Costume items, to date, have been to date of six sorts:
- Stuff that’s there in the costume builder from the get-go.
- Stuff that requires a specific, mission (e.g., the cape mission) to unlock. (Arguably, this applies to recostumiing missions for Icon et al.)
- As #2, but event-related (Winter and Valentires costume pieces).
- Feature items with box sets (e.g., helmets via buying the CoV box set).
- Vet Rewards.
One of CoX’s greatest strengths has been its character creator and costuming. It’s constantly under expansion, and many folks are drawn to the game just for it. Requests for a stand-alone costumer are regularly received by the devs, and a lot of people roll up alts just to try out a new visual concept.
Note that most of the above items are available to anyone in the game, at least after a certain period of play. Options 3-4 aren’t, but the number of pieces involved, and their “hotness,” is pretty liimited. Having the toga is nice if you want a togaed character, but I haven’t heard too much wailing over that.
I9 introduces a new class of costume item:
6. Costume inventions.
Now, we’ll leave alone the idea of “inventions” for developing costume pieces. (“You mean I can get all this spiffy power armor stuff just for free, but if I want fairy wings vs bat wings I need to ‘invent’ something?”) The changed dynamic here is that in order to get the stuff, you need …
a. To find an invention recipe.
b. To buy an invention recipe.
c. To find or buy the underlying ingredients for the recipe.
Simply playing the game isn’t enough. Especially when these costume pieces — and I’m talking wing types here — are considered premium bits, by design. Quoth Positron:
I looked at the dataminer today at the costume drop rate and it IS lower than we anticipated.
We are looking into making some changes, but do not expect anything radical or quick.
We DO want costume recipes to be “commodities” that players actively seek and pay top inf. for, but we do not want them to be so rare that players can’t get them, ever, in the course of their play.
If you don’t have “top influence” or aren’t a high enough level to get it, you are SOL. If you don’t want to be a day-trader at Wentworths (“Where CoX meets eBay with 1985-style computer interfaces!”), you are SOL. If you want to play a fairy character or a draconic character or a winged robot or whatever, and you’re not a “playah,” you’re SOL.
That just strikes me as a horrible strategic decision on the devs’ part. If costuming is such a big part of the game, then leveraging that to taunt folks into the invention system is manipulative at best, and for those who don’t want to dive into its clutches, a shut-out at worst. It’s like going to Disneyland, getting your entrance pass, but being told that some rides can only be ridden if you pay a lot extra, or find a random FastPass ticket for them. It stops being about fun and starts being about commerce.
Bad idea.
Adding to that thought:
This is the one area where the stated design decision “You don’t have to do this if you don’t want to” fails. For “normal” inventions, you can, in fact, ignore the whole thing and toddle along perfectly happy with DOs and SOs and the whole match. IOs may have the potential to make your character *better*, but the game is not (yet) designed around requiring them to succeed.
If your character concept requires XYZ-style wings, though, then you either abandon the concept, or you have to do the invention search/buy thing.
That’s why this rubs wrongly.
And adding to *that* thought …
For Vet Rewards and for the Event Costume Pieces, they are available on *all* alts. For costume piece recipes, they are toon-specific. If I get Dragon Wings with Rita, that does Torchy no good.
Reading through that thread, I see tons of folks who Simply Don’t Get It.
“If it means so much to you, go street-sweeping greens and blues for salvage, so that you eventually get what you want.”
Yeah, that’s heroic. And fun.
“Play the market and get enough money to buy it.”
Well, yeah, if that’s the sort of thing I liked, I’d like doing that sort of thing.
“Make friends with folks who are lucky. Get them to give you the recipe you want.”
Aside from the fact the game is designed to not required “making friends” more than ad hoc social groups, and that I have a number of alts on a number of servers where I know *nobody*, a brilliant idea. Unless I’m ashamed to ask someone to forego getting 15MM infl. at auction for something.
And I note that part of what this comes down to (in the board rhetoric) is a debate about exclusivity.
Should some folks have access to things that other folks don’t, or can’t?
My answer is, for the most part, no, certainly not for things that are conceptually important for RP or functionally important for gameplay.
(And, to that end, that’s why I don’t sweat the Vet Rewards. There are VRs I don’t have yet. But I know I will if I continue playing. And none of them is essential for the game in terms of RP or gameplay.)
Some folks, though, only seem to feel important or think the game worthwhile if *they* have something that *nobody else* has. Which just strikes me as wrong.
