Lady_Sadako

Hmm. Here's a question:

If being in SG mode and Doing Things earns you Prestige, then what the hell is the point of ever being OUT of SG mode?

Out of interest, does ANYONE think datamining this is a good idea?

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Just because you're in SG mode doesn't mean you automatically get Prestige. You still have to do things.

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While I can appreciate that this helps the level 20s who otherwise wouldn't get a base, can I please make two suggestions?

1) Don't datamine for this. Seriously. Please. It would be awarding a benefit for something that was never tagged as beneficial. I know you're a supervillain and everything, but that JUST AIN'T RIGHT.

2) Let us pay for bases and their fittings with Prestige OR Influence. That way, the level 20s aren't priced out of the market, and the level 50s have something to spend their Inf on.

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something I'm not clear on. The base will be basically put on actual in game land correct?

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No. The bases will be accessible via portals. They don't have a location in the city.

Which is cool in a way, because it means you can have spaceship and alien dimension bases.

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Unfortunately, that wouldn't work. It'd just encourage a bunch of people to level up to whatever the lowest level you can buy prestige, transfer all their influence and rake in a ton of points.

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Oh damn, you're right. Gah.

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He said the reason they did it this way is so that people who are around level 20 group can get a base. If influence was used to pay for the base, a level 20 group couldn't pay for it. So they decided to make a new system so that lower level SGs could afford a base.

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What a surprise - Influence is completely b0rked.

This approach just replaces one messed-up situation with another. Well, here's a way around it - allow us to buy Prestige with Influence at a variable cost, depending on level, much like the way costume prices scale at Icon.

So, as a wild pulled from the air example: for a level 20 character 200 INF = 1 Prestige, for a level 50, 2,000 INF = 1 Prestige. Bingo, level playing field, influence useful for something, everyone happy.

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It's uniforms for everyone, or no superbase.

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And in a game with the most superbly detailed costume creation system ever, that is just ironic as all hell.

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It really comes down a very simple question: do you want your supergroup leader telling you how to dress?

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Heh. This kind of boils down to the initial decision to define 'supergroup mode' as what you LOOK like, instead of what you DO.

A better option, IMO, would have been to have 'supergroup mode' transfer 50% or more of all earned Influence straight into the supergroup's coffers. Substitute personal glory for group reputation.

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I'd say when CoV comes out, give CoH SG's the option to start building up Prestige before they install Bases, that way everyone starts on equal footing and has time to build up the dough to buy a Crib.

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Either that, or set a definite date when Prestige counting will begin, a few weeks before SoV goes live. That way, SGs can put in the hours in advance if they like, and make an informed choice about doing so.

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So, happy with the idea or not, I can see the reasoning behind it.

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The idea isn't a bad one. It brings to mind Wolverine chafing at having to wear an X-Men uniform, and Cyclops' quip about yellow spandex.

But datamining to see how long people have been playing in SG mode and awarding Prestige retroactively? VERY BAD IDEA. That's no more than a lottery. It would be SO much better to start everyone off on the same footing, able to make an informed choice about how to proceed.

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Well, remember, beta just started last Wednesday and CoV won't be released for 2 months at the very least. It is completely possible that they'll see the feedback on this and change it.

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Well, maybe this will help:

A player should never have to make an uninformed choice about something important.

According to Statesman, that's always been the golden rule of CoH. Datamining to award Prestige would be giving retroactive consequences - SIGNIFICANT ones - to uninformed choices. I don't see how that could possibly be acceptable.

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Bases will not be purchased/rented via influence, it will be via something new called 'Prestige', and that will be earned by spending time in SuperGroup Mode. He also said that they had every intention of datamining for it so that when bases go live SGs can immediately start building them.

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Not shooting the messenger here, but... what in hell are high level characters supposed to spend their millions of Inf on, if not bases?

Maybe if you purchased base rooms with Prestige and furnishings with Influence, that would make some kind of sense... but datamining here would just be plain wrong. It sounds like it's just a way to get big bases from day one to show off the system, with no regard for how the PLAYERS actually feel. I don't see how anyone could be in favour of it.

... gah, I can't remember EVER feeling this way about anything in CoH before. Bad sign.

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I wish they wouldn't grandfather prestige though.

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Yeah. It's not the idea I have trouble with, it's the suggestion that it would be datamined. Rewarding or penalising people for choices that were completely inconsequential at the time is a no-no.

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Seems I forgot my sarcasam tags.

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So *was* there an old SG value of 'Time'?

