Global Unlocks for Costume Pieces, Weapons, and Shields
By
Angelxman81,
Posted on: 2010-04-22 10:58 in Suggestions and Ideas
Costume bits are things that are important to character concept. As others have stated, in a game in which making a character who's appearance fits your concept is a key point, these pieces shouldn't require that particular character to do some arbitrary in-game task in order to unlock them.
Making the player do the task in order to earn the reward is entirely reasonable, but forcing all characters to wait until high levels to earn key parts of their costume concept is terrible, terrible mechanics.
At minimum, a way should be added in which one character can send a costume unlock to another character. Even if it means they'd have to re-earn the unlock, at the very least they'd be able to do it, then send it to the new character and that character wouldn't be forced to play for many levels with a costume that doesn't fully fit the concept.
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Well, that could work with either of the two suggestions I made. Either you could earn a costume TOKEN from the ITF that you can then trade to an alt (but not another player) or you can do the ITF 10 (or 100) times on any combination of characters, earning you the pieces at character creation. The former would be (relatively) easy, but would be worth for a one-time only use. The latter would be permanent, but would be much harder and longer to achieve.
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Originally Posted by BrandX
The problem with vanguard and roman items, is they're level locked for lvl 35+ (thus to the poster who replied to be, why I don't make a new toon, and go to Oro...I can't...no earning of vangaurd merits untill lvl 35 when you complete the RWZ starting contact).
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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 wouldn't mind, if the weapon unlocks were for, y'know, Minions? The Council rifles are the ONLY one which unlocks in a sensible way; defeat 100 Council. You unlock it by accident, for pete sakes.
Unveiler...dont get me STARTED on that damn badge, especially redside! I had a friend be very kind and get the Nemesis invasion mission, and farm the 10 Bosses in it 10 times, just to get me the rifle, for which I still feel I owe him. It was a grind, and it was not fun. That is NOT how unlocks should work. Defeat 100 Nemesis Troopers? Works great! Defeat 100 Carnies, or if needs be 100 Strongmen for the hammer? Great! It makes sense and its not a chore to achieve.
Either bring the unlocks down to a reasonable level, or do the best thing and make them global.
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Originally Posted by Zwillinger
GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.
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Originally Posted by Captain_Photon
NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.
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I agree with having the unlocks global.
Granted, my Crab will still never get a Tommy Gun because for some reason a VEAT, even a Destined One can't loot. 
Glad to see some positive support for this idea.
I bring this up because I've seen quite a few people who play (or want to play) a character based on a villain group or Vanguard, but had to (or don't want to) slog through several levels with an incomplete character until they got the required costume pieces. I'm in this boat myself with my Nemesis Automaton character. He looks silly running around with the Merc Assault rifle, but if costume unlocks were global (or I could trade unlocks between characters, that's a good idea too) he'd already have his Nemesis Rifle since my badger, a Katana/SR Scrapper, alreay has Unveiler.
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Very much agreed. I know I've asked for a traditional witch hat a few times so that Katie Hanon wasn't the only way to get one.|
Originally Posted by Basilisk
I wouldn't care so much about these unlocks if there were something similar in game to replace it with at character creation. For instance, a basic roman armour set available to everyone at character creation, and the ITF unlocks a "deluxe" version. This way, at least, you're not gating character concepts behind tasks that may well come in at the very end of a character's 1-50 journey.
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Originally Posted by Memphis_Bill
I'm not really a fan, in most instances, of global unlocks for armor. But the token idea, I'm actually fine with. Sure, SuperPerson has paid their dues and gotten that roman armor - but they're handing it down to someone else who can actually use it. (And with the upcoming email changes, they don't have to be on the same server if it's an in-game token as opposed to an Icon/Character creation "you have X characters worth of armor you can use.")
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An alternative would be to create a costume unlock bank on the character creation screen where you can pick any unlock tokens that are currently up for grabs on your account and instantly apply them to the character. But obviously this requires the most work out of any of the three options.
(Also, since they came up, I'm obligated to say: Rar, rar, Vanguard Merits, etc.)
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Due to the Halloween event this is relevant again (Or more relevant in the short term) due to the Pumpkinhead. As soon as I saw that I thought "Oh, that would make a good starting point for a character... oh wait."
it may be relevant, but resurecting the dead is not. you should have started another thread with a link to this one.
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Originally Posted by Setsuna
Due to the Halloween event this is relevant again (Or more relevant in the short term) due to the Pumpkinhead. As soon as I saw that I thought "Oh, that would make a good starting point for a character... oh wait."
