That's nice but some of us will continue to give feedback and fight for reasonable prices on endgame gear even after you've given up.
If the price is too ridiculous its too ridiculous. this isnt a korean grindfest. this is a western MMO and this games 2 sisters, STO and NWO already have far better ways of getting endgame gear. CO has no excuse.
Personally, I think all the changes we're seeing are to prep this game to convert to consoles. Consosle games are grindy by nature. They've made all the money they are ever going to make from the current community.
We can rant, rave, and yell all we like, but experience has taught me it doesn't matter. Once a change like this hits test -- it's a done deal. We're just here to help find obvious bugs.
But actual policy decisions? Forget it, it's done and this will all probably go live during today's patch or soon after.
At least on this morning's first run I got the SC token I needed for what might well be my last set of Justice Gear. Not sure whether to be happy or sad about that.
LOL STO came to consoles without a single change to their vastly superior reward systems.
Insufficient data. STO's not on consoles yet, and all we've seen so far has to do with improved lighting effects and modified controls.
"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!"
Personally, I think all the changes we're seeing are to prep this game to convert to consoles.
I highly doubt the current dev team has the resources to even attempt to bring CO to consoles--not only that, but do you raelly think the demand for a game like this is big enough to make it worth the effort and resources? No, what we have is pretty much a small handful of people, shaping this game to match their vision of it while trying to keep it running as best they can. It's unfortunate that their vision involves so much grindwork through an ever-narrowing progression path.
(Hopefully) Useful CO Resources: HeroCreator (character planner), Cosmic Timers/Alert Checklist, Blood Moon Map, Anniversary Cat Map, and more (eventually, anyway).
Personally, I think all the changes we're seeing are to prep this game to convert to consoles.
I highly doubt the current dev team has the resources to even attempt to bring CO to consoles--not only that, but do you raelly think the demand for a game like this is big enough to make it worth the effort and resources? No, what we have is pretty much a small handful of people, shaping this game to match their vision of it while trying to keep it running as best they can. It's unfortunate that their vision involves so much grindwork through an ever-narrowing progression path.
Exactly. Why add entire new zones, new AT's, New Powers, new events, and a completely re-imagined currency system to a game like this? With the current small population, they aren't going to make any money spent back. And yes dev time spent doing these big projects = money spent. They don't work for free.
Every single Cryptic property is heading to consoles and STO is only a year younger than CO. They are slapping a coat of paint on an old house and hoping they can re-market it to a new audience.
We'll wait and see. Because in the end none of us know anything.
But this rapid pace of development means that someone higher up was convinced to sign off. Thinking a rogue dev is revamping an entire game on this huge scale on whimsy is a bit naive.
Recognition (Gold, Silver, Unity, Event, etc) will not be made sharable under any circumstance. We have limits on how much you can earn recognition from doing specific tasks for a reason and we do not want players bypassing this.
Prices for many items were set far too low in the past and we've been going through and making adjustments. While we understand this can cause frustration, please know that it's being done to keep incentives, progression and the overall game in a healthy state.
Justice gear is high-end gear that's intended to be difficult to acquire. Its previous pricing didn't reflect that accurately due to the token droprate being entirely random, being account shareable and the Rampages not meeting the difficulty level we want to warrant rewarding that type of gear.
Now that we have a few areas where players can earn Gold Champion Recognition we felt it was time to start shifting Justice gear to that pricing model.
At some point we would like to completely remove the Rampage token cost from Justice gear in favor of a pure GCR/SCR cost, but that will be reserved for when we're able to dedicate some time to reviewing rampages. We have no ETA for that.
@kaizerin Thanks for the much needed communication on this subject. Understanding your thought process on critical issues will at least help us discuss these topics more effectively.
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.
Recognition (Gold, Silver, Unity, Event, etc) will not be made sharable under any circumstance. We have limits on how much you can earn recognition from doing specific tasks for a reason and we do not want players bypassing this.
Prices for many items were set far too low in the past and we've been going through and making adjustments. While we understand this can cause frustration, please know that it's being done to keep incentives, progression and the overall game in a healthy state.
Justice gear is high-end gear that's intended to be difficult to acquire. Its previous pricing didn't reflect that accurately due to the token droprate being entirely random, being account shareable and the Rampages not meeting the difficulty level we want to warrant rewarding that type of gear.
Now that we have a few areas where players can earn Gold Champion Recognition we felt it was time to start shifting Justice gear to that pricing model.
At some point we would like to completely remove the Rampage token cost from Justice gear in favor of a pure GCR/SCR cost, but that will be reserved for when we're able to dedicate some time to reviewing rampages. We have no ETA for that.
