The Officially Unofficial Weekly Discussion #72: What content you do that you don't enjoy but do for a reward?

[DougGraves]

I'm not talking about shopping, slotting, or other activities that are actual chores.

 

But what TF's, missions, or other content do you do that is presumably  supposed to be fun but isn't and you just do it for the reward?

[JasperStone]

Shadow Shard TFs ... blergh.

[Hedgefund]

This is easy for me - MSRs.  I want 2 pieces of loot that can only be acquired by VMs (+10 salvage and the big bot) and 1 that can most effectively be acquired by VMs (Grai Matter) and VMs are, by far, most effectively acquired via MSRs, so I grin and bear it for 45ish minutes (accounting for assembling, pylons, grates and bowl) for each character as I play a mini game of "how much time is left in the raid now?" where I try to guess what's left on the clock.  

 

I actually don't care for anything with the invasion mechanics, whether Zombie, Nemesis or Rikti.  Rikti at least have a good reward with the click accolade.

[kelika2]

13 minutes ago, Hedgefund said:

(Grai Matter)

I started street sweeping in RWZ for those instead of shipraiding myself.  The level 50s littered around the ship have a decent droprate

[JasperStone]

43 minutes ago, Hedgefund said:

This is easy for me - MSRs.  I want 2 pieces of loot that can only be acquired by VMs (+10 salvage and the big bot) and 1 that can most effectively be acquired by VMs (Grai Matter) and VMs are, by far, most effectively acquired via MSRs, so I grin and bear it for 45ish minutes (accounting for assembling, pylons, grates and bowl) for each character as I play a mini game of "how much time is left in the raid now?" where I try to guess what's left on the clock.  

 

I actually don't care for anything with the invasion mechanics, whether Zombie, Nemesis or Rikti.  Rikti at least have a good reward with the click accolade.

I used to do them alot... now not at all.

Kinda worn out.

Annoys me that I need to if I want the explore badge for the zone.

[lemming]

Doing the stat accolades, though lately the one I resent the most are fake nemesis.   The other defeats tend to just happen, but that one I have to go hunt down a bunch (Usually via Pandora)

[Lunar Ronin]

23 minutes ago, lemming said:

Doing the stat accolades, though lately the one I resent the most are fake nemesis.   The other defeats tend to just happen, but that one I have to go hunt down a bunch (Usually via Pandora)

 

If you don't mind going red side, do High Pain Threshold instead.  It's both faster and easier.  Takes me about a hour total.

[Latex]

Stat accolades get boring the 5th time doing it. I follow Blackhearts guide to get it done in a few hours solo but it's still a chore.

[lemming]

31 minutes ago, Lunar Ronin said:

If you don't mind going red side, do High Pain Threshold instead.  It's both faster and easier.  Takes me about a hour total.

I really should.  That and Invader are easier than the blue side accolades.  I may modify my routes.

[Yomo Kimyata]

I am sufficiently post-reward enough to say "nothing".  That said, there is a lot of the content that I actually enjoy doing for the sake of the content, but if I'm not feeling it, I'm not doing it.  And the timing matters -- I like doing TFs but I'm more likely to do the ones that are weekly since I'll certainly have access to a bigger pool of teammates.

 

[KaizenSoze]

Synapse

Shadow Shard

Anything PvP badge related

 

[Clave Dark 5]

4 hours ago, Latex said:

Stat accolades get boring the 5th time doing it. I follow Blackhearts guide to get it done in a few hours solo but it's still a chore.

They don't provide that much, just skip em, I bet you'll never miss em. I know I don't.

[Greycat]

Nothing. If I don't enjoy it, I don't do it. *shrug* What "it" may be changes over time. Used to do a bunch of MSRs, now it's rare. I'll do them again later when I get the itch again. I just don't really care about "rewards." I care about time with friends in game, RP and developing stories.

[macskull]

Accolades.

[ZorkNemesis]

Surprised no one has said Patron arcs yet.  I never hear anything positive about them, people always just blitz Black Scorpion's arc and then never speak of it again.

[cranebump]

Synapse. Citadel. Most of the TFs actually.

[macskull]

1 hour ago, ZorkNemesis said:

Surprised no one has said Patron arcs yet.  I never hear anything positive about them, people always just blitz Black Scorpion's arc and then never speak of it again.

For me, BS's arc is fast enough that I don't see it as a drag, and I get a few merits for my trouble. Of course, I almost never go with patron pools anymore, so that may have something to do with it.

[Worm_Kalpa]

Hardcase.

 

Let me explain. 

