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Posts
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Quote:a.) because it's a fire set, and b.) because you can pair it with Build Up.Hey, Castle! Take another look at odd things in Fiery Aura while you're at it! Like why does Fiery Embrace only last 20 seconds for Fire damage? Why doesn't it buff all damage for the 20 seconds and not give non-fire attacks as good of a bonus (making it build-up without the +to hit and double the recharge)?
Quote:Why does Consume have to be on a much longer recharge than other end recovery tools?
Quote:Why is Burn still where it sits compared to the more solid and reliable performance of Shield Charge and Lightning Rod?
Quote:I love Fiery Aura and think it's a great set, but those little things still don't make sense to me when you compare it to other sets. -
Duuuude, you just got my fire brutes nerfed!
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Quote:Well it's a somewhat academic argument most of the time. But we don't pay based upon the amount of time we play, so there is a difference. We pay for a fixed amount of access time. Whether we play for 1 hour a day or 12 hours a day the cost is the same. So the incentive is to get us to play for shorter sessions stretched out over longer periods of time. Boring, repetitive tasks like farming fulfills this goal quite nicely.Granted you are withholding (direct) judgment, the same argument could be made for the game itself: it exists to keep people paying. I mean playing. Wait, what's the difference?
Quote:Point being, connecting in-game mechanics or systems to profit-making motives is merely academic. Like saying McDonald's makes hamburgers because they want to make money, rather than for love of juicy beef. -
Quote:Well you're right, it comes down to perception. But while people tend to really hate long travel times to missions they seem to like farming because the former is simply dead wasted time whereas the latter, while skull-crushingly boring, at least makes you feel as though you're accomplishing something.Well, to a certain extent the time-sink concept of gaming is true, of course. On the other hand, this has to be balanced against the fun factor of the gameplay. A game can be the most effective timesink in the world, but it will fail if no-one plays it because it's not fun.
There are a number of aspects of the gameplay to actually reduce the timesink quality of the game - travel powers, and then changes that allowed travel powers to be obtained earlier, base teleporter units, Oro portals and so forth. In I-17, some mission locations are being altered to allow easier, closer access for lower level characters. That's reducing a time sink.
Quote:Also, I'm not certain that it can be claimed as a blanket statement that our Market does not function as a 'real-world' market. In what way it the Market in game not a real-world market? Real people are selling things, real people are buying them, and actual (perceived) value is being exchanged. The goals of the Dev team in setting up the Market and the goals of the Players in participating in it are not the same, and I think that difference makes it quite reasonable to assume that the Market is a market, and tands to follow the same rules.
Since none of those things are a concern in a game there is no incentive for the developers to regulate the market. On the contrary, the more inflative and unregulated a game economy is the better it functions, at least from a dev standpoint. In real life a stable economy is necessary for people to survive. Not so much in a game.
Quote:Therefore, the Market has been (in terms of making my characters as effective as I would like them to be) a massive time saver. If the market didn't save time in getting certain, specific items for a character, no-one would use it - they'd just play until these things dropped for them. -
Quote:It's important to understand that game economies are not like real-world economies and should not be considered analogous.It is difficult to make this point without sounding insulting, but I'll try: I am having trouble determining the difference between what you percieve as disrupting the market and what you simply wish other people wouldn't do. I am assuming my perception of this is because I am misunderstanding your point, but that's the way it is coming across to me.
Speaking for myself, I would prefer it if the market was an inexpensive, reliable method of getting all of the latest and greatest goodies on a character with a bit of work and some judicious horse trading. However, from what I've read, that's not the Dev's intended goal for it.
Ironicly, if I remember correctly, the Devs also designed the market to be an INF sink (hence the 10% fee). I might very well be mis-remembering this purpose (either stated or unstated), so I might very well be off base on that point.
The sole purpose of having loot in a game is to act as a time sink -- it keeps players on an endless carrot-on-a-stick in order to milk as much subscription revenue as possible. Now I'm not saying that's necessarily a bad thing as games are businesses like any other, but let's not delude ourselves into thinking it's anything other than what it really is.
Once you understand the purpose it then becomes very clear why there are no regulations or controls. This is because in a game economy inflation is your best friend. The more out of whack the economy the more time and effort is required to obtain what you want, and that again translates into more subscription revenue.
