Weekly Discussion 43: Badges/Badge Hunting

[GM Miss]

Weekly discussion 43 - Week 3/22/20-3/28/20:

⚔️ YOU VOTED: Badges / Badge Hunting! ⚔️

 

❓ Things to think about:

 

>Here is a link to the Badges https://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Badges

>What types of badges are your favorite? Least Favorite?

>What badges would you like to see added for the future?

>Do you think any of the badges are too difficult to get?

>Do you want to see certain zones add more badges?

 

Don't just use these prompts, talk about anything Badges!

 

Let's Chat 😄

[Oubliette_Red]

Yay badges!

 

I have to say, exploration badges are my favourite.

Followed by Day Jobs.

 

What I'd like to see added are more badges in Praetoria.

Llike Precinct day job badge similar to Law Enforcer.

Any time I step foot into Provost Marchand's office I expect something like the Arachnos Agent or City Official day job.

 

Edited March 23, 2020 by Oubliette_Red

[Snarky]

I have always enjoyed the badge system in CoX.  I have never run a badger, my top live was probably a few hundred.  I have one with a little over 500 and am actually committing to a long time project, currently at 361 badges.

 

The things I have enjoyed about the badge system: It is a take it or leave it, not forced choice.  There are bonuses and mini rewards for certain badges. The contacts opening up, the accolades. The key to get into Cim or Ouro.  The bragging rights. Proves you did Master of...  or just ground 500 badges, people need to know you are straight up crazy, they can tell just by looking at your info.  Need title.  You can place one as a placard on your character.  Good stuff.

 

I would love to see an extended (minor) reward system built into badges. Possibly in conjunction with veteran levels.  Vet level X and collect X badges = 1 extra enhancer slot.  Or 1 travel power that would exemplar down to level 1.  Fly/teleport/SJ etc.  It is a definite something, but not game altering madness.  Maybe (diminishing returns, as is logical) a total of 3-4 total bonuses for 200 vet levels and 1500 badges.  For me this is a lot but would keep the focus on playing deep into the game.  For context my highest vet level is probably high teens and badges as I have stated is nothing spectacular.  But it would be another way to use the existing metrics of the game to continue to empower supers.  Total of 4 extra enhancer slots for a level 200 vet with 1500 badges is not game breaking.  Or 4 extra travel powers (we already have P2W permatemp flight, this would just stylize it) or 2 enhancer slots and 2 travel powers, etc.

[ArchVileTerror]

I would like for any future Badges to not be grindy.  I like Badges (and Achievements, Trophies, et cetera) as incentives and positive reinforcement for behaviour that you want players to performs.

I'd also like existing Badges to be tweaked to be less grindy, but I understand that changes of that nature would be controversial for some players.  Even still, the big ones are the Inf, Debt, and Heal/Damage Achievement Badges (in that order of significance as most important to change to least):  https://forums.homecomingservers.com/topic/9967-born-in-battle-500k-damage-badge-plz/?tab=comments#comment-90184

[Logansan]

5 hours ago, Oubliette_Red said:

Yay badges!

 

I have to say, exploration badges are my favourite.

Followed by Day Jobs.

 

What I'd like to see added are more badges in Praetoria.

Llike Precinct day job badge similar to Law Enforcer.

Any time I step foot into Provost Marchand's office I expect something like the Arachnos Agent or City Official day job.

 

I have to agree.

 

My least favourite badges are ones that require a activity that many people just don't want to do, in particular PVP and to a lesser extent AE.

 

 

[Peacemoon]

I really enjoy badges that I can quietly get on with solo in times when I just play by myself (and want to). I really enjoy using Ouroboros to access and play storyarcs and love that you can get badges by doing them. 

I love it when you get random badges you weren’t expecting! No matter what the criteria is I always find that pretty cool. 
 

I know you can get badges for setting different challenge criteria on Ouroboros (like no enhancements, etc) but haven’t quite got into that yet. It’s going to be difficult! Speaking of which it would be so cool if there were more challenge mode badges available outside of Ouroboros. Example doing TFs with no enhancements or buffed enemies, and getting more merits and badges as a result. Same content but at a higher difficulty.

 

I don’t mind some grindy badges. I don’t mind ‘kill 200 vampyrs’. I can tolerate ‘kill 200 Family bosses’, but hate things like 1000 rikti monkeys!

