AE Vet Levels -or- Empyrean to Reward Merits

[Troo]

By the way, I would have voted for the first option we saw which left opening up Incarnates abilities via AE but removed Empyreans. This seemed simple and direct.

 

 

Edited August 2, 2022 by Troo
removed edit

[Andreah]

Of course they're reading and are open to good ideas or things they haven't thought of. We should demand no less of them. 

 

However, we haven't been privy to or seen their internal discussions over this. We may (and probably are) hashing over issues, objections, ideas, and brainstorming they've already been through. There might be bits and pieces we add they didn't, but I would not expect their intentions and plans to change unless we were to bring entirely new things to light. And I think that's unlikely.

 

But threads like this also provide the service of allowing us, collectively, to go through things and come to our own understandings, or acceptance, if not concurrence.

[Neuronia]

Voted to axe Vet Rewards in AE.
This will be the easier of the two options to replicate outside of AE; the Emp Merits to Reward Merits is a trade-off of immediate loot v. no more branch progression. Getting to Tier 4 is still a fair amount of commitment if you do all the powers and it should be fine to get a few IOs for your buiild after that's done.
If they want to put a cooldown on it, that would be...ok, but I'd like a cap of maybe 50 emps per day conversion. Too greedy?

 

[ivanhedgehog]

9 hours ago, Bionic_Flea said:

I-trials may be faster, but your proposal greatly curtails solo incarnate progress.  So again, no thank you.

 

The "problem" that I think they are trying to solve is that more and more players are doing nothing but AE and that some players are doing AE AFK 24/7 on multiple accounts and reaping tremendous rewards in Inf, Emp Merits, and (since Emp merits are convertible) reward merits. 

 

If you can get everything you need in AE and faster than anywhere else, why do anything else?

its faster than anywhere else because you are defeating more. do the devs want us to play less? to stand around atlas and make odd comments rather than being productive? The defeats in ae grant less than outside, so it is not rewarding more per kill. Is that why they are buffing npc agro, nerfing player(not npc) defenses and not upping the damage cap. to make us less efficient and add down time to make us meet some metric? that doesnt sound like a fun game to me. And people telling me the changes dont do anything but are really needed tells me they are trying to sell me a bridge made out of gold somewhere out west.

Edited August 2, 2022 by ivanhedgehog
wrong word

[arthurh35353]

57 minutes ago, Neuronia said:

Voted to axe Vet Rewards in AE.
This will be the easier of the two options to replicate outside of AE; the Emp Merits to Reward Merits is a trade-off of immediate loot v. no more branch progression. Getting to Tier 4 is still a fair amount of commitment if you do all the powers and it should be fine to get a few IOs for your buiild after that's done.
If they want to put a cooldown on it, that would be...ok, but I'd like a cap of maybe 50 emps per day conversion. Too greedy?

 

Eh, the newer hardest modes for ITF and ASF are pushing the meta that you must have T4 maxxed out for specific type of wins to get through. (And I found out that 2 Sentinels failed our Relentless ASF as we did not contribute enough DPS to take out one of the Vanguard with their super-cheaty I kill you in the room we fight in AOE blast.

[Bionic_Flea]

3 minutes ago, ivanhedgehog said:

its faster than anywhere else because you are defeating more. do the devs want us to play less? to stand around atlas and make odd comments rather than being productive? The defeats in ae grant less than outside, so it is not rewarding less per kill. Is that why they are buffing npc agro, nerfing player(not npc) defenses and not upping the damage cap. to make us less efficient and add down time to make us meet some metric? that doesnt sound like a fun game to me. And people telling me the changes dont do anything but are really needed tells me they are trying to sell me a bridge made out of gold somewhere out west.

 

I'm not going to go round and round with you again on inf/kill vs inf/min.  We disagree.

 

But have you actually logged into Brainstorm and tried any of this?  If not, you should.

