Account Wide Badges: which would be good ones to convert?
By
Ad Astra,
Posted on: 2010-10-03 14:31 in Suggestions and Ideas
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And I'd be fine with that. |
Originally Posted by Forbin_Project
Using that logic then that Dual Pistols character of yours should only have earned 6 or 7 months of vet badges because that AT has barely been out for half a year.
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I really don't care about vet rewards in the slightest. I have to be reminded that I have the team TP power because I never claim them on my characters. If they suddenly took all of them away, I would be one of few people not screaming bloody murder about it.
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| Anniversary badges have no impact on game play |
I mean, if they have no effect on gameplay, does it really matter that a new character doesn't have them? Does your brand new character play differently than an old one because it lacks an anniversary badge?
Badges are basically just bits of fluff, put in the game for the sole purpose of getting obsessive-minded people to waste hundreds of hours while paying the company their hard earned money. Why else would the top level badges for damage, influence, debt, and healing have been set so ridiculously high? I would be willing to bet the devs never expected anyone to actually get one of them, let alone all of them.
And they keep putting more and more in, because they know that some players who are bored with the game will keep playing because they just have to have them ALL.
Sorry, I'm just not buying into the idea that my newly created characters are somehow less cool than my older ones because there's a couple badges they will never have.
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Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison See, it's gems like these that make me check Claws' post history every once in a while to make sure I haven't missed anything good lately. |
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Originally Posted by Reiyichi
I would like to see those side specific weapon customization options be available to both sides too, the Red cap daggers however I believe you could get as a villain if you did enough save the baby new year missions and killed all the redcaps in the mission each time. But the Rularuu weapons I wanted to see redside just because they look evil and would fit on many players concepts of their toons. I am afraid this is a mute point for the side specific costume options and the badges that unlock them now as toons can just switch sides to pick up the badges they need and then switch back or w/e.
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Ok. Let me get this right, then...
Villains can unlock a weapon if, and only if, they manage to do enough missions available during two (2) specific holiday events during the course of a whole year. In contrast to the fact that Heroes have a whole zone literally brimming with the evil little sods.
And, of course, it's all ok, because people can just side switch to get the stuff anyway.
Handily forgetting just what that entails. Let's have a look at all the crap that is currently Blueside locked/stupidly easier;
-Ten tip missions
-Morality Mission
-Hunting 333 Redcaps (Daggers)
-Freedom Phalanx TFs (Epaulets)
-Shadow Shard Hunting (Rularuu weapons, in contast to a grand total of two opportunities Villainside, and Naylors arc requires a crapton of prerequisites and planning to get them, or level 40 and Scirocco's patron arc)
-Fake Nem hunting in PI (Nem rifle, they spawn in sweet sod all missions redside)
-Paragon Protector hunting (Mastermind rifle, they spawn insanely rarely in the Fab in GV, at the lovely level 53)
Now, what was it I forgot...Oh, yes;
-Buying an expansion pack just to avoid utter ballache for getting the above!
That's excatly how much I hate some of the current unlocks. Side specific locks are [*WARNING! EXTREME PROFANITY!*]
So. Don't give me that guff. Just damn don't.
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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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Damn...you just reminded me how badly the Blueside Aura mission needs an overhaul, when the Destined schtick actually sounds better. (And is actually more fun to play, too...gorramn hunts...)
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Originally Posted by Nericus
Auras: Combat aura and now the Alpha and Omega auras are available at level 1. Since the L30 auras are meant to be a power boost of sorts for hero (an adrenal booster installed near your heart at the tailor shop) or proof of being a Destined One on redside, then they shouldn't be a global unlock.
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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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1. If you bothered to read the OP's post you'd know why this is being suggested.|
Originally Posted by ClawsandEffect
So why are you so desperate to have them on all your characters?
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2. Desperate? Another player posted this suggestion.
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Originally Posted by Starhammer
How about if we had Access to an "Ultimate Respec" at some point (Vet reward, High Level TF/Trial, Unlocked at hitting 50, purchase for a few Hero/Villain merits... or even as simple as it being an oiption during a "mundane" respec, whatever works). When perfoming such a respec, it takes your character (after a couple "Are you sure" and "Are you REALLY sure" screens) back to the character creation choices, keeping their name the same, and keeping all their badges intact, but letting them choose faction, AT, and powersets from scratch.
