Discussion: Disabling XP No Longer Increases Influence

[Yomo Kimyata]

3 minutes ago, tidge said:

Good to see that you are doing your part.  Would you like to learn more?

[Luminara]

36 minutes ago, Jimmy said:

All of this is only true because of how obscure and unintuitive / difficult to work with the crafting systems are. If they were simple and easy then there wouldn't be a reason to pay others for it and everyone would it themselves. So in reality... the market isn't the problem here, crafting is. If we want to democratise this, then we need to make crafting and converting easier to use and understand.

 

It's not obscure, and it is easy.  Converters weren't in the game when I stopped playing, but it didn't take me more than three minutes to figure out how it all worked.  Converters are just gacha boxes in a Co* interface, merits are the currency.  And crafting has never been unintuitive, it was just irritating to run back and forth between the market and crafting stations.  /ah resolved that completely, waiting until the portable crafting station was unlocked is no longer necessary.  Nothing to fix here.  Move on to adding -Regen to PGA (or Disruption Arrow) in Trick Arrow.  Off you pop.

[arcane]

7 minutes ago, parabola said:

Have you read Jimmy's post above? Farming with double inf was problematic for the game economy because it was generating a higher ratio of inf to drops than other activities. This was causing inflation which isn't good for anyone. Marketeering just converts rubbish into things people want and removes inf through fees limiting inflation.

I understand that bit and why the nerf did what it did.

 

What Jimmy also said was that people shouldn’t feel they have to farm to get in on the best the game has to offer. If that’s true, is there not some obligation to make sure players don’t have similar feelings about the marketeering playstyle?

[Lines]

2 minutes ago, arcaneholocaust said:

What Jimmy also said was that people shouldn’t feel they have to farm to get in on the best the game has to offer. If that’s true, is there not some obligation to make sure players don’t have similar feelings about the marketeering playstyle?

 

I actually agree with you on this point. I don't think it's particularly great that the two best ways of making money in the game have little to do with the core of the game. Diversifying ways of making income would be a challenge though.

 

It's kind of a two-pronged situation that's led us here. On one hand, the rewards of the game never really updated to match where the IO economy went (and it went wild on Live) and on the other hand, players found and created optimal ways to make money that exceeded the expectations of the game.

 

Depending on if Homecoming's market finally reaches a point of "This is normal forever" it could be possible to adjust balance accordingly. On the other hand, adjusting that balance could push the prices up... Ugh, I don't like thinking about this stuff. It goes in circles makes my brain go gooey.

[tidge]

5 minutes ago, arcaneholocaust said:

What Jimmy also said was that people shouldn’t feel they have to farm to get in on the best the game has to offer. If that’s true, is there not some obligation to make sure players don’t have similar feelings about the marketeering playstyle?

I'm not understanding any complaint besides "I used to make MOAR inf via farming before the nerf!" with a side of "let me show you on the doll where the market touched me".

 

AFAIK, there are three mechanisms for "getting the good stuff", for values of "good stuff" that are set IOs (and not simply piles of Inf):

 

1) Converter Roulette (from drops)

2) Buying on the Market

3) Spending merits at a merit vendor (on recipes) (see also "spending Candy Canes")

 

If players REALLY hate the market, then they can avoid (2) by using the Merit Vendor (to get converters/catalysts and or recipes). Classic Inf farming doesn't help with that choice. Otherwise, if a player wants to reliably spend Inf to "get the good stuff", that player is going to be using the market.

[arcane]

1 minute ago, tidge said:

I'm not understanding any complaint besides "I used to make MOAR inf via farming before the nerf!" with a side of "let me show you on the doll where the market touched me".

I think we had started to establish a dialogue based on mutual respect in the last page or so that you just ended. Sigh.

[tidge]

The dialogue extended for 60+ pages prior to the needless resurrection. Is there an actual complaint beyond what was quoted?

[Yomo Kimyata]

1 hour ago, Jimmy said:

 

All of this is only true because of how obscure and unintuitive / difficult to work with the crafting systems are. If they were simple and easy then there wouldn't be a reason to pay others for it and everyone would it themselves. So in reality... the market isn't the problem here, crafting is. If we want to democratise this, then we need to make crafting and converting easier to use and understand.

