2011 MMORPG Thread

[Thomkal]

Just a reminder that Champions Online Free to Play starts tomorrow as does the next Rifts beta. Decisions, Decisions....

[cuervo72]

Free to play, but still need to purchase the box, yes?

[Thomkal]

Originally Posted by cuervo72

Free to play, but still need to purchase the box, yes?

No you don't need to purchase the box. Many F2P work that way now. Just need to download the client from their website after creating an account there. I'm downloading now, but I'm not sure if this is the correct client. It's a very big download, so be ready for that.

[Thomkal]

Free-to-Play FAQ | Champions Online Official Site

[Lonnie]

Rift beta 5 started today. I'm playing of the Sunrest shard.

[tyketime]

Originally Posted by Lonnie

Rift beta 5 started today. I'm playing of the Sunrest shard.

Yep. I've been looking forward to this!

[Thomkal]

After some initial problems logging into the game due to numerous amount of people trying to get in at the same time as me, I got into Rifts for the first time. Initial impressions are good-many MMO's storylines start out where the game world is in a time of crisis, but rarely does it feel/look like it when you start playing. It certainly does in Rifts. The world has suffered (and continues to) from an unimaginable devastation and you are thrust into it right away. No nice cheery safe looking villages here-the town you quickly come to looks like its been through a war, one that it has lost and scavengers are there picking at its bones. (make sure you go into some of those bombed out buildings for things you can find in them)

Was stable for me-they brought the game down a couple time for quick patches. Graphics are good, no lag, nice tutorial hints that pop up from time to time to explain things. Not sure if I'm going to like being able to play 3 classes with one character (you start out with one and quickly gain another). But the second class (Ranger) gave me a pet that helped keep my foes at a distance so my original class (Marksman) could take full advantage of them. The game suggests good combos when you pick your initial class and second class and some classes are much more suited to PvP play over PvE play so pick accordingly.

[DataKing]

This would happen to be a game based on the Palladium RPG, Rifts, would it?

[BYU 14]

Originally Posted by Thomkal

After some initial problems logging into the game due to numerous amount of people trying to get in at the same time as me, I got into Rifts for the first time. Initial impressions are good-many MMO's storylines start out where the game world is in a time of crisis, but rarely does it feel/look like it when you start playing. It certainly does in Rifts. The world has suffered (and continues to) from an unimaginable devastation and you are thrust into it right away. No nice cheery safe looking villages here-the town you quickly come to looks like its been through a war, one that it has lost and scavengers are there picking at its bones. (make sure you go into some of those bombed out buildings for things you can find in them)

Was stable for me-they brought the game down a couple time for quick patches. Graphics are good, no lag, nice tutorial hints that pop up from time to time to explain things. Not sure if I'm going to like being able to play 3 classes with one character (you start out with one and quickly gain another). But the second class (Ranger) gave me a pet that helped keep my foes at a distance so my original class (Marksman) could take full advantage of them. The game suggests good combos when you pick your initial class and second class and some classes are much more suited to PvP play over PvE play so pick accordingly.

Played for a couple of hours last night and certainly agree, my beginning area was under siege and it was like being dropped into total chaos. The early quests are fast paced as would be expected and the interface is pretty much MMORPG standard, but I really like the concepts of souls and the sole tree, started as an Assassin Rogue and and have already added Blade Dancer and will later add Rift Walker as sub specialties. Even at this early stage this game just seems different and the Betas will give me a real good idea if I am going to buy by March release.

[tyketime]

Originally Posted by BYU 14

...started as an Assassin Rogue and and have already added Blade Dancer and will later add Rift Walker as sub specialties.

I know they were doing a lot of stress testing on the servers, so I experienced two server drops and a lot of lag before I called it a night. I rolled an Assassin and added RiftStalker for the teleporting abilities (I can't wait to get Shadow Stalk where you teleport behind the target). Perfect location for an assassin!

[Aylmar]

Originally Posted by DataKing

This would happen to be a game based on the Palladium RPG, Rifts, would it?

No, it's got nothing to do with it. In fact, Palladium sued them last year over the use of the word "Rift".

Rift - Palladium Books Sues Trion Worlds - MMORPG.com

[DataKing]

Pity. I would love to see a Rifts MMO.

[tyketime]

I had a blast playing in the Rift Beta 5 event last night. And in case you missed it... they extended the beta for one more day! Woo Hoo!

