Discussion: Inventing Wings with Jay Doherty

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Here's what I had from back when, but I don't know where the original post about it is:

Levels 10-25: Fairy Wings, Insect Wings
Levels 26-40: Burned Wings, Draconic Wings
Levels 41-50: Bat Wings, Bone Wings, Cherubic Wings, Tech Wings

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Man.......that .......blows........

I've gotten 2 costume drops from scanner missions- nothing really good from street sweeping, so my hopes of getting lucky in Bloody Bay or Sirens Calll doesn't hold up hope....grrrrrrrrrr

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Unfortunately I haven't been able to confirm or refute those level ranges. They could be outdated.

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The salvage so far has fallen in line with that. (I've been keeping track as people post what salvage you use for what costume pieces on Paragonwiki. Just doing my bit for my SG.) Fairy and insect wings use 4-25 salvage, burned 20-40, and bone 35-50.

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Here's what I had from back when, but I don't know where the original post about it is:

Levels 10-25: Fairy Wings, Insect Wings
Levels 26-40: Burned Wings, Draconic Wings
Levels 41-50: Bat Wings, Bone Wings, Cherubic Wings, Tech Wings

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Man.......that .......blows........

I've gotten 2 costume drops from scanner missions- nothing really good from street sweeping, so my hopes of getting lucky in Bloody Bay or Sirens Calll doesn't hold up hope....grrrrrrrrrr

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Unfortunately I haven't been able to confirm or refute those level ranges. They could be outdated.

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They are, if it was like that. Not sure myself. As far as I know, only the IO recipes drop according to your level. However, the costume piece recipes are in Pool A, the general drop pool containing all the IO recipes. Meaning they can drop from anything you defeat, except GMs of course.

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Who knows indeed? Because all the evidence we have of his handi-work that hasn't been known for months is 3 pairs of boots, 1 pair of wings, and a new pair of glasses.

Of course, Cryptic has other projects under way, so perhaps he's working on those.


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You see some leaked costume code in one issue, and expect a a mountain more before the official issue release?

Of course, we could speculate some more about the inner workings of Cryptic, but I doubt they've been sitting on their hands the whole time

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I've never argued that these costumes should be automatically available to everyone. I just think the drop rate needs to be reasonable. Which it currently is not.

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That's a matter of personal opinion

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Also, your point about the Test Server is absurd. Do you even read the Community Digest? Or did you miss the "Issue Nine Final Focus Testing" thread Ex Libris posted? Thats a pretty good indication thats whats currently on test, small bug fixes aside, is what will go live.

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Yes, Negative Nancy, I read them. Of course, reading the closed beta forums was even more of a chore since the Digests didn't collect posts from them. I think my forum browsing comprehension is pretty good. But I appreciate your berating of my acumen (me not kno how to reed)

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The Test Server is very representative of what goes Live. The vast majority of changes that go to Test, go to Live unchanged. There are a few exceptions, but they are a very, very, small percentile of the total changes.

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Of course, things never get changed after they go to Live. So I guess if drop rates aren't good enough after launch, we're hosed

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Furthermore, drop rates are coded into the game, unless they are intentionally changed by the developers, they aren't going to magically change just by I9 being pushed to Live.

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And here's the rub - the population on Test is, arguably, not representative of the average player population. People get their 50s online and test the STF. They copy over millions of Influence and sell things for 100M influence. Not everyone plays on the Test server either.

Arguably, the drop rate may be right, but cursorily, it may not appear that way. Of course (without speculating about the inner workings of Cryptic), I've always been optimistic about the devs' ability to address and change problems in the game and not so dysmal

There again, IMHO, the whole wing thing is so trivial compared to all the RL stuff going on currently anyhow. Between friends and acquaintances expiring left and right, I'm really quite apathetic about it, cool as wings may be. Not trying to make a strawman, just explaining my current mindset; keeping things in perspective.

I'll get my wings when I get them.

That's probably my last 2 Inf on the subject.

"If for any reason, you're not completely satisfied, I hate you." - Futurama

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Here's what I had from back when, but I don't know where the original post about it is:

Levels 10-25: Fairy Wings, Insect Wings
Levels 26-40: Burned Wings, Draconic Wings
Levels 41-50: Bat Wings, Bone Wings, Cherubic Wings, Tech Wings

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Man.......that .......blows........

I've gotten 2 costume drops from scanner missions- nothing really good from street sweeping, so my hopes of getting lucky in Bloody Bay or Sirens Calll doesn't hold up hope....grrrrrrrrrr

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Unfortunately I haven't been able to confirm or refute those level ranges. They could be outdated.

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They are, if it was like that. Not sure myself. As far as I know, only the IO recipes drop according to your level. However, the costume piece recipes are in Pool A, the general drop pool containing all the IO recipes. Meaning they can drop from anything you defeat, except GMs of course.

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Okay.....a little relieved....................need insect wings on my insect controller- and I plan on farming a lvl 50 black swan mission until I get them....I know I know- BAD work_ethic Naughty!!!

