UberGuy

Because the game is in a state where it needs to be fixed so urgently that there's no choice (it would seem) but for it to be worked on during the weekend.

Since its in that state, yes, I'm glad they're working to fix it urgently, and I'm sympathetic to them needing to spend weekend time on it. But I'm disappointed that it's unstable to start with.

Perhaps you're not aware that you get extra uncommon and common salvage for badges rewarded in the iTrials, and an extra rare salvage if you get a "Master of" badge. Otherwise, you get one component. You can only get the bonus salvage once, ever, per character, on a given trial.

This means that, for purposes of getting components, faster trials are better, because you can run more of them per day. You can use Threads (and therefore Astrals) to create common and cuncommon salvage, but it is significantly more time efficient to simply run more of the shorter trials, especially for uncommon salvage.

Remember, if you're going for very rare powers, you need 16 commons, two uncommons, two rares, and a very rare. If I had tried to do that running iTrials that took an 40-60 minutes per component roll, I would still be working on my characters, or would have decided to stop at rare powers. Instead I have 10 characters (my full stable of pre-existing level 50s) who have either four very rares, or three VRs and one rare. Even for the ones where I did three VRs and one rare, that's 55 commons. (I also average a bit over 5 threads per BAF/Lambda, so I can craft a common outright about every 4 of those trials.) But that doesn't account for the rare or VR salvage. Multiply all that times 10 characters .... I'm sure you get the idea.

Also, since they gave us the ability downgrade and/or made commons more common salvage than uncommon, I rarely spend Astrals to make Threads. I just save them and buy stuff with them in Ouroboros. If I had to spend those Astrals on Threads to create components with, I couldn't do that.

NCSoft has always had such limits. They're a fraud prevention mechanism. If anything, $100 is significantly higher than it used to be.

You need to bear in mind, some people easily spend $100 bucks in month on things like like a night at the bar, dinner with friends, or summer blockbusters. Forking out for virtual goods may seem somehow more ephemeral, but it's no more transitory.

Having money you can spend on entertainment or other nonessential goods is the very definition of "disposable income". People should always be aware of their potential for displacement out of their current income bracket, especially in these turbulent times, but we can't assume that because they're blowing cash on a video game that they aren't so aware.

I do know some players refer to them that way. On the other hand, I don't know of anyone that calls level 32 powers T8 powers.

Mostly I think the community is inconsistent in how it uses such terms.

This latest release is referred to as Issue 21. "Issues" are (usually) large content upgrades, with new missions, zones, powersets, etc. Sometimes Issues have coincided with new boxed sets, such as City of Villains or Going Rogue.

Before Issue 9, there was very little to do with a max level character. In those days, I actually avoided hitting level 50, because I saw it as "the end". There just wasn't much to do once you hit 50 and wrapped up the content available there. However, in Issue 9, they introduced the game's crafting system, along with Invention enhancements, which opened a whole new dimension to making characters more powerful. After Issue 9, I hit 50 on the characters who were close, and have been playing them ever since.

Other things the devs did was grant more and more retroactive access to things we might have previously outleveled, so that we can repeat them, or experience them if we missed them before. They introduced the idea of "reverse sidekicking", so that max-level characters had some semblance of power matching to content designed for lower-level characters. They made sure that all the game's TFs and trials (the game's primary team content) used this technology*. They also started adding more re-usable content that functioned for max-level characters.

Finally, Issues 19-21 have expanded on a new end-game "raid" system. It's very lightweight compared to many other MMO's raid systems, but is very "grindy" compared to this game's prior advancement methods, with the possible exception of high-end Inventions builds. (That depends on how you went about obtaining them, and what you consider "high end".)

Primarily, this game is designed around breadth more than depth. It's common for people to have over a dozen characters. People start new characters all the time, and so an "end game" has been less important here. I say this as someone who concentrates heavily on a relatively few characters. I'm happy to be getting some "dedicated" endgame at last, but I have been here the whole time even without it. Without the changes starting around I9, though, I might not have been.

* Except the Eden Trial, until just recently.

The UGTs I have been on were a touch under an hour long, which would mean we could fit around 3 BAFs in them, but only if we chained them more quickly than seems typical. That said, those UGTs were not hugely PuGgy. I have been avoiding running them with random PuGs.

My problem with the long trials is that my goal in gaining incarnate powers is not best facilitated by getting more Threads, Astrals or Empyreans (though Threads and Astrals [as thread proxies] can help). Instead, I am best served by more components. Sadly, running the UGT or Keyes means I am probably going go get 1/2 as many component table rolls at best compared to running multiple BAFs or Lambdas.

Based on the last seven years of experience with this game*, internal testing without broader player testing has often been ill-fated. There are simply more inventive players than similarly inventive devs who can think of test cases the devs have not, let alone more players to execute test cases than the QA department has testers.

As such, I forgive people referring to "not explicitly tested by players in beta" as "not tested", even though it's unlikely the feature was not tested at all.

* I say that while acknowledging that the dev team has not had consistent membership across those seven years, and has (IMO) improved their quality of pre-player-testing content. (I'm sure their investment in longer lead-in using volunteer player testers outside their QA team has had something to do with that.)

It's not only new characters, and it's not as simple as them being fully exposed or fully uncovered.

What seems to be happening is I am getting someone else's fog of war. I am getting partial exposure that clearly looks like the movement of characters, with extensions into darkness to places where there are stores or badges. However, I know for a rock solid fact that what I am seeing does not match my characters' own explorations.

For example, I have a seven-year-old hero that is showing only the core area of Talos Island uncovered. I have a character who had never been to First Ward showing most of the zone uncovered, specifically including badge locations.

Moreover, I seem to be getting the same maps on all my characters, even when I change accounts. Given that FoW masks are per-character, the idea that I can be seeing what is almost certainly the same mask on different characters on different masks is really confusing.

And actually, enforceable or not, there is an opt out of that clause. You have to mail them a physical, signed document saying you opt out.

What warden said. It sounds like you have PvP attributes enabled, or there's a bug in the display values. In PvE, it's L/S only.

As mentioned, he means it still has to be recast every 240s (at least) to keep it around. Unlike, say, Controller or Mastermind pets.

Beaten to the punch here, I but really don't understand how you can say that.

Before you even posted this, I mentioned specifically that the part about being able to look at any part of your computer's RAM or storage is new.

All of that is understoood. Edit: By me, at least.

As I mentioned earlier, I want to play their game. By doing so, I ostensibly grant them the rights set forth in the EULA. I do not like some of what's in the EULA that I would now quite explicitly grant them by playing, local law allowing, so I am using this thread to speak about that.

I'm fairly certain there is no wording in the current EULA about allowing them to view anything in your PCs memory or on its storage devices. Setting aside whether or not the EULA can actually grant them that right, I think that section is new. If it's not, then I'll gladly stand corrected. (I won't be happy about the current EULA saying that and my not realizing it, but that's separate from the discussions here.)

I'd check myself, but I'm logged in to a raid waiting for it to start, so I can't sign in again to view the in-client EULA.