I leveled an Assassin/RiftStalker/Saboteur up to Level 14 and made it to Meridan before calling it a night last night. I keep my Assassin maxed out with the rest of the points going to RiftStalker. At this point, I've only used the Saboteur bomb to slow the enemies. Although I'm on a PvP server, I haven't ventured out into the big nasty world. But I will tonight!

But I do have a question about my Assassin. I find that a fair amount of my creature targets detect me as I try to sneak up behind them. Is that because I'm moving too fast (does that have anything to do with detection)? I have upgraded to the 15% harder to detect skill, but more times than not, I hear that whistle indicating that I'm being detected. I need to figure this out before I start trying to battle other players.

I started having to shift some of my abilities around on the Action Bars. At this point, I am trying to limit myself to 2 action bars, but I may reluctantly add a 3rd. I think I now have 3-4 "finishing strikes", but find I mainly use one and rarely a second one.

So my questions are:
1. Do you keep multiple finishing moves on your action bar?
2. Do you swap out the older ones for newer ones to limit how many you keep on the action bar?
3. At this point, do you really pay much attention as to whether it does Fire damage, Water Damage, etc? Or do you just swing with the one that has the most total damage points regardless of "type"?

[Thomkal]

I keep multiple finishing moves on my action bar-I can use another while the other recharges.

I swap out older regular attacks and will likely swap out older finishing moves as I get better ones-I haven't started a second action bar yet for attacks-I've moved things like pet summons to a second bar. Given that I have three souls now, I likely will have to start a second attack action bar to take the excess ones that I can't fit on the first anymore.

I dislike that you can get all three souls so quickly-maybe they will space them out more in the regular game-I have all three by level 7, and am already dropping my oldest attacks to make room for the new soul stuff. I'd like to see them space them out more so I can get to know the soul I have and build up some Soul points in them before getting the second one and then the third one.

I haven't seen any reason to pay attention to what type of damage an attack uses so far, so I'm just going with what does the most damage.

[tyketime]

Originally Posted by Thomkal

I dislike that you can get all three souls so quickly-maybe they will space them out more in the regular game-I have all three by level 7, and am already dropping my oldest attacks to make room for the new soul stuff. I'd like to see them space them out more so I can get to know the soul I have and build up some Soul points in them before getting the second one and then the third one.

It's my understanding that they have quickened the pace of receiving the 2nd & 3rd souls in the Beta so they could test more earlier in the game. But I can't quickly find anything to either back up my assertion or indicate how they will be spread out when the game goes live.

[Radii]

Originally Posted by Thomkal

I keep multiple finishing moves on my action bar-I can use another while the other recharges.

I swap out older regular attacks and will likely swap out older finishing moves as I get better ones

Same for both.

I dislike that you can get all three souls so quickly-maybe they will space them out more in the regular game-I have all three by level 7, and am already dropping my oldest attacks to make room for the new soul stuff.

At level 14 (or thereabouts, I picked it up at 14), you can get a quest to earn a 4th soul. The mage guys that have these quests are all in the argent dawn college, and the other base class guys are all in Sanctum... err for the guardian side at least. I haven't tried Defiant yet. Seems like they want to give people max flexibility early, though yeah there's a chance its sped up for Beta and will change, I haven't done any reading yet on the forums or whatever to try to learn about that kind of stuff.

I haven't seen any reason to pay attention to what type of damage an attack uses so far, so I'm just going with what does the most damage.

Same, I suspect this will matter more in pvp and perhaps some dungeons/bosses.


I'm really impressed with how polished this game feels.

[Thomkal]

I suspected they sped up soul obtaining for the beta-don't have a problem with that-I just hope this isn't the way it will be in the real game. The game does seem very polished and streamlined-perhaps too much. You rapidly move from small area to small area doing a couple quests and move on, just used to bigger areas where I can hang out for a while before moving to the next area. The game really pushes you to move on for theme purposes-especially for the defiants.

[Matthean]

2x exp weekend for CoH. I got my Kat/sr scrapper from 42 to 45.2 so far. Taking a break and getting to 46 and calling it good on him for the night. 46 to 50 on Sat. and then poke around with other guys as I'm only doing a partial weekend this time. I'm off to Florida on Sunday. Some day, I'm taking a three day weekend and seeing how many guys I can get to 50. I have three more sitting at 37-38.

