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

[BlackSpectre]

So then is inf gain directly related to xp gain then? Xp goes down, then inf goes down. Xp goes up, then inf goes up?

 

obviously, number of powers and class (minion, lt, boss, etc) i”are 2 factors. But is xp also a factor that’s considered when the game determines inf gain?

[biostem]

6 hours ago, Neiska said:

Or perhaps, just perhaps mind you, some of us have already done so and find it to be an unfriendly, unfun, agonizing experience that we have already done numerous times. Personally, my biggest turnoff to "the traditional way" is the GOGOGOGOGO mentality. Every group you join zips off as fast as possible, and if you lag behind it can turn toxic pretty quick.

Your "some of us have already done so" comment means that you are NOT in the category of people whose only experience with leveling is via the AE, thereby excluding you from my observation.  As I stated, it is people who have NOT done the regular leveling at least a few times, and who have only been power-leveled via the AE, that are an issue in my eyes...

[Neiska]

57 minutes ago, biostem said:

 As I stated, it is people who have NOT done the regular leveling at least a few times, and who have only been power-leveled via the AE, that are an issue in my eyes...

 

I appreciate the clarification; however, I do think that your point is too vague. For starters, "where" is this massive number of new players, or players that have never done anything outside of the AE? With respect I think you might be painting the picture much larger than what it truly might be. It's not as if this is a new game, or that we have massive waves of new people. I hope we would agree that the massive wave of people have come and gone and we are now settled into a comfortably stable community.

 

And no matter what you or the staff does, you can lead a horse to water, but you can't force it to drink. And were I a betting woman I would bet that the kind of players you describe would fall into the slim minority. There are likely more farmers, pure rpers, or even pure market-players than people who have done AE and "absolutely" nothing else. I would gather it is the smallest of groups of the community.

 

Though to be fair, that is my mere opinion. We can't really say there isn't a large group of such people any more than there is one. But are you certain you aren't exaggerating their numbers here? Personally, I think it's borderline a non-issue but both a self-solving one and one not really worthy of trying to "fix" on the staff's part.

[MHertz]

1 hour ago, biostem said:

As I stated, it is people who have NOT done the regular leveling at least a few times, and who have only been power-leveled via the AE, that are an issue in my eyes...

This is a false dichotomy. There are many ways to level up that allow a player not to know basics about the game, without implicating newbies doing AE-related farming.

• Running trials and task forces over and over again.
• Trick or treating.
• Council missions in PI.
• Letting other people choose the mission content.
• Auto-exemplar to lower-level teams and never experienced the late-game missions.
• Skipping the Task Force content entirely in favor of solo street sweeping.
• Not playing red side/gold side
• Avoiding whole zones of mission content
• Avoiding hazard zones

There just isn’t a “normal way” of playing the game where everyone ends up with the same baseline knowledge of the game systems, missions, TFs, contacts, Incarnate content, and so on. One time through the game isn’t enough. I’ve played the game many years and there is content I’ve never bothered with. Does that mean you should assume I was PLed in a fire farm?

[ivanhedgehog]

6 hours ago, MHertz said:

I have experienced players like you describe, those who are obsessed with speeding through content as a group as fast and as efficiently as possible; I’ve had people criticize my build because I didn’t min-max every available stat (although I haven’t been kicked off a team for it, nor ever seen it happen to someone else that I recall). I sympathize with the idea that other players can ruin the game experience in an MMO.

 

What I am not seeing is the connection between “people are bad” and “therefore, this XP bug should not be fixed” or “this playstyle I enjoy should not be disfavored.” What you describe could equally be a justification for literally any other play choice: market profiteering, PVP, jerk hackers dupin’ rares, etc. Yes, people can behave badly. But this is an MMO, so the devs’ focus has to be balancing the game for multiple players. People critiquing your build happens because powers aren’t balanced properly. People build to speed through missions and Task Forces because rewards aren’t balanced properly (making that behavior itself a kind of farming, the very activity you wish to shield from criticism).

 

I’m sorry you have negative experiences in  a multiplayer game. I don’t think that alone is a reason for the devs to build the game around a solo playstyle you prefer and to make it equally good as team play.

