Discussion: Disabling XP No Longer Increases Influence

[Coyotedancer]

I toss a lot of the recipe drops I get with Harry onto the AH as a matter of principle (I feel like keeping the recipe supply healthy is one of the jobs we farmers have in the City ecosystem-), and it's been interesting watching what some of the uncommons sell for now. I've definitely gotten more for some of the converter-fodder "usual suspects" recently.

 

It's almost as if all this talk about marketeering has increased interest in the conversion game... Go figure. XD 

[skoryy]

9 minutes ago, Coyotedancer said:

I toss a lot of the recipe drops I get with Harry onto the AH as a matter of principle (I feel like keeping the recipe supply healthy is one of the jobs we farmers have in the City ecosystem-), and it's been interesting watching what some of the uncommons sell for now. I've definitely gotten more for some of the converter-fodder "usual suspects" recently.

 

It's almost as if all this talk about marketeering has increased interest in the conversion game... Go figure. XD 

Meanwhile, prices on converters have... dropped?  At least in the past day.

[Panthonca7034]

It is my opinion (key word OPINION, before I get a tomato thrown at me), that the thread is reaching a slightly TOXIC point. It's not even safe to argue/discuss/debate for or against anything, and all of this has or is beginning to become a TOUCHY subject that is breeding ideas for rather unsound and rather DRACONIAN and baseless measures.

 

Now would be a safe moment to simply take a breather, look at the whole picture as is, think before stating something (looking back I saw the need to shift my focus some which is why I backed away some and tried to dig some to verify) and just drop the whole thing for a day or two.

 

And if sane minds can't prevail, I'm in favor of having the thread locked to avoid the creation of Mountain Ranges out of ant hills and accept the adjustment.

 

There's absolutely NO NEED whatsoever to make things miserable for anyone whatsoever.

 

@Crysis

 

I'm going to wholeheartedly disagree with your opinion on power leveling for ONE reason and one reason alone, simply put "You cannot order/force/mandate/tell ANYONE how to play the game", you just CAN'T do that.

 

Edit: I just noticed a few more posts that confirm things have calmed some, looks like sane minds are prevailing to some degree.

 

 

Edited April 21, 2020 by Panthonca7034
Update

[Crysis]

11 minutes ago, skoryy said:

Meanwhile, prices on converters have... dropped?  At least in the past day.

I have several hundred bids at 75k or less.  They are filled almost daily, almost always at same two times per day.  When Europe goes to bed and when US goes to bed.

[Coyotedancer]

 

Also more people doing the Merits-to-Converters thing, maybe. 

 

I never sell my converters... They're too useful... SO I haven't kept up with the usual sale prices on those. 

[Crysis]

3 minutes ago, Panthonca7034 said:

@Crysis

 

I'm going to wholeheartedly disagree with your opinion on power leveling for ONE reason and one reason alone, simply put "You cannot order/force/mandate/tell ANYONE how to play the game", you just CAN'T do that.

 

That said, I got nothing else.

 

 

Eh, I’m not sure where you got the impression that we disagree on that point but I fully agree that mandating how anyone should play this game died when it when it ceased to be a for-profit game.

 

We are playing stolen code.  Anyone who dictates anything right now is by law a pirate and a criminal.  I’ll honor the guidelines but there should be no law here.  Anyone who argues this is just an righteous idiot.

 

But that said, the servers we play on have their own rules of conduct and either we abide or we perish.  That simple.

 

Ive adapted.  Not happy about it and may not continue to play as much or at all but I’ve adapted.  I’ve no choice when it comes to playing here.

 

 

[Panthonca7034]

4 hours ago, Crysis said:

Given the evolution of things that have been nerfed for years in this game I can see the end of quick leveling and farming AE.  So I make my stable of toons, equip them and if needed in future I can melt them down for parts.  If not, I pull out another virtual action hero and just run with it for awhile.

  I misread your post, that's a mistake on MY part, therefore I apologize.

 

59 minutes ago, Crysis said:

We are playing stolen code.  Anyone who dictates anything right now is by law a pirate and a criminal.  I’ll honor the guidelines but there should be no law here.  Anyone who argues this is just an righteous idiot.

 

But that said, the servers we play on have their own rules of conduct and either we abide or we perish.  That simple.

 

Ive adapted.  Not happy about it and may not continue to play as much or at all but I’ve adapted.  I’ve no choice when it comes to playing here.

All of that is irrelevant to this particular discussion, so I won't comment...

[Peerless Girl]

 

 

18 hours ago, Gremlin said:

The devs have make it clear that they understand all this and they made this change explicitly to curb inflation by shifting the ratio of new recipes to new inf. They've also made it abundantly clear that they support all play styles.

 

(I know this has been said a dozen times. I'm just recapping for those who haven't read this rather epic thread.)

