TerraDraconis

These slotting guides your doing are great.

<AR>

Thank you for the feedback. All of the you, your, you're problems should now be fixed. And if there is anything to confusing let me know. The intent is to give you the basics to understand the system

I was not sure about the blue. So we will see how green works.

Guide: Introduction to Inventions

Here is the updated version of my beginners introduction. Oh and you may want to unsticky the 0.5 version of that guide as it is vastly out of date now.

Edit: fixed URL

A BEGINNERS GUIDE TO INVENTIONS

By Terradraconis

Advanced Invention Basics

The invention system can be very complex as you learn the advanced features. Here I will go over these features of the system leaving detailed discussions for other guides. My intent here is simply to give you an overview of what inventions can do.

Invention Salvage

Invention salvage drops can be magic based or technology based. Some groups only drop magic salvage, some only technology salvage, and some both. You can right click on a foe and select info to see a list of salvage that foe drops. If you have any recipes in your inventory then you will see if that foe drops any salvage you can use for those recipe.

In addition salvage drops come in level based groups or bands of salvage. Each band of salvage is required to make recipes in that level range. So to make a level 30 IO you will need salvage from Band 2.

*Band 1 - Level 4 - 25
*Band 2 - Level 20 - 39
*Band 3 - Level 35 - 54

Your chance of receiving an invention salvage drop varies depending on what rank of foe you are fighting. Minions have an 8% chance, Lieutenants and Snipers have a 10.64% chance, Bosses and Elite Bosses have a 25% chance, and Archvillains that drop rewards have a 43.22% chance of dropping invention salvage.

Invention salvage comes in three rarities; Common, Uncommon, and Rare. When invention salvage drops you have a 78.5% chance of getting common salvage, a 17.86% chance of getting uncommon salvage, and a 3.57% chance of getting rare salvage.

Additionally you can trade with others or buy them from a consignment house. You can sell invention salvage to most stores or at the consignment house.

Recipes

Recipes come in four different pools.
* Pool A - General enemies, this is any foe you defeat in combat. The exception is Giant Monsters and Archvillians that do not give any drops. The level of the recipe that drops is tied to the level of foe you fight. Recipes start dropping from level 10 foes.
* Pool B - Completing missions, any time you complete a mission there is a 10% chance of receiving a recipe from this pool.
* Pool C - Task Force or Strike Force - on completing a TF or SF there is a 100% chance of receiving a drop from this pool.
* Pool D - Trials, on completing the trial there is a 100% chance of receiving a drop from this pool.

Most of the recipes are in Pool A, a much smaller group of recipes are found in Pools B, C, & D. Pool A contains all Common IO's, most set IO's, all costume items, and all temp powers. Pools C & D contain most of the Unique recipes.

Pool A drops from foes. Minions drop 2.66667%, Lieutenants & Snipers drop 5.333333%, Bosses & Elite Bosses drop 7.999999%, and Archvillains who give rewards drop 100%.

The rarity of the pool A drops is common recipes 78.05%, uncommon recipes 19.51%, and rare recipes 2.44%.

One last point is that the recipe pools change every 5 levels. This means that what recipes drop from each of the pools is different in each of these bands. 10 - 14, 15 - 19, 20 - 24, 25 - 29, 30 - 34, 35 - 39, 40 - 44, 45 - 50.

You can also trade for recipes or buy them from the consignment houses.

IO Sets

In addition to the Common IO's another category exists called sets. This is where IO's become complex. A set consists of three to six matched enhancements. Each enhancement in the set is different than the others and there are special bonuses associated with slotting two or more of the set. Further there exists a subcategory of Set IO generally referred to as Special IOs.

For my first example here is a set with only three enhancements one of them a special one.

Freebird:
* (A) Endurance
* (B) Fly
* (C) +Stealth {Unique} [Special IO]

Set Bonus:
* (2) + 8% regeneration
* (3) + increase maximum health by 1.5%

You may only slot one of each member of a set. That is why the Freebird example has the A, B, C in it. You can only slot one of each in the same power. The {Unique} indicates that you can only slot one +Stealth IO in your character. So if I slotted Hover with the full Freebird set I could only put Freebird(A) & (B) in flight. Fortunately there is another flight set I could use to fill in any extra slots I might have in flight.