Of course, the way around the concern about shared currencies is to allow only a fixed amount of any currency to go into the shared account each day (e.g. maybe the amount of the cosmic daily) no matter how many different characters one uses. This preserves the grind desired by the devs and allows players to use different characters to build towards large purchases and not get bored in the process (have you tried grinding for a full set of gcr primaries on one character? I did. Try it and report back how nice an experience you found it to be). This is win-win for devs and players, whereas the currency bound to account is devs win and players lose. I haven't heard a reason why this approach can't work. It completely follows the requirements of your first paragraph. It would also help break the log jams that so often prevents cosmic hunts from beginning. The longest part of cosmics should be the battles, not the wait for a certain combination of build types to show up.
Umm, not sure why anyone would think the old prices were too low. You should explain what you think a reasonable amount of time (in hours) is to acquire a full set of Justice Gear or gcr primaries. There are players who have completely given up on the Rampage system because they find the existing prices far too high given the time involved. I would say that for me personally it takes 70+ hours of play for a set of JG. How much time should I be investing? The genius, in a way, of the Rampage system is that it actually encouraged alts since once a token dropped for one character the drop rate for that character itself dropped until the next cycle began, encouraging the player to use a different character after each drop. The new system actually penalizes players trying to equip a character from using alts (i.e a complete 180 from the previous practice; IOW, it sounds like you are saying that CO's previous encouragements of alts was a mistake that needs to be corrected now). Not sure why CO wants to discourage players from using their characters, and instead putting many of them into storage.
There are so many past mechanisms in this game that were poorly thought out it is a shame to get rid of one of the better working ideas (a certain amount of shared currency).
I wonder if we will see double GCR/SCR weekends? We certainly don't need double XP weekends if the incentive to use multiple alts for high end content is being removed.
I wonder if we will see double GCR/SCR weekends? We certainly don't need double XP weekends if the incentive to use multiple alts for high end content is being removed.
#Interesting idea
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 guess the first counter feed back is why ask for feedback when you are "happy", also why not post the "rules" right upfront so people can work within them. 3 pages of posts wasted just to pretend feedback exists and say no.
The poor RNG on justice does counter balance the account binding, this was/ is the 'balance'
So I'll try one more time with a 'solution' that fits the requirements
1) Tokens are gone from Justice Gear [but not rampages], price is same as Distinguished 2) Rampage tokens are still account bound (RNG still in effect) 3) Drifter / Currency converter has a mission a) Mission has cool-down, timed to cycle per character with rampages (3 days or whole rampage set) b) Mission allows trading token (set of or individual) for combination of GCR/SCR
The mission cool down (time-gate) to rampage cycle per character effectively makes the character not bypass via multiple tokens from alts, yet any alt can run the content. Extra tokens are just, extra for another character or another week. Not sure how to fix the RNG problem, idea had is gone now that JG is GCR, and rampages are "too easy".
Or is real the problem people must play their character, and you are hopping with the terrible heroic SCR cost more suckers will convert their dollars zen=Q and you sell lock boxes keys for mercs/heroics and T7s. Just like some fools have done so they can 'win' cosmics (or just tank effectively)
Honestly not sure why to try post feedback, I barely see comsics active (yay time zones), rampages just run no GCR and end game for me. Might as well flip the table or just post swears and insults. Time to see outside your narrow point of view to game as an unkillable tank and single character style. (Or slap whoever thinks these current game path is a good idea)
Once the mission rewards are solidified for the new zone...someone should calculate how many missions it would take to complete to obtain ONE piece of Justice Gear (taking into account the new missions and previous missions which grant SCR and GCR) at the current prices on the PTS.
And then once that data has been compiled take into consideration the randomness of the token drop rates for that piece.
And then times that by 3 for a full set of Justice Gear.
I get that it's high end gear but as I said before, the potential time investment to me seems like it could very well be out of wack with the reward we get.
--
I feel as though sometimes the gear you want for a specific character may be difficult for that build to obtain...which would push you to perhaps retcon or rely on the time of others to help you grind for something.
I guess it would be more "okay" in terms of prices if UNITY missions still gave as much SCR as they did but were retooled to be a little harder.
It does seem like there's going to be a wider divide between players already geared and those who are trying to get geared, I mean...it's apparent now, but with this change which seems non negotiable (despite the feedback given from those who will be affected by it...), I think it may get a whole lot worse, which acts as a deterrent.
Anyway, I really hope someone does calculate how much time it would take to obtain one piece of Justice Gear with the new prices.
Recognition (Gold, Silver, Unity, Event, etc) will not be made sharable under any circumstance. We have limits on how much you can earn recognition from doing specific tasks for a reason and we do not want players bypassing this.
I don't know if it is possible, but like it was mentioned before...would it not be possible to simply introduce SCR/GCR as shareable in hideout banks but put a hard cap on how much can be stored?
