So what, everything needs to be cheap cause you barely play?
I don't recall him saying that. Players with limited time to spend on this game really should be able to reasonably work toward an ingame goal without it taking an eternity. There are plenty of other games that understand this and have something for the casual hour or so a day player. Is it really a good idea to go chasing these limited-time players away from this game by saying, "Sorry, we don't serve your kind here?"
The most realistic rationale I can think of is that they want more people to spend more ZEN at the Q-exchange to get their questionite to afford the pieces with the quesitonite price hike. Let's face it; the way they're priced has much less to do with a balance of reward-vs-effort as it does with the fact that it's a deterrent against doing all that grinding and made to encourage the player to spend actual money to surpass the grinding.
That being said, it's a whoopin' over 200% increase for the primary gear types and 80% for the secondary ones. Maybe there was a need for an increase for the primary ones to set them apart from the secondaries, but I can't agree with it being that much.
Sisyphus only kept pushing the rock uphill because he didn't have the 'screw this, I quit' option.
People don't play content they find not fun unless properly rewarded for putting up with it.
If people aren't playing content? Simple fact is either the fun needs increased or the rewards made more readily achievable.
Same reason PvP pretty much collapsed when the rewards poofed.
Your idea of 'fun' is utterly at counter to what the average CO player wants. So unfun content and ridiculous timetables for rewards = dead content no one wants to play.
Like PvP. Onslaught as intended. Half the Rampages.
Madness is trying the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.
You realize that no matter how hard you yell at a bowl of jello, it won't stop being a bowl of jello.
Jello can't help but be dumb and not understand you.
Feel bad for jello.
LMFAO!!!!!
In Daffy Duck voice: "You do realize that this means war?"
The most realistic rationale I can think of is that they want more people to spend more ZEN at the Q-exchange to get their questionite to afford the pieces with the quesitonite price hike. Let's face it; the way they're priced has much less to do with a balance of reward-vs-effort as it does with the fact that it's a deterrent against doing all that grinding and made to encourage the player to spend actual money to surpass the grinding.
That being said, it's a whoopin' over 200% increase for the primary gear types and 80% for the secondary ones. Maybe there was a need for an increase for the primary ones to set them apart from the secondaries, but I can't agree with it being that much.
I think you hit the nail on the head. I have no problem with pricing things to try to lure folks to spend money. But there is a way to do it and still be reasonable.
well they will need to show that they are doing something to improve the game to warrant me spending my hard earned money... with the direction its going, my wallet is staying shut!
So, after only 100 days of playing a little over an hour, assuming I can get a little over an hour to play every day, I can get one of those 100K pieces. Why, I can have a single toon ready for this new "endgame" stuff in only... about a year???
So what, everything needs to be cheap cause you barely play?
That's revealing - playing an hour a day _every_ day for a year is "barely playing"?
The most realistic rationale I can think of is that they want more people to spend more ZEN at the Q-exchange to get their questionite to afford the pieces with the quesitonite price hike. Let's face it; the way they're priced has much less to do with a balance of reward-vs-effort as it does with the fact that it's a deterrent against doing all that grinding and made to encourage the player to spend actual money to surpass the grinding.
Agreed on that - it's the most plausible explanation IMHO.
The most realistic rationale I can think of is that they want more people to spend more ZEN at the Q-exchange to get their questionite to afford the pieces with the quesitonite price hike. Let's face it; the way they're priced has much less to do with a balance of reward-vs-effort as it does with the fact that it's a deterrent against doing all that grinding and made to encourage the player to spend actual money to surpass the grinding.
Agreed on that - it's the most plausible explanation IMHO.
If only we didn't have to speculate though...... imagine if their vision for the game was explained to us
Entry level gear should not be this grind to obtain.
As for spending zen to obtain questionite for gear...that isn't happening for these entry level gear sets. Most players spend zen to obtain big ticket items.
That's revealing - playing an hour a day _every_ day for a year is "barely playing"?
Yep, Jello - er, I mean Spinny there apparently has nothing better to do with his time than spend five or six hours at a time, every day, rain or shine, hunched over a keyboard playing a game. Must be a shame, to have a life so empty...
"Science teaches us to expect -- demand -- more than just eerie mysteries. What use is a puzzle that can't be solved? Patience is fine, but I'm not going to stop asking the universe to make sense!"
Entry level gear should not be this grind to obtain.
As for spending zen to obtain questionite for gear...that isn't happening for these entry level gear sets. Most players spend zen to obtain big ticket items.
Uh, define "entry level"... I'm pretty sure entry level in this game is actually random junk items and not gear sets.
Entry level is now Mercenary and it's hardly a grind. For about 150g you can get a full set.
I've seen even Merc gear on the rise. My latest 40's "entry level" gear is literally piecemeal garbage from the auction house--a green primary utility (primary utility seems really expensive these days) with 2 mod slots. The other 2 primaries are the 2-slot random blues. The secondaries are armadillo I think.
