Discussion: New Items at the Paragon Market - September 27, 2011

Yeah, color me very sad too. I'm sorry, but this CoT revamp and player conversion is one mammoth ****tease. You redesign NPCs, teasing us with the premise of making as many NPC items available as possible. You even come up with long robes (which we have wanted from the beginning) that work on the player rig. You come up with a skirt that includes a buttcape, another thing we really want.

And then out of 70 pieces, you palm us off with 12. And only the ones that the lowest of floor licking minions get. Charge us the same price for the most detailed booster packs (that included a crapload of pieces), but give us a set that's about as skimpy as Sinister. (which was made more as a cute little bonus than stand-alone booster)
And then raise "clipping" as a justification for withholding the parts we wanted most, even though many items in-game clip like crazy as-is, and were deemed good to go. Like our current high collar cape. Every shoulder piece in the game clips with it, but we still got it. And players still use shoulder pieces with it, finding combos where the clipping is acceptable.

Is the problem with giving us these long skirts somehow related to the extreme leg animations of Martial Arts? Why let that stop you? If we players are bothered, we can choose the alternate punchy MA animations for use with the long skirted costume. Or save that costume piece for non-kicking characters.

Come on, cut out the "for your own protection" business and let us have some fun here.
Either add these missing parts in to bring this booster up to par with the other sets we love such as Steampunk, Barbarian, and Magic, or release them in a CoT part II booster, but don't leave us out in the cold, shafted because the NPCs got all the coolest parts and we got the minion-crumbs. Again.

I'd like to see the High Collar added and of course the Hat, big gloves, cape and belt. I understand the long skirt may have excessive clipping but I think we're at the point where we can handle it.

I want to voice right now that I had been looking forward to this pack sooo much I bought it immediately...
I then saw what all we ended up with and slowly came to feel the buyer's remorse, this is honestly the first time I've been disappointed with a purchase.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow City of Heroes is a game about freedom of expression and variety of experiences far more so than it is about representing any one theme, topic or genre.

There's really nothing else I can say that hasn't been expressed by other posters here.
Could've been a really cool costume set, but now it's just kind of bare.

The worst part of all this is if/when this pack doesnt sell well... I can see Marketting effectively nixing any more NPC group packs.

That said, if this is an indication of what the NPC packs will entail, I can live with that. I wanted a Carnie costume set... but not anymore.

The original Barbarian set is MUCH better than the CoT set. I'm sure the Gunslinger wont disappoint either.

I was expecting to be happy when the CoT pack was released.

I'm not happy. This is much less than I expected, and contains almost none of the pieces I was hoping to get.

This will probably be the very first set of costume pieces I do not buy immediately and in its entirety.

I'm one of the people that absolutely love the new look for the CoT. When I heard it was for sale I was very excited. Wanting to see what we get I went to create and new character and looked for the pieces there with a lock symbol next to it. No sign of it. I then came to the forum to check your announcement thread for pictures of the set. No pictures. Seriously guys why do you make it so hard to get pictures of anything new in this game? Do you want to sell things or what?

Anyhow after reading what is included by other players I have decided I am not spending 400 PP on what equates to less than a quarter of a costume set. There's not even a nice extra like ninja run, body change etc that other sets come with.

This is my first MMO and I must admit I though going F2P was a sign of desperation. I see now how wrong I was. What a money spinner for you this is turning out to be. I also see why a lot of other games are now heading down the same path.

It's a step in the right direction for a magic character. I never did like the Baron Jacket. I for one am quite happy.

So, the complaint has been that it takes so long to get new stuff - now we're getting weekly new stuff - and people are complaining?

Laughing Out Loud
I'm happy with the new stuff - I'm a bit reticent on the new CoT pieces because I don't know if they are exactly something I plan on using, but I'm grateful at the flow of new stuff coming into the game

I'm even more grateful to buy costume pieces ala carte

For those who may not have seen it

Quote:

Originally Posted by Positron Hey everyone, I know there is some disappointment in a few of the COT pieces that didn't make it into the package, and I want to dispel some of the rumors that we do this to keep unique pieces in the NPC's hands. What is more likely the case is that the pieces in question clash with over 20% of the other pieces in that area (cutting through geometry, in general looks really bad). In these cases we reserve the right to withhold these pieces in order to maintain the good looking characters you guys are capable of. Not an answer that will make everyone happy, but we do our best to ensure that a vast majority of our costumes, current, past, and future, work with everything else. Not everything will fit the bill, and just work with one or two other pieces, but that is a situation we work hard to avoid in the first place. Sometimes a look just has to win out though, and the piece gets made anyway. It's just that we work under slightly different guidelines when concepting and making parts for an NPC group than we do for PC costumes.

Thanks to everyone who posted info on this set. I love making costumes and can spend hours each week @ Icon but after reading everything here I am definitely going to pass on this set. So far the only thing in the store I have bought so far is the beam rifle set and if this costume set and the Pirate and a few other things are the way this whole thing is headed then just... meh.

