Focused Feedback: Reward Merits

[UltraAlt]

7 hours ago, sbloyd said:

Wouldn't reinstating the AFK timeout during AE fix that?

 

That would help with the issue a whole lot.

Thanks for bringing that up so didn't have to be the only target.

[SwitchFade]

Well, after reading how some people are exploiting the emp to merit at a high enough rate that it is a significant contributor to inflation, you all have convinced me!

 

If it's not possible to instate a lockout timer to the conversion, say 1 emp every 24 hours (or some number that is the proper point between wealth creation and destruction), I would then 100% support the removal of the conversion altogether.

 

Solid debate, previously I was of the stance that they should be convertible, but with a time restriction; now I am ok with a complete removal. Well done, forumites!

[Myrmidon]

8 hours ago, Ukase said:

I'm just expressing my views which are - before I can get behind any change, I want to know why the change is proposed. Barring that, I can't get behind it. 

Architect Entertainment has the best time/reward ratio for mission content in the game and either rest of mission content needs to be brought up to par or AE needs to be brought down to that level.

 

My opinion is as simple as that.

[Zepp]

10 hours ago, Moka said:

I think this change is needed. People should actually play endgame content to make endgame builds. What a concept!

 

If there were more solo-friendly endgame content I would agree with you. Unfortunately, a lot of the endgame content is designed to be very difficult or impossible without a group. As someone who primarily plays solo, this does not appeal to me.

 

2 hours ago, SwitchFade said:

Well, after reading how some people are exploiting the emp to merit at a high enough rate that it is a significant contributor to inflation, you all have convinced me!

 

If it's not possible to instate a lockout timer to the conversion, say 1 emp every 24 hours (or some number that is the proper point between wealth creation and destruction), I would then 100% support the removal of the conversion altogether.

 

Solid debate, previously I was of the stance that they should be convertible, but with a time restriction; now I am ok with a complete removal. Well done, forumites!

 

Except, it wouldn't lead to inflation, it would lead to deflation. More X items on the market means that each item is worth less. This change will likely increase market prices, particularly on purples, and winter sets. They will raise the price on other enhancements due to an increase in the price of enhancement converters.

[Ukase]

8 hours ago, Myrmidon said:

Architect Entertainment has the best time/reward ratio for mission content in the game and either rest of mission content needs to be brought up to par or AE needs to be brought down to that level.

 

My opinion is as simple as that.

And I respect your opinion - and you. I don't recall you ever posting anything I thought was outright stupid (and I can't say the same thing for myself, lol ). 

So, one can read that and ask if one part of the game gives better rewards over time, why does that necessitate change? There's always going to be something that gives more rewards/time. A couple of years ago, we used to zerg hami, before they capped the zone to 50. And there was an adjustment by the devs to cap the zone to inhibit this. But, oddly, the only difference now is that fewer people are getting the same rewards for the same effort. We still zerg hami, only we do it with 50 instead of 100-200 players. How was that an improvement, making the game better? It simply penalized the 50-150 players that couldn't get in the zone. It did slow things down a bit, as fewer players meant slightly longer GM hunts. Other than that, perhaps a slightly higher amount of risk, but it's still a given that it will succeed. 

Where is the outcry from the farmers about this? Getting 120 reward merits in 20-30 minutes...it's not fair, and something should be done! 

Yeah, I'm being a touch sarcastic there. But the point remains. There will always be something that rewards more. 

 

Another thing that folks seem to be forgetting is that afk-farming is a method of play. Some folks that have never afk-farmed really have no idea what goes on between missions. And that is the part I would miss the most. Not so much raking in the influence; I've got plenty of that. But the (Lord forgive me for using the stupid, trite, over-used word) meta game is the attraction for me. Taking a resource that almost nobody wants, adding value to it, and making it something most folks want. Now, I'll still be able to do this, even if AE would be removed entirely, but then I'd have to do the tedious stuff of typing in names of salvage which takes away from the enjoyment. 
Folks seem to think it's just as simple as plopping in the middle of a map and setting burn to auto and returning when convenient. Sometimes, it's that simple. But not always. Sometimes, particularly when you're just starting out, you lose a lot of time and get very little or nothing. You thought your character was solid, got that build from some unknown player on the forums, and find out it sucked. Or at least, it wasn't good enough. Or you tried to sub a couple of the winter sets for some cheaper sets because you couldn't afford them and found your character lacking. There's a lot of growing pains for the beginning farmer. These new AoE changes will only add to that. 

