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f13.net  |  f13.net General Forums  |  The Gaming Graveyard  |  City of Heroes / City of Villains  |  Topic: Devs remove large number of MA badges 0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.
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Author Topic: Devs remove large number of MA badges  (Read 13634 times)
UnSub
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on: May 24, 2009, 09:15:16 PM

Only about 20 badges remain out of the 113 (I think) that were associated with the MA system.

It's a case of the devs doing the right thing and the wrong thing at the same time. The right thing, because some of those badges are have stupid requirements; the wrong thing because they've taken away things they've already given to players that have earned them.

Lots of screaming about MA. Again.

koro
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Posts: 2307


Reply #1 on: May 25, 2009, 07:57:29 AM

 "This is because they encouraged farming, because they encouraged aberrant behavior by doing one thing over and over again..."

May 21st, 2009: City of Heroes realizes it is an MMO.

I agree with UnSub that it's both a right and wrong thing at the same time, but what really frustrates me, even as someone who has been out of CoX for well over a year, is that it's obvious a lot of these problems and issues shouldn't have been there in the first place.
UnSub
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Reply #2 on: May 25, 2009, 08:11:07 PM

I should have said that these badges are coming out with I15, so that if you earn them between now and then, you'll lose them.

Completely agree that if the plan was even to consider taking them out, they never should have gone in to start with. Badges attached to things like Hall of Fame and Dev's Choice were major points of internal CoH/V audience promotion by the devs, now two months later they are going to be coming out?

If Positron announces he's stepping down and a new dev is taking over as lead, I wouldn't be surprised. It's a huge design shift for CoH/V to take regarding badges.

koro
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Reply #3 on: May 27, 2009, 04:15:58 PM

Yeah, I just saw that the removed badges will be put back in after looking at the I15 patch notes. They really need to brush up on their PR.

The Hall of Fame and Dev's Choice badges were pretty horrible ideas from the get-go anyway. Anything even approaching Hall of Fame status gets 0-starred into oblivion, and relying on active dev participation for any in-game reward is fairly silly, especially since Dev's Choice seems to have less to do with the quality of your story and more of how buddy-buddy you are with whoever's giving it out.
UnSub
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Reply #4 on: May 31, 2009, 09:59:34 PM

Positron mans up about the badge changes.

Quote
Now this was not a decision that was made lightly. We knew that this would make a lot of people angry, the people who legitimately earned those badges through hard work, but these were our choices:

(A) Leave everything alone.
(B) Stop giving out the badges, but let the people who earned them keep them.
(C) Remove the badges.

A) doesn't do anything to remedy the situation. Mission Architect would continue to be farmed for badges from now to end of time, and eventually it loses its appeal as a story telling device and just becomes a place where someone goes to get their badges.

B) Creates a "haves" and "have nots" situation. Were you able to get the badges before I15? If not, then no badge for you, ever. If so, congrats! You will now forever have dozens of badges that are no longer attainable in the game. This situation is very unfair, and we did not feel that it would be the right thing to do to the community. Maybe I had all the badges this time, but what about next time something like this happens? Why does Awesome Man get to keep badges that no one else can even get, doing the exact same things?

The only badges that should act this way are the Anniversary ones. Now, I am going to talk to Synapse about making these "account wide" if possible, so new characters on your account can get them as well. It might not be possible, so I am not promising anything.

C) Really was the best option. It levels the playing field. Yes it is not going to be the most popular decision, we are literally removing content from the game. Yes, people are losing hard work in attaining some badges. In the long run I believe that this decision is the best for Mission Architect and the best for City of Heroes as a whole going forward.

It's a good explanation and nice to see the dev thoughts behind it.

shiznitz
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the plural of mangina


Reply #5 on: June 11, 2009, 01:42:31 PM

What do the badges actually do? If they are nothing but e-peen shit then leave them in for those that got them and introduce new ones. New things are good in an MMO still, right?

I have never played WoW.
Nebu
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Reply #6 on: June 11, 2009, 01:55:14 PM

What do the badges actually do? If they are nothing but e-peen shit then leave them in for those that got them and introduce new ones. New things are good in an MMO still, right?

Some of them lead to set bonuses that give nice stuff.

"Always do what is right. It will gratify half of mankind and astound the other."

-  Mark Twain
Trippy
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Reply #7 on: June 11, 2009, 02:00:39 PM

What do the badges actually do? If they are nothing but e-peen shit then leave them in for those that got them and introduce new ones. New things are good in an MMO still, right?
A handful of the many hundreds of badges actually confer some sort of character bonus (e.g. a small HP boost or an extra power). The rest are there for the collectors though they all have titles associated with them. I.e. you can set an extra title for your character by selecting any of the badges you have. A lot of people are mad about the disappearing badges because of the titles they will no longer be able to use (though some of them will presumably be put back in later).
UnSub
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Reply #8 on: June 11, 2009, 07:43:13 PM

What do the badges actually do? If they are nothing but e-peen shit then leave them in for those that got them and introduce new ones. New things are good in an MMO still, right?

As discussed, some do stuff.

However, if you leave them in the devs are left with a situation where everyone who didn't get them can no longer get them. There is already plenty of simmering jealousy within the badge collecting community that some badges - like the Anniversary badges - are already unobtainable if you didn't log in from Issue 2 onwards, as well as Bug Hunter - the badge that only the devs can award to players who solve / provide help in solving difficult bugs. You leave those badges in and suddenly a whole host of people are unhappy going forwards. You take them out, a lot of people are unhappy now but might settle down in future.

All in all, MA was a series of PR mistakes for CoH/V when it should have been a big triumph.

tkinnun0
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Reply #9 on: June 14, 2009, 11:27:39 AM

A handful of the many hundreds of badges actually confer some sort of character bonus (e.g. a small HP boost or an extra power).

So, nerf the requirements to obtain those badges to few hours so that everyone can get them without grinding. Heck, throw in some quests that point out those badges so that everyone WILL get them. Then just consider them a permanent buff to every character from a game design perspective and forget about them. This isn't rocket science. What, the game just got too easy? Introduce some new content that's grindy as shit to compensate. Not rocket science.
Glazius
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Reply #10 on: June 15, 2009, 01:23:28 PM

A handful of the many hundreds of badges actually confer some sort of character bonus (e.g. a small HP boost or an extra power).

So, nerf the requirements to obtain those badges to few hours so that everyone can get them without grinding. Heck, throw in some quests that point out those badges so that everyone WILL get them. Then just consider them a permanent buff to every character from a game design perspective and forget about them. This isn't rocket science. What, the game just got too easy? Introduce some new content that's grindy as shit to compensate. Not rocket science.

None of those badges actually apply to the MA, though. Well, one does give you something - a pad that lets you edit missions from anywhere in the game, not just the consoles in the architect building.

And from what I can tell of the patch notes you can get that badge for a fresh character within a few hours. You can't get any other badge within the architect.

This is looking like classic "three possible solutions, IMPLEMENT THEM ALL" territory.
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