I hate what super boosters have done to the community

I do

I just understand why they do it. They want to see cool stuff, and that is the way they think they will most likely get it.

That's where I stand. While "free" is best, that tends to come with many caveats, such as low developer priority, very few pieces added even with major releases, ridiculous restrictions such as veteran rewards or inane in-game tasks and so forth. Boosters are the sure-fire way to get what I want soon-ish and with no strings attached.

If and when we start getting meaningful, regular additions to the editor as part of the Issues, I might change my opinion, but... To be honest, I don't think that has ever been the case.

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.

Pretty much. I do appreciate that the boosters so far have all been pretty much niche things or elaboration on stuff that's already there, though Ninja Run as part of the MA booster makes me frown sometimes if I think too hard.

The 'jetpack for an extra $5 a month" would almost be crossing the line for me if the temp powers in the game didn't make it just a tax on extreme laziness, so it's hilarious instead.

so.....why not just charge for VEATs directly?

Because it makes more sense to sell something you have in stock than to sell something you won't have done for months. Duh.

Extra character slots don't give you an advantage over anyone else. You can still only play one character from one account at a time. One character may be more useful in a given situation than another, but that's no different than someone who has time to level up 5 different 50s vs someone who only has time to get one. Besides, character slots are given out free often enough that unless you're a confirmed alt-oholic who only likes to play on one server, there's no real pressure to buy more slots anyway.

Paying for special powers? Take a look at all of them. At best they're time savers and in one instance a slight build changer that lets you opt out of a travel power in favor of something else. Saving a minute or two here and there is not a big gameplay advantage either.

"and so on" is nice and vague. It's a good way to make it sound like your case is a lot bigger than it is. I think in this case it really means you can't be bothered to think of more actual ways people get paid advantages, but you're kinda sure they're out there. Well I can tell you, they're really not.

People pay for added convenience all the time. Pizza delivery charges, unlimited cell phone minutes, better parking spots, more comfortable furniture, etc, etc.

There's nothing you have to pay for here besides access to the game to have a good time and get access to the same major features everyone else gets access to.

Actually you're not paying for continued development. It's not in the EULA like some have claimed, but it has been in more than one developer statement over the years, that continued development costs are absorbed in order to grow the subscriber base and reduce subscriber churn, not as a figured cost in the game's overhead.

As for the trend you keep trying to maintain is there, you or someone else should really make a concerted effort to go look and count. Because while it's indisputable that they've done more paid for additions to the game over the years, I have serious doubts that there has been a legitimate decline in the number of free things added.

Yeah! Take that, stupid pre-orders!

Anyway. Before all that wedding pack stuff could be 'in stock' and sensibly sold it had to be created. Which means someone had to take the time and put forth the effort create it. Artists. Animators. Whoever else. Time and effort = $$, so the before the wedding pack could pay for anything else it had to pay for itself. Which, evidently, it did.

I bought it. So I helped pay for VEATS and all you people with VEATS - you owe me, big time!

So people who support the super booster's are morons? That's certainly a good way to improve the community, insulting a large chunk of it.

Here's the thing. Super Boosters happened because they cost money. We would not have gotten The cyborg parts, the magic parts, the ninja parts, the mutant parts, not to mention reading fortunes, ninja run and all those other goodies, if they were free. It wouldn't have happened.

The Devs didn't make these things and say hey, this is neat, slap a price tag on it because we are greedy and we want all that extra money. That's not how it works, though people love to act as though this is the case.

What likely happened was some one said: "Gee, wouldn't it be neat if we had X costume pieces in the game?" Then they realize that there isn't any extra time or money to do that and continue pushing free issues, new systems and new content, until some one realizes they can justify putting in the EXTRA stuff, if they make it as an add on, they can charge money for it, and not only does it justify now spending extra time and money to make something that doesn't relate to the issues. But it also gives them a bit of extra revenue to spend on the issues etc.

So, sometimes people see a suggestion for a costume piece or pieces and they might think, "Great idea, but the devs would probably not have time to do this any time soon as part of an issue. However, I'd be willing to pay a little extra for these options, and that might give the Devs the needed justification to do it, so let's suggest a super booster pack."

So, people who support super boosters are not "morons" we are realists who understand that Paragon Studios is a business. Their job is to make money, not to break the bank and go out of business trying to give us everything under the sun for free.

The Super Boosters would not have happened without an extra price tag. Maybe we would have gotten some of the things, but probably not all of them and probably not the cool things like Fortune, and ninja run and costume change emotes. And by the way ,costume change emotes and walk, both got into the game FOR FREE because they could justify spending the money to do them, for the super boosters.


One last thing, super boosters cost 10$ total. Less than a months subscription and they last more than a month. If they release 2 a year, as they more or less have been, its an extra 20 dollars a year. It's like paying for a 13th month and getting sorts of goodies for doing it. It's not that people are morons who are eager to get rid of their money, it's like people are paying an extra $1.65 to have the fun stuff they wouldn't other wise get. So climb down off your high horse and quit whining.

Even in the case of pre-orders they gave people value for money by giving early access to features as they were completed.

