issue 27 Focused Feedback: Architect Entertainment

[TomatoPhalanges]

25 minutes ago, Biosphere said:

 

This pretty much encapsulates everything about this thread. Everything in favor of nerfing the AE in this way are normative statements. Some people use the AE as their preferred way to get the rewards they want, and the suggestion is that they should not. Because it is deemed that the AE shouldn't be used in that way, and they should use other content. And that limitations should be put on the AE such as only Dev's Choice lets you get vet levels.

 

But there's nothing stopping anyone right now from choosing whatever content they want to do. You're basically saying that you deem the AE to be too good at what it does, and so because of that it comes at the detriment of everything else, because of course nobody else would ever choose to do something like trials or taskforces when they can just farm in the AE. You're making a supposition on someone's choices because you yourself have made a personal analysis, and then came to a conclusion.

 

The problem with making normative statements and value judgements is that you're removing choice and telling people the way you want to play isn't how I want you to play or what I want you to play, and that's why everyone who has a problem with this change is speaking up.

As it currently stands, if someone wants the most bang for their buck, they have to do AE. There is literally no other option even remotely comparable in terms of rewards. In other words, to be most rewarded for their time, they have to do the easiest method in the game to gain said rewards. A large chunk of players in games naturally take the path of least resistance. This is game design philosophy 101. It's not about hurting the people who love farming, it's about keeping farming the 'relaxed' way to play and making it no longer the 'best' way to play, thus shoving anyone who wants to play optimally (a large portion of players in this day and age across the grand majority of games) into them. The most challenging content should award the best rewards. The least challenging content should award the worst, in theory, but in practice, maybe not as severe as that- since, as I said earlier, I value the existence of a relaxed playstyle.

 

If we were to split players into:
-Group 1: Want to be engaged, regardless of how optimal the rewards are

-Group 2: Want to be optimal, and prefer to be engaged by gameplay

-Group 3: Want to be optimal, and do not care about being engaged

-Group 4: Want to be optimal, and prefer to be relaxed

-Group 5: Want to be relaxed, regardless of how optimal the rewards are

 

While we can't explicitly measure it here without a study/poll, the largest group by denomination, traditionally in a game, is Group 2. This is the group least satisfied by the game as it currently exists. To be optimal, currently, they have to skip out on engaging content. Not doing so makes them orders of magnitude slower and less optimal in their gameplay, even if they may find it significantly more enjoyable.

 

Group 1 is currently satisfied, and would remain satisfied. There is engaging content in the game, it exists, that will not change.

Group 2, as aforementioned, is very unsatisfied, for reasons aforementioned.

Group 3 will change their gameplay and not be phased by the changes. They will remain satisfied.

Group 4 will not be happy about the changes, however they have the option to play on Brainstorm and get to the content they want with a complete character at any time. They are also a far, far smaller demographic traditionally than Group 2, in most games.

Group 5 is currently satisfied by AE, and will remain mostly satisfied, even if they currently believe they will not be. As has been proven by individuals like @America's Angel, the content is still very farmable. Nothing is being taken from this group that should matter to them.

 

Veteran Levels being removed from AE only removes one thing from the content at all, and that's Merits (via Veteran XP). All other forms of power gain still exist in one form or another- you still gain threads, just far less optimally than Veteran Rewards would provide. You also earn enough Inf to buy plenty of Merits from the AH.

 

I'm not sure that this whole explanation will convince anyone to change their opinions, but hey. Thought I'd go to the effort of writing it out.

 

EDITED ADDENDUM: I recognize that this is a drastic oversimplification of the psychology at play here, but I don't want to write a novel 😛

Edited July 14, 2022 by TomatoPhalanges
Addendum

[Bionic_Flea]

2 minutes ago, Peacemoon said:

Last I looked no changes were being made to influence, recipe, salvage and enhancement drops in AE?

The "point system" of AE critters was revised and that leads to critters that give less XP/Inf or have to be edited to have additional powers.  Additionally, apparently the 2XP was giving 3XP in AE and that has been corrected.  So there is a considerable difference.  The rest is accurate --  you can get influence, recipes, salvage (including incarnate threads), SOs, and inspirations. 

 

6 minutes ago, Shadeknight said:

As it stands, there are or were farms that were under Dev's Choice.

There are currently no Dev's Choice farms.  But I would certainly encourage folks to try and make a great story around a farm.

[Peacemoon]

1 minute ago, Bionic_Flea said:

There are currently no Dev's Choice farms.  But I would certainly encourage folks to try and make a great story around a farm.

 

Frostfire's father was a mad pyromaniac who tried to torch Paragon City. This is Frostfire's story of how his childhood was dominated by his father's madness, and how he was destined to carry on that legacy. Relive the moment his father torched downtown Paragon City - and experience the reoccurring nightmare where this act replays in his head over and over again, despite the setting. 

