Discussion: Disabling XP No Longer Increases Influence

[SuperDan]

2 minutes ago, Kalidor187 said:

I'm confused what the inf nerf is trying to achieve, though. With all cosmetic items unlocked at creation, free base building, and no money sinks to spend your influence on, what in the game's economy are we trying to fix? Ease of income allows ease of creating and equipping alts. Creating alts and trying new play styles is what retains players. I interpret this change as "you now need to grind more." Why?

I think the bolded point has a lot to do with it.

With double xp you could easily level a toon from 1-50 within a few days of casual play. Plvl them to 50 in a few hours. Have them completely purpled out in a matter of a week or so of casual play/farming.

You do that with enough toons and eventually it gets old for everyone, save the hardest of hardcore CoH fans.

[amagi]

I've been back for about a year.

 

In that year, the market prices were pretty stable.

 

There was some increase, but not a heck of a lot.

 

So, ask yourself.  Why the change?  It ain't about the market.

 

There are FAR EASIER fixes if the target was market fairness.  Put a million of each recipe on the market, like they did with salvage.

 

Set values for things on the market and no longer let there be bids.

 

They chose to hit farming, because....

Edited March 31, 2020 by amagi

[Inflated Donkey]

2 minutes ago, Shadeknight said:

Thunderspy is enjoying 30+ people.
Rebirth is around 10-20, sure.
Cake or Sanctuary are similar numbers, I think. Maybe more maybe less.

 

 

And they don't have to cater to anyone in specific. So if you disagree with the changes and they hold fast to them, the other servers exist.

Yes, they exist and are basically ghost towns.  I don't understand your point.   is this just the "if you don't like it you can get out" thing?  There are 0 comparable alternatives to homecoming. ZERO.
 

[Ruin Mage]

Just now, Inflated Donkey said:

Yes, they exist and are basically ghost towns.  I don't understand your point.   is this just the "if you don't like it you can get out" thing?  There are 0 comparable alternatives to homecoming. ZERO.

My point is that, yes, provided it doesn't look like HC will go back on the change for the time being.

Alternatively take it on the chin and continue playing.

The inf change isn't this horrifying monster of a change.

[Murcielago]

2 hours ago, 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.

Lol only peasants farm INF. The real money is had by market trading. I have generational wealth for my characters now.  

[Ruin Mage]

3 minutes ago, amagi said:

They chose to hit farming, because....

I've got people saying that farming will still be the go-to. It's just no longer an absurd lead over things.

Which is good.

[Gremlin]

6 minutes ago, Foxfyre said:

You're expecting the in-game economy to follow normal economic rules.  However you defeat your own premise with the first statement.

"Inflation causes every unit of influence to be worth less per unit, so rampant addition of influence to the exomoy devalues each unit of influence."

If money is devalued, that means thing should cost MORE as each influence is worth less.  However as we've seen everything on the market house currently is essentially dirt cheap - because there's so much of it.

Which means once you restrict the flow of money, the next logical thing to happen is that prices will increase to make up for that lost money flow.

This made me laugh so hard that I actually cried. Thanks for that.

[flyinggecko]

1 hour ago, Obus Form said:

More efficient than converting/flipping? =O

I would assume so. 
I would sell everything I got for 1 inf. because the time it takes to post things on the auction house. I (used to) earn about 3,000,000 influence per minute farming. 

[Zeraphia]

Just now, Shadeknight said:

My point is that, yes, provided it doesn't look like HC will go back on the change for the time being.

Alternatively take it on the chin and continue playing.

The inf change isn't this horrifying monster of a change.

No one has made it out to be a "horrifying monster of a change," they've been arguing that it wasn't necessary or that it won't lead to a positive change overall. I personally am not one way or another on this argument, I do have farmers, but I've always done the level 50 maps and I've only farmed out of absolutely necessity otherwise I enjoy content without any AFK farming. What I do think this leads to is a lack of public events, less participation SG-sponsored events, and can make life potentially harder for people in the short-term in general and overall impacts veteran players negatively because it is a nerf (you cannot do something you previous were able to). 

[Murcielago]

Now if the devs REALLY wanted to F's with the economy they would make it so you can only convert an enhancement X number of times before it can no longer be converted. You'd see MASSIVE price increases across the board of enhancements. I don't know what that would do to converter prices though. 

[lythy77]

This change sucks . I love farming i play a lot of toons im a real hardcore altaholic. i love messing around with builds and playing them.  then i get bored and make something else and so does my kids.  I do their builds and we play many alts.  i wasn't hurting anyone. i farmed a lot and only just had enough to kit the kids out as we waste so much inf.. why ? because we found this fun and kept us playing.  i know many of you will disagree and the trolls will be out in force but this is how i feel about the situation.  its been this way  for a very long time.  

