Discussion: Disabling XP No Longer Increases Influence

[nihilii]

There's literally no downside to the inf change. You only lose out if the % of your game activity that is farming is superior to the average % of game activity that is farming for the rest of the playerbase.

[Ruin Mage]

If people who farm are the only ones who get tilted off of this, it's also telling.

This affects farmers the most of all, and that's a good thing.

[Telephone]

6 minutes ago, Rejolt said:

Sadly, the verbiage of Exploit when it was seemingly a feature since Briggs' AE farm way back in May 2019 makes even me say: "Wait... I was exploiting?"

Farming itself was and is not an exploit. The base use of the option was also not an exploit. However, there were specific things you could do in combination with the option to significantly increase your Influence gain. Those are the exploits to which we are referring.

[Rejolt]

Just now, Telephone said:

Farming itself was and is not an exploit. The base use of the option was also not an exploit, however, there were specific things you could do in combination with the option to significantly increase your Influence gain. Those are the exploits to which we are referring.

So there was something more severe than having level 54 bosses jump on my head while I get coffee and I come back to 115k influence per?

[Ruin Mage]

Yes.

[Targren]

3 minutes ago, Shadeknight said:

If people who farm are the only ones who get tilted off of this, it's also telling.

This affects farmers the most of all, and that's a good thing.

Farmers are less of an issue than flippers, who ware untouched, and those who already have billions of inf in their mailboxes benefit from it.

I'm less than a week into my first 50 (yes, my farmer).  

 

Edit: So out of curiosity, is there any point to the "No XP While Exemplaring" setting now? 

Edited March 31, 2020 by Targren

[Borthouth]

I don't like the inf change. Still a divide between everyone with a billion build and those without. 

 

Double xp is probably not worth it now as people were using inf from farmers to make alts. I suspect all the new alts will start to slow down now. 

[SwitchFade]

Just to be transparent, my initial question was for clarity only. Prices in-game are not fixed they are driven by economic factors and redistributing wealth will always lead to an increase in buying power per unit of inf.

 

More to the point, I have never set foot in AE, and I DO have a fire/kin controller and the warrior farm map. I rarely ever use that controller, because just playing, earning merits and converting fully funds 500million builds by the time they hit 35-40.

 

So, only one toon I have is xp off, and she's rarely ever used.

[Jimmy]

35 minutes ago, Rejolt said:

Sadly, the verbiage of Exploit when it was seemingly a feature since Briggs' AE farm way back in May 2019 makes even me say: "Wait... I was exploiting?"

 

Players have all emotes, costumes, costume change emotes, can make a Crafting table for just 10 million from p2w without getting the badge, etc., so many of the influence sinks don't exist. I guess it depends if you want 1000 alts at 500 mil to 1 billion builds per that you keep needing to farm. 

Simply using a level 49 map itself was not an exploit, but was an abuse of the system, which is why it was eventually going to be removed.

 

The exploit was the use of Patrol XP with this option turned on - your influence income increased dramatically without consuming the Patrol XP - and I have no doubt that many players were making use of this without being aware at all. Just fixing that alone would've resulted in a big income drop for farmers, but as this feature was simply not healthy for the game we opted to remove it.

 

Again, you need to consider this change in the context of it impacting everyone. Your income may have dropped, but so has the overall input of influence into the economy. Those who were not making use of this exploit (unwittingly or not) will not actually experience any change in their buying power long-term.

[LQT]

19 minutes ago, Myrmidon said:

And So It Begins.

Still one of the best intros a sci-fi show ever had. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oxdLult6YKU

 

Will be interesting to see what the changes do cause, though. Ease of inf at this point led to a few things such as large contest payouts, some price fluctuations on IOs and other things. Probably won't do much about LFG AE spam since that's more centred around the xp gain, but will see how things go.

[Rejolt]

Just now, Targren said:

Farmers are less of an issue than flippers, who ware untouched, and those who already have billions of inf in their mailboxes benefit from it.

I'm less than a week into my first 50 (yes, my farmer).  

I've flipped items, but it's mainly a symptom of people having waaaaaay too much influence and being too lazy to do things. Folks were paying more for recipes than crafted IOs due to this.

 

It's their money. They can waste if they want and players and exploit that behavior - it's their call. No one forced them. I'd be more worried that someone with a few trillion due to AE farming just decides to buy out whole sections of the auction house and list for insane prices.

[amagi]

Disincentive the farming and you disincentive a lot of activity that puts IO recipes and enhancements in the market.

So, what happens when there are fewer items for sale in the marketplace?

[SwitchFade]

4 minutes ago, amagi said:

Disincentive the farming and you disincentive a lot of activity that puts IO recipes and enhancements in the market.

