Discussion: Disabling XP No Longer Increases Influence

[Targren]

1 minute ago, Wavicle said:

There's no conflict at all.  I didn't say farming is useless.  Just that it isn't solely responsible for everything functioning.

"...that make farmers completely unnecessary for that purpose."

Emphasis mine. 

[Targren]

Just now, Wavicle said:

As has been pointed out, farming is STILL the most efficient way to get Inf, so people will keep farming. The only way farming would be disincentivized is if some OTHER activity were made MORE efficient, which is not what this change does,

Every time that's pointed out, it's contradicted by pointing out that marketeering is far, far more efficient. 

[Wavicle]

Just now, Targren said:

Every time that's pointed out, it's contradicted by pointing out that marketeering is far, far more efficient. 

There are other reasons why people don't do that instead.

Again, this change is not going to make farming go away and the Benefits of farming (drops) are not changed at all.

[TBN8681]

6 minutes ago, Wavicle said:

There's no conflict at all.  I didn't say farming is useless.  Just that it isn't solely responsible for everything functioning.

More to the point, I am simply saying that those people in this thread predicting DOOM because they will make slightly less Inf when farming (though NOT fewer drops) are exaggerating in the extreme.

I don't think CoH will be going away, but if I had to guess based on my gameplay experiences and interactions with other players, I'd say this will amount to people making less alts (funding will be slower) and perhaps players even spending less time on CoH because it will take longer to obtain influence to complete a build. Though I could be completely wrong. The only fact is that slowing the rate of influence gain without increasing drop rates will definitely take longer to complete builds.

Edited March 31, 2020 by TBN8681

[Wavicle]

2 minutes ago, TBN8681 said:

I don't think CoH will be going away, but if I had to guess based on my gameplay experiences and interactions with other players, I'd say this will amount to people making less alts (funding will be slower) and perhaps players even spending less time on CoH because it will take longer to obtain influence to complete a build. Though I could be completely wrong. The only fact is that slowing the rate of influence gain without increasing drop rates will definitely take longer to complete builds.

I'm not convinced you're right, but I am willing to assume you are for the sake of this discussion.

If you are right that completing builds will take longer (probably not much longer), I am not concerned because frankly progression at lvl 50 is too fast currently and it SHOULD take a little longer.

If it takes a LOT longer then I might be concerned, but I find that very unlikely.

Edited March 31, 2020 by Wavicle

[Targren]

Just now, Wavicle said:

I'm not convinced you're right, but I am willing to assume you are for the sake of this discussion.

If you are right that completing builds will take longer (probably not much longer), I am not concerned because frankly progression at lvl 50 is too fast currently and it SHOULD take a little longer.

If it takes a LOT longer than I might be concerned, but I find that very unlikely.

Can't speak authoritatively for other altaholics, but I suspect many/most would agree with me that it's progression TO 50 that is of more concern than progression AT 50. 

[KingofMonkeys]

4 hours ago, Jimmy said:

Indeed. Cleaning up Incarnate components and giving you something else to do with them is on our radar.

How about fixing the stuck-in-base portal bug? Is that on your "radar" too? 😛

Edited March 31, 2020 by KingofMonkeys

[Wavicle]

Just now, Targren said:

Can't speak authoritatively for other altaholics, but I suspect many/most would agree with me that it's progression TO 50 that is of more concern than progression AT 50. 

I fail to see how this exploit fix has any impact on progression to 50 at all...

[Daytona Ral]

So, it I farm, but I'm not min-maxing it. I use an Elec/Elec Brute, because that's what I had when I started and I think making another farmer is a waste of valuable gaming time, and I don't want to try and run one or more alt accounts with farmers on them, because the only real advantage to that is AFK farming, and with the inf nerfs, the devs will be in retirement homes before I have a farmer ready to "afk" farm, and there will be no homecoming.

What seems is going to happen here is that the min-maxer farmers will just make 4 or 5 extra farming accounts, run them all at once, AFK, and bring in enough inf that they'll be able to keep the AH market prices high, and they'll be able to afford the prices. Meanwhile, those of us that were getting by farming on the same account we play on, are going to be the ones getting screwed.

 

I appreciate what the devs do, in their spare time, to keep this game going, but Devs: I wish you'd realize that exploiters are going to exploit, no matter what you do, and that the only people really taking a hit from the inf-nerf are those of us who just dabbled in farming to make what we needed, and not those who are prepared to go to absurd lengths to earn as much influence as possible.

[TBN8681]

1 minute ago, Wavicle said:

I'm not convinced you're right, but I am willing to assume you are for the sake of this discussion.

If you are right that completing builds will take longer (probably not much longer), I am not concerned because frankly progression at lvl 50 is too fast currently and it SHOULD take a little longer.

If it takes a LOT longer then I might be concerned, but I find that very unlikely.

