Discussion: The Special Black Friday Sale has been extended!

I hope that if that is indeed the case and they're giving females the same options that males get, then they're going to give something ELSE to males to make up for the fact that females get more costume options.

Of course, if they DO give the bartender costume pieces that have been joked about in the feedback thread to males, then girls are just going to complain that they don't get THOSE TOO.

Originally Posted by Nethergoat it's NEVER too late to pad your /ignore list!

And so, because you don't have time, it means that those of us who made time because we wanted to have top enhancements for our characters now get to be told "Oh I know you worked to get that stuff in your build, but SURPRISE! Joe Lazy Guy with a 20 dollar bill can get 'em without any effort required!"

It's a slippery slope- Your argument can be applied to Incarnate content too. "I don't have time to get Incarnate salvage. Let me give you irl money for it!" And the same for badges, "I don't have time to collect badges, here lemme pay you for 'em."

Pretty much the trend this sets is that if irl money can be equated to things earned in game, the game loses all of its integrity. There is no point in actually playing the game if you can simply purchase everything. Now, I'm all for selling costumes, non combat pets, rocket slides, and all those other little trinkets that don't alter game performance. When it comes to this, though, I am not comfortable.

And so can you. I don't see what's supposed to be so unfair about this.

Look at it from the alternative standpoint: because YOU can afford to spend that much time in the game, you have TWO ways to get these enhancements this weekend, while they still only have the one (paying cash for them).

Originally Posted by Nethergoat it's NEVER too late to pad your /ignore list!

Hi I don't have the time to run an entire marathon, let me make a donation to your race committee so i can start at the 10 mile mark.

Hi I don't have the time to play a full game of golf, let me shoot the 9th hole and we can multiply my score by 9.

Hi I haven't had the time this year to maintain my physical training, here is $200 let me use a jetski, a motorbike, and skates in the triathlon.

Hi I haven't put the effort into this game to learn how it works or do what is needed to advance my characters let me write your producers a check.

Unless you are PVPing this mysterious Joe Lazy Guy, what does it matter how he got his stuff? Just be happy he's having fun, while you're having fun, and have fun together. Or, heck, don't team with Joe Lazy Guy, and he can have his fun without you, and you can have your fun without him. Or, heck, don't even ask him where he got his stuff, and then you don't have to complain about people saving time and spending money -- stuff that you could have bought too, but instead chose to save money and spend time.

Originally Posted by Dispari I don't know why Dink thinks she's not as sexy as Jay was. In 5 posts she's already upstaged his entire career.

I like how all your examples are competitive ones. How many people do you actually think are buying IOs from the Paragon Market for competitive reasons?

Yes, picking up an attuned set of Luck of the Gambler is going to make me rock faces at PVP... 9_9

Originally Posted by Nethergoat it's NEVER too late to pad your /ignore list!

Rare/Very Rare things are rare and very rare for a reason. They take time and effort to earn. Here's an analogy for you: We are playing a game, just like professional athletes. What if the NFL instituted a policy where players for any professional team could buy a Super Bowl ring, that counted just the same as those earned by players? Do you think the other players who actually earned their Super Bowl rings would be comfortable with that?

City of Heroes is not an Olympic event. There's nothing at stake and you don't stand to gain anything by getting a head-start.

If you and I are having a friendly game of golf and some random person wants to just shoot the 9th hole and leave, what does it matter to me? If that's how someone wants to spend their time, who cares? They don't win anything by finishing earlier than me. My ability to play and enjoy a round of golf is not damaged.

Originally Posted by PRAF68_EU Dispari has more than enough credability, and certainly doesn't need to borrow any from you.

Joe must have gone to school and got a better job than you.

Why do I care what kind of jewelry some overpaid thugs get to wear?

The money people are spending on them takes time and effort to earn. Unless you know of a way to get free money in which case I want in.

Originally Posted by PRAF68_EU Dispari has more than enough credability, and certainly doesn't need to borrow any from you.

