Actually, XP alert failures will be down drastically, since they won't be timed anymore. Smash alert failures will also be down drastically, since everyone will be at least level 20, and in most cases will be level 40s grinding resources, since folks below 40 will have drastically less reason to que for Smashes, other than 3 times on days where its the daily, and 1 time on days with the APB daily.
The question for me is, how many exp do you really get in a Grab and how long does it take ? I only ever did Grabs 2 or 3 times, and mostly i had to carry the whole team there and had the feeling i needed 30 minutes or whatever for that, and that it simply is not worth the time.
I could fail a lot Smashes in that time, and i can also do quite some normal missions in that time (as long as it is noch VB )
However i also only did the "easy" smashes for leveling like Black Fang or Sweetland, and Nemesis. All other i mostly just did maybe to refresh the Exp-Bonus
I honestly don't understand why you continue to level so many alts when you are already planning to shelve most of them. If you enjoyed leveling or the leveling experience, ok. But it's pretty clear its an unpleasant process for you.
I suppose I could have been more clear in my previous posts, but let me elaborate a bit on why I make so many "alts"...
First of all, none of my characters are "alts". I have been drawing comic books for over 30 years. Even been published a couple of times. I have a comic universe that I have created, and a ton of characters that I have written about, developed, and generally grew up with. Some of them are pretty straight forward, and creating them in CO was really easy. Some of them, not so much, as their power sets are not represented within the game.
What really keeps me playing, and paying, is that I have a place to sort of 'bring my characters to life'. For me, leveling them as quickly as possible, up to a point, allows me to experiment with the powers offered in the game to see how closely I can come to how they have been developed over time in other formats (my comics, pen and paper RPGs, books, etc.)
The days of me playing CO...as a game...have pretty much come and gone. Honestly, I don't really care for MMO games that much, mostly because they are super repetitive, and super time consuming. And yes, I realize that alerts are the same way, but I can currently level a character from 1-25 using smash alerts much faster than I can using missions...and probably the way things will be after the changes. That remains to be seen.
So yes, I realize my interest in CO is probably very different than that of others here. And I realize that these changes are being put into place because a portion of the players don't ever want to fail at anything in the game...ever. Which is fine. As far as I am concerned, if there was a way that I could create my characters in the game, assign them the powers I want them to have, test them out, work their costumes out, and then move on to the next one...without ever entering an alert, or a mission, that is exactly what I would do. But to my, admittedly limited, knowledge no such environment exists.
But...I also understand that the way I want to play the game isn't necessarily the same as what everyone else wants. So, if I can no longer play the game I want, I will have to decide if I want to quit, or keep paying for the game to do the same thing, but with a larger time commitment. Honestly, had alerts not been introduced, I probably would have quit a long time ago because leveling through missions alone takes much longer, and...IMO...is not worth the effort or time.
In the end, my desire to level characters as quickly as possible has nothing to do with wanting to impede anyone else's progress, and nothing to do with wanting to run alerts vs. missions beyond the time involved...as I have done both missions and alerts so many times now, they are nothing but a means to an end.
As far as I am concerned, if there was a way that I could create my characters in the game, assign them the powers I want them to have, test them out, work their costumes out, and then move on to the next one...without ever entering an alert, or a mission, that is exactly what I would do. But to my, admittedly limited, knowledge no such environment exists.
It does exist actually. It's called the powerhouse. All you have to do is go in there with one of your level 40s and completely remove all your powers. Then just never leave the powerhouse with that character. You can now, for free, repeatedly do full retcons from top to bottom on them, and test out all the powers in the game in any combination you can think of.
It does exist actually. It's called the powerhouse. All you have to do is go in there with one of your level 40s and completely remove all your powers. Then just never leave the powerhouse with that character. You can now, for free, repeatedly do full retcons from top to bottom on them, and test out all the powers in the game in any combination you can think of.
There is also a tailor in the power house.
That is an interesting idea, although, it will be difficult to see how certain things work compared to others without 'real world' tests.
However, this idea is great for parking a test character in there and using that to flesh out ideas before 'going live' with a character.
Am I mistaken, or does that get wiped periodically??
I have never really looked into the PTS, but I know on other games I have played, they get wiped every so often.
If it doesn't, then this is exactly what I want.
It's happened one time so far. Here's a pretty easy way for you to work with PTS(Assuming you have costume unlocks you like on Live since PTS is kinda weird about those).
