Naraka

I've had my laptop for 8 years (so I think, I know I got it before I enlisted) and it's been with me for 1 deployment, 2 rotations and 4 schools that lasted months at a time. For the most part, I use a desktop at home, a phone for various smaller tasks and then the laptop if I need a mobile "desktop" and I say that in quotations because even as a laptop, I prefer the comfort and luxury of a good display vs a laptop screen. I also don't like track pads so I'm using a bluetooth mouse and most of the time the keyboard is positioned uncomfortable so I avoid excess typing unless I decide to plug in a keyboard. Ultimately, though, I think utilizing multiple computers alleviates some burdens that may shorten the lifespan of a device although some devices are only going to last a certain amount of time. Usually people don't keep phone for longer than 3 years. Also, I guess you must have been unlucky. I suppose that can happen too...

Considering how abundant parts can be, you can get a cheap keyboard and monitor to attach to your laptop since your problem looks mechanical and not software base. People toss out keyboards and monitor often, not because they aren't usable but rather because they have something better to replace them. If there's no one to bum one off of for free, a pawn shop or craigslist post might have some for pennies. Same with just getting a replacement laptop, you might be able to get one for cheap through family/friends or online ads, you just have to know what is a good deal and what is a rip off. Even a barely working one for $5 might have some useful parts you can use if you keep within a certain brand/model.

Have you ever got that feeling people are just bored so they start conversations about little inconsequential things like the meaning behind the last episode of season 3 Rick and Morty or if a hybrid attack/control power could be swapped around for more control that is not needed?

Going to come at this with more of an impartial POV as I don't really have a preference to one thought over another but with more concrete ideas, one can see pros and cons to any idea. Hard mode settings: someone mentioned scaling all mobs from lvl1-50 and to elaborate on that, one could devise faction coalitions, fusions or special units for the various factions to add depth and difficult and maybe a bit of randomness your fun. The positive is you can make new content or bolster old content with these new additions similar to the recent story arcs introduced...but for everything without always needing to write a new set of arcs. The cons, imo, is that players would want heightened control of these add-ons which I could see as being a boon but also limit incentive, making it similarly rewarding to go after easier content as is hard content. Whether you do or don't, people will view things as a casual vs hardcore regardless of if the rewards are unnecessary. You can implement any amount of difficulty and complexity but if you allow it to be fully controlable and unrewarding, it's futile. Overarching perspectives aside, I just think the foes are too dumb and the player has an answer for anything mobs have to throw at them. There's not enough wrenches to throw at a peak build or even just a solid team. Other games have mechanics that screw the player specifically because mobs are predictable. If you can't make the AI solidly good with enough tools to challenge a solid team, give them wrenches to discourage reckless play. Other games have insta-death debuffs/attacks (CoX has a few as well, but they are very good forgiving) or dispel abilities that remove your buffs or corrupting effects that turn those buffs into debuffs or attacks with much larger range/AoE to punish bad placement. Heck, CoX hardly has toggle drops for any type that relies on them. To summarize my point, you really aren't going to get far improving difficulty by just increasing level and density of spawns. And if there is no incentive to taking on such upper difficulty, propping it on top of the current difficulty defeats the point of difficulty and is ignoring the options to lower difficulty if the new "hard" is too much.

I and many others can attest to not agreeing with changes but then being made anyway so that's not what happened here. Perhaps a decent point was made to not implement this particular change and people in this thread just disagreed with the rationale.

Still time to make it a ranged teleport-to-target kick.

There are a lot of ideas that have been tossed around, some neat, some difficult to quantify or some that are throw aways. Plenty of ammo to put on a drawing board with how to implement, with or without (or both) achievements. At for "gates", the achievement itself can be a gate and unlocking something through gameplay is how you unlock them. I don't honestly see that as a meaningfully discussion since the reward you unlock should be contextual to said "gate". Like, if we're talking about unlocking a freakshow costume party or power, is assume the gate would be linked to content regarding freakshow. If it were some kind of movement speed thing, it would probably deal with a race or combating a speedster foe under certain conditions.

That wasn't a question. Although it's nice to see your lack of appreciation for what you do get. Rather than put forward suggestions of things you would like to see and let them decide how and if to implement it, you go on bickering about how people assume we have infinite time or chiding on about the entropy of the universe.

I don't see why they couldn't do 2 things at once.

