The Pretty Good AE Debate

[FoxyPrime]

I'm probably missing a lot here, but one thing that always confused me is why farming faster is bad, but essentially farming slower is good. The only difference between PI council runs and AE farming that I've ever noticed is AE is faster.

Also what about the fire/kin controller warrior farms of the past? Are those any different than the AE? It's still one guy going around farming xp for a group of other people. It even still involves a specific build vs a specific type of opponent.

 

I don't think this discussion, or this community, benefits from anyone copping an elitist "play my way or play something else" attitude.

Edited August 14, 2022 by FoxyPrime

[roleki]

15 hours ago, MoonSheep said:

what do you feel defines the MMORPG genre?

 

Not CoH.

[arcane]

4 minutes ago, roleki said:

 

Not CoH.

Good lord we’re really in a “facts care about my feelings” kind of environment here aren’t we. Can you guys just start talking about the flat earth already.

Edited August 14, 2022 by arcane

[MoonSheep]

7 minutes ago, arcane said:

Good lord we’re really in a “facts care about my feelings” kind of environment here aren’t we. Can you guys just start talking about the flat earth already.

 

😂 

 

think that signals the end of the debate, time to go home. 

[Lines]

28 minutes ago, FoxyPrime said:

I'm probably missing a lot here, but one thing that always confused me is why farming faster is bad, but essentially farming slower is good. The only difference between PI council runs and AE farming that I've ever noticed is AE is faster.

 

There are a couple of things I can think of:

 

Inflation is a big and constant risk, when the playerbase generates a lot of influence very fast. The live servers reached a point where farming was more or less the only viable way for new players to reliably engage with the market. Fortunately, there are other safeguards against this on Homecoming, so it's hard to say how fast is too fast nowadays. Apparently, we're not there, but it is worth being vigilant.

 

Balance and obsolescence may also be an issue. If a dev designs new content, how do they reward/incentivise it, knowing that there exists a loophole that will give players a multitude of that reward? How large is the difference between optimised farming and any other content before players will try it once for the novelty, and then never again because it's so comparatively inefficient? A developer in that position may quickly lose much incentive to develop.

 

(I've seen arguments for increasing other content to the same reward rate as AE farms, but I'm personally very much against this - I do think that rewards need to keep being looked at, and I do think the much older content needs a bit of an incentivisation pass in more ways than one, but the game does need to function as a game and offer some resistance, which is exactly what AE farming circumvents. Else it practically becomes a sandbox, which some people may love, but eh, not for me. Admittedly with a sandbox, all these discussions would immediately vanish.)

 

 

This isn't to say I'm against AE farming. I'm just saying that there are some possible issues that may arise if farming gets faster.

Edited August 14, 2022 by Lines

[Neiska]

20 hours ago, Astralock said:

City of Heroes is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game, where teaming with others is not only encouraged, but expected.

 

Orly? Where is that written? Or is that just an assumption on your part? Call it a hunch, but that sounds more like a "you" expectation than a HC host or community expectation. And I can guarantee you if teaming is "forced" you will find a whole lot fewer people to team with, as there is likely far more solo players than people who run exclusively team content.

 

Teaming up is an "option" not a "requirement" or even "expectation." Encouraged? Perhaps. Which is the whole crux of the argument. Some people think only people who team/run epic content should have fully advanced and powered characters. You want to turn character progression into raid loot. This isn't World of Warcraft, and thank god for that.

[biostem]

18 hours ago, Astralock said:

Age doesn't matter.  At the end of the day, City of Heroes was designed to be a MMORPG, not an easy mode single-player game, no matter how much some people wish otherwise.  WoW is almost 20 years old, that doesn't stop it from also being a MMORPG.  Final Fantasy XIV, Guild Wars 2, and Star Wars: The Old Republic are ten years old+, and are still MMORPGs.  At the end of the day, it's like complaining chess should be an easy single-player game because it's thousands of years old.  In the end, it's nonsense as that is not what it was ever designed to be.

