issue 27 Focused Feedback: Architect Entertainment

[ShardWarrior]

11 minutes ago, El D said:

I didn't bring them up as an example, and the fact remains that even after Incarnates were introduced players couldn't farm any end game materials with portal missions on Live. They can now on Homecoming. Which leads into the common comment of 'There's no difference between farming in PI and farming in AE ' - if there is no difference, where is the discontent coming from? That is an explicit admission that there's other farms just as good as AE that only take slightly longer to access.

 

If the difference between PI farms and AE farms is so trivial as to be next to nonexistent, what's stopping everyone currently saying this makes AE 'not worth the effort' from going to other farms that still are? With this change, that makes PI farms better than AE farms, at least in that single respect of 'post-50 progression.' So, what's the issue with switching from AE at 50 to other missions that keep Veteran XP progression - or just leveling in PI to begin with? If all it takes is 'move to another zone' for these players to continue getting exactly what they say they want, yet instead they say they'll just stop playing entirely and that the game is doomed rather than go through the hassle of a single extra loading screen... What's the hang up?

 

If the venue is that easily traded, why aren't people just trading it back?

 

Most of the ire appears to be coming from AFK farmers from what I can see.  It is not something I participate in, however far be it from me to tell them what they should or should not do in the game.  If AFK farming is what interests them, brings them joy and lets them have fun while logging in, more power to them.

 

Again, not everyone cares about farming incarnate materials.  Emp merits gained from Vet rewards can be converted to merits to buy a whole host of other things.  And back in the day, players could still get recipe and salvage drops from those non-AE farm maps as well as XP and influence.  They were used to power level alts all the time. 

 

Beyond that, AE was just slightly more convenient than PI portal mission maps.  You are making a very large assumption that there will not be people moving back to those PI farms, and I still fail to see there the difference is between letting people continue to farm as they like in AE versus farming something like PI radios or portal maps.  I do not think you are seeing that there is no difference in that regard and since there is no difference, why is this change even necessary?

[KanadeVix]

20 minutes ago, El D said:

 

I didn't bring them up as an example, and the fact remains that even after Incarnates were introduced players couldn't farm any end game materials with portal missions on Live. They can now on Homecoming. Which leads into the common comment of 'There's no difference between farming in PI and farming in AE ' - if there is no difference, where is the discontent coming from? That is an explicit admission that there's other farms just as good as AE that only take slightly longer to access.

 

If the difference between PI farms and AE farms is so trivial as to be next to nonexistent, what's stopping everyone currently saying this makes AE 'not worth the effort' from going to other farms that still are? With this change, that makes PI farms better than AE farms, at least in that single respect of 'post-50 progression.' So, what's the issue with switching from AE at 50 to other missions that keep Veteran XP progression - or just leveling in PI to begin with? If all it takes is 'move to another zone' for these players to continue getting exactly what they say they want, yet instead they say they'll just stop playing entirely and that the game is doomed rather than go through the hassle of a single extra loading screen... What's the hang up?

 

If the venue is that easily traded, why aren't people just trading it back?

My argument: "It's a game. Games are meant to be fun. The moment my fun is decided for me, is when the game is no longer fun."
You ever try to have fun when you were a kid, like at school and there is a Pinata and the kids are smashing it with sticks and it explodes and hundreds of pieces of candy fly everywhere.
Now what sounds like fun, running like a maniac and trying to loot as much candy as possible with the rest of the kids in a frenzy of fun.
Or like the boring teacher we've all had.
"Line up kids, straight line...come on...okay, each of you can take one piece of candy. The rest we will put away for later." Sadly the frenzy and fun you had imagined in those moments the candy exploded everywhere vanish and you are left in this totalitarian state where you are just a powerless drone with zero control or power because one person in authority decided they know what's best for you. They have decided your 'fun'. Yay....Oh and you never see that candy again, they took it home and ate all of it because...why not, when you have that much power you can just do what you want.

Let's be honest, this game isn't that hard to begin with, with thousands of alt combinations the last thing I want is for it to become a massive chore just to get a character to 50 just because I should "Be playing with the other kids." Said the teacher to the 5th grader who glances over at the 1st graders they are supposed to play with. "No thanks, I'd rather solo than be with them."

