issue 27 Focused Feedback: Architect Entertainment

[Sovera]

1 minute ago, Galactiman said:

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

 

That's assumption not backed by anything. You don't know the % of farmers playing the game or their contribution in terms of %. The way you phrased it farmers provide 70% of the market.

 

Everyone online is going to be doing something (except roleplayers, we love to stand around just chatting). At the moment I type this there are 290 players online. If everyone is playing they are all generating recipes out of thin air.

[arcane]

Man, the implications that this is some sort of farmer’s apocalypse when only a couple of aspects of farming are being touched… it’s too much. I’m admittedly having far too much fun watching the sky-is-falling demographic flailing.
 

And make no mistake: I have *several* dogs in this fight. I farm every day and have over a hundred alts. BUT I read the patch notes and managed to understand that farming is nowhere near dead.

[Lazarillo]

1 minute ago, arcane said:

Man, the implications that this is some sort of farmer’s apocalypse when only a couple of aspects of farming are being touched… it’s too much. I’m admittedly having far too much fun watching the sky-is-falling demographic flailing.

It's far worse for people who want to use AE for non-farming purposes, really.  But most of those people were already driven away, I guess.  Survivorship bias, kinda?  AE is only used for farms, so nerfing it now only means nerfing it for farms, right?  That's the way it's being looked at, anyway.

[Seed22]

23 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.

Not a great argument here, you're conflating your way with the right way. It's not. Well, let me be more clear; it's not for everyone.

Edited July 14, 2022 by Seed22

[TheZag]

After adjusting to the agro changes im farming faster than ever.  I had to get a little better but i prefer some involvement over standing around like a lump and mashing keys.  Sure i have to 'go outside' for vet rewards but vet levels were added by this team so i think its appropriate that the team can choose where they apply.  Farming outperforms every other activity in xp/rewards by a wide margin.  Shifting a portion of the rewards away from farming while increasing the speed at which one can farm (if they apply themself a bit) seems balanced to me.  Things can always be adjusted later when people actually start playing page 4 and more numbers are available.

 

[Sovera]

1 minute ago, Seed22 said:

Not a great argument here

 

Counter it then. I don't know what you're not agreeing with so I can't try to argue it. Is the argument about my estimate of two weeks to be fully geared and from 0 to 50?

[Andreah]

9 minutes ago, Lazarillo said:

It's far worse for people who want to use AE for non-farming purposes, really.  But most of those people were already driven away, I guess.

Many, perhaps; but the roleplaying community still heavily uses AE to create story arcs to run in roleplay groups to advance their group storylines.

 

And these AE changes have no impact on those. In my SG discord, we discussed whether our group AE missions could be run for Tickets instead of normal rewards, and would anyone care? No one did.

Edited July 14, 2022 by Andreah

[Seed22]

4 minutes ago, Sovera said:

 

Counter it then. I don't know what you're not agreeing with so I can't try to argue it. Is the argument about my estimate of two weeks to be fully geared and from 0 to 50?

Yeah, that should be no longer than what? A weekend? And that's not no-lifeing, that seems a bit well...long imo. Oh and the fact that you're making it sound as if that's the right way to play the game. Or at least that's how I read the initial post.

 

EDIT: I do want to once again reiterate that I don't think these changes are catastrophic. I just can understand from both sides:

 

Side #1: Believes their way of playing is being portrayed as objectively wrong. Which, I mean, it isn't. It's just their choice of how they play the game.

 

Side #2: Sees the changes as beneficial to overall longevity of the game, and see the reduction in AE firefarm XP as a good thing. Not entirely wrong either.

 

 

Edited July 14, 2022 by Seed22

[Sovera]

Just now, Seed22 said:

Yeah, that should be no longer than what? A weekend? And that's not no-lifeing, that seems a bit well...long imo. Oh and the fact that you're making it sound as if that's the right way to play the game. Or at least that's how I read the initial post.

 

Wow, a week end to be level 50 and fully geared?

 

Okay, I don't think we will be able to agree on that.

[Seed22]

2 minutes ago, Sovera said:

 

Wow, a week end to be level 50 and fully geared?

 

Okay, I don't think we will be able to agree on that.

