Weekly Discussion 59: Veteran Level Rewards

[Zombie Hustler]

I'm fine with the rewards as is, although I must say that I do kind of miss the old Veterans reward "tree" from live.

[QuiJon]

30 minutes ago, Eva Destruction said:

Except you get threads from everything, so you will, in fact be able to get all your Incarnate powers to T4 around vet level 50 even if you never set foot in incarnate content.  I know this because I've done it, just to see how long it would take.  (I did use shards and notices for some of the Alpha slot, because they're going to drop anyway so you might as well.)

Well this is not true in my experience but who knows, i dont mess with shards beyond using them on alpha slots and wells i have not kept track of. The only toons i have i know i can reference is my farming toon. She is level 93, has never been anything but an AE farm toon. I didnt even craft a lore power at all, and the other 5 are only t3s because i figured screw it she seems fine and used EM for other things. 

 

At 93 she currently has 3675 threads. So considering i have only used about 200 threads to get t3s per power for only 5 powers, that is 1000 threads. Which means i maybe earned 4675 divided by 93 is about 50 threads per level between the drops AND the ones granted off the early vet levels. Which means on average i earned about 2500 threads by level 50 which is not enough to finish the t4s. 

 

Grant this is all based on RNG for drops which can vary. Which is why i said boosting the EMs awarded means that you for sure will get your incarnates done by level 50 no matter what, and if you happen to complete them sooner well then EMs can be transfered or used for other things like reward merits for purples or winter IOs and such like that. And if you do end up with more threads then you need because of drops well how is that then any different then now when you keep playing a toon and have 3k threads that are going to waste just sitting there?

[Katharos]

I had to check through to make sure he hadn't posted this already, but I think @Veracor had some important thoughts on vet levels and recent-ish changes that has yet to be addressed anywhere: 

 

Quote

And RIP me, the only reason I'm so far ahead in vet levels is because I never turned off inf and just always played the game that way.  If there's no reason to turn off XP anymore, AFK farmers are going to shoot way past and invalidate the concept of vet levels for everyone.
...

I get that you want to reduce the gap between farmers and non-farmers and make an option in the menus function as was originally intended, but you don't have to shoot down the accomplishments of the non-farmers and the gains of active farmers in the process; instead you could reduce the excessively high payout of AFK farming, or make huge experience/vet levels not a thing in AE, or similar.

 

Non-farmers accomplishing things in a game is healthy.  Active farmers making more money in a game is healthy.  But AFK farming is a strict detriment to the game in my opinion, just like botting is in other games.  Please don't address the inequality issue with the blanket solution of simply disabling the menu function (as it is currently used).

 If it's not clear, Veracor here is pointing out that by disabling double inf for turning off xp, the part of veteran levels that feels like a personal accomplishment, an emotional journey, becomes obsolete. Farmers are no longer incentivised to turn off xp gain past a certain vet level. He's correctly concerned that in not too terribly long here, people who perpetually AFK farm are going to advance and surpass his veteran levels - which is, blatantly, unfair. Veracor's veteran levels were gotten for running in game content for an entire server for nearly a year without a break. They're certainly not the equivalent of someone who's just really good at logging in and putting themselves inside an AE with a bunch of patrols every day, letting the damage aura do all the work. And clearly, part of the point of veteran levels was simply for pride, to elicit a feeling of personal accomplishment. That's why the person with the most veteran levels is tracked and reported on every month we release statistics. That's why we associate badges with them. That's why they're visible to every and anyone who looks at your character's personal info.

 

I'm not sure what the fix is. Perhaps AE not awarding xp past veteran level 99. Something.

Edited July 14, 2020 by Katharos

[Myrmidon]

3 minutes ago, Katharos said:

 

I'm not sure what the fix is. Perhaps AE not awarding xp past veteran level 99. Something.

While I believe that AE should give no rewards unless an arc is flagged as Dev’s Choice, this would be an acceptable compromise.

