My Scrapper with the complete outfit took around 5 months to get the whole set, and I ran A LOT of Vanguard timed missions.
To be fair, she was almost never alone on those runs. (I found out later you get far more merits solo than you do when teaming.)
I was only able to run one Mothership Raid, and I did the Lady Grey TF with her.
On one hand, I kind of like the effort it took and I think I appreciate the outfit more because of that. On the other hand, thematically, it seems to me that it'd make more sense that you get awarded the Vanguard Outfit if you complete the entire Lady Grey TF. (How much more can you do for Vanguard than that?)
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I maintain the stance I've always maintained - Vanguard costume unlocks are far too expensive for something that doesn't unlock globally. I'm never even going to SEE the complete costume set on any one character of mine, let alone have it on multiple, until the costume unlocks are either made global or their cost is drastically reduced.
As a matter of fact, I find it to be an enormous error of judgement to lump cosmetic costumes in the same resource pool as practical benefits, because it gives birth to exactly these problems.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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The only thing I've ever gotten from Vanguard is the +salvage.
Only done that twice.
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Originally Posted by Jetpack
The only thing I've ever gotten from Vanguard is the +salvage.
Only done that twice. |
Same here. The gear does nothing for me.
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It does nothing for anyone, partly because it does nothing in general. Which is why it perplexes me why it's so difficult to obtain, specifically when equally iconic things like Romulus' shield and sword and the whole Roman army's uniform are available for the cost of a TF.|
Originally Posted by Gaming_Glen
Same here. The gear does nothing for me.
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Mind you, I'm not a fan of locking things behind TFs, but locking them behind insurmountable cost is actually WORSE.
You know, I'd sooner see new costumes introduced through paid-for Booster packs than locked behind something amazingly stupid like this, and that's saying something coming from someone as stingy as I am.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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I'd be happier with it, if they made the first arc (to become a member of vanguard) unlockable at lvl 1.|
Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
It does nothing for anyone, partly because it does nothing in general. Which is why it perplexes me why it's so difficult to obtain, specifically when equally iconic things like Romulus' shield and sword and the whole Roman army's uniform are available for the cost of a TF.
Mind you, I'm not a fan of locking things behind TFs, but locking them behind insurmountable cost is actually WORSE. You know, I'd sooner see new costumes introduced through paid-for Booster packs than locked behind something amazingly stupid like this, and that's saying something coming from someone as stingy as I am. |
That way lvl 1's COULD get merits.
I'd make another shielder if I could unlock the Vanguard Shield earlier.
All they have to do, is allow that first arc to be lvl 1 (or 2). The player would still have to drop the hunt mission or have someone help them hunt to finish the arc. And I'd be okay with them saying that the hunt mission can't be dropped.
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My current main is a full natural and she started crime fighting specifically so that she could gain enough rep to join Vanguard and start slotting up Rikti, so naturally, she's quite fond of Vanguard.
She uses the Vanguard costume change emote for quick changes. "A Vanguard mage taught me the spell. Comes in useful when there's a raid, or just for showing off."
I don't use the full Vanguard costume kit, though I think she actually has access to most of it. Definitely uses one of the arm-guard sets and the helmet. She did use the chest plate for a while, but I think I went back to a different one which looked better. The complete Vanguard kit is a little too clunky for her fighting style.
Disclaimer: The above may be humerous, or at least may be an attempt at humour. Try reading it that way.
Posts are OOC unless noted to be IC, or in an IC thread.
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If you really feel having choices is that bad, I'd say you're playing the wrong game.
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Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
As a matter of fact, I find it to be an enormous error of judgement to lump cosmetic costumes in the same resource pool as practical benefits, because it gives birth to exactly these problems.
