The Pretty Good AE Debate

[Fire Chief]

I saw this commercial and couldn't pass it up...cause imho were comparing tacos to burritos and yeah your gonna pick what ya like and nobody should tell you what you like. You like what you like and I will like what I like and I hope the devs pick the majority and not the most hot sauce on the taco/burrito. yummy 😄

[America's Angel]

Updated my post above. Turns out Beta and Live are the same AFK. (The revised live numbers are based on the attached AFK build running map #46816.)

 

When looking at rewards, I tend to judge them via optimal play. Obviously players are free to farm/play inefficiently, but that doesn't mean much from a rewards-balancing standpoint.

 

With that said, personally I've got no problem with AE being significantly better for rewards than the highest rewarding regular content (Tinpex). CoH is an old game. The appeal to me is playing with fully kitted-out characters, not earning those fully kitted out characters. But that's just me.

afk Rad Fire.mxd

[Astralock]

47 minutes ago, Top Gear said:

Thank you everyone for making efforts to collect data.  I'm seeing a lot of "might be", "probably", and "should be". If you aren't going to be transparent and include how many people were on the map, what the team size and level settings were and your start and end figures, it's not really useful. Saying "these should be the numbers" without accompanying data isn't useful either.

 

Are there some metrics around just how many people are actually getting these "best in class" numbers? How many unique players have actually fully built with IO set toons that can get those numbers? How many people have turned off earning XP to earn more influence?

 

Let's also stop this nonsense about AFK farming. That was never part of the discussion until it became clear that the numbers for AE farming were only marginally better and only if you played #125 over and over. What metrics are there about how many people are playing #125 in AE versus the Carnie or FreakShow map? All of this is supposition and posturing to try justify a nerf to the rewards in AE without any clear indication that the emp merit conversion is even being widely used. 

 

Again if the real target of this change is AE because the rewards are so much better than anywhere else, why isn't EVERYONE doing it? Why are people focused more on marketeering or running the same TF over and over again? Why is there in fact such a great balance of people doing their own thing throughout the game? I can't help but to question the very premise upon which the change is being based because there are no metrics I've ever seen to substantiate it.

 

There were people who refused to use the base macro despite its use being prevalent through the Homecoming community back in 2019 and 2020, because they realized that it was an exploit.  Same thing here.

 

Also, comparing marketers to farmers is like comparing apples to oranges.  Marketers use and manipulate INF and inventory stock.  Farmers create INF and inventory stock.  That's a huge difference between the two.

 

Rewards from AE farming is much better than rewards from other content, not "marginally better." as America's Angel has shown.  You're also not taking into account those multiboxing AE farms.  Multiboxing regular content can be done, but it's quite a bit more difficult and can't be as easily automated as multiboxing AE farms.  Unfortunately, multiboxing AE farms can be easily automated.  Also, FWIW, turning XP off doesn't earn more influence anymore... that changed two years ago.

[Ukase]

15 minutes ago, Top Gear said:

Thank you everyone for making efforts to collect data.  I'm seeing a lot of "might be", "probably", and "should be". If you aren't going to be transparent and include how many people were on the map, what the team size and level settings were and your start and end figures, it's not really useful. Saying "these should be the numbers" without accompanying data isn't useful either.

 

Are there some metrics around just how many people are actually getting these "best in class" numbers? How many unique players have actually fully built with IO set toons that can get those numbers? How many people have turned off earning XP to earn more influence?

 

Let's also stop this nonsense about AFK farming. That was never part of the discussion until it became clear that the numbers for AE farming were only marginally better and only if you played #125 over and over. What metrics are there about how many people are playing #125 in AE versus the Carnie or FreakShow map? All of this is supposition and posturing to try justify a nerf to the rewards in AE without any clear indication that the emp merit conversion is even being widely used. 

 

Again if the real target of this change is AE because the rewards are so much better than anywhere else, why isn't EVERYONE doing it? Why are people focused more on marketeering or running the same TF over and over again? Why is there in fact such a great balance of people doing their own thing throughout the game? I can't help but to question the very premise upon which the change is being based because there are no metrics I've ever seen to substantiate it.

