adreneline can and does increase effectiveness and rage in the case of magic or elemental control has been shown in comics to directly increase power, magic also depends on spontaneous effects or practiced.
Either way rage is awesomes no need to change it. Reverse the tagging done on Bullet Beatdown. Increase all munitions powers damage by 10% (5% base and 10% top end) Add toggles to all sets that do not currently have them.Make toggles appropriate to the sets instead of standardized clones. Retag melee ranged attacks back to melee. Allow the hybrid powers to use str or dex whatever is higher.
I do believe these changes will solve most if not all gripes and complaints about damage, focus, and enrage.
Bug: Soldiers cannot access their spec trees. Self explanatory. Soldier ATs can't even put a single point into the Ego tree they are given. Impulses also have a similar problem, being given the Int tree instead of the End tree.
And the guy above me is wise. It was better when it was 'whatever's higher' rather than 'here's a 1 pt advantage, have fun'
I don't think I am the only one who will tell you they have no interest in farming for gear on PTS.
So I guess my testing is done at this point, if this is an intended change.
The removal of the "Gimme Tokens" item was intended. With the global drop rates of the whole game having been adjusted to have new items and reflect a different gear ratio than you guys are used to, I need data about drop rates and farming speed so I can dial in the prices more precisely. This will also help assure me you guys get a steady flow of useful gear without being swamped by "useless" stuff.
Also, if you have tried to go to the tier 4 vendor you would have noticed slightly high prices (roughly 4000 tokens). These prices were in error, and should be fixed in an upcoming build! You should see prices closer to 30ish.
The removal of the "Gimme Tokens" item was intended. With the global drop rates of the whole game having been adjusted to have new items and reflect a different gear ratio than you guys are used to, I need data about drop rates and farming speed so I can dial in the prices more precisely.
If someone is creating a new character (rather than copying one from live, using legacy gear), it's a significant pain to farm gear. There should be a simple way to get a starting gear set for PTS (possibly just a set of gear based on superstats).
The removal of the "Gimme Tokens" item was intended. With the global drop rates of the whole game having been adjusted to have new items and reflect a different gear ratio than you guys are used to, I need data about drop rates and farming speed so I can dial in the prices more precisely. This will also help assure me you guys get a steady flow of useful gear without being swamped by "useless" stuff.
Also, if you have tried to go to the tier 4 vendor you would have noticed slightly high prices (roughly 4000 tokens). These prices were in error, and should be fixed in an upcoming build! You should see prices closer to 30ish.
Seeing as Grouse Pointe Blank's Bullet Beatdown has been gutted by the BUFFS to the power, I have been looking for a new stat/build/concept combo for her. I am not going to farm a naked 40, nor is runnng content up to 40 realistic.
The removal of the "Gimme Tokens" item was intended. With the global drop rates of the whole game having been adjusted to have new items and reflect a different gear ratio than you guys are used to, I need data about drop rates and farming speed so I can dial in the prices more precisely. This will also help assure me you guys get a steady flow of useful gear without being swamped by "useless" stuff.
Also, if you have tried to go to the tier 4 vendor you would have noticed slightly high prices (roughly 4000 tokens). These prices were in error, and should be fixed in an upcoming build! You should see prices closer to 30ish.
Could you have told us this earlier? If I would have known this wasn't a bug I wouldn't have spent most of the time I was on last night dicking around in the powerhouse and instead gone and done some monster mashing on MI and ran an AP or two.
Which I actually did run some SL. I was surprised when a Purple dropped and wondered if it was just really weird luck.
Good thing I sat there for a good 5 minutes spamming the crap out of that thing.
Don't spend them. I had about 15,000 local recognition on one char and when I bought 1 cache the amount I had went all the way down to 1,000 :-( please devs, let us have the gimme tokens back. PLEASE.
Also where are you supposed to find galactic recognition? I haven't found any yet :-(
Fortunately (or perhaps unfortunately) I think TV Tropes knows a bit more about modern entertainment than Plato or Aristotle do, which makes sense seeing as they've been dead since before we even had a proper concept of mass media.
See, while that concept you linked there is fundamentally correct, it all pretty much goes flying out the window the moment Rule of Cool comes into play to combine with Unstoppable Rage and you get a guy that is somehow not only more accurate with a gun because he's mad, but the gun itself inexplicably fires faster with less recoil and sends enemies flying further.
Perhaps, but even then, the Rule of Cool pretty much applies because in the context of that fictional world, guys capable of doing ridiculous stuff are possible, and you can only stretch things so far before the whole things breaks appart (they actually go into some limitations of the Rule of Cool in that article). But I don't want to derail the thread too much with a discussion of verisimilitude or what makes sense or doesn't in the context of fiction
If someone is creating a new character (rather than copying one from live, using legacy gear), it's a significant pain to farm gear. There should be a simple way to get a starting gear set for PTS (possibly just a set of gear based on superstats).
The only way to do that is a loot threshold, because not all characters have the same definition of useful.
...this^
While I get the need to gather data on the drop rates, forcing new test toons to go out into the world without proper gear will make that... difficult. Even if data on the drop rates from mobs is necessary (which I agree and have sort of been farming stuff out of curiosity to see what type of things drop now), I'd have a really difficult time of it if my toon didn't have appropriate gear equiped already.
I am willing to help with drop tables.. all you need to is ask for feedback on them. But forcing me to be gearless or worse use a BAD gear system in the process is something i just won't do. by "forcing" us to loot you've made me not want to at all. Catch more flies with honey than vinegar and all that.
Alright, I'll just keep farming then, no one else wants to but, hey, I've been committing genocide in co for so long does it even matter anymore? What's another 10 hours of farming in my pool of 3,000 hours of farming.
It's definitely nice to be getting more item drops, significantly more than on live, this is not bad, this is good, as other people aren't me, they aren't going to go around killing stuff for 8 hours a day like i do because i have no job or social life.
However, bosses are no longer actually dropping what I'd consider "boss drops". After soloing andrith up to Hyrg 3 times I've gotten a total of 3 global recog, and one green primary item to drop from him. I imagine you intend to redo the boss drop tables, right?
Oh and with mods not working, the pts gear is far worse than live right now, so it's not even really going to help you guys much, just stick with your +98 and +36 gear from live until the items can actually be brought back to the same levels as live.
I am willing to help with drop tables.. all you need to is ask for feedback on them. But forcing me to be gearless or worse use a BAD gear system in the process is something i just won't do. by "forcing" us to loot you've made me not want to at all. Catch more flies with honey than vinegar and all that.
The removal of the "Gimme Tokens" item was intended. With the global drop rates of the whole game having been adjusted to have new items and reflect a different gear ratio than you guys are used to, I need data about drop rates and farming speed so I can dial in the prices more precisely. This will also help assure me you guys get a steady flow of useful gear without being swamped by "useless" stuff.
Also, if you have tried to go to the tier 4 vendor you would have noticed slightly high prices (roughly 4000 tokens). These prices were in error, and should be fixed in an upcoming build! You should see prices closer to 30ish.
I don't even know where these vendors are
Serious .. give us more information what is going here in the forum, and not just that we have to read something
from some players, where we don't know if that all is true or not.
