Good team mechanics should require coordination and cooperation amongst the entire team. If someone doesn't play their part or fails to complete a task during the encounter, it should result in failure for everyone. This promotes balanced group compositions and team thinking, as opposed to playing solo with 9 other people.
Doing something with randoms does not inherently mean your group has to act independently. It just makes it more difficult to act as a team.
I'm going to have a much longer post on F&I a bit later on the F&I thread, but a few things in the meantime.
Before even thinking about going live with any of this rotation, the rampage queue bug absolutely has to be fixed, especially if you're going to try throwing another piece of programming on top of it with the private queue system.
The queue bug hit Gravitar sometime around 6-8 weeks ago, and appears to be working the same way on PTS. Rampages will attempt to launch with far under 10 people; I've seen Gravi launch with 4 several times. (It was a fun fight on one of my mains; on my ATs, not so much.)
This won't show up on the 'ready' screen, as sometimes Gravi will launch with 8 checks and two Xs (and at other times, it will attempt to launch with 5 Xs.)
This may or may not be separate from the other queue bugs, as when it doesn't show how many people are queued, or when it will launch without allowing you to hit ready and kick you out of the map after 10 seconds, or when it will kick everyone from the map and give an unable to find map error.
I have no idea if people are just being left out of queues or kicked as they were yesterday when F&I launched with 7.
Regardless, it's a major bug, and if you're going to feature rampages it's got to be addressed before the rotation begins.
agree with gradii, it's poor lazy design.
Actually, what people tend to forget about F&I is that it was designed by a player and slightly tweaked by devs - and that most of the changes here have not been made in view of some of the learning curve that has taken place since On Alert.
It's not lazy or poor design, but the entire alert needs at least one or two more rounds of tweaks (which it won't get, more than likely, given that it feels like it's being rushed out to meet the new rampage rotation) because the mechanics in it are piled on rather than designed from the ground up. It also doesn't fit with the current user base particularly well.
I think this is a shame, because F&I has an awful lot of potential as an alert, but right now it's not something people are going to line up to play over and over like Gravitar just for fun - and the private queue system and justice gear don't change that underlying fact one bit.
Few more bugs (or just non implemented problems):
1. Living fire gets vocalized out by Frosty. About half the time.
2. Living ice does not get called out at all.
3. Spires and fire cage do not get called out at all.
Actually, what people tend to forget about F&I is that it was designed by a player and slightly tweaked by devs [/QUOTE]
The alert was? I know they're the design a villian contest winners but I thought they just made the costume and picked their power-sets the alert itself was made whole cloth by the devs as far as I know, I could be wrong of course
well we need them to be targetable with the mouse. living fire and ice currently are nigh unclickable.
-edit- I'd like to remind you all that removing a rank 8 mod from justice gear, ONE mod, costs around 14,000questionite.
Rank 8 -_-
I still find it funny how much you complain about people who min max yet you seem to be much much much more maxed than I am. I can use the LOS around me to stop a lot of incoming damage and create power rotations to hit good DPS. You have such amazing mod's and gear yet you seem to always complain about how hard everything is.
Are mods becoming more expensive to unslot then? That'd be really ****ty if they released justice gear AND made mods significantly more expensive to remove.
I'll just be happy to get JG slotted with the rank 7s I have. Too many other alts I enjoy playing to grind so much more just one hero to go for rank 8s.
Actually, what people tend to forget about F&I is that it was designed by a player and slightly tweaked by devs - and that most of the changes here have not been made in view of some of the learning curve that has taken place since On Alert.
Actually, the costumes were made by the winner of the forum Costume Contest. It was mentioned in that thread that they were all but looking for a duo like this(which wasn't actually mentioned in the 1st post) and someone's joke post won. Some of the forum users then went on big jerkish rants to the point where the winner showed up and actually appologized for winning.
So after the jerkfest the devs basically plugged those costumes into the second Rampage and after a year and some polish(more needed) we are where we stand right now. Oh and they renamed Freon II a few times also.
honestly this team wipe mechanic isn't the worst kind of team wipe. but team wipes in general are stupid design. if the team wipes it should never be the result of a mechanic designed to instantly do so.
Then how long if not instantly?