I thank you for your thoughts. 
I want you to know, I am pro-afk-farming. I am pro-farming. 
I'm also pro-play the game how you want, whatever that looks like, as long as it doesn't corral me to play the game in a fashion I would rather not.

I farm. I market. I play content. I do it all, but some I do better than others. I market better than I farm. I play content better than I farm. But, I still farm, more to avoid spending influence than to acquire it. 

The devs, as I understand these mysterious people, have no real beef with active farmers. Even though their risk is minimal, their efforts are not scalable. They're active. So, they do whatever it is they do with their drops, which can vary from player to player. 

Given what I will call somewhat negative changes to AE on Brainstorm, it is clear that they would like to reduce, if not do away with afk farming. Afk farming is scalable. Because we can have 3 accounts per shard, while I maintain more than 4 accounts is too tedious for me, there may be others that don't play on a primary account and just farm. For them, they may be able to handle 6 accounts, or maybe more. That's a lot of tedium for me, but the inf would certainly pour in at quite a high rate. And it's easy, once you get the build figured out. It doesn't always go perfect for me, but it's certainly effective. But then, I've always maintained that a build specifically for AE, on top of a build for general content would be an opportunity cost. How many maps and conversions would I have to make to get the return on the investment for a specific afk farm build? And, ultimately, given that my afk-farmers already have a build, and can do the job, and they're afk, who gives a crap if it takes them 2 minutes longer than a farm-optimized build? Not me. 

I maintain that even if players did run a dozen accounts or so, afk, the returns they'd get are a drop in the bucket compared to the total inf that gets poured into the economy every day. Most players that are filthy rich in influence simply accumulate that influence. They aren't mucking with the AH and influencing the costs of IOs, and even if they did, the marketers would keep them in check quickly.  The average marketer makes more than the best farmer, hands down - with absolutely zero risk of defeat, and they make it faster. Much, much faster if they price well. And yet, the folks against AE whine about the advantages of farming over non-AE content. 

It's an apples to oranges comparison we're doing, on many levels. As has been pointed out, different builds, different players, the rng, all give varying results, both in farms and outside of them. 
I can concede due to the density of mobs that there are more kills per unit of time on farm than outside of AE. But - have we forgotten that teams of 8 get more xp than a solo player? Have we forgotten that XP (and thus influence) is higher outside of AE than in AE? 

The HC devs have already throttled down the farmer's earnings. And yet, still some of you cry for "less, less, less". A very few of you will not be happy until every farmer has left. 

To those people, I present to you Rebirth. There are no vet levels. The slog of a grind on the incarnate path is very real for the solo player. Even doing Dark Astoria arcs will not help you much. You basically must do iTrials there. And it's quite cozy. Once you play there, you are essentially going to be teaming with the same people, day in, day out. It's like one big (but small) SG. They are all extremely competent, and they love to mock us as impatient, lazy children. They like to grind for it. And I've tried AFK farming there, and have not done so well. 
There is no spines/fire combo. There is rad/fire, so I've got one in the works, grinding it up old school style. But, converters are hard to come by as they're not tradeable. You can get them randomly - maybe 20 on your journey from 1-50 will drop. Or you can buy them at 5 reward merits for 1, and pay 25K for the exchange. 

Yes, the anti-farmer should go to Rebirth. You will like the grind, the different ATs and powersets. The only thing you won't like is at peak times, you might get 100 players. I doubt it, but you might. And because of that, most of you won't go where other like-minded players are. You'll stay here and try to drag the rest of us, kicking and screaming out of the farm and into your bloody mainstream content, with your "You'll play it my way and like it" attitude. 

Good luck with that. 

[ShardWarrior]

6 minutes ago, Astralock said:

 

There were people who refused to use the base macro despite its use being prevalent through the Homecoming community back in 2019 and 2020, because they realized that it was an exploit.  Same thing here.

 

Also, comparing marketers to farmers is like comparing apples to oranges.  Marketers use and manipulate INF and inventory stock.  Farmers create INF and inventory stock.  That's a huge difference between the two.

