The Pretty Good AE Debate

[TerroirNoir]

You want madness in the AE?  Allow mini leagues!  A max of 16 players!  Of course who knows how that would play out!

[ShardWarrior]

On 7/23/2022 at 1:46 PM, flakoff said:

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

 

You are assuming that a new player would get bored quickly and leave.  For all anyone knows, they will become another 18+ year veteran like the rest of us.  Nobody knows.

[Arnie Palmer]

On 7/23/2022 at 4:23 PM, Bionic_Flea said:

Would you still have fun if the AE rewards were removed? Or halved? Or otherwise reduced?

Probably as much as someone who likes to run TFs would is those rewards were removed, halved, or otherwise reduced. Which is to say "still some fun because the activity remains the same but it really stings that some goddamn content nazis screamed in the devs ear to nerf the content I enjoy."

Edited July 25, 2022 by Arnie Palmer

[UltraAlt]

12 hours ago, nightroarer said:

It's not; I never said or even implied that it was. I don't door sit, I play missions.

 

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

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

[Seed22]

16 hours ago, Troo said:

 

sorry. my bad.

It's not you Troo, it's just my general reaction to everything on these forums 😛

[Seed22]

4 minutes 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"?

Because...and guess what this is the crazy part I know but please hang with me and follow me here:

 

There are different people than you. And...(wait for it. waaaaait for it.....It's gonna be good I promise!) they enjoy different(that means not the same) things than you!

 

So to them, maybe doorsitting is fun? Who knows! Or maybe they'll use that 50 later. I just know that it's not anyone's business to tell them what is and isn't fun.

 

On a less snarky note: If the farmer is okay with it, and the sitter's okay with it, you have no business telling them that's not "fun". No one does. It may seem odd, but at the end of the day it's between them. Responses like these are why I'm a forum grouch, folks are so bored they're now trying to tell others what's fun. The sheer ignorance and audacity is...irritating.

Edited July 25, 2022 by Seed22

[zenijos10]

2 minutes 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 run farms often and allow door sitters.  I’m not sure fun is the primary reason for doing it.  Of course some fun can be had chatting because door sitters don’t need to pay attention to combat, though that doesn’t always happen.
 

 Instead of fun, I would say door sitting creates accomplishment or at least relief. to some, getting to 50 is busy work that’s required to enable what they actually want to do, like filling out the waiver and watching the training video before going paragliding.  

 

One could argue that getting to 50 by door sitting is not a real accomplishment, at least not compared to leveling the old fashioned way.  However, regardless of the truth of that, the character select screen for door sitters’ level 50s still says level 50. 
 

Other people collect 50s, some have 100s of them.  For them, fun is probably low priority, high priority is minting another 50 or in some cases fully incarnated and IOd 50.  If one’s goal is to collect 50s then doorsitting makes a lot of sense compared to playing content the old fashioned way. 

[Astralock]

1 hour ago, ShardWarrior said:

 

You are assuming that a new player would get bored quickly and leave.  For all anyone knows, they will become another 18+ year veteran like the rest of us.  Nobody knows.

 

Considering how many accounts Homecoming has, and its steadily dwindling population, the odds of that aren’t good.

[Troo]

2 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 agree door sitting is not fun.

It is, for some folks, the prerequisite to fun. I get that,

 

(I am not in anyway discounting the witty banter which may occur while waiting for a turn to play)

[ShardWarrior]

1 hour ago, Astralock said:

Considering how many accounts Homecoming has, and its steadily dwindling population, the odds of that aren’t good.

 

You seem to be making a rather large assumption here.  Is AE the sole problem?  Are there any other contributing factors?

 

Outside of our own social circles, none of us know with any degree of certainty why other players come and go.  Just being honest, I think a lot of people here want to lay all the blame of all problems on one thing in particular and are viewing the game through rose tinted glasses.  The game is old.  The engine is old.  The game cannot compete with newer titles with more frequent content updates.  That very well could be a contributing factor to population just as much, if not more so than AE.  It is a mistake to try and single out AE farming as the sole reason for everything wrong with the world in my opinion.

