Devs, please explain why you are nerfing one of the most popular activities on Homecoming

[Songseven]

this is about all i have to contribute to this thread..

 

                                        

[momentarygrace]

10 hours ago, ivanhedgehog said:

do a hami raid a few nights a week and you dont need to farm.

 

I may regret commenting but I consider myself a casual player mostly because I don't have the time to be more, I work and I need to spend quality time with my spouse a lot of which won't be spent gaming. I play as much as I can but at this point it can't be more. And doing a hami a few nights a week is more than I could play, and have any hope of doing missions, badging and other stuff I enjoy. I guess that's why I'm a casual, limited time I'd rather spend doing anything but grinding to get inf/loot (or marketing to get loot, it's just not my thing).  I don't farm, it's just not fun for me, but I have no problem with anyone else doing what they like/prefer to do.

[battlewraith]

1 hour ago, Grouchybeast said:

If you defeat an enemy, or sell something to an NPC vendor, then you've created inf.  The AH does the opposite.

 

People keep bringing this up as a defense of the market. The whole problem actually is the market. The absolute easiest way to deal with inflation is to just get rid of it all together. Assign all of the recipes, enhancements, salvage etc. to vendors that sell these things at an affordable rate. During the recent round of...umm...farming tweaks....some of the devs asked the question "how good should farming be?" Well let's ask the question "how cheap should goods be?" Find a reasonable answer and just lock those rates in. Easy Peasy no more worry about inflation.

 

Why not? Well, because the market is a time sink for a lot of players. It's a minigame that a lot of people enjoy and in which they routinely participate. I have no problem with that. What I do take issue with is the implicit hypocrisy of people pointing their finger at farming and saying it's bad for the game because of the specter of inflation. This isn't COH: the market simulator, any more than City of PVP or City of Farming or anything else. Get over it.

 

The AH doesn't generate wealth, and destroys a certain amount through fees. But it also redistributes the wealth that is actually in play. So it greatly increases the buying power of a subset of the population which factors into...inflation. Farmers, marketeers. Pot. Kettle.

 

 

[Doc_Scorpion]

5 hours ago, Neiska said:

You know, if they were really that concerned about the amount of INF being generated there are many other step's they could take to kneecap it.

Why then didn't you propose other ways of reducing the amount the inf being generated rather than proposing a raft of incentives to increase farming?  To cause people to seek out ways of increasing their income?

 

5 hours ago, Neiska said:

So the notion that the only concern in play is "wealth generation" is trivially falsified due to no small part only this one single solution being pushed and pushed hard for quite some time now. 

This is...  utter and complete nonsense.  If the issue is wealth generation, then the solution is to address wealth generation.  I mean, if my roof leaks, my absolute first priority is to stop my roof from leaking.  I don't run around pulling down and replacing drywall and pulling up and replacing flooring while continuing to let water pour in.

As far as "they're targeting an activity many enjoy"...  Please, point me to one single change that prevents them from farming.  Just one.  You can't, because there haven't been any. 

You are not being punished, you are not being penalized.  If you enjoy farming, have at it.  Farm to your heart's content.  There's absolutely nothing to prevent you from doing so.

 

2 hours ago, ivanhedgehog said:

I didnt say that, try reading. people doing the 4 star ATF could make 3 billion on the prismatics alone.

I did read, and I pointed out where you were wrong.  And I'll do so again...  Prismatics are utterly and completely irrelevant to the discussion.  Prismatics don't introduce inf into the economy, they take inf out of the economy via market fees and shift inf between players.

Drops are not the issue here.

[Ruin Mage]

2 hours ago, ivanhedgehog said:

people doing the 4 star ATF could make 3 billion on the prismatics alone

Week 1 to Week 2 at most, sure. When it was a new thing and everyone wanted it.

But it has since plummeted to regular prices.

