Prismatic Aether and locked costume items

[lemming]

17 minutes ago, Snarky said:

i play toons for longer iguess.  been on HC for years and have maybe 30 fully kitted out.  some with 2 builds and i think one with 3.  i make a concept and if the look, the powers, the animations and everything sync up i spent a long time on it.  same in any game.  if i find what i like i grind.  i may spend days or weeks testing various things to find the right combo of look powers and feel.  

About 25 of mine are now fully kitted out with another 25 getting close.   I tend to switch between a bunch of characters depending on my mood.  Since I don't play very much on Excelsior anymore, two dozen moved over to Everlasting and another dozen alts got made there.  Some concepts are fun to play past 50, some are interesting to me only until they hit 50.

I only have two characters with multiple builds and one is my badger with a ski slope build...

[Luminara]

56 minutes ago, Snarky said:

In WoW I do not spend 3 months to unlock a look.

 

Same.

 

Because after I did spend months grinding my female warlock to a high enough level to use the one chest piece that wasn't a dress, Blizzard changed it into a fucking dress.  Need to grind for a specific look = gone.

[Snarky]

1 minute ago, Luminara said:

 

Same.

 

Because after I did spend months grinding my female warlock to a high enough level to use the one chest piece that wasn't a dress, Blizzard changed it into a fucking dress.  Need to grind for a specific look = gone.

Yeah, I have 1-3 standard looks that I use for every paladin.  The +2 is really just variation for odd shaped races.  Then another 2 looks for my Death Knights.  I may try running a Warrior soon.  That will of course be a lot of tryouts for what race I like best for them and whether I even like the power sets.  Never have before.  Or I may be back in CoH a lot.  I can never tell.  Starting a new job in two weeks.  Sigh.  The break has been so good for body and soul.

[Ironblade]

8 hours ago, Snarky said:

Prismatic Aethers are one of the reasons I am playing a lot more WoW now.  To know there are character concepts I want to do (small soldier, as from the movie, gremlin, etc) and have each one locked behind 3 months grinding?  Fuhgeddaboudit

Meanwhile, I'm trying to figure out what to spend them on.  Ironblade has the mini thing and maybe a dozen costumes plus the badges.  And he's approaching 400 Aether (I collect them from other characters to have them all in one place).

[Snarky]

11 minutes ago, Ironblade said:

Meanwhile, I'm trying to figure out what to spend them on.  Ironblade has the mini thing and maybe a dozen costumes plus the badges.  And he's approaching 400 Aether (I collect them from other characters to have them all in one place).

My issue is it takes me forever to land on a concept I like.  So I could go through 6-20 toons finding THE character.  Who then will be in my head for life.  In one incarnation or another.  But the "testing" if it looks good in min mode for each one?  Yeah.  No. I will not pay that price.  Not today.  Not tomorrow.  Never.

[srmalloy]

9 hours ago, Indystruck said:

what's wrong with your PC that it takes 3 months to open the AH

Did you ever play Portal 2? The part where you're running around with GlaDOS running off a potato? When you don't pay attention to the minimum system requirements, you can't complain when you get substandard performance.

[arcane]

If mini mode is requiring 3 months of grinding for you, that’s a you problem. 

[Snarky]

40 minutes ago, arcane said:

If mini mode is requiring 3 months of grinding for you, that’s a you problem. 

I can only base it on the very few Prismatics I have earned since they were dropped.  I do not run Aeon much.  I tend to either solo arcs or run endless TFs, with a break for a lot of Incarnate TF when the mood strikes.  So, I run hard, but in content not delivering PAs.  For me doing endless Dr Aeons or taking 30 toons through ToT is a good sign it is time to leave.

[Ironblade]

16 hours ago, Snarky said:

My issue is it takes me forever to land on a concept I like.  So I could go through 6-20 toons finding THE character.  Who then will be in my head for life.  In one incarnation or another.  But the "testing" if it looks good in min mode for each one?  Yeah.  No. I will not pay that price.  Not today.  Not tomorrow.  Never.

Couldn't you copy to the test server and test it over there for free?

[arcane]

1 hour ago, Snarky said:

I can only base it on the very few Prismatics I have earned since they were dropped.  I do not run Aeon much.  I tend to either solo arcs or run endless TFs, with a break for a lot of Incarnate TF when the mood strikes.  So, I run hard, but in content not delivering PAs.  For me doing endless Dr Aeons or taking 30 toons through ToT is a good sign it is time to leave.

You don’t have to run Aeon. You just have to open the auction house and spend a little cash. Shouldn’t take that long to earn the cash unless you’re buying Undefined Mode.

[Snarky]

36 minutes ago, Ironblade said:

Couldn't you copy to the test server and test it over there for free?

i have never run on test server.  but maybe i will.  which prob means never being on live much again...

