Controversial Opinion of Population Decline

[Croax]

In my Opinion the population is declining because of Regen.

If you want people to come back and stay here:

 

NERF REGEN!

[nihilii]

Pretty much 99% of my leveling is done through farming these days, and even AFK farming at that. Yet for the life of me I can't understand the arguments self-professed powerlevelers put forward.

 

"If people like powerleveling then it's good for the game"... Hmm. You can like something at a given moment without that thing being good in the long run.

There's an easy real world parallel: drugs. Whether performance enhancing drugs, or mind-altering one. Feels nice in the moment, but abuse it and you risk breaking your body years down the line, or burning down your pleasure receptors, or what have you.

 

Or heck, let's compare farming to... farming. In real life you can have your backyard garden with a few square meters of potatoes and tomatoes growing happily (leveling normally in CoH). Or you can have giant monocultures of avocados spanning kilometers, draining water, ruining the ecosystem and hurting the entire planet (PLing).

 

The basic gameplay loop of games like City of Heroes, video game action RPGs that is, is you get experience points -> you level up -> you win higher stats or new abilities -> you get xp -> you lvl up -> ... and so on. The faster you spin the wheel, the sooner you exhaust all possible rewards.

The existence of people who stay engaged with the game despite farming (like me!) doesn't mean everyone is like that. It's a pretty egocentrical perspective. Forums are biaised with people who still enjoy the game. Players who left are not here to say why they left.

 

Likewise, it doesn't matter if you're the nicest guy ever outside of your farming. The CEO of monoculture farms may be giving to charities, the professional athlete jacked with steroids could be meeting with impoverished children; these are drops in the water, compared to the overall momentum their main bad behavior encourages. We're social critters, our actions don't happen in a vacuum. Monkey sees 5-6 rad/fire brutes in Atlas Park AE, monkey makes his own rad/fire farm brute.

 

Thankfully, in CoH the most important consequences are limited to player boredom and lessened availability for teaming. But these consequences exist and pretending they don't seems strange.

[Gulbasaur]

5 minutes ago, nihilii said:

Pretty much 99% of my leveling is done through farming these days, and even AFK farming at that. Yet for the life of me I can't understand the arguments self-professed powerlevelers put forward.

Other way round for me, interestingly. I started off trying to farm etc but it's so unnecessary. Early-mid game missions are where the actual challenge lies (before you get too overpowered).

[UltraAlt]

On 11/4/2020 at 1:22 AM, madicen said:

Hmm, im a power leveler who has been here since day one. What does that make me? 

 A corruptor?

Day one of what?

Did you start playing the first day of City of Heroes original release and start powerleveling people or being power-leveled the first day the game was released?

[UltraAlt]

9 hours ago, MTeague said:

If some players prove to be flash-in-a-pan and gone, that's their choice.

And, when it comes down to it, in a world of F2P games, there is always something shiny over there.

I don't think most F2P players stick with any game. They just jump around to what they think is cool or hip at the moment.]

As soon as they get bored they move on.

 

One of the things that leveling does is reward you with that ding. That ding. Everyone wants to ding.

 

When someone on is power-leveled all those dings of accomplishment are taken away from them. Sure. They still ding a bunch of times really quickly, but, if they are say, sitting at a door in a farm and eating breakfast in the other room, they don't even hear the dinging. Then they are the world of incarnates.

 

I have to say the incarnate system is one of the worst concepts introduced to City of Heroes. As a tack-on, endgame system, it could have very well have been given its own power-management window that worked the same as the first 50 levels with salvage and it's own kind of recipes/enhancements as the rest of the game. But that is not the case. It's a cumbersome mess.

 

And that is what new players that are power levelled get thrown into. They don't have a grasp of their first 50 levels of powers, and now they are thrown into the mess that the Incarnate system is.

 

Some of the want to rush to the end-game is to have someone game with. Some of it is because some feel that they are LEET ("I can defeat +8, 8 missions all by myself!).

 

The fact is there would be more people to game with at the lower levels if players didn't power level past them.

 

Just because the content is a lower level, does not mean that it isn't challenging for a player nor that it isn't a good story.

The higher stuff is just different and relevant to that level - the same as the lower level content.

 

I remember when the game first came out, you didn't get the good travel powers until level 14. You really had to be careful moving around THE CITY.

When you first encountered a new supervillain group, they would kick your butt. But feeling then you leveled up (getting those dings) and finally being able to turn the tables on them! Yeah, that's a heroic feeling because it is the hero's journey.