 

Also wouldn’t it be great if you could see more badge unlock requirements ingame? I use a lot of websites to find out accolade requirements!

[Peacemoon]

As for which zone could do with more badges,  can I vote for Crey’s Folly? It’s an amazing setting, really dark and gritty. I love the theme of commercial pollution and things gone wrong. I would really love more things to do there.

[Frostbiter]

On the subject of badges; there seems to be something wrong with the way Hercules titans combine into Zeus Titans. Even when two spawn in the same group they are not combining. I only saw it  once when hunting for the Monkeywrencher Badge. Also can we visit that name? It should be just Monkeywrench.

[tidge]

Just now, Frostbiter said:

On the subject of badges; there seems to be something wrong with the way Hercules titans combine into Zeus Titans. Even when two spawn in the same group they are not combining. I only saw it  once when hunting for the Monkeywrencher Badge. Also can we visit that name? It should be just Monkeywrench.

I don't think there is anything wrong with the Hercules -> Zeus. As near as I can tell, the following have to happen for them to combine:

• Both Hercules must be in the same spawn group. I think this requires a x3 setting, not sure. You can't drag one Herc to another and get them to combine.
• The Hercs AI has to be at the correct part of the algorithm. Hercs will always open with their long-range missiles. Don't kill them too fast. If they aren't close (because one is running away, or trying to run towards players) there will not be a merger.
• At least one Herc must have 'significant' damage.
• Unverified: I believe the second Herc must have some damage (i.e. not 100% Health). I was trying to see if I could trigger a merging this past weekend (using snipes, and single-target attacks) but I was being sloppy. I saw at least one merger where the second Herc had miniscule damage.

 

I'm happy with the badge system. I enjoy the badges that just sort of crop up during play, such as healing, dealing damage, etc. I think the exploration badges are fine, with the only caveat being those that require Echos/Ouroboros to collect seem odd.

 

There are a few villain groups/types which don't have 'defeat X' badges, but seem like they should (Hydra).

 

My biggest complaint about the badge system involves the badges with misleading (or missing) text describing how to get the badges. The "Defeat 100 Circle of Thorn bosses" is the one that comes to mind.

 

[Frostbiter]

I know how to do it, go test more and then get back to me.

[ArchVileTerror]

Oh yeah!   Also:

https://forums.homecomingservers.com/topic/15184-gender-locked-badges/

It would be great to have the Gender and Alignment flags moved to a Null the Gull menu option instead, so that we may choose our Badge Titles more precisely.  Although I've heard that the Praetorian versions of some Badges are completely separate, so that could complicate such an effort.

[Ruin Mage]

More defeat badges.
More halving the requirements on defeat badges.

That's all I desire.

[DougGraves]

I used to go for badges.  But since the high level game is now a joke, I don't play characters above level 34 and so I don't bother badging.  I just delete and start over.

 

The badges I liked best are exploration badges.  Ones that make you go places on the map you might not otherwise go.

[Ukase]

As one of those ridiculous badge-hounds, (current count 1511, as many as I can get until the anniversary badges open up in May) there are a number of things I would like to see changed, added, taken away. 

We're all different - different life experiences, different expectations, just plain different. I completely understand that I take the game a bit more seriously than most. I'm not the most enthusiastic min-maxer I've come across. I belong to a group that actually do respecs for any task force just to eke out a faster time on a speed run. I personally hate doing respecs, so I try to build mine properly from beginning to end. 

Yet, we have these badges for debt. Nobody said, "Ukase, thou must have all the badges!" Yet, I found myself getting as many as I could. But the few badges I think are just plain stupid are the debt badges. Why should anyone be given a badge for poor performance? And make no mistake - when your character is defeated, you have performed poorly. There may very well be good reasons, but the fact is you got defeated because your character was in a situation that you, the player, couldn't manage successfully. Now that doesn't mean that you're not fun at parties or that God no longer loves you, it just means in that instance, you failed to play your character well. Why should that be rewarded? Only the original dev team can answer that. I suppose, I could look at it as a warning to not team with those players who have too many debt badges too soon. Only 100 badges and have all the debt badges - this is probably not an ideal candidate for an MoTF. 

So, I would love to see them just removed from the game. 

