MadScientist

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ETA: 50 runs? are you kidding me? unless you are saying it is reasonable to run a task force only twice a month. if those numbers are accurate they seem more than acceptable to me. average of 2 runs a day done in 1.36 years.

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no. Not 50 runs, period. 50 runs under the definition I layed out. Which is, to be clear...

{ an awesome level of action } times { a significantly long time or number of repititions } equals { an epic achievement }

It's not about stumbling on a badge after X amount of time, it's not about repeating Y action overnight, it's a combination of the two that sets the bar. Obviously you can vary one factor with the other - longer time if you're not quite so awesome, and so on - and I'm sure you'll get some variance since not every character can be built to optimize every possible action.

So it's not 50 runs that you simplified my argument to. It's 50 runs *at maximum speed of hitting 7 targets every time the strongest AOE heal in the game is up for full credit*. Clearly, most teams would not be that efficient, you just can't catch all 7 for full heal credit all the time, so in PRACTICE it would probably be 100 or even more, and I don't want to find a time estimate for a Tank with Aid Other.

On Fabricator, what do I consider an awesome level of action? Well, the most frequent crafter I knew of in "standard play actions" (ie: not crafting just for progress) was doing about 20 crafts per play hour, mostly Empowerment. It felt on-track for an epic level of total achievement eventually. so, putting in the value of Fabricator and his craft rate, he was looking at 500 hours of doing this, which is significant, and felt about right.
It's no longer right because the amount of crafting for standard play (ie, not "farming" type of crafting) is a lot lower now, so the time estimate is up, and to a degree that I think it's broken.


(and as an aside, can you please stop quoting just the few words of my post that suit your position and actually try to reply to the entirety of my meaning? thank you.)

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I am still reading this as "the fruit just isn't hanging low enough for me yet, but I should have the fruit anyway."

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I don't want them easy. I don't want them stumbled upon. But I want them in a reasonable amount of time when taking Epic actions.
I'll illustrate with Snow's Empath numbers. Take someone healing at some level of awesomeness, say like healing a whole ITF - it's not balancing based on someone with just O2 Boost. Currently Empath would be 1000 of the same ITF on that same character. That's probably quite excessive. Is it asking for a reduction to 2 runs? That's silly. However, you seem to think that's what I'm talking about, even over my repeated insistence it's not, and I have no idea why. A reasonable number may be 50 such runs.
Moving that comparison to a frequent crafter in normal usage, how much time does he need at his rather high rate? Well, it used to be aiming at 500 gameplay hours (which felt OK), now it's 2500. 2500 hours seems a bit excessive, bringing it back to 500 would be nice. Course, if the devs put in many more crafting opportunities to increase my crafting 5-fold, that would have the same result, but it seems less likely than changing 1 number.

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No. You are incorrectly stating my view.
I never said anything about "easy".

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How should I have interpreted the word 'easily' in the following?

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I'm not convinced that one example means it's generally easily achievable.

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perhaps you should have interpreted it without removing the line from Catwhoorg that I was replying too.

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Just for reference:
My first field crafter redside got it before 25.
Before 40 is easily achievable

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I'm not convinced that one example means it's generally easily achievable.

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a little context goes a long way.

*I* didn't say I wanted them easily. I was addressing Cat's use of the word.

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And that is where our views differ; I (and a couple others it seems) feel that the top tier badges should be achievable, and you seem feel they should be easy achievable. IMO that is what the tier one badges are for, not the tier 5 and 6 ones.

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No. You are incorrectly stating my view.
I never said anything about "easy".

Perhaps "practical" is a good word.

There is a difference between an Epic Amount of Crafting, and a Bloody Insanely High Amount of Crafting.


and really, if you just say "achievable" you're creating a false argument. Empath is technically achievable - it's not buggy, it is awarding, it is tracking your action. That doesn't mean it's practical by any stretch of the imagination. I believe that 10k is not practical for even the people who do craft an epic amount of stuff. In fact, I gave an example of a character of mine who I think does an epic amount of crafting, and 2,500 play hours on him I think would be too much to expect for a badge. (this goes back to the question posed to the devs in the main thread about what they benchmark as epic.)

