VonHooner

With the Server lists changing early next week I wanted to offer the services of The Handprints on Union server to those that may want to come accross and try us out

We are ranked no 1 SG overall on Union with our hero SG The Clean Handprints and no 2 SG overall on Union with our villain SG The Dirty Handprints and as such we are very active.

There is usually an event running every night and plenty going on over the weekends. We have an active and friendly community, forum, global channel and vent server.

So if you are thinking of coming over to Union give anyone of us a shout either on the forum which you can get to via our website www.thehandprints.co.uk or in game contact @Von or @Bella the Claws and we will be pleased to see you!

I had no problem with the -1 either. I would not choose to do a MO run on a -1 because I like the challenge but if others want to do an MO run on that setting then that is also fine by me. I do not need to set the value of the badge or the achievement of completing based on what others have/have not done.

That is why I choose in the main part not to ghost or speed run sf's/tf's but not that bothered if others are doing it.

It is also why I like to run tf'sf's on a decent diff setting.....

I also completely understand why some choose to flashback on a -1 setting if they have a toon that is not built to solo as the difficulty is all relevant to what you are playing and what team if any you are on.

I saw the phrase 'one way to play mentality' what is removing the diff levels then if not forcing 'one way to play'?

An now we hear rumblings of Motherships are going to be appearing in Atlas and the Rikti are coming, if it is anything like the Winter Lord after a few nights there will not even be enough people in the zones on Villain side Union to take it down.

I would like to see another red name update please on the diff levels please, some idea of timescale if it is going to be fixed or as Angelstar said a statement that it is going to stay as is.

Yep still not fixed, I believe that this is around 4 months from when it was orginally introduced and nearly 2 months since the last red name comment.

So how temporary is temporary?

Personally I do not care about any new issues or Going Rogue unless this issue is fixed to me there is no point introducing new content until the content we have is working properly.

I am fed up of paying subscription for a game to entertain me that I then have to spend addition effort and time trying to find way around things so that it does entertain me.

I have been a very loyal subscriber to COX for 4 years and have always tried to sympathise with the damned if you do and damned if you don't position that devs inevitably find themselves in, but this issue to me is so core and fundamental to the playing of the game and has taken so long now that I feel ignored as if the fact that we have Going Rogue coming this year will be enough to keep people shelling out month after month.

So this is still dragging on, and on, and on in fact I cannot remember the last time I did a challenging TF/SF without having to find a 'loop hole' to make the levels harder such as starting the sf etc with a toon that is 2 level s below the tf level.

This however does not help with the level 50 stuff, Hero side the flashbacks are worth doing as can set the challenge and get decent merits as the arcs tend to be longer but Villain side this is not such a good option as the merits are miserable (different rant for a different day) and the arcs are a lot shorter.

WHEN IS THIS GOING TO BE FIXED!!!!!!!!!!

I am starting to wonder if this situation is being left long enough so that it will be the 'norm' and everyone will have forgotten the day that SF/TF's were a challenge and they just become part of content that is already IMO weighted towards getting to 50 as quickly and easily as possible. Then we can just focus on pimping out builds that do not actually have any real challenging content thus leaving us time to carry on merrily farming and speed running tf/sf's - because that is exactly why I have paid subs to this game for the last 4 years.

Righty then more broken stuff with the levels.

Did a Sister Psyche last night, let a level 22 start it because we wanted it to be a bit of a challenge and as we all know we CANNOT SET THE DIFF LEVELS, we thought that we would get a few mishes with harder foes but that as the leader levelled we would all effectively level.

Not the case, the level 22 levelled and nothing happened they stayed at level 22 and so did the rest of us. Great for having a challenging TF but those that were above the level range of the TF were power capped at level 27 so that was annoying. The leader got to level 26 by the end and still we were all 22.

Anyhow it is not working as intended, we did exactly the same on the Villain SF level 20-25 Air Pirates the night before and it worked fine, started off with purple foes and had whites/yellows by the end.

That is exactly the kind of feeling that I am talking about and if a MO run is cheapened then trouncing through a high level TF/SF just for fast merits is even more boring, hence the reason for not really wanting to bother with it.

