Ukaserex

I think the benefit is to allow the player to immerse him or herself into the story a little bit more than otherwise. I am continually reminded that I didn't actually start playing this game to have a bazillion inf, or to make my hero as incredible as possible, but to pretend to be the character trying to make a difference in whatever way the powers that be seem fit to ask of him. (or her)

In all seriousness, the pursuit of better IOs has distracted me and many other players from that - but that's an entirely different topic.

Now here's the thing I don't get. I left the game in '06 and came back in '10. Maybe something changed. After ED, blasters were still the king of damage. They came out with CoV, and as far as I knew, blasters were still the king of damage.

Now, some are saying this is no longer true. Were blasters nerfed? or were other sets introduced? or other sets were tweaked? Or, did the playerbase get really creative and start to do things better with the non-blaster ATs?

Or, is all this in reference to level 50 content where anyone who does a few iTrials can get a nuke and bridge the gap on damage differentiation between ATs?

My blasters are all level 50, except for 1, who is level 35. I haven't made any more blasters because I was curious about the other ATs that I hadn't played before.
If the AT hasn't changed, is it the content that's changed?
Why the sudden perception that blasters aren't king of damage?

Because my blasters are awesome, every bit as competitive as my scrappers or controllers, and certainly better than my emp defender. Every bit as resilient as my warshade, too. My brute and tank will outshine in the long run because of holds or stuns and running out of break-frees. Clarion would help, but I generally use barrier when solo.
And my blaster makes my dom and corruptor look like feeble old ladies. Maybe it's me. I'm not seeing my blaster as no longer king of the damage mountain.

I would agree - I don't think I am "unlucky". I really don't think there is such a thing as luck. Things either happen, or they do not.

Thankfully, I enjoy the ugt trial. I'll just run that as many times as I need to finish t-4s on all the toons.

Heh, no - give it to the youngsters - they sleep well.

Have you tried scotch?

I had thought about doing that with the cheap sleeps. But, with the exception of the pvp ios, I don't make a habit of buying anything in the market. What good is a farm toon if it can't get that stuff? Although I do have the council empire map and the freak map and the infernal demons on a few toons, hero tips may not be as easily farmed, but they can be run at */8 for purples as well any other mission.

I suppose if I had hundreds of "junk" pvp io recipes, I would have placed them in wentworths at a price I thought they would sell at. It would never have occurred to me to keep them on various alts as recipes until converters made their way to beta.

I have always thought about setting up a pvp io farm. I am slightly better than mediocre at pvp at best. It would be the only way I'd get them aside from a farm or outright purchase.
However, I must not have wanted to that badly, because I never did. Not sure where I would have put them even if had tried. My server is fairly active with pvp. I've little doubts both killer and rezzer would have been laying dead upon my return.

You are correct about one thing for certain. Crafting and acquiring the salvage takes time. Some days, I just put it off until the mood strikes me.

I am well aware that there are some people who have done a story arc in Dark Astoria and gotten a rare or very rare.

However, I have run 4 characters through all of the arcs and gotten one uncommon and the rest common. I realize that the terms rare and very rare imply that they are just that. For some reason, when doing iTrials, I probably get a rare/very rare about 15 to 25% of the time. Yet, so far, the good drops elude me in these arcs.

My question is -
Due to the odd search results, I've glossed through and seen a few mention that they thought higher difficulty correlated with better random reward tables, but there's been no mention that I could find in the patch notes, or in some of the Beta discussion forums.

If any of you know where this is confirmed or denied, can you please provide a link?

I have some toons that can run at +4/8, (and some have) but still I get commons. It would be nice to get some incarnate salvage that I can actually use. Some more uncommons would be ok, too. I could at least combine those to make a rare.

I know that my next 20 arcs could very well give all kinds of goodies, but I am just wondering if there is any correlation between risk vs reward.

Once again, I suppose I must conclude that I make the crazy assumption that people will compare the price of a recipe and the salvage and crafting costs with the price of the IO they want.

Obviously, this is not the case. At least not with some. (and those of you that bought my overpriced Panacea's, I thank you....I think. )

I appreciate all of your responses. I particularly enjoyed the phrase "prisoner's dilemma".

I suppose I underestimated the desire for a "quick" sell. I had this idea that many of you were far more affluent in terms of inf., that you would be able to sit on your glad procs until such time someone finally ponied up the inf to get it. But, I guess, if you don't sell it at 400 million, someone else will.

Again, thanks for your responses. It's the marketing and the quirky things I see it do that have been keeping me subscribing - although the UGT and MoM trial have helped a good bit, too.

Like this?

I fully understand that with converters, some folks picked up the cheaper pvp ios and made some extra for their foresight.
I can understand the ...inflation of prices on the junk pvp ios. Demand for them goes up, because everyone wants to get them because they're cheaper and use the converters and hope they get lucky.
Nothing new there.

But, people have been willing to pay 2 billion and more for a glad proc.

The thing that really puzzles me is this: I know that the cheaper something is, the more folks that can afford to buy it. However, I think that if, instead of 300-450 mill for the glad armor, we all saw a last 5 sales of 800 million, then we'd all be seeing 700 to 900 million for them.

What crazy person sells an item for 400 million when he is reasonably assured of making 2 billion? Even the folks that get in quick enough to buy a junk pvp io, they either convert and slot, or convert and sell - and they'd love to sell it for billions, rather than 400 million.

People have shown they're more than willing to spend more than a billion on these. Why dump the price down so low? This market forum definitely has more impact on the market than 80% of the player base, I'm thinking.