1. Create New Toon on Live(Save Costume File just in case before completing creation).
2. Select "Skip Tutorial" which will put you at LvL 6 in the MC PH.
3. Go Here to opt in for PTS and copy toon over.
4. Exit game and relaunch. You should see a dropdown on your launcher for Live or PTS. Select PTS.
5. Select newly copied over toon and enter game.
6. Exit PH and talk to "debugger" who will allow you to insta-level to 40 and also get some gear. Alternately, you can just transfer a set of Heirloom Gear to your LvL 6 before you copy over if you like.
7. Enter PH and build toon.
8. Guessing this is important to you and I do it as well so....Create Txt file for "Bios" and folder for "Builds" so you can record such information for "just in case" backup.
9. Later return to live, delete LvL 6 toon(move Heirloom Gear 1st if you went with that option), create new toon(again: Heirloom option up to you), and repeat until heart's content.
Congratulations, according to your previous posts you are now forever happy with CO. Enjoy.
Except the PTR is usually pretty empty most of the time, and being a test realm is often quite buggy. If you are going to be on the test realm, you should really be there to test things. It might be a good place for testing builds, but it certainly isn't a really good place to play long term imo.
Except the PTR is usually pretty empty most of the time, and being a test realm is often quite buggy. If you are going to be on the test realm, you should really be there to test things. It might be a good place for testing builds, but it certainly isn't a really good place to play long term imo.
Not naming names, but some people have been playing on PTS nigh exclusively for a very very long time with minimal complaints. Also, the notion of not playing there because it's buggy is not exactly a great point for this game. Live server is notoriously bug infested as well with bugs that have persisted since Launch Day. PTS is not that far from it when all things are considered.
Not naming names, but some people have been playing on PTS nigh exclusively for a very very long time with minimal complaints. Also, the notion of not playing there because it's buggy is not exactly a great point for this game. Live server is notoriously bug infested as well with bugs that have persisted since Launch Day. PTS is not that far from it when all things are considered.
True there are plenty of bugs on live, though there seem to be a few extras on the PTR. Though that is to be expected given the nature of those servers.
As for those who have been playing, too each their own I suppose. Until Cryptic/PW get around to fixing the Z-store over there I personally wouldn't recommend it, if you aren't interested in testing the new content (and hopefully reporting bugs as you go), or testing out various builds.
That is an interesting idea, although, it will be difficult to see how certain things work compared to others without 'real world' tests.
However, this idea is great for parking a test character in there and using that to flesh out ideas before 'going live' with a character.
Thanks!
There actually are "real world tests" available in the powerhouse. Specifically it has a danger room where you can set 3 enemy spawns selected from the enemies available in that zone (Mill city powerhouse lets you choose purple gang, demon, or psi; canada lets you select hunter patriots, gadroon and I forget the third, maybe Argent). You can set your difficulty for the test separately from your actual game difficulty and you can fake a team from 1 to 5 people.
The room also has objects of all sizes for you to pickup and throw at them, and you can reset as often as you like.
no exp for the actions in the room though and no bosses.
There actually are "real world tests" available in the powerhouse. Specifically it has a danger room where you can set 3 enemy spawns selected from the enemies available in that zone (Mill city powerhouse lets you choose purple gang, demon, or psi; canada lets you select hunter patriots, gadroon and I forget the third, maybe Argent). You can set your difficulty for the test separately from your actual game difficulty and you can fake a team from 1 to 5 people.
The room also has objects of all sizes for you to pickup and throw at them, and you can reset as often as you like.
no exp for the actions in the room though and no bosses.
And they're also going to be placing cosmic level regenerating dummies in the powerhouse
Does that mean that they can start balancing the gated alerts for higher level players and we can get some more challenging alerts that require more than just standing there and spamming a single power over and over? Since they had to balance them that way since a lot of the low level characters in there really only could spam a single power over and over and all, but that won't be the case anymore!
As spinnytop notes, a minimum level entry into Alerts was not the main problem; the main problem is the *ability disparity* between players in Alerts. And of course, making everyone in Alerts the same level does not, in any way, assuage that ability disparity. That means that this ?fix? will not fix Alerts, it will merely reduce the amount of whining by whiners.
Right now, many players are simply *too strong* for Alerts and so often try to run them by themselves. At best they will ignore the rest of the team because they don?t need it. At worst they will try to sabotage the rest of the team by locking them out of the boss fight or by inducing aggro onto them, or any number of other spiteful tactics.
