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

I disagree for two reasons, one practical and one philosophical.

First, the practical. Why, and this is a recurring question, are soloers special in this regard? Why should soloers have special rules to compensate them if they happen to be slower than teams but, say, (players who play) blasters don't get special rules to compensate them if they happen to be slower. Why shouldn't tanker/scrapper duos get the same benefit as soloers, and triple defender teams.

And why just team composition? If I want to solo, I should get the same rewards per hour turns into if I want to run newspaper missions I should get the same reward as task forces, if I street sweep greens I should get the same reward as newspapers. Why should I be penalized if I get the most fun out of blasting greens on the street?

The logical consequence of this type of reward system is that eventually, everyone earns the same amount of rewards under all circumstances, even if they are just standing around. You log in, do whatever you want, and get rewarded for attendance: for each hour you are in the game you get X XP and Y Inf. And Z drops. Even if you just dance in Atlas Park.


The second reason is philosophical. All games have an element of meritocracy within them. Its not always perfect, and its not always as fair as we'd like it to be, but we try to reward performance to at least some degree. Its antithetical to neutralize that by saying if these guys go five times faster than you, you should still get the same rewards if you spend the same amount of time logged in as they do, because we are not going to penalize you for being slower. All pretense of the game being an actual game disappears at that point. Its really just a sandbox with a farcical parody of a reward system. There's no reason you can't make a superhero sandbox like Sims Online, if there was still a Sims Online (and there's a potential lesson there in and of itself), but this is not that.

I'd be willing to bet the ultimate casual superhero sandbox which gave everyone everything they wanted at the rate they wanted it in, and had no specific requirements to balance rewards and activity, would fail immediately. I doubt, however, I will ever be able to collect on that bet, because I doubt there exists a game development team that will ever put that to the test in my lifetime.


In any event, the ultimate cost in real life is subscription dollars, not hours. So it begs the question: why not just hand out rewards based on subscriber time whether you even log in or not? Why is my money worth less than your money just because I don't log in? The non-rhetorical answer is that subscription dollars only pay for the privilege of playing the game. It does not buy in-game rewards. Only actions earn rewards (veteran rewards notwithstanding). Similarly, hours spent logged in are also not currency. The game doesn't directly ask you to spend time and exchange your time for rewards. It asks you to play and rewards results. How much time you take is essentially up to you, but short of exploitive behavior, the game doesn't care if it takes you an hour to kill all the critters in a mission or a minute. The reward is the same either way, and in a game it has to be.

Yup, my goal is to be able to use my shards to at least unlock the common slots of the other Incarnate slots, in the order that I want to get them (once released, of course).

I'll be fine without all the Rare's.

Example - the pet slot that was on Test briefly. I think the Very Rare was a Boss and a LT. I'll be fine with 2 minions, or a Lt. and a minion.

It's comments like this that remind me of the problem with teams, is the same with message boards.

People don't listen.

Alternately, like in that joke I can't repeat on a PG-13 board, "now we're just haggling over the price".

*sigh*
Point out ONE incident, any incident anywhere, where anyone has argued that the solo option shouldn't be slower than the WTF method.
I will then promptly laugh at them and call them mad.

No one that I have seen (bar maybe one nutjob in another thread) has asked for that.
That does NOT mean 'over 400 hours solid if you're insanely lucky and play the market' is an acceptable fob off.

Slower Than Teaming! = A major grind that will likely have you die from boredom first.

That's like saying;
"Hey, people have been wanting a new travel option to Las Vegas for some time now. We've installed a footpath for 'em! Sure, it'll take you a month of hiking and you'll be near dead by the time you get there because we didn't put any shops along the way, but hey! It's an option, right? =D"

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.

Unable to Team! = Not Wanting to Team

Yes, there are people out there who are genuinely strapped for time. I'm arguing on their behalf, nothing more. But people seem set that those filthy, filthy soloers only do it because they want to, and hate all teams and life as we know it.

Which is about as realistic as making my left boot president...

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 love it when people turn out to be psychic...

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.

