The Pretty Good AE Debate

[skoryy]

So I thought on it and here's the thing:

• In Guild Wars 2, you get all your weapon skills at level 10 or so (IIRC, its been a long while) and will have your heal, utilities, and elite well before 80.  Gearing up an exotic power build at 80 is relatively trivial.  If you play long enough and/or often enough, you'll get showered in enough scrolls and tomes so that leveling becomes much easier to eventually unnecessary.  And even then they're selling level 80 tickets in the shop that also give you free lvl 80 high end gear.  (And you're not backhanded when running older content in older zones, you keep all your skills while your stats are pro-rated down so you can still be a god among men. Yes, I am looking at you Ouroboros.)
• In Final Fantasy XIV, you don't get all your skills until 90 but you do get enough at the lower levels that you'll feel powered up by at least 30 and definitely by 50.  Gear is pretty much irrelevant save for the ilvl. The shop offers instant level and quest boosts to get you to 80 with free gear at that level.
• I haven't played World of Warcraft in years, but they do offer free max level boosts with free gear in the shop.
• Here at Homecoming, there's a definite gulf between 0 and 30, 30 and 50, 50 and fully incarnated, fully incarnated on SOs and fully incarnated on IOs.  To get fully incarnated on IOs requires at least a half billion in inf and a lot of empyreans.  There are no instant levels or instant gears, the only fast method to get there is by farming.

Most MMOs on the market learned that leveling is great for training your new players, but your experienced players tend to want geared-up alts already at endgame and will gladly throw money at the screen to do so.  Homecoming is working with an outdated model and farming is basically the equivalent of buying those free endgame characters.  Its why I don't think farming is that bad for the game in its current state, as long as the rewards aren't out of line enough to break the market or - more importantly - bypass the endgame stuff you want players filling up.  The devs think so as well, what we're seeing now is damage control before things do get out of hand. 

 

Until if/when we do get freebie'd 50s, a regulated farming environment is probably the best we can hope for to match the current MMO gaming experience.   Its a happy medium.

[Coyotedancer]

8 hours ago, flakoff said:

I'm not against farming, but the problem now is people log in at lvl 1 and instantly ask for a farm.

I don't have the answer, but the game is really not being played anymore. 

Farm to 50, farm to open incarnates, farm to get threads.

Then what? Show off shiney new toon that you got for free?

 

 

I was bouncing around various servers yesterday, deciding which characters to keep where and doing some general tinkering with them and I noticed something. That constant begging for farms? It's more common on some servers than others. 

 

On Everlasting? Hang around in Atlas for awhile and you'll see some of that. It's not constant, but also not unheard of.

I was in Atlas on Torch for about an hour and saw one request to be farmed. 

Reunion? I don't think I saw anyone do it.

 

I can't speak for Indom. I haven't been over there yet.

 

Excelsior, though? Holy hell. It was *constant*. "Lowbie LF Farm"... "Farm me, please?"... "Sitter LF farm" over and over again the whole time I was there.

Given that, I can see why people on Ex might feel like nothing else is ever getting run. o_0

 

But,,, still. Realize that Excelsior's situation doesn't seem to be universal based on what I was seeing yesterday. If that was a typical day across the shards, we might want to look at "server culture" solutions more than mechanical ones, because the 'problem' (If it really is one-) hits some places harder than others. 

[Bionic_Flea]

59 minutes ago, zenijos10 said:

I’m seeing arguments about whether people who powerlevel 1-50 play a lot. Most arguments are based on personal preference, anecdotes, and arguments stemming from those preferences and anecdotes.  I wonder what kind of statistics are available to get actual data.  

 

• How many characters level to 50 primarily in AE missions?
• How many leveled In less than x hour played?
• For those characters, how many played other content after getting to 50?
• How many players, after leveling to 50 in AE, did it again? How many times?
• Same for non AE?
• What percentage of total content played is played inside architect?
• What percentage of total influenced generated comes from AE?

Devs, can we get access to the raw data (tableau, grafana, etc) to do our own analysis to get the bottom of some of the arguments on the forums? 

