Can We Get a Version of AE Farms "Legitimized"

[Zeraphia]

This title probably sounds a bit misleading, and I'm aware there already exists some S/L PvE farms people do, but I'm looking for a more official area/place that is dedicated solely toward people wanting to quickly level characters. 

 

Like a set of missions that you complete that quickly level you 1-50, but at the cost of gaining no influence and forfeiting all drops entirely on all characters in the instance in exchange for a huge amount of exp gained. The set of missions could be lengthy, it could feature hard content that is challenging, but I would like this sincerely over powerleveling a character with how painful it now currently is or doing another full 1-50 content run (sorry... sometimes the run just gets a little old.) 

 

Possibly only accessible if your account already has a specific number of already level 50 characters. I'm pretty open to suggestions on what people come up with.

 

The purpose is to just entirely forfeit any form of influence gain or loot drops in favor of quickly leveling 1-50 in a faster method than is present with the AE nerfs that is legitimized.

Edited November 8, 2022 by Zeraphia

[Ruin Mage]

I hope you know what sort of Pandora's Box you opened up by making a farm thread.

I'm not against this idea.

[El D]

If this were to be implemented, I'd definitely want it to be sequestered from other pre-existing PvE spaces. Not out of any sense of thinking that farming is bad or an illegitimate way of playing the game but solely from the sheer crowd that it'd draw. It'd just be more equitable for everyone by having this be its own zone, which would allow players actively engaging in the farm more space to actually join in and team up together without taking space away from any of the PvE zones and the players running that content (or having said PvE players take away zone slots from the farmers). Trying to put something like this in a pre-existing zone just seems like it'd be the 'AE in Atlas' problem all over again or the constant RWZ issues of 'we're running a Mother Ship raid, if you aren't joining in please go to RWZ 2.'

 

I wouldn't be opposed to a token akin to the PvP Temporal Warden, either. If a player makes a character for this prospective 'farm zone' then that's what the character is exclusively for and they can't access other areas outside of SG bases, Pocket D, and Echo Plaza. No going into PvP, no other PvE content, no badges or iTrials, with the Incarnate unlocks coming from XP rewards, vet badges, and drops. Heck, could use the Shadow Shard as a set-up - the character is a Reflection and runs repeatable missions there since they're tied to the zone and literally can't leave. Starts at level 1 and go from there. P2W vendors and standard stores available in some kind of military hub as the default player gathering space. It'd let the farm characters keep their niche and retain the ability to finance other characters, while still requiring that said other PvE/PvP characters actually be leveled up or made separately.

 

As for it being faster than AE... that part seems doubtful. AE's progression was taken down a notch specifically because it was excessively fast (due in-part to a bug in how XP was being rewarded and in-part to just how absurdly quick the turn around is on incredibly mob-dense maps) and even in its 'nerfed' state it's still much faster than any of the traditional PvE farming maps by a significant margin. With influence and drops as easy to gain as they are at level 50, turning off a character's ability to gain them until that point isn't a serious detriment - especially when said character could reach level 50 in a few hours after literal character creation and then spend the rest of their hours upon hours playtime actively earning again. It might offer the same speedy turn-around with mob-dense maps that AE has currently (to make it a worthwhile option in comparison), but I doubt it'd be entirely focused on a single enemy group/damage type. That's just going to fill the zone up with the same small handful of powersets - a 'if you aren't playing X set or slotting for Y, you're doing it wrong' situation. Frankly, just as an experiment, I'd like to see what would happen if Reflections and the mobs they fought replaced all the damage types and defense types with 'Special.' That way no matter what kind of powerset someone picked, they wouldn't be at any more or less of an advantage against the various enemy groups while running the missions and everyone could farm however they preferred.

Edited November 7, 2022 by El D

[SeraphimKensai]

While once you get to my level, any new toon you roll automatically starts at lvl 50, but they made it so it's difficult to get to lvl 59 as a player anymore. Last time I checked I was the only one that's done it.

 

Realistically I wasn't against to how it was getting a lvl 50 in 90 minutes like how it was back in 2019. It's part of the reason I have somewhere around 150 lvl 50s. Given the changes though the that have been implemented against farming since then, often against the languished outcries of numerous threads, I don't see this getting adopted.

