AboveTheChemist

I ran this 3-4 times last night, without successfully completing it. However I think between last night's attempts and the first couple of times I ran it, I think I have a decent idea of how it works. Each run last night was with a limited number of people, generally less than two groups and sometimes less than one group. The strategy seems to be: Spread out to all banners so that there are people at each, and defeat the enemies until the bar is blue. Enemy spawns seem to scale with the number of people at the banner. I don't think killing inside the circle matters. When the blue bar fills and the banners are vulnerable, converge on each banner one at a time until they are defeated. Take out the monster. With enough people it may not be necessary to converge in step two, but with limited numbers I think it is necessary in order to whittle down the banner more quickly. If any of this is wrong, please let me know and I'll change it. There was a LOT of misinformation being spread last night and thus a lot of frustration (understandably so) when we didn't make much progress, and I have a feeling that is leading people to avoid the event. But the tactic above got us closest to finishing the event, and with another minute or two I think we would have been fine.

During the first event I participated in, we were all (or mostly all of us) concentrated at one banner. We laid waste to the incoming spawns, but were outside the circle, and the progress bar did not move. We did eventually move back within the circle and the progress bar starting going blue, but it's entirely possible that it was just a case of people going to other banners and killing there. I was not paying close attention to the distribution of league mates so it might have been entirely coincidental. In that event we definitely did not destroy the banners all at once, and we defeated the last banner with less that 10 seconds on the clock. In the second event, we were more evenly distributed at the start. At my banner, most of the mobs were killed outside the circle but the progress bar starting going blue fairly quickly. We dropped the banners fairly quickly. In both cases, we defeated the AV at the end for a successful event.

Back in the early issues before free costume tokens were rewarded so freely, before costume changes were free below level 10, and when the Crey Industries website was a fairly big thing, if I wanted some screenshots of my character in civilian cloths for the Crey site I'd just create an alt that looked like my main and make a plain clothes version of them. I miss that Crey site, I had a lot of fun making up stuff to post on there.

I take notes mainly for two reasons. Economics is nowhere near my strong suit and playing in this virtual economy is not intuitive to me so I need a way to keep track of what I have done and the prices that I have seen so that I can determine what works and what I need to do to get better at it. Frankly, the last 5 listings info is better than nothing, but not much better. I could probably write a separate page-long rant about how much I dislike it, but in a nutshell even when it is working correctly, it can provide misleading information, especially to those without market experience. It's also subject to several bugs, and I've spent a decent amount of time documenting and posting about those bugs. My notetaking is a way to try to get a bigger picture of prices that the last 5 listings window just doesn't allow. You may be right that selling for 1 million isn't worth the time, but I tend to be conservative with my converters so it seemed a reasonable start point. My next project is actually to repeat my previous data gathering attempt, but using a higher floor of profitablity (probably 2 million), just to see how the numbers compare. Overall though, given my spending habits, using 1 million as the starting point has more than allowed me the budget to outfit my characters exactly how I want them. I won't begin to claim it's optimal, though, and it likely won't be optimal for someone with more expensive tastes or with more than a handful of alts to outfit. I disagree that the LoTG global recharge IO is dropping in price, but most of my observation has been from the bottom end of the saleable price range. For the past few months I've been consistently able to fill all my orders for that IO within a day or two at a certain price, but over the past several weeks the bids I have had out for that IO have done nothing at that price. So, I bumped it up half a million and the bids filled within a couple of days. I haven't sold enough of that IO to be able to speak to the top end of the sale range, but the ones I have sold seem to consistently go for 7M. I used the level 31 recipes because that's what the guides recommended, especially for those like me starting out with barely two nickles to rub together who needed to save on crafting costs. My most recent posts address my thoughts and observations on the level 31 vs level 41 debate, but as I clearly stated, those assume a starting point of an unprofitable set and conversion by rarity. If starting from within a more profitable category and trying to convert within category, then yes, depending on the starting category, the advantage of using level 41 recipes is more apparent, especially if the desired outcome is to convert into one of the highly profitable sets.

