Patrol Dump

[Rudra]

I asked on a previous thread for the option to be able to turn off patrol xp. So, I'm here now hoping an alternate request will find more acceptance.

 

I normally only have around an hour to play at a time. I logged on a level 44 Blaster I wanted to play that I had not played in a while, and used a +4 spawn of 4 CoT in the Portal Corporation parking lot since they were so readily accessible to get rid of my patrol xp. I jumped into the group at 11:18. I finally finished getting rid of patrol xp at 12:10. That was 52 minutes of my roughly hour spent doing nothing but trying to get destroyed to get rid of patrol xp.

 

I already know I'm in the minority on this. Hells, I'm probably the only person that cares about this. However, I would really like a way to not deal with this every time I log on to a character I haven't played in a while. If the answer to an option that must be enabled by the player to disable patrol xp is out of the question, then can we maybe get someone or something that we can just dump our patrol xp into to get rid of it? Maybe a PPD officer blue side, Arachnos agent red side, and angry citizen or something gold side that the character walks up to and gets a "NOPE!" from as our patrol xp goes away. I don't care what it is.

 

FIFTY-TWO MINUTES to get rid of patrol xp! Please.

[Outrider_01]

Spoiler

Turn off XP ? 🤔

won't level, but don't gain exerience.

 

Why are you for the suggestion? Patrol is free experience just to make up for unplayed time.

[Rudra]

Then check out my prior post asking to be able to turn off patrol xp. I hate patrol xp. Always have. Free experience to make up for unplayed time? Give me a break. Are you serious?

 

That is the first time anyone gave me that answer as a reason for patrol xp. The point of playing is to get xp and experience the game. XP for not playing? Yeah, that was a first in responses. Congrats.

 

If there was a day job location that was not also a patrol day job location, I'd just log off all my characters there. However, everywhere you can possibly log off in the game gives you patrol xp. Because everywhere in the game is the patrol day job location. Because obviously a super is a super 24 hours a day regardless of what (s)he/it is doing and where.

 

The advantage of Live? You only had to get rid of patrol xp on a character while leveling to 50. Once you were 50? No more patrol xp! All gone! Buh-bye! Good riddance! HC has vet levels though. So you always get patrol xp because you can always level up further to level 50. Over and over and over on the same character. There is no end to patrol xp for any character.

 

I don't want xp shoved down my throat. I've left several games because of that. I haven't left CoX because I love CoX and because I can get rid of the patrol xp. If I have enough time to devote to getting rid of the patrol xp for that character I want to play at the time. I don't want "free xp for unplayed time". And the fact I spent 52 minutes tonight getting rid of it, using up my play time to not play so I could get rid of it, should have told you that yeah, I'm serious.

 

The fact most players are fine with patrol xp is not a problem. Play the way you want. We already have to turn off xp to play the game at level. Otherwise with HC's xp gain rate, you rocket past everything.  And patrol xp simply compounds the issue. Call it my obsession. Call it my insanity. Call it whatever you want. I hate patrol xp. And on characters I don't play for a few days? It takes a very long time to get rid of.

 

I'm not asking for patrol xp to go away. It makes no sense to take something that already exists in the game away from the obvious majority that likes it or are at least indifferent to it. (Edit: Hells, it makes no sense to take away something that already exists in the game even if it doesn't get much use.) My previous request was for an option the player would have to enable to stop accruing patrol xp. It looks like that won't be happening. Probably ever. So I am now asking for the ability to take a character to some NPC, object, suicide booth, murderous carnivorous ocean, whatever; to offload the patrol xp without having to spend an hour getting rid of it. It would still fall on the player to go and get rid of the xp. It would not prevent anyone from accruing and using their patrol xp.

 

You don't have to agree. You can think I'm trolling the forum, or out of my mind, or anything else you wish. As I said, I wholly expect to either be in the minority on this or be the lone individual that feels this way. That's fine. Just like my previous request, I expect this suggestion/request to also die in its cradle. Wouldn't surprise me at all.

Edited November 13, 2022 by Rudra

[biostem]

16 minutes ago, Rudra said:

I hate patrol xp. Always have. Free experience to make up for unplayed time? Give me a break. Are you serious?

It was added as a way to encourage a healthier lifestyle, by rewarding you for taking a break from the game every now and again.  You may not be able to play for long stretches, but there are some people that do so to their own detriment.  Patrol XP was one way to try encouraging people to log off for a bit...

 

But, I mean, as an OPTION, sure, why not...

