Discussion - Epic Badges.


Acroyear2

 

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Im stating..... That people CANT and should not always expect to have everything they want.

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You're saying the Devs bothered to code this Empath badge into the game so that we could... what? Look at it on a badge list instead of getting it?

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For most people yes.

I think the devs simply created a badge they only expected the most dedicated Empath Defenders to ever get and then only after years of play.

Like the Master of LRSF/STF badges they're bragging rights badges. Not everyone will have them or should.


The City of Heroes Community is a special one and I will always look fondly on my times arguing, discussing and playing with you all. Thanks and thanks to the developers for a special experience.

 

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Like the Master of LRSF/STF badges they're bragging rights badges. Not everyone will have them or should.

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but there are a few differences.

MoLRSF is obtainable thru normal play, if you're good enough. Empath is unobtainable over the course of normal play no matter how good you are at healing.

MoLRSF can not be farmed. Therefor it is truely a recognizable achievement for people who are really REALLY good at the SF. Empath is not serving its purpose of rewarding dedicated healers. Instead, it rewards people who can configure their gladiator team.

MoLRSF serves to enhance gameplay. It makes people want to try to earn it by forming better SF teams. Empath does not motivate any gameplay. No one goes out to try to be a better healer because they see this badge as a goal. Empath is far too unreasonable to be used as a motivational goal by anyone. Its existence at it is now does not enhace a healer's gameplay because a healer will never actually see the badge.



so I agree with you that...
A) MoLRSF is a great example of a well-implemented Epic-style badge.
B) It is possible to create badges in the game that some people can earn, others can not earn, and people will accept those as a challenge.
C) Such badges do act as a true sign on honor for those who hold them.
However, I do not think that the current implementation of Empath (or a lot of the other Epic badges) act in service of those goals.
In short, if anything is learned from MoLRSF, it's to show exacly where Empath pales in comparison to an Epic done right.


 

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Ok Spit_Ball, the subject of the thread is all epic badges.
The Devs have coded them to be obtainable by everyone through normal play for those that have heals, and that they should be obtainable to everyone else through farms.
The healers can't obtain it through normal play in 2 years by 4hours a day of missions and not heal farming which is where I think the limit should be. Asking us to wait 5 years or even more for a badge when they can't guarantee that the game will be around that long is poor thinking.
They made it for players, not to torture people.

My main point about these badges being so far out of reach is, and I quote:
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The badges are almost all just a cool title you can wear that you think is a good description of your character.

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They are there to allow you to be add a title like "Exalted", "Immortal" or "Empath". I could see having to wait years for them if they offered some really awesome power, but they are just received through grinding and the only reward is a new title. I see the guy with 500+ badges as just pitiful, no offense badgers. It is not because they wasted their time so much, but that the developers made it so they had to go through that.

I only want one epic badge really since I will use it, "Exalted". I won't obtain it anytime soon, but it is something I look forward to no matter what it's requirement.

These badges are out of reach for casual players who just want a better title. The badge collectors who really want all badges find a way to get them, but they take so much time on just one epic badge when they want them all. Lowering the requirements benefits the casual players very much. It doesn't benefit badgers as much, but it still does.


This next part is my opinion and isn't directed at anyone in particular. Ask yourself these questions if you want, but dismiss them if you want. Just don't flame me as someone with a high and mighty attitude as nobody is perfect.

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Why does anyone think that they or anyone else should have something while another shouldn't and even can't?

Wars are started over such things when they really shouldn't. We all live here and want the same basic things yet we can't allow anyone else to.

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You want the badges to be exclusive, why? You want to be the only one with it? Would you want to be the only one with a house and a car as well?

No war in history was necessary. There is always the option to see another person as a person. We all want to live well and believe what we want without fear of being killed or tortured for it.


Believe what you want.


 

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I think the devs simply created a badge they only expected the most dedicated Empath Defenders to ever get and then only after years of play.

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This logic as retarded as if the devs wasting time creating an invention recipe with the odds of 1 dropping in 1 billion once every 25 years so only the most dedicated farmer might have a slim chance. Maybe he supports that kind of "bragging rights" too lol.


