Mezmeara

That's an interesting test....but since I was talking about "accumulating significant influence" and buying/inventing enhancements that help you "significantly" .....well....300K ain't going to get me a performance shifter proc any time soon. =)

I will concede that you are right in that one is never too poor to create a *serviceable* character....but how many of us are really satisfied with just "serviceable?"

I have to admit that hoarding just doesn't come to mind for me, probably because when I think of intentional hoarding within a game I think of the mindset "I don't want anybody else to have this". If somebody actually has a practical use for the things they are saving, I call that prudent. =)


In fact the issues I have have been touched on by a few people here.

1) Expense of Recipes: I don't always have enough influence at a given time to make up all the recipes I have that I want in order to store them as enhancements. I do have some 1% alts (i.e. rich) but by and large actually using recipes can get pretty expensive, so I end up taking up personal or WW space holding on to a recipe that I want but can't afford to make up at the time. (Is it "hoarding" if you have every intention of actually using it? I don't think so).

2) Movement of goods between Alts/SG members: I'd like to have another means besides e-mail to facilitate movement of recipes between alts. It has been my experience that my actual drops don't always match my character's power sets. In other words, melee characters inevitably get tons of range type drops, blasters get pet drops, and resistance drops fall on everybody BUT my characters who can actually slot resistance. So a box would facilitate the redistribution of drops to calts that can actually use them. Yes, I know I *can* use mail for most of my characters to move those recipes around, but I find it not very convenient in terms of actually *seeing* what I have/need. Personally, I would rather not be loading up my inbox with so much stuff when I could be putting the recipes into the base along side the salvage storage for the use of all my alts. I sometimes wonder how many things I've lost from expired e-mails because I didn't yet have time/influence to make up a recipe another alt sent to me.

3) Recipe box makes space for more activity: I'm a WW junky. I have many alts whose WW slot are filled with selling and bidding and what not, have spots taken up for mere storage purposes is just plain inconvenient and limits my ability to be active on the market. I'm one of those players who regularly tries to empty my personal storage so I have plenty of room for more drops. For me, having a recipe box would INCREASE my ability to be active on the market, and actually DECREASES any inclination to hoard. (If I know my ability to receive drops because my personal slots are full, I'm more likely to hold onto whatever good drops I do get.) In my case, more drops means more stuff on the market, plain and simple. And isn't that the primary concern about hoarding, i.e. how it could limit availability of certain items on the market?

4) Memorized recipes: It is true that storage would not be an issue for memorized recipes. I suppose that this would be the place where I confess that I get irritated when I have that list of "memorized" recipes pop up whenever I go to invent something. I don't know why that's a particular bugaboo of mine, but it bugs me for some reason. =) That aside, I also have to say that I really do not have much use for all the enhancements I could make from anything that I memorized.

(I should interject here a kudos for the unslotting power. Without that I have difficulty justifying the practicality of the memorize recipes situation. How many builds actually can use 15 slow enhancements between levels 15-20?)

I guess the way I look at memorized recipes it doesn't address the issue I have with storage really since I rarely if ever "save" those kind of recipes. Heck... I can buy them from any friendly neighborhood invention table. I'm concerned about storage of those lovely recipes that come in sets with bonuses or with procs. Those are *real* recipes, and I can't memorize them! =D

Last thoughts on Hoarding:

Since the hoarding of recipes seems to be the primary objection:

1) I would think it not impossible/unreasonable to have a limit on the number of recipe books that can be placed in a base. Say, one recipe box/book which holds 50 recipes per sg plot or per 10 people in a group.

2) I think it's been made clear even in the comments of this thread that if somebody wanted to hoard "recipes" there is a way already. I don't think the creation of a recipes box/book system would all of a sudden create a whole new group of hoarders.

3) Since the whole purpose of salvage is for use in recipes and we have salvage storage, which frequently is hoarded, to use hoarding as an excuse for not having recipe storage is inconsistant at best and hypocritical at worse. (btw: I've made it a policy in my SG salvage storage to generally not hold onto more than 3 of any given salvage item is that hoarding?)

So I say again...please can we have separate recipes storage? I promise not to hoard anything I'm not planning on using.

I love my base... I can store salvage, inspirations, enhancements, recipes....

WAIT! Back up!

I can't store recipes can I.

I would LOVE a "Recipe box" where I can store recipes instead of always selling them off.

When I'm out doing missions/tfs, I definitely want to keep room for the possible rare drops, and in Wentworths I need the space to do my buying/trading. So what do I do with recipes? Mostly sell them off, or try and remember which of my actual alts could use a resist damage recipe, because we all know, that the recipes your particular character could use are the least likely to drop.

I want a means to store recipes in the base so that instead of clogging my e-mail up or selling off decent recipes I can have a centralized place that would be of use to all my alts.

If I am a winner, I permit NC Interactive, Inc. and NCsoft Europe Limited to use my name, likeness, photograph, hometown, and any comments that I may make about myself or this contest that I provide for advertising and promotional activities. I also certify that I am at least 13 years of age and am eligible to participate in this contest.

"Les and Bruno still manage to rig the new voting format for Dancing with the Stars assuring the Maksim and Hope only get '6's"

The artwork looks wonderful... BUT!!!! and that's a big one....it doesn't translate well at all in the field.

I'd been reading about the new COT in forums, and on the beta chats so I mozied over to the Hollows to check them out and I thought they looked HORRID! And I don't mean that in a good way at all. The COT now look like just another creature (a la coralax and spawns) only with points. Pretty shapeless, and even less recognizable as anything that ever started out as human beings. (At least the old mages still looked somewhat human.)

