Power up with Amplifiers! in launcher

I would love to have fruit pies that could be used as a small heal and breakfree on teammates or used on enemies to placate.

A Dev would have to provide. Here's as it is in the launcher:

Uhmm it is not pay to win, but you can go ahead and think that if you want lol.

The buffs do not let you WIN the game.
The buffs are TEMPORARY.
There are already in game items for free and infinitely available to you called inspirations which have the same basic effect
If you belong to a SG you can get in game buffs from the empowerment station that last an hour.
Amplifiers do not allow your character to do something "super awesome omg I am now 50."


These are less "pay to win" than the xp boosters.

Originally Posted by Paladiamors I love you, I Burnt the Toast!

Im only really refering to is the Mex protection which is such a big big BIIIIIIIIIG powerboost for squishies.

For melee's there is nothing there worth it.

And yes, you can get mez protection from Empowerment Stations as well.

Of course, since you've cheerfully admitted to employing hyperbole in an attempt to cause disruptions before, I'm not holding my breath that you'll calm down...

I just visited my local Empowerment Station. Plenty of mez resistance, but the only mez protection was to knockback. Unless there's a secret fourth-level station or something, the only way that squishies can get broad-spectrum mez protection is from purchasing Amplifiers from the store.

Post 50: Clarion.

Like a lot of internet slang, "pay to win" is not necessarily used to the strictest definition of the phrase. Its common meaning is "pay to be more powerful" or "pay to win more easily", but those just don't sound quite as snappy.

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.

Pay to win is when I pay my monthly VIP rate and get access to a whole bunch of incarnate powers,..... score! ;P

Seriously, echoing the sentiments of others this is not pay to win. At first I was leery of purple enhancements in the market, now not so much. Every purchase in the store is a vote for the game and that makes it better for all of us.

Well, technically, I know why I'm paying a subscription - Incarnates and the 60 or so character slots I'm using. I can replicate all the character slots with enough of a cash drop, but the Incarnate system isn't otherwise available. So I can't say that there's NOTHING I'm paying a VIP subscription for, more that... I think I ought to get more "convenience" perks. A way out of the Super Packs would have been nice, say by putting the Elemental Order set in as an alternate T9 VIP set. That still makes it exclusive, but it lets the "very important people" among us use that VIP status and get it without the hassle. But the point here is to make us pay for the "surprise gifts," so that's not going to happen.

Why I say this is I've played a lot of F2P MMOs. Most of them have a pretty crappy deal for Free and even Premium customers, mooching money on everything from transportation to simple amenities to respecs to inventory space and so on. But when you pay to subscribe, all of those nasty limitations go away and you feel like subscribing really does give you the VIP treatment. That's not the case here. In fact, here I feel that subscribing barely gets me anything past Premium and even as a VIP, I'm still treated as a Free player to whom everything must be marketed and sold.

Maybe I just haven't joined exclusive clubs enough in my life, but I keep thinking VIPs ought to be treated with a little more respect. I'd even trade some of the free stuff I'm getting (like zones and costume sets) for more respect in how things are marketed to me. I would think that my recurring subscription ought to make up for the recurring expenses on consumables, where I would only need to pay extra for permanent content, but more and more I'm seeing rentals marketed to me, and it makes me feel less and less "important," is why I'm making these statements.

I honestly don't think the performance amplifiers are a good idea, but at the very least they're cheap. That's good marketing, if nothing else, and I might be convinced to get a few for special occasions. But what I dislike is the MMO tradition behind them - pay money to get a buff and then go grind with it. I just don't like that sort of design.

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 wouldn't say "amplifiers are the only way," but you can't deny content has been getting increasingly harder with each new addition. Even if the intent isn't to force people into amplifiers, we may end up going there for those of us who don't really have very impressive builds.

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.

... perhaps. I've found the game painfully easy on 'default' difficulty for some time.

I'm not sure if I'd call the newer content "harder" or just "incredibly uneven."

I make it through 4 of 5 strories in an arc with barely a scratch, then encounter an arc that's ridiculously uneven... and I am supposed to accept that because its the "climax" of the story and they warn me that its harder? No. I want 5 arcs that reasonably challenge me the way I'm inclined to be challenged... not 4 that make me want to leave, increase difficulty, and try again and 1 that makes me do the same in the opposite direction (plus extra cursing).

Could this tactic make me buy a power boost?
No, it's the kind of thing that would make me reconsider giving them my money altogether. (but I do see how others could buy into it)

Well, sure, but that's why I've been a great proponent for the difficulty settings in this game. I'd actually like to make them even more intricate and customizable so that everyone can tailor the game to his own preferences. If I want it easy, let me have it easy. If you want it hard, then by all means, I'd love to let you have it hard. It's what the settings are for, or should be for at any rate.

This I can agree with wholeheartedly. I HATE difficulty spikes when they come too prevalent. Easy or hard, what I want more than anything else is consistent difficulty. That way I can tally my strengths and pick my difficulty. This really isn't the case in much any of the I22 and I23 content. The "special" spawns in Incarnate content are just absurd. If I set my difficulty to x1, I get x1 basic spawns and x1 special spawns. If I set my difficulty to x2, I get x2 basic spawns and x4 special spawns. Wait, what? So if I set it easy it's too easy but if I set it just one notch harder it's too hard? Why? Why can there be no middle ground? Why can there be no consistency?