So, what happens when there are fewer items for sale in the marketplace?

The majority of recipes, I wager, do not come from farming.

[Apparition]

Personally, at first brush, I have to say that I am not pleased with the farming INF nerf.  I understand it somewhat, but I am not pleased. 

 

AE Farming is/was how I made money in the game.  Money I used to give out 300 million INF each week as Rikti drop ship kill prizes, which is now going to have to stop. 

 

I also have toons stopped at veteran level 100 with XP turned off to gain double INF through regular play. 

 

I have zero interest in learning nor using the market beyond straight buying and selling. 

[amagi]

10 minutes ago, Rejolt said:

I'd be more worried that someone with a few trillion due to AE farming just decides to buy out whole sections of the auction house and list for insane prices.

To what end, though?

What's the rationale?  For the person with gobs of Inf to dry up the market and no longer get gobs of Inf?  I think there's a reason that situation never ocurred.

 

The massive inflation during Live was from the Inf farming from Chinese farms and selling of Inf.  I haven't seen those spammers in AP selling Inf like before.  Actually, I've never seen those people selling Inf in HC.

 

I farm.  I literally give away billions.  I give away sets of purples.

 

I put hundreds of IO recipes on the market for 1 Inf.

 

But now?  Now, I have to consider if my largess is really worth it.

Edited March 31, 2020 by amagi

[Waypoint]

Next patch: converting an IO goes up from 1-3 converters to 100-300 per IO because of market imbalance. 

 

[thunderforce]

13 minutes ago, Targren said:

Edit: So out of curiosity, is there any point to the "No XP While Exemplaring" setting now? 

Not outlevelling contacts.

[Greycat]

For all the "inf nerf" talk, I'm actually more interested in (and amused by) jump pack/steam jump being disabled in the arena. Mind you, I haven't played an arena match since waaaaaaaaay before shutdown. Wondering if this fixes something or was just missed earlier.

 

[LQT]

1 minute ago, twozerofoxtrot said:

I think it's how mission creators in AE could stack powers into that boss to make them worth more than the normal amount of exp/inf per kill than your run-of-the-mill, usual content boss. 

But those powers didn't really affect your farmer, because they were all fire-based.

 

Now that doesn't matter as much.

Jimmy explained the exploit on the previous page.

 

> The exploit was the use of Patrol XP with this option turned on - your influence income increased dramatically without consuming the Patrol XP - and I have no doubt that many players were making use of this without being aware at all. Just fixing that alone would've resulted in a big income drop for farmers, but as this feature was simply not healthy for the game so we opted to remove it.

[twozerofoxtrot]

12 minutes ago, Apparition said:

I also have toons stopped at veteran level 100 with XP turned off to gain double INF through regular play. 

 

I'm in this boat too, and a little put-off that I'll see my normal play on my main have income reduced just to smooth out inf gains overall. 

I also don't want to turn on exp again and ruin that nice round "100" vet levels. Feels bad.

[therealtitanman]

Just now, twozerofoxtrot said:

 

I'm in this boat too, and a little put-off that I'll see my normal play on my main have income reduced just to smooth out inf gains overall. 

I also don't want to turn on exp again and ruin that nice round "100" vet levels. Feels bad.

I rarely farm $, use for plevel and skill test only. and now keep getting error, im not going to do PI run for evrey new alt. Its tiring.

[RoboKnight]

I don't get it. So as an Incarnate with the 99 Month Vet Badge, I should turn XP back on now or I won't get any Inf at all?

[Radionuclide]

34 minutes ago, Targren said:

Not a fan of the Inf change either, and the fact that the incoming nerf was stealthed is telling.

That they follow the same model as Paragon and most other development studios when they are closing what they consider and exploit? Seriously, adverting an exploit before closing it is not a good model.

[Myrmidon]

46 minutes ago, Rejolt said:

A year of afk farming, well-known afk farming, let me make 5 consecutive farming accounts of afk farming has led to a superior surplus in influence. However, you had to start addressing it somehow. 

That was more in reference to the tears from this that may finally give me the components that I need for my Immortality Elixir.

 

 

I have absolutely no issues with this change.😂

[Crysis]

So the rationale here was to turn off double influence when exemp’ing to “make it fair” for everyone, then why not do the same with the marketplace and simply set a max ceiling on all levels of IO’s, Recipe’s and Salvage?

 

I mean, if your goal is to be fair, then be fair.  Ceiling prices can’t be exceeded, floor prices are still there for the “sell it now” players.  That way we all have the same expected expenditure for every possible build (assuming you buy everything rather than crafting drops, etc).

 

If your goal isn’t a fairness doctrine, then just say it outright: You don’t want to encourage farming as a playstyle.