In the past, you could get about 7 SCR per day, right? UNITY and Special Alert. If you actually figured out how to unlock it, and you didn't mind the catacombs, you could also do UNITY2 for another 5 SCR. So, about 12 a day.
You never actually ran UNITY 1 or 2 did you? It was 18 from UNITY 1 (2+2+2+2+5+5), and 18 from UNITY 2 (2+2+2+2+10).
Now, a level 40 toon can earn 5 SCR from Special and Daily Alerts, plus UNITY, plus another 5 per adventure pack or comic series. An ambitious player could get 20 SCR, by doing one of each thing, though you could do all the packs and get 40 SCR in one day.
This is where I'm getting lost. Look - I don't like the high prices either - but earning 30 SCR a day is quite doable without exhaustion.
- Do Both Dailies (10 scr)
- Run the Steel Crusade Missions from Dr. Silverback in MC (6 Scr)
- Do fast rampage like Gravitar (3 SCR a pop).
This is no more extra effort than running UNITY 1 & 2 --- and you don't have to zone hop. It took me longer actually to do both of those, than this is taking and I'm getting more SCR for it.
Quite frankly the AP's and TA are an ineffcient wait to earn SCR. Why torture yourself that way.
I can have 30 SCR in just over 2 hrs this way. Those three Steel Crusade missions can be easily done in 45-minutes (and probably even faster, but I'm slow). The dailies go fast if there's enough people on to keep em popping. Same with Gravitar.
And we haven't even had the Sky Command rampage, that's going to have extra SCR drops yet.
And also MERC gear is freaking cheap and not that far below Heroics. I outfitted my healer in it and he's doing just fine. In fact, I think Striker healed and rezzed you today in Gravitar . I don't feel "undergeared in Merc" it's damn close to Heroics.
I get that the prices going up is annoying - believe me I do. But everyone is acting like getting decent starter lvl 40 gear is this impossible task that's going to take two months... and that's just not true.
I've been running two new lvl 40's one has 68 SCR now and the other has 50. If I was just on one hero, I'd already be buying my first heroic piece & working on the second.
If an old slow over 40 guy like me, on a substandard computer can do it.. so can everyone else.
As far as pricing, it's actually not the Heorics that upset me, that's reasonbly obtainable. It's the new gear that requires ungodly amounts of currency. I didn't go for Justice gear and I probably won't go for those either. And the travel power prices are ridiculous. Costumes could come down in price too.
@riverocean Let me say it again. Heroics were easily accessible, so i see no reason to try and find a replacement for them just because devs had an insane idea. I will not start farming G or Q for something that's inferior to what was easily accessible. I'm used to heroics. It's been a long time since i was using them. I heard of cases in video games where older gear was EASIER to get than before as new gear rolled out, not HARDER. New sources of SCR rewards come nowhere close enough to filling the 5x price gap. As for running Rampages, i refuse to run them ungeared no matter what anyone else says. I will not feel like a liability to the team because of the whimsical devs. That 50 SCR you gained, good for you! However on the topic of dailies, it's actually 5 SCR per day. You can't run Special Smash Dailies like Harmon Labs every day, it's a one time thing until the rotation kicks in. Even then, 50 SCR is just one third of a gear piece, consisting of a three gear set. Meanwhile in the past, this commonly considered as "starter" gear set took only 6 days to get, 2 days if you worked across 3 toons. That was ideal and hurt no one. If people argue that it was too fast, then look at how much time it takes to 40 a toon. 3-4 days. Are you going to nerf that too? Because as is, the lack of grind concerning levelling and gearing was one of the game's greatest points, one that i valued the most.
And no, Heroics are not reasonably obtainable, not anymore.
And just in case this is still too complicated, let me offer a metaphor as my last argument on the matter.
Imagine a Restaurant. Your favorite eatery which you were visiting for one menu item only - Animal Crackers. Animal Crackers which also were the only human food that your extraterrestrial organs could ingest. You were having fun, you even came to the same eatery wearing disguises because you felt like it - the owners thought it was kind of creepy, but they served you your deluxe Animal Crackers - your sustenance, nonetheless. You had to wait 6 minutes for the meal to arrive, 2 if you were lucky and had enough disguises. You loved the eatery.
[REMOVED]now you are forced to wait ungodly amounts of time to get your only sustenance, your Animal Crackers. If you have any sense of customer rights, you will question this instead of accepting this as "the right thing". You will yell at chef, but he will refuse to give you your food at the usual pace. Instead, he offers you to wait a little bit less long - but still long, for food that's much worse than Animal Crackers. Not only worse, it's lethal to your extraterrestrial gut.
So what does a smart alien do in that situation? He leaves the restaurant until the Chef gets his act together, and goes to the local McDonalds instead. And if the Chef won't ever refuse to be a lazy bum, you stay in that McDonalds and you eat your fries.
I'm the Alien, and i'm going to get a McDouble. Cheers ~Sankt
I think a better analogy would be if your favorite restaurant expanded their menu, improved their dining area, offered more methods of payment, but then increased their wait times and prices across the board. I like a lot of the changes they made but the new prices are going to put them out of business.
You know what's cool? Account-bound currencies for people that have spent over six years playing dozens of characters, making the grind less awful. Know what's not cool? Character-bound currencies that take weeks to earn when they used to take hours, regardless of whether you've been playing for six years or six weeks.
Champions is still my favorite MMO, and I really doubt that any other MMO will ever take its place, but damn, feeling discouraged from doing my favorite thing - making and leveling alts - is a sad, sad thing.
Yeah, I hear you and agree with this 100%. I made the same suggestion in the PTS threads. More grind combined with character-bound currencies is just not a good design. For years, and still, playing different toons is the end-game and what gives this game its replayability. MSH gets this: its a much more grindy game than CO even now, IMHO, but at least the currencies are account bound.
I very much agree that these changes were clumsy (like so many others in the past). Cryptic is really not very good at the marketing/PR stuff. They just don't seem to understand that taking something away from players that they previously had is perceived extremely poorly and makes customers bitter. I feel like these changes are probably trying to target a new segment of players, but you've still got to make an effort to "dance with the girl that brung ya", your loyal existing players.
Just to toss in some practical advice. I made a similar realization in CO quite a while ago that: a.) I really liked to fully gear all my alts in order for them to feel complete, b.) I wasn't practically going to be able to do that for an endless number of alts. So I set a hard limit for myself on number of toons (for me, x=20). Now if I come up with a new concept that I really want to try, it replaces my least favorite toon of the current 20. I can retcon, make a new costume, and even change the name if I want. This saves me having to completely regear.
Another thing that has worked for me in the past is taking a long break from the game. I've taken a year+ sabbatical two or three times now. When I get the itch to play again, I come back and things feel fun again. Not saying I would want anyone to leave the game, but sometimes it can help reset your perspective.
But then again, now seems like a terrible time to take break. When is the last time we've seen this degree of development effort. Don't you want to see what they have planned next?
LTS since 2009. Author of ACT parser module for CO. Founder of Rampagers. Resident curmudgeon.
"Without data, you're just another person with an opinion." -- W. Edwards Deming
What I am unclear on is why every level 40 toon in someone's stable of alts needed to have Heroic gear?
They don't. But what it gave was the feeling of staying in touch with the developing endgame. I have loads of alts equipped with Merc gear or Blues/Greens from drops and it's fine for solo content; but we all know how elitist team building can be in a small community, and having Heroic Gear felt like a nice little badge that you could use to convince people of your competence. And now it's five/six times harder to get and involves more team based content/Adventure packs (and I can't say I care for either too much).
The game community isn't big enough to cope with being split like this. Yes, a few players might return for the new tough content, and the forums will be filled with Grampa's War Stories of How they fought Teleosaurus when it was Really Hard, but ultimately they're just creating another stop point for a game that already has a few too many.
fire and ice, Andrith, maybe Gravitar
You can take a lvl 35 in Armadillo Secondaries and random other gear into Gracvi/F&I and you'll be fine. They've tried their best to spoil that by taking Servitor Serum away (possibly to encourage people to run Bloodmoon lairs) but I'm sure the healer toons will enjoy the resulting upsurge in popularity.
really so, WOW is a small community?
