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The ones that want a challenge are playing their purpled-out peacebringers.
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Originally Posted by DaveMebs
I believe all the casual players are busy playing their purpled-out warshades.
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Justice Blues, Tech/Tank, Inv/SS
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Fighting The Future Trilogy
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Okay, this is a fair question.|
Originally Posted by DarkGob
It's really tough to have a discussion about what's fun because the definition varies for everyone. If you're unable to derive any enjoyment from a 12-24 person raid, then yeah, you're stuck. If you don't have (or simply don't wish to spend) the time to progress through the Incarnate trees, then yeah, you're unfortunately also stuck. It would be really awesome if there were a solo path for Incarnacy (it's a word now, jerks!); you can get Incarnate Threads from the new Signature Story Arcs, but they're not intended to be a full solo path. Positron claims that a truly viable solo path would completely invalidate the trial system they've set up. Maybe he's right, I dunno, but it's a shame either way.
The short of it is: If you want to do max-level content and you're defining "max-level" as the official endgame (i.e., the Incarnate System), then yes, prepare for some grinding. Nature of the beast. |
I want to do Trials. I love the idea of large multi-team missions. I love the notion of filling out the Incarnate trees. What I don't particularly relish is the thought that I might/will have to repeat the same Trials over and over again just to do so. I am almost axiomatically opposed to anything described as a "grind". The word itself tells you "this isn't going to be fun, it is just going to be tedious work." It certainly isn't why I play games as an entertaining pastime. Just to be clear, I do not consider doing the "work" of successfully completing missions to be a grind; but repeating the same mission(s) over and over again, regardless of the reward being pursued, is (for me).
This was something I considered to be a serious flaw in WoW and I was sort of hoping CoH hadn't fallen into the same trap. In the case of WoW it was clearly a bid on Blizzard's part to extort subscription fees from players with the superhuman capacity to endure the tedium of running through every max-level Raid dozens upon dozens of times. By that standard, I am most definitely not a hardcore player and never will be.
This is why I consider myself a "casual" player; I believe in the theory that everyone should be able to experience every single mission, TF, and Trial in the game without having to repeat anything along the way (helping others with missions/TFs/Trials you've already done excluded, of course). The way I prefer to see a sequence of Trials (or Trial missions) designed is to make it so that in the natural course of doing each step of a Trial you obtain all the abilities/upgrades necessary for entry into the next step in the Trial, and upon completing a particular Trial, you have everything you need to move on to the next Trial, without having to go through any of the previous content all over again (and again, and again, ad nauseum). If that's not how the CoH Trials are constructed, then I may have to consign myself to, yet again, never experiencing them (I pretty much missed out on them before leaving the game three years ago).
Again, just to be clear: my goal is not necessarily to reach a particular Incarnate tier. It is simply to experience the game's content, ideally all of it. I don't want to make filling out the Incarnate trees an end unto itself so much, but if that is the by-product of simply going through the Trials, then great! I just don't want to be "locked out" of any Trial(s) simply because I didn't run through previous Trials enough times to max out my build with IOs and Incarnate slots. WoW had the problem of Raids that simply weren't survivable, much less succeedable (is that a word?) unless your team had just the right combination of classes, with just the right combination of skill trees, and all the max tier gear obtainable prior to entering a particular Raid. This necessitated a mind-numbing campaign of grinding previous Raids in order for each character to get all the "drops" needed to proceed. Quite honestly, I can't think of a bigger waste of my free time.
NOR-RAD - 50 Rad/Rad/Elec Defender - Nikki Stryker - 50 DM/SR/Weap Scrapper - Iron Marauder - 50 Eng/Eng/Pow Blaster
Lion of Might - 50 SS/Inv/Eng Tanker - Darling Nikkee - 50 (+3) StJ/WP/Eng Brute - Ice Giant Kurg - 36 Ice/Storm Controller
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Thanks again for the link, Grouchy.|
Originally Posted by Grouchybeast
Here's something that might interest you: the Paragonwiki table of relative values of the different types of enhancements.
That gives a pretty clearly laid out summary of the relative strengths of IOs, and shows why you could completely ignore any question of set bonuses, and still find IOs useful. Mix-and-match slotting of cheap Uncommon sets will give you performance better than SOs, with the added bonus of never wearing out. ('Dual Set IO' means something that enhances dual aspects of a power, e.g. Acc/Dam or Hold/Rech. 'Triple Set IO' would likewise be, e.g. Acc/Dam/Rech. The percentage shown in the total bonus for all the aspects added together.) |
Actually, I am already familiar with the basic benefits of IOs and how they "work" (including dual and triple IOs) since that's just an extension of the regular enhancement mechanism. But I am not at all familiar with all the set bonuses, which ones are best for this power set or that, the ins and outs of "frankenslotting", and so on. I know to someone who has already absorbed this knowledge it probably doesn't seem like much, but comparatively speaking, IOs are considerably more complex as a game subsystem than the basic TO/DO/SO system.