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Ok, so instead of lowering the requirement to 2500 if the devs added a new badge at 2500 would that be acceptable?

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huh? where would you get that idea from?

each badge has to be balanced individually. The amount of badges in the line doesn't affect how far out the last badge is. If they added 50 badges below Empath, Empath itself would still be unearnable in the lifetime of the game.

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Just for reference:
My first field crafter redside got it before 25.

Before 40 is easily achievable

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I'm not convinced that one example means it's generally easily achievable.

Mount Everest? People have been climbing that for 56 years. Must be easy. right?

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It can still be done in a week, and I am just about annoyed enough to do it ... again

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as I asked about Empath and similar badges in the other thread...

Do you think Fabricator exists to be a singular reward for people who spend an entire week of their playing time doing nothing but chasing the reward for its own sake?

Just because on *can* does not make it good game design.

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Definitely too high NOW. Originally, it was 'in the right ballpark'. Some people felt it was high, but at least it wasn't nuts. You could do it in a matter of days if you were REALLY serious about it. When we got Brainstorms, it was trivialized. You could do it in an hour. Now, it's way too high. It certainly should not be divided by 10. The previous badge is for 1,000 craftings and you get 2/3 of those while earning all the IO badges.

Given how long it takes, and the earlier badge increments, plus the fact that you've already passed the accolade requirement.... I would think 2,500 is about right. It remains epic, but not stupidly so.

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ahhh, but is Master Craftsman also too high?

There's this item in the main issues list:
* Field Crafter was intended to be earnable by level 40 (per Positron when it was first introduced). It takes 455 craftings for the 36 memorization badges. The 545 more to finish Master Craftsman are very unlikely before 40, especially after the removal of Base Salvage. Suggestions: reduce Master Craftsman to 500, or remove it completely from the Field Crafter requirements.

And if that one drops to 500, does that change the reasoning on not dropping Fabricator down any lower, like to 1,500?

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But that's only part of the story. When we had base salvage, the procedure to get a single base empowerment power was overly complicated.

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putting aside the Fabricator discussion for a moment, Empowerment was MUCH easier before the change.

1) You could grab any old handful of base salvage and be able to make some kind of component. There were enough options for recipes to either get a drop, or just bid a few cents on pieces you didn't own and they'd finish something.

2) The recipes themselves were simpler, having only 4 possible options. So you could easily know what to have on hand - some of "everything" - instead of keeping notes on what recipe needs what pieces.

3) You could then hold those components easily. Which also means stocking up on them - perhaps directly buying them. (see below)

4) Even if you didn't have wht you needed, it was easy to find a component in storage. It was easy to set up a stash of storage for common use since you only had to hold 4 stacks

5) Storage capacity. nuff said.

6) Since the recipes were all tech or all arcane for components, and components were from tech or arcane foes, you had a good chance of finishing some pieces while on an arc. The new recipes are all a mix, which means on a long run of only one type of drops you'll *have* to go looking for more pieces on the market.

which brings up 7) The current system is susceptible to market chaos. If Luck Charm, Rune and Fortune are all having price or supply issues, then I can't make KB protection. It was nigh impossible to deny KB protection buffs under the old system.

and of course, 8) The parts to turn into Empowerment are now things that have other demands placed on them. Remember, Empowerment originally was a "freebie", things to do with extra base salvage. Now it's a memorized version of the temp power recipes. Frankly, the whole system needs to be rebalanced in light of the costs.

In all, I'm having a much more difficult time getting Empowerment crafted. To the point of utter frustration and darn near deleting a level 8 who was burning too much End and had no chance of buying what was needed for +Recovery.