@JimmyI was with you 100% until this last paragraph.  Personally, I don't think that any of those adjectives are accurate for the current system.  It is a very simple system, and if you made it simpler, which I am not opposed to, then a month later you are going to get the same people saying the same things that they choose to not use the system.

 

You want to democratize this?  I thought we were already there, but here's what I will do.  I was already giving away 20mm inf to anyone who sent me an in-game email at @Yomo, but I'll also post a ridiculously simple system that will guarantee* 1bn in profit over a no more than 30 day period and with no more than 20,000 clicks.  Here's the system:  Buy 10 yellow recipes that do not require rare salvage at a level under level 50.  Buy 100 converters, or 10 per recipe.  Craft the yellow and convert by category until you have a rare.  If the LOWEST price in the last 5 is over 1mm, post the IO at 1mm.  If not, convert by rare until LOWEST last 5 is over 1mm.  Wait until things sell.

 

Repeat 100 times.

 

This is a stupid system and is far from obscure or unintuitive or difficult.  It is, however, time and click intensive.  That is what people are paying for.

 

*Not a guarantee

Edited July 20, 2020 by Yomo Kimyata

[Lines]

10 minutes ago, Yomo Kimyata said:

@JimmyI was with you 100% until this last paragraph.  Personally, I don't think that any of those adjectives are accurate for the current system.  It is a very simple system, and if you made it simpler, which I am not opposed to, then a month later you are going to get the same people saying the same things that they choose to not use the system.

I think a lot of the perceived difficulty comes from information overload rather than technical complexity required to operate it.

 

A new player looking at crafting for the first time needs to take in a lot of new ideas all at once to make the most of it, while at the same time trying to work out what might work best for their character.

 

Not that I have any solutions, but finding natural ways to take players through it, or consolidate some of the features, would go a long way.

[Yomo Kimyata]

4 minutes ago, Lines said:

 

 

Not that I have any solutions, but finding natural ways to take players through it, or consolidate some of the features, would go a long way.

A tutorial like the crafting one would work wonders.

[Bionic_Flea]

1 hour ago, Luminara said:

This isn't rocket science, lads and ladies, or manual labor, so stop acting like making ridiculous amounts of inf* takes a PhD or an 80 hour work week.

Well, yes, but you have sharp, pointy sticks!

 

[Sir Myshkin]

😄😄😄😄😄😄😄😄😄

[Wobegone]

4 hours ago, Luminara said:

Today is exactly two weeks since I started playing again.  In that two weeks, I've accumulated almost 100,000,000 inf*, and every IO I wanted on my level 34 character, including several waiting to be slotted and some uniques for my other characters.  I started with nothing.  0 inf*.  No costume contest prizes.  No random fly-by gifts.  No friends to "help".  No farming.  Haven't teamed once, in fact.  The sum total of my interaction with anyone else in the entire two weeks has been one /tell from a stranger asking if I "need some levels" (i declined).  I'm not even playing above the default difficulty.  And the only marketeering I've done has been to sell what I converted if I thought it was worth something, but didn't want it for myself.  Frankly, I don't consider that marketeering, it's just sensible.

This has been my exact experience on my latest solo project(made specifically to see how much I could accumulate starting from scratch), and I've had max XP on from level 2.  By cosmic coincidence my character is also level 34.  However, I'm almost certain the complaints are coming from players who powerlevel/team their way to fifty.  This means far fewer merits and drops.  Now, I have little sympathy for players who powerlevel to fifty and don't have enough influence to kit out their character immediately.  But a player that teams exclusively could perhaps use a little help, especially casual players that have limited time to play.  Maybe a modest increase in drop rates for teams?  I dunno.  I personally don't need it as I market enough to afford what I want.

[Troo]

46 minutes ago, Ignatz the Insane said:

But a player that teams exclusively could perhaps use a little help, especially casual players that have limited time to play.

This is why there are multiple reward streams, right?

Mission completion has a drop as do all the defeated targets in the mission. Arcs have an additional reward.