[Luminara]

I searched the forums for the following phrases:

1. "nerf farming"
2. "nerfing farms"
3. "nerf farms"
4. "kill farming"
5. "killing farms"
6. "kill farms"
7. "destroy farming"
8. "destroying farms"
9. "destroy farms"
10. "removing farming"
11. "removing farms"
12. "remove farming"
13. "remove farms"
14. "get rid of farming"
15. "end farming"
16. "stop farming"
17. "stopping farms"
18. "stopping farming"
19. "ban farming"
20. "banning farming"
21. "banning farms"
22. "banning farmers"
23. "ban farmers"
24. "hate farming"
25. "hate farms"
26. "hate farmers"

One person made a statement that he wanted farming and farmers banned, and that player is known to be opinionated and antagonistic.

 

Every other thread found was either someone accusing the HC team of trying to nerf farming; someone claiming that other players are part of an anti-farming crowd; a response to one of those two statements; or a joke in the "Nerf Regen" vein.  None of the threads were started by anyone asking, demanding, calling for or otherwise attempting to restrict farming in any way.  Most of the threads were started by players claiming that power change or a bug fix was aimed at nerfing or killing farming.  And, most telling, the same names appear in most of the threads.

 

If this hypothesized anti-farming movement is using veiled references to talk about nerfing or removing farming, the search function won't bring that up without the appropriate keywords.

 

The search function shows posts made by people on ignore lists, so that rules out the possibility of them being hidden during my search.

 

And if the moderators have hidden every post, except one, expressing an anti-farming attitude... that would, itself, imply that they don't support that sentiment.

 

So my conclusion, based on all of the available evidence that I've been able to find, and which everyone can find by performing the same searches, is that the people raising this ruckus about farming, the same ones who keep showing up in the searches for these terms, are either in desperate need of psychological assistance, or they're deliberately trying to stir up controversy where none exists.  If anyone can present evidence of an anti-farming group of players and deliberate attempts to remove farming from the game, in direct contrast to the HC team's own public statements,

 

 

then please do so.

[Neiska]

27 minutes ago, Doc_Scorpion said:

Why then didn't you propose other ways of reducing the amount the inf being generated rather than proposing a raft of incentives to increase farming?  To cause people to seek out ways of increasing their income?

 

Ah, and there it is. You see, people have repeatedly said "we don't hate farmers, we just want to make things equal." But as soon as someone brings up other ways to make people equal, you know, being realistic about the topic and not one sided, (because farming is not the end all-be all factor in play here) you go on about - 

 

27 minutes ago, Doc_Scorpion said:

This is...  utter and complete nonsense.  If the issue is wealth generation, then the solution is to address wealth generation.  I mean, if my roof leaks, my absolute first priority is to stop my roof from leaking.  I don't run around pulling down and replacing drywall and pulling up and replacing flooring while continuing to let water pour in.

As far as "they're targeting an activity many enjoy"...  Please, point me to one single change that prevents them from farming.  Just one.  You can't, because there haven't been any. 

You are not being punished, you are not being penalized.  If you enjoy farming, have at it.  Farm to your heart's content.  There's absolutely nothing to prevent you from doing so.

 

I never said anything prevents farming entirely as you suggest. I only pointed out that the most vocal part of the forums are decidedly anti-farm, and that there are other means to also make the market more balanced. But since that involves you know, people who are anti-farming having to also make changes as well, it's no surprise they might dislike it. Which proves my original point - 

 

It was never about the market. If it was, they could balance more than one option. And the Devs never said anything about the markets, they stated they want all activities to give equal reward, which I can respect and agree with. But then people tend to nitpick about AFK farming vs Active farming, or scoff when I bring up non INF rewards as well. I still have yet to get an answer one way or another if they have ever taken non-inf rewards into their calculations or not (which I doubt.) 

 

So spare me your statements that are pure conjecture. You don't have access to the actual server numbers or data, which makes all of this your mere opinion.

[Neiska]

10 minutes ago, Luminara said:

I searched the forums for the following phrases -

 

The forums are hardly the only method of communication. If anything it is the one used by the fewest people. 

