Shadow_Fire

No.
RPS isn't engaging conflict.

Heres two simple questions regarding this idea.

1) How hard would it be on players to adapt to?
I'm honestly done revamping characters to deal with game altering changes. After 3 years, I want a stable game base, dagnabit!

2) How many fun additions to the game would be pushed back, yet again to tweak the mathmatical model?
We've allready spent 2+ issues making significant changes to the system that have helped contribute to pushing back fun things like new powersets or ATs, do we really need the Devs to spend more time nit-picking the system?

I'd rather have more toys, than more 'balance', I can ignore the complaining more easily than I can ignore the stagnation.

Ehh, I only listed PvP just for the sake of completeness. I don't like PvP in MMOGs, its never been done right, and probably never will be.

The point is, there are a ton of things that could grant Type B drops, in addition to Story Arcs. Many of them are allready designed to provide rewards, and several can be as highly limited as Story Arcs are.

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As for retroactive Story Arc salvage/recipie drops, datamining isn't nessicary if your willing to fudge things a little bit.

In CoH there are aproximately 5 arcs per level, characters could be awarded a one time bonus of one or two Type B drops for each of the level badges, with possible bonuses based on account time or if the character is a Kheld (who have more arcs).

It does reward everyone of the same level equally, regardless of what Arcs they've done, but it has to be a heck of alot easier than datamining for the actual arcs for each character.

Theres another form of non-repeatable content in Co*, Badges. Plenty of these are story related, and are not allready used in Accolades. A reasonable additional vector for providing Type B drops.

Other potental ways Type B drops could be provided:
Mayhem/Safeguard Missions
Mayhem/Safeguard side mission.
Specialized contacts
Seasonal Events
Task Forces/Trials (Put in a hard to get accolade that opens up this option)
A new antagonist group (Whatever happened to that Batallion...)
"Glowies"
PvP rewards
Information Kiosks (Lead that totals board, and get a prize; that was the old plan, no?)



None of these need to be in place of Story Arcs, any (or all with low enough frequency) could be in addition to Arcs.

Well we all look a little silly now, the Devs were a step ahead of us.
Personal Items are finally starting to live up to thier name on Test. The Veteran Reward base items are placed using the Person Items button.

A good step in the right direction. We just need a more ways to get more Personal Items.

Thank you for taking the time to reply. It really helps to see any redname post on a subject, it lets us know were not talking into a dead line.

I believe all the most important points have been brought up repeatedly in this thread, so rather than just rambling about what I would like for bases I would like to adress a few comments made over the months by both yourself and Positron.


I'm not sure that Bases are too expensive overall, rather I believe that it is the combonation of Influence trade off, high space/item cost, and maintenence that is too much for most of us. Elimitating, or reducing, even one of those would by the large adress most of the problem. Just by doing away with maintenence you would make it possible for any SG to eventually work up to the best base.


The Personal Items button seems inappropriately named, rather it could be labeled 'Crafted Items'. Only expensive, salvage crafted items can be placed using this feature.
Adding Decorative items to the Personal Items button could be the most basic way to increase involvement in Base creation. Obviously there would need to be some way to limit this, at least with overall SG setting, but preferably on a room to room and character to character basis. In time the options could grow here much as the vaunted Costume Creator has.


In another interview you mentioned suprise that high level SG members were not aiding lower level members with Influence (or Infamy). Considering that trading was initially limited to 9999 Influence, and later raised to 99999, to prevent 'twinking' it comes as no suprise to me that many do not do this. 99999 Influence is only enough to buy 3 or 4 SOs, meaning to really help out an SG-mate, you need to do 10, or even more, transfers; and that every five levels! I'll not go into all the self sufficency ramblings that this brings up, thats largely irrelivent. If you want us to engage in this kind of behavior then we need the influence trade limit raised again (to 999999).


Some time ago Positron commented that personal apartments would not be coming in the near future as it would require too much work, especially to get the proper scale. As far as I can tell the base editor is only missing three general catagories of objects to work fine as an appartment editor. Walls, Stairs and Upper Floors/Ledges. Remove the functional base items, and anything else inappropriate, and we can create our own personal space. Obviously more complex than I'm making it out, but more simple than what I think Positron was thinking of.


Still, I imagine that Bases would have been loads more popular if everything had actually functioned a year ago. Best of luck to the staff working on nailing down those bugs!

Thanks again for coming to converse with us!

