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


Adeon Hawkwood

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Fiery-Enforcer View Post
I have a sneaking suspicion that the cost to craft notice's will be lowered. I do think the price is a little too high as is.

However, crafting it definitely should take longer for obvious reasons. And it's hard to compare the WST vs. the conversion method since the WST is time gated. It takes a minimum of 4 weeks to craft a very rare, so it should take over a month to obtain a very rare the 'solo' way. Now that's only considering the current system that we know. Things can change once we know about how it's going to work with the incarnate trials.
If the Conversion method was gated to a Once a Week cooldown (much like Gr'ai Matter conversion is gated to one every 24 hours atm), then that would already make it harder and longer to achive than doing WSTs.

And (one more time) making players only able to Convert a Notice OR Earn one via WST, so a One a Week no matter the method, would also stop exploitation.


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

 

Posted

Just to point out a *slight* misconception about the WST rewards... its once per WST cycle and NOT once a week.

So in theory you could get 2 in 2 days, just run it once on monday, and then again on tuesday once it shifts over.

*edit*

Just wondering, but is there also a time limit on the crafting of the Notice from Shards?


 

Posted

Just pointing out, nothing that we can gain using today is gated such that getting it from two different sources shares a common gate timer. My guess is that the tech for this does not exist. It may or may not be easy to add, but I have a hunch that if it was easy, they might actually have added it for some of the things that don't have it now, like Alignment Merits.


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

While the solo options does seem excessive, there really isn't any excuse to not do the WST. Make friends that play during the same time that you do. Set up the WST, complete it over a number of play sessions if necessary, though it shouldn't be necessary.

Not too long ago, I joined a clear all ITF. It was a pug but everyone was experienced with the ITF, or experienced enough to know how to wipe anything they can target off the map. We did the entire thing well under an hour, and that was slow.

I recently did a pug Khan, most of the players were not familiar with it. While there was some speeding, namely stealthing (by only 2 players that could) in 1 mission. Clearing the clickies in 2 other missions. It still took 1 hour 15 minutes to complete. Which is incredibly slow for a Khan, were it a speed run which can be done roughly a half hour without much trouble.

Take into account that I have 2 children, many RL commitments that clogs up my schedule, and I've still managed to get the rare on two characters. If anything I'm thankful for the WST as it has gotten more players to look into doing the tf, making it easier to find a team to do it, given my particilarly difficult play times, I usually have to miss out on such content, but now its been much easier getting to do them.


 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Techbot Alpha View Post
40 Shards is a lot, but also not unreasonable IMO.
40 Shards and all the other components? A tad too steep.

All that AND a rather large sum of Inf? What does money have anything to do with an entity like the Well? It stinks of being a totally arbitrary barrier that also goes against canon.
Inf is not money within the game canon, it only functions as such for metagame reasons.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Techbot Alpha View Post
I love it when people turn out to be psychic...
Think I'm psychic if you want then. I'm confident what I said is accurate. I've learned never to take what a dev says beyond its literal face value.


Issue 16 made me feel like this.
Warning: This poster likes to play Devil's Advocate.

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Techbot Alpha View Post
True. Thats not what is being pointed out though. Making a 'solo option' that is basically saying 'You have to suffer if you do not team and do the WST' is also not positive evolution in a game that has until now encouraged ALL playstyles equally.
But it hasn't encouraged all playstyles equally.

How long does it take a soloer to earn reward merits compared to TF runners?

Before reward merits, how difficult was it for soloers to get good recipes?

PVP itself was originally balanced around teams, not one-on-one.

Yes, options have been introduced as time goes on, but that's not necessarily the devs "seeing the light;" it can also be that they're making things easier for the soloers after the people willing to team have begun to exhaust the part of the system the soloers are only now getting easier access to.


De minimis non curat Lex Luthor.

