Going forward, can we have more things that mean something?

[Megajoule]

If I do something I think is cool, in this game or any other - complete a questline, decorate my home base, finish collecting a set of gear, whatever - maybe a dozen people (out of everyone I know, which is a tiny fraction of all the people in the world) will ever hear about it.  Maybe half that will care enough to offer a kind/approving/encouraging word before their thoughts move on.   By the end of a day - a week, at most - I will be the only person in the world who remembers or cares.

So I have to be satisfied with that - I have to live for myself - because if I want or need more, I will be disappointed.

 

I know this, and still I catch myself sometimes.  "You're looking for validation from strangers on the internet again.  Stop it."

I make no claims to being perfect, or even particularly wise.  But this is the best advice I have to give, so I'm giving it.

The end of the rainbow recedes endlessly.  Find the pot of gold in yourself.  (Or don't. *shrug*  I'm not the boss of you.)

Edited November 3, 2019 by Megajoule

[Hero_of_Light]

1 minute ago, Megajoule said:

 

The end of the rainbow recedes endlessly.  Find the pot of gold in yourself.  (Or don't. *shrug*  I'm not the boss of you.)

That's only because the pot wasn't allowed to be there.

 

Sometimes I want to be my own pot of gold, sometimes I want to find a different one. 

[Megajoule]

No, that's because "the end of the rainbow" is an illusion, a mirage, a product of refracted light.  You can chase it forever and never reach it.

And I think you might, because I've said all this and you still aren't listening.

 

whatever.  I tried.

it's 3 am and I'm very tired and I'm going to bed now.

[Hero_of_Light]

4 minutes ago, Megajoule said:

If I do something I think is cool, in this game or any other - complete a questline, decorate my home base, finish collecting a set of gear, whatever - maybe a dozen people (out of everyone I know, which is a tiny fraction of all the people in the world) will ever hear about it.  Maybe half that will care enough to offer a kind/approving/encouraging word before their thoughts move on.   By the end of a day - a week, at most - I will be the only person in the world who remembers or carel.

But you still did it all within or overcame

the set boundaries in the game that everyone else has to play within or overcame.

 

Costumes right now have zero boundaries (even tiny ones) to overcome and only certain npc items set off limits ( thankfull for that at least,  although I'd be okay with them being earnable)

 

[Rigged]

OK I hate to do this, but I am gonna raise a point in favour of the OP. The concept of a game having challenge and reward is not wrong.

 

Look, I am well aware of the MMO Skinner Box and how it is abused to make us pay money. But look, we don't all play games for the same reason. Most of us here feel the way we do on the topic because for most of us we have full time jobs, less than 4 hours a day available to play, and we don't use those 4 hours for play most of the time. We get our fulfilment from real life, not a video game. All we want is to log in at the end of a day and beat up some Skulls or Malta or Crey (damn those corporations).

 

But not everyone is like us. Games are meant to provide a substitute for a real life urge, even if for most people that urge is just to beat up some jerk or whatever. Some people use games as a substitute for fulfilment, and to be honest, lots of people don't have a real life option. Real life suuuuuuuucks. Some people are, whether by misfortune or poor decision-making, stuck in a dead end job with no future and honestly, wasting time on a video game is one of the less self-destructive outlets for them. Having a system with reward and bragging rights is good for a game.

 

That said, the direction this thread has taken is almost entirely towards cosmetics, and to that I will always strenuously disagree, because it is in fact a crappy way of handling the Skinner box. As I mentioned earlier, it penalises the people most likely to appreciate costumes and is poorly effective on those people most likely to appreciate the challenges. This is because creative costumers rarely use anything close to a full costume set - that is the antithesis of creativity - and usually only want one piece (for instance, my main uses exactly one piece of Vanguard armour and one piece of Ascension). Power gamers will breeze through your challenge and render it worthless, making your costume cheap to them.

 

This is why game companies have shifted to monetisation instead for cosmetics, even the Live CoH devs. It may not be obvious, but even GW2 mocks such prestige farming with ridiculously gaudy costume rewards for months of work (I concede that I did go get the rainbow unicorn bow because FFS IT IS A BOW THAT FIRES RAINBOW UNICORNS).