I have heard the desire to stop players from hoarding but these new costs are actually going to promote hoarding...to an extent.
Time investment in obtaining SCR/GCR does not become lessened if it was shareable because you still have to run content in order to get the recognition, but I guess that's just my take on it.
At some point we would like to completely remove the Rampage token cost from Justice gear in favor of a pure GCR/SCR cost, but that will be reserved for when we're able to dedicate some time to reviewing rampages. We have no ETA for that.
Hmm, I thought as much.
With that in mind... it may be an idea to hold off on Justice Gear price revisions until Rampages are up for revision.
Because you'll likely run into a similar problem when it comes to revising Rampages, people have been collecting tokens and suddenly they become worthless (and knowing our luck would likely only be traded for a measly SCR/GCR amount or tons of UNTIL recog )
Some kind of consideration should be given to the people who are in the middle of or close to the end of getting JG. If I was 1 or 2 tokens away from completing the set when this patch went live, I would be pissed. Maybe there should be a temporary option to exchange tokens for x amount of gold and/or silver recog just to smooth the transition out.
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.
Some kind of consideration should be given to the people who are in the middle of or close to the end of getting JG. If I was 1 or 2 tokens away from completing the set when this patch went live, I would be pissed. Maybe there should be a temporary option to exchange tokens for x amount of gold and/or silver recog just to smooth the transition out.
There's not going to be anything like that I don't think. It's going to be a case of hard luck much like the Heroic Gear price adjustment, which meant that many players who were one or two SCR away from getting their gear had to farm away even more or give up.
Would be nicer if they left Justice Gear pricing revisions alone until they were ready to revamp Rampages. If Rampages were made more attractive and dynamic, their rewards would likely reflect this and the Justice Gear price changes would make SENSE then, not so much now.
What we have now feels like a temporary change for the moment, a stage which we don't really want or need at this point in time.
Because when/if they do revise Rampages, as Kaiserin said earlier, the token requirement would be removed...which would make current prices invalid (at least for the token part).
Prices for many items were set far too low in the past and we've been going through and making adjustments. While we understand this can cause frustration, please know that it's being done to keep incentives, progression and the overall game in a healthy state.
What "incentives" does this possibly provide?
After hitting 40, what really made me love this game (aside from customization of course) was the fact that getting moderate (but not endgame) gear wasn't too bad--STO had the same great formula. In a little over 1 week, I could have a max-level character set up in gear that I felt would be acceptable to try endgame stuff. Even better than that was the free character slot given for hitting 40, which encouraged me to make another character. I thought it was all really cool and it made me really want to stick with this game, as I (being a natural altolholic) could keep doing this for as long as it entertained me.
Then along came your SCR price hike and ruined the gearing-up part. I thought, "okay, the game's still fun enough, I can just downgrade to scrubbier stuff, like Merc gear, because it wasn't too costly on the auction house." Since many like myself thought the same, Merc gear has seen steadily-rising costs, but that's okay. Still, AH-bought green/blue scrub gear is going to make me less useful in the TA/cosmics we all seem to be getting pushed into, but oh well.
"This must be the newly-intended progression path," I thought to myself. Then I realized that, "Oh hey, that's not so bad. I can eventually get around to trying my luck at Rampage tokens for some meaningful rewards. Those aren't going anywhere, right? And it's still casual/alt friendly!"
Then along comes this new pricing model, pulling the rug out from under me a second time. I massively regret that I didn't get into Rampages sooner, because I was wrong and now, the goal posts are getting moved yet again.
So let me ask this--as a casual player who enjoys alts, but isn't interested in this "raid or die" gameplay model that encroaches upon everyone (whether they want it or not) more and more--where do I fit in? What's my expected endgame these days? What if I wanted to try TA/cosmics at some point? Rather than being decently geared in Heroics, do I just toddle in wearing my blue & green auction house piecemeal?
Alternate progression paths for different playstyles, so that everyone (no matter how they choose to play) feels like they can be earning meaningful rewards is good. Being told to "raid or die" is not. I get that this change is probably going to happen and there's nothing any of us can say about it at this point, but moving forward, please consider ALL of the playerbase. Not everyone wants to chase ultra-hardmode giant animals and clones for months.
Your playerbase is a rather large hodgepodge of assorted groups who all play for various reasons and enjoy different aspects of gameplay. You have to stop catering to just 1 of them or they're all that's going to be left.
(Hopefully) Useful CO Resources: HeroCreator (character planner), Cosmic Timers/Alert Checklist, Blood Moon Map, Anniversary Cat Map, and more (eventually, anyway).
I guess the first counter feed back is why ask for feedback when you are "happy", also why not post the "rules" right upfront so people can work within them. 3 pages of posts wasted just to pretend feedback exists and say no.
