A Little Love for The Mag-Gep

Fine... TL/DR: I have a lot of upgrades to do, gold farming speeds that up.

Bear in mind, I was referring to the past, a few months back, so much of the upgrading has been done. As a fuzzy guess-timate, I'd say gold farming and spending the results on upgrade fast-forwards has cut my overall upgrade times by half.

This was my top hanger set:
Stalker6 - 2xMagnum6
Golem6 - Thunder6 GAU-T7 Pinata6
Rhino6 - 2xMagnum6 2xTaran6
Griffin6 - 2xMagnum6 2xTaran6
Griffin6 - 2xPinata8 2xOrkan8

Go ahead, you can laugh now.

This is what I have now.
Carnage7 - 2xThunder10
Galahad7 - 2xMagnum9 Taran9
Rhino6 - 2xMangum8 2xTaran8
Griffin6 - 2xPinata8 2xOrkan8
Leo6 - 3xGekko8 Zeus8

All thanks to gold farming, enabled by Gepards just as much as by my own skills. The only upgrades left to complete balancing my hanger are to get my medium bots up to 9/10. And maybe, just maybe, I can finally compete in the upper tiers.

Upgrading will never be completed however, ever onward and upward. At that point, maybe I won't need to gold farm so much, since you should incrementally upgrade a hanger set that is already balanced, fast forwarding isn't as useful.

And finally, to Mr. Fun Police... That's all great combat advice that is full of Win. Your last bit, however, is of no use to the poorly informed newb that just got slaughtered by a TMGep for the first time. I'll grant you the moral high ground on this one, but I can only lament your lack of empathy with the 'seals' looking to improve their game and trying to find a fighting chance. What use is a personal sense of accomplishment if you lose interest before you can get there? P2W is a double-edge sword.

The TL;DR bit is heading a line for people that are impatient and don't want to read yet another one of my long and overly wordy posts. It was not meant as a disparaging remark towards anybody, but simply a summation of what I was about to write. You should not assume so much is directly related to you, I did not say "Your post is TL;DR so I didn't pay attention to it", which is what you just implied.

I have enjoyed more than 40 years on this planet, including currently raising three kids. I read three dictionaries cover to cover in the sixth grade in order to improve my vocabulary. I've read three different versions of The Bible from cover to cover just to learn more about that religion. I'v read more sci-fi and fantasy novels than most of you have even heard of. I've worked tech support jobs for the last 20 years helping people fix their technology over the phone. Don't talk to me about a lack of patience.

Your last bit, to be specific, appears to encourage players to NOT take P2W options, and instead grind their way through it for some magical variety fest that you enjoy. My counter point is that P2W a double-edged sword, both creating problems and in turn providing some relief. It is an argument for the middle ground, not the extremes that you obviously enjoy. Please get over yourself, your way is not the only way.

My point, which you still seemed to miss, is that the quick way usually results in missing the point. Which you aptly illustrated by missing my point. The quick way isn't any less valid, but it is usually less rewarding, like getting the Cliffs Notes version of a book. In this case, it also happens to be detrimental to the gameplay of others, making the game less rewarding for them as well.

I'm trying to figure out if you've really appreciated themes in complex works. Dictionaries aren't going to have a theme (and frankly, you'll retain a lot more if you read books and look up words you don't understand). The Bible is written by a number of different authors, and while there are themes that do run through it, I don't think it really holds together in the same way a good novel will. Which sci-fi and fantasy novels have you found the most rewarding, the ones that still have you thinking about them months and years after the fact?

"A classic is something everyone wants to have read that no-one wants to read." - Mark Twain.

Sci-fi, adventure, romances; they're all candy reads that you feed on for a quick hit, but won't leave you with that healthy aftertaste. The Hunger Games, Catcher in the Rye, 1984: vegetables that might take a while to chew through but in the end you know you're better for it.

How does this link to the Bible and the dictionary and textbooks? It doesn't. Because then you'll need to add a third dimension of knowledge, where our beloved wiki falls under. This is where I pick a side: the wiki gives you the knowledge to say this is where you can exploit MM. And behold, people chose to exploit MM; whose fault is this? Pixonic takes responsibility for the sheer number of geps, not through a direct statement, but they explicitly avoid nerfing the Gep, as (as someone said earlier) the Gep is what keeps the game floating at the level it is at; it pays the bills but does not attract new players due to difficulty.

Yet, for the players that already do have the Gep, if the Gep were to be nerfed or brought down in anyway, it would be unjust to these pilots. Therefore, I can only say that this game cannot grow if these Gep pilots can't suck up a hit, because when there's a fresh batch of seals coming in, tell me who's disadvantaged.

Clubbers getting philosophical and bragging with their libraries.

Now I am wondering wether the "Hunger Games" books are REALLY in line with "Catcher in the Rye" and 1984 or if they are just the same teenage-bollocks as the movie...

I’ll grant that reading a dictionary and holding a job in tech support requires a great deal of patience, but having patience required of you doesn’t seem to me to be quite the same as seeing how patience can be rewarded. But ah, you’re a parent of three. I think I’ll be able to illustrate what I mean.

There’s the quick and easy way out, of course, where some parents will, just to keep them out of their hair, park their kids in front of the TV, or let them play with tablets/phones/videogames, or just ignore them long enough that they take a hint and play by themselves. And then there’s the far more time-consuming way where the parent spends quality time with the kids, answering every question, reading to them, explaining to the kids what they're doing and why/how, playing with them, getting to know them as people. Clearly far more rewarding for both.

