Why were the new Merits made to decrease TF Recipe prices and increase Purple prices?


Adeon Hawkwood

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by PumBumbler View Post
I'm saying the OP's dichotomy is a false dichotomy. They both work out the same in the end because the player will just choose whatever is most efficient in the end (within reason).
I don't think I agree. Here's why. My way of buying purples has been, explicitly, to produce expensive things (either randomly via drops or explicitly using R-Merits) and use the profits to buy purples.

For me, I now have to produce on the order of 1.5-3x as much "stuff" to buy one purple using that method, because the sale price of "stuff" has gone down and the buy price of purples went up.

Using A-Merits to buy purples is so expensive in A-Merit terms that it's still faster for me to produce drops or R-Merits, but now I have to produce more of them in order to buy the same purples. My choice is between a 3-fold worst case (ish) time increase based on my production rates and something like a 10-fold time increase to use A-Merits (including buying them with inf and R-merits), so my best case got worse.

Now, I don't really have any trouble marketeering to make up the difference, but I think it was an unwise choice of the devs to increase the necessity of raw marketeering to retain the same efficiency of access to purples. Why? Because there are people who don't enjoy marketeering* to make (lots of) money. I think it was a good thing being able to tell those folks there were other ways they could work towards buying the Ferrari of enhancers. And yeah, there still are. They're just slower now. Not what those players generally want to hear.

* I use the term "marketeering" to refer to pure market profit activities, like flipping or craft-flipping, as opposed to stuff like selling drops or merit created items.


Blue
American Steele: 50 BS/Inv
Nightfall: 50 DDD
Sable Slayer: 50 DM/Rgn
Fortune's Shadow: 50 Dark/Psi
WinterStrike: 47 Ice/Dev
Quantum Well: 43 Inv/EM
Twilit Destiny: 43 MA/DA
Red
Shadowslip: 50 DDC
Final Rest: 50 MA/Rgn
Abyssal Frost: 50 Ice/Dark
Golden Ember: 50 SM/FA

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by UberGuy View Post
I don't think I agree. Here's why. My way of buying purples has been, explicitly, to produce expensive things (either randomly via drops or explicitly using R-Merits) and use the profits to buy purples.

For me, I now have to produce on the order of 1.5-3x as much "stuff" to buy one purple using that method, because the sale price of "stuff" has gone down and the buy price of purples went up.

Using A-Merits to buy purples is so expensive in A-Merit terms that it's still faster for me to produce drops or R-Merits, but now I have to produce more of them in order to buy the same purples. My choice is between a 3-fold worst case (ish) time increase based on my production rates and something like a 10-fold time increase to use A-Merits (including buying them with inf and R-merits), so my best case got worse.

Now, I don't really have any trouble marketeering to make up the difference, but I think it was an unwise choice of the devs to increase the necessity of raw marketeering to retain the same efficiency of access to purples. Why? Because there are people who don't enjoy marketeering* to make (lots of) money. I think it was a good thing being able to tell those folks there were other ways they could work towards buying the Ferrari of enhancers. And yeah, there still are. They're just slower now. Not what those players generally want to hear.

* I use the term "marketeering" to refer to pure market profit activities, like flipping or craft-flipping, as opposed to stuff like selling drops or merit created items.
That may be true if you were explicitly buying low level procs with reward merits before, since they went for about 300M or so, but rolling randoms were supposedly better inf/merits AFAIR.

Since the A-Merit version of the Random Roll is actually better than a R-Merit Random Roll, you should be gaining more recipes than you did before the introduction of A-Merits.

However, like you said, this buff means that there is a greater supply of rare recipes, and consequently increased supply will drop the prices of rare recipes wrt to purples on a supply and demand basis.

Again, I don't think the devs look very closely at ratios that change market amounts unless they are an order of magnitude or greater in price, but they've done things to ease supply before. Take costume drops, for example. I don't think they cared about the cost of that stuff more than the availability of it.

It is possible that they've decided to proliferate the amount of good stuff starting from the bottom (if LotG and Numinas can be considered low rent) if things like the i19 incarnate task force is the new baseline for loot that you need to ensure that you remain semi-competitive.

And once again, I will state that the pursuit of loot (heh, it rhymes) usually means that getting a daily allotment of tips for Amerits and converting Rmerits to Amerits and accumulating Rmerits should be part of a ritual for someone who is serious about outfitting their toons.

Of course, anyone who is super serious about that can avoid the market altogether and farm maps for purples and PvP IO farm as well.


 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by PumBumbler View Post
...It is possible that they've decided to proliferate the amount of good stuff starting from the bottom (if LotG and Numinas can be considered low rent) if things like the i19 incarnate task force is the new baseline for loot that you need to ensure that you remain semi-competitive.

And once again, I will state that the pursuit of loot (heh, it rhymes) usually means that getting a daily allotment of tips for Amerits and converting Rmerits to Amerits and accumulating Rmerits should be part of a ritual for someone who is serious about outfitting their toons.

Of course, anyone who is super serious about that can avoid the market altogether and farm maps for purples and PvP IO farm as well.

Not everyone purchased GR. I did not for example. Since the devs allowed GR as more "flavor" than anything, I don't see this actually being the case. However, the people who do indeed have GR have a nice leg up on those who don't when they are getting a free A Merit every 2 days or so (if they wish).


 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by PumBumbler View Post
That may be true if you were explicitly buying low level procs with reward merits before, since they went for about 300M or so, but rolling randoms were supposedly better inf/merits AFAIR.
I think there was debate about that. Certainly I don't think Another_Fan believed it. But whether it was true on average wasn't actually relevant to me, because selling expensive stuff (which I only recall hitting 250M, but close enough) was faster return on average, even if it was lower average return on inf/merits (which I think it likely was not).

