Discussion: Disabling XP No Longer Increases Influence

[Haijinx]

On 4/22/2020 at 1:32 AM, Myrmidon said:

 

[ivanhedgehog]

3 hours ago, Shred Monkey said:

I'm so disappointed.  You people promised us that this was the end of the world.  Prices will go go crazy high.  You won't be able to get recipes anymore.  The supply will dry up, etc.  The game will be broken forever.  DOOM!!!!!!!!

 

Well here we are, about 4 weeks in.   Other than the fact that my level 50s are gaining levels again, I can't say I'd even notice there was a change.

 

It reminds of Y2K.  The clock struck midnight and we're all left standing around saying, "where's Jesus?"  

 

 

 

 

 

Lets be fair a lot of time and money was spent making sure Y2K wasnt doom. A lot of bad things would have happened if a lot of people hadnt made a lot of effort.  Sometimes doom predictors are right. Like your mom  telling you not to wait till the last second to do that school project. She was right and you ended up getting no sleep.

 

Some people predicted higher prices, some lower, they all have excuses as to why that hasnt happened. Some of those just might be the actual reasons. You get to guess who was actually right. I'll just keep playing.

Edited April 23, 2020 by ivanhedgehog

[Yomo Kimyata]

2 hours ago, ivanhedgehog said:

Lets be fair a lot of time and money was spent making sure Y2K wasnt doom. A lot of bad things would have happened if a lot of people hadnt made a lot of effort.  Sometimes doom predictors are right. Like your mom  telling you not to wait till the last second to do that school project. She was right and you ended up getting no sleep.

 

Some people predicted higher prices, some lower, they all have excuses as to why that hasnt happened. Some of those just might be the actual reasons. You get to guess who was actually right. I'll just keep playing.

That reminds me:

 

[skoryy]

8 hours ago, TigerWild said:

New Alt, wise guy

Didn't want to get caught trolling on main?

[MunkiLord]

10 hours ago, Shred Monkey said:

I'm so disappointed.  You people promised us that this was the end of the world.  Prices will go go crazy high.  You won't be able to get recipes anymore.  The supply will dry up, etc.  The game will be broken forever.  DOOM!!!!!!!!

 

Well here we are, about 4 weeks in.   Other than the fact that my level 50s are gaining levels again, I can't say I'd even notice there was a change.

 

It reminds of Y2K.  The clock struck midnight and we're all left standing around saying, "where's Jesus?"  

 

 

 

 

 

I'm glad the world didn't end on Y2K because I was a dumb teenager that didn't know my limits and tequila napped right through it.

6 hours ago, ivanhedgehog said:

Lets be fair a lot of time and money was spent making sure Y2K wasnt doom. A lot of bad things would have happened if a lot of people hadnt made a lot of effort.  Sometimes doom predictors are right. Like your mom  telling you not to wait till the last second to do that school project. She was right and you ended up getting no sleep.

 

Some people predicted higher prices, some lower, they all have excuses as to why that hasnt happened. Some of those just might be the actual reasons. You get to guess who was actually right. I'll just keep playing.

Procrastination is my favorite past time!

[Myrmidon]

9 hours ago, Obus Form said:

2020 Doom so far: WWIII tweet, Australia fires, Covid-19, COH Farming Unilaterial Korrection Reductions (FUKRs)

 

 

Magic 8-Ball says both Rage and Titan Weapons will be on this list before the year is out.

[QuiJon]

23 hours ago, Grouchybeast said:

I largely agree, but I also think that it would be reasonable for a character to need to play at 50 for a while, also, if they want to get the very shiniest of top-end builds.

They would already have to if they want to complete incarnate tiers.

 

Also not everyone feels as you do. I mostly PL a toon 80percent or so of the way to 50. Then I play and do ITFs and such until I get the feel for it. And at 50 if I like it, then I want to deck it out with IOs, if I don't care for it, it is not worth building out for me. Ifi want to build it out it is because I plan on keep playing it post level 50. My 11-12 of like 30 50s that I have built out are all upward of vet level 40 because I keep playing them. 

 

Not everyone feels the same or wants to play just like you do. So long as someones play doesn't prevent your own, it should not matter how they choose to do things. Essentially this change addresses the problem of influence inequity by changing the rules against a player base instead of changing them in favor to equalize the hardship to the other type of player that had it the worst. Create benefits that increase drops and influence gain for playing "the game" that don't benefit marketeers or farmers and you have fixed the same problem without changing the game for a third of your players. 