[Grouchybeast]

40 minutes ago, battlewraith said:

People keep bringing this up as a defense of the market. The whole problem actually is the market. The absolute easiest way to deal with inflation is to just get rid of it all together. Assign all of the recipes, enhancements, salvage etc. to vendors that sell these things at an affordable rate. During the recent round of...umm...farming tweaks....some of the devs asked the question "how good should farming be?" Well let's ask the question "how cheap should goods be?" Find a reasonable answer and just lock those rates in. Easy Peasy no more worry about inflation.

 

That would be a whole lot of extra work for the devs, though.  Not just in deciding how available they want all the different IOs to be and then setting the prices accordingly, but  having to keep rebalancing those prices against the flow of inf into the game to keep that availability on track. At the moment, the market does all the work of balancing supply and demand for them and all they have to do is tweak the top-level drop rate numbers.  It's pretty brilliant, design-wise.

[Clam Leader]

3 hours ago, ivanhedgehog said:

I didnt say that, try reading. people doing the 4 star ATF could make 3 billion on the prismatics alone. Shifting that kind of cash to a few players that quickly will tilt the economy. at this point so much inf is sitting on so many unplayed charcters that while they can tell you totals, that isnt the amount of inf actually in play.

Except, and this is the big thing. That money didn't enter the market through that TF. It was already sitting around, and was only transfered because farmers were willing to pay it.

 

Don't delude yourself into thinking anyone without a farmer was sitting on billions of inf to blow on day 1 Aether costumes.

[nihilii]

I mostly stopped playing for the past year. Came back a couple weeks ago, noticed my AFK farm wasn't as easy as before due to new aggro rules, and didn't yield as much.

Took a few days to work out the changes... Now I'm back to (not) playing the game and earning rewards with much greater efficiency than I could by actually playing the game The Way It's Intended. As I type this post, my AFK farmer is clawing his way through powerleveling a couple more alts.

 

For me, farming is still absurdly overpowered in terms of rewards per (actual) effort/time.

I'm not telling anyone else their experience is inaccurate. On one hand, the changes seem mild and easy to adapt to. On the other hand, today I've been aggravated by my Windows 10 machine rebooting sneakily to install an update (despite me explicitely disallowing it) and Firefox forceupdating to a harebrained color scheme (despite me also explicitely disallowing it). I'm guessing this is the angle upset farmers come from, they've got something they like as is and they would like it not to be changed ever.

I can relate, but ultimately it is a MMO and the flow of rewards relative to other activities is something that affects the community and the game as a whole.

It's hard to see some genuine deep love for the act of repeating the same mission over and over anyway, else we wouldn't have a sixteen page thread to complain about slightly lowered rewards / slightly harder workflow. Personally, I'd love to see increases in regular content reward rates. Bring some carrot with the stick, the prevalence of farming makes farming reward rates the driver of this economy anyway and amount to a hidden tax on regular content.

[Neiska]

5 minutes ago, nihilii said:

For me, farming is still absurdly overpowered in terms of rewards per (actual) effort/time.

I'm not telling anyone else their experience is inaccurate. On one hand, the changes seem mild and easy to adapt to. On the other hand, today I've been aggravated by my Windows 10 machine rebooting sneakily to install an update (despite me explicitely disallowing it) and Firefox forceupdating to a harebrained color scheme (despite me also explicitely disallowing it). I'm guessing this is the angle upset farmers come from, they've got something they like as is and they would like it not to be changed ever.

I can relate, but ultimately it is a MMO and the flow of rewards relative to other activities is something that affects the community and the game as a whole.

 

I agree, farming is still strong, particularly if you are an active farmer or multiboxer. But for me that isn't the crux of the issue. I would argue that how people discuss/disagree about it does more damage to the community than the AE ever did. Either you agree, or you are "a part of the problem." And that mentality of - "I am right. Those who do not think as I do are wrong" can do quite a bit of damage to a small community such as this. It is human nature I suppose. People will always find a reason to disagree. Or if you have a group of people in the room, there is always an outsider. There is actually a psychology term for this but it escapes me at the moment.

