The Pretty Good AE Debate

[ivanhedgehog]

5 hours ago, America's Angel said:

It's negligible because it only takes ~20 extra minutes to powerlevel to 50.

I dont know what you are doing for power leveling but I cant pl a new toon in an hour.  I do find it amazing that every time they want to nerf ae they find a "mistake" to fix so its not a nerf.

[ivanhedgehog]

1 hour ago, battlewraith said:

 

20 minutes of time. 

 

Ok, let's imagine that we're talking about someone's commute to work. I would imagine that 20 extra minutes on the road would be a really big deal. Now a commute obviously happens more frequently than PLing new characters, but like the commute that extra 20 minutes is going to get tacked on every time a new character is leveled.

 

I wouldn't call that negligible. But if it is truly no big deal, then why fix it? Someone's really going to tweak a variable that has been in play for (years?) and add extra time wasted on an activity just so that they have the satisfaction of correcting a mistake?

I am seeing a lot of "its only a tiny change " in this release. is it "only a tiny release"? not worth talking about but we gotta do it! that seems to be the scam we are being fed.

[Ukase]

2 hours ago, Loc said:

As someone who does a lot of speedies I feel I need to address the supposed profitability of speeding as I completely disagree with what has been said about it so far.

Hey, you know what - I appreciate your taking the time to contribute to the discussion. A lot of what you said, I already knew - certainly about the time to form up. 

As far as frequency, I suppose it just seems like you guys are going all day every day, but I'm sure as you say, it's not the case. 

And your numbers about playing while afk-farming are consistent with my anecdotal experience, if my memory is serving me properly. 
Given the proposed changes and what I feel like are the devs telling me they don't want me to afk farm, (and well, I have more than I'll likely ever spend unless a dev steals my emails or the game has a nasty hiccup and they disappear. and even if that happens, I can market my way back to solvency easily enough. ) 

Funny how the grass always looks greener on the other side of the fence. 

[Ukase]

1 hour ago, battlewraith said:

 

I doubt you know that many casual players. Not everyone bothers with incarnates. After this change, emps are going to be worthless for anything other than incarnates which means losing a resource stream for merits. It also means that for characters who are already done with incarnates, emp merits will be a completely worthless reward.

Please know I don't like the removal of emps to reward merits. But, they won't be worthless, as you'll be able to transfer them to your alts. 
Now, if you're like Veracorp, who seems to predominantly only play one character...not sure what to tell you. Perhaps the HC devs can chime in about that. 

[Bill Z Bubba]

3 minutes ago, Ukase said:

Funny how the grass always looks greener on the other side of the fence. 

 

Except when it's gone brown everywhere.

[Bionic_Flea]

2 hours ago, Loc said:

If I take ideal farming circumstances instead (let's say 9 (semi-)afk farmers spread across the shards doing 1mill/min each)

My understanding is that AFK farming is closer to 500m /character.

 

@America's Angel: What math are you using to get 20 minutes longer?  How fast can you get from 1 - 50? (once again, not everyone will be as fast as you)

 

5 hours ago, America's Angel said:

It's negligible because it only takes ~20 extra minutes to powerlevel to 50.

[arcane]

2 hours ago, battlewraith said:

 

I doubt you know that many casual players. Not everyone bothers with incarnates. After this change, emps are going to be worthless for anything other than incarnates which means losing a resource stream for merits. It also means that for characters who are already done with incarnates, emp merits will be a completely worthless reward.

I doubt you know much of anything about me. That much is obvious.
 

But there’s a couple of assumptions nested here that are plainly wrong:

 

(1) all currencies must be useful to everyone. No, if you literally won’t engage with a currency’s primary use, the currency is allowed to be useless. There are currencies I do not use in this game, and you can see that I do not complain about the consequences of my own choice not to use them.

 

(2) empyreans will be useless once incarnates are done. Wrong. Empyreans can be emailed to alts. We have 5,000 character slots with a lot of incarnate power options for each, so, as far as I know, no player in HC history has literally run out of use for empyrean merits. Were that answer not good enough, you can trade your empyreans for threads and cash those in for ultimate inspirations which sell well on the market, meaning empyreans still have a straight cash value.

Edited August 13, 2022 by arcane

[Excraft]

3 hours ago, Loc said:

First of all, tinpex is the best merits/min for speedies so it's not the best benchmark.

 

"Let's not use the TF that proves me wrong"...