My thoughts exactly. Putting up a feedback thread implies some intention of actually considering the feedback given. It's pretty much unanimous that the costs are too high; if THAT'S not enough to cause the prices to be reconsidered, what the hell is?
I'm super grateful for all Kaizerin's been doing. There's no doubt the game has been getting MUCH more stuff since she was hired. And, honestly, I suspect that these particular price choices aren't her doing, and that she's just having to "agree" with them out of typical forced-n-fake developer unity. Basically what I'm saying is, if the complaint-paragraph above actually gets read, please don't take it personally, Kaizerin. X) I APPRECIATE YOUUUUU
Post edited by williamkony on
Dasher@Tool-box, donning his armor to prance into battle and blitz the enemy! No joke!
Cupid@Tool-box, stunningly radiant stag ready to play matchmaker between villain and arrow!
Vixon@Tool-box, frighteningly eager to summon despair for his adversaries!
Jebin Zedalu@Tool-box, elementalist weaponmaster. ...One of these things is not like the others!
Some kind of consideration should be given to the people who are in the middle of or close to the end of getting JG. If I was 1 or 2 tokens away from completing the set when this patch went live, I would be pissed. Maybe there should be a temporary option to exchange tokens for x amount of gold and/or silver recog just to smooth the transition out.
Well, in that case you've probably already gained one or two items of JG and you likely have made significant progress towards 225/450 just based on incidental activity in game.
If it were up to me, before messing with Rampages and Justice Gear I'd fix the OV system and update the NemCon run.
NemCon should be made tougher and given cosmic level rewards.
OV works, sort of, but I can't believe it is as intended. E.g. I can get 3 pieces of OV secondaries (arguably the best in the game) in ca. 10 hours of absolutely no challenge. By contrast, to get the 3 Cosmic level secondaries takes 10 runs on each Cosmic to get the required perks. Probably, given waiting for the hunt to start, resets, complete failures, and what not, it takes about an hour (on average) to complete 1 of those 30 runs (often filled with the tension of player gripes, complaints and insults), or 3 times what it takes to get the equal value OV secondaries (and far more stressful).
I wonder if we will see double GCR/SCR weekends? We certainly don't need double XP weekends if the incentive to use multiple alts for high end content is being removed.
I like this idea. The ONLY time I do Onslaught Villain content anymore is when the double OSV currency event rolls around - not saying this is the case for me with current/planned GCR content, but this suggestions does provide incentive to log in and play over and above the normal reasons.
If it were up to me, before messing with Rampages and Justice Gear I'd fix the OV system and update the NemCon run.
Oh god, please don't give them ideas. OV in particular is like...the last bastion of decent rewards for casual players like myself. Sure, the OV system is pretty sucky, but given how SCR and now Rampage content has been made alt-toxic, I'd rather they just stuck with adding new things while leaving existing content alone.
(Hopefully) Useful CO Resources: HeroCreator (character planner), Cosmic Timers/Alert Checklist, Blood Moon Map, Anniversary Cat Map, and more (eventually, anyway).
If it were up to me, before messing with Rampages and Justice Gear I'd fix the OV system and update the NemCon run.
NemCon should be made tougher and given cosmic level rewards.
Please this - I like Nemcon and would definitely run an amped up version all the time. Also, for the love of pancakes and kittens please add some of the old costumes back to this thing! I need my spikey shoulders!
In other words.. you're dedicated to killing the game with a completely-unwelcome grind and an alt-unfriendly policy, both of which spit right in the face of the way the game was designed previously.
Yes I'm sure that's true. Also, oh no the lizard people!
The grind has done nothing to encourage people to play. Seems like the player population just keeps going down. I mean, damn, I play during reasonable pacific time hours and the alerts are slow to pop, if they pop at all. People from other countries don't even get that. It's pretty bad if something that only needs 5 players can't get that many.
"Justice gear is high-end gear that's intended to be difficult to acquire."
What is the point in getting this gear at all if once you get it on a particular toon there is little to no reason to play that character again? Instead of feeling awesome that you have this powerful, decked out character to help gear your other toons, you stick it on a shelf to collect dust and start over again. The gear up treadmill is taking longer and longer, which means rolling alts becomes less appealing.
It seems like you're just making it less appealing to play my main AND less appealing to roll alts.
casual gamer with a fulltime job who wants to be invested and enjoy it all, but keeps finding more and more things are now impossible for me to play/enjoy/access with the time i can play in.
casual gamer with a fulltime job who wants to be invested and enjoy it all, but keeps finding more and more things are now impossible for me to play/enjoy/access with the time i can play in.
Like what? What things are now impossible for you to play and access? Do you need to be able to get things in a short time span in order to enjoy the game at all?
