Snow Globe

I'm willing to believe that some players can do what the majority cannot. I know of players that have soloed nearly every AV in the game and most TFs in the game. That doesn't meant that everyone can. It also doesn't mean that I'm wrong that the teams I've seen can't, even in Issue 20, get Midnight Dodger without nukes and shivans.

I asked City Info Terminal for some stats, and here is a partial list of what I got:

Master of Apex's Task Force: 1666
Master of the B.A.F.: 929
Master of the Imperious Task Force: 744
Master of the 5th Column Task Force: 591
Master of Statesman's Task Force: 580
Master of Tin Mage's Task Force: 469
Master of Lord Recluse's Strike Force: 392
Master of Lady Grey's Task Force: 383
Master of the 5th Column Strike Force: 328
Master of Lambda Sector: 271
Master of Keyes Island Reactor: 14

I'll admit that I'm actually surprised at the MoApex being the top collected "Master of" badge. I'm not surprised about MoBAF, MoITF, or MoKhan. I am kind of surprised that MoLGTF is lower than MoSTF, MoRSF, and MoTM. The placement of MoCuda and MoLambda doesn't surprise me at all.

Haven't been on a Hami Raid that has happened on. Then again, I generally play on a smaller server.

I'm glad the developers have, on multiple occasions, disagreed with this statement. More to the point, that is bad game design. If you set the carrot too far out, the carrot loses its value as a motivator.

Oh, so you are trying to say that what I've seen was wrong? Without exception, every time I've done Tin Mage, no one has got the badge without the nuke/shivan combo.

I didn't say it wasn't possible. However it isn't as common as you, and the other people claiming it is easy, seem to think it is.

On the flip side, 100% of the Tin Mage runs I've been on that people get the Midnight Dodger badge nukes and shivans were involved. I'm not talking about 1, 2, 3, or even 4 players with nukes & shivans. I'm talking about 6-8 players with them. Any less and no dodger badge.

Even though Incarnate powers render nukes/shivans mostly unnecessary, I've yet to see a team actually succeed without nukes/shivans.

Thanks. In a way I could see my response could have been misinterpreted as snark, but that wasn't the intention of my post.

I agree with some posters that the test server could be mistaken for where trial accounts should go, and it should have a warning saying it isn't.

I believe Energizing_Ion is saying that completion of the trial should not be a requirement for this badge. Given the other badges (Synchronized and Not on My Watch) do not only award on a successful completion of their respective trials, neither should Bunker Buster.

Subscriptions haven't gone up more than the game has lost in the last 2 years. There was a brief spike when Issue 18/Going Rogue was introduced.

I have one friend that forgot to cancel his auto-renew before it was up and has subscribed for another year. He has absolutely no intention of ever returning to CoH. He won't be returning with CoH:Freedom. He has fixed his account to not renew again. There is nothing this game can do to bring him back.

The in-game store treats those extra slots (the issue 12 bonus) as purchased slots. In other words if the store was down, you couldn't access those slots.

Yes, those two badges award when their conditions are met, not at the end of the trial.

Snark fall out? I was trying to be helpful. Unless you know of some other way to duplicate a character from the test server to the live servers.

Oh, I don't know, posts like this one in the Incarnates thread seem to have some accuracy:
In 2009 City of Heroes had 125,000 subscribers worldwide. Given the amount of account decline on some global channels, I would have to say that CoH has less players now than two years ago.

That is the thing. Midnight dodger attempts still aren't common on some servers. And if they are, they generally have people getting multiple nukes from Warburg, and shivans from Bloody Bay still.

While I agree with you about the pulses, you completely miss the point. The point is that the unresistable damage isn't fun. It doesn't add any fun to the encounter. All it does is make sure that people go to the hospital in a steady stream if the league doesn't include a taunter and several healers. So on one hand we've been told for seven years that this game ignores the MMO Trinity of Tank/DPS/Healing, and now practically requires it for a new encounter.

Also it was 2 weeks before people started getting the 2 badges that will likely prevent most players (not all, but most) from ever seeing the MoKeyes badge.

Actually, in my opinion, the auto-hit damage isn't too hard. The problem with the auto-hit damage is that it is not FUN. <-Notice the distinction. Actually the trial isn't fun most of the time.

I haven't said it was too hard for everyone. I chose my words very carefully when I made my previous post.

Did I say that everyone should be able to do it easily? No. However it should be easy enough for everyone to be able to do. Given the mechanics, that isn't possible at this point. If I can't see a disintegration effect on myself, the encounter is broken.

The badges were put forward as a deterministic means to gain incarnate components that bad luck with the reward tables denied them. If players can't, through how the mechanics of the encounter works, achieve those badges then there is something amiss.