I mean, unlike SOs which you can just go and buy (for relatively low prices) from any appropriate-level vendor, obtaining IOs involves either paying extraordinary influence prices at Wentworth's (the free market at work, no?), or finding out which recipes you need, which ingredients those recipes require, obtaining all of those either through the random process of drops during a mission (good luck) or, again, spending obscene amounts of influence for everything at the AH (not to mention the sticker-shock of the influence cost just to craft the final item after the recipe and ingredients have been obtained). Hence my other question about "How does everyone earn the 2 billion influence it probably takes to do this without farming or buying influence from the Internet (a practice that will get you banned if you're caught, right?)" My guess is the answer will be that all I have to do is grind missions in order to obtain some combination of the salvage/recipes I need along with salvage/recipes I don't need in order to sell them at Wentworth's for the influence necessary to buy the salvage/recipes I didn't get from drops. I know this is the fundamental way crafting systems work, but it is also the reason I don't like them. No matter how you slice it, making it work for you involves grinding (or at least more of it than I can usually stomach).
By this measure, it is clear to me that the IO system is intended to consume a lot of gameplay time, almost for its own sake (rather than the sake of experiencing content and/or doing stuff that feels superheroic in genre terms). Either in the form of recipe/ingredient chasing, in the accumulation of influence, or both. At least back when SOs were the norm (don't even get me started on HOs), you could accumulate the necessary influence to become fully slotted just through normal, non-grind gameplay. Especially once you had your first level 50 and could transfer funds to alts to make the ascent a little smoother.
NOR-RAD - 50 Rad/Rad/Elec Defender - Nikki Stryker - 50 DM/SR/Weap Scrapper - Iron Marauder - 50 Eng/Eng/Pow Blaster
Lion of Might - 50 SS/Inv/Eng Tanker - Darling Nikkee - 50 (+3) StJ/WP/Eng Brute - Ice Giant Kurg - 36 Ice/Storm Controller
You've gotten some great replies and information from everyone here (and some humor with the casually purpled out warshades, haha... which, in case you don't know, is a bit of a running joke of silliness/absurdity... but entirely friendly in this case).
Anyway... I just thought I'd share my perspective in hopes that it'll alleviate your concerns.
I'm weird, sure... But I want you to know that I don't have a single Invention Set on any of my characters... They all have SOs or standard invention enhancements (I like those because I do not have to replace them as I level and then I put all level 50s on my characters once I reach that level).
I don't grind, I don't play a lot (usually) and I like to take my time, mess around... heck, I usually like to hop on, run some radio missions or tip missions or story arcs solo or maybe with a few friends.
I have zero problems with any of this (and I am usually soloing on a blaster of all things)...
AND... I have a ton of Incarnate Powers and tiers and just about anything I could want.
I have zero problems participating, enjoying myself, getting on teams, speaking confidently about my playing... and so on.
There is no problem.
My big thing is this... I just don't find the invention system FUN. Others do and there's nothing wrong with that. What is fantastic is that this game is 100% enjoyable without any of it. It is true and don't you worry about it any longer.
If you want to try out getting more into finely crafting a character's build... go for it... see if you enjoy it... but don't worry one bit if you don't.
I haven't.
And I have my Tier 3 Incarnate Powers. Yes, I had to run the same content a number of times, but I did it very sporadically and I eventually got there... I didn't really care. it just happened. As much as I like soloing and running small team stuff, I enjoy getting together with a large group and having some fun that way too. Just in small doses.
Here's the great thing about the Incarnate stuff... For if/when you want to get into it... It's usually only going to take up around 30 minutes of your time. You can run the different ones and go at it longer (and/or repeat them and keep going longer), but you can just do one... make some progress... and move on and not feel like you're grinding.
Just always go with your fun instinct and this game will serve you well.
This game is definitely a casual player's game... It just so happens that it does offer some greater fine tuning that people enjoy getting into. Don't worry though... they're all just crazy!! 
I see it somewhat like trading/collecting baseball cards and remembering the statistics and whatnot.
I'm not into it... but hey... whatever you enjoy!
Seriously... this problem that you're a bit worried about... It doesn't exist. 
Oh... and one of the reasons that I'm pretty weird in this regard is that I hang around the forums and read all this stuff and learn all of this stuff and know about a lot of things that... I NEVER TOUCH in the game. I know how to get merits and what things do what and how to get certain badges and accolades and unlocks and strategies for efficiency and ways to maximize potential and whatnot...
