Want a Notice of the Well solo? That'll be...
By
Adeon Hawkwood,
Posted on: 2011-02-10 19:03 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
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Don't some Rularuu combine up too? Or is that only to Lt?
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Originally Posted by Korith
While I doubt that this is an exhaustive list:
-Combining Titans (as indicated by Arcanaville) -Redcap LT upgrades to boss -Elite Boss doesn't downgrade to Lt, assumed to have Boss-like drop schedule. -Calystix the Shaper summons bosses (I think?) -Lord Recluse Boss summon |
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Yup, I can confirm this. I /bugged it when tips came out, but it seems to be a low priority bug.
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Originally Posted by gec72
Will CoT portals summon bosses on larger team size settings?
I think it's been said by some that some DE tip missions spawn bosses regardless of the boss setting, too. |
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There is a difference between voicing your concern and reacting as though the devs' design decisions are deliberately intended to ruin the entire game for you personally. |
Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
Your argument renders the forums obsolete, as one of their primary purposes is as a vessel for communication between the players and the developers. Players are communicating their concerns and displeasures, which you seem to take issue with.
Just because I don't get to make executive decisions in Paragon Studios doesn't mean that I, as a consumer, don't have a right to voice a concern. Whether the developers heed it or not is up to them, but I should have the right to voice said concern without having to bicker with other players for my right to do so. |
The people I was referring to are largely doing the latter.
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Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison See, it's gems like these that make me check Claws' post history every once in a while to make sure I haven't missed anything good lately. |
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That wasn't the main difference for me (because they were the next evolution of my character, at the time), rather it was that I could also just buy the rare IOs with inf on the market (same with HOs, though that was less viable pre-market). While still high, the inf prices players were/are setting for them tended to be a lot quicker to attain than the merit requirements were (same goes for A-Merits vs Purple IOs, and even the 2bil priced PvP IOs).|
Originally Posted by Toony
Main difference is that IO's are not the next evolution of my characters and the next way of leveling my character up and doesn't have content designed around it and could still be bought at the AH.
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I'd suggest making the Notices trade/sellable, but I really don't see the devs going for that one at all.
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I don't consider "I get level 30, you get level 50" to be a fair and equitable distribution of interest catering.
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Originally Posted by Bosstone
I'd like to draw your attention back to Arcana's post directly above yours.
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So after skimming all this discussion about shard drop rates...when are we going to be able to buy them with Reward Merits? It seems an elegant solution for the "I can't solo x8" crowd, as well as the "I can solo x8 just fine but I don't want to farm Council Empire over and over" crowd. For people who run story arcs on x8, it's extra win. I'll admit this suggestion is a bit self-serving.
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Hopefully never. The Well keeps its own counsel on those it will grant notice and favor.
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Originally Posted by Eva Destruction
So after skimming all this discussion about shard drop rates...when are we going to be able to buy them with Reward Merits? It seems an elegant solution for the "I can't solo x8" crowd, as well as the "I can solo x8 just fine but I don't want to farm Council Empire over and over" crowd. For people who run story arcs on x8, it's extra win. I'll admit this suggestion is a bit self-serving.
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The City of Heroes Community is a special one and I will always look fondly on my times arguing, discussing and playing with you all. Thanks and thanks to the developers for a special experience.
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Although apparently needing Inf to bribe it with is perfectly fine and reasonable...
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Originally Posted by EvilGeko
Hopefully never. The Well keeps its own counsel on those it will grant notice and favor.
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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.
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Originally Posted by Captain_Photon
NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.
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Actually that's not all that unreasonable. Remember what inf stands for: influence and infamy. (And information, but that gets phased out by 20.) The canon has always been that you're not paying for upgrades, as such; you're using your reputation and "spending" credit you've built up with the people of Paragon or the Rogue Isles. In that sense, it's perfectly reasonable. "I've become incredibly influential, and I'm using that influence to draw the notice of the Well."
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Originally Posted by Techbot Alpha
Although apparently needing Inf to bribe it with is perfectly fine and reasonable...
