AncientSpirit_NA

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I personally think what we need is a "cool-down" period where anyone who wants to judge how others want to spend their time gets an account suspension for 3 days, with no refund for time off.

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Ummmm.... I hate to bring this up ... but, um.... we need to suspend your account for 3 days.

Unfortunately, by making your recommendation you accidentally made a judgment on how others should spend 3 days of their time ...i.e., suspended.

I'm just saying ...

I hate to admit it but this thread appeals to my twisted sense of humor ... and has me fantasizing about bringing out my 50s and asking these basic questions in game.

Maybe we could start a fad.

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Actually, it sounds like he isn't asking for animal skeletons, but more animal body parts.

Snake heads, better canine heads, feline heads, instead of just faces, bushy tails, feet with paws, that kind of thing.

In which case....

/signed!

This is my hope for the Mutant Booster Pack. I'd love to be able to make decent looking anthropomorphic animals (it's what I get for growing up in the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle / Usagi Yojimbo era).

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This is exactly what I'm looking for. And I think your idea of a Mutant Booster Pack rocks!

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Arc Name: Pirate's Quest: A Tale of Sound and Fury[b]


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You do know how the "sound and fury" quote goes?

SPOILER BELOW ...


... a tale told by an idiot
... filled with sound and fury ...
... signifying nothing



Sorry, my twisted sense of humor made me do it.

And all joking aside, I look forward to playing your new arc. Cool poster!

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Thank you for suggesting that he grief other players. That's very constructive.

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I guess the P.S. of my note was lost on you. Pity.

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I guess timestamps aren't your strong suit.

Nice try though.

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LOL. I forget how fast-paced this forum is.

Original post: 9:57
Edit to original post: 9:59
Response to oritinal post: 10:00
Bickering over a few minutes timing: Absolutely Priceless

SPOILER BELOW ...

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If you really want CoH fun, try "Wicked, Wicked Wonderland" #1224. For everything else ... there's MasterCard.

Great post, Moo. Informative and well written, and especially important to me as I have just rolled my first ever Super Reflexes toon.

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Thank you for suggesting that he grief other players. That's very constructive.

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I guess the P.S. of my note was lost on you. Pity.

Old McDonald had LOTS of animals where he lived. A chick-chick here, an oink-oink there ... but all we get from the critter creator is the chance to make werewolves, lizards, and a thalidimide rabbit.

(HA! Bet you thought this was going to be the one millionth farming thread! Gothca! )

Wouldn't it be great if we had more of a selection of animals to choose from? So we could make Pig-faced aliens! Or Roman warriors with Snake heads?

I did a fairly good job with my White Rabbit in "Wicked, Wicked Wonderland" (#1224) ... but I had to give up my original idea to create the drunken doormouse to go with the Mad Hatter, because he just didn't turn out right.

I want more animal options! Anyone else with me?

Fredik, as I read your post it sounds as if you played this thing through (because you found the 7 or 8 AVs) ...

From this, I assume you benefited from what you thought was a farm ...

... and now you come here to complain about it.

Did you report this farm? That would be the "least intrusive" way of dealing with this rather than come up with "solutions" to the farming problem and start flame wars here.

What is this number of this arc? As you know, there are so many anti-farmers in these threads that merely by listing their numbers, you can contribute to their demise.*

No need for "least intrusive" ideas that hurt everybody. There is a system in place. Use it.


* of course, by doing this, you will be showing your prejudices of "what a farm" is ... and then can be marked as a griefer if your idea isn't everyone else's idea as well.

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All your guys with your massive amount of friends and awesome SG's, please get the hell down your Ivory Tower and see that for the average new player, who knows nothing about this game nor someone to give him awesome teams to get experience, this game is not intended to make the best build EVUR! or make the most amount of influence, it's simply a super-hero/villain game were they want to have fun, and leveling up is fun for new players, if your feeling are hurt because of this, then quit, The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.

Instead of moaning about Boss farms, go bash the fact that this game is becoming every day more and more obsolete, and with or without AE people gonna leave simply because of the lack of content, for Christ sake, Windows 7 is almost here and the game still doesn't have compatibility with Vista, so much more things to address and instead, everyone just seen keen on moaning about how OTHER people play... just give up shouting BS and let the devs decided what's right and wrong already.

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I've been playing for a long time but I'm in a one-man SG filled with my alts, so not much of an Ivory Tower there. I often make the "wrong choice" when combining primary and secondary powersets because I like my toons to be concept toons rather than have the best build "EVUR". And because of Alt-itis, while I have a few friends who team with me occassionally, they are much tighter among themselves and I don't get to team with them as much as I would like.

