[AE Vet Levels -or- Empyrean to Reward Merits]

59 minutes ago, Astralock said:

No, it’s a tacit admission that the general gameplay isn’t as rewarding.  It’s been shown time and time again in numerous video games that people will do tedious, boring things as long as the rewards are exponentially greater than elsewhere.  I.e., fun isn’t the determining factor for most players.  Rewards is.

 

If rewards are the only thing that matters, why take measures to penalize players for settling on the most convenient pathway to get those rewards?

[AE Vet Levels -or- Empyrean to Reward Merits]

1 hour ago, Bionic_Flea said:

If you can get everything you need in AE and faster than anywhere else, why do anything else?

 

Fun? Every time I read a comment like this, I wonder if it's a tacit admission that the general gameplay isn't engaging.

[Weaksauce]

1 hour ago, Troo said:

thumbs down are much harder to get than I thought.

You're doing something wrong.

[Weaksauce]

1 hour ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

 

I view this game and its community no different than the way I view any other section of, or even the entirety, of our species.

 

Someone is doing something bad all the time because humans are generally very nasty, self-centered, short-sighted, tribal and bigoted.

 

So it's our natural state?

 

"In such condition, there is no place for industry; because the fruit thereof is uncertain: and consequently no culture of the earth; no navigation, nor use of the commodities that may be imported by sea; no commodious building; no instruments of moving, and removing, such things as require much force; no knowledge of the face of the earth; no account of time; no arts; no letters; no society; and which is worst of all, continual fear, and danger of violent death; and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short."

 

What's the solution? I think it boils down to rational thought, no? And thinking well is better than thinking poorly.

[Weaksauce]

1 hour ago, arcane said:

Someone did something bad once so everyone must be doing bad things all the time. 

 

1. Disgruntled people cite some inner circle conspiracy.  

2. Skeptics laugh it off--that sort of thing doesn't happen.

3. People point out that something like that did happen--ie the private secret server. 

4. Skeptic shifts the goalposts--

 

Someone did something bad once so everyone must be doing bad things all the time. 

 

I think there are better answers to these circumstances than conspiracies. And there are better ways to answer conspiracy claims than glib distortions of what those people are actually suggesting.

[AE Vet Levels -or- Empyrean to Reward Merits]

The vote is a joke to begin with. The majority of the playerbase does not spend a lot of time on the forums. Among those that do, a fraction of them are going to be following this discussion. The ones that ARE following it are likely to be more ideologically invested in it--particularly people that want to nerf farming.

 

The jokes about the inner cabal and "hey it's me on 20 different accounts" are idiotic. The fact that there is no secret insider conspiracy doesn't mean their aren't blocs of players who pressure the direction of development to suit their interests, in some cases more successfully than others. The fact that there aren't 3 people on 20 different accounts responding to a poll, doesn't mean that there might be several instances of people voting more than once--which in a poll with around 60 responses is significant.

[Proposal for a new command: /timeout]

This is a suggestion forum Flea, not a place for you to share parenting tips. Next you're going to be asking for /fine-them-a-quarter.

 

 

 

 

 

 

edit: kidding in case that isn't obvious.

[Art/Commission Sharing Thread]

Cool style!

[The Pretty Good AE Debate]

1 hour ago, Bionic_Flea said:

 

 

I'm all for experiments, but if population size is not a good measure of popularity, what are we experimenting for?

If I'm understanding this correctly, the thought experiment is to get an idea of to what extent the "nerf AE farming" contingent actually reflects the interests of the Homecoming playerbase. The size of the other servers isn't a good indication of how popular different changes would be on Homecoming because:

 

1. There are historically contingent reasons for those servers to be smaller that don't have anything to do with the contnet of those teams.

2. A primary motivation for joining a server seems to be population size. So players will naturally flock to servers that are more populated, and move to more populated shards within those servers, as we saw on Freedom and now on Excelsior.

[Weaksauce]

I've never given a thumbs down, I wonder how common that is on these forums.

[The Pretty Good AE Debate]

2 hours ago, Bionic_Flea said:

And if you disagree that playing a farm that plays to your strength isn't less risky, I suggest you have a fire farmer run a smash/lethal farm or an S/L farmer in a fire farm.  Please record it and play it here as proof.  😜

 

Using a fire farmer on a fire map is less risky in the same way that pounding a nail with a hammer is less risky than wacking it with a piece of wood or something. I'm not disagreeing with you about the results. I think the disagreement is about the notion of risk. Playing well in coh in general is about preparation. If you're going to do a certain task, the majority of the "risk" involves bringing the right characters, knowing the steps of the TF (or being able to follow instructions), etc. For the vast majority of this games content, if you can do that prep then you can reasonably expect to successfully complete that mission with little difficulty.