But, when I am logged in, I never think of those things.
@Zethustra
"Now at midnight all the agents and the superhuman crew come out
and round up everyone that knows more than they do"-Dylan
and round up everyone that knows more than they do"-Dylan
Felt the need to chime in here.
My personal opinion is that, if you don't enjoy the micromanagement that comes along with working out IO builds and such, don't do it. None of CoH's content is difficult enough to necessitate it provided you can follow directions; I've run a tank in incarnate trials that used exclusively SOs and she performed fine with no incarnate powers other than a tier 1 alpha slot (which is trivially easy to fill).
Basically, I concur with the others in this thread - anyone who's going to kick you from a team for not being IO'ed out isn't worth your playing time anyway.
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From what you've described, yeah, you're probably not gonna be too happy with the Trial system. My Blaster is T4 Alpha/Judgement, T3 Lore/Destiny/Interface. I was already kind of burned out on BAF and Lambda by that point (Keyes wasn't out yet), and when I wrote down all the components I would need to T4 Destiny and Interface (not even including Lore) I just sort of fell into "well what the hell's the point?". I was hopeful that when Keyes came out I'd have something new to run, but nobody ever runs Keyes because everyone is predisposed to the path of least resistance, which is BAF. Supposedly Keyes and the new Underground Trial now gives 2 Empyrean Merits instead of the 1 that BAF and Lambda give, so I'm somewhat hopeful that they will get run more often because of this. But otherwise...yeah I may abandon the Incarnate System for a while myself.|
Originally Posted by Wing_Leader
Again, just to be clear: my goal is not necessarily to reach a particular Incarnate tier. It is simply to experience the game's content, ideally all of it. I don't want to make filling out the Incarnate trees an end unto itself so much, but if that is the by-product of simply going through the Trials, then great! I just don't want to be "locked out" of any Trial(s) simply because I didn't run through previous Trials enough times to max out my build with IOs and Incarnate slots. WoW had the problem of Raids that simply weren't survivable, much less succeedable (is that a word?) unless your team had just the right combination of classes, with just the right combination of skill trees, and all the max tier gear obtainable prior to entering a particular Raid. This necessitated a mind-numbing campaign of grinding previous Raids in order for each character to get all the "drops" needed to proceed. Quite honestly, I can't think of a bigger waste of my free time.
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I want to point something else out though, you keep linking IOs and Incarnate powers, and I'm not sure why. You don't need IOs for the Trials. They definitely help, but you don't need them. A competently-run trial (heh) will have enough buffs (Incarnate and otherwise) flying around that your relative survivability will be a non-issue (which is not to say you won't die, just not more so than anyone else). Incarnate Trials don't require just the right combination of characters to succeed, or at least BAF and Lambda don't. Keyes and it looks like Underground do require a bit more specialized tactics, mostly in terms of making sure you have some folks with Rebirth Destiny for heals (but since you can craft multiple powers and swap them out, this shouldn't be a major problem), but they're not strictly necessary.
The fact that none of the current 4 Trials require you to have any of your Incarnate slots even unlocked means that you shouldn't have to grind the previous Trials in order to do the next one (although we don't know if this will change for later trials and the next group of slots, whenever we get them). You could grind Underground exclusively to unlock everything, or you could do one of each and alternate (but of course, this is subject to finding people to run them).
Maybe I'll just change my forum handle to Parentheses Man (since it would clearly be fitting, right? (or possibly Poor Reading Comprehension Man)).
"You don't lose levels. You don't have equipment to wear out, repair, or lose, or that anyone can steal from you. About the only thing lighter than debt they could do is have an NPC walk by, point and laugh before you can go to the hospital or base." -Memphis_Bill
We will honor the past, and fight to the last, it will be a good way to die...
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I'll agree with the others. As far as I know, I'm one of the worst build-builders on the forums. And I do ok. I have characters missing critical powers, grossly mis-slotted and under enhanced. And I contribute to the groups I'm with and I have fun.|
Originally Posted by Reiska
Felt the need to chime in here.
My personal opinion is that, if you don't enjoy the micromanagement that comes along with working out IO builds and such, don't do it. None of CoH's content is difficult enough to necessitate it provided you can follow directions; I've run a tank in incarnate trials that used exclusively SOs and she performed fine with no incarnate powers other than a tier 1 alpha slot (which is trivially easy to fill). Basically, I concur with the others in this thread - anyone who's going to kick you from a team for not being IO'ed out isn't worth your playing time anyway. |
Anyone who boots you is just a *****.