 

Here's the thing, though. The badge system actually does the job waaaaaaaaay better than cosmetics ever did, and the evidence was apparent during live! People did tons of content, and still do, just for the badge. Heck *I* still make it a point to do a whole bunch of useless accolades on every character I end up liking. As a matter of fact I soloed the Dr Q TF during the bonus week mostly for the badge, because it was apparent that it would be waaaaaay quicker to just solo Heather Townsend ten times. Whereas I cannot ever recall people doing crap for a cosmetic part except in the first month after it is released.

 

Now I get it, the OP and those who support him may specifically find badges to be no motivator. But that, honestly, is not a majority view and I think it would have a net negative impact on our game. More challenges is fine, just no cosmetics behind them!

Edited November 3, 2019 by Rigged

[Hero_of_Light]

7 minutes ago, Megajoule said:

No, that's because "the end of the rainbow" is an illusion, a mirage, a product of refracted light.  You can chase it forever and never reach it.

Exactly my point. 

 

Imagine if you could at one point in time, and you enjoyed doing that,  but then all of a sudden it was removed and when you ask for it back people tell you you shouldn't. 

 

That's what costume unlocks are for many of us. 

Edited November 3, 2019 by Hero_of_Light

[Megajoule]

It was always an illusion.  It was always a lie.

HC realized this was bullshit, and took it out.

Now here you are saying, "but without my bullshit, how will I live?  what will I do?!  I want the lie back! I want to pretend that anything I do in this game matters!"

It doesn't.

All of this could be gone tomorrow, again, and all you'd have is your memories.  (And screenshots, I guess.)

 

 

So take the photographs and still frames in your mind

Hang it on a shelf in good health and good time
Tattoos of memories and dead skin on trial

For what it's worth it was worth all the while

 

It's something unpredictable, but in the end it's right
I hope you had the time of your life

[Hero_of_Light]

15 minutes ago, Rigged said:

 

Now I get it, the OP and those who support him may specifically find badges to be no motivator. But that, honestly, is not a majority view and I think it would have a net negative impact on our game. More challenges is fine, just no cosmetics behind them!

Maybe its because I grew up on games that didn't have achievements or badges.

 

In elder scrolls morrowind I didn't get a badge for finding the golden katana, I got a freaking goldbrand! 

 

When I pulled out the mastersword out in zelda: link to the past,  I didn't get an achievement pop up, I got the freaking mastersword!

 

I didn't have to set my own goal and pretend  that an item I already have I dont really have until I finished a quest.

 

When I found and reforged the moonlight sword in kingsfield 2, I didn't get nothing,  I found and reformed the freaking moonlight sword!

 

( yes i love swords )

Edited November 3, 2019 by Hero_of_Light

[Rigged]

3 minutes ago, Hero_of_Light said:

Maybe its because I grew up on games that didn't have achievements or badges.

 

In elder scrolls morrowind I didn't get a badge for finding the golden katana, I got a freaking goldbrand! 

 

When I pulled out the mastersword out in zelda: link to the past,  I didn't get an achievement pop up, I got the freaking mastersword!

 

I didn't have to set my own goal and pretend  that an item I already have I dont really have until I finished a quest.

 

When I found and reforged the moonlight sword in kingsfield 2, I didn't get nothing,  I found and reformed the freaking moonlight sword!

Hate to break it to you buddy, but CoH has never been anything like those games.

 

In fact, there actually were very very few cosmetic options that you could earn. They experimented with them in Katie Hannon and the response at the time was just as negative as this thread. They avoided it in general except for specific weapon options, the TF Commander epaulets, and I do believe the vanguard and ascension sets. What Homecoming actually unlocked by and large were the costumes locked behind pay walls, not challenges. The response from the community has always, always been rather negative towards this, but most were willing to tolerate it for the purpose of keeping the game afloat.

[Hero_of_Light]

6 minutes ago, Rigged said:

Hate to break it to you buddy, but CoH has never been anything like those games.

 

In fact, there actually were very very few cosmetic options that you could earn. They experimented with them in Katie Hannon and the response at the time was just as negative as this thread. They avoided it in general except for specific weapon options, the TF Commander epaulets, and I do believe the vanguard and ascension sets. What Homecoming actually unlocked by and large were the costumes locked behind pay walls, not challenges. The response from the community has always, always been rather negative towards this, but most were willing to tolerate it for the purpose of keeping the game afloat.

