Bionic_Flea

I think Troo brings up a good point. If there is a negligible amount of zone PvPing going on, shouldn't you want to concentrate them into one zone instead of divide them into 3? What makes you think that raising the zone level will bring more players? Temporal Warriors aren't necessarily an answer to that as Temporal Warriors can already go to any of the zones. They just get exemped to the existing levels. What's wrong with that?

This is true. People like what they like and most don't like boring, repetitive content. Except that's exactly what farms are -- boring and repetitive content. People aren't running farms because they're better written then the rest of the game; they're running them because they give great rewards quickly, despite being boring and repetitive. If AE farms only gave tickets, people would go back to farming something else. Does that make the Old Dreck farm funner?

Okay, playing along. Ideally equal. Given the difference between AE and non-AE content is mainly travel, spawn spacing and variety of mission types. AE rewards operate at a reduced amount. With the removal of the custom critter 'bug' and the aggro cap changes, hopefully AE and non-AE rewards can get closer to the same per mob. It might take another revision but that should be the goal. Let play play how they want. More appropriately it would be great to get an official stance/answer from Homecoming to set expectations. I am only one voice. Homecoming might not be for everyone and that's okay. I want everyone here, but I get it. Choices & consequences. Thanks for at least giving an answer Troo. AE has a few advantages: 1) custom made critters 2) custom made maps 3) lack of travel 4) designer's intent When you custom design critters that can barely hurt you on maps that are super dense, even at half the rewards per kill you get elsewhere, you can earn a lot really fast. Believe it or not, I don't have a problem with that. If you want to sit in AE and kill waves of chumps all day long, have at it. But I do think that there should be some reduction in farm rewards and increase in non-farm rewards. I don't know what the numbers are or what they should be. All I know is the AE fire farms are so much better than anything else that it's becoming the default for many players.

Once again, I have not said, am not saying, nor trying to say anything of the sort.

I didn't say anything of the sort. Delusional or disingenuous?

Sorry, but you are either delusional or disingenuous. You refuse to accept the truth that when players can choose their maps and their enemies it's like Lebron playing against elementary school kids. It wouldn't matter if the elementary kids got 2 points per basket and Lebron only got 1.

I did a few days ago and they would not give them to me.

He's kidding. EV has run the ITF more times than probably anyone else.

What happens to the PvP missions? The ones Glacier Peak posted above. Some of them give temp powers. You can't do them if you are over-level.

I'm not sure they can tell the difference.

I'd like to see that too. The only thing I can offer is 2 year old data. Fire Brutes were so prevalent that they broke it out as a category. About 30k fire brutes (or about 2.5% of total characters made) accounted for 32% of total hours played!

In other words, Cobalt likes to see us suffer and cry and uses that energy to power a yet-to-be-revealed secret weapon!

Is the floating ball always that high or just sometimes? Have you tried changing to a different mace and then back to that one?

How long should it take to get a new character to 50? Or to T4 incarnates? How much influence should I be able to make just leaving a character idle? Assuming that fire-farming should give the best rewards, how much better should it be relative to other content? The same, twice as good? Ten times as good? More?

But isn't farming endlessly repeating the same content?

You don't think there's a difference in being able to custom design your opponents? I do. But that's OK. We can disagree and still be friends. 😁

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?