Edited November 13, 2022 by biostem

[MTeague]

Patrol XP accumulating, does not bother me.  But I have zero problems flipping the "No XP" switch when I don't want to ding, in order to run certain missions at content, or if I feel I want more time to experience the character at a given power level, etc.

 

That said, I certainly have no objections to an option being added to decline Patrol XP.

[TheZag]

I cant completely solve your problem but its faster to solo que for eden trial and go to the hive to have the monsters there kill you when you are lvl 45+.  Lower than that its probably fastest at the monster islands in the back of PI.  Obviously bring a few awakens so they can kill you again at low hp instead of running from the hospital.

 

[SuggestorK]

21 minutes ago, TheZag said:

I cant completely solve your problem but its faster to solo que for eden trial and go to the hive to have the monsters there kill you when you are lvl 45+.  Lower than that its probably fastest at the monster islands in the back of PI.  Obviously bring a few awakens so they can kill you again at low hp instead of running from the hospital.

 

There is one problem with that.. after awakening u protected for a certain time to gain more debt (5 sec? 10 secs?) , so after using that awaken he would need to stay alive for that time to gain debt again..... just a hint.

[Sirius.Games]

No

 

I'm trying to understand what you as re trying to improve.

 

Slowing down leveling?

A different color on the bar?

 

 

If you want to level slower just turn off or down XP. Patrol XP maxes at one level with 50% XP you will get the same level rate as without.

 

If you don't want patrol XP don't log off.

 

If you don't like seeing it hide the XP bar and use the combat attributes menu to make a menu you want to see.

 

If you're trying to improve something else I'm interested

 

[agentx5]

3 hours ago, biostem said:

It was added as a way to encourage a healthier lifestyle, by rewarding you for taking a break from the game every now and again.  You may not be able to play for long stretches, but there are some people that do so to their own detriment.  Patrol XP was one way to try encouraging people to log off for a bit...

 

But, I mean, as an OPTION, sure, why not...

 

Honestly, I wish more games did things like that... Day jobs are a very cool thing in this game, and I'd love to see it expanded in some way in the future (like additional badges, updating the temp power functionality, etc)

[agentx5]

3 hours ago, Rudra said:

Then check out my prior post asking to be able to turn off patrol xp. I hate patrol xp. Always have. Free experience to make up for unplayed time? Give me a break. Are you serious?

 

That is the first time anyone gave me that answer as a reason for patrol xp. The point of playing is to get xp and experience the game. XP for not playing? Yeah, that was a first in responses. Congrats.

 

If there was a day job location that was not also a patrol day job location, I'd just log off all my characters there. However, everywhere you can possibly log off in the game gives you patrol xp. Because everywhere in the game is the patrol day job location. Because obviously a super is a super 24 hours a day regardless of what (s)he/it is doing and where.

 

The advantage of Live? You only had to get rid of patrol xp on a character while leveling to 50. Once you were 50? No more patrol xp! All gone! Buh-bye! Good riddance! HC has vet levels though. So you always get patrol xp because you can always level up further to level 50. Over and over and over on the same character. There is no end to patrol xp for any character.

 

I don't want xp shoved down my throat. I've left several games because of that. I haven't left CoX because I love CoX and because I can get rid of the patrol xp. If I have enough time to devote to getting rid of the patrol xp for that character I want to play at the time. I don't want "free xp for unplayed time". And the fact I spent 52 minutes tonight getting rid of it, using up my play time to not play so I could get rid of it, should have told you that yeah, I'm serious.

 

The fact most players are fine with patrol xp is not a problem. Play the way you want. We already have to turn off xp to play the game at level. Otherwise with HC's xp gain rate, you rocket past everything.  And patrol xp simply compounds the issue. Call it my obsession. Call it my insanity. Call it whatever you want. I hate patrol xp. And on characters I don't play for a few days? It takes a very long time to get rid of.

 

I'm not asking for patrol xp to go away. It makes no sense to take something that already exists in the game away from the obvious majority that likes it or are at least indifferent to it. (Edit: Hells, it makes no sense to take away something that already exists in the game even if it doesn't get much use.) My previous request was for an option the player would have to enable to stop accruing patrol xp. It looks like that won't be happening. Probably ever. So I am now asking for the ability to take a character to some NPC, object, suicide booth, murderous carnivorous ocean, whatever; to offload the patrol xp without having to spend an hour getting rid of it. It would still fall on the player to go and get rid of the xp. It would not prevent anyone from accruing and using their patrol xp.

 

You don't have to agree. You can think I'm trolling the forum, or out of my mind, or anything else you wish. As I said, I wholly expect to either be in the minority on this or be the lone individual that feels this way. That's fine. Just like my previous request, I expect this suggestion/request to also die in its cradle. Wouldn't surprise me at all.

