Cyber_naut

I think a plaque would be cool. I'd prefer plaques recognizing player accomplishments like this than plaques talking about generic events they created. It makes the game more 'alive' imo. Plus it's good advertising for a cool event to get players more into the game.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
With those new games coming out, there isn't even a guarantee that this game will be alive in a year. It's currently still a cash cow for NCSoft. I believe it's the second biggest source of revenue behind GuildWars. But the upcoming competiton will surely change that.

[/ QUOTE ]

Definitely. I don't think playing dress up with our toons and now enemy toons is enough to maintain any kind of sustainable competitive advantage.

MA seems like it could be a golden ticket, but the current edition of it is pretty weak. I don't think they have years to improve it either.

Every 'feature' in this game is only half complete whether it be pvp, base building, modding, raiding, loot, market etc. Not every game offers everything that cox does, but cox doesn't do a good job on anything it does offer, so unless you take advantage of a ton of their packages we will likely find better games elsewhere.

[/ QUOTE ]
I think you're dramatically underestimating the advantage a game has when it has been out for 5 years. It's true that newer games will have new graphics engines and are designed for things like power customization that will require tremendous effort to achieve in this engine. But any 1.0 version of an MMO is going to have tons of shortcomings and balance issues and a fairly shallow pool of content compared to when that same game has been out for a couple of years. And if you think CO and DCUO won't have devs equipped with nerf bats, you're an amazingly optimistic person.

WRT to the MA, what we have now is just a 1.0 release. What's there already is good, and it'll get better.

The most important game-changer is the additional staff that they hired on. And they are still hiring. I manage a software team for a living and I can tell you the difference you can make when you grow a team the way they've grown theirs is HUGE. The product I manage has more than a million lines of code. It takes a smart programmer typically about 6 months before they can make meaningful contributions. I expect it's about the same with COH. A lot of the hiring was done in the last half of last year so I'd expect the payoff to come in the second half of this year. Time will tell.

[/ QUOTE ]

All of this is true to some extent, but it's not what they CAN do, it's what they ARE DOING.

Mission Architect looks good, but it was supposed to be out with I13, then they said early first quarter, and now it looks like it's finally going to be out in the second week of april. They are just moving WAY too slowly, and with new competition on the horizon, that is a death sentence. And that is assuming MA works well and there aren't a lot of bugs... Then look at the gap between I12 and I13. Still waiting for cathedral of pain to be fixed, base raids are still disabled, I still have to wait for all my team members to be in a zone to set a damn mission, etc.

Then you have to question some of the decisions they are making, specifically about the topic at hand, PVP. I'm not a big pvp'er in this game, but I'd love to get into it. However, when the rules of the game change drastically from one moment to the next, it's a major turn-off. Tweaks are fine, but drastic changes make it seem like working on pvp toons and skills is a waste of time. It's even worse when the changes are simply idiotic, and I'm sorry to use that word, but no other word conveys how ridiculous some of the changes are. There is no way in hell I should want to drop energy transfer for flurry, or want 'trow sharks' more than anything in my primary, lol.

Someone in authority at NC soft needs to wake up and throw down the gauntlet by listening to their customers, picking up the pace, and fixing some of this stuff that is so blatantly broken, because pretty soon, their customers will have competing super hero games offering a competing product.

I only post this because I love this game and would like to see it remain competitive and viable.

[ QUOTE ]
Why dont you put in a VOTE system to elect the super leader? Give the current leaders a vote each. Tied voting means no super leader.

I mean, we are all about democracy right? :P

This way any SG politics would not affect customer service - CS would just have to worry about if the voting system works or not.

Upsen.

[/ QUOTE ]

A democracy doesn't vote to put all the power into one person's hands, because once you do that, you're no longer a democracy. When all the power is in one person's hands (whether it was voted on or not), you have a dictatorship.

I know there were problems with the old system, but the new system simply creates all new problems, some of which are worse than the problems this 'fix' was intended to remedy. Lemme guess, the guy who revamped pvp came up with the superleader idea, right?

Don't worry, in I14 castle will be revealing the Roy Scheider defense set IO's.

I still can't believe the devs won't simply admit the changes they made were ridiculous and revert them.

[ QUOTE ]
I know what you are getting at.

Took a friend into WB to show them how to launch a missle.
Checked the zone and it was just us. (Could have been a hidden or two lurking)

Anyway, showed them the way to the tunnels and down to a scientist. On the way back up bumped into a Veat Soldier (pretty sure he only saw me), checked zone population again, paused to see what they would do, ran past me and down the ramp, no prob I thought.

