Ipso_Facto

The Sky Raider Secret
Contact: Barry Gosford
Merits awarded: 9 (+4)

The Tsoo Coup
Contact: Amanda Loomis
Merits awarded: 9 (+1)

That should complete hero 20-24.

I'm not sure what's left ....

Hero 20-24

Wheel of Destruction
Contact: Andrea Mitchell
Merits awarded: 9 (+5)

Hand of Iron
Contact: Andrew Fiore
Merits awarded: 8 (+4)

All these lower-level arcs have more than one contact, but I've only been listing the Ouroboros one. It probably doesn't matter, I guess.

I don't think you have this one yet.

I Lost My Daddy!
Contact: Penelope Yin
Merits awarded: 4 (+1)

And that should be it for 16-19 on heroes. No decreases in that range either, and all increased except the badge mission.

Sure we could wait for Synapse, but what fun is that? These are all Hero level 1-15.

Flux the Outcast
Contact: Flux
Merits awarded: 7 (+1)

Julius the Kind-Hearted Troll
Contact: Julius the Troll
Merits awarded: 4 (+1)

The Heart of the Hollows
Contact: Talshak the Mystic
Merits awarded: 11 (+2)

And that's it for the arcs in that range.

One teeny bit of commentary: no reductions at all for stuff in the lowest level. Almost all were increased, including one quite surprising one (although I'm still divided in my mind about just how surprising it should be.) An attempt to give more merits at low levels, or just coincidence?

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Two quick ones.

Break up the Clockwork and the Skullls (Negotiator badge)
Contact: Maurice Feldon
Merits awarded: 4 (+3)

That's right, I said 4.



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Wait what? Isn't that a single mission?

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A 60-minute timed kill-all of Clockwork and Skulls, that exemps you to 9, and the contact isn't even in the same zone as the mission? That sounds pretty reasonable, yeah.

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Yeah, you know, now that I've thought about it, it doesn't seem all that unreasonable. The contact is on the far side of Galaxy from the train station, and the mission (AFAIK) is always in Kings Row. And you have no travel powers, unless you have one of the temps. And you're level 9.

Still surprised me. I did it twice, just to make sure.

Two quick ones.

Break up the Clockwork and the Skullls (Negotiator badge)
Contact: Maurice Feldon
Merits awarded: 4 (+3)

That's right, I said 4.


Rescue the Mystic from the Circle of Thorns (Spelunker badge)
Contact: Dr. Trevor Seaborne
Merits awarded: 1 (+/- 0)

As expected, but since the first one was changed, I had to check.

Both through Oro. On live, they only give merits through flashback, not at natural level. I haven't checked to make sure that's still the case on Test. Chances are it is.

Two low-level Hero Arcs:

The Clockwork Captive
Contact: Athena Currie
Merits: 9 (+2)

The Vahzolok Pollutant Plot
Contact: Jill Pastor
Merits: 13 (+6)

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If you are in the population that never does tfs hates the markets and solos story arcs its a plus.

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Is there some reason you think these three things go together?

I am very much hoping the market will continue alive and well. My characters are vastly better off with the markets here than they would be without it.


My objection is that you're mucking up the issue and probably making any change less likely.

After taking a closer look Pool C, I'm going to have to concede the point that random rolls probably won't be a very good strategy compared to outright merit purchase, even if you just plan to sell whatever it happens to be. Bummer.

I'll be doing it anyway.

First, gambling is more fun than shopping.

Also there's just the fact that I'm not going to be getting that many merits. I'm not going to suddenly start farming TF's because of this. Soo ...

I can buy maybe two or three really shiny things, or I can get a chance of getting more than that. It's not vital to me that I do get the shiny things; if I get any it's just gravy. If I had a realistic chance of saving up enough of them to do a whole build or something, it might be different, but I don't.

The merits were "free" in the sense that I got them for stuff I was going to do anyway.So whatever. See what I get.