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"Null is as much an argument "for removing the cottage rule" as the moon being round is for buying tennis shoes." -Memphis Bill
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I put essentially no effort into gaining the Vanguard tokens I've used to get all the costume pieces I wanted. I levelled a fair bit from 35 to 50 in the War Zone, because the payback was excellent. On top of that, the average Rikti Raid at Galaxy Girl nets a fair few tokens as well. I recently discovered there were 'Vanguard katanas' available for DB, wandered over and discovered I could pay for them without flinching, and I barely play that character anymore and haven't played at all for several months.|
Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
Mind you, I'm not a fan of locking things behind TFs, but locking them behind insurmountable cost is actually WORSE.
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Now, I primarily solo. The roman kit which is 'locked away behind a TF' is essentailly barred to me completely. The Vanguard kit was easy. I'd much prefer it if I could get the roman gear for the very moderate cost in time that the Vanguard gear is available for.
Disclaimer: The above may be humerous, or at least may be an attempt at humour. Try reading it that way.
Posts are OOC unless noted to be IC, or in an IC thread.
Its been a pain for my broadsword stalker get only the weapon...
I also want the chest piece and the belt, but the drop rate is to damn low and im getting sick of Riktis...
The contats should give a large amount of vanguard merits along with the large xp reward for finishing an arc.
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I don't mind having options, but I do mind lumping in cosmetics into the same vendor pool as functional items. You end up with ridiculous situations like a pair of pants costing almost as much as a giant robot. Vanguard temporary powers and other functional purchases are, indeed, very powerful and they SHOULD be expensive (other than the Curse of Weariness cure, which should die in a fire for even being needed). But the costume pieces really shouldn't be considered as high-price items along the same lines. All this does is make them artificially too expensive.
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Originally Posted by Lemur Lad
If you really feel having choices is that bad, I'd say you're playing the wrong game.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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Mind you, I'm not saying that "locked behind a TF" is a good solution, only that it's better than "locked behind months of work." And even then, the things that are locked behind a TF are actually locked behind a highly popular one. Suppose, for instance, that Tech Bot armour were locked behind the Bastion TF. How likely is that to "just happen?"|
Originally Posted by Ravenswing
Now, I primarily solo. The roman kit which is 'locked away behind a TF' is essentailly barred to me completely. The Vanguard kit was easy. I'd much prefer it if I could get the roman gear for the very moderate cost in time that the Vanguard gear is available for.
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The problem with Vanguard merits is that they basically require you to either fight nothing but Rikti, or take part in the kind of events that grind my computer to a halt. Seriously. This isn't even a question of "don't want to." It's excruciating to see your game chug down to the speed of your average PowerPoint presentation. Just doing the War Zone Arcs and then Angus McQueen's missions in their entirety will still barely earn you enough for a pair of pants.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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On one Numina TF where we didn't have a tank, I used a Vanguard HVAS as our tank when we went up against Jurassik; letting him focus on the HVAS allowed our team to avoid dealing directly with his damage output while taking him down; it was much easier to keep the HVAS standing while we beat him into submission. Casually dismissing the temp powers is a mistake.
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Originally Posted by Ice_Wall
All vanguard merits get you are costume pieces, extra salvage slots and some temp powers. You can't trade them and they become worthless after you've gotten everything you want. So what's the harm in upping the drop rate?
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"But in our enthusiasm, we could not resist a radical overhaul of the system, in which all of its major weaknesses have been exposed, analyzed, and replaced with new weaknesses."
-- Bruce Leverett, Register Allocation in Optimizing Compilers
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They'd need to be on a team to SSK them up to where they could expect to be able to defeat Rikti; done on their own, it would be impossible, since Rikti don't spawn below level 30. The Lost and Rikti are, under the hood, the same group -- if you're below 30 with a mission against the Lost, and the mission spawns mobs at 30 or higher due to team size and/or difficulty, you'll get Rikti as the higher-level spawns. The same thing happens in reverse -- if you are at 30 or higher with a mission against the Rikti, and the mission spawns mobs below 30, you'll get Lost; I've seen it happen several times back when missions could be bugged to have severely backloaded or frontloaded level distributions, and the mobs at the start or end of a mission could be several levels lower than the mission level.