Showed friend to the way point, went back to the scientists. In that time he'd called in friends, a corrupter, a brute, himself (soldier) and a Dom. Now I didn't expect to win this gank fight, but gave my friend enough time to get away.
Went to the Hospital and rechecked zone pop. sure enough they were all there. Went back to my friend and they were fighting the corrupter. Then I saw my friend's toon running slow motion sideways on the one spot, it wasn't a mez they'd got dc'd map served.

So I took up the fight, it was a good fight with them. I won and then the Soldier showed up and fought me toe to toe after a stealth strike on me, but he was losing, suddenly they started kiting (no porb with that valid defence to a scrapper) then the brute showed up with the Dom. and the soilder rejoined the gank. Then all but the corrupter (the one that fight me to the last) ganked the dc'd toon. The corrupter even said "I think they've dc'd" yeah there is a challenge.

Now I know its a PvP zone, no issue with that. The soldier attempted a taunt for the code piece that they'd got off my friend, I laughed at him, told him that he couldn't win and needed his friends to gank me. His response? "I'll fight you anywhere 1 vs 1 but not here."????

Needless to say I wished them happy ganking and left, no point staying. I sent a tell to the corrupter complimenting him on having the balls to stay and fight, not running and waiting till backup arrived.

So to all the "Lrn2pvp"/gankers. You aren't helping the pvp cause.
There is no skill in getting 3+ toons and pounding 1 toon into the ground again and again.
There is no chance for said toon to "Lrn2pvp" in that situation and you'll find yourselves in a empty zone.

So don't complain when pvp "dies" cause you reaped what you sowed.

[/ QUOTE ]

You just described WHAT PVP IS. If you don't like what occured, then you will not enjoy pvp, regardless of what the devs do. PVP is competition - in competition nobody is equal and everyone looks for advantages to defeat opponents. Nobody likes to lose and nobody likes to be disadvantaged, but sometimes that is going to happen. And when you play against other players, the other player will not always be some really nice buddy, sometimes it will be a cocky, trash-talking jerk. That's the reality of ANY person vs person competition.

Competitive people get this, but obviously many people do not. The inexperienced and unskilled go into these zones and get destroyed. People who really want to compete will try to improve or try to fix truly broken parts of the actual game mechanics, while others simply demand instant equality.

The devs incorrectly tried to appease the latter, something that is really impossible to do. It's impossible to create equality in a game with so many different at's, powers, levels and enhancements, not to mention differing skill and experience levels of the players themselves. The result is similar levels of imbalance, and in some cases even more broken and ridiculous ones. Spirit shark and flurry? Really? LOL.

And how do you stop people from teaming up on other players, or better players from targeting obviously weak ones? You can't. Attacking the weak link is a common practice in any competitive endeavor. If you're the one getting 'ganked', you need to get stronger or get more allies, it's really that simple.

Trashtalking? It's not my thing, but in all the competitive situations I've been in, I've never seen it absent in any of them, lol. In most situations, you just have to deal with it our turn it to your advantage. In COH, you can CLOSE YOUR CHAT WINDOW, lol. If some twit on a computer saying bad things about your mama upsets you too much, maybe competition just isn't your thing.

The old pvp just needed a few tweaks here and there, but instead the devs tried to appease the non-competitive folks by completely changing the game, in effect hurting the core audience of pvp while attracting virtually no new audience.

The oddest move I see coming is the inclusion of pvp IO's after they just got done limiting their effectiveness. It's also sad to see the devs lack of response to the almost universal disdain of the new pvp system, and what appears to be either stubborness, cluelessness or just disinterest in what the pvp audience really wants.

If I had a say, I'd revert the changes and make the pvp game play more like the pve one (tanks would be tanks, spirit shark and flurry would not be uber, etc), make some tweaks to bring weaker at's and powers/powersets up to pvp viability on the go, while adding rewards and new objectives to bring new players in.

[ QUOTE ]
I disagree, Cyber_naut. This aint a storytelling workshop. If I publish one of my arcs, I expect it to get ripped. Every arc deserves a 1-star rating unless and until it proves otherwise. If you drop five minutes into the first mission, I obviously failed to prove anything.

[/ QUOTE ]

If you're going to review something, then you need to try it first, or your review is worthless. As it is, I could go up and down the list of arcs and star it however I want without having played it or giving it an honest review? What's that do to the credibility of the whole system? It trashes it and makes it virtually worthless.

