Squez

Actually angry about this. Which is odd since it is only a forum after all.

I tried to be practical in a PM to Niviene. We'll see what she has to say (heck, post on up in here, Niv).

And to the mighty Kerbouchard, way over on the other side of the planet, come on by the new place.

[ QUOTE ]
Stalkers must be berfed.

[/ QUOTE ]

[ QUOTE ]
Seems more like a benevolent dictatorship

[/ QUOTE ]

I thought we were an autonomous collective...

*runs*

Nice list.

Now if someone would refresh my memory, please. There was a large developer interview that (I think) used to be on the Cryptic website. In it, there was a picture of one of the dev staff sleeping on the job, except that he wasn't sleeping--he was in full-on recline mode while working at his station. Who was that guy?

[ QUOTE ]
not everyone feels ANY way.

[/ QUOTE ]

I do.

[ QUOTE ]
So after all of this do I really need to make a stronger case for some sort of Market change?

[/ QUOTE ]

Well...yes. You've said a lot, but not said a lot. Let me try a distillation:

1) You think the market is not working as designed.

2) Your reason for thinking this is twofold: a) lots of players are complaining about it, and b) (the main reason) The Market as designed was a mistake from the start in your opinion.

3) Lots of stuff about nades, bases, Hami raids, cars, and idiots.

4) A rousing speech on the order of Animal House's "Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?"

This is not a case. Why? Nothing logically follows from the fact that people complain. The only thing that can be concluded is that they have a complaint.

Similarly, nothing logically follows from you thinking the devs made a mistake in the designing of the market if you don't flesh out why you think it was a mistake.

As shown by the devs when they rolled out the system, a market was implemented as a compliment to the invention (loot/crafting) system. A game has to have both. As a design constraint, the two systems had to fit into what is seen as a more casual MMO and had to not be necessary to play the game. This critical design spec (which the players were told repeatedly) was met. In addition, a market that collects fees is a needed influence sink. Market is therefore working as designed. The burden therefore is on you to show otherwise. Similarly, it was seen as a long-term objective to have CoX be more competitive in the MMO market, and that market features competitors with varying degrees of marketing and crafting. The jury is out as to whether it was a smart business decision (the last round of subscriber figures suggest that it was not a smart decision, but we need a couple more quarters of subscriber info to really draw a definitive conclusion as to which way our subscriber base is trending).

Now what is a legitimate gripe is that the market and IO systems have a much steeper learning curve then the CoX game itself. This is being addressed to a point (and as Ex Libris pointed out, needs more work). Interface changes you pointed out, as well as the new login screen pointing people to sources for help works, too. These efforts since last year are having an effect, at least anecdotally. I take care to observe all my PUG-mates in a few regards: vet badges, set bonuses, crafting badges, and sales badges. I know just from my observations that people are more apt to have sales badges now regardless of time spent in the game and crafting badges are also starting to go up. Set bonuses are not rare any more (but they aren't extensive until you have regular contact with TF runners).

Back to the complaints. We've had the spectrum here, from Veruca Salt, to people protecting their market shares (if you're wondering about the raised eyebrows to Ex Libris' post, it's because her post sounds like someone trying to protect her market share instead of improve the game, which is kind of weird coming from a company rep), to people who have research (witness KeepDistance's thread in Inventions on map-dependent drop rates as the latest version of someone with some data).

If our devs caved to every Veruca that came along, that would be horrendous. Heck, I feel bad for our devs handing out Vet Rewards. Who knew there would be such a hue and cry (and outright hostility) from folks getting something for long term customer loyalty?

On the other end of the spectrum, data can be looked at. EvilRyu's thread on TF drop rates is a decent example. One can read the thread and draw conclusions. Similarly in the map-dependent drop thread, one can pull up those maps and replicate the results.

Here's the thing: If the problem you are trying to suggest a fix for is not well defined, you can't fix it. So far, as you've defined it, is that you think the market is a mistake and that people complain. Your solution (tie all drops to an exceptionally gameable system) would not appear to fix either problem.

If the problem you're trying to fix is something else, perhaps that product availability villain-side is a pain, or that recipe drops need to be tuned up, or that population issues villain-side need to be addressed, gameable drop systems won't help any of those. Right now a random system (if it is in fact random 100% of the time) can not be gamed.

Regardless of how you end up defining the problem you are trying to fix, I certainly don't want to see the devs willy-nilly throwing a fix in there. The last time they did that--the costume fiasco--they explicitly abandoned their stated design spec (that costume drops should be rare and valuable), and instead of tuning them to a value somewhere under 1 million (rare arcane salvage goes for over a million; it's not a bad target--at the very least somewhere in the 300-500K range), they're pretty much worthless (most of them that I list sell for 50, occasionally a couple thousand).

