Positron

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Only when they appear in the world (outside of mission maps) do "Giant Monsters" count for badges. Basically: if it was meant to be taken down by more than 1 team, it gives the badge. Mission versions are scaled down versions that are more like AV's, thus able to be defeated by a single team, and thus do not give the badge.

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The CoH version of Baphomet appears only inside a mission, not as a Giant Monster. He's in one of the later Portal Corp missions, in an alternate world conquered by the Thorns. This is the only place to defeat him in City of Heroes, and the only way to receive a badge. If he was a Giant Monster in City of Heroes, I would never have questioned it. He is, however, an Archvillain there just like he's an Archvillain in CoV (scaled down to Elite Boss due to the latest patch, though you indicated that would make no difference).

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You're right... I fixed it so it works off both the CoH and CoV versions now (there are two different versions).

You may need to go back and defeat him again in CoV to get credit.

This will be in an upcoming patch.

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Badges don't care if you are villain or hero, there are no (or should I say, very few) badges that are "hero only" or "villain only". If you are able to defeat an enemy required for a badge, you can earn that badge.

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I asked earlier in this thread, is this the case with the Circle of Thorns AV "Baphomet"? He is in a CoV mission and does not award a badge for defeat, whereas in CoH he awards the "Demon Slayer" badge for being defeated. Customer Service told me that the Demon Slayer badge is only available in City of Heroes, and the CoV version of Baphomet does not offer a badge. This seems somewhat contradictory to what you just stated, but this could be one of those "very few". Is that the case? Is it intentional? Just curious, thanks.[/qoute]

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Only when they appear in the world (outside of mission maps) do "Giant Monsters" count for badges. Basically: if it was meant to be taken down by more than 1 team, it gives the badge. Mission versions are scaled down versions that are more like AV's, thus able to be defeated by a single team, and thus do not give the badge.

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Arbiter Leery is a special case, since the "I have the Respec and have not used it" and "I have used this Respec" badges are actually DIFFERENT badges (we take one away and give the other). A contact can only have one badge that 'unlocks' them, and in this case we needed 2.

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Would it then be possible to give one of those nifty invisible badges (like the one people are reporting for the Valentine's Day missions) for successful completion of the respec SF, and then hook up the unlocking of Arbiter Leery to that badge? Then he'd be available to anyone who has done the respec strike force, whether they used a respec, still have a respec, or even chose a respec as their reward.

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Done. All you need to do is choose the respec as the reward, and you can do Arbiter Leery whether you respeced or not. (Upcoming patch)

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Positron,

Thank you again for providing us with useful information.

I have one question though? Why are ALL the exploration badges in PvP zones the "villain" graphic? I know it's petty and small to think this, but isn't it sort of giving the PvP zones to the villains? I just ask because it bugs me everytime I view my hero's badges and see those exploration badges with the red "X" graphic.

Ok, I have 2 questions. The 2nd being: Will the Shadow Shard TF badges ever get their artwork fixed?

Thanks, again!

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Both are fixed in upcoming patches.

Let me clarify something.

Badges don't care if you are villain or hero, there are no (or should I say, very few) badges that are "hero only" or "villain only". If you are able to defeat an enemy required for a badge, you can earn that badge.

That being said, when content was being made for CoV, the mission writers would sometimes use a villain group from CoH in a one-off mission or small % spawn in a zone. This enables that badge to be "earned" by villains. Is it an exploit to earn that badge? No. Is it poor foresight on our part to put something like this in? Probably. Will it change in the future? Doubtful.

Badges have two titles, two descriptions, and two graphics, one if your character is on Team Hero, and the other if your character is on Team Villain. In many cases these titles and graphics are identical. In some cases they are not. An example of the "not" would be the 10-level badges. They are exactly the same badge, just with different text and icons.

Now to answer some questions:

The Moonfire and Shadowshard TFs are getting their art hooked up in an upcoming patch.

Veluta Lunata requiring the first ghost-hunting badge will not change, but the number of ghosts needed for that first badge will.

Arbiter Leery is a special case, since the "I have the Respec and have not used it" and "I have used this Respec" badges are actually DIFFERENT badges (we take one away and give the other). A contact can only have one badge that 'unlocks' them, and in this case we needed 2.

The original way was the "unused Respec" badge unlocked him. This sucked because once you used your Respec you couldn't get the contact anymore. This was changed to the "used Respec" badge, since now if you used your Respec you could get the contact, and if you hadn't used your Respec, you could still get the contact, by using your respec. It was less gating this way, but thats not to say any less irritating. It's simply a limit of the way the contacts work.

As for Accolades and Exemplaring, it might seem unfair that you lose Accolade powers when you Exemplar, but to others it seems unfair that you HAVE Accolade powers when you Exemplar. Since Exemplar is you "playing yourself at a lower level" it makes sense to take away your Accolades. I don't see this changing.