Yeah, after that awful attempt to gear up, I think I'm done with alts until things change. And alts are pretty much what drew me to this game in the first place.
(Hopefully) Useful CO Resources: HeroCreator (character planner), Cosmic Timers/Alert Checklist, Blood Moon Map, Anniversary Cat Map, and more (eventually, anyway).
So, after only 100 days of playing a little over an hour, assuming I can get a little over an hour to play every day, I can get one of those 100K pieces. Why, I can have a single toon ready for this new "endgame" stuff in only... about a year???
So what, everything needs to be cheap cause you barely play?
That's revealing - playing an hour a day _every_ day for a year is "barely playing"?
Yeah, my bad, I thought Jon was doing his usual "I can only play ten minutes a month" routine that he's been doing for the last few years. Glad you finally have more time to play Jon, we can go ahead and wipe that excuse off the white board.
Anyways, let's analyze that. If you played 1 hour a day, every day for a year, and ALL that you did was a single alert daily to completion on each of those days ( which would not take the entire hour each time - it might if it's a burst daily ) you would have 730,000 questionite. I wonder what happened to the other 640,000 questionite that in this example jon only accrued 300k?
100 days = 200,000k via that method, and this assumes that you made the conscious decision to not spend any of your time doing anything else to get questonite at any point whatsoever.
Entry level gear should not be this grind to obtain.
As for spending zen to obtain questionite for gear...that isn't happening for these entry level gear sets. Most players spend zen to obtain big ticket items.
I mean you can get entry level gear for a few resources off the exchange, why would you spend zen on it? I mean, I'm sure someobody has and that's just fine, but there's plenty of other ways... buy it off the exchange, farm questionite itself rather than trading for zen, run some lairs to get it as drops, or just start doing endgame in whatever gear you were still wearing at level 40.
If you don't want to grind, you don't have to. That leaves the question: why are you even considering grinding if you clearly don't want to and the game isn't requiring you to? Do you have any self awareness regarding your actions?
Entry level is now Mercenary and it's hardly a grind. For about 150g you can get a full set.
I've seen even Merc gear on the rise. My latest 40's "entry level" gear is literally piecemeal garbage from the auction house--a green primary utility (primary utility seems really expensive these days) with 2 mod slots. The other 2 primaries are the 2-slot random blues. The secondaries are armadillo I think.
Yeah, after that awful attempt to gear up, I think I'm done with alts until things change. And alts are pretty much what drew me to this game in the first place.
Blues with stats you want are actually pretty good.
The reading comprehension in here is hilarious. Jon used a hypothetical amount of time. He didn't say that he sticks to a rigorous schedule of playing one hour every day for a hundred days.
Merc Gear isn't reasonable entry level gear for a player that just reached level 40. Farming the G's to obtain Merc Gear in heroic/justice gear is really easy but players in heroic/justice gear don't need the merc gear in the first place. Farming G's for a player in inferior gear is their best running a lot of alerts. But if you are running a lot of alerts and accompanying dailies you are obtaining questionite at a far more faster pace than you would obtain G's.
Other Perfect World games don't make entry level gear so hard to obtain or the entry level gear so confusing for players. Those Perfect World games make entry level gear easy to obtain but endgame gear hard to obtain. The Asian MMO mindset is the journey that matters not the end destination. But if you at least start with a basic set of gear that can work with for many levels or at the start of endgame that seems reasonable to me.
Champions Online has a huge gaping hole for entry level gear to be standardized, streamlined, and make sense for a new player.
Spinny, do you know some magical way to cause a "daily" mission to spawn more than once a day? Absent that, the amount of time I spend in there per day is irrelevant, as any time beyond that hour doesn't fetch Q (you remember, the reason that math had to be done in the first place? I know math isn't your forte, but...).
Other than this, still looking for this so-called "raining Q" thing.
(Yes, sometimes even I succumb to the urge to shout at the jello...)
"Science teaches us to expect -- demand -- more than just eerie mysteries. What use is a puzzle that can't be solved? Patience is fine, but I'm not going to stop asking the universe to make sense!"
So, after only 100 days of playing a little over an hour, assuming I can get a little over an hour to play every day, I can get one of those 100K pieces. Why, I can have a single toon ready for this new "endgame" stuff in only... about a year???
So what, everything needs to be cheap cause you barely play?
That's revealing - playing an hour a day _every_ day for a year is "barely playing"?
Yeah, my bad, I thought Jon was doing his usual "I can only play ten minutes a month" routine that he's been doing for the last few years. Glad you finally have more time to play Jon, we can go ahead and wipe that excuse off the white board.
Anyways, let's analyze that. If you played 1 hour a day, every day for a year, and ALL that you did was a single alert daily to completion on each of those days ( which would not take the entire hour each time - it might if it's a burst daily ) you would have 730,000 questionite. I wonder what happened to the other 640,000 questionite that in this example jon only accrued 300k?
