Saikochoro

The market is already designed incredibly well and functions superbly. It is the best designed game market I have used. Making money on the market is already one of the most accessible way of funding alts because you can do it from level 1 starting with nothing. The accessibility is mainly only a problem because of the lack of easy information regarding the market, conversion, and merits. I suggested a tutorial arc to cover this flaw in the system. It is really the only glaring flaw. The only reason I put out the selling converter method is because you have said you’d rather not touch the market. So, I offered that you don’t have to be knee deep in the market to fund what you need to fund. This method is still participating in the market process, but does so at a simpler and less time intensive way. That is not gatekeeping. That is tailoring a solution for you that seems to be in line with what you have been saying. Selling converters on the market is an essential part of the economy because it is one of the items in most demand and it fuels the enhancement conversion process, which is an essential part of the market. It is perfectly acceptable and expected to have varying levels of marketing going on. If you want to be heavily involved in marketing that is perfectly fine. There are plenty of people happy to teach you how to be successful. If you want to use it as minimally as possible while still making good money and supplying an important good that is also perfectly fine. There are multiple ways to market. Some require more time and experience and some require less, but all are participating in the market. The market system itself is awesome. It is well designed and functions very well at its core. Yes, there are some bugs, but those are bugs. The system design itself as well as the changes the devs made are amazing.

I’m not going to touch on your other points as there could be a lot heated debate on those items. Instead I’m just pulling this part out. You absolutely can ignore marketing almost entirely and focus just on what the game awards you as you play content. Task forces, story arcs, trials, and various other content gives you reward merits. You can entirely forgot about enhancement conversion, figuring out what to sell and when, and the whole marketing part of the game. Just buy converters with the reward merits and sell them on the market. It requires no deep marketing knowledge as converters are always on demand. It also requires at most 5 minutes on the market each day to just list stacks of converters and claim the influence. You can even sell them for 1 inf each and still usually get 50-60k per converter. Or you can list them for something like 55k - 60k if you want more. When I do this I just list them for instant sales though as it is honestly profitable enough. You can fund even the most expensive builds relatively quickly. Depending on how much you play can accumulate merits very quick. 100 reward merits is roughly 16-19m influence. Do a hami raid or MSR, the weekly strike targets during the week, a couple other task forces, a couple signature story arcs, perhaps the new vahlz/freak arcs, and you could easily accumulate 500 merits in a week, which is 80-100m influence. All with hardly touching the market at all other than a few minutes each day to list stacks of converters and claim the influence. This is a very easy and reliable method to fund builds when you hate both marketing and farming, but enjoy other game content. Just food for thought.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with not liking the market and not wanting to use it. I have always hated using the markets in games and have always hated farming too. I have nothing against them being part of the games, I just never enjoyed them. That said, the market IS part of the game. Although it is not required, using it varying degrees can speed up build progression. This is true of many games. It all depends on how fast you want your builds. COH is awesome in that you have so many ways that you can make influence including many ways to make use of the market in varying degrees from heavily to barely at all. Despite a few bugs and some minor UI complaints, this is one of the most well-designed game economies of which I have been a part. I think people just assume that they have to put in a lot of time and effort on the market to accomplish anything and that is just not true at all. Even for beginners. I have successfully used the market in many ways to fund my alts and have never once had to use a spreadsheet. The market and conversion process is only as cumbersome and time consuming as you make it. If you want to know exactly how much profit you make at all times, then, yes, it will be more time consuming. But, it would also be time consuming to track all the merits you earn in a spreadsheet instead of just checking your salvage tab every so often to see how many have accumulated. Or tracking your drops and influence from kills in missions via spreadsheet. That would certainly be time consuming and unnecessary, same as it is for the market. If you just want to make some money to fund an alt, then it is just a matter of taking 10-15 minutes to craft/convert even just 10-15 enhancements. Doesn’t even have to be every play session. It can really be as simple as converting until you get something that sells for ~2m, which usually takes no more than 6-8 converters. If you start with a level 31 yellow recipe your total costs even if you use 10 converters is less than 750k. That is a bug margin. Sometimes you will get the big sellers like LOTG within those conversions, which results in huge profit. Then just watch your inf balance grow. Heck, you can forget crafting and converting altogether. You can just do a ton of task forces, story arcs, and trials and load up on hundreds, or even thousands, of merits. Turn those merits into converters and just sell those on the market. It is as simple as listing your stacks of converters on the market at the end of each play session. The fact that crafting and converting is a huge part of the market, enables people to just make their money selling converters. Takes less than 5 minutes and has very minimal use of the market. That will support even purpled out builds pretty quickly as well. I think the real problem is getting the appropriate information easily available to everyone. There are plenty of guides that detail pretty much everything you need or even want to know. I have even written one describing many methods to making money. The problem is that people have to come to the forums and find the guides rather than having the info easily accessible in the game. That’s why I think there should be a tutorial arc, like the one I proposed in this thread, that is a pop up on every new character at say level 10 for people to go learn how to use these functions.

