Nicolee

also getting a 4044...lasted < 5 minutes

p.s. what;s a 4040?

I can't stay in game more than 3-5 minutes after most recent update -- keep getting error 4040 . Please help!!

You say lotus is simple...but I find it anything but simple. On any raid, I see others getting 4-11M DPs and above, and I struggle to occasionally hit 1M dps. If I just press rt-mouse to go full auto, I'll be lucky to do half that. So how can full auto be so bad for me when others claim it should be so easy? Perhaps if I had highest gear, but it is a new class, and even with a lvl60 voucher, I'm not even HM18 yet. I wish there was an easy build on something, since all I've ever been told is I'm a bad player -- such that when I posted a video of me doing an attack in the training room against the dummy, everyone in HM Academy pretty much laughed at it and couldn't believe how bad it was. I was left with the advice to keep on practicing (that was with an archer, which was my favorite, but I couldn't ever hit 'acceptable' for raid groups). So if the devs want to help players who are at the bottom -- collect stats per account, and if none of the characters on that account do well in the newer dungeons...maybe given them a handicap!? Cuz for whatever reason, what seems to be easy for anyone else, I suck at. (Not that the devs will see this either, I guess, and not that they would care, I guess....)

Also, FWIW, Kodrak was different, but wasn't unplayable.

You are messing with your own argument(s). You claim using XML and GCD are cheating, but you also say 80% of the community are using them, then how do you define cheating? Isn't cheating using something to obtain an advantage over the rest that the rest can't get? If the game allows something, and has allowed it for years, but 20% of the players say it shouldn't be allowed because it is cheating, why would (or should) devs listen to a vocal minority? If 80% are playing with a feature that ncsoft allows, why aren't you using it? I.e. if it has been there for years and the devs don't "fix it", maybe they think it isn't a cheat? Maybe it is a local customization option that you are refusing to use, but are being very vocal about in hopes they will make 80% of the players unhappy by banning the feature(s)? If the majority (4:1) want to use it, and the devs allow it, then why should it be considered cheating?

I was told that this costume was removed because the dungeon it came from was no longer available -- but this was before the UE4 update -- years before.

The HP increase in the dungeons is outrageous -- I can't complete the 1st Boss in any of the mid dungeons, like Naryu Sanctum or Rakesh -- couldn't get them below 90% before a timer went off. But when I say I don't see many people, I mean from the number of people standing around chatting and socializing in places like the 1st village -- jadestone. or even in faction chat. About 1/5 - 1/6th the numbers hanging around chatting. I didn't even get to looking to go with a party cept maybe once and the did the LFP thing in Normal and had 5-6 in party in 30-40 seconds, but that was for the 3-4 lowest on the dailies. I rarely did LFP -- it was either looking for who was doing a specific dungeon, or leading a party myself on one of the lower dungeons -- but I only did that if I could solo or almost solo those. I'm not even close to soloing any of the dungeons available from F8 now, so no more parties for me.

I have a character that is HM24 who used to be able to solo most of the dungeons up to BT. Now I can't begin to make it through most of them -- even on 'easy' I can't dent them having 1000 times my hits before some timer runs out. Even on SSP -- I've been able to kill the hairy big mid-bosses since HM16. Now with an HM24 I can't even dent their hits. Is this intentional? All bosses have hits in the hundred-millions? Also it seems there was a huge inflation factor added to prices -- but not to quests for beginners. Also I'm running into quests like the shopping one in Jadestone -- that are beginning level quests, but that I can't complete until I am level 35-36? Can't even check the market, forget trade -- if I could just check market, I think that quest would be done. Other prob -- I noticed there was no one in faction chat in crims, so I wanted to switch to Ceru. I haven't been able to get together the new price for the costume, so am shut out of faction quests. One might think some of these issues are not related -- but they are -- the costs for doing things have all all been raised, but now am not getting money or items that I used to get as a beginning character. Used to get a gem out of the 'how-to-socket/unsocket' quest -- now, it evaporates. Trying to start a new character is harsh. I also tried with a lvl60 boost in DB - still very harsh, since no training in F12 for new characters, and no quests to learn your class with Hunjoon.(sp)? Sorta looks like UE4 was rushed to release w/o testing, and full completion -- like there were contractual requirements? There seem to be so many fewer people from a few months ago.

