ICF_Zombra

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While we're talking ambushes, it'd be nice if you could make defeating a particular ambush a victory condition.

You know the scenario... you defeat the boss, then click on the final glowie, and hear ambushers saying "No, don't let her escape with the MacGuffin! Kill her, now!" And you just sit there and click on the "Mission Completed" Exit button, neatly avoiding the ambush.

I suspect that's a difficult if not impossible thing to change, though, as it happens a lot in Dev missions too.

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And when the ambush happens in Oranbega half of it falls down a giant chasm and winds up in a tiny crevice and the mission won't complete.

When I pull an "it's not over yet" I spawn in a boss in another location.

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This works well for me, too. Put the first objective at the back, then have it spawn a boss as the front to represent the PCs having to escape. Ambush triggered from first objective optional.

Though I have also had problems making bosses spawn in other peoples' arcs.

Notes to self:

Haunted House Ride is fun but way too tough for a low level character to solo.
Terrors of Old appears doable! Fun cultists.

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... but I think we can agree that grinding Freaks on a cargo ship map over and over and over isn't it. I think we can agree that that kind of behavior is not the kind of behavior that the token economy of a good game will foster.

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We most certainly cannot and I believe you should take a closer look at the idea behind a token economy and give this problem a bit of thought. As it stands now I feel like you're misunderstanding what it is and how it relates to MMOs.

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Well, my understanding so far of the term token economy would lead me to describe it as a fairly simple system of abstract rewards for desired behavior. Example: the devs don't want level 50s stomping Hellions in Atlas Park, so there is no abstract reward (xp) for doing so. Level 50s stomping Hellions, if it is done at all, will ONLY be done for the intrinsic, non-abstract rewards for doing so (the satisfaction of helping a lady get her purse back, the visceral thrill of watching a thug fly 500 feet, the cruel satisfaction of kill stealing from helpless lowbies) - but there are other activities elsewhere which will provide non-abstract rewards AND 'tokens' (xp, inf, etc.) This is the exact same kind of behavioral control instituted in the 'rotating TFs' ruleset ... you can repeat a TF all you want if you love fighting those specific enemies, but if you enjoy all the TFs equally, you will get better token rewards for rotation. Equal non-tangible rewards + superior token rewards = behavior control.

Good guess - wikipedia is where I got my basic info - a little more research seems to turn up more of the same. If this kind of thing is not what you're talking about, I hereby request a better source. Looking forward to it

Also, I just looked up "token economy" because I'd never heard the term before. I deny that I'm underestimating its importance - in fact, its importance is central to my argument.

If we allow that there are players who pursue token-accruing efficiency regardless of what form that pursuit must take, and we further allow that some forms of behavior are more tedious, repetitive, and unfulfilling in themselves than others, then it would seem inescapable that there must be a system that encourages less tedious behavior by attaching a greater token-accruing rate to that behavior. That is what I (along with the devs, I think) am looking for: the greatest token rewards to the most interesting behavior.

Of course, the concept of interesting behavior is subjective - but I think we can agree that grinding Freaks on a cargo ship map over and over and over isn't it. I think we can agree that that kind of behavior is not the kind of behavior that the token economy of a good game will foster.

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That was the stated reason given mate.

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Thanks for the confirmation, D_K - I thought for a second that I was on crazy pills.

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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.

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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?

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If there's some objective definition handed down on a stone tablet by some divine being, please direct me to it and I will withdraw everything I've said.

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That's a huge, sociological can of worms I would absolutely love getting into with you, yet I know it would be an unwarranted and undoubtedly unwanted digression from the theme of this thread.

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Awwww, c'mon!

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I would, however, posit that your definition is a tad weak if only because one of the core, driving concepts behind MMOs is the token economy. Extricating the token economy from game play is, I believe, in bad form and ultimately fruitless.

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Ah, then I've been stating my purpose badly - I certainly don't want the game economy to be removed or divorced from gameplay or anything like that! I feel that the core economy of the game should be so seamlessly integrated into the gameplay that profitable play and interesting play are indistinguishable! I don't want to choose between playing for fun or playing for xp! I want everyone to have it all!!

... And I really think the devs want that too. When they do stuff like remove rewards for repeating TFs, they aren't trying to say, WE HATE YOU FOR REPEATING TFS! They're just trying to make it, as much as they're able, so that the path to the highest possible xp (or whatever) per hour is not a path of tedium and predictability. They're making it so that it's MORE profitable to rotate than do the same thing over and over. They're making the interesting path the fastest road home.

I actually kind of like your analogy, Indorphins. I don't have a problem per se with farming, and I don't have a problem with people who want to get home fast. If there was a button that made your character level 50 instantly, I wouldn't stand in judgment on people who pressed it (though I personally would find a game predicated on "press the button" to be an empty and unfulfilling experience).

