Barata

And with you.

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That was never intended, but the way the game was designed allowed it. It was certainly not a key aspect of the game, and it was certainly never encouraged. It turned out to to be so distasteful to the devs that they put specific code in to prevent that from happening.

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We're in agreement on this. I don't believe for a minute that the devs actually intended for people to exclusively play police band from 5-45 and to farm in the traditional sense from 45-50. Yet that's increasingly becoming the norm. Not because it's intended, but because - as you said - the design allows it. I've made the case, however, that in this case the design not only allows it, it encourages it.

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Now, in our discussion of farming, it's occurring to me that we're both defining the term "farming" in two different ways. You're looking at basically any repetitive action (radio missions, classic farms, task forces, etc.), and I'm looking at specifically the actions that I see advertised in broadcast chat in Peregrine. I won't believe that the devs encourage that as content. You'll never hear a dev posting a message here stating "we don't think enough people are farming. We designed the game so that you can run that same mission over and over and over again to have a better chance of getting purples, so you guys should really take advantage of that." It's not their intent, and because the game mechanics allows you to do that as a side effect of certain actions (leaving the mission, selecting another mission, reselecting the first) does not mean it's part of the design.

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It's not so much that we have different definitions of farming, but that mine appears to be a fair bit broader. I maintain such a wide definition because I believe that farming in the repetitive task sense inevitably (in most cases) leads to the kind of farms on which your focusing.

No one quits a police band mission before the end because the end is the reward. Playing a mission through to the end repeatedly is well within the scope of the devs' definition of farming, else they would never have nerfed the "Quick Katies" or altered the amount of merits some story arcs give. Police band missions are no different in practice, and in fact contribute to the thought process that justifies that kind of farming.

Think about this: a player playing from 1-50 heroside will start off in the sewers, and the most common destination after that is King's Row and a police scanner. Then it's scanner missions up to at least the Atlas Park bank and the first temp power, but nine times out of ten it's scanners until the mid twenties, when it's off to Striga or some other area and you get his or her first story arc.

The playing difference is staggering. If they solo them they'll likely finish the arcs in a good amount of time. If they team it'll take considerably longer mainly because teams want to do missions from the highest level person, and usually want a fairly quick turnaround time maximizing experience and action per time played. That means more scanner missions. By the end of the story arcs he or she does run it'll be slowing down considerably on experience gain when solo, and the only teaming experience - and the only quick levelling experience - they'll have had is still police bands, and hence it's more of the same through the thirties.

By the time they've gotten through the thirties it becomes very hard to see the ethical difference between the repetitive police bands they've been slogging through and the repetitive single mission they never finish. Just like there's no end to that farming mission, there's no end to police bands. There's no climax, no ultimate reward that you can only get once. There's just the mathematics of experience gain and another bank robbery at a scheduled interval.

My argument isn't that farming in the sense you describe is a key component to the game - it's that the design of the game allows and encourages farming behavior and inevitably leads to that kind of farming, and so the concept of farming is indeed inherent to CoX gameplay.

So what's my point? Nerf police bands? No. Of course not. My point - and my hope - is that the story arc system can and will be modified so that the plots and rewards are shared equally among members of a team - any team - that completes them.

In an ideal situation, players joining a team that's just starting another player's story arc would get all the clues, and if they leave before the arc is complete then they are awarded that contact and arc, with credit for completion up to that point. THen they get the chance to finish it on their own. Players who were sidekicked and leave early would be barred from further missions within that arc until they are the appropriate level.

Conversely, players who come in late to an arc will have their clues caught up, and will get the same reward as anyone else on the team who finishes that arc.

This way, teams are encouraged to do story arc missions if only because they all get the arc. No one is punished for coming in late or leaving early, and all missions are automatically completed once for all players still on the team.

Reward teams for experiencing story arc content, and more people will enjoy that content. And less people will find themselves justifying the more traditional farms.

