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 It's too dead, broken, and/or outdated.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.
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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.
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.
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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.
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.
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.
I spent two months' worth of stipend the other day opening lockboxes and got zero Mercenary gear. I have the money to buy the gear, but I tend to save my money for buying lockbox costumes. Some of us aren't lucky enough to just open a bunch of boxes for Mercenary gear, let alone Legionnaire gear, and forget about costumes. My luck just doesn't go there.
I do have some Mercenary and Legionnaire boxes but when that runs out, my alts will likely dry up.
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.
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.
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.
When one person tries to cut out a part of someone's quote, it can screw up nested quotes, and it just goes downhill from there. But yes, there's very little to like about these forums.
Since you've actually done the legwork, and you're saying the grind isn't that bad, I'm curious to know how much time you spent and how much recognition you earned. The reason I ask is because a lot of people are saying "you can earn more in one day than you could before!" but fail to mention how much time they spent getting as much or twice as much. Running just UNITY missions takes as much time as it did before, and on top of that, you earnless, and each Recognition earned is worth less because of the price hike.
That means that for a fact, you're getting less worth out of running UNITY, any way you slice it, and if my math is wrong please correct me, because I'm terrible with math and numbers in general.
What I used to do is have a bunch of characters queue up for UNITY on Cazulon day. You had one or two missions that were timed, so you had to get those out of the way before hopping to the next character. Repeat that for all my 40s, and then take them on as much as I had time for. Each day would earn me... I think 50% of one piece per character, in just a couple hours, if that (I'll have to check on another Cazulon day, and I'll definitely do it just for this measurement), because the Cazulon mission wasn't a gigantic, drawn-out bore like all the other Special Assignments. How many hours does it take to earn 50% of one piece after this update?
If it's not as bad as it seems, I'll go back on everything I said in this thread. I'm genuinely curious to see how the old and new ways compare.
Just because you can do something doesn't mean you should do it. The difference between Heroic gear and Merc gear is bigger then people are trying to say here. I've run enough tests between the two to see the difference in how much damage my tanks can take, how much damage my dps can do.
I'm curious how someone makes 183,000 (150,000+33,000) Q for Merc/Armidillio with out opening their wallet in minutes. Even at the max 16,000 Q refinement a day that still takes 11 days.
As far as scr is concerned, there is no guaranteeing each rampage you enter will be successful. (Assuming you can stomach running them more then once a day to begin with) So with out rampages you are earning 10 for the two alert dailes and 5 from Unity. APs grant some now but again you would have to run those multiple times a day. There is no guarantee you can get that 40-50 scr in a single day. You could end up getting only 15 scr in a single day (Depending on luck and time).
I used to get 2 silvers a day from the Custom Alert. Now I get 5. I got like 12 from doing the TA, and some from each boss. I also got some from a rampage (I think?) because at the end of the day I had 20. That is like x10 what I usually get. I'm not going to do all those things everyday so I'm not making 20 SCR a day, but I don't feel the prices are outrageous because you can get much more SCR now.
And I have said this a thousand times but.... : I also don't think Heroic should be the "easy to get" gear. People just sell mercenary, bronze, and vikorin to npc vendors because Heroic gear was so easy to get. You can make a perfectly viable toon without heroic gear.
I used to get 2 silvers a day from the Custom Alert. Now I get 5. I got like 12 from doing the TA, and some from each boss. I also got some from a rampage (I think?) because at the end of the day I had 20. That is like x10 what I usually get. I'm not going to do all those things everyday so I'm not making 20 SCR a day, but I don't feel the prices are outrageous because you can get much more SCR now.
And I have said this a thousand times but.... : I also don't think Heroic should be the "easy to get" gear. People just sell mercenary, bronze, and vikorin to npc vendors because Heroic gear was so easy to get. You can make a perfectly viable toon without heroic gear.
If you used to only do the custom alert and you were getting SCR as a byproduct of doing something, not as your goal, i see why you wouldn't fully understand the situation. Doing Unity1 missions granted 18 SCR daily, which in two days was more than enough for a piece of heroics. The problem is that you can't get much more SCR now than you could in the past. Maybe more than you personally did, but not as much as was accessible. As you said this is your personal experience, but it has very little bearing on the playstyle of many many others (Plus the Unity1 rewards were cut to 7 SCR per day now, i believe).
I disagree with your opinion that Heroics should not be easy to get. They were the entry level gear, and without too much effort, anyone could make sure that their toon won't be overpowered but will still be reasonably useful. If some people you know were selling other gear to the vendors, then it was their decision. They could as well sell it on AH. Because you see, changing the price of Heroics didn't change that. AH is not booming with Vikorin, and Mercenary is still pricey in Q, and meh in AH. Heroics didn't hurt anyone except for people who are actually looking for excuses to justify why Heroics were the devil.
I said it before but i dislike selfish thinking, it sets societies (communities) apart.
Spinny, there's a difference between "playing a game", and "mindlessly and repetitively running a maze with no end in sight".
Why would you ever do the second one? I don't. Ever, in any game. I haven't done that since I was a young dopey teen who didn't think about the things they did. One day I started thinking, and I've never done the second thing you listed since. Why is it even a possibility as something you might do?
I'm very sad for you that you think they're the same thing.
Buck up buddy, seems out of the two of us I know the difference much better.
I do have one question though. If you hate repetitively doing the same thing over and over again, what's with the altitis? See me, I actually have an aversion to doing the same thing over and over again, and it's why I can't stand to level any new characters. Now, you would think that this aversion would make me cry like a fresh newborn about the SCR price changes, but here's the funny thing about me: I don't feel entitled to things. Something about the way I was brought up I guess... when I cried like a big babby, my parents didn't give me the toy.
I look at it all the same way. For example, Onslaught rewards. About last week I finally got my first two pieces of onslaught gear. I love em ( got me a tank piece and the sniper piece ), and I'd be psyched to get more. I probably will, some day. Do I feel like they should lower the prices so I can get it sooner? Nope. They set the length of the track, and they let me walk it at my own pace. No matter how long they make that track, so long as the entirety of that track consists of playing Champions Online, I have no problem with the length. If at some point they say I gotta get to a certain point in the track before I can do "thing X", well that's fine by me, I'll get there in my own time. Other people will too, or they won't, that's up to them - I could make a whole lot of assumptions about what sort of issues others might have with that, but to be honest people are just too different from one another for any sort of "this is how the majority or even a significant number of people will react to this" statement. Things are happening here and there and everywhere, but fact is that in this game they needed to lengthen the feedback cycle so that people would spend longer doing stuff before they started complaining that there was nothing to do - the good news is, they still left it up to us how we engage that feedback cycle, nothing was forced onto anyone, and nothing was taken away. We still have all the things we had before, we can still do all the things we could do before - the game is still there, you can still play it.