The only way I would ever try to get one of those pieces is a random Drop. I’ve got a character in a supergroup called the normals who would KILL for those rocket boots. they would totally justify his flying. But Im not going to take a Goldman Sachs course on insider trading just to be able to play the market for it. Nor am I going to grind radio missions to get one. NOR am I going to beg my online pals, many of which have already transformed into some kind of mutant WoW loot horders for one.
I’ve noticed a very disturbing trend, amongst the circle of Peeps I’ve been playing with. Its not the game anymore, its the loot. and only the loot. its no longer “lets kick Malta ass!” its “what kind of IO drops will I get if I go on these missions?” And that blows chunks. I’ve people opt out of full teams of 8 because the next foe we were facing wasn’t dropping the crap they wanted. and the team was in total Roxxor mode.
The game has already changed fundimentally. if the trend continues I may actually consider the LOTR online and deactivate my account for a bit. And Im a 30 month vet saying this.
That truly sucks.
Perhaps I’m lucky that my “social” gaming these days is limited to running with Margie and the occasional PUG. 🙂
To a number of folks saying, “Well, heck, don’t worry about it, just go on with your characters without [costume piece X] the way you did a month ago,” here’s the best response in the thread (so far) that sums up my feelings on it, by ICF_Zombra.
To personalize the example, Torchielle should have dragon wings. She doesn’t have them because she “made” them, or “found” them, or extorted the secret recipe from some fallen foe. She has them as part of backstory that has nothing to do with the game mechanics.
The game mechanics as they now stand mean that (a) she uses batwings instead, (b) she does without, (c) she changes her story or presents them as invisible Jumpman-style dragon wings, or (d) she does a bunch of stuff that has nothing to do with the story behind her having dragon wings in order to get dragon wings.
Are we having fun yet?
A lot of this comes back to the ease of sharing the new salvage/recipes. I’m in an SG, so are my alts. If I get the rocket boots recipe while playing my winged character, I can’t easily transfer it to my robot character. I can use it, sell it or drop it. Or get another person to “broker” the trade for me. Or sell it and then buy it back. And that is too much damn trouble. If I could simply stick it in a salvage bin in the SG base and anyone could use it, I’d be much happier with this system. I don’t need IOs, but I would play around with them. I’d like costume pieces, but I’m not going to play the ebay stockmarket bs required for them. I’ll do my best to ignore it entirely. I do see taking some time off (as I do after nearly every issue) to let the “hardcores” calm down.
I hate that I’m complaining about this. To date, I’ve never had a serious problem with this game. But this idea is stupid. It only fits a very narrow area of the core game concept and adds loot and eventual RMT to a game that was doing very well avoiding such things. It also forces a social economy into a community that didn’t need one or want one. Remember the idea behind the Power 10 Enh? That worked really well, didn’t it.
Get off my lawn!
A lot of this comes back to the ease of sharing the new salvage/recipes. I’m in an SG, so are my alts. If I get the rocket boots recipe while playing my winged character, I can’t easily transfer it to my robot character. I can use it, sell it or drop it. Or get another person to “broker” the trade for me. Or sell it and then buy it back. And that is too much damn trouble. If I could simply stick it in a salvage bin in the SG base and anyone could use it, I’d be much happier with this system. I don’t need IOs, but I would play around with them. I’d like costume pieces, but I’m not going to play the ebay stockmarket bs required for them. I’ll do my best to ignore it entirely. I do see taking some time off (as I do after nearly every issue) to let the “hardcores” calm down.
I hate that I’m complaining about this. To date, I’ve never had a serious problem with this game. But this idea is stupid. It only fits a very narrow area of the core game concept and adds loot and eventual RMT to a game that was doing very well avoiding such things. It also forces a social economy into a community that didn’t need one or want one. Remember the idea behind the Power 10 Enh? That worked really well, didn’t it?
Get off my lawn!
Sorry for the multi post. IE froze after the first submit. I hate that.
No prob. I prefer echoed comments to none at all.
In some ways, this reminds me of PvP. Granted, nobody had to do it who didn’t want to … but it ended up (to this day) leading to all sorts of system tweaks and dev time to tune the whole thing and make it “work,” time that could have much better gone to, oh, I don’t know, stuff that I want!
Like more free costume pieces.
I unloaded 3 or 4 recipies later in the day for about 2 mil each. I used that money to by a full set of “Thunderstrike ” IO’s for Atomic Saint’s Cosmic Burst. The result?
A big Meh.
IMO, the “lesser ” IO’s the ones that jack things up by 42.7 % , and can be bought anyhere, are the rule of the day. I won’t weep because my sets aren’t combined and I dont get an “additional 3.56 recharge rate on all powers” and “free slice of pie on the PI ferry” type of thing . They work better, and are easier to use. All this cutting and pasting is a big fat waste of time. My AOE heal went from 265 to 281 with the Basic IO’s and thats just peachy with me.