Balance? right. this game has a long history of the devs deciding that a set is OP and nuking it right to the very bottom of the stack. When feedback is given it is either ignored or they are told that "it will be looked at later". fast forward 3 years or so, and they wonder why people dont play a set. Look how long blasters sat in a horrible place. look at regen currently. The gogogo mentality came from wow, along with the concept that only HM participants should get good rewards. Purples drop for anyone in 50+ content, they are not reserved for the select few. This concept should have continued on throughout the game. it hasnt. Welcome to city of wow.  They even brought the toxicity.

[Ghost]

1 hour ago, Neiska said:

 

I appreciate the clarification; however, I do think that your point is too vague. For starters, "where" is this massive number of new players, or players that have never done anything outside of the AE? With respect I think you might be painting the picture much larger than what it truly might be. It's not as if this is a new game, or that we have massive waves of new people. I hope we would agree that the massive wave of people have come and gone and we are now settled into a comfortably stable community.

 

And no matter what you or the staff does, you can lead a horse to water, but you can't force it to drink. And were I a betting woman I would bet that the kind of players you describe would fall into the slim minority. There are likely more farmers, pure rpers, or even pure market-players than people who have done AE and "absolutely" nothing else. I would gather it is the smallest of groups of the community.

 

Though to be fair, that is my mere opinion. We can't really say there isn't a large group of such people any more than there is one. But are you certain you aren't exaggerating their numbers here? Personally, I think it's borderline a non-issue but both a self-solving one and one not really worthy of trying to "fix" on the staff's part.

Isn't that the same thing you are doing?

 

Your contention is that @biostem has categorized all farmers based off the very few.

You yourself have stated repeatedly that you refuse to play with anyone, because of the actions of the very few.

 

Am I missing something?   

 

 

 

[Neiska]

43 minutes ago, Ghost said:

Isn't that the same thing you are doing?

 

Your contention is that @biostem has categorized all farmers based off the very few.

You yourself have stated repeatedly that you refuse to play with anyone, because of the actions of the very few.

 

Am I missing something?   

 

"Few" being entirely subjective here. And I never said I refuse to play with anyone. Only that more often than not, I find random teams unenjoyable. Nearly every team unless specifically stated otherwise just runs ahead as fast as possible or as I call it, "gogogo" style of gameplay reminiscent of Leeroy Jenkins. That isn't a rare thing to happen. I would call it fairly standard when teaming with random strangers. So these days (at least certainly more recently) I find it far more enjoyable, faster, and more profitable to either play by myself or with those whom I am already acquainted with. I do get asked on occasion by friends to come on a team with other randoms, and I may or may not. It mostly depends on my mood and activity. But I never just join entirely random teams anymore, regardless of what the activity is, for reasons already mentioned here and elsewhere.

 

But to summarize, the difference being -

Not every farmer or player who enjoys AE has only done that activity, but biostem did clarify that.

But nearly every team (or at least far more often than not) might as well be speed running.

[CaptTastic]

13 hours ago, TygerDarkstorm said:

I play on Everlasting as well and have never experienced any of that, and I've taken some pretty suboptimal characters on things like a +4 (not 4*) ITF, among other task forces. I don't care about things like the meta, and have never had someone kick me because my build is crap or because I didn't take a certain power. Both of our experiences are anecdotal, but imo, yours seems to be far more in the minority of experiences on Everlasting.

I must admit that I’ve never experienced anything on his list. Not even once. I’ve been left a bit of a loner too without a SG or a regular group of friends to play with, so literally everything I do on CoH is in random PUGs, and only ever found them inclusive, kind and helpful. 

[twozerofoxtrot]

6 hours ago, ivanhedgehog said:

look at regen currently.

 

Totally agree. Way overpowered.

 

Due for a nerf, really.

 

[Ruin Mage]

They nerf things because I demand they be nerfed.

[MoonSheep]

7 hours ago, Neiska said:

 

"Few" being entirely subjective here. And I never said I refuse to play with anyone. Only that more often than not, I find random teams unenjoyable. Nearly every team unless specifically stated otherwise just runs ahead as fast as possible or as I call it, "gogogo" style of gameplay reminiscent of Leeroy Jenkins. That isn't a rare thing to happen. I would call it fairly standard when teaming with random strangers. So these days (at least certainly more recently) I find it far more enjoyable, faster, and more profitable to either play by myself or with those whom I am already acquainted with. I do get asked on occasion by friends to come on a team with other randoms, and I may or may not. It mostly depends on my mood and activity. But I never just join entirely random teams anymore, regardless of what the activity is, for reasons already mentioned here and elsewhere.

 

But to summarize, the difference being -

Not every farmer or player who enjoys AE has only done that activity, but biostem did clarify that.

