Craftable Costume Pieces

Plus, at this point, we're fairly aware what's out there in recipe and unlock land, that the recipe based stuff is about as simple as having access to inf(which if you've been playing for a medium amount of time you should have access to a fair amount of inf that you can funnel toward those endeavors), the auction house and a crafting table. So, saying that you don't design costumes around the easy to get your hands on items like most of the costume recipes is odd to me. Beside which, there's a small pile of incarnate tied things that I have to wait to claim in-game that sometimes makes a concept complete that I'll skip the short tutorial to go straight to Atlas or the Isles so that I can finish the costume anyways.

That, and I'm constantly fiddling with costumes and concepts even post-creation, that I don't get taking such a hard line on your costume right from the get-go.

I played original white box D&D with low impact dice, so don't presume to teach your granny to suck eggs. Or are you thinking of computer RPGs?

In either case, irrelevant.
It's a reality of MMO game design, whatever originally inspired it.

Thanks for your sympathy, Golden Girl.

Guess what - when I made the original Steel Rook, he was supposed to have a jet pack. He was made in about June 2004. I STILL don't have a jet pack option, but I will some time soon. There's one in the Retro Sci-Fi set and there's one in the Mecca Armour set.

I just can't see the argument that if it was bad for you, it HAS to be bad for me as some sort of divine punishment to make your situation less bad, but do you have any idea how many of my characters would not even EXIST without certain costume pieces? I've been throwing Praxis around all over the forums. She would not exist without the Carnival pieces and without the Fire And Ice set. Before that, I used the post Stardiver around, who would never have existed without the various Celestial and IDF pieces, and the Fire Sword was invaluable. Then there was Lady Isabella who I would never have made without the wings, the legs, the tail and the Omega face. The list goes on and on.

What I'm saying is that a great number of the characters I have an enjoy - and a great part of the reason why I keep subscribing to this game - is a direct result of me possessing these costume pieces at creation. Without them, these characters would not have been made. Without them, these characters would never have reached a point they could unlock them. If Kim were forced to start the game with regular blades and wait until 35 to unlock proper Energy Blades, I'd never have made her, or written a story about her, and she is right now my highest-ranking character of all. She's 50, she has some Incarnate powers and I've spent hundreds of hours playing just her. I remade her when the Vanguard pack came out, I played her from when I22 launched until a few days ago, I spent TWO WEEKS of essentially 8-hour days writing and refining her story, and this entire thing would never have happened if it were not for those energy blades being available at character creation.

I'm sorry you had to a few years for wings, but I fail to see how that's anything but an argument for having more items available at creation. You know, so other people don't have to go through the same?

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

Three things.

First of all, no it does not. Plenty of MMOs out there let you pick your look separate from your powers and your progression. The Chronicles of Spellborn, despite being a fantasy MMO, still let players pick their armour as costumes.

Secondly, almost all of the MMOs out there are either based on a specific intellectual property with a specific look and feel to it, or are otherwise generic fantasy which is itself a very specific theme. Super heroes are a much more diverse thematic, and one NOT driven by loot as a means for self-determination. Though super hero costumes do change occasionally, most of them are not made from stuff found lying around after defeating the bad guys. Spider-Man didn't do that, Superman didn't do that and the Statesman certainly didn't do that.

Finally, I don't disagree with you that MMOs require progress of some kind. It's what they're built after. What I disagree with is that this progress needs to be cosmetic. Again, there is no "progress" when it comes to cosmetics because these cannot be graded. No look is objectively better than another look. A samurai is not "better" than a medieval knight, nor is a roman soldier better than a US Army soldier. How much a part is worth is not measurable on an overall basis, because how much a part is worth depends on who's going to use it.

