Carnifax

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I think it is invevitable that they put a % penalty on XP and Inf, at least in the short term. That is something that is technically easy to do, and so can be done quickly. -20% aught to be sufficient.


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This is a flawed approach. A 20% reduction in the sort of Shedloads of XP a Farming / PLing team can amount isn't a huge amount. To a soloing person playing the arcs as intended though it is significant. End result, MA stays as a Ticket Farming Service with some PLing teams still using it for the auto-sk system. Everyone else gives up on it.

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In the long term, the whole rewards values needs a good going over, but probably the way to prevent farming causing problems with the economy wherever it might be occuring is to put a cap on the xp/inf that can be earned in an hour. A high cap shouldn't have an adverse effect on non-farming players.

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This would be a better approach.

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Fact is, a lot, probably the majority, of players (and indeed the players of all MMOS) just want to get as powerful as possible as quicklyas possible. They never read the story, it is irrelevent to them.

Where did all these farmers come from? They sure wheren't all in PI. Many of them are actually new and returning players, attracted by the MA, making it a massive commerical success.


Another fact: CoX needs to have someing that CO doesn't in order to compete. Since CO stole the suggestions list, MA is it. It sure can't compete by adding new content. However much they add, CO will have more, a whole new games worth more.

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The problem with that approach is Churn PRAF. People are going to hit 1-50 in a few weeks, do the small amount of high level content we do have and then move on to other things since "there's no endgame. This sucks"

At the same time they are alienating a lot of the people who have been around for ages, looked forward to the MA and are now awash in a sea of Farm spam

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Sure, and a lot of players actually like to churn through games, that's one of the reasons they farm, so that they can getb through in a month without having to renew thier subs (which is an issue for younger players especially).

However, the problem is with the rewards, not the MA itself, and I'm sure the devs will soon get on top of that. the farmers also think that, which is why they are so frantic now, they know they only have a short time before all their farms are nerfed.

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Question is how will the devs nerf things?

History leans towards a brutal sledgehammer which kills off people playing through MA teams altogether. Which would be a bit of a waste of all the resources put into it.

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You can suggest all you like.

Although it does sort like that already

/em ninja
/em hide ninja outfit

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Oh yes. My mistake. So it does. Stupid eyes.

Nice new outfit. The black really suits you

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Union Atlas is a mess as well. Horrible (even moreso than usual).

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I agree. I moved out of Atlas. When i last logged on there i noted that within 30 seconds of loggin in the first four broadcasts were all requests for farming teams...

I feel it's a shame that new players to the game are going to see this all over broadcast now. It might put some people off? Are new players getting dragged into MA teams from day one now and missing all the other content? I hope that's not the case, but it's worrying.

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I logged a lowbie alt in this weekend into Union Atlas, was horrified with what i heard over broadcast there. If i was new player it would not be a very welcoming introduction to the game. they would think that COH is nothing but one big huge farming game, and theres a lot of good content in COH , but they may not ever find thier way out of Atlas due to the farmers shouting all come join farm plz, pl you is no prob. is very very sad to see the first zone you enter as a lowbie to be swamped with loud obnoxious broadcast spam from farmers.

Atlas on Union at the moment seems to be a very unfriendly place, not friendly at all for your average new player or any one starting off a lowbie alt there.

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Eurogamer are currently doing an old MMO face-off at the mo, where you play 10 levels of 2 competing games in a similiar setting and the winner moves on to the next round. City of Heroes is facing off against Star Wars. At first I thought there'd be no contest. But now I'm curious to see what the authors experiences will be, especially if he starts in Union Atlas.

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Fact is, a lot, probably the majority, of players (and indeed the players of all MMOS) just want to get as powerful as possible as quicklyas possible. They never read the story, it is irrelevent to them.

Where did all these farmers come from? They sure wheren't all in PI. Many of them are actually new and returning players, attracted by the MA, making it a massive commerical success.


Another fact: CoX needs to have someing that CO doesn't in order to compete. Since CO stole the suggestions list, MA is it. It sure can't compete by adding new content. However much they add, CO will have more, a whole new games worth more.

