f13.net

I9 has gone live.

Overall, most complaints are about the new content rather than bugs / crashes. Lag is reported around the new 'must-be' areas (ie Universities, Consignment Houses) but overall things seem stable. Bugs do exist for some of the Invention Origin sets, but only in that they may not do what they say they do.

Prices in the Consignment Houses for new salvage / recipes are completely nuts, but that's to be expected until the system settles down.

It's going to take a while to shake out the effects of IOs on CoH/V gameplay and character development.

With my level 25 character, I ran a few missions tonight, and sold enough pieces of the Common invention salvage to make over 200k influence, which is a nice chunk of change at that level.
I had a few pieces still in the CH when I logged for the night, too.

If someone bids on an item you're selling, and their bid is higher than your asking price, you get the entire bid, not just what you asked for. So, to use an actual example from tonight, you can put up a piece of Iron for 20k, and if someone bids 55k, you get the 55k (minus the consignment fee).

The key, of course, is getting in now while the wealthy impulse buyers are causing demand spikes. I'm sure that in a month or so, the same piece of Iron will be worth more to a vendor than to the CH.

Oh bleh, it works like FFXI? I find that sort of bidding system to be extremely time consuming, as I have to keep inching my bids up so I don't get ripped for more than I can tolerate.

The bidding system is a royal pain the butt. I have/had a number of things probably worth a fair amount, but the hassle factor is enough to keep me away from the Black Market for now.

However, the drop rates have changed. TOs no longer drop post-20 (might be earlier, but from my 23 corruptor's viewpoint...). SO drops are now much more common much earlier than before. My fire/dark corruptor has been scraping to get by on nickle and dime SO upgrades. Tonight, she blew about 100k on SOs and another 70k+ on a couple of crafted enhancements. Not sure how well those will work out in the long run, but I've got one attack ability slated for experimenting with the new enhancements. The fundamental point was infamy is a lot easier to come by than it was last night (I struggled to buy 2xSOs last night; I had 5 in tonight and 20k infamy left over in one less hour of playtime).

I may have to indulge in some brutality tomorrow night to see how things are going post-30 and post-40.

One last thing I suspect will become more prevalent in the long run is less flitting from alt to alt. The invention system does add a lot more depth to slotting strategies. More fiddling on the same character instead of just switching off when one toon gets a bit tiresome.

My high 30s Scrapper goes through FAR too much influence upgrading all those SOs. Like, 500k+, easily.

I think influence/infamy is going to be in short supply for all characters in the later levels. Cryptic has several nasty influence sinks now in the game. Between inventions and base maintenance, the days of 9-10 figure amounts of influence/infamy are probably gone for active characters. Older character that are SG-less (like my 48 scrapper) have large pools of influence still laying about, but twinking and supporting inventions on lower level alts would eat through even 50-mil+ influence pools pretty quickly. Crafting badges will see to that. The CH/BM also supports cross-server influence transfers (though risky) to further vaccuum up those dusty piles of influence on inactive characters.

I wouldn't be surprised to see some adjustments to base maintenance costs. SG/VGs that rely on lower level characters to be in perma-SG mode migth start to feel the bite when these characters drop SG-mode to actually make money to craft in their 20s--right when influence and especially infamy are at their tightest. There's already some whining on the O-fficial boards about this after only one night. 

Well, for characters that aren't max level, you can start making and slotting ordinary IOs "for life" at about level 25, when they're on par with SO power.

Slotting an IO instead of an SO at level 25 will cost about the same, but you won't have to buy a new 30/35/40/45/50 SO to replace the IO. Net gain? I like to think so.

--GF

Some initial impressions. There's just way too much "stuff". Trying to figure out what recipes to get is going to be far more painful than planning powers. I'll probably just cancel, wait a month or two for the min/maxers to figure it all out, and then resubscribe. Not showing what recipes the Invention salvage items can be used in is a major major blunder.

You know they didn't nerf SOs and you can still buy and use them, right?

Other than that... could I get some slightly deeper impressions? Because you've got _me_ confused.

--GF

Confused about what? So far I've only run through the tutorials, visited Wentworths and got overwhelmed and ran through one mission to see if any of my powers got nerfed.

Edit: And yes I know about SOs but my character is 50 so I already have all the level 50 SOs I need. The only way to improve my character now is to make IOs.

I think I understand what Trippy is saying.  Here's how I feel.  The system is complex and the interface doesn't help remove the complexity.  I have to spend all my time out of the game figuring out what I want, then go to the game and hope I get access to the stuff I want... and the stuff I "want" doesn't really extend powers that much beyond what SOs do.  AS FAR AS I"VE SEEN, it doesn't add new and intriguing gameplay (please let me know if I've missed something).

Course, I realize I might be a bad example.  I largely don't give a shit about this game or my characters any more.  This addition doesn't change that... in an odd way, it reinforces it.  The amount of time and effort I'd have to expend to come up to speed on inventions relative to what invention adds to the game just kills any desire I have to play again.

Does that make sense?  Saying, "SOs still work", misses the point.  The point being that I was hoping that inventions would respark my interest in this game.  So there you have it, Inventions require too much work for too little return (either in character strength, or new and intriguing gameplay).  It's too bad, cause they seem to have put alot of effort into it.

How could anyone think this system is complex?  You gather components, go to a table and click "Create" from a list of the recipes you have. 

How much more simple could crafting BE?

My current melee powers have 3 damage SOs, 1 accuracy SO, 1 recharge SO, and 1 endurance SO, giving me 97% damage boost, 36.7% accuracy boost, recharge reduction, and endurance reduction.  Using this new stuff would give me 101% damage, 68.9% accuracy, recharge reduction, and endurance reduction, on top of the little set bonus deals.  I can see the clear benefit to this.  I can't see the way to afford this, however, given the current insane pricing in the consignment house.  My scrapper has 16 million influence, but the recipes alone seem to be going for millions per enhancement.  Hopefully the prices will settle down in a couple of weeks, and hopefully the drop rate for the recipes and parts won't be abysmal.

I played for an hour the other night and got lots of drops and 2 recipes.  I think the market represents the novelty of things.  Prices should drop quite a bit over the next month or so as the novelty wears off.

My curiosity will overcome grind aversion this weekend, especially with the brief freeplay.  Anyone on the hero side on Victory?  I've got a level 50 tanker named Doctor Fanboi as well as handful of alts.  I think my highest level villian is a level 8 mastermind, also on Victory.

I guess you could just hold onto whatever components and recipes drop, and build out inventions based entirely on chance.  That would be simple.  Seems like it wouldn't be very satisfying though.

What I think would be satisfying is making and slotting for an overall increase in power.  Why do I think that's too complicated?  From the relatively brief reading I did here's what I think is involved (again, please correct me if I don't understand the system)

1) understanding what sets are available and what bonuses they provide(i.e. taking the time to find and read the guides) - this is work.  I want to play a game not do research. I want to log in and get all the information from the game to help me make decent choices.  THAT right there is what is too complex.  I just want to log in and play the game.  I don't want to search the crappy CoH forum.  I definitely don't want to search other web sites, and I refuse to Google for it.

2) now you have to understand what powers they slot into, and how the sets compare with more straightforward SO application. 

3) after that, you need to get the recipes you need to build those sets - this involves grinding, because the gameplay has become so tedious to me.  So to even try out invention, I have to grind.  not good.

4) after you do all that, what's the bottom line on how much better your character is after that?  just seems like too much effort for the return.  That's how I could think it's too complicated.

If the word "lazy" pops into your head while reading what I think is complicated then you will never get what I'm saying and you should just stop trying.

Can't help you with the "satisfying" thing, there, but honestly if you want to do min-maxing of your character on ANY MMO you have to put in quite a bit of time to research.


You CAN go in and make decent choices.  You can in ALL of these games.  If you want to obsess about whether your character is in the upper 5th percentile power-wise, then I would suggest you don't "just want to play a game".  It's like a chess player complaining that he can't beat the grandmasters without doing a lot of "work".  No kidding, duh.