But nearly every team (or at least far more often than not) might as well be speed running.

 

mate, run a TF sub lvl 30 on standard difficulty with enemies buffed - it largely prevents people running off and soloing the world as they get squished. i find its effective in encouraging team play if that’s what you’re after

 

or you can highlight that it’s a kill most, helps people know what kind of run it is

[Neiska]

4 minutes ago, MoonSheep said:

 

mate, run a TF sub lvl 30 on standard difficulty with enemies buffed - it largely prevents people running off and soloing the world as they get squished. i find its effective in encouraging team play if that’s what you’re after

 

or you can highlight that it’s a kill most, helps people know what kind of run it is

 

While I appreciate what seems to be genuine attempt to help, I have already attempted such things. If you make your own group, people will largely still do as they please irregardless. And it's likely better for everyone involved for me to just play alone or with friends.

[MoonSheep]

5 minutes ago, Neiska said:

 

While I appreciate what seems to be genuine attempt to help, I have already attempted such things. If you make your own group, people will largely still do as they please irregardless. And it's likely better for everyone involved for me to just play alone or with friends.

 

nah, we’ll get you sorted with some good TF and team experiences. not sure if you play excelsior but you’re always welcome if i’m doing something man

 

teams can be hit and miss at times for sure, sometimes a bit rushed, sometimes not too chatty. it’s worth giving it a go again though 

[Neiska]

9 minutes ago, MoonSheep said:

 

nah, we’ll get you sorted with some good TF and team experiences. not sure if you play excelsior but you’re always welcome if i’m doing something man

 

teams can be hit and miss at times for sure, sometimes a bit rushed, sometimes not too chatty. it’s worth giving it a go again though 

 

I appreciate the gesture, but no thank you. It's mostly the "rushed" gameplay I detest so much. But I do appreciate the offer. Especially since we so often disagree with one another. Best wishes.

[Songseven]

16 hours ago, Neiska said:

But I do think there is malice, at least in part. Both there, and in the forums and discord as well.

 

maybe its the way you present yourself @Neiska

 

we're not all ogres ya know..

[Xiddo]

58 minutes ago, Neiska said:

 

While I appreciate what seems to be genuine attempt to help, I have already attempted such things. If you make your own group, people will largely still do as they please irregardless. And it's likely better for everyone involved for me to just play alone or with friends.

The go go go thing is definitely there and people saying it isn’t are lying to themselves.

@MoonSheep and I have been doing slow missions, higher diff, no TFs, on toons that require teamplay much more (a sonic def and a WS) and I can really tell the difference. More chat, less rush, and my gFriend list is growing.

I think gogogo comes from repetition and knowing the easier content back to front. I’m sure you’ve tried all this before, but running stuff off the beaten track really helps I find. For example, I’ve turned off XP atm on my WS and am just doing loads of redside content and the play style over there is so different. Atm, I’ve been doing the Wailers arcs in St Martial. Three of the eight in the team had never fought them before, didn’t expect all the -res and the Zerg mentality caused their deaths. After that they slowed down and had fun. Mayhem missions also, they’re a completely different beast to Blue. If you fight the way to the bank and don’t stick together than the ambushes are hell. I lead these teams with the rule of “we’re sticking together” and luckily the difficulty of Longbow mobs makes that happen.

 

To echo his sentiment, if you’re ever on Excel then drop me a line. Happy to go at whatever pace. Also nice to team with people I see from the forums, quite often they play and chat very differently to how they present themselves here. Moon being a great example 😉

[Shred Monkey]

20 pages in... no clue if this has been said, probably has, but I'll chime in...

 

Nerfing farming, doesn't nerf farming.  Farming is repeating the most rewarding behavior over and over to maximize rewards.  No matter what you change in the game, some players will still do that.   You can nerf things that change what the "most rewarding behavior" is by making it slower or reducing the reward.  But there will always be a new "most rewarding behavior."  

 

And furthermore, if a developer wants to know what powers and activities are unbalanced or broken, looking at the behavior that people are repeating for maximum rewards is a good place to start.  Hardcore min/max farmers should expect to have to alter their behavior occasionally, especially if you're good at it.

 

[Ghost]

3 hours ago, Neiska said:

 

I appreciate the gesture, but no thank you. It's mostly the "rushed" gameplay I detest so much. But I do appreciate the offer. Especially since we so often disagree with one another. Best wishes.