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The problem with that approach is Churn PRAF. People are going to hit 1-50 in a few weeks, do the small amount of high level content we do have and then move on to other things since "there's no endgame. This sucks"

At the same time they are alienating a lot of the people who have been around for ages, looked forward to the MA and are now awash in a sea of Farm spam

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how do you keep doing that O_O

One thing that is a little annoying is that the errors are supposed to come to us in an email and not plastered across the screen.

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Works now, whatever you did to fix it

My ability to generate bugs is pretty handy for developing. It means I see the bugs before some customer does.

Can I be annoying and suggest a change to the Sort by Level Range? No? I'm going to do it anyway . Could you sort by Start and then by the End, so that 1-14s appear together before 1-54s? Useful for looking for lowbie arcs or all arcs in a certain range.

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Guess you pull back a seperate column/field for use as your unique internal arc id in your query...

Please let it be that and not a seperate display routine dependent upon sort order...


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Actually it was down to a database join connecting the user table to the mission table, both carry an id identifier and since the last one was the user, that's the one that got passed in the final return fieldset.

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The amount of fights me and my boss have had over what convention to use in naming Id fields. I'm in the "call them all Id as their real name is TableName.Id" but it can lead to weirdness like this if you forget to alias them as something else when retrieving from a joined query.

Did you see my other error KS?

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When I sort by Author and click on Arctic Princesses Twisted Tales #1 I get JDs Handyman Arc instead.

In fact any of Arctics arcs gives me JDs one instead. I think it's passing the User Id across to view-mission.php rather than the internal Mission Id you use

As per usual I'm using Opera. It only appears to happen when viewing a Sorted list of results.

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Checked this - Get same issue on order by author.

All other ordering criteria appear fine to me.

And it does appear to be attempting to link using author user_id (supported by the numbers used for the likes of Don Saint who I know registered early...)


Guess you pull back a seperate column/field for use as your unique internal arc id in your query...

Please let it be that and not a seperate display routine dependent upon sort order...

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Pfffft. Stop pretending it wasn't your evil plan in the first place to get everyone playing your arcs JD.

Tis fixed now, that was quick! (and the Evil JD is foiled once more).

*Edit : Uh-oh. I broke it again when logging in :

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Fatal error: Call to a member function getId() on a non-object in /home/fhlinux144/c/cityofguides.com/user/controllers/user/index.php on line 6

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Go me!

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Thanks for all the best wishes. As i already ate my cake on weekend (with family) i hope there won't be another one tonight.

One thing i learned, with passing years you get weight easily and they won't go away that fast as they used to be.

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Bah. No excuses. Moer Kake plox!

Hmmm. Odd bug on this KS (bugs seem to love me).

When I sort by Author and click on Arctic Princesses Twisted Tales #1 I get JDs Handyman Arc instead.

In fact any of Arctics arcs gives me JDs one instead. I think it's passing the User Id across to view-mission.php rather than the internal Mission Id you use (full URL is : http://www.cityofguides.com/ma/view-mission.php?id=10 for all of APs missions when in a sorted list).

As per usual I'm using Opera. It only appears to happen when viewing a Sorted list of results.

Happy birthday Knightly. Have a good un!

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You get MA contact on level 5.

Even if they put some level restriction to the Atlas, same thing will happen in Galaxy. Then Kings etc. etc. The list goes on.

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You've missed the point Knightly. I don't mind particularly if people want to farm until their fingers bleed. But the main farming point for 50s should NOT be the starting zones.

The starting zones should be for new toons to form teams and do challanges. Not for 50s to spam broadcast looking for farms or bodies for farming. A newbies intro into the game really shouldn't be some Carnie map stuffed full of Headsmen with them auto-SKd and earning XP from standing at the doorway.

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To be fair, it's not the 50's that are spamming farm me!


It's the plan beggers, and noob amatuer farmers runing auto sk maps.

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I've seen plenty of 50s doing it in Atlas. Or 40-somethings. But you're right, the auto-sk "feature" of the MA is a horrible, horrible mechanism which only encourages abuse.

Regardless there's only one way all of this can go. Rewards in the MA will be brutally culled meaning all the really fun arcs out there will go unplayed.

