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Solo'ing as a Defender is somewhere between tedious and impossible. When I'm teamed we rarely play my missions (often because I don't have current contacts because I don't solo) and when we do, it's never enough to finish a story arc.
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You're kidding me, right? I've got more defenders than any other AT, and except for the stupid psi-resistant mobs, NONE of them have issues soloing at a reasonable rate.
Admitedly, I don't have a Force Field, Sonic or gimped Empathy build.
-- War
I guess the easy fix would be to give "a" rare recipie as an arc completion reward and not give "a preset recipie" as aa arc reward.
As someone who dose alot of arcs, I just know everything I won't need would be tied to the arcs I do most, and the thing I really do want would be tied to the DR VAZ and Hollows arcs that I avoid like the plague.
[img]http://img136.imageshack.us/img136/289/part1v.jpg[/img]
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Lighthouse, my own personal opinion is this:
If we can't go back and do our story arcs, and there's no way we can sway you from granting reciepes off them, then why can't we just award a reciepes to the whole team, when a story arc is completed? Sure this would cause a lot more reciepes to be accessed, but the chance would still be unlikely that you would get an ultra-rare drop out of it.
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Make these drops common to everything like story arcs, tf's, and defeating minions. Why is that so hard to do? What's the point of making any new enhancement rare?
These enhancements are not going to get me to play the game more often, and it's definitely not a reason to keep paying to play, or to start paying to play.
Customization is what people like...give the options to customize without making the game a time sink.
Global Chat: @Prime Knight
Liberty
{Heroes}
Panthera Knight - Claws/SR/BM scrapper 50!!
Prime Knight - Mind/Kin/Psi controller 50!!
Pshun Keru - Triform peacebringer 50!!
Pius Knight - BS/DA scrapper +20
{Villains}
Kaiser Presul - Rob/FF mastermind +30
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The way i understand it, is that a lvl 20ish story arc, will drop a formula for a 20ish IO set.If you a 50, why do you even care about a 20ish IO? Shouldnt you be more concerned with trying to find one of the story arcs running on PI(theres a ton) and finishing one of those so you can get the 40+ formula??
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Because the level 20 IO might have a particularly useful attribute? Say, +knockback protection? Something that isn't found in the higher level recipes?
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And, it dosent seem the story arcs are the only place to get a random rare component, or formula, its ONE of FOUR places to get it, so if your not able to do a story arc for one, run a tf, everybody can do a tf, most specifically 50's, we've access to ALL of em.
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From the UK boards, just in case the post at the start of the thread confuses you :
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There are some rare recipes that can only be earned by completing story arcs - it doesn't matter which story arc, they all share the same table. Likewise, there are some rare recipes that can only be received by completing Task/Strike Forces (again, you can earn these from any TF/SF), and some that are only available from Trials (again, any Trial will give you a chance to get one of these).
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Inventions has been touted as something that shelved level 50's can partake in. Level 50's that have completed all their story arcs already. Please, how can both of those occur? Level 50's can not experience IO's if they are locked out of acheiving specific rewards because they happened to hit the level cap before I9.
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It's like I said, we are looking into other options that keeps the mechanic of the four pool system. Our intention is to not make people feel "gimped" for previously completing all their story arcs.
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I believe the term "gimped" here should be replaced with "cheated".
I just don't have a problem with the Story Arc drops. It goes back to Cryptic's intent to tell a story with content and drives that point. Yes I have a 50 that may miss out on those rewards but the truth is that he didn't finish all of his story arcs as it so it wouldn't have made a difference anyway.
Until we get actual play time with the system I am willing to be patient and wait to see what happens. I look forward to inventions and feel it will add new purpose to a semi-retired 50.
A totally off the wall idea for high lvl characters, heck for all characters.
Hazard Zones. Defeating a spawn in a hazard zone has a chance of dropping any type of invention salvage.
The risk is higher xp debt, the reward is a chance at a rare drop.
