Ukase

You say it's not playing the game. I say it is playing the game, just not the way you play it perhaps. So, I've proven long ago that I have a computer I can keep connected and can passively (and actively) inflate my wealth. What's wrong with that?

"when there's an outlier that can cause a problem".... Where's the problem, tho? Let us say that there is indeed a reward/time advantage for AE farming. Why is that a problem? What is the problem with that? Nobody is being forced to do this if they don't want to, but everyone can farm if they want to. So, there's no disadvantage to anyone. I just don't see that it's an issue. So what if Farmers get paid more than non-farmers. It's irrelevant. The folks that don't farm because they don't want to shouldn't care, because they don't want to farm. And that's fine. But to punish farmers because they don't want to is not fine. A rising tide elevates all the boats. So, increase the rewards of non-AE content to rival farmers. (However that's determined is beyond me.) If we punish the farmers because they make more for doing less, what about the marketers? We make more than farmers doing even less! We don't kill a damn thing, but time, and get exponentially more! Are you going to then remove the auction house? Only allow folks to buy one item per day? Or only allow folks to sell 10 items a day? Where does this line get drawn in the concrete? (as opposed to sand) In some ways, I look at this like the government trying to take away my hunting rifle because it's a gun, and a gun in the wrong hands can hurt people. You want to erode my rights for no other purpose than you don't want to hunt, and perhaps you're worried my rifle would be used in some random school simply because I have one. I see no reason why farming hurts the game in any measurable way. I see no reason why farmers making influence more easily than non-farmers is an issue. If only certain people could farm, yeah, I'd say there's a big problem. But everyone can! Yes, I can see how players might feel slighted because one player has more resources than another. But that's not the fault of the richer player. It's the fault of the poorer player for not taking advantage of the knowledge, skills and abilities they have. Now, if they have no desire to farm, as I said, that's fine. They can still make plenty of influence just by using the drops they get in game. Farmers are gonna farm, and no rules (except a no-farming rule) are going to change that. I think you're not going to get what you expect by getting what you want. I could be wrong, though. I've been wrong before. But, given enough time, the players will come up with the next big thing, and then the people will cry aloud once more, "it's not fair!". It is fair. It hurts nothing that I can see. You can't say "if they weren't farming, they'd be teaming". This is not a fact. It's conjecture. And making a change on conjecture is not wise. Increase the rewards, and the folks that farm for rewards will go. The folks that farm for fun will not. The folks that cannot farm due to changes (or will not) will likely find something else to do. You may see that as a benefit. More names to get. If that's your position, I can understand that, at least. But if I just play the game, I'll keep my names anyway. But to go about saying farming is hurting your characters somehow...that's nonsense in my mind. I don't see how. Maybe you guys are just wanting to drive away all the farmers with some noble intent of having the game "pure", so you can be totally immersed in your characters without a care in the world, no idle chatter about "lowbie dominator looking for AE cuz I don't have perma-dom" to intrude on your finer sensibilities. I have no idea where some of you are coming from.

How about they wait until they do that, then change things?

If you review that post you quoted, I was talking of the play of the afk character between missions. The crafting, converting, etc. That's the play I speak of.

Damn it! Higher prices means I would make even MORE influence! I've got thousands of these babies sitting around just waiting for me to use them! If prices go up, I can maybe make a trillion! In all seriousness, the 100 reward merits for a winter-O or a purple recipe (that you have to craft, what a rip-off) is roughly equal to 300 converters, or 21M inf. I can't see prices going much higher than that for either of those items. The superior winters, involve the slotting, adding a catalyst and then unslotting and then posting for sale. The catalyst drop fairly often, but if you're in a rush, you can get one for less than 2m. So, why those sell for more than 25M is because most folks are unknowing, or just lazy and impatient. If I thought for a minute that this change would elevate the price of purples to 30M...heh, I'd be doing everything I could to get it passed.