 

Bringing a fire farmer on a S/L map isn't risky, because the outcome is pretty straightforward whether or not you play well. If you want real risk in this game, court the unforeseen: play with drunks, sext with the tank, etc.

 

Also in general you've been striking this moderate pose: I don't want to get rid of farming, I just don't want it to be soooo good. Well how good do you want it to be? Is the answer to that question something that can be arrived at objectively somehow? I'm very skeptical of campaigns to slow down the pace at which people do things and I'm not seeing any positive justification being offered for how this will be an improvement.

[The Pretty Good AE Debate]

1 hour ago, Troo said:

They almost cost AE Vet Levels and now maybe Emp to RMs.

Those are affects to many, you included. Maybe you've never been in AE or never converted an Empyrean to Reward Merit.

 

LOL no, I don't blame these players for bad decisions on the part of the developers. You're missing the whole line of reasoning here. As it stands, these players do not have any effect on me. Now for whatever reason, whether it be complaining about imbalance by forum regulars or some other reason, if the devs follow through with these changes the people they are seeking to punish will simply move on to something else. Thus the "problem" will simply shift elsewhere--as it has during the entire existence of this game. Meanwhile, as I said and you quoted, casual players will suffer a significant nerf. For no good reason and no benefit to their game experience. Yeah no longer buying reward merits with emps would fucking blow. That has helped me set up new characters in the past and will make the entire thing more burdensome. But it will make the game much better because of....reasons.

[The Pretty Good AE Debate]

1 hour ago, Troo said:

Other changes however are targeting extreme offenders and these end up affecting a lot more folks.

Why aren't more casual AE farmers angry about the actions of some bad actors? They are the ones to blame for your frustration. Not the person debating the value of 'playing' content.

 

Because I see no reason to believe those extreme offenders are affecting me in any way. There are many players who are obscenely wealthy from playing the market, I likewise don't care about their success because it's none of my business how they like to spend their time. I'm not going to say "Oh their return on this activity is way too high compared to the risk they face, therefore their rewards should be capped."

 

But that is the gist of the nerf arguments that are here in this thread:

I don't like that this content is more rewarding than other content (supposedly).

I don't like that this content is less risky than other content (supposedly).

I don't think that this content is "fun" despite other people telling me it is.

 

And ultimately it's not about extreme offenders. Look at some of the suggestions in this thread. Some people don't want AE giving xp at all. Some people want AE AND other things like DFB and ITF nerfed. Some people want outliers addressed. People are talking now talking about speed runs.

 

The extreme offenders, dedicated farmers, whatever, will simply adapt. They will just find the next outlier. It's the more casual players who will be subjected to nerfs, that weren't intended with them in mind and don't ultimately solve the "problem."

[The Pretty Good AE Debate]

1 hour ago, Parabola said:

I fail to see what is so threatening or even controversial about the idea that different in game activities should have rough parity in rewards/time but there we go. Apparently by saying that I'm accusing people of badwrongfun and trying to change the way they play. I don't see it myself.

 

I suspect that you don't really mean this though. If I'm just running around doing normal content, should I be making as much inf as someone who spends the same amount of time using the market? If the marketeer makes way more money, should there be a cap on the amount of inf you can make buying/selling in order to bring it in line with my earnings doing normal missions? 

 

What about pvp? If I spend an hour pvping, should I be getting the same rewards over time as someone running a TF? Particularly when you get virtually nothing for pvping compared to other types of game content.

 

There are a lot of disparities in the game for different reasons. It's completely arbitrary to point to AE rewards and say "oh this is a huge problem, let's tone down the rewards these players receive because THAT strikes me as unfair."

[Level Up - Tokens]

2 hours ago, UltraAlt said:

seriously?

I thought this was a necro'ed thread.

I immediately when to look how old it was.

 

"Ah ha ha haaaaaaa ha

I know this

thread is

Troo's"

[Level Up - Tokens]

There's a real strong thematic concern that a talking seagull that can alter your moral character upon request wouldn't take inf in exchange for xp. That's like, really obvious or something. Maybe we can straight up bribe Miss Liberty to fork over the xps. 

