peterpeter

This is absolutely FANTASTIC and could not have come at a better time. It's exactly what I needed! Thank you!

[ QUOTE ]
...included extra activities to try to make other fun options for those that couldn't get in.

[/ QUOTE ]

I couldn't log in until just as the last round was beginning (due to real life stuff) and I obviously wasn't going to get in to the event, so I wandered around to see what else was going on. I found the wedding planner contact, and got the mission to find the stolen wedding presents... as the wedding was starting! I zipped across Atlas and charged into the mission as the dialog from the wedding came piping across global chat.

I guess I had left my difficulty on invincible, because the mission was full of orange, red, and purple Arachnos. I normally have a hard time with those guys, but I wasn't going to let them ruin the wedding! I smashed my way through several spawns and retrieved half the presents, but they were already starting the vows. The heat was on! I started superspeeding through the mission, grabbing gifts wherever I could find them. I got to the last one as Sister Psyche was starting her vows. Rather than fight my way to it, I popped a couple of purples so no one could interrupt me while I clicked on the box. I completed the mission just before they kissed!

Even though I missed the event itself, I had fun. Live events are just crazy hard to do well. Either no one gets to see them, or everyone does and the lag is insane, or the event team tries to spread things out over a dozen instances in a dozen zones in a dozen servers and it takes them forever just to spend five minutes in each spot.

All in all, I think it went as well as could reasonably be expected.

It's certainly true that the hardcore players will have more money. There's no getting around that. As far as getting more stuff faster, they are going to win, hands down. What I think is cool is that the market helps us to catch up. That makes the market the opposite of virtually everything else in the game. Task forces are easier for hard core players than casual players. Powerleveling, farm maps, PvP, etc, all give hardcore players an even bigger advantage than they already had. The market doesn't. The drop system itself is reasonably neutral, except for the task forces. The more you play the more you get. Hard core players get more, but they get it in proportion to the amount they play more. That's not the case with some other stuff, like task forces.

The market is different. The market is more useful and more beneficial for casual players than it is for hardcore players. By itself, it doesn't even the playing field, but it is just about the only thing in the game which weighs in on the side of the casual player.

Incidentally, I am working on a new version of the guide, focusing just on the market, not IO's. Anything in particular folks would like to see?

[ QUOTE ]
Its not one weekend. It's everytime they do something special freedom bogs down from lag. I have played almost a year, just 2 weeks shy. The only way for me to fix this problem is pay them more money to move my characters. Then who says that will fix it? Whos says the server I goto will not get "full." Then I pay MORE money to move again. NO!

Even Wow allows you to move from over populated servers for free!

[/ QUOTE ]

I disagree with your attitude, but letting people move off of Virtue and Freedom for free wouldn't be a bad idea. For a while they were considering not letting people move onto those two servers. This would be kind of the reverse.

[ QUOTE ]
They usually run from Friday at noon (EST) to Sunday at noon (EST).

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't think it has ever ended in the middle of the day on Sunday. It always goes at least until midnight. I think it usually goes until the scheduled maintenance Monday morning.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
ack, celebrate wife's b-day, DXp, celebrate wife's b-day DXP...

DXP!

[/ QUOTE ]Use a Break-Free. No wait. ESCAPE!

[/ QUOTE ]

Rare salvage is the only thing that works for wife aggro, diamond, sapphire, etc.

[/ QUOTE ]

Hamidon goo?

The name's Bond. James Bond.

I'm glad to see people still find this guide helpful. Here are a couple of other threads which might be useful as well, at least until the forum monster eats some of them:

Invention Origin Enhancements at ParagonWiki. One of many helpful pages there about inventions and the economy.

Fulmen's Intermediate Guide to Inventions. An excellent second course if you enjoyed my guide.

IO's for Newbs, Casual Playas, & Cheapskates by Capn_Canadian. Another excellent guide.

A sample build for a level 50 katana/regen scrapper that Fulmens and I put together for under 7,000,000 influence.

Cost analysis: IO vs TO/DO/SO. Some numbers I put together to compare the cost of using IO's vs regular enhancements. Summary: IO's can save money in the long run, because they don't expire, especially if you can buy them precrafted for a good price.

It's not that the devs hate CoV. They hate CoV players. That's why they spent all of those months of labor creating the game in the first place: because they hated some of the CoH players. The goal of CoV was to draw the players they hated out of CoH and into CoV where they would be trapped, unable to enjoy anything ever again. Now the devs can shower love upon their chosen people, the ones who stuck with CoH and were not tempted by the evil of CoV.

Also, if they catch anyone who normally plays CoV trying to play CoH, the devs nerf their accuracy until they give up and go back to CoV.

