Solo_4114

I had a similar problem recently. Had my wallet stolen the day before vacation, so I canceled my card that was tied to my COH account. Naturally, at this time, my account lapsed and NCSoft couldn't charge my card.

I finally decided to reup last night, and went into Account Management. I clicked on "add subscription" for COH, figuring that I would simply make a new subscription with my new card. Got the dreaded "risk management" response and was baffled.

I managed to resolve this by selecting "Add time to existing account" and used my new card that way. THAT transaction went through. So, if you're simply reupping an existing account, try "Add time" rather than "new subscription."

It's onboard sound. I'll try to dig up the specs on the mobo when I get back home.


I'll check the GFX card's drivers when I get back as well, but for some reason I want to say they're in the 9-ish range.

So, I have an older rig. Never had a problem with COH. Until I17, that is.

My rig's about 5 years old (but then, the game is 6 years old...). For graphics, I'm running an ATI Sapphire Radeon X800 SE card. I had the input lag problem (also introduced with I17...) and disabled the hotkey puller. No more input lag. Great.

Trouble is, now a lot of the effects simply don't work properly. For example, Ring of Fire used to actually produce a ring of fire around the target. Now it looks like four blobs around the target, and just on the floor.

Laser sights on the Tactical Pistol w/Laser now flicker FAR more than they used to and are barely visible.

I suspect that aura abilities are going to be problematic as well although I haven't been logged in long with any of my heroes who are levels 30+.

Anyone have any idea what the heck this could be about?


As a separate issue, sound has SERIOUSLY degraded in quality. A lot of sounds loop randomly now, and the sound quality is far muddier than it used to be.


I've never had an issue for COH/COV actually degrade performance. Very disappointing.

So, I have an older rig. Never had a problem with COH. Until I17, that is.

My rig's about 5 years old (but then, the game is 6 years old...). For graphics, I'm running an ATI Sapphire Radeon X800 SE card. I had the input lag problem (also introduced with I17...) and disabled the hotkey puller. No more input lag. Great.

Trouble is, now a lot of the effects simply don't work properly. For example, Ring of Fire used to actually produce a ring of fire around the target. Now it looks like four blobs around the target, and just on the floor.

Laser sights on the Tactical Pistol w/Laser now flicker FAR more than they used to and are barely visible.

I suspect that aura abilities are going to be problematic as well although I haven't been logged in long with any of my heroes who are levels 30+.

Anyone have any idea what the heck this could be about?

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Separate issue. Sound has SERIOUSLY degraded in quality. A lot of sounds loop randomly now, and the sound quality is far muddier than it used to be.


I've never had an issue for COH/COV actually degrade performance. Very disappointing.

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The markets are cross server. Were you using the words "server's market" to mean something other than Wentworth's and the Black Market?

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No, I actually just didn't know that before.

Oh, I know you can buy salvage tehre, I just haven't yet. I haven't run a ton of AE missions really. I need to see if there are any actually good story arcs.

I've got decent experience with the markets, but I've never seen anything actually run out. Anyway, if things get tight again, I'll just run lowbie missions via Ouroboros with an alt or continue to level up one of my lowbie toons.

I just find it remarkable that stuff that was so plentiful has all bit disappeared. I do still wonder what long-term effect AE farming will have on this, though.

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I don't think you're thinking it all the way through.

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LIES!!

Ok, maybe not.

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As a lowbie, your playtime will require you to wait before you can buy more enhancements. You simply don't have slots to put them in. This waiting is when you can make lots of money AND get what you want for cheap.

You mention the Rune price. In 2 days, it will drop back down. Hell, there will probably be sales at regular price over the next 2 days. In the meantime, you'll be trying to level. So, if you know you'll need a Rune when you ding 17, just put the bid in at the regular price and walk away.

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That's certainly true. and that's how several of my toons made money early on -- crafting stuff they just didn't need or couldn't use, and selling other things they wouldn't get any mileage out of.

I already do the thing where I'll post at a given price and then just walk away and figure it'll end up bought eventually. Sometimes it can take months, though, but usually it ends up worth it.

