Adeon Hawkwood

Sure, by the time we get all ten Incarnate slots I figure it will be a noticeable difference I'm just credulous about the claim that the new TFs are balanced around having the first slot.

Yep, hard to imagine a Bots/Traps (or heck ANY Traps character) who wouldn't want a 30% global recharge boost (or a little more if you underslot your powers slightly) .

The issue I have here is, is the difference going to be great enough to actually balance content around. Yes, the incarnate abilities add one or two free SOs to every power but I don't think a SO'd Incarnate is going to be more powerful than a IO'd non-Incarnate. I think he level shift is probably the largest difference but even there you'd need to be fighting enemies that are +3 or higher to the non-Incarnate to really notice the difference.

Don't get me wrong, I'm ecstatic about the new system (more toys to play with) but I'm skeptical about the claim that the new TFs will be extremely difficult without it. The variation in team strength in the current game is extreme enough that I can't see it increasing out power enough beyond what is currently possible to make it practical to balance content around having the Alpha slot.

That makes me sad, Seeker Drones rock and should be used at every opportunity . Remember the code of the trapper: If the Tank wants to take the Alpha he needs to be quick.

Yeah, when you've got a tight area to bunch mobs up in 'Trops are an excellent power.

Well, if it's anything like GR the components will be untradeable. Which is a pity because I'm sure if they weren't the OP would explain how the ebil marketeers are jacking up the prices on those.

That's kinda my feeling on the new TFs. I suspect the level shift feature of the higher level ones will be the important bit but even there I don't see it making a huge difference. I suspect it'll be something like the STF and have one or more level 54 AVs at the end (or even 55). A team with the right buffs/debuffs could still take them down but the level shift would make a difference.

STF and LRSF both give the option of a Synthetic Hami-O instead of merits (they work the same as regular HOs, just a different name). It's still a random one though.

There are four procs/globals it's worth slotting in your Assault Bot and Battle Drones (the Protector Bots have a couple more, but can't really spare the slots).
http://wiki.cohtitan.com/wiki/Edict_..._Defense_Bonus
http://wiki.cohtitan.com/wiki/Sovere...sistance_Bonus
http://wiki.cohtitan.com/wiki/Soulbo...e_for_Build_Up
http://wiki.cohtitan.com/wiki/Explos...mashing_Damage

The first three are unique, so you can only slot them in one of the two. The Build Up one should almost certainly go in your Assault Bot but for the first two the location doesn't matter (they act as a set bonus that grants you a special aura).

The Explosive Strike one is a damage proc that will proc on their attacks that deal Knockback. For the Drones this is only moderately useful (they have one Single Target KB attack), but is a lot more useful for the Assault Bot who has three KB attacks (one single target, one very small AoE and one large AoE).

Well how it works is still covered by the NDA so anyone who knows for sure can't say. That being said, the way it worked int he GR Beta (which isn't covered by the NDA) was as follows. Running any level 50 content gave you a change to get Incarnate Shards as random drops. Incarnate Shards could be crafted into Incarnate Components so while running TFs was a faster way to get components it was not the only way. Finally all Incarnate Shards and Components were untradeable. I have no clue if they have changed any of that but hopefully it assuages your fears somewhat.

Unfortunately that is not how the market works. The item selling for the lowest price is purchased by the bid with the highest offer.

You didn't specify so I'll assume A < B < C. What will happen is that the first ten items up for bid that are less than C will be purchased by you for C even if the price is less than A or B. After this you will only purchase items that are listed for less than B. Anything listed for more than B (even if less than C) will not be purchased because you've used up those bids. While there are sometimes advantages to placing bids of different values if you want to purchase all of the incoming stock you need bids at the same price.

The problem with this technique is that in general either you take a loss or you don't corner the market (especially for items which cost 2 billion, for lower items you can make a profit by popping the price for a few hours but it's not sustainable).

The problem is the market fee. When flipping (which is essentially what you are doing) your buy price cannot be higher than 90% of your sell price or you'll take a loss. Let us say you are trying to corner the market on one of the really high end PvPIOs. You place your purchase bids at 1.9 billion and you sell the results for 2 billion (making exactly zero profit on the exchange). As soon as someone puts an offer for 1,900,000,001 they will get the next one on the market, not you. If someone else comes and lists their one at 1,999,999,999 the next 2billion bid will go to them, not you.

I said this in the last thread and you didn't listen then but I will repeat myself anyway: MARKET CAPS WILL NOT HAVE THE EFFECT YOU WANT. They would sort of work for common salvage since it won't be worth people's time to sell them off market but for anything more valuable, if the market value is less than the market cap people can and will sell them off-market for their fair value.