<QR>

I believe all the issues with bases have been discussed to death in the Base Construction forum. If the Developers would read that section, I believe they'd get the point.

What bases really need is a way to get everyone involved, not just the architect.

My first mayhem mission had the Elite Boss Malise! There go any rumors of him returning to his vilianous activities.

After he whooped my behind and sent me directly to jail, not passing go, I went back for another round. Which of course went badly too. I ran out the bank door for a breather, waiting for the dang confusion to wear off. When I returned to the bank for round three, Malise had beat feat, like a coward.

Thats right, the 'hero' had gone MIA. I spent about 15 to 20 minutes searching the instance for him, but he was nowhere to be found.

Once test is back up again, I'll be checking to see if this disappearing act is a repeatable bug.

PvE Plots
Originally suggested by: Mjorn
Category: Plots
Customizable? Standard for Plots
Type: Purchasable
Description: A catagory of base plot that disallows the Vault room, and therefor IoP raids. Cost for nonfunctional rooms and items would be reduced.
This would be a simple way to let smaller SGs have a PvE base at reduced cost.
Limitations: No vault room means no IoP Raids. Potentially defensive items and rooms may be eliminated/limited from these plot types.

Decorative Plots
Originally suggested by: Mjorn
Category: Plots
Customizable? Standard
Type: Purchased
Description: A plot that only allows decorative rooms and items. Strictly for decoration. Rent would not be charged for Decorative Plots. A temporary measure to allow small or one person SGs to have a space to call home while waiting on Hideouts.
Limitations: No functional items of any kind.

Multi Plot Base
Originally suggested by: Mjorn
Category: Plot
Customizable? Yes
Type: Unlocked
Description: A Variation on the multi-level idea. Multi-plot bases would be made of several connected plots.
Limitations: Only one PvP plot per multi-plot base. Non-PvP plots would be seperate from PvP plots durring raids.
This would allow SGs to to keep thier PvP base functional, and spare them some of the Prestige cost for strictly decorative items by removing them from potential PvP abuse.

Base Exterior
Originally suggested by: Expanded on by Mjorn
Category: Special
Customizable? Yes
Type: Purchased
Description: An exterior area surrounding the base itself. If the Exterior must be passed though in PvP the cost should be astromomical.
Limitations: Only existing instanced outdoor maps may be chosen from. A clearly marked door on that map or a placable pre-generated building and entrance allow admittance to the base proper.

City Exterior Door
Originally suggested by: Mjorn and everbody else
Category: Base Entrance
Customizable? No
Type: Unlockable, requires Beacon for chosen zone.
Description: Rather than merely existing in some nerther realm your base is in an actual loction. The base has an exterior door leading to one specific mission door in a zone the SG has a beacon for it. This allows transport to that zone without a teleporter.
Limitations: Only standard mission doors may be chosen. One per base.

Ledges
Originally suggested by: Mjorn (Others as Floors)
Category: Wall Decoration
Customizable? No
Type: Purchasable
Description: Add other ledges to the options beyond the 3 arcane ones and 2 bridges. Enough options can give an effective second story to a room.
Limitations: Standard placement rules.

I haven't noticed a drop in utility for Transference so far.
Its been leaving me with about 98 out of 105 on everything from -1s to +4s, basically the same as before I3.
I have it slotted with 1 accuracy, 3 end recovery and 2 recharge. All +2 SOs (40s, and I'm 38). I was with a Rad most of the time too.

Though so far all I've fought are Freakshow, Rikti, and Hydra.

I wonder if they've caught the drain/recovery 'bug' and Drain SOs aren't helping recovery or if certain villian types now have drain resistance.

What types of villians have you all been fighting? I'll go do some testing with Transference and Short Circut and see if I can repeat your problems.

Nice to hear, the decision to roll back the Boss change just might net my SG a player back.

Might I suggest that instead of a Lutenant (I can't speeal), you consider making Elite Lts. That should make the named villians more memerable, yet keep them in a solo friendly catagory.

Two suggestions Quason, either go the no Stamina route or drop Aim. With only the dfault slot in Aim its not like its getting that much use, an accuracy insperation can cover for it, allowing you to get SP with the default slot.

As for Stamina, I find I get along well without it. You might be too spoiled by it to cope without it , but its definately doable. Transference is supplying more end on test right now (not sure how much, haven't taken the time to test the bajezus out of it yet), changing slotting there for recharge might partly compinsate for the loss of stamina.