No plans to release Black Wolf/Elemental Order separately.
By
Adeon Hawkwood,
Posted on: 2012-06-27 13:39 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
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Actually, they didn't even say that. They said that Super Pack 2 would be added to the Paragon Rewards system. It's entirely possible they will have SP1 and SP2 available at the same time, EXACTLY like they did with the first two Tier 9 costume sets.
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Originally Posted by Venture
All that's been said is that you will no longer be able to get Super Packs from series 1 by redeeming Reward Tokens.
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Paragon City Search And Rescue
The Mentor Project
General reply: You know, I remember back in the Mists of Prehistory, when the costume packs were first introduced. The argument was thus:
haters: "oh God, here we go. This is the top of the slippery slope, they're starting out small and as we go along more and more stuff is going to be gated by real-world money transactions. GAH"
apologists: "SHUT UP! You know nothing! Our developers would never, ever do that! We're going to get most stuff for free, just every now and then we'll get a special pack. Besides, they're not done yet! This is gonna be awesome, just wait and see what they do!" *insert would-be witty inspirational-poster .jpeg here*
....Well, we have waited and we have seen. And I have to say, I was completely wrong. They WERE NOT done tweaking things. The end-result: Not only do we pay for 98% of the cool stuff.... wait for it..... we're going to have to GAMBLE for it on top of that! ROFL! That is a twist even I didn't foresee, and I'm pretty pessimistic.
I think eventually all new costume pieces will only be available like this. They might throw us a token set of tights every now and then, but the good stuff is gonna be in these packs.
I am all for the company making money, but at some point it just becomes completely undignified money-grubbing and I think gating costume-pieces behind games of chance is it. Sorry, got to call it like I see it.
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The same amount I pay for other costume pieces. | Out of curiosity, how much (in points) would you (or other people who dislike the packs) be willing to pay for the costume on it's own? |
I don't really like having to pay a sub and pay for costume pieces. However if I can choose what I want and actually get what I want, I'll pony up. Not wild on games of chance.
im no fan of the one in a thousand "chance" to get a vanity pet or the random nature of what costume peices u get with the potential for redundancy. the system pre packs was "i pay amount x, i receive what i paid for", not "i receive a chance to get what i wanted" why not instead set a specific reward for purchase of packs, akin to, lets say you buy 10 (insert arbitrary amount here) packs you unlock this 1/4 or this 1/3 of the costume set. and if you buy 50 packs you get this pet. that would be a more honest way to encourage participation in what is otherwise a pretty neat program. honestly all the gambling aspect does is encourage me to check stuff out on Beta where it is free. You give me what i want when i buy it and i will surely buy it. plain and simple.
I'd actually like a side by side comparassion of free versus paid for costumes, because if its following the same standard as powersets then...
Staff, Titan Weapon, Beam Rifle, Beast, and Street justice, vs Time manip and dark control.... doesn't really seem to add up.
Brawling Cactus from a distant planet.
How often did we get new powersets pre-Freedom? That's what Reppu's saying. We're getting at least as many free powersets and free costume sets as we did before, plus point stipends to buy more. You can spend extra money to get even more than that, but we are absolutely not worse off than before the microtransactions all started.
As long as people who make this argument willingly ignore we've gotten a lot more Free for VIP content then we have ever in the past at the same rate, they'll never be happy. They HAVE to ignore this factor to state their case, otherwise it falls to pieces.
But hey, if you're unhappy, we can go back to the full Pay to Play model, and enjoy new power sets once every, oh, year or two?
Definitely superior than, hrm... 8 Power Sets within a year, half which are free to VIPs, with another three coming up?
Yeah. Let's go back to that.
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No |
Originally Posted by Bad_Influence
I think eventually all new costume pieces will only be available like this.
