The Pretty Good AE Debate

[Akisan]

8 hours ago, roleki said:

Now, you can credit a lot of that to the steps the devs have taken to level everything relative to Reward Merits, and (sigh) you can attribute some of that to marketeers converting my lead into their gold.  But you cannot pretend that farmers don't have a hand in KEEPING INFLATION DOWN by raining shitloads of recipes/enhancements on the market in batches of 70 or so every 45 minutes per farmer.  I would also argue, somewhat weakly but vocally nonetheless, that Farmers also make the market for IOs by sending a steady stream of doorsitters on their way to slotopia.  Yes, people occasionally waddle to the Auction House under their own power, but nobody's sending cigarette boats full of people to visit /AH at the rate that farmers are.

 

Simply put, if there is a problem with prices at the market, I don't think that's on farmers.  Despite our supposed billions upon billions upon billions of influence, the stuff people actually want at farming levels costs the same today as it has for three years.  If there's silly inflation on mid-level IOs, well, there's what your world without farmers would look like.  I mean, it's not the farmers or PLers who are producing or looking for level 20 IOs, that's you naturally-aspirated types.  If midgame shit is getting too expensive, maybe the answer is more level 20-40 farmers? Seems to work for level 50 stuff.

 

I would credit nearly all of that stability to marketeers, honestly.  Farmers' deep pockets far outweigh their recipe contribution, so yes, farmers directly contribute to inflation.  After all - if you're swimming in inf, and can get more easily, it's not a big deal if good recipe prices go up to from 50M to 100M. (And yes, by PL'ing people, you do aid in creating that market, but that also drives prices up because there's more demand)

 

Marketeers, however, are taking advantage of one of the really, really big changes between the Live markets and our HC markets - the availability of Converters.  On Live, converters were a somewhat scarce, RMT goodie.  Here, you get 3 per reward merit.  They're dirt cheap, time-wise.  Our prices are more or less stable because of how easy it is to convert trash recipes to good recipes - I think it's worth noting that on Live, garbage recipes were often sold for less than a couple hundred inf on the market, as pretty much the only demand was people buying them to vender them.  Here, they often sell for 2k+ inf, sometimes getting into the 20-30k range. 

 

On top of that, since the AH takes 10% of each transaction as fees, I'm sure the AH is culling an insane amount of inf. through the marketeers' actions.  For all the money farmers make, I almost think it'd be interesting to know how much the AH culls in comparison.

[UltraAlt]

1 hour ago, zenijos10 said:

I play the same game, differently, and often for different reasons.

 

I think we are running the same program, but the game is different.

 

Farming in the AE doesn't follow the same rules (game) as the original City of Heroes content.

PvP is a different game (rules) as well.

[nightroarer]

13 hours ago, UltraAlt said:

 

But will you admit that A LOT of door sitting goes on?

And since so much of that goes on, how is that "fun"?

I'm not talking about door sitters. I'm talking about the rest of us. The problem with your "solution" is that it hurts everyone, not just door sitters.

[MoonSheep]

1 hour ago, Excraft said:

 

Says the shrieking infant whining crying and stomping their little feet in a hissy fit because nobody wants to play with them.  Oh the irony. 

 

thank you for your contribution 

[ivanhedgehog]

4 hours ago, Akisan said:

 

I never stated that damage was the only thing needed, I said that you don't need balanced defenses or resistances (see quoted post below).  If you're running a fire farm, you only need 45% fire defense, and 90% fire resistance (if on a brute or tank, less on other ATs because the cap's lower). S/L/C/E/N/P defense is irrelevant, positional defenses are irrelevant, S/L/C/E/N/P/T resist is irrelevant.  HP regen is nice, but not that much gets through 45% def / 90% resist.  Once you have enough regen (or recharge with a heal), and enough recovery to power your attacks, pretty much the only thing that affects your build is how much more damage you can cram in there (either through +damage or +recharge, or even fitting more AoE into your attack chain).

 

As for your second comment:

    A) It's not secret that, AE or not, The Council are a joke. They only sling around moderate slows, minor -res, and minor -def, they have light CC (on some of the mobs, mostly bosses), and there's almost no change in that enemy group once you get above 30 (so they're really mid-game enemies paraded around in end-game).