And I respect your opinion - and you. I don't recall you ever posting anything I thought was outright stupid (and I can't say the same thing for myself, lol ). So, one can read that and ask if one part of the game gives better rewards over time, why does that necessitate change? There's always going to be something that gives more rewards/time. A couple of years ago, we used to zerg hami, before they capped the zone to 50. And there was an adjustment by the devs to cap the zone to inhibit this. But, oddly, the only difference now is that fewer people are getting the same rewards for the same effort. We still zerg hami, only we do it with 50 instead of 100-200 players. How was that an improvement, making the game better? It simply penalized the 50-150 players that couldn't get in the zone. It did slow things down a bit, as fewer players meant slightly longer GM hunts. Other than that, perhaps a slightly higher amount of risk, but it's still a given that it will succeed. Where is the outcry from the farmers about this? Getting 120 reward merits in 20-30 minutes...it's not fair, and something should be done! Yeah, I'm being a touch sarcastic there. But the point remains. There will always be something that rewards more. Another thing that folks seem to be forgetting is that afk-farming is a method of play. Some folks that have never afk-farmed really have no idea what goes on between missions. And that is the part I would miss the most. Not so much raking in the influence; I've got plenty of that. But the (Lord forgive me for using the stupid, trite, over-used word) meta game is the attraction for me. Taking a resource that almost nobody wants, adding value to it, and making it something most folks want. Now, I'll still be able to do this, even if AE would be removed entirely, but then I'd have to do the tedious stuff of typing in names of salvage which takes away from the enjoyment. Folks seem to think it's just as simple as plopping in the middle of a map and setting burn to auto and returning when convenient. Sometimes, it's that simple. But not always. Sometimes, particularly when you're just starting out, you lose a lot of time and get very little or nothing. You thought your character was solid, got that build from some unknown player on the forums, and find out it sucked. Or at least, it wasn't good enough. Or you tried to sub a couple of the winter sets for some cheaper sets because you couldn't afford them and found your character lacking. There's a lot of growing pains for the beginning farmer. These new AoE changes will only add to that. The HC flavor of CoH has always been about options. I think, if it is true that AFK has a clear time/reward advantage, then the ruffian in me says, "so? Make one and get back to playing". The more sympathetic side of me says, "Okay, so boost the non-AE rewards to equal the afk metric. How hard can it be?" Far better to lead with a carrot than to push with a stick.

I think this is pretty much genius.

Sorry, he's posted multiple times in there, and I've already read his opinions. I disagree with them. I do not see how these changes make things better for everyone. I don't see how these changes make the game better. It's clear that we're not all going to agree on how things should be done. If a thread goes 16 pages, yeah, it's clear there's some debating going on. And healthy debate is good, but Dale Carnegie taught me, "A man convinced against his will, is of the same opinion, still." So, I will not try any further to convince anyone of anything. I'm just expressing my views which are - before I can get behind any change, I want to know why the change is proposed. Barring that, I can't get behind it.

With my multiple accounts, there was a period where I would farm with three while I played typical content - DFB, Posi, the Faultline, Striga and Croatoa arcs, an MSR or two, Tina Mac and Maria Jenkins. For the past year, I'd pretty much stopped farming, just playing one of the accounts with normal content. No other players were harmed in the farming. No small children were neglected or abused. The only result was I was able to give away more influence to folks I deemed worthy. Some I just gave away the 3 standard PvP IOs to - glad armor 3%, Shield Wall 5%, Panacea +HP/End. Some I gave away hero packs to, some winter packs. Several folks got an entire builds worth of IOs because having done it so many times before, it's faster and easier for me to come up with the IOs needed, and cheaper too, because of my experience in changing trash into gold. Some of you seem to take exception to this idea of "no risk" in a fire farm. There is risk. Some of us have just learned to mitigate risk better than others. I don't see the harm. You could do it if you wanted to, but you don't, and for some inexplicable reason, because you don't want to, nobody else should do it either? Someone shovel that in a garden.