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@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork
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B_I, out of respect for your longstanding obsession with this subject I'll muzzle my snark and answer it straight.|
Originally Posted by Bad_Influence
General reply: You know, I remember back in the Mists of Prehistory, when the costume packs were first introduced. The argument was thus:
haters: "oh God, here we go. This is the top of the slippery slope, they're starting out small and as we go along more and more stuff is going to be gated by real-world money transactions. GAH" apologists: "SHUT UP! You know nothing! Our developers would never, ever do that! We're going to get most stuff for free, just every now and then we'll get a special pack. Besides, they're not done yet! This is gonna be awesome, just wait and see what they do!" *insert would-be witty inspirational-poster .jpeg here* |
I won't quibble with the accuracy of your two caricatures, but you're ignoring a third faction (mine, BTW) which said "if superpacks fund more new content, bring 'em on!"
And dating back to the Wedding Pack, that's what these types of 'extras' have done.
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| ....Well, we have waited and we have seen. And I have to say, I was completely wrong. They WERE NOT done tweaking things. The end-result: Not only do we pay for 98% of the cool stuff.... wait for it..... we're going to have to GAMBLE for it on top of that! ROFL! That is a twist even I didn't foresee, and I'm pretty pessimistic. |
Subscribers get a point stipend, longtime subscribers get a bonus on top of that. While it certainly isn't sufficient to buy ALL the new stuff as it comes out, it absolutely covers more than 2%.
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| I think eventually all new costume pieces will only be available like this. They might throw us a token set of tights every now and then, but the good stuff is gonna be in these packs. |
You're no more right now than you were then.
Or didn't you miss that this last issue included Leather Armor & Chainmail 'free' costume sets?
As much as I like the super pack distribution method, they'd be crazy to make it the ONLY way to get costume sets. As a sort of fun alternative distribution method it is quite successful, but make it the tentpole of their business model and many of the complaints in this thread suddenly become valid.
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| I am all for the company making money, but at some point it just becomes completely undignified money-grubbing and I think gating costume-pieces behind games of chance is it. Sorry, got to call it like I see it. |
The Nethergoat Archive: all my memories, all my characters, all my thoughts on CoH...eventually.
My City Was Gone
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Actually in the Twitch Broadcast they said it was the PLAN to replace the SP1s in the T9VIP options with SP2s. This could change, but that part of Snow Globe's statement is true... for now. It could change, but it might not.
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Originally Posted by Ironblade
Actually, they didn't even say that. They said that Super Pack 2 would be added to the Paragon Rewards system. It's entirely possible they will have SP1 and SP2 available at the same time, EXACTLY like they did with the first two Tier 9 costume sets.
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Deamus the Fallen - 50 DM/EA Brute - Lib
Dragos Bahtiam - 50 Fire/Ice Blaster - Lib
/facepalm - Apply Directly to the Forehead!
Formally Dragos_Bahtiam - Abbreviate to DSL - Warning, may contain sarcasm
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Originally Posted by Shubbie
Im very good at taking a problem and making it worse.
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I got the whole costume set from buying super packs in the shop the first or second day when they were released (March 6, 2012). Then on the day they added super packs to the NON VIP tier 9 rewards I used 30 reward tokens I had saved up from buying paragon points to get 150 free packs and still didn't get the stupid wolf. Then I bought another 12 or 24 pack (don't remember which) from the shop and after opening the 8th super pack I got the wolf. Total super packs to get the wolf = about 176.|
Originally Posted by Snow Globe
On today's TwitchTV stream, it was revealed that there are NO PLANS to release the Costume/Vanity stuff from the Super Pack because:
"We have not decided we want to do that. Again, we are open to the idea, but we haven't decided if we even want to do that yet. And the reason is that you can get Super Packs via Paragon Rewards Tokens, which a lot of people have taken advantage of that." Worse, they are discontinuing the Paragon Rewards option for Super Pack 1 when Super Pack 2 comes out. This means that players objecting to spending real money to gamble for the chance to get a costume set will have no other means to get the costume parts, and that is if they don't "retire" the original Super Packs from the store as well when the next set comes online. From Zwillinger's body language, they seem to be extremely adverse to offering the Costume/Vanity stuff outside of the packs. This decision should be changed. They have been aware of the objections for over six months now and should have already made plans for an "exit strategy" for these items. For the record, I did use 3 reward tokens (15 packs) to attempt to get the costume set... I didn't get the entire costume set. I feel that this choice for not providing other means after a pack is discontinued is completely irresponsible given that the costume editor is the cornerstone of this game. They know players have objected to the nature of the distribution, yet are plowing ahead with not offering an alternate means of getting the items. I know one player that say they have spent over $400 to try to get the Black Wolf pet. It is inexcusable that item has less than 1% chance of dropping, yet they don't want to provide other means to get it. |
What really ticked me off was when they moved the super packs in paragon rewards from the non VIP tier 9 to the VIP ONLY tier 9 with the release of issue 23 on May 31, 2012. Currently I have 8 reward tokens from buying points this month that I have no intention to spend on the other repeatable crap. I thought it was a nice reward for supporting the game in my own way.