Over the last few days I've soloed quite a few excellent 1-10 arcs including an "anti-hero" intro one. Currently I'm enjoying Arctic Princesses Twisted Tales #1 arc and it's brilliant. There's tonnes of great new starting arcs there for new toons. But barely anyone seems to be bothering with them, preferring instead to be auto-sked and PLed in farming maps instead.

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You get MA contact on level 5.

Even if they put some level restriction to the Atlas, same thing will happen in Galaxy. Then Kings etc. etc. The list goes on.

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You've missed the point Knightly. I don't mind particularly if people want to farm until their fingers bleed. But the main farming point for 50s should NOT be the starting zones.

The starting zones should be for new toons to form teams and do challanges. Not for 50s to spam broadcast looking for farms or bodies for farming. A newbies intro into the game really shouldn't be some Carnie map stuffed full of Headsmen with them auto-SKd and earning XP from standing at the doorway.

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The MA in Atlas should be for level 10 and lower only IMO, no-one else should be able to access missions there.

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Thats good idea as if can put a vanguard security dude to stop low levels getting into a buildin in Atlas they can put a AE security guard to stop players of a certain level gaining acces to the building as well.

Would prob move the broadcast spam to another zone but least wouldn't be the first zone you enter as you start the game.

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Exactly. It's depressing when you start a new alt and Atlas is being swamped by farming chatter and no teams. At least move it to another zone and let people ease into the game.

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The devs correctly understand that this game is adversley affected by excess farming.


[/ QUOTE ]However, they're banning arcs simply because they have the word farm in the title. So the only thing farmers need to do to not get their arcs banned is to not label them as such. And guess who gets hurt by that?

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No one?

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Me

I sometimes pop on to play for a short time and sort through the missions to find a short, quick fun mission to play. I read the descriptions and the title to get a gist of the mission and determine if it's a Farm or not. Farms now seem to be disguised with great short descriptions and i keep picking them! Maybe it's just me...

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Yep, me too. I like 1 map missions, they can be fun, silly missions. But not when they're thinly disguised Farm missions packed full of Lieut only spawns & tonnes of glowies.

Finding it rather hard to get teams at the mo as well. Think I've been soloing for the past week. Union Atlas is a mess as well. Horrible (even moreso than usual).

My only serious scrapper is a Claws/WP one and he's a blast. Mid 30s now and great fun to play.

Pros :
A steady attack chain, both a single-target one (where Spines can be a bit weak) and a good AOE one. You can be focusing on a boss and letting minions cluster around you to fuel Rise to the Challange, throwing in Spins and Eviserates to thin them all out as you slice the boss up with the single target attacks.

Lots of variety in attacks. You've got good AOE with Spin (superb power), Shockwave (OK, decent power but actually a bit of a disappointment after Eviserate, Spin and Focus) and Eviserate (once you get good at hitting 2-3 enemies with it you'll be addicted), some ranged attacks with knockdown (Focus) or Knockback (Shockwave).
Perma 37 to 75% damage boost with Follow-Up in your attack chain.

Literally you're dancing about in combat tweaking your position slightly to hit as many as possible with Eviserate, knocking spawns into walls & corners with Shockwave to follow up with Spin and Eviserate. You can soft-control a lot of bosses using the knockdown of Focus to keep them off balance. I've even kited a few nasty MA Custom bosses using Focus, Shockwave and the Vet power when they got close to killing me.

Claws looks way nicer than Spines too IMO, the bananas of doom look terrible on a lot of models and the noises Claws makes are very satisfying compared to it. Some of Claws animations are long (Eviserate & Spin) but pretty and the orange numbers following them make up for them.

Cons :
All Lethal Damage. Against some things (Robots, some bosses) this will make you weep. On the plus side street hunting in Dark Astoria was a blast in my 20s. You do Bad Things to Zombies.

Weapon Redraw means Pool Power attacks like Air Superiority aren't that useful (but you've got Focus to do that job). This is true of Spines as well though.

Not much other control or tricks. I'm also playing a Dark Melee/WP Brute and he has way more tricks to keep himself alive when things get hairy (or just to buff himself). With Claws it's all slash, slash, slash with a bit of knockback / knockdown. If you get swamped or caught out of position by lots of ranged enemies taking pot shots at you Claws/WP can easily be overwhelmed. Run away around a corner and Eviserate & Spin them once they bunch up nicely for you.

