Badger Migration

I'm keeping my main badger on Infinity. I may move a couple 50s to Exalted, but, for now, I'm only playing new toons there.

Had to laugh at this. 5 minutes after logging into Infinity Tuesday night, and I start seeing tells for a BAF forming? Really? Not even going to try the UG?

There were good episodes of Galactica 80?

What is this BSG1980* you speak of? Sounds terribly terrible...

* Not only do I unfortunately know what it is but I'm pretty sure I've seen most of the episodes of this travesty back when they first aired. In order to retain my sanity I've had to resort to pretending it doesn't exist.

I did 1 Underground and 2 BAFs last night. I'm positive I could have done 4 more BAFs in the time it took to form & do the one Underground. I might have been able to do a 5th BAF, but that would have been dependent on what kind of group I could have found.

Triumph: White Succubus: 50 Ill/Emp/PF Snow Globe: 50 Ice/FF/Ice Strobe: 50 PB Shi Otomi: 50 Ninja/Ninjistu/GW Stalker My other characters

This, for me. I play on Victory, a new server isn't changing that. It's nice to have the option of the free transfers (once those kick in), in case I want to "pop over" to Virtue or Freedom for a difficult-to-get badge maybe (like some of the Keyes I'm still lacking, GRRR), but ultimately Victory is my home, and I agree with Loth, I don't see that changing for the vast majority of players.

Yeah, UG is long. BAF is by far the easier and quicker of the iTrials. Just hard to believe that, less than 10 minutes afters the servers finally came up with I21, someone was already trying to form a BAF.

Didn't take us long to form a UG on Tuesday night, but it was still shiny new then. Maybe, once people get it run once, they'll return back to the regular grinds.

The only decent episode from Galactica 1980 was the one that gave us the fate of Starbuck, about how he and a cylon ship went down on a barely habitable planet and how he rebuilt one of the Cylons and they became friends.

It was clearly remade in the relaunch Galactica series into the episode where new Starbuck and a Cylon Raider went down on that desert planet that made Tatooine and Arrakis look like a paradise by comparison and how she fixed up the raider and took it back to Galactica.

Take the Magic: The Gathering 'What Color Are You?' Quiz.

UG is a nice trial, though the maps are a bit..lengthy. Still it pays well with threads, Astrals and 2 Emps at the end. If you aren't going for the badges then you can just steamroll it.

I ran a league in it the other night, 24 people and I made sure one team was all masterminds.......nice firepower on that team

Take the Magic: The Gathering 'What Color Are You?' Quiz.

The UGTs I have been on were a touch under an hour long, which would mean we could fit around 3 BAFs in them, but only if we chained them more quickly than seems typical. That said, those UGTs were not hugely PuGgy. I have been avoiding running them with random PuGs.

My problem with the long trials is that my goal in gaining incarnate powers is not best facilitated by getting more Threads, Astrals or Empyreans (though Threads and Astrals [as thread proxies] can help). Instead, I am best served by more components. Sadly, running the UGT or Keyes means I am probably going go get 1/2 as many component table rolls at best compared to running multiple BAFs or Lambdas.

The first Underground I ran, I got 3 components. 2 commons at the end plus the Rare on the Reward table. Second one I got 2, an uncommon and a common on the Reward table. The last one was a Rare at the end and an uncommon on the Reward table.

I might have missed it, but I have never noticed any extra components dropping in the other Incarnate Trials, so assuming that the extras are WAI, comparing 2 BAFs to 1 Underground looks like the Underground is a better payoff in components, Astrals, and threads (The least threads I have received is 14.)

Are you forgetting you get extra component drops the first time you get any of the badges associated with the iTrials? It sounds like you may be counting the extras that can drop in this way. (Apologies if you accounted for this, but you didn't mention these extra drops, so I thought that might be a possibility.)

Bingo. Even after spending a ton of time out of SG mode for the influence badges, my badger is almost to 4 million prestige (without buying any). I'm not inclined to start over.

Perhaps you're not aware that you get extra uncommon and common salvage for badges rewarded in the iTrials, and an extra rare salvage if you get a "Master of" badge. Otherwise, you get one component. You can only get the bonus salvage once, ever, per character, on a given trial.

This means that, for purposes of getting components, faster trials are better, because you can run more of them per day. You can use Threads (and therefore Astrals) to create common and cuncommon salvage, but it is significantly more time efficient to simply run more of the shorter trials, especially for uncommon salvage.

Remember, if you're going for very rare powers, you need 16 commons, two uncommons, two rares, and a very rare. If I had tried to do that running iTrials that took an 40-60 minutes per component roll, I would still be working on my characters, or would have decided to stop at rare powers. Instead I have 10 characters (my full stable of pre-existing level 50s) who have either four very rares, or three VRs and one rare. Even for the ones where I did three VRs and one rare, that's 55 commons. (I also average a bit over 5 threads per BAF/Lambda, so I can craft a common outright about every 4 of those trials.) But that doesn't account for the rare or VR salvage. Multiply all that times 10 characters .... I'm sure you get the idea.

Also, since they gave us the ability downgrade and/or made commons more common salvage than uncommon, I rarely spend Astrals to make Threads. I just save them and buy stuff with them in Ouroboros. If I had to spend those Astrals on Threads to create components with, I couldn't do that.

No, I did not know this. Glad for ignorance dispersal, sad that there aren't more rewards in the UG trial. OTOH, it was still a fun trial and I will be glad to run it again. Of course, I say the same thing about Keyes.

