Chase_Arcanum

Agreed. I don't think they pulled this number out of thin air, though. Datamining must have shown a lot of hoarders out there holding onto stuff that the devs would rather they didn't.

Generally speaking, if you can't entice hoarders to let go, and you're concerned that the hoarding levels will make rewards for future content too easily attained, you might:
- reduce the reward rate (see the proposed trial change in beta)
- introduce costly things o buy (see the market)
- give up and just introduce a new currency with limited conversion ( see the previous shards-->threads and different incarnate salvage)

seeing how aggressively they're moving with the first two listed above, I suspect they're trying to head off #3... but that's pure guesswork.

If you see the very rare as the payoff, you're already playing the lottery system, and the difference between getting the e-merit and getting extra astrals (for the first time you run the trial that day) are relatively meaningless.

I've seen many people run BAF after BAF after BAF, with NO chance of getting the e-merit after that first one, but they don't seem that upset about it.

EDIT: I'm not defending the design- I don't care to do enough trials to really CARE enough to be emotional about it. I can just see that the system DOES need some method to encourage advancement to the newer, more challenging content, and I can think of many harsher methods to doing it than swapping an e-merit with 2 astrals once every 24 hours (well, twice, as there are two trials affected).

Agree. I'd really have them consider making the cutoff based on the level tier (espeically if future Incarnate slots bringing more level-ups) rather than just unlocking the slot.

That way, if people want the e-merit, they slot a lesser Lore/Destiny, make it more challenging, and get the e-merit.

agreed. I don't mind discovering a story as I play through it, but I don't get to appreciate it in the fast-paced world of most incarnate trials. I have to read about it elsewhere to make sense of what's being done and why.



agreed. Part of this is in the nature of the game's structure- our buffed tanks are often too resistant to make any damage a threat, but others will barely survive the same level of damage. Our heals are so strong that if we don't have the damage be significant, we don't have much risk of dying. Unfortunately, to counter these issues we'd probably be looking at PvP-style diminishing returns, which may be even less popular.

This I put 80% the league's fault, 20% the devs. A team that stays together can easily clear the enemies as they get the glowies (and earn excellent iXP), making things easier for anyone coming behind. The problem is that the devs gave no incentive to do it (other than saving your teammates' already-questionable sanity).

There are things they could do:
- add an aura effect on the bad guys that buff the resistance of the crates, so it becomes better to NOT have lotsa baddies stand next to the box you're beating up.
OR
- Increase the hit points of the boxes, but add a small "incarnate buff" to you when you defeat a foe. You'd then take the crates down faster because of this buff.

Just doing that would encourage people to actually FIGHT the bad guys on their way to the crates and penalize the zerg mentality-- hopefully enough to kill the tactic dead.

Haven't encountered that bit of stupidity, luckily.

Agreed. The devs are doing this mostly so that people don't end up hoarding so many merits that the next stage they release is completely bought-out before it starts. Otherwise, they'd need a new currency.

Unfortunately, we have different ends of the spectrum here-
- those that will just do trials all day, earning grossly inflated amounts of merits, but hoard them anyway, as cosmetic elements that don't improve gameplay have little value to them.
- those that love the cosmetic elements but only casually play the incarnate trials, as their interests aren't in raids.

So the cosmetics-lovers feel forced to raid more to get what they want, while the raid-lovers just hoard what they have, hoping it can be spent to unlock something useful very quickly when the next stage is released.



Agreed. If the trials let you be in instanced maps, it'd be great. if the devs introduced more zone activities that an incarnate-level could find challenging while waiting, it'd be great. Standing and waiting for the queue to fill... notsogreat.

Think of it this way- the devs want to "encourage" you to move on to the next tier of content while earning the next tier of powers. Now that they have more trials, they *could* do this simply by awarding an all-new XP & salvage for those trials, set new trials to work with that, and have everyone grind those out. That would be the harshest method to push you to new content.

This is far less harsh.
This lets you get moderately diminished rewards, but at least earn something relevant.

This is more akin to what happens when you level up and the foes in Atlas Park go from white and yellow to blue and green. You get less reward from fighting them because you've advanced beyond the challenge they provide. Eventually, they'll be gray. You're being prodded to move beyond Atlas park and seek challenges elsewhere.

That's what the downgrade of this reward is- once you've unlocked the slots, you get a few Astral merits instead of the more valuable Empyrian. You're getting better, so the trial is getting less challenging, so you're seeing less reward. Move along to other challenges for better reward, or stay at the less challenging but familiar stuff for less reward.

Ideally, it would have been this way from the start.... but they didn't have that many trials back then. This is bound to be an issue since its being done NOW instead of back then, but its hardly a deal-breaker.

I think you must've teamed with the same people* I have-- Always near death, but always with a full inspiration tray so you can't give them a hand.











*I won't mention rian_frostdrake by name.

Precisely,

...and there is some additional confusion here- single common words CAN be made into trademarks. It isn't as simple as saying "likeness and common name are an issue." Sometimes the word- even a common word- used in a certain context- are a risk

Overall good points, but don't slip into the mistake of confusing copyright with trademark. This is about marks of trade (trademark), not ownership original material (copyright).

