Require Two Level 50 Characters to Get XP in AE

[DZKFire]

Why? If the complaint is that PL'd players play badly with zero game knowledge, then I can tell you right now even people who have leveled "normally" still play pretty badly.

 

Coincidentally, I was farming an alt (bc leveling my earth/pain controller the normal way is absolute torture) and let ~5 sitters in. Out of all these sitters, only one was smart enough to be invisible (i.e. SS + Stealth proc), the rest just accepted their fate and died. When a sitter is dead, their x2 from P2W is not active so they leveled incredibly slow with the XP cut in AE.

[Solarverse]

5 minutes ago, DZKFire said:

Why? If the complaint is that PL'd players play badly with zero game knowledge, then I can tell you right now even people who have leveled "normally" still play pretty badly.

 

Yeah? I'll bet they are less likely to ask where to go to run the Position Task Force though. Literally had a power leveled 50, ask me where he needed to go to join my team for Posi yesterday. All I could do was face palm.

 

[Aurora_Girl]

1 hour ago, DZKFire said:

Why? If the complaint is that PL'd players play badly with zero game knowledge, then I can tell you right now even people who have leveled "normally" still play pretty badly.

 

Coincidentally, I was farming an alt (bc leveling my earth/pain controller the normal way is absolute torture) and let ~5 sitters in. Out of all these sitters, only one was smart enough to be invisible (i.e. SS + Stealth proc), the rest just accepted their fate and died. When a sitter is dead, their x2 from P2W is not active so they leveled incredibly slow with the XP cut in AE.

 

I feel like you just kind of proved the first point with that anecdote. 

[Troo]

9 hours ago, MHertz said:

dit: 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.

 

interesting suggestions

[MHertz]

2 hours ago, Solarverse said:

 

Yeah? I'll bet they are less likely to ask where to go to run the Position Task Force though. Literally had a power leveled 50, ask me where he needed to go to join my team for Posi yesterday. All I could do was face palm.

 

I have played this game for years, and have returned to Homecoming many months ago. I don’t know where all the task forces are located or what the common abbreviations are. The first time I participated in an ITF I didn’t know I had to have the Midnight Squad badge. The first time I ran the Winter Lord trial I didn’t know how to get there either.

 

None of those things prove any of my characters were PLed. These things happen. Perfect knowledge of all maps, NPCs, mission content and lore should not required to prove one isn’t an AE baby.

[Solarverse]

6 minutes ago, MHertz said:

I have played this game for years, and have returned to Homecoming many months ago. I don’t know where all the task forces are located or what the common abbreviations are. The first time I participated in an ITF I didn’t know I had to have the Midnight Squad badge. The first time I ran the Winter Lord trial I didn’t know how to get there either.

 

None of those things prove any of my characters were PLed. These things happen. Perfect knowledge of all maps, NPCs, mission content and lore should not required to prove one isn’t an AE baby.

Considering that Positron Task Force is literally a requirement to get the most common Accolade in game and considering this guy had no badges what-so-ever that people typically get just from playing the game while clueless, told me everything I needed to know to conclude that he was a PLed 50.

Tell me, what is more common, somebody like you who played for years not knowing about how to get to ITF, or somebody who was knew to the game, got PLed, and has no clue how to get to Positron? I think you are using a very rare example in order to excuse a very common problem.

[MHertz]

Is now when I point out that I only have one character out of 40 with that accolade? I think you have a somewhat distorted idea of what people ought to have done by 50.

 

The absence of certain badges (practically unavoidable location badges like Hero Corps Insider or inevitable X Damage Taken/Dealt badges) would be a better indicator … maybe you should’ve led with that. It’s perfectly possible to do radio missions through 20, or do the Hollows and then Skyway, and end up not knowing anything about Task Forces or Positron. At least on one’s first character.

 

Do I think it’s common? No, I don’t. But I haven’t seen anybody like you describe, either.

[Blood Speaker]

The best solution to clueless players is having experienced players willing to teach them things.

 

Try it sometime.

[Solarverse]

35 minutes ago, MHertz said:

Is now when I point out that I only have one character out of 40 with that accolade? I think you have a somewhat distorted idea of what people ought to have done by 50.

