MadScientist

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Objective Feedback:
IOs from the new sets in the TF Drop Pools are almost non-existant on the market.


Subjective analysis about that:
This indicates a serious lack of TF Drop Pool supply in general. Since merits are the only source of said recipes, it seems the system is not producing enough drops that make it to the Market.
This is probably true over all Pool C recipes, not just the new sets. The new sets are simply a lot easier to notice, and do not have the possibility that market activity may be using pre-existing Pool C's instead of new drops. I expect all Pool C recipes will be harder to find on the market now.


IMHO, TFs need to return to dropping random recipes. Merits should be applied on top of TF reward drops, so that people will over time get additional recipes, such as to offset bad luck on TF drops. (perhaps awarding fewer merits than currently, it doesn't have to directly merge the 2 amounts.) This will retain the pre-I13 supply of Pool Cs, and perhaps even increase the amount of supply of that pool on the market.

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Bingo, this says a lot of what I wanted to say. I've been looking for the low level accurate defence debuff set proc. It's not an uber IO, just a "chance of damage" but it's 200 merits or more. Less than 10 have been sold excluding level 30s, where 5 or more have sold, so don't know how many have dropped.

Suggestion - modify the merit awards to give say a random drop + 40 merits from posi, 7 merits from Katie, 2 drops +60 from Dr Q etc.

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I really like this idea. Big thumbs up. It does two things, continues giving variable rate merits that allows the devs to continue to tweak rewards, and B) *forces* random drops so that the market will continue to be fed.

The bad side, is that it still continues the idea that pool C recipes have to be slown down by 300% or so.

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but I don't think it's so bad to get a lousy drop if you're now getting Merits on top of that lousy drop. You have what you had pre-I13, but ALSO get the bonus stuff long-term.

As was pointed out in Beta, this is an unusual game situation in that Pool Cs are purchasable but NEVER drop normally. That's the heart of the problem.

Besides, they could keep TFs a bit unique if the Merit Store options were not directly replicating the TF pools. Perhaps the Merit drop rolls give options that help you dodge some of the recipes that are not useful to you. Like a way for my Stalker to avoid all the Mez sets he can never slot.

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I plan on making some tweaks to the system to make Merits, as a whole, more approachable and enjoyable for everyone, though changes take time.

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FWIW, I think you made Merits rather approachable and enjoyable from the start.
My issues have been with the impact on other game aspects as a result of introducing Merits. The two biggest examples being the major shift in market supply, and the constant desire to favor speed over substance.
Yes, there's some room to tweak the Merits themselves, but I think the more important changes have to be done on other systems to adapt to a world with Merits in it.

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Objective : Shields have its primary mitigation on +defense with lesser values in +HP and +resistance. Given how prevalent -defense effects are in game the set needs a stronger resistance to these effects.

All other tank primaries possess some way to boost/refill their green bar. Combine this with how easy it is to get a defense cascade failure, the set can be very unforgiving.

A source of regen even a small one could go a long ways to bringing the set in line with other primaries.

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I've also noticed I sometimes desperately need Respites.

maybe instead of dipping into regen, or flat out canceling -Def effects, it needs a way to put a cap on that cascade effect itself? and add survivability to the low-HP moments.

What about ramping up Def as your HP drops? Kind of like the Resistance from Widow's Foresight.
Then, even if your HP is dropping because of -Def that's added up on you, you compensate with new Def. (or you could counter with more -Def protection as your HP drops, but I figure direct Def is more generally useful.)
I guess the idea is: don't regenerate from it, roll with it. You may weaken, but your shield won't. Perhaps that theme fits into Grant Cover giving yourself some Def when you most need it?

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<ul type="square">[*] A pact can only be created between characters who are Level 5 and under.[/list]
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I feel this needs to be at least 10. I don't normally bother even teaming before lvl 5.

My SG recently decided to make a team of Shield characters to level together but I'd got above 5 before any of the others had logged on. So my feedback is that I tried to use this facility but had already out leveled it.

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level 5 is also a bit early to tell if you actually like a character you built.