If I called you a bully, it likely had to do with how you put your argument forth. And if I said you were entitled, it probably had to do with how you engaged or dismissed an argument of your opposition. And it certainly didn't ONLY call you a bully or entitled but also came with a slew of other points you likely brushed aside to distill the post down to a personal attack, which it is not (there's a difference between a personal attack and criticism of your opinions). If by "reorganize", you mean put said opportunity on the table rather than outright dismiss it as additional future content, sure. How you word that makes it sound like restructuring the current game rather than adding it on top of the current game. That's a good question. Usually people don't like pointing out their post frequency of their gameplay frequency of ratio of the two. I could outline my playing other games but I don't think it's that relevant. Can we just stop and point out how the intent had been hijacked by this consistent use of the term "gated"? Language is a powerful tool than can be used for good or ill. I think using the term to clarify implementation is ok but as an argument against us taking the context of. Obviously, the intent is "rewards" but that seems to have to positive a connotation for you guys to even use along side your criticism. I think I may see rewards or incentive less than gated. Frankly, the intent is to give content meaningful rewards. Period. If that isn't something you agree with, you can probably just post that post and stop.

The initial comparison to adding more and different rewards for various content, be they badges, powers, costumes or unlocks was to give someone more things to achieve, more goals to aim for. The apparent argument against that is, you can impose your own limitations as your goals and you don't need the game to give you dopamine hits. A common coping mechanism to help fighting the motivation factor of depression is setting goals and achieving them. This point is specifically targeting those that have waning motivation either to do varied content or to come back and play. That's the whole point of the discussion. The point had nothing to do with making people feel bad for not paying or being a support for those who are actually suffering from depression but rather getting those that are playing a stuff routine or are just 'complete' with the game to come back and keep going.

I could craft a work around for you, create a story, give a personal example or whatever but it all would be meaningless. I'd be eating my time. At the end of the day, with those frustrations you had to work through, you obviously didn't quit the game. So while I can empathize with you, I also just wince in disgust at the sense of entitlement that you are, in any way or fashion, inconvenienced and you go out of your way to push others out of your way so that remains so. I'd be right behind you if, at the least, you could agree that it'd be annoying and you'd rather not need costumes to be unlocked but know it wouldn't be the end of the world. But you don't and you can't and I just smh and wonder what is wrong with people now a days. People complain that games hold your hand and give you a billion hours worth of tutorials and the reason is, people can't be arsed with the inconvenience of having to discover things themselves or go look it up. You literally need a big arrow pointing to objectives or is bad design.

Since it's a volunteer effort, why not seek the community to assist? And if the design is good and accepted, why not give the designer a bit of authority for their efforts? Like if they want to put the cosmetic behind unlocking all costume slots (the missions done, not just having them) so be it... Or if they want to make it purchasable with 1000 hero merits... Maybe swing that down to 5 instead but the requirement still exists. You're gaslighting if you think people can't write a forum response without losing their cool because their cooped up (probably wouldn't tell people to go for a stroll either considering you don't know the circumstances of their quarantine situation). Probably just beat to keep to the discussion and not try to appeal to emotion. That's what I'm saying. If you examined the why for details, you would be examining the context clues. Context clues is a literal elementary concept of reading and communication. Using contextual interpretation, I understand your response has a passive aggressive tone although you would likely disagree to save face amongst the presence of the other posters. I'm not going to press it because it's commonly understood how text is difficult to convey tone, which is fine, I have no qualms with being wrong or corrected if I misinterpret something... But at the same time, most would expect the same courtesy. Back on topic, I put forth the analogy of depression specifically because it is not a particular target you can be tackling here... Same for the inane dopamine argument (and those two, depression and dopamine (or the inability for receptors to interact with it) are linked. If I'm guilt tripping people with a depression argument, your demonizing with the dopamine and addiction argument. So which way do you want it? To keep pressing with that and continue down that road? Or try to object with something we are allowed to discuss here?

The problem, IMO, is scope. You're making a mountain of of a molehill here. And context clues is how you can discern meaning from something even if a piece of information is lost or mixed up. You pretty much went on a tangent about monetization despite that having nothing to do with the rest of the context. Dialing it back now still doesn't mean the objection has as much weight bringing aspects of retail vs non-retail since that is completely superfluous. Chess is free but we don't just skip rules. As for the other jabs you put in there, you have to be accurate if you want them to hit.

I actually feel there's an Overton window effect going on since most arguing for the OP line up with your perspective, me included. It's a pretty moderate position that will kind of take a few new approaches in stride whether nothing changes or introducing a few things locked in an arc or with a badge. I even feel those opposed probably would rage if a new helmet were linked to some content, they just have a preference it wasn't. The divide is against the vocal arguments directing accusations and ad hominems which are kind of the thorn here.