 

Rewards from AE farming is much better than rewards from other content, not "marginally better." as America's Angel has shown.  You're also not taking into account those multiboxing AE farms.  Multiboxing regular content can be done, but it's quite a bit more difficult and can't be as easily automated as multiboxing AE farms.  Unfortunately, multiboxing AE farms can be easily automated.  Also, FWIW, turning XP off doesn't earn more influence anymore... that changed two years ago.

 

[ShardWarrior]

17 minutes ago, America's Angel said:

When looking at rewards, I tend to judge them via optimal play. Obviously players are free to farm/play inefficiently, but that doesn't mean much from a rewards-balancing standpoint.

 

So we can start nerfing all the rewards in TF/SF/iTrial content to balance them out?  Speed runners are getting rewards for optimal play in far less time than the non-optimal players.  Only seems fair to balance these out.

[Astralock]

2 minutes ago, Ukase said:

To those people, I present to you Rebirth. There are no vet levels. The slog of a grind on the incarnate path is very real for the solo player. Even doing Dark Astoria arcs will not help you much. You basically must do iTrials there. And it's quite cozy. Once you play there, you are essentially going to be teaming with the same people, day in, day out. It's like one big (but small) SG. They are all extremely competent, and they love to mock us as impatient, lazy children. They like to grind for it. And I've tried AFK farming there, and have not done so well. 
There is no spines/fire combo. There is rad/fire, so I've got one in the works, grinding it up old school style. But, converters are hard to come by as they're not tradeable. You can get them randomly - maybe 20 on your journey from 1-50 will drop. Or you can buy them at 5 reward merits for 1, and pay 25K for the exchange. 

Yes, the anti-farmer should go to Rebirth. You will like the grind, the different ATs and powersets. The only thing you won't like is at peak times, you might get 100 players. I doubt it, but you might. And because of that, most of you won't go where other like-minded players are. You'll stay here and try to drag the rest of us, kicking and screaming out of the farm and into your bloody mainstream content, with your "You'll play it my way and like it" attitude. 

Good luck with that. 

 

Unfortunately, Rebirth is still 32-bit and does not have all of the background, technical changes Faultline, Number Six, Telephone, et al. made to City of Heroes over the years to make it more compatible with modern computers and modern operating systems.  I was told that Rebirth does not have anyone on their staff that understands the C language.  Also, I still have a couple of friends left on Homecoming that insist I play here.  So here we are.

[America's Angel]

5 minutes ago, ShardWarrior said:

 

So we can start nerfing all the rewards in TF/SF/iTrial content to balance them out?  Speed runners are getting rewards for optimal play in far less time than the non-optimal players.  Only seems fair to balance these out.

Had you quoted the line in my post that followed this one - you'd have your answer! 

[battlewraith]

1 hour ago, Astralock said:

Also, comparing marketers to farmers is like comparing apples to oranges.  Marketers use and manipulate INF and inventory stock.  Farmers create INF and inventory stock.  That's a huge difference between the two.

 

For the purposes of this discussion, it's like the difference between Superman and Clark Kent. Superman doesn't have a job OR wear glasses!

[Coyotedancer]

7 hours ago, America's Angel said:

Saw a bunch of inaccurate numbers posted. Here's the current reward numbers per account as far as I'm aware:

 

Active Farming = 2.5 million inf/minute
AFK Farming (Live) = 0.56 million inf/minute
AFK Farming (Beta) = 0.84 million inf/minute

AFK Farming (All) = 0.84 million inf/minute
Tinpex = 1.0 million inf/minute

 

Not sure about marketers. Think they're anything from 5-15 million inf/minute. But it's been a while since I messed with any of that.

 

The above assumes one account. Doesn't factor in multiboxing.

 

Sorry, Angel... But neither of my farmers get anywhere near 2.5m/IInf per minute. If yours do... that's impressive. But it's not in any way universal, as all of us who have been posting numbers here can tell you. It's beyond arrogant to assume that you have the only "accurate" numbers. 

[Ukase]

4 minutes ago, Astralock said:

There were people who refused to use the base macro despite its use being prevalent through the Homecoming community back in 2019 and 2020, because they realized that it was an exploit.  Same thing here.

Sorry, bud, but you're not just wrong, you're completely wrong! Let me explain: 
Ever notice those nifty tips while you load into a zone? THAT is where the SG base macro came from! Not the syntax, but the tool tip explained you could drop into an sg base from anywhere once you set up the pass code. That tip is still active, and if they weren't so random, I'd be logging in and out of missions to try and capture it to prove it to you. 

