Ukase

The only "extra" you get from a faster TF is the opportunity to earn more merits doing something else. Depends on what's fun for you and what your goals are, I'd say. Now, in Ouro, completing most of those arcs in 30:00, 1:00 and 2:00 (2 hours, not 2 minutes) will get you a badge for each time limit met. But outside of Ouro - nope.

are really not so mysterious. I was talking in game with someone I consider a player with a true affinity for humor about the market. Like many folks, when we see an item that normally sells for 1.5-2.5M, and suddenly we're consistently able to get it for less than 1M...we ask ourselves...what's going on here? Also like many of us, we'll pay attention to when Yomo speaks on the market, cuz...well, he's smart. And generous and loaded with inf, but mainly because he seems to have a clear understanding, particularly when he uses 4Binf words like "Fungible". For weeks, I thought he was talking about Devouring Earth pets, so I set out to clobber as many as I could, hoping to get as rich as Yomo, but all I got was a badge. But I digress. The population on HC has picked up, particularly after the licensing agreement with NCSoft, and another bonus influx after page 7. I don't have the tools to see how many of that influx are still playing. But, one thing Yomo has said a number of times, "competition is good for the market". It's not that great for a certain marketer of mine, but even so, I have to remember that the cheaper IOs become, the further my stockpiles will take me. and the same is true for everyone who has stockpiles. So, don't sweat the lower prices. It just means you're richer now than you were before - and you didn't do anything to get that way. It's just the market forces at work.

So, this seemed like a good idea, but I'm a bit puzzled as to what you do with this information when you get it. Pop a yellow? Reduce the difficulty? Slot for more accuracy and/or more toHit? Some combination of all three? I tend to monitor defense and resist and will use inspirations if I get debuffed lower than my comfort level - but other than yellows, not really sure what can be done mid-mission with this data.

Nothing to add other than to say, don't feel bad. I know I've been destroyed by her on a number of different alts. And I build my characters for survivability more than I should because I solo more often than not. I can't rely on a heal or a tank's taunt. She's tough.

I can concur with Mr. G! Forgot about his stuff. I appreciate the reminder. I was looking for something to do with my new fire/dark corr, too!

So, I'm all about the lagniappe. Lagniappe is kind of like heading west and your 6pm is suddenly 5pm and you get an extra hour. A little extra through no extra effort on your part. Faultline, Striga, Croatoa and RWZ each offer us all some lagniappe reward merits. Do each of the arcs in those zones and you get a bonus 20 reward merits. I like the first two arcs in Faultline; they're short. Nothing overly complicated. The third isn't too bad either. Not a fan of the 4th one, simply because of the map locations. They're way in the back of Faultline. It's an area where if you're not going for a badge, or doing this arc, you're not likely to ever go back there. For me, the best mission of all these arcs is rescuing Yin's father. The spacing of the npcs is perfect for me. I can kill everything, or just rescue papa Yin and escort him back, as long as I have a break free to make sure I don't get held. Striga...well, Peeble's arc is lengthy, relatively, but I like the temp power. Worth it. Long Jack's arc is quick; but Tobias Hansen has a great arc for the vamp badge. If I'm not up for the commitment of a Moonfire, this is the arc I'll do. The Croatoa arcs are great - but they each seem to insist you defeat npcs in a specific area, and they are often not in that area. I have to teleport them into the neighborhood to complete the mission. Very annoying. Or maybe I just haven't figured out the obvious place they hang out. But, other then the defeat X missions, they're all fairly short. I love to prevent the fir bolg from exiting the portal. It's one of my favorites! My ranged characters fare much better than my melee, for sure. I also like Buck Salinger's final mission. Thankfully, it's timed. I'd probably like it better with a 5:00 timer instead of 15:00, but it's still interesting to me. And, there's a fair bit of lagniappe in RWZ; the Vanguard merits I get won't stand out as any kind of great loot, but it doesn't hurt. Some of the Renegade Vanguards in Guassian's arc...those do hurt. Still, the arcs are pretty good. I don't really like clobbering Rikti, or I'd like them more, but they're a welcome reprieve from Tina Mac and Maria Jenkins. But, I think the best arcs are the SSAs. They're all short and rewarding, if you don't repeat them too soon.

Somewhere, in this forum, or maybe it was on the Titan network site, I wrote, in some fashion that I was glad the game shut down. I was playing far too much. I was unemployed at the time, and I think I was sitting in front of the computer with a dorm fridge and a microwave within an over-stretched arm's reach. If it weren't for the call of nature, I might never have gotten up from the chair. The game shut down, and then suddenly I realize I'm big fat slob. So, I started to move around. A little bit at first, and then finally got in shape. And I've stayed fit. I don't know that I grasp everything the OP wrote. But, if I understood that they're saying too much of a good thing is bad for us, then I'm inclined to agree. The Ancient Greeks used to say, "all things in moderation". And, I think that's a fair statement. Not everyone can handle booze, or gambling. The level up sound probably creates some dopamine levels that are higher for some folks than others. So, no judgement here.