You are conflating "multiplayer" with "must team".  Your use of the phrase "easy mode single-player game" is also misleading - playing solo =/= wanting a single player game.  Plenty of folks choose to do their leveling up solo, while partaking in TFs, trials, or even RP as their multiplayer experience.  Similarly, many people simply don't want to involve others in the IO or auction house meta aspects of the game, choosing to instead enjoy the fruits of that labor in the aforementioned trials, TFs, or other post-50 content.  Finally, there are many ways to play chess without any other people involved, as well as there being ways to tailor the challenge level.  Heck, even at the more advanced levels, chess has undergone many changes that weren't in place when the game was in its infancy.

 

What's funny is that the 1st Guild Wars did actually offer NPCs that you could "hire" in case you couldn't fill your team, or just wanted to solo...

Edited August 14, 2022 by biostem

[FoxyPrime]

19 minutes ago, Lines said:

 

There are a couple of things I can think of:

 

Inflation is a big and constant risk, when the playerbase generates a lot of influence very fast. The live servers reached a point where farming was more or less the only viable way for new players to reliably engage with the market. Fortunately, there are other safeguards against this on Homecoming, so it's hard to say how fast is too fast nowadays. Apparently, we're not there, but it is worth being vigilant.

 

Balance and obsolescence may also be an issue. If a dev designs new content, how do they reward/incentivise it, knowing that there exists a loophole that will give players a multitude of that reward? How large is the difference between optimised farming and any other content before players will try it once for the novelty, and then never again because it's so inefficient? A developer in that position may quickly lose much incentive to develop.

 

(I've seen arguments for increasing other content to the same reward rate as AE farms, but I'm personally very much against this - I do think that rewards need to keep being looked at, and I do think the much older content needs a bit of an incentivisation pass in more ways than one, but the game does need to function as a game and offer some resistance, which is exactly what AE farming circumvents. Else it practically becomes a sandbox, which some people may love, but eh, not for me.)

 

 

This isn't to say I'm against AE farming. I'm just saying that there are some possible issues that may arise if farming gets faster.

As things are now, I keep seeing consistent prices for everything, so I'm not sure if inflation is an issue. If it does become one, however, I also don't think trying to delay it will fix it, or if it's worth combating it at the expense of the rest of the game. 

 

I'm not really sure what rewards you speak of as I've seen none that aren't acquirable over time alone. None are attached to specific quests or content so the only motivation I've ever had to do content is simply for its own sake. And as a player, content is far more enjoyable when I can play it for its own sake rather than having to repeat it over and over as part of a tedious farm. I think good game content should be able to stand on its own as being worth playing because it's good, not something you have to repeat because it's required for a reward. The best games I've ever played are often of a "short and sweet" nature, were as the worst were full of grind as a substitute for content. Short and sweet > tedious and empty.

In my experience, the longer a reward takes to get, the more likely something new and better will come along before you ever get it. Plus the sheer frustration and tediousness takes away any joy I could have ever derived so I think mandatory repetition and delays are more toxic than anything else.

Edited August 14, 2022 by FoxyPrime

[Neiska]

18 hours ago, Astralock said:

At the end of the day, City of Heroes was designed to be a MMORPG, not an easy mode single-player game, no matter how much some people wish otherwise. ....

 

And then they went on to add more things that made the game easier, which suggests they made a game that took too long originally and corrected it. Like it or not, you are pick and choosing your argument. You want the "Base" game to be the legit form of play and ignore all the changes afterward that made the game easier, faster, more alt friendly. So why is only the "original hard mode" of the game the "real" game, and not aaalll the changes and updates after?

 

Nope. Sorry, but nope. They added things to make the game more casual and alt friendly. No matter how much some people wish otherwise! 

[biostem]

16 minutes ago, FoxyPrime said:

In my experience, the longer a reward takes to get, the more likely something new and better will come along before you ever get it. Plus the sheer frustration and tediousness takes away any joy I could have ever derived so I think mandatory repetition and delays are more toxic than anything else.