 

2 hours ago, MoonSheep said:

true, as a balancing change however, a number of trials are getting a significant boost to merit rewards - for casual players it may even result in an increase of merits received per hour of gameplay

 

a stream lost, a stream gained

 

You and others like you just don't get it.  Some people don't want to be herded into running team content. 

 

All rewards could be increased 10 times more and I still wouldn't want to team up.  I'm not being anti-social, I just don't feel super on a team.  I feel superfluous, just like all of the people who've made posts about how they don't feel useful running their buff/debuff toons in high level content.  My brute or tank can't get an attack off before the rest of the team decimated entire mobs.  That's boring for me.  I don't want to be buried under layers of silly colored VFX vomit to the point I can't see what's going on.  I want to go at my own pace, not the pace that others want to set.  I'm playing this game to feel super, not to have to rely on other people to do stuff.  

 

I'm not the only one who feels this way either as others have posted similar things in this and other threads.  But we're somehow lumped in with the evil farmers and asked to just team up with everyone else.  Well I don't want to.  Like I said, I don't feel super on a team and trying to herd people like me into teaming isn't going to have the effect you think it is.  Nerfing the emp merit conversion isn't an enticement to try teaming more.  It's just going to make me farm even more to make up for that loss.

Edited August 13, 2022 by Excraft

[ShardWarrior]

3 hours ago, Loc said:

First of all, tinpex is the best merits/min for speedies so it's not the best benchmark.

 

3 hours ago, Loc said:

If I take ideal farming circumstances instead (let's say 9 (semi-)afk farmers spread across the shards doing 1mill/min each) then in that same time I could have farmed 936mill while watching a movie. (not taking drops into account on either of these but drops would obviously be better for the farmer)

 

So do not take into account the ideal TF speed run, but do take into account extreme edge case ideal farming in AE.   Your whole post falls apart with this. 

[Astralock]

5 minutes ago, Excraft said:

You and others like you just don't get it.  Some people don't want to be herded into running team content. 

 

All rewards could be increased 10 times more and I still wouldn't want to team up.  I'm not being anti-social, I just feel super on a team.  I feel superfluous, just like all of the people who've made posts about how they don't feel useful running their buff/debuff toons in high level content.  My brute or tank can't get an attack off before the rest of the team decimated entire mobs.  That's boring for me.  I don't want to be buried under layers of silly colored VFX vomit to the point I can't see what's going on.  I want to go at my own pace, not the pace that others want to set.  I'm playing this game to feel super, not to have to rely on other people to do stuff.  

 

I'm not the only one who feels this way either as others have posted similar things in this and other threads.  But we're somehow lumped in with the evil farmers and asked to just team up with everyone else.  Well I don't want to.  Like I said, I don't feel super on a team and trying to herd people like me into teaming isn't going to have the effect you think it is.  Nerfing the emp merit conversion isn't an enticement to try teaming more.  It's just going to make me farm even more to make up for that loss.

 

You and others like you just don’t get that City of Heroes is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game, where teaming with others is not only encouraged, but expected.

 

If you want to solo as a super-hero, that’s fine.  There are other very good video games for that.  Batman: Arkham City, Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy, the just released Marvel’s Spider-Man which I understand is excellent…

[Bionic_Flea]

3 hours ago, Loc said:

So let's say the speedtrain is MLTF (43 merits (37+6) / 11min) - LRSF (25merits / 9min) - ASF (80 merits / 17min) - ITF (26 merits / 6min) - LGTF (37merits / 9min) - tinpex (80 merits / 12min (2*6min)) - Khan (20 merits / 8min) - 20mins for everyone to trickle in and fill the last spots and avg of 2mins in between tfs (12min)

So the result would be 311merits / 104mins or about 3merits/min

 

12 minutes ago, Excraft said:

"Let's not use the TF that proves me wrong"...

 

2 minutes ago, ShardWarrior said:

So do not take into account the ideal TF speed run, but do take into account extreme edge case ideal farming in AE.   Your whole post falls apart with this. 

 

And yet, he DID take it into account in his analysis.

[battlewraith]

1 hour ago, arcane said:

I doubt you know much of anything about me. That much is obvious.

 

I don't need to know anything about you. I was responding to a generically stupid claim about casual players.

 

1 hour ago, arcane said:

(1) all currencies must be useful to everyone.

 

Absolutely, inanely irrelevant. This debate is about a change to make something currently valuable much less so. It's about the devs intentions to change how players spend their time, not players dealing with the consequences of their choices.

 

1 hour ago, arcane said:

(2) empyreans will be useless once incarnates are done. Wrong.

I said that they would be useless for characters that are done with incarnates. So if I don't intend to use them on an alt, they are of no value. 

