Discussion: Disabling XP No Longer Increases Influence

[Peerless Girl]

5 minutes ago, Aracknight said:

I keep seeing the term "average player."  I feel like this isn't a thing for Homecoming.  I believe most of us are returning from live, and although some of our memories might be rusty on deep dive numbers, I think they myth of the neophyte using TOs, DOs and SOs is a bit overblown, to be honest.

 

I'm not saying that term invalidates anyone's arguments, make no mistake.  But the constant use of that term makes me twitchy.

There are a LOT of new players, actually. Friends of mine who never played back in the day who want to see what the big deal was, etc. Also...quite a lot of most of the players in CoH live were also thoroughly average. I knew people who never slotted or kept up with their enhancements, then complained when they died during SOME content (not even touching ITrials). There were the top 10%, then there's everyone else (just like any other game). And yes, LOTS of people used TOs, DOs, and SOs and never touched IOs at all in the old days. 

[Ukase]

1 hour ago, Zeraphia said:

I do take issue with your post, although I have seen you in game, hi foxy! 🙂

 

People farming does very much so affect the game and the economy and very well does affect the majority of the player populace and their opinions are still valuable and contribute heavily to the state of the game. I don't disagree with the sentiment to let others play the game they want to play it, however, the choices on what people do as a market do very well influence what I can or cannot outfit my characters with and how much of the content on this game I love I am able to fully enjoy!

 

Cheers and thank you for all your hardwork on the Hami Raids!!!! =D

I farm. 
I play "Non-farm" content regularly.  I even lead the occasional hami raid with one tank or another. 
I also buy certain recipes at a given price, craft them, convert them and sell them for what I think is a reasonable price. Usually about 10% below what most people seem to be willing to spend based on the past 5 sales. 
I also subsidize costume contests and manhunts to the tune of billions, and Mothership raid drop ship kill shots. I also just give random teammates 100m when I'm in the mood to do so. I globally ignore those who beg for inf. Giving should be my idea. 

You are of the opinion that what I do, and others like me do impacts how you can outfit your characters. On one hand - I can understand that you may only play a few hours a week and may still be working on your first character and having trouble making influence. 
Have you ever tried to make influence? Have you ever read through the marketing section in this forum? I am hard pressed to understand how anyone can't fathom how to make influence in this game, and lots of it! 

I am more than happy to share what I know, how to make it fairly quickly and easily if you're inclined to learn. The help channel is FULL of people more than willing to share this information, as are these forums. My issue is that folks have given freely the information, but you (and others) seem to find it impacts you - but if you'd only taken the time, you'd have billions and billions just like so many others. 

 

[Riverdusk]

17 minutes ago, Darkneblade said:

I think Twilight Grasp's accuracy is little broken atleast for me.. I have 1.69 accuracy before this patch (touch on nictus accurate heal set)it should be 1.89 yet it is showing 2.03 unless I'm mistaking something. (%68.9 +acc)

Nope, that is what it should be.  1.2 x 1.69 = 2.028 rounded up to 2.03 in display.  Enhancements multiply to base, not add.

[Coyotedancer]

8 minutes ago, Jimmy said:

 

That's fair. Perhaps "pretty close" was a bit of an overstatement, but I think it's fair to say we're a lot closer to that goal than the economy on live was 🙂

 

Something else your post highlights is that the reward balance between farming and literally everything else still has some ways to go - you should never feel like you have to farm.

 

There are no solid plans right now, but we've had some discussions about improving the way that rewards are distributed for "normal" content to make it more worthwhile. It's not on the immediate horizon, but it is definitely something I want to spend time on at some point.

 

Again, farming really ISN'T the most efficient way to get a pile of INF, though... Marketeering is.

 

I get that farming is probably an easier thing for you guys to monkey around with, but it might be useful to at least acknowledge that when you really get down to it, if a player wants to make serious bank the way to do it is via the auction house not AE, all "But that could cause inflation!!!"-arguments aside. 

 

Curbing inflation is good. But if you want people to feel like they don't have to do anything but play normally to afford to kit out their characters... if you want to eliminate the "have and have-nots" issue... Curbing farmers isn't the only thing you'll need to address.