 

Edited April 23, 2020 by QuiJon

[Grouchybeast]

 

1 hour ago, QuiJon said:

Not everyone feels the same or wants to play just like you do. So long as someones play doesn't prevent your own, it should not matter how they choose to do things. Essentially this change addresses the problem of influence inequity by changing the rules against a player base instead of changing them in favor to equalize the hardship to the other type of player that had it the worst. Create benefits that increase drops and influence gain for playing "the game" that don't benefit marketeers or farmers and you have fixed the same problem without changing the game for a third of your players. 

 

But these are the kinds of choices that the server devs have to make when they're deciding what the overall playing experience on their server is going to be.  How fast is XP given out?  What's the drop rate for different types of IOs?   Should PVP IOs be gated behind PVP?  What are the rewards in AE?  How long, on average, should it take a character to unlock and fill all their Incarnate slots?  Should some costumes options be unlocks or all freely available from the start?

 

Having threads drop in normal content is a gameplay choice.  Removing minimum team sizes for TFs is a gameplay choice.  Capping ATO prices via packs is a gameplay choice.  Changing the ratio between inf drops and items drops is a gameplay choice -- and doing it by increasing item generation is not going to have the same consequences to gameplay as reducing inf generation and inflation.

 

Different servers are going to make different choices.  On We Have Cake, you can pm a GM and get your character insta-levelled and kitted out.  Everyone gets the chance to have top tier characters at will.  That's one extreme.  Some people would like to have a server that goes back to a much earlier era of CoH altogether.  There's no perfect 'how should the game play' answer that's going to please all players.  At least now, with multiple servers running on differing philosophies, CoH offers a lot more options than it did in the past.

[Jimmy]

On 4/20/2020 at 9:22 PM, Yomo Kimyata said:

I think it's reasonable to speculate that AFK anything (but farming in particular) will eventually be another shoe to drop.  Maybe even power levelling.

We've no intention of touching power levelling directly, but we are intending to make other ways of levelling up more appealing (see the upcoming changes to low level enhancements as an example).

 

AFK farming on the other hand probably will get looked at eventually, but we'll need to be very careful about how we fix in order to ensure there's little-to-no impact on anything that isn't AFK farming. Right now the wider economic impact mirrors that of normal farming (ie: it introduces tons of goods and influence) so there's no immediate economy-related concern, but...

On 4/20/2020 at 8:52 PM, parabola said:

I think it's reasonable to expect the game to actually be interacted with in some form or another to benefit from rewards.

This, pretty much.

[Peerless Girl]

On 4/22/2020 at 2:04 PM, MunkiLord said:

I think the AH needs almost an entire UI overhaul, but I recognize that is likely a massive amount of work. 

 

I believe Six or someone once mentioned they'd love to do it, just that it was a massive amount of work, and would take a long time. 

 

On 4/22/2020 at 1:56 PM, ivanhedgehog said:

You can say that about everyone. inf in the bank isnt affecting the economy. It is static, no matter if you are a farmer, marketeer or roleplayer. Players with huge accounts that see that their bid for 6 mill for that LOTG isnt hitting, raise it to 7, then 8 and are fine with paying 2 mill more than the going rate are what drives up prices. The borked purchase history doesnt help one bit with this either. I dont see any exploits, but there sure could be some improvements in the AH.

 

edit: and the oops I put one too many zeros in that bid..ouch I am pretty sure most of us have done this a time or 2.

 

 

Marketeers are actually taking Inf out of the market everytime they make a transaction, WW takes it's cut of them, that Inf is destroyed entirely. 

[Panthonca7034]

On 4/20/2020 at 3:22 PM, Yomo Kimyata said:

I think it's reasonable to speculate that AFK anything (but farming in particular) will eventually be another shoe to drop.  Maybe even power levelling. 

 

That would be a HORRIBLE idea, making reaching Incarnate Level that much harder and impossible to reach, that's what THIS sounds like...

 

  

1 hour ago, Jimmy said:

We've no intention of touching power levelling directly, but we are intending to make other ways of levelling up more appealing (see the upcoming changes to low level enhancements as an example).

 

That in itself is going to prove a near-impossible challenge given the lack-luster impediments of TO's, DO's, small dev team size (don't know if the team shrunk or grew) and lack of new content and development of Goldside (Praetoria for those who are not aware of Going Rogue and left prior to issues 16-20) which is by far more appealing than either Blueside or Redside (I've played almost about every single arc there is on both, and found it challenging if not impossible to even attempt progressing without joining friends in an RP type of story progression). I will say that the removal of power-leveling will do more harm than good, and might make some unhappy enough to leave altogether, but that's just my observation, however dismal it might seem.

