docbuzzard

On thing I find amusing in the requests for an alternate path to solo shards ala a mission arc akin to the Remmiel arc is how people call that arc a good example.

Solo, it is a fine arc for difficulty. Some of my alts have breezed through it, and some have had to yell for help.

In no case have I ever had a whit of difficulty duoing it. As soon as I've added anyone to help me out, the enemies drop like tenpins.

Therefore unless the devs are willing to develop this new shard path as solo only mission content, balancing it is likely to be a bear.

Now this then brings up another concern, is it worth developer resources to bother to produce solo only content which will likely appeal to only a subset of customers? I imagine that's a question for management.

Oh, and on another issue at hand. People are trying to fine tune the amount of shards it should cost to get that very rare around the time it takes to do the WSTs.

That then begs a rather important question as who are you going to use as a yardstick? Do you base it on the soloists who clear maps of 0/x8 quickly or something weaker? By merely picking a measuring stick you will surely rile someone.

My favorite character at the moment is my crab spider because I a build where I have good ranged attacks coupled with decent defenses and status protection.

I would like an AT that allowed that. It would be blaster/corrupter/defender ranged sets coupled with scrapper/etc armor sets. You pick appropriate sets and pick appropriate scalars for the two sides to make it all reasonably balanced.

This wouldn't have to be rocket science. Just cook it up during a beta and start with a low point on the scalars and buff from there.

Did three nice and straightforward Kahns last night. Each took around 35 minutes. They were all run speed style, and although some of the players were not masters of the game, there really weren't any hiccups.

Hmm, well I have notice on:
crab spider
tanker
dark defender
earth/thermal controller

I think that's all I've done so far. I do have more alts with unlocked alpha slots (most are filled with common).

As to why there's plenty of scrappers, brutes and tankers around for these runs, well that's plenty obvious. Those are the easiest solo characters (IMO at least), so most people have them. People like to have a character available to play whenever they want despite not finding a team, even if they like to team.

Thinking about the 'main's that people I know in game have, most of of soloing/damage classes. Brutes, tankers, scrappers and blasters are the most common 'mains' in my experience. Personally my closest to a 'main' is my crab spider, but I don't really have a beef playing from my stable of alts. Also since I'm not a badger, I don't have to get focused on one alt.

Did 3 Kahns last night at about 35 minutes a piece. Easy enough way to get notice on 3 alts.

Personally I don't really see the beef with it. Most AV fights are pounding on a large sack of HP, it's just the decor that changes. Here (and cudda) it's the use of temp powers. In ITF it's the fact that he rezzes in between beatdowns. In STF, you beat up towers first. Yes, Reichman is a larger sack of HP, but honestly it doesn't take too long on a good team.

I like the speed and simplicity of Kahn. Cudda lags too much, and really doesn't reward sufficiently.

I've had a mixed bag of running the STF this past week, and I won't be missing the PUGing process of it.

Some people just seem to be bad at the game. I've been on plenty of teams which ought to have been OK, not optimal teams, but doable with competent players, but they just had issues.

My first STF of the week was a brilliant speed run done in 32 minutes. It went downhill from there. My last was yesterday which took a miserable 3 hours.

Mark me down as looking forward to Kahn.

Gotta say, living to 96 has to be the finest testament to his fitness advocacy.

Of course George Burns made it to 100 smoking stogies...

I think I'll pass. I greatly enjoyed the first one. I also find it much better when I just let it stand by itself.

It's pretty moot since kids can't afford comics anymore, nor are they really aimed at kids much (except very limited select lines).

The Navy appears to be making good progress on the death ray front.

I'll say Connery was easily the best bond. I'd also say Dalton was the worst.

Moore had his moments, but also had some pretty awful movies.

Brosnan, I actually really liked as Bond, but half his movies were complete crap, and only one did I really like (Goldeneye).

Craig is batting .500 so far, but I will give a pass on Quantum due to the writers strike. I think Craig does a good bond, though a bit unconventional.

I'm wondering if anyone out there has finished this already. I've been plodding along through it (couple hundred pages in out of 900 or so). I have to say, the fact that Clancy is even on the cover seems to be a stretch. It seems readily apparent that the other named author did most of the writing.

Even the limited portion I've read has glaring inconsistencies with the 'Clancyverse'. Clancy's reality diverged from ours a goodly time ago. You can't very well smash the Capitol Building wiping out Congress and SCOTUS without it leaving a mark (not to mention nuking Denver in an earlier book). Jack Ryan being president for a couple terms with some crazy international incidents cannot be glossed over, and just referencing real world events instead as if his history never happened(except Ryan still was president, and the other characters are all still there). However the current book appears to be trying that. I suppose they might imagine it would make it easier on new readers, but as a long time Clancy reader I find it extremely jarring.

Heck, the new author can't even get the Rainbow anti-terrorism squad stuff right. He refers to the team as Rainbow Six, when that's just Clark's designation as the leader. He even gets their equipment wrong. I imagine I'll get on through the book eventually (I did buy it hardcover-foolishly it seems), but it really isn't a classic Clancy page turner.

Actually I have far more resistance than loyalists myself. I'm not sure on the final total, but probably something like 4 to 2.