ShardWarrior

No, not if you make a lot of costume changes. 😁

Thank you. I do the same thing. I have already gotten all the characters I wanted to at T4 incarnates, so I used excess EMP merits to convert to Reward Merits to fill in holes in IO sets or to buy purples or ATOs. Getting the EMP merits via Vet levels to use for other things was a nice bonus. Now I am just going to have to farm even more to make up for that loss. Instead of coaxing me out of AE, this idiotic change is encouraging me to spend even more time in AE to make up for the lost conversion. Just being honest, this is not making me want to play more, it is making me want to play less and less. As @PeregrineFalcon put it so eloquently, yet another swing and a miss.

Rebirth and New Dawn both work just fine without the background updates made by the team here. Both have some very cool changes and additions in their own right. Rebirth has a vastly superior costume editor for one thing. New Dawn opening up signature NPC power sets and even Freeform ATs is a lot of fun. Truly a shame that the various people developing are so fractured.

Oh I already know your answer. 🙂 Apologies, my post was more a general question/statement and not directed at you personally. Sorry if that was confusing. Seems to me that taking extreme edge cases into consideration for balancing rewards is only ever going in one direction.

So we can start nerfing all the rewards in TF/SF/iTrial content to balance them out? Speed runners are getting rewards for optimal play in far less time than the non-optimal players. Only seems fair to balance these out.

And these are builds and maps everyone uses? Or are other players using different builds and maps? Seems to me these are finely tuned builds that not everyone will want or use.

Inaccurate how and defined by whom using what criteria? It seems to me that quite clearly not everyone posting their results here are hitting these mysterious figures.

Earning the EMP merits from Vet levels by doing "right/correct/approved" content and converting them is earning them, same as running TFs over and over.

You are absolutely right that people should enjoy their costume and character design. The problem is that we get buried under layer upon layer of VFX from other players being used or cast onto them, many of which obscure the view of other players completely. Unless I am misunderstanding the request, the ask is for a minimal or no VFX option for abilities that are cast onto others.

Same. Predator 2 was meh, although it did expand the story a bit at the end where you learned the Predators had been visiting Earth for quite some time. The AVP films were awful. Predators was pretty decent, although as great an actor as he is, I could not see Adrien Brody as an action hero. I did not see the The Predator because it got such terrible reviews and from the clips I have seen, it does look like a stinker. Prey here is getting good reviews and it looked like an interesting idea. I will wait for it to show up on Vudu or something since I do not have Hulu.

So now we are arbitrarily moving goal posts by adding the criteria of AFK farming?

You can complain about whatever you like. 😉

I do not think the thread should be closed. Prune it of any noise and personal insults, but I do think that it should be allowed to remain open. Especially since there are people posting actual data and information. I think that is a good thing. More data means more information and more understanding of what the situation really is, regardless of what side of the fence the data lands on.

I am not sure that is what was being suggested. I could be mistaken, but I believe the comment was that there was never any real data presented that AE was producing the best rewards of any other content in the game. To my knowledge, there never has been any data like that posted even back on live.

Nope. Influence gained is influence gained whether it is from defeating NPCs or from selling drops. Unless you want to start making certain exceptions and conditions now? That is fine if you want to do that, it just seems like trying to skew results one way or the other in order to be more in line with the "AE is the best source of everything!" claim.

Ran a fire farm and a series of Council PI Radios on two separate characters this morning for an hour each. I have earning XP disabled on both and sold all salvage and recipe drops after finishing. Skimpy Impy - Spines/Fire Brute (T3 in all Incarnates) OSHA Academy Fire Farm - Arc ID 4880 set to +4 x 8 Earned a total of 35,955,232 influence = 599,254 influence per minute The Incredible Mulk - SS/WP Brute (T3 in all Incarnates) PI Radio Missions (3 in total, Council only) set to +4 x 8 Earned a total of 35,687,448 influence = 594,791 influence per minute I did get better drops on the PI radio missions - a LoTG Def/End recipe drop and a rare salvage. I have not had a chance to run a series of back to back SBB runs yet. I will post the results when I am able to.

I see the same thing on Excelsior and Torchbearer. This patch is a solution looking for a problem.

Good question.

This is why I am asking what the criteria is for testing. This allows anyone to repeat the same tests and provide more data to review. No one seems to want to answer the questions. The claim is that AE is a one stop shop for everything. It is the best place for rewards compared to any other part of the game. That may very well be true. All I am asking is using what criteria? What rewards are being measured? What ATs using what kind of builds are used for testing? Which AE farm map? What non-AE content? There are a lot of factors to take into consideration. I am sorry if I am not going to take the singular tests you ran as gospel. I can run all kinds of tests that will produce different results more in line with non-AE content being far superior for rewards. This is why I am suggesting there needs to be set criteria so results can be reproduced. For my individual tests, I am using my fire farmer running the meteor map and my scrappers and brutes running radio missions in PI. I will also use my blaster running through a series of back to back SBB runs and selling the IO set from there on the exchange. I guess we are measuring influence gained only as the measure since that seems to be the only thing you were concerned with? If not, let me know. Are XP and/or influence the only rewards being measured? There are multiple types of rewards in the game.

Well no, I have no idea where you derived anything about players leaving or staying or prices of IOs in the market from the post of mine you quoted. I am happy to help provide some data. What are we measuring and what is the criteria for the measurement? Can I run my fire farmer through a farm run and then run my EMP defender solo through some +4x8 Carnie Radios? That should produce the same results I think.

Sure. I will be happy to help and embarrass you again. Are we only testing influence gained per hour? Or are other rewards acceptable to test since the claim seems to be that AE is the single best source for all rewards in the game?

No idea where you are getting any of this from to be honest nor how you derived any of that from my post you quoted.

Repeatedly claiming one persons test is representative of the whole player base does not make anything true either. Of course one test is not going to sway any opinions, nor should it. Absolutely you have ignored the questions, that much is evident. Asking for proper criteria so results can be measured properly with as little sample bias as possible is not shifting the goal posts either. Yes, people are asking for data, so help define what data needs to be measured and how. It is much more difficult to refute evidence when you know the criteria used to gather it and results are repeatable.

Well no, that is not at all what I said nor what I suggested. Here is what I did say - I am specifically stating that criteria has to be defined so anyone testing knows what is being measured. You completely ignored the question of what rewards are going to be measured as there are many rewards in the game? Is it just strictly XP and inf? Or merits? Is selling any drops taken into consideration? What types of missions are being used to test? Are speed runs and/or AFK farming acceptable to use cases? Is testing limited to only certain ATs, power sets and enemy NPC types as some are much easier than others? There are a lot of questions to be answered beforehand and testing criteria established. This is how you avoid bias in the results which you are already blaming everyone of.