From what I've seen with teammates, Empowerment has gone from very infrequent to completely absent since the changeover.


bringing it back to Fabricator...
The loss of base salvage has removed the entire market for crafted components.
It was a system that worked like IOs - buy parts, craft, and sell the resulting item hopefully for a profit. This was a far superior system to IOs since it was cheaper, and sold in stacks. This was a great way to grind Fabricator, and you didn't even need a large SG full of available salvage bins.
Note that Empowerment actually drove that system, there was a market for components. I used to bid 5k on stacks of 10 Tech Material to give me KB protection for many low levels.
So whatever someone *can* do with crafting and reselling IOs, the current system does it worse than what we used to be able to do.

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Even MadScientist and myself do not agree with all the issues presented here, but all the issues raised have come from the badge community as a whole.

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FWIW, disagreement is useful here. It keeps us rational.
It also helps to hack apart each others issue suggestions when writing. Tends to trim each point to a few sentences. (and for those who don't know me very well, I take pride in my writing, even if my style could use some work )


For design problems, I ask myself: do a large number of people raise this issue? If so, I think it makes the list.
It's up to a dev to say it's not an issue, or "working as designed", or whatever. One hopes that highlighting things on a list like this would show the devs what really needs at least a comment, even if it's not code-worthy.

so the list is not based on voting, elloquence of the posters, or the severity of the problem. It's all about frequency.


You'll note places with multiple viewpoints, such as "we need more insight", or multiple solution options. (speaking of solutions, when possible they're left open to the devs. solutions are only suggested, really, when they either help illustrate the problem they solve, or when some potential solution may have subtle pitfalls of its own and we want to clear that up ahead of time.)


So for people with strong opinions not represented... try making a new thread and gathering up enough replies to show that it's popular. It will make the list.

But there is really no "veto power" for this list. If someone thinks something is not an issue, but many people do, then it's compiled here.


I've been keeping/co-keeping this list a while. I'd like to think I'm impartial in it, even if I'm not-so-impartial in other posts. (you'll note my first reply in the thread...)

summing up from my posts in the other thread:

Fabricator is too high. End of statement. File it with the rest of the epic badges. I don't think this needs to be justified by a history of how it might have been balanced before, it's not balanced now.

Where does the history matter? The number was originally set back in a time when Empowerment was different. We had approximately 5 craftings for one empowerment buff (4 components, then craft the buff itself), now we only have one. This is like when Zookeeper was originally chosen as 10k in a time with unlimited herd numbers and melee-only monkeys.
Further, old Empowerment used to use a different drop source. Which means that, all things being equal on Salvage generation, you have enough salvage to craft the non-Empowerment stuff you previously crafted, and then what? Well, maybe a few pieces that you may have otherwise sold to an NPC, but mostly it's going to be a lot less crafting with Empowerment using the same pieces as IOs.
Never mind the market and recipe issues that make buying the means to Empowerment so much more complicated now than it used to be.

Why fixate on Empowerment? Because I honestly don't think the devs intended this badge to be earned by crafting IOs exclusively.

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Can you suggest a constructive way to solve the recurring issue people have that wouldn't be annoying to you?

[/ QUOTE ]Provide a <more info> button on some of the badges like this. For this one, list the AVs. For Accolades, list the badges required to obtain? etc? (without making it "too easy" or a "give a way")

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that's a good variation on the idea of expanding the tooltip. (personally, I hate tooltips. always seem to pop up in the wrong place.) unfortunately, since elaborating on the badge count was part of the original post, it's likely included in Chuque's opinion of "dumbing down", which doesn't get us anywhere.

The button/tooltip would also leave the other issues like the teleporting Anti-Matter; maybe it's better to use a fix that catches everything. (frankly, with a badge that's part of an accolade, I would favor no-risk code choices, YMMV.) I'd also imagine the traditional counter would be significantly easier and faster to code.

