Focused Feedback: Costume & Pet Reward Updates

[Coyotedancer]

*a tiny black cat-girl named Snickerdoodles hisses at the Ghost*

 

 

 

Edited October 12, 2022 by Coyotedancer

[Faultline]

18 minutes ago, Dispari said:

I'm definitely not saying 10 is unreasonable or unattainable. But even the next tier up is 10x that work, and the highest tier is 150x that work.

 

There's 145 options priced at 10 prismatics. Honestly, the fact that so many options are priced at the minimum price is why your posts fail to convince me in any way, because they completely ignore the variety available at that price point in order to focus on the more expensive ones. From the dev side, this is the tier that matters, and it's priced to be very accessible.

 

There's 17 costumes that are worth 100 prismatics, and they're all deprecated looks that we want people to think twice about obtaining. We want people to honestly ask themselves whether they want to spend the prismatics on a deprecated look, instead of going for a more lore-appropriate look that is 10 times cheaper.

 

Baby Mode is 250 prismatics for a very specific reason: we want people to think very carefully whether getting this is worth not getting 25 other costumes. If your concept is a baby character, great! But we don't want every character in Paragon running as a baby for the lols. Baby Mode was originally the 1500 prismatic power because we assumed that nobody would really want to make a character with those scales, but after the Page 4 testing determined that, actually, some people do, it was lowered to 250 in order to make it attainable -- but it'll cost you.

 

The other two Effect powers are 250 prismatics for the reason already stated, they add extra particle systems to the game and that's something we need to be careful with.

 

The 1500 meme look has already been addressed.

[Cobalt Arachne]

As Six mentioned, the game suffers from an issue where players can reasonably get to maxed out very quickly. For veterans, new maxed characters can be a done in matter of *hours*, but then these built-out characters have nothing to do and have nothing to work towards.

The higher tier rewards are aimed at giving a long-term goal to the players who hate having nothing to work towards, but have otherwise have completed everything there is to complete in this game.

[Major_Decoy]

I understand the restriction of that specific ghost look because of particle counts, but would it perhaps be possible to have transparency as a aura option so people can make ghosts and other transparent characters without needing to devote a level 4 power to stealth or infiltration?

[Lazarillo]

I look forward to selling any Primastics that drop to people dumb enough to want ugly costume replacements, I guess.

If it spikes prices in ways I can use to fund more alts, all the better, although I wonder if the market will bottom out just as quickly as people realize that the grind isn't even worth beginning?

[Greycat]

5 minutes ago, Faultline said:

But we don't want every character in Paragon running as a baby for the lols.

 

I had a long response typed up about the attitude and just what all is *wrong* with this quote and the seeming mindset behind it.

 

I'm just going to narrow it down to "this was a piss-poor reason for Sexist Jay to have as far as limiting who can use what on live, and a bad one here, too."

[Faultline]

3 minutes ago, Greycat said:

I had a long response typed up about the attitude and just what all is *wrong* with this quote and the seeming mindset behind it.

 

You want to know my mindset? I don't want to deal with players threatening to quit, yell at developers, or wasting GM time with tickets because a player turned into a baby in their mission and they absolutely hate the look. When you're on this side and you're exposed to players constantly finding everything you do objectionable, the attitude comes for free.

 

Some players complain about Baby New Year being ugly every time he shows up. Even as an April Fools joke. They have no problem voicing this, saying they will refuse to log in until it goes away, calling developer names, and filing tickets to complain about it. Honestly, I'm not in love with the Baby scale power being available at all because of this. Making it hard to obtain is mitigation. Making it not available at all is the alternative.

[Cobalt Arachne]

31 minutes ago, Major_Decoy said:

I understand the restriction of that specific ghost look because of particle counts, but would it perhaps be possible to have transparency as a aura option so people can make ghosts and other transparent characters without needing to devote a level 4 power to stealth or infiltration?

In the past for my characters I've managed this by slotting a Celerity: Stealth IO (costs ~mil or less inf on the AH), and then slotting it into one of the prestige sprints set to 'MinFx' in the power customization for toggle transparency on any character.

[El D]

For a purely 'for fun' item meant to be a high-end, earned-by-investing thing, the revised prices don't seem too bad. I understand some of the objections folks have made given that they're cosmetic items, but keep in-mind that these aren't costume sets or character creator defaults, nor are they meant to be a 'get them all on every character you have' thing either. As an example, I've only got two characters that would ever remotely use the Mini mode, and of those two there's only one I'd actually go out of my way to get it for. Which seems to be how the Prismatic Aether holograms are meant to be viewed as. Highly specific long-term rewards that players aren't required to have and that don't impact their viability gameplay-wise (ya know, like Incarnate content), but still neat enough that there's a push to earn them if they're wanted badly enough.