Its also really important for a lot of people to finally get an official word about what happens to crafting and
if all our stuff on live server will be just NPC trash after the update, or if there are other plans.
Could you have told us this earlier? If I would have known this wasn't a bug I wouldn't have spent most of the time I was on last night dicking around in the powerhouse and instead gone and done some monster mashing on MI and ran an AP or two.
Which I actually did run some SL. I was surprised when a Purple dropped and wondered if it was just really weird luck.
What difficulty setting were you playing SL on? I just played upto bunker bravo on hard and got about 5 global recognition, 2 green gear, 1 blue gear and local recognition from Viper X.
GUYS! SPEAK TO THE DEBUGGER FOR GEAR. While its not the best gear, its still SOMETHING. Better to use that yellow crap than to run around naked. Stop begging for free blues.
Now for feedback on Item drop rate.
Well, I ran Serpent Lantern up through the Alpha Bunker, than had to go to a doctor's appointment. In one mob group, two purple quality dropped, IN ONE GROUP. I also managed to pick up about three blue quality mods and a few blue gear, along with a few green gear. Viper X though dropped nothing. I take it that is due to boss loot tables not worked on yet?
GUYS! SPEAK TO THE DEBUGGER FOR GEAR. While its not the best gear, its still SOMETHING. Better to use that yellow crap than to run around naked. Stop begging for free blues.
Now for feedback on Item drop rate.
Well, I ran Serpent Lantern up through the Alpha Bunker, than had to go to a doctor's appointment. In one mob group, two purple quality dropped, IN ONE GROUP. I also managed to pick up about three blue quality mods and a few blue gear, along with a few green gear. Viper X though dropped nothing. I take it that is due to boss loot tables not worked on yet?
.. If you want to adequately test build efficacy in the new character build system (the reason I am on PTS at the moment.. that and testing alerts). Then choosing gear from the old system will do nothing to accomplish that end. The final gear pass isn't even working (Fuze and Modify) and the new gear system already kicks the **** of the old.. and this brings up a HUGE balance question of how builds are specced in the NEW system.
I am Min/Maxing not because that's how i play the game, but because testing REQUIRES you test both the median AND the limits. I am personally better at testing the limits than the median.
If he wants us to test loot gear I'll go to Andrithal and pull mob after mob.. but testing drop tables is completely different than testing specializations. And at the moment I am running experiment A which has nothing to do with experiment B.
This change has completely ruined my ability to test specializations and has done little to compel me to switch my focus to testing drop tables.
.. If you want to adequately test build efficacy in the new character build system (the reason I am on PTS at the moment.. that and testing alerts). Then choosing gear from the old system will do nothing to accomplish that end. The final gear pass isn't even working (Fuze and Modify) and the new gear system already kicks the **** of the old.. and this brings up a HUGE balance question of how builds are specced in the NEW system.
Wrong, getting that gear WILL accomplish something. It will allow you to at least farm. Start from the basics before you move up. You are tunnel visioning yourself by focusing only on the new gear.
I am Min/Maxing not because that's how i play the game, but because testing REQUIRES you test both the median AND the limits. I am personally better at testing the limits than the median.
If he wants us to test loot gear I'll go to Andrithal and pull mob after mob.. but testing drop tables is completely different than testing specializations. And at the moment I am running experiment A which has nothing to do with experiment B.
This change has completely ruined my ability to test specializations and has done little to compel me to switch my focus to testing drop tables.
Again, you are just tunnel visioning here. Widen your perspective, if you will, and you can see that you can test both A and B. Testing the new gear's limits, but, compared to what? If you don't have data on the old stuff, you can't really compare and thus get a complete test done. Tests always have control groups, consider the yellow debugger junk to be the control group, the base line if you will. Stop tunnel visioning yourself.
What difficulty setting were you playing SL on? I just played upto bunker bravo on hard and got about 5 global recognition, 2 green gear, 1 blue gear and local recognition from Viper X.
Elite, and I was getting blues almost as much as greens. I actually ran Alpha and Bravo a few times, because I was in queue for alerts and getting pulled out for an Alert causes the instance to reset by the time you're done with the alert. Interestingly, I think I didn't get as much Global Recognition as you, and no Local at all. I guess that's the RNG for you.
I fail to see the connection between testing drop rates and removing the ability to get free CURRENT SYSTEM equipment. If anything, it's detrimental - because running new characters in old style yellow gear doesn't accurately present what your ability to farm gear would be with a character that's up to date.
If it's about testing how a new character would go through the zones, level up, and acquire gear through a normal character progression... that's just not going to happen. Not in the kind of timeframe we apparently have before this all going to live, nor does it feel realistic with frequent changes and updates to the system - nor practical, because the core system is still not balanced or even fully in place.. which means we won't be able to get a reasonable understanding how good or practical the various dropped gear would actually be (slotting upgrades etc. doesn't work).
Like said on earlier post - the best we could do right now, in the time that's left, is to try and find the glaring balance issues and bugs, and to be able to test this we'll need to be able to create several new characters with different stats, powers and specializations, and to equip them with current system gear that's either top notch or close to it.. to see how a 'ready' character will perform in the new world.
This will allow us to test the balance and limits of the current system. The state of the loot drops should become apparent at the same time, during this test - all one needs to do is to keep an eye on what dropped and where, how much and how valuable.. and how it compares to the stuff gained from the vendors. Removing the ability to quickly obtain vendor-gear will not help this process in any way.
Personally, I'd be interested in creating different types of characters - trying out various builds, equiping them properly in a way that matches their build, then taking them for a spin through some adventure pack on elite to see how they'll perform. Yellow 68/17 gear does nothing to give a realistic idea of their performance in new system though, and I'm not going to spend a day farming for proper gear for each and every build I'd test.
In short: for the current testing to be efficient, we need to be able to obtain and test gear of various levels to various types of builds.. and most people will not want to farm hours to obtain test gear for each and every possible playstyle and superstat combination they'd be otherwise willing to test.
Don't spend them. I had about 15,000 local recognition on one char and when I bought 1 cache the amount I had went all the way down to 1,000 :-( please devs, let us have the gimme tokens back. PLEASE.
Also where are you supposed to find galactic recognition? I haven't found any yet :-(
Is this true? Buying anything with the old tokens eats them completely?
I fail to see the connection between testing drop rates and removing the ability to get free CURRENT SYSTEM equipment. If anything, it's detrimental - because running new characters in old style yellow gear doesn't accurately present what your ability to farm gear would be with a character that's up to date.
Question. Where would be the motivation to go farm gear in the first place if I'm already wearing gear that beats or is the equivalent to what drops? None at all. People farm for gear to UPGRADE their gear, at least, thats the common reason. And with people getting free blues and stuff, people would not want to farm gear at all really.
If it's about testing how a realy, new character would go through the zones, level up, and acquire gear through a normal character progression... that's just not going to happen. Not in the kind of timeframe we apparently have before this all going to live, nor does it feel realistic with frequent changes and updates to the system - nor practical, because the core system is still not balanced or even fully in place.
This part is true. Plus it doesn't help us test out the new pvp only stats.
