issue 27 Focused Feedback: Architect Entertainment

[skoryy]

5 minutes ago, Lazarillo said:

They cut rewards in half and will be turning off character progress after hitting 50.  How is that anything but discouraging its use?

 

I went to go shower, and my inner Allen Iverson poked me in the brain.

 

We're talking about vet levels.

 

Not inf. Not XP one through fifty. Not incarnate XP. Not incarnate threads or shards. Not recipe drops. Not salvage drops. Not tickets.

 

Vet levels. 

 

Now please explain to me and the devs how that we have a healthy and thriving game in-game community when we have fifteen pages of drama over the removal of vet levels from AE.

[skoryy]

11 minutes ago, Darmian said:

Apart from a few grandfathered in, all the Dev Choice winners automatically get booted to the HOF.  And that's good. Farms get there from hitting 999+ plays.  Frankly I'd kill that dead.

 

I skipped right past Dev's Choice, there were still plenty that were just HoF that were non-farm!

 

Now, on the other hand, when you have more bodies milling around AE than you do in Atlas Plaze, uh...

[Lazarillo]

9 minutes ago, Darmian said:

What's being "lost" is the bumps from Vet levels, something that was an anomaly being in the AE in the first place.

I mean, they can go back and remove all Incarnate rewards from non-Trials, then, eh?  Vet levels are an "anomaly" in and of themselves.  We're ironically not supposed to have that without farming anyway...just farming trials instead of whatever else.

 

5 minutes ago, skoryy said:

We're talking about vet levels.

I'm talking about AE as a whole.  When the current patch goes through (because let's be honest, we've been told this has already been in testing for a while; minds are not getting changed at this point), it's not going to affect me, true, because I've already been shown the door when it comes to AE.

 

However, removing Veteran Levels is symptomatic of a much greater issue (one that, again, would be solved far better by re-implementing the MARTy system, and for that matter, would solve the problem of people just inevitably going back to farming Battle Maiden or Infernal instead).  It's another step in the wrong direction, and my take is that they should re-evaluate what their actual goal is, how best to use AE, and how best to discourage farming, rather than simply doubling down on a process that hasn't curbed it in the least, but has and will continue to push people away from player-created story content.

[Troo]

52 minutes ago, Darmian said:

Can I ask for a definition of this please?

 

yes

 

///

 

and hey, the mic drop was just as relevant as some of the other dribble being dished out in this thread.

 

 

Edited July 16, 2022 by Troo

[Darmian]

33 minutes ago, Lazarillo said:

I mean, they can go back and remove all Incarnate rewards from non-Trials, then, eh?

Sure they can. Should they? Maybe.

 

Should MARTy be reinstated? Again, maybe.  Might be worth it to see how it fares. 

 

33 minutes ago, Lazarillo said:

symptomatic of a much greater issue

I'm making an assumption here that you mean the below:

33 minutes ago, Lazarillo said:

how best to use AE, and how best to discourage farming

Tricky. I mean we have a system for building your own adventures that gets predominantly used for "making your toon swole/wealthy".  It's like having a home treadmill that spits money at you while you run. Or leave the dog running on it while you do something else. And weirdly your friend simply standing beside you (or your dog) also gets fit! Trouble is, no one has got anywhere!

 

I think you're genuine in your concern, I just disagree with you that what is happening is wrong in some way.  I'll need to have a good ponder on further things about this before I post more.  

Edited July 16, 2022 by Darmian

[Darmian]

5 minutes ago, Troo said:

 

yes

 

///

 

and hey, the mic drop was just as relevant as some of the other dribble being dished out in this thread.

 

 

Excellent!  A life in politics awaits you!

[The_Warpact]

It's all farming regardless, the only thing that changes is the speed in which it's done.

AE farming obviously is quicker, itrials are no different other than the time it takes, it's a grind to get what you want.

 

Now ask yourself how many times have you participated in trials, MSR, Hami, etc and run that damn thing as fast as you can to get the rewards?

