Lets talk - The negative part of the Double XP Buff.

[Nyghtmaire]

27 minutes ago, Rudra said:

If you can get double xp and still get normal inf'? Then why not ask to get double xp and double inf'. So you can say that you are gaining as if normal play. That is a bogus argument and I am grateful no one has made such a request, but wouldn't that logic also apply here?

Of course it’s a bogus argument, and one that didn’t appear in-thread until you raised it.

 

Lot of knee-jerkin’ in this thread. If the general consensus is that the influence “lost” from using double XP is fairly minimal if not de minimus when compared to drops, merits, crafting and all the other ways it’s simple to earn influence in-game, then the trade for an XP booster is seems pretty illusory to me. Merely gives the impression that there’s a meaningful choice (forgoing influence for faster leveling) where there’s no real loss at all. Why have a fake choice?

 

36 minutes ago, Rudra said:

If you want to gain faster at one thing, you should give up something else to compensate.

Ideally, I agree. Reading the responses here, seems more like illusory than anything else (see above).

 

38 minutes ago, ZemX said:

The way it's set up now makes perfect sense.  1XP gets normal Inf.  2XP gets none.  Cost/Benefit.  Up to the player.  The idea that this is too difficult for new players to understand is laughable.

 
I agree. Completely laughable. I should have been clearer above. I used “hypothetical” but should have said “fictitious”.

 

A real trade would be a complete inability to earn *any* influence (or a percentage, based on choice - 25% / 50% / 100%) while using a booster. I can get behind that. But current system has an extremely low impact on influence gained.

42 minutes ago, Rudra said:

If you want to gain faster at one thing, you should give up something else to compensate. Otherwise just make the server like the test server and have everyone start at level 50 with everything they want. (Which I am not requesting happen.)

/signed

 

44 minutes ago, ZemX said:

There's nothing to see here.  Which is why I suspect this is either a troll or is really about AE babies earning some scratch for sitting at a door.  Because there's no problem at all if you're actually playing the game.

/convinced

[Rudra]

37 minutes ago, Nyghtmaire said:

Of course it’s a bogus argument, and one that didn’t appear in-thread until you raised it.

 

Lot of knee-jerkin’ in this thread. If the general consensus is that the influence “lost” from using double XP is fairly minimal if not de minimus when compared to drops, merits, crafting and all the other ways it’s simple to earn influence in-game, then the trade for an XP booster is seems pretty illusory to me. Merely gives the impression that there’s a meaningful choice (forgoing influence for faster leveling) where there’s no real loss at all. Why have a fake choice?

 

37 minutes ago, Nyghtmaire said:

Ideally, I agree. Reading the responses here, seems more like illusory than anything else (see above).

I didn't make the comment to make a suggestion or to say anyone made such a request. I made the comment to make a point. The point being that as it is set up, even if effectively illusory, there  is a trade off between gaining inf' and xp if you wish to gain more xp faster. That trade off may be negligible in light of the myriad ways of gaining inf', but it is there. And it is there for the sake of balance. Just because it fails to achieve actual parity doesn't take away the attempt at parity. The OP would take even the attempt at parity away. And for what? A minor boost in inf' gain? The inf' rewards at low levels is pathetic. And the inf' rewards you get while door sitting on a farm are scaled to your character level. (At least, this was the case the last time I checked.) So what is the OP asking for? The illusion of making bank while gaining double xp? The drops and merits are already going to be the primary source of revenue.

 

There needs to be a trade off. The current trade off does not preclude characters from getting inf'. It just prevents them from getting inf' from mob defeats and mission completion rewards. Parity may not actually exist, but let's not throw out what parity we do have just because it isn't perfect.