 

I don't think you're trolling at all, because if you were you wouldn't write all that out.

 

Would an agreeable & simple solution be just a means of turning off the patrol XP like how one can currently turn off "regular" XP of they want?  That wait it changes nothing for the majority of people and it can stay the default, but for those wanting to turn it off all they have to do is essentially flip the switch to off in the settings.  That sound good?

[JasperStone]

The self-destruct power is at the P2W vendor is not an option?

 

Go to a higher-level zone and jump into a mob.

 

 

[Akisan]

I'll second this.  I've a couple pseudo- level pact toons with someone that occasionally plays, and it's obnoxious toggling xp on and off to stay at their level after they've burned their patrol xp.  (they usually have to do a little bit of catch up, at most a couple bars or so, but still...) 

 

I've also got a couple of toons that would definitely use this for RP reasons, one of which is a Silver Age toon (no P2W, IOs, new arcs, xp disable, travel power at 14, etc.)  So happy he finally made 22, so I can slot SOs instead of burning them.  He'd also love an option to disable the global incarnate xp/drops (when he gets there), but that's a topic for another thread.

 

 

Edited November 13, 2022 by Akisan
Someday I'll remember spell check *before* posting...

[Rudra]

3 hours ago, Sirius.Games said:

If you don't want patrol XP don't log off.

There's an idea. I just won't log off my pages of characters. Any idea how I can keep them all logged on at once?

[Rudra]

45 minutes ago, JasperStone said:

The self-destruct power is at the P2W vendor is not an option?

 

Go to a higher-level zone and jump into a mob.

 

 

I didn't think the self-destruct power imposed debt for its use? How long is its recharge? The 52 minutes it took me to get rid of patrol xp last night was using +4 mobs (3 minions and a boss) that were just feet away from the PI base portal. So I wasn't losing more than a couple seconds getting back to them during that time each time.

 

3 hours ago, TheZag said:

I cant completely solve your problem but its faster to solo que for eden trial and go to the hive to have the monsters there kill you when you are lvl 45+. 

I opted for PI because the monsters can take a surprising amount of time to defeat a character. Even with no defenses active. I can go back there and give them a try again though.

 

3 hours ago, agentx5 said:

Would an agreeable & simple solution be just a means of turning off the patrol XP like how one can currently turn off "regular" XP of they want?

That was actually my original request. And it died in its cradle. Yes, having the option to just turn off patrol xp would be great.

[Outrider_01]

7 hours ago, Rudra said:

That is the first time anyone gave me that answer as a reason for patrol xp. The point of playing is to get xp and experience the game. XP for not playing? Yeah, that was a first in responses. Congrats.

This sums why it was added, because of limited time away.  But its of so little consequence, I burn through it in like 15 mins in a group.  But I just play what I am in the mood for.

 

As for the first comment I made, I couldn't tell if you were serious.  Like, turn off....done.  If you are burning time just punching things, its ok thats what the experience is for is every other situation except yours. Hell, don't even force yourself to burn it; play one character for half an hour and jump on another.  Go run a DFB if you want to.

 

Its just the most minor of inconvenience, I don't get it.

[PoptartsNinja]

Sometimes, people need to do unusual things to appease the chemicals in their brains. There is no shame in it; brains are weird. My own brain prefers I eat two M&Ms at the same time and is less happy if I present it with an odd number of them.

 

Having Patrol XP makes Rudra uncomfortable enough that they're willing to go to extreme lengths to remove it and it stops them from being able to play normally. I don't see any harm in adding an option to toggle patrol XP on or off somewhere (maybe at Null the Gull?) just on the off chance it bothers other people too.

[Doomguide2005]

45 minutes ago, Rudra said:

There's an idea. I just won't log off my pages of characters. Any idea how I can keep them all logged on at once?

SG base maybe?  On Live i used to spend a fair bit of time in my SG base.  Sometimes I'd toggle out to work in Mids or just go and make lunch.  Don't recall (admittedly its been nearly 15 years now) it ever booting me out while in base.  Might be a pain to set yourself up initially getting everyone logged into a base but until the servers reboot that might do the trick. (And if you have a lot of characters each server reset would be a project).

[Greycat]

15 minutes ago, Doomguide2005 said:

SG base maybe?  On Live i used to spend a fair bit of time in my SG base. 

 

The point is you can only have one character logged in at a time per account. So while that may keep *that* character from getting patrol XP, it doesn't help the two, ten, fifty, or three hundred other characters avoid accumulating it.