 

That said I don't have much issue against farming aside from people not knowing how to play their toons, and fact I don't like people begging to be power leveled by strangers in lfg/the farmers that feed the wild animals in the first place.

 

That said there's many people that farm alts that are better out of the box with those powersets than people that main them. It goes back to the argument about the driver being more important than the car.

[TheZag]

AE fills the power leveling very adequately and ouro can be used to repeat almost every mission.  2x xp already gives a ton of xp at the cost of influence.  Im confused as to what gap this fills.

 

Despite how AE farming got nerfed trough changes to the mob xp formula, fire melee,  and the bug fix from 2x giving 3x in AE,  the team isnt actually against farming.  They arent even against the fact that farming outperforms other content for rewards.  It was just so much better at earning rewards that they wanted to narrow the divide some.

 

The team has also been made aware of several missions that used to be farming missions and had timers added to them by the OG devs for the sole purpose of preventing farming in them.  They said they would look into removing the timers so players could farm those missions again but they wanted to test to make sure it wouldnt be extremely over performing compared to current farms.  While it isnt exactly what you are asking for,  if those timers get removed,  it would be fairly close.

 

[Doc_Scorpion]

1 hour ago, El D said:

I wouldn't be opposed to a token akin to the PvP Temporal Warden, either. If a player makes a character for this prospective 'farm zone' then that's what the character is exclusively for and they can't access other areas outside of SG bases, Pocket D, and Echo Plaza. No going into PvP, no other PvE content, no badges or iTrials, with the Incarnate unlocks coming from XP rewards, vet badges, and drops.

This is the only possible way I find this proposal acceptable, and even then just hanging-on-by-it's-fingernails barely.

[Sirius.Games]

So the idea is getting to 50.

 

Why not a lvl 50 bump provides when you complete task force commander or a specific set of already existing content.

So you basically get to lvl 35 or whatever and the completion bumps you the rest of the way.

The play your hero crowd wins because it forces people to play content.

The problem is that it would be slower than just leveling now in AE.

 

An alternate option would be to add what I understand was a 3x XP bug that was occuring.

 

OR

 

Make 3xp at the p2w vendor for 100 million (arbitrary) per hour.

 

I don't like any of these ideas but they do come to mind when people suggest insta 50s, fast(er) 50s, or otherwise.

 

I find if I hop in AE for 30-45 minutes, run TFs and get accolades I'm in the 40s. I figure that if I'm going to get the accolades after I might as well do it while leveling. At that point I can play most content, everything but purples are slotted, and I know if I enjoy the hero.

 

Instead of insta 50, spend inf, decide I don't like it, farm, play market, repeat I find I learn what I'm enjoying and not. I end up with more 30s/40s but I'm not spending near the same time on any given character.

 

[Rudra]

5 minutes ago, Sirius.Games said:

Instead of insta 50, spend inf, decide I don't like it, farm, play market, repeat I find I learn what I'm enjoying and not. I end up with more 30s/40s but I'm not spending near the same time on any given character.

Or... make the character on the test/beta server as an instant 50 and find out what you do or don't like about the character before investing all that time and effort in making the live version only to be disappointed.

[biostem]

6 hours ago, Zeraphia said:

I'm looking for a more official area/place that is dedicated solely toward people wanting to quickly level characters.

So here's the issue - people will generally gravitate toward the path of least resistance, which yields the greatest reward for the least amount of effort put in.  Just how much extra XP are you thinking your "legit" farm would provide  to make up for the loss of all other resources?  It seems to me that, unless you removed the AE and its associated farms, what you'd probably end up with is people using your suggestion to get to 50, then simply switch back to AE for post 50 drops and what-not...

[MHertz]

7 hours ago, Zeraphia said:

Like a set of missions that you complete that quickly level you 1-50, but at the cost of gaining no influence and forfeiting all drops entirely on all characters in the instance in exchange for a huge amount of exp gained.

I don’t think this implementation works. The devil is in the details.