 

Edited April 24, 2020 by Panthonca7034
Making precise discussion point modifications

[Saikochoro]

1 hour ago, Jimmy said:

We've no intention of touching power levelling directly, but we are intending to make other ways of levelling up more appealing (see the upcoming changes to low level enhancements as an example).

 

AFK farming on the other hand probably will get looked at eventually, but we'll need to be very careful about how we fix in order to ensure there's little-to-no impact on anything that isn't AFK farming. Right now the wider economic impact mirrors that of normal farming (ie: it introduces tons of goods and influence) so there's no immediate economy-related concern, but...

This, pretty much.

Glad to hear there is no intention of changing power leveling directly. I’m all for other options having quality of life fixes and other things that help make them more appealing. Win win. 

[Panthonca7034]

5 minutes ago, Saikochoro said:

Glad to hear there is no intention of changing power leveling directly. I’m all for other options having quality of life fixes and other things that help make them more appealing. Win win. 

 

Win Win always works for me, and if it works for others, even better. 🙂

[Yomo Kimyata]

2 minutes ago, Panthonca7034 said:

 

So does this mean that YOU want EVERYONE to be FORCED into GRINDING NON-STOP through various arcs for 6 months before they can even get to incarnate level or leveling without going through the long road? If this is the case, I'm COMPLETELY against this idea, it just reeks of telling people how they SHOULD play the game... The only way for THAT to work effectively would be to make new game content which I'm 100% certain WON'T happen for quite a long time (years or decades, with the current dev team size) and therefore NOT a feasible idea.  I'm not sure if that's what your intent idea is or far from it, but that's how I interpreted it.

 

 

One in the box!  (Meaning I trapped someone who was outraged at something I mentioned as a possibility that was then refuted.)

 

 

I was merely speculating.  What I WANT is mostly theoretical, since this isn't my ball.  What the HC team wants, I presume, is long term stability of a game, and note this, that they themselves want to play long-term.  Should you have to grind for six months to want to play this game at the top level?  That's a question for the ages, but maybe you want to look into whether or not this game is really for you if ?10-50? hours of play is going to take you six months.  After all, there are plenty of Kirby games.

 

[Ukase]

On 4/22/2020 at 2:27 AM, Obus Form said:

100% that's the point Jimmy made, to reduce the income gap between new and veteran players such that new players can gear themselves faster I.E. reduce the amount of time new players require to fully IO. 

 

Farmers makes less money + more people join marketeering instead of farming --> prices reduce --> new (all) players find lower prices in /AH

IF it is the case that the impact will reduce the income gap between newer and vet players so newer players can kit out. 

But I don't think that will be the case. It will reduce the new earned influence in game for both veteran and newer player alike (when they exemp). There will be no difference in the income gap. 

Put another way: 

If the veteran player had 4x income (arbitrarily pulled from the air), and the newer player had 2X income, the change will now be the vet player having 3x and the new player having X. The "penalty" or inf reduction is the same for all players. 

Prices aren't going to drop that much, if at all - but I could certainly be wrong. The reduction in inf is just not large enough to make that much of a difference. 

But, I've certainly been wrong before. 

 

[Panthonca7034]

3 minutes ago, Yomo Kimyata said:

One in the box!  (Meaning I trapped someone who was outraged at something I mentioned as a possibility that was then refuted.)

 

 

I was merely speculating.  What I WANT is mostly theoretical, since this isn't my ball.  What the HC team wants, I presume, is long term stability of a game, and note this, that they themselves want to play long-term.  Should you have to grind for six months to want to play this game at the top level?  That's a question for the ages, but maybe you want to look into whether or not this game is really for you if ?10-50? hours of play is going to take you six months.  After all, there are plenty of Kirby games.

 

Yep,

 

I said that, and I adjusted accordingly. As it stands right now, THERE IS NO STABILITY of any kind, until difficult hurdles have been cleared and new content is developed. NOTHING was refuted (If that's what you perceived), I simply polished my point of view to direct it to what ACCURATELY needed to be said. What bearing Kirby games have on City of Heroes I don't know (nor is it important or RELEVANT in this case) but one thing IS important, making progression more tedious than it already is will not a good case make...

 

Also, speculation leads to disaster, interpretation is the result of one given output from the output of something else.

