[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
And Lavitae, CoX still is NOT those "other games." If that playstyle appeals, then by all means, those "other games" already have the gameplay mechanics you're advocating. Just because someone else does it, doesn't make it a great idea.
[/ QUOTE ]
Who's advocating anything? Who said it was a great, or even good, idea?
I was pointing out that
[ QUOTE ]
People in other games PVP for weeks to months, or go on dozens upon dozens of 20-50 man raids for a small chance to get (Correction: ONE PIECE of) the equivalent gear.
[/ QUOTE ]
while
[ QUOTE ]
We get a chance every time we defeat almost any enemy in the end game.
[/ QUOTE ]
Purples are not hard to get. The last toon I took to 50, I got 4 purples while soloing or duoing the majority of the last 3 levels. Great drop rate? No. Good enough to get a few while playing the game normally? Yes. Faster than the other games? HELL yes.
Not everyone's supposed to have purples. Purples are the top end gear. If they just gave us all the best stuff, people would stop playing, because (general use) YOU can't be uber if EVERYONE is, and striving for uberness is what keeps a lot of people around.
Face it, the end goal of this game is to keep as many of us paying $15/month as they can. If they give us a "You Win" button, then there's nothing left to do, people quit, and the game dies.
Go get your uncommon and rare IOs, slot up, and get good enough to earn your purples, or earn the inf to buy them. That is what they were put there for. They're a time sink to keep us playing. Not something everyone needs and deserves for however much work they feel like devoting.
[/ QUOTE ]
Meh, I don't really see them as being very comparable at all. For example, WoW (world of warcraft) items are either BoP or BoE. Bind on Pickup (BoP)meaning the item literally cannot be given to or used by anyone else other than the one that picks it up off the defeated monsters. Bind on Equip is the same only the lock in effect happens once a character uses or wears the item. The closest we have in CoX would be BoE but even that is inaccurate as you can unslot enhancements through the Respect process. In WoW if a player picks up most "end game" equipment at all it is "soul bound" to them, even if they can not even use it IE: A class restricted to only "light" armor like leather picks up a suit of metal plate mail and suddenly it's theirs forever, let alone the fact that they can not even attempt to wear or use it in any way.
WoW got smart and introduced marks and emblems. For marks, instead of a boss frequently dropping only a (recipe) item that only a specific person can use they instead drop a emblem that can be traded in for an item that a variety of classes can use. Emblems are akin to tickets/merits in a way, they are a way of allowing players to build up and outright buy equipment (recipe) or an item of value to the crafting folks (salvage) for sale when they've bought and upgraded with everything available to them at the Emblem vendor. In fact, some of the Mark items above are also available from the emblem vendor. It should be noted that the items bought with emblems are often different, of equal power, but different from items found in "instance dungeons" where you find Marks and such.
Actually, the more I type it out the more I realize how it's only vaguely parallel. Instances in WoW are similar to TF/SF in CoX but they end with Merit rewards which can only buy non-purple recipes yet purple recipes are closer in power ranking to Mark (Tier gear) rewards in WoW. WoW doesn't "require" a team to start an instance or TF but you will almost certainly have to assemble a team to FINISH it. 
CoX often impressed my colleagues in that it was a MMO with "no loot" (it did technically have loot but not what they meant) but features amazingly fun gameplay that was LCD and easy enough to attract about anybody. Also it was not another Sword and Sorcery clone. The "best stuff" in the game was pretty much available to everyone and there was little feeling of "haves and have nots" and "loot grinding." That's all still present, again technically, but it's asking a lot of folks to spend their monthly subscriptions and not partake in the end result of development funded by said subscription.
Meh. 
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
the current setup works fine, there's no reason to change it.
[/ QUOTE ]
Under that logic, though, Goat, there is no reason or need to ever change or add anything to the game.
[/ QUOTE ]
if something isn't working, it should be changed.
if you want to keep current players involved and attract new ones, you need to add stuff to the game.
things that work fine, like drop rates, simply don't need adjusting.
[/ QUOTE ]
I think loose words like "fine" are the problem here. ET worked fine for a bajillion issues and changed. Hover and Fly animations worked "fine" for years and changed.