 

No one needs mini mode or the shadow mode on literally every character they have, or the ability to turn into a nekkid Rikti on every character they have. These cosmetics are only relevant to very specific concepts that the costume creator doesn't otherwise cater to, and if that's not a selling point then players are free to ignore it. If a player isn't intending to cosplay as Baby New Year, or play a freaky little goblin, or actually make any use out of Mini-Mode than the costume power might as well not even exist for the majority of their roster - which is the point of it being a high-end optional extra. It's there to be earned for the specific instances of folks who want it but nothing is missed out on by the folks who don't.

Edited October 12, 2022 by El D

[Number Six]

21 minutes ago, El D said:

or the ability to turn into a nekkid Rikti on every character they have.

 

Not to mention the Rikti models use a different sequencer and that causes a number of things to be somewhat glitchy on them.

 

If everybody had access to them we'd get endless questions and support tickets asking why they're broken or in some cases demanding they be fixed.

 

It's unlikely something like that would ever make it out the door in the first place due to quality standards, as fixing them would be an immense undertaking for each weird model.

[Greycat]

40 minutes ago, Faultline said:

 

You want to know my mindset? I don't want to deal with players threatening to quit, yell at developers, or wasting GM time with tickets because a player turned into a baby in their mission and they absolutely hate the look. When you're on this side and you're exposed to players constantly finding everything you do objectionable, the attitude comes for free.

 

 

I've been in tech support for 25 years. Trust me, I know what having people yell at you for shit completely out of your control is like. Their internet is slow, and you have nothing to do with it? Your fault. Their personal computer is acting up, which you have nothing to do with and can't touch anyway? Your fault. it's raining? Your fault. You grow a thick skin and blow it off.

 

As far as someone not liking someone else's look, the response to that is "then don't look at them." Unless it's infringing copyright (already in the COC) nothing else is needed.

 

But no, that's *not* what I mean by "the attitude in this quote," and the second, unquoted line should have shed light on that. The thing that had people missing this game, aside from the community we used to have, was *making unique characters.* Your look was yours. In my entire, alt-heavy run from i3 to shutdown, I ran across a similar costume... *once.* (Ignoring things like SG costumes which were meant to be that way.)

 

Maybe you don't recall so-called "sexy Jay" from the live dev team. Yes, he developed costumes. He also insisted on gatekeeping things - such as, yes, shoulder pets - because *he* didn't like the thought of non-female characters having them, or *he* didn't think X gender should have Y... despite players making specific requests for that very thing for years. Not for technical reasons. Just because *he* didn't like them. Thus my referring to him as "sexist jay."

 

Actual NPC conversions as permanent options? Fine. Makes sense to pay for them. The particle count reason for some of the options? Makes sense. But "I don't like it so you can't have it" (or "my preference = your grind")  is *bothersome* to read from a dev. It's not a direction I want to see gain any sort of traction.  And so yes, I brought it up. Even though I fully expect some sort of retaliation for doing so.

 

Edit: (Number Six's mention of technical reasons for some costumes, or the earlier mention - which I also refer to - of concerns with the particle count, for instance... perfectly fine examples of why to make something hard to get or unavailable.)

Edited October 13, 2022 by Greycat

[Glacier Peak]

I'll pay whatever price is set for a Giant Monster sized Granite armor or better yet, Rularuu the Ravager or any of its aspects...

 

      

ANY PRICE!!!!!

GIVE ME SOMETHING TO WORK TOWARDS!

Edit: I missed Jurrasik's image for some reason

Edited October 13, 2022 by Glacier Peak

[Faultline]

15 minutes ago, Greycat said:

Maybe you don't recall so-called "sexy Jay" from the live dev team. Yes, he developed costumes. He also insisted on gatekeeping things - such as, yes, shoulder pets - because *he* didn't like the thought of non-female characters having them, or *he* didn't think X gender should have Y... despite players making specific requests for that very thing for years. Not for technical reasons. Just because *he* didn't like them. Thus my referring to him as "sexist jay."

 

Actual NPC conversions as permanent options? Fine. Makes sense to pay for them. The particle count reason for some of the options? Makes sense. But "I don't like it so you can't have it" (or "my preference = your grind")  is *bothersome* to read from a dev. It's not a direction I want to see gain any sort of traction.

 

I don't think this is an apples to apples comparison. Anyone can get the baby transformation power. It will cost you, but you can get it. You're comparing it to a costume piece not being available at all. I consider it artificial scarcity; if you want to call it gatekeeping, I can't stop you. But I will point out that it is equally difficult to obtain for everybody, nobody's being singled out to prevent them from getting it, which is the accepted definition of gatekeeping.