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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I think the 1000 pillbox badge in RV is a bit much as well. The people that I know with that badge got it before the pillbox trading was fixed.


 

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My main point about these badges being so far out of reach is, and I quote:
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The badges are almost all just a cool title you can wear that you think is a good description of your character.

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They are there to allow you to be add a title like "Exalted", "Immortal" or "Empath". I could see having to wait years for them if they offered some really awesome power, but they are just received through grinding and the only reward is a new title. I see the guy with 500+ badges as just pitiful, no offense badgers. It is not because they wasted their time so much, but that the developers made it so they had to go through that.


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That may be the only reason you try to get badges, but different people get them or don't for different reasons. I like having a large badge count. Bragging rights, something to do, a reason to keep going back to my main character, showing that I am familiar with different parts of the game, a nice subtitle, proof of insanity are all some of the reasons I enjoy getting badges. If some or none of these reasons match yours, more power to you. Please save your pity for folks in Somalia or those alone for the holidays. You needn't give me, and I suspect those like me, a second thought.


 

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Serious reply (I'm looking at you Snow Globe). I think they should just retire the epic badges. If you have one, you have it, if you don't you never will.

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Jesus Christ, Gecko...

You and I have been in a lot of discussions throughout the last couple of years, and I've never really had any problems with you or your point of view. I've perhaps disagreed with you a few times, but still...

THIS is just craziness here. Can you just imagine the result of a policy like this??

dood...


"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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I think the devs simply created a badge they only expected the most dedicated Empath Defenders to ever get and then only after years of play.

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This logic as retarded as if the devs wasting time creating an invention recipe with the odds of 1 dropping in 1 billion once every 25 years so only the most dedicated farmer might have a slim chance. Maybe he supports that kind of "bragging rights" too lol.

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I don't support Epic badges at all, so no I don't support this rationale. Doesn't mean that's not the rationale.

The OCD necessary to care about these badges isn't healthy. They should be removed. Or lowered to one point above the last badge so that the accomplishment is meaningless. In any event, feel free to disagree, but I don't think any developer should encourage the type of behavior I see badgers exhibit.


The City of Heroes Community is a special one and I will always look fondly on my times arguing, discussing and playing with you all. Thanks and thanks to the developers for a special experience.

 

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THIS is just craziness here. Can you just imagine the result of a policy like this??

dood...

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I can imagine it and it scares me to be honest. I don't think it's impossible that some badger would become violent. But that's all the more reason, IMO.


The City of Heroes Community is a special one and I will always look fondly on my times arguing, discussing and playing with you all. Thanks and thanks to the developers for a special experience.

 

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I think the devs simply created a badge they only expected the most dedicated Empath Defenders to ever get and then only after years of play.

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This logic as retarded as if the devs wasting time creating an invention recipe with the odds of 1 dropping in 1 billion once every 25 years so only the most dedicated farmer might have a slim chance. Maybe he supports that kind of "bragging rights" too lol.

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I don't support Epic badges at all, so no I don't support this rationale. Doesn't mean that's not the rationale.

The OCD necessary to care about these badges isn't healthy. They should be removed. Or lowered to one point above the last badge so that the accomplishment is meaningless. In any event, feel free to disagree, but I don't think any developer should encourage the type of behavior I see badgers exhibit.

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I definitely understand what you are saying.


 

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The OCD necessary to care about these badges isn't healthy. They should be removed. Or lowered to one point above the last badge so that the accomplishment is meaningless. In any event, feel free to disagree, but I don't think any developer should encourage the type of behavior I see badgers exhibit.

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You mean like the greedy obsessive attitude that surrounds loot?

I think there is a point to be made that before they were already unleashed the devs should have put more thought into the long-term accomplishment badges. If I was in charge way back when, I would have rubber-stamped Popular and set fire to Empath. The simple reasoning would be that people wouldn't have to do anything special to earn Popular: at different rates, people would be assured of earning it eventually, if only they played the same alt long enough, and conversely, there are practical limits to how much "better" any player could be at earning it: since you can only earn it via earned influence, and not transactional influence, you can only earn it faster by playing longer (or by optimizing your activities along influence-earning lines). By my estimates, it would only take a few years of completely normal play to eventually earn Popular with a level 50 alt. Its "epic" but not "ridiculously epic" for a game that was also going to offer veteran rewards for players that were around for as much as four years or more.