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As far as play time goes, each session is under the timer on the crafting table (which is 5 mins IIRC) 2-3 times/day

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but if you were to play the character normally, not just log him in for progress, then how much playtime would equate to that 15 progress? eg, how much did you play that day in total?
Doing Fabricator in ~30 hours of actual login time is not a fair comparison to 2500 hours of play, no matter how many pages of the calendar go by.

but again... all on its own, isn't 10k a bit extreme?

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So? because it generates questions? it should be dumbed down? I don't follow that.

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and another thing,

Is changing Dimensional Warder from "one of each of these 13" to "any 20 of these" really your definition of "dumbed down"?
Note that if you did The Praetorian War and A Hero's Hero arcs you'd get exactly 20 Praetorian AV kills, where currently those 2 arcs give you all 13 targets you need (plus 7 duplicates or AVs that don't count for the badge). So it doesnt' seem like it's any easier.

If 20 is still dumbed down in your opinion, then what about 25? 30? It can't go *too* high, like to 100, cause the Wiki only lists 33 distinct AV encounters if you did every mission from McIntyre and Jenkins, and you can't street hunt them.

Can you suggest a constructive way to solve the recurring issue people have that wouldn't be annoying to you?

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...these are suggestions; there is a forum for that futher down.

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then your suggestion to move the thread would seem to be in the wrong place.


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So? because it generates questions? it should be dumbed down? I don't follow that.

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no, only the ones that generate a *lot* of questions.
There are 1,000 or something distinct badges between both sides, and we're seeing the same two (Vandal and Dimensional Warder) repeatedly generate the same problems - to the point of having an FAQ thread dedicated just to Warder itself! That's the difference between "community issue" and "one player doesn't enjoy it".

There's no general movement to dumb down badges, or to cut every badge requirement in half, or to cut every badge over 100 kills down to 100. In fact, I think people have shown a rather positive response to some of the recent complex or innovative badges, like Architect X or Stouthearted, which can be interesting longer-term goals.
The comparison to PVP fixes would more accurately be things like preventing Confuse griefing, or supression on TK, not the broad revamps of I13. These are specific little problems.


Now, you may not personally like "Kill 100 Lost Bosses" instead of "Kill Lost", but the devs seem to think it was a positive change, and I haven't heard many other complaints. Please, feel free to start a thread discussing the dumbing down trend you're concerned about.
All this thread is saying is that if the devs have this design for badge meters, then multi-count badges are clearly in need of similar fixes. "Kill Lost" didn't properly convey which subset of Lost would progress your meter, "Kill any of these 4 items" doesn't tell you which one item will actually give you progress.

(moved to the official Fabricator thread, http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showflat....D=#Post13463322 )

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Having one character with Fabricator and three more close without using cheap means like a large amount of brainstorms, I disgree that 10000 is too much for that badge.

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you'd be right about Brainstorms, and the issue wouldn't have been on the list a few months ago, but they made Brainstorm conversions no longer count for the badge. Your solution is no longer an option, hence the issue.

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Additionally, the paths of Invention Salvage->base components->base items or empowerment buffs were also taken away from us. This major change did not prompt a reduction in the badge requirements, even though past nerfs of this magnitude prompted a change (aggro caps/zookeeper).

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and note that's not just about grinding Fabricator via empowerment as a "cheap" craft.
with Base Salvage, a typical Empowerment averaged 4 components, which meant a total of 5 craftings. Now it's just one crafting from IO salvage.
I average 1-4 Empowerment at any given time. So for my most empowered characters, they would have gotten Fabricator in 500 hours of play, now it's 2,500.
Regardless of changes, 2,500 hours is "far too epic", especially for an action that I consider I'm quite dedicated to (as compared to the number of Empowerments I see on teammates)

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Uh, why do you have to hunt them as grey cons? You can find them back at level 10 and get the badge then,

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per http://wiki.cohtitan.com/wiki/Experience ,
XP for a same-level boss (ie: orange-con) at level 10: 170.
XP needed to go from level 10 to level 11: 3,600.
Number of bosses that will get you to 11: 21.
Progress on the badge from spending an ENTIRE LEVEL doing nothing but running in circles in Port Oakes: 10.5%.