 

Yeah, I agree about the rushing through missions/TFs

Its gotten to the point where its the norm and not the exception.   Now I dont join anything unless its specified that's its NOT A SPEED RUN in LFG, and that doesn't always mean its not.  Ive dropped from a few TF's because of this.

 

Anyways, as Moon offered, Ill run with you anytime you like @Neiska

We can go super slow, read the story, or even do some farming.   I'm good with anything - except chasing after my teammates who run off at a hundred miles an hour, usually in different directions, leaving me to fend for myself.    

Edited November 21, 2022 by Ghost

[Ukase]

On 10/20/2022 at 5:00 PM, kelika2 said:

You are correct, it got buffed.    adding -def however was meant to screw with firefarmers.

Um...I don't know about this. It could be possible, but the other possibility is that fiery melee benefits from it. You know, those rare folks that chose fiery melee for their characters. 
 

Believe me, I'm not a fan of any change, not really. There's a reason we call it a "comfort zone". It's cozy. I like it in the comfort zone. And it's quite obvious from the people who now despise me, I get cranky when removed from it. That said, Luminary brought up a very good point...gosh, maybe 3 weeks ago, that if the HC devs wanted to put an end to fire farming, it would have been a lot easier for them to do that, than try this balancing act out. 

Just be careful in here, because if you use the wrong/improper analogy, you pretty much get ignored - which doesn't hurt you, it actually benefits you. Your comments will no longer be subject to an immediate negative response because you disagreed with someone previously or somehow offended them in some other fashion. But still, it's worth stating, be cautious. 

A number of these folks post in here to distract them from the unrest going on their minds. 

I don't really enjoy farming, but occasionally, I do enjoy it. I see it's benefits. I also can admit that if everyone is farming - then everyone is self-sufficient and not buying the goods I'm selling on the AH. So, in that context - I don't want too many farmers. Purely for selfish reasons, there. But most farmers don't craft or convert, they just vendor trash all but the better stuff they know will sell well. 

I do think when we say HC dev team, that team is comprised of players, for the most part. These are the folks that know how to code, who give up their time. Thus far, I've had big problems with page 4 and 5. But both times, they did retract some of the proposed changes. I'm not in their club. I'm not in the closed beta. So, it's not like I get to scream or whisper in anyone's ear. Whether it was me, or other folks who shared my perspective - they did listen and act. They didn't give me/us everything we wanted, but I'm certainly not the only person playing the game. 

It may be a lack of paranoia, or an improved blood panel test (finally), but it's pretty clear that if they wanted to, fire farming would just be gone. I'm sure it wouldn't be hard to set up a parameter where each npc in AE to defeat had to have 2-3 different damage types or other debuffs that any player would be hard pressed to overcome as a solo player, or even 3 farmers, since that seems to be how all the cool kids are doing it now. 
 

[lemming]

I honestly don't know if the -def on fire swords was added to screw with fire farmers, but I like to think it was to buff those of us who have fire attacks.  I have a couple fire melee sorts that have been taking advantage of those changes.  I did modify my fire farms to not have those swords.  I tended to use those to level up chars I just didn't feel like taking thru normal content, and normally did it active.

 

The only spot I found the devs are anti-farming is where mass imbalance of rewards was being done, and it does seem to have mostly been found with AFK farms.  80% of all inf was found to be generated on the meteor fragment.

 

On PUG stuff:

I've run into a few people that seem to have no idea what they are doing, but you just try to teach them the ropes.  Doesn't really matter if they learn from level 1 or 50 to much.

There is a tendency for people to do minimum mobs on a lot of TFs, though there are the occasional kill most and I've seen a few +4 KM ITFs.  Those tend to have a few plussed out 50s that are PLing a couple SG maters 35s.   Though I like those at +2 so the lower levels aren't just being swatted and can help.

 

[battlewraith]

2 hours ago, Ukase said:

That said, Luminary brought up a very good point...gosh, maybe 3 weeks ago, that if the HC devs wanted to put an end to fire farming, it would have been a lot easier for them to do that, than try this balancing act out. 

 

That was actually a really dumb point. First of all, there might actually be a host of technical problems that would arise from the effort. Secondly, people would simply switch to some other form of farming (so waste of effort). Thirdly, it would be very unpopular and probably drive the population down to a certain extent. It's not simply about what they want, it's also about the consequences of changing things. I might want to sit on my ass and play video games all day. The fact that I don't doesn't mean the desire isn't there. It just means that I have to earn money to pay my rent and keep the lights on so that I can continue to play these games.

