Author Topic: Badge Hunting Basics  (Read 5805 times)

WanderingAries

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Badge Hunting Basics
« on: May 27, 2011, 05:48:00 AM »
Ok, so I've managed to whittle down the obtainable badges for my main toon to about 1020 at last ingame count. Give or take fighting Sentinal over wanting to update, I've managed to get CIT to agree with this count. I ran into something interesting that has already been partially discussed briefly (http://www.cohtitan.com/forum/index.php/topic,3716.0.html) as a good chunk of the badges next on my list turned out to be (for now atleast) Praet-side only badges. Since I only have a hundred or so badges left I'm going to printout the current list and hand mark them out for tracking, but even when the finally upgrade Praet to a full Alignment (you know it's gonna happen) this could be an issue for a badge hunter starting out for the first time.

The following is in reference to the Badge Checklist function within CIT.
IE: http://cit.cohtitan.com/checklist/85839

Badge Dualism
The main problem I've come across with the badge hunting (since returning in i19-ish) using CIT (and badge-hunter it seems) is that since the player can switch sides and badge names on many badges simply change, ALL badges are treated as dual nomatter where I look until I look at the details of a badge. For instance, if I had a brand new hero and didn't lookup the information on the Accomplishment: Plague Carrier in a place other than the CIT character list, then I'd have no idea that it was a Red-Side badge. Yes I realize that the first thing to do is research your badges, but there needs to be some way (red/blue/gold text variations perhaps?) to differenciate between the badges or a way to filter based on which side you're currently running. I know that after coming back from two years it would have been nice to have a simple reminder that The Abyss was a Red-Side zone and to stop trying to find it in my Blue-Side maps :-p. After thinking about this part alone it feels to me like there could be an actual database entry required or something in the filters to be added before we start getting any more new badges added to the slowly growing list.

Praet-Only Badges (as of i20)
Since it is currently not possible for every Praet badge to be acquired by a toon not originating in Praet (until an issue releases adding something Ouro-like Praet side), there needs to be a way to either hide or otherwise-mark badges in such a manner that someone looking at the CIT checklist for guidance can, at a glance, know whether to ignore the badge or not. I think what I'm getting at is some sort of system (likely CIT created color-coding) that presents a Legend at the top of the printout and this Legend is followed throughout the remainder of the report. I'm not even close to familiar with the back-end coding used to for CIT so I'm not exactly sure how this would be accomplished, but it would make a difference in my view.

Just a Quick example of what I mean:
Hero - Badge is acquired within the boundaries of Paragon City
Villain - Badge is acquired within the boundaries of the Rogue Isles
Praet - Badge is acquired within the boundaries of Praet
PvP - Badge is acquired within the boundaries of a PvP Zone
Global - Badge is universally acquired and may be known by another name once the appropriate alignment shift has been performede. (I'd recomend putting AE, Arena, etc badges in this group)

Patron Arc Badges
Since the game only allows a toon (to my limited knowledge) one chance at choosing a Patron, then I would recomend finding a method/filter that would put a hidden condition on the printout in which once one Patron related badge has been acquired, all other Patron badges that don't follow that arc be hidden from that toon's printout. Again, this is a back-end sort of thing so I'm not sure how easy it is to accomplish. I think this would further assist in minimizing clutter and excess/unobtainable badges in the list.

Side Notes:
You're more than likely aware, but there are many badges without text that need attn. Granted, you're only so many bodies and rely on personal experience and that which is acquired by those that help out from time to time, but I'd put it up there with the above wish list. I'm sure others will bring up things like "do your homework" or "that's what (insert CoX assistance site) is for", but why not improve what we already have? Or better yet, put it all in one easy to reach place.
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Aggelakis

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Re: Badge Hunting Basics
« Reply #1 on: May 27, 2011, 06:00:26 AM »
All of the issues you've outlined above (and more) will be solved with the update to CIT. It's in the works. Additionally, I've moved this from Badge Discussions to CIT, since it's not a badge discussion...it's about CIT.
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Keen

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Re: Badge Hunting Basics
« Reply #2 on: May 27, 2011, 01:15:34 PM »

Not a native English speaker.
But I'll let you point and laugh at my typos so I can fix them. :)

TonyV

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Re: Badge Hunting Basics
« Reply #3 on: May 27, 2011, 01:17:41 PM »
Just to elaborate a little, badge counts are tricky things.  We've discussed somewhere between "quite a bit" and "at length" exactly how we want them handled, who can earn what, and so on.

Our end goal is to try to account for all of these tricky things and take them into account.  Stuff like:

  • There are a lot of badges that are the exact same badge, just with different names.  For example, Newsman and Newsgirl.  In an extreme case, a badge may have up to 12 name variations associated with it, separated by hero/villain, male/female, and English/French/German.
  • Some badges are different badges, but functionally equivalent.  For example, Bloodletter and Mirage, two of the Villain patrol badges.  Both of these badges should never be counted towards your "badges possible" counts, since you can never possess both.
  • Furthermore, some badges are not only mutually exclusive, but actually provide information about other badges that will be mutually exclusive.  For example, if you earn the Lead-Follower Praetorian badges collected badge, it is not only mutually exclusive with Tourist/Visitor (the hero/villain equivalent), but now we know that you can only earn the Extractor of Secrets badge, and that you will never be able to earn the Collector/Native badge.
  • There's at least a handful of badges that actually disappear: the X Times the Victor badges.  Sure, you can earn it, but with the exception of the Ten Times the Victor badge, it's highly unlikely that you'll actually keep it.  This will require special case logic to account for.  (Argh!)
  • Some badges are completely unearnable at this time, such as the Celebrant badge.  If you don't have it, you (at least for now) never will.  These badges should not count towards your total earned badges.
  • Other badges may be earnable, but only under circumstances that we feel you shouldn't be punished for not having it.  The best example I can think of is the Bug Hunter badge, which so few people have and which can only be earned by someone's subjective decision.
  • Yet other badges may be earnable, but only under certain repeatable circumstances.  For example, the Artifact Destroyer badge can only be earned during the Halloween Event.  Should we try to device some mechanism by which that badge is included in total badge counts during the Halloween Event but not during the other 48-50 weeks of the year?  I don't know, that might be kind of cool.
  • We've had discussions about limiting total badge counts based on personal decisions you make about your character.  For example, if you have no villain-only badges such as Sweet Tooth, maybe you simply don't want your character to ever switch sides.  Personally, I feel that's an admirable and valid choice, so your total badge count shouldn't reflect villain-only badges.  If you do earn a villain-only badge, however, then your badge count will automatically be bumped up to reflect that, since you are now able to earn them.

Those are the kinds of things we've been talking about behind closed doors and trying to account for in CIT as well as the Titan revamp that's in the works, and trying to design a system to be able to handle.  We don't want the sites to be just a "here's every badge anyone could ever possibly earn" site; we want them to be customizable to suit how you view your characters and how you play the game.

The OP's was a great post, and definitely elaborates on some of the things we're thinking and talking about.  Any other ideas and discussion are more than welcome!

WanderingAries

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Re: Badge Hunting Basics
« Reply #4 on: May 28, 2011, 05:47:08 AM »
All of the issues you've outlined above (and more) will be solved with the update to CIT. It's in the works. Additionally, I've moved this from Badge Discussions to CIT, since it's not a badge discussion...it's about CIT.

After hitting the magical Submit button I was wondering where I should have put it, Spanks!
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