Red_Raccoon

I've never given it much thought before, but those numbers seem a little high to me, especially the 10 seconds per minions. I'm pretty sure it doesn't take most players an average of 10 seconds to defeat a typical minion unless they're using a very low damage character. 20 seconds per boss I think is closer to the mark.

Yeah, it's a lot easier to lose NPCs when you're trying to keep them following you.

Let's admit it. Sometimes they just deserve to die.

Yes, but because those are "fake" fake Nemesises, the unveiler badge you get for defeating them is also fake. It just happens to be indistinguishable from a real one.

I don't remember if this was something they said would absolutely "never happen," but I remember at one time the Devs were against the idea of merging the markets. A red name said they had run some projections on what would happen and didn't like the results. And then Going Rogue was introduced and suddenly the markets were merged and everything seemed fine. I still have no idea exactly what it was they were worried about.

Ah, I didn't realize this was a coding issue. That's too bad, it seems like the Devs went to a lot of effort with the four factions to keep Praetoria from being completely black and white, and then the coding and its implied bias undermines that.

I bet Golden Girl is gloating over that one.

Well, first of all, Longbow and Aranchnos are native to Primal Earth, so their vehicles would be out of place in a Praetorian setting, hence the need for an alternate version in Praetoria.

Secondly, I don't know that I agree with your equating of Resistance with Heroes and Loyalists with Villains--each faction seems to have its own heroic and villainous subfaction. Would you really considers crusaders "heroic?"

Did they say why?

Okay, I get that they didn't design supergroups and bases with the idea in mind that they would be utilized by a single player. Therefore,I understand if the Devs wouldn't go out of their way to make it easier to manage a solo SG. But to go to the effort of adding code that insures solo groups can't benefit from a new QOL feature? I don't understand that.

That aspect of it kinda stinks. I actually find it hard to believe that they intended it to work that way, and think it may have been an unanticipated consequence of how it was set up. If so, we can hope it will be changed at some point (possibly even by making it repeatable sans Ouroboros like some want, but I suspect it would still use the taskforce mechanics like the signature story arcs).

I know many see DA as "solo" incarnate content, but I don't think the Devs ever really want to discourage teaming.

I get the impression that the Devs consider empyrean merits to be pretty substantial rewards. I don't think they want it to ever be "easy" to get them, so they are probably not going to be sympathetic to complaints about the inconvenience of using Ouroboros to earn empyrean's repeatedly. Adding this reward to the DA arcs was an afterthought to begin with, which only came after players complained that the rewards were too meager. I have a feeling they think they've done enough to appease players on this issue.


That is true of pretty much any arc you run--that's what Ouroborss is there for. The major exception I can think of is the signature story arcs, which are repeatable without Ouroboros and also come with a pretty nice timed reward. However, even the SSAs have the same limitations that you're concerned about--you are locked into the arc task-force style until you complete or drop it.

Yes, I would prefer if none of this content (SSA, DA, or any Ouroboros missions) worked this way, but at least they're consistent. I think we're just going to have the accept that repeating missions--for whatever reason and whatever rewards--comes at the price of having to put up with the nuissance of being "locked into" an arc. This isn't something new, just something that some players didn't deal with a lot until it became a way to repeatedly earn empyrean merits solo.

This is simply not accurate. At no point does he ever tell you to repeat missions. He never uses the word "repeat" whatsoever.

You CAN repeat the missions to get the reward multiple times. Should you choose to do so, you will need to use Ouroboros. But the rewards offered by Taskmaster Gabriel are not exclusive to repeat runs--they are awarded the first time you run the arcs, normally, without Ouroboros. I'm not sure if you understand that or not yet.

Here is what he actually says:
And then it says:
. Again, notice that while he tells you that you can use Ouroboros to claim the rewards, you are not neither required nor requested to do so. It is only ONE way to get the reward, not the ONLY way.