"Hmm, I guess I'm not as omniscient as I thought" -Gavin Runeblade.
I can be found, outside of paragon city here.
Thank you everyone at Paragon and on Virtue. When the lights go out in November, you'll find me on Razor Bunny.
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You don't even find most people's 'uber super special awesome build', as you call it, on the forum.|
Originally Posted by joebartender
Builds on the forums are theory crafting. Just because you see someones uber super special awesome build in a thread doesn't mean it has been built or being used by that person. Everyone can max a build in Mids not everyone is going to be able to devote the time and resources to do that in game.
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To be fair, most of the best builds are never posted.
I know I don't post my top builds and when I look at similar stuff on the forums it all frankly looks very inferior thus forcing me to conclude most others that have some true high-end builds actually in business don't post them either.
True, there's a lot of theory crafting, but once people throw some slots around in Mids' and go "Eureka, this is just brilliance!" 9 out of 10 times they don't go back and update the thread.
Instead they'll roll a toon and get their show on the road.
And why not? They used the forum (if even...) to get there - they're done.
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Originally Posted by Wing_Leader
So how are casual gamers expected to participate at what has become the new Standards for End Game Play without farming? When I join teams with my old L50s, which pre-date the Incarnate system, I am self-conscious about the fact that I might get booted for being less than half as effective as everyone else who seems to have full sets of "purple" IOs (or whatever), top-tier Incarnate powers, and so on.
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Because it seems to me it shouldn't really be the issue you suggest it to be.
Someone may notice that out of two defenders on team one jumps dead center into every mob, blinks and makes everything lose the will to live right on the spot while the other shows a distinctively different behavior; namely acts like a defender - hangs back and supports the team, etc.
Surely you don't get kicked from teams for that... or do you?
Duo MoITF - 26:06 | Duo MoKahn - 25:50 | Duo MoLGTF - 29:34 |
I dislike IOs.
I'd like them better if there were no "set bonuses" or any of those absurdities.
They sit on the border between optional and optimal.
Also, I hate playing the market. I dump whatever drops on the market, which helps me afford my SO habit.
So I've been playing fully SO-ed characters, and having fun. Never been kicked from a team. Been derided and/or insulted on the boards a lot, but that's different.
I guess you could call me casual.
The game ends at 50.
SmilegasmDo not ever give Mind Control a pet.
We need more control sets without pets.My characters are not "toons".
They are all project characters, though.Global chat @Lxndr My servers: Defiant, Liberty, Pinnacle, Virtue
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This is just wrong, and is where your underlying assumptions are giving you unnecessary worry.|
Originally Posted by Wing_Leader
Hence my other question about "How does everyone earn the 2 billion influence it probably takes to do this without farming or buying influence from the Internet"
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It simply does not take billions of inf to use the IO system effectively.
You can get a big bump in performance from simply frankenslotting your powers with a mix of cheap IOs, to take advantage of the fact that slotting Acc/Dam Acc/Dam from two sets is much better than slotting one Acc and one Dam SO. An Acc/Dam from one set is just as good as an Acc/Dam from another, so all you need to do is find the cheaper, less popular sets, and use those.
Then, you can move into slotting more of the cheaper sets, to start picking up some of the bonuses. You can dabble in the system, for not a lot of inf.
Some sets are in very high demand, because they're rarer sets and they provide specific bonuses that people value for certain types of builds. But usually, there are other sets in the same group that will provide perfectly decent bonuses, and are cheap as chips. E.g.:
Kinetic Combat sells for tens if millions of inf per piece, and over a hundred million in some cases. For people chasing defense, it's a highly attractive set. But...
Crushing Impact can probably be bought for less than 10 million for the whole set. And who wouldn't want a 7% Acc and a 5% recharge bonus on all their powers?
If you want to fill a build with highly sought Rare, Purple and PVP IOs, then it will cost you a lot of inf, but you will not get a proportional return in terms of increased power and survivability. In some cases, depending on the character, it might actually be counterproductive.
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Originally Posted by Wing_Leader
My guess is the answer will be that all I have to do is grind missions in order to obtain some combination of the salvage/recipes I need along with salvage/recipes I don't need in order to sell them at Wentworth's for the influence necessary to buy the salvage/recipes I didn't get from drops.
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But again: if you don't want to touch the IO system, don't touch it. As people have said, it genuinely is optional. If it isn't fun for you, just ignore the whole thing and you will be absolutely *fine*. You can throw all your drop on WW for 1 inf, and never touch the crafting system at all.
To be honest, it does come over as if you're determined to hate the crafting system, no matter what. And that's fine. But maybe it would be better to hate it for reasons that actually exist, rather than just on your assumptions about the system.