It's only "complicated" if you want to squeeze every last bit of power out of this invention system.  To expect to be able to do this without "research" isn't reasonable, any more than it would be reasonable to expect to be the best at ANYTHING without putting in "research".  I'm not accusing you of being lazy, I'm saying you're accusing this game of doing something that EVERY game does.

I guess we just disagree.  Which is fine as far as I'm concerned, I wasn't trying to change opinion, just express mine.  For what it's worth,  I'm not trying to min-max to the top 5%, 20%, 50% or really very much at all.  But haphazardly slotting inventions as I get them without a clue about what does what doesn't seem like a good way to go either.  I think this is mostly where we disagree, you think that you can make a decent choice with the information that you are given within the game and I don't.

I'm not talking about the mechanics of making them. I'm talking about the lack of tools to manage all the new information. Here's a simple example. I get an invention salvage drop. What enchancements can I make with that thing? No fucking clue. Get Info is totally fucking useless in this case. I have to go to Wentworths and search through all the fricking recipes to figure out what that salvage can be used in. I could totally be missing something simple here so please clue me in if I am.

Here's a more complicated example. What are the total increases/bonuses if I slot an entire special set? No fucking clue without entering in all the data into a spreadsheet. Why doesn't it show you what a full set would give you? Each set has it's own "parent" entry in the auction house -- they could've shown it there.

I'm on Victory. Meira is my level 50 controller.

Well, you can look up some recipes in the library at the university, but I don't recall if that's for commons only.

You can look through the basic Invention: Whatever recipes at any crafting table - university or superbase. With a pocket full of common salvage you can hide recipes missing ingredients and see what you can make.

As far as total bonuses, here's a quick guide to approximating.

A Set IO that enhances 1 attribute does it at full strength.
A Set IO that enhances 2 does it at 2/3 each.
A Set IO that enhances 3 or 4 does it at 1/2 each.

Combine that with the list of enhancers in the set and you should be able to eyeball how good it will get.

--GF

Okay that's somewhat useful but let's say I have 2 out of 3 common salvage pieces I need for a particular basic recipe but I don't know what that recipe is. How do I figure that out without going through all the basic recipes?

What I do (so far) is not worry about what salvage drops. I worry about the salvage I need for recipes I already have. I don't buy basic recipes, for the most part. Put another way, I don't sweat the details.

Now set piece recipes are another matter. My electric brute is probably going to go competely bonkers in a few levels slotting out her attacks with full set pieces. This...won't be easy. Nor cheap. But what the heck? Some of the bonuses are kinda nice and the overall effects of a full suite of IOs are pretty substantial, certainly superior to an equal number of SOs, but you do have to play the ED numbers games to figure out what you're about. Realistically, this means most everything I find gets sold, since storage is at a premium. When I decide to actually slot for sets, I'll probably have to buy 80% of what I'll need.

And that's the real hassle with IOs. The piddly common stuff isn't really much of an issue. The set pieces have to be researched, and for me that means an hour or two examining the possibilities at the BM. Availability is going to be a huge issue. Could this be a lot better and more conveniant? Sure. But on the other hand, I don't mind THAT much either. My electric brute is way in to the bad times in the 30s, xp-wise. It's a nice break from running incessant paper missions or trying to find a halfway competent group to run contact missions.

Thanks, I'll send a "howdy" if I see you around.

I've had time so far to run through the invention tutorial mission with my main and to gag at the prices on auction.  With my love of costume tinkering, I never accumulated the vast wealth needed to play the auction game at this point.

As a proof of how quick it is to wind up with regular IOs, a little story.

I have a spine/regen scrapper who was a fresh 27 on Tuesday and just dinged 29. Most of her slots are filled with IOs, the exception being three of her healing slots, because you need 2 of one salvage type to make those and there's a bottleneck at the consignment house.

--GF

What percentage of that was from straight drops, versus market-bought?

I bought about half the recipes on consignment, and most of the tech salvage that went into the IOs. I provided the magic portions myself.

--GF

Anecdote alert! All of the following is from my perspective, as I drove a Hero character from just shy of 26 to just making 27, over the past few days.

I've noticed that tech salvage tends to be cheap, with lots of supply and few bidders whenever I check.
The reverse is true for arcane salvage.

I doubt if there's more demand for arcane because of recipes. I think there's a short supply.
I think people avoid fighting CoT and BP.

I've seen common tech salvage going for less inf in the CH than it would at the vendor. Someone literally bought Inert Gas for 100 inf.
I wonder if people just don't know you can sell it to a vendor.

I have exactly one IO in my powers so far. It's the one I made doing the tutorial.
I've now sold enough salvage to make somewhere around 4-5 million inf total.
And then I turned around and spend roughly 2 million of that on my level 30 SO's, after reaching level 27.
If I was really industrious, I could have tried to replace them all with IOs, and see what the difference in cost would have been.

I sold 2 pieces of rare (orange) arcane salvage for 800k each.

Anecdote alert ends. You may now return to your places of business.

The Statesman TF is brutally hard with a PUG -- and we never even made it to the hard part (Dr. Aeon owned us). Hopefully it'll get easier with more experience.

How does all this work with the diminishing returns they put on SO's slotted. If you have 3 or 4 so's slotted now does adding an io that add's 20% really only give you 5 like adding the 5th so would?

Diminishing returns is based on enhancement percentages.  I think it goes: 0-70% - no loss, 70-90% - 20% loss, 80-95% - 40% loss, over 95% - 85% loss.  So any enhancement of any type that boosts any value over 70% is going to be diminished, and it becomes nearly impossible to push any value much past 100%.  That's why squeezing multiple boosts into one enhancement is such an improvement in efficiency, they don't usually reach a high enough point to be diminished to any extent.

That 20 and 40 should be 10 and 30, but otherwise you've got your figures right.

This also assumes that you're working with things like damage and accuracy. Range, defense, and resistance SOs boost by 20%, knockback boosts by 60%, I think interrupt time boosts by 40%, and they have slightly different values where they stop. But it's the same proportional to the number of SOs. Three SOs will cap you for most practical purposes.

However, set bonuses from IO sets don't go through this kind of scaling, though you can only benefit from any one set 5 times.

--GF

I found the recipe for tech wings, darted over to the auction house, and sold 'em for 22 million, more than doubling my money.  Viva la capitalism!  Now to start raiding the consignments for the IOs I need to buff the hell out of my powers...

I got the recipe for winged boots, thought about selling them, and then started to feel like I wanted them for one of my chars.  As someone who could never understand the folks that spent more time on how their char looked then how he performed this was an odd moment.

Here's a table for how ED affects the basic level 50 IOs:

http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showflat.php?Number=7995624

Just over this weekend alone, the market has settled down quite a bit on salvage. The whole boresights-for-millions thing is pretty much over. Magical salvage still runs high, especially for rares, but it's come done quite a bit over the weekend. One reason is people like me who took one look at magical salvage prices and then did nothing but run CoT and carnie paper missions from there on (ELM/ELA brute for the win!). Made a lot of infamy and actually got my crushing impact sets in.

Now the real issue is availability of set piece recipes. To put it simply, it sucks. Even on Virtue there are very few recipes for high end sets, particularily the orange rare sets. I've had the devil's own time trying to put together even one Sirrocco's set for my brute. Best I could do was two IOs in lightning rod. There simply are no recipes for sale. No IOs either, but they still go stupid-high in price when you do find one, so screw that. Still, it's only been a few days, but I"d like to experiement more with the set bonuses. Some of these are pretty nifty. I picked up something like 130 hps just from the crushing impact sets (only can use two). Throw in recharge bonues, +ACC bonues, regen(!), and psi-resists and you have one happy brute.

I certainly care about character appearance, I simply have no fliers to actually use the wings.  And I'm sure that in a few weeks the wings will be available for pretty cheap if I should want them again.  Best to make the money while the money-makin's good.

