Another_Fan

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Only stupid griefers brag about doing it. So if even if they get banned, it doesn't make much of a dent in the jerk population.

They need to go a step further, do some datamining, and ban anyone who habitually 1 or 0 stars arcs they haven't even started.

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Far better to just make it impossible to rate without at least having been in the arc. The game really doesnt need to encourage people to leave

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The above assessments are pretty much bang on. It's got plenty of AoE and really shines on teams because of that. ST damage is decent, but few in number which can be irritating. Cones take a little getting used to. Having your tier 9 available every mob is nice. Ignite is potent, if you can keep the npc still (ie. immob'd or held).

Conceptually it matches up nicely with /Dev, although synergy-wise it's probably better paired with /Energy.

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Honestly, I never really liked the pairing of any blaster secondaries w/ AR. What I wanted out of an Ar blaster I pretty much got out of a SoA "Huntsman" build...

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I always found it amazing that SOA feel more blastery than blasters much of the time. Certainly pre IO. Its especially so considering dev statements that they didn't want squishies to be able to get unsquishy via the invention system.

Subdual would probably serve better with a recharge accuracy IO or an Acc/Dam HO. If you can't hit it, it dont'

You can drop the chance of neg energy from ranged shot. You can probably drop ranged shot all together move the apocalypse set to aimed shot, take snap shot and put a decimation set in or take world of confusion and put in a coercive persuasion and still come out way ahead.


Drop the chance of knockdown from rain of arrows unless you want to add that slot from ranged shot there. Poping the ragnarok in instead of kncokdown will give you 10% more damage from the power

If you aren't concerned about additional recharge on explosive 3 damage/acc hamis

Put two blessing of the zyphers in fly and put a celerity in sprint

Drain psyche could use more accuracy unless you plan on firing off aim before it every time.

Thats just what leaps out at me.

Milady's

All the lecturing and browbeating in the world doesn't change the fact that many don't like the market and don't think it meshes well with the rest of the game.

That is no myth.

The devs in recent issues seem to have seen fit to accomodate that. Instead of trying to argue these people into liking the market, its probably best to try and think of ways that the market can be made better for everyone.

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1. Most people are here to be the superhero or the supervillain.

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Then it's their tough luck they chose to play super-being in an MMO format, because economies are an integral component of the genre.

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Having to deal with the market ends the fun and starts the work.

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Nonsense.
You can become quite rich doing nothing but selling drops. No special knowlege or skill required, simply hit the market instead of the vendor.
Voila, wealth!

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Faced with having to stop punching face and start plugging numbers into a boring interface, many players end up feeling frustrated with the very paradigm of the market.

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Oh well.
It's an MMO first and foremost.
If you aren't willing to submit to the structure of the game type, that isn't the game's fault.

The problem with CoH isn't that it has a market, it's that it took them 9 issues to ship one.

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2. A better system could have been implemented. Just look at how you can buy rare salvage with Tickets. That's how the whole system should work instead of a market.

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That fails at the main gameplay goal of the market- minigame timesink.

That they added merits and tickets at all to appease the crybabies and entitlement cases is a travesty, but an understandable one given their refusal to redress factional market discrepancies in the only logical way.

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You're rewarded for playing the game instead of playing the market.

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Bad news Sunshine, the market is the game.
So is PvP.
So is MA.
So is base building.
etc etc etc.

Take your litmus tests for determining 'real' gamers somewhere else, that bunk doesn't fly around here.


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The market encourages distrust of other players.

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Now you're just freewheeling off road through the desert.

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They always suspect they're being taken advantage of when dealing with the market (and sometimes they're right).

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How so, when THEY determine the price they pay?
Or are they somehow griefing themselves, in your bizarre alternate world?

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LOL from a man who describes his marketing activity as periodically checking his traps.

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Look, you have to understand where the market haters are coming from. I myself am a reluctant marketer. Essentially I only use the market because it's the only realistic way for you to get complete IO sets (sure you can get them with Merits, but that would take a very long time given the IO recipe Merit costs). If there were another, I'd happily use it instead. Right now, there's not. Making rare salvage available with Tickets was a big step in the right direction.