And nope, no lizard people. Just cold, hard facts.
FACT: The refusal to share currency or make high-end gear not be bind-on-pickup or account-bound makes it objectively less-encouraging to make new characters versus focusing on one single character.
High end gear being BoP is not new, so I'll focus on the issue of currency sharing, and here I think you're wrong, though I think there is a problem -- just not the problem you identify.
What account-bound currency does is make it so you cannot cycle between multiple characters to gear up one character; thus, it discourages playing characters other than the one(s) you are currently trying to gear up. If your main doesn't have Distinguished or Justice gear, you probably want to play your main until you do, and play your alts less. If your main already has D/J gear, you probably want to play your main less.
I'm of mixed opinions about that. On the one hand, I do think that you should actually play the character you're trying to equip. On the other hand, I think there should be reasons for playing characters even once they have their full gear set. On the third hand, character bound currency can be quite problematic for content with well-defined roles; if a healer is needed, but my healer doesn't need GCR, I'm going to be resistant to providing that (needed) healer.
Note that the increased time for max gear (it's theoretically 3-4 times greater, though you tend to get incidental side rewards in the process) certainly does mean you either play fewer alts, or give them worse gear, but that's a separate issue.
Personally, I think the CO team needs to take a big, in-depth look next door, at STO's progression system. It's not tiered in the same way CO's is trying (horribly) to be, but instead, it's flat. Every new reputation brings with it a new set of gear, with new set bonuses that do new and different things. And yet, people still work toward it anyway because the content is new, they get to take their existing geared characters out to play in this new content. They can earn things with it, including a new set of gear with different bonuses which may (or may not) synergize better with their current setup.
Throw in some costumes, action figures, and auras and that's even more incentive to run the content on an old, geared up favorite. (Just don't make the auras character-bound!)
(Hopefully) Useful CO Resources: HeroCreator (character planner), Cosmic Timers/Alert Checklist, Blood Moon Map, Anniversary Cat Map, and more (eventually, anyway).
Note how my earlier suggestion solves this problem. All they have to do is set a max limit of how much can go each day into a shared account (e.g. the amount you would get for a daily) and no one can really farm the system. It does allow you to continue to get some use out of however many alts you want to use. It also allows you to bring a character in to a cosmic hunt that you don't really need the currency on, but which will help maybe 30 other people to get going on a battle. This is win-win-win all around for everyone. The challenge for cosmics should not, except under the most perverse logic, include the wait time for organizing one.
What account-bound currency does is make it so you cannot cycle between multiple characters to gear up one character; thus, it discourages playing characters other than the one(s) you are currently trying to gear up. If your main doesn't have Distinguished or Justice gear, you probably want to play your main until you do, and play your alts less. If your main already has D/J gear, you probably want to play your main less.
I'm of mixed opinions about that. On the one hand, I do think that you should actually play the character you're trying to equip. On the other hand, I think there should be reasons for playing characters even once they have their full gear set. On the third hand, character bound currency can be quite problematic for content with well-defined roles; if a healer is needed, but my healer doesn't need GCR, I'm going to be resistant to providing that (needed) healer.
And now to wait for someone to come in an be contrarian for the hell of it.
That's spinny's job.
I understand. It's very hard for you to accept that people legitimately disagree with you and aren't just trying to get a rise out of you. I don't have a clue why that's so hard for you - but I understand that it is.
On the third hand, character bound currency can be quite problematic for content with well-defined roles; if a healer is needed, but my healer doesn't need GCR, I'm going to be resistant to providing that (needed) healer.
I think this is fine. It shouldn't always be the same people bringing healers or tanks. With how alty our game is compared to others, I think it's perfectly fine for you to say "No, I don't want to bring my healer, and I'm not going to" thereby putting pressure on other people to make a healer. Yes, in the short term it may mean "well, guess we don't get to do the thing today", however in the long term it means people will feel pressure to explore actually making a healer or tank or CCer of their own, and some of them might actually do it, meaning that in the long term we then have more people who (a) have healers and tanks and CCers to fill these rolls, and (b) people who can actually play them because they had to play them to get stuff for them. Yes there will be some stubborn "not me" people, but that won't be everyone.
Also, gear isn't the only thing on those vendors, so just because a toon is fully geared out doesn't mean there's no reason to play them anymore ( even if you don't count fun ).
You previously made heroic gear effectively unattainable for me, this would make Justice gear even more so, and so this feels like a move to make end game content competely locked off to the plebs like me. I might have been interested in hunting giant monsters, doing Teleios tower, or even exploring this new zone your working on in the PTS, but without access to high end gear this content is effectively blocked off for me. So if your goal is to alienate casuals: then congratulations, this will definitely do that.
