Do you PL in AE?

[Troo]

13 minutes ago, Troo said:

Simple answer: Find some other way to farm XP.

 

Folks would actually have to explore the game a bit, travel to missions locations, and risk losing a saved special mission if the glowie is clicked.

 

This said, it would likely have an overall marginal impact on salvage, recipes and funds as the activities would move elsewhere. 

 

The super dialed in AE farms that yield excessive rewards being the most reduction.

 

I'd be in favor of rotating (similar to weekly TFs) whether AE provided xp, $$, or not. Scratch that, I'm not in favor of impacting non-farm player created content.

[Troo]

6 hours ago, 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.

 

Is there a better way?

 

Maybe we shouldn't have to level up another 50 every-time, forever.

 

Maybe we shouldn't need to re-roll when we finally realize we don't like our secondary.

Should we need to level up another Brute if we already have 3 or 4 50s?

 

Idea #1: I'd be in favor of being able to drop a primary or secondary for something else at a reasonable cost.

• Cost: 5 levels.

 

Idea #2: I'd be in favor of some type of Level Up token

• We already do this on Test server.
• A way to reward folks who have met criteria.
  • New badge for getting [some #] of Brutes to 50 or total Brute exp. "Brute-iful Mastery" badge
  • Grants player a level 40 token for a Brute.
• For every 2 mastery of AT badges get a choice of a new AT level 15 token.

 

Make trying new ATs and powersets easier. Reward experience.

 

 

Edited June 27, 2022 by Troo

[Galactiman]

My opinion is that a player run economy makes no sense not only in a superhero game, but also a game with such a small population, and the income to cost ratio should be changed such that just playing the game normally allows for finishing a build in a reasonable time without reliance on other players, but that's probably an unpopular opinion. Also, I probably have a different idea of "reasonable" than other folks.

[TheZag]

Ill use AE on occasion,  like less than once a month.  If xp were nerfed or removed then players would find something else to farm.  Farmers only farm AE because its the most efficient.  The moment that a contact mission or a TF or even street sweeping becomes more efficient,  the farmers will switch over to doing that instead.

 

And while AE babies do exist,  their population is small.  They would just be powerleveled babies if they werent AE babies.  I think ive only ran into 2 of them,  but i also dont spend my time in AE.  The best bet for AE babies would be moving the AE building out of starting zones so new players wont think its part of the new player activities.  Going to pocket d or kings row/port oakes would only be a minor inconvenience for veteran players but would give new players a moment of pause before changing zones.  

[Nemu]

Battle maiden, dreck, and the unai demon farm existed long before AE. People will just move to those.

 

PL is a tool just as any other tool. Anyone can use it, from seasoned vets that know how to plan builds and play anything with supreme competence to complete noobs that think all COX has to offer is fire farms and 6 slot purples in every power because they think that's what "maxxed out" means.

 

I prefer the latter group use other tools to advance their understanding of the game but they can do whatever they want to do and I can't stop them. If they want to fire farm 24/7 and suck that's their right. I won't lose sleep over it because 1) that's what the star rating system is for and 2) I know I can carry their asses with all my builds.

[Luminara]

I don't power-level (i do use the 2XP option), I don't farm, I don't use the Architect stuff for anything... and I don't care if anyone else does, or doesn't, do any of those things.  I do my things my way, others do their things their ways and I don't make it my business to tell them their business.  To date, no-one's made it their business to tell me my business, either, so the world spins on.

 

The sole objection I have to farming is the clutter it causes in various archetype forums (it's difficult to find a good discussion when the first ten pages are crammed with people begging for farming builds).  And I deal with that by ignoring the archetype forums entirely unless a specific topic catches my eye.

 

Farm, don't farm, market, don't market, PL, don't PL, AE XP, don't AE XP, whatever.

[roleki]

I started playing CoH just before Issue 2 dropped, and stuck around until a month or so before Issue 19.  I lived through the days where you could do Frostfire 7 times in a row, but if the team petered out before YOUR Frostfire mission was completed, you didn't get credit for it.  Now you're level 12 and nobody wants to help you fight a bunch of greys, might as well reroll or try to solo it.  After paying out roughly 1100.00 in subscription fees to do so, I walked away with maybe 5 or 6x 50s and numerous alts in various states of advancement, all leveled-up through content.

 

Point being, I've been through the content - especially low-level content - one million times.  I've no desire to do it a million-and-one times, let alone a million-and-200 times or however many alts I have. 

 

I PL stuff because I really don't care about the journey; I only care that I have new stuff to trot out to a PuG or an ITF or an MSR or whatever.  

 

So yeah, if they were to shut off XP in AE, I would just go back to farming particularly advantageous missions outside of AE.  

Edited June 27, 2022 by roleki

[Troo]

4 minutes ago, roleki said:

I PL stuff because I really don't care about the journey; I only care that I have new stuff to trot out to a PuG or an ITF or an MSR or whatever.  

 

So yeah, if they were to shut off XP in AE, I would just go back to farming particularly advantageous missions outside of AE. 

 

So should there be another option?

