Nov 29 patch

[Display Name]

Because of a peculiar condition that exists on the Homecoming server, I'd like to respectfully make a request.

 

Can you please allow Candy Canes to drop in the AE building?

 

The "peculiar condition" that I refer to is the fact that each account is worth 1000 alts.  Maybe more?

 

Although I'm sure not every player has 1000 alts, the AE building is a RELIEF to the joyful burden of badge hunting for all that a player has!

 

Edited December 10, 2019 by Display Name

[boggo2300]

AE already over rewards, I'm not sure adding more rewards to it is a good thing

[Display Name]

Sorry!  Forgot to include the link!

https://forums.homecomingservers.com/topic/12961-patch-notes-for-november-29th-2019/

 

[Lost Ninja]

Not sure why you think a bug fix should be removed because you don't have (or do have, OP unclear) a 1000 alts. Bottom line is you don't need to have every badge on every alt anyway and if you feel that you do then it's down to you to deal with it.

[srmalloy]

11 hours ago, boggo2300 said:

AE already over rewards, I'm not sure adding more rewards to it is a good thing

And I've never been clear on why AE missions award inf at all. Considering that the in-game explanation for inf as you're being able to get things from other people because of a) their respect for your reputation (blueside influence), b) fear of your reputation and what you might do to them if they cross you (redside infamy), or c) the leverage that you've got on them (goldside information), I fail to see what crawling up your own electronic navel in the AE building does for your reputation out in the real world. It's effectively working your skill with your abilities, so it's certainly a source of experience, and AE can choose to award tickets to claim for 'real' world rewards for your performance in AE missions, the public doesn't care how many electronic analogues of real-world threats you've defeated, it's what you do out in the 'real' world that they respect.

[boggo2300]

13 minutes ago, srmalloy said:

And I've never been clear on why AE missions award inf at all. Considering that the in-game explanation for inf as you're being able to get things from other people because of a) their respect for your reputation (blueside influence), b) fear of your reputation and what you might do to them if they cross you (redside infamy), or c) the leverage that you've got on them (goldside information), I fail to see what crawling up your own electronic navel in the AE building does for your reputation out in the real world. It's effectively working your skill with your abilities, so it's certainly a source of experience, and AE can choose to award tickets to claim for 'real' world rewards for your performance in AE missions, the public doesn't care how many electronic analogues of real-world threats you've defeated, it's what you do out in the 'real' world that they respect.

100% agree with everything you've said, though to answer your initial question, I believe it was player lobbying on live (by lobbying I mean whining and bugging the dev's until they gave in)

[MunkiLord]

3 hours ago, boggo2300 said:

100% agree with everything you've said, though to answer your initial question, I believe it was player lobbying on live (by lobbying I mean whining and bugging the dev's until they gave in)

Rewards were also limited because of player and Positron bitching and moaning, so it all worked out in the end.

[Bionic_Flea]

If influence is removed now, there will be a revolution.  And I will happily handout torches, pitchforks, and AKs.

[boggo2300]

2 hours ago, Bionic_Flea said:

If influence is removed now, there will be a revolution.  And I will happily handout torches, pitchforks, and AKs.

I don't support removing anything thats in place that isn't actually broken, INF should never have been added to AE, it was a stupid decision in pretty much every way, but not only has the horse bolted the daed barns burnt down now.

[Grouchybeast]

8 hours ago, MunkiLord said:

Rewards were also limited because of player and Positron bitching and moaning, so it all worked out in the end.

The only way that AE would ever have worked as Positron seemed to envisage it (primarily as a way for players to create stories for other players to experience) would have been to remove rewards from it entirely, or almost entirely.  I never understood why, if that was what he really wanted, he didn't go for it full-bore and take out the inf etc rewards.  Giving game players a new system and then complaining when some of them min-maxed it was frankly silly.

[Display Name]

Whew!   Some tough responses!  Thankfully though, the Flavour of the Month data would seem to indicate that these views are in the tiny minority!  Lol!

[golstat2003]

6 hours ago, Grouchybeast said:

The only way that AE would ever have worked as Positron seemed to envisage it (primarily as a way for players to create stories for other players to experience) would have been to remove rewards from it entirely, or almost entirely.  I never understood why, if that was what he really wanted, he didn't go for it full-bore and take out the inf etc rewards.  Giving game players a new system and then complaining when some of them min-maxed it was frankly silly.

Because they knew if they did that 90-95% of the playerbase would never have stepped foot in AE. Well, they probably would have run one mission, found out it gave zero rewards that mattered and never looked at it again. The devs spent considerable resources (time, dev coding time, art time, testing time, beta time) on AE. Showing that all that work was pointless by making it so that a supermajority of players would not touch, would have been a bad look.

Edited December 11, 2019 by golstat2003

[Grouchybeast]

1 hour ago, golstat2003 said:

Because they knew if they did that 90-95% of the playerbase would never have stepped foot in AE. Well, they probably would have run one mission, found out it gave zero rewards that mattered and never looked at it again. The devs spent considerable resources (time, dev coding time, art time, testing time, beta time) on AE. Showing that all that work was pointless by making it so that a supermajority of players would not touch, would have been a bad look.

Maybe, but there's always been a decent population of roleplayers in CoX, and they already get zero inf rewards from doing that.  Positioning AE squarely as a roleplaying tool would also have had the advantage of not needing to continually squash the more dramatic exploits.  Although in that case, what it definitely would have needed was a much, much better way of actually finding good stories, like a solid tagging system to start with.

