Sins of the Devs are visited upon the players

[ivanhedgehog]

2 hours ago, Ukase said:

I just did the math. 
If the objective is for badges, you need 150 of them, at 24M each, you're looking at 6.3B. 

I realize for ...half of you, maybe, that seems like some obscene amount of influence. 

I'm not going to win any affection by stating it's a pittance. IF you wanted to, you could earn that in, well, hard to say, as it would depend on how you spend your time in game. If you run level 50 content with a large team, and did no traditional AE farming or marketing, I think the math works out to: 

25M hour, so, about 6 weeks if you played an hour a day. That's just going off of my memory on a kill most ITF from a couple of years ago. I recall it getting me about 25M. I can't recall what the difficulty setting was, as I despise a kill most anything unless I'm in a specific mood. I'm sure others will have some fun coming up with their own math. 

If you crafted your drops, used reward merits to get converters and used the converters on your crafted IOs, sold those crafted IOs that typically went for 2-4M, you can get that loot a lot quicker. Exponentially quicker. Do you want to spend the time crafting, or bashing heads running content? Maybe do a little of both. Whatever's fun for you. 

I'd also like to offer up this for your consideration:

Just suppose you were gifted with the 6.3B or, someone traded you the 150 Prismatics for all the badges for nothing. 

You'd have no goal. No reason to run the new stuff. No figurative carrots to chase. Is that really what you want? One less figurative carrot? There's no wrong answer, it's a rhetorical question. Food for thought, so to speak. 

 

I have no goal at this point. It isnt worth hopping on the treadmill. The devs have made it plain as day that they are not intending soloers or casuals as their intended market. This release reeks of wow mythic+. I am not interested in getting into that grind, I have done it before and not gonna do it.(grammar nazis can bite me if they dont like my gonna). I find myself playing less, probably gonna go do some skyrim or even wow. At least they are honest about locking casuals out. There is a lone contaminated that spawns in the RV tram station every few days. The original devs put him there when people complained about not being able to get the badge from the starter zone because they didnt know about it. You cant say you cant get the badge! but they knew perfectly well that it wasnt a practical way of getting the badge. They were being jerks. just like the 2% drop rate.

[ForeverLaxx]

10 minutes ago, Glacier Peak said:

I don't play with an ounce of entitlement, so that's probably why I can't empathize with the crazy people I keep seeing in this thread who are just complaining because this is a platform to do so and think they are owed the world

Oh, don't worry. I always know your opinion. You don't have to spell it out for me.

 

Calling it entitlement is a nice touch, though. Might want to fix the straps on your mask -- it's slipping a bit.

Edited September 6, 2022 by ForeverLaxx

[ivanhedgehog]

12 minutes ago, Glacier Peak said:

I'm a casual player. I went on to the beta server and granted myself 10,000 Prismatic Aether Particles then proceeded to unlock everything, then granted myself some more when I ran out. Took me about 10 minutes to do that. Tried on all the cool tier costumes. Instant gratification and all that. 

 

I'm thinking, what's the point beyond vanity? I don't need other people to see my character in an NPC costume and say how awesome I am for wearing an entirely cosmetic reward offered voluntarily with multiple methods to earn. I enjoy the look all on my own and can appreciate the effort it took for the devs to make it happen. And if, for some reason beyond my concern, the need to earn these entirely optional cosmetic rewards on the live shards arose, I'd earn them over time as they were intended to be earned because that's the way this server is ran. These are the rules players play by. I don't play with an ounce of entitlement, so that's probably why I can't empathize with the crazy people I keep seeing in this thread who are just complaining because this is a platform to do so and think they are owed the world. I say go to the beta shard and enjoy the instant gratification there 😆 

T%hats nice for you I guess, but what about everyone else? are they supposed to have the same motivations or goals as you? This isnt city of clones, people will have different playstyles. it happens. as for the 90 second click the glowie missions..mission tp is up every 30 min, not 3 min. add a lot of travel time.