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I logged an alt onto Union, this weekend. Very low alt so was in Atlas park. How things have changed on Union atlas. I guess its the AE building that all the broadcasts where orginating from. But if i was a new player to the game and made my first char on union id really be shocked to be flooded with nothign but farming requests all over broadcast the minute i logged in.


Is sad times now when one of the major meeting places, your first zone of the game is now crawling with the farmers and the like not a very welcoming place at all any more is atlas if folks then get caught up with farming at low level , and even tho if new the game is not gonna do much for them all taht content zones they will miss as the farmers bag them for thier ill gotton gane.

Sad to see Union atlas this way.



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Absolutely agree. I'm having a blast playing 4 star missions in the MA but when I switched to my level 5 defender to get a lowbie team going I was basically spammed into insignificance by the MA Farming broadcasts haunting Atlas.

Sad, sad state of affairs that the initial thing a new player sees is this.

The MA in Atlas should be for level 10 and lower only IMO, no-one else should be able to access missions there.

Prisoners? But they give less XP than normal enemies since years ago (when they were used for farming).

That makes no sense.

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once again it seems im left bored out of me mind unable to do what i whant because nc whatever decide to take the servers down in the middle of the day and now every one else logs back in and i cant nothing has changed my end so why is this

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If you're bored you could try buying and playing Braid if you haven't already. Retro puzzle game with some of the best design and mechanics I've seen in a game in ages.

It will break your mind though (I spent an hour playing it last night and the rest of the night thinking I could rewind time by clicking a button in CoH).

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Oooh, you can juggle little baby Singularities. "Aaaw. The cute little baby gravitational anomolies. Who's a ickle cutie. You are. Yes you are"

*Gets repelled through a wall*

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its not often i have to laugh IRL about a post, u made my day

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Bad thing is now I really, really want the magic pack.

So my Tech Origin Grav toon can have even more glowy balls*. How sad is that?

*(Insert Carry-On-ism here)

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And we think we have it bad. Imagine the servers going down at 10pm on a Friday night



Really NCSoft seem to adopted a "whatever suits us best" approach with little thought gone into how it affects non-US based accounts.

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But thats slightly different. thats a demographic of players choosing to play on a server in a foreign country that operates in different time zones.

we are a demongraphic of players that chose to play on servers which were operated in our time zone.

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Indeed. Except the MA server is cross-region. I really wouldn't like to see what happens to peoples in progress MA arcs if we could log on without the MA Server being active. At a guess I'd say it'd be "crossing the streams" bad.

It makes sense that if the MA server goes down so does the EU

It doesn't make sense that no-one from NCSoft (not even Techman) is capable of making a post saying "Oh the servers will be down today from 1pm BST"

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Clearly. That quote is well messed up.

But... could you please explain?

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*Fixes wobbly quote pyramid*

Do you really need me to explain why allowing people to make maps stuffed full of minion-quantities of custom bosses, EBs or AVs is a bad, bad idea worthy of me concussing myself over?

If you go to the US forums and have a look at the threads where people are making 3000+ tickets in 30 minutes it'll give you a good idea.

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What about filling a map with AVs and having several AV allies?

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I don't normally do this sort of this but I'll make an exception

/em headdesk

Did I do it right?

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Could you explain, please?

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I would but I've given myself concussion

Oooh, pretty stars.

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It's like the blooming farming issue.

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I was in the middle of testing this before the servers went down. I don't have any information on what you can do with the MA farming wise, but if what I am planning can actually happen... well, leveling won't be a chore.

[/ QUOTE ]Well, you can do huge boss-only spawns with nothing but melee powers, making a team of controllers with the right powersets quite effective.

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Grav/TA controller LFT

Kiting is nothing new but the levels you could take it too with the MA is a bit silly. Letting people create Lieut / Boss only maps was a very odd decision.

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What about filling a map with AVs and having several AV allies?

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I don't normally do this sort of this but I'll make an exception

/em headdesk

Did I do it right?

Ma is Mission Architect. So yep, you did.

I wouldn't stick to just MA content though, try getting onto teams in Talos, Faultline or Independence Port and doing arcs there too. The Faultline ones are excellent