I give you all this background because I don't get what you're saying. As a newbie, how can make claims like "this game is becoming every day more and more obsolete"? What are you comparing it to? And what are you basing your claims that people are going to leave because of lack of content? Many players like myself had no idea we would be around as long as we have ... but the devs keep coming up with new, fun stuff to do. (I am AMAZED that over 170 players have now played "Wicked, Wicked Wonderland" and rated it a 4-star winner.)

I'm not even sure about your claims about Vista problems. I have an XP desktop that runs great and fast - but its an older machine and critter animations while creating don't appear. My Vista laptop runs the game a little slower - and I had to get a special cursor -- but it runs MA perfectly.

While I agree with you about farming (I really don't care what others do), I have to wonder where all this anger is coming from someone so new to the game? Something is out of whack here. I only wish I knew what it was.

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To be honest the auto-sk feature is one thing I love about the MA because my friends and I have toons all over the place level-wise and even with Sking often someone will be left out. We get together once a week to play and chat on Skype so it's not like we're PLing fiends or anything.

Note that the auto-SK feature is not an automatic indication of a farm. Several of my friends have set up missions that we like simply because of our disparity in levels. Unlike farms the missions are typically run indoors with the usual number of enemies (some custom, some not) and objectives.

Some features of the MA are great, they're just being used in an unintended fashion. I happen to like the fact that my friends and I can all hop on our fave toons and play together without worrying that one is 40 and one is 19.

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Agreed. Another great thing about the auto-sk feature is that when I do go up in level I'm not at the mercy of my "mentor" ... who often run off faster than I can follow ... and suddenly I run into mobs who eat me up as snack food. (Even good friends aren't always careful mentors.)

In MA, if I get lost (as I often do) ... of if a PUG mentor decides to visit the hospital without letting me know first (as often happens) ... I don't suddenly find myself SOL.

It is a GREAT system even for those of us who aren't farmers or PL'ers. (What's more, one of my toons with stealth, ss, and emph secondaries like Healing Aura, Heal Other and Fort - all with SOs fully slotted - is a meaningful member of a high team even though she's only 26 or 28 right now.)

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I had another idea. An arc entitled "In Soviet Russia AE Farms YOU."

All LTs with Mind Control or Illusion. Didja know that LTs get Confuse and Decieve on Standard difficulty with those two sets? I have all kinds of nasty tricks up my sleeve to make MA missions literally impossible. I just generally don't use them because I like running my own arcs, and don't want to kill myself over and over.

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Man, I must be sick. I LOVE this idea. You just gotta admire sick, twisted thinking that results in devilish fun!

Would certain AT's with mez protection be able to take them? Or would all those mezzes stack and overwhelm anyone?

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Okay you want cause and effect and you claim that PLing NOT farming PLing doesn't hurt the game or me personally? alright...

1. Was on a pick up group a while back and things went okay until several members dropped. Five of us remained and the new "leader" picked a bank mission (Talos safeguard). We enter the mission and hit the bank defeating everything at the entrance and I head for the vault ASSUMIMG everyone is right behind me. I engage the signature villain (a Boss due to team size) and hold my own for a while with my scrapper but he has a Tsoo Sorceror healing him and I start watching my health drop. I check the mini map and discover ony one other member of the team (used losely at this point) is still in the bank. Eventually I run out of inspirations and die. By then even the one other member of the team is gone from the bank. I hit the hospital and by some miracle we do manage to stop the villain at the Arachnos Flyer and get a mission complete.

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I know you checked badges and these were newbies. But are YOU a newbie?

I have been burnt more than once by veteran players who dash off to the bank - seemingly just the way you did -- without making sure that no one was headed to the bank before everyone loaded.

As a vet, aren't you the one who should say the obvious? No one starts until everyone loads. Everyone goes directly to the bank once everyone is in mission. Do we or don't we want to do side missions? You are at least partially at fault.


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2. Joined a Maticore TF and we had 8 members after about 10 minutes of recruiting (early afternoon during the week so that was pretty good). Everyone is in zone except 1 32 level and we explain he needs to get to Brickstown before we can start. Minutes pass and we ask if he's on the way. At that point we get a message asking where Brickstown is? *sigh* We expalin its one of the scheduled stops on the Green Line Just go to the train and you will be there in no time. Minutes pass again and now its Where is the green line? A 32 level that has no idea where Brickstown or the green line are located? Well the leader Kicked him after a quick vote in tells and we managed to find another to replace him. All this added about 15 minutes before we could start the TF. So thanks to someone who obviously made the majority of his levels in AE we spent more time waiting for him to arrive than we did initially recruiting. And that doesn't affect me or the other members of the TF?

