Want a Notice of the Well solo? That'll be...

I make 100+ million INF each day just by spending 10-15 minutes buying, crafting and selling a handful of recipes. I don't even "flip" items the way the ebil marketeers do. The 100 million is not an absolutely trivial sum by any means. But for people playing level 50 end game content it's by no means unreasonable either. *shrugs*

A design decision made when it was decided the game was to be a MMO instead of a MO or some other type of game, true.

Now, granted, the requirements for this conversion will probably get tweaked before it's finalized, but the fact is this is a secondary way to get stuff added in for the people who just refuse to do it the 'normal' way, and it shouldn't be as easy or as quick. As mentioned earlier in the thread, if it wasn't noticably slower than doing it the normal way you'd end up with people who got pieces from TFs and also converted shards to rare components, which runs the risk of screwing up progression for them as well.

The people who team could easily earn one NotW from the WST, and a second one from shards, and end up earning them twice as fast as the devs originally designed the notices to be earnable at. That's not a hand-waveable concern.

40 shards is a lot for a low activity soloer. Its trivial for someone who teams a lot to earn in a week. The problem is that at the moment there is no actual "solo path" there is a path that doesn't require teaming. Its a path everyone can theoretically use, and in fact teamed players are always on automatically, on top of whatever else they might be doing.

It actually is not as easy as it looks to get this right.

But .. why? Why does design always have to be from the stand point of making sure the fastest don't go too fast and hit the cap too soon? Why can't those be the people the Devs say "F- them" to, and ignore their concerns when doing their design and balancing? Is there some design rule that says you have to ensure your fastest aren't hitting your cap too quickly, rather that just letting them bounce against the cap for however long before you're ready to bring out the next bit?

I know that a segment of people sometimes run too fast through content and then agitate around until the next batch of content comes out, and then run through that too fast as well, meaning the developers never catch up. And design seems to constantly try to slow these people down, regardless of the effect these techniques might have on the rest of the population who don't rush through the content. Why does design have to cater to this segment, and not the other?

Except, from the VERY start, the Devs made it perfectly clear that they wanted everyone to be able to partake of the Incarnate stuff. This myth that 'Teaming only' was stated is some sort of Chinese whisper that has got mutated into fact.

And 'bent-over-backwards' is a seriously gross exaggeration. Tweaking a few numbers to add a conversion option to the already created crafting window for the Alpha is NOT bending over backwards. If they had designed and entirely new series of solo-only tip missions that provided the Notices then that WOULD have been bending over backwards.

Honestly, what is this whole personal vendetta people have against those who happen to want to solo or those who are simply limited in hours by RL? It's really quite pathetic.

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.

I don't think it's a matter of fast versus slow. It's more a matter of the majority vs the minority. I don't say this to single you out, and I certainly don't have server stats and such so this is just anecdotal, but in my experience playing MMOs for going on a decade now the people who simply will not group are indeed in the minority. The devs need to make sure that this system is first and foremost balanced around the majority (ie, those willing to group).

It's completely hand waveable if Notices are gated at ONE per week. No matter the source. I'm pretty sure that isn't some sort of coding Holy Grail would consume a silly ammount of resources to implement.

If Week Cycle; Notice Reward = 1 then; Disable Notice Conversion and Notice Reward Option until Next Week Cycle.
Etc.

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.

... And everyone can (once this conversion goes live)?

They never said (to the best of my knowledge) that everyone would be able to partake of it at the same speed/rate...

Well, when the Incarnate system was first announced last year, Positron did say that the special Incarnate content would be zone events/raids, and that doing them would be the way players would unlock the Incarnate powers and abilities.

Bollocks. Nowhere, in ANY definition, does it say that MMOs only have Team content, no matter the circumstances. That is 100% a design decision. It's just that the majority of the industry seems to conform to it like some sort of Holy Writ.

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.

Notices from the Weekly Task Force are gated, once per week. Notices from that conversion recipe don't seem to be (it's not mentioned in the recipe at least).

I'm pretty damn sure you won't be able to magically get more than one Notice a Week when/before this hits live.