I think the problem with the random roll approach was that the really expensive stuff was comparatively rare. Most of the average value, whatever it was, was tied up in things that sold for low or modest amounts. There were a handful of the total list of max level Pool C/D recipes that sold for (comparatively) extremely high prices, and those prices were high enough that these recipes did a lot to raise the average while not being all that common to get as drops. That meant your odds of hitting (or exceeding) the average on a short run were low. It was more valuable to me, in terms of faster gratification, to spend my merits on the best inf/merit ratio items I could find and sell them.

Quote:
Since the A-Merit version of the Random Roll is actually better than a R-Merit Random Roll, you should be gaining more recipes than you did before the introduction of A-Merits.
Well, except that I didn't do the random rolls before. But the main thing, for me, is that the time is about the same. There was a lot of variation, but my best per-character R-Merit earning rates were usually on the rough order of 50 merits a night. That meant I could earn an LotG or maybe a Miracle in about 4 days, which is on par with how fast I can earn 2 A-Merits. I can "earn" A-Merits faster if I earn both A- and R-Merits and use R-Merits to buy A-Merits, but that starts to take a significant bite out of my profits.

Quote:
However, like you said, this buff means that there is a greater supply of rare recipes, and consequently increased supply will drop the prices of rare recipes wrt to purples on a supply and demand basis.
Right. From my perspective that's the annoying part. I'm not deeply worried about the divide in the perceived haves and have-nots in MMOs, but despite that, I'm not big on the devs doing things that can widen that perceived gap. That's what I see this doing.

Possibly overstretching the have/have-not analogy, good Pool C/D rares were really more the upper-middle-class IOs, where Purples were the realm of the truly rich. (PvPOs would have been the realm of the super rich.) I feel like the devs punted Pool C/D stuff down a notch on the imaginary class scale but left purples and PvPOs where they were. Maybe I should think it's grand that they made upper-middle-class goods more accessible to the "blue collar" player, but it bugs me on some level that they did that and left the truly rich goods where they were. This despite the fact that I likely qualify as "truly rich".

Quote:
Again, I don't think the devs look very closely at ratios that change market amounts unless they are an order of magnitude or greater in price, but they've done things to ease supply before. Take costume drops, for example. I don't think they cared about the cost of that stuff more than the availability of it.
I agree with you. The fact that they probably don't look/think about it bugs me. I think they should care some about this sort of thing. Of course maybe they do and this was a conscious decision on their part. But I'm more inclined to believe like you do. I think what this would do was not on their radar.


Blue
American Steele: 50 BS/Inv
Nightfall: 50 DDD
Sable Slayer: 50 DM/Rgn
Fortune's Shadow: 50 Dark/Psi
WinterStrike: 47 Ice/Dev
Quantum Well: 43 Inv/EM
Twilit Destiny: 43 MA/DA
Red
Shadowslip: 50 DDC
Final Rest: 50 MA/Rgn
Abyssal Frost: 50 Ice/Dark
Golden Ember: 50 SM/FA

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by UberGuy View Post
But whether it was true on average wasn't actually relevant to me, because selling expensive stuff (which I only recall hitting 250M, but close enough) was faster return on average, even if it was lower average return on inf/merits (which I think it likely was not).
Entirely possible, I gave up on crafting a bunch of stuff a while ago since there was too much to do, so I was very happy buying specific recipes for merits and selling them for 300-350M (lowest level procs). I was able to sell a level 10 BotZ for a billion, but that could have been a 100M typo sale, but you never know.

Quote:
It was more valuable to me, in terms of faster gratification, to spend my merits on the best inf/merit ratio items I could find and sell them.
I understand your reasons for not going the random roll route. After a while the crafting to maximize profits grind really plugs up your inventory and management of goods such that it makes you want to become a "Buy it NOW" kind of person when it comes to the salvage. Quintupling the amount of recipes to make up for the overhead can become quite a drag.

Quote:
Right. From my perspective that's the annoying part. I'm not deeply worried about the divide in the perceived haves and have-nots in MMOs, but despite that, I'm not big on the devs doing things that can widen that perceived gap. That's what I see this doing.
Yes, but that gap has always been there, before R merits were introduced. Reward Merits just made that gap even wider (which I had anticipated and forewarned about), and now Alignment Merits will just make that gap even wider. It didn't stop them from implementing the schemes before, so I doubt that it will give them pause now.

Quote:
Maybe I should think it's grand that they made upper-middle-class goods more accessible to the "blue collar" player, but it bugs me on some level that they did that and left the truly rich goods where they were. This despite the fact that I likely qualify as "truly rich".
Can I have your stuffs? I should be more bugged than anyone else since I'm sitting on a mountain of merits that have 'lost value' because of the new system. Somehow it doesn't bug me at all. Maybe I'm too far gone to care about it or else I'm resigned to holding depreciating assets.

Quote:
The fact that they probably don't look/think about it bugs me. I think they should care some about this sort of thing.
I'm pretty sure they want to care, but their development model doesn't give them the time to really delve into it. I think it's kind of the same reasoning on issues like ED back in the day. The devs are working on the next couple of issues ahead of where we are now; we are so far back in their rearview mirror that they can't turn around and come back to get us each time we cry foul. It just slows them down too much.


 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by UberGuy View Post
I think there was debate about that. Certainly I don't think Another_Fan believed it. But whether it was true on average wasn't actually relevant to me, because selling expensive stuff (which I only recall hitting 250M, but close enough) was faster return on average, even if it was lower average return on inf/merits (which I think it likely was not).

