Ok, listen, this is starting to get to a critical mass

Wow. Because, of course, people who don't play the trials (for whatever reason) don't value those same cosmetic items. I'll just leave it at "agree to disagree".

--NT

That it might have an effect does not mean it was the primary intention for the devs to do it.

To the devs this is (at best) a minor positive side-effect.

I wasn't awake at five o-clock in the morning. And I'm assuming no one thinks a Facebook poll is statistically strong, its just a non-randomized opinion poll.

Your statement does not contradict what I said. Not sure how you think it does. I'll leave it at that.

Perspective difference I imagine. Someone may want a witch hat, or a glowing roman sword but not like TFs.

That doesn't so much mean that those rewards being there is intended to bribe those players into doing those TFs. It's simply a cosmetic reward for that type of content. You may not like that you are having to do content you don't like for a reward you do want, but it's not really designed to bribe the player into doing something.

It's a very odd distinction, since I guess when you get down to basics, any reward is a form of a bribe. Sure some are a bit more overt [the bribe to play instanced missions instead of street sweeping].

[ edit / add ]
A thought! The Master Of badges specifically could be argued to be a bribe to get players who don't really want to deal with the higher stress/difficulty required by those runs to do it anyway.

Really, I think it comes down to a point where the problem just lies that there is a reward past some objective that you don't want to pursue. And it's frustrating. The specifics of the gate aren't really important, it's just something getting between you and what you want.

It is a fair complaint still that perhaps too much is past that wall, or that specific items shouldn't be past that wall. Just that the 'bribe' comparison is really a loaded phrase that simply conveys "I don't like it".

The truth is somewhat in the middle actually. The devs are not attempting to bribe players who do not want to run the trials at all into doing them. The devs assume such an attempt would actually fail for most such players. However, the vast, overwhelming majority of players are perceived to be not just people who pick what they do completely reward-blind, or people who pick what they do based solely on the rewards offered, but on a value judgment that balances their preferences with their desire for certain rewards.

Every day when I log out a character, for *some* of them I specifically move them to a spot where they can earn a day job badge or accolade they don't yet have. Do I literally want to run around to pseudo-random locations in the game before logging off? Would I do that if there was no such reward? Of course not. I don't literally *want* to move to those specific spots before logging out. On the other hand, I don't think its all that big a deal to get those rewards. I don't *hate* moving to those spots to get those rewards.

I don't like doing it, I don't hate doing it. Its not something I would ordinarily do for no reason, but I am willing to do them for the reward. Does that mean I'm being "bribed" to do it? Not really, except insofar as rewarding any behavior is a bribe. I don't believe I'm being persuaded to do something I have a specific prohibition from doing. I'm simply being offered a choice: do X, get Y. Or not. And in this case, the decision is not one of being forced to do it, but choosing to do it.

I say I'm not forced to do it because I actually don't do this for every single character I play. I do it on my main (whose still working on the side switch day jobs) most of the time. I do it on most of my 50s. I sometimes do it on alts I'm leveling, but other times I don't bother. I make the choice not just per alt, but also per day, situationally, depending on whether I feel like it or not.

Nearly *all* the choices the devs offer in the game are choices intended to be evaluated in that way. Here's a reward, here's the activity that generates it, do it or not, do it frequently or infrequently, today or tomorrow, based on whether you think the activity is worth the effort and whether the activity is something you are willing or desire to do.

People saying that if the trials were any good the devs wouldn't have to offer rewards for them are being disingenuous. They wouldn't advocate removing *all* rewards for the game. That's not how these games work. But conversely saying the devs think the players are completely blind to rewards is also not accurate. The devs recognize that players do evaluate their choices based in part on what rewards are generated by each activity. That doesn't mean players always seek to optimize reward earning, but it does factor in and the devs know this. The devs target the middle, offering choices that players will be motivated to make, but aren't compelled to make. If most players said they didn't care about the rewards at all, that would indicate the rewards are probably too low. But if most players said they felt compelled to acquire the rewards because their value made it impossible to do otherwise, that would indicate the rewards are probably too high. What they are aiming for is "I'd like that reward, I'll put some effort into it, but I won't damage my own enjoyment of the game to pursue it."