Just as a side note I am assuming that the data mining used for setting the reward merits is not going to count during this 'temporary' time?

Well in the near 4 years I have been playing on Union I have never seen it so quiet, I logged on last night at 19.30 gmt and there were 60 people online in total on the searches, yes yes I know that some will be hidden but even so.....

Back on thread I would like to know if we are likely to see a result on the diff levels before Christmas?

I don't really care whether people agree or disagree on whether this is causing people to stop playing I was merely using my knowledge of why people have stopped logging in as evidence that this continues to be a problem for me.

I know that there are other factors to people not playing, I also know that not everyone plays the game the same, I do not play TF's/SF's for quick easy merits some do, I play the game to challenge the toons I spent years building and changing and changing again and so forth and I know that this issue is known about and being worked on but how long is temporary?
I personally do not want to trot around on a relatively empty server until GR.

[QUOTE=Thirty_Seven;2425738]The fact that no one but the Devs have that information is the whole POINT. If no one has the information... than don't make the assertion that "many people" have left./QUOTE]


The reason that I have lost 30% of the SG is not an assumption, they have posted to our forums to say why they have left or suspended subscription

I just wanted to make a point and get a timescale from someone, I think it is great to see a red name responding and I am pleased that they are working on it. I just hope that the solution will be soon, it is a shame that this has tainted i16, everything else was great and IMO one of the best issues since RWZ and inventions were introduced.

How many people have left the game since this TF change happened? Is there a quantifiable number somewhere, such as subscriptions over a period of time? Or are we begged to take one's word for it at face value?[/QUOTE]

I cannot quantify anything it is a general feel for the game based on SG members and also using the search for people on Union, as an example I searched for people to join a team I was forming on Sunday at 11.30am gmt, taking in 3 level ranges from the search window up to level 41 there were only 15 people actually online and viewable for team searching. Now I know that some people hide from searches but even taking that into account it is miserable number. That combined with a drop of at least 30% in SG members since this problem happened, (No going to mention rankings as we all know that does not necessarily mean activity or members, however we did have over 90 different globals over the 2 SG's)most of which were hard core gaming vets who have left due to boredom to try other games I just wanted an idea of when this was going to be fixed.

As I say i16 was brilliant but the longer this drags on the harder it gets.

I did not mention anything about RP'ers or such like and I said in my original post that I understood why it was done.

I also understand that it was 'Temporary' but how long is that?

I was merely asking for a timescale as to when it was going to be fixed that is all before we loose more people through boredom.

I agree in principle that people should have to work for their MO badges and that something needed to be done, my gripe is the timeliness of restoring the diffs so that the rest of us can get back to enjoying SF/TF's with a challenge

You cannot set the diff levels for SF/TF's that is the problem Rad, you can do it for teams, flashbacks etc but not for SF/TF's

I am sure that there are other threads relating to this but tbh I cannot see them easily so I thought that I would post the question here.

When in heavens name are the diff levels going to be fixed for SF/TF'S?????

As leader of the Handprints SG which spans both sides I have to say that the result of the wimpy diffs has had a DRAMATIC negative effect on members, seeing many long term players leave the game and those that are staying getting fed up of running flashbacks for (certainly on Villains side) poor merit reward numbers just so that they can play their toons against foes that are worthy.

To be quite frank I could not care less whether people get their MO badges on a -1 diff if this is the alternative, obviously I would rather they got them and had a bit of a challenge but this 'fix' is killing the enjoyment of the game for a lot of my members (of which until recently I had over 90 individual accounts).

Gone are the days of Handprints LGTF races where 16 people would rock up and do the TF on 5th diff with no ghosting to see which team could go fastest. I16 was a truely wonderful thing, the super SK system making organising events so much easier but now their seems to be no point that it is easier to get teams without struggling with half the team not being able to get an SK when the SF/TF we want to run is just too damn easy. For a brief while we enjoyed the new diff levels bringing us new challenges, but this was snatched away because a few could get a badge too easily leaving the rest of us hard core players floundering and wondering why we bothered slotting our toons at all if all we are going to fight are whites and yellows.