I totally get and respect that. Even though I like soul drain better than build up in general, stalker has more nuances to it so I still wouldn’t want it replaced. That’s why I ended my comment with “if I want soul drain, I’ll play scrapper.”

I really like the way the HC market is set up. I really enjoy the double blind system and the things HC did to make it more accessible (item pooling, seeding). I would not change any of the fundamentals. Only make it more accessible. Market/Merit/Enhacement Conversion Tutorial I suggest creating a tutorial that knocks all three of these topics out in one go since they are all crucial to effectively using the market. Mission 1: Have a standard mission (defeat X boss or obtain some item, etc). The important part of this mission would be the reward. Have this mission award 3 merits and 1 yellow recipe. Make the yellow recipe a level 31 Tempered Readiness recipe. Mission 2: Talk to NPC that describes the market bid system. This discussion should have in bold colored font that highest bid goes to lowest offer. Then use the market to buy the salvage required for the Tempered Readiness IO. Craft the IO. Mission 3: Talk to NPC that has basic instructions about the merit vendor. Use the merit vendor to convert the reward merits into 9 enhancement converters. Mission 4: Talk to NPC that describes enhancement conversation by category. Then use two converters to convert the crafted tempered readiness by category into a rare IO. Mission 5: Talk to NPC that instructs you how to convert by rarity. The NPC also instructs how to put items up for sale on the auction house. The discussion should reiterate that highest bid goes to lowest offer. Then have the character convert the now Pacing of the Turtle IO by rarity up to 7 times with the remaining converters. The instruction on sales by the NPC in this mission should instruct player to put the IO after each conversion on the market and click find to get the pricing history. Then place the IO for sale to complete the arc. Ending Arc Reward: Have the final arc completion award be another 3 merits and a level 31 tempered readiness recipe to give the player another go at the whole process. Other Notes: If at all possible, I will echo others and say, please fix the sales history display bug (I.e miracle proc often showing outrageously high sales prices for the last 5). Also, I would love to be able to access the market from supergroup bases.

Yes, you have to switch over to villains to complete the arc. I think once you are level 35 and switch over using null the gull in pocket d, Arbiter Rein will automatically be unlocked as a contact. Go talk to him in grandville and he will give you 4 contacts to choose from. It’s doesn’t really matter which one you choose as completing the first set of missions on any of them will unlock all the patron pools. I always choose black scorpion as I feel his patron arc is the quickest. As @EmmySkymentioned, it is only 5-6 missions with the last one being an EB/AV. Usually takes me 20-30 minutes at the most to unlock. You can then use null the gull to switch back to heroes and leave your life of crime behind you.

If my toggles begin to take up an entire tray, then I reevaluate my builds haha. Usually I have between 5-8 toggles running. I’ll give a pass for my toggles taking up a full bar if that bar also has sprint, super jump, and the hybrid incarnate on it. Otherwise it’s off to the chopping block. Edit: since they don’t cost endurance I don’t count bio adaptations, staff forms, or dual pistols ammo.

Out of the tanks I have made I am most impressed by SR and Shield Defense. SR is completely insane. I make some debatable pool power choices (I love me some rune of protection on just about everyone - who doesn't love an extra 30% res to all with 50% up time). That is at 100% health with one stack of the ATO and storm kick. Forget the scaling resistances, the mobs can't even get my health down far enough for them to matter much anyway. The second screenshot is with ROP on cooldown. Sometimes when ROP is on cooldown they might get me down a little for the scaling resists to kick in, but its not often. Again, SR is probably the most insane tanker primary in my opinion. Shield is also super awesome. The below (SD/EM) shows just one stack of the ATO and no ROP. The second shows the totals with ROP on. I could shoot for incarnate softcap, but chose not to for this build. Shield has all the toughness it could ever need AND it comes with super strong offensive boosts to boot. And these aren't even the toughest you can make either of these primaries. There are plenty of people that have made better builds than the above, but this just show cases a little bit of what you can achieve with these primaries.

I listed several methods of making money in the following. Let me know if you have any questions on any of the methods.