 

I'd like to see that too.  The only thing I can offer is 2 year old data.

Fire Brutes were so prevalent that they broke it out as a category.  About 30k fire brutes (or about 2.5% of total characters made) accounted for 32% of total hours played!

[zenijos10]

2 minutes ago, Bionic_Flea said:

 

I'd like to see that too.  The only thing I can offer is 2 year old data.

Fire Brutes were so prevalent that they broke it out as a category.  About 30k fire brutes (or about 2.5% of total characters made) accounted for 32% of total hours played!

Yeah, I thought those threads were cool.  I was hoping for raw data then too. I haven’t reviewed it in a long time, I should reread. Assuming accuracy, that 32% indicates farming is keeping people playing, or at least it was two years ago.  Of course that doesn’t clearly explain if the player was afk farming or power leveling another character(s) or afk powerleveling another character(s).
 

I guess it’s the data scientist in me that wants to drill down deeper and discover trends and really understand the truth of the matter. Is there a way to discover from the data who is afk farming? If so how many hours of active gameplay stem from afk farming? How much influence?   So many insights just waiting to be discovered!

[Troo]

3 hours ago, battlewraith said:

 

A quick google search indicated that Ultima Online has less than half the player base of Homecoming. Maybe if the devs take a more hardline approach to advancement, we can successfully reach those numbers as well.

 

Just something to be mindful of.

 

I obviously don't prefer some of what they are doing as I've posted views that aren't against PLing, proposed a level up token, a respec for a primary or secondary and a never ending mission with wave of different enemy groups.

 

What was the UO number?

[Bionic_Flea]

5 minutes ago, zenijos10 said:

If so how many hours of active gameplay stem from afk farming?

I'm not sure they can tell the difference.

[battlewraith]

59 minutes ago, Troo said:

 

Just something to be mindful of.

 

I obviously don't prefer some of what they are doing as I've posted views that aren't against PLing, proposed a level up token, a respec for a primary or secondary and a never ending mission with wave of different enemy groups.

 

What was the UO number?

The site mmo-population.com says that UO has about 463k players or subscriptions, with roughly 4.4 k daily players.  It puts coh at about 1 million, with 9.6k daily players. No idea of the veracity of the numbers, it was the thing that came up when I did the search. 

[ShardWarrior]

2 hours ago, UltraAlt said:

The AE isn't the game. The AE was added to the game.

The standard for rewards should be the reward level set in the standard game content and not based on Fire Farming.

 

And AE content is obviously surpassing the rewards gained for standard game content and that's why the rewards for AE need to be reduced for AE content that is built to abuse the system. And that is exactly what Farming in the AE is has been the whole time - creating and running missions to gain better rewards than the AE was intended to reward.

 

There were many things that got added to the game like PvP, the Auction House, Villains - the list can go on.  I also would not agree that AE surpasses the rewards from all the content all of the time.   It depends on what you are comparing here.  Are you comparing this to your average non-AFK farmer?  Or the edge case AFK farmers?

 

If the former, given how quickly some of the TFs can be sped through, those merits and/or unique enhancement drops can add up pretty quick.  Especially when the TFs/SFs are the WST.  Market Crash can be sped through and is a guaranteed purple recipe drop first time your character runs through it whereas purple recipe drops are random in farming.   You can rack up influence fairly quickly running radios or farming PI portal missions too.  Hami raids go quick with some very good rewards.  SBB can be farmed for the Overwhelming Force IO drops that are worth a nice bit of inf in the AH as well.  Enterprising players can rack up quite a bit of valuable stuff pretty quickly without ever setting foot in AE.  Personally, I very much enjoy having the option to alternate between the regular content and AE.  It is nice to have all the options.

 

If you are strictly speaking about AFK fire farmers, I admit I do not know enough about it to really make a comparison there. 

[ShardWarrior]

40 minutes ago, Coyotedancer said:

Excelsior, though? Holy hell. It was *constant*. "Lowbie LF Farm"... "Farm me, please?"... "Sitter LF farm" over and over again the whole time I was there.

