New efforts!

[LaughingAlex]

That probably is the best plan.

It probably seems hard to do until you get used to it.   You would be surprised at the response if you are upfront about what you want.   Asking, "Hi...I'm forming a team that isn't in a big hurry and will fight some of the harder foes like Carnival of Shadows and Malta....interested?" will get you the team you are looking for.   Lots of like-minded people out there just waiting to be asked probably.   

Go figure, funny thing was, just before the shutdown was announced I was already starting to form my own heavy corruptor/defender/mastermind/controller teams, .  And fighting on +2/+3 regularly or higher even, it was a lot of fun, and a huge change of pace from the many even con council teams.

[CreVo]

Wow, IronWolf, thank you! 

I read through the first few pages of this (very long) thread and was so excited.  I flipped to the last page and find a bunch of COHers complaining about AE, power-levelers, and influence inflation. 

Two years later and people still want to dictate how others play the game we all love?

Surreal.

If we can get our game back, I won't care if EVERYONE is powerleveling on tanks with no taunt, mm's with no pets, and healers with no damage OR heals/buffs--heck, they can just use brawl--... all while jingling billions in influence.  I'd be thrilled beyond words to team with them.

Gonna have to agree, CoH comes back IDC what people do because I'll get to play again. lol

[MWRuger]

For me personally, it's always sort of shocking to hear the amounts of influence some people drop casually, like the 20+ billion mentioned earlier. I don't recall ever breaking a billion - but then, I was more of a casual player, and enjoyed going through the stories rather than farming AE or rushing through Incarnate trials. I played the market, to an extent, but I never put in the time to earn the money... which I guess leads to the point of this reply:

Unlike the friend mentioned above, I did want to play with IOs, and created perfect builds in Mids'. Some of those builds required some fancy things, that I never had the money for. So what about people like me, who didn't want to farm and didn't have the time / desire to play the market, but still wanted to play with fancy IOs? Is a more casual player just out of luck, never ever going to get the nice stuff without a lucky drop? That just seems like a bummer to me. It's one thing in the real world for people to do different levels of work and earn different amounts of money, but in a game that people play for enjoyment, why should the nice stuff be locked out from certain players? Even if CoH had continued, I don't know that I would have ever gotten the nice IO sets I wanted - maybe a few, after a long time - but barring a nice drop, because I didn't want to play the markets, I don't know that I would have ever broken 2 billion influence.

This post might come off as "waaah, I want stuff" - I want to be clear that I understand that some things need to be rarer and more expensive than others for an economy to work. But it just never sat well with me that I would quite possibly never get certain items, just because I didn't want to play the markets or run mindless farms.









Speaking of mindless farms, a big part of the reason I drifted from CoH before the shutdown announcement was the fact that Incarnate Trials were rushed through messes of combat. The wiki reflects this - there is practically no information on the wiki about the storylines, content, and dialogue from the trials. If CoH never returns, that information is likely lost forever, because they were terrible end-game raid things that people rushed through for loot. Just putting my opinion of them out there, because I'm curious about what others thought.

Actually, Your play-style and mine were very similar. The only difference is that I spent more time at the market.

There were ways to get those rare I/Os besides buying them on the market and farming.

Lucky drops when playing any level 47 -50 plus character had a chance to drop a purple. If you couldn't use it, you could craft and sell it and get enough (hopefully) to buy one you needed.

You could wait for them to go on sale in the cash store and buy them.

You could do aligment missions and save up H&V merits.

You could save up reward merits to buy them from a merit vendor.

All of these require either luck or doing more than many casual gamers were willing to do. I think that much of this stuff was really to give the hard care (I thought of myself as one) something to strive toward. The game was balanced around Single origin I/Os. So at 50, a fully kitted Character can play any content at standard difficulty and be successful.

It was an optional system. I understand playing in Mids and seeing how good you could make a character, but if you only play casually then you will need luck to pull it off.

