Serious Question

No, you are right - it was not adjusted to account for IOs - and it SHOULD NOT BE ADJUSTED for IOs - which are an optional system.

The game is balanced around characters with normal DOs & SOs.

There weer lots of tips on how to increase challenges offered throughout this thread - try some of those.

I think the new stuff for 50s in GR will make IOs required, I think - if there's going to be a system to make 50s more like 60s, then the missions/raids for that will probably be pretty impossible for anyone without IOs.

That would be nice. I'm not sure that it's a confirmed idea, but I see no reason why the game wouldn't be headed that way. Sort of "additional levels without levels".

This post kind of brings up the problem, though. Should you get extra XP for that, and if you're 50 already anyway, what differnence does XP even make? Certainly you should get reward, even greater reward, but how much more, and what kind? And what about the non-50s that happen to be in your team?

I hope GR not only addresses this, but comes up with a great solution, as well.

While some people may disagree with what I am about to say, it is the truth**.

NCSoft and Paragon Studios have never, ever, ever failed to please me.


**Statement is truth as it applies to me, and I am happy with NC and PS's changes to the game.

Quote:

Originally Posted by jade_dragon Quote: Originally Posted by golden girl i think the new stuff for 50s in gr will make ios required, i think - if there's going to be a system to make 50s more like 60s, then the missions/raids for that will probably be pretty impossible for anyone without ios. that would be nice. I'm not sure that it's a confirmed idea, but i see no reason why the game wouldn't be headed that way. Sort of "additional levels without levels".

If just like getting SO's it would be possible to get IO's based on normally playing the game, i.e. not being dependent on the community or random drops, I'd be all for that. As long as we are required to engage in market activities and/or farm for our special IO's, those IO's should not, in my opinion, be an entry-condition to any other in-game activity.

Quote:

Originally Posted by jade_dragon This post kind of brings up the problem, though. Should you get extra xp for that, and if you're 50 already anyway, what differnence does xp even make? Certainly you should get reward, even greater reward, but how much more, and what kind? And what about the non-50s that happen to be in your team?

That's yet another reason for my objection to IO's becoming an entry-condition to any in-game activity.

One way I see around all this though, is special quest-lines you can get to only when you're Lv50, and allow only Lv50 characters to participate in them, that would essentially let us win special IO-sets. Then the game can include special Lv50+IO's-only content.

kind of like how one acquires hamios?

I just wanted to chime in on this. I'm not good buddies with ThugsRus but I learned a lot from his excellent Elec/SD and SS/SD guides, he give me build advice in the past, and I teamed with him briefly so he could show me how one of his brutes performed.

His reference to "not breaking a sweat" comes from his use of incredibly optimized, multi-billion inf builds, not because of cheap tactics like using Hami Mitos. Even with the aggro limits, I assure you that being at the aggro limit with all lvl 54 bosses on an average SD brute was a nice way to rack up debt. I tried it on my SD brute and found that since a lvl 54 boss had > 7% chance to hit, being at the aggro cap would cause me to gradually chew through my insps until inevitably faceplanting. I have nothing but respect for ThugsRus's ability to build uber characters. He's up there with TopDoc and Werner from what I can see, and that's very lofty company indeed.

To address ThugsRus's original topic about wanting more of a challenge, the answer will be in Going Rogue. Check out this dev presentation at San Diego Comicon video. This video is showing key goals of Going Rogue; at 1:37 is where they confirm GR will have a way to get "a more powerful level 50" along with "a compelling new end game" with "challenges that make current challenges seem like a piece of cake".

Well, if Reischman is any indication of things to come, I eagerly await further developments along this path.

How tough a group of enemies is to defeat depends less on their ranks than on their powers. A group of enemies that all have the same powers is generally easier to defeat than a group with a mix of powers. Your initial premise -- that a room containing excessive numbers of Bosses should be more rewarding than a room with a moderate number of enemies consisting of all three commonly-encountered ranks -- does not necessarily hold true because the former is not necessarily more challenging than the latter, especially when the Bosses are known to be identical across the board as they were in your stated example.

The I16 AE XP changes were an (admittedly simplistic) attempt to curtail the practice of mix-and-matching custom weaksauce power combinations for maximum farmability, not a social equalizer to prevent exceptional players from leveling faster than average ones. The idea that "a Boss is a Boss is a Boss, and they should all be equally rewarding" is flawed at its core, but it's the basis of all farming methods involving custom enemies. However, the ideal solution -- adjusting XP based on enemy powers and power combinations -- cannot be done in a thorough and accurate way. The problem is too complex for an automated algorithm and there are too many combinations to do it by hand. The "no XP for just Bosses" change is really just the best non-thorough, inaccurate way the devs came up with for making the flaws in AE's reward design harder to capitalize on.