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Holy necro-thread batman!
And I have a lvl 2 with the Pumpkinhead piece. It just takes one good zombie raid to unlock.
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>implying people do the zombie apocalypse events during off season.
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Originally Posted by Lord_Apollon
Holy necro-thread batman!
And I have a lvl 2 with the Pumpkinhead piece. It just takes one good zombie raid to unlock. |
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Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
City of Heroes is a game about freedom of expression and variety of experiences far more so than it is about representing any one theme, topic or genre.
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Or, go to the Shadow Shard at lvl 1 (or 2) and have a 50 friend kill Overseers for you.
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Originally Posted by Stone Daemon
The only costume pieces I can think of that are worth getting, you have to do a TF or get enough merits--It would considerably cheapen the rewards if you could do it once and be good to go for the rest of your characters. Even if you have a character concept in mind, you shoud have to work to the reward. Basic carrot and stick situation.
Now WEAPON unlocks, on the other hand... Those are just annoying. Every time I want a rularuu weapon on a character, I have to wait until 45+ and head down to the SS for a couple hours of hunting. No thanks >_> |
BrandX Future Staff Fighter
The BrandX Collection
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I agree with this fully, still.
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Originally Posted by Techbot Alpha
Yeah, and some of that leg work is really ****ing horrible.
Sorry, but there is a reason that these threads keep coming up. Why should a character have to go through 6 long and in some cases really boring TFs just to get Epaulets without stupid great spikes on? Which really shouldnt be Hero exclusive as it is? And as for the Nemesis Rifle...don't get me started on that thing Redside. Same as the Tommy Gun. If they were made global unlocks, so what? You'd still have done the leg work. It doesnt detract from that effort made to unlock it. As someone who has got two full VG costumes and the Nemesis rifle, I wholly /Sign this, to get rid of grinding 'un-fun' that really shouldn't be here in the first place. |
As I've said several times in the past, if they want to have fancy costume sets given out as a reward for TF's then at least give us a plain, generic version we can use when we create a character. It won't detract from the reward because people will still want to get the fancy one because it looks so much better.
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Works for heroes, but not for villains. A t the minimum a villain has to wait for 20 before they can get the Rularuu stuff.|
Originally Posted by BrandX
Or, go to the Shadow Shard at lvl 1 (or 2) and have a 50 friend kill Overseers for you.
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By the by: I totally agree with the OP. Merit rewards, recipes, XP, and fun teamming with your friends against a difficult challenge should be enough reward for the ITF and such. Meanwhile hunting specific enemies is a chore, not a fun time.
Cryptic isn't running the show, and the days of fed-ex missions and long travel times for the sole purpose of siphoning cash from player pockets is passed. Let us unlock costume pieces globally.
And no. I don't care that my level 1 character hasn't "Earned" the Rularuu weapon. They won't be using it -as- a Rularuu weapon. They'll be using it as their own personal weapon for (insert reason here). I also don't care that my level 1 Noir detective girl has a tommygun from level 1 even though she won't start fighting the family 'til level 15-20ish. Nor do I care that my Steampunk Engineer character is using a Nemesis rifle from level 1 without having capped her XP and stood around while level 50s beat on Nemesis robots.
I think it's absurd that we're still locked into the mindset of letting character concept fall behind the importance of repeating the chore.
-Rachel-
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To be replaced with these current days of siphoning cash from our pockets directly by having us pay for our costumes. And you know what? I LOVE THAT! I would gladly pay through the nose if I could get that new and awesome costume piece at creation instead of at level 35 locked behind a TF and a defeat badge of things that don't even spawn anywhere.
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Originally Posted by Steampunkette
Cryptic isn't running the show, and the days of fed-ex missions and long travel times for the sole purpose of siphoning cash from player pockets is passed. Let us unlock costume pieces globally.
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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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As I said in the other thread, I'm opposed to global unlocks of anything that's story-driven. The Vanguard pieces are a good example, as are the Cimerora costume parts. That said, I am amenable to the Devs adding "lesser" or "plain" versions of such pieces like the Roman outfits available at character creation so people can make their themed characters, yet still give them some cool to work for later in the game.
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Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
To be replaced with these current days of siphoning cash from our pockets directly by having us pay for our costumes. And you know what? I LOVE THAT! I would gladly pay through the nose if I could get that new and awesome costume piece at creation instead of at level 35 locked behind a TF and a defeat badge of things that don't even spawn anywhere.
