ShardWarrior

Oh yes they most certainly are, and there is only one CoH server this is happening on. Other servers offer tools that render the need for gold farmers pointless.

Well yes, it is trolling when you ask these kinds of questions after I posted links to various posts I made in threads in the BETA forums. Quite clearly I had logged onto the test server and tried some of the new content. Were you to actually to do your homework and look at post history or used the search, it would have been very easy to have answered your own question. But I think you already know I had posted in several testing threads since we can all see you posting in them. You just wanted to make it seem like I did not test anything. No problem. You seem to be having difficulty using the search functionality on the forums, so I am happy to help where I can.

Here are a few others. If you would like more, please do the work yourself and look.

Here is a picture of me on Brainstorm just 3 minutes ago showing that the EMP to Merit reward is removed from the Merit Vendor. What else can I do for you? Or would you like to continue trolling?

Yes, I have. Would you like links to all of the posts I made on the items I tested? Or can you manage to use the search function on your own? Happy to do it for you if you need me to carry you.

I have already provided my feedback in the Beta thread for Reward merits. Here are just a few links to my posts there. What else can I do for you?

Yes, I have tested quite a few things on the test server to lend whatever help I can. What exactly would you like me to test again? Per the patch notes - Unless either one of those things have changed, there really is no reason for me to waste the time testing any further. I know you have read enough of my posts on this topic in various threads to understand my thoughts on these specific changes. It is nice they added Veteran levels back, but the EMP to Merit conversion is the bigger issue for me. What other information would you like me to provide? Do I need to repeat myself yet again? I am certainly happy to do that if you need me to.

Agree with everything @Krimson and @roleki posted above. I completely agree with @Neiska and would add; 8. Not wanting to get buried under layer upon layer upon layer upon layer of VFX spam from other players 9. Being able to actually contribute something before mobs are completely annihilated by everyone else. Nor would I call what @Neiskaposted an unpopular opinion. The overwhelming majority of the people in the circles I run in play the same way for the same reasons. It seems to me that the reasons people have for not wanting to be "encouraged" into teaming for "correct/right" content either gets lost, is just plain ignored or are never taken seriously into consideration. I think it safe to say we all want to feel super playing this game, however we feel super in different ways doing different things. I also believe the AE changes in this update are going to backfire. Of course I certainly hope it does not, however in our group discussions and chat it certainly seems like this is encouraging people into even more farming to make up for the lost EMP to merit conversion. I guess we can hope for the best.

Better understanding and compassion from everyone involved.

I am not sure that applies here. Perhaps I misunderstood the post, which very well could be the case, however I think the intent was to point out how the history here makes anything they say suspect. No matter what the folks here may do, the beginnings of how all this came about are not going to be forgotten and there are still a great may people in the community that did not like being lied to for years, no matter the circumstances. I would also point out that people may feel differently if it were their property being stolen versus that of a company that upset them.

Anyone catch this? Looks interesting and I have been reading a few good reviews. Always liked the first one and Predators. The other movies stunk. I do not have Hulu so curious if anyone has seen it.

I have not missed anything. I completely understand that eliminating gold farming is not the intended purpose of these changes.

You are (once again) either misunderstanding or willfully misrepresenting the intent of my suggestion and what it was in relation to. It was a suggestion on how to permanently stop gold farmers. So long as there are rewards that have to be earned, there will always be players looking for shortcuts to getting as much in game currency as possible and/or max level or whatever other virtual goodies there may be. If you truly want to stop gold farmers, you have to remove the need for them. You can change reward structures until the cows come home, it is not going to stop them from finding the next best method of farming. Changing the reward structure is not going to prevent gold farmers from setting up their server farms to run farm maps on multiple computers across multiple accounts across multiple IPs. Every step Paragon took back in the day did not eliminate gold farmers. It did not even slow them down. The very fact that there are gold farming sites out there now for this game is proof that changing reward structure is not a deterrent. Gold farmers are not going to magically disappear because you cannot convert EMP merits anymore. If anything, these changes are going to have the opposite effect and increase demand for the inf they are selling. Granting free level 50 tokens and fee inf on demand unequivocally removes the need for a gold farmer. I am not at all suggesting that is what should be done here, so please stop twisting my words in an attempt to turn them into something they are not. I am only pointing out that this would absolutely eliminate the need for them by eliminating the need for their business. That is what my suggestion was in relation to. I kindly ask that you stop misrepresenting it. Thank you.