Stheno is an AV, what did you expect? To just walk in and smack her down?

Also, please show me ANY level Science Endurance SO "Boron Exposure" worth 100k.

You also neglect to mention the 9 reward merits for finishing the "Snake Fest" story arc.

How well DO you know this game?

I'm sorry but your post is just light on the "challenge" part and heavy on the "reward" part. It screams the same thing as all the other posts that say "I'm in it for the challenge". That's bull. You're in it for the reward first, and just do what you gotta do to get it. You don't care about the "challenge". In fact, all the numerous boss farms in the AE just show the same thing. It's not about the "challenge" (they all try to reduce the challenge as low as possible)... it's all about the "what's in it for me?"

Yeah, I love AVs that go untouchable when the temp power that's supposed to counteract it is broken >.>

Maybe we'll have a giant Starfish underwater that has "arms" that regenerate over time and attack you as we try to kill the center.

So... Lusca got harder and went underwater, basically?

At least there will only be 5 regenerating/respawning arms, instead of 8...

It's more like LR/towers at the end of STF... or the Head of the Hydra in the Sewer Trial.

...and it gives us some underwater content that so many people keep asking for. lol

Or AVs that have more HP than bloody Hamidon. Nothing screams challenge more than a half-way decent team that can survive an AV like that with ease but still takes forever to whittle his ridiculous health down.

Well, I suppose the challenge is not quitting the TF in frustration, but I get the impression that's not quite the idea of challenge the devs intended.

Lusca only has four arms. And they don't respawn.

Originally Posted by Dispari I don't know why Dink thinks she's not as sexy as Jay was. In 5 posts she's already upstaged his entire career.

Lusca has 8 tentacles. Not 4.

I count real good up to 10, and I agree with Aett.

Shouldn't you be able to count up to 21 pretty well?


You know, with the tail and all...

I would definately call that confirmation.

It's my guess that past 50, something else will replace XP. Something like the tickets or merit systems. Or maybe even an XP system that allows some other type of development, like it effects what kind of Enhancements you can slot, or maybe even adds or modifies slots.

At the very least, I would think it would be useful to come up with some sort of rating system, so you can continue to compare characters to their foes and balance the XP rewards accordingly. Also, unless we exclude non-50's totally, (and that would require excluding them from the zone) there would probably need to be some way to "SK" them up so they aren't just totally outclassed.

I think you're on the right track. We don't know what GR will do for sure, but the August '08 marketing survey mentioned a mechanism called Universal Enhancement Slots as a way of making your character as powerful as a hypothetical level 60 without actually bumping the level cap. The survey made no mention of how you'd earn the slots, but presumably it's not through XP.

BABs cautioned that some stuff on that survey has been dropped or heavily modified though, so we can't even be sure the UES system will be included. We can be sure that something that allows character advancement withough bumping the level cap will be included, though.

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Originally Posted by all_hell kind of like how one acquires hamios?

I'm thinking more along the lines of special quest-lines based on our specific character's Origin/AT/Power-set combination that would eventually lead to our characters gaining complete sets of IO's.

The idea is to give each character something to do that only another character of the same Origin/AT/Powers can experience, unless of course you bring friends on your missions...

Option 1: Pad TF/Trials/SF, get extras to drop and then run it alone or with as few as possible of your friends. Set it to w/e +con you can handle. That will be adequate challenge that will rival any boss farm (god I miss them though, they were a lot of fun). If your build is as uber as you believe the rewards will come quickly. Or at least they will if they ever fix the drop rate bug

Option 2: You can still make very rewarding AE missions, what you need is a toon that can pull far more than the single player target cap, then stick it with grey minion fodder (I think this is still possible, haven't checked) and tougher luts/bosses. The fodder will vaporize and you'll be left fighting what closely resembles a Boss farm of yore complete with full rewards, full excitement, and full challenge.

Granted 1 and 2 are a LOT more effort than just logging into a Boss Farm and going to town.

Option 3: intentionally gimp yourself. Probably sounds like an insult to anyone that enjoys min/max building, and it is at the core, but I don't mean it that way. Make a specific build weakness and then min/max it away. Example, build a fire troller with no flashfire and then min/max the lack of that "mandatory" power out of the build. It can be interesting as lets be honest it isn't hard in the least to build a tankmage in this game if you have the funds. If you have a large bankroll it removes a lot of the enjoyment out of maximizing a build imo.

Anyway, I won't patronize you and say you should be enjoying normal content as it is "intended", if you don't then you don't. NBD. But you can still find things that have difficulty on par or even exceeding the typical boss farm, the reward rate will still be very good if you toon can do well.