 

”Normal” play: you get 50 levels worth of XP, influence, and drops; you try to fill your slots as you go. Assuming you start slotting at level 10, and change all your slots every 5 levels thereafter, that’s a total Enhancement demand of up to ~475 slots.

 

2XP play: you get 50 levels of XP and drops and have a total demand of up to ~475 slots to fill.

 

PL with 2XP: you get 50 levels of XP and drops, but your demand is only ~95 slots (total slots at 50).

 

Instant 50: you get 50 levels of XP and demand ~95 total slots filled.

 

Instant level 50s do not contribute to the available pool of money; they only contribute demand for slots. If they are bankrolled by another 50, they take cash out of the economy. This isn’t completely a bad thing — there’s a lot of money sloshing around and nothing to spend it on — but it would greatly accelerate the pace of hoarding names that cannot be reclaimed. The effect on prices would probably be to make them rise as excess cash is flushed into the economy (especially considering the insta-50s would be generating no drops).

 

My solution for an insta-50 button is to get 1 token for deleting a level 50 character. Spend 2 tokens to have an insta-50. This will eat into the supply of hoarded names, rather than build it up to ludicrous levels.

[Luminara]

[Zect]

Not opposed to methods of fast leveling in principle. However, they must be equally accessible to all players and playstyles; not arbitrarily reserved for an exclusive, pampered few.

 

(Also, the implied suggestion new players should be forced to slog through the game while veterans cruise to 50 is illogical. Experienced players should know how to level efficiently; new players are the ones who should be directed to powerlevelling methods, to help get them up to speed.)

 

Thumbs down for elitism and discrimination!

[Zeraphia]

I didn't look immediately at the replies to this thread, whew... I can see this is unexpectedly a very unpopular idea with a lot of people, and my opinion clearly isn't shared with many. Understandable.

 

11 hours ago, MHertz said:

I don’t think this implementation works. The devil is in the details.

 

”Normal” play: you get 50 levels worth of XP, influence, and drops; you try to fill your slots as you go. Assuming you start slotting at level 10, and change all your slots every 5 levels thereafter, that’s a total Enhancement demand of up to ~475 slots.

 

2XP play: you get 50 levels of XP and drops and have a total demand of up to ~475 slots to fill.

 

PL with 2XP: you get 50 levels of XP and drops, but your demand is only ~95 slots (total slots at 50).

 

Instant 50: you get 50 levels of XP and demand ~95 total slots filled.

 

Instant level 50s do not contribute to the available pool of money; they only contribute demand for slots. If they are bankrolled by another 50, they take cash out of the economy. This isn’t completely a bad thing — there’s a lot of money sloshing around and nothing to spend it on — but it would greatly accelerate the pace of hoarding names that cannot be reclaimed. The effect on prices would probably be to make them rise as excess cash is flushed into the economy (especially considering the insta-50s would be generating no drops).

 

My solution for an insta-50 button is to get 1 token for deleting a level 50 character. Spend 2 tokens to have an insta-50. This will eat into the supply of hoarded names, rather than build it up to ludicrous levels.

 

Your analysis and argument is very coherent and well-put. I wasn't considering the economic impacts of prices in the AH, as I mostly consider this a secondary effect but I recognize its importance. The place I'm coming from is mainly as a player who does not enjoy farming, and finds the activity so horrendously boring that it prevents me from playing new combinations of characters I'd have fun enjoying the game with and leads me to wanting to play the game less. 😐

 

26 minutes ago, Zect said:

Not opposed to methods of fast leveling in principle. However, they must be equally accessible to all players and playstyles; not arbitrarily reserved for an exclusive, pampered few.

 

(Also, the implied suggestion new players should be forced to slog through the game while veterans cruise to 50 is illogical. Experienced players should know how to level efficiently; new players are the ones who should be directed to powerlevelling methods, to help get them up to speed.)

 

Thumbs down for elitism and discrimination!

 

Elitism was not the intention of this post. I also said "possibly only accessible if your account already has a specific number of already level 50 characters. I'm pretty open to suggestions on what people come up with." Not that I implied I was of this mindset, more so that some people might use that as an argument against what I was trying to suggest and a way to safeguard concerns surrounding it, and allow people to come up with what limitations they think might be needed (again, not that I personally think there needs to be any.) 👍

 

Edit: looking more closely I see where you're coming from where I titled this for "experienced players" as an immediate safeguard, and I removed it. 