They created a mini-objective. Litterally the inverse of "Keep X alive" You must esure you destroy all of a specified entity, or fail the mission. It's like not making it to the finish line in a race.
You obviously don't like the objective, but at this point it's irrelivant. The mission is: Defeat the two bosses while destroying Living Fire and Ice Objects. My only suggestion would be to make that an expressed objective rather than implied objective, to remove possible confusion as to the overall importance of the objective.
My only suggestion would be to make that an expressed objective rather than implied objective, to remove possible confusion as to the overall importance of the objective.
I think the objective will be expressed quite nicely the first time a group wipes because of it uwu
Does the graphic for the effect that wipes everyone at least make it really obvious where the effect is coming from?
I think what Gradii means is that if the team fails it shouldn't be due to something that just blows up and kills everyone. The fire cages wiping the entire party is a good example of an instant party wipe.
One person was able to fail the entire rampage just from touching the cage. The twitch stream showed several people that were knocked back and ended up lunging through a fire cage, causing the rampage to instantly fail since everyone was hit with massive damage no matter how far away.
That's not to say it shouldn't be possible to fail a rampage, only that an instant team wipe mechanic is a bad idea.
I still find it funny how much you complain about people who min max yet you seem to be much much much more maxed than I am. I can use the LOS around me to stop a lot of incoming damage and create power rotations to hit good DPS. You have such amazing mod's and gear yet you seem to always complain about how hard everything is.
Not targeting just you, just making a point.
Gradii finds content decently tough because they don't use FotM or game exploit builds.
Also, a cost increase to remove mods from Justice gear? Oh boy.
Gradii finds content decently tough because they don't use FotM or game exploit builds.
Also, a cost increase to remove mods from Justice gear? Oh boy.
I'm pretty sure I've seen gradii using FOTY powers in everyone one of their builds. Exploit builds are just plain stupid in a game like CO, I don't think anyone should really do them.
Mhmm it seems that cryptic wants a hidden cost to using justice in comparison to other gear types. Can anyone tell me how much a r7 will be?
I think what Gradii means is that if the team fails it shouldn't be due to something that just blows up and kills everyone. The fire cages wiping the entire party is a good example of an instant party wipe.
One person was able to fail the entire rampage just from touching the cage. The twitch stream showed several people that were knocked back and ended up lunging through a fire cage, causing the rampage to instantly fail since everyone was hit with massive damage no matter how far away.
That's not to say it shouldn't be possible to fail a rampage, only that an instant team wipe mechanic is a bad idea.
Then it's a problem of perspective. You don't fail because "Something just blows up and kills everyone" You fail, because you were supposed to kill an enemy in a given timeframe, but didn't.
There are major differences between the two mechanics (Cage vs living object). First, the cage was subject to the whims of a single player or their mistakes. A single player could, by error or intent, fail the mission for the entire group. This really isn't possible with the living object objective.
Also, as you said, it could be failed outside the player's control via knocks.
Basically it was an area denial mechaic, being treated like a terminal objective. It doesn't really work, and that's why it was changed.
There's no hidden cost increase to remove items from Justice Gear. Cost of removal is based on the rank/rarity of the mod and the internal item level of the gear.
You can pry a high rank mod out of a piece of low level green gear for ~2000Q. This is not new.
Maybe they'll change it from a "instant party wipe" to "somethat that is likely to cause the party to wipe very shortly unless they react very quickly and accurately". The second one fills me with excitement... the first one also fills me with excitement, but in a way that the rest of you wouldn't find very fun at all >.>
There's no hidden cost increase to remove items from Justice Gear. Cost of removal is based on the rank/rarity of the mod and the internal item level of the gear.
You can pry a high rank mod out of a piece of low level green gear for ~2000Q. This is not new.
BUG: Ice Sheath Aura leaves some parts of the hair in their original color. I will try to update the post with a picture later.
Where: anywhere
What happens: using Ice Sheat in an always on slot on a character with an helmet and hairs, looking at the face of the character the part of the hair towards the viewer is not covered in the aura.
______________________________________________________________ My Characters
some people will never be happy until we have a superhero version of Battletoads or Dark Souls.
I found Battletoads to be a fun game and not too challenging from my experience. Dark Souls became EZ mode with a parrying dagger. Let's make the game like Contra!