So if you speak of dev intent, the market exists solely to keep people playing and paying, nothing more, nothing less. The more things cost, the more farming, um, playing you need to do to earn more inf to buy more expensive stuff which further raises prices; lather, rinse, repeat. The market is set up exactly the way the devs want it as it completely fulfills its goal. Why mess with what ain't broke? -
Quote:Oh it doesn't bother me in the least. I actually get a kick out of seeing people get bent out of shape for the most innocuous things. I couldn't care less if people don't like what I say.Take it from me, you got the Neg Rep because you sounded either rude, pompous, arrogant, or said something they disagreed with. Heck, maybe all four or maybe just that last one.
I try really hard to be polite and still get my opinions out and so far I'm at about Neg 300 Rep for my efforts. I am pretty sure I am being succesfful in not being rude seeing as how I get comments like: "Not sure why your getting Neg Rep for this post, even if I don't agree with you at least your being polite about it." (direct quote there)
Maybe if more people would stop letting themselves get hurt feelings because people don't agree with them, these forums would be a lot more valuable than they are now.
I will say this though, Captain Fabulous, that last sentence in the post I am quoting is a direct attack on other people and may be a good example of why you were Neg Rep'd. I have also read many of your other posts and felt they were overly negative too. Just something to think about.
Oops... seems I just lost another 5 points. Guess I pissed off a few people LOL! -
Quote:ED, GDN, and AoE caps were all instituted to discourage and slow farming, and this was well before loot was introduced. The merit system was introduced to further slow the rate at which rare items could be obtained (with rewards based solely on time, not risk, which is in complete violation of their #1 mantra of "risk vs reward"). Oh sure, they'll let us farm, but only on their terms and at their pace. Which kinda defeats the point of farming.I have yet to see any action that the devs hate farming, PLing or think the market is out of control. Farming is just fine as long as it is not providing more reward than intended. (good luck getting a dev to say how much of a reward is ok for a farmer however)
PLing is discouraged but not hated. If they had that degree of hatred they would just not allow sidekicks at all. Or they would find out who is getting PLed and whip out the banhammer. Granted this would be foolish but strong emotions like hatred tend to drive people to do stupid things.
Also they have stated that the markets are not as they would like to see them but no mention of being out of controll. If they, in fact, believed the markets to be "out of controll" why would they be taking measures to bring the markets back under controll?
Considering that Positron vowed to delete characters that were shown to have reached level 50 too quickly I think shows how they feel about powerleveling. It's also one of the main reasons they implemented the super-sidekicking system; to eliminate the use of bridges and manipulated SK levels for faster XP gain. Again, PLing is ok as long as it's done on their terms, meaning slogging thru tired old content.
And Castle has stated numerous times the market is out of control and inflation has run rampant, with prices for items being many times higher than they ever imagined. Yet despite admitting to this they still do everything they can to limit supply of these rare items, further fueling demand, and skyrocketing prices even higher.
So they're really ok with farming, powerleveling, and a broken market so long as they have complete control over all of it. Which means you're not really doing any of the things you think you are. And when you are actually ARE farming, powerleveling, and getting what you want without dealing with the market, giant red flags get thrown up leading to a swift and heavy-handed nerf with the excuse "well we never intended this to used in this way even though we designed it this way and were completely fine with it until you started doing stuff we didn't like with it".
Are you really so naive to think it DOESN'T work like this? -
Quote:Well y'know you don't even really need enhancements at all. You can go without. Or hell, why even bother with taking powers? Just play the game with the two starting powers. The rest are really unnecessary anyway, right? You might not get to level 50 within a timeframe you find acceptable, but statistically you will get there eventually.Nothing in this game requires farming to get. It may not drop for you within a timeframe or in a quantity that you find acceptable, but statistically, it will drop eventually.
You don't need purples. You don't even need IOs. I have several characters who get along just fine with SOs, as we did for 8 issues. The market and the invention system really are optional. -
Quote:I stopped trying to figure out what the devs of this game wanted a long time ago. I don't think they even know what they want. They tell us they hate farmers, they hate powerleveling, and that the market is out of control, yet they put items in the game that require farming to get, furthering the desire to powerlevel, and do everything they can to limit the flow of rare items that have destabilized the market.Something working the way the devs designed does not mean it was working the way the devs intended.
