MadScientist

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Yes, Positron spoke about it (can't find the thread at the moment). He basically stated that "it would be unfair to those who earned the accolades earlier."

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which is ironic, because I'm hearing a lot about how this is unfair to those who earn the accolade late.

So we have a system that's currently unfair for everyone.

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THis is doubly retarded when you consider non combat accolade such as the field crafting table being exempted out due to your mal'ed combat level.

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seeing as the intended use of the table is for during long runs when you can't divert to university, vault or store, it does indeed seem a bigger problem for I11 given the amount of long TF-like runs we're going to have in flashbacks.

Taking a computer geek stance here a minute... this is a Big-O problem.

For those not in the know, Big-O is a way to measure how long a process takes by its dominant looping routines. A small tweak to one step in the process doesn't matter if you're still looping a lot of times.
Printing 500 pages on a 5 page-per-minute printer vs a faster 6 page-per-minute printer in both cases still takes A Long Time because it's 500 pages, not because of printer speed. Printing 3 pages in those 2 setups is not a noticable difference, either, both take A Short Time.


to turn this to (metered) badges: there are badges that you earn very naturally (clockwork gears, freak tanks, first 2 Inf), badges that take a little work to finish (fake nemesis, rikti monkeys, sky raider FFG), and badges that take a lot of work to finish (epics, toxic tarantulas, carnie pets).
I propose to you this: it doesn't matter how high you crank up the "lot of work", it's still "a lot of work". So there's no benefit in making epic badges too hard to get.
A "little work" badge just needs to be slightly past the level of what you earn in normal play and it serves that purpose well. A "lot of work" badge just needs to be over that line from "little work" to "lot of work" to serve its purpose, it doesn't have to be insanely past that line.


I'll use a non-epic example that's in the Badge Issues list. It takes 200 Toxic Tarantulas to unlock a contact. You don't get that many of them at all on your way up to 40, and have to finish it by 45. So I set out to hunt them. They're level 44+ bosses, so they're yellow-con to me at best, probably orange and red, it takes some effort. Once I've killed 50 of them, I think I've proven my point. I've spent a lot of time killing Tarantulas. I've had to SPECIFICALLY kill Tarantulas, I didn't just luck into the requirement for the contact. So what's the point in making me kill another 150? I have to do this another 3 times over??? Why? What do I gain by those additional 150 that I didn't gain from the first 50?


Same with epic healing. My villains dont' even do 1 million healing by level 50. When that third badge comes along it means I've been healing a little beyond my normal 50 levels. By the time I hit 10 million, it shows I'm doing A LOT of healing. What does another 990 million possibly prove that I haven't proven already? I'm past the point of inceidental earning, I'm past the point of minor effort to finish off a badge I had mostly done, and I'm past the point of major effort for something most people don't achieve.

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Maybe the original post should be sent to Positron (or one of the Devs) in a PM? Not sure if the Devs read the Badges and Gladiator board, so maybe a little reminder to one of them of the impossibility of earning some of these badges might be in order. Just a thought.

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This is a part of a current effort to gather such issues. See this post for the start of it all.
So yeah, there's going to be some serious advertising done for this, and other issues.

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I can see the high requirement for badges that count towards accolades. Accolades give an advantage, advantages should be heartily EARNED. However, yes, it seems fairly pointless to earn an accolade through normal play at level 50. Plus, am I really going to devote 1 year+ of 4-hour a day play working only on achieving a badge that has no real value? 'Prolly not.

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and say you did. would you send another 1+ year of 4-hours per day USING said accolade that you bothered to get? or would you be rather desperate to finally make an Alt?



My issue with the 10 million damage badge is that the value really doesn't matter. I set up a farm, go AFK, and wonder why I have to do this for so many days. I've proven I can take infinite damage, why prove it so many times over?

I always get the impression that no one wants the difficult badges for their own sake, they want them for a sense of completeness. Does that mean that even 1/100th of its current value for Empath would have the same effect? It's *still* be out of reach of very casual players, and still just as effective for those who have to put in extra work.

Healing badges always get the attention because they're the only badge specific to a certain set of powers. Maybe the fuss about non-healers chasing heal badges would be lessened if there were other badges that were dependent on the details of character design. eg...
- a set for dealing X damage with weapons
- a set for dealing X damage with Snipe powers
- deliver X amount of Criticals, or Assassin Strikes, or Scourge hits
- summon X amount of pets
- spend X time with your Fury or Defiance meter over 75%
- can you track Taunting somehow?
(I'll stop there because I don't want the examples to distract from the point.)

