AE farms

[Piledriver]

...perhaps(and this is just a speculative assumption only mind you) that Tempest or others may be allowing the original game's subscription business model institutional thinking influence too much their stance.  *shrug*

 

Nobody's a dev here. The server operators are just players with the means to run a server now that it's been leaked. Some players have always been hostile to AE. Some have always been autocratic about how others play the game or being able to get more than some arbitrarily determined fair share of loot. This could become a political issue dividing different servers in time... if there even are public servers for much longer.

[brian9824]

Honestly I'm all for disabling the AE all togethor if its negatively impacting the rest of the game.  I mean if it comes down to supporting 200 people running missions or 8 people running a AE the resources are better spent on the missions.

 

There is more then enough content in the game itself and opportunities. 

[EnigmaBlack]

Hi my name is EnigmaBlack, and I'm a farmaholic. I've also been know to use Farmbiturates...

 

 

[Blue Jay]

Nobody's a dev here. The server operators are just players with the means to run a server now that it's been leaked. Some players have always been hostile to AE. Some have always been autocratic about how others play the game or being able to get more than some arbitrarily determined fair share of loot. This could become a political issue dividing different servers in time... if there even are public servers for much longer.

 

It seems like the autocratic ones are now in the majority and it will be their wills done.

[brian9824]

Nobody's a dev here. The server operators are just players with the means to run a server now that it's been leaked. Some players have always been hostile to AE. Some have always been autocratic about how others play the game or being able to get more than some arbitrarily determined fair share of loot. This could become a political issue dividing different servers in time... if there even are public servers for much longer.

 

It seems like the autocratic ones are now in the majority and it will be their wills done.

 

It's more like whats for the greater good.  I mean they could support an AE farm for 8 people, or provide support for 100-200 players to log in and play. 

 

I mean the decision between the two is a no brainer, especially as there are plenty of ways to farm without the AE. 

[Piledriver]

I wonder which side of this political divide loves the hyperbole more?

 

I'm pretty fond of it in moderation, but man... 100-200 vs 8?

[Archangel62]

I'm a bit late to the party but I kind of want to bring up a few issues too. I'm going to mostly ignore the usual points that a person playing a different way shouldn't be punished as it doesn't impact anyone elses fun. I will accept the idea that the servers were unstable from AE, I can see that being plausible. The problem though is that AE has a lot of other good uses, and it feels less like the changes being made are to keep the servers stable and are more there to, well, punish AE users or try to make it so that no one wants to use it.

 

The thing is AE is actually pretty good as a stopgap tool, it allows people with alts (and let's be honest here, this game will make you an altaholic, the most powerful endboss is in fact the character creator) to level without having to go through the same missions ad infinitum. It can also allow someone to get some extra resources to say help their superteam build a base or finish off a set they were working on.

 

Now, if the XP gains are somehow overly..generous, well why not just adjust game XP. Look I'll be honest the 150%-200% XP going on feels pretty nice and the growth rate isn't bad, especially when we want to retain players and there is a lot of reason to make new characters. I also want to point out that the XP nerfs may exacerbate the farmer problem. To put it a bit differently, if I get sick of the usual missions I could look for some stuff that looks fun in AE, but the XP nerfs suddenly make that less viable. If I want to be able to level and not ahve to redo the same missions, farming maps become the main viable alternative.

 

Also it does feel like the general loot is getting nerfed too. As someone who would rather not have to spend half their free time at the auction house being able to farm up loot is rather preferable in these situations. But then maybe I'm wrong and others know something I don't, but the fact is that right now it feels like people that want to use this, whether to farm or to tell their own stories and explore options, are being punished and that seems...well not so good to put it mildly

[srmalloy]

However imo if you needed an AE farm then you just outed yourself as bad at the game. hit 10 do a posi, by the time its over your 15, run a synapse, 20 at its end go do some striga isle arcs and the 2 TFs there. now your lvl 40 and that is like a few weekend long play sessions. Now you can go flash back finish up some arcs, and hit 50 painlessly.