 

16 hours ago, TheZag said:

Im confused as to what gap this fills.

 

Despite how AE farming got nerfed trough changes to the mob xp formula, fire melee,  and the bug fix from 2x giving 3x in AE,  the team isnt actually against farming.  They arent even against the fact that farming outperforms other content for rewards.  It was just so much better at earning rewards that they wanted to narrow the divide some.

 

I understand what you're saying, but I do have to argue respectfully, that some of this information is subject to debate. AE farming is not necessarily the frontrunner for farming anymore, but it is the most widely available option that is still highly efficient for exp/inf, the alternatives being not much better and hyper-niche/requiring far more additional setup. 

 

But additionally, I have to say from my own personal experience, like I said in my initial post, I feel the changes. They hurt. They've increased the rate at which I could farm level 50's by about 40%. This severely hampers what players are able to create and have fun with, especially with so many powerset reworks and even new powersets added. When you have done the 1-50 "legitimate" grind over probably 20 times, it's just not appealing anymore for a lot of people to do it again. Thus they resort to farming. 

Edited November 8, 2022 by Zeraphia

[UltraAlt]

19 hours ago, SeraphimKensai said:

While once you get to my level, any new toon you roll automatically starts at lvl 50,

 

I'm not sure what this means. "once you get to my level"

No "toon" "automatically starts at lvl 50"

 

I have been playing since about a week before issue 2 dropped. I had over 150 characters before the sunset. I have over 100 characters now.

I don't power level (sure. I get some extra levels in holiday events and invasions). I don't farm. I certainly don't afk game.

 

People can play how they like.

 

But I don't understand "once you get to my level".

 

2 hours ago, Zeraphia said:

Elitism was not the intention of this post. I also said "possibly only accessible if your account already has a specific number of already level 50 characters

 

Okay. This sort of contradicts itself.

And get gate seems to be set by how many 50's you can AFK AE doorsit to 50 before what? An easier path to level 50 than not playing the game to level up?

 

Is one or more DFBs, Posi 1, Posi 2, Yin, ... and follow the taskforce train to 50 too slow? It's much quicker than mission arcs.

 

What is the time length you feel is acceptable to get to 50?

How little effort do you feel should be necessary to reach leveling to 50?

Should you be rewarded with a name being locked without logging that character in (forever) for taking the quick route to 50?

 

[Zeraphia]

26 minutes ago, UltraAlt said:

Okay. This sort of contradicts itself.

And get gate seems to be set by how many 50's you can AFK AE doorsit to 50 before what? An easier path to level 50 than not playing the game to level up?

 

Is one or more DFBs, Posi 1, Posi 2, Yin, ... and follow the taskforce train to 50 too slow? It's much quicker than mission arcs.

 

What is the time length you feel is acceptable to get to 50?

How little effort do you feel should be necessary to reach leveling to 50?

Should you be rewarded with a name being locked without logging that character in (forever) for taking the quick route to 50?

As I said, "possibly" because I knew people would come up with the topics you are bringing up right now and the limitations of what people would want to see on how something like this would be implemented. This does not mean I support said limitations, only that I acknowledge others may have differing opinions on what can qualify someone for this or if there even should be qualifications at all. 

 

It's made as an "I think this is an acceptable limitation for a suggestion like this" beforehand, and wanted people to voice their opinions. It wasn't meant to promote elitism. 

[SeraphimKensai]

1 hour ago, UltraAlt said:

I'm not sure what this means. "once you get to my level"

No "toon" "automatically starts at lvl 50"

 

I have been playing since about a week before issue 2 dropped. I had over 150 characters before the sunset. I have over 100 characters now.

I don't power level (sure. I get some extra levels in holiday events and invasions). I don't farm. I certainly don't afk game.

 

People can play how they like.

 

But I don't understand "once you get to my level".

I guess the joke was lost on you as you focused only on the first half of my sentence and not the part about that requiring a player to achieve lvl 59.