So...when I get one of these, I see the purple lettering. Why? I have been conditioned, in a sense, to expect those purple letters flashing across my screen to denote something "very rare". And I've done two story arcs today, and in the midst of each one, I've gotten a prismatic. I wasn't keeping track, but I think I get a prismatic at some point during every arc. So, shouldn't these be orange, and the monstrous aethers be yellow/uncommon? Just curious what the rest of you think.

I did run Binocolo's arc when I got the appropriate level and was awarded the 20 merits. So, I suppose the game really does recognize the red/blue correlating SSAs as the same arc. It just wasn't something I even thought about. Different zones and all that. The sad thing is it's probably something I figured out years ago and just forgot.

Interesting. There's just potential for one issue - the range of these powers. I know on a corruptor, it's 60 foot radius. Now, in real life, staying within 60 feet of each other sounds fairly simple. But if one or two falls out of that range, on really tough content, might that result in a cascading failure? I wonder how many of my sg folks would wander off relying on such tactics, pun intended. (Cuz there's always one or two that take a different path.)

That reminds me to copy the character with it and craft it on brainstorm to see what it looks like. It might look too much like a bud and cause some confusion.

I can't speak for all of them, but the mini-scrapyard I got only required 1 Prismatic and 2.5M

Same character. Just swapped alignments. I probably got confused from experience on another server - Rebirth. Used to swap sides and get a run as a hero, and then a run as a villain. (but there was a lot of alignment missions in between - no Null the Gull there)

Historically, I have a clear memory of running Theoden's SSA 2x for 20 merits each time, and then having to wait a full week to re-run it for the full merits - 20 here on HC, and it was a "hero merit" on live. I thought to myself...why not run it redside. I just ran it 2x for 20 each in Skyway...if I'm remembering correctly, it's a different arc (well, same maps, but different perspective) I can grab another 20 merits right quick. But, I only got 5. The words in red suggested the week waiting period was for ANY SSA, not just a specific one. Is that the case now? One per week, once you get the "Free" first run? I don't recall it being like this a couple of years ago. Not a big deal, just curious.

The biggest strength of the costume creator is the random creator feature. It does a better job than I would do, for sure. My routine is to hit it maybe a dozen times until I see something that might capture the image of what I think a character with the name it has might look like. I might change the color, and the head and hair. And the auras. Never did see the appeal of most of those. And the random creation tool has an affinity for non-human heads. Not sure why that is, but it does result in some interesting looks. Another big strength is the scale feature. I only just learned that was a thing about 2 years ago when I made Thong Kong, and got help with the gorilla look. The biggest weakness is there's no horse head. I'm on a character now called Neigh-Sayer. A horse head would have been a lot more fitting than a floating brain.

I can't say I have this approach all the time. But, as of late, I've tried to emulate folks who have impressed me in the past with the way they have led. Mind you, the key word is "tried". I led a dfb yesterday. Likely, just next to Posi 1 and ITF for the more frequently run team content. I didn't advertise it as a badge run. Mainly because on this character, it didn't matter to me. But, I did ask the team if they wanted badges. Three were enthusiastically wanting them. So, I suggested they use single target damage, etc. Not before Meinst has 1/4 of his hp bar gone, this one controller was dispatching cadaver after cadaver like they had a 6 slotted fire ball. One of the badge-wanters was like "fail". And I said, "oh well. No big deal". Granted, missing a badge doesn't take up any extra time like triggering an ambush when the team isn't ready for it. So, definitely the annoyance felt is justified. But - let's ask ourselves - why are we here? I mean - at that point - why are you doing a posi 1? It's not for the merits. The first SSA, solo, by a weaker AT, will net you almost 2x as many merits in less than half the time. It can't be TFC requirements for most - I mean, don't we all know visiting Null the Gull, and then going to Lord Schweinzer in Port Oakes takes at most 20 minutes? And it's not like the veteran players haven't had time to set up a 2nd account for something like this, or alternatively, don't have in-game friends who do. I guess what I'm saying, if we're there for XP, while annoying, we still get what we came for, right? Albeit in a sloppy manner. And Biostem makes a good point above - instructions need to come across as suggestions, and if you can punctuate and choose words in such a fashion as to make them silly or amusing, it might go a little further and actually be heeded. After all, some of these players are not adults and may need to be handled with kid gloves.

May we please have an option for a horse head? Imagine all the unicorns and such... but no, really. I've made a character called Neigh Sayer, and well, a fish or cow head just isn't going to cut it.