You gotta have some INF sidelined, and if you're a fresh player I could see it taking about a week at most really 😛

 

I mean, when CoH first came back, from jack squat to 50 and IO'ed, it took me about a week even with RL stuff going on.

[DawL]

1 hour ago, blue4333 said:

This change feels like it only serves to alienate people who just enjoy AE farming and force them to leave - in my opinion, there is no benefit in this to people who play TFs/Story Arcs.  It just feels punitive to people who enjoy AE Farming in a game that people play for general enjoyment and nostalgia.

Well said, and my thoughts exactly. 

[ravengale]

2 hours ago, Marbing said:

Yes there is. When everyone is stuck in AE because it’s the best way to get anything, then other players have a much harder time filling teams to do the content they want to do, and thus get sucked into farming or simply quitting the game. There are two sides to every coin. It’s about creating a balance and right now there is very little, as AE is the best way to do pretty much everything, so large portions of the current game population do nothing but that, thus making it harder (especially on the lower population servers) to get anything else done that requires a team.

 

This change is going to backfire the other way though, with people like me who primarily farm leaving, because I'm not interested in doing other stuff.  So really it'll just create LESS players that could possibly join TF's or Trials.  Also, if people have to grind for the stuff they need instead of just farming for 3 hours to get it, that will further reduce the availability of people to join those things.  OR people will just find a way to farm those things, and that'll be all people do and everything else will get neglected.

[lemming]

Played around a bit more last night.

As far as I can tell, the non-XP toward vet levels really targets those people that make alt accounts to farm emp merits quickly that are converted to other currency.

I'm not sure how much of a problem that really is, and it does have some splash damage.

As I said before, it's not going to affect me much, so I think today, I'm going to see if I can play with the customization stuff

[Coyotedancer]

On 7/12/2022 at 8:09 PM, ScarySai said:

I understand where HC is coming from with the changes, but I'm still not a fan at all.

 

Agreed.

 

It makes me glad that I only make new alts once in a blue moon anymore.

 

And no... It isn't going to push me in any way to run those few new alts through iTrials or Taskforces or any of that. All it's going to do is force me into re-running solo DA arcs over-and-over-and-over-and-over-and-over-and-over-and-over-and-over again to equip them. (At least that's what I'll do until our Powers-That-Be decide to put time gates back on DA rewards to kill that, too, for making solo incarnates "too easy". <_<) 

 

 

 

Edited July 14, 2022 by Coyotedancer

[arcane]

8 minutes ago, ravengale said:

 

This change is going to backfire the other way though, with people like me who primarily farm leaving

I can’t help but think of all the American celebrities that threatened but failed to move to Canada several times in the last few years. I’ll believe it when I see it.

[Marbing]

8 minutes ago, ravengale said:

 

This change is going to backfire the other way though, with people like me who primarily farm leaving, because I'm not interested in doing other stuff.  So really it'll just create LESS players that could possibly join TF's or Trials.  Also, if people have to grind for the stuff they need instead of just farming for 3 hours to get it, that will further reduce the availability of people to join those things.  OR people will just find a way to farm those things, and that'll be all people do and everything else will get neglected.

But the only thing that is changing is Vet levels/rewards. So... you can still farm for Influence, Incarnate XP, levels 1-50, etc etc. And some have found that farming is actually a little faster now with the aggro changes so that is actually better. You can still do what you want to do, farming just wont be the end all be all of nearly everything in the game that it is now. Which is actually a healthy change. 

Also, if you weren't joining TF's or Trials because farming was better then you are better understanding why a change like this was necessary. Or maybe the devs have another reason (I do not speak for them). 

Lets flip it around and say that, instead of this, the devs quadrupled the amount of merits/xp/inf (or just one of those) you got from regular game content (outside of AE). Would you still be upset? Would you still farm?
 

[ravengale]

7 minutes ago, arcane said:

I can’t help but think of all the American celebrities that threatened but failed to move to Canada several times in the last few years. I’ll believe it when I see it.

