Snow Globe

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My bad, guess my computer just can't see them. (Problem loading pictures and such)

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There were no classifieds this issue. There were a few ads, but no classifieds.

It stems from the fact that LadyK's account has expired. If you've sent LadyK a PM with a classified, please resend it to MistressNoire.

We apologize for the inconvenience.

Thanks to Lemur_Lad for going back over the last year or so to compile the index.

Happy birthday BadStorm!

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Aww where is the redside skin and CoV branding?

I never really visit the main website except to check vet rewards. Usually I go straight to the forums. Please at least have a CoV skin for these if nothing else.

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Not going to happen, it seems. Read Lighthouse's post:

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The main website covers both aspects of the game. We've given anyone who ever had access to both sides, so they are both sides to the same coin that is the City of Heroes franchise.

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This web page does not display properly in Opera.

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Which version? I used Opera 9.51 and it looked fine.

Edit:
And what part of the page?

Works in Opera 9.51.

IE versions 3-6 are not standards compliant pieces of _______ that should be replaced as soon as possible.

IE 6 is dieing the death it so richly deserves:
http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp

It had a 32% market share at the beginning of the year, it is now down to 23%. On the plus side for web developers like myself, I can safely ignore any calls to support IE 5 (0.1%)

Needs some of the features from the European site.

Namely (no particular order):
"Tip of the Day"
"City Sights"
"Hall of Fame"

What does things better:
UK's Game Guide

While the new US website is a bit more graphically appealing, the UK's site is just more informative...

Edit:
I [u]do love[u] the US's new Patch notes/Issues pages though.

I would advise you to PM Lighthouse directly about this, CaffeineAddict.

Sorry, I missed that. It could go in the Bio tab...

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Ok, thinking about it, make the day jobs exactly like the Super Group badges (separate window via a button in the badge window), not counting towards the badge totals, not displayed in your info window, etc with one exception: you could use it as a selectable title.

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If Day Jobs are shown in a separate window, do not count towards the badge totals, and are not called badges, do you feel they could be displayed in a separate tab in your info window?

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No, I agree with Positron before they put in the Veteran Reward badges: "There are too many tabs in the badge window already."

Ok, thinking about it, make the day jobs exactly like the Super Group badges (separate window via a button in the badge window), not counting towards the badge totals, not displayed in your info window, etc with one exception: you could use it as a selectable title.

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Issue 13 seems to be really bothering a lot of hardcore players for different reasons:
*The badgers are bothered by Day Jobs
*The PVPers are bothered by the PVP changes
*Inf and Market Farmers are going to be bothered by Merits
*Levelling Pacts give another tool to use for power levellers, which creates more "n00bs" who have no idea how to use their characters--which affects the PVE players (regardless of how they feel about badges, PVP, farming, or PLing).

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You forgot base builders being ticked off for the (a) removal of base salvage and (b) having to sell off everything and repurchase to get the prestige difference.

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Issue 13 may be making things easier for the casual player, but for those of us who have been around for years (many since the launch and even the beta before it), it's just straining tensions. While it's not all bad, everyone who spends a significant amount of time focusing on a single aspect of the game is suffering in one way or another.

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Badges and bases for me...

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One is possible the other is not. Each story arc, task force, and trial is a specific thing you can gauge, thanks to the badge system and souvenirs. The other missions have no such mechanism to tell when they are "done". Therefore, straw man, unless you want to remove the badges from the day jobs entirely so you have no record of what you've done.

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So everything that is counted in the game must be completely collectible?

And for some people, getting all the badges is equally as impossible as doing all the missions. They just don't have the time to do either one. So should the devs reduce the number of badges and missions just because they want to be able to collect them all? Or does it just matter that there is enough time for you specifically to get them all?

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Actually, missions don't need to be adjusted, you can flashback to all the collectible ones.

I've already said multiple times that they should:
* Have 1 veteran badge that lets select all the titles for your characters. Similar to what I've proposed to with day jobs, people could get a special veterans award title at the trainer.
* Do something about the anniversary badges, and the 5th column gladiator.

Maybe the best thing to do with the day jobs, veteran rewards, anniversary badges, and other account badges (VIP/Destined One, Pocket D VIP) is to:
* Make a new "Special awards" window.
* Move all these badges OUT of the badge system / database and into the new window/system.
* Remove them from the badge count.