Pretty much sums up how I think about it when I would be "Forced" to play content with others if say farming was 100% removed and the only way would be to team up with others. Even when the game was live I would solo characters to 50 doing radios. I liked Villain side more too because I had less people to contend with and I liked the zones more too. (Less traveling). 

I had fun and that was good enough for me. I am sure thousands of people were farming their guts out when I was off leveling by myself for years when the game came out, did I care, did I notice, did it affect me? No, not one bit. It changed nothing for me. 

So who cares what people farm, how they farm, if one loading screen is to much for them, then it's to much for them? Just because it's not to much for you it shouldn't MATTER. Why does it matter? The argument is a vain attempt at micromanaging and control over how others think. "That's just lazy." Like grow up, sitting here playing a video game is considered lazy by society, but does that stop you? No. So stop judging others in games about how they decide to be lazy. Everyone is lazy, if we weren't wheels would be square and no one would ever want to change it. 

[SwitchFade]

Disclaimer: I detest AE.

 

That said, this here,

 

• Characters at Level 50 can no longer earn experience towards the Veteran Level rewards (Veteran Badges, Incarnate Threads, and Empyrean Merits) from Architect Entertainment content; this does not apply to Incarnate Slot Experience which can still be earned in AE.

 

Maybe not the best? I firmly believe AE should NEVER give more rewards than regular content, but a categorical exclusion may just drive away people who don't abuse AE but love to solo run weird maps.

 

It's no secret I detest AE and think it should be removed from starting zones under level 20, but I'm not so sure excluding things at the top is the answer either.

 

Lock it so it can never reward more than running a story arc and that gives equal choice and equal reward.

[El D]

37 minutes ago, ShardWarrior said:

 

Most of the ire appears to be coming from AFK farmers from what I can see.  It is not something I participate in, however far be it from me to tell them what they should or should not do in the game.  If AFK farming is what interests them, brings them joy and lets them have fun while logging in, more power to them.

 

Again, not everyone cares about farming incarnate materials.  Emp merits gained from Vet rewards can be converted to merits to buy a whole host of other things.  And back in the day, players could still get recipe and salvage drops from those non-AE farm maps as well as XP and influence.  They were used to power level alts all the time. 

 

Beyond that, AE was just slightly more convenient than PI portal mission maps.  You are making a very large assumption that there will not be people moving back to those PI farms, and I still fail to see there the difference is between letting people continue to farm as they like in AE versus farming something like PI radios or portal maps.  I do not think you are seeing that there is no difference in that regard and since there is no difference, why is this change even necessary?

 

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.' 

Edited July 16, 2022 by El D

[ShardWarrior]

7 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.

 

There is a lot to unpack here.  I think you are blinded as to the myriad of reasons why people are using the AE and not really examining why AE being used so much.  One could just as easily say that the rest of the game is a boring, repetitive slog and it takes far too long a time investment to level a character and gain the materials desired to build them out.  This investment of time is magnified with each desired alt, and it definitely impacts experimentation with alts.  Or one could say that people just want to build out complete characters before exemplaring to run the rest of the content since they perform better.  The "normal" content being boring for them is a problem.  The game being 18 years old and using out of date technology is a problem as well.  I personally do not think this is as simple an issue as you and many others believe it to be. 

 

7 hours ago, El D said:

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.

 

This simply is not true of everyone.  I also completely disagree that it does not promote playing other content outside of AE.  That is demonstrably false.  Some folk like using AE to more efficiently and quickly build out alts who then get played frequently in non-AE content.  They have posted as much in threads like these and I know quite a few of them myself.  Making things more difficult for them is not conducive to keeping them around, which I am fairly sure is a goal.  I know there are a very few, very vocal people here on the forums who just cannot fathom how anyone would find the repetitive content of the game boring, but there are many, many people who do and AE provided them an outlet.

 

7 hours ago, El D said:

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.' 

