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I couldn't care less about PvP.
/signed
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QFT
Rock on, Mad. Fight the good fight. Gimme mah accolades for TFs! 
We definitely shouldn't lose our accolades from malefactoring,e specially wiht the new ones that have recently come out and probably many more to come in the future. Elusive mind would be useful to me in lower level zones, and when I am malefactored being able to use my blasted construction table would help to.
Especially in light of I11, this sounds like a good idea.
With Flashback allowing self-nerfing, there's an easy path forward for encouraging people to play without Accolades at a lower level (just tie a badge to it). For normal use though? Especially helping out lower level friends? Definitely a good idea to make Accolades level-independent.
"Striving for the impossible" doesn't mean "toiling in vain". It means growth. It means improvement in the direction of your ideals. Not futility.
Erfworld: the Battle for Gobwin Knob
I'm in full agreement, especially with I11's heavy reliance on the exemplar/malefactor mechanic. I have always wondered if this wasn't an accident of design, rather than something that the devs really intended, simply because it makes no sense.
In other words--I consider the loss of accolades while exemped to be a bug, not a feature.
The Way of the Corruptor (Arc ID 49834): Hey villains! Do something for yourself for a change--like twisting the elements to your will. All that's standing in your way are a few secret societies...and Champions of the four elements.
Yeah, while it may have been something they didn't even consider originally, or it was a coding convenience, the way things have evolved since suggests they should go back and optimize this system. Players not using a system as intended has been the reason for any number of fixes. Seems that should apply here.
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In other words--I consider the loss of accolades while exemped to be a bug, not a feature.
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Especially since I was under the impression that mal/emping down to a level is supposed to bring you to how you were at that level, yet any costume changes, auras, temp powers seem to remain.
Example: I send a toon in to Warburg to obtain the 3 Rockets, then I run a Binder of Beast SF which brings me down to Level 20......yet you have to be L30 to ente warburg.....so the rockets shouldnt be avail if I mal down to 20. Yet they are.
So please Devs, let us keep the accolades regardless of what we mal down too. 
I'd love to see the Accolades change. I've always found it quite ridiculous that my friend and I can have the same Accolade powers, but she can use them at 30 and I can't use them below 30 purely because of when we got them.
Not only that, but it discourages people from getting badges in the actual course of the game, but to go out of their way to get them as soon as they are available to ensure they get the most use out of them.
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Not only that, but it discourages people from getting badges in the actual course of the game, but to go out of their way to get them as soon as they are available to ensure they get the most use out of them.
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I'll say. Whenever I make a new toon, I always prevail upon some hi level buddies of mine to farm out the "kill" badges needed for the accolades, like Electrician, Strike Buster..... ASAP that way they are out of the way. Next comes "Smuggling" my new toon into the zones to secure any and all possible map badges (not counting the PVP zone ones needed of course) that are accolade components. Then its a matter of prioritizing getting my toon into the appropriate missions right away for the 6 mission badges needed as Accolade pieces. So be level 10, my new toon has secured INVADER and Demonic and has all possible badges obtained for the others and must then rise up in levels to enter the PVP zones for map badges, plaques and of course the Siren Call time badge.
If they cant/wont remove the losing of Accolades when mal'd down below level of gaining them, then how about changing the requirements of them so that no pvp zone badges are needed, thus removing the "level lock" on certain ones like Marshal, Born in Battle? Change the PVP zone mapbadges to other map badges and remove the Siren call time badge and any history badge that needs plaques from a PVP zone to complete. There are plenty of other badges that could be designated as Accolade components......just dont make Jailbird one of em
If the accolade badge components DO get revised, in the interest of fairness to those that DO have them already, dont strip em from em. Just make it a "going forward these are the new component badges....."
/signed
This is a huge deal as it screws up the low level game.
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As an explaination, I don't like how IOs encourage me to not level and not play the game. Right now, when I log in with my Rad/Sonic defender, I've got about 4 TFs I need to do... I feel like I _have_ to get those done ASAP or I'll miss out on 5% health I 'need' to have by level 37. For the longest while, I was sitting at level 30 trying to get the eye of the magus and that +10% health accolade. Rather than have fun with the game, I felt obligated to sit there and do nothing until I could hop on a team that was farming said enemies and get my accolades, especially since my character is for pvp.
In short, anything that encourages me to stop playing the game in order to get ahead is a bad mechanic and it should be changed, somehow.
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QFT
A game is not supposed to be some kind of... place where people enjoy themselves!
