issue 27 Focused Feedback: Permanent NPC Costume Power Rewards

[Burnt Umber]

The costumes themselves are a fun and neat addition to the game.  That said, I feel like it's a bit of a grind (or influence expense) to accumulate the necessary new salvage to get the costumes.  But I suppose that the variety of ways to get that salvage is expansive enough that I'm probably not going to be too hassled by it.

 

There are two things that stick out to me about this addition:

1. The new vendors' location in vaults feels a little intrusive/cluncky.  They might be more appropriate inside Icon or Facemaker shops that have more space for such vendors and thematically are more in-line with the vendors' purpose?
2. Besides wanting the accompanying badge, I don't really see the purpose of the accolade.  It seems to award a pop-menu macro and that's it?  Except for someone who fanatically wants all the costumes and to be able to sort through and use them all, the accolade is not really a power but a limited QoL feature?  I'd wish that the accolade did a bit more, such as act as a personal/mobile version of the vendor like the Fieldcrafter accolade provides the mobile crafting table.

Those thoughts aside, I really like being able to have access to some of these costumes.  I look forward to what other ones get added for purchase.

[tez]

I gotta hop on to see if i can make some fantasy D&D races with the mini. Goblins, Dwarves, Haflings, Gnomes, Kobolds need shorty representation ❤️

[NovaChronum]

Shield scales with the costume toggle, but weapons don't. Looks a little silly, but the shield looks AMAZING.
Base character is female body MAX height for reference.

Side note: Ive been waiting 10 years to play my rikti main character again. I am beyond happy.

Edited July 17, 2022 by NovaChronum

[Timeshadow]

23 hours ago, NovaChronum said:

Shield scales with the costume toggle, but weapons don't. Looks a little silly, but the shield looks AMAZING.
Base character is female body MAX height for reference.

Side note: Ive been waiting 10 years to play my rikti main character again. I am beyond happy.

Wait. So we have access to the remodeled Rikti Chief Soldier as well? From the OP, it seemed like the only post-redesign Rikti we'd be able to unlock is the Mentalist.

 

Is this under the Standard Tier for 10/15 of the new currency or is it just a stand-in for the classic look that costs 150/300?

Edited July 18, 2022 by Timeshadow

[Jaguaratron]

19 minutes ago, Timeshadow said:

Wait. So we have access to the remodeled Rikti Chief Soldier as well? From the OP, it seemed like the only post-redesign Rikti we'd be able to unlock is the Mentalist.

 

Is this under the Standard Tier for 10/15 of the new currency or is it just a stand-in for the classic look that costs 150/300?

 

You seem confused, this is the old, removed one as shown in the tier 2 preview

 

 

*edit* Or is it? Looks different on the feet, will have to go look, could be mistaken

Edited July 18, 2022 by Jaguaratron

[Timeshadow]

23 hours ago, Jaguaratron said:

 

You seem confused, this is the old, removed one as shown in the tier 2 preview

 

 

*edit* Or is it? Looks different on the feet, will have to go look, could be mistaken

They're definitely not the same. The model in @NovaChronum's photo is one of two variants of the Chief Soldier you can see in-game today. It's the less ornate model with round shoulderpads and duller armor.

 

The screenshot in the OP shows the old school model, it's significantly thinner than the newer version and doesn't have nearly as much visible detail. 

 

EDIT: Should've done this sooner but I logged into the beta server and checked for myself. Confirmed that there are two sets of Rikti models available. The first are listed as Standard Tier and include the modern appearances. The others are listed as Vintage Tier and have the classic models pictured in the OP. 

 

More importantly, there are a ton of models for purchase that weren't available from the Paragon Market, etc. on live. I did some testing with the weapon powersets and can confirm the scaling is...questionable. For example, when using the Rikti Chief Soldier with Ninja Blade, the sword doesn't scale up to match the model unless you use Build Up, in which case it does but reverts to "normal size" as soon as the animation is finished. It'd be really nice to have consistency to keep up immersion. 

Edited July 19, 2022 by Timeshadow

[Marshal_General]

On 7/16/2022 at 5:41 PM, tez said:

I gotta hop on to see if i can make some fantasy D&D races with the mini. Goblins, Dwarves, Haflings, Gnomes, Kobolds need shorty representation ❤️

I was just thinking that my faerie character can be the right size now.

