You do realize that now you're just making us fiend for more accolades, as well as more special costume rewards, right? 
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1) A Souvenir that was awarded for a SS TF represents an easily identifiable marker that can be used to award the subsequent Badge. Is there a reason that a script cannot be written to auto award the SS TF based on the presence of of the requisite Souvenir?
They still have to actually find the souvenir which is basically about what the datamine would have to do in the first place. So no this isn't actually a solution that is feasible
2) Are the TF Souvenir's being removed from the game with I5?
I believe CuppaJo said that any souvenirs you had would not be touched. If they aren't willing to look for them to give you something based on them why would they want to dig through everything to remove them?
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I appreciate your reply but I would prefer for Positron to make a pass at answering.
Much of what I posted was from a long unanswered PM to him.
If you'd care to quote where Cuppa indicated that Souvenir's would be left alone, that would be helpful.
Also, my mention of the SS TF Souvenirs isn't a call for them to Datamine, I suspect that very few people have them actually. I would request that those with a SS TF Souvenir be able to petition for the Badge when I5 goes live. The blanket "Do not petition CS for Badges in I5" is heavy handed in light of the existence of SS TF Souvenirs. It's too black and white. If you have a Souvenir and choose to petition for the badge based on having it, I believe they should award it.
It is feasible to get a badge through petition, I've done it more than a few times.
Sign It : http://www.change.org/petitions/ncso...city-of-heroes
One quick question...
When you datamine you do have the ability to just datamine characters of a certain level right? Say oh.... 44+? I mean no need to datamine EVERYONE when they aren't even eligible to do the tf's.
I personally don't mind doing "good" tf's over. Hell i've exemped down to do posi with friends when i was level 24 with no debt. Was still fun. But traveling the shard and doing that quarterfield *shudder* tf again just makes me ill thinking about it.
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One quick question...
When you datamine you do have the ability to just datamine characters of a certain level right? Say oh.... 44+? I mean no need to datamine EVERYONE when they aren't even eligible to do the tf's.
I personally don't mind doing "good" tf's over. Hell i've exemped down to do posi with friends when i was level 24 with no debt. Was still fun. But traveling the shard and doing that quarterfield *shudder* tf again just makes me ill thinking about it.
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Given the timeframe given, I doubt the logs are that stratified.
I greatly suspect that the dataminig process is similiar to a "grep -in "completed Positron Taskforce" with a pipe to regexp to parse out the heroes name and award the badge... Just given the timeframe given for datamining for Taskforces (both back in I2 and the prospective time-frame for I5).
Let's Dance!
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If you'd care to quote where Cuppa indicated that Souvenir's would be left alone, that would be helpful.
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Here ya go.
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I talked with Manticore this morning about this and he agreed to rework these into shorter, more engaging, Task Forces in an upcoming issue (possibly 7 or 8, maybe sooner though)
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Issue 7 or 8 you'll make the TFs shorter? It didn't occur to you guys to shorten them up BEFORE you told the players "Hey, you're doing it again, deal with it"?
Well heck that blows to he11 where I thought shoulder kitties came from.
CoH exists because there's a little hero in all of us.
Ridolfo 50 DM DA.
& far too many alts
I want to repost this from the other thread, because I think it's a good idea.
Could we possibly get some sort of enhancement to the TF badges that links to the full story outlined in the old souvenirs? I'm thinking just a little green "More..." word that we could click on to pop up a window with the appropriate text.
I think that would make all of the Accomplishment badges more memorable. You wouldn't have to change the art of the badge; just embed a link to the souvenir text in the badge description.
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I talked with Manticore this morning about this and he agreed to rework these into shorter, more engaging, Task Forces in an upcoming issue (possibly 7 or 8, maybe sooner though)
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Issue 7 or 8 you'll make the TFs shorter? It didn't occur to you guys to shorten them up BEFORE you told the players "Hey, you're doing it again, deal with it"?
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Some people are so mean to poor Positron. He was trying to find a better solution but he couldn't. Although I do remember doing his TF.....Maybe the anger is not misplaced 
I would still like to see the Freedom Phlanx TF Badge at some point, just because it would be cool.
Just because TFs are going to be getting looked at due to this issue, I'll chime in here.
Shadow shard TFs. Way, way too long. The Talos one (barricade?) one is also very "grindy" as it has nothing to it but a couple of hunt missions and the *same* base time for the council over and over again.
Positron's TF can be overly tough for the first TF. The number of bosses can be very overwhelming at the DO level. Ruin Mages are brutally tough, especially when you can agro multiple spawns.
