I like my nictus shield

I was curious, so I checked. Of the three styles of scuta used by Roman soldiers, the round scutum is immediately available to beginning characters, the oval scutum isn't available at all (although you can sort of handwave it with the Spartan shields if you're not too picky), and the rectangular scutum appears only as 'Roman 2' with a fixed decoration, although 'Roman 4' is loosely similar. It's amusing that so few of the 'Roman' shields were actually used by the Romans.

Yes, I will back you up on this all the way. I've said it before - a game with no goals to achieve - a pure aimless sandbox - grows old VERY fast. However, that doesn't mean that everything should be eligible to be gated behind an unlock. Functional "stuff" like greater power, more abilities, higher stats, access to more areas of the game, name colours, character titles, special privileges and such, those I will always support being gated. In fact, I have a big problem with Veteran Reward and Booster Pack powers being available from level 1 (or level 4) onwards. These, to my eyes, should be earned, not simply given.

However, where gameplay is a game (sic), costume design is a toy, at least in my opinion. The gameplay side is something that you play, overcome, defeat and achieve things in, but costume design is different. Costume design is an artistic process, one which is impossible to define down to mechanical terms of "progression." You can't simply take all the costumes made in the game and align them in order from best to worst. Even removed from complex mathematical power balance where the limiting factor is usually a person's inability to work the math required to find the optimal solution, in costume design, there IS no objective truth behind what's good and what isn't.

I take a stroll through the costume design thread and see a costume quoted over several pages with people gushing with praise, and I think "Good god! This is the ugliest thing I've seen all year!" By contrast, I'll see a design that the author rejects saying "Yeah, no, I really don't like that!" and several people proceed to mock, yet I think "I WANT THIS! GIMME THE COSTUME FILE! NAO!" Trying to come up with objective measurements for making a costume "better" with level is an unwinnable fight, because what makes a costume good is different to different people. And, ultimately, the only person who matters is the owner of the character.

My disagreement with unlockable costumes is, I admit, partly due to the fact that I want more freedom in costume design for myself. But it is also in part down to the fact that such gates give costume pieces weight that they do not deserve. Over the years, I've seen plenty of costumes where people clearly just unlocked a new item and just slapped it on a costume it looks really out of place on, just because... Well, they unlocked it, they should use it. It's an achievement, right? In a very real sense, this is like taking a nice tailored suit and slapping on the reverse baseball cap you earned at the fair. To some, it may look good, but generally speaking, it's out of place.

What I value above all else is individuality. When I bought the Animal pack, one of the first things I considered making was "a tiger." The first time I logged into the Praetorian tutorial after the pack came out (on a non-tiger character, luckily), I saw two almost identical tiger characters, almost identical to how I'd have made mine. Why? Because those were the new pieces and everyone was using them not because they were good (even though they were), but because of the assigned value of being new. I have no respect for characters that could have come out of an assembly line, regardless of what in-game achievement that may signify, because it doesn't signify what I find to be the most important achievement in costume design - artistic achievement.

And again, I don't want to insult people who want unlocks. I'm not saying you guys are elitists or that you want to rub your unlocks in people's faces. Far from it. If you can make it work and still produce a good costume with these pieces, then my hat's off to you. But please, don't use "status symbol" costume pieces JUST because they're status symbols. Try to put at least some artistry in it, that I may be impressed by your work IN ADDITION to your achievement.

I actually have something of a suggestion in this regard. For me, my mini-goals are to top myself with each new costume slot. You want a hard challenge? Forget unlocking all the Vanguard pieces or reaching level 50 for that damb Ascension armour. Try competing with YOURSELF Whenever I make a new character, I put my heart and soul into his or her costume, I do the very best I can... And then I try to do even better the next time I make a new costume for that character. If I can succeed at this - and I don't always manage, I find that this gives a sense of satisfaction that no unlock in the game has ever given me. If I fail - and I usually do - then I still have my default to fall back to. But I have a fair few characters who use their third, fourth or even fifth costume as their default these days. As I got better at making costumes, their designs improved significantly.

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Also, here's something of an anecdote, just to further illustrate my point. I have a character, we'll call her Kia, who's a Sword/Shield Scrapper. When I first made her, I used an engraved Round shield and the then-new Valkurie sword. I thought that if I made the sword "fancy," as that was at the time, then she would look better. But the truth is that I hated playing the character. Something about her was off. VERY off. I could never put my finger on it, but something about her bugged the hell out of me. I could hardly force myself to play her, abandoning her several times and essentially forcing myself to play her.

Then I ran the ITF and unlocked both the Romulus Shield and the Romulus Sword. I tried her with the Romulus Sword, almost as a joke to see how she'd look, as I'd used that sword on another character. And then, in that one instant, I knew what had been wrong - the Valkyrie sword is too short for my sense of aesthetic. The sword was what was bugging me, so I swapped her to the Romulus Sword, and I NEVER looked back. Suddenly, this "off" character whom I hated playing was so awesome I had to occasionally stop playing and pinch myself to make sure I wasn't dreaming. She is currently my only level 50 hero on Pinnacle, and I wouldn't trade her for the world.

At the time, I wasn't as aware of exactly what my sense of aesthetic was, and I was kind of stabbing in the dark and trying to replicate what others suggested I might like, so I stuck with a character who bugged me because I didn't know better. I WILL NOT make the same mistake again. I WILL NOT make a costume I hate again, and I WILL NOT play a character I don't like. Because those first 35 levels were not worth it. I want to make a character who looks good from character creation, or I will simply not make that character at all. At all. I have far too many ideas and far too many other characters I actually enjoy playing to torture myself dragging a placeholder costume through the levels until I can unlock what I perceive said character should have had since creation.

Incidentally, I never used the Nictus Sword or Nictus Shield. I didn't even use the Romulus Shield like I'd been planning, because it ended up not looking as good as the Round shield I had already. That's what I dislike about unlocks so much - they're given such weight in the game system (must be level 35, must run a TF twice) - and yet when I unlock them... They don't fit the character. Worse still, a free item fits the character so much better, not because the item is somehow "better," but simply because I've found a better way to use it to create a costume more appealing to my eye.

In fact, I've had a BIG problem with loot-driven games, in that what the developers perceive as looking better (i.e. epic gear) isn't always what I see as looking even good. Most Fantasy MMOs, for instance, draw the elite gear for warrior types as bulky, heavy, giant armour. Well, suppose my "heavy warrior" looks like this or like this? Head to toe fancy engraved armour just doesn't cut it. In fact, in games that allow me to use one piece of gear for stats and another for looks, I tend to use starter gear for looks because it's usually less intrusive.

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Personally, I'm not against status symbols. I just don't want them to be costume items.

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.