 

The HC flavor of CoH has always been about options. I think, if it is true that AFK has a clear time/reward advantage, then the ruffian in me says, "so? Make one and get back to playing". 
The more sympathetic side of me says, "Okay, so boost the non-AE rewards to equal the afk metric. How hard can it be?"  Far better to lead with a carrot than to push with a stick. 

 

 

[Ukase]

8 hours ago, Zepp said:

Except, it wouldn't lead to inflation, it would lead to deflation. More X items on the market means that each item is worth less. This change will likely increase market prices, particularly on purples, and winter sets. They will raise the price on other enhancements due to an increase in the price of enhancement converters.

Damn it! Higher prices means I would make even MORE influence! I've got thousands of these babies sitting around just waiting for me to use them! If prices go up, I can maybe make a trillion! 
In all seriousness, the 100 reward merits for a winter-O or a purple recipe (that you have to craft, what a rip-off) is roughly equal to 300 converters, or 21M inf. I can't see prices going much higher than that for either of those items. The superior winters, involve the slotting, adding a catalyst and then unslotting and then posting for sale. The catalyst drop fairly often, but if you're in a rush, you can get one for less than 2m. So, why those sell for more than 25M is because most folks are unknowing, or just lazy and impatient. 

If I thought for a minute that this change would elevate the price of purples to 30M...heh, I'd be doing everything I could to get it passed. 

[Bionic_Flea]

8 minutes ago, Ukase said:

Another thing that folks seem to be forgetting is that afk-farming is a method of play

I'm sorry Ukase, you know I love you but afk-farming is pretty much not playing by definition.  If there is no one at the keyboard, the game is playing itself.  Yes, yes, I understand that you are at the keyboard playing another character on another account.  But that's the one you're playing.  Not the one or two others you parked in a fire-farm with burn on auto.

[Moka]

8 hours ago, Zepp said:

 

If there were more solo-friendly endgame content I would agree with you. Unfortunately, a lot of the endgame content is designed to be very difficult or impossible without a group. As someone who primarily plays solo, this does not appeal to me.

 

 

Except, it wouldn't lead to inflation, it would lead to deflation. More X items on the market means that each item is worth less. This change will likely increase market prices, particularly on purples, and winter sets. They will raise the price on other enhancements due to an increase in the price of enhancement converters.

Might be a little off-color of me to point out the MMO thing, but I can understand solo should be equally prioritized. 

 

If you spam-run the Heather Townshend Dark Astoria arc through Ouroboros, you can get down to 8-10 mins per run solo with a decent build or even just low enough difficulty settings on a mediocre build. You're guaranteed emp merits, and you could run it for reward merits too I believe? If not, I'm pretty sure the new Incarnate arcs for Cimerora will reward such. 

[Myrmidon]

9 hours ago, Zepp said:

If there were more solo-friendly endgame content I would agree with you. Unfortunately, a lot of the endgame content is designed to be very difficult or impossible without a group. As someone who primarily plays solo, this does not appeal to me.

Let the Content team get the kinks out and there will be plenty to do in that regard.

[Ukase]

1 hour ago, Bionic_Flea said:

I'm sorry Ukase, you know I love you but afk-farming is pretty much not playing by definition.  If there is no one at the keyboard, the game is playing itself.  Yes, yes, I understand that you are at the keyboard playing another character on another account.  But that's the one you're playing.  Not the one or two others you parked in a fire-farm with burn on auto.

If you review that post you quoted, I was talking of the play of the afk character between missions. The crafting, converting, etc. That's the play I speak of. 