That's strange, I thought it had a large one and it's extremely elitist in teaming. That and the arseholes was why I quit it.
I think a better analogy would be if your favorite restaurant expanded their menu, improved their dining area, offered more methods of payment, but then increased their wait times and prices across the board. I like a lot of the changes they made but the new prices are going to put them out of business.
But your analogy has nothing about aliens in it
@quasimojo1 >But then again, now seems like a terrible time to take break. When is the last time we've seen this degree of development effort. Don't you want to see what they have planned next?
Well actually and personally i think this is the best time to take a break. The only redeeming rumors regarding SCR are the ones heralding the possibility of even more ways to get SCR. If they bumped these up to make up for the x5 price increase, i would jump back into the game happily. But the thing is, the only thing we can do right now is wait. Wait to see how Cryptic responds to the backlash, wait to see what they are planning next. And i don't feel like waiting by standing around RenCen. At the moment i'm scared of farming any kind of anything, since it's unpredictable how Cryptic will proceed. If they lower the prices, i will be the dummy who bought a Heroic piece for 150 SCR. If i farm for some other gear and heroics become accessible again, i will be the dummy with inferior items.
I don't trust Cryptic right now and i want to jump in after they sweeped up this mess one way or the other.
Champions is still my favorite MMO, and I really doubt that any other MMO will ever take its place, but damn, feeling discouraged from doing my favorite thing - making and leveling alts - is a sad, sad thing.
So you like making and leveling alts.
What does lvl 40 gear have to do with that?
What's so special about Heroic gear that you just can't bear to continue making new characters until your current one has it?
They're finally doing something to combat power creep, and people have completely lost their minds because of it. Suddenly people can't make new characters because they have to spend more time doing endgame stuff that they wouldn't be doing anyways because they're repeatedly making new characters...
Do you realize that if you just ignore the changes to SCR, that nothing has changed and you can continue practicing altitis just like you were before? Don't believe me? Go make a new character, I promise you it still works.
Another thing that has worked for me in the past is taking a long break from the game. I've taken a year+ sabbatical two or three times now. When I get the itch to play again, I come back and things feel fun again. Not saying I would want anyone to leave the game, but sometimes it can help reset your perspective.
But then again, now seems like a terrible time to take break. When is the last time we've seen this degree of development effort. Don't you want to see what they have planned next?
^ see now this all makes sense.
They finally start doing literally the things people have been asking for, and people are talking about quitting or taking breaks just because they made it so you gotta spend longer doing the things we've been asking for.
Sure, currency, rewards, whatever... how about take a moment, shove all that off the desk, tell the video game accountant inside you to take the day off, and just spend one day not giving a crap about anything other than having fun playing the game. If you can't do it, then you might want to think about why you play video games. Are you a rat pushing a button for food pellets? No no no, don't give me any of your reasons why rewards are important to you, or how the game is forcing you to do things or how you don't have time or patience or fart gas, I don't care. Are you a rat pushing a button for food pellets?
Since you don't care, i'm going to talk to my cat. See kitty, new content is fine. Yes it is! Yesss it is! But the crux of new content is a laaaaair that requires meeee to have decent geaaaar to even get iiiiin. And the rest of new content requires me to griiiiiiiind. Griiiiiiiiiind. Purrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.
I did ask for new content, i was one of these people, but to quote J.C. Denton - "I didn't ask for that".
(I'm a rat pushing a button for food pellets) EDIT: Just kidding, i'm playing CO for the music, not for the gameplay or any of alla that. This thread is all a giant ruse.
Since you don't care, i'm going to talk to my cat. See kitty, new content is fine. Yes it is! Yesss it is! But the crux of new content is a laaaaair that requires meeee to have decent geaaaar to even get iiiiin. And the rest of new content requires me to griiiiiiiind. Griiiiiiiiiind. Purrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.
I did ask for new content, i was one of these people, but to quote J.C. Denton - "I didn't ask for that".
(I'm a rat pushing a button for food pellets)
I know, it sucks, you have to play the game a whole lot. You're literally as badly off as starving children. meow~
PS - next time you have a minute, sit down and compare that funny blue-quality level 40 gear you see on the market and compare it to a piece of heroic. It's mind-blowing.
Spinny, there's a difference between "playing a game", and "mindlessly and repetitively running a maze with no end in sight".
I'm very sad for you that you think they're the same thing.
"Science teaches us to expect -- demand -- more than just eerie mysteries. What use is a puzzle that can't be solved? Patience is fine, but I'm not going to stop asking the universe to make sense!"
That's strange, I thought it had a large one and it's extremely elitist in teaming. That and the arseholes was why I quit it.
And you weren't alone in that, which is a large part of why WoW's game population is plummeting like a paralyzed gryphon these days.
"Science teaches us to expect -- demand -- more than just eerie mysteries. What use is a puzzle that can't be solved? Patience is fine, but I'm not going to stop asking the universe to make sense!"
They finally start doing literally the things people have been asking for, and people are talking about quitting or taking breaks just because they made it so you gotta spend longer doing the things we've been asking for.
Sure, currency, rewards, whatever... how about take a moment, shove all that off the desk, tell the video game accountant inside you to take the day off, and just spend one day not giving a crap about anything other than having fun playing the game. If you can't do it, then you might want to think about why you play video games. Are you a rat pushing a button for food pellets? No no no, don't give me any of your reasons why rewards are important to you, or how the game is forcing you to do things or how you don't have time or patience or fart gas, I don't care. Are you a rat pushing a button for food pellets?
Which people?
The only thing i've asked for is Foundry. Ever. Well, that and stop nerfing stuff that's obviously not broken, like telepathy.
I don't care about power creep. I don't care about challenge.
PS - next time you have a minute, sit down and compare that funny blue-quality level 40 gear you see on the market and compare it to a piece of heroic. It's mind-blowing.
If the blue-quality gear is so close to heroics, why make heroics 20x the effort? Why make heroics as much effort as justice? At what point does this make any sense.
(And no, its not about how many SCR i can get per day. It's about how many Heroics I can get per hour. Previously, that was ~1.5 heroics/hour for the time i cared to spend farming them. Now it's more like 0.1 heroics/hour.)
Can some one provide me a definitive list of things you cant do in CO without heroic gear?
PVP is starving without rewards
1. Please give us Daily PVP missions that reward Questionite.
2. Please give us an exchange rate between Acclaim and Recognition so that PVP has access to all "On Alert" PVE rewards.
Can some one provide me a definitive list of things you cant do in CO without heroic gear?
Can't do? I mean, I'm sure a team can carry you through anything in terms of content.
Shouldn't do? Gravitar. FnI. (The rampages where build matters at all). Probably the new Teleios epic lair. Gravitar with heirloom gear is pretty painful, especially as melee, for example.
Can't do in terms of build? A lot of builds suck at managing energy before 40 and getting heroic gear.
The fact of the matter is, we finally have the much-ballyhooed "new content". Only the developers have told us that the new content is balanced for characters who are not only max level, but also wearing at least Heroic gear. And at the same time, they've made Heroic harder to get - in essence telling us, "Well, if you haven't ground this gear out already, the future isn't for you."
It's really quite discouraging. I sincerely hope this is just a one-time thing, to give the tryhards something to butt their heads against for a while.
"Science teaches us to expect -- demand -- more than just eerie mysteries. What use is a puzzle that can't be solved? Patience is fine, but I'm not going to stop asking the universe to make sense!"
Champions is still my favorite MMO, and I really doubt that any other MMO will ever take its place, but damn, feeling discouraged from doing my favorite thing - making and leveling alts - is a sad, sad thing.
So you like making and leveling alts.
What does lvl 40 gear have to do with that?
What's so special about Heroic gear that you just can't bear to continue making new characters until your current one has it?
They're finally doing something to combat power creep, and people have completely lost their minds because of it. Suddenly people can't make new characters because they have to spend more time doing endgame stuff that they wouldn't be doing anyways because they're repeatedly making new characters...
Do you realize that if you just ignore the changes to SCR, that nothing has changed and you can continue practicing altitis just like you were before? Don't believe me? Go make a new character, I promise you it still works.
I've already addressed this in a previous post in this thread. Go back and read that if you feel the need to invalidate your post.
