Discussion: Disabling XP No Longer Increases Influence

[srmalloy]

1 hour ago, MunkiLord said:

This was already addressed directly. It's not the collecting of influence that is the issue, it's the creation of brand new influence at extremely high rates that they are trying to address. Collecting already existing influence does not lead to inflation, and the market's 10% cut actually helps fight it. It's generating massive amounts of influence that causes inflation.

I know I'm going to be jumped on from all sides for this, but I've always wondered why it is even possible to gain inf in AE missions. Inf, regardless of what side you're on, was supposed to represent other people's willingness to do things for you, for various reasons -- influence because of your reputation as a hero, infamy because of their fear of you as a villain, information because of what/who you know as a Praetorian. All of these accumulate because of your actions in the real world, and crawling up your electronic navel to defeat virtual opponents isn't going to affect how people in the real world think of you. Someone shows up in AP, immediately runs over to the AE building, and runs AE missions and farms until they're 50, then comes out on the street, and no one's going to know them from Adam's off ox; they're not going to have any reputation, and in fact might have a negative reputation, because the real heroes are out fighting the criminals and supervillains, while they're holed up in what amounts to a high-powered video game. Yes, it's a de facto currency, but it still ties into the lore of the game. AE missions should earn you XP and tickets -- XP because you're still learning to use your powers better, and tickets because that's how AE rewards people for playing the scenarios.

[Myrmidon]

2 hours 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.

 

We still have a ways to go before this one rivals the Rage thread.

[Saikochoro]

18 minutes ago, Haijinx said:

I wonder if perhaps the doomsayers have it backwards. 

 

Reducing the INF gains should reduce an inflationary pressure.  Less Inf paid out/ hour.  

 

At the same time farmers will need to farm more to meet their goals, which will increase the number of recipies ( and IOs) for sale.

 

The big value of farmers to everyone else are these drops .. so ..

 

Prices could come down.  

 

As long as the /ragequit aspect doesn't exceed this activity, of course. 

 

 

Honestly I’d be surprised if enough people quit to even be noticeable. People like to express outrage on the internet. These forums are no exception. I’d bet that the mass majority of disgruntled players will cool off, accept it, and continue playing. A few might quit, but I highly doubt enough to make an impact. 

[Black Zot]

6 minutes ago, Myrmidon said:

We still have a ways to go before this one rivals the Rage thread.

 

That's because the viability of an entire powerset doesn't revolve around a moneymaking exploit.

[MunkiLord]

17 minutes ago, srmalloy said:

I know I'm going to be jumped on from all sides for this, but I've always wondered why it is even possible to gain inf in AE missions. Inf, regardless of what side you're on, was supposed to represent other people's willingness to do things for you, for various reasons -- influence because of your reputation as a hero, infamy because of their fear of you as a villain, information because of what/who you know as a Praetorian. All of these accumulate because of your actions in the real world, and crawling up your electronic navel to defeat virtual opponents isn't going to affect how people in the real world think of you. Someone shows up in AP, immediately runs over to the AE building, and runs AE missions and farms until they're 50, then comes out on the street, and no one's going to know them from Adam's off ox; they're not going to have any reputation, and in fact might have a negative reputation, because the real heroes are out fighting the criminals and supervillains, while they're holed up in what amounts to a high-powered video game. Yes, it's a de facto currency, but it still ties into the lore of the game. AE missions should earn you XP and tickets -- XP because you're still learning to use your powers better, and tickets because that's how AE rewards people for playing the scenarios.

I don’t know what you’re talking about, doing things in games and simulations absolutely translates to real world recognition. Telling ladies I can solo Ghost Widow is my main pick up line. With game like that it’s a miracle I’m single. 

[Noyjitat]

On 3/31/2020 at 9:42 PM, Super Atom said:

 

 

Well, maybe not specifically adding influence no but haven't you ever wondered why theres 999999 LOTG procs and 2 of everything else? Converters are a gigantic issue in terms of market stability. A lot more than there just being a lot of influence.

Market seeding.

[Grouchybeast]

19 minutes ago, srmalloy said:

I know I'm going to be jumped on from all sides for this, but I've always wondered why it is even possible to gain inf in AE missions.

I've always though, since AE was in beta, that it should have had no rewards, or at most extremely nominal ones.  People usually reply that if that was the case, then no one would use it, but I don't think that's true.  If people wouldn't do something in CoX without direct rewards from the game, then there would be no roleplaying, which is patently not the case.

 

It could have worked.  People want to tell stories, and other people want to read them.  There are giant fanfic archives out there with millions of works in them that demonstrates that very clearly.  An AE with no rewards was the only way that it had any hope of being what it was apparently supposed to be: a way for people to create stories for others to experience.  It's great for farmers to have a place to farm, but I think AE could have been something really innovative, and that part of it was lost between the unusable search system and the original devs basically abandoning the system when it didn't do what they wanted.  I think it's a shame.