You know why I feel like this? It's just stuff in a video game. If I don't get it, or play it, or see it, no biggie. I wonder why some of you folks care so much. I won't make any assumptions about the reason because I don't know you... and to be honest, I couldn't make any sort of assumption, because it just doesn't make any sense to me any way I look at unless I make a whole lot of negative assumptions about you... and I don't really want to do that, because I like to think that most of you are actually reasonable folks who, at worst, maybe just kinda got caught up in the heat of the moment and acted a little silly about a video game.
To add to my previous post, i meant that there is too big of a gap between Mercenary and Heroic. In addition, with Heroic you got to pick and choose which pieces suit your toon. With Mercenary you are on the mercy of what someone put in AH. I will freely admit that Vikorin is a pretty good alternative, but the problem lies in it's availability.
Let me stop you there for a bit. Two things stood out for me there. First, entitlement. Whenever someone uses this word regarding video games, i get flashbacks to how developers responded to the backlash of Mass Effect 3's ending. Is a man not entitled to the sweat of his brow? Yes, yes he is. We supported the game, it would not exist without us. That's it, that's all. Yes we are entitled to something, especially to things that used to be easily accessible. You talk about onslaught gear. The thing is, Onslaught Gear wasn't ever priced at 30 villain tokens per piece, so this argument as flowery as it is, is moot is what it is. I don't know about others but what grinds my gears is that something was made more expensive for no single reason at all, and it was something that a mass of players was used to.
If someone presents ONE valid, unrebunkable reason for this price change, i will yield. So far the most common arguments all fell short.
As for the "It's just a video game" part. Yes, it's just a video game. It's just a video game that many of us put a lot of ourselves into. A lot of time. A lot of effort. A lot of money. You act like what happened is no big deal at all, maybe because you're unaffected, i don't want to assume. But it IS a pacebreaker and it is unreasonable and it is unfair. As such, it is a big deal. Evidence of such being that there is way more unhappy people than satisfied ones.
I explained to you the reason why it was made more expensive. I acknowledge your reaction of sticking your fingers in your ears and making a goofy neener neener face.
As for that list you made, I find it hard to take you seriously when you're talking about putting time and effort into a video game. Well done, you played a video game, I'm sure hard working people all over the world are lining up to shake your hand and tell you that you are their equal.
As for the money you put into it, you put that money into a video game. Well done, you bought a video game, I'm sure people all around the world on tight budgets trying to raise children or just keep themselves alive are lining up to shake your hand and tell you that they feel your pain.
The people working here are the devs. You're playing a video game. I act like this is no big deal because I realize that.
You put money into the game, you supported it, and now the people you supported are doing what needs to be done to right this game. They are making sure that that money you put in is not going to waste by doing things that should have been done long ago - what's more, they're doing it with full knowledge that people are going to be unhappy about it, but they know it needs to be done. You may not want to listen to the reasons why it needs to be done, and that is your right. However, that's not going to change anything in your favor.
I explained to you the reason why it was made more expensive. I acknowledge your reaction of sticking your fingers in your ears and making a goofy neener neener face.
As for that list you made, I find it hard to take you seriously when you're talking about putting time and effort into a video game. Well done, you played a video game, I'm sure hard working people all over the world are lining up to shake your hand and tell you that you are their equal.
As for the money you put into it, you put that money into a video game. Well done, you bought a video game, I'm sure people all around the world on tight budgets trying to raise children or just keep themselves alive are lining up to shake your hand and tell you that they feel your pain.
The people working here are the devs. You're playing a video game. I act like this is no big deal because I realize that.
You put money into the game, you supported it, and now the people you supported are doing what needs to be done to right this game. They are making sure that that money you put in is not going to waste by doing things that should have been done long ago - what's more, they're doing it with full knowledge that people are going to be unhappy about it, but they know it needs to be done. You may not want to listen to the reasons why it needs to be done, and that is your right. However, that's not going to change anything in your favor.
I read over your previous posts, not once did i see a clear explanation concerning the prices. So i'm making the neener neener face now, you earned this goofy face by not being coherent. If you actually have a point, speak it clearly.
As for your second paragraph, i wouldn't usually grace a strawman argument like this with a response, but then again you said that rat thing before and i'm still stoked on that. You speak about video games like a soccer mom in the 90's. Games are entertainment, but that does not devalue any second you spent on them. It's not entertainment like movies or books, you are a bigger part of it. When people level up in a video game, they feel that their effort has brought about progress. No, it's obviously not a job hunting oysters in the desert where you bleed from every orifice to support a family. It's a "job" where you aim to entertain yourself by seeing numbers go up, yet the time, effort and money are still real. Just so we're clear, you made this pathetic comparison between video games and real life, not me. Whatever you attempted to accomplish with that didn't exactly work out, but such is life.
Which brings me to the next paragraph of your post and this is a doozy. I love what you said there because it's a pleasure to crush ignorant statements like these. That paragraph is written as if it was typed out by a person on some sort of high ground, aimed at another person who i can only assume you think to be a 13 year old child, buying in-game currency with a parent's credit card. But guess what, i'm way past 18, and i live by myself. As in, i support my own house and pay the bills. I'm living the real life, not the life you imply at in your post. As such i do deserve to spend my leisure money as i please. Be it a video game or a collection of mongolian woven baskets. Before you say that you don't care - i know. I'm just having fun picking off silly pseudo-psychic tangents like this one. Pew pew. I spend my money on the game, and i deserve something in return. So yes i am entitled.
The devs are working here because players support the game monetarily. Employees need to be paid. Money doth not grow on trees. As for righting the game, thinking that putting things out of balance EQUALS creating balance is insane. I disagree that this price change is something that needs to be done, as is my right. Plus these things that "need to be done", i have yet to see any examples and reason of these as well. And if my opinion, as well as the loud voice of distraught players are not going to change anything as you say, then in the end it's not our loss. It's not a blow to "our favor". It will be yet another nail in the coffin of a game which has suffered a string of choices that not many people agree about. And guess what, for a game which would be dead without a community, the voice of community is the most important thing, whether you think it to be a right thing or not.
