Aett_Thorn

Moving the AE building out of Atlas Park and Galaxy City wouldn't change the requirement from doing the AE at level 1 to level 5. You could still go there at level 1 and work at it.

It would just mean that it's not right in the face of new players.

Scrappers and Brutes tend to be the best soloists in the game.

After that, Blasters, Tankers, Masterminds and Stalkers are good for soloing.

Corruptors, while they can definitely solo depending on the buff/debuff set that you choose, tend to be more team-oriented, so might solo a bit slower.


However, every AT can solo. It's just the speed at which they can do so.



Edit-> Oh, and welcome to the game and to the forums!


Second edit -> Sartol, how is it that you just started playing the game, but have a forum registration date from 2006? Just curious on that one.

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There are those who are arguing to give the players more and better information.

Nothing wrong with that. I agree and said so.

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Fair enough.

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What I will continue to fight is restricting ANYTHING including the moving of the AE buildings.

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Question for you: why?

If the AE buildings were moved out of the starting zones, and the first ones that you would come across in-game were in Port Oakes and King's Row, why would that be a bad thing? Would it hinder your ability to PL your characters if you so choose at all once you ran there? Would it hinder anybody that had made the choice to use the AE only?

The Devs have also said publicly, several times now, that the AE system is not to be used for farming or PLing. If they took drastic steps to curb farming in the AE, what would you say about that?

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The only rose-colored glasses I am wearing, per the references to seeing what I want to see, is that humans have logical, rational thoughts and the capability to figure things out for themselves.

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I agree with this. However, I think that, the way the system is presented now, the logical thing to do is to use the AE right from character creation. That is not was should be happening. The AE should be a choice, to be sure, but the logical format of how players are introduced to the game should steer them towards the actual game content, don't you think?

My problem with the AE system now in regards to choice is like the case of the Model T. You could get it in any color you wanted, as long as it was black. Newer players to the game are immediately shown a black car, and there's no information out there right at the start that you can get a car in another color. Even if they wanted a red car, they're not shown how to do that. They are not forced to get a black car, they're just not told that you can get one in another color.

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I see the whole picture. I understand the fears of those players that like the game have about wanting it to prosper, I want the game to prosper.

I do not agree that the people that would normally become long term players will not do so because of the AE, even in it's current configuration, nor do I think drastic measures need to be taken. Those people will discover 'the rest' of the game regardless.

And even if a person does not ever see anything other than the inside of the AE building and Miss Lberty, even if a player plays for a shorter time than others, high turn over or not, there is nothing wrong with that. Other games do quite well with high turn over.

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Yes, other games do do quite well with high turn over. Maybe this one could as well. However, nothing frustrates older players more than needing to constantly teach newer players everything about the game that they should have learned while playing.

Not knowing about the Shadow Shard, because nothing in the game teaches you that it's even there? Sure, I can buy that a level 50 wouldn't know about it. Not knowing how to get out of Atlas Park at level 50? That's annoying. There's no reason that a level 50 character shouldn't know how to do that. Except, now there is a reason: the AE system.


So yes, a game can do okay with high turnover. But this game has done well because of a lot of veteran players who have stayed with the game for a long time. Alienating them in order to get high turnover numbers may not be the best thing in the world to do.

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Call me whatever names you like. Do your best to belittle me. You will not get me to stop pointing out the fact that different does not equal wrong.

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Who insulted you or called you names? (okay, except Tyger, but he calls pretty much everyone a name)

In any MMO, players will always push for less restrictions, and the Devs will always need to put some in to maintain some semblance of balance.


When you have 100,000 people playing a game, there needs to be a lot more balance in player levels than if you have 1 or 2 people in the game at a time.

Feel free to come on back if those steps don't work. We don't mind helping people out here, and if this is genuinely a problem, we can get you in touch with the right people.

Hopefully, however, it's something simple that was just overlooked, and it's an easy fix.



As an aside: you're not a noob. You're a newbie. You're new to the game, but you came here with a question so that you could learn. That automatically makes you not a noob.

Now, if you have come here saying something like: "The enhancement system here sucks, I can only place one enhancement! That's stupid!" That would have been a noob comment.

So, you're many, many steps above a noob. Don't go insulting yourself like that.