How are they cheating? If the game allows one to repeat a dungeon that gives good experience, how is that cheating? It's not a 3rd party program, its becoming an expert in the mechanics of the game to optimize payback. The gold can only be gotten once a day, but the XP, you are complaining that some dungeon gives more XP than you think it should, and that the game allows people to repeat those dungeons as much as they want. People don't get this: the rules of the game are what it enforces. You are not claiming that they are breaking the game rules or using a 3rd party cheat program, you are complaining that you don't like the game's rules. There are alot of people who have issues with various game rules -- but that doesn't mean anyone who follows those rules is cheating. You seem to think anyone doing things that the game allows that you don't like or disagree with is cheating, consider this -- games have almost always had hidden easter eggs or prizes for those who explored and tried out everything in a game. Many times those were put there on purpose for those who tried everything in a game. They were not cheats. This is why I really don't like multiplayer games -- in solo-play games, I can do anything I can do, and never have to worry about unhappy or mean people complaining about what I do.

That's partly by design -- that you've even made it to HM25 on F2P is amazing. It's certainly higher than anything I've gotten close to and I've easily spent 50-75K in this game since I started playing ~4 years ago. But certainly, it would make sense to give some character progression advantage to those who spend, at least, the cost of a movie/month for a premium membership, no? How else should NCx make any money to meet expenses?

Noobis -- I heard much the same, that the devs weren't really interested in the NA market, but bean-counters pushed for it for how gullible and how an even moderate success might translate to a larger profit than from the home market. It really would be showing compassion and concern to lower income requirements to progress while supplying more resources like you mentioned to help out us as we have invested in their economy greatly since the 50's. All of the billions of dollars poured into US bases in their country ultimately end up trickling into the Korean economy as most day-to-day supplies come from there. If only we'd see some of that good will trickle back through our interest in using and investing in their products (like BnS).

Grim: The alt-route may not be undoable, but would still prefer a route involving something like something purchasable with some game or event tokens. Gman: maybe a Korean grinding game, but I have noticed a fair amount of effort to localize the game. That doesn't just mean adding a language translation, but also deals with local cultural expectations and norms. Apparently they even changed the name of the classes like from Huns->Gons or Kuns->Yuns or something because the former name was perceived as having some negative cultural reference. In a similar way I suspect you'll find different views toward what constitutes an acceptable level of "grindiness". I bet there's an age group difference, as well, between that in Korea vs. the West, with older players having less time and less tolerance for mindless 'grinding' in their 'entertainment' hours.

I can average maybe 8 a week from the dungeon (with 3 resets, thank-you), but with the addition of the Pet-gem bags in F10 there isn't even close to enough materials to handle the bags! I've only purchased about 4 bags (2 of each kind) and notice that max return is 2-3 frags and 2-3 HM powders). But to do anything more than buy basic gems, that's not even close to enough. Just to combine 2 hepta's cost 6 frags and that uses up any included frags, but trying to merge for a triangle -- 18 frags? Um...that would be 12 for 2 octagons + 18 for triangle merge = 30. That's a month for 1 guilded triangle (and goddess knows what the cost for guilded squares are, but 6 gems -- no way is 6 months reasonable for that level since squares are at least double the triangles (need 2 of them) and who knows what the transmute costs are for squares. Even if you want to spend money on HM gem frags, you still will come up very short in the oblivion ingredients. Can something be done about this? Thanks!

I know some of it is the increased distance, but the server load just doesn't seem to be able to be handled with the new server either. Feels like the server has undergone a downgrade -- I don't know if the forum is on the same server, but even it has gotten very sluggish. I know this much -- in a full MSP raid, I drop down to a ping time of slower than 250ms and 4FPS. Some other busy raids approach that but it's becoming clear that this new server doesn't have the same kick as the older one and that was recognized as too slow. My ping time, alone is the worst change: a 67% decrease in response time by 70-100ms over a previous 125-150ms being typical. I'll get in the 70-90's in FPS, but I almost never see 120FPS, let alone >100FPS unless I turn off other characters being shown. This wasn't the case before. What you need is the ability to transparently spread users over more cpu's without them knowing it -- making it appear as 1 unified world. Getting one of the newer large# core machines with a huge chunk of cpu Cache would be a great first start. It's still 1 machine -- but can present a unified environment with different users being updated by different CPU's, but all using the same main memory. I'd hate to think about performance in a special pvp event zone like that demon realm several weeks back. Don't you have any system's engineers who could look at the problem in NA, since I'm sure KOR would have that as a low priority issue. Have no idea what is needed, but if you don't have an engineer look into it, no one ever will. Don't laugh, but I'd be willing to study the problem given the possibility of a fix getting submitted to the home codebase -- otherwise, it's probably a waste of time. Thanks!