Yes this could/will lead to farming, but so will any other solution.
[insert witty comment]
[ QUOTE ][*] [u]Small Percentage of Drops from Other Pools[u] - NOOO! As we learned from the Halloween event, anything under 10% chance of a event or drop is disaster for some unlucky few who need to repeat an action over 300 times just to get that rare drop. Do you really want to do a TF 300 times to get a Story Arc Pool drop?
[*] [u]Just Have Three Pools[u] - Simplicity itself. There's no magic about the number 4, in fact, in the early levels, there are only 3 pools to begin with. Move the rare drops from Story Arcs into the other pools. Allow Story Arcs to be a 'wild card' pool that drops rares from the other pools.[/LIST]
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Who said it has to be small chance from a TF/trial? Why can't it be small chance from anything (killing mobs/mission complete/etc)?
Why the need to have any item linked to specific events like this?
Well right now, killing all of those mobs would give you X chances of getting a recipe/invention salvage. So what you're suggesting would promote more farming than the system as proposed would create.
Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming that I am persecuted whenever I am contradicted.
~Ralph Waldo Emerson
"I was just the one with the most unsolicited sombrero." - Traegus
I haven't read all the pages, so I'm bound to be repeating:
Why not just have a two pool system? General, and Advanced? I understand the time/reward issue and think that two pools by themselves will solve this whole "I only do Story Arcs!" and "My 50 has finished all the Story Arcs" problems.
Or, perhaps a percentage system such that:
Completed Story Arc: 100% Chance of Pool B Reward
Completed Taskforce: 75% Chance of Pool C Reward, 25% Chance of Pool B
Completed Trial: 75% Chance of Pool D Reward, 25% Chance of Pool B
When you do a Story Arc, you should be guaranteed a Pool B because you can only do it once, as is so often pointed out. The other two should provide their own reward most of the time, but make it so that you have a reasonable chance (though potentially 4 run-throughs, possibly more) of getting a Story Arc to appese those that have completed most if not all of their Story Arcs. But if you don't want a Story Arc item, you should only have to repeat it once if you get a Story Arc item the first time.
This might make Story Arcs less awesome, but this game isn't about Phat lewt, so if you want to provide better bonuses for more time (which I agree with), then you need to make sure no one is left out of getting some items.
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Who said it has to be small chance from a TF/trial? Why can't it be small chance from anything (killing mobs/mission complete/etc)?
Why the need to have any item linked to specific events like this?
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Because the Evil Doctor says that they want four pools to work through. Currently, that's enemy defeats, task forces, trials, and story arcs. They aren't willing to get rid of a pool at this point.
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A totally off the wall idea for high lvl characters, heck for all characters.
Hazard Zones. Defeating a spawn in a hazard zone has a chance of dropping any type of invention salvage.
The risk is higher xp debt, the reward is a chance at a rare drop.
Yes this could/will lead to farming, but so will any other solution.
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Villains do not have hazard zones.
@Quasadu
"We must prepare for DOOM and hope for FREEM." - SirFrederick
Lighthouse and/or Dr. Brainstorm:
I know that the majority of people posting ideas about solving the problem of high-level characters and storyarc rewards have mentioned a "Flashback" system, some sort of repeatable storyarcs, or a change to the nature of the drop tables. My support and my suggestion, however, have to go to the "retroactive story arc reward" option that some have been throwing out here.
I realize that the system in place will likely just be the addition of a rare recipe as an option in the storyarc reward drop-down menu and that my suggestion would require extra coding. I also realize that all those characters getting all those rewards would introduce a LOT of rare recipes into the world at once. But I believe that the long-term negative impact would be negligible. The recipes are 1-use, are they not? So there's a good chance that most of those recipes will be used up within a relatively short time. And those that aren't will likely find their way to Wentworth's and the black market, thereby kickstarting the in-game economy. Furthermore, this system would ensure that everyone who has completed a storyarc at some point would be justly compensated and have a reason to at least investigate the new Invention system.