Given that, I can see why people on Ex might feel like nothing else is ever getting run.

 

I play most on Excelsior and there definitely is quite a lot of people in LFG asking for farms.  To be fair though, there are also quite a lot of people advertising teams for TFs and other non-AE content too.  During my usual play hours, I think I see SBB and ITF being advertised every few minutes.  iTrial activity seems to have picked up as well.

[kelika2]

7 hours ago, MoonSheep said:

not sure that’s how quoting works either mate but well done for trying 

simple translating, nothing more

[Akisan]

7 minutes ago, kelika2 said:

simple translating, nothing more

 

Gonna have to go with @MoonSheep on this one - it's way not cool to change the text of a quote without noting that it's been edited.  Even "simple translating" adds bias to the quote (usually the translator's), as even similar words can have very different connotations.

[flakoff]

6 hours ago, ShardWarrior said:

 

This is unequivocally false.  All veterans posting here in these forums and playing the game have been here going on 18+ years.  We are still playing.  A great many of us will be here until the server collapses or the world ends, whichever comes first.  We have not gotten bored and left.  There is absolutely positively no reason whatsoever to falsely believe there are not others who will feel exactly the same.  The game could be altered to make your every wish come true and there will still be people who will come and go.

 

As for what makes CoH great, there are many different reasons for many different people.  Please stop judging others on what brings them joy and what they should or should not enjoy in playing the game.  There is no right or wrong way to play. 

First off, I'm not judging others.

I also have played from the beginning.  We all have an opinion,  doesn't make any of us right.

[ShardWarrior]

7 minutes ago, flakoff said:

First off, I'm not judging others.

I also have played from the beginning.  We all have an opinion,  doesn't make any of us right.

 

I did not say that no one should have or share an opinion.  You are of course welcome to share your opinion, same as me and everyone else.  Nor am I saying anyone is right or wrong in how they choose to play as I said in my post. 

 

I simply pointed out that the generalization you made is false and can be proven to be false by just looking around.  Facts are facts. 

[flakoff]

3 minutes ago, ShardWarrior said:

 

I did not say that no one should have or share an opinion.  You are of course welcome to share your opinion, same as me and everyone else.  Nor am I saying anyone is right or wrong in how they choose to play as I said in my post. 

 

I simply pointed out that the generalization you made is false and can be proven to be false by just looking around.  Facts are facts. 

Facts need proof though, not that it matters as the Devs will do or not do what they feel is best.

 

[nightroarer]

On 7/19/2022 at 10:26 AM, UltraAlt said:

It might be time to start rethinking about locking the AE to level 50's only.

Holy cow! Why would the devs want to destroy a fun part of the game for their players?

 

I never PL or farm in the AE. Never have, on Live or on HC. But I enjoy playing AE story missions at various levels so that I'm not just doing the same mission arcs over and over again, with little variation. They are a fantastic change of pace and add to the enjoyment of the game.

 

On live, I even had a few characters that ONLY did AE missions--and they leveled very, very slowly (because I didn't do farms). It was a lot of fun. I even wrote a story mission myself and have been considering designing new missions here as well. It's great, creative fun.

 

If I level characters through the AE (slow or fast), it has absolutely no effect on others' ability to enjoy the game. I don't do ITFs or PVP (on HC or NCSOFT servers), I mostly solo or play story content with my family/friends. 

 

If the AE had never existed, I still wouldn't be raiding. The AE changed nothing in that regard for a lot of players. It just gave us other options to play the type of content we enjoy most.

Edited July 23, 2022 by nightroarer

[Troo]

  

4 hours ago, Bionic_Flea said:

How long should it take to get a new character to 50?  Or to T4 incarnates?

 

For an initial run through something around:

• 1.5 units to level 50.
• 2.0 units to T3 and level shifts/incarnate shifts.
• 2.5 units to T4

1 unit being equal to the level 1-40 window.

