Canine

Impromptu half-marathons by mobs has been steadily annoying me more and more over recent issues. There's been a definite change over the years I've been playing, but I couldn't say for certain when and where it occurred.

If we're on the subject of mob AI, then there was a change an issue or so ago which made certain groups significantly easier to deal with.

Mainly, Carnies and Council/5th Column/Council Empire.

Is used to be that Carnie Attendants and Jugglers would stand at range and throw things at you and Marksmem/Riflemen would stay at range and shoot, forever. To deal with these mobs as a melee toon, you had to either move to them all individually, or find a piece of geometry to use to break LoS and force them to close on you.

Now, if I take my Stone/Fire scranker into a Carnie mission, I can lumber into a spawn, Taunt the one next door, and then just stand there and burn things, and as the number of mobs around me is reduced, the ones still at range start to run into melee. The same works with Council marksmen, but not Nemesis snipers.

Yes, I've reported this. I also keep reporting my own bet bugbear.

Mastermind pet AI. Specifically the Robotics pet AI, which INSISTS on running into melee range to fire a ranged attack, thus annoying the living wossname out of me, since I'm Bots/Traps/Mace and fully capable of keeping things at range through the application of Webs and caltrops.

Bots used to have an AI that was slightly screwy, but on the most part they'd stay at range and shoot. Not any more, and not for several issues now. It doesn't matter what orders I've got them on. They run into melee, and the only reliable way I've got to get them out of melee is Follow/Passive, any other order set leads to the pets going all over the place.

Apologies, I seem to have diverged from the point of the thread somewhat.

I was an idiot. But a stubborn idiot.

Bots/Traps.

Set to allow Bosses when solo.

Took me a tray and a half of purples, and about 5 or 6 faceplants, but I got it eventually.

Which one of my toons *don't* I want to try it on, solo? My Widow. 8 Smoke Grenades ruin anybody's day (duo'd it on my Crab against clones of a friends Widow, I couldn't see a bleedin' thing for half the fight, even with yellows and Tactics...)

...5 minutes a day of making and selling generic IO's got two toons to the inf cap (and has kept them going significantly beyond it) in about a year where I was playing the game anyway.

...when I list common salvage and it goes instantly for 15k a piece, i still ask myself 'who are these loons willing to pay so much?'

...I needed (or wanted, they blurred together) a low level numina's regen/recovery about a year ago on my Dark/Stone scranker, and got one for 'free' by selling a spare purple recipe that my main had acquired somewhere along the lines (it was a Ranged Damage one I was carrying two of, because I don't use or sell purples, I keep them), and since I paid nothing for the recipe, and it paid for the Numina's, Hurrah! Free Unique!

...pretty much any rare salvage drop is just another 1-2million inf now that my bank is full of the stuff, and that's just by listing at 75% or thereabouts of the low end of the last 5 prices.

...it allows me to mentally flag people who complain that making inf in this game is too hard as 'idle'

I can't really see it being worth their time to do the early closed beta for I20 in the EU.

Whenever I was on the GR beta, I saw at most 3-4 other people online.

I'll be happy to be wrong, but with that sort of population level, it's likely not going to be worth the effort of getting it going in the EU.

Overall, I'm not worried. I've still got plenty of Going Rogue that I've not played yet, the 'Stamina for free' effect means I'm more interested in I19 than I20 anyway and finally, I can wait. Patience is much Underrated

Generic IO's are more profitable than people think. They're also far less profitable than the more 'advanced' marketeering.

However, there was still enough profit in level 50 Generics for me to make 4 billion inf off them over about a year.

I recently got Field crafter on another alt, and I reckon I came out about even overall. I was in a bit of a hurry though and wasn't afraid to delete or put into SG base storage recipes that didn't look like they were going to sell any time soon.

If you've got patience though, they can provide a nice reasonably constant supply of inf.

It was easy in Imperial City, since the market's an enclosed space.

It's possibly doable in Paragon City, as it's a semi-enclosed space inside Wentworths, but it's slightly more troublesome in the Rogue Isles, with their alfresco open air markets. The edges of the market space are less well defined, and especially in Sharkhead where Scrapyard likes to wander by, having powers suppress could have the potential for griefing.

Maybe the Black Markets have made enough profit by now that they could afford to rent warehousing in the Rogue Isles, which would alleviate a lot of the trouble, and move the semi-legal at best activity off the open streets?