Personally, I'd say 40 shards and maybe one or two of the other Incarnate components. And that'd be it.

You need 1 for a Rare. You need 3 more for a Very Rare AND the othe parts to craft the two commons, two uncommons and two rares needed for a Very Rare. That is NOT an insignificant time investment as it is.

And, lets be honest here, doing the WST is NOT a hard option. It's honestly not, unless you have atrocious luck with team mates or honest to god do find it that hard to play well.

In the above model, Teamers are STILL faster than soloers, and doing the WST is STILL the prefered option, because you haven't just spent 40 shards that could have gone towards making a Favour of the Well, or other components you need.

As I said before, gating Notices of the Well to once per week (If the Devs want it to stay that way. Im not psychic, so I dont know.) from any source would stop exploiting of the system, while leaving bot hthe WST and teaming as the 'fastest options by far, while at the same time not doing the equivelant of flipping the casual soloers both birds at once.

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.

Given all the reports of 30 min. or less Kahn's this week, not buying that excuse. Not all are powergamer teams either. The powergamer teams are beating 20 min.

Friend of mine did Kahn in under 18 minutes yesterday. He's a powergamer, sure, but the fact is it can be done.

If you're so resolute that you can't team for 30 minutes to knock out an ITF once a day (which is a guaranteed 3 shards via the end reward if nothing else) I have to admit that I personally don't feel for you. A 30-minute ITF is not hard, you don't have to be a 'powergamer' to do it, and people are always running them (because they're so fast).

1 shard. You can only get 1 shard from the end component.
And I have yet to see a 30 minute ITF, despite running with some very good players with some honestly obscene builds. If by 30 minutes you mean 'Ghost absolutely everything you can', well...myeah. Doesn't contribute much to shard earnings, I know that much.

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.

When did this change, then? Last time I looked at the conversion recipe you break down a component (which takes 4 shards to make normally) and would get 3 shards back. If it's been changed to 1 then that sucks.

You get 3-4 for an Uncommon (which costs 8)
As of Live, Commons break down fro jsut the 1 shard

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 have been on several sub 30 minute ITF's. Yes they were speed runs, but still got a few (3) shards from it.

In the "kill all that moves" ITF's that i have been on, on average it took twice as long, and got between 6 and 9 shards.

So efficiency was about the same (for me), but that is the luck of the RNG. Hell i have been on a "kill all" ITF and got 3 shards from it... now THAT sucked for efficiency.

And the thing is, 3 shards for a 30-minute ITF averages out to a shard every 10 minutes. You can hop on, do that, and then go back to soloing (and get shards there). But it's hard to turn down a guaranteed 1 shard per 10 minutes, even if you can only do it once a day.

I disagree. It is easy to turn down shards when you already capped what you need.

Then it is back to good ol +2 or +3 ISFs.

Really, is the game fun if you just grind -1s all the time?

I've picked up two or three shards from kills even on sub-20 min ITF speedruns. It's hard not to get at least *some* shards on the ITF because of the bosses, EBs and AVs that can't be bypassed.

Ignore anything that's not a mission objective. For Khan:

Mission 1:
- Jump towards the door of City Hall, kill the EB there.
- Ignore everything inside the hall, just kill Misadventure and company near the end.
- While killing the AV, have someone stealth to the troop transport and destroy it so the mission ends as soon as the AV drops.

Mission 2:
- Knowing where the troop portals are helps; just destroy them ASAP and exit the mission when Reichsman shows up.

Mission 3:
- Stealth to the boss at the end, and as soon as its dead, spread out to click on the blinkies. Down a lot of lucks so the mobs can't interrupt you by shooting at you.

Mission 4:
- Click the 5 portals only, don't bother fighting anything, don't even wait for everybody to be in the map. One person can do this while everybody else waits at the train.

Mission 5:
- Port to the end, drag Reichsman inside one of the small rooms. This way, as the AVs wake up, they'll run into the little room as well and get caught in the AOEs. Focus everything on Reichsman until he dies, then clean up the other AVs.

Total time is never over 30 minutes.