Ukase

In the interest of providing more information than just what was asked, in my own effort to bring all of you horses to good drinking water, let me elaborate a smidge. Example: You have placed a bid for 10 identical items at the identical bid price, and for the sake of this example, let's say your bids were all 1,111,111. When someone places their item identical to the one you've bid on, the AH is expected to scan all the bids at that time and release that other players identical item to whomever has the highest bid out for that item. Lowest post price goes to the highest bid price. Is it possible that we've misunderstood how the AH rules process? Could it be this lowball price was in place before your bids and was processed at the time you were placing your bid, but the display didn't refresh in order for you to see it? It's a bit of a mystery. I think the easiest conclusion is probably the right one - AH glitch. I don't think there's a way that so many of us marketers have gotten it wrong all this time. Of course....maybe you also placed the lowball bid by accident? maybe you didn't put as many 1's as you thought?

I learned back on live to simply NEVER choose FA as a power simply because of the endurance. It's a great power - except for that end usage.

I'll say this: part of the end problem - at least with my level 50 widow that's weaker than a level 7 hellion - is the numerous toggles that are running to provide the incredible defense. Mask Presence: .14/s Tactical Training: .12/s Tactical Training Assault: .15/s Indomitable Will: .21/s Tactical Training Maneuvers: .14/s Combat Jumping: .06/s Personally, despite running .79/s of end - with my end recovery of 3.05/s, I don't worry about endurance unless I leave Super Speed and Sprint on - which I often do - because I like playing with them on. It's nice to "stick and move" when fighting. But, that's only possible with IO set bonuses. I don't think 2.54/s is quite enough for full attack chain button mashing. Generally, I find I need to have 2.00/s more than what my toggles cost to run. Mind you - this character doesn't have ANY of the accolades, as it leveled up on red side only and all we did was story arcs; not many tfs. Still, my issue with them is they can't punch their way out of a paper bag. They just suck. At least, mine did.

Well...I've had the reverse happen. I had a specific question about a badge and did a search and found I'd asked the same question a year or so earlier. Does that count?

The truth is - opinions can, and do vary. For good reasons. Some folks have preferences, and the difference between my optimal and someone else's optimal could be 5 seconds clear time difference, or it could be 5 hours. (I afk-farm. If my brute finished faster than an active farmer, I think the active farmer is smoking some pretty bad stuff.) Why use dropbox when you can just post the build directly? Anyways - I looked at it. I suppose I need to know one thing. Is this for an afk build? Do you anticipate doing anything else with this character? ApacheFog - Brute (Spines).mxdYour fire defense is high enough for +4/8, (well, it should be higher. I would sooner use the Unrelenting Fury set than mocking beratement, it will give you more recharge than that taunt set.) Your fire resistance is capped. Just park the darn thing with burn on auto and go play the game on another account. Craft/convert/sell/reset/repeat. If you find yourself dying, it may be that you need to get the accolades to boost your hp a bit. Seems to make a difference to me on farm brutes I've got that don't have melee hybrid for the regen boost - but that could just be perception bias. I wouldn't take that feeble thing outside the farm though. I hope you get it power-leveled, because playing that thing up to 50 is gonna be super painful. You'll be sorely reliant on consume and ageless. Below is my all-purpose afk farm build. At +4/8, the only scary groups are Banished Pantheons (Ageless doesn't give enough DDR protection), Arachnos, and Malta (cuz, well, sappers) It can clear the 125 map in 2 minutes or so, using a lot of reds. Less than 4 minutes not using any. I am pretty pleased with it. Is it going to out dps a legit true farm brute? No. Not a good one, anyway. But for afk-farming, it's quite fantastic. And it helps me with the first two missions of Moonfire, it easily unlocked Schweinzer in Port Oakes for invader runs. It can solo all the TFC task forces on blue side. To be fair, any character in game can solo the tfc task forces, tho. But, it makes it sound really good, tho, right?

I use the term "Dumping" to avoid offending folks - but take a look you might see what I mean. My character is Humdinger...and immediately above.. a HUGE DUMP TAKER. Is it a coincidence they joined the SG the exact same day I did? I think not!

The benefit for the alt account for me goes beyond having a farmer to PL my alts if need be. It's the joy of not having to sift through page, after page, after page to find an empty slot to start a new character. I really should just delete the ones I haven't played in 100 days...but when I see the names, and think about what I invested in them to get various badges...just can't do it. There's always a redeeming quality to them. And - for those that lack them, I have already deleted those.