[lemming]

2 hours ago, Luminara said:

I ran to my mission.  I cleared the map.  I fought a +1 boss.  So now let's factor the rate for players don't do that, who game the system.  -1/x0/NoBoss/NoAV, Reveal, ghost to the end with Super Speed, insta-gib three minions or one minion and one lieutenant and maybe click a glowie.  How long does that take?  90 seconds?  Let's factor for the zero travel time that you posited, since it didn't apply to my run.  And we can't forget that they almost certainly have SSHDs (this is not up for debate.  i have one and i bought it when i was earning less than $6000/year (no, there isn't a zero missing, i really do live well below the poverty level.  slightly higher now, but still below the line).  if i have one, there's no reasonable argument to be made that the average player doesn't), so load times are a few seconds.

On a slow laptop, more like a minute per zoning.  (My current system since my main and backup rigs died.  Internet connection also plays a part)

 

Though one could just run AE missions that complete on entry.  I haven't bothered since that seems like a boring churn even without the connection, so someone would need to confirm that works.  And you could setup five missions like that so you don't have to keep hitting the AE terminal.  On the average system in the game, you could probably run thru quit a few more.   And I suppose do three accounts to up the odds?

[lemming]

1 hour ago, Glacier Peak said:

I'm thinking, what's the point beyond vanity? I don't need other people to see my character in an NPC costume and say how awesome I am for wearing an entirely cosmetic reward offered voluntarily with multiple methods to earn.

I want the mini version for a few characters, and heck, even more of a cave version for others... 

[Bionic_Flea]

3 hours ago, lemming said:

Though one could just run AE missions that complete on entry. 

 

Hmmm . . . I hadn't thought about that.  Are you telling me that AE Farmers can get these just by . . . farming in AE?  *gasp!*

[The_Warpact]

I will point out as far as drop rates, aether, costume, blah, blah, blah is concerned you all had the opportunity during Beta to test it, complain about it, and try to get it fixed. 

I wasted time and went through all the pages of that section in the Beta thread. I saw some of the people responding there that I saw here.

Obviously, some of it probably got snipped like what happened in other threads, so I will not comment on what I don't know. But, you had the means and opportunity to complain/change it there. As far as the people complaining about it on this thread I didn't see on that thread. I will once again point out everyone has the opportunity to test it out and voice there concerns during Beta. If you didn't that isn't anyone's fault except your own.

 

Personally, I think its a waste of time. It's another grind and time sink for something you do not need to proceed in this game. Yeah, I get that some people like doing costumes it floats their boat and if I was remotely interested in such a thing I would have been on said thread bitching about the drop rates.

Because, cosmetic stuff being regulated by percentages and RNG drop rates is the same as costume recipes dropping during live and I thought that shit was draconian nonsense. 

 

So start your own thread is my recommendation, scream, shout, howl at the moon. Let the HC team know you don't like it. Although I will say your best chance was during Beta, just look at what people did with vet levels during AE. They got it changed after enough people complained about it.

Edited September 6, 2022 by The_Warpact
Half asleep many grammar mistakes fixed

[Ruin Mage]

It should also be said that we are still with only access to the Tier 1 costume powers. T2 and T3 are going to be rolled out when they have more data I believe.

[Ukase]

5 hours ago, lemming said:

On a slow laptop, more like a minute per zoning.  (My current system since my main and backup rigs died.  Internet connection also plays a part)

 

Though one could just run AE missions that complete on entry.  I haven't bothered since that seems like a boring churn even without the connection, so someone would need to confirm that works.  And you could setup five missions like that so you don't have to keep hitting the AE terminal.  On the average system in the game, you could probably run thru quit a few more.   And I suppose do three accounts to up the odds?

My understanding is prismatics won't drop from completing AE missions. 

[Black Zot]

1 minute ago, Ukase said:

My understanding is prismatics won't drop from completing AE missions. 

 

It also doesn't give any credit towards "Defeat X of Y" badges.  If devs want AE to be used for something other than farms, it needs to actually count for something.

[The_Warpact]

3 minutes ago, Black Zot said:

 

It also doesn't give any credit towards "Defeat X of Y" badges.  If devs want AE to be used for something other than farms, it needs to actually count for something.

I think also they removed badges and merit gains from GMs in AE. Something which I don't get unless they are fearful of farming merits from it but, hell you can do that with Scrapyard.

[Ukase]

40 minutes ago, The_Warpact said:

I will once again point out everyone has the opportunity to test it out and voice there concerns during Beta. If you didn't that isn't anyone's fault except your own.