[Saikochoro]

13 minutes ago, Noyjitat said:

Market seeding.

As far as I’m aware, the devs only seeded salvage. So seeding has nothing to do with there being more of one type of LOTG IO than another in the set. Demand drives that. 
 

That said, market seeding salvage was a good thing the devs did. 

[thunderforce]

I had a similar idea which was that getting bonus inf when exemplared uses up Patrol XP. No Patrol XP, no bonus inf. That would offer the usual rewards to people like me who just happen to play exemplared a lot, but it would enormously limit the amount that could be farmed out of any given character - I think (perhaps naively) to such a degree that the result wouldn't be a vast stable of rotating farm characters accumulating Patrol XP.

 

Of course, leaving it as it is solves the basic problem and requires no development effort, and I don't think the answer for first characters is to get double inf when exemplared; it's to be told how to sell their merits.

[Haijinx]

38 minutes ago, Black Zot said:

 

That's because the viability of an entire powerset doesn't revolve around a moneymaking exploit.

Ironically though there is a contingent of ragers that want the -def exploit added back in.

[Lockpick]

16 minutes ago, Grouchybeast said:

I've always though, since AE was in beta, that it should have had no rewards, or at most extremely nominal ones.  People usually reply that if that was the case, then no one would use it, but I don't think that's true.  If people wouldn't do something in CoX without direct rewards from the game, then there would be no roleplaying, which is patently not the case.

 

It could have worked.  People want to tell stories, and other people want to read them.  There are giant fanfic archives out there with millions of works in them that demonstrates that very clearly.  An AE with no rewards was the only way that it had any hope of being what it was apparently supposed to be: a way for people to create stories for others to experience.  It's great for farmers to have a place to farm, but I think AE could have been something really innovative, and that part of it was lost between the unusable search system and the original devs basically abandoning the system when it didn't do what they wanted.  I think it's a shame.

 

On the one hand I agree and the other I don't.  I think the AE concept is fantastic because it allows for unlimited content.  However, players tend to play for rewards, so there would need to be some compensation for writing and playing the AE content.

 

My idea of the rewards would be to allow AE authors to write their story arcs and if they are selected as Dev Choice the story arc would be propagated to Live content with standard rewards and be eligible for flashback.  The author could be rewarded with badges or merits for getting their arcs published to Live content.  You might have to put restrictions on the content to prevent farms from being propagated to Live and the Dev team would make the decision whether the arc fits their expectation of what should be Live content.

 

Players that are running the missions could be rewarded with the AE rewards and badges for running different AE missions.  Maybe as they get higher badge counts they could also get merits for playing the AE content.

[Shadowflare]

I think that this being changed from vanilla behavior is telling. The actual exploit needed to be fixed (unintended interactions with patrol XP). By making it harder to make inf it's now harder to buy super packs because the prices of those are fixed and now higher over our heads. Seems a bit ham handed how this was carried out. Perhaps we should reward normal play with a bit more inf to compensate? Maybe scaling percent bonus with your veteran level if you turn off XP? (up to a max ofc) To summarize, I think this hurts normal players more than the farmers. Farmers gonna farm, you could cut it down to 10% of what AE currently gives, and they will farm, just harder. If I don't farm, I'm making less than before. Supposedly there's some data the devs @Jimmy have to try to see how this will affect the market and the "value" of the inf we do make long term. I'd like to see some of this data when there's some time for it.

Edited April 3, 2020 by Shadowflare
added some stuff

[Haijinx]

1 hour ago, MunkiLord said:

I don’t know what you’re talking about, doing things in games and simulations absolutely translates to real world recognition. Telling ladies I can solo Ghost Widow is my main pick up line. With game like that it’s a miracle I’m single. 

Now I know the real reason you want Super Strength Scrappers

[SwitchFade]

3 hours ago, QuiJon said:

If the idea that  you put forward is that making double or whatever extra influence for nominal difference in difficulty was the issue, the point being is that this WAS infact the intention of these systems. It was NOT an exploit. Yes people made farm maps specifically to take advantage of this system but that is no different then people sidekicking a level 5 into a MotherShip raid to farm xp and I have seen nothing done to change that "exploitive" behavior. 

 

I have read the responses and none of them hold up. I have seen everything from influence exploit which is was not. The system was intended to be a reward for playing down. A means by wich higher level toons would find benefit in still playing their characters even at a time when experience is not really a worry anylonger. And it was not a secret. Hell the maps in the farms would specifically say on the titles for XP gain or Influence gain no one was hiding the mechanic or the use of it. So as was said there was no "threat" of an exploit becoming public knowledge it was already to anyone that farmed for influence. 