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You have me on this one. I know I often ask newbie question like how do I get to Crey's, because I'm old and I forget. But Brickstown? Sheesh.

To be fair though, I have been equally inconvenienced by vets who do know how to get to Bricks ... but decide to stop off and level and go shopping before joining a team. And THEN decide ... after making a team wait ... that they're just going to log. As Forrest Gump said, "Stupid is as stupid does."

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No your idea is hogwash. NC soft considers those PL farms to be against their rules, just like they consider the groups that constantly Email us trying to sell influence/infamy. I have nothing against old school farmers like the ones in PI.. heck when there were no other teams to be had I have joined them and picked up a few bars for the next level. But a farm that allows a 1 level to make 50 in hours and then unleashes him on an unsuspecting COH population? Anyone that reports them is by no means wrong.

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My idea may be hogwash. I saw that early on. But please be clear. My hogwash idea was NOT about farmers. It was about how our complaints have changed the game ... it included farming ... but it also includes changes to powers in PvE ... changes in how PvP are handled, etc.

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... there is already a thread started by mod8 that is for farming discussion and all of these farming threads should be deleted and anyone who starts a new one should be reprimanded for not taking this discussion to the appropriate thread.

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"all of THESE farming threads"???? This ISN'T a farming thread, though many people talk about farming. Go back and read the OP. The reaction to farmers was just an EXAMPLE of what the OP (me) was referring to.

The issue raised could just have easily turned to people who complained about how some AT powers being "too powerful" until they were nerfed. I didn't want to state all examples that ocurred to me because I was looking to see if others joined in.

Calling for mod's to "reprimand" a poster because you don't like the turn a thread takes is ... infantile and inappropriate. If you don't want to discuss an issue, don't.

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... here's a question to you all. have you done the same arc over again, even if only once whether it be dev created or MA, because you liked it? if you find the answer is yes, then you my friends are indeed guilty of farming yourselves. since that seems to be the mindset of almost everyone that that is what farming is, with the exception of those that think farming and pl'ing are the same thing. but please go on and keep telling yoursleves that your not farming, one day you might actually realize you are.

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And then after asking for a thread to be exiled to an "official" farming thread (though it isn't a farming post) ... and asking for the OP to be reprimanded ... you THEN go on to talk about farming. Are you SERIOUS???? Are you being hypocritical or merely trolling?

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It seems to me that everytime someone finds a problem with MA it turns into a big discussion -- and often ends up with the devs nerfing something great.

For example, power select customization: For story tellers, it would have been great if you could delete certain powers from characters like MM (the pets!!!) But because farmers could exploit this, everyone loses it!

BUT THERE WILL ALWAYS BE FARMERS!!!!

Farmers don't affect the way we play.


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Your last sentence conflicts with the first part of your post, my experiences, and the actions of the Devs.

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You're right. And that was part of the point of my post. By themselves, farmers do nothing to affect the way we play. In my opinion, it is our reaction to farmers that wind up affecting the way we play.

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It seems to me that everytime someone finds a problem with MA it turns into a big discussion -- and often ends up with the devs nerfing something great.

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Hmmm. I provided a problem ... it has turned into a big discussion ...

I wonder what comes next.

I thought that you always get the bonus if your level is ABOVE the IO set (IN the mission that you're playing).

I thought you lose the bonus, however, if your expl. down to do a mission and your IOs become +4 or higher than the level you're playing at.

I believe that's why the low level IO with special procs. are even more expensive than the higher level ones.

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It seems to me that everytime someone finds a problem with MA it turns into a big discussion -- and often ends up with the devs nerfing something great.

For example, power select customization: For story tellers, it would have been great if you could delete certain powers from characters like MM (the pets!!!) But because farmers could exploit this, everyone loses it!

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BUT THERE WILL ALWAYS BE FARMERS!!!!

Farmers don't affect the way we play. But by fighting against them tooth and nail we keep affecting the way WE play. It's self-defeating.

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Farmers, and I mean the grind-to-fifty mindlessly farmers, not the "I'm a lvl 50 fire/kin with massive IOs that wall sweeps for drops", do affect the way we play. Instead of joining normal teams and contributing to the game world by become skilled, knowledgeable players, they instead grind away in the Atlas/Cap AE, never actually engaging the core game. Which isn't so bad if you've already played the core game umpteen times; but if you're relatively new, we end up with people who can't find Steel Canyon and complain that they can't figure out how to get a cape.

They spam broadcast mindlessly instead of using the LFT flag properly, they spam the AE with shallow farm missions, usually so lazily designed that they are inefficient even as farms, and generally generate an unpleasant atmosphere for everyone, including themselves.