[ QUOTE ]
This would be true if there were no controls on the drop rates but as much as some players oppose direct Market intervention I see a strong need for it.

[/ QUOTE ]

Some people oppose controls (myself for one). You see a strong need for it. Current system is 1 control (costumes moved to their own pool).

If you think a change is necessary, you have to make a case, instead of moving directly to suggesting a solution...to a problem that isn't defined.

[ QUOTE ]
I kind of feel like we're venturing into finding out who the "man behnd the curtain" is, so to speak.

[/ QUOTE ]

This isn't necessarily a bad thing. The gentleman you're alluding to, being an older gentleman from Omaha, did manage to leave Oz and return, and eventually became a rather capable student of Glinda.

Most people don't know that, nor do they need to. However, if one digs a bit through Baum's books, interesting details and stories like that emerge.

Similarly, if people want to simply Slice something, they can. If they choose to dig deeper, they can, and they might discover more interesting things to boot (though perhaps not about Slice...)

Bummed to hear that the easy methods of doing Dave's hunts (buy a bunch of insps, go nuts on the first large group you find, repeat) and Julius' Red River hunt (go downstream, find 10 or so lowbie trolls, dispatch) will be gone.

Happy to hear that mission doors will finally be clustered together. I never skip the Hollows, but Flux especially thought it was humorous to interrupt game session "flow" by sending one to the SW or SE corner of the zone.

The choice to have the new contact by the SG beam in point sounds quite good.

Looking forward to seeing the stuff all go live.

A pity there are but 5 stars to award this thread.

Issue 13 development plans will need to be changed to respond to this new threat.

[ QUOTE ]
if they require tokens (like Vanguard merits) are the tokens going to be tradeable or the unlocks account wide?

[/ QUOTE ]

If we could buy/sell/trade the things (Vanguard Merits, Midnight Merits What Merit at Midnight, etc.), I'd be right pleased.

*attempts to beam this thought into Positron's mind*

(a lot easier now that he's missing his helmet)

[ QUOTE ]
Through their accomplishments, players unlock the new Roman themed armor costume set.


[/ QUOTE ]

Please, please, please not the Vanguard merit system.

Please?

But hot dog that they're there. Oh yes, they will be mine.

Loving all of this, especially insp conversion.

I fear the button the devs sit around pushing some nights to make me only get yellows is going to be covered with dust now--it won't be nearly as fun.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
You may want to add more to the useability of the table.

I have it on one character and my interest in getting it on others is negligible since I need it most while I am pursuing it (mega crafting in the market while buying salvage and recipes).

I probably haven't used it 10 times since I got it last year.

[/ QUOTE ]

I use the table to grind invention salvage into base components with the vain and twisted idea that I might some day get Fabricator.

Maybe even today! *sigh*

[/ QUOTE ]

With your mad badge race with BadStorm, I'm surprised you didn't have Fabricator earlier in the week.

[ QUOTE ]
You may want to add more to the useability of the table.

I have it on one character and my interest in getting it on others is negligible since I need it most while I am pursuing it (mega crafting in the market while buying salvage and recipes).

I probably haven't used it 10 times since I got it last year.

[/ QUOTE ]

Done.

I find it more useful than you do apparently. I'm closing in on it with another level 36 (all 25/30s done, most 35/40s done, gotta step back to the non recharge/acc/end that I do in the 15s and 20s) and I should finish it off with Snood sometime this millenium.

I wish it was a bit more useful farming. I would love to accumulate 4 of several uncommons so I could cast the table, convert them, then make a few common IOs, and then move on. Alas, when I reach max salvage limit (I'm usually farming with 50 salvage spots, no Vanguard bag o' holding) I have a lot of 3s staring at me then it's Delete City, AZ since none of our SGs have the healing tree to at least sell to for a few bucks (I go back to the SG at least once or twice a farming session in order to stash good insp drops).

Yeah, I shouldn't worry so much on my farmers since they're rife with cash, but I wants mah moneyz. Heck, I have to go through some remorse deleting DOs or selling them to a rip-off store to make room for better stuff.

First off, this could be in market, badges, inventions, or guides. If someone thinks it should be elsewhere, feel free to bug a mod. I’m posting it here since this is an area I post a lot in, and several of these notes are regarding the market.

I’ve been meaning to compose my notes for awhile, and another thread here is sort of prodding me to do so.

As for the details, the ParagonWiki page is pretty thorough. What follows here are observations and technique.

