Star_Of_Africa

Good, evil, neither
Forward and back, they do sway
Ponders, where art thou?

Charged armor shows a Beta point value of .670 while the other defense powers like Fire Shield, Temp Invulnerability and so forth show .067.

Charged Armor should be showing the same 3.0 Alpha and .067 Beta like the others.

After reading the Alt's post I decided to see just how fast I could create a farming story arc. Took two hours to create a four mission arc, complete with a story based on a dev arc in the game and using dev-created critters. I haven't published it, since I have no need to, but I could without being concerned about a GM taking away my arc slot.

I have a demon and Freak farm so I don't need the AE one.

I wasn't complaining. I was simply stating how things are. It will always be more team friendly than solo friendly. If I want the Roman costume, for example, I'll break down and team to get it. But it hasn't been worth it to me to have it. I don't start my toons at level 35, I start them at level 1, so waiting 35 levels to get it is pointless to me.

I don't need the Incarnate system. I already have a slew of tanks that can farm at difficulties set to eight people and barely get scratched. That's good enough for me. That will get me all the shiny enhancements I want.

I just don't expect it to be solo friendly and don't see how they could make it where it was. And quite frankly, I'm not going to feel like a god if I needed help to get those Incarnate levels. That's just me. I'm sure someone can point out where it is required, like the Norse gods of Asgard having to band together to fight the giants of Jotunheim at Ragnarok.

But it won't mean a thing to me if I have to team to get there. Maybe one of my toons will be able to solo that content, if I find work arounds, like soloing TFs. If I can do that, great. If not, I'm not going to care.

But again, I wasn't complaining, just stating things as I see them.

QR

I have a Dell Inspiron with ATI Radeon HD 3200 integrated graphics and it said I qualified for Ultra-Mode. Saying I was shocked would be an understatement of epic proportions.

I'm not even going to believe it will be capable of much since dual boxing didn't work so hot.

I hate to even think how bad the performance would be. Fortunately I could care less about Ultra-Mode. I didn't intend to hover in front of windows admiring my reflection or stand in one place watching the shadows move as the sun passed over.

I'm just the opposite. I don't care about the feedback and the first 5 to 10 ratings are what I look at. If I'm seeing 3s the arc gets pulled. If it's 4 and 5 stars, I keep it there. But it won't stay there long because I only have 3 slots available and I'll be changing arcs occasionally, and as a result, losing the ratings.

I don't expect to see a Dev's Choice and Hall of Fame isn't going to happen in all likelihood, so I don't worry about feedback and just have fun creating stories so someone can complain about how wordy I get. I can't please everyone and I'm just telling stories for whoever likes that, knowing full well most players don't want to do a lot of reading.

I even have 'Skip this if you don't want to read' in my arcs.

If you like the story, great. If not, that's fine too. I can't please everyone and don't try. Some may like what I do, most probably won't. LOL. Too much reading, not enough tickets and XP.

I like that idea. My problem seems to be my arcs tend to be a little wordy and not everyone likes that. My lowest ratings are for that reason primarily. I got a few 3s and feedback saying that when I got several 4s and 5s because of the story and characters.

I'm not going to change it when most of them like it and a handful don't, so I can't win. But something like you suggested might help.

I had that happen this morning. Logged off last night with 35 ratings and sitting at 5 stars, logged on this morning and it was 43 ratings and 4 stars. Had been on page 1 of the search for villainous, but immediately fell into obscurity. I saw a three and a couple of fours yesterday and figured that ride at 5 was going to end pretty quick.

Sure enough, it did. Oh well, it happens.

I recently cancelled my billing since I found the game to be more frustrating than fun, only to find I wasn't able to log on in time to tell some friends which game I would now be playing and where they could find me if they played. So I paid another $15 so I could log in and tell them. It was worth it so I could be kind enough to tell them and not have them wonder where I was.

I am so glad I did that. I was able to download the new patch and found out the empowerment stations were just what I expected them to be. A joke. 54 pieces of Rikti salvage to have a 15 minute 'Increase attack speed' buff? Help for the little SGs? Not hardly.

It was bad enough the devs turned SGs into slave labor camps to pay the ridiculous prices and even more ridiculous rent, now they've added something else that's equally as ridiculous. It was worth $15 bucks to come back and see how much more they could screw up a perfectly good game.