Always hated costume sets that were unlocked with money. Don't forget about the loyalty rewards.

 

And as a whole coh was not like those games, but it did have some parts like it and I loved the little they did have,  as did many others I've met and have known.

 

That's why I'm only asking for a little, and not even hardcore requirements, because it was a part of the game that I loved.

Edited November 3, 2019 by Hero_of_Light

[Rigged]

48 minutes ago, Hero_of_Light said:

Always hated costume sets that were unlocked with money. Don't forget about the loyalty rewards.

 

And as a whole coh was not like those games, but it did have some parts like it and I loved the little they did have,  as did many others I've met and have known.

 

That's why I'm only asking for a little, and not even hardcore requirements, because it was a part of the game that I loved.

And you know, I do understand that perspective. But I am also telling you that it actually will not work well for our game. To begin with, it is contrary to the genre (superheroing) and the setting (modern, with all the fashion design/self-invention/manufacturing power thereof). In real life, a cosplayer can duplicate any costume or part without having to beat up dozens of people first. As a matter of fact there was sooooo much objection to the IO system simply because it was actual loot instead of some nebulous concept of self-improvement (SOs) or social power (inf).

 

The other thing is that there are in fact other systems for what you want. Badges is the one I quoted, but the incarnate system, while simplified in Homecoming, still requires work to achieve. This is in addition to the fact that gate keeping cosmetics, as I mentioned, is actually bad at providing the Skinner Box rush unless the gate is extremely onerous, like a Guild Wars 2 legendary (for those unfamiliar, these require arbitrarily large amounts of high value items - such as 250 of every top tier crafting material, and this is just for about 1/4 of the requirement. At the end you just dump it all into a pool and a genie gives you the weapon you want. This is not a joke). Think about this. If every hat was only about half an hour long, unless there were hundreds of hats you would be done in about a week. Would you grind those hats that you do not intend to wear on every alt? They would just be another kind of badge to you.

 

What you want is a kind of progression - and at the time of Live's end the devs were providing one - the incarnate system. It came with the double whammy of cooperative raiding and story content, which is why it went over surprisingly smoothly with CoH's usually resistant-to-any-kind-of-gameplay-shift player base. I can't help but think we should be giving suggestions to revive this, even in a form appropriate to the tiny dev team we have now, rather than pursuing cosmetic rewards.

Edited November 3, 2019 by Rigged

[Infinitum]

1 hour ago, Megajoule said:

If I do something I think is cool, in this game or any other - complete a questline, decorate my home base, finish collecting a set of gear, whatever - maybe a dozen people (out of everyone I know, which is a tiny fraction of all the people in the world) will ever hear about it.  Maybe half that will care enough to offer a kind/approving/encouraging word before their thoughts move on.   By the end of a day - a week, at most - I will be the only person in the world who remembers or cares.

So I have to be satisfied with that - I have to live for myself - because if I want or need more, I will be disappointed.

 

I know this, and still I catch myself sometimes.  "You're looking for validation from strangers on the internet again.  Stop it."

I make no claims to being perfect, or even particularly wise.  But this is the best advice I have to give, so I'm giving it.

The end of the rainbow recedes endlessly.  Find the pot of gold in yourself.  (Or don't. *shrug*  I'm not the boss of you.)

This is so true.  Very wise insightful  realizations we all must face from time to time.

[Omega-202]

6 hours ago, Hero_of_Light said:

If I do something in real life and I awarded for it with something i like,  it's great. ( I would love to be paid in swords sometime)

 

Why is it unhealthy to expect the same thing in games?

 

 

Because its not real.  Here's some more studies that show that using videogame accomplishments to fill in for real life accomplishments is not healthy, as well as general substitution of real life fullfilment with internet use. My apologies that some are pay walled but the abstracts do a decent job of summarizing the above conclusion.

 

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0747563209001101

 

https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/10.1089/cyber.2012.0034

 

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0747563213004093?via%3Dihub#b0085

 

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0747563213003671. This one specifically discusses "achievement motivation" in gaming, an induced stress increase and increase in addictive behavior.

