Snow Globe

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Now, I do understand that there's some L50s that already have done the arcs - but why not just make those recipes also drop from high level AVs and/or task forces?

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Problems with your statement:
<ul type="square">[*]This doesn't only affect the Level 50s. I have characters from levels 13 to 43 that this is going to affect.[*]Task/Strike Forces have their own pool (Pool C).[*]So do defeats (Pool A). This is compounded by the statement that the majority of the drops will be from defeating things.[/list]So, not a solution.

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Where and how do you get Teleport Beacons other than paying the 10K cost? I believe I heard something about having to go to the beacon site once or something but am not sure. Also, since each Teleporter can actually support 2 destinations (2 Beacons yes?) then a full Teleporter will cost 15K to buy and place as well as 20K for the two beacons?

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You are mixing things a bit:
* Beacons will always cost you 10,000 prestige (until Cryptic decides to change the prices, which doesn't seem likely). If you sell a beacon you will get full price back.
* To get the ability to buy a particular beacon, you have to visit the zone's explore markers while in SG Mode. When you do that, your group will get a SG Explore badge for that zone. Getting the rights to be able to buy the beacon is free, but the beacon costs prestige to buy/place.

So, yes, a telepad and 2 beacons will cost 35K prestige to place.

There would be no datamining needed. All that would be needed would be the game checking a character on log in for the presence of a souviner. If a character has it, the character gets a drop from Pool B. At which point the souviner gets a flag saying that the souviner has been awarded. All done.

Or they could add a click to the souviners to "award" a drop from Pool B.

Personally, I would rather have something repeatable so there isn't a finite supply of Pool B drops. Trying the Pool B to story arcs does just that. Let me stress this: There could be a point when outside of deleting a character that you cannot get Pool B drops from your own characters at all.

So, say you hated kheldains, and had CoH and CoV. Average say 30 arcs per character and you'll max out at 360 drops from Pool B (if you started playing the day Issue 9 goes live). Now given that many players that are posting have been around a bit, have multiple characters, with those characters being 15-50 who are now locked out of various arcs.

In my case 11 character slots on Triumph have characters over 13. (1 in the 10-20 range, 4 in the 20-30 range, 3 in the 30-40 range, 1 in the 40-45 range, and 2 level 50s).

Under the proposed system, I would be getting significantly less than 360 drops. Some would have been lost thanks to the double xp weekends, a lot from just teaming with friends, and a few because I just couldn't get to them before I outlevelled them.

Now, I don't know what Cryptic has planned, but say the average user can only get 250 of those Pool B drops, thanks to teaming, events, other problems (including being blocked from a new arc by an old one). At this point there isn't a lot of influx of new Pool B drops into the game, and the prices skyrocket.

I played Diablo 2 for 4 years, I never saw many ultra rare drops, and after the introduction of runes, I never even heard (outside of bot farmers) anyone having a Zod rune. I disliked ultra-rares in Diablo 2, and I don't want to see it here.

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Any solution will have to be a database adjustment solution in order for the solution to be out in time for I9. Any proposal that requires game coding is off the table. So, everyone, please stop dreaming up new content or mechanics... it ain't going to happen.

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Ahem.

If they don't get it right the first time, when are they going to find the time to fix it later?

It took less than 5 minutes after looking at the initial announcement for me to not only figure out how it worked, but how it would affect 17 of my characters (any character 14+). The fact that the development blinders that resemble Joo Janta 2000 Peril-Sensitive Chromatic Sunglasses isn't my fault. Unfortunately for Cryptic, closing their eyes, holding their hands over their ears, and singing, "lalalalalala" loudly isn't a sound development strategy.

Seeing that I've learned what the developer's style seems to be, announcements like the first one make it easy to predict that the worst possible outcome is the most likely.

If they want to get it right, they can take the time to code a proper mechanic. If they are that dedicated to the existing code, and the code isn't flexable enough to change from awarding at story arc completion to awarding for something else like mayhem/safeguard, then that is a prime example of bad code. Code that should be re-done in any event.

I think that saying "put it out as is and fix later" is a recipe for disaster.

Just copying and pasting the two announcements to my sg's forums lead to even more outrage. Given that they rarely go to the test server, I could see the group I team with quitting en masse over the announced changes if it hit the live servers. That's about 25-30 accounts (multiple accounts for some people).

So, either they come up with a new mechanic, or they get rid of Pool B entirely. Given that they want to stay with Pool B, they better start coming up with a new mechanic.

