The Pretty Good AE Debate

[Ironblade]

1 hour ago, Bionic_Flea said:

You know, I had not noticed that before.  I just looked at the numbers and accepted them without doing my own addition.

 

Excelsior shows 411 players/accounts, 269 heroes and 51 villains, which adds up 320.   What happened to the other 91?  Are they Praetorians?  Rogues and Vigilantes?  Or some other unknown possibility?

I counter your question with a question of my own.  Maybe someone knows the answer to this, but I don't.

When it says 'Heroes' and 'Villains', is it basing that on the character alignment or whether they are in a blue or red zone?

If it's based on the ZONE, then anyone in Ouroboros, Pocket D, etc would not be counted.

 

So I'm guessing it's based on character alignment, in which case it is not useful as a measure of how often red-side content is being played despite how often it is held up as an example of that.

 

 

36 minutes ago, Excraft said:

So when can we expect the nerfs to all TF content to prevent speed runs?  Those are extreme offenders too.  People are getting full rewards while skipping through the content for little to no risk and not spending enough time on it.

Yes, entirely a valid point.  It would seem to make sense to calculate rewards based on time spent.

HOWEVER - I speculate that would lead to a mass exodus of players.  People in general like to feel they are getting a bargain, gaming the system, getting ahead of 'the Joneses', etc.  If that were removed, I think a lot of people would leave.

 

[battlewraith]

1 hour ago, Troo said:

Other changes however are targeting extreme offenders and these end up affecting a lot more folks.

Why aren't more casual AE farmers angry about the actions of some bad actors? They are the ones to blame for your frustration. Not the person debating the value of 'playing' content.

 

Because I see no reason to believe those extreme offenders are affecting me in any way. There are many players who are obscenely wealthy from playing the market, I likewise don't care about their success because it's none of my business how they like to spend their time. I'm not going to say "Oh their return on this activity is way too high compared to the risk they face, therefore their rewards should be capped."

 

But that is the gist of the nerf arguments that are here in this thread:

I don't like that this content is more rewarding than other content (supposedly).

I don't like that this content is less risky than other content (supposedly).

I don't think that this content is "fun" despite other people telling me it is.

 

And ultimately it's not about extreme offenders. Look at some of the suggestions in this thread. Some people don't want AE giving xp at all. Some people want AE AND other things like DFB and ITF nerfed. Some people want outliers addressed. People are talking now talking about speed runs.

 

The extreme offenders, dedicated farmers, whatever, will simply adapt. They will just find the next outlier. It's the more casual players who will be subjected to nerfs, that weren't intended with them in mind and don't ultimately solve the "problem."

[Bionic_Flea]

44 minutes ago, Excraft said:

So when can we expect the nerfs to all TF content to prevent speed runs?  Those are extreme offenders too.  People are getting full rewards while skipping through the content for little to no risk and not spending enough time on it.

 

3 minutes ago, Ironblade said:

Yes, entirely a valid point.  It would seem to make sense to calculate rewards based on time spent.

 

I disagree.  A speed run of say ITF compared to a kill all nets the same reward merits at the end, but all of those skipped mobs is XP and inf left on the table.  You can maximize merits/minute or XP/Inf per minute.  A team of good players with the right sets might be able to do both, but usually you give up one to gain the other.

[Bionic_Flea]

1 minute ago, battlewraith said:

But that is the gist of the nerf arguments that are here in this thread:

I don't like that this content is more rewarding than other content (supposedly).

I don't like that this content is less risky than other content (supposedly).

I don't think that this content is "fun" despite other people telling me it is.

 

I don't think any of those covers what I've been asking, which is: how much better should AE fire farming be then the next best thing?  It's not that I don't like it, it's just that I don't think it should be soooo much faster than anything else.  It can still be the number one fastest method as far as I'm concerned.

 

And please don't pretend that fire farming isn't better XP/time than anything else.  That's why many people do it and they have said so in this thread.  They want to get to 50 (or full incarnate) quickly. 

