Dev Chat Highlights, July 20: Paragon Rewards

Just like the "Free" 150pp/month for just being a tier 9 subscriber? I don't see that on the pyramid and wouldn't expect that or the costumes to cost a token to unlock but we'll just have to wait and see, until the devs actually clarify what they mean and say.

Didn't you know? Yours pays for the Positron character's Match.com subscription.

The devs have never been accused of possessing precision of language. In this case they are tending, not just here but all over the place, to trip over the distinction between things that are not gated by purchasable unlocks and things that are free to acquire. The first is "free from additional prerequisites" and the second is "free as in beer."

To be honest, sometimes I'm not even sure which they mean, particularly when they've potentially changed it since inception.

I can say that as far as I know, the 150 extra Paragon Points is an automatic benefit for reaching tier 9 status. It was not an unlockable reward when the system was first described to me in detail.

I believe the following explains my thought process:

They just forgot the asterisks.

Triumph: White Succubus: 50 Ill/Emp/PF Snow Globe: 50 Ice/FF/Ice Strobe: 50 PB Shi Otomi: 50 Ninja/Ninjistu/GW Stalker My other characters

Terra,

Has it been stated anywhere that we begin accruing PR Tokens in July? I don't recall ever seeing that anywhere. We *do* accrue Paragon Points starting in July though.

As I understand it, NEITHER of them are given to you all at once. If one of them was though I'd assume it would more likely be the Vet tokens, *not* the Paragon Points. As I understand it, you receive your allotment (of 400 or 550) on the day of the month each month that would be your billing day, regardless of weather you're a multi-month subber or a monthly subber. AFAIK the same is true of Paragon Reward Tokens.

This has been covered. It's "free" in that you do not *pay* for it, but it is not '"free" in that it does not cost tokens, it still costs tokens (which they have given you).

*/e facepalm* I'm not calling them liars, I never called them liars. If YOU saw that, YOU read the bias in. I am saying that it hasn't been specifically addressed in a way that was clear to people who are especially concerned about it. Because it hasn't been specifically addressed, people who are especially concerned about the availability of the Celestial costumes don't know how aware the devs are of their concerns. Thus, I'm stating, they should speak up if it's that important to them. I'm not saying that they will necessarily get a response, but that they should make the effort. Why? Because the dev team is pretty good about monitoring the boards & making note of people's concerns. Sometimes they even respond.

As to the second part, I personally don't think they would lock the costume set away after it's initial release period, but I can see how it would be a concern to people for whom costumes are important. I can even think of a badge example that could provide justification for that concern. It's not possible for every player to get all the Anniversary badges. Some of those badges, some players will never be able to get. Now to someone who isn't an obsessive badge collector, that makes perfect sense. You weren't there to earn the Xth Anniversary badge so why should you ever be able to earn it?

So now we have the tier 9 VIP rewards which have been announced to offer rewards on a limited-time basis. AFAIK, it hasn't been specifically stated what refresh means. AFAIK it also hasn't been specifically stated the the tier 9 rewards will be made available again at a later date. For me personally, it's not a big enough deal to worry about. However, for some people, this is a concern. Maybe the devs have already anticipated their concerns, but these people don't know. Now some of these things are fixed & can't be changed based on design decisions made long ago, but other things are still in flux & might be changeable. Not being privy to what's going on behind the scenes, the people who have concerns should say something now. They shouldn't be ranty about it. They should demonstrate that they've made an effort to understand how things work, and then explain why things as described concern them. Explain why they don't like what they understand is going to happen & then let the devs take in & consider their feedback. Maybe the devs will act on it, or maybe they won't, but at least the person concerned will have made the effort to get their concern addressed & considered.

Again, no. I'm saying that they are many people working on a project that has lots of details. They get most things right, but they can also make oversights & mistakes. They try very hard not to overlook anything & to not make mistakes, but sometimes things do slip between the cracks. I'm saying that people who have particular concerns SHOULD raise those concerns if they have reason to believe, or see direct evidence that those concerns haven't been addressed. By doing so, they give the devs the opportunity to see both what the concerns of their community are, and where their current communications may not be doing as good a job as they'd have liked. Based on the feedback they get, they improve their communications by addressing the issues they didn't communicate as well as they would have liked and are of concern to the community.

Something appears to have happened & your thought here did not get expressed completely. (Evidence that even the most thorough people can have slip-ups)

And I expect it would have been released as a booster pack, or been made unlockable in-game. I think it only became acceptable to have a costume set as a subscriber reward because they moved to this new reward system. I think the lack of costume sets in the later Veteran Rewards supports my position better than it does yours.

No it hasn't been covered. Their video is unclear and so is the official website. I have PM'ed Zillinger for clarification on the point and when I hear back I'll post the information so that it is clear to everyone.

To clarify: I and others covered it, because to many of us, it was perfectly clear, however it obviously was not to you. We'll see if you get response, and you can post it. I suspect, however, if/when they *do* respond, here or in a PM to you, the response will be the same as has been indicated.

Zwillinger replied to this post by Emberly on June 21:

So unless there's been some information released that supercedes this, it looks like Paragon Points will be doled out monthly while Paragon Reward tokens will be frontloaded.

From the Freedom FAQ page.

And this:

We can rework the Reward Tokens you get thusly:

At the time that FREEDOM is released, use this formula:

N/4 + N/12 (N = Number of months subscribed, drop remainders from both terms)

+1 Token per month starting in July 2011.