At that point they are no longer a part of the badge system.

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Three overlapping badges. The tier 1 badge gets hidden when you earn the tier 2. The tier 2 gets hidden when you get the tier 3. Just like the respec badges.

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So really you are after badge counts then, not the badges themselves. Collecting extra badges only matters if it affects your badge count. If that's the case, then why is not including Day Job badges in the badge count good enough?

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Still using the system... And while badge counts are a part of it, you still have a visible badge in the window. If it is visible and can be used to set a title it still is a badge.

Just face it, you simply cannot say "only count some of the collectible things" and expect that collectors would agreed with it. It is fine that you don't understand it. You don't need to. However the developers DO need to understand that a segment of the player base is upset at this implementation.

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However, the Heal/Damage/Whatever badges are earned faster if you play normally *more often*, while the rate at which you earn Day Job badges actually slows down if you play more.

(this isn't how those badges are treated by badge collectors though, and thus not the effect it'll really have on them)

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Apparently the gladiator loophole seems to be plugged:
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* A Heal Event now imposes a 25% Resistance to further heals on the character, regardless of source. This Resistance to heals will last for 15 seconds, and stacks with itself. This means that if you are healed 4 times, no further healing will affect you until the resistance duration ends.

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And for an addition or alternate method to really keep badge hunters happy:
Have each day job badge be 3 badges, one for each tier of the gate.

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What are you collecting? Badge counts or the badges themselves? How would this solve anything, because wouldn't people want to collect all of the top tier badges?

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Three overlapping badges. The tier 1 badge gets hidden when you earn the tier 2. The tier 2 gets hidden when you get the tier 3. Just like the respec badges.

Yes, some people would want to get all the top tiers for the extra rewards. However this would allow people to earn the badges (if they want) or focus on a specific category of reward, at the PLAYER's choice.

Having the titles able to be chosen at the trainers allows more diverse set of job titles.

All this seems to be a reasonable compromise between having to spend 30 days offline and being able to get the badges quickly. And it does it without removing the badges.

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These are great examples of Straw Man arguments. You are setting up questions that are completely unrelated to the topic at hand, for the specific purpose of knocking them down. Logic fallacies.

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Nope, sorry, my arguments were completely relevant. You said that you had done all the story arcs, task forces, and trials. Somehow you were able to separate wanting to do all of them from wanting to do all missions in general.

Wanting to do all missions is just as valid as wanting to get all badges. Just because you personally do not care about doing all missions, but do care about getting all badges, you are drawing an arbitrary line in the sand and saying wanting to do all missions is completely different than wanting to get all badges, and therefore my arguments were Straw Men.

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One is possible the other is not. Each story arc, task force, and trial is a specific thing you can gauge, thanks to the badge system and souvenirs. The other missions have no such mechanism to tell when they are "done". Therefore, straw man, unless you want to remove the badges from the day jobs entirely so you have no record of what you've done.

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That's really a sign of your own bias, not mine.

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I've actually almost completely accomplished the arc/tf/trials blue side, and a large portion red-side. No bias involved.

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Still in the badge window, still using the badge system to award. The game doesn't care if what it is called, if it uses the badge system, the game counts it. They've had to recode the vet reward choices not to count.

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Well, yeah, that's why one of my suggestions was to change things to count them separately. Or, at the very least, count Day Jobs separately. But you didn't like that idea.

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Completely separate. Sometimes mixing things is just a bad idea.

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And if they are counted separately, does it really matter that much what window they're in? Seriously?

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Actually it does matter, otherwise a lot of people here wouldn't be as upset. This should be blindingly obvious.

The fact that it doesn't matter to you does NOT equal that it matters to others.

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Failing that, change how the rewards work to not penalize normal play. I would consider "normal play" to be at most 9 hours (longest current TF lasts about that long) so people could earn a maximum of 15 hours per day. They would need to change the reward times accordingly. Finally reduce the time for all the day job badges, even if it was only by 10 days.

It would take 8 months to earn all the listed badges. For someone dedicated enough to do this award a "Jack of all Trades" accolade.