I fail to see how, even if the above were not true for some reason, it would be hard to expand the gating from the WST to the conversion method as well, so that both of them would trigger the 'Once Per Week' gate.

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.

This is (at least) the third time this thread you have either ignored half of a post to make your point, or deliberately twisted something to try to make a point.

Please state where I said MMO meant only team content was acceptable. Having some content require teaming doesn't suddenly mean that you can't solo. It only means that you can't solo that content.

Good to know you know how a feature still in beta will work after release.

Because quite frankly, you and people like you are a fringe case. There's a lot more of 'those' people than there are of 'you'. The devs have to pick and choose their battles and catering to the majority makes the most economic sense.

It's also the reason why there isn't a fully fleshed out story mode solo player incarnate path. That would easily double the devs workload if not more. And since this isn't WoW that's simply not realistic.

I would think the most efficient answer would be to time-gate a maximum number of earnable Notices per week, regardless of source. At least, it makes a lot more sense to me to do it via that route than to attempt it through valuation.

The tech and the practice are already precedented with A-merits and Gr'ai Matters.

I think if it were possible to earn 1 per week through purchase, 1 per week through WST and 1 per week through ITs it would be workable. I think that would also be a fairly good balance between the "slow solo" route and the "preferred teaming" route. 3:1 is about the difference between earning merits on TFs and merits on story arcs, if I'm not mistaken.

There is no personal vendetta. There is folks trying to get people to look past their tortured sense of entitlement to see that the developers shouldn't and won't give people who refuse to consume the content they provide a pass.

No, not really.
I'll do it step by step here;


Bolded for emphasis.
I've already addressed the 'One Notice Per Week' point, which is (or at least should be) very, very easy to counter with the limitation mechanics already in game.

I ONLY quoted the MMO comment in my post because that was the part I was specifically addressing.
It is a complete fiction that the 'Normal Way' is teamed content. It is purely viewed as such because that is the way the majority of the industry and MMO players see it as such. And just because the majority see it what way does not make it a truth.


To reiterate; I'm not saying that the solo avaiable method of getting Notices should be faster. I'm saying that;
1) It needn't be quite such a huge penalty as it is. Let's be honest here, for those who can and want to do so, running one WST a week for a notice is NOT hard. It's just an arbitrary time limit on progress.
2) Using already available mechanics should prevent abuse/breaking of the system by leaving Notices at one a week, if that is the arbitrary barrier the Devs want to create.

All clear now?

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.

Why does design have to cater to this segment , and not the other?

Simple really $$$$. Majority rules it sucks but there it is. I love PVP in this game(even its current incarnation blows away all other mmo pvp) and base building I know how it feals to be part of *that* group.

You just have to accept people unwilling to team/TF for any one reason be it there fault or not are minority. Just thank your lucky stars they devs are completely ignoring you and yours. PVP and base builders aren't so lucky they've been ignored for what feels like ever by now. At least they are still giving you options.

Oh really?

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.

I like this idea. Though I think the all influence option is a bit cheap. I would raise that to something closer to 500 million.

IMO 40 shards are worth a lot more than 100 million influence.

Have you ever wondered why that is? I have. I used to play this SOE game called Everquest Online Adventures. You simply could not solo effectively past level 20 in that game. Most quests at that level and above were too difficult to complete without at least 1-2 other people. I used to be angry about this. But then I started looking into why MMORPG developers promote teaming.

And no matter how hard people try to ignore it, for the majority of people teaming experience, engaging with others to complete tasks, tend to be the experiences that people who play these types of games find the most rewarding. Sure, this doesn't mean everyone thinks this way, but it's enough people that MMORPG designers have almost to the one decided that while soloing is an important playstyle that should be supported, grouping should always be preferred. Read the blogs of MMORPG developers, read the scholarly articles. It's all there.

I refuse to believe that "people that go through content faster than it is designed to be consumed" are a majority. The last time we heard from the devs on the matter, "people with level 50 characters" was the minority. If you don't have a level 50 character, you cannot belong to the category of "consumes content too fast".