Also, you absolutely don't understand what power creep is if you think that increasing the time it takes to get the entry-level 40 gear is any kind of a step in closing the power gap. If they wanted to fix power creep, if power creep was anywhere on their radar, they wouldn't have made this new lair with the numbers as they are, as they'd have to rewrite each encounter when they finally did undo all the power creep. The most powerful powers, the best specialization combinations, and the most powerful gear, and even Heroic gear is still out there with the same numbers. This change doesn't even begin to touch power creep.
Power creep is the slow progression of one thing getting stronger over time (in this case, the player characters), while other things don't develop in line with the other. Players got specializations and several forms of gear while the rest of the game stayed the same. Now, in most games this would be a bad thing, but with Champions, it's a recipe for disaster. Power creep is exponentially bad in a game where power levels within one group of things (in this case, player characters) is wildly variable. Why? Because who the heck do you balance new content for? Now not only do you have characters that feel like they're "normal" being too good for most content, but you also have characters that feel "super" that think everything is too easy, and when you get content updates made to cater to the "super" you leave the "normal" out of it.
I understand that gear progression is a favorable thing in MMOs, but even with heroic gear, there's a big fat wall between "I'm not geared for this" and "I have to change my character for this".
Power creep will be fixed by minimizing overpowered specializations combinations, bringing all powers down in a massive nerf to a new standard, and then start considering how gear progression makes characters more powerful, in a now-controlled environment, and build content around that.
Building new content around the current gold standard of "powerful, competent characters" is the opposite of combating power creep, since they're accepting exactly where power is at, and making the acquisition of heroic gear more laborious fits exactly nowhere into this power creep thing.
This change only makes new players and new characters take weeks to get into the new content. This could have also been achieved by not touching the heroic gear and implementing a per-character attunement system.
I should elaborate that power creep as I described it, "the slow progression of one thing getting stronger over time while other things don't develop in line with the other" isn't describing a character gaining power from level 1 to 40 and then getting more powerful after that with the gear treadmill, but rather changes behind the scenes that make players more powerful while the rest of the game largely stays the same.
Remember when it was a good idea to ask for someone to group with you before facing Black Mist? Today you can whack his **** at-level with one haymaker to the face without taking damage. Remember when Group: 2 meant "find someone to do this with" instead of "this is here for no reason"? That's power creep. Heroes got stronger and the rest of the world got left behind.
Maybe they think that if the free good stuff is too much of a grind players will break down and spend real money to acquire comparable reasonable gear? E.g. Someone has to pay for keys to open boxes that give Merc and Legion Gear. Also, if it takes as long to get JG (which requires someone to buy drifter salvage) as to get Heroics maybe more players will go for JG? At least, that's what I guess is the real motivation.
If the blue-quality gear is so close to heroics, why make heroics 20x the effort? Why make heroics as much effort as justice? At what point does this make any sense.
(And no, its not about how many SCR i can get per day. It's about how many Heroics I can get per hour. Previously, that was ~1.5 heroics/hour for the time i cared to spend farming them. Now it's more like 0.1 heroics/hour.)
Fixed in the sense of being irrelevant because the game will be dead and deserted in the uproar something so foolish would cause, you mean?
No, fixed in the sense that a broken thing will no longer be broken. Dictionary-style definition.
Look, I know we're at odds on that issue, but I was just explaining why that point was not even relevant at all in this discussion, and as such I'm not going to debate it in this discussion, either.
Can some one provide me a definitive list of things you cant do in CO without heroic gear?
Can't do? I mean, I'm sure a team can carry you through anything in terms of content.
Shouldn't do? Gravitar. FnI. (The rampages where build matters at all). Probably the new Teleios epic lair. Gravitar with heirloom gear is pretty painful, especially as melee, for example.
Can't do in terms of build? A lot of builds suck at managing energy before 40 and getting heroic gear.
I didn't ask what cant be done with heirloom gear though. I have never seen any LFM in zone chat ever check people for gear in CO ever.... That includes F&I Gravitar and TA. Is the heroic gear overpriced for what it does? YES. But...
how does it matter? I'm not trying to be combative, Im just trying to get a objective logical explanation on why Heroic gear is so important if you don't need it for any thing (especially if your alting instead of doing end game).
PVP is starving without rewards
1. Please give us Daily PVP missions that reward Questionite.
2. Please give us an exchange rate between Acclaim and Recognition so that PVP has access to all "On Alert" PVE rewards.
the developers have told us that the new content is balanced for characters who are not only max level, but also wearing at least Heroic gear.
Can you show me the quote that specifically says you must have heroic gear to do TA?
Scroll down the first page of this thread. CrypticArkayne himself confirms that they mean for this to be run on Heroic gear at the least.
"Science teaches us to expect -- demand -- more than just eerie mysteries. What use is a puzzle that can't be solved? Patience is fine, but I'm not going to stop asking the universe to make sense!"
Problem is, Smacks - lookout the window at what just increasing the prices has caused. Do you sincerely not see what the backlash would be like over something so foolish?
Its the same sort of wrongheaded, game-wrecking nonsense on both counts.
If the vast majority of the playerbase is opposed to something? DON'T DO IT. No matter how much 'revenue increasing' it seems to be offering to the Suited Scumlords, profits on a dead game are zero.
I don't believe that doing what most of the players scream about is the best thing to always do. I'm not even going to pretend to know that this change is definitely bad for the game as a whole. I'm just talking about how I feel about this change and how it's affecting how and how much I play.
the developers have told us that the new content is balanced for characters who are not only max level, but also wearing at least Heroic gear.
Can you show me the quote that specifically says you must have heroic gear to do TA?
Can some one provide me a definitive list of things you cant do in CO without heroic gear?
Can't do? I mean, I'm sure a team can carry you through anything in terms of content.
Shouldn't do? Gravitar. FnI. (The rampages where build matters at all). Probably the new Teleios epic lair. Gravitar with heirloom gear is pretty painful, especially as melee, for example.
Can't do in terms of build? A lot of builds suck at managing energy before 40 and getting heroic gear.
I didn't ask what cant be done with heirloom gear though.
I have never seen any LFM in zone chat ever check people for gear in CO ever.... That includes F&I Gravitar and TA.
Is the heroic gear overpriced for what it does? YES. But...
If the blue-quality gear is so close to heroics, how does it matter?
I'm not trying to be combative, Im just trying to get a objective logical explanation on why Heroic gear is so important if you don't need it for any thing (especially if your alting instead of doing end game).
Like Smackwell said earlier, it's a horrible psychological loss. Heroics were a great goal to go after when achieving Lv40 because it felt and looked like those End-game epic gears. Mercenary equipment is only Rare, while Heroics were considered Epic. Between the two, very VERY minor changes in their stats, however because of the Rarity disparity, people went after Heroics. Since Heroics and SCR acquisition have been changed the way they have, it looks much less desirable. Even moreso since we did NOT get a Recognition Cap Increase.
I farmed SCR to the point where I gave away full sets of Heroics for entire periods of months at a time. This change was because of that very reason; It was too easy to acquire for what it was. It needed to be brought in line for sure. How it was done though? I don't much agree with it. Nobody minded much for the grind because it was such a short one, nobody EVER complained about it. But now with the changes to make things take longer, everyone's throwing up their arms and having a fit. The original grind was NEVER alt-friendly, it was just too easy to complain about. The current grind has spread out the rewards to keep players active everywhere, and people don't appreciate that change because there was no complete support for alting involved for it. The best we can do is farm SCR on one character and save it up. Heroics just became more grindy to collect.
Good things that came from this change:
SCR can be collected by most end-game sources instead of ONLY Unity (and partial Lair support)
Bad things that came up:
No ways to keep Heroics in-shape as an alting-friendly source of equipment.
I would also like to point out that the high prices are probably intended to drive micro transactions. I suspect that part of why the devs have not budged on the prices is because the financial realities of running an MMO conflict with what players want/are used to. I would also be willing to bet that it is the "bean counters" that ones that make the final decisions on these matters and not the devs them selves. Be careful not to "shoot the messenger".
Scroll down the first page of this thread. CrypticArkayne himself confirms that they mean for this to be run on Heroic gear at the least.
