Tetsuko_NA

Incidentally, parents sometimes have reasons for doing things that children don't understand, thus coming to the conclusion that the parents are being unreasonable. Sometimes the children are right, but parents have a lot more experience in living, and more information about living. This means that, on balance, they are being reasonable even if the kids think they are not.

Would you like me to repeat the above paragraph, using the words "Devs", "players", and "game design", or did my point make itself manifest?

As to your second paragraph, the Devs disagree with you. They have set things up so that some parts are equally accessible to soloists and groups, some are accessible to both, but more slowly to soloists, and some are group-specific. The game has forever been this way, and (I suspect) will be this way until they pull the plug on the last server.
This game has also shown a marked propensity to move content - sometimes frustratingly slowly - from the 'group only' category to the others.

It might be worth considering that if you're unhappy about not being able to do the Incarnate content, the only certain way to miss out permanently is to quit the game. Any other course of action might get you a solution you like.

But again, it's your call.

Woah - wait, what was removed from soloability between now and then?

Either you liked the system then, which is the same as the system now (except that there's more for other people - not you - to do), or you didn't like the system them (which is the same system now) and you couldn't be praising it.

And... 'fully-implemented'? The Devs bent over backwards to tell us that the Incarnate System was, very specifically, utterly and completely not fully-implemented as of I19 - that there was a great deal more to come.

Explain?

Is your complaint seriously that Timmy's wagon has shinier wheels this week than yours, (which you loved last week), because he played with Bobby and Suzie (which you didn't want to do), and so now your wagon is terrible and you don't wanna play wagons anymore? It boils down to "I don't wanna play my character anymore because someone else got more powerful" (I'm presuming your character's didn't get weaker or less fun as a result of the WST announcement, correct?) Because what I've read of your posts seem a great deal smarter than that.

Very well, I misunderstood.

I assumed you weren't interested in waiting to see if your concerns were addressed, largely due to the fact that you said you wanted to slap the next person telling you to wait for the next Issue.

Looking back through the thread, I can indeed see that you said that if your concerns are addressed, you will renew. If you don't mind my asking, if your concerns are addressed further down the line (say, a year), do you think you'd renew? I understand this is a hypothetical and therefore you might not have an answer - that's fine if you're unsure.

Ok, well, one semantic quibble: You're not being excluded, you're excluding yourself. You no doubt have excellent reasons, but this not asking a quadriplegic to medal in Olympic hurdles, it's asking a dyslexic person to read a book - difficult, possibly not pleasant, but not impossible for them.
That aside...

I have to ask, then, why are you still posting?
From what (little) I've read, you've made your mind up about that game: you're done. In saying "I'm not your customer anymore," you have removed yourself from having your opinion be seriously considered by the Devs, especially when you add "I have no intention of waiting around to see if my concerns are addressed in the future."

If people on the boards questioned your maturity, or insulted you due to this decision, why care? If their opinions are correct, and you're being childish, why be insulted? And if their opinions are wrong, and you're not being childish or stupid, then why give the wrong people the time of day?
More to the point, you're leaving, you're not going to be in contact with these people anymore.

(Before I am misconstrued, I am not telling or asking anyone to leave the game, or to stop posting. I am doing just exactly what the text says: asking why someone who is done with a game, and the people in it, is still interested in expressing their opinion about the game, and expecting anyone to listen to them.)

I don't.

Logging into the game is optional. The upside is that it's fun, the downside is that it costs money. We can be mad at the Devs about this, or we can accept it, make our choice of how to act, and move on.

Leveling from 1-50 is optional. The upside is that is makes our characters more powerful, the downside is that it takes time and concentration. We can be mad at the Devs about this, or we can accept it, make our choice of how to act, and move on.

Getting the first Alpha slot unlocked is optional. The upside is that is makes our characters even more powerful, the downside is that it required completion of a new and often difficult arc. We can be mad at the Devs about this, or we can accept it, make our choice of how to act, and move on.

Getting the Rare and Very Rare Alpha abilities unlocked is optional. The upside is that it makes our characters still more powerful, the downside is that it (presently) requires joining a team. We can be mad at the Devs about this, or we can accept it, make our choice of how to act, and move on.

So, we're not talking about City of Heroes, then.
Because, really, that's what I was confused about - why we're discussing this game that does not cater to introverts on the City of Heroes boards.
Given that the vast majority of content in this game is available to soloists, and the rest is available to people willing to team, and that none of it is gated by being in the top guild/SG, or having the exact mix of equipment, or running a single Raid dozens of times, or of kissing up to a specific Raid Leader, clearly, City of Heroes is catering very substantially to introverts.

