Do you PL in AE?

[Ghost]

how do you think players will afford the insta-50 ?

 

They will sit on a farm for the influence.

Edited June 28, 2022 by Ghost

[Clave Dark 5]

I've door sat once or twice but overall no I do not level in AE:

 

1. I don't have hours and hours to play, so door-sitting for half an hour and then having to log feels like a waste of time.
2. Leveling a character up is where the fun is, and I learn how to play the power sets along the way.
3. I'm not made of Inf and don't like to market (see 1), so if I rushed to 50 and then had to fill all those slots, even with just IOs, I wouldn't be able to afford it.

 

I'm sure all this has already been said in this thread.

[Mr. Apocalypse]

I leveled my main the old fashioned way. I then built a farmer (rad/Fire brute) and leveled it to 25, and was then randomly invited to an AE farm (never once asked to be leveled) and got it to 50. I used a combination of drops from main and Oro missions from my farmer while leveling up my T4 incarnates, to finish my farmers build. I used that farmer to build another farmer (Spines/Fire brute) on another account. I have used the 2nd farm toon to level and build my last 10 lvl 50 toons. I sell everything I get for 1 inf, and craft nothing for builds unless I cant buy it. I build every toon I always wanted to try, but never wanted to level. Take away my ability to do that, and I am gone. 

 

my advice is get a second account, PL yourself while farming, and never worry about the price of anything, or having to rely on someone else to help you get to 50.

Edited June 28, 2022 by Mr. Apocalypse

[MrAxe]

Only if a toon is boring at low lvl or they serve another purpose. I wanted an Ill/Storm controller since the early days of live. Never got around to getting one to 50. I find just the early powers boring, so that plus long term desire meant i power leveled her. With my farmer I power leveled him as farming is all he'll be used for.

 

Its rare that I will power level anything. There only ever going to be a finite amount of combos I'm interested in and I want to always have something new to experience in this game for as long as it lasts.

[tidge]

22 hours ago, Nightmarer said:

What would you people do in such case the XP was removed entirely from AE?

 

I don't "power level" via AE. I also don't judge players who do so. I do harbor a personal suspicion that there may be elements of the game they are missing, even if they've "done it all before", but I don't think it is worth entering a debate on the topic... it's a game that can be played different ways.

 

I have only occasionally run missions in the AE, XP on/off wouldn't change my opinion of it.

[Omega-202]

7 hours ago, Ghost said:

how do you think players will afford the insta-50 ?

 

They will sit on a farm for the influence.

In this hypothetical, probably.  Said farming would generate lots of inf AND drops, the inf would drain from the economy to fund the 50 token and the drops would be put on the market.  IE, more deflationary pressure to counter any inflationary increased demand for rare IOs.  

[Nemu]

17 hours ago, Troo said:

So should there be another option?

Brainstorm.

 

Why more people don't play there is beyond me. I have characters there more than 2 years old so it's not like they are wiping the servers regularly and even if they did so what? 5 min in character creation and you got you level 50 IOed to the gills character back with minimal effort.

 

Things like economy, toils of leveling, all those pains that people ascribe on the live server go away on brainstorm. Go there.

[Heatstroke]

Same conversations that we had years ago. Farming has ALWAYS existed. Whether it was the Demon Map, Dreck Map, Council Map, Battle Maiden Map, Seige Map ( my favorite ), Farming Ritki with Ghost Falcon missions...  I've run low level toons through PI many times nack in the day for farms. 

AE didnt invent farming it just made it more convenient less travel. more people farming in one place.. thats all. And that existed when the game was live. So nothing has changed. 

Personally im no longer interested in slogging through the 1-35 game.. did it... for years.. im older, have a family now.. and less time.. if I can jump on an AE and get a few levels. I'm good with that. What other people do with their characters doesnt bother me. 

[Burnt Toast]

I played from launch to start and have been here since HC started. Literally there is no content I have not done. I have all the badges I want (1300-ish) and frankly I just want a hero to 50 to enhance them up and feel...powerful. My friends and I enjoy making builds and then PLing to 50. It is not rocket science on how to play each AT/powerset. Most people who are here I would venture have played this game hundreds if not thousands of hours - so the term "AE babies" is a bit silly. Back on live "AE Babies" were more of a thing, but hey they paid their money so who am I to say what they should or should not do. 