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I just ignore everything that unlocks with the exception of the Talsorian Katana that I ground out on my kat/regen.
Sometimes I get this or that on a random character, but I don't put any energy into it.
If junk unlocked globally I'd probably pay more attention to earning it.
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I still agree with you, good sir!
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Originally Posted by BBQ_Pork
I agree with having the unlocks global.
Granted, my Crab will still never get a Tommy Gun because for some reason a VEAT, even a Destined One can't loot. |
Forgive me for the quick reply on this but (and I don't know if this has been suggested yet) what about a compromise?
Have the unlockable items be able to be bought via merits ( say 10 A-merits or 600 reward merits) for the entire account, but only if it has been checked that you have done the unlock for say.. 3 characters. Maybe even just one.
I'm not sure if the system is able to do that but seems fair enough to give things that most players would have to work for at a price, but enough of a price that some may just want to run the actual content.
This thread doesn't jump the gun - it digs up the ore that will be refined to eventually forge the gun that would have been jumped. -Obsidius
I am a Dominator,
And I am a Jerk 4 life.
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...a little extreme, don't you think? |
Originally Posted by Space_Ace
Forgive me for the quick reply on this but (and I don't know if this has been suggested yet) what about a compromise?
Have the unlockable items be able to be bought via merits ( say 10 A-merits or 600 reward merits) for the entire account, but only if it has been checked that you have done the unlock for say.. 3 characters. Maybe even just one. I'm not sure if the system is able to do that but seems fair enough to give things that most players would have to work for at a price, but enough of a price that some may just want to run the actual content. |
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If it was left to the strictly TF/story arc driven pieces, I migth be able to get behind this.|
Originally Posted by Setsuna
...a little extreme, don't you think?
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I know I hated waiting till level 35 for the Vanguard Shield. :/
BrandX Future Staff Fighter
The BrandX Collection
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But what if my character concept is a Vanguard soldier? Even ignoring the armor, just the lack of the Redding Rail Rifle would seriously spoil my interest in playing such a character to 35, and then be forced to grind out Vanguard merits.
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Originally Posted by Ironik
As I said in the other thread, I'm opposed to global unlocks of anything that's story-driven. The Vanguard pieces are a good example, as are the Cimerora costume parts. That said, I am amenable to the Devs adding "lesser" or "plain" versions of such pieces like the Roman outfits available at character creation so people can make their themed characters, yet still give them some cool to work for later in the game.
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But how can you be a Vanguard Soldier if you don't meet the minimum requirements of being a Vanguard Soldier? They don't have the budget they need to give a full set of armour and a weapon to everyone who comes up to them and says "I'd like to be a Vanguard soldier."|
Originally Posted by IanTheM1
But what if my character concept is a Vanguard soldier? Even ignoring the armor, just the lack of the Redding Rail Rifle would seriously spoil my interest in playing such a character to 35, and then be forced to grind out Vanguard merits.
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Your character concept would make more sense as a person in training to become a Vanguard Soldier. Something along the lines of "Susan has had enough of the damn Rikti raids, so with her assault rifle, she's going to defend the integrity of the dimensional boundaries." When her "training" is complete, she'll have a full uniform and she'll have earned the Rail Rifle she so deserves.
However, that back story still works if it's a global unlock that you first get access to at level 35.
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Then what about my temporally displaced Roman soldier? He was sucked into a time portal unexpectedly and ended up in Modern day during a battle? How do you justify him being without his armor? Do you think I should say he was stripped nakec by the time vortex?|
Originally Posted by MajorDecoy
But how can you be a Vanguard Soldier if you don't meet the minimum requirements of being a Vanguard Soldier? They don't have the budget they need to give a full set of armour and a weapon to everyone who comes up to them and says "I'd like to be a Vanguard soldier."
Your character concept would make more sense as a person in training to become a Vanguard Soldier. Something along the lines of "Susan has had enough of the damn Rikti raids, so with her assault rifle, she's going to defend the integrity of the dimensional boundaries." When her "training" is complete, she'll have a full uniform and she'll have earned the Rail Rifle she so deserves. However, that back story still works if it's a global unlock that you first get access to at level 35. |
ARE YOU IMPLYING THE TIME PORTAL WAS SOME KIND OF STRIPPING MOLESTER OF STRAPPING, YOUNG, ROMAN MEN?!
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Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
City of Heroes is a game about freedom of expression and variety of experiences far more so than it is about representing any one theme, topic or genre.
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Farewell is like the end
But in my heart's the memory
And there you'll always be
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