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Techbot Alpha View Post
If the Conversion method was gated to a Once a Week cooldown (much like Gr'ai Matter conversion is gated to one every 24 hours atm), then that would already make it harder and longer to achive than doing WSTs.

And (one more time) making players only able to Convert a Notice OR Earn one via WST, so a One a Week no matter the method, would also stop exploitation.
If they made it like this, it would solve a lot of the problems. Then they could be more generous with the costs to craft notice's. If it doesn't turn out to be like this and players are able to run the WST and are still able to craft notice's, the costs to craft will probably be higher then some people may like.


[U][URL="http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=251594"][/URL][/U]

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Vanden View Post
Inf is not money within the game canon, it only functions as such for metagame reasons.
Yes, but all the enhancement and money system in this game has utter balls to do with canon anyway.

Either that or my tech chatacters are walking around with 15 odd hearts and 22 odd eyes everywhere, with exloding-bullet fists and cyber-confrapulationary-gizmondo's stuck on every which where.

So, for all sane intents and purposes, Inf = Cash. You buy stuff with it. You sell stuff and get it in return. You earn it. Cash by any other name is still cash.


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

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Bosstone View Post
But it hasn't encouraged all playstyles equally.

How long does it take a soloer to earn reward merits compared to TF runners?

Before reward merits, how difficult was it for soloers to get good recipes?

PVP itself was originally balanced around teams, not one-on-one.

Yes, options have been introduced as time goes on, but that's not necessarily the devs "seeing the light;" it can also be that they're making things easier for the soloers after the people willing to team have begun to exhaust the part of the system the soloers are only now getting easier access to.
And a lot, if not all, of that has been introduced after one Mr Jack Emmert and his 'Bosses should take a team to defeat' inspired 'vision' for the game.

The options are nowadays there and for the most part balanced. No one that I know is asking for soloing to suddenly be as fast as teaming, because that makes no sense. But 'slower' should not mean 'sign here to grind your life away if you dare to want this shiney'.
And its a game. What else do people have to aim for, but the shinies?


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

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Gangrel_EU View Post
Just to point out a *slight* misconception about the WST rewards... its once per WST cycle and NOT once a week.

So in theory you could get 2 in 2 days, just run it once on monday, and then again on tuesday once it shifts over.

*edit*

Just wondering, but is there also a time limit on the crafting of the Notice from Shards?
Point is true, yes. But the Devs are obviously content with it working that way, so...*shrug*


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

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Techbot Alpha View Post
Yes, but all the enhancement and money system in this game has utter balls to do with canon anyway.

Either that or my tech chatacters are walking around with 15 odd hearts and 22 odd eyes everywhere, with exloding-bullet fists and cyber-confrapulationary-gizmondo's stuck on every which where.
Um, yeah. Those are metagame reasons.


Issue 16 made me feel like this.
Warning: This poster likes to play Devil's Advocate.

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Atomic_Woman View Post
If a team of 8 does X in Y amount of time, then it is entirely reasonable to expect an anti-teamer to take roughly 8Y time to achieve X themselves. It's simple math. Nothing in this example is penalizing the anti-teamer other than his or her insistence/inability to join a team. But then again, it's not the game's fault that they won't/can't, either.
FCM and I regularly duo missions set at x4. By your reasoning, then, we should be able to get all the goodies in about twice the time it takes a full team, right? We are, after all, plowing through half-a-team's worth of mission.

Heh.

I'm lucky to see one shard drop every second mission we run, even when we completely clear maps. I'm sure as heck not seeing 88 shards an hour, which is what it would take to make our hour of play equal to some team's half-hour speed-run Khan or Barracuda. >_>

Then again, "small teams"... those of us who spend a lot of time running duo or trio... may as well not even exist in these discussions for all the notice that situation gets. Tilting the rewards system towards large teams screws small-teamers just as much as it screws pure soloists.


@Brightfires - @Talisander
That chick what plays the bird-things...

