A controversial topic: is it time to make all items free?

[MoonSheep]

i would go the opposite route - various parts of the market are to no longer be seeded, or seeded less heavily so that natural prices exist

 

with converters, seeded salvage and “any IO is all levels” the market has become a bit artificial

[Riverdusk]

I wouldn't mind seeing DO's and SO's being made significantly cheaper (which would also help the 'upgrade' button cost), otherwise no.  Those are more the 'beginners' enhancements and I don't mind making things a bit easier for the 'newbies'.

[Skyhawke]

I have too many alts and get distracted way too easily to ever be rich in this game. I'm more of a middle class level. I'm not broke at any time, but there are times I have to watch spending until I can build up a nest egg again. I don't play the market (other than just selling orange and the rare purple drops, prismatics and turning merits into enhancers) but I do okay. If everything was free, yeah it'd seem cool...at first. It'd get boring fast. I do enjoy finally being able to finish off a build fully. It's a sense of accomplishment. Sometimes, I think the 1%ers forget that even though they just snap their fingers and are fully kitted, the majority of players are not in that space. Put me down for keeping the status quo. 

[jkwak]

On 6/11/2025 at 12:12 AM, Krimson said:

The feeling of achievement is only a feeling, an illusion. Nothing is being achieved. People are running around like mice in a maze, in an endless cycle.

That is what games are in the end though ... if you want to do something meaningfull then ... dont play games and touch grass

[Wavicle]

I'm sorry, I do not agree that it's a serious question.

[skoryy]

Y'all want stuff for free, there's always Brainstorm.

[Azari]

On 6/13/2025 at 5:59 AM, MoonSheep said:

i would go the opposite route - various parts of the market are to no longer be seeded, or seeded less heavily so that natural prices exist

 

with converters, seeded salvage and “any IO is all levels” the market has become a bit artificial

I much prefer the AH how it is now versus on Live.  The prices were so high on Live that it kinda sucked.  Ain’t nobody got time for that.  
 

 

Making all items free would kinda ruin COH though. No sense of reward or effort.  I think the AH is perfect in HC.  Still rewarding but not overwhelmingly expensive and frustrating like it was on Live. 

Edited June 16 by Azari

[tidge]

On 6/7/2025 at 11:04 PM, Yomo Kimyata said:

What do you see as plusses and minuses if the devs, for example, made items available as they currently do on Beta?

 

(+) The AH offers me something to do with my 'loot' drops,

(-) which would go unwanted if everything was 'free'

 

I like the progression upwards... even if I can get stuff for one character by having another 'pay' for it, it still feels like I'm engaging with the world of the game.

 

The biggest 'plus' for me would be we could eliminate all forms of storage (AH, Vault, SG base) to simplify the database. I suppose we'd have to keep personal enhancement storage.

 

[Azari]

I’d be pretty pissed if everything became free actually because I worked super hard & saved billions to get undefined mode for my main.  If everyone had it it wouldn’t be special anymore.   I like the “generic yet unique” look of this character… technically anyone could replicate it but nobody does.    I’m the only person I know of on Everlasting who actually uses this prismatic costume full-time.  Its rarity makes it really novel.  Without all that it would just be a green blob.

 

apply that logic elsewhere in the game and you’ll see why making things free is a bad idea.  It would devalue everything & ultimately the game itself.  I am in favor of an optional “creative mode” server though perhaps. 

Edited June 17 by Azari

[Faultline]

/jranger

[PeregrineFalcon]

1 hour ago, Faultline said:

/jranger

HEY!!!   😠

[twozerofoxtrot]

Regardless of whatever changes are made or not to the economy, there will always be some form of scarcity. 

 

And however that scarcity manifests, it will become the discrimanator between those who "have" or are "winning" and those who don't. 

[Intrinsic]

On 6/7/2025 at 6:04 PM, Yomo Kimyata said:

And those of us who know how and enjoy it, well, there's really no point any more once you can buy everything you want instantly for hundreds of characters.

 

Emphasis mine.

 

You continued to participate in the market, after you had already earned enough inf to equip your character(s), because you enjoyed it.

 

Why would you want to remove that source of enjoyment?

[laudwic]

On 6/11/2025 at 7:12 PM, Yomo Kimyata said:

the problem I see with the “get all the free stuff you want on beta” is that no one is playing consistently on beta.  You’re not having fabulously effed up pugs.  Unless maybe you’re Snarky

 

Doesn't that answer the question though?  There is a way to have everything for free, make any character you want, be any level you want, accolades, enhancement sets, just spend some time setting up your character, yet few people are on there.  There is value to the relatively minor struggle we have in this game to earn things.  Lets face it, 2x xp boosters, patrol xp, free patrol xp from exploration badges, no real failure penalty, there really aren't any true hard challenges here.  But there are enough to make you do some effort to get rewards.  I like that I can play, get my minor rewards for my minor challenges and by not instantly leveling I learn how best to use my character's abilities.  I have a decent amount of inf, but with all the new characters I'm making, I don't have the inf to immediately outfit them as well as I would like.  (Admittedly, I have characters with over 100s, one with over a thousand, merits sitting on them, I could turn those into cash is I was more interested in that minigame)  That makes the game more interesting and fun for me.