But empath is a bit different, because there's no such meaningful progress you can make in conventional play, even as a dedicated healer. Its not beyond reasonable for even dedicated players to be getting only a couple of ticks on this badge in a year, and that is otherwise optimal players. Non-optimal players, except by using loopholes, have zero chance of gaining this badge in conventional play any time this century.

Conceptually, I believe its perfectly reasonable, all other things being equal, to have rewards that take a long time to earn. And there's no way to prevent such rewards from enticing players to attempt to sustain that level of effort for a longer period of time than most would consider healthy. What *is* a problem, by the devs own previous statements, is shunting players into performing activities outside the scope of the game's design. Popular encourages people to play the game, even if it *also* encourages players to heavily optimize their play to earn it. Empath encourages people to not play the game. That is a critical distinction between the two, that is not subjective within the context of game design.

Having said all of that, you cannot introduce the rewards, then eliminate the opportunity to achieve them by permanent fiat without removing the existence of the rewards. Doing so breaks trust between the development team and the playerbase. It says when the devs first introduce an award, the most logical strategy for earning it is to discover the quickest way to achieve it, even if its broken, and pursue it as rapidly as possible, for fear of the devs eventually eliminating all possible ways of achieving them. I don't mind slow-going Popular, even if I don't earn it before 2009. Its always going to be there, and I'm always going to be slowing homing in on it. If the devs took the action you suggest, I would never feel comfortable doing that ever again, because I would have no faith that such a strategy would not have a good chance of being rendered moot down the road.

I *already* have absolutely no intention of trusting the devs on matters of economy. After hinting that influence was highly inflated and overabundant, and after signalling an attempt to defuse that by introducing a prestige-based economy, they eventually introduced another economy that was much more powerful, that did in fact rely on influence. I am therefore never going to trust the devs to "reset" an economy ever again, no matter what they say. Because once you prove your values are situational, they can no longer be relied upon. I'll stop caring about earning influence when I hit the trillion inf mark. And I'm not kidding about that number, because I don't trust the devs won't at some future date decide to reverses-split everyone 100-1 to reduce the amount of influence in the economy, based on the highest earners. I always intend to be one of them.

At the moment, I *do* trust the devs to allow me to play the game at my own pace, eventually achieving any long-range reward I want to, if I choose to do so at a slower than optimal pace. But they get only one chance at having that trust from me. Break it once, and they never get it back.


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I think I said that very recently.

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...and I've been saying it since Issue #7 when I decided to attempt for the badge but gave up out of utter frustration and a desire to lower my power bill.

EDIT: Well, it's been sacrificed in the great purge, but here's my last post on that subject... LINK


 

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The OCD necessary to care about these badges isn't healthy. They should be removed. Or lowered to one point above the last badge so that the accomplishment is meaningless. In any event, feel free to disagree, but I don't think any developer should encourage the type of behavior I see badgers exhibit.

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You mean like the greedy obsessive attitude that surrounds loot?

I think there is a point to be made that before they were already unleashed the devs should have put more thought into the long-term accomplishment badges. If I was in charge way back when, I would have rubber-stamped Popular and set fire to Empath. The simple reasoning would be that people wouldn't have to do anything special to earn Popular: at different rates, people would be assured of earning it eventually, if only they played the same alt long enough, and conversely, there are practical limits to how much "better" any player could be at earning it: since you can only earn it via earned influence, and not transactional influence, you can only earn it faster by playing longer (or by optimizing your activities along influence-earning lines). By my estimates, it would only take a few years of completely normal play to eventually earn Popular with a level 50 alt. Its "epic" but not "ridiculously epic" for a game that was also going to offer veteran rewards for players that were around for as much as four years or more.

