Oedipus_Tex
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Almost any Dominator should give you something like this, depending on your definition of "farm." Even a pretty average late game Dominator... dominates.
More so with IOs and incarnate abilities. -
Quote:Originally Posted by Memphis_Bill
Well, several things here:
1. Controllers have containment. Double damage on anything held, immob'd, etc. (not *all* controls but quite a bit will set up containment.) Land that first hold, you're doubling damage.
2. Dominators had a problem with - using the devs description, which was very fitting - of being "jeckyl and hyde." They had lousy damage, no containment, etc. until Domination was ready, then *bam* they were godly... until it dropped, which was a driving force behind people trying for perma-dom. Adjusting the damage lessened that *greatly.* You've now got formerly-Dom level damage at all times.
3. Dominators are control/damage ATs to begin with. Controllers are not. Dominators got a damage buff because they were not fitting their role as well as they could - and they are now.
So, yeah, an overall damage buff for controllers? I wouldn't expect to see it, frankly. Individual power adjustments like Propel? Sure. (Edit: And I'm saying that as someone who's gotten two decidedly non-high-damage combos to 50 - Ice/Emp and Earth/FF.)
But Lift is identical to Mind Control's Levitate, which does do Tier 2 damage on Controllers. Lift's lowered damage on Controllers is baffling, really. -
Quote:I pretty much agree with you about this. The farming doesn't seem so much easier as it is more accessible.Originally Posted by Rodion
The only thing AE does is "democratize" the ability to run these farms, and not restrict them to level 45+ characters who have the appropriate contact.
I happen to have a video of a very low damage character doing a variation of these farms (an Ice/Rad Controller). I'm posting it in the interest of showing how one particular kind of very low damage character can leverage it to some level of success. It's not "ticket capped," doesn't fight bosses, and the mission wasn't picked because of a damage type I'm resistant to, but the video shows a leveraging a very low damage set for what it's worth. (The character is actually a support character who does not actually have his AoE immobilize slotted for damage.) If nothing else it illustrates one variation of the farms for people (or developers, for that matter) who are unfamiliar as encountered by a somewhat atypical and unideal farming character.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIZyL9m4E1U
Anyway, while on the whole I don't feel the farms are exploitative, one element of them that is kind of "aberrant" is that they milk the aggro-cap rules for all they are worth. Enemies will gather around you like with dumpster diving but I think only 16 will attack you. If the rules changed so that they could actually fire, I wouldn't be able to survive.
The rules for inspirations are also rather hilariously broken?/unbalanced? in favor of soloing, though I doubt they'd ever be changed. This is a legacy issue dating back to the origins of the game. However, the AE does allow you to eat inspirations at the vendor, buy more, then run into the mission with capped damage and a full tray while enemies pile onto you at the door. Not sure if that's exploitation or not. It's definitely a bit cheap, but I have done it before on some characters. -
Quote:This is a great point. You would (probably) not want to use an Ice Control to PL other people. I do it for the tickets. Running this mission with my Ice Controller I think gets me around 800-900 tickets, which is short of the cap but much better, IMO, than being broke. I can do it at up to about +2. Bosses are pretty much a no-go (too much damage and immune to the Confusion).Originally Posted by Amy_Amp
Another point here, there are generally two reasons to farm. One is to get tickets. Each map has a 1.5K limit. There is one I do at +2x8 and can cap just by doing the initial room. The number of builds that can do something similar is a lot. The other reason is to PL other people. This is where you want to be able to do +4x8 w/bosses and ideally as fast as possible. The number of builds that do this gets much smaller. A SS/fire/mu brute is king for this.
In addition to my Ice troller, I have also done this mission with an Ice/Fire Dominator and a Rad/Fire Blaster (the latter with no IOs and some very delicate footwork with inspirations). Its doable with the right mindset. Ice Dominators have a lot more direct damage to work with but their AA duration is lower, so they may have to use a few more tricks. The Blaster dies occasionally but subsists on pure damage.
As for regular missions, Ice is sort of a conundrum. It's still one of the lowest damage sets in the game. But IMO its also one of the most fun, and definitely not locked out from getting money or salvage drops. -
I'm betting on Sister Psyche.
Miss Liberty would be a surprising choice but IMO a not bad one from a storytelling perspective.
Citadel is also a good candidate to get the axe. -
Don't forget you can also spec into Frost Breath for more AoE.
