What about a Randomly Rotating Pool as you level? Or Fight Certain Mobs? Make everything even chance to be rotated into fighting so you can get everything by clearing, but not always?
Please don't listen to anyone saying the story arc rewards are a bad idea. I love the idea of better rewards for more story arcs. Now, I do understand that there's some L50s that already have done the arcs - but why not just make those recipes also drop from high level AVs and/or task forces? Then 50s can get them one way, and up-and-coming toons can do the story arcs.
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Now, I do understand that there's some L50s that already have done the arcs - but why not just make those recipes also drop from high level AVs and/or task forces?
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Problems with your statement:
<ul type="square">[*]This doesn't only affect the Level 50s. I have characters from levels 13 to 43 that this is going to affect.[*]Task/Strike Forces have their own pool (Pool C).[*]So do defeats (Pool A). This is compounded by the statement that the majority of the drops will be from defeating things.[/list]So, not a solution.
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Now, I do understand that there's some L50s that already have done the arcs - but why not just make those recipes also drop from high level AVs and/or task forces?
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Problems with your statement:
<ul type="square">[*]This doesn't only affect the Level 50s. I have characters from levels 13 to 43 that this is going to affect.[*]Task/Strike Forces have their own pool (Pool C).[*]So do defeats (Pool A). This is compounded by the statement that the majority of the drops will be from defeating things.[/list]So, not a solution.
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You forgot
<ul type="square">[*]Some poeple don't have time, will, or desire to do TFs/SFs[/list]
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* There are different pools every 5 levels, to conicide with the recipes that are available at those levels.
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It would help a great deal if the pools were COMPLETELY different every 5 levels. No specific IO would be in the same pool two tiers in a row. L50s could then get an IO from level 41-45, 46-50, or 51-53.
/Stonewash
Explorer 86.67%, Achiever 60.00%, Socializer 46.67%, Killer 6.67%
"When nature calls, I can go right in my suit."
"That part of your suit broke when you fell down the ventilation shaft, remember?"
"I just found out why my socks feel squishy."
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There are no guarantees that the things tied to story arcs will be something you need.
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And there are no guarantees that they won't be. Some of us prefer no to gamble on which way that particular point will fall.
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You forgot
<ul type="square">[*]Some poeple don't have time, will, or desire to do TFs/SFs[/list]
[/ QUOTE ]Sorry, that arguement wins no points. Want the rewards for completing a difficult task? Guess what. You have to complete the task. Seriously, the arguement here is for the people who want to do arcs for the reward but can't not for the ones who just don't want to do the arcs.
There are several accolades tied to taskforces, but anyone whining that they can't get those because they don't like teams get a sad song on an invisible violin. 
All that is planned fails. All that is born dies.
All that is built crumbles. This will always be true.
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Lets say that the "Aura 10% Defence Buff for Pets" enhancement from the Pet set "Edict of the Master" is one of the enhacements on the B (Story Arc) list. You have a MM in his 30s who would really like to slot that into three of his powers; add one more if he's either a Necromancer or /Dark. Because this enhancement caps out at level 40 he's already got a timer on when he can get this enhacement -- after he hits 41, he can't possibly get it on his own anymore. If he's in his high 30s, that leaves about 10 story arcs that he can even possibly try to earn this enhacement. If there are only 30 items on the 35-40 SA list, that's a one in three chance you'll pull even *one* of these, and that's if you haven't already run an arc, mostly solo (so you won't easily outlevel any other arc), and devote the rest of your time to just running SAs.
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Replace "a MM" with "Pax_Arcana's Main". Seriously, that's one of the sets I'm drooling over, and I want at LEAST one iteration of it. Maybe more.
I think your assessment of pobable prices is a bit high - I'd say "milions of infamy", rather than "tens of millions" - but that still allows for prices like, say, 8,000,000 ... which is well mroe than FOURTY times what my MM has on-hand right now.
One thing many people are not considering:
Unless you have made a very conscious effort to complete all your story arcs, it is highly probable that you do have the ability to return to these arcs after outleveling the contact in order to complete them.
I had to do this in order to attain the Statesman's Pal arc on my main. My main ended up having to return to 10 outleveled contacts and run outleveled content b4 Mariah Jenkins would allow me to access the arc I actually wanted to do. This means that at one point I was running Atta as a level 50 empath/psi defender.
All it generally takes to be able to do this is to have run missions for an arc granting contact up to the point of being able to call that contact. Sometimes, it only takes having run a single mission for the contact. This means that it is highly likely that PL toons might have low level arcs qued alongside their level 45+ arcs still being runnable. Many Plers find the occasional need to run solo when noone is available to PL them and they wish to play, but it is unlikely that they soloed through an arc that is 15+ missions long to completion. Toons that started contacts without finishing the contracts' arc have zero need for a flashback implement.
I think that the suggestion to allow a click to accept repice reward button to the souvenirs would be fantastic. It would allow a retroactive reward without people having to worry that they may not have room in inventory for all the available rewards.
