City of Heroes: Live Forum Archive

Discussion: Featured Items at the Paragon Market - 2/21/12

Agent White

By Agent White,
Posted on: 2012-02-21 10:42 in News, Events and Announcement Discussion

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by EvilGeko View Post
I have to say that the alignment change token rubs me the wrong way too. At some point you have to wonder if there's any limit to what's for sale in the market.
Yes , Elemental Order Costume Pieces by themselves

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by stark_NA View Post
Alignment change token, nice idea.

How about a powerset change token? Not an AT change token, but a powerset change token. I don't even need to change ATs, but I have a couple of 50s that I really don't want to play any more (and getting them a new powerset would make them fun again.)

Particularly with powerset proliferation: that always makes me go "FINALLY they made that powerset! I wouldn't have slaved away with this other powerset if that one had been available!"
Quote:
Originally Posted by ph0enix View Post
Wouldnt that kill the point of making new characters?
Then again. If they made it where we could just change ONE of the power sets and not both i think that wouldnt be unresonable.

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Moly View Post
Still, its a better idea than Not-So-Super Packs.
lol Yeah!

Honestly I don't care all that much about it as it won't ever have any effect upon me. I have a badger whom - thankfully - i'm not OCD about having to have every badge on. I get what I can when I can.

I can see the appeal for the hard-core and the serious RPer's but I can't see myself spending real money on an alignment change...much like emotes and the silliness of collecting the super packs.

Not my my cup of tea. To each there own.

But. I do find it annoying that it's being offered up on the market after a couple of years or so (or however long it's been) of piously implying that they don't want it to be easy to switch alignments.

I too will be curious to see which of the things that will never be touched are put up for sale next.

'Course my sub comes up in May and I still have to make a decision on that. <sigh> That's another topic lol.

 

Posted

I was thinking of buying a few. But at 800, I'll spend the time. Running them below, its XP, and for running them at 50, I do it at -1/x0 often level shifted.

Hopefully a lot of people agree with me, and we see a sale on them soon.

I do see them as a very good pay for service, saving time and nowhere close to paying to win.

I wont claim to know the Dev intentions, but I'd imaginae marketing would want as many sold as possible.
I think there would be more money in having them cheaper as I'd spend over 800 points if they were 200 points each over spending nothing. But the market plan doesnt seem to about he micro pricing much for transactions, and they have the data to support thier view.

I don't suffer from altitis, I enjoy every minute of it.

Thank you Devs & Community people for a great game.

So sad to be ending ):

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Lothic View Post
I suppose you can simply take comfort in knowing that the original multi-day path to side switching is still an option for you.
I'm just giving feedback about the pricing. It's honestly no skin off my back. I was going to use them, and now I won't, and I think they won't make as much money off of them as they could have if they were lower. I know you don't think it's about making money, but I don't see the point of spending the development time on it if it's not at least partially about making money.

I'm not upset about it or anything, so I don't really need any comfort, but thanks anyway.

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Posted

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Originally Posted by ph0enix View Post
I dont understand what you mean by changing your Hero to Vigilante in anticipation of the next Issue..Do new morality mish's come out with each issue??
In I22, there are two new mid-level arcs that give badges that Heroes can't run. So, have to switch sides to do them and get the badges.

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Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Lothic View Post
This is exactly what the Devs want from this. This was never about offering us something we'd all want to buy 20 of or that the Devs expected to make a ton of money from. This was about a method of control over a feature that the Devs want to make sure is available to us while at the same time remains something that we won't over-use.

Remember if the Devs needed money from alignment switches we would have been paying for them all-along.
You seem to be the only one around here that knows what is going on all the time. Are you employed by NC soft? If so, I am surprised the company allows you to divulge this type of information. Thank you for taking the time out of your busy schedule to correct many wrong, misguided, or misinformed customers/players. I for one, salute you and your consistent, in depth look into the minds at work that keep CoX alive everyday.

I personally don't intend to be using the alignment token (hope that's ok). However, I did think about it today. I have recently (due to I22 stalker changes) started playing my beloved stalker again. I prefer the blue side content and currently she is a villain. So, instead of dropping some points, I'm going to run her through some alignment missions and hopefully I'll get a little inspiration to rekindle a backstory and or concept for the misguided hunter

I can see a use and I am glad they have introduced these tokens. Keep up the good work!

 

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Originally Posted by Hopeling View Post
From context, it seemed clear to me that Sukothai was saying 'we should be able to choose what alignment we want when using a token', not just in general. As in, use a token, get a menu saying "hero/vigilante/villain/rogue?" (presumably greying out the one you already are) and you choose the one you want.
If I'm understanding it right, the system still sees vigilantes as "heroes" and rogues as "villains," so all these tokens do is reverse that distinction and erase all progress toward other alignments. I assume you start "unconfirmed" as a hero/villain and still have to run the tips to confirm before you can earn alignment merits, so it's basically a clean slate on the opposite side.