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Originally Posted by Wing_Leader
By this measure, it is clear to me that the IO system is intended to consume a lot of gameplay time, almost for its own sake (rather than the sake of experiencing content and/or doing stuff that feels superheroic in genre terms). Either in the form of recipe/ingredient chasing, in the accumulation of influence, or both.
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Arc#314490: Zombie Ninja Pirates!
Defiant @Grouchybeast
Death is part of my attack chain.
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Have you considered just using the basic IO's? Like you I don't waste my time with the sets. Although I do farm the hell out of the Winter Event for Candy Canes so I can stock up on Winter's Gifts and sell them in July on the market. The last time I did that I made enough inf to finish my base after I converted it all to prestige.
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Originally Posted by Lxndr
I dislike IOs.
I'd like them better if there were no "set bonuses" or any of those absurdities. Also, I hate playing the market. I dump whatever drops on the market, which helps me afford my SO habit. So I've been playing fully SO-ed characters. Never been kicked from a team. Been derided and/or insulted on the boards a lot, but that's different. I guess you could call me casual. |
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Haven't found any basic IOs on the market. Sometimes recipes, but I dislike crafting/inventing. *shrugs*|
Originally Posted by Forbin_Project
Have you considered just using the basic IO's?
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Besides, money's tight. If I turn into a Preemie, I'd rather my characters keep their potency.
The game ends at 50.
SmilegasmDo not ever give Mind Control a pet.
We need more control sets without pets.My characters are not "toons".
They are all project characters, though.Global chat @Lxndr My servers: Defiant, Liberty, Pinnacle, Virtue
Just to give you an idea, but first and most powerful toon is a blaster. A few weeks back, I helped a guy out with the Alpha unlock arc. At one points, you have to face down 2 AVs at the same time. They aren't as tough as other AVs, but still. My Incarnate blaster successfully tanks both of them and a huge mob of Rikti while barely taking any damage.
How did I achieve this? Tons of purples and the top Incarnate powers of everything right? Not even close.
He's IO'd out, but not one of those sets is purple. It took me a year to get them, gradually, but simply crafting recipes I got from normal game play, selling them, then turning around and buying sets I could afford. No farming was required or necessary.
At the time he had uncommons of all Incarnate stuff but alpha, which he had very rare. I admit I did more trials at first than I normally would--3 or 4 a week on that toon and 1 or so a week after that, but while you must repeat trials to some extent, you needn't do it too often.
I should also point out that I was leveling and outfitting a dozen or so other characters at the same time I was outfitting this one. So yeah, you can still play casually.
Several people have mentioned running hero/villain tips for the merits, but you also get drops with those. In the past week of running just tips on one character (0/X6), I have gotten 5 purple recipes. That was a bit of a streak, since I hadn't gotten one in a month, but it was still a nice windfall.
Most of them I sold. Purple recipes are good if you're going for perma-dom. It's good on some fast recharge builds. But they give no defense. They aren't always useful for making any particular character the best they can be. And for the selling price of 2 of those purples, I could make an insane build for 3-4 level 50 characters - and even counting my month with no purple drops, I can't level characters to 50 that fast.
You certainly need cash to build characters, but you don't need all the highest priced stuff to build very good characters. One of my friends is one of those people obsessed with chasing the biggest stuff available, and he just put a full numina set (4 pieces of which I gave him) in HA on an emp (he pretty much gave up on the panacea). I have 5 Doctored Wounds in mine. Not only was mine 1/10 the price of his, but I'll let you guess which one plays better.
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i see basic IOs on the market all the time.|
Originally Posted by Lxndr
Haven't found any basic IOs on the market. Sometimes recipes, but I dislike crafting/inventing. *shrugs*
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Also, when i get the salvage and recipe drops to make a basic IO i will do so. If it's not an IO i need i dump it on the market for 5 inf or so.
The market does not have to be time-consuming if you have any patience. Maybe 5 minutes a play session, if that, and you can get IOs. Put stuff on the market that you want to sell and bid on the things you want. You frequently can bid as low as half the going price and get the item you want if you just leave the bid up and go play the game. Note that if you don't leave a bid up for at least a day or two you aren't actually serious about buying anything at a good price.
Then you just need to check your bids and put a few more items on the market every so often. Every so often could be just after logging on or before logging off every play session, or it could be after every couple of missions, whatever you want.
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| Besides, money's tight. If I turn into a Preemie, I'd rather my characters keep their potency. |
Dr. Todt's theme.
i make stuff...