Confirmed.
"You need at least heroic gear to do TA and heroic gear is over priced" is a valid argument. There is still not a strong argument behind "I need heroic gear to roll alts or do any thing but TA". Maybe some one could enlighten me.
PVP is starving without rewards
1. Please give us Daily PVP missions that reward Questionite.
2. Please give us an exchange rate between Acclaim and Recognition so that PVP has access to all "On Alert" PVE rewards.
There is still not a strong argument behind "I need heroic gear to roll alts or do any thing but TA". Maybe some one could enlighten me.
In my case, Heroic gear was my level cap goal for most of my characters. Often when I make a new character and I like him enough to get to 40, that character becomes a favorite that I want to keep playing and try out some of the end game stuff with, like rampages, or world bosses like Mechanon. Previously, it didn't take too long to get a new character up to snuff to be pretty competent and just jump right in to these kinds of content. Now, there's a considerable lull in the process, a lull that can take about the same time as getting the character to level cap. So instead of level up to 40, do a couple hours worth of missions for 3 days, and jump into end-game stuff with your shiny new character, it's now level up to 40, grind missions, alerts, comic/adventure packs for days instead of hours, then finally jump into the end-game stuff without feeling like a jerk that can't hold his own. Sure, you could jump into rampages in the gear you found while leveling, but do you really wanna be the guy that spends more time face-to-face with the floor instead of the villain? Do you really want to feel like the guy that brought a level 6 to a Recruiting Drive again?
It's not "needing heroic to roll alts", it's needing it to be useful with the character sooner rather than later, for as long as you want, before hopping onto a fresh character slot to begin anew. For some of us, alts is a big part of this game, and big reason for playing. Giving us a bigger gap between character creation and getting end-game-ready is not fun.
Look at it this way. At least UNITY was a new thing to do once you hit 40. It's a change of pace from the stuff you normally do. Now you do UNITY as a small part of this expanded grind, and the rest of the stuff you do is still the same stuff you did getting to 40. So doing the fun level 40 stuff is out of reach for that much longer.
To put it another way, it's somewhat similar to increasing the XP required to get to 40 and not changing the time it takes to get Heroic gear. One way or another, it takes a much longer time to get into Heroics to do new-to-this-character end-game stuff. Last time they made it take longer to advance your character, there were "unfavorable reactions."
I would also like to point out that the high prices are probably intended to drive micro transactions. I suspect that part of why the devs have not budged on the prices is because the financial realities of running an MMO conflict with what players want/are used to. I would also be willing to bet that it is the "bean counters" that ones that make the final decisions on these matters and not the devs them selves. Be careful not to "shoot the messenger".
Scroll down the first page of this thread. CrypticArkayne himself confirms that they mean for this to be run on Heroic gear at the least.
Confirmed.
"You need at least heroic gear to do TA and heroic gear is over priced" is a valid argument. There is still not a strong argument behind "I need heroic gear to roll alts or do any thing but TA". Maybe some one could enlighten me.
Well what's the argument for having any gear? The game is only going to stop you from Queuing if you're not high enough level there's no actual requirements on gear. I suppose if you don't want to be seen as a boat anchor or a leech getting some good gear so that you can carry your own weight and contribute might been seen as the sort of thing a team player might do, but there's no requirements for any gear really.
I don't believe that doing what most of the players scream about is the best thing to always do. I'm not even going to pretend to know that this change is definitely bad for the game as a whole. I'm just talking about how I feel about this change and how it's affecting how and how much I play.
THen here's a fun exercise: Name solid ways it in any concrete way helps the game?
Why? I'm only here to discuss how this change affects me, the only person that I know exactly how the changes affect. There's obviously other people who don't see it as a bad thing, and I'm not going to speak for them.
I would also like to point out that the high prices are probably intended to drive micro transactions. I suspect that part of why the devs have not budged on the prices is because the financial realities of running an MMO conflict with what players want/are used to. I would also be willing to bet that it is the "bean counters" that ones that make the final decisions on these matters and not the devs them selves. Be careful not to "shoot the messenger".
Scroll down the first page of this thread. CrypticArkayne himself confirms that they mean for this to be run on Heroic gear at the least.
Confirmed.
"You need at least heroic gear to do TA and heroic gear is over priced" is a valid argument. There is still not a strong argument behind "I need heroic gear to roll alts or do any thing but TA". Maybe some one could enlighten me.
The concern is that all new content going forward will be along these lines - that if you don't have Heroic (or better) gear, you need not apply. Ultimately, this often winds up with such silliness as WoW's "seasons" of gear, where if you're wearing last season's gear you're as welcome as a fashion model wearing last season's dress.
"Science teaches us to expect -- demand -- more than just eerie mysteries. What use is a puzzle that can't be solved? Patience is fine, but I'm not going to stop asking the universe to make sense!"
I could care less about heroic gear. I only have one set and it was given to me. If I alt, I load up my billion high level mods to Merc gear. If I want a litte more power, I get legion gear.
how does it matter? I'm not trying to be combative, Im just trying to get a objective logical explanation on why Heroic gear is so important if you don't need it for any thing (especially if your alting instead of doing end game).
Heroics were the first gear where you get to pick exactly the inherent mods you want, tailored to your character, without excessive grinding. (Legion required box casino betting or dropping a pile of G - the better ones were outside default silver price ranges, Vikorin's and Bronze King's have set mods that you may or may not want, Mercenary is either exorbitant in terms of Q or requires similar box casino - and don't expect the AH prices to stay low with Heroics harder to come by). Justice also lets you pick what you want, but required a lot of grind and at least encouraged having Heroic or similar quality gear.
ie, Heroics were an essential part of building the hero you imagined, and were readily available to everyone to complete their builds. My alts weren't done until they had heroics, because heroic was the first tier of gear where i could find the place where a build worked reliably. (I've retconned into totally different SS and specs at 40 because of how much the e-management landscape changes with heroic gear).
And seriously, why do Heroics exist now when farming Justice is just as easy?
Very well articulated. I like how you explained the emotional aspect of the issue and acknowledged that there are alternatives to heroic that are almost as good. I feel that the emotional charge on this issue is leading to hyperbole that discredits what legitimate arguments are to be made on the subject.
THen here's a fun exercise: Name solid ways it in any concrete way helps the game?
1. Potentially increase micro-translations which could fund further and more frequent game development. 2. Unity taking longer may increase player retention so that players don't just come to CO, spam alerts to 40, get heroic gear in a few days and move on.
I'm not saying that these things will happen, but since neither you nor I have access to the numbers for CO, we will never know for sure. These changes are clearly aimed at the business aspect of CO and even if it doesn't work, at least they are trying to preserve the game, which is more than what NC Soft did for COX.
PVP is starving without rewards
1. Please give us Daily PVP missions that reward Questionite.
2. Please give us an exchange rate between Acclaim and Recognition so that PVP has access to all "On Alert" PVE rewards.
Very well articulated. I like how you explained the emotional aspect of the issue and acknowledged that there are alternatives to heroic that are almost as good. I feel that the emotional charge on this issue is leading to hyperbole that discredits what legitimate arguments are to be made on the subject.
Let's not start using "psychological" and "emotional" interchangeably for no reason, now.
You make it seem like the negative reactions are just emotional outbursts, and I can guarantee you that at least in my case, it's not. There's no angry "I quit" threads, and I've still been logging in. There hasn't been any anger shown towards the developers on my part. What I have done is explained how this has and will change my play/login habits, and why. There's no hyperbole involved. I haven't exaggerated anything.
I know, it sucks, you have to play the game a whole lot. You're literally as badly off as starving children. meow~
PS - next time you have a minute, sit down and compare that funny blue-quality level 40 gear you see on the market and compare it to a piece of heroic. It's mind-blowing.
Well my hunger is not that bad, i have my food pellets after all. I do agree that Vikorin gear is only a notch below Heroic, but AH is not exactly booming with it's quantity. Plus it's still a money grind in the long run, if you spread it out.
I must say though, i'm enamored with that "rats and pellets" expression. It's very existential and applies to life as a whole. I renamed the thread in it's honor.