Moonfire is very nice and neat, until you get to the AV at the end. She has a self-heal power (that I think costs about 45 END for PCs) that she can *spam* that heals about 1.8k for each melee person. Any scrappers and tankers become absolute liabilities. Heavy Defender/controller teams with scrappers for damage didn't work at all.
All of the other TFs are a good challenge without being overkill time sinks, from what I can see.
Still here, even after all this time!
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If you'd care to quote where Cuppa indicated that Souvenir's would be left alone, that would be helpful.
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Here ya go.
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Thanks for that. I do recall the thread now after looking at it.
Still, tomorrow makes that post 3 months old and there are plenty of changes that have occured from then to now.
I'd still like current clarification.
Sign It : http://www.change.org/petitions/ncso...city-of-heroes
Citadel was changed in issue 3. It's actually quite short and fun now.
As for Shard TFs, I find them all to be fun and, for the most, easy XP. Especially Augustine. The delivery missions alone could next a non-50 a half a level. Augustine should only take even a pick-up team 3-4 hours at most.
Quarterfield could be daunting, but I did it 3 times before the idea of a badge for it was even hinted at. Hell, I did it twice before I even got the souveneir for it.
Current Badge Hunter: Plot Device (Rad/Thermal/Dark) - 1,268 Xbox Live: Friggin Taser
King of Electricity, Lead Inmate running the Carl and Sons asylum, the "Man" behind the Establishment, Given Honor in Hat Form By Paragon City (Favorite Forum Poster 2006!), Master of Ceremonies of the Fair Use Law podcast
but pos, these badges do NOTHING to satisfy us who actually like to read the story behind the TFs. The fact of the matter is, we are losing out on a lot of content now that the TF souvenirs are gone, and there has been practially ZERO dev response to it. Cuppa is the only one who even seemed to remotely CARE that all this content got gutted. As it stands now, just about the only peron on the team who gets the whole story behind a TF is the leader.
And that just sucks.
Is there any way to add the souvenir to the badge? or is there any way, short of asking the entire TF to hold up whilst i read my clues, to remedy this?
I love the TFs, but have little desire to do them at this point short of the exp they give, and as someone who plays this game for its story and its community, that should tell you something.
Heya Posi, something comes to mind. Is it at all possible to set-up an NPC in game that us players can talk to who would recognize, say souveiners, and award us with badges based on them? Similiar to Jack Wolfe with the respecs. I'm not a programmer so I have no idea how much work that would involve.
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The fact of the matter is, we are losing out on a lot of content now that the TF souvenirs are gone, and there has been practially ZERO dev response to it.
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Actually, in one of the Ask Statesman sessions, someone asked about the loss of souvenirs and Statesman said that he is looking to replace them with a journal feature. Only problem is that he gave no indication of when that would be coming.
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If you'd care to quote where Cuppa indicated that Souvenir's would be left alone, that would be helpful.
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Here ya go.
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Thanks for that. I do recall the thread now after looking at it.
Still, tomorrow makes that post 3 months old and there are plenty of changes that have occured from then to now.
I'd still like current clarification.
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Don't blame ya and wouldn't mind cementing of my general ideas. But from an analysis of the sitatuion I'd say my general assumptions are correct. We could possibly come up with an idea they might use so I'm not going to discourage discussion just try to redirect it away from ideas that they already said wouldn't work.
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Moonfire is very nice and neat, until you get to the AV at the end. She has a self-heal power (that I think costs about 45 END for PCs) that she can *spam* that heals about 1.8k for each melee person. Any scrappers and tankers become absolute liabilities. Heavy Defender/controller teams with scrappers for damage didn't work at all.
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I haven't seen that. And my SG has been running Moonfire almost nightly to gain influence for I5's new badges. I actually thought the end AV was quite the pushover. It's funny, because I could easily be one-shotted by a Council boss if he hits me right with a kick, but the AV would do almost no damage to us and drop in 2-3 minutes. It also helps to have as many people in melee range with status protection, too, since if she pops Inky Aspect, it'll only do damage to herself. I've had her killsteal from us by self-destructing with Aspect countless times.
It's kind of like Burkholder. He's not a tough AV, his room is.
Current Badge Hunter: Plot Device (Rad/Thermal/Dark) - 1,268 Xbox Live: Friggin Taser
King of Electricity, Lead Inmate running the Carl and Sons asylum, the "Man" behind the Establishment, Given Honor in Hat Form By Paragon City (Favorite Forum Poster 2006!), Master of Ceremonies of the Fair Use Law podcast
AND THA TRUTH SHALL SET YOU FREE! 
This kind of explanation and basically "sit down" with the players is what we need to see more of Positron. Thank you.