[Jimpy2]

Until fairly recently I always used double xp. Lately I’ve been doing more and different content and leveling slower. One of my friends always goes the double Xp route and says he has as much influence as me. He’s wrong but also I have way, way more reward merits and I do all the Faultline/Striga/Croatoa strings so I have a ton of temp powered. He literally power levels his new toons now, he has 5 accounts, then doesn’t know how to use them. He gets toons to 50 in 2 or 3 days and I take a lot longer. But when I hit 50 I have mostly enhancements sets and know exactly what my toon’s weaknesses and strengths are. I work on those weaknesses with my incarnate powers. He ALWAYS take musculature, ion judgement, barrier destiny and the hybrid that always gives you a damage increase (I forgot it’s name) because he views those as the best, even if he needs work on something else. He hates LOTRO because the toons aren’t as customizable but here he has about 15 electric/devices blasters, all with fire epic and the same incarnate powers. 
 

lately he’s been trying to make a tank. He has several ice/fire tanks and they all “suck”. He never tries to use them before 50. My most recent tank, a dark/dark tank, took months to get to 50 and has 10 toggles. I took whatever alpha gives you endurance reduction and I’m ok with endurance now. He doesn’t do that, he has Consume so he takes musculature and always has an endurance problem. 
 

Sorry for the meandering sometimes off topic rant, but he complained to me that my toon was leveling to slow. But my toon had 100 million influence and he had to take time to load a different account to email himself some. I like the idea of not getting influence with the double xp but my one friend who uses it all the time, gets on my nerves. Also, he has developed title envy. He discovered one of my toons (actually quite a few of them) have the title Villain of the Month but he’ll never do the work needed to get it. Same thing with the Cannibal title and that’s easy to get if you try.

 

Sorry, I’m ranting again. I would hate it if double xp was the default. I’ll take the slow road and influence.

[nihilii]

14 hours ago, Ironblade said:

I buy the double XP booster, do 2-3 runs of Death From Below and then delete it and never buy another.

I think the DXP specifically doesn't work in Death From Below, so you could save yourself two trips to the P2W vendor!

[Excraft]

17 hours ago, Zewks said:

Worst case, however, a new player on their first character is going to find the game unreasonably harder by leaving them mostly broke. 

 

What new players?

[Uun]

I almost never use 2xp, certainly not after lvl 10. The levels already fly by. People with long memories remember that on live the devs increased the rate of xp gain several times. In the beginning it would take 500+ hours to level a character to 50. That was a grind.

[Timeshadow]

Hey, longtime veteran here👋

I really don't think the influence lost while running full 2x XP makes much of a difference. Is it easier to manage when you can email yourself a few million from another toon? Sure, but that really only comes into play when you're looking to go hard in the IO scene as soon as possible. As we're all aware by now, the game was never made more difficult to account for IOs so the only time that even matters is when you're running Homecoming exclusive content.

What I will say is that the game could do more to tell new players about the market. We've all been running a toon up the ranks and had a valuable recipe or piece of salvage drop. 9 times outta 10, we have an intrinsic understanding of the fact that said drop should go on the AH. A true newbie (Meaning someone who's playing for the first time and leveling without AE or any of the other PLing methods) doesn't. They could easily end up vendoring something for pennies that would've let them kit themselves out if they'd put it up for bid instead.

So no, I don't think the influence penalty for 2x XP should be removed. Instead, implement some things that'll teach new players about how the game's economy works so they don't accidentally wind up broke as soon as they hit the level cap.

[lemming]

5 hours ago, Excraft said:

What new players?

We have a couple new ones playing with us currently.

[lemming]

I run 2xp on most of my characters.  My level 50 veterans make more per mission than my characters at low levels.  More influence can be gotten via selling recipes, enhancements, etc...

 

My all content character does no XP most of the time, and 2xp to get to the various level breakpoints.  They're making way more influence by marketing their drops than anything else.

[WumpusRat]

On 1/20/2023 at 12:10 PM, Zewks said:

 

 

Every new player who does small groups, actual missions and story, who doesnt have an alt level 50 farming character, will 100% make good use of that inf they would get while leveling from 1-50.

