Would anyone be interested in playing an SO only build with SO only teammates?

[Bionic_Flea]

15 minutes ago, ZemX said:

I'd seriously consider @Rathulfr's suggestion about common IOs too.   Up to level 35, you're not exceeding what SOs can do.  You're just removing the tedium of upgrading them. 

It's all on the honor system, so follow your conscience.  I agree that lower level generic IOs are close enough to SOs.  35s might be a tad too strong as part of the SO life is them degrading somewhat.  But a mix of 35s and lowers evens that out.  It's rare to be +3 all the time . . . and expensive!  But anything over 35 is definitely much better than SOs. 

[AboveTheChemist]

It seems reasonable to allow/use lower level IOs, but I enjoy marketeering enough that I think it will be fun to try to self-fund SO upgrades by playing the market (as others have alluded to).

[Hew]

2 hours ago, Bionic_Flea said:

Made it to level 6 and finished Prince Kiros Nandelu's set of missions and got the next one, Juan Jimenez from King's Row. 

Wait. This is supposed to be BLUE side?!

[Bionic_Flea]

Play wherever you want.  I went blue side.

[ZemX]

I started an Ice/Rad Stalker, "Critical Missy" on Excelsior (variant of my Ice/Shield Stalker on Everlasting).  Teamed up with Flea for a short bit at 7-9.  I used 2xp to catch up a bit and gave myself a 1mil starter bonus.  I am interested in the SO-only build and not really any other challenge stuff.  I'll probably at least sell off converters for cash when I need it.

[Rathulfr]

A few of my alts have separate builds that are SO-only (or with level 25/30/35 common IOs), precisely for this kind of game play.  I guess I imagined that I'd start or join a group with similar parameters, such as "no IO sets or Incarnates slotted".  But that hasn't happened for me yet.

 

[Snarky]

I am very interested in theory. The logistics would be challenging. I already have a couple ideas on what i could run.  I ran Brutes on mostly SO builds for a long time.  Are there certain possible schedule times you are thinking?

[ZemX]

10 hours ago, Snarky said:

The logistics would be challenging.

 

I don't know if it will end up being a regular time thing.  I'm central U.S. and work during the day.  Might be just a "soloing unless people are on at the same time" thing for me.

[Snarky]

2 minutes ago, ZemX said:

 

I don't know if it will end up being a regular time thing.  I'm central U.S. and work during the day.  Might be just a "soloing unless people are on at the same time" thing for me.

Possibly an all SO SG then? That way there would be a way to easily connect with anyone doing the project...

 

(and I personally think simple I/O with no set bonuses, just recharge, end reduction, etc count.  Just my vote)

[ZemX]

26 minutes ago, Snarky said:

Possibly an all SO SG then?

 

That would make it easier to track people's levels when they're not on their SO characters, yeah.  I created one for myself last night, since I have no other alts on Excelsior, called "SOLucky" and put in a few basic items. 

 

As for common IOs, I will probably slot a mix of 25s and 30s when I get in that range.   I'm not so nostalgic that I want to maintain and upgrade SOs all the way to 50 just to experience the up/down and occasional red-out while on a mission. Though these days I guess it's as easy as visiting the enhancement window with cash to fix that.  

[Snarky]

1 minute ago, ZemX said:

 

That would make it easier to track people's levels when they're not on their SO characters, yeah.  I created one for myself last night, since I have no other alts on Excelsior, called "SOLucky" and put in a few basic items. 

 

As for common IOs, I will probably slot a mix of 25s and 30s when I get in that range.   I'm not so nostalgic that I want to maintain and upgrade SOs all the way to 50 just to experience the up/down and occasional red-out while on a mission. Though these days I guess it's as easy as visiting the enhancement window with cash to fix that.  

I never used I/Os on my original year to year and half of CoV SO Brutes.  I did not understand them. I did not want to pay for them.  I would wait until 22 to SO. Then 28 to slap on the next layer, etc.  Stubborn.  Still Stubborn.  Having said that the slight power creep on using I/Os are nerfed by the fact people using them tend to not upgrade.  I would slam cash down onto an SO  build from an alt farmer and upgrade EVERY LEVEL.  Well within the rules and costing me a few minutes in a farm.