 

more exact numbers could be could be derived from https://archive.paragonwiki.com/wiki/Experience

 

 

4 hours ago, Bionic_Flea said:

How much influence should I be able to make just leaving a character idle?

 

Ooof Flea.

Ideally zero.

 

Do something, get something.

 

Given how hard this is to enforce with all the mechanics in the game that enable grouping, pairing, encouraging returning, etc.. It is accepted that zero is not the answer.

 

 

4 hours ago, Bionic_Flea said:

Assuming that fire-farming should give the best rewards, how much better should it be relative to other content?  The same, twice as good?  Ten times as good?  More?

 

Okay, playing along.

Ideally equal.

 

Given the difference between AE and non-AE content is mainly travel, spawn spacing and variety of mission types. AE rewards operate at a reduced amount.

With the removal of the custom critter 'bug' and the aggro cap changes, hopefully AE and non-AE rewards can get closer to the same per mob. It might take another revision but that should be the goal. Let play play how they want.

 

More appropriately it would be great to get an official stance/answer from Homecoming to set expectations. I am only one voice.

Homecoming might not be for everyone and that's okay. I want everyone here, but I get it. Choices & consequences.

Edited July 23, 2022 by Troo

[Darmian]

On 7/19/2022 at 11:36 PM, UltraAlt said:

 

That's great.

I'm glad that sub-50 AE arcs are encouraged.

You didn't get lucky, it was your skill in writing the missions and being willing to post to get them acknowledged. In no way do I begrudge you that, I keep my mask on so it limits my operations at some points and this is one of them.

 

So this proves a point that it was acknowledged as a good arc by the DEVs. 

That is one thing and the other are they actually being played?

You could still write, post, and get DEV accreditation for level 20 arcs even if only level 50's can have access to the AE.

 

Why would a level 50 play them?

Same reason they would play Oroborus mission arcs.

 

 

Veering off is good.

I would hope at some point that DEVs Choices could be moved into the actual game. Yours looks like a good example of the kind of thing that could be added into the game directly instead of random players finding it through the AE or by reading about it in the forums.

 

 

 

 

I'm confused about your comment about accuracy in my statement.

Are you saying that I don't post arcs?

I think I have 3 up at this point. I have about 8 in various stages of being completed. Some of which just need to be updated from before the Sunset.

I think I have had one commented on. I can't tell by ticket count how many of played the missions that I posted, but I would have to say not many.

 

You should have an idea by the ticket count and comments if anyone is playing them.

 

In my experience, most AE play tends to be done by the mission creator recruiting for players to run their missions the same way that one would get a team to run any other kind of content.

I have run into 1 player publicly announcing that they were looking for people to run their arc in the /LFG channel, so well over 99% of the /LFG chat that I see for AE is Farming in general or doorsitters.

 

In no way was my comment above descending into "She said/He said".

You didn't reply into regard to how much traffic your missions get, and I haven't refuted your claims.

There is no need to be defensive.

 

The DEVs are seeing this. Some other players may be reading this.

It is getting the situation out in the open which is the whole point.

 

 

Your point is a very rational reason that one could take to only allow AE access to level 50s.

From your reply, you seem to have posted your comment with all sincerity. 

 

You have to understand that the people that want to continue abusing the AE are going to 1) always think that it is okay and 2) are going to find ways to defend the power-leveling.

 

Myself, I find powerleveling in the AE different than power-leveling that occurs by level 50's say in police scanner missions in Peregrine Island.

AE farming power-leveling is based on players building missions to abuse the system to reap rewards.

Running police scanner missions can also level you quickly, but players are generally fighting targets that they have to defeat in a fair fight ... that isn't to say that they aren't picking and choosing the enemy type, but it is a limited choice and one that the DEVs worked into the game.

 

Maybe you see where I'm coming from and maybe you don't.

I wish the DEVs had stuck to their guns when the AE first came out. It would have taken policing efforts and/or a lot more coding to catch balancing issues.

I know that the Homecoming DEVs don't have time for the policing efforts, so any abuse of the system would have to be handled through coding to catch balancing issues.