 

 

[Bionic_Flea]

[blue4333]

So at the end of the day, you can farm all the vet levels you want in PI Radios/Tina Arc/Dev Arcs etc but you just can't do it in the AE? LOL I fail to see the logic here, you're essentially moving the people from AE to some other more non-descript location? 

 

It won't solve the people begging for farms, it won't stop farm babies with no idea on slots/powers.

 

Yeah, alternative content to farming vet levels - the new incarnate missions? What's the difference, people will still be running the same fast content.

 

[El D]

If the only content someone does is AE, and just AE, they've essentially alienated themselves from the entire rest of the game's content by their own volition. That is not something that should be spread to new players - both for their enjoyment of CoH and for the health of the population. AE is only one way of playing the game, and it doesn't become a singular monolith of 'It's the only way I play' without personal choice. Making that choice as a result of not having more time to game is unfortunate, but that then getting attached to 'so I'll exclusively use the fastest, most rewarding, most abused subsystem in the game, to the point of bypassing/ignoring every other piece of content' is the issue here. As is that this approach all too easily sucks in new players, leaving them ignorant of how the game works.

 

Don't get me wrong - enjoying farms is fine. Using them to play while casually chatting is fine. AE eclipsing all other content in the game, to the point that it's seen as the default, singular 'thing to do' that makes new players ignorant of (or old players completely apathetic to) anything else the game offers? That's not fine.

[Sinestrus]

I was thinking pretty hard on this, all day today. 

It all comes down to "How do you want to play the game". 

I do not believe the Dev's should just force a percentage of the player base how to play the game. 

Farmers need those vet lvls for emp merits and threads, there is nothing else to it. And the easiest and less costly way to get those is to farm those Vet Lvls. 
Me and a few others already have decided to try to farm up alts so that, IF it is decided to nerf the farmers (I dearly hope you won't) we won't be sitting there with a crap build for regular content and no way to get those rewards we need.

You are alienating a big part of your community.

 

When it comes to regular content, I am mainly a RPer and secondary a farmer, content comes at third and I only do it with RP in mind. 

I never liked most content in the game, but I've played a few arcs here and there, but never really enjoyed it. 

Farming is supposed to be a nice relaxing, enjoyable thing. Get some XP, some influence, recipes, sell and then boost a character you do want to play with friends with. And then make a build and just have fun with content if I feel like it.

 

This way, you are forcing the entire player base to do content and only content.

 

It's unfair and really goes against the reason I joined this community.

 

Please don't do this.

[Ruin Mage]

Farming is not dying just because you can't get Veteran Levels.

You can get everything else as normally besides that. It's just slower (due to a bug being fixed) and subjectively harder (based on builds) but it's not dead in the water.

Edited July 14, 2022 by Shadeknight

[Stoked]

Why are ANY changes being made to anything that has to do with play style? Who cares if you can earn merits in AE? Who cares if someone wants to run the same TF over and over racing through as fast as possible just to get the purple or salvage? Who cares if there are people that spam the chat channels with promises of reward for defeating them in PVP? 

 

I find it ironic that the only people ever being impacted by these system-wide nerfs are those that have taken the AE feature and made it into something that they can enjoy any time. You don't have to wait  for other people, you don't have to be on some ridiculous event schedule and you can change the level and number of mobs at will. I can't think of any Dev created content that even comes close to how much fun it is to play some of the AE maps out there.

 

Maybe instead of focusing on how you can make the AE folks as miserable as those others farming TF's all the time, you focus instead on creating a couple costume pieces. Maybe you focus on creating new power sets. Maybe focus on NEW content. You know, something productive that will keep people playing, not wishing they had kept their WoW account active. I find it amazing that the same things are done year after year that proved ineffectual or downright destructive in the past and the Devs somehow feel a different result will come about. There are too many other server options that offer much better costume randomness, content or powersets to alienate the players using HC. Why nerf and ruin things here instead of taking a few notes from the others and just leaving the game mechanics alone?

 

It is your constant fussing and meddling with the mechanics that turns people away. You aren't bringing in new players because you decided to make a fringe minority happy by nerfing AE.

Edited July 14, 2022 by Stoked

[blue4333]

2 minutes ago, El D said:

If the only content someone does is AE, and just AE, they've essentially alienated themselves from the entire rest of the game's content by their own volition. That is not something that should be spread to new players - both for their enjoyment of CoH and for the health of the population. AE is only one way of playing the game, and it doesn't become a singular monolith of 'It's the only way I play' without personal choice. Making that choice as a result of not having more time to game is unfortunate, but that then getting attached to 'so I'll exclusively use the fastest, most rewarding, most abused subsystem in the game, to the point of bypassing/ignoring every other piece of content' is the issue here. As is that this approach all too easily sucks in new players, leaving them ignorant of how the game works.