[Seed22]

1 hour ago, ShardWarrior said:

 

You seem to be making a rather large assumption here.  Is AE the sole problem?  Are there any other contributing factors?

 

Outside of our own social circles, none of us know with any degree of certainty why other players come and go.  Just being honest, I think a lot of people here want to lay all the blame of all problems on one thing in particular and are viewing the game through rose tinted glasses.  The game is old.  The engine is old.  The game cannot compete with newer titles with more frequent content updates.  That very well could be a contributing factor to population just as much, if not more so than AE.  It is a mistake to try and single out AE farming as the sole reason for everything wrong with the world in my opinion.

If I had to guess? It’s just the nature of things. CoH is an old game with not much going on, even though the devs try and add stuff here and there, they’re not a full team backed by [insert studio here]. It takes a good amount of time and folks get bored. Even if they do the journey from 1-50 a good amount of times experiencing new arcs each time, they’d even do it all and get bored. 
 

Maybe they take a break, maybe they leave? But thats just my guess.

 

I’ve played CoH since ‘06, and to be honest? While I love the game, I’ve even contemplated as of late walking away. No particular reason other than what I’ve stated above

Edited July 25, 2022 by Seed22

[Ukase]

On 7/24/2022 at 9:49 AM, TerroirNoir said:

I'm not a farmer. I'll be honest about that.  I've tried it and had some fun blasting enemies, and made some inf along the way, but I play for story.  Everybody has their own jam I suppose and if you enjoy farming then you enjoy farming, if you enjoy story content then you enjoy story content.  And finally, and I really don't want to get anyone's feathers ruffled here, but a few times over this thread and others I've seen the statement that some people have played all the in game content and are bored by it, so now they farm. How is playing the same farm (or group of farms) over and over not equally as dull as having played all the content in the main game? I'm not actually having a go at people here I just find that answer weird. If you're farming to get inf or XP I get that and if you're farming because it's relaxing and it's maybe like a mobile game where you're clearing a level then I get that too. But doing it over and over because you finished the in game content? I don't understand that. Me, as you can tell, I'd be searching through the AE for new story the same way I channel hop on TV.  What's this?  Ok, not for me. Next.  Oh, I like this one, did they make anything else.  My take only.  

Emphasis added by me. 
There are different sorts of farmers. Some are actively farming, and some are passively farming. I'm what you would call a passive farmer. I let the farmer on one or two accounts do what they do, while I play on my primary account. I started off just doing my primary account, actually leveling a fire/fire brute because at the time, I had no idea what spines/fire was. That is, I'd never thought of it. Eventually, I just got on the band wagon. Some folks liked the rad/fire better, praising irradiated ground. I made one of those and liked spines/fire better. Or, it could just be my build for spines was just better than the build for rad. The fire builds were identical. But, I digress. 

For me, actively farming is worse than being on a bad team, really, as far as boredom goes. I don't enjoy it. I'll do it to get a specific goal, but more often than not, I've determined other easier, faster ways to reach those goals than farming. For example: farming for inf is for folks who like to farm. If I want inf, I will market. Using AH tends to give damn near exponential returns compared to farming. Buy some of these recipes, craft, convert, sell. Simple. A monkey could do it, if given the motivation. 

But passive farming, once you settle on the right build, particularly if it's on a second or third (or even 8th account!) brings in the recipes and other drops, in addition to emp merits and all the other goodies in scale. The more farmers you have running, the more loot you get. So, before folks scream about that 8th account in parenthesis, don't panic. I do not do this and don't have 8 accounts. I just have 4. Some of you are of the understanding that multi-boxing is against the rules. It isn't. 
For your convenience, here's the policy, found on these very forums: 

 

 

So, we are allowed to play 3 accounts on each shard. In theory, I suppose if one had the inclination and the time, they could play on 15 accounts at the same time, 3 per server. 

