Cavatina

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Gratz! and hopefully losing the 89+ MA badges won't set you back too far on getting back into the 600 club when i15 launches

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The I15 changes pulls me back 20 badges, so that's not too bad. Post I15, I should be back in the 600 Club soon. One badge title I'll miss is "Do Gooder".

[/ QUOTE ] Set your badge title now, and you might still have it after the wipe. (as long as you don't ever change it) lol

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Up until someone asks how you got that title, you tell them, and they report it to the devs as "unfair"

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Just a question, wondering everyone's thoughts on this. If you feel you need every badge on one or more of your toons I'd like to know your thoughts as I don't quite understand the behavior.

Thanks in advance for your time,... and if you so desire flame on! ;P

Peace

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Anyone who is qualified to make that diagnosis would face some serious ethics charges for making it based on such flimsy evidence.

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I see I'm not the only one taking psychology classes >_>

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Though I have only one toon that I semi-actively hunt badges on I have no issue with how someone else wants to enjoy the game. Why do you?

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Because if you havent noticed a large portion of the "casual" players on the forums are extremely lazy wannabe hardcore players with a horrifically amazing ability for denial.

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Personally I could care less about farms, pls, vote cartels, and whatever the devs consider as abusing the system. However, someone must have had some reason to complain about these "abuses" or the devs wouldn't have needed to implement these extreme measures. My issue is that someone's gameplay was negatively affected by another's gameplay.

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Oh please. Someones gameplay is always negatively influencingsomeone elses gamelay.

Its a simple fact of life when at least some portion of the fanbase is absolutely convinced that Farmers are magically taking away their precious arc votes by keeping people from playing their arcs, nevermind farmers wouldnt be interested in your arc anyhow. Some are convinced the marketeers are evil cruel capitalistic robber barons who seek to cheat the poor defenseless little guy who cant possibly compete on the market out of their cash, nevermind the market prices are generally set by the buyers and anyone can make money on the market if they just do some basic research on where to bid low and where to sell high. Or the bad pvper who stands in place screaming for a fair fight in the middle of Recluses's Victory and then gets ganked by a passing stalker and decides that "omg so and so AT is OP ".

In all of these cases, someone is likely considering it "someone else ruining their gameplay" even when its mostly that they're deluded and playing the victim to mask their own laziness or unwillingness to figure out that there are other ways of having fun than their playstyle and that tolerance is a lovely ability to have.

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PvP badges were put in when the Tyrant was in charge, Posi has taken his position now. They have the power to change the PvP badges, but it might make some of the people who worked their butts off getting them mad. Plus they do have better thing to attend to, AE badges needed a fix because they "promoted farming".

PvE badges are obtainable by everyone, everyone can die, thanks to pool powers everyone can heal, everyone can take damage, everyone can be held, everyone can gain influence, everyone can do the achievements without spending hours on end trying to make a mission that people want to play.

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Everything in the game promotes farming. Inventions. PVP. Defeats. Accolades. Leveling. Base building. Events. EVERYTHING. How can I say this? Because when you give the player something they want, the question comes up, "How can I get this efficiently?" That train of thought leads to farming. EVERYTHING in the game is farmable.

The question is, does the fact that it's FARMABLE mean that the INTENT of the badge is flawed?

That's the blurred line here on the authorship badges that people refuse to discuss candidly. You take someone who earned their badges honestly, and then "take from them" those marks of effort because a section of the community was able to "farm" for the same reward. Some people took the time to earn the 400 reputation badge for PVP, and had a long, hard road about it. Others farmed it. Why should a Dev come along and remove that badge, because other people found a way to get it "faster"?

Which hurts more? A badge that some people can get honestly, but others have to farm? Or removing badges entirely because people learned to farm them so obscenely that they're punishing everyone by removing them, instead of punishing the malefactors? (Which, I know, is excruciatingly hard to do unless you go utter Gestapo from a CSR point of view, but it begs to be asked.)

I bring up the PVP badges because they represent a section of the community that prides itself on combat skill - a very easy thing to get into, but a very HARD thing to master, and I'm in awe of some of the PVPers I've had to dance around while working my other badges. The arguments made against MA can easily be made against them.