There are a couple of weapons that are this way -- the windsong bow for archer being the most painful lack of an illusion weapon slot. So many of the bows are works of art, dang shame its limited to a few top players who can make that class work. I tried that class, but eventually gave up as was never able to get the decent 10M+ sustain (or even burst) that high end players have. Another weap that falls into this class -- the one that goes with the wolf-clan story that's in the story. Fine outfit, but can't keep the weap except in inventory (a few of my characters still have it in inventory, though some had to get rid of it to make space). :-(

You can't have 1 indicator that describes it all -- there are different way to push up indicators. I disagree with your bit on throwing extra HM points into attack as being a 'flaw' -- vs. the Boss attack being better. I usually put all my points in HM because that's where they are most useful. Putting extra points into boss attack gives you, at best, maybe 1/4 uptime -- the rest on CD. Besides, the difference between all in offense and putting 25 in Boss attack is just that: 25 points. That's not going to make that much of a difference. If a dungeon is one I am comfortable with, like BC & below, I don't check other people's stats or gear. With DST I need fair checking to get past boss 1, but if I have 1-2 strong people with me, I'll easily take along anyone else who joins. H0 takes at least 3-4 strong players, preferably not counting me. Halceyon -- I've yet to get any stamina buff necessary to make it to the top arena. Have always had to go back to beginning to catch a portal. Basically I don't yet lead runs for H0+above. Below that, I do, and I try to get 1-2 other strong players and the rest, can be whatever (I don't care). The ones who kick you for being low are the ones who aren't comfortable unless they are surrounded by stronger players. It is really about them not being good enough to take "whoever". So try not to take it personally...

Have you seen the RNG chances for Kor players to get things? They are about 10x higher than drops on Western servers where they don't have to publish %chance. Regardless, westerners moved away from a grind-based-ethic where they were sold on the myth that hard-work leads to success. Most know that hard work == wage-slave working-class. You think they want that in their entertainment or games? I've seen many times when someone calls you on your made up "facts". Your credibility is too low to use phrases like "believe me". That said, though, there are multiple issues that aren't being handled well that are contributing to players moving on. So so wrong. As a player, very often, the *only way* to progress is by finding other ways to raise stats than by upgrading weaps+accessories. If you can't get into a RAID because your clan only does 1 raid which is filled with players with higher stats, DPS and AP than you, you have no choice but to look for other ways to raise those things. Things like gems used to be considered either whale or endgame items -- yet it was the only route open to me to raise my stats, since I was constantly kicked from F8 groups as a lower player and not invited to the only raid in a clan. I've only been in 1 clan that ran more than one raid, and that clan fell apart because they couldn't keep filling those raids in the face of too many players leaving the game for various reasons. Things like psyche's are ways of raising your stats in spite of not having access to 'IA', (now, for example). It's not a replacement, but it does help. I have no access to an IA raid I need and can't solo dungeons to get ET-level accessories or upgrade mats. I have to rely on groups where I need to qualify to get in. The dungeon related costumes STOP at BC and above. They should put those costumes in easy mode drops as they are previous-tier dungeons. Maybe keep costumes in elder-scale dungeons in HM, until there is a new level above IA, but there's no reason to not make costumes in onyx-mat dungeons available in easy mode like previous dungeons. That's bull. Where are opportunities to get items or achievements like Eagle-Eye, Sapphire-Flyer, let along those from events like Fashion Police, Fire Runner, Bloody Valentine, Defender of the Ancients, Heart Stopper, etc... If they would repeat the events, it would be possible, but they haven't, so your "simple" case doesn't exist.

It would be nice if ALL the items had higher drop rates in dungeons. Not everyone has infinite time to farm other dungeons.

