Snow Globe

MadScientist did a lot of work on it too.

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When possible, for new issues, please start a new thread and bring a summary of the discussion here, instead of starting new tangents inside this thread. Thanks.

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As per the initial post, please take the fabricator discussion OUT of this thread.

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I assumed that you posted this suggestion here to gather feedback. Was I wrong?

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It was intended as player feed back to the developers. The list has been compiled for them.

These are issues that the community has raised (sometimes multiple times). 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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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?

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No problem with questions in this forum at all, but these are suggestions; there is a forum for that futher down.

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Actually, when a segment of the player population hits a certain critical mass, the developers and community reps find it easier to look in one thread of that section to get a compiled list. The Bases and PVP sections got the same treatment, but it started with this section.

This has been a long standing type of thread since before this post. In other words we've been doing this from time to time for at least the last three years.

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I most enjoy will be limited to the first few hours of game play when a new issue ships because of the out cry that anything beyond "low hanging fruit" is to far to reach.

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I think this puts all your posts into the proper perspective. I don't care what you think.

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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.

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yet oddly a LOT of people were able to figure that out before we had "accurate sliders" or sliders or hints at all ... I feel that this was the first step towards dumbing down badges.

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Yes so much so that I came up with a FAQ on one badge. I personally had 1,000 posts dealing with the Dimensional Warder alone. I came up with a FAQ that got put on Paragonwiki (with my permission) about it, I created a checklist for others to use to track progress, and the issue 8 Badge FAQ sprouted out of me getting sick and tired of answering that question. It STILL gets asked in this section, the Player Questions, and the Technical Issues & Bugs section.

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

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You are right, some people just don't understand the badge. :rollseyes:

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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).

Given Positron's statement that they are going to announce which badges are changing next week, we are sort of waiting for it to finish that section of the list.

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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. On some of the lesser populated servers you can spend 20 minutes trying to find a single Marcone boss. If you can get a full team in the area, the amount of bosses goes up. The ones in St. Martial are always spawned regardless of the amount of players in the area. However they are 35-40.

Now you could get the "stealth" Marcones (Regular Family bosses with Marcone in their descriptions) in Nerva, but we are trying to get those fixed as well.

Thanks for commenting on this though as I found an error related to them in the Defeats section.

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Is a year too much for a the highest badge ?

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Actually I resent the factoring involved. A ten times jump in requirements from the previous in the series is excessive.

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I have a set price I post at for most of the IOs I craft, which will almost always shift them inside of 24 hours. frequently inside of a couple of hours.

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I had a full tray of in demand IOs sit for a few days at a price slightly lower than memorized cost.

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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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Cat, I'm currently trying your "technique". The only thing I have to say is that is doesn't work as well as described. In the last 3 weeks I've managed a grand total of 600 crafts. I'm hampered by: lack of salvage to craft and unless I'm willing to sell the crafted items at a significant loss due to irregular buying patterns.

200 crafts/week takes over a year to get.

<qr> I'll add the suggestions after I get home from school tomorrow.

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Great post!

But you forgot to mention Bard, unless you intentionally didn't because it is more of a bug.

I have earned Bard twice now, after a day of having earned it, it stops acting global and quits awarding to your account. I earned it once on my hero badger and it stopped a day later. Then I earned it on my vill badger and the same thing happened.

Now I'm just too lazy to earn Bard a 3rd time.

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Early bird seems to be acting the exact same way.

Perhaps a server maintenance/reset is clearing the progress/earned status?

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Architect:

Test Mode:
* What is the goal for Virtual badges? If the goal is testing your arc with many characters, then some badges are set so high as to discourage that since you need to focus on one character to even have a chance at reaching the badge. If the goal is testing as an author (out of character) then shouldn't all test badges apply account-wide? Perhaps both goals could be achieved if the low-count badges were character-based and the high-count ones tracked all characters.

* Virtual badges are too artificial, since there's no real reason to "handicap" yourself to test mode - you can publish a draft and earn real, spendable ticket drops just as easily. Thus, a virtual badge is not really "normal play" at all.

* Virtual Slayer is 5 times the original value of the Zookeeper badge. This is insane as no one would test their missions that extensively for zero rewards.

* End of Mission virtual tickets do not exist on Test. This makes the virtual ticket badge much harder than the same amount of Live tickets. (In general, beyond badges, knowing virtual mission rewards would seem useful to evaluate a mission's ticket production levels.)

* Mission High Inquisitor: This badge is for completing 100 MA arcs in test mode, not just missions as the text says.

* Virtual Slayer is far too high to be realistic. Were the requirements for the Victor and Virtual Victor lines switched?


Publishing:
* Customizer badge should be account based, as it is the Player publishing the critter, not the character.