[Saikochoro]

12 minutes ago, Katharos said:

I had to check through to make sure he hadn't posted this already, but I think @Veracor had some important thoughts on vet levels and recent-ish changes that has yet to be addressed anywhere: 

 

 If it's not clear, Veracor here is pointing out that by disabling double inf for turning off xp, the part of veteran levels that feels like a personal accomplishment, an emotional journey, becomes obsolete. Farmers are no longer incentivised to turn off xp gain past a certain vet level. He's correctly concerned that in not too terribly long here, people who perpetually AFK farm are going to advance and surpass his veteran levels - which is, blatantly, unfair. Veracor's veteran levels were gotten for running in game content for an entire server for nearly a year without a break. They're certainly not the equivalent of someone who's just really good at logging in and putting themselves inside an AE with a bunch of patrols every day, letting the damage aura do all the work. And clearly, part of the point of veteran levels was simply for pride, to elicit a feeling of personal accomplishment. That's why the person with the most veteran levels is tracked and reported on every month we release statistics. That's why we associate badges with them. That's why they're visible to every and anyone who looks at your character's personal info.

 

I'm not sure what the fix is. Perhaps AE not awarding xp past veteran level 99. Something.

I disagree with this completely. One method of play is not more valid than a different method of play. You can’t say that there isn’t a farmer that honestly just enjoys farming and thus plays that way all the time. That person reaching a super high vet level is every bit as valid as someone playing story content to the same vet level.  
 

In fact, I think it selfish to claim that other play styles are not valid and thus shouldn't be able to have the same achievements as others.  One is not better than the other. One does not invalidate the other.  If both methods play 5000 hours and reach an insane vet level, then both are equally deserving of said vet level. This is true for all play styles. 

[Katharos]

5 minutes ago, Saikochoro said:

I disagree with this completely. One method of play is not more valid than a different method of play. You can’t say that there isn’t a farmer that honestly just enjoys farming and thus plays that way all the time. That person reaching a super high vet level is every bit as valid as someone playing story content to the same vet level.  
 

In fact, I think it selfish to claim that other play styles are not valid and thus shouldn't be able to have the same achievements as others.  One is not better than the other. One does not invalidate the other.  If both methods play 5000 hours and reach an insane vet level, then both are equally deserving of said vet level. This is true for all play styles. 

Normally, I'm of this opinion as well, but if you read both Veracor's stated opinion and my own, the particular "playstyle" that's being critiqued is AFK farming. Which is quite literally the opposite of play and style. There's no virtue in standing at the door of the meteor map and waiting for damage auras to kill NPCs. It's not an achievement. It's literally not playing the game, by definition. 

Edited July 14, 2020 by Katharos

[Bill Z Bubba]

1 minute ago, Katharos said:

Normally, I'm of this opinion as well, but if you read both Veracor's stated opinion and my own, the particular "playstyle" that's being critiqued is AFK farming. Which is quite literally the opposite of play and style. There's not virtue in standing at the door of the meteor map and waiting for damage auras to kill NPCs. It's not an achievement. It's literally not playing the game, by definition. 

Which is why all my farming to PL new alts is hands on. I get the same cathartic relaxation clearing Brigg's farm as I do soloing an ITF or hammering out DA repeatables.

 

Hmmm.... might say something about my mental state when slaughtering enemies by the thousands brings peace to my mind.

[Saikochoro]

23 minutes ago, Katharos said:

Normally, I'm of this opinion as well, but if you read both Veracor's stated opinion and my own, the particular "playstyle" that's being critiqued is AFK farming. Which is quite literally the opposite of play and style. There's not virtue in standing at the door of the meteor map and waiting for damage auras to kill NPCs. It's not an achievement. It's literally not playing the game, by definition. 

There is no way to distinguish afk farming versus active farming. I think if there was a way the devs would have already done something to eliminate afk farming. Anything done to punish afk farmers will harm active farmers.  Unless the devs figure out a way to separate the two, then nothing should be done to harm it. 
 

As I said, farming is a legitimate play style and thus has every right to all rewards same as other play styles. 
 