Has anyone in this thread insinuated that there aren't consequences to these bugs? At any rate, just to be clear, I think that this example, and another that you posted previously, are examples of a different bug than what I have been posting. In all the examples I have posted, no amount of clicking "Find" would cause the list to change. Perhaps they are related bugs, and I have no issue with both cases being documented here. I just wanted to make clear that I think there is a distinction between the two bugs: The "Mixed Price" Bug: Prices for Item B are mixed in with otherwise reasonable prices for Item A when viewing the price list for Item A, and clicking "Find" does not change the list. The "Dual Price List" Bug: Item A has two apparently completely different and otherwise legitimate looking (i.e. no mixed prices) price lists, with only one containing reasonable prices, that changes when the "Find" button is repeatedly clicked. Both are insidious in their own way and I hope that they can both eventually be fixed.

I don't alternate costumes during gameplay nor do I really worry about having a "civilian clothes" version. If I find I dislike a costume before level 10 I might use a slot or two coming up with a better design. Otherwise, my general pattern is to stick with their costume until either level 30ish (which is when I upgrade them to IO sets), or level 50, at which point I might slightly modify their existing costume. The exceptions are my two Live server characters that I re-created on Homecoming. One character's costume was recreated exactly and I haven't changed it, but with the other I completely updated her costume at 50. In the case of the latter, hers was the very first costume I ever created and while it holds some sentimental value, I felt like she deserved an updated look at 50, since she never made it to 50 on Live. I do quite like the idea of making a smaller version of oneself for more confined missions. I may try that out.

It looks like this might have been resolved with the last patch. Is this still a bug for anyone else? I know there are a few other options-settings related issues (like the -NaN tool tip delay and the cursor scaling not working from keybinds, among a few others) that are still bugged but when I played last night this particular issue seemed to be resolved for me. Edit: Nevermind, it's definitely still bugged for me.

Some of them are, namely the ones that already appear in the badge tracker spreadsheet. The ones specifically discussed above still do not appear to be 'live', still have the generic name applied to them, and do not appear in the in-game badge inventory. At least that is the case with the ones I have.

I tested a few doors this morning with a level 28 character, which according to the wiki should be in the level range for the original Dark Astoria. None of them worked for trick or treating.

The wiki page has a lot of info if you click on the individual years shown.

I personally get a little thrill out of racing to catch the tram, especially when I know I just barely clicked fast enough to squeak in and beat the lockout in the animation cycle. It adds to the immersion.

This is exactly how I hoped the Comic Con Farm would be updated if it were found in violation of the new code. I think it's a wonderful solution and now I just need to figure out which of my characters/costumes I want to submit as my representative in the farm!

Have you been exemplared most/all of that time? I don't think enhancements drop while being exemplared. That's been my experience, anyway, and it took me a while to figure it out.

Below are the results of my (admittedly rough) attempt to categorize the sets according to general profitability. As with my previous post, the table shows, for each category, the numbers of rare sets within and the percent chance of landing within each profitability category via a conversion by rarity, both for levels 31 and 41. The assumptions are similar to those above, and I've hidden them and my methods behind spoiler tags for those that just want to see the results. Beware the wall of text hidden below! Overall, the results don't seem to indicate a compelling reason to favor either scenario, especially considering that these are based on rough estimations and the differences are on the order of a few percentage points. One thing that stands out is that of the five profitable sets that are dropped by going from 31 to 41, three of these (Decimation, Impervium Armor, and Kinetic Combat) are at the upper end of the profitable scale. Each of us has our own notion of where profitability begins, though, so applying one's own logic might yield results that favor one method or the other.

This guide gives a pretty nice rundown on when to attune/catalyze and when to boost.

This has happened to me once I think, but it has been a while so I don't recall if it was my character or an NPC, and I don't recall which map or door it was. Did you try /stuck?

