Discussion: Disabling XP No Longer Increases Influence

[QuiJon]

7 hours ago, Grouchybeast said:

Increases in purple prices have nothing to do with converter rolling, which is what I was talking about  Purples, are in their own category.

 

Although, actually, now you mention it, purples recipes are a great example of how good converters are for IO prices, because we know what happened on live when converters were introduced into an economy that had already suffered from enormous levels of inflation (caused by too much inf existing).  Before converters there were 'trash' purples that sold for the low tens of millions at best and there were the smaller number of 'good' purples that everyone wanted, like Ragnarok, that sold for the high hundreds of millions.  I think some were just about breaking a billion?  Anyway, after converters the price of the trash purples rose, and the price of the desirable purples dropped significantly.  That meant that every single purple recipe that dropped could be sold for good inf -- even if you didn't want to bother converting it, it was a better price than before -- and it was cheaper to buy the purples you actually wanted.

 

Or look at PVP uniques on live for another example.  They went from costing more than the inf cap to being buyable on the market again.

 

Converters are good for everyone.  Luckily, the devs seem to understand this very clearly.

I am not saying coverters are bad. I am saying that there is an inherent creep to the cost of items not because of disposable income but because people are inherently greedy and want a better return on their spending. 

 

Not to long ago, just months really, you could buy purple crafted enhancements on the AH for 10-15 million with some going as high as 20ish million. But what that meant is that you could take your same 100 merits, turn it into 28-30million influence and instead of buying 1 purple recipe by 2-3 purple enhancements. Or 2-3 ATO pieces. However what we generally see is that for the most part things balance into a cost on the AH for what the cost of getting them outside of the AH is. For ATOs that is 10million for a super pack, for Winters that is 25ish million for a winter pack. etc. 

 

Right now purples are 20 million because people farm. They get ones they don't use, and they can either sell them and buy exactly what they want or play converter roulette with it. But frankly now that the prices have normalized among them it is easier to sell and buy then to chance it. However what happens when that supply maybe goes down? We cut the return in influence from farming in half. Let just say 25 percent fewer farms are taking place, that is a 25 percent cut in that market of extra or unwanted purples. Less supply means more demand for what there is, more demand means prices go up, higher prices means that only those with money can afford them making it harder for those that don't farm to afford what they want. And in the case of purples and other high end enhancements like pvp or some other orange sets, to get them with merits cost 100 merits. Now think again about that. It means that if 1 merit converts to 1m influence. That justifiably a AH item of a purple or PVP hancer could inflate to 100m influence per item before it becomes cheaper to earn merits to purchase them. 

 

This is why I am saying the only way to reliable achieve the goal they are claiming they want, to prevent inflation creep in market prices is to seed the market at set price levels that cap what a player can sell and item for. It worked with salvage and will work with enhancements. But cutting the reward from farming to dissuade it as a viable option for earning just will end up cutting supply which over all will raise prices. And as we have said people are already sitting on billions from farming and marketeering. It isn't those players that wont be able to afford a build its the players that just want to log in and casually screw around running TFs and such. And even though this hits farmers, those players are even impacted by this change because now if I want to earn on a 50 to build him out I don't have the option to turn off xp and earn better influence running old TFs and content with him. 

 

Just saying this is not the solution to the problem they are saying exists. Prices will continue to rise because of greed. The game is a microcosm of real life. Prices will raise as high as people will spend, and the money is already in the game. And always will be until you also address those people making a billion influence a week from marketeering. 

 

[Septipheran]

On 3/31/2020 at 9:27 AM, Jimmy said:

We’ve made this change to reduce the influence income gap between players who farm and those that do not. 

I was able to make inf. substantially faster than farmers just by playing the market. There are multiple avenues to amassing wealth in this game and none of them are remotely challenging. You've actually punished a method here that wasn't even the most efficient one available to us. 

 

Income inequality in COH can be waved away even more easily than when people try to apply this argument to the actual economy.

