The Pretty Good AE Debate

[Neiska]

@blue4333

 

Holy crap, those prices. Many of those are just for the recipies, the RECIPIES, not the IO themselves? 100 Mil for a LotG +recharge RECIPIE?

 

And people want to go BACK to that? Those prices? I would bet a paycheck that if those were our prices on homecoming, people would make far fewer alts, causing a sharp drop in how active things are. Because I would bet being able to make fully slotted and geared alts is one of the strong things keeping people here.

 

Now I am just boggled as for what the anti-AE crowd actually wants. A smaller population? The majority of people running around in +5 SO's? Because if there was no AE, and "those" were the prices, it might take a full YEAR to get a character fully leveled up, slotted with purples, and fully T4 incarnated. NOT a good thing in any measure, particularly with how the pace of games have changed since Live. 

 

I would bet the game designs like Everquest where it might take months if not years of real life time to fully progress a character won't be as attractive to the majority of gamers now.

[Neiska]

1 minute ago, Astralock said:

 

• If it were up to me, I would limit the /ah command to developers and GMs only.
• Certain costume pieces should have remained locked in order to incentivize running related content.
• The Sentinel AT was a mistake. Honestly, it should be deleted from the game and give all Sentinels a token to choose Blaster, Scrapper, or Stalker instead.
•  I am fine with the new Power sets.  Why my phone capitalized Power, I have no idea.  One of the new Power sets is one of my favorites.
• Certain old Power sets really need to be changed.  Titan Weapon was overpowered.  Trick Arrow and Energy Melee needed buffs.
• Tankers were overbuffed, however.
• I don’t care about PvP.  Only forum PvP matters.
• Most enhancement set changes were done by Paragon Studios in the Issue 24 beta.  Now as for the additions, meh.

I would also personally remove the Long Range Teleporter, Mission Transporter, Supergroup Base Portal, and Team Transporter.  They make travel powers superfluous and you are expected to have and use them by teammates.

 

Then I think the majority of people in the community are thankful you are not in charge. Especially the casual players. 

[Grouchybeast]

4 minutes ago, Neiska said:

Now I am just boggled as for what the anti-AE crowd actually wants. A smaller population? The majority of people running around in +5 SO's? Because if there was no AE, and "those" were the prices, it might take a full YEAR to get a character fully leveled up, slotted with purples, and fully T4 incarnated. NOT a good thing in any measure, particularly with how the pace of games have changed since Live. 

 

The reasons prices were like that on live was largely because of the state of AE on live, and the terrible choices the devs there made about it.  Wherever farmers on HC choose to farm we're not going back to those prices, because of the very fundamental differences between the live and HC economies.

[MoonSheep]

7 minutes ago, Astralock said:

 

• If it were up to me, I would limit the /ah command to developers and GMs only.
• Certain costume pieces should have remained locked in order to incentivize running related content.
• The Sentinel AT was a mistake. Honestly, it should be deleted from the game and give all Sentinels a token to choose Blaster, Scrapper, or Stalker instead.
•  I am fine with the new Power sets.  Why my phone capitalized Power, I have no idea.  One of the new Power sets is one of my favorites.
• Certain old Power sets really need to be changed.  Titan Weapon was overpowered.  Trick Arrow and Energy Melee needed buffs.
• Tankers were overbuffed, however.
• I don’t care about PvP.  Only forum PvP matters.
• Most enhancement set changes were done by Paragon Studios in the Issue 24 beta.  Now as for the additions, meh.

I would also personally remove the Long Range Teleporter, Mission Transporter, Supergroup Base Portal, and Team Transporter.  They make travel powers superfluous and you are expected to have and use them by teammates.

 

are you reading my mind? i’d be comfortable with all those changes

 

there is a misalignment of expectations when people load up an MMORPG and try to play it like a plug and play FPS in my opinion. melding the game into the latter spoils it for the majority who want to be immersed in a system of investment and progression

[Neiska]

2 minutes ago, Krimson said:

Sure am glad I don't have to farm 30+ hours for a single Enhancement. 

 

You and me both. That's kind of how I see the nature of this argument - people gatekeeping. I suspect they want people to have to earn things like "back in the times of yore" where the majority of folks on a Hami Raid might have some 50 IOs and a few Uni's, or maybe a 2 pieces of the same purple set if they were wealthy. If it was like that now, I expect there would be a mass drop in player count.