Also, if I have 20 merits in hand, and the choice is take a random now or save up to maybe be able to buy something specific weeks or even months later, well, I'll take the chance now. Impatience.

So there.

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The devs are apparently betting that most folks will just view merits as an "extra" - a way to get additional reward from non-TF sources and control what items they get from TF's if they want to. I'm not saying I necessarily agree with that assesment, but right now it is all in the realm of conjecture.

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Uhhh no. There is no way anyone could view the merit as an extra. For it to be an extra you would still need the original which will be gone.

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Of course they could.

Here's an example of how. I don't do many TF's, and when I do it's not because of the recipe reward; I just feel like doing a TF (or I want the badge.) The recipe drop is an extra thing, a little roll of the dice that might be something nice. The merits will be the same.

I do story arcs pretty frequently. Now when I do, I'll get merits for them. But I won't be doing them for the merits alone--I was doing them already anyway. The merits are an extra which might be turned into something nice.

As far as the random roll and the original being gone: no it isn't. Your random roll option still exists. You don't like that you can no longer get it for the same amount of effort, but it still exists.

The only reason I'm bringing that up is because I think talking about it as if it were no longer there is counterproductive. I think the price of it may still be a little high, but any argument for lowering it will just be undercut by whining about how it was taken away, when it wasn't.

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At this point I remain Really Concerned (tm) that I will be negatively impacted in the short term. Despite reassurances from folks I respect I still think there is a very real, non-zero probability that the market for Pool C recipes will be destroyed by this change. Since I rely on that market to build my toons and that's a large part of what's fun for me it is something I will be watching very carefully.

However, my belief - no matter how rational and plausible - cannot at this point be *proved*. I can prove that without TFs my characters will typically earn at most 300 merits in the current system. Toss in a random TF or two and each of my toons will see at most 400 to 500 merits. I can prove that that will net me 2 or 3 shinnies - recipes that today none of my toons have ever gotten (LOTG, Numinas, etc..). So if the devs are right and I can get that *and* still use the market to buy what I do today - then the system is additive. OTOH, if the market for Pool C's goes poof - then I'm not so happy because those 500 merits aren't going to get me all the Pool C recipes that I typically use on a toon - unless I'm really lucky.

But all of that hinges on something neither I, nor the devs can prove - what will be the impact of Merits on the open market for mid-level Pool C recipes? I have my belief, the devs have theirs - since they make this game, we go with theirs. I just have to hope that *if* things don't work out the way the devs think they will that they will react quickly enough to correct things - otherwise I will have lost a part of the game that I find fun.

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Nice posting, Weaver. You've made me realize the real reason I've been so sanguine about the market effects of this. It's not because I'm confident the Pool C market won't collapse. I don't see it as a foregone conclusion, but I know that the possibility is nonzero. It's because I don't believe for a second that the devs are actually aiming for that result, or that if it happened they wouldn't see it as a bad thing. And if they see it as a bad thing, then I expect they'll do something about it if it happens.

I'm actually in the same boat you are as far as merits. I'm not going to be getting a huge number of these things. And like you, I have a use for several of those lower-demand or mid-demand Pool C recipes. Currently I can afford them with inf. (I can't get any of the real shinies, but I accept that as the price of my playstyle.) I am very much hoping that they don't disappear from the market.

If they do, there will definitely be some short-term pain for me--but I do think, at least, that it would be only short-term. There are things the devs could do to revive it. I think there are enough people in our boat to make them want to revive it, and also for it to work if they tried to revive it.

It's still worthwhile to give suggestions that may help make the market-collapse outcome less likely. I don't have any argument with that, only with the more extreme doom scenarios.

This probably isn't a discussion that belongs in this thread. Yes, I know I'm not the forum police or anything. Just saying. This argument has been had before, and will be had again, and isn't really related to I13 feedback.

What's the optimal or best use of one's time in the game does indeed depend very strongly on what one's goals are. It's a misuse of the words to say that something that fits your priorities "isn't worth your time", because that can only be a personal decision.