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If they cant/wont remove the losing of Accolades when mal'd down below level of gaining them, then how about changing the requirements of them so that no pvp zone badges are needed, thus removing the "level lock" on certain ones like Marshal, Born in Battle?
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That may not address the general problem of people acting strange at low levels in order to get accolades.
It's pretty bad that I stop what I'm doing at level 23 so I can get Unveiler to finish off Freedom Phallanx Reserve before hitting 24. But it's even worse that I stop what I'm doing at 23 so I can find a level 50 friend to get Unveiler *for me*.
Yes, people may still do that, after all getting the accolade at level 23 instead of 43 has the advantage of being used for 20 more levels. But it would no longer be as much of a necessity if the 43 wasn't punished for waiting. Making all of them obtainable at level 1 doesn't actually fix that piece of it, so would it be worth fixing just the other half?
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Not only that, but it discourages people from getting badges in the actual course of the game, but to go out of their way to get them as soon as they are available to ensure they get the most use out of them.
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Personally, I find myself worrying about my 40-50s more often than my lowbies.
I haven't taken a single over-45 into a Rikti Attack. Why? Because why put in all that effort for something I'll rarely use? I have Archmage on exactly 1 character, because by the time I have an opportunity to farm Illusionist, I don't care anymore because of the exemping rules.
So it discourages me from getting the badges *at all*, because I view the reward on the 50 as significantly weaker than the reward on a 30. Never mind getting them in normal play.
In fact, if you take something like Unbreakable of Illusionist and don't farm it, it's clearly not something you'll stumble upon before level 50. So those accolades are *intended* to be earned after 50. As I said in the OP, these can be a way to continue to improve a level 50 character. So why design them in a way that's not convenient for how 50s continue to play? ESPECIALLY if flashing back to rerun missions with new parameters is the Dev's idea of something to keep 50s occupied in the new issue.
/signed. It balances everything out. Hell, my main has all the hero side accolades, but he got them at level 50. So I he doesn't get take advantage of them when he exemplars at all.
~ Infinity Heroes ~
Dark Voltage - 50 NRG/NRG/EM Blaster
Shure Shot - 50 Arch/NRG/MM Blaster
Silent Shadow Blade - 50 Katana/SR/BM Scrapper
Uphir - 50 Fire/Fire/Fire Blaster
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I swear to you, when I wrote all this up I had completely forgotten that I11 was supposed to include Flashback. Considering the information revealed today, I11 would seem to make this issue a lot more important now than it ever has been. (Not to mention some impact on the chaos that is the IO Exemping Rules, but that's for another thread.)
Guess it's good that we got a head start on this, huh?
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So how will flashback affect accolades then?
Zube is 50, and received most of his accolades after reaching 50. But when flashback is introduced, if a new accolade is made possible at a lower level, Zube could flashback and get it at an artificially lower level and have it when exemplaring in the future. But the accolades that were created after he reached 50 but before flashback was created will always be stuck at level 50 only.
Yikes. 
Just /sign me on the idea of accolades being useful at all levels. For the reasons already stated, and also for the new complications they create.
"OK, first of all... Shut Up." - My 13-Year-Old Daughter
29973 "The Running of the Bulls" [SFMA] - WINNER of the Mighty Big Story Arc Contest !
- The Stellar Wind Orbital Space Platform
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Zube is 50, and received most of his accolades after reaching 50. But when flashback is introduced, if a new accolade is made possible at a lower level, Zube could flashback and get it at an artificially lower level and have it when exemplaring in the future. But the accolades that were created after he reached 50 but before flashback was created will always be stuck at level 50 only.
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Sadly, I think I already know the answer to this question:
Any accolade earned while you are (trained or untrained) level 50, even if you are exemplaring at the time, will only be usable at level 50. This is how things work now. Any accolade will only record your natural level, I am guessing 
.
I took a level 32 defender who didn't have the Atlas Medalion through the Moonfire TF (max level 28), got the needed badges, and didn't have access to the accolade until I was my normal level.
I gather this is generally considered a "Well, duh!" topic as far as players are concerned?
Triumph: White Succubus: 50 Ill/Emp/PF Snow Globe: 50 Ice/FF/Ice Strobe: 50 PB Shi Otomi: 50 Ninja/Ninjistu/GW Stalker My other characters
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I took a level 32 defender who didn't have the Atlas Medalion through the Moonfire TF (max level 28), got the needed badges, and didn't have access to the accolade until I was my normal level.
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So you were playing yourself as you were at 28. But you earned the badge at 32. This again is an argument that exmplaring is not functionally "playing yourself as you were at that level".