What I'm really saying is that it's too bad that people have to make a choice between getting home fast and seeing beautiful scenery. Believe it or not, I want to get home too (meaning I am pleased by abstract in-game rewards), but I want to see cool stuff on the way. I want to drive home for half an hour, looking at cool scenery, and not feel the nagging sense of missed opportunity for not taking the ugly, dank tunnel that would have gotten me home in 10 minutes. I also don't want to take the ugly, dank tunnel for 10 minutes and kick myself for missing out on the cool scenery on the long road.

To put this in the terms of the game, I don't want people to get better rewards for doing boring, repetitive stuff, and I don't want to receive lousy rewards for doing content that is worthwhile and fun. I want uninspiring, minimum-investment, low-effort content to provide crappy rewards, and I want the hard, interesting, time-consuming, challenging content to give the best rewards. I want the critical path to hard rewards to also be the path with the coolest intangible rewards.

Basically I want the tunnel to not be ugly, and maybe even be in a different place from day to day to keep it interesting, and for everyone to pretty much get home at the same time. If someone wants to get home in half the time, they shouldn't be able to with half the work (i.e. finding something that gives reward greater than risk and hammering away at it because it's efficient xp) - they should put in TWICE the work (meaning coming up with something creative rather than slaving away in the same old salt mine).

Anyway, I think you see what I mean, and I apologize if I'm rambling here. I'll let this post draw to a close now

P.S. mod8 where are you :P

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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.

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That's not quite what I meant. If you would do it even if there were no xp (or drops or whatever abstract reward there is), then it isn't farming. The kid fought crime in the streets for the joy of fighting crime in the streets, not for the xp.

It doesn't even make you a farmer if you do things that are enjoyable in themselves and are also glad to get the abstract rewards.

Once it gets to the point where there is no joy in the activity itself and it is all about the abstract reward, then it is farming - especially (but not only) if it is an extremely narrow, repetitive band of behavior. Even you enjoy nothing but piling up the abstract rewards.

So it's quite possible that you've never farmed - if you've enjoyed clearing the same cargo ship map over and over or whatever, paying no attention to xp, drops, or inf piling up, that's not farming. If you kept your eye on the xp meter (again - or whatever abstract reward system you prefer), if you ever said, not enough, I have to run the map again to get more numbers - you have farmed.

If this is an arcane, subjective definition, and you disagree with the existence of arcane, subjective definitions, then you're free to ignore this. If there's some objective definition handed down on a stone tablet by some divine being, please direct me to it and I will withdraw everything I've said.

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Some would accuse my youngster of[farming], because sometimes she just like to explore and streetsweep along the way. I don't consider that farming either; she's not doing it for XP or gear, just for fun.

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Farming is farming, whether you are doing it for XP, gear or "fun". Besides getting XP and gear is fun!
Both you and your kid are farmers. Welcome to the club!

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

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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.

I completely agree with Statesman's original vision of what street mobs were for - something to fill out the world and give you something to do, if you so chose, while traveling between missions or other more 'tangible' tasks. This was said back in the day when mission bonuses were introduced to encourage missions over the repetitive street sweeping that many players were doing in order to maximize xp/hour. THAT was farming. Ol' States' idea was that it was bad design to 'reward boring behavior', and I completely agree with that design philosophy (and so do the current devs, apparently). If the path to maximum xp/hour is also the path to the greatest gameplay diversity, best storytelling, etc., (in other words, the least repetitive/boring/non-challenging behavior) ... well, that is the ideal game in my opinion. The reward-oriented players will naturally adopt a diverse and interesting gameplay experience as the path of least resistance to the greatest rewards, and the players most interested in a diverse gameplay experience will get the great rewards they deserve for their time invested.

Great post Yogi_Bare.

You're absolutely right BadBad_Girl - my mistake. Still, they're not behaving as they always have.

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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.

[/ QUOTE ]Its not decent rewards in the MA, its patently subpar rewards.

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I admit that I haven't analyzed the data exhaustively, because I don't really care about maximizing inf/hour, but there seem to be some strong arguments above by more serious number crunchers that 1500 per mission is more than plenty for normal play. The strongest argument against I've seen so far has been "but what about Defeat Alls on gigantic outdoor maps?" - and to me the answer is simple - don't farm gigantic Defeat All outdoor maps. There was something else you farmed instead a month ago that wasn't broken. Go back to that.

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

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Well, you're no more annoyed than I get at the sense of entitlement that the farm enthusiasts have displayed. They can't level 5x as fast in MA any more .. they may not even be able to level .8x as fast now .. why is that so awful? MA was never (ever, ever, ever) intended to be the ultimate high speed levelling tool, and now it isn't any more. So the xp/min people abused a broken toy and had it taken away. You can hardly expect a lot of sympathy.

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Glad they told people that an enemy that was behaving exactly as it always had was an exploit.

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"As it always had"? You do know that Comms used to give normal minion xp, right? And then datamining showed that they presented more of a challenge as part of normal Rikti spawns, when they weren't getting instantly killed before summoning their portals, so the xp was raised accordingly to reward the extra risk under normal circumstances? You do know that, right?

