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

[tidge]

1 hour ago, tidge said:

 

To quote Stuttering John to Ringo Starr: "What did you do with the money?"

 

26 minutes ago, battlewraith said:

Used it for new builds, as it says in the part you quoted,

 

And the builds still don't satisfy you?

[battlewraith]

1 hour ago, tidge said:

 

 

And the builds still don't satisfy you?

How many builds do you have?

 

I explained this. I like making characters. I typically play when I get an idea for one. I run content on existing builds I like in order to grind the enhancements. And then I'll run content on the new character until I get an idea for something else or just do something else entirely.

 

You have tons of inf, racks full of salvage and thousands of merits. Why are you not satisfied?

[tidge]

[Powderwisp]

I've been playing on and off for the past year, but recently picked up the game again and got my main character to level 30. I've had a lot of fun trying to scrabble together some cash on the auction house so I can get my set enhancements, it gives me something to work toward. I'd feel my experience had been cheapened and a part of the game's progression would be lost if it were all just given to me for free. I really don't mind being poor (at least not in a videogame), so please, let me struggle.

[skoryy]

4 hours ago, tidge said:

 

 

[battlewraith]

[The Trouble]

Well guys, the meme clearly shows who the badguys are, so battlewraith has apparently won.  🤷‍♂️

 

My condolences to those that defended the notion that loot drops are rewards for playing the game, and for anyone that incorrectly believes that playing the market is fun.

 

Anyway, I'm going to watch the end credits of my gaming backlog on YouTube so I can feel the exact same satisfaction as beating them.

[GM_GooglyMoogly]

Are we there yet?

[skoryy]

2 hours ago, GM_GooglyMoogly said:

Are we there yet?

 

 

 

Edited July 16 by skoryy

[Zombra]

Next: all characters should start at level 50 with all badges already awarded.

[Troo]

54 minutes ago, Zombra said:

Next: all characters should start at level 50 with all badges already awarded.

 

Is that a PvP reference?

 

4 hours ago, GM_GooglyMoogly said:

Are we there yet?

 

It looks like there is still a good point or two offered with each page of the discussion if one is willing to comb through the trolling, sniping, passive aggressiveness, gas lighting, and cat memes.

 

If this topic was closed a page earlier, the Powderwisp perspective (which I found interesting and applicable) would not have been added.

 

[battlewraith]

34 minutes ago, Zombra said:

Next: all characters should start at level 50 with all badges already awarded.

 

You realize that this is already an option right? For the purposes of pvp you can instantly make a lvl 50 and just pick up the accolades that are relevant to pvp.

This is implemented in a way that supports the minigame without inflicting pvp concerns on to non-pvpers. 

 

People have pointed out that that the reward structure for the game is content. And there is a basic incredulity in response to the idea of making something freely available.

But the fact that it's content doesn't make it a good thing, any more than content on the internet is inherently a good thing.

The activities under scrutiny are compulsion loops: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compulsion_loop

Obviously these loops are a feature of most rpgs, to the extent that somebody's going to say (again) just go do something else. 

 

The reason to stay is the game as a platform for creativity, problem solving, community, nostalgia, and so on.

These are the things that set the game apart for me, not killing stuff and getting rewarded for it. I suspect I'm not alone in this. 

So it's not unreasonable to advocate for some way to diminish that aspect while still following your passion, whatever it is.

Is that solution making everything free--most likely no. But you have to plant a flag somewhere to start things off.

Even if you know there will be a stampede to rip it out of the ground.

 

[Zombra]

1 hour ago, Troo said:

Is that a PvP reference?

 

Just sending up the premise of the thread:
It's easy to earn rewards but a lot of people just don't want to. Therefore, let's give everyone infinite rewards and everyone will be happy.

 

PS @battlewraith thanks for your thoughtful and interesting reply.  Gives me some things to think about.  Looks like the thread may be locked soon but I'll sleep on it and maybe we can explore more later.

 

Edited July 16 by Zombra

[Zombra]

OK, I couldn't stop thinking about it and I read some of the arguments upthread.

 

Boiled down, I see two basic arguments:

1) Some people enjoy the game as it is.

2) Some people would like to see the game evolve so they can continue to enjoy it.

 

Yes, that's very simplistic but I think it cuts to the heart of it.

 

Since the apparent purpose of Homecoming is to keep the game alive for those who enjoyed it in the day and who continue to enjoy it now (Am I wrong?), I believe that while both arguments have merit, argument #1 has more merit.  Dismantling (parts of) the existing game to make it more palatable to those who have played it to death, at the expense of those who appreciate it as is, is, I believe, counter to the spirit of the project.

 

Since shutting down the market would take away something that people are enjoying today, that would be more damaging than not giving new bypass options to players who are getting bored.