Example:
Each day can accumulate a maximum of 15 hours. Most rewards take 150 hours or 10 Real Life days of logged out time to reach the maximum benefit. Award the badge at the 2nd milestone. After you unlock the reward, you would need 105 hours or 7 real life days to earn again.

Still gated, still taking into account need for balancing reward vs time, but no penalty for playing the game. Those that only want one or two jobs will continue to reap the same reward as much as they want.

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And for an addition or alternate method to really keep badge hunters happy:
Have each day job badge be 3 badges, one for each tier of the gate.

Using "City Official" as an example: After the first ten days, you get the badge with the description saying that you are a "clerk", after the second ten days, the "City Official" badge would say that you are a "secretary", after the final thirty days it changes to "notary". Allow the city trainers to let you choose "clerk", "secretary", or "notary" as a special title (separate from either the regular or badge titles) after you have earned the tier.

With Law Enforcer, it would progress "Officer", "Detective", and "Sergeant". Allow title selection as above.

The accolade "Police Chief" would describe "Captain" which would be available when you get both the 1st version of the City Official and Law Enforcer badges, "Inspector" when you have at least rank two of both groups, and "Commissioner" when you have the tier 3 of both groups. Allow title selection as above.

Lessen the accolade rewards based on what tier was achieved, and you have a decent system.

Badge hunters get the badges quicker, and people have more flavors of jobs to set as their titles.

Seems like a win-win.

Add in a cap on the amount of hours each day equalizing the reward time would be a near perfect system for myself.

Edit:
Oh, and Venture earned what I told him I'd do earlier with his last post.

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Because badges are one aspect of the game. Not 5-7 different aspects. You do realize that this question could be rephrased "How is it you are able to separate your arm from other items on your body, but not different types of appendages from each other?" Of course this change of phrase is absurd, but so is the question.

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It's not absurd. Story arcs, task forces, and trials are all missions, but yet they are considered different types of missions by people, each with a different style of gameplay. Should task forces be removed because some people don't like to team, but want to be able to do every mission?

What about this new Mission Architect system that's coming? Even if people could have done all the dev-created missions, there's no way they could keep up with the large influx of player-created missions.

Should we drop the Mission Architect system so players aren't forced to play for unhealthy amounts of time in order to do them all? Or should we tell them, "Hey, feel free to do all the task forces, trials, and key story arcs, but sorry, you won't be able to do every single mission."


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These are great examples of Straw Man arguments. You are setting up questions that are completely unrelated to the topic at hand, for the specific purpose of knocking them down. Logic fallacies.

Come back without them.

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This line of reasoning might be acceptable if they were already in the live game. They aren't there yet. There is nothing for the developers to remove.

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How could Day Job badges be part of the game before Day Jobs were? Now that Day Jobs are being added to the game, some people might want to collect them, and use badges as the mechanism by which to do so.

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Now is the time to correct any perceived flaws, because the developers have shown great (some would say insurmountable) opposition to changing the requirements after they've been introduced. Case in point: Empath.

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But just because you are happy with what is currently available to be collected, that means that someone who wants to collect Day Jobs shouldn't be given the same privilege? The only things that should be allowed are things that are already there?

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You've missed the point again. I've suggested a way to keep the badges in the system, yet limit the penalty for playing. It would not harm players in the least. The badges will still award at 30 days (actually sooner than if the casual players played normally).

At this point I don't think you know what you are arguing about.

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Making a skill system that functions completely independent of the badge system would work.

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How is having them called "certificates" and counted separately from badges not functioning completely independent?

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Still in the badge window, still using the badge system to award. The game doesn't care if what it is called, if it uses the badge system, the game counts it. They've had to recode the vet reward choices not to count.

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Failing that, change how the rewards work to not penalize normal play. I would consider "normal play" to be at most 9 hours (longest current TF lasts about that long) so people could earn a maximum of 15 hours per day.

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NCSoft does not get money based on how much you play the game. They get money based on how long you subscribe. They aren't penalizing normal play. They are giving constant rewards to everyone who is subscribing.

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They already have a series of badges for this. They are called Veteran Rewards.

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If you're in the game, you still get far better rewards than when not, but now even those who don't have as much time to play are gaining something during every hour.

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Day jobs are not to reward every single hour subscribed. If they were then you would be gaining the rewards while playing as well. Faulty logic on that one.