Capes are the perfect example of this. For all of the "Capes at 20 shenanigans" (which you're pretty much recreating here step by step), capes are and have always been worthless to me. They're supposed to be "better," a status symbol, and so they're locked behind a mission unlock. But they're not. They're not better. They're specific to "classic" super heroes who, for some reason, are seen as wearing capes, but I don't have any of those. OK, I have ONE of those. Consequently, I've used capes on a small handful of my characters, thus its "prestige" status is worthless to me. It's a junk drop, as it were, since I don't need it.

Contrast this with, say, the Legacy Broadsword. Until Titan Weapons came out, the Legacy Broadsword was by far the biggest weapon women had access to, and consequently the one I used for my swordswomen the most often. It was seen as a worthless pick by others because it was old, low-detail and untintable, and it was seen as worthless because others clearly didn't share my design aesthetic of wanting big things. Yet set after set added new weapons to Broadsword, and still I only really liked the Legacy one - the junk drop BABs left behind as a holdover.

You can't grade aesthetics as beauty is in the eye of the beholder, so the only thing you can do is lock stuff at random and punish people whose concepts happen to require these things while giving pretty much nothing to the people whose concepts aren't in the same direction. It's the Celestial set all over again - if I could use it at creation, then maybe I could make a character who looks good in it, but since I have to use it at level 50, I don't really have any concepts that need it, because what I have at 50 is mostly more technological.

But that's not what the goat wants, both from what I remember from before he left and from what he's said in this thread. He wants those recipes to be rare and hard to attain, because if they're not they might as well be in the costume editor. Designing around a cheap, plentiful recipe is... Cumbersome but not impossible since those can be easily attained. It's not nearly as easy if these became as rare as they used to be when they were first introduced.

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Here's the practical side of it, though. Whether this is an MMO and what that means is irrelevant in the broader business sense. The development team have realised that the playerbase will pay through the nose for costume stuff, something I've been saying for years. At this point, we get "free" costumes only occasionally to give the impression of a VIP service, but most of the biggest costumes are paid. And I will gladly pay for them.

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

I'm not saying we have to all start out in a burlap smock with rags tied around our feet, Sam. I'm just pointing out that characters gain access to more impressive sartorial displays as they progress through the game.

The stock options in CoH allow for the creation of some genuinely spectacular characters- several of my favorite costumes emerged basically whole from character creation and haven't changed by so much as a pixel.

But they've gained access to more goodies as their careers unfolded, I've just chosen not to use them.

Well, CoH is an MMO first, a superhero genre simulator second.
I'm fond of saying RP concerns take a back seat to game design- ditto for genre concerns.

I went round and round with this same basic argument when they announced Wentworth's/Black Market- "SUPERHEROES DON'T GO SHOPPING FOR POWERS!"

Okay, true, but...so what?
This is an MMO, and that structure suggests certain obvious frameworks for gamplay.


I get your point and agree with it from an aesthetic perspective, but I don't think it applies. Once again, MMO first, everything else second.

Over the years I've noticed that players tend to lust after whatever it is they can't have. So from the perspective of many gamers samurai armor is indeed 'better' than a medieval knight's armor simply because the samurai armor is gated.

It's an arbitrary designation, Sam.
There was never any reason to not have capes available at creation, other than they were another shiny for players to chase.

I mean, originally we couldn't get a travel power until level 14.
Does that make any genre sense at all?
Heck no, but it makes MMO sense.

MMO first, genre simulator second.

You can look at is as "punishing" players, I guess.
I see it as players failing to adapt to the environment.
If I'm at the beach, it doesn't make sense to complain about getting sand in my undies. I mean I'd probably still do it, but "what did you expect dude, you're at the beach." would be a totally justified response from bemused bystanders.

Indeed!

If the devs want them to fulfill the role of OOH, SHINY MUST CHASE SHINY!, I'm cool with it, but for pity's sake make then genuinely rare!

I don't see the point of making them drops unless adding them to your character is at least a little bit challenging. Right now they represent the worst of both words- pointless to acquisitive sorts like me and unnecessarily tedious for costume mavens who just want cherub wings for their archery/psi blaster.