[lemming]

13 minutes ago, blue4333 said:

Another source showing the crazy prices in Live. Should we perhaps drop the notion that the "crazy horde" of AE Farmers (AFK/ACtive) are driving the prices up?

 

https://samhaine.wordpress.com/2010/11/29/from-radioactive-to-riches-the-jenny-gamma-story-part-3/

Should be noted, on Live we didn't have anything pooled and iirc, some of the items that can be bought with merits, weren't available for purchase.

[Neiska]

1 minute ago, MoonSheep said:

 

are you reading my mind? i’d be comfortable with all those changes

 

there is a misalignment of expectations when people load up an MMORPG and try to play it like a plug and play FPS in my opinion. melding the game into the latter spoils it for the majority who want to be immersed in a system of investment and progression

 

So when you say "system of investment and progression" you want to make things more difficult for everyone, so that there is an even wider gap between the haves and the have-nots? That only certain people get the purples and incarnates? I am not suggesting you are saying this, I am asking for elaboration. Because, nothing is stopping you from doing that yourself now. So why force it onto others, especially when it isn't even wanted?

[blue4333]

1 minute ago, lemming said:

Should be noted, on Live we didn't have anything pooled and iirc, some of the items that can be bought with merits, weren't available for purchase.

 

This I vaguely remember. I used to cheese the Villain SSA 1 and letting Synapse die in the lava just to get the 1 Alignment Merit and converting it into a LOTG. 

[The_Warpact]

This is not going to be a good response for alot of you and really I don't care your not my brother and you don't carry any weight with me. That being said.

 

Live...sucked, the devs sucked and a lot of  decisions caused people to quit regularly. 

They spaghetti coded shit together (that much has been said by the HC team)

Shit was expensive and for a casual person IO prices and incarnate grind was impossible. 

 

Fast forward we have fast xp, fast inf gains, fast travel, etc its become a game of convenience. Why? Well because that's what most of us are used to now in our world, and falling by the wayside is "grinding " for anything. Sure we still have to do stuff to get stuff but, time and pricing have dropped because of the need for convenience. 

 

You have to keep everyone's interest and a 10+ year MMO that's a slog will never retain anyone except purists lost in a bygone Era.

The HC team have done what they want because it's their time that goes into this, yeah, there's some bad blood on how it got rolled out and alot people don't trust people who withhold things even if years go by.

 

This isn't Live you held your torch and it died. HC isn't a successor it's an alternate universe in a multiverse. This team and the other Rogue servers will do things how they see fit for what they have envisioned.

I'm happy for the moment, I put alot of time into farming, built alot of stuff, and helped others out along the way. There are things in the game I don't like sure I wish their was still cape mission unlocks, base raids, and unlock able costume pieces, etc but that's all part if convenience. 

 

So no amount of bitching and moaning you do, this team will do things their way and frankly if you don't like it who cares. Quit, piss off, cry moar, whatever but your not changing anything, you're participating on someone else property who happen to update things periodically because they choose to do so.

[Stoked]

On 8/7/2022 at 9:49 AM, Bionic_Flea said:

 

 

This was all run by the same player (me) on the same character (a rad/fire brute made for farming) and all at level 54.  Lets review:

 

AE Meteor Map - 1 million/min

Market Crash 1st - 610k/min

Kill Most ITF - 337k/min

Council Radio - 250k/min

Just curious ... why would you have a rad/fire Brute built for farming if that's not an "approved" use of the game? Also, are we all to believe that you leveled said Brute going through the normal story arcs and TF's only once right? In either case thank you for going through the motions and getting some data in place. I doubt most people fit into the category of best farmers making 1M/minute. 

 

One other consideration, building a farmer of any kind is extremely expensive and time consuming. Yes, you only have to do that once and then you can farm forever sure but how many people in the game actually go beyond basic IO's once they hit 50? Maybe we can get some metrics on the percent of people that use a full load of IO sets on their toons? For sure, the only way you're doing the kind of farming you're talking about is with a fully built toon that possibly took weeks to figure out and fine tune and about 500M - 1B or more in influence. 