Alerts need players of *comparable ability*, Alerts need to *scale* to that ability and Alerts need to be designed so that the *team* has to engage, not just one or two players. Until Crypic does that, Alerts will remain a dice toss that can be an enjoyable diversion or an aggravating and frustrating experience.
As spinnytop notes, a minimum level entry into Alerts was not the main problem; the main problem is the *ability disparity* between players in Alerts. And of course, making everyone in Alerts the same level does not, in any way, assuage that ability disparity. That means that this ?fix? will not fix Alerts, it will merely reduce the amount of whining by whiners.
Right now, many players are simply *too strong* for Alerts and so often try to run them by themselves. At best they will ignore the rest of the team because they don?t need it. At worst they will try to sabotage the rest of the team by locking them out of the boss fight or by inducing aggro onto them, or any number of other spiteful tactics.
Alerts need players of *comparable ability*, Alerts need to *scale* to that ability and Alerts need to be designed so that the *team* has to engage, not just one or two players. Until Crypic does that, Alerts will remain a dice toss that can be an enjoyable diversion or an aggravating and frustrating experience.
Letting players get more of their powers earlier would help. It would also help us get our heroes to fit the "vision" we have of them sooner as well.
Comments
The question for me is, how many exp do you really get in a Grab and how long does it take ? I only ever did Grabs 2 or 3 times, and mostly i had to carry the whole team there and had the feeling i needed 30 minutes or whatever for that, and that it simply is not worth the time.
I could fail a lot Smashes in that time, and i can also do quite some normal missions in that time (as long as it is noch VB
However i also only did the "easy" smashes for leveling like Black Fang or Sweetland, and Nemesis. All other i mostly just did maybe to refresh the Exp-Bonus
I suppose I could have been more clear in my previous posts, but let me elaborate a bit on why I make so many "alts"...
First of all, none of my characters are "alts". I have been drawing comic books for over 30 years. Even been published a couple of times. I have a comic universe that I have created, and a ton of characters that I have written about, developed, and generally grew up with. Some of them are pretty straight forward, and creating them in CO was really easy. Some of them, not so much, as their power sets are not represented within the game.
What really keeps me playing, and paying, is that I have a place to sort of 'bring my characters to life'. For me, leveling them as quickly as possible, up to a point, allows me to experiment with the powers offered in the game to see how closely I can come to how they have been developed over time in other formats (my comics, pen and paper RPGs, books, etc.)
The days of me playing CO...as a game...have pretty much come and gone. Honestly, I don't really care for MMO games that much, mostly because they are super repetitive, and super time consuming. And yes, I realize that alerts are the same way, but I can currently level a character from 1-25 using smash alerts much faster than I can using missions...and probably the way things will be after the changes. That remains to be seen.
So yes, I realize my interest in CO is probably very different than that of others here. And I realize that these changes are being put into place because a portion of the players don't ever want to fail at anything in the game...ever. Which is fine. As far as I am concerned, if there was a way that I could create my characters in the game, assign them the powers I want them to have, test them out, work their costumes out, and then move on to the next one...without ever entering an alert, or a mission, that is exactly what I would do. But to my, admittedly limited, knowledge no such environment exists.
But...I also understand that the way I want to play the game isn't necessarily the same as what everyone else wants. So, if I can no longer play the game I want, I will have to decide if I want to quit, or keep paying for the game to do the same thing, but with a larger time commitment. Honestly, had alerts not been introduced, I probably would have quit a long time ago because leveling through missions alone takes much longer, and...IMO...is not worth the effort or time.
In the end, my desire to level characters as quickly as possible has nothing to do with wanting to impede anyone else's progress, and nothing to do with wanting to run alerts vs. missions beyond the time involved...as I have done both missions and alerts so many times now, they are nothing but a means to an end.
You don't need fast leveling--you need to simply have level 40 characters that you can play around with.
Have you tried the PTS? It is EXACTLY what you are looking for. You can relevel characters as much as you want.
Whoever you are, be that person one hundred percent. Don't compromise on your identity.
It does exist actually. It's called the powerhouse. All you have to do is go in there with one of your level 40s and completely remove all your powers. Then just never leave the powerhouse with that character. You can now, for free, repeatedly do full retcons from top to bottom on them, and test out all the powers in the game in any combination you can think of.
There is also a tailor in the power house.
^ that too. go have fun.