How interesting is it going to be or how much insight are you going to get from having to run the that over and over again? 

I don't have the time to run itrials for weeks to get what I can get in fire farms.

 

Most of you are mad because there are people who know nothing about the game outside of AE, who cares.

 

When did it become acceptable to tell people how to play the game? If they are happy, not causing damage/disruptive, then what does it matter?

Apparently it does to some of you and the devs, they call it exploits and unfair but created the conditions to do so. Why do think people do speed runs all the time? Because, they don't want to have to grind for what they want. You are forcing a time sink on people.

 

If you don't think this is not going to have negative consequences then you're ignorant, look at this thread, how many pages, and how many posts? It far overshadows everything else about this update AND we are only a small part of the population here on the forums.

 

Now go to AE buildings and start telling players what is coming down the pipelines and gauge their responses. Of course from what I've seen a few of you wouldn't care as long as you get your way.

 

 

 

[Coyotedancer]

I suspect that you guys who are calling to have MARTy reinstated, as if that's a golden ticket to End Farming As We Know It, need to be reminded that it really wasn't as restrictive a throttle as you seem to think. 

 

Do you remember Recluse Tower map ambush farms back on Live? 

 

I'd put them in about the same class as active farming the space map as far as rewards-vs-danger goes. With the right build and enough inspiration macros, they were the same kind of slaughter-fest. And they were never enough to trigger MARTy. Which means that our current batch of farms probably wouldn't hit those limits either. Running around on Council Earth or Harvey's demon map? Absolutely not.

 

 

Edited July 17, 2022 by Coyotedancer

[Darmian]

5 minutes ago, Coyotedancer said:

I suspect that you guys who are calling to have MARTy reinstated, as if that's a golden ticket to End Farming As We Know It, need to be reminded that it really wasn't as restrictive a throttle as you seem to think. 

I for one am not actually calling for it to be reinstated.  I do think a trial run of it would give some numbers to crunch though.*

 

*I'd be very surprised if it was reinstated to be honest.

Edited July 16, 2022 by Darmian

[Troo]

19 minutes ago, The_Warpact said:

When did it become acceptable to tell people how to play the game?

 

I play a Energy Melee/Regeneration Stalker who PvP'd way back... it seems it has been acceptable to tell me how to play for a very very very long time.

[Coyotedancer]

1 minute ago, Darmian said:

I for one am not actually calling for it to be reinstated.  I do think a trial run of it would give some numbers to crunch though.*

 

*I'd be very surprised if it was reinstated to be honest.

 

Given how short-lived it was back in the Live days, it didn't seem like a successful experiment. I don't remember the exact details... it's been too long... but I want to say that it was active less than a year. I don't recall anyone on Liberty ever running afoul of it, and we had some pretty devoted farming folk among the Badgers. 

[Seed22]

Uhhh....what's MARTy?

 

😮

All my time playing between live and now and...no idea what the hell that is.

[Digirium]

2 minutes ago, Seed22 said:

Uhhh....what's MARTy?

 

https://archive.paragonwiki.com/wiki/MARTy

[Coyotedancer]

Just now, Seed22 said:

Uhhh....what's MARTy?

 

😮

All my time playing between live and now and...no idea what the hell that is.

 

It was a automated system that the old Live devs put in place as a throttle on XP and INF gain. They didn't keep it active for all that long, and its bar for what was acceptable and what would trigger its limiting mechanism was set pretty high. I don't think they ever quite worked all the kinks out, and eventually it went the way of the dodo bird.

[Bionic_Flea]

6 minutes ago, Seed22 said:

Uhhh....what's MARTy?

https://homecoming.wiki/wiki/MARTy

 

Back on topic:  Could someone run a quick map on live and on Brainstorm and note completion times?

 

I'd also like to see a comparison of a level 1 with double XP on live and Brainstorm in AE and a benchmark in whatever level 54 arc is convenient.