When I got my first 50 and began the incarnate path, I screwed up a number of times, not realizing emp merits could be used to create rare and very rare components. I went about the other way, costing myself 25M twice, not even realizing it had a cost! I even sent in a petition over losing the 25M, having no realization of the cost of the conversion, because, well, reading is hard, I guess, lol. 
What's worse, a week later, I did it again on the very rare, and cost myself 100M after selling 20 catalysts for 5M each! (tells you how long ago that was! ) 
Seems like I was always broke, making stupid mistake after stupid mistake. 

So, I farmed. But I found farming boring and a chap named @payload told me about afk-farming and opened my eyes. I would not only just do the afk farm thing, but I would also use the drops and craft/convert/sell everything except the commons. Then, when I learned from @dahle that I could have more than a few accounts, the inf flood gates opened for me. 

So, yeah, different types of farmers. For me, farming is dull work. Very dull. But afk farming is just a matter of skipping the dull stuff and just counting the loot, crafting, converting and selling. For a while, it was the only interesting thing the game had to offer. Then I got into badging, made 4 characters with all the badges (except legatus) and about 5 more straggling far behind. Playing on one, farming with the others. Then silly Yomo conned me into taking a tally of where I was. So, now I realize I don't need to farm anymore, except for emp merits. If I could buy those, I wouldn't farm at all. 

 

For some reason, a different AT/Powerset leveling through the same content is different for me than it is doing the same iTrials with different characters. The iTrials pretty much bore me, except for Underground. But I can choose so many different leveling paths, switching alignments back and forth that even though the content is familiar, the only arc I'm just tired of is Maria Jenkins, because I have to suffer through that to get Portal Jockey. 

That's a lot. But that may explain why farming isn't as dull as repeating other content. 

[JJDrakken]

My opinion, XP should be shut off in it.  Cash is fine(shrugs).  Only time XP should be on is for Spotlight Missions/Arcs every month. 

[roleki]

On 7/22/2022 at 2:49 PM, Bionic_Flea said:

Let's agree that fire-farming should give the best rewards in the game.  How much better should it be?  Ten percent better?  100% better? Ten times better?  Is there a limit?

Circling back to this, but before I answer @Bionic_Flea's question, allow me to bloviate a bit...  

 

We can all agree that IOs changed the game drastically, and within minutes of their arrival created a massive gap between the haves and have-nots.  Inflation was absolutely rampant at the outset, and only got worse as time went on.  By the time I dropped out (Issue 18 or so) a decent build - the kind of build bandied about on these forums routinely as if they're no big deal - ran well into the billions of inf.   No matter what the Live devs did to curtail or discourage farming, inflation just kept spiraling into the stratosphere.

Think about that for a second, then think about it for a few more seconds.

 

No matter what the devs on Live did to discourage farming, inflation was rampant.

 

Fast-forward to Homecoming.  The HC devs have had some simple/genius fixes for the market that, boiled down to its most basic concept, essentially made Reward Merits the 'gold standard' for enhancements.  But they have also - maybe not intentionally, maybe despite their best efforts - fostered an environment where farming isn't just rampant, it's damn near the only thing happening. 

 

The last (and only) time they released player statistics in March of 2020, there were more /Fiery Aura Brutes than any two xEATs combined, and nearly as many of that particular secondary in that particular AT than the entire Stalker AT.   In that snapshot of time between April 2019 and March 2020, players had amassed 14,007,639 hours of 'time played' on /Fiery Aura Brutes, which was 3.53x more than all Tanks of all stripes combined, or 36x more than logged with Widows.  To save you the math, in less than one year of real time, /Fiery Aura Brutes had logged 1599 years' worth of in-game time.  

They probably weren't ALL farming, but, come on.  They were all farming.

 

They were all farming, and, they've been farming their nuts off for almost three years... which, oddly enough, is the same amount of time between the release of CoH proper in 2004 and the introduction of the Market in 2007, when everyone attributed whacky inflation to long-term players sitting on massive hoards of influence and suddenly finding an outlet for it.