Discounting the new Aeon SF and some of the other level 50 TFs, just about every story arc in the game, radios....they are all mindless button mashing. Before I learned to get a couple of the accolades on redside, I used to clobber the freak bosses on Unai Kemen's Dreck map. I did that afk, too. Just about everything can be done afk in this game. (with the proper build) The difference is I have to manually move my character to the next group. What's the difference? We get punished because the AE mission creators were clever? Ultimately, it doesn't really matter that much to me. It just tears me up that you see it as "fundamentally wrong" when there's nothing fundamentally wrong with it. It hurts nobody. (as far as I can tell) It's like working a commission only sales job. I sell more, I make more. I sell less, I make less. If I make more, it doesn't impact how much you make. If I make less, it doesn't impact how much you make. So why is everyone so concerned with how much I make and how fast I make it? It has no impact on your life at all. Am I supposed to slow down for everyone? Am I supposed to stop afk farming and do what? I'm already playing my primary character. There's no harm in it. I have big stacks of inf. So? Doesn't hurt you. Could even help you if you ask nicely. I just don't see how it's so "wrong". If it's a crime, it's victimless. The main reason I have so much influence is because I don't have to buy anything. I slave away over the crafting table, crafting and converting every recipe that's uncommon, rare or very rare. Just like everyone else, salvage drops in my missions. Like everyone else, recipes drop. I use my converters, I don't sell them. So I have a lot of inf. I market well. I buy pvp recipes at 1.5 to 2.2M and craft, convert and sell for 8M. I buy hero and winter packs. I take the enhancements, catalyze 'em and sell 'em. Nothing that everyone else can't do. There is no advantage that I have. I just do the work. That's fundamentally wrong? I don't think so. I add value. I do understand that the original devs datamined the average time it took to complete various TFs and awarded reward merits based on those metrics. And there is room to argue about an afk farmer getting emp merits, which convert to reward merits at a decent clip. Thing is - unless you afk farm, you have no idea how slow it is! I get maybe a vet level and a half per night, and that's if the rng has the patrols seeing my character as they wonder about that dreaded cave map. Sometimes I might only get two bars. (A lot depends on the map you use) So how is it wrong? Maybe I'm doing it wrong. Maybe there are some maps there where you can go afk and get three vet levels in an hour. I'd like to think I'd have heard about them, but I haven't. I promise you, if you're actively teaming, you're getting more xp than my afk-farmer. I know this because I let a couple of beggars in my farm and they quit after a couple of minutes, lol. I tried to tell 'em. So, if you're getting more xp than I am - what's so awful about it?

You're probably right. And, just the way you've phrased that helps me wrap my head around everything a bit better. (I am subject to being obtuse, in case you were unaware)

I know you're joking. I'm sure I've irritated a couple of them with my lack of a filter in various posts, but overall, the devs have shown me nothing but kindness and consideration. But, to be fair, they DID turn me into a trash can during a hami raid. They OWE me some kindness.

You may be too young...but there was a film I saw in my formative years, starring John Wayne. Not John Wayne Bobbit - that gent is famous for something entirely different. But John Wayne, up until his death was considered to be a man's man, someone to be admired and looked up to. In the list of folks a young boy my age would want to be if he had the ability to morph into someone else, Spider Man, Superman, Thor, Captain Marvel and John Wayne would have made that short list. And watching one of his movies, this attractive woman asks him to dance. He says, "I don't dance. I don't trust men who do and I don't trust women who don't." Of course, now that I'm older, I'm not so sure what was so brilliant about it, but back then...that got me through Prom without having to dance once, and got me and my date into the back seat of my Dad's Cadillac that much sooner. So, uh, no to any kind of dance off. I worked too hard for that 500B to just give it away in such a frivolous fashion. Especially now since the HC devs seem to be conspiring to prevent my earning of such a sum in the future. No, I believe I'll hoard my goods. In fact, do you recall when they seeded the salvage? THAT was the point where I realized things could change in a moment with these HC devs! That was the sole motivation behind my building the farmer in the first place! Because I felt like I'd better make the inf while I could, because they could change things in a flash. And now that I think of it, with my 1000+ purples stashed in a couple of bases...I wonder what impact this change will have on those purples...fewer afk farms would mean fewer purples...Me thinks it may be time to bid low on certain recipes...