I’m not saying I condone afk farming. I’m just saying there is not a good solution to it without harming a legitimate play style. 
 

They could nerf IOs so that people must take active care to not die. That would be harmful to all play styles.  They could nerf farming rewards, but as seen in the most recent nerf it affects all players not just farmers. They could nerf AE even further than they have, but again that would harm more than just farmers. 
 

The devs may have something cooking, but they have expressly stated that farming is valid. They probably won’t nerf AE further. And I highly doubt they will kill IOs. Like I said no good solution. 
 

The fact is, most anything can be “abused” to do something that may not have been intended.  In some cases those loopholes can be fixed, but in other cases they can’t easily be fixed without harming something they don’t want to change. Thus sometimes you have to take the bad with the good. 
 

The point is, people who play story content to vet level 10,000 still get all the rewards of the vet level. Just because another person may have it as well is irrelevant. 
 

To me it’s like a person in first class on a flight upset because someone else lucked out and got bumped up to first class. The person still gets to be in first class with all its luxury. They shouldn’t base their satisfaction on knowing that everyone else is in coach. 

Edited July 14, 2020 by Saikochoro

[Katharos]

8 minutes ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

Which is why all my farming to PL new alts is hands on. I get the same cathartic relaxation clearing Brigg's farm as I do soloing an ITF or hammering out DA repeatables.

 

Hmmm.... might say something about my mental state when slaughtering enemies by the thousands brings peace to my mind.

Frankly, Briggs' farms have better writing than ITF. 😛

 

5 minutes ago, Saikochoro said:

There is no way to distinguish afk farming versus active farming. I think if there was a way the devs would have already done something to eliminate afk farming. Anything done to punish afk farmers will harm active farmers.  Unless the devs figure out a way to separate the two, then nothing should be done to harm it. 
 

As I said, farming is a legitimate play style and thus has every right to all rewards same as other play styles. 

I'm not going to change the topic of a discussion that's supposed to be about veteran levels to purely farming, but this doesn't seem like a particular response to anything I said and instead seems more like a blanket response to general concerns about farming. Which is fair, I get the dialogue about them has been bitter. I'm going to leave it at that for fear of too much seguing. 🙂

[arcane]

On 7/13/2020 at 9:22 AM, Apparition said:

This is just pie in the sky wishful thinking, but I would like to see Incarnate threads and Empyrean merits removed from veteran levels.  It makes Incarnate abilities too easy to come by and leads to many saying that the game “is too easy.”

Necessitating god knows how many additional hours of farming to achieve the exact same effect =/= making the game harder. At least not in a good or fun way.

 

If incarnates are a problem, the problem is with the stats being too good, not the work being too easy.

Edited July 14, 2020 by arcaneholocaust

[Xanatos]

AFK Farming  hurts nothing other than the pride of those players who weirdly see vet levels as some sort of accomplishment.

 

Vet levels are not accomplishments. Once you've used them to unlock incarnates, vet levels are just an indicator of how often you play a character at 50, nothing more.

[SuperPlyx]

1 hour ago, QuiJon said:

At 93 she currently has 3675 threads. So considering i have only used about 200 threads to get t3s per power for only 5 powers, that is 1000 threads. Which means i maybe earned 4675 divided by 93 is about 50 threads per level between the drops AND the ones granted off the early vet levels. Which means on average i earned about 2500 threads by level 50 which is not enough to finish the t4s. 

Something is not right here.

I have a farmer that has never done anything but AE farm and I got it to t4 on all 5 incarnates around vet level 35ish. This is using the vet level emp merits as well.

Edited July 14, 2020 by SuperPlyx
grammar is hard

[kiramon]

1 hour ago, SuperPlyx said:

Something is not right here.

I have a farmer that has never done anything but AE farm and I got it to t4 on all 5 incarnates around vet level 35ish. This is using the vet level emp merits as well.

 

Vet level 35 seems early, but I definitely had all at t4 in the 90s (which is where I was when the exp off fix was implemented).

