All i got left are epics, I hate heal farming in the arena and have so many characters to play, i really don't play my main enough to farm infamy badges or the last craft badge. Though I wouldn't mind lowering epics, they are obtainable, just a pain in the [censored].
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How long for farmers?
How long for non-farmers?
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I agree with others here. For this badge, you should not take farming into account. Why? because you really have no idea how effective farming can be. I earned Empath in 20 days. Any rad, empath, or thermal (and probably any kins and darks) can do the same. Faster, even, as I did not use the most optimal setup. Optimal farming setups so far outstrip normal play as to make anything that is achievable in normal play relatively trivial with farming setups in almost all categories of this game.
Here's the thing. If you want people to not farm for stuff, then here are the key steps:
- Make it fun (aka unlike the Oro, crafting, and RWZ badges)
- Make it incidental to other accomplishments in the game (such as reaching level 50 via normal play)
As soon as a badge becomes a goal in and of itself, people will seek more and more efficient methods for accomplishing that goal. That's all my epic badges mean to me... it means I fulfilled a a task/objective in this game the most efficient way I knew how. Empath does not make me a better healer. Disruptor does not make me a better PvPer. I could go on and on.
My advice: Don't read into the meaning behind badges, because all they mean is you caused some signals to go through certain logic gates. Congratulations
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If it took 50 years, so what?
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Every reward in the game should have been designed around a certain level of effort intrinsicly required to achieve it. If the devs actually explicitly decided to make a reward that would take fifty years to achieve by their estimates, then its designed correctly. If they designed it to be achievable in a much shorter period of time, then its broken.
Its a different level of question to ask "should the devs be adding rewards to the game that will take longer to achieve than the likely lifetime of the game." But its very likely that is a moot question, because I do not believe the badge was designed in that manner, which makes it broken relative to its design intent, not just "longer than people would like."
Although many people think the requirements of Empath are too long simply for personal reasons, there are strong reasons for believing the badge is intrinsicly broken that have nothing to do with the subjective level of effort necessary for any one player to achieve it.
There's no way to absolutely prove that the devs didn't intend Empath to require the level of effort it does, short of them actually saying so. But common sense can suggest it. If the devs added a reward that required a billion vanguard merits to buy, its possible they could have intended that, but I think if I were to say that sounds very likely to be an error, I would consider it a silly counter-argument for someone to assert there's no way I could possible know that the devs didn't intend to create a reward that might require centuries of merit collection to achieve.
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There's no way to absolutely prove that the devs didn't intend Empath to require the level of effort it does, short of them actually saying so.
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They did. Specifically, as I said in an earlier post, Positron said he estimated it would take five years to earn Empath.
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There's no way to absolutely prove that the devs didn't intend Empath to require the level of effort it does, short of them actually saying so.
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They did. Specifically, as I said in an earlier post, Positron said he estimated it would take five years to earn Empath.
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And until the requirements are lowered to match that estimation, the badge is broken.
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There's no way to absolutely prove that the devs didn't intend Empath to require the level of effort it does, short of them actually saying so.
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They did. Specifically, as I said in an earlier post, Positron said he estimated it would take five years to earn Empath.
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And until the requirements are lowered to match that estimation, the badge is broken.
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And how do you know it doesen't already match that estimation?
Because to get that the healers would have to get 500,000 hp healed/day at the very least. Outside of arena/lava/crystal farming, I doubt that you are going to get that without 6-8 hour day. Every day for 5 years. At that point I better be on NCSoft's payroll.
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Unless Posi was considering that people would farm it... In which case the requirements are much much too low!!
/em ducks
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Unless Posi was considering that people would farm it... In which case the requirements are much much too low!!
/em ducks
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Considering that they put in anti-heal-spamming code to prevent it, I doubt it.
Otherwise why build in the fact that only healing actually done (as opposed to the full amount of the healing power) gets credit? As Positron said in that interview, they didn't want people to sit around in Atlas Park spamming heals and getting the badge.
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joke
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joke
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I know, but it was a valid point to throw out and discuss.