Now, if you might do the same for all the plenty of unpleasant changes in i5... I believe a lot of the piss and vinegar on the forums might become less acidic.
Again, thanks for the explanation, the tell-all, and treating us again like you guys used to treat us in the beginning days of beta and launch- as concerned "friends."
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Citadel was changed in issue 3. It's actually quite short and fun now.
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Really? I'll have to look at redoing that one then. I hadn't heard or seen a update that it was changed.
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As for Shard TFs, I find them all to be fun and, for the most, easy XP. Especially Augustine. The delivery missions alone could next a non-50 a half a level. Augustine should only take even a pick-up team 3-4 hours at most.
Quarterfield could be daunting, but I did it 3 times before the idea of a badge for it was even hinted at. Hell, I did it twice before I even got the souveneir for it.
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I've personally tried to do the first two Shadow Shards a couple of times. Very irritating. Especially when you ran into the bug that got you stuck at one mission.
Still here, even after all this time!
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Actually, in one of the Ask Statesman sessions, someone asked about the loss of souvenirs and Statesman said that he is looking to replace them with a journal feature. Only problem is that he gave no indication of when that would be coming.
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I'm guessing "soon."
Issue 7 or 8 ... sure, no one here has a problem waiting another year for the Shard TFs to finally be made worth doing.
My characters at Virtueverse
Faces of the City
Yeah, last week I just decided to do Citadel one day on invince. Most of the maps were very small and it only took us about 90 minutes to 2 hours to do it. Definitely wasn't as huge as it once was.
Which Shard TF has that bug? I haven't seen it yet. Closest thing to a bug we've had in the Shard on a TF was a Shadow Cyst spawning in a room full of +4 Rularuu. We had to have everyone log to reset the mission since we couldn't get past it without a teamwipe.
Current Badge Hunter: Plot Device (Rad/Thermal/Dark) - 1,268 Xbox Live: Friggin Taser
King of Electricity, Lead Inmate running the Carl and Sons asylum, the "Man" behind the Establishment, Given Honor in Hat Form By Paragon City (Favorite Forum Poster 2006!), Master of Ceremonies of the Fair Use Law podcast
I think there's two important "halves" to a good TF - the storyline and the gameplay.
Sure, destroying the three different robot factories trying to make copies of Bastion...er, Citadel, makes sense from a storyline perspective, the gameplay suffers by being repetitive. Task Forces are like Story Arcs on crack - they usually have at least one AV, so you need a large team, which in turn cranks up the number of villains in the missions. This is good, as big fights make the TF seem "important". Two major points are 1) there definitely needs to be variety in the missions, and 2) Task Forces don't have to be really long to feel epic. As has been mentioned, alot of casual players have trouble setting aside 3-6 hours for a Task Force or Trial.
As long as we are able to Auto-Exemplar back to TFs, Trials, and whatever else we may have missed, I'll be happy. For a moment, I thought Positron was going to say they'd removed that option or something... 
. I would have been Not-So-Jolly-Roger! Seriously, I enjoy Auto-Exemplaring down to stuff, as you don't even have to worry about experience, finding someone to RSK you, and the like. I'm sure I'm in the minority, in regards to being largely unconcerned with xp (or even trying to minimize xp gain at times). Still, it's fun to just sort-of "jump in and play".
Finally, I'd really like to see TF (and maybe even Trial) Souvenirs, as would many others. It's always nice to go back through your pile o' souvenirs, and reflect on what all you've done.
The Citadel TF is still very, very boring...
Maybe because I've done it so many times. Maybe because you expect so much from the Council. Maybe its because you just got out of Striga, where the Council rule with an Iron, Awesome Fist. Maybe because its THE SAME FRIKKIN' BASE OVER AND OVER AGAIN!!! Try a change of scenery! Throw a couple of Outdoors like were added to Sister Psyche, something!
Thanks for eight fun years, Paragon.
I'm never one to criticize the direction of the game. I'm not on the boards screaming DOOM at I-5 or anything. However, you guys really dropped the ball here.
The people that already did the TFs have to do them again because of the Devs being short-sighted. The other option being wait 6-12 months for a subsequent TF to come out that makes the TF a bit easier and shorter.
In a game where 99% of our time is spent hitting things incessantly, collecting badges was a nice break from the monotony. To force people to rehash HOURS of work they already did for a badge is disappointing. I see why you decided not to datamine and I agree with it. But honestly, you guys should of had this figured out long before now.
I'm not going to leave the game over this or anything. I'm not a doomsayer. But I did want to take the moment to say you guys kinda screwed up here. Perhaps this may motivate to implement other forms of diversion into the game sooner such as skills, so people aren't as focused on badges.