[Yomo Kimyata]

1 minute ago, Panthonca7034 said:

Yep,

 

I said that, and I adjusted accordingly. As it stands right now, THERE IS NO STABILITY of any kind, until difficult hurdles have been cleared and new content is developed. NOTHING was refuted (If that's what you perceived), I simply polished my point of view to direct it to what ACCURATELY needed to be said. What bearing Kirby games have on City of Heroes I don't know (nor is it important or RELEVANT in this case) but one thing IS important, making progression more tedious than it already is will not a good case make...

 

Also, speculation leads to disaster, interpretation is the result of one given output from the output of something else.

I'm not sure English is your first language, so I'll cut down the flowery language.

 

Speculation has led to every single human accomplishment.  You may think that it means something financial.  That's not how I was using it.  I'm not going to be that person who quotes a word from the dictionary; you can look it up yourself.

 

I mentioned Kirby games since they seem to be really easy and if you want to master a game in no time at all, people say that the Kirby games are the way to go.  

[Panthonca7034]

35 minutes ago, Yomo Kimyata said:

I'm not sure English is your first language, so I'll cut down the flowery language.

 

Speculation has led to every single human accomplishment.  You may think that it means something financial.  That's not how I was using it.  I'm not going to be that person who quotes a word from the dictionary; you can look it up yourself.

 

I mentioned Kirby games since they seem to be really easy and if you want to master a game in no time at all, people say that the Kirby games are the way to go.  

 

1. Speculation has NOT led to accomplishment 100% of the time, be it financial or in any other form, history has examples where it's been disastrous, it is there where I've derived my point from, but that's an entirely different matter altogether and therefore Off-topic.

 

2. There is a difference between Mastering a game in a limitless manner, and Mandating how a player (or a player-base) should or should not play a game, in this case we're discussing City of Heroes, not a unrelated game, thusly I'm attempting to keep this On-Topic.

 

3. This topic is about Influence adjustment and reduction thereof, and any additional ideas (like the speculation of power leveling) would fit better in their own separate topic.

 

4. While a game shouldn't be easy (we sort of agree to an extent here within moderation) it shouldn't also be brutally grindy.

 

56 minutes ago, Ukase said:

Prices aren't going to drop that much, if at all - but I could certainly be wrong. The reduction in inf is just not large enough to make that much of a difference. But, I've certainly been wrong before.

 

They're gonna continue to climb, because it's impossible to narrow the cause down to either superadine addicts from Skyway/The Hollows, or unseen enemy supergroups operating in Khallisti Warf. (Market Crash TF Reference) 😛

Edited April 24, 2020 by Panthonca7034
Adding humor to discussion point

[skoryy]

1 hour ago, Panthonca7034 said:

That in itself is going to prove a near-impossible challenge given the lack-luster impediments of TO's, DO's, small dev team size

Check the beta forums, its in the upcoming changes Jimmy mentioned.

[Panthonca7034]

2 hours ago, skoryy said:

Check the beta forums, its in the upcoming changes Jimmy mentioned.

I'll take a look just in case there's something else that's been added which I might have missed.

 

 

Update: Found it! Upgradeable enhancements, early access to DO's SO's and new sets from Mr Yin's store. Not a bad idea, and could help with mitigating the end drain/squish factor some early on. Thanks for that!

 

  

4 hours ago, Jimmy said:

We've no intention of touching power levelling directly, but we are intending to make other ways of levelling up more appealing (see the upcoming changes to low level enhancements as an example).

 

AFK farming on the other hand probably will get looked at eventually, but we'll need to be very careful about how we fix in order to ensure there's little-to-no impact on anything that isn't AFK farming. Right now the wider economic impact mirrors that of normal farming (ie: it introduces tons of goods and influence) so there's no immediate economy-related concern, but...

This, pretty much.

 

Update 2: After gaining a fresh perspective from a friend of mine, now I see the bigger picture and therefore have nothing to worry about when it comes to the need for more necessary adjustments to other parts of the game. My apologies for not understanding this better Jimmy, as I needed another set of eyes to help me catch what I couldn't see.

 

This calls for more research on Beta on my part.

 

 

Edited April 24, 2020 by Panthonca7034
Adding feedback from a fresh perspective, and mentioning newly found patch notes

[Myrmidon]

5 hours ago, Panthonca7034 said:

 

That would be a HORRIBLE idea, making reaching Incarnate Level that much harder and impossible to reach, that's what THIS sounds like...

You don’t need to AFK farm to reach Incarnate levels, you just play the game and they come to you easily.

[Peerless Girl]

10 hours ago, Panthonca7034 said:

 

That would be a HORRIBLE idea, making reaching Incarnate Level that much harder and impossible to reach, that's what THIS sounds like...