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De minimis non curat Lex Luthor.
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Not to me. I think that conversion method is a capitulation. I've always said that any solo path should require doing content that is at least as difficult as the trials, but scaled to one player. If that took 2-3 issues to deploy, so be it.
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Originally Posted by Techbot Alpha
Although apparently needing Inf to bribe it with is perfectly fine and reasonable...
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The City of Heroes Community is a special one and I will always look fondly on my times arguing, discussing and playing with you all. Thanks and thanks to the developers for a special experience.
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Didn't we just have conversation about how inf isn't a currency in-universe?
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Originally Posted by Techbot Alpha
Although apparently needing Inf to bribe it with is perfectly fine and reasonable...
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Issue 16 made me feel like this.
Warning: This poster likes to play Devil's Advocate.
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I don't consider the above post to be representative of any argument that's actually been put forward in this thread.
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Originally Posted by Eiko-chan
I don't consider "I get level 30, you get level 50" to be a fair and equitable distribution of interest catering.
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The Well responds to power - how much influence we have in the world is a measure of our power |
Originally Posted by Techbot Alpha
Although apparently needing Inf to bribe it with is perfectly fine and reasonable...
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@Golden Girl
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Are you saying Reward Merits are magically different?
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Originally Posted by Vanden
Didn't we just have conversation about how inf isn't a currency in-universe?
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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.
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Originally Posted by Captain_Photon
NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.
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Quick question: What about PvPers? If I only play enough PvE content to level up and spend the rest of my time PvPing, and I refuse to play PvE content otherwise, are the developers obligated to provide some path to Incarnate content to me? If they give the very rare rewards for defeating 500 enemies in PvP content, am I justified in calling that a "middle finger" to PvPers, complain about how much that shows that the devs hate PvPers, and break down to the nth degree how just because some hard-core PvPers can defeat 40 or 50 enemies a night, because I'm a "casual" PvPer who doesn't farm PvP victories, they should set the bar much lower?
It seems a bit disingenuous to have an outcry against the devs for not catering to anti-teamers without it being an outcry against the devs for not catering to other play styles as well.
What about the serious RPers, the people who don't like doing missions at all? Shouldn't we also have some GMs posted in Pocket D to determine, "Okay, you've RPed for 50 hours total, here is your Notice of the Well."? I mean, they have to cater to all of our individual play styles, right?
What about people who only enjoy playing with the market? If you buy/sell 5000 items on the market, should they give you a Notice of the Well? Is that number a "middle finger" to people who only casually use the market?
With all due respect, can you understand why I think it's a bit silly of people who refuse to team to demand that the end-game system cater to them, and why it really rubs me the wrong way when the developers even concede and instead of saying, "THANK YOU!", some of those people get even madder or make more demands that the concession be made easier?
It seems to me that anti-teamers is no more valid a "play style" that should be catered to than PvPers, RPers, or Marketeers. In fact, if anything, those play styles have been getting screwed since day one, since they get little or no rewards at all for what they do, except the Merketeers who make influence. The only difference to me is that it happens to be your play style if you're one of the people I described above, so, well, I guess "That's different." *hand wave...
If your "play style" is just as valid as mine, which is just as valid as Steve's, Mary's, John's, Vineet's, Jing Zhu's, Eddie's, Olaf's, Heinrich's, and Michelle's, then why not do what Arcana suggested a while back and just hand out rewards based on nothing more than either x hours logged in or y hours paid subscribed time (to account for the casual players, who can't be locked out of anything!) and let everyone decide for themselves what is fun for themselves, even if their "play style" is going bowling instead of playing City of Heroes? Wouldn't that be the ultimate in giving people options, which can never be a bad thing?
This has proven to be a slippery slope. Whenever the developers concede, it's never good enough. It's not a question of making everyone happy. It is only a question of how far down we'll slide before the WST is meaningless.
We've been saving Paragon City for eight and a half years. It's time to do it one more time.
(If you love this game as much as I do, please read that post.)