 

As far as an SG goes I cannot see another option.  But again, I am set in my ways and stubborn.  Someone else might set up a Discord or another way to group. But without a set running time each week I do not see this going well.  The team should be levelling together or really what is the point?

[Yomo Kimyata]

With all this renewed interest in SOs, I'm going to start working on cornering the market.  So long, suckers!

[ZemX]

55 minutes ago, Yomo Kimyata said:

With all this renewed interest in SOs, I'm going to start working on cornering the market.  So long, suckers!

 

And they call @Snarky  a villain?! 

[Bionic_Flea]

1 hour ago, Yomo Kimyata said:

With all this renewed interest in SOs, I'm going to start working on cornering the market.  So long, suckers!

 

Quick! Undercut the vendors to corner the market!

[Marine X]

I would be interested in trying this, no guarantees of my stick-too-a-tive-ness until I see how the first 10 levels go, if someone ( @Bionic_Flea? ) started a SG so we had at Least a way to see who's participating and how they are doing. I usually play during the week between 4:00-6:00 am EDT, UTC -4, so I doubt I'll see anyone. Weekends Vary, but I usually find some time between projects. Is there an AT that no one has mentioned doing for the sake of diversity?

 

[Glacier Peak]

I'd be more inclined to have a go at TE only / natural non-powered character, something like a martial arts or street justice fighter. Does anyone know if Mr. Yin will sell his Talisman Enhancements to Level 1's with the Rescuer badge?

 

Edit: Talisman Enhancements

Edited July 8, 2021 by Glacier Peak

[ZemX]

24 minutes ago, Glacier Peak said:

I'd be more inclined to have a go at TE only / natural non-powered character, something like a martial arts or street justice fighter. Does anyone know if Mr. Yin will sell his Talisman Enhancements to Level 1's with the Rescuer badge?

 

Edit: Talisman Enhancements

 

Okay, so you can go as far as 23 before they all disappear and they only cover acc, dmg, endrdx, and recharge?  As challenges go, that certainly would be one. You'll have no def/res/health enhancement in mitigation powers for a melee AT. 

 

I'd suppose it might work best (or least bad?) on a Blaster then.  Archery or Gun primaries.  Dev, Martial, Ninja, or Tac Arrow secondary?  You'd still have some powers that can't be enhanced meaningfully but it wouldn't be as bad as unslotted armor toggles on a Scrapper, I'd think.

[Glacier Peak]

1 hour ago, ZemX said:

Okay, so you can go as far as 23 before they all disappear and they only cover acc, dmg, endrdx, and recharge?  As challenges go, that certainly would be one. You'll have no def/res/health enhancement in mitigation powers for a melee AT. 

 

I'd suppose it might work best (or least bad?) on a Blaster then.  Archery or Gun primaries.  Dev, Martial, Ninja, or Tac Arrow secondary?  You'd still have some powers that can't be enhanced meaningfully but it wouldn't be as bad as unslotted armor toggles on a Scrapper, I'd think.

I could've swore that Talisman Enhancements can be boosted up like SOs now, I think that is in the patch notes some where...

[ZemX]

43 minutes ago, Glacier Peak said:

I could've swore that Talisman Enhancements can be boosted up like SOs now, I think that is in the patch notes some where...

 

I guess that depends on how the "Upgrade" button works exactly.  Does it even work on TEs or do you have to manually combine them still?  If it does work, does it ignore the fact that you can't buy higher than level 20 TEs or does it stop working at level 21?

 

If you do need to manually combine to go over level 21 then each level above that adds another 5% chance of failing since you have only level 20 purchased TEs to combine with the ones you have slotted.  But I suppose you can just consider that the cost of buying each new level of TEs.  And you're paying that every level on every slot.  Not every five.  At 40 you have zero chance to upgrade further.

 

Well... unless you unslot all those 40s and repeat the whole upgrade process.   Then you can combine your full set of slotted 40s with your unslotted 40s to produce 41s with a 100% chance of succcess.  You can imagine the cost from there. 🤪

[Glacier Peak]

2 hours ago, ZemX said:

 

I guess that depends on how the "Upgrade" button works exactly.  Does it even work on TEs or do you have to manually combine them still?  If it does work, does it ignore the fact that you can't buy higher than level 20 TEs or does it stop working at level 21?