 

I have also seen this to say that the increase in the influence earning skews and drives up prices on the market. But again how can this hold up as an excuse when over and over and over again people post how they make billions a week doing nothing but seeding greedy auctions for profit? If this was in fact the reasoning then frankly again, this solution of changing farming only addresses half the issue. And if the influence was the factor then both marketeering and farming sould be addressed together because they both contribute.

 

Fact is that this is not a real world economy. Influence is not a finite resource. Anyone earing or sitting on piles of cash do absolutely nothing to prevent anyone else from earning their own money, the game generates it freely. Therefore as been pointed out the only controlling factor in the cost of items in the AH is what people are willing to pay. So if you want to control that you have to control the pricing over all by other means then controlling the productions of influence. The only control you have is the supply. You can drop purple drop rates making them more common to keep the prices low. You can drop their cost in the merit vendors down to say 50 merits so they are more affordable to buy that way. 

 

This change was stealthed in because you didn't want discussion. Yes it might have become heated. But any less so when you stealth the change in with no feedback. You are right, none of you are paid. But the game also doesn't have to turn a profit either. Its survival now is totally dependent on the players being willing to keep supporting the servers. As such I think yes, you owe it to the players doing so to at least engage in discussion, suggestions, and feedback before implementing broad reaching nerfs to game mechanics you personally perhaps don't like. I mean hell you could have just fixed the issue in AE and I would have less complaint on it. But I like playing my old characters and my level 50s that is why I made them, that is why I spent time building them out with IOs and T4s to their incarnates. I could probably be persuaded to agree that the bonus in AE was uncalled for if we were also looking at other means of price controlling in the markets. However I don't think it is out of place that if I want to play my old characters that get little reward from xp anylonger, to be able to turn off xp and earn more influence when I am running TFs and Orro missions and such with teammates. 

 

This change to the game mechanics also changed that aspect as well. Changed it for everyone. That was not an exploit in any way, that was the basic intention of the option to begin with and it is now removed with no community input or discussion. 

I'm sorry, this is largely incorrect. There were exploits, the systems you refer to were never intended to function that way and they should have and we're intended to be fixed. Further, there is no valid reason something like AE should give any different reward than normal content, they should all give equal rewards 

 

Additionally I'm sorry, but, economics doesn't work the way you are discussing and even though it is a game the same principles hold true, as evinced by facts.

 

The determinates and factors of supply and demand are immutable; they were evident before and continue to be now.

 

I'm very sorry, but economics doesn't work that way and I've explained numerous times the how and why. Further, it's supported by evidence in-game. Rampant inflation existed before, broke the economy in game and could happen again.

 

The inference you're making that it hasn't yet happened is due to SCALE, which is already changing and if not corrected now would have been severe.

 

Marketeering is not half the problem as espoused, as in this economy there are no inferior goods, merely normal goods and all goods are substitutes. In such a system marketeering is a result of demand chasing and surplus will always reach equilibrium. Due to this, converting is a net positive and will actually drive prices down when rampant inflation is REMOVED. Now, the value of currency will increase, distribution will normalize and substitution will depress the sum price of a basket of goods.

 

That's how economics works and it's already happening.

Edited April 3, 2020 by SwitchFade

[Crysis]

1 hour ago, Grouchybeast said:

I've always though, since AE was in beta, that it should have had no rewards, or at most extremely nominal ones.  People usually reply that if that was the case, then no one would use it, but I don't think that's true.  If people wouldn't do something in CoX without direct rewards from the game, then there would be no roleplaying, which is patently not the case.

 

It could have worked.  People want to tell stories, and other people want to read them.  There are giant fanfic archives out there with millions of works in them that demonstrates that very clearly.  An AE with no rewards was the only way that it had any hope of being what it was apparently supposed to be: a way for people to create stories for others to experience.  It's great for farmers to have a place to farm, but I think AE could have been something really innovative, and that part of it was lost between the unusable search system and the original devs basically abandoning the system when it didn't do what they wanted.  I think it's a shame.

Utter bull-droppings.

 

Players have come to expect rewards for playing.  The size of the reward may vary but no rewards = dead content.  I actually have played several AE arcs and enjoyed a few of them although many are amateur fanfic and not that great from a design perspective.  

 

The only people who want to “tell stories to one another” are the AE content authors themselves.   Otherwise the overwhelming majority of the playerbase just clicks “Ok” buttons and follows the Navbar instructions to the next objective in order to get the reward.

 

Some days I really wish the stories and content were what mattered here.  But after playing theough almost ended mission and seeing the same 5-6 mission outlines rewritten dozens of ways....I get it.  Content is dead and rewards are all that matters now.  And until/unless someone really re-designs the content delivery mechanisms this won’t change.