 

Powerleveling is not the hero's journey. It is bypassing the hero's journey to get to the end of the story. "End"-game.

The End.

 

I have no more to say. Have a good day. I'm going to play.

[DSorrow]

4 hours ago, UltraAlt said:

The point is that it appears that the group of people that stay because of powerleveling in the game is below the number of people that don't stay because they were power-leveled.

I think this is pretty wild conjecture. I don't think people leave because they were power leveled, people leave because they find the gameplay / content less interesting than some other activity they could be doing with their free time. If the gameplay loop can keep them attached, then powerleveling doesn't make them leave and can even make them stay (see some replies in this thread). If the leveling up gameplay loop doesn't cut it, then surely removing effective ways of avoiding it doesn't make them stay.

[DR_Mechano]

Rather annoyed my fun discussion with people about how 'content' is a nebulous term got deleted, seems like all my posts after the first one got removed...I mean you could have just edited or removed the offending post since it was literally just TWO posts that needed to be removed (even then it was friendly enough and we'd all moved on), the rest were harmless discussion.

 

Anyway, griping aside it has been pretty obvious that the lack of content over the past 6-8 months is probably the major contributing factor as to why numbers have gone down. The content drought is understandable, we've been hit by a world wide pandemic that hasn't been a thing for several generations (My grandma can remember Tuberculosis sweeping through streets and cities here in the UK, taking out large chunks of the neighborhood so she was really the last generation to deal with something on this scale). The HC devs have been busy dealing with their own lives.

 

The other ourodev servers have used their time to add things like costume pieces, new (kind of janky IMO) powersets, Mastermind Pet Customization BUT the problem they have is that it's effectively building a house of cards on a wobbly table. Without the backened work that the HC devs have put in, eventually they're going to have to worry about when 32 bit is nolonger viable as support for it stops and essentially rejig their servers to 64 bit BUT with all the addons ontop and who knows how that will interact with upgrading to 64 bit.

 

However, as I stated in a deleted post, my own worry is that the 'balancing' work is seemingly never-ending, there's SOOOO much stuff that needs rebalancing or reworking (Rage, various underperforming powersets like Assault Rifle on...well...everyone that gets it, Bio Armor needs a retweek, Regen needs to be looked at and rebuffed so it's not a joke, Sentinels need (as said by the devs themselves) a major overhaul because currently they're largely ignored due to the entire AT underperforming and as such not being very popular) that if the devs constantly focus on rebalancing and powerset tweaks, we're never going to see the 'fun' stuff focused on.

[roleki]

6 hours ago, UltraAlt said:

why is that?

 

I have over 60 characters. I don't powerlevel, and I'm still playing.

I don't understand why having multiple characters requires you to powerlevel.

Okay. And the reason that you do all of that is entirely because of being able to powerlevel and/or farm.

 

I don't keep track of my marketing like you have. Conservatively, I would guess at this point that I have crafted and sold over 20k enhancements (I would say more likely to be well over 50k to be honest, but I don't keep track. I just churn the things out.) I sell other stuff, but I don't keep track. I too help people on the help channel and in looking for group. I haven't hit a donation window due to timing, but I am unsure how powerleveling relates donations.

 

None of these things show that power-leveling retains players. Donating show that you are more likely to continue playing but that is different than saying that people that power level are more likely to continue playing.

 

So I have no reason to read your post further as it is purely defensive.

My apologies. I didn't realize I was replying to a goal-post mover who would wimp out and stop reading if they didn't agree with what I said.

 

In small words, the ability to power level my characters enables me to skip the content of the game I do not prefer and head right to the content of the game that I do prefer, with a character that performs exactly how I envisioned it from the moment I finish the build. 

 

Some people may have a preference for the little dopamine spikes they get from incremental progress, I do not.  If I had to nurse every character through content, I would not continue playing because I do not enjoy that experience. 

 

But... I also do not enjoy spending time shitting on people for playing a game "the wrong way" or blaming them for the natural ebb and flow of the attention span of the world at large, which is apparently a very strong urge among people who enjoy slogging.  

 

Bottom line, if the devs continue to play around with AE to mollify serial squealers, you can count on at least one less player logging in. 

 

If the game is losing players, farmers aren't the problem. 

 

If people are drifting off to play other games, power-leveling is not the problem.