 

So then, if players NOT farming influence still amassed huge piles of it which led to rampant inflation on Live, then surely an environment where there's been almost nothing BUT farming going on for three years has led to even MORE insane inflation on HC, right?

No, wait a second.  Check that.  A LotG Global Recharge costs the same or less today than it did in October of 2019.  They *were* 4M apiece until around then, but they hit 7M around that time, and have hung within 500k ever since.  When it comes to desirable IOs, at least at level 50, prices are pretty much stable and have been so through most of the tenure of HC.  

 

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.

 

Unless I am misconstruing what everyone's beef with farming is.  I mean, if you're thinking that IOs should cost 5 inf more than what they cost to craft, I don't know what to tell you.  At some point, demand drives price, and those IOs that people tend to want as many as 5x of (LotG% for example) are going to cost... wait... somehow less than 5x what a Stupefy Stun/Range IO sells for?  Farmers!

If it's PLing you have issue with, and the resulting relative dearth of midrange players for you to team with, you may just have to temper your expectations, as nobody owes you a good time but yourself.  History, both measured and anecdotal, indicates that there is a very large contingent of people who have the option to play the progression game, but inexplicably pivot to farming and PLing instead.  It's almost like they are deriving some sort of enjoyment from that, despite the insistence of a few forum harpies that such a thing is impossible.  

And if it's simply an issue of "Hey! They've got more stuff than me!" the most delicate way I can respond to that is to not address it at all.  

 

So, anyway... if you're reading this @Bionic_Flea , up until this point 'you' was anyone who suffered through reading this, not 'you' specifically.  But now, I am addressing your enduring question... should fire farming pay better than anything else in the game?  My answer is: it really doesn't matter.  What really matters is that characters leveling through content earn enough in doing so to acquire a level's worth of IOs at the auction house, and do so from level 0 to 50.  The devs should have enough data to know whether that is happening, but just poking around tells me it's not.  I don't know what would help THOSE people out, but I am pretty dang sure that it isn't tied to how much inf a fire farmer makes or doesn't make.  I mean, progressionists aren't fighting farmers for those sweet IOs between 1 and 45, they simply aren't deriving any benefit from that farmer until they ding 50.

 

To me, the problem would seem to be, not enough supply for the ride to 50, and I can see where THAT could be construed as a problem with farming, insofar as there's a billion level 50 recipes getting dropped off, but only a handful of midrange stuff.  If it were in my power, I would make the rate of drops in content increase dramatically in the 20-49 range, with a little bump in influence to bring both ends of the transaction together. 

 

And since I still have the strength to type, might as well throw out a couple other half-baked suggestions and get all my thumbs down in one shot.  

 

I would look into revamping the Architect Ticket system and make it more aligned with the way Vanguard Merits work; it would require some fancy footwork, but there has to be a middle ground between randomly getting a Stupefy Stun/Range and always getting a LotG%.  If a decent middle ground existed there, then by all means, trade some of the AE influence rewards for tickets.

I would take the framework of the Incarnate system, and lay it over content from 1-50, except instead of working to unlock an Incarnate slot, you're working through a tiered 'accolade' tree that would, I don't know, grant a 0.5% global defense(all) bonus up to HERE, then it gives a 1% defense(all) bonus and 2% movement speed boost to HERE, then in the final tree, gives a 2% defense(all), 3% recovery, and 3% movement boost.  Then have other trees that also do defense, or resistance, or whatever, so that in the end, players that go through content basically get a couple extra IO sets worth of global bonuses not available to farmers/PL'd characters, and they can stack them to shore up one weakness or spread them around to make a more rounded character.  Tie it to the number of contacts who won't hand you missions anymore or something, I don't know, so existing characters would get the benefits too.  I would repeat that anywhere that devs want people to do more with (like, killing stuff in PvP zones grants PvP-only bonuses, and so on.)