I'm fine with the direction the devs are going. Paying attention to your surroundings and moving away from danger is new to most CO players. I welcome it.
Edit - Fixed mobile auto-correct.
"There is only one way to support a PFF tank: Send Cyrone lots of money weekly... because he's the only one to successfully be a true PFF Tank." - chuckwolf
the direction the dead go? that's a different topic entirely.
Ha! Apparently my mobile doesn't recognize "devs".
"There is only one way to support a PFF tank: Send Cyrone lots of money weekly... because he's the only one to successfully be a true PFF Tank." - chuckwolf
some people will never be happy until we have a superhero version of Battletoads or Dark Souls.
Dark Souls combat system and awesome boss fights with CO's customization and modern / future setting? That sounds amazing! I'll finally be able to get Therakiel's sword by simply chopping his tail off.
The only reason I ever mentioned Battletoads was because it is universally regarded as one the hardest games created and to serve as a base for difficulty comparison. It wasn't meant to be a standard Cryptic should use in difficulty for CO.
There is more to gear quality than rarity color. Internal item level is a common feature in...just about every MMO in recent history. It's either that, or these items are actually a higher base level that has been kludged down to 40 for equipping purposes. We had a few items early in the game's life that displayed that behavior as well.
We are currently pushing FC.31.20131213.9 to PTS. This build contains a fix aimed at stopping groups being kicked from rampages created using private queues. Please try out some private queue rampages and let us know your feedback.
-If you switch zones (ex: Millennium City to Monster Island) while in a private queue, the yellow icon disappears and goes back to red. You are still in the group though.
-You can talk through your private queue through the group window, but can not when you select MATCH as your chat channel on the main chatbox. You get "You are not subscribed to "MATCH"."
We are currently pushing FC.31.20131213.9 to PTS. This build contains a fix aimed at stopping groups being kicked from rampages created using private queues. Please try out some private queue rampages and let us know your feedback.
Confirmed. We did not encounter the group kick bug tonight.
LTS since 2009. Author of ACT parser module for CO. Founder of Rampagers. Resident curmudgeon.
"Without data, you're just another person with an opinion." -- W. Edwards Deming
Something I want to point out - Challenging Strikes and Crippling Challenge have a purpose in this fight. Frosticus and Kenina have hefty damage reductions and have higher than usual resistances to debuffs. This puts damage output on the very low end (you're doing a good job if you break 1k dps on them).
In most situations CS and CC are overshadowed by raw damage. In this fight their flat threat comes in quite handy.
We are currently pushing FC.31.20131213.9 to PTS. This build contains a fix aimed at stopping groups being kicked from rampages created using private queues. Please try out some private queue rampages and let us know your feedback.
Was part of a private queue tonight, did not get kicked.
Something I want to point out - Challenging Strikes and Crippling Challenge have a purpose in this fight. Frosticus and Kenina have hefty damage reductions and have higher than usual resistances to debuffs. This puts damage output on the very low end (you're doing a good job if you break 1k dps on them).
In most situations CS and CC are overshadowed by raw damage. In this fight their flat threat comes in quite handy.
Very interesting. I always assumed (yeah, I know, assumptions are bad) that threat based on damage was derived from gross damage, not net. Thanks for the heads up.
In case you guys are too busy and not checking out the "is is fair" post I would like to point out the extremely low drop rate and how many times you would have to do each rampage just to get the 6 tokens. It just seems ridiculous and suddenly makes the content into a prolonged grind which I wouldn't want it to become.
In case you guys are too busy and not checking out the "is is fair" post I would like to point out the extremely low drop rate and how many times you would have to do each rampage just to get the 6 tokens. It just seems ridiculous and suddenly makes the content into a prolonged grind which I wouldn't want it to become.
I've done the alert twice and gotten a token once (playing a healer). Admittedly it's a small sample, but it doesn't seem like "an extremely low drop rate" to me. Do you have different data?
Also there is another point to consider. If they make it "too easy" and, for example, everyone is able to farm their Justice Gear in the first two weeks, then interest in the Rampage alerts will drop off quickly because everyone already has all of the rewards (kinda like Sky Command now).
LTS since 2009. Author of ACT parser module for CO. Founder of Rampagers. Resident curmudgeon.