And I bring up the PVE badges because, seriously, they are most certainly NOT "obtainable by everyone". If you really need examples because you're incapable of seeing what's pretty obvious, say so and I'll rattle off a bunch that will nullify your argument completely. But the bottom line: Not everyone is created equally in this game. From AT to powersets to PVP to Architect, there is no one facet where we are all equally matched. Where some use skill, others resort to farming. It's been this way for half a decade.

Again, why make the distinction with the authorship badges being farmable, when everything ELSE in the game is equally farmable? Is it because, in MA, it's not JUST a numbers game, but rather a creative expression for everyone? And, when people's expressions are rejected, or others are artificially inflated, it's taken far more personally than, say, failing to get Empath or Fabricator?

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The main difference between AE farms and regular farms is one affects only a few people while the other affects lots of people.

My personal belief is that anyone can do whatever they want as long as it doesn't hurt me. Various problems with how people abused the AE violated that belief. This belief is why I don't have a problem with regular badge farms, a problem with the things that caused the AE badge changes.

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How does someone farming the AE hurt you?

The comm officer farms did, sure. but those are dead and gone. and badge farms certainly dont gobble up yourprecious ratings. if theyre there for badges and strictly badges, they dont give a [censored] about your arc. and they NEVER will.

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The problem is that a lot of those badges were partially based on luck more than anything.

The only way you could've got a dev choice badge was to be part of the voting cartels so your arc stayed near the top all the time. Same with the ratings. Face it, if you weren't in a cartel or part of a large group manipulating the system, your arc was buried.

And I don't think the devs want people spamming arc advertisements on the forums or in game.

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yeah. thats why they made an entire forum specifically to advertise arcs.

I have no cartel help. I have only advertising on the forums or on search websites or my sig

I have over 500 ratings.

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I think the reason why the author badges were removed besides the obvious vote cartels is they were unobtainable for a ton of people. Some people can make really fun and interesting arcs while others are limited to their mediocre skills in creativity.

If the devs were just concerned about vote cartels, then they could have just reset the AE arcs that are the worst offenders, then make it so that a person needs to play through the whole thing before they can vote on it.

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So you're saying there shouldnt be awards for creative writers?

right. lemme call up a few book organizations. and tell the oscars to stop existing. Its not fair that johnny the homeless movie writer doesnt have as many awards as a top director or writer, after all.

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Uhmmm....this is a game.

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And? There are badges for PVP and for PVE achievements. Why not for in-game creative efforts? All of these are farmable, and all of these lend to a "he's great" or "he'll never get it without farming" judgment.

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PvP badges were put in when the Tyrant was in charge, Posi has taken his position now. They have the power to change the PvP badges, but it might make some of the people who worked their butts off getting them mad. Plus they do have better thing to attend to, AE badges needed a fix because they "promoted farming".

PvE badges are obtainable by everyone, everyone can die, thanks to pool powers everyone can heal, everyone can take damage, everyone can be held, everyone can gain influence, everyone can do the achievements without spending hours on end trying to make a mission that people want to play.

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Thje problem with that is, if everyone can EASILY do everything in this game. why bother?

Some of us play games because we L:IKE the sense of accomplishment when we achieve something difficult.

My first run through of neverwinter nights 2 is with a BARD for chrissakes. I enjoy challenging myself. I enjoy succeeding when I challenge myself. I do NOt enjoy having my accomplishments RIPPED from me because the guy who doesnt wanna do the work demands "equal" rights to those things

And by equal, I meant getting everything without the work I put in. The system is equal already. you do the work, you get rewarded. if you're too lazy to advertise your arc relentlessly, listen to criticisms, refine the storyline and dialogue to make it as good as it can possibly be and otherwise put your heart and soul into it, why on EARTH should you be rewarded?

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I think the reason why the author badges were removed besides the obvious vote cartels is they were unobtainable for a ton of people. Some people can make really fun and interesting arcs while others are limited to their mediocre skills in creativity.