[Bionic_Flea]

1 minute ago, DR_Mechano said:

Sure they doesn't work for salvage but it does work for recipes and enhancements, it is quite easy for 1 marketeer to 'corner the market' on selected items. How do I know this? I did it. due to me buying one specific set of uncommon recipes drove up the price from 500 inf to over 20k inf because I was buying them in huge bulk, creating and then converting them and nobody else was buying them (surprisingly). Because I was willing to spend 20k at that time it caused people to take notice and more people to flood to said recipe because it was selling over the odds which meant the prices went up even higher when people were curious as to how far they could push my price. I think it hit like 25k before I bounced on it and found something else. This wasn't me flipping and reselling them either, this was just me buying them to see how much money I could make on a fresh level 1 and he ended up with over 100 million inf in the space of 24 hours, which is small fry compared to proper marketeers who can make 10 times that in the same timeframe.

If other people are buying and selling the same item, you did not "corner the market".  You did create a price spike.  Did it last?  My guess is no.

[Saikochoro]

Just now, Peerless Girl said:

There are a LOT of new players, actually. Friends of mine who never played back in the day who want to see what the big deal was, etc. Also...quite a lot of most of the players in CoH live were also thoroughly average. I knew people who never slotted or kept up with their enhancements, then complained when they died during SOME content (not even touching ITrials). There were the top 10%, then there's everyone else (just like any other game). And yes, LOTS of people used TOs, DOs, and SOs and never touched IOs at all in the old days. 

I actually played on live and have been playing on homecoming since last May. For my entire live play time I used TO/DO/SO enhancements. 
 

Starting a couple months after joining homecoming I made the jump to common IOs, which I still kind of lump in with the above as an SO+ as it were. 
 

I didn’t start getting into sets until maybe a couple of months ago. Even then I was just to buy the ATO proc as I didn’t start having a decent amount of influence until very recently. I made my first full fledged set IO build about a month ago (spending pretty all my influence on a budget build farmer to PL alts). 
 

As I started getting into sets I happened across the converter market guides and began making influence. So now all my new alts have sets (albeit budget sets). 
 

TL;DR:  There are even some veteran players, such as myself, who only recently started using set IOs.

[Jimmy]

1 minute ago, Coyotedancer said:

Again, farming really ISN'T the most efficient way to get a pile of INF, though... Marketeering is.

Correction: Marketeering doesn't produce influence, it moves it. It's also the main reason why there's generally a plentiful supply of highly sought-after goods. Anyone can put in a little bit of time and effort to produce them.

 

Farming on the other hand produces a ton of influence which leads to inflation (bad), but it also produces tons of goods, which lead to an increased supply of goods (good). None of the changes we've made have impacted the ability for farms to produce goods. Just influence.

[Coyotedancer]

Just now, Jimmy said:

Correction: Marketeering doesn't produce influence, it moves it. It's also the main reason why there's generally a plentiful supply of highly sought-after goods. Anyone can put in a little bit of time and effort to produce them.

 

Farming on the other hand produces a ton of influence which leads to inflation (bad), but it also produces tons of goods, which lead to an increased supply of goods (good). None of the changes we've made have impacted the ability for farms to produce goods. Just influence.

 

And... AGAIN... theinflation issue *isn't* what I'm talking about here. How many times do I have to repeat that?

[DR_Mechano]

3 minutes ago, Coyotedancer said:

 

And... AGAIN... theinflation issue *isn't* what I'm talking about here. How many times do I have to repeat that?

I think they're misunderstanding that you're pointing out that in order to make it so an 'average' player can get things like purple IOs without having to play the market that they'll also have to go after marketeers. However they seem reluctant to hurt their profit margins by bringing down the prices of all IOs so that a single purple IO is easily affordable by the 'average joe'. 

Edited March 31, 2020 by DR_Mechano

[Jimmy]

Just now, Coyotedancer said:

 

And... AGAIN... theinflation issue *isn't* what I'm talking about here. How many times do I have to repeat that?

That is the topic at hand though, and was the reason for this change.

 

The market is already incredibly democratized compared to live. Could we do more? Sure. But the economy has bigger issues right now.

[Ukase]

So, I have patiently read through ...14 pages! instead of continuing with my 36th rep of Tina Mac's Anti-matter arc. 

I see a small contingent thankful for the costumes and other additions. 