[Ukase]

42 minutes ago, Myrmidon said:

Let the Content team get the kinks out and there will be plenty to do in that regard.

How about they wait until they do that, then change things? 

[Doc_Scorpion]

1 hour ago, Ukase said:

The more sympathetic side of me says, "Okay, so boost the non-AE rewards to equal the afk metric. How hard can it be?"  Far better to lead with a carrot than to push with a stick. 

No.  When there's an outlier that can cause a problem, you don't make the problem worse.  You fix the outlier, that's just common sense.  If I find a nail sticking up out of the floor, I don't raise the floor to match - that's stupid.

[Moka]

Here's my general take, and this may be a bit off the beaten path:

 

If the best source of reward merits comes from group content, that is because you are challenging yourself to play at another group's pace and keep up with them/collaborate on a greater effort. And doing things with other people is USUALLY going to be faster unless your team is just that incompetent. 

 

However, if you're playing solo, you have nobody to keep up with and therefore are playing at your own pace, meaning the rewards coming at a slower pace than team content shouldn't be that much of an issue, because you're purely playing on your own time and nobody else's. 

 

Truth be told, if Homecoming is to move forward and represent the expansion of the live game we held so dearly, it needs to start playing like a MMO - where the "endgame" is relevant for the best rewards and the solo alternatives are slower, but possible. 

[Myrmidon]

51 minutes ago, Ukase said:

How about they wait until they do that, then change things? 

While I can certainly see this as an alternative, a change of some kind is pretty much a bet the farm guarantee for Page Four. It’s either no AE XP post-50 or no more Empyrean/Merit conversions, take your pick.

Edited July 28, 2022 by Myrmidon

[Ukase]

24 minutes ago, Doc_Scorpion said:

No.  When there's an outlier that can cause a problem, you don't make the problem worse.  You fix the outlier, that's just common sense.  If I find a nail sticking up out of the floor, I don't raise the floor to match - that's stupid.

"when there's an outlier that can cause a problem"....
Where's the problem, tho? 

Let us say that there is indeed a reward/time advantage for AE farming. Why is that a problem? What is the problem with that? 

Nobody is being forced to do this if they don't want to, but everyone can farm if they want to. 

So, there's no disadvantage to anyone. I just don't see that it's an issue. So what if Farmers get paid more than non-farmers. It's irrelevant. The folks that don't farm because they don't want to shouldn't care, because they don't want to farm. And that's fine. 
But to punish farmers because they don't want to is not fine. 

A rising tide elevates all the boats. So, increase the rewards of non-AE content to rival farmers. (However that's determined is beyond me.) 

If we punish the farmers because they make more for doing less, what about the marketers? We make more than farmers doing even less! We don't kill a damn thing, but time, and get exponentially more! Are you going to then remove the auction house? Only allow folks to buy one item per day? Or only allow folks to sell 10 items a day? 

Where does this line get drawn in the concrete? (as opposed to sand)

In some ways, I look at this like the government trying to take away my hunting rifle because it's a gun, and a gun in the wrong hands can hurt people. You want to erode my rights for no other purpose than you don't want to hunt, and perhaps you're worried my rifle would be used in some random school simply because I have one. 

 

I see no reason why farming hurts the game in any measurable way. I see no reason why farmers making influence more easily than non-farmers is an issue. If only certain people could farm, yeah, I'd say there's a big problem. But everyone can! 

Yes, I can see how players might feel slighted because one player has more resources than another. But that's not the fault of the richer player. It's the fault of the poorer player for not taking advantage of the knowledge, skills and abilities they have. Now, if they have no desire to farm, as I said, that's fine. They can still make plenty of influence just by using the drops they get in game. Farmers are gonna farm, and no rules (except a no-farming rule) are going to change that. 

I think you're not going to get what you expect by getting what you want. 
I could be wrong, though. I've been wrong before. 
But, given enough time, the players will come up with the next big thing, and then the people will cry aloud once more, "it's not fair!". It is fair. It hurts nothing that I can see. 