* Chosen One is considered too subjective to be a fair badge reward. Seeing as Dev's Choice is nothing but an award all by itself, does that reward really need a badge award on top of it?

* Badges for receiving good ratings - the Builder line, and by extension Hall of Famer - are too problematic. They can be griefed. They encourage nepotism (ie: star cartels). Suggestion: change these badges to track an accumulation, not an overall average. Such as counting ratings of 3+ stars, or counting tickets received from ratings. After all, no other badge gets negative progress based on some other person's actions. (If the Hall of Fame remains based on rating alone, perhaps Hall of Famer badge should be removed?)

* Badges for arc ratings (the Builder line) should be able to accumulate from many arcs, not just the best rated arc you own. Problems from the current setup include resetting progress with unpublished arcs (or arcs promoted to Dev Choice), and general confusion/untrackabililty. An accumulated total (as described in the prior point) would easily dodge this problem.

* Are tickets earned from mission ratings supposed to be giving credit to every character on the account? Should they only be awarding the charcter who claims the tickets?


General architect usage:
* Inspiration drops on Dev Choice arcs are not counting for the badges. (Probably because of the way those mobs have normal non-MA rewards.) Suggestion: add Achievement badges for normal Inspiration drops; that would not alter the DC drop system, but would be simple to realize what's counting for which badge.

* Dev Choice arcs give normal drop rewards, but don't give normal badge credit. This is a source of much confusion (is it made clear enough in the MA documentation?) What is gained by denying the badge credit from an arc that the devs have decided is balanced enough to give normal drops?

* Click Objective and Escort tasks not team friendly. This includes non-required objectives of those types. (See the General section for more details.)

* End of Mission ticket drops do not count for the over-the-cap badges. This makes the badge much more difficult than it should be, not to mention a bit ironic since typically the in-mission tickets are more likely under the cap and the end-of-mission ones are more likely to be over the cap after you've filled up in-mission. This should change so that end-of-mission tickets are never wasted (and compensating for wasted tickets over the cap was the whole point of having this badge).

* Badges for running Hall of Fame arcs have a problem in that an arc can lose it's HoF status while you are running it, thus nullifying your credit. Can this be improved somehow? (Either on the badge side, or improve the volatility of the HoF status.)

* The badges in the inspiration earned series do not produce credit if your tray is full, even if the drop is otherwise earned.

* The Mission Engineer accolade counts for the Architect X line of badges, even though it's in a different section. This causes confusion, especially compared to things like Architect or Master Architect that are in other sections and don't count for Architect X badges.

* Is Early Bird supposed to be account-wide? Particularly after the change in Beta to make it one of the first 10 to play the arc, not the first 1.

* Early Bird does not always award account wide, unlike official statements state.

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Supergroup:

* Confirmed as not yet implemented (ie, not working) by Positron:
- Advanced Holodisplay is for winning 10 Raids. This is only for scheduled raids, so not earnable yet.
- Improved Energy Turret (supposedly 20 attempts of the Cathedral of Pain. Just says "attempts", not "successful attempts".)
- Elite Sapper (requirement unknown, not in Prima Guide, but it's on the worktables on Test.)
- Elite Energy Cannon (same as the Sapper.)

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City of Villains Badge Contacts Quality-of-Life issues

* Can badge contacts be hinted at in-game before they are unlocked? We get alerts when they are unlocked, but there's no real way to know that there's a potential contact requiring some action. Suggestions: Delivery missions (perhaps from the Brokers) so people will likely read the not-yet-unlocked dialog. Add a comment to the unearned badge placeholder that it unlocks a contact. Since this also could affect TF contacts and such, perhaps there's a need to generally tell people to click on anyone with a circle around their feet (maybe where the tutorial introduces contacts).

* The Pirate badge is unique in that you have to kill mobs in a particular place. It would help if Veluta's not-yet-unlocked dialog explained "Trapping" ghosts. (You can't refer to it on the badge meter since you won't get a meter until you figure it out.)

* Doc Buzzsaw and the Slot Machine have bad level ranges.
- Doc Buzzsaw only really offers missions at level 30, not her normal 25-30, given the level at which people tend to get the Bling badge. Can the level be shifted to 30-35?
- Slot Machine is very difficult to unlock during levels 30-35, given that most Family missions below 35 are non-Marcone for Untouchable, instead of Marcone for Gangbuster. Can the level be changed to 35-40?
- How about exchanging requirements between 3 contacts? Require Obsessive for Buzzsaw (fits the Doc's personality), Bling for Slot Machine (money to play slots), and Gangbuster for Johnny Sonata (considering some dealings in the Giza, it can easily fit). Those badges are more easily earned in each contact's level range, while still having roleplay.

