Lothic

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Then I'll make it hurt a tad bit more.

I've been setting badge titles in costume change binds for years and the one gotcha that's not obvious is that just about every time a patch comes along that adds badges to the game you have to recheck your /settitle binds because the Devs have a bad habit of sliding new badges into the "middle" of the list making all the badge numbers above them increment higher.

For example lets say there was a badge A with settitle number 200 and a badge B with settitle number 210. If the Devs decided to add badge C they might shove it into the list as number 205 but that would also make badge B now number 211.

Frankly I've always though it was pretty silly to do that because their mid-list additions have never followed an organized pattern (like even alphabetical?) that made much sense to me. Why they couldn't just add them to the back of the list I'll never know. Bottomline if you decide to start using /settitle binds you typically have to go back and recheck them after every patch. *sigh*

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I've noticed that this mainly occurs with the EPIC damage/heal/money badges. They always get pushed out to new set title numbers when new badges are inserted.

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As you point out those particular badges get shifted often because they are already near the end of the list (they are currently /settitle numbered 1000+).

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Hm, wonder if AE badge removal will lower the set title numbers for the epics?

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That's actually a good question.

Turns out based on what I've seen recently in the Issue 15 beta the badge /settitle numbers have once again INCREASED, not decreased. I assume that has to do with the addition of the new Issue 15 Arena badges.

So it would appear that while we are losing many AE badges from characters the badges themselves are going to remain in the game "under the hood" so to speak. I imagine leaving them in the game would make it easier for the Devs to perhaps someday rework and reoffer these badges again in some form as they have already alluded to as a possibility.

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Ah but why have the set title numbers of the epic badges in a group from the more normal versions of said badges?

Wouldn't it be simpler to have for example:

Damage badge as say set title 500 to 506 depending on which badge title you want to use? (Presuming you have them all of course).

Thus the numbers don't change with each issue of new badges.

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Don't look at me.
Ask the Devs why they numbered their badges in an almost semi-random jumbled fashion.

If it were up to me I'd re-sort the list into one of any number of logical fashions.
Pity it's not up to me.

The shifting problem doesn't -just- happen to the epic badges anyway. Moving those badges down in the list next to the non-epic ones doesn't really solve anything. As long as the Devs continue wedging new badges willy-nilly into the middle of the list they are going to shift any badges above them upward. Sometimes when this happens it literally affects hundreds of badges at a time.

I've resigned myself that this silly shifting is likely going to happen for the foreseeable future. I don't recall that there has -ever- be a time when new badges didn't shift some percentage of existing badges up as well. I'm not sure whether the shifting values actually serves a hidden positive purpose or not, but even if it doesn't it certainly doesn't bother the Devs that it annoys the heck out of us.

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Then I'll make it hurt a tad bit more.

I've been setting badge titles in costume change binds for years and the one gotcha that's not obvious is that just about every time a patch comes along that adds badges to the game you have to recheck your /settitle binds because the Devs have a bad habit of sliding new badges into the "middle" of the list making all the badge numbers above them increment higher.

For example lets say there was a badge A with settitle number 200 and a badge B with settitle number 210. If the Devs decided to add badge C they might shove it into the list as number 205 but that would also make badge B now number 211.

Frankly I've always though it was pretty silly to do that because their mid-list additions have never followed an organized pattern (like even alphabetical?) that made much sense to me. Why they couldn't just add them to the back of the list I'll never know. Bottomline if you decide to start using /settitle binds you typically have to go back and recheck them after every patch. *sigh*

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I've noticed that this mainly occurs with the EPIC damage/heal/money badges. They always get pushed out to new set title numbers when new badges are inserted.

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As you point out those particular badges get shifted often because they are already near the end of the list (they are currently /settitle numbered 1000+).

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Hm, wonder if AE badge removal will lower the set title numbers for the epics?

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That's actually a good question.

Turns out based on what I've seen recently in the Issue 15 beta the badge /settitle numbers have once again INCREASED, not decreased. I assume that has to do with the addition of the new Issue 15 Arena badges.

So it would appear that while we are losing many AE badges from characters the badges themselves are going to remain in the game "under the hood" so to speak. I imagine leaving them in the game would make it easier for the Devs to perhaps someday rework and reoffer these badges again in some form as they have already alluded to as a possibility.

