These TFs arent the CORE TFs which had badges right off the bat, YOU PEOPLE are the ones that demanded badges for them, i did as well, they werent PLANNED to have badges. 
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Geko and I were both surprised to find out that the powers system already DID this
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Anyone else bothered by that phrase?
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Quite, actually. They're kind of in charge, so they really should know what's going on in the code...
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Well, I don't expect them to know everything about the code. It's a team project and (as far as I know) Positron and Geko are still human.
Could have been just suspect phrasing. Maybe he meant "we were relieved that the existing code was easily tweaked into doing this."
I like Positron -- if anything for being a straight shooter -- so I'm probably just overreacting there.
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I'll pop in here so you guys have a new target.
The original Task Force Datamine took 3 months to finish. That was to go over 2 months worth of data.
We now have 18 months worth of data. We looked for a more effecient solution, but our estimates still come out at 2 years to datamine and get you your badges.
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What about those of us that have email notices and confirmations as to when the TF was done, and souvenirs?
I even have the message that says "oops, sorry, we shouldn't have" for the 4th one that I had the star for.
Sometimes, I impress my boss. Sometimes, I impress myself. The rest of the time, I scare people. I can live with that.
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Second...why are there never resources for things the players want, but always enough to nerf them? It had to take some serious hacking of the system to add clicks that automatically shut off after 30 seconds, but that was worth the effort.
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Geko and I were both surprised to find out that the powers system already DID this, so no extra coding was involved. Trust me. If it involved engineering, we would have found a different solution.
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Somehow, this cracks me up.
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When a new badge goes into the game it begins to start tracking it's requirements for the player. Say we add a "100 Sky Raider Shield Generator" badge in an upcoming issue. Since we never tracked Shield Generators before, it begins tracking it as soon as the update goes up. Previous Sheild Generators are not counted.
But if we, in a later issue, add a "500 Sky Raider Shield Generator" badge, then we would have already been counting the Shield Generators, even beyond 100. So if, when the issue goes live, you had killed 501 Shield Generators, you would be issued the badge upon logging in.
So healing, damage taken, influence earn, debt, etc.... all that stuff is currently being tracked on your characters, so when the new badges go in, you will have a head start on them. No datamine required.
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Which brings me to my original point, which I hope will at least be heeded in the future (not cause I said so but cause it's common sense). To actually implement the tracking with whatever you want/need tracked. Even if it's some kind of parallel design/development thing noone thought about before, it can't be hard to add another counter in there, can it? Even if it comes a day or three late, and even if it's not the 'right' badge yet that's being counted towards.
"If you're going through hell, keep going."
Winston Churchill
Winston Churchill
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Second...why are there never resources for things the players want, but always enough to nerf them? It had to take some serious hacking of the system to add clicks that automatically shut off after 30 seconds, but that was worth the effort.
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Geko and I were both surprised to find out that the powers system already DID this, so no extra coding was involved. Trust me. If it involved engineering, we would have found a different solution.
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So, I was wondering how the DAmage taken/Health Healed/Mezed/Influence badges work? DO they work the same as the TF badges? or is that work in a diffrent way, because I dont want to waste time trying to get a head start and then find out I have to statr all over in i5.
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When a new badge goes into the game it begins to start tracking it's requirements for the player. Say we add a "100 Sky Raider Shield Generator" badge in an upcoming issue. Since we never tracked Shield Generators before, it begins tracking it as soon as the update goes up. Previous Sheild Generators are not counted.
But if we, in a later issue, add a "500 Sky Raider Shield Generator" badge, then we would have already been counting the Shield Generators, even beyond 100. So if, when the issue goes live, you had killed 501 Shield Generators, you would be issued the badge upon logging in.
So healing, damage taken, influence earn, debt, etc.... all that stuff is currently being tracked on your characters, so when the new badges go in, you will have a head start on them. No datamine required.
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I'd like to request badges for more stuff, too. An over-arching "You've done all the Task Forces" badge, for instance, as well as a "done all the TFs and all the trials" badge. That would encourage people to do them all, I think.
