Do you PL in AE?

[Bill Z Bubba]

48 minutes ago, roleki said:

That seems so weird to me; am I the only one rolling a ton of alts because I want to go out and do stuff with them once they're finished?  

 

Not at all. Like I said, I've got 20 or so I enjoy playing. The rest kinda suck for some reason or another.

[Neiska]

My take -

 

Do I PL in AE? Honestly it depends! I make different characters with different goals in mind - Some just for fun, some to try different power combinations. Sometimes I make characters to play with certain friends or people in my supergroup, and sometimes I make characters entirely at random. Sometimes if I am in a rush just to try something out or make a few tweaks, sure I will PL myself. Sometimes I get the urge to load all 3 of my MMs and absolutely destroy maps too, the power rush is very satisfying. But I have just as many characters that have never stepped foot in AE if they are made to play with certain people or friends. One thing I enjoy is "iron-maning" it. More or less that is when you level up entirely solo on what you find/make yourself, zero trading, zero buying anything, even recipes. Even zero p2w features at all, even the run buffs.

 

But I use AE for more than just an EXP piñata. You can control not just how many enemies there are and what level, but the damage types as well. This makes it very useful for trying out new concepts, such as how strong a builds CC or defenses are, or how much your damage type is resisted, to test your effectiveness vs debuffs. Or entirely new build concepts like a flying/knockback based build, and so on. And while I have no proof I strongly suspect that I am far from the only one to use AE in this manner. One of the big uses I have for AE is actually helping teach other players how to play Masterminds. It is a pretty complex class, not just in builds but in commands/playstyle. (I would argue moreso than other AT's) And being able to pick the damage type, number, difficulty, and kind of enemies is fantastic to help show other people who want to learn how to Mastermind what to do in different situations with different builds, as well as how to get the most out of their pets.

 

I am in the "live and let live" camp. If people want to powergrind then I say let them. If others want to be puritan and play only world content, then that is fine too. Just as people are free to ask "looking for farm" other people are free to say "Sorry but no." The tells might get tiresome after some time, but I think that's part of what you sign up for when playing a game with other people.

 

As far as the AE argument itself? I think it would matter little if they removed the EXP entirely. The big brains would just do the math and figure out what's the next thing to farm, and whatever that is would be the next thing to be farmed to oblivion. Farming is a part of many games that involve character progression, CoH is hardly unique in this. But if the community wants people to leave the AE and do other things, I would argue that the people using the AE need more options, not less. I think things are more equal in exp/money now. But if things outside of the AE gave more, then it might entice them to instead do that. The only real advantage AE has over other activity types is time required to travel/speak to the contacts. But that's because it is static and in one place, more than the design of the AE itself.

 

One thing I would support is changing the bonus merits to bonus exp/inf as well. So that people get more than just extra merits for doing any certain activity week to week. Make it comparable or even superior to the gains in AE and you might see more people doing them.

 

But lastly I do want to point out what many may have missed - unless AE is entirely removed, you will always see some people doing them. Some people simply like to do their own thing or play by themselves, and that's okay. Even if AE was the worst way to level, I do believe that there are some who would continue to use it, because that is their favored mode to play - simply by themselves. No muss, no fuss, no drama. You can't "force" people to play together who don't want to, regardless of what carrot or stick you might try. It will reach a point where people will go "You know what? This isn't for me anymore." and move onto whatever else they choose to enjoy as a hobby.

 

My two cents on the matter!

 

[ShardWarrior]

1 hour ago, roleki said:

That seems so weird to me; am I the only one rolling a ton of alts because I want to go out and do stuff with them once they're finished?  

 

No, you are definitely not alone there.  I do the same as do the friends I team with.  It is infinitely more fun to play fully decked out characters, even exemplaring.  They just perform so much better than characters struggling on SOs and leveling up the old fashioned way. 

[High_Beam]

I have only PL'd one character ever and its been here on Homecoming; some fire thing in AE.  Now this is not an attempt to seem above anything or whatever.  It was for a specific Supergroup Event that required a specific type of toon and it was optional and I did it so yeah.  Since that event that character has been sitting there collecting dust.  This is not an attack on people who PL; do as you see fit.  But for me the act of running the character up, doing the missions, learning how to use the powers and more importantly learning if the character is going to be fun is why I don't get into PL; I don't feel a sense of ownership.

