battlewraith

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.

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

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.

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.

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."

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."

"Ah ha ha haaaaaaa ha I know this thread is Troo's"

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.

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.

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

I believe in you!

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.

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.

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 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.

A quick google search indicated that Ultima Online has less than half the player base of Homecoming. Maybe if the devs take a more hardline approach to advancement, we can successfully reach those numbers as well.

Honestly not trying to be insulting, but your use of English here is so tortured that I wonder if you just don't understand the gist of what I've been saying. My motive is to comment on this discussion. I just think the proposed changes won't bring any real benefit and will piss people off. My farmers are built and I spend more time running Itrials than farms anyway. It doesn't matter whether you think it should have been allowed or not. It WAS allowed. And changing things now, if that actually happens, will have consequences for this gradually dwindling population. Your personal GAME BALANCE PHILOSOPHY disagrees with what I said. Fine, whatever. You think my opinion is immaterial and I think you're analysis is irrelevant to the actual situation at hand. *shudders*

This is nonsensical. Do I feel that a healthy system should have one dramatically skewed aspect, naturally? You're asking inherently subjective questions while issuing weird, ill-defined platitudes about the survival of systems. It's not that complicated. The game is not a biological organism. It will survive as long as people keep the servers running and people keep playing it. There is no reason to believe that significant balance changes are necessary to keep people on board for these things. Likewise there's no reason to believe that significant balance changes, if that is even possible given the circumstances, will bring in a swath of new players to a 2 decade old MMO. There is reason to suspect that certain changes will prompt people to stop playing--mainly because people are signaling strong dissatisfaction with those changes in their feedback. I think an obsession with abstract ideas of balance and game health is a great way to kill this patient on the operating table.

Yes, but I think the general idea is that it's more efficient so that you spend less time and effort doing it. Apart from something like AFK farming.

Even if the rate or return were the same, I'm guessing most people would prefer to sell the contraband. Or simply move on to another activity. In game terms, the toilet cleaning would be being forced to endlessly repeat the same content you prefer to avoid by farming. This game came out in 2004, was shut down, pirated, and is now being run by a volunteer development team. What does "healthy" look like for this game? Particularly for this playerbase, who are predominantly middle-aged veterans. I think an insanely skewed rate of return for effort invested is a selling point for a lot of people who no longer can afford to spend a lot of time grinding for the things they want. There are people that constantly complain on the forums about the game being too easy or some aspect of it being broken and they push the devs to enact changes to "fix" these things. This fix will somehow recalibrate things so that the game will be.....fun again? Challenging? More engaging for the flood of new players who come in and love this new balance? That is a pipe dream. If the majority of people are farming and outfitting new characters, that means that those activities are the ones that have the most appeal for the current playerbase. Tampering with that dynamic in order to funnel players back into the other content is insane. It's literally inviting players, who are probably doing a lot of game things as part of a routine, to rethink how they are spending their time.

Like clockwork.

Welcome to the suggestions forum! I think the idea would be reasonable if you were buying a one time use power. Stuckmobs happen occasionally. If you have one on hand, you can fix the problem without waiting on GMs. Maybe there's a cooldown on how often you can purchase them as Aida mentioned above. Works for me.

Here's a couple variations to consider: 1 is a small amount. The devs, in the course of a couple years, enact five changes. So: 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 = 5. Five is.....probably still a small amount. 1 is a small amount. 0 is a smaller amount. The devs do zero. No innovation. Loses interest. Goes to play another game.