There are many people out there, yes. But there are also many video games. I love CO but if bad things happen and there is no way of working them out, the only choice is to leave and let go. I'm still stuck on that choice.
And please don't do that weird thing like in paragraphs 2 and 3 again. It's embarassing for the both of us. Just look at how much you made me write. Jeez.
I'm not going to defend this or argue against these changes, because this is what the player base deserves. There wasn't a hard enough fight (barely any at all) against Aura Set prices and implementation when it was a deciding factor of where this game was going and how far Cryptic can charge us. We're just going to get more and more grind for things that were easier to get and that is the trend this game is going. The devs aren't the ones to blame for this. The community's enablist attitude is.
This is what happens when you don't support complaints about issues even if you don't care about it directly, but you know what the right thing is. When its your turn, there is no one left to help you with your problem.
@crypticbuxom Now this is a good post. I would even say that i agree with you, especially after seeing a certain few people's reactions to the changes *cough* right here in this thread *cough*. MMO games cannot exist without their communities. And if we won't raise an uproar against unfairness, then we are only going to keep getting more and more shafted in the future. People who defend SCR blunder might know how we feel sooner than they expect, once something important to THEM gets the same treatment.
This is why i created this thread, and this is why i won't stop raising stink about the issue until the very end. Thank you crypticbuxom, we need more people like you. We need to step up.
Don't let the # of posts fool you, as a 4+ vet of this game, all i have to say is that the person(s) in charge of green lighting this recent patch/update needs to get FIRED IMMEDIATELY and become blacklisted from working as a game designer in North America. I had so much fun playing this game in 2012-2013. bit the turn this game has taken and the road that it's on currently disgusts me.
First with all the nerfs to powers and game mechanics, then the nerfs to devices, then the nerf to cooldowns, and now a nerf to HEROICS? UNACCEPTABLE.
I would have been okay with the new price if heroics got buffed but just the same old heroics at 150 SCR is absurd and needs to be rolled back to normal reasonable non-insane prices.
Don't let the # of posts fool you, as a 4+ vet of this game, all i have to say is that the person(s) in charge of green lighting this recent patch/update needs to get FIRED IMMEDIATELY and become blacklisted from working as a game designer in North America. I had so much fun playing this game in 2012-2013. bit the turn this game has taken and the road that it's on currently disgusts me.
First with all the nerfs to powers and game mechanics, then the nerfs to devices, then the nerf to cooldowns, and now a nerf to HEROICS? UNACCEPTABLE.
I would have been okay with the new price if heroics got buffed but just the same old heroics at 150 SCR is absurd and needs to be rolled back to normal reasonable non-insane prices.
I agree completely. I'm glad to see more and more people speak up about this. (4 years here as well, fistbump ) If our voice is loud enough, they will have to notice that they are walking a very dangerous path. It's not their modus operandi, but at one point they will have to listen to the players. Let's hope and keep on fighting the good fight.
When one person tries to cut out a part of someone's quote, it can screw up nested quotes, and it just goes downhill from there. But yes, there's very little to like about these forums.
Since you've actually done the legwork, and you're saying the grind isn't that bad, I'm curious to know how much time you spent and how much recognition you earned. The reason I ask is because a lot of people are saying "you can earn more in one day than you could before!" but fail to mention how much time they spent getting as much or twice as much. Running just UNITY missions takes as much time as it did before, and on top of that, you earnless, and each Recognition earned is worth less because of the price hike.
That means that for a fact, you're getting less worth out of running UNITY, any way you slice it, and if my math is wrong please correct me, because I'm terrible with math and numbers in general.
I wouldn't run UNITY anymore - it's not worth it. I also wouldn't do any of the AP's or Lairs(including TA) too much work for way too little gain.
The best thing to do is so far for me has been the dailies and Gravitar. I was trying to earn Heroics for my new lvl 40. I started on Thurs with him and he has 103 SCR now. So about 3 to 4 days (2hr sessions about) to get 100 SCR. I do like the new ways of earning SCR over UNITY.. I did Unity 2 this morning just to check it out again.. and yes I still hate it. Way too long.. way too much work, for a tiny return.
The Dailies and Gravitar so far have been the way to go for me. Gravitar is repeatable and goes really fast with the right team. I was just PUG most of teh time.. but an organized team could milk that for lots of SCR in an hour or two.
We'll see how Sky Command goes. I'm not doing Lemurian Invasion - my cranky computer cannot handle the graphic glitches.. plus I can get 2 Scr each from the much shorter Steel Crusade missions in M.C. Running Steel Crusade earns me an easy 6 SCR in between 30- 45 minutes (again I'm slow) - So why in the world would I do a two hour or longer AP for 10?
Someone who is good at skipping mobs could probably milk Steel Crusade for pretty fast.
Again, I'm not saying I like any of this. But it's not the end of the world. And it certainly won't kill your alts. Alts are fine in MERC... in fact more than fine. It's all I've ever used for mine. Yes it sucks the slightly (and I mean very slightly) better Heroics can no longer be had in a just a few days.
The goal is to obviously push those who are impatient into spending money (buying keys and zen) so they can get their hands on Legions stuff. But if it works - and money ends up being made it doesn't matter how much of a fuss the community here kicks up.. the majority is opening their wallets and spending money.
This is why i created this thread, and this is why i won't stop raising stink about the issue until the very end.
Thank you crypticbuxom, we need more people like you. We need to step up.
Thanks for the vote of confidence, but my point was that the fights that should have been fought for were ignored. The people complaining now is comparable to the group that has no one left to help them.
This is my eulogy as I'm done trying to argue with trolls on the forums and reason with the devs and Cryptic as a whole. I'm just going to stand by and not bother anymore, especially after the shenanigans the Cryptic team (one specific member of it) has tried to pull on me personally. They're here to oppose us so I'm not going to play their mind games anymore. I'll leech off my lifetime account until the game closes. Our pound of flesh was not enough, but they won my silence against everything they do from here on out.
@crypticbuxom I understand how you feel. And it might already be too late. But still, personally i still have fight in me. I want to see the conclusion to all of this.
@riverocean I'm trying to find alternatives all the time. I will attempt soloing for Vikorin and i'll see how it works out. But nevertheless, we should never have to look for alternatives to something that was there, so my stance remains unchanged.