[ QUOTE ]
I think loose words like "fine" are the problem here. ET worked fine for a bajillion issues and changed. Hover and Fly animations worked "fine" for years and changed.
[/ QUOTE ]
I'm not saying they won't do something silly and misguided- we have ample evidence that they will. Tickets, for instance.
I'm saying the system we have now does what it was designed to do quite well and there the only rationale driving this call for change is "I deserve the good stuff for less effort!"
The Nethergoat Archive: all my memories, all my characters, all my thoughts on CoH...eventually.
My City Was Gone
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I think loose words like "fine" are the problem here. ET worked fine for a bajillion issues and changed. Hover and Fly animations worked "fine" for years and changed.
[/ QUOTE ]
I'm not saying they won't do something silly and misguided- we have ample evidence that they will. Tickets, for instance.
I'm saying the system we have now does what it was designed to do quite well and there the only rationale driving this call for change is "I deserve the good stuff for less effort!"
[/ QUOTE ]
Hmm. Try "They system we have now does what it was designed to do quite well if you play the market And the only rationale that I can see driving this call..."
Make sure to account for both personal bias and personal blind spots there. Motivations, especially ones from an anonymous poster somewhere on the internet, aren't always easy to guess, no matter how much you may WANT them to be simple and easy to understand and dismiss. 
119088 - Outcasts Overcharged. Heroic.
My understanding was that the market was intended to be more store-like. At least red side, there are numerous things that are unavailable.
Prices don't really concern me as much as a complete lack of availability.
By available I mean to more than those that aspire to saintliness through their patience.
[ QUOTE ]
I'm saying the system we have now does what it was designed to do quite well and there the only rationale driving this call for change is "I deserve the good stuff for less effort!"
[/ QUOTE ]
When I started to read this - I though that I was about to be a little bit ticked off by hyperbole - By something along the lines of Cavatina's (IMO) completely uncalled for remark (reply) to lighttechyah:
[ QUOTE ]
Use the market, then.
I play it for about 25-30 minutes a day, tops. and I have almost an entire purple set bought now. plus 70 mil stil I'm using to start building my fortunes again.
Not that I think you'll listen, as you're probably one of those types who wants "everything right nao because I need it".
[/ QUOTE ]
But then you went and said something lacking unnecessary exaggeration and/or some immature 'meme-spelling' like "NAO", and down-right impress me with the quite reasonable and fair...
[ QUOTE ]
"deserve the good stuff for less effort!"
[/ QUOTE ]
Now see how easy that was, it couldn't have been too difficult. Thank you!
(Even though said hyperbole - wasn't directed at me this time.) 
In all seriousness, sometimes it is the little things that make a difference...
As a side note: There are some things that (IMO) could stand to be obtainable with just a little bit less effort.
Example: = Need Clouded Senses Redside
Same thing with Shield Breaker, and Basilisk's Gaze "Gold Roll - Pool C/D" recipes.
I managed to get a couple of some of these (to slot & use) putting in fairly low bids on a variety of alts - that I knew I would want them for... right after I14 came out.
Meanwhile it seemed as if most people were going 'ballztothewallz' crazy - getting as many AE tickets (and/or badges) as possible "while the getting was good"...
Now on the toons I have, that didn't manage to snag any of these at a steal... Even if they DO have the Inf to buy one at a price close to the "last 5 price" (if there are even 5 sales in the history) it would likely bankrupt them... or very close to it.
Feels like people that realize these are worth something are crafting every one of these they get there hands on (that they aren't using) and throwing the crafted IO's up listed at "it's the only one for sale prices" - so they are (in my experience) listed well above the sorta price an average toon/alt can really afford to spend on one IO - unless that one IO is (practically) ALL they buy before they're darn near out of the 10-30 level range...
Even if those toons/alts are using the market. (Sorry, I fell like I gotta be sure to say that) and "head off at the pass" - anyone that might think I'm not "using the market" with said toons... *sigh*
I suppose some people might have unknowingly vendor'ed some of these in their rush to empty out their inventory & go roll for more recipes with their piles of tickets?
