Organica

If I wasn't writing things down in this thread I'd never remember what I'd done two weeks ago, or even a week ago.

9/3 to 9/27 -- 24 days

3 Posi 1
2 Posi 2
1 Synapse
4 Sister
3 Citadel
7 Manticore
5 Numina
1 Hess
2 Moonfire
2 Katie
1 Dr. Q
2 Justine Augustine
2 Faathim
1 Imperius
1 Mender Lazarus
(2 Failed CoP attempts)

37 TFs in 24 days. I should figure out how many merits that is....

9/22/10 Wednesday: I logged on later than usual. I was a bit worried that I'd get sucked into a task force as soon as I logged on and not have time to craft and sell the stuff I'd bought yesterday. And I had good reason to worry: just as I logged in, MG was announcing the time of a Numi she'd just finished.

"Sister?" she asked. Well yeah, okay, I can do marketing stuff some other time. I join. While I'm at it, I tell MG that Sneaking (ResidentBaka, who was on the team) wants to do a Dr. Q this weekend. "I said it's a really short TF." "You're both liars," MG replied.

The Sister Psyche is not one of the shorter of the legacy task forces. These days I'd rank it behind Synapse as the second-longest of the six Freedom Phalanx TFs. That's the really bizaare thing about these six task forces -- the earliest one, Positron, was the longest one in it's old form; the second one by level is the longest of them currently, and then Sister, the third one by level, is the next longest. Citadel and Manticore are routinely faulted as boring, but you can knock them out in under an hour (Manticore especially). Numina can be done pretty fast too, if the team leader is good about directing people during the hunts. But why you'd make the longest TFs ones that lower-level players would join has always been a mystery. I do think they should rework Synapse if only for that reason, but at least it has never been as bad as Posi was.

But the Sister is always popular, because it's still low enough that the majority of people in your SG can join, and it's freakshow. Everyone loves Freakshow, even still today.

I dunno why. I happen to like Council myself. They're boring but very easy. ^_^

Anyway we finish in... something like 1 1/2 hours, I forget. And MG decides that a Synapes is next. Well, I need that for Task Force Commander on Shinobu Eden, so of course I join that too. That takes 1 hour and 40 minutes -- which is not a bad time really for a Synapse.

That was pretty much my evening, two long task forces. I did manage to get some recipes crafted and listed for sale before I went to bed. ^_^

9/23/10 Thursday: Nachos for Friday (at work) so I got home late after stopping at the store. I logged in for a little bit. I told MG that I wanted to exercise before joining anything, but while exercising I realized I'd forgotten the cilantro! How can I make salsa without cilantro? So I made another trip, then made salsa, then logged in pretty late. MG and company were already on a task force, I forget which one. Another Sister maybe.

When they were done, MG wanted to start up a Manticore. I really only had time for one TF tonight and wanted to join, but there were 10 people wanting in on it. We debated running two Manticores simultaneously, but then someone who really needed Numina for their TFC decided that she was going to start a Numi regardless. I and a couple of others joined her instead. As I said in coalition chat, " Numina's better than Manticore anyway. Giant Monster with Car for Club > Man in Suit". MG replied, "You're right! Now I want to do a Numi!"

Manti finished in about 50 minutes, and MG started up a Numi. Our Numi finished in 1 hour 11 minutes. I went to bed after that. ^_^

9/24/10 Friday: Got on early. MG asked me if I wanted to run to run that Dr. Quaterfield in an hour. Hmm... Friday night, starting about 6 PM... sure!

I've never run the Dr. Q before. It's the one blueside task force/trial that I still haven't attempted. We all knew it could take 5 or 6 hours. We got started about 6:30 PM. We had a really good mix for the team -- two blasters, two scrappers (I think), ResidentBaka's stalker, some support -- maybe another scrapper or brute, I forget. It was just enough support and tons of damage so that things moved along quickly.

There's really not much I can say about the task force itself. It's 22 missions, and a lot of them are defeat alls. When you get to the end, there's no AV. It's like the old Positron Task Force, only twice as long and boring. We made very good time though. We finished it in 3 hours and 40 minutes, and I got my badge for Mouse Police. That's badge # 823.

MG threatened to run another shard TF or two on Saturday.

9/25/10 Saturday. MG had actually said that she had things to do later today, but might run something in the morning. But early morning she's not on. Someone wants to run a Numi, but only two of us respond. I spend part of the morning in AE gathering tickets for my scrapper Tiffany Blackheart, since I haven't been marketing much with her. As a rule, I think all of my level 50's should be using their market slots to make money, even if i only log them in once in a while. ^_^ The AE mission I run is Council, and really, I'm in the mood to run a series of Council Task Forces -- CItadel, Hess, Moonfire, and maybe even Khan (because 5th and Council are not that far apart, really). Only a bit later I notice that someone in the Virtue badges channel had organized that very thing -- Council-o-rama, Citadel, Hess, Moonfire, and the 24th level respec mission (for some reason, don't know how that fits a Council theme).

