Discussion: Disabling XP No Longer Increases Influence

[arcane]

There is zero data behind the assertion that my personal experience is not broadly shared with others. 
 

The only way the economy is now better for farmers is if the cost decrease is so dramatic that it matches the income nerf, logically speaking. My experience and that of most I talk to (excluding billionaire marketeers and “I have an economics degree” forumbros) is that we are not there yet.

Edited July 20, 2020 by arcaneholocaust

[skoryy]

Just now, arcaneholocaust said:

There is zero data behind the assertion that my personal experience is not broadly shared with others. 

And you've provided zero data that it is.  Okay, then, letting the thread die again.

[arcane]

3 minutes ago, skoryy said:

And you've provided zero data that it is.  Okay, then, letting the thread die again.

Cute non-argument but if you’re going to admit you have no support for claiming my personal experience is null and void, maybe don’t be so dogmatic and arrogant about your theories.

[Lines]

6 minutes ago, arcaneholocaust said:

The only way the economy is now better for farmers is if the cost decrease is so dramatic that it matches the income nerf, logically speaking. My experience and that of most I talk to (excluding billionaire marketeers and “I have an economics degree” forumbros) is that we are not there yet.

Better for farmers wasn't the goal. Levelling the playing field and keeping inflation rates down for all players was. Which has been successful.

 

That required farming to take a hit, but even after that it's still the most effective way in the game to generate inf.

[arcane]

1 minute ago, Lines said:

Better for farmers wasn't the goal. Levelling the playing field and keeping inflation rates down for all players was. Which has been successful.

 

That required farming to take a hit, but even after that it's still the most effective way in the game to generate inf.

I’m aware of this. But a lot of people have been insistent that this is a good thing across the board and have thus refused to paint it as a nerf to farmers. Which I firmly still believe it is. Please correct me if I am wrong.

[Lines]

Just now, arcaneholocaust said:

I’m aware of this. But a lot of people have been insistent that this is a good thing across the board and have thus refused to paint it as a nerf to farmers. Which I firmly still believe it is. Please correct me if I am wrong.

Yes, it's a nerf to farming.

 

Sorry?

[arcane]

Just now, Lines said:

Yes, it's a nerf to farming.

 

Sorry?

Thanks for the honesty instead of the “everyone is better off now” gaslighting.

[Haijinx]

12 minutes ago, skoryy said:

And you've provided zero data that it is.  Okay, then, letting the thread die again.

You have to shoot the Necro-Threads in the head. 

[ImpousVileTerror]

The other constant issue that I see in this thread, and others associated with it, is this bizarre perspective that the market itself is somehow equally accessible to everyone.

It isn't.

If you've had success with the market, and you don't understand how other people can't achieve that same level of success, then there is a bias at work here.  The market isn't being treated as truly optional in the game design right now.  The time investment for achieving the same level of work is wildly different between market players and non-market.  And anyone who is a market player, I want to encourage you to remind yourself that your success is not universal or achievable by everyone.

 

I'm not a big supporter of farming.  I personally find it dull, and I have at least a little moral "ickiness" related to it.  However, I will promote that this game should be  just as validating for non-destructive farmers as it is for other players.  If that's their choice in play-style, that's there decision to make, no matter how difficult it is for me to wrap my head around their concept of "fun."

But the removal of the Double Influence Feature (again, I will do my best to detangle this nonsense about the removed feature being the same as the patched bug/exploit in Patrol Exp) was very clearly a change which impacted some set of players over others.  And this is while -other- solutions were available to address the problems experienced by the market players.  Price caps.  Tax brackets.  Charitable incentives.  There have been numerous discussions about other ways to motivate players to stop price gouging or limit its effectiveness.

The removal of an established gameplay feature, which was originally added as a valid incentive by the Legacy Developers to encourage cross-level teaming, was not a decision in line with Homecoming's express mission statement.

And farmers were not the only ones harmed by this.  Players who wanted to take "the slow path" were impacted.  Players who do not touch the market at all and make use of internal drops and fixed price purchases were SERIOUSLY impacted.

 

So.  Yeah.

This thread, and threads like it, are going to continue to pop up to the top of the boards.  No amount of hammering a "but MY market experience is better now" attitude is going to change that the experience for -other players- has been negatively and unnecessarily impacted.

 

I hope that the Homecoming Team takes this as a learning opportunity, and more closely considers the impact to changes on this scale to what I can only guess they considered "niche interests."  I hold that the player-market is never more important or significant than any other group of players' interests.

[arcane]

At the end of the day, as it relates to experience and influence, I care about one single figure: the average amount of my real life time I have to input to yield a maxed out level 50 character. And this change has meant for me: more input for the same output.
 