Like said on earlier post - the best we can do right now, in the time that's left, is to try and find the glaring balance issues and bugs, and to be able to test this we'll need to be able to create new characters with different specs, powers and specializations, and to equip them with current system gear that's either top notch or close to it.. to see how a 'ready' character will perform in the new world.
Getting gear that is good but not the best, I can agree with that. That would be nice.
This will allow us to test the balance and limits of the current system. The state of the loot drops should become apparent at the same time, during this test - all one needs to do is to keep an eye on what dropped and where, how much and how valuable.. and how it compares to the stuff gained from the vendors.
In short: for the current testing to be efficient, we need to be able to obtain and test gear of various levels to various types of builds.. and most people will not want to farm hours to obtain test gear for each and every possible playstyle and superstat combination they'd be otherwise willing to test.
I can agree with that. But I still do not like it when people complain about gear when there is a way to get free gear. Looks more like DEMANDING for handouts instead of saying "we want to help, but we do not have the tools to help".
Is this true? Buying anything with the old tokens eats them completely?
Also, if you have/had more than 1000 of a Recognition and you collect more, it resets to 100, I noticed this when I looted Viper X in SL. Thought it was a bug, but guess not.
Okay, so after about an hour and a half I've gotten 90 drops total, and a global recognition or two every 5-10 minutes (it's hard to figure this out cause the only way to see how much i have is to go all the way back to MC to the vendors...) while slaughtering the VIPER on the beach in Andrithal.
Distribution of the drops by quality:
57 Green
29 Blue
4 Purple
And of course, i didn't even think about recording how many of the blues were mods... : /
Derp...
All well, i'll go on killing, try to better record global recognition:time ratio and mod:gear ratios this time.
Okay, so after about an hour and a half I've gotten 90 drops total, and a global recognition or two every 5-10 minutes (it's hard to figure this out cause the only way to see how much i have is to go all the way back to MC to the vendors...) while slaughtering the VIPER on the beach in Andrithal.
Distribution of the drops by quality:
57 Green
29 Blue
4 Purple
And of course, i didn't even think about recording how many of the blues were mods... : /
Derp...
All well, i'll go on killing, try to better record global recognition:time ratio and mod:gear ratios this time.
Basically for you it was almost 1 gear drop per minute, 1 blue drop every 3 minutes, and 1 blue crop once every 30 minutes. I'd have to say that is...a lot.
Question. Where would be the motivation to go farm gear in the first place if I'm already wearing gear that beats or is the equivalent to what drops? None at all. People farm for gear to UPGRADE their gear, at least, thats the common reason. And with people getting free blues and stuff, people would not want to farm gear at all really.
This only applies to live server, and in my opinion has nothing to do with test server, where your character is expected to getting wiped any day - the original 'opt in' thread states that your characters will be automatically copied over from live every two weeks, and so you should not expect to make any progress while playing in test server.
You farm gear to 'accomplish' something, and to 'progress' your character. This is not expected on test server. On test server your motivation is to try out different things, see if they work, and to report any problems you find in your tests so developers can fix them.
Basically for you it was almost 1 gear drop per minute, 1 blue drop every 3 minutes, and 1 blue crop once every 30 minutes. I'd have to say that is...a lot.
This would still need to be put in perspective regarding how it relates to characters ability to kill groups swiftly (or the lack of this). A destructive character can blaze through groups in seconds, while a more defensive one could take significantly longer time.
Elite, and I was getting blues almost as much as greens. I actually ran Alpha and Bravo a few times, because I was in queue for alerts and getting pulled out for an Alert causes the instance to reset by the time you're done with the alert. Interestingly, I think I didn't get as much Global Recognition as you, and no Local at all. I guess that's the RNG for you.
Thanks for letting me know :-) I'll go back and see what I get. Umm what does RNG stand for? :-S
Question. Where would be the motivation to go farm gear in the first place if I'm already wearing gear that beats or is the equivalent to what drops? None at all. People farm for gear to UPGRADE their gear, at least, thats the common reason. And with people getting free blues and stuff, people would not want to farm gear at all really.
This part is true. Plus it doesn't help us test out the new pvp only stats.
Getting gear that is good but not the best, I can agree with that. That would be nice.
I can agree with that. But I still do not like it when people complain about gear when there is a way to get free gear. Looks more like DEMANDING for handouts instead of saying "we want to help, but we do not have the tools to help".
Some of us have limited time in the day, and have no access to anti aginig Teleromase-Repair Med-Nano as I am not a Prime Citizen (I work really hard and hopefully before my 4th decade I will be reclased as prime instead of Necessary) so all my free time is valuable.
Now I could stop my work but that risks me (and my familiy) loosing Necessary status and falling to Expendable (**Shudder at the thought of mandatory medical experimentation**) class.
I would use the Debugger gear if it was yellow trash gear under the new system. But its old system gear.
I will happilly farm for hours on end on the live server (I killed 80 thousand dogz, and was one of the first peopel to complete a CTP), but I cannot do the same thing on PTS.
This only applies to live server, and in my opinion has nothing to do with test server, where your character is expected to getting wiped any day - the original 'opt in' thread states that your characters will be automatically copied over from live every two weeks, and so you should not expect to make any progress while playing in test server.
Correct, it does have more to do with the live server than the test server. YET, at the same time, we are testing things so that when they go live they are not broken, overpowered, underpowered, etc. And I never expect progress to be made on any PTS toons.
You farm gear to 'accomplish' something, and to 'progress' your character. This is not expected on test server. On test server your motivation is to try out different things, see if they work, and to report any problems you find in your tests so developers can fix them.
And yet you actually do not need top end gear to farm. So why complain about not getting handed top end gear to farm with? Slap on some yellows and do some farming. They want the drop rates tested, not how powerful the new gear is. For us to test the new gear properly we do not just need the new gear we also need the modify and fuse options unlocked fully so we can actually use them. The new gear has been tested rather well, its just the modify and fuse options that has not.
This would still need to be put in perspective regarding how it relates to characters ability to kill groups swiftly (or the lack of this). A destructive character can blaze through groups in seconds, while a more defensive one could take significantly longer time.
Yes, and also, gear affects this, thus the reason why they need info on all types of gear, not just top high end gear, or even just new gear.
So where are these token vendors that people seem to be able to get stuff from? I am also wondering where you can look to find out how many local recognition tokens you have (as that's all I have ever gotten)
So where are these token vendors that people seem to be able to get stuff from? I am also wondering where you can look to find out how many local recognition tokens you have (as that's all I have ever gotten)
So where are these token vendors that people seem to be able to get stuff from? I am also wondering where you can look to find out how many local recognition tokens you have (as that's all I have ever gotten)
Where able to get stuff from, now you need to farm the tokens. And the vendors are the Mysticism people in Rec Center.
The former general Mysticism Trainers in Ren C specifically, the old specialist instances have been closed down and the old Arms nor Science trainers don't provide any meaningful service atm. Also, there are T2/3 ones in the other zones near the jet, among the various other vendors/old crafting trainers.
Edit:
As far as gear goes, get some yellows from the debugger to start out.
Moar testing with moar science:
Time: 4:55pm EST - 5:25pm EST (30 minutes)
Drops: 5 purple 15 Blue - 1 mod 36 Green
**Okay, fixed.
56 Global recognition gained. (My estimates for the first test were WAY off because i couldn't remember how many i started with, i solved that by spending all my recognition before going out this time and starting from 0.)