Now I really want to start a Council TF, but the moment I say I'm about to say something, MG pops up. She's thinking of running something "soon". I wait. There's a Citadel starting, so finally I say that if we're not going to run anything, I'm going to join that. "We'll run something after your Citadel then," I'm told.

Leader says, "Tiffany's IO'd out, she can take point." Heh. To be honest, Tiff's a fully IO'd Willpower scrapper -- I can tank Council all day, provided that by "tank" you don't mean keeping them severely taunted. But run ahead and jump in first, gather them up for people to AoE? That's easy.

The Citadel takes just over an hour. After that I wait a bit more, but MG eventually logs off without starting anything after all. RL stuff wins out, for once. I have nothing planned for the day, and I'm still in a Council mood, so I start up a Hess TF. I get 6 people from the SG to join me. When I broadcast for the last spot, I get three replies. I take the first person to reply, and she joins and then drops out after only two missions. That annoys me just a little, since I had two other people who wanted to join in. Anyway, that takes 40 minutes or so, then I go roll my merits for the day, craft and put stuff up for sale. My rolls were all good, if not super-spectacular: Kinetic Combat triple, Decimation triple, Luck of the Gambler triple.

My big problem is that I've mostly been playing TIffany and Mouse Police lately, and they're both vigilante, so I can't do the Hero Merit thing. Ah, well!

When I log on in the evening I join a team with Alting and soon I'm level 29 and nearly to level 30. The PuG is somewhat dysfunctional though, setting an old mission and abandoning it, changing settings, and when the leader dc'd we ran another full mission without inviting him back or replacing him -- the new person in charge wouldn't answer any tells or give any reasons why, she just ignored everyone and continued the mission. I left after that, as MG wants to run a Posi2.

I join with Alting hoping to hit 30. MG's not at max level for the TF so she puts me in charge, but this doesn't work as Alting has never done Posi1. Anyway most of what I remember from this TF was that the one non-SG person was never on the same page as us, and kept asking why we weren't doing this or that. "We need to stay together!" "We're just grabbing these bombs, hang on." "Don't we need to get those outside bombs?" "Already got them." "We should take out that lower group next." "No, we just need to find the runner and we'll be done here." "We need to take up a defensive position and not run all over the map!" Well okay, that time she was right -- we aggro'd the whole map and died. But mostly I think she was expecting a different style of gameplay than what she got with our group, so there was some mutual frustration on both sides I think.

And she would send me tells about how crazy the other people were, but the other people are the same people I play with every night. ^_^ Mind you, MG and LL like to play their blasters like tanks -- at least, they like to run in ahead of team and go nova immediately, and this style of play doesn't change just because they're too low to have a nova yet.

After that MG wanted to run a Manticore. Heh, what else is new? I switch to Shinobu Eden, hoping to hit 40, but I don't quite make it. The TF went smoothly until the crey hunt in Bricks, when a supernatural event spawned and we had to wait it out. After that it took forever for the two-man team in King's Row to actually find Councilman Birch. Despite these delays, we finish in 1 hour 10 minutes.

Before logging off I ran Alting's level 30 costume mission and roll on about 75 merits and the bulk of 7000 tickets. I like level 30 recipes -- in fact, I think I'll keep Alting at 30 for a while so I can do more merit rolls. I dump a bunch of recipes onto other toons and e-mail stuff to myself; too much stuff to deal with right at the moment.

9/26/10 Sunday. I log on not really planning to spend my whole day gaming. But somehow that tends to happen when it's not my plan, unless I have concrete plans for something else first.

I log onto Alting. My plan is to finish rolling tickets for her and to design a new costume, but when a SG mate asks if I want to join them in Bricks I say yeah. Almost immediately I wonder why... I don't want to level past 30 and I have other things I wanted to do on this toon. But teaming with people in the SG is fun, so I turn off exp and join them.

Almost immediately our SG Leader is broadcasting for a Moonfire TF. Hmm, I'd rather do that -- part of the idea is to stay at 30 and roll as many merits at that level as I can. He's not starting right away so I finish up the mission and leave. Eventually we get the Moonfire started. SG Leader is not at max level so he puts me in charge. Why do I detect a pattern here?