 

Don't get me wrong - enjoying farms is fine. Using them to play while casually chatting is fine. AE eclipsing all other content in the game, to the point that it's seen as the default, singular 'thing to do' that makes new players ignorant of (or old players completely apathetic to) anything else the game offers? That's not fine.

 

You're not paying for the subscription (oh hey there's none for HC) of those people that choose to play that way.

 

By abusive, are you referring to the repetitive fast gain of exp? People have been doing that before AE - are you referring to the 3XP?

 

 

[Bionic_Flea]

5 minutes ago, Stoked said:

Maybe instead of focusing on how you can make the AE folks as miserable as those others farming TF's all the time, you focus instead on creating a couple costume pieces. Maybe you focus on creating new power sets. Maybe focus on NEW content. You know, something productive that will keep people playing, not wishing they had kept their WoW account active.

To be fair, they did add costumes, power sets, and new content as well.  I understand being upset if your favorite part of the game was negatively impacted, but we need to remain factual.

[blue4333]

6 minutes ago, Stoked said:

Maybe you focus on creating new power sets. Maybe focus on NEW content.

 

+1 to this.

 

I don't think the devs should look at changing how players should play in Homecoming. If anything, the game works no? If not why would people come back to a 10+ year old game?

 

We could definitely use more of the shiny new stuff though.

[Ruin Mage]

The game is moving forward and changing. It's in active development even if the pacing isn't the same as a live game (I think. I might be wrong cause maybe Issues came out faster/slower?)

If we weren't getting updates, it'd make more sense to not change things up and let it be the same stale "AE is the best choice."

Which it'll still be the best choice for getting to 50 & making influence. Nothing on that has changed.

EDIT; Buffs & nerfs & revamps to power sets also change how people play in HC. So that argument is moot.

Edited July 14, 2022 by Shadeknight

[El D]

1 minute ago, blue4333 said:

 

You're not paying for the subscription (oh hey there's none for HC) of those people that choose to play that way.

 

By abusive, are you referring to the repetitive fast gain of exp? People have been doing that before AE - are you referring to the 3XP?

 

 

 

Those people aren't paying a subscription either. A subscription or lack thereof isn't relevant to the fact that AE is, objectively, the most over-rewarding option in the game and has, continually, taken over 'What CoH offers' when it comes to new players.

 

By abusive, I mean that AE allows players to skip over every other bit of content and still reap all of the rewards as if they'd done it. That the current mindset being shown to new players is 'The only downside to AE is not to play it.' No other subsystem in CoH allows players access to everything else. If a player wants a certain badge, they have to run the required mission. Want to unlock the patron pools, requires running a patron arc.

 

AE is a way to play CoH, but it shouldn't objectively be the best way - because then it quickly becomes the only way.

[skoryy]

2 minutes ago, El D said:

AE is a way to play CoH, but it shouldn't objectively be the best way - because then it quickly becomes the only way.

 

Again, not to speak for the devs, but I'm almost positive this will be their explanation.

[Jaguaratron]

AE was a terrible addition to the game and has been abused since its inception, its not a storytelling device as it should be its just a farming tool which Im pretty sure was never the intent of any of the developers.

 

I personally think it should be used as a gateway to the creation of mainstream content, If its a good enough arc pull it off AE and plug it into the wider game but thats neither here or there, these changes expand on the system which should be heralded as a good thing but people are complaining because mindless farming wont be as profitable.

[Cyber Bishop]

1 minute ago, Jaguaratron said:

I personally think it should be used as a gateway to the creation of mainstream content, If its a good enough arc pull it off AE and plug it into the wider game.

This right here

[Galactiman]

1 hour ago, Andreah said:

The principle is there should be reasonable equity in rewards between different modes of play. One should not stand out head and shoulders above the others in terms of engagement AND time investment per rewards. The most rewarding modes of play should be those that engage a player and require time investment. Farming's virtue of being low engagement (due to its low effort and fast defeat rates from easy enemies and it's being able to be done from very predictable rote or even afk action) should be compensated by provided lower rewards than content that requires just as much time, but requires the player to engage with that content with meaningful thought and process.

 

Let's be honest, if we have people leaving this game, I doubt it's the career farmers. It's the people who look at farming and see nothing but a boring time sink, and wonder why they're being pushed to do it by the comparative reward structure. 

You've hit the nail on the head for why I don't play on Homecoming anymore. The amount of time it takes to complete a build by doing regular content is ridiculous and designed around a monetized game. Remember, on live you could buy super packs with money and get merits out the wazoo, meaning you could complete a build as fast as you could imagine it by spending money. As with most other F2P games, it was designed to be a slog in order to push you to open your wallet. There is absolutely no need for such a thing on a non-monetized private server.