Just not, to be precise, to those who find that the introversion is both specific enough and strong enough to prevent them from enjoying even infrequent teaming, and who simultaneously are unhappy enough about a very small amount of the game content that it prevents them from enjoying the rest of the (completely unchanged by the WST) content they had up until this time been enjoying.
I imagine that the Devs are of the opinion that the percentage of the playerbase hitting all three of these characteristics is extremely small. I have no way of knowing this myself, of course, but it has been proven to me time and time again that the Devs of this game know a heck of a lot more about running a successful MMO than I do, so I am willing to trust them on this one.

So to sum up, I trust your figures, I just don't find them relevant to this game.

Ok, I'll ask, because I am confused as to what you are saying here.

Which game are you talking about, and which 25% of the potential playerbase are you talking about?
And, rather more to the point, from where do you derive your numbers?

What change would you make in the game you are talking about to increase it's playerbase by 25% at a stroke? I ask, because presumably, if these players wish to play, but are being excluded by design decisions, they'd play if they could, yes?
And if not, what are you trying to say?

WHEW!

As I noted, I would have trouble imagining that the Devs would do that, but I'm glad for the confirmation.

Thanks, Ocho!

(Note: what I am quoting is just a partial post, I am only dealing with this aspect of it.)

I will agree with you about this being a level cap raise if the following things are true:
- We gain these Incarnate Levels through ExP gain.
- MOBs will Con differently to us when we have gained them.
- We will gain new Power picks from our Powersets.
- We will gain new enhancement Slots for our existing Powers.
- People using the SSK beneath us will be affected by them.
- Enhancements will go stale when we gain them.
- Contacts will be outleveled when we gain them.

That's what gaining Levels in CoX entails.
If the Incarnate Levels do not do this, then they are not the same.
If they are not the same, they are not merely an extension of the current system.
...which is what a level cap bump would be.

In short, if an Incarnate Level isn't the same as a Character Level, than it's different. Really.

So long as one equated defeat with death, sure.
If one equates it with unconciousness (or merely being incapacitated - still concious but unable to fight), you're there.
Or do you think your character would morally object to smelling salts?

Until one realizes that having more effective teammates is lucky.

My own concept shifter was acutally pretty simple. I have a fire corrupter who uses caustic chemicals ratehr than heat - she throws volatile acids from her battlesuit. So, a simple color shift on the powerset was all that was required.

Speaking for myself, I'm not a big fan of either, but YYMV, so...

Interesting... this raises the question of inflation being a planned effect, or merely a side-effect that becomes more important over time.

Well, my point is that it was a time saver for my characters in the game as it stands. If the mechanics of getting items were different, then my experience with the market might have been different, certainly.
And actually, the thing I am most likely to be lacking is the recipie, not the salvage. If I need salvage, I usually don't go to the market, that's what AE tickets are for.

But I certainly take your general point in terms of complexity driving shortage.

Well, to a certain extent the time-sink concept of gaming is true, of course. On the other hand, this has to be balanced against the fun factor of the gameplay. A game can be the most effective timesink in the world, but it will fail if no-one plays it because it's not fun.

There are a number of aspects of the gameplay to actually reduce the timesink quality of the game - travel powers, and then changes that allowed travel powers to be obtained earlier, base teleporter units, Oro portals and so forth. In I-17, some mission locations are being altered to allow easier, closer access for lower level characters. That's reducing a time sink.

As far as divining Dev intent, I should have been more specific and said stated Dev intent. I seem to recall the point being actually made that the 10% fee was specifically to act as an Inf sink, but I may be misremembering. I certainly can't find such a comment, but it would have been quite some time ago, so...

In terms of more solutions for Inf sinks, I would suggest that Inf be allowed to be converted, at a ruinous exchange rate, into the other types of currency in the game, specifically Reward Merits. This would allow for a defacto price cap on some high-ticket items (if you can convert, say, 10 million Inf into the number of Merits required to purchase something, why spend a greater amount of Inf in the Market?) At the same time, it would allow speculation and price-based trading to continue unhampered on items not available through Merit purchases, such as PvP and Purple recipes. Also, selling would still occur by those people who were willing to part with something below the 'cap' established by Merits.

Of course, this suggestion might make the markets utterly trivial and marginalize them - I don't know.