That’s as clearly a nerf to me as anything can be, and usually people don’t appreciate being told they’d see they’re doing better than ever if only they weren’t too mentally deficient to realize it.

[Yomo Kimyata]

11 minutes ago, ImpousVileTerror said:

And anyone who is a market player, I want to encourage you to remind yourself that your success is not universal or achievable by everyone.

 

 

Players who do not touch the market at all and make use of internal drops and fixed price purchases were SERIOUSLY impacted.

 

 

Please explain these two.

[ImpousVileTerror]

@arcaneholocaust basically just did, @Yomo Kimyata.  Although with far more bile than I would have preferred . . . though I understand the source of the frustration and anger, at least.

 

But to strongly clarify:  

Comparing the time it took to achieve certain goals in relation to Inf-purchases and crafting, prior to the removal of the Double Inf Feature and now, players who relied on Double Inf to provide them with their in-game financial needs have had their best tool effectively sliced in half.   Without just cause.

[Yomo Kimyata]

1 minute ago, ImpousVileTerror said:

@arcaneholocaust basically just did, @Yomo Kimyata.  Although with far more bile than I would have preferred . . . though I understand the source of the frustration and anger, at least.

 

But to strongly clarify:  

Comparing the time it took to achieve certain goals in relation to Inf-purchases and crafting, prior to the removal of the Double Inf Feature and now, players who relied on Double Inf to provide them with their in-game financial needs have had their best tool effectively sliced in half.   Without just cause.

I'm asking you specifically, since AH didn't address either of these questions (which are distinctly different) and that YOU posted:

 

How is my or anyone's success not achievable by anyone?  I ask this one because I think I, and many others, have put forth a lot of good guides that take you from zero to billions.

 

How are players who don't play the market and make use of internal drops and fixed price purchases SERIOUSLY impacted?

 

 

[arcane]

I deleted a post that was pretty irate that he might’ve gotten something from. Turns out I get angry when talked down to. Major character flaw on my part. Carry on.

[Saikochoro]

1 hour ago, arcaneholocaust said:

I’m aware of this. But a lot of people have been insistent that this is a good thing across the board and have thus refused to paint it as a nerf to farmers. Which I firmly still believe it is. Please correct me if I am wrong.

I think it’s naive for people to think it wasn’t a nerf to farming. It definitely was, but it was still done for the overall health of the economy. 
 

I honestly think it was done less to reduce income inequality or more to reduce income generation, which is what farming is best at.  To reduce the total amount of influence entering into the economy farming was targeted. 
 

I know some people hate farming and everything it stands for. And some people hate marketing and everything it stands for. I like doing both. Both do have positive affects on the market in making desirable goods available to the masses and keeping prices in check by keeping a good supply running. It was the influence generation that was targeted in my opinion. 
 

But yes, it was a nerf. That is definitely a fact.

[Yomo Kimyata]

1 minute ago, Saikochoro said:

I think it’s naive for people to think it wasn’t a nerf to farming. It definitely was, but it was still done for the overall health of the economy. 

I agree and there are two aspects of it.  One was the removal of the exempting double xp, which was an exploit.  The other was the removal of double inf, which was done, I think, for the greater good.  I'm not going to argue that, since it's an Econ 101 topic.

 

 

[arcane]

1 minute ago, Saikochoro said:

But yes, it was a nerf. That is definitely a fact.

What has made this issue frustrating for me is having to either (1) farm for many more hours than before per character or (2) gut other completed characters to harvest IO’s, and, all the while, reading threads about it where a group of posters have basically stated that everything is rosy now and anyone that’s got a problem with this change is just stupid and ignorant of basic economics.

 

Again, appreciate the truth.

[Lines]

33 minutes ago, ImpousVileTerror said:

Without just cause.

I really appreciate the empathy with which you're making the case, and you're always good to talk with. But I do want to argue this point.

 

The move was one to prevent the markets getting to the same place that the Live market got to. Those were a nightmare. While Homecoming have done a lot of different things to prevent that from happening (converters and merit changes being freakin' amazing), it wouldn't solve the eventual inequality that Live got to of severe haves and have-nots. There was a colossal amount of influence in play, so each unit was worth so, so much less than on Homecoming (I wonder what the exchange rate of Live inf to HC inf is? Do we have enough data to estimate that?). It bounced around in giant chunks and farming really was the only feasible way to sustainably keep up. The market and farming (or any best way to generate money, whatever form that might be) are related in this way - inf generation impacts market prices.

 

Even with the change, it might still eventually, gradually creep that way. But much slower. Maybe half as slow*?