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Quote:Originally Posted by Arcanaville
It is if you assert its the only interpretation, or more generally the only reasonable one. You should be careful slinging that hubris brush when you make statements like that, since I'm not the one stating that there is only one reasonable point of view to the question of whether random reward systems are fair.
I'm not talking about "random systems" in abstract. I'm talking about this one. Random systems are not all alike. There was an attempt by some posters earlier to link dislike of random drops at the end of trials to random rolls during combat, but the two have nothing in common and the comparison is meaningless. Same thing if we expand to talk about reward systems with a random component. Purple IOs are random rewards, but a different kind, and their mechanics are only tangentially related to whether random rewards should be the primary determination of advancement speed through this particular leg of this particular game.
What IS undeniable--or I should think it is--is that a "deterministic" system where there is a 96% chance that the random reward kicks in prior to the termininating element that makes the system "deterministic" is actually more random than it is deterministic. Again that is IF the chances for a V Rare drop are really 10%. Basically the odds are so high that "random" is almost "deterministic" in itself for all but a handful of players. You may think that is equitable, but I disagree.
[EDIT: Several edits for clarity. Sorry for confusion if you started a reply.] -
Quote:Originally Posted by Arcanaville
I think you're continuing to miss the point of what the exact benefit of randomness in a reward system actually is. By definition a random result will sometimes generate a higher than average result, and sometimes a lower than average result. If you are going to automatically interpret every result that is lower than average as "taking a huge loss" and that this is always an undesirable result for a reward system to generate you're just axiomatically opposed to random systems.
The other way to interpret this situation is that the chance of acquiring less than average rewards is the price people pay to have a chance of acquiring greateer than average rewards, and even under the worst case scenario the deterministic merit rewards place an absolute floor on reward earning, which provides a safety net against the worst possible outcomes the random system can generate.
It's not "misunderstanding" to say that I don't agree with your interpretation. I can see the numbers myself. I think you are gifted with numbers but also filled with hubris if you think you are the only person with the ability to evaluate them and hold opinions about what they mean.
[PS I'm concerned that you add that chance is the "price people have to pay," but ignore the issue that it is the price people pay that is the issue many people have with the system. It's like we zipped right past each other on logic trains going two different directions.]
[PPS it is only now that I understand how you are reinterpreting my statement about "taking a huge loss" as the equivalent of getting low rolls. This is an incorrect characterization. The huge loss is for a character who has to spend Empyraens, because Empyraens buy more than just salvage. IF the odds are 10%, and it takes 30 trials to get enough Empyraens, it is undeniable that the end chance of not getting a Very Rare is only 4%. That means about 1 in 22 players will have to spend them. You say that is a good thing, the "price people pay." I say it is not. If the chance is some other number than 10%, the same applies, but to more or fewer people. This is a question of equitability, and it is not easily settled.] -
Quote:Pets are immune to the pulse.Originally Posted by PsychicKitty
So the OP couldnt use Triage?...thats not in Traps?
i am thinking he never actualy did this trial.....
As he would have been whining more about the pulses destroying his stuff he summoned more then about some leader.
This is not my understanding.Quote:For those that dont know.....its not about damage or pulses doing more damage...its called any form of attack whether it be a debuff or even zero damage on antimatter....makes the pulses happen more often in that first portion..... -
I don't get it.
Is this the kind of humor where girls can't say Portable Hole and guys can't say Solid Snake? -
WoC is pretty much trash except for slotting with Contagious Confusion, and that should go in Arctic Air for the much larger area coverage.
What may be effective for some characters is to go Rogue alignment. This gives you a somewhat unpredictable Mag 2 PBAoE confuse you can occasionally stack on bosses.
However, I have to admit that Villain alignment, and its auto-Domination refill are probably the most effective, as long as you can stand remaining a Villain. The main reason for it is the mezz protection you get when you pop Domination which in turn lets you run Arctic Air without worry of detoggles. -
Quote:Originally Posted by Muon_Neutrino
This is the real sticking point. Back when there wasn't anything to do with the merits, it didn't matter as much. Get unlucky, oh well you'll get it eventually with merits.
Now, though, the person who gets lucky not only gets their VR quickly, but then is free to spend their merits to unlock all those goodies. Meanwhile, the unlucky soul who's on his 60th trial is feverishly saving 30 emps to blow on a VR instead of costume parts.
