybe a little less. I'm still traumatized a full year later. I've tried to repress it from my mind in self-defense. And what's this nonsense about Flea being wrong? BLASPHEMY! Good thing we have it in writing. I don't know that this has occurred before. Maybe THAT's why the servers shut down an hour earlier than I expected! DOOOOOOM!

I was going to by 10B more this morning...but they started maintenance an hour earlier than I expected! Doooom!!!!!!

For the lycanthropes - Beast Within - by accident, I stumbled across Ashwin Lannister. A level 25-29 contact, Ubelman is a 5th column story arc. If you set to 0/8 with a character in that range...then proceed to not complete the arc, but level the character, I suspect that'd be an easy route to this badge.

I have 3020 packs left to open...still undecided if I should buy more. And I think time is running out! Probably ends tomorrow. At least, the winter event should.

I remember tackling this bad boy on my first character. I don't even want to think about the debt I accrued. I'm not sure what changed with Nosferatu, but I think I got smarter. I don't think I ever figured out until much later that when closed in melee for his smite attack, ya had to get out of melee to stop him from self-healing. It never occurred to me to hover over head and just blast him from safety. Once I figured that out, he was easy. My melee characters...that was a lot like tackling Protean or Battle Maiden in Apex TF. Gotta stick and move. Good fun, but sometimes annoying if you mis-time your attacks.

I ran this with a pug 4x on 4 different alts. No question in my mind, I missed Barrier more than anything. Hybrid, Interface, Lore, Alpha...I don't often think of those unless I'm in a Magi. Destiny I think of a lot, and Judgement is always useful - but I can live without it. Worthy Opponent is just annoying, not difficult. The only real difference was the inability to incan people to and fro when expedient to do so. And, with a fair number of folks using the teleport pool, even that wasn't missed as much as I thought it would be. A couple of times, we tried to snipe the heroes under the Atlas globe and it worked well. A couple of times - not so well. Lots of defeats, but when we regrouped, spammed temps and buffed and actually focused on one target, it worked much better. If only people would read, the defeats would have likely been fewer, but that's a pug for ya.

I gotta say this: I completely understand when the tells come steamrolling in, to the point where you'd have to scroll up, because when you hit backspace, the name that pops up wasn't to the person you intended to reply to. It happens. I should have been more clear. My beef is when you send a tell to the person recruiting, their message time stamped at 8:00 am, "I'll join, will zone in via LFG". at a point in time - say 8:00 am. Twenty seconds later, I'm in zone, and say "in zone" in a tell. And they say nothing. It's just maddening. Now, in their defense - they did say in LFG that they were full. That message was put out while I was porting in, apparently. I had to scroll up to find it. It just irks me to no end to stop what I'm doing to help someone and they can't be bothered to reply. I didn't reply in LFG, I sent a tell as requested. They should be able to reply in kind. It's simple. And yeah, sometimes you can get overrun with tells. It just irks me.

So...there are three plays with Winter-Os which are going to be used the most, as far as "for profit" moves go. 1. Buy now, open whenever, sell the enhancements and other things of value and make some inf. The amount isn't "fantastic", but with volume, you can make the case that it's as good as most other plays in the market. 2. Buy now, open whenever, and sell the enhancements and other things of value when prices for these enhancement begin to creep up to what they were before the sale. As with most things in life, when we defer gratification, we reap more. 3. Buy now, open none, repost and wait. The longer you're willing to wait (repost at 25M) the more you make. With the possibility of them not going on sale again...it's an interesting situation. On the one hand, it's not real life money - and most of us in this subsection forum can make as much inf as we need in short order. So, it's a question of how much inf do we want to hold onto for future needs/wants. I could make the case that I can spend all of my inf on packs, and subsist of them for ...years, maybe. But the market can be a fickle beast, and we all know our HC devs can change things within the game to impact the market with no notice. Heck, they may turn them into "gifts" that drop into special salvage by character for performing certain random tasks during the week. I have characters on Rebirth, but I'm not active there, not really. I don't monitor their forums (ugly format) so it always surprises me to log in when these servers are down and see certain characters have 25 Winter pack or 10 Hero packs - but only on certain characters in an account, not all of them. And their packs have purples, as well as ATOs in them, too. Quite strange. So...since it's fake loot, go nuts. But...anything can change...so temper your risks as you see fit.

