Issue 19: Strike Pack - Patch notes for build 1950.201101250108.0

I agree remove the randomness and keep people happy.

common = 1 shard (really give people 2)
uncommon = 3 shards (really give people 4)
notice = 6
favor = 12

Kind of tough to run it if you don't know the target anyway. They really should have the newsie npcs shout out what it is for that week or have a menu that tells you when you click on them....and make sure there's a newsie in the rogue isles, I don't remember ever seeing one.

At least, until I20 comes out which may have other options.

OTOH, on day one, if you're prepared, every alt can be level shifted and have the 3rd Tier ability. After that, you're waiting 3 weeks to get just a few more percentage points of enhancements that get past ED and one more secondary universal enhancement.

IOW, the jump from tier 3 to 4 ain't that big, unlike the jump from 2 to 3... which you can have on every alt on day one this is implemented.

Show me where I said that I "demanded" anything.

What I said was...
That is not a demand, that is a statement. And since it's likely that they won't be adding solo capability, then my choice is made.

Oh, trust me. I've seen that a LOT in the past year. More and more players don't care about their fellow players.

Unless you're shooting for the 45% boost over the 33% boost with more that ignores ED, but yeah in general the very rares may not be worth it depending on what you're going for.

On a side note, everyone I know has either gone radial for the recharge or cardiac for the end reduction. I have yet to meet a damage/accuracy person at all. Sadly some of these bonuses just don't excite me or are even wanted outside of the uncommon slot but you gotta do at least the rare to get the level shift.

And what makes you think that? Do you have any evidence of that at all?

Tip toe, through the tulips...

Just as long other players can't see them. Cause, you know, people will just make flying genitalia.

I really mean no offense, so please forgive me if this sounds rude; Ever? Not a single full block of 60 minutes for an ITF shard run?

I feel TF's and Trials are a core part of the game, and always have been. If you're not ever able to be on for at least an hour (could be work, school, family, there's plenty of things more important!) are you sure you're playing the right game?

Do these convert a component back into the same number of shards it takes to create it? If so, does this mean if you're looking to make a common boost that needs component X, and you do a task force that gives component Y, you can convert component Y into shards and turn it into component X? Because if so, that is very awesome.

For what I actually have slotted right now, this is true. My Rad Defender is sitting on both Musculature Uncommons to make the Very Rare Radial in that tree because the debuffs and buffs in it line up pretty nicely with her abilities. I could take or leave the Immob duration, since I don't have an Immob on her, but the other parts fit very well for a Rad.

My Mind Controller will make both the Cardiac and Nerve Very Rare Radials to augment her various control powers.

The numbers posted earlier indicate no:

In sympathy for the people who claim to not be able to find the time to do a TF - until 6 weeks ago, I could spend several hours a day in-game, and was able to commit to a TF at the drop of a hat. Now, I have a 6-week-old baby to look after in the evenings, so that his mother can get some sleep, and at weekends we share as much of the time with him as possible, so right now, just when the Incarnate stuff is kicking into second gear, I absolutely cannot commit to more than five minutes (sure, sometimes longer, but I don't make that decision, my son does) at a single task. While I know this will change as time goes on and he settles, his birth has effectively removed me from TFing or playing the game in any way that's not entirely at my own pace. Translation: I need to solo to get things done.

I don't care about it taking more work in the long run, I don't care if it takes five times as long, but I want to be able to access Rare and Very Rare levels of power on my main toon, and until or unless there is a solo option for achieving this, I simply cannot do it. No ifs, no buts. Cannot.

To put this in perspective - my main toon has managed to squeeze out three Uncommon Alpha Boosts, two of them since my son was born. Mostly by soloing.

So ...

During this double XP weekend, a non-50 could head to RWZ, participate in raids, get a holy crapton of expees, rack up a bunch of Vanguard Merits (I can land about 600 - 750 / raid),
and then, at 50, craft a bunch of common components, deconstruct those into shards ... and get a headstart on Alpha slotting?

Fascinating

Except soloing the Alpha unlock, and soloing the common and uncommon boosts would entirely be...soloing.