[arcane]

3 minutes ago, Stoked said:

One other consideration, building a farmer of any kind is extremely expensive and time consuming. Yes, you only have to do that once and then you can farm forever sure but how many people in the game actually go beyond basic IO's once they hit 50? Maybe we can get some metrics on the percent of people that use a full load of IO sets on their toons? For sure, the only way you're doing the kind of farming you're talking about is with a fully built toon that possibly took weeks to figure out and fine tune and about 500M - 1B or more in influence. 

A farm build kinda sorta tends to pay for itself after hundreds or thousands of veteran levels. 1B builds are a dime a dozen.

[Neiska]

9 minutes ago, Stoked said:

Just curious ... why would you have a rad/fire Brute built for farming if that's not an "approved" use of the game? Also, are we all to believe that you leveled said Brute going through the normal story arcs and TF's only once right? In either case thank you for going through the motions and getting some data in place. I doubt most people fit into the category of best farmers making 1M/minute. 

 

I use Masterminds to farm, 3 of them at a time. It's pretty fun and exciting actually! That's one reason why I like it so much. "Farming" doesn't even feel like "farming" to me when I do it like that. Plus where else can I get the "It's my army against your army!" Playstyle? I just put on some Hells March, and watch my Robotic Army set fire to everything. Plus fighting 80+ enemies at once is a unique experience. Show me a trial or mission where you can do that. 😁

[Bionic_Flea]

Replying to @Stoked

 

Nope.  That was a farming brute, made for farming fires in AE and to PL characters on my other account.  Is that wrong?  I don't remember how I leveled him.  He may have self PL'd by doing farms on lower settings and ramping up as I got more powers and slots.  I think the only non-AE stuff he's done is getting accolades and these recent tests.  Maybe some other stuff, but not much.

 

I never claimed to be the best farmer, and that 1 mill inf/minute was just one run of one asteroid.  I might get a little better if I kept running the same one over and over, but I doubt I'll get into the 2.5 mill/min others say they do.  What's your Inf per minute?

 

I think his build was about 300 mill, but I keep a lot of stuff I use in stock.  It took me about an afternoon to have him up and running from level 1 to fully slotted. 

 

I have no idea how many people use full sets, generics, SOs or something in between.  That would be interesting to know. 

 

Oooooh . . . wait . . . that was all sarcasm in your post.  You didn't use a little smiley face!  Never mind, then.  😜

 

PS - Everything I said in this post is true and accurate.

Edited August 8, 2022 by Bionic_Flea

[Stoked]

12 minutes ago, Bionic_Flea said:

Replying to @Stoked

 

Nope.  That was a farming brute, made for farming fires in AE and to PL characters on my other account.  Is that wrong?  I don't remember how I leveled him.  He may have self PL'd by doing farms on lower settings and ramping up as I got more powers and slots.  I think the only non-AE stuff he's done is getting accolades and these recent tests.  Maybe some other stuff, but not much.

 

I never claimed to be the best farmer, and that 1 mill inf/minute was just one run of one asteroid.  I might get a little better if I kept running the same one over and over, but I doubt I'll get into the 2.5 mill/min others say they do.  What's your Inf per minute?

 

I think his build was about 300 mill, but I keep a lot of stuff I use in stock.  It took me about an afternoon to have him up and running from level 1 to fully slotted. 

 

I have no idea how many people use full sets, generics, SOs or something in between.  That would be interesting to know. 

 

Oooooh . . . wait . . . that was all sarcasm in your post.  You didn't use a little smiley face!  Never mind, then.  😜

 

PS - Everything I said in this post is true and accurate.

Actually, it wasn't all sarcastic, just the bit about running story arcs and TF's only once. I'm truly thankful for your effort and data. I stopped assuming everyone was reasonable and here solely to enjoy playing (however you might play) a long time ago. 

[Grouchybeast]

1 hour ago, lemming said:

Should be noted, on Live we didn't have anything pooled and iirc, some of the items that can be bought with merits, weren't available for purchase.

 

There are so many great innovations on HC compared to live.  On live there was:

 

No level-bucketing of recipes and IOs, so drops were largely worthless for lower-level characters unless you got lucky with a desirable proc.

No level-bucketing of salvage, leading to unpredictable supply and price-spikes.

No auto-attuning of IOs through the market (maybe not an economic difference since attuning was a late addition, but it's a wonderful QoL change).

