I hate what super boosters have done to the community

I don't disagree at all. I would prefer to spend that 10 bucks elsewhere and have the chance in game to get what I want. But I acknowledge that NCSoft/Paragon Studios using boosters as a way to get periodic injections of cash makes good business sense Because of people like you and me.

I've never done either due to wildly unpredictable play schedule.
I realize this is an edge case, but I'm obviously going to prefer a solution that favors my game habits.

and there are plenty of unlockables that take full on grinding.

I don't see a problem with cosmetic, QOL stuff being purchasable.
I wouldn't mind it being an either/or situation where you could buy it outright or grind for it in game, but since the game is a business it makes sense that they stick some stuff behind a paywall.

Some content gated stuff is unavailable to players who lack the time or inclination to 'play through' to it, some $$$ gated stuff is unavailable to players who lack the inclination to 'pay through' for it.
Seems equitable to me.

Sam, you just earned a spot in my quarterly collection of quotable quotes. Well said.

...and Gray earns another spot. You guys are on a roll.

I'm more on Gray_Lensman's side about these sorts of items. If you have a character concept that requires the Vanguard pieces, that's something to work for. I suppose someone out there wants to make ALL their characters Vanguard-related (or Rikti or Ruularu or whomever) but these parts are story-driven, not game-driven.

Unlocking Epic ATs is game-driven. Unlocking the Family Tommy Gun is story-driven.

I'm on record for having been against gating capes since those are such an iconic part of the superhero mythos, so my alternate story-based suggestion was that the heroes of Paragon City simply honored the request not to wear capes for a year in memory of Hero 1. Then the capes should be available at character creation, with special capes being something you unlock.

I don't know if that argument was heard, but it seems to have been somewhat implemented when wings were added to the game. Basic wings (angel and demon) are earned at 15 months, while variants can be found as dropped recipes or purchased. Again, I would've put them in for everyone at character creation, but I understand the business decision of rewarding long-time subscribers and giving new players incentive to stay. (Although the market makes that sort of moot with the demon wings.)

But overall, I do think specific, special, non-iconic items should be earned by each character as part of the story-driven aspect of the game.

I'll address your second point first.

I don't like the idea of people being unable to create certain types of character because the necessary costume pieces aren't available at creation. A new player really should be able to create a hero who looks like a samurai or a Roman centurion or an ancient Greek god without having to do anything special beforehand. That's why I suggested that basic sets in these themes be added to the game for everyone, with more elaborate/ornate/(arguably) cooler versions being unlockable later. Account-wide unlocks for pieces might work, too. I don't like that idea quite as much as basic and unlockable 'advanced' pieces, but I wouldn't be up in arms if they implemented it. As things are now, you may well end up unlocking those Roman pieces on someone who will never wear them, and want them for someone else who really needs them at level 1 but can't wear them. I can see how that could be frustrating.

As far as your first point goes, though, I don't think I fail here. I think we can both agree that most players want to make their characters look better to them. What 'better' means varies from person to person, which is why some people aren't compelled to unlock some costume pieces. Still, it's hard to argue that expanding a character's possible wardrobe choices isn't an overall improvement, all subjective criteria aside. And costume pieces obviously have value to people, or no one would be complaining that they can't automatically have access to everything they want.

Substitute 'a prize for something that requires effort', if that makes you feel better. You clearly knew what I meant, and you knew that I wasn't suggesting the two required the same amount of effort to achieve.

Badges are the equivalent of achievements or trophies in console games. Little bits of text to commemorate some in-game accomplishment. Some of them have some sort of tangible in-game reward associated with them (like accolades), but the vast majority don't. Outside of the borderline-OCD types who feel tormented if they're missing a badge in their 'collection', there's not a lot of reason to go after those 'non-essential' badges. Most of the people I know will chase down the ones that get them something, and a handful of others that they either stumble across or wanted for the particular badge title. That doesn't surprise me. People feel motivated to go after the things they desire. And that's another reason why it's not a bad idea to have some desirable content gated behind in-game accomplishments - it gives people something concrete to work towards, and motivates them to try new things that they might otherwise not bother with (like mothership raids and the ITF).

I also think you're exaggerating how much work unlocking these things requires. You make it sound like completing an ITF or doing a couple of ship raids are horribly onerous, involved tasks that demand a huge chunk of your life to complete. This isn't the 'entirely wrong type of game' to have content gated behind in-game accomplishments like that. The 'wrong type of game' for it would be those ultra-casual games on Facebook or the iPhone, and thankfully CoX isn't one of those.

The fact that you have to wait until level 35+ is problem. The only way I'll make and play a character is if the costume is completely finalized at character creation (costume recipes being the exception). I wouldn't be opposed to turning all unlockable pieces into costume recipes that drop upon completion of the required task. Of course that would mean the badge unlockables would need a change so that they are repeatable.

I... think could get behind that, actually.

Enough people grind TF's/do ship raids/etc. to ensure a steady supply on the market for the people who can't be bothered to actually do those things. Making them recipe drops like that would devalue their significance a bit, since you would no longer be able to look at somebody wearing Roman armor and say, 'Hey, that guy did the ITF', but people would still have to earn the influence/infamy to buy them from the market - they wouldn't just be a 'gimme'. And then it opens the door for somebody to raid/run ITF's/whatever to get costume bits for a friend, that kind of thing.

So yeah, I think that might actually be a good way of handling the unlockable costume parts. (Of course, now that I've said that, I expect a half-dozen people to storm in and tell me the idea absolutely sucks. )

I've failed more ITFs than I've succeeded. I've been on three mothership raids with my main character (the same one that keeps failing ITFs) and don't have enough merits for everything yet. The ITF generally takes my friends and I a couple hours to get through, and, when I bring my MMs, tends to end in failure rather than victory.