And they aren't aiming for *everyone* to think that, because that's impossible. They are only aiming for the average player to think that. The extremes on both ends will think the rewards are either meaningless or too overtly compelling. That's unintended, but unavoidable. Thinking that the devs specifically did something to make one specific person feel the way they do is generally wrong.


In the specific case of the incarnate costume parts, they are certainly a reward for people who are already running a lot of trials and accumulating merits. But its also true that those rewards were added for people who were not necessarily doing that but would be willing to do so simply because the reward itself was something they were more inclined to pursue than the incarnate powers themselves. But the devs are not attempting to bribe someone who doesn't want to run the trials at all into suddenly running them constantly. The players who are doing that are outside the sphere of what the devs specifically intend.

It certainly doesn't sound as if you have to enjoy the trials to be "eligible" for the rewards. It actually just sounds as if you have to value cosmetic items enough to do whatever the devs point you at, no matter if you actually like the trials or not.

On the contrary, this sounds very much as if the devs are trying to get people that value cosmetic thingies and otherwise wouldn't play the trials, to actually play the trials, by dangling cosmetic bits in front of them.

Sounds very much like a bribe to me.

End game is no different than adding 10 new levels. I see this as no different than any of those games where you can solo fine for 10 levels, and then suddenly need a group to continue to play - only in this case, you get 50 levels of doing what you want before having a forced "choice".

Character advancement is one thing; this "core" distinction you're trying to make is rubbish.

That's because you're already settled in your belief. I was referring to that statement. Reading that statement without anger, it's clear that Positron was saying that some people like the escalation in power given by the Incarnate system, but others instead value cosmetic rewards. Thus they added rewards to give people who want to do the trials but want different kind of rewards something to chase after.

No, they are a carrot if you want character advancement - which is the bread and butter of the entire MMO genre of games.
#1 the benefits work just fine in the rest of the game - in fact, for at least one of my characters, they have enabled me to complete side-switching missions on my own when I had a huge amount of difficulty before
#2 as I already mentioned, even the parts that are not usable in the rest of the game are going to be used in future end-game content. It is not the concept of "post-50 content" that I hate, but instead "poorly designed post-50 content that requires way too many people".

When they give me 50+ content that I can complete with 1-4 people and doesn't involve squishies exploding randomly due to 300000 mobs all firing randomly at anything that moves, then I want to be prepared (including the level shifts). If they are never going to do that, then it would be nice if they would come out and say so, then I could stop doing incarnate content at all (and stop paying them money at the same time).

Incarnate Level Shifts only work in Incarnate Trials.

If you are referring to the rest of the t3 and t4 abilties, then your mention of incarnate level shifts was superfluous.

Actually, it's because I'm using your word "bribe".

We can use Posi's words, "motivator" or "reward" instead. That still doesn't change very much in Posi's statement; they are there as an incentive specifically aimed at the people that preferred cosmetic improvements which otherwise wouldn't do the trials.

Quite, the connotation of bribe. And the implication that it's something undesired in this style of game.

Are you similarly against the multiple bribes we get for completing missions? The bribes we get for subscribing to the game for a prolonged period of time? The bribe we get for farming an ITF? The bribes we get for farming out defeat counts? The bribe we get to hang out and turn on rest while a rikti soldier fails to defeat us? The bribe to select powers that heal?

Arcanaville expressed that point fairly well.

You seemed to be saying the primary or sole purpose to the rewards were people who would have run the trials anyway. I don't think that is literally true. I think they are also equally there to encourage people who aren't running the trials to run them. But I make a distinction between people who *aren't* running the trials and people who specifically would rather *not* run the trials.