 

I used to show these tendencies and issues in the past and ended up doing some self reflection, realized I was valuing things that had no value, changed my gaming priorities, got rid of facebook and did some personal betterment.  

 

There's a reason that the "big evil corporations" are "evil" for preying on gamers by feeding into these reward systems.  They wouldn't be "evil" if seeking these "accomplishments" was healthy.  

 

[Itikar]

3 hours ago, Hero_of_Light said:

Badges just aren't as cool as costumes.

And by page 13 it would be high time if you provided a rational explanation for why they are so.

 

Sorry to break it to you, but until you do that your arguments will be pretty much void. In these pages they have been thoroughly demolished, and all you have been doing was simply repeating them ad nauseam, merely ignoring the criticism moved against them. But that criticism is still there and your arguments are in tatters, completely worthless by now, because you spectacularly failed to support them in any meaningful way.

 

Badges just aren't as good as costumes. In fact they are better in every possible way. Until you come up for a reasoned, clear and thorough explanation for why this is not the case, and since you have proven incapable of doing so in 13 pages I am frankly not holding my breath for that to happen, your proposal is going to remain devoid of any foundation.

[Lost Ninja]

3 hours ago, Megajoule said:

So take the photographs and still frames in your mind

Hang it on a shelf in good health and good time
Tattoos of memories and dead skin on trial

For what it's worth it was worth all the while

 

It's something unpredictable, but in the end it's right
I hope you had the time of your life

🙂

[Llewellyn Blackwell]

3 hours ago, Hero_of_Light said:

Maybe its because I grew up on games that didn't have achievements or badges.

 

In elder scrolls morrowind I didn't get a badge for finding the golden katana, I got a freaking goldbrand! 

 

When I pulled out the mastersword out in zelda: link to the past,  I didn't get an achievement pop up, I got the freaking mastersword!

 

I didn't have to set my own goal and pretend  that an item I already have I dont really have until I finished a quest.

 

When I found and reforged the moonlight sword in kingsfield 2, I didn't get nothing,  I found and reformed the freaking moonlight sword!

 

( yes i love swords )

Not nearly as Much as I love swords I suspect. my wall racks of real ones that I am handy with strongly supports this suspicion of mine.

 

As for the ES series, I favor oblivion myself, with around 300 mods. Many of them for swords I can go pick up with little to no effort, and I love every single work of the modders art. Some do come with quest lines to get which I dont mind, but that doesnt make me favor them more or less then others, That is entirely about the aesthetics and my own mood. Do I want to wield a dozen stylish katana and throw them likea  fricking final fantasy ninja and then have to go pull them out of the corpses of my foes. Do I want to wield a rapier or backsword, or maybe Im feeling like a jedi and want a lightsaber for the moment. All possible thanks to the modders, and many of which are just added to some chest or location waiting for me to get them.

 

Seriously you keep using we and many, but very few on this forum have taken your side, and using the phantom army of in game friends doesnt make your point, it makes the point that if these friends of yours do agree with you, they dont seem to care enough to partake of the forums and debate it. Your singular passion that only a couple others agree with to any extent possess so far rightly signals to me that you should seek one of the other CoHs out there using the old unlock mechanics.

 

One of the few points your side has made, the villain ancillary pools, is not actually a good point in your favor, as since CoV launched people have complained vehemently about the need to unlock the patron pools, and it has oft been cited as a reason to play blue side and ignore red side. Red Side itself was deemed a major failure by Paragon and NC Soft due to its low usage and that those accounts that started on CoV rather then CoH had a very low retention rate. CoH was highly praised by MMO reviews for having the highest percentage retention of active subscribers keeping a whopping 20% of those who tried it, compared to most even wow only keeping about 5-10% of those that tried it. CoV had less then 5% retention rate. So while I myself do enjoy going to the isles as a vigilante, nothing connected with CoV should be used as a guideline of how to do things to increase player interest.

 

In a game about creativity when it comes to character creation, people in general pretty clearly dont give a damn about having rare and exclusive costume bits locked behind content that some may very well not have an interest in doing even for the sake of the costume bit. The many witches Ive met in game all have voiced being very glad the need to run a TF many avoid, even I an active TF runner avoid that TF because its really not all that fun or interesting, just to get their hat.