 

Bill Z brought up the aspect of the ones you go back to and those you could lose with no sweat.   With me it seems that level 24 is the break point between weather I like or not.  Unfortunately, until recently I deleted a lot of characters who just weren't getting it done for me on an enjoyment level, only to create a new one with similar powers to "try again".  I hadn't even thought to use the test server to see where my enjoyment factor broke out.

 

But I recently started which allows me to test at 30. just before your Tier 9 because up until then you are using your bread and butter powers and generally comprise the majority of your abilities.  Then 40 where you can see how much fun you are having getting your buttocks handed to you by the heavies (or not).  And at 50, fugghedabout.  In doing so like has already been said I could stack all those pricey enhancements to see how kitted out I could make a character.  While you aren't doing a lot of team testing, if you are having fun solo then you should be having fun on a team.  There are plenty of uber toons that still aren't fun.

 

I would never have stuck it out with an Illusion/Kinetics troller because even after PA but before Fulcrum, it was slow and painful and to be honest not fun.  But test allowed me to trick it out to see how fun she was going to be.  Late bloomers and all.  So in a way, we are all time travelling to the future to see what will be then coming back and setting out on the journey and in knowing how we are going to be when we grow up helps us enjoy those journey moments even all the more; plus allows us to avoid the bad dates and broken hearts parts (I am pointing at you Shining Stars story arcs . . . except you Flambeaux, you are my bff, totally).

 

PL is about skipping the journey and figuring out what you want to be after you have already grown up.  If that works for you then groovy.

[Without_Pause]

I only self PL via dual boxing. I'm not sure when I would do it again. For a variety of reasons(burnout, real life), I haven't logged in some time. I'm not sure when I get back into the game how I will approach my characters. It might be straight PL or level them as normal. I think there are a few I would like to level normally. At this point I think it will take making a character with power sets which I haven't played before to be interested in rolling anything. I had been getting more tempted to go the Bill Z route before my break and just use test to see how much I would like a build and then go from there. The pro/con of being a 10+ year CoH vet is you know what you like and don't. There just aren't that many builds worth playing. I got borderline to the point of just wanting to log onto my badger outside of some new projects and call it good.

[biostem]

13 minutes ago, Without_Pause said:

I only self PL via dual boxing. I'm not sure when I would do it again. For a variety of reasons(burnout, real life), I haven't logged in some time. I'm not sure when I get back into the game how I will approach my characters. It might be straight PL or level them as normal. I think there are a few I would like to level normally. At this point I think it will take making a character with power sets which I haven't played before to be interested in rolling anything. I had been getting more tempted to go the Bill Z route before my break and just use test to see how much I would like a build and then go from there. The pro/con of being a 10+ year CoH vet is you know what you like and don't. There just aren't that many builds worth playing. I got borderline to the point of just wanting to log onto my badger outside of some new projects and call it good.

I tend to agree with your sentiment;  I know enough about the game and its underlying mechanics that I don't need to fuss around with actually playing a set to determine if the numbers beneath the hood would make it effective in my eyes or not.  That being said, I have been pleasantly surprised with a few powers' having unique or fun animations, or how particular sets gel.  To that end, I'll usually run said characters through my own tunnel farm a few times to see if I wanna stick with them or not...

[Without_Pause]

14 minutes ago, biostem said:

I tend to agree with your sentiment;  I know enough about the game and its underlying mechanics that I don't need to fuss around with actually playing a set to determine if the numbers beneath the hood would make it effective in my eyes or not.  That being said, I have been pleasantly surprised with a few powers' having unique or fun animations, or how particular sets gel.  To that end, I'll usually run said characters through my own tunnel farm a few times to see if I wanna stick with them or not...

Yeah, I do the big mob map which is in a tunnel and no stragglers. A single pass gets me to 22. If nothing else that's an easy and nice thing to do for just about any character although hitting 27 would be the ideal in terms of IO slotting options for level 30 sets. TA has been a nice find. I'm still hellbent against longer animations so when I get back around to things I'm curious about Dark/kin controller. The only long animation is really a before battle cast anyway.

[Dahkness]

I love ae farming. It’s a mini game within the game. 

[ltzerge]

Yep. Between Ouroboros letting me go back to arcs and the level matching systems in general I've stopped caring for traditional leveling unless I'm in a particular mood for it. Especially as someone who had already sunk so many thousands of hours into live server back then. I've mostly settled into a dynamic where I spend a lot of time on beta test experimenting with character concepts to figure out what I find fun and interesting, then build it up on the regular server. 

Even way back before AE, people just run radios on repeat or farm specific PI missions that have all behemoths or something. When people want to powergame that badly there's not much you can do about it. Trying to force them to stop just makes them give up and quit a lot of the time. 