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I fully expect that the merit system will be broadened so that if you're running an arc with a team, everybody will get some kind of merit bonus. The goal of the merit system was never to shaft anybody, but to give everyone a reliable way to work towards a particular reward they wanted. With the old system of random rolls, you could run the same task force a hundred times and still never get that recipe you wanted. With merits, those special recipes are now something you can plan for and eventually get just by playing the game. With all of the input from the players about it not being worthwhile to complete other people's arcs, I have a very strong feeling that some changes will be eventually made to allow everyone to experience the rewards. I like the idea of having every individual mission in an arc give a reward of a merit, and the completion of the arc a few extra merits. This, as a starting point, could alleviate a lot of the complaints.

And yes, I'm being much more restrictive in my use of the word "farming", referring specifically to the Peregrine chat. "Will pay for farm!", "LFF", "Perma46 LFF", "Farm LFM". It's that particular kind of farm I find distasteful. The very fact that you either are willing to pay to join a team, or charging people to allow them to join, clearly means there is something different and unique about them. Nobody pays or charges to join regular mission or radio teams, regardless of the reasons. With all of the examples you bring up about "farming", you have to admit that the one I'm referring to is unique in that people either charge or pay for the privilege of being a part of it. People have to actually specify in chat that they're "looking for a free farm".

With the normal radio missions, even if you think of it as "farming", the chat is mainly normal "Level 50 xxx LFT". Or "Radio/mission team LFM". The goal? Usually to get experience. Throughout the entire game, from the first levels to the end levels, you never (or virtually never) hear anyone asking for money or offering money to join a team. When you hit Peregrine with the farming I'm referring to, suddenly it's the norm. That alone suggests there's something unique about those farms.

Another example..... we had a radio team going in PI. I was leveling up my defender. We were moving quickly, going from mission to mission, fighting AVs at the bank every five missions or so. We eventually lost people but recruited more. As we're about to start the mission, one recruit realized we were just going to run radio missions for exp so we could level (it was 2XP weekend). He said "If we're not farming, I'm leaving!" and instantly quit. Besides being rude (and stupid because he was still looking for his beloved farm team an hour later), he felt that what we were doing wasn't true "farming".

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But that's my point - it is encouraged. Not explicitly, but by design.

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That's not true. "Design" implies intent. Purposely not completing a mission so you can focus on drops is not an intent.

At one point in the past, a tank was able to run through multiple spawns with his aggro aura turned on. All mobs would run to him and he could jump into a dumpster to break line of sight. This caused the mobs to jump into the dumpster with him so they could attack, and collision detection allowed 30 mobs to climb into that one dumpster. Then his fiery aura or a blaster with AoEs would take them all out.

That was never intended, but the way the game was designed allowed it. It was certainly not a key aspect of the game, and it was certainly never encouraged. It turned out to to be so distasteful to the devs that they put specific code in to prevent that from happening.

Now, in our discussion of farming, it's occurring to me that we're both defining the term "farming" in two different ways. You're looking at basically any repetitive action (radio missions, classic farms, task forces, etc.), and I'm looking at specifically the actions that I see advertised in broadcast chat in Peregrine. I won't believe that the devs encourage that as content. You'll never hear a dev posting a message here stating "we don't think enough people are farming. We designed the game so that you can run that same mission over and over and over again to have a better chance of getting purples, so you guys should really take advantage of that." It's not their intent, and because the game mechanics allows you to do that as a side effect of certain actions (leaving the mission, selecting another mission, reselecting the first) does not mean it's part of the design.

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To be fair, you can deconstruct the entire game into a farming or grinding example.

I just can't see farming as a key component of the game. Radio missions are there so that if you want a quick mission, it's handy. They're also handy if you've outleveled your contacts and aren't high enough for the next batch (which was a problem heroside at one point). The game does have other things to do. There are high level task forces and trials, lower level task forces and trials are still available to high level heroes, and the oroborous system makes a ton of content available again.

All of these things negate any argument that farming is a "key" component of the game. Is it relatively common? Yes. Is it something that the devs accept? Yes. Is it a necessary or key aspect of the game? No.

You don't need to run only radio missions. If you have a particular mission you like to run because of the enemies and map, and want to hold onto it so you can go through it, then by all means, don't complete the objective and farm it if you want. I have one myself that I held onto. I thought "I like this map, and I like blasting away these particular spawns. I think I'll hold onto it." I run it once a week or so when I'm in the mood.