EDIT: Soloing Vikorin is out of the question. I took my only geared tank there, and i did get him to 1/3 health, but his Golems started flinging me all over the room like a ragdoll. I could get the Heroics solo before this entire mess. So eff this. But hey, i tried.
You know why I feel like this? It's just stuff in a video game. If I don't get it, or play it, or see it, no biggie. I wonder why some of you folks care so much. I won't make any assumptions about the reason because I don't know you... and to be honest, I couldn't make any sort of assumption, because it just doesn't make any sense to me any way I look at unless I make a whole lot of negative assumptions about you... and I don't really want to do that, because I like to think that most of you are actually reasonable folks who, at worst, maybe just kinda got caught up in the heat of the moment and acted a little silly about a video game.
This new pricings and lower rewards are a negative move. When a business releases a new product (here it is TA), they should focus on making it popular, bringing more people to get addicted to it. While here, it's the exact opposite. The new pricings and longer time to acheive the requirements (Heroic gears) are turning away players, preventing them to play the new content. With this new pricings and longer time to obtain Heroic gears, there'll be less players playing the new content with all its collateral consequences. I played a game like that. It was Forsaken World. 2 days looking for a team to do a lvl 15 dung. Gave up. Moved to another mmo. The comparison stops here because in FW, you need to complete this dung to unlock the next quests while here you can zap Moreau's Lab or Viper's Nest (even more since there's no more interesting rewards).
While it may sound wise that you look at this patch with serenity and consider just as "stuff in a video game" -sic-. You're wrong to underestimate the negative impact to prevent/cap other players' fun : directly (to access TA) or indirectly (the feeling of achievement when your character can get his 1st endgame gearset). Both of these negative impacts had been explained to you by many voices in many ways. Up to you to read them again and again and again until you understand them. If I wanted to be sarcastic, I could conclude with : Hey, you caution this new longer repeating farm? Do it on yourself and read repeatingly the comments here until you understand. It shouldn't matter for you if it takes you 2 weeks to understand. It's just stuff afterall. But I don't like sarcasms. So have a good day
Spinny, there's a difference between "playing a game", and "mindlessly and repetitively running a maze with no end in sight".
Why would you ever do the second one? I don't. Ever, in any game. I haven't done that since I was a young dopey teen who didn't think about the things they did. One day I started thinking, and I've never done the second thing you listed since. Why is it even a possibility as something you might do?
I'm very sad for you that you think they're the same thing.
Buck up buddy, seems out of the two of us I know the difference much better.
I do have one question though. If you hate repetitively doing the same thing over and over again, what's with the altitis? See me, I actually have an aversion to doing the same thing over and over again, and it's why I can't stand to level any new characters.
I understand where your coming from, but see, spinny? It's not that we're heated over a game, or what have you. It's just this is wrong, but because you don't make characters, you don't care. And I get that, and the rest of your post has a point. I have been extremely busy irl over the past..month?(Or rather, few months) and didn't(most likely still don't) have too much time to dedicate to this game. Back then, I didn't have time to farm and farm and farm for gear two tiers lower than the top(at the time, Justice). Luckily, I didn't have to and could make decent progress in gearing up my characters, while doing things irl that were pretty demanding at the time. Now, I'm getting some time(just a smidge to devote to gaming) and, with these changes, it seems the game is switching from casual, to no-life grinder. Not fun, if ya' ask me(and, judging by this thread, quite a few others). With these changes, coupled with time restraints, it seems unless a cool new powerset is added, alt-ings done, which is a shame for a superhero MMO. Also, please do remember, starter gear usually isn't grindy-grindy in...any MMO(not even WoW.) Especially gear three tiers lower than the new best(which is also grindy.)
EDIT: one last question if I may; Why is it that because it doesn't negatively affect you at the moment, you think people are whiners and wrongfully protesting? You also seem to have this attitude(or mentality, rather) of, "just because it doesn't affect me, it doesn't affect anyone" You do know your not the only one playing, right? I mean, this isn't a bot posting this here, just an fyi.
Buffing everything to stupid high levels and nerfing everything to piss poor levels yields the same results, but not the same community reactions.
The goal is to obviously push those who are impatient into spending money (buying keys and zen) so they can get their hands on Legions stuff. But if it works - and money ends up being made it doesn't matter how much of a fuss the community here kicks up.. the majority is opening their wallets and spending money.
This nails it. The SCR nerf is nothing more than a tax on morons.
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They all thought I was out of the game....But I'm holding all the lockboxes now..
I'll......FOAM FINGER YOUR BACK!
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.
What part?
That I use merc or that I use legion?
Legion being easier to get.
Buffing everything to stupid high levels and nerfing everything to piss poor levels yields the same results, but not the same community reactions.
The goal is to obviously push those who are impatient into spending money (buying keys and zen) so they can get their hands on Legions stuff. But if it works - and money ends up being made it doesn't matter how much of a fuss the community here kicks up.. the majority is opening their wallets and spending money.
This nails it. The SCR nerf is nothing more than a tax on morons.
^ Ayup. And of course you have those who are in support of this unruly change who will coheres(if not directly, than indirectly) the new players and those who are, like you said, impatient into buying keys for legion, of which they will then make said toon with legion their main due to the horrid drop rates of Lockboxes, and their relatively high cost in the AH, and after seeing the high prices of heroics on the AH, they will more than likely develope a "nesting" mentality, where in that one toon is easier and, to them(possibly) more routine to play, alleviating the need for alts. Of course, the new player could very well be one who doesn't care for having a toon who can play endgame and will just ignore all of this together .
Buffing everything to stupid high levels and nerfing everything to piss poor levels yields the same results, but not the same community reactions.
The goal is to obviously push those who are impatient into spending money (buying keys and zen) so they can get their hands on Legions stuff. But if it works - and money ends up being made it doesn't matter how much of a fuss the community here kicks up.. the majority is opening their wallets and spending money.
This nails it. The SCR nerf is nothing more than a tax on morons.
^ Ayup. And of course you have those who are in support of this unruly change who will coheres(if not directly, than indirectly) the new players and those who are, like you said, impatient into buying keys for legion, of which they will then make said toon with legion their main due to the horrid drop rates of Lockboxes, and their relatively high cost in the AH, and after seeing the high prices of heroics on the AH, they will more than likely develope a "nesting" mentality, where in that one toon is easier and, to them(possibly) more routine to play, alleviating the need for alts. Of course, the new player could very well be one who doesn't care for having a toon who can play endgame and will just ignore all of this together .
