I think there is a distinction between badges that can't be got by all players and badges that can't be got by all characters. Not all characters will have all badges, thats fair enough. (if you don't heal you don't get a healing badge). But any player can make a character that heals, so any player can get some healing badges.
Always remember, we were Heroes.
There are many sorts of people.
Some people say, "Hey, I got X. I'm happy."
Others say, "I have X and you don't. I'm happy."
I personally don't want the latter sort of person to be happy.
That blue thing running around saying "Cookies are sometimes food" is Praetorian Cookie Monster!
Shoot on sight, please.
The badges are fair. If you put in the hardwork, and have a bit of luck, everyone has same opportunities to earn them. Some people just want short cuts.
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I think there is a distinction between badges that can't be got by all players and badges that can't be got by all characters. Not all characters will have all badges, thats fair enough. (if you don't heal you don't get a healing badge). But any player can make a character that heals, so any player can get some healing badges.
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You can get healing badges from the Terra Volta Respec....if you're a masochist. >.>
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If you put in the hardwork, and have a bit of luck, everyone has same opportunities to earn them. Some people just want short cuts.
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Not true.
You can't get "The Chosen One" if the Dev's are so sick of MA that they don't look at it.
You can't get "Bug Hunter" if there isn't a Bug Hunter worthy bug in the codebase (large, only benefits the player, not so obvious that dozens of people report it)
You can't get the critic series of badges if people 1 star arcs out of HoF faster than you can run them.
That blue thing running around saying "Cookies are sometimes food" is Praetorian Cookie Monster!
Shoot on sight, please.
You're asking for opinions from an obviously very passionate player base about what is normally a touchy subject, but currently a ticking time-bomb of angry, so I hope you don't expect any sort of reasonable consensus on this issue. I learned this lesson brutally last summer when I made what I thought was an innocent suggestion that NCSoft give out a nonsense badge to anyone who stopped by their booth at San Diego Comic Con. Hoo-boy, was that the wrong suggestion to make!
That said, I am what I would term a "casual" badger. I have two toons - one of each faction - for which I try to get as many badges as I reasonably can. I know my fire/mind dom will never get Empath, and I have no interest in farming for some of the epic badges. But I'm only one person with one viewpoint, which is, "No, I don't think everyone has to have everything."
I learned this lesson years ago when I used to collect Star Wars toys. At one time I was a "completist." I need to have one of every figure; actually I had to have two of every figure - one open and one "mint on card." This mindset caused me to run to Target and WalMart and TRU and who knows where else several times per week lookig for new toys.
At first it was kind of fun - finding a new figure was like a little victory. But then more and more product was released, and in weirder and weirder assortments, and what was once fun slowly became work. And not only was it work, it was expensive. There finally came a point where I decided enough was enough - I couldn't keep shelling out money on crap I didn't need and I couldn't keep stressing myself out because I couldn't find the latest version of Darth Vader that was packed one to a case.
I abandoned my completist mindset and changed my collecting focus to only getting what I liked. Suddenly, collecting was fun again. And not only that, I suddenly was able to pay off my credit cards and spend money on other fun stuff, like going on vacation.
So that's my story, and why I'm very wary about having a completist mindset about anything. I like flying around and shooting fireballs at stuff in this game, and if I get a badge or three along the way, that's cool. Or even if I get three quarters of the way to a badge and have to spend 15-20 minutes hunting down another 25 Hordlings for the Cold Blooded badge, that's cool to me too. But to continually reset and rerun the same mission 12 times in a row to get the XYZ badge or to sit in front of a red crystal to get a damage badge, or to buy 10,000 pieces of salvage and spend hours converting them to temp powers and deleting the temp powers to get the Fabricator badge? No thanks, that's not fun to me, and I don't need it that badly.
(Sometimes, I wish there could be a Dev thumbs up button for quality posts, because you pretty much nailed it.) -- Ghost Falcon
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There are many sorts of people.
Some people say, "Hey, I got X. I'm happy."
Others say, "I have X and you don't. I'm happy."
I personally don't want the latter sort of person to be happy.
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Thats every bit as bad as the person who is happy because you can't have something he has.
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[ QUOTE ]
There are many sorts of people.
Some people say, "Hey, I got X. I'm happy."
Others say, "I have X and you don't. I'm happy."
I personally don't want the latter sort of person to be happy.
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Thats every bit as bad as the person who is happy because you can't have something he has.
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Ok...
That blue thing running around saying "Cookies are sometimes food" is Praetorian Cookie Monster!
Shoot on sight, please.
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If you put in the hardwork, and have a bit of luck, everyone has same opportunities to earn them. Some people just want short cuts.
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Not true.
You can't get "The Chosen One" if the Dev's are so sick of MA that they don't look at it.