Excellent idea. It isn't going to hurt anything to make the free plot 8X12 and would benefit everyone without someone feeling the smaller SGs are being catered to.

I will hope these empowerment stations are 'affordable'. I will hope they are 'useful'. I happen to agree with Zubenelgenubi. Their track record doesn't give me much hope. You can find plenty of posts where people think the devs must be smoking something if they think base costs and prices are 'affordable'.

That is all I read into Zubenelgenubi's posts. He has his doubts as to whether or not these will be affordable based on previous observations. Same here. I'm not going to blindly believe these will be affordable. Or even useful. Teleporters and rez rings haven't been all that useful to our SG.

Inspiration storage will be nice since the healing badges to get dispensers are so damn hard to get for small SGs. I would have to do 65 Hami raids to do enough healing to get one after seeing I did 150,000 points in last night's raid. And yes, I know, I'm not supposed to be alone in getting that badge. Small SGs of ten people don't have nothing but defenders or controllers with healing abilities. Occasionally they have something like blasters, scrappers and tanks who don't heal. So inspiration storage will be useful in that regard.

You believe the devs will have the common sense to set the prices right and won't screw things up because these are meant for small SGs. I hope you're right, but I don't have that kind of faith in them. I normally try to be patient and give them the benefit of the doubt, but anymore I feel like I'm paying $15 a month to be one of their beta testers.

I hope you're right, but I'm not going to be as trusting as you are.

I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for that, but I'm old and cynical.

Of course, I have yet to hear a good reason not to have something like that. It hasn't stopped anyone from dropping influence on alts or lowbies, and I haven't noticed my toons being invincible if I start them out with 100,000.

Alright, I'm relaxed and I joined a team when I was invited to take down Jack, after hearing it was seen. No location was given, I told a friend I would let him know if it spawned, so went looking for it and found it after the original person was killed by Jack. Someone saw me there, thought I was fighting Jack, invited me to the team. I wasn't fighting, I was healing my friend who showed up and got hit.

I was playing a level 10 Illusion/Empathy Controller and the person who invited me didn't see what level I was. So here I am on this team, I'm not Sidekicked, I'm doing 29 points of healing with Healing Aura and 57 with Heal Other, while remaining unseen with Superior Invisibility.

When it was over, he got 137 xp and the Giant Killer Badge. The last time my level 31 Illusion/Kinetic Controller fought Jack she got 1500 xp and paid off 1500 debt. Solo, so no badge. But since I was basically called a fool for not accepting the team invite, I accepted and did the best I could to help the team. Had things been going badly I would have asked for an SK, but it went rather well.

So I played this the way it was designed to be played, teamed up, got the badge. The question is now, which of my characters would actually deserve the badge? The one that got 3,000 xp (including the debt), and actually made a difference with 327 point heals, power and speed siphoning, three decoys hammering at Jack and a Spectral Terror keeping Red Caps and the like terrorized and not attacking others, or the one with the 29 and 57 point heals?

Maybe both. One blaster was frozen in terror and taking damage and I was hitting him with heals as fast as possible to keep him alive until he could get free of it. But 57 points doesn't go far on someone who's over level 30.

I agree no system is perfect, and I have no idea how you could make it more fair, but I'm confident a lot of people would see that badge as nothing more than a joke now, as I do. It isn't where it should be, in my opinion.

And the only reason he was there was because he got Combat Jumping and was able to get to the limb on the tree for the Ensorcelled badge. Couldn't begin to fight anything there, but because of Superior Invisibility he was able to travel throughout that zone getting the exploration badges and the Alumnus badge from the plaques. That and it's a fun zone and I often have my toons there to watch the fights between the Cabal and Red Caps in Grim Vale while I take a coffee break.

I just did on two occasions after starting this post. Three of us took Eochai down, might have been a fourth, not sure. It was great fun. I still didn't team. Then helped another team bring down both Jack and Eochai. Fun again, no team. I don't need no stinking badges, as someone wrote, I was simply saying I don't believe the system is fair and gave an example.

If it's supposed to be the ones that do the most damage that get it, why should you be expected to heal someone else and potentially keep yourself from getting it? But on the last two times I did heal anyone near them, hit some with speed boost to recover end faster and attack faster, and by siphoning power others and myself were able to do more damage. I said what I had to say and went back to doing it as I always do it. For the fun, not the badges, and we worked together as a team, just not on a team.