On the original random roll, rolling merits was measured as being as roughly 1k/merit less profitable than just buying a level 25 LotG global. That was with the LotG global being valued in the 70 million range at the time.

Using other procs at that time that was cut in half. I didn't go into it more, because quite frankly demolishing an argument on the boards is nice, not destroying a profit center was nicer.

Quote:
I think the problem with the random roll approach was that the really expensive stuff was comparatively rare. Most of the average value, whatever it was, was tied up in things that sold for low or modest amounts. There were a handful of the total list of max level Pool C/D recipes that sold for (comparatively) extremely high prices, and those prices were high enough that these recipes did a lot to raise the average while not being all that common to get as drops. That meant your odds of hitting (or exceeding) the average on a short run were low. It was more valuable to me, in terms of faster gratification, to spend my merits on the best inf/merit ratio items I could find and sell them.
That was my point on the rolling vs purchase. There was absolutely zero risk premium built into the roll and you had a very good chance of getting junk.


 

Posted

Alternate explanation: Hero Villain merits are the developers way of admitting that they screwed up merits and merit rewards. Its their way to both fix things and funnel people into paying for going rogue.

The problem with regular merits was that the people who can run TFs fast overwhelmingly dominate the statistics. They run them faster and more often. This screws over the people who can't blitz them, and it really screws over the people who occasionally fail TFs.

The developers also have a real bias to putting in new things instead of fixing old ones.

Result: We have a new kind of merit, that you get at a very limited rate. The new merits don't depend on skill just persistence. You can get half of one a day on all the characters you want to make the effort on.


You can also add me to the column of people upset about this during beta. The tip missions are incredibly easier than task forces, can be soloed, teamed or multi boxed easily, run at -1x0 difficulty, yet they still give better rewards than the best task force teams can get.


 

Posted

With prices on some purples hitting 700+ mio this weekend...

I may need to change my position.

Good lord.


When something good happens to me, I can never enjoy it....
I am always too busy looking for the inevitable punchline...


BEHOLD THE POWER OF CHEESE!

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Another_Fan View Post
The problem with regular merits was that the people who can run TFs fast overwhelmingly dominate the statistics. They run them faster and more often. This screws over the people who can't blitz them, and it really screws over the people who occasionally fail TFs.
This is a bias that no one else has ever bothered to comment on when I brought this up. Reward merits were devised such that fast TF runners would see the lion's share of the rewards at the expense of the slow/casual/pug TF runners, and TF failures were never factored in.

If Alignment merits are meant to pull it back the other way, such that the casual player can get the similar rewards as TF runners, that's not such a bad thing. However, with so much more in rewards banked already, the fast TF runners already are making their presence felt simply because they can outbid/outbuy the casual player because they have billions of inf and thousands of merits already.

I suppose the only advise I have to anyone getting into the rewards game is to farm Purple and PvP IOs. The demand is much higher than the supply, and reward merits and alignment merits are being cashed in at a furious rate to get the right Purple/PvP IOs.


 

Posted

there is no way to 'level the playing field' between efficient power gamers and 'casual' players and I wish they'd stop trying.

MMO players who devote more time and energy to the game are going to reap much greater rewards than 'baseline' players, period.


The Nethergoat Archive: all my memories, all my characters, all my thoughts on CoH...eventually.

My City Was Gone

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Nethergoat View Post
there is no way to 'level the playing field' between efficient power gamers and 'casual' players and I wish they'd stop trying.

MMO players who devote more time and energy to the game are going to reap much greater rewards than 'baseline' players, period.

Complete failure of the imagination and memory ?

Diminishing returns is a giant counter example.

I suspect the incarnate system is going to be another. The more incarnate enhances you have the less important sets and set bonuses will be.


 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Another_Fan View Post
Complete failure of the imagination and memory ?

Diminishing returns is a giant counter example.

I suspect the incarnate system is going to be another. The more incarnate enhances you have the less important sets and set bonuses will be.
lmao. and DR didn't do what it was supposed to which was to bring more people into PvP. really bad example there guy. why don't you stay out of the market forums and quit crying about the market.


 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Sharker_Quint View Post
lmao. and DR didn't do what it was supposed to which was to bring more people into PvP. really bad example there guy. why don't you stay out of the market forums and quit crying about the market.
ED is another.

And seeing as you can't comprehend the difference. In terms of equalizing power levels DR did accomplish its goal. What the I13 changes didn't do was make more builds viable or bring more people to PvP.


 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Another_Fan View Post
ED is another.

And seeing as you can't comprehend the difference. In terms of equalizing power levels DR did accomplish its goal. What the I13 changes didn't do was make more builds viable or bring more people to PvP.
DR still doesn't work like it should, hence why it did not bring more people into PvP. i know what the difference is and there is none in terms of what DR didn't do. but enough about PvP. we could go on for days about it and this isn't a forum for that, this is a market forum.


 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Another_Fan View Post
Complete failure of the imagination and memory ?

Diminishing returns is a giant counter example.

I suspect the incarnate system is going to be another. The more incarnate enhances you have the less important sets and set bonuses will be.
That would be really disappointing to a play like me.

I am semi casual and persistent. I have played for a long time (going on five-six years) but have never gotten on the TF grind. I may run one of them a month.

However, through very small amounts of marketing, some lucky drops, and now A Merits, I'm getting close to actually finishing a build. Before, while I could have finished a build it was just more fun to level a new character, thus leaving me with many many half filled characters.

If I do finally finish one, it will be very disappointing to realize that effort was for nothing by a raising of the "level cap"


 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Torrynt View Post
However, through very small amounts of marketing, some lucky drops, and now A Merits, I'm getting close to actually finishing a build. Before, while I could have finished a build it was just more fun to level a new character, thus leaving me with many many half filled characters.

