BetsyLocke

I think I just have a different definition of fluff. Alright, nevermind, agree to disagree.

I won't be investing much more time on this suggestion. It is something I came up with while playing and then finding myself rather disgusted as I decided to trawl through the I13-15 notes and decided that later issues are quite lacking. I then thought of the wedding pack and then added 1 and 1. I think I added to 2, but many of you feel I concluded 3. Agree to disagree.

I am honestly not trying to be deceptive or dishonest here.

The whole premise of power balance has always been "SOs are all you need". That is where I am coming from.

Above that is fluff isn't it? I do understand that IOs do impact gameplay. If it is significant and that IOs represent the new SOs, then won't the game be balanced around IOs then?

If the game isn't going to be balanced around IOs, then IOs are by definition still flavor, aren't they?

I am not arguing here, I am asking a genuine question.

I just read that Story Arc slots are now for sale.

And to me there is a link(however tenious) between additional MA slots bought and IOs.

Simply put, more story arc slots, more ticket rewards. More tickets = IOs. Aided by the credit card.

Aren't we already on the slope?

The real objection I have to the definition of fluff as just "looks" with no effects on gameplay are the following.

1. Self Destruction
2. Mystic Fortune
3. Mission Transporter
4. Pocket D VIP Pass
5. Jump Pack
6. LKT-1700 Rocket Pack
7. Sex change (coming?)

And many of those powers have significant impacts on power choices, builds and game play.

This is precisely why I doubt microtransactions for IOs are a slippery slope.

To me IOs fall into the fluff category. SOs are all you need, devs themselves are making the assertion that in this game, all you need are SOs. If that is the requirement, everything above it is fluff isn't it?

If it is fluff, then it should have minimal impact on the game. To assert that IOs are not fluff, means it has a significant power impact on the game and that this game has grown beyond the "SOs are enough" power curve.

I would accept that IOs should never be used for microtransactions if the game has indeed grown beyond the "SOs are all you need" power curve. If not, IOs are fluff by definition isn't it?

If IOs are not fluff, what happened to the whole "You only need SOs argument?"

By claiming that IOs are not fluff, we are thereby admitting that this game has gone beyond "SOs are all you need" and that the power curve is now higher than what a normal 8 toon SO'ed team can achieve.

Short version : Let's have microtransactions for IO sets. 1 Numina's Convalescence set for $9.99. 1 Thunderstrike set for $2.99. Blapper special, 1 Thunderstrike and 1 Crushing Impact for $4.99!

Long version : I think by now everyone should have heard of this phrase "Microtransactions". My suggestion is this. Sell IO sets for real currency through the NCSoft store. I truly believe that there are enough people with money to spare but not the time to collect IOs and thus will be willing to trade money for time. Since we all know time = money, this is just it.

Now the reason I am suggesting this isn't because I am some lame player who cannot afford IOs from WW/BM. I have my toons IO'ed out and would hardly be interested in this microtransactions. However I do know many people who are struggling to IO even their first toon and this would be a rather expensive instant quick fix.

Furthermore, remember the wedding pack? That was probably the first of the microtransactions for this game, didn't give a whole lot of value but people paid for it. That money helped pay for a lot of development work. As someone who works in IT anyway, I do understand the need for developers to be funded for work. If we looked at the most recent issues, can we say we are truly satisfied with the content rolled out? With microtransactions, we are allowing players to help fund improved development of more content.

Are there negatives to this plan? Naturally. There might be some rumblings from flippers who flip the most expensive IOs, because eventually someone might find a relationship between real world $ to influence/infamy.

We might get an influx of a new generation of $mewbs. Mewbs who are $-charged to IOdom. How is this different from the current mewbs anyway? At least they are a little higher on the power curve and might be a little more useful.

What about the status quo regarding drops, merits and tickets? Keep them. They will remain as they are.

As to the pricing, well, by now the Devs should know which sets are popular and which are not. They can use the data they have to set the prices. I can imagine purple sets costing $29.99 already.

Thanks for all the responses.

Now to wonder what was in the dev's head with Blaze's DPA.

After having an Archery/Devices L50 blaster for almost 2 years by now, I decided it's time to jump into the FOTM end of things and finally create a Fire blaster.

While doing a bit of reading up on the Fire primary, something struck me as odd. Every guide I read seems to suggest that between Flares and Fire Blast, Fire Blast is always preferable over Flares. And to me, that is a little suspect. Let me explain.

Using the Archery model, it is straight forward between Aimed Shot and Snap Shot. (All data here scaled for level 50)

Aimed Shot
Activation time: 1.67s
Recharge: 6s
Endurance: 5.2
82.58 unenhanced (49.45 dps)
161.03 at 95% enhancement (96.43 dps)

Snap Shot
Activation time: 1s
Recharge time: 2s
Endurance cost: 3.536
52.55 unenhanced (52.55 dps)
102.47 enhanced at 95% (102.47 dps)

So with the archery model, it's simple. You had a quicker and higher DPS with the quicker attack, but a heftier punch with the slower attack.

Fire Blast vs Flares? This is where I went huh?