Balance between factions: Invader vs. TFC. 
This just doesn't make sense to me. If I can team up with certain folks that have a certain badge (Hero Slayer/Bloody Hands) on red side, I can take a low level character (presumably with stealth) and zip through all the mayhems for the exploration badges and get that accolade within 10 minutes or so. Yet, on blue side, TFC takes a whole lot more than that. Fortunately, there's Null the Gull to make the side switching virtually painless. Still, I think if a badge (for an accolade) is to mean something, they shouldn't be THAT easy. Of course, nobody's putting a gun to my head and telling me to do things the easy way...but I will almost always follow the path of least resistance. No, I won't get the tasty merits, but I'm already sitting on more inf than I know what to do with. Speaking of inf...

There doesn't seem to be any badges for making money on the AH. As EASY as it is to make inf via the market, so many players don't understand how, or don't want to understand how, or just find it absolutely boring to deal with. They'd rather grind it out for inf via missions. That's fine. But, I think EVERYONE should get a badge for taking a set bonus recipe, crafting it, and converting it, if need be, and selling it on the AH for a badge. I know there are certain badges for selling a certain amount of products on AH, but I don't think they're specifically for IOs. 

People fuss about the expense of certain IOs...if there were a badge for selling 5 LotG 7.5% IOs, I suspect there'd be a drop in price, as all the crazy badge hounds would be selling them - and competition for the sale would drive the price down. Something to think about. It would certainly introduce the bare basics of how to craft/convert/sell a lot moreso than the tedious generic IO badges. But - let's keep in mind that those generic IOs routinely sell more cheaply than it costs to craft them, so that's a win. Personally, I'd like to see a badge for the accumulation of inf. 

You have acquired 100M, 1B, 10B 100B. (if only there was a place to keep it all...) 

I could go on, but I've already written too much. 
 

[tidge]

3 hours ago, Frostbiter said:

I know how to do it, go test more and then get back to me.

I don't have to do any more testing, as I ran Crimson's arc(s) and got the Monkeywrencher from all the Herc's that combined for me!

[Frostbiter]

Ok, so don't do anything then. I believe there's a problem so I posted about it.

[siolfir]

1 hour ago, Ukase said:

Balance between factions: Invader vs. TFC. 
This just doesn't make sense to me. If I can team up with certain folks that have a certain badge (Hero Slayer/Bloody Hands) on red side, I can take a low level character (presumably with stealth) and zip through all the mayhems for the exploration badges and get that accolade within 10 minutes or so. Yet, on blue side, TFC takes a whole lot more than that. Fortunately, there's Null the Gull to make the side switching virtually painless. Still, I think if a badge (for an accolade) is to mean something, they shouldn't be THAT easy. Of course, nobody's putting a gun to my head and telling me to do things the easy way...but I will almost always follow the path of least resistance. No, I won't get the tasty merits, but I'm already sitting on more inf than I know what to do with. Speaking of inf...

It's not completely one-sided as to which is easier: look at Marshal vs Atlas Medallion, for example - and as you said, it's easy to switch sides through Null for the easier accolade, regardless of which it is. Invader also only seems so much less than TFC if you're not using the task forces to level, which is a common path and will get you the badges without spending any extra time that you wouldn't be spending anyway, and because you only need the time investment to get a 45+ with Hero Slayer once as long as you have someone holding the mission so you can swap for alts on the same account. That time investment is probably about as much as speedrunning all of the TFC requirements.

 

Favorite badge types to get: accomplishments, because I (usually) like TFs, with a few exceptions.

Least favorite badge types to get: market/crafting badges

Favorite badge title: Poor Impulse Control (for clicking a glowie in AE)

 

Things I'd like to see change:

• If they haven't already - I'll admit, I haven't tested recently - I'd like to see the minlevel on the hero accolade powers disappear (there's no minlevel on redside accolade powers, just on the PvP zones and SFs required for several)
• I'd like to see Iron Man/Woman (take 1 million damage) replaced with Relentless (deal 1 million damage) for Born in Battle. I've literally had to start missions and rest in front of mobs (to take the extra damage and regen faster) just to farm the million damage on all of my active characters that have it. 
• While we're at it, can everyone on the team get credit for arsons during mayhem missions instead of only the person who clicks the last bomb? Everyone gets credit for defeats, why is the arson different?