I don't know that I completely agree with this. 

Not saying I disagree, but that lovely trite phrase "It depends" comes to mind. 
 

Mainly because we have a lot of players who don't post here that don't even know there is a brainstorm server. They may not be using the HC launcher. (although, maybe it's time to only allow the use of the HC launcher? I dunno. I'm sure some folks would hate to be forced into using it for whatever reason) 

There are folks who post here on the forums that don't know Brainstorm exists. And that's not their fault. There needs to be a greater push from HC to get people to go to Brainstorm to test things today for the next patch, whenever that is. And there needs to be a pop-up that tells them what's coming, and what they should be testing, and suggestions as to how to test for various things. 


 

[Bionic_Flea]

Sorry, Ukase, you know I love you, but you can't have it both ways. 

 

You're constantly telling folks that anyone can AFK farm and anyone can earn millions if they just do x, y, and z. 

 

Coming to the forums and testing in Brainstorm is no different.  Anyone can do it if they want to and follow some basic steps.

 

However, I understand that people don't farm, or market, or post, or test stuff for all sorts of reasons.

[Xiddo]

16 minutes ago, Ukase said:

There needs to be a greater push from HC to get people to go to Brainstorm to test things today for the next patch, whenever that is. And there needs to be a pop-up that tells them what's coming, and what they should be testing, and suggestions as to how to test for various things. 

 

We get an @ on the discord which I rush to read but I also wouldn't mind an in-game pop-up saying "head over to the forums/beta to see more about the new patch - the quicker you test it the quicker it can come out!", not unlike the pop-up we get when it goes live. But I guess it is about whether that would have any impact on the testing numbers.

[Ukase]

1 minute ago, Bionic_Flea said:

Sorry, Ukase, you know I love you, but you can't have it both ways. 

 

You're constantly telling folks that anyone can AFK farm and anyone can earn millions if they just do x, y, and z. 

 

Coming to the forums and testing in Brainstorm is no different.  Anyone can do it if they want to and follow some basic steps.

 

However, I understand that people don't farm, or market, or post, or test stuff for all sorts of reasons.

I used to tell people that anyone can afk farm and can earn billions. I haven't told anyone that lately. Some can, and should. Some can and won't. Some may lack the understanding on how build for it, and will need to rely on the builds of others. 

I didn't even know AFK farming existed in game until maybe 6 months after HC opened up. So, I never did it. Nobody taught me how. I used to have healing aura on auto, not burn! You remember us having a chat about that, way back when? I learned about afk-farming, that it actually existed from a chap called @payload. (Great name, for a farmer, for sure) 
 

As for brainstorm, we can't expect people to go to brainstorm and test if they don't know it exists. Or they don't know how to test, or what to test. That's all I'm saying. 

I remember telling someone before page 3 that farming was simple. They sent me a tell and asked all sorts of questions. I spent 45 minutes explaining what I knew. I even gave them the winter-os and Brute ATOs to complete their build. 4 months later, they sent me 500M without me ever expecting it. Sure, I will give a blanket statement that anyone can market or farm. But, if they ask me directly, I will go into precise detail how I've done these things. I even have a couple of word docs I send them. (That are too lengthy and need to be edited!) 

I don't just give fish, I teach 'em how to fish. (figuratively) 
I don't think it's fair to send people to test and then not suggest how they might test or what they might test. Not everyone will need that, but I did and still do. All I can do on test is just do things like I would normally do them. I don't think that really provides much value for something that's about to hit the server, unless something crazy happens. Like being put in disguise, having a different costume, all my powers greyed out, and then being discovered and having to retoggle and fight off an EB at the same time. I sure pointed that out, they were pleased about the feedback, but didn't do anything about it, lol. (that I could tell) 

 

That's just my opinion. Doesn't make me right, but it doesn't make me wrong. 

[The_Warpact]

36 minutes ago, Ukase said:

I don't know that I completely agree with this. 

Not saying I disagree, but that lovely trite phrase "It depends" comes to mind. 
 