So, yes, they are. Can we agree that maybe that's too much trouble to go through for a plumed helmet now, please?

Remember what I was saying a couple of posts back? The part about how tying unlocks to in-game accomplishments helps make those unlocks mean something? How the costume pieces you've unlocked in that fashion become a mark of achievement because they show that you accomplished something that someone else hasn't, for whatever reason?

Exactly.

The problem isn't that these tasks are too hard, it's that you're having a hard time with them. Just because you feel it's too much trouble for you to go through to get access to the pieces in question doesn't mean that everyone feels that way, either. I don't think lowering the bar every time someone gets frustrated because they can't have x right now is the answer, especially when the tasks involved require a bit of work, but aren't something the majority of players seem to struggle with.

We already get something that marks our achievments in the game. They are called Badges. We also get game affecting rewards for some of those achievements. Thay are called Accolades. So there's no real justification for including costume pieces as part of the rewards.

So very very agreed.

Yes, and I covered that already. I'm going to quote myself here:

That was only a few posts back, man.

And yet those costume pieces are part of the achievement under the current system. I'm not saying it's the best system - a global unlock would serve the same purpose, showing that that player themself (not just that character) beat the challenge - but that's kind of how it goes thus far.

I also said a few posts back that they can keep those costumes as part of the reward just give us a plain generic version that we can use at level 1. Doing so won't take anything away from the achievement. In fact when seen side by side the differences between the costumes will be even more noticable.

General statements of this order are almost always true by their inclusive nature, and almost always irrelevant by their non-specificity. Yes, context notwithstanding, "expanding a character's possible wardrobe" is a not a detriment. However, it is very much not always an improvement. If my character is a mobster, then unlocking Roman costume pieces serves absolutely no purpose as I can achieve all I want via suit and fedora hat. If my character is a robot, then... Roman costume pieces serve no purpose, because I'll be using Tech pieces, not Roman pieces, and the Valkyrie helmet options are superior anyway.

I would also disagree with your assessment that most people want to make their characters look "better," because this assumes they want to, or are at least willing to make their characters worse to begin with, and in this game in particular, they're willing to do so on purpose. While I'm well aware that a select few people have described their process of character design like this, they are by far not "most" people. Most people that I've spoken with, at least among those who even care about costumes, have only ever expressed the desire to make their character costumes GOOD, preferably from the start. Obviously as new costume pieces which didn't exist before, we all flock to the editor to improve our old costumes and to make them better. Many will agree that characters way back when looked much worse than they look now. But they didn't look worse because we chose to make them that way. They looked worse because we had no choice to make.

Furthermore, the costume editor as it stands now permits a LOT more character types to be made than it once did. In fact, only now can we make actual, obvious robots thanks to the Praetorian Clockwork pieces, whereas before they all looked like men and women in suits. People, at least among those I've spoken with, didn't make characters back in 2004 which didn't look anylthing at all like what they were supposed to, only to wait years and years to actually make them work. No, actually, some did, and proceeded to abandon said character for many years until the right powersets or costumes became available.

People make their costumes "better" not by unlocking "better" costume items, which, for the most part, aren't better in the slightest, but by getting new ideas, getting help from other people or becoming better at using the costume editor or better at comprehending their own tastes.

Yes, I remember, and you were wrong then, too. The more something costs me to get, less it is worth to me, because I've invested that much more in it. To claim that it's the work which makes it that much sweeter is nothing more than a convenient excuse given after the fact so people don't feel like they're wasting their time. Once all the stuff that sucked is done and over with, OF COURSE the reward will be sweet - it was worth the work, or you wouldn't have done it. I, however, happen to decide whether or not I want something BEFORE I invest a massive sunk cost into it. It's amazing how much more objective and practical a person is about what he wants BEFORE he's paid for it with no refunds.

Let me boil this down to a single sentence: Things I get for free are worth it to me even when they suck because they didn't cost me anything, whereas things that cost me a lot had better damn well be frikkin' amazing or I'm going to kick someone's *** so hard his kids will be born bouncing.

No, the problem with these tasks are that I have to repeat them every single time I want the items. The ITF is fun once. The ITF is fun twice. The ITF is tolerable five times. I have five Broadsword users, two axe users, two Dual Blades users and three Shield users. Do you realise how many times I have to repeat the ITF to outfit them all with Romulus swords? I probably have over a dozen people who could use Rularuu weapons. That means I need over 1200 Overseers to get weapons for all of them.

Almost every character I have uses an aura of some sort on at least one of their costumes. Do you have any idea... ANY IDEA... how many times I've done that god damn mission, over and over and over again? I don't even read the text any more. I don't need to. I know what everyone says, to the letter. It might have been cool once... I think. I don't know. It's been so long since I cared that I've lost track.

But at least the aura mission is simple and easy. Not like running all of the original TFs, now, is it? Just suppose I need the Task Force Commander epaulettes on... Let's be conservaitve and say four characters. That's eight TFs four times, all with these specific characters. At which point am I within my right to complain the god damn epaulettes wouldn't be worth it if they deposited money in my credit card?

If they were global unlocks, I wouldn't complain. Then I could collect them all and never have to "start over," forever having the ability to make awesome costumes without having to make mediocre costumes first because half the decent weapons are locked.

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.

Dude... replaying powersets much? ಠ_ಠ

On a more serious note: yeah, unlocks not being global is annoying, especially with such a generic piece as epaullets.