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If you bothered to read it you'd have seen my responses
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Originally Posted by Forbin_Project
It doesn't matter how many times you want to suggest this idea or how many ways you reword it to try to make it sound different, the fact remains that every single time the devs have responded to the respec suggestions it has always been the same answer. They are not going to let us respec into new powersets.
The only people that get hostile in these threads are the people that don't want to accept that the devs aren't going to implement this idea. |
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I always find it funny when people use unique badges as justification for wanting to redo the respec feature when it would be a lot easier to for the devs to make the unique badges apply to an account rather than individual characters. Badges are a lame excuse and no one is falling for it. |
That doesn't even remotely sound like I'm "desperate" to have those badges on all my characters.
je_saist's idea is a much simpler and far more elegant solution to the archetype respecs people keep suggesting in order to keep badges that don't get issued anymore.
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Sorry, I should have clarified that it was more of a general response and not directed at you specifically. It was intended as a generic "you". You just happened to say the part I was quoting there, and it is one of the reasons usually put forth as a justification for making badges account-wide. |
Originally Posted by Forbin_Project
That doesn't even remotely sound like I'm "desperate" to have those badges on all my characters. |
If one set of badges is made account wide that currently is not, it sets precedent for ANY badge to be made account-wide.
If the anniversary badges are made account wide, why shouldn't the healing badges be made account wide? I mean, I have characters that can never earn them, so they should be account wide so I only have to get them one time.
My main, the only one I care about badges on even a little bit, is a Claws/Regen scrapper. There is no way I'm burning a respec to take the Medicine pool on a Regen just to get a couple badges. So, those badges are closed to him.
I could just as easily ask for the healing badges to be account wide so I don't have to make character choices to get them. It's a thin excuse, that much is true....but so is "I rolled a new character and he doesn't have a badge that was obtained for logging in the month of May 2007". It tells you exactly what the badge was for right in the text. It was gained for that character being logged in during a specific time period.
If you want to reroll a character as something else, you can move them to a different server during free server transfers and recreate them with the same name. Since anniversary badges have no effect on gameplay, that should be an acceptable solution, but for some reason it isn't, and I don't get why that is. There was advance warning of the free server transfers, and you should have had some idea what you wanted to reroll the character as before then, it's not like they introduce new sets with no warning.
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Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison See, it's gems like these that make me check Claws' post history every once in a while to make sure I haven't missed anything good lately. |
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I'm pretty sure my gun-totting character is more than six years old, but given that she's a space alien, eh. You never know. Could be she experienced time dilating on her way to Earth and is actually 200 years old, but it only took us a year before she was created and when she came to earth and "slowed down." You never know.|
Originally Posted by ClawsandEffect
Only one problem with the anniversary log-in badges.
How do you justify a character that could not possibly have existed when it was available having a 1st year anniversary badge? Really? Your Dual Pistols/Pain Domination corruptor has been around for 6 years? How did you pull that off when none of those things, including the archetype, existed back then? |
A distinction needs to be made between badges given to the player and badges given to the character. I fully believe there should be a stronger division, with more stuff being global, especially costume-related stuff.
As far as the "why are you desperate" question, you may as well have asked "why do you care about badges at all." It's a legitimate question, actually, and one I've asked before, but you've been here long enough that an answer to that exists, and it is very convincing to the people who have it.
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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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Here's my old argument from several years ago: If they were meant to be a power-up of sorts, they fail completely and utterly. Yes, some characters benefit from suddenly getting glowing hands. Other characters, however, do not. My tough, nimble martial artist most certainly does not, to the point where I've disabled all Super Reflexes auras, as well. She doesn't make sense to glow.|
Originally Posted by Nericus
Auras: Combat aura and now the Alpha and Omega auras are available at level 1. Since the L30 auras are meant to be a power boost of sorts for hero (an adrenal booster installed near your heart at the tailor shop) or proof of being a Destined One on redside, then they shouldn't be a global unlock.
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I understand locking a reward that's "always good," like an enhancement or a recipe or hell, even a power. Something that's always going to at least have the potential to add to my character. But not all characters benefit from auras, and not all characters' increase in power manifests by glowing lights. As a rule of thumb, any character whose power is physical, such as strength, speed, sense and so forth, is unlikely to need an aura, or indeed WANT an aura.