 

And if you disagree that playing a farm that plays to your strength isn't less risky, I suggest you have a fire farmer run a smash/lethal farm or an S/L farmer in a fire farm.  Please record it and play it here as proof.  😜

[Ironblade]

56 minutes ago, Excraft said:

So when can we expect the nerfs to all TF content to prevent speed runs?  Those are extreme offenders too.  People are getting full rewards while skipping through the content for little to no risk and not spending enough time on it.

 

15 minutes ago, Ironblade said:

Yes, entirely a valid point.  It would seem to make sense to calculate rewards based on time spent.

HOWEVER - I speculate that would lead to a mass exodus of players.  People in general like to feel they are getting a bargain, gaming the system, getting ahead of 'the Joneses', etc.  If that were removed, I think a lot of people would leave.

 

 

8 minutes ago, Bionic_Flea said:

I disagree.  A speed run of say ITF compared to a kill all nets the same reward merits at the end, but all of those skipped mobs is XP and inf left on the table.  You can maximize merits/minute or XP/Inf per minute.  A team of good players with the right sets might be able to do both, but usually you give up one to gain the other.

I disagree too.

I think the entirety of my reply makes that clear.  While some measures might seem reasonable, they are inconsistent with having a fun game that people enjoy.

[Troo]

12 minutes ago, battlewraith said:

Because I see no reason to believe those extreme offenders are affecting me in any way.

 

They almost cost AE Vet Levels and now maybe Emp to RMs.

Those are affects to many, you included. Maybe you've never been in AE or never converted an Empyrean to Reward Merit.

 

You say it yourself:

12 minutes ago, battlewraith said:

The extreme offenders, dedicated farmers, whatever, will simply adapt. They will just find the next outlier. It's the more casual players who will be subjected to nerfs, that weren't intended with them in mind and don't ultimately solve the "problem."

Edited July 28, 2022 by Troo

[ShardWarrior]

33 minutes ago, Troo said:

Good point, maybe make a suggestion. (though I don't think they are as extreme as you're making it out compared to the issue at hand)

I think some tweaks, not nerfs, may be in the same release. Not eliminating speed runs, but increasing some of the risk, and at least making them a bit more dicey.

 

I think it is a fair point to bring up speed runs.  People are literally getting full TF rewards for runs taking a handful of minutes with almost zero risk.  That upsets the whole reward over time paradigm as well.  It also destroys any sense of story and lore associated with the TF itself for new players. 

 

37 minutes ago, Troo said:

Aren't there diminishing returns in repeating TFs?

 

There are diminishing returns for running the same TF over and over.  We frequently will do ITF/LRSF/MLTF speed runs and complete them all within a few minutes for full rewards.   There is documented proof of the various speed runs in threads on the individual server forums here.  The regular Hami runs are over within minutes as well. 

 

Outliers and edge cases exists for just about all content in the game.  If we are going to address AE, edge cases in the non-AE content should be addressed as well in my opinion.  Fair is fair.

[ShardWarrior]

11 minutes ago, Bionic_Flea said:

A speed run of say ITF compared to a kill all nets the same reward merits at the end, but all of those skipped mobs is XP and inf left on the table. 

 

Not everyone is interested in XP and inf and just do speed runs for the merit rewards and special enhancement drops.  In those instances, this is definitely imbalanced.

[Bionic_Flea]

2 minutes ago, ShardWarrior said:

Fair is fair.

 

I think we need targeted Nerfs.

 

Devs: Please nerf ShardWarrior!  Thank you.

[ShardWarrior]

35 minutes ago, Ironblade said:

Not everyone has the luxury of arranging their life to accommodate uninterrupted gaming time.

And, of course, by their very nature 'emergencies' are unpredictable and can not be scheduled.

I'm not saying this applies to most players, but it irrefutably applies to some.

 

I have to agree, if you are being pulled away from the game often enough by real life emergencies, then perhaps it is time to log out and deal with the important stuff.