    B) That was with a regular build.  A specialized fire farmer's build with capped fire def/resist and very low all other def/resist is going to limp through a normal +4x8 mission, even against Council, IF they don't get outright demolished.  A S/L farmer would probably be more or less fine, mostly because there's a lot of S/L gunfire in the average mission, but also partially because the attack tags heavily favor those 2 defense types (so a lot of hybrid typed attacks are deflected, even though a lot of them should really only be considered as the other damage type).  This is getting addressed in the upcoming page, so that particular advantage won't be there much longer.

 

 

 

 

who said every bit of content in the game has to be cutting edge difficult? that was the beauty of COH. If you want a game that give all of the best of anything to the ultra difficult folk...wow is ------->thataway. and they dont seem to be doing all that well lately, maybe the idea of trashing your casuals isnt a good one. 

[ivanhedgehog]

4 hours ago, roleki said:

 

Emmert is quoted as saying, at its peak, CoH had 180,000 distinct accounts.  NOT concurrent.  Total, distinct accounts.  As of March of 2020, HC had 159,537 distinct accounts... not that far off the pace of Live, and, that's less than one year of data.  So we're not talking apples and oranges, we're talking navel oranges and valencia oranges.

 

As I noted before, we know that /Fiery Aura Brutes logged 14,007,639 hours of time.  Let's generously assume that only half of those hours were spent farming in an environment that encouraged doing so.  That's 7,003,819 hours, give or take.  Assume they sucked at Fire Farming, and only brought in 5M inf an hour.  That still translates to 35,019,095,000,000 inf. 

 

That's 35 trillion.  

 

Enough to buy 4,669,212 LotG at 7.5M apiece, enough to equip 933,842 characters with 5x LotG%. 

 

Me, I bring in about 22M an hour farming, and I'm not even trying hard.  Half the /Fiery Aura Brute hours, making half what I make, would result in 77TN influence.

And you know it was more than that. 

 

You are absolutely correct, we will never know how much inf was sitting in the wells on Live, but we can make fairly accurate guesstimates of what *just* the Fire Farmers were sitting on in HC... 28 months ago, and I will bet both our sets of nuts that there wasn't 77TN+ sitting around on Live, because there was no use to farm for inf on Live until there suddenly was.

There are farmers that do a lot of good stuff with the money they make. Costume contest prizes, scavenger hunt prizes. I have seen some awesome maze competitions. the list goes on.

not all of this money created is held by ebeneezer scrooge. Besides, to stop the creation of inf, people would have to stop playing. Not exactly the desired income.

[ivanhedgehog]

1 hour ago, UltraAlt said:

 

Who is defining "fun"?

I asked "how is that "fun"?"

 

You are simply being argumentative.

You clearly haven't read what I have written.

 

I can only assume that you feel attacked by my posts but lack the ability to explain what is "fun" about doorsitting for you and, therefore, have to go off on tangents and attack me in order to obfuscate that fact.

YOU declared that something wasnt fun. Now prove that that thing is not fun for anyone. I will wait. Farming is fun for me. you dont get to decide for me what I enjoy. I enjoy different things than you. I like the green lantern movie. others did not. But it is the height of a false sense of entitlement for you to come here and tell people what they find fun. You are starting the premise that door sitting is not fun. Sky diving is not fun. prove me wrong.

[Doc_Scorpion]

1 hour ago, Akisan said:

Marketeers, however, are taking advantage of one of the really, really big changes between the Live markets and our HC markets - the availability of Converters.  On Live, converters were a somewhat scarce, RMT goodie.  Here, you get 3 per reward merit.  They're dirt cheap, time-wise.  Our prices are more or less stable because of how easy it is to convert trash recipes to good recipes - I think it's worth noting that on Live, garbage recipes were often sold for less than a couple hundred inf on the market, as pretty much the only demand was people buying them to vender them.  Here, they often sell for 2k+ inf, sometimes getting into the 20-30k range. 

Precisely.  On Live, the supply of LotG was limited to drops of the LotG recipes.  High demand lead to high prices because supply was limited.  On HC, the supply of LotG is...  I won't say unlimited, but due to converters certainly much higher.  High demand for LotG means higher demands for converters (happily supplied by players cashing in Reward Merits) and higher demand for "trash" IO recipes - of which there are many.  Thus the inflation in price is diffused across those many "trash" IO recipes rather than appearing in the price of the LotG IO.