If I do finally finish one, it will be very disappointing to realize that effort was for nothing by a raising of the "level cap"
Bear in mind that I am answering this concern with I18 beta information, from before the early Incarnate features were pulled from GR. (I would have to be breaking an NDA to answer with info more recent.)

Unless I19 significantly alters the nature of the Incarnate system, I don't think you need to worry in the way you are, for a couple of reasons.

First, Incarnate effects we could see in I18 were relatively orthogonal to those from Inventions. Sure, picking one of many examples, if you get a global endurance discount, that competes with +recovery bonuses. You could maybe avoid needing global +recovery bonuses in a build that had global -endcost. But you could also have both and have even more lasting power. It's really no different from saying that having a strong team of buffers and debuffers makes IO bonuses unnecessary. It's true, but misses that, barring slamming into attribute caps, having both is still probably better.

Second, the Incarnate features only worked at level 50. If that's still in effect in I19, and if you plan to exemplar at all, you will need a build that doesn't assume Incarnate slot benefits.

Personally, I suspect that the best Incarnate builds will still involve set bonuses. They may change the prioritization of what sets are considered "best", but I think that will be the worst extent of making your build efforts worth "nothing".


Blue
American Steele: 50 BS/Inv
Nightfall: 50 DDD
Sable Slayer: 50 DM/Rgn
Fortune's Shadow: 50 Dark/Psi
WinterStrike: 47 Ice/Dev
Quantum Well: 43 Inv/EM
Twilit Destiny: 43 MA/DA
Red
Shadowslip: 50 DDC
Final Rest: 50 MA/Rgn
Abyssal Frost: 50 Ice/Dark
Golden Ember: 50 SM/FA

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by UberGuy View Post
Bear in mind that I am answering this concern with I18 beta information, from before the early Incarnate features were pulled from GR. (I would have to be breaking an NDA to answer with info more recent.)

Unless I19 significantly alters the nature of the Incarnate system, I don't think you need to worry in the way you are, for a couple of reasons.

First, Incarnate effects we could see in I18 were relatively orthogonal to those from Inventions. Sure, picking one of many examples, if you get a global endurance discount, that competes with +recovery bonuses. You could maybe avoid needing global +recovery bonuses in a build that had global -endcost. But you could also have both and have even more lasting power. It's really no different from saying that having a strong team of buffers and debuffers makes IO bonuses unnecessary. It's true, but misses that, barring slamming into attribute caps, having both is still probably better.

Second, the Incarnate features only worked at level 50. If that's still in effect in I19, and if you plan to exemplar at all, you will need a build that doesn't assume Incarnate slot benefits.

Personally, I suspect that the best Incarnate builds will still involve set bonuses. They may change the prioritization of what sets are considered "best", but I think that will be the worst extent of making your build efforts worth "nothing".
From the way I read the plans in beta the incarnates were both a global slot, and and a bypass to ED. So if you were slotting purple sets for the recharge bonus, slotting the incarnate bonus, would give you the equivalent of a large global recharge bonus for everything at the ED cap, and eveything else that wasn't at ED cap it would push towards the cap or slightly beyond if you were close enough.

That would be the first set.

I agree with you on exemping but just how many people go to the trouble to make exemplar friendly builds ?


 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Another_Fan View Post
From the way I read the plans in beta the incarnates were both a global slot, and and a bypass to ED. So if you were slotting purple sets for the recharge bonus, slotting the incarnate bonus, would give you the equivalent of a large global recharge bonus for everything at the ED cap, and eveything else that wasn't at ED cap it would push towards the cap or slightly beyond if you were close enough.
It wasn't an especially large bonus if you were at the ED cap. The amount that bypassed ED was increased towards the end of its beta presence. The largest benefit was for things that you didn't already have near-ED slotting for. The remainder was about on par with good set bonuses, at least for equivalent things. (For example, there's no such thing, currently, as a global end reduction set bonus.) But again, there's no reason to replace set bonuses with Incarnate bonuses except as an optimization for things you either don't need more of or you can't get more of due to attribute caps.

Quote:
I agree with you on exemping but just how many people go to the trouble to make exemplar friendly builds ?
Almost everyone I play with in game makes some concession to it with their IO builds. It's one thing to be willing to lose set bonuses that go over and above good enhancement slotting when you exemplar down today. It turns out that some of the best global bonuses - good enough to consider replacing slotting benefits - come from purples, which conveniently ignore exemplar rules. So for most builds, easy exemplar concessions come from slotting low-level globals (LotGs, BotZs, etc.) and purples.

With what we know of Incarnate bonuses, you get global enhancements that could entirely replace slotting for some things across your powers. But if you took such a build into an exemplar setting at any non-50 level, it would be quite gimp, possibly lacking adequate slotting of things everyone considers fairly key: recharge, endurance, accuracy or damage. I don't play with anyone who would be willing to do that to their builds, though I know a couple of people on the forums who might be willing to.

I haven't seen anything that suggests to me that my characters wouldn't benefit significantly from having both set bonuses and complementary choices of Incarnate benefits. Not all the things we saw in I18 were things any enhancement today can do, and remember you can only slot one effect at a time in each Incarnate slot. (That's confirmed public info on the updated system as of today.) The way I'm going to min/max that is to choose the best combination of benefits for my goals, and I'm convinced that's going to include plenty of set bonuses with Incarnate benefits giving me things sets can't, or things they can give me more of than my powersets can slot sets for.