From what we've seen of the badge system, we know that the technology exists to retroactively award based upon previously-met criteria. Well, why not add some coding that looks for souvenirs and randomly cranks out rare recipes corresponding to the appropriate level range of the storyarc? Granted, there is the loose end of coding the retroactive awarding to only happen once so that any future storyarc rewards would have to be chosen manually. But I'm sure that the team at Cryptic can come up with something.
Thanks for taking the time to read this, and I hope that the idea that I and other have put forward will be given consideration among the other ideas.
Positron: "There are no bugs [in City of Heroes], just varying degrees of features."
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Mayhem/Safeguards To Be Included in Story Arc Pool - NO!, bad idea, precisely because we don't have a flashback system. If I want a level 30 recipe set that gives my pets a chance to taunt, and I'm currently level 50, I can't pick up level 30 Mayhems. It's the same problem as Story Arcs.
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That's actually an interesting idea : make some of the potential drops for Mayhem missions but not story arcs include the highest level recipe for any sets which have already been bypassed.
I'm generallly ok with the idea of Story Arcs being a source of one type of drop, as long as some consideration to the characters at 50 already is given. Since it's been stated there will be, I'm fine with that particular concern. There's a fair number of arcs in the game, and I usually complete most of them up to 40. However, arcs in CoV seem a lot shorter and more numerous than in CoH, and are often in 2 parts. According to a site I just looked at, there's about 70 arcs in CoV up to 40th level, and 39 in City of Heroes (Kheldian arcs excluded) up to that point. CoH's arcs post 40 are SUPER long and very tough (and I know CoV goes into Patron arcs at that point and you can't run all of them, and I can't compare them to the due to lack of personal experience). I think you should consider going back to some of those old arcs and breaking the longer ones in half (simply Part I and Part II) so that you can drop an invention prize after the first part is done and another invention reward and the standard SO & full arc bonus after the second part is done. There are also quite a few missions that run in series either before or after our current formal arcs, and some of them might as well be another arc but just aren't actually flagged that way. I know that not all sequential missions will really make sense as an arc, and I know you can't redo the whole system, but I think that if you just spend a little time looking at the lists of missions and arcs, some will jump out as needing a break or to be grouped into an arc. Now that we have the book icon to mark being on an arc, I think it would work out really well. As much as Inventions are such a big new facet of the game, I think this is a really good time to invest some effort and do some adjusting.
I also think you should flag some missions as having an arc-type IO drop, or at least a chance of it. There are quite a few missions in the form, "get item of power X back from group Y" that are lacking in real flavor because "item of power X" isn't even a temp power, just some generic clue text. For instance, the infamous Jewel of Hera mission, which is a huge pain, against Circle of Thorns, and almost always uses the "layer cake" room of the cave map mission. I don't know if that mission has higher xp than normal, but if it does, it isn't noticeably enough to make it seem worthwhile; If I knew I had a decent chance of getting a recipe out of that mission, I'd feel a lot better about running it. On a similar note, even if story arcs arent adjusted, some series of missions may actually be a mini-arc already, and if there isn't a badge at the end or something like that, well, this is a great place to spread the love a bit and also add a reward.
I hope you take this new system as a way to even out some of the rewards throughout the game; carefully used, I think this could be a great tactic. But I really think flagging some missions as potential salvage reward missions will give people extra opportunities to get recipes and relieve some of the stress caused by a fear of limited opportunity. You could even assign an arc-type reward to certain side missions in safeguards/mayhems. It wouldn't make them common, and you would have to do a number of missions to earn that window of opportunity, but it would be there.
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Completed Story Arc: 100% Chance of Pool B Reward
Completed Taskforce: 75% Chance of Pool C Reward, 25% Chance of Pool B
Completed Trial: 75% Chance of Pool D Reward, 25% Chance of Pool B
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I could go for that.
@Quasadu
"We must prepare for DOOM and hope for FREEM." - SirFrederick
But that will only work for the final pool of recipes. Remember that the recipes are broken up into level ranges.