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The problem, MajorPrankster, is not people who spend all their time in AE because they choose to. The problem is those who do because they do not know all their options. If AE is in Steel Canyon, newcomers to the game will encounter many aspects of the game before running into AE. After they do, they can certainly spend all their time from that point on in the AE. But it will be an informed decision, rather than an uninformed one. That is the key difference.

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All you did there was nicely say "I want these players to look at the other parts of the game."

The meaning is the same, "play the game the way I do."

Someone that chooses to remain un-informed of the games other areas and potential will do so with or without the AE. I have a friend that has for years now.

Some folks view the game in a completely different light than those of us that play heavily. They do not care, at all, about optimization, TF/SF perfection, seeing all the zones, getting badges or joining an SG. They just want to mash buttons, watch things blow up and giggle.

And that is OK.

If someone wants to learn all there is to learn about the game or not, they will, with or without the existence of the AE.

What I see in this thread and so many others, from the rants about farming, PLing and now the AE, are people determined to control others. Nothing more.

Some of the players of this game just cannot stand that there are others players that play differently than they do.

It's not about making any sort of informed decision. It's simply a matter of what they want out of the game.

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Wow, this is the best example of "seeing what I want to see, and nothing else" that I've seen in a while.

The issue is with the players that think AE is the ENTIRE GAME.

NOT with players playing in AE because they like it.

It has nothing to do with anyone telling anyone else how to play. But rather a desire for new players to be given the knowledge that there is more than one way to play.

Not doing something because you don't want to is one thing.

Not doing something because you don't know you have the option to is another entirely.

I have no issue with a player choosing not to explore the game and staying in AE the whole time. If that's what they enjoy, they are welcome to do so.

The thing I DO have an issue with is people staying in AE because the game gives them no overt indication that there is anything else to do. When you log a new character in, the first thing that happens is the Architect Engineer pops up and replaces your initial contact. Most new players would assume that talking to the guy that just popped up on the screen is how you start the game. When you complete the tutorial there is nothing whatsoever that informs you of other stuff to do, it basically just says "Enjoy!".

In order to make a choice, you first have to know there IS a choice. Many of the anecdotes recounted in this thread are stories of people who don't KNOW there is anything else to do.

I am of the opinion that the easiest fix for this problem is not a level cap on AE. It is removal of AE buildings from Atlas Park, Galaxy City, Kings Row, and Mercy Island. Coupled with that would be the Architect Engineer not being introduced to you until level, say, 12.

You could still access AE at level 1, nothing whatsoever stopping you from doing so.

But it would solve the problem of new players having AE shoved in their face in the first five seconds they have played the game, and being misled into believing that AE is all there is to do.

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This. A million times this.

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The whole idea that by running only AE missions in Atlas is, in any way, wrong, is absurd.

Is it missing out on the true potential of the game? Certainly.

That does not make it wrong or broken.

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The fact that people can level from 1 to 50 without ever leaving the zone they started in is indeed broken. It's fine if you don't see it that way, but I do. It's broken because the game becomes boring for new and old players alike much more quickly. It's broken because there are a lot more zones out there to explore, and a lot more content to do, than just that one zone. People are only seeing about 5% of the game, and you think that's not broken?

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Those of you talking about people being 'forced' in to the AE building make me laugh. You sound like the servers are a school yard full of children who are scared to be left out of all the fun because the cool kids are all doing it.


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Nobody here is saying that people are forced to do AE missions. What we ARE saying is that a lot of new people come into the game. They expect to learn from the other people playing the game. In broadcast, they see people advertising for teams, with the vast majority coming for AE mission teams. They join those because they want to learn and be on a team. Except, being on that kind of team teaches them very little about the game.

No, they are not forced to do it. But when 90%+ of the broadcast in Atlas Park is for AE teams, that's what they're going to see. And the AE is most of what they are going to learn.

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Those that just have to be in the 'right' crowd will always do what looks like the path of least resistance. If they are having fun doing that, where is the problem?

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If you have played both the normal content, and the AE, and decided that the AE is more to your liking, then that is fine. I don't think that anybody here has a problem with that (maybe with the speed that you can level doing that, but not with the act itself, necessarily).

The problem that people are expressing here is that many new players aren't getting that choice, because all they're seeing is the AE system. If all you've seen is the AE, then you can't be making an informed choice about whether you like that or the regular content better.

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Restricting players because of YOUR hang-ups is what's wrong, not the fact that they might play the game differently.