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In the badge drop-down menus your current badge title will be highlighted green. I believe you still can't use gladiator badges as a title.

[/ QUOTE ] You can't set the gladiator badges as titles by using the drop-down lists,
but you can still use the "/settitle #" code for any gladiator badge you have earned.

A list of all the gladiator badges, and their title codes can be found here:
http://badge-hunter.com/view_badge_bytype.php?type=6


For example, I have a Widow named: Longbow Spy-duh
I created a couple Longbow outfits for her, one of them being the Longbow Spec-Ops
For added effect, I set my badge title to the gladiator badge with the same name by using this command:
/settitle 118

You could even expand their usage by creating binds that combine the costume changes with the settitle commands.
Come to think of it.. I like that idea. I might just have to set up such a thing. lol

Workspace:
/bind numpad7 "cce 0 CCPrestoChango$$settitle 102" (Night Widow)
/bind numpad8 "cce 1 CCPrestoChango$$settitle 0" (Longbow Guardian*)
/bind numpad9 "cce 2 CCPrestoChango$$settitle 118" (Longbow Spec-Ops)

*Longbow Guardian doesn't have a Gladiator, so I'd have to find something else funny like "Loyal" to put in there. haha (For some reason, I thought the /settitle codes for regular badges were listed somewhere too. hmm)

Now all I need is a Longbow Rifleman (94) and a Fortunata Seer (83) costume too. haha j.k
(I would omit Longbow Warden because they are labeled as 1 and 2)

I suppose I could even link them to specific powers too:
/bind RShift "cc 2$$settitle 118$$powexecname Mask Presence"
(Simulating a Longbow Spec-Ops using their [Cloaking Device])

OK, now I'm taking this a bit too far. ROFL
Stopping.

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It's official.

You made my head hurt.

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Then I'll make it hurt a tad bit more.

I've been setting badge titles in costume change binds for years and the one gotcha that's not obvious is that just about every time a patch comes along that adds badges to the game you have to recheck your /settitle binds because the Devs have a bad habit of sliding new badges into the "middle" of the list making all the badge numbers above them increment higher.

For example lets say there was a badge A with settitle number 200 and a badge B with settitle number 210. If the Devs decided to add badge C they might shove it into the list as number 205 but that would also make badge B now number 211.

Frankly I've always though it was pretty silly to do that because their mid-list additions have never followed an organized pattern (like even alphabetical?) that made much sense to me. Why they couldn't just add them to the back of the list I'll never know. Bottomline if you decide to start using /settitle binds you typically have to go back and recheck them after every patch. *sigh*

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<-- has only 6 characters, and could delete all of them except 1 with no remorse whatsoever, after 4 years in game.

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Like you I've created many alts over the years but I only have a few that I truly care about at this point. While I don't suffer from true altitis I can certainly sympathize with the condition. My particular OCD (guess what it is from my sig lines) lies upon a different path than theirs.

That said I wouldn't have any problem with getting more character slots with GR regardless if I used them or not. It'd be yet another enticement for paying for the expansion and it's clear many people would enjoy having more space.

It'd be cool if there was a way to sell slots you weren't using to those people who could use them...

Yeah I doubt you'd ever get a whole lot of that "numbers of active accounts/logins" type information from any MMO because some of that could be considered sensitive company private. There's supposedly some kind of MMO industry quarterly report out there that collects public monthly averages from various companies but I don't know the links to that info offhand.

Beyond that if you're just looking for data to encourage other people to try this game I'd just point to the fact that it's been around for over 5 years and they have a big retail expansion (Going Rogue) in the works. Games that are "Dooomed" don't tend to last that long or have new content planned for them.

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Occam's Razor is on the side of customization.

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You forgot about Occam's evil twin.

Reductio ad absurdum

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You're right. It's absurd to conclude that Power Customization could never happen in CoX.

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*FACEPALMHEADDESK*

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I'd admit my response was rather clever but I didn't mean for anyone to hurt themselves over it.

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I have a sneaky suspicion that "Power Customization" is goign to end up a jazzed up version of "Costume Change Emotes."

Open the power Info Tab, select one of 3 or 4 preset "emotes" and then that emote replaces the power animation up to the point where it "fires."