I speak from personal experience: a group of us made new lowbies and paired up into pacts at level 1. A little while later - level 8 or so - one realized he wasn't having fun with the character he built and wanted to reroll for a different primary set. That meant his pactmate was too high to replace the pact and ended up rerolling, too.

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If the root problem is "too much data flowing around" would it then not be possible to reward the XP say every 5 minutes? Or how about every time the XP becomes greater than 1 bar?

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5 minutes may not be practical, but I think you can find a non-timed solution. Locally the game knows how much XP fills a bar, and how much XP you've gotten since the last time it hit the server. It could know to hit the server every half a bar or so. It could even know to hit the server more often if you're currently filling the last bar of a level - so yes that would be more traffic, but it would be confined to the people who need it the most.




A friend of mine quit a pact at level 7 because he thought it was broken and he was getting no XP at all. He didn't realize there was a delay.

Objective Feedback:
IOs from the new sets in the TF Drop Pools are almost non-existant on the market.


Subjective analysis about that:
This indicates a serious lack of TF Drop Pool supply in general. Since merits are the only source of said recipes, it seems the system is not producing enough drops that make it to the Market.
This is probably true over all Pool C recipes, not just the new sets. The new sets are simply a lot easier to notice, and do not have the possibility that market activity may be using pre-existing Pool C's instead of new drops. I expect all Pool C recipes will be harder to find on the market now.


IMHO, TFs need to return to dropping random recipes. Merits should be applied on top of TF reward drops, so that people will over time get additional recipes, such as to offset bad luck on TF drops. (perhaps awarding fewer merits than currently, it doesn't have to directly merge the 2 amounts.) This will retain the pre-I13 supply of Pool Cs, and perhaps even increase the amount of supply of that pool on the market.

I do not like the delay in gaining XP. Getting my XP in one lump sum when I zone is not as much fun as seeing progress as I go.

This timing belittles the Level-Up Inspiration Buff. I get the buff as soon as I leave a mission, giving me a brief time of amazing hunting skills, usually at a location full of too-high or too-low opponents.

Positron once made a statement against players racing thru missions to only kill the boss at the end.
Many day job effects make me want to run thru missions to only kill the boss at the end because I feel the need to finish a mission while the buff power is still active.

A related problem is that I often log in and get no benefit whatsoever from some day job effects because I can't actually complete a mission within the timeframe. This is particularly noticable on lower level characters, but also seen often with characters who play better on teams.

These buffs should not be based on a timer. They should accumulate charges that fire when you complete a mission.

should we do an update for this with I13? like a complete overhaul? The patches between I12 and I13 did some fixes, too.

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stop me if I'm wrong here...

This thread started on 11/20.

We got a patch on 11/21.

We have had nothing since.

Given the (IMHO) very useful feedback presented in this thread, when can we expect any of that to get integrated into I13??

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It is a bit disturbing. I hear that there's still an issue with items not being able to be placed on two of the walls of each room, and that the fix to the AES hasn't happened. That's just two things that really need to be fixed before any serious base building will be able to be done by me, and I'm sure by a number of other people.

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what AES fix?


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I hope that these fixes sneak into the update we're sure to get before I13 goes live.

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they announced it's going live, there is no further patch to test.

so... I don't see a lot of this weighing-in got into the 11/21 patch a few days after this thread started.
We haven't had a patch since and now I13 is going live.

Did this thread actually not produce anything useful? Were concerns raised here not valid?

What, exactly, was achieved here? and for future reference, what could we, as player and playtesters, have done different with our feedback?

stop me if I'm wrong here...

This thread started on 11/20.

We got a patch on 11/21.

We have had nothing since.

Given the (IMHO) very useful feedback presented in this thread, when can we expect any of that to get integrated into I13??

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The new "Improvement" rolls back the clock to smallest plots paying so that you can't do anything with it, because your busy playing to pay the bills.

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You probably spent more time typing that whole rant than the time it will take to earn one payment of rent.

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ONE, just ONE of those IOs is 50 candy canes. The other two are 40 each.

Are you seriously telling me that a single salvage rack should hold less than the parts needed to craft a single enhancement?

