Are people just rude?

Who the heck cares? There's no debt during an invasion so getting 'ganked' while AFK is meaningless.

This is great and should actually always be the case if you ask me.
While a zone is invaded, trainers and Longbow should have more pressing things to do than training and selling.
We could request that all trainers and outside shops close down in a zone during invasion, would make it much more realistic and solve the problem, as there's no reason anymore not to block a trainer.

Let me tell you a little story about monkeys. More specifically, monkeys and bananas. Even more specifically, monkeys, bananas, and behavioral studies involving high pressure water cannons.

A bunch of scientists did this one day, probably because they were bored. They put four monkeys in a room and fed them something a lot like dog food. It was everything the monkeys needed to survive, it just didn't taste very good. After a while, the scientists put a basket of bananas in the center of this room.

The catch was, as soon as one monkey went to get a banana, the others would get sprayed with very high pressure, painful streams of water. What the monkeys figured out was simple: Stop the other monkeys from getting bananas. As a result, the monkeys that were getting sprayed beat the crap out of the monkey trying to get a banana until he stopped. This pattern continued for a few weeks while the scientists kept placing fresh bananas in the room. One monkey would try to get a banana, and the others would stop him to save themselves from the water.

Eventually, all the monkeys stopped going after the bananas, despite how many fresh batches there were. At this point, the scientists (still bored) took one monkey out of the cage and replaced it with a new monkey. This monkey instinctively went for the bananas and, even though they weren't being sprayed with water, the other three monkeys started beating him up. The new monkey tried to get a banana a few more times, each time getting beat up, until a week later when he stopped trying.

Then another "water monkey" was taken out and replaced with a second new monkey. This new monkey tried to get a banana and was stopped by all three other monkeys. This included the one who had never been sprayed with water. The same pattern followed as more monkeys were replaced, one at a time, until the room was full of monkeys that had never been sprayed. Even more could be replaced, and generations later, still no monkey would eat a banana.

What was the point of all this? Well, with people gathering at the trainer, maybe there was a reason at first, maybe not, but regardless, that's what we've always done. And we're just a bunch of monkeys.

If such were the case, we wouldn't have to deal with:

"EBs won't spawn with your Stealth power on noob!"
"Don't click the glowies they make the reactor harder (said in a serious way)"
"TFs used to spawn at the level of the team, I hate that they changed them to the TF cap"
"the New Hami Raid takes too long, and is boring"
etc etc

Social Inertia isn't so easy to overcome as you think.

Was it ever determined WHY those glowies exist? Did the devs put them in there specifically to make us all ask, "Why are these glowies here?"

I thought they were for RP reasons.

Before CoV and Stalkers that could (and did) gain extensive levels just by clicking glowies for the xp they gave, or even free inf, Glowies used to be a nice little bonus. I'm not saying it's the Stalker's fault, just that an existing problem became far more prevalent with their advent.

Since then we've seen a series of changes to the mechanic to essentially nerf the glowie into oblivion.

- Removal of almost all rewards (there are a few times they still give some inf in some missions, and Safeguard/Mayhems still have their reward glowies)
- Stealth Suppression
- Changing the standard mission goals so that defeating the foes in the room is required in addition.

Could they revisit things and put some rewards back in now that we have different goals and suppression? I'd think so, but then again it's hard to come up with an equitable system that would prevent glowie envy (because that was I'm sure one background reason they nerfed them as well. People used to get uptight about "losing" things they felt belonged to them when on a team).

Random Thought- I think they could code each type of glowie object to award a Common Salvage to everyone on the team, based on a choice list for the mission creator. Common Salvage wouldn't break the bank I should think, especially if they use the Invisible Clue system that locks out completed side missions from being reset (to prevent someone from running a mission ad nauseum just for the glowies).

Take note that this is *just* a story. While you'll find many copies and variations of this on the web, what you won't find is the original study. This post on Snopes.com tells what's more likely to happen.

The devs put them in there to make the reactor harder for teams that click them.

This is done in order to have an invasion for the players. Stand in the plaza in front of the tram between Bastion and Luminary to fight, and the police drones take out everything they can; there's little that will destroy your enjoyment of an invasion more than the third or fourth time you get a Rikti/zombie down to about 5% and have a police drone defeat it, swallowing all the XP and rewards in the process.

I had the misfortune of getting whacked this way. Alas, I had shifted between the powers/slots management window, the full-screen training window and Paragon wiki to look up a power, and had no idea at the time while I was training that an invasion was under way. When I brought the training screen down, it was 'base or hospital', *Eep! whut?!*

Sorry, but point #3 doesn't quite hold, particularly if someone has started their training prior to an invasion, and they are taking their time to train with the full screen window up. I have to agree with the OP at least in this regard.