 

I don't believe the conclusion is true in every aspect of life, but in this case, to err in favor of preservation is better than to err in favor of innovation.

[Intrinsic]

On 7/14/2025 at 11:32 AM, tidge said:

Nobody is laughing at anyone's PLed level 50s because they have neither backstories nor enhancements.

*Starts to raise his hand, then quickly puts it back down*

[Neiska]

Not sure why people treat farming and selling things as if they were mutually exclusive of each other. I farm a lot and often, and often I'll just throw the mats into the AH for storage and press on. Then after a couple hours I'll sit and make whatever I happened to find and sell the rest. I never got the "us vs them" mentality when it comes to ways of getting resources. Some people like to farm merits, convert, and sell them. Others like to farm. Some buy recipes and craft. So on. If it's in the game, there's no "wrong" way to play.

 

Arguments could be made that some things are more efficient than others, but honestly, who cares? I would rather be a bit less efficient and have a fun time playing, then have my arm twisted and have the game feel like a chore in order to be a bit more efficient. People can have fun and make money at the same time ya know. This comparative fictional economic peenie-measuring is honestly really unnecessary. Personally, I go by "live and let live", you do your thing, I'll do mine. And I don't particularly care what you do since it won't affect me in any way. You have piles of money? Great. So do I. Are your pixels somehow more important than mine? I think not. And I have a pretty low opinion of people who want to try and control the actions of other people or get on their soapbox and lecture them.

 

Personally, I find it kind of funny that not only is there AT/Group meta now, but even an "economic meta" now. Seems to be by the same names I see pop up time to time, and I don't think that's confidence either. I suspect it's not about efficiency, or even what's better. I suspect its more about some people seeing others enjoy the CoH sandbox their own way, and for whatever reason, it upsets them. "How dare other people do stuff I don't like or play in a way I don't" and so on. Nobody is asking you to, and nobody asked if you liked it or approved in the first place. Let people enjoy the sandbox how they like. Unless your name has a "CoH Staff" by it, then your opinion is just that - an opinion. Not a rule. And certainly not something others have to abide by or adhere to and thank God for that.

[Ukase]

Ah, I love this topic. So rich in varying degrees of opinions. 

I heard something in league chat a couple of weeks ago. 
And it's paraphrased. Wish I had the quote.  
 

(paraphrased) I find there's more than enough inf just from playing. But, to each their own. 

Now, in the context of the discussion, I took that to mean they have plenty of influence and don't struggle. I didn't pin them down, as it wasn't the right time, and frankly, I didn't have a strong enough relationship with them to push back on their thinking. 


There's a player that I thought was a newer player. They needed help with something fairly simple - determining which of the 6 arcs in Atlas they hadn't done. A trip to ouro and I helped them figure it out. Soon, they complained, or perhaps it was just mentioning that they needed 100M to get the Will of the Controller set of ATOs. 
I was dumbstruck. 100M? I checked the AH. Those pieces were going for 8M. Then they said Superior WotC. I explained as best I could, as English isn't their first language that you simply buy them standard and make them superior. 
Then the next day, I see them on an alt with over 100 vet levels. I've no idea how someone gets to that kind of vet level and not be just rolling in influence. But, I can't see what they're doing, or how many alts they have that lay unenhanced because this player has no concept of how to use the market. 

Currently, I've made a character on Victory. Helped someone do a Frostfire. While I was waiting for the recruiting, I did some crafting, converting, enough to buy my ATOs at level 15. But, I know how. Some of it I knew from retail, some I stole picked up from Yomo's guide, and other posts. By far, I made most of my inf from the winter-O pack sale. 

 

Like some of you, I make my characters earn their way through. I don't often drop a chunk of inf on them, send them to START and plow forward, full steam ahead. (sometimes, I do)

In this case, I'm experiencing more difficulty in amassing the stacks of inf. It's coming, but more slowly. Now, clearly it's competition. There's a ton of it. 
PvP recipes, which I still have lowball bids out for - literally 1000's of lowball bids on, are selling for 4M and more? Someone clearly is competing with some others to get into that niche. 
I see those crafted recipes selling for 5 to 20M, just depending on the keystroke errors of those in a rush, or those who have more inf than patience. (or sense) It's a tough niche if you don't watch your converter cost. Or even if you do. 

And I think that's where the rub is for some of these players. Most don't mind slapping some converters on the AH to grab some quick loot. They don't necessarily mind spending 100 merits for a winter (even though the case can be made you'd make more profit using the 300 converters you'd get with those merits) some folks just want to kill stuff. That's why they're here. To live vicariously through their alt. 

Ultimately, it leaves me with one conclusion: this game just isn't for everyone. And that's okay. HC has made the market so much better than it ever was in retail. The barrier of entry to do things on scale..that barrier isn't nearly as high as it was on retail. But, it's still high. 