 

Put it this way, it's obvious the content isn't selling itself, and neither are efforts by people to try and force other players into going through it.  If you want people to think twice about using AE as a leveling tool, you have to play on their FOMO.  

[Without_Pause]

50 minutes ago, JJDrakken said:

My opinion, XP should be shut off in it.  Cash is fine(shrugs).  Only time XP should be on is for Spotlight Missions/Arcs every month. 

This would get a number of people to leave the game. Considering the current trend in population size, I don't think you want to pour gas on it.

[Ukase]

24 minutes ago, roleki said:

To me, the problem would seem to be, not enough supply for the ride to 50, and I can see where THAT could be construed as a problem with farming, insofar as there's a billion level 50 recipes getting dropped off, but only a handful of midrange stuff.  If it were in my power, I would make the rate of drops in content increase dramatically in the 20-49 range, with a little bump in influence to bring both ends of the transaction together. 

Okay - for one, let me say I enjoyed your "bloviating", whatever it may mean. 
 

But there's a thing I feel compelled to point out: 
For most IOs and recipes that the farmer, at level 50 drops in the market, our sage HC devs have allowed a bid on a level 25 IO be bought if that same IO at level 50 is for sale. 
The only hassle is when the IOs in question stop at a given level, like the Steadfast Protection set - it stops at 30. So, no level 50 farmer is going to see those unless they use the AE tickets, or farm while exemplared. And most don't do that, at least not at level 30 because their build isn't as solid as it is at 50. 

Back a year or so ago, I thought about doing just that, but the demand for those few IOs that are in higher demand, like the Steadfast Protection 3% def(All) and the Achille's Heel debuff, and the Kismet 6% - it's just not high enough to be worth the time for me. You generally burn through a fair number of converters getting those unless the recipe that dropped was in set. 

And I suspect that this is a niche that may be underserved; so someone will likely fill this need - today! But likely not everyday, as it's not that lucrative overall. 

[Ukase]

5 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 do admit that some folks door sit. 
I also recognize that a fair number of folks actively solicit a spot on someone's farm to do just that. 

I get a minor tic when I return to my keyboard in the morning and realize that I forgot to /ghide and disallow PMs from some of these more bold beggars. 

But, the thing is - how is it not fun to get that xp when you're a lowbie, don't have but a few attacks? The endorphin rush when you level is real. When you see that row of pink XP fill the bar every bit as fast an an empath's Absorb Pain....that's endorphin heaven for some folks. 

It may not suit you. I certainly get no joy out of it, which is why I do that kind of thing by myself, afk-style. 

I would suggest you consider what my father told me once, when I saw a neighbor kid, a year younger than me, at 16, while I was 17, get a new car for his birthday. Not just a new car, but a Camaro! Two of the 5 girlfriends I had dumped me to date guys with Camaros. Hate those bastards! Anyway, I complained to my dad about it. He told me that what other people did was none of my business. 

So, when someone begs on the LFG channel for a farm, I don't cuss under my breath, or even aloud. I just keep on minding my own business. 

Now, I completely understand why some folks don't like folks who get PL'd, particularly when they don't know how to get to point B from point A, or have no idea what it is they're doing because they've never actually played. I can stomach it from a low level character, but a level 50? No; these types of players are folks I will cross the street to avoid. 

But, it's their time, their character and their business. Doesn't matter to me if sitting in that farm was boring or fun for them. I don't care. What's puzzling me is why everyone is so concerned about it. It's none of their business. It has no impact on them, unless they choose to let it impact them. 

You don't see me fussing at people for doing TF after TF, do you? How is that fun for them? Subjecting themselves to the whims of the RNG amongst all those NPCs? That damn ITF, with those stupid Legionarii screaming like a drunken banshee...that is NOT fun for me. I detest it. It's the one mission/TF where I will turn down game sound and let my own audio (Clark Howard, Mind Pump, Ben Greenfield, Found My Fitness, The Drive with Peter Attia) distract me from the tedious nature of ITF, which I generally only do when it's the weekly.  