 

The only players who dont find it valuable are those who have been playing long enough, or who have expert knowledge of the game systems that a new player wouldnt. Its easy for experienced players to forget what starting new is like. (something CoH suffers a great deal from with many players)

 

And again, if its really that trivial, that unimportant, then it shouldnt be an issue to simply allow players to earn it with the double xp. Why be upset or bothered that people are getting something that "has about zero effect"

 

From 40-50? Sure. From 1-40? Not really.

The thing is, you'll get far, FAR more influence from just selling the drops and converting merits into boosters/converters and selling those than you'll get from mob-based influence on your path upwards. 

At 40+ you'll start seeing some decent inf gains, so at that point turning it off (if you're a "new" player who doesn't have any other income) isn't a bad idea. But considering that even as a brand new player, all it takes is asking "How do I make enough money to buy enhancement and stuff?" to get a flock of people to offer suggestions, advice, or even ferry you around to get the exploration badges in Atlas for 5 merits, which you can turn into 1 million inf.

 

The "penalty" of lowered inf for increased exp is just a tradeoff. Do you want faster exp gain, or do you want more inf? And for low-level characters, it's more like "do you want twice as much exp, or a handful of inf that will, after 30-40 missions, net you enough for a couple SOs?"

 

I don't have any "farmer" characters. When I came back to the game for the first time, it was basically as a "new player" (though I knew how the game worked, mechanically). Took me all of about 20 minutes to make my first million inf. Mostly because I was just bouncing around going "Whee, CoH again!" for about 15m of that.

[Troo]

On 1/20/2023 at 10:54 AM, Zewks said:

It would seem that its come time to really ask, "Does this negative need to exist?"

 

Many will state that the amount of inf you miss out on is negligible. Nothing something to even care about. If that is the case, why is the negative even there still?

 

Best case scenario, people dont care because they already have more than enough inf from playing the game so long.

 

Worst case, however, a new player on their first character is going to find the game unreasonably harder by leaving them mostly broke. 

 

Asking a new player not to use the double xp when 1. Nearly every player is encouraging them to, and 2. This games xp grind to max level is ultimately more than most new mmorpg players are used to (if they havent played old school mmorpg before). Just in the last week alone, Ive seen at least 3 new players come and go from the game because CoH inherently isnt very hand holding or easy to grasp for many. I know the vets easily overlook this, the game being as familiar as the back of their hand now.

 

So again, perhaps its time to simply remove the negative part of the double xp buff? Just make it a double xp buff, with no downside.

 

Or perhaps, just make it the default rate of xp. There is already an option in the setting to disable xp for those who dont want to outlevel content. (as well as Ouro for when you do)

 

Just something to think about.

 

A lot of the game is choices and consequences.

• Wanna run a bunch of toggles you do 'need' 24/7, there's a cost.
• Want to maximize damage and ignore accuracy, go for it.
• Choose to ignore knowing what a sapper is.. well, there's no ignoring them for very long and still making progress.
• Hey look how fast I leveled up but now I can't afford that expensive build I found on the forum.. sucker

 

I'd support a better disclaimer on the 2xp option.

 

Edited January 22, 2023 by Troo
i meant 'can't'

[biostem]

1 hour ago, Troo said:

Hey look how fast I leveled up but now I can afford that expensive build

I've had plenty of characters where they can "get by" with level 25 IOs for a good while, and place more value on my time, so the tradeoff of having to slowly perfect the build at 50 is worth it for me over spending that time in the lower levels...

[Arc-Mage]

This entire argument to DBL XP or not to DBL XP was made moot a while back and for several reasons.
 

The game is 18yo.
 

The game, with the addition of Ourobous can be played in any order. So people who prefer to skip content and play out of order will be able to continue to do so. You will not have more people playing the game at the same rate. 

 

The game with the addition of the difficulty slider can be played at any speed. So people will continue making Uber toons and setting the slider at its most difficult settings. Instead of having the ability to have a toon 1 to 50 in a day, the removal of DBL XP will make it 1 to 50 in two days. 