[ivanhedgehog]

7 hours ago, Astralock said:

 

• You actually have to play the game to get said mission.
• There’s more inherent risk involved as the mission could be accidentally completed, especially if you invite Joe Schmoe along.
• Greater exposure to the game world outside of Atlas Park and Pocket D for those invited along.
• There’s also more risk in that the mobs are not crafted by players.

there is also the risk that the players leave the game giving you nice empty zones and less and less raids/tfs etc.

[ivanhedgehog]

5 hours ago, arcane said:

Changing incentive structure is *NOT* forcing anyone to do anything. 

on what planet? incentive structure has everything to do with enticing players to do certain conduct. Its like a job. people do it to get payed. stop paying and they stop doing. The problem here is that different people find different content FUN. I dont find itrials fun. at all. I dont do them unless my sg is insistant. using rewards to disinsentivise content is just social engineering. just like the games that put the cool rewards behind pvp and try to claim that the people doing it somehow find pvp fun. they dont.

 

you arent being overtly forced, but if you dont do this the little kitty buys it. it is still force. using your power as a dev to ruin the farmers fun so that they will be good little drones and do itrials is still force.

[ivanhedgehog]

53 minutes ago, Bionic_Flea said:

 

I'm not going to go round and round with you again on inf/kill vs inf/min.  We disagree.

 

But have you actually logged into Brainstorm and tried any of this?  If not, you should.

its math. math is the same for all of us. in this universe

[TheZag]

I chose both options but a checkbox for both would have been more accurate then voting both boxes individually.

[The_Warpact]

If the devs intended to continue the incarnate tree I would say stop letting emps/threads be used as a currency (which is weird to me btw).

BUT, if there is no intent in the future to do so then let it stand.

I get it though, there are websites that are selling 2 billion inf + a "free purple" for $85 and a fully set up account starting at $250 and going up from there depending on how much inf, emps, merits, etc are included. Yes, it's bs but, if you restrict anything it's going to hit the player base worse. Because, they will just find a way to still farm and still sell stuff for real world currency. You'd have to restrict the market, farms (of any type), speed runs, etc, etc.

 

So I get it, and initially I thought why would anyone bother, the game is old, there are different servers now ie; New Dawn, Rebirth, etc so there can't be that much of a demand.

But, the sites exist and apparently the devs are trying to stop something from occurring and that's the only thing I can possibly think of.

 

So really how do you stop any of it without ostracizing groups of the playerbase.

 

 

[arcane]

1 hour ago, ivanhedgehog said:

on what planet? incentive structure has everything to do with enticing players to do certain conduct. Its like a job. people do it to get payed. stop paying and they stop doing. The problem here is that different people find different content FUN. I dont find itrials fun. at all. I dont do them unless my sg is insistant. using rewards to disinsentivise content is just social engineering. just like the games that put the cool rewards behind pvp and try to claim that the people doing it somehow find pvp fun. they dont.

 

you arent being overtly forced, but if you dont do this the little kitty buys it. it is still force. using your power as a dev to ruin the farmers fun so that they will be good little drones and do itrials is still force.

If having incentive structures is exercising force, then every game in existence forces you to play a certain way, rendering the entire idea of being forced to play a certain way rather meaningless.
 

If all you mean by being forced/pushed towards things is that incentive structures are adjusting around you, then I have no qualms with the devs mind controlling you or whatever you want to call it. Because adjusting incentive structures is a core job of any half-decent MMO dev.

[biostem]

1 hour ago, ivanhedgehog said:

you arent being overtly forced, but if you dont do this the little kitty buys it. it is still force.

Can you please clarify this;  You choose to play the game voluntarily, and can walk away at any time.  At no time can you be said to be "forced" to do anything, here...

[ivanhedgehog]

16 minutes ago, arcane said:

If having incentive structures is exercising force, then every game in existence forces you to play a certain way, rendering the entire idea of being forced to play a certain way rather meaningless.
 

If all you mean by being forced/pushed towards things is that incentive structures are adjusting around you, then I have no qualms with the devs mind controlling you or whatever you want to call it. Because adjusting incentive structures is a core job of any half-decent MMO dev.

