Dev Unitas

To be perfectly clear on this- we aren't holding a blanket policy of 'no morality swapping required' for badges, whether past, present or future, nor are we looking to make major changes to a number of badges with alignment swapping as an expectation. This is specifically about the purpose, theme and intent of this particular badge, which I myself added last Page.

Never said it was acceptable, necessarily. Quite the opposite. My point is that, for the majority of players, this would not fix the issue and it would have a negative impact on the game's levelling flow, as well as the metagame. Chasing the meta, by joining a group in an easier zone to spam max level papers/radio, would become easier and more accessible for low level players than it currently already is to make one's way to Peregrine. I predict substantially more players would gravitate to the 'optimal' radio/paper zone than they already do. While yes, max level players would have more places to do radio/paper missions and that would bring more possible variety, we can (and want to) find other ways to provide that, and with (hopefully) more interesting content than the existing paper/radio missions from 18 years ago.

That's stepping into a different territory, which is the whole current situation with Story Arc level ranges being incredibly easy to overlevel. That's something I'd definitely like to see us find a remedy for, on my end, and it's certainly not an issue that's gone un-discussed internally. Way I see it, things like this where there seems to be an obvious, clear remedy, there's just a difference between doing something 'simple' and fast, and doing something cohesively and well. But again, very different conversation, though that applies to the main discussion as well.

I think that these issues that are being described are better handled with more content, rather than broadening the ranges of existing (repeatable) content. IMO it's possible to have the zone flow and progression that currently exists as your level progresses, while also expanding the amount of content available to characters within a specific level band into new spaces, with new content. It may be more work for us, but its, frankly, more exciting and enjoyable work for both us and players! At least, compared with rebalancing and adjusting existing paper/radio missions to be equally valued by the playerbase.

So while I understand the desire, this is one of those suggestions that, for me personally (and not the whole team necessarily), I currently think would be a design decision that would come to the detriment of the game. Radio missions being locked to level ranges encourages players to move through the city. If all radio missions were level agnostic, it would lead to players picking the most optimal zone for its doors/enemies/etc and sticking to it. You already see that at 40+ (and even broader when accounting for sidekicking) - players could be in a variety of places, (Grandville, Peregrine, or even the repeatables in Cimerora x2, Dark Astoria, Shadow Shard - understandably) but they almost always prioritize Peregrine. Typically broad-touch level scaling in games does the opposite of what it sets out to achieve, because most players follow the crowd, and the crowd follows the lead, and the lead will usually seek out optimal play. It also robs the implicit sense of progression that comes from moving from one space to the next. If we were to implement this, I would predict 80-90% of radio groups would take place in one zone- whichever they determine is the most optimal for radio missions in that setup. Suddenly, the devs have a motivation to try and bring all radio missions in all zones on par with eachother - a colossal effort that also increases homogeneity as a result. Of course, this is all, itself, a statement painting with very broad strokes. There are always exceptions, and there are always ways to do things better, and perhaps the gains outweigh the losses in the right circumstances. Nevertheless, that's where I personally stand on this sort of change. And none of what I've said means we'd never do it- it would just come with a lot of debate, conversation and potential problem-solving internally, most likely.

Already part of the accolade!

As I explained in the original post, this conversation isn't about removal of it without replacement. That is on the cards and will be within consideration, but I request that it's not discussed here as it's not the point of this thread, alternatives are. As I also explained above (and in previous threads) the 'unfairness' of the accolade when compared with SFC is very very deliberate, the overall number one goal of the Accolade Power was to provide additional motivation for players to complete Strike Forces and this is simply a more grindy/time-consuming alternative that one may pursue for their own niche, specific reasons. Debating the fairness is not a part of this thread's particular discussion, and I ask that it is not a particularly meaningful consideration in deciding upon an arc. Regarding Valeria, I'm not really considering it because, simply, it's a co-op arc. Not specifically/exclusively heroic, which means that it's not really within the theme/intent of the badge's existence in my eyes. In addition, it doesn't primarily take place in Paragon City, which means it doesn't exactly fit the 'Protector of Paragon City' theming.

Possible, but would start to make the whole thing a bit messy in terms of the badge hint (not to say it's a write-off because of that, but it's a consideration).