[Shadowsleuth]

A bug fix won't be reversed but there could be other ways the OP's request could happen.

 

One, if there was a way to trade AE tickets for Candy Canes (probably not for a 1 to 1 ratio, I could see it being much higher than that).

 

Two, if someone writes an AE mission/storyarc with Winter Horde that becomes a Devs Choice (Good Luck with that), then you could choose to receive normal rewards instead of tickets.

[Super Homer]

Honestly: AE should had never given standard rewards at all. They should had made it so players got a big amount of XP on mission competition, and add a timer of how often you can get that xp, somehow limit it so you only get it once per mission too.

[boggo2300]

22 minutes ago, unknown said:

Honestly: AE should had never given standard rewards at all. They should had made it so players got a big amount of XP on mission competition, and add a timer of how often you can get that xp, somehow limit it so you only get it once per mission too.

See, back then I would have said AE should give maybe %70 xp similar "real" content would give, and the only other rewards being AE tickets, on the theory that AE is only a computer game after all, but thats too far in the past now, and we're stuck with it as it is.

[Super Homer]

Honestly, one of my biggest gripes with the whole game is it's obsessive rewarding of killing meaningless units. It's archaic game design, the biggest rewards should not encourage repetition of the most basic and menial tasks in the game, but instead should highlight variety and complex gameplay. In other words: game should give a lot less XP per kill, a lot more XP per mission, with each mission giving a bigger reward only the first time you run it, making the most optimal leveling and progression path to be the completion of a lot of different missions, not killing the easiest to kill critter over and over in a vr room.

[MunkiLord]

AE giving good rewards was the only sensible decision. If it didn't, it would have been largely unused, making it a waste of studio resources Which would have rightfully led to people getting fired. 

[Haijinx]

Just use your farmed money to buy candy canes

[Display Name]

4 hours ago, Haijinx said:

Just use your farmed money to buy candy canes

There's always that option if needed!  Lol!

 

Anyway, I was just requesting it so that others can benefit the way I already have.  You're welcome!

[golstat2003]

17 hours ago, Grouchybeast said:

Maybe, but there's always been a decent population of roleplayers in CoX, and they already get zero inf rewards from doing that.  Positioning AE squarely as a roleplaying tool would also have had the advantage of not needing to continually squash the more dramatic exploits.  Although in that case, what it definitely would have needed was a much, much better way of actually finding good stories, like a solid tagging system to start with.

Possibly. But then they should not have built a building that large and plopped them in nearly every zone. I think the Devs wanted it to be a big thing cause everyone was on the User Generated Content idea at the time for MMOs. 

 

What I would have done is attach it as part of the overall mission system by have the UGC missions be accessible via set doors around the city. That would have got player subsets of all types interested.

 

Also I would have limited it to the structure of how developers create their missions. For instance, I think allowing custom mobs was opening a can of worms that they really didn't need to.

[golstat2003]

14 hours ago, unknown said:

Honestly, one of my biggest gripes with the whole game is it's obsessive rewarding of killing meaningless units. It's archaic game design, the biggest rewards should not encourage repetition of the most basic and menial tasks in the game, but instead should highlight variety and complex gameplay. In other words: game should give a lot less XP per kill, a lot more XP per mission, with each mission giving a bigger reward only the first time you run it, making the most optimal leveling and progression path to be the completion of a lot of different missions, not killing the easiest to kill critter over and over in a vr room.

It rewarded killing meaning less units because of the superhero fantasy of a lone hero beating up countless grunts. Hell we see that fantasy in shows like Titans also, where the group regularly beat up a bunch of guys that probably had no chance against them. Also at the time they could not create missions fast enough for their to be "completion of a lot of different missions". The number of missions we are all enjoying right now came over literally YEARS of mission crafting.

Edited December 12, 2019 by golstat2003

[golstat2003]

14 hours ago, MunkiLord said:

AE giving good rewards was the only sensible decision. If it didn't, it would have been largely unused, making it a waste of studio resources Which would have rightfully led to people getting fired. 

Pretty much.

[Super Homer]

1 hour ago, golstat2003 said:

It rewarded killing meaning less units because of the superhero fantasy of a lone hero beating up countless grunts. Hell we see that fantasy in shows like Titans also, where the group regularly beat up a bunch of guys that probably had no chance against them. Also at the time they could not create missions fast enough for their to be "completion of a lot of different missions". The number of missions we are all enjoying right now came over literally YEARS of mission crafting.

 

1) It's that way simply because it was developed before World of Warcraft was released (that game changed the focus of almost all MMOs to pursue quest completion for xp over killing tons of critters.)

 

2) A lot of the content is ridiculously generic. Plus, all you need to do before launch is make sure the sum of all mission completion XP will get you to or extremely near the level cap. Most modern MMOs add daily/weekly challenges and/or bonuses to continue progression.

 

But honestly, since when does Batman say "forget the Joker, let's stay here fighting his goons, it's a much more rewarding and epic heroic battle! We will fill the Bat Cave with mementos from these meaningless goons!"

 

 

 

 

[Display Name]

4 hours ago, unknown said:

But honestly, since when does Batman say "forget the Joker, let's stay here fighting his goons, it's a much more rewarding and epic heroic battle! We will fill the Bat Cave with mementos from these meaningless goons!"

That's what badges are!  Lol!

Edited December 12, 2019 by Display Name