The point is: if there's a badge set for healers, it's hard to say to players "sorry, this was never intended for your set" unless you can answer the obvious follow-up question "ok, then what *is* intended for my set? What makes me unique?"

Consider if we had 3 damage dealt badges for each damage type. Yes, some people would work on more of them than others, but it would reinforce the idea that some badges may be out of reach simply because of your character.
Then you don't need to keep Empath at a huge number to supposedly prevent non-healers from ever getting it (which obviosly doesnt' work anyways). The design would be "yeah, we know not everyone has a heal, not everyone has Phase Shift, or a Snipe, or a Weapon, either." It kills the Completeness problem that drives non-healers to get Empath.

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I took a level 32 defender who didn't have the Atlas Medalion through the Moonfire TF (max level 28), got the needed badges, and didn't have access to the accolade until I was my normal level.

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So you were playing yourself as you were at 28. But you earned the badge at 32. This again is an argument that exmplaring is not functionally "playing yourself as you were at that level".

Task Force Commander is the worst. There's no way to earn that *at* level 50, it has to be earned at 40. Yet if I exmplar again for Numina, there's no Accolade that I'd earned from the previous run.


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I gather this is generally considered a "Well, duh!" topic as far as players are concerned?

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I sometimes wonder if the Devs truely realize that.

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Not only that, but it discourages people from getting badges in the actual course of the game, but to go out of their way to get them as soon as they are available to ensure they get the most use out of them.

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Personally, I find myself worrying about my 40-50s more often than my lowbies.
I haven't taken a single over-45 into a Rikti Attack. Why? Because why put in all that effort for something I'll rarely use? I have Archmage on exactly 1 character, because by the time I have an opportunity to farm Illusionist, I don't care anymore because of the exemping rules.
So it discourages me from getting the badges *at all*, because I view the reward on the 50 as significantly weaker than the reward on a 30. Never mind getting them in normal play.

In fact, if you take something like Unbreakable of Illusionist and don't farm it, it's clearly not something you'll stumble upon before level 50. So those accolades are *intended* to be earned after 50. As I said in the OP, these can be a way to continue to improve a level 50 character. So why design them in a way that's not convenient for how 50s continue to play? ESPECIALLY if flashing back to rerun missions with new parameters is the Dev's idea of something to keep 50s occupied in the new issue.

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If they cant/wont remove the losing of Accolades when mal'd down below level of gaining them, then how about changing the requirements of them so that no pvp zone badges are needed, thus removing the "level lock" on certain ones like Marshal, Born in Battle?

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That may not address the general problem of people acting strange at low levels in order to get accolades.

It's pretty bad that I stop what I'm doing at level 23 so I can get Unveiler to finish off Freedom Phallanx Reserve before hitting 24. But it's even worse that I stop what I'm doing at 23 so I can find a level 50 friend to get Unveiler *for me*.

Yes, people may still do that, after all getting the accolade at level 23 instead of 43 has the advantage of being used for 20 more levels. But it would no longer be as much of a necessity if the 43 wasn't punished for waiting. Making all of them obtainable at level 1 doesn't actually fix that piece of it, so would it be worth fixing just the other half?

Yeah, while it may have been something they didn't even consider originally, or it was a coding convenience, the way things have evolved since suggests they should go back and optimize this system. Players not using a system as intended has been the reason for any number of fixes. Seems that should apply here.

and what would the point of flashforward be? I'm level 1, I want to flashforward to the Preatorian arc and have my level 50 friend kill them for me. Is that really solving the problem of unusual behavior from lowbies, or just making the unusual behavior easier to achieve?


flashback may also make it even easier to have your high level friends earn badges for you. When I'm 15 I can maybe ask any friend who's 30+ to flashback to the Soul Taker mission for me. Can a level 50 flashback the whole Praetorian arc to help a team of new alts? If so, what does that say to the people who earned the badge at level 50? I suspect it's only going to make all the problems worse.

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hm well the upcoming flashback system may be of help on this.....hard to say yet.

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Actually, it may only serve to highlight the problems.
If I was to exemplar and earn an accolade, it still locks in at my true level, not my exemplar level. So not only would Demonic have been insanely easy back when I was level 30, and I can prove it by dropping down to 30 and earning it at that level, but it doesn't matter. If flashback is merely the same as exemplaring as we know it, this won't help the situation at all. If flashback does offer a way to earn accolades as a low level, it will be too late for characters who already earned accolades.