I do not know what that means. And, good or bad - I've learned it doesn't make any difference what we players think about other player suggestions. The powers that be will read it, and round file it, or think about it, and maybe do something soon, or maybe do something much later.

And that's fine. My point is that there seems to be some power slide (as opposed to power creep) for the illusion primary. What's the trade-off? How many toes did you use to make the calculation?

Those of us on live way back when, remember when the phantom army was a key tool in taking down hami - indestructible PA, dropped on Hami repeatedly. Then, hami changed. I re-made my old controller, formerly known as Imperious Rex BEFORE ITF was on beta. Those Paragon Devs stole my character's name, but I was allowed to keep it. And fair enough, as I stole the name from Sub Mariner's list of expletives he'd yell when he got pissed off. But I digress. On Aeon SF, not sure what's doing it - but PA army are taking damage. Yes. That PA army. You know, the one that's supposed to be impervious to damage. I remember on a hami on homecoming, PA took some damage there, too. It's been 2 years, but I think the PA takes damage on Magisterium, too, during the Tyrant fight. I know the Crystal Titan did some damage to them, too. I say this to suggest that something needs to give. Either the description in PA changes, the duration is increased, or they go back to being impervious, or something else in the illusion control set gets a buff to counter this deflation of value in the PA. It's the hallmark power of the set. There's literally no other reason to take illusion other than to have the pets that are impervious to harm. Now, suddenly, they can be damaged? That's not right. Nothing should harm the PA. Not Hami, Not the Titan...thematically, the PA are not real - they're illusions. It doesn't make sense for them to take damage.

I've heard of this chap, even saw some videos of him when the streaming ban came out, as I was curious as to what he could possibly gain by making videos of playing a game that anyone can play if they want to. (once they make an account). But, I'm old, and there are reasons that are good enough for him and others, and it doesn't have to make sense to me. So, that's all fine and good. The part of the video that talks about the hami raid...I can completely understand why folks would be irritated with him about that. I don't know what server he was on - someone said excelsior, but it's not clear to me if this guy only plays on Excelsior, or hops around on different servers. I'm guessing he was a server-hopper. If he were an Excelsior player, and enjoyed doing a hami raid, I'm pretty sure he'd have realized they do these raids every night around 9:30-10Pm eastern. Sometimes earlier if the zone fills. I've got to think this incident occurred a long time ago. Like more than a year. Maybe 2 years. Because the hive caps at 50. You can't have several leagues in the hive, unless each league is only a couple of teams. And that certainly wasn't the case, since he mentioned they zerged Hami. Not unless there were a bunch of nukes & such. It's not fair for me to say that he should have known better. Ultimately, there's nothing to stop anyone from hosting anything like this if they want to. He's not gonna solo it, so there has to be a good number of other people that also want to. And if they "infringe" upon another leader's normal time, than the other leader - while they have a right to their feelings, they don't have a right to expect other players to stop what they're doing so that routine leader can do what they do. Nor should the routine leader expect them to invite the routine leader and pass the star. I remember needing one more lousy bomb click and GM for an MSR. I also know on Excelsior, @doc proteus? Not sure what his global is, but it's close - he does these raids at 2pm Eastern fairly often. A few months ago, it literally was every day, unless he had some issues come up, and he generally tried to convey those days he couldn't lead ahead of time. He also makes a notice in the server events calendar. Now, knowing this, I didn't want to wait until 2pm Eastern. I wanted to run an hour earlier. But, I know how protective the players are of their routines. And, well, if I were Doc, I wouldn't want anyone to undercut my routine planned event by an hour either. So, I checked the calendar. Doc wasn't on the calendar, and more telling, he'd mentioned that he wouldn't be leading one that day. So, I knew that I could do so without any objections, and without being accused of any nefarious dis-respecting of anyone else. (and I tell you the truth here - there were more than a couple of players who insisted I not form it because Doc's was scheduled to form up any moment! I told them I checked the calendar and he wasn't - but man, they were rude until they learned that. ) Would I have been within my rights to do so, whether Doc had something scheduled or not? Absolutely. Would other players have a right to complain about it? Absolutely. But, when they start making discord accounts and extra game accounts just to insult - they're crossing a line from being understandably irked to being more than a bit psychotic. As for the SG stuff, his officers kicking folks for not being good enough - someone posted about that, I didn't hear it in the video - this is what happens when you invite just anyone into your sg. Every "open" sg has these kinds of issues. Even Cosmic Council kicks people for various reasons, and drama is either the cause of the kick, or the result of it. And it's quite annoying when people you like teaming with are the cause of drama, or are kicked for other reasons, or they leave because of drama. Or worse, the ones doing the kicking are causing drama because they don't like this person for whatever reason. Sometimes, it's a good reason, and sometimes it ain't! But anytime you have a group of dozens of players, drama will occur. That's why we have popcorn. To be on the outside of the drama and having little else to do other than to see who said what to whom. It's in every SG, and no member or leader will be free from it for any real length of time. It's why one of the best things about HC is the /altinvite command. You can just make coalitions and not be too familiar with the other players. Familiarity can breed contempt.