The only way the system will have credibility is if you make the rater 'pay to play'. If you want to review an arc, you have to actually play it. Shocking, I know. The devs are usually so concerned about exploits, I'm surprised they don't see how a 'rate at will without any effort to actually play what you are rating' system could be exploited, and more importantly, what that kind of system does to the integrity of the game.

I understand the idea that some will be so bad it will be obvious from the very beginning, but it's not like one of those is going to sneak into the hall of fame. Those arcs will just sit there with one or two reviews and thousands of non-reviews, which would probably tell you all you needed to know. But on the other hand, as it stands now, you could have a quality arc that just misses it's deserved hall of fame induction because of random and unwarranted 1star reviews that bring its star rating to just below the necessary level.

Bottom line is, if you are so interested in the arc that you feel the need to review it, why is it so much to ask that you be required to actually play it through first?

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Positron, I am a little concerned about the possible rate griefing involved with being able to rate an arc that hasn't been played. Especially when there are badges involved in rating unrated arcs or ones that don't have many ratings. A lot of people will probably get their badges simply by going down the line of unrated arcs, slapping a 1 star rating on them, and getting their badge in the process. I've seen rating systems on web-published content experience things like that, and that's WITHOUT the enticing badge. Please reconsider allowing someone to rate an unfinished arc.

*EDIT* Been here since CoH beta, and this is the first time I've posted after a redname.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm willing to listen to ideas on how truly horrible content can get rated without having to endure all of it.

[/ QUOTE ]

If you're going to ruin somebodys rating by slapping a one on it, you should have to 'endure all of it'. I've read some books and watched some movies that seemed to suck at first, but after 'enduring all of it' found them to be rather good after all.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Can you make av level bosses?

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes

[/ QUOTE ]

Hot. Can you have multiple av's in one encounter like in the STF or LRSF?

Can you make av level bosses?

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Will you be able to edit the costumes of current mob classes and inherit all the other properties of said mobs?

[/ QUOTE ]

No. You can put pre-existing critters into custom villain groups or make a custom character, but we will not have editing of pre-existing critters (at least for first release).

Custom characters use player costume pieces.

I'm sure this will come up again and often, but critters have different animation rigs with different abilities. If you were to give a warwolf energy blast he might look ok or he might shoot beams out his shoulder without moving at all. This is not trivial to fix.

[/ QUOTE ]

Good play having someone answer the questions so quickly.

Wow, at first glance it looks like you guys did a great job with this thing.


But..
"At the high level we allow you to create your own stories and share them with others in the game."

WTH does 'at the high level' mean?

And I hope the rewards are equal to what you would get running regular content or this will get old real fast.

IO's were a great addition to the game that are almost universally enjoyed by players. It simply does not make any sense to make them so difficult to obtain and use, then to add insult to injury, make them less useful in pvp.

I've always felt it is too difficult to IO out toons. I play a lot, and I never bother with IO's until the toon is lvl 35 or higher. It would be nice if IO's were more viable at the lower levels, but the only way that's going to happen is if the prices drop drastically or the drops increase drastically.

Now it's even more difficult at higher levels to IO up a toon. Even if you're loaded, good luck finding what you need on the depleted market, and even if you do find something, get ready to be [censored].

IO's are a great feature in this game, the devs should seriously consider making it more available to all of their customers, not just the people who farm 8 hours a day. The merit system can help towards that goal, but not at the prices/merit drop levels we have right now. And they're not slightly off, they're WAY off.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Please post in the i13 PvP feedback section (under Developers Corner). Ranting here will change nothing. Maybe the Devs will listen to a PvP newbie like yourself (by newbie I mean someone who enters Warburg solo and expects not to get ganked...and for there to be no trash talking).

[/ QUOTE ]

Hey, why should I? It is not me who is crying all over the forums because PvP in this game has died. I could care less. It's your problem, not mine. I just figured I would be nice enough to show you *why* your precious PvP is dying.

But hey, by all means, keep doing what you are doing....I will just sit back and sip soda while you continue to chase off new players. /e shrugs.