* Number 204 is difficult to unlock to provide content options at its natural level given the level of the bosses and the dangerous areas to hunt them. Six rather basic missions are a poor reward for 200 Toxic Tarantulas, even worse if you can only ever do them in flashback. Would 100 bosses be sufficient for unlocking this contact? Alternately, could lower level Toxic Tarantulas be introduced? Maybe the badge would be acquired more naturally in missions, then.

* Veridian. 200 Paragon Protectors are too much to unlock a contact. They spawn very sparsely in the highest level area, so they're almost impossible to hunt. To find them in missions requires farming, since you can't get 200 from normal mission spawns. Options for fixing:
- Reducing the number so there is a chance to unlock Veridian without farming
- Changing Veridian's requirement to Crey Tanks, which spawn in more reasonable locations outside and are abundant in missions at level 45+ (they also provide a Gladiator, so they are already tracked in the system)
- Place lower level Paragon Protectors in zones, such as Nerva.

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Appendix, unanswered questions, etc.

* There were some old reports that 2 characters did not see equivalent progress between one earning Immortal and the other earning Empath. Either one was progressing too slow, one too fast, or the totals were not correct. These reports pre-date the badge meter revisions. If anyone is in a position to have the actual meters for those (so the 5th heal badge but not the 6th, or the 6th damage but not the 7th yet) could you a) double-check the placeholder text and tool tip; and b) see if the badge progress is tracking as you would expect it to.

* If anyone has a few of the upper-level Market badges, but not all of them, some screen shots to illustrate the tool tip counting problem would be very useful.

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Reserved for edits:
Edits in this color.
Updated as of May 9, 2009 9:52 pm PDT.

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Badge issues:
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Updated for I14.

Though compiled by Snow_Globe and MadScientist, this is considered a community list. We're merely collecting and organizing the issues.

When possible, for new issues, please start a new thread and bring a summary of the discussion here, instead of starting new tangents inside this thread. Thanks.

Mission Statement:
Many MANY players approach badge collecting as a mini-game - and often a competitive one - no different than PVP, Market "PVP", SG competition, Kiosk rankings, TF races, etc.
Proceeding from that position, this list will take into account issues such as balance, achievability, openness to new players, challenge-vs-reward, the general "fun factor", and all the other design considerations one would normally expect for a major game feature.
It is our hope that the developers approach badging with the same care, insight and commitment they've shown other systems such as the Architect, Raids, Holiday Events, and so on.

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General design issues:

* Click credit badges are not team friendly. It gives credit only to the person clicking the object. The only exceptions are the Pillbox badges (Time Machinist, et al.) At best, this is frustrating, at worst, it's griefable.
The unfriendly click badges are:
- Toy Collector
- Firebug (note: this one is particularly annoying since all other Mayhem-related benefits - badge and otherwise - are shared on a team. Doing a Mayhem once per teammate just to spread around badge credit is not very popular or practical. Also, like Escorts, the ambushes during this task are scaled for the whole team, the whole team should share credit.)
- Temporal Agent / Temporal Spy / Temporal Soldier (note: see below about Heavies, maybe these shouldn't be click badges at all.)
- Interceptor
- Bomb Squad
- Fire Marshal
- Architect click badges
- Architect non-required objectives, if that objective is a click effect

* 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] This affects PPD hostages in safeguard missions, as well as rescues in Mission Architect (both virtual and regular, and escorts counting as non-required objectives.)

* Badges with multiple count requirements are a pain to track, and often frustrate players. These should be reworked to count *any* of the required actions, not specific amounts of individual pieces. This affects:
- Dimensional Warder (change it to track defeating any Praetorian Unique)
- Vandal (change it to any of the 4 destructible objects)
- Volunteer Firefigher, Firefighter, Fire Chief
- all of the invention memorization badges
(note: Diplomat and Annihilator are not causing problems because they are confined to one mission. Justicar and Blackguard have badges for their components, like an accolade, so they don't cause confusion.)
Alternately, could the tool tip state which pieces are at which count? Or perhaps provide a <more info> button on badges like this.

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Counts, Accounts, Collecting and Quality of Life:

* Account Badges should be separated from Character Badges. Give them a button (or a tab?) along side the Personal Badges and Supergroup Badges. It was wise to have account-wide badges for MA mission writing since it's a global player action, but they should not be filed among in-character actions. Existing account-wide badges affected by this include some Mission Architect items, VIP/Destined One, Pocket D VIP, Passport, and Veteran Reward badges (though not the Vet claimable rewards themselves).

* Bug Hunter should be account-based, since it's rewarded for a player action and not character actions. (Similar to Hall of Famer and The Chosen One being account-wide.)

* Anniversary badges (and thus the 5th Column Gladiator) should be account-based. They should be like Verterans badges, awarding accounts that existed at certain times. Newer characters should not be penalized with uncollectible badges, particularly for a player-based action of having an active account.