When the little symbol for an active arc went live, I checked and cleared some old stuff on a few characters.
Dunno, maybe others did too.
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You forgot
<ul type="square">[*]Some poeple don't have time, will, or desire to do TFs/SFs[/list]
[/ QUOTE ]Sorry, that arguement wins no points. Want the rewards for completing a difficult task? Guess what. You have to complete the task. Seriously, the arguement here is for the people who want to do arcs for the reward but can't not for the ones who just don't want to do the arcs.
There are several accolades tied to taskforces, but anyone whining that they can't get those because they don't like teams get a sad song on an invisible violin.
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Hey, don't get me wrong. I agree with you. And as a person with out the time or desire to do TFs or Trials, I except I won't be getting any Recipe from TFs or Trials, unless I buy them at Wentworths or the Black Market.
Others arn't though, and have already complained about it. Iwas just pointing it out.
NCIS: Best gorram show in the 'verse.
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I think that the suggestion to allow a click to accept repice reward button to the souvenirs would be fantastic. It would allow a retroactive reward without people having to worry that they may not have room in inventory for all the available rewards.
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But since we've all already had our DO/SO rewards for the arcs that we got souvenirs for, it would mean that we got rewarded twice.
Unless 'random rare recipe' isn't one of the options for finishing a story arc, and it awards automatically. But I was under the impression that it would be an option.
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Takes longer to do a Task Force? Here's a nice bonus you can't get anywhere else.
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Careful with that one, it sound innocent enough when phrased like that but be aware that a lot of players will rephrase it as:
"Want that ultra-important drop? Well cut a hole in your chair and put a bucket under it, cause the only way you're getting it is by completing an 8 hour task force."
I might suggest offering a greater quantity of drops rather than a unique drop. The activity DOES need to be rewarded, but you have to be careful in making activity A the only way to receive reward X.
That is, after all, why we have the Statesman Task Force coming up now, isn't it?
Quick note: Not everyone who missed arcs is a PLer, and the insinuation is insulting. Folks who team a LOT will miss most of their arcs. Also, the hollows, Croatoa, Striga, and Faultline are arcs, and can have been missed by players who simply STARTED before they were available...and those ones don't work like the rest; once you outlevel, there is NO WAY to access the arc.
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Please don't listen to anyone saying the story arc rewards are a bad idea. I love the idea of better rewards for more story arcs. Now, I do understand that there's some L50s that already have done the arcs - but why not just make those recipes also drop from high level AVs and/or task forces? Then 50s can get them one way, and up-and-coming toons can do the story arcs.
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I'm not sure why this concept is so hard to grasp... People can do AVs and TFs all they want, Story Arcs are UNREPEATABLE. If we are forced into having a random chance of getting a reward, drawing something random from a pool of limited, unrepeatable, out-levellable, one time story arcs is not acceptable to most people.
The only thing worse than devs making bad decisions is the hoard of fanboys and bootlickers that keep cheering them on.
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One thing many people are not considering:
Unless you have made a very conscious effort to complete all your story arcs,
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That's me. 
Not only that, but I chase story arcs down ... and use off-site resources like the ParagonWIKI to choose new contacts based on the story arcs I can get from them.
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Quick note: Not everyone who missed arcs is a PLer, and the insinuation is insulting. Folks who team a LOT will miss most of their arcs. Also, the hollows, Croatoa, Striga, and Faultline are arcs, and can have been missed by players who simply STARTED before they were available...and those ones don't work like the rest; once you outlevel, there is NO WAY to access the arc.
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Also not all arcs reward Souvenirs so doing it by mining them or placing a button by them doesn't cover all the arcs you may have done.
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"Once the avalanche has started, it is too late for the pebbles to vote" -Kosh
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I think that the suggestion to allow a click to accept repice reward button to the souvenirs would be fantastic. It would allow a retroactive reward without people having to worry that they may not have room in inventory for all the available rewards.
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But since we've all already had our DO/SO rewards for the arcs that we got souvenirs for, it would mean that we got rewarded twice.
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Hence why my version of this suggestion - and I think that means, the ORIGINAL version, because I honestly do believe I posted the idea first - was to have that rewardcost as much as a brand-new DO or SO purchase (levelled appropriately to teh arc in question), when you claimed it.
Snitch, I did not mean to imply that PLers are the only people who missed completing arcs. I did mean to point out that the PLers who do have qued arcs available are very much going to be in a position of attaining the rewards, while those players who were conscious arc completers will not.
The toon I used as an example of having qued arcs was not PLed to 50. She was an emp/psi defender and required almost constant teaming to accomplish anything but receive debt. Many people have qued arcs. There have been request threads for "Drop Contact" ever since "Drop Mission" went into effect and very likely even b4 that.
Pointing out the PL work-around makes it more likely for PL hating Devs to take notice.