 

I'll freely admit that I've been running an AE mission that's clearly labeled as a low level XP farm -- but when I do, I turn off earning XP and run it for the ticket drops, then turn around and spend them on the common salvage rolls to get what I need for IOs; it's a more reliable source of salvage than relying on the random and Irregular mob drops. Doing it with XP turned off keeps me from outleveling the regular content.

[Healix]

I'll freely admit that I've been running an AE mission that's clearly labeled as a low level XP farm -- but when I do, I turn off earning XP and run it for the ticket drops, then turn around and spend them on the common salvage rolls to get what I need for IOs; it's a more reliable source of salvage than relying on the random and Irregular mob drops. Doing it with XP turned off keeps me from outleveling the regular content.

 

[cramit845]

I haven't been playing AE missions since coming back at all.  Personally, I just never found them that fun or interesting. It didn't feel like personal stories, just player made missions to make farming/xping quicker.

 

With that said, the game died for me pretty much when I came back at one point and the only groups I found were AE missions. That is what got me to stop playing the game before the servers were turned off.  As these servers stand now, the population is amazing and there are groups to be had everywhere. So I don't see the problem, other than server stability issues. The real problem will come up when/if the population drops low and there is a segmentation in the community of who likes what.

 

Since there are so many servers, it may not be that big of a deal and especially with the current population, it definitely isn't right now. I think this issue rears it's ugly head when you only have a couple thousand players playing.

 

However to have some players complaining about the speed of leveling with the increased xp and the xp buff you get on creation, blows my mind. Maybe it's because I'm an EQ player and this grind is nothing to me but right now xp seems so fast that I can't imagine speeding it up. Of course that's my personal experience but I am happy we don't have insta 50's, cause thats how you kill a game imo but the leveling rate right now seems a lot faster/easier that needing any kind of help for farming/xping seems completely unnecessary.

 

Not to mention, you can farm easily without AE but to each their own. Im just glad that the devs/admins of the server prioritize server stability/population over AE. Might be upsetting for the AE players but not sure how you can argue between more people on the servers/servers more stalbe and certain players wanting specific content as a convenience.

[Healix]

What has always been such a great thing about this game, is  that people can play the way they want to. For me, personally, I do not like to speed through things just to get to 50. "The journey is as rewarding as the destination" for me. There is so much content and so many things I'd miss by rushing. Others don't feel that way. (I am actually working on a fire brute for farming to help folks who want to be PL'd.) Whatever your playing style, it's right.

[jubakumbi]

All these years and the same tired arguments just get recycled.

Don't you people ever die?

 

:)

 

[Eiko-chan]

I wonder which side of this political divide loves the hyperbole more?

 

I'm pretty fond of it in moderation, but man... 100-200 vs 8?

Probably not much hyperbole, actually. Unless you don't want to trust the guy that ran a server for six years:

The missionserver, as its called, is a separate piece of software that stores the mission data as created by players. It does use some resources, but that part is not a big deal. Once you start an AE mission, it's loaded in a mapserver, like any other mission. They are not treated any differently.

 

The problem is that players can build missions that are a lot more resource-intensive than normal missions from the game. When enemies spawn in normal missions, most of them have their AI in an "idle" state until they are aggroed, which doesn't require much processing power. But most AE farms rely heavily on ambushes or patrols, which spawn the critters with fully active AI. And that's the problem.

 

Missions are run on 9 servers with a total of 224 cores. For the most part you can run lots of zones and missions on a single core without a problem; but AE farms tend to max out a core all for themselves. If there's just 100 AE AI-intensive farms running, that eats half of the mapserver processing power for all 4 shards.

[Yamato]

Is anyone getting tickets during AE missions? I wasn't getting any drops on Torchbearer. I then went to Excelsior and was getting drops. Back on Torchbearer and nothing. Went back to Excelsior and was getting constantly map served. Went to Indomitable with new toon and no tickets. I usually run with solo but the one time I ran with another they didn't get tickets either. Asked others on both servers and they say they aren't getting tickets. Was there an announcement that tickets are nerfed?