I've also wondered about how the "Accurate ___" recipes are weighted, Redside there's lots of fairly common or very common Powersets that could potentially use them. 
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Arcanaville
City of Heroes didn't fail, City of Heroes was killed. If a 747 dropped on your house, you'd say you were killed, not you failed to find a safer dwelling.
|
[ QUOTE ]
Hmm. Try "They system we have now does what it was designed to do quite well if you play the market And the only rationale that I can see driving this call..."
[/ QUOTE ]
The market is integral to the IO system. If they wanted people to be able to get everything they wanted as drops, they'd have come up with a radically different system. If they wanted people to get 'the good stuff' with minimal effort, they'd have come up with a radically different system.
But they came up with a market system.
Certain obvious conclusions follow that basic fact.
[ QUOTE ]
Make sure to account for both personal bias and personal blind spots there. Motivations, especially ones from an anonymous poster somewhere on the internet, aren't always easy to guess, no matter how much you may WANT them to be simple and easy to understand and dismiss.
[/ QUOTE ]
things are what they are.
pointless entitlement whines have been part and parcel of this forum since day one, and are as easy to identify as they are to dismiss.
But hey, keep crying.
You never know what backward idea the devs will adopt next!
The Nethergoat Archive: all my memories, all my characters, all my thoughts on CoH...eventually.
My City Was Gone
"Entitlement whines" such as claiming that one specific playstyle SHOULD and OUGHT to have far better rewards than any other, even to the point of claiming that anything that takes away from that one preferred playstyle is a "backwards idea" by the developers? It has always seemed to me that the first people to start saying "entitlement" like it's an actual argument are the biggest hypocrites in defending the sense that their own preferred playstyle should be inherently more rewarding than any other.
119088 - Outcasts Overcharged. Heroic.
[ QUOTE ]
"Entitlement whines" such as claiming that one specific playstyle SHOULD and OUGHT to have far better rewards than any other, even to the point of claiming that anything that takes away from that one preferred playstyle is a "backwards idea" by the developers?
[/ QUOTE ]
That looks like it's supposed to be a real zinger, but it doesn't make any sense to me.
Better luck next time.
[ QUOTE ]
It has always seemed to me that the first people to start saying "entitlement" like it's an actual argument are the biggest hypocrites in defending the sense that their own preferred playstyle should be inherently more rewarding than any other.
[/ QUOTE ]
I'm not defending anything in particular in this thread, other than dealing with reality instead of a Utopian fantasy of how you'd like things to work.
Use the knowledge of this forum to make a truckload of inf with one hand, write the the devs to beg for higher drop rates with the other and see which strategy gets your warshade purpled first.
The Nethergoat Archive: all my memories, all my characters, all my thoughts on CoH...eventually.
My City Was Gone
The real problem is that you posted an "X...who's with me?" type post and don't seem to be able to accept that perhaps not a lot of people are with you.
They are going to be less with you in the Market forum, since folks that hang out in Market tend to observe how the system works, and then take advantage of it. When it changes again (which it has several times now), they will observe and adjust.
Ask around, and a lot of folks may have a favorite wanted change. But they don't necessarily want YOUR change. And it's hardly one type of play style that can take a lot of advantage of the status quo.
President of the Arbiter Sands fan club. We will never forget.
An Etruscan Snood will nevermore be free
I don't consider myself a marketeer, I have never kept records, or plotted prices of an item over time, generated trending data, etc (Ok, there was that one time I bought a whole lot of luck charms does that count?)
However I do play the game, use what I can sell the rest. and in my time I have ""purpled out" a total of 5 toons (first 2 then I "quit" and gave away all my stuff came back and had my main re-purpled in less than 2 months.) and my main is about to hit 1 billion on hand for the first time ever, mostly because I don't think there is anything left to slot.
You don't have to use their play style I am proof of that (but I bet it is faster). I have made billions, 3/4s of it in the market just dumping crap I collect.
the sense of entitlement I think grows proportionally to the age of the game. Look at travel in this game, it when from having to re board the tram to get to the right zone, to now getting full on travel powers at level 6. as I see it purpleing out your warshade is no different
as I said in another thread the game is real easy, not getting what you want? kill things faster.
