Ogon_Dark

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I'd still like to know how you think this will impact how teams approach running the content in general, specifically the TF content. In the past, Positron has stated that it was one of the goals to not see players "ghosting" through content and not engaging the enemies in the mission.

It seems that there is no way around the fact that in an effort to maximize rewards, players will feel pressured to complete the missions faster, which can only be done by finding places where you can skip content.

Regardless of actual completion times, is it not also reasonable to view players time as "sessions", whereby although a villain SF might be faster on average, there is no more chance of a Villain doing 2 SF's on a during a given play session than a Hero who just happens to have 1 longer TF to complete.

Also, why are Random drops given at the highest level avaiable for the Recipe if you are a Level 50, for example, but you are able to choose the specific level if you buy the predetermined option? Doesn't this further imbalance the value of a Random drop versus it's predetermined counterpart?

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I understand that the 3 hour timer is not there anymore. But you have a 24 hour diminishing return penalty on any single TF. Meaning that if you run the same TF back to back, or even the same one every night at the same time, you will be subject to diminishing returns. I do not know what the exact diminishing return is. I don't think anyone has tested that significantly.

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Interestingly...

I just ran A Hero's Hero twice in a row on Test, timing myself because it seems like the reward is a tad low (19 merits =~ 95 minutes, and I really have to push it, on heroic, to finish with my scrapper at around that time; 1h39m was my second time, and I had to respec into SuperSpeed, so it really seems a tad fast for a datamined average time, but I disgress).

Second time I got the same 19 merits I did on the first one.

Seems like the diminishing returns don't apply to Ouroarcs (EDIT: Or at least it takes more than 2 runs to trigger it... I also took my 38 merits, rolled a random recipe because it's test, and got a Sandman's Chance to Heal, I'm so disappointed I didn't get a Crap of the Hunter. The odd thing is that it was level 50, but I hit the "roll random 35-39", hmmm).

I'll leave you to ponder the immediate meaning of that

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I found the same thing running Villain arcs, Ouro missions don't seem to have diminishing returns. I /bugged it, I would guess that they would want that, otherwise people will just bang out the best Merit/per hour Story Arc over and over to get what they want.

I assume that isn't the behavior they're hoping to provoke with this.

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Peterpeter:

Pool Cs are between 125-250.
Pool A-Bs seem to be 50
Pool Ds are at the higher end, usually around 250 or so.

Some of the prices seem wacky, even for a perma-whiner like me. Crushing Impacts and Doctored Wounds at 50 is...out there.

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It's not just wacky, it's unbelievable. And the reasoning given

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Next, the Merit Reward cost of items on the merit vendor are a bit more complex. The factors that go into determining the costs are: rarity, the drop table they originally came from, set bonuses, and then a few modifiers like perceived value and whether they are unique or not. You end up with some really powerful enhancements like Numina's Convalescence: +Regen/+Recovery as being very expensive as you would imagine because, it's high level, has good set bonuses, has a high perceived value, and drops from a Task Force reward table. This particular recipe goes for 250 merits. Another set I've seen mentioned a number of times is Crushing Impact. Some players wonder why its so cheap, only going for 50 merits each. The reason this set is so much cheaper is: it's an uncommon drop (not rare), has good (but not amazing set bonuses), and its perceived value varies. They can get up there in cost on the Auction Houses, but they're no Numina's.


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A lot of the "valuation" calculation seems to be based on things like "percieved value" and the "amazing"-ness of set bonues.

All this subjective valuation for Recipes, makes me wonder why have any random drops in the game at all. We had a store before, if they just want it to be a store, make it a store.

I'm not much of a doomsayer, but this just doesn't seem very well thought out or implemented.

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Neuronia, awesome write-up, and thanks for positing it so quickly.

On this system:

It. Is. Horrible.

I think this will hurt villainside Pool C production badly. And just looking over things on Test and reading this write-up I think that a lot of people are going to not be happy with the result.

Well, I've been messing around with this, and was able to get it to work reasonably well.

A couple of notes from my experience.

I'm running Vista with dual monitors. The only way I could get it to consistently work was to run in Windowed mode. I didn't play around with it too long, but even with the setting turned way down, it would show me the opening loading screen from COX, but clicking on the input box would turn the screen black, hitting refresh wouldn't help any.

And as a side note, I'm fairly sure that you need the full version if you want to right-click anything.

Other than that, works as advertised, I was able to send tells, check the market etc.

Very cool. Thanks for posting the tip!

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I was just wondering, what would happen if the devs rewrote the exemplaring code? Right now, the main reason why a level 50 would want a level 25 set IO is because of the impact exemplaring has on set bonuses and special effects. For example, a level 25 knockback protection IO is worth more than a level 50, because it can do the same thing but at lower levels. If the devs rewrote the exemplaring code so that set bonuses and special effects were not tied to the level of the IO, what effect would that have on the prices of low and mid level IO's, and the salvage to craft them?

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I think this would be a very good idea. I'm sure it would upset some people who really had to go through hoops to make their builds work at particular levels, but as it is, it is just a roadblock that keeps people from wanting to use the IO system as well as creating a mismatch in the marketplace for IO's themselves.

The reasons I could see for keeping it, would be that some people might see this layer of complexity in the IO system as a good thing. Personally, I think just puzzling out a great build from the avaible pieces and set bonuses is enough, I don't see this extra little bit of figuring to make sure my build works at levels I intend to exemp at, and it has somewhat discouraged me from wanting to exemp at all, as I'd rather just stay up where I know everything works the way I want it to.