However, in this kind of context, it should be understood that "worth it" means in terms of whether or not it's a good strategy for obtaining game rewards. On that question, connected with random rolls, I'm not completely convinced that for my circumstances (which include, among other things, lots of alts to spread things around to and a general disinterest in extreme min-maxing), the random roll isn't a good deal--or that it might not become a good deal with merit-system-driven price changes. I'm not going to commit myself any further until I can do some real research, which I'm certainly not going to do tonight.

I will admit, though, that regardless of how the numbers turn out, I'll probably do random rolls a lot of the time. This is because gambling is more fun than shopping for me. But I'm not going to pretend that this says anything about whether or not it's an optimal choice in terms of game rewards.

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Opportunity Cost. Spending those 20 merits on a random roll at Pool C is a bad bet if you're looking for something specific. The most you'll have to spend for a specific recipe is 250 merits. Or 12.5 random rolls. It's a bad gamble to take the roll. Before this, it wasn't a choice. You did a TF you got a roll, not skeeball tickets.

This isn't a problem with Pool D which is tiny and nearly everything it it is good.

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Agreed that if you want one specific thing, and anything else is basically worthless to you, then the random roll is a very poor deal.

If your needs/wants are a little more flexible, it becomes a better deal.

At any rate, what this line of reasoning seems to come down to is: by adding a second option that is better (at least in some common situations), they took the first option away. That still doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. People talk about it as if the random roll option no longer even existed.

I suppose this is just a semantics issue that I'll have to get over. I'll try.

I still think it won't always be a bad deal to take the random roll. The greater the proportion of possible results that is desirable to you, the better deal it is. I prices do rise on the less popular Pool C's, as has been predicted by some, then it becomes even better. At least by those who aren't looking for one specific thing.

Siofir: in your case, I wouldn't random roll either. But if I do random roll, and happen to get one of those things you want and put it on the market, would you be willing to bid on it? My random-roll strategy is kind of based on the idea that some people would, so it wouldn't be worthless on the market.

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The one thing that bothered me about Synapse's response to my queries was that while the issue with Steadfast Protection vs. Karma KB protection drops is going to be addressed, it's being addressed (IMO) in the wrong way.

Neither recipe is unique, which is the only slotting restriction that exists that modifies prices consistently in the merit window. Both of them are going to cost 50% more than every other non-unique uncommon recipe in Pool A.


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Yes, this bothers me too. I was hoping to get the knockback protection IOs through merits for a couple of my characters... someday. It would take me a very long time to get 50 merits. For 75, I might as well forget about it, and make use of dual builds to gat Acrobatics. But that's no real loss, since I don't have the knockback protection IOs now. It's just a minor disappointment.

Any way I look at it, merits are a nerf to the existing system. If they had been an option instead of a replacement, they could have allowed some to save for something good, while others could grab the random recipes. This will significantly slow down players' ability to get a large number of recipes. If I cared about the rare recipes or the market, I might be concerned about that. Fortunately this doesn't affect me much. I do understand the problems other players will be having though.

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Two questions. One, why do people see merits as a replacement rather than an option? If you want the random roll option, you can use the random roll option. The only difference is that you have to go to a merit vendor to do it rather then rolling on the spot. Okay, and that some TF's will give you less than one random roll (while others will give you more.) But it is still an option. It hasn't disappeared.

Two, why not buy the -KB IO with inf instead? You don't have to rely on merits to get it. Did I miss something and something is going to happen to Pool A drops? If not, the supply will be more or less the same.

Might even be cheaper if some people are using merits to get them so the market demand goes down. Plus there's a third set now that has a -KB, so that should reduce the demand too.

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And if the doomcryers are correct, and most people aren't taking the random drop, that means that I'll be one of the few people who ARE supplying the market. That's not a bad position to be in, either.

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My prediction is that initially, very few people will be using random rolls, but that over time and as things settle out, the number will increase.