[Cobalt Arachne]

On 7/17/2022 at 11:01 PM, Timeshadow said:

I did some testing with the weapon powersets and can confirm the scaling is...questionable.

Weapon FX all include the scaling modifier that is set by the original costume's body type, even after using a power to transform which then also applies the scaling of the weapon by the costume's scale modifier.

Meaning if you want a weapon to be slightly smaller, use a female body type under the costume power to add a scaling factor of 0.85x.
If you want a weapon to be slightly bigger, use a huge body type under the costume power to add a scaling factor of 1.125x.
With a male body type under the costume it sets the weapon scaling factor to the default of 1x.

Using this trick you can get weapon models to be a little bigger or smaller depending on the desired size for the costume combo you're trying to use.

[brattycommissar2]

since players are gonna be given access to these bits and bobs through this new currency thing and whatnot, and you can apparently use it for proper missions instead of just rp stuff, my question is... is there a chance that more of these pieces, models, meshes, etc can be made available in part or portion to players like how you could do things in paragon chat db editing? i'd be fine if it still used this currency to acquire or w/e, i'd just love to have access to parts of the whole instead of just the whole whole

[Neuronia]

Is the RIng Mistress temp from the Halloween event costume in the offing?
A friend of mine only logs in when he can get these...they are his fave costume ever. This would be really appreciated!

 

Edited July 23, 2022 by Neuronia

[Bionic_Flea]

Trying to get a handle on all of this.

 

So if I maximize PAP rewards and run all the i-trials and 4-star Aeon and ITF every day, I'd get 60 PAPs per day.  I might get some random drops from missions and I could buy some, but running all the trials and both hard modes is probably longer than most people could play daily.  So at 60 per day it would take me 25 days to earn enough to buy the Chibi costume, and nothing else.

 

But realistically, I don't run that content daily now so it would be unlikely that I will do that in the future.  They also have a small chance to fall from any mission completion starting at level 1 and from the first run of the weekly.  I think it's more likely that I will earn 5-10 per day on average playing the way I am today.  I'll get a few from missions/WSF, a few from advanced difficulty on some days and a few from trials on some days.  That makes it 150-300 days to earn a mini-chibi.  And that seems too long to me.  Let alone getting them all on my main. 

 

Yes, I understand that I don't have to.  I also don't have to get all the badges or all the souvenirs or run all the content.  But I feel that at least my main does it because I'm a bit of a completionist.  That's at least 8,310 PAPS.   I'm sure I undercounted because I didn't break out the mode costumes other than the existing Very Rares.  At a max of 60/day (8310/60=139 days); at 10 per day it's 831 days (or 2.3 years) and double that at 5 per day.  That seems too long to me.  And that's all for a single character.  Everyone that I know plays multiple characters.

 

Now it's true that I could also afford to buy some in the market, but the price is currently unknown and bound to be pretty high, at least for a few months.  But it's also true that the team intends to add additional ones as time goes on.   I think the PAP costs need to be brought down a bit or the rewards brought up a bit, or both.

 

I don't think it's reasonable to assume that players will get 60/day at the current rates and with the time-gates.  Even 5-10 per day may be a lot.  I think the sweet spot should be at most 12 months to get all of them.  Let's say 365 days; at 5 per day that gives a total of 1,825 to get them all.  Or looking at it the other way 8310/365 is about 23.  The rewards, especially for the non-advanced difficulty should be increased such that a player can reasonably obtain and sustain an average of 23 PAPs a day through a variety of play, or the costs reduced by a factor of 4-5, or some combination of both.

Edited July 25, 2022 by Bionic_Flea

[Giovanni Valia]

On 7/14/2022 at 5:43 PM, Cobalt Arachne said:

The system is designed to be expanded upon, expect lots more costumes later on!

👍

 

I'd love to see the standard Arachnos enemy costumes added as temp powers in addition to the Arachnos BCU. Definitely looking forward to this for RP purposes.

[Zepp]

On 7/13/2022 at 8:14 AM, Mystic Fortune said:

Capes do not appear to scale down with the mini mode costume power. In fact on the huge model, larger capes become almost like a huge tent.

 

Similar issues with the waste cape:
 

[Marshal_General]

Is there the possibility for a maxi costume? I have a few characters that could be larger than the game currently allows.

[Cobalt Arachne]

2 hours ago, Marshal_General said:

Is there the possibility for a maxi costume? I have a few characters that could be larger than the game currently allows.