However, I'm not sure I agree that prices will level out soon. That won't happen unless/until there's an influx of actual salvage. I regularly see lowbie salvage running around 100-150. Some stuff gets backlogged, like computer virii, and you can end up with 700 of something, but generally the range is around 150-300 on average. Lately, that's dropped precipitously. Maybe the devs bought up a bunch of it just to create a drop and get people going back to missions instead of farming. I don't know. But a lot of stuff dropped (in numbers) drastically over the last week.

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Highbies inflate prices temporarily on common items. Not permanently. Thus, you can make extra money by selling your goods (since highbies are inflating their price) and save money by just leaving bids up because you don't need the item right now. No need to turn off XP. Just think ahead one level. When you're at 16, put your bids in for 20s. By the time you hit 17, they will have filled.

It's not going to take awhile for salvage to make its way to the market. Spikes are always accompanied by lowball offers being filled. Just be the lowballer for the stuff you're going to need.

For example:

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All these people saved money. All it took was a modicum of patience. When people complain that prices are too high, almost invariably, it's because they're not patient. That's the only thing required for lowbies to have excess cash while still slotting out with set IOs.

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Agreed, that patience pays off. I do that frequently when I'm logging out -- put in lowball bids for stuff I'll want, and figure it'll show up when I log back in (or in a day or two).

But what I'm talking about is the fact that there is a LOT less of stuff than there often is, or at least there's been a noticeable shortage over the last week or so. I mean, honestly, 20 pieces of common lowbie salvage up on the market and 1700 something bids for it? THAT's pretty wacky. Great opportunity for lowbies to post stuff -- and those that play the market will hopefully flood it with more (thereby driving prices back down) soon, but the strange thing is that I'm not seeing people doing that.


A lot of my early money was made by playing high-low games. Buy pieces low (brass + inanimate carbon rod), craft a damage enhancement or two, and sell high. When brass and ICRs were selling for, like, 50-100 a piece, and damage recipes were going for around 1000, you made a serious margin even if you sold for only 100K. I took one toon and built up his reserves to about a million doing that, then got a rare drop and sold that for several million more. The first million was all done around level 6, though, when he couldn't use much.

That kind of approach, I think, becomes a lot harder if common salvage goes through the roof. now, if the lowbie is running missions and selling common salvage for good money, that doesn't matter so much, but i think a lot of lowbies are just skipping missions (especially people who have lots of alts and re-roll a lot and are sick of lvls 1-22).

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What's really interesting is that AE is having a SERIOUS effect on the market. With the shortage of lowbie salvage, and the fact that even high level stuff needs lowbie salvage, the market is getting all kinds of screwed up (mostly because people haven't figured out they can just play Ouroboros missions). I'm sure that this will impact the lowbies' ability to make money, at least until the market re-stabilizes or the devs do something to make salvage drop in AE missions (ha!).

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uh wha?

how does expensive low level salvage "screw up" the ability of low level characters to make inf?

I'm confused.

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It can affect things two ways:

1.) It makes it harder for lowbies who want to craft to buy components (if they haven't gotten drops that work).

2.) It means they have to keep selling salvage which may or may not earn them as much as they'd get if they were crafting.

Now, if salvage prices spike to a point where the parts of an enhancement outprice the enhancement itself, lowbies will do fine. But it could also mean that they have a more tedious road ahead of them, depending on how their server's market is playing out.

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With zero marketeering, I was able to begin slotting set IOs on my most recent project, a DB/Regen, at Level 17. He currently has over 100 million inf and is fully slotted with set IOs (solid ones for +Recov including some Miracle pieces). He's Level 38. He has still yet to do any marketeering.

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Yeah, I'm not even talking marketeering in the sense of "I'll wait for the price to spike.....NOW!" or anything like that. And your'e right that a lot of IO sets are pretty inexpensive (although some ingredients remain high priced).

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You can't get IOs at Level 6. You don't need 1 mil at Level 6. You'll have plenty by 12, when you can start to benefit more.

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Well, my point was more that you can make a bunch of cash early on and be slotting IOs (not sets, just regular IOs) ASAP if you just craft and sell stuff.

