Redeeming AE

[Xcillion]

Well for me I am just beyond happy that this game is back.

That said AE imo does not need to be redeemed under any principal.

Yes farms exist and they have had more then a fair share of downgrades from double inf being tossed to what 1 can get from the tickets.

And yes I love farming solo and occasionally bring the odd team in on a good day.

But that doesn't mean I don't enjoy content ether.

I do TF and radio missions. ect.

The common misconception is a farmer is earning real money. For me I farm for fun. I make no profit but I watch the influence grows allowing me to manipulate the markets.

For me farming will never end. Be it AE or finding those missions you can reset like back in the day.

Farmers for the most part *farm* because they enjoy grinding out and seeing what they can make. How the best builds are ect.

 

This being said...

 

I would LOVE to see more community content being made and agree with it being up voted into a real story mission.

Problem is I have never once seen in LFG broadcast general or local *AE Mish Team LF Players to do Community Made Content* or any variant of this since it's release.

Now as to avoid looking for *farm* only mission all 1 need to do is in the ae option select 0 to 4 stars and you will end up with tons of community made content.

Farms however are usual a 5 star and will imply it on the spot.

 

The last thing I would suggest to paragon is to add a checkbox indicating *farm* or *Fan made story* with only 1 being selected. Next get a bunch of testers who are real players who want to test ae missions *and trust me there are lots who would* to try the content out then confirm if *yes it's fan made or farm* then by that choice alone it can be sent out for players who want content and  those who want farms. A signup for AE testers would prevent miss use and prevent huge list of friends from upvoting the wrong content.

This would negate false content for players wanting fan made content.

Another thing I'd implement is if a personal makes say 200million influence in 48 hours off npcs alone. *not trading or selling just pure inf drops* then the purple recipes would no longer drop for said player *using ip as a counter measure for alt accounts* for 3 days. Consider this like a balancing for content players.

 

But the one thing I will make clear is people who farm are still players enjoying the game. Other players may disagree with farmers but as long as they arent breaking the ToS they are still playing the game as it was intended.

 

Lastly... and I can't stress this enough. I am a grinder by nature and as such I love solo farming for influ and drops. Everything said has come from a farmer as well as a long term player back from the old day. as well as a content player.

 

 

 

 

 

[Darmian]

1 hour ago, Xcillion said:

I would LOVE to see more community content being made and agree with it being up voted into a real story mission.

Problem is I have never once seen in LFG broadcast general or local *AE Mish Team LF Players to do Community Made Content* or any variant of this since it's release.

Now as to avoid looking for *farm* only mission all 1 need to do is in the ae option select 0 to 4 stars and you will end up with tons of community made content.

Farms however are usual a 5 star and will imply it on the spot

 

Going to say what I said on a different thread.  I was chatting to a friend in team chat the other day while we were waiting for two people to zone in and she asked me how I was getting on with my AE thing. Cue me telling her a little bit until another team member quizzes me about "how many purps does it drop?" and "what's the best diff to max the XP/inf?" And when I said I literally have no idea because that's not what it's about, they said "why the hell are you bothering? Nobody plays for that stupid reason". (Comments made nicer than they actually were). Rather than get into an argument on the internet I just Lebowski'd it. Now, I'd like to say this is uncommon but it isn't. I see it a lot. Admittedly the farmers I see it from are a minority of you but they are damn loud and opinionated about it. I don't farm. I've tried it and it bored the hell out of me. And my only actual complaint about farming echoes an earlier comment, there's a truckload of fire farms out there, why do people think we need another one? 

As for farms getting 5 stars? Maybe they're a great farm. Perhaps the rating system needs changing if we can't tag an AE as a farm or as SFMA. Stars only a farm can get, stars only story content can get?

Another little thing,  having had a think about my earlier mention of "real" content, all farm makers and farmers know that farms aren't "real" content, and that's fine because that's literally not the point of them. And those of us who prefer SFMA would prefer if it was "real" content. I've played a few that are better than plenty of things actually in the game. 

I am tempted now to stick a call out on LFG using your exact phrase!

We do need more content, there's the makings of it in AE and it should be in the actual game. 

Edited July 27, 2020 by Darmian

[Supertanker]

Moving missions from AE into the "real" game seems unnecessary, just make more use out of the Devs Choice/Hall of Fame tags, or some new "official" designation.

[Crater Kate]

On 7/24/2020 at 5:23 PM, Hyperstrike said:

Not even a little.

I used to be one of the richer players in the game from marketeering.
And there were several people, prominent farmers as well as marketeers who could buy and sell me multiple times over.

Not to harp on this too much, but for a player to have even 2 trillion inf, they would need to have the maximum of 2 billion inf per character, spread across the maximum of 1000 characters per server.

 

Several trillion seems... difficult.

[Nemu]

It's all about marketing. AE farms get marketed a lot on gen chat/LFG, that's why the majority of the population think of AE that way.

