Require Two Level 50 Characters to Get XP in AE

[EyeLuvBooks]

Complaining about farming in the AE is like complaining about there nit being enough water on Earth. Whining doesn't improve the situation and any efforts to change the situation will only make it worse, not better.

 

Oh, woe is me...others are playing in a way I don't like. Oh, the horror.

 

Get over yourselves. Just because YOU think a behavior is bad doesn't make it so.

[Glacier Peak]

@Apparition we're three pages deep in to this thread; what is your take on the reactions to this suggestion?

[ShardWarrior]

1 hour ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

But then the nerf bat came with ED and GDN on top of it.

 

Several of my characters had no issue blowing through content even after ED and GDN, my Regen scrapper being the primary (and most infuriating) exception in this instance.  Once I made adjustments, I could go on playing as I did before. 

 

1 hour ago, Parabola said:

But not ones that can burn their way through a sea of enemies with impunity (at least since i4 or whenever it was).

 

I do not know what characters you had, but many of my scrappers and brutes had no problems burning through NPCs outside of AE.  Maybe it is just me, but I believe that any well planned build regardless of AT really has no issue farming Council maps outside of AE.

 

[Troo]

51 minutes ago, EyeLuvBooks said:

Get over yourselves. Just because YOU think a behavior is bad doesn't make it so.

 

I love the irony in this response. 

[Parabola]

28 minutes ago, ShardWarrior said:

I do not know what characters you had, but many of my scrappers and brutes had no problems burning through NPCs outside of AE.  Maybe it is just me, but I believe that any well planned build regardless of AT really has no issue farming Council maps outside of AE.

Forgive me but it feels like you are being a little obtuse at this point. Yes it is perfectly possible to build very highly functioning characters that can tear through content outside of AE and earn good rewards doing so. However they cannot earn rewards as easily and quickly as fire farmers can in the AE, the proof if any were needed is the very fact that people are fire farming in the AE. People aren't dumb, they are fire farming in the AE because it offers greater rewards for less investment and less effort than those available elsewhere. I see something I don't like in this but that's just my take.

[ShardWarrior]

2 minutes ago, Parabola said:

Yes it is perfectly possible to build very highly functioning characters that can tear through content outside of AE and earn good rewards doing so.

 

That was my point.

 

2 minutes ago, Parabola said:

However they cannot earn rewards as easily and quickly as fire farmers can in the AE, the proof if any were needed is the very fact that people are fire farming in the AE.

 

I do not necessarily disagree with regard to XP or inf, however those are not the only rewards in the game.  To my knowledge, you cannot farm the various NPCs in AE that are required for defeat badges to unlock certain Accolades which grant all manner of buffs, no matter how much farming you do in AE missions. 

 

11 minutes ago, Parabola said:

People aren't dumb, they are fire farming in the AE because it offers greater rewards for less investment and less effort than those available elsewhere. I see something I don't like in this but that's just my take.

 

I am not so sure there is less of an investment.  If you peruse the various build forums, some of the shared builds for fire farming are quite expensive, especially those that are including multiple complete Winter IO sets.  I have spent less on my scrappers, tanks and brutes that I run outside of AE and there is not really anything in the game at +4x8 that gives them any trouble.

[TheZag]

I think the popup that says you are entering architect mode could be updated to inform players that the missions were created by other players and it is possible to gain xp and outlevel your current contacts.  Then its up to the player if they want to level in AE or not.

[Cancrusher]

On 12/28/2021 at 10:10 PM, Apparition said:

Suggestion: Make a requirement that an account must have two level 50 characters on it to unlock the ability to earn XP in AE missions.  You can still do AE content beforehand, you just wouldn't earn any XP while doing so.

 

I realize that this is a pie in the sky wish that will most likely never happen, but hey, doesn't hurt to suggest it.

 

There's no context behind the suggestion.  Why are you asking for it?  What does it bring to the game experience for the player base?

 

I would almost certainly vote no to this suggestion, but I'd have to have more information to be sure about that.