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Hi, Solo. I'll bet you get a lot of good drops.

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Actually, yeah, I do. And some especially lucky ones have allowed several toons to really cash in.

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So you're saying lowbies are making more money now than ever? That's what's screwed up?

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No, what's screwed up is the price structure, and it's going to get worse until more lowbie salvage starts entering the market. Lowbies can make a bunch of cash right now (that is if there are any lowbies left....), but they won't be able to buy anything for a while. In the past few days, I've seen Luck Charms spike from their usual 50K cost to 100K. I've seen Runes, which usually hovered around 5-10K spike to 100K.

What's happening is that high level toons who want to craft IO set pieces need some lowbie salvage to do so. These guys look at 100K as money to burn, so they don't think twice when they want that (spiritual essence/alchemical gold/runebound armor/whatever) RIGHT NOW.

There was a point yesterday when there were LITERALLY 20 total runes on the market at once, and something like 1700 bids for them.


Anyway, what I'm seeing is this:

1.) It looks like lowbies either don't exist, are all busy running AE farm missions, or are hoarding what salvage they get. Total salvage numbers are way low for certain things, especially lowbie salvage (and especially lowbie ARCANE salvage).

2.) The prices for what's there have, naturally, climbed considerably. None of this is a bad thing, but it's going to take a while for the market to sort itself out and for more salvage to make its way into the market. That or the market will die out for a while as everyone goes off to Ouroboros to get salvage (or lowbies start slooooowly playing through missions and getting new salvage).

3.) If you have lowbie toons, and are willing to wait a bit, now is the time to do the following: (A) turn off XP gain, (B) start running missions vs. the circle of thorns, (C) sell ALL your lowbie stuff all the time.

4.) if you have mid-to-high level toons who don't want to spend 100K on a single piece of lowbie salvage, go run flashback missions or join a lowbie taskforce (I'll bet you'd get TONS of stuff from the Posi TF).


Just my observations. That said, it's still not hard to make a bunch of cash if you're willing to take the time to do so.

Crafting alone can yield quite a bit of influence even at low levels. Certainly more than you usually need (unless you want to slot IO sets from 1-50).

I've played the crafting game (up until recently when the salvage market went into the toilet as people stopped playing missions and started playing AE), and as long as you're willing to be patient, you can easily crack 1 mil at lvl 6. Granted, you won't be running missions, but by the time you do, you may have all your slots filled with basic IOs, some of which you crafted yourself.

Now, granted, I've never brought a toon past lvl 35 (Hi, I'm Solo, and I'm an altaholic), but even so, I have plenty of friends who have lvl 50s, and who know how to play the market.

What's really interesting is that AE is having a SERIOUS effect on the market. With the shortage of lowbie salvage, and the fact that even high level stuff needs lowbie salvage, the market is getting all kinds of screwed up (mostly because people haven't figured out they can just play Ouroboros missions). I'm sure that this will impact the lowbies' ability to make money, at least until the market re-stabilizes or the devs do something to make salvage drop in AE missions (ha!).

In all seriousness, though, the recent salvage shortage is driving prices for things like circuit boards through the roof. While 5 mil is still high, I've seen 'em going for 5000, 50000, etc. It's getting crazy out there, simply because salvage drops are limited by level.

Guess Ouroboros is gonna be the path to lowbie salvage for the time being.

He won't attack you on his own. But if you attack him, he'll attack back.

Think of it as the boss having a fear effect applied to him.

This applies to AVs as well, I suspect.

So, yeah, assuming this works the way I think it does, you could aggro 17 grey minions, and stand 2 inches from an AV, and nothing would happen until you hit the AV, who would attack you once and go back to buffing his nails.

Either Statesman hasn't fully explained the system (which is entirely possible, given that he tends NOT to explain himself particularly well and leaves great big gaps which either yes-men or angry players fill in until he steps in to confirm that one side is right or wrong), or this system will be exploitable and immersion-breaking.

If this is your "fix" to AI, you need to work harder. I'd rather have a real fix than something like this. Make the AI more dynamic, smarter, more challenging instead of just changing who stands around looking like a smacked [censored] while I beat the hell out of his compatriot not more than two feet from him.