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Because to get that the healers would have to get 500,000 hp healed/day at the very least. Outside of arena/lava/crystal farming, I doubt that you are going to get that without 6-8 hour day. Every day for 5 years. At that point I better be on NCSoft's payroll.
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I have no doubt that there are people who have exceeded that playtime per day over the life of the game so far, though almost certainly not on a single character and not averaging that amount of healing, even if the character were an empath.
Assuming that this badge was meant for "healers" only (defenders who focus almost exclusively on healing), is 100,000 an hour reasonable in normal play, or would that only be possible by farming?
What is a "reasonable" per hour healing amount in normal gameplay, assuming a full team and constant fighting for a "healer"?
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There's no way to absolutely prove that the devs didn't intend Empath to require the level of effort it does, short of them actually saying so.
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They did. Specifically, as I said in an earlier post, Positron said he estimated it would take five years to earn Empath.
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I'm aware. And that is just shy of proving the badge is broken unequivocally.
It isn't quite 100% proof because there's no way to know just exactly how much "effort" Positron believed could be applied to the badge in five years. However, I consider it a reasonable extrapolation that he wasn't thinking of any of the ways that it *would* be possible to get it in five years.
(Theoretically, one way to get it in five years would be to be a dedicated healer in Hamidon raid after Hamidon raid. However, I doubt that is what Positron was thinking at the time.)
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Yes, I think the requirements should be lowered for the "Epic" badges. Badges that can't be obtained through dedicated play within a reasonable amount of time are, in my estimation, broken. Anything beyond this simply encourages farming, which is presumably undesired.
I think the top consideration here shouldn't be badgers or farmers, but the regular player.
Simply put, badges carry titles. A player might want a certain title for their character. If the title is available, it should not be nigh-impossible for the player to obtain it. Making them nigh-impossible is, in a word: silly.
I'm of the opinion that, because these badges had no impact on actual game play, the developers were very cavalier about the requirements for them. I think we've since learned: that was a mistake.
The mistake should be corrected. Just as it's been corrected with other badges.
And more importantly: greater care should be taken with the introduction of new badges, so that this doesn't happen again. I think the process has improved, but it feels as though the developers are still maybe playing it a little too fast and loose with badges.
Finally, regarding the 'they should be removed because they promote addictive behavior' argument...
An addictive personality is an addictive personality. A badge does not cause one to develop an addictive personality. Removing a badge will not cause one to cease being an addictive personality. The fixation will simply shift to something else.
So, the 'Epic badges should be removed because they promote addictive behavior' argument is bogus, rooted in ignorance and, as such, should probably be dropped. And I'd further suggest that addictive behavior is a subject best left to those who actually have some idea of what they're talking about.
Thank you.
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Because to get that the healers would have to get 500,000 hp healed/day at the very least. Outside of arena/lava/crystal farming, I doubt that you are going to get that without 6-8 hour day. Every day for 5 years. At that point I better be on NCSoft's payroll.
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Let's get some different perspective on that number...
At 6-8 hours a day totalling 500k we're looking at ~14 thousand hours to get 1 billion healed.
So instead of saying Empath is 1 billion, consider Empath as 14,000 hours running at maximum healing capacity.
That means you have to be on a large team, with the team constantly taking enough damage that your heal is not wasted. You should be 50. No exemplaring - that would reduce your heal power. You can't count time you spend running off to sell drops or anything else like that.
Does any single character actually have an expected lifetime of 14,000 hours?
We've talked about the Devs not correctly estimating the healing speed per hour, but there's also this other time-related problem of the Devs misjudging how many hours a character will spend doing that healing!
Is this making the problem clearer for people who think that Empath is as achievable as it should be?
(Edit: yes, 500k per day. the 14000 number is still the right result, the calculation was just written badly. sorry.)
Has anyone argued that Empath is achievable in a way that you (and many others) think it should be? Most opposed to lowering the requirements I have been reading feel that lowering the number without fixing the various farming activities would cheapen the badge. Yes its cheap now but lowering the number would make it worse. Close the major exploits (I don't think they can get rid of all of them) and the number should go way down.