Please, please, please, please fix this issue before we loose anymore people to boredom and easy repetitive play!!!!

Rant over

You can see all the events on our events calendar, but for joining in then it really is best to join up. We do look for non SG people but that is only when we do not get an 8 man team of Handprints, and that is pretty rare for some events we even run 2 teams.

Still you are more than welcome to pop a toon into the SG as Tufty said below

Well I will throw my hat in the ring for the Dirty Hand Prints - we are ranked no1 overall with the VG and the hero part of us is No1 hero group (no2 overall).

You said big and active so my ears pricked up, I see that you have had some experience of villain SG's in the past that have been inactive but also want a SG with not too much of a strict requirement. I would say that to keep an SG active the rules have to be there, only my opinion but the way we use our requirements is to make sure that people are active and actually play their toons.

Have a look at the linky in my sig in particular the events calendar - we run at least one thing a night with 2 or 3 things going on at weekends.

Also check the requirements as we may not be for you with what we ask.

Evil are a great and well established SG so you will have a great time with them also if you have caught up with Max by the time you read this, and if so then see you in coalition chat.

Sure you can join Monkey make sure that you have a look at the web which is in my sig and you can follow the link on the website by clicking the join button on the top right.

Or catch us in game on the globals in the first post.

It can be easily met in my opinion, to be safe I would say 2 sf/s a month would do it easily or in the context of teaming our villain mm/domi team plays once a week for approx 2.5 hrs and gets around 60-80K prestige a month.

We did not set it to rack up insane amounts of xp (contrary to popular belief) we do it to ensure that we have active toons in the sg - can set this by the inactive online limit as well but then anyone can log their toon on and off and it will get round that.

The amount is there so that people can play out of sg mode if they need to but ensures that we can see people are playing their toons if that makes sense.

Hope this helps

hi there have a look at www.thehandprints.co.uk on there is a planned events calendar which should give you a fell of how active we are

Hey Bru!

Welcome back, hope to see you in game at some point

[ QUOTE ]
Isn't cross-forum-posting supposed to be bad?

[/ QUOTE ]

probably but it is hard to choose which side to post on when you are no1 on both

well I don't doubt for one minute that none of our members farm but we do not farm as an SG activity and we do not allow farming team request or anyone asking for farming on our SG channels

The Clean Hand Prints are now the no1 hero SG on union, that makes 'The Handprints' no1 SG both Villain and Hero side!!!

It took 2yrs for both SG's to hit the number 1 spots and this is purely down to fantastic members, great community, non-stop activity and pure dedication.

I know that there will no doubt be a discussion forming now on how everyone thinks that the ranks suck but do you know what we really do not care.

We got there with NO farming and are proud to be the no1 community SG in Europe!

Thanks Handies past and present

The Clean Hand Prints are now the no1 hero SG on union, that makes 'The Handprints' no1 SG both Villain and Hero side!!!

It took 2yrs for both SG's to hit the number 1 spots and this is purely down to fantastic members, great community, non-stop activity and pure dedication.

I know that there will no doubt be a discussion forming now on how everyone thinks that the ranks suck but do you know what we really do not care.

We got there with NO farming and are proud to be the no1 community SG in Europe!

Thanks Handies past and present

Yep it would indeed - we use it for 'overspill'

If we have spaces on our teams and taskforces then anyone is welcome to join.

I would rather do something with a full team, for most things we end up running 2 teams anyway.

Well then look no further!!!

The Clean Hand Prints, the blueside half of the No1ranked European Handprints community is completely experienced in offering regular events, teams and all things not farming or power leveling and we have a few spaces going at the moment

Taskforces, regular Superteams,frequent 'Master Of' teams, competitions, hide and seek, quiz nights and truly unforgettable 16 player taskforce races (with no ghosting)

Join in rack up some merits and have some fun!

Website, forum and ventrilo server to ensure that the community stays alive.

Contact @Von, @Fire Emperor, @Enkil, @Jacko or @Pricess Darkstar to join in.