Cavatina

[ QUOTE ]
lol. hardy har har.... they aren't needed BUT for some dumb reason everyone wants them. i'm not clueless, just think it's stupid that all these recipes are retardly expensive. to have gone from from 30-200mil is ridiculous to me. i'd actually like to have a couple toons purp'd, but not gonna "play the market" for inf. to afford them and i'm not a lucky enough person i guess to gets tons of them in drops.

[/ QUOTE ]

You think they're expensive because you want them without any effort whatsoever.

Its not the market's fault that you're a lazy, whiny, freeloader.

[ QUOTE ]
Well, for a 50 you'd be lucky to get one of the "coveted" recipes for 65mil. Or you may get 1, then off to save for the rest of the set for 1 power. Yeah, you can get some of the lesser wanted recipes.

[/ QUOTE ]

yeah Because recharge 7.5%s are totally essential to every build and god help you if you cant afford them </sarcasm>

Then again, this is eryq talking. The mans about as knowledgeable about IO slotting as a pure empath is about playing defender.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
As I said above I play this as a game to relax. I don't see myself as deputy dev. While I will certainly abide by rules and even the requests of the developers they actually need to make them. Asking me to guess and threatening me if I guess wrong is really not a relaxing scene for me.

[/ QUOTE ]
So your expectation is that they make a list of every possible behavior, and combination of behaviors, in the game, and every bug in the game, and every bug that may exist in the future, and color code them all for you? Highlighting the ones that are live right now that will break the game so exploiters can easily find them? Can you really not understand why that's not reasonable?

[/ QUOTE ]

On the upside the people breaking the game would get banned, and the anti-farm crowd could crow about it endlessly on the forums bout how theyve "won" and then we can all(sane farmers and sane roleplayers) sit back, sip some cocoa and watch the fallout when a week later nobody is still playing their worthless mary sue riddled trainwreck of an arc.

[ QUOTE ]
baron_inferno sounds like a (non-Paragon Studios) dev. I know of several from other games that, in the weeks prior to MA's release, made bets between themselves about how long it would take before the first exploit surfaced (the 38 Studios dev won).

Generally speaking, there really isn't a way to completely avoid farm arcs. At least not without eliminating non-farm arcs (collateral damage) at the same time. Probably the best way to do it is by avoiding single mission arcs (there are a few multi-mission farms I'm aware of, but those are generally unpublished most of the time. They're basically one mission duplicated with small tweaks to get around/mitigate the ticket nerf).

One surefire way to find non-farm missions is to play every mission you see advertised in a sig here. Every one, without exception. No one with a decent farming mish/arc is going to openly advertise it here (if you don't know why, you better ask somebody ).

[/ QUOTE ]

most smart farmers dont even keep their arc published when they arent farming it

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]

However this road has signs saying that private vehicles are restricted from driving on the road and the test you took to legally drive says you have to stay on authorized roads


[/ QUOTE ]
Red Herring. Powerleveling and farming is not a illegal in Co* so your analogy is frivolous.

[/ QUOTE ]

never said it was. In fact in my analogy the carpool lane, ie power leveling lane was just fine (it got you there the fastest and you didn't have to even learn to drive). the forestry road is the analogy for the MEOW team/exploit road.

Maybe my analogy could have been clearer, but nowhere did I say that power leveling was wrong, only breaking the rules to get somewhere faster was.

[/ QUOTE ]

Point taken, but it was never said that Comm Officers was an exploit. With as obvious as it was, and as much as it was talked about, nothing was done to hide that fact either. So someone would have had to steal the restricted sign, or they just forgot to post it in the first place.

I don't disagree that the Comm Officers offered to much reward, or debating that they should have been removed, but about whether it was an exploit or not. I don't feel it was.

[/ QUOTE ]
Well, the only definition that counts for exploits is what the devs consider it to be. They've stated that an exploit is when you use an unforeseen or unintended game mechanic to give yourself a statistical advantage that you wouldn't have in normal gameplay. Seeing as missions within the game have always had a mixture of enemies, creating a map filled with a single enemy that basically self-nerfs itself in that situation.... is an exploit.

[/ QUOTE ]

so..since Radios are one mob type..Radios are exploits? >_>

[ QUOTE ]
PuGs are more often just fine, in my experience, than not. In fact, this is why I figured he was kidding, because Corruptors and Empathy Defenders have been "competing" (if you want to call it that) for teams in the co-op zones for quite some time now and I, at least, have had no difficulty whatsoever joining an obscene number of PuG ITFs on my Corruptors. Never been told, "Sorry, we're looking for an Emp Def."

Not even once.