[Snarky]

37 minutes ago, Ironblade said:

Couldn't you copy to the test server and test it over there for free?

i have an aversion to buying my way through things unless the price is relatively cheap.  and PAs are not.

[Sanguinesun]

1 hour ago, Snarky said:

i have never run on test server.  but maybe i will.  which prob means never being on live much again...

 Well not being on live seems on point... given some of the undead thematics 😛

[Glacier Peak]

20 hours ago, Snarky said:

My issue is it takes me forever to land on a concept I like.  So I could go through 6-20 toons finding THE character.  Who then will be in my head for life.  In one incarnation or another.  But the "testing" if it looks good in min mode for each one?  Yeah.  No. I will not pay that price.  Not today.  Not tomorrow.  Never.

Free PaPs on Beta, try it out. 

 

Edit: Oh someone else already said that. Well I've been in your shoes Snarky and it was bad - I would build some concepts in my head, draft a mids build, then farm that thing up to T4 Alpha and slot all enhancements, talking +5 Boosters and Purples all day - only to find out that an Elec/Regen Sentinel wasn't what I thought it could be. Could've saved myself about a week and a billion influence if I had tried it on Beta first!

Edited July 24, 2023 by Glacier Peak

[WumpusRat]

I always test stuff on the beta server. It's so convenient to be able to see what my character will be life at various stages. 22, 35, 50, SOs, IOs, etc.

And since you can get all the stuff like merits, prismatics, etc, for free, you can just test whatever you want. I went through looking at various characters in the various modified prismatic outfits. Neat, but not really for me. So I just sell mine when I find them. 

[srmalloy]

5 hours ago, Snarky said:

I have never run on test server.  but maybe i will.  which prob means never being on live much again...

I built a character on the test server explicitly for grabbing a few thousand PAPs, then buying every prestige costume available, just so I could see what they looked like when they're not in a screen shot illuminated only by a fifteen-watt bulb half a zone away.

[honoroit]

nice ones (i think):

 

10x prisms:

 

clockwork prince

 

several devouring earth ones

 

the rikti gunman (who has a gun arm, looks like youre shooting it on some powersets without a weapon, but unfortunately clips badly on dual pistols, assault rifle, and worst beam weapon - in all cases. we need an 'invisible weapon/bare/hands' option. note: 10x prism rikti gunman looks better than the 100x one.

 

100x prisms:

cot legacy guide

cot legacy thorncaster

 

250x prisms:

shadow aura

elec aura

fire aura

visit icon costume change to set the effect, there are several for each.

 

 

[Coyotedancer]

On 7/23/2023 at 12:07 PM, Luminara said:

 

Same.

 

Because after I did spend months grinding my female warlock to a high enough level to use the one chest piece that wasn't a dress, Blizzard changed it into a fucking dress.  Need to grind for a specific look = gone.

 

This gave me bad, bad Aion flash-backs... I played a Templar. I wanted her to have armor that actually LOOKED like armor, rather than a fluffy mini-dress and corset. The grinding it took to find the pieces to reskin to build something even remotely like that? Un-Freakin'-believable. I eventually did it, but... yarg. It was one of many, many things I hated about the game. 

[tidge]

If a player has a single character with mini-mode purchased, they can visit the facemaker/bodyshaper to test a new costume and/or body type on that character using one of the many free costume slots.

[Ruin Mage]

Oh this thread is still going.

[ivanhedgehog]

On 7/23/2023 at 1:01 PM, Indystruck said:

what's wrong with your PC that it takes 3 months to open the AH

We get it, the prismatics were set up to make bank for the HM runners. People that ran The Aeon HM tf  on the first few days made 3 billion in a run. massive inf transfer there. for rp costume items. Since then the game has been driven in the direction of increasing difficulty for all players. The development direction has a definite tilt.

[Snarky]

20 minutes ago, ivanhedgehog said:

We get it, the prismatics were set up to make bank for the HM runners. People that ran The Aeon HM tf  on the first few days made 3 billion in a run. massive inf transfer there. for rp costume items. Since then the game has been driven in the direction of increasing difficulty for all players. The development direction has a definite tilt.

Yeah, I know a few of the very smart people who saw the whole thing in advance.  Obvious pattern.  They sold for MEGA and later on stuff was much cheaper.  But still the PAs (in the quantity to make good RP costumes) is stupid expensive.

 

I did not run the Aeon with them when it came out.  It looked like a few weeks of hell.  Maybe it burned them out.  Most of them (99% of Cosmic Council) have not been for over 6 months.  They left a month or so after that content drop.  One of them popped back on a couple months back and dropped some cash on me, and the handful of Cosmic players who showed for a very rare event. (the type that used to be nightly...) That person has a stupid large amount.  And now never plays.  