Edited March 31, 2020 by lythy77

[flyinggecko]

3 minutes ago, Murcielago said:

Lol only peasants farm INF. The real money is had by market trading. I have generational wealth for my characters now.  

I dunno man.... I was making 3,000,000 per minute and I wasn't exploiting the level 49 thing.

[Jimmy]

6 minutes ago, amagi said:

They want to discourage farming as a playstyle.  They just don't want to say it.  

This isn't the case. We want to encourage all playstyles, rather than farming being a necessity. We covered this in our open letter all the way back in May of last year.

 

In brief: Our goal is for all playstyles be valid, worthwhile and enjoyable. That's what we're working towards.

[Murcielago]

Just now, flyinggecko said:

I dunno man.... I was making 3,000,000 per minute and I wasn't exploiting the level 49 thing.

So you're making 180m after an hour of playing. I make that in a day with 15 mins of my time while still being able to play other content instead of endless farming. 

[Gremlin]

4 minutes ago, amagi said:

I've been back for about a year.

 

In that year, the market prices were pretty stable.

 

There was some increase, but not a heck of a lot.

 

So, ask yourself.  Why the change?  It ain't about the market.

I'm guessing here but there are probably two reasons:

• to eliminate an exploit
• to prevent inflation from taking hold

If the devs are able to see how much inf is entering the economy and how much is leaving then they can tell whether we're at risk of inflation. If I was them, I'd be watching this closely to ensure that market prices continue to be pretty stable.

[Ruin Mage]

Just now, Zeraphia said:

No one has made it out to be a "horrifying monster of a change," they've been arguing that it wasn't necessary or that it won't lead to a positive change overall. I personally am not one way or another on this argument, I do have farmers, but I've always done the level 50 maps and I've only farmed out of absolutely necessity otherwise I enjoy content without any AFK farming. What I do think this leads to is a lack of public events, less participation SG-sponsored events, and can make life potentially harder for people in the short-term in general and overall impacts veteran players negatively because it is a nerf (you cannot do something you previous were able to). 

The reactions have varied, but the change is being blown out of proportion. Farms are still going to be the best way - there's just a small decrease in influence in the efforts to close the gap and fix an issue. I don't particularly have a hand in AE farming, but I also prefer people experiencing content outside of the AE building.

If SGs go "bwuh my farming is making less money" and don't host anything, sure that sucks but people will pick up the slack.

[Not Horus]

12 minutes ago, amagi said:

I think this goes back to other observations.

 

They want to discourage farming as a playstyle.  They just don't want to say it.  

This is absolutely true.

[Ruin Mage]

Just now, Not Horus said:

This is absolutely true.

False.

[Not Horus]

Just now, Shadeknight said:

False.

Wrong.

[drbuzzard]

2 minutes ago, Jimmy said:

 

This has now been resolved.

Tested, and it's working again. 

[Ruin Mage]

Just now, Not Horus said:

Wrong.

Fire farms are still the go-to. They will be until they do something other than a very minuscule change.

Stop over-exaggerating, please.

[Kalidor187]

5 minutes ago, SuperDan said:

I think the bolded point has a lot to do with it.

With double xp you could easily level a toon from 1-50 within a few days of casual play. Plvl them to 50 in a few hours. Have them completely purpled out in a matter of a week or so of casual play/farming.

You do that with enough toons and eventually it gets old for everyone, save the hardest of hardcore CoH fans.

But now we're trying to stabilize an economy when the precedent has already been set that you have immediate access to everything for free.

 

If slowing down character development and earning what you gain is really the direction they want to go, you really need to create a new hard core shard without everything unlocked and a fresh economy.

 

I just can't take the disparity of players point seriously. What advantage does a player with 2 billion inf really have other than being able to host more contests with prizes?

[Obus Form]

6 minutes ago, Murcielago said:

Now if the devs REALLY wanted to F's with the economy they would make it so you can only convert an enhancement X number of times before it can no longer be converted. You'd see MASSIVE price increases across the board of enhancements. I don't know what that would do to converter prices though. 

Don't give them ideas please 

[Grouchybeast]

14 minutes ago, Foxfyre said:

If money is devalued, that means thing should cost MORE as each influence is worth less.  However as we've seen everything on the market house currently is essentially dirt cheap - because there's so much of it.

Which means once you restrict the flow of money, the next logical thing to happen is that prices will increase to make up for that lost money flow.

If this was true (I mean, it clearly isn't, but say it was) then surely all the recipes that drop while you farm will then be worth much more, right?  So if purple recipes are suddenly worth 100 million inf, then every purple that drops for a farmer will net them 100 million.  These vastly inflated prices we'll apparently see will benefit the people who generate the most recipes -- i.e. the farmers.  Seems like a win for them.

[Murcielago]

1 minute ago, Obus Form said:

Don't give them ideas please 

I enjoy constantly changing market dynamics, making massive amounts of money the same way gets boring after a while. Give me real and measurable challenges.