I don't expect to see things change, and if I want the badges I'll get them. Teamwork doesn't require you to be 'on a team'. If you don't agree with something it won't change unless you speak up. I made my opinion known and it will end on this.

I'm not trying to solo Jack or any other monster, that would be futile and I know it. I don't have a problem with teamwork. I actually enjoy fighting Luska with a lot of other players. It's quite a sight seeing 20 or more people working together to bring him down. It must be fun or my main wouldn't have died 21 times and acquired the debt that comes with it.

I know I'm not going to do enough damage alone to get the badge, even if I reach level 50. Right now it's at 29. It's the idea I have a problem with. I can take my main into that fight, solo, set the healing aura on automatic, give everyone around her healing, regeneration aura, recovery aura, hit someone with adrenaline boost, fortitude and clear mind, making it possible for everyone around her to continue the attack, and that would constitute teamwork, even if I never fired off a shot, which would amount to Neutrino Bolt and X-Ray Beams, hardly known as damage dealing powers. It takes quite awhile for her to take out seven Level 34 Sorceress of the Winds and she's a 38. But it sure is fun watching all that lightning fly around.

I simply just don't agree with the 'you have to be teamed' concept if someone is actively in the fight giving their best effort. Not just me, but everyone. If I want the badge bad enough I'll join a team and then hope we do enough damage to get it, but I simply just don't agree with the present system.

Let me clarify this. I was invited to a team twice. I declined the invites because I don't believe I should be forced to team just to get a badge. If someone makes a contribution then they should get a badge regardless of whether they are teamed or not. I watched a level 30 Scrapper get up close and personal with Jack once, take damage, inflict damage, and not get a badge out of it. He took the risks and made a contribution to the effort, but didn't get a badge. I have seen people die trying to beat him. No badge, but they get the debt.

I didn't get this off the Internet, I saw it happen. I also watched someone who located Sally working to get a team together only to have someone swoop in and hit her before they could get the team together, which kept them from getting her. I can understand the 'fly-by and run to get the badge' reasoning, but I can't agree with the 'you have to be teamed if you want a badge' reasoning.

Alright, Jack of Irons was located near the throne in Croatoa earlier just before servers went down for maintenance. Four people there to take him down. I only saw two others but a blaster may have been out of view. I know there was one there before the fight started.

Since the badge system doesn't award everyone who fights with a badge, only the person or team that does the most damage, which makes fighting Jack and others an every man for himself deal, unlike Luska and the Paladin construction, if you aren't being hurt and don't need healing, are you expected to fire off a healing spell to help someone else who may get the badge? Like Transfusion if you're a kinetic and it won't affect you if you're away from the target?

Since this system is more 'survival of the fittest' mentality, and not a cooperative effort, which would be more in keeping with City of Villains, 'no honor amongst thieves' comes to mind, why should someone heal if they want the badge, too?

Four of us took Jack in Irons down, my character picked up 2480 XP, but didn't get a badge because it was solo. My toon was an Illusionist/Kinetic controller, had a Spectral Terror and three Decoys fighting, I was using my Blind and Spectral Wounds, the best I could do where fighting was concerned, sapped his strength and speed with siphon powers, and made a contribution to defeating Jack, even if it was a minor contribution compared to the contribution the other three were making.

Note: To my knowledge no one died fighting him. At least not the two I could see and would have been affected by any healing I could have provided. I also didn't hit them with speed boost since that could have helped them do more damage faster.

So, is this what the game designers want? Every hero for himself to get a badge or were they expecting heroes to band together and cooperate like needs to be done with Luska? My main has died 21 times fighting Luska and got the badge after the first death. Why? Because fighting Luska is fun and it takes a lot of people to do it. She's an empath defender and a lot of green numbers are seen when the healing aura goes off.

If there's a good reason for this system, I won't have a problem taking the time to heal others and help in that way, but the current system doesn't promote cooperation, it promotes an 'every man or team for himself' mentality. Great for villains, but is that the 'vision' Statesman has for heroes?

Note: Before the battle I deceived a couple of Red Cap Hooligans and they cut down nine other Rascals and Hooligans. No XP, but it was nine fewer villains everyone had to fight. Spectral Terror was keeping minions and the like from attacking anyone near Jack. I did work to make it easier for all of us by doing so, just in case someone feels the word 'griefing' should be used here.