The only other point I'd make, is that this would also somewhat "devalue" the Purples, as one of their best features in many people's eyes is the fact that the set bonues are always on while giving you superior enhancement levels. The thing is, this is also a huge plus, because it means to implement your idea, no new coding would be necessary, as it would seem the code already exists.

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Personally implementing the duel modes would not only make me retch I would have to cancel my subscription and go play elf bowling.

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Do you understand that the current system is already making people cancel their subscriptions or be forced to cancel (by being banned)?

The whole reason PvP came up as a big topic, was because it seems like the Devs were having trouble justifying throwing more money down the hole that PvP has become. Any argument that basically advocates for nothing more than fixes to the current implementation is basically lost from the start.

Understanding that there are plenty of individuals that do enjoy the current setup, it falls under the category of "you're never going to please everybody". The current setup doesn't work from the Devs point of view, which is, it isn't bringing in and retaining subscribers.

So, while they may lose you and your subscription, I'm sure they'd be thrilled with any system that boosted overall subscription numbers, even if that means losing a few long time die-hards.

If you have ideas to improve on the OP or a way to achieve the same goal with a completely different system, I'm sure everyone would love to hear it. Otherwise, you are just saying you'd rather wait for PvP to die off altogether rather than have to cancel your subscription because they've changed it.

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This mental segregation is foolish.

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No, it's not. And I'd thank you not to so offhandedly dismiss my opinion with insults. It's not foolish. In fact, it's one of the major philosophies in this game when it comes to PvP. PvEers who don't like PvP at all should not ever even have to see it. They should be able to go about their business and not have to confront more than the most basic indications that it even exists in this game.

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I think the point is, that for the health of PvP in the game, and possibly even to insure it's continued existence, that it is foolish to reject out of hand that PvP and PvE must be so strictly seggregated.

The Devs want to improve PvP and it has to be done in a way that actually retains the people that play it. Saying that there must be this line drawn between PvP and PvE is to exclude what has been presented as a very viable solution to improving the overall PvP performance in the game.

The fact that some people have an aversion to seeing any kind of opt-out for PvP in PvP zones, is really of little consequence when trying to arrive at real answers for the fact that PvP as it exists now is not working.

I'd say that the onus is on those who want to defend PvP zones as a free-fire experience to explain why continuing to use a mechanic that is failing is better than implementing something else. If someone could make a compelling case for how a flagging system would make PvP less appealing to the whole of the COX population, I'd be glad to hear it. But seeing as how that system is already in place, and not doing very well, it's hard to imagine what someone would have to construct to make a viable argument out of it.

The foolish part is thinking that any one part of the PvP experience is inviolable, if that is the case, then you might as well scrap PvP in the game all together, because it's impossible to imagine any Developer spending resources on a part of the game that is hemmoraging subscribers for too long before deciding that time would be better spent elsewhere, solutions that go beyond what we already have or merely fixing bugs with what we already have are necessary at this point.

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Nope. I read a well thought-out post, contianing a lot of creative ideas ... one of which is one I think should never, under any circumstances, happen: being PvP-immune in a PvP zone. In response to that - as I do any time the idea is brought up, no matter by who - I popped out that standard response.

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The problem is, the position you support, isn't working. To dismiss flagging out of hand because you believe in some absolutist vision of what PvP zones should be maybe does more harm to the cause of PvP in this game than the harm you think would be done by having a flagging system in place.

The problem was present as one where the there is obviously concern for the viability of PvP in the game, at least in getting new resources allocated to it. By giving PvE value to everything you do to the PvP zone you make those decisions much easier to make about where to invest Developer time.

If the canned response worked in this case, there would be no need for the discussion in the first place, the fact is, what is there now isn't working.

There is so much to like in this post, and I think that it does really cut to the heart of what needs to be done to get PvP moving the right direction.

Expanding the audience is as important as anything in order to truly advance things, many other suggestions I've seen seem like half-measures designed not to offend the sensibilities of those that already enjoy PvP in the game. This solution seems to look at it as how can we disrupt those people's experience as little as possible while still making changes big enough that they'll actually have a noticeable impact.

I also think that the dual nature of some of these proposed changes makes them a less risky proposition in terms of the Devs deciding where to allocate resources. It turns out maybe you can "fix" the PvP game while expanding the PvE game at the same time, insuring that any effort put forth will never be entirely wasted.

Kudos, great post.

If you have freespec available on your character there is red text at the bottom of the recipe that says "You cannot build this recipe because you still have an unused free respec."

umm... I haven't tried to see if I can craft it anyways. *runs off*

I have to say that the "patch" was a big improvement as far as the tray lag goes.

Before I was having massive lag in my powers, just getting them to fire off was as big of a challenge as actually fighting the mobs.

Now the power lag seems to be much more manageable, even in laggy situations like a ship raid or and invasion in a high population area.

Obviously some people are having different issues, I haven't noticed any increase in rubberbanding or the like since the patch, so overall I'd say this was a pretty big performance increase.

Thanks for working on this stuff!

I think it absolutely rocked, and that's not just because of the 3 seconds of it that I can see myself laying into a Ritki Pylon.

It's mostly because of those 3 seconds, but really the rest of it was quite good too, I assume...

I really just kept looping back and forth around those 3 seconds so I forgot how the rest of it went, but really, good job, I'm sure it was awesome.