Recognition (Gold, Silver, Unity, Event, etc) will not be made sharable under any circumstance. We have limits on how much you can earn recognition from doing specific tasks for a reason and we do not want players bypassing this.
Prices for many items were set far too low in the past and we've been going through and making adjustments. While we understand this can cause frustration, please know that it's being done to keep incentives, progression and the overall game in a healthy state.
Justice gear is high-end gear that's intended to be difficult to acquire. Its previous pricing didn't reflect that accurately due to the token droprate being entirely random, being account shareable and the Rampages not meeting the difficulty level we want to warrant rewarding that type of gear.
Now that we have a few areas where players can earn Gold Champion Recognition we felt it was time to start shifting Justice gear to that pricing model.
At some point we would like to completely remove the Rampage token cost from Justice gear in favor of a pure GCR/SCR cost, but that will be reserved for when we're able to dedicate some time to reviewing rampages. We have no ETA for that.
These absurd prices are only giving me incentive to not bother.
Making rampages harder will only further alienate your player base. We all know what Cryptic's idea of difficult content is by now, more abilities that one shot anyone not minmaxed. They don't need to be made harder, they need to be made more interesting. Right now LI and SC are mindnumbingly boring and unnecessarily long.
You previously made heroic gear effectively unattainable for me, this would make Justice gear even more so, and so this feels like a move to make end game content competely locked off to the plebs like me. I might have been interested in hunting giant monsters, doing Teleios tower, or even exploring this new zone your working on in the PTS, but without access to high end gear this content is effectively blocked off for me. So if your goal is to alienate casuals: then congratulations, this will definitely do that.
What you need to understand is that you are the one blocking yourself. Lack of Justice Gear isn't what's keeping you out - your insistence that you need endgame gear before entering endgame content is.
Comments
A developer (or developers) can put out information as to the reasoning behind the increase in costs.
But I have a feeling this'll be removed or ignored, so...
We can rant, rave, and yell all we like, but experience has taught me it doesn't matter. Once a change like this hits test -- it's a done deal. We're just here to help find obvious bugs.
But actual policy decisions? Forget it, it's done and this will all probably go live during today's patch or soon after.
- David Brin, "Those Eyes"
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Every single Cryptic property is heading to consoles and STO is only a year younger than CO. They are slapping a coat of paint on an old house and hoping they can re-market it to a new audience.
We'll wait and see. Because in the end none of us know anything.
But this rapid pace of development means that someone higher up was convinced to sign off. Thinking a rogue dev is revamping an entire game on this huge scale on whimsy is a bit naive.
Heroic Gear also needs to be part of the progression path towards Justice gear which is why lowered costs are also needed for Heroic Gear.
Omicron - Lvl 4x - Mind
Emerald Myst - Lvl 2x - Claws/Fighting Hybrid
Epsilon - Lvl 2x - Blade
Asterius - Lvl 1x - Electric/Void Hybrid
Prices for many items were set far too low in the past and we've been going through and making adjustments. While we understand this can cause frustration, please know that it's being done to keep incentives, progression and the overall game in a healthy state.
Justice gear is high-end gear that's intended to be difficult to acquire. Its previous pricing didn't reflect that accurately due to the token droprate being entirely random, being account shareable and the Rampages not meeting the difficulty level we want to warrant rewarding that type of gear.
Now that we have a few areas where players can earn Gold Champion Recognition we felt it was time to start shifting Justice gear to that pricing model.
At some point we would like to completely remove the Rampage token cost from Justice gear in favor of a pure GCR/SCR cost, but that will be reserved for when we're able to dedicate some time to reviewing rampages. We have no ETA for that.
Understanding your thought process on critical issues will at least help us discuss these topics more effectively.
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.
Umm, not sure why anyone would think the old prices were too low. You should explain what you think a reasonable amount of time (in hours) is to acquire a full set of Justice Gear or gcr primaries. There are players who have completely given up on the Rampage system because they find the existing prices far too high given the time involved. I would say that for me personally it takes 70+ hours of play for a set of JG. How much time should I be investing? The genius, in a way, of the Rampage system is that it actually encouraged alts since once a token dropped for one character the drop rate for that character itself dropped until the next cycle began, encouraging the player to use a different character after each drop. The new system actually penalizes players trying to equip a character from using alts (i.e a complete 180 from the previous practice; IOW, it sounds like you are saying that CO's previous encouragements of alts was a mistake that needs to be corrected now). Not sure why CO wants to discourage players from using their characters, and instead putting many of them into storage.
There are so many past mechanisms in this game that were poorly thought out it is a shame to get rid of one of the better working ideas (a certain amount of shared currency).