Who needs retention when you have churn?
This is my Risian Corvette. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
I've been also thinking that making Heroics harder to get was yet another """"subtle"""" maneuver to make people buy something, in this case the spicy fresh new gear. No wonder they put it up almost directly behind a paywall. I have no problem with idiot tax and natural selection, it's not like this is the first time it happened (Insta Level 30 etc) but they hurt the regular player by bumping the price of heroics. With Insta Level 30, at least they didn't nerf EXP gain and levelling. I guess they are really hurting for more profit which would explain this aggressive next step, EXP nerf would anger way more people than the gear prices did.
I've been also thinking that making Heroics harder to get was yet another """"subtle"""" maneuver to make people buy something, in this case the spicy fresh new gear. No wonder they put it up almost directly behind a paywall.
I have no problem with idiot tax and natural selection, it's not like this is the first time it happened (Insta Level 30 etc) but they hurt the regular player by bumping the price of heroics.
Pretty Much
Why farm for Heroics when you can spend Resources/Zen/Keys on opening Lockboxes?
POWERFRAME REVAMPS, NEW POWERS and BUG FIXES > Recycled Content and Events and even costumes at this point Introvert guy who use CO to make his characters playable and get experimental with Viable FF Theme builds! Running out of Unique FF builds due to the lack of updates and synergies! Playing since 1 February 2011 128 + Characters (21 ATs, 107 FFs) ALTitis for Life!
They did add SCR and increased the questionite reward on adventure packs/comic series.
Ayup. It's a drop in the sea, though. I see three ways out of this 1. Adjust the gear prices 2. Adjust the SCR rewards 3. Sankt curls up into a little ball and cries in the corner
I explained to you the reason why it was made more expensive. I acknowledge your reaction of sticking your fingers in your ears and making a goofy neener neener face.
I read over your previous posts, not once did i see a clear explanation concerning the prices. So i'm making the neener neener face now, you earned this goofy face by not being coherent. If you actually have a point, speak it clearly.
I explained to you the reason why it was made more expensive. I acknowledge your reaction of sticking your fingers in your ears and making a goofy neener neener face.
You're trying to convince me that your time spent in a video game is somehow important or significant. It's not. Get over yourself, lol.
You're trying to convince me that you're a big boy adult because you spent money on a video game. I'm just gonna cut to the lol here.
This is my eulogy as I'm done trying to argue with trolls on the forums and reason with the devs and Cryptic as a whole. I'm just going to stand by and not bother anymore, especially after the shenanigans the Cryptic team (one specific member of it) has tried to pull on me personally. They're here to oppose us so I'm not going to play their mind games anymore. I'll leech off my lifetime account until the game closes. Our pound of flesh was not enough, but they won my silence against everything they do from here on out.
I could swear some of you people are role-playing. Such drama!
The time it takes to farm for Heroics you can farm for Onslaught secondaries. Maybe even less time than to farm the SCR.
Heroics are officially not worth the work it now takes to acquire them. I'm not sure if others have figured that out yet.... but I sure did.
That's why I think this wasn't as well thought it as it should be. Rampages (esp Gravitar) are the fastest way to earn SCR. Much faster than AP's. Dailies are a close second. So if you're going to spam run Rampages anyway - it makes much more sense to just go for Justice gear.
Rampages are perfectly doable in Merc w/Armadillo secondaries. That was part of the reason, I got disillusioned with farming for the heroics. I have 130 now.. the only reason I don't have 150 is I hate Lemurian Invasion with a passion. But I could have earned my first heroic piece in about 4 days.. had I really went for it.
My guess is that Heroic gear is going to become less popular. People are just going to go with cheaper blue gear. Then farm Rampages until they can afford Justice.
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 am referring before this change too.
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.
What part?
That I use merc or that I use legion?
Legion being easier to get.
don't for get Vikorin also has 3 slot purples and he drops costumes too.
grab a group and go farm him
farming Rampages to get Justice gear- where's that wall I was banging my head against?
me, I grabbed all the cheap Mercenary gear and Vikorin pieces WHILE this was on the PTS.
If the changes went through, the prices would go up in the AH, they have.
If they didn't I would still have a supply.
Someone is still posting Vikorin pieces cheap on the AH.
I have never gotten a Vikorin piece in the half a dozen times I've completed the lair.
I have gotten a couple Bronze King pieces, but they are just blues, Also, you don't know which one you'll get: it is most likely you will get a drop you don't want or already have (compared to one you want).
I have never gotten a Vikorin piece in the half a dozen times I've completed the lair.
I have gotten a couple Bronze King pieces, but they are just blues, Also, you don't know which one you'll get: it is most likely you will get a drop you don't want or already have (compared to one you want).
Tiny RNG chance to get an RNG chance to get the piece you want is exactly why I don't farm dungeons/raids/whatever for gear anymore.
Add a deterministic booby prize that eventually gets you the loot you're after you've failed to roll high enough on the dice to score loot and I might consider doing it if that eventually is short enough. My luck is always on the wrong side of the probability curve so that's pretty much the only way I get loot under those mechanics. "Oh but I always get it first try!" people cry. Good for you. For every one of you there's someone that never gets the RNG loot they've farmed for years and that's not a fun farm to be on.
This is my Risian Corvette. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
The time it takes to farm for Heroics you can farm for Onslaught secondaries. Maybe even less time than to farm the SCR.
Heroics are officially not worth the work it now takes to acquire them. I'm not sure if others have figured that out yet.... but I sure did.
That's why I think this wasn't as well thought it as it should be. Rampages (esp Gravitar) are the fastest way to earn SCR. Much faster than AP's. Dailies are a close second. So if you're going to spam run Rampages anyway - it makes much more sense to just go for Justice gear.
If tokens dropped.
And that's a mighty big "if". When the new Justice Gear came out, I started grinding away on the Rampage that was up at the time. After literally hours of doing this, I had three destreum bearings. Out of the ten that I'd need for a single piece. That was when I did some quick mental math, and decided my children were more important than gearing one lousy toon out of the three dozen I have.
"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!"
Comments
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.
I do have some Mercenary and Legionnaire boxes but when that runs out, my alts will likely dry up.
Heh, I hope that isn't sarcasm...
Anyway, back to being a rant thread!
And I will always be @DZPlayer122.