"Desolid"? Like phase shift?

[ QUOTE ]

And it has been the absolute greatest experience for me.

[/ QUOTE ]

When I got to this line, I thought I was reading a farewell post! I was a very sad panda for a moment there.

That reminds me of a post I saw yesterday on the EU forums by Kerensky (a redname community rep over there). I can't post there, so I guess here is as good a place as any to add my thoughts.

[ QUOTE ]
the question about Melissa (War Witch) has already been answered: She's staying on CoH and coming with us! (Do I hear sighs of relief ?)

[/ QUOTE ]

How can he hear sighs over all the cheering?

Are people still complaining about that? I thought it was settled twenty pages ago. If you bought the game, then you got a free month when you bought it. If you didn't buy the game, then you don't get a free month when they open things up. That free month is the extra thing you get that other people don't get.

[ QUOTE ]
I want to take a moment to raise a glass to Jack Emmert and Rick Dakan, and others with names unknown who are no longer associated with the City, but who conceived of it and made it a reality.

You did great work, and laid a masterful foundation upon which we continue to build. Especially you, Jack. You will always be Marcus "Statesman" Cole to me.

Good job, and thank you.

[/ QUOTE ]

Cheers!

I don't really care which company owns what. To me, people matter, and it sounds like all of the people who were working on CoH yesterday are going to be working on CoH tomorrow. I'd still like to hear something from Jack, though. After three years, he's almost like an old friend I've never met.

(But pbbbbbbttt to the folks at NCSoft and Cryptic who insisted, when it first happened, that the deal with Marvel wouldn't have any effect on CoH and that the games weren't really in competition and all that rot!)

Excellent!

[ QUOTE ]
great guide, however the point I dont thik was made clear was the fact that TECH TPs require TECH CONTROL and TECH POWER. This fact seems to not be understood by some new base builders

[/ QUOTE ]

That fact isn't a fact. My base has tech teleporters and arcane control and everything works just fine. You can mix and match however you want. The only limit is that auxiliaries have to match the item they are connecting to.

[ QUOTE ]

What people need to understand is that it doesn't matter how I told you my opinion.

[/ QUOTE ]

But it does. It always matters. Humans are not machines. We don't filter out the essence of a message and ignore the manner in which it was delivered.

On an anonymous internet forum, you can avoid most of the consequences of being rude, but not all of them. Maybe some people will put you on /ignore, and then they won't be able to help you out when you have a question later. Maybe you'll be banned from the forums for a while. No big deal, really.

The less anonymity you have, the more consequences you'll suffer for being rude. Waiters will spit in your food; strangers won't hold elevator doors for you; acquaintances won't become friends; police officers won't let you off with a warning; employer's won't hire you; bosses won't promote you.

Whether you are rude or polite matters only to the extent that other people matter. As it happens, other people matter a lot.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Well, he didn't reply to every suggestion that way, just the ones he felt were stupid. And often when asked to elaborate on why he said no, he would.

[/ QUOTE ]

Funny, I've seen completely the opposite of what you describe. Every reply to a suggestion was "no". The only more elaborate replies were when people got onto him about it, then it wasn't to expand on his supposed objection to the post, it was to protest his right to post however he wants or otherwise argue with people.

[/ QUOTE ]

Have you actually looked at his post history? I had to go pretty far back just to find three /no's, and I went through plenty of perfectly reasonable discussion on the way. Besides, Trolling means trying to get people riled up into a flame war. Simply disagreeing with someone isn't remotely close to trolling. The fact that a small number of people made an enormous stink about it doesn't mean it was trolling. If he is a folk hero, it's because some people are trying to make a martyr out of him. The guy isn't some Rosie Parks, who can turn the word no into a movement that defines a generation. He was just disagreeing with people in a manner which did not indicate any respect or appreciation for the OP. That doesn't make him a hero, but it doesn't make him a serial killer either. Or a troll.

Dual blades? I wanted three blades! I can hold one in my teeth. Arrrrrrr!!!

Otherwise, /signed. Amazing year.

Fantastic!

Whew, I thought at first you meant Reaganisms.

[ QUOTE ]
Just to add to the comments. As someone who's come back to the game from a bit of a break, this guide is a godsend.


[/ QUOTE ]

You're welcome. I'm glad it's still helpful.

[ QUOTE ]

The guide would even be better with your additional comments. Stuff like 'buying' did not click with me. Now I see you actually 'bid' on things for 'sale'. Still this is kinda confusing to me. Is there a way of seeing the 'minimum' bid in order to buy something that is listed for sale? This seems awkward.


[/ QUOTE ]

No, there is no way to see what other people are offering. There is no way to see what prices the sellers are asking. You can see the last five prices, how many items are for sale, and how many bids there are, but that's all. All of those numbers can be manipulated by other players.