You and several others are quite correct. I had my panties in a bunch and wasn't thinking clearly.

I'm just going to say this - and candidly, you're entitled to do things the way you wish - just know if you don't adhere to this protocol, I think you're in the wrong. When you recruit for something, and you get a reply via tell (assuming you didn't ask for a shout in broadcast), if you fill up right before that you get that reply, you simply hit backspace and reply, "sorry, full". You don't say anything in LFG. And "Why not?!" you may ask. It's a fair question. After all, the player that sent you the tell was clearly monitoring that channel. But are they monitoring that channel after they've sent you a tell? No. They're not. When you recruit - it's like putting an ad in the paper, or Craigslist, or one of the on-line job boards. They never take out another ad to specifically state the job's been filled. Telling the world in LFG that you've filled is like putting an ad in the paper saying the job's been filled. It's common courtesy. I completely understand that sometimes - you get 10-20 tells for a given recruitment effort. Guess what - back space works. You can and should reply to all of those people who were kind enough to reply to your plea for assistance. If you can't find a way to do that - it's my opinion that you're just wrong. That concludes my soap box rant for the moment. You've been a great audience, even if you disagree.

Given various variable and fixed costs aside from payroll itself, I think the sub rate per month would have to increase to $25/mo, per account. For each dollar an employer deducts from payroll, they have to match a portion of those taxes for unemployment, not to mention 401k matching & other perks - like paid vacations & the like. Legal expenses would likely increase, too. I don't know what all the new expenses would be, but I'd wager there'd be a lot of them. I think in addition to them being non-profit, they should also be a charity - where profits over 10% are donated to other known charities, and the 10% held in reserve for hard times (and perhaps expansion)