[Rudra]

1 hour ago, Outrider_01 said:

If you are burning time just punching things, its ok thats what the experience is for is every other situation except yours. Hell, don't even force yourself to burn it; play one character for half an hour and jump on another.  Go run a DFB if you want to.

I don't understand your point. Don't force myself to burn it? Just play a character for a half hour and then change characters? What does DFB have to do with anything in this thread?

 

I'm not forcing myself to do anything. Depending on how long any given character I have has been logged off that I want to play at the time, I have to spend a variable amount of time getting rid of patrol xp. I'm not being forced to get rid of it. I can't stand it, so I get rid of it. And last night was the first time I actually decided to check to see how long it took me to get rid of patrol xp rather than just give up somewhere along the way and log off instead of playing with the patrol xp, only to find out it took me 52 minutes out of my limited play time to get rid of it.

 

I'm not burning time punching things. I'm losing time running into enemy spawns to just stand there and hope they kill my character quickly so I can get back into the spawn to just stand there and hope they kill my character quickly so I can get back.... See where this is going? It's not any fun to not do anything as I spend my precious time trying to be speed killed repeatedly to get rid of patrol xp so I can enjoy playing.

 

I get that for most people, patrol xp isn't something they care about or actively track. I get that it was introduced for a reason. I'm not asking for it to be removed from the game. I'm not asking for it to be default off and players have to turn it on for their characters. I'm asking for the option to be able to turn it off or be able to quickly get rid of it so I can actually play the game on characters I haven't used in a while.

 

My request will not make any changes to the way players play the game. It won't stop them from picking any powers or enhancements. It doesn't affect inspirations or temps. It doesn't place a limit on character concept or player creativity. It doesn't gatekeep content or take anything away from anyone. It isn't demanding that others abide by my concerns or play the way I play. It isn't going to change anything about the game at all unless the player wants to use the option. Why is that such a bad thing to you?

[Wavicle]

This is a problem that exists only in your mind.

What ACTUAL issue is being caused by Patrol XP?

As far as I can tell, it's just that you don't like the way the UI looks with an extra bar there?

Get over it.

[Rudra]

You are correct in that I hate the extra blue bar. I also hate unearned xp being forced on me.

 

You are also correct in that there is no game problem with patrol xp. Other than the already fast leveling process being even further accelerated. This was less pronounced on Live. It is far more pronounced on HC.

 

As for "get over it"? I can't "get over it". Otherwise I wouldn't have made now 2 threads asking for different options to deal with it.

Edit: Telling me to get over it is like telling someone who has epileptic seizures to not have one when they see strobing lights. Thank you for your callousness.

Edited November 13, 2022 by Rudra

[Wavicle]

15 minutes ago, Rudra said:

As for "get over it"? I can't "get over it". Otherwise I wouldn't have made now 2 threads asking for different options to deal with it.

Edit: Telling me to get over it is like telling someone who has epileptic seizures to not have one when they see strobing lights. Thank you for your callousness.

 

You are comparing your reaction to seeing an extra bar on the UI to an epileptic seizure.

 

I have known people who had epileptic seizures. I have sat with them and held them while they spasmed while we waited for the ambulance. Are you saying you are having a physiological reaction to seeing this bar?

If so, that is very serious and the devs should definitely fix it, like they have for Sonic and Trick Arrow.

Edited November 13, 2022 by Wavicle

[Wavicle]

But yea, Debt eats patrol xp, so next time instead of spending 52 minutes, just get yourself killed a few times. Should take less than 5 minutes.

[Rudra]

Did you not read the OP or my other posts on this thread?! I was getting myself killed to get rid of it. It took 52 minutes of getting killed by a spawn of 3 purple minions and a purple boss to get rid of of the patrol xp. And that spawn was almost at the base portal, which expedited the process. And it still took that long to get rid of.

[Rudra]

33 minutes ago, Wavicle said:

Are you saying you are having a physiological reaction to seeing this bar?

I'm saying I have no control over how I react to the patrol xp. It is not something I can just say "Yeah, okay, fine. I'll live with it." I don't drop on the ground and have uncontrollable spasms. I don't have heart palpitations or anything of that nature. I have a visceral hatred of it. It's unreasonable for me to be this affected by having patrol xp, but I can't avoid it. I can't 'get over it' or 'just ignore it'. If I could, I wouldn't be wasting so much time getting rid of it. Or be here asking for a simpler means of dealing with it.

Edited November 13, 2022 by Rudra
Edited to remove extra "a" from "palpitations".