[Obus Form]

4 minutes ago, Crysis said:

Udder bull-droppings.

Fixed that for you.

[Haijinx]

15 minutes ago, Obus Form said:

Fixed that for you.

wouldn't it be Udder cow droppings?

[Haijinx]

Or Drippings?

[Noyjitat]

2 hours ago, Saikochoro said:

As far as I’m aware, the devs only seeded salvage. So seeding has nothing to do with there being more of one type of LOTG IO than another in the set. Demand drives that. 
 

That said, market seeding salvage was a good thing the devs did. 

Day one there were 1000s of them listed. so theres more to it than that or a GM is manually adding them and other ios/attuned with a supply that never diminishes.

Also on day one of this current patch as soon as the server was online the market had entire sets of the new ios and not just a few. Like nobody could have had enough time to loot, craft, attune and list them that quickly let alone purchase from a reward merits vendor.

 

There's also the fact that you can craft a crappy level like 25 put it on the market and then buy yourself the level 50 version. The market auto converts to whatever level or attune that you want making another fake supply because that level 50 you bought was never actually on the market. All levels of each io have the same value because of this.

Edited April 3, 2020 by Noyjitat

[Zeraphia]

7 hours 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?

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.

I understand your intentions with this change, and I understand the feedback from others stating to "test the changes" before forming a judgement on it, that's why I've mainly held off on it despite my intuition telling this was too radical of a change...

 

Today I was trying to "gear up" or well IO my new Elec Affinity/Sonic Blast Defender, and unfortunately, the market was extraordinarily inflated (I'd say an average of 10-20% of the normal prices) and this lead to me vastly overspending what I thought I'd end up spending on specific IO's.

 

The problem with this change is that there is no safeguard as an influence cap on the amount you can spend on an IO, and the influence already exists. This is causing less to farm, more to feel less inclined to do so, resulting in less recipes/IO's less affordability, and market inflation spikes, the opposite of the intended effect... Winter-O's were usually around 22-25m, they've now spiked to being in the 30m category now, PvP enhancements have absolutely gone through the roof most hovering around the 10-14m range. Many rare IO's have also recently spiked as well. I think if you are going to implement a "negative" change, you should implement a "positive" one to balance them effectively. I understand that there was going to be a lack of feedback due to the reasons of not having the exploit come about, but people are giving handed feedback now with this change. 

 

I would not state that this change has "improved" the spending power of an average player, if anything, it has cut their spending power. Many of the hardcore supporters are now finding it very difficult to enjoy multiple builds and characters that they wish to try, doing this at the time when a new set was released that would potentially make people unable to afford building their characters may have been a mistake.

 

This does not mean to come across as "you did a bad job!" this is moreso me giving my feedback and observations as a player, I think possibly a rollback or a market cap how much a specific IO can sell for per category (PvP, ATO, purple ATO, purple, rare, etc.) would go a lot further with this. 

[darkbunnie]

On 3/31/2020 at 9:43 AM, The Curator said:

The following change was omitted from the beta patch notes due to a related exploit:

• Influence gain can no longer be increased by disabling XP

We’ve made this change to reduce the influence income gap between players who farm and those that do not. The amount of additional influence gained by abusing level 49 missions simply wasn’t healthy for the overall economy of the game, and generally unfair towards those who play standard level 50 content instead of farming.

 

Additionally, there were various exploits that could be abused in order to further increase influence gain through this option.

 

Overall, we concluded it was best to remove the mechanic. Even with this change farming is still far more efficient than every other method of influence gain.

 

Discussion of this change should take place in this dedicated thread. Thanks!

they we need to do about something but  black market  cause all of IQ set some of them high casue ppl in game make them high in market

 

[Indystruck]

Prices also tend to spike on weekends, though. I bought/sold thursday and prices were the same.

[Zeraphia]

Just now, Indystruck said:

Prices also tend to spike on weekends, though. I bought/sold thursday and prices were the same.

Thursday at 11 AM is not a weekend.

[Indystruck]

That makes me more confused that you didn't do it just now, then. I was trading some Blistering Colds and Winter Bites around for 20mil about 4-5 hours ago. Was one or two outlying price spikes in the sales history but that's usually just someone deciding they need to have it now instead of waiting.

[vynestra]

Part of the reason I don't like this change is because it punishes players with low amounts of inf (or new players) while increasing the wealth of the players who have been farming for a long time and have billions and billions.

 

It effectively makes it so new (or poorer) players have a harder time to get sets and progress, which is overly punishing. Basically the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, because they now need to farm 2x as much to get what other people used to get with the same time/effort. 

 

Maybe there is a more elegant solution - I don't know, I just know the change makes it a lot harder on some people than others.