 

The majority of the population doesn't have time to read the forums and explore the nuances of game content. A lot of them don't know how to unlock midnighters/base tp/null the gull, they depend on people in game telling them what to do. These people do what's popular and they get all their info in game.

 

I doubt moving good AE arcs to real core game cannon would change anything. People that farm will still farm and people that don't understand how to access game content will still be in the dark. If you want to change the perception of anything in game do it there, not here.

 

It's just like forming teams, instead of lurking and waiting for someone to form a team go advertise the content you endorse. That's how AE farmers do it, that's how you do it if you want to promote good arcs/story content.

 

I do agree with the need for better filters for AE though.

[Eva Destruction]

1 hour ago, Darmian said:

Another little thing,  having had a think about my earlier mention of "real" content, all farm makers and farmers know that farms aren't "real" content, and that's fine because that's literally not the point of them. And those of us who prefer SFMA would prefer if it was "real" content. I've played a few that are better than plenty of things actually in the game. 

 

Not all of us would prefer this.  Keeping player-created missions in the holodeck gives arc creators more flexibility in the kind of stories they want to tell.  I've played more than a few arcs that have nothing to do with the CoH lore and have no place in the game world, but are just as much SFMA and deserve the same level of recognition as stories that do fit into canon.

[srmalloy]

3 hours ago, Twisted Toon said:

Hay, eye ken speel gud wen aye wunt two.

 

Of course, spelling like ^ that takes me about three times as long.

Watt? Ewe don't halve a spilling checquer too make shirr awl yore words arr spilled write?

[Darmian]

1 minute ago, Eva Destruction said:

Not all of us would prefer this.  Keeping player-created missions in the holodeck gives arc creators more flexibility in the kind of stories they want to tell.  I've played more than a few arcs that have nothing to do with the CoH lore and have no place in the game world, but are just as much SFMA and deserve the same level of recognition as stories that do fit into canon.

I've no issues with this at all 😀. Agree 100 per cent. I could have been clearer. Perhaps an additional tag? (Too many already!) Like Canon Focussed Mission Architect? I'm not attempting to demean any non canon AE, I'm simply saying when we have, effectively, no new canon content in game and there are AE authors making such then it seems a win/win to mine the AE for it. 

I've played a good few non canon AE stories and thoroughly enjoyed them. But again, I'm wading through countless farms to find them unfortunately.

[Twisted Toon]

11 minutes ago, srmalloy said:

Watt? Ewe don't halve a spilling checquer too make shirr awl yore words arr spilled write?

I try not to use a spell checker. It makes a little red squiggly under most of my sentences. 😋

[ShardWarrior]

On 7/24/2020 at 8:23 PM, Hyperstrike said:

Not even a little.

I find it a little difficult to believe personally.  With the influence cap, you are talking about people supposedly having hundreds of accounts with max character slots all filled with alts that each have the 2 billion influence cap.  I will believe it when I see it.

[nightroarer]

1 hour ago, Twisted Toon said:

I try not to use a spell checker. It makes a little red squiggly under most of my sentences. 😋

I write fantasy and science fiction. My squigglies threaten to break the spell checker.

[Eva Destruction]

1 hour ago, Darmian said:

I've no issues with this at all 😀. Agree 100 per cent. I could have been clearer. Perhaps an additional tag? (Too many already!) Like Canon Focussed Mission Architect? I'm not attempting to demean any non canon AE, I'm simply saying when we have, effectively, no new canon content in game and there are AE authors making such then it seems a win/win to mine the AE for it. 

I've played a good few non canon AE stories and thoroughly enjoyed them. But again, I'm wading through countless farms to find them unfortunately.

There is already a "canon-related" tag under the advanced search options, as well as a "non-canon" tag.  We have some tools to find the kind of stories we want to play, it's just that those stories are drowned out by the farms. 

Edited July 27, 2020 by Eva Destruction

[Darmian]

1 hour ago, Eva Destruction said:

There is already a "canon-related" tag under the advanced search options, as well as a "non-canon" tag.  We have some tools to find the kind of stories we want to play, it's just that those stories are drowned out by the farms. 

One extra tag in there that allows me to exclude farms would be a nice addition.

[Hyperstrike]

3 hours ago, Crater Kate said:

Not to harp on this too much, but for a player to have even 2 trillion inf, they would need to have the maximum of 2 billion inf per character, spread across the maximum of 1000 characters per server.

 

Several trillion seems... difficult.

Nope.  It could be tied up on the market for certain unbuyable items.
And you could have approximately 50+ slots after the implentation of the cash shop.
At 1.9B x per market slot.  95B+
I spread my inf a bit thinner than that of course.  And I had about half a dozen dedicated "bank" toons.  But I wasn't batting in the T's myself.

And in e-mail.  Though this was more limited since it was global.