At first I thought it was 'added' to VIP tier 9 and thought it was strange the amount of super packs you get for 1 token was the same as the non VIP tier 9 (VIP getting 10 for 1 token compared to premiums getting 5 would have made sense to me) and also that it showed I had a token in a VIP only tier when I've never subscribed (turned out it was because I had placed a token in the slot prior to it being moved). Then I looked again and realized it wasn't added, it was MOVED.
I have never seen any reason for this change at all anywhere on the forums. The May 31 patch notes only states "Super Packs are now available in the Tier 9 VIP section.". It made no mention of it being removed from the non VIP tier 9. I just looked at the comments on the May 31 patch notes in News, Events & Discussions, and it seems not a single comment on the super packs at all.
Does anybody know what reason they had to slap me in the face and take away a reward that I was able to get for almost 2 months? (super packs were added to the non VIP tier 9 reward March 6, 2012, and moved to VIP tier 9 May 31st. I looked up the patch notes.)
Please spare me the "maybe you should go VIP instead of buying points" crap. I don't have any desire for incarnate content and I love supporting the game. The future is always uncertain and everything I have purchased I never have to worry about losing if I had a subscription that lapsed or I'm not able to buy more points for whatever reason. And the only thing I would have to worry about if I can't buy points is not being able to get new costumes/power sets, which is no big deal since they are generally a permanent fixture in the market and I can always get them later.
How many of you can say you have this many reward tokens? Would have been nice to continue to receive a small reward for my support of the game.
Note: I've never subscribed to the game and I've been playing since Sept. 29, 2011, a couple days after the game went F2P I believe. First paragon point purchase was October 11.
Edited for typo.
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I'm not sure what they gain by making the super packs VIP Tier 9 rather than just plain ol' Tier 9.|
Originally Posted by monkeyslap
I have never seen any reason for this change at all anywhere on the forums. The May 31 patch notes only states "Super Packs are now available in the Tier 9 VIP section.". It made no mention of it being removed from the non VIP tier 9. I just looked at the comments on the May 31 patch notes in News, Events & Discussions, and it seems not a single comment on the super packs at all.
Does anybody know what reason they had to slap me in the face and take away a reward that I was able to get for almost 2 months? (super packs were added to the non VIP tier 9 reward March 6, 2012, and moved to VIP tier 9 May 31st. I looked up the patch notes.) |
As each token represents substantial material support given to the game, either in the form of subscribing or buying stuff outright, it seems churlish to wall the super packs off behind the VIP Only barrier.
I'd pause at describing it as a slap in the face, but if I were in your shoes I'd detect a definite sense of ingratitude emanating from Paragon Studios.
The Nethergoat Archive: all my memories, all my characters, all my thoughts on CoH...eventually.
My City Was Gone
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Not without something incredibly spectacular, and I mean well above the Retro Sci-Fi set in terms of quality or bundling a temp power into it. They have already said that they have set targets for pricing and that they won't change those targets unless they have a strong reason to do so. For an 11 piece set, they don't.|
Originally Posted by Adeon Hawkwood
Just because we don't have a set for 600 points doesn't mean we never will.
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Originally Posted by Nethergoat
You didn't have any, why the double standard?
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Originally Posted by Nethergoat
Does the status quote please everyone?
No. Did is please more customers than it ticked off? Yes. |
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Originally Posted by Nethergoat
No it isn't.