[/ QUOTE ]


Those who want to pvp who are complaining about the pvp changes, are complaining because the changes have made pvp into some kind of lame [censored] new game where powers don't work the same, at's dont work the same, the imbalances are FAR bigger than they were before, and the sluggish new style blows. And these changes were made to cater to people like you who really don't have any interest in pvp'ing, and who don't have a thick enough skin to pvp to begin with. I'm not a trash talker, but I do like competition, and I've never taken part in any competitive situation that didn't have trash talkers. Good luck removing trash talking from any competitive situation where you have more than one or two people. And 'ganking' will always exist as well because better players will always beat the crap out of bad ones. If you want to get good, you have to be willing to take the beatings to get better, that's how it works in any competitive endeavor. Your problem with pvp isn't what the system or game mechanics are, your problem is with what competition is and what it makes you face. My problem with the new pvp is the broken game mechanics the devs have created where tanks are running around with ranged shark attacks because squishes can take more of a beating than they can, lol.

[ QUOTE ]
My issue with the merit system (as it stands) is that, It's ALL ABOUT curtailing/curbing/reducing "Farming" & preventing farmers/players from "Exploiting" the system at all costs.

Meanwhile, back at the batcave:
Everyone else got thrown under the bus!, so to speak...

I understand the issue of trying to stop exploits & some players getting "too much stuff, too quickly".

I don't understand the need for this concern to seriously outweigh the "Fun Factor"/general enjoyment of the system for everyone else.


The long drawn out explanations along the lines of...
"Well, see this is how you can play and still get a decent amount (aka worthwhile number) of merits in a reasonable amount of time". That is of course, IF you spend all that time on ONE character.

But, If you have alt-itis?
Well, just forget about Merits and one day (someday?) you may login, accidentally stumble by the Merit Vendor and realize you have enough to actually buy 1 recipe on that Character!

I'm happy that I actually have a possibility of getting Pool C recipes - outside of trying to do (uninterrupted by RL concerns) TF's, or blowing a Toon's entire bankroll on one at the market - seriously I am.
But the total number of Merits I've seen so far on ALL my alts - spread across several servers - just MIGHT be enough to buy 1 nifty recipe or maybe 2 really "cheap" ones.

It's looking really disappointing so far.

[/ QUOTE ]

Dude, all you have to do is farm one of the respec tf's on a leet team and you could be pulling in 2 or 3 recipes per week! But only play one character...

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Peregrine Falcon, are you sure you don't just have the Hide Recipes Missing Ingredients box checked on the drop down at the vendor? I can pull up all the prices for every recipe out there with a toon that has exactly zero merits on them.

[/ QUOTE ]
Whoops. I just logged on and it looks like that's exactly what was happening. Thanks.

I withdrawn that objection, but now I have another.

Stuff costs WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYY too many merits. My Scrapper will be 50 before I have enough merits to get anything. You know, actually getting to use some of those set IOs would make the game a lot more fun than simply staring at them in the window.

[/ QUOTE ]

Exactly. I have no idea why the devs think it's a good idea to make IO's, which are a great feature in this game that make the game far more interesting and fun, so damn cost prohibitive. It's not like the price/reward system is just a bit off, it's ridicu-off.

I think if a player does a 3-hour task force, they should get a tangible, and useful reward. As it is now, you can get a small, miniscule fraction of that by saving up for ONE recipe that will take you countless arcs or tf's to get enough merits to buy pretty much anything, much less anything decent, or you can take the merits and go for a random roll, and 99% of the time end up with a pretty worthless recipe.

I understand that it's not a good system to make getting 'loot' too easy, but as it stands right now, this system simply SUCKS. It's fine to keep the really high end stuff expensive, but only the really high end stuff like numina uniques should require extensive saving/effort. Most regular recipes should be attainable in exchange for an avg length task force or story arc. It's ONE recipe. Most players have multiple characters and each character will have countless slots to fill. And now we have dual builds. Why make is so damn hard, impossible really, to be able to fully enjoy using IO's on all their toons?

[ QUOTE ]
<QR>

I got my Broadsword/Shield Scrapper to level 27. Running my story arcs, no task forces yet. Less than 50 merits. Can't afford anything except a couple of level 20 SOs and some random Inspirations. Yeah. Ok. Maybe when I get to 40 I'll have enough merits to actually get something with.

What's worse is that I don't even know what my goal is. I can't look at meritnpc's list and find a number to shoot for because he won't show me anything that I can't already afford.

*Merits Awarded* "Cool! Let's go talk to meritdude and see what I can get for my merits!" *sigh* "Still nothing."

It's disheartening, and it's not fun.

As a way for level 50s to solo farm flashback storyarcs for merits maybe it's a good deal. I don't know because I don't farm. But for someone who started a brand new character and runs only story arcs in an unsuccessful attempt to get enough merits to do anything with, the system appears like it was build specifically by and for the farmers.