[Thor: Love & Thunder]

59 minutes ago, Frostbiter said:

 

  Reveal hidden contents

Aye, I heard that bit of hand-waiving but if it's true then why did Mjolnir call to her or accept her? Did it want her dead sooner? I understood Mjolnir was called to protect her by Thor's years early request but how did it think it was helping?

 

Spoiler

Does it think? The thing is enchanted by Odin and it's responding to direction from Thor--which I guess means that it follows the intentions/will of the beings that have control over it. Jane's sickness might have been a condition that triggered it, but it may have no intellect to discern whether it's actually helping or harming her. It's typical of the kind of writing in these movies, it doesn't hold up well to a serious degree of scrutiny.

 

[Thor: Love & Thunder]

Spoiler

It was revealed that Mjolnir draws on the life energy of the user. So Jane using it, despite becoming superpowered, was accelerating her own demise. That's why Thor talks her into staying behind at the hospital.

 

 

[The Pretty Good AE Debate]

58 minutes ago, SwitchFade said:

Everyone stops taking you seriously and knows exactly how guilty you are when you use the exact excuse an abuser uses to justify beating someone and assigning the blame to their victim.

The unhinged ones often talk as if they are the community (everyone, we, etc.). And they compare forum tiffs to actual violence, torture, whatever lol. Good riddance. 

[The Pretty Good AE Debate]

1 hour ago, Bionic_Flea said:

 

Would you still have fun if the AE rewards were removed? Or halved? Or otherwise reduced?

 

I mean, you could still do exactly the same thing, only for a little less bank.  Is the farm fun or is the bank fun?

It's not about bank. It's about wasting time.

[The Pretty Good AE Debate]

1 hour ago, Bionic_Flea said:

I'm no Commissioner of Fun, although I'd make a damn fine one!

I believe in you!

[The Pretty Good AE Debate]

1 hour ago, MoonSheep said:

 

i think this is a good example of expectations management. trying to play an MMORPG as a pickup and play FPS is going to cause friction. CoH isn’t a superhero version of Left 4 Dead

 

MMO’s have art, creativity and journey progression as their core gameplay offering. Exploits such as AE farms are designed to circumvent this which is why there is some pushback to the practice of auto-win

 

Art, creativity, journey progression--yup that's all great for a while. Eventually, it gets old. The game is close to 20 years old. Telling a veteran who started this game in 2004 that farming is an exploit to circumvent this core gameplay in order to auto-win is utterly silly. How many times do I need to repeat a mission or TF in order to establish that I "won" it. The very fact that people are still hanging around pursuing their obsession with different facets of the game is a major win. Let people have fun the way they want. 

[The Pretty Good AE Debate]

58 minutes ago, Bionic_Flea said:

People like what they like and most don't like boring, repetitive content.  Except that's exactly what farms are -- boring and repetitive content.  People aren't running farms because they're better written then the rest of the game; they're running them because they give great rewards quickly, despite being boring and repetitive.

 

Yes, but you're missing the point. I want to achieve some objective--say creating a new build that I have planned out and want to use to run certain TFs with my friends. I have to level that character to 50 and then do all the slotting and accolades, etc. Getting that character to 50 involves running repetitive content that I have done for years. Do I want to spend a long tedious slog going through regular content, or get on a fire farm and grind out those levels I need in a few hours? NEITHER of these option is fun. One is just a much better way of getting that initial phase out of the way so I can use the character in the way that I enjoy.  Cmon, you know this.

 

[The Pretty Good AE Debate]

1 hour ago, Bionic_Flea said:

Believe it or not, I don't have a problem with that.  If you want to sit in AE and kill waves of chumps all day long, have at it.  But I do think that there should be some reduction in farm rewards and increase in non-farm rewards.  I don't know what the numbers are or what they should be.  All I know is the AE fire farms are so much better than anything else that it's becoming the default for many players.

 

Which is indicative of what? Isn't the underlying problem the fact that a lot of the ordinary content just isn't appealing for these players? 

Nerfing AE fire farms doesn't suddenly make the content people are skipping any funner.

[The Pretty Good AE Debate]

59 minutes ago, Troo said:

 

Just something to be mindful of.

 

I obviously don't prefer some of what they are doing as I've posted views that aren't against PLing, proposed a level up token, a respec for a primary or secondary and a never ending mission with wave of different enemy groups.

 

What was the UO number?

The site mmo-population.com says that UO has about 463k players or subscriptions, with roughly 4.4 k daily players.  It puts coh at about 1 million, with 9.6k daily players. No idea of the veracity of the numbers, it was the thing that came up when I did the search.