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

That's not true. You can see it on NCSoft's earnings statements over the years. CoV actually made zero long-term difference overall except perhaps to balance out the ED ragequits. After the initial sales spike of CoV, subs decreased to less than what they'd been before its release.

Jack later admitted in an interview there was a huge loss of players after ED, calling it their greatest blunder. If SSOCS or the current Invention system had been in place when ED hit, the population would've gone far beyond the 150k of CoV's release and probably beyond the 225-250k of CoH's release. Based on the sheer anger that was felt at the time (demean it by calling it "nerdrage" if you will, but the damaging impact on the company's bottom line was very real), I'm surprised more people didn't quit. I left the game for over a year and a half and only one of my 11 friends in my formed-in-beta SG has come back for temporary visits.

The anger really was that intense and the forums actually imploded because of it. As in "totally offline and broken." One Dev-started ED discussion thread went from zero to epic in the space of two days. They added another thread which did the same thing and kablooey, the forums were gone. When they came back up, there was a lot of stuff missing. By the end of that year, so were numerous SGs. I'm sure there are still threads out there on the intarwebs somewhere detailing why and how so many large and well-known SGs simply disintegrated due to GDN/ED/Issue 6.

That wasn't a personal attack.

And, for the umpteenth time, I've suggested stuff here that would leave the WST being the fastest and 'best' option (if you can team frequently) WITHOUT having the conversion option being an utter ballache to do.

Slower than teaming! = So time consuming you might as well give up now
Encouraging Teaming! = Flat out making the conversion option an 'F U' in mechanics form

And I just find your whole 'anti-team' terminology rediculous when I personally know of at least 1-2 people, and have seen others mention it, where it has NOTHING to do with not wanting to team. But I know the whole cadre of people shouting that arguement down aren't going to listen to any god-damn reason about it anyway, so, whatever. I'm gonna save my fingers and go to bed instead...

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'd like to hear how and what you play. You must be doing some version of farming or blitzing and using a PBAoE or AoE machine. You may not technically be "farming" but I find it hard to believe a mostly-single-target Blaster or Scrapper could get anywhere near that kind of Inf/hour.

It's like PvP -- only specialized builds built specifically for that task are really good at it. In this case, rushing from specific high-reward mission to high-reward mission with zero regard for the game's story. A Fire/Kin Controller perhaps or whatever the MM version of that is.

All 1-2 of them.
You seem to lump every damn person who would approve of the conversion option into the same group.

Maybe it's just me, but 'anti-team' sounds really patronising...or something.

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 would prefer not to team. I have reasons for this."

"The only problem here is you, then."

It looks like the context I was replying in was missed. I was specifically describing recipe (and salvage) drops, in the context of rate of wealth generation, which came up because of the 100M inf part of the crafting cost of Notices. Shards do indeed have a chance to drop for everyone, and don't follow the rules I was giving.

One of the more single-target oriented characters I have is a DM/Regen Scrapper, and on her I can create about 5-6M/hour.

I have a DB/Regen Scrapper and a Stone Melee/FA Brute who are both closer to 8M/hour. The character I can hit 9-10M/hour character is actually my Night Widow. I play the /Regens and /FA on +2/x6 and the Night Widow on +2/x8. (Now that I have level shifts on all of them, I've started playing on +3, but have not yet reviewed how it changed my earnings.)

The rates are calculated based on inf from defeats and inf value common recipes sold to a vendor. I log chat, and wrote a log parser than uses the time/date stamps in the logs to break rewards by hour. On nice thing about that is that also includes time spent between missions.

Mostly, I calculated those rates on repeatable content such as Tip missions, Scanner/Paper missions or Borea repeatable missions in the RWZ. They're level 50 and I leveled them the "old fashioned" way running my contact missions, so other than some Ouroboros content, there's not much else for me to do with them solo.

I don't consider either papers or tips "high-reaward". I'm playing what's handy because I like playing the characters. My choices are: do something like what I'm doing, get on a TF, or play something else. How, exactly, do you propose that a level 50 character who already did the content getting to 50 show regard for the game's story without getting on a TF?

Why can't I have it? I'd love to get all Incarnate-y and take on the big bads on Monster Island solo. That would be freakin' awesome.

If it takes a team of 8 an hour to get the reward, then work it so it takes a Han Solo-er 8 hours to get it. 100 million and 88 shards isn't 8 hours worth of work, that's more like 8 months' worth. That's flipping soloers -- who do it either by choice or are forced to by circumstance* -- the bird. Digitus impudicus. "You know, the finger?" - Goose, Top Gun

And for the umpteenth time, I don't solo all the time. I am an excellent team player. People praise my abilities and they love my jokes. Because I am both competent and hilarious. I'm generous; I share drops without expecting anything in return. But I *like* to solo. I enjoy being able to go at my own pace and I actually enjoy -- gasp! -- reading what the writers have spent months working on. The story is my favorite part of this game and you get only a sliver of it if you are teamed. Why should I pass up my all-time favorite aspect of this game just because you and your kind want to deny me that?




* We've already gone over the "computer can't handle it" issue (which mine often can't -- ship raids are completely beyond my PC's ability to deal with and even large invasions crash me) and the time issue, as well as touched on the having-kids thing. I have another one: I rescue dogs and often have temporary fosters. My own dogs all have behavioral or physical issues because I am trained and experienced to deal with that. Very often a team will see me type "dog emergency" and I will have to deal with something. When one of my Pugs was having seizures, I would simply disappear so I could give her injections and sit with her until the episode was over. Soloing allows me to do something I consider extremely important while still play this game that I enjoy.

So explain to me again why it must be made to totally suck to solo every last bit of the endgame content? I just want to play and get the same things everyone else gets, and not have it be something that takes forever. I can understand some of it being team-only and I'm fine with that. But why do you guys insist it should *all* be team-only?

