Bionic_Flea

I agree with you that risk is minimal. But even within that minimal amount their is some degree of granularity. Do you fight fire-farm critters that cannot hurt a /fiery aura brute, or Council, Family, Malta, Carnies, DE, Arachnos, Incarnate BP, or the abominations Linea creates in his 801 series? There are certain ATs and power-sets that are going to do better against some of those than others. If you fight all of them you encounter some that are easier and some that are harder or perhaps slightly more dangerous to your character than another. But if all you (generic you, not you, Doc) fight are custom made critters that effectively can't hurt you . . . well, let's just say that I agree there is minimal risk and fire-farmers shrunk that minimal risk into non-existence.

I don't think we disagree on risk. As I stated in the post you quoted "The only risk in the game is the risk of being defeated, which is only momentary and nowhere near as punishing as something like Dark Souls. I suppose there's a secondary risk of failing the mission, trial, TF, or whatever. " Let's agree that fire-farming should give the best rewards in the game. How much better should it be? Ten percent better? 100% better? Ten times better? Is there a limit?

Yeah, it works in Pocket D, but not in zones, arenas, or bases.

How do you do that? How do you know if someone is AFK farming or just stepped away because their kid needed a diaper change or they got a work call or the dog needed to be let out? And How do you enforce it? Do you have the GMs looking in on players to see if they are moving and kick them if they aren't? Do you ban accounts only to have them register under a new name or new IP? I agree with your simple answer but the way to get there is very complicated.

Well, GM-GW split us off here, so it seems as good a place as any to discuss it. Time, effort, and risk is a good discussion to have. While I dismissed Ivan's XP/Kill as a measurement, I cannot disagree that it is a basic measurement. You kill X, you get Y. Fire farming, especially active, wins on at least two and possibly three of those camps -- you get ultra fast rewards at minimum risk. Effort is debatable as you do have to ramp up a farmer, kit him out, maybe get some inspiration binds and technique to be top tier. But those puzzles have been solved. You can copy a bargain basement build to self finance a top shelf build, and cut and paste the macros. The only risk in the game is the risk of being defeated, which is only momentary and nowhere near as punishing as something like Dark Souls. I suppose there's a secondary risk of failing the mission, trial, TF, or whatever. This game also has an interesting dichotomy on time. A perfect example is the ITF. Some people prefer to speed run it to get a quick reward merits payout. Others prefer to kill all or kill most to squeeze every ounce of XP/Inf in the maps out. Neither way is the "right" way. Both ways have merit (no pun intended) and provides different rewards. The Devs have also started introducing Advanced Difficulty settings that provide additional rewards but have new tricks that will either slow you down or kill you. I've said it before and I'll say it again: I have no problem with farming. I like farming. I farm myself. But right now, and I'll be very specific, fire-farming on the asteroid map provides better XP, influence, drops, and even reward merits (due to emps from veteran DINGS!) than anything else in the game. If it was only a little bit better I don't think it would be a problem. But fire-farming in AE is multiple times better rewards, faster than anything else, for less risk.

What would you like to focus on and discuss?

True enough, but here the devs are making insta-50s for PvP and now some players want insta-free IOs too. They already have that on Brainstorm. Devs can do whatever they want and the PvPers can do whatever they want. I'm just making observations and suggestions.

I notice that no one like to answer my questions. Ask me anything, I'll give you an honest answer. Reward per critter is a meaningless measurement, IMO. An Uber-duber fire farmer is earning more per minute than any other AT doing any other content; many times more even though they get half as much per critter. I ask again, how many times more per minute should a fire farm be worth?

I looked up Temporal Warrior in Wiki and came up with nothing, so I assumed it was a new exclusive badge.

It doesn't take much smarts to copy a fire farmer build and run any of the dozens of fire farms. I'm not saying you did that. I have no idea. Maybe you invented fire farming! I'm just saying that it doesn't require much smarts or skill to be a fire farmer and get better rewards, faster, than anything else in the game. You like farming? Cool! Me too. Should that fire farm have a better return per minute (or per hour) than any other activity in the game, including that kill all +4 ITF? Should it be as rewarding, twice as rewarding, ten times as rewarding, 100 times, is there a limit? More edits! And isn't this a bit like Lebron James, who no doubt is talented and trains hard, beating school kids in basketball? The kids have no chance; Lebron is in no danger of possibly losing.

I have not read the thread so pardon me if these things have been stated before: 1) Made a Temporal Warrior ice/ice blaster who logged into RV base, successfully leveled to 50 with Castle. Used the Freebie auto-IO and it gave me 6 sets Slow among other oddities. It's convenient but very dumb. 2) Auto obtained a bunch of badges, including Temporal Warrior badge. Having a badge only obtainable by Temporal Warriors and unobtainable by anyone else is going to drive badgers crazy. I don't know if the badge is required to do all the other magic required for these guys, if it isn't I think you should remove it. 3) Used the freebies menu to grant me the other accolades, they don't work in RV but they do work in Pocket D. Freebies menu did not give me the Base TP or base portal, but I was able to buy them at P2W. Unable to buy Mission TP or Team TP. 4) Unable to use exit to Atlas or Grandville in RV, any of the Pocket D exits, or exit to a zone via Base TPs or the Long Range Teleporter. 5) When I tried to use the Base or LRT, it would start loading the map and then kick me to RV, but outside the base. It seems like that might be a spawn camp location. Can't we zone in to the base? Even the Pocket D manhole drops you off inside the PvP zones and not inside the bases. 5) I can use some but not all of the new costumes. I think it's funny to try and be a stealth Arachnos, Longbow, or whatever. But sad that I cannot be a mini Chibi Flea! 6) I could not use the AE interface, but I could interact with the ticket and inspiration vendors. I could also access and interact with the /AH. 7) I was able to buy base empowerment buffs but they suppressed when in PvP zone. 8 ) I was able to buy stuff from the Candy Cane elf in Ski Resort. The FIVE GOLDEN RINGS was usable in RV but Frosty Aegis wasn't. 9) I was able to team with a non-Temporal Warrior inside of Pocket D. The team lasted when one of us zoned to RV and even persisted when I changed to villain with Null the Gull. But not to worry, the team broke when I tried to enter RV where the teamed hero was. 10) I was able to PvP with an opposite faction non-Temporal Warrior in RV. Editorial: I have no problem with PvPers getting insta 50s. But I do have a concern if they can obtain free IOs and access to the market or other players. Too easy to exploit. But even though I don't mind, I do question why test server can't be the unofficial PvP server, like it was on live. Anyone from any server can transfer a character there or create a new instant 50 and equip it with all the IOs, +5 boosters, and anything else they want.