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I often find the guides on building various types of AT good for that. The best of them tend to mention a power and how it works. sure they all head off into min/maxing in the end but if they are good they give you an idea of how the powers interact and which ones you might or might not want to take. They also give you a good idea of other powers you might want to take. Though if you are not planning to min/max you don't have to get into the minutia of this slotting scheme is better than that one.|
Originally Posted by Wing_Leader
So I discovered!
I feel a little silly for not anticipating that, I guess. Here I was hoping to get some insight into why I might choose to try a Brute after all my years loving Scrappers, only to find that none of the discussion pertained to me and my level 1 toon (or even the first 40 levels of his career). So much for getting a feel for which AT might fit my playing style better. Even when playing style was thrown into the mix in those threads, it seemed to be "playing style" only within the context of max-level-you-have-top-tier-IOs-slotted-of-course characters. |
In the case of general building what you want isn't slotting but the basic powers and how they interact. At least that is my casual take on it and how I use the AT forums. Useful information but don't worry to much about the min/maxing part unless it interests you.
But it's MY sadistic mechanical monster and I'm here to make sure it knows it. - Girl Genius
List of Invention Guides
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Really? Okay, here's a little something about me: I absolutely despise seeing 10,000 Mathematic Proofs on the market. Ditto lots of other high-tier common salvage. So I sometime buy loads of them up, frequently at a loss to myself (a couple of weeks ago I lost about a million inf reducing the number of MPs on the Market from 10,000 to 3,000). I'll then craft as many common IOs as I can with whatever salvage I have, and drop them on the Market for 5 inf. Again, at a loss to myself, because they frequently sell for less than the crafting cost.|
Originally Posted by Lxndr
Haven't found any basic IOs on the market. Sometimes recipes, but I dislike crafting/inventing. *shrugs*
Besides, money's tight. If I turn into a Preemie, I'd rather my characters keep their potency. |
I'm going to keep on doing this. In fact, my main is now so insanely Inf-rich, that I'll try to remember to do it all the time.
I don't care about how much inf I have, or not. I can always get more, and not by marketeering, either.
The wisdom of Shadowe: Ghostraptor: The Shadowe is wise ...; FFM: Shadowe is no longer wise.
; Techbot_Alpha: Also, what Shadowe said. It seems he is still somewhat wise ; Bull Throttle: Shadowe was unwise in this instance...; Rock_Powerfist: in this instance Shadowe is wise.; Techbot_Alpha: Shadowe is very wise *nods*; Zortel: *Quotable line about Shadowe being wise goes here.*
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look here
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Originally Posted by Lxndr
Haven't found any basic IOs on the market. Sometimes recipes, but I dislike crafting/inventing. *shrugs*
Besides, money's tight. If I turn into a Preemie, I'd rather my characters keep their potency. |
"Hmm, I guess I'm not as omniscient as I thought" -Gavin Runeblade.
I can be found, outside of paragon city here.
Thank you everyone at Paragon and on Virtue. When the lights go out in November, you'll find me on Razor Bunny.
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It's pretty easy. I first and foremost just play the 50s that I find fun to play. I make sure to get their dailies done because Alignment Merits are a great way to fill a build out. When the Signature Story Arcs come out, they will be a great boon to the casual player because you can get the rarest, most expensive stuff even faster.|
Originally Posted by Wing_Leader
How do you guys afford to fill up an entire L50 (+1) character with the rarest IOs in the game? How does one do this without farming or spending three years playing the same toon every day?
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Playing solo will yield more inf and drops for you. Play on the largest spawn size you can handle (except when doing dailies, then crank it down so you can get through them ASAP). Teaming may be fun and good for XP, but at 50 you don't care about XP and on a team your drops just won't be as good as solo.
You can also get help from the market. Read the market forums and get tips from people like Fulmens. The market is the casual player's best friend! On just 15 minutes a day, you can have 1-2 billion inf in 30 days.
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No, thankfully, not yet.|
Originally Posted by TriAngel_EU
Do you assume this or does it happen?
Because it seems to me it shouldn't really be the issue you suggest it to be. Someone may notice that out of two defenders on team one jumps dead center into every mob, blinks and makes everything lose the will to live right on the spot while the other shows a distinctively different behavior; namely acts like a defender - hangs back and supports the team, etc. Surely you don't get kicked from teams for that... or do you? |
However, it is not uncommon to be invited to teams that are trying to rip through end-game content at max difficulty and I find my poor little L50 surrounded by mobs that all con purple to me. I seem to be the only one on the team having trouble hitting without a steady diet of Uncanny Insights, and I seem to be the only one dying left and right because, unlike everyone else, I can't survive all the overflow aggro everyone deliberately generates in order to clear rooms/zones as quickly as possible. When Blasters and Defenders are exhibiting behavior that almost looks like classic tanking, it doesn't take long to realize the team is operating on a very different paradigm than I am used to (or capable of contributing to on any kind of equal footing). These guys don't always buff because their top tier passives/toggles/permas seem to make it unnecessary; the underlying assumption seems to be that everyone on the team is similarly equipped and shouldn't need special attention.