Now, keep in mind, the build I'm using is capable of instantly killing groups of 5 henchmen, and takes apart villains in about 2-4 seconds. It's Ego dex/int, avenger/vindicator, pestilence/epidemic, i clear the little VIPER base along the beach and the surrounding hills in about 3 minute cycles. Just to give you an idea of pacing and kill rates, since i can't actually track number of kills beyond the 5000 i hit many many many months ago for VIPER.
**I'll just keep testing in 30 minute intervals for... All night, why not? And post the results.
Correct, it does have more to do with the live server than the test server. YET, at the same time, we are testing things so that when they go live they are not broken, overpowered, underpowered, etc. And I never expect progress to be made on any PTS toons.
And yet you actually do not need top end gear to farm. So why complain about not getting handed top end gear to farm with? Slap on some yellows and do some farming. They want the drop rates tested, not how powerful the new gear is. For us to test the new gear properly we do not just need the new gear we also need the modify and fuse options unlocked fully so we can actually use them. The new gear has been tested rather well, its just the modify and fuse options that has not.
Yes, and also, gear affects this, thus the reason why they need info on all types of gear, not just top high end gear, or even just new gear.
Honestly, I don't believe farming ad nauseum just to test 'drop rates' has any practical use. It would take months of farming, and compiling and analyzing data to determine the actual drop rates with any kind of accuracy (more time for the rare drops, less for common drops) - and it would all be useless because the same info is available with perfect accuracy just by looking at the game server's settings.
No, what's more important is the subjective opinion of the dropped gear. And even that, I think, will take weeks to put in perspective.. because to understand if the gear is useful and good, you have to have a comprehensive understanding of the options.. not just what drops in one specific place and time, but what the overall power of the new gear is.
To accomplish this quickly, I think pretty much the only possible way would be to make available the whole spectrum of gear - yellow, green, blue, purple - and let people get a look and feel of it. For a more casual player/tester this would probably mostly limit the testing to the purple, high-end gear.. which I think is fine, because if some gear is going to introduce balance issues and other problems, it's mostly that purple high-end gear. That's the stuff that we need to worry about hitting live, because that's the stuff that everyone will aim for.. and which has the potential of vrecking the balance.
For a more methodic tester this might include trying out various levels of gear, and try to get a feel of how it progresses.. this might be rare, but it's not really so important either - because once you establish your top-end power level, the rest of the stuff can for the most part simply be scaled relative to it.
It's true of course that to test out 'farming' in places, you don't necessarily need top end gear.. hell, you don't need ANY gear at all - it just means you kill stuff more slowly than you otherwise would. But it's also true that having low-end gear doesn't help this testing in any way. If anything, it gives you a twisted view on what you actually accomplish with, say, 3 hours of farming some area. Normally you only farm with level 40 character, and most of your farming will happen with character that already has good gear - simply because you accomplish more that way in the given time. So farming with low quality, old style yellow gear will probably make you feel that the drop rates are much worse than what they truly are for 'farming toon'.
(snip)
Now, keep in mind, the build I'm using is capable of instantly killing groups of 5 henchmen, and takes apart villains in about 2-4 seconds. It's Ego dex/int, avenger/vindicator, pestilence/epidemic, i clear the little VIPER base along the beach and the surrounding hills in about 3 minute cycles. Just to give you an idea of pacing and kill rates, since i can't actually track number of kills beyond the 5000 i hit many many many months ago for VIPER.
(snip)
Honestly, I don't believe farming ad nauseum just to test 'drop rates' has any practical use. It would take months of farming, and compiling and analyzing data to determine the actual drop rates with any kind of accuracy (more time for the rare drops, less for common drops) - and it would all be useless because the same info is available with perfect accuracy just by looking at the game server's settings.
And yet, they want us to do that in a week or two. But they want to see if its a good drop rate. Looking at the numbers in the programming means nothing if its actually to high or to low (hah!)
No, what's more important is the subjective opinion of the dropped gear. And even that, I think, will take weeks to put in perspective.. because to understand if the gear is useful and good, you have to have a comprehensive understanding of the options.. not just what drops in one specific place and time, but what the overall power of the new gear is.
Yes, I agree with that for the most part.
To accomplish this quickly, I think pretty much the only possible way would be to make available the whole spectrum of gear - yellow, green, blue, purple - and let people get a look and feel of it. For a more casual player/tester this would probably mostly limit the testing to the purple, high-end gear.. which I think is fine, because if some gear is going to introduce balance issues and other problems, it's mostly that purple high-end gear. That's the stuff that we need to worry about hitting live, because that's the stuff that everyone will aim for.. and which has the potential of wrecking the balance.
Yes, I can agree and would welcome that. Also, corrected your spelling mistake in there.
For a more methodic tester this might include trying out various levels of gear, and try to get a feel of how it progresses.. this might be rare, but it's not really so important either - because once you establish your top-end power level, the rest of the stuff can for the most part simply be scaled relative to it.
It's true of course that to test out 'farming' in places, you don't necessarily need top end gear.. hell, you don't need ANY gear at all - it just means you kill stuff more slowly than you otherwise would. But it's also true that having low-end gear doesn't help this testing in any way. If anything, it gives you a twisted view on what you actually accomplish with, say, 3 hours of farming some area. Normally you only farm with level 40 character, and most of your farming will happen with character that already has good gear - simply because you accomplish more that way in the given time. So farming with low quality, old style yellow gear will probably make you feel that the drop rates are much worse than what they truly are for 'farming toon'.
And thats the point for the reason they removed the tokens, to get us to farm. Cause they want us to farm right now. And yes, the last part is true.
Two-Gun Mojo:
Would it be possible to get a variant of the "Close the Gap" advantage rolled into the base power? Two-Gun Mojo isnt "bad" but it isn't as satisfying as tk assault.
I was considering making a duel pistols toon with the new cyber punk costume set and update patch but maybe i should wait until the actual munitions pass.
And thats the point for the reason they removed the tokens, to get us to farm. Cause they want us to farm right now. And yes, the last part is true.
I guess my bottom line is: 'that's not going to work'. People don't generally want to farm for the sake of farming, on a test server, with throw-away characters.
We can't accurately tell if the amount of stuff dropped is reasonable - for a number of reasons. First is we don't have a solid knowledge how slow or fast clearing areas will be when new system is complete. We can make an assumption it'll be same as in the old system, and make an estimation based on that. Second, it depends largely on how useful each piece of items is (and how important it will be in the new system to have 'trash loot' with main use being vendoring for cash or breaking for components).
We can't accurately determine how good (or bad) the items are, again for number of reasons. We can make an estimation based on how good it would be in the old system - but that estimation would be entirely flawed. First, because there's now only one secondary item slot.. and second, becaues the whole power balance has shifted (and is still in flux). Thirdly because - like we've both established - the system isn't yet complete, in particular the crafting and modifying gear is still largely an unknown factor.