Unfortunately, a large number of mission map tilesets in this game are designed around the specific player height cap, anything that would let you exceed that cap to a noticeable degree would invite a host of problems with camera positioning, severe clipping, etc.

[Marshal_General]

17 hours ago, Cobalt Arachne said:

Unfortunately, a large number of mission map tilesets in this game are designed around the specific player height cap, anything that would let you exceed that cap to a noticeable degree would invite a host of problems with camera positioning, severe clipping, etc.

Do our current height sliders allow us to reach that cap? Offices and caves seem to have enough room for growth.

[TomatoPhalanges]

On 7/25/2022 at 7:01 AM, Bionic_Flea said:

Trying to get a handle on all of this.

 

So if I maximize PAP rewards and run all the i-trials and 4-star Aeon and ITF every day, I'd get 60 PAPs per day.  I might get some random drops from missions and I could buy some, but running all the trials and both hard modes is probably longer than most people could play daily.  So at 60 per day it would take me 25 days to earn enough to buy the Chibi costume, and nothing else.

 

But realistically, I don't run that content daily now so it would be unlikely that I will do that in the future.  They also have a small chance to fall from any mission completion starting at level 1 and from the first run of the weekly.  I think it's more likely that I will earn 5-10 per day on average playing the way I am today.  I'll get a few from missions/WSF, a few from advanced difficulty on some days and a few from trials on some days.  That makes it 150-300 days to earn a mini-chibi.  And that seems too long to me.  Let alone getting them all on my main. 

 

Yes, I understand that I don't have to.  I also don't have to get all the badges or all the souvenirs or run all the content.  But I feel that at least my main does it because I'm a bit of a completionist.  That's at least 8,310 PAPS.   I'm sure I undercounted because I didn't break out the mode costumes other than the existing Very Rares.  At a max of 60/day (8310/60=139 days); at 10 per day it's 831 days (or 2.3 years) and double that at 5 per day.  That seems too long to me.  And that's all for a single character.  Everyone that I know plays multiple characters.

 

Now it's true that I could also afford to buy some in the market, but the price is currently unknown and bound to be pretty high, at least for a few months.  But it's also true that the team intends to add additional ones as time goes on.   I think the PAP costs need to be brought down a bit or the rewards brought up a bit, or both.

 

I don't think it's reasonable to assume that players will get 60/day at the current rates and with the time-gates.  Even 5-10 per day may be a lot.  I think the sweet spot should be at most 12 months to get all of them.  Let's say 365 days; at 5 per day that gives a total of 1,825 to get them all.  Or looking at it the other way 8310/365 is about 23.  The rewards, especially for the non-advanced difficulty should be increased such that a player can reasonably obtain and sustain an average of 23 PAPs a day through a variety of play, or the costs reduced by a factor of 4-5, or some combination of both.

 

I think this is a pretty compelling argument from Flea. I can't imagine people are going to be grinding 60/day or even remotely close to that.

 

Imagining the average player interested in challenging content is an adult with a day job, or at least other commitments, at most the player would probably do two or three 4-star runs a week, treating it like a WoW raid night. They might do iTrials scattered throughout their week as well, and occasionally have a day of 'binge everything', but those should probably be considered outliers. Any player doing two 4-star runs on a daily basis would probably lose their mind doing the exact same content again and again.

 

With numbers like that, I think an appropriate Time-To-Obtain for the aforementioned 2-runs-a-week player would be something like 3-4 months for one tier-3 costume. Roughly, the player would be making ~130 PAPs per month, so an appropriate T3 price would be something like 500 PAPs. 4 months for one reward for one character on your account is still a long time, especially as more T3 powers eventually get added, but that calculation doesn't factor in days where a player might make extra effort into grinding additional PAPs from chaining itrials across characters, or buying additional PAPs on the AH, or even gain them from the 2% mission drop chance.

 

So yeah, my suggestion would be setting the Tier 3 price to 500/600 Salvage, and Tier 2 to 250/300 Salvage. Tier 1 is perfectly fine as-is.

[arthurh35353]

As far as I can tell, these aren't designed for you to 'get them all' they are designed so that you might want to get one or two, because they are so rare in pricing.

 

And yet, supposedly not a 'top level reward' even though the only place to really get them is the super hard modes.

 

I just don't understand. They are so high priced that I have already given up on them before they've even arrived.