[Remaugen]

Gonna have to agree, CoH comes back IDC what people do because I'll get to play again. lol

Absolutely, I really don't care if folks power level, farm for loot or XP, or if they sell influ. I have PL'd more than a few toons myself, some were mine and some were friends. I even bought influ, once redside and once blueside to fund the creation of my own SGs, VGs and bases. I had two accounts so that I did not have to depend on someone else to invite my toons to the S/VGs. I did tons of solo runs and duo's with one of my other accounts toon's in tow.

And you know what? I had fun, a lot of fun! SO who cares who complains about it? Not me, I will go right back to it. Running with my friends on teams when I can and running solo or duo when they aren't around or there is no room available on the team. I jumped on new content as quick as I could, but there was still some I missed so I know there will still be something new for me when (not IF!) the game relaunches.

So it's just a matter of waiting. . . .

Are we there yet? 

[doc7924]

Absolutely, I really don't care if folks power level, farm for loot or XP, or if they sell influ. I have PL'd more than a few toons myself, some were mine and some were friends. I even bought influ, once redside and once blueside to fund the creation of my own SGs, VGs and bases. I had two accounts so that I did not have to depend on someone else to invite my toons to the S/VGs. I did tons of solo runs and duo's with one of my other accounts toon's in tow.

And you know what? I had fun, a lot of fun! SO who cares who complains about it? Not me, I will go right back to it. Running with my friends on teams when I can and running solo or duo when they aren't around or there is no room available on the team. I jumped on new content as quick as I could, but there was still some I missed so I know there will still be something new for me when (not IF!) the game relaunches.

So it's just a matter of waiting. . . .

Are we there yet? 

Powerleveling only bothered me if was stuck on a team with a level 50 who didn't know what enhancements were or had zero idea how to use his powers or play well on a team.

Plus the game had a LOT to offer and on a personal level I felt was a bit insulting to the devs and all the hard work they put into new zones, missions, etc and then have people never leave the AE building in Atlas unless to go train.

But that's me.

[MWRuger]

Your SG going full farm mode is very personal though, and not any fault of the AE systems. Farming to get a lot of X thing is just apart of the MMO experience. There isn't a single MMO in which you don't repeatedly do something to get the item or money you desire. Especially when it came to X enemy killed for Y badge. Power leveling can create 'noobs' but so can just being bad at the game. What really hurt CoH [farming wise] was Auction house abuse. Buying all of a single item and re posting it for 4-5x the profit. Thats the thing you'd want to go after, not farming/power leveling. Farming is not fully to blame for market abuse either, it can be done very easily and for very little. The auction being so over priced is what encourages people to farm so they can drop 20+ billion into a character to enjoy CoH their way. Without those kinds of people, half of the Trials wouldn't ever get finished. Theres a reason the Paragon team never went after farming directly, and more after bugs that let people get to 50 in an hour. [If farming was a problem, there wouldn't be mission resetting more than X amount of times per day]

No one ever made money cornering a market. For one thing, you could never get all the supply. There were always some that were priced at like a billion.

Second, you have to have a ton of money already because you have to keep bids in place to soak all the new ones that are listed on the auction. In fact, you have to claim them and delete them. Think about it, when there are 5673 Nevermelting Ice for sale you have to soak a good three thousand before the price starts to rise. Even if you relist many of them at an inflated price, you have to keep buying because joe gamer just went and did a level 25 mission and got 5 that he listed for 1000 (cause it saw it selling for that) so you got to buy all those.

Third, you can't do anything else. If you leave for a few hours, the supply, while not as deep, has started to replenish. Unless you have a consortium, the longest effect you have doing this is about 1 day and a half.

Fourth, even at the height of this manipulation, you can make a bid and it will get filled (if you are patient)

Anyone who I knew who did this lost money doing it. I usually complained about it because of the pointless nature of it, but the long term effects are nil. Personally, I never saw the appeal of doing this just for grins.But your mileage may vary.

But if what you are talking about is high prices on items, get a mirror. The buyer sets what he is willing to pay. As a seller, if I can't get a decent return on a item, I stopped selling it or reduced it to the rate that people were willing to pay. What choice do I have? I can't force someone to pay 500000 for a luck charm. All I can do is list it at what I think it will sell for and hope that someone is willing to pay that.