It'd be nice to pick anything, but probably a lot more work on the back end, as the system might have to make your villain a hero and then apply "progress" to it to make it a vig... which would be the same "progress" it would take to confirm the character as a hero... which would mean either being inconsistent by applying eleven "free" tips' worth of alignment progress to some alignments and not to others, or that it would make newly-converted heroes/villains confirmed ones -- which could potentially lead to alignment merit abuse, I suppose.

FUN FACT: That burst of light when you level up is actually the effectiveness escaping from your enhancements all at once.

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Lothic View Post
Sometimes people will want to take several days and play through a bunch of Tip missions to spin around the alignment wheel. Other times they'd be willing to spend some points to save time.

If you want to save money change your alignment with Tip missions.
If you want to save time change your alignment with Alignment tokens.

Seems like a no-brainer why we shouldn't or couldn't have both options.
Basically this.

Also, if I recall, the Alignment Change Token came about from a discussion at the recent Player Summit when someone brought up the topic of "things people would want to purchase in the store as a matter of convenience." Cimerora/Midnighter access was also discussed.

My only issue is the price point. 800 PP is simply too expensive for me to ever consider spending on a single-use item like this. I was personally expecting them to launch for around 100/200 PP, and I'm also a little surprised that there's no option to buy in stacks of 5 like most other consumables.

Main Hero: Chad Gulzow-Man (Victory) 50, 1396 Badges
Main Villain: Evil Gulzow-Man (Victory) 50, 1193 Badges
Mission Architect arcs: Doctor Brainstorm's An Experiment Gone Awry, Arc ID 2093

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

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by ph0enix View Post
Wouldnt that kill the point of making new characters?
Not really a discussion for this thread, but why would it? Is there really any reason that the Katana/Super Reflexes Scrapper I made in 2004 shouldn't be able to keep all his progress when switching to Street Justice/Willpower now?

A Power Set Change Token would really only benefit players who are attached to characters that they don't feel are properly represented by the power set choices they made at creation, or those who didn't have access to the newer power sets because they simply didn't exist when the character was made. I would expect it to have a price point of 1200-1600 PP, and I would probably purchase at least two of them if they were made available in the future.

It would have to be expensive enough that people wouldn't just get them to play "CEBR" characters to 50 before switching to their original intended power sets... that much I will agree with. But I don't really buy the argument that people would stop making alts. If you're a VIP, you've got 12 "free" slots per server, and if you REALLY want a new 50 you can have one within 12 or so hours of power leveling (also not a discussion for this thread). If you're NOT a VIP, then 1600 PP will allow you to make five more characters, so unless you're absolutely obsessed with a single character, Character Slot Tokens are a better buy.

Main Hero: Chad Gulzow-Man (Victory) 50, 1396 Badges
Main Villain: Evil Gulzow-Man (Victory) 50, 1193 Badges
Mission Architect arcs: Doctor Brainstorm's An Experiment Gone Awry, Arc ID 2093

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

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by KAKTOS View Post
Yes , Elemental Order Costume Pieces by themselves
I would expect you to eat those words at some point in 6 to 12 months.

Though if I'm wrong, feel free to point me back to this, and I will readily apologize.

Main Hero: Chad Gulzow-Man (Victory) 50, 1396 Badges
Main Villain: Evil Gulzow-Man (Victory) 50, 1193 Badges
Mission Architect arcs: Doctor Brainstorm's An Experiment Gone Awry, Arc ID 2093

-----
Quote:
Originally Posted by Nethergoat View Post
it's NEVER too late to pad your /ignore list!

 

Posted

I don't see myself purchasing many of the Alignment Switcheroos, but they would come in handy for sideswitching new level 1 VEATs/HEATs (that is, if they work on low level VEATs/HEATs).

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Chad Gulzow-Man View Post
Not really a discussion for this thread, but why would it?
I didnt start that little thread I was just making a comment.

As for the rest of your comment :-) I agree character slots are the better way to go about it generally speaking. Trust me I have toons I'd LOVE to switch out a power or two on .. I have a healer I'd love to dump the Bow and Arrow power on... but I still think the best way to do that would be to either let the primary or secondary power be changed not both .... thats a bit greedy.

 

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Originally Posted by Doctor Roswell View Post
It'd be nice to pick anything, but probably a lot more work on the back end <snip>
It probably would be more work, yes; Standard Code Rant and all that. It's still a desirable feature, though.

 

Posted

Wow missed the boat again. If the side swapping tokens were around 80 points instead of 800 I would of bought them like M&M's.