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Playing the game differently, as long as it doesn't harm the long-term potential of the game, is fine. We've had PvPers, Badgers, RPers, PLers, explorers, etc, since the game came out (or at least since the various systems came out, for PvP and Badges). And those were fine for a while. Even PLing, while seen by some as not the greatest thing in the world, wasn't a huge problem for the game, because the population doing it was rather small.

What the AE system did was make PLing very easy to do in a short amount of time AND made it very accessible to every player, new and old alike. It became a problem of the commons very quickly. Too many people doing it in plain view of new players who never got any experience doing anything else.


What some of us are worried about is the effects on this on the long-term prospects of the game. PLing all of your characters means that you need to spend less time playing the game. You might get bored with the game quicker if you do nothing but PL your characters all day than if you had taken them up through the levels the 'normal' way. This can lead to a quicker loss of accounts and income for NCSoft. That is a problem for those of us that like the game (both the PLers and the other players alike), because it means less development dollars to invest in the game.

Any MMO needs to figure out what the leveling speed should be like. Too fast, and people leave due to boredom. Too slow, and people leave due to not leveling up fast enough. What the Devs need to do is find the right pace for the game and the characters, based on the content that they have.

PLing is fine if the game you're in has nothing but high-level content, with you just needing to kill random stuff as you go along in the lower levels with no story. Since the content is all at the end of the game, characters need to get there to see it.

But, if you have a game where there is content spread throughout the level range, with only a moderate amount of content available at the upper range, then the leveling speed needs to be lower than in my last example. This is done so that people can see more of the content without leveling through it too quickly.

We have the latter type of game. As such, PLing will skip a lot of the content in the game, and people who got PLed without knowing this will then ask what there is to do at level 50, because they're bored. What many of us are seeing is that that may be a bad thing for this game in the long run, and placing restrictions on the availability of bypassing the content of the game en masse might be a good thing to look into.

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QR

It's simple really. These Players are looking for the path of least resistance and AE farming is just that.

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I think that's what a lot of people are doing, to be sure.

However, I'm more worried about the people that take that path because they know of no other path to take.

There are many good arcs in the AE system. Nobody is doubting that.

However, there is also a LOT of farming going on with the system. And new players tend to get wrapped up in that, and not in the actual stories in the game or in the AE system

No, you'll be fine.

They state that so that people who only have one costume (the base slot) know that they need to open up more costume slots before they can take advantage of the costume change emotes.

Okay, I'm not really understanding what you're talking about here. I'm going to try to answer a few things, and hope that one of them is the answer to the problem that you're seeing:

1) Make sure that the attack you're looking at takes the enhancements that you're trying to put in them. For instance, the Katana attacks can't take something like a Hold enhancement, since they don't apply a hold of any sort. They will take Accuracy, Damage, Endurance Reduction, Recharge Reduction, and Defense Debuff, though.

2) Make sure the enhancements are of the right level range. You can only slot enhancements up to 3 levels above you. If you're a level 2 character, for instance, you can slot level 5 enhancements, but not level 6 enhancements. The level of the enhancement is displayed at the bottom of the enhancement. Similarly, unless you're looking at craft enhancements (inventions), you can't slot any enhancement more than three levels under you. So, a level 6 character could slot a level 3 enhancement, but not a level 2 enhancement.

3) Make sure you have open enhancement slots in the power you're looking at. Each power has a certain number of enhancement slots. When you first get the power, it only has one slot. You can add more slots to a power as you level. If you don't have any open slots for the enhancement, the power won't take the enhancement.

Hopefully one of these things helps.

Story-wise: most of those zones don't have power, or are considered too dangerous to even set up a hospital. Why would an entertainment venue move in there?

Business-wise: I don't know.

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Alright...this might sound crazy but it could work...potentially.

Make AE require a level 50.
The same way EATs and VEATs are aquired.

After you reach level 50 with a character you can now make missions and you can do AE missions with any level character.

Therefore the only people doing the AE missions are people that have went through the game the original way 1-50.

This makes sense to me because I always thought of AE missions to be missions you do because you have done all the original content over and over.
Also, as a side perc...you can potentially level faster now since you have already leveled a character to 50.

I see no problem with that...I mean you have to level to 35 to get into RWZ.

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I actually agree with the idea that the MA -should- have been limited to people who had level 50s already, despite the general whining and bickering that would have caused.

But I think the idea of forcing that kind of restriction on the thing -now- would be amazingly unlikely.
The backlash at this point would be apocalyptic...