Exactly why I labeled it as a devil's advocate point. But just like my point is subjective, so is your example which is why the 2nd part of that post gives other options to rebutt the actual argument that the concept would be unworkable. You can work with it, it's just going to adhere to another authority and structure of lore. And none of those players are bringing their characters in as examples against our position so it's moot. But you did bring your Vanguard character in. And I'll reiterate, I don't actually cares about your little Gary Stu Vanguard. I clarified that multiple times and if my post sounds confrontational, imagine someone responding to your posts while ignoring most of what you wrote.

Then reassess my word usage as the intent of my post has nothing to do with monetary gain. But now you wasted your time rebutting a useless stance and my time explaining how the stance was useless. If "everything free" is a problematic term, use basic english and context clues to understand the intent and exchange the term for "handed out baseline" or something.

That's not devil's advocate. You'd find more people supporting your position than not. The main reason I say it's a devil's advocate position is because it's mainly targeting the premise that "all concepts are good concepts" with the argument that your example is just a Gary Stu that ignores the lore of the game. Yeah, I know, not everyone cares about the in-game lore and freedom and blah blah blah but you don't actually admit you want to disregard that lore but instead mask it in a "I just want freedom". Like I said, it's fine and I don't think back pedaling that would be good but don't piss on someone's leg and say it's raining. If wanting to have aspects adhere to some form factor is selfish, so it's wanting everything free because you don't actually want to adhere to the form factor of the game.

Just to play devil's advocate (I don't agree with locking those pieces NOW, but if additional pieces were designed and put into the game and the designer had a desire to link it to some in-game content in some way, I wouldn't be opposed to locking THAT), I don't see why your Vanguard trainee couldn't have a training suit that has a different look and feel from the active Vanguard forces. In fact, you could create a bunch of characters who are trainees in a junior Vanguard who are aiming to join active forces over their career. It might require a bit more creativity and you might not be able to make your 5-star general leader of his own brigade of Vanguard at level 1 but hey, the latter seems pretty uncreative and reeks of being a Gary Stu. While I can understand that the latter example is a viable character concept, I can also understand that it is not the only option thus, if the example costume parts were locked, it doesn't make the concept unworkable, just requiring some forethought.

Why the hell is home plate the only place to put a duck pond!? Or maybe you just think that's where someone is arguing to put it?

Pretty similar to my conclusion, although maybe I just view your conclusion differently. Overall, I don't think such a mechanic can work in a game like this. Setting your own goals would require far more creativity a free form system than CoX can accomplish. Something like Minecraft would fit that mold. But again, in not arguing for personal fulfillment, I'm appealing to retention and incentive. And this is only relevant if true personal fulfillment was the point I was arguing. Are you really going to make this point? No you didn't correct me because if you did, the term "analogy" would fix this whole tangent you went on then accuse me of derailing to brain chemistry. No, I asked you to not be disingenuous about an analogy and actually discuss the point about lack of motivation and it's connection with targeted incentives, not morally or semantically castigate about my position.

On one hand, you argue how short term neurotransmitters don't fix mental health and on the other you argue that long-term mental health is a consistent application of dopamine. To those points I can understand how one can view them as being a linear departure from each other with one being an inversion and solution to the other... But I can also see how it's antithetical to your own argument. Some view the game as it is live as being the very short-term high with little long-term appreciation and satisfaction to be gained. Again, I get that your trying to argue that personal fulfillment isn't something you should be aiming to attain from a game but now it's up to you to understand that people are not arguing that at all. And you fell for it. Yeah it wasn't an allusion, it was an analogy. But why didn't you actually correct me? Instead you pointed out I was wrong and left it there. You don't seem willing to actually empathize or reason with your opposition. But real talk, I didn't actually set up a trap card or anything, I just used the wrong term but you resorting to a literal semantics argument just illustrates it is likely no use discussing anything with you unless you agree with it.

The funny thing is, it was an allusion and not meant to be directly compared to depression but was assumed to be a direct comparison by someone else. No one has even argued if it's an apt comparison but the opposition has been perfectly justified in demonizing the OP as appealing to addiction of dopamine. If you can't see the hypocrisy there, I just outlined it for you.

Great, I understood @EmmySky's point and I wasn't labeling them as toxic. The point is, you gladly validate arguments you agree with and ignore the ones you don't. Even I can agree with that post on some points while also pointing out why I disagreed and explained why but you don't seem to be capable of the same.

I never said it was a cute or treatment for depression, merely compared some symptoms with the purveyance of player retention. To assist in keeping players engaged, you give them content and to motivated them to do that content you provide incentive. If you are making an argument on that, would be more on topic. So if your argument is going to be prescribing your own psych-analysis and you want us to recant any logical links to the comparison, can you also recant the argument of the topic having anything to do with "dopamine hits" for the thread as well? Completely revoke that argument from the thread then and perhaps we can examine game defined goals as a tool and an incentive.