[MoonSheep]

37 minutes ago, Doc_Scorpion said:

Precisely.  On Live, the supply of LotG was limited to drops of the LotG recipes.  High demand lead to high prices because supply was limited.  On HC, the supply of LotG is...  I won't say unlimited, but due to converters certainly much higher.  High demand for LotG means higher demands for converters (happily supplied by players cashing in Reward Merits) and higher demand for "trash" IO recipes - of which there are many.  Thus the inflation in price is diffused across those many "trash" IO recipes rather than appearing in the price of the LotG IO.

 

i’m not sure there is inflation of any IO prices on HC compared to live but i understand your point that converters make undesirable IOs have value rather than a single golden goose of the set

 

it used to feel amazing if a purple or a numinas, miracle etc dropped - thesedays it’s a non event

[Akisan]

5 hours ago, ivanhedgehog said:

who said every bit of content in the game has to be cutting edge difficult? that was the beauty of COH. If you want a game that give all of the best of anything to the ultra difficult folk...wow is ------->thataway. and they dont seem to be doing all that well lately, maybe the idea of trashing your casuals isnt a good one. 

 

And content doesn't have to be, and, indeed, shouldn't.   While farming though, you should be running at the highest difficulty you can quickly clear - because at that point, lowering your difficulty is like leaving money on the table.

[Ukase]

8 hours ago, UltraAlt said:

 

It's fun to ding.

But dinging when you are actually running content is a much bigger thrill then getting your 20th ding for sitting around doing nothing.

 

 

And so it sounds like no fun.

But I don't understand why you do that if it is not fun.

Oh, I see, you aren't actually playing so it makes no difference.

You aren't even actually playing the game to lock your character name.

 

 

I just can't string enough exasperation expressions together! I have failed in all those words to explain what you wanted to learn.  It's my fault. 
I should probably spell it out. 

It doesn't matter if you can see why it's fun, or if we all agree that it's not fun. It's what some folks want to do! That is all you need to know. 

The reason I do it (Farm afk-style) is because I can earn influence easily and quickly while I enjoy the game with my other account. 
The better question is why aren't you doing it? You don't have to suffer through it. Just park your alt in there, log in on the other account and enjoy the game the  way you wish. 

Edited July 26, 2022 by Ukase

[Excraft]

8 hours ago, UltraAlt said:

But dinging when you are actually running content is a much bigger thrill then getting your 20th ding for sitting around doing nothing.

 

For YOU it is.  For others who've run the same content hundreds of times or more, it gets stale.  Why don't you tell everyone here, how many times should they run the same story content over and over before they get bored and just leave?  Give us a number.

[Puma]

14 hours ago, ShardWarrior said:

 

This is spot on.  I would love to see the objective data that AE farming is the sole reason for the declining population and not other factors.  Until then it is all assumption.

I mean, I can only speak for myself, but I can say for a fact that the reason I've been playing more on other servers is because some of them have embraced that the game is really old and the content has been done a million times, so it's mostly the new powerset combos and archetypes that are fun to play around with. They also make it easy to get those up to speed, even if many would consider it "too easy." 

 

I'm not saying HC needs to do the same, but definitely forcing players to go to SLOWER routes to play the same content would drive more like myself away and to those other servers more.  So at the very least, AE Farming is KEEPING some of us around that would likely go elsewhere if it were seriously altered. How many either way?

Who knows. That's where the assumptions come in. 

[Puma]

Oh, I forgot to add:

 

The most common way I use the AE for PLing? 

 

 

I PL a new character to 50, slot them, and then use them for regular game content by exemplaring down. But that way I get to pick and choose what I want to play and not have to slog through all of the crap I don't with them along the way just because they need the levels.  
 
Also...I end up not wasting a month trying out a combo set only to find once it hit the 30s it really sucks and needs to be shelved, etc. 
 
So not even all AE PLing means you have no one running content. It just means, for some, that that isn't how they gained their levels originally. 

[blue4333]

12 minutes ago, Puma said:

I'm not saying HC needs to do the same, but definitely forcing players to go to SLOWER routes

 

I think they are moving towards that route because they know they can. The population here is too big to give up should people just leave for other servers and plus, you've got a really vocal group on the forums that will support all the changes.