If the devs were just concerned about vote cartels, then they could have just reset the AE arcs that are the worst offenders, then make it so that a person needs to play through the whole thing before they can vote on it.

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So you're saying there shouldnt be awards for creative writers?

right. lemme call up a few book organizations. and tell the oscars to stop existing. Its not fair that johnny the homeless movie writer doesnt have as many awards as a top director or writer, after all.

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I wouldn't bother with worry about getting 100 stars now since apparently Recognized has the requirements of "Anyone rating your arc" on test. So you should get it when I15 goes live.

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Awesome. Way to go devs, lets make any authoring badges even more worthless.

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Say what? I'd think that voting cartels got there first.

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Not really. At least I could know i got the higher level voting badges legitly, even if not everyone had. That didnt really reduce my enjoyment of them because I knew I hadnt used a cartel to get them.

Now I have no badges at all to wear proudly and the only one left I could just have bribed a friend to 5 star me to get.

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I wouldn't bother with worry about getting 100 stars now since apparently Recognized has the requirements of "Anyone rating your arc" on test. So you should get it when I15 goes live.

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Awesome. Way to go devs, lets make any authoring badges even more worthless.

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You should visit www.notalwaysright.com

Sometimes, yes, you must annoy, and reject, and "fire" certain customers for the long term health of the business.

They know that CO respresents a challenge to their business.

The staff know that pulling back badges, or smacking Meow-farmers would make some people mad.

Was it the right decision? Did it go far enough? Too far? Customer relations is a tricky business.

Every job is easy. Until it becomes yours.

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Y'now.

Linking to a website about customers being [censored] idiots doesnt really help defuse the arguing. Its more likely to piss even more people off.

Theyre LOTS of fun with a good raid group. Its hectic, theres deaths everywhere, the exp is good, and you will be staring in awe at how fast you get Vanguard merits.

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yeah, I'll be setting up an arena match swapping cartel as soon as the issue launches.

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Yes, and I doubt you'd be the only one.

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One of the major "features" of Issue 16 will be the removal of Arena badges introduced in Issue 15, since they encourage arena match swapping.

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Obivous deserved joke at the Devs' expense aside it appears that all of these lingering Arena badges have been redesigned in a "first time you win X type match" variety. At least people who are going to farm these will have them done almost instantly. *shrugs*

I suppose this is in keeping with the Devs' new badge vision of less "grindiness". While that might be nice on some level it makes me wonder if we're ever going to get a new non-trivial badge in this brave new world...

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Oh come on, it adds so much more to pvp when everyone and their sister can do one match and be done, and will definitely resurrect pvp just like PVP IOs and i13 did.

And theres absolutely no way that this encourages win trading because certain archetypes are absolutely useless in pvp as it currently works.

*cough*

02 Boost is actually really handy. as a mez breaker and mez resist buff. its healing component is pretty worthless though

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Players feeling like they have to farm for badges has always been an issue with me.

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Admittedly "count" badges are the easiest to design. You figure out what you want to count, then design a series of badges around progressively higher numbers of those counts. This is why we never abandoned them in the past, when we probably should have.

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Positron's post. (for those who may not have seen it)

I didn't mean to give the impression that they were removing high kill count badges; but if they had it to do over again, they wouldn't be in there to begin with. Also, I doubt we'll see any new ones from here on out.

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Counting clickables is trouble in its own right. Do we really need teams fighting over who's going to click on the pulsating objects on their race to one hundred pulsating objects? The Devs have discovered that some gamers, instead of earning a one hundred clickable object badge through twenty levels of play or thirty days of play, will instead find the highest clickable count mission and run it over and over until they get the badge.

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So players went and did everything they could to get the "long period of time" badges as quickly as possible. So we upped the numbers. THIS was a mistake as it only exasperated the problem instead of fixing it. Now players just farmed longer, and more specifically.

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This is exactly the behavior they are trying to curb to prevent burnout. While you or I might be content on naturally earning such a badge, another player is going into the same mission for the sixth time wondering why he's playing this gawd forsaken game -- missing the point of the badge completely. You can't explain to people that they'll earn that badge over time, no need to rush it, so the Devs are corking the forks, so to say, in an attempt to preventing us from hurting ourselves.

