Nethergoat
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Posts
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Joined
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Hahaha!
That's great. -
Okay!
Back, time for the writeup.
Bastion/Citadel TF, the next thorn in what I will henceforth refer to as The Crown of Pain task forces, those tired old sacks of lame maps, boring game types and repetitive enemies necessary to get the Task Force Commander accolade.
I was under the impression you had to run the Shard TFs for this one, but one of last nights teammates disabused me of the notion. So, I'm going to pick it up for Cathode Ray & use that as the inspiration to polish off the remaining dud TFs for my review thread.
I was doing some marketeering last night when I saw a call go out for a Citadel TF. I quickly swapped out to Cathode Ray & secured an invite. Unsurprisingly it took a while to get going- for a good bit it was just me and the guy who invited me. I took the opportunity to mess with his enhancements.
Eventually, we got our 8 and got rolling.
It was an odd team, as you can see in one of the screens above. A swarm of corrupters, a blaster, a couple of brutes with a token controller & scrapper. I think both our brutes were SR and neither was particularly suited to holding aggro and with our relative lack of control we had more than our share of dicey situations. Plus, for some reason after an easy peasy first mission full of whites, yellows and the occasional orange, the rest of the TF was reds and purples as far as the eye could see.
Nothing we couldn't handle, but we had to be at our best to avoid problems- being beset by all the usual problems afflicting PUGs, we weren't at our best all that often.
Even so, I had fun. Sometimes a weird team that struggles a bit is more entertaining than a steamroller, and this was one of those times.
The TF itself was much as I remembered- an endless procession of old time Council lair maps filled with lots and lots of Council. The maps were super annoying for this particular team- lots of spawns up on walkways, lots of narrow room entrys clogged with foe. We'd definitely have had an easier time of it with another controller or a traditional tank to gather up the spawns. We had a lot of trouble with adds.
So, seen through the evolving prism of my Crown of Pain TF Ranking System, Bastion earned the following demerits:
Kill Alls: 5.
Bonus demerit for the first two having the *exact same mission door* way out by Terra Volta in IP.
Street Hunts: 1, but it was for 40 Council that had to be in IP, so I'm awarding an extra demerit for annoyance. And in our particular case three was a Deadly Apocalypse going on. Thus the Dance Party screen up above, as we waited for the dumb thing to time out so we could get on with our TF.
fedex/talk mission: 1. run to steel, talk to guy who gives you mission in Skyway.
Travel/Zoning: 2. Took place mostly in Talos & IP, but the missions were all out in the boonies and there were a few annoying detours.
Monotony: Full marks.
The entire TF took place on basically the same map, and several missions used the *exact same layout*. And while Defeat X and Minions is an improvement on 'kill all', in this particular case X and his Minions were *always* in either that terrible multi-level blue water room, or the 'HQ' room with all the little bunkers surrounding the central space.
So: super boring, super repetitive, and pretty long, as we were having to actually *battle* our way through high level spawns.
Pluses: Fun team, and I'll never have to run it again. =P -
with a double XP weekend coming up they don't really need to add anything great to hit their profit targets.
there will be a billion people flooding back into the game, and some appreciable % of those folks will drop some coin on the market.
I don't think I have the roman set, so I might pick that up.
the Pocket D pack isn't my usual thing, but I'll check it out on the wiki and see if there's one piece I just can't live without.... -
Quote:And when they burn 30 or 50 packs and haven't gotten it, do they keep going because that is the only way to get Teh Shiny, or do they say "the heck with this!" and wait for the eventual store release?Originally Posted by Lothic
Sure there might be some willing to wait for these things for that entire YEAR as I suggested. But I still suspect some would not want to wait that long and try gambling for the rares regardless.
If you're being honest, you know the answer to that.
The UBER RAREZ are a way to get a certain type of player to buy a large number of super packs. You can certainly complain about the percieved fairness of doing it at all, but there's simply no argument to be made in favor of short-circuiting that (very effective, judging by the success of SP 1) process by eventually just dumping those shinys on the market.
How does a vanity item become "obsolete", exactly?Quote:Just to be completely clear I would only be in favor of the Devs selling (at an extreme premium) the unique items from these Super Packs long after they are effectively obsolete. A period of one year would satisfy that for me at least.
For players who care about such things, that wolf will be every bit as enticing 5 years from now as it is today.
Offering the things that make people want superpacks in the first place through the store defeats the whole purpose of the system.
You want a deterministic way to get the shiny, which is understandable.