 

1.) There is no "fixed pie," so one person accumulating wealth doesn't prevent another person from doing the same. That's a fallacy.

 

2.) Income inequality is more accurately termed Effort Inequality. If some players choose not to grind, that's their prerogative. But they shouldn't be surprised when their actions yield less favorable outcomes than those people who chose to apply themselves. 

 

 

Edited April 2, 2020 by Septipheran

[@Ghost]

Not terribly perturbed about the change, even as someone who dabbles in farming. I feel like no longer having the extra incentive to exemplar is a mistake that's gone unaccounted for.

 

Primarily I'm mystified about this sneaking into a patch without collecting prior feedback under the guise of it being an exploit fix. This feels far more like a "we know better than you" type of situation, where it's unlikely to be looked at after the fact and threads like these are just containment. Given this game's, uh... recent history, with obfuscating things via a few people who thought they knew better, that's a very uninspiring precedent being set.

[QuiJon]

26 minutes ago, Septipheran said:

2.) Income equality is more accurately termed Effort Inequality. If some players choose not to grind, that's their prerogative. But they shouldn't be surprised when their actions yield less favorable outcomes than those of people who chose to apply themselves. 

 

I like this one a lot.

 

I do farm, yes. I also run content. And it surprises me no end to get on a pick up group and run an ITF with strangers and listen to them complain abou thow they can not afford anything or how poor they are and how unfair it is that the markets are built for farmers and marketeers and then start the TF and speed and stealth their way through it all to get to the pool of merits as quickly as possible and maybe kill only 30 percent of the mobs total. Basically doing only what is required of them.

 

I mean do they think I just run into a farm and kill 3 mobs and hit a blinky and repeat it over and over again? Effort equals rewards. And sure I can not say kill alling a tf is just as good as farming but stealthing a task force for sure is the lowest possible reward you can hope for. Effort should equal reward. Even if it is just a time basis. Perhaps rather then nerfing the rewards for some activities we need to look at boosting it for others. If I can make 100m an hour running a farm at x difficulty they perhaps the in game reward system should be set to equate to the same level of reward for every hour of ACTUAL game play/action. 

 

24 minutes ago, phocks said:

Not terribly perturbed about the change, even as someone who dabbles in farming. I feel like no longer having the extra incentive to exemplar is a mistake that's gone unaccounted for.

 

Primarily I'm mystified about this sneaking into a patch without collecting prior feedback under the guise of it being an exploit fix. This feels far more like a "we know better than you" type of situation, where it's unlikely to be looked at after the fact and threads like these are just containment. Given this game's, uh... recent history, with obfuscating things via a few people who thought they knew better, that's a very uninspiring precedent being set.

Most of that past history I do kind of leave in the past. I don't want to argue it. However this excuse that was put forward with this change that it was not announced because it was an "Exploit" doesn't hold water to me. There was nothing exploitive about this. It was no more exploitive then in the past side kicking system where you were tethered to another player and you would try to find someone that put you at the optimal +4-5 level range for enemies for xp earning. It was how the system was designed and how it works. And changing it should have been announce and the subject of conversation ahead of time. 

 

I get these are volunteers and such. However we are volunteering our money to keep all these servers open. There is no longer a profit motive for the development of the game. It purely exists for player enjoyment now. Clicking on or off toggles in your option menu is not an exploit and adding or removing options should always now bet he subject of converstation and discussion ahead of time. We had MONTHS of converstations about changes to tankers or dominators etc. before settling on things that accommodated everyone. I see no reason why a converstation on the concerns of the market and how to fix it between changes to farming, marketeering, normal game reward changes, merit value and buying power etc could not have been had to find a more equitable solution for everyone. 