Progression to 50 is not what I meant to say. Once you get to 50 and you want to slot your build that may require up to 6-7 purple sets, that will take much longer since the rate at which influence gained is slower now. Who knows, time will tell. On the flip side, taking longer to slot lvl 50 toons will make individual toons less OP and rely more on teamplay(assuming everyone's schedules align---which is never for too long). So hard to say how this will impact CoH, but I'm guessing it's going to negatively impact gameplay.

[Wavicle]

Just now, TBN8681 said:

Progression to 50 is not what I meant to say. Once you get to 50 and you want to slot your build that may require up to 6-7 purple sets, that will take much longer since the rate at which influence gained is slower now. Who knows, time will tell. On the flip side, taking longer to slot lvl 50 toons will make individual toons less OP and rely more on teamplay(assuming everyone's schedules align---which is never for too long). So hard to say how this will impact CoH, but I'm guessing it's going to negatively impact gameplay.

It SHOULD take a long time to kit yourself out with Purples.  They are the among the highest trophies in the game! Of course it should take a while to get them!

[Peerless Girl]

13 minutes ago, Wavicle said:

As has been pointed out, farming is STILL the most efficient way to get Inf, so people will keep farming. The only way farming would be disincentivized is if some OTHER activity were made MORE efficient, which is not what this change does,

But, as Jimmy said earlier, they (likely when time permits) WILL rework things to incentivize other activities also. 

[Saikochoro]

16 minutes ago, Wavicle said:

As has been pointed out, farming is STILL the most efficient way to get Inf, so people will keep farming. The only way farming would be disincentivized is if some OTHER activity were made MORE efficient, which is not what this change does,

Converting enhancements and selling on the market, among other market activities, is much more efficient than farming. 

[Peerless Girl]

3 minutes ago, Daytona Ral said:

I appreciate what the devs do, in their spare time, to keep this game going, but Devs: I wish you'd realize that exploiters are going to exploit, no matter what you do, and that the only people really taking a hit from the inf-nerf are those of us who just dabbled in farming to make what we needed, and not those who are prepared to go to absurd lengths to earn as much influence as possible.

By that logic, why do anything at all then? Just run the game in maintenance mode?

[Crysis]

37 minutes ago, Peerless Girl said:

Right, and I'm an RPer on Everlasting (who had RP reasons to be around Wentworth's actually) and often felt like I had to run AE arc farms back on live too. In the end it boils down to "don't let other people make you feel you have to do something" you don't HAVE to farm any more than you HAVE to play the market in CoH, the devs are just trying to equalize all the "in game" stuff. (The Market is only tangentially connected to in-game activity), as Jimmy and Six said earlier).

If the Market is just tangential to the game, fix price everything and eliminate Marketeering.  It would also eliminate the NEED to farm heavily, meaning only people who enjoy farming would do it thereafter.

 

There are other reasons to grind AE maps.  Many of them just return us to to feeling super powered as you get surrounded by dozens of critters and burning them down by yourself, trying to max your time to clear, etc.

 

its ironic to me that AE farming was a response to herding and AOE nerfs, regen nerfs, double pet nerfs etc.  By this point the nerfing energy should have been proven to be wasted effort.  Just go to affordable market fixed prices and the “problem” of farming influence goes away.

Edited March 31, 2020 by Crysis

[TBN8681]

5 minutes ago, Wavicle said:

It SHOULD take a long time to kit yourself out with Purples.  They are the among the highest trophies in the game! Of course it should take a while to get them!

That's your opinion of course. Not everyone shares that opinion To me, even with double influence gain, it was too long to kit a toon out. Maybe I'm just impatient. Though I have met MANY players in game that share my opinion. They get so tired of the grind to kit even one toon out with purples. The fact is that influence gain is being decreased and nothing else is being increased to compensate for it. For example, if they increased the rate at which purps dropped along with it, then it would make more sense to me.

Edited March 31, 2020 by TBN8681

[Targren]

9 minutes ago, Wavicle said:

I fail to see how this exploit fix has any impact on progression to 50 at all...

Ignoring for a moment conflating the exploit fix with the nerf, I made my farmer specifically to fund kitting out my alts, many of which will never see 50. 

[Peerless Girl]

Just now, Crysis said:

If the Market is just tangential to the game, fix price everything and eliminate Marketeering.  It would also eliminate the NEED to farm heavily, meaning only people who enjoy farming would do it thereafter.

 

There are other reasons to grind AE maps.  Many of them just the return to feeling super powered you get surrounded by dozens of critters and burning them down by yourself, trying to max your time to clear, etc.

 

its ironic to me that AE farming was a response to herding and AOE nerfs, regen nerfs, double pet nerfs etc.  By this point the nerfing energy should have been proven to be wasted effort.  Just go to affordable market fixed prices and the “problem” of farming influence goes away.