 

Yup.

 

18 hours ago, golstat2003 said:

It's clear reading up to this point that many folks don't actually know how the market (And I include converters and that process in that) works, and continue to not want to learn . . . even though there is an entire forum that's dedicated to telling exactly how to make billions on the market and EXACTLY how it does work.

 

You can't help folks who choose to remain uninformed.

 

My grandmother used to say "you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make them drink".

 

18 hours ago, MsSmart said:

   So the patch goes on, and the no exp is present, but there is no increase in influence, thus making the option totally dumb in my opinion, and frankly why even have it?

 

   

 

So that people can turn their XP off and avoid outleveling story arcs/content. That was a big complaint to Paragon back in the day, even AFTER Oroborous went in for flashbacks. Some people want their hero's career to encompass certain (or all) arcs, and they leveled too fast to do that, and didn't want to use flashback (there are level and other barriers to entry to flashback too, and if you missed content in early game you had to be post 30 to be able to "fix" it). 

 

18 hours ago, Digirium said:

I've not witnessed prices get any lower since the great nerf at the start of the month - they stayed the same.

 

Exactly. They stayed the same, despite the massive influx of user numbers due to Human Malware. Jimmy was correct, more or less.

 

17 hours ago, Digirium said:

That's been said so many times I wonder why it's not sinking in yet? Prices have remained the same on the game market so what Jimmy said was a bust - it was "make believe", that's all, to give a justification for the over-nerf of influence entering the game. That affected everyone, all the players but achieved nothing.

 

One can use the same logic on you. Nothing we say is "sinking in" for you either. Jimmy was right, and will end up being proven right over the long term. Normally you'd see a SPIKE right now with so many more players (when almost every day can be considered a "weekend" due to the pandemic) and yet prices have stayed the same. That backs up Jimmy's argument quite well. 

 

17 hours ago, Digirium said:

I'd say the same about your opinions. Only one of us is right though, that's me.

 

That is incorrect. 

 

15 hours ago, Digirium said:

I am correct; it was a nerf that went too far -- patrol XP ought to have been consumed when a player was under exemplar, it had to be fixed. Disabling the option to receive influence instead of XP was not right. You and others keep rolling out irrelevant economics waffle again and again to dismiss this very obvious issue with what was nerfed. You take affront at the rejection of your patterned economic thinking that you keep repeating mindlessly, when you forget that this is a video game with a pretend market place and fail to acknowledge the real objectives behind the nerf were nothing to do with economics at all. Players that use AE to farm influence have been under attack for a very long time -- the increase to mob damage output in the AE didn't play out, so this was the answer.

 

 

And if you consumed Patrol XP while exemplared, and didn't have debt to pay off, guess what would happen. it would transfer to influence as it did under the old system, and the inflation problem would remain the same or get worse. That doesn't fix the problem, though it might well be the result you want.

 

9 hours ago, Luminara said:

 

Naked.

 

>.>

 

<.<

 

Just me?

 

Again?

 

*sigh*

 

Hawt. Did you run through the snow in Steel naked too? I thought it was just me.

[Peerless Girl]

4 hours ago, Crysis said:

We are playing stolen code.  Anyone who dictates anything right now is by law a pirate and a criminal.  I’ll honor the guidelines but there should be no law here.  Anyone who argues this is just an righteous idiot.

 

 

That is true unless and until HC becomes legally sanctioned by NCSoft. To be clear, HC never "stole" the code. (Neither did anyone on the old SCORE team, it was "stolen" by someone inside and handed to someone, so at worst that someone was "receiving stolen property"). That is though, as someone else said, irrelevant to this topic and discussion. Just thought I'd throw that out there though. 

[Lines]

6 hours ago, Panthonca7034 said:

It is my opinion (key word OPINION, before I get a tomato thrown at me), that the thread is reaching a slightly TOXIC point. It's not even safe to argue/discuss/debate for or against anything, and all of this has or is beginning to become a TOUCHY subject that is breeding ideas for rather unsound and rather DRACONIAN and baseless measures.

 

Now would be a safe moment to simply take a breather, look at the whole picture as is, think before stating something (looking back I saw the need to shift my focus some which is why I backed away some and tried to dig some to verify) and just drop the whole thing for a day or two.

 

And if sane minds can't prevail, I'm in favor of having the thread locked to avoid the creation of Mountain Ranges out of ant hills and accept the adjustment.

 

It's good of you to be watching out for the integrity of the community - I mean that sincerely. But I don't believe anything has really warranted locking the thread.

 

It's a topic where people will butt heads, but really that's fine. The game is so broad and malleable that there are a range of opinions on the ways they can be approached, which everyone is entitled to express within reason. At least we're not talking about knockback.

