Virusman

Truth.

So many people forget this, and believe, "I want what I want NOW so I can stop playing the game!" How misguided!


Win/Win, though.. I guess that attitude lets some people make inf!

BAF actually does have a problem with that, I will admit, though it's a different problem..


In a nutshell, when going for MOBAF, Teams Siege, Adds and Nightstar, are each going to sometimes have to idle at their own rates. Let's say the damage or debuffs on Siege are weak- the Nightstar team is going to have to idle with a few % remaining as Siege catches up. This reduces their reward pool at the end. It's even worse for the team on adds - they'll sometimes die within a few seconds, as they should if you're going for Strong & Pretty - but you don't further the main objective AT ALL and almost certainly get a slacker pool, perhaps simply because of the fact that you're standing around doing nothing for 50 sec / minute.



BUT, you *CAN* complete it all in one run, unlike Lambda, and get 5 extra Astral Merits for doing so, more than making up for it in my mind. If you can potentially get Rares/Very Rares regardless, you shouldn't have to worry about getting the extra merits! (Granted, it's actually only 2 extra Astral Merits over doing Strong and Pretty without Keep em Separated, which actually seems to boost everyone's reward tables... but this is off-topic)

Might be one of two possibilities IMO...

#1: The "Well" rewards players for the powers they use to further the trial. Since most MM abilities are "channeled" through their pet abilities, and most of their OTHER abilities focus on improving their pets in some way (not players) this skews how well we "work with the team" as it is actually our buffed pets working with the team.

Or, #2, I believe this personally: Rewards are broken down, also reflected by your AT compared to other players of the same AT, how you make yourself stand out to "the Well" in regards to your class. I have noticed, playing with several other MMs, that the ones with less-frequently played builds, tend to score better, especially those builds with debuffs and a lot of active powers.. such as Thugs/Poison, with Poison debuffs, and active thug abilities (such as using Gang War) This may not even necessarily rule out #1, if say Bots/FF MMs don't get credit for using FFs on their bots - which is how they *should* play their character - compared to a MM with Dark Miasma, with buffs and debuffs that inadvertently hit other players.



I have noticed that while you do not get credit for "Healing Points" I do actually seem to do better when I actually *do* heal. This could be a balance issue - the game rewarding people for *using* the heal to heal someone at an opportune time, rather than the raw amount of healing they've done, so that you're not excluded if your build is in worse shape than Mr. 5 Billion. (Which I am..but.. I'm also not the only guy who gets good rewards!)

Some things I've noticed on BAF in particular: spamming debuffs on the prisoners scores big points, doesn't matter if they actually end up being useful or not. On MO runs, people on reinforcements only seem to get worse tables- as though the reinforcements aren't an objective "The well" is looking for - same applies if you've got a very heavy DPS stack on one AV, and you're holding steady waiting for the other team to catch up. Though that could simply be due to the fact that you'll just be standing there doing nothing in either case, since the adds tend to die within 5 seconds, and you wait around for 25. You don't tend to get a good reward table, even if you're successful in a full MO attempt, in the above cases. On the flip side, I've seen GREAT tables by going for Strong & Pretty alone, by dragging the AVs to the reinforcement spawn point and going crazy. If there's truth to the above observation, I think that it's certainly broken ATM, since to work together, you've sometimes got to idle until the opportune time.





I would like to also add that on MOST of my toons, I've noticed that being level shifted and using the new slots doesn't ACTUALLY improve the tables. In fact, when I got all the slots, I realized that I was more effective on my Defender, as an example, by simply blasting everything to death. However, after a huge streak of Uncommons, I went back to debuffing regularly, and started to see Rare and Very Rare tables again. (By AGAIN, I mean I had gotten 12+ Very Rares up to that point... nearly every run was rare/very rare, but with no downgrade option, I held on to 'em. Eventually did convert some of the V.Rares to threads) The only thing I could figure, since this was before the announcement that stated it was participation based, was that "The Well" looks for specific criteria for giving rewards, and it is not necessarily what we would think as being effective and contributing to the team.

I DID notice that on my melee toons, however, the slots DID contribute to getting better pools - this may have simply been an issue of dying less often, and therefore being more active towards furthering the goals. YMMV.


My point, however, is that when you're on a team full of +3's it's easier going, so the need to use your buffs and debuffs, i.e. work together beyond just killing things incredibly fast, is no longer there, but I think that this is actually what helps you get the better tables.


/rant

How would you feel if you had to do two additional runs for MO, since you completed it in it's bugged state where you actually could make one full MO run?

Regardless, it actually seems as though - while you may not agree with us that it's "broken" - you prove the point that unlike every other MO which can be accomplished with strategy alone, this one requires planning as far as the team composition goes, which of course will exclude classes which are incapable of providing something useful and "objective-oriented" to the team.

Thanks.

I'm kind of wondering what your experience is with the game - because through the years I have actually DONE these MOs you talk about - and nearly all of them with PUGs in nearly every sense, at one point or another. The successful ones had an underlying team theme: decent characters (as in, took useful powers and slotted them right) with players who can play them and WORK AS A TEAM. And obviously a lack of bad luck, as even a masterfully planned team can be seemingly one-shotted or suffer a lag-oriented death.

Even Reichsman can be done without ridiculous amounts of debuffs- or any at all, in fact- because you don't have a 20 minute window to kill him.


Don't get me started on BAF - done MO runs with many 50 +0's on the team, many many many times in a row, with a complete PUG. Just takes people who can use some sense when monitoring reinforcement spawn times and AV health, capable of holding back when needed.

So I know in comparison how terrible the design for Lambda is.

This is actually a fairly well-known issue as well.

Petition it, they'll ask you what was in the emails, when you sent them, and eventually what toon you'd like them back on.

Oh, I am SO bringing a blaster now!

Been too long since I have done a "Last Chance with Kult!"

It could very well be that the Gravitic is broken, but I can confirm that of those that DO work in and out of RV, none work in Arena... and the Alpha slot itself seems to be somewhat diminished, though that may just be the PVP balance kicking in.

Well thar's the problem!

They don't function in the Arena.