A trademark does give you some (limited) ability to reserve common words for specific fields of industry. "Nike" was the greek goddess that personified victory, but a company registered Nike for shoes (and now apparel) so you won't find other shoe manufacturers out there trying to use that name.

That mark of trade is registered for particular industries, and that can also lead to confusion-- like when Marvel realized that their characters would look good on T-shirts and found that there was already a trademark for "wolverine" in apparel (the boots). Since a trademark doesn't have to be just words, they registered the trademark to include the "name and likeness" , avoiding any trade confusion.

(This, by the way, brings up another thorny issue for Marvel. Nike has their swoosh symbol as a trademark... and is fairly consistent with it. Go look at the many variations of wolverine (and other characters) over the years. What IS the registered likeness? )


Also, The McDonald's restaurant you mentioned was, as you said, because all US states let you use your real last name in your business, period. If he sold that restaurant, though, the new owners would not be under that same protection (unless they were also McDonald's) so they'd have to change the name of the restaurant.

Correct.

This gets into the murky gray area of trademark law. Many times, a company doesn't have to WIN any damages in a lawsuit during a trademark case, they just have to either get the unsanctioned use of trademark to cease or have a judge decide that the act in question is not actually infringing.

Either way, if you'r sued, you're out thousands of $$ in court costs unless you settle early. This is an area of law where it is virtually impossible for you to countersue for court costs if you win.

------

Now, Marvel comics doesn't sue cosplayers for wearing non-sanctioned, non-licensed spider man costumes, but they may sue the person who makes and sells them. That's why they went after NCSoft/Cryptic... arguing that this was equivalent to people selling unlicensed versions of their costume.

NCSoft / Cryptic argued that their costume creator was equivalent to giving out a "box of crayons" to the players to express their imagination in-- saying that this was like Marvel suing crayola for letting kids draw unlicensed spider man costumes.

What was telling here was where much of Marvel's case started to unravel. All the examples Marvel provided the courts showing how well you could copy their characters was done by Marvel agents (employees or employees of the law firm) tinkering around in costume creator. NCSoft argued that since these were sanctioned Marvel employees that had the permission to make these characters, then there was no trademark infringement shown, and therefore, no facilitation on their part.

That put Marvel in an awkward position- to PROVE infringement, they'd have to identify an actual infringer (probably by identifying the character and server and requiring NCSoft to supply the contact info for that customer to the court. Marvel would then have to name that person in the court case -- and get really really bad PR for essentially targeting a fan that's cosplaying their trademark character online.

This didn't kill their whole case, though, so NCSoft still had some risk of judgements against them if they pushed this ahead in trial.

Instead, both parties agreed to settle with undisclosed details. We can suspect that these included some assurance from NCSoft that they'd show some diligence in preventing infringements by players and some permission from Marvel for them to do certain things. Money may or may not have changed hands. All this is speculation.

What we know is that NCSoft was happy to NOT get a potential cash judgement that would damage their business, plus get clear rules that will keep them out of lawsuit mayhem going forward from Marvel, and Marvel's happy because they have established that they're still protecting the trademark.

The only ones that aren't happy are those of us that hoped for clear case law defining what users can and can't do to avoid lawsuit in the future.

Correct.

A chum bucket has been a common fisherman's term for over 100 years, a common aquatic animal trainer's term for at least half that long, and even familiar to most people that visited a sea world in the last 30-odd years.

When we talk about two words that go together, we're talking about things that become uniquely identifiable. "Sky" and "walker" are two common words. "Skywalker" is more unique.

There is no clear-cut definition of when something goes too far for trademarks. its all rather murky.


A "trademark" is just that- a "mark of trade" that an organization does business under. They register something distinctive (a word, a picture, and word+picture) and ask the government to give them the right to use this to identify themselves in a certain field of business. The government agrees, but puts requirements on them... things like "if you want to use it, YOU have to protect it. if you let others casually use that trademark too much for things unrelated to your product, then it could enter the public domain, too bad for you."

An example would be how so many people ask for a "kleenex" instead of tissue paper... or a xerox instead of a copy of a paper... or "jello" for any gelitan product... or even "google it" for searching on any search engine. Its a delicate balance- being so dominant in your field that you suddenly become synonymous with everything in it can sound like a good thing, but it means that your "brand" has lost the distinctiveness with your sole part of the business, so you risk losing it if you LET other people offer their own "xerox machines" or other jellos. You gotta sue them to stop... and usually you gotta sue them well before that point to have a good effect.

That makes trademark protectors rather sue-crazy, which makes places like NCSoft legitimately overly-cautious on what they let players do.

... and to be absolutely clear. This protects you, too. During the last round of lawsuits, one of the points that came out is the actual offender is the creator of the violation (the player) and NCSoft was just the facilitator. If anyone like Marvel wanted to sue the facilitator again, they'd also may have to identify the original offender. That means that YOU could find yourself in a costly trademark lawsuit too...