My understanding, which is admittedly very limited, is that the consignment house is shared across all the servers.

This is correct.

The reason for low availability is that everyone wants them right now. Things will settle a bit as time moves on, but I'm sure that Numina's Convolesence (sp?) is always going to be in short supply.

I strongly suspect that supply and demand will both drop in a week or so, resulting in even lower liquidity even for common items on the market.

The market is borked.

A combination of the 24 hour listing limit (fine for spell ink, less so for rare parts and unusual recipes) and the blind bid system (which is just irritating, and results in everyone starting low and bidding up painfully slowly till they get an accept) is going to make the market a royal pain in the butt to use.

There's a 24 hour listing limit? Does that apply to buy orders? I've left items for sale in the CH for several days running.

I like the invention system it gives you something to fiddle around with between levels, but it's not going to change things for those who are burned out.  I'll probably head back when I get tired on EQII again.

This secret bidding system sucks in so many ways.  The only good thing about it is the history will basically render it irrelevant once the market stabilizes. Still you'll have to wait up to a day for even the simplest transaction which is boring.

Yeah, I just sold something last night that I put into the CH right after the patch went live.

Apparently they peeled out that whole "24 hour" part without telling anybody.

--GF

The market seems REALLY easy to game. I definately saw some of that going on last night with people posting something then immediately buying it to modify the historical pricing. They really need to make it show the last 10-20 prices.

It's also not a friendly system to navigate.

...what, so people will post something then buy it 20 times over?

--GF

If you spend enough time fiddling with the market you get a feel for what is selling for what.

Right now, mid-30s to early-40s recipes are high. Especially damage ones and healing. Rare (orange) magical salvage is very high still. Any completed damage or healing IO is extremely high (though, these can be very expensive to produce, so high is expected; just not multi-millions high, which is where many are).

The real problem is there isn't very good feedback for what's going on when you actually look at the CH. Anecdotally, we know heroes have it easier with the villain market being substantially more expensive to work in (which isn't entirely unappropriate given the backstory of the game). A quick glance doesn't tell you much, however. A weekend and then some does show you some trends, though. Any magical salvage that's hard to get and used in common abilities (ACC, DAM, healing) are very high and apt to stay that way for some time yet. Same thing with recipes. Finished set uncommon or rare IOs are extremely high yet (they do cost a lot to make at the high end), and are also apt to stay that way. One exception is lvl50 IOs. Some are dumping these on the market to gain crafting badges, so deals can be had if you shop smart.

Fundamentally, you have to set limits to what you're willing to deal with. Two things go into this:

1) You don't need sets or even IOs to function well. If you don't want to pay, then don't. No one will be the wiser--aside from lack of set bonuses in your personal info, which only means you aren't slotting for sets.

2) You can't take it with you. Inf in the bank really doesn't mean much. It's easy to get, even without the market. If you want something, spend the inf. Finishing a set will do you more good (and earn you more inf in the long run) than a couple of million of inf sitting in the bank doing nothing. Luxury items are just that and I'd personally blow them off. They're strictly QoL items and do you no good in the game. Yeah, the wings are kinda cool, but if you don't have the bankroll, I wouldn't sweat it (they don't fit in any of my character concepts anyway).

The market takes a 10% cut of any purchase, manipulating the price list can get expensive.

VERY true.  I've had some fun doing missions to get recipes and salvage, but when all the influence is gone I'm still left running the same missions through the same buildings/caves.  I can't help but feeling that the game after about 36 is very stagnant.  No really fun powers to look toward and more grind than ever.  Looks like I've lasted a bit longer this time around, but the grind is getting to me again.  I guess it's back to DAoC until I need another hero fix in 3 or 4 months.

I logged in today to not only patch I9 into my client, but also to claim my new prestige run powers...

Too bad Quick is pretty much the best of the 4 anyway. My main looks pretty obnoxious when he turns on Quick and Superspeed, especially with my costume aura on as well.

I actually ended up resubscribing after so many years away and dispite my previous rather negative posts. What swung me to subscribe was grouping. Dispite my early bad experiences I've had a ton of good groups since the weekend and it really overcomes the blahs of the mid 30's nicely. I've met a few ppl who are quite good at "herding" and we run instances fairly regularly in the evenings. There's nothing like pulling a full room of 40 or 50 mobs and living through it.  I'm actually almost out of the 30's already. About 25% through 39 and my scrapper was 36 1/2 when I came back. After the hell that was WoW for pickup groups any game that can offer some non-retard groupage is worth a month's subscription in my book.

However, my attempts to mess around on alts has only left me feeling sort of frustrated with how slow the early game is. Soloing is still boring as hell even when your exp requirements are as low as L5 or so, and not having a travel power bites hard.

Anyone know what level radio missions become an option? My L5 has a radio but it doesnt work anywhere yet.

And is anyone in a semi functional supergroup on Victory? My old sg other than me the last login was 795 days ago.

Radios only work in zones with a police station.

So, if you go to Kings Row and turn on your radio, it'll pick stuff up.

Every time you zone your radio gets new missions.

Sometimes instead of an ordinary mission the radio will pick up a store robbery or bank job. These can be fun. Especially the pwn shops. (not a typo)

--GF

Ah ok thanks on the police station tip. I guess atlas park doesn't have one. I've done a bunch of bank robbery missions on my scrapper already. Even got a nasty Arch Villian in one who creamed my whole party.

Remember that once you are level 5 you can get raido missions, you do a bundle of them, complete the first safeguard mission, and earn a jetpack temp power.

Man I had forgotten how badly the early level CoH missions were designed. Getting sent across a mile of The Hollows at level 5 is quite painful. Almost makes me wish I liked playing evil characters.

This is going to sound like me being a jackass, but...



The Hollows is still a shitty zone, but you shouldn't be dying or anything anymore.

Yes I know, I'm working on the radio missions now but can you do the safeguard misson solo? Not many people at that level when I'm playing.

It is possible.  I have done it with various types of defender before (rad/psych was easiest).  It gets a bit squirrely at times, but as long as you run straight to the bank and avoid street fighting on the way, it is doable.

How long does this power last?

Two hours of use.  The next tier of safeguard missions is about 5 levels or so later and gives a 2 hour of use superjump pack.  Most of my characters put off a real travel power until well into their teens using the temp powers instead.

Just to make things clear, that's two hours of actual USE. So if you have it on for 10 seconds to get somewhere, you only burned 10 seconds.

Those things last a LONG time, especially if you use them sparingly.


(But hell, I had my controller toon using the jetpack to hover while fighting 2 giant monster mobs....long fights).

It's usually easier solo than teamed. But it does depend on your ability to beat a boss solo, which can be a worry for some builds that early.

At level 5 if you /broad 'looking for lvl 5 members to do safeguard mission and get a fucking jetpack' you will be inundated with tells on most servers. If you are concerned about your hero's solo ability, run it as a duo and you'll be fine.

The blackmarket isn't a bad as I thought.  When the price on a item settles down you can get buy/sell it a few seconds.

Recipe prices are still ridiculous. I thought I had a lot of influence pre-I9 with 35 million and that's not even enough money to buy all the recipes I would need to outfit my character with level 50 common IOs. I understand Cryptic wanting to put in massive money sinks but PLer teams can farm influence by the boatload but casual players are screwed.

Level 50 IOs are damned expensive to make. However, you do see quite a few for sale at a loss (to the maker) to get vendor/crafter badges.

Set recipe prices vary all over the place yet. I'm not sure exactly why, but I suspect that some (with less strenuous salvage reqs) just drop more than others. I've had a helluva time getting Sirrocco's Dervish dam/end recipes. They either never show up on the BM or when they do they have some ridiculous reserve. The recharge IO recipes, though, can usually be had for a song and a dance. Same thing with the salvage. Most is either practically free, or no more than an SO itself would be. However, there are a few arcane uncommon and rare chokepoints. Soul-trapped gems, Pangean Soil, and, ummm, some other orange arcane bit regularly go for 1.5mil+. I've been lucky finding these, but if you need one the cost of admission can be very ugly indeed.