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Originally Posted by BrandX
I'd be happier with it, if they made the first arc (to become a member of vanguard) unlockable at lvl 1.
That way lvl 1's COULD get merits. I'd make another shielder if I could unlock the Vanguard Shield earlier. All they have to do, is allow that first arc to be lvl 1 (or 2). The player would still have to drop the hunt mission or have someone help them hunt to finish the arc. And I'd be okay with them saying that the hunt mission can't be dropped. |
"But in our enthusiasm, we could not resist a radical overhaul of the system, in which all of its major weaknesses have been exposed, analyzed, and replaced with new weaknesses."
-- Bruce Leverett, Register Allocation in Optimizing Compilers
There will always be a certain group of people that want unlockable content to be easier to unlock. Everything in the game is not supposed to be easy. If your computer is so slow that it is literally impossible for you to participate in a Raid, then I feel for you but I don't think they should be bending the rules of the game to fit people who are playing on computers too slow to even run the game. There's obviously going to be some lag if you've got a huge group doing a Raid and, yeah, that can be annoying but I don't see how anyone could find running a slightly lagged Raid as more boring than running dozens and dozens of missions just to get the same amount of Vanguard merits. You can get 350-400 Vanguard merits from one Raid. That will unlock a good portion of the uniform assuming you even want all of the uniform parts.
However, there are other ways to rack up Vanguard merits if that's all you're trying to do. Whenever you see a Rikti invasion in a zone, head over there and hop on a team. As long as they are green con, you are eligible for merits so run the endless timed missions in the RWZ on -1 X 8 with no bosses for huge spawns and you can rack up merits that way too. It's the same percentage chance of them dropping merits whether are green or purple. You can get around 10-15 Vanguard merits per timed mission that way.
I just started collecting Vanguard merits about 5 days ago for one of my toons and I've got the chest piece, the belt, the shoulders and the hips unlocked. That's 500 merits right there and I have another 115 merits banked. I'm ignoring the helmet and facepieces...just need another 185 merits to get the katana and boots and I'm set. In 5 days, I've done 1 Raid, 2 Rikti invasions, 3 RWZ story arcs and about 5 timed missions with the last couple set on -1 X 8 to boost the spawn size. That has netted me 615 Vanguard merits in 5 days. There is nothing about that which seems unreasonable to me.
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It's not about "easy" it's about "acceptable difficulty" or rather "acceptable tedium". I'm willing to work for the set, but neither of the current options is attractive, and it's pretty clear that grinding for them is meant to be that way, which is a poor design choice in what's supposed to be a casual-friendly game.|
Originally Posted by PBAtty
There will always be a certain group of people that want unlockable content to be easier to unlock. Everything in the game is not supposed to be easy.
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| If your computer is so slow that it is literally impossible for you to participate in a Raid, then I feel for you but I don't think they should be bending the rules of the game to fit people who are playing on computers too slow to even run the game. |
And what exactly are these "rules of the game"??
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| There's obviously going to be some lag if you've got a huge group doing a Raid and, yeah, that can be annoying but I don't see how anyone could find running a slightly lagged Raid as more boring than running dozens and dozens of missions just to get the same amount of Vanguard merits. |
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| However, there are other ways to rack up Vanguard merits if that's all you're trying to do. Whenever you see a Rikti invasion in a zone, head over there and hop on a team. |
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| As long as they are green con, you are eligible for merits so run the endless timed missions in the RWZ on -1 X 8 with no bosses for huge spawns and you can rack up merits that way too. It's the same percentage chance of them dropping merits whether are green or purple. You can get around 10-15 Vanguard merits per timed mission that way. |
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I think it's something of a shame that I have, on the one hand, several characters holding piles of Vanguard merits that they can't buy anything more with besides temp powers they don't need and won't use, and on the other hand there are so many folks out there who'd kill for those costume bits but I can't even *give* them away.
Then again, I don't much care for per-character conditional costume unlocks in any case.
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