 

If you do need to manually combine to go over level 21 then each level above that adds another 5% chance of failing since you have only level 20 purchased TEs to combine with the ones you have slotted.  But I suppose you can just consider that the cost of buying each new level of TEs.  And you're paying that every level on every slot.  Not every five.  At 40 you have zero chance to upgrade further.

 

Well... unless you unslot all those 40s and repeat the whole upgrade process.   Then you can combine your full set of slotted 40s with your unslotted 40s to produce 41s with a 100% chance of succcess.  You can imagine the cost from there. 🤪

So what it is looking like is that at Level 5 players with the Rescuer badge can purchase Talisman enhancements from Mr. Yin for 65% the price of a SO equivalent. That means upgrading will be cheaper in the long run. You are constrained to the four types of Talisman enhancements though. So no resist/defense/to-hit, etc..

[ZemX]

20 hours ago, Glacier Peak said:

So what it is looking like is that at Level 5 players with the Rescuer badge can purchase Talisman enhancements from Mr. Yin for 65% the price of a SO equivalent. That means upgrading will be cheaper in the long run. You are constrained to the four types of Talisman enhancements though. So no resist/defense/to-hit, etc..

 

Interesting.  I tested this just now with a level 20 TE Acc.   I had just slotted all level 20 SOs at level 17.  I am now level 18., so when I hit Upgrade it tells me the price of upgrading to level 21 enhancements.

 

I changed out one of the SO Acc with a TE Acc, same level 20.   Punching "Upgrade" gave me 32 enhancements that could be upgraded.  Exactly how many I had including the TE.  Used an unslotted on just the TE and it came down to 31 enhancements.  The difference in cost of the upgrade (level 20 to level 21) was 25344 inf.  Which is exactly what the wiki said an old level 21 TE acc should cost. 

 

So I guess it does auto upgrade TEs.  I'll leave it in there and see if it will keep offering to upgrade it as I earn a few more levels.  You would normally be able to 100% chance upgrade a Level 20 TE using another level 20 TE.   If it still allows this for Level 22 then it's offering an upgrade you can't normally do by hand.  Loophole? 😁

 

Edit: Got to 20 and it was still telling me it would upgrade TEs.  I'll check on the cost again with another unslotter next time I'm in and again when I'm at 22.  But it does look like it's just charging a single TE's worth of inf per enhancement to upgrade.  That's astronomically less than it would cost to do the upgrade by hand, of course.

Edited July 9, 2021 by ZemX

[Ukase]

On 7/7/2021 at 1:45 PM, Yomo Kimyata said:

 

Well, my self-funding no-market alts don't have the inf to buy and upgrade to +3 every time they level.  But yeah, they are generally cost-effective in comparison to IOs.

No-market alts and Yomo don't go together in the same sentence. What manner of heresy is this you speak? 

[ZemX]

Anyone else having a go at this?  My Ice/Rad Stalker is 20 and Flea's Tank is at least 22 last I saw him.

 

I do miss Kismet:Acc.  It's been so long, I'd forgotten it was usual to do two Acc SOs in an attack.

 

[Yomo Kimyata]

47 minutes ago, Ukase said:

No-market alts and Yomo don't go together in the same sentence. What manner of heresy is this you speak? 

 

In line with the various "challenge" threads going around, I've been pairing them with "No P2W, no AH".  Vendor only.  So, no ATOs or WOs (for example) without spending merits on them.  Eat only what you make, and so on.  I think a happy medium is one I'm doing for an Iron-themed alt:  Estate Executor made a supergroup and invited Heir Apparent.  Heir Apparent can add to or take from anything in the base.  When Heir Apparent dies, he or she or huge gets deleted, a new Heir Apparent gets made and is given the keys to the base.  And so it goes.

 

It's intellectually satisfying, challenges me with allocation of scarce resources, and demonstrates clearly (to me at least!) how simple it is to succeed at this game even without leet builds.

[ZemX]

Okay, so upgrading from TE Acc 21 to 26 cost 31,104 inf.   Which is a little odd.  That's what a normal level 26 Acc SO would probably cost.   A level 25 Acc SO is 29,952.   So maybe they just price like normal SOs to the upgrade button once past level 20?