Maybe in other environments they translate better, but I gotta say that I'm terribly disappointed.

Too pointy/blobby.

Just two more cents...I hope this can be addressed quickly since I've started my first empath....as you can imagine, it gets very difficult to track your teammates' health if you can't monitor the listing.

I LOVE doing the mission arcs.... so many! I find lots of times my husband and I have to turn off our xp so we won't level out of some of the arcs that are all about the same level (mid-20s).

The ones that come to mind immediately when asking about emotional resonance:

Katie Douglas - emotional impact having to fight her mother.

Aaron Walker's arc - and anything to do with the Noble Savage. ("Jennifer, he's alive!)

I have to say that the Cleopatra arc was really gripping in that I tend to be on the resistance side in my sympathies but I *really* like Washington as a person, and Cleopatra "sugah" was a jerk for setting us up! (My husband and I had lot's of discussions during the morality mission which way to go the first time we did this.)

Heck, I'd have to say there are a lot of missions in Praetoria that mess with my values vs. the choices we are offered and have emotional resonance. Patient Zero, sure, he was under the influence but he was a killer! Enriche is an "opiate for the masses" and should be destroyed, but the people's water supply...???! Most of Praetoria's arcs, if you are reading everything, have serious ramifications and mess with your emotions.

Outside of Praetoria:

I have to put in my plug also for Jenni Adair's Protean arc. It gets me every time...it's disturbing to see me's all dead and dying.

Gads Zooks! That's horrible! Pleasepleasepleaseplease say it ain't anything like what the Titan Weapons are *really* going to be like.

I'm aprehensive enough about this new power set looking extremely "compensative" without it also looking absurdly impossible to actually use!

Bad enough having to tryand share space and maneuver around the MM pets that are running around, now we're going to have to maneuver around weapons too?!

YUCK!

I am so enjoying the discussion and am getting some wonderful ideas.

Cpt. Courageous and I have been taking the last few days to work with some of our duos which we haven't played for a while and have been reacquainted with our love of dual stormies and dual claw scrappers.

The new alts that prompted my initial question ended up being a plant/fire corruptor (him) and I ended up ax/fire brute. I have to admit that part of my turning into a brute was the rage issue...particularly as he was kibbitzing my costume choices and I was building rage with the aggro. =) We're not very far along to see how this duo will fair, but I can say this -- I like that our alts have specific jobs during fights.

I had been VERY frustrated having a Mental/Psy Dominator playing with his Plant/Fire. Sure, I could use my confuse (I love that power) then he'd come along with his seeds of confusion and just all along seemed to be one upping me with his power and aoe. With my Brute, I can work off some of that angst with my melee.

I have to say though, that I'm going to see how this really works out. I'm usually a very fast player and the slow down with axe, even with it's power, is something I'll have to get used to, EVEN THOUGH I'm finding that the slow down really is helping with the energy drain from my fire toggles.

Meanwhile, I've seen a lot of suggestions in this topic that I'd like to try out.

Thanks for your discussion and suggestions.

Mez

Apologies to Timeshadow, who did mention tanks with blasters. =)

That is the way I'm kind of leaning at the moment although I know with my style of play, tanks tend to be a bit slow. Or maybe I just haven't done the right build yet?

You all have made some excellent suggestions/observations.

As was mentioned by Vysires, there have been times when one or the other (usually me) feels a little useless. Or worse, impatient waiting for my husband's "alpha strike" powers to recycle because he didn't want to put recharge reductions into his enhancement slots. =) The absolute worst for us was when he had a traps character and I was bleeding out of my eyeballs with boredom waiting for him to finish planting all his mines.

Sometimes, the best we can do is not pair a knockback king with a melee person.

I think our general approach so far has been more matching matching ATs or matching power sets (a fire blaster with a fire corruptor).

I have noticed that there was not much comment on what is good to pair with a blaster. Right of the top of my head I can see advantages to a number of different builds just because they balance the blaster by 1) healing, 2) taking aggro, 3) Debuffing/buffing, 4) locking down enemies...any of which skills would benefit the blaster by either countering their general squishiness or helping them kill faster.

At this time, my husband is contemplating either a sonic/fire or a radiation/fire blaster. He has suggested doing a corruptor, but I'm leaning towards some sort of tank or dominator. Thoughts?

I have really enjoyed reading the discussions of the strengths and weaknesses of different archtypes and how people have chosen their powers and slotted them. A lot of that information has been really helpful to me as an "altoholic" (or someone with "altitis" if you prefer.)

What I have not seen is any indepth discussion of the best set ups for two people who play together. Should they match power sets? Should they purposefully make different power sets?

I'm half of one of those COH couples...most of my courtship was online and my first "date" with my husband was killing vaz in the sewers (also known as "our place"). And we have found in 3-1/2 years playing together (when I got on) that sometimes an alt we adore soloing with just doesn't work with our partner's alt. And sometimes we happen upon the fact that, when working together, an otherwise boringish alt all of a sudden really works well.

For instance, my husband's FIRST character, still is not up to 50 (and he was in beta) because unless he's in a team (and we do mostly pick up groups) his tank is pretty slow going in terms of getting through missions as a solo'er. But when paired with my fire/fire blaster...well, we kick beaucoup behind.

Of course, then there is sometimes too much of a good thing, we may love soloing, but when paired with an identical build, it can get VERY frustrating to play. (think anything that has knockback.)

Bottom line, I'm wondering if there has been any indept discussion about duos? What ATs really work well together and what duos should you avoid.