[Solarverse]

19 hours ago, A Cat said:

I see non farm AE content get advertised for semi-regularly, though still less than people advertising for AE Farming or begging for a PL. I just did a non-farm PUG AE mission with a team yesterday in fact. Might depend on your shard though. I am on Everlasting, so I assume there would be more people doing doing non-farm AE here. 

 

Personally, I haven't really run into people not knowing how to use their AT's here. The teams I have been on have all been reasonably competent. I have not had to give up on anything yet, though sometimes we have to lower difficulty from +4. No big deal. Maybe I'm just the incompetent one on the team. 

 

I can see that on Everlasting. I play on Excelsior myself. Now that doesn't mean it never happens mind you, I'm sure it does, i simply never seeit being advertised personally is all.

[Solarverse]

18 hours ago, Six-Six said:

@Solarverse you're right. I've only ever seen maybe 1 or 2 AE "content" shouts out of every hundred farm invitations. But I do see them. I think it's more of a closed group or solo thing. I usually go solo, or with a friend at the most so no need to go advertise in LFG. other people I know do the same.

As for content, do a search for Darmian and Nyx for starters (sorry, I'm bad with names so I can't remember the other creators--I have a list somewhere). Those are really good. Or try one of the monthly Dev's Choice -- that's how I got into AE content. Actually, that happened after I was hanging around AE trying to find a farm to sit in when an Architect invited me to try out his/her work in progress and give feedback. That opened my eyes. Been going in regularly less than I'd like, but more and more recently.

 

Honestly, I might have to do the same. Sounds like a good idea.

[Solarverse]

9 hours ago, Greycat said:

 

As far as this - I'll see advertisements (typically on the weekend) for ... I think it's the 801 series, "these are built to murder you" arcs, and the occasional test run for something.

 

Non-farm content, in my experience, seems most often to be run by SGs to run RP storyarcs, or with small groups that know each other and aren't going to have someone random just want to rush to the end, kill the boss or grab the glowie, and jump to the next mission - they actually want to *see* what's going on and what the author's done. So, no LFG advertising, but talking to each other in SG chat, private channels or Discord to arrange times to run stuff. It flies under the radar.

 

I wouldn't mind finding a group of people like this, add a little something different to my gameplay experience.

[Arbegla]

6 hours ago, Parabola said:

Forgive me but it feels like you are being a little obtuse at this point. Yes it is perfectly possible to build very highly functioning characters that can tear through content outside of AE and earn good rewards doing so. However they cannot earn rewards as easily and quickly as fire farmers can in the AE, the proof if any were needed is the very fact that people are fire farming in the AE. People aren't dumb, they are fire farming in the AE because it offers greater rewards for less investment and less effort than those available elsewhere. I see something I don't like in this but that's just my take.

 

I could be mistaken here, but the only real benefit that I see from AE being 'faster' then other content is the speed aspect. You're still not getting badges (so the accolades are out of the question, and 20% health, 10% end adds up) you're still not getting merits (so while you might have a few million inf, you're not going to get a full build out of a single 1-50 AE run) and you're not getting enhancement drops.

 

Yes you're getting tickets, which you can turn into things, but aside from speed, what really is the benefit of AE farming vs normal content? The rewards are inherently different for a reason.

[Solarverse]

11 hours ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

After soloing a swipe-only/inv scrapper to 50 with nothing but street sweeping and radio missions, and now soloing a normal dark/stone scrapper with nothing but the normal content contacts, to the OP and those that support the idea... /jranger.

 

Oh yeah? Well I /jranger your /jranger, quitsies no antiquitsies no startsies, triple stamped it no erasies touch blue make it true!

[Solarverse]

@Bill Z Bubba

Seen your confused face, thought maybe this would help.  🤣

 

 

[Excraft]

On 12/30/2021 at 2:17 AM, UltraAlt said:

"Account Actions Taken Today

 

Today we indefinitely suspended over 800 accounts for egregiously exploiting a bug introduced in Game Update 119. Pending further investigation, we expect to convert most or all of these suspensions to permanent bans in January.