Let me put it like this - I've seen a LOT of people grab an aura for no reason that I could determine, seemingly just because it's a reward that suddenly opened to them. I don't know if it's for prestige or because they might as well, but many people wear auras because they're "rewards," to the detriment of their own costumes. Now contrast that by how many people wear Combat Auras. Very few that I've seen, and for the simple reason that they're available at character selection. Anything available at character selection, you can use. So the question is SHOULD you. Anything that comes as a reward comes with an incentive to use it. After all, why bother with the aura mission otherwise?
Personally, I prefer to work with not-loaded tools. Let players assign values to their own costume pieces, instead of having the game assign values for them.
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All of that said, of course, I would still be OK with leaving capes and auras as unlockables provided the assinine weapon unlock badges are made global. It's just a principle argument, but I can sidestep my principles in this case.
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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 understand wanting to get as many badges as possible on a couple characters. My main character has almost 500, so I can't honestly say I don't care about badges at all. (and for that matter, I don't believe I ever HAVE said that) |
Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
As far as the "why are you desperate" question, you may as well have asked "why do you care about badges at all." It's a legitimate question, actually, and one I've asked before, but you've been here long enough that an answer to that exists, and it is very convincing to the people who have it. |
Where the disconnect occurs for me is the people that seem to feel it is necessary to get EVERY badge on EVERY character they ever create. Not only is it logistically impossible, but I don't understand why someone needs to have 30+ characters with 900+ badges.
There are badges that my main character will never acquire, no matter how long he exists for. I'm okay with that, because I understand that it wasn't intended for one character to be able to acquire all the badges that exist in the game. Since it wasn't intended for any one character to have ALL the badges, I don't see why it is such a big deal that newly created characters lack the anniversary badges older characters have.
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Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison See, it's gems like these that make me check Claws' post history every once in a while to make sure I haven't missed anything good lately. |
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The answer to that is in the original post - so that people can reroll characters without losing badges that can never be gotten again. Some of us rode the coat tails of the suggestion to work in a few of our own desires, as well, such as not having to earn the same weapon two dozen times (something I've done before).
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Originally Posted by ClawsandEffect
Where the disconnect occurs for me is the people that seem to feel it is necessary to get EVERY badge on EVERY character they ever create. Not only is it logistically impossible, but I don't understand why someone needs to have 30+ characters with 900+ badges.
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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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Hm. I agree with the OP.
The anniversary badges have two possible uses, in practice: checking how 'old' a character is, and checking how 'old' the account is. If someone only has the 51 month vet badge but is on a character sporting the '1st anniversary' badge, you know (a) their character is old, and (b) their account, though perhaps not active the whole time, has been around for awhile.
I'm more than okay with losing the character age marker, just because it's a weak one at best. I have villain alts that date back to issue 6 but lack the badges just because I forgot to log them in. Thus the badge isn't even good at showing how long a character's existed.
As to the 'badge creep' argument, no, just because you make some character-specific badges global does NOT mean all can or will be. Many badges relate directly to a character accomplishment. Defeating an army's worth of longbow, sorcerers, etc. It tells you what kind of things the character has been used for. An obvious example are the SF/TF badges. If somebody has a lot of them, you can tell that character specifically has been used for a lot of them. It's actually handy when checking out team members on said tasks. ("Oh, so-and-so has the badge for this on their tank, so they kind of know what to expect when tanking.")
The anniversary badges? It just means the player entered their code, selected a server, and logged in to the character. The character doesn't really have to go out and do anything. Heck, at least the day jobs require you to move. When the events hit, I do this with my alts. Why? it is, as mentioned about, a time marker. But I'd be more than fine with adjusting it to be account wide, as the activity is far more account-centric than character centric. (The badge is awarded for the act of logging in, not anything else.)
As to weapon unlocks: that's a bit trickier. Most unlocks relate to something 'found' or earned by a task. I can understand those who might use a nemesis backstory wanting the rifle, but for 'Super Gunner Man' sporting a nemesis rifle just because they can? From the lore side it doesn't make a load of sense.I don't know, that one's tricky.