Fire Blast
Activation time: 1.67s
Recharge time: 4s
Endurance cost: 5.2
62.56 unenhanced, no DoT component (37.46dps)
92.576 unenhanced, taking 80% average (55.43 dps)
100.08 unenhanced, assuming DoT always (59.93 dps)
121.99 enhanced at 95%, no DoT (73.05)
180.52 enhanced at 95%, 80% average(108.1 dps)
195.16 enhanced at 95%, DoT always (116.86)

Flares
Activation time: 1s
Recharge time: 2.18s
Endurance cost: 3.692
63.19 unenhanced (63.19 dps)
123.22 enhanced at 95% (123.22 dps)


So apart from the dammit, why is Archery's DPS lower moment, the realization to me was the very high DPS of Flares. Simply put, in an attack chain, Flares should give a much better DPS chain than Fire Blast can.

Am I missing something from Fire Blast? Are the guides just wrong or outdated? Someone enlighten me?

Title: Family Wars
Arc ID: 54325
Creator's Global Name: @Betsy Locke
Difficulty Level: Medium
Synopsis: The Mooks have started fighting the Marcones in Paragon City. The only difference is someone is giving Mooks better weapons to beat the Marcones with. You are going to stop the war between the Mooks and Marcones.
Number of EB/AVs: 1 optional in mission 1, 1 required in mission 4, 1 required in mission 5, 1 optional in mission 5. Ally provided in mission 4 and 5.
Story Type: Serious, Drama
Estimated Time to Play: 60-90 minutes

Title: Fall of a Hero
Arc ID: 142590
Creator's Global Name: @Betsy Locke
Difficulty Level: Medium
Synopsis: A hero has been a thorn in the rear for Arbiter Sands. You are going to beat him and then turn him to the red side.
Number of EB/AVs: None
Story Type: Drama
Mission Count: 3
Estimated Time to play: 30-45 minutes

Will do.

Anyone who plays my arcs and sends me comments, I will definitely play all missions by you by your global ID.

Arc 54325: Family Wars
Morality: Neutral
Length: Very long

Arc 142590: Fall of a Hero
Morality: Villainous
Length: Long

Last night, I was doing this really good story arc. It was challenging and had good story telling. It gave me the feel that it was a mini-TF.

However, when we finished the TF, I 5-starred it because it was genuinely well written, had proper grammar, was a good challenge and basically just felt better than at least 80% of the stuff the developers came up with.

And someone in the team was griping about how this story arc we did was a waste of his time because he took in a small haul of just slightly over 200 tickets.

The ticket system rewards farming. We are not going to see the end of it. Even if we nerf the ticket system, the only ones who will still suffer are the well written arcs.

Some defense sets have their status protection spreaded out.

Fiery Aura for example, has their status protections with their resist shields. Dark Armor has their status protections again shared among its resist shields.

On point 2, yes I agree. However, I feel it's a problem with MA because you can't scale the powers to the low levels.

Unlike the critters made by the developers, we don't have the ability to individually select powers or even the pool powers. It's really all or nothing. In fact it is difficult to make a nothing. I am sure there are countless authors who want no secondary power set for their custom minions and find they have no way of doing that.

I'll state this upfront.

I HATE THE FEEDBACK SYSTEM.

Last night, I played an arc that was frankly terrible. The author did attempt to try and make something proper, so I left some feedback.

And what happens? He starts a real massive argument with me trying to justify what he made.

And after the argument, my own published story arc gets a couple of 1 star ratings right away.

Right now, I'm still sort of mad. The 1 stars, I don't care. The argument on the other hand, it's like this really. You go to a store, get poor service, then you fill up a customer service feedback form and give it to the store. Then 1 day later, a service manager from the store calls you to give you a verbal tongue lashing. This is just not right!

The feedback system just has to change. Make the feedback anonymous, please.

Does anyone know how to add pool powers to your bosses/EBs/AVs?

If we can't, are there plans to add them?

Some AVs don't become EBs even when solo. I learnt that the hard way.

An example will be Viridian and Shadow Spider from Arachnos. They appear as AVs even if you are on Heroic and solo.

This game has more than 100k subscribers. If even 10% of the subscribers publish a story arc each, that's more than 10k arcs to wade through. As it is, when I published my first arc, I had an ID of 16k.

The browser makes it rather difficult to wade through all the thousands of story arcs. For a player who doesn't have a lot of time to read and wade through the descriptions, where is she going to start with? Naturally the 4 and 5 stars. Most players are not going to come into the AE browser thinking "oh, there is a lot of 1 star griefing going on, so the good ones must be in the 1 and 2 stars".

As a result, organized griefing becomes very profitable, because the 4 and 5 star arcs stay near the top few pages, which is about the patience limit of most players who wants to find a story arc to play. These few will get a lot more exposure and the feedback cycle will occur because they will get rated more and stay top, even if they are really just average.

And that is another problem. Most of the story arcs outside of AE is average. People casually wanting to play a story arc won't have high expectations and if it's just slightly better than the CoX story arcs, they won't get 1 or 2 starred. What the rating systems should do is help push the real gems up to the top, and I don't see that happening.

