Captiosus

A friend of mine was on vacation all last week when his subscription lapsed. He intentionally waited to reup to see what Premium would be like. He's asking me how many global character slots he should have, and I can't remember the conditions so I don't want to give him bad information.

Here's what I know of his account:
- Two year veteran;
- Was up to the 33 month badge before the conversion to Paragon Rewards;
- Bought the Going Rogue Complete Collection box;
- Has not purchased any additional character slots while subscribed in the past.

How many global character slot unlocks should he have?

Probably already said a million times over, but I'm adding my thoughts:

I dislike the idea of merging the AT forums. If you think they're unruly now, just wait until users have to wade through thread after thread about ATs they're not playing to try to find the good threads. For example, if you put Blaster/Corruptor/Dominator in one big forum, I'm going to have to wade through endless blaster build and dominator build threads to find anything worthwhile for a Corruptor.

Additionally, jamming these ATs together according to type does an extreme disservice to those ATs. Again looking at Blaster/Corruptor/Dominator in "ranged DPS", and then comparing them to the game's own definitions:

Blasters are heavy ranged DPS, but the game itself says they're strong in melee as well. How does that translate to being in a forum called "ranged DPS" when people could play either ranged or blapper melee/ranged hybrid?


Corruptors are moderate ranged DPS, but moderate to strong support, not just ranged DPS. Yet they're only going to be listed in the ranged DPS category? I've solo healed near every blueside task force on my DP/Kin, so just cramming it into "ranged DPS" without consideration for their support roles make Corruptors seem like Blaster-lite rather than their actual role of a hybrid blaster/controller.


Dominators, by game definition and power sets, are both ranged AND melee. Almost no Dominator build can be purely ranged. And they're equal parts damage and support/control. They really shouldn't be in a "ranged DPS" forum, at all.


TL;DR: In short, this game's ATs do not fit neatly into the Tank/DPS/Healer trifecta. It's bad enough the ATs got crammed together into 'categories', which IMHO, are often misleading, in the game itself. By trying to force them to fit into set categories you're losing the spirit of each AT, especially the villain side hybrids. I can't see how having separate forums for each AT is overwhelming or intimidating to new players. When each forum is for 2-3 ATs, the forums will be a bigger mess than they are now.

Edit:

FWIW, my 2 INF is that the Incarnate System, at least the currently available pools, should have been the full Tier 8 Premium bonus. As it currently stands, the full Tier 8 Premium bonus is a joke for the amount of time and/or money required to get there. Large inspirations and storage slots? Meh.

To clarify, I would have set the bonus this way:
At full Tier 8, Premium Players unlock:
Lifetime Limited Access to the Incarnate System:
- Access to Alpha, Judgement, Interface, Lore and Destiny slots;
- Access to BAF, Lambda, and Keyes trials ONLY.

Any access to future incarnate trials (starting with Underground, as it's part of I21/Freedom), future incarnate powersets, even as a full Tier 8, would have been VIP-exclusive.

This would give tenured Premiums (or those who spent enough) access to some of the end game while leaving the newer stuff for the subscribers and possibly convince people to resubscribe if they want to expand their "free" incarnate any further.

Sorry if this has already been said but:
I see the word "exploit" is being thrown around again.

If it was truly an exploit, Freakshow mobs outside of AE would also have this rule applied and they'd no longer reward XP, INF and Prestige again for killing them a second time after rez. After all, what's good for the goose, et cetera. I remember people holding onto big Freakshow maps specifically for farming/PLing years before AE came along. Despite what some in this thread have stated, there really wasn't that much more risk to a Freakshow farm, before or after AE, because Freakshow damage types are predictable - smashing, lethal, energy damage - and specific tank and brute builds can mitigate those types of damage just as well as fire can against custom fire mobs.

And therein lies the problem: You can't have two competing definitions or standards for the same game mechanic.

So I'm just going to echo what was said way back on page 1. This isn't going to change ticket farming, at all, but it will increase mapserver load. Not sure why anyone would want to increase load before opening the floodgates to free players but, meh, whatever. Not my call.

My own two cents: I honestly don't understand why farming has become such a hot button topic. I get that people hate running into clueless 50s. I hate it as well. I get that people hate that AE turned into FarmVille rather than a good place to share mission arcs. I understand, and somewhat agree, with that sentiment, too.

However, with all the vitriol going around any time AE and farming is brought up, one would think farming never happened before AE, and that's hardly the case. I don't recall this kind of hatred against instanced outdoor blinky farms, or Behemoth farms, or Nemesis farms. There were some people against those farms back in the days, but it certainly wasn't up to this level of community polarization. The only thing AE did, in all honesty, was consolidate farming to one place. It certainly didn't invent farming and I don't even think it's necessarily made players lazier. The same people you may see begging for an AE farm would have been clogging up the Ferry in PI, begging for an instanced farm.

I enjoyed the arcs and the work that went into them, but I'm a little disappointed in how it goes about trying to teach because if I read the missions and did them from the mindset of a genuinely new player, I really wouldn't have walked away with too much.