 

Again, whether the NPCs were player created enemies or developer created enemies makes no difference.  Builds are easily attainable that make the player nigh indestructible against just about anything the game can throw at them.  I understand and appreciate you are in the camp that everything should be "worked for" and "earned" by "playing the game".  What I never see from this side of the debate is what is an acceptable amount of times a player has to play through the same content before it becomes boring?  I completely agree with you on AFK farming, however I will never tell anyone they should not do it.  It makes no difference to me personally and if they are indeed doing nothing but AFK farming all the time and never leave the AE building, I will never be teaming with them for any content outside of AE anyway, so complaining about that is just silly.  Everyone wins in that scenario.

Edited July 16, 2022 by ShardWarrior

[Coyotedancer]

2 hours ago, ShardWarrior said:

Beyond that, AE was just slightly more convenient than PI portal mission maps.  You are making a very large assumption that there will not be people moving back to those PI farms, and I still fail to see there the difference is between letting people continue to farm as they like in AE versus farming something like PI radios or portal maps.  I do not think you are seeing that there is no difference in that regard and since there is no difference, why is this change even necessary?

 

They're actually wrong about the "No Incarnate goodies from those maps back on live"-thing, too. for what it's worth.  

 

I got the incarnate shards to build Alphas for a fair few of my gang by *gasp* *horror* FARMING Unai's Council Earth map. Shards dropped from level 50 mobs even back in the Live days. 😝

[Parabola]

As reluctant as I am to get involved in this dumpster fire there are a lot of comments here along the lines that there is no difference between AE farming and regular mission farming the way it used to be. The devs have previously stated that this is measurably untrue in that AE farm maps place a disproportionate load on the servers. This is to do with the density of active enemies I believe. Whether this is still the case and is a contributing factor to these changes we'll have to wait and see.

[ShardWarrior]

5 hours ago, Parabola said:

As reluctant as I am to get involved in this dumpster fire there are a lot of comments here along the lines that there is no difference between AE farming and regular mission farming the way it used to be. The devs have previously stated that this is measurably untrue in that AE farm maps place a disproportionate load on the servers. This is to do with the density of active enemies I believe. Whether this is still the case and is a contributing factor to these changes we'll have to wait and see.

 

No one was speaking about back end code.  Outside of AFK farming, there is no behavioral difference between farming an AE map and a non-AE map. 

[Parabola]

37 minutes ago, ShardWarrior said:

No one was speaking about back end code.  Outside of AFK farming, there is no behavioral difference between farming an AE map and a non-AE map. 

Apart from only fighting enemies custom designed to have no buffs, debuffs, mez or damage resistances, and who exclusively use a uniform damage type? Even council, as weak as they are, manage some variety in the threat they pose.

[ShardWarrior]

1 minute ago, Parabola said:

Apart from only fighting enemies custom designed to have no buffs, debuffs, mez or damage resistances, and who exclusively use a uniform damage type? Even council, as weak as they are, manage some variety in the threat they pose.

 

What threat?  Outside a few edge cases, most all of my characters can handle just about anything inside or out of AE.  They are mowing through missions regardless of where I am playing them.  If you need some build advice, there are plenty of available builds to study from in the appropriate AT forums here. 

[Parabola]

10 minutes ago, ShardWarrior said:

What threat?  Outside a few edge cases, most all of my characters can handle just about anything inside or out of AE.  They are mowing through missions regardless of where I am playing them. (Needless snark snipped)

If there was no difference between fire farm enemies and council then AE farms would be populated with council. But they aren't. Anyway, I don't care about this anywhere near as much as you clearly do so I'll leave you to it. Peace.

[Bionic_Flea]

Suggestion:  Has anyone compared XP/Inf on a certain AE on live and Brainstorm?  I'd like to see some data points as to how big the difference is.

[Ukase]

On 7/14/2022 at 10:08 AM, TomatoPhalanges said:

 You also earn enough Inf to buy plenty of Merits from the AH.

Now, if only one could buy merits from the AH directly. We cannot. I think maybe you mean the merit vendor, but I don't know anyone who would be so foolish. 1 million for a reward merit? 
And, if only I could buy emp merits from the AH or a merit vendor. Then I wouldn't fill like I need to farm at all. But, if I could, I'm not sure that would be anything other than an inf sink. And, clearly, we don't want any inf sinks, or we'd have more of those. 