Even if for the sake of semantics we don't call it a cheat or exploit, it was still something that was being used in a way other than what the devs intended. Do you honestly think they would have made the change if they wanted people to be able to use 30+ buff bots?
So no, I am clearly not surprised they put buffbots in AE only to nerf them a year or so later claiming "we never intended people to use them this way". Really, well how exactly DID you intend for them to be used? And considering the game's history, how exactly could you NOT foresee them being used in a manner you now claim is inconsistent with your intent?
Honestly I'm so sick and tired of the hypocrisy. The endless carrot-on-a-stick is finally breaking my last nerve. -
Quote:I fully understand what you're describing. Sometimes things are designed a certain way and need to be revised in the future. This is fine. But these things are not exploits. They may be poor design decisions or some such, but not exploits.In between "fine and dandy" and "exploit" is "unintended, not generally desirable, but no specific solution that doesn't create other problems or that can be implemented with the resources currently available." The binary distinction is a false dichotomy.
An example would be the Mag 4 stun in total focus. Castle wasn't comfortable with a boss-stunning ultra-high damage attack long before the power was actually changed (I know: I discussed it with him long before it was changed). However, the devs were not going to significantly nerf a power blasters had when their internal datamining showed that blaster performance across the board sucked**. So for a significant period of time Total Focus was not "fine and dandy" but also not "an exploit." It was too powerful, but possessed by things that were too underpowered. Note that first blasters were given a modified Defiance (end of '07), and then after a period of time had passed Total Focus was revised (mid '08).
** It was only after I found out that Defiance was changing, and *why* Defiance was changing, that in retrospect what Castle said about total focus made complete sense: he basically said that total focus' stun was probably too strong, but that was not a high priority problem until "other issues" regarding blasters were looked at first, once resources became available.
To me an exploit is something that is knowingly broken, not a questionable design choice. A power that's not working properly (such as a misplaced decimal), some combination of powers or enhancements that yield an unexpected result, etc. Furthermore, I think to call it an exploit one must know they are making something happen that shouldn't. It's a willful, conscious decision to take advantage of it despite knowing it's broken.
For example, there was recently an issue with certain health procs giving more of a buff than they should. This is clearly a bug. But is it an exploit if you're using it? I don't think so, as many probably never realized it wasn't working properly. And it's not like you had to go out of your way to make it happen.
Another example is the stacking bug, whereby you can stack more than one buff by zoning. This is not right and everyone knows it, including the devs. But they have chosen to do nothing anyway. Clearly an exploit as you know it's not normal behavior and yet one often goes out of their way to use it to their advantage (like applying buffs before the team enters a mission and then again after entering).
I'll also admit that sometimes it's not so clear cut. An example here would be when Controllers got containment damage on APPs. An oversight at best, certainly not intended for a Controller APP Fireball to do more damage than a Blaster's. Some probably knew it was vastly overpowered and "exploited" it by using it as much as possible. Most probably never realized it was broken and just thought it was a really good power cause it did a ton of damage. Exploit? I dunno. You could argue it both ways. Personally I would probably say no only because I feel there needs to be a knowing intent, and I think most just didn't have a clue. -
Quote:If that were the case then they would remove the buffbots. But they didn't. Sorry. Fail.And the flaw in the design that allowed people to create buffbots was a bug.
Quote:No, they were not designed this way on purpose. Castle has said in the past that they're aware there's too much positional Defense available from sets but they just don't know what to do about it. Taking advantage of that is not a Hell-worthy trespass but you have no complaint coming if/when this exploit gets closed.
Even if someday they do decide to "fix" global defenses it would be a flat out nerf, not an exploit fix. You can't exploit something that's working as designed. You can continue to argue the point, but it won't make you any less wrong. -
Quote:But a design flaw is not the same as a bug. Like I said, one could say that using bots in this way was never what the devs intended. And I would agree (today I would agree because they have told us so -- but yesterday my response would be "well if they didn't want us doing this they would somehow prevent it"). But that doesn't make them an exploit. Using a bug to your advantage is an exploit. Knowing that you're using a bug to your advantage is doubly so. Using assets provided to their fullest ability, which was completely and legally allowed by the game, is not an exploit.A flaw can be a design flaw, not just a coding error. One of the Ariadne rockets exploded because of a flaw in its control software -- which was written perfectly to specification and passed testing. The specification was wrong. Just because the AE software was functioning does not mean it was not flawed. In this case, the design was flawed, and if you took advantage of that flaw to level faster than intended you are exploiting.