Longstanding bug: the tracking on Born in Battle incorrectly reports, saying you have 5 of 7 when you're only missing Iron Man/Woman.

 

As for adding badges, Kallisti Wharf just needs more love in general.

[Lazarillo]

I'm not especially a fan of the Level 50 TF "Master" badges.  The "don't die" requirement, especially feels less designed for "mastery" than it does just sort of going "halfway".  Heck, I've even seen/heard teams where their strategy for those badges was "nobody enters the mission except for one/two designated mission-finishers".  To me, the whole approach just feels so very...Anti-CoH.  I'm more fond of the iTrial "Master" badges, although a couple of them are a little poorly executed (notably Lambda, a couple of the Keyes ones, and Dreamwalker).  But at least the idea behind them feels more fun.

 

I'd love to see similar "bonus" objectives added to some of the classic TFs for iTrial-type "Master" badges in those, as well.  It might make certain runs feel less...formulaic.

[macskull]

18 minutes ago, siolfir said:

• I'd like to see Iron Man/Woman (take 1 million damage) replaced with Relentless (deal 1 million damage) for Born in Battle. I've literally had to start missions and rest in front of mobs (to take the extra damage and regen faster) just to farm the million damage on all of my active characters that have it. 

Yikes, no thanks. While I agree that a badge that is easiest to get by AFKing is not great design, it's about the same difficulty for any character to obtain. Lower-damage characters would have a much harder time getting the damage dealt badges.

[Troo]

The current badge system is for the most part, excellent.

 

Most of the badges can be earned naturally through regular game play.

I especially like the exploration, history, GM defeat and zone event badges. These encourage us to experience much of the game that could easily be missed.

Suggestion = 'Badges Earned Badges' could earn escalating Reward Merits. (something like 200 badges could = enough merits to get a purple recipe)

 

@Ukase if someone had all the badges except the debt badges, that would be amazing and better than all the badges in my opinion.

@siolfir@macskull fire,  just rest in some fire for the take damage badges? no afk, typically shooting to earn it by level 31 or 32 (force of habit).

Edited March 23, 2020 by Troo

[siolfir]

4 minutes ago, macskull said:

Yikes, no thanks. While I agree that a badge that is easiest to get by AFKing is not great design, it's about the same difficulty for any character to obtain. Lower-damage characters would have a much harder time getting the damage dealt badges.

I don't consider myself a great player, but it's been my experience that unless you're AFK farming it's much easier to deal damage than take it.

 

While admittedly not a controller, my level 43 pain/dark Defender isn't what I would call a "damage AT" and has these numbers currently:

Spoiler

 

That's a little more than 4:1 on damage dealt vs damage taken, playing mostly between +1 to +2/x6 in a duo with a Brute, or on a few mission teams in PI.

 

Here's the level 50 Fire/Fire Blaster, who has come the closest to getting the badge without farming for it:

Spoiler

 

The damage dealt/damage taken ratio is still just above 4:1; it's just easier to get the damage badge by playing.

 

So let's look at "tank" ATs - here's my Rad/Elec Brute (who had to farm to get there at level 50):

Spoiler

 

Again, far more damage dealt than taken - a ratio of 14.2:1 - on a character that's supposed to take damage. But that's a resistance set, the build has resistances in the 80s for nearly every damage type, and I had all of the IOs for her build before even rolling the character.

 

So here's the SS/Bio - which was my first level 50 Brute, and third 50, on Homecoming where I still had to farm damage but has since taken much more simply by virtue of running fire farms on a character with little to no fire resistance:

Spoiler

 

That's 5.37:1.

 

The completely-SO build Warshade (admittedly, high AoE damage, but only resistances and healing from dead bodies):

Spoiler

 

So that's 3.1:1, the worst yet. But again, all SOs, first character I put much time into after coming back so I was still relearning, and I spent a lot of time in Dwarf which is low damage and the center of attention due to the prevalence of mez.

 

Here's the Fortunata, at a respectable 10.87:1:

Spoiler

 

Now for any of the characters that don't already have the accolade I could probably get it tonight by finding some mob to rest in front of for a few hours (or less). As it is, all of screenshots that don't already have the million damage taken badge are for hero aligned characters who are working on (or have) Portal Jockey instead of Born in Battle, so it doesn't matter enough because I'd have to swap alignment and get the other badges anyway. The half of the screenshots that have it are from characters who started redside and farmed damage to get there.