Blue
American Steele: 50 BS/Inv
Nightfall: 50 DDD
Sable Slayer: 50 DM/Rgn
Fortune's Shadow: 50 Dark/Psi
WinterStrike: 47 Ice/Dev
Quantum Well: 43 Inv/EM
Twilit Destiny: 43 MA/DA
Red
Shadowslip: 50 DDC
Final Rest: 50 MA/Rgn
Abyssal Frost: 50 Ice/Dark
Golden Ember: 50 SM/FA

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Another_Fan View Post
From the way I read the plans in beta the incarnates were both a global slot, and and a bypass to ED. So if you were slotting purple sets for the recharge bonus, slotting the incarnate bonus, would give you the equivalent of a large global recharge bonus for everything at the ED cap, and eveything else that wasn't at ED cap it would push towards the cap or slightly beyond if you were close enough.

That would be the first set.

I agree with you on exemping but just how many people go to the trouble to make exemplar friendly builds ?
Please go back and read the "plain english" write up that was done on the incarnate system. If launched as that guide described, you'll be sorely disappointed that its not really close to what you seem to think it is. While yes, in theory you could rebuild your powers around your incarnate slot, you'd be hard pressed to do so in most cases without sacrificing something else that your incarnate isn't picking up.

Re: Exemplar friendly builds -

Actually, a lot of people do. And I mean a LOT. There's a reason that the demand for level 25-33 IOs stays so steady - and it not new players coming up through those ranks.

Essentially, if you never plan to exempt below 33, you need not bother with a build that focuses on maximizing % useage. However, if you exemplar at all, it a great idea to look into creating a secondary build that will allow you to remain functional. For example - i you have an /SR toon that only has soft capped defense at level 45+, you're pretty much SoL if you do anything but a top level TF.


 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Misaligned View Post
Please go back and read the "plain english" write up that was done on the incarnate system. If launched as that guide described, you'll be sorely disappointed that its not really close to what you seem to think it is. While yes, in theory you could rebuild your powers around your incarnate slot, you'd be hard pressed to do so in most cases without sacrificing something else that your incarnate isn't picking up.

Re: Exemplar friendly builds -

Actually, a lot of people do. And I mean a LOT. There's a reason that the demand for level 25-33 IOs stays so steady - and it not new players coming up through those ranks.

Essentially, if you never plan to exempt below 33, you need not bother with a build that focuses on maximizing % useage. However, if you exemplar at all, it a great idea to look into creating a secondary build that will allow you to remain functional. For example - i you have an /SR toon that only has soft capped defense at level 45+, you're pretty much SoL if you do anything but a top level TF.
You should read what I wrote.


 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by UberGuy View Post
It wasn't an especially large bonus if you were at the ED cap. The amount that bypassed ED was increased towards the end of its beta presence. The largest benefit was for things that you didn't already have near-ED slotting for. The remainder was about on par with good set bonuses, at least for equivalent things. (For example, there's no such thing, currently, as a global end reduction set bonus.) But again, there's no reason to replace set bonuses with Incarnate bonuses except as an optimization for things you either don't need more of or you can't get more of due to attribute caps.
IIRC for the common it was around 6% bypassing the ED cap. It went up as the rarity went up. It was enough to make slotting a gladiators unique more optional than a overwhelming goal.

As things stand with many enhancement sets they have shortcomings in what they enhance. If you have a build that is targeted aoe heavy you tend to be short recharge in those powers. The incarnate slot lets you fix those.


Quote:
Almost everyone I play with in game makes some concession to it with their IO builds. It's one thing to be willing to lose set bonuses that go over and above good enhancement slotting when you exemplar down today. It turns out that some of the best global bonuses - good enough to consider replacing slotting benefits - come from purples, which conveniently ignore exemplar rules. So for most builds, easy exemplar concessions come from slotting low-level globals (LotGs, BotZs, etc.) and purples.

With what we know of Incarnate bonuses, you get global enhancements that could entirely replace slotting for some things across your powers. But if you took such a build into an exemplar setting at any non-50 level, it would be quite gimp, possibly lacking adequate slotting of things everyone considers fairly key: recharge, endurance, accuracy or damage. I don't play with anyone who would be willing to do that to their builds, though I know a couple of people on the forums who might be willing to.

I haven't seen anything that suggests to me that my characters wouldn't benefit significantly from having both set bonuses and complementary choices of Incarnate benefits. Not all the things we saw in I18 were things any enhancement today can do, and remember you can only slot one effect at a time in each Incarnate slot. (That's confirmed public info on the updated system as of today.) The way I'm going to min/max that is to choose the best combination of benefits for my goals, and I'm convinced that's going to include plenty of set bonuses with Incarnate benefits giving me things sets can't, or things they can give me more of than my powersets can slot sets for.
Your experience of how people deal with exemplaring issues is different than mine. The people I do know that build with an eye towards exemplaring tend to use the second build for that. It allows you to get much better performance by using inaccessible powers for set mules, and you can do things like slot beyond ED, or frankenslot with IOs that won't be affected in the powers you plan to have available.


 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Another_Fan View Post
Your experience of how people deal with exemplaring issues is different than mine. The people I do know that build with an eye towards exemplaring tend to use the second build for that.
I don't know of anyone anyone I play with that's ever used a second build on more that one character, and I can only think of two people who did that. Both were VEAT builds. I don't know anyone who's ever gone to the expense of making a 2nd build for purposes of exemplaring. The reason is that a high-end IO build usually exemplars fine unless you're highly optimizing for farming at a low level or something. I typically build with max-level sets, and all my builds work fine down to Positron levels.