Consider Task Force Commander. It's already an accolade I can earn during exemping. In fact, there's no way possible to earn it while over level 40. So if I'm playing myself as I was at level 40, then didn't I earn the accolade at level 40? Nope, it's locked in at 50. Makes no sense.

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In short, anything that encourages me to stop playing the game in order to get ahead is a bad mechanic and it should be changed, somehow.

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That's the heart of it. Yup.

and the penalty if you don't do that makes no sense to me. Why deny content? Why block my use of a reward?

I swear to you, when I wrote all this up I had completely forgotten that I11 was supposed to include Flashback. Considering the information revealed today, I11 would seem to make this issue a lot more important now than it ever has been. (Not to mention some impact on the chaos that is the IO Exemping Rules, but that's for another thread.)
Guess it's good that we got a head start on this, huh?

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I'd be all for this, with one possible caveat. Maybe limit the accolades to levels where it is possible to get them. ie: if it is not possible to get a certain accolade before level 20, then exemp'ing below 20 you'd lose the accolade. That way it remains "fair" to those below that level that have no chance at all of having that accolade.

On the other hand this would create more work as with each new patch it would have to be checked to make sure that the requirements of an accolade haven't changed.

Still, /signed either way

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That was mentioned the last time this discussion came up.

Couple downsides...
- It's more work to set up. You either code each accolade differently, or code a table of minimum levels.
- It's more work to maintain, as you said. Look at how Vanguard changed from 40 to 35. This would also be work on our part to raise issue when that happens if the Devs don't catch it - why not fix it once?
- It's hard to establish a level. Is Watchman really a level 1 accolade? What about Invader? Is it really right to balance an accolade based on 1 particular badge location? (eg, the Freeze Ray is level 15 because of a PVP zone, yet uses a level 45+ mission, who's to say which level is more appropriate there? Just remove this whole discussion.)
- You have to observe PVP Parity. (not balance, parity. there's a difference.) If you let them all exist to level 1, you have a perfectly fair setup without having to analyze the details.
- It's an unnecessary complication. It's confusing for a casual player to know what's available when, especially with similar things on hero/villain sides acting different. Just going to lead to a lot of guides for what's available when. Keep it simple.



as for fairness compared to "native" level people... there's already enough things that are uneven. If I'm level 15 and someone else exemps to run Positron with me, they probably have more slots in their few powers than I have. They could have temp powers I can't access yet. They could have IOs I can't afford yet.

Speaking of slots, the scale-down code for slotting makes an exemplar LESS powerful than a native in many setups. Accolades can compensate a bit for that. In fact, since one of the most obvious problems is End slotting being less effective when exemped, getting some +End from accolades is a nice way to help address that balance. Guess you could make a similar case for defensive slotting and HP buffs. As for things like Demonic, the exemplar has enough additional Insp slots that they could easily reproduce the effect any time, the accolade isn't going to be any more imbalancing.

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Never gonna happen no matter how eliquent and frequently you request this Mad.

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I'm not repeating this just to repeat it. There's been a request to gather up badge issues - this is clearly an issue for a lot of people (even if you do single out just me in your reply) - and to have larger discussions tangent off into semi-official threads instead of in the collected issue thread.

so... discussion. care to expand on *why* you think this is never gonna happen?

The current setup of allowing accolades to be usable only down to the level they were earned should be changed because of the following drawbacks:

1) Promotes unusual behavior on low level characters.
2) Is unfair to higher level charcters.
3) Creates PVP imbalance.
4) Does not match how the rest of the game deals with character development and powers.

The game should allow you to use the Accolades you have earned regardless of your current level.



Let me elaborate.

1) Unusual Behavior on the way up.
I've met players who don't want to gain XP at level 30 until they've exempared away enough debt for High Pain Threshold. Stop and think about that a moment: they don't want to gain XP. How backwards is that?
Further, you see a lot of people worrying about getting requirements as soon as possible. You find low level characters broadcasting for Preatorian teams to get Portal Jockey early.
Consider that IOs work just fine the other way. If you want to have Stealth at level 25, you can find a 28-or-lower Celerity Stealth, but you don't need to scramble for all that cash while at level 25, you can take your time and buy it later when you have a lot of Inf. However, if you want Freedom Phallanx Reserve at level 25 you can't just wait until you can defeat Fake Nemeses yourself.


