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I don't quite get it. I mean, I love collecting badges as much as the next person, but what's this obsession with the Isolator badge?

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It's like Pokemon - gotta catch 'em all.

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Hooray for COV Displays. =D I have one of those in my bedroom.

And... I agree. Cuppa and Pos look nothing like I'd imagined. Posi looks much friendlier and Cuppa looks like my adopted sister. =O

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LOL

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I'm kinda curious what everyone expected them to look like.

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Oh, you know - small beady eyes on the lookout for any players having Fun; long thin fingers used to nerf any effective playing strategy; large sacks of money on their back from all the players they ignore. The usual dev appearance. :-)

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Great Pics Obsidius.
Yes Howies was great, first time I have ever been there. It is a bit of a drive from Burbank, but worth the trip.
I felt a little odd about using the rest room. In the Men's there is a large plasma screen over the urinal, and it is kind of hard to do your business with a giant pic of Lord Recluse staring down at you! ! !

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Not just staring down, with his eight oversized LIMBS, but also, judging you.

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Lord Recluse: "I can see that you are no ... Destined One! MWHAHAH!"

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Poke her (the NPC, not the dev) for some cute lines.

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If you poke the dev instead, the lines she says won't be quite so cute.

Positron mentioned not too long ago that War Witch was rejigging the older CoH zones to add in all the new stuff CoV allows.

So not only does she get to create the zones once, she gets to create them twice.

Good to see the site back up - I'll pitch in a few bucks into the collection tray later on. :-)

Did you know...

... that ambushes used to be a lot tougher to deal with? You used to get ambushed by around 2 - 3x the size of current ambush groups. This made being ambushed an almost certain debt sentence, especially if the first warning of your character being ambushed was a hold followed by repeated poundings. Fortunately, ambush sizes were reduced around (iirc) Issue 2.

Did you know...

- that NPC dialogue that refers to "there is no body called Ascendant at this number" (or equivalent) actually refers to a real player called Ascendant? Ascendant made his / her name though long, one-sided phone calls (on the local chat channel) to an agent called Sal who was continually wrecking their hero repuation. These phone calls were pretty funny imo and I've bumped into Ascendant not too long ago in-game.

- that the first supergroup of note (in-game) was the Insane Cow Posse? The only member I can remember was Bullverine, but they all had bovine-related names. They existed during beta.

- that the original 5th Column named villains were just given German names like Maximillian and Hansich? It took some time in beta for these villains to be given military titles.

- that during beta Web Grenade was 1) bugged so that you could still move during the power animation and 2) did not slow villain attack rates? The addition of slow to this power came after numerous players (including me!) led by Geist argued for Web Grenade to do more than just trap its target.

- that pre-beta the CoH forums had fan moderators overseen by Aura? The moderators I remember were Geist and MacAllen, but there were several others.

Did you know...

- shops were not introduced until late beta?

- icons on maps were introduced due to player demand and the popularity of the map patch?

- in beta, Bone Daddies were ridiculously overpowered due to their dark-based damage? They were toned down considerably before launch.

- that players used to have to deal with "front-loaded" missions, where all the toughest enemies (red- and yellow-con) were at the front of the mission and easier enemies (white- and blue-con) were in the back rooms? This was very frustrating to play through, as you would struggle through the opening rooms and then breeze through the last section of the mission.

Did you know...

- Baphomet used to be the monster model in Perez Park until Kraken replaced him (in beta)?

- Blasters used to have access to the Katana Powerset as a secondary (again, beta)?

- During beta, the Back Alley Brawler's hands woudn't show up, leaving him literally handless?

- Mission difficulties for some trials have changed markedly: a lot of players found the respec trials and cape trial impossible to complete, so they were tweaked to make them easier?

- Rick Dakan used to be the lead designer for CoH and Jack Emmert was creative director (or something like that) until Dakan got fired and Emmert got promoted?

- the Enhancement Diversification system was actually suggested by a forum poster rather than created from scratch by the devs?

- that during the development of CoH (ie pre-beta) Aura announced that CoH was going to go quiet for several months and no new info was released (happened in 2002 / 2003 I think)? Many people saw that as the end of CoH...