 

I generally solo, if I wanted everything handed to be, I'd play on Beta.

[battlewraith]

5 hours ago, Intrinsic said:

 

Why would you want to remove that source of enjoyment?

 

Because that source of enjoyment for some players is predicated on an imposed hassle for all players.

Similarly when people say “if everything were free, the game would lose meaning”, they are arguing that the gameplay itself is not sufficient. The repetitive tasks they routinely do only matter for the reward. Ergo, everyone should have to grind those repetitive tasks in order to prop up this value system. 

 

Imagine you had a chess league where, in order to play, people had to periodically carve their own pieces. The more diehard players would flex on casuals with their more artfully carved pieces. They would have themed sets they collected. There would be a market where you could acquire pieces, resources to make pieces, etc. But at the end of the day, the actual game is still chess. It’s not made any better for these side activities and in some ways the league makes it harder to play. 

 

Under this scenario, you might have someone show up and suggest that the league do away with all this fixation on pieces—everyone plays with a standard set. The response would be the same. “If I wanted my pawns just handed to me, I’d go play in that other league.” The success and failure of MMOs is that they prop up gameplay with various grindy timesinks to keep people playing. This entails a conflict between people who would like a more dynamic game, with less associated time sinks, and people for whom the game is essentially a platform on which to accumulate stuff. 

[Intrinsic]

6 hours ago, battlewraith said:

Because that source of enjoyment for some players is predicated on an imposed hassle for all players.

 

But there should be some friction at least, if not outright challenge, in gearing up a character.  Especially for newer or less frequent players.  Pretty sure I've said this before, it can be fun to climb the power curve in an MMO.  I don't think we should take that away from everyone.

 

7 hours ago, battlewraith said:

Similarly when people say “if everything were free, the game would lose meaning”, they are arguing that the gameplay itself is not sufficient. The repetitive tasks they routinely do only matter for the reward. Ergo, everyone should have to grind those repetitive tasks in order to prop up this value system. 

 

I agree that players shouldn't be doing activities they hate just for the reward.  However, loot is typically part of the gameplay loop in an MMO. 

 

One could definitely argue that the loot system in CoH has fundamental problems.  Let's try to improve it, not get rid of it.

[SuperJames]

On 6/20/2025 at 4:04 PM, battlewraith said:

Imagine you had a chess league where, in order to play, people had to periodically carve their own pieces. The more diehard players would flex on casuals with their more artfully carved pieces. They would have themed sets they collected. There would be a market where you could acquire pieces, resources to make pieces, etc. But at the end of the day, the actual game is still chess. It’s not made any better for these side activities and in some ways the league makes it harder to play.

You have just described wargaming with miniatures. Lots of people really enjoy collecting, painting and remodelling their miniatures. For some, the actual game is irrelevant.

 

Your analogy falls down because CoH gives us the resources we need while playing. We don't have to do anything other than play. I've accumulated a billion influence over time without doing anything on the market beyond selling inspirations, enhancements I crafted myself, and the odd recipe.

 

The analogy would be better if you could buy a squad of space marines and then get another model every time you played a game. OK, you have to play the game to get more models. Or just buy some from a veteran player who has more than they need.

 

Some people will play diligently every weekend for years to amass vast armies. Then someone else will say the models should be free, because hey, these are only pieces of plastic.

[SuperJames]

I've just logged in to check and the top price for a level 10 Science Origin Accuracy enhancement at Wentworths is 1,250 influence. Damage is 1,000. Recharge is 1,500. If people are concerned about new players struggling, usher them towards the market instead of a vendor.

[battlewraith]

20 hours ago, SuperJames said:

Your analogy falls down because CoH gives us the resources we need while playing. We don't have to do anything other than play.

 

It's not a perfect analogy but I think you're missing the point. If I make a new character and need enhancements, I like most everyone else do a lot of things other than playing that character. I somehow grind the resources--farming, playing the market, doing repetitive task forces, etc. If the enhancements were freely available, my focus would be on the actual goal--playing the character--and enhancing as I go. 

 

20 hours ago, SuperJames said:

Some people will play diligently every weekend for years to amass vast armies. Then someone else will say the models should be free, because hey, these are only pieces of plastic.

 

They are just pieces of plastic, given more perceived worth through the imposition of artificial scarcity. 

The person playing diligently every weekend should've gotten some entertainment value for their time. The issue is that this expectation is replaced with a grind mentality where the value of playing is measured by what you acquired, not what you experienced. And then the people invested in this virtual rat race want everyone else to have to commit to the same grind in order to preserve the sense of worth they associate with the time they spent grinding. 

 

 

[legendaryjman]

When I initially read this I thought "yeah, make all of it free, let me just go tot a menu and pick out all the IOs I want."