 

So you say you have plenty in game on your side. Ive no few in game on mine. So far of those offering their opinions in this thread your side doesnt seem to really have enough of a clear majority to make it something the devs need to considering going forward.

[HelBlaiz]

I don't think anyone is against rewards for accomplishments, outside the worry of game addiction mentioned a couple times now. The only thing anyone is against, it seems, is content locking costume pieces arbitrarily. And it WOULD be arbitrary at this point. HC has "no content locked costume pieces" as one of its selling points. You may not like it, but it IS a selling point for me and anyone else who never really enjoyed incarnate raids (or were terrified of messing up and being raged at for being a first timer) but really wanted the ascension pieces. If you want content locked rewards, I am simply asking that they not be costume pieces. Make it something either worthwhile for gameplay (bonuses versus the associated faction) or something the game has no precident on yet, like the permanent costume change powers, ala ToTing.

[Hero_of_Light]

1 hour ago, Itikar said:

And by page 13 it would be high time if you provided a rational explanation for why they are so.

 

Sorry to break it to you, but until you do that your arguments will be pretty much void. In these pages they have been thoroughly demolished, and all you have been doing was simply repeating them ad nauseam, merely ignoring the criticism moved against them. But that criticism is still there and your arguments are in tatters, completely worthless by now, because you spectacularly failed to support them in any meaningful way.

 

Badges just aren't as good as costumes. In fact they are better in every possible way. Until you come up for a reasoned, clear and thorough explanation for why this is not the case, and since you have proven incapable of doing so in 13 pages I am frankly not holding my breath for that to happen, your proposal is going to remain devoid of any foundation.

Imagine if, when playing zelda, link actually just has the master sword the whole game, but then when you get to the stone the sword is and pull it, you get

 

  'Achievement unlocked - you've acquired the master sword!' 

 

Isn't that a little silly?

 

Or imagine in borderlands if every gun was already in your inventory and instead of getting guns from chest, you got badges.

 

Could that be expected to fill a loot hunters need? 

[Hero_of_Light]

21 minutes ago, HelBlaiz said:

I don't think anyone is against rewards for accomplishments, outside the worry of game addiction mentioned a couple times now. The only thing anyone is against, it seems, is content locking costume pieces arbitrarily. And it WOULD be arbitrary at this point. HC has "no content locked costume pieces" as one of its selling points. You may not like it, but it IS a selling point for me and anyone else who never really enjoyed incarnate raids (or were terrified of messing up and being raged at for being a first timer) but really wanted the ascension pieces. If you want content locked rewards, I am simply asking that they not be costume pieces. Make it something either worthwhile for gameplay (bonuses versus the associated faction) or something the game has no precident on yet, like the permanent costume change powers, ala ToTing.

Maybe it's just that I'm running out of things to on my main and costume pieces aren't there as an option I used to have. I didn't really focus on it as much when i had IOs to get.

 

I slept horribly, so maybe I'm just tired, but maybe I just want something to strive for and the current options don't seem as cool as Vanguard Prime.

 

I'll give titles and temp powers a shot and see how it goes

 

Hey! What about pemanate versions of temp powers being an unlockable? Like, you can buy temp versions of a vanguard jet pack, or finish the story arc and get a permanent one?

 

It's like a functional costume peice. The costume peice is already free, you can get a temp version from p2w vendor as many times as you want, or strive for the permanent version?

Edited November 3, 2019 by Hero_of_Light

[HelBlaiz]

7 minutes ago, Hero_of_Light said:

Imagine if, when playing zelda, link actually just has the master sword the whole game, but then when you get to the stone the sword is and pull it, you get

 

  'Achievement unlocked - you've acquired the master sword!' 

 

Isn't that a little silly?

 

Or imagine in borderlands if every gun was already in your inventory and instead of getting guns from chest, you got badges.

 

Could that be expected to fill a loot hunters need? 

You have used this argument multiple times now with different faces slapped onto it. To paraphrase, "we get the [point], it's just not [convincing]." Legend of Zelda has a core gameplay loop of "raid dungeon, get trinket, beat boss." Borderlands has a core gameplay loop of "kill stuff, get loot."

 

City of Heroes has a core gameplay loop of "Pick AT, agonize over the costume for an hour, agonize over the name for another hour, fail, reagonize over costume for an hour for a different theme, agonize over getting a name again, succeed, level to fifty."