Edited for clarity
500k per hour! The number is 500k per day btw. 500k healing per hour is insane. That is very obvious that it wouldn't be achievable in normal play. 500k healing per hour would be about 8400 per minute. Not even a level 50 could do that and nobody would be able to take damage at that rate to farm it unless a strong enemy was wailing on them.
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Let's get some different perspective on that number...
At 6-8 hours a day at 500k per hour we're looking at ~14 thousand hours to get 1 billion healed.
So instead of saying Empath is 1 billion, consider Empath as 14,000 hours running at maximum healing capacity.
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If it were 500k/hour that would be 2,000 hours. On the other hand the only character that could possibly achieve this might be a Rad Corruptor healing 7 Masterminds with all their pets sitting on a red CoT crystal.
Now if you change that to 500k per hour to per day, then the rest of numbers make a bit more sense, but still might not achievable.
This is why I wanted to wait until the CoH Vault opened, so I could get an approximate value of healing an hour by various means. This is because any numbers I can post/remember (last testing I did was almost a year ago) are bound to be rough guesses, and 500k for an 8 hour day is a really rough guess. Also, thanks to healing farms, etc I can't get an accurate count most of the time from the info booths. It may be impossible to achieve that 60k-85K an hour to get the 500k/day value.
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500k per hour! The number is 500k per day btw.
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oops, typo on my part.
Still, at 7 hours to get 500k, you're looking at needing 2000 times that, or 14000 hours, to get 1 billion.
which means my calculation was right, I just wrote "per hour" instead of "per day" on that 500k. my bad, it's been fixed. good catch.
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This is why I wanted to wait until the CoH Vault opened, so I could get an approximate value of healing an hour by various means.
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Well, before we do that, how about a theoretical argument?
How many hours should one be expected to play a healer before the game recognizes that, indeed, you are a great healer?
That is, if I was to just do what I do, and heal a WHOLE LOT, at some point I should be naturally rewarded with this badge. Right? That's the entire point of keeping this non-farmed.
If I mentor a lot, I eventually get recognized for it with the highest badge. If I spend all my hours PVPing, I eventually get a badge for that. and so on.
So how much time should I spend healing? 14000 hours? 140 hours? Somewhere in between?
We need that piece of the equation anyways, no matter if the healing rate is produced by theory (some ideal setup with teammates taking max possible damage without dying) or by experimentation (on the Vault).
IMHO, the number should be 500 hours. If I set out and "be a healer" for 500 hours, I should expect that's enough to convince the game that I'm dedicated enough to deserve the last badge. Obviously, weaker healers (ie: Storm, Aid Other) may take longer, and stronger healers (those who average larger teams, or defender primaries instead of controller/corruptor secondaries) may be a little faster. But for an "average" Corr or Controller on an "average" team of 5, it should be 500 hours of gameplay.
What do other people think the badge's timeframe is supposed to be? since 5 years on a single alt is pretty darn silly, especially once they released COV.
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Well, before we do that, how about a theoretical argument?
How many hours should one be expected to play a healer before the game recognizes that, indeed, you are a great healer?
...
But for an "average" Corr or Controller on an "average" team of 5, it should be 500 hours of game play.
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Ok, I can get behind that. It wouldn't be handed to players, but it would be achievable through play.
30,000 Hit Points/hour (theoretical number!) at 500 hours is 15 million HP healed. You would still need to be level 50, on level 50 teams to get that number. It might be achievable (needs testing). The Medical Specialist (10 million currently) and Medicine Man/Medicine Woman (currently 50 million) badges would have to also be adjusted.
It would bring the top personal healing badge under the top group healing badge (as it stands now, having the top group healing badge at 1/10th the top personal badge is a bit insane).
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If it were 500k/hour that would be 2,000 hours. On the other hand the only character that could possibly achieve this might be a Rad Corruptor healing 7 Masterminds with all their pets sitting on a red CoT crystal.
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A rad (or thermal) corr with 7 MMs can achieve 11.5 million HP/hour of healing, making Empath achievable in about 87 hours, or less than the time that passes between the standard resets between on Mondays and Fridays.