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This is more than I'm hoping for (this is what I expect, at best, from COs "Full Power Customization"). Being able to choose from a selected list of animations for each power would be amazing, and unlikely. I don't think Champions is going to be able to pull it off despite the promises (at least, not at launch, even in September).

My only expectation of Power Customization here is the ability to change the colors of the powers. (This is is also what I expect, at worst, from CO's Power Customization).

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All I really want from any power customization is the ability to make it any color I choose. I don't mind the animations and I don't need to be able to make fire shoot from my forhead or the middle of my back, but I would like to make my energy blast red, or purple, or white or tie die or something.

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For the sake of this discussion I believe it has already been confirmed during the "press open betas" of CO that they have player selectable "emanation points" for powers working. As I understand it you are limited to several specific body points to choose from (i.e. you could have a power blast come from your hands, your chest or your eyes only) but still this is more control over customization than -just- the color of your beams, which CO will definitely have as well.

Having powers in CoX behave like the Prestige Sprints (where in that case you have a set of separate powers with different animations all effectively providing the same in-game effect) has long been offered as a suggestion for a "poor man's" version of Power Customization. Now that we have the Costume Change Emotes the code that makes those work might be applicable to this idea as well.

While I'd have to concede that may be what we end up with it would be, at best, a weak solution to the problem at hand. A sort of "multiple choice / hardwired animation" customization would be far less flexible a scheme than what other games will soon be offering in this area.

I'm not assuming (just yet) that Power Customization is a foregone conclusion in this game. But I will say that if it does happen -and- turns out to be like our Prestige Sprints / Costume Change Emotes then I might go so far as to declare it "too little, too late".

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These could probably be done as an accolade from other badges. Like, if you get all the badges related to that zone: so read all the plaques about it, get all the exploration badges in it, maybe some badges relating to any enemies directly related to it, maybe also completing all/some of the storyarcs related to it.

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The only real problem with "zone accolades" based on getting -all- the other zone specific badges/plaques is what happens if they change/add something to a zone? Just saying the requirements of preexisting badges shouldn't be forced variably change over time when something else in the game does.

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Trolls Task Force Member works fine, it's only FBZSD that's borked.

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Well according to Paragonwiki...

The PvP zone time badges take 5 hours to earn.
The Troll Task Force Member badge takes 1 hour to earn.
The Firebase Zulu Security Detail takes 3 minutes to earn.

Pretty weird range of times for similar badges if you ask me.

Regardless if the FBZSD badge is technically "broken" and the TTFM badge isn't I think all of these "time in zone" badges, as a class of badges, should be earned for the same amount of time in the given zone. I offered one hour as a suggested round number for all of them, but again I don't care as much about the period of time as long as it's standardized.

That would be roughly item 35,921 on a list of the 35,923 most important things to fix in this game.

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Occam's Razor is on the side of customization.

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You forgot about Occam's evil twin.

Reductio ad absurdum

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You're right. It's absurd to conclude that Power Customization could never happen in CoX.

I believe Champs Online is currently scheduled to go live on September 1st.
I expect our Devs will declare "Hey guys you're getting Power Customization" on or around August 31st.

There's nothing wrong with Dominators per se. They can solo quite a bit of content in this game.

But I will mention something to you that you probably don't want to hear. The Devs have gone out of their way over the years to make huge amounts of this game soloable by nearly every AT. But they have never once promised or guaranteed that ALL content can or even should be soloable by any AT. Sometimes you just have to have a team, period.

I'd suggest that your source of frustration is simply an unwillingness to accept that every once in a while even mighty Dominators can't solo everything. Scrapper-jockeys are usually the ones that have the most trouble dealing with that concept, but clearly anyone might need to be reminded of that from time to time.

Just remember most people fail to realize that every AT has certain level ranges they solo better at than in other ranges and what these ranges are can be very different from AT to AT. Just because you had an easy time of it in your 20s and 30s does not imply your 40s must be just as easy.

Good luck...

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Basically the unspoken conclusion is that Microsoft forces you to have to buy a new machine if you want to have a good experience. Sure that's kind of underhanded, but we are talking about Microsoft here.


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I don't disagree that updated hardware is clearly the better way to go, but it almost sounds as if you're saying Microsoft is somehow also selling you the hardware... I'm not sure where the underhandedness comes in.