I'm not even sure you could get all 200 without leveling so far that they'd be grey-con to you. (May be a good puzzle for someone who likes numbers.)

The real point, though, is this: does spending multiple levels getting one badge really sound like a balanced game system?


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also, Billie Heck's Last Man Standing arc has missions that will pop Marcone bosses if you're focused purely on missions.

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Which gives you perhaps a dozen of them for a badge that needs 200.
Now, yes, a dozen is better than nothing. But what I'm pointing out about level 20-35 missions is that you get many more times that one arc's quantity, but they're on the other badge.

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As for Veluta, they did add a recon officer to Fort Hades to explain ghost hunting to you, which is an improvement.

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REALLY!? When did that happen? That's cool.

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I like this doc in general, I just disagree with some of the redside stuff.

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what's kinda odd is that this issue has existed at least as long back as the Feb 06 badge issues list. I wonder why some recurring issues are *now* being challenged so strongly.

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I disagree with a lot of this.

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This is a compilation of community issues. (as stated in the opening paragraph.) The goal is to highlight them for the devs, and perhaps get some more organized community discussions on the more complicated ones.
so... do you not like badge questions in this forum? If there are a lot of the same questions, isn't it worth questioning the design itself?

Let's move on to your specific items, instead of the general "a lot".
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I find the banner of "regular game play" a terrible reason to lower requirements;

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yet every other in-game system is designed to be fair, balanced and "natural". They've changed PVP so you don't need very specific builds. They've adjusted TFs that were recruiting for very specific ATs. They've added Merits to make certain rewards more accessible. This, and more, was in the position of making sure "regular game play" was sufficient - though maybe not always the most *efficient*.

do note, though, "regular play" is only mentioned in relation to the epic badges that have to be farmed to be earnable. I guess it could be a reasoning for the need-to-farm Defeat badges, too, and maybe a reasoning for some accolade issues. generally speaking, though, it's not mentioned "a lot" as you claim.

and "regular play" isn't the driving force behind badge balancing. I don't think anyone makes a case that all badges should be stumbled upon during regular play from 1 to 50. That is not what's meant by keeping them all earnable.

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and dumbing down requirements because it is too complex to figure out you need to defeat one of each of the Praetorians or you need both to extinguish fires AND defeat arsonists mildly insulting.

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It's not figuring out that you *have* to do both. It's figuring out *which* of them you're still missing.
And you may find it dumbing down, the item is based on the fact that questions about those types of badges frequently come up on the badge channels and in this forum. (again, see the intro.)

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However I do agree with eliminating badges that have nothing to do with playing the game, but rather your ability to influencing and persuading others.

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do you think Empath has anything to do with playing the game? It's all about influencing another account to sit in the arena with you. (granted, that persuading could be very easy if you own the other account....)
How about epic damage badges? is resting playing the game?
And when you get down to it, finding 7 other people to constantly reset a mission to kill the three Outcasts inside, is that really "playing the game"? it's activity, to be sure, but is it playing?
You see the extreme items that become issues?

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Whoops, you did have the right badge listed, but you were wrong about it: Port Oakes is full of Marcone bosses. It's a cinch to get below level 15 even.

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Are you referring to this part?
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- Slot Machine is very difficult to unlock during levels 30-35, given that most Family below 35 are non-Marcone for Untouchable, instead of Marcone for Gangbuster. Can the level be changed to 35-40?

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Street hunting in Port Oakes takes a long time unless that area is really busy.

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I also think that somewhere in the editing we lost a word. I think the item is supposed to be about most Family *missions* below 35.

Which brings me to this: the point is supposed to be the odds of getting the badge without many hours of hunting grey-cons in PO for no other reward than 6 rather ordinary missions. It's just not good balance currently.
I guess that means that maybe it'd be balanced if the missions were a lot more unique, FWIW.