One person is impatient and wants to get going. "I don't have a lot of time here guys," he says. "You do realize this is a task force, not a series of missions?" another asks. "Yeah, I know, but I also know it can be done in about 50 minutes." But in our very first mission this guy disappears and doesn't come back. Annoying. On the other hand, the task force takes us 1 hour 32 minutes, so he probably wouldn't have stayed until the end anyway. But I don't like starting TFs with people who aren't prepared to finish them.

Alting is good at stealth and teleport, good at support and does very decent damage. I'm not sure why I haven't played a corruptor up this high before -- they're fun.

During the TF MG comes online and says we're going to do a Justine Augustine TF today. Ugh. Really? But Sneaking needs it (ResidentBaka's stalker), so of course I agree to help. But after the Moonfire he's not online yet so we start up a Posi1. MG isn't at max level for the TF and puts me in charge. :/

Half the team is PuG, and that's a problem, because we're not all on the same page, people keep going afk, several of the toons are low level and probably not well IO'd... I state that I'm going to stealth to the end and teleport everyone. So far, so good. I reach the end, port the first person, and by that point the rest of the team is dying because they didn't wait. Then someone teleports me back to the team. WTF? So I head back to the end of the mission and start porting more people, but someone aggros everything and we have a team wipe. I wait for the mobs to clear, rez, and... someone teleports me to the begining of the mission again.

At this point I'm getting really pissed off and let the team have it. Probably did not make a good impression on those that don't normally play with me, but our ineptitude was getting ridiculous. The person who had ported me the second time -- not sure if they'd done it both times -- was a warshade who apologized and said it was their son who was porting me for fun, and they'd told him to stop it. :/

Anyway I had to turn my teleport prompt on and step away from the keyboard for a couple of minutes.

The rest of the TF went better but I wouldn't say it went great. One of the two Warshades went afk in the final mission for more than 30 minutes. I dc'd and came back, so MG was in charge and I think she kicked him. Ten or fifteen minutes later he apologized and asked me if I could invite him back, which of course was impossible.

We had several team wipes on the final misison -- I don't think I've done a Posi1 yet that didn't have at least one there -- and we finished in 1 hour 40 minutes with 60 deaths. "You guys suck!" our SG Leader declared when I announced it. I had to agree.

Immediately we start up the Justine Augustine TF. SG Leader is on the team, and MG and ResidentBaka and LL. For once I'm not in charge. MG is directing people where to go, and things move very fast. It's still not a great TF, but we manage to finish in only 1 hour 20 minutes, with 13 deaths -- much better than our Posi.

And... MG, Leader and crew immediately start up a Statesman Task Force. "Really?" I ask. Because MG typically runs the Freedom Phalanx TFs, the Striga and Croatoa ones and the shards, but very rarely runs ITF and seems to almost never run Lady Gray, Statesman or Khan. But our Leader likes running the harder ones so it was probably his idea. "You're not up for a STF?" he asks me. "I need a break," I reply. "I've been online all day -- since before you started that Moonfire." He says, "I have too. I've been online ten hours!" Ugh. These people!

In the evening I log back in. I spend a lot of time crafting and storing level 30 recipes. I ask how the STF went – very well, I'm told.

MG starts up a Citadel. I want to join, but I also am in the middle of market stuff that I want to get done. Anyway MG doesn't ask me specifically about it and it's good for other people in the SG to get in on some of the TFs that MG runs. By the time I'm done and they're done, it's 9:30 PM, and I'm hoping MG wants to run something else. "Nightly Manti TF starting!" she says. "I like how that sounds, I think I do need to make it a nightly Manti Task Force." I join of course.

Once that's done – about an hour if I remember right – Isaac wants to start up a Sister. Isaac joined our SG last week after reading this thread. New toon, now high enough to do Sister Psyche, and apparently you can form one after 10 PM in our SG. ^_^ It's late and I know I should get to bed. "You don't want to do a Sister?" MG asks. "That takes more than an hour, right?" I reply. "It's only an hour!" MG promises. "Invite her before she has time to think about it!"

So yeah. Sister Psyche, which takes a good 1 hour 40 minutes. I stayed up waaay too late.

IE, you'd prefer to slot a level 15 Karma, Steadfast Protection, or BotZ KB IO if that's a possibility.

Well my approach is to use more than 10 toons to market with and to run a very large base of my own where I can store 800+ IOs.

I'm curious if the SG is running missions or TFs or doing anything together, and if so, do you turn SG mode off so that you don't taint your prestige pool with prestige earned through "honest, hardworking" means?

Or is the goal simply to be #1 primarily through buying your way there, but by any other means as well, knowing that your enemies will be well aware you didn't work nearly as hard as they did to get there?