 

If HC got rid of xp in the AE I think it would be a disaster for the already small population. I for one would probably stop playing altogether if I had to do the same old missions/TFs to get to 50. I don't have that much time to do something which I consider tedious after 11 years combined playing the game. 

[Bionic_Flea]

12 hours ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

All the rest of my inf comes from selling all worthwhile garbage on AH for 111 inf

 

Not for 666?  Shameful!

 

[UltraAlt]

On 6/27/2022 at 7:44 AM, Nightmarer said:

I've been reading a few ppl complaining about "AE babies" and such, it is, ppl get PL'd to 50 and then they don't have a clue of what to do or how to play which seems to be annoying both for team mates and for them as well.

 

"How do I get out of Atlas?" - says the level 50 AE Baby in the days before the Sunset.

 

On 6/27/2022 at 7:44 AM, Nightmarer said:

I am curious to know what ppl would do if XP was removed from AE. Would you still play with the perspective of more people to team with? Would you just play until lvl 35 and from there just one ITF after another?

 

Are talking about would I run AE missions?

The whole farming/PL thing has put a lasting bad taste in my mouth for the AE which is a real shame.

 

The AE has massive potential. People write great arcs for it that are not for farming/PL'ing. That is what it was created for. The AE was not created to be used for farming/PL'ing.

I have written arcs for it. More than I can publish and I rotate them sometimes, but no one plays them unless I run them.

I have only written one new one since I have been on Homecoming. I loaded up my missions from live.

Honestly, my new arc had political content and I just made it to play with a friend to be cathartic and would never post it for other players. For some, this is also the way that they get around copyright issues (but I'm sure that there still might be some X-men AE missions lurking around). Of course, if  you don't publish it, it means no XP. That doesn't mean it isn't fun to play (for everyone). Some are only playing for the profit and not to enjoy the game play. (eg. grinding from 35 to 50 on ITFs)

 

I have to question why being on an AE Farm is "more people to team with". What do you mean by that?

 

I think the XP is only part of the issue.

If farmers weren't harvesting influence, then there would be less power-leveling. I say that because the level 50's would have less of a reason to be in the AE if they weren't making influence. Without the level 50's there, there would be less PL'ing going on.

And, yeah, the tickets would still be there, so maybe they would have to be nerfed or removed as well to curb the PL'ing.

 

35 is usually where I'm winding down my characters to explore other builds/concepts. When I get into the mid 40's, they just kind of are there to run higher-level teams or monster hunts if I decide to join them. The level 50's get stuck in the back of the closet to get pulled out when they are really needed.

I just don't enjoy the end-game. At all.

 

On 6/27/2022 at 7:44 AM, Nightmarer said:

I play little enough as it is now, the only way I would consider playing all the content again would be if new sets / AT's were incorporated ingame plus also a shard reduction to boost the number of players would also be required. 

 

Why is that?

Why do  you "play little enough as it is now"?

 

Have you played through ALL of the lower level content?

There is a lot of it. Far more than there is end-game content.

Have you tried all the power sets through the lower levels? All the combinations of powerset? Tried out using different pool powers?

 

Are you a character conception player, or are you just playing some generic level 50+ superpowered pawn that you move about THE CITY?

(Starkness for little wake up on that. You may be playing less because you aren't enjoying or invested in the game. You only coming to play as a force of habit due to subconscious addiction. Perhaps you are looking for interaction with others and the forums are more entertaining than end-game content?)

 

Oh, so the game isn't worth playing if the servers aren't merged?

Why not simply move your character(s) to Excelsior if you are looking for higher population? (even Everlasting generally has a decent sized population).

 

Most of my characters are on Torchbearer. I'm there mainly because that is where my friends that were already playing made their characters. One of my friends plays there because it is lower population because they have internet connectivity issues. I tend to duo with them and a couple of other friends when they are on, because my friend dc's and has distractions that can pull them away from the keyboard without much notice (which isn't much fun for other players on bigger teams).  Torchbearer at this point usually has a decent population for my tastes from primetime until about 3-5 hours later and it drops off some. There is some activity going on all night most nights. (I play at night)

I really like teaming up with people on Reunion. I don't think I have been on a single team over there that I have had issues with what was going and they really seem to enjoy being on the teams that I lead. Due to my sleep cycle, I'm not able to get on at a time when there is much of a population, but I still go over there from time to time to see what is going on (and to rotate AH stock...)