I don't know if "No one cares", as Transhade put it near the top of this thread, but certainly not enough people care to make an issue out of the presence or absence of Empaths.

[/ QUOTE ]

I think thats more because theres more intelligent players art high end.

The idiots "lf healor" tend to stay low level in most cases.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
everyone does sewers when you start a new toon.

[/ QUOTE ]

<sarcasm>We had sewers in Mercy Island all this time and nobody told me?</sarcasm>

[/ QUOTE ]

Bank farm. :P

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I highly doubt that your argument explains why that particular nerf was put in place and I am dubious of the assertion that it even factored into the decision making process.

[/ QUOTE ]
Wait, what? The TF nerf? You don't think they capped the rewards for a particular TF in a particular amount of time to 'force' people to broaden their content pallette? Or are you talking about the MA nerf?


[/ QUOTE ]

Hardly. it was more that being given the same huge reward for a katie or eden as for a sewertrial or doc q was obviously broken.

[ QUOTE ]
Well, it looks like I might have created arcs that could be 'seen' by others looking at the MA list as farms, if the criteria above is any indication. I've made 3 arcs, 2 of which are single missions. I have also created my own custom enemy group, including bosses. One of my missions is a single mission 'teaser' intro to the new custom enemy. The other single is a simple story using the CoT. Since I tend to use as much of the description space available to describe the setup for the arc, I would not want to waste that little space to add 'tags', either.

It's been very hard to get my stories played because of all the players out there that seem to only be looking for farms. Now, I realize that they might also be ignored because of the content that I worked so hard to add. It is very discouraging to find that I seem to be in a no-win situation. I've worked really hard to try and create interesting characters and stories (I hope) that have fallen into a black hole of thousands of other author's works. I agree, there is a lot of absolute crap out there, but there are also many gems that could be very popular if only they could be found amidst all the rest that are available.

I also have to say that not everyone farms. I have never been to the sewers or on any other of the typical PL missions (at least not that I know of). Since I have a problem with my client crashing in teams, most of the time I stick to street fighting or running radio missions solo. My various chars are mostly tanks for that reason. I probably wouldn't farm, even if I could. Somehow, getting to lvl 50 in a matter of hours or days seems like a good way to end up with a char that has all the power in the world, but in the end, I probably wouldn't know what to do with it. I prefer to take my time and get to know what my chars can handle and what they can't. It's much more fun.

[/ QUOTE ]

Oi..here we go again.

One. Noit everyone finds your playstyle more fun, so just because that method is more fun to you does not make it categorically more fun.

And two, farmers wouldn't be playing your map anyhow if they couldn;t farm. Advertise your arc exhaustively if you want it played. :P

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
After seeing 27 views and no responses, I am figuring no one cares.

[/ QUOTE ]

They'll care when non-Empaths don't get teams red-side.

[/ QUOTE ]

Pft.

They'll get teams just fine.

Pugs? maybe not, but then, anyone who wants to pug is insane. The last time I pugged on my pain corrupter I was not oly termed a healer by my team (>< )) but the teams dominator decided running off alone and using her aoe hold on full spawns of purple difficulty Crey Scorpinoid Tanks was a great idea.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Perhaps my biggest complaint about the rating system, and MA in general, is visibility. The fact that the default search behavior favors the more popular arcs has long disturbed me; as we can already refine our search to target these.

[/ QUOTE ]

But, see, even this isn't true. You're not getting "the more popular arcs" on the front page right now. Not by a long shot.

Example:

Arc 1 has 15 ratings, all 5 stars. This isn't difficult to accomplish if the author happens to be in a moderately active SG.

Arc 2 has 100 ratings. Around half of those are 5 stars. The other half consists mostly of 4 to 2 star ratings, with a couple of 1s and 0s in there... which is just going to happen eventually if an arc gets played enough.

Obviously, Arc 2 is, by leaps and bounds, the more popular arc of the two. It has considerably more plays, and a lot more people 5-starred it.

But Arc 1 is the one that'll be at the top of the list, not Arc 2.

From reading the forums, I'm seeing that a lot of people are having success by searching for 4-star arcs with particular tags. That's how they're finding "the good stuff".

So, a 4-star rating has, in effect, become more of an indicator of quality than a 5-star rating.

I think that's laughably messed up.

[/ QUOTE ]

THIS.

THIS. A HUNDRED TIMES OVER, THIS.

The rating system doesnt favor popular arcs at all.

The fact that even a single onestar can send an arc careening into 3 or 4 stardom means that the vast majority of the time, the only arcs you will ever see on page one will have less than 30 plays total because nobody has gotten around to downrating them yet.