 

Speaking personally though, after this rather tiresome ongoing debate I have noticed that things have come to the point that people are growing apart, instead of together. Some will refuse to interact with others, rightly or wrongly, it doesn't matter. And I can't say I blame them for feeling in such a manner. I most certainly won't be eager to play an activity that I personally dislike, with people I regularly disagree with, no matter how big of a carrot is offered. But there is a silver lining though. Things have gotten more peaceful as my ignore list has grown, so there is that I suppose.

[ivanhedgehog]

56 minutes ago, Clam Leader said:

Except, and this is the big thing. That money didn't enter the market through that TF. It was already sitting around, and was only transfered because farmers were willing to pay it.

 

Don't delude yourself into thinking anyone without a farmer was sitting on billions of inf to blow on day 1 Aether costumes.

Dont delude yourself that marketers have MUCH more money than most farmers. They could solve the whole problem by reseeding the market once a month at 100k per enhancement, 10k per orange salvage etc. They could let the players get back to playing the game instead f city of stockbrokers. Instead they created a new class of "haves". If everyone is super then no one is super.

[MistressOhm]

15 hours ago, ivanhedgehog said:

do a hami raid a few nights a week and you dont need to farm.

 

Apparently you missed the part that says I'm a casual. 

 

This means I do not have "a few nights a week" to run on Hami raids.  I play when I can, not on a schedule.   

 

This means that (aside from running my own TF's at weird hours where I -might- get a team after cooling my heels waiting for half an hour or more) Farming Is All There Is if I want to raise INF to outfit a character.   This means that, oh hey!  I need a Farm Build too.  FML.

 

And because the game economy IS bloated (not as bad as Live but it's pretty bad) 40m is barely enough to get a couple of decent sets even if I go DIY, hunt down recipes, and pool all the salvage on 40+ alts to keep from having to pay for it, again at Market rates. 

 

But hey, First World Problems, right?  I don't expect you to understand OR empathize, given other posts.  >.>

Edited November 10, 2022 by MistressOhm

[Doc_Scorpion]

6 hours ago, Neiska said:

Ah, and there it is.

Yep, there it is.  A post telling it like is,  a post pointing out what people refuse to grasp.  The problem is that farming is so lucrative, so remunerative, it's distorting the economy and distorting gameplay.

And that you can't fix that by instituting fees for other in-game activities.

Attempting to do so, due to farming's high rewards and low risk, will invariably lead to yet more farming.  (By those who don't bail outright.)  The end result is the situation is worse then before you started.

 

6 hours ago, Neiska said:

being realistic about the topic and not one sided

A solution that fails to address the actual problem is not a realistic solution.

And it's not one sided to turn a hose on the seat of a fire.  It's the only realistic solution.

[ivanhedgehog]

3 hours ago, MistressOhm said:

 

Apparently you missed the part that says I'm a casual. 

 

This means I do not have "a few nights a week" to run on Hami raids.  I play when I can, not on a schedule.   

 

This means that (aside from running my own TF's at weird hours where I -might- get a team after cooling my heels waiting for half an hour or more) Farming Is All There Is if I want to raise INF to outfit a character.   This means that, oh hey!  I need a Farm Build too.  FML.

 

And because the game economy IS bloated (not as bad as Live but it's pretty bad) 40m is barely enough to get a couple of decent sets even if I go DIY, hunt down recipes, and pool all the salvage on 40+ alts to keep from having to pay for it, again at Market rates. 

 

But hey, First World Problems, right?  I don't expect you to understand OR empathize, given other posts.  >.>

everlasting runs 2 hamis back to back 3 times a night and more than that in the day even(not my schedule) takes 20 min usually. 120 merits. If the devs regularly seeded the market with cheap recipes and mats, no one would have a need to farm and the market would really be a super market.