The gas stations call it price fixing. The two gas stations across the street from each other agree to sell their gas for the same price. Otherwise, they have a price war to see who can go lowest. The end result is neither one makes as much money as they'd like.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining. I get supply and demand. But the standard rules don't seem to apply to pvp ios on the whole. Panaceas and glad armors are no more plentiful than javelins, yet they are almost double the price now, and were many more times the price before talk of converters.
Perception is reality. If the playerbase does indeed see 3% def(all) as worth 2 billion, though the supply may increase because of converters, has the greed decreased?

<shrug>

I realize that all of us are different and we are quite likely to play our toons differently. We all have different resources at our disposal, different experiences and not all players are likely to use a blasters rain of fire or Ice storm as a damage mitigation tool as opposed to additional damage.

I feel quite certain that each of us that has played several types of blasters has all the data we need at our disposal. The question would seem to me a matter of how to interpret the data.

Comparing a blaster to a stalker is like comparing cookies to cake. Both are good alone or with ice cream. Both archetypes have strengths and weaknesses.

You can take the very best stalker and compare it in a pylon test with the very best blaster.
Surely you can compare DPS, provided both characters can handle the splash damage from the pylon. Most likely, the stalker could, but the blaster would have a rougher time of it.

I certainly appreciate the view that a blasters damage isn't king, particularly at the higher levels. And I am irritated for my blaster that a brute or a tank, or any other AT for that matter can get a nuke (judgement) with no end crash. So can my blaster, but now, a blasters ultimate weapon can be replaced with any other AT.

All that said, I would suggest that player A may adapt to playing a stalker with far more ease than a blaster. Whereas, player B may prove better at playing a blaster. One players experiences with comparisons are interesting, but hardly conclusive, even with a hundred different players. The data set would still be too small.

As a limited work-around, when I was working on a neglected level 50 on another server, I transferred one of mine with full vault, full personal inventory of salvage and IOs and filled the new base with all the goodies. When it was convenient, I transferred said toon back, and got a rename in the process. (had my alt snag the name on the original server to save it)

I would love it if instead of stashing all that stuff in my base, if we had a global vault, as suggested earlier. Room for 1000 items. Maybe that would be enough, lol.

Well, kudos to them for noticing at least.

But, that's where it stops. As much as it pains me to say it, nobody is paying your sub, so they have no place to be concerned with how you build your toon. Or do they? The easy answer is no, but a lot of players have expectations about certain power sets.

Would you want a fire tank without burn?

An empath without CM, Fortitude, RAs or AB?

An illusionist troller without Phantom Army?

I can't say whether Gremlins are the defining power of an electric Dom. Even though I have one that's level 44, and I did take gremlins, but they don't seem that great to me. I could just as easily take or leave them. Plenty of other tools at my disposal.

Why did you skip the pets?

I spent the first few days of converter craze buying the pvp io recipes that I can only assume some of you were dumping at bargain prices because, well, for whatever reason. I crafted, kept some, sold some and made a very tidy profit.

And then it occurs to me - what am I gonna do with all this loot? I don't really pvp - at least, not more than 30 minutes every few months. But, I told myself, better to have them and not need them, then want them and not be able to get them.

See, I notice that there were some people that were paying twice as much for recipes as for the IOs themselves.

This means 1 of three things:

1. Several people pressed one too many zeroes.
2. Someone foolishly forgot to read the latest patch notes and wasn't aware that the prices were dropping.

Or
3. They have a lot of the crafted IOs for that recipe for sale, and they want folks to either burn up all their converters to get what they want, or pony up the inf and buy that persons IO at a price that by todays standards is probably about 10 to 20% higher than we've come used to.


I looked, but didn't see any post about Alignment and Astral/Empyrean merits being able to purchase the enhancement converters, but my understanding is that it will be possible soon. And, because for most of us, it's not that big a deal to get a toon to 40 and confirm alignment - even though there will be a cooldown, I suspect it won't take us long to use the other merits to get what we want.

I do see prices rising a little bit over time. How much? Can't say, but my guess is about 600 mill when things calm down. Greed will get the most of some folks, but impatience will get the better of even more people.

Purely conjecture on my part. I could very well be wrong.

Influence? That, I don't need.

I started at 0/8 and was dismayed at the lack of progress - then I upped it to 4/8 and I'm still dismayed at the lack of progress.

As far as I'm concerned - DA content is fine for folks that already have their slots unlocked.

But, to unlock them? Nah, I won't do that. I'll just do ugts.

Not too long ago, on my server's forum, I had suggested we try a thematic group called the Cheapskates - only slotting what was dropped, living off of the rng.

For me, it was like playing a free account. Pure torture, getting bounced around by CoT mages and their earthquakes. I think it's all a question of how close to the edge you play it - some folks will rest after each mob to get their green 100%, others just pop an inspiration and keep trucking.

I typically solo the whole way to 50, except for tfs - which, arguably provide more than half of my xp. Or at least it seems like it. I like not having to exemp down to get those pesky badges for the tfc accolade.

Personally, I would like to see some changes in the IO bonuses - give me some melee defenses for when the npc rushes into me and tries to hack my head off. Yes, we have mitigation such as kb and holds - but they don't always hit the target. I guess that's what lucks are for. (in case they don't hit. Maybe I should have gobbled a yellow first!)

Other than that - anyone who's having trouble playing a blaster should really play a defender first. You will see more and learn more. Then roll a blaster. (just my two inf)

I feel pretty bad. I had just joined a team for a tin mage- and real life called me away, so I had to leave. While I was typing my apology for having to take off - I saw that the leader had just started the tf.

I know it isn't that big of a deal, as they could reform easily enough- but I know if I were one of the other players, I'd have been annoyed.

@tainted purity
@giga (byte? Hurt?)
@tatterdamalion
@Dr. Bot
and a few others whom I can't recall

Sorry about that.

Sadly, at this time, there is not.

The best advice I can give you is to just buy him a game time card to become VIP. Or, alternatively, give him 15 bucks.