Even if an arc with 300-900 plays gets back to page 1, they quickly get sent flying back to 4star due to non-5 ratings the publicity will garner them.

Anyone who thinks this system favors the popular arcs is absolutely uninformed.

[ QUOTE ]
It's amazing what a 500 inf bid gets you assuming you are willing to leave it up for a bit.

[/ QUOTE ]

You're crazy sir. everyone knows if you cant buy it immediately then something is wrong with the market and all marketeers need to be punished for making it so hard for the victimized casual player to get his purples. :P

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Certainly fighting mobs while exploring to enjoy the combat itself is not something I would consider farming -- by my definition.

[/ QUOTE ]
Totally agree, heart_fr. What this kid is doing is the exact opposite of farming - fighting bad guys because they are there, not because it's a chore that must be endured in order to get xp.

[/ QUOTE ]

So if it is enjoyable it isn't farming? If so then I've never farmed in CoH ever.

I'm sorry, but the community seems to have decided that farming is some sort of arcane, subjective idea open to hundreds of interpretations. There's nothing wrong with that; I just would've hoped that somebody would have taken a step back, looked around and said, "Hey -- we haven't even defined what we're arguing over. This is stupid."

Then I imagine them getting up and walking away from their computer. They make their way through their apartment to the front door. They aren't in any rush. They walk out the front door and squint as the Sun tears into their retinas. Dazed, they look around. As the Sun blindness fades they behold and begin to weep. It's so beautiful it hurts. They drop to their knees and weep. They weep for all they had lost and all those that remain lost.

As they kneel there, weeping, a dark cloud moves over the Sun. At first it is naught but a speck upon the face of our mighty star, but soon it grows to be a blight threatening the face of our life giver. In seconds it is black.

Our hero, tormented and conflicted, looks upon the descending shadow and utters his last words.

"My God -- ninjas."

[/ QUOTE ]

thats really the root of the problem. everyone has their own definition of farming, and everyone has their own opinion on whether their farming definition is bad or not. Add in that some farmers hate roleplayers and their play style and some roleplayers think anyone who doesnt roleplay is beneath them and doing it wrong, and posi's well intentioned but badly worded statements set off a firestorm that may never die down.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Most farmers arent asking to abuse the content, only a very small fraction, who the rest don't like anyhow. Theyre asking very reasonably for their playstyle, which tends to favor repeatable missions filled with monsters, to not be treated like its ruining the game. Most farmers agreed that comm officers needed to die a horrible death. Most farmers don't want to burn this game into the ground, but they don't want to play your "masterpieces of arc-ish literature" either.

But if you asked the forum's opinion the very second you so much as run a Katie Hannon/ITF/Whathaveyou for a quick level up or two, your playstyle is wrong, evil, and needs to die in the fiery pits of hell because you don't play like them.

I ran all the Croatoa arcs just to unlock katie. Did I enjoy the arcs? Yes. Do i deserve to be villainized, have my characters deleted and be forcibly ejected from the game forever because between bouts of roleplaying and soloing AE arcs I enjoy a speedran Katie or ITF or even an AE farm for quick exp and/or loot? Apparently so if you ask most of the most vocal on the forum.

[/ QUOTE ]

Forumites are going to have varying opinions on what constitutes farming; that's a given.

However, the playstyle you noted does not put you in any danger of having your characters deleted or being forcibly removed from the game. You're safe there.

Nothing you described would fall under the categories of "extreme" or "abuse" or "egregious" or "exploit," especially since Positron indicated those all go together (the worst of the worst).

Have fun, with no worries.

[/ QUOTE ]

I know that. My point is that you do so much as even something vaguely related to farming and some of the forumites act like you just [censored] their children at gunpoint.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
besides. That sorta attitude is what annoys me. "oh noes, a playerbase niche unlike mine isnt happy, too bad, hahahahahaha"

[/ QUOTE ]

The "Oh, no! What is wrong with me abusing the content?!" kind of attitude is what annoys me.
Well that and "The game is only cool if I can abuse the content!" attitude.


[/ QUOTE ]

See, thats the problem here,

Most farmers arent asking to abuse the content, only a very small fraction, who the rest don't like anyhow. Theyre asking very reasonably for their playstyle, which tends to favor repeatable missions filled with monsters, to not be treated like its ruining the game. Most farmers agreed that comm officers needed to die a horrible death. Most farmers don't want to burn this game into the ground, but they don't want to play your "masterpieces of arc-ish literature" either.

But if you asked the forum's opinion the very second you so much as run a Katie Hannon/ITF/Whathaveyou for a quick level up or two, your playstyle is wrong, evil, and needs to die in the fiery pits of hell because you don't play like them.