[cuervo72]

I think I'm going to spend time with my Elec/Sonic controller (@17) and *maybe* my AR/Dev that is somewhere in the 20s (an old, old character).

[larrymcg421]

I got my Shield/SS Tank to 50 just before double XP and in the process of completely IOing him out. Got his global recharge up to 40% and I plan to add 5 LOTG's which will bring him up to 77.5%.

For double XP weekend, I rolled a Fire/Rad corrupter and already have him at lvl 24. I might also spend some time with some of my older characters, like my Grav/FF controller, Ill/Kin controller, MA/SR scrapper, and Kin/Sonic Defender.

[BYU 14]

Originally Posted by tyketime

I had a blast playing in the Rift Beta 5 event last night. And in case you missed it... they extended the beta for one more day! Woo Hoo!

I leveled an Assassin/RiftStalker/Saboteur up to Level 14 and made it to Meridan before calling it a night last night. I keep my Assassin maxed out with the rest of the points going to RiftStalker. At this point, I've only used the Saboteur bomb to slow the enemies. Although I'm on a PvP server, I haven't ventured out into the big nasty world. But I will tonight!

But I do have a question about my Assassin. I find that a fair amount of my creature targets detect me as I try to sneak up behind them. Is that because I'm moving too fast (does that have anything to do with detection)? I have upgraded to the 15% harder to detect skill, but more times than not, I hear that whistle indicating that I'm being detected. I need to figure this out before I start trying to battle other players.

I started having to shift some of my abilities around on the Action Bars. At this point, I am trying to limit myself to 2 action bars, but I may reluctantly add a 3rd. I think I now have 3-4 "finishing strikes", but find I mainly use one and rarely a second one.

So my questions are:
1. Do you keep multiple finishing moves on your action bar?
2. Do you swap out the older ones for newer ones to limit how many you keep on the action bar?
3. At this point, do you really pay much attention as to whether it does Fire damage, Water Damage, etc? Or do you just swing with the one that has the most total damage points regardless of "type"?

I am having a blast with RIFT too, there is always just so much going on around, very fast paced game. I have a Rogue Assassin and found that I was getting too close and being detected. I have had a lot more success sneaking up slower and launching my stealth attack from a bit father away.

I opened too bars for combat on the bottom of my screen. The top bar is for stealth and its related skills (assassinate, puncture) and healing potions and combat buffs.

The bottom bar is all melee and contains both finishing moves I have (level 6 right now) and the attacks are lined up with the base attacks first, the bonus attacks they trigger next and the finishing moves last, works out well for me.

I put up a third action bar on the side for my out of combat buffs/actions, water, poison weapons, etc.

[tyketime]

Originally Posted by BYU 14

The top bar is for stealth and its related skills (assassinate, puncture) and healing potions and combat buffs.

It took me a while to figure out what was going on, but in case you didn't know (and I mean no offense if you did), when you enter Stealth mode, a new action bar is created where your first action bar normally resides. So I got to a safe place, entered Stealth mode a few times, and moved my stealth skills (assassinate, etc.) onto that bar. That enabled me to free up space on my "regular" action bars. Once you come out of Stealth mode, the first action bar returns for you to continue your assault. So the only Stealth-related skill on my regular action bars is the Stealth ability itself. Make sense?

[Matthean]

Originally Posted by Matthean

2x exp weekend for CoH. I got my Kat/sr scrapper from 42 to 45.2 so far. Taking a break and getting to 46 and calling it good on him for the night. 46 to 50 on Sat. and then poke around with other guys as I'm only doing a partial weekend this time. I'm off to Florida on Sunday. Some day, I'm taking a three day weekend and seeing how many guys I can get to 50. I have three more sitting at 37-38.

Dinged 46 and then switched to my DB/elec and got a level on them so they are up to 32.

[Eaglesfan27]

Is CoH one of the free ones?

[cuervo72]

Nope, it's not. Well, there's a free trial but it's quite restrictive.

CoH still has a $15/mo fee (buying the box gives you the first month, and sometime you can get the old boxes on the cheap), even though it's nearing its 7th anniversary. It's stuck with that model so far rather than going the microtransactions route (base game is free, but if you want X or Y or Z you pay for those features; with CoH, most new features are covered by the sub*). A number of FOBLers (Thomkal, Malificent, PineTar, Morgado, TRO, CubsFan) got me into it in 2005. They moved on, I stuck around.