I really have no idea where my own SG on Virtue ranks. There are multiple divisions which would each be listed separately so I'm sure that works against us. But if my main division was ranked in the top ten, would I be betraying my own by donating to this project, I wonder?

I'm sort of tempted to contribute to this in some way. I only have a few billion lying around at the moment, but I could probably donate a billion. Or I could add a toon to the SG whose primary goal is to raise money on the market and convert it. Is that what others are doing?

09/17/10: Friday. I spent time doing more tip missions for Alting and for my other corruptor Beverly Chills, who finished the morality mission and becomes a rogue. With Alting I'm working on becoming a hero. I group with Alting and gain a couple of levels. Spent more time marketing. No TFs again tonight.

09/18/10: Saturday. More marketing and tip missions. My current goal is to finally take two older corruptors hero. I have a set of nine defenders and corruptors who are "buff bot" girls who escaped from an AE mission – of which at least four are level 43 to 46: Sonic Girl Seven, Bubble Girl Six, Ice Girl Eight, and Dark Girl Four. The two corruptors, who were created back in the Spring specifically to become heroes with GR, are Pain Girl Nine and Fire Girl Three. One's on each account and so to save time I dual box them through the tip missions, but at times it's very rough going. I also manage to get Alting to hero status. All of this, and a little marketing, takes up most of my morning, and then I head up North to hang out with my friends for the rest of the day.

09/19/10: Sunday. More marketing and tip missions. Pain Girl and Fire Girl turn rogue without problems – other than I've run the exact same morality mission four times in a row now. I know there's more than one for villains going rogue, but I've only seen a different one once.

All of these tip and morality missions take time and I've been doing most of them solo. I do group a bit again with Alting, but I'm itching to do some task forces; haven't done one for days. But first I log off and get in an hour of exercise, then after a few minutes online to check some market things I go to the store. When I log back on later, it turns out MG had started up a shard TF – Sara Moore. She'd wanted to invite me but I'd logged off just before that. Ah well!

I join a Numina TF instead with Shinobu Eden. The third mission takes forever – none of the stealthers can find the Envoy of Shadows. We would have been better off just fighting through the mission as a team. I eventually find him with Shinobu Eden employing "tanker stealth". After this the hunts take longer than normal, and we finish in about 1 hour 40 minutes – a very long time for a Numina.

In the meantime, while on the Sara Moore, MG is having me check the availability of names using my second account. She was interested in a name as silly as Alting, but "BRB" "AFK" and, for that matter, "BIO" are already taken. Also "WB" and "Congrats".

09/20/10: Monday. No TFs again tonight. Marketed a bit, then helped people out on a few regular missions. I did manage to get Shinobu Eden to 38 and Alting to 28, they were both pretty close to level beforehand. I assemble a team to take down Jack in Irons. I only need the five hunt badges and to see Sally a second time, and I'll have my Geas.

09/21/10: Tuesday. I'm tired of tip missions and regular teams -- I've been on too few TFs lately. If MG isn't running anything tonight then I'm going to run a Synapse and maybe something else. I get my exercise in early and log in by 5 PM ready for something. It turns out, MG wants to run another shard TF. The only one I need on my main badger is Dr. Q, and I don't want to start that on a weekday night. We decide to run a Faathim instead.

In the meantime my scrapper Shinobu Dragonheart is near a billion influence from selling crafted IOs from AE ticket bronze rolls – but I'm nearly out of tickets. I run through a quick AE mission and I get some really great rolls afterwards – 3 Decimations, a Mako's, an Oblit, a Reactive Armor Resist, about 10 others that I know will sell.

I don't have time to craft them – Faathim is starting. I bring my bubbler, because that's what MG wanted most. MG and two others are blasters; blaster like bubblers. But we're running with a stormy troller as our only healer. 3 blasters, 2 stalkers, a brute, a bubble defender and a stormy. Someone asks what the over/under is for deaths. I suggest 125; he takes the over, I take the under. After that I get to complain when anyone dies that they're trying to make me lose the bet.

Faathim is a long task force. Supposedly it can be done in 2 hours but our last one was nearly 4. Well into it, one person (who had been trying to join one of MG's shard TFs for weeks) complains about the seemingly endless "gather the keys" missions. "This task force is about nothing but keys!" When some malta show up, someone says, "Oooh! The plot thickens!" and I added, "I wonder if they plan to steal something that will take five extra missions to recover?" Two missions later, one person says, "Uh, you were kidding about the five extra missions, right?" Sorta – it's only three missions, with two fedex talk to Azurias in between.

