Doc_Scorpion

Yep, there it is. A post telling it like is, a post pointing out what people refuse to grasp. The problem is that farming is so lucrative, so remunerative, it's distorting the economy and distorting gameplay. And that you can't fix that by instituting fees for other in-game activities. Attempting to do so, due to farming's high rewards and low risk, will invariably lead to yet more farming. (By those who don't bail outright.) The end result is the situation is worse then before you started. A solution that fails to address the actual problem is not a realistic solution. And it's not one sided to turn a hose on the seat of a fire. It's the only realistic solution.

Why then didn't you propose other ways of reducing the amount the inf being generated rather than proposing a raft of incentives to increase farming? To cause people to seek out ways of increasing their income? This is... utter and complete nonsense. If the issue is wealth generation, then the solution is to address wealth generation. I mean, if my roof leaks, my absolute first priority is to stop my roof from leaking. I don't run around pulling down and replacing drywall and pulling up and replacing flooring while continuing to let water pour in. As far as "they're targeting an activity many enjoy"... Please, point me to one single change that prevents them from farming. Just one. You can't, because there haven't been any. You are not being punished, you are not being penalized. If you enjoy farming, have at it. Farm to your heart's content. There's absolutely nothing to prevent you from doing so. I did read, and I pointed out where you were wrong. And I'll do so again... Prismatics are utterly and completely irrelevant to the discussion. Prismatics don't introduce inf into the economy, they take inf out of the economy via market fees and shift inf between players. Drops are not the issue here.

Your claim is trivially falsified by comparing it to the Dev's statement as to the map where the bulk of the influence entering the game is coming from. (Hint: It's not a task force map.)

Recently one of the dev's revealed that 80% of the influence entering the game was generated on a single map - the Shivan Fragment. The map used in many farms, particularly the famous ComiCon arc AE farm. That's exactly what the farming changes are attempting to address. That, compared to other avenues, it's so lucrative and so remunerative that people feel they have to farm in order to keep up... Creating a destructive self reinforcing feedback loop. The Devs don't care if you farm (I don't either) - but they do care about the massive imbalance that's turning the City of Heroes into the City of Farmers.

Why? I mean seriously, why? None of those groups have the potential to damage the economy or tilt the balance of gameplay that farming does. There's no possible economic argument for taking a look at them.

Pay attention and be prepared To do it right The super thing's the thing That makes you bigger than life

Never hurts to bring issues to the dev's attention! My reply was meant to be informational, not to shut you down.

Praetoria... I'm glad I ran through it once, back on Live, but I'm not sure I'll ever do it again. I'm very ambivalent about further dividing the playerbase by expanding it 50. The effort required to so might be better spent Blueside or Redside where the other 90% of the playerbase resides.

Protip: If you don't want to have your feelings discussed, don't enter them into the discussion. Also don't keep repeatedly using your feelings to buttress your points. And especially don't make your concluding/summary paragraphs about your feelings. If you make your post about your feelings, that's what people are going to discuss. You can't have it both ways.

That depends heavily on your difficulty settings and what you're fighting. With zero end redux I usually end fights with 20-30% of their END remaining - and the real problem is they have @%!% recovery. That being said, it's a known issue that was brought up multiple times towards the end of the Beta. I think the Devs intend to fix it, but it didn't make it into the final build.

Isn't that pretty much the last map of Twinshot's arc?

This is the only possible way I find this proposal acceptable, and even then just hanging-on-by-it's-fingernails barely.

Oh, that gut punch at the end of Gundam Mercury today...

I tried a bots/EA MM right after EA dropped, and he was at best marginally playable. The increase in the lethality of bots in page 5 made him playable and fun. Unfortunately, the Really Really Cool name I came up with for him... I've already transferred to an Elec/EA 'troller. So he's rolled up and standing next to Officer Flint - waiting on a name.

I don't know that there is a moment, a particular indicator... But, somehow, I generally know by the mid teens whether I'll keep playing, only drag them out when a low level TF is the WST, or delete them entirely.

It was exactly what I expected - cheesy human interest in between kaiju whaling on each other. All the better because it was playing at the dine-in place a few minutes away and I could sip on a pint of my favorite while watching the movie.

Yeah. I remember every quarter people would pore over the NCSoft financials, note the dropping number of players... "It's right after Christmas, they'll be back when they're bored with their new toys." "School just let out, they'll be back after the summer." "School just started, they'll be back after they settle in" Etc... etc.. Except they never did. Quarter after quarter, the same story, the same steadily slipping numbers. (IIRC, the numbers peaked about Issue 2ish, 3ish and slipped steadily thereafter.) The data was always there for those willing to see. Very, very few were willing.

*Shrug* Big deal, so you'd only be able to buy 10 rather than 20. That's still more than the 2 you claimed. No, you didn't try a new character, you tried a speed leveled character. Whatever your intent, the simple fact is that you did speed level and by doing so you far exceeded the levels this bonus is meant for. This is about increasing survivability, it's not about making it easier to level faster. It's about making it more attractive to play the lower levels, not about creating an alternative to speed leveling.

Try playing a new character without a sugar daddy or speed leveling (DFB or farms), and you'll very quickly learn that a) DO's and SO's make a significant difference, and b) 50k isn't trivial. You leveled to where SO's are expensive, and created an irrelevant comparison since this stipend is aimed a players of far lower levels. If you were a level 2 character, the level this stipend is aimed at, you could have afforded 20 SO's.

We're regularly getting new players. Not many, but not zero either. We're not holding anyone's hand - we're giving them a minor boost. And what kind of person feels insulted by that? Also, Twinshot's minimum level is far too high to serve as a tutorial.

Double so since base XP earnings are already considerably higher than on Live. To the point where you'll get people complaining about leveling too fast.

My friends would assure you that even though I'm still here, I'm definitely not all there.

I've got some thoughts on how I'd set up an AO system, It's almost bedtime so I'll write them up separately over the weekend to avoid further derailing this thread.

Right. So on top of everything I listed that they need to know, you can add in: d) what an exploration badge is, e) where they are, f) what the PTW vendor is.. while only subtracting c). You do realize you just proved my point? That's a much lower bar however. Especially since you learn about enhancements in the tutorials, the vendor is right there, and you've have to be pretty out of it to not grasp that Accuracy and Damage are good things. If there's a bar it's the stupid design of DO's and SO's. They should have been replaced with AO's (All Origins) long, long ago.

Could we please not derail this otherwise interesting thread with arguments about bots?