 

The absence of certain badges (practically unavoidable location badges like Hero Corps Insider or inevitable X Damage Taken/Dealt badges) would be a better indicator … maybe you should’ve led with that. It’s perfectly possible to do radio missions through 20, or do the Hollows and then Skyway, and end up not knowing anything about Task Forces or Positron. At least on one’s first character.

 

Do I think it’s common? No, I don’t. But I haven’t seen anybody like you describe, either.

 

I'm just playing the odds, really. I am willing to bet my very life that more people know how to get to Positron Task Force who has played to 50 than people who do not. I mean, there truly are tell tale signs of when somebody was PLed to 50, it's truly not hard to figure out. Even if all somebody did was paper/radio missions, there would be evidence of that. And that is about the simplest way anyone can get to 50 and achieve the smallest amount of badges.

I do get where you are coming from and I pick up the point you are trying to make, I am just saying that players who don't know how to get to Posi aren't usually ignorant for the reasons you give, and people give those reasons a lot as if it excuses every instance of PL ignorance. You make a valid point and I recognize that and even consider that before judging a player for being clueless, I do try to be as logical as possible...or at least as logical as I can make possible, heh.

 

Edited January 1, 2022 by Solarverse
Additional Imformation

[Solarverse]

3 minutes ago, Blood Speaker said:

The best solution to clueless players is having experienced players willing to teach them things.

 

Try it sometime.

 

You don't think people do that already? I mean, didn't really have a choice, it was either direct them to Steel Canyon and explain how to get there or only run with 7 players, lol.

[ShardWarrior]

9 hours ago, DZKFire said:

Why? If the complaint is that PL'd players play badly with zero game knowledge, then I can tell you right now even people who have leveled "normally" still play pretty badly.

 

This is my experience as well, and I could spend the next several hours filling up this thread by typing out examples I have encountered.  I have seen more than my fair share across the entire spectrum from brand new right out of the tutorial players who cannot understand basic play concepts to obtain the Cadaver Counter badge in DFB to veteran players with over a thousand badges who do not understand how to get places or what certain abilities do. 

 

7 hours ago, MHertz said:

Perfect knowledge of all maps, NPCs, mission content and lore should not required to prove one isn’t an AE baby.

 

Totally agreed.  Using this as some kind of benchmark for player worth is not only narcissistic and arrogant but ignorant as well.

 

6 hours ago, Blood Speaker said:

The best solution to clueless players is having experienced players willing to teach them things.

 

Completely agreed. 

Edited January 1, 2022 by ShardWarrior

[Brawlin]

The AE can make way more challenging content then anything you can do in the base game. I've done 4 man relentless ASF with enemies buffed (with the vanguard bonus boss) and 4 man'd the freedom phalanx on old school challenge/enemies buffed/players debuffed/temps off/inps off. I don't know anything about the story and I could care less about it. I play the game for its group content rather then its immersive experience. I am not a lesser player because I don't know where X mission door is or who X superhero is and what role they play in this universe. Don't punish players because they're not playing the way you want them to.

[kelika2]

Im not doublechecking but cant you 3 box on homecoming?

sounds like a minor inconvenience for like a day or so while others get their third firefarming accounts setup using some level 50 rando

---

man, i forgot my original account fire brute that firefarmed the alt account firebrute.  dont even need some random sod from atlas i can hit the ground running after making a third account and use the original and second brute to make a third brute brute brute brute

brute

i got bored typing

Edited January 1, 2022 by kelika2
---

[Bill Z Bubba]

14 hours ago, DZKFire said:

Why? If the complaint is that PL'd players play badly with zero game knowledge, then I can tell you right now even people who have leveled "normally" still play pretty badly.

 

Coincidentally, I was farming an alt (bc leveling my earth/pain controller the normal way is absolute torture) and let ~5 sitters in. Out of all these sitters, only one was smart enough to be invisible (i.e. SS + Stealth proc), the rest just accepted their fate and died. When a sitter is dead, their x2 from P2W is not active so they leveled incredibly slow with the XP cut in AE.