By and large, with common IOs (No set bonuses), badge players will sell these at a very low price simply because the amount of enhancements required to craft exceed the number of AH slots. And, well, frankly, there are a lot of folks who are badge enthusiasts. Some crazy folks have more than one character intended to collect all 1549 badges. 51 of them require crafting, and it's well over 600 common enhancements, not to mention the 2k worth of any enhancement. Add to that, there's a badge for selling 7000 items on the AH. And then there's the lazy crafter and the market manipulator. The lazy crafter just wants to be rid of whatever it was and can't be bothered to determine the going price, despite it being listed in the history for all to see (when it's accurate, lol). These silly people list items and want them gone immediately; however, if they ever try to sell confuse or hold common IOs at even 1 inf - those can take a while to sell! Nobody wants that trash. (well, very, very few people, and they tend to bit like 2 inf or even 1 inf - and they get the IO, too. The poor seller had to pay 5 inf to collect their 1 inf asking price. That's what laziness gets you. Some market manipulators might try to lower the price of certain IOs because they ...well, motivations will vary - but invariably, the smarter, more greedy marketers are wise to this foolishness and have had 100's of low ball bids in place that they check on every few days to re-bid for the same low ball price and relist the ones they got for cheap. Thanks lazy people/market manipulators. I appreciate the help! (Maybe my gloating will get these silly people to actually list items for the going price, but I doubt it)

Contact Start level Finish Level 2XP? Ouro? XP Gained XP needed Merits Wincott 6 8 Yes No 1440 Level 8 to 9 2680 7 5.3 Bars Flux 8 11 Yes No 800 9 to 10 3125 18 11 to 12 4995 1.6 Bars Julius 11 13 Yes No 800 12 to 13 6405 10 1.25 Bars 13 to 14 7400 Talshek 13 15 Yes No 1000 14 to 15 9093 30 .89 Bars 15 to 16 11184 Shauna Stockwell 15 16 Yes No 1800 16 to 17 13000 6 1.38 Bars Eagle Eye 17 18 Yes No 1800 17 to 18 15950 6 1.13 Bars 18 to 19 19200 Jim Temblor 18 19 Yes No 2000 19 to 20 23400 8 .85 Bars Penny Yin 19 20 Yes No 1600 20 to 21 28000 10 .57 Bars Doc Delilah 20 20 Yes No 4000 +4 1.5 Bars Agent G 20 21 Yes No 17920 +4 21 to 22 45000 25 3.98 Bars So, very nice to see the +4 trick worked. I'm quite surprised at the bonus for Agent G's arc, though. That's the largest bonus as a percentage so far, by a huge margin. I'm really curious as to why Talshek's arc - which rewards almost the same reward merits as Agent G's arc gives less than a bar of XP. I'm guessing the +4 magnitude is a factor in this: 4*.89bars = 3.56 bars In any event, it's quite interesting - to me, at least. Off to Striga!

Yes

I'm hard pressed to think of any reason why you can't hit 50% success even without changing anything. The RNG with the untimely ports and regen ticks can certainly ruin things...but I'd think 1/2 fairly doable. I will have to see if I can't find a block of time and make sure I'm on when you run one. Maybe it's something that's more obvious from within the map...<shrug>

I appreciate this pro-tip, I'll definitely check this out! And some of the other stuff you posted. And I remember you when I tried to give you some pvp IOs last month. What a great name! Wanna sell it? 😛

Just anecdotally, if I don't see a designated zone in the mission title, I can't recall a time when I haven't seen the designated zone in the text dialogue with the contact. I can't say it doesn't exist in game, I rarely play that much attention. But from what I recall, the contact usually gives a zone or neighborhood. But, in this game, it's possible, I suppose.

There's no question, I see value in a leader attending other leaders' trial runs just to gain a different perspective. (Not that Oklahoman doesn't do this already - I've no idea). The players on Everlasting, like Excelsior, can be hit or miss as well. But the leaders there do make things quite clear for the leagues. One thought occurs to me - which may be out of bounds for @Oklahoman. Try a run without the RP type jargon. Use the speech you might use in every day life, avoiding words like "Varmint" and such. When you're having fun with it, it may come across as not taking things seriously. And if you're not taking it seriously, why should anyone else? While that may not be the case - my perception is my reality. That may not be fair, or even accurate to say that, it is true.