 

But then the more I thought about it, the more I realized, if I did that, what then? Why play the game? I think CoH is the greatest MMO on the planet, but its not like running through the same generic warehouses is that great. The boss fights are not that interesting. I don't do a ITF because its "fun" to fight Romulus. Its actually quite frustrating, I do it because its fun to hang out with my friends in CoH and when I win I get a reward. If there was no reward at the end, and the only reason to play was for the gameplay, that is not much of a reward.

 

There needs to be a reason to play the game. Sure its the greatest character creator ever game, but these graphics ain't that great and they sure aren't as good as my nostalgia tells me they were.

 

That being said, I do like the idea that SOs are free. On Live there was the excitement of going from generic enhancements to DOs and then when I first got to 25 and was able to slot SOs you better believe my world changed. But that was Live and Inventions are now a thing. SOs are not the end goal anymore. I think it would be cool to just axe generic enhancements and DOs all together and make SOs free. Everyone SO themselves out. I almost want to say let generic IOs be free as well, but at that point you might as well get ride of SOs and just have IOs be the only enhancement.

 

In typing this all out I realized there can be a pretty good argument made for just getting ride of generic, DOs and SOs all together. Just take them and the stores out of the game. Increase salvage drops and make generic IOs free at crafting stations. It streamlines there being only one upgrade system. I'm not sure if that would make the game better but its an idea.

Edited Monday at 09:52 AM by legendaryjman

[legendaryjman]

Something I would like to see in the same vein of "get ride of this because its not necessary any more" is make the whole game level less. Make every mob use the giant monster code where you fight it at your level and remove all of the level gating. 

 

After playing ESO I realized I don't like outleveling zones. I don't want to miss content. Sure I got ouroborus, and its nice, but you lose the enjoyment of running around the zone while doing the story arcs. I know I can turn of xp so I don't miss anything, but then I gotta make sure I am on the wiki checking what is the level range of the contact so I don't out level them. Its doable, but I want to just not outlevel anything. No more running through zones, everything is a threat all the time. You can go back and do Atlas Park contacts at level 50.

 

I still want the xp and leveling up to earn powers, but when it comes to story arcs and enemies just make it all your level.

 

Now, will that actually work in CoH? I donno. We have 100 character slots for a reason. We are supposed to make a bunch of characters to play all the content differently. I am not supposed to just do the Pretorian story arcs through ouroboros. i am supposed to make 4 Pretorian characters to run through it all. So would making the game level less ruin the core aspect of the game which is making alts?

[Blackwell]

I don’t play often but managing my economy is an important part of my experience. “I can afford this, I have earned this. I can’t afford that, I’ll need to work for it”. Both of those parts are integral to my game. I’m also not super rich, I’ve just followed some guides here and gotten some money. I’ve also been given some money. In my experience, it’s not hard to get some money for stuff, if you care to ask for help or read a little bit about it. So it doesn’t need to be made that much easier. I also really believe that making a great build with great enhancements is more rewarding when it’s your own money rather than if everything is free and available to everyone.
 

What could very well be made easier and more accessible, in my experience, is leveling enhancements, new player enhancements. Free, good and simple enhancements. I struggle enough in solo missions on my blasters and controllers. I also don’t want to do the big work every time of figuring out what particular enhancements to get in the low levels. Free, simple, powerful single origin enhancements. Remove a lot of the dual origin and trainer stuff that just clutters my inventory and makes me go “but is this for me or no? Is this better than what I can buy or no? Where do I buy the better stuff?” I dunno it’s probably me not knowing enough too. But free, simple, powerful enhancements for the low levels, I don’t mind replacing every five levels, would be great.

[SuperJames]

On 6/22/2025 at 4:16 PM, battlewraith said:

I like most everyone else do a lot of things other than playing that character.

Can you clarify what you mean by playing the character? You've ruled out task forces, so I'm curious about what it is you want to do that you can't do because you're grinding influence instead. What do you enjoy?

 

On 6/22/2025 at 4:16 PM, battlewraith said:

this expectation is replaced with a grind mentality

You're creating an artificial either/or situation. Players can do both. I enjoy playing my character and I enjoy checking my progress against various goals at the end of the session. Take away that sense of progression and you take away part of my fun.

[SuperJames]

On 6/23/2025 at 11:01 AM, legendaryjman said:

make the whole game level less

I don't know. I hate outlevelling contacts too, but there are workarounds. On the other hand, gaining a level in the middle of a tough mission can be a real boon at low levels.

[Demobot]

I don't have much time with City of Heroes these days, but when I do play I tend to spend most of my time interacting with the market. In 15 minutes I can craft, convert and sell a bunch of stuff and scratch that progression itch. That way, when I do have those golden opportunities to play for a few hours at a time, influence isn't something I have to worry about.

 

I've been a marketeer since pretty much the day Issue 9 dropped. It's probably my single favorite addition to the game. It's collaborative and competitive in really interesting and enjoyable ways. I want to keep it that way.