But wait--I can convert them to cash.

 

So instead of: emps to merits to IOs/recipes.

 I can do: emps to threads to ultimate inspirations to market to some cash value to purchasing IOs/recipes on the market.

 

Yay? Let's make the market a more mandatory aspect of gameplay than it was before.

 

[arcane]

30 minutes ago, Excraft said:

You and others like you just don't get it.  Some people don't want to be herded into running team content. 

I have good news! No one is being “herded” or coerced into anything by this patch. The very slight shift in incentive structure will impact your ability to solo in exactly zero ways!

[arcane]

Anyone who thinks “how they spend their time” is being impacted against their will: it’s on you to show us the gun to your head. I don’t see it.

[battlewraith]

1 hour ago, Astralock said:

 

You and others like you just don’t get that City of Heroes is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game, where teaming with others is not only encouraged, but expected.

 

If you want to solo as a super-hero, that’s fine.  There are other very good video games for that.  Batman: Arkham City, Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy, the just released Marvel’s Spider-Man which I understand is excellent…

 

LOL right. So the people that don't play the way you think they should are shown the door and directed towards other games. I think this is an example of saying the quiet part out loud.

[ivanhedgehog]

2 minutes ago, arcane said:

Anyone who thinks “how they spend their time” is being impacted against their will: it’s on you to show us the gun to your head. I don’t see it.

to anyone that thinks AE is the one stop shop....every thing you get in AE can be gotten in greater amounts outside AE

[battlewraith]

1 hour ago, arcane said:

I have good news!

 

Of course you do.

 

1 hour ago, arcane said:

No one is being “herded” or coerced into anything by this patch.

 

Semantics. The devs are changing rewards for certain content. They are either doing this on a whim for shits and giggles or they are trying to change player behavior. Take your pick.

 

1 hour ago, arcane said:

The very slight shift in incentive structure will impact your ability to solo in exactly zero ways!

 

Very little would affect your ability to solo. Get rid of the market system, get rid of IOs, get rid of incarnates, etc. none of this would affect your ability to solo. He's talking about the way he plays being nerfed in an attempt to get him to behave differently.

[MoonSheep]

17 minutes ago, battlewraith said:

 

LOL right. So the people that don't play the way you think they should are shown the door and directed towards other games. I think this is an example of saying the quiet part out loud.

 

i think he has a very valid point though, i’ve noted it in this thread too

 

CoH as an MMORPG is part of a game genre thats inherently based on character development, lore and gradual progression. individuals expressing surprise or disgruntlement at the devs for releasing updates which are in-line with, or build on the genre feels misguided - CoH is not a pickup and play shooter. exploits and methods to circumvent the standard path are the exception rather than the rule

 

the “pay to win” elements which were introduced years ago were disliked by some players as they felt it broke the system of gradual progression which all players were locked into - i expect the disgruntlement against AE is rooted in similar beliefs

[Veracor]

38 minutes ago, Ukase said:

Please know I don't like the removal of emps to reward merits. But, they won't be worthless, as you'll be able to transfer them to your alts. 
Now, if you're like Veracorp, who seems to predominantly only play one character...not sure what to tell you. Perhaps the HC devs can chime in about that. 

 

I stopped caring about wealth a long time ago.  I'm casually working up to 10k of every salvage for no reason, including Hero/Villain Merits.  I'll be hitting 10k in those long before hitting 10k Transcendents, so the removal of the merit conversion doesn't really affect me.

 

But I do agree, if I did care about wealth, this change hurts the people who play few characters in iTrials as much as it hurts AE farmers that are powerlevelling new characters for Emps.  It is a solution, but it is not a good solution.  I was much more on board with the "No vet levels in AE" change from before because it was direct, made sense lorewise, didn't affect non-AE players, was future-focused, and expanded the system of HC marking quality AE stories for full rewards.

[arcane]

27 minutes ago, battlewraith said:

 

Of course you do.

 

 

Semantics. The devs are changing rewards for certain content. They are either doing this on a whim for shits and giggles or they are trying to change player behavior. Take your pick.

 

 

Very little would affect your ability to solo. Get rid of the market system, get rid of IOs, get rid of incarnates, etc. none of this would affect your ability to solo. He's talking about the way he plays being nerfed in an attempt to get him to behave differently.

Changing incentives is something every MMO dev team does. It is not nefarious, and it does not force players to do anything. 

[America's Angel]

2 hours ago, Bionic_Flea said:

My understanding is that AFK farming is closer to 500m /character.