[Adeon Hawkwood]

With that said, the game died for me pretty much when I came back at one point and the only groups I found were AE missions. That is what got me to stop playing the game before the servers were turned off.

That would have been during the Boss Farms part of the AE craze. Basically people figured out how to have missions spawn nothing but bosses and it turns out that if you can fight 10-20 bosses as a group the rewards:time ratio goes a bit crazy. Once those were nerfed people mostly went back to regular content, there was still AE farming going on of course but it wasn't as popular or as rewarding.

[Oubliette_Red]

All these years and the same tired arguments just get recycled.

Don't you people ever die?

 

:)

 

 

Nah, it's the horse that's dead, they just keep beating on the poor creature.

[jubakumbi]

All these years and the same tired arguments just get recycled.

Don't you people ever die?

 

:)

 

 

Nah, it's the horse that's dead, they just keep beating on the poor creature.

 

More like the horse is dust and to even beat the thing you have to run an epic level mission of for Hate and Anger to gather the dust, add some Hellion blood and re-constitute the thing to even begin to strike at it.

 

The whole thing, _just like every single other game_ boils down to a group of people that claim they 'cannot imagine why' or 'cannot understand why' someone would play this way, when in reality thier brain chemistry simply does not allow them to accept that other people live their lives differently.

 

This same tired argument is some form exists in _all_ game forums.

 

Play the 'right way' or GTFO.

 

Some don't just lack creativity, they activily try to stiffle it in others, because 'they cannot understand.'

 

Yeah, I am a bit bitter over it, because I am tired of people with no imagination or ability to think ouside the box trying to tell others to stop doing thigs they "just don't understand".

[brian9824]

All these years and the same tired arguments just get recycled.

Don't you people ever die?

 

:)

 

 

Nah, it's the horse that's dead, they just keep beating on the poor creature.

 

More like the horse is dust and to even beat the thing you have to run an epic level mission of for Hate and Anger to gather the dust, add some Hellion blood and re-constitute the thing to even begin to strike at it.

 

The whole thing, _just like every single other game_ boils down to a group of people that claim they 'cannot imagine why' or 'cannot understand why' someone would play this way, when in reality thier brain chemistry simply does not allow them to accept that other people live their lives differently.

 

This same tired argument is some form exists in _all_ game forums.

 

Play the 'right way' or GTFO.

 

Some don't just lack creativity, they activily try to stiffle it in others, because 'they cannot understand.'

 

Yeah, I am a bit bitter over it, because I am tired of people with no imagination or ability to think ouside the box trying to tell others to stop doing thigs they "just don't understand".

 

Actually its more like people are saying no to it because literally 1 person running an AE farm is taking the server resources needed to support 10-20 or more teams running missions. 

 

So 1 person running an AE farm means 100+ people can't play or run missions.  THAT is the biggest issue. 

 

I'd have absolutely no issues with AE farms if it didn't come at the cost of the server health. 

[jubakumbi]

Actually its more like people are saying no to it because literally 1 person running an AE farm is taking the server resources needed to support 10-20 or more teams running missions. 

 

So 1 person running an AE farm means 100+ people can't play or run missions.  THAT is the biggest issue. 

 

I'd have absolutely no issues with AE farms if it didn't come at the cost of the server health.

 

Totally true - the mechanical reason AE chnages were made here is resources - needs of the many and all that.

 

The circular argument running for years over this _topic_ was not, until the specifics were brought up by Leandro(?), about resources.

 

The argument was for years (continues in this thread) over using the AE missions from a 'moral' and 'right/wrong' standpoint, IMO, driven by people that literally think there are 'right and wrong' ways to play.

 

Powerleveling to some people is a worse sin than PvP.

For some, just playing to kill pixels, w/o a 'good story' is just a 'waste of time'.

 

I am simply tired of having to slow down (in games, in life) because a few other people 'just cannot imagine'.