Now if you found some way to do the same action AFTER the devs attempted to fix it, now THAT would be an exploit.
Again I go back to the IO defense globals. Tons of people use them to hit the soft cap and make themselves virtually invulnerable. They have been purposefully designed this way. There are no checks or lock outs that need to be bypassed to allow it to work.
But what if tomorrow the devs turned around and say "we never intended this so we're putting in a limit as to how much global defense you have so that you can never hit the soft cap." So then it's fine and dandy today but an exploit tomorrow? Sorry, that's retarded. -
Quote:Lack of new content is only one of the reasons. But com'n, there hasn't been any new low level content in CoV in over 4 years. It's the same contacts giving out the same arcs with the same boring paper missions over and over ad nauseam.It's also why the "I'm bored of all the content so I want to get to 20 as fast as possible" argument holds no weight. There was a whole bunch of new content to level up on back before people trying to get past the lack of content as fast as possible (presumably so they could complain about the lack of content in a variety of level ranges) convinced the devs to break it.
But the flip side is that even if there were a lot more content lowbies just aren't that much fun to play. Not enough powers to form attack chains, little to no defenses, horrible endurance management, miserable accuracy, pathetic damage output... and so on. Why am I forced to endure 25+ levels of suckage before I can actually begin to enjoy playing a character? -
Quote:But that takes time and effort. Nerfing is easy, quick and painless.I can sympathize with this. I really can. I know the content can get repetitive. That's a challenge I gotta put to the devs. Please generate more content, new content.
Quote:This, on the other hand, is something I can't get behind. Exploits should be exposed. Farm all you want, I don't care. Hell, I want you to farm legitimately, I need the salvage and recipes and stuff. But don't exploit the system. If players find exploits, they are under no obligation to keep them secret.
Now you may say people used this aspect of AE in ways the devs never intended. Ok, I'll give you that. But that's still not an EXPLOIT.
An exploit would be if you discovered a flaw or error in the way something worked and used it to your advantage, something that clearly was not supposed to be. For example, an ally Dispersion Bubble that gave +100% def instead of +10%. THAT'S an exploit. Or if you discovered that jumping up and down 3 times with Ninja Run active and the Blackwand out gave you unlimited recovery. THAT'S an exploit.
Creating an AE map using assets that are 100% working as designed is NOT AN EXPLOIT. -
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Quote:So if tomorrow the devs announced they were nerfing IOs that give defense so that it was no longer possible to reach the soft cap (oh wait... they already did that...) you wouldn't praise the move and cheer that the "exploiters" that were clearly "cheating" finally got their due???No that is not an exploit because the game is designed to allow you to do that depending on your class and effort put into that toon. You pick certain powers and IOs over others for benifits you want on that toon. You decide to pick a power where you can slot certain sets even if you do not plan on using that power just to get to that soft cap. With the AE the way it was you no longer had to make those choices.
The devs changed what was offered due to those that were doing what they consider exploiting. For example taking only attakcs and using SOs and being able to solo tons of +4 mobs because you have a bunch of buff bots giving you capped resists and defense and also holding all the mobs down while you kill them. That is an obvious exploit and IMO should be fixed.
I do however, have issues with having any Ally reduce your XP. Many stories have battles going on in the background to add color and those battles do not provide any benifit to the player as far as rewards go, yet now those will either have to be removed or get low ranks because they gave crap xp.
Ironically, those buff bots are available in the mission creator by design. The devs put them there. So why exactly is it an "exploit" or "cheat" to use to the fullest something they purposefully put there that was working exactly the way they designed it. Just like IOs with defense bonuses.
Yet in your mind one is an "exploit" and must be crushed while the other is ok because the game is "designed" that way.
