Of Methods and Madness...

Simple question... not so simple answer... but I'll give it a try...

For those of you who don't know me or what DMystic is talking about... congratulations... I now strongly suggest you exit this thread without reading a single word further... you're better off... really.

For those who do know about my Tournament (and those of you who are gluttons for punishment) I'll remind you that I used to play this game in "Tournament Mode" which is, to put it VERY briefly, I ran roughly 30 or so characters at the same time, tracked all their information and "competed" against myself. I had well over 100 spreadsheets tracking all the various information, doing calculations, and basically creating a solid framework for my particular brand of Madness (patent pending).

Around the Halloween Event of 2011 I finally waved the white flag of surrender and trashed the Tournament completely. Sort of. If you want to look at it from a programmers point of view, as of October, 2011 I was working on CoX Tournament version 1.23. I had run through 23 versions of the competition model by the time I grew too aggravated with it to pursue it any longer.

So, what did I do, you ask? Did Steelclaw actually just PLAY the game without structure? Without a plan or goal in mind other than just to have fun? Did I actually just log into CoH Servers without first booting up Excel and at least a spreadsheet or two?

Perish the thought.

Think of what I'm doing now as Tournament Version 2.02. Yes, I've actually gone through two updates over my original concept back in November. The good news is that updating my Tournament NOW does NOT require me to delete all my characters and start over.

Here's how version 2.02 works:

Traderbots/Buyerbots

Every day I spend around 20 to 30 minutes futzing around with my Traderbots (on the Exalted server) and my Storagebots (on Champion). The Traderbots do nothing but play the market. Buy low, sell high, never keep or use anything.

This nets me an average of 100 to 150 million influence PER DAY. Basically after I'm done buying and selling every "penny" over 100,000,000 the bot has I consider profit and email to my global. After I've gone through all six of my Traders I head over to my Storagebots who snag all the influence from the emails.

The Storagebots are my purchasers. Their only purpose is to put bids out on recipes of the Purple and PvP variety. Any recipe I need that is not one of those two types I typically buy via Reward Merits or Alignment Merits. The bids escalate depending on how much moolah I have and how many recipes are active. So, if I have 20 recipes I am currently bidding on and bring in 120 million influence, then I rebid all the recipes 6 million higher than their last bid. I do this until all recipes are purchased at which time I just accumulate influence until I have more things to bid on.

Active Player

The biggest change and greatest relief of the new system is I only play ONE character at a time. I do NOT farm these characters. I play them on teams and I play them solo, but never run them through AE or let them door sit. I don't really have anything against people who do, this is just my personal choice.

Before these characters start I have already planned them out from first level to 50th and all through their incarnate choices. They exist from start to finish on a spreadsheet before I ever enter the costume creator. All their powers selected and planned out. All the enhancements that will be slotted in those powers are listed and categorized... everything done.

I have one character who has all the Recipes memorized. He is the only one who does ANY building of enhancements for ALL my characters. This saves HUGE amounts of influence and allows me to sell all recipes and enhancements as soon as I get them. This character has already created every enhancement and set enhancement the Active Player will need before that character is even created. These IOs are stored in the Super Group base for when they are needed.

This saves me a huge amount of time in the long run and also improves the fun of the game. I don't have to break my momentum now to craft IOs... I just hop into my SG base and slot up then off missions again. I do NOT create any Set Enhancements (Luck of the Gambler, Hecatomb, etc) below level 50. I figure I can wait until then to get all the set bonuses.

Each Active Character is played until the following criteria is met:
* they reach level 50
* they unlock every Incarnate Power and slot a Tier 4 in it
* they have all level 50+ IOs slotted in every power
* they have The Atlas Medallion, Freedom Phalanx Reserve, Portal Jockey and Task Force Commander Accolades

After these criteria are reached, I retire that character and start a new one.

On Deck Character

The On Deck Character is the one who is standing by ready to get going once I retire the Active one. They aren't really "created" beyond the spreadsheet completion and planning stage.

So, you ask "why even have a character spreadsheeted if they aren't created yet?" Well, one reason really... While the Active Player is playing, the Traderbots and Storagebots are spending all their time getting the Recipes needed for the On Deck Character. I need to know all the recipes they'll be needing so I create the character entirely in concept so I can go shopping while waiting for their turn to start.

When the Active Player retires I spend two or three days playing my Main to build all the recipes. To further reduce the costs of building, I run him multiple times through an AE mission I created for the purpose. It's not to make influence as much as to farm tickets which I use to get all the common salvage I'll need to slot IOs from levels 15 to 40. (The salvage for 45 and 50th level recipes is so cheap I don't bother to farm AE for it and just buy it from Wentworths.)

When the current On Deck Player goes Active I select the next character I want to run to be On Deck and the whole process starts all over again.

And Could I Have A Side Order of Obsessive-Compulsive With That?

Yeah, I'm OCD when it comes to my games. You've probably guessed that by now. So, even when they retire that doesn't mean they're DONE yet.

To amuse myself I rank all my characters' progress on the "Con" scale. Gray to Green to Blue, White, Yellow, Orange, Red and finally Purple. The Con is based on what percentage of completion they've reached. Now the fun part...