100 days = 200,000k via that method, and this assumes that you made the conscious decision to not spend any of your time doing anything else to get questonite at any point whatsoever.
You forgot to factor in a critical piece of information--not everyone is going to religiously log in to complete the alert daily every day for a full year.
That's also quite revealing.
(Hopefully) Useful CO Resources: HeroCreator (character planner), Cosmic Timers/Alert Checklist, Blood Moon Map, Anniversary Cat Map, and more (eventually, anyway).
and sometimes the population or alert rotation (pyramid of power) will prevent it from being done in a reasonable time. or gawd forbid you just dont feel like grinding an alert that day
So, for reference on what level of 'grind' we're actually talking about: a realistic path for gearing up is the following things during a single night of gaming:
Run Teleios Ascendant once (5 loot boxes, 7+5 gcr, 12 scr, 5,000Q)
Run an Alert daily (5 scr, 2,000Q, variable). Note that Alert dailies can be saved up -- log in for a minute to pick up the quest, log out again, do the quest later -- as long as you finish them before the rotation ends.
Run a Rampage (3 scr, 1,500Q, possible tokens)
Run a Special Alert (5 scr)
Total 12 gcr, 25 scr, 8,500Q, and a bit of other stuff. After 19 days you have 228 GCR, 475 SCR, 161,500Q, and 95 TA loot boxes (also various resources), which will likely allow you to get an item of Justice at the new prices (there's a good chance you also got an item of Determination as a drop). This is doable on a two hour play session, doing your Alert stuff while organizing for TA; do this three times for a full set.
So, it's about two months if you log in every day. If you don't, it's longer. Total time somewhat north of a hundred hours. Whether that's a reasonable level of effort for achieving max gear is debatable, though there are cosmetics that are harder to get than that (the most difficult grind in the game is to get the skeleton boy action figure, which as far as I know only one person has ever done).
Merc Gear isn't reasonable entry level gear for a player that just reached level 40. Farming the G's to obtain Merc Gear in heroic/justice gear is really easy but players in heroic/justice gear don't need the merc gear in the first place. Farming G's for a player in inferior gear is their best running a lot of alerts. But if you are running a lot of alerts and accompanying dailies you are obtaining questionite at a far more faster pace than you would obtain G's.
Other Perfect World games don't make entry level gear so hard to obtain or the entry level gear so confusing for players. Those Perfect World games make entry level gear easy to obtain but endgame gear hard to obtain. The Asian MMO mindset is the journey that matters not the end destination. But if you at least start with a basic set of gear that can work with for many levels or at the start of endgame that seems reasonable to me.
Champions Online has a huge gaping hole for entry level gear to be standardized, streamlined, and make sense for a new player.
It's not reasonable how? Last I checked (yesterday) Merc gear was available from 30 to 80g per piece. That 30 piece is 10 Smash runs. Less if you use a resource booster, which you should have gotten while leveling up, and are available real cheap on auction. Ten runs of the quickest and easiest Alert available! You literally can't spend more than two minutes on most of them. They like, never fail, because it's all level 40s trying to make money. You could go in there with a naked level 10 and have a really low chance of failure.
It's less than half an hour to obtain your first Mercenary piece. That is hardly a grind. The other pieces will cost more, but still, just run Smash alerts and you'll get there eventually. You could do it in a day, you could do it in a week, and either way, it's hardly a grind.
Other than this, still looking for this so-called "raining Q" thing.
Cosmics are a real good way of earning Questionite, but it can take a long time to get a decent group gathered and start the thing. Once it gets going, it's usually over pretty quick unless there's a goof here and there. But keep an ear open for cosmic hunts, join up, and hey if you have stuff to do, just do that stuff while people are gathering and planning.
But do yourself a favor and learn the fights before going into them. They're not very difficult, but knowing what not to do is crucial-but-easy.
I don't need Merc gear and I would never use it because it is simply a bad idea unless you are desperate. And if you are running that many smash alarts for one piece of gear you will end up with way more questionite by doing the daily alerts instead for half the effort.
In summary, no Merc gear isn't reasonable by any means for a new player to the game.
Spinny, do you know some magical way to cause a "daily" mission to spawn more than once a day? Absent that, the amount of time I spend in there per day is irrelevant, as any time beyond that hour doesn't fetch Q (you remember, the reason that math had to be done in the first place? I know math isn't your forte, but...).
Other than this, still looking for this so-called "raining Q" thing.
(Yes, sometimes even I succumb to the urge to shout at the jello...)
Oh I get it now, the problem is that you just don't know all the ways to get questonite. You actually think that one daily is the only way. Mystery solved.
The next mystery is how you don't know about the other ways by now considering I've listed them for you multiple times.
I don't need Merc gear and I would never use it because it is simply a bad idea unless you are desperate. And if you are running that many smash alarts for one piece of gear you will end up with way more questionite by doing the daily alerts instead for half the effort.
In summary, no Merc gear isn't reasonable by any means for a new player to the game.