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Having one character with Fabricator and three more close without using cheap means like a large amount of brainstorms, I disgree that 10000 is too much for that badge.

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you'd be right about Brainstorms, and the issue wouldn't have been on the list a few months ago, but they made Brainstorm conversions no longer count for the badge. Your solution is no longer an option, hence the issue.

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Also, can you add a request to eliminate PvP rep decay for the PvP reputation line of badges? Until I14, these were the only badges where the player could lose credit, and to be honest, the addition of similar badges in I14 is not a benefit to this game.

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So something like...
PVP Rep badges should accumulate how much Rep you've earned, they should not be based on the highest level attained. This would stop Rep Decay from hindering badge progress.

that is to say, I get the impression the decay all by itself isn't that bad a system, it's just the odd way the badge interacts with it. right?

The 400 Rep badge is one that I still don't have. The amount of time I can play day-to-day is sometimes unpredictable, and there are days when the PVP zones are empty, so I kinda just gave up on overcoming the decay. I know a change like that would encourage me to PVP more, since I could do it on my own schedule.

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Any chance of a mention in the CoV badges section about how some of the defeat badges...for lack of a better phrase, 'require' farming to obtain?

Specifically, Outcasts (Weatherman/Weatherwoman), Trolls (Regenerator), Overseers (Visionary), and to a smaller extent, Skulls (Kil Skuls, Bonecrusher), Hellions (Hellspawned), and maybe Master Illusionist spawns (Illusionist).

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Last bullet under defeats lists many of those.

Hellions bosses do spawn out in the wild in Port Oakes - I've actually picked up the badge while circling the blocks hunting Marcone.

Illusionists. You need a team of 8 to spawn them, you can almost never find them outdoors (even on heroside where there are outdoor Carnie mobs around). Also, some good teams never even want to give the MI a chance to spawn the illusionists, so you get no credit at all. Given the amount needed, they're a real pain.
That got mentioned in relation to Archmage, but, yeah, maybe it's a general issue.

Overseers. Hmm. How many villain missions are they in? I thought it was like 4 or 5, and only needing 100 that's not that bad. Though does needing a team of 8 count as "excessively difficult"? At least it's a bit more practical than Illusionist.

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* Click credit badges are not team friendly. It gives credit only to the person clicking the object.

* Hostage rescue badges only give credit to the person that the hostage attaches to. It should award to the entire team since [u]both the amount of kidnappers and the size of the resulting ambushes are scaled to challenge the full team.[u]

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Related to those, it seems the architect badges for destructible objects only award the person who gets in the kill shot. http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showflat....=0#Post13451628
Like the hostage setup, the room the object is in will be spawned for the entire team, thus the entire team is needed in order to clear the object. To only award one of them is unfair.

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* Add Defeat badges related to the kill-counts that award otherwise untracked Gladiators. Since the Gladiator itself can not have a progress bar, create a badge that can be tracked in parallel. This affects the following defeat tasks (and their associated Gladiator)

[/ QUOTE ]and not really part of the issue itself, so it's not in the official list, but...

Suggestions for badge names for those, (especially cause I'd love a badge named Inflammable )

Gardener - 300 Bladegrass/Razorvines/Blackrose (Bladegrass)
Fish - 100 Coralax (Coralax Blue Hybrid)
Fortune Teller - 100 Fortunatas (Fortunata Seer)
Tattooed - 125 Blue Ink Men (Ink Man)
Lasher - 100 Hordelings (Hordeling Lasher)
Inflammable - 100 Legacy Chain minions (Ember Legacy of Flame)
Illuminating - 200 Legacy Chain lieutenants (Lucent Legacy of Light)
Imprisoner - 100 Prisoner bosses (Mob Specialist)
Guardian - 100 Mu Guardians (Mu Guardian)
Powered Up - 100 Crey Tanks (Crey Power Tank)
Shielded - 100 Force Field Generators (Raider Engineer)
Spirit - 300 Ancestor Spirits (Swift Steel)