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I'm not talking about exposing exploits. But I am talking about exposing "exploits" that if dev's fixed would destroy your enjoyment of the game.

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So... exploits that are not exploits because they are fun? Fun for who? We have arbiters of allowable fun already; they are called the devs. If I report that there's an exploit because I think I get too much XP for killing Malta, and Malta should be tougher, I'll get ignored.

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We complained about farmers getting rewards too fast. And it resulted in everyone getting rewarded at HALF the rate. Who do you think this hurts most? Farmers? Or people who don't farm?

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I don't recall getting my XP cut. Or my Influence cut. I've hit the ticket cap exactly twice on missions, and once only because I ran around and killed everything on the map after the final bonus. What is this reduction in rewards?

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The most recent example: I'm reading a current thread about people wanting devs to "fix" rezzors because some nincompoop tells everybody that players can kill a boss over and over, and let the rezzor keep rezzing him ... for tons of experience. The proposed solution: "fix" rezzors!" Eliminate them from the game or allow them to rez once or eliminate experience after the first defeat. This is all absurd!

If some farmer wants to spend 2 hours killing the same boss over and over again, it will not affect you or me. But "fix" rezzors and destroy your ability to use them the way they were meant to be used is ridiculous.

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Any reason why changing the recharge to 20 minutes or similar will prevent them from being used they way they are meant to be? I don't see that as impeding my gameplay, that an enemy will rez or be rezzed one (1) time rather than infinitely?

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We are shooting at vermin with elephant guns ... and all we are accomplishing is blowing giant holes in our own MA homes.

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You know what the biggest hole in the MA is? Last night I spent 10 minutes looking for a short AE mission to run solo on my blaster that wasn't a farm. There are literally dozens of pages of poorly-assembled wanna-be farms.

Player misuse is the flaw of the MA, and cannot be cured.

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OK. So I see that you, at least, remain undecided about the issue.

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Like what? What "great" things have we lost?

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The only two "great" losses I cite are 1) the ability to create a custom boss that is LESS than the standard; and 2) the mission reward of MA tickets (not experience or prestige) that were lost because of complaints about farming.

I don't belive I said - nor was it my intention to say - that the sky was falling. And I have openly said I could be entirely wrong about this ... so much so that I renamed the thread.

And yet ...

I must admit that after doing a simple test the other day, something does bother me: I and a friend ran a totally story-driven arc - comprised of minions, Lts. and one EB at the end -- and received something like 60 bonus MA tickets for completing it.We then ran a 1 mission all LT. farm, completed it in record time, and each got 500+ bonus MA tickets for mission completion.

To me its pointless to complain about farms because I believe that they will always be there. But it bothers me that story arcs are the ones that really takes the hit when devs come up with their "fixes".

And believe me, I realize that I could be saying the same thing if tickets hadn't been adjusted. While that story arc would have netted me 120 MA tickets, the farm would have delivered 1,000. I get it. But farms go by so quickly and are so mindless that you could just do it twice and get the 1,000 now .. or run it ten times, no sweat. I doubt people would ever play story ads that frequently.

My frustration grows out of my attempt to do a follow up story to "Wicked, Wicked Wonderland" - an arc that has been played far more often than I ever thought it would. Losing the ability to truly customize the EB (lower) than a standard mob is an irritant. (Notice, not a rant here ... I believe that there is always a workaround.)

And as I said before, the lack of anyone else who experienced the same feelings that I've had latedly may just mean that I'm completely off base here.

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The Devs would have to do some extreme changes to affect my enjoyment of the game.

Nerfing aspects of MA/AE will not drive me from the game personally.

From the word go I, personally, knew that the released content would not be the same as, say, 3 weeks down the line.

Of course people were going to use all the exploits they could find. I bet my bottom dollar that some were in test trying to find those exploits and keep them to themselves in hopes of abusing it to their advantage for as long as possible.





It happens. Especially with anything remotely like MA. I have the skeletons of my stories sitting in deep freeze till I know what I am working with in MA. And that may not be set in stone for another month imo.

So, if I have a complaint, yes I will complain. As will you and everyone else.

And rezzers? Giving them the old Portal Treatment would not be game breaking....in the least.

In fact, I had no idea folks were doing that and do hope it is changed.

Thanks for your time if you read, if not, thanks for something :P

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Thanks for replying. In light of your response and KeepDistance, I have changed the name of the thread to include the possibility that I am entirely wrong here.

However, I'm not asking if anything is so severe as to drive you from the game. I truly enjoy CoH and this is not a "they nerfed it so I'm leaving" thread.

I'm just wondering if some of our complaints haven't backfired on us, and if so which ones?