That said, some things like the tommy gun and epaulets are general enough that forcing them into a badge seems unnecessary. Leave the badge as a sign of the character's accomplishment, but you don't need to kill mafia types to get your hands on a tommy gun, or save the world to find shoulder do-dads without spikes.
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If I ever decide to reroll either of the two characters I have with the 2 year anniversary badge (unlikely), I'll be happy to accept that I'll be giving up at least a few badges to do so. |
Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
The answer to that is in the original post - so that people can reroll characters without losing badges that can never be gotten again. Some of us rode the coat tails of the suggestion to work in a few of our own desires, as well, such as not having to earn the same weapon two dozen times (something I've done before).
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I suggested a solution already, which is to transfer the character who has the badges to a different server during a free transfer week, and reusing the name on the original server. It's not a perfect solution, but it's what we have so far.
Since I find it hard to believe that someone would choose to reroll a 6 year old character on a whim, you should be able to plan in advance to do such a thing. It's not like they release new, possibly more appropriate, powersets without any advance notice at all, or spring free transfers on us with no warning either.
If you didn't plan in advance and suddenly decided to reroll a character, the price you pay for lack of planning would be losing a few badges.
And is it REALLY that common for people who have those badges to reroll a character that old? I know with the way *I* play, if a character makes it that far, I am happy with them as they are and would feel no need to make them something different.
Do people really reroll their old characters often enough that something like this would be widely used?
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Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison See, it's gems like these that make me check Claws' post history every once in a while to make sure I haven't missed anything good lately. |
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Ah I see, I've fallen prey to being misunderstood by way of that generic you several times. I assumed you were a little miffed because I posted the same response right after you in both this and the "Ultimate Respec" thread.
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Originally Posted by ClawsandEffect
Sorry, I should have clarified that it was more of a general response and not directed at you specifically. It was intended as a generic "you". You just happened to say the part I was quoting there, and it is one of the reasons usually put forth as a justification for making badges account-wide.
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This I agree with. I did exactly this when GR went live to a. free up names I wanted to keep but change AT's and b. to bulk up my presence on other servers with some alts with a nice amount of levels on them. |
Originally Posted by ClawsandEffect
If I ever decide to reroll either of the two characters I have with the 2 year anniversary badge (unlikely), I'll be happy to accept that I'll be giving up at least a few badges to do so.
I suggested a solution already, which is to transfer the character who has the badges to a different server during a free transfer week, and reusing the name on the original server. It's not a perfect solution, but it's what we have so far. |
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| Since I find it hard to believe that someone would choose to reroll a 6 year old character on a whim, you should be able to plan in advance to do such a thing. It's not like they release new, possibly more appropriate, powersets without any advance notice at all, or spring free transfers on us with no warning either. |
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| If you didn't plan in advance and suddenly decided to reroll a character, the price you pay for lack of planning would be losing a few badges. |
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And is it REALLY that common for people who have those badges to reroll a character that old? I know with the way *I* play, if a character makes it that far, I am happy with them as they are and would feel no need to make them something different. Do people really reroll their old characters often enough that something like this would be widely used? |
I'm all for this idea.
And the only "Ultimate Respec" option I'd be okay with is this:
Revert Character to level 1, retain name, badges, costume piece unlocks, and inf. All Enhancers are auto-sold for (npc) market value and inf is applied to the character on creation.
Other than that, you're sent back to the character generator.
When you leave the generator you're a level 1 character of whatever AT you picked with whatever powersets you picked. Congratulations: You just rerolled a character without losing their badges or having your name sniped during the reroll duration.
-Rachel-
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I have a MA/Inv Scrapper who was my third ever character I made and kept, and has been 50 for a few years now. The moment I am able to make a SS/Inv Scrapper, I will reroll her in a heartbeat. That's what she was always intended to be, and I just didn't have the options at the time. Similarly, I have a Rad/Energy Blaster around 30-ish who will be rerolled on the spot as soon as I get access to a Rad secondary for Blasters.|
Originally Posted by Forbin_Project
For the most part I agree with this except where the issue of more appropriate power sets being added. I've had several concepts I've made compromises because I had to make do with existing powesets. Petless Thug MM springs to mind when I would have preferred Dual Pistols. Another is my PPD detective who was forced to use AR instead of DP. Of course now days I just reroll the concept and either delete the compromise or change it's name if it's a decent character.
