Stoked

Thanks for adding your data. Why have we gone the route of pointing to a single AE map (125) for all things AE? There are thousands of AE maps, some garnering developer support as well. That's part of the problem with this proposed change. You will affect every AE map, not just 125. If the REAL target of this effort is to do away with over-zealous farming, then don't allow +4/8 settings on the asteroid. Limit that map to only allow for 75% of the density or as a solo toon, you can only set your team size to 6 for that map. Something along those lines. It's exactly the nature of the grossly over the top impacts that makes the community feel like you're being despots.

... and ... crickets

As I said earlier, several of us will be working over the next couple days/nights to get real data about farming event content like SBB. Again, the point here is that AE is being thrown under the bus because it has the best rewards/hr of anything else in game. If our data, combined with that of Bionic Flea and others does nothing more than prove AE does marginally better or worse than "regular" content we will have already proven the narrative false. Anyone with 1/2 brain already understands that it isn't AE that is the real target for the illicit farming. Only marketeering on AH can give you enough of a return to entice bad actors to do what they do. Making AE the target is in itself what's so ridiculous because you can't touch the returns of marketeering by sitting in any farm AE or otherwise.

OR .. we could allow people to share opinions, share data and properly close the topic as it should be once all the users see the lie that is being sold about AE.

Let's not change the narrative here. The claim was that AE offered the best rewards in game. Not simply top tier rewards. For the inevitable confusion among some of you, that was intended to mean that you can get better rewards per hour in terms of influence than you can get anywhere else in game so naturally, AE farming must go. Until I see an actual mountain of empirical evidence that someone marketeering in the AH does worse than AE farming, I'm going to call you all out for supporting a bunch of BS.

That's not what I'm suggesting at all. I farm daily in AE because I don't have to team. I can go at whatever pace I want, stop when I want and continue when I want. I don't have to read some garbage story line written by an illiterate. If I see people asking for help with XP or inf ... I invite them, welcome them aboard and get on with it. My goal isn't to turn the market on its head or make out like a bandit. It's simply to try as many different builds as possible and enjoy the fireworks with a toon when I do run "regular" content. Any one or a combination of those reasons may be why people run AE instead of joining teams. It doesn't necessarily have anything to do with best rewards.

First of all, "mountains of anecdotal evidence" doesn't constitute anything but fiction. Had that evidence been empirical, I might agree at least in premise. Over the next couple days/nights we'll work to give the user base a true accounting for where the best rewards in game are. If you're smart, you'll place a bet on anything that has to do with reselling on the market. AE farming MIGHT give a marginally better inf/time ratio than PI radios for instance. But when we speed run LSRF or do back to back SBB's and start selling drops this BS narrative you've chosen to support will quickly come apart.

While various people run tests and collect data, I think it's important to note that absolutely no testing was appare tly done before the claims made about AE being the best reward machine in game. Just another example of a lie perpetuated by a select few to support the narrative.

Absolutely you would count drops that could be sold. Thank you for your effort to reveal the truth about "grinding" vs farming.

Actually, it wasn't all sarcastic, just the bit about running story arcs and TF's only once. I'm truly thankful for your effort and data. I stopped assuming everyone was reasonable and here solely to enjoy playing (however you might play) a long time ago.

Just curious ... why would you have a rad/fire Brute built for farming if that's not an "approved" use of the game? Also, are we all to believe that you leveled said Brute going through the normal story arcs and TF's only once right? In either case thank you for going through the motions and getting some data in place. I doubt most people fit into the category of best farmers making 1M/minute. One other consideration, building a farmer of any kind is extremely expensive and time consuming. Yes, you only have to do that once and then you can farm forever sure but how many people in the game actually go beyond basic IO's once they hit 50? Maybe we can get some metrics on the percent of people that use a full load of IO sets on their toons? For sure, the only way you're doing the kind of farming you're talking about is with a fully built toon that possibly took weeks to figure out and fine tune and about 500M - 1B or more in influence.

This same sentiment has been shared over and over by a great number of people in various threads. Most of those posts are hidden now. Rest assured, we the undesirables have copied them for safe keeping to be shared everywhere else. Your comments are well put sir / ma'am, thank you for sharing.

I've read through this thread a few times now and honestly think that changes generally speaking, should be considered for far longer than is currently being done before integration. I've learned a bit of the history of why certain things were done like adding emp merits to AE because of population problems. Apparently no one cared to look down the road for what the inevitable impact was going to be long term. Or perhaps, maybe that was considered and they didn't care about having to change it back. Either way I agree, the decision to do it in the first place was a bad one. My point is simply that more care should be taken about making ANY changes, especially those that impact major pieces of content like AE and trials. I would recommend that a great way to get that extra consideration would be to ping your user base, see what they think and incorporate that knowledge. The main issue with that however is that you've already made the decision in a vacuum and only rely on the focused feedback threads for confirmation that everything is great. It's not all great. Some significant problems have been introduced by these decisions; some of them made long ago. Interview players that are running the trials and AE maps for how things ACTUALLY work in game. Using stats from pylon tests or test server beta is not the same as real game, real population. A good example is the nerf on Titan weapons because in pylon tests, the DPS was too high. Seriously? When I'm on a team with blasters and enter a room full of mobs .. by the time I can swing a titan weapon and do ANY dps, the blasters have already nuked everything. How in the hell can you possibly say the dps is too high when it takes as long to swing a titan sword as it does to watch the countdown on a personal nuke timer. Complete insanity. You don't measure DPS as a single hit against a pylon when you consider a skill or buff change. Consider how that skill is actually played in game action. Enough on that, sorry for the tangent - back to all things AE. There are a few related questions asked dozens of times I have yet to see well considered answers for. Why are Trials considered "normal" or "dev supported" content and AE is ... well ... something lesser? Why am I expected to join a team led by some egomaniac that has no time to explain what the story line is and how things should be done? Why is your definition of having fun in game the only way it's supposed to be done? These have all been asked by many members on these forums in relation to AE, emp merits, farming and so on. Not once in all the threads have I seen a response other than some 1/2 sarcastic comment or off-putting remark about why farmers suck. Everybody in this game - EVERYONE - farms. You call it running a weekly, I call it hypocritical farming. You call it earning a badge or influence or whatever. Still farming. Why is your farming better than mine? Why is it accepted and AE isn't? By the way, if you don't like AE, don't do it. Just change the channel and quit whining about it. End of the day, mistakes were made in decisions about the game in a lot of areas. Do the people that have chosen HC as their place to go for fun a HUGE favor and stop changing existing config. PLEASE - just stop. Try focusing all that change attitude on costume parts or new content for lowbies or something like that. The existing population is used to playing a certain way whatever that might be. Please stop changing things. If someone doesn't like AE or trials or your costume editor, they can go to Rebirth or New Dawn or ThunderSPY. I know this is super long and will close simply by saying that I really appreciate all the work everyone does on HC; player and dev both. I chose to stay on HC because it had the best population and mix of things to do. I never felt forced to play one way or another. Now however, the population is sagging, auction prices are climbing and apparently running trials with sociopaths is the only way to properly enjoy the game on Homecoming. Such a shame.

Buffing regen or returning it to what it once was? Regen would be top tier if Instant Healing was once again made a toggle. Just one more example of a once awesome set that is now rarely seen used.

Please, let me know what the name is and I'll make sure to keep it safe for you.