 

If a single dev out there had the answer to achieving 100% retention on a damn-near 20yo game, they probably wouldn't waste it on a damn-near 20yo game.  

[Darmian]

2 minutes ago, roleki said:

Bottom line, if the devs continue to play around with AE to mollify serial squealers, you can count on at least one less player logging in. 

Can you clarify what this means please?

[Solarverse]

45 minutes ago, DR_Mechano said:

Rather annoyed my fun discussion with people about how 'content' is a nebulous term got deleted, seems like all my posts after the first one got removed...I mean you could have just edited or removed the offending post since it was literally just TWO posts that needed to be removed (even then it was friendly enough and we'd all moved on), the rest were harmless discussion.

 

 

 

The GM's watching this thread understand that this is a very thin ice topic. So you will have to forgive them in this case because they are trying to keep this topic available without shutting it down all together, which also means they are going to be diligent about keeping this thread clean. I appreciate them for it, I wouldn't take it personal, they are just being cautious on this thread.

 

45 minutes ago, DR_Mechano said:

However, as I stated in a deleted post, my own worry is that the 'balancing' work is seemingly never-ending, there's SOOOO much stuff that needs rebalancing or reworking (Rage, various underperforming powersets like Assault Rifle on...well...everyone that gets it, Bio Armor needs a retweek, Regen needs to be looked at and rebuffed so it's not a joke, Sentinels need (as said by the devs themselves) a major overhaul because currently they're largely ignored due to the entire AT underperforming and as such not being very popular) that if the devs constantly focus on rebalancing and powerset tweaks, we're never going to see the 'fun' stuff focused on.

 

The problem with balancing in this game, especially now, is that nobody can agree on anything. Players have been at each others throats over balancing requests and ideas on these forums. No matter what your suggestion, it becomes World War 3. I'm sure that the players being unable to agree on anything is probably making balancing more of a headache than it is worth for the Devs, because they simply just can't make people happy...even after they have bent over backwards to do so. IE the Energy Melee changes. Some people wanted the original ET, some people wanted to keep it as is. So the Devs brilliantly found a way to give players both....what happened? Players complained about that too. I would hate to be a Dev in charge of balancing in this game. Gamers, including myself, can be some of the most hard to please crowd out there. We are worse than self entitled, rude and demanding McDonald's customers. The difference here is, we are getting something for free and still act like this! 😄

[Solarverse]

I would just like to reiterate that nobody is asking for power leveling to end. This thread is a plea to anyone left playing that if they get bored of the game and all they do is PL to 50 and play end game content, to please give lower level content a try before running off. If you are still bored after that, by all means, see you next update.

Having said that, one argument I have seen (can't remember who said it, it was a few pages back) is that they don't play lower level content because they have already played all of the lower level content and this was their reason for PLing to level 50. What strikes me as odd with that is two things; they instead play the same end game content so many times they grow bored with the game, even though they have already played the end game content just the same as they have played the lower level content, and now that we are getting brand new lower level content, I seen at least one person say how much they don't understand why the Devs would create lower level content.

It seems to me that the Devs creating lower level content would give players (who don't play lower level content because they have already played it all) an actual reason to level up without power leveling, since now they have brand new lower level content.

Here is another question that I am curious about...so please, help me understand, the logical part of my brain honestly can't find any logic in what I have seen, but can somebody explain to me why you would want to PL to level 50 and then turn around and run Positron through Numina? Why not just run those Task Forces as you level and then after you get your Task Force Commander badge, THEN Power Level the rest of the way? It makes more sense to me to do it that way, especially since if you want that Accolade you are going to have to run them anyway, right? That would help with players wanting to run those Task Forces on +0 because now they are not only doing it for the badges, but they are running them for the fast XP too. Kind of a win/win, right?

And that is not a stab at anyone, it is just my logical mind trying to convey the most perceived logical way to run Task Forces, even if you prefer to PL to 50. Just seems to make more sense in my mind to do it that way rather than PL to 50 and then go back and have to run it anyway. At least this way you end up spending the same amount of time in the Task Forces, but you actually spend less time farming, but the end result is exactly the same.

Honest question, this is not a stab at anyone, I just want to understand is all.