Edited July 16, 2022 by Bionic_Flea

[ivanhedgehog]

15 hours ago, El D said:

 

A change is necessary because AE is has become a singular monolith solely through overwhelming convenience. If players are willing to quit the game entirely, not because their ability to gain everything they want is removed but because they are asked to go through one extra loading screen and maybe 15 seconds of moving through another zone map, that is a problem.

 

AE farming does not promote an attitude conducive to actually playing CoH - as is, all it promotes is staying in AE. The sheer, overwhelming response being 'If you change this, I'll quit' instead of 'Okay, I'll go get the exact same things and more in this other zone I can immediately access' proves that. That AE has become so convenient and so much of a default choice that making other 'equal' farms better in one single instance - an instance that AE still allows players reach faster than using those 'equal' farms in the first place - proves that.

 

AFK Farming is really the epitome of this mindset. Through excessive convenience and grossly manipulated content, players can now log in and gain everything worthwhile the game has to offer... by not actually playing. AE, taken to the extreme that some players push it to (and they absolutely will, because it allows them to) quite literally takes the 'game' out of CoH. 'Log in, go in mission, do nothing, win everything you need to make a maxed-out character, move on to next character to continue doing nothing while gaining everything.' 

so you are saying that by inconveniencing players they are improving the game? maybe have people have to watch a 30 second commercial before they can zone we can make the game even more awesome?

[DarknessEternal]

Make mission completion bonuses actually matter (AE doesn't have them).

 

Yet another way to get people out of AE.  I can come up with dozens of the these.

[ivanhedgehog]

33 minutes ago, DarknessEternal said:

Make mission completion bonuses actually matter (AE doesn't have them).

 

Yet another way to get people out of AE.  I can come up with dozens of the these.

Solution in search of a problem. AE is part of the game. there is no point in forcing people out of AE.

[lemming]

1 hour ago, Bionic_Flea said:

https://homecoming.wiki/wiki/MARTy

 

Back on topic:  Could someone run a quick map on live and on Brainstorm and note completion times?

 

I'd also like to see a comparison of a level 1 with double XP on live and Brainstorm in AE and a benchmark in whatever level 54 arc is convenient.

Starting a test matrix up, but my system can't handle the dang work currently.

 

I did do a quick test with a level 50 with the same map at +1/x8, same mobs, freshly minted on both live and beta.  Same inf dropped for each target.

Did it also at +4/x8 and noted the agro changes made things much more exciting.

Attaching the mission and critter files

Betatest.storyarc TLt.critter TBoss.critter TEB.critter TMinion.critter

[Bionic_Flea]

Guys, I can understand being upset at changes to something you like.  I don't like them and I have said so.

 

But the sky is not falling.  No one is kicking you (generic you) out or preventing you from farming from 1-50 and including your I-power slots.  The only reward you aren't getting is Vet experience, which also equals threads and Empyrean Merits.  That's not insignificant, but it's also not the end of the world.

 

Other changes do reduce the amount of XP a non-50 gets.  But some of those can be regained by adjustments to your farm and build.  The new aggro change might end up being a net gain or at least close to par if your clearing speeds are increased, making the XP/min higher.

[ForeverLaxx]

The fact of the matter is, anytime you give tools to the player to craft content designed specifically to be as non-threatening to their character as possible, you're going to run into problems applying "appropriate" rewards to that content. Those Fire Farms will absolutely murder anything that isn't stacked with Fire Def/Fire Resistance, but for those who are, they're little more than walking loot sacks. How exactly do you expect a dev team that's trying to balance risk/reward structures around a system that's being manipulated specifically to circumvent that very same risk/reward structure to respond?

 

With scenarios like that, you're basically forced to provide whatever the minimum reward is that the majority of players find acceptable. Do I think cutting all Vet Exp out is fair? No, not really, but when you design custom enemies that are functionally zero threat to you for the purpose of farming, something has to give somewhere.