But empath is a bit different, because there's no such meaningful progress you can make in conventional play, even as a dedicated healer. Its not beyond reasonable for even dedicated players to be getting only a couple of ticks on this badge in a year, and that is otherwise optimal players. Non-optimal players, except by using loopholes, have zero chance of gaining this badge in conventional play any time this century.

Conceptually, I believe its perfectly reasonable, all other things being equal, to have rewards that take a long time to earn. And there's no way to prevent such rewards from enticing players to attempt to sustain that level of effort for a longer period of time than most would consider healthy. What *is* a problem, by the devs own previous statements, is shunting players into performing activities outside the scope of the game's design. Popular encourages people to play the game, even if it *also* encourages players to heavily optimize their play to earn it. Empath encourages people to not play the game. That is a critical distinction between the two, that is not subjective within the context of game design.

Having said all of that, you cannot introduce the rewards, then eliminate the opportunity to achieve them by permanent fiat without removing the existence of the rewards. Doing so breaks trust between the development team and the playerbase. It says when the devs first introduce an award, the most logical strategy for earning it is to discover the quickest way to achieve it, even if its broken, and pursue it as rapidly as possible, for fear of the devs eventually eliminating all possible ways of achieving them. I don't mind slow-going Popular, even if I don't earn it before 2009. Its always going to be there, and I'm always going to be slowing homing in on it. If the devs took the action you suggest, I would never feel comfortable doing that ever again, because I would have no faith that such a strategy would not have a good chance of being rendered moot down the road.

I *already* have absolutely no intention of trusting the devs on matters of economy. After hinting that influence was highly inflated and overabundant, and after signalling an attempt to defuse that by introducing a prestige-based economy, they eventually introduced another economy that was much more powerful, that did in fact rely on influence. I am therefore never going to trust the devs to "reset" an economy ever again, no matter what they say. Because once you prove your values are situational, they can no longer be relied upon. I'll stop caring about earning influence when I hit the trillion inf mark. And I'm not kidding about that number, because I don't trust the devs won't at some future date decide to reverses-split everyone 100-1 to reduce the amount of influence in the economy, based on the highest earners. I always intend to be one of them.

At the moment, I *do* trust the devs to allow me to play the game at my own pace, eventually achieving any long-range reward I want to, if I choose to do so at a slower than optimal pace. But they get only one chance at having that trust from me. Break it once, and they never get it back.

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Someone needs to PM this to the devs.


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 just craziness here. Can you just imagine the result of a policy like this??

dood...

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I can imagine it and it scares me to be honest. I don't think it's impossible that some badger would become violent. But that's all the more reason, IMO.

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<.<.

.>.>

*em hides knife*

...

*whistle toonlessly*





"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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You mean like the greedy obsessive attitude that surrounds loot?

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Yawn. Loot makes your character better; Empath does nothing.

To the rest tl;dr.

EDIT: And even then, I don't see many posts as obsessed about loot at this. There are a few that are comparable, but those were, again, for the stuff that did nothing like costume pieces.

I know I personally, as loot evangelist, don't get obsessed about it. I still haven't completely IOed out my main and I am in no rush to do so. As I told everyone, loot should be considered a bonus, not an entitlement. Same thing here. Empath is not a right. It's not even that important. If you don't get it you don't get it.

And having when back to your post, you should remember that you can get ANY piece of loot through absolutely NORMAL play. Sure you might have to team to do a TF, but that's behavior the devs wish to encourage.

Poor analogy Arcana.

Loot is what they should have added in I2. Badges...whatever.


The City of Heroes Community is a special one and I will always look fondly on my times arguing, discussing and playing with you all. Thanks and thanks to the developers for a special experience.

 

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But empath is a bit different, because there's no such meaningful progress you can make in conventional play, even as a dedicated healer. Its not beyond reasonable for even dedicated players to be getting only a couple of ticks on this badge in a year, and that is otherwise optimal players. Non-optimal players, except by using loopholes, have zero chance of gaining this badge in conventional play any time this century.

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That paragraph brings up an interesting related point.
Empath tells you *how* to play your healer.
If you're, say, a Controller with the Empathy secondary, if you're controlling well you may not even NEED to heal all that much. At least, compared to lower levels when you spam heals because the team needs them more than your low-level Sleep powr. If you want the badge, what do you do? Start letting your team take damage so you can get your progress???