Are you really this incapable of simple concept comprehension, or are you just being intentionally obtuse and literal because you disagree with me?

That doesn't take place in the game world. This will do more harm than good and it will perpetuate the sense of entitlement that is already prominent in the community. Have you thought about the extent to which this will trivialize game mechanics? I can almost guarantee that the alignment system and the in game market will take a hit from this. If purple/PVP IO's are included in the paragon market, I could even see trials getting run even less- Lots of people do them to save emp merits and work on builds. This will ultimately lead to people playing content less.

Do you really believe that a significant portion of the game would just spend large amounts of money to outfit their characters and then stop playing them?

Originally Posted by PRAF68_EU Dispari has more than enough credability, and certainly doesn't need to borrow any from you.

I think many people will use things like the market and alignment system much less often. I also think Premium players will be more likely to just buy the enhancements instead of buying access to systems through which they can be earned. Once again, it's a testament to the integrity of the game. Actual content will be made irrelevant.

This isn't a trend, this is an experiment. There's no question in my mind those four sets were strategically chosen for their value. The devs are attempting to see what the net effect of selling such enhancements in the game are, and one of the things they are interested to know is whether the players will balk at the idea of paying for that level of performance, or whether the majority of players are both comfortable with it and willing to spend money on it.

Personally, I'm not thrilled. But I'm also morbidly curious to know how that sale goes as well. Its always useful, if not always heartening, to know in which direction the majority leans.

Up to this point I think the devs have skirted the line in some areas. These enhancements almost seem chosen to *deliberately* cross it. It'll be interesting to see if the rest of the playerbase, particularly the store consumers, agrees or disagrees.

If there's one area where the devs and I part company, its that they tend to believe the only valid way to learn stoves are hot is by touching them.


Incidentally, and perhaps counter-intuitively, I'm not as uncomfortable with the archetype IOs in the Super Packs. I think partly its because selling these specific IO sets undermines the auction house economy, and that makes it problematically unfair to those that buy and sell those items in the in-game economy. The archetype IOs don't exist in-game except (eventually) as super pack items, so there's no pre-existing economy surrounding them.

Honestly though, I can't really fully rationalize that feeling. Its just a feeling.

I really hope you're right about this.

I've decided that I'm going to stop being bothered by this. It's vaguely annoying, since the set bonuses exemplaring is something I'd like to have happen with the IOs I have without buying them at low levels, but there's so much variability in builds that I suspect I can still put together something that's effective at low levels without investing in the Market-Os. But then, I've been trying to optimize builds within the pre-PM parameters for a while, and find it fun. That being said...

I did buy one set that I haven't slotted yet, and may buy another at some point soon, because I have one character I want to have as tricked-out as I can get him, since I do a lot of TFs with him (when he's not sitting in freaking First Ward twiddling away at day job badges...). But I can already exemp him to around 30 without altering his survivability much at all, so it's really not that pressing.

If people get their jollies buying this stuff, so be it. I don't begrudge them the convenience of "buy it and forget it" IOs just because I'm too cheap to do the same.

Its not about the competition, its about the fact that the people participating are all involved in the same event.

Imagine city of heroes isn't a sport, but one of those odd pieces of performance art. I believe there is an artist that wraps islands and other very large things in plastic. Now lets say some people for whatever odd reason want to be part of the art, but (don't have the time, can't wrap things whatever) so instead of participating in the art, they use some sort of mechanical means to do the job. There is a connection between people participating. A shared experience. The people that bought or just didn't fully participate alter the event for those that did.


Another way to look at it is imagine you have a bookclub of a few people that meet weekly to talk about a book you all have read. Part of the event is you all chip in a few bucks to provide snacks. You have someone that comes in and wants to attend the bookclub always contributes cash but never reads the book. They may be really great people but they aren't bringing the shared experience of the book to the club.