So what exactly can we test by farming? That there exists stuff, that drops? We have about couple of weeks left before this stuff is supposed to hit live. Is it really worth spending hours of that time just killing stuff, without trying to, at the same time, establish an idea of how the balance of the game works? We can do that to certain extent even with the old style trash gear.. but obviously it would give a more accurate idea if we had some of the new bonuses (offense, utitliy etc) and our superstats were not around the range of 100-150 at level 40 - like they are with the trash gear. Many of the combinations you can't even gear for with the old gear, because you'll be limited to certain stats based on offense/defense/utility slots.
And yeah.. I tend to sometimes have some issues with spelling/grammar.. English isn't my native language, and it does show at times. I don't mind being corrected on it either - you live, you learn.
I guess my bottom line is: 'that's not going to work'. People don't generally want to farm for the sake of farming, on a test server, with throw-away characters.
We can't accurately tell if the amount of stuff dropped is reasonable - for a number of reasons. First is we don't have a solid knowledge how slow or fast clearing areas will be when new system is complete. We can make an assumption it'll be same as in the old system, and make an estimation based on that. Second, it depends largely on how useful each piece of items is (and how important it will be in the new system to have 'trash loot' with main use being vendoring for cash or breaking for components).
We can't accurately determine how good (or bad) the items are, again for number of reasons. We can make an estimation based on how good it would be in the old system - but that estimation would be entirely flawed. First, because there's now only one secondary item slot.. and second, becaues the whole power balance has shifted (and is still in flux). Thirdly because - like we've both established - the system isn't yet complete, in particular the crafting and modifying gear is still largely an unknown factor.
So what exactly can we test by farming? That there exists stuff, that drops? We have about couple of weeks left before this stuff is supposed to hit live. Is it really worth spending hours of that time just killing stuff, without trying to, at the same time, establish an idea of how the balance of the game works? We can do that to certain extent even with the old style tash gear.. but obviously it would give a more accurate idea if we had some of the new bonuses (offense, utitliy etc) and our superstats were not around the range of 100-150 at level 40 - like they are with the trash gear. Many of the combinations you can't even gear for with the old gear, because you'll be limited to certain stats based on offense/defense/utility slots.
Wow, you have an elegance with words.
I am willing to test powersets, stat, specs on PTS, as this helps the live game as a whole, AND helps me fix my gutted main.
While I am willing to put in hours of farming on live, I am not willing to do such effort on PTS as so elegantly stated above.
As for the Sanguine Viper?
Hats off to them for doing what I would not do.
Moar testing with moar science:
Time: 4:55pm EST - 5:25pm EST (30 minutes)
Drops: 5 purple 15 Blue - 1 mod 36 Green
...this^
Basically the frequency of drops by color coded quality. Even if we can't be sure how good or bad some items are yet we can at least get an estimate on how often items of a certain quality range are dropping. Even if the actual stats eventually get adjusted, the color coding will remain the same.
Another thing that might work is to specify what type of gear they are (upgrades, modifications, etc.), though, I'm not if necessary that would be. But perhaps the Devs might like to have an idea on the upgrade/modification ratios and such...or perhaps not. Maybe the Devs can provide more specific answers on what exactly they're looking.
Two-Gun Mojo:
Would it be possible to get a variant of the "Close the Gap" advantage rolled into the base power? Two-Gun Mojo isnt "bad" but it isn't as satisfying as tk assault.
I was considering making a duel pistols toon with the new cyber punk costume set and update patch but maybe i should wait until the actual munitions pass.
This might not be a bad idea. I wonder if making that advantage automatic/free might be enough to help two-gun "close the gap" (pun!) with other T0-T1 powers. And I believe the power still has plenty other advantages aside from that one (Crippling Challenge, NttG, etc.) to make up for the loss of one.
I started a new thread and copied the results over to there in addition to a third, much more accurate test. Right now i'm gonna head downstairs and have me some dinner, when i get back i'll go back to farming and watching entertaining things on my second monitor, FOR SCIENCE.
Basically the frequency of drops by color coded quality. Even if we can't be sure how good or bad some items are yet we can at least get an estimate on how often items of a certain quality range are dropping. Even if the actual stats eventually get adjusted, the color coding will remain the same.
Another thing that might work is to specify what type of gear they are (upgrades, modifications, etc.), though, I'm not if necessary that would be. But perhaps the Devs might like to have an idea on the upgrade/modification ratios and such...or perhaps not. Maybe the Devs can provide more specific answers on what exactly they're looking.
Still, good points in your post.
Problem is that doesn't give developers any new information. 5 / 15 / 36 above suggests roughly a 8% / 26% / 66% split between purple / blue / green drops.. but to get more detailed and accurate readings - split by quality, type (def/off/uti), special modifier (dodge/avoidance/health/offense etc), and so and so forth, would take weeks or months. Even establishing statistically more accurate data on quality alone would take time. And none of that really matters, because this all is information developers already have with perfect accuracy - because they put it in, in the first place.
So in regards to new information we're really limited to two things. First: we can weed out unintended features, like bugs - if for example some loot table had issues that caused some place to ONLY drop loot of particular quality.. we could catch and report this.. but of course the same applies to any kinds of bugs, like some powers not working properly. Second: we can try to do empiric testing that reveals balance issues in various parts of the game.. like powers that are grossly over- or underperforming, various combinations that stack unintentionally high results.. and so forth.
With the kind of limited time we have, I don't think we'll do much good by just farming mass quantities of stuff in same area. If we needed to evaluate the relative quantities of different loot quality drops.. it would be more efficient to simply give us the numbers. 'X % of mobs drop loot, and Y % of that loot is purple, Z % is blue, the rest is green'. Accurate (intended) numbers are already known, and honestly I think this is one area where developers themself are far more objective judges to what is appropriate.
As to the usefulness of the gear.. again I think we'd get much more done if we simply had access to various tiers and qualities of gear from vendors - and could simply vend it out, and test how it performs. For example, the debugger by the powerhouse could offer NEW gear instead of OLD gear.. and offer a pick of 'random green', 'random blue', 'random purple' and 'random loot' (regular percentages of green, blue, puprle). Instead of spending hours farming some area, you could simply vend the equal results from an NPC - and use them to equip character you wanted to test. The more drastic issues - like some larea missing a loot table - should become apparent while testing those builds 'in the wild'.
This might not be a bad idea. I wonder if making that advantage automatic/free might be enough to help two-gun "close the gap" (pun!) with other T0-T1 powers. And I believe the power still has plenty other advantages aside from that one (Crippling Challenge, NttG, etc.) to make up for the loss of one.
Not to mention, does anyone actually use CTG advantage in it's current form? Also a toggle that would let munitions powers get cumulative defence piercing stacks - something akin to what I believe was suggested earlier on the thread - might be a nice little pick-me-up for the framework. Of course you do need to be a bit careful when handing out protection debuffs.. but that's just a balancing question. Something along the lines of 2% per stack, up to max of 5 stacks shouldn't be over the top.
I guess my bottom line is: 'that's not going to work'. People don't generally want to farm for the sake of farming, on a test server, with throw-away characters.
We can't accurately tell if the amount of stuff dropped is reasonable - for a number of reasons. First is we don't have a solid knowledge how slow or fast clearing areas will be when new system is complete. We can make an assumption it'll be same as in the old system, and make an estimation based on that. Second, it depends largely on how useful each piece of items is (and how important it will be in the new system to have 'trash loot' with main use being vendoring for cash or breaking for components).