 

Largely, folks have tried to be helpful here, giving real information about the change and advice on how to maximise income through other methods (though it's hard to afford the patience. I snapped in my last post. Sorry not sorry). 

 

And finally, people do need to vent. And that's fine. The change is good for the long term health of the game, but will upset people in the short term. A lot of folk have come around to at least an understanding of the change, though nobody expects anyone else to like the fact that their playstyles have been altered, and that's ok. I think it's good to hear the experiences and perceptions of people since the change, like Crysis has posted. That's useful information and you can see people corrolating it with their own.

Edited April 21, 2020 by Lines

[Gremlin]

6 hours ago, skoryy said:

Meanwhile, prices on converters have... dropped?  At least in the past day.

I was opening a lot of Super Packs last week so I was watching the prices of converters, boosters and other things you can make from merits. They were all a little lower than usual. Red salvage was also on the low-side. In general, the peak prices last week were the same as routine prices from a few weeks ago. I've no idea what's been happening with IO prices.

[ivanhedgehog]

On 4/20/2020 at 10:13 AM, Digirium said:

I am correct; it was a nerf that went too far -- patrol XP ought to have been consumed when a player was under exemplar, it had to be fixed. Disabling the option to receive influence instead of XP was not right. You and others keep rolling out irrelevant economics waffle again and again to dismiss this very obvious issue with what was nerfed. You take affront at the rejection of your patterned economic thinking that you keep repeating mindlessly, when you forget that this is a video game with a pretend market place and fail to acknowledge the real objectives behind the nerf were nothing to do with economics at all. Players that use AE to farm influence have been under attack for a very long time -- the increase to mob damage output in the AE didn't play out, so this was the answer.

The patch notes said the change was to fix income inequality, not inflation. which it didnt do.

[ivanhedgehog]

22 hours ago, MunkiLord said:

Ah I see. Just a vague accusation that you refuse to back up and therefore nobody can dispute. That's super convenient! Or since this is supposedly done openly, surely the open discussions are easy to point to?

Actually, I am pretty sure the policy is to not discuss exploits that havent been fixed. That was on live and I think the current devs have kept that policy.

[Grouchybeast]

28 minutes ago, ivanhedgehog said:

The patch notes said the change was to fix income inequality, not inflation. which it didnt do.

The patch notes are very clearly talking about the generation of new inf, as you can tell by the fact they they end with Even with this change farming is still far more efficient than every other method of influence gain.  

 

I assume the patch did narrow the gap between inf generated by farming and inf generated by normal play, at least to some extent.  If it didn't, then wow, there has been a lot of pointless complaining in this thread.

 

22 minutes ago, ivanhedgehog said:

Actually, I am pretty sure the policy is to not discuss exploits that havent been fixed. That was on live and I think the current devs have kept that policy.

There is exactly one AH 'exploit', and that's one that the market forum has been asking the devs to fix for months, because it's really annoying, and it impacts the usefulness of the AH most particularly for people who aren't regular marketeers.  There are several bug reports, and multiple comments by people gathering data on which items are affected.  I guess in the grand scheme of things it isn't game-breaking, and the potential to exploit it is fairly limited, and I do understand that other things have higher priorities.  (But I still really, really hope it gets to the top of the bug-fixing list soon.)

 

Still, as other people have said, the definition of 'exploit' for the market in this thread is fairly loose, and seems to include 'using converters' and 'selling things for more than I think they are worth', so I'm sure there are plenty of other imaginary exploits out there.

Edited April 21, 2020 by Grouchybeast

[Gremlin]

1 hour ago, ivanhedgehog said:

Actually, I am pretty sure the policy is to not discuss exploits that havent been fixed.

True and I totally agree with this policy. Unfortunately, it makes it very easy for people to claim that exploits exist without proving it in any way.

[MunkiLord]

1 hour ago, ivanhedgehog said:

Actually, I am pretty sure the policy is to not discuss exploits that havent been fixed. That was on live and I think the current devs have kept that policy.

True, but I don't believe that's the actual reason. I believe the accuser is full of shit.

Edited April 21, 2020 by MunkiLord

[Yomo Kimyata]

8 minutes ago, MunkiLord said:

True, but I don't believe that's the actual reason. I think the accuser is full of shit.

I find it extremely probable that what some people consider exploits and black magic are actually a rudimentary awareness of how the AH system works.  It's not rocket surgery people!  If you don't understand, feel free to ask.

 

I'd even argue that the "last 5" bug isn't an exploit, since it affects everyone equally and there is no way to directly and solely benefit from it.  It does make it harder to interpret the available information, and that's a shame.  False information shouldn't be distributed, but good luck getting people content by telling them over and over again that the last 5 might be a bunch of lies.