And this is part of the reason I usually avoid making one. I don't role play. I have never ever seen this game as an MMO or an RPG. If others see it that way - that's fine. I've always seen this as a game to play solo. The odd team-up can be great, or it can be a complete waste of time. A bio might be something I'll make for a character that has acquired a fair number of badges, (1000 or so). When you have 1000, ya might as well get the other 549. And when you invest that kind of time, invariably, some people will look at your bio, your build, your badge count. My few bios are generally trite, short, and somewhat amusing - to me, if to nobody else. But, I think I might have made...maybe 10 bios out of the 150+ characters. As far as other players go, I'll look at the first sentence, sometimes. If it grabs me, I might read more. But, I swear if you have typos or words that are spelled incorrectly, I'm going to just consider you an idiot. Spelling matters! And I will tell you that you spelled a word wrong. And I would expect you to correct it immediately. (but I can forgive a typo, of course) I love it when an SG member asks me "Hey, what do you think of my bio?" and I say, I dunno. I never saw it. "Well, read it, please." "Sure". (But I never read it) "What'd ya think?" "It was too long/short and not enough symbolism." "What?" "Damn, look at the time. Catch you later."

May I ask what graphic card you use, and what you're settings are at? I've got more than a couple fire blasters, and I've seen this aura on my characters. But, I never really noticed it, especially since it no longer deals damage when stealthed (and doesn't cancel stealth anymore). I tend to be more focused on the npcs I get to clobber, maybe. Because if you're seeing it that clearly, if the crypto miners ever leave something for those who game, I'm gonna have to get myself one of those cards you have. Mine used to be mid-tier, but now it's kind of old. (NVidia 1650, 5g ddr) I keep wondering what other people are seeing when they play. I mean, I wear reading glasses, but I'm 20/20 with 'em, I promise! Or maybe I'm just obtuse.

At no time, in my experience has a hunt mission completed by defeating the same faction of npcs in a mission map. That has never, ever happened to me before. I don't think that's the case. I think you should try to abandon the mission, and then speak with Harvey again. If you're lucky, he'll tell you go kill 50 carnies again. This time, do so in the streets of PI. (near the docks and along the beach area are where I generally find them. Occasionally spread around other parts of PI as well. If you're level 45, some of the carnies near portal corps may be too difficult. If he won't talk with you after you abandon the mission, that is very strange. The good news is there's always ouro - but heck, you've gone through this much of the arc, it'd be a shame to not get to finish it. Perhaps try to log out of the game, close it completely. Through the launcher, re-validate the manifest, & verify the files. Then log back in, and maybe you'll catch a break and things will work properly. Beyond that, if it's as you say, then perhaps reach out to a GM through Discord.

Now, if we could just get someone with helium nearby to chime in over the discord...

Oh my. Here's something I've been known to do. I will log in with 2 of my accounts and essentially converse with myself about the efficacy of a specific IO set on the help channel, and why it's a no-brainer. My alt will chime in with "Brilliant!" or some such. It is quite amazing how well it works. But, as you know, only for a short time. But then, I don't market it more than once, because I'm not in the habit of ever selling more than a few of any one item.

A lot of folks dislike Croatoa for the reasons you cite - but I actually like those arcs, particularly with Red Caps. Their dialogue is a hoot. Sure, I can do without the long intervals of waiting with some characters, but on other characters, I need all the time I can get. And, of course, there's always "auto-complete" if I'm in a yank.

A little update - and probably my last. I've seen enough to determine that there seems to be no real rhyme or reason to these XP bonus amounts. Contact Start level Finish Level 2XP? Ouro? XP Gained XP needed Merits Wincott 6 8 Yes No 1440 Level 8 to 9 2680 7 5.3 Bars Flux 8 11 Yes No 800 9 to 10 3125 18 11 to 12 4995 1.6 Bars Julius 11 13 Yes No 800 12 to 13 6405 10 1.25 Bars 13 to 14 7400 Talshek 13 15 Yes No 1000 14 to 15 9093 30 .89 Bars 15 to 16 11184 Shauna Stockwell 15 16 Yes No 1800 16 to 17 13000 6 1.38 Bars Clearly, there's not a correlation between reward merits and XP bonus. The Stockwell arc is quick; if motivated, one could speed this for mission objectives and probably complete it in less than 10 minutes. (assuming not through ouro - if through ouro, even faster). If XP gain through "normal content" is the goal, Wincott's arc, followed by Shauna Stockwell's arc are two great ways to go, comparatively. Of course, if you're after merits..there are 20 merits for grabs if you complete all 4 chapters in the hollows. (same for Croatoa, Striga, Faultline and RWZ, and Mercy for Red-siders) I'll be re-visiting these at different levels to see if the percentages (XP bars filled) are greater or less. It'll be interesting to see if the percentages change with level.