And there's the quick and easy way of getting a kid to do what you want, just putting your foot down and/or imposing your will physically. As you know, that’ll work in the short-term but guarantees the exact same battle the next time and every time after that. And then there’s the far, far the slower method of very patiently getting them to buy in to what you want them to do, which typically involving laying down a good deal of groundwork and setting of their expectations beforehand. Far more rewarding in the long term. Indeed, it is the difference between requiring them to do something and teaching them how rewarding that something is.

And, of course, there are the simple tasks that they’re struggling to learn, like dressing themselves, and it’s oh-so-tempting to just do it for them so you can go get to where you’re going, but it’s far more rewarding to let them do it, even though it can be excruciating to wait. And, of course, that look of triumph when they’ve succeeded is always the most radiant after they’ve completed a task they’ve found very challenging. The things that come easy to them never brighten their faces quite as much.

There is no one right way to parent, nor one right way to play the game. I'm just saying that avoiding shortcuts simply works better. Morals ain't got nothing to do with that. This argument is not a moral argument. It rests completely on a player's self-interest. That you thought this was a moral argument made it pretty clear that you missed the point.


Great, Dune! Perfect! To anyone who hasn't read the book, SPOILER ALERT! Please skip the next two paragraphs to avoid!

To me, the theme the recurs over and over in that work is of control and power (also a long-running theme in the Foundation series). The Bene Gesserit’s use of Voice, the heavy coverage of politics and religion that is rather unusual in a sci-fi book, the need to control the speed of a knife to penetrate a shield, Paul’s use of Fremen religion to get them to follow him (used again by his son during God Emperor), the attempt to control the environment of Arrakis that eventually backfires, the leverage Paul gains over the Emperor from the spice monopoly, etc.

The other main theme I see (one completely eviscerated by Lynch’s movie, but thankfully not by the Sci-Fi miniseries) is that of the strength that comes from enduring through hardship. The emperor’s feared Sardaukar troops are tough hombres because they’re from the harsh prison planet, but they are no match for the Fremen who grow up from infancy on a desert planet. None of the nobility on either side can hold a candle to these fighters because they’ve led easy lives (not even Duncan Idaho -- yeah, okay, he was outnumbered, but just look how early that happens in the book). Except Paul, as he adopts the Fremen way of life wholesale.

Now, it just happens that the 2nd theme applies to this game, but that wasn't my point (as I had no idea what books you would name, just hopeful you would name one that I was familiar with). What I meant is that, as you read the book, didn’t all these details resonate more because of how they interlocked together? Wasn’t it more satisfying because of the slow and gradual realization of the pattern? Now, assuming you’ve actually gone back and read my “TLDR” post, do you really think all the bullet points are coincidental, or do you agree with me that there are far too many of them and that there is an intentional pattern there? C'mon, how many other games have you wait so long for upgrades to complete after you've already paid for them?

And you must forgive me. Yes, I did assume you were rather young. Maybe I just haven’t frequented enough forums, but I have just never ever seen TLDR used by anyone who’s gotten past college, especially regarding a post that's a mere 500 words, and broken up into bullets. Even a op ed column for a newspaper averages out at around 800 (a medium not exactly known for long and complex analysis), and novels average 80k. I just didn't think that anyone who reads books regularly would fail to read something just 0.6% the length, and which, unlike a book, someone else had taken the time and trouble to write specifically to them. So, TLDR truly did not strike me as a response from an adult. My apologies for jumping to a false conclusion. Note, if you are intending to indicate you are about to summarize a longer piece, I believe the convention is to say "The TLDR version is..."

And no, pay2win isn't going away... well, except in the sense that the long-term strategy of many mobile app developers is to gather users and then, once captured, soak them more and more while working on coming up with the next big thing before they've driven all the users away. Remember, companies do not behave like people. They don't content themselves with steady income (particularly tech companies) because that is not what most investors want. They need growth. Plus, the life cycle of these things aren't infinite, and when the game's community exhibits behavior that pisses off newbies, this shortens this life cycle.

This isn't a moral argument either, by the way. For contrast, the moral argument would be something like (and I am putting this in quotes specifically because it is NOT my point), "You know that Christ said, 'All things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them.' Well, you didn't like being seal-clubbed, right? Shame on you!" That's a moral argument. I don't think I've used that anywhere in this thread, have I?

If you are talking about the number of examples, she missed the point like three times, so I think extra clarity with specific examples that I knew she could relate to was called for.

If you're talking about the "pisses off" comment, this was said earlier in the thread, and when nobody batted an eye, I assumed that wasn't crossing the line.

Otherwise, please quote what you are referring to so that we can all see what you mean.

Oh no, somebody destroyed your fun. What irony!

Congrats Intel Inside on the #2 finish....I see war fly and dragonaut who run geps on the list as well as gold players.

I always forget Power Hour and miss the start....someday I'm going to have to give it a try to see how I do.

Great job on the 65 trophies which is solid for a silver line up.

Cheers!

I'll admit I found this mildly funny when you posted it

probably because no one cares enough, flame wars aren't pleasant, nor worth the time and/or effort. Play the game the way you want to play it.

Well, the thread is salty, but salt isn't very flammable. Meltable yes, but not easily flammable.

Unlikely. The stalker has fewer weapons, less armor, and runs more slowly. Your best bet is to focus on corner shooting. Most Gep drivers are more concerned with easy/fast wins and might ignore you for a while while you ping off a few shots here and there.