Doctor Manbot:
Let me know if you do go with LotRO. I’ll be happy to show you around Eriador, helping with quests and such. 🙂
Good feedback, Doc. Thanks.
I went to LoTRO during Beta and I’ve had a hard time looking back. Several people I played with in COX have moved on as well. It just seems to me that each Issue I felt a little less “Super” and now, if I want to have certain abilities or a certain look I have to come home from work and…well, work.
When Cryptic first announced Loot was being added to the game I took a deep breath and accepted that the game I loved was dying in favor of …. what …. World of Mutants or City of Warcraft?
Really, for me its been happening slowly ever since PvP came into the game and the myriad of “tweaks” and “balances” started making me feel a lot less like “Superman” and a lot more like “Above Average Man”. Little things like new costume parts and Vet Awards kept grabbing me as I edged towards the door but I think this is finally the end for me.
Sad really……I loved this game
One friend said to me that the best thing added to the game in I9 from his perspective was Flight positions. I pretty much had to agree.
They’re pretty cool. Statesman’s Task Force looks to be fun (though I’ve heard some folks are a bit brutal in requirements for PUGs).
The “best” things are very low-level QoL improvements: A “store” in Kings Row. A Trainer in PI. The Green Line extending to FF and Skyway.
I’m hoping that all the content goodness being hinted at for I10 pays off, and that we don’t see non-Invention stuff getting nerfed because of what IOs, etc., do.
And I’m still cheesed about the dragon wings. 🙂
I’ve run the States TF twice now, with 2 different toons. Its a hoot and a holler. as long as your team keeps their head in the last misson, pulls the AV’s and lures the stragglers away, they arent’ a problem. As long as you can distractk LR with some pets and good tank, the towers arent a huge issue. Of course , the issue is teamwork. My SG has been together for 3 years, and before that, we all played Freedom Force. so I knows what most of them are going to do before they do it.
Im hoping to get LOTR for Fathers day.. and then I may take you up on your offer! 🙂
Well, after enjoying this blog in the UK for well over a year, I’m finally wound up enough to contribute!
I couldn’t agree more with all the comments in this thread and also feel that the whole thing’s been going down hill gradually since all the PvP and ED stuff.
There was a time when this game fulfilled all the secret (and not so secret) superhero fantasies I harboured without requiring oodles of time to boot, but I too have started feeling less and less like a super hero to the point where I can’t really be bothered any more.
It was all so simple before. You’d get home from work, log in, fly around, beat the bad guys, upgrade your powers, beat the bad guys even more then log off again. Perfect. It now just feels as thought you can’t slot things the way you want, can’t use the powers you want, can’t get the costume pieces you want…
It’s actually painful to write this, as I loved this game so much.
I’m coming up to my 27 month vet reward and can’t believe I’m finally contemplating quitting. I always knew the time would come, and I’ve already spent far more time on this game than any other before it, but I always thought it would end because of I got bored, not because I felt the game I loved had been taken away.
People say you can ignore it if you want, but I don’t buy that. I’m always feeling that I have to do something with the stuff that’s being dropped and when my inventory fills up I feel I should empty it in case I get something really good, but I don’t want to delete stuff as I might need it for a later recipe, but can’t be bothered to keep going to store it or sell it, and I’m quite interested in some of the new costume pieces, so I keep thinking I need to look out for them… Aaaaahhhhh!!
For now I’ll keep playing (and paying), but will keep my fingers crossed that the whole auction thing dies down and the more useful and interesting recipes get easier to buy for the chars that want them.
Keep on posting Dave – love your work! : )
Oops! Sorry about all the line brakes – it didn’t look like that in the preview!
I’m at 36 months and I, too, have considered quitting. The only problem is that quitting for me would mean the end of MMOs for a while. I simply don’t have the time or energy to learn a new one. And I hate loot-based systems. I have since I quit UO (six years ago). And the fantasy thing is just too played out.
Anybody have any suggestions?
Oh, and as I figured, RMT is upon us.
*sigh*
Yeah. I’m going to pay Real Money, not just Massive Sums of Fake Money for it. Feh.
Thanks for posting, Stuart. I’ve been feeling a scosh burned out of late — but with Margie still playing, it makes it easier to get sucked back in.
I have found that selling salvage and recipes, while a scosh annoying in terms of time, does reap decent cash (which can then be used to buy nice enhancements). But, yeah, I agree, the distance from Real Comic Book Heroes keeps increasing.
Still enjoying playing lower levels, though. 🙂