When I officially retire an Active Player... they only con Red. Not Purple.

In order to Con Purple (ie- 100% of goals accomplished), they have to fulfill all the Retirement requirements and the following additions:
* all five costume slots opened and created (not always completed by retirement due to availability of Halloween salvage)
* All Enhancements receive enough enhancement boosters to max them out at 55 if they can be so raised.

I buy a LOT of super packs and spend my Vet Rewards points on Enhancement Boosters every month. This allows me to Boost the powers over time, but it still takes quite a bit to get a character completely raised to 50+5's. And yes... I even boost the Run Speed in Sprint.

Progress Report

My goal as of right now is to have a Retired character in every AT. At this point I am just shy of half way there. Here is my current character list:

D'Shan Steelclaw... Claws/Regeneration Scrapper... Natural ... Cons Purple
Edie Wyldefire... Fire/Devices Blaster... Magic ... Cons Purple
Mistress Monolith... Willpower/Super Strength Tank... Mutant ... Cons Red
Guardian Edge... Broadsword/Willpower Brute... Natural ... Cons Red
Lord Gravenheart... Necromancy/Dark Miasma Mastermind... Magic ... Cons Red
Razor's Whisper... Ninja Blade/Super Reflexes Stalker... Natural ... Cons Red

Razor is currently level 50 with everything completed except maxing out his Incarnate abilities. So, I'll keep him in Pocket D grinding Trials until he's done. After him is planned...

Passive Aggression... Empathy/Psychic Blast Defender... Magic... Cons Grey

So... that's it. That's my current "Tournament" in a nutshell. I think it's working pretty well considering how much I've accomplished in just over 10 months.

TL;DR version: Steelclaw's still crazy. Just in a more productive way.

The Electric-Knight ______ Malfaz _____ Zox'Oculox

@Zethustra

"Now at midnight all the agents and the superhuman crew come out
and round up everyone that knows more than they do"-Dylan

www.pauldamonthomas.com - Original Music

Originally Posted by Iggy_Kamakaze Nice build

Best comic book series ever!

Also, Steelclaw is crazy, but the best kind of crazy!

~Freitag

Agreed!

Also agreed!!

The Electric-Knight ______ Malfaz _____ Zox'Oculox

@Zethustra

"Now at midnight all the agents and the superhuman crew come out
and round up everyone that knows more than they do"-Dylan

www.pauldamonthomas.com - Original Music

@SpaceNut - My 50s, AE arcs and current projects at ParagonWiki

...I forgot what experience means.

"I've invented a kind of powdered soup that you can carry in your pocket while traveling!"

"Don't you still have to carry a cauldron?"

"I've invented a way of making powdered cauldrons, too!"

(paraphrased from Asterix in Germany (I think; it's been a while), though my favorite remains Asterix and Cleopatra, The Greatest Story Ever Drawn.)

Back on topic, Steelclaw is funny.

Don�t say things. What you are stands over you the while, and thunders so that I cannot hear what you say to the contrary. - R.W. Emerson

Scrap 'em and bring in a replacement...

Let's face it... by now we're ALL aware I have no problems deleting characters.

I could never understand the appeal of this approach. Having the character planned out in advance would make the actual playing of the character feel like a chore to me. I don't plan my characters in advance AT ALL. When I level and get a new power, I head to the trainer and see what's available. I may pick a power immediately, or I may go do some research and pick later, but I don't know in advance what I will be taking. The only exceptions are a few key powers - any blaster is going to take their Tier 9 blast at level 32. My stone tank took Granite Armor at 32. A controller will get their pets ASAP.

All the others powers are, "Ooooo! Let's see what I can pick from!"

Having said that, I do have an Excel workbook with a ton of charts and tracking information. I have a page to track what characters have done which Signature arcs and how many Alignment Merits they have earned. I have a page to track my inf and which characters are holding how much. I have a page to track the Incarnate progress of my 50's. I have a page to track my Paragon Points on each account. etc. etc.

If you think about it, though, all these spreadsheets track results and progress - not future plans.

Sounds like a similar method, different madness.

Trackers unite! Or in our case: Spreadsheets compile!

I just started tracking what I've done recently. Because some of my characters haven't been played in a while, I forget which ones have Set IOs, regular IOs, Alpha unlocked, which Incarnate powers they have, etc. How much influence they have on hand is good information as well - I've caught myself character hopping a little too often trying to find the funds to send to a character who is IO'ing himself out.

But I'm still not very diligent about it. I think it would really help once I get it all compiled, but I keep getting distracted in doing so.

Steelclaw, I think you're insane. Except for the "crafter" role - I think that's a really smart thing, but I would get tired of the constant log outs to craft with him... Though I guess that's one of your daily stops, not something you do abruptly.

I may actually pick one of my lesser-played 50s and turn him into this.

Everything else about your method scares me. I like the idea of the trader/storage bots, always have, but I have never had the desire to devote my time to that kind of thing. But this (above quote) sounds like something I would be willing to put the time into, since it would end up saving time (and inf.) in the long run.

Keep on trucking, Steelclaw!