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I *am* agreeing that 30 is a silly low number. One rack should be useful by itself, whether for holiday salvage or whatever other stuff.

BUT, arguing "useless for holiday salvage" using a rather artificial, inefficient idea like trading a whole holiday buying experience at once is... well... a strawman?


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In my sg, we've had a few members drop the game unexpectedly, but they put donations from last year's events into the base salvage racks right away.

Your way would eliminate those gifts plain and simple.

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No, it would reduce those massive gifts, and only as it relates to trying to gift them via the bins.


Though, consider this regarding gifts in general:
Do the new limits encourage gifting to the SG community? Or are they so low it encourages gifting with 1-Inf listings on the Market

Sadly, I fear the devs WANT the market to be the easier method to toss away items To Whom It May Concern. Which is inronicly contrary to Market PVP when you look at it in detail (it undermines those who are actually paying attention and using the system). and it's another blow against larger SGs in this issue.

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But *how much* do you need to share?

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200 Candy Canes. Needed for 1 of each of the new Winter Event IOs and both the new auras...

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All at once?
and you can buy the IOs and share THOSE a lot easier than the salvage, taking up only 1 slot in a bin that's not being argued is too small. If the problem is that you insist on doing it the hard way, I don't think that's going to sway the devs.

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I want event salvage in a public place. I could keep it on my person if I really wanted, the point is I'm trying to share.

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But *how much* do you need to share?
I'm not saying remove it from the bins. I'm wondering if you only need to share a little, would the problem be where to keep the rest while sharing that little?
30 is still kinda low. but if 30 is enough for what needs to be shared, then 30 isn't the heart of the particular problem with holiday salvage.

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You've already seen all our responces to the salvage "nerf" as many would put it, so I'm not going to repeat myself except to toss out a couple ideas.
<ul type="square">[*]Would either creating a separate bin for event salvage or tieing them into the personal vault be an option instead[*]would it be easier instead to rewrite the code be so event salavges is counted in the bins the way it is on a character[/list]
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you're skipping a potential third idea...
<ul type="square">[*]If holiday salvage can be easily put into personal vaults (which already contain code for multiple tabs of many salvage types) that would leave more room for *sharing* salvage in the SG bins since there'd be less need to *stash* salvage there.[/list]

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One thing I'd suggest is rejiggering the pools.

First, all the recipes that make most people go "Damn, I got a...", put those in Pool A or Pool B. Trap of the Hunter, etc.

Then, break up all the rest into three groups...useful to most, very useful to most, highly prized. Random rolls for useful to most stays at 20, very useful to most at 40, highly prized to 80.

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IMHO, better to break by some sort of theme because of the long-time goal of players making informed choices.

If you had a list of:
- Roll Group 1
- Roll Group 2
- Roll Group 3
what are you informed of? Particularly with the mix of levels in there.

Now consider at least knowing mechanically what you're getting:
- Buff IO
- Special IO (Proc, Globals, etc)

or split by set, so people without Mez powers don't get stuck with useless stuff:
- Damage IO
- Mez or Debuff IO
- Defense or Heal IO

or consider, with themes:
- Offensive IO (the 6 Damage types - Melee, Range, PBAOE, TAOE, Pet, Snipe - plus KB and End Drain)
- Buffing IO (Def, Res, Heal, Travel)
- Manipulation IO (Mez, Taunt and Debuff)
ok, play with it a bit. is End Drain a control effect? Maybe split Mez by itself?
But you get the idea.

This even reinforces roleplay immersion a little. At the very least, it can bring the amount of control-type Pool C drops in line with their desire relative to the other sets.

Heck, if you made like 5 roll categories, you could even overlap every IO set in 2 places, if things weren't random enough. Maybe too complex though for what it achieves.

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Synapse? Small question:

Why are rolls on the "TF pool" and "trial pool" named that?

...Those rewards no longer have any relationships to TFs and Trials.

...In fact, under the new system I have no idea why they are on seperate tables at all except to give an adventage to people who go on line and look up pool content lists.

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I think this would be a good opportunity to rework the pools completely. That may help balance the random drops if the randomness was a little more logical.