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Since you've actually done the legwork, and you're saying the grind isn't that bad, I'm curious to know how much time you spent and how much recognition you earned. The reason I ask is because a lot of people are saying "you can earn more in one day than you could before!" but fail to mention how much time they spent getting as much or twice as much. Running just UNITY missions takes as much time as it did before, and on top of that, you earnless, and each Recognition earned is worth less because of the price hike.
That means that for a fact, you're getting less worth out of running UNITY, any way you slice it, and if my math is wrong please correct me, because I'm terrible with math and numbers in general.
What I used to do is have a bunch of characters queue up for UNITY on Cazulon day. You had one or two missions that were timed, so you had to get those out of the way before hopping to the next character. Repeat that for all my 40s, and then take them on as much as I had time for. Each day would earn me... I think 50% of one piece per character, in just a couple hours, if that (I'll have to check on another Cazulon day, and I'll definitely do it just for this measurement), because the Cazulon mission wasn't a gigantic, drawn-out bore like all the other Special Assignments. How many hours does it take to earn 50% of one piece after this update?
If it's not as bad as it seems, I'll go back on everything I said in this thread. I'm genuinely curious to see how the old and new ways compare.
I'm curious how someone makes 183,000 (150,000+33,000) Q for Merc/Armidillio with out opening their wallet in minutes. Even at the max 16,000 Q refinement a day that still takes 11 days.
As far as scr is concerned, there is no guaranteeing each rampage you enter will be successful. (Assuming you can stomach running them more then once a day to begin with) So with out rampages you are earning 10 for the two alert dailes and 5 from Unity. APs grant some now but again you would have to run those multiple times a day. There is no guarantee you can get that 40-50 scr in a single day. You could end up getting only 15 scr in a single day (Depending on luck and time).
I used to get 2 silvers a day from the Custom Alert. Now I get 5. I got like 12 from doing the TA, and some from each boss. I also got some from a rampage (I think?) because at the end of the day I had 20. That is like x10 what I usually get. I'm not going to do all those things everyday so I'm not making 20 SCR a day, but I don't feel the prices are outrageous because you can get much more SCR now.
And I have said this a thousand times but.... : I also don't think Heroic should be the "easy to get" gear. People just sell mercenary, bronze, and vikorin to npc vendors because Heroic gear was so easy to get. You can make a perfectly viable toon without heroic gear.
Doing Unity1 missions granted 18 SCR daily, which in two days was more than enough for a piece of heroics.
The problem is that you can't get much more SCR now than you could in the past. Maybe more than you personally did, but not as much as was accessible. As you said this is your personal experience, but it has very little bearing on the playstyle of many many others (Plus the Unity1 rewards were cut to 7 SCR per day now, i believe).
I disagree with your opinion that Heroics should not be easy to get. They were the entry level gear, and without too much effort, anyone could make sure that their toon won't be overpowered but will still be reasonably useful. If some people you know were selling other gear to the vendors, then it was their decision. They could as well sell it on AH. Because you see, changing the price of Heroics didn't change that. AH is not booming with Vikorin, and Mercenary is still pricey in Q, and meh in AH. Heroics didn't hurt anyone except for people who are actually looking for excuses to justify why Heroics were the devil.
I said it before but i dislike selfish thinking, it sets societies (communities) apart.
I do have one question though. If you hate repetitively doing the same thing over and over again, what's with the altitis? See me, I actually have an aversion to doing the same thing over and over again, and it's why I can't stand to level any new characters. Now, you would think that this aversion would make me cry like a fresh newborn about the SCR price changes, but here's the funny thing about me: I don't feel entitled to things. Something about the way I was brought up I guess... when I cried like a big babby, my parents didn't give me the toy.
I look at it all the same way. For example, Onslaught rewards. About last week I finally got my first two pieces of onslaught gear. I love em ( got me a tank piece and the sniper piece ), and I'd be psyched to get more. I probably will, some day. Do I feel like they should lower the prices so I can get it sooner? Nope. They set the length of the track, and they let me walk it at my own pace. No matter how long they make that track, so long as the entirety of that track consists of playing Champions Online, I have no problem with the length. If at some point they say I gotta get to a certain point in the track before I can do "thing X", well that's fine by me, I'll get there in my own time. Other people will too, or they won't, that's up to them - I could make a whole lot of assumptions about what sort of issues others might have with that, but to be honest people are just too different from one another for any sort of "this is how the majority or even a significant number of people will react to this" statement. Things are happening here and there and everywhere, but fact is that in this game they needed to lengthen the feedback cycle so that people would spend longer doing stuff before they started complaining that there was nothing to do - the good news is, they still left it up to us how we engage that feedback cycle, nothing was forced onto anyone, and nothing was taken away. We still have all the things we had before, we can still do all the things we could do before - the game is still there, you can still play it.
You know why I feel like this? It's just stuff in a video game. If I don't get it, or play it, or see it, no biggie. I wonder why some of you folks care so much. I won't make any assumptions about the reason because I don't know you... and to be honest, I couldn't make any sort of assumption, because it just doesn't make any sense to me any way I look at unless I make a whole lot of negative assumptions about you... and I don't really want to do that, because I like to think that most of you are actually reasonable folks who, at worst, maybe just kinda got caught up in the heat of the moment and acted a little silly about a video game.
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In addition, with Heroic you got to pick and choose which pieces suit your toon. With Mercenary you are on the mercy of what someone put in AH.
I will freely admit that Vikorin is a pretty good alternative, but the problem lies in it's availability.
Two things stood out for me there.
First, entitlement. Whenever someone uses this word regarding video games, i get flashbacks to how developers responded to the backlash of Mass Effect 3's ending. Is a man not entitled to the sweat of his brow? Yes, yes he is. We supported the game, it would not exist without us. That's it, that's all. Yes we are entitled to something, especially to things that used to be easily accessible.
You talk about onslaught gear. The thing is, Onslaught Gear wasn't ever priced at 30 villain tokens per piece, so this argument as flowery as it is, is moot is what it is.
I don't know about others but what grinds my gears is that something was made more expensive for no single reason at all, and it was something that a mass of players was used to.
If someone presents ONE valid, unrebunkable reason for this price change, i will yield.
So far the most common arguments all fell short.
As for the "It's just a video game" part. Yes, it's just a video game.
It's just a video game that many of us put a lot of ourselves into.
A lot of time.
A lot of effort.
A lot of money.