I feel the same. These changes are not really encouraging me to run the new difficulty settings or iTrials any more than I already do. If anything, this encourages me to spend even more time farming to make up for the lost EMP to Merit conversion. I used that to fill out gaps in IO sets when I was low on inf or to buy the occasional ATO or purple set. Now I will just farm more to earn more inf to just straight up buy everything and focus solely on speed running TFs. Overall, that is less time spent forming teams for other "normal/correct/right/approved" content. My circle of friends and family were discussing if we decide to stay here, we will all get our old laptops up and running to farm as much as possible to make up for the loss. These changes are being made to corral people into a certain style of play and quite frankly the rewards just are not incentive enough. There appears to be a lack of understanding there are players who do not enjoy teaming for content. Not because they are anti-social, but for reasons like the over-saturation of VFX spam and mobs getting annihilated before you can fire off a single attack. As for buying the new costumes with EMP merits, I do not see that happening. There are enough people sitting on piles of EMP merits now to make it pointless and the new currency is supposedly a carrot to get you to try the new difficulty levels. That does not solve anything for people with few alts or have no interest in Incarnates. This all becomes useless, wasted currency.

Radical and unpopular idea - render the need for gold farmers irrelevant with free level 50 tokens and free influence on demand. Short of that, make whatever policy you want about deleting and re-farming for the early EMP rewards or whatever it is they are doing. Anyone caught doing this gets banned permanently, no exceptions.

Thanks. Now I have this stuck in my head. 😭

PI portal missions are easy to farm too. Not all that much more difficult to farm than AE. It make take a couple of minutes longer to finish, yet the activity is generally the same. But they are finally outside of AE so, yay? If you want to believe that these changes are miraculously going to get everyone to give up on farming in AE or elsewhere to run "normal/right" content with you, more power to you. I will believe it when I see it.

You are not understanding. Whether farmers are in AE or not, they still are not running "normal/right" content with other people. You are replacing "Sitter LF AE farm" with "Sitter LF PI farm". The results are exactly the same.

This already happens though and then people go right back to farming. This will continue to happen even after these changes. The venue may change, but the behavior will be the same.

Only speaking for myself here, but the rewards for things like Synapse, Citadel and Dr. Q could be quadrupled and I still would rather do something else. Boring and tedious is boring and tedious, regardless of the reward.

To address each bullet point - Not really. You would have to do a couple of missions or get invited to a team where someone else has it. You just need to talk to the first Police contact to get radio missions. Not really. S/L defense capped builds are at no more risk in a Council PI portal or Council radio mission than they are in a S/L AE farm. A new player getting invited to a portal PI farm sees part of one more zone. Not really a "greater exposure". Not really. See S/L defense capped example above.

Whether people are farming in AE or a Portal mission, the result is the same. Farmers running across multiple accounts can and still would earn inf faster than your average player and can buy merits with excess inf if they wanted to.

Once again, removing AE entirely does not solve this problem. All it does is replace "AE of Heroes" with "Portal Farm of Heroes" or "Radio Mission Farm of Heroes". Farmers who spend all their time farming are not going to start doing TF content with others. If that means moving out of AE back to the old portal missions, honestly what is the difference?

Just being honest, I do not see any of what is being done here forcing people out of AE to run more "normal/right" content. People who enjoy farming are still going to farm or continue to solo. Were XP and inf to be removed from AE or AE removed entirely, those same people would just go back to farming the old missions. They are going to find the next most efficient way to farm influence and/or XP. Most players spending their time in AE is definitely not the case from what I can see. I play almost every day and see requests in LFG for all kinds of non-AE content. All weekend long I saw plenty of advertisements for TFs and story arcs advertised on Excelsior. I formed a few SBB runs and TFs myself and had no problem filling. We had two teams on a league running Synapse on Saturday. I cannot speak to other servers, however what I see on Excelsior and Torchbearer does not line up with what is being said regarding the majority of players just staying in AE.

Fair enough. Just seems to me that the goal is to get more people to do "normal/right" content as the general complaint from the "normal/right" content crowd is too many people are spending too much time in AE. Personally, I do not see having to run a few iTrials or DA arcs here and there to be that big of a deal, however I freely admit everyone is different. As I said, I never said this was a perfect idea.