 

My farmer is at like 381 now but has 3 t4s for Lore... 😕

 

[QuiJon]

3 hours ago, SuperPlyx said:

Something is not right here.

I have a farmer that has never done anything but AE farm and I got it to t4 on all 5 incarnates around vet level 35ish. This is using the vet level emp merits as well.

I think you are just mistaken at how long it took you. Like i said being a farmer i used only what i was earning in the AE. Which came from level rewards and possible drops. So absolutely no rewards from Itrials at all. I bought all common and uncommon with threads and all rare and very rare with EMs. 

 

You dont even earn enough EMs off vet leveling until level 48 to cover the cost of all of your rare and very rare needs. But even so, if you say it is possible now, which i doubt kind of then what is the problem with making it a sure thing and coming up with other rewards past level 50 for the vet leveling like a winter pack, hero pack or purple recipe or something like that which doesnt cap out every 3 levels?

[SuperPlyx]

@QuiJon Yeah I was mistaken on what level I had to get to get all the t4 ,apologies ...but I know I got all the t4 before 99

[Veracor]

Since it seems I'm getting pinged, I'd like to clarify that the reason the xp change annoys me is because I have literally led about 700 Hamidon raids, 650 iTrial badge runs, and approaching 300 "Master of" TF runs on Homecoming, for no reason other than to help community members get familiar with iTrials, to help them get the harder badges, and in general to encourage people to team up and make friends.  This is what I pride myself in: the community we have built.  My 2700 vet levels are simply an amusing side effect of running so much content for people as regularly as I can manage, and are the closest thing to a metric I have for how long I have been at this.

 

That said, I admit that my personal opinion of AE farming has been quite negative for a long time.  The majority of firefarmers that join my raids are usually toxic to others and don't follow instructions, and often try to sneak in leech accounts to the Hamidon raids and lock out legitimate players.  AFK farming is merely one step removed from full-on automation and there's an alarming number of reddit and non-HC forum posters who publicly admit to breaking the ToS and running bot farms on Homecoming.  As pointless as vet levels may be for everyone including myself, I do not enjoy the thought of their integrity (or any other feature in this game) being lost to such practices.  Hence, I'd love to see adjustments or a rework made to decouple incarnate rewards from vet levels, or AE xp gain changes or similar, in order to make such damage mechanically impossible.  The positive firefarmers I know wouldn't mind changes being made, and often advocate for them when the topic is discussed in league or discord.

 

Hopefully this clears up what I was pinged about as well as why I even have a strong stance on the subject.

Edited July 15, 2020 by Veracor

[Lockpick]

I have been making suggestions about ways to improve Vet Levels, but it seems this thread is getting hijacked by AE Farming, so thought I would throw out other suggestions that I believe would be good for the vet level system.

• Dev Choice AE missions should be allowed to earn standard rewards including Vet Levels
• All other AE content should offer only AE rewards and should not reward Vet Levels
• AE content should cap the amount of XP and Influence that can be earned in a 24 hour period similar to how some content caps rewards (SSA and Hami come to mind)

[Nemu]

Vet rewards help farmers and casual players alike. I know many people in my coalition that don't farm, they don't even know where to even begin making IO builds let alone min/maxing, they are reluctant to do Apex/Tiin because it's always speed and they can't keep up and die often, they don't do a lot of itrials because they are timid and they don't know what to do and they really don't want to invest the time to learn. The only assured way they can T3/4 their incarnates is through vet rewards. Stripping vet rewards would hurt that demographic the most as the end game will become even more of a grind for them.

 

Many of us have conscious or unconscious bias towards farming but that should not be the only basis for our arguments for or against vet rewards. People play this game because they enjoy this game, farmers and casuals alike, and surely we can suggest something that helps everyone.

 

Also, I'm still pushing for null the gull's temp power at vet level 9999. For the crazy badge hunters out there give it a badge "Gullified" or "OmnipoGULLLL!!!!"

[arcane]

1 hour ago, Lockpick said:

I have been making suggestions about ways to improve Vet Levels, but it seems this thread is getting hijacked by AE Farming, so thought I would throw out other suggestions that I believe would be good for the vet level system.