So why do people dislike it? Is it because they simply lack the knowledge/insight required to use it to its potential? No, that is one of the least reasons.

1. Most people are here to be the superhero or the supervillain. They're not here to be capitalists (even though there's nothing wrong with being a capitalist). Having to deal with the market ends the fun and starts the work. Sure, you can ignore it. If you don't mind being stuck with SOs. Faced with having to stop punching face and start plugging numbers into a boring interface, many players end up feeling frustrated with the very paradigm of the market. Remember that scene in The Incredibles when the main character is working for the insurance company, hears someone who needs help outside, but can do nothing about it because he's stuck at work? That is how a lot of people view the market.

2. A better system could have been implemented. Just look at how you can buy rare salvage with Tickets. That's how the whole system should work instead of a market. You're rewarded for playing the game instead of playing the market. In the current system, you're much more handsomely rewarded for playing the market. That's broken. A drop-trading system would have worked better, too (eg, any rare IO could be traded at a store for any other rare IO).

3. The market encourages distrust of other players. This is where that lack of knowledge comes in. Most players don't read the forums. They always suspect they're being taken advantage of when dealing with the market (and sometimes they're right). The game should never make people feel like this, it's bad for the community.

4. The market brought spam. IOs are partially responsible, but I'm sure playing the market makes a great way to generate Inf for gold sellers to farm up and sell. The market was ready-made for gold sellers, really.

I'm sure there are other reasons other people who question the market have too, but you can see here it isn't simple lack of knowledge that does it (though that can be a contributing factor, but only one among many).

Here's hoping you can buy specific recipes with Tickets and the Merit costs of specific recipes gets reduced from current, ridiculous levels. And here's hoping the market can be bypassed entirely with future modifications to the game along those lines. Until then I'll still use it...begrudgingly.

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QFT

Currently the marketeer needs the casual player and many of the casual don't want the marketeer.

This was very difficult for me to understand as I viewed the market as just another mini game to play even if it wasnt a very good one.

The problem is the rabidly pro market people see any attempt to allow casuals to get away from the market as an attack on their play style. The bigger problem is they are right

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See, exactly. It's easy to drive up prices – just keep buying and deleting. Making a profit on it is a much harder proposition.

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You can make money as long you create waves and ride them. Buy and vend to fuel the initial operation.

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Mental I have very little experience with. Like the Psi primary, though, you have the issue of a heavily resisted damage type.

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I think you are confused, Psy is one of the least resisted dmg types. It is only HIGHLY resisted when you fight other Psy types (i.e. Carnie)

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Oh did you mention that to the robots or the banished pantheon ?

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Wasn't sure where else to post this...will Going Rogue have a graphical overhaul similar to what CoV had at launch?

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Everything will have a new reddish tint

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Maybe he'd rather use his powers that he has obtained and kill some mobs rather than play the market. Some people like the market, some don't. Funny how marketeers take it so personally that everyone don't want to do it too.

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There is a reason for that. The market functions better the more people participate.

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-Can IO's really provide scrapper, even TANK like defense?


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Yes.

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-Can anybody here go toe-to-toe with a tank pvp and win using these sets?


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No the max defense you can have on a blaster in pvp is now about 18%. Thank you castle. Forget about resistance as well while you are at it.

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-Is it worth it?


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PVE Yes more than worth it.

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-Or should I just skip defense and go for more damage?

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Recharge recharge recharge then spamn high damage powers. Its really nice to have an attack chain that is Aim+Bu+(Blaze)^9

If you want more damage take assault. Its the cheapest way to get an extra 10%

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Go into atlas now and look how many 20s 30s 40s and 50s you will find looking for team.

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I have. It's way, way down from where it was.


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I don't 'do' Another Fan any more, but can't help chiming in to note that the proof of Uber's statements is in the pudding.