For me, it's no question - ice/ice blast. There was a chap named @olepi who wrote a guide to ice blasting back on the old forums, and it sold me. I made one, and played that damn thing until I got all the badges I could possibly get. I'd missed out on some anniversary badges on live because I didn't know about the game until issue 3. Did the same thing here, too. Played it and got all the badges and again, enjoyed playing it. When I would team, I would see my blaster live while other blasters died. Because my skills were better? Certainly not. I'm only a touch better than mediocre. Because my build is better? Who can say? I dunno what they had under the trunk. But because of ice patch and blizzard? And Freeze Ray? You bet! Nothing better in a chaotic mob feeding frenzy than an ice blaster! And with the changes to HP, and Frigid Protection? Yowza! I honestly don't recall Frigid Protection from live. But I'm ancient, maybe I'm senile and forgot about it. But I know it's awesome now!

Whoa, cowboy! Nobody said there were any issues. The OP said he didn't like using discord. I can relate. It isn't always fun. I've heard profanity, perversion, all manner of things on discord that wasn't game related which I didn't want to hear. I've had people complain because I had noise in the background. I've had people complain because they couldn't hear me. I've had people complain because they could hear me breathing. I've had it where 3 people could hear me, but I was "garbled" and the other 4 folks heard me loud and clear. Yet none of these folks had a clue how to address these issues. Or if they did, they kept them to themselves, as if it was my problem. You hear noise in the background, that's a shame. Too damn bad. You deal with it in whatever way suits you. See? Discord is aptly named! It can be a great tool, but it also can cause issues because not everyone understands everything there is to know about microphones, sound drivers, etc. I sure don't. Why? Because it's not important to me. Don't get me wrong - I'll use it because it makes things easier. I have a lot of macros, which I will and do use in addition to discord for those that can't stand discord or can't hear or have other issues. But only if there's something like a master run do I use macros. It's just easier to do the chat than to type. But that doesn't mean I enjoy hearing the comments that one person thinks is funny and I think is just stupid. There's funny, and there's so stupid I can't help but chuckle. I much prefer the former.

That's something I can look into - have one character do all 4 arcs, and have another just do three, having one of those three be the last one. The daunting part, in a fashion, is how much being X level bears on the bonus. For example, if you complete chapter 4 (of 4) story arc in The Hollows at level 16, would you get the same bonus as a level 17 character from a percentage of xp required to reach the next level? Contact Start level Finish Level 2XP? Ouro? XP Gained Merits Wincott 6 8 Yes No 1440 level 8 to 9 ---> 2680 7 5.3 Bars Flux 8 11 Yes No 800 Level 11 to 12 ---> 4995 18 1.6 bars Had to get my row in, so I stopped. I can't see using up a bunch of forum space, but these are the kind of details I'm after. I want to revisit Wincott's arc as a level 5, and as a level 7, and see if there's any difference, all other things the same. 1440 XP is the bonus just for checking in with Wincott after completing the mission. It takes 2680 XP to get to level 9, and I'd reached 8 just before I completed the mission that completed the arc. I leveled up then spoke with Wincott. 53.73% of the entire level, or 1440 XP. Nice! Why not just 50%? Why such a strange value? (well, 25% if no 2xp) I am thinking because I trained to 8, the bonus was slightly more than if I hadn't trained to 8. It's the only rational thing I can think of. As for Flux...only 1.6 bars. What's up with that? Such a disparity. It just doesn't make sense. It could be because I started the mission at level 10 and didn't train to 11 before calling Flux. Maybe? I dunno.

I've made the spreadsheet...I can't say I will endure all the excruciating detail, but for this character I'm on, I intend to go through the hollows, and another character, same level, will go through the Kings Row arcs. My suspicion is that Kings Row arcs, being newer will give more XP. In fact, it's my suspicion that all of the newer arcs reward more than the older arcs - but so far, that's just perception bias.