Edited to add: It was suggested that the immediate area around trainers be no-spawn zones, similar to the markets. I think this is the best solution. I honestly don't expect (nor think it is appropriate to expect) players to change their behavior for my or others' benefit.

No, not really.
I shouldn't actually be surprised.

I guess this is why people who actaully have small ideas that might actually make a little but nice QoL change give up and stop posting.

It's either so big that it gets labeled as game breaking, or so small that its not worth the time. Or simply a silly/troll idea anyway.

Originally Posted by Zwillinger GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.

Originally Posted by Captain_Photon NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.

YOU'RE a silly troll idea!

Thing is, you're assuming none of this has occured to anyone before. When invasions were in testing, we were very vocal about all kinds of changes and QoL adjustments and most of them got implemented. In this case, this one wasn't. It could have been missed by oversight, but it's unlikely. Chances are they've just determined the gains aren't enough to worry over.

However that doesn't mean you need to get bothered and turn it into 'big forum meanies are mean' when people point that out to you.

Now, if you want to come up with a more compelling argument than "lowbies suffer" feel free. If there's a real necessity, I'm sure the devs will listen.

This is not true in all zones.

Talos :: People camp on the hill. - away from the trainer. (and away from the drones)

Galaxy :: People often camp down the steps from the trainer (and away from the drones)

IP :: I've seen quite a lot of camping just off the tram on the road (away from the drones)

I agree with you that Atlas, Steel, and Founders tend to be right at the trainer,but that is not "always" in all zones.

Atlas, Steel, and Founders are three examples where there aren't drones right at the trainer. So if there were drones at every trainer, then the grouping for events would not happen at any of the trainers.

As other have said, it's easy to say meet at X Signature Character and many tend to know where that is, so it's an easy reference point.
I always thought it was silly to fight where they were, but, you know, some people think that the Signature characters are important to the game and want to pal around with those "stuffed shirts" as much as they can.
I've never seen one of them take out a Rikti during a raid or a zombie during an Apocalypse. All they do is stand there and watch everyone else fight. But then the reporters come around and they start ranting about how they saved the day and mug for publicity shots.

Actually, if I correctly remember what started the glowie nerfs, it was the bug/feature that allowed team members to receive XP for glowies even if they weren't in the mission. By itself, this wasn't a bad thing; however, it was quickly discovered that 'not in the mission' extended to 'not in the zone', so you could have a team farming a glowie mission in Talos, IP, or Founders, and a couple of fresh-from-the-intro-zone characters back in Atlas Park getting XP for the glowies -- which, unlike mob XP, didn't get filtered through the "within four levels of team average level" XP limiter, so these lowbies would be getting the 300XP or so for each glowie, which was pushed through the "25+ levels higher than you are" XP modifier to give them 5,000 or more XP for each glowie. (Akin to the early Winter Lord XP fiasco).

"Ah, dat was a bad thing t'say, pal. Y'tink trolls are silly, hmm? Dat we're all stoopid? Well now...What's gonna happen is dis. Clarance here..say Hello, Clarance. Nah, don' just grunt, ya schmuck! Clarance here, he IS a bit of a stoopid Troll. But, what he's gonna do, see, is tear off ya right arm. 'Kay? Then he's gonna do the same wit' the left arm, only THIS time, ya don' wanna see where he's gonna shove it. That might learn ya, pal."

-Ceasar the Troll, to a very former business associate.



What puzzles me is why people see it as a bad idea. Its not harming anyone, and its benefitting some people. Win/win?
-shrug-
Anyhow, anyhoo...

Originally Posted by Zwillinger GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.

Originally Posted by Captain_Photon NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.

Not really, no - but they do, ironically, sit there stealing kills from the event participants as fast as their little disintegration rays* can recharge. You'd think a group of people so obsessed with defeat badges and "free XP" would notice that and perhaps move to someplace where they aren't, but...


* Yes, yes, "teleport to the Zig." We told you that so you wouldn't get upset. The Invisible Man actually died of a heart attack 25 years ago.

i guess thats the thing, it really isnt providing much of a benefit at all though, and it will require coding work that has the standard risk of breaking something else, as well as disrupting an established meeting place for players, all for an, i'm sorry, but its a very minor inconvenience. I keep trying to see this from your perspective as a situation of other players being rude but it really just seems like something easily adjusted for.

It's not necessarily a bad idea. Part of the reason people are not agreeing with you is that your post indicated that people who fight Rikti invasions near the Atlas trainer (most of us) are rude. If you really want to campaign for a change, turn your message from negative to positive.

There was a great solution already posted in this thread:
Campaign for drones at all trainers. Call it a "quality of life" issue. Point out that it makes sense to have drones at all trainers, not just some of them. Call it a change that will benefit everyone.

Don't complain that the current situation has a negative impact on you, tell others how the change will help them play and enjoy the game.