Card Carrying DeFulmenstrator--Member Crazy 88s
We burn more Influence before 8am than you make all day.
[ QUOTE ]
I "quit" and gave away all my stuff came back and had my main re-purpled in less than 2 months.) and my main is about to hit 1 billion on hand for the first time ever, mostly because I don't think there is anything left to slot.
[/ QUOTE ]
Now this I never got (ditching stuff when you quit). When new PvP was rolled out, however, I did get to read some impassioned cases as to why people did it.
As you point out, though, it's easy enough to get it all back, but sheesh.
President of the Arbiter Sands fan club. We will never forget.
An Etruscan Snood will nevermore be free
Nothing's wrong with the market that a viable alternative source of IOs wouldn't solve. (And no, Merits are not a viable alternative source. Not at current Merit pricing.)
The best comics are still 10�!
My City of Heroes Blog Freedom Feature Article: "Going Rageless?"
If you only read one guide this year, make it this one.
Super Reflexes: the Golden Fox of power sets!
WARNING: I bold names.
Never expected a lot of support. What I expected, and mostly got, were people with a reason to dislike this. Even some feedback into improving the idea (such as making sure that a teammate can't contribute to any bonus unless they are eligible to actually get drops.)
I do get a bit snarky when the word "entitlement" comes up, because it seems anymore to be an unthinking reflex to anything that isn't "play the market, profit, buy what you want." Honestly, for Goat, I DID read your guides, and have made a lot more INF than I thought possible over the last few months following the advice in them.
I still don't think the system is flawless, though. I think that it can be improved. I believe, and this is one of the things that nobody here will agree with, that there should be multiple avenues to achieving IO's, which are really the end-game content right now. I also believe that those avenues should have rough parity: no one way is so much better than all the others that the others might as well not exist. Merits were a good idea, but the time investment in them is high. Adding Pool C drops to bosses is a good idea, and for someone soloing, I think the drop rate for them is just about right. Tickets give a random roll relatively cheap, time-wise: it lacks a systematic way to achieve any specific recipe, but adds a lot of random stuff to the game, which the market can pick up and run with. What it lacks, it makes up for in speed and surplus recipes.
Notice, each of those has made it EASIER for players to get rewards. Since the market was introduced, reward systems that bypass the market have been put in place specifically to make some things easier to get.
The proposed change would benefit teaming, rather than soloing. One thing that I've been thinking today is that, of the hero-side TFs, Statesman, Lady Grey, Khan, and Imperious can drop purples. None of the others. Villain-side, it's Recluse, Lady Grey, Barracuda, and Imperious. Of course, villains doesn't have anything like Positron with huge merit rewards to encourage low-level play. I'd imagine that Imperious, Khan, and Barracuda would be the most popular level 50 play, but those are already subject to diminishing returns. [edit- that discourage repeated running of the same content.] AE doesn't have a chance of dropping purples at all, so teaming there wouldn't have any effect on the distribution. The overall drop rate for purples would simply not go up much, across the entire game. Now the overall salvage rates would, and pool A recipes might once again become fairly common.
Overall, it would increase supply of everything. I mostly play red-side, where it isn't uncommon to see none for sale at any price on a lot of things. Blue-side, pool A recipes are generally plentiful already, and salvage is slowing down but still higher than it was before MA.
I think the the developers moves towards alternate avenues of reaching IO's, combined with the possibility of increasing supply on the red-side and the low impact it would ACTUALLY have on the drop rate of purples game-wide, made this a possibility. Thanks to everyone who posted with feedback, even and especially the negative that made me rethink a few of my original ideas.
119088 - Outcasts Overcharged. Heroic.
[ QUOTE ]
Now this I never got (ditching stuff when you quit). When new PvP was rolled out, however, I did get to read some impassioned cases as to why people did it.
As you point out, though, it's easy enough to get it all back, but sheesh.
[/ QUOTE ]
I quit, was never coming back (or so I thought) so what was the point of efectivly deleting all that stuff, so I gave it away, I guess it is just as hard for me to understand not giving it all away...