I believe that there's a not-insignificant portion of players who both want to collect all accolade powers to them, and also have the self-imposed limitation of staying purely blueside, whether for RP, gameplay or other reasons. This accolade exists to cater to them (and solo-only/preferred players) while being, frankly, grindy enough to encourage the majority of players interested in the accolade power to hop over redside and group up with other people to get SFC instead. Since it exists to cater to a specific niche demographic, and explicitly does not, I don't currently think leaving it as-is is the solution.

Hello everyone! Today I'm asking for some feedback for a potential change to the Protector of Paragon City Badge. I know it's been a somewhat controversial badge among some, and I understand the various reasons, but (most of) those aren't the reason I'm coming to talk today specifically (not that you're unwelcome to express your thoughts on those reasons in the thread if you feel unheard/you have a new perspective to bring forward). Since the release of last page, I've been mulling over the criteria for the badge, on how I feel about specifics. In particular, the badge requirement that has been bugging me is the Beyond Reasonable Doubt badge - rewarded for completing specific criteria in the Shauna Braun story arc that trends Heroic. The primary issue here, is that the Shauna Braun story arc is only accessible to Vigilantes. This essentially locks 'true blue' characters out from obtaining either source of the Sheer Willpower accolade power. As Vigilantes and Rogues can earn Strike Force Commander/Deep Strike Commander, this effectively defeats quite literally half of the point of this badge; to give Heroes a method to obtain the accolade power without going against their character's morals. So, my open question: Assuming I were to replace Beyond Reasonable Doubt as a requirement with another blueside story arc, which would you suggest? My general desire is to lean towards newer/higher quality arcs, especially arcs created by Homecoming or otherwise unreleased on the original Paragon live servers, and I would prefer an arc that is not connected to any other major accolade. None of this is a hard rule though, if a strong suggestion is brought forward. If you would prefer I remove that badge and not replace it with anything else, that's also a consideration, but for the purposes of this thread I would like to omit that possibility, so please disregard it in your feedback. Thanks in advance for all your thoughts and passion!

Many of them are subtle, but we actually touched on every outdoor GM, including Kronos Titan. Each one had the health increase (except Lusca), and almost every power's numbers were re-tuned significantly, with quite a few gaining a new power entirely. Some of the changes were certainly more subtle than others though; we didn't want to change GMs that were already decently powerful too much. GWW, Lusca and Kronos were good examples of that. In terms of some more general sweeping change examples, I believe all mezzes were increased in magnitude, and all summons were increased in their quantity. I've been hopping into GM runs from time-to-time myself, to assess the strength of them in-context, and honestly my feelings have been that they've probably got more work to be done eventually - but not in the direction of making them easier. Some GMs unfortunately still fall over a little too fast for the changes to be evident, or the powers are still a little too undertuned to be noticed- I think Kraken is a good example of that, with its new DoT aura (which was much scarier during earlier testing!), as may Jack be with his big Ambush attack, where he summons a number of Red Caps per player around him. Open to feedback on cases like those, where perhaps the power exists but its impact may be too subtle to be noticed. Eochai's bonfires were actually a good example of that- many people I've talked to or heard from think that the bonfires are new, when they were simply too low-impact to be noticed before the GM sweep. Adamastor/Paladin are probably the ones I'm actually most happy with, since I spent a LOT of time working on those big telegraphed attacks, tweaking their tuning and clarity (not to mention Adamastor's 'tank buster', Begone!). If I'd change anything on those two fights on a whim, it'd probably be bumping up the impact of the team health scaling slightly. By the way, as a tip on how to handle those two a little easier: They both have a type of mez that they're extra vulnerable to during the window between them beginning to use the power, and the power activating.

As the one who created BEGONE!... I actually had no idea it can do that. That's hilarious. It stays.

😠 (Regarding my comments on Group Fly: definitely don't take my word as law on player powers! Not my department. Though I stand by my comment!)

Caught this, should be fixed in the next update, weird nonsense happened on the back end!

There's a number of things that the name is alluding to- most obvious is the 20th Anniversary of the game, but many of which aren't arriving in Page 1... we've got quite a few things cooking for this Issue short and long-term, so stay tuned ❤️