 

Anytime game economy affects my play I tend to sour on something.  Just who I am.  If I want to play in a rigged game where the winners and losers were set up long before I arrived I can just step outside into the real world.  When Game Designers make it easy for a few to consolidate the wealth (and therefore control the market) then part of the fun dies.  But, much like them never fixing Super Strength Rage Crash because a minority of hyper vocal people cry it will "ruin the game" (by not letting them double stack Rage) another minority group would scream it would "ruin the game" if they were not allowed to control the game economy and have 90% of the funds.  Shame to spoil their fun.

[honoroit]

the prism drop rste could use a big bump.  it takes a LONG time not to buy these of you prefer the coh cycle of 1-50 on repeat, across many alts, styles and things... as opposed to running (less than) a handful of activitrs for reasonable accrual at current rates.

 

and indeed, theyre for rp, fun and that. theres no power break.

 

ive bought 10x copies of the legacy cot guide robes now...  theyre about 430-450M each.

 

its silly, kupo.  and out of reach for folks whore just normal players.theres no need to lock up the candy.

 

psst - especially higher drop rate for prisms redside... was lonely in cap today.

[Sanguinesun]

1 hour ago, ivanhedgehog said:

We get it, the prismatics were set up to make bank for the HM runners. People that ran The Aeon HM tf  on the first few days made 3 billion in a run. massive inf transfer there. for rp costume items. Since then the game has been driven in the direction of increasing difficulty for all players. The development direction has a definite tilt.

 

The resources and development of the HM's is all fine.  It is a very small niche of players that were pushing for them, and pushed to play them, and as Snarky said, have moved on.   The only nice thing about HM's being there now is that the next time people start saying they want more challenging content, everyone can point to the HM's and say, "and yet a very large, significant portion of the player base do no play that content and thus going in that development direction has much less merit".

 

Aethers were 30mil+ when HM's released, then people made new alts during last years halloween earned 10 per toon, then parked it and made their next one. Some had hundreds of aethers by the end of the event's run dropping values down to around the 8mil mark then.  Now they're 4mil give or take and perhaps half that come end of next halloween.

 

If we also factor the numbers of people actually wanting the costumes from the Aethers, I'm going to make a conjecture that that still is a fractional minority of the player base.   

1 hour ago, Snarky said:

Yeah, I know a few of the very smart people who saw the whole thing in advance.  Obvious pattern.  They sold for MEGA and later on stuff was much cheaper.  But still the PAs (in the quantity to make good RP costumes) is stupid expensive.

 

I did not run the Aeon with them when it came out.  It looked like a few weeks of hell.  Maybe it burned them out.  Most of them (99% of Cosmic Council) have not been for over 6 months.  They left a month or so after that content drop.  One of them popped back on a couple months back and dropped some cash on me, and the handful of Cosmic players who showed for a very rare event. (the type that used to be nightly...) That person has a stupid large amount.  And now never plays.  

 

Anytime game economy affects my play I tend to sour on something.  Just who I am.  If I want to play in a rigged game where the winners and losers were set up long before I arrived I can just step outside into the real world.  When Game Designers make it easy for a few to consolidate the wealth (and therefore control the market) then part of the fun dies.  But, much like them never fixing Super Strength Rage Crash because a minority of hyper vocal people cry it will "ruin the game" (by not letting them double stack Rage) another minority group would scream it would "ruin the game" if they were not allowed to control the game economy and have 90% of the funds.  Shame to spoil their fun.

 

Reminds me of the same sort of pattern for wow raiding where the chasers of the tip top stuff do it, then move on.  It really is a development feature creep, primarily for subscription retention for the masses(as other groups will spend months and months and months trying to do what the top teams do in a month).  Luckily CoH doesnt have to be locked into following that silly pattern anymore....

 

 

[Zhym]

2 hours ago, Snarky said:

Most of them (99% of Cosmic Council) have not been for over 6 months.  They left a month or so after that content drop.  One of them popped back on a couple months back and dropped some cash on me, and the handful of Cosmic players who showed for a very rare event. (the type that used to be nightly...) That person has a stupid large amount.  And now never plays

I’d noticed that there seem to be a lot fewer incarnate trials going on these days.  Oh, sure, you can still find a BAF most nights, but MoM?  Keyes?  Underground?  Good luck with that.  Even @Oklahoman’s Lambda and Magisterium badge runs don’t seem to be happening as regularly (or else I’m just logging in at the wrong times).

 

Also, if people think it’s weird that this thread was resurrected ten months after it was posted, just imagine how I feel, having started the thread.  “Wait, that’s my post?  What the heck are people still doing discussing it?”