How do you think that became available? A pigg farmer? No, a Dev shared the information on a twitch or youtube stream, and other players shared it. It was never an exploit. It worked by design. They took it away because some players used it improperly, to escape defeat in Master of TF runs, and perhaps defeats in PvP. 

It was never an exploit until someone exploited the way it could be used. Me using it inside of the mission, when the mission completed was never an exploit. It was a handy time saver! Instead of loading into the zone map where the mission was in, and then zoning into my base to go to the next mission, I could skip loading into the zone, saving me some 20-30 seconds. Adds up when you're trying to speed! 

 

8 minutes ago, Astralock said:

Marketers use and manipulate INF and inventory stock.  Farmers create INF and inventory stock.  That's a huge difference between the two.

 

Rewards from AE farming is much better than rewards from other content, not "marginally better." as America's Angel has shown.  You're also not taking into account those multiboxing AE farms.  Multiboxing regular content can be done, but it's quite a bit more difficult and can't be as easily automated as multiboxing AE farms.  Unfortunately, multiboxing AE farms can be easily automated.  Also, FWIW, turning XP off doesn't earn more influence anymore... that changed two years ago.

Marketers do use influence - to buy stuff, generally improve it and relist. There are some crappy marketers who think items should be higher priced and buy a crap ton of one thing, and relist it at a higher price. These are not my favorite people. They make it harder on the new player and I tend to look down on them as unsavory players. 

You cannot say "as America's Angel has shown", because AA has only shown AA's experience on Brainstorm, not on live. Two entirely different scenarios. AA's numbers are no more valid (or invalid) than any other set of numbers shown, primarily because they assume everyone will use the 2 builds they posted. That is not the case. It is just one case. 

I will grant you that rewards from AE farming is likely better for some players, but there are players like Bloodom, Stitch, Bright Phoenix, and others who make a ton of reward merits per unit of time - far more than any farmer will, even with the emp merit to reward merit conversion. And they make a damn good amount of influence, too. 

We dare not assume that because a few farmers do nothing but farm and do it well that their results are typical, and then compare them to an average player. There are many above average players that will out-perform the average player in accumulating influence and reward merits. And the aforementioned players (and a host of others) likely out-perform many afk and active farmers. 

So many of you look at your own influence earnings and assume your results are typical. I promise you, they are not. You're probably average. Whereas, you compare yourself to above average farmers and find yourself lacking. I look at my numbers compared to AA's and I find my farmers lacking, too! 

So please, don't spew out these statements which assume facts not in evidence. 
In summary, just to state the facts: 
All of us are different. Some will earn influence faster than others. 
Some of us will earn more reward merits than others. 
Some of us like to earn it one way. 
Some of us like to earn it in other ways. 

There is no right way. 
There is no wrong way. (unless you're stupid enough to pay real world money for influence. lol, you must be stupid to do that!)

I will make more from marketing than from farming. Yet, I'm allowed to continue marketing, raking in the influence hand over fist with no risk at all. But that damn farmer..he's got to repent and change his ways. 

You've lost your mind. Your internal bias is impacting your thinking. Re-think things. 


 

[Number Six]

9 minutes ago, Ukase said:

Sorry, bud, but you're not just wrong, you're completely wrong! Let me explain: 
Ever notice those nifty tips while you load into a zone? THAT is where the SG base macro came from! Not the syntax, but the tool tip explained you could drop into an sg base from anywhere once you set up the pass code. That tip is still active, and if they weren't so random, I'd be logging in and out of missions to try and capture it to prove it to you.

 

That caught my attention because the internal command that people were using NEVER should have been in a loading tip since it only existed to make the menu work, so I wanted to make sure it got removed if that was the case. The only reference to passcodes I can find in the loading tips is this one:

 

Base Editing Tip: You can use /sg_passcode to make your base accessible to others.

 

Which is just talking about the command to set a passcode. The intent for that system was always that the passcodes be used from the menu at the base portal.