* Event Login badges have similar issues to Anniversary ones. They would seem to award the existence of an account at a certain time, which is a player action, and it's very inconvenient to log in each character for the badges. On the other hand, they have been purchasable, and have character-specific awards tied to them. What is the design goal? Should they be moved to account-wide, or simply automate the awarding to existing alts to solve the login grind problem?

* If Gladiators are not "real" badges, why are they counted in the total on the /info screen? Can you code them like the non-badge Vet rewards, so they don't get revealed in /info and don't add to the total? (and wouldn't potentially reveal your capability in a Gladiator match.)

* Can the badge window be used to track unlocked costume pieces and architect packs? Similar to how it includes other not-really-badges like Veterans Rewards and Gladiator unlocks. (If you do, please hide them on the /Info screen, same way non-badge Vet rewards are hidden.)

* It's too easy to accidentally change your badge title. Suggestions: Reduce the clickable area, perhaps down to a small "Set" button. Add a "lock title" checkbox in the window. Or add a "Change title Yes/No" dialog box (with the usual "hide this dialog" checkbox).

* Add the ability to select a badge title from the icons in your own /info popup.

* Remember badge title independently for each costume. (As was recently done for storing SG colors separately for each costume.) This will greatly assist roleplay.

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Epic problems:

* Just what is the dev definition of "epic"? Two specific details that would help: What percent of characters/players do you feel should reach an Epic level of any achievement? For a single achiever, what time frame do you expect them to be working on that badge? If we know the dev goals, we can offer better feedback on how the badges meet those goals.

* Epic Heal, Damage, and Mezzed badges are considered by many people to be so high they can only be achieved through AFK farming, not through regular play. Is this really the intended design?

* Epic Inf badges are considered by many people to be so high they can only be achieved through farming or grinding, not through regular play. Is this really the intended design?

* Empath cannot be achieved through regular play at all given the potential lifespan of the game. It needs 1,000 hours at 100,000 hp healed/hour (roughly 1,700 hp/minute), and that rate is very difficult to achieve even as the only healer on a full team of 50s. (Note: this calculation is based on the I13 fix to its originally intended value.)

* Immortal cannot be achieved through regular play at all given the potential lifespan of the game. (See also: issue with +HP and damage, under Achievements.)

* Should all Epic badges track all characters on the account? (Similar to the Windfall line of badges) That may address the issue of asking how high is too high.

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Explore:

* Shrouded map is still in many missions hero side. These include Rikti missions as well as the Preatorian missions. A review of all the missions that use this map should be in order.

* Multi-Dimensional was removed from villains in Issue 7, despite fulfilling all the requirements (Hydra dimension- check, same map- check). The removal was arbitrary and makes no sense what so ever. The mission was given out by Technician Naylor, and called "Find survivors from another expedition"

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History:

* Plaques in PVP zones are giving placeholders to the wrong faction. For example, Arachnos Rising giving a placeholder for heroes and Academic giving a placeholder for villains.

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Accomplishment:

* Awards from a Task Force (which include badges) are keyed to the last mission, not to the TF as a whole. This causes numerous problems, such as people contributing to a majority of a TF missing the award because of a badly timed crash.

* Ski run and Bobsled badges are often thwarted by lag or lack of specific power sets. Suggestion: That a "Ski" or "Sled" temp power be made available that grants +Movement Control and +Movement Friction on the slopes.

* Rescuer is using the generic explore badge artwork. This has persisted since introduction.

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Achievement:

* +HP effects (Accolades, Dull Pain, Kheldian Dwarf Form, etc) will slow progress of both damage taken and healing badges. While a character has HP greater than their Base HP, any damage they receive does not count towards the badge. (For example, if your base is 1000, with accolades it's currently 1100, a 200 point hit will record 0 badge progress.)

* Healing Badges: Gladiators give credit for healing targets at full health. This goes against Positron's statements that only healing of damage should count towards the healing badges.

* Healing Badges: Should Gladiators contribute to Heal Badges at all? This is the subject of great debate and many flame wars. Clarification is needed as to if the developers consider this a bug or a valid method of getting the healing badges. (The key issue seems to be reward for no risk to your character.)

* Healing credits damage. So if you have somebody heal you, you get credit for the amount healed towards the damage taken badges.

* Firebase Zulu Security Detail badge is awarded for 3 minutes in The Shard, which is far too trivial. Maybe it should be made an hour, or at the end of the Shard introduction missions.

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Accolade:

* Why are villains forced into PvP zones to earn accolades? This seems inconsistent with heroes, who can be exclusively PvE. This is also an unusual design considering the anti-PvP sentiment that created out-of-zone contacts for PvP delivery missions.

