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I do have one question: why were only the Freedom Phalanx Task Forces given badges in Issue 2, and not the new Task Forces that had been added? This is just a question, not some kind of slam. If it was because you didn't think badges would be so well received, that's understandable. If it's because of the difficulty of adding a badge to a Task Force, I'm hoping you might explain that difficulty so that more of us might understand.
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Ok, here's some insight into the design process.
When badges were created for Issue 2, an Accolade was ordered that required several pieces outside of Design in order to happen. That Accolade was called the Task Force Commander badge. It was to grant you a costume piece as it's "special thing", much like the Croatoa Witches' Hat.
The requirements for this Accolade were to be the Freedom Phalanx Task Force Badges. Other Task Forces would not be required, even though they were being released parallel to the badge system. So as not to confuse the players, the other TF's were intentionally not given badges.
So we got the Freedom Phalanx Task Force badges, but the Accolade needed Tech (rewarding costume piece) and 3D Art (the new costume piece itself). It didn't get either so the Accolade never happened.
Time moves forward. We eventually get the abilit to reward costume pieces, but when it came time to revisit the badge it just seemed like a bad idea in retrospect (especially with all the badge-giving TF's now), so the 3D art was never ordered.
Hope that clears that up.
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Umm, can we still have a neato costume piece for doing them? 
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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".
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I agree. With only 1 character slot left on my server being reserved for I5, I've been RSKing like crazy with Taser for TFs. We've done Moonfire close to 7 times, Hess 5 times, Eden twice, Psyche twice, as well as Citadel, Numina, and Positron. It's been a blast and I've been rolling in influence from 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
I'd just like to say: gives us that Freedom Phalanx TF accolade! A costume piece would be neat, but even if it's nothing more than the badge, I'd still like it.
I <3 you Positron and all the fine employees at Cryptic Studios. You're doing a bang up job!
I found it interesting to finally learn of the origins of the task force commander badge, I've seen it on various badge guides. Any insight as to the other unexplained badges I've seen? Street Crime Badge, Super Patriot, bug hunter, corsair, etc? anyone able to explain these and any others I didn't list?
Why not let people petition for the Shadow Shard badges and datamine those, since the amount of players who did those task forces prob. isn't that large compared to the rest of the player base. ( due to the level 40+ req, and the fact that not many go to the Shadow shard anyways)If we can give the approx. date when it was completed there won't be 18 months of data to sift through.
Because petitioning still takes up GM time that could be better saved stopping player harassment from other players, catching copyright infringers, and helping people out with bugged mission objectives.
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
Just to clear some stuff up:
The fact that you did the Task Force is NOT stored on your character anywhere. There is (well, there WAS) no reason to store this, since you could do them over and over again.
Suggestions like "just datamine ME" or "just datamine the level 44+ characters" don't narrow down the database query at all. We still need to look at ALL the data for the specific bits of Task Force related goodness that says "yes, this guy did the Task Force".
As for assigning the badges to those with the souvenirs. That -might- (in the biggest sense of the word) be possible, but it will have to wait until some of the engineers get their heads up from City of Villains to take a look at this. Rest assured that I am looking into this option (which I know doesn't satisfy everyone).
Positron
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Positron, they aren't TF badges, but can you let us know when Arena Tournament badges will actually work? Are tournaments fixed in issue 5? Is this is priority?
Seems like it's been a while with only 1 new badge in an update (Issue 4 only had Kill Skuls).
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
Heh, and people said I was silly for saying there wasn't enough staff. HA! Anyway, so much for two seperate groups of staff.
One thing I gotta say: I would LOVE another costume piece Accolade. The Witch Hat is great, but I'm ravening for more costume pieces.
Heck, how about limiting Task Force Commander to the Shadow Shard TFs (complete all four to get it), and it gives you something like Requiem's epualets for a Shoulders option? Or maybe some other knick-knack that screams "Shard". 
That way, you can actually give some coherence to the zone by encouraging people to follow the only storylines it offers.