Another possible solution: Police band missions that the detectives give that chain together and can be done only when you've outlevelled that detective. Basically dynamic 'arcs' that can be used to try to get recipes you've missed by outlevelling (or completing the normal arcs without getting all the recipes). Maybe have a limited number of them that can be run to avoid farming recipes. This would take less coding than flashbacks as well as provide even more content for people to play through. There'd be no reason to make the new missions anythong other than grey/no-xp so the only reason to run them is for fun and recipes.
reading this makes me think that inventions has a committee problem. too many people that have their own agenda and are bound and determind to have their individual ideas and parts (dumbbutts task force, miss stupid's story arc, etc) be required or they will pout and try to destroy what the rest of the group is trying to do. I fear that CoX is going to turn into a sony game style of way to complicated and too much work for very very little return and or the out of control inflation in the econ system making players struggle to get massive amounts of influence to afford lvl 1 receipes.
I see another problem with the limited pools and Storyarcs ie if you run storyarcs and not get the recipe you want then do a different one and same thing - pretty soon you outlvl the story arc and now your done.
Also I have a 50 that has completed every stopryarc available early the COH history (pre issue 3 or 4) but one (has the souvaneers to prove it) it is impossible to do that now as you level so much faster at lower levels now than you used to.
So even if i was allowed to go back and complete old storyarcs he would be outta luck 
SFC America Assault/Dev Blaster LVL 50
Cpt Patriot Inv/SS Tanker LVL 40+
Entropy MA/Inv Scrapper LVL 30+
Warbot En/En Blaster LVL 40 +
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Inventions has been touted as something that shelved level 50's can partake in. Level 50's that have completed all their story arcs already. Please, how can both of those occur? Level 50's can not experience IO's if they are locked out of acheiving specific rewards because they happened to hit the level cap before I9.
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It's like I said, we are looking into other options that keeps the mechanic of the four pool system. Our intention is to not make people feel "gimped" for previously completing all their story arcs.
[/ QUOTE ]Why not tie safeguard/mayhem missions into the story arc pool as well? There are 5-6 mission regular story arcs and it gives 50s a viable way to get stuff from that pool. Plus it would be an incentive to actually run safeguard/mayhem missions on our 50s.
<qr>
Something else just occured to me and I haven't seen it mentioned...
It was mentioned by Doc B that rewards from pools B, C and D depend on level, and that the Trial Recipe Pool doesn't exist at "early levels."
What's the state of the Task/Strike Force Recipe Pool at levels 10-15, 30-35, and 40-45? Villains have no Strike Forces in these level ranges, but Heroes do have Task Forces there.
Or did Doc mean that the reward depends on character level, so that a 42 exemping into a 35-40 Strike force can get a 42 Recipe?
@Quasadu
"We must prepare for DOOM and hope for FREEM." - SirFrederick
I personally like the idea of datamining our Souvineers and Badges for retroactive rewards for everyone, and would love to see that first. However, mixing Bank stuff would be good too.
I've done more bank missions on my villains then my heroes, but I think that if one of those special recipies were given out in the mix of temp powers or instead of an SO for robbing a store, it woudn't overwhelm the system by giving out way way too many rewards too quickly, and would be a good way to get some Pool B types even if your 50 doesn't have story arc's left.
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Just so you know. The actual Trials shouldn't take longer than 1.5-2 hours each. Some can be cleared in as little as an hour if you know what you're doing. TFs depend a bit more on which one you're doing, but again, most can be done in 3-4 hours by a team that knows what it's doing.
Even Posi and the Shard TFs. It's obviously still a major commitment but if you're teamed with sane people, chances are noone will complain if you need to take out the occasional 10-15 minutes to address real world concerns. That's just the breaks, and people accept that in my experience.
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Someone is obviously lucky enough to never have to PuG. Good For You. Now How about the rest of the players in the game?