@ealford1985 >It's easier to get legion than heroic
This. This here is a problem. You know something's wrong if a higher tier gear is beginning to be considered easier to get than entry-level gear.
Let's not start using "psychological" and "emotional" interchangeably for no reason, now.
You make it seem like the negative reactions are just emotional outbursts, and I can guarantee you that at least in my case, it's not. There's no angry "I quit" threads, and I've still been logging in. There hasn't been any anger shown towards the developers on my part. What I have done is explained how this has and will change my play/login habits, and why. There's no hyperbole involved. I haven't exaggerated anything.
No I spoke correctly. I never said that there wasn't a real issue. Only that emotional hyperbole of some may mask the issues and give the devs an excuse to turn a blind eye. People have threatened to quit over this issue and the words "I quit" are in the headline of this thread. I don't think I've ever referred to you directly when talking about emotional grandstanding or exaggerating.
PVP is starving without rewards
1. Please give us Daily PVP missions that reward Questionite.
2. Please give us an exchange rate between Acclaim and Recognition so that PVP has access to all "On Alert" PVE rewards.
I suppose it was a poor choice of words, but I meant to describe my own actions, like not quitting, etc.
Since the psychological effect was brought up by me and referenced by deadman, I assumed it was at least partially directed toward me. Thanks for clarifying.
I suppose it was a poor choice of words, but I meant to describe my own actions, like not quitting, etc.
Since the psychological effect was brought up by me and referenced by deadman, I assumed it was at least partially directed toward me. Thanks for clarifying.
NP. And don't worry Biff. If I come at you, you'll know. >:)
PVP is starving without rewards
1. Please give us Daily PVP missions that reward Questionite.
2. Please give us an exchange rate between Acclaim and Recognition so that PVP has access to all "On Alert" PVE rewards.
I could care less about heroic gear. I only have one set and it was given to me. If I alt, I load up my billion high level mods to Merc gear. If I want a litte more power, I get legion gear.
It's easier to get legion than heroic...
Now. And thats bad. very bad.
Buffing everything to stupid high levels and nerfing everything to piss poor levels yields the same results, but not the same community reactions.
I tend to agree with a lot of this thread. Between the content and the Cash shop pricing, it's obvious that the Cryptic/pwe people are painfully out of touch with this game and it's community. Adding this unreasonably price hike just proves it that much more. This game is hardly worth the effort for a lot of people as it is, so making things that much worse really isn't helping matters. I, personally, mostly come for the fun of creating, designing, and testing new heroes. I know a few others who only come for the sentimental value, and others who only show up for new content (and quickly leave after finding it's cryptic's at usual standards). This game isn't worth grinding for some people. It's too dead, broken, and/or outdated. Jacking up the cost for something we were already grinding for just seems like a bad idea... You know... like raising prices on costumes, after you had one hit set after years, and then going back to just trying to pushing cheap crap that was already probably in game...
I could care less about heroic gear. I only have one set and it was given to me. If I alt, I load up my billion high level mods to Merc gear. If I want a litte more power, I get legion gear.
I could honestly understand this price jump, if Heroics were updated to "almost-but-not-quite-as-good-as" Legion and higher gear was updated in the same manner (Legion, Justice etc)....
But there has been no such change and it has come suddenly and without discernible (currently) cause.
However, we were "promised" that there will be more ways to gain SCR in the future, so this upset over new prices may actually be a different story a few months down the line.
Only time will tell.
(For the record, I am against this increase in prices but I guess this could also be a way to make content relevant again. For example, they could add GCR and SCR rewards to running Adventure Packs and Comic Series as a team)
I could honestly understand this price jump, if Heroics were updated to "almost-but-not-quite-as-good-as" Legion and higher gear was updated in the same manner (Legion, Justice etc)....
But there has been no such change and it has come suddenly and without discernible (currently) cause.
However, we were "promised" that there will be more ways to gain SCR in the future, so this upset over new prices may actually be a different story a few months down the line.
Only time will tell.
(For the record, I am against this increase in prices but I guess this could also be a way to make content relevant again. For example, they could add GCR and SCR rewards to running Adventure Packs and Comic Series as a team)
I am honestly more bummed out about the Silver Recog devices. It looks like you need like 300+ and a perk to use.
Can some one provide me a definitive list of things you cant do in CO without heroic gear?
Can't do? I mean, I'm sure a team can carry you through anything in terms of content.
Shouldn't do? Gravitar. FnI. (The rampages where build matters at all). Probably the new Teleios epic lair. Gravitar with heirloom gear is pretty painful, especially as melee, for example.
Can't do in terms of build? A lot of builds suck at managing energy before 40 and getting heroic gear.
See here we go again. Gravitar is perfectly doable in Merc Gear w/Armadillo Secondaries. I have most of my alts geared this way and have been doing so for years. In fact, I stopped bothering with the Unity grind for Heroics after upgrading my first toon from merc, only to be disappointed.
And seriously, there was hardly any noticeable difference. Now Justice Gear and Legion Gear --- those are far superior to merc. But the changing from Merc to Heroics, gains such a small improvement it's not even wroth it.
This is easily testable.. and I don't understand why people keep saying stuff like Gravitar is "undoable' in Merc or that they are liability in Merc gear. Thats just not true..
But I do agree, Heroics are too expensive now. Especially when you compare them to merc. So just put your alts in Merc, the difference is so tiny, it doesn't even matter.
All merc gear takes is Questionite, a Couple of hundred in globals and some good mods. Your alt can be properly geared and ready to go in minutes. Literally minutes.
But to suggest that anyone in Merc gear is performing that much below anyone in heroics, is just not true.
Can some one provide me a definitive list of things you cant do in CO without heroic gear?
Can't do? I mean, I'm sure a team can carry you through anything in terms of content.
Shouldn't do? Gravitar. FnI. (The rampages where build matters at all). Probably the new Teleios epic lair. Gravitar with heirloom gear is pretty painful, especially as melee, for example.
Can't do in terms of build? A lot of builds suck at managing energy before 40 and getting heroic gear.
See here we go again. Gravitar is perfectly doable in Merc Gear w/Armadillo Secondaries. I have most of my alts geared this way and have been doing so for years. In fact, I stopped bothering with the Unity grind for Heroics after upgrading my first toon from merc, only to be disappointed.
And seriously, there was hardly any noticeable difference. Now Justice Gear and Legion Gear --- those are far superior to merc. But the changing from Merc to Heroics, gains such a small improvement it's not even wroth it.
This is easily testable.. and I don't understand why people keep saying stuff like Gravitar is "undoable' in Merc or that they are liability in Merc gear. Thats just not true..
But I do agree, Heroics are too expensive now. Especially when you compare them to merc. So just put your alts in Merc, the difference is so tiny, it doesn't even matter.
All merc gear takes is Questionite, a Couple of hundred in globals and some good mods. Your alt can be properly geared and ready to go in minutes. Literally minutes.
But to suggest that anyone in Merc gear is performing that much below anyone in heroics, is just not true.
((Not sure what is happening with format, so I will just be the orange stuff)) ---------------------------------------------------------------
This would be where I hit the Like button.
And I have like 70+ boxes of Merc gear right now from years of lockboxes. I have no reason to even worry about the best gear except on my main toons.
However, we were "promised" that there will be more ways to gain SCR in the future, so this upset over new prices may actually be a different story a few months down the line.
If it's just different ways for the same grind, I probably won't bother. If it still takes 20 hours of work as opposed to the 3 or so (I'm making up numbers here) that it used to be, then it's probably not going to matter to me.
If the currency can be earned passively, like random drops throughout content, I think it would be less painful.
Wildstar actually has a pretty awesome system of earning currency for cash shop items. By doing just about anything, from PvP to killing a monster to turning in any quest, you have a real small chance of earning this currency. But on top of that, every week, you get a potential 120 "bonus" that you can earn at a much higher rate. I was playing quite a bit, and I would exhaust this bonus amount in about 5 days' worth of play.
I thought it was an amazing system, because you're just getting the currency while doing whatever you like to do (unless you're sitting around RPing as a stupid monkeybunny, but I digress). It doesn't feel like grinding because no matter what you do, eventually, you get enough currency to buy neat stuff. Not only that, it's basically limited because outside of your bonus 120, you're pretty much only getting one or two per session. And this is for buying cash shop items, not just some level cap starting gear. (Heck, getting some really nice level cap gear is fun in that game, you mob around with like 40 people taking down world bosses for a crack at some really nice gear. It's RNG, but it's fun and you get cool stuff.)
