Memphis_Bill

Soloed on my Emp/Psi defender. Only one I've played through that far.

By the way, EG.




You're wrong.


Smartalec and required objection out of the way - I do disagree with you, in the case of COH. I think you're taking the effect someone else has of buying things via the Paragon Market *far* out of proportion to the actual effect. Plus, of course, making a few assumptions - like that they'd visit the auction house in game to begin with. (If we were looking at a D3 style real-money auction house as well, I'd be far more willing to grant your point about damaging another player here... but we don't.) You *don't* know that you've lost a/several sales because of people buying, oh, a set of purples on the market, or some thunderstrikes or whatnot. They may not *have* the in-game INF to afford them - not at the prices set by the sellers, historically. In other words, that sale is *not* lost because it didn't exist in the first place.

Alternately, they may not like having enhancements stuck at a particular level (let's take thunderstrike, again, since they're both in game and in the PMart.) They may want them all at the same level (and given some of the self-described obsessive personalities in game, you KNOW there are people like that.) So they ignore the market, preferring Merit Vendors (since you can set the level.) You haven't lost a sale to them. Or they see the "attuned" version on the market and grab that. Another one you haven't lost a sale to.

As far as the "nothing to win" argument - that's... the only way I can put it is "it's your own hang up." First, their obtaining of said badge doesn't hurt you in any way. There's not a limited supply, or "Only 100 people in 24 hours can make the attempt" or any such thing. And second, and related to that, if they can *buy* the pieces to "complete" a build that makes them more confident in TRYING the Master Of.... badge in the first place, well, you've "won" more people to make that attempt WITH. It really is a win/win situation.

You say it affects YOUR feelings about the game. Well, then don't let what other people do *bother* you. If you look at a league's worth of people, can you actually tell, from one IO'd build to another, who has bought versus who has "earned" (as you put it) their builds? And, quite honestly - and you'll have to excuse the indignant tone here - what gives you the right to determine if it's really been "earned?" If someone's been playing the game for (say) five years, but only gets Saturdays to play for a few hours, they've had a 50 for the last year and have never seen a purple, don't have a ton of INF, etc... have they not "earned" the privilege of using them? Is *their* enjoyment (and continued support) of the game and *their* subscription a distant second to *your* ego? Or is the privilege of purples only reserved for the person who can farm 7 days a week to get full sets, or who enjoy screwing around with the market?


Now, all that said, there ARE some things that I agree should remain off the market - but I haven't heard any rumblings about these being there anyway. Things like, oh, Efficiency Expert. Frankly, I want to see more things like that that, yes, you CAN lose at and only get one shot at. And I know full well that's unpopular in some circles. I find farming PVP rep badges, for instance, somewhat offensive, especially when done by someone who actually has zero interest in PVP. I used to make many of the same arguments you did - basically about diminishing the "intrinsic worth" of some item. But I came to realize, quite bluntly, *it doesn't affect me.* It doesn't affect anyone, period. There's not one less badge for me to earn. It doesn't move more things to the PVP zone because there's another badge earned there.

For me, I don't *care* what others do. I can be proud (as much as anything in a video game really deserves pride...) that *I* did things "the hard way," or earned instead of bought them. Take pride in your own accomplishments, and tell the ego of "showing off" - which does nothing to help, generally - to take the night off.



Edit: dug's post gets my ending point across a bit better than my own post, I think.

Before you go into throwing IOs into that build, I'd have the build itself looked at so you're not trying to throw a racer's engine into a yugo.

Once it's tuned up a bit, decide where you want to go with the build. Since your requests at the bottom are basically ... well, using IOs, by which I mean most *do* enhance multiple aspects, even without looking at set bonuses. For instance, if you go to the IO wiki page, you'll see Thunderstrike listed as having these individual IOs:
Acc/Dam
Dam/End - so there's "does damage and lowers endurance"
Dam/Rech - and your "does damage and lowers recharge "
Acc/Dam/Rech
Acc/Dam/End
Dam/End/Rech

... without even looking at set bonuses.

If you don't know how to get your build (or have no idea what those blocks of data are you may see in some builds,) go to the Titan network and grab Titan Sentinel (which will let you grab the build directly from the character) and Mids Hero Designer (which will let you see and play with builds.)

Very first question - what OS are you running?

If it's Windows XP, or the 32 bit editions of Vista or Windows 7, you functionally can't use more than 3 Gb.

I have no problem with things being "exclusive" for a while. The Celestial set was like that. The preorder sprints were like that (though you didn't pay extra money for them.)

I'd be fine if these were set to remain "exclusive" items for a while - say, the H/V packs go away, and the set shows up on its own six months later. I'm *perfectly* fine with that.

But "We just won't?" That's the sort of thing that immediately sours any goodwill Paragon Studios builds up. There's absolutely no logic to it. You made money off of the H/V packs for it. So, you don't want to... make... more money from the people that didn't get everything (or anything,) or join / return later?

What's the sense in that?

Paragon, I have other items on my account (the COV CE and COH CE) with "exclusive" items (Arachnos cape, Cape of the Four Winds, Prestige Power Slide.) I bought the COV CE when it was *new* and cost $80 or so. I've always understood the "We won't give away for free something you've paid extra for," and think that's a perfectly sensible stance. However, you'll also find, in pretty much all the threads on those items, that I support making them available in the Paragon Market.

Let me say I support fully the request to make the Elemental Order and Black Wolf "exclusive" items on the market, as well. If you want to put in a time delay (six months,) ok, fine - it even makes sense from a marketing standpoint (not to mention that would put the release near christmas, when people want to spend money on "stuff" anyway.)

Saying "No, we don't want to do this at all?" Poor decision, and really I expect that to be better thought through. This is a poor business decision, and a poor community relations decision.

I could go for it. Right now, the FBSA departments are pretty much just window decoration.

Alternate animations would be good.

I *really* wish they'd give alternate sounds, though. I ran a sonic/sonic to 50. I have other sonic blast characters sitting around because I like the -res but hate the mish-mash of odd sounds.