* exceptions have been large box expansions (Villains, Going Rogue) or "booster packs" that give special account-wide powers, emotes, costume parts

[Thomkal]

<----still hopes to come back to CoH some day

[BYU 14]

Originally Posted by tyketime

It took me a while to figure out what was going on, but in case you didn't know (and I mean no offense if you did), when you enter Stealth mode, a new action bar is created where your first action bar normally resides. So I got to a safe place, entered Stealth mode a few times, and moved my stealth skills (assassinate, etc.) onto that bar. That enabled me to free up space on my "regular" action bars. Once you come out of Stealth mode, the first action bar returns for you to continue your assault. So the only Stealth-related skill on my regular action bars is the Stealth ability itself. Make sense?

I hadn't even paid attention to that and just realized while playing later, which is cool since it frees up a whole bar now

Rift is definitely a strong game, runs a bit laggy at times but is still very polished at this early stage.

[Matthean]

Originally Posted by cuervo72

Nope, it's not. Well, there's a free trial but it's quite restrictive.

CoH still has a $15/mo fee (buying the box gives you the first month, and sometime you can get the old boxes on the cheap), even though it's nearing its 7th anniversary. It's stuck with that model so far rather than going the microtransactions route (base game is free, but if you want X or Y or Z you pay for those features; with CoH, most new features are covered by the sub*). A number of FOBLers (Thomkal, Malificent, PineTar, Morgado, TRO, CubsFan) got me into it in 2005. They moved on, I stuck around.


* exceptions have been large box expansions (Villains, Going Rogue) or "booster packs" that give special account-wide powers, emotes, costume parts

They have gone kind of booster pack happy with those, but they aren't required. It would be nice if they offered some of the older ones in packages. To me most of what the booster packs are about are the costumes. One the plus side, outside of a top notch costume creator, there's enough options even in the default setting to let you spend hours trying to make your characters right.

[cuervo72]

For the most part the packs have a little bit in there for everyone. I like the costumes, but now that I think about it...I don't think I've actually used any of them. Well, maybe the cape from the Magic Pack. Emotes I don't really care about.

The powers though are nice QoL additions w/o being game breaking (Matthean knows this, just expounding for others). Ninja Run is great for the lower levels or for toons where you don't want travel powers. Mystic Fortune is a neat little teammate buff. Self-Destruct is situational, but has some uses. I think the Jump Pack and Pocket D teleporter are really, really handy from the Good v Evil edition.

Things like the Wedding Pack or the Party Pack...eh, not so great. But, you can save your money and not miss out.

[larrymcg421]

Got tired of the Fire/Rad corrupter and rolled a Cold/Ice defender. Up to lvl 25 now and having a great time with him.

[Matthean]

Originally Posted by cuervo72

I think the Jump Pack and Pocket D teleporter are really, really handy from the Good v Evil edition.

GvE edition is what got me a level 50 that used super speed as a travel power.

Originally Posted by larrymcg421

Got tired of the Fire/Rad corrupter and rolled a Cold/Ice defender. Up to lvl 25 now and having a great time with him.

Mine is level 32-34ish. I rolled it waiting for /cold to come to controllers, but liked it enough to just play the defender version instead. I even had a name picked out for it as well, Comfortably Benumb. Sleet and Benumb should be switched in terms of order. To get Sleet at 26 is a crock.

Got my Kat/sr to 47.8 last night. Got on a horrible for exp mothership team, but at least I unlocked the Vanguard sword for Katana. It was late due to wanting to finish the updated Praet. AVs arc, but by the time I got back from eating I didn't see hitting 50 before going to bed in the works so I called it a night. Off for vacation today so I won't get any gaming done today. I figure I'm close enough I can just do the end game TFs and ding 50 by default.

[larrymcg421]

Didn't get as much out of Double XP as I wanted, mostly because I wasted so much time on my Fire/Rad corrupter. I played my Cold/Ice Defender up to lvl 28 and in the last few minutes of double XP I rolled an Ice/Ice dom and got him to lvl 6.

Last night I busted out my lvl 50 Shield/SS tank again and ran the wall in Cimerora a few times. It was way too easy and didn't get any decent drops. I think I'll stick to tip missions for now. As soon as I finish IOing him out with 4 LOTG 7.5's, then I'll get to work on his alpha slot. I'll probably go either musculature or cardio.