 

Now with that said, this thread is supposed to be about focused feedback regarding the beta build. Arguing with each other and restating your positions for 10+ pages isn't doing anyone any good. Not even for yourselves. You expressed that you don't like it (and I don't like it either), but saying it over and over again for 10+ pages isn't helpful.

Edited July 16, 2022 by ForeverLaxx
grammar

[Ukase]

8 hours ago, skoryy said:

 

You're valuing rewards above actual story value.   Not everyone does, and a healthy game shouldn't.   The other MMOs I play - GW2, FFXIV, STO - aren't nearly as bountiful with the rewards like CoH yet I and others still keep coming back.  OK, for the fashion wars, sure, but also for the story.

I value rewards above actual stories because the stories don't have any value. They don't make my character stronger. They don't help my character buy anything. They are just filler; call it ambience if you must. But I would venture at least half our player base read the stuff the first dozen times through and now no longer read any of it. 

The new stuff, yeah, we'll give it a cursory glance. As an example, Becky's dialogue in Aeon SF certainly caught my attention. I read it. Once. And I doubt I'll read it again until another year or two passes. 

And "A healthy game shouldn't"? You're entitled to your views, of course. But I encourage you to not discount my views. And my view is that the stories aren't entertaining to a point where reading them adds to the fun for me. 

Completing a mission in a timely fashion is fun for me. Getting to 50, slotting only from items that drop, without getting defeated. That's fun for me. 
Reading some story aimed at a much younger audience? Not my thing. And it's not a thing for hundreds of other players. That doesn't make folks like me the absolute authority, but it does mean our views shouldn't be easily dismissed or ignored. 

And..honestly, I have never played this game because of costume customization. I play it because of all the options. I don't need to use my mouse to move. I can use the much more intuitive arrow keys. I can resize the view. I can zoom in, zoom out. I can use macros. I can use binds. I can fly or I can jump or I can run damned fast, or teleport. Or I can hop in what I call a Paragon Quinjet to my next mission. And I can also market easily and equip a brand new character with no help from any alts with the best IOs available and acquire a billion influence in a day if I choose to spend the time marketing. (not every day, but on a given day, yeah. ) 

When you take away options, that's never a good idea. Never. 

[PorkTips]

4 hours ago, Bionic_Flea said:

Guys, I can understand being upset at changes to something you like.  I don't like them and I have said so.

 

But the sky is not falling.  No one is kicking you (generic you) out or preventing you from farming from 1-50 and including your I-power slots.  The only reward you aren't getting is Vet experience, which also equals threads and Empyrean Merits.  That's not insignificant, but it's also not the end of the world.

 

Other changes do reduce the amount of XP a non-50 gets.  But some of those can be regained by adjustments to your farm and build.  The new aggro change might end up being a net gain or at least close to par if your clearing speeds are increased, making the XP/min higher.

 

I have a question. If I'm the only player in the map and i have more than the aggro-cap number of foes around me, they will ALL attack now, right? Or did I misunderstand.

[Andreah]

7 minutes ago, PorkTips said:

 

I have a question. If I'm the only player in the map and i have more than the aggro-cap number of foes around me, they will ALL attack now, right? Or did I misunderstand.

The ones over the cap might attack you if they are in range, have a line of sight to  you, and have a ranged attack power. They won't close in and attack you in melee range.

 

Edit: here's the relevant snippet from the patch notes on this: 

 

• If an AI-controlled enemy has no valid target due to them all being at the cap, it will choose the capped target with highest threat that is in range and use opportunistic ranged attacks. They will no longer mill about, oblivious to the action going on around them. Enemies that are beyond the cap *will not* pursue players that move out of range.

Edited July 17, 2022 by Andreah

[AlienMafia]

We can always go back to Tickets only and no incarnate slot xp at all 😒 Just like how it was on Live before sunset

Edited July 17, 2022 by AlienMafia