"Without data, you're just another person with an opinion." -- W. Edwards Deming
I've done the alert twice and gotten a token once (playing a healer). Admittedly it's a small sample, but it doesn't seem like "an extremely low drop rate" to me. Do you have different data?
Also there is another point to consider. If they make it "too easy" and, for example, everyone is able to farm their Justice Gear in the first two weeks, then interest in the Rampage alerts will drop off quickly because everyone already has all of the rewards (kinda like Sky Command now).
Well by what I hear from the people who have done it many more times I would estimate it at taking an average of 40 runs of each rampage to get the full set. Although it is a chance drop. I don't think you can really base it on getting one out of two runs. It's not an extremely low drop rate in any case, it's just the fact you need 6 from each one and being forced complete any of them 40+ times will get fairly tedious.
Of course I'm not saying that should make it easy to get at all, I just hate grind with a passion. It's one of the reasons I usually end up doing a lot of PvP in games as there is little grind for me, you play the game when you want to.
But then we have to think how long each run of some of these take, I'm sure people will take over 20 minutes on the lemurian invasion and on fire and ice half the teams will fail many times.
Also are we forgetting that CO is an alt heavy game. If it's going to take over 40-50 hours to get each set on each character I think people are just going to face desk there and then. I don't really think the tokens should be tradable like gradii says as that would immediately open up for what we don't want which is "pay 2 win" or paying so they don't have to do the farm.
Well by what I hear from the people who have done it many more times I would estimate it at taking an average of 40 runs of each rampage to get the full set. Although it is a chance drop. I don't think you can really base it on getting one out of two runs. It's not an extremely low drop rate in any case, it's just the fact you need 6 from each one and being forced complete any of them 40+ times will get fairly tedious.
Of course I'm not saying that should make it easy to get at all, I just hate grind with a passion. It's one of the reasons I usually end up doing a lot of PvP in games as there is little grind for me, you play the game when you want to.
But then we have to think how long each run of some of these take, I'm sure people will take over 20 minutes on the lemurian invasion and on fire and ice half the teams will fail many times.
Also are we forgetting that CO is an alt heavy game. If it's going to take over 40-50 hours to get each set on each character I think people are just going to face desk there and then. I don't really think the tokens should be tradable like gradii says as that would immediately open up for what we don't want which is "pay 2 win" or paying so they don't have to do the farm.
I don't necessarily disagree with your goal. I refuse to "grind" as well, which is why Gravitar and other fun team-based content is about all that interests me. I'm just not sure about your premise, considering the alerts have only had rewards on PTS for a week, and I think I've probably been involved in all of the runs so far (although I experienced the group kick bug a lot previously so have fewer completions)--basically I don't think anyone really has enough data to say anything about the current drop rates with any confidence.
I do hope they have chopped down Lemurian Invasion a bit, or made it a 50-100% drop rate for tokens. I remember it taking 20-30 minutes before and kinda feeling like it dragged. I don't think anyone has tried it yet since it became alertified.
LTS since 2009. Author of ACT parser module for CO. Founder of Rampagers. Resident curmudgeon.
"Without data, you're just another person with an opinion." -- W. Edwards Deming
I don't necessarily disagree with your goal. I refuse to "grind" as well, which is why Gravitar and other fun team-based content is about all that interests me. I'm just not sure about your premise, considering the alerts have only had rewards on PTS for a week, and I think I've probably been involved in all of the runs so far (although I experienced the group kick bug a lot previously so have fewer completions)--basically I don't think anyone really has enough data to say anything about the current drop rates with any confidence.
I do hope they have chopped down Lemurian Invasion a bit, or made it a 50-100% drop rate for tokens. I remember it taking 20-30 minutes before and kinda feeling like it dragged. I don't think anyone has tried it yet since it became alertified.
Mm well yeah it would seem gravitar is the shortest one currently, they need to fiddle around with the drop rates. It's just that lemurian invasion I am really worrying about, I don't want to spend 20 hours in there because I just am not getting lucky and the token isn't dropping.
I can agree with an enrage timer for gravitar, but unless fire and ice drops the team wipe mechanic, its better off without one.
In it's current state I think fire and ice is easier without having lots of dps cluttering the place up.