I don't buy the casual unfriendly thing. I"m about as casual as it gets. I play quite a bit, but I"m not in a VG, I don't team all THAT much (maybe 30% of my time) and I don't typically do SFs. I also pay little attention to accolades (which just recently bit me in the nether regions, but, ehh...). Having said all that my 38 ELM/ELA brute is absolutely decked in melee and PBAoE damage sets. My personal info is a wall of text now, due to set bonuses. I managed all this on a very limited budget, fairly limited time constraints, with only a fair amount of paper farming in about two weeks. Maybe 8-9mil in inf blown altogether. Hell, I'd have more slotted up, but the resistance sets suck at three slots and Numina's set can't be found with a search warrant and isn't all that anyway for clicky powers.

Believe me, it's not hard to take good advantage of I9 even for casuals.

One question: Are the IOs level-gated? I ask because I was under the assumption that making IOs at 20 is easier than making them at 40, and they don't degrade as you level, so it's better to make them sooner, rather than later.

/runonsentence_off

They are, to some degree.

What you have to consider is the effects of ED on things. Anything past about 98% enchancement sees rapidly diminishing returns. Set pieces often have a split of enhancment that will cap ED in one or two areas, and give good returns elsewhere. Also, the salvage requirements change on some set pieces as they increase in level. I've seen this in Sirrocco's set. Some 30ish pieces have easily met requirements. About level 38-40, these go up and require some very difficult to find arcane salvage.

The big thing is you have to compare what you're getting from IOs (especially sets, as they're more complicated) as opposed to a regular old SO. SOs give 32% enhancement on schedule A at +3. That's what your IO is up against. They hit 30% around level 27. Personally, I begin upgrading at 25. IOs are close enough to be worth it, and since you level pretty quickly up until about 30 or so, you'll find yourself with the bulk of your IOs better than SOs. The bottom line answer is it's worth it when they equal SOs in their enhancement percentage (32%).

Set pieces are a lot more complicated. If you're 5 or 6 slotting an ability, chances are you'll see marked improvements (even over HOs) with a set. 4 slots are debatable; it depends what bonuses you're angling for and how the set is constructed. 3 slots or less, forget it unless it's to slot some unique IO for a specific reason (knockdown protection or something like the massive +regen/recovery of Numina's set).

Anyone caught site of a DB-spoiler site yet, so I can check some of this stuff out at my leisure?

My scrapper is in the upper 30s, so IOs seem to be the way to go. Unfortunately, I don't have piles of influence sitting around.

While this is true, the higher level IOs have better percentages on them than lower level ones.  I've noted variance of 1% or so in the ~45-50 lvl range, I'm not sure how that shifts over larger level ranges, I didn't play my newbs much during the free weekend.

--
Alkiera

Basic IOs become better than SOs at about lvl 25 (I think). Using them will allow you to hit the ED caps with fewer enhancements at lvl 40 - 50, which means you can then either slot other enhancements or use those slots on other powers.

Two traps I've run into are:

1) Because basic IOs look like basic enhancements, I thought them to be without value. They aren't because they can't be outleveled and because they can provide a greater enhancement bonus than SOs.

2) Getting a full IO set is nice, but it is probably not as good as you'd expect. I'm playing around with partial sets that will add to my Blaster's hit points and regen, which may only require two or three of a set to accomplish.

The thing is with ED, once you put in 3 +3 SOs, you're slightly past the cap. Diminishing returns has already set in, it's just not too bad yet. A level 50 IO has about 42% enhancement on schedule A (I think). So, slotting in three of them puts you waaaaay into diminishing returns. So you either lose something like 50% of that third IOs value, or you slot something else, but remain somewhat below the ED cap.

What sets will get you is a new sort of percentage of enhancement distribution. Double IOs (like ACC/DAM, or DAM/END) will split the IOs value in half. Triples split into three parts (like a ACC/DAM/END which would be something like 18.5% in each at level 40 for schedule A). I"m not sure of the actual math involved in this, but it's slightly greater than the sum of a single value of a simple IO. This means you can fully slot with these things and pickup substantial gains in total improvement value. Of course, this varies among sets. You also have the bonuses from slotting up sets. They add a variety of additional stats that you can stack up to five times. This is a fairly big deal. It's also a way you can exceed the ED damage cap with %damage and chance of damage proc effects. This is seriously good stuff, but the total percentages of enhancement aren't really enough to hit the caps until the mid-30s. 40ish is better still (will exceed HO effectiveness), but the expense really takes off post-40.

The bottom line is IOs will improve your character slightly at around 25 and you don't have to replace them at all. Which means you can have SO effectiveness or better and save all your inf for set upgrades in the late 30s for bonus stacking. At 45 to 50, set IOs will potentially blow even HOs away in total enhancement value and that's not even taking the set bonuses into consideration. This takes some thought about what you want and how to mix different sets or mix sets and simple IOs. There are already some spreadsheets floating around the CoH forums to address IO character planning. They aren't strictly necessary, since some time spent in the CH eyeing the assorted recipes and enhancements can give you a pretty good handle on what they can do for you.

The downside is that you can't slot two identical set-IOs into the same power. And most IO sets include irrelevant nonsense like endurance cost reduction in an attack power, or damage in a hold power. In most cases, chasing a set will prevent you hitting 90%+ on the key things you actually care about (this is less of a problem at level 50, but much more of an issue around level 30ish where most people here give up on characters anyway).

You can mix and match sets of course, then you lose the arbitary +5% run speed, +2% def, procs or whatever, but you get back the reliable maxed out accuracy, damage, and recharge that you are usually most interested in slotting for, and often you can free up a slot or two in the process.

Key thing is to remember is why you picked a power in the first place, you didn't pick fireball in order to get +2% cold def or+3% runspeed. So don't let anything distract you from getting near +100% damage, +50% acc, and as much recharge as possible.

You don't even have to mix and match _sets_, necessarily. If you can get 5 elements of a 6-element set to get close and then cap it off with a vanilla IO, or possibly an HO, you may get very nearly what you want.

Developer comments from the beta seem to indicate that this whole piecework approach to maximization is a desired part of the process.

For now I'm only worrying about sets that don't need rare salvage.

For those interested the big jumps come after 25, and after 40. Salvage bands run from 4-25, 26-40, and 41-50, and every IO of those levels should use salvage from said bands (for a while some recipes which needed alchemical silver, a 26-40 magic salvage, were using silver, a 41-50 tech salvage). It's _generally_ a good rule that when a whole set is uncommon the most it will need is uncommon salvage, but Cleaving Blow for one uses some rares.

Certainly all rares (orange title) will use some rare salvage to complete.

--GF

Most sets will have fairly heavy endurance reductions. I dismissed this, too, initially. However, the recharge in complete or near-complete sets is pretty substantial. Being an electric brute, I don't normally have endurance problems to speak of. However, with lightning reflexes and sets giving around 40% recharge and set bonuses giving around 7% recharge globally--that stacks--I began to feel the endurance pinch in longer fights or when running about willynilly attacking everything in sight (like brutes tend to do). At that point having sets returning 20-40% endrdx is pretty nice.

Also, the biggy was I was able to eliminate hasten from this build and not really feel the recharge crunch. Lightning rod still doesn't recharge quite as often as I want, but as was mentioned, I can ditch the lethal proc from the set and slap in a regular recharge IO and reap those benefits. Power surge will feel the lack of hasten a bit, but I don't use it that much and getting tough will help me a lot more than hasten can at this point.

The important thing is you can now do this stuff. It's much easier to tailor a character to reinforce strengths or plug critical weaknesses. Before all you had as HOs at around 50. Before that, you simply couldn't. And that's not counting stacking up the set bonuses. Another 7% psi-resists, +40 to regen (so far), and another 10% to my hit points are fairly big deals. My MMs and corruptors are looking forward to knockback resistance without needing acrobatics. Lots of new options!