Edited November 5, 2020 by Solarverse

[Darmian]

2 minutes ago, Solarverse said:

Here is another question that I am curious about...so please,l help me understand, the logical part of my brain honestly can't find any logic in what I have seen, but can somebody explain to me why you would want to PL to level 50 and then turn around and run Positron through Numina? Why not just run those Task Forces as you level and then after you get your Task Force Commander badge, THEN Power Level the rest of the way? It makes more sense to me to do it that way, especially since if you want that Accolade you are going to have to run them anyway, right? That would help with players wanting to run those Task Forces on +0 because now they are not only doing it for the badges, but they are running them for the fast XP too. Kind of a win/win, right?

I don't do it but a friend does, and their reasoning is sure, I'm exemped down but I still have the extra inspirations to drop, the enhancements are still firing passively better than if I was actually (insert true level) and I get to enjoy it more without just dying constantly.  For me the dying is part of the game, but different strokes and all that.

[Solarverse]

Just now, Darmian said:

I don't do it but a friend does, and their reasoning is sure, I'm exemped down but I still have the extra inspirations to drop, the enhancements are still firing passively better than if I was actually (insert true level) and I get to enjoy it more without just dying constantly.  For me the dying is part of the game, but different strokes and all that.

I suppose, however I always run them with normal DO's or even SO's and get through them fine. I personally feel running them with a fully IOed out build with set bonuses and such is just overkill. But yeah, I hear you, to each their own and different strokes and all.

[madicen]

3 hours ago, UltraAlt said:

 A corruptor?

Day one of what?

Did you start playing the first day of City of Heroes original release and start powerleveling people or being power-leveled the first day the game was released?

Actually I played beta. Back then and after release we PL'd people in Brickstown, with Fire/Kins, when the cap was 40. Any more questions?

[Solarverse]

Just now, madicen said:

Actually I played beta. Back then and after release we PL'd people in Brickstown, with Fire/Kins, when the cap was 40. Any more questions?

Fire/Kins were PLing people before the cap was level 40? I honestly do not remember that. I remember Fire Trollers having more pets back then, but I don't recall them PLing in those days. Curious, how were they pulling that off? The mechanics back then were way different, I just can't see a Fire/Kin surviving in those days to be able to PL anybody. I'm not calling you a liar, I just wish I had seen that for myself. That would have been interesting to watch.

[DSorrow]

7 minutes ago, Solarverse said:

Here is another question that I am curious about...so please,l help me understand, the logical part of my brain honestly can't find any logic in what I have seen, but can somebody explain to me why you would want to PL to level 50 and then turn around and run Positron through Numina? Why not just run those Task Forces as you level and then after you get your Task Force Commander badge, THEN Power Level the rest of the way? It makes more sense to me to do it that way, especially since if you want that Accolade you are going to have to run them anyway, right? That would help with players wanting to run those Task Forces on +0 because now they are not only doing it for the badges, but they are running them for the fast XP too. Kind of a win/win, right?

As someone who really dislikes the 1-22 part of the game, I think there's a lot of logic doing it "backwards". I don't care for the pre-22 levels because my characters feel weak, their attacks miss often and I'm stopping for endurance every few minutes. Basically, because my game time is limited I'd prefer to only play the parts of a super hero game where I get to feel like I'm playing a super hero. Fortunately, the 1-22 part is over quickly with DXP (2x DFB -> Posi1 -> Posi2), so it isn't that annoying, but if I had a farmer, I'd probably have skipped to 22 on all my alts. However, what I'm getting at is that I start enjoying the game when my character has access to SO-power enhancements and attuned set IOs, someone else might start enjoying the game properly only when a character has a "finished" build. When you exemp down with a finished build, you're going to be significantly more powerful (=enjoyable to a lot of people) than you'd actually be at that level.

 

Another reason is that some of us (like me) have done the accolade TFs way too many times. I only join in on Posi and Yin these days because the rest of the 6 TFs are boring and prefer getting my TF commander accolade through the mayhem explorations. So, PL through the levels you don't like and avoid playing the content you don't like, quite logical to me.

 

That said, I'm super stoked about the changes to SO availability because I might finally look at the 1-22 content as something else than a necessary evil I want to be done with as quickly as possible.

[Solarverse]

2 minutes ago, DSorrow said:

Another reason is that some of us (like me) have done the accolade TFs way too many times. I only join in on Posi and Yin these days because the rest of the 6 TFs are boring and prefer getting my TF commander accolade through the mayhem explorations. So, PL through the levels you don't like and avoid playing the content you don't like, quite logical to me.