You act like what happened is no big deal at all, maybe because you're unaffected, i don't want to assume.
But it IS a pacebreaker and it is unreasonable and it is unfair.
As such, it is a big deal.
Evidence of such being that there is way more unhappy people than satisfied ones.
As for that list you made, I find it hard to take you seriously when you're talking about putting time and effort into a video game. Well done, you played a video game, I'm sure hard working people all over the world are lining up to shake your hand and tell you that you are their equal.
As for the money you put into it, you put that money into a video game. Well done, you bought a video game, I'm sure people all around the world on tight budgets trying to raise children or just keep themselves alive are lining up to shake your hand and tell you that they feel your pain.
The people working here are the devs. You're playing a video game. I act like this is no big deal because I realize that.
You put money into the game, you supported it, and now the people you supported are doing what needs to be done to right this game. They are making sure that that money you put in is not going to waste by doing things that should have been done long ago - what's more, they're doing it with full knowledge that people are going to be unhappy about it, but they know it needs to be done. You may not want to listen to the reasons why it needs to be done, and that is your right. However, that's not going to change anything in your favor.
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
As for your second paragraph, i wouldn't usually grace a strawman argument like this with a response, but then again you said that rat thing before and i'm still stoked on that.
You speak about video games like a soccer mom in the 90's. Games are entertainment, but that does not devalue any second you spent on them. It's not entertainment like movies or books, you are a bigger part of it. When people level up in a video game, they feel that their effort has brought about progress. No, it's obviously not a job hunting oysters in the desert where you bleed from every orifice to support a family. It's a "job" where you aim to entertain yourself by seeing numbers go up, yet the time, effort and money are still real. Just so we're clear, you made this pathetic comparison between video games and real life, not me. Whatever you attempted to accomplish with that didn't exactly work out, but such is life.
Which brings me to the next paragraph of your post and this is a doozy. I love what you said there because it's a pleasure to crush ignorant statements like these.
That paragraph is written as if it was typed out by a person on some sort of high ground, aimed at another person who i can only assume you think to be a 13 year old child, buying in-game currency with a parent's credit card.
But guess what, i'm way past 18, and i live by myself. As in, i support my own house and pay the bills. I'm living the real life, not the life you imply at in your post. As such i do deserve to spend my leisure money as i please. Be it a video game or a collection of mongolian woven baskets. Before you say that you don't care - i know. I'm just having fun picking off silly pseudo-psychic tangents like this one. Pew pew.
I spend my money on the game, and i deserve something in return. So yes i am entitled.
The devs are working here because players support the game monetarily. Employees need to be paid. Money doth not grow on trees.
As for righting the game, thinking that putting things out of balance EQUALS creating balance is insane.
I disagree that this price change is something that needs to be done, as is my right. Plus these things that "need to be done", i have yet to see any examples and reason of these as well.
And if my opinion, as well as the loud voice of distraught players are not going to change anything as you say, then in the end it's not our loss. It's not a blow to "our favor".
It will be yet another nail in the coffin of a game which has suffered a string of choices that not many people agree about.
And guess what, for a game which would be dead without a community, the voice of community is the most important thing, whether you think it to be a right thing or not.
There are many people out there, yes.
But there are also many video games. I love CO but if bad things happen and there is no way of working them out, the only choice is to leave and let go. I'm still stuck on that choice.
And please don't do that weird thing like in paragraphs 2 and 3 again. It's embarassing for the both of us. Just look at how much you made me write. Jeez.
This is what happens when you don't support complaints about issues even if you don't care about it directly, but you know what the right thing is. When its your turn, there is no one left to help you with your problem.
Now this is a good post. I would even say that i agree with you, especially after seeing a certain few people's reactions to the changes *cough* right here in this thread *cough*.
MMO games cannot exist without their communities. And if we won't raise an uproar against unfairness, then we are only going to keep getting more and more shafted in the future.
People who defend SCR blunder might know how we feel sooner than they expect, once something important to THEM gets the same treatment.
This is why i created this thread, and this is why i won't stop raising stink about the issue until the very end.
Thank you crypticbuxom, we need more people like you. We need to step up.
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First with all the nerfs to powers and game mechanics, then the nerfs to devices, then the nerf to cooldowns, and now a nerf to HEROICS? UNACCEPTABLE.
I would have been okay with the new price if heroics got buffed but just the same old heroics at 150 SCR is absurd and needs to be rolled back to normal reasonable non-insane prices.
I'm glad to see more and more people speak up about this. (4 years here as well, fistbump
If our voice is loud enough, they will have to notice that they are walking a very dangerous path.
It's not their modus operandi, but at one point they will have to listen to the players.
Let's hope and keep on fighting the good fight.
I wouldn't run UNITY anymore - it's not worth it. I also wouldn't do any of the AP's or Lairs(including TA) too much work for way too little gain.
The best thing to do is so far for me has been the dailies and Gravitar. I was trying to earn Heroics for my new lvl 40. I started on Thurs with him and he has 103 SCR now. So about 3 to 4 days (2hr sessions about) to get 100 SCR. I do like the new ways of earning SCR over UNITY.. I did Unity 2 this morning just to check it out again.. and yes I still hate it. Way too long.. way too much work, for a tiny return.
The Dailies and Gravitar so far have been the way to go for me. Gravitar is repeatable and goes really fast with the right team. I was just PUG most of teh time.. but an organized team could milk that for lots of SCR in an hour or two.
We'll see how Sky Command goes. I'm not doing Lemurian Invasion - my cranky computer cannot handle the graphic glitches.. plus I can get 2 Scr each from the much shorter Steel Crusade missions in M.C. Running Steel Crusade earns me an easy 6 SCR in between 30- 45 minutes (again I'm slow) - So why in the world would I do a two hour or longer AP for 10?
Someone who is good at skipping mobs could probably milk Steel Crusade for pretty fast.
Again, I'm not saying I like any of this. But it's not the end of the world. And it certainly won't kill your alts. Alts are fine in MERC... in fact more than fine. It's all I've ever used for mine. Yes it sucks the slightly (and I mean very slightly) better Heroics can no longer be had in a just a few days.
The goal is to obviously push those who are impatient into spending money (buying keys and zen) so they can get their hands on Legions stuff. But if it works - and money ends up being made it doesn't matter how much of a fuss the community here kicks up.. the majority is opening their wallets and spending money.