But I really really really really reaaly reaaly really wnat the insect wings.......

See how the different wings move here. Tech and Bone wings are missing.

I covet thee insect and fairy wings. I'll do whatever I can to get them.

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As my forum name is not red, it's not place to make those statements.

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No, you have endorsed a waiting period on getting costume pieces. I'm calling you on it, and asking you to say how long. One issue? Two issues? Three? It's a simple question. No dev required. Your opinion made clear.


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Also, please stop looking for an argument where none exists. I don't share your opinion but you are quite welcome to it regardless of how idiotic and ludicrous I find that opinion.

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Right. You make a hostile, sarcastic straw-man attack on someone else's position, but of course no argument exists.


[montypython]
We're not having an argument!
Yes we are!
No we're not!
[/montypython]

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No, we aren't.

I have a different opinion. That's it.

And no, that wasn't hostile or sarcastic. When I get hostile, it's a lot worse. This is just... meh. For one thing, the costume peices aren't tied to issues, they're tied to drops, drops aren't tied to issues either so you can drop that whole line of BS right there. The drops? Eh... I'm still not sure about.

I've been on test server practically everyday since 2nd wave of beta and I haven't got one. Someone will probably say that you'll be able to buy them at the consignment house... hrm.. maybe. With the larger number of players on all the servers using the CH it's altogether possible there'll be a much larger selection of stuff to buy. What the prices will be? No clue. Test is way too small of an environment to base a decent guesstimate of live. The CH will be cross server, as in all the servers. That one seems like wait and see would be the best idea.

The whole costume bits as drops thing? Dude, how many people cried, complained, BMW'ed and threatened over waiting till 20 for a cape? Did that get changed? No. My lowly little opinion is that you're more likely to get the drop rates upped before getting anything really changed. So, my overall opinion? You're barking up the wrong tree.

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Yes, Negative Nancy, I read them. Of course, reading the closed beta forums was even more of a chore since the Digests didn't collect posts from them. I think my forum browsing comprehension is pretty good. But I appreciate your berating of my acumen (me not kno how to reed)


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Anything in particular you'd like reposted? I saved all the dev posts from the secret forums into Word.

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Yes, Negative Nancy, I read them. Of course, reading the closed beta forums was even more of a chore since the Digests didn't collect posts from them. I think my forum browsing comprehension is pretty good. But I appreciate your berating of my acumen (me not kno how to reed)


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Anything in particular you'd like reposted? I saved all the dev posts from the secret forums into Word.

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Not yet, but thanks. I just get snippy when my forum browsing skills are mocked

Edit: Zombie Statesman save me!

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I would be very impressed with the wings, IF, they didnt come through the inventions system.

Leaving something like those options up to random chance, or the greed of others is not my ideal situation.

Other than that, good job on the looks of them for sure. Something we have come to expect from Cryptic's art and animation department. Very well done on how they look and work.

-Cos

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/agree

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Who's the guy sporting the bone wings? Zombie Statesman? Satansman?

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Nope, it was Zombie Tradesman.

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The article is fine, and I'll keep my opinions on the implimentation of the new wings to myself..... but why oh why isn't there more wild speculation on appearance of said "zombie statesman" face/helmet costume piece (see lower right picture in Jay's article).

I know others have said it, but I'm inclined to agree there could be a hefty little sum of costume pieces waiting in the wings (pun intended) to be released near the end of testing or when I9 goes live. It'd make sense the dev's want us to quibble more over the technical details of the new invention system than oggle over new (and hopefully free*) costume pieces to be added into I9.

/em crosses fingers for statesman'esque zombie helmet


*free as in "included at the charcter creation/tailor screen"

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I hadn't thought of this. I sure hope there is some eventual truth to this.

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So, if you have a character design that needs one of those to look right, how many more issues should you be forced to wait?

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i dont intend to be rude or anything but if you need wings to make a costume work id suggest using one of the other 4 and possibly 5 costume slots until you can get them. Stop playing because your costume doesnt work? of course not. but itd probably be a good idea to use the things they have given you until then.

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Actually, the people that care about how the character appearance matches the character design will simply not play (or likely even begin) that character. They can play other characters, of course, but doing so simply constitutes waiting.

The question to EvilGeko still remains: how long is an appropriate period to have to wait to be able to use the new costume pieces?

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i for one care very much about how my characters costume looks. ive played every AT both hero and villainside over the course of a few years and ive never seen a powerset/build/character design/etc that revolves around a single costume peice. think of what would happen if you had all the costume peices the day i9 was released or even a week after. inventions which makes for probably 90% of i9s content would be ignored by those who dont see the value/dont want to bother/cant afford inventions other than costumes. they may still ignore it this way but theyll at least get a better idea of how everyting works instead of avoiding it from the start

the costume should be built around the character. not the character built around a costume peice.

Something to wonder about: if wings were available from the start, would that reduce the incentive to use them, as compared to keeping them rare?