EDIT: P.S. Thanks Kitten

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I pose this question, if these games are not about leveling or maxing out one’s AT to the best of their ability, then why offer levels at all?

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It's funny, I was just thinking the same thing about that sentence. Less than half the letters you used there were vowels. Clearly that sentence was not really about the vowels! What I can't figure out is why you bothered to use vowels at all.

Wait! I think I figured it out! The vowels are a significant part of your sentence, while still not being the only important part, much less the whole reason for your sentence to exist in the first place.

Thanks for that illustration! It makes so much more sense now!

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.

I would love to see an "easy" setting for custom mobs. They really are head and shoulders above normal enemies almost every time.

I don't care if that comes with an xp penalty when fighting them or whatever. I just want to be able to make mobs that are about as challenging as the rest of the game.

Being able to cherry pick exact power loadouts in I15 will be a big help - but that's a long way off. Still, once it happens, hopefully this problem will be solved.

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What if Going Rogue is more like that; A new world, new dimension, whatever ... where you build a new toon and gain something other than influence or infamy ... and then choose your path. What if there is no red or blue door to go through to get to the other side? What if like in CoX, there are just new zones where you can use your new Rogue toons with Heroes and Villians?

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Existing characters will be able to side switch. That's the whole point of the expansion. If they were just going to add a 3rd side without allowing any crossovers, then crossing over would not be the entire focus of the hype.

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Sure, you can just say, oh, we stole the equipment and are using it against them, but wouldn't it be much more interesting for former Arachnos soldiers to use their military training and discipline in a similar environment blueside? Maybe they could keep their "Training" powers (such as the Leadership-type buffs everyone wants them for), but receive new government equipment based on the branch of service they entered. Perhaps instead of Crab Spiders and Bane Spiders, we could have Longbow Wardens and Wyvern Sting Agents.

Just a thought.

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That doesnt make much sense does it? Longbow agents and wyvern agents dont use the same powers as the arachnos, especially not the widows. ( yeah psy powers do exist, but the hiding, and training with the wristdarts and blades?)

Granted arachnos walking around in uniform would be kinda strange, but since it's a comsetic issue ( uniforms) why not solve it in a cosmetic fashion, a redeemed arachnos uniform of some sort.

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Yeah, the redeemed uniform is probably what will actually happen. It's too bad if you ask me. I feel like the VEATs should be a last holdout of "evil only" and think a "good version" would add interest to the class and answer a lot of questions about how former Arachnos could operate with the same abilities outside of the command structure they were trained in. I think it would be a good compromise to let them keep the training-related powers but change the equipment-related powers. I guess maybe you have a point that Widows train with knives all their lives and couldn't transfer that skill to firing bows instead (I'm thinking Soldiers would transfer to Longbow and Widows would join Wyvern, maybe) ... but, you know, I don't see it as that much of a stretch

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This might lead to a lot of Villains going Hero to get access to the APPs, which might mean that the Devs will have to settle on some kind of unified "Epic" Power Pool system.

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God, I hope that's what it means.

Regarding the villain population plummeting - you're right, Black_Strike:

There ARE a lot of players who play Co* as a numbers game. They build a character, fight stuff, and get points.

There are ALSO a lot of players who make heroes because they want to play a game about fighting crime, and make villains because they want to play a game about committing crime.

Not everyone is going to turn every carefully crafted bad guy character into a kitten-loving sweetheart just because they can get better xp or whatever blueside.

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Give it time and wait for more info before you start throwing DOOM judgment on things you don't even have the slightest bit of official confirmation on.

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Uh. You replied to me, even though a lot of intervening posts were made, so I can only guess you're actually responding to me in particular ... look over my posts again if you're really calling me a DOOMsayer. I'm not. Honest.

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Just enjoy it for what it IS.

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That's not a bad philosophy, but this game didn't get where it is today by the player community keeping their mouths shut about what they wanted to see happen. Rogue isn't going to be released tomorrow, and making our voices heard now about how we hope it turns out WILL make a difference.

In other news ... I will still have a problem with guys in Crab Spider Armor marching around in Atlas Park, even if they were supposed to be good guy spies from the beginning like Prince Recluse, but I'll make you a deal - if the Paragon authorities force all Soldiers of Arachnos to paint their armor bright pink so we can easily tell them apart from active Arachnos forces, I'll be able to suspend my disbelief a lot easier

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Its also possible that players that switch sides would have to surrender influence and/or inventory items before crossing sides.

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I kind of like the idea that influence and infamy are nontransferable. After all, they're not "blue dollars" and "red dollars" - they're supposed to be good/evil reputation! "Oh look, it's Captain Murder, killer of a thousand babies! I hear he's nice now, let's give him stuff."

Of course this completely ignores the actual functioning of the game system, but it's an enjoyable thought

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I frickin KNEW IT!
I told a few people they would make a Rogue expansion on Infinity in 06 and BAM!
MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!! I WAS RIGHT!!! I WAS RIGHT ALL ALONG!!!

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Even a broken watch is right twice a day