Mainly because we have a lot of players who don't post here that don't even know there is a brainstorm server. They may not be using the HC launcher. (although, maybe it's time to only allow the use of the HC launcher? I dunno. I'm sure some folks would hate to be forced into using it for whatever reason) 

There are folks who post here on the forums that don't know Brainstorm exists. And that's not their fault. There needs to be a greater push from HC to get people to go to Brainstorm to test things today for the next patch, whenever that is. And there needs to be a pop-up that tells them what's coming, and what they should be testing, and suggestions as to how to test for various things. 


 

I respectfully disagree. Everyone has access to the Forums as a source of information.

You have to sign up to get access to the game. So everyone knows it exists, topics on here are discussed in General, LFG, etc and on teams, I've seen it all so I know.

 

Now choosing not to use it is their decision or seeking out info is once again their decision. It's a tool, they know it exists, and oft times in the past I see new posters coming on to ask a question.

 

If anyone has played for any length of time on any game they do know there is always a Beta and when an update is coming they know open beta will occur. (Think like kids today not us old folks)

Hell it happens on consoles all the time. So I get where you are coming from, I just think you are seriously underestimating what they are aware of.

[Ukase]

12 minutes ago, Xiddo said:

 

We get an @ on the discord which I rush to read but I also wouldn't mind an in-game pop-up saying "head over to the forums/beta to see more about the new patch - the quicker you test it the quicker it can come out!", not unlike the pop-up we get when it goes live. But I guess it is about whether that would have any impact on the testing numbers.

There's that discord reference again. There's a small fraction of players that despise Discord. It's a useful tool, but until you get it figured out - you get bombarded with these stupid notifications at every turn. 
Someone you don't know posted something that you care nothing about! Quick, look at it! Ping, after ping. 

I get that it's the tool the HC Devs use, so if we want to be in the loop, we all have to use it. I just wish it were more intuitive to an older fella like myself. It's just not what I'm used to. I tend to only use it for SG communication, and even that's just once a week. 

I just don't get why they can't just use these forums, but that's out of my control, so I don't sweat it too much. 

[Glacier Peak]

8 hours ago, ForeverLaxx said:

Oh, don't worry. I always know your opinion. You don't have to spell it out for me.

 

Calling it entitlement is a nice touch, though. Might want to fix the straps on your mask -- it's slipping a bit.

It's nice to have fans! Thanks 😆 

[Ukase]

8 minutes ago, The_Warpact said:

Hell it happens on consoles all the time. So I get where you are coming from, I just think you are seriously underestimating what they are aware of.

That's possible. Maybe it's easier to believe they're just lazy. I can only go off my own experience which is playing for a couple of issues (on live) before I knew forums existed. I learned so much, once I started reading there. I really was quite clueless. 
And, really, if it weren't for a few key players sharing info with me, I'd probably still be clueless, despite my best efforts to read up on everything. 

[Number Six]

22 hours ago, Ukase said:

I don't like it, because afk farming is a great way to accumulate influence while you play on another account. And I don't think it would be proper to let someone like me who's been doing afk farming for quite some time to keep all those proceeds, while future players won't have that recourse. The only thing is, I don't know why Jimmy felt it was something that needed to be addressed. I personally see no harm in it, as anyone who wants to can do so. The barrier for entry is super low.

 

Just picking a random post to reply to, but wanted to address a sentiment that I see a lot. It goes something along the lines of, "If I like farming (whether afk or active) and enjoy doing it, why should my rewards have to be balanced since it doesn't affect anyone else?"

 

That would be a good point if this were a single player game or if there was no player economy and the only source of items was NPC vendors. However, there is an economy, and at it's heart it's a competitive economy. Even despite all the various things that have been done to act as price controls, supply boosters, and release valves (salvage seeding, recipe bucketing, merit vendors, etc), if there's only 100 Shiny McThingBobs in existence and everybody wants a Shiny McThingBob, then guess what -- the 100 people with the most Inf are going to get their Shiny McThingBobs first.

 

The end result of that is that people who don't want to farm feel pressured into thinking they have to at least set up an AFK farm because that's the only way they can possibly get enough Inf to get the Shiny McThingBobs. They have to compete with people who do farm and make more Inf faster than they do. That in turn adds more Inf to the economy and perpetuates the cycle. Your farming does affect everyone else.