A bad idea compared to what alternative?
Not reasonable for entry level end-game gear: Why?
You don't need it? Fine.
It's a bad idea? Why?
A new player will have an easier time getting the resources quickly as compared to getting the Questionite, especially since most players have a cap of 8,000 per day. You just can't get more than that. You can't get your full set in one day.
If you do the daily alerts, you get 2000 Questionite in one day. You can do 10 Smashes and already get some of your gear, in one day. I don't get what makes it unreasonable.
I didn't take that into account because honestly I can't remember the amount of resources I had the last time I leveled to 40 without the help of alerts and/or heirloom gear. So it's just assuming you happen to reach 40 with 0 resources, just to be fair.
I'm definitely not getting the "Mercenary bad" idea. I never understood what the big deal was about Heroic, since it's just Merc gear with SLIGHTLY higher bonuses. I only used Heroic about one piece a character, just because I had a lot of Silver coming up the old way, and it was cheap then.
I'm definitely not getting the "Mercenary bad" idea. I never understood what the big deal was about Heroic, since it's just Merc gear with SLIGHTLY higher bonuses. I only used Heroic about one piece a character, just because I had a lot of Silver coming up the old way, and it was cheap then.
Yup Merc is far from bad. That worries me. How long until the devs decide to bump up the questionite cost for that gear.
Nepht and Dr Deflecto on primus
They all thought I was out of the game....But I'm holding all the lockboxes now..
I'll......FOAM FINGER YOUR BACK!
I'm definitely not getting the "Mercenary bad" idea. I never understood what the big deal was about Heroic, since it's just Merc gear with SLIGHTLY higher bonuses. I only used Heroic about one piece a character, just because I had a lot of Silver coming up the old way, and it was cheap then.
They're higher than slightly. In some cases, stats like offense on the primary offense pieces is completely absent on mercenary gear. This makes the legion of guardi-/wardicators very unhappy.
Merc gear may not be "bad," but it's a far cry from "awesome." It's adequate gear for just hitting 40, but players should have more reasonable paths toward something better than they do now.
(Hopefully) Useful CO Resources: HeroCreator (character planner), Cosmic Timers/Alert Checklist, Blood Moon Map, Anniversary Cat Map, and more (eventually, anyway).
It's adequate gear for just hitting 40, but players should have more reasonable paths toward something better than they do now.
Can you offer a suggestion for such a path that does not equate to it simply being "shorter"? We've had the "make it shorter" suggestion done to death by now... maybe it's time to think of some new suggestions?
They're higher than slightly. In some cases, stats like offense on the primary offense pieces is completely absent on mercenary gear. This makes the legion of guardi-/wardicators very unhappy.
Merc gear may not be "bad," but it's a far cry from "awesome." It's adequate gear for just hitting 40, but players should have more reasonable paths toward something better than they do now.
The fact that I'm doing well enough on cosmics to place for rewards every single time with mainly Mercenary gear means it's reasonable enough since I'm working toward getting some primaries with the GCR and SCR. I should be able to do Teleios Ascendant and the new warzone with this gear as well. In the meantime I'm also doing rampage dailies every day, working toward those secondaries (I have 2/3 of the Cosmic secondaries but don't think they'll be great for this character) and I should have my first piece by tomorrow!
I do mind the length of the grind, but otherwise I don't feel terribly hampered by having mercenary gear.
They're higher than slightly. In some cases, stats like offense on the primary offense pieces is completely absent on mercenary gear. This makes the legion of guardi-/wardicators very unhappy.
Merc gear may not be "bad," but it's a far cry from "awesome." It's adequate gear for just hitting 40, but players should have more reasonable paths toward something better than they do now.
The fact that I'm doing well enough on cosmics to place for rewards every single time with mainly Mercenary gear means it's reasonable enough since I'm working toward getting some primaries with the GCR and SCR. I should be able to do Teleios Ascendant and the new warzone with this gear as well. In the meantime I'm also doing rampage dailies every day, working toward those secondaries (I have 2/3 of the Cosmic secondaries but don't think they'll be great for this character) and I should have my first piece by tomorrow!
I do mind the length of the grind, but otherwise I don't feel terribly hampered by having mercenary gear.
I agree; Mercenary gear is a great way to get your feet wet for end game gear and modding. Most of my level 40 toons either have Mercenary or Legion primary gear; I'm still trying to figure out which secondaries will work best with them. As far as those Cosmic Secondaries go, it doesnt seem like you can mod those with anything, even though they have an open mod slot.
I do not buy my mercenary gear in the game via AH or with questionite; in my opinion, that gear should be no more than 11k questionite for each piece, especially with the new gear available. I get my Mercenary/Legion gear from purchasing lockboxes with keys using zen purchased with real money. I dont care for the exchange rate of q to zen; it isnt worth my time or my effort; I can spend that q on other items I want/need or use it for removal of high level mods.
It's adequate gear for just hitting 40, but players should have more reasonable paths toward something better than they do now.