[Kelador]

If the auction house prices were not so out of balance with the inf gains from regular content then AE would be used for what it was designed for... But when a single enhancement can cost over 50mil (stupid prices....) which is what 15+ hours of playing regular content you cannot blame people for picking the fastest way to grind for inf... increasing inf gains from regular content or reducing merit costs/seeding rarer IO sets at fixed prices etc can go along way to balancing things out and removing the want for AE farms people have.

 

Using AE for power leveling alts is also something that can be solved by doubling the XP gains from all content once you get at least 1 character to 50 and then offering XP boosters that have penalty's to inf gains if you want to level even quicker.

[Dr. Gemini]

If the auction house prices were not so out of balance with the inf gains from regular content then AE would be used for what it was designed for... But when a single enhancement can cost over 50mil (stupid prices....)

 

Speaking of rehashing the same old things over and over...

 

Now I'm sure we can figure out a way for ED to factor into this and get the trifecta.

[brian9824]

If the auction house prices were not so out of balance with the inf gains from regular content then AE would be used for what it was designed for... But when a single enhancement can cost over 50mil (stupid prices....) which is what 15+ hours of playing regular content you cannot blame people for picking the fastest way to grind for inf... increasing inf gains from regular content or reducing merit costs/seeding rarer IO sets at fixed prices etc can go along way to balancing things out and removing the want for AE farms people have.

 

Using AE for power leveling alts is also something that can be solved by doubling the XP gains from all content once you get at least 1 character to 50 and then offering XP boosters that have penalty's to inf gains if you want to level even quicker.

 

Well for one they are already offering xp boosters that have penalty's to influence gain in P2W vendor, and they will be free after next update. 

 

Secondly it doesn't take 15+ hours of playing regular content to get 50 million influence, and the only enhancements going for that much are literally the best in slot end game ones.  You can also buy them yourself quite easily with reward merits.  Normal enhancements are very easy to afford and the expensive ones are the goal for end game and will take some time and work to get fully outfitted in them. 

 

Just run some TF's, do some story arcs's, etc.  Then use the merits to buy recipes you need and craft the enhancements. 

[Kelador]

If the auction house prices were not so out of balance with the inf gains from regular content then AE would be used for what it was designed for... But when a single enhancement can cost over 50mil (stupid prices....)

 

Speaking of rehashing the same old things over and over...

 

Now I'm sure we can figure out a way for ED to factor into this and get the trifecta.

 

Removing ED would make the need for expensive IO sets less of a requirement at endgame and more of a perk/bragging rights and the cost of those enhancements would not be sky high due to not being a requirement for endgame builds and making AE Farms for Inf a thing of the past (trifecta!)

[Dr. Gemini]

If the auction house prices were not so out of balance with the inf gains from regular content then AE would be used for what it was designed for... But when a single enhancement can cost over 50mil (stupid prices....)

 

Speaking of rehashing the same old things over and over...

 

Now I'm sure we can figure out a way for ED to factor into this and get the trifecta.

 

Removing ED would make the need for expensive IO sets less of a requirement at endgame and more of a perk/bragging rights and the cost of those enhancements would not be sky high due to not being a requirement for endgame builds and making AE Farms for Inf a thing of the past (trifecta!)

 

Awesome, you deserve an Inf for that.

[Prototelis]

I have to disagree on market prices.

 

They really only hurt if you expect to smurf out your first character as you level, in which case TOs, DOs, and SOs would have absolutely no place in the game. I honestly wish something could be done to tweak the balance between the different origin enhancements without nerfing anything, but that's a different discussion entirely.

 

Seeding the salvage prices was both the right and wrong thing to do.. if that makes sense. It definitely drastically lowered the prices of many things on the market, but it also in a way too fast cash out of the hands of newbies or people with altitus. It is no longer worth it to sell salvage except if you want to earn the badges.

 

Once you get a fitty and start looking at what sells and how to get those things you'll start making ridiculous amounts of INF. Do it on  more than one character and you're super rich in no time.

 

At the end of the day, its no ones job to be the police of how other people have fun; so long as that fun isn't diminishing anyone elses fun or hurting anyone.

 

I've said it before; If it weren't for traditional AE farms causing server stability issues I wouldn't care.