If they tried to commercialize this in the precise manner in which the OP suggests, at least half the player base would quit, instantly. At least half. In item 2 in the list : Legacy Homecoming players could access 5 pre-existing characters/server, allowing for a significant number of their current characters. Do you know what the term significant means? I can't speak for everyone, but most everyone I know and have teamed with in this game has hundreds of characters. Not just 25. And having 5 characters on another server is like not having them. I don't think many players bounce around from server to server playing this day on Excelsior and that day on Everlasting, etc. And if I couldn't play them, I could deal with that, but because I couldn't play them, I'd have to respec them all and take out all the enhancements and sell them because I don't have enough storage for all the enhancements - and because they're 50, I'd have to respec them twice to get all of them out. This wouldn't be fun in the least. It would be annoying. In fact, I wouldn't do it, I'd just quit playing altogether. 5 characters...sheesh. During this pandemic, most folks suffered some sort of economic hardship. Loss of hours, loss of job...kids moving back in - some sort of issue. It will take some time to "catch up" to where they were before. Most would likely not pay. Maybe 10-20% of the folks that are playing now. You can advertise all you want...it may bring in some new folks - but will you keep them? No way to know. With all the ridiculousness in that list, you're basically telling people to subscribe, or be ripped off. That's really it. 2xp bonus payable by the hour? In real cash? Nobody sane is going to pay for that. An insta-50, perhaps. A token dollar, maybe. If you monetized alignment changes, you might as well tell redside players to kick rocks. And they probably would, too. It would be even more scarce than it is now. A better solution would be to hope things stay as they are.

The acronyms I can deal with. It's the very lazy method of typing "u" for "you" and "ur" for "you're" or "your". These people need to be stripped of any advanced education they have and go back to school until they learn to write properly. Now get off my lawn!

Honestly - your situation is enviable! Embrace the novelty. My first question is what server are you on? What I think would suit your situation best would be a supergroup. For example, on Excelsior, there's an SG called Cosmic Council. Typically, a chap named @cadd (actually it's caddoch of helios, but most all of his characters are Cadd***** in some way, shape or form) who does an excellent job of explaining these Master of Magisterium. He runs it with the SG every Saturday night (except these past two because of the holidays). I don't know about other groups, but he demonstrates a lot of knowledge and will make things super clear, allow you to ask questions, etc. And, if you join the discord (which is required to participate - you can do this with words instead of by typing. The group has some leaders tho, who simply are not effective at communicating these things, but they do the best they know how. But Cadd...as far as Magisterium goes, he knows that one very well and is good at relaying what's going on. Other SG groups likely do similar things, but I've no idea who they are. TinMage is a player derived abbreviation for two short task forces. Tin Mark IV and Apex TF. Both Task Forces pay 40 merits, and when you "Speed" them, they take about 10-15 minutes each, on a good team. For someone who would want to experience the content, I'd plan for about 25 to 40 minutes, depending on how much you wanted to explore.

This is something I wish were added to the information in the LFG. As in - instead of just stating 40 merits and an Astral or 10 threads, but also include OR Essence of the Incarnate. The space is cramped, but I think they can find a way to include it.

I do this with my farmers. When they reach vet level 48, I recycle them, and they will either melt down the emps for reward merits into converters, or send transcendent merits to the new alt for quick level shifts. Just depends on which need is greater.

I took the liberty of editing this page just now. I simply removed that line about the shards, as declaring it rewarding 4 emp merits didn't really jive with the shard info.

I'm sure this is an oversight, but it's a 4 emp merit reward, allowed once per 18 hours..or is it 20? I'll just say once a day because I can never remember the number of hours. Additionally, if you've the time and interest - running an Aeon SF on Relentless is pretty simple on any team, provided you have good team composition. The players don't even need to be that competent. It's just run in, do as much damage as you can, rez up and repeat - if your tactics and team buffs/debuffs are insufficient to carry you through each fight. Yeah, it'll take a long time if your team isn't that great - but you get a lot of astrals, can choose the 4 emp merit reward at the end, and you'll probably get a lot of emps worth of astrals. I can't recall how many astrals I started with - less than 5, or I'd have converted them, I'm pretty sure. But I finished with 40 astrals - which is 8 emps worth. The team I was on, we had 6 barriers and 2 incans. We timed the barriers for one cast every 30 seconds...and since they recharge in 2 minutes, we were never without good buffs. It made the whole thing as easy as a speed itf. Took less than an hour. It may be telling, but we also only had one tank and 7 corruptors with various buffs/debuff secondaries. So, solid team comp in that regard. Unless....I'm so accustomed to choosing Emp Merits for round 1, reward merits for round two & three, that I've completely overlooked a 4 shard option OR it's something in the latest patch. Haven't done a hami in a month or so...