Jimmy already went over it. The issue isn't the market, or AE, it's the fact that both exist at once, honestly. Original CoH progressed up through the issues with features as it went, and never had to "live" at the issue HC started at. People on live were sitting on inf capped characters before issue 9 even came out, the market insta-inflated and never recovered, and Paragon never really managed it. Live was HORRIBLE for purples. I spent the entire time from i9 until gamer shutdown trying to get my main kitted, and had about half of what I wanted by the time of shutdown, and a lot of that was market playing, and donations from friends better able to play that game than me (I made a lot crafting IOs early when I9 went in). It's a different beast. The whole "the AE XP is nerfed from live" argument is done to death, and actually factually wrong, it's reduced to the original live levels, the difference is that our AE has full drop access and the live one only dropped tickets. People mis-remember a LOT of stuff (or never knew it in the first place).

[TBN8681]

3 minutes ago, Targren said:

Ignoring for a moment conflating the exploit fix with the nerf, I made my farmer specifically to fund kitting out my alts, many of which will never see 50. 

EXACTLY. 

 

"Hello players, come play CoH where you can make countless fun builds with all sorts of powersets...BUT it will take you 6 months just to complete one toon!" A bit counterproductive I think. 

Edited March 31, 2020 by TBN8681

[Yomo Kimyata]

17 minutes ago, Wavicle said:

There are other reasons why people don't do that instead.

Again, this change is not going to make farming go away and the Benefits of farming (drops) are not changed at all.

I said this in another thread but if yesterday, farmers were making X inf per hour and getting Y drops, let’s assume the inf got cut in half so now they are making X/2 inf per hour and getting Y drops.  If they want to keep their inf generation steady and work for two hours, they are making X inf and 2Y drops.

 

Unless farmers rage quit en masse, this could easily increase the supply of drops from farming as they work longer hours.

[Peerless Girl]

3 minutes ago, TBN8681 said:

That's your opinion of course. Not everyone shares that opinion To me, even with double influence gain, it was too long to kit a toon out. Maybe I'm just impatient. Though I have met MANY players in game that share my opinion. They get so tired of the grind to kit even one toon out with purples. The fact is that influence gain is being decreased and nothing else is being increased to compensate for it. For example, if they increased the rate at which purps dropped along with it, then it would make more sense to me.

This boggles my mind. CoH was far harder to progress on live in almost every fashion, not even counting the double XP boosters/mode being active here. And even THEN even with CoH's infinite debt cap, and how hard it was in issue 3, CoH was an "easy" game compared to "real" MMOs like EQ and UO at the time. CoH is one of the most consistently "easy" MMO experiences to exist, even BEFORE HC, and yet somehow people are STILL impatient and in a hurry. I think much of this comes from old vets who are still salty about their lost 50s, and can't get over it, personally.

[Indystruck]

Everyone's in here asking questions they think are gotchas like they're Lex Luthor when they're actually Booster Gold.

[Yomo Kimyata]

6 minutes ago, Crysis said:

If the Market is just tangential to the game, fix price everything and eliminate Marketeering.  It would also eliminate the NEED to farm heavily, meaning only people who enjoy farming would do it thereafter.

 

Personally, I’d hate that, but I’m just one person.  They’d have to get rid of the AH, and they’d have to set those fixed prices.  Dollars to donuts that price fix would be a lot higher than current AH prices.  
 

 

[Wavicle]

Just now, Peerless Girl said:

This boggles my mind. CoH was far harder to progress on live in almost every fashion, not even counting the double XP boosters/mode being active here. And even THEN even with CoH's infinite debt cap, and how hard it was in issue 3, CoH was an "easy" game compared to "real" MMOs like EQ and UO at the time. CoH is one of the most consistently "easy" MMO experiences to exist, even BEFORE HC, and yet somehow people are STILL impatient and in a hurry. I think much of this comes from old vets who are still salty about their lost 50s, and can't get over it, personally.

Perhaps, though I am one of those old vets, I started in issue 3. I had well over a dozen 50s on live, many of which I can't remember. I agree progression in HC is WAY easier than it ever was. None of my 50s back in the day ever had a single Purple piece. They were completely unattainable. NOW they are TOO easy to get, but not by a whole lot, just a little.

[TBN8681]

1 minute ago, Peerless Girl said:

This boggles my mind. CoH was far harder to progress on live in almost every fashion, not even counting the double XP boosters/mode being active here. And even THEN even with CoH's infinite debt cap, and how hard it was in issue 3, CoH was an "easy" game compared to "real" MMOs like EQ and UO at the time. CoH is one of the most consistently "easy" MMO experiences to exist, even BEFORE HC, and yet somehow people are STILL impatient and in a hurry. I think much of this comes from old vets who are still salty about their lost 50s, and can't get over it, personally.

Not salty at all about lost 50s. Impatient is a subjective term.