Bosstone

First, as Eiko says, that's just plain not correct.

Second, referencing TFs is...well, if not disingenuous, then not fully thought through. This option was implemented for people who don't want to run TFs. Therefore, saying you can just get the Incarnate salvage through TFs is a non-starter. Unless and until salvage can be procured outside TFs, the only way to get them solo will be through shards.

So you do use the market. Then it's not the inf you should be worried about.

Put it this way: you can earn the amount of inf you need solely off defeats in the time it takes you to collect the shards you need.

When I stopped playing the game two years ago, I had two 50s I barely did anything with. Lack of endgame, you see. I came back two months ago. In that time, I haven't touched those two 50s, and I've leveled a third I only play sometimes. The highest vet reward I have is the 21-month. I think I get the 24 in March or April sometime. I didn't expect to be playing again, so when I stopped I gave the vast bulk of my inf (about 100 mil) to a friend.

I currently have about 700 mil total, and I earned ~50 mil tonight by rolling up a bunch of recipes off the AE and selling the valuable ones.

Are you going to refuse to use the market too?

Man, you got totally scooped by Positron.

Number One: Casual and solo/small-team are not synonymous. The trials are expected to be short, on the order of 30-60 minutes. That's casual but not solo. Farmers frequently trick their characters out so they can plow through +2/x8 content for money and drops. That's solo but not casual. Don't confuse the two.

Number Two: City of Heroes has always had bigger groups than WoW. WoW does 5 people max per group, City allows a whole 8 people. City's always dealt in bigger numbers.

Gotcha.

The problem with this is that you end up fracturing the people who are ready to play. People who have only a limited amount of time to play and want to get started ASAP aren't going to comply with a vote. They'll drop and rejoin the queue, leaving you with that much more time to wait for a full league.

If the interface were instead something like where on joining the queue you can choose whether to start as soon as you have the minimum number or to wait until you have a full league, you're going to be waiting a long time as the ASAP teams will get first preference.

Second Measure specifically addressed the problem of accessibility: the trials and the turnstile system are designed such that people who have only a limited amount of time can log on and jump into a 30-60 minute trial with a minimum of downtime. It isn't cool to make them wait when the minimum number of people is already available.

I think you're right, but it still can be a valid concern. Even among my social circle, if we don't consciously look for a support character, we can pretty easily end up with teams of all Tankers, Scrappers, and Brutes.

On the upside, it only takes one or two support characters to let a team run smoothly.

Fair deal!

What I'm curious about is how the game arranges groups. If there's 19 people in a trial, does it fill group #1 to 8, then group #2 to 8, then group #3 gets the leftover 3? Or does it split evenly, so group #1 would have 7 and groups #2 and #3 would have 6?

Also, are the teams able to rearrange players between them, in case, say, one is overloaded on melee and one's overloaded on control?

The problem you're describing is one of implementation, not concept, and in this case implementation is easily changeable. The important part is that you have people who've confirmed they're ready for the trial; if enough people drop that the queue is now below the minimum, there's no reason the system can't say "Hold on guys, let me find more people...okay, 3 more have confirmed, you're good to go."

Further, this would only be a problem in a situation where you have ONLY the minimum number of people for a trial and one or more drop out. If you get 26 and one drops, so what?
Problems you can't always anticipate may come up. One would hope those problems would come up before the game announces that a trial is ready, but you just can't always plan for that. Stuff happens.

On a more general note, I don't think it's useful to constantly shout that we're not That Other Game. That Other Game came up with a really useful and interesting groupfinding mechanic. There are some bumps, but there are always bumps when you include a human element. If it can be adapted to work for City's different group dynamics, it would absolutely be a valuable and positive addition to the game. Ideas shouldn't be discarded simply because another game implemented them first.

Depends on how many people are around and what sort of match algorithm it uses, if any. If there's 30 people queuing for a 24-person run and it grabs the first 24 to queue, then one drops out, it just grabs #25 and carries on.

If enough people drop out such that the remainder have to keep waiting for another player, is that any different from not having enough people in the first place? Should those who dropped be obligated to participate in the trial?

Yeah, it has the potential for griefing. But if you force someone into the trial who can't or doesn't want to play at that time, you have something worse than not enough people; you have dead weight who are taking up slots that other people in the queue who want/can play could be using.

Besides, in my experience, the fear of griefing is vastly larger than the actual problem.

Fair nuff. And of course, those corner cases (although Rikti drones are hardly bloody corner) are what Build Up is for. +40% to-hit solves a lot of problems.

I'll take your word for it, although do you mean inf/hour at the end there? Increased inf/kill is self-evident.

If you choose the merit reward at the end of a WST instead of the Incarnate reward (or if the merit reward is your only option), you get double the merits. I assume buying 600 Vanguard merits for 300 is an approximation of that, and would be a one-time purchase.

Can I ask why?

I don't think I've ever had a problem getting in on a Mothership raid.

Heartily agree. I don't know that this would ruin the system (there will be fewer I-told-you-sos when there's less melodrama), but having to just sit and wait for a full queue would be incredibly boring, especially on the less populated servers. I love this game, but there isn't all that much to do outside door missions save fuss with the market or vendors.

ETA: Regarding being yanked out of the mission, a confirmation box asking if you're ready to go or if you want to be put back in the queue works beautifully.