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This. If there were going to do this, they should NOT be selling a BOX at RETAIL called Architect Edition

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Agreed. The cat's out of the bag on this one, and it can't be put back in. There is no way to limit it like that now (unless it's a very low level requirement, like level 10) without a lot of uproar and bad press.

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Jetpacks - This is the one that I'm most curious about. I coulda sworn that I remember Jay saying a long time ago around the first time we got the jingle jet or maybe when villains got mayhem missions that he had something like seven different jetpacks worked up for us. Only thing is we never saw any of them. I'm not talking about the temp powers. I'm talking about stuff like rocket boots or wings, a part of your costume that animates when you fly.

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These were never told to us as anything but temp powers. We've seen a lot of them in the game, from what I'm aware of. As temp powers, you can see why they're not costume options: there's no good place to attach them to. Large characters have them appear IN their back (ouch!), and smaller characters have no tangible connection to the jet packs.

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Archnemesis system - I remember Posi talking about this a long while back. Now, it's possible that this simply morphed into the AE system that we have now but I'm not sure. You were supposed to be able to find clues to your archnemesis, customize his powers and outfit and such, and then take him down. It sounded like a really fun system even with AE already out so I was wondering.

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Might still be coming, but I don't really know.

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Street Fighting Powerset - Now I dunno if the Devs ever actually said they were gonna do this or not but I sure know that it's something that a lotta people want. Some kinda scrapper powerset that was a mixture of kicks and punches and dirty tricks. I really thought that when willpower came out that this was not far off since the two seemed to mesh easily in my head or maybe that was just me. Again, dunno if this was something we were ever actually gonna get or not.

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Devs never said that this was coming. However, it was on the list of Melee powersets that they gave us during a poll a while ago. I know that it didn't win (Dual Blades did), but we're probably not going to see anything like this until other ATs who haven't gotten new sets recently get theirs.

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Avillians and Coralax EATs - I thought I remembered these being mentioned a lot as upcoming EATs. Now Avillians may have been shelved since I think their main purpose was to give us wings and we already got them but what about Coralax? Also, these EATs were supposed to be unlocked through means other than getting a 50 so more people could experiance them. I'd dearly like more EATs although all the new powersets that come out regularly are good enough for me too I guess.

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These, as far as I know, have been scrapped. Villains got their own EATs in the form of the Arachnos Soldiers, instead of getting the Blood of the Black Stream, Nictus, or Coralax (which up until the announcement of what they were going to be, many players thought that the choice would come out of those three). Avilans were on the EAT list from a long, long time ago, but I think were scrapped when the Devs gave wings to everyone.



Hope this helped a bit!

Put them in Sexy Jay's costume request thread!

I'd be down for them.

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"Fluff" has no effect. I don't complete a mission faster because I'm wearing the Baron jacket from the magic pack, or I'm wearing red instead of green. That is "fluff."

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That's a lie, and you know it. Everyone knows red makes things go faster. Duh.

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NOWAI!

the FLAMES make things go faster!!

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Cubert: Can you help me apply these flame decals to the ship? They'll make it go faster!

Leela: What's your scientific reasoning for that?

Cubert: Duh, I'm twelve.

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The whole premise of power balance has always been "SOs are all you need". That is where I am coming from.

Above that is fluff isn't it?

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No. And I think that's what you're not getting. Fluff is things that don't impact gameplay to any large extent. IOs affect gameplay to a very large extent. As such, they are not fluff.

Just because the game isn't balanced around them doesn't make them fluff. The game was not balanced around HOs, either, but those were not fluff.


Let me explain it as a metaphor:

Basketball players can currently play basketball now. Pro players play it really well now, being able to school you or I. We're people without enhancements, they have SOs slotted. You've got two teams of pros that you're looking at.

If one team decides to change the color of their uniforms, that's fluff. They still play just as well as they did before, they're just wearing a different color.

Now, give that same team performance enhancing drugs. Is that fluff? They were still able to play the game very well before, but now they can take down any other team they play no contest. Before, the games were pretty even. Now, they win them all. Are the drugs fluff in this instance, just because the players were fine before?

How long had the two big guys been fighting?

If they had been fighting for a while, they may have done so much damage to each other that no matter what your team did, they couldn't do 10% of the total damage to Eochai.

Since Eochai is a bit weaker than Jack, he would've done less damage.