 

Now I realize it's a bit more complex because farming with standard rewards does generate more supply of certain types of items which helps mitigate that -- and that's the entire reason the Standard Rewards option was opened up to all missions -- but that's the general gist of it.

 

Early on Jimmy put the team's philosophy out there: We want people to be able to play how they want. That means no one play style should be the no-brainer "go to" to get ahead. So yes, if something is overperforming that means it needs to be brought in line, even if that's unpopular with fans of that style who like it because it's overperforming. Even things that have special rewards to make them worthwhile, like Prismatics for hard modes, can often be obtained in other ways like farming inf and buying them off the market.

 

As for active vs. AFK: Active should obviously give better rewards since it requires more engagement (which it does). While we don't want it to be the default best method or the most prevalent, I don't think we want to completely eliminate AFK as there's long history of AFK-ing things like damage and healing badges in this game. Where we draw the red line is the use of external tools to automate the process and re-enter missions while AFK -- anyone who is doing that should be on notice that it's against the ToS and may result in account action.

[ivanhedgehog]

when the 4 star players on day one can make 3 billion+ for one run of an AE tf, you cant say with a straight face that the economy makes any difference at all. Even now much later they are still making well over 720 million per run. And there is any concern about farming? riiiiight.

[Xiddo]

21 minutes ago, Ukase said:

There's that discord reference again. There's a small fraction of players that despise Discord. It's a useful tool, but until you get it figured out - you get bombarded with these stupid notifications at every turn. 
Someone you don't know posted something that you care nothing about! Quick, look at it! Ping, after ping. 

I get that it's the tool the HC Devs use, so if we want to be in the loop, we all have to use it. I just wish it were more intuitive to an older fella like myself. It's just not what I'm used to. I tend to only use it for SG communication, and even that's just once a week. 

I just don't get why they can't just use these forums, but that's out of my control, so I don't sweat it too much. 

I was agreeing with you, and going a step further in suggesting another way to direct attention to here because we should also think about solutions and not just complain.

[Number Six]

2 minutes ago, ivanhedgehog said:

when the 4 star players on day one can make 3 billion+ for one run of an AE tf, you cant say with a straight face that the economy makes any difference at all. Even now much later they are still making well over 720 million per run. And there is any concern about farming? riiiiight.

 

Pop quiz: Where did that 3 billion come from?

[Ruin Mage]

9 minutes ago, ivanhedgehog said:

when the 4 star players on day one can make 3 billion+ for one run of an AE tf, you cant say with a straight face that the economy makes any difference at all. Even now much later they are still making well over 720 million per run. And there is any concern about farming? riiiiight.

You are really trying so hard to hammer in on the Aether and their prices.

The very big difference that you are actively excluding are the factors of:

• It's a new shiny thing that rewards access to NPC Costume Powers & a set of new badges
• It is an in demand new shiny thing that has potential to enable cool concepts and/or funny screenshots
• There are more costume powers to come that feed into the above points.

The money that the Aether made people is to be expected and to weigh it against the longer standing AE farming is disingenuous given AE farming is more the long route of taking things. You cannot compare a New Shiny Thing to the Older Long Standing Method, because people are going to spend that influence on the New Shiny. Where as the Old Method to getting the most influence/EXP has always been there (since AE's introduction years and years ago) and isn't going away.

You cannot compare apples to oranges, but yet you keep trying to.

Edited September 6, 2022 by Shadeknight

[Number Six]

10 minutes ago, Shadeknight said:

The money that the Aether made people is to be expected and to weigh it against the longer standing AE farming is disingenuous given AE farming is more the long route of taking things. You cannot compare a New Shiny Thing to the Older Long Standing Method, because people are going to spend that influence on the New Shiny. Where as the Old Method to getting the most influence/EXP has always been there (since AE's introduction years and years ago) and isn't going away.

 

You missed one thing from your list. People who ran 4* on day 1 and made billions of influence did not magick it out of thin air. That influence came from the stockpiles of inf that other players had lying around -- stockpiles that a large chunk of was originally generated in AE farms.

 

The introduction of Aether was not a wealth generating event -- it was a massive wealth transfer from farmers, et al, who wanted the costumes powers NAO to people who decided to jump in on hard modes early.

 

It also removed a smaller but not insignificant chunk of Inf from the economy through AH fees.