You can't get "Bug Hunter" if there isn't a Bug Hunter worthy bug in the codebase (large, only benefits the player, not so obvious that dozens of people report it)
You can't get the critic series of badges if people 1 star arcs out of HoF faster than you can run them.
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These factors are the same for everyone, you have just as much opportunity to get them as the next guy. Fairness was the issue at hand.
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In the other thread Synapse said
". . . they were unobtainable by a large portion of our players, . . . "
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umm.. that quote has nothing to do with fairness. it has to do with achievability.
Is the LRSF "fair"? Probably not. MMs and Stalkers don't have as much to contribute to all those AVs as a Corr or Brute. (I'll skip classifying Doms cause of the whole PTOD debate.)
But is the LRSF "achievable"? Certainly.
Unfortunately, what we have here is that a fix to an unachievable badge like Virtual Slayer has taken out very achievable badges like Button Masher along with it.
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There are many sorts of people.
Some people say, "Hey, I got X. I'm happy."
Others say, "I have X and you don't. I'm happy."
I personally don't want the latter sort of person to be happy.
[/ QUOTE ]
Don't forget, "You have X and I don't. I won't be happy until I have it too, you don't have it either."
And, here we are.
@TURGENEV - Freedom Server / IRON / B.A.N.E / HORDE
Turg Fiction: Ghost in the Machine Acts III & IV coming 2012!
Turg Fiction: IX is now LIVE on Architect Entertainment!
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
There are many sorts of people.
Some people say, "Hey, I got X. I'm happy."
Others say, "I have X and you don't. I'm happy."
I personally don't want the latter sort of person to be happy.
[/ QUOTE ]
Don't forget, "You have X and I don't. I won't be happy until I have it too, you don't have it either."
And, here we are.
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I wish I had a cute avatar like Turgs... 
That blue thing running around saying "Cookies are sometimes food" is Praetorian Cookie Monster!
Shoot on sight, please.
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
There are many sorts of people.
Some people say, "Hey, I got X. I'm happy."
Others say, "I have X and you don't. I'm happy."
I personally don't want the latter sort of person to be happy.
[/ QUOTE ]
Don't forget, "You have X and I don't. I won't be happy until I have it too, you don't have it either."
And, here we are.
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I wish I had a cute avatar like Turgs...
[/ QUOTE ] C is for Cookie, and cookies are for j00!
Ok sticking my neck out here with a question but here goes...
What we're badges originally intended for?
I've only been playing MMO's for about 3 years now. I admit I was not there "at the beginning." What was the original purpose behind badges?
Were they intended as an "easter egg" of sorts? A nifty that you would find while exploring the game? This seems to fit the idea behind exploration/history badges that we have now.
Were they intended as a way of showing acomplishments to other players? This fits most of the other badge categories that I can think of.
I understand the system we have in place now and what badges can/cannot do for you, I'm just looking for a bit of history and perspective.
Thanks.
Writer of In-Game fiction: Just Completed: My Summer Vacation. My older things are now being archived at Fanfiction.net http://www.fanfiction.net/~jwbullfrog until I come up with a better solution.
I like the idea of the game offering challenges to players. I have no problem with the existence of badges that are difficult or even impossible to get in casual play.
However, I think accolades with benefits or powers associated (which are sought by large numbers of players) should not have grindy and unfun requirements. Eye of the Magus is the poster child for this. I'd love it if they removed or dramatically reduced the defeats that were required and instead added requirements for completing several story arcs, Let's say Madeline Casey and Harvey Maylor. Heck, even add one of the Shard TFs. That would be INFINITELY more fun than grinding out the stupid summoned decoys and BP masks.
Requiring a character to defeat all the Praetorean AVs as an accolade requrement: fun. Requiring a character to defeat them all 20 times: unfun. It's a matter of degree.
Just to be clear: I have no problem with the existence of a badge for defeating 500 (or 2 thousand or 2 billion) summoned illusionist decoys. My beef is that accolades should be fun to work on. Attaching extreme defeat requirements to accolades epitomizes the encouragement of "abberrant behavior" that Synapse claims the devs don't want to encourage.
Freedom: Blazing Larb, Fiery Fulcrum, Sardan Reborn, Arctic-Frenzy, Wasabi Sam, Mr Smashtastic.
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Ok sticking my neck out here with a question but here goes...
What we're badges originally intended for?
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Badges are a reward outside of xp/inf/enhancements and now recipes/salvage.
That blue thing running around saying "Cookies are sometimes food" is Praetorian Cookie Monster!
Shoot on sight, please.
My thoughts on badges generally, are that there should be some easy to get, lots that take a little bit of thought/planning, and a few that are hard.
Where the badge system went wrong was Issue 5. The addition of the 'Epic' Heal, damage taken, inf earnt mez and sidkick badges, set a bad precedent for creating grindy badges.