 

10 hours ago, Peerless Girl said:

The sidekick system was absolutely intended for someone level 35 to be able to play with level 50s, and you did level faster doing that. Cryptic still calls the system "Sidekicking" even in Startrek Online, and of course Champions, if you get far enough from a teamed Starship in STO (kind of hard to do accidently but doable) it will eventually say "you are out of Sidekicking Range" in the system messages. This is still one of the most innovative systems in any MMO ever. It was intended so people of all levels can play together regardless, and it accomplishes that beautifully. Will I miss making the extra influence if I choose to drop down and play with friends, sure, did it possibly make me do it more back in the day on live? Yes, will it stop me from doing it just to play with people in my SG? Nope. The issue is how all of this interacted with the vet levels and the fact you can earn "XP" over 50, plus a longstanding bug in Patrol XP (that didn't matter on live, since it was a very narrow window, then you hit 50 and it stopped). People are spreading misinfo, using it to further their own agendas and basically just argue about it. In the end it won't end up changing anything, the devs will be the devs, and those who simply can't abide the change will find somewhere else to play (but like most who threatened to "quit" back in the day on Live, they somehow managed to continue posting on the forums).

I didn't say the sidekick system was not intended to allow varying play levels to play together. What I am saying is it was not intended to be used as a power leveling tool. Which is exactly what it has become used for now. It is much faster and easier to be a lower level toon on a  higher level team because a high level team can run higher difficutly levels and with incarnate and other IO power creep things a higher level team and get away with running 8 man content with only even 2-3 effective characters on the team. (sometimes less but you get the idea) People join RMS raids with level 5s. In the mid 30s how long would it take you to solo 4 levels cause on a level 50+4 ITF team it takes about 45-60 minutes. That isn't power leveling? 

 

What I am saying is that if we are going to start looking at reward per hour or whatever, why are we only looking at money and farmers. Why is there no adjustment for marketeering? After all I don't even need a farm toon or to run a misson. I can make a billion a week now just playing the market if I really want to and not kill a single thing. Why is that not a problem for this evil accumulation of influence that farmers are being punished for? 

 

Ultimately this was not an exploit it was a game mechanic used to advantage and leverage the best returns, just like the sidekick system. If they had issues they wanted to address they should have opened a discussion on the subject of their concerns and taken suggestions and looked at those. But they called it an exploit and then stealthed in changes. This game is not run for profit, its players keep the servers up for our own enjoyment. I think we deserve to have input before a blanket nerf is stealthed into the game. 

[Grouchybeast]

17 minutes ago, QuiJon said:

I am not saying coverters are bad. I am saying that there is an inherent creep to the cost of items not because of disposable income but because people are inherently greedy and want a better return on their spending. 

 

The slow creeping increase of prices is literally due to inflation, the issue that this change was specifically designed to address.  The market does not and cannot cause inflation, because the market is a net INF SINK, not an INF GENERATOR.

 

Providing a fixed price store for items (which is what seeding the market at volume does) definitely caps prices.  For basic supplies like salvage it's pretty much costless, too, in terms of impact on the rest of the game.  However, with purples and PVP IOs you would open a whole different can of worms which is the question: how easily should people be able to obtain items?  Should there be any items that are rare and give players a sense of achievement to pursue?  If you want to have rare items AND a store, do you seed the market with only small numbers of those items, which encourages botting, off-market sales and real world money trading?  How do you set the price?

 

Providing a fixed price store (seeding the market at volume) without addressing inflation leads to either a) the items that are seeded eventually becoming trivially easy to obtain or b) the seeding price having to be continually adjusted upwards to keep pace with inflation.  Much better to try to address the inflation at source.

 

And let's be realistic: running farms is not going to stop over what is relatively speaking a trivial change.  As someone said earlier in the thread: it isn't like you weren't going to run the map again anyway.  Farming is still vastly more lucrative than running any other content.  What if farmers run *more* farms to get the same inf, and recipe supply increases and prices fall?  Only time will tell.

[Jimmy]

25 minutes ago, QuiJon said:

We had MONTHS of converstations about changes to tankers or dominators etc. before settling on things that accommodated everyone. I see no reason why a converstation on the concerns of the market and how to fix it between changes to farming, marketeering, normal game reward changes, merit value and buying power etc could not have been had to find a more equitable solution for everyone. 