[ShardWarrior]

1 minute ago, Bionic_Flea said:

I think we need targeted Nerfs.

 

Devs: Please nerf ShardWarrior!  Thank you.

 

If I say I am a Regen scrapper does that mean I get a nerf pass?

[Glacier Peak]

50 minutes ago, Ironblade said:

In fact, it does not. Even though it uses the word 'Players' in the heading, it is actually showing how many ACCOUNTS are active.  Within the TOS, one PLAYER can be running three ACCOUNTS.  I personally have three accounts.  When I have all of them logged in simultaneously, the forums will show me as being three players because the game can not distinguish.

Oh okay, so the Server Status page should say "Online Accounts" instead? 

 

And what about the Homecoming Discord 'Live Graphs" thread? Are these all wrong?

 

 

 

[Ironblade]

2 minutes ago, Glacier Peak said:

And what about the Homecoming Discord 'Live Graphs" thread? Are these all wrong?

Yes.  All of them measure the number of accounts logged in and not actual players.

 

So, while they are certainly useful and even valuable for analyzing trends, they don't actually measure what they claim to measure.

Edited July 28, 2022 by Ironblade

[Andreah]

The devs, behind the scenes, could be tracking unique concurrent login IP addresses to get an indicator of how many accounts are multiboxed. Not perfect, but since there's not point to using multiple IPs to multibox, I doubt a lot of people bother.

[Glacier Peak]

1 minute ago, Ironblade said:

Yes.  All of them measure the number of accounts logged in and not actual players.

 

Edit: Jokes aside, I'm okay with not being tracked to that level of detail, assuming it's even possible at all. I would imagine they'd need real time telemetry for each character to determine where they are located on the x, y, z grid and whether they've moved or performed a set action to define as currently played by a living person - maybe even some cool biometric security authentication feature they can store on remote servers in some country without an extradition treaty 😄 

Edited July 28, 2022 by Glacier Peak

[Ironblade]

1 minute ago, Andreah said:

The devs, behind the scenes, could be tracking unique concurrent login IP addresses to get an indicator of how many accounts are multiboxed. Not perfect, but since there's not point to using multiple IPs to multibox, I doubt a lot of people bother.

True, but then the numbers will STILL be wrong - just in the opposite direction.

If they are tracking IP addresses, then they are UNDERCOUNTING players since many households (including mine) have more than one player.

[battlewraith]

1 hour ago, Troo said:

They almost cost AE Vet Levels and now maybe Emp to RMs.

Those are affects to many, you included. Maybe you've never been in AE or never converted an Empyrean to Reward Merit.

 

LOL no, I don't blame these players for bad decisions on the part of the developers. You're missing the whole line of reasoning here. As it stands, these players do not have any effect on me. Now for whatever reason, whether it be complaining about imbalance by forum regulars or some other reason, if the devs follow through with these changes the people they are seeking to punish will simply move on to something else. Thus the "problem" will simply shift elsewhere--as it has during the entire existence of this game. Meanwhile, as I said and you quoted, casual players will suffer a significant nerf. For no good reason and no benefit to their game experience. Yeah no longer buying reward merits with emps would fucking blow. That has helped me set up new characters in the past and will make the entire thing more burdensome. But it will make the game much better because of....reasons.

[ivanhedgehog]

53 minutes ago, Bionic_Flea said:

 

I don't think any of those covers what I've been asking, which is: how much better should AE fire farming be then the next best thing?  It's not that I don't like it, it's just that I don't think it should be soooo much faster than anything else.  It can still be the number one fastest method as far as I'm concerned.

 

And please don't pretend that fire farming isn't better XP/time than anything else.  That's why many people do it and they have said so in this thread.  They want to get to 50 (or full incarnate) quickly. 

 

And if you disagree that playing a farm that plays to your strength isn't less risky, I suggest you have a fire farmer run a smash/lethal farm or an S/L farmer in a fire farm.  Please record it and play it here as proof.  😜

tanks/scrappers/brutes all have defensive powers, making all content easier for them. should their rewards be nerfed?