I disagree that the policy would be difficult to enforce is the issue. If it were, we would already have an issue with folks violating the 3 accounts per shard at one time rule. As far as I know, we don't have that issue. I mean, it's pretty clear. They catch you once, they warn you. They catch you twice, they ban you. So, the egregious afk farmers are likely filtered out by now. I have only seen 3 instances of this in the past 3 years. They were reported by me (except one, which was reported by someone else I know, as they pointed it out to me). Haven't seen either of them on since. If what you say is true, that this is an attempt to inhibit AFK-farming, why don't they just say so? I'm left wondering why it's such a bad thing. Stress on the servers? Sure. But so is active farming. I suspect your random team just doing missions in AE is also a stress, as are the MSRs and the Hami Raids. I can't believe that the stress on the equipment is behind it, because thus far, the servers don't shut down because of too many farmers. They seem to be incredibly stable, except for Excelsior lately. And I imagine those that farm did not move their characters to Excelsior to farm. For me, it's been the opposite. My farmers are on Indomitable. (although I have some farmers on Excelsior, they only do specific tasks, like help a lowbie get vamps and wolves.) I wish I could find the post where Jimmy the GM stated something positive about farmers, but concern about the AFK farmer, but I can't find it to determine what the concern was. I want to say it's about risk vs. reward. Fair enough, I guess. I would still appreciate the HC devs sharing the specifics of their reasoning. It's hard to get behind a change just for the sake of change and be left guessing as to why.

I guess what I'm trying to understand is how afk-farmers are stalling this "better game later". How does my afk-farming prevent the game from being better later? I thought I was doing a pretty good job of making the game better right now, by tediously crafting various IOs that the player base must want, because they certainly buy them all in almost an instant. If we all stop doing this, how much will they cost your average player later? More? I would think so. Certainly not less. And when you say "better", better for who? If I have all the resources I need to create and play my next 800 characters, then I don't think more reward merits are going to prod my play in any direction. I will do what I feel like, in that moment, whether it be an iTrial, a speed Kahn or a solo DiB. Or an afk farm outside of AE. But I'm just one guy, and I certainly don't expect decisions made to revolve around me. As much as I might enjoy that, it wouldn't do much good for those who lack the resources I already have. I'm just asking, not trying to be rude, nor discount your view - better for who? and how would it be better?

I can't believe I missed this topic. (until now) So, I have to step out of this and look at it from a different perspective. Personally, I do not see how the current emp to reward merit conversion is hurting anyone. If I put 2 and 2 together and maybe I get 4, maybe I get 22. I'm just not sure what our HC devs are after. It seems to be they do not want the afk farmer to recycle their brutes every 24-48 vet levels and use those emps to get reward merits to then get converters or boosters, or whatever it is they get with them. That seems to be what they want to prevent. But who knows? Our HC devs seem to want to keep this something to discuss rather than just state it. So what are the negative impacts from a farmer using emp merits to get reward merits? Is it because it's easy for them to do and other than the build, doesn't require much effort? What is it they want from the afk farmer? To stop using the server resources? All they have to do is say so, and set a policy of "no afk-farming if the server load is greater than 250" or some arbitrary figure. I don't think they need to discourage play by folks who use those emp merits that they get from running content that's outside of farms. I do think that the afk farmer that is in the habit of recycling their character (for those that don't know, I do this. On my farm account, I will level a farmer to vet level 48, because at that point, the emps diminish to 10 emps at vet level 51. And another 10 at VL 54. Six vet levels for 20 emps? I can pl another character to 50 and then vet level 3 for 20 emps faster than I can PL for 6 vet levels. So, that's the reason behind recycling them. I would often run two accounts, while I played on a third. The two accounts would take the emp merits and convert them to reward merits and then get converters. This allowed me to list IOs for sale more cheaply. Take this away, and you essentially add 70k (for one converter) times 30 (number of converters on average used) to the cost of the better IOs, depending on the RNG. I guess I'm not sure why passing on these savings is bad for the game. Maybe the other farmers are upset because they don't want to respec twice after the vet level 48 is reached. Those 280 emp merits, which become 2800 reward merits, which become 8400 converters. Any idea how long it takes to go through 8400 converters? Longer than most want to spend. I usually use half of them on the drops that the farmer got, and the rest are sent to my primary account so they can avoid buying converters. If the change goes through, It will save me some time. I won't be farming on the alt accounts. I'll just make marketers out of them, or do nothing with them, except stash more inf in their email. But how does this change impact other folks who haven't been as industrious? How are they going to cope with having to essentially farm to get the resources they need? Is that what our HC devs want? They want our casual player to farm more? Because I think that's where this is heading. It could be the additional merit rewards for iTrials and such might prevent that, so that's a positive step. I just don't know if it's enough. I simply suggest our HC devs state clearly what they're after. Then we can try to intelligently discuss how to get there from here.