I have no idea who first mentioned the click to accept option, I just thought it was brilliant and should be backed up. Considering that there are very few available arcs each level increment (generally 5 or so), it is not asking much to ask for each souvenir to come with a recipe reward. It would not be dificult to make the accept recipe reward exclusive for recipes. Even if there is only a random chance of getting a Pool B drop with arc completion, the click could then be tied to granting you a random chance of obtaining the recipe equal to normal arc completion. Similar to clicking the Winter Event mystery gift cold randomly reward a jet pack or just the basic prestige/influence reward, the click option culd give you a random chance of being awarded a "TY for clicking" message or an actual recipe.
There is no real need to remove the standard arc competion DO/SO/Inf reward considering the effort put into actually completing the arc. We have never seen a mass herd of farmers running to 20 mission deep arcs in order to get a single SO. The time sink invlolved coupled with the nonrepeatable nature of arcs is detrimental to farming. This might change. Farmers might very well turn to PLing multiple recycled character slots in order to attain Pool B recipes. It depends on how much the recipes sell for once the market stabilizes. retroactive rewards inhibits fabricated inflation, since the market for the IOs will have a lower demand.
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Hence why my version of this suggestion - and I think that means, the ORIGINAL version, because I honestly do believe I posted the idea first - was to have that reward cost as much as a brand-new DO or SO purchase (levelled appropriately to teh arc in question), when you claimed it.
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There's no equivalent mechanism to make up for people that teamed for other people's tasks that'll make it by 9. Which makes it a touch non-fair. I say we give everyone the same amount of nothing to start with and tweak the recipe drop pools to include some of the outleveled recipes, at least for the first few months.
That, and Unspecified Repeatable Content That Awards Story Arc Recipes should give everyone a chance to get the stuff they want.
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Hence why my version of this suggestion - and I think that means, the ORIGINAL version, because I honestly do believe I posted the idea first - was to have that reward cost as much as a brand-new DO or SO purchase (levelled appropriately to teh arc in question), when you claimed it.
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There's no equivalent mechanism to make up for people that teamed for other people's tasks that'll make it by 9. Which makes it a touch non-fair. I say we give everyone the same amount of nothing to start with and tweak the recipe drop pools to include some of the outleveled recipes, at least for the first few months.
That, and Unspecified Repeatable Content That Awards Story Arc Recipes should give everyone a chance to get the stuff they want.
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There is no way any solution is going to be perfect.
However, I would far rather an IMPERFECT solution, than NO solution at all.
There is an equivelant to Retroactive Rewards to many people who outleveled arc granting cotacts.
Qued arcs.
Unless you never opened on of the arc granting contacts for some reason (such as PLing or being a didicated team player) or are an arc completionist (such as myself and Pax and others) you very well might have the ability to go back and complete outleveled arcs. Open you contact window. There is a very nifty little book symbol next to any contact who has an available Qued arc for you. Regardless of your current level, you can run that qued arc to completion.
Now we have a reduced number of characters unable to earn Pool B rewards thru normal play. The Dedicated competionists, the dedicated teammates, and the dedicated PLers. The dedicated PLers and teammates have one significant advantage over the dedicated completionists: they are likely still capable of opening the story arcs available for level 45+ content.
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I am listening to your ideas, but a Flashback system is simply not something we can implement in a timeframe you would all be happy with.
Instead we are looking into other options to get you the Pool B choice so level 50s don't feel gimped.
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In the meantime, is it possible to retroactively give Story Arc drops to those who had completed Story Arcs prior to I9? After all, Story Arcs are recorded under Clues/Suveniers.
I know it doesn't make up for missed Story Arcs, but at least high level characters who had been able to do the Arcs would still be able to get the drops.
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Takes longer to do a Task Force? Here's a nice bonus you can't get anywhere else.
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Careful with that one, it sound innocent enough when phrased like that but be aware that a lot of players will rephrase it as:
"Want that ultra-important drop? Well cut a hole in your chair and put a bucket under it, cause the only way you're getting it is by completing an 8 hour task force."
I might suggest offering a greater quantity of drops rather than a unique drop. The activity DOES need to be rewarded, but you have to be careful in making activity A the only way to receive reward X.
That is, after all, why we have the Statesman Task Force coming up now, isn't it?
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Yeah, but assuming you've got some people who will go along with it, a TF can be done an hour at a time over the course of a week. giving it a not unreasonably board accessiblity. Where as a story arc you either have access to or you don't.
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YES highly agreed... there IS a solution though... it was shelved way back oh i4 i think...
FLASHBACKING!!! when you cna repeat a favorite contact or storyarc...
include THAT into the invention system... and i THINK you might have a winna!!!!
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I think you missed a large part of the discussion here.
Says Doctor Brainstorm:
"I am listening to your ideas, but a Flashback system is simply not something we can implement in a timeframe you would all be happy with. Instead we are looking into other options to get you the Pool B choice so level 50s don't feel gimped."