 

A token that gives levels to a new character and skip the PLing. If so, what would be the appropriate level to skip to?

[JasperStone]

Before DfB and DiB people did sewers to get to lvl 20 quick ...

[Bionic_Flea]

I sometimes PL myself in the AE with my second account and even then rarely more than a few levels -- either the first few, the last few, or a few in the slog that is the 30s.  I almost never PL from 1 to 50.  As far as I can remember I haven't done that at all in HC, but maybe I did early on.  Sometimes, if I am bored, I will log in a farmer to run a few maps.  I find it relaxing once I get into a rhythm.

 

I don't mind if people want to PL to 50 or however much they want to.  However, I do think that afk-farming, especially multi-box afk-farming may be a bit too much for me.  I think you should be at the keyboard if playing.  That's just my opinion.

[Apparition]

16 minutes ago, Krimson said:

I have suggested level 50 tokens in the past. Make them like 50 million. I can dual box Troll Caves once. Boom done. Or if you don't want tokens, maybe sell a BIG BUNDLE O' XP for a million or so a pop, and then just buy them until you are where you want to be. Maybe I'll stop at level 35 and do my Patron arc...

 

I would be good with level 50 tokens… as long as they cost two billion INF per.

[biostem]

I played the live game from beta till about 2009.  I have very little interest in running the low level content and playing the "have to redo enhancements every 3 levels or so" game.  To that end, I typically run my "Biostem's underground culling" tunnel farm to about level 22 or so, then outfit myself with some 25 IOs, so I have a solid, never-expiring foundation, and can contribute to higher level teams.

 

I've started going back and running some of the lower level TFs, which I probably only ran a few times on live, and I gotta tell you... it's quite a slog having only 1-3 attacks and such...

[Luminara]

25 minutes ago, Krimson said:

I have suggested level 50 tokens in the past.

 

Insta-50 characters would generate zero inf*, zero salvage, zero recipes, zero SOs, which means they would not only add nothing to the market or the economy, they'd impose a massive drain on available market resources, driving inflation into an uncontrolled upswing.  My lack of shits to give about what anyone else does ends where IO recipe prices blow past the inf* cap again.

 

It's been a bad idea every time someone's brought it up, it's still a bad idea.

[roleki]

59 minutes ago, Troo said:

 

So should there be another option?

 

A token that gives levels to a new character and skip the PLing. If so, what would be the appropriate level to skip to?

 

I've seen that suggested before - and if the devs want to implement such a thing that's great - but aside from trying it out of curiosity, I don't see myself using such a feature.  The farmer farms the alt up to 50~6, and the drops from both go to kit out the alt.  I only use the AE to buy H/V/W packs and occasionally stock up on inspirations, and I would like to keep it that way.  That said (and barring unforeseen consequences) I do not think I would begrudge someone who wanted a buttonized 50; I'd just be interested in knowing how they'll make up the gap in influence/drops.

ETA: Thinking about it a little more, @Luminara has the right of it... a 50 button would kill the AH in seconds.  It would all but cinch off most of the 1-49 recipes/enhancements, and flood the market with 50 recipes.  The impact on casual/Right Way players would just be too immense to justify.

Edited June 27, 2022 by roleki

[Sabrehawk]

Yes. I AE farm every alt to 50. There are two reasons for this. One, I just enjoy the endgame content more and made an alt to experience it through the lens of a different power set. Two, I work a lot of hours, have a single day off per week and only can play in the early AM these days. So I need to do everything in the most time efficient way.

[Ironblade]

7 hours ago, 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?

It would have pretty much zero impact on my play since I *NEVER* power-level any character that I intend to play.

Why would I PL anyone, then?  Here's the most recent example - the last time Dr Q came around in the 'Weekly Strike Target' rotation, it occurred to me that I could earn some extra merits by quickly PL'ing a character to 40+ so they could doorsit while I soloed the task force on my main.  So I did.  I logged in my main, a level 50 defender on my second account (that I played to 50), and a PL'ed character on my 3rd account to be used for nothing else.  I soloed the TF and earned 732 merits.

 

Having said that, I think the impact on my play would be that we would have less people.  A massive nerf to AE would absolutely cause some people to leave.  I couldn't guess how many.  Could be 2%, could be 20%.

 

 

2 hours ago, Galactiman said:

My opinion is that a player run economy makes no sense not only in a superhero game, but also a game with such a small population, and the income to cost ratio should be changed such that just playing the game normally allows for finishing a build in a reasonable time without reliance on other players, but that's probably an unpopular opinion. Also, I probably have a different idea of "reasonable" than other folks.

Your position is certainly sound.  However, there is room for disagreement on the margins as you acknowledge in the definition of 'reasonable'.

In my opinion, we CAN finish a build in a reasonable time without reliance on other players.  However, I define finishing a build as being fully IO'ed with 'decent' sets.  I don't think everyone should be able, in a 'reasonable' time, to have a build full of purples, PvP IO's and ATO's.  Decent IO sets will get you 80% of the way to the 'ultimate' build.  If you want that extra 20%, you should have to work at it to an 'unreasonable' degree.