I just can't string enough exasperation expressions together! I have failed in all those words to explain what you wanted to learn. It's my fault. I should probably spell it out. It doesn't matter if you can see why it's fun, or if we all agree that it's not fun. It's what some folks want to do! That is all you need to know. The reason I do it (Farm afk-style) is because I can earn influence easily and quickly while I enjoy the game with my other account. The better question is why aren't you doing it? You don't have to suffer through it. Just park your alt in there, log in on the other account and enjoy the game the way you wish.

It's an adequate enough analogy. I liken it to rental property. You still have to make sure the property is okay, but you get paid routinely. Or like a slew of vending machines. You make a deal with a land-owner, plug it in, and routinely come back and re-stock and remove the bills, but be sure there's enough change to give folks change if they put in more than the price.

I do admit that some folks door sit. I also recognize that a fair number of folks actively solicit a spot on someone's farm to do just that. I get a minor tic when I return to my keyboard in the morning and realize that I forgot to /ghide and disallow PMs from some of these more bold beggars. But, the thing is - how is it not fun to get that xp when you're a lowbie, don't have but a few attacks? The endorphin rush when you level is real. When you see that row of pink XP fill the bar every bit as fast an an empath's Absorb Pain....that's endorphin heaven for some folks. It may not suit you. I certainly get no joy out of it, which is why I do that kind of thing by myself, afk-style. I would suggest you consider what my father told me once, when I saw a neighbor kid, a year younger than me, at 16, while I was 17, get a new car for his birthday. Not just a new car, but a Camaro! Two of the 5 girlfriends I had dumped me to date guys with Camaros. Hate those bastards! Anyway, I complained to my dad about it. He told me that what other people did was none of my business. So, when someone begs on the LFG channel for a farm, I don't cuss under my breath, or even aloud. I just keep on minding my own business. Now, I completely understand why some folks don't like folks who get PL'd, particularly when they don't know how to get to point B from point A, or have no idea what it is they're doing because they've never actually played. I can stomach it from a low level character, but a level 50? No; these types of players are folks I will cross the street to avoid. But, it's their time, their character and their business. Doesn't matter to me if sitting in that farm was boring or fun for them. I don't care. What's puzzling me is why everyone is so concerned about it. It's none of their business. It has no impact on them, unless they choose to let it impact them. You don't see me fussing at people for doing TF after TF, do you? How is that fun for them? Subjecting themselves to the whims of the RNG amongst all those NPCs? That damn ITF, with those stupid Legionarii screaming like a drunken banshee...that is NOT fun for me. I detest it. It's the one mission/TF where I will turn down game sound and let my own audio (Clark Howard, Mind Pump, Ben Greenfield, Found My Fitness, The Drive with Peter Attia) distract me from the tedious nature of ITF, which I generally only do when it's the weekly. How is that TF fun for anyone? Sheesh. For that matter, how is playing a mind dominator fun for anyone? And don't even get me started on a Widow. Those damn things should just get deleted from the code. They're pure trash. Nobody could have fun with those. Right? See what I'm saying now? Do ya smell what I'm cooking? It doesn't matter if it's fun or not if it's how they want to spend their time. It has a negligible impact on the rest of us.

Okay - for one, let me say I enjoyed your "bloviating", whatever it may mean. But there's a thing I feel compelled to point out: For most IOs and recipes that the farmer, at level 50 drops in the market, our sage HC devs have allowed a bid on a level 25 IO be bought if that same IO at level 50 is for sale. The only hassle is when the IOs in question stop at a given level, like the Steadfast Protection set - it stops at 30. So, no level 50 farmer is going to see those unless they use the AE tickets, or farm while exemplared. And most don't do that, at least not at level 30 because their build isn't as solid as it is at 50. Back a year or so ago, I thought about doing just that, but the demand for those few IOs that are in higher demand, like the Steadfast Protection 3% def(All) and the Achille's Heel debuff, and the Kismet 6% - it's just not high enough to be worth the time for me. You generally burn through a fair number of converters getting those unless the recipe that dropped was in set. And I suspect that this is a niche that may be underserved; so someone will likely fill this need - today! But likely not everyday, as it's not that lucrative overall.