* Some accolades are excessively difficult to earn because of certain requirements. They utilize badges that are considered too high to earn through normal play, and require difficult grinding. This includes:
- High Pain Threshold. Deathless usually has to be farmed, especially in conjunction with the lower debt caps and patrol XP. In general, further rewarded debt with an accolade seems a bit odd, and not very much fun.
- Born in Battle. Unbreakable needs to be AFK-farmed, except in some very rare situations some ATs have builds to be able to earn it after thousands of hours of play at 50. (See also: damage badge issues under Achievements.)
- Archmage. Illusionist is set far higher than the totals one would accumulate in normal play, and given the frequency of finding those targets in the zones it's hard to earn without a dedicated 8-character farm setup.
As a general design goal, earning a new Accolade power should approximate the same timeframe as earning a new power from a new level. ie: a few hours of normal play, not many hours of grinding. After all, these are supposed to be *used*, not just collected at the end of a character's lifespan.

* Heroes get two Costume pieces from Accolades that are not accessible to villains - the military epaulets and the witches hat. There should be a way to earn them both villain side, or the ability to earn two costume pieces that heroes cannot get.

* VIP/Destined One is no longer obtainable, yet players desire it. Suggestion: Super Booster #0 (to borrow a comic book numbering convention) containing the badge, Prestige Power Slide, Cape of the Four Winds, Arachnos Chest Symbol, and the Arachnos Cape.

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Gladiator:

* It's been many issues since we had a new Gladiator badge, and there has never been a major revision to the Gladiator system (despite numerous obvious issues, such as cost balances)

* 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)
- 300 Bladegrass/Razorvines/Blackrose (Bladegrass)
- 100 Coralax (Coralax Blue Hybrid)
- 100 Fortunatas (Fortunata Seer)
- 125 Blue Ink Men (Ink Man)
- 100 Hordelings (Hordeling Lasher)
- 100 Legacy Chain minions (Ember Legacy of Flame)
- 200 Legacy Chain lieutenants (Lucent Legacy of Light)
- 100 Prisoner bosses (Mob Specialist)
- 100 Mu Guardians (Mu Guardian)
- 100 Crey Tanks (Crey Power Tank)
- 100 Force Field Generators (Raider Engineer)
- 300 Ancestor Spirits (Swift Steel)
(Note, from what we know about the Gladiator system relating to badges, it's highly likely that the above tasks all have existing - but invisible - defeat badges that trigger the Gladiator award. So it's just a matter of making them visible and giving them names.)

* Many players would like to use gladiator badge names as a badge title.

* The 5th Column gladiator is only for the first and second anniversary CoH badges. Can this be generalized so it continues to be earnable? For example, when you add the 5-year badge to the system, update the gladiator requirement to the 5-year and the 4-year. An alternate solution: make the Gladiator a reward to purchase with Merits only during the time the anniversary badge awards, similar to how older Holiday badges have alternate earning methods during their event runs.

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Veteran:

* Can it be clearer which items on the Veterans tab are settable badges? For example, change the border/background color of the claimable rewards, or remove/change their icon. (Note, see above about account-wide badges.)

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PVP:

* Change the Heavy badges (Temporal Agent, et.al.) to be time-based, similar to the mentoring badges. This is a PVP badge, it should be for *using* a heavy in the PVP zone, but the current design encourages "wasting" it quick to click a new one, as well as emphasizing a "grindy" aspect. For comparison, consider if Time Traveler was for logging into the zone 200 times, instead of for spending 5 hours there. (Note: mentor badges don't progress while AFK, so one can assumes AFK farming would not be a problem here, either.) Alternately, the number of kills (both PVP and PVE) the heavy assists with is another "normal" PVP action which could be tracked.

* Back From the Future (RV Pillboxes) is ten times the amount required for Somewhere in Time. Due to all the nerfs to the heavies, the change to prevent trading pillboxes, and the PVP zone changes this should be severely reduced. (Snow_Globe comment: I can't see any datamining showing that a lot of people have earned this badge since the heavies' nerf, let alone the Issue 13 changes.)

* Liberator/Master Thief is currently unearnable. In fact, given its reliance on IOPs and the state of those, it was *never* a practical reward. It was also questionable whether the badge should have been earned by non-scheduled raids where IOPs didn't change hands. Suggestion: Change the requirement to winning *any* base raid, by any means, so the badge is widely earnable when pickup base raids return. That would not invalidate the existing ones, they would still fit the new requirement.

* PVP Zone time: Players use a Task Force or Flashback to prevent automatic logging and earn the badge AFK. This is a particular problem in Sirens Call because it disrupts the bounty system, plus it's more likely to happen there (even from non-PVPers) since the badge is part of an accolade. In general, this behavior trivializes the badges.