While I agree with this almost completely, it fails to address the fundamental flaw the game has: that everything gets very repetitive after about level 36 or so.  I love the combat system, I love the fact that I can slaughter hoards of bad guys, but the sameness of it all really gets to me.  Combine this to the fact that there are really no new abilities to look forward to in the end-game and this is a title that wears quickly.  I want more bad guys, more mission variety, and more things to look forward to.  I can endure the long periods between abilities better if there's a new trick to look forward to.  Without a regular group to play with, I think my enjoyment from this game will come almost entirely from rerolling and playing to level 30.  That seems to be my breaking point. 

They need tons and tons and tons of new tile sets, too.  One of the reasons I only play for a couple of months at a time is because after a bit, I pretty much know what's around every corner, regardless of level, regardless of city.  One of the reasons I continue to go back is to make alts with new powers and combinations.  After a while, they cancel each other out and sap all my motivation to log in. 

I'd play again if they changed everything so the highest level was 30, or if I could get to max_level in the time it takes to get to 30.  High twenties is where I start to burn out.  Early 30s is where I lose all desire to play.

I do resub now and again, but it's mostly to let my 8 year old daughter make new characters.  She'll play to 10 or so, and then start over.  I'll hop on one of my high-20/low-30 toons and play a few times.  It's fun for a month.

Yeah, I just resubbed on justice to play with some friends. Blah, I hope I can even make it to the end of my one-month sub.

While I agree with this from a pure combat perspective, I think one of the key goals of the IO system is to encourage you to spend some amount of time not in combat.

Messing with the market and IO systems does give you something to do while finding a group, or as a break between groups, and the structure is certainly more interesting and casual-viable than the typical crafting game of watch-the-green-bar.

As you say though, it doesn't increase the variety in core gameplay, and espeicially in the 30-45 range, that is what CoX really needs.

http://paragonwiki.com/Invention_System
http://paragonwiki.com/Invention_Origin_Enhancements

The CoH/CoV forums have guides as well.

Well, first off, I consider CoX's endgame to start at about 30. Perhaps slightly later for certain power sets. Sure, there are still levels to go, but seriously now - in WoW when you hit 60 pre-expack or 70 post-expack, are you really at the peak of your development, or does that happen much later, after you run through a gradated series of raids, each of which pretty much requires that you're kitted out in gear from the last?

Also, seriously not trying to imply anything by this, please give me an example of "variety in core gameplay" from another game that's worked well. Doesn't have to be an MMO, doesn't even necessarily have to relate. Because I'm trying to come up with one, and I could really _use_ a foundation to build on.

--GF

Also, got together with my supergroup, got the band back together, grabbed an extra special guest because I play the only high-level tank _and_ blaster, and got thoroughly schooled several times but managed to beat the Statesman Task Force.

...and because of a bug, the game thought I'd already gotten a synthetic Hami in the past 24 hours and so I was denied my chance to roll the dice and probably get another freaking centriole.

Le sigh.

Anyway, assuming nobody minds spoilers, I can enthuse.

--GF

I take it you didn't read through that splash screen that comes up when you login :-D

For some reason it tends to crash my system half the time. I'm betting on older graphics drivers there, and my insistence on running the game in a window when ATI hates that so very very much. So the game thinks I've already seen an announcement which, unfortunately, I have not.

I know that the enhancer not rewarding is a known issue. Something else?

--GF

places to go and new stuff to look and kill is what I like about WoW. I admit it gets old once u seeen and done everything but in CoX I hardly get interested on missions, with the lack of variety on reward SO & Inf woohoo. Even mission story arcs...are just ...run around beat on the same warehouse layout of guards. 3-some or 5-some depending on difficulty. Superspeed to boss. clear room. complete. read story again. Occasionally ogle at the cool animation of shadow maul etc.

There's so many stuff to do at 30&40 at WoW. Tradeskills. Quests. sometimes Class specific quests. BattlegroundPVP. Farming gold has multiple ways to it, either you harvest raw materials or craft something that is in demand, messing around in Auction house etc.

I can't find any of that in CoX. It's all running around with occasionaly LEVEL specific reward : Aura, Cape etc. And get my story arc done. woohoo. Not much else. By the time i got to 40 i'm already burned out with the same setup of mobs. Especially the horrible portal corp missions in COH. That's when I just start alt, messed around to 20-30 and quit again.

I can't get past 35 in CoH and I've stopped trying.  I just make an alt and fiddle with the new powers mostly.  Doing the same missions over and over gets old, too, though, so I usually stop playing for a few months or so and go back later, usually when there's a new issue.  I can't seem to go past 2 months without a break, though the combat is so fun that I do eventually return.  One of these days, however, I'm sure I'll give up completely.

Another problem I have with this game at high levels is the graphics.

The particle effects once everyone has everything going on are insane, I can't see shit in a large group battle.

It's just pick a target using tab or assist as appropriate, then fly by instruments.

If you look for some high level AV battles on youtube, the one thing they have in common, is that you can't see the AV, as he or she in inevitably in the centre of a whited-out out mass of power effects.

So use the slider in the graphics menu to turn down your max particle count.

You need to "enable advanced graphics settings" to get it to show up, though.

--GF

So... you're deliberately playing the game in the most boring and shallow manner possible, and then complaining because it's boring and shallow.

I don't want that to sound as fanboy as it does, but seriously, this isn't WoW, and the relevant difference here is that _unlike_ WoW, you can make pickup teams that don't suck and are more fun than going solo.

--GF

DAOC's endgame had a bunch of variety - RvR pvp differed quite a bit from night to night.  Housing was a decent diversion (and there, farming for cash, items).  And there was the occasional raid.  Course, trials of Atlantis f'd it all up.

I just can't agree with you that CoX's endgame starts at 30.  If what you are trying to say is that your character won't get more powerful in a significant way I sort of see what you are saying, but I disagree, all the slots that you get between 33 and 50 have a significant impact.  It's just that you don't get anything significantly new for the next 17 levels... and therefore the next 17 levels DRAG.

I'm glad the game is still entertaining for you.  I re-upped for inventions, and then let my sub lapse.  I keep wishing that someone would take the combat mechanic and combine it with a better designed level scheme... and if I'm really wishing, I wish that the next super hero game didn't use classes(archtypes).

Well, yes. And all the gear you get from your latest raid has a significant impact, too.

I still think the comparison holds.

--GF

I'm kind of pissed off I can't get into my supergroup's base without paying for CoV. I came back to play with friends, and now they want me to buy something else? Fuck that.

+10% uberness isn't a significant impact on gameplay. Whether it comes from power slots or raid gear.

New powers are an impact, new spells and abilities in other games are an impact.

32+ is mostly endgame in CoH, just as raid levels are endgame in WoW.

I don't think anyone can do that character progression thing in an indefinitely interesting way, eventually the game changing spells and abilities have to slow to a crawl. At that point you have to have a richer and more varied endgame.

DAoC and EVE (possibly UO?) are the only large scale MMOGs I can think of that both weren't shit and had endgame gameplay with significant variety.

At a stretch I'd give you GW, but the problems sport pvp has in requiring membership of guilds which have every reason to exclude you prevents most people even reaching the varied and interesting part of the endgame.

It's fair to say that CoX 30+ is no worse than EQ, WoW, or whatever, but that doesn't really mean that any of them have achieved an interesting endgame.

The only interesting PvE endgame I can think of that anyone has provided in any MMOG would be aTitD.

Not to split hairs, but aTitD is really a PvP game moreso than a PvE game.  The oracle race "endgame" is very much a pvp affair.  There are just no HP or HAM bars involved.