 

Wait, what? Is that a thing??? How in the hell did I not know this? Well, I don't really run paper missions or radio missions very often, I guess if I did I would know this, right? Still, I had no idea you could get the accolade that way!

 

2 minutes ago, DSorrow said:

That said, I'm super stoked about the changes to SO availability because I might finally look at the 1-22 content as something else than a necessary evil I want to be done with as quickly as possible.

 

Right? That will make leveling up so much easier since it will be a one click SO swap instead of replacing each and every one. It's even worse is if you out level them, then you have to combine them all which is a huge pain in the rear. I am right there with you on that!

[DSorrow]

1 minute ago, Solarverse said:

Wait, what? Is that a thing??? How in the hell did I not know this? Well, I don't really run paper missions or radio missions very often, I guess if I did I would know this, right? Still, I had no idea you could get the accolade that way!

Even easier: 

1. Do the signature story arc in Brickstown to get the Hero Slayer badge
2. Switch alignments to redside
3. You can now access a contact (name escapes me) in Port Oakes who lets you "flashback" to all the mayhems for easy explorations

The whole process takes maybe an hour solo and you can do it in 5 min segments if you're busy with work or life in general and can't commit to a full TF, let alone 6 of them.

[roleki]

51 minutes ago, Darmian said:

Can you clarify what this means please?

Sure!

 

Many moons ago, people came complaining that AE farmers were getting more rewards than sloggers; eventually the cacophony grew to convince the devs to curtail AE rewards. 

 

Then the complainers came complaining that AE farmers were driving auction prices through the roof, and after repeating that for a few months virtually unopposed, the devs chipped away at inf in AE. 

 

This week, @Solarversespeculated that power-leveling may be responsible for players drifting away from the game; they may not have intended that to be a call to nerf AE, but to those whose goal it is to nerf AE, "player drift" is going to become the bleating edge of AE nerf complaints, because most PLing occurs in AE farms.  And when the nerfers do take up that call, and people like me are primly shouted down for being "defensive" or "not playing the game the way the devs intended" eventually the devs will be compelled to retask resources that WERE going toward improving the game, and instead focus them on finding some new way to nerf AE farming.  And I am just saying, if and when they do, at least one player (me) will no longer be here, because I am absolutely done being whipped around by the whims of serial complainers.  

 

It appears that many, many people have yet to figure out that whatever player base you have today?  THAT is the player base you have.  Some of them slog.  Some of them farm.  Some of them play the AH.  Chipping away at those things that keep people around?  Not smart.

 

 

[Vulpoid]

16 minutes ago, Solarverse said:

Wait, what? Is that a thing??? How in the hell did I not know this? Well, I don't really run paper missions or radio missions very often, I guess if I did I would know this, right? Still, I had no idea you could get the accolade that way!

 

[Darmian]

34 minutes ago, roleki said:

Sure!

 

Many moons ago, people came complaining that AE farmers were getting more rewards than sloggers; eventually the cacophony grew to convince the devs to curtail AE rewards. 

 

Then the complainers came complaining that AE farmers were driving auction prices through the roof, and after repeating that for a few months virtually unopposed, the devs chipped away at inf in AE. 

 

This week, @Solarversespeculated that power-leveling may be responsible for players drifting away from the game; they may not have intended that to be a call to nerf AE, but to those whose goal it is to nerf AE, "player drift" is going to become the bleating edge of AE nerf complaints, because most PLing occurs in AE farms.  And when the nerfers do take up that call, and people like me are primly shouted down for being "defensive" or "not playing the game the way the devs intended" eventually the devs will be compelled to retask resources that WERE going toward improving the game, and instead focus them on finding some new way to nerf AE farming.  And I am just saying, if and when they do, at least one player (me) will no longer be here, because I am absolutely done being whipped around by the whims of serial complainers.  

 

It appears that many, many people have yet to figure out that whatever player base you have today?  THAT is the player base you have.  Some of them slog.  Some of them farm.  Some of them play the AH.  Chipping away at those things that keep people around?  Not smart.

 

 

Ok, thanks for that!  I didn't want to get riled by text and the best way to do that is just ask nicely 🙂  See, I'm a heavy user of AE,  but I don't farm and have never written a farm.  I just write stories to the best of my limited ability, and that's a big part of the game for ME. So I don't actually begrudge the existence of farms and farmers, I just want a way to separate them from what I and others like me do. And I suppose we're a minority?  I don't really know, either way we're not nearly as vocal as dedicated farmers/farm makers.