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2. You can't add a villain to your Friends list. So, Batman and Catwoman aren't "friends"? Yes, I know you can add them to Global friends, but come on.

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There are a couple of exploits that would be associated with this if we let it happen.

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3. And the worst of all, if you leave Pocket D just to go train or sell enhancements, you get kicked from your team! So make War Witch a trainer, and let the bartenders buy as well as sell. Or let me stay on the team, it's hard enough to put one together!

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We will probably slip in some NPCs who can buyback Enhancements at somepoint, but the trainer issue is a little more difficult from a technical standpoint.

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so what's the word on villains getting CapBuster from the Pocket D mission? It seems Snaptooth counts for that, but not the other Redcaps? I don't want to kill Snaptooth 333 times.

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There is a bug that is making the CapBuster badge tracker show up for Villains. We are tracking this down.

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Posi, before a *lot* of ppl waste a *lot* of time, can you confirm one way or the other as to whether or not Villains will/should be able to earn/keep the Cap Buster badge?

If we arent supposed to get it, then get rid of it now, before the jobless players have a chance to get it and the rest of us are left bending over. Otherwise, please fix it so all red caps count. Or at least assure us that you'll datamine down the road...

(All I know is that if I end up resetting a mish 333 times over the next 2 weeks - because I'm a sad little badge b*st*rd - for *nothing*, then NCSoft will have 1 less customer...)

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I PM'd Posi with this same question. I also would like to save myself and everyone else a lot of time if this is just a bug that will get fixed.

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If you want to get the badges in this limited window, go ahead.

Although keep in mind that the future may hold far easier ways to get the badges in question.

Here ya go.

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This is an odd bug and one I just petitioned. I did the villain mission with my hero for the Pocket D contact. Upon destroying the Couldren I got the mission complete and badge awarded. Upon checking the badge I actually was given the 'Visitor' badge which as you know is for 10 badges. So clearly something is wrong here, how can I get the Visitor badge without being awarded another badge?

I have looked and there is no system message saying I got any badge other than Visitor nor does a new badge appear on my list.

Very odd.

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::waves hand:: This is not the badge count badge you are looking for... you can go about your business... move along...

(translation: It's a bug, there is an invisible badge being issued that's being counted as a badge. This is being fixed).

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*waves to Positron*

Will Snowbeast also be fixed?

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Yes. This is given to players who got the Toy Collector badge in December.

There is a bug with this badge.

Actually there is a bug with the Gladitator that this badge is supposed to award.

It is fixed, and hopefully will be up on the live servers before the end of the event. Suffice it to say that earning the Toothbreaker badge will get you a unique gladiator for your stable.

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so what's the word on villains getting CapBuster from the Pocket D mission? It seems Snaptooth counts for that, but not the other Redcaps? I don't want to kill Snaptooth 333 times.

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There is a bug that is making the CapBuster badge tracker show up for Villains. We are tracking this down.

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Positron

What is the MASTER THIEF badge for? And is it currently attainable? Whats the scoop?

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Base raiding, stealing Items of Power.

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Passport, I have it on live ...


1) What is the true intention of this badge. [The Pigg hackers have theories but we deserve the truth]

2) Since this a bug can I trade it for Isolator

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It's a bug that some players have Passport. They shouldn't expect to keep it.

It is a badge that was made in anticipation of Server Transfers. I don't know the schedule of when/if transfers are going to happen, and even if this badge will be given as part of the transfer anymore. Passport has been around a LONG time, and many things have changed in that time.

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Followup:

* The PvP Patrol mission does not give the badge to teammates, this is a limitation of the Engine, sorry for misleading you on that. I honestly thought it worked the other way.
* That being said, there are supposed to be patrol missions for both sides for EVERY PvP zone, so characters of any level can get the badge on their own. We are investigating why players are not seeing the Patrol missions for Siren's Call or Warburg.

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Characters of any level STILL can't get forward observer Posi. Currently PvP zones stop giving missions at 38, and you said you don't want PvP missions to go all the way to 50. So putting all this together, you are indicating that (not directly, but as a side effect) that the way you currently want it to work characters who were 50 before the patrol missions came out will not be able to get the badge?

If the engine is limited so that it can't be awarded when we exemp to someone doing it, and you don't want to let us do it ourselves, please give some alternate way for 50's to get the badge.

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Recluse's Victory will have patrol missions all the way to 50 that grant the badge.

Followup:

* The PvP Patrol mission does not give the badge to teammates, this is a limitation of the Engine, sorry for misleading you on that. I honestly thought it worked the other way.
* That being said, there are supposed to be patrol missions for both sides for EVERY PvP zone, so characters of any level can get the badge on their own. We are investigating why players are not seeing the Patrol missions for Siren's Call or Warburg.