I ran all the Croatoa arcs just to unlock katie. Did I enjoy the arcs? Yes. Do i deserve to be villainized, have my characters deleted and be forcibly ejected from the game forever because between bouts of roleplaying and soloing AE arcs I enjoy a speedran Katie or ITF or even an AE farm for quick exp and/or loot? Apparently so if you ask most of the most vocal on the forum.

[ QUOTE ]
Oh no, the free money train has pulled into the station and no more trips are scheduled. Now you can choose to do regular content for decent rewards, or MA missions to check out some new stories for decent rewards.

It's doom for sure.

[/ QUOTE ]

Its not decent rewards in the MA, its patently subpar rewards. I use the MA anyways because its easier to find soloable content there, but the people wanting to make money are not gonna use the MA because its like trying to trade stocks with pennies.

besides. That sorta attitude is what annoys me. "oh noes, a playerbase niche unlike mine isnt happy, too bad, hahahahahaha"

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
the game is a farm. nuff said. every mish could be looked at as farming, you enter kill baddies, get glowies, do whatever other objectives and do another one that is very close to the last mish. so for all farmer griefers remember one thing, the only difference is that farmers like to rince,wash and repeat and non-farmers complain about it.

bottom line is everyone farms in one way or another, if you admit to it thats a different story. if you can honestly tell me you never went to the sewers when you started out for faster levels then you can talk, everyone does sewers when you start a new toon. sewers=low level farming.

[/ QUOTE ]

the only time I ever went to the sewers was for a mid 40's arc I think where I had to hunt some hydra or rikti in the abandoned sewers.

I never go to the sewers on any of my new characters, ever.

I don't think you can catagorize the entire game as farming. Farming is more of running the exact same map or arc over and over and over again to get the rewards. Typically the arc or mission being farmed is one with higher than average rewards tied to it. Running an arc or mission once isn't farming, its playing.

I tend not to farm, I find it really boring, but I don't begrudge anyone who does farm. I just think that trying to label everyone as a farmer and the game as a whole as a farm is not accurate to say the least.

[/ QUOTE ]

By the same token, trying to villainize farmers as some evil cartel of fuin ruining bastards is just as unfair.

Anyhow. theres one simple way to avoid farms. never zone into a one mission arc not written by someone you know. and form your own teams.

Its ironic really. They rail and rail and rail about how the farmers are ruining their fun.

Then the second they get any reason to ruin the farmer's fun, are they mature about it? Hell no. The vocal minority seems to think the best solution to deal with the "stop having fun guys" is to be the EXACT SAME WAY AS THE PEOPLE THEY CLAIM ARE HURTING THEIR FUN

[ QUOTE ]
I think the Devs simply intended that our story-arcs involve a healthy mix of canon critters and custom critters so that story-arcs are both interesting, and present acceptable challenge levels across all AT/power-set combinations.

The thing is of course, that this still leaves the opening for people who so wish it, to twist the system and design a mission with crazyu88er critters.

The Devs however, coming from the point-of-view of maintaining their definitions and ratio of Risk vs Reward, are the ones who get to restrict us and determine for us what should be considered a healthy mix of canon critters and custom critters so that story-arcs are both interesting, and present acceptable challenge levels across all AT/power-set combinations.

[/ QUOTE ]\

which is absolutely silly.

How many canon arcs are there with more than one mob type in a single mission?

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
MA missions are fun, for many reasons:<ul type="square">[*]The variety of endless content[*]Unpredictability of custom mobs[*]Contact/story is ungated and available to any character, just pick from the list[*]The synopsis tells you (with the exception of AV/EBs) what you're doing ahead of time: Defeats, patrols, hostage rescue, etc.[*]The ability to tell your own stories[*]Sidekicking/Exemplaring teams of disparate levels[*]Buy the rare/uncommon salvage you need[/list]
So whoopeedoo, the farmers are (mostly) gone and the population in the MA buildings is less; cry doom. This is what I'm seeing:
<ul type="square">[*]Normal players are still playing MA, and in many cases have returned after being turned off and away by all the farming and farm spam. [*]I'm seeing people actually play my arc because they can find it. And people like it. [*]Farming is still going on to a much lesser degree. It's quieter, moved to private channels and SGs, but it's still there. The farmers just use smaller maps or reset... like in the regular game.[/list]
[/ QUOTE ]

I'm finding the same thing. Just a few days ago I had under a hundred players and was wondering if I would EVER get the 100-player badge. Then the "nerf" happened - and suddenly my count jumped up to 118. (My arc isn't a farm, so I was never going to get that traffic.)