I believe Zombie posted this picture to demonstrate how it is possible to twist one's torso in relation to the lower body, rather than an example of the "boobs-and-butt" effect. Note that we are not looking at the woman in Zombie's picture from the same angle that we see Penny in the new login screen. In Zombie's picture, the woman's chest is pointed directly at the camera and her rear is pointed to the right side of the picture (notice her feet are planted perpendicular to the camera--it would take a truly great feat of flexibility if her rear were pointed directly away from us) . If you rotated her so that we are looking at her chest from an angle (as we see Penny) you would be able to see both her chest and her rear at the same time--just not a frontal view of either.

Even with my not-terribly-flexible body, I can stand in front of the mirror and twist like Penny to see an angled view of both my chest and my rear at the same time. I think my anatomy is fairly normal.

Well, as far as Dev Choice arcs go, which is what I was talking about, the problem is that the Devs aren't finding the good arcs. How did they find them before? Did they rely on player ratings?

Regardless, I'm sure the Devs must have the same problem eveyone else does locating the good story arcs amid the mountain of farms, broken arcs, and just plain badly written stories. But not one Dev has come across a single story arc worthy of being nominated a Dev Choice in over a year and a half? I think it more likely they've just scrapped the whole Dev Choice idea altogether.

What you say makes sense, and yet taskforces work the same way. You HAVE to team to run a taskforce. But somehow, people manage to organize teams for taskforces all the time.

At least in Ouroboros you CAN solo if you can't or don't want to find a team.

The missions are repeatable. All missions are repeatable. You just have to go to Ourobors to do it. A bit of an inconvenience? Sure. But it's nice to have the option. I don't understand the logic of not wanting the option, especially when you can just ignore any option you don't like.

And I don't understand why the missions would need to be repeatable at all for Taskmaster Gabriel to make sense, as you do not have to repeat anything to get the rewards. You can run the missions once, through normal contracts, and get the reward. They just didn't restrict the reward to first run only.

Frankly, I don't know why Ouroboros uses the task force mechanics. I'm sure there's a reason, but I don't know what it is. Sure, I'd prefer Ouroboros didn't work that way. But if that's a problem, it's a problem with Ouroboros, not Taskmaster Gabriel. Ouroboros isn't suddenly "broken" because you can now use it to get incarnate merits. For some of us, the benefits of using Ouroboros have long outweighed the restrictions, and now that is even more true. But if you don't agree, feel free to take a pass.

The mechanic that you are complaining about has been a part of Ouroboros and task forces alike since they were introducted. The Devs obviously don't think there's anything improper or half*** about it. Since I don't often hear players who run task forces complaining about it, I'm guessing most of the player base doesn't either.

He doesn't ask you to repeat any missions. He offers you a reward for completing missions. If you've already run the missions normally but want the reward again (or missed it because you ran them before he came along) you have the additional option of using Ouroboros to repeat the missions and still get the reward. I think that was pretty nice of the Devs to add that. But maybe they should remove the option of repeating the mission for multiple rewards--would that make you happy?

When I was fighting Romulus and his gang, I had them down to Keres, one nearly dead cyclopse, and Romulus himself when I had to bail because my Unstoppable was about to crash. I ran until they stopped chasing me and after I rested and returned, only Keres had gone back up to the top of the bridge (I assume because she could fly). Romulus was waiting down at the base of the bridge and the wounded cyclopse was stuck on a ledge or something halfway up to the bridge. At that point it was fairly easy to finish them off. So that's one way to divide and conquer them.

No, I never knew there were supposed to be ambushes on those patrol missions either. I've run a fair number of them but never been ambushed. I used to attack whatever spawn was nearest each patrol marker just to feel like I was doing something useful....and so that the whole thing didn't feel like a 0 xp waste of time.

Yesterday I visited the AE for the first time in months and decided to look for a good story arc. I checked out the Devs Choice arcs first because I figured that was the best way to avoid stumbling into a farm by accident. I was surprised that I recognized and remembered running almost every arc on the fist page. Scrolling through them all, I could not find an arc dated past 2010--and most were from 2009.

So yeah, either the Devs have largely forgotten about AE, or nobody's creating good AE content anymore. Or both.

Okay, it's not just me then.