Rewards for rating story arcs compounds the problem. This gives extra incentives to grief good story arcs to push them to the bottom of the pit, giving them less exposure. In fact, I would hazard to argue that giving rewards is probably the reason we have this griefing. I thought good mission creators will be glad that people play their missions, not to login and find how many tickets are waiting for her to claim.

Tried it a couple more times.

06-10-2008 20:41:52 Rain of Arrows: MISSED Spirit of Sorrow!! Your RainofArrows power had a 68.80% chance to hit, you rolled a 98.01.
06-10-2008 20:41:52 Rain of Arrows: MISSED Spirit of Sorrow!! Your RainofArrows power had a 40.00% chance to hit, you rolled a 70.93.
06-10-2008 20:41:53 Rain of Arrows: HIT Spirit of Sorrow! Your RainofArrows power had a 95.00% chance to hit, you rolled a 54.36.
06-10-2008 20:41:53 Rain of Arrows: You hit Spirit of Sorrow for 145.52 points of lethal damage!
06-10-2008 20:41:53 Rain of Arrows: MISSED Spirit of Sorrow!! Your RainofArrows power had a 40.00% chance to hit, you rolled a 91.79.
06-10-2008 20:41:53 Rain of Arrows: You hit Spirit of Sorrow for 145.52 points of lethal damage!
06-10-2008 20:41:54 Rain of Arrows: MISSED Spirit of Sorrow!! Your RainofArrows power had a 40.00% chance to hit, you rolled a 88.06.

06-10-2008 20:44:14 Rain of Arrows: MISSED Spirit of Sorrow!! Your RainofArrows power had a 68.80% chance to hit, you rolled a 74.55.
06-10-2008 20:44:15 Rain of Arrows: MISSED Spirit of Sorrow!! Your RainofArrows power had a 68.80% chance to hit, you rolled a 95.25.
06-10-2008 20:44:15 Rain of Arrows: HIT Spirit of Sorrow! Your RainofArrows power had a 95.00% chance to hit, you rolled a 48.61.
06-10-2008 20:44:15 Rain of Arrows: You hit Spirit of Sorrow for 144.54 points of lethal damage!
06-10-2008 20:44:16 Rain of Arrows: You hit Spirit of Sorrow for 144.54 points of lethal damage!

06-10-2008 20:45:01 Rain of Arrows: HIT Spirit of Sorrow! Your RainofArrows power had a 95.00% chance to hit, you rolled a 63.56.
06-10-2008 20:45:02 Rain of Arrows: You hit Spirit of Sorrow for 144.54 points of lethal damage!
06-10-2008 20:45:02 Rain of Arrows: You hit Spirit of Sorrow for 144.54 points of lethal damage!

Just to illustrate the whole problem. I enabled pet combat and pet damage inflicted in a tab and this is what I got.

Rain of Arrows: MISSED Spirit of Sorrow!! Your RainofArrows power had a 68.80% chance to hit, you rolled a 81.07.
Rain of Arrows: MISSED Spirit of Sorrow!! Your RainofArrows power had a 68.80% chance to hit, you rolled a 95.36.
Rain of Arrows: HIT Spirit of Sorrow! Your RainofArrows power had a 95.00% chance to hit, you rolled a 48.71.
Rain of Arrows: MISSED Spirit of Sorrow!! Your RainofArrows power had a 68.80% chance to hit, you rolled a 96.87.
Rain of Arrows: You blast Spirit of Sorrow for 64.57 points of bonus energy damage.
Rain of Arrows: You hit Spirit of Sorrow for 144.54 points of lethal damage.
Rain of Arrows: You hit Spirit of Sorrow for 144.54 points of lethal damage.

Makes absolutely no sense to me.

I'm playing on Justice.

And having done a lot more tests last night, my Rain of Arrows is too consistent. It's always the equivalent of 2 arrows.

And I did check my netgraph. Ping time is a consistent 310-320ms. Darn Atlantic connection. :P

With the help of a controller, I tested Rain of Arrows against level 50 Possessed Scientists just outside Portal Corp.

Each time, I would do a Rain of Arrows and the Controller immediately did a Cinders and we started counting the remaining hp.

Strangely enough, in 9 minions and 11 LTs, they all were the same, about 289 damage. Every single one of them received the same damage. I haven't seen any take the equivalent of 1 arrow's damage or 3 arrows damage.

So based on your explanation that the arrows depend on accuracy, it doesn't seem to relate to my experience. My accuracy on Rain of Arrows is at 89.7% and I have Targeting Drone, so I can't be inaccurate as to miss 3 consistently.

There also seems to be no hint to it being a chance for 2nd or chance for 3rd arrow even.

I'm a bit confused with the ingame detailed information on Rain of Arrows.

It states the average damage at about slightly less than 300(enhanced), which indicates 2 arrows hitting(enhanced). Yet the description says 3 ticks of about 147 damage.

Your description says 1-3 arrows. I do think you are correct, but what are the chances of the 2nd and 3rd arrow hitting?

Oh man!!! This alone makes issue 3 a must have!