[Neiska]

1 hour ago, Doc_Scorpion said:

Yep, there it is.  A post telling it like is,  a post pointing out what people refuse to grasp.  The problem is that farming is so lucrative, so remunerative, it's distorting the economy and distorting gameplay.

And that you can't fix that by instituting fees for other in-game activities.

Attempting to do so, due to farming's high rewards and low risk, will invariably lead to yet more farming.  (By those who don't bail outright.)  The end result is the situation is worse then before you started.

 

A solution that fails to address the actual problem is not a realistic solution.

And it's not one sided to turn a hose on the seat of a fire.  It's the only realistic solution.

 

Alright, the problem stated (not by a dev directly, more so the musings here on the forums) was that there was too much Inf in the market. I don't disagree. And reducing farming pacing can slow inflation. I don't disagree on that either. 

 

That said however,

 

That is missing the forest through the trees. If you slow what is gained/created, that doesn't take anything away from what is already floating in the market to begin with. So if the economy is the concern which has been suggested many times, why is only slowing the inf creation seen as the only solution (at least by some here) and not removing what we already (allegedly) have too much of?

 

You can't fix "too much money in the market" (inflation) by simply slowing its creation. At least not in a market such as ours with restricted/limited expenses. 

 

I am not saying we need to make costume changes cost 100 mil. Or that only ultra-billionaires should afford bases. But I am convinced that there should be some balancing on the "upkeep" or "cost" for players as well, not just how much INF is created. For I hope we would agree that the majority of costs aside from Enhancements is more or less a drop in the bucket. If you aren't gearing up a character, what you spend is more like a needle in the ocean. Not only that, but it would also be fair to balance the other side of the scales. Not EREGEOUSLY so, but at least looked at and adjusted where necessary. 

 

A simple comparison of how much a typical character earns vs spends once they are fully slotted and geared would be a fair comparison, just as comparing AE farming to non-farming activities, and I don't think such is unreasonable. Nor is honest analysis a house fire either.

 

And if people were truly more concerned about the market/economy, then they would be open to such comparisons. If they are not open to even collecting data on such, well, then I would venture to say their main motivation isn't fair market balance.

 

TLDR - We could use more money sinks, even if they were purely optional or cosmetic in nature.

 

PS - An afterthought ~ You made the point of reducing the amount that can be gained by farming, which would increase the amount of farming required to reach whatever goal a person might have. And in the same breath you say adding more money sinks would increase the amount of farming required. Do you not see the irony in this? 

Edited November 11, 2022 by Neiska
Added a PS

[Ironblade]

12 hours ago, Grouchybeast said:

No.  What you've done is moved some wealth around, and deleted some from the game via the crafting and auction house fees.  There is actually *less* inf in the game than there was before you crafted the item and sold it.  To put it in concrete figures:

Nope.  Your figures leave out the value of the enhancement, which the market determined to be 2 million inf.

First you say, "What you've done is moved some wealth around..."  and later  "There is actually *less* inf in the game..."

Yes, there is less INF in the game by the end of the exchange, but there is more WEALTH.

 

Your summary states, "Between them, there is a total of 99,700,000 inf in the game world.  300,000 inf is gone for good."

Absolutely correct, but one of those players also has the enhancement with a market-assigned value of 2 million, so there is more WEALTH.

[Glacier Peak]

I was power leveling a character I made in some Asteroid farm maps courtesy of @America's Angel and after running through three iterations of the five mission arc (which are great by the way) I realized I ran out of the Double Xp temp power halfway through. I figured I could pick up the temp again and make up for lost time by taking the character and my farmer in to a good old fashioned Portal Corp mission from Unai Kamen. Dreck map, grab the portal type. I leveled from 40 to 46 in the first clear and then 46 to 50 in the second clear. And my farmer made a ton more influence.