Market prices on recipes that were 'crashed' by runaway farming have bounced back.

Anyone can see this, it doesn't rely on anecdotal MA head counts- stuff that was selling for 10k is back up to 6 million.

Cratered supply = way less farming, period.

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Lol thank you for making my point.

I have to wonder though how I manage to be on both your ignore list and your obsess over list.

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Well, considering that he seems to have an obsession with talking about his ignore list, it might be impossible to not be on both.

I was going to say though, if there is anything that might give you some pause to rethink your argument, it would be who you suddenly find yourself allied with.



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LOL if it was politics, ethics, morals, or even simple etiquette I would seek professional help imediately*. But give the man his due he knows market pricing.

The only time I have seen him really wrong was on the random roll. That was just a case of someone talking up their book and trying to look out for personal self interest. After all if people aren't getting things they don't want and don't know the value of, its kind of hard to take them off them cheap then flip them.

* I am kind of alarmed his position aligns with mine in the farming thread

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Go into atlas now and look how many 20s 30s 40s and 50s you will find looking for team.

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I have. It's way, way down from where it was.


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I don't 'do' Another Fan any more, but can't help chiming in to note that the proof of Uber's statements is in the pudding.

Market prices on recipes that were 'crashed' by runaway farming have bounced back.

Anyone can see this, it doesn't rely on anecdotal MA head counts- stuff that was selling for 10k is back up to 6 million.

Cratered supply = way less farming, period.

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Lol thank you for making my point.

I have to wonder though how I manage to be on both your ignore list and your obsess over list.

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The farmers had already moved on. The PLers were what were making up the majority of people in the AEs. When they left the farmers and the less public PLers were still there, but the point of all this is that PLing dropped off dramatically.

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In an absolute sense yes, in terms of percentage of AE use that is not so apparent. AE use is overall down post nerf and ticket cap but as far as I can see the big use is still to gain fast xp or fast tickets. If anything I am seeing more XP oriented farming than I did before. (I am perfectly aware that I am a sample of 1 and rather biased to begin with).

There is also something I am seeing now that I never saw pre nerf, which is teams going into AE farm missions and staying there after they have hit the ticket caps. During the meow mania individuals who hit their caps would run out and grab a couple of gold rolls run back in. If a team hit the bonus max they would pile out or complete the mission reset and move on. Now I see teams even more focused on the xp that don't seem to give a hoot about efficient earning strategies.

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But this is my main point. If you're teaming with a tank, killing off all the minions and lessers baddies right away with your nuke, when there is an AV to kill, is sometimes bad for the tank. For instance an Ice tank, needs at least 3 sometimes up to 10 targets to use Energy Absorption on to refill his endurance bar and gain a much needed defensive boost. You are not helping him by removing all the minions first and leaving him take the brunt of the AV damage with nothing to EA.


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LOL I thought we were talking about soloing when I wrote my reply

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Yeah, guess what? Meow farming went on for a couple of weeks before the ticket fix. So are you claiming all those people looking for 8-man teams before the ticket fix still farming for tickets at ~1/64th the rate of doing it solo?


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The ticket fix was what caused the explosion. Prior to that all boss map or all lieutenant maps were the way to go depending on your abilities.

Second your math is in error. First you are neglecting the direct inf drops which was averaging around 4 to 4.5 million a run. A team of 8 could easily clear those maps in less than 15 minutes a reasonable team where everyone had at least some AOE could clear it in less than 10. This gives conservatively 24 million inf an hour. Pre ticket fix you are neglecting inf income.

Post ticket fix, the inf income was the same but in addition 3K+ tickets a run on a team of 8 were common results. This gives 18k/hr and 24 million inf.

Hardly what you are trying portray as a horrible rate of return.

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I was in that thread, and I posted numbers as well. You never disputed them. Hoewver, this whole ad-homenim retort of yours is negated by the response below, since it addresses how you here have convenviently ignored part of my post above.