<ul type="square">[*]Perspective. The minimum level to get Field Crafter is 10. And the important thing to realize is that it certainly can be done at that level. So far I’ve done it at 19, 27, and 36. For the 19 it’s been very useful to get things done at the market quickly and then get back to playing. For the 36 it’s good, but would have been more useful earlier. Use techniques folks have mentioned in the market forum, build up funds, and get it as early as possible.[*]Starting Funds. There is a lot of discussion affording Field Crafter. The ParagonWiki page above puts the crafting costs at 11,414,900. That means any deals you can get on salvage or recipes work in your favor. Additionally, recipes in the 25-40 range start becoming a decent source of income after running missions. If you have all those badges already, these recipes can be instantly sold without stopping to figure out if you need any of them for badges or your build.[*]Getting Started. Without a doubt, the first step should be to get ahold of MadScientist’s incredible checklist. I personally have 16 of these puppies printed keeping track of characters. It’s a throwback what with the paper and all, but I don’t recommend doing it any other way. Observe that the 35/40 recipes require quite a few craftings of 11 items. The 30s have quite a few 8s. That means you will need inventory space in order to haul around that much salvage. Your first goal, therefore, is to complete all the 25/30 badges. And if you’re leveling up a Field Crafter, you can keep track of what low badges (for me typically some of the 15/20s) you already have done so you don’t overbuy later.[*]Walk Away. If you’re buying all your supplies, you must not attempt to do Field Crafter some rainy Saturday. Observe prices on what you’re going after. (ParagonWiki's page with the components for each generic IO is here). Bid a stack of both levels of recipes, bid stacks of salvage at the price you want to pay for them (within reason at the very low end), and log off or go play. Craft the next day, and place most of what you made at a bit less than the top prices. With the funds mostly recuperated, repeat the process. Be aware that the good market PvPers can smell when someone’s going for Field Crafter and will be happy to sell you some very expensive product. Walking away helps mitigate their influence.[*]Farming. You are going to need stacks of expensive arcane common salvage. If you’re leveling a new Field Crafter, you can save your drops along the way, but if you’re already past those golden levels, you may need to exemp down below 25 to draw the good stuff. Pile up stacks of 10, and when you reach critical mass, craft the appropriate recipe category. Dark Astoria will be your friend if you’re hero-side.[*]Garbage. All of the Debuff category and all of the Mez category are utter garbage. But, Squez, I have trollers/defenders/a complex and those are really useful to the game, blah blah blah. Stop it already. Just stop. They are garbage. This actually works in your favor. Bid cheaply for the crud salvage that makes them, lowball bids on the recipes, then just delete what you make. If you have market slots, go ahead and list them for kicks (sales badges are sales badges after all), but if they don’t move in a night or 2, get rid of them. You will be recouping costs on the other 7 badge categories (though sometimes Mitigation can be iffy—be observant when listing these). As for usage, you won’t really be using anything from these 2 categories. Go get some of the cheap but useful sets that do the same stuff better.[*]Market Lag. If you do ignore the walking away advice above, beware Market Lag. When bid creeping, count to at least 10 before canceling bids, and for goodness sake look at your chat log for blue messages. Often a blue message will show up there long before changes are registered on your market display. Market Lag goes hand in hand with…[*]Base Crashing. If you are bound and determined to use Talos as your main point and craft in base, you will crash. If you use Kings Row for base crafting (since you can have your storage and table in the same location) you will rarely crash. Steel Canyon is useful if you’re not using storage. Villains don’t really have this issue since the busiest market (Cap) is right by the university; no matter how many power spammers are crowded there, the university gives you crashing invulnerability.[*]The Freaking 1000 Craftings. It’s the biggest pain in the neck of the badge. The best advice I’ve seen is to always cart 6-12 extra of one type of salvage with you when you’re doing your badge crafting (and you’ll have the inventory to do so if you followed my advice above). Convert them to components each time you make badges. Other common tips are to buy up base salvage (again, find the cheap stuff for tier 1 stuff, bid and walk away; the charts on what you need are here). Craft it into components, craft it into base buffs (then delete the buff and do it again). Craft extra stuff each time you craft and the 1000 craftings will move right along.[*]Is it worth it?. Yes with an asterisk. As mentioned above, if you have all the crafting badges, any generic IO recipe received while out gaming is cash at a vendor that just keeps getting better as you get higher in level. In addition, given that level 35/40 IOs outperform SOs, players want those: that situation leads to folks using those as money makers. If part of your routine is to play, then return to the market before logging out and craft money-making 35/40s, the table is great; combine that with always having a bid on 10 of the more expensive component of your 35/40 gravy train at a low price that will fill over 24 hours, and you've got a dependable money maker (though slower than the market experts make their cash). A couple observations about the table that are already mentioned in the discussion: 1) The table only lasts 5 minutes, but if you have it open when it asplodes you can keep using it, but 2) the table will often just close of its own free will (either that or a dev is online messing with you ). Given Market Lag above, open the market first before casting the table; that way if you're due for a DC, you didn't just waste the table. Also, I find that using the filtering every once in awhile can help, but if the table is sick of you it's going away.[/list]
That’s all I have. I hope it’s helpful.