[LaughingAlex]

Absolutely, I really don't care if folks power level, farm for loot or XP, or if they sell influ. I have PL'd more than a few toons myself, some were mine and some were friends. I even bought influ, once redside and once blueside to fund the creation of my own SGs, VGs and bases. I had two accounts so that I did not have to depend on someone else to invite my toons to the S/VGs. I did tons of solo runs and duo's with one of my other accounts toon's in tow.

And you know what? I had fun, a lot of fun! SO who cares who complains about it? Not me, I will go right back to it. Running with my friends on teams when I can and running solo or duo when they aren't around or there is no room available on the team. I jumped on new content as quick as I could, but there was still some I missed so I know there will still be something new for me when (not IF!) the game relaunches.

So it's just a matter of waiting. . . .

Are we there yet? 

Fun is what matters most.  Fun for me was fighting varieties of enemies.  It's why I enjoyed allignment missions so much .  Though i'd hope you were ridiculously careful about buying influence, besides being frowned upon even by those who love power leveling at times, some tend to be very dangerous about providing that service, in that they use it to commit id theft and whatnot.  I actually discourage that more because of the threat of identity theft and whatnot more-so then missing the game.

[MWRuger]

That probably is the best plan.

It probably seems hard to do until you get used to it.   You would be surprised at the response if you are upfront about what you want.   Asking, "Hi...I'm forming a team that isn't in a big hurry and will fight some of the harder foes like Carnival of Shadows and Malta....interested?" will get you the team you are looking for.   Lots of like-minded people out there just waiting to be asked probably.   

I would so love to do this, if you can use a blaster. I like to blow things up real good and do my best to get to the cap on positional defense. I'm typically sturdy and like to burn/shoot/freeze/necro, elexicute the bad guys.

When it's Malta - Sappers DIE First. Next those giant robot things because you cant see through all the freakin contrails from the missiles.

Ghost widow - Never figured a good strategy for her. That hold and kill you attack that never seemed to fail was literal murder.

Carnival of Shadows - Jump Back jack before they the hit the deck if you have to be close.

[LaughingAlex]

No one ever made money cornering a market. For one thing, you could never get all the supply. There were always some that were priced at like a billion.

Second, you have to have a ton of money already because you have to keep bids in place to soak all the new ones that are listed on the auction. In fact, you have to claim them and delete them. Think about it, when there are 5673 Nevermelting Ice for sale you have to soak a good three thousand before the price starts to rise. Even if you relist many of them at an inflated price you have to keep buying because joe gamer just wnet and did a level 25 mission and got that he listed for 1000 (cause it saw it selling for that) so you got to but all those.

Third, you can't do anything else. If you leave for a few hours, the supply, while not as deep, has started to replenish  Unless you have a consortium, the longest effect you have doing this is about 1 day and a half.

Fourth, even at the height of this manipulation, you can make a bid and it will get filled (if you are patient)

Anyone who I knew who did this lost money doing it. I usually complained about it because of the pointless nature of it, but the long term effects are nil. Personally, I never saw the appeal of doing this just for grins.But your mileage may vary.

But if what you are talking about is high prices on items, get a mirror. The buyer sets what he is willing to pay. As a seller, if I can't get a decent return on a item, I stopped selling it or reduced to the rate that people were willing to pay. What choice do I have? I can't force someone to pay 500000 for a luck charm. All I can do is list it at what I think it will sell for and hope that someone is willing to pay that.

That was perhaps the best thing about the auctions, was that it was very hard/impossible to rig the market.  Thing was it was very possible to get the high priced items and place them on sale for a reasonable price, and you couldn't see what others were pricing at.  This actually kept the market a lot more stable.  I miss the auction in fact cause of another thing CO does wrong, in that it's auction the prices are very visible. 

So it's very easy to corner the market by simply listing your bids as lower, or if you see someone to heavily underbid, buy them out then relist at a higher price(usually something very ludicrous, like something that should be going for 10g, the second lowest price is 10g, and the items are listed at 1-2g.  That begs buying and relisting).  So you have this especially annoying market in which it's generally difficult to make money off of, cause even getting something pricey it may go down in such a blink of an eye cause you get people entering an "underbidding war".  Especially with CO's community.....