Farming becomes "farming" when the focus is taken away from gameplay or having fun, and placed on the reward. Playing a particular mission over and over because you enjoy it is purely fine. Playing the same mission over and over because you feel it's a grind, but you want the reward at the end, is not. That's when an activity becomes farming.

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EDIT - My, what a wall of text! Here's the TL;DR version - Story arcs and oroborous do make up the majority of game content, but for reasons discussed below they aren't team friendly, and are often passed over by teams for police bands not because police bands are more enjoyable, but explicitly and solely for the experience bonuses gained through grinding through them quickly.

Okay, if you'd like to know why I think this, keep reading:

Barata, I get what you're saying, and on the surface you're right, but the problem with that line of thinking (specifically, that police bands are just to grab a quick mission and story arcs, tf's and oroborous is where the true content lies) is the fact that the devs have put such an emphasis on teaming and yet neglected to reward teaming through the vast majority of that content. Task forces are formed through special contacts and require minimum team requirements and are inflexible should that team be broken up for any reason. Yes, you can always pick it up later, but the logistics of getting the team back together make that somewhat daunting. Task forces are the opposite extreme from what I'm talking about, in that they absolutely require teams to start. They also - to be fair - properly reward all team members, not just the team leader - and many task forces are pretty easy to get through in a short amount of time (and ironically they get farmed).

That's just a small amount of content, however, when compared to story arcs and oroborous. This is where your argument breaks down. Story arcs offer rewards ONLY TO THE INDIVIDUAL who has visited the contact, giving absolutely zip to the team by way of official rewards. There are side benefits, to be sure, like Archvillains and badges (for certain missions). But by and large the vast majority of teams have no incentive to do story arcs instead of police band. For one thing, Police Band missions are all in the same neighborhood, whereas story arcs frequently mean trips to contacts, zoning to different areas of the city, and the dreaded hunt missions. And then there's the fact that many story arcs are on similar maps, so heaven help the person wanting help running an arc that takes a team into Oroborous or any Council bases, because unless some of the other members of the team have the same content, one player is asking up to seven others to really sweat it out for exactly bubkis in rewards.

Oh, I'll admit that there are some arcs that people will spontaneously team up to do. The Praetorian Arc in the upper levels and Frostfire in the lower levels spring immediately to mind, and there are some others, but by and large those are the arcs that - like the Praetorian arc - offer the challenge of Archvillains or - like Frostfire - offer a short arc with multiple level potential. Tell a team you'd like them to do the Envoy of Shadows arcs with you and see how many are jumping to do it.

And even if they do, what happens to the "content?" You read back through the clues at the end of the night to catch up because the team wanted to speed on to the next one. And if they do stick it out with you to the end, do they get any merit rewards? Nope. Nada. Do they get let in on the clues and the plot of the content? Nope. They're just grinding.

What about experience? I suppose the argument could be made that story arc missions offer more experience to the teams than run of the mill police band, but then that would smack of farming, wouldn't it? Besides, you'll never convince me that a good team can't power their way through police band missions (and the completion experience rewards that are given to everyone on the team) faster than through some of those sometimes convoluted story arc missions (especially if there are hunt missions thrown in) to more experience per hour.

My point is that far and away the majority of teams will opt for a few quick police bands chosen by the highest player to maximise the experience gain potential. There just isn't enough reward for the time investment, and so police band farming becomes the modus operandi.

Granted, this is talking about pickup teams. Theoretically you could schedule a time with some friends to do a specific story arc, or even post in player events (although I don't recall EVER seeing anyone post about doing a story arc. Usually they're about general superteams or task forces). In two years of playing I have yet to successfully schedule anything short of a task force this way. I'd be interested to know if anyone does that on a regular basis. ::shrugs:: maybe they do.

In the end, the vast majority of the content you're talking about there is geared towards the solo player, with an occasional team to overcome a tough mission thrown in only occasionally. Only datamining on the part of the devs would say for sure, but I wonder just what the difference is between police band teaming and story arc/oroborous teaming? My money's on police band, and hence my stance that farming in one form or another, while perhaps not intended to be a key role, plays a far bigger roll in this game than you're suggesting.