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Luckily, neither of the two needs unlockable costumes and I don't particularly care about badges, so it's all good. And now that I can reorder characters on the character select screen, I can just pretend they're older than they are.
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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 was stated in an earlier post (I forgot who posted it) these are more PLAYER badges than CHARACTER badges. The character didn't earn them, the player did by logging in at said point in time.|
Originally Posted by ClawsandEffect
Only one problem with the anniversary log-in badges.
How do you justify a character that could not possibly have existed when it was available having a 1st year anniversary badge? Really? Your Dual Pistols/Pain Domination corruptor has been around for 6 years? How did you pull that off when none of those things, including the archetype, existed back then? What is the driving need to have every single possible badge on every single character you will ever create? Does it do something I'm not aware of? Or does it just make an otherwise irrelevant number 1 higher? I have 2 characters that have the 2 year anniversary badge. I have others that have the later ones, but only those two have the 2 year badge. I feel absolutely no need for every single character on my account to have those badges. I feel it would kind of cheapen it for those two characters. They are kind of special for having been around that long, because it's something none of my other characters will achieve. Sorry, but I don't feel a character you create TODAY deserves a badge you got for logging in FIVE YEARS AGO. That's like saying I deserve a purple heart because my grandfather got one in WWII. |
/unsigned on your argument.
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Yet that Dual Pistols/Pain Dom Corruptor can be a five or six year veteran, according to thier badges! As can every character you roll on that account forever.
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Originally Posted by ClawsandEffect
Only one problem with the anniversary log-in badges.
How do you justify a character that could not possibly have existed when it was available having a 1st year anniversary badge? Really? Your Dual Pistols/Pain Domination corruptor has been around for 6 years? How did you pull that off when none of those things, including the archetype, existed back then? <snip> Sorry, but I don't feel a character you create TODAY deserves a badge you got for logging in FIVE YEARS AGO. That's like saying I deserve a purple heart because my grandfather got one in WWII. |
We already have global anniversary badges: they're called Vet badges. Anniversary badges just show how long that character has existed.
I only have only one character left from the old days that has all the anniversary badges, and that feat would be a lot less impressive if they gave them out like candy to every vet. What then, would the point be to having both Vet and Anniversary badges? I imagine they would remove one of the sets of badges if they decided to make anniversary global (as it would then be redundant), and then your badge count would take a pretty big hit.
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They're meant to show that the player took part in the anniversary event and nothing else, Players may use them to show how old their character is but that's not their purpose.|
Originally Posted by Stone Daemon
We already have global anniversary badges: they're called Vet badges. Anniversary badges just show how long that character has existed.
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| I only have only one character left from the old days that has all the anniversary badges, and that feat would be a lot less impressive if they gave them out like candy to every vet. What then, would the point be to having both Vet and Anniversary badges? I imagine they would remove one of the sets of badges if they decided to make anniversary global (as it would then be redundant), and then your badge count would take a pretty big hit. |
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Yes, they took part in that event...for that character. So they've existed since the first anniversary badge they have, at the very least. And if they were global, they would lose your current definition for them |
Originally Posted by Shadow State
They're meant to show that the player took part in the anniversary event and nothing else, Players may use them to show how old their character is but that's not their purpose.
The two badges would only show the same information for those players who have played uninterrupted from day one, but then, as I said earlier, Anniversary badges are not meant to show longevity, so the two badge types don't serve the same purpose. |
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Originally Posted by Shadow State
They're meant to show that the player took part in the anniversary event and nothing else
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I totally agree with the stipulations in the OP. I've actually been thinking about another way that would work for all badges. Of course, it probably falls short of what the devs have in mind but I'll throw it out there anyway. Once you have the same badge on 20 different toons it should become a global badge. Even if it was limited to only exploration and history badges it would be a huge improvement.
Edit: For badges which are linked to accolade powers, they wouldn't unlock until you hit level 50. You could also get them in the traditional way if you wanted them before that though.
Although extremely rare, I would add the Bug Hunter badge to the list of globally awarded badges.
We don' need no stinkin' signatures!
AE badges. They should all be account-wide. It's a global system after all (and getting 8 people together out of primetime for the Among Friends badge is literally like herding cats).
Tyger (50), Mutation-Controller Mind/FF - oldest Mind/FF on Union