[LaughingAlex]

I would so love to do this, if you can use a blaster. I like to blow things up real good and do my best to get to the cap on positional defense. I'm typically sturdy and like to burn/shoot/freeze/necro, elexicute the bad guys.

When it's Malta - Sappers DIE First. Next those giant robot things because you cant see through all the freakin contrails from the missiles.

Ghost widow - Never figured a good strategy for her. That hold and kill you attack that never seemed to fail was literal murder.

Carnival of Shadows - Jump Back jack before they the hit the deck if you have to be close.

Hehe, you'd be welcome my team .  Though I usually went after the gunslingers/operations guys after the sappers, as they had stun grenades and some of those stuns lasted a full minute(on higher settings, even on even levels your still looking at 20-30 second stuns).

[MWRuger]

Hehe, you'd be welcome my team .  Though I usually went after the gunslingers/operations guys after the sappers, as they had stun grenades and some of those stuns lasted a full minute(on higher settings, even on even levels your still looking at 20-30 second stuns).

I take direction well, give me a target and I'll hit 'em like you like 'em. (I usually stock lots of defense and break frees. Cause yeah)

If We've a tank, so much the better otherwise I will aggro the heck out of them.

[LaughingAlex]

I take direction well, give me a target and I'll hit 'em like you like 'em. (I usually stock lots of defense and break frees. Cause yeah)

If We've a tank, so much the better otherwise I will aggro the heck out of them.

I'm the kind of guy who likes giving huge defense buffs to everyone, my main was a time manip .  Odds are you'll probably be at or very close to defense cap, i'm a pretty aggressive corrupter player myself.

[Ironwolf]

*UPDATE*

I don't have a lot of news but they are threading through the Corporate hoops and at least have a person who knows NCSoft well to try and make it easier. I know I have said this before but with big companies it really is part of their process. It could take a while - sorry to say. I have an idea to try that might cut through some of the red tape and have the approval to try it. The business side of things is a vastly different world from what most people have experience with.

Folks here is the reality of what is happening: NCSoft and Cryptic will insist their logos remain on the game as they want recognition for their efforts in the past. Due to this they do not want their name on a product run by a group who will not do it justice. This did stop at least 2 different groups from acquiring it in the past, that had money but no true studio. These delays and hoops to jump through are part of the vetting process. It is going to take time to let them see the group making the offer is serious and does have the resources to pull it off.

Like them or loathe them NCSoft has actually done well in choosing the studios for games - the track record on the games isn't as good as the companies they pick. The folks are working on it and may need to make adjustments to reflect what NCSoft wants to see. You can be assured silence is not reflecting a lack of effort.

[mrultimate]

Gonna have to agree, CoH comes back IDC what people do because I'll get to play again. lol

I'm right with you on that CreVo.

[mrultimate]

*UPDATE*

I don't have a lot of news but they are threading through the Corporate hoops and at least have a person who knows NCSoft well to try and make it easier. I know I have said this before but with big companies it really is part of their process. It could take a while - sorry to say. I have an idea to try that might cut through some of the red tape and have the approval to try it. The business side of things is a vastly different world from what most people have experience with.

Folks here is the reality of what is happening: NCSoft and Cryptic will insist their logos remain on the game as they want recognition for their efforts in the past. Due to this they do not want their name on a product run by a group who will not do it justice. This did stop at least 2 different groups from acquiring it in the past, that had money but no true studio. These delays and hoops to jump through are part of the vetting process. It is going to take time to let them see the group making the offer is serious and does have the resources to pull it off.

Like them or loathe them NCSoft has actually done well in choosing the studios for games - the track record on the games isn't as good as the companies they pick. The folks are working on it and may need to make adjustments to reflect what NCSoft wants to see. You can be assured silence is not reflecting a lack of effort.

Thanks for the update Ironwolf. Everything here makes a ton of sense business wise for all parties involved. Consistent hopeful patience continues.