However the point of the dps in fire and ice appears to be to break the team out of the ice hold and destroy those things, without some good ranged dps it should be much harder because the tank or healer would get stuck in an ice cage. They could add an enrage timer or they could increase the health of the ice cage and/or add a bit of increasing regeneration to the ice cages health if you don't keep up the dps.
I agree ranged need some things too, but do make them avoidable (the big blue spheres are not). And also account for melee tanks being able to tank much better, when tanking with a ranged build she will do much more random cascades, with a melee tank she will spend more time on melee ranged spheres, so there will be less random cascades on squishy ranged dps builds.
I would totally queue for that like a madman. But this version of grav that we have now on live (apparently) still seems a bit steep in terms of difficulty to newbies and casual/returning players. How about a Gravitar "light" version and a Gravitar "advanced" option. "Advanced" would give us vets something to do, light would be the standard/training exercise for t2 or "advanced" Gravitar. Both would have same q rewards.
Comments
I agree completely.
'Caine, miss you bud. Fly high.
Before even thinking about going live with any of this rotation, the rampage queue bug absolutely has to be fixed, especially if you're going to try throwing another piece of programming on top of it with the private queue system.
The queue bug hit Gravitar sometime around 6-8 weeks ago, and appears to be working the same way on PTS. Rampages will attempt to launch with far under 10 people; I've seen Gravi launch with 4 several times. (It was a fun fight on one of my mains; on my ATs, not so much.)
This won't show up on the 'ready' screen, as sometimes Gravi will launch with 8 checks and two Xs (and at other times, it will attempt to launch with 5 Xs.)
This may or may not be separate from the other queue bugs, as when it doesn't show how many people are queued, or when it will launch without allowing you to hit ready and kick you out of the map after 10 seconds, or when it will kick everyone from the map and give an unable to find map error.
I have no idea if people are just being left out of queues or kicked as they were yesterday when F&I launched with 7.
Regardless, it's a major bug, and if you're going to feature rampages it's got to be addressed before the rotation begins.
Actually, what people tend to forget about F&I is that it was designed by a player and slightly tweaked by devs - and that most of the changes here have not been made in view of some of the learning curve that has taken place since On Alert.
It's not lazy or poor design, but the entire alert needs at least one or two more rounds of tweaks (which it won't get, more than likely, given that it feels like it's being rushed out to meet the new rampage rotation) because the mechanics in it are piled on rather than designed from the ground up. It also doesn't fit with the current user base particularly well.
I think this is a shame, because F&I has an awful lot of potential as an alert, but right now it's not something people are going to line up to play over and over like Gravitar just for fun - and the private queue system and justice gear don't change that underlying fact one bit.
Few more bugs (or just non implemented problems):
1. Living fire gets vocalized out by Frosty. About half the time.
2. Living ice does not get called out at all.
3. Spires and fire cage do not get called out at all.
I'll have more later.
Actually, what people tend to forget about F&I is that it was designed by a player and slightly tweaked by devs [/QUOTE]
The alert was? I know they're the design a villian contest winners but I thought they just made the costume and picked their power-sets the alert itself was made whole cloth by the devs as far as I know, I could be wrong of course
Rank 8 -_-
I still find it funny how much you complain about people who min max yet you seem to be much much much more maxed than I am. I can use the LOS around me to stop a lot of incoming damage and create power rotations to hit good DPS. You have such amazing mod's and gear yet you seem to always complain about how hard everything is.
Not targeting just you, just making a point.
A Playlist of my CO PvP video's (starting from post nerf PTS team duels)
I thought r8s and r9s were only 9,400 q to remove. Or is the vet mod somehow different despite being r9?
[at]riviania Member since Aug 2009
Are mods becoming more expensive to unslot then? That'd be really ****ty if they released justice gear AND made mods significantly more expensive to remove.
[at]riviania Member since Aug 2009
Actually, the costumes were made by the winner of the forum Costume Contest. It was mentioned in that thread that they were all but looking for a duo like this(which wasn't actually mentioned in the 1st post) and someone's joke post won. Some of the forum users then went on big jerkish rants to the point where the winner showed up and actually appologized for winning.