Because any conversation about this mechanic would've very quickly resulted in the exploit becoming public knowledge.

 

Please go back through the thread and read the staff responses. Everything you've posted about has been addressed.

 

Posting the same thing over and over again will not yield different results, it'll only make people less likely to listen to you at any point in the future.

[Yomo Kimyata]

Has anyone actually chronicled the effects the changes have had on their farming activities?  I was hoping some organized record keeper would have some data.

 

RE: "exploit" or "overpowered game mechanic", it's a question of semantics.  Like Jimmy said in an earlier post, there is no logical reason that a level 49 should earn faster than a level 50.  It's clear that it wasn't "working as intended."  I am by no means an expert, and my time on farming maps is purely about the Zen of smashing rather than earning, so forgive me if I am not thoroughly up to speed on the method.

 

Now, I DO agree that there probably should have been some telegraphing that the change was going to occur.  Fundamentally, we'd see the same back and forth we're getting now, but just a few days earlier.

[@Ghost]

5 minutes ago, Jimmy said:

Because any conversation about this mechanic would've very quickly resulted in the exploit becoming public knowledge.

Which part of this wasn't already public knowledge?

 

Getting more inf with XP disabled at 50 was so far widespread that most people assumed it was intended. The level 49 missions were maybe less so, but widespread enough that I'd heard of it through Help chat and because there's a guide on these forums (with nearly 50k views) detailing exactly how it works.

 

All in all the reasoning feels particularly disingenuous. Odds are, anybody who was liable to "exploit" this situation was most likely already doing so. The value of transparency over changes people are going to find sensitive, I feel, is worth much more than whatever amount of people who didn't already know learning about a publicly documented behavior.

[Jon]

Holy hell. What a mind-boggling, infuriating, and needlessly aggressive move against farming. All this does is resources less accessible to players. This is a massive mistake.

[Luminara]

13 minutes ago, Yomo Kimyata said:

Has anyone actually chronicled the effects the changes have had on their farming activities?  I was hoping some organized record keeper would have some data.

 

Who has time to test changes when there's doom-mongering to be done?  Priorities!

[Jimmy]

1 minute ago, phocks said:

Which part of this wasn't already public knowledge?

 

Getting more inf with XP disabled at 50 was so far widespread that most people assumed it was intended. The level 49 missions were maybe less so, but widespread enough that I'd heard of it through Help chat and because there's a guide on these forums (with nearly 50k views) detailing exactly how it works.

 

All in all the reasoning feels particularly disingenuous. Odds are, anybody who was liable to "exploit" this situation was most likely already doing so. The value of transparency over changes people are going to find sensitive, I feel, is worth much more than whatever amount of people who didn't already know learning about a publicly documented behavior.

Stop for a moment and actually think about what disingenuous means.

Quote

not candid or sincere, typically by pretending that one knows less about something than one really does.

And now I have a question for you: Why would we make this change if we didn't think it was the best move for the playerbase as a whole?

There's no ulterior motive here. Nobody is making any money out of this. We do this because we love the game. Every decision is made because we think it's the best thing we can do for the game (with the resources we have available). Of course we knew there would be blowback from a very, very vocal minority about this change, but we did it anyway because it was the right decision for the health of the game. Popularity be damned.

 

You can be upset this has negatively impacted your experience. That's fine. We're not here to to tell you your opinion is invalid or that your feelings are unfounded. We're not here to tell you that you can't disagree with our decision.

 

But we are here to run the server, and we're going to do that in the way we think will be best for the entire playerbase, not just the vocal minority.

[SeraphimKensai]

Honestly to keep the economy balanced for farmers and non farmers would be to socialize the market and seeding enhancements at fixed rates as opposed to letting big business and greedy hedge fund brokers corner the market as opposed to punishing the people stuck working overtime to try to make ends meet.