I'd rather have the energy and Life mage Gloves then the ones we have now. At least those would be easier to blend with more options then the ones given now that look like reptile patterned hippie sleaves. :3

My issue with all the pieces that they held back, the high collars, hat, back piece etc makes to me no sense for signature groups. For signature characters such as Statesman, Manticore, Lord Recluse, Ghost Widow, Noble Savage etc. makes perfect sense to me.

With missing some of these pieces being able to customize AE Archvillains for COT for our missions they look like they are lacking. Making my big boss he does not look like a head villain or power broker of the COT.

This idea of keeping "unique" pieces for signature groups when it is some of those "unique" signature group pieces that help our costume designs and AE missions. What is so wrong with giving us as much as possible?

The reasoning given by Positron (other than the graphic and clipping issues) sounds like old school MMO thinking belonging to our competitors and not COH.

The big thing about CoH is our ability to create Character Costume Creation better than any MMO. No game has this kind of control and those that try have fallen short compared to CoH here. Yet the thought process is to keep also "unique" items sounds like something our competitors would say.

Now for the Signature Characters of the game, that makes sense like Statesman, Manticore, Lord Recluse, Ghost Widow, Noble Savage etc. but I do not see it for a signature group like CoT, where with our VEATs for instance we can make a character look like an Arachnos Agent.

And with Mission Creation as well that we have with AE it is surprising hearing this. We don't just play but can create in this wonderful world that has been going strong for 7 years.

Someone mentioned we would pay CoT1 and CoT2 to get these slots. That poster is right. Talking to a lot of people I know online on our chat channel we all do not understand why CoH is thinking this way.

What is funny is talking to all my friends about this even those that play other MMOs many of them would love to make characters that look like they belong to signature groups but no one allows them to do that. It does not cheapen the signature it is because we LOVE the signature group, it is like playing an evil race in D&D pen & Paper game or the Sabbat in a V:TM Pen & Paper Game.

Being allowed to build a character linked to a signature group especially the Villain side may help people playing on that side. I can see SGs that already exist and some in the future that are all about branches of those Signature Groups. Look at the VEATs when we finally got to play them we have seen a string of VEAT SGs on every server. Not just because of the class (many require if you are not a VEAT to at least have the Signature Arachnos Helmets to be on one of your characters. I could see the same with CoT if the pack was done better and talking to people playing the last few days a I know a bunch of people who think that way.

CoT Costume Set could have set a new standard here not just CoH but MMOs in general.

Yes, I own it and I am using it not as much as I was hoping.

You could argue that the fantasy blade IS the barbarian weapon of the katana options and has been in for a long time. It wouldn't hurt to add a scimitar-type weapon to both broadsword and katana (one a little fatter/bigger than the other). I never really understood why the Chinese Broadsword from the MA was added to katana but the Jian wasn't. And why didn't it get an organic sword? Maybe it's the name holding the customization back. Everyone knows exactly what a katana looks like and it could be limiting the imagination of the artists which would be sad since the powerset isn't restricted to one sort of blade. It's a style related to a single very sharp but light blade and not strictly kenjutsu. Whatever the reason, the katana customization could use some love with only 11 choices vs b'sword's 20+.

Claws is another that could use some love and the obvious choice for the barbarian pack would have been animal paws with claws extended. That would have been awesome.

I'm sure there was a ninja somewhere in time and space that wore fur and wielded a massive battle axe at some point as well, but despite these counter points, I think I'm gonna stick pretty tight with my general theory on the "how dare you omit barbarian katanas" issue.

For game purposes the iconic archetype of the superhero barbarian is pretty well defined. Double blind test 100 randoms on the top 10 items associated with a "barbarian" and I'm betting samurai swords and claws will rank pretty low. I would even artistically question a stereotypical barbarian making the fluid martial movements associated with some of the more elegantly animated powersets being cited, but then again I'm pretty picky when it comes to toons look and feel. At some point you just have to draw a few genre defining lines in the sand or you're going to have more problems then its worth, like diluting sets to the point of being less thematic than they already are or wasting precious resources to force out something just to fill an empty costume category.

Disturbingly there is already evidence of dev tossing something in with a set just to fill a perceived void (the "beastly rage" aura comes to mind - yikes) but i'd personally much rather the team burn those hours on getting something that is unarguably without question on topic perfectly dialed in - or filling unambiguously obvious holes (like wizard hats and robes).

I think we're spoiled by how rich and robust the creator is and sometimes expect cross pollination of everything all the time just because - but i embrace the idea of having to define a theme within a given set of guidelines and concepts from a project management aspect alone. I'm confident that's at least a rough snapshot of the process. However make no mistake, there are other aspects to the process, and choices, that continue to dumbfound me beyond all belief.