[Seed22]

2 hours ago, Excraft said:

 

For YOU it is.  For others who've run the same content hundreds of times or more, it gets stale.  Why don't you tell everyone here, how many times should they run the same story content over and over before they get bored and just leave?  Give us a number.

Ultra lacks understanding that there are different people in the game who do different things. Hate to say it but it’s best to pretend their post dont exist, as they’ll usually be nonsense 

Edited July 26, 2022 by Seed22

[Without_Pause]

15 hours ago, Akisan said:

 

I never stated that damage was the only thing needed.

 

just damage and more damage.

[ShardWarrior]

19 minutes ago, MoonSheep said:

to discuss the rest of your post as i appreciate your input, there is some evidence linked in this thread that game balance and slowing down the pace of life keeps games going for a longer period of time. the inability to quickly “complete” a game keeps people playing 

 

That is definitely not universally true of everyone and it is more applicable to commercial games as there is a financial incentive for companies to keep accounts active.  The longer accounts are active and keep playing, the longer they are paying.  Homecoming is not a commercial venture.  I would add that it seems folks here have found a pace that they find enjoyable and feel like they are earning something for their time.  If most people truly wanted instant gratification, more people would be on Brainstorm rolling up as many free, fully kitted level 50s as they wanted each with limitless billions of inf.

 

Let us not forget, Homecoming has added great new story content, new powersets, made balance adjustments and upgraded the back end code.  None of it has brought in large masses of new players.  They can continue doing the same and there will still not be masses of new players coming in.  Removing AE will not bring in masses of new players. 

 

22 minutes ago, MoonSheep said:

if you won the lottery would you continue your professional career with the same amount of vigor for the next 20 years or would you retire early? similar concepts are being discussed here 

 

Personally, yes I would.  I am fortunate enough to enjoy what I am doing.  I have known quite a few people over the years who could have retired early or were wealthy enough they did not need to work, but chose to because they liked what they did for a career.  I do not expect others to feel the same. 

[Without_Pause]

13 hours ago, JJDrakken said:

 

That's a theory, until we see it happen we won't know.  They could always take one low pop servers that most folks bounced out of.  Test it there, announce X server is going go a month(s) with AE XP shut off, but cash on, with XP spotlight on created content, changing every month.

 

See what happens. I think could be a positive thing, that's just my thought. Just like all drone farmers wouldn't want that and can move to servers that do have it on.  That way they can test it out.  I know Indom use to be a pretty active server, till the Unofficial PvP tag got put on it, then everyone for most part bailed(I and my SG did, cuz we already know how PvP nearly F'd up CoH, till power split happened), hell even the PvP crowd did, cuz now I'm seeing it folks advertise PvP stuff on LFG there.

Make negative AE changes on a low pop server and see what happens? I'll tell you what happens. Nothing. As in the sample size is going to be too low to really come to any sort of logical conclusion. I mean, lets make a negative change to the game and see what happens? Me saying it would have a negative impact is "a theory?" So a negative impact is actually going to lure people back to the game? It isn't like CoH news updates are on the top of gaming news. Lets say AE is even completely removed from the game. Yay, no more farming. Except, there's literally farmable content already in the game outside of AE. That's where I and others would instantly go if AE was removed.

[Coyotedancer]

15 hours ago, Bionic_Flea said:

We can't talk about stuff if I can't prove it in a court of law?

 

Come on.  How can I supply evidence I don't have?

 

Or are you just tired of reading what I type and want me to be quiet and go away?

 

 

Nah... You know better than that, ya' silly bug.

 

I just think (And yes, this is very much my Inner Project Manager talking-) that before we can really get into reasonably discussing a problem, or trying to find some sort of solution to it, we need to know if that supposed problem actually exists.

 

When you say something like "The vast majority of play-time is spent in AE farms" a lot of posters will absolutely see that as problematic. We all know that. But is the statement true? Will they be reacting to a real situation or an exaggeration? Is the game REALLY being taken over by us dirty, evil farmers or does confirmation bias just make it seem that way?

 

A statement like that really needs to have some basis other than vague impressions and a few players' feelings...

 

Unfortunately, as you say, we just don't have the information to make any kind of honest assessment. The devs haven't provided it. (And no, saying that AE use causes lag isn't the same thing as saying it's taking over the game or becoming the only thing that anyone's doing-) Until they do, we may as well be jousting with windmills.   