 

There are two reliable ways that I know of right now to generate income: farming and selling on the market. The other ways, like earnings from regular content, seems to belong to a pre-IO and pre-auction house economy. I personally think the game could do with more diverse ways of getting income, or a pass of regular content rewards to bring it beyond, like, issue 8. It would help those who want to stick with SOs or IOs and avoid the market. But this change means that the disparity between those who play that way and those who have a big income is much, much lower. Imagine playing like that on Live and then wanting to break into set IOs - it just wasn't possible.

 

 

*Has anyone actually calculated what percentage inf generation from farming optimally has changed by? Is it as much as half?

Edited July 20, 2020 by Lines

[Jimmy]

12 minutes ago, Saikochoro said:

I honestly think it was done less to reduce income inequality or more to reduce income generation, which is what farming is best at.  To reduce the total amount of influence entering into the economy farming was targeted.

You're correct. Reducing the total amount of influence entering the economy (without reducing drops) means there's less money available to pay for the same amount of assets. This results in prices going down (as we have now seen).

 

Generally the more expensive items are now more accessible to those with less money - meaning normal players playing normal content have less of a need to engage in farming (which is a good thing, because not everyone finds farming fun). We don't want to kill farming due to some inherent hatred for it*, we just don't want it (or any other type of gameplay) to be necessary - and of course that means that the relative value of farming compared to other activities will need to shift until there's a more equitable balance.

 

*This does not extend to AFK farming. Expect that to be mercilessly destroyed when we have the time. If this upsets you, please direct your complaints to someone who cares.

5 minutes ago, arcaneholocaust said:

[...] have basically stated that everything is rosy now  [...]

I'm just talking for myself here, but I don't perceive the market (or game economy / progression) to be perfect (or even close to it) right now. It's certainly better than it was, but there's still plenty of room for improvement. Just the usual problem of our time and resources being very limited.

[Saikochoro]

1 hour ago, ImpousVileTerror said:

The other constant issue that I see in this thread, and others associated with it, is this bizarre perspective that the market itself is somehow equally accessible to everyone.

It isn't.

 

Snip

Only quoted the main argument. The market is in fact one of, if not, the most accessible ways of making enough influence to pay for whatever your game needs are. More so than optimal farming for sure.  And it comes with the side benefit of making desirable IO available to others and keeping their prices in check without adding influence to the economy. 
 

All the start up capital that is needed can be done in one task force. That will earn more than enough merits to fund the initial start up. After that it is extremely simple to use converters to make a decent amount of money.  There are plenty of detailed and super easy to follow guides that explain it. There really isn’t anything more accessible. It is even more accessible than farming task forces because you don’t even need a team or any sort of build. 
 

There can be varying levels of success, but anyone can start with absolutely nothing and still earn enough for a completely purpled out build within a week or two. Whether or not people enjoy it though is a different matter.

Edited July 20, 2020 by Saikochoro

[Coyotedancer]

Honestly, I'm absolutely convinced that the nerf had nothing whatsoever to do with addressing "income inequality"...

That statement was just tossed out there as an excuse to try to deflect some of the ire that the change generated.

 

As I said at the time, if the devs really wanted to address income inequality, it wouldn't have been the farmers that they went after first. It would have been the marketeers, who were... and remain... much, much better at amassing Scrooge McDuck-level fortunes than even the most dedicated farmers. That has nothing to do with the inflation issue. It's just a matter of where the serious money-making opportunities in-game actually are. If income inequality was really seen as a problem, the imbalance due to differences in marketeering skill/willingness/time would have been discussed much more than it was.  

[ImpousVileTerror]

In a word, Yomo?

Choice.

 

The game was designed to reward players in a way that they ultimately got to choose.  That choice is good.  The freedom and option stands to enable players to participate in the game on their own terms.  It is, in my view, a fundamental principle that elevates City of Heroes to the quality of game that is so well loved by so many. 

Choice.

Real, meaningful, personal choice.  Not that nonsense like "oh, you can choose to grind, or you can choose to spend $5 of real money to skip intentionally designed busy work carefully designed to drive you toward that $5 purchase, and thus hook you on to a microtransaction downward spiral."  

And really, I can't speak for everyone here in this game . . . since I just haven't done the polling and research here, but I have done it in other games as part of past profession.  Which means, with immense irritation and loathing, I can not legally share with anyone what my research is.  It's owned by someone who is not me, and that particular someone has been accused of being particularly litigious when they feel someone is distributing their property.

 

Why are your guides no use?  Because for the players who chose to play the game in a way that was personally meaningful to them, they had no need to even look at the market.  And that's Good Game Design.  The market should NEVER be mandatory.  It should never provide such an unbalanced advantage as to invalidate the reasonable choice of players to avoid it.

Just like no one should be forced in to PvP (which, frankly, I contend that the market is PvP, and should be treated exactly the same in terms of development).