I know that *I* personally want something that is fair to all players and all skills and all capabilities, guilded or unguilded, uber or noob, PL's and Casual, not just the few elite. Give the few elite a Bonus, a Reward, sure, just not exclusive rights.
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Please keep in mind this section of the Original Post:
Now again, I must stress, the majority of sets, including entire complete sets come from simply defeating enemies. All the costume piece and temp power recipes come from defeating enemies. There are Rare recipes (ones that have a worse chance to drop than others) in Pool A (the defeating enemies pool) as well.
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Not sure if i'm in a minority of one here, but since i don't actively pursue storyarcs,tf,trials and such because my idea of casual gameplay is just logging in, set lft and do whatever mission happens to be available, usually policeband or someone else's missions, does that mean i have an equal chance of getting every meaningful io set? Or am i still out of luck in completing some IO sets and have to start camping auction houses 24/7?
Don't get me wrong, i don't mind doing tf when i get invited, but i don't purposefully set out to do these things (usually don't have time to look or organize for it)
I have a personal sg and vg so setting up sg teams is not possible, and i have no problems with that. I love PUGs. But how will this system treat players like myself?
If i'm alone in this then i guess it's not your problem and this question is moot. And i should just prepare to take out the sleeping bag, roast some smores in the fire and settle in for Auction Campout 2007.
Any thoughts?
Edit: Oh btw, my personal stance on the subject is...
Missions and PUGs =
Auction Camping = 
regarding notes on the OP.
i think having a rare drop on an AV type would be cool, but if possible, (for the obvious limiting purpuse) make it so a toon can only get the drop once for that AV. if he joins a team for it again, he/she will not get it, just get the standard insp/enchancment drop as normal.
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Now I hear you guys... you all seem to dislike the Story Arc aspect of this system. I've had some discussions with the team yesterday about what we could do instead, and still keep the flavor of the four pool system, because having the extra three pools allows us to not only reward risk/reward, but time/reward as well. Takes longer to do a Task Force? Here's a nice bonus you can't get anywhere else. Finish the Respec trial, but already have all your Respecs? Here's a nice reward that carries with it some good inherent value.
Now again, I must stress, the majority of sets, including entire complete sets come from simply defeating enemies. All the costume piece and temp power recipes come from defeating enemies. There are Rare recipes (ones that have a worse chance to drop than others) in Pool A (the defeating enemies pool) as well.
We also will be actively monitoring datamining on every aspect of this system through all of Training Room and into Live.
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The problem with having drops that are exclusive to completing story arcs is that story arcs can be outleveled and cannot be repeated. If I've already done a trial or a task force previously, after inventions I can decide to go and do that trial or task force another time for the recipe. If I've completed a story arc already that opportunity is now closed off to me and I'm SOL.
Being that a lot of us are going to look at inventions as something to do with our level 50, having to create /another/ similarly leveled character to do a few arcs to get a few of a certain drop that are only available once ever in that character's career is not acceptable.
If you allow someone who has completed a story arc to start it over again from the beginning you will eliminate almost all of the complaints in this regard. Perhaps you decided to do this story arc thing to prevent "farming" the item, however having access to certain enhancements once ever in a character's career is incredibly annoying. (Expect RMT to love trafficing in the material as well.)
Addendum: Have Mayhem/Safeguard missions provide rewards from the Story Arc pool sounds like an easy, efficent, and acceptible solution to the current problem. Perhaps it could be made so the recipe reward is something that can be recieved if the temp power in the mahem/safeguard has already been granted before. (So you'd have to have done the mayhem/safeguard once already before you can get invention pieces from it.) Alternatively for /extra bonus points/...
Apollinaris has activated the temporary power: PIPE DREAM.
Create a new mini mission in safeguards/mayhem missions where you earn an invention piece.
More work, yes, but it follows in with keeping the invention piece a bit harder to get, and more cool missions in mayhem/safeguards is always a plus. The mission could have something to do with a lab of some sort.