I'll be doing it from the outset. My odds are pretty good of getting something useful, and I think that there are enough people who can earn inf faster and more easily than they can earn merits that there'll be people who will be willing to pay me for that stuff.

My first thought was that I would start doing this only after I'd used my first merits on a character to obtain a -KB IO--the only particular IO that I have a very strong desire to get. But those are Pool A, after all, so there will still be a supply of them, and possibly less demand (to get them through the market), so I'll plan on buying those with inf instead.

We will see. It'll be crazy at first, but I expect it'll settle out to something reasonable in the end. Hope so anyway.

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I personally define casual as related to time investment. I am a fairly casual player, I don't have time to do 5 or 6 posi's for a numina, I did have time to run a katie before I logged off for a chance of a numina, which has paid off in the past. The best thing was that if I didn't get a numinas, I had a chance to get something else that was good and had enough inf to buy a numina from someone who got one and didn't want to use it.

I don't have that option now. Now I have to grind to get what I want. It just doesn't seem to be a very casual friendly system.

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A question: I've meant to ask it a lot of times before, so don't think I'm picking on you. Why does the option to spend a reduced amount of merits for a random role not serve the same purpose? Everyone talks as though the random roll will no longer be a choice that can be made. The only difference I see is that it will take more than one Katie, but you can still do it.

It's a serious question. I'm not sure why that option is so universally discounted.

Edit: I'm not as dumb as I sound. I'm just not entirely convinced that the market for inf purchases of these items will completely dry up. If it does, then you're right because the random roll will be so bad a bet that it would never make sense. But as long as there are people who would rather spend inf to get items than grind for merits, why wouldn't some of us spend merits to get items that we may sell?

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I guess what bothers me the most about the merit system is that for a casual player (i.e. someone who has limited time on any given night to play due to Real Life) will mostly go virtually unrewarded for many things that they do.

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Why...why, why, why do you people think grinding is the only way to go?

Casual player. Solos, mostly. Takes his time leveling up. Does the contacts and the story arcs because they provide a nice XP bonus at the end. Doesn't do TFs because he doesn't have the time/doesn't particularly want to group.

Under the current system, he'd get no pool C drops at all. He'd be lucky to get anything decent from regular enemy drops, and he surely wouldn't have the inf to buy anything beyond SOs until he gets into the 40s-50s.

Under the merit system, he'll steadily accumulate merits through story arcs, and will be able to trade them in relatively quickly for random recipes or save them up for better stuff in the high levels.

I really think the story arcs are getting underestimated here. All y'all can think about is how grinding is going to be hurt and somehow that affects the casual player's ability to get decent stuff. The casual player doesn't give a crap about grinding, but he will be able to accumulate merits naturally over the course of his character's career.

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You read my mind here. Your first paragraph described my playing exactly. I do go through periods when I'm playing more and teaming more, but in general, I'm playing for an hour or two at a time and soloing for a good part of it, noodling my way through my contact missions. I do a TF probably about every four or five weeks on average.

It looks to me like I'll now have a far greater opportunity to get Pool C/D recipes than I ever did before, because I'll be getting merits from the arcs.

Only part I don't agree is with the not being able to buy anything above SO's until the 40's or 50's. Not really true. I Frankenslot the cheap sets, easily affordable just by salvage sales most of the time. And if I do happen to get a Numina's or something? I sell it and the proceeds are enough to take care of all my inf needs for the life of the character. The only high-price recipe/enhancement I've ever purchased for myself is a -KB IO, because those are sweet.

Now a "casual" player who also wants all the high-end stuff may or may not be hurt by this system. It'll depend on how the market interacts with the merit system. But it won't hurt me at all, I don't think. I expect it to help, if anything.

Edit: although the real question is, can I still sell that Numina's and take care of all my inf needs for the life of the character? Possibly not. OTOH, if other prices go up I'll at least break even, since I'm a net seller to the market. But that's where it'll hurt me if it does.

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That's NcSoft's version of a Rick-Roll.