 

Are the devs anti-farming? I would expect them to be to a certain extent because there's an inherent tension between creating new content and strategies for burning through content quickly. The stupid way to be anti-farm is to try to nerf it outright, which is how things went down on Live. The more intelligent approach is to try to lure people away from farming with other highly lucrative types of content while advancing philosophical discussions about how rewarding the activity should be. Then you gradually dial things down and make them less lucrative so that people are less likely to do it--without putting an "end" to anything.

 

 

[Hyperstrike]

On 10/19/2022 at 7:52 PM, Luminara said:

 

 

 

[Snarky]

This thread is undead right?  I thought is has been dead for weeks but it just keeps crawling back

[Astralock]

10 minutes ago, Snarky said:

This thread is undead right?  I thought is has been dead for weeks but it just keeps crawling back

Kind of like farming. 😛

[Ukase]

5 hours ago, battlewraith said:

 

That was actually a really dumb point. First of all, there might actually be a host of technical problems that would arise from the effort. Secondly, people would simply switch to some other form of farming (so waste of effort). Thirdly, it would be very unpopular and probably drive the population down to a certain extent. It's not simply about what they want, it's also about the consequences of changing things. I might want to sit on my ass and play video games all day. The fact that I don't doesn't mean the desire isn't there. It just means that I have to earn money to pay my rent and keep the lights on so that I can continue to play these games.

 

Are the devs anti-farming? I would expect them to be to a certain extent because there's an inherent tension between creating new content and strategies for burning through content quickly. The stupid way to be anti-farm is to try to nerf it outright, which is how things went down on Live. The more intelligent approach is to try to lure people away from farming with other highly lucrative types of content while advancing philosophical discussions about how rewarding the activity should be. Then you gradually dial things down and make them less lucrative so that people are less likely to do it--without putting an "end" to anything.

 

 

I think, if we're ever going to arrive at an acceptable answer to "Are the devs anti-farming?", we have to agree that farming only in this context refers to afk farming. 
The other thing we need to agree on is if "devs" are all devs, or some devs...how do we define that? 

I know it's way back around the time they seeded salvage that GM_Jimmy came out and said farming was good for the market, ergo, good for the community. But he also stated that afk farming was not good, due to the lack of real risk for reward. (his words, paraphrased - don't shoot the messenger) 

As someone who doesn't like active farming because it's a bit dull, I lean closer to afk as a method of amassing influence at first, and then when the stack got high enough, it became an easier way of gathering incarnate materials because I just don't feel like doing the same iTrials ad nauseum, but afk - I don't have to be there. I can play another character doing something more interesting. It's all a bit pointless for me anyway. I usually end up shelving a character to start another, but I want them ready, just in case. 

I concede that you are correct, Battlewraith, mess with the fire farms, folks make something for S/L, and heck, they probably just needed to do a respec on certain ATs and they were good to go. 
But, I think that adds to the notion these efforts with the fire sword -def weren't a blow to be struck at fire farming specifically. They've got to know that folks would come up with the next OP farmer. Now - would that farmer do everything the rad/fire or spines/fire brutes can do, or at least as quickly? Maybe. I'm not there yet. But, I doubt it. But it could be that some folks adding three brutes on the same farm - where the surplus mobs don't all attack the same farmer - maybe they end up doing things even more efficiently. 

I can sit here and grasp why some folks are against afk-farming. I don't have to like it, but I can understand it. I don't think removing or inhibiting it will accomplishes what they want to accomplish, but I don't have the luxury of presenting anyone with evidence of that from the future. 

As for your reference to the "intelligent approach", the previous incidental 3x XP buff from p2w that's now been corrected to the proper 2x is probably a coincidence, but the effect is the same. When you consider the odds of getting a d-sync worth close to a billion inf for one of the HM tfs...well...it's early yet, and those odds are pretty poor, but the pay off is likely worth it to some folks. It kind of sounds to me like they did just as you suggest is an intelligent approach. 

 

And all that above is just my own train of thought, probably obvious by how many times I went off track. Everyone's perspective and view is relevant.  I just don't think they did what they did with the -def specifically to impact farming. I think it was probably something that they looked at as a bonus, perhaps, but not anything they did to deliberately mess with afk farmers. And if they did, I would have thought better of it if they'd just come out and said so. But that's just me.