 

Good as place as any to ask this.... why do people call for sitters?

 

Looking at the math, it seems a waste.

Going off the chart, if a critter gives 100 xp, solo, I'll get 100 xp.

With 1 teammate, it becomes 100*1.25/2 = 62.5 xp.

2 teammates, 100*1.5/3 = 50 xp.

3 teammates, 100*1.8/4 = 45 xp.

4, 100*2/5 = 40 xp.

5, 100*2.1/6 = 35 xp.

6, 100*2.2/7 = 31.43 xp

7, 100*2.5/8 = 31.25 xp.

 

I can see adding another "hitter" to speed up the clear time, but I'm completely failing to see why anyone that wants to PL regularly doesn't have a 2nd account with a dedicated farmer for PLing alts on their primary account. Is there some social aspect to this that I'm missing?

[Aurora_Girl]

21 minutes ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

 

Good as place as any to ask this.... why do people call for sitters?

 

Looking at the math, it seems a waste.

Going off the chart, if a critter gives 100 xp, solo, I'll get 100 xp.

With 1 teammate, it becomes 100*1.25/2 = 62.5 xp.

2 teammates, 100*1.5/3 = 50 xp.

3 teammates, 100*1.8/4 = 45 xp.

4, 100*2/5 = 40 xp.

5, 100*2.1/6 = 35 xp.

6, 100*2.2/7 = 31.43 xp

7, 100*2.5/8 = 31.25 xp.

 

I can see adding another "hitter" to speed up the clear time, but I'm completely failing to see why anyone that wants to PL regularly doesn't have a 2nd account with a dedicated farmer for PLing alts on their primary account. Is there some social aspect to this that I'm missing?

 

Some farmers like having people to talk to while they farm, and look at it as helping other people get PLd. 

[MHertz]

11 hours ago, Solarverse said:

 

I mean, there truly are tell tale signs of when somebody was PLed to 50, it's truly not hard to figure out. Even if all somebody did was paper/radio missions, there would be evidence of that. And that is about the simplest way anyone can get to 50 and achieve the smallest amount of badges.
 

The simplest way would seem to be repeating all-level content on a single kind of enemy, like joining a Trick-or-Treat league in PI. You wouldn’t get location badges, and you’d only get Defeat X badges for witches, werewolves, etc. Considering that Halloween just happened, I find it not unlikely that there may be a few 50s around who went up the ladder that way. Or, you know, doing all-Council radio missions in PI. Once players find a means for leveling up, I find they often stick with it.

 

The new auto-sidekicking feature has made it much easier than on Live for a new player to team up outside his natural level, adhere to a narrow band of content, and skip whole swathes of missions and zones. It used to be that you had to know the minimum level for hazard zones and plan accordingly, and team mostly with people your level and play Mentor Tetris to get sidekicks in at an effective level. Now, I dare say most new players aren’t consciously aware of that sidekick system at all. It even allows players to participate in level 50 AE farms (or Trick-or-Treat) starting at level 1.

 

That is what likely causes players do not know where Positron is. Blaming it all on AE is unwarranted, as it is not truly where the problem lies. In the Old Days, you couldn’t stick to one content faucet. You out-leveled that zone and you had to know where to go next. You had to slog through Steel Canyon and Skyway just to get to the Green Line. Now, you can just post “level 1 LFG” and buy a magic power to teleport you across the city right to the door. Or use someone else’s SG teleporters.

 

AE has distorted the landscape of the game, sure, but other systems added for our convenience have done much more.

Edited January 1, 2022 by MHertz

[Coyotedancer]

14 hours ago, Solarverse said:

Considering that Positron Task Force is literally a requirement to get the most common Accolade in game and considering this guy had no badges what-so-ever that people typically get just from playing the game while clueless, told me everything I needed to know to conclude that he was a PLed 50.

 

Not everyone chases badges, much less accolades, Solar. They're a bad basis for judging how skilled or experienced someone may be.

I'll also point out that not everyone routinely runs through taskforces. They're not universally familiar content that every single player knows well. 

[Luminara]

3 hours ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

Good as place as any to ask this.... why do people call for sitters?