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I have to admit it--I LOL'd at "come back tomorrow". Yeah, I want to know the new powersets too, but come on ... it was funny .

Maybe just to me .... Maybe I'm a closet sadst and didn't know it.

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<sigh> Much adoo about nothing. People have been able to quit out of a TF/SF for years and ruin them. Heck, had it happen to me in the second Shadow Shard TF once. A bunch of PowerLevellers were trying to run it and did great against the Nemesis. They hit the Rularuu and, two teamwipes later, left me and a couple of others standing in the mission without a word. Yeah - three of us vs Ruludak - I don't think so.

<Zloth showers kudos on Hellguard and Milk_Weasel>

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The funny thing is, given my monster post yesterday, I more or less agree with you. Whatever happens here, it's not the end of the world.

I'm on record somewhere--in one of the big threads discussing the current implementation--that it really wasn't a big deal to me. My argument there was with the people that hated it, and what I was saying was basically, "Yes, this will have some affect on a casual team, but it's not that bad."

I didn't argue all that much though, and now I guess I'm wishing I'd done it a little more. From my point of view, this new version is a little worse that the one it's succeeding--a little bit bigger of a deal.

What bugs me is that I stood by and didn't say anything while a bunch of other people screamed, convincing the devs to change something that I really didn't mind into something that I do, at least a little, mind.

It probably wouldn't have really changed anything if I'd said more, I know that. There's no reason anyone would have paid attention. But it still bugs me, I can't help it.

Anyway, I'll get over it. It's still not the end of the world.

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So, would you rather have the Lady Gray TF or a revamped Positron?As we continue to ramp things up, we will better be in the position where we can just do both.* We appreciate your continued support and patronage to get us there.

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Wait, is this a serious question? Is it a poll? I vote for revamped Positron.

From my point of view, it's cost/benefit. Every one of my characters could do a Positron TF. Okay, maybe not every one of them right at this moment, I might have a level 6 or two that I've forgotten about. But virtually all of them could do it, and even the forgotten level 6's could be brought up to that level in a snap.

OTOH, I have two--count 'em, two--characters that are currently high enough for Lady Grey. Getting another one up there will take a little time and effort, even with the new XP curve making it easier.

Beyond that, Positron is the first TF available. It's going to be most players' first impression of the entire TF mechanic. It shouldn't be one of the longest, hardest, and most tedious to do. If anything, it should be shorter and more streamlined than other TF's, to serve as a good introduction. First impressions count. A lot.

Yeah, I know it wasn't really a poll. But the question was asked, so there you go.

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Guess I won't be doing ANY more TF/SF until THIS fix gets a FIX.

Farmers can STILL farm it, and casual players (me) get screwed even more.


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Wait. Before this fix if it was an 8 man TF then spawns would always be for 8 even if it dropped down to 2 players still logged on.

Now, for the same TF, if 6 players just log off, nothing has changed. It still spawns for 8. But, if 6 players quit, it spawns for 2.

You don't see what is on test as an improvement over what is live for a PUG? I didn't say perfect, I said an improvement.

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For a TF that requires 8 people, this change is clearly an improvement. For a TF with a lower minimum, it's far from clear.

What if I started the Positron TF with 8 people? Either before or after the change, if 5 people quit, no problem--spawns adjust for 3.

Before the change, if 5 people log off without quitting, no problem--spawns adjust for 3. After the change, if 5 people log off without quitting, it still spawns for 8.

It's not that clear-cut, and it probably depends on which TF's you're focusing on.

Edit:
There's something bugging me about this, so I had to come back to it. I want to point out that I don't consider either of our examples to be particularly realistic for a normal team. I know mine certainly wasn't meant to be. I wouldn't expect that to happen unless the team was purposely soft-loading, and I don't have any problem with stopping that.

What's a lot more likely: You start Positron with 8 and lose 3. If at least one of those three left by logging or disconnecting rather than by quitting team, the team is now set up for a problem--a problem which would not exist on the live server as it stands now.