Funnily enough that same issue with the defeat 333 badges fro the Croatoa groups, well if you run the arcs on a medium sized team plus the Katie TF, you get there. Maybe just shy on the ghosts.
That issue also lauched with defeat Sally 10 times for believer.
I'm taking Synapse at his word that from this point on grindy badges are not going to be added, and the main thrust will be on a variety of badges for tasks, rather than several tiers of rewards for the same task
My suggestion:
Master of X Task/Strike force, for each and every T/SF, but mix up the challanges required in each case, os they are not all no temps/no defeats.
@Catwhoorg "Rule of Three - Finale" Arc# 1984
@Mr Falkland Islands"A Nation Goes Rogue" Arc# 2369 "Toasters and Pop Tarts" Arc#116617
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My thoughts on badges generally, are that there should be some easy to get, lots that take a little bit of thought/planning, and a few that are hard.
. . .
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I agree completely. That is why I am so angry with the proposed removals.
I could see removing the badges like hall of fame and Editors choice and the ratings ones but there is no reason to remove the others ones.
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My thoughts on badges generally, are that there should be some easy to get, lots that take a little bit of thought/planning, and a few that are hard.
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Absolutely. The problem is it only looks like they are leaving in easy.
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I'm taking Synapse at his word that from this point on grindy badges are not going to be added, and the main thrust will be on a variety of badges for tasks, rather than several tiers of rewards for the same task
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Yup. I think this is a good change but I believe that this is going to be very poorly received by current badgers.
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My suggestion:
Master of X Task/Strike force, for each and every T/SF, but mix up the challanges required in each case, so they are not all no temps/no defeats.
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Excellent suggestion. I like that because getting those badges reward doing challenging tasks at an elite level, as opposed to simply doing something a billion times.
Freedom: Blazing Larb, Fiery Fulcrum, Sardan Reborn, Arctic-Frenzy, Wasabi Sam, Mr Smashtastic.
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I'm taking Synapse at his word that from this point on grindy badges are not going to be added, and the main thrust will be on a variety of badges for tasks, rather than several tiers of rewards for the same task
[/ QUOTE ]
Yup. I think this is a good change but I believe that this is going to be very poorly received by current badgers.
[ QUOTE ]
My suggestion:
Master of X Task/Strike force, for each and every T/SF, but mix up the challanges required in each case, so they are not all no temps/no defeats.
[/ QUOTE ]
Excellent suggestion. I like that because getting those badges reward doing challenging tasks at an elite level, as opposed to simply doing something a billion times.
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So defeat badges are grinding? Then all of the defeat badges should be removed? I dont think there was anything wrong with most AE badges but some needed to be changed or removed but not as many as they are doing. Does everyone not want to work for anything anymore want everything handed to them?
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So defeat badges are grinding? Then all of the defeat badges should be removed? I dont think there was anything wrong with most AE badges but some needed to be changed or removed but not as many as they are doing. Does everyone not want to work for anything anymore want everything handed to them?
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Yes they are lowering the bar so that everyone can wear a badge. Making the meaning behind the badge valueless.
Why remove the badge to rescue 50 hostages? That takes some time but certainly a lot less time and energy than killing 200 toxic tarantulas. They are making MA badges meaningless because everyone will have all of them. Most players dont badge so trying to find and kill 200 toxic tarantulas isn't important, but MA is super popular so all of a sudden those badges must be very very easy to get so everyone playing MA will have them.
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In the other thread Synapse said
". . . they were unobtainable by a large portion of our players, . . . "
SO WHAT ??? Honestly do all badges HAVE to be attainable by most players, in MA?
They certainly are not in the other badge categories. My blaster will never get Empath. Why should MA be different ??
The point of getting a BADGE is that it is difficult and rare !!!
Some Badges (not all) should NOT be attainable by MOST players.
What are your thoughts ?
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That was stated as being only one of many reasons why some badges were removed. The entire quote with the ellipses filled in is:
"This is because they encouraged farming, because they encouraged aberrant behavior by doing one thing over and over again, they were unobtainable by a large portion of our players, or earning them was completely out of a player's hands and in the hands of other players."
He doesn't explicitly state that all badges must be attainable by most players.
Also, "obtainable" means different things to different people. The ski jump badges are obtainable by everyone in theory, although they are not obtainable by everyone in practice.
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In one little corner of the universe, there's nothing more irritating than a misfile...
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In the other thread Synapse said
". . . they were unobtainable by a large portion of our players, . . . "
SO WHAT ??? Honestly do all badges HAVE to be attainable by most players, in MA?
They certainly are not in the other badge categories. My blaster will never get Empath. Why should MA be different ??
The point of getting a BADGE is that it is difficult and rare !!!
Some Badges (not all) should NOT be attainable by MOST players.
What are your thoughts ?