 

As for resting in fire - same situation, only you have to get rest to kick in during the damage ticks. If the building explosion counted (it didn't when I tried it) it would've been fine with purples to get you through, but I've found it's just as easy to get a mob or two to just spam attacks that you're just able to regen enough to top off. But the recommendation was to prevent having to do stupid things like resting in a damage source or in front of a mob that's attacking in order to meet the badge requirement in a reasonable time frame, so that you could get it for doing things related to playing the game. At least it was reduced from the 10 million it used to be. That took days of afk damage farming.

[EmperorSteele]

Well, as for what to add, I made a thread here:
 

 

Some of the take-aways are that some factions are under-represented. All the Praetorian enemies have defeat badges, why not certain other critters? Though at the same time, a bunch of random "defeat 100 guys" badges aren't all that creative and would be a minor chore for a level 50 as opposed to something fun. There are some things in the game which are certainly very challenging, and there should be some award for it.

I think the biggest desire is to get some exploration badges and some plaques/history badge in Kalisti Wharf.

 

I wish certain accolades were account wide, such as the master crafter badge. I know we can buy the associated temp power fro like 10 million inf, but by the time you can afford that, you don't really need it any more.

Other than that, I'm pretty happy with badges the way they are 😃

[Caulderone]

4 hours ago, EmperorSteele said:

I wish certain accolades were account wide

Yeah, at times I wish there was something akin to the Legacy in SW:TOR.  Certain things could be character based and some could be account based.

[Yomo Kimyata]

I have an honest question for the hardcore badgers.

 

i’ve seen some really vehement blowback in the Suggestions forum when the idea of shinies inthe form of badges being given out is suggested.  And I’m seeing in these comments Above that some people want more badges, but don’t want them to be difficult or tedious to get.

 

Personally, I like accomplishments, and frankly I like being rewarded for “bragworthy” accomplishments.  It seems to me that ibadges are an easy way for the devs to give new rewards without making the game easier for anyone, or by keeping those rewards away from anyone.

 

My question is:  what’s so bad about creating new badges that are difficult or tedious to get?  Is it somehow exclusionary, or is it an affront to those of us with OCD and a need to catch them all, or other?  Help me to see your points!

 

Specifically, with prestige gone, I’d love to see badges for burning inf.  100mm, 1bn, 10bn, 100bn, 1 trillion.  They would be difficult or tedious for the average player to get.  Heck, the last one would be extremely difficult for even the ebilest.  Which is why I’d love to see a brag badge for it.  Also, I’d bet the devs would like to see more inf leave the system.

 

Thanks in advance!

[ArchVileTerror]

Pretty sure we went over it already:  https://forums.homecomingservers.com/topic/12155-going-forward-can-we-have-more-things-that-mean-something/

 

But, let's turn it around for a second. 

Whyfore bragging?  

What's so good about tedious and difficult stuff?  

What's the point of any of that?

 

Ultimately, I think, it's a preference.  I don't think there's really going to be any "explaining" it.  Not any more or less than one can explain a preference for Coca-Cola or Pepsi.  

If the Devs were to create a category of Badges which don't count toward Badge totals, that -might- be enough for the majority of Badgers to be "okay" with the addition of nigh-inaccessible "Hardcore" Badges.  But, basically, this game has a history with being fairly accessible and casual overall.  There are a lot of players who view Badges as core content (sometimes even as -the- Content).  Locking them behind exclusionary barriers feels bad for them.  And even if they managed to unlock them, it would never feel like it was an accomplishment or a meaningful time investment; it would feel like a pointless grind meant to rob them of their free time which they'll never get back.

 

That's, at least, the perspective as I've come to understand it.  I'm not quite that extreme with my personal views, but I do baulk pretty firmly against anything that's a timesink for no reason other than to be a timesink.  That just smacks of total pointlessness.  As long as things remain genuinely optional, I won't complain.  

 

 

But at this point, we're discussing design philosophy.  That's a much bigger topic than this thread's really designed to handle.  Maybe a discussion in a new thread, either in General ( https://forums.homecomingservers.com/forum/10-general-discussion/?do=add ) or Off-Topic ( https://forums.homecomingservers.com/forum/69-off-topic/?do=add ) might be a good place to tackle it.