Cor -- that's unfair -- many of the mechs in BnS are designed for Korea ping times which are almost all, well under 100ms. That's always been a complaint about mechs, with those having slower machines, slower connections, or slower reactions being told they are just bad players, when it's just a poorly designed game w/regards to varying player ping times. I heard that China implemented some algorithm to help compensate for this on their server, as their infrastructure has a wide variation in ping times. If the Kor developers can't come up with an algorithm, they could ask China if they'd share their balancing algorithm -- or .. just have the server ping the client to get the average ping time and do a combination of increasing mech timeouts for high-ping players (>250ms?) and creating a floor (minimum) time for server-answers to low ping players (ones <=90ms). With those values being "tunables/server" based on the server's location and served-population. Certainly the devs can simulate long ping times with extra pauses on the server/response. They don't need a VPN to test it. However, I strongly doubt they'd be motivated to play or test on a regular basis with such a deficit. As for asian players playing on US servers, there are many reasons for wanting to do do so, not the least being their social circle. They may have friends on this server and not know anyone on closer ones. Or closer servers may have onerous access requirements that they don't want or can't comply with. Some jurisdictions require specific ID's that the user may not have, or may not wish to hand over. The original poster, was posting in English -- I doubt they could have posted an English note on one of the foreign servers. Maybe they are even English speakers living abroad... Even on the NA server, I've often wished for in-game translation to communicate to French and Spanish speakers, not to mention the many sub-communities with other languages.

+ charm to skip floors you get from python when doing the protect gem in cylinder quest in muchins. You get charm, but it won't enable skipping those floors. (Charm 5F to skip first 4 floors leading to "The final training DOES work). + Opening class-specific weapon from SSP -- doesn't work for archer (even though no text for archers being excluded) -- get error "Invalid item".

Sounds like an interesting strategy development. If it was balanced by warden having low ability to chase someone down -- imagine if 6v6 had to be planned with the different members taking different roles, vs. current play with is mostly like 6-single people competing for the most kills. Your testing was flawed. You do have a 'cd' on progressing to 'stormborn'. After stormborn exits, you can't create 5 orbs directly transition to stormborn. Depending on how fast you create your orbs, you might have to wait up to 20-25 or more seconds for stormborn to be available (has a 30s cd & there is a 1-sec cd between orbs), but if you have 5 orbs up, those will time out in 5 seconds. There is a significant 'cd' period between being able to go into successive stormborns. I think I mentioned, I don't do pvp. I do play 3rd spec but have no pvp gear. Bad is relative, *first*, to how much you've spent on pvp gear. In that respect, I'd have pretty low skill, Beyond that, my ping has gone up by about 80% to about a quarter of a second / key. It's a bit hard to do much with only 4 keys/sec, but even before the server move to a smaller server, I'd be lucky to get 6-8 keys/sec. Never played frost, so I'll take your word for it. Am only going by what people say in pve battles against a boss. I almost never start out on stop in a pve battle, but if the battle lasts more than a minute, I'll often see dps exceed most of those who were strong in the first 30+ seconds. I did mention I don't pvp. What's an incinerator? Isn't that what is used to burn trash? More than 600k hp? You should die -- extra fast just on principle! . I've seen some characters that contaminate SSP/faction play with 600KHP & 10-15K defense and nearly impossible for multiple players to kill. Really imbalances SSP to have that type of gear on the field. Well, it comes down to whether or not they paid for the highest gear. If they did, I won't disbelieve they are, but that's also been the way pvp has been for a while -- those who have the best equipment, usually exceed others, and WAY exceed those with pve gear. Maybe if they had a 6v6-mode that only allowed pve weap+accessories (maybe just used standard AP+defense instead of pvp stats?), I'd agree, but it really might be they have better stats than you (with unity + new compounding, equipment alone won't tell you their other stats).

So the fact that some classes can survive a bit longer is what you are complaining about? Uh, gee, forgive me if I'm not very sympathetic, but being killed instantly has been a reason I hate pvp. I'm a FM, BTW, I still die fairly quickly in any pvp situation. But something increased my survivability? FM's have been a joke for a long time -- not being good enough to burst, but only good in long battles -- which in pvp they never survived long enough for. If their strength has gone up, maybe its just being equalized? How many FM's are in the top 10 in the pvp competitions? Virtually none is how it used to be -- though I admit to not checking lately.

What's this about white seductress only being released for gon's? I've been wanting that outfit for at least 3+ years only to be told its only a random give away from the F10 store. What is the reasoning for putting on gon's only when it loks just fine on Yuns? This is very disappointing. When will it be available for yuns?

What is a global cool down? Where is it documented? As for the bit about not getting airborned as often, wasn't that part of the offensive damage nerf across the board, that prevented 1 person getting a first shot becoming the winner because other side never got a shot? Those who used to be able to one-shot people because various classes had abilities that allowed them to exploit getting the first shot into a long sequence of continuous damage. Now everyone gets more of a chance of breaking out of that long period and at least getting a few shots in -- AFAIK, that's not an XML edit but part of a rebalance that has tried making battles into longer events, rather than 1st shooter wins.