I kind've also want an UberZookeeper-type badge, since we organized teams on Guardian to eliminate the Rikti monkey threat to the city and spent a lot of time acquiring the numbers for the original version of that badge.
The Alt Alphabet ~ OPC: Other People's Characters ~ Terrific Screenshots of Cool ~ Superhero Fiction
You know I'm really surprised there isn't a more simple solution to datamining. Why don't they just make it so that when a player finishes a TF, there is a field in their player profile that goes from False to True - a simply Boolean change. Then instead of datamining all the data in the game, all the devs would have to do is bring up the player's profile and see all the TF's and other accomplishments that the player has.
I'm assuming this game is based on a Database, so too bad it isn't set up much simpler to allow easier access to the more important data.
The more I see the arguments here, the more I think of the ads for phone and cable companies where they offer a good deal but only to new members, this is the way of the world people get used to it.
The game is NOT a personsal service like a maid or cook that will do whatever you want the way you want it done. It is more Like a sports team, your paying for a season ticket. The owners of said team and the league will do what they will, Trade players change rules, market in new ways to preserve the future of the team. Due to the simple reason the same thing will not always be sucessful. Yes the changes may loose some fans, but no one new will come along if you keep putting out the same product they do not like. Stop acting like this is a store that will see business come and go depending on market trends and customer service, this is a game, and new ones are coming out all the time and they have to make changes to stay alive.
And before someone replys "New content over changes", the kind of new content people want would have to be a full on Expansion, the kind you have to pay for! it would take over a year to get ready and by that time the game would be nearing 3 years old, getting stale, and out of date compared to all newer games that came out in that amount of time. The time would have been better spent working on a whole new COH2!
[img]http://img136.imageshack.us/img136/289/part1v.jpg[/img]
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Geko and I were both surprised to find out that the powers system already DID this
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I realize that CoH's direction has gotten me touchy and paranoid these last few months, but....
Anyone else bothered by that phrase?
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You mean more so than them not noticing that they were 2-shotting +7 mobs in their test environment and being confident enough about it to post a video of it?
And then *still* going ahead with their 'power adjustments' based on this erroneous set of data, even after their mistake is pointed out to them?
Nope, in line with the above, them not understanding how the power code works is not especially disturbing.
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As long as I am a paying customer, I will always have the right to ask questions. Its called customer service.
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I do agree, you do have the right to ask questions.
Everyone does. But we do not have the right to badger and whine and endlessly complain of how 'we' could have done it better. That is all too prevelant on these boards.
But I do agree, we do have the right to ask questions.
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To say that the customer is not always right is ridiculous.
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I do not agree with you on this one. It is only in the mind of the customer that they are always right.
They can always go elsewhere as your sample suggested, but that doesn't make them 'right'. It only makes them unhappy with you or in this case Cryptic. Happy doesn't make right. And as a company, you have to do what is right for your company and know that not every customer will be happy over it. ..
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So spare me with the "There is no the customer is always right" bull. The only area where this does not exist is when a company corners the market in an area, and NCSoft/Cryptic is not the only game in town
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Again it is not bull, nor do I have to spare you something which is a time proven way of doing business.
Ever been told by a power , telephone, cable company how 'right' your opinion is? They will tell you there is only so much they can do. Which means, there is only so much they are willing to do.
So it is not bull, it is fact.
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And you are right, I'm not in the industry. And I commend these guys for all the work they do. But they need to understand that this is not a popular decision. Some of these posts may come off a little harsh, but I don't think you understand some of the frustration some of us feel as customers.
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Wrong again, I feel the frustration too. However I also see the line they have drawn and as you, will have to live with that decision. I just however am not going to whine and complain about it. Not saying did that, just going with the majority of the posts here.
Cryptic has made their decision, some are coming around now they have been told the reason why the decision. They is appears have chosen to stay. Probably still not happy about the decision, but showing enough respect towards others to no longer whine and complain.
For that, I respect them.
Member of Team Awesome���
Justice Server
I understand the difficulty of awarding the badges retroactively on a general basis due to processing time and manpower issues. I understand (if disagree with) the concept that they removed our souvenirs because it appeared that some people weren't getting them despite the fact that many of us were.