We can't accurately determine how good (or bad) the items are, again for number of reasons. We can make an estimation based on how good it would be in the old system - but that estimation would be entirely flawed. First, because there's now only one secondary item slot.. and second, because the whole power balance has shifted (and is still in flux). Thirdly because - like we've both established - the system isn't yet complete, in particular the crafting and modifying gear is still largely an unknown factor.
So what exactly can we test by farming? That there exists stuff, that drops? We have about couple of weeks left before this stuff is supposed to hit live. Is it really worth spending hours of that time just killing stuff, without trying to, at the same time, establish an idea of how the balance of the game works? We can do that to certain extent even with the old style trash gear.. but obviously it would give a more accurate idea if we had some of the new bonuses (offense, utility etc) and our superstats were not around the range of 100-150 at level 40 - like they are with the trash gear. Many of the combinations you can't even gear for with the old gear, because you'll be limited to certain stats based on offense/defense/utility slots.
And yeah.. I tend to sometimes have some issues with spelling/grammar.. English isn't my native language, and it does show at times. I don't mind being corrected on it either - you live, you learn.
I agree on everything in reality. It just bugs me to see people complain about being naked when there is a method of getting gear. And don't worry to much about your English. Its a lot better than many that have English as their primary language. And plus I suffer from OCD so sometimes I can't help correcting a mistake or two.
Well the good news is that they fixed the Specialization tool-tips. Unfortunately a lot of the more interesting choices are listed as "NYI" which I assume means "Not Yet Implemented". Oh well, more waiting for me I guess. Don't want to test a system piecemeal.
Comments
Either way rage is awesomes no need to change it. Reverse the tagging done on Bullet Beatdown. Increase all munitions powers damage by 10% (5% base and 10% top end) Add toggles to all sets that do not currently have them.Make toggles appropriate to the sets instead of standardized clones. Retag melee ranged attacks back to melee. Allow the hybrid powers to use str or dex whatever is higher.
I do believe these changes will solve most if not all gripes and complaints about damage, focus, and enrage.
Self explanatory. Soldier ATs can't even put a single point into the Ego tree they are given. Impulses also have a similar problem, being given the Int tree instead of the End tree.
And the guy above me is wise. It was better when it was 'whatever's higher' rather than 'here's a 1 pt advantage, have fun'
The removal of the "Gimme Tokens" item was intended. With the global drop rates of the whole game having been adjusted to have new items and reflect a different gear ratio than you guys are used to, I need data about drop rates and farming speed so I can dial in the prices more precisely. This will also help assure me you guys get a steady flow of useful gear without being swamped by "useless" stuff.
Also, if you have tried to go to the tier 4 vendor you would have noticed slightly high prices (roughly 4000 tokens). These prices were in error, and should be fixed in an upcoming build! You should see prices closer to 30ish.
Good point, I have 200k Tokens on an alt, but transfering that stuff is bothersome.
Is it even BoE or BoP when bought?
Seeing as Grouse Pointe Blank's Bullet Beatdown has been gutted by the BUFFS to the power, I have been looking for a new stat/build/concept combo for her. I am not going to farm a naked 40, nor is runnng content up to 40 realistic.
Could you have told us this earlier? If I would have known this wasn't a bug I wouldn't have spent most of the time I was on last night dicking around in the powerhouse and instead gone and done some monster mashing on MI and ran an AP or two.
Which I actually did run some SL. I was surprised when a Purple dropped and wondered if it was just really weird luck.
Don't spend them. I had about 15,000 local recognition on one char and when I bought 1 cache the amount I had went all the way down to 1,000 :-( please devs, let us have the gimme tokens back. PLEASE.
Also where are you supposed to find galactic recognition? I haven't found any yet :-(
Perhaps, but even then, the Rule of Cool pretty much applies because in the context of that fictional world, guys capable of doing ridiculous stuff are possible, and you can only stretch things so far before the whole things breaks appart (they actually go into some limitations of the Rule of Cool in that article). But I don't want to derail the thread too much with a discussion of verisimilitude or what makes sense or doesn't in the context of fiction
On topic...
...this^
While I get the need to gather data on the drop rates, forcing new test toons to go out into the world without proper gear will make that... difficult. Even if data on the drop rates from mobs is necessary (which I agree and have sort of been farming stuff out of curiosity to see what type of things drop now), I'd have a really difficult time of it if my toon didn't have appropriate gear equiped already.
I am willing to help with drop tables.. all you need to is ask for feedback on them. But forcing me to be gearless or worse use a BAD gear system in the process is something i just won't do. by "forcing" us to loot you've made me not want to at all. Catch more flies with honey than vinegar and all that.
~Jay
It's definitely nice to be getting more item drops, significantly more than on live, this is not bad, this is good, as other people aren't me, they aren't going to go around killing stuff for 8 hours a day like i do because i have no job or social life.
However, bosses are no longer actually dropping what I'd consider "boss drops". After soloing andrith up to Hyrg 3 times I've gotten a total of 3 global recog, and one green primary item to drop from him. I imagine you intend to redo the boss drop tables, right?
Oh and with mods not working, the pts gear is far worse than live right now, so it's not even really going to help you guys much, just stick with your +98 and +36 gear from live until the items can actually be brought back to the same levels as live.
Yup.
blackstuff.
I don't even know where these vendors are
Serious .. give us more information what is going here in the forum, and not just that we have to read something
from some players, where we don't know if that all is true or not.
Its also really important for a lot of people to finally get an official word about what happens to crafting and
if all our stuff on live server will be just NPC trash after the update, or if there are other plans.
What difficulty setting were you playing SL on? I just played upto bunker bravo on hard and got about 5 global recognition, 2 green gear, 1 blue gear and local recognition from Viper X.
Now for feedback on Item drop rate.
Well, I ran Serpent Lantern up through the Alpha Bunker, than had to go to a doctor's appointment. In one mob group, two purple quality dropped, IN ONE GROUP. I also managed to pick up about three blue quality mods and a few blue gear, along with a few green gear. Viper X though dropped nothing. I take it that is due to boss loot tables not worked on yet?
.. If you want to adequately test build efficacy in the new character build system (the reason I am on PTS at the moment.. that and testing alerts). Then choosing gear from the old system will do nothing to accomplish that end. The final gear pass isn't even working (Fuze and Modify) and the new gear system already kicks the **** of the old.. and this brings up a HUGE balance question of how builds are specced in the NEW system.
I am Min/Maxing not because that's how i play the game, but because testing REQUIRES you test both the median AND the limits. I am personally better at testing the limits than the median.
If he wants us to test loot gear I'll go to Andrithal and pull mob after mob.. but testing drop tables is completely different than testing specializations. And at the moment I am running experiment A which has nothing to do with experiment B.
This change has completely ruined my ability to test specializations and has done little to compel me to switch my focus to testing drop tables.
Wrong, getting that gear WILL accomplish something. It will allow you to at least farm. Start from the basics before you move up. You are tunnel visioning yourself by focusing only on the new gear.