- that archvillains who appeared in TFs didn't have their own special areas as they do now - they were just standing around in a normal end room?

- that the villain groups at CoH's launch were:
.1 Hellions
.2 The Skulls
.3 Clockwork
.4 Vahzilok
.5 Outcasts
.6 Circle of Thorns
.7 The Lost
.8 Fifth Column
.10 The Tsoo
.11 Trolls
.12 Minions of Igneous
.13 Hydra
.14 Warriors
.15 The Family
.16 Sky Raiders
.17 Devouring Earth
.18 Banished Pantheon
.19 Freakshow
.20 Prisoners
.21 Crey
.22 Rikti
.23 Nemesis
and that the Carnival of Shadows, the Malta Group and the Praetorians were the first new villain groups introduced (Issue #1)?

- Crimson Death (a Fire / Devices Blaster) was the first player to hit maxlevel (40 at the time) two weeks after launch? Apparently s/he played 14 hours a day to get there... and exploited the slow powers in both Fire and Devices to stop enemies getting anywhere near them.

- Carnival of Shadows was originally called Soul Scavengers, while the Malta Group were the Twilight Men?

- Outcasts have been tweaked significantly - at launch, Outcast minions used knives, axes, guns etc just like Hellions and Skulls? Also, Outcasts now have a lot more variety in terms of members (ie Blocks, Torches, Freezers Shockers etc) than they did before.

Look, can someone just call someone else a Nazi on this thread and let it die? You've all stated your arguments and have drawn the skirmish lines that neither side is going to cross. No-one is going to convince LiquidX that the principle of being able to get badges you missed is a good thing, just like no-one is going to convince Zubeen... Zubenelgenaki... Zebalski... that guy that he shouldn't be able to get Isolator because he missed it the first time.

Right now you are just adding to postcounts. Hopefully Positron is aware of what he's caused in this thread.

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Nor have you been able to justify why you should be able to earn this badge outside of Isolator, other then "I want it! I want it! It's unfair if its not given to me!". The simple fact is that you, me, and everyone else who had been around before Issue 2 had already long passed the requirements to get said badge. And the requirements to get it should not be switched around just because of some misplaced belief of entitlement of the so-called "Loyal Customers".

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The issue is: should characters who miss a badge due to level restrictions be allowed to go back and get the badge they missed?

I say yes. Whatever the original point of badges, they have come to represent an extra form of achievement within CoH/V. Going back to get badges represents extra time put into a character, which in turn represents extra revenue for Cryptic Studios and extra involvement in the world of CoH/V. For every other non-event badge within CoH/V, you can spend the time to obtain something that you may have otherwise missed due to lack of knowledge, lack of time or just plain bad luck.

While I see that LiquidX supports a more iron version of CoH/V (ie you miss it, tough bikkies) the nature of almost all other badges within CoH/V does not support this view. I still haven't gotten around to doing the Positron TF with my main, however I will go back at some point to do it for the badge, even at lvl 50. You can still kill x enemies that are below your level if you need to get certain badges - you missed the Kil Skuls badge because it wasn't available when you were doing Skull missions? No problem. Isolator is the special case where if you missed it (and a lot of avatars did because badges weren't even a twinkle in Statesman's eye at the time) there is no way of going back to get it.

Isolator is the special case. It really shouldn't be.

It's my opinion that getting it should be a non-issue. It shouldn't be a hard badge to get - create it as a Portal Corp mission with a special contact, send people to an instanced version of Outbreak at combat level 1 and let them kill 100 Contaminated. Problem solved.

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IF we were to ever add a way to get Isolator post-Tutorial, it would most likely be incredibly hard to get. Annoyingly hard. Irritatingly hard. There-would-be-a-zillion-people-asking-to-make-it-easier hard.

[/ QUOTE ] Don't sing it, bring it.