 

 

 

Edited July 26, 2022 by Coyotedancer

[Puma]

21 hours ago, Coyotedancer said:

 

 

When you say something like "The vast majority of play-time is spent in AE farms" a lot of posters will absolutely see that as problematic. We all know that. But is the statement true? Will they be reacting to a real situation or an exaggeration? Is the game REALLY being taken over by us dirty, evil farmers or does confirmation bias just make it seem that way?

 

A statement like that really needs to have some basis other than vague impressions and a few players' feelings...

 

 

 

 

Especially when we admit that a chunk of that playtime spent in AE farms is played AFK by many people doing it, which means you won't get a 1 to 1 transfer from AE playtime to non-AE playtime. 

 

I can login and have a friend PL me while I go do the dishes or mow my lawn via the AE.  If AE was removed, those minutes of playtime would disappear, they wouldn't suddenly have me sitting there running a Maria Jenkins arc. 

 

Edited July 27, 2022 by Puma

[ForeverLaxx]

2 hours ago, Seed22 said:

Ultra lacks understanding that there are different people in the game who do different things. Hate to say it but it’s best to pretend their post dont exist, as they’ll usually be nonsense 

And the worst (best?) part is he'll just put you on ignore if you disagree with his position or don't think PLing is evil, accusing you of attacking him or being a dirty powerleveler in the process.

 

I don't know how people like that function. It's bizarre to me.

[ivanhedgehog]

23 minutes ago, Puma said:

 

Especially when we admit that a chunk of that playtime spent in AE farms is played AFK by many people doing it, which means you won't get a 1 to 1 transfer from AE playtime to non-AE playtime. 

 

I can login and have a friend PL me while I go do the dishes or mow my lawn via the AE.  If AE weren't removed, those minutes of playtime would disappear, they wouldn't suddenly have me sitting there running a Maria Jenkins arc. 

 

Besides, if I make an AE mission, get halfway through it, fly up on a building and go to bed, how would the devs know that is not afk farming, but AFK sleeping?

[Seed22]

On 7/20/2022 at 8:46 PM, Puma said:

Lets parse this out a bit.  
 
If I rolled an ice/sonic blaster and played nothing but AE arcs, by myself, how would I get to level 50 any faster than if I rolled that same blaster in AP and ran mission arcs?  I  mean...I guess travel time and all, but that's it. UNLESS we're talking about farming.

 

At that point, the issue isn't AE, it's farming.  And as has been pointed out, people farmed LONG before AE, and to farm well in AE takes you creating and planning a character and levelling that character to point it can farm and farm well for a very specific kind of map.   You know, we used to do that before the AE as well...for that Harvey Maylor Demon Farm in PI.   

 

But people will PL you in the AE so it's faster, you say?  Well...they can do that out of AE as well.  And have, historically, using many different missions and farms.  So I could just as easily have someone PL my ice/sonic blaster in PI running a demon farm, too.   Is it a little slower? Sure.  But we're talking a minor difference, really.  

We've done things, historically, to try and lessen this, like XP throttling (remember that weird MARTY thing they did?) and it just isn't worth the effort, in my  opinion.  Many of us are bored with the game's missions, and it's trying out new powerset combos and builds we enjoy, and the AE and farming lets us do that at a pace that keeps our interest, instead of destroying it.   

 

If people are playing AE to the point that you can't get a team for what you want to play, I'm, sorry. But honestly, you have no right to force them to want to play differently just so you can have a team.  

  

Most of. No wait, ALL of blueside is beyond boring af after my 3rd 50. I wish redside got more love but even then it’s also a bit dull after the 3rd 50. 
 

Anyone can get a team for what they want, though, it’s just folks dont lead because of whatever reason I dont care. 
 

But this surge in people having the audacity to try and force people how to play? Yeah that needs to stop, and folks need to clamp down on people who try this, HARD.

 

I’m talkin bans, because thats technically harrassment

Edited July 26, 2022 by Seed22

[Akisan]

Seriously, @Without_Pause?!  Yes, fine, my original post in our back and forth wasn't well worded, and fairly ambiguous.  It is possible, with that wording, that I did say that farming is all about damage, which, yes, isn't true.  That was NOT the intent of my post though, and since you're hanging doggedly onto that mis-wording after I clarified and elaborated on my position, I have the distinct feeling that you're deliberately mis-interpreting my posts.