Sardan

That's a charitable way to look at it. Earlier when I posted I even PM'd him to take a look at this post and respond, and he ignored it. I think he simply ignores anything that challenges his preconceptions.

You need to look at buffs on a per-player basis. When people talk about buffs like Speed Boost, they don't call that a 400% buff, they call it a 50% buff because they're looking at the effects on a single player. Similarly an FF Defender's bubble is 15% not 120%.

Yes, it is important to look at the effects of stacking and it's also important to talk about balancing benefit with appropriate End cost. But let's talk apples to apples and not multiply buff effects x8 when we're talking about a hypothetical case in which only a single teammate has the power (i.e. it's only appropriate to talk about x8 when looking at the edge case of everyone on a team having the power).

I had E-Fences/Ball Lightning and switched to Gloom/Dark Oblit. Fences is nice but negates knockdown and I didn't like the DoT of Ball Lightning. Gloom's a strong ST attack and Dark Oblit is a solid AoE. With inherent Fitness and the Alpha slot coming (to help with my End), I'll pick up Darkest Night to use against tough spawns.

His blog hasn't been updated since October. And regardless, if Arcanaville says she has first hand knowledge I think you can take that to the bank and not worry that his baby is going to go hungry.

Right. I know in the pre-IO pre-Market days it was very difficult to afford full sets of IOs in the 20s, and even in the 30s. I suspect that is no longer true IF a new player is directed to the Market to sell drops. But perhaps some new players don't realize the markets exist and just sell all their drops to vendors?

In any case, I like what 23X is trying to do.

But of course. It was my indirect way of saying "different strokes for different folks". The cool thing about all the different ATs available is that no matter what your preference, you should be able to find something that matches your tastes.

It's quotes like these that keep me reading this thread. It's like watching MST3K with the smart guys down in front, and Blue_Centurion on screen, ranting and flailing.

My MM's Seeker Drones take the alpha nicely and I don't lose any HP while they do their thing. If I'm playing my Brute, I don't wait for the MM, I leap into the middle of the spawn and unleash AoE hell to get the mobs to focus on me and thus build fury. If I'm playing my Dom, I lock down the spawn and start roasting it before the brute or MM can get there. Only my Corruptor lacks the tools for dealing with big alphas (he's a Fire/Kin); on him I wait for the Brute to get the spawn good and angry, then heal him if necessary and Fulcrum Shift him to his massive damage cap. Good times.

/em applause

Nice try, mister shill for the marketeer robber barons. Everyone knows you guys sit around wearing your monocles and top hats, sipping tea made from the tears shed from Blue_Centurion and eating biscuits made from PvP IOs just because you can.

I'm onto you! Power to the people!

I'm going to break this down, B_C, and you tell me what point you disagree with:

1) There are rules in the game against griefing that carry penalties like having your account suspended.
2) Both devs and forum mods read this forum.
3) There have been many announcements in this forum of items for sale above the 2 billion cap.
4) Mods have the ability to remove posts that go against official policy.

Do you believe any of those statements to be false? No? Then what must we conclude?

Conclusion: the devs don't consider selling something for 2 billion or above to be breaking any game rules.

Now, you may consider this to a bad policy but that's not the same as claiming that it's somehow griefing.

Next, you have proposed to add a "Buy It Now" button to the Auction House interface. Setting up a fixed price purchase mechanism is creating a store. Your proposed store mechanism is redundant:

1) A store exists to buy recipes using AE tickets.
2) A store exists to buy (currently only generic) recipes at University crafting tables for inf.
3) A store exists to buy recipes using Merits.
4) A store exists to buy recipes (including purples and PvP IOs) using Alignment Merits.

When you buy a recipe using any of those methods, the game creates a new one for you. What's the other existing mechanism that creates recipes where they didn't exist before? Drops from defeats.

To drive down prices, the devs could increase drop rates or lower the Alignment Merit prices, or make all recipes purchasable from University crafting tables.

Can you agree to the truth of that statement B_C? The devs don't need to create yet another store. I know you don't know much about how the market works, but surely you can see that if they make something more plentiful, the price drops?

The devs have not changed drop rates nor changed existing store prices. I believe there are only two possible conclusions:

1) The devs are sadly ignorant of the rarity and resulting high prices of purples and PvP IOs. If only they could be made aware of this problem, they'd take action to correct it.
2) The devs are well aware of the rarity of these IOs and do not perceive it as a problem because their intent was to have them be ultra-rare the whole time.

B_C, I think you cling to conclusion #1; the rest of us believe conclusion #2.

Honestly I think that's the biggest thing that B_C isn't grokking.

B_C, do you notice there are multiple posts in this forum advertising PvP IOs for sale for more than 2 billion inf? The devs are well aware this is happening. They have mechanisms with which they could adjust the rarity of these items, they don't need to invent a whole new "Buy it now" button. They could increase drop rates or they could adjust merit prices. They've done neither. Connect the dots, fer cryin' out loud.

If I read it right, he's not proposing a price cap, he's proposing that everything be available via a store as an alternative to the market. That'd put an effective price cap on all items, but it's a very different effect than simply declaring an item can't be sold for more than X.

It's a test of sustained DPS. You need to be able to pump out big numbers and not gas out.

That's seriously impressive. You must be doing *something* different because "7 purpled 50s and 12B in cash" doesn't match the typical profile of even an avid non-farming, non-marketeering player.

It's not a true level 51: you don't get the increased hit points. But 54s are treated as +3 instead of +4 with respect to your chance to hit, strength of debuffs, etc.

As much as I appreciate the info, I don't know that I'd characterize it as "so soon" seeing as how we've been told (at a recent Meet & Greet) that they hope to go live with it next week.

For some reason I have it stuck in my head that there'd be 3 in i20, then 1 or 2 per issue after that. Did I just imagine that (wouldn't be the first time!) or did Posi say that somewhere in the GR panel discussion?

Thanks GBE (and Posi)!

By the way, even though I just posted in opposition to what Blue Centurion said, let me be clear: I'm not in the elite ranks of marketeers. I haven't bothered getting any purples for the Brute I play 90% of the time. But unlike the OP I've accepted that some goodies in game carry a price I'm not willing to pay. So instead I created a kick-*** build that has no purples.

Nah, he already stirred the pot in the Market forum too. My take is that he's running on pure emotion and nothing anyone can say can sway him. His original complaint was that his uber-build loaded with 5 purple sets and PVP IOs would cost multiple billions. People then tried to explain reality, but his massive sense of entitlement prohibited him from actually engaging his brain.

His reasoning boils down to "I'm a multi-year vet and as such I should be able to max out my build. This should be achievable by the majority of the playerbase." The devs, of course, have made it abundantly clear that they feel there's a place in the game for rare, elite-level loot that is unobtainable by casual players, even casuals who've been playing the game for years. Fundamentally, his beef is that he doesn't accept that premise. He's shifted his anger to marketeers, who he supposes are arbitrarily holding prices high.

But when you think about it, this has nothing to do with marketeers. The devs have known about the sky-high prices of PVP and purple IOs for a very long time. They could increase the drop rate or make them more affordable to purchase via alignment merits (as they did with the Luck of the Gambler global recharge IO). They've done neither, which indicates to me that they don't mind these items being attainable only by the uppermost niche of hard-core players.

TL;DR: Blue Centurion feels he should have the best goodies; devs disagree. He blames the marketeers.