Woot, Super Packs!

I know that this is going against the grain of the outrage expressed by a few people, but this was kinda cool and I have to add my dissenting viewpoint to the standard rants.

So like a lot of people, I bought the 24-pack of Super Packs the day they came out. I got all of the costume pieces, no black wolf (yet!), and a healthy mix of ATOs, boosters, unslotters, etc. Of course, I also got a bunch of inspirations, those things much maligned as the "useless crap" that the developers are accused of throwing in just to keep you from getting all of that sweet, sweet loot (and spend more money, of course).

Now, I admit I'm not exactly the target demographic for inspirations for purchase. Truth is, I find the game excruciatingly easy, even the "hard" content that is supposed to challenge players. Not that I'm a godlike powerhouse of a player, mind you, but mainly because if I get defeated, I'm like, "meh," life goes on. If you're willing to die a lot and put in a bare minimum of preparation, you can accomplish pretty much everything in a reasonable amount of time.

So anyway, this weekend, I went on a Mortimer Kal strike force. We got to the end, where you have to defeat Positron as that #@*$! Cleansing Flame keeps healing him if you don't defeat it in like five seconds. No one really knew the mechanics of it going in, so we'd get him down to half his health, and then he'd heal back up completely. I tried and tried to tell people, "You have to drop everything and focus on that Cleansing Flame!", but to no avail. Then the leader dropped, leaving us with what seemed an insurmountable challenge to overcome. I mean, if we couldn't do it with five, how could we do it with four?

Then, I remembered, "Oh yeah! I have all of those inspirations from my Super Packs!" I claimed a bunch of them, gathered everyone together, and before going in, popped four or five of them, including the defense, damage resistance, and damage ones. They carried us through the entire battle, and we managed to defeat Positron with just one of the Cleansing Flames to deal with.

I probably won't use the inspirations every session, but I've gotta say, it was nice having them--and having enough of them--to accomplish what we were trying to do. I'm not saying, "Wow, I hope I get a ton of inspirations!" in future Super Packs, but I will say that in hindsight, I'm glad I got as many as I did while trying to go for other stuff. It was a healthy mix of them with other stuff I wanted to make me try and like them. I don't look at them as the "useless crap" drops, I see them more as, "well, I'll eventually use them for something, so that cool."

Oh, and last night, I did pop a few of the individual dual inspirations while soloing Arbiter Hawk's Valentine's Day mission. I didn't have to, but it was nice defeating Countess Crey a little faster and not faceplanting so many times. I doubt I'll be buying any of the inspirations directly (barring really good sales on the market), but I do see myself buying plenty of Super Packs in the future and hope they add more goodies to the mix.

My feeling on the super packs is that they're a pretty good buy, as long as you consider most of the contents useful. Personally, I very rarely use Windfalls, and never use Prestige Boosters (I'm not in any SGs), so those are worthless to me, but the rest of the stuff in the packs is at least mildly useful, and five at-least-mildly-useful things for a mere 80 points is pretty good. I bought a 24-pack, and am quite pleased with the contents thereof. I don't think I'll be buying more, at least not soon... but I may feel differently once the merits and insps I've got now run out.

Someone who only wants the costume set (or worse, the wolf) will feel the value is much worse.

I stated before that I wouldn't buy them but I decided that I wanted to stop making new alts and work on my favourite 50 (d3 corr) and make him Ultimate for the Trials.

So I bought packs until I got all the corr ato's and 6 catalysts, it took a little over 50. Of course then I had a heap of non corr ato's so I thought I'd sell them.
I made 1.6 Billion Inf. Teeheehee.

I've opened about 125 packs and still no Black Wolf. I wasn't completely set on it, but at this point I feel like I'm in too deep on these packs that I must have it. Damn you, Paragon.

Yeah, I have to say that I'm not finding the "useless crap" from the Super packs entirely usless, or even crap for that matter.

Even the windfalls have a use! I realize they don't affect the incarnate component drop table, but I use them before I start iTrials to help with the random drops rolls of everything else. Seems to be working! (And besides, what better place is there to use them?)


... And all the Merits ... mwa-hahahahaha!

ive only gotten 27 super packs, i got all the costume pieces within the first 15, no wolf pet but i really dont care about it because its a retarded vanity pet and the enhancement catalysts are too rare from the packs to be worth going after, i also can get ATOs in game so another thing i dont need to worry about especially since in game i can get exact one i need instead of a bunch that i dont have any use for

I love the packs.

Got one to try them out, enjoyed it, got a "box" (24). Got lots of shiny stuff.

Five star, would buy again. May, in fact. Probably will when the next "set" comes out.

I'm also not totally sure that anything can be pay-to-win if it's also able to be earned in the game - that just makes it pay-so-save-time.
Like if they offered the 3 current Incarnate levels shifts in the market for 100 bucks each, that'd be a pay-to-save-time offer, because players could earn those 3 shifts without needing to use the market at all - but if they offered a bonus +4 and +5 level shift only on the market, then that'd be pay-to-win, as there'd be no other way to gain those boosts without spending real cash on them.

I'd probably like them more if it didn't seem like I mostly get Reward Merits on the Common, Uncommon, Rare and Very Rare rolls.

I mean I have 264 of the x25 Reward Merits already.

As much as I don't like 'exclusives' being gated behind the random purchase mechanic, I do admit that the Super Packs are a pretty good value if you want all the rewards they offer.

That, and I prefer to 'earn' reward merits, not just spend some real cash and have it all.