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 poor RNG on justice does counter balance the account binding, this was/ is the 'balance'
So I'll try one more time with a 'solution' that fits the requirements
1) Tokens are gone from Justice Gear [but not rampages], price is same as Distinguished
2) Rampage tokens are still account bound (RNG still in effect)
3) Drifter / Currency converter has a mission
a) Mission has cool-down, timed to cycle per character with rampages (3 days or whole rampage set)
b) Mission allows trading token (set of or individual) for combination of GCR/SCR
The mission cool down (time-gate) to rampage cycle per character effectively makes the character not bypass via multiple tokens from alts, yet any alt can run the content. Extra tokens are just, extra for another character or another week. Not sure how to fix the RNG problem, idea had is gone now that JG is GCR, and rampages are "too easy".
Or is real the problem people must play their character, and you are hopping with the terrible heroic SCR cost more suckers will convert their dollars zen=Q and you sell lock boxes keys for mercs/heroics and T7s. Just like some fools have done so they can 'win' cosmics (or just tank effectively)
Honestly not sure why to try post feedback, I barely see comsics active (yay time zones), rampages just run no GCR and end game for me. Might as well flip the table or just post swears and insults. Time to see outside your narrow point of view to game as an unkillable tank and single character style. (Or slap whoever thinks these current game path is a good idea)
Once the mission rewards are solidified for the new zone...someone should calculate how many missions it would take to complete to obtain ONE piece of Justice Gear (taking into account the new missions and previous missions which grant SCR and GCR) at the current prices on the PTS.
And then once that data has been compiled take into consideration the randomness of the token drop rates for that piece.
And then times that by 3 for a full set of Justice Gear.
I get that it's high end gear but as I said before, the potential time investment to me seems like it could very well be out of wack with the reward we get.
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I feel as though sometimes the gear you want for a specific character may be difficult for that build to obtain...which would push you to perhaps retcon or rely on the time of others to help you grind for something.
I guess it would be more "okay" in terms of prices if UNITY missions still gave as much SCR as they did but were retooled to be a little harder.
It does seem like there's going to be a wider divide between players already geared and those who are trying to get geared, I mean...it's apparent now, but with this change which seems non negotiable (despite the feedback given from those who will be affected by it...), I think it may get a whole lot worse, which acts as a deterrent.
Anyway, I really hope someone does calculate how much time it would take to obtain one piece of Justice Gear with the new prices.
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I have heard the desire to stop players from hoarding but these new costs are actually going to promote hoarding...to an extent.
Time investment in obtaining SCR/GCR does not become lessened if it was shareable because you still have to run content in order to get the recognition, but I guess that's just my take on it. Hmm, I thought as much.
With that in mind... it may be an idea to hold off on Justice Gear price revisions until Rampages are up for revision.
Because you'll likely run into a similar problem when it comes to revising Rampages, people have been collecting tokens and suddenly they become worthless (and knowing our luck would likely only be traded for a measly SCR/GCR amount or tons of UNTIL recog
My Characters on PRIMUS
[#]WeNeedHeroicFashion - <Aura Suggestions> - <CO Wiki (WIP)> - <Crowd Control Discussion> - <Telepathy in Champions Online> - How to review The Force Power Set - Join the Champions Online: On Alert Discord!
I am @RavenForce in game
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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.
Would be nicer if they left Justice Gear pricing revisions alone until they were ready to revamp Rampages. If Rampages were made more attractive and dynamic, their rewards would likely reflect this and the Justice Gear price changes would make SENSE then, not so much now.
What we have now feels like a temporary change for the moment, a stage which we don't really want or need at this point in time.
Because when/if they do revise Rampages, as Kaiserin said earlier, the token requirement would be removed...which would make current prices invalid (at least for the token part).
My Characters on PRIMUS
[#]WeNeedHeroicFashion - <Aura Suggestions> - <CO Wiki (WIP)> - <Crowd Control Discussion> - <Telepathy in Champions Online> - How to review The Force Power Set - Join the Champions Online: On Alert Discord!
I am @RavenForce in game
__________________________
After hitting 40, what really made me love this game (aside from customization of course) was the fact that getting moderate (but not endgame) gear wasn't too bad--STO had the same great formula. In a little over 1 week, I could have a max-level character set up in gear that I felt would be acceptable to try endgame stuff. Even better than that was the free character slot given for hitting 40, which encouraged me to make another character. I thought it was all really cool and it made me really want to stick with this game, as I (being a natural altolholic) could keep doing this for as long as it entertained me.
Then along came your SCR price hike and ruined the gearing-up part. I thought, "okay, the game's still fun enough, I can just downgrade to scrubbier stuff, like Merc gear, because it wasn't too costly on the auction house." Since many like myself thought the same, Merc gear has seen steadily-rising costs, but that's okay. Still, AH-bought green/blue scrub gear is going to make me less useful in the TA/cosmics we all seem to be getting pushed into, but oh well.