2) Unfair to older characters.
Any character who was already high level when an accolade came into existence has no chance to have it at low level, no matter how easy it can be earned. Nothing about Demonic is difficult to acquire at level 30, yet someone who was level 40 when the accolade was introduced can't use it at 30. Another example, people can now have Vanguard at level 35, but any character who had to wait for level 40 before Issue 10 is still locked in at level 40. This problem re-occurs every time a new accolade is added to the game.
How does a level 50 view an accolade? Take something like Archmage that involves killing many high level foes. A 50 spends much of their time exemplaring, and the accolade won't be useful then. Is it worth the 50 spending time getting an accolade they can only use a fraction of the time? Accolades could be an opportunity to constantly build on a level 50 character, similar to how Inventions revived the life of many 50s, but that doesn't work nearly as well as it could because of the exemplar limits.


3) PVP imablance.
This is not really about balance from hero to villain - different sides have different accolade requirements and different types of builds. (For example, +5 End is very different depending on how many other people around town can buff you with a +End power.)
The imbalance is that 2 characters can never be equal in PVP if one has early accolades and the other doesn't. 2 Tanks in Sirens Call could be totally equal if not for one having 15% more HP thanks to help getting accolades by level 30. This is highly unusual given the amount of effort put into balancing the PVP environment.
Further, this is not something that can ever be fixed. If one tank has Stone Skin and another doesn't, they second tank can respec and trade off some other power to gain Stone Skin at 30. They're stuck without accolades forever, though.


4) It's unusual.
The only other examples I know of where the game says "do this right the first time because you'll be stuck like that forever" are 2 badges (Efficiency Expert, Jailbird) and Patron selection. 2 of those 3 have a lot of warning attached, Jailbird probably should have warnings, and none of them relate to gameplay balance or character development. (Even if you pick a patron later, it doesn't change how you can build your character when you respec. In fact, they give you a respec for just that purpose.) There is no warning for Accolades, and no way to alter your build.
The usual Dev response on Accolades and exemping has been "that's how you existed back at that level". To that, I can give a huge list of things that illustrate Exemping as a power scale-down, and not a time-travel flashback.<ul type="square">[*]You can use Temp Powers that you did not have at that level. This includes powers that aren't even possible at that level, such as using Warburg Rockets or Vanguard Heavies while at level 20.[*]You can use Veteran Rewards powers that you had not yet earned when you were that level. Also, you can use them regardless of your level when the reward was actually claimed. or even if Veterans Rewards didn't exist when you were that level.[*]You can use GVE- and DVD-edition prestige powers at any level, regardless of what level you were when you added the code to your account. These powers are connected to Accolade badges, adding to the inconsistency.[*]You can wear costume pieces that you did not have at that lower level, and in fact pieces that could not be available at that level at all. Such as a cape or Vanguard armor at level 15. You can also change to multiple costumes you may not have had at that level.[*]You can set a badge title you had not earned by that level. In fact, can set the title of the badge that gives the accolade.[*]You can benefit from IO Set Bonuses and Global Effects even if you did not have that IO slotted when you were that level. For example, at level 50 you can add level 23 Miracle to get the Recovery buff while exemped to level 20. Yes, there is some limitation on which IOs provide buffs, but that is something you have complete control over, the game doesn't decide which buffs to allow based on what you had slotted at level 20, it looks at what you have slotted *now*.[/list]


The easiest, friendliest, simplest solution would be to just remove any level limitation on these powers. Have them act just like Temp and Inherant powers do.
Low level characters would like this change, high level characters would like this change. This change would simply make a lot of sense.


That's my opinion. What do you think?

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... I came in here and said that the issue of base cost had already been resolved and therefore...

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May be a bit better to say base costs have been addressed. Doesn't really slam the door on the issue, but still reminds everyone that this had its turn.

There may still be a bit of an issue that some people don't want things to be finished yet. But really, a 25% change in earnings was a huge move, the type we rarely see. It's on par with things like Great Def Nerf, and Ehancement Diminishing Returns. This was not a little tweak like giving Psi Dart a lower end cost. So even if it's not done to everyone's satisfaction, it's certainly the type of thing I bet wouldn't be moved by that magnitude again.

Heck, considering how many complaints take the form of "this looks like it was just slapped together", you have to put a little faith in the one piece that seemed to get a lot of datamining while in use.

Let us cash in Base Salvage for Prestige.

Solves a few problems at once: Gives base salvage another use (since empowerment is rather lame), let's us buy prestige on the market, or trade for it, overall raises the amount of Prestige someone can produce but not in an unlimited manner.