Also, I'm not certain that it can be claimed as a blanket statement that our Market does not function as a 'real-world' market. In what way it the Market in game not a real-world market? Real people are selling things, real people are buying them, and actual (perceived) value is being exchanged. The goals of the Dev team in setting up the Market and the goals of the Players in participating in it are not the same, and I think that difference makes it quite reasonable to assume that the Market is a market, and tands to follow the same rules.

Speaking for myself, I can certainly say that I have been able to acquire things on the market in a much faster way than I had in just playing the game for them. I can tell, because:
1) I had the resources to acquire them, and,
2) I didn't already own them.
Therefore, the Market has been (in terms of making my characters as effective as I would like them to be) a massive time saver. If the market didn't save time in getting certain, specific items for a character, no-one would use it - they'd just play until these things dropped for them.

Also, Diggis asked if I wanted the Market to be a shop.
Hmm, sometimes. Mostly, I was saying that in an ideal world, for me, it would be nice if the Market was all of the things that an in-game shop could be (cheap, reliable, etc). I wasn't saying that was the best solution, or that it would be good for the game. I was just making the point that the things I might wish for my ease and comfort aren't necessarily the best things in general.
As I noted above, I suspect that a game might be able to support both a Market and a shop system (that's essentially what I was suggesting above). I just have no earthly idea how to balance it so that both would be useful.

My answer would be that getting what you want out of a battle situation without actually having to fight is a perfectly acceptable, some might even say wise, solution.

If I escape from a player when they have beaten me down to a sliver of health, I still escape.
If I escape from a player when they first sight me, I still escape.
If I 'escape' from them before they even see me, I still escape.
Why are either of the first two superior to the third?

To put it another way, why should I be content with that sort of reducion of my options for avoiding defeat in a PvP zone?

If I can ninja through a PvE mission, I trade the rewards for defeating the mobs on the way in for avoiding the risk of being defeated by them.
If I can ninja through a PvP mission, I trade the rewards for defeating the players on the way in for avoiding the risk of being defeated by them.

I can cetainly understand if you don't want to get into a drawn-out discussion in regards to this. I, likewise, am no expert in economics, so we're at least on a level field there.

Perhaps my misunderstanding of your use of the words 'damage' or 'disrupt' comes from my not seeing that the behaviours you have described are anything other than people in a market doing what that market allows them to do - make a profit.

Unregulated markets are indeed likely to be impacted by monopolies and are subject to manipulation by the wealthiest participants. This is a feature, not a bug, of unregulated markets.
It is, of course, a different question of preference in regards to a market that is vulnerable to manipulation like that. However, the few times that the Devs have described their concept for the market in this game, it was generally viewed as a form of 'economic PvP'. Much like the other PvP aspects of this game, anything that is not abusing the actual code of the game, or violating the' T' rating is within the rules, regardless of level of politeness.

It is difficult to make this point without sounding insulting, but I'll try: I am having trouble determining the difference between what you percieve as disrupting the market and what you simply wish other people wouldn't do. I am assuming my perception of this is because I am misunderstanding your point, but that's the way it is coming across to me.
Speaking for myself, I would prefer it if the market was an inexpensive, reliable method of getting all of the latest and greatest goodies on a character with a bit of work and some judicious horse trading. However, from what I've read, that's not the Dev's intended goal for it.

Ironicly, if I remember correctly, the Devs also designed the market to be an INF sink (hence the 10% fee). I might very well be mis-remembering this purpose (either stated or unstated), so I might very well be off base on that point.

You've said you don't want to explain why you hate marketeers, and that's fine, that's not the question I'm asking.

I did want to ask, however, what you meant by 'damaging the market', and how that was accomplished. Could you clarify that?
Thank you.

They are willing to, not forced to. To demonstrate this to yourself, open the auction window, find something that is priced at 200 million, and don't bit on it.

If you were being forced to pay 200 million for it, you would not have that option.

The entire crafting system is optional. The IO system even more so. The Market vastly more so.
Only the people who want to participate in the market participate in the market.
Anyone can completely ignore the market without it costing them one red - erm, whatever 1/10th of an INF is.

Once this is clear, the only question is balancing your desire for something against the price it is being offered for. There are many things on the market I cannot afford. There are other things on the market I could afford, but am unwilling to pay for at the prices they are offered. There are other things I can, and have, purchased.
None of those decisions have been forced upon me.

It's not nice to blame other people for your decisions.

I cannot sell something at 200 million unless someone buys it at 200 million.

Can you explain exactly why, all other things being equal, if someone wants to buy something from me for 200 million, I should not sell it to them for 200 million?
Because that's the part of your idea I don't understand.