No normal drops in AE outside of dev choice arcs, leading to hugely inflated market prices for everything desirable (but still lots of AE-levelled characters who wanted to buy them, pushing up demand even higher!  Two for one terrible idea!!)

No converters (until the very end, when they were rare, expensive and account-bound) which made most drops worthless and some IOs eye-wateringly expensive.

No off-market way to buy purples until near the end of the game (with...one of the million weird extra currencies they introduced, I think).

No PVP recipe drops outside PVP zones (hello, 4 billion inf IOs!)

 

The HC devs have done a frankly brilliant job of balancing the economy so that a good build is in everyone's reach.  On live AE farms were a huge part of the problem.  On HC they're a integral part of the economy.  They're probably going to get tweaked from time to time, like everything, but there's no sign the devs don't want them here.

Edited August 8, 2022 by Grouchybeast

[lemming]

11 minutes ago, Bionic_Flea said:

Replying to @Stoked

 

I think his build was about 300 mill, but I keep a lot of stuff I use in stock.  It took me about an afternoon to have him up and running from level 1 to fully slotted. 

 

I have no idea how many people use full sets, generics, SOs or something in between.  That would be interesting to know.

Just to add to the anecdotal evidence:

Out of 108 chars, nine are fully equipped with sets, though around 20 others have partial setups, thirty in some incomplete state.   I tend to hit 50, respec, fill in with generic 50 IOs.   Then those characters get filled in as they play. 

 

Three of my chars are fire farmers ( brutes, one tank), pretty much equipped with what I picked up with all those other chars.   Tried out a few different styles and have a few others that could be outfitted, but I don't do it very often so hasn't been a priority.  I do tend to run them thru the various content to at least get the stat accolades, and for the most part, they seem to do just as well if not better as any of my generic IO builds.

[Bionic_Flea]

I have 44 level 50s, all built to my specifications, including all ATOs/WinterOs catalyzed and at least +1 via incarnates, most +3, but only a few favorites are T4 to all.  I tend to make one character and play it to 50+ before starting on a new experiment.

[Ukase]

2 hours ago, UltraAlt said:

It is still an exploit.

Farms actively and loudly defend their exploitation.

It doesn't mean that it isn't exploiting the AE.

It is not an exploit. It working exactly how it was designed to work. 

Just because you think it's an exploit doesn't make it so. 

And even if it were an exploit, it doesn't hurt you. It doesn't hurt anyone. It is benign; harmless. 

I seriously want to challenge you to consider the idea that you're wrong. Just consider it. 

I am not saying that a farmer's life is difficult. I'm not saying that once you get a farmer going it's not fairly simple to make influence. 

What I am saying is that whether there's AE or not, there will be farming. It's not going away. So, if it's not going away, then what's your beef? You think it's an exploit because a farmer can earn influence faster than you can? Big deal. There are dozens of speed runners who earn influence faster than you do. There are dozens of casual players that earn rewards outside AE faster than you do. Big deal. It's not an exploit. It's by design. Why is that so hard for you to accept? 

 

Farming is what makes this community healthy. 

So, let me ask this: how do you slot your characters? SOs? Because if you use IOs, I'm curious how you get them. From the AH? Odds are, a farmer put it there. Are you subsidizing the farmers, and then complaining about them in the same post? 

Or are you legitimately spending 5870 merits for you final build? (roughly - 100 merits for purples, ATOs, Winters, PvP IOs, 50 for the lotgs, and most other IOs.) 
I just tallied up the reward merit cost for my farmer's build, that's how many reward merits I'd have to spend to get them, going through the merit vendor. 

For the sake of argument, I can imagine I'd get several drops as I played that I could use - so you're telling me you do 5000 merits of content as you level up? No? Where are you getting your IOs from? If not the AH, then your experience is perhaps similar to maybe 2-4% of the player base. Doesn't mean your wrong for doing it that way, but it does mean you're unreasonable to expect the rest of us to do content your way. 

Again, farming is good for the community. It's good for the game. It is not an exploit. If you don't accept that, then I have no hope for you. 

And, again, where do you get your IOs from? Who do you think put those in there for sale? Sure, some might come from a random casual player, but odds are, the very folks you're trying to belittle and degrade as "exploiters" are the ones that are subsidizing your fun with their efforts. 
 