This action is not comprehensive. Also in January, and again pending further investigation, we expect additional accounts to be suspended or permanently banned. We also expect to address at least some of the ill-gotten or even accidental gains for everyone, regardless of suspension or banned status.

We will provide updates as we have them in the new year. No suspension appeals will be entertained." - https://forums.daybreakgames.com/dcuo/index.php?threads/account-actions-taken-today.320085/

 

What's DCUO got to do with this game? LOL

 

17 hours ago, Parabola said:

But not ones that can burn their way through a sea of enemies with impunity (at least since i4 or whenever it was). No-one farms with a granite tank. Being just very survivable inside or outside the AE isn't the issue, similarly being just very damaging, the issue is the ability to create a certain combination of character and mission in the AE that results in extreme survivability and extreme damage at the same time and which is far outside what is currently possible anywhere else in the game.

 

Anyway, just what seems obvious to me, I get that others see it differently.

 

You can build characters now that can easily solo anything at +4x8 with ease outside of AE with zero risk of defeat outside of sheer stupidity.  There are people posting in this thread who regularly solo TFs at +4x8 meant for teams.  Are they cheating too?

 

17 hours ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

But here's a side note that occurred to me while running content with my new dark/stone scrapper. This game was designed specifically to drag out the leveling process as much as possible to keep subscriptions around for as long as possible. I saw it in every "go defeat X# of group A" in a different zone and then go talk to so-n-so in yet another zone, blah, blah, blah and then couple that with no movement powers until lvl 14 (or whatever level it was back then,) no double xp, just slog on slog on slog.

 

We don't pay subs anymore. We're all here because a group of people enjoy having a CoH playground to fart about with and share with other like-minded folks. There's just no good reason in pissing off X% of those people because some still get their panties in a wad about farming.

 

^This. 

[Parabola]

14 hours ago, ShardWarrior said:

I do not necessarily disagree with regard to XP or inf, however those are not the only rewards in the game.  To my knowledge, you cannot farm the various NPCs in AE that are required for defeat badges to unlock certain Accolades which grant all manner of buffs, no matter how much farming you do in AE missions. 

 

8 hours ago, Arbegla said:

 

I could be mistaken here, but the only real benefit that I see from AE being 'faster' then other content is the speed aspect. You're still not getting badges (so the accolades are out of the question, and 20% health, 10% end adds up) you're still not getting merits (so while you might have a few million inf, you're not going to get a full build out of a single 1-50 AE run) and you're not getting enhancement drops.

 

Yes you're getting tickets, which you can turn into things, but aside from speed, what really is the benefit of AE farming vs normal content? The rewards are inherently different for a reason.

I think we can safely say that your average farmer and badge hunter are two separate demographics. Yes, the rewards of farming are narrower (although @Arbegla you can run AE for normal drops rather than tickets) but again it is clearly worth doing for financial gain or people wouldn't be doing it.

 

It's like I said above though, I don't have an objection to people levelling faster than me or making money (I use the copious merits I generate to convert and generate my money that way), my objection is purely on the mechanics of the operation. AE farming stands out to me as a broken part of the whole system, something that wasn't intended to work the way it does. Again as I said before I understand others don't see it that way and that's fine, this is just my opinion. I'm going to leave this conversation there.

 

14 hours ago, ShardWarrior said:

I am not so sure there is less of an investment.  If you peruse the various build forums, some of the shared builds for fire farming are quite expensive, especially those that are including multiple complete Winter IO sets.

You don't need an expensive build to farm, and you certainly don't need winters. Capping fire defence can be easily achieved with moderately priced IO's and why on earth would you need winters to chase fire resistance when you have fire armour? Damage output is largely dependent on how quickly you can convert inspirations into reds and chew them down too so I wouldn't consider it really worth going to town on that side of the build either. I've seen the same threads as you where people are spending huge amounts on fire farmers but it seems pointless to me.