The Set Bonuses are a special feature of sets. What the (2) and (3) indicate is how many IO's of that set I need to slot in a power to gain that bonus. For example I could slot B & C in a hover and gain +8% regeneration. I could also slot A & C or A & B to gain the same bonus. If I slot all three in the same power I will gain both bonuses thus having a boost of 1.5% to my maximum health and +8% to my regeneration rate. Set Bonuses stack up to 5 of the same type so I could have up to a +40% regeneration bonus just from +8% bonuses stacking. Additional gain can be had through stacking up to 5 of other ranked bonuses. I.e. 5 5% bonuses for a total of +65% regeneration. One last small note, Set Bonuses are not subject to ED. They are global applying to your character or every power you have as appropriate and being added to the powers percentage bonus after ED calculations are done on it.

Special IOs are an unusual category of IO's within sets. There are some special ones like the above +Stealth bonus. There also ones that give a global bonus to hit, defense, regeneration, or recovery. Any of these state that they have a 120 second duration. The way this works is that if the IO is slotted in an always on power then the effect is always on. If it is slotted in a toggle power then it remains in effect as long as the toggle is on and for 120 seconds after the power is turned off. Last if it is slotted into a click power it will last for 120 seconds after the power is clicked. The other category of special IO is the proc or process IO. These add an additional power or effect that has a percentage chance of going off when the power it is slotted in is used. These generally are slotted into an attack.

For a second example lets use the PBAoE Set Cleaving Blow. This is an uncommon level 10 - 53 Pool A set.

Cleaving Blow:PBAoE: 10-53: (A) Acc/Dam; (B) Dam/End; (C) Dam/Rech; (D) Acc/Rech: (2)+ 1% Recover; (2)+1.25 Energy Defense; (3)+1% Damage

This translates into 4 set IO's and 3 bonuses. You gain the first bonus when two of the set are slotted. When fully slotted at level 30 you gain the following bonuses.

*Accuracy: (L30) 21.8 + 21.8 = 43.6% | (L50) 53.0%%
*Damage: (L30) 21.8 + 21.8 + 21.8 + 1 = 66.4% | (L50) 80.5%
*Endurance: (L30) 21.8% | (L50) 26.5%
*Recharge: (L30) 21.8 + 21.8 = 43.6% | (L50) 53.0%
*Recovery: +1%
*Energy Defense: +1.25%
*Damage Bonus: +1% - Note added to the above damage bonus.

Ideal use of this would be to add a fifth slot and put another damage or better yet another Acc/Dam or Dam/End IO from a different set, Multi-Strike would be a good choice, to gain best use of this. If you look above while it is a touch short on damage it gains over a matching 1 Acc/3 Dam SO slotting with extra accuracy, endurance, and recovery. And for the addition of one slot you can bring the power easily in line with the expected bonus level while gaining the additional bonuses.

This is where the system becomes incredibly complex, how you mix and match Set IO's, Hamidon IO's, and SO's will give varying levels of bonuses. Another simple example would be an a different alternate slotting to 1 accuracy and 3 damage. We will use level 30 again and 4 slots. Slot 1 Accuracy 34.8, 2 damage 69.6%, 1 Acc/Dam set IO 21.8%/21.8%. This gives us a 56.6% Accuracy and 91.2% Damage. Compare this to the 33.3% Accuracy and 95% bonus for 1 Acc/3 Dam SOs. This allows you to reach very close to the 2 Acc/3 Dam slotting favored by some. And again the bonuses improve with IO's as you use higher level ones, additionally mixing in Set IO's allows an amazing amount of flexibility for your final build.

Personal Salvage Storage

Issue 9 introduced the ability to use the vault service to store salvage for you. They are found in Pocket D and Generally near consignment houses and Universities.

Consignment House

The consignment houses are a way to trade salvage, recipes, inspirations, and enhancements between players. They also sell a one shot temporary power that permits you to teleport to any consignment house. It costs 5% of the price you set to list an item for sale. You do not get a refund on this unless you sell the item, then you receive a refund but are charged a 5% fee instead. Items and bids are listed for up to 60 days if you do not login to confirm your self. After that they can become lost.

As you gain levels and certain badges your number of buy and sell slots increase. Also you can put stacks of buy or sell orders into the system.