Can you offer a suggestion for such a path that does not equate to it simply being "shorter"? We've had the "make it shorter" suggestion done to death by now... maybe it's time to think of some new suggestions?
The problem with that is that the length is what people have a problem with. I can't think of any respectable game that makes players endure a long grind to get mid-range gear like that. The high-tier endgame gear maybe, but not lower-tier endgame gear. If anything, lower-tier gear is made easier to get in order to help spring more players into the current endgame content. There's a reason why a seemingly vast majority just skips heroic entirely.
Besides, CO is to many people an alting game, and before all these price hikes, that was facilitated nicely. A new character slot added each time you hit 40 and mid-range (Heroic) gear that was reasonable to obtain once a character hit 40--things like this provide nearly limitless gameplay. The recent price hikes stomp all over this type of gameplay, instead making it more of a "level it to 40, then leave it or grind grind grind.
"But you don't need that kind of gear to enjoy the game!" is surely what you're going to respond with. Well, I'll leave that to the following reply:
The fact that I'm doing well enough on cosmics to place for rewards every single time with mainly Mercenary gear means it's reasonable enough since I'm working toward getting some primaries with the GCR and SCR. I should be able to do Teleios Ascendant and the new warzone with this gear as well. In the meantime I'm also doing rampage dailies every day, working toward those secondaries (I have 2/3 of the Cosmic secondaries but don't think they'll be great for this character) and I should have my first piece by tomorrow!
I do mind the length of the grind, but otherwise I don't feel terribly hampered by having mercenary gear.
That's why I refer to it as "adequate" in much the same way that an old, beat-up car is adequate. It'll get you around just like a newer car, but it's more prone to breaking down, is likely less fuel-efficient, and is generally going to be inferior.
In most games where player power can grow, as the player's stats increase, the overall difficulty of the content they're engaged in decreases. While sure, a guy in full merc can pass a reward threshold, another in full heroic can pass that same threshold with more room for error. If both the merc guy and heroic guy have the exact same build and play exactly the same, which one contributes more to the team?
The higher stats on heroic gear may be easy to dismiss as "not much better" but when it comes to getting a good energy balance, increased survivability, and more damage overall, everything counts.
(Hopefully) Useful CO Resources: HeroCreator (character planner), Cosmic Timers/Alert Checklist, Blood Moon Map, Anniversary Cat Map, and more (eventually, anyway).
They can be modded with the non-standard mods that drop from cosmics, the ones from the GCR store, and the ones from the 20-key bundles, such as Ripper's Might. Basically any Core that isn't the Brooch, Lucky Gem, Amulet of Growth and whichever the green one is. Can't think of the name.
The higher stats on heroic gear may be easy to dismiss as "not much better" but when it comes to getting a good energy balance, increased survivability, and more damage overall, everything counts.
The thing is: so what? I'll take a good player in Mercenary gear over a bad player in Justice gear any day. You're not likely to top dps charts in Mercenary gear, but you really don't need to, you can certainly get high enough to achieve any thresholds that are actually required (for example, fighting the dinosaur, a well-geared well-optimized character can manage around triple the per-character damage threshold for stopping regeneration. A less well-geared character might only manage double -- but that's still a lot more than you actually need).
They can be modded with the non-standard mods that drop from cosmics, the ones from the GCR store, and the ones from the 20-key bundles, such as Ripper's Might. Basically any Core that isn't the Brooch, Lucky Gem, Amulet of Growth and whichever the green one is. Can't think of the name.
They can be modded with the non-standard mods that drop from cosmics, the ones from the GCR store, and the ones from the 20-key bundles, such as Ripper's Might. Basically any Core that isn't the Brooch, Lucky Gem, Amulet of Growth and whichever the green one is. Can't think of the name.
What about the special vet core?
It counts as an R9 core so it can't go into any secondary (it might also not work for other reasons).
The higher stats on heroic gear may be easy to dismiss as "not much better" but when it comes to getting a good energy balance, increased survivability, and more damage overall, everything counts.
The thing is: so what? I'll take a good player in Mercenary gear over a bad player in Justice gear any day. You're not likely to top dps charts in Mercenary gear, but you really don't need to, you can certainly get high enough to achieve any thresholds that are actually required (for example, fighting the dinosaur, a well-geared well-optimized character can manage around triple the per-character damage threshold for stopping regeneration. A less well-geared character might only manage double -- but that's still a lot more than you actually need).
But a good player in justice gear is obviously better than a good player in mercenary gear. Point is, I (or anyone) can contribute more to a group heroic or higher gear than I can in mercenary + armadillo. People usually like to feel like they're able to offer a good contribution rather than a mediocre one. Imagine for a moment what it would be like from a large-group perspective if heroic gear was as accessible as it was before the price hike. Everyone who does cosmics, even those in full distinguished, would benefit because the group as a whole would be stronger.