[DataKing]

One of these days I may go back to CoH/CoV...used to have oodles of fun running with a buddy of mine with a pair of SS/Invul brutes.

[cuervo72]

Originally Posted by cuervo72

I think I'm going to spend time with my Elec/Sonic controller (@17) and *maybe* my AR/Dev that is somewhere in the 20s (an old, old character).

I got the Elec/Sonic to 25 and the AR/Dev to 26 (was at 21). Ran a couple of Lady Winter missions with my Peacebringer teamed with my son's Peacebringer. Didn't make much headway (still at 28), but had fun.

[tyketime]

I know the title is MMORPG, but I was thinking about real MMOFPS's. Do any of you have experience playing them? I did some quick research, but the ones I ran across sound more like the Call of Duty multiplayer mode. But there wasn't a sense of real MMO.

I can fully appreciate the appeal of the current Call of Duty multiplayer mode with 10 minute games. But why couldn't a larger company come up with the "next step". I envision a combination of Call of Duty & Battlefield Bad Company 2. Clearly you have roles (snipers, healers/medics, engineers, assault, etc.). And the model is already there to gain experience and level up.

So the next step is to create a world where you have quests - the typical kill 10 foozles. But in addition, you could run supplies from the depot to the "front lines" (which dynamically change based on who controls a certain area). If you are a medic, you have to actively heal 10 players to complete that quest. While YOU are only one soldier, (and you advance based on completing quests, raids, etc), you are also really part of something larger - your "army". Guilds could be defined as battalions.

And obviously this would allow for PvP as well. Nothing to prevent you from sneaking into an enemy camp and popping a player or two.

Is there something like this already?

Edit: Hmmm, just came across Planetside. Anyone play that?

[Mustang]

Originally Posted by tyketime

Is there something like this already?

Yes, World War II Online.

[Thomkal]

The Rift Events in Rift are just plain crazy. They start out small-small rifts open here and there in the zone and if people don't do anything about them they quickly get bigger and nastier to deal with. I think the devs wanted to show us what would happen if things got very bad earlier today. The whole sky turned black-rifts all over the place, NPC's from various areas on the map calling for help, bands of evil guys from the rifts running rampant, several major nasty "boss" monsters-a dragon, giant, and Iron golem I think, taking at least 10 minutes to defeat even with lots of players attacking them, etc. Just crazy.

The Rifts themselves have stages to them before you can close them up, and I spent a good hour this morning during this event just going from rift to boss guy, a whole bunch of us moving and attacking together, plus most of us had a pet. I had a lot of lag in the last beta event last week, but had very little this time around so that's a good sign.

[Lonnie]

On my server last night, there was a crusade called by the Guardians against the Aelfar. This was in the 10-20 zone and spawned a living idol surrounded by a force field. While the idol stood, there were 20 rifts opening up all over the zone and two level 20 elite tree guys (Preservers) that must be taken down before the idol could be destroyed. Every rift would spawn invasions non-stop until that idol was put down.

I was two hit a few times by the elite 20s on my 20 rogue. It was hard to do anything buy join in on the fight. Finally we banded together and assaulted the Preservers. Each one took 10-15 minutes followed by the 10-15 minutes on the idol itself. Quite intense indeed.

[BYU 14]

Originally Posted by Thomkal

The Rift Events in Rift are just plain crazy. They start out small-small rifts open here and there in the zone and if people don't do anything about them they quickly get bigger and nastier to deal with. I think the devs wanted to show us what would happen if things got very bad earlier today. The whole sky turned black-rifts all over the place, NPC's from various areas on the map calling for help, bands of evil guys from the rifts running rampant, several major nasty "boss" monsters-a dragon, giant, and Iron golem I think, taking at least 10 minutes to defeat even with lots of players attacking them, etc. Just crazy.

The Rifts themselves have stages to them before you can close them up, and I spent a good hour this morning during this event just going from rift to boss guy, a whole bunch of us moving and attacking together, plus most of us had a pet. I had a lot of lag in the last beta event last week, but had very little this time around so that's a good sign.

The Rifts are indeed intense, I was involved in one Saturday that had over 40 people grouped at a big Rift, the lag was horrible at that one, but much better later with only 20 or so players at another Rift. It is definitely a concept that makes the game interesting and unpredictable, especially when they open in the middle of an area already infested with other mobs.