If they had a system like that for earning this stuff, it would feel a lot less like a grind. Sure, you'd be doing the same stuff as before, but now it applies to all content, you can earn some while leveling a character up, if you like to run Smash alerts back to back you'd still get some, if you like the custom alerts, you'd get them there too, etc. This system we have now of running the same content over and over before you can get close to getting the gear? No thanks.
((Not sure what is happening with format, so I will just be the orange stuff))
This would be where I hit the Like button.
And I have like 70+ boxes of Merc gear right now from years of lockboxes. I have no reason to even worry about the best gear except on my main toons.
These new forums are awful - but that's another complaint. I just usually delete out the crap form the previous post.
But yes.. thank you finally someone being reasonable. I also want to point out that I 100% agree the pricing is too high. I did spend time grinding for SCR just to see how bad it was. It's not as bad as its being made out - but it is bad enough. I got just as bored with the new grind for Heroics as I did with Unity 1& 2.
But when I looked at how much questionite an global I'd banked up - just buying myself some armadillos & merc gear from the AH made so much more sense.
I'm tempted to do TA in Merc -- just to prove that it's perfectly on par with heroics. But my computer is old (and so am I). I can barely handle Cybermind mechanics without screwing it up. Hopefully, someone with a sharper reflexes and a better computer than my own will do it (or already has done it) and post about it with proof.
Comments
This is where I'm getting lost. Look - I don't like the high prices either - but earning 30 SCR a day is quite doable without exhaustion.
- Do Both Dailies (10 scr)
- Run the Steel Crusade Missions from Dr. Silverback in MC (6 Scr)
- Do fast rampage like Gravitar (3 SCR a pop).
This is no more extra effort than running UNITY 1 & 2 --- and you don't have to zone hop. It took me longer actually to do both of those, than this is taking and I'm getting more SCR for it.
Quite frankly the AP's and TA are an ineffcient wait to earn SCR. Why torture yourself that way.
I can have 30 SCR in just over 2 hrs this way. Those three Steel Crusade missions can be easily done in 45-minutes (and probably even faster, but I'm slow). The dailies go fast if there's enough people on to keep em popping. Same with Gravitar.
And we haven't even had the Sky Command rampage, that's going to have extra SCR drops yet.
And also MERC gear is freaking cheap and not that far below Heroics. I outfitted my healer in it and he's doing just fine. In fact, I think Striker healed and rezzed you today in Gravitar
I get that the prices going up is annoying - believe me I do. But everyone is acting like getting decent starter lvl 40 gear is this impossible task that's going to take two months... and that's just not true.
I've been running two new lvl 40's one has 68 SCR now and the other has 50. If I was just on one hero, I'd already be buying my first heroic piece & working on the second.
If an old slow over 40 guy like me, on a substandard computer can do it.. so can everyone else.
As far as pricing, it's actually not the Heorics that upset me, that's reasonbly obtainable. It's the new gear that requires ungodly amounts of currency. I didn't go for Justice gear and I probably won't go for those either. And the travel power prices are ridiculous. Costumes could come down in price too.
Let me say it again.
Heroics were easily accessible, so i see no reason to try and find a replacement for them just because devs had an insane idea.
I will not start farming G or Q for something that's inferior to what was easily accessible.
I'm used to heroics. It's been a long time since i was using them. I heard of cases in video games where older gear was EASIER to get than before as new gear rolled out, not HARDER.
New sources of SCR rewards come nowhere close enough to filling the 5x price gap.
As for running Rampages, i refuse to run them ungeared no matter what anyone else says. I will not feel like a liability to the team because of the whimsical devs.
That 50 SCR you gained, good for you! However on the topic of dailies, it's actually 5 SCR per day. You can't run Special Smash Dailies like Harmon Labs every day, it's a one time thing until the rotation kicks in.
Even then, 50 SCR is just one third of a gear piece, consisting of a three gear set.
Meanwhile in the past, this commonly considered as "starter" gear set took only 6 days to get, 2 days if you worked across 3 toons. That was ideal and hurt no one.
If people argue that it was too fast, then look at how much time it takes to 40 a toon. 3-4 days. Are you going to nerf that too?
Because as is, the lack of grind concerning levelling and gearing was one of the game's greatest points, one that i valued the most.
And no, Heroics are not reasonably obtainable, not anymore.
Imagine a Restaurant. Your favorite eatery which you were visiting for one menu item only - Animal Crackers.
Animal Crackers which also were the only human food that your extraterrestrial organs could ingest.
You were having fun, you even came to the same eatery wearing disguises because you felt like it - the owners thought it was kind of creepy, but they served you your deluxe Animal Crackers - your sustenance, nonetheless.
You had to wait 6 minutes for the meal to arrive, 2 if you were lucky and had enough disguises.
You loved the eatery.
[REMOVED]now you are forced to wait ungodly amounts of time to get your only sustenance, your Animal Crackers.
If you have any sense of customer rights, you will question this instead of accepting this as "the right thing". You will yell at chef, but he will refuse to give you your food at the usual pace. Instead, he offers you to wait a little bit less long - but still long, for food that's much worse than Animal Crackers. Not only worse, it's lethal to your extraterrestrial gut.
So what does a smart alien do in that situation?
He leaves the restaurant until the Chef gets his act together, and goes to the local McDonalds instead.
And if the Chef won't ever refuse to be a lazy bum, you stay in that McDonalds and you eat your fries.
I'm the Alien, and i'm going to get a McDouble.
Cheers
~Sankt
I very much agree that these changes were clumsy (like so many others in the past). Cryptic is really not very good at the marketing/PR stuff. They just don't seem to understand that taking something away from players that they previously had is perceived extremely poorly and makes customers bitter. I feel like these changes are probably trying to target a new segment of players, but you've still got to make an effort to "dance with the girl that brung ya", your loyal existing players.
Just to toss in some practical advice. I made a similar realization in CO quite a while ago that:
a.) I really liked to fully gear all my alts in order for them to feel complete,
b.) I wasn't practically going to be able to do that for an endless number of alts.
So I set a hard limit for myself on number of toons (for me, x=20). Now if I come up with a new concept that I really want to try, it replaces my least favorite toon of the current 20. I can retcon, make a new costume, and even change the name if I want. This saves me having to completely regear.
Another thing that has worked for me in the past is taking a long break from the game. I've taken a year+ sabbatical two or three times now. When I get the itch to play again, I come back and things feel fun again. Not saying I would want anyone to leave the game, but sometimes it can help reset your perspective.
But then again, now seems like a terrible time to take break. When is the last time we've seen this degree of development effort. Don't you want to see what they have planned next?
"Without data, you're just another person with an opinion." -- W. Edwards Deming
really so, WOW is a small community?
That's strange, I thought it had a large one and it's extremely elitist in teaming. That and the arseholes was why I quit it.
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@quasimojo1
>But then again, now seems like a terrible time to take break. When is the last time we've seen this degree of development effort. Don't you want to see what they have planned next?
Well actually and personally i think this is the best time to take a break.
The only redeeming rumors regarding SCR are the ones heralding the possibility of even more ways to get SCR.
If they bumped these up to make up for the x5 price increase, i would jump back into the game happily.
But the thing is, the only thing we can do right now is wait. Wait to see how Cryptic responds to the backlash, wait to see what they are planning next. And i don't feel like waiting by standing around RenCen. At the moment i'm scared of farming any kind of anything, since it's unpredictable how Cryptic will proceed. If they lower the prices, i will be the dummy who bought a Heroic piece for 150 SCR. If i farm for some other gear and heroics become accessible again, i will be the dummy with inferior items.
I don't trust Cryptic right now and i want to jump in after they sweeped up this mess one way or the other.
What does lvl 40 gear have to do with that?
What's so special about Heroic gear that you just can't bear to continue making new characters until your current one has it?