/end sarcasm

Seriously, not sure what you meant by this comment. Did you mean merit vendor? Or were you thinking indirectly through super/winter packs? 

[The_Warpact]

Ok here's a question I'm curious on, what happens to a farmer in AE that's above 50(obviously) so what is the rewards?

Just inf and drops?

Do you collect xp to unlock all the incarnate stuff ie: destiny, lore, etc or is that gone? If so you just don't level anymore?

 

 

[Starforge]

It was stated that Incarnate Slot XP is still earnable in non Dev's Choice AE arcs.

Edited July 16, 2022 by Starforge

[skoryy]

9 minutes ago, The_Warpact said:

Ok here's a question I'm curious on, what happens to a farmer in AE that's above 50(obviously) so what is the rewards?

 

Everything but vet levels.

 

9 minutes ago, The_Warpact said:

Just inf and drops?

 

And incarnate XP.  Also tickets!

 

9 minutes ago, The_Warpact said:

Do you collect xp to unlock all the incarnate stuff ie: destiny, lore, etc or is that gone? If so you just don't level anymore?

 

You still get incarnate XP, so you can still unlock all that.

 

Also, all rewards are available in Dev's Choice arcs.

Edited July 16, 2022 by skoryy

[Bionic_Flea]

7 minutes ago, The_Warpact said:

Ok here's a question I'm curious on, what happens to a farmer in AE that's above 50(obviously) so what is the rewards?

Just inf and drops?

Do you collect xp to unlock all the incarnate stuff ie: destiny, lore, etc or is that gone? If so you just don't level anymore?

 

 

A level 50 in AE gets inf, recipes, SO drops, incarnate threads, and IXP to unlock the slots.

 

Edited July 16, 2022 by Bionic_Flea

[Ukase]

23 hours ago, Excraft said:

 

I just don't think they care about alienating anyone who doesn't "play the right way" as they define it.  They just don't give a shit and the only people they seem to listen to are the 3 or 4 people constantly crying and whining about farming on the forums.  They keep chasing these mythical new players who don't exist in mass numbers, never will exist in mass numbers for an 18 year old game with out of date technology running on a pirate server.  They keep making the same mistakes Paragon Studios made over and over again hoping for a different outcome.

 

Of course they can do whatever they want and there's nothing that's going to change their decisions on this point.  Best thing anyone can do is just accept their changes and adapt or leave and go play something else.  I have a suspicion this is just the first of many more nerfs coming to the AE content and it's pretty clear at least to me what effect those will have.  All anyone needs to do is look at all the other "traditional" servers out there being barren ghost towns. 

 

 

What's the difference between farming those missions and farming in AE?  People are outside the AE building?

I can't say I disagree, but I don't agree 100%. 

I remember Jimmy the GM saying something about farming a couple of years ago. 
[Farming is good for the community. AFK-farming is not so good.] - paraphrased. 

The removal of emp merits and such from AE will really only strongly impact one subset of farmers - those who farm for emp merits from the vet levels. The "active" farmers can simply go to Harvey Meylor, or Unai Kemen or Maria Jenkins, or just PI council radio missions. But the afk farmer cannot do this. Set yourself with burn on auto in the middle of any of those maps, and nothing will happen. There may be an exploit to use with a teammate who can get a free PL while you go afk, but that calls for relying on someone else, and is less than optimal. 

The big difference, as far as I can tell, are 1) the hope that these players will begin to join the itrials and Dark Astoria story arc teams so those players don't have to wait so long before they fill and 2) less of a burden on the server.  
For whatever reason, AE puts a burden on the servers. I have no idea why, but they say it does. I don't know how it's any different from all those farmers just farming in the wild on the Dreck map, but they say it does. 

Eventually, they may share their reasoning for this change. Maybe it will make sense and we can get behind it. I hope so. 

[Coyotedancer]

1 hour ago, Bionic_Flea said:

Suggestion:  Has anyone compared XP/Inf on a certain AE on live and Brainstorm?  I'd like to see some data points as to how big the difference is.