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Is the Super Booster I: Cyborg costume items premium costume pieces? Yes or No
Is the Super Booster II: Magic costume items premium costume pieces? Yes or No
Is the Super Booster III: Superscience costume items premium costume pieces? Yes or No
Is the Super Booster IV: Martial Arts costume items premium costume pieces? Yes or No
Is the Super Booster V: Mutant costume items premium costume pieces? Yes or No
Is the Justice/Sinister costume items premium costume pieces? Yes or No
Is the Wedding Pack costume items premium costume pieces? Yes or No
Is the Mac Special Edition's costume items premium costume pieces? Yes or No
Is the Going Rogue Complete Collection's costume items premium costume pieces? Yes or No
Is the Origins Pack costume items premium costume pieces? Yes or No
Is the Animal Pack costume items premium costume pieces? Yes or No
Is the Steampunk Pack costume items premium costume pieces? Yes or No
Is the Barbarian costume items premium costume pieces? Yes or No
Is the Circle of Thorns costume items premium costume pieces? Yes or No
Is the Carnival of Light costume items premium costume pieces? Yes or No
The answer to all the above is "yes", by the way.
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Originally Posted by Nethergoat
Oh good, you finally got around to it.
You know what, Superman, Batman, Spider Man, Iron Man and Darkseid are all exactly alike, except for one thing....Darkseid wants to wipe out all sentient life so he can get down with Death. |
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Originally Posted by Nethergoat
So it's a terrible cash grab until someone says "hey look at all the cash they grabbed!", then there are all these other ways to get them?
Amazing how little it takes to make you recognize existing alternative methods of attainment! |
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Originally Posted by Nethergoat
you'd be happy to pay 400 points!
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Originally Posted by Nethergoat
As I'm mostly just turning your unsupported arguments on their head here, that's not the zinger you probably think it is.
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- People would like to buy the costume set outside of the packs.
- It will cost Paragon Studios less than a day's work to put the items in the market.
- There are no further development costs associated with putting the Elemental Order costume set onto the market (besides making market entries).
- Paragon Studios is going to generate ill-will by locking costume pieces away when the phase out super pack 1.
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Originally Posted by Nethergoat
and this is from another post, but it too hilarious to just pass over:
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Oh wait...yes it does, they added it while I was gone for a year! Huh, I wonder what that has to do with the point values of junk on the market? I have this nagging feeling there's a connection.... |
Paragon Studios' business team have already found their price points for most of the categories of items on the market, including sale prices. Costume sets are 400 points, power sets are 800 points, etc.
Triumph: White Succubus: 50 Ill/Emp/PF Snow Globe: 50 Ice/FF/Ice Strobe: 50 PB Shi Otomi: 50 Ninja/Ninjistu/GW Stalker My other characters
They're not phasing out Pack 1.
They're phasing out Pack 1 as the Tier 9 VIP Paragon Reward Repeatable.
No one said anything about plans to take Pack 1 off the market.
When and if that happens, they've said they would consider the possibility of making the exclusive items available.
But that's not the case.
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This is a direct quote from you:|
Originally Posted by Snow Globe
I've been very, very careful of making any quantitative claims in this thread. I've been especially wary of claiming a majority of anything. The largest claim I made in this thread is that "a lot of goodwill is going to be lost". Guess what? A lot of my goodwill towards this company has been lost over this choice. On the other hand, you have claimed more customers are happy with this choice than are ticked off:
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Originally Posted by Snow Globe
Will this please everyone? No. Will it please more customers than it ticks off? Yes.
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Neither of you can prove whether more people will be "ticked off" or not, but you're the only one who demanded someone else prove their claim while you failed to prove your own.
Main Hero: Mazey - level 50 + 1 fire/fire/fire blaster.
Main Villain: Chained Bot - level 50 + 1 Robot/FF Mastermind.
BattleEngine - "And the prize for the most level headed response ever goes to Mazey"
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Yes if you think about it, it costs $15 to buy 1200 points for a single reward token that gets you 5 free super packs. The single price in the shop is 80 points. So you can spend $5 for 400 paragon points to get the same amount of super packs you can with a reward token.|
Originally Posted by Nethergoat
I'm not sure what they gain by making the super packs VIP Tier 9 rather than just plain ol' Tier 9.