(Hopefully) Useful CO Resources: HeroCreator (character planner), Cosmic Timers/Alert Checklist, Blood Moon Map, Anniversary Cat Map, and more (eventually, anyway).
"But you don't need that kind of gear to enjoy the game!" is surely what you're going to respond with. Well, I'll leave that to the following reply:
Yes, better gear is better. That doesn't change the fact that, as you said, you don't need that kind of gear to enjoy the game/participate in the content/contribute adequately/get the rewards.
Yes, having better gear feels better. There's your reward and motivation for going through the process of getting it.
Players in mercenary can provide a great contribution to a fight. Players in justice can provide a great contribution +10% to a fight. Whether your contribution is mediocre or not is not determined by, nor changed by your gear. A mediocre player in mercenary is still a mediocre player in justice - upgrading their gear made them no more valuable. In fact it may have made them worse because they may now be under the impression that their gear guarantees that they are contributing greatly. I've seen plenty a full Justice tank who couldn't hold aggro, didn't know how to block, and didn't even understand the concept of positioning ( may have had to do with the fact that they got all their justice tokens on a different character that wasn't a tank ).
I'm definitely not getting the "Mercenary bad" idea. I never understood what the big deal was about Heroic, since it's just Merc gear with SLIGHTLY higher bonuses. I only used Heroic about one piece a character, just because I had a lot of Silver coming up the old way, and it was cheap then.
They're higher than slightly. In some cases, stats like offense on the primary offense pieces is completely absent on mercenary gear. This makes the legion of guardi-/wardicators very unhappy.
Merc gear may not be "bad," but it's a far cry from "awesome." It's adequate gear for just hitting 40, but players should have more reasonable paths toward something better than they do now.
You act like you're arguing with me, but the bolded is what I was saying. The rest I have little opinion on as I'm not a gear chaser that has to have "the best".
You act like you're arguing with me, but the bolded is what I was saying. The rest I have little opinion on as I'm not a gear chaser that has to have "the best".
My mistake then. I guess I was just in fight mode after dealing with a certain bowl of jello.
Yes, better gear is better. That doesn't change the fact that, as you said, you don't need that kind of gear to enjoy the game/participate in the content/contribute adequately/get the rewards.
To a lot of people--dare I say even most people--hitting harder, having better energy management, and being more durable all make the game more enjoyable. Those are also things that come with better gear.
Yes, having better gear feels better. There's your reward and motivation for going through the process of getting it.
Nobody's actually disagreeing with that, however with Heroic being only somewhat better than Merc, and with Armadillo/etc getting its price spiked so high it's not worth the questionite anymore (some argue it isn't even worth 11k, which is a legit point) where's the motivation? The issue, what's always been the issue, is that the effort-to-reward ratio is way out of balance. That's why people ignore Heroic now, and also that's why Justice as well as Armadillo/etc will likely be ignored moving forward. It's also why some are even saying "screw it" and leaving the game after they run face-first into the grindwall.
Players in mercenary can provide a great contribution to a fight. Players in justice can provide a great contribution +10% to a fight. Whether your contribution is mediocre or not is not determined by, nor changed by your gear. A mediocre player in mercenary is still a mediocre player in justice - upgrading their gear made them no more valuable. In fact it may have made them worse because they may now be under the impression that their gear guarantees that they are contributing greatly. I've seen plenty a full Justice tank who couldn't hold aggro, didn't know how to block, and didn't even understand the concept of positioning ( may have had to do with the fact that they got all their justice tokens on a different character that wasn't a tank ).
You're totally missing the point, jello. Simple yes or no: Assuming you have a cosmic team of mixed gear individuals, with many using Merc gear, would the team's overall performance rating go up if those Merc wearers had Heroic, Justice, etc? Remember, we're not switching the people, just their gear.
(Hopefully) Useful CO Resources: HeroCreator (character planner), Cosmic Timers/Alert Checklist, Blood Moon Map, Anniversary Cat Map, and more (eventually, anyway).
To a lot of people--dare I say even most people--hitting harder, having better energy management, and being more durable all make the game more enjoyable. Those are also things that come with better gear.
And there is your motivation and reward for going through the process of acquiring the gear.
You're totally missing the point, jello. Simple yes or no: Assuming you have a cosmic team of mixed gear individuals, with many using Merc gear, would the team's overall performance rating go up if those Merc wearers had Heroic, Justice, etc? Remember, we're not switching the people, just their gear.
And there is your motivation and reward for going through the process of acquiring the gear.
Except again, the effort-to-reward ratio is grossly out of balance. "Fun" is also an important factor. What's "fun" about grinding the same content over and over for weeks, or even months just for a piece of gear? Perhaps you need to consider that what may seem like decent motivation to you isn't appealing to everyone else.
Look, you can argue your point all you want, but just looking around this and other threads, all I see for miles are people who disagree with you. It's like the multiclienting thread that you like to keep bringing up, except this time, the roles are greatly reversed. You're pretty much alone here.