Edit: Discussing the utility of the table

[ QUOTE ]
Real Numbers
As a general quality of life improvement we will be adding new functionality in a coming version of the game to display the “real” numbers behind your characters and their powers. This includes a user configurable display of important characteristics such as movement rate, regeneration rate, resistances and many more! Additionally, you will be able to see how those statistics are affected in real time by buffs and/or debuffs affecting your character.

[/ QUOTE ]

Hail the end of the assumption that players are unfrozen cavemen lawyers (Ooh, numbers frighten and confuse us).

Great news on what's coming up. Here's to the success of NC^2.

/em cheers

My player was in a very odd, mostly Japanese mood, but covered a lot of musical genres for this 10:

1) Blueside - Rooney
2) Invisible Tomorrow - PuffyAmiYumi
3) Kaze youbi kimi o tsurete - The Alfee
4) The Road - SMAP
5) Yamenaide, PURE - Kinki Kids
6) Friend of Mine - Glay
7) Seven Seas of Rhye - Queen
8) It's Gonna Rain - Bonnie Pink
9) Close to You - Long Vacation soundtrack (the piano theme Takuya "plays" throughout the series)
10) Crucify My Love (Mr Bishi Remix) - X Japan

10 from this afternoon:

1) Friend of Mine - Glay
2) The Day that I Die - Good Charlotte
3) Whistling in the Dark - They Might Be Giants
4) Go Mental - The Ramones
5) Theme from Mortal Combat - soundtrack
6) Help - The Beatles
7) Tenshi no yubikiri (theme from His and Her Circumstances) - soundtrack
8) tobe! GUNBUSTER - Smith Toren's image song from the soundtrack
9) Every Little Thing She Does is Magic - The Police (hey, I matched TheFrog above)
10) I Don't Want You - The Ramones

My player has a strange relationship with Good Charlotte and They Might Be Giants. One night I had the laptop in the kitchen playing tunes and realized it was alternating between the two evenly. I called my kid in to witness and started clicking Next. The pattern kept up for quite awhile. One of the two tends to show up quite a bit in any given listening session. Very odd.

[ QUOTE ]
Who can it be now?

[/ QUOTE ]

Fixt. And I shoulda known.

Ah, thank you necroposter whoever you are. This was a fave thread. And my player was in a good mood:

1. Jimmie Jones - The Vapors
2. Street Life - Glay
3. BATMAN CHASES INQUE - from the Batman: Beyond soundtrack
4. How it hits you - Jon Anderson
5. Sin Ti - Trio los Panchos
6. Cinderella Christmas - Kinki Kids
7. Scorpios - Adam Ant
8. Money - Yes
9. Watarasebashi - Chisato Moritaka
10. Un Gato en la Oscuridad - Roberto Carlos

Sadly no one has done a vid of #3 or I'd link to it; that song by itself made me get the soundtrack.

*sigh* I miss that show.

#9 was recently redone by one of the Morning Musume gals, but I likes the original better, lame video and all.

[ QUOTE ]
*I* am the one who sent lady K the recipe. And well I made up this decently sized batch to make about 2-3lbs of shwarma. Not for teeny recipes that's for sure. The proportions are each tablespoon = 1 part make sense?

I only use pre-ground spices..because that's all I can find..

[/ QUOTE ]

Thanks for the elaboration. I freaked when I first read it since freshly ground cardomom is a bit overpowering.

I'll give it a stab soon, since it seems like stabbing season...

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Nice work as usual to the City Scoop krewe.

Question to LadyK on the shawarma recipe: 3 tbsp of cardamom? The other ingredients seemed pretty reasonable, but that appeared to me to be excessive. Holler if you see this and can elaborate.

[/ QUOTE ]

I generally don't test or try the "Recipe of the Week" submissions. I will ask the recipes originator if this is too much. Thanks for pointing that out.

LadyK

[/ QUOTE ]

Thanks much. My guess is 3 cardomom pods based on other recipes that use those spices. Looking forward to trying it.

Nice work as usual to the City Scoop krewe.

Question to LadyK on the shawarma recipe: 3 tbsp of cardamom? The other ingredients seemed pretty reasonable, but that appeared to me to be excessive. Holler if you see this and can elaborate.

[ QUOTE ]
...Faultline? It's supposed to be a 15-25 zone now, but my level 20 Storm Defender can't Trick or Treat there.

[/ QUOTE ]

A pal pointed out after I tried that it is daylight there. I /bugged it. Hoping for an update. That is certainly a zone I'd like to ToT with a lot of characters given its level range.