Edited April 2, 2020 by SeraphimKensai

[Without_Pause]

Without currency sinks or caps on items this will ultimately just delay the inevitable slow increase of items traded between players. This was covered on Live. Currently builds are vastly cheaper than they were on Live, but Live also had years worth of a player base building currency. There's currently nothing preventing from it happening again.

[SeraphimKensai]

That's why I suggested seeding the market via evil socialist practices. It will keep things from moving to my old 6.2 billion influence PvP builds.

 

Also restricting influence income rates, inversely gives real money traders potentially more customers as time=money.

[Outrider_01]

On 3/31/2020 at 9:20 AM, Murcielago said:

So you're making 180m after an hour of playing. I make that in a day with 15 mins of my time while still being able to play other content instead of endless farming. 

 You make more in 15 minutes selling, but you probably did not include the time invested drag dropping pulling from the enhancement trays, shifting the slide bars, looking for the enhancement/recipe, typing the numbers, possibly combining at the crafting station.  It adds up in the end, sure it might be faster and easier than the effort of farming, but market flipping is incredibly tedious with all the little steps involved.  For some people, its easier to hit a handful of F-keys activating powers and be entertained with the results of bad guys falling then it is using the mouse, searching, flipping/converting, popping it back into the AH and setting a price.  The market is easier to make INF, but just so tediously boring to achieve the desired results.

 

Market flipping vs farming, each to their own.  Hopefully they raise the taxes and slam down on the drop rates, got to be "fair" to everyone with this bullshit "generally unfair towards those who play standard level 50 content instead of farming" excuse, cause you know......it is your choice to farm or not, doesn't mean the other person is evil just because they farm.  Anyone can make a farm character, very little effort involved, but if you don't want to do that doesn't mean its unfair.

[Jimmy]

2 minutes ago, SeraphimKensai said:

That's why I suggested seeding the market via evil socialist practices. It will keep things from moving to my old 6.2 billion influence PvP builds.

 

Also restricting influence income rates, inversely gives real money traders potentially more customers as time=money.

Seeding recipes / enhancements is done indirectly through the Merit vendor and Enhancement Converters. They ensure that nothing is ever scarce.

 

If we felt that needed more of an impact we would likely increase the availability of Merits rather than seeding directly into the market.

 

This is definitely something we are keeping an eye on though.

[Yomo Kimyata]

25 minutes ago, SeraphimKensai said:

Honestly to keep the economy balanced for farmers and non farmers would be to socialize the market and seeding enhancements at fixed rates as opposed to letting big business and greedy hedge fund brokers corner the market as opposed to punishing the people stuck working overtime to try to make ends meet.

 

24 minutes ago, Without_Pause said:

Without currency sinks or caps on items this will ultimately just delay the inevitable slow increase of items traded between players. This was covered on Live. Currently builds are vastly cheaper than they were on Live, but Live also had years worth of a player base building currency. There's currently nothing preventing from it happening again.

Fortunately for both of you, the market is already socialized, with caps galore.  Admittedly, those caps are probably higher than you want them, but as of now you can buy almost anything for the max price of 100 merits.  And since you can buy merits for 1mm inf a pop, there's your cap!

 

I guarantee that HC devs spent a lot of time thinking about those caps, and about seeding salvage levels. 

 

If you are asking to be able to buy rare salvage for 5k or purples for 1mm, good luck with that!  I feel rather confident that the devs would prefer to keep the current player-based system.

 

[EDIT:  Jimmy keeps posting before I get my thoughts out!]

Edited April 2, 2020 by Yomo Kimyata

[@Ghost]

7 minutes ago, Jimmy said:

Stop for a moment and actually think about what disingenuous means.

 

And now I have a question for you: Why would we make this change if we didn't think it was the best move for the playerbase as a whole?

Stop for a moment yourself, because my comments weren't at all about the content of the change. I think they're well reasoned and fine for the overall health, seeing as I'd just said:

1 hour ago, phocks said:

Not terribly perturbed about the change, even as someone who dabbles in farming. I feel like no longer having the extra incentive to exemplar is a mistake that's gone unaccounted for.