They can't be effectively farmed any more than threads. BUT - let me share some facts that a LOT of people don't know. 1. Shards won't drop for incarnate content. So, you can BAF all day long and never get one. You can zip through the Dark Astoria & Incarnate Cim arcs and never get one. 2. Anecdotally, shards drop very frequently compared to threads when I discount the drops for dinging a new vet level in certain content. What content is that? MSRs and Hamidon Raids. The mito clearing stage tends to give me 3-4 each round of hami. Do NOT make the mistake of simply using threads for alpha, unless and until you have the other slots completed without considering this next point. All the shards you get can only go towards your alpha. All the threads you get can go towards Alpha, Judgement, Interface, Lore, Destiny and Hybrid. Doesn't it make sense to use shards as you can, for your alpha, and use threads to complete your Lore & Destiny for those incarnate level shifts before you fuss with Judgement & Interface? It does to me. You do you. The t-1 alpha requires 12 shards or 60 threads. Or - if you're inclined to do certain task forces, you can forgo the reward merits for a specific common salvage to help complete the recipe. The MSR also allows you to exchange Vanguard Merits for a Gr'ai Matter incarnate component, saving you 4 shards. So, if you enjoy task forces, there's no reason you can't run 3 task forces and use those reward components to craft your t-1 with no shards. So many folks get shards so rarely that they insist shards are too rare and threads are easier. I do state that you can only go with what the RNG gives you. But if you're just doing BAF and Speed Lambdas, you're never going to get any shards. So, of course, they're rare for you. The problem with shards for Alpha for me is that the t-3 is always gated by the notice of the well. You can only get, at most, 2 per week. One from the weekly, and one from exchanging the Flames of Prometheus (from Mortimer Kal SF) for another Notice. But, after you've exchanged it, you can't repeat Mort. Kal for another Flame and get another notice. It's a one time deal. So that's 3 weeks at least you have to wait to get your t-4 if you only use shards. The way some folks do iTrials all day - they can often get so many incarnate drops, that they're t-4'd pretty quickly, if the RNG gave them some love with Very Rares & Rares. It's all random, though. Some folks will swear, that if they don't do Underground (100% chance of rare or very rare) they'd never get a rare or very rare. There's no wrong way - but it makes sense to me to use shards when you can. Try to conserve threads for the other slots, because while threads may drop 5x as often or more, you need 5x as many. It's all about the rng, of course. And, of course, when you get 120 threads for vet levels 1,2,4,5,7,8,10,11, that's 960 threads just by doing anything that gives xp. With all that said, in my afk fire farms, my new 50's will sit in there and get plenty of shards while I'm afk. They don't drop as often as in a Hami Raid or an MSR, but they do drop a lot, simply because of the number of mobs that get clobbered. So, there's always an actual farm to farm them. Oh - if anyone tells you to "Ignore shards and use threads" - they are giving you an incomplete picture - and candidly, they're telling you the wrong thing. They are wrong for doing so. It's an incomplete answer. What we need to start saying is that "It Depends", like so many other things in game. It depends on what you're doing, and what the rng gives you. Will using threads exclusively work? Sure. Will using Shards exclusively for Alpha work? Sure. Is there a "best"? No. Because it all depends on the content you do and the RNG. And there's no reason, if you're in a hurry, that you can't use threads (and shards if you have them) for your t-3 alpha, for the level shift, then from that point, use shards only, conserving threads for the other 5 slots, and just letting the shards accumulate until you can get the t-4.

I did revisit this. While the xp is better, it's not set up for afk...so it takes a lot longer than the 125 with the patrolling mobs. And the drops...anecdotally, not as plentiful. 3 uncommon and 1 very rare recipe and a bunch of commons. Kind of lost inf on that set up. Even with lower xp per mob in AE - it's much better XP overall, over time for an afk-er. For active farming, I think the outside AE would be the way to go, given the discrepency between xp per mob.

For those that don't recall - this is where those powers used to come from.