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And yet. some people find that FUN.

How many times do we have to say that to get it through peoples heads that some people find grinding high count badges enjoyable, and taking that completely out loses them a reason to be interested in the game?

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Honestly, I wasn't referring to any one poster in particular.

And, I wasn't really implying that people were "lying" per se, just that they talk about making TONS of Inf, then turn around and tell people they don't need Inf .

And basically claim that that people can have just as much fun without any "shinies" whatsoever.

Like, using all SO's or whatever - which I tend to call B.S. on for two reasons:

1. They DO have some "pimped out toons they can play if they want...

2. Saying that playing without "shinies" is just as much fun as playing with them - is oxymoronic.
IMO, that would be basically be like saying that "shinies" aren't "shiny".

Now... I'm not saying people can't enjoy the game without them, just that some people aren't 'practicing what they preach' (so to speak).

You don't fall into this category, you admit having toons you spent your Inf earnings on, AND that you have toons that you're frugal with - I understand that...

You're basically saying you have a your toons slotted in a variety of ways - which is all good (I do the same thing).

What ticks me off is the people that Do have toons with a bunch of shinys, (so they have the option of playing those toons)...
Who then proceed to tell other people they shouldn't be unhappy or disgruntled that they don't have the same option.

And usually they immediately accuse these people of not 'lrning2mrkt', or that they want everything for nothing, handed to them on a platter, "I win" button, etc.

It's really easy to look down on the have-nots when your a have-got & (IMO) that happens all too often around here.

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Its not looking down on you. Its being completely unable to comprehend your viewpoint.

See. I don't farm. I only marketeer when the mood strikes me, and only on a couple characters. I have characters swimming in IO sets.

I really dont understand HOW a person can make it to 30, let alone 50 without being insanely rich just from dumping their junk on the market rather than vendoring it, along with being smart enough to buy recipes and salvage rather than completed IOs

noit to mention, people look down on market users like its THEIR fault prices are so high, when usually we try to keep to the baseline average. Its not our fault that more often than not, during high demand periods, people will just throw scads of money at the market rather than patiently bid low. One of my friends listed a piece of gaussian for 1100 influence today. It sold for 15 million

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My personal favorute power myths

Empathy is a healing set

Defenders are healers

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Many just call them healers because it's easier and more accurate than calling them support. (Swear to gawd that is the actual argument i've seen used.)

Personally i prefer the term "support", even if it is somehow harder than typing "healer". i've also convinced myself that support is in general a more accurately descriptive term than healer. But what do i know?


Other myths: There are still people who think that the only thing Speed Boost does is make you run faster. Not nearly as many as there used to be, but they're still out there.

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Except healers is less accurate than support >_> By a large friggin margin.

[/ QUOTE ]Good job reading the whole post.

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I read the whole post. I agree with what was said, I was just echoing.

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My personal favorute power myths

Empathy is a healing set

Defenders are healers

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Many just call them healers because it's easier and more accurate than calling them support. (Swear to gawd that is the actual argument i've seen used.)

Personally i prefer the term "support", even if it is somehow harder than typing "healer". i've also convinced myself that support is in general a more accurately descriptive term than healer. But what do i know?


Other myths: There are still people who think that the only thing Speed Boost does is make you run faster. Not nearly as many as there used to be, but they're still out there.

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Except healers is less accurate than support >_> By a large friggin margin.

Its like calling Clerics in Dungeons and Dragons the "healer" class, nevermind they have tons of self-buffs, Full Plate and heavy weapon proficiencies, and a decent array of high damage offensive spells too.

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Or for the cost of say......5000 Architect Tickets you can purcase an Anniversary badge that your character doesn't have. Thus you can obtain it for any character of yours that accumulates enough tickets....or none.

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IF your account was active at that time.

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Which would then lead to farming tickets/merits/etc.

For an anniversary badge that you didn't get for your toon because they weren't around for it for X reason.

...Why have an anniversary badge then if you're going to water down its intent so much?