Your mistake is attempting to argue that's a good idea for Paragon Studios.
It would undermine player support for what has been an extremely profitable endeavor, and that would be bad for the bottom line. -
looks terrific- excited about pretty much everything on offer with this ish.
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Quote:hitting 50 in a day hardly constitutes "burning through all the content".Originally Posted by Xzero45
The devs probably don't want people burning through all their content in one day, getting bored, then leaving the game that much sooner.
And with an endgame in place, what do they care how fast you hit 50?
Within reason, anyway- I'm sure they'd prefer people to level like me and cruise along through the content instead of blasting to the cap, but it isn't the disaster it would have been in years gone by.
Leveling is just one part of the experience, these days. -
putting up screens from last night's run.
most of our team, FINALLY at the last mission.
our dance party in IP, killing time waiting for our street hunt for FORTY council to commence.
Vandal well on his way to The Hell of Boring Task Force AVs
details later. -
Okay, got my Bastion/Citadel run in tonight and BOY was it a doozy!
Full report on the morrow....right now I need to sleep, perchance to dream of endless caves brimming with Council. -
Quote:Learn something new every day!Originally Posted by Organica
It was changed at some point. In the old days you had your patron, and you could never go back and pick a different one, while heroes not only didn't have to run any arc for their epic power pool, they could switch to a different one any time they wanted. So that was the change, you have to run a patron arc to open up the pools, but you can then pick whichever one you want.
Thanks for the tips, Org. -
Quote:huh- didn't know that- did they change it at some point?Originally Posted by Organica
Not sure if you just meant picking that patron pool, or that you were going to pick Mako as your patron and run his arc. Because, of course, you can run any patron arc and it opens up all four pools. The only difference is which arc you think is easy or like to run, and whose badge you want.
I dimly recall having to run the 'right' arc to get the pool.
the only one I've run was Ghost Widow's for the Goat, so this will be fresh content at least! -
a grocery store I frequent has the game cards for sale in their kiosk, that is the 'free month of play + jet pack temp power'.
but I haven't been able to find timecards anywhere. -
if we were going to get all crazy and FUTURISTIC* how about when you mouse over the server name you get a context menu of all your characters on that sever.
Sure, in a game where GUI design's place on the priority list is somewhere down below proofreading for text errors this is highly unlikely...but a goat can dream, can't he?!~?!
*'futuristic' in this case defined as "an idea that's been around less than ten years" -
it's a statue or hologram of the guy in the center.
pretty cool, combine this with 'phasing' tech and your character could have various shrines to them erected throughout the game. -
dumb title, but looks neat- I'll probably see it on the big screen with my son.
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Fun night last night.
My son was under the weather and passed out about fifteen minutes after I got home- first time that's *ever* happened. Silver lining, MOAR PLAYTIME!
Did my usual marketeering & costume fiddling- on top of my purple converting I'm filling up my base storage with "good stuff" to dump during/after Double XP Weekend, all proceeds to go into the Crazy 88's INFcinerator.
I ran a couple of tips on my fire/plant dom Mant because he was nearly 40 & picked up the level for him. I'm going Mako for his Patron Pool mostly because the shark powers rule, but I guess it's also thematic with Captain Mako Week coming up.
Ended up, as I mostly do lately, on Cathode Ray. He had a couple of slots outstanding after his Moonfire run the other evening so I was puttering around after some Frankenslot IOs while keeping one eye on the LFG channel. Hoping for a Bastion to add to my Crown of Pain composed of all the old TFs, but the first thing that came along was a guy forming a Posi I. I've only run II on this guy, so I signed up.
Fun, fun, fun.
It's close to the 'perfect' TF in my eyes- neat maps, challenging but varied enemies, minimal travel that makes thematic sense, and a terrific finale saving Atlas Park from an ocean of CoT plus your own shadowy doppleganger.
We had a super tough team and just plowed through everything up to the final mission. One brute, a solid stalker, a dark defender, a mind/earth controller, a blaster and one corrupter besides me. Stuff was just melting. You know we were stacked when one of our guys triggered the Atlas ambushes after a few of us said NOBODY TOUCH THE DOORS and it didn't cause a team wipe- we only lost half and were able to clear it out and get everyone back without any trips to the hospital.