~60 trials in with this defender, 1 VR.
Far as I can tell, at 10% the odds of having less than 2 VRs after 60 trials are about 1.3%. I suppose there always has to be the one really unlucky person, but why does it have to be me?
Exactly. This is what I was referring to when I said that an early good roll is worth lots more than a late one. If the numbers are correct, buying a VR with Empyraens is a losing proposition that applies only to people who fail to roll correctly. Buying a single VR costs you the same amount in Empyraens as 1/2 of the most expensive PVP IO on the market. There is no way to interpret it other than taking a huge loss due to a random mechanic. This is, to the letter, exactly why random drops at the end of TFs needed to be converted to merit rewards, that you could choose to gamble with by spending the merits. Right now if you get a VR drop, you not only get the value of the VR, you get to keep the Empyraens. -
Quote:Originally Posted by Arilou
Again, that's probably deliberate. You want the random method to be a better odds, statistically, than the deterministic one simply because it's random. (whether it should be three times better is a different question, it probably should have a slight edge)
It's actually even kinder than that since the deterministic method isn't directly tied to the random one: IE: You can progress down both at the same time.
For the record, I don't believe in Arcana's split between "deterministic" and "random." Because the deterministic path forces you to roll, the only thing deterministic about it is that there is a path of some kind. The length of that path is anything but deterministic unless you just flat out ignore random drops. The only time you spend any Empyraens is when the system doesn't proc for you.
It takes 30 Empyraens to get a V Rare. If the odds of one dropping randomly are 10%, that means you have a 0.90^30 chance of it not dropping on its own while gathering Emps. That's about 4%.
IF the number is really 10% and if we can control it, for the player base as a whole it is much smarter to save Empyraens than spend them on V Rares. After all you don't get the Emps back if you spend them and a V Rare drops later (which illustrates another principal: high value salvage is more valuable if it procs in the first 50 or so rolls rather than later). -
Quote:Originally Posted by Arilou
Mind, it would be relatively simple to do.
Say, if you've run 50 successful trials and never gotten a very rare, the game forces one.
Although then again, it would be pointless since we already have the empyreal method.
Empyraens don't address the fact that for the player base as a whole, it is much smarter to save Empyraens and wait for drops. That's IF the numbers are really 10%.
The real failure of this system, though, is that no one has any idea what a "good run" of a trial is versus a "bad one" in terms of team success even though this supposedly effects the rewards. This means basing any sort of award on it is completely arbitrary. For all we can say, a person who never or rarely gets V Rares either just has bad luck (and will get the V Rare eventually, in theory) or is being penalized invisibly for playing on leagues that "play wrong." Random chance alone already indicates that given a 10% chance for a drop, in a league of 24 players in a totally average situation, one player will have about 5 - 7 V Rare drops before the least lucky player even gets one. When you add the "weighting" mechanisms, the numbers drive off a cliff. Since there is no feedback at all on whether you are on a "good" league or a "bad" there is nothing for you to adjust or change. Your league will keep running the trial "poorly" and next to a "good" league will fall behind without anyone being able to say that is what is going on. -
Quote:I actually don't remember the mission number. I think it was called something like "Fire Ambush Farm" with around 800 votes on it.Originally Posted by flipside
Would you be willing to share which AE mission you ran? I'm having trouble reading the mission text in the video capture to try and find it.
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The issue I always had with this power is that even solo, you've got Creepers and Fly Trap running behind you. You can sometimes use it to open from range, but unless you stay way back, it's easy for your pets to ruin the show.
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Quote:Originally Posted by flipside
Mez protection is rough, but thanks to the no-toggle-drop change it isn't as rough as it used to be (AA still drops, but thems the breaks). Incarnate Clarion has been a great boon to me in this area.
I have to admit the Psi APP is superior to Ice in terms of damage and utility, but I chose Ice for thematic reasons. But, with some ample recharge and now the Reactive Incarnate power at least Ice Storm is up often and puts out respectable damage.
Ok, I need to try out one of these missions tonight. I'm jazzed to see how well my character will perform.
For the farm style missions you will theoretically do much better than me. Storm brings lots of extra damage, and the Ice APP is better for damage. My character didn't actually even have damage slotted in Frostbite when he did this. He is basically a team support toon who I occasionally solo with, and was never intended to be a farmer or heavy soloer.