Empath or Rad defenders/trollers can do the same if they make 7 MMs their special valentines 
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30,000 Hit Points/hour (theoretical number!) at 500 hours is 15 million HP healed.
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And just to drive home my point about the 500 hour mark... should you have a non-theoretical number once you get data from the Vault, or if we do better computation on what an "ideal heal power" should fire for per hour, then you could adjust the 15 million total accordingly around the 500 hour mark.
In general, 500 hours should be all you need for the topmost badge for anything you're good at. For example, if you're a melee character, the top damage badge should be obtainable in 500 hours of serious melee. If you PVP, the top rep badge should be obtainable in 500 hours of PVP, or less. (probably it's actually a lot less, right?)
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It would bring the top personal healing badge under the top group healing badge (as it stands now, having the top group healing badge at 1/10th the top personal badge is a bit insane).
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I'm not so sure 100 million is balanced for that one, either.
Positron said that the 750 PVP kills for the fusion generator should be seen as 10 kills per person in a full group. Taking a full group, what percentage actually heal? Probably about 1/5th, considering the number of sets that don't have heals even within the Defender AT. So we're talking about (when this was created) 15 people splitting up the work for ~7 million each. 3.5 million each if you consider it in light of the new rosters.
Now look at 10 kills per person. That's HALF the first PVP badge! Instead, we have people expected to put in millions each? While passing up Inf gains?
To put it in another perspective, I'm in a villain SG that had one of the first Auto-Docs on the server. We have not used any sort of farming, and STILL don't have 100 million healing after all this time.
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This is why I wanted to wait until the CoH Vault opened, so I could get an approximate value of healing an hour by various means.
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Well, before we do that, how about a theoretical argument?
How many hours should one be expected to play a healer before the game recognizes that, indeed, you are a great healer?
That is, if I was to just do what I do, and heal a WHOLE LOT, at some point I should be naturally rewarded with this badge. Right? That's the entire point of keeping this non-farmed.
If I mentor a lot, I eventually get recognized for it with the highest badge. If I spend all my hours PVPing, I eventually get a badge for that. and so on.
So how much time should I spend healing? 14000 hours? 140 hours? Somewhere in between?
We need that piece of the equation anyways, no matter if the healing rate is produced by theory (some ideal setup with teammates taking max possible damage without dying) or by experimentation (on the Vault).
IMHO, the number should be 500 hours. If I set out and "be a healer" for 500 hours, I should expect that's enough to convince the game that I'm dedicated enough to deserve the last badge. Obviously, weaker healers (ie: Storm, Aid Other) may take longer, and stronger healers (those who average larger teams, or defender primaries instead of controller/corruptor secondaries) may be a little faster. But for an "average" Corr or Controller on an "average" team of 5, it should be 500 hours of gameplay.
What do other people think the badge's timeframe is supposed to be? since 5 years on a single alt is pretty darn silly, especially once they released COV.
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In my opinion, 500 would be too low for the last healing badge, unless you subscribe to the belief that at least for anyone for which it was achieveable at all, all badges should be achievable in reasonably short periods of time by casual players. I don't think I subscribe to that specific restriction on all badges (although I've described my opinion on how badges should be designed in general).
If it was my decision to make, and assuming I could close all loopholes on achieving the badge inordinately faster, I would calibrate the final healing badge to peak reasonable healing performance of a dedicated healer for one year at level 50. My rough rule of thumb calculation in that case would be a minimum of three hours of teaming per day, seven days a week, 1100 total hours of healing, averaging a maximum heal generation of about 200 points of healing per target, averaging eight targets, at least every sixty seconds.
That would set Empath at about 100 million points healed. I'm not saying that is what I would set Empath to, but it would be my point of reference for what I would consider "the ballpark" for an epic maximum heal badge. By my estimates, Empath is currently ten times higher than what I consider a reasonably high value, far outside the margin for error.
I would want to factor in actual player healing statistics, which the devs can generate but we won't have prior to the City Vault going on-line.
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But I'm a narcissistic (censored), GFN, what's your excuse?
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I'm OCD about people who are OCD.
The only thing worse than devs making bad decisions is the hoard of fanboys and bootlickers that keep cheering them on.