Neuronia

Hiya!

I have one and it's an AoE Beast, I love her.
Slotting wise I didn't sink a whole lot into it. Posi Blasts for the targeted AoEs, some Devastations for the single target stuff, etc. etc. For the epic I went with Force Mastery for Personal Force Field for a panic button.

Fun combination.

"Removed checks on the number of players present in Lambda Sector's first two stages."

What does this mean exactly?

Sure, I'll add

Spirit of Kings Row - Hero - Pinnacle server - Kat/Regen Scrapper - @Neuronia global.

I'll get a picture/bio in a moment...

http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h2...n/Spirit-1.jpg

There you go and thanks so much for doing this!

I went with Barrier, high levels of defense + MoG, throw in your Judgement AoE and your Reactive and you'll almost a tankmage.

My Mind/Bubbler has been pulling Rares or Very Rares with alarming regularity.

A normal BAF run is as follows:

*Shields on all teammates
*Fireball + Void on a large spawn
*Terrify/Mass Confuse on stragglers
*Single target status effects on other mobs
*Force Bubble up during prisoner phase, cornering outgoing mobs

Basically repeat as needed, lots of activity and a Rare.
I *did* experiment with the idea of Power Activation being a key by rapid-toggling Personal Force Field for a good 5-10 minutes but that got me an Uncommon menu. Seems you really do need to interact with objectives out there.

Those of you new to Emping and Arena play may be missing some of the metagame subtleties of the format. I've taken the liberty of making a Stick Person Theater based on my own experiences. The final frame is especially accurate. >.>

Thanks Posi.

Just knowing at what rate we are expected to acquire Rares (Is 8 Empyrean Merits the Metric?) and so on would be a great help.

Say I were to design such a system.

It would be hideously complex and need to have failsafes to prevent gameable behaviour:

1)Power activations.
Have the game track whether you have buffed teammates.
Of course, you'd need to put a stop on a player simply casting Insulation Shield on the same person, or just spamming a heal on a fully healthy person.

So...

First activation = Activation Threshold.
Repeated activations on stable/already activated target = Actvation Threshold - N.

In other words, if you bubble you entire team AND are attacking, you bump up the ladder. If you repeatedly spam your shield on someone, your chance of obtaining an extra rare goes down proportinately.

2) Tethering:

To prevent players rushing off and using AoEs on Spawns, implement a tethering system similar to the old reward system. Once you're too far from your group you get a thought bubble: "You're getting too far from your group! Participation Rewards may be decreased!" Of course, this would hinder people that are on "patrol" for Prisoners or other targets. This is likely gameable by having a pair of party members stick close together, using Recall Friend before attacking, etc.

3) Movement:

The game is already baked with a system that notifies you if you are away from keyboard for a while. You could use a system that counts movement ticks from your character. Of course, this is MASSIVELY gameable by having sprint/autorun on, toggling a travel power or just running into a wall for activity points, so there's a dud idea.

4) AoE vs. Single Targets:

Give extra credit to powerset single target attacks, so the Katana/Broadsword/Ice Blasters aren't lagging behind the massive AoE users. Potential gameability from people using Brawl in their queue, using temp powers like Nem Staff (if those aren't greyed out alread) and so on.
Of course, in this case you could have someone just putting an attack on auto and targeting a tough mob.

All these solutions are kludgy, inefficient and likely not worth a Dev's time of day. Players will exploit them to death.

Better solution:

Random rolls. Everyone starts with a baseline Common, bumped up when goals are achieved such as no prisoner escapes, etc. to an Uncommon. Master runs should always reward a random rare. The option for 10 Threads should be part of ANY menu. Sometimes you want those to craft something.
Additionally, you could just award 2-4 Incarnate Threads on completion of any trial.

Yes, you will get the "Centriole" rolls with a random table, it happens. It would at least be more "fair" than our current, obfuscated system.

Put half on 1 and 3, #2 being balanced already.

I've been doing the trials almost exclusively on my Kat/Regen Scrapper.
Most tables have been commons or uncommons. The ONLY time I got a Rare on the menu was when we completed the "Not On My Watch" challenge, which also rewarded an Astral Merit.

Hard to pinpoint what we need to do to get it as we're all using the same strat of guarding doors, patrolling sidewalks and so on which works brilliantly.

No big complaint as I have my Tier 2 Judgement and Interface and climbing, but still strange.

How did you get the Rare/Uncommon Threads?
Did you transition cash into pieces or convert Astral/Empyrial Merits or...?
Congrats by the way, and glad to see someone take Clarion! It looks useful but...

The trials are AWESOME and I can't wait to keep running them later tonight.

Been pretty lucky to be with Nites/Jagged Legion on Pinnacle, been breezing them in 25-30 minutes, both BAF/Lambda. Our only fly in the ointment has been a bugged Lambda run last night that kicked in the timer on start and disallowed us from getting any temps from inside the area. Even then, we did put a dent in Marauder but simply weren't able to overcome the dozen or so War Walkers in the courtyard.

I haven't led one yet, but our leaders have all been great.

Advice sought:

What's the best way to get the Uncommon/Rare Shards? So far I've been converting Astral/Empyrial Merits into Threads and into Salvage, but this seems kinda clunky...is there a more efficient way of getting the Uncommon/Rare?

I'm fairly puzzled by this.

I've been playing my Kat/Regen Scrapper almost exclusively to power her up and have not seen a Rare Incarnate Salvage offered on any reward table. I have seen Commons and Uncommons offered up.

Astral and Empyrial Merits have been had though, so no complaints there.
Would love to see the actual metric used by the engine to determine award of these items, but unlikely we will as it could be gamed.