A practical example: Having to meet with Flambeaux at Wentworths. She goes off about looking for an enhancement for her hair. The intention of teaching that you go here to look for stuff is there, but the execution of teaching it ... is lackluster. Add to this that many things are taught later than you actually can do, or encounter, them.

The intention is there, and the intention is good, but the execution needs some work.

That said, I've done the hero arcs twice, and I'm going to do the villain versions here very soon. But I don't think I'm going to want to do them again.

I'm less than impressed with it but being exemp'd to level 20 has nothing to do with that and, honestly, I think complaining about the exemplar/sidekick system is silly since that's one thing this game did that I wish many other MMOs did as it adds exceptional value to character life.

My dislike was 3 simple reasons:
#1. Too short.
#2. Too many story holes.
#3. Not memorable or inspiring to me, at all, especially compared to existing arcs, some of which are 5+ years old.

Both issue #2 and issue #3 could have been fixed simply by making the chain much longer, with more missions for a lead up backstory and then a follow through to the cutscene, thus also making issue #1 irrelevant.

I do enjoy First Ward and I think my opinion of Diabolique may have changed a bit after all those arcs.

My thoughts on pricing can be pretty much summed up in one word: Disappointed.

I get the feeling that they really didn't do a lot of research into other micro-transaction models available. Not just other MMOs, but the three major console players and Facebook games. All of these have the model down: Make items appealing but cheap so people buy it, and then make it so that if they want more, they have to buy more, and they will because it's cheap.

In other words, the whole point of micro-transactions is recurring revenue. I can't see where the Paragon Market will enhance recurring revenue with the current price points and the insistence of making each purchase "global".

As Snow Globe rightfully pointed out regarding costume slots, to someone who wants to outfit dozens (or even hundreds) of characters with a new slot, the price is a steal versus someone who only wants a few. However, that will do little to boost PlayNC's bottom line on this game because either side is paying the same amount once. If they were charging 80 points per slot, per character - a price that looks ultra-cheap - people will still shell out the cash, and many of them will not even stop to consider just how much they've spent overall outfitting their characters over time.

Right now, it's very zero-sum. I'd like a few more costume slots on only 3 or 4 characters so, to me, the price is NOT a value. So I don't buy anything at all, which means Paragon/PlayNC sees no new revenue from me at all. If I decide to wait until I have enough points from my stipend, they still aren't seeing any new revenue from me.

To be certain, there are many QoL items I would purchase, and repeatedly, but not at their current prices. The system is still in its infancy and I hope Paragon goes back and reevaluates the prices and setup versus other micro-transactional models. Again, if anyone at PS is reading this: It's about impulse buys; It's the equivalent of the grocery store having the candy sitting at the register isle because they know you're going to be waiting in line so they hope you decide to buy 3 Kit-Kat bars at $0.89 each, not realizing you could buy a 6 pack of the same net weight for $2.50 elsewhere in that very store.

I'll admit it - I made an impulse buy on day one of the Malta Gunslinger toggle. And I bugged the text because it, too, says it only lasts for 2 weeks, is listed as a temporary power, but was sold as permanent. The impulse buy was driven by the fact that I tried to make a Gunslinger clone on my blaster way back in summer 04 and was never really successful, so I was pretty giddy.

After purchasing it, I was happy with it for about 5 minutes. Then I started to realize it sucks. I mean, really sucks. Any character with a jacket top who tries to use it - the jacket clips through the entire upper body (Here's an example of jacket texture fail). Kilts do the same for the lower body (Here's an example of kilt texture fail). Trench coats work, but it leaves the trench tail clipping through the lower body. If I want to use it and actually have it look right, I have to switch to a nearly nude character 'costume' before enabling the toggle.

I paid 800 points for this? In retrospect, 800 points is really outrageous. I find it funny that you have the pricing of the costume powers in line with their station in the game (ie. the Malta Operative [Minion] is much cheaper the Gunslinger [Lieutenant/Boss]), but I have zero intentions of purchasing any more of these powers at these prices, especially after seeing just how buggy they are.

You know what I'd pay 600 to 800 points for (possibly), despite the bugs? Like others have said: The convention costume codes. 600 to 800 points would be fair since they were a limited event item. But I have a feeling we'll never see those on the store since they seem to be the only thing they like to try to "give away" to disgruntled players after long downtimes or server crashes.

Gonna conclude by saying I agree, nearly entirely, with everything EarthWyrm said above. The pricing on this model do not inspire me to want to buy anything. The prices are too high and the disposables are too tawdry for me to want to spend money on.

Edit: After reading other posts, I see people giving their opinions on where they'd price it. Personally, I'd point to a system like Xbox Live. These costume toggles are, for all intents and purposes, the same as an avatar t-shirt. They don't do anything, most of them were already in the game (as evidenced by the power text being wrong).. they're just for show. So, put them in the same range as Microsoft charges for Avatar crap: 80 to 160 points. 1 or 2 bucks. Because that's really all they're worth.