But somehow with less MArc players, more are finding me. And feels great!

[/ QUOTE ]

I had 300+ plays before the bans. I fail to see a huge upswing in my vote count since. :P

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I can't report on other peoples' moods, but I can report on mine: I'm avoiding MA until issue 15 at the earliest, but not because of nerfs. Until the rating and search systems get improved, it's as useless as the paps on a boar hog. The nerfs make me hopeful that some day the system will be used for story telling, and not power leveling. The only part of the nerfing process that makes me angry is that there is no sign that Positron has carried through on his threat, which is why whenever I pass through Atlas Park or Cap au Diable on Virtue, it is increasingly evident that people have concluded he was bluffing. And they may be right, for all I can tell. I hope he's not; if the powerleveling gets back out of control the way it was because Paragon Studios doesn't have the guts to penalize blatant exploiters, MA, and for that matter much of the rest of the game, will be dead to me.

[/ QUOTE ]

Someone needs to stop caring so much about what other people do with their playtime...

[/ QUOTE ]

QFT, the sheer amount of Stop Having Fun Guys from my fellow roleplayers towards the hardcores is absolutely [censored] disgusting. ;/

[/ QUOTE ]

And look, a flame war! WHOOHOO can I fan the flames?

Basically if farmers/PL'rs had just keep their exploits quiet, nothing would have happened. As it happened, all the farming/pl stuff FLOODED every aspect of AE and so people complained. Stop acting like you guys were just quietly playing in the corner when it was more like a massive block party.

[/ QUOTE ]

"You guys"? So you think the non-farmers and RPers are causing the problem?

Ohhh, wait, I get it. You thought because I was commenting on the annoying display of schadenfreude that I actually was one of these despised farmers, rather than someone who genuinely doesn't care how other people spend their time having fun.

You know what assuming makes you...

[/ QUOTE ]

I saw someone dissing someone else unnecessarily. I just wanted to jump on the bandwagon.

[/ QUOTE ]

I wasnt dissing anyone. Just saying that as a person who roleplays a lot, I was absolutely horrified by how many people took the potential threat of farmer bans as reasons to rejoice that everyone who didn't like farming was getting to force their mode of play on farmers. Ironically just like how they claim farmers are forcing their playstyle on others.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I can't report on other peoples' moods, but I can report on mine: I'm avoiding MA until issue 15 at the earliest, but not because of nerfs. Until the rating and search systems get improved, it's as useless as the paps on a boar hog. The nerfs make me hopeful that some day the system will be used for story telling, and not power leveling. The only part of the nerfing process that makes me angry is that there is no sign that Positron has carried through on his threat, which is why whenever I pass through Atlas Park or Cap au Diable on Virtue, it is increasingly evident that people have concluded he was bluffing. And they may be right, for all I can tell. I hope he's not; if the powerleveling gets back out of control the way it was because Paragon Studios doesn't have the guts to penalize blatant exploiters, MA, and for that matter much of the rest of the game, will be dead to me.

[/ QUOTE ]

Someone needs to stop caring so much about what other people do with their playtime...

[/ QUOTE ]

QFT, the sheer amount of Stop Having Fun Guys from my fellow roleplayers towards the hardcores is absolutely [censored] disgusting. ;/

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
General feeling I'm getting is that people are still scared. o.o! A third of my people won't go near the sewers with their new characters like we used to, for fear it would be considered an exploit! x_X They don't wanta do more then one MA mission arc in a day due to possibly being flagged. I had an officer think his characters were locked, and just about QUIT before I had him double check, it turned out to be a glitch o.@ Overall the feeling is dread, despite alot of my people not having done anything wrong. Now as far as a fear device this worked fine, but it may be lingering too long. :P

[/ QUOTE ]

So are people really scared to level? I've never met anyone with that attitude in-game, and I've seen no evidence of it, even though it's been talked about a lot on the forums. Is this something that depends on what circles one travels in?

[/ QUOTE ]

More than once on infinity badgeseeker I've seen people semi-uncomfortably joke about it. Its definitely there.

[ QUOTE ]
Except, maybe, people who aren't using the MA for "fat lutz".

And, frankly, I was amused by the over the top vitriol by the OP, not by the ticket nerf. The nerf is just "eh" to me.

[/ QUOTE ]

Its not as much the fat lewtz that worries me.

Its that if you nerf MA rewards too much then you sorta compromise the ability to use MA as an alternative to regular content. and I dunno about you but I never wanna do radio missions again.

I'm against this mainly because both on Infinity and Virtue server, Pocket D is used a lot as a roleplay bastion. if it suddenly fills with people lff, it'd sorta ruin that. ;/