As you might guess, I've seen way too many bad costumes with wings stuck on the back for no apparent reason other than the player feels that he or she has to tell everyone, "Look! I got wings!" (Yeah, I'm a snob. Haul me off to Snob Court.) It's gotten so I was actually feeling a little embarrassed when I put wings on one of my characters.

So, would common wings result in the city being overrun by dragons, fairies, and bugs? If so, yeah, I'm against it.

(Oh, and for the record: I have one character I'd like to have insect wings for, and another one who would like jet boots. But if I can't get them, well, I'll live without them. I like the characters anyway, and their costumes are cool just as they are.)

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Something to wonder about: if wings were available from the start, would that reduce the incentive to use them, as compared to keeping them rare?

As you might guess, I've seen way too many bad costumes with wings stuck on the back for no apparent reason other than the player feels that he or she has to tell everyone, "Look! I got wings!" (Yeah, I'm a snob. Haul me off to Snob Court.) It's gotten so I was actually feeling a little embarrassed when I put wings on one of my characters.

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I think you'd see more winged characters if they were available straight out of the chute, but I also think those costumes would be more consistent.

Lady_Athyna brought up capes earlier. Based on absolutely no evidence whatsoever, I suspect I see a lot of crappy cape costumes not because there's a wad of people out there who don't care about their costumes per se (there are), but because the cape's a Visible Thing To Strut What I Won to The Other Players. It's a reward, and as a reward people are going to show it off regardless of how well it goes with the costume.

So while making them more common would create an influx of dragons, fairies and bugs, at least until the novelty wore off, you'd see a lot fewer people with tank tops, karate pants, and bug wings... worn because the player just won the recipe drop lottery and he wants to show off.

Just my guess.

Sudden appearance of winged/jet-booted characters would be no different than all the monster/zombie costumes when CoV costumes were allowed in CoH.

ZOMG! People want to use the costume creator to do new things?!? STOP THE MADNESS!!!!!

Essentially ending expansions of the costume creator is no kinda answer. And I agree that if absolutely ANYONE could have wings AT ANY TIME that there would actually be fewer seen. People would use them because it fit the character and not just to show off how l337 (i.e., lucky) they are.

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(Oh, and for the record: I have one character I'd like to have insect wings for, and another one who would like jet boots. But if I can't get them, well, I'll live without them. I like the characters anyway, and their costumes are cool just as they are.)

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Uh oh. That exactly describes my situation. That makes you my direct competitor.

*Hits Finsplit with a tapir's thigh bone as the Monolith looks on*

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Here's what I had from back when, but I don't know where the original post about it is:

Levels 10-25: Fairy Wings, Insect Wings
Levels 26-40: Burned Wings, Draconic Wings
Levels 41-50: Bat Wings, Bone Wings, Cherubic Wings, Tech Wings

[/ QUOTE ]

Man.......that .......blows........

I've gotten 2 costume drops from scanner missions- nothing really good from street sweeping, so my hopes of getting lucky in Bloody Bay or Sirens Calll doesn't hold up hope....grrrrrrrrrr

[/ QUOTE ]

Unfortunately I haven't been able to confirm or refute those level ranges. They could be outdated.

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They are, if it was like that. Not sure myself. As far as I know, only the IO recipes drop according to your level. However, the costume piece recipes are in Pool A, the general drop pool containing all the IO recipes. Meaning they can drop from anything you defeat, except GMs of course.

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Okay.....a little relieved....................need insect wings on my insect controller- and I plan on farming a lvl 50 black swan mission until I get them....I know I know- BAD work_ethic Naughty!!!

But I really really really really reaaly reaaly really wnat the insect wings.......

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Well in the end you'll probably get them, either thru a lucky drop or having so much Influence built up from that farm that you'll be able to buy them at the CH.

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Whether I agree or disagree with the premise of invented wings (that were originally all inventions, vet rewards were a gift and a preview to inventions...) but regardless of that... forced? You're forced? How? Some nutjob comes to your house and holds a gun to your head demanding you play a game?

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You seem very confused. Your solution to not being able to build a fitting costume in the game is to... not play? Somehow, I'm not seeing how that results in being able to build a fitting costume.

With the current drop rates, the average player with a particular costume piece in mind will probably not see that piece this issue. Or for that matter, the next. How many issues do you consider to be an appropriate wait?

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Let us say that the current drop rates mean that only one person a day will find a costume piece on each server. There are 12 servers. The consignment houses are cross-server tech, so you see everything for sale on every server. Lets say that 50% of the costume pieces are kept, and 50% are sold at the houses.

Thats 6 costume pieces a day put up for sale, say 3 months between issues, so that's approximately 540 costume pieces sold between issues 9 and 10.

I realize those are completely made up numbers, but I don't think from what I've read that the costume drop numbers are low enough to believe that we wouldn't average at least one drop a day per server. Seems to me like a lot of people are forgetting the whole cross-server issue and how many more options that opens up for them to find what they are looking for then what they see on Test.

And Athena is right, City of Heroes didn't come with a "whatever costume you want or your money back" guarantee, so you're not being "forced" to wait for anything, either you make the new character or you don't, your choice.