Memorization

One last aspect that I will cover is memorization. This is the ability to permanently learn common IO's. There are 5 level ranges 10, 15 - 20, 25 - 30, 35 - 40, 45 - 50. Within these ranges are 9 groupings you can learn.

*Group 1 - Defense debuff, ToHit debuff, taunt, and confuse
*Group 2 - Heal
*Group 3 - Defense Buff, Damage Resist, and intangibility
*Group 4 - Sleep, Snare, Hold, Stun, Immobilize, Fear
*Group 5 - Endurance Modification and Endurance Reduction
*Group 6 - Recharge Reduction and Interrupt Reduction
*Group 7 - Accuracy and ToHit Buff
*Group 8 - Damage and Knockback
*Group 9 - Run Speed, Jump distance, Fly speed, and Range

It generally requires you to make 10 of a group to master that group for that level range. For the 2 level range groups you must do 1/2 from the lower level and 1/2 from the higher level to master the group. The benefit of memorizing a recipe is two fold. First you no longer need a recipe to make it and second the infamy/influence cost to make it is 1/2 of what someone who hasn't mastered that group spends.

Thus a person who has spent the time and effort to master a group only spends 1/2 to 1/4 of the amount someone who has not spends.

Additionally you earn a badge each time you master a group. Thus there are 9 badges for each grouping at each level. Make enough of these and you unlock an Accolade that gives you instant access to a workbench for 5 minutes of every hour.

A BEGINNERS GUIDE TO INVENTIONS

By Terradraconis

This is designed to be an introductory guide to inventions. For extensive details you can check the player resources ParagonWiki and City of Heroes . I have broken this guide into a couple of major sections. Part one covers the basics of inventions and the casual player information. Part two will cover the advanced power gamers information. If you are just wanting to dabble your toes in the system then the casual player information package is for you. The power gamers information package introduces the more advanced aspects of the system. There are and will be plenty of guides that can and will go into this section in far more depths than I intend to cover it.

Invention Basics.

The first important thing is that this entire system is optional. You are free to sell all of the invention salvage and recipes you find at most stores for the infamy or influence. Not using inventions will not make your character weaker than they are now. If you are interested in dabbling with inventions then the casual players section is for you.

To make inventions you need four basic things.
* 1) An Invention salvage.
* 2) A recipe
* 3) A workbench
* 4) Infamy or Influence.

Invention Salvage

You collect invention salvage simply by defeating all foes. Around level 4 you start receiving it and do not have to do anything to actively get it other than defeat foes. This means that you do not need to be in a supergroup or supergroup mode to get invention salvage.

Recipes

You collect these in four different ways but for general players you are only interested in getting them by defeating foes. The common invention origin enhancements are awarded at random for defeating foes. Occasionally you will get other types of recipes that fall into a more advanced category, you can simply sell it or look into how the advanced system works. You can sell any salvage or recipe at most stores or you can try The Black Market or Wentworth's Consignment House.

Workbenches.

These are found at Universities and can be built for a base. These are used to actually make the Invention Origin enhancements. They also permit you to purchase common recipes from them.

Infamy or Influence.

Making an Invention Origin enhancement requires an expenditure of infamy or influence.

Using all of this to make an invention.

Open your recipe menu and click on the name of a recipe you have. It will tell you a couple of things, first what salvage it requires to make, if you have any of the right salvage, and cost. If you hover your pointer over the IO's picture you will see details on how it can be slotted, what types of bonus and the strength of the bonus given by that recipe.

Opening your management screen and hovering the pointer over the bar with the powers name on it will bring up a detailed list of what can be slotted into a power.

Having all of the components you can click on a workbench and simply click create to make the IO. At this point you have something that can slot into a power.

The casual Players Information Package

Keep in mind that the basic system is very simple and consists of just the Common Invention Origin enhancements. They are useful for a couple of basic reasons. First they never change in value. Regular enhancements change in value depending on if your lower level than they are or higher level them they are. If you let a regular enhancement go until you are more than 3 levels higher it stops working and if you are more than 3 levels lower than it you can't use it.

Common IO's have the benefit of never changing their value. This basically means that they never turn red and become useless for you. So if you make a level 15 Accuracy it will always give a 19.2% bonus. If you are level 12 and slot it you gain the 19.2% bonus and if your level 50 and slot the same level 15 Accuracy IO you will gain a 19.2% bonus. This benefit extends to all types of IO's including the set ones. Schedule A IO's range in power from 11.7% at Level 10 up to 42.4% at level 50. Common IO recipes are available in steps of 5, ie. Level 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 35, 40, 45, 50. You will never find a common IO recipe that doesn't have one of these levels on it.