 

People have already mentioned other servers here in this thread.  I can't say for certain, but some people may just go over there while others will just quit playing and go to something else.  This game seems to be leaning towards only being designed for roleplaying and TFs/ Trials.  I'm telling you, if the devs take away the ability to farm in AE people will just do it another way.  I've been around since issue 3, I watched how every time farming changed, people just evolved.  Even with AE people still mostly just do TFs, Trials and Hami.  So no one is really doing "content" anyway.  These changes are just going to drive people to do MORE of that.  Which is actually fine.  As long as the end goal is reached, I suppose.

[arcane]

1 minute ago, ravengale said:

 

I'm telling you, if the devs take away the ability to farm in AE people will just do it another way.  I've been around since issue 3, I watched how every time farming changed, people just evolved. 

I’ve been around since issue 0 and would totally hate if they took away the ability to farm in AE! I’m so glad they aren’t. Did you read the patch notes?

[ravengale]

1 minute ago, Marbing said:

Lets flip it around and say that, instead of this, the devs quadrupled the amount of merits/xp/inf (or just one of those) you got from regular game content (outside of AE). Would you still be upset? Would you still farm?
 

 I'd still rather farm.  It's what interests me the most and what I enjoy doing the most.  I like the continuity of it.  I like knowing what to expect, including how long it should take.  Jumping into teams is hard for me, because I often have to get up for this or that, and may not return for longer than expected.  Or I'll find that it's just taking too long and have to leave, causing my team to be a man down.  I've done other stuff, I've played in all the zones.  I just don't care for it.

[ravengale]

1 minute ago, arcane said:

I’ve been around since issue 0 and would totally hate if they took away the ability to farm in AE! I’m so glad they aren’t. Did you read the patch notes?

 

I did, they didn't "take it away" per say, but they're making it a lot less desirable.

[ShardWarrior]

10 minutes ago, ravengale said:

I did, they didn't "take it away" per say, but they're making it a lot less desirable.

 

If your goal was farming Vet levels in AE then yes.  For those people, all this change is going to do is shift them back to portal mission farming in PI.  With that said, I personally do not see the necessity for this change and I feel it was a complete and utter waste of time to do. 

[Coyotedancer]

OH, I'll still farm. I do it for fun... It's almost a zen thing. It's relaxing to me.

 

The INF and drops are just a nice bonus, and being able to throw those infrequent alts of mine in with Sunni or Harry for leveling is a plus, because I've burned out hard on the lower level parts of the game. Being able to also unlock their Incarnate slots that way will continue to be A Thing I Do as well.

 

I'm just annoyed that I'm being forced back to DA to equip them. Those arcs get old after awhile, too, but when you're not online when iTrials are formed and aren't a huge fan of Taskforces or PI Council Scanner PUGs that's what you're left with if you want to fill those slots in any kind of reasonable time-frame.

 

This won't "kill farming" for me in any way. 

 

If it kills anything, it'll just be my desire to make any new characters. 

[Sovera]

The major argument appears to be from AFK farmers. There is nothing I can add to this. Wanting to not play the game but get rewards is a very weird demand.

 

For anything else, well, Market Crash first mission, no super stunners but the end boss, 100% XP, no pre-requisites other than being 50 (but AE still works for that), an ocean of Freakshow, vet levels, rewards, woo.

 

It's not an AFK farm though, but once having logged out and back in to reset the map and having got the veteran levels and incarnate XP the AE awaits.

[ShardWarrior]

1 minute ago, Sovera said:

The major argument appears to be from AFK farmers. There is nothing I can add to this. Wanting to not play the game but get rewards is a very weird demand.

 

For anything else, well, Market Crash first mission, no super stunners but the end boss, 100% XP, no pre-requisites other than being 50 (but AE still works for that), an ocean of Freakshow, vet levels, rewards, woo.

 

It's not an AFK farm though, but once having logged out and back in to reset the map and having got the veteran levels and incarnate XP the AE awaits.

 

Which begs the questions, why was this change needed in the first place and why is farming this better than just doing the same thing only in AE?  Same activity, just a different venue. 

[Coyotedancer]

2 minutes ago, Sovera said:

The major argument appears to be from AFK farmers. There is nothing I can add to this. Wanting to not play the game but get rewards is a very weird demand.

 

Not all of us with objections run AFK.

I'm strictly an active-only farmer,