[TomatoPhalanges]

45 minutes ago, arthurh35353 said:

As far as I can tell, these aren't designed for you to 'get them all' they are designed so that you might want to get one or two, because they are so rare in pricing.

 

And yet, supposedly not a 'top level reward' even though the only place to really get them is the super hard modes.

 

I just don't understand. They are so high priced that I have already given up on them before they've even arrived.

I mean, Tier 2 and 3 clearly are designed to be a top level reward, whether that's for being rich enough to buy the salvage or skilled enough to do the hard content (or patient enough to save up the Salvage long-long-term for them). Tier 1 though, just run missions and the WST and jump into iTrials when they're run from time to time and you'll get plenty of 'em no problem.

[Coyotedancer]

Just a reminder, too, that those of us who (either by choice or time-zone) tend to run solo or in duo/trio small teams are already pretty much out-of-luck when it comes to getting PAPs via trials and hard-mode task forces. Just think about how long it'll take us to get even one of those higher-tier toys relying on random drops and the whatever weekly we can handle sans team.

 

The number of solos and small-teamers in this game isn't trivial. 

 

(I'm also a for-fun farmer, of course, so eventually I'll be able to buy the salvage to get.... Tavaris, let's say.... a potential future Death Mage outfit. But that's not a universal solution. Neither is marketeering. Not everyone finds those activities entertaining, even in pursuit of something as flashy as Chibidom.) 

[TomatoPhalanges]

2 hours ago, Coyotedancer said:

Just a reminder, too, that those of us who (either by choice or time-zone) tend to run solo or in duo/trio small teams are already pretty much out-of-luck when it comes to getting PAPs via trials and hard-mode task forces. Just think about how long it'll take us to get even one of those higher-tier toys relying on random drops and the whatever weekly we can handle sans team.

 

The number of solos and small-teamers in this game isn't trivial. 

 

(I'm also a for-fun farmer, of course, so eventually I'll be able to buy the salvage to get.... Tavaris, let's say.... a potential future Death Mage outfit. But that's not a universal solution. Neither is marketeering. Not everyone finds those activities entertaining, even in pursuit of something as flashy as Chibidom.) 

 

The natural answer to this for me is a form of content in future that acts as a 'decent' PAP source (maybe equal to iTrials?) that is solo/duo-focused and challenging. Easier said than done in a game balanced like CoX though.

 

That said, I think people will be surprised, though, with how much currency actually shows up from the 2% drop rate on missions. It's a common bit of advice in game dev that 5% is actually a remarkably high number for drop rates. 2% is still pretty high for how often it's going to be checked when doing missions. You can go through a lot of missions in an average day of CoX, and it won't surprise me if someone figures out a mission with a completion time low enough and with decent enough routing via ouro to spam. Would that be the best use of your time? Absolutely not. Would it get you PAPs? Probably.

 

All of that said, I think the Tier 3 rewards especially are designed specifically to be very rare, and this whole system in the first place is made for the purpose of incentivizing people further to do the hard mode TFs. I think it's fine if those particular rewards are unobtainable for people who don't engage with the content it's meant to incentivize. Those people still very much have access to the grand majority of costumes via the Tier 1 category. 10 is a very, very obtainable amount.

[Bionic_Flea]

Our voices have been heard!

 

55 minutes ago, Booper said:

PRESTIGE COSTUME REWARDS:

• Tier 2 Vintage Costumes will be made available/have their price set a few weeks after Page 4 launches to ensure they aren't overpriced relative to the average Aether earn rate.
• Tier 3 Deluxe Costumes will be made available/have their price set a few weeks after Page 4 launches to ensure they aren't overpriced relative to the average Aether earn rate.

[Timeshadow]

Lemme say, I really love this system. All the players won't care to go after these rewards but I find they let you be even more creative with your character concepts, especially since they don't disable your other powers. 

 

That being said, I notice that some enemy groups have far fewer options than others. For example, Arachnos only has one (The BCU) while their closest analogue, Longbow, has at least 3 or 4. I'd love to see more costume powers like the Night Widow or even Arachnoids. For such a diverse group, it seems weird to only have the one. 

 

I understand there are more powers due to be made available after Page 4 launches and you've gotta have more rewards to keep people jonesing for Prismatic Aether but having a few more in for some enemy groups on Day 1 would be nice.