There is no mezz in the farms, so you can switch to a different Destiny if you have it. For regular missions, the mezz counts for a lot more.
FYI if you are not soft capped, bring some purples into the mission at the start. Watch your defenses and eat more if they drop below what's acceptable. As you play, eat every red, yellow, or orange that drops, and every light purple as well just to keep the tray clear for more drops. You may also play around with powers like Hurricane to see if you can trap enemies against walls; I have a Blaster with Bonfire who was able to greatly increase his survivability this way. -
Quote:Originally Posted by flipside
Even tweaked to the gills, my Ice/Storm/Ice controller is still underpowered compared to some other controller powersets and combos. To me alone, I feel very powerful when playing this character, and is why I've played them for the majority of 7 years.
I pretty much feel the same way. The set is not perfect. It has a lot of issues. Some of it can be worked around with high defense and mezz protection.
Ice Control however does play pretty much unlike any powerset/class in a video game anywhere though, which is why I like it. And it is very possible to survive and make money with it solo. I remember fighting at -1x1 for about 2 years before I started figuring out the tricks, although the biggest boost came from Incarnate abilities that helped cover endurance deficits and stunt slotting in Arctic Air. Any [EDIT: high level] Ice Controller with the Psi APP and some defense (I'd say around ~30%) should be able to solo at x8 with relative ease. -
Quote:Originally Posted by Laevateinn
I don't farm so I'll withhold judgement on the fire farm video. But I wonder if I'm supposed to be impressed by an IO'ed controller soloing -1 Carnies without bosses. In my experience, Lt. and below generally do not threaten characters, and the real danger (especially for squishies) are the bosses you can't easily mez or kill.
Your lack of impression is noted. Thanks for the uh... comments.
I wasn't trying to show off. I was demoing how to make money as an Ice Controller. I'm glad you were available to put me in my place. Hats off to you.
PS it is absolutely standard practice for Controllers to fight with bosses off if you increase the enemy count to x8. A few don't. Most do. It depends on what you can mow through faster. Usually the issue is they just take too long to die. Not worth the time investment unless you are a /Kin or perhaps a Fire/Rad. Definitely not on an Ice Controller due to its low-ish base damage. -
Quote:Originally Posted by flipside
My long favorite character in the game has been an Ice/Storm controller, whom I've been playing for some 7 years now. He's currently tricked out to the gills and can do some impressive things in large spawn battles, but I never seriously considered farming with him. This gives me some want to give it a whirl.
That said, I've long avoided AE and its "farm" missions for fear of the dev banhammer crushing down. I don't want my characters, especially this one, somehow nerfed or deleted due to running these missions. My paranoia there has been that these missions usually involve exploits or cheating on some level, as they have in the past.
So, and this may be a question no one can answer, but how "safe" are these missions considered in that regard?
That's a good question. I'm not a huge farmer. I have done it from time to time. On the Brute forums, talking about this particular type of mission goes on a lot. I'm one of the few (I think) players to actually post a video of it. If the mission is an exploit, at least it makes the developers aware. There were some statements made about not farming the AE quite some time ago, but nothing has been said about it since. If you are worried about someone from development banning you for playing this kind of mission, I'd say there is nothing to be concerned about.
To my knowledge, there is nothing blatantly exploitative about this particular type of mission. Many characters placed in this particular environment don't do all that well, because of all the damage that comes raining down on you very quickly. Ice Control is an exception because its aura power keeps the enemy in check. I suspect Earth Control might do well because of Volcanic Gasses as well. Anyway, the mission doesn't involve anything particularly cheat-y other than having a lot of enemies who are fairly easy to kill aggro you all at once. The mission itself is actually created for Fire Armor Brutes; I ran it with a character not optimized to that damage type.
Anyway, even if you decide not to use the ambush style missions, its still easy and possible to create or find a story arcish thing (AE or otherwise) with lots of enemies vulnerable to Confusion. I sometimes do completly random AE missions at +0x8 with bosses off and its more or less just as easy.