 

TC/GN

[UltraAlt]

3 hours ago, Zeraphia said:

As I said, "possibly" because I knew people would come up with the topics you are bringing up right now and the limitations of what people would want to see on how something like this would be implemented. This does not mean I support said limitations, only that I acknowledge others may have differing opinions on what can qualify someone for this or if there even should be qualifications at all. 

 

It's made as an "I think this is an acceptable limitation for a suggestion like this" beforehand, and wanted people to voice their opinions. It wasn't meant to promote elitism. 

 

Sure.

We're talking this out.

You are expressing  your opinions, and I'm asking questions for clarification.

I was asking you to refine what you were asking for a bit and bringing up issues that I see with power-leveling in general.

 

Some player farm. Some players power-level. Some players get power-leveled. Some players do it AFK.

I don't play that way.

We are all playing the game. (That said, are you really playing the game if you are afk and another people or system automation are essentially playing the game for  you?)

 

You seem to be implying that you want a faster leveling path while actually playing the game. I may be wrong about that.

 

I don't think your intent is to promote elitism. However, some people will use your suggested mechanic for elitism.

It would definitely be used to circumvent the Name Release Policy - as a side effect. Any method to get to 50 quickly would do that.

[UltraAlt]

2 hours ago, SeraphimKensai said:

I guess the joke was lost on you as you focused only on the first half of my sentence and not the part about that requiring a player to achieve lvl 59.

 

I thought there were well more veteran levels that 59.

Perhaps I was mistaken.

[lemming]

Honestly, there are easy ways still on getting PL'd up to 50.  This is just a request for a insta-50 with some bureaucracy added.

There's very little difference in a character that sits around and gets to 50 that way, and a char that would just need a button pressed.  Which makes me more in favor of just letting people have that.  However, I also don't think it's needed either.

[golstat2003]

2 hours ago, lemming said:

Honestly, there are easy ways still on getting PL'd up to 50.  This is just a request for a insta-50 with some bureaucracy added.

There's very little difference in a character that sits around and gets to 50 that way, and a char that would just need a button pressed.  Which makes me more in favor of just letting people have that.  However, I also don't think it's needed either.

 

Yeah at this point I'm fine with any instant level 50 idea.

[cotesan]

On 11/7/2022 at 4:50 PM, Rudra said:

Or... make the character on the test/beta server as an instant 50 and find out what you do or don't like about the character before investing all that time and effort in making the live version only to be disappointed.

yep, or pvp insta 50.

[Akalabeth]

What's so important about collecting "50s"?  Uhm... besides saying things like. "I have maxed out the server slots with 50s".  Is the incarnate stuff the most satisfying for everyone? Or is it that y'all like to slot your characters fully?

[TheZag]

5 minutes ago, Akalabeth said:

What's so important about collecting "50s"?  Uhm... besides saying things like. "I have maxed out the server slots with 50s".  Is the incarnate stuff the most satisfying for everyone? Or is it that y'all like to slot your characters fully?

 

It generally goes get to 50 and slot with purples and pvp sets that keep bonuses when u exemplar.  Then you exemplar and steam roll the lower level content.  Then you come to the forums and say the game is too easy.  Then the devs make hard mode.  Then you cant steam roll hard mode.  Then you come to the forums and say to make the game easier.

 

And you is the everyone in general you.  Not the you specifically you.  Also,  this post is in jest....or is it?

 

Edited November 9, 2022 by TheZag

[Akalabeth]

3 minutes ago, TheZag said:

 

It generally goes get to 50 and slot with purples and pvp sets that keep bonuses when u exemplar.  Then you exemplar and steam roll the lower level content.  Then you come to the forums and say the game is too easy.  Then the devs make hard mode.  Then you cant steam roll hard mode.  Then you come to the forums and say to make the game easier.

 

And you is the everyone in general you.  Not the you specifically you.  Also,  this post is in jest....or is it?

 

Oh.  Well I guess I have seen people recruit for all level 50s synapse, posi, etc. teams and such.

[Luminara]

3 hours ago, Akalabeth said:

What's so important about collecting "50s"?

 

If you get them all, they come together to form one super50.