[LaughingAlex]

*UPDATE*

I don't have a lot of news but they are threading through the Corporate hoops and at least have a person who knows NCSoft well to try and make it easier. I know I have said this before but with big companies it really is part of their process. It could take a while - sorry to say. I have an idea to try that might cut through some of the red tape and have the approval to try it. The business side of things is a vastly different world from what most people have experience with.

Folks here is the reality of what is happening: NCSoft and Cryptic will insist their logos remain on the game as they want recognition for their efforts in the past. Due to this they do not want their name on a product run by a group who will not do it justice. This did stop at least 2 different groups from acquiring it in the past, that had money but no true studio. These delays and hoops to jump through are part of the vetting process. It is going to take time to let them see the group making the offer is serious and does have the resources to pull it off.

Like them or loathe them NCSoft has actually done well in choosing the studios for games - the track record on the games isn't as good as the companies they pick. The folks are working on it and may need to make adjustments to reflect what NCSoft wants to see. You can be assured silence is not reflecting a lack of effort.

That explains it.  Thanks for the update.

[Felderburg]

It was an optional system. I understand playing in Mids and seeing how good you could make a character, but if you only play casually then you will need luck to pull it off.

See, that's my issue. Needing luck or ridiculously long amounts of time to actually get things. Like I said, it just never seemed right that a casual player could potentially never get a certain thing. People playing free is one thing, but in a sub-based MMO, everyone should at least have a shot at getting all items in a timely fashion.

[MWRuger]

See, that's my issue. Needing luck or ridiculously long amounts of time to actually get things. Like I said, it just never seemed right that a casual player could potentially never get a certain thing. People playing free is one thing, but in a sub-based MMO, everyone should at least have a shot at getting all items in a timely fashion.

Well, it was FtP the last year.

Why should the most powerful items in the game be easy to get? What is the incentive to play for any length of time?

What is your definition of timely?

How good a shot do you think is fair?

How would people who did do all that work feel if, suddenly it was ridiculously easy? They would probably feel they were cheated out of their time.

But really, no MMO that I know of does what you suggest, even ones that don't encourage alting. They all require a commitment of time to get the choice stuff. At least in CoH you could play the entire game. The only gated content was unlocking your incarnate slot. You could even solo that.

If anyone does, please let us know.

[MWRuger]

*UPDATE*

I don't have a lot of news but they are threading through the Corporate hoops and at least have a person who knows NCSoft well to try and make it easier. I know I have said this before but with big companies it really is part of their process. It could take a while - sorry to say. I have an idea to try that might cut through some of the red tape and have the approval to try it. The business side of things is a vastly different world from what most people have experience with.

Folks here is the reality of what is happening: NCSoft and Cryptic will insist their logos remain on the game as they want recognition for their efforts in the past. Due to this they do not want their name on a product run by a group who will not do it justice. This did stop at least 2 different groups from acquiring it in the past, that had money but no true studio. These delays and hoops to jump through are part of the vetting process. It is going to take time to let them see the group making the offer is serious and does have the resources to pull it off.

Like them or loathe them NCSoft has actually done well in choosing the studios for games - the track record on the games isn't as good as the companies they pick. The folks are working on it and may need to make adjustments to reflect what NCSoft wants to see. You can be assured silence is not reflecting a lack of effort.

Anything we can do, let us know. Thanks for the update!

[PSI-on]

Anything we can do, let us know. Thanks for the update!

Agreed. Thanks for looking into it and letting us know, sounds promising. Frankly I'm not worried about letting NCsoft and Cryptic keep their logo's on it, though I'm not sure how much say Cryptic has in it seeing as they sold all IP and rights to NCsoft, I'm no legal person but could the deals of one company to another then transfer when that second company then deals that business to a third one? Meh, either way I'm fine with it. Jack did at one point say he wanted to see the game "come home" more or less and while I shudder to think what it would have become in the hands of Perfect World, it was still nice to hear and even from the beginning the game they made has been awesome and truly memorable. Good luck, btw, with your attempt, I hope we'll all be able to meet up in the city again in the end.