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If their goal is to reward players for every hour subscribed to the game, then limiting it to a maximum per day penalizes the players who don't have as much time to play.

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I seriously think you've missed the point. Limiting the time lets one day be one day of rewards. As I said above, if the intention were to reward each hour of subscription time, then this system fails. If however it is to reward real days subscription time, then adjusting the maximum time to 15 hours per day would accomplish that.

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On the other hand I like playing my badge character, even till this day. I got her to level 50 a month after CoV/Issue 6, and was my first level 50. With this system, I'm being told I have to choose between a character I love to play and a mini-game I love to play. I should not have to choose between the two.

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What is it that makes a badge a badge to you? You seem to be okay with the fact that you can't do every mission, get every IO, get every combination of powers, or complete every other aspect of other things in the game. But once something becomes a badge, then it is now part of a single collection that you must complete.

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I've actually done all the heroic story arcs, task forces, and trials. I'm about 75% done villain side. I've built and designed several bases. The rest is because in some cases like IOs there is nothing to complete.

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How is it you are able to separate collecting badges from other items in the game, but not different types of badges from each other?

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Because badges are one aspect of the game. Not 5-7 different aspects. You do realize that this question could be rephrased "How is it you are able to separate your arm from other items on your body, but not different types of appendages from each other?" Of course this change of phrase is absurd, but so is the question.

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What is it that makes badges part of a single collection to you? Is it the fact that they are all called "badges"? Is it the fact that they are counted together?

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Badges use the same system in the game. They are all the same type of reward. It has been this way since issue 2. You can't break apart the system.

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Keep in mind that some people might want to collect Day Jobs too, so while making Day Job badges invisible might satisfy your style of collecting, other collectors could be hurt by that change.

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This line of reasoning might be acceptable if they were already in the live game. They aren't there yet. There is nothing for the developers to remove.

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What could the devs do that would allow those collectors to collect Day Jobs, but still make you not feel you needed them all to complete your badge collection?

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Remove them entirely from the badge system.

Failing that, change how the rewards work to not penalize normal play. I would consider "normal play" to be at most 9 hours (longest current TF lasts about that long) so people could earn a maximum of 15 hours per day. They would need to change the reward times accordingly. Finally reduce the time for all the day job badges, even if it was only by 10 days.

It would take 8 months to earn all the listed badges. For someone dedicated enough to do this award a "Jack of all Trades" accolade.

Example:
Each day can accumulate a maximum of 15 hours. Most rewards take 150 hours or 10 Real Life days of logged out time to reach the maximum benefit. Award the badge at the 2nd milestone. After you unlock the reward, you would need 105 hours or 7 real life days to earn again.

Still gated, still taking into account need for balancing reward vs time, but no penalty for playing the game. Those that only want one or two jobs will continue to reap the same reward as much as they want.

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Would any of these possibilities be satisfactory to you?

* Count each type of badge separately in the game. In other words, Achievement badges go to one count, Exploration to another, Day Jobs to another, etc. If separating the existing counts wouldn't be feasible, then separate just Day Jobs from the rest of the badge count.

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Nope. Still using the badge system.

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* Call Day Job badges "certificates" instead.

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They tried that with gladiators. Gladiators are still badges.

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* Show Day Jobs in a separate "skills" window that shows a tree of all the offline skills you have acquired. You could set your title by clicking on a skill.

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Making a skill system that functions completely independent of the badge system would work. However at this late stage, I'm enough of a realist to know that will not happen.

This doesn't mean that I'll sit back and let the system go ahead without voicing my opinions for what needs to be changed.

They need to do something like I suggested above to make it less punishing to those that care about the badge system yet let people that want just one or two jobs (and accolade) get them.

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Basically, is the 'year' estimate only for THESE jobs, or ALL jobs?

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At this point it is a year estimate for only the announced jobs.

If it is only 1/2 or 1/4 of the actual list and the 30 days stands, I think I might well close my account in protest. I say this is because this would no longer be a game that I would want to support.

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I've been a staunch supporter of Badge [censored] rights in my career in the game and I've agreed with many of your Badging Stances, SG. But seriously, you'd quit the game over this issue? Can you explain that to me?