[HelBlaiz]

3 minutes ago, Hero_of_Light said:

Maybe it's just that I'm running out of things to on my main and costume pieces aren't there as an option I used to have. I didn't really focus on it as much when i had IOs to get.

 

I slept horribly, so maybe I'm just tired, but maybe I just want something to strive for and the current options don't seem as cool as Vanguard Prime.

 

I'll give titles and temp powers a shot and see how it goes

 

Hey! What about pemanate versions of temp powers being an unlockable? Like, you can buy temp versions of a vanguard jet pack, or finish the story arc and get a permanent one?

 

It's like a functional costume peice. The costume peice is already free, you can get a temp version from p2w vendor as many times as you want, or strive for the permanent version?

I like that idea, permanent temp powers is cool.

[Itikar]

17 minutes ago, Hero_of_Light said:

Imagine if, when playing zelda, link actually just has the master sword the whole game, but then when you get to the stone the sword is and pull it, you get

 

  'Achievement unlocked - you've acquired the master sword!' 

 

Isn't that a little silly?

 

Or imagine in borderlands if every gun was already in your inventory and instead of getting guns from chest, you got badges.

 

Could that be expected to fill a loot hunters need? 

This reply is not structured as the rational and thoughtful argument your proposal (desperately) needs.

 

Even setting that aside, however, how do unlockable costume parts, in this case sword skins, achieve that better, not in this case than badges, but than temporary powers?

 

What if your character is a controller who cannot use sword skins in their costume? What if they have a melee archetype but they have savage melee or warmace?

 

A temporary power that allows a character to use a sword, a particular kind of sword, would achieve this in a much better way. It would not be tied to a costume or to a powerset and it could be used along with different swords and weapons, including those that have no powerset to go with, such as single-handed guns.

 

Cosmetically there would be no difference, your character still holds a cool sword they gained, but it would be much better logistically due to how weapon skins work in this game.

 

Any other argument?

Edited November 3, 2019 by Itikar

[Itikar]

12 minutes ago, Hero_of_Light said:

Maybe it's just that I'm running out of things to on my main and costume pieces aren't there as an option I used to have. I didn't really focus on it as much when i had IOs to get.

 

I slept horribly, so maybe I'm just tired, but maybe I just want something to strive for and the current options don't seem as cool as Vanguard Prime.

 

I'll give titles and temp powers a shot and see how it goes

 

Hey! What about pemanate versions of temp powers being an unlockable? Like, you can buy temp versions of a vanguard jet pack, or finish the story arc and get a permanent one?

 

It's like a functional costume peice. you can get a temp version from p2w vendor as many times as you want, or strive for the permanent version?

Funny we have been writing this at the same time. 🙂

 

Temp powers are pretty much fair game, and permanent versions of them would be more than welcome. Including cosmetical ones. In some cases there would be balance issues, such as for jet pack powers making fly obsolete, but that can certainly be worked out.

 

But after all, nobody in this thread had really expressed any hostility to have unlockables that are not costume parts.

Edited November 3, 2019 by Itikar

[Hero_of_Light]

3 minutes ago, Itikar said:

Funny we have been writing this at the same time. 🙂

 

Temp powers are pretty much fair game, and permanent versions of them would be not welcome, more than welcome. Including cosmetical ones. In some cases there would be balance issues, such as for jet pack powers making fly obsolete, but that can certainly be worked out.

 

But after all, nobody in this thread had really expressed any hostility to have unlockables that are not costume parts.

Right? Haha. 

 

So maybe temp powers.

 

For instance, they release a new sword costume peice, but also release a new story arc where, after finishing it you permanently get the sword temp power where, when used, your character holds that sword up in the air, and lightning shoots out around you for an aoe attack!

[HelBlaiz]

1 minute ago, Hero_of_Light said:

Right? Haha. 

 

So maybe temp powers.

 

For instance, they release a new sword costume peice, but also release a new story arc where, after finishing it you permanently get the sword temp power where, when used, your character holds that sword up in the air, and lightning shoots out around you for an aoe attack!

This is good. I like this, my broadsword/katana character can use it on their costume from the start, and I can go play a mission on my blaster to get the temp power version.