I think it would be a GREAT method for getting people to actually do those horrid TFs (and do them now, not when you fix them in Issue 8), and it might soften the blow for those who have to redo them.
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As for assigning the badges to those with the souvenirs. That -might- (in the biggest sense of the word) be possible, but it will have to wait until some of the engineers get their heads up from City of Villains to take a look at this. Rest assured that I am looking into this option (which I know doesn't satisfy everyone).
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That would be great for the people who have souvenirs, but it would be really nice if those of us that couldn't get them were able to get the badges too.
Considering that the souvenirs were removed without advance notice to the players, and many of us expected to get them and didn't, would it be possible to reward the badge to those who recieved the souvenirs and then datamine only the last couple of months for those of us who were unable to get the souvenirs?
I really don't care about the Badge Positron. I care about the story. When you got rid of the story you pretty much killed my interest in doing the TF. I like going back and reading the Souvenior. It's nice to read the hard work somebody has put into that mission and it's a shame that you guys decided to kill it.
Besides that your gimp and I'll take you on anytime in the arena.
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As for assigning the badges to those with the souvenirs. That -might- (in the biggest sense of the word) be possible, but it will have to wait until some of the engineers get their heads up from City of Villains to take a look at this. Rest assured that I am looking into this option (which I know doesn't satisfy everyone).
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That would be great for the people who have souvenirs, but it would be really nice if those of us that couldn't get them were able to get the badges too.
Considering that the souvenirs were removed without advance notice to the players, and many of us expected to get them and didn't, would it be possible to reward the badge to those who recieved the souvenirs and then datamine only the last couple of months for those of us who were unable to get the souvenirs?
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He gave a concession here, this now falls under the "Pushing your Luck" category
Sign It : http://www.change.org/petitions/ncso...city-of-heroes
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As for assigning the badges to those with the souvenirs. That -might- (in the biggest sense of the word) be possible, but it will have to wait until some of the engineers get their heads up from City of Villains to take a look at this. Rest assured that I am looking into this option (which I know doesn't satisfy everyone).
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Thanks, that would be pretty cool if it happened.
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Just to clear some stuff up:
The fact that you did the Task Force is NOT stored on your character anywhere. There is (well, there WAS) no reason to store this, since you could do them over and over again.
Suggestions like "just datamine ME" or "just datamine the level 44+ characters" don't narrow down the database query at all. We still need to look at ALL the data for the specific bits of Task Force related goodness that says "yes, this guy did the Task Force".
As for assigning the badges to those with the souvenirs. That -might- (in the biggest sense of the word) be possible, but it will have to wait until some of the engineers get their heads up from City of Villains to take a look at this. Rest assured that I am looking into this option (which I know doesn't satisfy everyone).
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but.... but.... the devs don't listen and the devs don't care!
riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight.
Thanks a bunch for all the insight and information, Positron. For myself, at least, this is all I really ask for:
Information and understanding of the decisions made.
Now if only SOMEONE would explain Ice Armor and Super Reflexes vs PvP to me.
Be well, people of CoH.
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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.
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This is actually a very good point. That Council base can get really repetative, and in that example there's really nothing to distinguish the fact that you're supposed to be taking out council robot factories as opposed to just any other base. But if you were to, say, change the tileset for those missions from the council base to the robot factory tileset in the Ernesto Hess TF it'd improve the atmoshpere in the TF a lot.
And also, for the Council, the specialized Council warehouse tileset from the first Natural missions would do well to be used more in later Council missions.
"The best thing about being a robot duplicate of Lord Nemesis is, well... Everything."
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I really don't care about the Badge Positron. I care about the story. When you got rid of the story you pretty much killed my interest in doing the TF. I like going back and reading the Souvenior. It's nice to read the hard work somebody has put into that mission and it's a shame that you guys decided to kill it.
Besides that your gimp and I'll take you on anytime in the arena.
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/signed
Please add a functionality into the Badges that allows us to view the Souvenir text from an arrow just like Souvenirs.
The Story is important and should be available to those who do the content.
Sign It : http://www.change.org/petitions/ncso...city-of-heroes
Thanks Positron!