They're finally doing something to combat power creep, and people have completely lost their minds because of it. Suddenly people can't make new characters because they have to spend more time doing endgame stuff that they wouldn't be doing anyways because they're repeatedly making new characters...
Do you realize that if you just ignore the changes to SCR, that nothing has changed and you can continue practicing altitis just like you were before? Don't believe me? Go make a new character, I promise you it still works.
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
Some strange stuff being said all of a sudden.
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
They finally start doing literally the things people have been asking for, and people are talking about quitting or taking breaks just because they made it so you gotta spend longer doing the things we've been asking for.
Sure, currency, rewards, whatever... how about take a moment, shove all that off the desk, tell the video game accountant inside you to take the day off, and just spend one day not giving a crap about anything other than having fun playing the game. If you can't do it, then you might want to think about why you play video games. Are you a rat pushing a button for food pellets? No no no, don't give me any of your reasons why rewards are important to you, or how the game is forcing you to do things or how you don't have time or patience or fart gas, I don't care. Are you a rat pushing a button for food pellets?
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
See kitty, new content is fine. Yes it is! Yesss it is! But the crux of new content is a laaaaair that requires meeee to have decent geaaaar to even get iiiiin. And the rest of new content requires me to griiiiiiiind. Griiiiiiiiiind. Purrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.
I did ask for new content, i was one of these people, but to quote J.C. Denton - "I didn't ask for that".
(I'm a rat pushing a button for food pellets)
EDIT: Just kidding, i'm playing CO for the music, not for the gameplay or any of alla that. This thread is all a giant ruse.
PS - next time you have a minute, sit down and compare that funny blue-quality level 40 gear you see on the market and compare it to a piece of heroic. It's mind-blowing.
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
I'm very sad for you that you think they're the same thing.
- David Brin, "Those Eyes"
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- David Brin, "Those Eyes"
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The only thing i've asked for is Foundry. Ever. Well, that and stop nerfing stuff that's obviously not broken, like telepathy.
I don't care about power creep. I don't care about challenge. If the blue-quality gear is so close to heroics, why make heroics 20x the effort? Why make heroics as much effort as justice? At what point does this make any sense.
(And no, its not about how many SCR i can get per day. It's about how many Heroics I can get per hour. Previously, that was ~1.5 heroics/hour for the time i cared to spend farming them. Now it's more like 0.1 heroics/hour.)
PVP is starving without rewards
1. Please give us Daily PVP missions that reward Questionite.
2. Please give us an exchange rate between Acclaim and Recognition so that PVP has access to all "On Alert" PVE rewards.
Shouldn't do? Gravitar. FnI. (The rampages where build matters at all). Probably the new Teleios epic lair. Gravitar with heirloom gear is pretty painful, especially as melee, for example.
Can't do in terms of build? A lot of builds suck at managing energy before 40 and getting heroic gear.
It's really quite discouraging. I sincerely hope this is just a one-time thing, to give the tryhards something to butt their heads against for a while.
- David Brin, "Those Eyes"
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Also, you absolutely don't understand what power creep is if you think that increasing the time it takes to get the entry-level 40 gear is any kind of a step in closing the power gap. If they wanted to fix power creep, if power creep was anywhere on their radar, they wouldn't have made this new lair with the numbers as they are, as they'd have to rewrite each encounter when they finally did undo all the power creep. The most powerful powers, the best specialization combinations, and the most powerful gear, and even Heroic gear is still out there with the same numbers. This change doesn't even begin to touch power creep.
Power creep is the slow progression of one thing getting stronger over time (in this case, the player characters), while other things don't develop in line with the other. Players got specializations and several forms of gear while the rest of the game stayed the same. Now, in most games this would be a bad thing, but with Champions, it's a recipe for disaster. Power creep is exponentially bad in a game where power levels within one group of things (in this case, player characters) is wildly variable. Why? Because who the heck do you balance new content for? Now not only do you have characters that feel like they're "normal" being too good for most content, but you also have characters that feel "super" that think everything is too easy, and when you get content updates made to cater to the "super" you leave the "normal" out of it.
I understand that gear progression is a favorable thing in MMOs, but even with heroic gear, there's a big fat wall between "I'm not geared for this" and "I have to change my character for this".
Power creep will be fixed by minimizing overpowered specializations combinations, bringing all powers down in a massive nerf to a new standard, and then start considering how gear progression makes characters more powerful, in a now-controlled environment, and build content around that.
Building new content around the current gold standard of "powerful, competent characters" is the opposite of combating power creep, since they're accepting exactly where power is at, and making the acquisition of heroic gear more laborious fits exactly nowhere into this power creep thing.
This change only makes new players and new characters take weeks to get into the new content. This could have also been achieved by not touching the heroic gear and implementing a per-character attunement system.
Remember when it was a good idea to ask for someone to group with you before facing Black Mist? Today you can whack his **** at-level with one haymaker to the face without taking damage. Remember when Group: 2 meant "find someone to do this with" instead of "this is here for no reason"? That's power creep. Heroes got stronger and the rest of the world got left behind.
Look, I know we're at odds on that issue, but I was just explaining why that point was not even relevant at all in this discussion, and as such I'm not going to debate it in this discussion, either.
I have never seen any LFM in zone chat ever check people for gear in CO ever.... That includes F&I Gravitar and TA.
Is the heroic gear overpriced for what it does? YES. But... how does it matter?
I'm not trying to be combative, Im just trying to get a objective logical explanation on why Heroic gear is so important if you don't need it for any thing (especially if your alting instead of doing end game).
PVP is starving without rewards
1. Please give us Daily PVP missions that reward Questionite.
2. Please give us an exchange rate between Acclaim and Recognition so that PVP has access to all "On Alert" PVE rewards.
- David Brin, "Those Eyes"
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Like Smackwell said earlier, it's a horrible psychological loss. Heroics were a great goal to go after when achieving Lv40 because it felt and looked like those End-game epic gears. Mercenary equipment is only Rare, while Heroics were considered Epic. Between the two, very VERY minor changes in their stats, however because of the Rarity disparity, people went after Heroics. Since Heroics and SCR acquisition have been changed the way they have, it looks much less desirable. Even moreso since we did NOT get a Recognition Cap Increase.
I farmed SCR to the point where I gave away full sets of Heroics for entire periods of months at a time. This change was because of that very reason; It was too easy to acquire for what it was. It needed to be brought in line for sure. How it was done though? I don't much agree with it. Nobody minded much for the grind because it was such a short one, nobody EVER complained about it. But now with the changes to make things take longer, everyone's throwing up their arms and having a fit. The original grind was NEVER alt-friendly, it was just too easy to complain about. The current grind has spread out the rewards to keep players active everywhere, and people don't appreciate that change because there was no complete support for alting involved for it. The best we can do is farm SCR on one character and save it up. Heroics just became more grindy to collect.
Good things that came from this change:
SCR can be collected by most end-game sources instead of ONLY Unity (and partial Lair support)
Bad things that came up:
No ways to keep Heroics in-shape as an alting-friendly source of equipment.
And I will always be @DZPlayer122.
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"You need at least heroic gear to do TA and heroic gear is over priced" is a valid argument.
There is still not a strong argument behind "I need heroic gear to roll alts or do any thing but TA".
Maybe some one could enlighten me.
PVP is starving without rewards
1. Please give us Daily PVP missions that reward Questionite.
2. Please give us an exchange rate between Acclaim and Recognition so that PVP has access to all "On Alert" PVE rewards.
It's not "needing heroic to roll alts", it's needing it to be useful with the character sooner rather than later, for as long as you want, before hopping onto a fresh character slot to begin anew. For some of us, alts is a big part of this game, and big reason for playing. Giving us a bigger gap between character creation and getting end-game-ready is not fun.
Look at it this way. At least UNITY was a new thing to do once you hit 40. It's a change of pace from the stuff you normally do. Now you do UNITY as a small part of this expanded grind, and the rest of the stuff you do is still the same stuff you did getting to 40. So doing the fun level 40 stuff is out of reach for that much longer.
To put it another way, it's somewhat similar to increasing the XP required to get to 40 and not changing the time it takes to get Heroic gear. One way or another, it takes a much longer time to get into Heroics to do new-to-this-character end-game stuff. Last time they made it take longer to advance your character, there were "unfavorable reactions."