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It's actually because of headaches like these and the amount of quibbling people have engaged in over the years about how to possibly allow people to get such previous "one time opportunity" badges that I've never liked these badges in the game in the first place.

I understand the "concept" and intent behind what these badges were trying to accomplish.
It's just clear that in such a MMO that intent has always been problematic at best.
The fact that this thread has continued as much as it has shows this...

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The problem with the counterargument is if everybody can get everything than no accomplishment or item has any sort of significance to it.

One of the major reasons I decided to not renew my WoW account for at least a year or more is because the recent nerfing of the fishing and cooking skullup quests to being completely optional means its no longer any sort of accomplishment or effort anymore other than timespent farming a pond for skill.

My personal favorute power myths

Empathy is a healing set

Defenders are healers

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Never thought Support would be such a rush!

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You want to *really* have fun get a team of eight defenders. Crank the difficulty too invincible and then wonder why everything is so easy.

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truth. One of my friends was talking to me in pms the other week and was shocked at one point when he realized they had pulled all 4 AVs in the final mish and hadnt even noticed it.

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Then where does the rewriting to suit a viewpoint end, exactly? Your hero/villain "wasn't around" for an anniversary. Your hero/villain may also have not gotten Empath, while another of your toons did. Why not change that too?

Here is the basis of the argument: "We know the badge means this. But we WANT it to mean THIS." What is the benefit of changing the badge's intent? What is it you're "looking" for? It's not the original intent of the badge, because you're saying "that's unfair because a toon wasn't there to get it".

So, what is it? What's driving the need?

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It's called a 'retcon'. Quite common in comics.



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That's a what. I asked for a why. Try to be more informative and less dismissive, eh?

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asking for a non-dismissive answer from the "omg its not fair" crowd on the forum or ingame on any subject is rather pointless. All they ever give is dismissive answers.

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I hope to heck it is retroactive if done. I also hope that there will be an account badges tab made.

I would say that those that oppose the anniversary badges being made global are in a very small minority.

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I oppose it simply on the grounds that if they cave on that, it gives the whiners who dont have the early anniversary badges a better leg to stand on in demanding that they be given the 1st and 2nd anniversary badges.

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Just a question, wondering everyone's thoughts on this. If you feel you need every badge on one or more of your toons I'd like to know your thoughts as I don't quite understand the behavior.

Thanks in advance for your time,... and if you so desire flame on! ;P

Peace

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By the same token, i'd say a lot of the "casuals" in this game are pretty much OCD about playing the game "as intended" to the point of deriding or outright badmouthing any other playstyle.

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Pity this won't fix a thing.

Griefing wont stop, Steele. if you honestly think it will, no offense buddy, but you're full of [censored].

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Hmmm, Cav, I don't see your point, or need for a censored word. Steele is correct. I've never been griefed in my badge-hooring by another player. BUT the 'Star my Arc' and HoF badges were actively being griefed making them essentially unattainable. Virtual Ticket, Mob, etc badges were epic fail from the outset because they basically made those badges solo farms. Even I have better things to do than gather or join an 8 man team for only 1 perq: a virtual ticket badge.

I don't particularly mind them removing most of the AE badges that I earned eventhough I think it was a little shortsighted since MA farms are slowly dying down to a normal level as predictable. I am glad that once again I am secure in the ungriefability of my badging fun in game.

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My point is. even without the badges, people WILL grief.

Maybe not because of hall of fame. but just because its "unfair" that you have more rates than they do. or because they feel like it. or because it just amuses them to grief. Its Schadenfreude, the same reason people find the Jerry Springer Show enthralling. Some people simply get a charge out of seeing someone else have a bad day.

The thing with griefers you dont seem to understand here, is most griefers do not grief to attain some sort of reward. They do it simply because ruining other people's day and seeing the tangible anger and disappointent on their faces makes them happy.

ironically, this makes them just like a lot of the forum posters who are constantly taking the side of "right" and telling everyone else what bad bad players they are and how they deserve to be punished for not playing the game exactly as statesman/Posi/themselves intended