There is definitely a curve regarding how long people are willing to work toward unlocking something in-game.  For instance, I didn't realize at first that you could use threads to progress your Alpha slot ability, and on my first incarnate, it was frustratingly slow-going, and when I finally got to T3, I all but gave up.  It's also why I almost never bother looking at the T9 of my primary, as it'll probably be the least used ability, and if the rest of the set is "meh", then I'm not gonna put in the time, (excepting things like MM T9s or controller pets).

[Lines]

23 minutes ago, FoxyPrime said:

As things are now, I keep seeing consistent prices for everything, so I'm not sure if inflation is an issue. If it does become one, however, I also don't think trying to delay it will fix it, or if it's worth combating it at the expense of the rest of the game. 

 

 

Agreed that as things are now, there seem to be no issues. What I'm saying is that, if you could infinitely accelerate the speed you can farm at, then at a certain threshold we'll start seeing issues. So farming as fast as it is may be fine, but farming faster may end up with issues. 

 

23 minutes ago, FoxyPrime said:

I'm not really sure what rewards you speak of as I've seen none that aren't acquirable over time alone. None are attached to specific quests or content so the only motivation I've ever had to do content is simply for its own sake. And as a player, content is far more enjoyable and praise worthy when I can play it for its own sake rather than having to repeat it over and over as part of a tedious farm. I think good game content should be able to stand on its own as being worth playing because it's good, not something you have to repeat because it's required for a reward. What little game design I ever dabbled in, my motivation was never making people linger on the content as long as possible, but whether or not they enjoyed it, even if they only played it once.

In my experience, the longer a reward takes to get, the more likely something new and better will come along before you ever get it. Plus the sheer frustration and tediousness takes away any joy I could have ever derived so I think mandatory repetition and delays are more toxic than anything else.

 

Take the Freaklok arcs as an example. They're designed for (iirc) the 20-30 level range, so targeted towards characters who are levelling. At it stands, there's a big reward rift between choosing to level through the arc or choosing to level through AE farming. If that rift were smaller, we might* see the content being played more regularly as people can effectively mix their playstyles up during the levelling process.

(*BIG EMPHASIS ON MIGHT, I HAVE ZERO DATA, THIS IS PURE SPECULATION)

 

I do think that there are some much deeper, structural issues in CoH that contribute here than just reward balance though, particularly around the disparity between narrative and levelling, something which I would like to see totally separated.. But those would be thoughts for CoH2.

 

I'm not really trying to make any argument here, just positing observations as I see them. I also have no solutions that I think are practical.

Edited August 14, 2022 by Lines

[biostem]

3 minutes ago, Lines said:

At it stands, there's a big reward rift between choosing to level through the arc or choosing to level through AE farming. If that rift were smaller, we might* see the content being played more regularly as people can effectively mix their playstyles up during the levelling process.

That's part of it.  Another is convenience and other QoL stuff.  For instance, having to hunt around a big map for a glowie can be really frustrating.  They added the reveal of the last one some time ago, but a general mechanic that reveals them as you defeat enemies or if any should simply appear in your field of vision would be a big help.  Maybe trimming down some of the kill-all or multi-zone arcs would help as well...

[FoxyPrime]

8 minutes ago, Lines said:

 

Agreed that as things are now, there seem to be no issues. What I'm saying is that, if you could infinitely accelerate the speed you can farm at, then at a certain threshold we'll start seeing issues. So farming as fast as it is may be fine, but farming faster may end up with issues. 

 

 

Take the Freaklok arcs as an example. They're designed for (iirc) the 20-30 level range, so targeted towards characters who are levelling. At it stands, there's a big reward rift between choosing to level through the arc or choosing to level through AE farming. If that rift were smaller, we might* see the content being played more regularly as people can effectively mix their playstyles up during the levelling process.

(*BIG EMPHASIS ON MIGHT, I HAVE ZERO DATA, THIS IS PURE SPECULATION)

 

I do think that there are some much deeper, structural issues in CoH that contribute here than just reward balance though, particularly around the disparity between narrative and levelling, something which I would like to see totally separated.. But those would be thoughts for CoH2.

 

I'm not really trying to make any argument here, just positing observations as I see them. I also have no solutions that I think are practical.