Sounds like a supergroup alt team we need to do.
- Pick a server,
- have forum contests to come up with a costume.
- have another contest to come up with characters and biographies
- and since Samuraiko came up with the idea, she'll do a video similar to the introductions at the start of the games!

- As a bonus, we'll get Steelclaw to break out a fresh spreadsheet, come up with the stats, and play a whole fantasy-superball season against himself. ... no, scratch that, he'd end up changing the rules and reroll everyone right before the playoffs.

I'm not nearly as numbers-centric as many on these boards, but I also recall as EvilGeko does.

Also, Ultimus, I'd reserve the word "nerf"- which has strong negative connotations- for something that has its performance reduced AFTER it is released. It carries the weight of feelings of betrayal as players invest in something and adapt to it only to have it changed and reduced in value after the investment is made.

Something that's in a beta is by definition still in a state of flux and not in its final form. Changes will be made there, and the players have yet to invest in it.

Grace: I told you, it's that voodoo book you're researching, that stuff can seriously screw up your karma.
Gabriel: I'm sure that's it. Maybe I should write a horror novel on passive resistance instead.

I really wish they'd stayed with the game design of the original-- still my absolute favorite. The "interactive movie" style of "the beast within" was well-written, but totally changed my mental image of the characters.. and I never did get motivated enough to try the 3d engine of the third story. Reinvent the whole series in the same pixelated style of the original, pump them out as online serials or downloadable apps, and I'd be ecstatic.

And broke. Oh so broke.

How much more commonly? Its been laid out that you can get them pretty darn often via the trials, the freebies, the Vet rewards, etc. Its been also shown that you essentially have three test builds to mess with, so that's 3 experimental builds per level, and its been shown that there are respec recipes for sale within the game that, while pricy, are available.

I'm not a big fan of copying-to-test-just-to-try-a-power, so I'll exclude that one. Others have mentioned it.

So, what would it take to make you happy?

Would increasing respec recipe drops to the point that the price stabilizes at 5-10 million inf?
How about reducing the Alignment Merit costs to 2 hero merits, rather than 10?

Your comments here make it seem as if you'd prefer "respec" to be as common as an inspiration drop, and you really do seem to believe that you're absolutely right that this is just an artifact of bad MMO design, like old permadeath, that should just go away.

Others don't share your view. I know people that have never used a respec and never cared about it one whit. They certainly wouldn't share your enthusiasm in such a brilliant new feature. I also know people that have studied game design and community building and the psychology that goes into building player investment into your game that will tell you that there's much more going for encouraging character stability while offering limited- but attainable- ways to reinvent yourself. There's value in making it both goal driven and a decision with some gravity, and many people see and appreciate that.

There's still a lot of room where we can meet in the middle. Many people seem to believe that respec recipes are worth the 100m inf that they go for now, as they do seem to sell rather regularly, but I'm sure there aren't too many that would object to an increased drop rate, provided they don't become as value-less as the "wings" recipes.

Me? I barely respec enough to use the freebies given out with most issues. Heck, I alt so much that I barely get to log in all my characters between issues. If they'd give us those free respecs as respec recipes, I'd happily max out the inf on every one of my characters selling those things off. They're not as valuable to me as they are to you- but I do prefer they remain limited in availability.

I'd be happy enough to keep things as they are but add an "undo my last level" that would take you back to just enough XP to ding and then let you re-pick that most-recently-taken power (or re-place those slots). It'd be great for when I try a power that just does not fit a character as I'd hoped, and since I'd generally realize this within 2-3 missions after leveling, the lost XP wouldn't be so bad.

Other than that tweak, I'm rather happy with the system.

I know we can't do compare/constrast posts, but was looking at the classes/races of various other hybrid-model systems, and this seems pretty much the norm.

... and an even better deal, when you consider how many primary/secondary combinations unlock under Mastermind. The other games are usually unlocking a single class. Some are unlocking it once, for one character. Some you have to unlock both classes and races, and some have 1/2 to 3/4 of the classes and races locked by default.

I want reimbursed for the alcohol poisoning.

Welcome to the boards,

As many posts here suggest, City of Heroes is a bit of a haven for people that HATE the idea of endlessly raising the level cap. The game for most isn't a mad dash to 50 to see when the "game begins" but more about the journey.

Content-wise, CoH has a great deal to go through heroside, villainside, and Mission-architect side. It has a rather robust "exemplaring" and "flashback" system that lets you experience content you've outleveled... or even apply other challenges to yourself for additional badges (do it without deaths, with enemies buffed, with enhancements disabled, etc).

There's also the rather new "incarnate system" for 50's. These give encouragement for running trials (large-group content similar to rather quick raids) and task forces (smaller team-sized story-driven content that often takes a bit longer) over and over.

I, personally, am an altaholic. I've dabbled with the 50's content, but I'd much rather roll an alt, take a different path through the content, and try something different. I've been here 7 years and have yet to grow bored with that.