You know what I hate? I hate kung fu movies where the hero takes on one guy at a time out of a group of like 30 guys. It's like "Wait your turn, Disposeable Badguy #5! #4 through #1 still have to get their chance to fight." That seems like the direction COH is moving.

In fact, that's pretty much how it's ALWAYS been, even when you had enemies attacking at range. Tell you what. Roll up a new character. Make him, say, a blaster. Run up to a spawn in Atlas of Hellions. Try to find a group of one LT and three minions. Attack a minion. Notice how he runs up to pound on you with a baseball bat, but at least one if not both of his minion buddies stand back and plink away at you with pistols?

That happens throughout the game. It's the "Wait your turn, #5" problem, and this particular "fix" only makes this issue MORE glaring.

"Wise fwom your gwave..."

I've got at least two rocks for several of my characters. I haven't had any opportunity to use them. Are they really one-shot kills? I don't remember anymore.

While I'm not personally bothered by the SS/SJ changes as a practical matter, I do want to reiterate the underlying sentiment of the original poster.

Changing the PvE game to suit PvP balance is a sure-fire way to piss off those customers who have zero interest in PvP -- which, I might add, is a not inconsequential portion of the playerbase. PvP is popular, sure, but I suspect a lot of players came to this game because of what it didn't have: loot, an economy, crafting, and PvP.

In general, PvE seems to be functioning well. Some issues crop up from time to time, but on the whole, the experience is quite enjoyable and seems to be working "as intended." When changes are made for PvP balancing reasons, the devs have GOT to understand that the players who aren't at all interested in PvP are going to be angry, even if it's a minor change. I know I came here from SWG, a game that was a constant merry-go-round of nerfing and "balancing", often for the sake of PvP, but which always affected PvE as well.

In general, my suggestion is as follows:

PvE is your baseline. It's the established style of play for a year now. PvP is the "new" style of play. It's fine to change PvE when something is broken with PvE, but when something is NOT broken with PvE, and needs changing in PvP, leave the change in PvP-land. Do not, if at all possible, let that change sneak over to PvE.

Two changes I've heard of thus far -- the SS/SJ change and the fear change -- are relatively minor. They do not, at least from what I can tell, cause a drastic change in the way the PvE experience is going to play out. But pay very close attention to what has happened here. There seems to be a good portion of the playerbase, at least in terms of the boards, that feels betrayed here. These are the players who believed that PvE and PvP would generally remain separate and that, whatever lunacy came with PvP, it would stay the hell away from their PvE gaming. I STRONGLY urge the devs to try to live up to these players' expectations because to do otherwise invites disillusionment and resentment. It leads to infighting among the playerbase, anger at the devs, and a general air of "They lied to us."

Learn, if you will, from SOE's mistakes. This time around, the changes have been minor. As a result, this storm will likely blow over and things will return to being mostly calm. But take notice of how bad things got over even this minor change and think long and hard about whether you want to cross such a minefield again with bigger changes to PvE that are inspired mostly by PvP.

Yeah, before the Hollows showed up, once you finished out your contact in Atlas or Galaxy, you'd have about a level of street hunting (at about level 6), then get sent over to Perez Park for some "Kill 10 of X" mission (usually kill 10 CoT).

I remember getting my butt KICKED in Perez the first time I went in there. That forest maze used to scare the hell out of me.

I remember two things fondly, both are personal (not so much about game mechanics).


I remember playing Star Wars: Galaxies for just under a year, and becoming increasingly bitter and angry at the noncommunicative developers who outright lied to the player base or at the very least couldn't schedule their way out of a wet paper bag ("Smugglers will be fixed in the next patch. No, really this time. Ok, just kidding. NEXT patch after that. Seriously."). I remember being extremely down on the concept of crafting, loot, PvP, etc.