How is that TF fun for anyone? Sheesh. For that matter, how is playing a mind dominator fun for anyone? And don't even get me started on a Widow. Those damn things should just get deleted from the code. They're pure trash. Nobody could have fun with those. Right? 

See what I'm saying now? Do ya smell what I'm cooking? 
It doesn't matter if it's fun or not if it's how they want to spend their time. It has a negligible impact on the rest of us. 

[kelika2]

Would it be too much to ask to add NPCs of the pic related type to be added around kings row/steel canyon/oakes AE buildings after the patch?

 

[TerroirNoir]

1 hour ago, Ukase said:

Emphasis added by me. 
There are different sorts of farmers. Some are actively farming, and some are passively farming. I'm what you would call a passive farmer. I let the farmer on one or two accounts do what they do, while I play on my primary account. I started off just doing my primary account, actually leveling a fire/fire brute because at the time, I had no idea what spines/fire was. That is, I'd never thought of it. Eventually, I just got on the band wagon. Some folks liked the rad/fire better, praising irradiated ground. I made one of those and liked spines/fire better. Or, it could just be my build for spines was just better than the build for rad. The fire builds were identical. But, I digress. 

For me, actively farming is worse than being on a bad team, really, as far as boredom goes. I don't enjoy it. I'll do it to get a specific goal, but more often than not, I've determined other easier, faster ways to reach those goals than farming. For example: farming for inf is for folks who like to farm. If I want inf, I will market. Using AH tends to give damn near exponential returns compared to farming. Buy some of these recipes, craft, convert, sell. Simple. A monkey could do it, if given the motivation. 

But passive farming, once you settle on the right build, particularly if it's on a second or third (or even 8th account!) brings in the recipes and other drops, in addition to emp merits and all the other goodies in scale. The more farmers you have running, the more loot you get. So, before folks scream about that 8th account in parenthesis, don't panic. I do not do this and don't have 8 accounts. I just have 4. Some of you are of the understanding that multi-boxing is against the rules. It isn't. 
For your convenience, here's the policy, found on these very forums: 

 

 

So, we are allowed to play 3 accounts on each shard. In theory, I suppose if one had the inclination and the time, they could play on 15 accounts at the same time, 3 per server. 

When I got my first 50 and began the incarnate path, I screwed up a number of times, not realizing emp merits could be used to create rare and very rare components. I went about the other way, costing myself 25M twice, not even realizing it had a cost! I even sent in a petition over losing the 25M, having no realization of the cost of the conversion, because, well, reading is hard, I guess, lol. 
What's worse, a week later, I did it again on the very rare, and cost myself 100M after selling 20 catalysts for 5M each! (tells you how long ago that was! ) 
Seems like I was always broke, making stupid mistake after stupid mistake. 

So, I farmed. But I found farming boring and a chap named @payload told me about afk-farming and opened my eyes. I would not only just do the afk farm thing, but I would also use the drops and craft/convert/sell everything except the commons. Then, when I learned from @dahle that I could have more than a few accounts, the inf flood gates opened for me. 

So, yeah, different types of farmers. For me, farming is dull work. Very dull. But afk farming is just a matter of skipping the dull stuff and just counting the loot, crafting, converting and selling. For a while, it was the only interesting thing the game had to offer. Then I got into badging, made 4 characters with all the badges (except legatus) and about 5 more straggling far behind. Playing on one, farming with the others. Then silly Yomo conned me into taking a tally of where I was. So, now I realize I don't need to farm anymore, except for emp merits. If I could buy those, I wouldn't farm at all. 

 

For some reason, a different AT/Powerset leveling through the same content is different for me than it is doing the same iTrials with different characters. The iTrials pretty much bore me, except for Underground. But I can choose so many different leveling paths, switching alignments back and forth that even though the content is familiar, the only arc I'm just tired of is Maria Jenkins, because I have to suffer through that to get Portal Jockey. 

That's a lot. But that may explain why farming isn't as dull as repeating other content. 