I didnt say incentives were bad. punishing players for their playstyle is bad  eliminating the previous way to play and not giving options is bad. the new agro system could be a toggle. but its not. they could have expanded the aoe cap. but they didnt. they could have modified the npcs defenses and released it all at once. but they didnt a lot of players will become measurably weaker with this patch. surprise!

[ivanhedgehog]

10 minutes ago, biostem said:

Can you please clarify this;  You choose to play the game voluntarily, and can walk away at any time.  At no time can you be said to be "forced" to do anything, here...

you are smarter than that. no one makes you boot your computer. we are talking within the game. you know that.

[biostem]

Just now, ivanhedgehog said:

you are smarter than that. no one makes you boot your computer. we are talking within the game. you know that.

So then you're saying you're not "forced", just incentivized?  I mean, if I don't want to do something in-game, I don't.  It's really that simple.

[Bionic_Flea]

2 hours ago, ivanhedgehog said:

3 hours ago, Bionic_Flea said:

 

I'm not going to go round and round with you again on inf/kill vs inf/min.  We disagree.

 

But have you actually logged into Brainstorm and tried any of this?  If not, you should.

its math. math is the same for all of us. in this universe

Since you didn't answer the question, I will assume that you have not logged into Brainstorm and personally tried anything.

[ivanhedgehog]

34 minutes ago, Bionic_Flea said:

Since you didn't answer the question, I will assume that you have not logged into Brainstorm and personally tried anything.

math. you defeat 10 enemies worth 100 inf each. I kill 100 identical enemies worth 100inf each. you get 1000 inf , I get 10000 inf. why is this a problem? neither of us got out of bounds rewards. Neither of us are cheating. why do you insist that we should get the same reward?

[Bionic_Flea]

Still avoiding the question and reality.

 

Be well.

[LastHumanSoldier]

I say do both. Remove Post 50 Vet XP in AE and kill the empyrean to merit exchange.

That way everyone will get a little somethin somethin this patch.

 

[Andreah]

1 hour ago, LastHumanSoldier said:

I say do both. Remove Post 50 Vet XP in AE and kill the empyrean to merit exchange.

That way everyone will get a little somethin somethin this patch.

 

Works for me. 

[ivanhedgehog]

2 hours ago, Bionic_Flea said:

Still avoiding the question and reality.

 

Be well.

the question? that your content already rewards more than farming, that you want the devs to do a hack job on farming so that you will feel better for doing less defeats then a farmer.

[Andreah]

6 hours ago, ivanhedgehog said:

less defeats

The idea that rewards per defeat is somehow the most meaningful metric is ludicrous.  

 

Rewards per time spent, I suppose could see. I could see reward per unit interface engagement, or per unit mental effort, if those could be measured.  But farming, and especially AFK farming isn't about any of these. It's just about getting the most xp/inf/etc at the fastest time rate with the least involvement. 

 

This reward per defeat argument is not fooling anyone, and frankly, seems disingenuous. 

[ShardWarrior]

11 hours ago, The_Warpact said:

So really how do you stop any of it without ostracizing groups of the playerbase.

 

Radical and unpopular idea -  render the need for gold farmers irrelevant with free level 50 tokens and free influence on demand.  Short of that, make whatever policy you want about deleting and re-farming for the early EMP rewards or whatever it is they are doing.  Anyone caught doing this gets banned permanently, no exceptions. 

[The_Warpact]

35 minutes ago, ShardWarrior said:

 

Radical and unpopular idea -  render the need for gold farmers irrelevant with free level 50 tokens and free influence on demand.  Short of that, make whatever policy you want about deleting and re-farming for the early EMP rewards or whatever it is they are doing.  Anyone caught doing this gets banned permanently, no exceptions. 

Well not too radical, I believe stuff like that is done on the other Rogue servers.

As far as unpopular maybe on this server but, there are folks that play on the other ones so it can't be too unpopular.