It is a shame the AE database is 90% the same farms on repeat though, it's really a waste of space to have that much. I forget if there's a Farm tag officially in AE but there should be just to filter them out 

Edited July 9, 2022 by ltzerge

[Myrmidon]

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

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

 

 

As removing XP from AE except for Dev’s Choice content is one of my all-time wishes for this game, I would laugh and laugh and laugh.

[Myrmidon]

On 7/3/2022 at 10:31 AM, Bill Z Bubba said:

I realized this morning that when you've reached the point, again, that you spend far more time on the forums talking about the game rather than playing it, something might have gone amiss. Yesterday, I fully intended to PL that fire/regen brute to 50 and spend the weekend doing what was necessary to get it fully tricked out but in the end, I just built it on beta utilizing VASTLY less time to do so and got from it what I needed to.

 

I spent no inf, very little time, pulled nothing from storage and now have absolutely no reason not to delete it from live as it currently sits with nothing but a buncha red SOs. Total inf loss of trying it out? Whatever gets spent buying the P2W stuff I start every character with.

 

The flipside to this is the same thing so many have mentioned already in that as the time/energy spent on a character goes down, the ease of just nuking it goes up. My spreadsheet shows I have around 60 characters total and it seems between 50 and 75 across my two accounts is all my brain can handle. I'll hit the login screen from time to time and scroll through it and go, huh, I'm never playin that again. So I log it on, respec, strip everything, dump it in the bins, email off the inf/emps/merits, and poof, it's gone. And why does this happen? Cuz there's probably only 20 characters (three of them being the same damn character but with different ATs) that I always enjoy playing. The rest are works in progress or something so silly (Bunny Fufu comes to mind) that I keep around just for the giggles.

 

Looking at the spreadsheet now, there's easily 10 I could strip and nuke right now and some of those have never seen the inside of AE because of the other side of this topic. Sometimes you invest fully, you get a backstory, you get a great name and an awesome costume, everything clicks and then after X number of hours playing, you realize that the combo or even the archetype you chose sucks taint. This is particularly bad when you've forced yourself all the way to 50 the long way while deluding yourself into thinking that it'll get better.

 

Point is, I'm not sure I'll bother with much PLing anymore. It's just easier to slap a build together in Mids, export it to beta, and test it out there to save you all manner of time and potential frustration.

Then, there is my way.

 

I make a Mids build for a character (sometimes two or three builds, since we have the option), give it the full IO build compliment and take it to 50 (without using AE). I have five pages of 50s (with every AT at level cap) and only really run my main on Tanker Tuesday most days (with a Proc Monster build). 
 

Perhaps my “endgame” should be writing up a back story for all of them. We will see what that sixth page brings.

[roleki]

29 minutes ago, Myrmidon said:

 

 

As removing XP from AE except for Dev’s Choice content is one of my all-time wishes for this game, I would laugh and laugh and laugh.

 

"Alone."

[Seed22]

3 hours ago, roleki said:

 

"Alone."

 

 

EDIT: A thought occurred to me. Folks will take up arms against AE fervently. What if the same had been done to those who didn't use IO's? Something along the lines of saying, "If X person doesn't have IO's/completed build with so and so, then they shouldn't be allowed to play the content they enjoy, or be forced to use IO's to join Y TF."

Edited July 9, 2022 by Seed22

[Seed22]

3 hours ago, Myrmidon said:

Then, there is my way.

 

I make a Mids build for a character (sometimes two or three builds, since we have the option), give it the full IO build compliment and take it to 50 (without using AE). I have five pages of 50s (with every AT at level cap) and only really run my main on Tanker Tuesday most days (with a Proc Monster build). 
 

Perhaps my “endgame” should be writing up a back story for all of them. We will see what that sixth page brings.

I've had 25+ 50's preshutdown and another 20+ post relaunch  on my main account and another 30+ on my alt. Half of them don't even have bios and about 5 get playtime now lol.  Oh, and of course all have completed builds from a funding 50 or two

 

Creating backstories can be fun, and I highly recommend it to any! Doesn't even have to be for RP purposes. 😄

 

But AE still is useful for me. It took me several years to get all these 50s, and it'd of taken me possibly a lot more. And seeing as I don't have oodles of time like when I was a child (I assume a lot of folks), AE allows me and other vets to get 50's and still have fun with the game doing various levels of content

[golstat2003]

If xp were taken away from AE I would step into it a lot less and just go to PI for PLs (which would be where PLIing would inevitably move).