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Except thats utter, utter bollocks.|
Originally Posted by Golden Girl
The Well responds to power - how much influence we have in the world is a measure of our power
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Right, we obviously have to revisit this.
If Influence were treated as that, as influence in the in-game universe, why then does it decrease for things like tailoring? Why, as I put more meta-game slots in my powers, do I somehow become less influential?
Why, also, is it then calle Information in Praetoria? That is NOT Influence. That has nothing to do with influencing anything.
'Influence' was a concept that was introduced by Jack Emmert, and makes as much sense as his crackpot 'vision' ever did. Going on this conversion rate, if I 'bought' a Notice of the Well, my influence would actually go down. So...I work towards becoming a more powerful being and yet, magically, my influence over the world around me actually lessens?
I'm sorry, I don't know what folks are smoking for that to make one lick of sense but, please, keep it away from me.
'Inf' is a meta-game currency, nothing more. I fail to see how it can have any in-game universe or IC effect because it makes no bleeding sense!
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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.
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Originally Posted by Captain_Photon
NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.
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Tony, I don't consider reductio ad absurdum to be a very convincing argument, especially when you have to really reach into the absurd. Like, what about people who never played the game and made a character, but only ever posted on the forums? Don't they deserve Incarnate status? No, they do not, and the reason why should be obvious.
I will agree with you on one point - I can support a PvP-centric means for getting Incarnate status. After all, taking down an existing Incarnate ought to at least get you noticed. How many of what kind of PvP achievement is necessary, that I can't say, since I'm not smart enough to figure it out, but I will support the general idea.
I don't think anyone would oppose a PvP way for getting Shards in addition to the other ways, however, so I'm not sure why you're using this as an argument. And anything past PvP you bring up is absurd.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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Heh, that can make one funny cut-scene. |
Originally Posted by Techbot Alpha
...Going on this conversion rate, if I 'bought' a Notice of the Well, my influence would actually go down. So...I work towards becoming a more powerful being and yet, magically, my influence over the world around me actually lessens?
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Well: Ah, young one...i see you have amassed great influence over the world. You are thus worthy of my power.
You: Thank you i wil...
Well: Hmm, seems you have lost all your influence over the world. I'd like that power back now...
You:
Some reason i'm giddy this morning...hmm, what's in my coffee?
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Yes. You're asking for too much stuff. You're calling in more favors than you're actually owed. It's political capital, and it can be used up if you try to take more than you give.
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Originally Posted by Techbot Alpha
'Influence' was a concept that was introduced by Jack Emmert, and makes as much sense as his crackpot 'vision' ever did. Going on this conversion rate, if I 'bought' a Notice of the Well, my influence would actually go down. So...I work towards becoming a more powerful being and yet, magically, my influence over the world around me actually lessens?
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De minimis non curat Lex Luthor.
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An influential person can ask for stuff and just get it. If Superman shows up at the Governor's office and asks for something, chances are it'll just be given to him. But as he asks for more and more things, people start to think 'why am I doing all this for him instead of him going out and doing it?' When Superman has asked the Governor for 20 yachts, the governor is likely to start considering saying 'no' to the 21st.|
Originally Posted by Techbot Alpha
Right, we obviously have to revisit this.
If Influence were treated as that, as influence in the in-game universe, why then does it decrease for things like tailoring? Why, as I put more meta-game slots in my powers, do I somehow become less influential? |
e: Phrased better by Bosstone, above.
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I don't know about the latter, but I am usually exhibit A on the former. Arguing against extremes usually means everyone forgets you're arguing for some position in the middle, and only sees you're apparently arguing against almost everyone else. I honestly don't see (m)any people survive there long besides me and still come back for seconds, and even that is for some questionable definition of "survives."|
Originally Posted by UberGuy
As usual, the best target is probably going to be somewhere in the no-man's land in between those views. It's human nature to try and argue for the appeal of making that target land as close as possible to one's own preferences.
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The problem is that its actually easy to avoid being influenced to change your opinion to be what someone else's is. Its not so easy to avoid being influenced to change your opinion to be the exact opposite of what someone else's is when you're arguing against them.