[Ger]

As long as PAPs only buy cosmetic features I am completely fine with the pricing. I will probably have a half dozen tier 4 meme costumes the day this goes live regardless.

[Bionic_Flea]

I think 1500 is a bit much for any of these.  Not that I have any interest in the current Tier 4.  But I'm guessing that some day I will want a future T4.  Seventy five four stars is a lot for anyone.  And not every character or player is going to even be able to participate in 4* content.  So then you are going to have to do a bunch of lesser stars and WSFs or spend a lot of influence.

 

How long do the devs think it should take for a player to earn a T4?  Any stats on how many Aethers have been accumulated and by how many players?

[Major_Decoy]

58 minutes ago, Cobalt Arachne said:

In the past for my characters I've managed this by slotting a Celerity: Stealth IO (costs ~mil or less inf on the AH), and then slotting it into one of the prestige sprints set to 'MinFx' in the power customization for toggle transparency on any character.

Cool. I wasn't aware it had a visual effect. That will probably cost less endurance than running Stealth too, but it'd be nice to have a zero endurance option that didn't turn off when unconscious.

[Coyotedancer]

21 minutes ago, Glacier Peak said:

I'll pay whatever price is set for a Giant Monster sized Granite armor or better yet, Rularuu the Ravager or any of its aspects...

 

      

ANY PRICE!!!!!

GIVE ME SOMETHING TO WORK TOWARDS!

Edit: I missed Jurrasik's image for some reason

 

I'd love to have a set of little chibi Rularuu pets. The Image of the Well is close, but just not the same. 

[Greycat]

10 minutes ago, Bionic_Flea said:

How long do the devs think it should take for a player to earn a T4?  Any stats on how many Aethers have been accumulated and by how many players?

 

It'd probably be better to track that after halloween. Or maybe look at the data up to the event.

[Troo]

36 minutes ago, Faultline said:

But I will point out that it is equally difficult to obtain for everybody,

 

If one player has billions and billion from Empyrean to Reward Merit conversions and another player doesn't, is this really true?

 

Edited October 13, 2022 by Troo

[Ruin Mage]

Good thing PAPs can't be bought for reward merits.

[Faultline]

1 minute ago, Troo said:

If one player has billions and billion from Empyrean to Reward Merit conversions and another player doesn't, is this really true?

 

Yes. Both have to pay 250 prismatics.

[Number Six]

24 minutes ago, Bionic_Flea said:

Any stats on how many Aethers have been accumulated and by how many players?

 

I have some old numbers from back in August. As of 21 days after Page 4 dropped and added them to the game, a total of 71,566 aether had been generated. 21,270 had been spent and there was 31,477 spread across a number of characters and on the market. I assume the other 18,819 was in SG base storage or email or otherwise squirreled away somewhere.

 

At that time, 7 characters across 6 different accounts had >1200 aether on them (1200 was going to be the price point for baby mode before it was lowered to 250 and the tier 4s added).

 

I don't have current numbers readily available, but after another 2 months and with the Halloween badges now rewarding up to 10 per character, I can only suppose there's a lot more in circulation.

[Coyotedancer]

Since new pets have come up... Can we someday have a Rubble? You know, those adorable little DE underling critters that you get when you smash a bigger stone dude?

 

FCM says that he's wanted one forever, and my nephews (Who are fans of smashing DE every chance they get-) would just get the giggles over that.  

[Seed22]

3 hours ago, Cobalt Arachne said:

As Six mentioned, the game suffers from an issue where players can reasonably get to maxed out very quickly. For veterans, new maxed characters can be a done in matter of *hours*, but then these built-out characters have nothing to do and have nothing to work towards.

The higher tier rewards are aimed at giving a long-term goal to the players who hate having nothing to work towards, but have otherwise have completed everything there is to complete in this game.

The only problem I have is with the phrasing. It’s not an “issue” for folks to get maxed out characters, this is meant to be a past time and nothing more, so having them get a maxed character in a few hours(takes me personally 5 if I get the time) isn’t terrible.

 

Now, I get the aether stuff. In fact, upon thinking on this further, this could be just what I needed to get back a couple bil.

Edited October 13, 2022 by Seed22

[Ruin Mage]

I find it relatively easier to spam 2-3 stars rather than a 4 star (especially for PUGs) - though throw in an occasional ASF 4-star with successful Vanguard Fight thrown in? You'll be making lots of Aether. It's not a fast path, but this is a chase sort of deal if you REALLY want T2 to T4.