flipside

The one thing missing is why you restart your league with new game updates. I think I remember you posting this in the past but I seem to have forgotten.

Overall, I greatly applaud your efforts for finding the fun in the game that best suits you. We see lots of posts on the boards of saying the game is boring to them, nothing is fun anymore, etc. Every time I think of you and want to tell them that their fun is only as far away as their own imagination.

As StarGeek said, with Issue 20 and the iTrials, they introduced a method to use all the iTrial drops to make Alpha slot enhancers. As far as we know, you don't ever need to use an incarnate shard again to make any component.

I still do on occasion when I can't find teams, but mostly I wait for pick-up teams to grab me for random stuff or I solo some AE content (non-AE farming content that is). Over the past 7 years, I've done nearly all the story arcs in the game. I actually used a spreadsheet and tracked each contact in the game and, using ParagonWiki, ran though all the arcs available. When new ones come out, I run those immediately to see them.

I will never say the story arcs and content are bad in this game. They are very, very entertaining. But, even highly entertaining content gets boring the 10th of 15th time around.

Not and end-all solution, but something that just came off the top of my head: what about rotating the links in your signature on a weekly basis, or other time frame? For example, every Monday morning switch up the links to X number of different guides, perhaps keeping some mainstays there for "important" guides?

Thanks Zombie! #1 was what I was looking for!

I'm wondering how you apply the chat channel colors that became available with GR? I see that on a new Praetorian character I create that chat channels have special coloring applied to them. I'd like to take that effect and apply it back to all my other characters with the "old" style channels. I went through the options but didn't see how to do this anywhere. Can someone give me a tip on how to apply these changes to existing characters?

I've recently played two other MMO's in completely different genres to CoH's story content, neither of which was the 500lb gorilla MMO. My experiences there are quite, quite different from CoH, so much so that I have to relearn my keyboard and interface if I spend more than a few days playing then instead of CoH. I'm also a product of one of Sony's big name early MMO's being my first MMO experience, where as other's noted part of the "game experience" was figuring out game function along with game story. Same example there, you weren't told where your trainer was or, heck at the time, how to gain experience or what it even meant. The onus was on you to figure that out.

Did I like that early experience? While I did play in that MMO for about a year, I can say that at the time it was more frustrating than a game should have been. There were enjoyable bits that kept me subscribed, but looking back now, man do I hate it.

In my opinion, CoH does an admirable job on introducing a new player to the game. I've had a close friend join in lately and I didn't have to hand hold them. The game told them all the nuts and bolts of how to play the game, and left the "game experience" to the story content and fun of playing.

Now, those other two MMO's I mentioned? Both provided similarly admirable entry points for players to learn how to play the game, and even though I'm a CoH veteran, coming into an established MMO which I haven't played is jarring. But, having the game walk me through what I need to know before being unleashed unto the existing playerbase is a boon to both the player himself and the existing playerbase. I don't need to bother other players with the needless questions of how do I use something in my inventory, where is my inventory, how do I quit the game, etc. The game teaches me that, and it absolutely should.

In my mind, the onus of MMO's today is to provide meaningful story content that I can't get anywhere else. The other fantasy MMO I have tried recently (again not the big name fantasy MMO) is completely based around zone-events being the majority of the story content. Much like CoH has the Rikti invasions or the Zombie invasions occasionally to rarely, this other game uses an invasion event system like that to provide its storyline. That is very unique to that MMO and one I can't say any other does. Another sci-fi MMO I have played employs mechanics, storylines, builds, powers, etc. that have you experience content both in a ground combat setting and in a space combat setting. Also, very unique and something I had never experienced before.

All in all, I'd say there is some diverse MMO content out there that strays away from the mainstream versions. You just have to play them.

Just throwing another log on the fire here to get Nyx informed correctly, but unfortunately you are just having a run of what we call "bad luck". When an enemy which has the ability to drop level 50 recipes is defeated, the game makes a random roll to see if a purple recipe is produced. As Dechs above showed, the percentage of that roll being successful is extremely low on average. However, if one is produced, it is randomly given to a team member in your group. That's pretty much all there is to it.

Your damage output, proximity to team members, build, powersets, distance to your local Starbucks, alignment of the planets and even whether Dancing with the Stars is on TV tonight do not affect your chances at all of getting a purple recipe drop. What does affect? The number of critters you defeat and the speed at which you defeat them. If you are on an 8 person team and can defeat 1,000 critters a minute, but solo you can only defeat 100 critters a minute, you have slightly better odds on that team. But, if you can defeat 200 critters a minute, then you are much better off solo.

To emphasize as well, as long as the critter being defeated can drop a level 50 recipe, it does not matter what the actual level of the critter is. It can be a level 48 minion or a level 54 minion, it still has the same percent chance to drop that purple recipe. It terms of critters, what does affect the percentage is class; a boss has a slightly higher chance to drop a purple recipe than a lieutenant does, which has a slightly higher chance than a minion does.

As further anecdotal evidence to the fact that sticks out in my memory very clearly, for a small stint of time late last year I played a level 50 brute for several weeks doing nothing but level 50 content and squashing large groups of critters. In all that time, never had a purple recipe drop. At the end of that, I respec'd a bit and took a new power I never used before. I went to Grandville to try it out on some small groups, and the first group of 3 critters I took out dropped a purple recipe, Ragnarok set if I remember correctly.

What does that prove? As others stated, random is random. Also, I saw this in another thread and, while I don't recall the exact words, I will paraphrase a bit: "Computer algorithms don't hate you. Machine hardware doesn't hate you. Perhaps the deity you believe in hates you. Have you considered prayer?"
(And with a little bit more searching, found the original poster and post here. I was sorta close on the paraphrasing.)

Mine is an Ice/Storm controller. Not optimum by any means. O2 Boost painfully got me the heal badges.

What server?

All I can say in regard to the trial itself is that very much stinks. I would also suggest that you send in a bug report and PM Zwil with this thread with as much additional information as you can give them.

In my mind, no matter what the explanation is of why it happened, it still means there is a problem with the participation system. I agree with others as well that right now, the system is hurting more than it's helping.

I can get behind the idea of an Incarnate Launch Zone. It would make much more sense story wise that meeting up in Pocket D or RWZ right now and being ported out of thin air into Praetoria.

As others have said, as long as it had all the trimmings of vendors, etc. and had an appearance of a military staging area that would be great. I'd also toss in that I think it should have some ... object ... that we interact with to get us into Praetoria. We are crossing an inter-dimensional barrier so I think accessing a device to get us there wouldn't be too far fetched. The device would only need to be touched by the league leader to get us all there. We wouldn't/shouldn't have to touch it individually.

I'm not sure of the badge name, but isn't there a similarly named badge in the Rogue Isles, either the one in Breakout in the jail cell or the one in Mercy Isle that is right in front of the quartermaster near the ferry? Since you mentioned this is a Corruptor in the Isles, I thought maybe it's just a name misunderstanding...

Thank you for the guide, Voodoo Girl! Sweet lord this sounds difficult. Is it, or is it just the information making it sound difficult?