I see a LOT of fuss about this stop of double inf while exemped. 

For the farmers - you'll be fine. It's not like you weren't going to run the map again anyway. It's not like you need the influence immediately, and honestly - it's not that much influence. You make more from crafting a few of the recipes, converting them and selling than you do in the entire map. The time spent complaining, you could have already made millions in the market. 

For the non-farmers - you may see this is a slap towards someone else that gave you a glancing blow. It might sting a little, but knowing you weren't the target should be some solace. 

If I understand this issue correctly, the problem folks are having is they think their influence earning has been cut in half when exemped. It was never truly double influence while exemped. Was it close? I don't think so, but I have never paid attention to those numbers, knowing that an uncommon recipe was going to net me 3-7m, depending on the conversion rng. 

It really seems like much fuss over very little. 

I am far more upset about this General chat channel. I can no longer get angry at people telling me to hush up in Help or LFG chat when all I was doing was trying to be a part of my community that would occasionally discuss things that had little or nothing to do with teaming or helping answer questions. Who'm I gonna tell to shut up now? 

[Crysis]

4 minutes ago, Coyotedancer said:

 

Again, farming really ISN'T the most efficient way to get a pile of INF, though... Marketeering is.

 

I get that farming is probably an easier thing for you guys to monkey around with, but it might be useful to at least acknowledge that when you really get down to it, if a player wants to make serious bank the way to do it is via the auction house not AE, all "But that could cause inflation!!!"-arguments aside. 

 

Curbing inflation is good. But if you want people to feel like they don't have to do anything but play normally to afford to kit out their characters... if you want to eliminate the "have and have-nots" issue... Curbing farmers isn't the only thing you'll need to address.

Farming being an easier path to billions than Marketeering isn’t really the point UNLESS the point is that we are expected to earn billions ONLY through Marketeering and via no other method.

 

That means there is a mindset behind the current ongoing development and design that desires a certain type of play style over another.  In this case Marketeering vs Farming.  In the future, Controlling vs Scrapping.  In the past, 3 of any enhancement type and no more.

 

And I can’t help but wonder what the end-game is other than by encouraging (or outright FORCING) only certain paths to the same goal, there exists a strong desire to enforce A play style and with it...a certain type of player.  
 

This was easier to understand on Live when there existed a P&L and growth numbers that would create a sustainable business.  The longer I stretched out that climb, or the more complex I made it to achieve, the closer everyone got to a normalized, predictable and forecastable revenue stream per subscribers.  People wanna farm?  Fine..pay for a second subscription.  Even that had a revenue stream.

 

But absent any clear revenue-driving goals here, all I can see is a desire to create a very specific kind of player base.  We just keep getting pushed into the same cattle chute and the sandbox gets further normalized as they de-legitimatize certain play styles deemed “easy” or “not in keeping with design principles.”

 

 

[Coyotedancer]

Just now, DR_Mechano said:

I think they're misunderstanding that you're pointing out that in order to make it so an 'average' player can get things like purple IOs without having to play the market that they'll also have to go after marketeers. However they seem reluctant to hurt their profit margins by bringing down the prices of all IOs so that a single IO is easily affordable by the 'average joe'. 

 

Exactly... At least one person reading this thread gets it. <_<

 

(Actually, at this point I suspect Jimmy does, too. He's no dummy, It feels to me like he's being deliberately obtuse about it to dodge having to have that conversation.... Which I can't really blame him for. If I were in his position, I'm not sure I would want to open that particular can of worms either. )

[cra119]

I know from experience farming also creates a lot of salvage churn that gets put in the AH, without that steady stream the price of crafting recipes will go up, and the price of enhancements should go up as well.  We saw that already with Yellow Salvage.

[Zeraphia]

15 minutes ago, Ukase said:

I farm. 
I play "Non-farm" content regularly.  I even lead the occasional hami raid with one tank or another. 
I also buy certain recipes at a given price, craft them, convert them and sell them for what I think is a reasonable price. Usually about 10% below what most people seem to be willing to spend based on the past 5 sales. 
I also subsidize costume contests and manhunts to the tune of billions, and Mothership raid drop ship kill shots. I also just give random teammates 100m when I'm in the mood to do so. I globally ignore those who beg for inf. Giving should be my idea. 