As of now, some 48 players have read this post and not one has an example of me being right. And if silence is any judge, it appears I may be wrong. (which wouldn't be a bad thing.)

Has NO ONE thought this but me?

I understand that it SOUNDS like hogwash. And I'm not looking to "blame" anyone.

However, a reasonable person could see a "cause and effect" relationship here. And there are entire books written about the law of "unintended consequences."

I could list other examples, but I think if only one person cites examples that it lends credence to your "hogwash" claim. If others join in and cite their observations then perhaps the argument is justified.

I am more than happy to be wrong here but fear that I'm not.

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Winners of the 5 categories are as follows:

1. Best Story Line - @Ashcraft for "Wings of Deception" #101926
2. Best Custom Cast - @Zeroman for "A Day at the Zoo" #20968
3. Most Challenging - @Aramar for "Azuria's Difficulties" #55639 *note: this arc was entered into this category by the judges who decided it fit well for this category.
4. Most Outrageous - @Amygdala for "Coworker Carnage" #6203
5. Most Creative - @PK Dauntless for "There's Something in the Water" #60327

Congratulations!!!!

Thanks to all who entered and the judges who assisted me. We had a total of 16 entries and a total of 59 missions to run. Was alot of work but enjoyed the stories.

*For those who were not at the announcement who won. Please hit me up ingame sometime so I can get you paid.

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Congratulations to all the winners. I will have to try each of your stories now.

And even though "Wicked, Wicked Wonderland" (#1224) did NOT win I hope you will try it, too. (unabashed plug)

It seems to me that everytime someone finds a problem with MA it turns into a big discussion -- and often ends up with the devs nerfing something great.

For example, power select customization: For story tellers, it would have been great if you could delete certain powers from characters like MM (the pets!!!) But because farmers could exploit this, everyone loses it!

BUT THERE WILL ALWAYS BE FARMERS!!!!

Farmers don't affect the way we play. But by fighting against them tooth and nail we keep affecting the way WE play. It's self-defeating.

I'm not talking about exposing exploits. But I am talking about exposing "exploits" that if dev's fixed would destroy your enjoyment of the game.

We complained about farmers getting rewards too fast. And it resulted in everyone getting rewarded at HALF the rate. Who do you think this hurts most? Farmers? Or people who don't farm?

The most recent example: I'm reading a current thread about people wanting devs to "fix" rezzors because some nincompoop tells everybody that players can kill a boss over and over, and let the rezzor keep rezzing him ... for tons of experience. The proposed solution: "fix" rezzors!" Eliminate them from the game or allow them to rez once or eliminate experience after the first defeat. This is all absurd!

If some farmer wants to spend 2 hours killing the same boss over and over again, it will not affect you or me. But "fix" rezzors and destroy your ability to use them the way they were meant to be used is ridiculous.

We are shooting at vermin with elephant guns ... and all we are accomplishing is blowing giant holes in our own MA homes.

While I know that many of you will use this thread (if you use it at all) to tell me that I'm wrong.

But I would much prefer it if you used this thread to cite example after example of what has been lost to the everyday non-farming player because of "fixes" that were supposed to address the problem of farming.

Or am I off base here ... and my theory all hogwash? Please let me know, one way or the other.

While I don't see myself as a farmer, I have taken part in a few, especially in P.I. where I have doorsat and gone to dinner while my toon gains experience. I point this out so as not to sound judgmental when I ask: what exactly does "full boss spawns" mean? Did you purposely or accidentally create a map filled with bosses for you and your friends? What kind of powers did the bosses have? And what kind of toons did you and your friends play when you entered this arc? I ask because there are some toons, for example, whose powers basically negate the strong mez attacks of some bosses. Or who attack from the air on bosses who are land locked.

There seems to be a lot of people "defending" you; which may or may not just mean you have friends. But without know the answers to these, its hard to know how you will fare when dealing with the devs. I understand that they give players one chance to change the arc, so you may want to consider your answers well.

And your work proably won't be wasted. Because all the detail isn't lost when you change a Boss level character to a minion or a Lt. (Have a good mix of each.) All the discriptions remain, though the powers don't.

Good luck, btw.

I've only published one arc ... and have just started on a second.

I like story driven arcs with "twisted" takes on classic fairy tales ... with custom mobs that make sense given the original story ... so I'm still in the research phase.

I must admit that my first story "Wicked, Wicked Wonderland" has gotten a lot more play that I ever thought it would -- and such kind and positive feedback -- that I'm a little fearful that my second story won't "live up to" the first.

I do think the second idea has tremendous potential to deliver fun ... but, of course, the devil is always in the details.