Do tips, man. Two A-Merits can land you a Luck of the Gambler +7.5% Recharge recipe worth at least 100 mil.

They're not wrong, though. Sometimes we have to leave our comfort zones if we wanna get things done. If you prefer not to, tough cookies. People like us will just have to live with getting things done more slowly.

Raids are justifiably hated in MMOs these days. That end-game design is old-think. This has always been a solo-friendly game, which is why I keep coming back to it. I play solo probably 90% of the time, just because it's easier for me. (Reasons detailed elsepost.) I'm not concerned with being fastest or firstest, but I would like to eventually get there. "Eventually" should not be so ridiculously, retardedly daunting that it might as well be impossible. For me, 400 million Inf and whatever the stupid number of shards this thing requires make it utterly impossible. All I'm asking -- and all I'm seeing everyone else in the pro-solo go-with-CoH's-historical-strengths asking -- is that things like this be more reasonable.

Catering to only one group -- a group that has demonstrated a remarkable lack of empathy towards anyone else so far in this thread -- is not smart business sense, because players eventually drift away when their fun quotient goes down. Adding a cool new feature and then telling a portion of your playerbase "Sorry, you can't have it, suckers" is kind of stupid.

This is precisely the kind of attitude that I'm talking about. It's divisive and unhelpful. There's no need for it.

That's either bad luck it hasn't happened or your team wasn't trying for a speed run.

I hardly think that qualifies as a personal attack.

Maybe he is right. Maybe the problem isn't with the system.

Since when did we all become so sensitive that any criticism is considered a personal attack and rude?

If people don't want to be criticized for their opinions and actions, they should not post them on a public forum.

Every single time they've tried to defeat exploiters they've failed miserably. The recent AE fiasco is an excellent case in point. You will *never* beat the ingenuity and perversity of farmers, so why try?

And so what if people get stuff within a day? It sounds like these players like UberGuy and Atomic Woman who claim to be on the up-and-up are able to get this stuff in a weekend anyway, earning 10 million Inf an hour and another 200 million by selling their amazotacular Purple drops at the market at the end of a fine day of Mt. Dew and Slim Jim-fueled gaming. Why penalize people who are playing the game as it's intended to be played by going after the 2% who are exploiting whatever.

How are UberGuy and Atomic Woman exploiting? That is a pretty serious accusation, at least in terms of the game.

Well, it *was* a personal attack, mild though it may have been. Basically it's one player calling another a "red-headed stepchild." And the overall tone of this thread has been one of "Team Or Die, Losers", basically being dismissive of anyone who has a different opinion or perspective. Which sensitizes people.

I played CoH for about 2 hours today - the first hour was helping to test the BAF Trail, and the 2nd hour was running two Kahn TFs, one in 37 minutes on Liberty, and one in 32 minutes on Triumph - both of them were PUGs - does that count as a day-long "exploitation" frenzy?

I didn't say they were. They claim to be playing normally and capable of doing what TonyV termed "exploiting."

If their experience is considered common as they keep implying, then how could any exploiter or farmer possibly out-perform that? So if a really capable player is managing to hit the level of earnings that TonyV is theorizing the Devs put in place to stop exploiters, then that's a failure to stop exploiters. Instead, it seems more like a slap in the face for those of use who earn a tenth of that and play far less per month. if the best players and exploiters are going to blow through the content in a weekend anyway, there's no reason to make it so difficult that average and below-average players (which I apparently am) can never achieve it. Just ignore them.

And yet a very vocal part of this game's player base has asked for it, and it is often cited in other places as one reason some people don't stick around.

How many? No idea. But I don't see how you could have an idea either.

Did IQs just drop sharply while I was away?

They said they can earn 10 million an hour. To earn 100 million therefore takes 10 hours. To earn everything needed for a NotW would take them basically a weekend when you factor in the super-valuable drops they also say they get. 200 million per recipe? God, I wish that would happen to me just once, let alone with the regularity they're implying.

So are you saying you earned 100 million and all those shards in those 2 hours? If so, the system is seriously broken and should be made 1,000 times harder for teams. That makes the content utterly trivial.

And an equally vocal part of the playerbase has asked for the opposite. I contend serving both is smart business sense. You seem to be saying that telling one group to stick it is good business sense.

So you're saying it is everybody else's fault? Does that count as a personal attack(against a lot of people) or just general arrogance?

Um... Can you please quote where specifically I termed anything that?

I didn't say one damn word about exploiters. You don't stop exploiters by putting in time sinks, you stop exploiters by banning their accounts.

Two problems with what you've said. First, don't give me this "can never achieve it" crap. You most certainly can achieve it. I'm an anti-farmer and I could swing it, so I know you can unless you're actively trying not to. It may take you a few months, but you can do it.

Second, you're wrong about farmers being able to blow through it so quickly. A while back, I made a reference to being able to get through the content to the point where it is considered "done." What I meant with that wording isn't that a farmer could blow through one character in a weekend. I meant that they've kitted out most or all of their characters, at least all they play with often. That would take considerably longer than a weekend. Unless they lower the requirements, in which case it may very well be possible for the farmers to churn it out that quickly. Which is why I kinda hope they don't lower the requirements. That way, the farmers will take a few weeks or even months lifting out all of their characters, and you can take a few weeks or months to kit out the one or two that are most important to you.

Believe me, I'm in the same boat as you. You'd probably laugh at the paltry number of level 50s I have. The big difference is that I have long-term vision. The way I figure, I have years to get this stuff done, so I don't care if I haven't earned a very rare whoop-de-doo this month. Hell, it might be 2012 before I get one, and that's cool. I'm in no hurry.