After looking at the numbers carefully, and given all the parameters I believe the costs should be balanced around, I believe a strong case can now be made that Notices are too expensive by about half. First, it was always illogical that Notices are made of the other components and shards because anyone that can earn all those components cannot *possibly* be unable to get the Notice directly. It was always about the base shard cost to craft everything. Those extra components appear to be filler, possibly added after the initial shard costs. Second, if we assume that crafting costs are intended to approximately double with each tier (separate from consumption of the previous tier), you'd expect a notice to cost somewhere around 40 shards, not 88. Third, if we assume the average soloing earning rate is about 1.5 shards per hour, twice the floor, then the time to acquire rare is about 75 hours, which is somewhat higher than my benchmark time of acquiring three combat levels in the upper forties: about 30 hours. You'd have to be able to reach nearly four shards per hour to approximate the benchmark time, which is unlikely for a soloer.
Three separate lines of thought are all independently converging on the same number, which tells me there's a specific reason why that number is significant and probably the correct one.
My guestimate is that somewhere between 40 shards and 88 shards is the correct crafting cost for a Notice, and I believe its closer to 40 than 88, if we're balancing solely around solo earning capabilities. I am still very concerned that lowering the costs that low will make it easy for people who team to exploit the low crafting costs, and no matter how much that gets hand-waved, I'm not going to dismiss that concern as being trivial or unimportant. I still believe that making the solo path to crafting use things teamed people will always, always earn faster is a fundamental mistake in design. But if the devs refuse to remedy that situation, they will be left with no choice but to create an exploitable teamed path to place the solo path within reasonable reach, or add the code to add some form of crafting gate to the Notice crafting. And even the gating is liable to cause some issues.
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I'm not being facetious when I say that I believe that refusing to team up long enough to get a Notice of the Well is absurd. That was precisely my point. It would take a couple of hours, frequently much less time. This is a MMORPG, whose genre is based on the concept of a lot of people playing a role-playing game together. It boggles my mind that some people expect to be able to get these rewards without ever teaming up, literally never.|
Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
I don't think anyone would oppose a PvP way for getting Shards in addition to the other ways, however, so I'm not sure why you're using this as an argument. And anything past PvP you bring up is absurd.
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So yeah, maybe redictio ad absurdum is a good description of this conversation. I'd put the argument, "Well, what if I literally never want to team up" squarely in that category.
We've been saving Paragon City for eight and a half years. It's time to do it one more time.
(If you love this game as much as I do, please read that post.)
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"Influence" has not stood for literal influence ever since we became able to bid it at a consignment house. "Influence" has not meant influence even since before that when City of Villains got "Infamy," which is a different concept entirely. It's a kind of fame, not power over people. And now Praetoria has "Information" (check your system messages), which practically represents a direct equivalent to physical currency.|
Originally Posted by Bosstone
Yes. You're asking for too much stuff. You're calling in more favors than you're actually owed. It's political capital, and it can be used up if you try to take more than you give.
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INF is money. It may not have been at one point, but with the advent of the Market, it became money. Trying to pretend it isn't is on the same level of wrong as the Church of Unitology continuously trying to pretend that the Markers aren't evil.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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Well, if you are looking for a Rare / Very Rare Alpha ability you are presumably playing a 50 for a while since these are endgame content and not something you can expect to immediately just slot upon dinging 50. Level 50 characters earn a lot of inf, plus you can easily get 100+ mil every four days just by running tips and using two hero / villain merits to buy a LotG or Miracle unique recipe or such and selling it.|
Originally Posted by Eiko-chan
It's a lot to me. I haven't been playing for seven years. I don't have 50s that have been at the cap for four years with nothing to spend influence on. 100 million inf takes me a fair while to collect, or getting extremely lucky by having a valuable purple drop.
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Endgame content in MMOs normally takes months after reaching max level. Even assuming it'll be faster here than in most, a couple weeks or more per Very Rare doesn't seem unreasonable... especially solo, since most MMOs have no way at all to get endgame content without raiding.
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FAR too many non-50 alts to name
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