...now if they were to, say, give some sort of compensation to the story arc holder's teammates, then my opinion would likely be more in line with yours.

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That's all very valid. I'm not sure how it relates to my argument that farming isn't a key feature of the game though. If story arcs and missions are geared towards the solo player because the rewards are only given the mission holder, then how does that make farming a key aspect of the game when the mission is intentionally not completed so those rewards are never given out?

To be certain, there are a lot of weaknesses in the way story arcs and missions and task forces are handled. There are strengths also, but there are definitely weaknesses. Things are better now in that there are more things to do and a high-level character can find a lot more variety than he could before, but there are still weaknesses. How do these weaknesses of the mission design make farming a key aspect of the game?

Is farming necessary? No. Some people may debate this and say "you can't get influence and purples unless you farm", but that's B.S. What they're saying is "I want to get TONS of influence and LOTS of purples, and farming is the most efficient way of doing that." That's accurate. It's stupid, but accurate (and yes, I'll gladly debate the "stupid" part).

Is farming endorsed or encouraged by the devs? No. It never has been.

Is farming part of the game design? No.

If it's not necessary, designed, endorsed, or encouraged, how can it be considered a key part of gameplay? It can't.

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I'll agree with you partially on this. I'm positive NCSoft would love any mechanism where players stay with the game and keep paying. But you talked about the devs. The individuals responsible for molding the game and creating the content. Their stance is not one of encouraging the farming of single missions over and over again. It never has been. They encourage people to play. Period. They prefer that you play for the challenge or the content or the sheer enjoyment of it, and that's what they try to encourage. They've never said, in any way, that they encourage mindlessly performing the same task over and over again simply for the influence or drops. And they've said several times that their goal is to keep within the genre, which is why they don't like heroes intentionally not defeating their enemy.... it's not heroic. Remember when they took away the experience from demons being summoned through the portals? It was because a hero wouldn't let the portal stay there just to farm the demons.

Accepting it and encouraging it are two different things. Contrary to what you feel, the game does not center around farming.

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Explain police band/newspaper missions, then. You do essentially one of three or four cookie-cutter template missions with random names and enemies over and over and over again ad nauseum and the only plausible reward is a bank mission every so often that is also a cookie cutter mission with a temp power as a reward? How is that not a developer-endorsed and created experience farm? Original intent notwithstanding, that is essentially what it is.

While I agree that this game isn't centered around farming, that doesn't mean that farming is an accepted by-product or a crossover from other mmo's. I personally think farming is the most mind-numbingly BORING waste of good game time, but I also can't deny the notion that farming and grinding are key components to this game that are almost (if not equally) as key as teaming, story arcs and task forces.

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To be fair, you can deconstruct the entire game into a farming or grinding example.

I just can't see farming as a key component of the game. Radio missions are there so that if you want a quick mission, it's handy. They're also handy if you've outleveled your contacts and aren't high enough for the next batch (which was a problem heroside at one point). The game does have other things to do. There are high level task forces and trials, lower level task forces and trials are still available to high level heroes, and the oroborous system makes a ton of content available again.

All of these things negate any argument that farming is a "key" component of the game. Is it relatively common? Yes. Is it something that the devs accept? Yes. Is it a necessary or key aspect of the game? No.

You don't need to run only radio missions. If you have a particular mission you like to run because of the enemies and map, and want to hold onto it so you can go through it, then by all means, don't complete the objective and farm it if you want. I have one myself that I held onto. I thought "I like this map, and I like blasting away these particular spawns. I think I'll hold onto it." I run it once a week or so when I'm in the mood.

Farming becomes "farming" when the focus is taken away from gameplay or having fun, and placed on the reward. Playing a particular mission over and over because you enjoy it is purely fine. Playing the same mission over and over because you feel it's a grind, but you want the reward at the end, is not. That's when an activity becomes farming.