[/ QUOTE ]

Disheartening? Not fun? Try buying 10 random rolls that get you nothing but garbage... recipes you can't use and are worthless on the market. Or you can save up 200-250 merits to buy ONE good recipe. Now that's fun, right?...

[ QUOTE ]
Purely Subjective Feedback:

I feel that, like the rest of the game, the Merit Reward system if unfairly biased towards team play. This bothers me quite a bit for a simple reason; I don't play this game because I love MMORPGs, or video games, or socializing with a lot of people that I will very likely never see in real life -- I play it because I love comic books!

Now, go out to a comic store and count the number of comic books that star one character and compare that number of books that feature teams. While you're at it, look at the number of team books that have members who also have solo titles.

The solo books outnumber the others. I know this, as a comic book fan.

So how about you folks work on making it possible to play solo and reap rewards that are, if not comparative to those of constantly teaming, at least closer to equitable.

Please?

We aren't all team players, after all.

[/ QUOTE ]

I agree with you on this in that I always felt TF's should be open to solo players. Yes, I think teaming should be ENCOURAGED, but not forced as it is now with tf's requiring min team numbers.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Cyber, you're pulling numbers out of your behind. A level 50 could maybe make a couple million off a katie, but that's it, [u]unless they got a really good drop.[u]

Trust me, i farmed Katie dry. I NEVER made 50 mil in a single run. So just stop.

[/ QUOTE ]

You could make 50 million off a Katie. Just not everytime. Remember he said "could" not "would".

[/ QUOTE ]

Exactly. Not sure how people read what I said as 'every time'. The same holds true for the new system, you won't get a good random recipe roll everytime with it either. Using the katie task force as an example, you now have to do three times the work to get the same reward, or chance of reward. And again, yes the really long task forces reward more now, but even the best ones don't have the same bang for the buck katies had, and katies were a big part of the engine that fueled the market, and one of the few tools the casual player had to get shots at the tf pool drops.

And sure, adding merits to regular mission arcs can help diminish that loss, and COULD even help make the loss disappear and even become a net gain, but that's only if you solo or force your team to only play your arcs, which clearly discourages teaming, which is another huge strength of this game and something that should be encouraged.

My suggestions would be to either lower the cost of recipes and random rolls. I also like the idea from a previous poster of rearranging the drop pools so people could at least pick from pools that will at least give them a chance of getting something they are aiming for and will actually benefit the toon rolling on said pool. And clearly the teaming issue needs to be addressed, so that everyone on the team is rewarded for helping with missions and arcs.

[ QUOTE ]
Cyber, you're pulling numbers out of your behind. A level 50 could maybe make a couple million off a katie, but that's it, unless they got a really good drop.

Trust me, i farmed Katie dry. I NEVER made 50 mil in a single run. So just stop.

[/ QUOTE ]

You 'farmed katie dry' and never got a miracle unique or a lotg plus recharge? Those were available in the drop pool, so if the old system was still in place, then yes, you could make around 50 million in a 30 min task force. And there are a lot more recipes in that pool that will get you more than 'a couple million'. And I'm not pulling this from my 'behind'... you can see the recipes that were available in the pool on paragon wiki then check the prices at your local WW.

It doesn't take a mathematician to figure it out. Just using the katie TF as an example, before, you would get a chance at a good drop by running it just once. Now you have to run it 3 times for the same reward. Granted, the excessively long task forces now have better returns, but that's going to reward only the hardcore players who play 8 hours a day. The casual, or even average player, who doesn't have time to run the longer task forces, clearly will take a hit here.

And it will have other problematic effects as well, in regards to the market. Take the new obliteration io set for example. Go try to put together a set of those at WW and tell me how much it costs you. Better yet, tell me if you can even do it - I couldn't because some of them aren't even available. In the old system, people would be getting them in katie drops and putting them up on the market, meaning greater supply and lower prices.

I like the idea of merits, but it's going to make an already difficult task (io'ing out your toons) more difficult, and that's a really bad move, imo, because IO's make this game much more enjoyable, and even more so if I could actually use them easily. Again, using the obliteration example, looking at the prices and availability, it will be months before I can put a set together. That's just sad and disappointing to me as a customer.

[ QUOTE ]
"If you played enough to earn 240 merits, then you would have earned at least 50 million with the old system. I seriously doubt you did that without doing some tf's."

I did Positron, Numina, and a respec (second one). grand total influence earned via grouping was 1.9 million total. That is with selling normal recipe drops at ah for 100,000 each. If you can make 50 million a week please tell us how. I sure dont know how to do it.