I would still choose the UG for crafting though. I have gotten from 14 to 17 threads each run. That is more than I have gotten out of running 3 BAFs back to back with the same league and minimal downtime. Yes I also got the component rewards from the BAFs, but at the end of 3 of them, both my computer and I were tired of running on teams for the night. (3 runs of anything in a row is pretty much my limit.) Running the 2 Undergrounds back to back wasn't tiring and it didn't feel repetitive because it is so much more varied than the BAF/Lambda. And I was still up for other trials. So the multiple BAFs are more efficient, but much less fun. And if it isn't fun, I have other things to do.

While I want my character to get T4s, I am not in any hurry. So if I get 3 or 4 different trials a day, I am getting the stuff I need but I am not getting burned out running the trials too much. And if I take a day off from running them, I don't feel like I am getting behind. And when they get the Signature arcs in, I will pick up threads or Astrals from those to help myself along until the solo path is added. But I only have 1 level 50. I am not surprised you are wanting more faster.

This is how I feel as well. Not only is the UGT shiny and new, but it involves a lot of combat (so lots of chances for Thread drops), and has a relative ton of Astral rewards (not to mention the 2 Empyreans the first time you do it each day). And it's being run often currently, so there are lots of chances to get toons in on it.

I can see this Trial getting speedy like BAFs did (not necessarily to the extent that BAFs are completed now, but still relatively fast considering the potential reward output).

This may be a very long post so please don't read it unless dinners off the stove.

My previous two-word answer of "Virtue Server" was in response to "Is there a magical mystery server where badgers roam free." Yes. But I'll amend my answer to "Virtue -or- possibly yours if you're up for some time-consuming legwork."

I'll start with Virtue as most folks think of it as the roleplay server. Primarily, it is. But there's also a strong speedsters, farming and badge community - probably far more than you'd think. All of those playstyles mesh well for a badger-friendly environment. You don't necessarily need other badgers for difficult or mundane tasks. I know plenty of speed freaks who will Master with you -just- for the bragging rights; the same speed freaks who could give a **** less about other badges like History and Ouroboros badges. Why speedsters? Speedsters labor over meticulous builds. They thrive on stats and teamwork.

I also know plenty of farmers who will run anything a million times over if there's something in it for them. There's potential for badge allies if you consider the objective, rewards and look around.

Right now, my go-to badge buddies are my SG. They're not all badgers. Maybe ten are "hardcore". The rest come for rewards, challenges, company, etc. When CoP came out, thirty-six signed up just because it was new and was not run much publically in the very first weeks. The badge itself was incidental to most.

When I don't fill from our channel, I call in private badge channels. I seldom have to go outside of the two channels to fill. We had Cathedral of Pain, MoLam, MoTin, and MoKeyes for everyone who asked and came night after night within 1-2 weeks (amended.. I said "from launch" but to be fair it was "from the first day of trying" which was sometimes a few days to a week after). Most have MoUT now. We ran a perfect trial tonight. I want to say that we're great players. Most are. I do recognize that a few are timid players and easily stress. So why do we succeed relatively quickly for a mostly casual group? We already know what to expect from one another and are in touch with one another from day one every new issue. Look around. Ask around. We're far from the only group that runs this way.

Also, nowadays, private global channels are replacing the function of a supergroup. There are private badge channels, including one I belong to, that offer the same benefit. Day in and day out, every issue, it's a homing beacon for badgers. Create one. Open up City Info Trackers leader page and BadgeHunters lead stats page. Make note of the top 50 - 100 badgers in your server. Pm them, "<insert name here>, "XYZ Badgers" is a new private channel for the most dedicated badgers on our server. We meet for casual conversation and new badges every issue. PST for more information." Give members an option to add their closest badge friends.

This is not to be elitist but practical. Virtue's public badge channel seems dead compared to the small goal-oriented private badge channel I belong to. If you're at 1278 and s/he's at 1278, you can be certain s/he'll be there when i22 goes live.

Sometimes I make temporary channels for just one badge this way! Case in point - the last influence badge that previously sat at 2 billion (lowered since) was not something my SG was interested in doing one DXP weekend ages ago. They had new alts to level and I respect that. I opened up CIT and badge hunter and made note of all top 50 without Leader, advised them that I was running a Katy-marathon that entire DXP weekend. Those people started inviting their friends that just wanted influence aside from the badge and I had full teams the entire weekend.

Not to break train of thought but why not invite everyone publically? Griefers and Jenkins accolytes ruined that for me. I have and will run with public shout outs invites much later but not if a friend's badge is on the line. Same reason we wouldn't call "RV AV badges. Heroside. PST" in Virtue public badge channels - pvp lot are not griefers but I'm not looking to set up a neon colored flag yelling "rare recipe drops here" either.

I do think it's possible to create a strong network on any server if you're willing to do the legwork but if you're unable to dedicate time then my answer stands at "Virtue Server" for migration recommendations. There's many really stand out groups and channels.

Personally, I'm staying where I am. I don't think Exalted will become the "main" server for badgers. Too many people are probably already entrenched in their server's networks. For those who do go to Exalted, consider networking early. Good luck to you all. At least we have forums to stay in touch.

This summarizes my stance as well. New toons for Exalted, but old toons... why move them, unless my server population was in the toilet? Freedom's bustling nicely, and there are badgers galore to run with, so I'm staying.

BTW, Atomic Saint: I don't recall having run with you before on Freedom, but if you need help with the Master UG badges, we're doing a run tomorrow night. See the Freedom board for more info.

@TURGENEV - Freedom Server / IRON / B.A.N.E / HORDE

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