I would also like to add to the thread that people serious about farming should check out the global farming channels and try those first for finding farms or members. Peregrine Island, on Freedom anyway, is usually so full it breaks down into multiple instances. Sometimes three or four. Using the global channels will let everyone on that channel who's not in the zone or instance see your messages. It also keeps the broadcast messages for the zone less cluttered.

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I think you're a little delusional if you think in any way the devs "encourage" people to farm. The devs want people to play the game. They want people to enjoy the content. That's it. They've stated several times that they'd like people to play a variety of content. If they encouraged people to play the same missions over and over again, they wouldn't have put in the mechanism for diminishing returns when running task forces. They also wouldn't have put in the code where spawns are calculated for team size as you approach them, necessitating the need for mapping the mission out before fillers leave.


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I think you are delusional if you honestly believe that play experience is as important to NCsoft as subscription fees. Sure individual devs may smile or frown upon farming in general, But the stockholders and pr reps only care that people Keep Paying for memberships Powerlevelling actually decreases memberships (Because people get pl'd, play for a while, and then quit) but 'hard core' farmers are here for the duration.... thus, PLing is definitely frowned upon, but farming, per se, is a neutral subject... and occasionally even encouraged.

see 'rikti war zone', 'storm palace' and 'cimerora wall' for examples of situations that have been specifically set up to encourage level 50 grinding/farming.

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I'll agree with you partially on this. I'm positive NCSoft would love any mechanism where players stay with the game and keep paying. But you talked about the devs. The individuals responsible for molding the game and creating the content. Their stance is not one of encouraging the farming of single missions over and over again. It never has been. They encourage people to play. Period. They prefer that you play for the challenge or the content or the sheer enjoyment of it, and that's what they try to encourage. They've never said, in any way, that they encourage mindlessly performing the same task over and over again simply for the influence or drops. And they've said several times that their goal is to keep within the genre, which is why they don't like heroes intentionally not defeating their enemy.... it's not heroic. Remember when they took away the experience from demons being summoned through the portals? It was because a hero wouldn't let the portal stay there just to farm the demons.

Accepting it and encouraging it are two different things. Contrary to what you feel, the game does not center around farming.

That was a very good farming guide! It covered all of the basics very clearly, and stressed good etiquette. Very nicely done.

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Do you REALLY think that the devs have no clue about farming? It's a well known legitimate way of playing high-level characters. It is somewhat frowned upon, at least as far as PLing is concerned, but 'normal' farming such as wall farming and NON pl farming is strongly, if not actively, encouraged.

Do you REALLY think that the devs expect you to be able to assemble a full set of purples (or the wherewithal to afford them) just running normal content? 'farming' is simply an efficient way of grinding, and one that requires specialized builds and/or archetypes.

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I think you're a little delusional if you think in any way the devs "encourage" people to farm. The devs want people to play the game. They want people to enjoy the content. That's it. They've stated several times that they'd like people to play a variety of content. If they encouraged people to play the same missions over and over again, they wouldn't have put in the mechanism for diminishing returns when running task forces. They also wouldn't have put in the code where spawns are calculated for team size as you approach them, necessitating the need for mapping the mission out before fillers leave.

I fully believe the devs see the farming and leave it at that, but that given their preferences, people would be playing the game for the content, rather than grinding it for the rewards.

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Thats My Mistake, I Only Searched For It Once, And Then Posted A Bulletin. (By The Way There's Nothing Wrong With The Way I Write,I Was Raised Writing Like This, And Myself And Views Should Not Be Discriminated Against Because Of It)

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Well, we won't discriminate against you, but consider this....

Why do you write? Why did you take the time out to sit at a computer, log into the forums, and type out a message?

You did it to convey a thought or idea.

It stands to reason that if you're making the effort to convey a thought or idea, you would want to do it in the most effective manner possible. Initial caps on every word is NOT that manner. It's not proper grammar and it makes the sentences much more difficult to read because it's harder to distinguish between the sentences. I know you believe there's nothing wrong with writing like that (you said so), but that's not the case. The whole point of writing is to convey an idea or thought, and doing it in a fashion that makes it more difficult to read visually, and breaking grammar conventions, doesn't make sense. It cheapens your argument.