Task Force Commander is the worst. There's no way to earn that *at* level 50, it has to be earned at 40. Yet if I exmplar again for Numina, there's no Accolade that I'd earned from the previous run.
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I gather this is generally considered a "Well, duh!" topic as far as players are concerned?
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I sometimes wonder if the Devs truely realize that.
/signed at the least the devs should rework this, so that if you exmp down from a 45 to like a 35 for the accolade it should work at 35. Ive thought about this alot and yes you could have the issues of people exmping down to the lowest possible level to get the last badge of a certain accolade, but you still had to do the hunting and searching for the badges. Which I believe is way beyond the course of normal game play. I dont know if this fits here but i also find it totally annoying not being able to get any of the PI contacts for Portal Jockey because I chose to go to RWZ. Trust me, none of my other toons will be taking contacts in RWZ. Sorry for my rant but I think this is an important issue.
You could go to RWZ AFTER you get Portal Jockey. My main was already 50 when we got the new zone and I've been doing the missions there.
Paragon City Search And Rescue
The Mentor Project
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Zube is 50, and received most of his accolades after reaching 50. But when flashback is introduced, if a new accolade is made possible at a lower level, Zube could flashback and get it at an artificially lower level and have it when exemplaring in the future. But the accolades that were created after he reached 50 but before flashback was created will always be stuck at level 50 only.
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Sadly, I think I already know the answer to this question:
Any accolade earned while you are (trained or untrained) level 50, even if you are exemplaring at the time, will only be usable at level 50. This is how things work now. Any accolade will only record your natural level, I am guessing .
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I'm not sure if you really understood what I was saying.
Yes, what you describe is how things work now. But what if the Flashback System works a bit differently?
Let's say a new accolade is introduced that requires getting all the exploration badges on the Moon (Moonzone introduced in i12, maybe?) as well as running all the Lunar Story Arcs. And let's say the Moonzone is set for lvls 35-45. So Zube Flashbacks down to level 35. He grabs the exploration badges and runs the story arcs and gets the "Lunatic" Accolade (whatever the hell it would do is irrelevant).
Of course, we don't know how flashback will work, but it's possible that Zube would be able to use the Lunatic Accolade at any level between 35 and 50, since he got it while he was "level 35." But the accolades he earned at 50 will still be level 50 only. Even though he got them before getting Lunatic.
This is what I'm getting at. It would mess up the accolade situation even more than it is now.
so again, I'm /signing the suggestion of level-free accolades.
"OK, first of all... Shut Up." - My 13-Year-Old Daughter
29973 "The Running of the Bulls" [SFMA] - WINNER of the Mighty Big Story Arc Contest !
- The Stellar Wind Orbital Space Platform
Zube, from all descriptions all flashback is doing is auto exemplaring you. That would be the least code intensive way to do things, so I doubt that they would put something special like what you are describing.
Triumph: White Succubus: 50 Ill/Emp/PF Snow Globe: 50 Ice/FF/Ice Strobe: 50 PB Shi Otomi: 50 Ninja/Ninjistu/GW Stalker My other characters
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Zube, from all descriptions all flashback is doing is auto exemplaring you. That would be the least code intensive way to do things, so I doubt that they would put something special like what you are describing.
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Yeah, you're probably right.
"OK, first of all... Shut Up." - My 13-Year-Old Daughter
29973 "The Running of the Bulls" [SFMA] - WINNER of the Mighty Big Story Arc Contest !
- The Stellar Wind Orbital Space Platform
/signed. This without a doubt should be changed.
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/signed
THis is doubly retarded when you consider non combat accolade such as the field crafting table being exempted out due to your mal'ed combat level.
The only thing worse than devs making bad decisions is the hoard of fanboys and bootlickers that keep cheering them on.
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THis is doubly retarded when you consider non combat accolade such as the field crafting table being exempted out due to your mal'ed combat level.
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seeing as the intended use of the table is for during long runs when you can't divert to university, vault or store, it does indeed seem a bigger problem for I11 given the amount of long TF-like runs we're going to have in flashbacks.
and what would the point of flashforward be? I'm level 1, I want to flashforward to the Preatorian arc and have my level 50 friend kill them for me. Is that really solving the problem of unusual behavior from lowbies, or just making the unusual behavior easier to achieve?
flashback may also make it even easier to have your high level friends earn badges for you. When I'm 15 I can maybe ask any friend who's 30+ to flashback to the Soul Taker mission for me. Can a level 50 flashback the whole Praetorian arc to help a team of new alts? If so, what does that say to the people who earned the badge at level 50? I suspect it's only going to make all the problems worse.