- David Brin, "Those Eyes"
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It's easier to get legion than heroic...
http://www.arcgames.com/en/forums/championsonline/#/discussion/1204020/champions-online-new-content-update-teleios-ascendant-on-pts/p1
crypticarkayne, posts on feb 4, both on makeup of team and what he deems decent gear.
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ie, Heroics were an essential part of building the hero you imagined, and were readily available to everyone to complete their builds. My alts weren't done until they had heroics, because heroic was the first tier of gear where i could find the place where a build worked reliably. (I've retconned into totally different SS and specs at 40 because of how much the e-management landscape changes with heroic gear).
And seriously, why do Heroics exist now when farming Justice is just as easy?
I like how you explained the emotional aspect of the issue and acknowledged that there are alternatives to heroic that are almost as good.
I feel that the emotional charge on this issue is leading to hyperbole that discredits what legitimate arguments are to be made on the subject. 1. Potentially increase micro-translations which could fund further and more frequent game development.
2. Unity taking longer may increase player retention so that players don't just come to CO, spam alerts to 40, get heroic gear in a few days and move on.
I'm not saying that these things will happen, but since neither you nor I have access to the numbers for CO, we will never know for sure. These changes are clearly aimed at the business aspect of CO and even if it doesn't work, at least they are trying to preserve the game, which is more than what NC Soft did for COX.
PVP is starving without rewards
1. Please give us Daily PVP missions that reward Questionite.
2. Please give us an exchange rate between Acclaim and Recognition so that PVP has access to all "On Alert" PVE rewards.
You make it seem like the negative reactions are just emotional outbursts, and I can guarantee you that at least in my case, it's not. There's no angry "I quit" threads, and I've still been logging in. There hasn't been any anger shown towards the developers on my part. What I have done is explained how this has and will change my play/login habits, and why. There's no hyperbole involved. I haven't exaggerated anything.
I do agree that Vikorin gear is only a notch below Heroic, but AH is not exactly booming with it's quantity. Plus it's still a money grind in the long run, if you spread it out.
I must say though, i'm enamored with that "rats and pellets" expression. It's very existential and applies to life as a whole. I renamed the thread in it's honor.
@ealford1985
>It's easier to get legion than heroic
This. This here is a problem.
You know something's wrong if a higher tier gear is beginning to be considered easier to get than entry-level gear.
I never said that there wasn't a real issue. Only that emotional hyperbole of some may mask the issues and give the devs an excuse to turn a blind eye. People have threatened to quit over this issue and the words "I quit" are in the headline of this thread. I don't think I've ever referred to you directly when talking about emotional grandstanding or exaggerating.
PVP is starving without rewards
1. Please give us Daily PVP missions that reward Questionite.
2. Please give us an exchange rate between Acclaim and Recognition so that PVP has access to all "On Alert" PVE rewards.
Since the psychological effect was brought up by me and referenced by deadman, I assumed it was at least partially directed toward me. Thanks for clarifying.
And don't worry Biff. If I come at you, you'll know. >:)
PVP is starving without rewards
1. Please give us Daily PVP missions that reward Questionite.
2. Please give us an exchange rate between Acclaim and Recognition so that PVP has access to all "On Alert" PVE rewards.
42 40s, LTSer.
I'm also not convinced Leagion is all that great. Some pieces are, but others... meh.
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There was no need for the price jump.
That I use merc or that I use legion?
I could honestly understand this price jump, if Heroics were updated to "almost-but-not-quite-as-good-as" Legion and higher gear was updated in the same manner (Legion, Justice etc)....
But there has been no such change and it has come suddenly and without discernible (currently) cause.
However, we were "promised" that there will be more ways to gain SCR in the future, so this upset over new prices may actually be a different story a few months down the line.
Only time will tell.
(For the record, I am against this increase in prices but I guess this could also be a way to make content relevant again. For example, they could add GCR and SCR rewards to running Adventure Packs and Comic Series as a team)
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See here we go again. Gravitar is perfectly doable in Merc Gear w/Armadillo Secondaries. I have most of my alts geared this way and have been doing so for years. In fact, I stopped bothering with the Unity grind for Heroics after upgrading my first toon from merc, only to be disappointed.
And seriously, there was hardly any noticeable difference. Now Justice Gear and Legion Gear --- those are far superior to merc. But the changing from Merc to Heroics, gains such a small improvement it's not even wroth it.
This is easily testable.. and I don't understand why people keep saying stuff like Gravitar is "undoable' in Merc or that they are liability in Merc gear. Thats just not true..
But I do agree, Heroics are too expensive now. Especially when you compare them to merc. So just put your alts in Merc, the difference is so tiny, it doesn't even matter.
All merc gear takes is Questionite, a Couple of hundred in globals and some good mods. Your alt can be properly geared and ready to go in minutes. Literally minutes.
But to suggest that anyone in Merc gear is performing that much below anyone in heroics, is just not true.
See here we go again. Gravitar is perfectly doable in Merc Gear w/Armadillo Secondaries. I have most of my alts geared this way and have been doing so for years. In fact, I stopped bothering with the Unity grind for Heroics after upgrading my first toon from merc, only to be disappointed.
And seriously, there was hardly any noticeable difference. Now Justice Gear and Legion Gear --- those are far superior to merc. But the changing from Merc to Heroics, gains such a small improvement it's not even wroth it.
This is easily testable.. and I don't understand why people keep saying stuff like Gravitar is "undoable' in Merc or that they are liability in Merc gear. Thats just not true..
But I do agree, Heroics are too expensive now. Especially when you compare them to merc. So just put your alts in Merc, the difference is so tiny, it doesn't even matter.
All merc gear takes is Questionite, a Couple of hundred in globals and some good mods. Your alt can be properly geared and ready to go in minutes. Literally minutes.
But to suggest that anyone in Merc gear is performing that much below anyone in heroics, is just not true.
((Not sure what is happening with format, so I will just be the orange stuff))
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This would be where I hit the Like button.
And I have like 70+ boxes of Merc gear right now from years of lockboxes. I have no reason to even worry about the best gear except on my main toons.
If the currency can be earned passively, like random drops throughout content, I think it would be less painful.
Wildstar actually has a pretty awesome system of earning currency for cash shop items. By doing just about anything, from PvP to killing a monster to turning in any quest, you have a real small chance of earning this currency. But on top of that, every week, you get a potential 120 "bonus" that you can earn at a much higher rate. I was playing quite a bit, and I would exhaust this bonus amount in about 5 days' worth of play.
I thought it was an amazing system, because you're just getting the currency while doing whatever you like to do (unless you're sitting around RPing as a stupid monkeybunny, but I digress). It doesn't feel like grinding because no matter what you do, eventually, you get enough currency to buy neat stuff. Not only that, it's basically limited because outside of your bonus 120, you're pretty much only getting one or two per session. And this is for buying cash shop items, not just some level cap starting gear. (Heck, getting some really nice level cap gear is fun in that game, you mob around with like 40 people taking down world bosses for a crack at some really nice gear. It's RNG, but it's fun and you get cool stuff.)
If they had a system like that for earning this stuff, it would feel a lot less like a grind. Sure, you'd be doing the same stuff as before, but now it applies to all content, you can earn some while leveling a character up, if you like to run Smash alerts back to back you'd still get some, if you like the custom alerts, you'd get them there too, etc. This system we have now of running the same content over and over before you can get close to getting the gear? No thanks.
These new forums are awful - but that's another complaint. I just usually delete out the crap form the previous post.
But yes.. thank you finally someone being reasonable. I also want to point out that I 100% agree the pricing is too high. I did spend time grinding for SCR just to see how bad it was. It's not as bad as its being made out - but it is bad enough. I got just as bored with the new grind for Heroics as I did with Unity 1& 2.
But when I looked at how much questionite an global I'd banked up - just buying myself some armadillos & merc gear from the AH made so much more sense.
I'm tempted to do TA in Merc -- just to prove that it's perfectly on par with heroics. But my computer is old (and so am I). I can barely handle Cybermind mechanics without screwing it up. Hopefully, someone with a sharper reflexes and a better computer than my own will do it (or already has done it) and post about it with proof.