 

So their kids don't set the house on fire when they're taking a night off.

[Aurora_Girl]

1 hour ago, Luminara said:

 

So their kids don't set the house on fire when they're taking a night off.

 

Can confirm. 

[EyeLuvBooks]

17 hours ago, Solarverse said:

Considering that Positron Task Force is literally a requirement to get the most common Accolade in game and considering this guy had no badges what-so-ever that people typically get just from playing the game while clueless, told me everything I needed to know to conclude that he was a PLed 50.

Tell me, what is more common, somebody like you who played for years not knowing about how to get to ITF, or somebody who was knew to the game, got PLed, and has no clue how to get to Positron? I think you are using a very rare example in order to excuse a very common problem.

I don't have any accolades on any of my characters and I've played the game since right after ED on Live. Any badges that I get are by accident since I don't try to get them. Had two SGs. Ran weekly events. PLEASE stop assuming that EVERYONE plays the game the same way you do.

[Solarverse]

8 minutes ago, EyeLuvBooks said:

I don't have any accolades on any of my characters and I've played the game since right after ED on Live. Any badges that I get are by accident since I don't try to get them. Had two SGs. Ran weekly events. PLEASE stop assuming that EVERYONE plays the game the same way you do.

 

That is not my point though, man. Also, I don't assume that. My point is, is that there most certainly are new players who are being power leveled to 50...nobody seems to want to admit that though, they use these examples and think that it excuses any and all cases of PLed 50s.

[Coyotedancer]

1 minute ago, Solarverse said:

 

That is not my point though, man. Also, I don't assume that. My point is, is that there most certainly are new players who are being power leveled to 50...nobody seems to want to admit that though, they use these examples and think that it excuses any and all cases of PLed 50s.

 

Have you considered that maybe... just maybe... none of us are seeing this supposed flood of absolute know-nothing power-leveled n00bs that you're convinced are out there? 

 

I'm probably not the best judge, since I'm not a full on all the time PUGster, but I know I really, truly haven't.

People seem to be about the same mix of good and bad they always have been. 

[Solarverse]

2 minutes ago, Coyotedancer said:

 

Have you considered that maybe... just maybe... none of us are seeing this supposed flood of absolute know-nothing power-leveled n00bs that you're convinced are out there? 

 

I'm probably not the best judge, since I'm not a full on all the time PUGster, but I know I really, truly haven't.

People seem to be about the same mix of good and bad they always have been. 

 

And you may be right. I mean, we each see the world from our own perspectives.

[Coyotedancer]

1 minute ago, Solarverse said:

 

And you may be right. I mean, we each see the world from our own perspectives.

 

As usual, which shard you're on may have something to do with it, too. I'm over on Ev with the roleplayers... Some of that crew are serious about playing the game, and some see playing as a side-line to their REAL hobby of chatting it up in someone's nightclub base. That probably makes our "typical average" of good vs bad vs indifferent potential team-mates look a bit different than Indom or Ex's.   

[Hardboiled Hero]

I'm not a great player.  Yes, I know where the positron TF starts. No, I don't know where literally any other TF starts.  Not one of my characters has been leveled 1-50 in AE.  Most of my characters do DFB (a few times, but I never start DFB myself) and then try to get to level 20ish as fast as possible. (Which is why I know positron pretty well.) After that, I normally just do papers/radios until level 20 because I find those groups tend to be the most chill and most fun.  The point here is, doing papers STILL did nothing to prepare me for the few TF's I've done.. or tried to do.  So if the complaint is that people don't know TF's well enough, I'd say "Blame the TF's for requiring too much specific knowledge."  Case in point, even though I know DFB and Positron, that doesn't help me with Ms. Liberty or whatever,

 

  Secondly, What's wrong with PL'ing in this game?  You're not getting cheated outed of the months of time that it took you to "earn level 50 the ol' fasion way" like you may be in some games.  At most these people are getting like a week's "advantage" on other players.  If the people who are getting PL'd are new, awesome!  That means there are new players getting into the game.

 

  I mean over-all, just stop worrying about how other people play the game.