Starget

Centinull, the BIG problem with that is that every new toon created on a account automatically gets the same vet rewards. How many complete sets of level 1 IO recipes do we need? Even considering witholding claiming of rewards till appropriate levels, you would have characters gaining something for nothing. I respect Vet rewards and love mine dearly, but 90% of the rewards are pure flavor, every reward that truly effects game balance is deservedly contested, and IO recipes as rewards would effect balance.

umm, no on the vet thing.
I have 6 vet badges and i DONT WANT TO HEAR THE EXTREMELY LEGIT WHINNING THAT WOULD CAUSE

the only manner in which to guarantee rarity is to limit access.

I would rather have a high chance of obtaining a rare item from doing something I can only do once, than have a minimal chance of ever seeing one at all unless I devote enough time to make my game a job

Good luck to those who wish to see an easily obtained quickly nerfed ability. I hope you lose, but then I liked the random flight poses.

the only people this is truly a problem with are those who have to have 'em all

the solution is the same for all collectors of any item in any reality.
Pay for it

Once you make the collectable rare common, it is no longer collectable.
Anyone noticed the price on Death of Superman lately? It reflects the insane availability. Easy to obtain collection pieces are worthless.

The system will have rarity whether people want it or not. At least the 4 Pool System allows you to localize your search for your particularly desired rare. You only have to delve into Pool B for this and Pool D for that. We dont even know what will be where yet. Combining the pools decreases your chance of getting what you desire at any given time on those toons who do have available story arcs. Creating more paths to Pool B ruins the entire rarity idea.

Dear devs,
PLEASE, Keep the Pool B story arc plan.

Absolutely correct, Korith, except for a few exceptions

1) the 50s who don't care
2) the 50's who will refuse to "dirty their play style" with PLing
3) the 50s who actually want level 20-30 sets (but they can just stop the PL early)
4) the people who don't have an extra slot on their server, and refuse to open a second account

The saddest thing is that if the complaints actually get the Devs to provide a repeatable manner in which to obtain Pool B recipes, the same people who complained now will then complain that some one else is farming them, except of course, for those who are complaining in an attempt to preemptively assist their own farming enterprise.

it isnt, by itself, but added with other temp pets it definitely adds power.

I never had much use for Shivans myself. Half the time they seem to attack the completely wrong target or no target at all. When I see players pull them out vs AVs, they either don't attack or die quite rapidly. Their path finding skills are laughable if you want to use them for more than one mob. Just because I discount them doesn't mean they aren't useful though.

If people really want to nerf SHivans, there is one simple, finite answer. Make them nonrepeatable content. IE, it doesnt matter how many times you run the Shivan Shard outdoor PvP task, each character could only get the temp power 1 time in its lifetime.

I want a '57 Chevy. GM decided they wanted to limit the availablility of '57 Chevies by stopping production. I now have to decide if my desire for a '57 Chevy can overcome the financial burden of obtaining one.

Sounds like Pool B

In order to get some of those nifty set bonuses, you will have to suboptimally slot powers > self nerf your own power. Each set reads like "This is what we wanted when we made ED." Not only is this going to limit the usefullness of the slotted power, it is going to limit where you can place slots.

"I normally don't slot SJ, but if I put 3 slots there I can get a 1% HP bonus. Hmm, do really need 3 damages slotted in any attack?"

Chasing the set bonuses for optimization is like chasing your own tail. It probably won't get you very far. If you do maage to catch it, you have just bitten yourself on the tail.


Remember:
1) Most sets will be completely and wholly available via Pool A
2) We, the players, have zero idea hopw many recipes Pool B, C, or D will contain
3) We, the players, have zero idea which recipes Pool B, C, or D will contain

I personally understand and agree with a retroactive reward. I will not complain if it doesn't happen though. My 50s don't have any need for additional power (I throw all the HOs I get into the SG bin already, since 5-10 HOs is all I have any desire for on any of my toons) and my toons still trying for lvl 50 have the opportunity to get Pool B access via any unfinished arcs once i9 goes Live. Heck, I will even continue closing arcs in the meantime.

The PvP reward from SC is something I would not have a problem with, but don't see happening considering the fact that anti-PvP seems to be the squeekiest wheel. Heaven forbid anyone have a good reason to try something new. At least bounty actually requires PvP to achieve, rather than running through a PvP Zone with a big white flag and trumpets calling for every PvP butmuntcher to jump you while running from one random location to another in order to appease badge greed.

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Ultimus,
I have a question.
How many TFs/SFs would you say you can do this with?