 

[Seed22]

Interesting question. I use AE to PL. I definitely dont owe anyone here even the SLIGHTEST reason for anything I do, but I guess I’ll play ball:

 

I dont have the energy or time to getnew 50s through Radios( literally farming but apparently more acceptable?). I had 25+ 50’s the old fashioned way. Any new ones will be PL’ed, plain ‘n simple.

 

I can understand the doorsitter spam. I just laugh and ignore them, since it’s actually not too difficult to just PL a farmer yourself then PL yourself with said farmer

[TheZag]

Two billion and one !

[Ohsirus]

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

[Seed22]

4 minutes ago, Ironblade said:

It would have pretty much zero impact on my play since I *NEVER* power-level any character that I intend to play.

Why would I PL anyone, then?  Here's the most recent example - the last time Dr Q came around in the 'Weekly Strike Target' rotation, it occurred to me that I could earn some extra merits by quickly PL'ing a character to 40+ so they could doorsit while I soloed the task force on my main.  So I did.  I logged in my main, a level 50 defender on my second account (that I played to 50), and a PL'ed character on my 3rd account to be used for nothing else.  I soloed the TF and earned 732 merits.

 

Having said that, I think the impact on my play would be that we would have less people.  A massive nerf to AE would absolutely cause some people to leave.  I couldn't guess how many.  Could be 2%, could be 20%.

 

 

Your position is certainly sound.  However, there is room for disagreement on the margins as you acknowledge in the definition of 'reasonable'.

In my opinion, we CAN finish a build in a reasonable time without reliance on other players.  However, I define finishing a build as being fully IO'ed with 'decent' sets.  I don't think everyone should be able, in a 'reasonable' time, to have a build full of purples, PvP IO's and ATO's.  Decent IO sets will get you 80% of the way to the 'ultimate' build.  If you want that extra 20%, you should have to work at it to an 'unreasonable' degree.

 

I find that getting a build with purps and such is fairly easy to do once you’ve got a toon that you stockpile  things on. No unreasonableness involved. A little planning and stockpiling can and should take you a long way

[Spaghetti Betty]

I'll only PL myself on occasion. If I feel like a toon is gonna really suck at low lvl, I'll give them a boost. Like a toon with Super Strength. Or Regen. But only to 27. That's the minimum threshold to be able to use any IO that isn't purple. Anything more than that and I feel like I wasted the opportunity to really enjoy the character.

[roleki]

1 minute ago, Seed22 said:

Interesting question. I use AE to PL. I definitely dont owe anyone here even the SLIGHTEST reason for anything I do, but I guess I’ll play ball:

 

I dont have the energy or time to getnew 50s through Radios( literally farming but apparently more acceptable?). I had 25+ 50’s the old fashioned way. Any new ones will be PL’ed, plain ‘n simple.

 

I can understand the doorsitter spam. I just laugh and ignore them, since it’s actually not too difficult to just PL a farmer yourself then PL yourself with said farmer

 

And this is one of the milder threads on the subject.  On these very forums, I have had someone tell me I would never be able to "woo a woman" (their words) because I PL.  And they were dead serious.  I've had people attribute all sorts of personality/character flaws to my preference for PLing - laziness, compulsive behavior, and so on.  I've had people accuse me of being dimwitted because I can somehow derive entertainment from looping through the same mission over and over and over; presumably that person then logged off and ran out to Investigate Clockwork Activity In The Warehouse for the 4000th time without a drip of self-awareness.  

 

Whenever the slings and arrows begin to take their toll on me, I just think of this and I remember why I am here.

[Ironblade]

11 minutes ago, Seed22 said:

I find that getting a build with purps and such is fairly easy to do once you’ve got a toon that you stockpile  things on. No unreasonableness involved. A little planning and stockpiling can and should take you a long way

Sure, but we're on the definition of 'reasonable' again.

I *DO* plan ahead, stockpile things, use converters, etc.  So every one of my characters has at least two sets of purples, ATO's etc and some have a lot more.  And I think the effort I expended is completely reasonable.  🙂

[Ukase]

7 hours ago, Marshal_General said:

I never really understood farming AE. Other than xp, what is it good for?

AE can be a nice change of pace from the same content that's been available (while the game was running) for years. 

It's not all about the XP. I like it for the vet levels and resulting emp merits. I don't care about the inf. I already have that. I just want the emp merits, and they're low hanging fruit in AE because of the ease in leveling. 

[ShardWarrior]

1 hour ago, Apparition said:

I would be good with level 50 tokens… as long as they cost two billion INF per.

 

For starters, it is not all that difficult to earn that kind of influence.  All this ludicrous price tag would do is encourage people to turn to gold farmers, which makes the suggestion even more ridiculous.  It is also my understanding that the folks here at Homecoming refuse to have anything that would encourage gold farming.

 

In one of the last discussions on this topic, I seem to remember someone (apologies as I do not remember who specifically) had suggested that the level 50 tokens be consumable on use and earned/unlocked through "normal", non-farming game play.  Personally, I think that idea has merit.