_{(to which, I still maintain that not having that extra incentive for exemplaring is something that needs reexamining later on, but this is besides my point)}

 

I was commenting on how the change was stealthed in, specifically. Which is why I was asking, "what part of this exploit wasn't public knowledge?" If anyone who cares to know, knows... then who cares? Hiding the change until the moment it's out there just feels like a way to dodge pushback and get it done. Skipping those testing and feedback phases just misses the point of having 'em to begin with.

 

I assume all the changes are being done with the game's health in mind, and I appreciate the work being put, definitely. But I don't think it's good practice to just dump out major ones without consulting the community.

[Greycat]

6 minutes ago, phocks said:

I was commenting on how the change was stealthed in, specifically. Which is why I was asking, "what part of this exploit wasn't public knowledge?" If anyone who cares to know, knows... then who cares? Hiding the change until the moment it's out there just feels like a way to dodge pushback and get it done. Skipping those testing and feedback phases just misses the point of having 'em to begin with.

You *assume* everyone knew. I can guarantee not everyone did. If they *did* mention a change because of an exploit, people - being people - would go "Oh, you can do that?," tell others, and rush to do it themselves, pushing to use it while they can.

 

This isn't unusual or improper behaviour when dealing with an exploit, "well known" or not.

[@Ghost]

1 minute ago, Greycat said:

You *assume* everyone knew. I can guarantee not everyone did. If they *did* mention a change because of an exploit, people - being people - would go "Oh, you can do that?," tell others, and rush to do it themselves, pushing to use it while they can.

 

This isn't unusual or improper behaviour when dealing with an exploit, "well known" or not.

Of course, but I still feel like the impact of word getting around to however many didn't know (and would bother to use the exploit) is less than the impact of making big changes without discussing them.

[Jimmy]

24 minutes ago, phocks said:

Of course, but I still feel like the impact of word getting around to however many didn't know (and would bother to use the exploit) is less than the impact of making big changes without discussing them.

And our judgement was different.

 

At the end of the day, the change was being made - no amount of discussion would've changed that. Our view was that opening that up would not only have spread knowledge of the exploit, but it also would've distracted from other features we were actively seeking feedback and testing on.

[Oubliette_Red]

3 minutes ago, Jimmy said:

And our judgement was different.

 

At the end of the day the change was being made - no amount of discussion would've changed that. Our view was that opening that up would not only have spread knowledge of the exploit, but it also would've distracted from other features we were actively seeking feedback and testing on.

Thank you @Jimmy and the rest of the HC Team for all the hard work and effort you put in.

 

[Troo]

On 3/31/2020 at 1:16 PM, Troo said:

 

 

quickly approaching 700 replies. is it possible we've passed peak outrage?

 

sometimes the medicine doesn't taste good. it is what it is.

 

Edited April 2, 2020 by Troo

[@Ghost]

9 minutes ago, Jimmy said:

And our judgement was different.

 

At the end of the day, the change was being made - no amount of discussion would've changed that. Our view was that opening that up would not only have spread knowledge of the exploit, but it also would've distracted from other features we were actively seeking feedback and testing on.

Then I would have set aside some time after page 5's release to put the change up for testing so it could get that focused window. I disagree heavily with that sort of rigidity, but even if it were only a few days (to minimize spread) and mostly a formality (because the changes were mostly solid), the transparency of forewarning for something you know is going to be a big change is just good PR.

 

I respect that this is all volunteer work, but the people who are still sticking around and playing and giving their time and feedback do it because they're passionate and invested, too. Don't trample over that investment in the rush to do what's "healthy."

[mrultimate]

26 minutes ago, Troo said:

quickly approaching 700 replies. is it possible we've passed peak outrage?

 

sometimes the medicine doesn't taste good. it is what it is.

 

Nope.

and

Yep.