But the down side of such a tough squad was, well, our Dopplegangers were *also* tough. Our first go resulted in a team wipe, even though we were on the same page about taking out the controllers first. We managed to take out one of them before wiping, so that was something anyway. =P
Second go, we *all* targeted through the stalker and made a better job of it. I got killed by an AS coming on the heels of some ranged damage, but popped my vet rez and didn't miss a beat- ate a couple of purples and started fighting on the move so he couldn't tag me again. Not sure what his deal was, but that dude followed me all over the room. Thank goodness he was slowed up by some status effects or it might have gotten messy.
Picked up a level, had a blast...great TF, will run again.
Most of the team wanted to keep on through part II, but I had to take a dinner break and bowed out.
Came back later to choose a power (decided on Hasten) & caught on with a level 30-ish mish team in Bricks. Picked up another level running newspapers on a fun team with the difficulty cranked, which meant my secondary actually got a bit of use. It's been so bad I'm thinking of tossing a slot of Recharge into Enervating Field just so I can re-apply it after my anchor dies but before the rest of the spawn is vaporized.
There was another Beamer on the squad so it was Disintegrate all 'round- it's such a jolly feeling, seeing all those Spreading Disintegration notices floating skyward.
Picked up another level, and after the team fell apart I joined a Rikti squad in Skyway peopled with some RP'ers. I got in the swing and battled aliens in character for a while, which was really fun. There weren't enough of us to spawn any heavys, but I did get the Sentry badge, or whatever the 'kill 100 invaders' one is.
Ray is pushing 30 now and about ready to start slotting IO sets- I'm thinking some ranged defense would go a long way with him. Hopefully the Water Blast furor has died down a bit and I can pick up some ranged damage sets without breaking the bank.
Not that it matters, I guess, as I logged in this AM to three sold purples... =P -
Quote:congratulations!Originally Posted by OneFrigidWitch
Ive had chars with 4-500 mil a few times, but slowly spent it. I was never really any good at making money. But recently I tried flipping purples and converting, and that is reliably making money now. However, I only flip 2 purples at a time (total.....) on a single char, trying to maximize my money. I also run some converts on some 70mil profit options, but that takes effort. :|
In any case, I finally have 2 bil!!!
purple converting is just a great, low maintenance way to pile up the inf....as long as you don't edge over into industrial scale operations like Sentry... =P -
Quote:It boils down to people paying a premium for an item in a lottery system and them having it sold for a 'flat rate' some time later.Originally Posted by Lothic
Maybe, but it really boils down to how much "gambling" you're willing to do.
Someone who bought 100 or 200 packs to get the Uber Rare Whatsit isn't going to be happy with that and will sit out the next lottery, knowing they can get the Uber Rare Whatsit at a massive discount later on.
I don't care about vanity pets, so I wouldn't go for either option.Quote:Would you be willing to buy some packs now for a CHANCE to get the Black Wolf or would you be willing to pay like $20 for it directly a year from now? I suspect there would still be plenty of people willing to gamble for it today who either don't want to wait a year or who don't like the idea of paying $20 directly for anything much less a vanity pet.
Or rather, I'd buy packs until I got the stuff I did want, and if a wolf appeared during that span, cool.
But I wouldn't chase it, and I wouldn't buy it in the store.
I'm not the audience for that sort of perk.
For round one I bought a few stray packs to see what the deal was, then picked up the 24 pack to fill out the costume set. Got a bunch of other cool stuff too, but I wouldn't have kept buying without the costume- that's the draw for me.
I disagree strongly with this.Quote:Also by the time a year comes around most people will probably be buying packs from Set #3 or #4 by then. Effectivelly no one will still be buying packs from Set #1 once there are newer sets to be had.
Will the costume set be any less desirable just because there are newer ones?
Will people interested in ultra rare vanity pets be any less interested because there are other ultra rare trinkets available?
No to both.
Super Pack 1 will sell as long as the game keeps attracting new players who don't already have 'everything'. If it works at all, which I think even its most ardent detractors would admit it does, then there's no reason it won't keep working for as long as they want to keep selling it.
This, basically.Quote:Originally Posted by Grouchybeast
That depends on the SP#1 being withdrawn, which really makes little sense. It isn't as though Paragon are paying to have packs of cards printed and shipped to stores. As long as each SP has unique content (like the costume pieces and ATOs), then there's a reason for someone to want to buy one pack type rather than another, and no reason to pull a pack from the store. -
Quote:last night Virtue had two Talos Islands and two Steel Canyons.Originally Posted by Hopeling
Is any server populated enough to consistently have 2 Talos Islands? I don't think I've ever seen it happen on Freedom.