Back in the early days of COH it wasn't unheard of to be summarily dropped from a team if it didn't look like you could keep up. I know that sort of asshattery has largely faded from the game by now, but I still don't like being the weak link in the chain that slows the game down for everyone else. Maybe I was just getting unlucky with the teams I joined these last couple of weeks (I've just recently returned to the game after three years off), but unless the LFM call explicitly mentioned "all lvls welcome", I often found that teams composed of all 50 (+1) toons weren't really benefiting much from my presence (even my L50s).
NOR-RAD - 50 Rad/Rad/Elec Defender - Nikki Stryker - 50 DM/SR/Weap Scrapper - Iron Marauder - 50 Eng/Eng/Pow Blaster
Lion of Might - 50 SS/Inv/Eng Tanker - Darling Nikkee - 50 (+3) StJ/WP/Eng Brute - Ice Giant Kurg - 36 Ice/Storm Controller
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Dailies? I hear that and think of WoW {shudder}...|
Originally Posted by Daemodand
I make sure to get their dailies done because Alignment Merits are a great way to fill a build out.
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I seem to have quite a bit to catch up on.
NOR-RAD - 50 Rad/Rad/Elec Defender - Nikki Stryker - 50 DM/SR/Weap Scrapper - Iron Marauder - 50 Eng/Eng/Pow Blaster
Lion of Might - 50 SS/Inv/Eng Tanker - Darling Nikkee - 50 (+3) StJ/WP/Eng Brute - Ice Giant Kurg - 36 Ice/Storm Controller
Wing,
I think there are a lot of casual players out there that don't bother with a lot of the set and IO stuff. Some of us have been around a long time. Sure this account registers recently, but I remember hitting 40 before there was a 50 on my original account, so I was there with you back then, and like you have been playing on and off ever since. I still laugh about the old days when a properly slotted Regen scrapper was what God/the gods rolled when he/they wanted to feel even more powerful.
You've seen a lot of responses already, but in regard to forum builds, you won't see a lot of regular SO or even common IO builds around because, well why bother to post them? The only thing that has really changed and I've had to wrap my head around is the whole concept of diminished returns on slots. No more six slotting damage. It's been around for a while but only recently have I taken the game even seriously enough to care about it. You get the most bang for the buck out of 3 slots of whatever the primary benefit of the power is, and possibly some secondary slots if you need additional affects.
I've never been kicked from a team for not being "TEH UBERZ ENUFF" whatever that even means. (Whippersnappers...lawn...off) I know I've enjoyed the game at all levels, 1-50 with no crazy expensive sets or builds. If you've been around on and off for 7 years, you have a pretty good idea of how powers work for the most part. Wrap your head around diminished returns and your builds will be just fine.
If you are worried you are not effective enough on teams during end game content, find a nice casual supergroup. They still exists, and you will find teaming with them will often keep you within a group that has a similar play style. Or just hit random PUGs until you build out a nice friend list of people that play similarly to you.
Go, play, have fun. That's what casual gaming is all about.
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Conversely (and this is in no way anything against catwhowalksbyhimself), I soloed the exact same mission with my Blaster with zero IO sets (actually, I also soloed it with my Master Mind, my Dominator and a Tank... for the record).|
Originally Posted by catwhowalksbyhimself
Just to give you an idea, but first and most powerful toon is a blaster. A few weeks back, I helped a guy out with the Alpha unlock arc. At one points, you have to face down 2 AVs at the same time. They aren't as tough as other AVs, but still. My Incarnate blaster successfully tanks both of them and a huge mob of Rikti while barely taking any damage.
How did I achieve this? Tons of purples and the top Incarnate powers of everything right? Not even close. He's IO'd out, but not one of those sets is purple. It took me a year to get them, gradually, but simply crafting recipes I got from normal game play, selling them, then turning around and buying sets I could afford. No farming was required or necessary. At the time he had uncommons of all Incarnate stuff but alpha, which he had very rare. I admit I did more trials at first than I normally would--3 or 4 a week on that toon and 1 or so a week after that, but while you must repeat trials to some extent, you needn't do it too often. I should also point out that I was leveling and outfitting a dozen or so other characters at the same time I was outfitting this one. So yeah, you can still play casually. |
Of course, the two AVs were only Elite Bosses and you do not have to fight them both at the same time.