 

Im convinced that people who complain about DBL XP and it’s use in game fail to see the larger picture. Even with the removal of DBL XP two things will nevertheless persist. One, people will continue to play the game out of order. And two, people will continue to level faster than them. DBL XP is not the imbalancing monster they make it out to be. They just fail to see their problem is not the DBL XP, but their problem is with multiple aspects of the game. These aspects will not be changed in this version of CoH. 
 

 

[Rudra]

32 minutes ago, Arc-Mage said:

This entire argument to DBL XP or not to DBL XP was made moot a while back and for several reasons.
 

The game is 18yo.
 

The game, with the addition of Ourobous can be played in any order. So people who prefer to skip content and play out of order will be able to continue to do so. You will not have more people playing the game at the same rate. 

 

The game with the addition of the difficulty slider can be played at any speed. So people will continue making Uber toons and setting the slider at its most difficult settings. Instead of having the ability to have a toon 1 to 50 in a day, the removal of DBL XP will make it 1 to 50 in two days. 

 

Im convinced that people who complain about DBL XP and it’s use in game fail to see the larger picture. Even with the removal of DBL XP two things will nevertheless persist. One, people will continue to play the game out of order. And two, people will continue to level faster than them. DBL XP is not the imbalancing monster they make it out to be. They just fail to see their problem is not the DBL XP, but their problem is with multiple aspects of the game. These aspects will not be changed in this version of CoH. 
 

 

The discussion here isn't whether or not to use a double xp boost, it is whether or not the character should be getting inf' from mob defeats and mission completion while also getting double xp.

[Arc-Mage]

1 hour ago, Rudra said:

The discussion here isn't whether or not to use a double xp boost, it is whether or not the character should be getting inf' from mob defeats and mission completion while also getting double xp.

People are still bitching about that? 
 

To that I would say there are multiple forms of money (too many) in game and multiple ways to make money in this game. The Inf with the DBL XP isn’t needed. And only partially because it wasn’t enough to properly slot a toon when you hit 50 anyway. 

[A.I.D.A.]

Bold of you to assume we get any new players, and not just returning players from live.

[SeraphimKensai]

Over the course of leveling naturally 1-50, you'll make maybe about ~3 million (it's been awhile since I leveled up naturally) influence/infamy/information. The recipe and salvage drops you'll get could be sold for approximately ~25-50 million on the AH, maybe more depending on RNG.

 

Here's the kicker when the game first came out brand new players often had DO's and SO's go red because they couldn't afford brand new enhancements as they leveled, generic IOs made that much better for truly new people.

 

The influence loss of the double XP booster is a nominal fee for it's benefit.

 

I think the real issue you have is how to get newer players to play the market and learn how to do so. As when one does that influence becomes a bit of a joke as a number of us have taken lvl 1 characters popped inner inspiration sold those inspirations and then used that as seed money to flip in the AH to get up to the influence cap while still at lvl 1.

 

The double XP booster was put in by Jimmy as a gesture of goodwill to give people a means to rebuild their characters from the original servers faster than otherwise possible given that 2xp weekends did happen on live. When the SCORE servers rebranded to Homecoming, they scrubbed all the old characters as they were tied to people's financial data for the old subscription system of live. That way people could get back to where they were on the live servers in a more timely manner.

 

It's intended use seems to have devolved more to being standard use for people rolling new alts they never had.

[biostem]

10 hours ago, SeraphimKensai said:

I think the real issue you have is how to get newer players to play the market and learn how to do so.

I wonder how difficult it would be to have regular vendors/shops display the last few AH prices an item sold for, to give players some perspective on whether selling to the shop is a better or worse deal...

[SeraphimKensai]

15 hours ago, biostem said:

I wonder how difficult it would be to have regular vendors/shops display the last few AH prices an item sold for, to give players some perspective on whether selling to the shop is a better or worse deal...