[Bionic_Flea]

14 minutes ago, ivanhedgehog said:

tanks/scrappers/brutes all have defensive powers, making all content easier for them. should their rewards be nerfed?

No.

[Excraft]

2 hours ago, Troo said:

It is the few AE Farmers abusing exploits or other tactics who are forcing changes.

Don't like the changes, at least blame the right players.

 

The only people losing their shit over this are the people who hate farming to begin with and would like nothing more than to piss in the cheerios of anyone who sets foot in AE.  From what I can see, casual farmers don't care what the few exploiters are doing.  So yeah, the correct players are being blamed. 

[Bionic_Flea]

I assure you that I don't hate farming and all my poop is perfectly and properly placed.

[battlewraith]

2 hours ago, Bionic_Flea said:

And if you disagree that playing a farm that plays to your strength isn't less risky, I suggest you have a fire farmer run a smash/lethal farm or an S/L farmer in a fire farm.  Please record it and play it here as proof.  😜

 

Using a fire farmer on a fire map is less risky in the same way that pounding a nail with a hammer is less risky than wacking it with a piece of wood or something. I'm not disagreeing with you about the results. I think the disagreement is about the notion of risk. Playing well in coh in general is about preparation. If you're going to do a certain task, the majority of the "risk" involves bringing the right characters, knowing the steps of the TF (or being able to follow instructions), etc. For the vast majority of this games content, if you can do that prep then you can reasonably expect to successfully complete that mission with little difficulty.

 

Bringing a fire farmer on a S/L map isn't risky, because the outcome is pretty straightforward whether or not you play well. If you want real risk in this game, court the unforeseen: play with drunks, sext with the tank, etc.

 

Also in general you've been striking this moderate pose: I don't want to get rid of farming, I just don't want it to be soooo good. Well how good do you want it to be? Is the answer to that question something that can be arrived at objectively somehow? I'm very skeptical of campaigns to slow down the pace at which people do things and I'm not seeing any positive justification being offered for how this will be an improvement.

[Nurvus]

The fact that AE content is so accessible and drop in/drop out-friendly is probably a large reason why it's so lucrative. It's so hard to chain TFs unless you're willing to lead them yourself. If you could queue for an ITF like a dungeon in any other MMO, it'd probably be a pretty viable farming option. CoH is in a weird spot where teams are all formed over chat which is healthy for the community, but it greatly limits how many teams are forming due to the dreaded star that nobody seems to want. Meanwhile, want to farm in AE? Just run to the building and get started.

 

IMO, a lot of the "issues" with AE are due to underlying jank with the game itself. Even how high defenses and resists can get are probably not *the best* for CoH, but it's a large part of what makes CoH fun. But it's probably also the only reason why AE farming is possible as well. The game is honestly a hot mess and we should probably accept that and focus on building viable content up rather than tearing things down because we don't like it. 

[Bionic_Flea]

Responding to @battlewraith: "Well how good do you want it to be?  Is the answer to that question something that can be arrived at objectively somehow?"

 

I don't know.  I don't think we can reasonably quantify or otherwise come up with a number without data that the devs have but we don't.  That's why I ask it as a relative question. 

 

I have no problem with it AE farming being the fastest method to get to 50 and the highest XP/Inf per minute.  I just don't want it to be leagues better than the next best thing, which I assume is something like the ITF, Yin, or Market Crash -- all of which have densely packed critters similar to some current farms and the old school farms as well as limited travel time.

 

Is having AE farming twice as good as the next best thing too much, not enough, or just right?

Edited July 28, 2022 by Bionic_Flea

[arcane]

37 minutes ago, Excraft said:

 

The only people losing their shit over this are the people who hate farming to begin with and would like nothing more than to piss in the cheerios of anyone who sets foot in AE.  From what I can see, casual farmers don't care what the few exploiters are doing.  So yeah, the correct players are being blamed. 

Well I farm every day so I guess that means I’m in the right per your assessment 🙂