Thanks for the vote of confidence, but my point was that the fights that should have been fought for were ignored. The people complaining now is comparable to the group that has no one left to help them.
This is my eulogy as I'm done trying to argue with trolls on the forums and reason with the devs and Cryptic as a whole. I'm just going to stand by and not bother anymore, especially after the shenanigans the Cryptic team (one specific member of it) has tried to pull on me personally. They're here to oppose us so I'm not going to play their mind games anymore. I'll leech off my lifetime account until the game closes. Our pound of flesh was not enough, but they won my silence against everything they do from here on out.
I understand how you feel. And it might already be too late. But still, personally i still have fight in me. I want to see the conclusion to all of this.
@riverocean
I'm trying to find alternatives all the time. I will attempt soloing for Vikorin and i'll see how it works out.
But nevertheless, we should never have to look for alternatives to something that was there, so my stance remains unchanged.
EDIT: Soloing Vikorin is out of the question. I took my only geared tank there, and i did get him to 1/3 health, but his Golems started flinging me all over the room like a ragdoll. I could get the Heroics solo before this entire mess. So eff this. But hey, i tried.
When a business releases a new product (here it is TA), they should focus on making it popular, bringing more people to get addicted to it. While here, it's the exact opposite. The new pricings and longer time to acheive the requirements (Heroic gears) are turning away players, preventing them to play the new content. With this new pricings and longer time to obtain Heroic gears, there'll be less players playing the new content with all its collateral consequences.
I played a game like that. It was Forsaken World. 2 days looking for a team to do a lvl 15 dung. Gave up. Moved to another mmo. The comparison stops here because in FW, you need to complete this dung to unlock the next quests while here you can zap Moreau's Lab or Viper's Nest (even more since there's no more interesting rewards).
While it may sound wise that you look at this patch with serenity and consider just as "stuff in a video game" -sic-. You're wrong to underestimate the negative impact to prevent/cap other players' fun : directly (to access TA) or indirectly (the feeling of achievement when your character can get his 1st endgame gearset). Both of these negative impacts had been explained to you by many voices in many ways. Up to you to read them again and again and again until you understand them.
If I wanted to be sarcastic, I could conclude with : Hey, you caution this new longer repeating farm? Do it on yourself and read repeatingly the comments here until you understand. It shouldn't matter for you if it takes you 2 weeks to understand. It's just stuff afterall.
But I don't like sarcasms. So have a good day
EDIT: one last question if I may; Why is it that because it doesn't negatively affect you at the moment, you think people are whiners and wrongfully protesting? You also seem to have this attitude(or mentality, rather) of, "just because it doesn't affect me, it doesn't affect anyone" You do know your not the only one playing, right? I mean, this isn't a bot posting this here, just an fyi.
42 40s, LTSer.
Nepht and Dr Deflecto on primus
They all thought I was out of the game....But I'm holding all the lockboxes now..
I'll......FOAM FINGER YOUR BACK!
42 40s, LTSer.
Ayup. And of course you have those who are in support of this unruly change who will coheres(if not directly, than indirectly) the new players and those who are, like you said, impatient into buying keys for legion, of which they will then make said toon with legion their main due to the horrid drop rates of Lockboxes, and their relatively high cost in the AH, and after seeing the high prices of heroics on the AH, they will more than likely develope a "nesting" mentality, where in that one toon is easier and, to them(possibly) more routine to play, alleviating the need for alts. Of course, the new player could very well be one who doesn't care for having a toon who can play endgame and will just ignore all of this together
42 40s, LTSer.
I have no problem with idiot tax and natural selection, it's not like this is the first time it happened (Insta Level 30 etc) but they hurt the regular player by bumping the price of heroics.
With Insta Level 30, at least they didn't nerf EXP gain and levelling. I guess they are really hurting for more profit which would explain this aggressive next step, EXP nerf would anger way more people than the gear prices did.
Pretty Much
Why farm for Heroics when you can spend Resources/Zen/Keys on opening Lockboxes?
They did add SCR and increased the questionite reward on adventure packs/comic series.
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I see three ways out of this
1. Adjust the gear prices
2. Adjust the SCR rewards
3. Sankt curls up into a little ball and cries in the corner
So far i've got 3 on point
I've got 3 nailed down
You're trying to convince me that you're a big boy adult because you spent money on a video game. I'm just gonna cut to the lol here.
Self-entitlement has never been so fun!
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
Heroics are officially not worth the work it now takes to acquire them. I'm not sure if others have figured that out yet.... but I sure did.
That's why I think this wasn't as well thought it as it should be. Rampages (esp Gravitar) are the fastest way to earn SCR. Much faster than AP's. Dailies are a close second. So if you're going to spam run Rampages anyway - it makes much more sense to just go for Justice gear.
Rampages are perfectly doable in Merc w/Armadillo secondaries. That was part of the reason, I got disillusioned with farming for the heroics. I have 130 now.. the only reason I don't have 150 is I hate Lemurian Invasion with a passion. But I could have earned my first heroic piece in about 4 days.. had I really went for it.
My guess is that Heroic gear is going to become less popular. People are just going to go with cheaper blue gear. Then farm Rampages until they can afford Justice.
Or find ways to purchase Legion gear.
don't for get Vikorin also has 3 slot purples and he drops costumes too.
grab a group and go farm him
farming Rampages to get Justice gear- where's that wall I was banging my head against?
me, I grabbed all the cheap Mercenary gear and Vikorin pieces WHILE this was on the PTS.
If the changes went through, the prices would go up in the AH, they have.
If they didn't I would still have a supply.
Someone is still posting Vikorin pieces cheap on the AH.
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I have gotten a couple Bronze King pieces, but they are just blues, Also, you don't know which one you'll get: it is most likely you will get a drop you don't want or already have (compared to one you want).
Whoever you are, be that person one hundred percent. Don't compromise on your identity.
Add a deterministic booby prize that eventually gets you the loot you're after you've failed to roll high enough on the dice to score loot and I might consider doing it if that eventually is short enough. My luck is always on the wrong side of the probability curve so that's pretty much the only way I get loot under those mechanics. "Oh but I always get it first try!" people cry. Good for you. For every one of you there's someone that never gets the RNG loot they've farmed for years and that's not a fun farm to be on.
- David Brin, "Those Eyes"
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Nepht and Dr Deflecto on primus
They all thought I was out of the game....But I'm holding all the lockboxes now..
I'll......FOAM FINGER YOUR BACK!