Again, you are just tunnel visioning here. Widen your perspective, if you will, and you can see that you can test both A and B. Testing the new gear's limits, but, compared to what? If you don't have data on the old stuff, you can't really compare and thus get a complete test done. Tests always have control groups, consider the yellow debugger junk to be the control group, the base line if you will. Stop tunnel visioning yourself.
Elite, and I was getting blues almost as much as greens. I actually ran Alpha and Bravo a few times, because I was in queue for alerts and getting pulled out for an Alert causes the instance to reset by the time you're done with the alert. Interestingly, I think I didn't get as much Global Recognition as you, and no Local at all. I guess that's the RNG for you.
If it's about testing how a new character would go through the zones, level up, and acquire gear through a normal character progression... that's just not going to happen. Not in the kind of timeframe we apparently have before this all going to live, nor does it feel realistic with frequent changes and updates to the system - nor practical, because the core system is still not balanced or even fully in place.. which means we won't be able to get a reasonable understanding how good or practical the various dropped gear would actually be (slotting upgrades etc. doesn't work).
Like said on earlier post - the best we could do right now, in the time that's left, is to try and find the glaring balance issues and bugs, and to be able to test this we'll need to be able to create several new characters with different stats, powers and specializations, and to equip them with current system gear that's either top notch or close to it.. to see how a 'ready' character will perform in the new world.
This will allow us to test the balance and limits of the current system. The state of the loot drops should become apparent at the same time, during this test - all one needs to do is to keep an eye on what dropped and where, how much and how valuable.. and how it compares to the stuff gained from the vendors. Removing the ability to quickly obtain vendor-gear will not help this process in any way.
Personally, I'd be interested in creating different types of characters - trying out various builds, equiping them properly in a way that matches their build, then taking them for a spin through some adventure pack on elite to see how they'll perform. Yellow 68/17 gear does nothing to give a realistic idea of their performance in new system though, and I'm not going to spend a day farming for proper gear for each and every build I'd test.
In short: for the current testing to be efficient, we need to be able to obtain and test gear of various levels to various types of builds.. and most people will not want to farm hours to obtain test gear for each and every possible playstyle and superstat combination they'd be otherwise willing to test.
Is this true? Buying anything with the old tokens eats them completely?
Question. Where would be the motivation to go farm gear in the first place if I'm already wearing gear that beats or is the equivalent to what drops? None at all. People farm for gear to UPGRADE their gear, at least, thats the common reason. And with people getting free blues and stuff, people would not want to farm gear at all really.
This part is true. Plus it doesn't help us test out the new pvp only stats.
Getting gear that is good but not the best, I can agree with that. That would be nice.
I can agree with that. But I still do not like it when people complain about gear when there is a way to get free gear. Looks more like DEMANDING for handouts instead of saying "we want to help, but we do not have the tools to help".
Also, if you have/had more than 1000 of a Recognition and you collect more, it resets to 100, I noticed this when I looted Viper X in SL. Thought it was a bug, but guess not.
Distribution of the drops by quality:
57 Green
29 Blue
4 Purple
And of course, i didn't even think about recording how many of the blues were mods... : /
Derp...
All well, i'll go on killing, try to better record global recognition:time ratio and mod:gear ratios this time.
Basically for you it was almost 1 gear drop per minute, 1 blue drop every 3 minutes, and 1 blue crop once every 30 minutes. I'd have to say that is...a lot.
This only applies to live server, and in my opinion has nothing to do with test server, where your character is expected to getting wiped any day - the original 'opt in' thread states that your characters will be automatically copied over from live every two weeks, and so you should not expect to make any progress while playing in test server.
You farm gear to 'accomplish' something, and to 'progress' your character. This is not expected on test server. On test server your motivation is to try out different things, see if they work, and to report any problems you find in your tests so developers can fix them.
This would still need to be put in perspective regarding how it relates to characters ability to kill groups swiftly (or the lack of this). A destructive character can blaze through groups in seconds, while a more defensive one could take significantly longer time.
Thanks for letting me know :-) I'll go back and see what I get. Umm what does RNG stand for? :-S
Random Number Generator
Thankyou :-D
Some of us have limited time in the day, and have no access to anti aginig Teleromase-Repair Med-Nano as I am not a Prime Citizen (I work really hard and hopefully before my 4th decade I will be reclased as prime instead of Necessary) so all my free time is valuable.
Now I could stop my work but that risks me (and my familiy) loosing Necessary status and falling to Expendable (**Shudder at the thought of mandatory medical experimentation**) class.
I would use the Debugger gear if it was yellow trash gear under the new system. But its old system gear.
I will happilly farm for hours on end on the live server (I killed 80 thousand dogz, and was one of the first peopel to complete a CTP), but I cannot do the same thing on PTS.
I am just going to have to wait till live.
Correct, it does have more to do with the live server than the test server. YET, at the same time, we are testing things so that when they go live they are not broken, overpowered, underpowered, etc. And I never expect progress to be made on any PTS toons.
And yet you actually do not need top end gear to farm. So why complain about not getting handed top end gear to farm with? Slap on some yellows and do some farming. They want the drop rates tested, not how powerful the new gear is. For us to test the new gear properly we do not just need the new gear we also need the modify and fuse options unlocked fully so we can actually use them. The new gear has been tested rather well, its just the modify and fuse options that has not.
Yes, and also, gear affects this, thus the reason why they need info on all types of gear, not just top high end gear, or even just new gear.
Mysticism vendors in Mil City
Where able to get stuff from, now you need to farm the tokens. And the vendors are the Mysticism people in Rec Center.
Damn it! Ninja'd!
Edit:
As far as gear goes, get some yellows from the debugger to start out.
Time: 4:55pm EST - 5:25pm EST (30 minutes)
Drops:
5 purple
15 Blue - 1 mod
36 Green
**Okay, fixed.
56 Global recognition gained. (My estimates for the first test were WAY off because i couldn't remember how many i started with, i solved that by spending all my recognition before going out this time and starting from 0.)
Now, keep in mind, the build I'm using is capable of instantly killing groups of 5 henchmen, and takes apart villains in about 2-4 seconds. It's Ego dex/int, avenger/vindicator, pestilence/epidemic, i clear the little VIPER base along the beach and the surrounding hills in about 3 minute cycles. Just to give you an idea of pacing and kill rates, since i can't actually track number of kills beyond the 5000 i hit many many many months ago for VIPER.
**I'll just keep testing in 30 minute intervals for... All night, why not? And post the results.
Honestly, I don't believe farming ad nauseum just to test 'drop rates' has any practical use. It would take months of farming, and compiling and analyzing data to determine the actual drop rates with any kind of accuracy (more time for the rare drops, less for common drops) - and it would all be useless because the same info is available with perfect accuracy just by looking at the game server's settings.
No, what's more important is the subjective opinion of the dropped gear. And even that, I think, will take weeks to put in perspective.. because to understand if the gear is useful and good, you have to have a comprehensive understanding of the options.. not just what drops in one specific place and time, but what the overall power of the new gear is.
To accomplish this quickly, I think pretty much the only possible way would be to make available the whole spectrum of gear - yellow, green, blue, purple - and let people get a look and feel of it. For a more casual player/tester this would probably mostly limit the testing to the purple, high-end gear.. which I think is fine, because if some gear is going to introduce balance issues and other problems, it's mostly that purple high-end gear. That's the stuff that we need to worry about hitting live, because that's the stuff that everyone will aim for.. and which has the potential of vrecking the balance.