Comments
-Yells at a bowl of Jello-
That being said, it's a whoopin' over 200% increase for the primary gear types and 80% for the secondary ones. Maybe there was a need for an increase for the primary ones to set them apart from the secondaries, but I can't agree with it being that much.
In Daffy Duck voice: "You do realize that this means war?"
(Not from me mind you, but from you know who.
Click here to check out my costumes/milleniumguardian (MG) in-game/We need more tights, stances and moods
That's revealing - playing an hour a day _every_ day for a year is "barely playing"?
Click here to check out my costumes/milleniumguardian (MG) in-game/We need more tights, stances and moods
As for spending zen to obtain questionite for gear...that isn't happening for these entry level gear sets. Most players spend zen to obtain big ticket items.
Omicron - Lvl 4x - Mind
Emerald Myst - Lvl 2x - Claws/Fighting Hybrid
Epsilon - Lvl 2x - Blade
Asterius - Lvl 1x - Electric/Void Hybrid
- David Brin, "Those Eyes"
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Yeah, after that awful attempt to gear up, I think I'm done with alts until things change. And alts are pretty much what drew me to this game in the first place.
Nepht and Dr Deflecto on primus
They all thought I was out of the game....But I'm holding all the lockboxes now..
I'll......FOAM FINGER YOUR BACK!
Anyways, let's analyze that. If you played 1 hour a day, every day for a year, and ALL that you did was a single alert daily to completion on each of those days ( which would not take the entire hour each time - it might if it's a burst daily ) you would have 730,000 questionite. I wonder what happened to the other 640,000 questionite that in this example jon only accrued 300k?
100 days = 200,000k via that method, and this assumes that you made the conscious decision to not spend any of your time doing anything else to get questonite at any point whatsoever.
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
If you don't want to grind, you don't have to. That leaves the question: why are you even considering grinding if you clearly don't want to and the game isn't requiring you to? Do you have any self awareness regarding your actions?
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
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My characters
Other Perfect World games don't make entry level gear so hard to obtain or the entry level gear so confusing for players. Those Perfect World games make entry level gear easy to obtain but endgame gear hard to obtain. The Asian MMO mindset is the journey that matters not the end destination. But if you at least start with a basic set of gear that can work with for many levels or at the start of endgame that seems reasonable to me.
Champions Online has a huge gaping hole for entry level gear to be standardized, streamlined, and make sense for a new player.
Omicron - Lvl 4x - Mind
Emerald Myst - Lvl 2x - Claws/Fighting Hybrid
Epsilon - Lvl 2x - Blade
Asterius - Lvl 1x - Electric/Void Hybrid
Other than this, still looking for this so-called "raining Q" thing.
(Yes, sometimes even I succumb to the urge to shout at the jello...)
- David Brin, "Those Eyes"
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That's also quite revealing.
- Run Teleios Ascendant once (5 loot boxes, 7+5 gcr, 12 scr, 5,000Q)
- Run an Alert daily (5 scr, 2,000Q, variable). Note that Alert dailies can be saved up -- log in for a minute to pick up the quest, log out again, do the quest later -- as long as you finish them before the rotation ends.
- Run a Rampage (3 scr, 1,500Q, possible tokens)
- Run a Special Alert (5 scr)
Total 12 gcr, 25 scr, 8,500Q, and a bit of other stuff. After 19 days you have 228 GCR, 475 SCR, 161,500Q, and 95 TA loot boxes (also various resources), which will likely allow you to get an item of Justice at the new prices (there's a good chance you also got an item of Determination as a drop). This is doable on a two hour play session, doing your Alert stuff while organizing for TA; do this three times for a full set.So, it's about two months if you log in every day. If you don't, it's longer. Total time somewhat north of a hundred hours. Whether that's a reasonable level of effort for achieving max gear is debatable, though there are cosmetics that are harder to get than that (the most difficult grind in the game is to get the skeleton boy action figure, which as far as I know only one person has ever done).
Epic Stronghold
Block timing explained
It's less than half an hour to obtain your first Mercenary piece. That is hardly a grind. The other pieces will cost more, but still, just run Smash alerts and you'll get there eventually. You could do it in a day, you could do it in a week, and either way, it's hardly a grind. Cosmics are a real good way of earning Questionite, but it can take a long time to get a decent group gathered and start the thing. Once it gets going, it's usually over pretty quick unless there's a goof here and there. But keep an ear open for cosmic hunts, join up, and hey if you have stuff to do, just do that stuff while people are gathering and planning.
But do yourself a favor and learn the fights before going into them. They're not very difficult, but knowing what not to do is crucial-but-easy.
In summary, no Merc gear isn't reasonable by any means for a new player to the game.
Omicron - Lvl 4x - Mind
Emerald Myst - Lvl 2x - Claws/Fighting Hybrid
Epsilon - Lvl 2x - Blade
Asterius - Lvl 1x - Electric/Void Hybrid
Oh I get it now, the problem is that you just don't know all the ways to get questonite. You actually think that one daily is the only way. Mystery solved.