Blue
American Steele: 50 BS/Inv
Nightfall: 50 DDD
Sable Slayer: 50 DM/Rgn
Fortune's Shadow: 50 Dark/Psi
WinterStrike: 47 Ice/Dev
Quantum Well: 43 Inv/EM
Twilit Destiny: 43 MA/DA
Red
Shadowslip: 50 DDC
Final Rest: 50 MA/Rgn
Abyssal Frost: 50 Ice/Dark
Golden Ember: 50 SM/FA

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by UberGuy View Post
I don't know of anyone anyone I play with that's ever used a second build on more that one character, and I can only think of two people who did that. Both were VEAT builds. I don't know anyone who's ever gone to the expense of making a 2nd build for purposes of exemplaring. The reason is that a high-end IO build usually exemplars fine unless you're highly optimizing for farming at a low level or something. I typically build with max-level sets, and all my builds work fine down to Positron levels.
And the people I know who build for exemplaring don't do it with half measures in mind. Now if we can get past the people you know vs the people I know part of the conversation and get back to the original question of what impact the alpha slot will have on actual builds


Here is a Fire/Energy Manipulation blaster off the blaster boards

Hero Plan by Mids' Hero Designer 1.81
http://www.cohplanner.com/


Level 50 Magic Blaster
Primary Power Set: Fire Blast
Secondary Power Set: Energy Manipulation
Power Pool: Speed
Power Pool: Fitness
Power Pool: Fighting
Power Pool: Leaping
Ancillary Pool: Mace Mastery

Hero Profile:
Level 1: Flares -- Decim-Acc/Dmg:40(A), Decim-Dmg/EndRdx:40(5), Decim-Dmg/Rchg:40(5), Decim-Acc/EndRdx/Rchg:40(7), Decim-Acc/Dmg/Rchg:40(7)
Level 1: Power Thrust -- KntkC'bat-Acc/Dmg:35(A), KntkC'bat-Dmg/EndRdx:35(3), KntkC'bat-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg:35(3), KntkC'bat-Dmg/Rchg:35(23), Mako-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg:50(43)
Level 2: Fire Blast -- Decim-Acc/Dmg:40(A), Decim-Dmg/EndRdx:40(9), Decim-Dmg/Rchg:40(9), Decim-Acc/EndRdx/Rchg:40(11), Decim-Acc/Dmg/Rchg:40(11)
Level 4: Build Up -- RechRdx-I:50(A), RechRdx-I:50(13), Rec'dRet-ToHit/Rchg:20(13), Rec'dRet-ToHit:20(15)
Level 6: Fire Ball -- Posi-Acc/Dmg:50(A), Posi-Dmg/EndRdx:50(15), Posi-Dmg/Rchg:50(17), Posi-Dmg/Rng:50(17), Posi-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx:50(19)
Level 8: Fire Breath -- Posi-Acc/Dmg:50(A), Posi-Dmg/EndRdx:50(19), Posi-Dmg/Rchg:50(21), Posi-Dmg/Rng:50(21), Posi-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx:50(23)
Level 10: Hasten -- RechRdx-I:50(A), RechRdx-I:50(27), RechRdx-I:50(29)
Level 12: Aim -- RechRdx-I:50(A), RechRdx-I:50(29), Rec'dRet-ToHit/Rchg:20(31), Rec'dRet-Pcptn:20(31)
Level 14: Super Speed -- EndRdx-I:50(A)
Level 16: Bone Smasher -- KntkC'bat-Acc/Dmg:35(A), KntkC'bat-Dmg/EndRdx:35(25), KntkC'bat-Dmg/Rchg:35(25), KntkC'bat-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg:35(27), Mako-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg:50(46)
Level 18: Blaze -- Decim-Acc/Dmg:40(A), Decim-Dmg/EndRdx:40(31), Decim-Dmg/Rchg:40(33), Decim-Acc/EndRdx/Rchg:40(33), Decim-Acc/Dmg/Rchg:40(33)
Level 20: Swift -- Empty(A)
Level 22: Health -- Heal-I:50(A), Heal-I:50(34)
Level 24: Stamina -- EndMod-I:50(A), EndMod-I:50(34)
Level 26: Conserve Power -- RechRdx-I:50(A), RechRdx-I:50(34)
Level 28: Stun -- Amaze-Stun:50(A), Amaze-Stun/Rchg:50(37), Amaze-Acc/Stun/Rchg:50(37), Amaze-Acc/Rchg:50(40), Amaze-EndRdx/Stun:50(40)
Level 30: Boxing -- Empty(A)
Level 32: Tough -- S'fstPrt-ResDam/Def+:30(A), S'fstPrt-ResKB:30(36), S'fstPrt-ResDam/EndRdx:30(36), TtmC'tng-ResDam/EndRdx:50(37)
Level 35: Boost Range -- RechRdx-I:50(A), RechRdx-I:50(36)
Level 38: Total Focus -- KntkC'bat-Acc/Dmg:35(A), KntkC'bat-Dmg/EndRdx:35(39), KntkC'bat-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg:35(39), KntkC'bat-Dmg/Rchg:35(39), Mako-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg:50(40)
Level 41: Weave -- RedFtn-Def/EndRdx:50(A), RedFtn-Def/Rchg:50(42), RedFtn-EndRdx/Rchg:50(42), RedFtn-EndRdx:50(42), RedFtn-Def:50(43), LkGmblr-Rchg+:50(43)
Level 44: Scorpion Shield -- RedFtn-Def/EndRdx:50(A), RedFtn-Def/Rchg:50(45), RedFtn-EndRdx/Rchg:50(45), RedFtn-Def/EndRdx/Rchg:50(45), RedFtn-Def:50(46), LkGmblr-Rchg+:50(46)
Level 47: Web Envelope -- Enf'dOp-Acc/Rchg:50(A), Enf'dOp-EndRdx/Immob:50(48), Enf'dOp-Acc/EndRdx:50(48), Enf'dOp-Immob/Rng:50(48), Enf'dOp-Acc/Immob/Rchg:50(50), Enf'dOp-Acc/Immob:50(50)
Level 49: Combat Jumping -- LkGmblr-Rchg+:50(A), Ksmt-ToHit+:30(50)
------------
Level 1: Brawl -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Sprint -- Empty(A)
Level 2: Rest -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Defiance
Level 4: Ninja Run
------------
Set Bonus Totals:
  • 4% DamageBuff(Smashing)
  • 4% DamageBuff(Lethal)
  • 4% DamageBuff(Fire)
  • 4% DamageBuff(Cold)
  • 4% DamageBuff(Energy)
  • 4% DamageBuff(Negative)
  • 4% DamageBuff(Toxic)
  • 4% DamageBuff(Psionic)
  • 22.06% Defense(Smashing)
  • 22.06% Defense(Lethal)
  • 3% Defense(Fire)
  • 3% Defense(Cold)
  • 3% Defense(Energy)
  • 3% Defense(Negative)
  • 3% Defense(Psionic)
  • 14.88% Defense(Melee)
  • 3% Defense(Ranged)
  • 3% Defense(AoE)
  • 6.75% Max End
  • 3% Enhancement(Immobilize)
  • 77.5% Enhancement(RechargeTime)
  • 33% Enhancement(Accuracy)
  • 112.95 HP (9.373%) HitPoints
  • Knockback (Mag -4)
  • Knockup (Mag -4)
  • MezResist(Immobilize) 18.15%
  • 20% Perception
  • 10.5% (0.175 End/sec) Recovery
  • 8.19% Resistance(Fire)
  • 8.19% Resistance(Cold)
  • 1.875% Resistance(Negative)