I'm afraid I'm not understanding where the problem is. Something level 20-30 doesn't sound like anything people would linger on either way. What does it mean to play it more regularly and why is that necessary to begin with?

[Coyotedancer]

1 hour ago, Bionic_Flea said:

 

It's not that simple.  The AFK timer only works in the "outside" environment, not inside any mission or bases, which they call instances.  And then, even outside, you are not AFK kicked if you are in TF mode, which happens in TFs, Trials, Ouro, and AE.  That code lets people get  ridiculous badges by sitting in a fire taking damage, or letting yourself be mezzed, or AoE healing an army.  If your suggested change effected badgers, I think they might not be happy.  Another side effect would be having to kick a friend from a TF that is almost over because they had an emergency and had to leave.  Right now, they can just park outside until the TF is completed.

 

So while it may be possible to do what you are describing, it might effect other areas of the game, and it definitely wouldn't be easy.

 

It would also be a pain in the bum for those of us active farmer types who dual-box with our own alts. 

 

Granted, some people probably consider that a Good Thing and an excellent side bonus to hitting the AFKs, but I'd find it annoying to have to stop what Suni's doing to switch over every X-minutes and bump the lowbie she's getting to 32 or the support character whose Incarnate unlocks or iToys I'm working on. 

 

It would seriously harsh my zen, man. 😝

[FoxyPrime]

23 minutes ago, biostem said:

There is definitely a curve regarding how long people are willing to work toward unlocking something in-game.  For instance, I didn't realize at first that you could use threads to progress your Alpha slot ability, and on my first incarnate, it was frustratingly slow-going, and when I finally got to T3, I all but gave up.  It's also why I almost never bother looking at the T9 of my primary, as it'll probably be the least used ability, and if the rest of the set is "meh", then I'm not gonna put in the time, (excepting things like MM T9s or controller pets).

When I was younger, I had more of a determined, persistent attitude, but also still a sense of frustration and feeling something was amiss. Massive grinds went from absurd bonus quests in a select few games to widely prevalent and a core aspect of game design. World of Warcraft was my first major exposure to it and after twice having spent literal months to get an armor set only for it to be worthless almost immediately after was an enormous wake up call and pretty much killed what was left of that youthful determination. All that time, effort, and money (subscriptions) for literally nothing but the expectation that I'd do it all over again instead of quitting. 

After having seen this sort of thing only get worse and worse over the years, I am firmly against having my time wasted since the entire point of playing a game is to be entertained.

Edited August 14, 2022 by FoxyPrime

[Lines]

1 minute ago, FoxyPrime said:

I'm afraid I'm not understanding where the problem is. Something level 20-30 doesn't sound like anything people would linger on either way. What does it mean to play it more regularly and why is that necessary to begin with?

 

If the only incentive to play content is for its narrative (and I'm not dismissing that as a valuable incentive, it is, just bear with me), and not for any reward/character development/game mechanics reason, then it indicates that there is a dissonance between the game design and the narrative. The two should be working neatly in tandem, but in CoH I believe that they don't. Where CoH is a game that encourages multiple playthroughs, but the content is underplayed, that to me indicates a colossal design issue (one which I think has existed in the game more or less from the start, gradually getting worse).

 

Again, I don't think that AE/Farming is the root of the issue here, but it does play a role in making the rewards obsolete. As biostem pointed out, a lot of the stories are inconvenient and irritating anyway, so replayability may be laborious for other reasons too. 

[FoxyPrime]

1 minute ago, Lines said:

 

If the only incentive to play content is for its narrative (and I'm not dismissing that as a valuable incentive, it is, just bear with me), and not for any reward/character development/game mechanics reason, then it indicates that there is a dissonance between the game design and the narrative. The two should be working neatly in tandem, but in CoH I believe that they don't. Where CoH is a game that encourages multiple playthroughs, but the content is underplayed, that to me indicates a colossal design issue (one which I think has existed in the game more or less from the start, gradually getting worse).