In the meantime someone else in the SG had advertised for an ITF. "I'd join you if I wasn't on this Faathim" I said. I want to run my bubbler on ITFs. MG says I should just tell the leader of my team that my SG is calling and quit. Later the same person is advertising for a Manticore TF. MG wants to join. "Just tell your leader your SG is calling…" I say.

We finish in 3 hours 19 minutes, which feels fast after the 3 hour 49 minute one from a week or so ago. Only 93 deaths! It's only 9:30 PM, so somewhat predictably, MG wants to run a Manticore. I do, too. ^_^

I switch to Tiffany Blackheart for this, an MA/WP scrapper. She's in a SG that used to be about six people, but has dwindled to three people including me (the one toon only) and the two people who founded the SG, who log in maybe once every few days. I'd been reluctant to leave their SG –- one of them is still a global friend, and I had nearly 1 million prestige earned for their SG, but I haven't talked to either of them in maybe six months. I finally decide that I should move Tiff to the SG I actually play with.

We finish the Manticore in 48 minutes. We're usually quite fast on it, but that's maybe a new record for us. We have a couple of people who've never done a TF before – one is a bit disappointed that we skipped so many fights. She's near level so MG says, "We should do a Katie then. That's only 30 minutes." The new person agrees that this sounds good.

We finish the Katie TF in 24 minutes. In fact, I don't think we had a single death. People levelled, everyone was happy.

My impression though has been that if they go at it long enough, you won't get a badge for killing Eochai because Jack will have out-damaged you. But usually you can still get the badge for Jack. At least, in my experience.

I think I should add a not about how I use base storage. I have two inspiration storage items; that holds just about whatever I think I should need. I have two... maybe three salvage storage bins, which is sufficient (although admittedly I mostly ignore them and the oldest ones are still packed with hundreds of obsolete base storage items, but also stacks of Halloween storage).

Then after that... I have nine enhancement storage tables... almost always stuffed full of crafted IOs (so something like 750+ crafted IOs in storage). Because having the IO you need already crafted seems like the best solution to me. ^_^

I've never used base storage for invention salvage, and I virtually never use the vault system either. I just buy whatever I need, either at a buy-it-within-fifteen-minutes price, or a buy-it-now-price, or I put in an overnight bid and go on to something else.

My buy-it-now prices usually have caps though. I rarely spend more than 100,000 for common salvage, although I'll easily fork over 50,000 to 75,000. If the price climbs to 200,000 or above I'll use tickets or bid overnight. Similarly, I'm happy paying 2 million for almost any rare salvage, but I don't think I should ever pay more than 3 million (which I did a few times this weekend). It's not that I can't afford it, it's just that I don't want to pay that much.

It's kicking me again... both accounts this time.

Guess I'll just give up and go to bed.

I'm actually sitting on Virtue with one account, but I am incapable of logging my other account in to Virtue. DB Server errors every time.

*edit* Okay nevermind, after ten or fifteen minutes now everything is working again.

I've never deleted a character over 20. But early on I deleted Organica at 17 and remade her. She was katana/dark armor, and I just thought the endurance drain was impossible (people told me stamina would help but I couldn't wait). I don't regret so much because I made her a katana/regen and that's a great set.

I also deleted the first Mouse Police at 19. She was an invulnerable/energy melee tanker, and I hated that she did so little damage. I remade her as a dark melee/invulnerable scrapper. But I only played her up to about 27. Meanwhile my favorite tanker these days is invunlerable/energy melee, so I guess I should have waited. ^_^

I farm with my MA scrappers (I have four at level 50). Not the fastest farmers of course, but I can assure you that killing even-con and even +2 minions in one hit happens routinely. Lts as well if I get a lucky crit.

I slot only what drops randomly. Realistically, I have so much money that I could afford to fully slot TOs if I wanted, but the benefit is pretty minimal and you can hit level 12 so easily in this game, I don't see the point. You'll out-level them in almost less time than it took to buy and slot them. ^_^

I look at the entire range of the IO, how they are selling at the top of the range, how many are for sale across the level range, how many are for sale at the level I want to sell at.

If there aren't very many for sale at all at any level, then you can probably charge close to the usual price of the top level.

I also take crafting into consideration. If it's a yellow/uncommon recipe that was easily crafted, and not something obviously in high demand, I'll list it for as low as I'm comfortable with. I craft a lot of not-obviously-popular recipes and offer them up for sale from 600,000 to 1.6 million, depending. These kind of things don't move quickly but they usually sell in the end.

For rare recipes you have to take crafting costs into consideration, since rare salvage is usually in the 2 million range and you need to be able to sell for more than that, of course.

Also: I buy level 30 recipes, so keep creating them. ^_^