[Frostbiter]

3 minutes ago, Ukase said:

It is not an exploit. It working exactly how it was designed to work. 

Just because you think it's an exploit doesn't make it so. 

And even if it were an exploit, it doesn't hurt you. It doesn't hurt anyone. It is benign; harmless. 

I seriously want to challenge you to consider the idea that you're wrong. Just consider it. 

I am not saying that a farmer's life is difficult. I'm not saying that once you get a farmer going it's not fairly simple to make influence. 

What I am saying is that whether there's AE or not, there will be farming. It's not going away. So, if it's not going away, then what's your beef? You think it's an exploit because a farmer can earn influence faster than you can? Big deal. There are dozens of speed runners who earn influence faster than you do. There are dozens of casual players that earn rewards outside AE faster than you do. Big deal. It's not an exploit. It's by design. Why is that so hard for you to accept? 

 

Farming is what makes this community healthy. 

So, let me ask this: how do you slot your characters? SOs? Because if you use IOs, I'm curious how you get them. From the AH? Odds are, a farmer put it there. Are you subsidizing the farmers, and then complaining about them in the same post? 

Or are you legitimately spending 5870 merits for you final build? (roughly - 100 merits for purples, ATOs, Winters, PvP IOs, 50 for the lotgs, and most other IOs.) 
I just tallied up the reward merit cost for my farmer's build, that's how many reward merits I'd have to spend to get them, going through the merit vendor. 

For the sake of argument, I can imagine I'd get several drops as I played that I could use - so you're telling me you do 5000 merits of content as you level up? No? Where are you getting your IOs from? If not the AH, then your experience is perhaps similar to maybe 2-4% of the player base. Doesn't mean your wrong for doing it that way, but it does mean you're unreasonable to expect the rest of us to do content your way. 

Again, farming is good for the community. It's good for the game. It is not an exploit. If you don't accept that, then I have no hope for you. 

And, again, where do you get your IOs from? Who do you think put those in there for sale? Sure, some might come from a random casual player, but odds are, the very folks you're trying to belittle and degrade as "exploiters" are the ones that are subsidizing your fun with their efforts. 
 

 

Is that an open question? I get all my rare IO's from taking the junk recipe drops, crafting them and converting them into the ones I want. The others I either spend merits or cash on. There shouldn't really be any have-not's, and it has little to do with farmers and lots to do with market players. There are many paths to fully kitting out your builds these days. And the purple recipes are not always the best set bonuses for what you're trying to build for.

[Ukase]

1 hour ago, Stoked said:

One other consideration, building a farmer of any kind is extremely expensive and time consuming. Yes, you only have to do that once and then you can farm forever sure but how many people in the game actually go beyond basic IO's once they hit 50? Maybe we can get some metrics on the percent of people that use a full load of IO sets on their toons? For sure, the only way you're doing the kind of farming you're talking about is with a fully built toon that possibly took weeks to figure out and fine tune and about 500M - 1B or more in influence. 

Building a farmer is not extremely expensive. But, I guess that depends on what you deem expensive. If you know how, it doesn't cost you anything but time. It will cost what I consider to be "house money", but it doesn't cost my characters anything. 
I have this strong regret that I never opened up my own "build store". A player sends me his projected build in Mids, and says he'd pay 500M for it. I say, "Nah, I can acquire the IOs for that build for 250M." And it takes me an hour or so, done. Or, better yet, I say, "Well, let me do the shopping for you, and in an hour, I'll give you the IOs, you pay me 500M". 

I'd have tons more inf than I have now, I think. Depends on how many customers I'd get, I suppose. With the exception of Hamis and d-syncs, and the Overwhelming Force, every other IO can be converted into any other IO, as long as it's the same type - pvp or pve, or purple. So, every IO except very rares and pvp costs about 1M. Very Rares cost only about 12M, and PvP IOs cost about 3M. And the only reason those prices are so high is because converter use can add up when the rng doesn't work with you. There's really no such thing as a build that costs over 200M unless the person is too impatient or just doesn't care to understand a cheaper way of getting the enhancements they want, or it could be they're blissfully ignorant. 