Skipping all the math there are really 2 ranges of IO to worry about. Start with level 15 and freely slot them or higher level ones. If you can bear to wait to replace them until you can use level 30 IO's and then slot them when you get around to it.

I'll go into a little more detail for those who want it now. If you are confused by all the numbers skip this bit. Common IO's increase in power every 5 levels until they reach a very superior 42.2% bonus at level 50. At level 15 IO's are better than matching DO's so it pays you to use them instead of DO's if you can. The level 25 ones are 32.2% bonus versus an even levels SO bonus of 33.3%. Thus the recommendation of replacing the lower level ones starting with level 30 ones for a better bonus. But if you are willing to take the slight percentage hit on power you can just slot the level 25's in new slots and when you get the chance replace other IO's with higher level ones.

That is essentially all you need to know about IO's to just dabble with them. The next part is more advanced material where people start pulling their hair out in confusion.

Side Note

Those other recipes that can be found as regular drops include costume items such as wings. They work essentially the same as making common IO's. But when made they must be collected from The Facemaker or Icon. Only the character who uses the recipe gets the costume item.

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Big surprise, no mention of the EATs or powersets that were supposedly being made and getting spread over I10-I12.

Or the Cathedral of Pain, rofl.

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We have known for a bit that EAT's are not in I10.

Interestingly in the same disclaimer they didn't mention new power sets.

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The only problem with that snippet is that he must have been walking from one end of a zone to the other end. I've timed it before. I can run from a certain Bridge between talk folks and halflings to the main Tall Folk town and do so in under 10 minutes. That's one of the longest paths in the unnamed MMO and he's grossly exaggerating how slow it is.

Then again, he also didn't mention that you have fast travel (basically travel that is faster than using the Pocket D teleporter) available between major cities and a somewhat slower mount travel from town to town.

I also suppose he failed to mention that other forms of teleportation ARE available, just not at the level restricted section the unnamed MMO is at right now until it goes Live.


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Hmm, the fast travel costs 10 silver and at low levels that is to much. probably not an issue at higher levels but at lower ones it is very much an issue.

And I certainly got tired of the trudging back across the zone. It went something like this, go out and wend my way 3 - 8 minutes away from town hunt for awhile then either go back to see the quest giver to turn in the quest back to town or try and get one or two more done in the area. Then 3 - 8 minutes back to town. If I need to just sell and restock I might be in luck and a general sub town center might be nearby but if I need to level off across the zone I go. I swear I spent more time trudging back to the one side of any zone that it got tiresome.

I do want to like the game more than I do. I think the thing that kills it for me isn't the travel times. They are long but not as bad as a certain other game starting with V. What does it in for me is the elite mobs you have to fight to finish a number of quests, or special sub quests. Rather than being instanced having to que up in a line is not fun and frankly ruins my sense of immersion every time.

It is like if you needed to go fight a specific EB to finish a mission and had to get in line to do so.

Missed the under, yes I agree those are important considerations in game design.

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Walk over to the MUO design whiteboard, and under "Fun" erase whatever is written and write "balanced" and "mathematically sane."



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No I think those should perhaps be priority two and three. But priority one should always be fun. And more Fun should always or almost always trump the others. After you have considered the Fun aspect then you can worry about balanced and mathematically sane.

See to many times I've seen balanced and mathematically sane used to kill all fun from a potentially good game.

You know what Statesman, overall you did a fantastic job on this game. Sure there are some things that could have been done better but it was your first MMO. And yes COX is at its core fun. And that is important.

I also looked at the unnamed new not yet released MMO that the OP did. The travelling around over and over and over through pretty pretty landscape to arrive at a location and stand in a line pretty much killed the fun of that game for me. ::sigh:: and I really wanted to like that game. Ah well.

Generally No.

Pool A - Blood Mandate: Dam/End - uncommon

Pool A - Perplex: Endurance/Confuse - uncommon.

Pool A - Smashing Haymaker: Damage/Recharge - Uncommon

Pool B - Impervium Armor: Resistance/Endurance/Recharge - Rare

I read that as only applying to masterminds. They wanted a nifty bonus for them and it wasn't working as a click activated effect. So they simply tied it to the slotted IO.