Code:
| Copy & Paste this data into Mids' Hero Designer to view the build |
|-------------------------------------------------------------------|
|MxDz;1410;674;1348;HEX;|
|78DA9D93594F135114C7EF74B1B49D2E505ACADE52F6A5C29BCB838A40225253C1F|
|8A492B14C4A0D4EC77648E4CD0FE0836B5C904FE116E337D398F19CF3BF4334BE39|
|69FFBF3BE79E7BCEE91F6EEDF19AA9D4934BCA485D3DB0BADDDD5552CFEE446B56B|
|3D55031A5D4A00EED6E5B4ED3DEAB6EB43A36D22AC1CECEA1EBB63B5E75DDB13BCD|
|A3DD9AE5B4DCC303CB6BB59DDE6BCEBEDDB11DAF1A2C12F576FBA0BAE3DAF69E29C|
|B8D96E7D8DD6E4ABF34F7BD96D3C4D6966DB9F432B8EEB61AD5A05BCD6AD824BC3E|
|2AD28073F4BDAC82C78FA837841915790BBC139C790F1C0B1EFE995E274CA8D04D6|
|04750D816CC3F20ACA82BA4864E3750BD07D57B503D81EA09546F9386911E0E2F48|
|0553E34348A99C4A1F0B562916D565A31F2521FD4990FD0C7C11F47D15AC91C6747|
|A0CE97D48EF477A3FD20B489FA0DCB84CED87E2683F048C00EBA4493D66F2AF9D31|
|8C397622A850A114F254AA2C092E69468F92817F45F857847143B07109FE6D90F6E|
|AF45EF83706FF4AF0AF04FF4AF02F4A0D73985CE57C7A548C2279448CFCA4D42C03|
|3DB433A077064AD8011EF1FF2E9A1A83F85D65A0433AACC719DE0C7168F23AB0259|
|8A901370406B518D5BF7F54C60953641C4DC3E3DC7D54558A404130396FF0494F4C|
|C00813E85D010E49A7F4085330701A064EC3B969F838030323D470160DA3B309A93|
|D97044C2023984F0379C1CFAC520BFAD4024E2DE2D4224E2DA6044B38B584533FE8|
|5415A345ABCF2474F639F0027829587905BC161468C265FD775846A1955F8ABD188|
|99CDE35FAB07D5BFF44EA91D30BA60C899423C19DF3FD78F6F43EFDEFF3CD0CCAC5|
|B713A4B758EA24C66D5EDD61B9CBAFF77865F1EA3E4B835FFDEF663070E61CCF759|
|EE502CB45963CCDA79E72668CEF5392C56449B1A459322C59961CCB10CB098BFF1B|
|035BFC78|
|-------------------------------------------------------------------|
The highlights of this build

Softcap S/L defense

77.5 haste

30% global acc.

146% recovery

Just looking at simply adding in the alpha slot with a common nerve enhance

All the attack powers except stun get at a 33% recharge increase.

Aim and build up, and hasten all get a 12% recharge increase.

The purple set can be dropped from that build and everything will come out ahead for recharge and whats more the entire build can be redone to be more exemplar friendly than it was.

I am not up on all the current prices but the one purple set is I think is about as expensive as the rest of this build.

So at least in this case the incarnate slot marginalizes the need for what the purple sets were providing.


 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Another_Fan View Post
And the people I know who build for exemplaring don't do it with half measures in mind.
Ad homenim by third party. But fair enough - I happen to think the people you know are wasting time and game money bothering to build specialized exemplar builds. Buy hey, if they're having fun doing it, who cares, right?

Quote:
Now if we can get past the people you know vs the people I know part of the conversation and get back to the original question of what impact the alpha slot will have on actual builds

<snip>

The purple set can be dropped from that build and everything will come out ahead for recharge and whats more the entire build can be redone to be more exemplar friendly than it was.
I suspect I know what you mean, but from my perspective, it's literally impossible to remove the purples and have the build come out ahead for recharge. Set bonuses do nothing to decrease bonuses from Incarnate powers, so removing the purple set is a straight up reduction in the recharge of every power over having both the purples and the Incarnate buffs.