Don't you think that being able to custom design enemies that only do damage you are essentially immune to and play on maps that you chose to barely have to move to have hundreds of enemies on you might have something to do with it? Come on now. Let's be honest.

I think the problem was that someone else got too close to Rommy before me and he aggroed on to them and i couldn't pull them off. If you got to him first he probably imprinted on you.

It's still fairly limiting and a slow down to have to log in each one of your accounts/characters/farmers to claim your 5 emp to merit conversions per week. You could email them all to one character, but still limited to 5 per week. And even after the conversion of emps to reward merits, you still need one more conversion to something to be able to sell or transfer to other accounts. I think this may be a good limiter.

Last night we ran a team at 4 stars. The twins were much less of a slog, but Rommy was still a pain. I'll repeat my caveat above that I expect it will get better, faster, easier as we all learn the tricks and traps. Linea was on his Ill/Rad and trying to control the Emerald Barrier and I'm not sure how successful that was. But it seems to me that we do better burning down all the barriers and then Rommy. Maybe it's the loss of one player's DPS, or maybe it's that the Emerald Barrier is so hard to control, maybe both or something else entirely. What do I know? I am but a tiny insect in a world of supers.

Some questions to pose into the aether: How fast should a character get to 50? Or to 50 +T4? How much influence should a character be able to earn in an hour? Or a day? How many collective hours should players spend in the AE vs anywhere else? I like farming as much as the next guy, but I don't farm as much as some. I have done 1-50 on rare occasion, but usually I just farm a few levels here and there to get out of a slump or to get that shiny power or extra slots that will be game changing for that character. But I don't care if someone else levels 1-50. On the other hand, I like the rest of the game too. I like all of it. The costumes, the bases, the zones, the lore, the market, even some PvP now and then. Is there a point at which the pendulum swings too far towards AE and away from the rest of the game? If all anyone does is AE, is it worth the server load to keep 20 nearly empty zones running? I think these are questions we need to think about and discuss.

I think that Rommy needs to be susceptible to taunt, even under the protection of his Barriers. As a tank, I could not pull his aggro off another player until the barriers went down. Or if his taunt immunity is part of the design goal, then I respectfully request that a certain barrier be the one that prevents taunt and then allows it once defeated,

Sorry, but your memory is faulty. First, the /AH has always been cross server. Initially red and blue markets were separate but they were merged long ago on live. Second, except for perhaps a fat fingered misbid, Mako's never sold for 2 billion. The PvP uniques did and then they started being sold off market for even more. Maybe some purples got there on a busy weekend, but usually the in-demand ones where in the 100-300k range. And you could farm morality missions to get the hero/villain merits that could be traded to Botler and his evil counterpart for the PvP recipes or try to convert them.

Unless someone wants to organize a group to go run the I-trials on test, it's hard for me to get a good feel for it. Does anyone know, or do we have data mining, that shows the average completion time of the various trials? That's the only measurement I can think of.

That's never stopped us before! We're not quitters . . . until we quit the game . . . but that's a protest! I remember the frustrating reason my dad would give me when I would ask why? Because, yes. (Porque si. It sounds better in Spanish)

I did think about exploits but I wanted to keep it within the ToS. You could make the denominator whatever you want. I guess another way to work it is Linea's minutes per level (MPL) and I think he says good farmers get 20 MPL so that's 3 levels an hour which equals 20 Emps/hour. I'm not sure if that's AFK or active, but lets just say AFK and 24 hours a day. 20 emps x 24 = 480 emps/day 480 emps x 10 = 4800 Reward Merits /day 4800 x 3 accounts = 14,400 4800 x 12 accounts = 62,400

I am not surprised people don't know about converting emps or the ease of getting a fully kitted 50 on Brainstorm. There are a lot of people who play this game that just like clicking buttons and feeling good for punching Nazis and never come on to these boards after signing up and another sizeable chunk of players that may come periodically or just follow one thing. All of us usual suspects (you know who you are!) that practically live here and know all the little tricks and traps are the outliers.

My guess, working the number backwards: 61,500 reward merits /10 = 6,150 (10 merits per emp) 6,150 emps /24 hours = 256 emps/hour 256 emps /3 accounts = 85 emps/hour/character and that = ~12 DINGS! per hour. (Assuming 20 emps every 3 DINGS!) Seems high to me, but I'm not super efficient.

1) Yomo, you are obviously an evil very bad man . . . dog . . . whatever. 2) Devs are humans (presumably) and as fallible as the rest of us. 3) The Devs are not monolithic. They have different things they like and want to move forward on and sometimes those things are very different. 4) They really do listen to feedback and can be convinced to change. But just because they listen it doesn't mean they will change just to appease loud voices. Logic, reason, and data work much better than rage and tantrums. 5) Dammit. Now I want deep dish pizza.