You are of the opinion that what I do, and others like me do impacts how you can outfit your characters. On one hand - I can understand that you may only play a few hours a week and may still be working on your first character and having trouble making influence. 
Have you ever tried to make influence? Have you ever read through the marketing section in this forum? I am hard pressed to understand how anyone can't fathom how to make influence in this game, and lots of it! 

I am more than happy to share what I know, how to make it fairly quickly and easily if you're inclined to learn. The help channel is FULL of people more than willing to share this information, as are these forums. My issue is that folks have given freely the information, but you (and others) seem to find it impacts you - but if you'd only taken the time, you'd have billions and billions just like so many others. 

 

I do not have a billion straight up in influence, but I easily have tens of billions on my characters (I have several Winter-O'd and purple'd out with tons of pvp enhancements on about 20-30 characters, it adds up). I'm aware of the information, but thank you for the offer 🙂 although I'm always willing to learn new things! I'm merely stating that farming does still impact me as a player, especially me, because I have so much in terms of enhancements that inflation of this game can also negatively impact the value of my enhancements and what I can/cannot do. 

 

How have I acquired this influence? I have leveled about 60 or so level 50's and I have played out to Vet 100 4-5 of them, I've made about 50,000 or so in merits by estimation without really "trying." I have spent my merits frivolously many times before as well. Further, I had a friend who I played with heavily and he decided to quit and well, I was the one to "inherit" his wealth before his departure. I feel incredibly grateful for him and his graciousness to be given such an offer. I try to help out others as they need it. 

[Doc_Scorpion]

46 minutes ago, Targren said:

I guess it depends on what is considered an "Average" player. When I first signed up just under a month ago (having never played Live), the AH prices definitely gave me the impression that my first character had better be some sort of farmer. 

Yep.  If not an AE (fire) farmer, then a merit farmer who runs the WST and other remunerative TF's repeatedly.  (The latter playstyle is often recommended here on the forums.)

[Jimmy]

4 minutes ago, Coyotedancer said:

 

Exactly... At least one person reading this thread gets it. <_<

 

(Actually, at this point I suspect Jimmy does, too. He's no dummy, It feels to me like he's being deliberately obtuse about it to dodge having to have that conversation.... Which I can't really blame him for. If I were in his position, I'm not sure I would want to open that particular can of worms either. )

That's not very nice, is it? 🙂

I'm not trying to be obtuse here. I - and many others - have explained multiple times how the current dynamic with marketeering, converters, etc is actually OK.

 

If you don't like the answers, that's fine, but not liking an answer isn't a reason to start attacking people.

[Coyotedancer]

4 minutes ago, Ukase said:

For the farmers - you'll be fine. It's not like you weren't going to run the map again anyway. It's not like you need the influence immediately, and honestly - it's not that much influence.

 

It really isn't... 

And darn right I will. XD

 

Like I said in another thread recently, I actually find tossing Harry (my "farm-bird") into a cave full of angry cosplayers to be a fun thing. I enjoy it enough that I'd likely still do it if we didn't get INF at all. 

 

It reminds me a little of the how-many-hundred Underground trials we did back in the Liberty days. Beyond a certain point they weren't about the rewards. They were about "I actively enjoy this". Which is sort-of the point of playing a game.

[Peerless Girl]

7 minutes ago, Crysis said:

Farming being an easier path to billions than Marketeering isn’t really the point UNLESS the point is that we are expected to earn billions ONLY through Marketeering and via no other method.

 

That means there is a mindset behind the current ongoing development and design that desires a certain type of play style over another.  In this case Marketeering vs Farming.  In the future, Controlling vs Scrapping.  In the past, 3 of any enhancement type and no more.

 

And I can’t help but wonder what the end-game is other than by encouraging (or outright FORCING) only certain paths to the same goal, there exists a strong desire to enforce A play style and with it...a certain type of player.  
 

This was easier to understand on Live when there existed a P&L and growth numbers that would create a sustainable business.  The longer I stretched out that climb, or the more complex I made it to achieve, the closer everyone got to a normalized, predictable and forecastable revenue stream per subscribers.  People wanna farm?  Fine..pay for a second subscription.  Even that had a revenue stream.