I ask, because if you can do this with a significant number of TFs/SFs, you could bypass any time limitation set by the devs.

Also, if you can do this with several alts, you can bypass time limits that way.

The LRSF is a prime example of how ineffectual time limits to rewards can be. Many individuals and SGs farm the LRSF. They just rotate through alts. I know of players with 10+ level 50 villains who run the LRSF once daily per toon. Ultimately, there is would be little difference without the time limit. If this happens on a low population server like Pinnacle, I imagine it happens on every other server as well.

Whether they would have to switch toons or switch TFs/SFs, farmers will still farm.

*At best you can only slow them down slightly. Any mechanic that would increase rarity of items just provides more incentive for farmers to do their thing.

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Any of them. Which actually just created an idea into my head...

What if TF/SF rewards were "No Drop?" Simply put these rewards could not be traded. World of Warcraft and other MMORPGs do this on a lot of instanced items.

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Well, since you can do this to all TFs/SFs (and that must be an exageration as I have done all TFs and know for a fact that SHard TFs are not capable of being soloed do to simo clicks) there is ZERO way in which the Devs can actually nerf your ability to farm Pool C (you would simply circumvent any time limit by switching Alts/TFs), aside from making TFs/SFs nonrepeatable content. Considering the outcry to Pool B, I doubt that will happen. Even if they were to nerf Shivans, it is quite ossible for you to lay out multiple Boss level pets from temp powers, resulting in a similar effect (IE Amy + Heavy + Warwolf). Congratz, you are unnerfable

Ultimus,
I have a question.
How many TFs/SFs would you say you can do this with?

I ask, because if you can do this with a significant number of TFs/SFs, you could bypass any time limitation set by the devs.

Also, if you can do this with several alts, you can bypass time limits that way.

The LRSF is a prime example of how ineffectual time limits to rewards can be. Many individuals and SGs farm the LRSF. They just rotate through alts. I know of players with 10+ level 50 villains who run the LRSF once daily per toon. Ultimately, there is would be little difference without the time limit. If this happens on a low population server like Pinnacle, I imagine it happens on every other server as well.

Whether they would have to switch toons or switch TFs/SFs, farmers will still farm.

*At best you can only slow them down slightly. Any mechanic that would increase rarity of items just provides more incentive for farmers to do their thing.

I like Pool B. I love that the current plan for Pools rewards various styles of play. I love some rewards being restricted to non-farmable content. The only thing that would make me like Pool B more is retroactive rewards.

People might think I am a crazy dev loving elitist masochist, but I truly do like the 4 Pool plan. I wont even be likely to ever utilize Auction Houses. I almost never run TFs or trials. I have not run a single villain SF aside from 1 time through the RSF. I hunt down and run arcs. I only run mayhem/safeguard material in order to find more arcs. TY Devs for rewarding my style of play.

People might want to reconsider complaints about 50s not being capable or rerunning level 1-25 content. It is unlikely a level 50 would utilize a level 15 recipe considering the %enhancement. It is more likely that established 50s would place this material on low level alts. The devs have not been very encouraging of 50s bank rolling lowbies in the past. I don't see that changing.

The devs said "No Flashback for you!"
The have said this with every Issue release.
They say "Roll an alt if you want to experience otherwise blocked content."
I don't see them relenting on this point.

There is an equivelant to Retroactive Rewards to many people who outleveled arc granting cotacts.

Qued arcs.

Unless you never opened on of the arc granting contacts for some reason (such as PLing or being a didicated team player) or are an arc completionist (such as myself and Pax and others) you very well might have the ability to go back and complete outleveled arcs. Open you contact window. There is a very nifty little book symbol next to any contact who has an available Qued arc for you. Regardless of your current level, you can run that qued arc to completion.

Now we have a reduced number of characters unable to earn Pool B rewards thru normal play. The Dedicated competionists, the dedicated teammates, and the dedicated PLers. The dedicated PLers and teammates have one significant advantage over the dedicated completionists: they are likely still capable of opening the story arcs available for level 45+ content.

Snitch, I did not mean to imply that PLers are the only people who missed completing arcs. I did mean to point out that the PLers who do have qued arcs available are very much going to be in a position of attaining the rewards, while those players who were conscious arc completers will not.

The toon I used as an example of having qued arcs was not PLed to 50. She was an emp/psi defender and required almost constant teaming to accomplish anything but receive debt. Many people have qued arcs. There have been request threads for "Drop Contact" ever since "Drop Mission" went into effect and very likely even b4 that.

Pointing out the PL work-around makes it more likely for PL hating Devs to take notice.