[Excraft]

6 minutes ago, Parabola said:

I think we can safely say that your average farmer and badge hunter are two separate demographics. Yes, the rewards of farming are narrower (although @Arbegla you can run AE for normal drops rather than tickets) but again it is clearly worth doing for financial gain or people wouldn't be doing it.

 

Disagree entirely.  I alone know quite a lot of people who are farmers and rabid badgeaholics.  You're also assuming people are farming just for inf.  Lots of people farm up alts for the same reason lots of people run DFB - to skip the lower levels.  I know it's a shock to some, but there are people who don't care for the early game and want to skip it.

 

8 minutes ago, Parabola said:

It's like I said above though, I don't have an objection to people levelling faster than me or making money (I use the copious merits I generate to convert and generate my money that way), my objection is purely on the mechanics of the operation. AE farming stands out to me as a broken part of the whole system, something that wasn't intended to work the way it does. Again as I said before I understand others don't see it that way and that's fine, this is just my opinion. I'm going to leave this conversation there.

 

I can build a melee character right now that is essentially immortal for all non-AE content by fine tuning a build.  How's this any different than people creating farms in AE?

 

10 minutes ago, Parabola said:

You don't need an expensive build to farm, and you certainly don't need winters. Capping fire defence can be easily achieved with moderately priced IO's and why on earth would you need winters to chase fire resistance when you have fire armour? Damage output is largely dependent on how quickly you can convert inspirations into reds and chew them down too so I wouldn't consider it really worth going to town on that side of the build either. I've seen the same threads as you where people are spending huge amounts on fire farmers but it seems pointless to me.

 

I don't think you're understanding some of the builds you're looking at there.  Winter sets provide much much more than just fire resists.  You're also getting big bonuses to recovery and DEF to fire which does work a lot better for mitigation than straight resists.  You can also avoiding certain pool picks by slotting them. 

[UltraAlt]

5 hours ago, Excraft said:

What's DCUO got to do with this game? LOL

 

I don't have time for your kind of behavior.

[Excraft]

31 minutes ago, UltraAlt said:

I don't have time for your kind of behavior.

 

LMAO!!  Calm down and change your diaper man. 

 

DCUO is not City of Heroes Homecoming, so linking what another game does doesn't work.  Following your example, I can link a couple of other MMOs that offer max level boosters and all kinds of other stuff that you've been crying about on here, and since those other games do it we should have them here.  They're all MMOs after all. 

 

Give me a break.

[MHertz]

I have not seen this epidemic of uninformed players created by AE farms.

 

I’ve definitely seen some Tankers that like to herd, and some that don’t; I’ve seen Blasters that like to blap, and some that don’t; I’ve seen Controllers who take none of their team-friendly buff powers, and those who do. I would never assume that one group or the other only plays that way because they “don’t know better” or because “farming ruined them” or whatever.

 

About the only thing I can point to about the effect of AE farming is that zones like Perez, which used to be fun, have turned empty and boring. Street sweeping is a lost art. You don’t see characters flying through zones as much, or super-speeding somewhere, because so many players have chosen to chain themselves inside a cage like experimental rats that can’t stop pushing the cocaine button.

 

This is a game about being super. We’re all sitting inside at our computers for the opportunity to be super. I find it incredibly sad that instead of getting out into the city zones, people choose to play a video game inside the video game.

 

But you know, to each his own. If the devs didn’t want it to happen they’d find a way to change the rules. So I figure it’s no big deal.

 

Edit: If I were to rebuild AE from the ground up, I would do two things.

 

First, AE missions provide XP, but no other rewards. Influence is supposed to be fame and fortune; enhancements and salvage are stuff you find. None should be available in a virtual world. But second, I would allow that AE provides superior training and grants a real-world buff against certain enemies. Fight a bunch of Vahz in AE and get a bonus vs Vahz in the real world, and so on. That would encourage AE users to diversify their taste in missions.