* When will arena tournament badges be implemented?

* Lanista requires 1 match, rated or unrated. Grand Lanista requires rated matches. Why the inconsistency? Positron mentioned that a programmer needed to look in on this in the previous Issues thread, no further response was forthcoming.

* PVP Rep decays too quickly for the amount of PVP that exists after the Issue 13 changes to the PVP zones.

* 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.


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Invention:

* 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.

* Fabricator is too high. Base salvage gave opportunities for 5 or more craftings for one Empowerment buff, now that same buff produces only 1. Base salvage also gave an opportunity to craft components to sell, which were much cheaper than crafting IOs. Reach 10,000 is now a very unrealistic number.

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Defeat:

* Some Family are counting for the wrong badge. Gangbuster is supposed to count Marcone-named bosses, Untouchable is supposed to count the other bosses. Certain Consiglieri and Underbosses without the Marcone name are counting for Gangbuster. The offending mobs all seem to have Marcone in their text descriptions. (Note, fixing this may help the Slot Machine requirements, see below.) This also affects the Tommy Gun unlockable weapon.

* High level (40+) Consiglieri and Underbosses (Family Bosses) do not count for their respective badges, including the Tommy Gun unlockable. (This bug was introduced when those mobs' XP was reduced.)

* Firefighter and Fire Marshal badge meters are broken. The meter counts only Hellions, so it fills up even though badge progress still requires more Fires. This causes confusion. (see also: the multiple-count issue.)

* Dimensional Warder continues to be a problem for many players.
- One solution would be to change the badge to "kill X unique Praetorian". (See the section on mutiple-goal badges.)
- Maybe add a "Trophies" tab to the Clues window. Add one trophy for each for each AV defeated in the game. This could be a short description of the AV with the same headshot from their /info window. That would let people automatically track which AVs they've killed, and be a good new feature in general.
- Anti-Matter does not give credit when he teleports away (self-defeats) in Tina Macintyre's mission "Search Anti-Matter's Orbital Lab..." His self-defeat still gives other rewards, adding to the confusion. To gain Warder credit, you have to defeat him in the mission "Stop Anti-Matter's Invasion." Can this be made consistent? Or perhaps remove Anti-Matter from the Warder requirement list?
- Bobcat and Marauder sometimes will not give credit if defeated while Moment of Glory / Unstoppable are running. Positron's response in the last thread was: "Its a weird bug, that needs a programmer to look at." (If the badge was converted to "any Praetorians" then maybe this rare bug could be overlooked, since it'd be easy to kill a non-buggy one instead.)

* Impounder requires 200 cars, but the placeholder states only 100. Screenshot.

* Spawn rates are inconsistent for Zone Events. Maybe the random zone events should be changed to player-triggered events? Example: After a number of trolls are defeated in skyway, a new shipment of Superdine arrives that night triggering a Rave Event.

* Giant Monster badges award to teams doing 10% of the total damage the target receives, and not for dealing 10% of the target's total HP. That means regenerating foes cause difficulty earning the badges.

* Jack and Eochai have poor spawn rates because the Croatoa War in the north gets stuck. Can anything be done to force the script to play out? A despawn timer on the early waves, perhaps?

* Arachnos Flier zips along too fast to gather a team to take it down. Perhaps Ghost Widow's instructions have placed a bit too much fear into the pilots. Suggestion: can you suppress its movement when attacked, like in PVP?

* Some groups provide no badge content, making them less interesting to fight. Including: Void Hunters, Luddites, Mooks, Spetsnaz, Wyvern, Axis America, and all the Rogues in Warburg. Any plans for badges for those?

* Some kill badge targets are almost impossible to find, but there are no specific* plans to make them more available. (Postiron) (* Considering there are always plans for more missions with every expansion, one hopes these will turn up eventually in new content.) This affects...
- Weatherman for villains requires farming a specific mission with a large team.
- Bonecrusher and Regenerator for villains are only in very low level newspaper missions, requiring large teams. Bone Crusher also has one farmable mission due to the flashback system.
- Coldhearted, Weed Whacker, Hellfrost (gladiator) and Hordeling Lasher (gladiator) are only available to heroes during the Valentines event.
- Cap Buster and Bane of Danaan are only available to villains during the Winter Event. This affects at least one unlockable weapon (dual blades) for villains.
- Man in Black is only available to heroes in a PVP zone or in one mission at the end of Pilgrim's arc.
- Legionnaire is only available to villains in a PVP zone or by farming a few level 20-29 paper missions.
- Blue Ink Man (gladiator) is only available to heroes in a PVP zone, or by farming a very few number of ink men in the Talos safeguard mission.
- Rularuu Overseers are limited for villains.