Emphasis added by me. There are different sorts of farmers. Some are actively farming, and some are passively farming. I'm what you would call a passive farmer. I let the farmer on one or two accounts do what they do, while I play on my primary account. I started off just doing my primary account, actually leveling a fire/fire brute because at the time, I had no idea what spines/fire was. That is, I'd never thought of it. Eventually, I just got on the band wagon. Some folks liked the rad/fire better, praising irradiated ground. I made one of those and liked spines/fire better. Or, it could just be my build for spines was just better than the build for rad. The fire builds were identical. But, I digress. For me, actively farming is worse than being on a bad team, really, as far as boredom goes. I don't enjoy it. I'll do it to get a specific goal, but more often than not, I've determined other easier, faster ways to reach those goals than farming. For example: farming for inf is for folks who like to farm. If I want inf, I will market. Using AH tends to give damn near exponential returns compared to farming. Buy some of these recipes, craft, convert, sell. Simple. A monkey could do it, if given the motivation. But passive farming, once you settle on the right build, particularly if it's on a second or third (or even 8th account!) brings in the recipes and other drops, in addition to emp merits and all the other goodies in scale. The more farmers you have running, the more loot you get. So, before folks scream about that 8th account in parenthesis, don't panic. I do not do this and don't have 8 accounts. I just have 4. Some of you are of the understanding that multi-boxing is against the rules. It isn't. For your convenience, here's the policy, found on these very forums: So, we are allowed to play 3 accounts on each shard. In theory, I suppose if one had the inclination and the time, they could play on 15 accounts at the same time, 3 per server. When I got my first 50 and began the incarnate path, I screwed up a number of times, not realizing emp merits could be used to create rare and very rare components. I went about the other way, costing myself 25M twice, not even realizing it had a cost! I even sent in a petition over losing the 25M, having no realization of the cost of the conversion, because, well, reading is hard, I guess, lol. What's worse, a week later, I did it again on the very rare, and cost myself 100M after selling 20 catalysts for 5M each! (tells you how long ago that was! ) Seems like I was always broke, making stupid mistake after stupid mistake. So, I farmed. But I found farming boring and a chap named @payload told me about afk-farming and opened my eyes. I would not only just do the afk farm thing, but I would also use the drops and craft/convert/sell everything except the commons. Then, when I learned from @dahle that I could have more than a few accounts, the inf flood gates opened for me. So, yeah, different types of farmers. For me, farming is dull work. Very dull. But afk farming is just a matter of skipping the dull stuff and just counting the loot, crafting, converting and selling. For a while, it was the only interesting thing the game had to offer. Then I got into badging, made 4 characters with all the badges (except legatus) and about 5 more straggling far behind. Playing on one, farming with the others. Then silly Yomo conned me into taking a tally of where I was. So, now I realize I don't need to farm anymore, except for emp merits. If I could buy those, I wouldn't farm at all. For some reason, a different AT/Powerset leveling through the same content is different for me than it is doing the same iTrials with different characters. The iTrials pretty much bore me, except for Underground. But I can choose so many different leveling paths, switching alignments back and forth that even though the content is familiar, the only arc I'm just tired of is Maria Jenkins, because I have to suffer through that to get Portal Jockey. That's a lot. But that may explain why farming isn't as dull as repeating other content.

To my understanding, that's only in PvP zones, and those characters can't access non-pvp zones. Not like anyone uses the pvp zones for anything other than the occasional pill box and hero/villain badges. So, unless something has changed, I have no idea what you're talking about. Should they allow an instant 50 (sans incarnate stuff) or even with free incarnate stuff - why not? Some folks will still play content all the way through from level 1. Other folks can then stop spending time in the afk farms and do what they wanted to do already, a few itrial and tf trains. I don't see the harm.

So, ran through the actual new arc Valeria instead of Airlia like before. (Silly me) My only issue was when I was in disguise, and then I chose an answer they didn't like, my disguise didn't work, and I was untoggled. Call me crazy, but I just don't like that. I can't stand having to activate toggles. They should really never turn off.