As for the bit about CoX, I just find that after I've reached about level 36, I've seen it all.  I'd like more varied missions, more interesting AI and use of the z-axis, and a feeling that the 10h+ of play it's going to take for me to get another level will give me some tangible effect on my toon's performance.  The PvP balance is so out of whack that it's hardly worth mention as a part of the endgame.

I take your point, but you equally argue that the victory condition in aTitD is explictly laid down as the entire realm 'winning' by causing the telling to end, and demonstrating the superiority of the community over the stranger.

You can pvp in atitd certainly, but technically to do so you have to play to extend the telling, by working on behalf of the stranger (plenty of ways to do that by destroying resources, or working to upset player managed markets and currency systems) - but almost nobody does that in practice. Players racing against each other is just one way in which the community organises itself to finish the telling more quickly. Even if I don't win the race, then by participating in the economy and even by providing competition, I push the telling to end more quickly, and I share in the victory.

Prizes for everyone!

 :-D

Oddly enough, I've discovered that in the early 40s, the villain types change up...and add some considerable challenge, at least for my scrapper.  It's not necessarily the new content you want, but I've found the carnies to be interesting so far.

The Carnies are fun... and they scream when they're defeated!  But even they aren't enough to keep me going for more than a couple of months without a good sized break.  The Crafting-lol isn't, either.  It's made the game a bit more fulfilling, but not really more interesting.

What they did is add "drops" to the game ala diablo.

If you can find CoV on the shelves (or bargain bin) for more than the cost of the free month, I'd be surprised.

Or pick up GvE now that it's not a Walmart exclusive. The booster jump pack and port to Pocket D are nice extras, and it should still be pretty close to one monthly fee.

Plus, 4 extra character slots either way.

--GF

You can buy the GvE pack if you already have the game for a tenner, too.

From a purely mechanical perspective I think you are right, the pay off of the player's actions are mechanically similar.  From a player perspecitive, completely differernt.  In a typical mmo you get to the end game/raiding game and your character is 'complete'.  You get the highest level party and you're 'in the big boy leagues'.  All silly stuff, I'll admit, but I can't help admitting that it matters.

In CoX, you've just gotten your last meaningful power, which is very situational, and you're starting to feel that "why am I doing this?!" feeling, but you have no sense of closure.  The leveling design achieves the goals they intended, but to me it feels very unsatisfying and I dislike it to the point where now it's all I see.

Also, at 70 in WoW, you can compete with the "big boys", team with them, go on the high level raids, etc.

In CoV, you can't compete with them, can team when sidekicked, but can't go on the highest task forces.  If 30 is their endgame, they didn't do anything to make it feel that way other than halt significant advancement.  At that point you're not even facing the signature characters, much less feeling as powerful as them.

I'm currently in my early 40s with my main and finding that Inventions is adding a new dimension, notably sucking my character savings dry in trying to equip him with IO sets.

It is a fun enough system to put things up for sale up on consignment then come back and get the inf for them. Suddenly a lot of things suddenly have a value and a lot of character development options have opened up. Not everyone wants IO sets, or even common IOs - DOs and SOs sell for some pretty cheap prices and players have been buying them.

The part of the game that probably drags the most heroside is 35 - 40, which was the original end-lvl zone on launch. However, between more people being online post-I9 launch and the fact that PUGs in CoH/V generally don't suck (or I've been very, very lucky) I've found that I9 has done a lot of good for CoH/V.

Or at least my experience with it, anyway.

Since we are also talking about "the grind", I have to say that I find badge collecting to be another reasonable goal in CoH/V that can help pass levels by (or serve as a ding gratz moment that is otherwise meaningless). Yes, you can grind them out if you want and the 'epic' badges have insane requirements, but it does give players in CoH/V something else to do.

Yeah Im on about my 5th cycle of cancelling both of my CoX accounts... Seems like theres a trend of players going back for about a month or two, getting burned out again, then cancelling...I really think that is a core flaw with something theyve done with, not only the mission system, but the lack of static, persistent player structures, lack of persistent non-instaced content in the zones (lets say the Rikti warp in and take over Steel Canyon and the players have to take it back, for ex.)- just a lack of creativity at the higher levels to keep the game meaningful to the veteran players with multiple lvl 50's.


IO's and the entire Invention system was really not what I was looking for, as its basically a PvP tweaker tool moreso than anything else, because I already own just about anything (including players in PvP) already with all the Hamio's I have on my Scrappers and Defenders. I really dont want to spend a ton of time micro-managing my powerset further just to hand out more beat downs in RV or Sirens Call....

They need an infusion of content, storylines, new archtypes, new powers, the ability to change your powers at the high levels, greater rewards for PvP slaughtering, fun PvP zones that give the players a better sense of immersion than just Atlas Park hiring a cleaning and graffiti busting crew when the heroes are winning in RV- the list can go on for quite awhile...I just thought IO's were a bad idea for the longevity factor of the game, hands down...Some will argue the opposite, but if this thread is any indication, the IO reception is rather underwhelming.

And heres my problem with badges- its like the times where my teachers in high school gave us busy work just because their lame asses couldnt think up anything creative for us to do that day...so we were stuck doing the work just for the sake of...well.. 'doing it'

Only a tiny amount of the hundreds of badges you can get reward you in any type of way...and those the players usually complete right away...for the rest, its almost like- wtf is the point? Just to say we did it? So we can have our 'Ub3r badge HunTerz' title..Gimme a break...

Not knocking you or anything, but I feel the idea of gathering meaningless badges is just that- meaningless.....Just another scam to keep people paying for subscription time until they can push out the next content patch.

So don't collect them?

They are there for people who want them, it you allows to set or ignore your own goals, I can't possibly see what you can possibly complain about the badge system for.

And how is any of this different to arbitary level markers in a computer game?

Man, what the hell are you going on about?

IOs are seriously a major shattering blow to the existing idea of "plan out enhancements 100 percent ahead of time, follow plan, replace every 5 levels".

IOs are potent enough at level 25/30 to never slot anything again, and enough at 45-50 to make it possible to 2-slot something that "should have been" 3-slotted.

Throw in the shifting availability and rarity of IO sets and you have a genuine opportunity for _conditional_ plans that change as a hero or villain moves through the game.

--GF

But it doesn't fundamentally change what my character can do. There are some exceptions like the one that gives you stealth and if you have unlimited amounts of Influence you can now perma-Hasten and potentially other powers as well, but that just restores what was nerfed in ED.

Here's an example of what the Invention system could have been. In the last Holiday event you could earn a temp Golden Rings Hold power (the one we debated how many rings it had). Any archetype could use it. And that was cool and it was great fun seeing people throw holds around. Even for Controllers it was useful cause it made it easier to stack holds on bosses and the like. Wouldn't it be great if you could invent powers (temporary or otherwise) that would let you character do things it normally couldn't?

Even allowing us to create travel powers would be extremely useful since for many players that would free up a Power Pool selection that could be used for other things, thereby expanding their gameplay possibilites. Yes I know you can get temp travel powers in various ways but it's a PITA to get some of them and they are all temporary, plus you can't slot them and there isn't a Teleport temp power AFAIK (which is the only type of travel my character is missing, natch).

Way back in the beginning, before archtypes, Jack/the design docs talked about Invention in a way that sounded similar to what you are talking about.  Origins were what determined your makeup in those days - mutants having access to broader/more powers that were weaker, science having access to narrower/more potent and another origin being like Batman that was better with invention (although it seemed like all hero's were supposed to have access to equipment).

Sounded like an interesting take, but they (obviously) couldn't make it work.  Point of this whole walk down memory lane is - for inventions to be decently powerful/interesting (my opinion of course, some folks think they are all that already), I think they would have had to be a part of the power-selection process from the very beginning (and make powers/inventions some sort of trade off)

The Gold Rings were fun (but maybe a bit too fun, since they said "hang on hang on we meant 12 days REAL TIME you can't have these forever" and then yanked them). Would they have been as nice if they were just a holiday-themed reskin of a power everybody could already make for themselves?