For a more methodic tester this might include trying out various levels of gear, and try to get a feel of how it progresses.. this might be rare, but it's not really so important either - because once you establish your top-end power level, the rest of the stuff can for the most part simply be scaled relative to it.
It's true of course that to test out 'farming' in places, you don't necessarily need top end gear.. hell, you don't need ANY gear at all - it just means you kill stuff more slowly than you otherwise would. But it's also true that having low-end gear doesn't help this testing in any way. If anything, it gives you a twisted view on what you actually accomplish with, say, 3 hours of farming some area. Normally you only farm with level 40 character, and most of your farming will happen with character that already has good gear - simply because you accomplish more that way in the given time. So farming with low quality, old style yellow gear will probably make you feel that the drop rates are much worse than what they truly are for 'farming toon'.
Edit: in other words...
Um...the answer is...the vendors. No where in your character sheet does it show the amount of recognition you have currently.
And yet, they want us to do that in a week or two. But they want to see if its a good drop rate. Looking at the numbers in the programming means nothing if its actually to high or to low (hah!)
Yes, I agree with that for the most part.
Yes, I can agree and would welcome that. Also, corrected your spelling mistake in there.
And thats the point for the reason they removed the tokens, to get us to farm. Cause they want us to farm right now. And yes, the last part is true.
Would it be possible to get a variant of the "Close the Gap" advantage rolled into the base power? Two-Gun Mojo isnt "bad" but it isn't as satisfying as tk assault.
I was considering making a duel pistols toon with the new cyber punk costume set and update patch but maybe i should wait until the actual munitions pass.
I guess my bottom line is: 'that's not going to work'. People don't generally want to farm for the sake of farming, on a test server, with throw-away characters.
We can't accurately tell if the amount of stuff dropped is reasonable - for a number of reasons. First is we don't have a solid knowledge how slow or fast clearing areas will be when new system is complete. We can make an assumption it'll be same as in the old system, and make an estimation based on that. Second, it depends largely on how useful each piece of items is (and how important it will be in the new system to have 'trash loot' with main use being vendoring for cash or breaking for components).
We can't accurately determine how good (or bad) the items are, again for number of reasons. We can make an estimation based on how good it would be in the old system - but that estimation would be entirely flawed. First, because there's now only one secondary item slot.. and second, becaues the whole power balance has shifted (and is still in flux). Thirdly because - like we've both established - the system isn't yet complete, in particular the crafting and modifying gear is still largely an unknown factor.
So what exactly can we test by farming? That there exists stuff, that drops? We have about couple of weeks left before this stuff is supposed to hit live. Is it really worth spending hours of that time just killing stuff, without trying to, at the same time, establish an idea of how the balance of the game works? We can do that to certain extent even with the old style trash gear.. but obviously it would give a more accurate idea if we had some of the new bonuses (offense, utitliy etc) and our superstats were not around the range of 100-150 at level 40 - like they are with the trash gear. Many of the combinations you can't even gear for with the old gear, because you'll be limited to certain stats based on offense/defense/utility slots.
And yeah.. I tend to sometimes have some issues with spelling/grammar.. English isn't my native language, and it does show at times. I don't mind being corrected on it either - you live, you learn.
Wow, your a true solder.:cool:
Wow, you have an elegance with words.
I am willing to test powersets, stat, specs on PTS, as this helps the live game as a whole, AND helps me fix my gutted main.
While I am willing to put in hours of farming on live, I am not willing to do such effort on PTS as so elegantly stated above.
As for the Sanguine Viper?
Hats off to them for doing what I would not do.
At the moment, my guess would be...
...this^
Basically the frequency of drops by color coded quality. Even if we can't be sure how good or bad some items are yet we can at least get an estimate on how often items of a certain quality range are dropping. Even if the actual stats eventually get adjusted, the color coding will remain the same.
Another thing that might work is to specify what type of gear they are (upgrades, modifications, etc.), though, I'm not if necessary that would be. But perhaps the Devs might like to have an idea on the upgrade/modification ratios and such...or perhaps not. Maybe the Devs can provide more specific answers on what exactly they're looking.
Still, good points in your post.
EDIT:
This might not be a bad idea. I wonder if making that advantage automatic/free might be enough to help two-gun "close the gap" (pun!) with other T0-T1 powers. And I believe the power still has plenty other advantages aside from that one (Crippling Challenge, NttG, etc.) to make up for the loss of one.
I started a new thread and copied the results over to there in addition to a third, much more accurate test. Right now i'm gonna head downstairs and have me some dinner, when i get back i'll go back to farming and watching entertaining things on my second monitor, FOR SCIENCE.
Problem is that doesn't give developers any new information. 5 / 15 / 36 above suggests roughly a 8% / 26% / 66% split between purple / blue / green drops.. but to get more detailed and accurate readings - split by quality, type (def/off/uti), special modifier (dodge/avoidance/health/offense etc), and so and so forth, would take weeks or months. Even establishing statistically more accurate data on quality alone would take time. And none of that really matters, because this all is information developers already have with perfect accuracy - because they put it in, in the first place.
So in regards to new information we're really limited to two things. First: we can weed out unintended features, like bugs - if for example some loot table had issues that caused some place to ONLY drop loot of particular quality.. we could catch and report this.. but of course the same applies to any kinds of bugs, like some powers not working properly. Second: we can try to do empiric testing that reveals balance issues in various parts of the game.. like powers that are grossly over- or underperforming, various combinations that stack unintentionally high results.. and so forth.
With the kind of limited time we have, I don't think we'll do much good by just farming mass quantities of stuff in same area. If we needed to evaluate the relative quantities of different loot quality drops.. it would be more efficient to simply give us the numbers. 'X % of mobs drop loot, and Y % of that loot is purple, Z % is blue, the rest is green'. Accurate (intended) numbers are already known, and honestly I think this is one area where developers themself are far more objective judges to what is appropriate.
As to the usefulness of the gear.. again I think we'd get much more done if we simply had access to various tiers and qualities of gear from vendors - and could simply vend it out, and test how it performs. For example, the debugger by the powerhouse could offer NEW gear instead of OLD gear.. and offer a pick of 'random green', 'random blue', 'random purple' and 'random loot' (regular percentages of green, blue, puprle). Instead of spending hours farming some area, you could simply vend the equal results from an NPC - and use them to equip character you wanted to test. The more drastic issues - like some larea missing a loot table - should become apparent while testing those builds 'in the wild'.
Not to mention, does anyone actually use CTG advantage in it's current form? Also a toggle that would let munitions powers get cumulative defence piercing stacks - something akin to what I believe was suggested earlier on the thread - might be a nice little pick-me-up for the framework. Of course you do need to be a bit careful when handing out protection debuffs.. but that's just a balancing question. Something along the lines of 2% per stack, up to max of 5 stacks shouldn't be over the top.
I agree on everything in reality. It just bugs me to see people complain about being naked when there is a method of getting gear. And don't worry to much about your English. Its a lot better than many that have English as their primary language. And plus I suffer from OCD so sometimes I can't help correcting a mistake or two.