*Is farming a very limited set of missions really the intended means for getting some badges?

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Event:

* Winter Event Ski Runs need a bit more time allowed, or better control. Not everyone has twitch skills. Lack of control on the ski runs could be handled by a temp power or a zone wide effect. Possible alternative: make those badges purchasable with large numbers of candy canes (they'd still be worth getting the normal way if it saves you a few hundred canes.)

* Clothes Horse, Fashionable, and Ostentatious all have the generic explore badge artwork.

* Anniversary badges can never be earned again. This is annoying for new badge collecting characters. Holiday event badges can be earned during later events, and that seems to work out very well. Suggestion: during the Anniversary Event, allow the older badges to be bought with Merits.

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Ouroboros:

* The breakdown of Ouroboros level ranges makes it hard to locate some badge missions, especially since the contact's non-badge missions can show up in another tier entirely. For example, Tarixus' arc is in the 25-29 tier, but Soul Taker is at level 30 in the 30-34 tier. If all tiers ended on a multiple of 5, it would keep every contact in one spot, and in general be a lot more intuitive for finding content. (The problem is really that 16-19 tier that causes the 20's and 30's to end on 4's and 9's where they should end on 0's and 5's, then it's corrected by a 6-level 40-45 tier later.)

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Market:

* Sale badge meters count relative to the prior badge, where other badges in the game count overall. For example, after getting the 2,000 badge, the 3,000 badge starts tracking 1 out of 1,000, where it should be tracking 2,001 out of 3,000. This causes confusion.

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Day Job:

* Day Job badges that give end of mission awards are a poor design. They promote running through missions to get as many end bonuses as quickly as possible. They often result in no reward at all if you take too long on a mission, or had a short logout time in that spot, or spent too much time searching for a team, and so on. To both improve and standardize them, rework them to be like the Profiteer award - after accumulating the amount of time an average mission takes, give an award token which does not time out and is cashed in upon mission completion.

* 21 days is too long for a Day Job. Notice how that time can be measured in levels, especially on a new character. The fun of a badge is in the awarding, not in the waiting. 14 days would be nice - and would allow a single accolade to be earned and used within a one month subscription. Earning the badges in 7 days would be great, and focus back on the job benefits themselves. (Note the total number of available badges is irrelevant, this is an issue with the time spent waiting for just one. Also note this is not asking to speed up charging the powers.)

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A fair amount of folks in this thread seem to be looking at the Hall of Fame badge in the wrong light;

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People can grief the ratings. No additional light is needed.

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If that was what I was talking about, you'd be correct. But it's not; please refrain from quoting me out of context.

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I did not quote you out of context. I directed my statement toward the quoted text. As to the rest of that paragraph, I simply don't agree with it.

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If possible to prevent the griefing and exploits that are occurring around it at the moment, it should remain for such a purpose.

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Simply not possible with how the ratings system works.

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Then the ratings system obviously needs changed. It's very much possible, and shouldn't be discarded without looking at alternatives.

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People have been asking as much since open beta to my knowledge, and from other people's statements since closed beta.

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I'm actually glad you brought this up; this is what I'm getting at. BADGES were intended as recognition for accomplishments in the game. The badging mini-game, as you put it, is something the community did by taking the earning of badges out of context. They're not necessarily there so everyone can earn them. The "gotta to earn them all" mentality that has developed ignores what badges themselves are meant to signify, and I feel should be ignored in regard to issues such as these.

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What you are missing is that anyone can do those accomplishments, therefore it should be possible to earn them all. This is a game for fun. If a reward (or badge) is put in place, then everyone should be able to get that reward eventually.

Oh, and:
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The badging mini-game, as you put it, is something the community did by taking the earning of badges out of context.

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I did not say that, MadScientist did.

Happy Birthday TA. Don't blow out the candles with the Nemesis Staff as it would be messy.

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A fair amount of folks in this thread seem to be looking at the Hall of Fame badge in the wrong light;

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People can grief the ratings. No additional light is needed.

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If possible to prevent the griefing and exploits that are occurring around it at the moment, it should remain for such a purpose.

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Simply not possible with how the ratings system works.

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Version 9 cracked

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The City of Heroes like this.

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version 9 cracked and green

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Invasion like this.

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Qr - I don't mind DC and HoF staying, but they should change HoF to be sth like the suggestion of X times 3+stars or what have you, but I'd like to see the 'play x HoF arcs' badges changed so that they were for playing DIFFERENT HoF arcs.

Eco

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Can you post a clearer version after you get to a regular computer, instead of posting from your cell phone?

I am having a hard time understanding what you are trying to say.

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Yes, I know this. Look at my reg date.

I'm just wondering how many mobs a person goes through on the way to 50. If that 50k is bigger than THAT, then there's a definite problem. Regardless of how the badge compares to previous badges.