So after the jerkfest the devs basically plugged those costumes into the second Rampage and after a year and some polish(more needed) we are where we stand right now. Oh and they renamed Freon II a few times also.
So, GJ on getting it this far Cryptic North.
Join Date: Aug 2009 | Title: Devslayer
Then how long if not instantly?
They created a mini-objective. Litterally the inverse of "Keep X alive" You must esure you destroy all of a specified entity, or fail the mission. It's like not making it to the finish line in a race.
You obviously don't like the objective, but at this point it's irrelivant. The mission is: Defeat the two bosses while destroying Living Fire and Ice Objects. My only suggestion would be to make that an expressed objective rather than implied objective, to remove possible confusion as to the overall importance of the objective.
I think the objective will be expressed quite nicely the first time a group wipes because of it uwu
Does the graphic for the effect that wipes everyone at least make it really obvious where the effect is coming from?
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
I think what Gradii means is that if the team fails it shouldn't be due to something that just blows up and kills everyone. The fire cages wiping the entire party is a good example of an instant party wipe.
One person was able to fail the entire rampage just from touching the cage. The twitch stream showed several people that were knocked back and ended up lunging through a fire cage, causing the rampage to instantly fail since everyone was hit with massive damage no matter how far away.
That's not to say it shouldn't be possible to fail a rampage, only that an instant team wipe mechanic is a bad idea.
[at]riviania Member since Aug 2009
Gradii finds content decently tough because they don't use FotM or game exploit builds.
Also, a cost increase to remove mods from Justice gear? Oh boy.
I'm pretty sure I've seen gradii using FOTY powers in everyone one of their builds. Exploit builds are just plain stupid in a game like CO, I don't think anyone should really do them.
Mhmm it seems that cryptic wants a hidden cost to using justice in comparison to other gear types. Can anyone tell me how much a r7 will be?
A Playlist of my CO PvP video's (starting from post nerf PTS team duels)
Then it's a problem of perspective. You don't fail because "Something just blows up and kills everyone" You fail, because you were supposed to kill an enemy in a given timeframe, but didn't.
There are major differences between the two mechanics (Cage vs living object). First, the cage was subject to the whims of a single player or their mistakes. A single player could, by error or intent, fail the mission for the entire group. This really isn't possible with the living object objective.
Also, as you said, it could be failed outside the player's control via knocks.
Basically it was an area denial mechaic, being treated like a terminal objective. It doesn't really work, and that's why it was changed.
You can pry a high rank mod out of a piece of low level green gear for ~2000Q. This is not new.
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
Compared to me getting a token every run and other players getting ones randomly, its impossible to determine if this is even working.
Justice Gear is a higher rarity than Purple?
Where: anywhere
What happens: using Ice Sheat in an always on slot on a character with an helmet and hairs, looking at the face of the character the part of the hair towards the viewer is not covered in the aura.
My Characters
I found Battletoads to be a fun game and not too challenging from my experience. Dark Souls became EZ mode with a parrying dagger. Let's make the game like Contra!
I'm fine with the direction the devs are going. Paying attention to your surroundings and moving away from danger is new to most CO players. I welcome it.
Edit - Fixed mobile auto-correct.
"There is only one way to support a PFF tank: Send Cyrone lots of money weekly... because he's the only one to successfully be a true PFF Tank." - chuckwolf
Ha! Apparently my mobile doesn't recognize "devs".
"There is only one way to support a PFF tank: Send Cyrone lots of money weekly... because he's the only one to successfully be a true PFF Tank." - chuckwolf
Dark Souls combat system and awesome boss fights with CO's customization and modern / future setting? That sounds amazing! I'll finally be able to get Therakiel's sword by simply chopping his tail off.
The only reason I ever mentioned Battletoads was because it is universally regarded as one the hardest games created and to serve as a base for difficulty comparison. It wasn't meant to be a standard Cryptic should use in difficulty for CO.
[at]riviania Member since Aug 2009
There is more to gear quality than rarity color. Internal item level is a common feature in...just about every MMO in recent history. It's either that, or these items are actually a higher base level that has been kludged down to 40 for equipping purposes. We had a few items early in the game's life that displayed that behavior as well.
-You can talk through your private queue through the group window, but can not when you select MATCH as your chat channel on the main chatbox. You get "You are not subscribed to "MATCH"."