I agree in general with @EdgeOfDreamsslotting advice when using single origin enhancements (SO). The latest update has made it easier than ever to start using SOs from level 2 and to keep them up to date within the manage enhancements screen. Doing task forces and other content that awards you with reward merits will can easily find SOs use to level 50. Just turn the reward merits into enhancement converters at merit vendors and sell the converters on the market for around 60k each. This is a good method if you don’t want to bother with crafting or with the invention system. If you do want to get a start on invention origin enhancements you can start with level 25 common IOs. They are roughly equivalent to an SO, but they don’t lose effectiveness as you level. Since they have about the same power as an SO you would follow the same slotting guidelines as SOs. If you want to get into set IO with bonuses, the sky is the limit. Your best bet in that case is to pick an archetype and powerset combo and then ask for specific build advice in the applicable archetype forums. The inventions system can be daunting, but once you get the hang of it a whole new part of the game opens up to you (build making). It is very enjoyable for some, including me. Downloading MIDs Reborn Hero Designer from the tools and utilities forum helps out with building set IO toons.

I think I’m in this crowd. It may not be a perfect system, but it’s not broken. It’s also certainly not the only game that doesn’t allow name duplicates. I think the risks described by the GM heavily outweigh any benefits of a name release system. Imagine how frustrated you would be if your main name got taken while you were playing or the next morning. Imagine having 1000 hours on the character, playing it every day, and all of sudden the name is gone because the devs instituted an unnecessary name release policy. Then imagine all the support tickets that the GMs would have to wade through to get things set straight. Some people may send in false tickets saying their name was taken only to try to take if from someone else who legitimately has the name. Then imagine if that ticket went through the support wars that would ensue. Even if this type of thing didn’t happen, which I highly doubt it wouldn’t, there would still probably be a bunch of support tickets opened and arguments over names. Any policy that is instituted should check for any account activity in a long period of time (at least a year) and should exclude all level 50s at a minimum. It’s honestly just not worth all the risk in my opinion. Yes, there are names that I want too, but I wasn’t fast enough to get them. Tough luck, it’s the same in a lot of games.

I agree that OwtS is generally skippable. I don’t take it on my shield characters. However, I’m sure some people like taking it.

That is a fair point, but I have never regretted skipping it.

1. I never pay head to what leadership powers, if any, the team leader is using. On any given team, there is more likely than not going to be some leadership toggles going. I don’t really think you need to worry about people questioning your leadership power pick choices. 2. Go with whatever epic primary most interests you. You might consider a patron epic pool instead. Hop over to red side, complete the arc and you gain access to the patron pools. Mu mastery is a popular pick that features lightning attacks some of which are aoe (ball lightning and electrified fences). 3. Brute vs tanker choice is purely up to you. Both do perfectly fine in pretty much all content. Tanker will be tougher and brutes will do more damage. But the variances aren’t as great as some make them out to be. Tankers still do great damage and brutes can still be built super tough. 4. For endurance woes, you have energize to help a lot with any endurance issues. I’d also look to slotting the endurance proc IOs (numinas regen/Rec, performance shifter +end, miracle + rec, panacea +hp/end) before turning to power picks. Now, to chime in on the discussion of chasing defense on resist based toons. I disagree entirely that weave and maneuvers are wasted power picks, especially on armors that have no native defense. Defense as a whole is probably the best source of mitigation. So even having only some defense is much better than none. The only time I skip the leadership pool is if I don’t need maneuvers to fit in all 5 LOTG + rech and/or don’t need it to reach defense softcaps. Otherwise I always take it because it is one of the most valuable pool picks. On my resistance based armors I take and a lot weave and maneuvers and get both +def global IOs at a minimum. With other general slotting you will likely accumulate some additional s/l/m defenses as a by product of various sets often chosen for melee, pbaoe, and resist sets. It would be surprising to not have over 20% defense to those categories and is pretty easy to get to 40% or even softcap to either s/l or melee defense on resistance based armors. I personally shoot for 32.5% s/l or melee defense on my resistance armors. That puts me a small purple away from softcap. The difference in mitigation is certainly noticeable. That said, if you don’t want to chase defense that is perfectly fine. You will still do fine. But, depending on your budget, you may find that you want to take weave/maneuvers if for no other reason than to use for LOTG + rech.

I’m sorry that your computer is giving you issues. But man, 7 years?! I may just have rotten luck with computers, but I’m lucky if they even turn on in 3-4 years. I treat my computers good. I literally only play 3-4 games on mine and that’s it. I keep them cool. I keep them clean. But the last 3 laptops I’ve purchased all had major issues within 1 year of purchase and all had critical hardware failures within 3 years. I make sure to research them and read reviews. Sure, I try to get good specs for the money, but I still read reviews on every platform I can. I may honestly just keep getting lemons. That’s a possibility. But if I could get my computers to last for 7 years I’d be ecstatic. Anyway, from my bad luck experience, I’d say it may be time for a new computer. Still, 7 years ain’t a bad run for a computer!