Capital letters belong at the beginning of sentences and formal names.

I have a couple feelings on the day jobs and badges.

1) I disagree that you're getting a badge for doing nothing. I have to go out of my way to log off in certain areas. To actually get a badge on a popular character of mine, I have to do that a lot.

2) I disagree that it encourages you to not play the game. I can't play for 24 hours a day anyway. I have to log off at some point every day, this makes it so that even when I can't play, there's still some productivity.

3) I dislike the timer on the these badges. I've been going out of my way to log my character out in Cimerora. I see no resistance bonus showing up. Once, I did, but not lately (I think it's bugged). But the timers aren't very effective. If I log a character on deciding to run a task force, it generally takes a bit of time to put that task force together. It's annoying to log on, know that you have an influence bonus or experience bonus, and as brief as it is, it's ticking away because you're looking for a group. At times, it may be a half hour to an hour before I can get into a group or task force (depending upon the character I play). I'd much rather see influence/experience bonuses be non-time based, and things like resistances and buffs clicks that you activate.

We have the holiday powers like debt protection that are clickable. They only activate once you click them, and then last for a certain amount of time. I think quite a few of those day job powers should be like that. When you log on, you get a click power. If you already have one of the same type, it just gets replaced with the updated one or stays the same (whichever is longer/better). We can click them when we're ready to start missions and play the game, rather than watch them expire while we're looking for groups.

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What game are you talking about? I routinely have contact quit giving me missions even though I am still in to correct range for them. Have never received anything other than the 2 merits, and, an SO for a story arc completion, the SOs have even been minus 1 to my current trained level. Go to the market, availability has gone down and prices have gone up. The cost in merits needs to be reduced my %50 across the board. I priced out it merits the current build of my DA/EM tank, it does not have everything I want, still totaled over 7200 merits. How many TFs and story arc is that? As I see the current reward system is broken.

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If you only use merits to get every single recipe you need, then yeah, you'll have to play forever to get them. But you do get recipes as drops, as do other players. That's where the markets come into play.

Besides, I do believe the devs said they were keeping an eye on the merit system so they could make adjustments if necessary. The system needs to be in effect for a while before they can get an accurate reading of how much the price needs to be adjusted (assuming an adjustment needs to be made).

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I hope they make some adjustments soon. It's pretty frustrating for me, as a casual (timewise at least, I'm pretty hardcore as far as mechanics & builds go) player.

I'm VERY curious to see what direction these adjustments will take.

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I have a feeling they'll add in some mechanism so that merits can be earned when you complete other people's story arcs, since that seems to be a complaint. Beyond that, I think there may be some pricing adjustments or an adjustment to how many you get. Since it's an entirely new system, I'm pretty sure they made the comment that they'll be keeping an eye on it to get a better handle of what's happening in the game world as opposed to their plans on paper.

Really, I think because of the newness, everyone's going a little merit-crazy and giving up teaming just so they can get their merits. This should get old soon. People still get recipe drops, those drops can sell at the market for decent money, and money you make selling those drops can be used to buy the recipes you need. After a bit, people will get tired of playing alone and start teaming up again.

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What game are you talking about? I routinely have contact quit giving me missions even though I am still in to correct range for them. Have never received anything other than the 2 merits, and, an SO for a story arc completion, the SOs have even been minus 1 to my current trained level. Go to the market, availability has gone down and prices have gone up. The cost in merits needs to be reduced my %50 across the board. I priced out it merits the current build of my DA/EM tank, it does not have everything I want, still totaled over 7200 merits. How many TFs and story arc is that? As I see the current reward system is broken.

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If you only use merits to get every single recipe you need, then yeah, you'll have to play forever to get them. But you do get recipes as drops, as do other players. That's where the markets come into play.

Besides, I do believe the devs said they were keeping an eye on the merit system so they could make adjustments if necessary. The system needs to be in effect for a while before they can get an accurate reading of how much the price needs to be adjusted (assuming an adjustment needs to be made).