The epic/ancillary sets are supposed to "grow you laterally", even if everybody just takes the one that has Conserve Power in it - there's crowd control for blasters and melees, damage for controllers, armor for defenders. The villain patron sets do that too, if you don't mind the largely useless pet power (but everybody does).

There are two temp teleport powers that I know of, but they're both very temporary - there's a nictus infusion that lasts for 90 minutes real-time in Cap au Diable, which includes the warshade teleport, and there's a "save Rikti tech from skyraiders" mission heroside where you can pick up a teleporter that stealths you after you activate it.

And there's the 30-minute one you can buy if your side's in control of Siren's Call. But yeah, all extremely temporary.

I think the problem with having inventable temp powers is how to balance them encroaching on _actual_ powers. If your Defender had enough temp powers to work as a Controller all the time, say, or your Tank got enough to be a Blaster. And if everybody can invent a jetpack, why would anybody take Fly?

--GF

One solution would be to limit the number of these "special" inventions you could have at one time.

Fly you can slot and with the set IOs you can get other side benefits as well. For these special travel power inventions you could set them up so they there weren't quite as good as a slotted Fly power in exchange for not taking up a power pool slot. E.g. you could have, say, a level 10 jetpack invention power that would be somewhat slower than an unehanced Fly, a level 25 one that would be the same as an unenhanced Fly and a level 40 one that would be like Fly with one SO Fly speed enchancement. Or something along those lines.

With all the technicality aside, Im saying that, in my opinion, IO's did nothing but add a micromanagement tool on my enhancing experience, and did not add to the fun factor at all in this game. I could see that, if IO's made me significantly stronger, the benefit of having such a system. But already being maxed out in Hamios, my character could not really get that much stronger..maybe an extra 1.5-3.0 resistance in some powers, and another +10 % off my recharge times and regen..Other than that, it just not remarkeable enough to keep me around- nor a lot of my friends that play.

Trust me- people will activate their account back, and then stay with the 'two months back and cancel again' trend NCSoft cannot get out of...

But, certain people are a glutton for micromanaging and tedious punishment in MMO's, all the while companies are sucking their dollar in for a process thats not even fun. Im not one of those individuals that will be caught in that predicament, so my account will go on cancellation status until NCSoft proves they would like to keep me as a customer by adding something fun to their repetative game for once.

Issue 10 is supposed to be content and storyline patching and some fluff, but Im hearing from some sources that its not even lvl 50 content. If its not, I really dont see how CoH maintains even its current subscriber base, because lvl 50's have been needing some love for quite awhile now and have virtually been ignored (with exception of the Khledian patch, which was like a 'thanks but no thanks' type of situation.

In case you missed it, all of these games are just schemes to keep people subbed for as long as possible.

Cox is interesting as what they do well they do much better than any one else in their space. Hero creation is great fun. What burns people out IMHO is the lack of tilesets and the grind. And ya, it is fun taken in small doses. I am a recurring subscriber. Its just curious to see something so darn right yet the game is not engaging for the long haul.

And some are vastly more tolerable than others in terms of fun...though right now, most of them suck....


* Patiently waits for October *

Fun is subjective. I'd rather play CoX than fucking WoW.

That being said, I haven't played at all in at least 2 months.

I gave it another trial run with a friend with 10 days referral. On my 3rd day it's pretty fun, and influence is easier to get with all the salvage trading going on I manage to upgrade to full DO & A mix of IOs at lvl 17.

But basically things start to slow down a lot at 20+ It's a shame really for them to be holding on to 'longer grinds = longer subs' belief. otherwise people will keep coming back for more AT powersets instead of telling themselves 'No, I don't want to go through it, I'm too tired of it'.

As someone already mentioned the difference in IO is not that much from top end, but I'm more excited about acquiring temporary power inventions and things like that. :)

It can be fun. Of that there is no doubt. There is something to be learned there. But ya, the grind . The same maps. Push the same buttons over and over. COX is a very good game and it has both positives and negatives to teach us. Very positive at what it does, it does better than any have before it. negatives are more easily understood. Repetitive is not great fun. A pick up group in the hollows to do frostfire can be as fun as any MMORPG I have played. Of course it can be a very frustrating experience as well.

Lemme quote myself from a year and a half ago here:


That's still true. I don't know exactly why it should be that I get a kick when I time it right to catch the wanderer in with his core group and take 'em down with fireball/fire breath, or when I get the range just perfect on Ripper and it cuts through a whole line of enemies, or pick exactly the right guy in the middle of the pack to pelt with Howl so the cone hits everything, or land a Gale that blows one mob back onto a walkway and two more just beyond it and down to the warehouse floor, or catch two bosses with one taunt.

That's what keeps it fresh. Just the chances for those little tiny victories.

--GF

yes. keeping AT fresh method for me is to reroll at 20. I don't consider taking those passive fitness powers as a must, cause they don't offer a new 'dimension of play' like taking other powers does.

Not in the same capacity, but it's hard to argue that having much more freedom with endurance consumption doesn't change the gameplay.

I liked all of my heros better after they had endurance, and a few, I didn't like at all until they had endurance.

I think it has more of the issue of 'difficulty level' you play missions at and also there's the problem of endurance with classes that has a lot of toggles, I've levelled a scrapper to 50 before and his Dark Armour toggles were horrendously bad on the end-drain. It was really unfun gimping yourself on the 'cool-power' choices early on just so Stamina can get in, so I've been avoiding that sort of toggle heavy sets in my future alts.

Eg: rolling a Energy/EM Blaster I've yet to up my difficulty level at all, not that I need extra XP or Challenge to make the game more fun. I didn't notice the endurance drain even in groups with pink minions and red Lts.

There are very few power combinations that are not more fun to play if you have Hasten and Stamina. Standing around twiddling your thumbs while you wait for a power to refresh or your endurance to tick back is not fun. Having to waste 3 power selections in your teens/early twenties to get Stamina also really sucks, as you said. At least Hasten has no prerequisites.

I can deal without Hasten.  (Although I can understand people wanting it with Dark Melee.)  I can't deal without endurance, so every character except my Mastermind ends up with it.

I've just discovered you can actually vendor some I-Salvages for better prices at stores than Auctions. So I simply scanned through the Uncommon & Rare salvages and set a buying price below the vendor set prices of 1000 (uncommon) and 5000 (rare). It's an easy way to earn influence after a long day of mission grinding, you just collect all the bought out stuff and sell it off to vendor. Or, keep some for future use.

Question: Aside from Wentsworth, is there another way to store my I-Salvages? I only have space for 32. Pretty limited.

Did you mean the Vault Reserve?

There's a Vault Reserve in the Pocket D, in King's Row, you can get one for your SG / VG base, in case you didn't know. They are marked on the map.

There's no team (i.e. shared) base Invention Salvage storage is there? Like there is for Inspirations?

I don't think so.

Nope.

Ostensibly because they don't want somebody to have more than their personal storage space to use for market-cornering.

Anyway, Vault Reserves are in _every_ zone with a Wentworth's/Scourge. And in Pocket D. And you can outfit your superbase with a nifty vault door but it's pricey.

--GF

The problem is I am a pack rat in games. In WoW I had like 8 mule characters for everyone of my real characters just to store all the crap I was collecting. Now with Inventions in CoX it's trivially easy to fill up all your on-person inventory and your personal storage especially if you like to solo or duo. You can make mule characters in CoX but you have to level them to at least level 5 to get a reasonable amount of storage. I would rather just start my own "solo" SG, grind for some prestige, and build something to store all the crap in there.

I've found the simplest way to keep my Invention Salvage in check is to sell off all the commons at the consignment houses or to just delete them. Drop them off for 5 inf a pop, pick up whatever you get for them and earn some badges at the same time.

On top of that, I craft relatively frequently, which also erodes my salvage levels. And inf levels. Only uncommons and rares make it to my Vault and then some of the more common uncommons (eg Silver) get sold off as soon as I need room.