And if you want to 'buy out' the rest of the Reward Tier Tree, you can pay $15 per Token needed (and also get 1,200 Points for each $15 you spend) by means of buying Points, OR... You can pay your subscription ahead of time and get 1 Paragon Point immediate for each future month you pay for.

That is how I read it.

I'm sure that they are already getting this feedback in Beta.

So panic is justified if, in early announcements, not everything is revealed? Give me a break.

I going to give you some advice as to what happens in betas. First there is planning. That probably took place last year, if not earlier. Then they had a team starting the general shape of the rewards program and made some mock-ups. They then got a small focus group (actually there was a focus group before this beta) to see if they were on the right track. This happened in May. The developers explained what they were planning to this group. At this point most of the overall features were set. The developers then continued working to get it closer to actual production. Late June they started with a small group of beta testers. They are possibly on the third wave of beta testers at this point, if my guess is right (based on past betas). The features, unless they are horribly broken, are set at this point.

What you are talking about (refreshing top tier rewards) will not happen for 3-4 months after Issue 21 launch. The thing is that the rewards might be rotated in quarterly. So Q4 is the Celestial Set, Q1 is a Tier 9 VIP only powerset, Q2 is a special Mission Pack, Q3 a special IO set only available to Tier 9 VIP. We won't know until they give us more information. Throwing oneself into a panic won't get the information faster.

In every case that they've made that mistake, they have corrected it. There is only a small set of badges that are one-shots: The anniversary badges, passport, and efficiency expert.

You don't come to these forums often, huh? What you are saying hasn't happened in past, and I'm sure it will continue into the future.

Dyslexia, actually. Sometimes I don't realize I haven't completed my sentences because of it. That should be:

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over expecting a different result. The rednames have consistently stated that they are aware of players not wanting "one shot" rewards of any stripe. Players complaining, yet again, that they don't want one shot costume sets or other rewards is saying that "perhaps in this case the developers are insane and will forget."

I can cite several veteran rewards, when added caused uproar because they were "too far", including wings, Samurai Armor, Tech Sleek, shoulder capes, chest emblems (groups), the boxing set, the Arachnos Helmets (51 month reward). We were likely to get the GR enhancements (at a guess they would have been 87 or 90).

Triumph: White Succubus: 50 Ill/Emp/PF Snow Globe: 50 Ice/FF/Ice Strobe: 50 PB Shi Otomi: 50 Ninja/Ninjistu/GW Stalker My other characters

Huh. Thank you Selina, Terra, and Zombie for pointing that all out. I must've totally glazed over all of that, and missed Zwill's response to Emberley. There's a crapton of stuff in all this to cover. Thanks guys.

Amakjfhgsjgnsvj I'd better not miss the armour sets! D=

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.

Originally Posted by Captain_Photon NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.

Yeah, that makes it likely that I'm going to be in tier 9 immediately. Unless they wait until December to launch.

Triumph: White Succubus: 50 Ill/Emp/PF Snow Globe: 50 Ice/FF/Ice Strobe: 50 PB Shi Otomi: 50 Ninja/Ninjistu/GW Stalker My other characters

*sigh*
That's Paragon Reward Token, you noob!!

Haha... Oh the joy of these new non-currencies!

The Electric-Knight ______ Malfaz _____ Zox'Oculox

@Zethustra

"Now at midnight all the agents and the superhuman crew come out
and round up everyone that knows more than they do"-Dylan

www.pauldamonthomas.com - Original Music

It's on purpose.

You get an extra token every year. So every multiple of 12 months is repeated twice. In red.

Also the chart isn't quite accurate it seems, since it also seems we'll be getting one Paragon Rewards token every month leading up to the release of Freedom.

Originally Posted by reiella Until I see something that states to the contrary, going to assume VK is right .

I thought the announcement said we would get Paragon Points accruing until launch, not PRewards?

edit: http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=264018

Says Paragon Points... no Reward tokens.

In terms of costume pieces your most recent example is, what, three years old?

It's extremely hard to believe they'd add costume sets that deep in the vet reward tree now. The "choicest" stuff was earned within 18 months, Tech Sleek being iffy at 27 months (perhaps on your server the boxing set is wildly popular?). The Arachnos Helmets were strangley past due compared to the pre-order sprints (and more likely drudged up when they sat around stumped for ideas), but they are not heavily used - especially not compared to trench coats and wings and samurai armor bits.

There are less examples of costume sets being given as vet reward as they are simply being given along with new boxes (5 full sets vs 3 full sets, and this is discounting the huge number of sets that came with CoV).

Based on recent performance, it's far, far more feasible that things such as costume sets would appear in a paid booster, in-game unlockable "content," or some boxed set. They stopped putting costume bits as vet rewards in roughly June 2008 (feel free to look it up, the only specific that matters is that it happened before Boosters). They started Boosters in September of 2008. They have added costumes in boxed editions every time (excepting Architect Edition, which let you choose a Booster) - pre-order sprints and helmets, Justice, Sinister, Valkyrie, Resistance, Praetorian, too numerous to list Villain sets, DVD Edition capes for both COH and COV, DVD Edition Arachnos logo, etc.

They have just added costume bits as in-game purchasable with one of our myriad in-game currencies (I, for one, am so glad they removed Base Salvage because it's no hard to keep track of all these currencies!). There's just nothing there to support a belief that they'd start tossing costume parts on the back end of the vet program again. That's disingenuous, especially when being so dismissive of other people's opinions and lines of thought when your own are lacking in substance.

Have a peachy day! I'm sure you'll enjoy the last word.

fixed.

Is this accurate? I keep hear conflicting information on whether or not tier one costs a token.