I actually haven't run very many trials in the past two weeks, and none in the last week. Is that because I suddenly decided I hate the trials? No, its just that I starting doing something else I wanted to do, and I'm focused on that now. If the devs made this weekend triple empyrean weekend would I start running them again? Hell yeah. Is that because the devs are bribing me to do something I don't want to do? No: its because I have no problem running trials and I would set aside what I am doing now temporarily.

There's a difference between "not doing" and "don't want to do." Sometimes, I just want to do something else *more*. And I think things like the costume rewards are also targeted at such people: people who aren't doing the trials, but would do them if they had things like costume rewards, because the reason they aren't doing the trials is not because they hate them, but because at the moment they would just rather do something else instead, possibly for *its* rewards.

Which is, or course, what I stated in my original post adding up the FB poll results someone else posted.

edit: removed the word "exactly" since I didn't use the same phrasing Arcana used, so it wasn't "exactly" what I stated.

The difference is that they're multiple. Not only the bribes, but what you do to get bribed, so to the point that it can hardly count as being bribed. If I could choose to eat something else than spinach to get the cake, there wouldn't be an issue of "go to bed without dinner", would it?

On the one hand, the new forums make it very difficult to construct giant quote pyramids. On the other hand, there was a reason why we sometimes had giant quote pyramids.

Ah, the exclusivity, that's a different qualm than being upset at being bribed .

However, I do contest that there are a number of other such exclusive bribes in place. One way to get a glowing roman sword, one way to get a bald cap/witch hat combo, and one really annoying way to get task force commander epaulets.

However, I do wonder if it's more viable to obtain alignment merits through street sweeping than it is to obtain incarnate progression without iTrials. While it is possible in the former case [Zone Events, and exceptional characters soloing GMs], I doubt how viable it truly is. It'd be an interesting experiment, but I'd need some serious bribing to be willing to try it .

Actually, I'm in the latter group. I would rather *not* run the trials, because there are just three of them and they're grindy because you need quite a lot of their rewards to get anywhere.

Maybe the cosmetic stuff wasn't meant as an incentive to players like me. But it is an incentive, no matter if it was meant for players like me, and I still can't stand the grind. And that's darn frustrating.

The difference is that you don't have to grind them. You just have to do them once.

Granted, the task force epaulets requires you to do seven different task forces once, but they're fun so you would probably do them anyway, and you only have to do them once each.

Well, okay, you have to do the ITF twice. To be specific, you have to kill Rommie five times, and he only have four lives per ITF, and no extra life no matter how many zillion points he gets.

To unlock the pieces on one single toon. The incarnate pieces are account wide (well for level 50's).

I swear I've seen that taskforce line before in reference to iTrials. Just because you like them, doesn't mean everyone does . And that's ok.

One slight wrinkle, although it's potentially meaningless depending on the player. All of those are worked out per character. The iTrial cosmetic unlocks are per account. It may have an effect on perception. But to be honest, I really see it as a minor distinction anyway. Especially since I don't think the fact that they are account-unlockable should really be 'held against' them with regard to their astral/empyrean merit cost.

But mostly just trying to get you to concede that there have been rewards in this game that have been behind gates that people don't like.

The thing is, those rewards (to the best of my knowledge), were indicative of the task you just completed...
Rularuu swords from Rularuu defeats or specific mission arc related to the shard.
Jack O'Lantern head from the zombie halloween event.
A witch hat from Katie TF.
Roman Armor from Romulus.
Day job badge from standing near a place associated to a career (etc)
Vanguard parts from merits earned defeating Rikti.
Winter parts from the winter event.
Capes from a cape mission arc.
Auras from an aura mission arc.
even the Ascension Armor from the iTrials. (Which should of been on a toon by toon basis, imo)


But, the auras and emotes gated behind the iTrials have no relation to the iTrials other than the gate...
A rainbow aura? A magnetic aura? An electric trail?
A swoon emote?
How are these indicative of anything anyone had to defeat or complete in an iTrial? Did I miss the leprechaun attacking in the BAF Trial? I didn't see it in the BAF Trial description.
Are there any other rewards in CoH that are not representive of the task rewarding them?