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At twice the stated list, if I played regularly, I wouldn't get all the badges in 2.5 years (assuming I actually play my badge character, and I do). At 4 times the stated list, it would be 5 years, and I wouldn't even have enough time to get Empath if it were fixed. That is the problem: sure it might be up to 15 extra days for the first badge, but that delay is compounded with every single badge.

What should be basic math is lost on some of the supporters. I figure this is because they only want one or two jobs so they can get the accolade, which is about par for the course when it comes to the badges.

On the other hand I like playing my badge character, even till this day. I got her to level 50 a month after CoV/Issue 6, and was my first level 50. With this system, I'm being told I have to choose between a character I love to play and a mini-game I love to play. I should not have to choose between the two.

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I've become much less of a Badge [censored] since Inventions came out. The task of crafting for Badges broke my desire to "have them all" as it were. I'm ok with that. There was always a list of Badges that had an asterisk in my mind, denoting the fact that I would never earn them in my career in the game. At a certain point, it's just not worth it. I'd rather spend my time playing the game instead of worrying about which Badges I need to work toward.

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I finished up all the Issue 9 badges this last June, except for Master Craftsman, but if I want the day job badge, I have to give that badge up. I am nearly finished the flashback badges (6 of the 40-44 challenge badges left, and about 15 "extra" flashback missions to complete that set).

I too would rather just play the game. But with these badges, I get penalized for actually playing the game. I would have to wait longer because I wanted to play the game. "Wait longer" equals "penalty". It is an incredibly simple equation. I forfeit time toward earning the badge by playing.

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Anyway. Ramble mode off. I guess I'm just surprised you'd leave the game over this issue.

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It would be the straw that broke the camel's back.

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Basically, is the 'year' estimate only for THESE jobs, or ALL jobs?

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At this point it is a year estimate for only the announced jobs.

If it is only 1/2 or 1/4 of the actual list and the 30 days stands, I think I might well close my account in protest. I say this is because this would no longer be a game that I would want to support.

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Personally I just think the developers, like a good portion of the people responding here, simply do not understand people who like collecting badges.

Or there is a subset of badge collectors who don't understand the intent of the system and have unrealistic expectations that will never be met.

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Actually, I have stated plenty of constructively possible and realistic suggestions in this thread.

* Is it not realistic to think the developers could cap the off-line timers to 8 hours a day? Entirely realistic. They've already shown that they can limit rewards per 24 hour period.

* Is it not realistic to use invisible "badges" for to gate the greater rewards? Absolutely possible. There are several already existing in the game at present.

* Is it not realistic to have "Day job titles"? They've added titles that you can get at the trainer for the Veteran Rewards Program.

Seems that you have some fairly unrealistic expectations that because you don't care as much about badges as some of the others here, and that we should let our objections remain silent. That truly isn't possible or, for that matter, not your place to decide. If you continue to be nonconstructive in your posts towards me, you will be the only person in my forum ignore list.

I have not asked for the removal of the system, just the portion that is having problems. I also have not received any clarification about several concerns that I've made near the beginning of this thread in my first post in this thread.

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But they did implicitly when they created a second, new set of badges based on the exact same twitch gaming for the upcoming winter event.

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Well they did lengthen the time for the second set.

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There is no other message that can be drawn from that than, "We listened to your concerns about not being able to get those badges, and ignored them."

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I think you are right about the second half of that statement, but I didn't see any evidence that they actually listen to any of the people who pointed out problems with the slope. (When it was briefly on the test server I looked at 2 gates, and their hit boxes were still off. One had half it's height embedded in the slope, the other could be tripped outside the poles.)

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Actually, I don't mind the thirty day earning time, and making those badges a long term goal. But I know that arguing that it isn't fair for the devs to create badges you feel you can't get has already failed to sway them, so you need to find another angle to convince them.

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I doubt even when presented with a logical well thought reason they would change their minds. Case in point: Empath. I've lost track at how many ways I've personally explained the badge is broken (numerically wrong, broken vs designed time frame, and made harder with ED), both before and after Positron admitted it was broken (decimal error that was allowed to continue to exist, despite the fact that any such errors in the players favor are quickly dealt with), yet zero acknowledgment that player concerns are even valued when it comes to badges.

Personally I just think the developers, like a good portion of the people responding here, simply do not understand people who like collecting badges. At that point the badge system as a whole breaks down for those that do like the badge minigame.