 

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Food for thought: There are several types of badgers. Those that want ALL the badges, those that want certain badges that show accomplishment (for example, healing badges to show how much they heal), and those that want the toughest badges AND don't want anyone else to have them! (not to be rude to those, but I'm gonna ignore them since ANY change would make them unhappy).

As it stands for some of the epic badges, the people that want them for the sake of achievement won't get them (unless they farm for them, doing something they probably wouldn't be proud of), and the people who want all the badges regardless of what the badge is will take a long, long time to get them.

Now, what happens if the epic badges are reduced to something possible through normal gameplay, without farming? Well, the people farming for them will get them easily, of course... but for most of those people it's the badge that matters, not the effort. So, they'll probably be happy. The people who want to earn the badges by working for them can now do so. Thus, they're happy too.

The people who want to keep the badges all for themselves are unhappy, of course, but I think they were born that way...


 

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As it stands for some of the epic badges, the people that want them for the sake of achievement won't get them (unless they farm for them, doing something they probably wouldn't be proud of)

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I place myself in this group.




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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Poor analogy Arcana.

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I wasn't analogizing. You made a specific statement about badges, and how in your opinion because their value is so low (to you), and it potentially encourages obsessive and otherwise unhealthy behavior, you'd have no problem with eliminating them. The exact same thing can be said about loot, only moreso, because there is no question whatsoever that it generates even more obsessive and unhealthy behavior, and there are at least as many people who find it uninteresting to the game as badges. Whether loot is useful or not, or easier to obtain or not, is irrelevant to that perspective.

As a completely separate issue I think there are issues between individual badges, relative to the badge system as a whole, that has nothing to do with your perspective on what should and should not be added to the game, since I don't particularly share it.


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Now, what happens if the epic badges are reduced to something possible through normal gameplay, without farming? Well, the people farming for them will get them easily, of course...

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unless they also cut off the farming methods since they're artificial and will be completely unneccessary for badges you can now earn normally.
however, they can't cut them off while they're the only way to get the badges.


for example, the only real way to get the last pillbox badge was to swap. they cut off swapping AND made the badge team-friendly so it could be reachable normally. you can't really do one without the other.


 

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Poor analogy Arcana.

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I wasn't analogizing.

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Yes, you were.

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You made a specific statement about badges, and how in your opinion because their value is so low (to you), and it potentially encourages obsessive and otherwise unhealthy behavior, you'd have no problem with eliminating them. The exact same thing can be said about loot, only moreso, because there is no question whatsoever that it generates even more obsessive and unhealthy behavior, and there are at least as many people who find it uninteresting to the game as badges. Whether loot is useful or not, or easier to obtain or not, is irrelevant to that perspective.

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That's an analogy.

Merriam-Webster wrote:

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analogy



Main Entry: anal·o·gy
Pronunciation: \ə-ˈna-lə-jē\
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural anal·o·gies
Date: 15th century
1: inference that if two or more things agree with one another in some respects they will probably agree in others
2 a: resemblance in some particulars between things otherwise unlike : similarity b: comparison based on such resemblance

3: correspondence between the members of pairs or sets of linguistic forms that serves as a basis for the creation of another form
4: correspondence in function between anatomical parts of different structure and origin — compare homology

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Jeez, I could say that the world was a sphere and you would say it was round just to argue with me. I know that my thoughts are like nectar for the mind, but you have to let this obsession go.

I told you woman, I'M MARRIED!!


The City of Heroes Community is a special one and I will always look fondly on my times arguing, discussing and playing with you all. Thanks and thanks to the developers for a special experience.

 

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Poor analogy Arcana.

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I wasn't analogizing.

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Yes, you were.

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You made a specific statement about badges, and how in your opinion because their value is so low (to you), and it potentially encourages obsessive and otherwise unhealthy behavior, you'd have no problem with eliminating them. The exact same thing can be said about loot, only moreso, because there is no question whatsoever that it generates even more obsessive and unhealthy behavior, and there are at least as many people who find it uninteresting to the game as badges. Whether loot is useful or not, or easier to obtain or not, is irrelevant to that perspective.

