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

They already do. Shards drop from PvP kills. I think the conversion rate issue probably applies to them too.

It doesn't justify you being rude, no. But it does justify you giving feedback if you feel the costs are unreasonable.

For casual PvPers, maybe they could give bonus shards for the first X kills of the day, instead, or for taking down your bounty in Siren's Call.

I totally agree.

Here's where I don't agree. RPers are unique in that they do not, in any way, expect rewards for RPing. RPing is the reward. They enjoy it, and therefore don't need rewards. For hardcore RPers, RPing is miles more fun than anything else this game has to offer.

And more importantly, Incarnate Powers provide nothing to RPers. An RPer that wants a massive AoE attack or whatever else the slots provide, can simply say that they have it. Incarnate powers only work in PvE and PvP content, so expecting them from non-PvE/PvP activities seems like wanting cleats to play tennis with.

That's an interesting question. Personally, I don't think literal markets belong in a superhero game, but if Wentworth's was themed as a research lab where heroes exchanged evidence and confiscated weaponry, and you were playing a scientist that was doing his/her best to analyze said evidence and help provide superheroes with knowledge or short-lifespan gadgets to take down villains, yeah, maybe the Well should notice them. I think it would notice Reed Richards even if he never beat up any bad guys with his own hands.

But then, we're asking for cleats to play tennis with again. What good do Incarnate Powers do for Marketeers?

Now, if Incarnate Powers only worked while in teams, then yeah, them asking for a solo-only path would be analogous to RPers and Marketeers asking for one.

And all I can say to that is "unfortunately." I've made and played more characters and spent more time in the game since XP smoothing than I ever did before, for the simple reason that I actually felt I COULD actually complete them all, now that it doesn't take bloody ages to do so. I haven't done that yet, but I'm still on it. Throwing time sinks at me hasn't improved my game play. All it's done is piss me off.

Maybe I'm an anomaly, I don't know. I know I'll be here until I run out of powersets, which won't be any time soon. The Market, far from making me more likely to stick with the game, is the only other time in the game's history when I came close to throwing it all away, because I didn't like where that was taking the game. And, no, I have not changed my mind. In fact, recent events show me that I was absolutely right.

---

But, yes. I preferred "Influence" when it was undefined and left to interpretation.

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.

You can't guarantee those times though. I've been on "Speed TFs" that took 3 times as long as expected. Some people have limited times that they can be on, and winging it like this risks them being put in a position where they may have to quit the TF, which isn't fair to their teammates.

One reason why I think there's no gate on the crafting at the moment is because the Notice recipe is doing double duty as a component sink. I don't think the devs want to limit it: they want it to be expensive and they want people to use it to suck out excess components that are otherwise just sitting around. Doing that creates an incentive for the fastest earners to keep coming back for more.

Another reason why I'm usually very cautious about functional overload in any system design.

I've noticed this, and I think it says that MMOs, in themselves, usually aren't all that fun, and most people play them for the sense of accomplishment. I think this one is, personally, which was why I was perfectly happy before I9, but I may have been in the minority there.

This is a good point, and I'm actually not averse the the shard cost getting adjusted down. But at the end of the day, no matter what the total comes out to be, crafting a Notice via shards needs to be noticably slower than gaining them from the WTF if only because the WTF is how we 'should' be getting them and the devs are trying to incentivize it. I'm all for a conversion recipe but if it takes a week to get a Notice via the WTF 9because of the cooldown) then I think the absolute ceiling on the ability to craft one should be 2 weeks (whether via a cooldown or just being balanced around the median of how many shards characters earn in 2 weeks).

I agree with that. I think either Arcanaville's solution or a cooldown would be good.

I'd really like some challenging solo and small team content to deliver Incarnate related rewards, but I can wait for it.

QFT. RPers will happily bumble on with whatever it is we get up to. I have some characters sat in the 30s and 40s who are, IC, already nearly at full power. I have a shed load of alts, however, so their levelling is a little slow at times. That honestly doesn't matter, though.

Alpha is the only one it actually matters on, and mostly the AoE Judgement attack, to finally replicate Reason, his orbital-translocational Railcannon platform

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.

Actually, I'm pretty sure the Trials are how we "should" be getting them, and the WTF is a freebie they threw us so we didn't have to wait until i20 came out to get the rest of the Alpha slot pieces.

Rare and Very rare were ready to go, Trials weren't. They decided to be nice and let us get them early via another means. Kind of like how GR pre-orders got to play with 2 of the 4 power sets early because the rest of it wasn't ready to go yet.

But, for the record, I have nothing other than logic backing that up. Running a random TF seems a little too arbitrary to be the originally intended method of acquiring the Notice.

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.

I'd be for that, and did indeed advocate the cooldown on the recipe as well. Having a weeks cooldown would be best, IMO, because it will still take a longer time to get 40 shards or so as opposed to one TF/SF. Just because something would be available instantly on the next week cycle doesn't mean people would automatically have what they need.

The sink nature of the recipe also makes the WTF a more attractive option by default; you get something extra, rather than having to sacrifice something 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.

But if it's possible to get 40 shards in a week (and it is) then the person who doesn't want to/can't run the WTF can get their Notice just as fast as the people who do do the WTF, and that kind of runs counter to the whole 'we want to encourage players to team for this stuff' stance they seem to be taking.

