Nobylis

First, to those that say "what if I can't afford all that expensive..." Hold on, stop RIGHT there!

On an archetype that actually has defense abilities (like, say, shield/ tanker), you can soft cap by somewhere between level 30 and 40, JUST from creating and selling the IOs that give a profit and the salvage that sells well from regular leveling.

I am not talking about AE. I do not do it, and I do not want to, so I can not speak for or against the money it will or will not make you.

Radio missions, teams, varying sizes, from solo to 8 person... you make enough. You do not have to "play the BM mini game", you just have to check the price, and sell it if it's a decent profit. For recipes you have to actually search for the price of the recipe and the IO it makes.

This is not a long process nor is it rocket science. Sell at, say, 80%-90% of the going mid range price, and you will have enough to softcap defense in all areas on a defensive set.

Softcapping defense on a domi, while extremely funny, really wasn't meant to happen, and while "everyone does it" I don't, and I still mash face pretty nicely.

Now... as for how to FIX things? Simple.
Bigger defense bonuses for actual powers.
more to hit bonuses on mobs.

Softcapping defense is only really powerful against mobs with +0 to hit. As I understand, +acc works directly against +def on a 1 to 1 basis. Now if I am incorrect in this, I apologize, and please correct me.

Point is mob +acc is very rarely used that I have seen. Very few mobs have it, and those that do are easy enough to avoid because they are so few.

Yes, those who have squishy archetypes that are no longer so ... well... nonsquishy... will scream, but as long as someone the game devs intended to be softcapped can still dodge like a champ, the QQing won't carry that much weight... because frankly, most people who have softcapped their blaster's defense KNEW it was kind of abusive, and SHOULD expect a chance it will be eventually busted.

I would like to begin by saying that both sides of this argument have merits.

Frankly, however, I do not think that the markets should be outright merged, but... there are a few options I WOULD like to suggest.

1)neutral market, same as in WoW, larger cut taken:
This evens out the most ridiculous imbalances, but only if people play the "market mini-game"

2)bleed over after 24 hours:
Simply put, you put an item on the market at WW, it takes a day for Shady Mac to arrange for it to be sold without being noticed. You put an item up on the BM, after a day, Shady Mac finds a fence who can get it quietly sold and all official and legal looking.

This means you will not see 1326 clockwork winders on one side selling for 300, while you're paying 10,000 or more on the other side.

This also means, a hero got it, heroes get the first whack at it.

THIS SAID... IF this happens, I would very strongly suggest something be done about the BM/WW lost connection with mapserver problems. If the quantity of information increases, the chances of a lost connection will also increase.

Throttling the transfer speed of the auction server/application/procedure would, I believe, effectively resolve this issue.

3)merging markets between servers:
I am not sure if this is already being done or not. I know when I transferred, the market info seemed different.

This ultimately keeps a difference between what is available based on the game mechanic differences between redside and blueside, but reduces the vagaries of understocked auctions and increases the size of the market, making it more stable.

Once again, it would also make the connection to mapserver lost issues worse, see above for details on how this issue could be mitigated.

I have played CoH with a full out 4 gigs of RAM gaming system with completely stripped down apps running. I have also played it on a system that choked to play CoH at all.

What I have found is this.
1)No MATTER what your computer, assuming standard residential high speed internet connection, you will ALWAYS have a chance to get kicked upon opening WW/BM.
2)This chance is significantly higher if you are using your swap file at ALL in ANY way as of opening it, and also higher if your computer struggles with the game.

Now, from a tech perspective, here is why:
Connection 1:mapserver
You click on WW rep
Connection 2IFFERENT server with auction info. This DIFFERENT server sends a raw data dump, as evidenced by the net stats filling to the top with green (or not green if packets are lost, usually green for me)
Connection 1:mapserver tries to keep communicating during this time. As the connection is being flooded, there is an appreciable chance it will fail to do so.

Sorry, NCSoft, it is NOT inadequate hardware nor poor configuration (while these factors make it worse, they are NOT the cause).

Now... There are three ways I propose this could be resolved.
1)throttle the speed at which WW/BM sends data. Configuration for this could be added to the game options.
If this were added to the game, it would allow ANYONE to access wentworth's and have settings where they would almost never be D/C

2)send a code to the mapserver stating that the client does not wish to talk to it until further notice when about to access the BM/WW. This means your view freezes until the data is sent.

3)A hybrid of these two solutions would be the throttle as well as the client informing the mapserver that it should use significantly more lenient timeouts.

Now... as far as not showing everything on initial opening of WW/BM, you CAN do so by leaving a search term in when you close it, BUT... the server will STILL send the data on all items because the filter/search is performed client side.

I would like to further add that for stalkers, TP Foe can remove that ONE mob that is looking towards the target you REALLY want to take out.

I swear the game intentionally sets spawns up like that so everyone has someone looking at them. You remove mob #2, you can eliminate mob #1, wait for stealth to return, then take out mobs #4 and #5... at which point #6 sees you and you have to go toe to toe with ... 1 mob... all because the right mob is no longer watching.