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That's an analogy.

Merriam-Webster wrote:

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analogy



Main Entry: anal·o·gy
Pronunciation: \ə-ˈna-lə-jē\
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural anal·o·gies
Date: 15th century
1: inference that if two or more things agree with one another in some respects they will probably agree in others
2 a: resemblance in some particulars between things otherwise unlike : similarity b: comparison based on such resemblance

3: correspondence between the members of pairs or sets of linguistic forms that serves as a basis for the creation of another form
4: correspondence in function between anatomical parts of different structure and origin — compare homology

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Except I wasn't drawing an inference. If I said "badges are like loot in that they are both pursuit items, and therefore they are both likely to encourage similar obsessive behavior" that would be analogizing.

What I said was that if you want to present the argument that its fine to eliminate badges because they encourage obsessive behavior, I feel others are justified in making the same argument for loot. That's not an analogy, that is a judgement of the logical consistency of the arguments. Its no more of an analogy than if I were to say "if you are going to quote the dictionary, then so will I" that would be an analogy about dictionary quotes.


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Except I wasn't drawing an inference.

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Are you going to deny that you did this?

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2 a: resemblance [u]in some particulars between things otherwise unlike[u] : similarity b: [u]comparison based on such resemblance[u]


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You made an inference. It was a poor inference since there is a gameplay based reason to farm for loot (except costume pieces, which I admitted caused similar behavior to these damnable badges).

But whatever, you win. You didn't make an analogy. Despite the fact that what you wrote happens to meet the definition of it, I'll just let you win and say I was wrong. I don't have any problems admitting error, unlike certain math smarties who really should realize that their talents aren't supreme everywhere.

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Back to the actual topic.

The epic badges suck. That's what this post is about. So they should either be removed, or people should accept that they suck and not try to get them.

OR

They should let their OCD get the better of them and farm for them. Then they can move on to the next badge to be obsessed over.


The City of Heroes Community is a special one and I will always look fondly on my times arguing, discussing and playing with you all. Thanks and thanks to the developers for a special experience.

 

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Semi QP, read 5-6 pages sooner today from work.

I dont see either how someone can hope to get some of those final epic badges with the present requirements. By my secret expert eyeballing technique, i'd say even the most hardcore, screen glued and weewee catherterized player would have a hard time getting the last ones just by playing the game. Intense and long winded farming is the only possible way to get them. It encourage the AFK farming in a killer way. Beside an autistic player or the most unhealthly badges obsessed, i don't see any player PAYING for a game grinding his way to those badges 'manually'.

As my gauge and for the record, i have a blaster created on day 3 of the game back in '04. Played with him with clockwork regularity, besides 2 months for a business trip where no Internet was available (Northern Alaska) I never took time off from the game either. Not sure where i can pigeon hole myself as casual or hardcore gamer, i play 2-3 hours a night 5/7, 4-5 hours a night 2/7, so roughtly 20 hours per week.

This char is nearing 4 yrs old of ACTIVE gameplay, without farming anything (but influence since I10), and certainly not gearing my play time/objectives toward getting badges. In all this time, i took enough damage to almost get the 10 million dmg point taken badge as of this week (i dont even see a space on the progress bar, missing only a couple thousand points). This is the 1st epic damage badge if im not mistaken. My logic circuits tell me that,even if the dmg points totals are cumulative (the counter for 100mil starting at 10mil and 1, not 0, counter for 500mil starts at 100mil and 1 not back at 0), i may very well be on my dying bed after a long and healthy life of uninterrupted CoH and still wanting those lol!


 

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Yawn. Loot makes your character better; Empath does nothing.

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Yawn. Decorations in bases do nothing. Costumes do nothing. Character bio and backgrounds do nothing. Standing around in Pocket D roleplaying also does nothing. Just like the Empath badge doing nothing. So glad we have an authority on what is "better" for each of us in a computer game.


The only thing worse than devs making bad decisions is the hoard of fanboys and bootlickers that keep cheering them on.