I really don't like this argument, but not for the reasons you think. I'm not saying we should ignore the game's basic genre. However, I really dislike the concept of "MMO convention." It creates a hideously boring, samey, soul-less market. I've literally seen games marketed like "has loot, crafting, market, PvP, raids" and that's it. Almost no talk about basic gameplay, theme or any original ideas aside from reassuring people that, yes, this game has what EQ had 20 years ago. That's not a good way to design a game. I didn't come to City of Heroes because it was exactly the same as EQ as I don't like EQ.

If the MMO market is to survive, it needs to change and adapt. It makes no sense to have a hundred games that are basically a different skin over what WoW will always do better. You don't beat WoW by being exactly like it, because then why wouldn't people just play WoW? Why would I, realistically, ever play another MMO if it's just like the one I like, only I have to start over?

My point is that what an MMO "is" is not carved in stone, and breaking the mould is not a bad thing. When City of Heroes first came out, the notion of your appearance being independent of your stats was heresy, yet this was popular enough to have quite a few MMOs since copy it. Hell, if we go back to "MMO conventions," being boring is one such, as well. You go to a moor and kill stuff until you can't stand it any more.

What I'm saying is that just because this is an MMO, it doesn't mean it has to conform to some rigid MMO dogma. Especially when not doing so makes the development team more money. I'll explain when it comes up lower down.

Oh, boy. Time for another list:

First of all, this is a BAD thing. I've seen plenty of eyesore costumes that had capes on them for no reason other than, presumably, because players saw them as prestige designators. This is a big reason why I don't want to give items undue weight. I want players to use a piece because it makes their costume look better, rather than because it has some false value attributed to its lock, even if it makes the costume horrid. To me, the artistry of character creation is far more important than any status symbol a piece might carry. And if you follow the Best Costume Designs thread, you'll note how often that's actually the case. Yeah, I admit, Praxis on there, but that's just coincident timing.

Secondly, this really isn't fair towards Samurai concepts. Let's say I'm not interested in prestige items, but rather I just have an idea for a displaced samurai warrior looking to teach the world the ways of true honour. Is it fair that this "costs" more than the idea of a medieval chivalrous knight doing the exact same? I don't think so. It's a needless concept gate for a set that... Frankly, no-one really seems to even want. It's probably one of the rarest concepts I've seen.

Finally, you described the exact opposite person to me, because to me, not being able to have something doesn't make me want it more, it makes me resent it more. Sour grapes and all that. If you tell me that I can't have a specific costume item until some arbitrary time later, then I'm not going to be motivated to get it. I'm going to be motivated to complain and I'm going to be demotivated to care not just about that costume, but about the whole game in general. Yeah, that's how it goes. And that's specifically for cosmetics only. I can live with not having all the powers in the game right at the start - those are part of progression. But costumes are not.

No, there wasn't. And you know how they solved this? They sold cape and aura access at level 1 for $10. The genre doesn't matter. What matters is this is a business. And I ask you this - does it make more sense to lock something behind an ostensibly free in-game action or to lock it behind a real money purchase? For YEARS myself and others have been beating our chests saying we'd pay for this costume piece or that costume piece. We bought the Wedding pack in such numbers it budgeted villain Epic ATs an Issue early. That ought to say something.

Obviously, not everything can be for sale. This is still a game, progress is still part of the game, and as such, it needs to result from playing the game. But cosmetics are not part of progress, thus there's no reason why cosmetics can't all be sold for money. And there's no reason barring total destitution that I wouldn't pay money for cosmetics. I bought the ******* Party Pack for $8 and that sucked. I bought the Circle of Thorns pack even after making such a huff about it because I figured I'd waited enough to have a mark on at least its launch numbers. When the Mecca Armour set comes out, I'll be getting it immediately. I have 5 Paragon Reward points sitting in the wings, and remember - each of those points cost me $45 in subscription and purchases.

