Marvin_Kosh

I already sent in a suggestion about this first one. Please display the price that you can buy a general IO recipe from a crafting station, in the black market/consignment house. Just because I may happen to have a notepad laying nearby to jot down this number, doesn't mean whoever is selling their recipes will.

Second, I want to be able to add items to a wishlist or (in the case of inventions) a build list. This would mean less hopping around and expanding/collapsing trees in the market window. It would help me to pick out the right bits from my personal storage vault more quickly. If applied to the crafting station, I would be able to filter with 'only recipes on build list' and get an estimate of what's needed for everything on my build list, not just individually. I suppose another groovy tool would be the sell list, which has on it all the stuff I don't want to use. When interacting with an NPC that can buy your stuff, a 'show stuff on sell list only' option or even a 'sell everything on sell list' option would be great!

Thirdly, a more transparent area map which picks a zoom level slightly under fully zoomed out would free up valuable screen space.

If you have a program to turn joystick inputs into mouse clicks or keypresses, one thing you should be aware of is that Control and Alt are 'chord' keys. If two of your joystick buttons are mapped to Ctrl and Alt they can allow you to access more powers or interactions by using combinations.

For example, I have an XBOX controller and I use Alt on the left trigger and Ctrl on the right trigger. Using the six buttons on the right of the pad, I can activate eighteen powers on three trays. I use the D-pad to target and the sticks to move and steer the camera. The two buttons on the left toggle the navigation window and (with Ctrl and Alt) allow use of the first three columns of inspirations.

Unfortunately no. I think the culprit was some leftover Omega drivers, I uninstalled them and things seem to be back to normal now.

My bad.

It happens regardless of whether the characters are using regular Sprint or Prestige Sprint. No winged boots, and I don't need a buff or aura for it to show up.

Also, I think that it's possibly linked to the day/night cycle as I see white smoke only during the night.

I see it on other characters not just mine (if they have Sprint activated) so I guess that rules out a colour bleed from costume.

I've noticed that for some odd reason some of my characters get red or green smoke when they sprint. I've never noticed this before and I'm not sure whether the colour is some sort of graphical bleed from the costume or if in fact it is intended and I just haven't guessed what it means yet.

I agree that the permissions-based system is out of date. Effectively it means that whomever has access to storage has to act as quartermaster for anyone who actually wants to check something out. At the very least put in a requisitions desk so that SG members who don't have access can request stuff and then take it out when their request is (hopefully) approved. This might also make it easier for the inventing people to make as many IOs of a certain level and type as are needed for the SG members to stay in SG mode.

Just because it's a PvP zone and you can faceplant toons, doesn't mean you have to. To be sure, the climate being what it is, you'll probably not get much kudos for being merciful, but if you don't give any mercy now and then, you certainly can't expect the same from your opponents.

The only real selling point I can see is that giving a PvP opponent a stay of execution means that you don't have to wait for 'em to zip all the way back from base - you can continue having a scrap in a minute rather than five.

I realise that I'm hearkening back to the old days when fights in most computer games were decided in three rounds rather than one. But in my opinion there was nothing quite like being one round down to encourage you to up your game and try new tactics.

Even if I had a way of venting (which I don't) what I really want is an upward trend in the quality of teaming, and that's not going to happen the way things are now. That is, when someone gets fed up of dying for the third time, it's more likely that they just give up there and then rather than saying something about it. We're in a culture where clicking 'Leave' is easier than talking through the issues.

IMHO there needs to be some sort of weekly server event to help folks cope with the very real possibility that their next team is going to be a disaster. Frankly, I find myself wanting to team, but not wanting to at the same time because of the unspeakable horrors of Pick Up Groups which I think many of us know well by now.

Despite the wonderful new content that has come with I7, I have the pessmistic outlook that I will probably never see any of the good stuff because I'll give up on this game first. What's the fun in getting a whole new pool of funky villainy powers if you're the only one who gets to see what they do? So yeah, teaming or bust.

When I see someone who isn't already SG'd it's something of a rarity. I myself have got into the habit of creating a shell SG just to get rid of the invite spam.

Two things come to mind.

1. There are probably a lot of one-man SGs out there.

2. There's no way of telling if someone is in a one-man SG save for looking them up at the registrar (it will have the bog standard 20K prestige if SG mode has not been switched on).

Something struck me when I logged on tonight and got a stupid blind invite for a VG (plus abuse from the guy when I pointed out to him that he was the umpteenth person to send me an invite without having any clue about how to properly recruit someone) and I felt I would share the wisdom

Motivation is key.

If you're looking for prestige drones as the guy in my example above was, and you have nothing else to offer to motivate someone to join the SG/VG, you are wasting your time. Sure, you'll get a few players who are new and don't know any better, but those of us who have tried being part of a borg collective and didn't like it aren't going back.

Similarly, if you want to be on a team that caters to a good quality of gameplay, you're going to have to motivate other players in such a way as they will pick you (or join you, if you decide that creating a team from scratch is the way to go) and not the next person on the list.

Now unfortunately there is no one way to attract the sort of crowd that are interesting in teaming for teaming's sake, because solo is fine for a little while but when it becomes the mainstay then something is seriously wrong. But whatever we do to try and get ourselves into good teams, expect to see it at some point, because we're sick to the back teeth with the status quo.

There isn't any one solution to the problem as I see it, and I would be rather naive to start offering the answer to all teaming problems on a shiny platter when I myself haven't had the benefit of a good team experience.