 

Hardcase is a redside contact with different sets of missions for the 30-34 and 35-39 level bands.  The predominant enemy group you fight in Hardcase's missions are the wailers.  Flavorwise, they play a key role to the St. Martial and Johnny Sonata plot but the different types of wailers vary so little in appearance that they get boring to look at very quickly.  Wailers are mechanically dull except they have ranged sonic attacks so they debuff your resistance and boss- and EB-class wailers can revive and you have to fight them all over again.  Fighting them as a squishy can go downhill very quickly.

 

Hardcase offers no badges, no interesting story arcs (although there is some neat dialogue here and there), and your character feels like his apprentice rat catcher given the crap jobs.  However, Hardcase does have one interesting reward.  The Demon Box temporary power.  Go and read the page, not many powers have different effects depending on your character's origin.

 

I collect temporary powers on a lot of my high-level characters.  The mission that rewards the Demon Box temp power is in the 30-34 level band and is a standalone mission not connected to any story arcs.  So you can't do it in Ouroboros.  You see where this is going?  That means having to play through Hardcase's missions and hoping that you get the 'Defeat Pandora and minions' mission before having to trudge through any of his story arcs.

 

I'm fine with getting accolades, Synapse TF, going through Praetoria, even doing the Dr. Graves and Twinshot arcs.  But those wailers...  I don't know what bizarre mental affliction compels me to get the Demon Box temp power.  But it is a massive relief once I get it. 

 

Whoa, I had that bottled up for awhile lol

 

 

Edited March 31 by Worm_Kalpa

[MonteCarla]

I like soloing Dr Q and Justine Augustine. I've really enjoyed Sara Moore and Faathim with a team. (And the Shard TFs will also unlock the Fake Nemesis "Unveiler" badge, so another chore down)

I enjoy Synapse with a PUG, always a good chance to chat with the team.

Same with Citadel, and I take a perverse pleasure in Numina's TF and organising people for the hunts.

 

Patron arcs... ehhh... not super-fond of them, so they always fall under "doing it for the rewards", even if I RP a reason to go undercover in character.

Hero Tips in the 20s! I don't like a lot of those missions particularly. Fighting Sky Raiders, CoT ghosts and Banished Pantheon before I've got my global accuracy up can be a pain. But I always feel obliged to do them to get my 40 merits and most importantly, get Call to Justice counting down quickly.

And Striga! I did the first arc for the Wedding Ring recently (and haven't used it since). I often do the last arc to unlock Hess TF via Ouro, before its the weekly. But they really are dull missions full of dull enemies in a grey rainy map.

 

Oh, and occasional defeat hunts like taking down 100 Family bosses in Striga docks to score the Untouchable badge

 

 

Edited March 31 by MonteCarla

[SeraphimKensai]

Hami.

 

At this point it's not fun to me, but I do it for the rewards/time. I used to be in an SG that had mandatory Hami raid nights multiple times a week back during the live era and we did it a lot. To the point that I had a couple mule accounts just loaded to the gills to hold hamis.

 

That was before reward merits, IOs, etc. it worked out though because once the AH came out my stockpile of HOs became super valuable and my mules quickly all got up to influence cap selling them.

 

Fast forward to today. A raid you can get a HO or 80 merits, or repeat for another 40 merits. Given the amount of time it takes to kill Hami it's one of the quicker and easier methods to stockpile reward merits and then some HOs have a good resale value so it also can be beneficial to play roulette and see if you win a decent HO (quite a few of them have over market saturation and sell for garbage).

 

At this point I don't really like Hami anymore, but I still go through the motions 19 years later. I've been a raid leader, main tank, empath, blaster when we did the snipe method, pa drop team, and every role under the current version of Hami as well.

 

I'll likely keep raiding because the rewards though.

[StarseedWarrior]

Task forces rewards are to little for the amount of time they can take people should not have to speed run so much to shorten it, they just need to shorten them all together or find a way to let you keep progress after a certain point.

[Snarky]

mother ship raids  for the badges.  yet i do not think i have it on a single character.  4...5...8...never 10  i hate this thing

[ZorkNemesis]

1 hour ago, MonteCarla said:

Oh, and occasional defeat hunts like taking down 100 Family bosses in Striga docks to score the Untouchable badge

 

This badge is awful, I recently chased it and after mulling about in Striga with no success I just fired up Shauna Braun's arc on x8 players to get the bosses.  There are no good pre-shutdown sources of Family for bluesiders it seems.

[lemming]

2 hours ago, Snarky said:

mother ship raids  for the badges.  yet i do not think i have it on a single character.  4...5...8...never 10  i hate this thing

I have them on my badge char.  Doubtful I have them on many others

[Biff Pow]

I try to get through the Incarnate arcs for the component rewards (then I end up getting a Common one!) but they get repetitive after the first couple times and some of the missions are long. It will sometimes take weeks to get through them because I take breaks and play other characters.