 

Long story to say that Portal Corp missions are awesome and remind me of a simpler time. If anyone wants to try some good farming maps, I'd recommend Unai for his Dreck map and Infernal demons. Maybe we'll see some of those silly mission timers removed to so folks can farm Hydra, War Wolves, Chimera ninjas, and more again! I think someone posted a suggestion thread about that actually...

Edited November 11, 2022 by Glacier Peak

[scottocamp]

17 hours ago, Ironblade said:

Nope.  Your figures leave out the value of the enhancement, which the market determined to be 2 million inf.

First you say, "What you've done is moved some wealth around..."  and later  "There is actually *less* inf in the game..."

Yes, there is less INF in the game by the end of the exchange, but there is more WEALTH.

 

Your summary states, "Between them, there is a total of 99,700,000 inf in the game world.  300,000 inf is gone for good."

Absolutely correct, but one of those players also has the enhancement with a market-assigned value of 2 million, so there is more WEALTH.

 

Ironblade

 

It seems counter-intuitive but imagine if you were the only player in the game.  Converting an enhancement would not affect wealth because there would be no one to purchase the better enhancement.  You would have one enhancement in storage and now you would have a different enhancement in storage.  The converted enhancement might be more useful to you for your future builds but it would not create more wealth for you (or the game at large).

 

There are two ways for an individual to acquire personal wealth in CoH.  One is to run missions which creates money out of thin air and one is to take money from other players by giving them things they want in exchange.  Converting an enhancement will make it easier to acquire / take money from another player - but it doesn't actually add wealth to the overall game.  The only wealth being added to the game is the money being created from missions.

 

That said - for an individual playing the game currently, taking money from other players is a much better return on your time than running missions.  But that would change if folks stopped buying enhancements on the market.  Which is plausible given how easily recipes drop and how simple it is to convert those recipes to enhancements you wish to use. 

 

 

[Ironblade]

1 hour ago, scottocamp said:

It seems counter-intuitive but imagine if you were the only player in the game.  Converting an enhancement would not affect wealth because there would be no one to purchase the better enhancement.

But this isn't how the game actually is, so it's a nonsensical hypothetical.  There ARE other players in the game and there is constant market activity.

 

 

1 hour ago, scottocamp said:

There are two ways for an individual to acquire personal wealth in CoH.  One is to run missions which creates money out of thin air and one is to take money from other players by giving them things they want in exchange.  Converting an enhancement will make it easier to acquire / take money from another player - but it doesn't actually add wealth to the overall game.

You conflate the terms wealth and money here, but they are not the same thing.  I can have a base full of purples, ATO's, etc or I can have a few billion influence.  Either way, I have considerable wealth.  The only differences are liquidity and that the enhancements fluctuate in value.  It's rather like the difference between owning cash and owning shares of stock.

 

[Luminara]

On 11/10/2022 at 12:23 PM, Neiska said:

The forums are hardly the only method of communication. If anything it is the one used by the fewest people. 

 

The forums are a volunteer sample group representative of the greater population, and this purported united front of farmer-loathing players and developers would show some presence in that sampling.  All of the drama is here, there should also be some of those anti-farmer comments and threads here.  I dug until I ran out of keywords and I couldn't find them.

In-game chat channels can be logged, with time stamps.  Discord conversations can be captured in screenshots.  That's a remarkably short list of places where these people could be congregating to spew their hate speech, so it wouldn't be remotely difficult to assemble a mountain of damning evidence to prove that there's a group of people actively treating others badly for farming or calling for farms to be shut down.

 

[ivanhedgehog]

22 hours ago, Neiska said:

 

Alright, the problem stated (not by a dev directly, more so the musings here on the forums) was that there was too much Inf in the market. I don't disagree. And reducing farming pacing can slow inflation. I don't disagree on that either. 

 

That said however,

 

That is missing the forest through the trees. If you slow what is gained/created, that doesn't take anything away from what is already floating in the market to begin with. So if the economy is the concern which has been suggested many times, why is only slowing the inf creation seen as the only solution (at least by some here) and not removing what we already (allegedly) have too much of?