Card Carrying DeFulmenstrator--Member Crazy 88s
We burn more Influence before 8am than you make all day.
I think it's flawed. Come on, out of all the recipes to drop, why do i get the same ones all the time? lol. To look for a recipe and see hundreds bidding and like 3 available, what's the reasoning of such low numbers behind that? Or, 0 available. I think it's rather dumb myself. (not, just purples but alot of diff kinds)
[ QUOTE ]
The proposed change would benefit teaming, rather than soloing. One thing that I've been thinking today is that, of the hero-side TFs, Statesman, Lady Grey, Khan, and Imperious can drop purples. None of the others. Villain-side, it's Recluse, Lady Grey, Barracuda, and Imperious.
[/ QUOTE ]
You missed Faathim, Augustine and Sara Moore.
Plus the top level respec each side
@Catwhoorg "Rule of Three - Finale" Arc# 1984
@Mr Falkland Islands"A Nation Goes Rogue" Arc# 2369 "Toasters and Pop Tarts" Arc#116617
[ QUOTE ]
I think it's flawed. Come on, out of all the recipes to drop, why do i get the same ones all the time? lol. To look for a recipe and see hundreds bidding and like 3 available, what's the reasoning of such low numbers behind that? Or, 0 available. I think it's rather dumb myself. (not, just purples but alot of diff kinds)
[/ QUOTE ]
The hundreds of bids are people looking to take advantage of someone who has mispriced an item.
[ QUOTE ]
I still don't think the system is flawless, though. I think that it can be improved. I believe, and this is one of the things that nobody here will agree with, that there should be multiple avenues to achieving IO's, which are really the end-game content right now. I also believe that those avenues should have rough parity: no one way is so much better than all the others that the others might as well not exist.
[/ QUOTE ]
As long as a player-managed market is one of those ways, it will always be the most efficient way.
That's the whole point of markets. It's why they spring up in the real world, where we don't need devs to institute them.
The only way to break our game market down so that it's not the most efficient way comes down to two rather extreme scenarios.
1) Change the alternative mechanisms such that they are so easy to use that there is no added value in trading goods on a market. For example, remove random drops and change everything to a store.
2) Introduce such gross inefficiencies in the market that you dissuade people from using it. For example, extreme fees, limits on how many items you can market per time, or price caps. Note that these inefficiencies do not prevent trade, they simply dissuade the use of the market channel for that trade. Such systems create actual "black markets", though they would not be as effective since they would not likely be cross-server.
Merits are the closest thing we've gotten to option (1), because they add a high degree of determinism to purchasing specific goods. As noted, merits are a comparatively time-inefficient way to directly outfit a character. I interpret this as intentional. Though it's been argued that the introduction of merits had a deleterious effect on the game's markets, I believe their slow rate of progress is intended to ensure that random drops (and thus the markets) are not completely swamped by their use. If true, that means the devs essentially want us to prefer the market as a means to obtain rare goods. That makes a certain sense, seeing has how the market was introduced simultaneously with IOs.
Blue
American Steele: 50 BS/Inv
Nightfall: 50 DDD
Sable Slayer: 50 DM/Rgn
Fortune's Shadow: 50 Dark/Psi
WinterStrike: 47 Ice/Dev
Quantum Well: 43 Inv/EM
Twilit Destiny: 43 MA/DA
Red
Shadowslip: 50 DDC
Final Rest: 50 MA/Rgn
Abyssal Frost: 50 Ice/Dark
Golden Ember: 50 SM/FA
Of course a market system is going to be more efficient. If it isn't the most efficient way to do things, then it becomes completely pointless. But currently, it's not just the most efficient, it's several ties more efficient. Which is why I mentioned a "rough parity." The market should be better, but there are changes that would bring other reward systems a bit closer without making the market redundant. For example, if IOs were put into a store, but priced at, say 25, 50, and 100 million for uncommon/rare/ultra rare, that would still leave the market with a lot of room to play, but would also set effective price caps: nobody would buy it on the market when the store was cheaper (OK... yes, SOMEONE would.)