Confirmed. We did not encounter the group kick bug tonight.
"Without data, you're just another person with an opinion." -- W. Edwards Deming
In most situations CS and CC are overshadowed by raw damage. In this fight their flat threat comes in quite handy.
Was part of a private queue tonight, did not get kicked.
Very interesting. I always assumed (yeah, I know, assumptions are bad) that threat based on damage was derived from gross damage, not net. Thanks for the heads up.
'Caine, miss you bud. Fly high.
A Playlist of my CO PvP video's (starting from post nerf PTS team duels)
I've done the alert twice and gotten a token once (playing a healer). Admittedly it's a small sample, but it doesn't seem like "an extremely low drop rate" to me. Do you have different data?
Also there is another point to consider. If they make it "too easy" and, for example, everyone is able to farm their Justice Gear in the first two weeks, then interest in the Rampage alerts will drop off quickly because everyone already has all of the rewards (kinda like Sky Command now).
"Without data, you're just another person with an opinion." -- W. Edwards Deming
Well by what I hear from the people who have done it many more times I would estimate it at taking an average of 40 runs of each rampage to get the full set. Although it is a chance drop. I don't think you can really base it on getting one out of two runs. It's not an extremely low drop rate in any case, it's just the fact you need 6 from each one and being forced complete any of them 40+ times will get fairly tedious.
Of course I'm not saying that should make it easy to get at all, I just hate grind with a passion. It's one of the reasons I usually end up doing a lot of PvP in games as there is little grind for me, you play the game when you want to.
But then we have to think how long each run of some of these take, I'm sure people will take over 20 minutes on the lemurian invasion and on fire and ice half the teams will fail many times.
Also are we forgetting that CO is an alt heavy game. If it's going to take over 40-50 hours to get each set on each character I think people are just going to face desk there and then. I don't really think the tokens should be tradable like gradii says as that would immediately open up for what we don't want which is "pay 2 win" or paying so they don't have to do the farm.
A Playlist of my CO PvP video's (starting from post nerf PTS team duels)
I don't necessarily disagree with your goal. I refuse to "grind" as well, which is why Gravitar and other fun team-based content is about all that interests me. I'm just not sure about your premise, considering the alerts have only had rewards on PTS for a week, and I think I've probably been involved in all of the runs so far (although I experienced the group kick bug a lot previously so have fewer completions)--basically I don't think anyone really has enough data to say anything about the current drop rates with any confidence.
I do hope they have chopped down Lemurian Invasion a bit, or made it a 50-100% drop rate for tokens. I remember it taking 20-30 minutes before and kinda feeling like it dragged. I don't think anyone has tried it yet since it became alertified.
"Without data, you're just another person with an opinion." -- W. Edwards Deming
Mm well yeah it would seem gravitar is the shortest one currently, they need to fiddle around with the drop rates. It's just that lemurian invasion I am really worrying about, I don't want to spend 20 hours in there because I just am not getting lucky and the token isn't dropping.
A Playlist of my CO PvP video's (starting from post nerf PTS team duels)
In it's current state I think fire and ice is easier without having lots of dps cluttering the place up.
However the point of the dps in fire and ice appears to be to break the team out of the ice hold and destroy those things, without some good ranged dps it should be much harder because the tank or healer would get stuck in an ice cage. They could add an enrage timer or they could increase the health of the ice cage and/or add a bit of increasing regeneration to the ice cages health if you don't keep up the dps.
A Playlist of my CO PvP video's (starting from post nerf PTS team duels)
I agree ranged need some things too, but do make them avoidable (the big blue spheres are not). And also account for melee tanks being able to tank much better, when tanking with a ranged build she will do much more random cascades, with a melee tank she will spend more time on melee ranged spheres, so there will be less random cascades on squishy ranged dps builds.
Re: The Grav suggestions
I would totally queue for that like a madman. But this version of grav that we have now on live (apparently) still seems a bit steep in terms of difficulty to newbies and casual/returning players. How about a Gravitar "light" version and a Gravitar "advanced" option. "Advanced" would give us vets something to do, light would be the standard/training exercise for t2 or "advanced" Gravitar. Both would have same q rewards.
edit: your version being the advanced version.