 

And it's why I advocate getting the training wheels off the AE system.  I am looking forward to what Piecemeal has done, I really am, but give me and the rest access to her tools and we will build you a fuller world.  I'm not even talking about new stuff, just access to what is already in the game! Give us a bible to adhere to and limits and sure, it would need to be looked at by an external team, but the talent to write is there.  I know, I've played stuff in the AE that is good enough, and some frankly better, given the limits of the AE tool, than plenty of the actual content in the game.

 

Much obliged for the polite reply.  That's how we all get along.  We're all in the same boat, we don't need people poking holes in the bottom!

 

Edited November 5, 2020 by Darmian

[Solarverse]

17 minutes ago, roleki said:

And when the nerfers do take up that call...

/interrupts ...I will be right here to shut the nerfers down, standing back to back with you to fight and beat them down till my last breath.

[jubakumbi]

The circle so many seem to be caught in here, IMO, is a false premise.

That premise being that people who power level don't play the characters they create, they just have some specfic form of alt-itis that makes them create fully tricked out characters and move to the next, or something, never playing 'the game' with those characters.

 

There are people here that freely admit they don't PL, don't like PL, don't understand PL and then, armed with that bias, try and read the minds of those that do PL and decide 'it must not be fun' or it must be the reason people leave becuase they would...do none of those poeple see the implicit bias and terrible logic there?

 

If you don't like to PL, if you don't understand why people PL, that's all fine, but don't try and turn that into a reason to convince others power levelers are the 'reason' you cannot find teams of people on demand because players are leaving.

Regardless of your intent, it is, in fact, a passive aggressive attack on those that do enjoy PLing when you start trying to say it hurts the game.

 

People page after page using a passive aggressive attack on powerleveling is what I see here ...

"It's OK that you do that, but just so you know, you are playing the game wrong and driving players away."

How is this NOT the refrain?

 

I have never, ever, really cared one tiny little bit about the writing in this game. Most of it, IME, is high-school drama at best, and very little of pertains to the characters I create.

I build characters and create my own stories.

The dialog of the NPCs could basically not exist and while it would be odd to play in a world where people don't talk, the game would play the same for me.

 

But to read threads like this, my entire playing experience becomes suspect because I don't play thorugh low-level OR high-level story content, if that's all we are going to base play 'right' about, my playstyles would be 'illegal'.

 

Threads like this and the vast majority of the arguments I see in them are based on nothing more than supposition, bad logic, and a general intent, direct or not, to inform anyone that does not follow the 'right way' is harming the game.

It's as sad as it is silly. IMO, but trying to make people look bad for not playing the way they do is gamer forum fuel, it never goes away.

I have seen people making these same, circular, illogical arguments about every single MMO I have every played, from Day 1.

[Solarverse]

I will be periodically posting this because I see people continuing to respond as though this post is about nerfing AE or telling people how to play or telling people PLing is bad or whatever other false intent people like to put on threads like these. So I want to keep this in perspective since all it takes is one post stating false intent and it derails the real intent.
 

On 11/3/2020 at 10:13 AM, Solarverse said:

Edit: All I am really trying to do here is to get people who PL and quit the game out of boredom, to please consider rolling new characters and skipping AE. I think you might find the leveling process through team story driven content a bit nostalgic and getting to know new people can go a long way to hold you over between new content. I AM NOT trying to say that Power Leveling in of itself is a bad thing or that you should not do it or even that there is a right way to play or a wrong way to play. I am saying that people who ONLY power level to 50, then get bored of the game because all they do is run end game content, could be contributing to the sudden lack of population and before you quit, I think you should give the lower levels a chance before running off. And yes, there are several reasons why people leave and not everyone who leaves is because of what I describe above. However, I think there might be more people doing this than most admit because I have seen it a LOT since playing the game again with people I personally know. Sadly, those people are no longer here to say if I am right or if I am wrong, so this is strictly opinion based on personal experience. However, if you get bored and you are somebody who typically skips low level content, just give it a try before you leave. Playing low level content just might be fun for you. And after giving it a try you still feel meh about it...then by all means...do what you have to do. And if you do decide to try it out, chances are we will bump in to one another at some point and you will get to listen to all of my bad jokes.

[roleki]

 

1 hour ago, Solarverse said:

I would just like to reiterate that nobody is asking for power leveling to end. This thread is a plea to anyone left playing that if they get bored of the game and all they do is PL to 50 and play end game content, to please give lower level content a try before running off. If you are still bored after that, by all means, see you next update.