However I don't see any sense in continuing to address the issue in a wait-and-see fashion. If we want a good all-round gaming experience, including those vital lessons on how to run teams and how to keep the team alive, then we have to get out there and make it happen. Think of it as an investment - for example by teaching someone how to pull in an easy mission at level 6, you avoid having them wipe the team out at level 12 by dragging a group of tough enemies into your midst. The earlier this is done, the less times the debt fairies will come a'knockin.

What exact methods are used to start building the teams of the future, that's up to whomever wants to improve everyone's quality of gaming, all I can say is that learning should be fun, especially so in CoH/CoV.

It is hard to find a team and you're missing the point I'm making which is that there are players falling by the wayside in terms of getting good teaming. Posting advice here on the forums is all fine and dandy, but putting it into practise on the server as an entirely different thing, especially when you're playing with people who may have never visited. I stand by my suggestion that we should be a bit more pro-active as a community in getting help to where it's needed.

Okay so, given that there's at least some of us who actually want to join a team where the quality of the experience is more valuable than the quantity of the XP (heh) I think the most logical step would be for us to organise teams on Defiant, because that's the only way to improve the quality of grouping.

The goal is to start including players who want to learn good teaming, but have never been in teams patient enough to accommodate the need to learn. It's sad, but in a PUG you only learn what's the wrong way to do things because you get kicked or because everyone else leaves complaining about debt.

So instead of advertising to look for any old team, you could say 'Looking for TPI team' (Team Play Improvement team) or if you're looking for someone whose team playing has already been improved, you could ask for 'ITM' (Improved Team Member) - these terms to be explained carefully to anyone who is polite enough to inquire about them. As I said, the goal is to include players who are going to wind up quitting or soloing their characters otherwise, and to never exclude anyone unless they demonstrate the unwillingness to learn what wisdom there is to impart.

This provides a much better framework than the current teaming system because it encourages those who are patient and follow instructions but more importantly ask why, for example, they're being asked to stand out of sight while one team member demonstrates pulling. The lesson is more easily understood that way, and the class is less likely to get wiped out by a big angry mob.

However given that you need a sizeable number of players to adopt this as a standard, and many players do not necessarily visit the forums, it will be hard to get it off the ground. Perhaps if some SG/VGs were to get behind it, it would have a chance?

See, what you can argue here is that you make the recall friend and team teleport powers more useful for those who take them.

Three toons at level 22 - a Gravity/Energy Dominator, Martial Arts/Super Reflexes Stalker, and a Super/Energy Brute.
One toon at level 16 - an Ice/Dark Corruptor and for now, not all that good outside of a team.
One toon at level 15 - Ninjas/Forcefields Mastermind.
One toon at level 10 - Robots/Traps Mastermind.

I also have four over on Union but if anything I have a worse time getting into a group tehre than on Defiant.

Well I'm becoming convinced that there simply isn't any way for me to get onto a team. There really isn't anything else I can do short of bombarding people already on a team with tells; that is a route I would rather not go down, because when you do that you become known as someone who just won't stop whining until they get onto a team, and then you get blanket-ignored.

Well the problem as I see it is that not only do I like the game, I love it. Having played in some good teams, I'm not content with soloing although there are times (especially after a bad PUG) when it is necessary in order to clear your head and also try and clear off some debt :/

In some cases (shall I just say Sea Witch and let that explain it all?) teaming is essential to the completion of a mission and hence an arc of story, but in most cases you can achieve more with a well-oiled team than you can on your own, so it really doesn't have to be the case that I'm struggling to find one.

The only thing I can really think to do is to run my own team and I have done in the past, but I hate having the star full-time and the pressure that it brings; I'll speculate that I may not alone in that regard.

Got nobody to play with. Should I just remove my brain, strip out the 'No blind invites' from my search comment and take every offer that comes along, or should I just give up and call it a day?

Bear in mind that the actual force needed to punch into concrete is going to depend on the size of hand, how fast it is moving, and the density of said hand's tissues (i.e. whether the hand will crumple before doing any damage to the solid object) as well as the presence or absence of any faults in the concrete, not to mention whether it is reinforced.

IMHO you need to explore some of these things by writing a shorter piece (or three) than what you're planning on. Put together a couple of scenes and see how they run, maybe even get someone to read it over for you. That way you'll know if you're on the right track. And you can still use the short material in some form later on if it's any good, maybe as a flashback.

Once you have something firmly down in black and white it's easier to figure out what bits aren't any good and shred them with your claws

The end-of mission award (EOMA) for a two-man team is the same as for solo, but you get up to twice the number of enemies. Now on early-level missions, those enemies are going to count for more than your EOMA anyway. On later missions, it seems that the EOMA is at least comparable to the XP for slain enemies, if not better.

Like I say, I'm more interested in a positive teaming experience, and that doesn't seem to happen for me when I'm in a large team. Two to four seems about optimum for me.

Unfortunately, since as I've already said I hate getting the star, the only way I will be on an optimum-sized team is if there is someone who actually feels the same way I do, and doesn't have a problem with sticking to a small team size, and will be firm enough not to cave in when someone wants to invite a random passer-by who happens to be in level range.

See, I'm really not so concerned about the XP. In fact, call me crazy, but I prefer not having my character gain levels out of the wazoo faster than I can comprehend all the new powers.

The problem with long protracted battles is that they drag on..... and on..... and on. You can be sitting there with laser noises and gun noises and bright lights flashing across the screen for a good few minutes just fighting one mob, if they're tough enough, which they invariably are. Instead of a mission which goes by quickly and is sorta fun, you have a slugfest.

I prefer not having a heaving mass of bodies on my screen, and being able to get through most missions with minimal casualties. Conversely, most of the teams I seem to get picked up by are into collecting as many toons as possible and going on a slaughterfest.

Is there anyone who is into small, clean operations, in and out without messing about?