Why? Simple to play with people. The ablity to go to any TF/SF then go back to my homeside would be so nice on the low pop servers. But to do that right now would be $20. I wouldn't think twice about spending $2 to join a couple of redside SF then come back. Or to see if Patron Power would help out that questionable toon were Epic Power isn't so Epic. But never at $20. Besides my luck as soon as I bought on of these Paragon would offer Patron unlock tokens at 400 points.

And to those that are saying its that price to encourage people not to use them at will? What other business creates a product then intentionally makes it so its customers won't want to use it?

Sure I could sell you a shirt but we already sell yarn and thread. You could just spend some time making your own shirt or we'll make you one for say $2000. See some people don't mind spending $2000 for a shirt but we find the little people won't bother us and will keep using the thread and yarn when they need a new shirt.

 

Posted

You guys (and gals) are missing the point with the existence of the side-switching tokens. They're geared toward free players who don't have the alignment system (which is why it's clearly stated that you don't need Going Rogue to use them). Why would Marketing charge so little for a token when they'd rather the free player purchase GR instead? With the price point where it is, free players now have to make a decision that carries some weight, much like when people had to choose to pay real money to get server transfers when they could simply just re-roll a character on a different server for free.

They can't limit usage to just people that don't have GR, and they can't trivialize the effort it takes to switch for free if you do have the alignment system unlocked already by undercharging. Hence, you pay 800 points to shortcut.

Loose --> not tight.
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One extra 'o' makes a big difference.

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by GPBunny View Post
And to those that are saying its that price to encourage people not to use them at will? What other business creates a product then intentionally makes it so its customers won't want to use it?
Their "product" is the game.

They just added a feature to it today -- one they intend to be used sparingly.

FUN FACT: That burst of light when you level up is actually the effectiveness escaping from your enhancements all at once.

 

Posted

i personally could care less about this or the idiotic super packs that are for those who want it now so let them through away there money. I for one can wait run missions or till a pack comes out with the costume peaces i want.

Some of my suggestions from posts i have done
boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=195762&highlight=dbhellfist
boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=278178&highlight=dbhellfist
Here is all My toons
http://img261.imagevenue.com/gallery...9625081-24.php

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by tanstaafl View Post
I was thinking of buying a few. But at 800, I'll spend the time. Running them below, its XP, and for running them at 50, I do it at -1/x0 often level shifted.

Hopefully a lot of people agree with me, and we see a sale on them soon.

I do see them as a very good pay for service, saving time and nowhere close to paying to win.

I wont claim to know the Dev intentions, but I'd imaginae marketing would want as many sold as possible.
I think there would be more money in having them cheaper as I'd spend over 800 points if they were 200 points each over spending nothing. But the market plan doesnt seem to about he micro pricing much for transactions, and they have the data to support thier view.
Black friday was the only decent "sale" they had. Nothing seems to go below 50%. It's usually 25% off or less, only 50% off on things that are so high we still don't even buy them at 50% off. It's like people have been saying since the Paragon Market launched; It's like they try to make us not want to spend any money .

Ghost Falcon stated way back that if things didn't sell prices would be re-assessed and possibly lowered to account for it. Someone more obsessed than me can point something out and call me wrong, but unfortunately as far as I remember nothings price has been permanently changed/lowered after it was put on the market on live.

Even if they put these on sale for 50% off it'd be 200 more than I'd ever spend on these. Even the alignment system only got 25% off this week.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Doc_Hornet View Post
I don't see myself purchasing many of the Alignment Switcheroos, but they would come in handy for sideswitching new level 1 VEATs/HEATs (that is, if they work on low level VEATs/HEATs).
They can't be used on a toon under lv20. Or a Praetorian. 2 more things veto'd out of the possibilities of this item....because it'd make people want ot use them? Why would they allow a sold item to be useful? /sarcasm

Quote:
Originally Posted by White Hot Flash View Post
They can't limit usage to just people that don't have GR
They could...just like they could've allowed it to let a hero become a rogue with one use. Jeeze it's not like it's not expensive enough to warrant such a broad change. Paragon has become more about quantity than quality since the paragon market was released. I used to say it was the death of the game, but after Super Packs which probably made more last week than the total of all subscriber subs last year combined that's no longer true.


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Originally Posted by Hopeling View Post
Well, a hero that wants patron pools (for example) has to go hero to vigilante to villain to rogue to hero to end up back where they started. That's 44 missions, over 8 days. Hardly insurmountable, but kinda annoying. I don't mind paying for the convenience, although exactly how much it should cost is debatable.