Dude, can you not see there is absolutely no difference here? -
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Quote:This. With so many other MMOs vying for my time I can't and won't devote endless hours of boring repetitive gameplay trying to level up yet another character thru the same stale missions I've been doing for almost 6 years.Some of us vets like those AE farms. Want to know why? Because after over 5 years of playing this game you get sick of the grind. I've done both the CoH and CoV content so many times I'm sick of it. I love making new toons and trying them out, but 90% of builds don't start being fun till mid-late 20s (for me personally). AE is pretty nice for skipping all that boring crap. I'll totally agree that the general game IQ of high-level players is going down (thanks to AE), but AE farms aren't completely evil.
Seriously, be thankful I'm still playing (though I question why more and more these days). -
Quote:Clearly too elegant a solution. "Exploit" fixes must be, by the very nature of this game, heavy-handed and brutish, and have at least 3 unintended side effects that are significantly worse than the "exploit" they seek to fix. To do it any other way would be un-Paragon!This.
Several people have mentioned "infamous" arcs that took advantage of the exploit in question. So why not UNPUBLISH THOSE ARCS, take away one of the arc slots of the players who created them, and flag their accounts so that they cannot publish another arc without submitting it for prior approval?
The exploiters will get the message real quick. And the rest of us are unaffected.
They BAN the accounts of RMT spammers. Why not take firm but much less draconian steps to go after the AE exploiters? It simply does not make sense to make such a drastic nerf while leaving those who CAUSED the nerf to become "necessary" get off without sanction.
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Quote:So if I use IOs and soft cap my defense I'm somehow "exploiting" the system? After all, at softcapped defense I can fight anything with virtually no risk, both in and out of AE.The ones that just earn XP are not an issue. The ones that exploit the system and make it so you can get massive rewards with little risk are the ones causing the problems. Please do not lump those "farmers" in with the rest of us.
Where exactly do you draw the line between "exploiting" (which it's not in any variation of this situation) and "taking full advantage of what the game offers"? -
Quote:And I'm sure by "exploiters" and "cheaters" you really mean "those that make the most out of features the devs willingly give us that weren't ever broken and/or not functioning exactly the way the devs designed them". I'm sure that's what you meant, right?Don't hate on the Devs, hate on the exploiters. They're creating the cheating situations the Devs are then having to react to.
Also, the Devs could care less about farming, they just don't want you to exploit system loopholes using AE as a "hack toolbox" to do it.
There is another solution... GM Approved Posting only. You create and edit at will, however a a GM or Dev has to check the pending published missions (and any subsequent edited versions) out before it's made available to the public. That would stop all the exploit farms from ever being published, without ever needing to patch another thing.
Of course... there would be that pesky wait... -
Quote:I don't think that's true anymore. I think you're rooted for the entire animation even if you pop a BF. I'm not 100% sure, I'd have to check it again tho.Wakies are a bit different. You can use a wakie and still act before the animation is finished. If you pop a BF right away you can run around before you would normally have finished the animation to get up. Rez powers for players have a brief (IMO too brief) time that you cannot be touched while the animation is taking place.
Still doesn't stop critters from killing you again before you've even had a chance to get up. I can now add this "feature" to the long list of things they can do that we can't. -
Quote:You mean like the way they can do it to us when we use wakies? Oh right, that doesn't count.Probably answered already but replying to posts as I go through. If you can target and hit a mob as they are popping up you can have them close to death or totally dead before they can attack you once. This in effect gives the potential for you to double the xp for the kill without having any additional risk.
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Quote:This is an assumption on your part with absolutely no hard data to support it.I don't think the Devs care about your 'fun'. That's not what it boils down to when you look at it from their perspective.
For many players (not most or all); the game ends at the first 50 or the next few 50s thereafter... and so does their subscription. Players blazing to get nowhere have their fast fun and then many say meh and take their money with them.
I'm sure there are those players that stick around after their umpteenth 50 but it's probably not the majority of the playerbase and hence; not the majority of the money. -
Quote:The thing is the mission is done before the lucks run out. And at 50 inf a pop a whole tray is a pittance.No. There's a limit to the number of insps in your tray; you run out... tough. To get another tray full, you exit and pay for more.
The bots don't run out; they don't have to leave the mission to get more. They're a free, permanent group of insp trays that follow you around.
And we are talking about farms. Meaning you don't just do them once. So every new run means gathering the bots all over again.
It's absolutely no different. Except the bots now give little to no XP while using Lucks gets you full XP.
I think it's time to nerf Lucks! This exploit needs to be closed!!!