[/ QUOTE ]

Wow, so you made 133 merits on story arc completions in a week? Impressive, did you log of at all?

In the old system, you could score 50 million in one 20-30 minute katie task force.

[ QUOTE ]
I just got a Miracle +recovery for 240 merits. I worked for a week to get the merits along with normal leveling with my spouse. In that same week I could not earn 50 million influence under normal grind/leveling. On top of that I am level 38 now and I was able to select a level 20 miracle +recovery so I can slot and use when I am exemped down to that level range.

I like the merits, they are a little low but I like the thought.

I would change how they are given tho. I agree story arcs are worthless unless your the team leader selecting your arcs. I would like to see 1 merit per mission in story arcs across the board, and a reward for finishing an arc. Badge missions merits, I currently dont know if you get merits for this. Police/Paper missions, 1 merit each for group. This way every group will slowly be building up merits for doing missions. You can bank them and spend them, or us AH for faster gains.

[/ QUOTE ]

If you played enough to earn 240 merits, then you would have earned at least 50 million with the old system. I seriously doubt you did that without doing some tf's.

I like the idea of merits, but it's still far too difficult to io up toons. There's a reason so many people farm and why the devs seem to think they need to spend so much time stopping the farmers, lol.

I like the candy cane idea, and the fact you can buy stuff with them. Badges, special IO's, and special auras are all good ideas. The ski courses are fun.

One thing I would suggest to improve the seasonal events is to create a new mission or two for each event. It would help keep the story moving along, and get rid of the stale feeling I get when I do the baby new year mish for the 100th time.

[ QUOTE ]
(Apologies to Peregrine_Falcon, usually we agree. Farmers aren't my concern, players are. )

I do like the idea of merits being awarded globally (with limitations, see summary). The reason is simply this: Alts.

For years we have been encourage to play alts. Alts were the solution to hitting 50 and wanting more content, the content was alternate ATs and powersets.

Now with merits, we are driven to play a single character to achieve enough merits to buy things. I now have to choose between my playstyle (alternating between many characters, on four servers) and merits.

Summary: At least make merits server and faction specific. That would go a long way to alleviating this problem, for most people it would be enough.

[/ QUOTE ]

Instead of worrying about what the farmers are doing, the devs should be worrying about what the average coh player is doing. Is policing the farmers worth pissing off so many of your regular customers? The answer should be obvious.

The current system makes it even harder to use IO's, which are a huge positive aspect of this game. The current system discourages teaming. Much of this is due to the devs trying to stop farming, yet the farming continues, and farmers and regular players alike are agitated. That's not a good situation.

[ QUOTE ]
Subjective Feedback:

Some recipes seem quite over-priced for what they do. For instance, why is the Blessing of the Zephyr -kb recipe cost more than the other -kb recipes? 75 is a sizable amount, and works well for the other -kb recipes.

One other recipe I noted (since I want to get a few for a few of my heroes) as costing far too much was the Pounding Slugfest chance for stun. It costs 200 merits! A chance for stun is not THAT spectacular, and the set bonuses are not that high. It's not a unique recipe either, so the cost seems far out of whack from its benefit.

I think the same could be said for snipe recipes. I'm not sure how values were assigned to the various recipes, but some seem a little over the top.

[/ QUOTE ]

I've been playing every day since i13 came out for 2-4 hours each day, and if I pooled together all the merits I've gotten (yeah, I know that's not possible), I could afford ONE pounding slugfest chance for stun, and a single random recipe roll.... wow.

I primarily team and did several ITF's, a manticore and a shard tf. I end up with a pounding slugfest chance for stun and most likely a trap of the hunter or pacing of the turtle. Awesome. (Actually, I'm not sure I have enough for the random roll, lol.)

The devs are limiting something that has made this game successful - customization. IO's were a GREAT idea, another way for players to customize their characters. WHY is 1/2 an hour too short a time to get a CHANCE at a SINGLE decent recipe? Hell, 90% of the time, you would get garbage from a katie run. The devs really need to rethink this stance that it's a good idea to make it so difficult for people to get IOs. I would make the katie run a base for merits, ie. 1/2 hour for enough merits for a random roll. I'd also pull out all the crap recipes from that pool so players are actually rewarded for play rather than kicked in the face with another trap of the hunter. Also, drops and merits are HORRIBLE on teams. Merits need to be awarded to everyone that contributes on a team, not just the person who's arc the team is playing.