[Hyperstrike]

2 hours ago, ShardWarrior said:

I find it a little difficult to believe personally.  With the influence cap, you are talking about people supposedly having hundreds of accounts with max character slots all filled with alts that each have the 2 billion influence cap.  I will believe it when I see it.

You're assuming marketeers and Inf hoarders simply held 2B per character in their personal holding.
No.  You would "bank" it in unbuyable items with zero stock on the market.

And 50 slots gives you LOTS of bankable area.

Granted, for the rare character who had L53 HOs by 2009-2010 could clean up by sniping these.

But no risk, no reward.

[DoctorDitko]

Wow! Never thought of that!

You bid 2 billion for an Iron Will inspiration, which hasn't dropped since Live issue 6 or something, and it's money in the bank!

Very clever. I should have gone into finance instead of sorcery or physics!

 

[Hyperstrike]

3 hours ago, DoctorDitko said:

Wow! Never thought of that!

You bid 2 billion for an Iron Will inspiration, which hasn't dropped since Live issue 6 or something, and it's money in the bank!

Very clever. I should have gone into finance instead of sorcery or physics!

 

Now you're thinking with portals!

I never really recommend dropping the full 2B into anything.

Because you can't recover it if you have Inf onboard already.

Which is why I stuck with 1.9B.  Nice roundish number and gives me plenty of space in case I have pre-existing bank.

Edited July 28, 2020 by Hyperstrike

[Xanatos]

Putting an AE contact / mission entry point into SG bases would be cool.

 

Could potentially allow for player-made zones.

[ShardWarrior]

12 hours ago, Hyperstrike said:

You're assuming marketeers and Inf hoarders simply held 2B per character in their personal holding.
No.  You would "bank" it in unbuyable items with zero stock on the market.

I still find it very difficult to believe there were people with "trillions" of influence.  As I said, I will believe it when I see it.  Even the inf selling sites back in the day did not have those kinds of funds.

Edited July 28, 2020 by ShardWarrior

[Yomo Kimyata]

16 hours ago, Crater Kate said:

Not to harp on this too much, but for a player to have even 2 trillion inf, they would need to have the maximum of 2 billion inf per character, spread across the maximum of 1000 characters per server.

 

Several trillion seems... difficult.

There are certainly ways around it, the two easiest being to send yourself a global name email for up to 999,999,999 each (not sure what the upper limit is on emails either in Live or HC) or to bid up to 2bn on items that don't currently exist (like lvl 53 Hammi-Os in HC, I don't remember on Live).  

 

I can't speak for Live, but it is certainly *possible* that someone has amassed a trillion inf in HC by now.  But I doubt it.  

[Hyperstrike]

1 hour ago, ShardWarrior said:

I still find it very difficult to believe there were people with "trillions" of influence.  As I said, I will believe it when I see it.  Even the inf selling sites back in the day did not have those kinds of funds.

That's fine.  You're allowed your skepticism.

[skoryy]

Hyper talking about trillions in the bank convinced me to go back to my old marketing spreadsheets from 2012.  Orange salvage was 1.8 million a pop, certain commons and yellows could go up to 25k depending on how popular they were.  Orange recipes starting at 6 million.  Purple recipes going for 50 to 70 million each.  Wish I had these sheets labeled so I could remember which IO was what, but man.  

Edited July 28, 2020 by skoryy

[golstat2003]

2 hours ago, ShardWarrior said:

I still find it very difficult to believe there were people with "trillions" of influence.  As I said, I will believe it when I see it.  Even the inf selling sites back in the day did not have those kinds of funds.

I don't find it difficult to believe at all. Especially for folks who had 50s since early issue 3, BEFORE IOs. And has been said that's a lot of marketing slots to put your inf into, if you have multiple alts. By end of live, I had 75 level 50s and 30-32 lower level toons who were into marketing. And I wasn't one of the folks who had max altities. 😛

[golstat2003]

7 minutes ago, skoryy said:

Hyper talking about trillions in the bank convinced me to go back to my old marketing spreadsheets from 2012.  Orange salvage was 1.8 million a pop, certain commons and yellows could go up to 25k depending on how popular they were.  Orange recipes starting at 6 million.  Purple recipes going for 50 to 70 million each.  Wish I had these sheets labeled so I could remember which IO was what, but man.  

Also this. The prices on live were ridiculous compared to what we have now. An LOTG +7.5% recharge IO was 100 mil consistently. Purples were also 100 mill. Some PVP IOs were easily 800 mil or more (and I knew of several folks with the stones to flip those!) 

 

In comparison an LOTG has been max 7 mill here on HC for months. With pvp and purple IOs being in the 20-30 mil range. (With some pvp IOs being even less).

 

Keep that in mind.

 

And farming and marketeering was probably more rampant on live than it was here.

Edited July 28, 2020 by golstat2003

[Hyperstrike]

20 minutes ago, golstat2003 said:

And farming and marketeering was probably more rampant on live than it was here.

Probably...

*SNERK*