The Monsters regenerate fast enough so that their health bars appear full, but they might have taken a lot of damage before you got there.

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My personal idea, is to cap the amount of xp earned in ANY one mission (AE, TF, radio, whatever) to one level's worth. You still get inf, prestige and what not once you hit the xp cap. That way you have to play at least 50 missions in order to ding 50. This cuts into PL'ing across the board but doesn't stop it.

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This would be an example of cutting off one's nose to spite their face. I'd rather see solutions that don't f*** over everyone else too.

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I admit to being ignorant on this, but are there any ways to get more than one level in a single mission without exploiting the system in one way or another?

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Yes. A level 1 SK-ed up to a level 50 friend, just running a normal, non-traditional farm mission. This is a non-exploitation, fairly common occurrence in the game. The level 1 will still likely gain more than 1 level.

Find somebody that you can trust (make a friend), or risk the market transfers.

Other than that, you're going to need to take the risk that the person that you are using to help transfer some cash is trustworthy.

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Sorry about my dumb moment here,,but I have been playingfor about 2 yrs now and I don't know what EATs and VEATs are. Can some one PLEASE tell me? because I feel really stupid right now.

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Epic ArcheTypes = EAT

Hero EAT = HEAT

Villain EAT = VEAT

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Alright...that's my mistake.
I was always under the impression that the devs said it was a mistake because it was too easy to get a character to 50.
My apologies.

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Nope if you don't PL, and don't play every day in a team, but instead only play casually maybe in a team maybe solo it can take you a few years to reach level 50. Now if you work at it reaching the level cap isn't that hard, but you have to want to. With PLing being the easiest way to reach the level cap.

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Yeah, that's what I always thought. I thought it was EATs that started the whole PLing phase of the game.

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People PLed to get to Kheldians, which is why the Devs said that the level 50 thing was a mistake. People were circumventing content to get to the EATs. People were PLing before that, sure, but Khelds made it so that there was a 'tangible' reward attached to making it to the end level, which caused an increase in PLing for a while.

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Oh, and Vitality's idea of limiting AE to those with a level 50 character would actually hurt many altoholics out there. Personally, it took me bout three years to get my first level 50 character (and I still don't have my second one after 4 1/2 years). But I certainly tell you I knew how to use the train, where Crey's Folly was (or how to find it if I didn't already know), how to get my cape, how to run on a TF, etc. Making AE only unlockable with a level 50 would have locked me out well past my learning curve on the mechanics of the game.

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What I mean is as soon as you get a level 50 character you can access AE with any level character you make.
Make it the same way they did with EATs and VEATs.
The AE access wouldn't be limited to just that level 50 character.

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They know.

What they were saying is that people can go a long time before they get a single level 50 on their account.

Keeping them locked out of the AE until that point on all of their characters seems harsh.


Maybe until they get 50 levels across all characters?

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This is a pretty ridiculous workaround, but: How long would it take you to make 50 generic/random heroes on servers you never actually intend to play?

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Still wouldn't help. I mean that they would need to gain, in game, 50 levels. So, you'd need to take those 50 characters that you made to level 2 before you could access the AE. Or, take 5 characters to level 11. Something like that.


I'm not really advocating that, as I still think it's a bad idea, and still leaves the system up for a PLing and farming. I'm still a bigger fan of the 'access tickets' idea where you get them from doing regular missions.

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Oh, and Vitality's idea of limiting AE to those with a level 50 character would actually hurt many altoholics out there. Personally, it took me bout three years to get my first level 50 character (and I still don't have my second one after 4 1/2 years). But I certainly tell you I knew how to use the train, where Crey's Folly was (or how to find it if I didn't already know), how to get my cape, how to run on a TF, etc. Making AE only unlockable with a level 50 would have locked me out well past my learning curve on the mechanics of the game.

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What I mean is as soon as you get a level 50 character you can access AE with any level character you make.
Make it the same way they did with EATs and VEATs.
The AE access wouldn't be limited to just that level 50 character.

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They know.

What they were saying is that people can go a long time before they get a single level 50 on their account.

Keeping them locked out of the AE until that point on all of their characters seems harsh.


Maybe until they get 50 levels across all characters?

Were you a Kheldian, by any chance?

I had heard a while ago that there was a bug that would allow you to slot up the form powers before you should, and adding slots early to those powers would cause the respec to fail.