 

You can't fix "too much money in the market" (inflation) by simply slowing its creation. At least not in a market such as ours with restricted/limited expenses. 

 

I am not saying we need to make costume changes cost 100 mil. Or that only ultra-billionaires should afford bases. But I am convinced that there should be some balancing on the "upkeep" or "cost" for players as well, not just how much INF is created. For I hope we would agree that the majority of costs aside from Enhancements is more or less a drop in the bucket. If you aren't gearing up a character, what you spend is more like a needle in the ocean. Not only that, but it would also be fair to balance the other side of the scales. Not EREGEOUSLY so, but at least looked at and adjusted where necessary. 

 

A simple comparison of how much a typical character earns vs spends once they are fully slotted and geared would be a fair comparison, just as comparing AE farming to non-farming activities, and I don't think such is unreasonable. Nor is honest analysis a house fire either.

 

And if people were truly more concerned about the market/economy, then they would be open to such comparisons. If they are not open to even collecting data on such, well, then I would venture to say their main motivation isn't fair market balance.

 

TLDR - We could use more money sinks, even if they were purely optional or cosmetic in nature.

 

PS - An afterthought ~ You made the point of reducing the amount that can be gained by farming, which would increase the amount of farming required to reach whatever goal a person might have. And in the same breath you say adding more money sinks would increase the amount of farming required. Do you not see the irony in this? 

If you do the opposite, make the cost of everything much less, it will make the usefulness of huge amounts of inf much less. why farm incessantly when you can get the cash for a new build in an hour or less? It would bring farmers and marketers down to everyone elses level. Something to think about.

[scottocamp]

2 hours ago, Ironblade said:

But this isn't how the game actually is, so it's a nonsensical hypothetical.  There ARE other players in the game and there is constant market activity.

 

 

You conflate the terms wealth and money here, but they are not the same thing.  I can have a base full of purples, ATO's, etc or I can have a few billion influence.  Either way, I have considerable wealth.  The only differences are liquidity and that the enhancements fluctuate in value.  It's rather like the difference between owning cash and owning shares of stock.

 

 

If you converted a one million influence enhancement into a five million influence enhancement - it would seem like you have added four million in value/wealth/influence to the game at large.  And that would be true if you could sell the upgraded crafted enhancement to a game vendor for five million influence.  But you can't.  You can only sell that upgraded enhancement to another player.  So you are not adding value/wealth/influence to the game at large.  You are simply transferring *existing* value/wealth/influence from another player to you if you sell that enhancement at the auction house.  The auction house moves existing money around.  Nothing more really.

 

Certainly a base full of purples is equivalent to influence with an active economy.  But upgrading an enhancement does not add anything to the overall economy.  It may make you personally wealthier because another player has chosen to give you their money so that they don't have to bother trying to upgrade enhancements.  Running missions, however, does add value/wealth/influence to the game - even if you are the only person playing the game.

 

Put another way - if everyone did nothing but run missions, the amount of value/wealth/influence in the game would steadily increase.  If everyone did nothing but upgrade and sell enhancements at the auction house, influence would move around from player to player but the total value/wealth/influence in the game would not increase.  Perhaps all those enhancements eventually end up as nothing but Luck of the Gamblers.  Which would seem good but the money available to purchase these enhancements would remain constant.  So the total value would remain constant.  The latter scenario is a zero sum game.

[Neiska]

6 hours ago, Luminara said:

That's a remarkably short list of places where these people could be congregating to spew their hate speech, so it wouldn't be remotely difficult to assemble a mountain of damning evidence to prove that there's a group of people actively treating others badly for farming or calling for farms to be shut down.

 

I don't think it should be called "hate speech", just a difference in opinion. Some can be passionate or aggressive with their argument. But I see more "anti-farm" conversations in game than on the forums, but that's just me.