Well, that's an explanation and thanks for it. However, and bear with me and correct me if I'm misinterpreting this, you're not actually experiencing the farming as it happens, so it's not boring.  You're more like the CEO of a company reaping dividends?

 

I'm not sure that's a good analogy but I'm tired!

[Puma]

On 7/21/2022 at 6:06 PM, Bionic_Flea said:

I notice that no one like to answer my questions.  Ask me anything, I'll give you an honest answer.

 

Reward per critter is a meaningless measurement, IMO.  An Uber-duber fire farmer is earning more per minute than any other AT doing any other content; many times more even though they get half as much per critter. 

 

I ask again, how many times more per minute should a fire farm be worth?

Flea,

 

I take the same farmer to PI and run Harvey Maylor Demon map on repeat at +4x8.  Am I REALLY getting THAT much less or putting in THAT much more effort than my own fire farm map?

  

 

And most importantly, does it REALLY matter to anyone else? 

 

[Bionic_Flea]

1 hour ago, roleki said:

But now, I am addressing your enduring question... should fire farming pay better than anything else in the game?  My answer is: it really doesn't matter.  What really matters is that characters leveling through content earn enough in doing so to acquire a level's worth of IOs at the auction house, and do so from level 0 to 50.

 

I did read it.  Every word.  And I appreciate that you took the time to answer directly.  I'm not sure if all that stuff before this quote was directed at me.  I think the market is just fine and that supply and demand works surprisingly well with the dev set upper limits by seeding salvage and giving other stuff a merit price.  That sets a ceiling on everything so that we don't have 2 billion dollar Panaceas that then get sold for more off market for both sides to save the market's cut.  The ceiling prices, converters, and bundling salvage by tier and bundling all levels of IOs together makes for a fairly stable, reasonably priced market.

 

As Ukase said, I don't think there is a big scarcity of mid level stuff and even if there is, that's an opportunity for someone to supply those items.  I certainly supply some low end stuff and have read many others doing a variety of things to do so as well.

 

I am OK with farming having a better return per minute than anything else, but I don't want it to be multiple times better than the next best thing.  That's why one of my many questions above was "how fast should it take to get to 50?"  If the answer is: "two hours in a farm" I don't want it to be two months doing anything else.

[Bionic_Flea]

30 minutes ago, Puma said:

Flea,

 

I take the same farmer to PI and run Harvey Maylor Demon map on repeat at +4x8.  Am I REALLY getting THAT much less or putting in THAT much more effort than my own fire farm map?

  

 

And most importantly, does it REALLY matter to anyone else? 

 

My understanding is, yes the best AE fire farms are multiple times better than any of the old school farms.  But you don't have to take my word for it; go run a test - make note of how much XP/Inf you have and run each and compare.

 

It matters to the devs that AE fire farms are so much better than anything else, that players are increasingly only running AE fire farms.  Well, "only" is hyperbole.  An overwhelming majority of game hours is spent in AE farms.  Some of that is AFK, some of that is active.  How do you feel about AFK farming?  Especially AFK-bot farming where they can use multiple accounts running 24-7 without even having to reset.

 

I don't really care if people farm, although I can't say I support long term AFK farming, as opposed to going AFK a few minutes because I had to take a call or other personal thing.  I'm just being a gadfly . . . gadflea . . . gad-something to get people thinking.

Edited July 25, 2022 by Bionic_Flea

[Coyotedancer]

Do we actually have any dev-provided data mined proof that "An overwhelming majority of game hours is spent in AE farms",,,, or are we just making that assumption based on the constant begging in Atlas park on Excelsior?

 

 

 

Edited July 25, 2022 by Coyotedancer

[Bionic_Flea]

I assume they have all kinds of datamining.  I'd like to see it posted here.  But that's up to them what to share.

[Coyotedancer]

4 minutes ago, Bionic_Flea said:

I assume they have all kinds of datamining.  I'd like to see it posted here.  But that's up to them what to share.

 

So we're making an assumption that AE farming is consuming the entire City...