Sorry if the subject is a bit cryptic. Let me elaborate.
Every character can, ostensibly, get every non-event badge, regardless of where that badge may be obtained, by switching factions. (There would appear to be some badges you can obtain ONLY by switching factions and back again.)
I'm pretty much a "hero only" player. I can identify very few, if any, of my characters that might "go vigilante" and I can't really think of any that might "go bad." I do have one villain, and could conceive of playing a villain that might "go rogue," or all the way to hero and possibly even back to villain again. In general though, my characters tend to pick a faction and stick with it.
Given that, the plethora of badges that a character could earn by switching factions, when that character is NEVER going to earn them, is confusing and makes it hard to identify the badges a "one faction" character needs.
For example, given the current state of the game, none of my hero characters will ever earn any of the Praetorian or Rogue Isles Exploration badges. And yet, they show up in the Exploration badge listing for every hero character. While it might be easy to see the difference between the Paragon/Rogue Isles/Praetorian Exploration badges, that is only true for the Exploration badges. None of the other badge types can be easily distinguished by faction in this way.
I wish there were some way for me to flag a character so that only those badges that could be earned by their current faction are shown. The default state would be for this flag to be "off" so all possible badges are shown. (The current behavior.)
I have no idea how the current database is organized. If the query/data that generates a list of badges is of the form "Can a $FACTION character earn this badge?" it might be easy to add this functionality. I the query/data is more along the lines of "Can a $FACTION character have this badge?" it might be impossible to make the necessary distinction.
And while I'm making wishes and work for other people...
it might be useful to have a "Turn the show-by-faction flag on/off for all my characters" button as well. I'm guessing anyone interested in something like this will want to turn this ALL ON--except for a few characters or ALL OFF--except for a few characters... but that would be gravy.
I know what joy/horror a project like this can be, and how a "simple" suggestion can actually be a ton of work. If this just isn't possible, well, that's the way the dice roll, eh? If that turns out to be the case, you might want to keep this issue on your radar.
Right now, the combinations of faction (Hero, Vigilante, Rogue, Villain, Praetorian) and origin (Paragon, Rogue Isles, Praetoria) are pretty structured and exclusive. It is conceivable Paragon Studios could add the ability for characters to "relocate" without changing factions. If that happens, the distinction between "can I HAVE this badge?" and "can I EARN this badge?" becomes even more important. (and convoluted.
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ANYwho, I hope this was clear. If you have any questions, please let me know. Also, if this is already available and I've just missed it, that's doublepluscool, too.
Thanks again for working so hard on the various sites and tools. They're really cool and useful, and really add to my enjoyment of the game. Thanks, too, for being open to suggestions from the peanut gallery.