I always appreciate your tests and the work you do to put out great information. And even though I have some concerns about people trying to draw conclusions from this test that don’t really take the parameters into account, I still think this test provides great information. That said, I do think patching holes could result in a lot of differences. Getting SR defenses maxed out and some baseline resists make it immortal in my experience. Shield defense can get softcapped defenses on top of close to or capped resistance to a lot of types with set bonuses and some additional pool powers. It is one of the best tanker primaries because it is so darned tough on top of having great offense when built out. I think you’re right in saying that invulnerability will always be tougher than fiery aura. But, I don’t think invulnerability will ever approach fiery aura’s offensive potential. Fiery aura can get to a point with sets and pool powers that it is tough enough and then it’s offensive power starts to truly shine. I’m not saying it’s better than invulnerability just a different focus is all. So, it just comes back to people using your test as I’m sure you intended. To get a good idea for baseline toughness of sets. But not to draw universal conclusions, such as stone is overpowered and shield is underpowered. Which you did call out, but there have still been a few claims posted in this thread (not sure if all of them were jokes or not).

Exactly this. I understand what the test is showing and it is interesting data to have. I appreciate the efforts and it’s nice to know baseline performance. However, as I stated in an earlier post, people need to take this test for what it is and only for what it is. All conclusions drawn from the test need to be constrained to the actual testing parameters and not applied to game play as a whole. I get what @Pizzamuraiis saying. Even if you ignore tanking mechanics and the secondary as a whole, you still have a completely different picture once full set builds are on the table (ie SR and shield are amazing when built out).

No, build up should not change for stalkers. The ATO gives it pretty good uptime and it changing them wouldn’t do any good. I enjoy follow up and blinding feint, but I will play scrapper if I want those. I really enjoy soul drain and that would be the only one I might consider replacing build up if I had the choice. Still probably wouldn’t because it would break hide. So, if I want soul drain, I’ll play a scrapper. If there is anything that stalkers don’t really need anymore it is placate. But, even that is debatable because I’m sure there are still plenty of people that use it.

After reading some of the suggestions I thought I’d chime in again. I am all for new content and harder mode options. However, I am completely against anything that is not optional. So, nerfing IOs or adding buffed enemies in various factions to combat defenses, etc. I’m fully against those solutions because it takes options away from players rather than giving them options. It forces all players to play by the new rules rather than only the players that want to. So, any new difficulty addition should be an optional setting that can be freely chosen by the individual or team leader. Give more notoriety options. Give radio/contact missions the flashback options to increase difficulty. But do not place something in the game that is a universal increase in difficulty that the player cannot opt out of. Many people enjoy being a super than can take on hordes of enemies. Many people enjoy the difficulty level the way it is now. Some people even think it is too difficult as is. The answer is not to remove options, but to give more options. The key word though is options.

My personal favorite pairing is dark melee/shield defense. I prefer this on scrappers, but this should also do very well on brutes. Between AAO, soul drain, and fury you should have quite the damage bonus rolling. You can never go wrong with dark melee/shield defense.

I’m not with my computer right now, so can’t check my builds. Although stalker savage may do more damage (this is pretty much true of most shared sets), the scrapper version still does very good damage. Savage isn’t a slouch on scrappers. I think I only skipped confront and shred on savage. Savage has enough AoE to not pick up shred. I never take confront on scrappers. For shield I generally only skip grant cover and one with the shield. I have shifted to using rune of protection over one with the shield because of its better up time and it gives a good boost to mitigation.

Well, I’m eating my earlier words. The biggest reason I haven’t used WOs in most of my builds is because of how expensive they are and the fact that they don’t give +rech bonuses. Since their price has tanked one of those hurdles is gone. So I decided to make a character that has two sets. Therefore I bought 16 packs. I don’t have all the data, but I do have the highlights. -25 merits total -over 500 brainstorm ideas -a lot of inspirations and temp powers -20 Winter O’s I am using 6 of the WOs and will sit on the other 14 until they start selling for 20m+ again. So, in the end, it will be profitable. I’m tempted to buy more, but at the same time don’t feel like sitting on most of my potential wealth for 8 months because I make new toons and kit them out so often. Cant afford to not be liquid.

I wouldn’t say no to new content, however, the difficulty of the said content should be optional so as not to exclude certain types of players. I would also like more difficulty options. The thing I want most is a boss only notoriety option.

Scorpion shield gives a huge start on typed defense for s/l/e, which covers the mass majority of attacks in the game. Getting the set bonuses to finish softcapping those types becomes pretty easy once you pick up scorpion shield.

People have been claiming they can farm 6m per minute? I think even before the patrol xp double influence nerf a while back the top earners weren’t anywhere close to that. I’m pretty sure they topped out at 2-3m per minute. I may be wrong though (I’ll have to check the thread). Subsequent to the nerf influence gain is a fair amount less than before. Perhaps if people get consistently a lot good drops (lots of defense, pvp, and purple recipes) they can earn upwards of 100m per hour. I’m not buying the 360m per hour for a minute.