[Icy]

Originally Posted by Mustang

Yes, World War II Online.

Agree, i played it for 2 years and it was a blast, in fact i stopped to play because i was too addicted to it and was affecting my work and "offline" relationships.

[Mustang]

Did the Rifts Beta this weekend.

Definitely a WoW clone in mechanics, but not storyline. The costs of items/skills compared to the money you found seemed off though so, not sure if they will tweak that. Had a problem with lags around the rifts and everything just got too muddled to know what was going on. Overall seemed pretty solid.

[Matthean]

Trailer for the Animal pack for CoH. Glad they finally let characters run on all fours.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sFpofz4RLWo&hd=1

[Matthean]

February Producer's Letter: Incarnates | City of Heroes

Newest newsletter for CoH. Not sure how I feel about 48 person teams.

[cuervo72]

I'm hoping they are "teams" similar to how teams are formed for Rikti Invasions, GM fights or the winter event. "Hey, there happen to be X of us gathered here; let's get some teams started, PST if you're looking for team." That or team leads just send out invites until a team is full. In this case perhaps the queue system just helps to populate the teams.

[DataKing]

Just an FYI, if anyone is playing LOTRO on Landroval server, I've been messing around with that again off and on. If you're in need of any armour just give me a shout (probably easier to leave me a message on the board here than to try to catch me in game though). Supreme master metalworker and grand master tailor at your service...

[Matthean]

While I officially have to wait to sell some stuff on the market, I have all, but broken the 1.5 billion influ mark in CoH on my main. 2 bill is the cap for those who don't know. If my purples would start selling a little faster I could hit near the 2 bill mark rather quickly and just start skimming the extra off to other characters. I have 3-4 characters that have around 150-250 mill on them already. I'm close to getting a 2nd character crafting purples and once that happens their earning rate will go up as well.

[cuervo72]

Matthean - do you roll A-merits? Seems like they're the easy path to inf (not that any path is really that hard). I have three characters with 1B+, the most a little under 1.5; my Grav that I dusted off with I19 has over 400M (started out probably at like 50M). My AR/Dev that I'm leveling up now (36) even has like 400M. That's pretty much with hoarding most of the purples I get.

[Matthean]

I due it pure market vastly finding certain IOs that sell well and grabbing stack of 10 of the level 50 versions of them. That's how I kind of ground out going from poor for having a level 50 to getting some decent influ. Even to start crafting/selling purples I consolidated money to my main and went from there. I currently have 6 guys hammering the market.

I have only recently started to look at merits and tickets as a way to roll for stuff as well. Oddly enough, I have 3+ servers worth of guys and none of them would be considered good for farming of any real sort. I did make some more AoE based guys as of late and I'm starting to get into that aspect, but the highest is 32(DB/elec). Most of them aren't even the uber type of AoE builds. Only the Fire/kin would be a known build for it and it's 26 and I'm finding out I'm not much a fan of Fire control. I am trying to use my Ill/rad for hero merits. I got a KM/sd stuck in the AE as for now. I might officially axe my Dark/elec brute and make a Spines/elec in part due to the power customization of Spines. The Fire/kin can be a 2nd option and I'll just make the Spines/elec the main AoE death machine.

I would have a lot more influ if I hadn't taken so many breaks from the game. Even just three months of just logging on and hitting the market would have done me a lot of good. I've done so much of the market I'm rather ignorant of the other stuff even though I know it's an option.

[mrkilla22]

Originally Posted by DataKing

Just an FYI, if anyone is playing LOTRO on Landroval server, I've been messing around with that again off and on. If you're in need of any armour just give me a shout (probably easier to leave me a message on the board here than to try to catch me in game though). Supreme master metalworker and grand master tailor at your service...

Hey DK. I'm on that server as well if you want to look me up. I'm on either Clabo (Burglar) or Clybo (Minstrel) at the moment.

[larrymcg421]

You don't really need a good build for Hero Merits. You can run the missions on the lowest settings (-1/1), which is doable even with the weakest, most gimped build possible.

Even with my really strong lvl 50 Shield/SS/Pyre Tank, I've been putting it on the lowest level to quickly do my 5 tip missions really quickly, then I change the setting back up and move on to other things.