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Techbot Alpha View Post
No one that I know is asking for soloing to suddenly be as fast as teaming, because that makes no sense.
Eiko has repeatedly claimed that soloing and teaming should provide the exact same rate of reward. But that's Eiko.

Quote:
But 'slower' should not mean 'sign here to grind your life away if you dare to want this shiney'.
And its a game. What else do people have to aim for, but the shinies?
Like I said, I think it's probably too high too. But not everything is accessible to people who won't or can't invest a lot of time. Someone who really only can play for 30 minutes at a stretch probably has never had a 50; sure, they may get some XP gain every time they log in, but if they have to avoid teams and aren't able to play above 0/x1, that's a mighty long slog.


De minimis non curat Lex Luthor.

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Bosstone View Post
Eiko has repeatedly claimed that soloing and teaming should provide the exact same rate of reward. But that's Eiko.
Unless I've been mis-reading, I'm pretty sure she hasn't...


Quote:
Originally Posted by Vanden View Post
Um, yeah. Those are metagame reasons.
So why name them at all? Why not just call them 'Training: Damage Enhancement' and 'Mutant/Science: Damage Enhancement', 'Technology: Damage Enhancement'?

Unless it's a case of one apart applying while another part doesn't. Enhancements and inf and Inventions are ALL metagame tools that a game needs.
None of which stops Influence from being a monitary system.


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

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Techbot Alpha View Post
Unless I've been mis-reading, I'm pretty sure she hasn't...
It was primarily in the Soloability thread in Dev Corner. I'd rather not go dig up quotes because I don't want to make this about Eiko, but yes, she was very much against the idea of offering any kind of extra reward for teaming so as not to prejudice people against one type of play or another.


De minimis non curat Lex Luthor.

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by EvilGeko View Post
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.

It's not that I don't have stretches of time when I can play for an hour or so straight, it's that they are not in any way predictable. Basically, I'm perpetually 'on call' and might have to AFK for an unknown period at any time. So one two hours, one hour, 30 minutes....it's all the same. The vagaries of what happens in game are less a problem than the vagaries of what happens in my life while I'm trying to play.

Also, what some teams are capable of doesn't necessarily reflect on the efficiency of a PUG. I was on a team that took over two hours to finish a Katie one time.

And again, forced teaming is lame however they dress it up. Make anything achievable by anyone in the game- if you want to encourage teaming, make it more efficient than other methods. Encourage your players to team, rather than punishing them for not teaming.

All that said, I like the direction they seem to be going. Make it achievable for everyone who wants to invest the effort, just faster and easier for those who team. I've got no problems with that, as long as I can eventually get the goodies.


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

My City Was Gone

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Bosstone View Post
moving from teaming to solo play is not positive evolution.
There are ebbs and flows. As I have already mentioned, eighteen years ago I was playing a game that was, at the time, as big as WoW (the "market" was significantly smaller at the time, of course). This game had teams and things teams did, but it also had soloers - some classes, in fact, we specifically designed for solo play. These classes often required a bit more time investment, but they could tackle anything in the game by themselves.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Bosstone View Post
she was very much against the idea of offering any kind of extra reward for teaming
I was taking an extreme against the arguments being presented. And I still don't agree that "one hour vs. half a year" is even remotely reasonable a "teaming bonus".


 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Techbot Alpha View Post
Unless it's a case of one apart applying while another part doesn't. Enhancements and inf and Inventions are ALL metagame tools that a game needs.
None of which stops Influence from being a monitary system.
Inf is a monetary system, but not within the game's canon.


Issue 16 made me feel like this.
Warning: This poster likes to play Devil's Advocate.

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Eiko-chan View Post
I seriously cannot comprehend how people do these Task Forces so quickly. I must operate on a scale geometrically below most of the player population.
They're not so easy on PUGs, unless all the people have done them before and know the all the tricks - but for SGs, they're not that difficult to do on a regular basis.