The fact that you have to go above and beyond, and team, for the rarest and most powerful boosts has no bearing on your reference to Posi's, "...solo path for people to do incarnate content..." If anything, Black Scorpion's tacit, "We'll take your feedback under advisement" would seem to indicate that there won't be solo uber rare stuff for at least a while, if ever.

That's optimistic.

Back to the topic at hand... Seeing as there's always been a slower solo path for character progression, I'm not too worried about Incarnate soloability. It might come later - maybe they want us to just run these super duper trials they've been making for a while before giving us solo options.

Hey, that's a pretty good idea. Thanks for sharing.

Sure you could do that. But remember you can only buy one Gr'ai Matter component with Vanguard merits once every 18 (or 20?) hours. I forget what the exact timer is, but it's basically only "once a day".

So yes it would be relatively easy to do this, but it would still take a pretty long time. *shrugs*

Well, you could, but I don't think it wouldn't provide an overwhelming advantage.

A full load of Rikti Merits (9999) by your drop estimate would take around 15 ship raids, at say 30-40 minutes per raid.

150 Merits --> 1 Gr'ai Matter component per day (it's on an 18 or 20 hour cooldown, so you can squeeze out slightly more than 1 per day if you really want to).

1 Gr-ai Matter --> 1 shard.

So...8-10 hours of Rikti raids upfront --> 66 shards spread over a period of roughly two months.

I guess for someone who don't run TFs it could be worth while.

One thing I've learned in playing this game is that pretty much every update that comes along somehow, in some way, pisses off a few people enough to ragequit. It's regrettable, but it's hardly anything new.

Oftentimes I think many of these people are on the verge of leaving the game anyway and have just decided to let the new changes be their "final straw" to motivate them to finally go.

I honestly think people quiting over this because it doesn't look like it'll be initially soloable is a bit silly, but who am I to really judge. I imagine if I ever get to that point whatever ends up making me leave will seem silly to other people too. *shrugs*

At best I'd see this as a way to get a last few extra shards if you need a few more to finish something. I suppose you could start from scratch and let this daliy process take a few months, but that would hardly be the least-tedious way to do this.

Even though there is no logical or defensible reason for making it take any longer or making it more difficult for solo/small team players.

I highly doubt it would take more than a day's work for a competant coder to copy and paste (and then modify) the reward table code into an if(weekly_mission=this mission && start_from_crystal && team_size <= 4), adjusted for the standards of whatever language their scripts are in, of course, on a half-dozen or so select level 46-50 missions from each side. [ie, the reward table comes up instead of standard if it's the weekly target, was started from an Ouro crystal, and the team size is 4 or less to allow for those who wish to solo or run in small teams]

It would still take longer, though, via that method thanks to the shard requirement, but at least that might help appease the vocal "Suck it up and team!" crowd we have here.

I've gone with endurance reduction on tankers and some controllers, recharge on other controllers and damage on blasters and corruptors.

Some characters just don't need endurance reduction or recharge. Most of my blasters have no endurance problems, always have an attack ready to fire (and don't have any long-recharge powers that need faster recharge), and have accuracy in excess of 100% due to set bonuses. So for those characters damage seems a reasonable alternative.

The only reason to go for the accuracy boost, for characters that use IOs, is to escape ED for the defense boost. Otherwise you might use it for underslotting accuracy in attacks, but that would leave you in a bind when exemplaring. I guess I could see a defense-based tanker or scrapper using a lot of Kinetic Combat sets and is otherwise short on slots going for the accuracy/defense boost.

And if they're isn't they will alienate a fair portion of their playerbase who may cancel their monthly payments to ncsoft. Not something that nsoft can afford to have happen in any semi large quantity. They got hurt bad years and years ago when they introduced ED so they should know better

They going to be foolish enough to lock out all the other alpha abilities from those who solo? Not able to get that justice slot? or that omega slot, or any other slot?

I hate to see this thread turn into another debate about the lack of solo option for the end game system.

I'd rather it focus on what is IN 19.5.