 

@America's Angel: What math are you using to get 20 minutes longer?  How fast can you get from 1 - 50? (once again, not everyone will be as fast as you)

 

~70 minutes.

 

And AFK farming is ~0.84-0.88m p/m. So 756-792m p/h.

[arcane]

1 minute ago, America's Angel said:

And AFK farming is ~0.84-0.88m p/m. So 756-792m p/h.

Ok I’ll bite… why is the per hour not 60x the per minute?

[Loc]

2 hours ago, Bionic_Flea said:

My understanding is that AFK farming is closer to 500m /character.

 

 

I just started getting into farming for infl as I never needed the infl before and I'm getting 1mill so that's what I'm basing that on.

 

1 hour ago, Excraft said:

"Let's not use the TF that proves me wrong"...

 

1 hour ago, ShardWarrior said:

So do not take into account the ideal TF speed run, but do take into account extreme edge case ideal farming in AE.   Your whole post falls apart with this. 

 

1 hour ago, Bionic_Flea said:

And yet, he DID take it into account in his analysis.

 

So I'm replying to all three as it's essentially the same response. It misses the point of my post entirely. To repeat the essence of my post, speeding simply isn't scalable like farming is. I'm not making a theoretical analysis here.

 

You can't use just tinpex to make your analysis because unless it's the weekly you have no chance of doing tinpex after tinpex with regular speeders, a lot of them don't even really like tinpex and those that do still aren't gonna be willing to run 5 tinpex a day to farm merits. And if you are doing straight up LFG pugs you will get the worst scenario in my post (or even worse--I was being generous). You're also restricted to the peak hours if you go the straight up LFG route unless you want those times to form the TFs shoot up. (I'm sure you've had those 30min+ form times before)

 

None of that is true for farming infl. You don't have to rely on anyone else to farm, can do it whenever you want and for however long you want. If the the question was "can I make more from one tinpex than I can make farming with one account in that time" this argument would hold weight but that is in no way a proper way to analyze this. And on top of all of that you're still left with having to learn the market, keep track of it, having to do the smart conversions and selling and the fact that speeding tinpex over and over (or just speeding in general) is harder than just farming which is one of the easier things to do in this game. Or what about the market itself? Could it sustain every speeder doing this? Manipulating the market is something that not everyone can be doing while remaining a competitive thing to do.

 

I could go on but I hope I made my point as to why this is not a realistic way to look at this comparison of speeding vs farming

 

2 hours ago, Ukase said:

Hey, you know what - I appreciate your taking the time to contribute to the discussion. A lot of what you said, I already knew - certainly about the time to form up. 

As far as frequency, I suppose it just seems like you guys are going all day every day, but I'm sure as you say, it's not the case. 

And your numbers about playing while afk-farming are consistent with my anecdotal experience, if my memory is serving me properly. 
Given the proposed changes and what I feel like are the devs telling me they don't want me to afk farm, (and well, I have more than I'll likely ever spend unless a dev steals my emails or the game has a nasty hiccup and they disappear. and even if that happens, I can market my way back to solvency easily enough. ) 

Funny how the grass always looks greener on the other side of the fence. 

 

I didn't really see you put the form time in your analysis which was the main thing that "rang the alarm bell" in my head. That and the scaling of it like I said. I just recently started getting into farming for infl as it's just a lot more profitable for a lot less effort if you scale just a little. By the way, I am actually against farming but I understand that you cannot stop it and even nerfing is hard due to player reactions. If devs completely removed the infl from AE or make a rule that you cannot have more than one character across all shards in AE then farming would lose a lot of its potency and maybe you could start getting closer results with speeding but then all the other points I brought up would still be a concern of course.

 

Not trying to attack you or anyone else here but I felt that the perspective of speeding wasn't really being represented so I wanted to give my take.

Edited August 13, 2022 by Loc

[America's Angel]

3 minutes ago, arcane said:

Ok I’ll bite… why is the per hour not 60x the per minute?

Ah sorry. The p/m figure was for one account.

 

The p/h is assuming multiple accounts.

[battlewraith]

58 minutes ago, arcane said:

Changing incentives is something every MMO dev team does. It is not nefarious, and it does not force players to do anything. 

"Something every MMO dev team does"--sure but that says nothing about whether this is a good move or not. 

"It is not nefarious" --Nefarious, no. Misguided, could be. Again you're offering a generic platitude in response to this specific set of circumstances.

"does not force players to do anything" -- Right so you've quickly gone from "herding" and "coerced" to "forcing." A policy doesn't have to force people to do something in order to be regarded as bad.