I honestly can't tell you anyone I know that doesn't use IO sets for the set bonuses as soon as they're able. I don't think I've ever teamed with anyone at level 50 that didn't have a wall of set bonus info in their character info screen. I really think that if these players do exist, they are new, and haven't figured it out yet, or are very few and far between. Like maybe 5% of the community. I could certainly be wrong, though. 

[Ukase]

6 minutes ago, Frostbiter said:

 

Is that an open question? I get all my rare IO's from taking the junk recipe drops, crafting them and converting them into the ones I want. The others I either spend merits or cash on. There shouldn't really be any have-not's, and it has little to do with farmers and lots to do with market players. There are many paths to fully kitting out your builds these days. And the purple recipes are not always the best set bonuses for what you're trying to build for.

Not really, it's more focused at the folks that would have the farmers of AE leave AE behind because they believe they're exploiting the game. It's simply raising the point that farmers generally list the drops on the AH. Some craft/convert, some just list recipes, and of course, I guess there are some who just delete everything but the recipes they know they want or can sell instantly for more than just a pittance. 
So, if folks like UltraAlt get their way, and AE Farmers are corralled into other non-AE activity, or simply stop playing, the goods on AH will decrease. Prices will increase. But, I guess some folks don't care, or haven't considered the impact that a poor decision like this would have. 

Some folks don't realize that crafting, converting and selling IS the game for them. That's what they think is fun. Personally, I don't ever want to do a Lambda again. Nor a Synapse. I likely will, for one reason or another, but it will be something I tolerate, not something I enjoy. 

[Frostbiter]

5 minutes ago, Ukase said:

Not really, it's more focused at the folks that would have the farmers of AE leave AE behind because they believe they're exploiting the game. It's simply raising the point that farmers generally list the drops on the AH. Some craft/convert, some just list recipes, and of course, I guess there are some who just delete everything but the recipes they know they want or can sell instantly for more than just a pittance. 
So, if folks like UltraAlt get their way, and AE Farmers are corralled into other non-AE activity, or simply stop playing, the goods on AH will decrease. Prices will increase. But, I guess some folks don't care, or haven't considered the impact that a poor decision like this would have. 

Some folks don't realize that crafting, converting and selling IS the game for them. That's what they think is fun. Personally, I don't ever want to do a Lambda again. Nor a Synapse. I likely will, for one reason or another, but it will be something I tolerate, not something I enjoy. 

 

Well, you'll just have to live with my answer anyway. Thanks!

[Grouchybeast]

2 hours ago, Stoked said:

One other consideration, building a farmer of any kind is extremely expensive and time consuming. Yes, you only have to do that once and then you can farm forever sure but how many people in the game actually go beyond basic IO's once they hit 50? Maybe we can get some metrics on the percent of people that use a full load of IO sets on their toons? For sure, the only way you're doing the kind of farming you're talking about is with a fully built toon that possibly took weeks to figure out and fine tune and about 500M - 1B or more in influence. 

 

I built a farmer using Fourspeed's budget farming guide which self-funds as you level.  It's really quick and easy and works exactly as advertised.  I never got as far as the full level 50 build because I didn't enjoy the actual farming and abandoned the character, but it was an interesting experience.

[Coyotedancer]

3 hours ago, Astralock said:

 

 

• The Sentinel AT was a mistake. Honestly, it should be deleted from the game and give all Sentinels a token to choose Blaster, Scrapper, or Stalker instead

 

You'll pry my Sentinels out of my cold, dead pixel hands. >_<

 

No. Seriously. Tavaris and Shonokin (my Dark/Bio and Dark/WP-) are favorites. They're great, if slow, soloists and I've had a heck of a lot of fun with both of them.

 

Don't like the AT? That's fine. You don't have to play one,

(I'm the same way with Warshades. Tried it... hated it. Not every character type is All That for every player, yeah?) 

   

[MoonSheep]

14 minutes ago, Coyotedancer said:

 

You'll pry my Sentinels out of my cold, dead pixel hands. >_<

 

No. Seriously. Tavaris and Shonokin (my Dark/Bio and Dark/WP-) are favorites. They're great, if slow, soloists and I've had a heck of a lot of fun with both of them.

 

Don't like the AT? That's fine. You don't have to play one,

(I'm the same way with Warshades. Tried it... hated it. Not every character type is All That for every player, yeah?) 

   

 

 

are we able to all agree that MMs are gods cruel mistake?