[MunkiLord]

13 minutes ago, Yomo Kimyata said:

I find it extremely probable that what some people consider exploits and black magic are actually a rudimentary awareness of how the AH system works.  It's not rocket surgery people!  If you don't understand, feel free to ask.

 

I'd even argue that the "last 5" bug isn't an exploit, since it affects everyone equally and there is no way to directly and solely benefit from it.  It does make it harder to interpret the available information, and that's a shame.  False information shouldn't be distributed, but good luck getting people content by telling them over and over again that the last 5 might be a bunch of lies.

The last five isn't even something that be avoided outside of simply not selling certain items at all. It crops randomly and the item sells for significantly more even though the posting price isn't adjusted.

 

The one I know about that comes up over and over is a high demand item that will start selling for 2-5 times it's normal price. The only difference I notice is it sells somewhat slower for me, and I just assume that is because other people jump in and start posting it for less than my standard price. 

[Crysis]

1 hour ago, MunkiLord said:

True, but I don't believe that's the actual reason. I believe the accuser is full of shit.

Classy.  I actually thought more highly of you than that.

 

The rules of this forum use are pretty clear.  There's only one place to direct exploits once detected.  Not here.  Not to you.  

 

And the definition of "exploit" is also clearly defined as well.

 

"Do not cheat or abuse exploits

1) If you find an exploit please report it to a member of staff immediately

2) This includes the use of scripts and programs to automate gameplay

3) This includes trying to deceive or otherwise cheat other players for your own gain"

 

https://forums.homecomingservers.com/code-of-conduct/

 

 

[Troo]

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

 

 

quickly approaching 700 replies. is it possible we've passed peak outrage? Okay, only 700 replies may have been a 'bit' early to call the peak..

 

Edited April 24, 2020 by Troo

[Rathulfr]

1 hour ago, Crysis said:

"Do not cheat or abuse exploits

1) If you find an exploit please report it to a member of staff immediately

2) This includes the use of scripts and programs to automate gameplay

3) This includes trying to deceive or otherwise cheat other players for your own gain"

And into which of the categories defined in items 2 and 3 above does the so-called "market exploit" fall?  You don't have to provide specifics, just the category. 

 

If it's number 3, that could encompass a lot of things, depending on how one defines "deceive" and "cheat" for "your own gain".  Is buying and then reselling multiple items at unusual prices to skew the last 5 displayed considered deceiving or cheating, or is it just gaming the system?  I've read about and heard people brag that they do this, but I wouldn't consider it an "exploit".  It's just extreme marketing, as far as I can tell.  I don't think it's "fair" or "ethical", but I wouldn't consider it out of bounds.  It may be a dick move, but it usually works itself out over time, eventually.  It's not all that much different than normal spikes and dips in market prices.

 

This is what I think most people get upset about when it comes to the market, or capitalism in general.  Many complaints about trade systems boil down to sour grapes or misdirected angst.  No human system is without its flaws, and some are more egregious than others.  But not understanding how a system works, or not knowing how to maximize the use of that system, doesn't make taking full advantage of that system a crime, necessarily.  That doesn't mean we should accept systems as they are without seeking to make them better/fairer for everyone, but don't throw out the baby with the bath water (as the old saying goes).

 

Without more details about the exploit, it's hard to say.  But I understand not discussing it if it's a "real" exploit.  I'm just curious if we're defining terms in the same way.  I believe that's what @MunkiLord wants to sort out as well, even if a bit less diplomatically than I'm trying to do here.

 

Edited April 21, 2020 by Rathulfr

[Troo]

On 4/19/2020 at 6:05 AM, Crysis said:

Fortunately, several of the more prolific Marketeers have been profiting off of Marketplace exploits for months now, most bragging about it openly.  I’m wondering how long before the Devs decide to be truly fair here and shut down those exploits just like they did the “Influence Exploit” here?  

I'm not sure what this is referring to.

[Obus Form]

1 hour ago, Troo said:

I'm not sure what this is referring to.

There are, to my knowledge, no known marketeering exploits possible via any functions related to /AH.

 

All my billions were made via clicking "CONVERT CONVERT CONVERT" for 2 hours a night.

 

[Obus Form]

@Crysis straight forward, take a level 10 uncommon (yellow) recipe, craft it, convert your way to a unique IO, sell it for several million profit.  Do this 1000 times in a week, you'll make a billion in a week.

 

 

Do the same for Winter/purple/ATO/yellow/PVP to get high selling ones.

 

No exploit.

 

If you do it for 7 days straight in a week, you will understand.

[TigerWild]

Ok, time to put it back the way it was.   Listening to whiners and complainers about how they don't like what some are doing that they are too lazy to do is unfair.  Why ruin our fun for a few .  This game has come back, hallelujah ,  but the game is COH, not City of Marketplace. 

Anyway, undo the nerf and make the majority happy again, my two cents, or 100 Inf 😀