On the other hand, I will be submitting requests via the support system for the badges I did not receive. (I will be including the text from the petitions that I sent when I was denied the souvenir in the first place).
I will be doing this not because I'm upset that they won't be giving it to me automatically. I will be doing this because of the major screw-up they had in communicating with their own people when the souvenirs stopped. In effect, they had indicated a way to correct an ingame problem, corrected that problem several times for me and others and then haphazardly started turning people away with no communication or consistency to the reason why.
If they had come out with a official statement when I4 released or shortly thereafter indicating that this is the way it is we're sorry but after X date no more souvenirs will be granted for TFs regardless of the presense (current or future) of badges for those TFs, I would have been unhappy but would have dealt with it. Instead, it was never documented, lots of people got their souveners via petition (including people who petition at the SAME TIME as people who were declined), while suddenly some people weren't, then their was the haphazard application of form letters that eventually made it around to all of the gms.
They screwed up. Therefore I am going to petition. I will be turned down and I will move on. That does not change the fact that I think that they are being highly unfair to those of us who were already in the support system (handling the problem the way were told to handle it) when they realized that someone had forgotted to give the gms a clue. We at least, should receive our badges. It would go a long way toward repairing this significant smudge on their otherwise exemplary support reputation.
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I'll pop in here so you guys have a new target.
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STAY BACK, YOU FOOL! YOU'RE A DEFENDER! SURELY YOU CAN'T HOPE TO TANK THIS THREAD! Well, I'm sure Cuppa appreciates your noble and heroic sacrifice.
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The original Task Force Datamine took 3 months to finish. That was to go over 2 months worth of data.
We now have 18 months worth of data. We looked for a more effecient solution, but our estimates still come out at 2 years to datamine and get you your badges.
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Thanks for the explanation. That sounds reasonable.
Augur - lvl 50 Illusion/storm controller
Arctalus - lvl 50 Ice/Energy blaster
Crey Avenger - lvl 48 Fire/Rad controller
Augur Prime - lvl 41 Peacebringer
Spiky Whatsit - lvl 39 claws/regen scrapper
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You know I'm really surprised there isn't a more simple solution to datamining. Why don't they just make it so that when a player finishes a TF, there is a field in their player profile that goes from False to True - a simply Boolean change.
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It's my belief that such a field simply didn't exist previously because they weren't going to track every TF.
Me, I'm an information glutton. When I design databases I track too much stuff and add in (currently) unnecessary bloat.
Sure, later I look like a miracle worker when someone asks "is there any way to find out..." but until then I look like a dork for having such a glacial DB with all of this "useless" stuff floating around. And yep, some of it really does never get used.
I don't get you people. If the only reason you are spending 12+ hours of your life doing something that you don't find entertaining in the least is to have a silly little icon show up in your toon info that might, on occasion, impress some noob, but that most people will not give a flip about, then you have greater problems than can be solved with datamining. I don't care what kind of honking great "badge" you get at the end of something, if it's not fun, don't do it. If it's fun, then you shouldn't mind doing it again. If you are saying "well it was fun the first time, but it would be boring to do again," then nah, it wasn't as fun as you say it was.
NOBODY CARES HOW MANY BADGES YOU HAVE AND YOU DON'T NEED A BADGE TO KNOW THAT YOU DID SOMETHING!!! Sheesh, you people whine about everything around here.
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What if you have proof of your deserving of said badge, like a souvenir? As I have two from two of the SS TFs, would I be able to contact a GM, have those in my souvenir list and be rewarded with the badge because I have irresputable proof of doing the two TFs?
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Yeah, this is totally screwed now.
Per a PM reply from Cuppa, there is a blanket policy in place instructing GM's to not award ANY Badges by Petition after I5 goes live. This includes those who have a Souvenir for a SS TF.
Personally, I don't see the reasoning behind it. If you have the proof, in Souvenir format, they should award the Badge.
For whatever reason they're gonna roll out, they simply aren't doing it.
Poor form in my opinion, poor form.
Also, Positron, if you're still reading this, I never heard back from you on the issue of Souvenir Removal in I5.