For example, make 2 new random roll categories from the old C and D...
3-buff IOs (this would encompass all of Pool D and about 40% of C)
2-buff IOs and Special IOs (Numina Heal/Rech, Lady Grey Rech/End, Gift of Anchients Def/Run, plus Procs)

or simply 2 groups: Buffing IOs and Special IOs.

Then, yes, there is better odds of a Numina Unique from the "specials" category, but you could up the price of that category all by itself. Maybe lower the price of the first category so a Cap SF is still worth one roll, if you choose the right type of roll. I'd spend 50 on a random damage proc instead of 20 on damage procs mixed with stuff I'll never slot.


They've said the 20-cost pool is cheaper because of the odds. Well, more like because of the amount of duds. That is flat out terrible for players making decisions - these should be rewards, not lottery tickets. Reduce the randomness a bit and balance out by cost, not by so much luck.
Face it, there is no single cost that is fair for getting a Numina Unique one time and a Turle End/Rech/Slow the next time. Split those in different rolls with costs appropriate.

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Why have diminished returns anyway? Who cares if people run 15 ITFs in a row. They're playing the game. You're already basing the # of merits on the results of whatever datamining you've done.

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Indeed. If some number of Merits is fair for this task, why should it matter if I just did the same task on the same character, on another character, on another account, or the very last moment that character was logged in 2 days ago?

If my friends want to run a STF and need a Defender, I don't want to tell them "sorry guys, just ran with m Defender this afternoon, how bout a Blaster instead?"

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Q: Have you considered simply adding 1 Merit per AV?

A: Yes, Archvillains and Monsters are just too easily farmed. There are missions where they are very easily ghosted to and defeated.

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but haven't you already flagged certain AVs in the system as unfarmable? Doesn't that cover it?

and yes, you can farm Arcs repeatedly, but then you're mixing in non-AV missions to get up to the AVs.

even when "easily" defeated, would that be less than the benchmark of 5 minutes per merit (per non-farmable AV) when accounting for things like travel time?

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Not quite actually.
Ernesto Hess and the 3rd Villain Respec Trial are worth 15 a piece. (At the bottom of the screen, click Merit Rewards)

[/ QUOTE ]Okay, then there are 5 total. That's still quite a minority that were reduced.

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It's probably safe to assume the other 2 villain respecs are also 15, though they've not been tested yet.

and since trial rolls cost 30, the hero respecs got nerfed to less than the drop it used to give.
Unless you think the ability to convert a respec run into a Pool C is a buff - and I can't buy that since the pricing of the random rolls tells me a Pool D was considered a greater reward by the devs.

That's 10 nerfs. any more not listed?


and note that the ENTIRE SOURCE of Pool D gets dealt a blow from this change. The previous balance of 1 Respec = 1 Pool D simply does not exist anymore.
That is definitely something worth studying in the market - how will the new source of Pool D's from other Merit sources stack up against the new reduction of less than one Pool D per Respec run?

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QUESTION: How will you be looking at merits for story arcs with PUG teams.

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Can anyone explain to me how this is different than the current setup with the reward window and the arc bonus XP only going to the mission owner? This is what they made shared missions for. (now, some aspects of sharing mission completion don't work as well as they could, I'll grant you...)

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The only thing that happens with the new rent that did not happen before, is that when an account goes inactive, the personal bases tied to that account will lock down once rent is not paid. Is there some kind of significant resource saving on NCSoft's end for a locked down base? That could be a reason for the change.

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If that's a desired goal, I hope it's not the sole reason to justify this meaningless rent. There would be plenty of ways to automate that locking down by itself if there was no rent. For example, key it to auto-demote (which I believe maxes at 45 days, lockout is after 56), so that if there are no Rank 5 on the roster you shuffle the database resources until someone gets an auto-promote upon next login.

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So by this quick sample, I got 60% that was useful in *any* way, and only 20% that was what I could call universally useful to me. Those odds just aren't good enough for me to waste merits on random rolls.

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10 rolls is 200 merits, which we'll round off to say is any one IO of your choice.

you'd rather have taken 1 of your choice instead of 10 rolls that yielded 6 that were useful?