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The underhandedness comes in when they release "new" software which basically requires "new" hardware to match. It has long been understood that the hardware and software industries have, at least indirectly, helped to support and drive each other ahead because they clearly need each other to do well.

So while Microsoft might not be selling hardware directly they are more than happy to "encourage" people to have to buy new hardware to run their latest software because if the hardware guys sell more computers they directly end up selling more software.

Using the word "underhanded" was simply a humorous way to describe Microsoft's behind the scenes role in getting us to buy more stuff.

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The logic there is circular.
Selling Vista requires new hardware, new hardware sales is good for Microsoft because it means new software sales.
So, selling Vista is what causes Vista to be sold, there's a paradox waiting to explode the Universe in there.

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Maybe that's the kind of paradox Bill Gates needed to become one of the richest men on the planet.

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Basically the unspoken conclusion is that Microsoft forces you to have to buy a new machine if you want to have a good experience. Sure that's kind of underhanded, but we are talking about Microsoft here.


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I don't disagree that updated hardware is clearly the better way to go, but it almost sounds as if you're saying Microsoft is somehow also selling you the hardware... I'm not sure where the underhandedness comes in.

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The underhandedness comes in when they release "new" software which basically requires "new" hardware to match. It has long been understood that the hardware and software industries have, at least indirectly, helped to support and drive each other ahead because they clearly need each other to do well.

So while Microsoft might not be selling hardware directly they are more than happy to "encourage" people to have to buy new hardware to run their latest software because if the hardware guys sell more computers they directly end up selling more software.

Using the word "underhanded" was simply a humorous way to describe Microsoft's behind the scenes role in getting us to buy more stuff.

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I can see that. I view it as kind of the same thing as if you want to buy a new CD player for your car, you need to buy a whole new car.

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Especially if, like Microsoft's software, that new brand of CD player you want really only fits best in NEWER cars then you have a good analogy.

New software will always drive new hardware and vise-versa. Think of it this way: How often do you try to load Vista on a Commodore 64 or conversely a MS-DOS written in the 80s on a brand new computer?

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Basically the unspoken conclusion is that Microsoft forces you to have to buy a new machine if you want to have a good experience. Sure that's kind of underhanded, but we are talking about Microsoft here.


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I don't disagree that updated hardware is clearly the better way to go, but it almost sounds as if you're saying Microsoft is somehow also selling you the hardware... I'm not sure where the underhandedness comes in.

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The underhandedness comes in when they release "new" software which basically requires "new" hardware to match. It has long been understood that the hardware and software industries have, at least indirectly, helped to support and drive each other ahead because they clearly need each other to do well.

So while Microsoft might not be selling hardware directly they are more than happy to "encourage" people to have to buy new hardware to run their latest software because if the hardware guys sell more computers they directly end up selling more software.

Using the word "underhanded" was simply a humorous way to describe Microsoft's behind the scenes role in getting us to buy more stuff.

I think one of the (many) tricks of Windows Vista / Windows 7 is that it's not worth trying to upgrade an older machine with it. Clearly it effectively requires newer hardware to work well. Pretty much every time I hear of people having trouble with it is when they are trying to run it on older computers. Basically the unspoken conclusion is that Microsoft forces you to have to buy a new machine if you want to have a good experience. Sure that's kind of underhanded, but we are talking about Microsoft here.

And as far as Windows 7 goes, I think most people realize that it's basically what Vista should have been if they had gotten it to work as advertised a few years ago. I think that Vista (after the Service Packs) works pretty nicely now, but then again I'm only running it on machines that are less than two years old with plenty of memory and processing power. *shrugs*

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Squirrley, how do you run it in XP Compatibile?
(sorry, I aint a computer geek)


Anyhow,

If you say so.

I will continiue to try and find my problem:

Why wont the stupid thing let me play...Ill make a thread on that too.

But as long as this is resolved,

REQUESTED TO BE LOCKED ONCE I FIND OUT HOW TO DO XP COMPATIBLE. (lol)

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I've been running this game for close to 18 months on Vista machines without any serious problem at all. You've got to realize those "system requirements" were written 5 years ago before Vista existed. But just because it didn't exist at the time does not prove that it wouldn't work regardless.

I've never had to deal with trying "XP compatibility mode" with it. Even the few old Vista related problems people have mentioned so far (like the mouse problem) have been fixed for a long time now.