 

Again, I don't think that AE/Farming is the root of the issue here, but it does play a role in making the rewards obsolete. As biostem pointed out, a lot of the stories are inconvenient and irritating anyway, so replayability may be laborious for other reasons too. 

I really don't think there's any dissonance at all. You go through the quest to see the story. In order to do so, you play the game, using the mechanics to overcome the challenge in the quest in order to advance the story. How is that not game design and narrative literally working in tandem?

[ShardWarrior]

22 hours 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.

 

Being a MMORPG does not in any way mean teaming is required or expected for all content.  Most all content in the game is not meant for teaming and can be soloed.  You are completely wrong on this. 

Edited August 14, 2022 by ShardWarrior

[battlewraith]

58 minutes ago, Lines said:

The two should be working neatly in tandem, but in CoH I believe that they don't. Where CoH is a game that encourages multiple playthroughs, but the content is underplayed, that to me indicates a colossal design issue (one which I think has existed in the game more or less from the start, gradually getting worse).

 

I don't see this as a colossal design issue. I think it's actually indicative of the core strength of the game, as well as the primary activity in which I think most players are engaged--creating their own characters. This game is much more open-ended than other MMOs with respect to both character creation and the extent to which these characters are bound to the overall narrative of the game world.

 

The content is very secondary to my creative goals. It's more like taking a character to the gym, rather than reading a book. The different trials and whatnot are basically like doing reps on different pieces of equipment. I don't pause at the barbells and ponder the lore of how they got there, particularly after using them a bunch of times.

 

This is something the "this is an MMORPG" fundamentalists don't get. The things that actually made coh special are things that were actually pretty substantial deviations from the formula.

[ShardWarrior]

20 hours ago, Loc said:

To repeat the essence of my post, speeding simply isn't scalable like farming is.

 

This still does not matter.  I would wager far more people are doing speed runs than are multiboxing several accounts across several machines on server farms to do mass AFK farming.  Sure, it is technically possible someone could set up a giant server farm running 10,000 + accounts all AFK farming.  It is also possible someone could create enough accounts with enough characters to use up every word combination in the English language.  Just because these are technically possible does not in any way mean this is what is happening in reality. 

[cranebump]

41 minutes ago, ShardWarrior said:

 

Being a MMORPG doe not mean teaming is required or expected for all content.  Most all content in the game is not meant for teaming and can be soloed.  You are completely wrong on this. 

Have to agree with this. And it makes sense you should be able to solo (most) everything. Now, I'd prefer to run more things on teams, preferably at a moderate pace, with teams of friends. I even miss the travel from one point to the next. Mish pops up, and everyone heads out, using their various modes of transport (feels cool to see the flyers take off, the speedsters launch down the roadways, and the ground pounders running and leaping along their way). I like seeing the map reveal itself as I/we explore more and more parts of the city.

 

But, as has already been noted, it's entertainment, and that's what entertains me. Not everybody else. I don't get the allure of just farming, or playing the market, or basically just gathering Inf. Then again, I don't have to. There's room enough for people who do get it to do that. So, to each their own.

 

Which means I don't really see a debate here, since no one is going to change anyone's mind on what's subjectively fun for them. I kind of wish this entire thread would just go away, but I guess this type of discussion is also someone's version of fun. Just hoping we don't see some sort of weird turn that makes it to where I (and others like me) can't use AE to script SFMA arcs anymore. 

Edited August 14, 2022 by cranebump

[Darmian]

32 minutes ago, cranebump said:

Just hoping we don't see some sort of weird turn that makes it to where I (and others like me) can't use AE to script SFMA arcs anymore. 

EXACTLY!

 

[Excraft]

23 hours 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.

 

This is absolutely 100% wrong.  Teaming is not now nor was it ever expected for all the content in the game.  That's complete bullshit.

[Ukase]

22 hours ago, Astralock said:

 

Age doesn't matter.  At the end of the day, City of Heroes was designed to be a MMORPG, not an easy mode single-player game, no matter how much some people wish otherwise.  WoW is almost 20 years old, that doesn't stop it from also being a MMORPG.  Final Fantasy XIV, Guild Wars 2, and Star Wars: The Old Republic are ten years old+, and are still MMORPGs.  At the end of the day, it's like complaining chess should be an easy single-player game because it's thousands of years old.  In the end, it's nonsense as that is not what it was ever designed to be.