 

AE Farming is ingrained in many as the way to play the AE and game in THE CITY in general.

Honestly, that is one of the main factors that drove me to stop subscribing to City of Heroes almost exactly a year before the Sunset.

 

My stance has nothing to you with you, and I'm sorry that you would experience collateral damage if my suggestion would ever happen.

The Farmers and power-levelers all think it won't happen.

 

I'm seeing changes and sometimes someone has to throw the bone out there to see who pounces on it.

 

I would love to be able to go into the AE and pick any mission and not find myself in a farm.

I can go in there and check out the DEVs choices, but all the farming stuff has kind of soured me on the AE quite a bit.

 

I could ask the DEVs for more AE slots to post more of my non-farming AE missions, but I honestly feel like "what's the point?"

 

I'm glad that you are sticking with it, keep on making honest story missions that other players might end up playing.

I really used to think creating AE missions was a lot of fun.

Thanks for your considered answer. In all of the to and fro these seem as rare as hen's teeth these days.

 

Do I drag people along on mine?  No, I don't. I have been lucky enough to snag a bunch of players who watch what I put out (along with a few other writers) and enthuse about what we've done.  Or send me comments saying "not up to your regular standard in Mission 3, fix that!".

 

People do play them.  Like anyone I'm at the mercy of (a) farms and (b) listing.  (b) is (a general explanation for all rather than patronizing you in particular) if you're at the top of the list then you'll get played more.  I've had plenty of comments, a lot good, some horrendous(!) and earned enough tickets to buy the "Payoff" badge a few times for different characters.

 

I was sincere in that query and thanks for treating it like that.  

 

The "She said/He said" thing was about me!  My replies to you could really be only anecdotal and I'd descend to that level, and I didn't want to do that. And my comment on accuracy should not have included your line about you writing AEs, I was specifically referring to bringing people along and who plays them. That was me lazily pulling the entire quote.

 

IF my Dev Choices were deemed to be fit enough to slot into the game, sure, what AE writer would turn that down?

 

I've not written anything, well not published anything, in a bit.  I was waiting for proposed changes in AE creation (not this thing at all) to see what new things I could utilize or leverage going forward.  That customization thing seems interesting at the least.

 

Anyway, thanks again.

[ShardWarrior]

31 minutes ago, flakoff said:

Facts need proof though, not that it matters as the Devs will do or not do what they feel is best.

 

So the fact that there are a great many veteran players here who have been playing for 18+ years, have not gotten bored and left - which directly contradicts your "people will get bored and leave" generalization - is not enough proof for you?  Ok.....  🙄

[flakoff]

5 minutes ago, ShardWarrior said:

 

So the fact that there are a great many veteran players here who have been playing for 18+ years, have not gotten bored and left - which directly contradicts your "people will get bored and leave" generalization - is not enough proof for you?  Ok.....  🙄

I'm talking about new people and yes facts as in many vets I personally know that have left.

Let's not turn it into a I'm right you're wrong discussion.

Now back to making another alt!

[Astralock]

2 hours ago, Coyotedancer said:

Excelsior, though? Holy hell. It was *constant*. "Lowbie LF Farm"... "Farm me, please?"... "Sitter LF farm" over and over again the whole time I was there.

Given that, I can see why people on Ex might feel like nothing else is ever getting run. o_0

 

But,,, still. Realize that Excelsior's situation doesn't seem to be universal based on what I was seeing yesterday. If that was a typical day across the shards, we might want to look at "server culture" solutions more than mechanical ones, because the 'problem' (If it really is one-) hits some places harder than others. 

 

 

You can largely tell who plays on Excelsior and who doesn’t by their responses to the AE farming nerfs.  Those that play on Everlasting, Torchbearer, and Indomitable largely don’t see the issue as to why AE needs nerfs and why the AE buildings in Atlas Park and Mercy Island absolutely need to go.

Those who play on Excelsior and largely don’t farm on the other hand…

 

Excelsior’s situation has largely become universal because about two thirds of Homecoming’s entire population is now on Excelsior.  You put in a solution for a problem affecting two thirds of a player base, that’s going to affect everyone by necessity.