You might be having some kind of outdated video driver problem perhaps, but your problem isn't Vista itself. Good luck.

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But in the light of upcoming MMO competition which boast of their Power Customization features I think it would be very unwise for CoX not to at least try to overcome that limitation relatively soon.

[/ QUOTE ] Even if power customization doesn't happen here, it is thinking like this that will make Champions Online and DCUO two of the best things to happen to City Of Heroes players. Competition is a great thing for consumers.

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It doesn't matter if a player like me -actually- thinks this about those other games or not.
What would be good for us is if our Devs BELIEVE we think it's an important enticement to lead us astray.
Here's for doing my civic duty adding to the propaganda.

I know it sounds harsh but I'd rather our Devs be manipulated by us into thinking those games are going to be the best things since sliced bread and react to them as such even if they actually aren't...

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Occam's Razor is on the side of customization.

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How is power customization on the side of Occam's Razor? I think it's in the pipeline as well but Occam's Razor states that of many possible explanations, the simplest explanation is most likely correct. The player base's speculation and reading way too much into a marketing survey, a color changing fireball, and a couple indirect devloper comments is a lot simpler than the developers implementing power customization in my opinion.

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No one's saying that Power Customization was ever going to be easy to do. The Devs themselves have always led us to believe it'd take a very long time and a possible full blown expansion's worth of effort... Precisely what Going Rogue now represents.

Normally I would be skeptical of the merits of a Marketing Survey released for a game 10 months ago. But if you go back and read it again now you will see how remarkably predictive it was of the details of the Mission Architect, many months before that system became a reality. Based on that validation I see no reason to downplay what it has to say about the expectations for Going Rogue.

Like the rest of you I will believe in Power Customization when I see it. It'd be -easier- to assume the Devs of CoX will fail to provide it to us. But in the light of upcoming MMO competition which boast of their Power Customization features I think it would be very unwise for CoX not to at least try to overcome that limitation relatively soon. I'm willing to remain optimistic enough to hope we are closer to having it here than ever before.

There is no "set" date for its release and there probably won't be for months to come.

But most of the circumstantial evidence we have for it so far has it coinciding with the release of Issue 16 (similar to the way CoV was released with CoH's Issue 6). Based on that and how often we get new Issues it seems reasonable at this point to suspect Going Rogue will be ready for release before the end of this year.

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I can think of only one type of customization that would truly require an entire expansion and gobs of developer man hours to produce... especially if conversations at Comic Con last year still hold any water...

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Yep.
Given the weight of circumstantial evidence we have this far out I'll be shocked if power customization isn't a feature of GR.

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Apparently our Devs have been referring to it as Character Creator 2.0 for almost a year now at least.

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within the next few months.

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But that phrase does provide more circumstantial evidence that Going Rogue is effectively Issue 16 and that'll be coming before the end of the year, which is a good thing.

The Safeguard/Mayhem badges "kind of" cover this Home Zone badge concept but not quite.
For one thing there are many other zones out there that aren't involved with Safeguards/Mayhems.

Maybe instead of making a new series of Day Job badges the Devs could provide each zone with a "spend X time in the zone" badge similar to the current PvP zone badges. If the Devs did this they could standardize all of these badges to the same reasonable time (say one hour). That way all of these new zone badges, the PvP zone badges and other existing badges (like Troll Task Force Member and Firebase Zulu Security Detail which currently only take a silly few minutes to earn) could all be standardized with the same one hour requirement and badge graphic.

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Start up an AE arc so you won't auto-log-off. Stand near the other faction's base in the PvP zone. Go AFK. They'll repeated kill you and you'll repeatedly rez. They get rep. You get a PvP badge and start working toward your debt badge.

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If it's just PvP damage, there shouldn't be any debt.

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Forgot about that.

So, why are the carebears moaning about this badge again?

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I, surprisingly, don't really see anyone whining in this thread so far.

I think the only people who moan about these badges anymore are people who don't know how easy it is to "farm" for them now-a-days if you really want to. Before MA and Ouroboros it used to be vaguely cumbersome to get yourself into "TF mode". Now even that part is trivial.

Just for the record there are "carebears" and there are "badgers".
Sometimes people can be both but other times they're only one or the other.
I'm a badger but have never once whined about PvP badges so I'm -not- a carebear by any definition.