Did the original Developers deliver on this vision perfectly?  Nah.  But they did at least ensure that when changes were made to facilitate teaming at all levels, they left the Double Inf option available for players to choose.

 

Part of what the Homecoming Devs did in making this change was to imply that the choice offered by the Legacy Devs was invalid.  This leads to the understandable view of players who made that choice that their play-style, which existed for years before closure of the original Legacy servers, is no longer welcome.  It tells them that their experiences and enjoyment of the game do not merit the same attention and metered respect of the market players, whether that was the Homecoming Team's intended message or not (which, honestly, I don't think really blipped on the Homecoming Team's radar).

 

This game means a lot of different things to different people.  Some take it more seriously than others.  I think it's pretty dismissive to suggest that "it's just a game" and "you shouldn't take it seriously."  So, by mere din of someone -saying- their play experience is seriously impacted means that it IS seriously impacted.  And taking twice as long to achieve what was originally and long-standingly already available at a recognized speed . . . I'd call that pretty serious.  

Negatively impacting players' time like that is bad.  

Hands down.  No argument to really get in to there.  It's bad.  

It's wasteful and actively detracts from the experience for people who already can barely afford the time to engage in their leisure activities as much as they need to in their efforts to destress.

 

Did the change have the intended impact on the market?

I can't say.  Sounds like it, at least, from several players' reports.

But part of my past research really delved in to the whole issue with cognitive suppositions and confirmation bias, particular in online gaming.

Without the Homecoming Team publishing clear, delineated data . . . we're not really dealing with anything but subjective feelings from players.  And that's not to discount the importance of how players feel, of course.  But it also means that we're not being permitted in to a position where we can make truly informed responses to "the economy."

 

This whole on-going episode is, I think, a wonderful opportunity for the Homecoming Team to seriously re-evaluate how they approach development of this game in relation to their express mission statement.

One of the two needs to change.  I would personally prefer it's the specifics of development methodology, 'cause I personally like the sounds of the mission.

[Lines]

7 minutes ago, Coyotedancer said:

As I said at the time, if the devs really wanted to address income inequality, it wouldn't have been the farmers that they went after first. It would have been the marketeers, who were... and remain... much, much better at amassing Scrooge McDuck-level fortunes than even the most dedicated farmers. 

It did impact marketeers. Pretty directly.

 

With less inf generation, the market prices reduced. With reduced market prices, marketeers make less.

 

Before the nerf I considered 2mil a good average sell when I'm converting drops. Now I consider 1.5mil a good average sell.

 

But it's fine because everything is a bit cheaper.

[Saikochoro]

22 minutes ago, arcaneholocaust said:

What has made this issue frustrating for me is having to either (1) farm for many more hours than before per character or (2) gut other completed characters to harvest IO’s, and, all the while, reading threads about it where a group of posters have basically stated that everything is rosy now and anyone that’s got a problem with this change is just stupid and ignorant of basic economics.

 

Again, appreciate the truth.

I’m going to be honest with you. I have gutted more than a few characters recently for their IOs as well. 
 

However, there are a few caveats. I power level my toons to 50 with double xp. I enjoy lots of alts, but do not enjoy not being level 50. I plan out my builds and they are all expensive (300-600m). 
 

This week I made 6 or 7 new alts. I didn’t have the money to cover them. The power leveling process did fund portions of it. I didn’t particularly feel like doing the enhancement converter routine lately, so I decided to cannibalize less used toons. 
 

I think I probably would have had to do that anyway before the nerf, but not as much. Like I said, it was a nerf. 
 

That said, in my anecdotal (key word) experience, I have seen prices drop somewhat across the board for several of my go to sets. Not a huge drop, but one that I noticed. 
 

I plan to spend about 2k converters in the next couple weeks to due the enhancement conversion routine to fund more alts. That will give me even more of an idea if prices overall have dropped. Just for info when I place things for sale I always put in a price around 300-500k less than the last 5 listed depending on the price (except for bugged displays like miracle + recovery).
 

Speaking of miracle - PSA - never bid more than 4.5 - 5m even when the last 5 indicate they have been selling for 10-18m. 

[Coyotedancer]

9 minutes ago, Lines said:

It did impact marketeers. Pretty directly.

 

With less inf generation, the market prices reduced. With reduced market prices, marketeers make less.

 

Before the nerf I considered 2mil a good average sell when I'm converting drops. Now I consider 1.5mil a good average sell.

 

But it's fine because everything is a bit cheaper.

 

I would bet Harry's favorite farm map that you guys *still* make more of a profit than anyone else, though.

 

Even though the resulting number may be a bit smaller than it used to be, marketeering remains the route for highest return per amount of time invested. 

 

 

 

Edited July 20, 2020 by Coyotedancer