I never have grasped why these descriptions are worded so strangely; it's almost like their own version of legalese. It should say something like "reduces target's damage resistance" or "reduces casting player's damage resistance"...something along those lines where there's no mystery. I mean "-30% strength to smashing damage for 30s on self" is vague, and nebulous. Of course, we've come to expect this from the dark, right? Does it mean the damage from the critter's attack on the casting player is reduced by 30%? Or does it mean the player's smashing damage output is reduced? I can't imagine how this translates into other languages for our players. Maybe we're seeing the translated version from another language? I dunno. Or maybe I just need to work on reading comprehension.

So, I never thought I'd ask for this. I came up with an idea .. and actually having to type it out is going to spoil the surprise! But, other than for a badge, didn't really have a use for prismatics. But now I do. And when I took my level one crab - who is going to eventually pursue a bane path, (is that a thing? I think it's a thing) to the benovolab vendor and saw that there was no option to be a fir bolg - I was sure I'd seen someone with a fir bolg costume. And the real stinker, no red cap, no Tuatha de Dannon either. I'd already made "Yogurt Justice", and he was supposed to be an Arachnos Soldier disguised as a Tuatha De Dannon. A nifty back story about a bad experience with Yogurt, Dannon Yogurt in particular. It's no secret the Tuatha are responsible for those bacterium found within. But no. No Tuatha costume. So, here's my suggestion. Add it please. If my kheld can be a void stalker, surely my arachnos soldier can be a Tuatha. Oh - and some feedback. I want my prismatics back. When I switched forms, my costume on my kheld turned off! And there's no option to where the costume in dwarf or nova form. Very disappointed.

My worst solution is to team with folks of different origin and trade the enhancements. That's how we used to do it back in the day.

I've said this somewhere before. I used to do PvP back on live. I was on an ice blaster, and if I was any good, it was because of the ice, not any kind of player skill. But, #3 on the OP's list - that part about builds being different in pvp vs pve...that's the problem as I see it. For those that don't farm, we spend (It used to be maybe 10X the time) about 30 hours, a little more for some, a little less for others getting to 50. We know our characters. We're probably aware that this power won't be ready to fire a second time until we fire this power. Attack chain stuff. Then, we get into pvp land...and suddenly, my tank which I labored to get to 90% resist in s/l/e/n is now barely over 50% resist. My defense which was 44% is now a lot less. The inspirations to boost these values do next to nothing, if they do anything at all. The only inspirations really worth pvping with are accuracies and break frees. If you want people (well, me) to pvp, you need to have my build work the same as it does in pve. I know what my character can do, but then I get to RV and suddenly I can't do what I used to do. It doesn't inspire me with confidence. And of course, lacking the skill without the best build doesn't help - but maybe remove travel suppression from pve, and we can talk again.

Do Hard Modes suck? For some, I'm sure they do. I think Rune of Protection reeks now, but so what? I don't have to take it. I do understand the frustration of being told by some tough guy that an MM or whatever someone's AT or powersets might be that they're not up to the task. That would irk me a good bit. But I don't think it's the fault of the Advanced/hard mode TFs. I think it's the fault of the players. They have a bad experience with one player on a given AT and they blame the AT/powerset. And maybe that's fair in some cases. I was on a Master MLTF, and the dominator died from the flyer while we were taking the pylons down, just before the Recluse fight. I don't blame the entire class of Dominators. It's just one of those things. Perhaps there are some things within the advanced modes that might need to be considered with regards to Masterminds. Or maybe Masterminds might need to consider a different type of build for these runs. No idea. But just like nobody is putting a gun to my head and telling me I can't run an advanced mode lgtf, nobody is forcing me to run one either. It's all by choice. Don't like 'em, don't run 'em. And I won't choose Rune of Protection either - at least, not until they reverse the nerf. But that's a whole different thread for another day.

Not sure if it would work on all pop ups, but try this, and sub ESC for Z. /bind z "dialog_yes$$dialog_answer Accept"

Opinions will likely vary. After all - how many people actually write this stuff down while they're doing it? If it is XP you're after, and you want as much as possible in a given unit of time, then it's pretty clear: My level 16 stalker (with 2xp buff, and patrol xp) killed a level 16 minion on the streets of Steel Canyon - 130 xp. Same level 16 stalker killed a level 15 minion on the streets of Steel and got 103 xp. Things to consider: Size of the map Your character's abilities Story arc? Think about that story arc completion bonus. The ones in Striga and Croatoa - when I move my notoriety to +4 just after I complete the last mission of the arc, but before I call the contact, I get more than I would if I didn't boost up the notoriety. For me, sometimes, completing the missions as fast as possible works out to be more easy xp than otherwise.

At the risk of coming across like a jerk, I think that's precisely what the MAs are for - to get the recipes, in case the RNG disappoints. I got one recipe that may have dropped because I was using a windfall, one of the temp powers that comes from the hero packs. Supposedly increases the odds of very rares..no idea by what margin, but I wanted more shards, so why not. Seemed to work. Just anecdotal, nothing scientific. But if you have them, may as well use them.