None of this is necessary. Some find it fun. Some enjoy chest-beating about it (and, hey, why not!), but none of it changes how anyone else needs to play.
I've soloed, duo'd and done that very same mission with larger teams. It can be tough (and sometimes, maybe not possible) to solo, but I've never run into a major problem as a duo handling that mission... and that's often times been just my wife and myself, who are both extremely casual and far far far from min/maxers, hehe.
We both choose powers that we just simply think are cool or fun or fit the character for concept purposes.
People can enjoy gaining a few extra percentages here and there... and even leverage the system to gain a large chunk of defense on a character that wouldn't normally have it... But 1) you don't need to and 2) you can pop a couple of inspirations and achieve the same for a short period of time.
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Originally Posted by Wing_Leader
No, thankfully, not yet.
However, it is not uncommon to be invited to teams that are trying to rip through end-game content at max difficulty and I find my poor little L50 surrounded by mobs that all con purple to me. I seem to be the only one on the team having trouble hitting without a steady diet of Uncanny Insights, and I seem to be the only one dying left and right because, unlike everyone else, I can't survive all the overflow aggro everyone deliberately generates in order to clear rooms/zones as quickly as possible. When Blasters and Defenders are exhibiting behavior that almost looks like classic tanking, it doesn't take long to realize the team is operating on a very different paradigm than I am used to (or capable of contributing to on any kind of equal footing). These guys don't always buff because their top tier passives/toggles/permas seem to make it unnecessary; the underlying assumption seems to be that everyone on the team is similarly equipped and shouldn't need special attention. Back in the early days of COH it wasn't unheard of to be summarily dropped from a team if it didn't look like you could keep up. I know that sort of asshattery has largely faded from the game by now, but I still don't like being the weak link in the chain that slows the game down for everyone else. Maybe I was just getting unlucky with the teams I joined these last couple of weeks (I've just recently returned to the game after three years off), but unless the LFM call explicitly mentioned "all lvls welcome", I often found that teams composed of all 50 (+1) toons weren't really benefiting much from my presence (even my L50s). |
The scenario you painted above (about everyone else kicking butt and you dropping) really has nothing to do with having IOs or not.
They do not generally make that sort of a difference in normal gameplay (level 50 or not).
Honestly, it sounds like you got brought onto a Speed Run of some sort... which, can be brutal for those not familiar and it really often times abandons the whole nature of inter-team dependency (although, not entirely, but hopefully no one will take offense to that).
What AT and powerset are you playing?
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Originally Posted by Wing_Leader
Dailies? I hear that and think of WoW {shudder}...
I seem to have quite a bit to catch up on. |
I know I don't.
I've got high tier incarnate powers and characters capable of doing whatever content I've run into.
Do you overclock your computer? Others do!
Do you fine tune your car in excessive ways?
Min/Maxing in this game is like having a suped-up race car for driving to work at rush hour in New York city. It's not a great analogy, because I'm not saying that it is a waste of time for those that do it... They enjoy it.
I enjoy myself just fine without it.
I'm not saying that you shouldn't enjoy it yourself... but you keep on acting like you reluctantly have to get involved in it.
Do you play on one particular server and what AT(s)/powerset(s) are you playing?
I am wondering if you may need a bit of build help (no matter about IOs) and/or a little bit of strategy assistance and/or a way to find like-minded players to play with.
@Zethustra
"Now at midnight all the agents and the superhuman crew come out
and round up everyone that knows more than they do"-Dylan
and round up everyone that knows more than they do"-Dylan
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Nope, but the Number Slaves don't care about us. They're just talking to each other. To them, we're Doing It Wrong.|
Originally Posted by Wing_Leader
Am I the only casual player who also isn't a complete newbie?
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Keep in mind that there are most likely tons of casual players in the game itself, but not many of them are here on the boards. They're too casual for that.
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| So how are casual gamers expected to participate at what has become the new Standards for End Game Play without farming? |
I'm also disappointed with many aspects of the way the game has evolved over the years, since the days when I was drawn to it specifically because it was so unlike the rest of the MMO market. No loot, no PvP, no "give us real money and your character will be better"... those were the days.
On the other hand, there's still plenty to do without bothering with the stuff you have to be a Number Slave to excel at, so I'm still here despite all that. My personal strategy for avoiding your concern about being hassled on teams for my non-Incarnate gimpiness is to solo pretty much exclusively. This solution is not for everyone and I don't recommend it without reservation; it's just my own niche. To paraphrase the great Hunter S. Thompson, I hate to advocate misanthropy and isolationism, but they've always worked for me.
This needs to be a loading screen tip.