This is not an MMO issue, it's a money issue, and I'm more than prepared to put my money where my mouth is. That's not to say I don't want costume pieces earnable in the game, far from it AS LONG AS I can purchase them at character creation for all characters. I have no problem with all store-bought costume pieces being available for some in-game action, so long as all costume pieces available for some in-game action show up in the store, as well.

I don't like the environment, and it is a proven fact that the environment can be changed. Putting the Vanguard Pack in the store is proof positive of this. Putting the Roman Pack in the store is even more so. The fact that we haven't had unlockable costume pieces put into the game since Freedom isn't quite proof positive, but it's strong evidence. It seems to me that the F2P model values my money more so than my time, thus the store is all too happy to let me trade money for time, and I'm all too happy to accept. When it comes to cosmetics, yea, I turn to ruthless capitalism. To me, "the right costume" is an absolute prerequisite to playing the game. If a character's costume isn't perfect, I don't play them. And if I don't play them, they'll never get the costume piece to make them perfect.

Now, I COULD see this with items I could earn with another character and then transfer over to a new one, like with the craftable costume pieces now that they're common, but that's missing the point of gates.

I never saw the point to begin with. OK, I lied, I saw the "point" - it was to pimp out the Inventions system to people like me who don't care about achievements but like costumes. The studio has a history of trying to bribe people into their new shiny with costumes. I don't belie Matt Miller's tripe about "It would be an insult to the art team!" for why Ascension pieces are level-locked to 50, and I don't believe it for a second. It's there to get people like me to run Trials because they need a certain critical mass of Trial participation.

However, I don't see anything I stand to gain from having these gated, and have made it a point to NEVER hoard these costume pieces. If I can use them, I sue them as they drop. If I can't use them, I put them on the Market for 1 inf and leave them there forever. A number of people have purchased, say, Tech Wings from me for 1 inf, and it just makes me smile when I see it. I'm determined to do what I can to make these as widely available to people as possible without actually turning it into a job. A Numina's Pink Panties Blu/Red (50) I'll toss onto a vendor if it doesn't sell for a decent price, sure, but a costume recipe will stay in my market queue at the price of 1 FOREVER. The 250 million for fairy wings nonsense can never be allowed to happen again, as far as I'm concerned.

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

Bleh, in a game as mature as this one, any mope with a large pile of inf can buy a rare recipe in a hot second, inflated rarity is silly, and only leads to people making horrible costumes just to flaunt the fact that they have a lot of inf. That sort of exclusivity isn't special, it's just bragging.

When it comes to costumes, bragging rights should go to whoever makes the best costume, not whoever has the most rare bits.

Rather than more junk drops, or making the costume parts rare, I'd rather see more options added to the Rocket Boot recipe, Jump Boot recipe, etc. After they are crafted I'd like a secondary dropdown in the costume creator that lets me pick which variation I want on them.

But that's probably not gonna happen.

I have many favorite costumes made using stock pieces- as a player with an affinity for the clean, classic 'silver age' look and feel, colored tights with a bit of graphic embellishment are all it takes to make me happy. I recall at some distant point in the past having an argument over new costume releases- they complained that new patterns & chest symbols "didn't count" as new costume bits because they weren't involved 3d models. While I dig stuff like the Alpha set and a lot of the cool mecha-looking stuff we got with GR, I'm just as happy with plainer fare.

But as I noted to Sam earlier, gamers are what they are, and many of them value stuff that's harder to get simply because it's harder to get.

In the early days of costume drops I remember someone hovering over the Black Market in Cap with a pair of fairie wings AND jet boots, which at the time represented wealth beyond the dreams of avarice. It wasn't an aesthetic combination by any means, but the audience was going crazy anyway.

There will always be limited availability costume stuff in the game- the only question is how they choose to disseminate it. Drops didn't really work and the store seems to be doing a better job.