 

If folks insist on double xp, that was a choice and there is a consequence... wait, page 69, I'm prolly just repeating myself. never mind.

[Vaporous]

 

7 hours ago, Jimmy said:

*This does not extend to AFK farming. Expect that to be mercilessly destroyed when we have the time. If this upsets you, please direct your complaints to someone who cares.

 

RE the part I bolded: Good to see the spirit of Jack is good and well on the HC team.

RE the rest: What's the team's plans for murdering AFK farms, putting a timer that kicks you? that prevents you from getting rewards if you haven't moved after a certain amount of time? What about legit players with RL reasons to step away for a while and accidentally get caught by the draconian policy the team is apparently planning?

 

Most of my concern is that I made an AFK farmer (that I barely feel the mood to even log in on to get to 50 so I can properly afk farm) so I didn't have to play the market in order to afford the tens-to-hundreds of millions of INF to kit out a single character, and if the team plans on killing the obvious alternate to that... then I guess I get to join the dozens or more of people who do the "buy yellow recipies with uncommon quality craft mats, converter them to highly sought after rares, sell at profit" market grind.

[SwitchFade]

9 hours ago, arcaneholocaust said:

There is zero data behind the assertion that my personal experience is not broadly shared with others. 
 

The only way the economy is now better for farmers is if the cost decrease is so dramatic that it matches the income nerf, logically speaking. My experience and that of most I talk to (excluding billionaire marketeers and “I have an economics degree” forumbros) is that we are not there yet.

Hi! Friendly neighborhood"forumbro" here...

 

Are you ready for it?

 

That's not how economics works. The economy IS better now, prices are down across the board for everyone, supply of high demand product has increased and inflation was curtailed.

 

Anecdotal biased opinion does not invalidate the fact that this quartet of things have occured.

 

In other news, Regen is too strong. Nerf time.

Edited July 21, 2020 by SwitchFade

[macskull]

22 minutes ago, Vaporous said:

 RE the part I bolded: Good to see the spirit of Jack is good and well on the HC team.

RE the rest: What's the team's plans for murdering AFK farms, putting a timer that kicks you? that prevents you from getting rewards if you haven't moved after a certain amount of time? What about legit players with RL reasons to step away for a while and accidentally get caught by the draconian policy the team is apparently planning?

Yeah, the way the bolded part was worded was real professional. eyeroll emote here

 

I feel like this is one of those "wait and see what they come up with" things but I'm sure just like the "we are banning RMTers" phase from last fall I'm sure it'll catch up a bunch of unrelated activities/accounts but everyone will be happy because haha the farmers got screwed. Still haven't got a few accounts back from the RMT thing, by the way. If anyone from the GM staff is reading this I'd be happy to help you figure out why whatever algorithm you use to find RMTers is shit.

Edited July 21, 2020 by macskull

[SwitchFade]

8 hours ago, arcaneholocaust said:

At the end of the day, as it relates to experience and influence, I care about one single figure: the average amount of my real life time I have to input to yield a maxed out level 50 character. And this change has meant for me: more input for the same output.
 

That’s as clearly a nerf to me as anything can be, and usually people don’t appreciate being told they’d see they’re doing better than ever if only they weren’t too mentally deficient to realize it.

I can earn 500 million for a character by just playing it up to 32. The bare fact is, if you CHOOSE to only earn inf by farming, that's fine, but you have only yourself to blame if you don't like it 

 

There's multiple ways to earn ridiculous amounts of inf in this game.  Let's be very clear: one small sub-set of the population leveraged an exploit that caused caustic, negative consequences for everyone else, which was changed, rightly so.

 

I've detailed at length, in this thread, how unchecked inflation is bad for EVERYONE, and it's a fact. That aside, if you don't want to grow, change and use a different avenue of inf earning that is easier, faster and less time involved, that is ok, but arguing that it's bad is like arguing it's bad that anyone is allowed to own property, not just certain people.

 

In a society, we must observe the greatest good for the greatest number. The change was necessary.

[SwitchFade]

9 hours ago, arcaneholocaust said:

Prices are not down enough yet to match the nerf, so yes, there is absolutely pain.