• Dev Choice AE missions should be allowed to earn standard rewards including Vet Levels
• All other AE content should offer only AE rewards and should not reward Vet Levels
• AE content should cap the amount of XP and Influence that can be earned in a 24 hour period similar to how some content caps rewards (SSA and Hami come to mind)

Why?

[arcane]

Anyway, my only comment here is a +1 to please give us something not entirely useless after 99. Anything.

[Lockpick]

33 minutes ago, arcaneholocaust said:

Why?

To prevent AFK farmers from receiving vet rewards.  If some of the reward suggestions I and others have offered for vet levels are implemented it would be wise to make sure those rewards are earned through game play and not exploits.

[Coyotedancer]

And to hell with it if those of us who are active-only farmers also get tossed out in the process, too, I guess...

 

 

Edited July 15, 2020 by Coyotedancer

[Bill Z Bubba]

23 minutes ago, Coyotedancer said:

And to hell with it if those of us who are active-only farmers also get tossed out in the process, too, I guess...

I'm unsure how much longer it takes me to get a new alt from 1 to 38 with it door sitting while I farm DA repeatables at max diff with BZB Scrap... I should test that.

I know it only takes me 7 maps of the fire farm. 45 mins or so.

I suspect with all the extra travel involved, my WAG would be around 2 hours to 38.

[arcane]

52 minutes ago, Lockpick said:

To prevent AFK farmers from receiving vet rewards.  If some of the reward suggestions I and others have offered for vet levels are implemented it would be wise to make sure those rewards are earned through game play and not exploits.

These measures punish far more than AFK farmers. Again, why?

 

Personally, not only do I actively farm the content you are promoting nerfs for, but I even have a tendency to load up these types of missions up on non-farm characters for casual xp. 

Edited July 15, 2020 by arcaneholocaust

[Coyotedancer]

24 minutes ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

I'm unsure how much longer it takes me to get a new alt from 1 to 38 with it door sitting while I farm DA repeatables at max diff with BZB Scrap... I should test that.

I know it only takes me 7 maps of the fire farm. 45 mins or so.

I suspect with all the extra travel involved, my WAG would be around 2 hours to 38.

Having tossed a fair few of mine into Briggs' and Cult's farm maps with Harry at this point... It takes me on average about that same amount of time (a bit over 30 minutes-) to get one of my newbies into the mid-30's. I may have to make someone new just to see how long it takes doing DA arcs with Semnai (Broadsword brute. Not specifically a farm build, but tough enough to do DA on +4/x8 solo) as a comparison. I suspect it'll be a heck of a lot slower, just based on what it took using her to level Harry himself.

 

Anyway, the idea upthread bothers me for more than just "taking longer to kickstart new members of my crew"-reasons. Ticket limits in AE are pretty low and you'll hit the max award cap pretty  early on in the average farm map... which in turn limits the potential rolls for recipes and salvage bits you come out with UNLESS you stop several times in the course of a run to go out and trade in all of your tickets. I suspect that a lot of us who are farming just for the fun of it won't bother to do that. Which means less goodies to throw on Wentworths when we're done.

 

The market stocks will take a hit with fewer of us selling off all that stuff we currently get for beating up the cosplayers, or the demons or what-have-you.

That's not a small issue, and one that I think some of these "NERF *ALL THE FARMERS*!"-type suggestions either gloss over or just don't consider in the first place.

 

None of which really touches on Vet Levels and the rewards for them... but-

 

Anyway, for those of you on the Anti-Farm League, do keep in mind that not all of us are AFKs.  You may not like the way we play, or the parts of the game we engage with, but active farmers *are* absolutely playing the game. Why shouldn't we get the vet rewards for doing that? Rather we're bashing cosplayers in AE or farming "old school"-style and taking on Harvey's Praetorian demons and the goons on Council Earth we're out there furiously mashing just a many buttons as anyone else. XD

 

 

Edited July 15, 2020 by Coyotedancer