I'd love to hear a concrete answer on that. Are you or are you not removing Souvenir's that have already been awarded in the game for Task Forces?
The subsequent request if you are removing them is to add a Badge for the Calvin Scott TF.
I can already see that answer but would love to see you post and give some reasoning.
Thanks.
EDIT: A subsequent reply from Cuppa indicates that she will push for the Devs to write a script that will check for the Souvenir and award the Badge if the result = True.
I hope that they decide to go this route. The issue seems to be one of manual awarding. Automated awarding would seem to be a logical choice here and I would question why things are being done the hard way instead of the smart way.
Sign It : http://www.change.org/petitions/ncso...city-of-heroes
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I don't get you people. If the only reason you are spending 12+ hours of your life doing something that you don't find entertaining in the least is to have a silly little icon show up in your toon info that might, on occasion, impress some noob, but that most people will not give a flip about, then you have greater problems than can be solved with datamining. I don't care what kind of honking great "badge" you get at the end of something, if it's not fun, don't do it. If it's fun, then you shouldn't mind doing it again. If you are saying "well it was fun the first time, but it would be boring to do again," then nah, it wasn't as fun as you say it was.
NOBODY CARES HOW MANY BADGES YOU HAVE AND YOU DON'T NEED A BADGE TO KNOW THAT YOU DID SOMETHING!!! Sheesh, you people whine about everything around here.
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You've missed the point entirely.
I have the solution.
Add a "Get a Life" badge. If you petition for any old TF badge, you get that badge and are forced to wear it for two weeks.
Alternate titles include, "Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder" and "Simple Things for Simple Minds".
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I'll pop in here so you guys have a new target.
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STAY BACK, YOU FOOL! YOU'RE A DEFENDER! SURELY YOU CAN'T HOPE TO TANK THIS THREAD!
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Yeah, that's Synapse's job...
I should have stopped paying you as soon as I realized that you were using my money to change the PvE game I love into a PvP game. It was foolish of me to trust you to leave PvE intact.
I'll pipe in about this being very short-sighted of the game developers. Especially in the case of the Quarterfield TF, which is simply pure unadulterated hell and boring and makes the Positron TF look like a happy romp. I will do the Moore, Justin and Faatham TFs over again because they were fun. I've told people that I won't do Quarterfield again unless some RL sex is involved. 
While I agree with the dev decision to not do a broad datamining, they should at least award the badge via petition if the petitioner has the souvenir. The souvenir is something easily checkable by a GM and hardly takes time, as opposed to the "Can you search the month of October for the 14th at 9:32 pm?"
Out of all the TFs, the only one everyone seems to agree that they don't want to do again is Quarterfield. So that one, at the least, should be petitionable, IMO.
Live arcs: 517377 and 517381
Virtue: Quickshot. Swiftwind. Aliuneidis. Gizmodeus. Dasher. Fiver. Inuit Acer. Daniel Darke. Cerebral Flame. El Halcon.
Intel Core2Duo 2.4 Ghz 4 GB RAM**NVIDIA Geforce 9600 GT set to 1280 x 1024**Windows Vista 32 bit
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Posi - Gimme a break.
18 months to datamine? Wrong. I2 is where you start from. Thats what...10 months?
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Even if you very generously assume that the time taken would be halved if you start from I2, that's still going to take a full year to process.
It isn't worth it. Suck it up. Either do the TF again, or don't do it. Your choice. Not a forced decision.
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Uhm it is worth it. SO it takes a year? it will take at least that long to get the new Billion point badges anyway.
I say mine away!
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Because some badges were planned at release but didn't get finished in time. Tracking software was already running, you just didn't know it.
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I don't get you people. If the only reason you are spending 12+ hours of your life doing something that you don't find entertaining in the least is to have a silly little icon show up in your toon info that might, on occasion, impress some noob, but that most people will not give a flip about, then you have greater problems than can be solved with datamining. I don't care what kind of honking great "badge" you get at the end of something, if it's not fun, don't do it. If it's fun, then you shouldn't mind doing it again. If you are saying "well it was fun the first time, but it would be boring to do again," then nah, it wasn't as fun as you say it was.