"This must be the newly-intended progression path," I thought to myself. Then I realized that, "Oh hey, that's not so bad. I can eventually get around to trying my luck at Rampage tokens for some meaningful rewards. Those aren't going anywhere, right? And it's still casual/alt friendly!"
Then along comes this new pricing model, pulling the rug out from under me a second time. I massively regret that I didn't get into Rampages sooner, because I was wrong and now, the goal posts are getting moved yet again.
So let me ask this--as a casual player who enjoys alts, but isn't interested in this "raid or die" gameplay model that encroaches upon everyone (whether they want it or not) more and more--where do I fit in? What's my expected endgame these days? What if I wanted to try TA/cosmics at some point? Rather than being decently geared in Heroics, do I just toddle in wearing my blue & green auction house piecemeal?
Alternate progression paths for different playstyles, so that everyone (no matter how they choose to play) feels like they can be earning meaningful rewards is good. Being told to "raid or die" is not. I get that this change is probably going to happen and there's nothing any of us can say about it at this point, but moving forward, please consider ALL of the playerbase. Not everyone wants to chase ultra-hardmode giant animals and clones for months.
Your playerbase is a rather large hodgepodge of assorted groups who all play for various reasons and enjoy different aspects of gameplay. You have to stop catering to just 1 of them or they're all that's going to be left.
I'm super grateful for all Kaizerin's been doing. There's no doubt the game has been getting MUCH more stuff since she was hired. And, honestly, I suspect that these particular price choices aren't her doing, and that she's just having to "agree" with them out of typical forced-n-fake developer unity. Basically what I'm saying is, if the complaint-paragraph above actually gets read, please don't take it personally, Kaizerin. X) I APPRECIATE YOUUUUU
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Epic Stronghold
Block timing explained
NemCon should be made tougher and given cosmic level rewards.
OV works, sort of, but I can't believe it is as intended. E.g. I can get 3 pieces of OV secondaries (arguably the best in the game) in ca. 10 hours of absolutely no challenge. By contrast, to get the 3 Cosmic level secondaries takes 10 runs on each Cosmic to get the required perks. Probably, given waiting for the hunt to start, resets, complete failures, and what not, it takes about an hour (on average) to complete 1 of those 30 runs (often filled with the tension of player gripes, complaints and insults), or 3 times what it takes to get the equal value OV secondaries (and far more stressful).
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
"Justice gear is high-end gear that's intended to be difficult to acquire."
What is the point in getting this gear at all if once you get it on a particular toon there is little to no reason to play that character again? Instead of feeling awesome that you have this powerful, decked out character to help gear your other toons, you stick it on a shelf to collect dust and start over again. The gear up treadmill is taking longer and longer, which means rolling alts becomes less appealing.
It seems like you're just making it less appealing to play my main AND less appealing to roll alts.
[at]riviania Member since Aug 2009
casual gamer with a fulltime job who wants to be invested and enjoy it all, but keeps finding more and more things are now impossible for me to play/enjoy/access with the time i can play in.
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
What account-bound currency does is make it so you cannot cycle between multiple characters to gear up one character; thus, it discourages playing characters other than the one(s) you are currently trying to gear up. If your main doesn't have Distinguished or Justice gear, you probably want to play your main until you do, and play your alts less. If your main already has D/J gear, you probably want to play your main less.
I'm of mixed opinions about that. On the one hand, I do think that you should actually play the character you're trying to equip. On the other hand, I think there should be reasons for playing characters even once they have their full gear set. On the third hand, character bound currency can be quite problematic for content with well-defined roles; if a healer is needed, but my healer doesn't need GCR, I'm going to be resistant to providing that (needed) healer.
Note that the increased time for max gear (it's theoretically 3-4 times greater, though you tend to get incidental side rewards in the process) certainly does mean you either play fewer alts, or give them worse gear, but that's a separate issue.
Epic Stronghold
Block timing explained
Throw in some costumes, action figures, and auras and that's even more incentive to run the content on an old, geared up favorite. (Just don't make the auras character-bound!)
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
Also, gear isn't the only thing on those vendors, so just because a toon is fully geared out doesn't mean there's no reason to play them anymore ( even if you don't count fun ).
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
Making rampages harder will only further alienate your player base. We all know what Cryptic's idea of difficult content is by now, more abilities that one shot anyone not minmaxed. They don't need to be made harder, they need to be made more interesting. Right now LI and SC are mindnumbingly boring and unnecessarily long.
What you need to understand is that you are the one blocking yourself. Lack of Justice Gear isn't what's keeping you out - your insistence that you need endgame gear before entering endgame content is.
My super cool CC build and how to use it.