Having said that, one argument I have seen (can't remember who said it, it was a few pages back) is that they don't play lower level content because they have already played all of the lower level content and this was their reason for PLing to level 50. What strikes me as odd with that is two things; they instead play the same end game content so many times they grow bored with the game, even though they have already played the end game content just the same as they have played the lower level content, and now that we are getting brand new lower level content, I seen at least one person say how much they don't understand why the Devs would create lower level content.

It seems to me that the Devs creating lower level content would give players (who don't play lower level content because they have already played it all) an actual reason to level up without power leveling, since now they have brand new lower level content.

Here is another question that I am curious about...so please, help me understand, the logical part of my brain honestly can't find any logic in what I have seen, but can somebody explain to me why you would want to PL to level 50 and then turn around and run Positron through Numina? Why not just run those Task Forces as you level and then after you get your Task Force Commander badge, THEN Power Level the rest of the way? It makes more sense to me to do it that way, especially since if you want that Accolade you are going to have to run them anyway, right? That would help with players wanting to run those Task Forces on +0 because now they are not only doing it for the badges, but they are running them for the fast XP too. Kind of a win/win, right?

And that is not a stab at anyone, it is just my logical mind trying to convey the most perceived logical way to run Task Forces, even if you prefer to PL to 50. Just seems to make more sense in my mind to do it that way rather than PL to 50 and then go back and have to run it anyway. At least this way you end up spending the same amount of time in the Task Forces, but you actually spend less time farming, but the end result is exactly the same.

Honest question, this is not a stab at anyone, I just want to understand is all.

To a couple points on this... I may pop in on my PL'd 50 and do exemped/Ouro content to give me a pipeline of level 10-30 recipes, so's I can flip them into the various Kismets and Miracles that I stuff into virtually every build.  I also will Ouro back into badge missions, like Spelunker, so's I can get the Atlas Medallion on demand.

As for skipping content I'm "bored with" only to run a farm mission into the dirt, there's two things afoot (for me, at least):  first off, it isn't just the slog-level content I am bored with, but also the slog-level gameplay.  Part of the reason is, I prefer support characters over DPS types, and the level-up experience of support types is far more tedious than that of a scrapper or a brute; while *most* DPS types start out great and just keep getting better, support types start out weak, get a little better, get great, then might as well fall off a cliff.  To suffer incomplete attack chains, floored endurance bars, and unmitigated mez along the way to obviation just isn't worth it to me.

Secondly, and this is specific to what I do, but I may spend ~3 hours PLing an alt from 0-50.3, but that is in 45 minute chunks with maybe 10 days in between sessions for THAT alt.  In the interim, I might work on another alt in the same manner, or run around on one of my existing alts.  On balance, I spend far more time outside of AE than I do inside.  

9 minutes ago, Darmian said:

Ok, thanks for that!  I didn't want to get riled by text and the best way to do that is just ask nicely 🙂  See, I'm a heavy user of AE,  but I don't farm and have never written a farm.  I just write stories to the best of my limited ability, and that's a big part of the game for ME. So I don't actually begrudge the existence of farms and farmers, I just want a way to separate them from what I and others like me do. And I suppose we're a minority?  I don't really know, either way we're not nearly as vocal as dedicated farmers/farm makers.

 

And it's why I advocate getting the training wheels off the AE system.  I am looking forward to what Piecemeal has done, I really am, but give me and the rest access to her tools and we will build you a fuller world.  I'm not even talking about new stuff, just access to what is already in the game! Give us a bible to adhere to and limits and sure, it would need to be looked at by an external team, but the talent to write is there.  I know, I've played stuff in the AE that is good enough, and some frankly better, given the limits of the AE tool that plenty of the actual content in the game.

 

Much obliged for the polite reply.  That's how we all get along.  We're all in the same boat, we don't need people poking holes in the bottom!

 

I've tried my hand at creating missions in AE (even had one get rated!) and respect the amount of work that can go into them; it kind of stinks that there isn't a better way to present the results of that labor to the intended audience.  I have a very hard time finding the missions that *I* created, and I know exactly what to search for.  How anyone found it out of the blue is beyond me. 

2 minutes ago, Solarverse said:

/interrupts ...I will be right here to shut the nerfers down, standing back to back with you to fight and beat them down till my last breath.

At a distance of 6' or more, of course.