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With all due respect, MadScientist, who died and made you and Zubenelgenubi the absolute authorities on time investment versus base advancement in CoH?

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only anyone who interprets my opinion on the matter as if it was gospel.
you've imposed more authority upon my post than I ever claimed myself.


you'll notice I never *justify* a post with talking about how much one of my SGs is worth. heck, I go out of my way to mock people who do. I didn't mention prestige in that manner, I mentioned it to illustrate how I was giving first-person experience with why higher-prestige SGs need some lovin'.


I'm not going to claim costs are perfect. but they're now way better than they were at the start. asking for even more love for low-prestige groups in the face of that huge list of things that have never even been touched at all can come across as a bit greedy. I tried to explain that better than simply saying "dead horse". maybe I shouldn't have called it a rant.

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What is the point of adding more stuff no one but the l33t can afford? Medium/large bases are NOT fine? It cost way too much cash to build stuff, and paying RENT on top of that is ridiculous?


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Not the thread for this.

The stack of dead horses is that way ----&gt;

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yeah, but permit me to punctuate that sentiment a bit more....

of all the new stuff and bug fixes we've gotten for bases since COV released, a lot of it has already been geared specifically for low-prestige groups. Eg, low-prestige groups got free rent, starting items, control-less power-less storage and empowerment, etc. The only thing high-prestige groups have specifically gotten is a patch to the AES for the mission computer, and a fixed Fusion Generator, both of which probably should have been there from Day 1 anyways. (The rest of the list of stuff being general fixes, like the kick bug, or Vet items that equally usable by any worth group.)

So when it comes to new ideas, I think it's fair to ask that new code either benefit *every* level of Prestige earning at once, or time to throw some bones to the larger groups who have hit a limit and have no purpose in growing any further. Reducing the overall cost of items is of no use to someone like my main villain group, we already have 20 million prestige *unspent*.

Low-prestige groups have gotten plenty of focus. I think that given the effort Devs spent on the stuff low-prestige groups already got that the Devs have that one aspect of bases pretty much hammered out by now. Or at least close enough that it's time to address some of the 125+ other problems instead of continuing to tweak this low-end stuff that's working pretty well for almost all low-end groups.

/endofrant

Completely new tangent time! Yippee!!!

Someone has to go in and fix all the text on the station recipes, right? So they say 1 hour instead of 15 minutes.
When that's done, can the names of the recipes be improved at the same time?

I mean...
Hold Resist
Immobilize Resist
Increase Attack Speed
Increase Flight Speed
Increase this
Increase that
KB Protection
Lethal Resistance

That whole chunk of "Increase whatever" in the middle is, at least to me, not in any logical order at all. If I want Run Speed, I'm inclined to scroll to the R's, not the I's. And really, would it be anything OTHER than an Increase? Write it as Run Speed Increase, or Run Speed Buff.

Just figuring this might help make the station more friendly to use, which means more people may have the patience to play around with the 4 or 5 useful recipes we have.



oh, and speaking of usability, *all* the worktables with that interface should get Expand All / Collapse All buttons to make them easier to use.

would you prefer an analogy?

I think they should make the Empowerment buff icons blue instead of white.

That's another change that would not be worth the coding time. It would not help the popularity of the powers, just make it a little more conveneint for people who already use them to spot them on their buff bar. Changing them to be time-delayed activated would be a similar waste of time.

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Also, Chain Induction works by granting a temp power to the enemy that attacks a nearby enemy. Hamidon's blue mitos have a similar attack.

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That doesn't persist thru death, which is the whole point. Their effect is really no different than Transfusion generating a pet-like power centered on a character - and just ask any Kin how annoying it is to have your Transfusion target die.

but again, the question at hand is not whether it CAN be done, most anything can, the question is what it's WORTH to bother converting all 25 empowerment recipes to such a setup.
Is the ability to carry a temp power for later a fix for a design flaw, or a wishlist for a better type of buff?

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You could craft it ahead of time and store it for when you need it.

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yes, that's the mechanic of it, but still not explaining the benefits.

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Or craft and use one now, and have another waiting for when it wears off.

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OK, now THAT's a good reason.

But it's a benefit geared to people who already craft these and want it to be easier to craft more of them. That doesn't help convince people to craft them in the first place. If I see a power as useless, I'm sure not crafting a backup copy of it, I'm not even crafting the copy to use now.


So what's the bigger problem here? The general uselessness of the table, or making it more convenient for the few recipes that people like to use? and should both parts be fixed at once, or just prioritize one of them and get coding time for other things?