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I was pointing that out to those that didn't know.

I'd say it depends. How many ITFs/LGTFs did they do for instance. I would guess that both my first two level 50s helped defeat less than 50k baddies each before reaching that level. Then again I didn't do a lot of repeated mission runs on the first, and the second stealthed a lot of missions while solo.

50k is 5 times the amount of the original Zookeeper badge. They reduced the zookeeper to 1,000 due to AoE and Taunt caps.

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So we might lose some of our already earned badges!

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So? I rather lose a bunch of badly designed badges than be forced to deal with them cobbling a band-aid fix. To my mind, the only badge that has ever been wrongly removed is the Multidimensional badge from villains.

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Any clues as to which and more to the point why are we losing them?

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As others have said, the "fan vote" badges (Builder, Hall of Famer), possibly the Dev's Choice (really, why have the double reward?). I suspect that even if they are not removed, the requirements would be changed.

I suspect that all the Virtual badges will get their requirements modified.

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Modify them yes, but to remove badges whilst leaving for example that stupid two minutes in The Shards badge is at the least a bit of a mystery.

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Because the Firebase Security Detail badge can be fixed. It has a clear condition as to how it rewards so that condition can be modified. How do you balance the Builder series, Hall of Famer, and Dev Choice badges?

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And if he removes any badges what impact would it have on say, the 100 Earned AE badge? I only need one more badge to get it and have worked long and hard to get there!

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From past examples, you will keep the Architect C badge. If you were at the Architect L badge and they removed 10 badges, you would need to get the 10 more to start counting past 50 again. Think the PVP rep badges.

From my perspective what they did wrong with the Architect badges:
<ul type="square">[*]Introduced too many at once. They should have introduced 3 badges per series (at most). For Issue 15 (after they did datamining) introduced more badges based on the datamining.[*]Guessed what requirements should be. They were blindingly optimistic of what the requirements should have been. This is par for the course for the development team. The next change will be an overreaction in the other extreme.[*]Instituted "fan votes". This opened up griefing and a PVP aspect to actually earning badges. A bunch of player can look at an arc getting close to being a hall of fame, there is a wave of negative votes to prevent it from achieving it or staying there.[*]Made another arbitrary developer's "gift of the gods" badge. Bug hunter is bad enough, now it has a sibling.[/list]

Missed patch notes:

Group banner items have their texture back. The arcane and tech banner 1 texture is still broken.

Group symbols ( Bomb, Globe, Lightning 2, the letter X, the number zero, Club, Diamond 1, Hourglass, Ornate 2, and Shield 1 ) that were not displaying correctly on base items are now fixed.

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I missed two. Equation's fashion articles are actually entertaining at times (understandable why he hasn't been able to write more, given what's been going down) and Xury's article was great.

JMan's article had a very Hot/Cold reaction, depending on who viewed it. The ones who hated it seem to give the impression that they didn't understand it was supposed to be humor. The ones who were indifferent were just that. The ones who liked it seem to appreciate a good roast. This went farther than the PvP community, btw.

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Just by these two paragraphs, I would say that I would agree with you that the Scoop isn't likely to be your thing. I do not see the Scoop going any farther down the "smack talk/roast" road than what Equation's articles have been. I have had requests for him to tone down his articles due to content of the first few. He has and I am comfortable with the current level of his articles.

I think you are wrong in how you remember the response to JMan's article. I know that even internally at the time we discussed it (we had almost 10 pages of internal discussion on that one article). The upshot of the discussion was that we would not seek out people, but have them approach us.

Feel free to try to convince the posters you have named to submit articles to the Scoop. Generally we accept most articles we get.

Thank you for reading, and feel free to submit a guest article.

A "blank" SG logo or the ability not to have a logo on the SG items will be needed after the patch on test goes live.

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Honestly, there's only been three people to have put anything in the CS that's been worth reading: Neuronia, Dirtwolf, and JMan.

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Neuronia is struggling to find anything to write about due to the lack of PVP and articles ideas. PM him your ideas.

JMan had a grand total of one article in the Scoop. While that had a great reaction from the PVP crowd, the rest of the player base had a reaction somewhere between "tolerated" and "why is this in the Scoop?"

While I agree that "Em Smack!" was funny most of the time (there were a couple of flops, but I still love them), I think the Heckic Life is also pretty funny. So were Lattice's comics.

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These last issues haven't been getting any better and today's was no exception. There's better writing to be found out there in this game. Any way the editors of CS can go out there and find them so we aren't left with what we've been given in these past many issues?

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The Scoop can't afford to pay anyone so we rely on volunteers. And I will not lower the Scoop's standards to the level of LOLCats.

That being said, exactly who do you think would be "better"?