The next mystery is how you don't know about the other ways by now considering I've listed them for you multiple times.
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
- Not reasonable for entry level end-game gear: Why?
- You don't need it? Fine.
- It's a bad idea? Why?
A new player will have an easier time getting the resources quickly as compared to getting the Questionite, especially since most players have a cap of 8,000 per day. You just can't get more than that. You can't get your full set in one day.If you do the daily alerts, you get 2000 Questionite in one day. You can do 10 Smashes and already get some of your gear, in one day. I don't get what makes it unreasonable.
Epic Stronghold
Block timing explained
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My characters
Nepht and Dr Deflecto on primus
They all thought I was out of the game....But I'm holding all the lockboxes now..
I'll......FOAM FINGER YOUR BACK!
Merc gear may not be "bad," but it's a far cry from "awesome." It's adequate gear for just hitting 40, but players should have more reasonable paths toward something better than they do now.
Decreased Mercenary gear to 35,000 questionite (from 50,000).
Can you offer a suggestion for such a path that does not equate to it simply being "shorter"? We've had the "make it shorter" suggestion done to death by now... maybe it's time to think of some new suggestions?
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
I do mind the length of the grind, but otherwise I don't feel terribly hampered by having mercenary gear.
I do not buy my mercenary gear in the game via AH or with questionite; in my opinion, that gear should be no more than 11k questionite for each piece, especially with the new gear available. I get my Mercenary/Legion gear from purchasing lockboxes with keys using zen purchased with real money. I dont care for the exchange rate of q to zen; it isnt worth my time or my effort; I can spend that q on other items I want/need or use it for removal of high level mods.
Besides, CO is to many people an alting game, and before all these price hikes, that was facilitated nicely. A new character slot added each time you hit 40 and mid-range (Heroic) gear that was reasonable to obtain once a character hit 40--things like this provide nearly limitless gameplay. The recent price hikes stomp all over this type of gameplay, instead making it more of a "level it to 40, then leave it or grind grind grind.
"But you don't need that kind of gear to enjoy the game!" is surely what you're going to respond with. Well, I'll leave that to the following reply: That's why I refer to it as "adequate" in much the same way that an old, beat-up car is adequate. It'll get you around just like a newer car, but it's more prone to breaking down, is likely less fuel-efficient, and is generally going to be inferior.
In most games where player power can grow, as the player's stats increase, the overall difficulty of the content they're engaged in decreases. While sure, a guy in full merc can pass a reward threshold, another in full heroic can pass that same threshold with more room for error. If both the merc guy and heroic guy have the exact same build and play exactly the same, which one contributes more to the team?
The higher stats on heroic gear may be easy to dismiss as "not much better" but when it comes to getting a good energy balance, increased survivability, and more damage overall, everything counts.
Epic Stronghold
Block timing explained
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My characters
Epic Stronghold
Block timing explained
Yes, having better gear feels better. There's your reward and motivation for going through the process of getting it.
Players in mercenary can provide a great contribution to a fight. Players in justice can provide a great contribution +10% to a fight. Whether your contribution is mediocre or not is not determined by, nor changed by your gear. A mediocre player in mercenary is still a mediocre player in justice - upgrading their gear made them no more valuable. In fact it may have made them worse because they may now be under the impression that their gear guarantees that they are contributing greatly. I've seen plenty a full Justice tank who couldn't hold aggro, didn't know how to block, and didn't even understand the concept of positioning ( may have had to do with the fact that they got all their justice tokens on a different character that wasn't a tank ).
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
Nepht and Dr Deflecto on primus
They all thought I was out of the game....But I'm holding all the lockboxes now..
I'll......FOAM FINGER YOUR BACK!
Speaking of which...! To a lot of people--dare I say even most people--hitting harder, having better energy management, and being more durable all make the game more enjoyable. Those are also things that come with better gear. Nobody's actually disagreeing with that, however with Heroic being only somewhat better than Merc, and with Armadillo/etc getting its price spiked so high it's not worth the questionite anymore (some argue it isn't even worth 11k, which is a legit point) where's the motivation? The issue, what's always been the issue, is that the effort-to-reward ratio is way out of balance. That's why people ignore Heroic now, and also that's why Justice as well as Armadillo/etc will likely be ignored moving forward. It's also why some are even saying "screw it" and leaving the game after they run face-first into the grindwall. You're totally missing the point, jello. Simple yes or no: Assuming you have a cosmic team of mixed gear individuals, with many using Merc gear, would the team's overall performance rating go up if those Merc wearers had Heroic, Justice, etc? Remember, we're not switching the people, just their gear.
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
Look, you can argue your point all you want, but just looking around this and other threads, all I see for miles are people who disagree with you. It's like the multiclienting thread that you like to keep bringing up, except this time, the roles are greatly reversed. You're pretty much alone here. Then you agree that these price hikes are unnecessary and bad for the game. I'm glad we could reach an understanding.