@Golden Girl

City of Heroes comics and artwork

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Another_Fan View Post
If that type of option isn't available, its pretty much an admission that the buy the notice is a middle finger to a segment of the player base, or at least the iron fist covered in a velvet glove saying "play the game our way its our vision"
It could be an iron fist in a velvet glove flipping you off - only one hand would be used, of course, as the other would be needed for slapping your face.


@Golden Girl

City of Heroes comics and artwork

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Vanden View Post
Inf is a monetary system, but not within the game's canon.
Agreed.


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

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by reiella View Post
I like it myself, no time limit so there's hope that it may actually deplete some of the excess currency. But I doubt it will.
Well this seems to be for the die hard soloists that would rather not do TFs and teams etc. I'm not sure the soloists are the ones with the tons of currency, but maybe I'm wrong.


"Where does he get those wonderful toys?" - The Joker

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Ice_Wall View Post
Well this seems to be for the die hard soloists that would rather not do TFs and teams etc. I'm not sure the soloists are the ones with the tons of currency, but maybe I'm wrong.
soloing is a great way to make inf- you get to keep all the drops.

also, in our glorious modern era of Amerits 100m is chump change.
As noted earlier, if you want 100m, find something people are paying 100m for then buy it with Amerits (or regular ones, I guess) and voila, profit.

I don't imagine that'd take more than a few days of effort, even starting from zero.

Alternately, you can do what I was doing before my current hiatus- run MA missions, buy bronze rolls and craft the good stuff. Optimized (ticket farm map, fire/axe tank) I can cap the map in 15 or so minutes. Even non-optimized, you can earn dozens of rolls quickly just running story arcs.

Money really is the least of anyone's worries in the modern game. There are too many easy, fast, foolproof ways of making it.


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

My City Was Gone

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Ice_Wall View Post
Well this seems to be for the die hard soloists that would rather not do TFs and teams etc. I'm not sure the soloists are the ones with the tons of currency, but maybe I'm wrong.

Replying from phone, so apologies.

It's not about depleting the resources only of the very rich, but providing an economic sink. Wealth is a generated in a bottom up method for this game. Further, it is important to realize that the crafting is not exclusive to solists, but also traditional farmers. And thanks to the changes in difficulty sliders, they don't need to pad.

You are right in that it's primary intent doesn't appear to be a currency sink, just being allowed that function.

I will say that me personally, I get more currency while solo than in TFs. RNG hates me on the rares. Others in the thread have described easy currency gains while solo.


Let's Dance!

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by reiella View Post
Replying from phone, so apologies.

It's not about depleting the resources only of the very rich, but providing an economic sink. Wealth is a generated in a bottom up method for this game. Further, it is important to realize that the crafting is not exclusive to solists, but also traditional farmers. And thanks to the changes in difficulty sliders, they don't need to pad.

You are right in that it's primary intent doesn't appear to be a currency sink, just being allowed that function.

I will say that me personally, I get more currency while solo than in TFs. RNG hates me on the rares. Others in the thread have described easy currency gains while solo.
I guess I must be lucky then, I've gotten more rares and good drops on full teams doing TFs and such than I ever have solo. Not to mention that doing TFs gets me merits and helps me with a lot of cash, so I'm surprised to hear people make more money solo, but then I've never been of the hardcore farming or max INF per hour mentality.

That said, I still dont think this would really work as an INF sink, if for no other reason than the fact that 100m isn't that much to a lot of people, even casual players, and also since notices are easily obtained through other means. Running a WST is much easier than 100m inf plus the 88 shards it'll take to craft

And in that way I feel soloers are getting kind of shafted from this since it's much more difficult to craft this than it is to run a WST, not to mention that Shards already fall less often for soloers, now you need the equivalent of 88 of them? I hope the price changes on this to be honest. If not INF wise then shard wise, otherwise the Solo option isn't much of an option.


"Where does he get those wonderful toys?" - The Joker