The nature of the events are fundamentally different when you allow it to be changed or violated for a dollar.

Just take a look at the recent AE nerfs. These are put in to maintain the integrity of the game, but for a little money the integrity isn't all that important. Well we put marty in to prevent people going too fast and getting rewards too quickly, but buy a windfall and an xp booster all of a sudden too fast really isn't.

Speaking as someone who uses the systems you're talking about in order to obtain the things they just put in the store, I'd see it as an improvement for certain people who have money they feel they can part with if they can acquire the things they want in order to go back to actually playing the content they'd rather be running.

I get Kinetic Combats and LotGs so I can excel at high end content, TFs, trials, farming, or whatever. I don't get them so I can be better at speeding through alignment tips. People don't run that stuff for the "actual content" if they're doing it for the rewards. They're doing it for the rewards. If they'd rather spend money than time to get those rewards, I don't see that as a problem.

Will I buy these items? Probably not. For one it's not that hard to obtain them and I already have a bunch of all of them. Two, I don't have enough money that I'd want to just throw it at that stuff. But even if I did buy them, it wouldn't be but for maybe one character. And I'd do it to improve her performance when exemped.

And I'd do it so I could go back to doing what I'd rather be doing instead of grinding alignment tips. "Actual content" won't be destroyed. If anything I could return to the actual content sooner. Calling the race to get Alignment Merits through tips "actual content" already makes me laugh. I already do everything I can to avoid playing them. I drop missions and stealth to the end. And since the SSAs come out, I just do those for Alignment Merits instead. Nothing of value would be lost by allowing people who don't want to do something the chance to not have to do it -- if they have enough money that is.

Originally Posted by PRAF68_EU Dispari has more than enough credability, and certainly doesn't need to borrow any from you.

There are many other things to consider also. You're speaking from your perspective, and that's certainly fine, but not everyone shares that perspective. You need to keep in mind that access to the alignment system and the market are sold in the store, which I think is totally fair. The game is looking to expand. People are told that the way to get x enhancement to increase character performance is to run tips and play the market, both of which help to sustain the in game economy. Now, what is a premium player's incentive to contribute to the in game economy if they can simply buy the enhancements and forgo the process of earning them?

Something else that doesn't sit well with me is this: My main characters are my Warshade and my Peacebringer. I spend a good amount of time on the Kheldian forum not only posting about things I've accomplished with my Kheldians, but helping players with their builds and playstyles also.

I've been worried for a while that purple and PVP IO's would become available for irl money which made me unwilling to post my personal builds- I've been sending them out on a per-request basis only because I don't want a bunch of random people who don't take the initiative to better their characters on their own to copy my builds. I work hard on my personal builds, and I don't want a bunch of clones running around.

If this trend continues, I will not be sending my builds out to anyone at all. It's a shame because I enjoy helping out the community when I can, but at this rate it will not be worth it to me anymore.

I don't even think it has to be a majority. Just like anything in the store, they might just need a significant enough number to justify it.

That is a "professional" (to some people), paid JOB.

City is a pretendy fun time GAME.

Big difference there, bucko.

Originally Posted by Dispari I don't know why Dink thinks she's not as sexy as Jay was. In 5 posts she's already upstaged his entire career.

That, and there's no CoH equivalent of the Super Bowl. Neither the Luck of the Gambler +Recharge, Numina's Convalescence proc or ANY of the other items in the store are rewards that can only be gained from winning a gigantic championship. They aren't even awarded as PVP (competitive) drops to begin with.

The comparison is indeed laughable.

On the other hand, I'm sure there are professional football teams with more money for training equipment than others... meaning those teams have access to better enhancements due to buying them with real money. And in the end, the vast majority of those who watch could care less if the team that won the Super Bowl did so because they were able to purchase superior equipment or they just practiced more than the team they beat using the equipment they had.

Originally Posted by Nethergoat it's NEVER too late to pad your /ignore list!