I really suggest you reed up a bit on economics:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supply_and_demand
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_caps

Yep, the RNG is indeed random . Part of the reason this is interesting is that it helps to see how it goes over 30 rolls. People tend to remember the good rolls and the bad rolls but without records it's hard to really estimate them.

Please post it here as well, I'd love to see it.

This is pretty much the reason I keep coming back to the game. Teaming basically consists of finding 7 other players and smashing through everything in front of you. There's no need to worry about finding people with the right combination of powers or even the right AT, although it does help if the majority of them are awake. I just grab whomever wants to come and find some bad guys to arrest with extreme prejudice.

That's pretty cool . You might want suggest he install Neo's Enhancement Standardization Pack. It makes it sooooo much easier to find the SOs you need.
http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=228044

This is my view as well. I love power armor characters (as evidenced by the fact that 5 of my 10 characters are power armor users) but a power armor set seems superfluous. Invulnerability, Shield Defense, Energy Aura, Super Reflexes and even Electrical Aura (if you skip Power Surge) all work well for various types of Power Armor (you've got the dodgy type, the built like a rock type, the forcefield protected type and the spewing electricity type).

I would love to see more power armor costume options (especially a bulkier female option) and a power armor EAT would be awesome.

It's a tricky question. In theory the answer is yes, the best way for getting rewards should be gotten from playing the game the way the person playing wants to (i.e. what gives them the most fun). However there is a problem with this which is that the quantity of rewards an individual can earn playing the game is so highly variable. Some people love playing their 50s and/or love farming while others prefer to play their lower level characters or simply RP with their friends. Now obviously the different play-styles earn different levels of rewards at different rates and the market helps to close the gap.

The advantage of marketeering as a means of earning inf is that it is compatible with all varieties of play style. You can make inf simply by spending a few minutes each play session setting buy and sell orders (although obviously the more time invested the better the return) and then go on to do whatever you find enjoyable.

Suppose the devs decided to completely eliminate marketeer as a cash source. Recipes and salvage no longer drop from enemies (but inf drops are increased a bit to compensate), merits and a-merits now award a large chunk of cash (say 1million for a reward merit, 75million for an a-merit) and WWs is replaced by a store where you can buy and sell IOs at a fixed price set by the devs which is near the current market prices (we assume that the devs are happy with the current supply/demand and therefore prices). What would this mean for people? Basically the only way to get IOs at this point would be to farm or at least spend a lot of time playing level 50s. People who want to do other activities such as leveling alts or RP'ing would have their income cut. Marketeering provides all players with a similar means of making inf no matter what their play style.

Some people enjoy farming and I thank them, they generate the recipes I need for my characters. When marketeering I am providing a service to other people which they are apparently willing to pay for. Now as to what services marketeers provide, here are the main ones:
1. Slot consolidation. Market slots are a limited resource in the game, a flipper buys up small numbers of items from multiple players and relists them in stacks thereby decreasing the number of market slots in use across all players while maintaining the supply for sale on the market.
2. Guaranteed buys and guaranteed sales. Anyone who uses the market knows that the price of an item depends on how long you're willing to wait. Leaving a buy/sell order up overnight (or over a weekend) gets you a better price than what you would get if you buy/sell it now. However not everyone wants to wait, some people prefer to get their inf immediately or their item right now. A marketeer keeps buy orders in place and stock on the market so the impatient seller gets a better "instant sell" price and the impatient buyer can find stock to buy.
3. Convenience. Crafting IOs is very fiddly, you have to buy the recipe, find the correct salvage and then go and craft it. For some players this is annoying enough that it's worth it to pay someone else to do it and a marketeer is sometimes willing to oblige... if the price is right. The reason that crafted IOs sell for more than the recipes is that enough people find crafting IOs a hassle to support an industry in doing it for them.

Yeah, apparently it was a feature they put in but forgot to tell us about until people started complaining about losing prestige.
http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showt...17#post3292017

Well, if you don't mind spending the cash, the really lazy option is to put three Nucleolus Exposure HOs in each pet. That ED caps them for damage and accuracy while still leaving 3 slots free for procs and such. A cheaper four slot option is to put 4 Acc/Dam IOs from different sets in the power (maybe replacing one or two with Acc/Dam/End if you want a bit of endurance reduction) for similar values

I'm not sure. I thought it had a chance to proc every time the bot attacks but at the dev meet and greet last weekend one of the devs made a comment about procs in pets having a 10second internal cooldown so it might be a bit more limited.

Unfortunately accuracy set bonuses don't transfer to pets. Basically if the chart shows a value over 100% it means your pet won't get a 95% chance to hit unless there are other to hit buffs or accuracy debuffs in play.