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So, we obviously keep our badges when we turn good or go rogue. Here's the big question, what about accolades? It would be kind of abusable to have both hero and villain accolades (assuming villain accolades are roughly equivalent to the hero versions) so it's safe to assume they'll be taken away somehow. Do you just flag accolades X, Y, and Z as for one side only, and remove them as part of the trial?

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Where two Accolades have the "same" power, Hero or Villain...

You can have both Accolades.

You can NOT have both Accolade powers, you lose the older one when you get the newer one.

Like I said... if you think its abusable... it's not going to happen.

We are still working on the system (there are a lot of corner cases), but in general:

* If you think that "doing X" while going rogue will be abusable in ANY way, you can bank on X not happening.
* If you think that "Y happening" would seriously break something, you can bank on Y not happening.
* Badges are already coded with two titles, Hero and Villain. The side you are on determines the title you get with said badge. Just because your hero was "Statesman's Pal" does not mean your villain will be. He'd more likely be "Statesman's Betrayer". Some badges have the same title across both hero and villain, some do not.

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Ah... Goodie.

Alright, The gunner badge. Is it still bugged? I know, someone has comfirmed it over on pinnacle, but, they said they had done over 300 firebases to get the badge. That seems to be quite alot of firebases and would take quite a long time.

Is there, perhaps, a trick of sort involved? The badge description does kinda imply that you need to only take over 1 firebase... but 300? Bit rediculous.

Xer

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Gunner badge is bugged. It shouldn't be awarding at all AFAIK.

I will post here when it is fixed.

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Its fixed. Processing your ore will earn you the Gunner badge. Expect this in the next full patch to the Training Room server (basically sometime after Pocket D goes to Live).

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Will there ever be a way for toons that have outleveled the PVP zone contacts to be able to run the missions? If they are rewarding badges, then you are arbitrarily limiting those of us that have already outleveled them. I believe Statesman said that ONLY the tutorial badges would be unattainable once you've missed them. As it stands, there is no way to get the patrol badges that I can find. I've gotten the others via teams, but only the mission holder gets the patrol mission badges.

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Exemplar/Malefactor to someone doing the mission and you will get the badge when they do.

We do not want to make the missions in the PvP zones go all the way to 50, because then a character could literally spend all his time in that zone, never needing to leave except to visit stores, and that is gameplay we dont want to encourage.

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I wouldn't mind if all Holiday event badges (including the accolades) were put under a new "Event" tab.

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You wouldn't, but Poz and I would. We are of the opinion that there are too many tabs there as it is.

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3) I wish Badges were put into better order or in alphabetical order. Trying to find what badges to need is sometimes tedious.

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Hear Hear. Any possibility of resorting some of the badges into groups (i.e. putting the 200 collection badge with the others)

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Why is the badge list so screwed up?

Well, it's not. At least to me.

You see each "Issue" has their own badge list (Ish 2 and 3 are combined, but 4 thru 7 all have their own list). Each list comes after the other one in the badge display order. Thats why newer badges appear towards the bottom of their combined lists.

Now why is City of Villains badges so so so screwed up? That's because CoV also repuposes at lot of Ish 2 through 5 stuff, and thus those badges are on earlier "lists".

Now I have been considering combineing all the lists into one huge, sorted, master list, but the very real possibility of breaking something BIG could come of that. Not something I look forward to doing anytime soon.

Poz could possibly add some limited sorting to the Badge window, but it would be SO limited, it would be almost useless to you (we can't sort by "when you got it" for example, since we dont track that).

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I would love to see badges given for damage dealt, like we do for damage taken or healed. Is there a reason this has not been done yet?


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1) Because we can't datamine for these badges. Yes, it's a crappy reason, but if we introduce these badges NOW after almost 2 years, players will complain to high heaven that "Character X should have Badge Y," and there is no way to check.

2) Art. We'd need new art for the badges and the time window to get new, unplanned, badge art is "not anytime soon"

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Speaking of Arbiter Leery, did he ever get fixed?
(for those not in-the-know, he only gives you missions if you have the first Respec badge and have not used your respec. Once you use it, he ignores you.)

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I am pretty sure he got fixed recently. If it's not on test, it will be soon.

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The PvP badges are still acting really wierd right now. Is all the text incorrect on the badges, or are they still all being awarded for the wrong tasks? It seems like the badge given for running a PvP patrol mission changes every month.

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The PVP badges should finally be "stable" now (with the version up on Training Room at least). A lot were being given out incorrectly or had bad descriptions.

Reinforcement is for 20 PvP kills
Forward Observer is for a PvP Reputation of 100
Disruptor is for a PvP Reputation of 400

Villain

Patrols grant Most Wanted
Missions grant Wanted or Agent Provocateur


Hero

Patrols grant Risk Taker
Missions grant Vigilante or Agent Provocatuer

Zone is irrellevant with the above.

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Pos,

Will Elite Boss versions of AVs count towards earning badges like their full-fledged AV versions do?

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Yes (there is no way to do this any differently).