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No you are comparing applles and oranges. The point was never that ticket farming was all of meow farming just that it was a very large part. The combination of the comm officers plus the patch pumped it up, now it has moved on to farming level 53 enemies boss maps and other tactics that are designed to maximize tickets+inf/time

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Actually, yeah, low level is where ticket farming pays off the most.

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Should have warned you agreeing with me is verbotten on this board.

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I have. It's way, way down from where it was.

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Everything is way down on MA from where it was. Overall usage on servers in general is down. We were talking percentage

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I saw nothing that indicated that the majority of people were coming along on the ride for tickets. This was especially true when being on a large team diluted ticket drops worse than standard drops. (Ticket rates were related to the inverse of team size squared). For essentially the whole of the time that the Meow farm was available, if you were farming tickets on a large team you were really ignorant or unobservant.

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Seeing as I did the numbers and was the person that posted them here you are quite off base. Are you trying to adopt Nethergoats style of argument where you just become endlessly insulting until the other person is too ticked off to respond ?

After the ticket fix it became exceptionally advantageous in both terms of inf and tickets to farm in large teams that could clear quickly. The patch pretty much completely eliminated the penalties for large teams and actually gave a significant bonus.

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No one got the memo? i15 is going to have an MA channel. This would solve most of the farm spam in broadcast.

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LOL 15 seconds after it goes live the MA loons will be whining there is too much spam on the MA channel

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Power leveling and exploit maps are not the same thing. There was overlap but there were plenty of people going onto a comm officer map just to grab tickets.

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I'm sure all those "L12 Dom LF meow team" were in it for the tickets.

Did you actually read what you quoted there? Ticket farmers weren't filling the MAs with characters under-level for the zones they were in.

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Go into atlas now and look how many 20s 30s 40s and 50s you will find looking for team. The ticket farmers were running below level missions in mass because the comm officers paid incredibly well. The numbers were something like 4 million inf/15 minute run on an 8 man map and about 3k+ tickets. thats 1 1/3 merits/min equivalent and heck of a lot more inf.

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Supposedly the drop rate is a 1 in 5000 chance.

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Where is that from ?

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My Psi/MM has been great fun. I've soloed up to lvl 27, on Rugged, and have faceplanted about twice. No grueling uphill slog, no frustrations, just pink death and villains bleeding from their ears.

If you want an AoE monster, roll a different primary. But blasting ain't just about the AoE.

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Thats absolutely amazing. I don't think I could go through the first 27 levels on anything without face planting more than that.

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Might want to add a note about when is and is not the proper time to use your nuke. A new blaster will probably need to know this.

IE, it's never a good idea to start off an AV fight by nuking.

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Rain of arrows and full auto are both great for clearing the battlefield of the lesser annoyances and damaging the av, blizzard as well

8 days in may.

Must be inflation

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It is rather telling. From that data, it seems that most players are inclined to rate favorably, but a core group is determined to downrate higher rated arcs. Unfortunate, but unsurprising.

I don't even look through rated arcs anymore -- I scroll through the arcs that have never been played or rated looking for something that piques my interest. I've found some really good arcs that way, but it's time-consuming. Though a little reading never hurt anyone.



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Really ? So if 60% of the arcs aren't 5* the system isn't working ?

Seems that data shows most of the stories are horribly overrated

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Actually, the most reasonable interpretation of the data is that statistically speaking the average rater perceives the average arc to be closer to 3.6 stars rather than 3 stars, and ratings skew towards that number. The curve is also much sharper than expected for a normal distribution, which implies that the skew is quite strong (suggesting people are reluctant to give out 5s, 2s, and 1s).


(also, there is some evidence to suggest that zero-star ratings are very rare; given that doing so requires special knowledge of how the rating system works, this is not unexpected)

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Actually with the situation you describe its much more likely that people are given out alot of 4 star ratings because they don't want to give the arc a bad rating but don't think its very good.

If there is raw data perhaps more could be read into it. Seeing as it hasn't been presented there is little to discuss.