 

A lot of people are saying they don't agree that regular content needs to be buffed or needs to be buffed only a little, but I totally disagree. It needs to be buffed by a whole lot. Maybe not up to AE farming levels, but a lot closer to that than what it currently is.

[Starforge]

2 minutes ago, Jaguaratron said:

AE was a terrible addition to the game and has been abused since its inception, its not a storytelling device as it should be its just a farming tool which Im pretty sure was never the intent of any of the developers.

I can’t speak for anyone else but I exclusively use it for telling my RPSG’s stories.

[Lobo]

2 minutes ago, Galactiman said:

You've hit the nail on the head for why I don't play on Homecoming anymore. The amount of time it takes to complete a build by doing regular content is ridiculous and designed around a monetized game. Remember, on live you could buy super packs with money and get merits out the wazoo, meaning you could complete a build as fast as you could imagine it by spending money. As with most other F2P games, it was designed to be a slog in order to push you to open your wallet. There is absolutely no need for such a thing on a non-monetized private server.

 

A lot of people are saying they don't agree that regular content needs to be buffed or needs to be buffed only a little, but I totally disagree. It needs to be buffed by a whole lot. Maybe not up to AE farming levels, but a lot closer to that than what it currently is.

This guy Alts.

[Troo]

Any bugs found yet?

[Ruin Mage]

2 minutes ago, Galactiman said:

It needs to be buffed by a whole lot. Maybe not up to AE farming levels, but a lot closer to that than what it currently is.

Agreed. What form that takes? Time will tell, cause the Devs seem aware of it.

 

 

2 minutes ago, Galactiman said:

The amount of time it takes to complete a build by doing regular content is ridiculous and designed around a monetized game.

Better than Live would take, where the Market was absolute bonkers and the prices were insane for even completing a single recipe.

[Sovera]

1 minute ago, Galactiman said:

You've hit the nail on the head for why I don't play on Homecoming anymore. The amount of time it takes to complete a build by doing regular content is ridiculous and designed around a monetized game. Remember, on live you could buy super packs with money and get merits out the wazoo, meaning you could complete a build as fast as you could imagine it by spending money. As with most other F2P games, it was designed to be a slog in order to push you to open your wallet. There is absolutely no need for such a thing on a non-monetized private server.

 

A lot of people are saying they don't agree that regular content needs to be buffed or needs to be buffed only a little, but I totally disagree. It needs to be buffed by a whole lot. Maybe not up to AE farming levels, but a lot closer to that than what it currently is.

 

Er... Two weeks from zero to fully geared with purples is what now?

 

I don't speak out of my ass. I started a character with no inf and no IOs and in one day was level 40 with 46 million liquid cash and several uniques bought. No playing with the market and only selling merits from doing the TFs while I leveled.

 

Ridiculous is indeed a good work, but perhaps not for that claim. When you want a fully leveld and geared character in three days then yes.

 

Seriously, use the test server and just click to be level 50 and print IOs if your goal is to be max level and geared but not play the game.

[Seed22]

I understand the newer farmers frustrations.

 

However, some solutions I think I can offer are(due to this change more than likely not being rolled back at this point):

1. Use Transcendent Merits: Try to get another toon that's more suitable to general PvE content to get up to 50 emps( which can still be gotten from vet levels, esp if you're in the single-digit vet level range as every 3 lvls you get 20 emps) then send them to your farmer to fill out incarnates. Definitely not the most time-efficient method but it's a method nonetheless if you want to stay in AE.
2. Adjust your farmer build to be more generalist so that you can get the incarnate crafting components needed faster; However, this kind of loops back into earlier arguments of effectively being forced to play incarnate trials and/or farm Heather Townsend(or whatever her last name is) to accomplish this option.  Again, not the most favorable for some folks, but hey, them's the breaks.
3. Switch to Unai farming maps.

I tested the changes on Beta on my own fire farmer, and other than wishing the map I used that gave max XP was a bit safer for squishies, the changes were catastrophic for AE farming, at least in terms of leveling an alt. And I too initially had a kneejerk reaction to these changes on first glance.

 

Don't get me wrong, I am NOT cheerleading for these changes, just stating they could be a lot worse overall.

[Galactiman]

3 minutes ago, Sovera said:

 

Er... Two weeks from zero to fully geared with purples is what now?

 

I don't speak out of my ass. I started a character with no inf and no IOs and in one day was level 40 with 46 million liquid cash and several uniques bought. No playing with the market and only selling merits from doing the TFs while I leveled.

 

Ridiculous is indeed a good work, but perhaps not for that claim. When you want a fully leveld and geared character in three days then yes.

 

Seriously, use the test server and just click to be level 50 and print IOs if your goal is to be max level and geared but not play the game.

This only worked because you converted your merits to inf and bought your IOs, which is only possible because of all the farmers.