I have had characters on Indomitable probably within the first month or so being back with Homecoming. It may have been longer, but time is getting weird as I grow yet even older. I can't say that I have ever been on a team outside of a DFB on Indomitable. I'm not even sure if I was even able to get an DFB going over here. I made like 4 characters and leveled them up to between 18-26 solo. Always looking at the LFG and doing a search to see what levels were on to see if it might be worth trying to recruit. If I was on a DFB over there, it was because I recruited for it.

 

I'm kind of rambling at this point, but my point is, that there are teaming opportunities.

Perhaps grinding and running only end-game content is part of the issue.

 

If you can't find a team. Recruit for one. Most people are scared for leading for some reason (probably because when you recruit for something there is always seems to be at least one level 50 that wants you to give them the star once you have filled the team.) If people don't take the risk to recruit, then who is asking for people to join their team?

 

On 6/27/2022 at 7:44 AM, Nightmarer said:

What would you people do in such case the XP was removed entirely from AE?

 

Some people would stop playing.

Other people would keep playing. I think this would be the majority.

 

I do think that the Influence and ticket rewards are the reason that people farm.

Farming and PL-ing aren't the same thing.

But Farmers (for influence and tickets) need bigger teams for bigger rewards. Hiring doorsitters with the reward of being PL'd is helpful to farmers.

The two go hand-in-hand for the corruption of the AE.

 

But all this really goes back to ....

On 6/27/2022 at 7:44 AM, Nightmarer said:

I play little enough as it is now

 

On 6/27/2022 at 7:44 AM, Nightmarer said:

Thing is, in my case, I've lvld up enough chars both here and on live so I just PL new alts and start doing stuff at 50.

 

If you don't play much, and your modus operandi is to PL to 50 (assuming in the AE), why are you bringing up removing XP from the AE?

[roleki]

3 hours ago, Nemu said:

Brainstorm.

 

/jranger

 

1 hour ago, UltraAlt said:

If farmers weren't harvesting influence, then there would be less power-leveling. I say that because the level 50's would have less of a reason to be in the AE if they weren't making influence. Without the level 50's there, there would be less PL'ing going on.

 

I'd be curious to see what other farmers are doing with their influence; unless I'm ducking under the 2BN cap or buying oddball inspirations, I don't spend a dime at the AE.  Influence is meaningless, drops are where it's at.

[RCU7115]

21 hours ago, Ohsirus said:

You'll see a lot more Lvl 1 toons making that death trek thru PI heading to Portal, praying that a Sniper ignores them.

Just hop in the ocean and swim around

[Bill Z Bubba]

4 hours ago, Bionic_Flea said:

Not for 666?  Shameful!

 

That would cost me more than 5 inf.

[Bionic_Flea]

11 minutes ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

 

That would cost me more than 5 inf.

That's being cheap, not evil.

[Bill Z Bubba]

24 minutes ago, Bionic_Flea said:

That's being cheap, not evil.

 

We all have to take a break from our day jobs some of the time...

[SeraphimKensai]

2 hours ago, RCU7115 said:

Just hop in the ocean and swim around

Or mission teleporter right to the door.

[biostem]

5 hours ago, roleki said:

I don't spend a dime at the AE.  Influence is meaningless, drops are where it's at.

If you have a pile of Inf, but not a ton of time, you could drop some on the particular enh's, recipes, salvage, etc that you want...

[Luminara]

14 hours ago, Omega-202 said:

1) And that player who then hits 50 is doing what?  Deleting all drops from that day forward? No, they are selling those drops to fund the next character.  So instead of generating meager and inefficient drops as a lowbie leveling, they're cranking out high levels of productivity to dump on the market.  Front loaded production vs back loaded production. Still same amount of drops generated, or likely more.

 

A character instantly leveled to 50 is generating no more supply than any other level 50+ character when played after using that insta-50 token, and has generated nothing prior to 50 to compensate for the supply reduction when instantly leveled and kitted out.  Less of everything being added to the market below 50, no change in the amount being added to the market at 50/50+, more of everything being removed from the market.  This is classic supply:demand imbalance which a key factor in inflation.  When prices reach a certain level, fear of continued supply shortfalls and the possibility of prices increasing beyond their means will push some players to avoid selling their drops, especially now that they can convert even trash uncommon recipes into something they can use.  That's an interesting aspect of inflation, it's self-sustaining due to human behavior.