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Don't bother Poison, it's obvious that Positron doesn't have the GUTS to offer up the Isolator badge to those who weren't around to get it the first time. He's obviously TOO CHICKEN to make up some super-tough, incredibly hard mission set designed to just to let those who missed out to get this badge. Why, I bet he's worried that if he puts in what he thinks is a really hard mission, he'll find players soloing it on Invincible and his hardcore reputation will be shot. He'll be left crying in the corner while player after player show up having gotten the badge and hardly broken a sweat doing so. Positron's just SCARED, that's all.

(Heh, this will either work out really well or really badly... ;-)

Positron, I've just come from a thread where a hero player is 150 longbow (out of 1000) from getting his Reformed badge. He did this by having villains confuse his hero so he could attack Longbow. I know that other players have already done this (and other things like it) to feed their badge habit.

So I ask you, in the name of helping these people with their sickness, that you make the Isolator badge something that is easy to get at lvl 50. If you make it nigh-impossible to get, all you will be doing is making these badge junkies dance like puppets to your idle whims.

So, again, please make Isolator something that is easy to get at lvl 50. Stop the horror and degredation that comes from being a badge junkie. You can do it. It will help you sleep easier at night and the forums will love you for it.

... until the next patch.

:-)

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I do find it distressing that the game is losing so much staff when it needs it the most. I mean.. this is TWICE the game that it used to be.


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I could be wrong, but isn't Recluse the only Cryptic developer to leave?

Weren't everyone else NC Soft employees?

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That's because nobody leaves Cryptic Studios. Nobody. You should see what Statesman can do with that nerfbat to a real person.

;-)

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I say we all get our very own Synapse to toss at things.

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No-one wants a Synapse, even to throw away.

My suggestions regarding Blasters:

1) Defiance generally isn't liked by Blasters. I don't mind it, but recognise that it is among the bottom 3 inherent powers as it currently stands. Someone else has already pointed it out, but in order to get a reasonable advantage, you have you be almost dead. And an almost dead Blaster doesn't take much to become a completely dead Blaster.

So, as it stands, Defiance should kick in more quickly. The bar should move proportionally to your health bar - if you have only 50% of your health, the Defiance bar should be 50% full. Now, this may mean reducing the damage bonus that a Definance at 50% range gives a Blaster from it's current level (I don't know the bonuses off by heart) but visually at least it's going to mean more to Blasters to at least see the bar move.

Alternatively, have the current Defiance values kick in from 80% health rather than the current level (40% or 50% I think).

2) My other fix for Defiance will never see the light of day... but what the heck... give Scrappers Defiance and Blasters Critical Hit. Scrappers have the defense and hit points to comfortably sit at less that 80% health, while Blasters don't have that luxury. If a Scrapper starts heading into Defiance territory, they are certainly better equipped to deal with it and able to take more blows than the glass cannon that is the Blaster AT.

Getting Critical Hit would let Blasters deal more damage at any time and better suits their thematic roots as sharpshooting damage dealers. It takes away the issue of requiring low health to use it, which is a major sticking point with Defiance as it currently stands - no Blaster wants to see their health drop to the point where they can actually start using their inherent power.

Besides, currently Defiance + AOE = some fun; Critical Hit + AOE = a whole lotta fun.

3) Cloaking Device's stealth ability does seem kind of weak and gets 'broken through' by enemies way too often. Now, I don't know what effect the I7 defense changes will have on CD's defensive protection, but it does seem a bit hit-and-miss to use as a stealth power.

4) Trip Mine seems to miss an awful lot (thought it bore mentioning again).

5) Replace Auto Turrent (its problems have been mentioned above) with a reskinned Mastermind robot. Seems like a simple way of improving this power while using existing game properties.

And if Castle WAS reading this thread, he certainly isn't anymore.

Revolver_Law = pessimist. Got it.

One thing I hate is invisible badge counters. It can make it very hard to track your progress or work out if you are doing it right. If you have to work to get the badge, I'd like to see the counter for it along with some clue regarding how to get the badge.

I've liked War Witch's work (hooray for alliteration) ever since Galaxy City came into being in CoH beta. Honestly, it was just so much better than Atlas Park.

Thanks Cryptic for giving me something that takes up a lot of my very limited time! CoH is the best mmog I've ever played!