The main thing is that I want people to realize that this "fix" isn't a straightforward compromise or an obvious improvement. It's a trade-off, better in some situations and worse in others. As long as that's acknowledged, I don't have any particular problem with someone reaching the opposite conclusion from me about which is better.

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This currently being tested fix looks to be intended to be a more player-friendly compromise. Who knows whether it will go live? No harm in testing it while datamining to see if the Live fix is sufficient.

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I agree with you that this looks like it's intended to be a more player-friendly compromise, and I know several people have hailed it as such. The thing is that I question whether or not that's what it actually is.

I know this has been said before, but I think it bears reiteration. You can divide the cases where you lose someone on a TF, and the circumstances, into these four cases:

Case 1: Teammate quits the team, and the team is still at or above the minimum starting size.
Live version: spawns adjust
Test version: spawns adjust

Case 2: Teammate quits the team, and the team is now below the minimum starting size
Live version: spawns do not adjust
Test version: spawns adjust

Case 3: Teammate disconnects/logs without quitting, and the team is still at or above the minimum starting size.
Live version: spawns adjust
Test version: spawns do not adjust

Case 4: Teammate disconnects/logs without quitting, and the team is now below the minimum starting size.
Live version: spawns do not adjust
Test version: spawns do not adjust

In the first and last cases, there's nothing to choose between the two--they give the identical result. In the two middle cases, one is more hurtful with the live version, and one is more hurtful with the test version.

The first big question to me is: which of those two circumstances is more likely? I really don't know the answer to that. I haven't done loads of TF's, but I've seen both happen.

The next question that occurs to me is: which of these two is more under the players' control? That's where I think the live version comes out a little ahead.

If the TF has a minimum starting size of less than eight (or better, less then seven), it's possible to isulate yourself to some extent from the live change. Start the team with more than the minimum, and then if one or two people leave, you're still okay. With the test version, there's no way to do that. Your only choice is Lighthouse's suggestion:

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However, I would have to advise you to better get to know the people you are grouping with. Simply put, if someone has a reputation for such, don't engage in a task / strike force or trial with them. You would be well advised to only take your most trusted allies with you to tackle such challenging and dangerous missions!

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Am I the only person it's occurred to that this advice can be as easily applied to the current live situation? If you think a person is likely to quit the TF, then don't invite them?

In the current version, I have both of these options to mitigate the situation. I can try to assess my prospective teammates' reliability, and not invite them if I think they won't stay on the team. And I can invite some extra people, above the minimum, to give a cushion in case I'm wrong.

In the test version, I have two different options. I can try to assess my prospective teammates's reliability, and not invite them if I think they'll deliberately log off without quitting. And I can try to assess the reliability of their internet connection, and not invite them if I think it's not up to the job.

Here's the crux of this, to me. Quitting the team is always a deliberate action. If you quit, you had to have meant to quit. This is by no means to say that you might not have very good reaasons to do it, I know things happen in real life. But you can't have done it by accident. (Okay, yeah, it's possible by hitting the wrong button. But there's a confirmation dialog, isn't there? You 'd have had to have had a major brain fart.)

Being disconnected, OTOH, is something that can be beyond your control--I mean literally beyond your control. You didn't look at it and make a decision, it just happened.

I can be okay with filtering my teammates according to an assessment of their personal reliability. I'm far less comfortable with filtering my teammates according to an assessment of their ISP's reliability.

The first thing that jumped into my mind when I saw this was this situation. I've started a TF on a Saturday afternoon. Things looked great when I started, but an hour or so into it .... was that thunder? Uh oh, storm coming up. Not at all uncommon in the midwest, especially in late summer.

So now I have to make a decision. An unexpected power outage could definitely happen. It does, around here. So do I quit, or do I try to keep on?

My inclination would be to try to stay. This is not only for my own sake, but because losing a team member, even with adjusted spawns, is often hurtful to a PUG TF. If I end up losing power, well, that's too bad, but the team is no worse off than it would have been if I quit. And at least I can say I tried. If I don't end up losing power, then I complete the TF and was a help to the other members.