 

If I have time, I'll have a look at that with Ossuni today or tonight. I'm curious about that, too, along with how the aggro changes may affect things on the space map and patrol cave where groups really stack up fast.

 

'Meeting the family SG for our usual running around this afternoon, though, so I may not have a huge amount of time with it.

 

As an aside, my middle nephew is probably going to be pretty sad panda about the vet level change when it goes live himself. He turned out to enjoy fire farming with FCM and I, and has a basic "first farmer" Spines/Fire Brute of his own. He loves it when he gets a level ding in the middle of things. He calls out every single one, and always goes to check out his new badge title when he gets one... He's been looking forward to collecting them all. (He's just shy of vet level 70 now, so definitely getting there after about... six months or so?)

 

Farming isn't all he does with that character (He's also a big fan of MSRs, chasing giant monsters and fighting off invasions of all sorts-), so even without AE dings, eventually he'll still have his badges. But not getting them while we're beating up on hot-sauce zombies and cosplayers is going to take a little of the fun out of it for him.

 

So,,, yeah. I'm playing the "You're gonna make a kid sad"-card here. Because it's true. 😝

 

 

 

Edited July 16, 2022 by Coyotedancer

[The_Warpact]

22 minutes ago, skoryy said:

 

Everything but vet levels.

 

 

And incarnate XP.  Also tickets!

 

 

You still get incarnate XP, so you can still unlock all that.

 

Also, all rewards are available in Dev's Choice arcs.

 

22 minutes ago, Bionic_Flea said:

A level 50 in AE gets inf, recipes, SO drops, incarnate threads, and IXP to unlock the slots.

 

But, as you collect IXP you level, that's been totally removed?

 

I always thought the ticket ratio was rather low. (Looking at RWZ too, outside of MSR)

[Ukase]

21 hours ago, lemming said:

Based on some people's reasons for hating this change, I think you're right.      Someone who has alt accounts to PL them to vet level whatever for emerits and then parks them seem to be the main target.   It's got me more on board for this change than anything else.

The primary reason to farm for these emp merits via vet levels is for me, to aid my new alts in getting their t-4, and for when I was farming, to get converters for free, so I could sell the IOs for less than the competition due to having virtually no cost other than crafting. 

So, you damn sure can expect IO costs to increase, because the cost of converting will go up, and because some afk farmers won't farm anymore, the supply will drop. 

Some folks ask me why I would suffer a farm for emp merits when I could do content? I do both. Thanks to the multi-box policy, I can have a couple of farmers doing their thing while I play the game with the primary account. At night, the primary account can be PL'd by a farm account in an afk farm for emp merits to assist whichever character could use the help. 

The ability to send incarnate materials like Forbidden Techniques and such would allow me to forgo this nonsense for the most part, But I'm gonna keep doing it because I'm tired of suffering foul language, incompetence due to inattention to league chat instructions and waiting for the leagues to fill. 

[Bionic_Flea]

14 minutes ago, The_Warpact said:

But, as you collect IXP you level, that's been totally removed?

A Homecoming change was that level 50s continue earning plain old XP and when they fill the ten bubbles they get a DING!, a whole set of inspirations, and a vet level.  You no longer can earn this XP in AE, therefore no more DINGS!, no more inspirations, and no more vet levels or the incarnate goodies that come with vet levels.  But you still earn the different IXPs to open incarnate slots.  IXP doesn't do the other things that regular XP do for 50s.  Once all your slots are unlocked you only get influence and drops.

Edited July 16, 2022 by Bionic_Flea

[DarknessEternal]

Remove moon map.  Another easy fix to afk farming that isn't being considered.

[Coyotedancer]

Or FCM's suggestion... If the excessive Emp-to-RM conversion issue is really the main source of concern, either adjust the exchange rate or remove that option.

 

 

 

Edited July 16, 2022 by Coyotedancer

[skoryy]

15 minutes ago, DarknessEternal said:

Remove moon map.  Another easy fix to afk farming that isn't being considered.

 

Nah, I wouldn't remove one of the more awesome maps in AE for that.  It makes a great final boss stage, for starters.