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Please reconsider offering Recipes with GM defeats. Our cities are over run by extremely dangerous critters that are ignored by the general super powered community due to a lack of perceived reward for the high level of risk. The dev team might not wish players to farm GMs, but I doubt they want us to blatantly ignore them. As it stands, it is difficult to build a team to fight non-Croatoa GMs (Croatoans being required for a useful accolade) and almost impossible to get a team to take down Paladin (not even a badge for defeating the GM, since the badge is only for preventing his being built in the first place). I would suggest that each member of a team that receives credit for a GM should also receive a guaranteed drop of a common recipe (being from the defeat mobs pool not the story arc/tf/trial pools). This would limit the farming of "easy" rare loot but still reward players for taking the time to persuade Luska to give IP a slight break. People have been requesting some reason to actually fight GMs ever since the AV/GM regen buff. Some mad scientist made these beasties more dangerous, its about time for another mad scientist to figure out a recipe for Luska a'la mode. (tastes great and puts hair on your chest)

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I can get behind this, except maybe in the case of the Paladin. Sometimes it is hard to gather people to stop the construction because they are mis-informed that the badge is for a built Paladin.

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Make the Mayhe/Safeguard reward pool have no lower limit EVER, at all character levels. Some of us PRE-50 folks are already feeling the pinch of having outlevelled some sets we want (my MM is 32, and wants the Commanding Presence set, which is currently listed as a 10-30 set).

It's not just 50's that need alternate access to "Pool B" recipes. ^_^

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Was using that as an example, but seeing I have five characters in the 34-43 range, sure. kill the lower limit. Keep it once a day.

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2. Repeatable Story Arcs for 50s (shard, mayhems, whatevers) -- Not a solution for picking up a level 30 set for that coveted special bonus or proc only available to that level 30 set.

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Possible if instead of setting a lower limit on the drops, each range only bumps the upper limit.

Also if the "alternate" method of Pool B is a once a day Safeguard/Mayhem reward they can set up a "reward pool" specifically for it allowing any reward that can be used by a level 50.

And people call me pessimistic .

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39 Story Arcs in CoH

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Where is this 39-40 arcs for hero coming from?

36 regular arcs

16 zone specific arcs (Hollows, Faultline, Striga, Croatoa)

9 Kheldian arcs.

Not mentioning the Shards....

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Here's another tidbit: There are only 40 Story Arcs available Hero side. Are there more than 40 Story Arc IORs in the pool? And what about the fact that Villains have almost twice as many Story Arcs? And what if new Story Arc Enhancements get added to the game later?

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I mentioned this in another thread, but Nofuture has a pretty darned good list of City of heroes arcs. There are:
Kheldian Arcs: 9
CoH Regular story arcs with Souviners: 36
Zone specific story arcs (Hollows:4, Faultline:4, Striga:4, Croatoa:4): 16 total
Total Story arcs: 61 arcs, 52 for non-Kheldians

CoH Task Forces: 14 (Statesman TF +1)

CoH Trials: 6 (New Hamidon +1)

So, currently around 3 arcs for every TF in CoH (Not including Kheldians). If you take the current arc total of 52 arcs and factor in both trials and TFs (including the new Hami and Statesman TF), you get roughly 2 arcs for each TF/Trial.

Villains have a much higher total of arcs, thanks to the arcs being broken into multiple sections, and a much lower amount of strike forces (5 total currently with one more from a new Hamidon encounter).

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Also good would be some kind of level 50+ repeatable missions (maybe only repeatable 100x each?) that give out Story Arc rewards.

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Hard cap on number of times, yuck. Make it once a day instead.

Ok, pitchforks and torches set aside... For the time being.

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* Some of the sets (the rarer ones), have parts of them that are only attainable by completing a Story Arc.

* This makes 4 pools from which recipe rewards can come from. Pool A is enemies, Pool B is Story Arcs, Pool C is Task Forces, and Pool D is Trials.

Now I hear you guys... you all seem to dislike the Story Arc aspect of this system. I've had some discussions with the team yesterday about what we could do instead, and still keep the flavor of the four pool system, because having the extra three pools allows us to not only reward risk/reward, but time/reward as well. Takes longer to do a Task Force? Here's a nice bonus you can't get anywhere else. Finish the Respec trial, but already have all your Respecs? Here's a nice reward that carries with it some good inherent value.

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Ok, dislike is by far to mild a term for my reaction of "Pool B". Comparing "dislike" to what I feel would be the same as comparing a tiny pond to the Atlantic Ocean.

I say this not only as a user with 2 level 50s, but also as a person with a level 43 Peacebringer, two villains and two heroes in the high thirties, and a half-dozen characters in their twenties. All will feel cheated (not gimped) to some extent, some more than others.

Add to that, the 40-50 arcs are longer with more risk thanks to increasing number of AV/EBs (hey 1 full arc of them in the Hero's Hero arc, how nice) than the 20-40 range (with very few execptions).