I remember hearing through the grapevine about this game and taking a look at the boards. It sounded cool, but it was the end of beta so no way for me to get in on it. I remember buying the pre-order, playing it, and immediately falling in love with this game which gave me EXACTLY what I was looking for post-SWG and still does. I remember being amazed at the devs and how they post SUBSTANTIVE information, how their design philosophy (start small, make it perfect, then build bigger) is now what I consider THE path to making the perfect MMORPG.

Speaking of the pre-order, I remember having thought out several character concepts ahead of time and rushing to create ALL of them during the head start so I could reserve the names. I still have just about all of my first wave of characters, although some I gave up. Many aren't developed, but that can change.

And yes, I STILL love bringing your newbie hero into Atlas Park for the first time. I actually just made a new alt this weekend (even though my highest character is only level 22).

All my characters are full-time heroes, but I can tell you what they did BEFORE they became heroes.


1.) Doctor Nucleus -- former physician, hematologist-oncologist, specifically. Sought a cure for cancer through certain radiation bombardment processes, and accidentally gained staggering new powers to discharge both healing energies and destructive ones (he's an emp/rad defender). I've been toying with the idea of eventually killing him as a result of the radiation infection, but I'm not sure -- he's my favorite character right now. He's also now absolutely dedicated to stopping Dr. Vahzilok, given that he views Vahzilok as having betrayed his oath as a physician.

2.) Lazarus -- has only the vaguest memories of his former life. What he does know is that he was a normal human at one point, who was killed by the Circle of Thorns and turned into a being of darkness in one of their experiments. He despises the Circle for what it did to him and seeks revenge, but also seeks to learn more about his past. Eventually, he'll discover that he was a policeman, learn his former name, and the true reason for the Circle's experiment. He may regain some of his former humanity, but he'll have to reconcile his new, darker urges with his former life. (Dark/Dark defender)

3.) Count Zero -- former hacker. Hacked the Crey Industries database and learned about an interesting procedure involvine nanotechnology fusing with a human subject. He forged himself an ID, waltzed into the facility where the nanite specimen was stored, and managed to get a closer look at it. A MUCH closer look -- which resulted in the nanites fusing with HIM. He's now viewed by Crey as a "rogue experiment" who must be captured, studied, and eventually disposed of when he's outlived his usefulness. For the time being, he's gone underground, but eventually he'll have to tangle with Crey. In the meantime, he has gained surprising new abilities to discharge powerful energy blasts, and use the nanites to rapidly form all manner of gadgets out of trace elements in the air. (energy/devices blaster)

4.) Jacobite -- A former member of the 74th Highlanders, sent over to Paragon City after Hero-1's death as part of a support team sent by the U.K. He's a former soldier who volunteered for an experimental process to develop a more powerful soldier. (Energy/Invulnerable tank)

5.) Blue Kestrel -- a former costumed criminal, actually, who was shamed by the selfless sacrifice he saw from heroes during the Rikti invasion. He went off to Tibet to search his soul for several years, and learned to channel his former evil deeds into negative energy that he expels from his body to form armor or imbue his fists with dark powers. The more he fights, the cleaner his soul gets and the more the burdens of his conscience lift. (Dark/Dark scrapper)


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By the way, all these guys are on Virtue and are ALWAYS happy to RP with likeminded players. Incidentally, once I get them leveled up enough, be on the lookout for The Black Corsair and Firebrand.

Here's one thing I came up with a while ago that I think could be done both for SGs and for individual players.

The Nemesis concept:

Each individual player and/or supergroup may declare a specific villian group their "nemesis." By declaring a group as your "nemesis", you gain certain abilities (possibly based on AT), and potentially certain weaknesses.

For example, The Medical Ethics Council SG declares Dr. Vahzilok and his group to be their nemesis. As a result, all members of the supergroup are given certain bonuses in combating Vahzilok goons, based on their primary role in the team.

Defenders gain extra defense bonuses vs. toxic damaage and can, to a degree, impart these to teammates.

Blasters and scrappers gain the ability to do minor toxic damage (thanks to having studied the workings of Vahzilok toxins) with each strike.

Tankers become HIGHLY resistant to toxic damage and can draw aggro from Vahzilok goons more easily (IE: higher % of successful taunt effect).