That's why I said a 2 week cooldown; even if you can get the shards for a Notice in 3 or 4 days, you're gated by the cooldown (same as players who run TFs), but since you're taking the alternative route instead of the 'preferred' one then the cooldown should be longer.

It's possible for people who run x8 every day to get 40 shards. And thats IF the RNG is kind to them. If its not, they might get 20, or even 10.

And again, your leaving out the sacrifice element of it.
Player A has 40 shards, as does Player B. Player A does the WST and gets their Notice. They now have that AND 40 shards to use, and have made no loss.
Player B uses 40 shards to get the Notice from the recipe. They now have only the notice. If they need shards to craft more components of the Favour for example, they'll now have to get them again.

The WST gives a reward with nothing being taken away.
The conversion is just that, an exchange. I know which one I would see as preferable 100% of the time.


Edit:
This is also true.

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.

Except, of course, that they've poured several hours (probably 10 or more, even counting TFs, and more like 30-40 solo) into playing that week, while those running the WST have put in a couple hours or less.

Just because they both get one Notice a week doesn't mean one person didn't work a lot harder for theirs.

And that is something we'll never agree on

I don't think that something much of anyone will agree with me on, but it's also something I'm immune to changing my mind about. That's just how it goes.

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.

I'm not too sure about the idea that its suppossed to be a component sink. First, components are chosen by the player, if you don't need it, don't choose it and choose the other reward. Second, now excess components can be broken down back into shards. Once any excess components are broken down, a smart player would only need to choose a component if its either needed to craft something new, or to be broken down so they can close whatever their shard gap may be.

If what you say is true that the excessive cost is there to get the fast earners coming back for more, than its more of a hinderence for the low earners. Which is what so many are clamoring about. There should be more of a balance between the two, and something would have to be put in place as a stop-gap measure if the price is reduced, and the only thing I can think of is a cool down between crafted Notices of the Well.

I literally laughed out loud about using the term for work for a game .

Really, though, what does it matter how fast or how slow it takes for someone to earn the same reward, particularly if they earn the same reward at the same rate, ie in this case once a week.

It doesn't bother me in the slightest that a more dedicated player has more shards, components, purple recipies, inf, or whatever than I do. It doesn't bother me that they get their rare alpha before me. So long as I eventually get whatever it is I need or want for my characters, and I'm having fun doing so, than it shouldn't matter that they are getting there first.

The game isn't a race. Yes, all things considered, there should be some fairness with the cost of a Notice, but if its possible for either a team player or solo player to get to the same place, in the same relative time than it shouldn't really matter, in this case, that time is one week.

Now after crafting goes live, then dedicated team players will be able to probably craft 1 or more Notices and earn them via trials. In this case, there will be a disparity between this type of player and a soloer, but then really, so is anything else that can be earned in this game. And while the game does cater a lot to a casual player, it shouldn't always be geared toward the lowest common denomiator. It would only serve to create an even further disparity between a dedicated team player and a soloer.

And if someone is so determined to solo in an MMO, than in my own opinion, they shouldn't be overly concerned about how quickly someone else does anything else in the game. But maybe that's just me.

Then why have you been arguing against the idea this whole time?
Or did Arcanaville's testing results change your mind?

Uh, I was putting a rebuttal to a suggestion that the crafting path had to be time-gated to a slower rate (once every three weeks, specifically) so that the WST would be the standard and so that no one could earn faster than the once-a-week method.

I was simply pointing out that "WST once a week" is not equal to "earning 40 shards in a week".

I care about how fast I, as a soloer, get things. I really don't care how fast people who team get them.

I've been arguing against the idea of the conversion recipe not being significantly slower than getting Notices via the WTF. Taking twice as long is about as fast as I'd be comfortable with it being, which I've stated a couple times in this thread.

It's not really about how fast anyone else can get the reward. It's about the devs wanting us to get it via teaming up and doing the WTF and Incarnate Trials. I'm all for a 'secondary' way of getting Notices, but beign able to get them just as fast undercuts the point of the Incarnate content that the devs want us doing, which is teaming up for TFs and trials. I don't mind the idea of being able to get them purely solo, but in that case it should take longer simply because you are not participating in the TFs/Trials that the devs 'want' us to do to get them.

Unfortunately the devs do have to care about both of those things.

It's WST.

We're not in high school.

But the existence of the Notice recipe means if you're running task forces that offer components, there's now a reason to take the component rather than merits: you can use them to craft Notices. The Notices *are* the new thing to craft.


Remember back when I was saying doing things quick and dirty was problematic, and things were not as simple as people were suggesting, and a number of people suggested I was just making things look more difficult than they were to make excuses for the devs? I was thinking about four very specific problems. This one, functional overload, was number 2. Number 1 was cost-ratcheting. Number 3 was content coupling. Number 4 was long-term crafting gating.

I couldn't be specific because there is a closed beta going on. At the time I said this, we had no knowledge of what the solution would be, but I could not be in the middle of a discussion speculating on the specifics of what the solution would likely entail when a preliminary solution appeared. Hypothetically speaking, if I was in the closed beta, which of course I can't technically say if I am, I would have to abruptly stop talking about that subject without warning.

Also because it's a Task Force. That's Weekly.

Weekly Task Force.

WTF.

(plus it's funny )