 

But absent any clear revenue-driving goals here, all I can see is a desire to create a very specific kind of player base.  We just keep getting pushed into the same cattle chute and the sandbox gets further normalized as they de-legitimatize certain play styles deemed “easy” or “not in keeping with design principles.”

 

 

I think you're overthinking it. I doubt our devs are sitting there wringing their hands wondering which playstyle to screw over next. It's all about keeping the game balanced and following the goal. All dev teams/design teams have goals, Cryptic did, Paragon did, those were both driven in some part by NCSoft's own goals, this team has theirs, but the difference is they're driven by maintaining a playerbase as whole, and just keeping the game running, not on profit. They also will see some things as more worth fixing or attention than a profit-driven company might (notice the base stuff, and the fact one of the oldest bugs in the game (Team windows says "in Supergroup Base" when on mission and vice versa) has been fixed. Priorities and designs will be different, some good, some bad (depending on perspective). Just like any team. 

[Coyotedancer]

1 minute ago, Jimmy said:

That's not very nice, is it? 🙂

I'm not trying to be obtuse here. I - and many others - have explained multiple times how the current dynamic with marketeering, converters, etc is actually OK.

 

If you don't like the answers, that's fine, but not liking an answer isn't a reason to start attacking people.

 

Not an attack so much as an observation. You know what I'm saying, and yet your replies are all about a different issue... One that I specifically mentioned, multiple times, that I was NOT addressing. 

 

It may not be "nice" to feel like you were ducking the issue, but that doesn't make it any less what appears to be going on.

[Peerless Girl]

1 minute ago, Coyotedancer said:

 

Not an attack so much as an observation. You know what I'm saying, and yet your replies are all about a different issue... One that I specifically mentioned, multiple times, that I was NOT addressing. 

 

It may not be "nice" to feel like you were ducking the issue, but that doesn't make it any less what appears to be going on.

This is also likely not the place to have whatever discussion you're insinuating Jimmy doesn't want to have. Calm down, Jimmy is just social distancing from the issue. 😛 

[Jimmy]

2 minutes ago, Coyotedancer said:

 

Not an attack so much as an observation. You know what I'm saying, and yet your replies are all about a different issue... One that I specifically mentioned, multiple times, that I was NOT addressing. 

 

It may not be "nice" to feel like you were ducking the issue, but that doesn't make it any less what appears to be going on.

I may have missed something then. What specifically hasn't been addressed?

[Zeraphia]

5 minutes ago, Jimmy said:

That's not very nice, is it? 🙂

I'm not trying to be obtuse here. I - and many others - have explained multiple times how the current dynamic with marketeering, converters, etc is actually OK.

 

If you don't like the answers, that's fine, but not liking an answer isn't a reason to start attacking people.

Who's attacking my poor kitty Jimmy!?!?!?! *Types this as I have accidentally aggro'd a group of Arachnos soldiers in St. Martial*

[Coyotedancer]

Just now, Peerless Girl said:

This is also likely not the place to have whatever discussion you're insinuating Jimmy doesn't want to have. Calm down, Jimmy is just social distancing from the issue. 😛 

'Love it when people take any disagreement as emotional over-reaction...

 

Welcome to the internet, I guess. 

[Number Six]

Marketeering isn't really a "playstyle" though. Yes, you can make Inf that way, but it's not a direct apples-to-apples comparison because you're not really playing the game while doing that.

 

This is more about the balance between things like running TFs, doing trials, running radio missions, regular AE fire farming, old school demon farms, and farming AE missions specifically set to exemp you to level 49 while having leftover patrol XP you never burned and turning on an option to convert excess XP to Inf.

 

All of those activities add Influence and item drops to the economy. All are legitimate activities if the player enjoys doing them. We don't want there to be large incentives making people feel like they have to choose the last one on the list because it's hugely more rewarding than the others.

 

Marketeering is a completely separate thing that does not add influence or drops to the economy. Loosely speaking it's more of a player services market than a primary activity. It's where people can trade time spent crafting recipes & converting IOs for Inf, so that people who don't want to do those things can not have to spend time on it. How much Inf that's worth is entirely up to the players -- though the market on HC is already much more heavily regulated than it was on live to prevent prices from getting completely out of control. Whether or not there are any problems there that need to be addressed is a separate topic for a later patch.