Edited December 31, 2021 by MHertz

[A Cat]

24 minutes ago, MHertz said:

About the only thing I can point to about the effect of AE farming is that zones like Perez, which used to be fun, have turned empty and boring. Street sweeping is a lost art. You don’t see characters flying through zones as much, or super-speeding somewhere, because so many players have chosen to chain themselves inside a cage like experimental rats that can’t stop pushing the cocaine button.

I think there are multiple reasons behind the loss of street sweeping, and the radio/newspaper was the first blow. There are no additional mission end rewards for street sweeping and there is increased debt compared to missions for dying during street sweeping. The enemies spawn at random levels in the range for the area. The enemy types are not fixed. Imo we just needs more rewards for street sweeping other than defeat badges. As is street sweeping is not competitive to normal missions much less farming. Back in the day with the screwed up market, at least common magic salvage for low to mid levels was valuable. The rewards don't have to be financial but it would be nice if there was something. 

 

[EyeLuvBooks]

1 hour ago, MHertz said:

 

 

Edit: If I were to rebuild AE from the ground up, I would do two things.

 

First, AE missions provide XP, but no other rewards. Influence is supposed to be fame and fortune; enhancements and salvage are stuff you find. None should be available in a virtual world. But second, I would allow that AE provides superior training and grants a real-world buff against certain enemies. Fight a bunch of Vahz in AE and get a bonus vs Vahz in the real world, and so on. That would encourage AE users to diversify their taste in missions.

I really like this idea! If a SG wanted to do a team event like the ITF, they could all go and do missions against those opponents. It would also be a good way to see how the team works together (since some synergy is easier to come by).

[MHertz]

5 hours ago, A Cat said:

As is street sweeping is not competitive to normal missions much less farming.

 

I'm not trying to say you're wrong, but I would love to see some numbers along those lines, particularly when it comes to street sweeping vs door missions.

 

Street sweeping in a hazard zone (like Perez) may deal with spawns that often aren't the ideal level/size that you can get in a door mission, but there's no travel time. You wander around defeating everything that gets in your way. The lower-level mobs get steamrolled; the higher-level mobs take slightly more time. Compared to some door missions ("go talk to Genevieve Sanders, now go defeat 10 Skulls, now go talk to Shauna Stockwell, now go find the door mission") you spend almost no time looking for the next XP target. Other mission arcs ("here's another portal mission, and the portal is literally right here") have less travel time. In addition, some door missions ("hunt these 16 city blocks and try to locate 20 hostages, which are hiding under eaves and in alleys and behind fences and in doorways, and the last 20 minutes of the mission is wasted time because you can't find the last dude in the parking garage") are just irritating time-wasters. I would love for some of those door missions to have that slightly lower, but still steady, influx of XP.

 

Farming is likewise a multi-headed best and can take many forms (including street-sweeping) so it's a little harder to pinpoint.

 

Edit: Upon reflection, it's possible the devs killed street sweeping as a way to get people out of city zones and increase server performance. If so, it's understandable, but I'm sorry to see the zones much less busy as a consequence.

Edited January 1, 2022 by MHertz

[Greycat]

5 hours ago, A Cat said:

I think there are multiple reasons behind the loss of street sweeping, and the radio/newspaper was the first blow. There are no additional mission end rewards for street sweeping and there is increased debt compared to missions for dying during street sweeping.

 

 

I seem to recall part of this was pre-newspaper - though my memory of the timing may be off. While the effect is the same, debt inside missions was what was cut down compared to street sweeping - basically leaning back on the "it's not money, it's influence," because nobody actually *saw* you die ...  (Again. I want to say it was pre-newspaper, possibly even while we had a bit of a content gap pre-PI. I know it was a *bear* getting my first blaster to 40, because by 38 or so most of my XP had gone towards paying off continual debt and I was out of content.)

 

Of course, then we have the other can of worms which are merits (which only the arc holder gets) ... which unless you run into a GM to fight, nobody gets outside...

[Aurora_Girl]

Also of note: not many ATs/sets can just breezily solo full size hazard zone spawns.