I have no idea who first mentioned the click to accept option, I just thought it was brilliant and should be backed up. Considering that there are very few available arcs each level increment (generally 5 or so), it is not asking much to ask for each souvenir to come with a recipe reward. It would not be dificult to make the accept recipe reward exclusive for recipes. Even if there is only a random chance of getting a Pool B drop with arc completion, the click could then be tied to granting you a random chance of obtaining the recipe equal to normal arc completion. Similar to clicking the Winter Event mystery gift cold randomly reward a jet pack or just the basic prestige/influence reward, the click option culd give you a random chance of being awarded a "TY for clicking" message or an actual recipe.

There is no real need to remove the standard arc competion DO/SO/Inf reward considering the effort put into actually completing the arc. We have never seen a mass herd of farmers running to 20 mission deep arcs in order to get a single SO. The time sink invlolved coupled with the nonrepeatable nature of arcs is detrimental to farming. This might change. Farmers might very well turn to PLing multiple recycled character slots in order to attain Pool B recipes. It depends on how much the recipes sell for once the market stabilizes. retroactive rewards inhibits fabricated inflation, since the market for the IOs will have a lower demand.

One thing many people are not considering:

Unless you have made a very conscious effort to complete all your story arcs, it is highly probable that you do have the ability to return to these arcs after outleveling the contact in order to complete them.

I had to do this in order to attain the Statesman's Pal arc on my main. My main ended up having to return to 10 outleveled contacts and run outleveled content b4 Mariah Jenkins would allow me to access the arc I actually wanted to do. This means that at one point I was running Atta as a level 50 empath/psi defender.

All it generally takes to be able to do this is to have run missions for an arc granting contact up to the point of being able to call that contact. Sometimes, it only takes having run a single mission for the contact. This means that it is highly likely that PL toons might have low level arcs qued alongside their level 45+ arcs still being runnable. Many Plers find the occasional need to run solo when noone is available to PL them and they wish to play, but it is unlikely that they soloed through an arc that is 15+ missions long to completion. Toons that started contacts without finishing the contracts' arc have zero need for a flashback implement.

I think that the suggestion to allow a click to accept repice reward button to the souvenirs would be fantastic. It would allow a retroactive reward without people having to worry that they may not have room in inventory for all the available rewards.

RV AVs are more powerful than normal AVs. They are built to be zone events. It doesnt change the fact that very few MMs would ever surprise me in their wupp arseness.

There is an easy way to curb inflation. Make the Auction House bid only, without a minimum bid, require all transactions on bids occur thru the Auction House (to place an Item up for bid it must be handed over and winning bids must ay the Auction House) and link bidding and selling to global handles. Inflation requires setting an artificially high cost. Supply and demand means that any market will eventually become flooded reducing the value of the goods. The only way that people can become dependant upon outside agents for in-game items is if they allow it to happen. Unfortunately, many people fail to utilize the power at there command to achieve their desires and simultaneously fall to the demands of greed. Ultimus can do much mor than I have a desire to, but that doesnt mean I, in any way ,shape, or form require IOs or recipes. I have yet to be required to be HO slotted on any of my 6 lvl 47+ toons in any PvE or PvP situation.

Ultimately we have to take responsibility for ourselves and stop worrying about who has more than we do. Someone will always have more. Someone will always have less. It is not what you have, it is what you make of it. (This comes from over 30 years of RL experience of poverty. If I could hande being homeless in my youth, I can handle not having any ub3rl337l007.)

actually they were both necro/dark I believe. Auto hit AoE debuffs, AoE heals, and an extra pet with AoE debuffs and heals and all the pets deal less resisted damage (nightwidow owned them tho). Of course they both utilized Arachnos Heavies, but neither had a Shivan. MMs talk about soloing AVs all the time in their threads, with and without shivans, nukes, or any other temp powers.

The problem, Ultimus, is that NOT ANYBODY CAN DO THIS. For example: Very few defenders would be capable. Heck, very few defenders are capable of even obtaining the Shivans without support.

It is not just your reliance upon the Shivan that allows your actions. You also utilize a full tray of inspirations. This offsets the damage mitigation your build sacrifices for higher damage, especially if you do so with a built up fury bar. Are we supposed to welcome a nerf of inspirations, fury, and Shivans to keep you in check. I think that would be required at minimum. The only other option would be to buff the AVs which are already more than some 8 man teams can take. (Granted, those teams didnt build for the AV, but not every layer out there knows to do so) How many HO/SHOES do you have slotted?

You say you have done this in the past with a stone/ss tank. I would imagine you utilize rage and full tray of damage inspitations since that build has the best defense in the game.