We should also note that even though Ice Controllers can do decent-ish farming on low settings, they are still not completely ideal farmers. Brutes pretty much take the cake on that. However, just because you're an Ice troller doesn't mean you need to be subsidized by other toons, either. -
Ok, video 2 is up now. This is the same Ice/Rad's antics versus Carnies. The mission is set to +0x8, bosses off. This is to show the play style in regular solo missions and the strategy for the Arctic Air + Frostbite on a high recharge/high defense Ice character with good defenses and mezz protection. Again, mainly for demonstration purposes of what to expect out of such a build.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eHpUQXhLsLg -
I've been trying to get my video capture to work for months to capture my Ice/Rad troller, and finally got it to function. This is basically a demo of fire ambush farming with that character. He is more or less capped to ranged defense and while that helps the farm isn't specific to that. The character is also not really built for farming, being Ice/Rad/Psi. The AoE immobilize is also not slotted for damage or procs. I do eat inspirations during this (as anyone should while farming) but was kind of half-arsed about it.
Anyway, the central trick on display here is fighting with bosses off, and just staying alive while using Frostbite to freeze enemies in place and Arctic Air to confuse them into killing each other while you throw Psi-Nados at them. Note that I do not use Ice Slick, Glacier, Shiver, or Choking Cloud here at all. The reason is that these powers stop enemies from hitting each other, and that's what you don't want in this situation. It works so well because Arctic Air is always active, so when an enemy dies and rezzes, its confused again before it can stand.
Part of the reason I'm showing the video is to show that any Ice Controller (or Dominator) can do this, as I'm not really using the secondary at all except for the heal and AM. It's probably safest for the Controllers with self heals, especially Kinetics. /Storm could probably clean house on the damage. Even /Empathy and /Force Field should be pretty good at this though. If you don't have the defenses, bring a stack of purples to start and combine drops to always keep your defenses high.
Note that on teams, I do make more use of my self-survival tools. This is mainly a solo trick. It especially works well in Tip missions with lots of ambushes.
Anyway, here's the craziness:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIZyL9m4E1U
[PS I'm not suggesting rolling an Ice troller just to farm. Just showing that if you already have one and like playing it there are ways to make it work. And also why you should never ever skip Arctic Air.]
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By the way, I also finally found a site willing to let me upload the .SWF I created for free. You have to click View Flash Full Screen to make it work. Unfortunately that means it definitely does play full screen... anyway this thing doesn't do anything special except let you click Add Trial to run the trial odds yourself or click Start Over to... start over. Maybe start a drinking a game where people bet on which Player gets the most VRs first?
http://megaswf.com/file/1147180 -
Quote:Originally Posted by Arcanaville
The players who like randomness are intrinsically willing to take a chance of getting below average rewards for a chance to get above average ones. They know the difference between those two possibilities can be high: that is the point. The players who like deterministic rewards aren't willing to make that trade: they do not want the possibility of getting sub par rewards even if it offers the chance for higher rewards.
I actually agree with you about this but I would have gone about it a different way. Actually, exactly the same way merits work right now. Basically:
Everyone gets the deterministic reward. You can choose to hang on to it or spend it for a chance at something better or a chance to lose it.
Right now when you roll well you not only get the main reward, you keep the Empyraens. Because the Empyraens are used for things other than just the salvage but salvage is worthless for anything else, you lose a lot if you end up spending anything on Empyraens.
There is a more optimistic interpretation too though, I suppose. Most of what you buy with Empyraens are random drops of some type anyway. Getting salvage for free is sort of similar to getting a PVP IO drop in PVP or a rare Purple in PVE if thats what the saved Empyraens from a random V Rare end up letting you buy. I would still prefer the merit system's version of opt-in gambling though, which does in fact penalize you heavily for taking the deterministic approach but at least asks you to buy into it first. -
Quote:Just wanted to point out I did a few iterations to see if my numbers came up around yours from 199 trials (I ignored threads and failures). Your numbers for the Rares look about right. Here is a fairly typical run of 199 trials with results for 24 players (this time it's a thumbnail instead of a huge pic since I just figured out how to do that):Originally Posted by Snow Globe
Very Rare (14) = 6.60%
Rare (40) = 18.87%
Uncommons (94) = 44.34%
Commons (51) = 24.06%
Threads (2) = 0.94%
Failed Trials (11) = 5.19%
Total trials = 212
Basically your results appear to fit pretty easily within the window of 30/40/20/10 guessed at by Leandro. Like others I suspect there is also a downward modifier from the team score. Are there people out there who have done 200 runs and actually have 25+ Very Rares who can post numbers? We'd expect to have at least a few of them running around by now if the percentages are correct.