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
Am I mistaken, or does that get wiped periodically??
I have never really looked into the PTS, but I know on other games I have played, they get wiped every so often.
If it doesn't, then this is exactly what I want.
That is an interesting idea, although, it will be difficult to see how certain things work compared to others without 'real world' tests.
However, this idea is great for parking a test character in there and using that to flesh out ideas before 'going live' with a character.
Thanks!
It doesn't get wiped periodically.
My Amazon author page
How to build a freeform character...the Kenpo way
Demon Keypo's Building Guide
Freeform Builds Directory (Last updated: 04/23/2016)
Serving since September, 2009 / 65 Characters, 63 Level 40's
1. Create New Toon on Live(Save Costume File just in case before completing creation).
2. Select "Skip Tutorial" which will put you at LvL 6 in the MC PH.
3. Go Here to opt in for PTS and copy toon over.
4. Exit game and relaunch. You should see a dropdown on your launcher for Live or PTS. Select PTS.
5. Select newly copied over toon and enter game.
6. Exit PH and talk to "debugger" who will allow you to insta-level to 40 and also get some gear. Alternately, you can just transfer a set of Heirloom Gear to your LvL 6 before you copy over if you like.
7. Enter PH and build toon.
8. Guessing this is important to you and I do it as well so....Create Txt file for "Bios" and folder for "Builds" so you can record such information for "just in case" backup.
9. Later return to live, delete LvL 6 toon(move Heirloom Gear 1st if you went with that option), create new toon(again: Heirloom option up to you), and repeat until heart's content.
Congratulations, according to your previous posts you are now forever happy with CO. Enjoy.
Join Date: Aug 2009 | Title: Devslayer
Not naming names, but some people have been playing on PTS nigh exclusively for a very very long time with minimal complaints. Also, the notion of not playing there because it's buggy is not exactly a great point for this game. Live server is notoriously bug infested as well with bugs that have persisted since Launch Day. PTS is not that far from it when all things are considered.
My Amazon author page
How to build a freeform character...the Kenpo way
Demon Keypo's Building Guide
Freeform Builds Directory (Last updated: 04/23/2016)
Serving since September, 2009 / 65 Characters, 63 Level 40's
True there are plenty of bugs on live, though there seem to be a few extras on the PTR. Though that is to be expected given the nature of those servers.
As for those who have been playing, too each their own I suppose. Until Cryptic/PW get around to fixing the Z-store over there I personally wouldn't recommend it, if you aren't interested in testing the new content (and hopefully reporting bugs as you go), or testing out various builds.
Aye. I just pretty much pretend it doesn't exist at this point.
My Amazon author page
How to build a freeform character...the Kenpo way
Demon Keypo's Building Guide
Freeform Builds Directory (Last updated: 04/23/2016)
Serving since September, 2009 / 65 Characters, 63 Level 40's
There actually are "real world tests" available in the powerhouse. Specifically it has a danger room where you can set 3 enemy spawns selected from the enemies available in that zone (Mill city powerhouse lets you choose purple gang, demon, or psi; canada lets you select hunter patriots, gadroon and I forget the third, maybe Argent). You can set your difficulty for the test separately from your actual game difficulty and you can fake a team from 1 to 5 people.
The room also has objects of all sizes for you to pickup and throw at them, and you can reset as often as you like.
no exp for the actions in the room though and no bosses.
And they're also going to be placing cosmic level regenerating dummies in the powerhouse
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
As spinnytop notes, a minimum level entry into Alerts was not the main problem; the main problem is the *ability disparity* between players in Alerts. And of course, making everyone in Alerts the same level does not, in any way, assuage that ability disparity. That means that this ?fix? will not fix Alerts, it will merely reduce the amount of whining by whiners.
Right now, many players are simply *too strong* for Alerts and so often try to run them by themselves. At best they will ignore the rest of the team because they don?t need it. At worst they will try to sabotage the rest of the team by locking them out of the boss fight or by inducing aggro onto them, or any number of other spiteful tactics.
Alerts need players of *comparable ability*, Alerts need to *scale* to that ability and Alerts need to be designed so that the *team* has to engage, not just one or two players. Until Crypic does that, Alerts will remain a dice toss that can be an enjoyable diversion or an aggravating and frustrating experience.
Letting players get more of their powers earlier would help. It would also help us get our heroes to fit the "vision" we have of them sooner as well.
My super cool CC build and how to use it.