[America's Angel]

1 minute ago, Ukase said:

You cannot say "as America's Angel has shown", because AA has only shown AA's experience on Brainstorm, not on live. Two entirely different scenarios. AA's numbers are no more valid (or invalid) than any other set of numbers shown, primarily because they assume everyone will use the 2 builds they posted. That is not the case. It is just one case. 

I posted live numbers as well. 

[Ukase]

6 hours ago, America's Angel said:

@UkaseI'm assuming optimal setup. A lot of the numbers in this thread are below that threshold.

And that is where you fall short of the mark. 
You cannot assume this. Why? Because only a minor percentage will reach optimal set up. I, for one, would NEVER (unless it was Nemu or another player I trust) trust a build from the forums as being more optimal than my own build. (although if your numbers are accurate, clearly it's better at active farming than my afk farmer is at active farming) 
Perhaps this is why pvp is set up so abysmally. Some of you design what you think is balance around optimal play, without realizing that 90% of the players do not pursue optimal play. 
Some wouldn't know it until they saw it. 
Some wouldn't know it if they saw it. 
Some can't afford it. 
Some are too busy looking for fun and can't be bothered with it. 

The list goes on. Good decisions are not based on what is best for some players, today. They are based on not just what's best for me, but what is best for everyone. And not just today, but tomorrow, next week, next month, next year, 5 years from now. 

We dare not assume optimal play. And if we do assume optimal play for farmers, we must also assume optimal play for the non-farmer. Let us do a deep dive into players like Stitch, Bloodom, Veracorp, Elmyder...let us consider how many reward merits those players earn in a given unit of time, and their influence, and then compare that to the farmer, and assume each reward merit is worth 1 million dollars, because when exchange them into converters, that's pretty much what you're going to get when you use the converters instead of selling them. But good luck with that. I think they are too smart to reveal such things. Pretty sure a couple of those guys don't even bother counting their loot, it would take too long. 

Edited August 11, 2022 by Ukase

[ShardWarrior]

27 minutes ago, America's Angel said:

Had you quoted the line in my post that followed this one - you'd have your answer! 

 

Oh I already know your answer. 🙂  Apologies, my post was more a general question/statement and not directed at you personally.  Sorry if that was confusing.  Seems to me that taking extreme edge cases into consideration for balancing rewards is only ever going in one direction. 

[Ukase]

7 minutes ago, Number Six said:

 

That caught my attention because the internal command that people were using NEVER should have been in a loading tip since it only existed to make the menu work, so I wanted to make sure it got removed if that was the case. The only reference to passcodes I can find in the loading tips is this one:

 

Base Editing Tip: You can use /sg_passcode to make your base accessible to others.

 

Which is just talking about the command to set a passcode. The intent for that system was always that the passcodes be used from the menu at the base portal.

Appreciate the clarification. Still, I maintain using it - unless in a pvp zone or to escape defeat in a master run isn't/wasn't exploitative. It was a nifty tool. Thankfully, when you guys yanked it, you didn't leave us empty handed. 
 

[ShardWarrior]

32 minutes ago, Astralock said:

Unfortunately, Rebirth is still 32-bit and does not have all of the background, technical changes Faultline, Number Six, Telephone, et al. made to City of Heroes over the years to make it more compatible with modern computers and modern operating systems. 

 

Rebirth and New Dawn both work just fine without the background updates made by the team here.  Both have some very cool changes and additions in their own right.  Rebirth has a vastly superior costume editor for one thing.  New Dawn opening up signature NPC power sets and even Freeform ATs is a lot of fun.  Truly a shame that the various people developing are so fractured. 

[America's Angel]

29 minutes ago, Ukase said:

Let us do a deep dive into players like Stitch, Bloodom, Veracorp, Elmyder...let us consider how many reward merits those players earn in a given unit of time, and their influence, and then compare that to the farmer, and assume each reward merit is worth 1 million dollars, because when exchange them into converters, that's pretty much what you're going to get when you use the converters instead of selling them. But good luck with that. I think they are too smart to reveal such things. Pretty sure a couple of those guys don't even bother counting their loot, it would take too long. 

 

I already did this when I said:
 

8 hours ago, America's Angel said:

Tinpex = 1.0 million inf/minute

 

It's based on Speed runners earning 40 merits in a 10 minute TF.