It's technically possible to do so but would require effort to expand a new UI box on a regular vendor to show the price of various items at the AH.

 

It might be easier and more pragmatic to emphasize the story arc that sends players to the AH at lvl 10 to train them how to use the AH.

Edited January 24, 2023 by SeraphimKensai

[Saiyajinzoningen]

if this gets people out of AE and playing the game then im all for it. Some would argue the game doesn't really begin till 50. Others would say some powersets don't really shine until much later. Im just tired of all the farms 😞

[Xiddo]

On 1/20/2023 at 7:46 PM, Zewks said:

 

... out of touch what a brand new player would experience in the game.

 

I don't know how I feel about the OP's initial post, or the interaction I'm quoting from, but I do agree with Zewks that this MMO - as with all MMOs - is quite overwhelming for newer players (yes, there are some) or at least players who left before certain things were introduced/changed. Just yesterday I saw someone in general saying "so is Galaxy city just gone now?!". Two days ago I teamed with a vet 35 with no IOs or incarnate powers, after chatting about their toon and things they might find helpful after they admitted to not understanding it as they'd left before, so I sent them the guide for incarnate stuff from the forums.

So if we don't change boosters, what would people recommend was changed to help new/returning player re/learn the ropes?

[ZemX]

5 hours ago, Xiddo said:

So if we don't change boosters, what would people recommend was changed to help new/returning player re/learn the ropes?

 

If someone actually plays the game from tutorial on, it does a decent job teaching you the basics.   Where new players are going to feel overwhelmed is when they step into teams with veteran players.  There isn't anything the devs can change in the game that makes that any less jarring.   

 

Which is why I am giving this whole thread the side-eye.  I suspect it's got little to do legitimately with newbies wanting to learn the game and everything to do with someone wanting to door sit in a farm at 2XP and still earn inf.  Because people who want to learn the game... can.   But they have to want to and they have to ASK when they want to learn something they don't understand.  Ask anything in /help channel and you'll get multiple answers usually.  The tutorial points you right at it too.

 

Specific to the premise of this thread, if you ask in /help channel how you can, as a new player with no rich alts, afford enhancements if you've been running 2XP, you'll be told how.  You don't even have to go search in a forum.   I don't know how it gets too much easier than that.

[biostem]

10 hours ago, Xiddo said:

So if we don't change boosters, what would people recommend was changed to help new/returning player re/learn the ropes?

I'd love to see them add some sort of "danger room" content for people to (re)learn the ropes - maybe utilize a neutral group like Vanguard or even the various Universities host such resources.  Just to be clear, I think this should be distinct from AE...

[Rudra]

Ouroboros is a pretty good option for that. Grab your 50. Run some low level content to get a feel for anything unfamiliar. Run some mid level content that is flagged as not done yet to see what changes are there. And then go nuts on the high level content. Everything is already there except for filler missions. Including the tutorial arcs. Which can be run back to back to maintain story continuity at will.

Edited January 27, 2023 by Rudra
It's Ouroboros... not Ourobors....

[Xiddo]

19 hours ago, ZemX said:

Where new players are going to feel overwhelmed is when they step into teams with veteran players.  There isn't anything the devs can change in the game that makes that any less jarring.   

This is true, and fair. Last night we teamed with someone who didn't know about the badge to get to Cim. Took a second for my brain to process that we needed to explain it to them. We're a bit used to muscle memory. Someone on Excel used to run "exploration badge and Cim entry mission" tours which was good.

 

19 hours ago, ZemX said:

Specific to the premise of this thread, if you ask in /help channel how you can, as a new player with no rich alts, afford enhancements if you've been running 2XP, you'll be told how.  You don't even have to go search in a forum.   I don't know how it gets too much easier than that.

Fair - and I guess there is a "help me" thing when you make a new toon. I guess I imagine some people feel embarrassed to ask for help. Probably every 3 months I have to ask "which thing makes it a superior ATO again?" and I always feel like a melon, and I've been here for a while.