As each token represents substantial material support given to the game, either in the form of subscribing or buying stuff outright, it seems churlish to wall the super packs off behind the VIP Only barrier. I'd pause at describing it as a slap in the face, but if I were in your shoes I'd detect a definite sense of ingratitude emanating from Paragon Studios. |
What ticks me off mainly is the lack of logical reason, or even mention, as to why this was moved to the VIP only tier 9, and the lack of comments on the forums even mentioning it seems to indicate that nobody at all even cares.
As a somewhat big supporter of this game as a Premium player, I DO see this as a slap in the face. As if to say the more money I spend the less of a reward I am going to get. No matter what they will NOT coerce me or force me to become a subscriber, which I believe is becoming more and more their intention. If I were to ever subscribe it would be only for a month and to spend my reward tokens on the Mecha Armor costume pieces and nothing more. I was planning on it possibly in July, but now seriously reconsidering it.
To be honest, I just never understood the logic that for $15 a month as a subscriber I would be treated like royalty and have all kinds of free and exclusive stuff thrown my way, but when I usually spend $100+ almost every month on paragon points to support the game, they are saying "thanks for the moolah, but since you're not in our exclusive special club, you can go jump off a cliff if you want anything from us.". And of course VIP are getting a raw deal anyway, having the need to purchase extra points so they can get certain power sets and costume sets. Some VIP I believe can only rely on their 400 free points a month and have no extra income to spend anymore than that on the game. Those players just can't keep up with the game in that aspect. By the time they have enough points saved up for that super awesome new power set or costume bundle, something new they have to spend points on has been, or is going to be, released.
What is the point of going VIP when I have all but the incarnate content, and certain story arcs, only to have to spend even more money on the game if I want some of the new stuff added to the shop? At least this way I have access to IOs, merits, auction, all power sets and costumes to date, and I can just tell them to take a hike and not spend any more money on the game in protest and just keep playing for free. I wouldn't lose anything, just the ability to gain anything newly released. I have currently 27 characters out of 30 character slots. Only 3 of them are level 50, so I have more than enough to keep me busy not having to spend anymore money at all on this game.
Edited for typo. The E and Y are different hands on ma keyboard
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Even if 1 more is pleased than displeased, then I would be right. That isn't "a hell of a lot more".|
Originally Posted by Mazey
This is a direct quote from you:
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Originally Posted by Mazey
Neither of you can prove whether more people will be "ticked off" or not, but you're the only one who demanded someone else prove their claim while you failed to prove your own.
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Triumph: White Succubus: 50 Ill/Emp/PF Snow Globe: 50 Ice/FF/Ice Strobe: 50 PB Shi Otomi: 50 Ninja/Ninjistu/GW Stalker My other characters
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No, it's not. But my use of the word "more" blatantly wasn't being used to refer to numbers of people, but meanfulness of statements.|
Originally Posted by Snow Globe
Even if 1 more is pleased than displeased, then I would be right. That isn't "a hell of a lot more".
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"Will this please everyone? No. Will it please more customers than it ticks off? Yes."
Has a precise meaning.
"a lot of goodwill is going to be lost"
Is a complete vaguity that can be twisted to mean anything you want.
The former has a lot more meaning than the latter.
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| Okay, I agree that I don't know how many people will be ticked off if the costumes are released separately. On the other hand, more people are speaking against this developer choice in this thread (and other people I've talked to) than are not. |
Main Hero: Mazey - level 50 + 1 fire/fire/fire blaster.
Main Villain: Chained Bot - level 50 + 1 Robot/FF Mastermind.
BattleEngine - "And the prize for the most level headed response ever goes to Mazey"
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I *THINK* it had to do with some of the bonuses being tied behind VIP content... Like Catalysts - can Premium players use those?|
Originally Posted by Nethergoat
I'm not sure what they gain by making the super packs VIP Tier 9 rather than just plain ol' Tier 9.
As each token represents substantial material support given to the game, either in the form of subscribing or buying stuff outright, it seems churlish to wall the super packs off behind the VIP Only barrier. |
Also, the Super Pack option is worse than most of the other repeatable options IMO. Next set might be a bit better, but I'm still hesitant to call them worthwhile.