That's pretty cool. I'm familiar with VNC. I've used it quite a bit. This would be good if you wanted to log into CoX, shop at the auction house, modify your base, buy and sell, design costume changes.... all the non-combat things that you may want to do. You can do them now during lunch breaks at work or other places, and have them all taken care of when you get home.

That's awesome!!!!! I loved the flick! Mucho congratulations to you!!!!!

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The buff part seems great.

But... I wish they were more "Comic bookish". Thematically I can't imagine any of my characters (who tend to silver age) having any of those as pets. (a few might use the drones). Fairies? Wisps? This isn't a Fantasy game. And Clock Work? Sure I get the easy part, the art was in the game already. But... how about something that thematically fits. Long Bow robot? Arachnos Drone? Maybe not. Anyway. JMTC. I for one care more about theme than numbers.

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My characters are ALL varying degrees of concept. Some are built purely on concept, and others have the concept determined after I choose what powers I want to try out. For all the people who worry about vet rewards or temp powers conflicting with their concept, or even the rewards' appearance clashing with their concept, this is a line of reasoning I used that always fit right in....

This is Paragon City. ALL Heroes (or Villains in the Rogue Isles) have become part of that society. The fact that you interact with contacts to get missions proves that. So for explaining temp/vet powers, a simple "I was given this/taught this by someone I befriended when I got to Paragon" or, if you're a villain "A stupid <insert NPC type here> tried this on me at Mercy Isle. It was simple enough for me to take/learn."

All my vet/temp powers and skills are just little souvenirs I picked up during my exploits, or skills taught by people I helped.

I had to pass through Atlas Park last night. As I flew over the lake near the train station, I noticed a couple of Hellions lounging on the statue base in the middle of the lake. I yelled out loud "Get out of Sister Flame's pool!!!!" and let loose with a level 50 fireball.

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...

So, if you ever run across a Fire Blaster named Sister Flame on Freedom, chances are its my daughter havign fun, but learning many things at the same time. Feel free to team with her, but don't be a "poopyhead" (her words, not mind).

Ciao!

P.S. She is working on her typing skills, so if you see her say "Go", "Go", "Go" about twenty times, don't worry. It's only 1 of about 100 words she can spell.

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Was there any chance she was in a pickup group last night in Faultline? I was on Megafantastic Man (FF defender), and I swear there was a Sister Flame in our group, or at least someone named very very similarly. Though it was kind of late when I finally logged off, so it may not have been her.

I was sitting with my roommate while he was patching and clicked on the details for Issue 11. When I saw Flashback and Weapon Customization, I told him "Man, there's about 10,000 people out there sitting at their computer who just wet their pants!"

Nice work devs! My current character I'm levelling is Assault Rifle. The new gun doesn't fit the rest of his costume. It'll be a VERY welcome change.

And Flashback? I'd love to re-experience some some content again! And catch some that I missed! Not to mention the additional content that's being added!!!!

Two big thumbs up!!!

I've only played for a couple days on test, just to see what the system would be like. I logged on a level 22 tanker, and only fooled around with the basic IOs, not the sets or dual-aspects ones. My impression?

I liked it. I liked that at level 22, I could slot a level 25 IO for a boost that was very close to what an SO would give me. I could sell salvage (getting salvage is inevitable), have more than enough influence to pick up a quite a few IOs, and have my hero decked out with a rather large percentage of IOs by the time I hit level 23.

Was I spending more influence than if I bought SOs? Yes. I was also making more influence because I was selling salvage. Since I wasn't trying to get sets, my rares sold for good money, funding my basic IOs. I was enhanced to fully near-SO capabilities by the time I was level 23! And I would never have to worry about changing out or combining those IOs because they went red!

While your analysis may or may not be accurate when it comes to analyzing the cost of IOs compared to SOs, you also have to take into account that the economy will be drastically different now. There are more ways to make money. How this will all play out in the marketplace has yet to be seen, since something like economy can't adequately be analyzed on the test server. After all, for many people, test characters aren't treated as seriously as their "real" characters, so I was much less conservative when it came to spending money. But still, the economy will definitely change. Will $50,000 mean the same thing later as it does now? No.