This has to be wrong. I cannot believe the Devs would do something as ridiculous as controlling access to a highly desirable game feature on a basis of TIME SPENT DOING SOMETHING. What are we supposed to do, just log in and stand about and earn a base for it?

I've spent hours upon hours fighting alongside my SG mates - does that count for nothing unless I was wearing the requisite blue underwear at the time?!

I can only hope it doesn't go in. That would be... insane.

What could be more arbitrary than rewarding 'time spent in SG colours'?

I have characters who aren't even IN a SG, but were hoping to spend Inf to get themselves a base, having formed a supergroup with only one member (them). I'm sure I'm not alone in that. This Prestige idea is just utterly lame.

v good guide, would read again, A++++

The fire is fantastic, but badly needs a definite ending to it. The fire chief talks a lot when you're fighting, but never says thankyou, and nor do the citizens!

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Nobody likes escort missions... in any game.

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You're wrong.

EDIT: oops, posted twice because the generalisation annoyed me - mods please delete!

On the whole, FANTASTIC spruce ups to the missions.

Bit buggy though. Croatoa mission with waves of Tuatha and Firbolg failed to complete 3 times despite defeating all mobs. Have also had a wave mission in which the group that was supposed to be defending the obelisk (CoT) came in a wave that attacked it.

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I think it was Lady Saduku (spelling?) that said "Anyone calling themselves a witch opens themselves up to abuse".

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Sadako, actually - and speaking as a pagan myself, it's the gorram truth. If you give yourself that label, you're deliberately identifying yourself as something which other people specifically fear. There's never any sensible reason to call yourself a witch.

If you can work the mojo, then it doesn't matter what you call yourself. If you can't, then it doesn't matter what you call yourself.

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I was refering to the old religion not the neopagan revival.

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'The old religion' is an INVENTION of the neopagan revival. Gerald Gardner was the first to use that particular phrase.

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The Necronomican exists and is quite a delightfull work of fiction.

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Actually, it's several works of fiction, depending on whether it's the Simon Necronomicon, the Giger Necronomicon or the Colin Wilson Necronomicon you're talking about...

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And a great number of old texts on magic were destroyed.

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No they weren't. Where belief in malicious magic was strong, it was important for the books to be preserved, so that people would know what they were up against. For example, Reginald Scot's 'The Discoverie of Witchcraft' (1584) was supposed to help stamp out magical practices, but contained so much magical lore that it became a standard reference work for cunning folk to use in later years!

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Well books were banned and destroyed mentioning witchcraft unless the book was used against witches or about their history.

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No they weren't. Texts like the Black Pullet were available, if sometimes rare. You could get the Sword of Moses by mail order.

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A lot of the stuff about witches comes from Middle Age misconceptions

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It's hard to have a 'misconception' about something that didn't really exist. One may as well say that unicorns are misunderstood. There's no evidence that anyone calling themself a witch now has any connection to historical witchcraft. There's only the aspiration to identify with an archetype.

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Like it or not witches do have a historial reason to be concerned as well as frightented about fundie Christians.

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Yes, anyone calling themself a witch is laying themself open for abuse.

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And yet, people (Wiccans) still claim it's ancient or "the oldest" religion.

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To give them their due, plenty of them are changing their minds on that score. The most common comment from the Wiccan side is 'no, it's not ancient, but it works for us'.

Unfortunately, with the exposure of Wicca as a recent construct, 'hereditary witchcraft' has been invented to replace it. The standard line from that side is 'we have proof that we're ancient, honest we do, but you're not allowed to see it'.

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Even still, the man who prompted a revival of Pagan practices, Gardener, did so in the 1950s. Unfortunately, he did it by creating his own religion out of bits and pieces of ancient religions instead of reviving the ancient religions themselves.

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He did indeed. Thing is, it's really impossible to revive the ancient religions. We know very, very little of what they entailed, and despite claims of (frankly impossible) hereditary tradition, there are no lineages that have survived. Only echoes of customs and shards of folklore make it down through the years.

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Paganism? No, no... The early twentieth century was still a ridiculously Christian era. In the 1950s, England lifted a ban on books concerning Pagan religions and practices, which is what prompted Gardener to introduce Wicca to the world, opening the door for a Neo-Pagan movement.

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Not quite. Books on those subject weren't ever banned - loads of books on pagan religion had been published, many of them coming out in the early 1900s (e.g. Hargrave Jennings and G Frazer's work). The event that prompted Gardner to create Wicca was the repeal of the Witchcraft Act. The story was that all the underground witches could now reveal themselves without fear of persecution. Total nonsense, of course, but it was a good bit of stagecraft.