You can't say "if they weren't farming, they'd be teaming". This is not a fact. It's conjecture. And making a change on conjecture is not wise. Increase the rewards, and the folks that farm for rewards will go. The folks that farm for fun will not. The folks that cannot farm due to changes (or will not) will likely find something else to do. 

You may see that as a benefit. More names to get. If that's your position, I can understand that, at least. But if I just play the game, I'll keep my names anyway. 

But to go about saying farming is hurting your characters somehow...that's nonsense in my mind. I don't see how. 

Maybe you guys are just wanting to drive away all the farmers with some noble intent of having the game "pure", so you can be totally immersed in your characters without a care in the world, no idle chatter about "lowbie dominator looking for AE cuz I don't have perma-dom" to intrude on your finer sensibilities. 

I have no idea where some of you are coming from. 

[Infinitum]

10 hours ago, Zepp said:

If there were more solo-friendly endgame content I would agree with you. Unfortunately, a lot of the endgame content is designed to be very difficult or impossible without a group. As someone who primarily plays solo, this does not appeal to me.

 

There are a ton of solo friendly lvl 50 contacts to run mission and story arcs.

 

Two of my favorites is the DA series leading up to the showdown with MOT and the Belladona Arc - really all of the high level Praetorian content is great.

[Bionic_Flea]

32 minutes ago, Ukase said:

You can't say "if they weren't farming, they'd be teaming". This is not a fact. It's conjecture.

True.  This is conjecture.

32 minutes ago, Ukase said:

Increase the rewards, and the folks that farm for rewards will go. The folks that farm for fun will not.

This is also conjecture.

 

Both have some merit.  Just for the sake of argument, say that the devs made ITF critters worth twice as much XP/Inf per kill for a standard run, 3X for 1 star, 4X for 2 star, 5x for 3 star, and 10X for 4 star.  What do you think will happen? 

 

My conjecture is that AE farmers and PLers would farm and PL less in AE and more in ITF with a team.

[Doc_Scorpion]

2 hours ago, Ukase said:

But to punish farmers because they don't want to is not fine. 

Nobody is punishing farmers.  You can still farm and power level to your heart's content.

 

2 hours ago, Ukase said:

Nobody is being forced to do this if they don't want to, but everyone can farm if they want to. 

Neither pre-change nor post change is anyone being forced to do anything they don't want to do.  AE farming and power leveling aren't going away and the Devs aren't dumb enough to even attempt that impossible task.  You can still farm and power level to your heart's content.

[ShardWarrior]

2 hours ago, Bionic_Flea said:

Both have some merit.  Just for the sake of argument, say that the devs made ITF critters worth twice as much XP/Inf per kill for a standard run, 3X for 1 star, 4X for 2 star, 5x for 3 star, and 10X for 4 star.  What do you think will happen? 

 

My conjecture is that AE farmers and PLers would farm and PL less in AE and more in ITF with a team.

 

This is subjective to the individual.  Some may jump and run more team content.  Others who enjoy soloing are going to continue what they are doing.  It is important to remember there are people who play the game primarily solo for a variety of reasons.

 

Based on your XP/Inf supposition, I do not see many running the 4 star difficulty due to the extra time investment.  Most likely you can run the lower difficulty levels twice as fast, if not faster and thereby negate the increased XP/Inf. 

[Ironblade]

3 hours ago, Myrmidon said:

While I can certainly see this as an alternative, a change of some kind is pretty much a bet the farm guarantee for Page Four. It’s either no AE XP post-50 or no more Empyrean/Merit conversions, take your pick.

I don't think it's as cut and dried as your second sentence suggests, nor do I think we should be framing it that way.

Both of those options have drawbacks and have engendered a very negative response.

 

I think a better course would be to look for some middle ground - which will, most likely, make NO ONE happy but hopefully it won't seem like a slap in the face to a portion of the community.  Or, perhaps, it will seem like a minor slap to just about everyone.

 

One option is to allow AE experience up to a specific level.  Many people said they farm up to 48.  Maybe limit the rewards to level 15 or 20.