Farming - my only beef with farmers is when they PL someone without having any idea or care if that person understands anything about the game. Other than that, farm away. Doesn't bother me in the least. I farm my own alts, usually from 30 to 35. And sometimes from 41 to 45. Just depends on the character. But, I don't bug anyone - except for that player that really wants to team up and can't get a team. That player might dislike farmers for not playing the way they do. And that's not to say they don't want those players to ever farm, but to stop and help them and then go back to farming after their string of missions they wanted to do is over. 

Some things in game, like the universal damage sets...I wish they could be earned other ways instead of just that specific content. And I suppose, indirectly they could be. You'd just have to blow through reward merits at an heinous exchange to get them. 

For now though, I think we leave well enough alone. I've been going out of my way to gift chunks of inf to newer players, trying to gauge how much assistance they want. 

[Starhammer]

Personally, I don't enjoy inventory management. It's a lot better in CoH than many other games, but still feels like a chore when it's time to do... and it has to be done. And playing the AH minigame to convert merits to converters to phat lewt feels like cubicle work.

Obviously too many people are too attached to doing things the way they always did them because that's the way they always did them... but I think we could really justify a few improvements and standardizations.

For instance... S.T.A.R.T. vendor jetpacks. We have one version that's 5000/set, and all the rest are 50000/set, but the only difference is cosmetics. Admittedly, 500k inf usually isn't a big deal for most folks, but it still gets under my skin a bit that we're treating some appearances as "premium skins" on principle 😕

[Andreah]

On 7/15/2025 at 8:59 PM, Zombra said:

Next: all characters should start at level 50 with all badges already awarded.

Are we all getting instant free tier-4 incarnates yet?

[Nello]

I'm a new player and I wouldn't have played the game if everything was free.

I've been enjoying learning about the game and trying things out even when it involves some grinding. (Yes, I found it fun to sell recipes on AH, to spend merits to earn some inf early, to learn about enhancement converters. And I can't wait to run TFs or whatever to earn more merits and inf once I hit 50.)

It's never been my cup of tea to cheat on a video game to make things easy or free. 

 

It's also been really, really fun to learn about different types of enhancements(DOs, SOs, IOs...) and about how to build a character.

If everything was free, I wouldn't have needed to learn anything because I would've just bought attuned enhancements already and stopped caring.

A build wouldn't have mattered neither because I can always replace enhancements for free with no risk. It would kill the point of some system like alt builds and respec, and it would also make it significantly less important to put lots of thought on planning a build using Mids.

 

On 6/11/2025 at 7:12 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. People want to hold on their precious status not realizing that it only matters to themselves while they think other players care.

Your claim literally invalidates the whole point of playing a video game though. Even playing as a hero or a villain you created is just an illusion. You're just clicking buttons to interact with your CPU calculating numbers and your GPU displaying stuff on your screen. You know that, right? I don't understand how you can have fun playing a video game while having a such view.

Edited yesterday at 04:36 PM by Nello

[Zombra]

5 hours ago, Starhammer said:

Playing the AH minigame to convert merits to converters to phat lewt feels like cubicle work.

 

If you feel like you have to do this to be a part of COH, you had bad teachers.  I can't think of any reason to torture yourself like this except highest end PvP against other trillionaires.

[Nello]

My opinion might change once I hit 50, who knows. I don't know how bad the grinding is on this game.

Edited yesterday at 05:15 PM by Nello

[lemming]

5 minutes ago, Nello said:

My opinion might change once I hit 50, who knows. I don't know how bad the grinding is on this game.

I found that my first few 50s were grinds, but now the only thing I consider grinds are stuff that I feel needs to be on each character such as some accolades and even then, just parts of them.

[Zombra]

3 minutes ago, Nello said:

My opinion might change once I hit 50, who knows. I don't know how bad the grinding is on this game.

 

Don't be scared off by all this trillionaire talk.  Since you already know about attuned enhancements, you already know everything you need to about the economy.  If you want to go deeper, read guides, work 40 hours a week flipping converters, and try to get the biggest bank account of all time, go for it ... but there are players out there who still play simply for fun and do just fine - *gasp* even at level 50.

[battlewraith]

4 hours ago, Nello said:

My opinion might change once I hit 50, who knows. I don't know how bad the grinding is on this game.

 

I don't think it's really about once you hit 50. Picture hitting 50 dozens of times, if not hundreds, over a period of 20 years. 

 

Think of the things you're learning now, how fun it is to earn an SO or flip some thing on the market. Then picture having done it hundreds of thousands of times. 

Some people are content to do the same repetitive tasks seemingly forever. Others aren't, that why proposals like this pop up.