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Now again, I must stress, the majority of sets, including entire complete sets come from simply defeating enemies. All the costume piece and temp power recipes come from defeating enemies. There are Rare recipes (ones that have a worse chance to drop than others) in Pool A (the defeating enemies pool) as well.

We also will be actively monitoring datamining on every aspect of this system through all of Training Room and into Live.

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Are you considering putting a "streak breaker" code into place for some one who doesn't get many drops, or gets nothing but common drops?

Another thing to consider is the sgmode tax built into Issue 6. I know this doesn't fall within your "domain" but it will tie into the economy that you are building, because like I said elsewhere the only characters with a lot of extra prestige now are those without a group or those that are trying to get the INF badges.

The tilde "~~~".

Hmm. I use notepad all the time, without a problem. Wordpad is good. I'd recommend against MS Word, as it likes to put in smart quotes and such and that will mess up the game.

Do you have one quote a line?

The cut off sayings have "zzz" in them?

Well, first off, my bad. I should not have suggested the / (far too used to looking at direct binds ).

Does this line work?

for /f "delims=zzz" %%i in (phrases.txt) do (echo f "local %%i$$bind_load_file C:\kb\target.txt">target.txt)&&sleep 1&&echo %%i1

If that does, try this:
for /f "delims=zzz" %%i in (phrases.txt) do (echo f "local %%i$$unselect$$bind_load_file C:\kb\target.txt">target.txt)&&sleep 1&&echo %%i

Next:
for /f "delims=zzz" %%i in (phrases.txt) do (echo f "local %%i$$toggle_enemy$$bind_load_file C:\kb\target.txt">target.txt)&&sleep 1&&echo %%i

Or, just modify the batch file to this (see post by MrNoj on the first few pages):

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do (echo f "/local %%i$$

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a "/" is needed before local, see corrected in above quote.

Well, here is a somewhat minimalist design. It is a transport hub base mainly to give alt goups a common means of transportation.

Top down view.

Isometric view. (only background was photoshopped .

Telepad rooms 1-3 go to city zones, while telepad rooms 4-5 are to hazard zones.

The only zone left out is Crey's Folly, thanks to easy access from either Brickstown or the Rikti Crash Site.

Each telepad has been clearly identified. I just hate the look of the "two level" ramps .

Will add that to the errata/future update.

Also it looks like I need to update any link that touches Nofuture's site, as it seems that Red Tomax changed his directory structure on his sites .

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Kinda funny you are the badge FAQ Editor and you cant edit the badge FAQ.

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Nature of the forums. After a certain point things are "set in stone". The only way to modify the original posts is to get an admin to change it, and I don't really want to pester Lighthouse too much. He is fairly busy (and probably is overwhelmed with PMs). I know that there is at least one PM I sent regarding an error in the Knowledge Base that he hasn't read yet.

Thanks everyone that has posted here in support or with constructive criticism. I will be adding or updating the FAQ with Issue 9 with the suggestions posted here.

To those that are 1-starring this thread: Doing so isn't constructive. If you have a problem with the FAQ, feel free to PM me if you feel you can't post a public constructive comment about the FAQ.

Seeing that I cannot edit the posts anymore at this time, I'll be adding errata and additional questions/answers for an update later. I'll likely update this fully when Issue 9 arrives.

First bunch below:
Section 1: General badge questions
What badges are the regulars here tired of the endless debate on?

The merits of the Epic badges.
Both sides also agree that we've had enough discussion on them, and to bring it up again is only going to cause another flame war. This includes announcing that someone has "achieved" them. A lot of people in this section will see these as trolling at this point.

Going back to for the Tutorial badges.
The Isolator badge was not available for pre-issue 2 characters. So after many flame-wars, and taunts to Cryptic, when Issue 7 arrived there was put in place a means to get the Isolator post-tutorial. Positron stated before it was put into place that it would be incredibly annoying. It was.

The Jailbird badge is another matter entirely, thanks to it being in-game since the beta version of CoV. In other words, the fact that it was in-game (and well known) since before CoV went live means that people should go through the tutorial if they want the Jail Bird badge.

Section 2: Main badge categories
Achievement:
Does falling damage count towards the damage taken and when healed the healing badges?
Yes.

What counts for the healing badge?
Any damage below the character's max health before any +Hit Point powers. You will only get healing credit up to the amount of actual damage taken. If your pet(s) heals that is also creditted to you. Masterminds can also drop inspirations on their pets to heal them for credit.

Can you provide an example of Healing and Damage taken in relation to +Hit Point powers?
Sure:
Level 50 tank (base 1874 HP) with +20% HP accolades (2249 HP). The difference is 375 Hit Points.