There is a middle ground between "the market is several times more efficient in generating rewards than any other use of time." and "The market is useless, the other ways are better." There's a LOT of middle ground to play in there, with the optimal result being "The market is better and faster, but you can get there nearly as efficiently using these other systems."
119088 - Outcasts Overcharged. Heroic.
I think the devs probably have given us the store you mention in the form of merits. It's true it's not an inf-based store, but honestly, I think that's probably intentional. They created a system that gives people incentive to run their primary content. Basing the store in inf is an incentive to just grind out a ton of cash, which you can do while wholly ignoring their content.
We may not all like it, but it makes an awful lot of sense from a dev perspective.
The main things we see missing from the merit "store" are purples and things like Hamidon and other special enhancers. (Sadly, I consider the non-HO specials basically worthless because they are not available at level 50 and they "expire".)
Blue
American Steele: 50 BS/Inv
Nightfall: 50 DDD
Sable Slayer: 50 DM/Rgn
Fortune's Shadow: 50 Dark/Psi
WinterStrike: 47 Ice/Dev
Quantum Well: 43 Inv/EM
Twilit Destiny: 43 MA/DA
Red
Shadowslip: 50 DDC
Final Rest: 50 MA/Rgn
Abyssal Frost: 50 Ice/Dark
Golden Ember: 50 SM/FA
honestly, part of the efficiency of a market is also based on the idea that it becomes more efficient as more people participate. Making things easier to get in alternative ways means less people will play the market, which in turn makes it less efficient. Very small changes to other reward systems could easily snowball through negative feedback and the nature of markets. Probably why the devs decided to make merits so inefficient to begin with: the market works best when the market works best. This is why I suggested such a minor change to drop rates: the XP scaling system for teams increases XP gained by 2.5x for 8 people. It looks big, but like I posted earlier, it would still work out to less that one half of one percent chance for purples. And those drops are split among 8 people.
119088 - Outcasts Overcharged. Heroic.
[ QUOTE ]
"Entitlement whines" such as claiming that one specific playstyle SHOULD and OUGHT to have far better rewards than any other, even to the point of claiming that anything that takes away from that one preferred playstyle is a "backwards idea" by the developers? It has always seemed to me that the first people to start saying "entitlement" like it's an actual argument are the biggest hypocrites in defending the sense that their own preferred playstyle should be inherently more rewarding than any other.
[/ QUOTE ]
Actually, entitlement means that you believe yourself deserving of something you did not earn or work for, usually.
Want comedy and lighthearted action? Between levels 1-14? Try Nuclear in 90 - The Fusionette Task Force!
Arc ID 58363!
[ QUOTE ]
Merits are the closest thing we've gotten to option (1), because they add a high degree of determinism to purchasing specific goods. As noted, merits are a comparatively time-inefficient way to directly outfit a character. I interpret this as intentional. Though it's been argued that the introduction of merits had a deleterious effect on the game's markets, I believe their slow rate of progress is intended to ensure that random drops (and thus the markets) are not completely swamped by their use. If true, that means the devs essentially want us to prefer the market as a means to obtain rare goods. That makes a certain sense, seeing has how the market was introduced simultaneously with IOs.
[/ QUOTE ]
This is what I meant by the system they chose leading to certain obvious conclusions.
They wanted a market because it's a ready-made time tested minigame. Any market adjuncts (say, merits) will be set up so they'll only undermine the appeal and utility of the market in service of some other gameplay timesink ('grinding merits' in this case).
MOAR DROPS is an entitlement whine because all it does is increase rewards for something people will do anyway (team so they can steamroll stuff).
The Nethergoat Archive: all my memories, all my characters, all my thoughts on CoH...eventually.
My City Was Gone
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
So back before IO's - did you tell people they were only entitled to TO's?
[/ QUOTE ]
A telling statement.
The only thing players are entitled to is access to the game world. What they choose to accomplish there is entirely up to them.
[/ QUOTE ]
Madness!
My $15/month entitles me to login to a purple warshade!
[/ QUOTE ]
GAR I WISH MY $15 ENTITLED ME TO FORUM ACCESS!