I was all set to post some info but then I noticed it was a tanker build and not a brute, so I'm not sure how applicable my info would have been. One method I use to focus in on the sets I need to flesh out a build is to head to the enhancement sets wiki page and use the find function (hit CTRL+F) to highlight sets with the bonuses I need. For instance, if you want Fire Defense, search for the term "Fire/Cold Def". That will highlight the sets that offer that bonus and make it a little easier to decide which sets and how many slots are optimal. Also, be sure to check each power and note all the possible sets that could fit there. Some powers will accept "secondary" sets that may offer a more optimal path to the bonuses you want. For instance, a damage power may also accept taunt sets that may have better bonuses (or require fewer slots to get to a desired bonus) than those offered by the damage sets. That won't always be the case, and you probably don't want to overdo it slotting with secondary effects, but it can be worth it to check and can give you more options. Good luck! There's a certain art to optimizing a build, but it's rewarding when you can get all the puzzle pieces to fit together.

I would think this would be feasible, depending on how familiar you are with the powers beforehand. I always work up a rough build to start with from level 1, but there are inevitably some powers that I end up not liking and respec out of them. If you had some familiarity with the powers going in that wouldn't be an issue. The other issue I see is if you were planning to start with lower level sets and then once you hit 27 (or whatever the minimum-minus-three level is of your endgame set for any particular power), unslot those and slot in your endgame set. Also, you won't be able to slot any sets below level 7. I am playing/have played my last 3-4 characters more or less this way. I respec around 30 to tweak my powers and start adding IO sets. Then I generally respec at 50 to make a final power tweak if needed. So far I have not felt the need to do a wholesale power redo. It's more along the lines of swapping out a power or two.

Here are the numbers I came up with. The table shows, for each category, the numbers of rare sets within and the percent chance of landing within that category via a conversion by rarity, both for levels 31 and 41. This assumes a few things: The general conversion method of an initial uncommon to rare conversion within category, then conversion by rarity until a desired category/set is reached. This is a common technique but certainly not the only effective technique. The starting point is an economically undesirable category containing a single set. The percentages are computed by dividing by N-1, where N is the total number of sets. One has to start somewhere, and one can't convert by rarity into the same set. For instance, assume that the starting point is Immobilize, whose percent chance would initially be 0%. If starting from a category with more than one set, then the initial percent chance for that category would change. I pulled the information from the wiki, but I included Sudden Acceleration and Annihilation, which are in Homecoming but not listed on the wiki. If there are any other missing sets please let me know. My main takeaway from looking at these numbers is that even though switching from level 31 to 41 may remove some of the chaff sets, it slightly increases the chance of landing in the chaff sets that remain, and also slightly decreases the chance of landing in some of the more lucrative categories. That's a general observation and not necessarily applicable to all categories. I honestly don't know what it might mean for profitability, and I think it might take running a lot of sales and doing a comparison using both level 31 and level 41 starting points to get to the bottom of that, and I don't think that project is in the cards for me. I think a slightly more interesting comparison might be to categorize the level 31 and 41 sets not by effect but by general profitability/value, and do a comparison of those percentages as I have done here. My overall familiarity with the profitability of every single rare set isn't good enough to allow me to do that without spending some time in-game looking up market prices, but I may take some notes while I am in the AH over the next week or so and see if I can come up with something. If you notice any errors please let me know!

The cost difference between 31 and 41 is (based on the wiki numbers) 73,060 inf. So a little less than one converter. One thing I hadn't considered is that by removing the sets I listed from the potential pool, I think it might lower the chance of landing in those particular categories. I'm going to have a look and see if I can come up with some numbers for that. I'll add in Sting of the Manitcore, too. It hadn't occurred to me to check to see if any sets would join the list but after looking over the list again I think that is the only one that would.