 

I'd only play player written AE content if it were mixed in with actual missions (and mission doors in the various zones), and not in a one zone simulation.

[PLVRIZR]

On 7/5/2022 at 4:32 PM, Without_Pause said:

Yeah, I do the big mob map which is in a tunnel and no stragglers. A single pass gets me to 22. If nothing else that's an easy and nice thing to do for just about any character although hitting 27 would be the ideal in terms of IO slotting options for level 30 sets.

 

This is also me. 

 

I'm not the best or fastest farmer, but I invested much in my Spines/Fire farming-only broot, and can complete that map in about 15 min.  The second 15 min. run gets me to 27 (and beyond)...😁

[rwdillon6]

On 6/27/2022 at 10:30 AM, arcane said:

If there was no more XP in AE, I stand ready with Harvey Maylor’s demon farm. 

SHHHHHHH

 

I been farming LOOOONG before AE was a thought and will be farming LOOOONG after... Will be no different. Except LFG getting flooded with farm chatter rather than local in the AE.. I will get my Vet levels either way and @ the same speed... I farm in Mercy AE to get away from the chatter so i much enjoy this since my farm is evil..  peace and quit nights while i put in work and probably removing LFG chat and a few others..  Since playing on teams can trigger my Anxiety dealing with people i just stick to a super small circle and farming offers me peace and clear mind and enjoy the best game ever made..

Edited July 15, 2022 by rwdillon6

[Carnifax]

14 hours ago, PLVRIZR said:

 

This is also me. 

 

I'm not the best or fastest farmer, but I invested much in my Spines/Fire farming-only broot, and can complete that map in about 15 min.  The second 15 min. run gets me to 27 (and beyond)...😁

This is also also me. 22 or 27 are nice starting points for me, I can start slotting up the build with set IOs. 

 

I just use my Fire Tank to PL them to that point. 

[The_Warpact]

31 minutes ago, rwdillon6 said:

 Since playing on teams can trigger my Anger in dealing with people i just stick to a super small circle and farming offers me peace and clear mind and enjoy the best game ever made..

I fixed it for my use, but, I totally get where you're coming from.

[Without_Pause]

On 7/14/2022 at 4:48 PM, PLVRIZR said:

 

This is also me. 

 

I'm not the best or fastest farmer, but I invested much in my Spines/Fire farming-only broot, and can complete that map in about 15 min.  The second 15 min. run gets me to 27 (and beyond)...😁

I was down around the 12 minute mark on my Rad/fire depending on how on top of my game I was trying to be. I know I can be faster, but I just haven't put in the effort to do so, and taking a break from the game anyway.

[Coyotedancer]

On 7/15/2022 at 4:17 AM, Carnifax said:

This is also also me. 22 or 27 are nice starting points for me, I can start slotting up the build with set IOs. 

 

I just use my Fire Tank to PL them to that point. 

 

I tend to kick mine to 32 so that I can slot them with the lvl 35 common IOs they'll use as they level the rest of the way to 50...

 

Without the ability to dual-box a new alt with one of my farmers I probably wouldn't make new characters, I've completely burned out on the low level half of the game... If I never have to see it again, I won't feel like I've missed out... So at least some early-level power-leveling is a necessary thing in my case. It makes building new characters fun instead of something I'd dread.  

[ArcturusPolaris]

What ever your theories are.... We in AE are a community.  If you choose not to do the AE content, that is your choice.  We are enjoying ourselves, forming relationships, and having fun. The people I know are not in some type of competition to better level than you. Its just a way we play and for us is fun. Why do you want to consider taking anything away from us because its not the way you "think" we should play the game? I would go somewhere else if EX was taken away, not because EX was taken away as much as your trying to control the way I play. I dont want to be FORCED to explore other content...I want to do it because I want to. We ARE a community! We are coming into this game to have fun. I can go somewhere else, but id rather not. You may not care and not "like" AE, but focus on yourself and do you....add something fun but dont go taking things away. 

Edited July 16, 2022 by ArcturusPolaris

[blue4333]

I think we should have an Badge or Title for people who've never stepped into an AE farm. They would love to show it off.

[Thraxis]

I GOT DEJA VU READING THIS THREAD

[Coyotedancer]

21 hours ago, blue4333 said:

I think we should have an Badge or Title for people who've never stepped into an AE farm. They would love to show it off.

 

Only if the devoted farmers also get one... Call us the Paragon Grange Association or something. 😆