Next you claim to be working on doing surprising things with a Mastermind. There is very little that anyone could do in PvE with a mastermind that would surprise me. I have witnessed a team of 2 MMs defeat a mob of 3 AVs in Recluse Victory. Properly built, an MM can unleash more pain than any other AT. That is the reason MMs have the least amount of HP in the game.

I do not consider what you do to be an exploit. You are not utilizing any bug in the system that I am aware of. You are simply min/maxing and using tactics.

Many other players feel they need the Shivans to even compete, especially dominators & stalkers wishing to join an RSF and defenders trying to solo.

That you, and others, can rapidly achieve a recipe reward intended for a dedicated team just means that the market for those rewards will drop faster, allowing the less capable player of affordably purchasing them.I humbly offer to hold your cape and hand you a spade while you farm away. Your skill and dedication are beyond me, but your supply will eventually overload the demand, at which point my 5 inf is ready willing and capable.

Actually Pax, you seem to have just described 90% of pvp builds. Swift + Hurdle + Combat Jumping is a standard among PvP FotM builds. (left out sprint since everyone has it and the original suppression suggestion was ammended to include suppression of sprint)

I would not oppose turning off travels in PvP zones, personally (possible nerf to jousting/kiting), but it will never fly (excuse the pun). The idea to limit Shivans to one use items is much better. Now the uber solo build has to spend that extra ten minutes of setup every time he wants a shivan. Getting this past low RSF desired builds is a different matter.

The simple fact is, Ultimus will find a way to do what he does regardless of how the devs try to prevent it. The act of the devs tring to prevent it, is actually possibly likely increase his joy, or at least the joy of those who live to break the system.

I would be extremely surprised if the non-repeatable nature of story arcs was not the foundation for the idea of Pool B in the first place. Non-repeatable content is highly dificult to farm. Even the work around of creating alt factories will take such a serious time sink that the "rabid PLer" will be unable to commit the time, especially since the low level IOs will be slightly more useful than a generic training enhancement.

Look at the posted sets. Can you imagine the anguish a PLer will suffer trying to rationalize having only 1 or 2 damage enhancements in a power just to pick up a 1% HP increase? Or double slot flight with end redux? The sets seem designed to entice and torment. In a world where people don't train charcters until they reach level 50 in order to have access to accolades regrdless of the level to which they exemp, this system is going to have shockwaves on PLing that reach to the moon. In order to gain access to the story arc awards, players will have to train up to a level where the contact will speak to them in order to grant the missions. I can't wait to see what brilliant strategies the PL crowd will counter with.

Allowing such an easy out as the infinitely repeatable Safeguard/Mayhem missions seems extremely unlikely to me. This hands rare loot right to the PL crowd for doing exactly what they are currently doing, which the devs have been fighting for over a year.

Yes I pointed out the easy zones to align cooperative play in b4. It can be done in just about any zone, though. I have done it in every zone that provides missions on both sides of the game. Some zones are more difficult, but challenge adds to the feeling of success. That is a mantra the devs seem to subscribe to. They don't appear to want rare items to be overly easy to obtain. It possibly cheapens them.

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Solo the Shadow Shard TFs in under 30 minutes... then you'll have MY respect.

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Particularly the missions that require 4 simultaneous disarms ... (admittedly not as many as claim they do), a few more of those would kill soloing TFs.

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They can take every one of my simo click story arc missions and throw into TFs/trials. I promise I won't mind.

Yes, Tuft_ it can be frustrating at times. Cooperative play definitely discourages SKs. The longer the arc, the more opportunity for skewed mission order.

In this case, the next suggestion for the devs could be to redress Older story arcs. Unfortunately, the devs are learning to provide better content even as we learn to adapt to their ever changing view of the game. Posi has mentioned that he would like to rewrite the Positron TF, but he fears long term subscribers feeling cheated with a perceived cheapened badge. If it is possible to rewrite an entire TF, it is possible to rewrite some of the more tedious story arcs. It should be possible for the devs to somehow tag arcs to play in a set order, for example. These are things to ask the devs to look into. Compromise demands give and take on both ends.

I actually have had significant luck in cooping through the Hollows, Faultline (especially Faultine), Striga, Croatoa, and other zones. But, I look for groups that share my interests and rarely accept blind invites. I have done so via PuGs and a sizable coalition and use of global chat channels.

When life and games throw new things at us, we must adapt, move on, or stagnate.

It is highly possible that the idea for Pool B is partly based on Content players complaints against Power Level players. Providing added incentive for story arc completion adds incentive for cooperative play while furthering active discouragement of PLing.