That's an entirely separate issue, I agree, but that actually IS the kind of issue which could make me buy a power amplifier. I'd actually like to buy one that lasts only 10-15 minutes, if I could. Just enough to blow through that ******* "Romulus' Army" mission where my NPC companions are useless and I spend three hours pulling spawns enemy by enemy and leaving for inspirations every other spawn. Or maybe I should save myself the trouble and just drop it. The "run the whole zone" reward is only once a week, so that's more than enough time to have my mission drop feature reset. CAN it be dropped, though?

Anyway, I'll probably get a couple of each and keep them in my e-mail in case something pisses me off, but that's about the only use I have 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.

Agreed. Wish you could buy these with reward merits. Oh well, at least now I don't have to figure out how to get 97% to-hit on my Blaster...or take Clarion. Sigh....

As soon as you can define a viable "win" scenario that these somehow, magically allow, I'll give you this.

And nothing in this game "requires" these.

You can't even make a viable case that the devs are INTENDING to make content that requires these. You can merely FUD out a slippery slope parable.

So, basically, you're saying you're cheesed because you're not getting this for free?

Or that you're cheesed that these boosters put a Tier 2 guy infinitesimally closer to your IO'ed to the gills toons?

Or that you're cheesed that an OPTIONAL item in the cash store somehow devalues your choice not to buy them and run the content in regular or hard mode?

It gives you:

• Character slots
• Access to VIP-only content
• Access to all non-premium power sets
• A stipend of points to spend as you will. No, not enough for you to buy everything every month forever. You have to budget them if you don't wish to augment your stipend with additional cash. Nobody every promised you all content post-Freedom for free with a sub.
• A server transfer token.
• You're also a long-enough term vet that most of your Reward tokens are really only useful for consumable.
• Complete unfettered SG access.

If that's not enough, go Premium and then tell us how much your player experience sucks.


The amplifiers are basically multi-aspect super inspirations with a long duration. Deal with it. It'd be objectionable if they were perma improvements.

And if some intellectual cripple is going to insist on you buying one or tell you that you should buy one for something you feel is too hard, do you honestly care what they say? Or would you want to game with someone so mentally stunted?

Stop trying to borrow trouble and just play the damned game already!

Clicking on the linked image above will take you off the City of Heroes site. However, the guides will be linked back here.

You know as well as I do that "pay to win" is not a term that's interpreted any more literally than "free to play" or "VIP." You also know full well what it means - paying for power. Minor semantic arguments make no difference.

But a great deal of content that's normally a pain in the *** to run sure goes a heck of a lot smoother if you have status protection. The stricter your definition of "required" becomes, the less relevant the argument you're truing to prove with it is because you're simply painting it into a corner. Again, you know what I mean.

Which would be a reasonable assertion had I not said, in that same post, that I don't want my VIP subscription to be just about, or even at all about, getting free stuff. The last thing I want to see is the VIP player status become a "budget" option for people to get if they don't want to pay more. The VIP subscription should be the expensive option that's nevertheless the "best" option, but that's not how Marketing is treating it. I'm not interested in free stuff, I'm interested in not being part of the demographic that every little time sink is marketed to. I would like, for instance, to have the ability to pay - more if necessary - and get what's in the random result tables from Super Packs. It's clear those are aimed at sucking more money out of people by promising small costs but not giving you what you want every time.

Or did I not say that in this particular post? If I didn't, I apologise. I put it in at least one of the ones I made, but they're scattered all over the boards. In case it's not in this thread, that's what I mean.

*snerk* OK, I admit - that was funny.

What? I mean... What? I read words, they follow proper sentence structure, I know this is English, yet every time I read this question, I draw a blank. What are you asking? What, specifically, when I explained, and numerous times, that I'm likely going to buy a few of those to use to muscle through tough missions. Seriously, what?

Which I can buy, so that's a budget option.

So, Incarnates? Because everything else can be purchased, it just costs more. Again, I'm not interested in a budget option.

Which I can buy either way. Again, I'm not interested in a budget option.

Which I can buy either way. And I have. Repeatedly. If I see something I want and I lack the points, PayPal is within arm's reach. Again, I'm not interested in a budget option.

Oh, happy day. And again - I can buy those if I want them. That's not VIP exclusive. It's a budget option.

Which, again, I can buy with real money if I bonked my head and actually thought that was a good idea. Again - a budget option.

Which I'm pretty sure I could buy, if not directly then by purchasing enough points. Again, it's free stuff.

Aside from Incarnates and possibly the Architect, what is there in the VIP subscription that isn't just a discount, a budget option or a freebie? I can pretty much guarantee that if I dropped down to premium, the only thing that would change is it would cost me a couple hundred dollars in one drop to get back to where I was before. In other words, I would lose money but not perks. That doesn't make me feel important, it makes me feel like I'm being offered a discount, which I don't really need at this point in my life.

I would actually prefer these if they WERE permanent and expensive, to be honest. Yes, it would be selling power, but if we're going that route, then I'd much rather we SOLD power over RENTING it out.

Your compassion and solidarity has convinced me.

---

Now, if you were actually interested in an honest discussion of opinion and preference, I'm open to it. But if you're just going to toss off-hand insults to my intelligence and try and fail to browbeat me, then we can just keep up this circus, derail the thread and get it locked. I've gotten pretty good at that over the years.

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.