 

It's actually going to be slightly lower than that due to the time it takes to use 120 converters in-game. (I.e. you'd need to add the time it takes a top end marketeer to use up 120 converters, and add that to the TF completion time.)

Edited August 11, 2022 by America's Angel

[arcane]

Literally anything AA claims should be taken with a grain of salt because he clearly farms out of some data center with an unspoken number of accounts. Not to mention we’ve already been told directly AA breaks the ToS to do this.

[Ukase]

3 minutes ago, America's Angel said:

It's based on Speed runners earning 40 merits in a 10 minute TF.

 

It's actually going to be slightly lower than that due to the time it takes to user 120 converters in-game. (I.e. you'd need to add the time it takesa top end marketeer to use up 120 converters, and add that to the TF completion time.)

Somehow I missed that, thanks for pointing it out. 
So essentially 20 minutes for both Apex and TinMage, with 80 reward merits, 240 converters, when used properly...that's on average about 20 IOs converted for sale. (a lot of variation, due to rng - RNG is a fickle mistress sometimes. Anecdotally, I burn about 10 converters per IO to get something worth selling for 3M. Please bear in mind, that I've converted 10's of 1000's of IOs. I craft and convert if necessary, every uncommon or rare. I submit that 10 converters per IO IS an average that be trusted if you're converting 1000's of IOs over time, not just a couple dozen. Over time, those are my anecdotal results. I also submit the point that not every player will recognize the best time to convert in category or out of category.) Yomo and others say it's 15. But many of them also convert in the level 30 and under category, which skews the number higher due to more undesirable sets being an option to convert into. Since you use a level 50 tf, presumably level 50 recipes would be used for the most part. 

That's roughly 60M, so 6M per minute, give or take a smidge. Seems about the same to me.

I probably am missing something, but can't see it right now. Gotta jet!


 

[Seed22]

1 hour ago, America's Angel said:

Updated my post above. Turns out Beta and Live are the same AFK. (The revised live numbers are based on the attached AFK build running map #46816.)

 

When looking at rewards, I tend to judge them via optimal play. Obviously players are free to farm/play inefficiently, but that doesn't mean much from a rewards-balancing standpoint.

 

With that said, personally I've got no problem with AE being significantly better for rewards than the highest rewarding regular content (Tinpex). CoH is an old game. The appeal to me is playing with fully kitted-out characters, not earning those fully kitted out characters. But that's just me.

afk Rad Fire.mxd 5.63 kB · 0 downloads

This! 
 

I dont have all day to earn a new 50 every single time. To me, why waste a week, when I can get one in 3-5 hours on a weekend AND IO it in a few hours?

 

And thats with a cheap build im too lazy to update. Also PUG’ing sucks while leveling to me, hell at times it’s garbage at 50. 

[Ukase]

16 minutes ago, arcane said:

Literally anything AA claims should be taken with a grain of salt because he clearly farms out of some data center with an unspoken number of accounts. Not to mention we’ve already been told directly AA breaks the ToS to do this.

I have never been told anything of the sort. But, I take everything with a grain of salt. Even what you just shared.
It is the internet, after all. Believe only half of what you see, none of what you read. 

Fortunately, all these grains of salt have been shown to not cause high blood pressure if there's a lot of water consumed with it at the same time. It's about the bolus and timing. 

[America's Angel]

3 minutes ago, arcane said:

Literally anything AA claims should be taken with a grain of salt because he clearly farms out of some data center with an unspoken number of accounts. Not to mention we’ve already been told directly AA breaks the ToS to do this.

  

I don't break the ToS. (And I go out of my way to not explain how other people do. As I don't want to encourage that sort of thing.)

 

However, I am aware of what can be earnt in game by those who do break the ToS, because my AFK farmer makes 4.4 million influence per 5 min AFK farm map. And it isn't especially difficult to extrapolate from there.

 

None of this is has anything to do with the numbers I've posted in this thread, though. 

[Seed22]

21 minutes ago, arcane said:

Literally anything AA claims should be taken with a grain of salt because he clearly farms out of some data center with an unspoken number of accounts. Not to mention we’ve already been told directly AA breaks the ToS to do this.