I have heard this several times too so I decided to try and quantify it. I used the wiki enhancement sets page, which I know it isn't 100% representative of the enhancements as they exist on Homecoming, but I think it is close enough. These enhancements are excluded when crafting at 41 instead of 31: Melee Damage: Smashing Haymaker, Kinetic Combat, Focused Smite, Touch of Death Pet Damage: Brilliant Leadership, Edict of the Master Ranged Damage: Maelstrom's Fury, Entropic Chaos, Ruin, Decimation Healing: Harmonized Healing, Miracle Defense: Serendipity, Gift of the Ancients Resist Damage: Reactive Armor, Impervium Armor That list is far shorter than I expected, with the notable absence of anything from the mez sets. The definition of chaff in this case is certainly subjective, but I consider most of the mez sets to be chaff, and there are a few on the list above that I don't consider chaff. Losing Serendipity and Gift of the Ancients is nice, and should make converting within Defense to the holy grail of LoTG easier. Likewise, losing Reactive Armor and Impervium Armor from Resist Damage makes it easier to get to most lucrative members of that set. Overall I agree that there do seem to be benefits to crafting at 41 rather than 31, but I was just a bit surprised that the list of enhancements that were excluded wasn't longer.

So if I have an homage character that might fall under the new code, what is my best course of action? Self-report? Wait until someone reports me? I don't want to run foul of the law but I also don't want to change him if in fact he's different enough that the new code doesn't apply.

I don't remember offhand where it is, but if it wasn't automatically created you could start the game, create a dummy character with whatever random costume pops up, and save that costume. The name of the costume directory should appear when you are saving the costume file, and I assume if it wasn't created before, the game will create it at that point. Then just navigate to that folder and save all your old costumes to it.

The character I have been using to check has been at 8 tickets since before the weekend, and I probably didn't play her more than 2-3 hours intermittently over the weekend. She is still at 8 tickets. My guess is that for us mere mortals, it takes an uninterrupted 24-hour cycle of being logged out to increment a ticket. Vanden you seem to be in a Superman IV/Office Space type situation where everyone else's fractional coupon progress is being rounded off and dumped into your account. I'm kidding of course.

I have made similar observations over the last couple of months, although my sales volume is a fraction of yours. I was going to post my own thread but given that my methods and results are similar I hope you don't mind if I just post my results in here. My inspiration came from several posts by Shinobu, Zolgar, and Robotech_Master (linked at the bottom). My method was to buy level 31 uncommon recipes, craft them, convert to rare, then convert that rare to another rare. I would convert until I found something that sold reliably for over 1 million inf, except in the case where I landed in a category with one or more particularly lucrative sets (like LotG in Defense), in which case I'd convert by type until I landed on something that sold for several million. I almost never converted in-set unless I happened to land on the dog of a set which otherwise had lucrative members. My dataset consisted of 160 total enhancements, sold between August 3 and Sept 22. I crafted & converted in lots of 10 and kept track of them by lot but the overall results are all I present here. I estimated my total recipe, crafting, and salvage cost at 50,400 inf and my cost per converter at 85,000 inf. On average each enhancement required 4.96 converters, and the average sale price was 2,640,000 inf. Average profit was 1,905,000 inf. I priced each item individually, depending on the apparent demand for the item and my own experience with how well it sold. I had to relist 10 of the 160 enhancements. I was (and still am) quite patient with the market, so I'd normally wait at least a week (including at least one weekend) before relisting. I don't necessarily know if my method maximizes profit, but overall I am happy with the results. My goal is to be able to afford good sets, and is not necessarily to get super rich. At the moment I don't outfit my characters with anything more expensive than ATOs or the odd PVP IO (like the Panacea proc), mostly because I don't yet have a character that I love playing exclusively enough to justify buying purples or other expensive IOs. This also isn't my only marketing method. I also like to craft and sell dropped recipes that look like they will turn a profit based on salvage and crafting cost. I strategically convert a few of these if they are in lucrative sets (like Defense), but for the most part I just craft and sell. I am still collating data (as they say) on that practice. The guides I used were: Shinobu: Zero to 100 Million in a Week Zolgar: A quick and dirty crash course in Enhancement Converters Robotech_Master: How to Make Millions on the Market in Minutes By the time Shinobu posted the excellent Craft & Convert: Detailed Step-by-Step Guide, I had already more or less settled into my craft and convert method, but that guide gave me confidence that I was definitely on the right track.