You have this way of putting things that makes me want to scream because while your perspective has merit, your delivery needs a lot of improvement. 

City of Heroes, at least the HC version is now, and has been since they put this in on the server about options. 
Options for me, and options for you. City of Options.

I cannot put words in your mouth and say you've said this or think that - you've done so yourself in this thread. You've literally suggested people quit playing and go somewhere else because we're not playing this game the way you think it was intended to be played. 

Since you brought chess up, as an analogy, the way I interpret your words, you don't see the beauty of someone being aggressive and castling to the queen side while strategically advancing certain pawns from the King's side to crush your king, with support from the knight and king side bishop. You think everyone should use the king's pawn opening. I mean, any other opening would lead to difficulty in bringing out the queen and king side bishop. So that opening is the way the game should be played! 

You've obviously played a lot of other MMOs, and think this gives you some kind of authority to speak on how others should enjoy this game. Sorry, but you're way off. You can think we're ruining things in your head, but to express that - while I respect your candor, I do not respect your attitude and want to encourage you to consider just why it is other people play this game in a different manner than you. Because, obviously, we hate the game, right? We hate it so much, that we lock ourselves away in this farm and are too ashamed to actually enjoy the game the way you do? 
Get over yourself. Some of us farm for the influence to support the alt-itis. Some of us solo because we work remotely and might have to go afk at a moment's notice. 


You clearly have your "way to play ideology". It falls short for many of us and is unacceptable. You want to do things you way - do them your way. But for me, I'll do things my way and I'll not tolerate you telling anyone to go play other games. Rebirth is fairly "grind"-y in that respect. If you want a place where folks are desperate to team, go there. There's usually about a dozen players on at one time. Maybe 50-60 on the evening weekends. 
 

Me, I'll be here, advocating for solo play, because the last thing I want is to be teamed with a jerk who thinks their way to play is the "intended" way. 
Don't be trying to stick people in some conventional box. There's no air in there, and it's restrictive. 


Consider enjoying all the different ways people can play this game. How we can come together for a mapserver event even if we have no idea who any of the other people are. We can willingly join supergroups and chat over discord if we want to - or we can choose not to do so. 

It's our choice how we play. Who are you to tell us we're doing it wrong? Why is it you think your way should be the only way? How do you see that playing out? 

[FoxyPrime]

Having options was always City of Heroes' main appeal to me. WoW always felt annoyingly restrictive in various ways, but it always came down to what looked like creative build options would often turn out to be a big fat lie, and they gradually took those options away.

Also, for the longest time, my biggest gripe with "required" multiplayer is how unreliable it ultimately is. People have conflicting schedules, people come and go, and my experience with randos in PuGs is often terrible*. To depend solely on multiplayer to even play means being unable to play whenever one of the myriad reasons comes up that a group is either not available or not working out. Therefore, I've always felt a solo option should always be available to provide the necessary flexibility to prevent people getting stalled out. This was especially bad back when we had to pay a subscription to play: paying 15 bucks a month just to have time wasted because of random happenstance and scheduling conflicts is horrid. MMOs make grouping more readily available (that's the whole point), but despite that it's still not something that can be taken for granted.

* Most of my PuG experience across various games is I often run into people who are pushy, bossy, rude, or just plain griefers. Not worth the headache of dealing with. CoH Homecoming has been something of a noteworthy exception...some of the time. For the majority of Task Force Commander, I've actually had decent groups and no issues. Posi 1 is sometimes problematic so I find it's easier to just solo that one. Maria Jenkins runs for the Praetorians is another bad one because people's high tendency to be rush happy results in me not getting credit for the Praetorian KOs, which makes it another one I prefer to solo...which is admittedly a bit hard when I'm playing a squishy character.

Edited August 14, 2022 by FoxyPrime