I do not ask them to run my story arc. I just find it sad that fewer and fewer people are running any story arcs.

Also, if I team with people in the same level range as me, it is fairly easy to run missions shared by multiple members of team. Each teammate has the option of choosing to accept completion of their shared missions upon completion of 1 single version of it. This is the manner in which many people have played CoV since launch. This option has been available to CoH since i8 released. Some people take advantage of the option. Some people don't.

Quite simply, if I dislike what my PuG is doing, I can always leave. I do this when it becomes perceived by me that my goals differ from the group's (IE, only running the highest level teammate's missions,only running paper/radio missions in an attempt to capitalize on easily obtained mission bonuses, etc) These are things I don't enjoy, so I don't participate.

Cooperative story arch completion is similar to running a tf/sf/trial. Form a team looking to run the Frost Fire Arc > Align the team's missions > Get a reward for everyone. It is even simpler than the standard tf/sf/trial in the fact that members may leave/join at any point without disrupting the process. Group breaks up > replace lost members with interested parties. New person wants to join > invite freely if space is available. In this way, even the unsoloable build can complete arcs.

We, the players already have the tools in place to cooperatively complete story arcs. Placing Pool B recipes as the rewards for doing so provides us with incentive.

Dr Brainstorm,
I happen to like the idea that story arcs will have a place in the Invention System. Since the release of Police Band radio missions, I have seen fewer and fewer PuGs running story arcs. This seems to be a nice incentive to get players to actually play content over racing to level 50. Tying a limited number of recipes to story arc completion also increases their rarity. Each character may only complete each arc once. Even the dedicated farmers have to continuously make new alts to run through multiple levels to get to the Hollows/Port Oaks in order to obtain a contact that will offer a story arc containing several hours worth of play to complete. Items from Pool B will likely be the most desired in the game, as Story Arc Completion is the one thing that is not recyclable.

I would like to back up any and all suggestions to retroactively reward IO Pool B recipes for previously completed story arcs. These are already tracked through the souvenir system. Simply reward 1 random recipe for each souvenir. The souvenirs are attached to their specific arc, which have specific levels, so it would be understandable that having Atta's broken tooth (note- not the actual souvenir) would result in a random lvl 19 recipe for the level 50 who ran the arc 3 years ago. this is not "giving 50s something for nothing." Every character with a completed arc would receive a random reward for each souvenir. Those toons with souvenirs have already done the work to obtain the souvenir, why not reward that work with the same chance of a recipe that new story arc completion will obtain. You did it with badges and Veteran Rewards, after all. (EDIT) Tying the Pool B drop to souvenir acquisition would also reduce the likelihood of farmers building a team of 8 to run through Frost Fire jointly completing every mission except the final mission and then running the EB mission 8 consecutive times for 8 consecutive rewards. Instead, people would have good reason to try to line up the entire team's story arc in order to get everyone on the team a reward.

Please reconsider offering Recipes with GM defeats. Our cities are over run by extremely dangerous critters that are ignored by the general super powered community due to a lack of perceived reward for the high level of risk. The dev team might not wish players to farm GMs, but I doubt they want us to blatantly ignore them. As it stands, it is difficult to build a team to fight non-Croatoa GMs (Croatoans being required for a useful accolade) and almost impossible to get a team to take down Paladin (not even a badge for defeating the GM, since the badge is only for preventing his being built in the first place). I would suggest that each member of a team that receives credit for a GM should also receive a guaranteed drop of a common recipe (being from the defeat mobs pool not the story arc/tf/trial pools). This would limit the farming of "easy" rare loot but still reward players for taking the time to persuade Luska to give IP a slight break. People have been requesting some reason to actually fight GMs ever since the AV/GM regen buff. Some mad scientist made these beasties more dangerous, its about time for another mad scientist to figure out a recipe for Luska a'la mode. (tastes great and puts hair on your chest)

even if an ebay economy evolves, who really cares? I have no desire to pay more RL money to enjoy my favorite game than I currently pay in subscription cost. I don't care if someone else does. To me, it is a waste of cash. I don't understand why anyone would engage in real money transfers for something involved in a game, but I could care less if they do.

I PvP with lvl 30s in Sirens Call. Sometimes I win. Sometimes I lose. I don't care. I dont imagine it will be much more difficult to defeat the IO slotted toons than HO slotted toons with the right build. But then I don't spend my life worrying about who has what better stuff than me. Their uberness does not negate my game enjoyment. It is all the more fun to defeat the FotM HO toon when it happens, and defeat costs me nothing.