But now, that would be a bad decision. If I think an outage might happen, my team would be better off if I quit--even though it would be losing a member, which as I said is probably harmful in itself. If I lose power, then I made the right decison. If I don't? Then I quit the team, hurting myself and the rest of the team, for no purpose. That's going to be pretty frustrating.

Of the two proposed changes, this is the one that makes me more reluctant to join a TF team. Not so much because of what others might do, but because of the possibility of me accidentally griefing my team.




Oh, okay, I know: tl:dr, in an already tl:dr thread. I didn't mean for it to be quite so long. Let me try for an executive summary:

I appreciate the fact that they're trying for a compromise here. The problem is that I don't think the proposed change mitigates the situation for a casual team, it only shifts it to another area, and arguably makes it worse. I'm fine with the goal, and understand that one or the other of these things is probably here to stay. But if given a choice between the two of them, I think I prefer the current live version.

If anyone actually read all that, thanks for your time.

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We'd have more "hard cold data" if in fact this change had been: 1: announced on the test server patch notes; and 2: we had been able to test it. Asking us about it now AFTER it has gone live with a stealth nerf (because I do not buy the bs it slipped through the cracks) would be insulting. The only fair way to test this change is to roll it back and let us test it on the test server.

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That doesn't follow at all. Assuming that they want data about how this affects the general game population, and especially casual players, the live servers is exactly where it needs to be, definitely not the test server. The test server is going to give you an extremely biased sample. The people who go on test is already very unrepresentative; and then add to that the fact that the only people who would go to test TF's for this would be people who have a strong interest in this particular change, and it gets even worse. That would be an extremely bad way to gather data.

As far as whether it should have been in the test patch notes: in an ideal world, yes it should. But I can understand perfectly well why they don't do that. It can take some time between a patch to test and that patch going live. In the meantime, they'd be publicizing the very behavior they want to stop. Wouldn't make any sense.

Yes, it should have been in the live notes. They screwed up there, and they've admitted it.

One more thing: the feedback in this thread isn't "cold hard data." These are anecdotes. There's nothing wrong with anecdotes as feedback, and that can be very valuable. But there's no way you can draw any conclusions here about the percentage of TF's affected, or anything like that. You need to gather a few thousand more data points before you could do that.

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I like it, some people hate it, most people fall in between somewhere or just plain don't care (which is perfectly valid, considering how minor the change is).

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The true underrepresented viewpoint on the forums--on pretty much any topic. The people who hear/read about it, say, "Oh. Huh," and then just go on with their lives because they really just don't care enough about it to make a fuss either way.

I'm pretty close to being in the "don't care" category myself. This doesn't seem like a huge deal to me. Task forces are an extremely limited part of the game to me. I long ago came to terms with the fact that if I don't choose to play more, that there are certain things in the game that I won't be able to fully participate in. Shadow Shard TF's, for one. Really rare invention sets, for another. I can live with it. There's enough in the game that I can participate in to have kept me well entertained for quite some time now.

So why am I even here in this thread? Well, honestly, it's mostly because most of the time the way people on the forums scream and carry on about every little thing amuses me. I know, it's a weakness, but there it is.

[Edit: No disrespect to Morvani. I understand you have a serious concern, I just don't think it will be as bad as you think it will. I'm thinking more of some other posts.]

But then every now and then the hyperbole starts to get on my nerves. I don't want to overstate my case, and act like this will have no affect at all on a casual player. It will have an affect. It constitutes another barrier to entry to task forces. It will probably make it a little harder for someone with RL issues that make it hard for them to complete a TF without AFK time to get onto a TF team.

A little harder.

It does not mean that if you can't sit at your computer uninterrupted for eight hours at a time, that you'll never be able to do a TF again.

I do hope they lower the team requirements for some of these TF's, though.

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Hello. I am a horrible teammate to do a TF/SF with, or team with.