 

In before some economist drops in to tell me my personal experience is guided by plain stupidity and I’m actually wealthier than before in spite of having to gut toons left and right to keep the IO’s flowing at a pre-nerf pace.

That's like being mad because you own a VCR store and no one buys VCRs and you went out of business because you refused to sell DVD players, streaming service or ice cream.

[SwitchFade]

8 hours ago, arcaneholocaust said:

What has made this issue frustrating for me is having to either (1) farm for many more hours than before per character or (2) gut other completed characters to harvest IO’s, and, all the while, reading threads about it where a group of posters have basically stated that everything is rosy now and anyone that’s got a problem with this change is just stupid and ignorant of basic economics.

 

Again, appreciate the truth.

Find a better, faster, easier way to earn inf?

 

I make 100 million in like, 20 minutes. No farming needed.

[Lockpick]

6 hours ago, arcaneholocaust said:

I understand that bit and why the nerf did what it did.

 

What Jimmy also said was that people shouldn’t feel they have to farm to get in on the best the game has to offer. If that’s true, is there not some obligation to make sure players don’t have similar feelings about the marketeering playstyle?

 

I don't understand why anyone would feel they need to market.  Any IO you need you can buy directly with merits.  Don't want to earn inf through the market?  Go run content that rewards merits and exchange those merits for IOs.  Sometimes I don't feel like marketing to get cash to buy something, so I'll spend 100 merits for the IO.  I can always make more merits...

[SwitchFade]

7 hours ago, arcaneholocaust said:

I don’t know his points, but I will say that, for myself, I’ve tried to follow guides to marketeering several times and found the whole process so tedious and filled with long waits that I ultimately decided I didn’t have the patience/capacity to do it correctly in the way that our dear billionaires do.

If 20 minutes a shot to earn 100 million is tedious, then farming must be murderously boring. Right?

 

That is, unless you relied on AFK farming for your income... 😁😁😁

[macskull]

16 minutes ago, Lockpick said:

 

I don't understand why anyone would feel they need to market.  Any IO you need you can buy directly with merits.  Don't want to earn inf through the market?  Go run content that rewards merits and exchange those merits for IOs.  Sometimes I don't feel like marketing to get cash to buy something, so I'll spend 100 merits for the IO.  I can always make more merits...

To this point, buying recipes directly with merits is almost always the least-efficient way to do it. Granted, if you've got merits coming out your ears you might not care about that, but I'd argue the players who complain about not having inf probably don't have that amount of merits either.

[SwitchFade]

52 minutes ago, Vaporous said:

 

 

RE the part I bolded: Good to see the spirit of Jack is good and well on the HC team.

RE the rest: What's the team's plans for murdering AFK farms, putting a timer that kicks you? that prevents you from getting rewards if you haven't moved after a certain amount of time? What about legit players with RL reasons to step away for a while and accidentally get caught by the draconian policy the team is apparently planning?

 

Most of my concern is that I made an AFK farmer (that I barely feel the mood to even log in on to get to 50 so I can properly afk farm) so I didn't have to play the market in order to afford the tens-to-hundreds of millions of INF to kit out a single character, and if the team plans on killing the obvious alternate to that... then I guess I get to join the dozens or more of people who do the "buy yellow recipies with uncommon quality craft mats, converter them to highly sought after rares, sell at profit" market grind.

Sorry, a desire to exploit the game and it being ok is absurd. Afk farming should be nerfed into the ground.

 

Nerfed harder than Regen. Twice.

[Coyotedancer]

1 hour ago, Vaporous said:

 

RE the rest: What's the team's plans for murdering AFK farms, putting a timer that kicks you? that prevents you from getting rewards if you haven't moved after a certain amount of time? What about legit players with RL reasons to step away for a while and accidentally get caught by the draconian policy the team is apparently planning?

 

Hopefully they'll come up with something more clever than that. An "activity timer" would not only bite people who had to step away for awhile, but it would be a royal pain in the rump for all of us who dual-box. 

 

Granted, they may see THAT as a feature rather than a problem, but-