 

  

 

That in itself is going to prove a near-impossible challenge given the lack-luster impediments of TO's, DO's, small dev team size (don't know if the team shrunk or grew) and lack of new content and development of Goldside (Praetoria for those who are not aware of Going Rogue and left prior to issues 16-20) which is by far more appealing than either Blueside or Redside (I've played almost about every single arc there is on both, and found it challenging if not impossible to even attempt progressing without joining friends in an RP type of story progression). I will say that the removal of power-leveling will do more harm than good, and might make some unhappy enough to leave altogether, but that's just my observation, however dismal it might seem.

 

 

CoH has never been that "grindy" nor is it even vaguely impossible. It's not even close to the challenge level of MMOs that were it's contemporaries, let alone any of the modern fair. Take a look at the beta changes before you assume what TOs and DOs and SOs are going to be like. 

 

10 hours ago, Yomo Kimyata said:

One in the box!  (Meaning I trapped someone who was outraged at something I mentioned as a possibility that was then refuted.)

 

I was merely speculating.  What I WANT is mostly theoretical, since this isn't my ball.  What the HC team wants, I presume, is long term stability of a game, and note this, that they themselves want to play long-term.  Should you have to grind for six months to want to play this game at the top level?  That's a question for the ages, but maybe you want to look into whether or not this game is really for you if ?10-50? hours of play is going to take you six months.  After all, there are plenty of Kirby games.

 

 

 

Yeah, it took me years to 50 my first time, and I was in no rush to do it. It's fine if people don't feel that way again (and that's what the 2xp boosters are for). But people suggesting CoH is "hard" and "grindy" the Incarnate system WAS grindy on live, it certainly really isn't anymore. In fact, it's so easy that there isn't content really tough enough for the use of the system (because Coming Storm hasn't been finished yet, among other things). People's perspectives on this game really confuse me sometimes. 

[DeepRootz]

53 minutes ago, Peerless Girl said:

 

CoH has never been that "grindy" nor is it even vaguely impossible. It's not even close to the challenge level of MMOs that were it's contemporaries, let alone any of the modern fair. Take a look at the beta changes before you assume what TOs and DOs and SOs are going to be like. 

 

 

 

Yeah, it took me years to 50 my first time, and I was in no rush to do it. It's fine if people don't feel that way again (and that's what the 2xp boosters are for). But people suggesting CoH is "hard" and "grindy" the Incarnate system WAS grindy on live, it certainly really isn't anymore. In fact, it's so easy that there isn't content really tough enough for the use of the system (because Coming Storm hasn't been finished yet, among other things). People's perspectives on this game really confuse me sometimes. 

In WoW my friends would ask me to come and just do a normal raid with a pug.  "It will be quick, like 40 mins tops."  3hrs later I havent gone to bed, and the group has wiped more times than I can count.  Doing a heroic raid with my guild...similar situation depending on how many times we had done it.  Coming back to CoH it's really nice to be able to progress with the limited amount of time I have. I was actually disappointed to see that we got all the incarnate mats, without grinding incarnate content or DA.  Also even without the leveling buffs here it's still no where near what WoW is for me.  When a new xpac is released it takes me at least a week to get to level cap (usually 10 levels).  Without the xp buff here it would probably take me about the same.  Point being there is nothing even remotely grindy about this game.  I will concede that WoW has gotten quite a bit easier in recent years, but it's still a much greater time commitment imo.

Edited April 24, 2020 by DeepRootz

[atomicquin1]

It does seem that this change is having some maybe opposite results than the Devs hoped for.  I have noticed an increase in prices on rare salvage and recipes/enhancements.  I have also seen a drop in available recipes and crafted enhancements. It cost me about 20% more inf to IO out a new 50.  I think the change has led to less farming which is resulting in less supply but same demand as before. Thats a recipe for price inflation as supply is constrained but demand is still high. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[tidge]

I don't usually shop for Rare salvage (the SG base accumulates Rare salvage, and I mostly only use it to craft PVP and Purple recipes) but the only price increased I've noticed is with Uncommon salvage. It's still below the cap (100 KInf) but above the rock-bottom prices it was at for most of the previous year (~5Kinf).  Uncommon salvage occupies an odd place in the game: it is used in all IO recipes above common, as well as in many Empowerment buffs. If players are following some of the most popular "make Inf quick in the AH" guides, they rely on Uncommon salvage.

 

My anecdotal observation is that the purchase price of Rare IO pieces has (on average) come down.