 

Here is a prime example of what would happen.  There are 5123 purple enhancements and 1077 purple recipes on market right now.  Presuming each insta-50 wants a minimum of 15 purples (three complete sets), if 300 people each create 3 insta-50 characters and /ah to buy purples, the supply dwindles to almost half.  2066 insta-50 characters would utterly deplete the purple supply.  Consequently, the prices on the remaining purples double, at minimum, in the short term.  Purples are not bucketed, not seeded, not available as upgrades through conversion (can't convert a rare to very rare), they're only available as drops or merit purchases, and the short term price spikes would lead to long term higher pricing.  With each insta-50 dipping into a dwindling market supply, the prices would continue to rise.  More and more players would use merits to purchase purple recipes for their own use, hoard purple drops rather than sell them, and the supply shortfall would grow worse, pushing prices even higher.  Since merit purchases is an option unavailable to those insta-50 characters, as they earned zero merits, the players who created those insta-50 characters have to fund them from their other characters, diverting more resources away from the market.

 

Yes, some of those insta-50 characters might be played, and some of the players might put some of their purple drops back on the market, but in reality, more insta-50 characters will be created, equipped, then relegated to a back page in the character selection screen, action figures on peoples' shelves, than will be played regularly.  And the net effect on the purple market will be gradual depletion and increasing prices.

That's one sector of the market, a mere 15 enhancements (out of 90+) taken by each insta-50.  The sector which, according to your claims, should benefit, rather than see inflation, since insta-50 characters would have immediate access to content which dropped purples.  What happens instead is a sudden reduction in supply, prices going above the established merit:inf* exchange ratio, and the supply not being replenished at a rate comparable to present (door-sitters are still capable of receiving purple drops, since the farmer, being max level, is the one doing the defeating.  no purples to add to the supply if one uses an insta-50 token).

 

That is inflation.  And it wouldn't be restricted to purples.  Every sector of the market would feel the impact.  The entire economy would shift.

 

The only way this works without hyper-inflationary situation would be by increasing drop rates for insta-50 characters.  And that would create entirely different problems, such as a reduced and continually declining sub-50 population as players shifted to insta-50s in order to take advantage of the increased drop rates; inf* devaluation resulting from the market being flooded with items as a result of the increased drop rates; an entirely different kind of elitism leveled at players who haven't reached whatever milestone is attached to enabling or usage of the token, to list a few examples.

 

15 hours ago, Omega-202 said:

2) As mentioned, you can limit the number of flooded 50s via a cost to the insta-50 coin.  You don't just end up with millions of new 50s if you have to pay 500 mil for the token.  Solvable issue with just a modicum of effort.

That's already been addressed as non-viable. The people most likely to use this already have more than sufficient funds to purchase tokens by the boatload, a high price would be neither a deterrent nor an impediment to them.  Hell, I don't farm, I only play the market when I'm leveling a character, and I could still buy a dozen tokens in less than 24 hours, even if they were priced at 2,000,000,000.  And, as has been clearly pointed out by others, putting a price tag in the hundreds of millions, or at the inf* cap, on anything would also risk encouraging less well-endowed players to make use of gold-seller services, which is a direct violation of HC policy and therefore not even on the table.

[Omega-202]

2 minutes ago, Luminara said:

Yes, some of those insta-50 characters might be played, and some of the players might put some of their purple drops back on the market, but in reality, more insta-50 characters will be created, equipped, then relegated to a back page in the character selection screen, action figures on peoples' shelves, than will be played regularly. 

 

And here is the disconnect.  This is where our base assumptions are incompatible and we're coming down on opposite sides.

 

Why is that the assumption?  Why do you think that people are going to just collect action figures of kitted out 50s and never play them?  If that's the case, those people should just play on Brainstorm.  Why have characters and not play them?  That's insane to me.  

 

If that's your base assumption, no further conversation needed.  I disagree but I'm not going to convince you.  

[Ironblade]

2 hours ago, Omega-202 said:

Why is that the assumption?  Why do you think that people are going to just collect action figures of kitted out 50s and never play them?  If that's the case, those people should just play on Brainstorm.  Why have characters and not play them?  That's insane to me.

Sounds like human nature to me.