Even then, they don't take pre-orders on things until they know they're going to be able to get a product out the door. In the case of VEATs, whether added funds made them earlier or not, there was a very definite sense in developer comments that they weren't sure they'd be able to come up with something different enough and compelling enough to go Live with. Even then, they dropped the ball when it came to content though from a technical/gameplay standpoint the AT design is strong.

Exactly. I pay for the game in 6month increments and take advantage of the 6+1 free option whenever I can. Those 2 free months a year essentially pay for any boosters they put out and keep me within budget. They give me a cut rate for my continued support, and I give it right back to them for taking the extra time to make something nice enough that I'm willing to buy.

What is even better is having those two auras at level 1

It has less utility than the Party Pack, the whining would be epic.

Understood. That's pretty much my issue in a nutshell. Well, that, and I feel that the price vs. value equation has begun to slip on the last couple of boosters, which is something I'd like to see addressed before the balance tips any further. (For what it's worth, I've bought all the boosters except for the Party Pack, so I'm not fundamentally opposed to their existence.)

I'm hoping the next themed booster we get will contain the usual decent assortment of costume parts, a fun-and-marginally-useful click power, and a costume change or two that we've come to expect from the good boosters. I'm also hoping that we'll see an Issue add some nice 'generic'/'universal' costume pieces/patterns/emblems and such to the game in the near future, since it feels to me like we're overdue for an update in that vein. What I don't want is for things to progress to the point where virtually all new costume pieces and animations get relegated to boosters, and/or the boosters themselves become incredibly anemic (releasing a handful of costume change animations as the 'Incredible Transformation Pack' in the vein of the Party Pack, rather than just including them with the game, for example). I feel that now's the time to voice these things, rather than waiting until it's a done deal - there's no point in saying something after the fact, when it's too late to make a difference.

Just my take on things.

Explain to me what was subpar about the alpha and omega booster. those costumes and auras are amazing.

The temp power Worst temp power ever?

The Complete Collection Item Pack wasn't a 'booster'. It was a bundle of content that was created as part of GR and bundled with the GR Complete Collection, and sold separately for those who bought the download version. (Though Damz is right about the temp power. )

The last couple of actual boosters I was referring to - packs created specifically as add-on content, and not just spun off from an existing product - were the Mutant Pack and the Party Pack. The Mutant Pack I felt was a little lacking compared to earlier boosters, and the Party Pack was distinctly underwhelming. So yeah.

That's the essence of what Super Boosters are. What Positron (if indeed it was him) said wasn't that the Wedding Pack made Villain Epic ATs possible, but rather that it made them possible EARLIER. As I understood it, the money that the pack brought in allowed them to budget more things the Issue than they would have had it not been for that.

Additions to the game cost money to make, and they have the nasty habit of costing money before you stand to make any money back on them. The only way certain things seem to be able to be included in the budget at all is if they're expected to have some kind of return down the line, thereby taking from one quarter and adding to another, and overall costing less than if they were just lumped together with other things we already paid for.

In short, we get more costume pieces because we pay for them. I know people want them to stop making boosters, but all that means is they stop making costumes as much, and we're back to the old days where I had to wait a full year for any new costume pieces to hit the game, and even they they came as promotional material for new releases anyway. I mean, I had to pay some serious money for the CoV pieces back in the day.

Speaking of which - I paid for the CoV pieces and now they're free for everyone who never bought CoV. By some people's logic, I should be pissed off, but I'm just happy for everybody else.

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.

seeking the silver lining, it's very handy for going AFK without having to worry about roaming aggro.

but yeah, it's definitely oh wow these auras are so great we can get away with a garbage power, can't we? time. =P

I literally LAUGHED OUT LOUD
I can hear it now from someone's basement; "Mom!!! Someone is poo-pooing on my Super Booster!!"
Then mom says; "Junior.... get off that pc, put some clothes on, get out of that basement and come here and scrub my wrinkle-flaps on my belly!!!!"

well, you have to be a realist. devoting resources costs money, coh has finite resources, to be able to free up the resources to do a specifically targeted pack, something has to pay for that. yeah, 15 covers continued development, but that development is, by necessity, broad. to get something specific (victorian, steampunk, gothic.more monstrous, and some freaking cheongsams and kimono tops) those have less broad appeal. so it is reasonable that for myself and the subset of players who want those themed new things, the most likely way to get it is to offer additional money to cover the resources used by its development. we can wait, of course, occasionally we get lucky and something free comes out that fits our tastes, but for items that are special ordered, much like getting a suit tailored versus buying of the rack, you pay more.

my take is that if i can get Dave to shake loose some resources to give me stuff that fits my personal tastes, then yeah, its pretty much a "tip" for the additional service. the costume stuff that we get that is generally thematically linked to the issues should still be free(and really should be a bit more frequent) buuut, reasonably, not all themes will be addressed in issues, for the other stuff, a booster is a reasonable compromise, in my view. Some paid things i disagree with, the wolf tail i probably would have made free, size shifting too, but taking the full context of the situation with the wolf thing, it probably made the most sense to be agreeable to everyone.

Yes because no argument however sound can ever be taken seriously

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.