If the tank is damaged for 300 hit points, the game will not credit either the healing done to this or the damage taken.

If the tank is damaged by a second attack that does 100 points before the first hit is healed, then all or part of the damage is counted. We the players are unsure about what exactly triggers counting in this case.

If the tank was at full health and took one hit of 600 points of damage, it seems that the entire amount is creditted. I use the word "seems", as again we the players cannot go under the hood and see exactly what is happenning.

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This is terribly useful to the new badge hunter. I agree that I wish it was here when I started.

If only people will read it before posting...

HS

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Well, I've already had my answer: Nope, even if I direct someone to the exact section.

Add in that some people must have 1-starred this thread, and we'll simply get another wasted resource .

Oh well, it was nice to have the compliments above, and some recognition of the work done. I think that even if I did do a "Guide to every badge" people would still ignore it.

(By the way this is why I never want to be a MMO Developer. I understand far too well (even before this) what the people at Cryptic are going through.)

Edit:
Well, I am certainly morose when posting late at night .

I think there is a difference between expectations about what this FAQ IS as opposed to what people are wanting. In other words:

This is not a complete manual showing how to get every badge.

If you want that, I suggest people use City Information Terminal, www.badge-hunter.com, or Paragonwiki.

I've included a lot of extra questions, but at it's core these are questions that come up frequently.

"How to take over Pillboxes?", "Where is the Head of the Hydra badge?" are not really asked alot. That is why I posted the "What are the most popular websites for badges?" section. Those are the sites that people should use for a lot of questions.

Questions like "How do I AFK a badge?" were not included because was pretty much bending gaming rules (personal bias). Note I didn't explain how to use gladiators to get the healing badges, even though it comes up from time to time.

Edit:
So, why are people expecting that this would be a complete guide to how to get every badge? I certainly never suggested that it was. I doubt one person could, as it has taken CIT/BH/PW multiple people to do so. I don't have any inside information, and lastly I don't think I could edit this much farther.

Everyone had 2 weeks to look over the badge FAQ Draft. I took suggestions from there and put them in. When I was toying with the idea on starting this FAQ back in September, I also had to edit out suggestions as to what to include and not include. Above is the result. There is a LOT of information, but it is not a complete manual for every badge.

Edit 2:
Let me put it another way.

The most frequently asked questions in this section are relating to one of the following:
Dimensional Warder.
Untouchable and Gangbuster.
How to get the Damage Badges for the Accolade.
What are badges and what can they do.
What are good web sites for information.
Why can't we go back to get the tutorial badges.
Epic badges flame wars (okay, maybe not why, but the "discussions" devolve quickly).
What are the global chat channels.
And is _____ badge currently buggy. (This takes many flavors, SG Healing badge, Coralax [covered in the Known Issues official page], Fusion Generator, etc).

That last one really needs its own section (maybe a new "current badge issues" topic) and changes too much to be fully covered here.

As it stands, there are 74 questions, covering the above often repeated topics and a bunch of others. That is why I made the first post a table of contents, so that people can scan the questions and find the answer quickly. The actual FAQ (first four posts) is over 12 MS Word pages long.

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A slight quibble with your descriptions of /loc. If you describe x as West-East , y should be South-North not North-South as the more positive you get the more West and South you go.

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I was trying to be general and if you noticed, I didn't say which way was positive and which was negative, but I'll change it if I can.

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You might want to explain Head of the Hydra too if you're doing mission based exploration badges.

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I didn't feel the need to for the same reasons I didn't go into detail about Safeguards, Mayhems, and the Arena maps. It is a specific location, not a "I'm in this zone" type of explore.

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Also a little talk about the pillbox badges might not go amiss (I can't remember if captures are now shared or not).

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Then you didn't read section 1 very clearly. Already there.
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Do click badges count for teams?
No. Badges that you have to click the object (presents, bombs, heavy control panels, etc) only the person doing the clicking the object will get the badge credit. The only exceptions are the pillbox badges in RV.

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It has been there since I've first posted the draft of this FAQ.

I stealth-editted a comment about them in, but in reality the Mayhem/Safeguard/Arena explore badges act like other explore badges. They do have marker locations, unlike Shady/Shrouded and Multidimensional, which are more like accomplishment badges (and they used to award like accomplishment badges as well) than explore.

Hey, I had to have it verified myself!

There everyone has it, the totally updated Badge FAQ in a (hopefully) easy to read format.

And if Lighthouse will unsticky the draft and sticky this instead, that would help .

Oh if still giving away "special forums titles", how about "Badge Oracle"?

{edit: Nevermind, a reasonable alternative suggested by Lighthouse}