NOBODY CARES HOW MANY BADGES YOU HAVE AND YOU DON'T NEED A BADGE TO KNOW THAT YOU DID SOMETHING!!! Sheesh, you people whine about everything around here.
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I don't earn my badges for you. Not to impress you, not to be better than you, not to have something you don't. Same goes for every other player. My badges are not for you.
I should have stopped paying you as soon as I realized that you were using my money to change the PvE game I love into a PvP game. It was foolish of me to trust you to leave PvE intact.
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So that would be less then 12 months not 18. So all datamining for the Shadow Shard TFs should be from the date not from the start of CoH itsself.
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First you have to sort the data then you have to comb through it. There's also the possibility that the data in question doesn't have any timestamps for which to sort.
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I have the solution.
Add a "Get a Life" badge. If you petition for any old TF badge, you get that badge and are forced to wear it for two weeks.
Alternate titles include, "Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder" and "Simple Things for Simple Minds".
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Oh man. Sure dude.....keep it up lol.
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Per a PM reply from Cuppa, there is a blanket policy in place instructing GM's to not award ANY Badges by Petition after I5 goes live. This includes those who have a Souvenir for a SS TF.
Personally, I don't see the reasoning behind it.
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The reason for this is to prevent the GM's from being swamped by requests to add the badges. They'll be plenty busy handling all the I5 bugs that make it over to live when the issue is released.
I should have stopped paying you as soon as I realized that you were using my money to change the PvE game I love into a PvP game. It was foolish of me to trust you to leave PvE intact.
To everyone who replied to my posting. I wish to thank your input, well.. except for the one who called me a fanboy.
I found some of the comments .. like bending over.. pretty funny.
I believe that everyone has a inherint right and even obligation to post a constructive comment. We have all seen changes take place because of constructive comments.
And yes, we have seen much constructive comments go unheeded.
My post was to bring to light the constant whining and complaining. The self serve ME ME ME ME ME's of the world.
In one way they have a right, they did it, it would have been great for them to be rewarded for it. Absolutely NO question there.
But Cryptic says they won't go through it and based on the information they provided, it is a smart decision on their part.
Who wants to wait such a long time to have a badge awarded? Most probably won't even be playing on that server anyway by then.
Cryptic would never open up it's databases to allow outsiders to 'help' with the datamining.
As for being called a fanboy... hmm cool.. thanks for that.
Guess in your eyes that was supposed to be an insult?
And here, so many others have said that this is the best Dev team out there as far as responses. Sooo I guess I am a fanboy of a good team? Hmmm I can live with that. Too bad I choose to support a good team and not complain the wrong way about it huh.
Thanks for the posts everyone.
BTW: Yeah Cryptic I would have hoped would have caught or posted warnings about the known issues of the TF badges. They dropped the ball on that one.
I think I will still stick around for the long haul though. I enjoy the game still despite it's problems and flaws.
At least I can fly high above the city and not have to run around still after 50 to 60 levels like some games. Cryptic has done many right things. They have done a few wrong things. But they always try to do what they feel is right.
They can look beyond the vision of a single AT, a single player, a single team, a single supergroup. They can look beyond a single game.
They put together their game(s) with their vision in mind.
It is just our paying pleasure to muck it up on them and make them change things hahaha.
Enjoy all
Member of Team Awesome���
Justice Server
Well the problem is that I cannot accept this explanation as an answer why I am not getting the badges, Cosmic. I can produce evidence that I did these TFs, dates, time of completion, names of teammates, screenshot, and even a souvenir for one. Give me a few weeks and I bet I could get swore affidavits from those teammates that we did these TF at the specified times. Now I am being told that petitioning with this evidence still does not offer a chance to get these badges.
The main problem is that the Dev's should have seen this coming and done something to fix it. If they knew that these TF would give badges (and I am sure they did) then they could have warned us that no one would be awarded a badge until the TF was done after a future issue comes out. I would have waited for I5 to do these TF. Now players who only fault was to enjoy the TF content, expecting a badge in the future, are getting screwed. Some of us do not want to do these TF again, at least not with the same character.
I would even accept the badges not being rewarded for these TFs as it is now. That way I know I will not be missing anything