Another option is time gating the conversion, limiting it to X conversions per day or having a cooldown time on the conversions.

 

I'm sure the devs, with a greater understanding of the systems involved, can come up with other options.  So far, they came up with a draconian measure which generated outrage.  So they came up with a different, but equally draconian measure, which seems just as unpopular (and perhaps more likely to affect the casual player).  I think a more moderate measure can be found that will have little or no impact on the 'casual player' while reining in the issue the devs are targeting (farming incarnate merits and converting to reward merits).

[arthurh35353]

I think that removing Vet Leveling from the AE is probably better for people than removing converting Empyrians to Mertis.

 

The real problem is the AFK farming. It's not playing, it's grinding for massive rewards. You get INF and all the Veteran Levels for parking your fire farmer/whatever and moving them every 20-30 minutes.

 

It conceptionally is to game rewards so that you can sell phat loot on the market so you can kit up your next 1billion fire farmer build. It's not playing the game, it's just proving you have a computer you can keep connected and passively inflating your wealth.

[Ukase]

53 minutes ago, arthurh35353 said:

It conceptionally is to game rewards so that you can sell phat loot on the market so you can kit up your next 1billion fire farmer build. It's not playing the game, it's just proving you have a computer you can keep connected and passively inflating your wealth.

You say it's not playing the game. I say it is playing the game, just not the way you play it perhaps. 

So, I've proven long ago that I have a computer I can keep connected and can passively (and actively) inflate my wealth. What's wrong with that? 

[twozerofoxtrot]

We seem to be getting lost in a discussion or dispute about how we play the game.

 

If there is a method by which someone can manipulate the market single-handedly in a relatively short amount of time, then that should be addressed, because it affects every player who interacts with that system. 

[lemming]

Economies in scale probably have a lot to do with it.  People leveling chars and converting excess Emp Merits probably doesn't have much of an impact.

Get enough people running enough accounts to afk farm post 50 vet levels for the emps, it skews it off more.   A lot of people don't really want to go thru that effort, but I'm betting that there are a few more people going "hey, I can do that"

Heck, my old computer could run three instances without an issue, I assume newer computers can run quite a few more.

 

Will turning off Emerit conversion fix this?  Short term, probably and reward merits will keep non-farmers from seeing as much of an impact.

I don't know the inner workings of the development here, but been involved in other places where a subset of the population learns a way to gain an advantage that is outside the normal parameters of the game.  Usually not seen as outside by the ones doing it though. 

[scottocamp]

In an earlier Page, the Rune of Protection power was nerfed despite the power being used on less than 5% of level 50 toons (as stated by the development team).  It seems difficult to imagine that the Rune of Protection power was breaking the game if 19 of 20 toons did not even feel the power was worth taking.  In comparison to a power like Hasten which is probably taken by 19 of 20 toons.   The power was nerfed it appears because it bothered the sensibilities of the developers in some manner. 

 

Seems like the same situation here.  I play the game every evening and never set foot in the AE Building except to get Day Job badges.  I've never felt the slightest impact from other players door-sitting or power-leveling or setting up advantageous AE missions or farming AFK or whatever.  None of that diminishes my joy of playing CoH.  Perhaps there is some effect on the Auction House that I don't perceive, but the AH seems remarkably stable under the guidance of this development team.  Door sitting, AFK farming and certain AE missions just don't "feel proper" to a number of people.  And it is hard to debate feelings.

 

Based on past actions I expect the development team to adjust the game to better reflect their shared aesthetic and sensibilities.  I don't believe the development team has the metrics or a particularly convincing argument to justify choking off the conversion of emps to merits.  If they did - they would have probably stated it by now.  They just "feel" it is the right thing to do. 

 

For better or worse I largely agree with the vision and sensibilities of this development team.  Which is why I play on Homecoming.  I did not agree with the Rune of Protection change and I'm not sure I really understand why the conversion of emps to merits is something to necessarily worry about - but I can accept these changes given the amazing job this Homecoming team has done.