Here is what I do when I want to buy something. First I make sure that I really want it. You are bound to make some expensive mistakes. Everyone does. Try to keep them to a minimum. Second, try to get a sense of what the item is worth. Watch the price over a few days or weeks, look at the prices of similar items, etc. Third, lowball. No matter how expensive something is, or how many other bids there are, I almost always start by offering 100 influence, just to see if I get lucky. Creep up by whatever increment makes sense to you. For example, if I need to buy an item that costs around 2.5 million, I'll make offers like this:

1 inf
100 inf
1,000 inf
10,000 inf
100,000 inf
1,000,000 inf
1,250,000 inf
1,500,000 inf
1,750,000 inf
2,000,000 inf.

This is called bid-creeping. If I don't need the item right away, then I might leave that 2 million bid up over night, or for a week. I seldom let things sit more than ten days. I'm not that patient. If I do need the item right away, then I just keep bidding up until I get it. It pays to be patient.

[ QUOTE ]

I'd like to know more about sets. What defines a set? If you have a special IO, and it gives a 'set bonus'... does that mean you need all of them? Can they be slotted in any power? Or do they have to be all contained in the same power to have their bonus kick in?


[/ QUOTE ]

Paragon Wiki has a list of all the sets. In order to get the set bonus, you need at least two enhancements from the same set slotted into the same power. The more you put in, the more bonuses you can get. Each enhancement in the set can only go into each power one time.

For example, the Bonesnap set has an Acc/Dam enhancement. You can only put one Bonesnap Acc/Dam into a power. You can put one Bonesnap Acc/Dam into, say, shadow punch and another into smite. You could put an Acc/Dam from the Bonesnap set into smite, and then put an Acc/Dam from the Bruising Blow set into smite, and then another Acc/Dam from Smashing Haymaker. That would get you some nice enhancement values, but no set bonuses, because they are all from different sets.

To get the Bonesnap set bonuses, you would need to put the Bonesnap Acc/Dam and the Bonesnap Dam/End into the same power. That would give you some immobilization resistance as a set bonus. Adding the Bonesnap Acc/Rech enhancement to the same power would get you another set bonus: +health.

If you ignore the set bonuses, you can get some very affordable enhancements which can improve your powers more than SO's could. If you pay attention to the set bonuses, you can pay through the nose for some rather small improvements, but every little bit helps.

[ QUOTE ]
Isn't that the very tech they've been unable to fix for the Cathedral?
Also, if it was doable, would they have used it for instanced Hammi Raids instead of the 50 person zone limit?

[/ QUOTE ]

I haven't the faintest idea what went wrong with the cathedral of pain. And I think the new Hami raid was meant to keep the feel of the old Hami raid, with a whole army of people working together, but with less griefing, less lag, and less leeching.

I have this image in my head of Superman saying, "Wonder Woman, you deal with those robot cowboys in Utah. Batman, find the villain's lair. Flash, see if you can unwind that twister while I put a stop to that comet." Then everyone in the SG goes rushing off in different directions, each to handle their own mission. Each person could recruit strangers, or solo the thing, or invite other sg members along.

I don't know how hard that would be to program, but I think it would be cool. If you finish your mission early, you could go help your sg mates. They might be in a stalemate against an AV, and suddenly the cavalry arrives. I think it would be very comic booky.

Anything that can be done by 8 or fewer people should be available as a regular mission or Task Force, I think. I think the SG missions should be geared towards multiple teams, with all the teams coming together for an epic battle at the end.

The Hess task force is almost perfect. Imagine that instead of going into three consecutive small council bases to knock out their radar, you have to hit three locations simultaneously. One team would go to each location. There would be a time limit, so that one team couldn't do all three missions sequentially. After all three small missions are done, the teams would come together to fight the giant robot together. Except, of course, the giant robot should actually fight back, and not just stand there looking pretty.

I know, it isn't fair for the smallest supergroups, but I really think the SG missions should offer unique content that can't be done by any PUG. Though maybe it could work that only the leader of the group needs to be in the SG, and the other people could be outsiders.

[ QUOTE ]
There's still a very significant difference between getting an SO buff on every hit and getting 5 times an SO Buff on an occasional hit.

[/ QUOTE ]

Very true. Given that the question "Is it worthwhile to slot a damage proc?" comes up a lot, how would you answer it?

The short but unhelpful answer is, of course, "it depends". The average damage over time a proc does is part of a fuller answer, but as you say there is more to it.

(Oh, and thanks Redlynne and Natsuki for the ToD answer. I hadn't looked at where the psionic ones could be slotted.)