 

I play all of my characters from 1 to 50, then get their incarnate powers.  At that point, SOME of them just don't get played any more since I'm always leveling something new.  The easier it is to get more 50's, the more 50's will be mothballed.  That's how life is.

[Omega-202]

24 minutes ago, Ironblade said:

Sounds like human nature to me.

 

I play all of my characters from 1 to 50, then get their incarnate powers.  At that point, SOME of them just don't get played any more since I'm always leveling something new.  The easier it is to get more 50's, the more 50's will be mothballed.  That's how life is.

Then why not strip them for parts instead of buying fresh IOs for the next 50?  Seems silly to mothball kitted out characters.  

 

I often strip down old completely unused 50s, if only for convenience.  5 gamblers, the full suite of defensive uniques, a shifter or two, and 3 or 4 sets of purps can be used on most builds.  Saves time having to shop for parts.  

 

Sorry, the concept of keeping a tricked out 50 as is, unused, like some weird collectible is a totally alien concept to me.  

[Seed22]

3 hours ago, Omega-202 said:

Different strokes for different folks 🤷🏽‍♂️

 

 

 

Edited June 29, 2022 by Seed22

[Ironblade]

16 hours ago, Omega-202 said:

Then why not strip them for parts instead of buying fresh IOs for the next 50?  Seems silly to mothball kitted out characters.  

 

I often strip down old completely unused 50s, if only for convenience.  5 gamblers, the full suite of defensive uniques, a shifter or two, and 3 or 4 sets of purps can be used on most builds.  Saves time having to shop for parts.  

 

Sorry, the concept of keeping a tricked out 50 as is, unused, like some weird collectible is a totally alien concept to me.  

 

1)  It's a waste of time since I can easily afford the new IO's for new characters.

2)  It's a virtual certainty that the new character will need very different IO's anyway.

3)  I might want to use the character for something months or a year later.  Someone might be planning a Master badge run or something and ask if anyone has a specific AT and powerset.

 

Also, it seems we build our characters differently.

"5 gamblers, the full suite of defensive uniques, a shifter or two, and 3 or 4 sets of purps can be used on most builds."

I have almost zero characters that can use 5 LotG since I don't play many defense sets and I usually don't take defensive pool powers just mule LotG's.

Almost none of my characters have "the full suite of defensive uniques" for the reason listed above and also that I just don't bother.

Most of my builds don't need "a shifter or two".  (Probably because everyone gets the Miracle:+recovery in Health.)

I agree on the purples but, as I noted in point 3 above, if I strip the character I might regret it later.

[Omega-202]

1 hour ago, Ironblade said:

 

1)  It's a waste of time since I can easily afford the new IO's for new characters.

2)  It's a virtual certainty that the new character will need very different IO's anyway.

3)  I might want to use the character for something months or a year later.  Someone might be planning a Master badge run or something and ask if anyone has a specific AT and powerset.

 

Also, it seems we build our characters differently.

"5 gamblers, the full suite of defensive uniques, a shifter or two, and 3 or 4 sets of purps can be used on most builds."

I have almost zero characters that can use 5 LotG since I don't play many defense sets and I usually don't take defensive pool powers just mule LotG's.

Almost none of my characters have "the full suite of defensive uniques" for the reason listed above and also that I just don't bother.

Most of my builds don't need "a shifter or two".  (Probably because everyone gets the Miracle:+recovery in Health.)

I agree on the purples but, as I noted in point 3 above, if I strip the character I might regret it later.

1) It's objectively faster.  TP to SG base, unslot with unslotters at base merit vendor, put in table, log out, log back in on new 50.  Takes less than 5 minutes.  

2) You're not building optimally then.  To your later point, if you're not rocking gamblers and the defensive uniques, then we're playing different games.  Regarding the Miracle, again you're showing your lack of knowledge because Panacea is objectively more bang for your buck and Miracle is a tertiary unique when it comes to efficient recovery.  

3) What game are you playing where you are going to drop what you are doing and need to go grab a niche powerset that you haven't played in a year to join an ad hoc master of TF?  Talk about a contrived nonsense scenario.  If you have so many 50s, as do I, then just grab one of the other ones that's not stripped down.  This is so ridiculous.  

 

If you want to believe that everyone would be making museums of "in case of emergency, break glass to access your 1.4 billion inf, crappily built 50" than you do you.  I don't think that would happen on any massive scale.