Which was, admittedly, the first time I'd ever seen that, but it can happen! -
Quote:Organica posted one she made in her recent Zero to Awesome Redux thread- Moo Vestment. =)Originally Posted by Rangle M. Down
For someone who enjoys getting pun names, I recently rolled up "Sands of Moo", a KM/Dark Brute. While it may not be a great name to others, I find it a very fun one.
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Quote:As noted previously, the moment they sell either the costume bits or the 'rare special' from one of these packs *poof* there go the bulk of their future pack sales.Originally Posted by Lothic
While I don't strictly like the idea of being able to cherry pick things out of -current- Super Pack sets I could be in favor of allowing people to buy things like the Black Wolf directly from the market a long time after Super Pack Set #1 has been replaced by future sets. This would let people eventually catch up with obsolete sets but still preserve the current card-collecting/gambling environment for the latest set. If people had to wait like a year before they could buy these special things that would be plenty of time for them to be "exclusive" to those who care about that sort of thing.
So, yeah....don't hold yer collective breaths. -
Quote:Online music sales have been a disaster for everyone on the business end other than the new de facto middleman, Apple. On the consumer end it's been terrific, but for labels and most artists it's been apocalyptic. They decided taking a nickle on the dollar was the better than getting nothing, so they made the deal.Originally Posted by DarkGob
I did say it was part of the reason, not the entire reason. And if cable companies would pull their heads out of...let's say "the sand" and look at what online music stores have done, they'd realize there IS money to be made in a la carte sales.
The cable companies aren't in that position, mainly I'd guess because their product makes a much bigger file and is harder to encode- sharing video isn't as frictionless as sharing music.
Anyway, for whatever reason they can still (mostly) enforce their business model and so it's bundles all 'round. Eventually it's all going to be streaming and clouds and whatnot (I've been using Roku for all my broadcast entertainment needs for going on 3 years now) but for the moment they're still fighting the future with reasonable success.
Businesses will give up a profitable model when the changing environment pries it from their cold, dead fingers. Cable isn't there yet and won't be for a while.Quote:You're right, the filesharing genie isn't going back into its bottle. Instead, companies must learn to leverage the technology behind it while giving consumers what they want instead of shoving what they think consumers should have down their throats. This is already happening, but way too slowly in my opinion. -
yep you're both doing a much higher volume than I am, and I bet I also know which bids are Plasmas... =P
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Quote:Great.Originally Posted by Garble
Actually, I *can* buy a bundle that I know includes HBO.
Can you just go the store and buy HBO because you only want HBO?
No, you can't.
That's what this discussion is about.
Yes, that's because cable television and video games are two different things.Quote:What they *don't* do is offer me a bundle of 5 random channels that *could* be HBO, HBO 2, HBO Comedy, HBO Family & HBO Signature but will *likely* be The Weather Channel in 5 languages.
But kudos for being the first to push a casually useful metaphor past its breaking point. -
Quote:It's rampant because it's easy.Originally Posted by DarkGob
And that's part of why television show piracy is so rampant.
It wouldn't be any less rampant if they offered up channels ala carte, unless they also figured out a way to stuff the filesharing genie back in its bottle.
The make more money selling bundles, so that's what they do. -
Quote:Well there's the disconnect- I don't do anything on an industrial scale in this game, I just do it to amuse myself. The thought of rustling up 200 converters gives me a headache- my operation's been running smoothly on converting an a-merit or two a week.Originally Posted by Sentry4
I somewhat mentioned it above, but the size of it grows really fast and I can't make 200 converters per day. That's what I mean when I say it's a pain. I'm getting a ton of purples and have no converters because I spent the 200 I collected yesterday, which was 2 hours of SSA1-1.
I suppose that's true, what I meant was the startup to run a huge operation is a lot. My startup was 8 billion, and that let me to create enough that was worthwhile. I never thought of doing it on a small scale, but that could work too.
I have one character handling bids and one selling and that generates far more inf than I need. I'll keep doing it as long as it lasts because it's just so easy, with the excess profits eventually going to feed the Crazy 88's INFcinerator.
I'm making more than I can spend with the equivalent of a small 'craft to sell' operation. I haven't found anything that can top the 100-200m profit per transaction I'm getting from converting purples, and I'm a big fan of a massive inf/transaction ratio.Quote:Lastly, running a daily billion-earning operation from just flipping takes much less work and doesn't run you as hard as converting purples.
While I don't doubt anyone who cared to could make a billion+ a day flipping stuff, that's waaaaay too much like work for me. =P