Controllers have a higher % of controlling (IE: stunning, holding, etc.) a Vahzilok goon.


With respect to SGs, declaring your SG to have a nemesis would result in an ongoing campaign to destroy or at least contain the nemesis group. This would generate special SG missions (perhaps available from the SG coordinator at City Hall?), as well as random attacks on your members by nemesis goons and random missions being generated (IE: you suddenly get a big flashing SG symbol on your screen when an emergency mission comes up). The SG campaigns would be noteably different from individual player campaigns.

At the individual player level, things would operate on a mostly similar basis, but the missions would be different and could be organized through a specific contact other than the SG coordinator. Alternatively, rather than declare a specific nemesis, you could choose to accept one from your contact, based on your origin, but which would be randomly assigned to you.

Anyway, just a little brainstorm there.

My rock has a picture of Dee Snider on it saying "I Wanna Rock!!" It's pretty cool.

"Nazis....I hate these guys..."

Here's a theory. There may be an internal power struggle going on or a shift in leadership within the 5th Column. They may also be planning for a new offensive (think Rularru invasion style activity).

It may be time for me to implement an idea for a hero and new SG to combat this new threat...

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3) None of Solo_4114 suggestions said anything about "powers". He did mention the use of inspirations, which I notice *you* seem to pop like steroids. Why do you do that? Is the game too tough for you do "unenhanced"?


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Wrong. Here is the direct quote from solo's post:

"3.) Try fighting "with one hand tied behind your back." In other words, take on challenges where you refuse to use certain powers or inspirations, or unslot your attacks (or just don't upgrade them)."

He said, don't use certain powers, or don't slot the powers. Here's another idea, why not purposefully die to put yourself into debt. That way you will level really slow, and never get the good powers.

- felicity

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Very true. I DID make suggestions about powers. Felicity's response to me (IE: take on greens/blues, etc.) was on par with what I said and perfectly fair game, far as I'm concerned. The argument DOES cut both ways, except in the realm of mission difficulty.

For NOW, I think that the TEMPORARY solution is to return missions to their +0 status. That, however, should be a band-aid until we can get the difficulty slider, so I think Felicity and I are in (mostly) agreement here.

In the meantime, I'd like to address a different point: the notion of "Forced" gaming.

I see people post how they're "forced" to do this or that. First, chances are, you're not REALLY being forced. You're being given a choice you don't like, but you're not being FORCED. Even with the +1 missions, I'm not FORCED to do them. I can go street sweep. I can team with other players. I can level myself and go back. Where "forced" comes in is where I am required to do X to achieve Y outcome. In other words, if I want to play the game at the difficulty level that I prefer, I'm "forced" to do blah.

And again, that IS true and WILL be true for either side of this debate until the difficulty slider comes into play. I personally think it's better for the game's longevity to tip that balance pre-difficulty-slider towards the easier side, but that's just my view. What the devs thing will be the final decision, really.

Personally, I think the game should strive to give you as many options in tailoring your gameplay experience as possible. No one should be put in a situation where they feel they're "forced" to do X or Y.

But, that's in a perfect world, really. Right now, I think the SHORT TERM solution is what's happening currently: the devs are lowering the +1 missions (Which was a bug apparently), and are toning down outcasts and trolls to what they feel is a more manageable level. IN THE MEANTIME, I imagine they are working on a difficulty slider too. It'd be foolish NOT to, given how divided the community has been on this issue, and given the benefit that such a change would offer.

In the meantime, some players may be "forced" to play the game on "easy mode", but rest assured, the devs HAVE heard your concerns and are likely working to address them too.

The powers are being scaled back. There's a thread about revising the Hollows where, apparently, some of the power changes have made it to test.

A number of powers have been removed from Outcasts (the trolls have been mostly left alone from what I can tell). Some powers have NOT been removed, like fire imps from the Lead Scorchers (which is a pain), but things like hurricane have been removed from the shockers and apparently their healing powers as well.

Long as we don't see all the chain stunning/mezzing/etc., I can handle damage increases. The Outcasts will likely be regarded as on the same level as Vahzilok now -- tough enemies, but not unbeatable.