Three posters liked the idea, four posters were unsure how the reward tables actually worked and were hoping for a deterministic approach as well in the future, and a dozen hated the idea. That is why I said the majority of the posters in the feedback thread hated the idea.

I didn't say all the posters in the pre-beta, I didn't say there was a consensus, I especially didn't say everyone who played beta. I said the majority of the poster giving feedback on the subject.

More to the point, the exact thing the people against the random reward tables warned the developers would happen was what happened when it went live. People were upset and extremely vocal about it. People quit the game, and more are continuing to quit the game over the reward table and the participation system.

The MoSTF and MoRSF might be trivially easy for some people, that doesn't mean that the badges are trivially easy for everyone. And even if the badges were trivially easy for some, that does not mean that they are well designed badges. If the badges you mention were trivially easy to get, I'd have 8 characters with all the badges, not just 1 or two.

At most, the badges are trivially easy for you. Again, that doesn't mean the badges are well designed.

Actually I found one thing about the Issue 20 pre-beta to be more than just ironic and tragically accurate. The developers selectively ignored feedback that has since been proven accurate.

For instance, the majority of the outspoken players in the pre-beta (ie. people posting on the pre-beta forums, not just me) were incredibly outspoken about the Incarnate Trial Reward Tables. Other players, respected players (like Zombie Man), told the developers in a clear warning what the player reaction to the reward tables would be. They were right. We were NOT told about the participation metric before Issue 20 went live. The developers dug in and refused to budge despite being told what the reaction would be.

Now does this mean that players hate the game? No. Does it mean that players hate certain aspects? Yeah.

I don't hate most of the game. If I did, you wouldn't see another post from me. Notice how I said most? The parts I hate, I truly and deeply hate. Things I feel that deeply about, I speak up about.

I don't want this game to fail. I want to play it for many years to come. Now I admittedly, outside of buying the Going Rogue retail box, I've not actually paid for subscription time since June 2010 and my account time expires in December 2011 (12+2 subscription, then GR box, 1 month from being a runner up in the loading screen contest, 2 months from sending account re-invite codes). Currently when I resubscribe I'm still on the 12+2 subscription from December 2010. If I really hated the game, I'd be more than willing to forgo that 14 month plan come December.

I play that other F2P superhero game one night a month, if that. I don't think anyone actually enjoys being upset, and I can't speak to not having any other outlet.

If I ever get to the point where I hate this game, I have plenty of other options open to me.

I don't agree with some of the developer's choices. I think some of the choices downright stink (random reward tables at the end of trials and the participation system as a whole). Some of the game has been neglected in the extreme (Bases, PVP) while other parts have been introduced that negatively impact on some aspects that I find fun (several Incarnate trial badges).

However I think most of the game is wonderful, from the costume creator and other artwork to the world setting and story.

Your answer was with this post:

Certificates are for your account, but have to be claimed per character.

Edit:
Vouchers are only for a single character though. However none of the costume change emotes are vouchers.

See this page for what is global and what isn't.

http://wiki.cohtitan.com/wiki/Incarnate_Merit_Vendor

No, you don't.

The Witch's Hat is unlocked by the Katie Hannon Task Force which has a minimum level of 30...

There is a way to sort of do as you are asking. It isn't perfect and it is a bit of work.

First off, go to a tailor, any tailor. When in the tailor screen, save your costume. Go to the powers tab, save your powerset modifications. Exit out of the tailor session.

Next go to your enhancement screen. On a piece of paper, write down your powers/slotting choices somehow. Paper works great. The MIDs program also is a good choice. Exit out of the test server to desktop.

In Windows, navigate to the City of Heroes test server directory. In that directory there should be a costumes directory and copy the "costumes" and "PowerCust" directories to the regular City of Heroes directory.

You can then start up the regular City of Heroes. When you get to the character creation menu, choose the archetype, gender, and starting powers that matched your test server character. Load the costume. Load the power customization choices. Try to come up with a name that matches your other character (it is possible that you might luck out and keep the name, but that might asking too much).

Play the newly created character referring to the power choices/slotting you recorded. Soon you will have a copy of the character on the live server.

I broadcast on 5 global channels, broadcast, and the one person I got I sent a tell to as they made a broadcast while the league was in the queue.

I would expect that would have to be done on either a new channel, or piggyback on an existing channel or two.

That is obvious.

Given that some recommendations for improvements to the system have been either ignored or set aside, I think the TUT has had more than enough rope to hang itself. And I'm not talking about just since Issue 20 went to open beta. I'm talking about suggestions/comments made well before that.