[ivanhedgehog]

9 hours ago, Troo said:

Ultima Online (UO) released 1997 https://uo.com/

Time designated it as one of the 100 greatest video games of all time in November 2012

 

25 years non-stop.

 

"The following are actions taken on accounts that were either banned or suspended during the month of June: (6/20)

• 59 -  Macroing 
• 3 -    Solicitation
• 29 -  Multiboxing
• 7 -    Naming Violation
• 5 -    Disruptive Behavior
• 2 - Third party program use
• 6 - Game Anomaly Exploit
• 1 - Abuse of Game Mechanics
• 2 - Solicitation"

Maybe, just maybe one reason it is still around is that players have to play the game to advance in it.

I'm not saying we need to be them.

I have no problem with folks casually PLing a character from time to time.

I do have a problem with exploits. Sometimes we do something not thinking it is exploitative, those cases should be easily addressed and have the exploit fixed. 

 

AE is potentially the greatest asset CoX has.

Want to play a Dynasty Warrior style AE mission? I think that's a good thing.

Just don't expect 10x rewards & exp for a fraction of effort. Being efficient and effective are different than simply taking advantage.

 

good thing you dont get 10x rewards in AE. problem solved!!!! you know I have to do 100 points of damage to kill a 100 hp opponent anywhere in the game? Including AE? sounds like there isnt a problem to solve here.

[ivanhedgehog]

9 hours ago, MoonSheep said:

 

you’re able to articulate many of the points i don’t have the eloquence for, troo

 

in my view, if the end goal can be easily achieved, the novelty of the game wears off quickly and people leave. the game experience of reward and achievement for the non-farming playerbase are impacted as end objectives are essentially meaningless when the game is auto-win

 

i am hugely supportive of progressively numerous mass waves in AE or at the end of certain TFs where thematically sensible, sometimes it’s good fun for a chaos slay fest

 

AE farms in their current form though are quite clearly an exploit and are outside of the standard game mechanics of effort vs reward - especially now that accounts are free and you can quad/quintbox your way to riches

are you suggesting that they put a timer between levels? I can pl a character fast through TFs, are you wanting to nerf those also?

[Troo]

2 minutes ago, ivanhedgehog said:

good thing you dont get 10x rewards in AE. problem solved!!!! you know I have to do 100 points of damage to kill a 100 hp opponent anywhere in the game? Including AE? sounds like there isnt a problem to solve here.

 

So you think if someone doesn't do the 100 points of damage to kill a 100 hp opponent they should not get any reward? I'm glad the game is a bit more nuanced. 😉

[ivanhedgehog]

5 hours ago, Bionic_Flea said:

How long should it take to get a new character to 50?  Or to T4 incarnates?

 

How much influence should I be able to make just leaving a character idle?

 

Assuming that fire-farming should give the best rewards, how much better should it be relative to other content?  The same, twice as good?  Ten times as good?  More?

big assumption. fire farming doesnt give the best rewards.

[Coyotedancer]

18 minutes ago, Astralock said:

 

 

You can largely tell who plays on Excelsior and who doesn’t by their responses to the AE farming nerfs.  Those that play on Everlasting, Torchbearer, and Indomitable largely don’t see the issue as to why AE needs nerfs and why the AE buildings in Atlas Park and Mercy Island absolutely need to go.

Those who play on Excelsior and largely don’t farm on the other hand…

 

Excelsior’s situation has largely become universal because about two thirds of Homecoming’s entire population is now on Excelsior.  You put in a solution for a problem affecting two thirds of a player base, that’s going to affect everyone by necessity.

 

Excelsior isn't the end-all be-all driver of how the game should be developed any more than Freedom was back in the live days.

 

(And for what it's worth, Everlasting has quite a few players, too. It's not exactly an abandoned wasteland even if it isn't the "most populated" on average. RIght now? Ex has 688 players. Ev has 379. The others are around 100 each.)

 

 

 

Edited July 23, 2022 by Coyotedancer