<snipped some>

Now, if I take an AFK to feed him or take care of his bathroom needs, my TF team still has to pick up my mobs, even if I'm not online. And forget me getting in on any TFs once players find out that, yes, I -will- likely need to go away for up to half an hour at times. I lay this right out at the start if, for some reason, I join a team that doesn't know me well. Honestly, how many of you reading this would want me on your team, knowing this?

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First of all, please don't write yourself off as a "horrible teammate" because you have to afk sometimes. I've been on a lot of PuG's by this point, and you know what? In many, perhaps most of them, someone ends up going afk for a period at some point, to attend to a spouse, child, or pet, to take a phone call, because Mom called them to dinner, etc. and etc. It's not a big deal, and I've never seen anyone make a big deal out of it. Those who can't deal with their teammates doing that sort of thing usually don't do PuG's--from what I've seen anyway. The only time I've seen it be any problem at all is if someone leaves for more than around 20 minutes without telling the team they're going to do so. And even then, we don't get mad--they may be kicked, especially if they're inside a mission so another one can't be set, but it's no hard feelings, and if they want to come back, they can if the spot hasn't been filled.

Yes, this goes for TF's too. I've done all of the Phalanx TF's, plus a few others, on PuG's, some of them more than once. It's rare that the TF team chat log doesn't include something along the lines of "I need to go afk for a while to [insert real life issue here]. Do you want me to log off?" Happens all the time. They'll be asked to either afk outside the mission or to log off, that's all, so the team can go on to the next mission without them if necessary.

As far as this change, I don't see it changing your situation to any great extent, at least not for most TF's. The only way it would make any difference is if your absence put the team below the minimum starting number for the TF. If the team size is greater than or equal to that, then the spawns will still adjust. For Positron, that'd mean that the team only consisted of two other people besides you. For Synapse, three other people besides you. For Sister Psyche, four other people besides you.

Edit: I'd originally snipped this part out, and shouldn't have:
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Even with my stumbling blocks toward participation in teams in this game, I'd manage to get in a TF or so a month. Sometimes we'd finish with everyone who started, sometimes we wouldn't, but we would finish, and usually there'd be more than three or four of us.

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As long as there are more than three or four of you, this change makes no difference with your afk periods, for any TF that doesn't require more than four or five people. And I don't know about you, but on the PUG TF's I've done (or tried to do), once the team size gets smaller than that the team will usually decide to give it up anyway. So I don't anticipate this changing my TF experience that much--and yes, I'm a more casual player (playtime-wise, at least) as well.

Will it make teams more reluctant to invite you? I guess that's possible. But if you made it clear that you are committed to the TF as much as you can be, and that you definitely intend to finish it if you can even if you need to be afk for part of it, then I can't see any reasonable person turning you down. After all, that's more of a commitment than you get from some team members.

You might think I'm being too optimistic here, but this is from my experience--less than some, because my casual style of play precludes me from doing TF's all that often (mainly because I don't want to be up too late on a work night, it's self-imposed because I'm old and need my beauty sleep). But it seems to me that anyone who does PuGs either learns to deal with people having RL issues, or they stop doing PuGs--or at least they should. I honestly would have no problem having you on my team, as long as we had more than the minimum number on the team to start out with.

One thing I would like to see, and I'm glad Positron said it's on their radar, is for the starting requirements for some of the TF's to be looked at. I think there does need to be a little wiggle room in case someone on the team needs to leave for some reason. For something like the Positron TF, it's no problem, because you only need to start your team off with, say, 5 or 6 people. If two or three quit, you're still okay. But if the TF requires 7 or 8 people to start, that's not possible. I could see keeping the 8-person requirement for the Statesman TF and maybe Lady Grey, because from my understanding they're supposed to be little more hardcore, but others could be lowered. I hope they will do that. Ideally, I'd like to see the minimum spawn sizes be set to no more than 4 or 5 people for most TF's, 6 at the outside. If they did that, I'd have no problem with this whatsoever.