Personally, I like the convenience of not having to worry about maintaining my enhancements. Yeah, I'll eventually want them upgraded, but on my terms and when I'm ready. Not because they're yellow and about to turn red when I level.

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Thanks for the update, but would the cape crash cause non cape wearers to crash? I stopped wearing one and was crashing quite a bit.


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Most likely, the cape crash is caused by the client program trying to render the capes and getting hung up on the geometry between the cape and the character. From what I've seen, it shouldn't matter if you're the cape wearer or someone else is. The client (I believe) doesn't see any difference between your toon and other people's toons, other than the fact that your camera angle is always relative to your own character. So a cape crash can be caused by you wearing a cape, or any other on-screen character wearing one.

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So I say, before anyone writes someone off as a noob, try talking with them. Sometimes they just don't know any better. Besides, I am pretty sure most of us have done something in the game (when we first started playing) that we would consider newbish now. I know there are childish or annoying players out there that refuse to learn. I am glad I haven't crossed many of their paths.

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I had my 45 blaster in Steel Canyon on my way to a mish. I see a broadswoard/DA scrapper faceplanted with a bunch of council standing around him. So I give him an awaken and take out the enemies so he can rez. He was level 14, so I followed him a bit and would toss him a heal while he was fighting. Also, I'd use Chilling Embrace and stand next to him so that the bad guys would be debuffed, but he'd still get all the exp. I noticed he kept missing a lot. So I took the time out to explain some proper slotting techniques.

I told him that if he's still using TOs, he should have two or three accuracies in his attacks. He didn't know what a TO was. No problem, he'd only been playing for two days. So I told him the TOs were the training enhancements he was using. I then had him follow me to the store and read off how all of his powers were slotted. I totally outfitted him with all green DOs and told him he'd hit more often, harder, and with less endurance usage (some of his armors). I told him to make sure he doesn't neglect his armors anymore (he only had one resistance power and the damage aura).

He was VERY happy with all of the advice and gifts and was just so incredibly pleased with DOs since they're twice as good as TOs. He almost peed his armor when I told him about SOs. But yeah, sometimes just talking to people is the best thing. The allure of the game can be so great at times, a new player will just want to jump in and play and forget to read the manual.

One thing I don't like about personal living quarters in bases is this: what happens if you get kicked from a SG? I don't like the idea that I would spend time/money working on my own space, then not have access to it because someone else decides to kick me out to make room for a friend, or just because they're a jerk.

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But this does beg the question - what about players who don't belong to an SG? They get to miss out on a nice corner of Paragon City to call their own? What if those players could have, say, an apartment in Steel Canyon?

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I agree. I really think the tech for bases should be applied to letting people have their own personal apartments/bases. It's been stated by the devs that they don't ever want people to feel they're forced to group. But one of the coolest features in the game, the ability to have customizable and useful living/meeting quarters is dependent on permanently grouping with people.

Give me my own apartment. Let me put in my own workbenches (like Batman in his cave). If you want supergroups to have some advantages, let the items of power, etc., be restricted to them, but at least let me have my own space with at least some functionality.

When I made my first toon, I was there in AP with a mission to defeat X number of Hellions in Atlas Park.


So I spent about a half an hour running around looking for Atlas Park. I checked out the little park with the lake near the town center, and all of the other little grassy areas, and then finally the office parks with statues. Surely one of them had to be Atlas Park!

I can't remember exactly when it dawned on me that the whole zone was Atlas Park.

LOL. I remember an old fan-based cartoon someone made. In it, a character from Ultima Online teleported to Everquest. The guy was a tank mage, and once he got into EQ, he couldn't move because his armor weighed too much. He just stood there thinking "[censored]?"

I know the pure numbers show that Hurdle is slightly faster than Swift, but I still recommend Swift over Hurdle simply for ease of use. Yeah, bunny-hopping all over the place may be faster, but... well... you're bunny-hopping all over the place! It's annoying to have to do that, and you can't "auto-jump". Wtih Swift, you get a VERY noticeable speed increase, and can just auto-run a lot of the time.

Of course, Swift and Hurdle combined would be best (in the absence of a true travel power).