Deamus the Fallen - 50 DM/EA Brute - Lib
Dragos Bahtiam - 50 Fire/Ice Blaster - Lib
/facepalm - Apply Directly to the Forehead!
Formally Dragos_Bahtiam - Abbreviate to DSL - Warning, may contain sarcasm
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Originally Posted by Shubbie
Im very good at taking a problem and making it worse.
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Well, I said somewhere else that they were a horrible use of a token and they are.|
Originally Posted by DarkSideLeague
I *THINK* it had to do with some of the bonuses being tied behind VIP content... Like Catalysts - can Premium players use those?
Also, the Super Pack option is worse than most of the other repeatable options IMO. Next set might be a bit better, but I'm still hesitant to call them worthwhile. |
But in a game that will sell you SOs and common recipes for merits it's hardly the worst deal they offer.
The Nethergoat Archive: all my memories, all my characters, all my thoughts on CoH...eventually.
My City Was Gone
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Absolutely everything in the super-packs can be used by premium players. Some items are gated behind other purchases, but that's true for VIPs too (just to a lesser extent).
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Originally Posted by DarkSideLeague
I *THINK* it had to do with some of the bonuses being tied behind VIP content... Like Catalysts - can Premium players use those?
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Main Hero: Mazey - level 50 + 1 fire/fire/fire blaster.
Main Villain: Chained Bot - level 50 + 1 Robot/FF Mastermind.
BattleEngine - "And the prize for the most level headed response ever goes to Mazey"
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A majority of a tiny minority is a tiny minority. If displeasure over Super Packs was as widespread as you seem to believe it is, other options would have been presented.
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Originally Posted by Snow Globe
Okay, I agree that I don't know how many people will be ticked off if the costumes are released separately. On the other hand, more people are speaking against this developer choice in this thread (and other people I've talked to) than are not.
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@Demobot
Also on Steam
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I don't think that is accurate and if it is that means the devs are lying . I don't think you mean they are lying or do you?
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Originally Posted by Demobot
A majority of a tiny minority is a tiny minority. If displeasure over Super Packs was as widespread as you seem to believe it is, other options would have been presented.
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The development team and this community deserved better than this from NC Soft. Best wishes on your search.
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Okay, I've looked at Arcanaville's breakdown of the 600,000 packs (3 million cards) that was announced at the Player Summit:|
Originally Posted by Adeon Hawkwood
In any case, selling the entire set for 400 points seems rather insulting to people who bought packs just to get it. Setting the price at somewhere between 900 and 1440 would seem a lot fairer.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
During the Pummit, I believe it was announced that NCSoft sold over 600,000 super packs (aka three million cards). Based on the best information we have available for super pack content, I can estimate how much "stuff" has been delivered to players in superpacks. For those that like number blizzards, here's my super pack results:
Estimated number of cards by type: Common: 1,326,000 Uncommon: 600,000 Rare: 600,000 Very Rare: 474,000 |
- 44.20% Common (1,326,000/3 million)
- 20.00% Uncommon (600,000/3 million)
- 20.00% Rare (600,000/3 million)
- 15.80% Very Rare (474,000/3 million)
Now here is where it gets interesting:
- In a single pack (80 PP) commons have a value of approximately 35 PP (44.20% of 80 PP).
- In a single pack (80 PP) uncommons have a value of approximately 16 PP (20.00% of 80 PP).
- In a single pack (80 PP) rares have a value of approximately 16 PP (20.00% of 80 PP).
- In a single pack (80 PP) very rares have a value of approximately 13 PP (15.80% of 80 PP).
Given the Elemental Order set contains:
- 2 commons
- 3 uncommons
- 3 rares
- 3 very rares
Now comparing that with the other costume sets on the market, they can charge 400 PP and it would be appropriate in my opinion.
Triumph: White Succubus: 50 Ill/Emp/PF Snow Globe: 50 Ice/FF/Ice Strobe: 50 PB Shi Otomi: 50 Ninja/Ninjistu/GW Stalker My other characters
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