I sell most of the common salvage to contacts, contacts will pay more than the market for almost all common salvage, and the majority of uncommon salvage.

True, but I want the badges, which selling to contacts won't give.

If you want badges....

1) Find salvage items on the market with an illiquid market - ie. very few buyers.
2) If you can find one with 0 zero buyers put up several buy orders for 10 items at 1 each (or 10 each if you are feeling generous), if you can't find one with zero buyers then just bid a bit below the going rate.
3) Come back in a couple of days when the orders have been filled.
4) Put all the salvage you've gathered back up for sale at typical market rates.

Seems like it would take a long time to get the badges if you just rely selling what you find.

Not really - I've sold base salvage which I've got a heap of, I sell inspirations frequently for 1 inf and I sell common IO salvage if I'm near or at the salvage cap. I got my 250 items sold badge recently and am a good way into the next badge.

I9 is settling in now, and you can start to see the effects on the way the game plays post 30.

Personally, I'm finding the grind reduced substantially.

It now takes about one evening's play with PUGs to get a level. On Sunday I went 40.5 to 42.5 in 5 hours.

Also, the IO thing gives you a bit more to think about in planning builds, and lays out a lot of smaller goals you can play toward.

YMMV.

How does I9 reduce the grind?

Playing the market is one more thing to do.

But even if you don't want to do that, you have more things to shoot for than just the next power - namely, plain or set IOs and the parts to build them. Though getting the exact rare part you need is still something of a pipe dream. Regardless, this means more goals to accomplish in a reasonable amount of time which means more accomplishments per unit time which means... less grind. Assuming you want IOs.

Also, some of the set bonuses can reduce miss rate, recharge-based down time, and endurance-sink-based down time.

--GF

None of that has anything to do with reducing the grind.


Yes, if you have bucket fulls of Influence that can help but that either means you are spendings lots of time in the CH or you have a SG that's farming Influence by the millions per hour and in that case you can just have them PL you to 50.

IOs make everyone more powerful. Hence everything dies faster. Also not be sniffed at is the easier availability of HOs and SHOs.

Plus, assembling your IOs means less time between occaisions when something happens, whole new powers aren't the only interesting thing anymore.


I have no idea who these people are who need to farm influence. I can only imagine when people go on about this they can only be talking about people trying to maintain an oversized base for a dying supergroup.

Couple of times a level you recieve a rare arcane component, these sell for 3-4 million a pop. Each mission will also now give you a couple of common recipes to go alongside the enchancements you always got, and which sell for similar amount at stores. So we're close to double inf income, plus the occaisional multimillion drop. I have never seen so much inf since I9 started. As ever, the cost is only sky high for the IOs that form the absolute best sets, you'll only buy these once for a character. Using common IOs or cheap sets (which you can easily afford if you've played for any length of time post I9) you still get a noticable power jump.


This still doesn't change the core gameplay of CoH, obviously, and if you don't enjoy that, the game will always be grindy to you.

Unless you are going crazy on the sets the effect is not that large especially given that you still have ED to deal with.


Ding ding ding!

The real effect is that you can now assume you will reach 95% bonuses to all relevant enhanceable aspects of just about all your powers. The new way the %s are laid out means by level 40 it's like getting a free DO with every SO, only most SOs are now cheaper and never need to be replaced.

The set bonuses are a side effect that also enables non-trivial advantages like perma hasten. But you're right that they aren't the big deal.

I didn't think the IOs were a big deal until everyone got them, but suddenly everyone is powering through missions in a way I haven't seen for a while.

Having +95% acc AND +95% damage AND a healthy wodge of Recharge on everything and without needing HOs or similar is a big difference, and enables you to run higher level missions much quicker.

Also, if this is the case, then the problem isn't grind - the problem is that you just don't like CoH. Calling this a grind problem is like dropping out of your office cricket team and calling batting and fielding 'too grindy'.

There is nothing after the level 40-50 missions, they are the last thing the game has to do, there is nothing to grind *to*, playing them if you don't enjoy the CoH combat mechanic is pointless.

Exactly. Nobody is trying to do the new Hami anymore on Victory because STF is much easier to do for a similar payoff and then people stopped doing STF when they realized it was much much easier to farm the Katie Hannon TF for rare recipes (no HOs though). And the Cathedral of Pain is *still* broken, even though that sort of thing doesn't interest me. Hence the reason I currently have 19 new alts plus one villain to figure out if it's worth trying to level another character to 50 again.

I9 really just brings things back up closer to what they were pre-I5 so while things may be quicker for some people that's only cause they started after I5 or forgotten what it was like before the massive nerfs hit in rapid succession.

As for the grind itself, I actually missed most of the 40s grind since once I hit 42 it was like a constant stream of invites to bridge/pad groups. One of the advantages of being */Kinetics I guess.

If there were no character progression in this game, or if it stopped at 40, or there was a significant amount of variation in how individual battles turned out (and you had some sort of bragging rights vis a vie the office two floors below you), I could see your point.  But there is, it doesn't, there isn't (and you don't).  So while I sort of get where you are trying to come from, I just cannot understand how you got there.

It's a dikumud.

It has more variation in battles (espeicially past 40) than any other mainstream dikumud on the market.

But like every other dikumud, once your character is functionally complete (which happens somehere between 30 and 40 depending on AT and powerset) all there is left is to either enjoy the combat mechanic and power fine-tuning or stop playing. Shit or get off the pot. Don't sit on the pot complaining that you don't want to shit, and that if you did want to shit, you'd want to shit quicker.

If what you are saying is 'I don't like dikumuds' or 'I don't like the coh combat mechanic' then that is fair enough. But shortening what is being refered to as a 'grind' wouldn't do a damn thing to change that. If you didn't enjoy playing levels 1-30, you won't enjoy playing level 49 either, no matter how quickly you get there.

People do want to shit quicker. Look at the massive increase in the number of people playing during the last double XP weekend.

The number of people that did want to shit quicker surprised me.

The real issue is why? There's nowhere to take your shit past level 50.

So, when you hit 50, your shit is done. You're shit-outa-luck.

Jesus, I can't take this shit anymore.

Oh, I agree that rapid shitting is attractive to people.

I just think that even if CoH was in perma-diarrhea mode, people who don't like the grind now would not suddenly enjoy CoH just because the game would ask them to shit out fewer missions. They'd try it, wouldn't feel any different and then complain that they still weren't shitting quickly enough, and if only their bowels were looser, they would be sure to enjoy the really big shits at level god-only-knows-what.

How long do we think it should take to gain a level in CoH?

One level for a solid evening's play  (3-5 hours) feels about right to me.

Most of the people who I know who play CoX, play sporatically, just like me.  I bet something even like rested experience would go a long way.  I do know that one of the reasons people tell me they have quit or don't play very often is because of the level grind, and not because they don't like the game.  Nearly everyone seems to enjoy the character creation, atmosphere and combat. 

I've played CoH since launch, but do so only a few hours a week.

If I were to sit down and to grind it out (which I've done on TFs and Trials) then yes, I would have burned out by now.

The leveling speed could be upped a bit, but doing so isn't going to change the game dramatically either.

It's a dikumud.  If you are playing it and liking it, a large part of what you enjoy is that your character is growing in power over time (yes, even if it's all just an illusion... it's a game, it's all illusion).  I (and apparently a number of other people) enjoy the 1-30 game quite a bit, 40-50 game not so much.  Unfortunately I like to max out my chars because I get attached to them and want to see them at the top of their game.  Ignoring the 40-50 game to me mean that I'm going to have an even longer wait to get new content in this game - because all the times that the developers spend on 40-50 content is time they aren't spending on anything I'll be playing with.

Again, it's a dikumud, that's the way it supposed to be - players focusing on their character's development.  If your idea of what a dikumud is differs from "follow the story of a character from rags to riches", or in any way you think that a dikumud is like playing cricket with your office mates... again, I don't know how you got that impression.