I do the same whenever anyone here on the forums post. Y’all are, you know what? See my signature.

[Neiska]

I intend to post my numbers for my 3 box farm when I get home, but a few quick thoughts -

 

Not everyone farms the same way - some have spines/fire brutes built for afk farming, other people take their level 50s and go farm on like, +2 or +3/8 or whatever they can handle. Not everyone farms with Elite Bosses on. Some do it with full teams, others do it strictly solo. And others still sit and do the math to figure out what is the best active farming, and then do that.

 

Point being, is even if you average all of the different styles/considerations, there will still be a very wide margin as far as what the kiss elbow "average" is. And if you base changes around that, you do more harm to the "have not's" than the "haves." Because the haves can take the losses and press on, while the "have not's" can't, and it's then even more difficult for them to "catch up." So the gap between the two, the "haves" and "have not's" got further apart, not closer.

 

If the "AE balance" is tuned around the assumption of AFK farming, or the "maximum possible inf gained/hour" it will only unbalance things further.

 

1 hour ago, Astralock said:

Rewards from AE farming is much better than rewards from other content, not "marginally better." as America's Angel has shown.  You're also not taking into account those multiboxing AE farms.  Multiboxing regular content can be done, but it's quite a bit more difficult and can't be as easily automated as multiboxing AE farms.  Unfortunately, multiboxing AE farms can be easily automated.  Also, FWIW, turning XP off doesn't earn more influence anymore... that changed two years ago.

 

And you are not taking into speed running into account, or managing multiple accounts for "world content", or account/character longevity. 

 

And honestly, my response is "who care's?" So what if AE gives better inf/exp. Where is it written that trials/story content is even supposed to be the "lead dog" in all rewards? I mean, if you want to split hairs here and want all activities to be equal, with respect to accolades, badges, titles, drops, bonus guaranteed merits/incarnate materials, then it shouldn't matter if someone is running random patrol missions, or just flying around killing random npcs on the street, or running incarnate content. Right? 

 

For argument sake. Lets say the AE vanished overnight. Gone. POOF! Pixies stole it in the night. Do you think the economy would be suddenly balanced?

 

No. No it would not. Here is what I expect would happen, in an extreme example. (Not saying this would happen with certainty, only what can happen.) -

 

Firstly, unless it was fixed, the community would grow smaller. It would be intellectually dishonest to presume that the ease of access of Inf/resources in order to keep making alts is not keeping players here, and more people would leave than new players going "Oh wow, they got rid of AE, I'm going to Homecoming now! That's just what I was waiting for!"

 

Secondly, the big brains who still wanted to play would figure out the next most expediently profitable activity. It might be a mission. Or story arc. Whatever. That will become the new AE that will be ran into oblivion. Followed shortly after by new posts of "Nerf X mission" on the forums.

 

Thirdly, after a few months the supply on the auction house would noticeably drop, making all those critical Enhancements that nearly every build uses - Gladiator, Shield Wall, LotG +recharge, and so on would become increasingly more expensive and rarer. This is also assuming that the big brains who play the market don't immediately realize this and suddenly buy them all up to sit on them and sell them for a massive profit later. Fast forward a bit of time, and a build could go from 400 or so mil to fully kit out, to over 1 billion, and will only get worse as time goes on. And normal people who don't farm or play the market, would be more likely to hold onto the ones they have, leading to an even further drop in supply.

 

Fourth, with all this in mind - fewer people playing, a much slower and more expensive market, the richer people only getting richer, and the gap between them and the poorer only widening, it could lead to staleness or a sluggish trade economy. Gamers have seen this in several other MMO's, so I don't expect any different here.

 

In summary - the haves would have more, the have nots would have less, with fewer people playing, and vastly more expensive requirements to fully equip a character. Again, not saying for CERTAIN this would happen, only what "can" happen.

 

But one thing I do know for a fact is, is that it wouldn't cause "more" people to do "endgame" content, if that is what the anti-AE people are expecting. It wouldn't become, say, several groups of people running things everyday. Unless of course, "that" became the new "farm." And then that one activity would be run to oblivion. And we would see posts of "nerf the drops in this thing" all over again.