I wrote a lot of silly banter below, but ultimately it's just hard to trust the direction when they don't tell you the direction they want to go before they do the work. I visit the forums fairly often. Aeon and it's changes may have been on the test server for quite some time. All that work, all that effort, and we don't learn about it until it's on test - after hundreds of hours of effort go in creating it. If they're going to be transparent, they should share this direction before they do the work. What's the hoped for outcome? How do they see this bit of work aiding to move in that direction. And is that direction the player base wants to go towards? Can they really trust the voice of 10% of the population that visits the forums? ****************************** Silly banter below: That's impossible, I think. We're all too different, as partially evidenced by the explosion in the AE feedback thread. Some folks just want AE to be razed. Removed. They feel the "product" from AE, typically level 50 players doesn't measure up in "common game knowledge" - how to get to PI, Cimerora, etc. Some folks don't so much mind AE, but they would rather the folks that farm a great deal stop farming so much and team with them in mainstream content. One could make the argument that if 10% of the farmers were to show up for a given iTrial, you could then form additional leagues. (that may be an exaggeration) Unlike me, (and I'm super happy if you're not like me, because I can be a real grumpy fellow) some folks only log in specifically to team up. They have more patience than I do, they never met a character with a horrible name or an ugly costume. Whereas I am always judging everyone for their badge count (or lack of) their naming convention or lack of, build, powersets/AT chosen, and typing skills. I'm just really horrible, right? And yeah, I'm kidding, but only a little bit. I never look at costumes because even with my new graphics card, all the costumes look about the same when I'm zoomed out. Some folks would prefer to never leave AE. A Malta Sapper draining their endurance bar isn't their idea of fun. Having to retoggle? That just sucks. I get it. The Tsoo siphoning all your speed...where's the fun in that? You just want to burn stuff, and maybe smash it with a giant sword to the noggin! And some folks....very few folks...well maybe just me... I have a hard time trusting people I don't know. I have an even harder time trusting people who want me to avoid conversations about politics, Covid - all the fun stuff! How am I supposed to determine who I'm going to enjoy playing with if I can't have real conversations and everything has to be superficial? I fully understand that some folks can't discuss these things without getting super-heated and upset. And because of folks like that, our devs chose to limit these outbursts. I get it - but it makes it hard to know who they are and who everyone else really is. Conservative? Liberal? It's an opportunity to learn other perspectives I might not ever come across, given the vast cultural diversity we have in this game. Add to that, there can be no mistake - at least one GM thinks if you have pineapple on a pizza, your character avatar shall be remade in the image of a trash can. The only reason my avatar was restored was because it was discovered that the trashcan form was impervious to harm. Or so the story goes. ************************ So, yeah, I'd love to trust that they know best. They certainly know code better than me. But I don't think they know what I want in game better than me. Further, they certainly don't seem to care about what I don't want in game. And that is because, it shouldn't matter solely about what I don't want. The game doesn't revolve around me. I just want to be heard, ultimately, and more importantly, if the direction goes in a path I did not foresee, nor immediately appreciate, I want to know why. I want to understand what the objective was, and if much thought went into other ways of gaining the same outcome.

In that context, I agree - except for the part about teaming. Teaming has its place in this game, of course. But if you do nothing but team, you never really know how your character is. End troubles are hard to notice if you're getting speed boost or AM or RA. Accuracy troubles are hard to notice if you're getting fort, or basking in the aura of several Tactics running. I would try to team more if I got paid the same rewards as the team lead. Unless you're in Ouro, only the team lead gets those merits, unless you're collaboratively completing the missions as you go. And that just doesn't happen very often for me, if ever, unless I set it up with my SG in advance. And half of those folks find it too troublesome or complicated to bother with it. There are so many reasons to not team up, and I'm hard pressed to find many reasons TO team up. That's just me and my circumstances - of course, yours and many others will be different. But my circumstances are every bit as relevant to me as yours are to you. Soloing is critical for my play, and my fun. And, during the week, I go afk so often, it would be rude for me to even try to team. So, yeah, let me drink that OJ right before bed, figuratively speaking, of course. Orange Juice is gross, I'd rather just have an orange. At least then there's some pith and fiber to slow down the sugar absorption. But that's another topic for another day.