Moreover, if you remove the purples, the build becomes less viable at lower levels, when you could just keep the purples and retain their bonuses at any level. The only reason to do that becomes the cost.

Quote:
I am not up on all the current prices but the one purple set is I think is about as expensive as the rest of this build.
No disagreement. Of course, that has something to do with why I don't bother with second builds if I've invested heavily in the main one, which I typically do.

Quote:
So at least in this case the incarnate slot marginalizes the need for what the purple sets were providing
I think you're trying to subtly overstate your case by using the word "marginalize". I have very few builds where I would not benefit from both the global recharge benefit of the incarnate slot power in question and the purple set's recharge bonus. However, I also tend to favor very click-happy powersets and worry about optimal DPS chains.

Quote:
whats more the entire build can be redone to be more exemplar friendly than it was
More exemplar friendly in what way? The purple set never loses its bonuses. Unless you're worried about the total enhancement of the Stun power (one of the last things I'd have any concern about in that build at any level), the purple set is more exemplar friendly than anything you could add to it. Or did you not mean in reference to the purple set at all? If so, it was unclear given the conjunction with the first part of the sentence.

Personally, my version of that build would have more purples in it, not less. I would not be six slotting the +defense powers, likely investing saved slots in my primary attacks to improve my DPS. Also, I probably would not choose the +recharge as my Incarnate power. (But I might.)


Blue
American Steele: 50 BS/Inv
Nightfall: 50 DDD
Sable Slayer: 50 DM/Rgn
Fortune's Shadow: 50 Dark/Psi
WinterStrike: 47 Ice/Dev
Quantum Well: 43 Inv/EM
Twilit Destiny: 43 MA/DA
Red
Shadowslip: 50 DDC
Final Rest: 50 MA/Rgn
Abyssal Frost: 50 Ice/Dark
Golden Ember: 50 SM/FA

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by UberGuy View Post
Right. From my perspective that's the annoying part. I'm not deeply worried about the divide in the perceived haves and have-nots in MMOs, but despite that, I'm not big on the devs doing things that can widen that perceived gap. That's what I see this doing.

Possibly overstretching the have/have-not analogy, good Pool C/D rares were really more the upper-middle-class IOs, where Purples were the realm of the truly rich. (PvPOs would have been the realm of the super rich.) I feel like the devs punted Pool C/D stuff down a notch on the imaginary class scale but left purples and PvPOs where they were. Maybe I should think it's grand that they made upper-middle-class goods more accessible to the "blue collar" player, but it bugs me on some level that they did that and left the truly rich goods where they were. This despite the fact that I likely qualify as "truly rich".
I've never quite understood the quoted thought process. To torture an analogy: Purples are the Ferraris of IOs, and Pool Cs are the Porsches. While it's technically true that the Ferrari performs better, the practical difference in performance doesn't even come close to justifying the difference in price. A Ferrari doesn't drive so much differently from a Porsche unless you go to a race track. On normal streets driving a Ferrari is like painting a "ticket me" sign on your forehead, but that's neither here nor there.

Purples are and always have been overpriced for the bonuses they offer. You can make a spectacular IO build without ever touching a purple; you can make a really spectacular IO build with a purple proc or two (not bothering to use whole sets). Some IO builds are actually hurt if you try too hard to cram purples into them.

The more significant gate to so-called casual players was always the rarer non-purples -- the LoTGs, the Numinas, the Miracles, the Regenerative Tissues. More recently, Kinetic Combats and their ilk got added to that mix. Purples are basically icing; their general appeal stems primarily from the +10% recharge bonus, which is great, but a given purple set also generally replaces a set with a 5% to 6.25% bonus already. The net difference is therefore pretty small, except where the enhancement values on the purple set allow you to save a slot or whatever.

With some few relatively limited exceptions (like Coercive Persuasion for the ranged +DEF), it's the non-purples that do the heavy lifting. It's the non-purples that provide the most significant performance increase over SO builds. Casuals weren't complaining because their IO builds performed at 95% of UberGuy's purple Ferrari build; they were complaining because UberGuy's build combines soft-capped DEF with copious +recharge bonuses and whatever other goodies that combine to make his build several times more capable than their mostly SO builds.

The high price for Pool-Cs was compounded by the fact that they were only dropping in any significant numbers for TF-skewed players. Speaking personally as a casual player, I can count on one hand the number of TFs I've run in the last two or three years. The problem isn't that TFs take too long, per se; it's that I'm very sensitive about wasting other people's time, and so I'm uncomfortable committing to any potentially time-consuming and group-dependent activity in an online game. If I have to leave the team early (because, after all, RL takes precedence), I'll feel guilty -- so it's better to avoid the issue entirely.

I've had plenty of Inf since the market was introduced, but let's pretend I'm one of the virtual downtrodden. Thanks to A-Merits, I now have a consistent means of earning most of the big-ticket non-purples outside of the market. More important to me, I have a consistent means of getting those non-purple recipes at the exact level I desire.

So yeah, long story short: your own playstyle may have been indirectly penalized by the introduction of A-Merits. But I don't see how speed-running TFs for hordes of Pool-C recipes to sell on the market in return for purples is a relevant playstyle when we're discussing the nameless casual. Seems to me that the devs aimed A-Merits squarely at reducing the practical divide between casuals and the hardcore (or if you prefer, soloers versus teamers), and it seems to me they've succeeded.

Sorry for the novel. I think all that talk about Ferraris at the beginning got me spinning my wheels.


Quote:
Originally Posted by Iggy_Kamakaze View Post
Nice build