Heh, I still have stacks of Alpha print lands from magic that I use in my decks.

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Is that the way it's working? Priority to the highest value on the buy order, or is it the earliest order that meets the requested value that gets priority?



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It probably is priority to the highest value buy order. Given that the devs have priority given to the lowest value sell order it only makes sense to match it up to the highest buy order.

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Venture, in his own harsh way, is right. Inventions will have the most utility to level 50s and since level 50s (really all high levels) have the most capital and means to obtain capital, they will be market drivers no matter what you do.


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Hmm, yes and no, there are actually two markets within the CH system. The 10 - 30 market and the 30 - 50 market. Aside from outfiting alts 50's will have the maximum impact on the 30 - 50 market. I can easily see those prices going for high amounts simply because it isn't hard to earn a million influence or more. And if you have it then you can spend it to outfit yourself.

But I'm not seeing it and frankly it wouldn't be a good thing for that kind of pricing in the 10 - 30 market. Well probably more accurately the 10 - 25 market. The mid 30's is when you can start earning inf easily.

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Frankly the consignment house system can not be setup to cater to the 50's.

Quite the reverse. The pre-50 game, as far as Inventions go, is not merely unimportant, but totally irrelevant.

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What a bizarre notion. Certainly 50's will seek to optimize where lower levels your in that fight between influence/infamy and slots for your powers. But there are entire sets that cap out at level 30.

I don't see the problem Zen. Just because you think that the prices are to low doesn't mean that most people do. Frankly the consignment house system can not be setup to cater to the 50's. Because they won't be the majority of the people buying there. The majority will be people in the 10 - 40 range and there are entire sets that are in the 10 - 30 range. And people down in those levels don't have lots and lots and lots of infamy/influence.

[ QUOTE ]
I think they "Devs" should implement an in game Influence/Infamy email structure to better inf transfers, I mean in game email is somewhat useless, why not make it a bit exciting and be able to email inf between characters and even ones on the same account?



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Obviously the devs are not designing it to be a safe way to transfer inf/items around. And while I'll use it to do just that I don't actually want them to do tha either.

The system is designed to be as hard to farm for influence/infamy and control as they can make it. Yes it can maybe be controlled in special cases though I have my doubts about the viability of that plan, it's main design is a bit Rube Goldbergean deliberately.

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friends and family of employees eh? well thats not going to be remotely bias feedback in anyway is it? Nosireebob

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Eh, I don't even mind that, to be honest. I even understand why they chose to do it that way, although I question the quality of information they're actually going to get out of it.

What I mind is that we weren't told that in the first place, that we were in fact told that they wouldn't be revealing how they chose the testing group, and that we have to get that info from the UK community mod.

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You haven't been reading the right boards then. This was posted about on tuesday by me and others. Bridger's original mention of friends and familly was back on tuesday.

[ QUOTE ]
You make a excellent point. I see all the confusion, speculation and frustration over one part of I9 and it just kind of turns me off to the whole thing. It would be nice to not have to buy all new enhancements every 5 levels or so. That alone could make the whole thing worth all this grief.



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I'm pretty sure you can ignore the big todo about how to abuse the system. From the general players perspective it looks easy. Go in see what your item is generally selling for and pick a price your comfortable selling it at.

As a buyer you see the price that the item generally is selling for and place an order at a price your comfortable with. In general you get the item you want they get some inf.

The main complexities of the system seem to be aimed at cutting off common abuses found in such systems. The main point of the arguements your seeing is people trying to find a way to still abuse the systems. No one posting how they will abuse the system seems to be taking into account all of the aspects of it. In general over time the system should be fine for casual use.

[ QUOTE ]
Because only an idiot will actually offer 5 million. You'll start at something low like 50K, and move up in 10-50K increments until you find the low price. In your example, you'll get it for 100,000. Sure when things get started a few people will overbid, but after awhile the only time that's going to happen is if someone doesn't have a good transfer strategy.


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What if there is a limit on how often you can change your bid if you fail to buy? Ie. I place my offer of 50K then 75K then 100K or what ever increment. What if it won't let me do that more than two or three times?

I actually think that would be a reasonable restriction to keep the buyer from fishing to much for the best price.