Dev feedback on why ideas presented here won't work is greatly appreciated.
Hopefully the contact check for souvenirs will pan out.
~Liberty~
The LEGION (CoH) - The Fallen LEGION (CoV)
Forget your fears and want no more
50's - Renkoro, Remorseless
~Virtue~
Angry Angels / Jaded Angels
Global - @Puretone
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As for assigning the badges to those with the souvenirs. That -might- (in the biggest sense of the word) be possible, but it will have to wait until some of the engineers get their heads up from City of Villains to take a look at this. Rest assured that I am looking into this option (which I know doesn't satisfy everyone).
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Thanks, that would be pretty cool if it happened.
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Not for me. I've done the Shadow Shard TF's several times and each one more than once. Only got a souvenir for one of them, even after I petition a few times. So I do not see how awarding those with souvenirs would be fair.
This plan to not datamine really blows, but I can understand why the Dev chose to do it. I do not like the idea of having to do these TF's over again, but it looks like I am not going to get a choice.
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Please add a functionality into the Badges that allows us to view the Souvenir text from an arrow just like Souvenirs.
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Or just have the TF contact give out the souvenir to anyone who has the badge.
- wf
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Please add a functionality into the Badges that allows us to view the Souvenir text from an arrow just like Souvenirs.
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Or just have the TF contact give out the souvenir to anyone who has the badge.
- wf
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There are no more Souvenier's being awarded for TF's as of 3 months ago.
They are GONE TO THE AMERICANS! 
Sign It : http://www.change.org/petitions/ncso...city-of-heroes
A little bit of communication works wonders. There's an entire Issue's worth of changes that people are looking for a clear explanation to that rings true like this.
Thanks for the update. I'm still going to rag a bit about not realizing people would want badges for TFs. Given the number of people who asked about the lack of SS badges in the I2 days, and that you gave one for Hess, I'll say it was shortsighted. But, that's water under the bridge.
I am bothered by the cavalier attitude towards souveniers. You say it could not be awarded reliably to people who actually completed the task force, but by the time I3 came out, I was reliably getting souveniers from all the Freedom Phalanx task forces. It was being awarded reliably, the only unreliability was with SS or the Striga task forces. How was it possible that you couldn't get it working reliably for those task forces when you could on the freedom phalanx? And why break what was working just because you were having trouble fixing something else?
For those who are interested in the stories, getting the stories for the TF is VITAL. Even more so than story arc souveniers. There, you're getting all the mission briefings, getting all the mission debriefings. In a task force, unless you're the leader, you're not getting those. And most teams don't want to wait for people to read them. Either the souveniers must be fixed and restored, or there must be a way to view the stories from the badge.
And while reworking the Quartermain TF is good, waiting for I7 or I8 is not good. I6 is not good. I5.5 would be good.
I'll repeat a question I asked in another thread. In your CoH planning meetings, does anyone raise the point that you've got a lot of pissed off customers?
My arcs are constantly shifting, just search for GadgetDon for the latest.
The world beware! I've started a blog
GadgetMania Under Attack: The Digg Lockout
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Now the biggest pain in the butt Task Forces are most resoundedly the Shadow Shard ones. 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). The badges for these "new" Task Forces will be the same as the old ones, so characters that get the Shadow Shard TF badges between now and when the new SSTFs come out won't have to re-do them again.
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First off, I respect HIGHLY your willingness to acknowledge that the SSTF's are "less than optimal funnage." That shows to me that you guys really do understand the concepts of "fun."
Secondly, I may FINALLY have a reason to visit the Shard. 6 level 50's and been in there maybe a grand total of 5 times, and only 3 of those for the TF's. Thanks Pos, look forward to a more inviting zone.
Do you think you could make taskforce badges work like souveniers? That is, have an arrow you can press that will show the plot of the taskforce.
I'd always done taskforces for the souveniers, not the badges, and I've heard alot of other people voice this opinion. Think you could give a "We're working on it", "We might do it in the future", or "We're not going to do this" answer?