It also lets me skip the crazier-than-the-Punisher vigilante-to-villain tip missions. Suddenly showing up in the Rogue Isles with everyone thinking I'm a villain fits my usual "hero going undercover" plan better than killing a sidekick and his family over a blog post.
Hey, i couldn't help it that his granny had a weak heart.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Doctor Roswell View Post
When server transfers were first made available, long before the Paragon Market, they cost $10. Some people happily paid it. Others were outraged that they'd charge so much for it. The justification for the cost was that it wasn't to make money, it was to keep people from using the service on a whim. A price tag like that meant only people who were really, truly serious about wanting to change servers would even consider it. Otherwise, people would transfer from, say, Champion to Freedom to run a task force, then transfer back. That's not how the devs wanted the service to be used, so they attached a pretty serious "Are you SURE?" to the whole process in the form of a not-insignificant price tag.
Then explain to me why they have been cramming these server transfers on my account. every. single. month?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Lothic View Post
This is exactly what the Devs want from this. This was never about offering us something we'd all want to buy 20 of or that the Devs expected to make a ton of money from. This was about a method of control over a feature that the Devs want to make sure is available to us while at the same time remains something that we won't over-use.

Remember if the Devs needed money from alignment switches we would have been paying for them all-along.
Spending time and effort on something that you do not want to have sell well, is a reason to fire people who think of such ideas.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Sukothai View Post
I think we should be allowed to choose what allignment we want.
I think we should too, esp for the cost of the token.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Liquid View Post
I'm just giving feedback about the pricing. It's honestly no skin off my back. I was going to use them, and now I won't, and I think they won't make as much money off of them as they could have if they were lower. I know you don't think it's about making money, but I don't see the point of spending the development time on it if it's not at least partially about making money.

I'm not upset about it or anything, so I don't really need any comfort, but thanks anyway.
Feeling the same way.
Was going to use a few on my badge hunter, but instead from Vigilante > Villain > (Use Token) Hero > Vigilante, i'll just go the normal way.
Yeah, i'll waste a few days that i can't earn prestige, or use my base, but hey, at least i'm saving my points.


I can still hear Posi say during the Going Rogue launch "Alignment switching will never be an instant thing.".


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Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by GPBunny View Post
Wow missed the boat again. If the side swapping tokens were around 80 points instead of 800 I would of bought them like M&M's.

Why? Simple to play with people. The ablity to go to any TF/SF then go back to my homeside would be so nice on the low pop servers. But to do that right now would be $20. I wouldn't think twice about spending $2 to join a couple of redside SF then come back. Or to see if Patron Power would help out that questionable toon were Epic Power isn't so Epic. But never at $20. Besides my luck as soon as I bought on of these Paragon would offer Patron unlock tokens at 400 points.

And to those that are saying its that price to encourage people not to use them at will? What other business creates a product then intentionally makes it so its customers won't want to use it?

Sure I could sell you a shirt but we already sell yarn and thread. You could just spend some time making your own shirt or we'll make you one for say $2000. See some people don't mind spending $2000 for a shirt but we find the little people won't bother us and will keep using the thread and yarn when they need a new shirt.
This

And at the people who think these are reasonable tradeoffs instead of complete ripoffs you can spend the 10 bucks to pick up entire games.

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Hopeling View Post
It probably would be more work, yes; Standard Code Rant and all that. It's still a desirable feature, though.
I can buy entire games for less than they want to charge for the tokens. If it took that much effort to implement a function that just sets a few values in a small number of records they need to get new developers

 

Posted

I don't mind them existing, but $10 is crazy, for that price it should not only work at any level from any area (especially preat), and work for any and all characters you want it to.
For how useless this is there is no way I would ever spend that much on it. Whomever though that was a fair price needs their head examined.

True Alt-o-holic, so... way too many to even think about listing =p
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Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Another_Fan View Post
And at the people who think these are reasonable tradeoffs instead of complete ripoffs you can spend the 10 bucks to pick up entire games.
This is why I buy very little in the store. I look at the price of just one item, compare it to what I got in City of Villains and Going Rogue, each around $40, and I just can't bring myself to buy much(SSAs at $5 each? no thank you). Powersets are about the only thing I buy. For the price of 5 or 6 items, I might as well go buy another game or subscribe for a couple months to another, more recent MMO.

But, to anyone having fun with all these new items and buying a lot, thank you very much. I'm very happy to be a Premium player.

Cool artwork on the alignment token though.

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by White Hot Flash View Post
You guys (and gals) are missing the point with the existence of the side-switching tokens. They're geared toward free players who don't have the alignment system (which is why it's clearly stated that you don't need Going Rogue to use them). Why would Marketing charge so little for a token when they'd rather the free player purchase GR instead? With the price point where it is, free players now have to make a decision that carries some weight, much like when people had to choose to pay real money to get server transfers when they could simply just re-roll a character on a different server for free.

They can't limit usage to just people that don't have GR, and they can't trivialize the effort it takes to switch for free if you do have the alignment system unlocked already by undercharging. Hence, you pay 800 points to shortcut.

Good point that probably needs to be given more consideration.

The development team and this community deserved better than this from NC Soft. Best wishes on your search.