My_11_Toons

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I use the market quite extensively, so I can tell you you're flat out wrong here. The market trends clearly and inarguably indicate that a substantial portion of the player base has returned to playing regular content.


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No it has not. If you use search, you see almost every zone is barren. The only common salvage I have seen really drop in price is that which most common to lowbies. Mostly because they have gone back to doing sewer teams on blue, and Kalinda/Burke on red. I belong to four chat channels: one for finding Teams/TF's on Protector, Liberty, Pinnacle, and a cross server channel. The Pinnacle use to always have 200 to 250 people, but now it is in the mid 100's. Protector which use to be 125 or so is almost dead. The Liberty channel, which use to rank in the low 300's is low 100's. The cross server has dropped and mostly are asking for AE teams. Realistically, we can argue these pseudo facts and numbers for our point, but NCSoft has the real stats, and if it was not a huge problem, they would not have made it such a public problem and implement dramatic measures. That is a business fact no one can ignore.


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My wife and I made new toons on freedom last thursday. Level pacted and already at 18. I see a bunch of lowbies sitting in ae atlas trying to get on a team(and failing) a few vastly overleveled toons forming ae teams with other overlevel toons(not inviting the lvl 2-15's). Occasionaly someone will attempt to start a posi tf(but not often) ITF and LGTF and KTF are starting every now and then. Whole lot of solo'ing going on around them. If the lowbies in atlas would start a sewer team, they could be lvl 8 in an hour. They choose to stand there and bleat looking for AE farm. NOT finding them from all appearances.

So do we need to eliminate xp or institute a IQ test in outbreak?

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funny

pay to play a game and they end up sitting, waiting...

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SNAP! Ya got me for not clarifying. TY dude.

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lol, do you feel dirty?

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Yes, yes I do. I can't help myself man! It's like crack on a candy cane, man! Just one more level, man, then I'm off the AE for good, man!

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Whooaaaa. People like to talk a lot.
I'm not going to quote anyone, and I'm not going to counteract some people's posts. I'm just gonna give my opinion...
Yay!

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Curses, foiled again!

I agree that something needs to be done. But removing XP is not a rational one. Maybe a system where:

When you finish with a contact and you can create a mission for that contact (not your original contact) and for the level range of that contact, and go zone to zone, or within that zone.

Something that is more rational and/or allows for regular teaming. For example, you create a new toon, start with Antonio Nash, do a story or arc. After you are done, you are introduced to Juan Jimenez. When you finish Juan's arc, it unlocks the MA Options (MA Mission, Create MA, Exchange Tickets).

When you click on The MA Missions, you can play one that exits for this contact, or this level (in this case level 5 -9). When you click Create MA, you can use custom toons/critters, and/or with the vills for that contact, in this case, Skulls and Hellions. When you click Exchange Tickets, you can exchange it for the same rewards, but limited to that's contact's level.

I would like Lazy Playboy. You get 1/10 of the inf of the player that dies a stupid death. I call it the blapper defensive set ;P.

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I use DA on a lot of my tanks. I think it is a great set - especially for a farm tank. (Hate having to get SJ to get good KB protection, but hey, nothings perfect.) I do not skip Soul Transfer. Why would one skip their self rez - especially one that causes damage and disorient? If anything, and the few people whom I know that have a DA build, skip Oppressive Gloom.

[/ QUOTE ]What the heck is wrong with them? OG is the *good* mez aura. CoF is the one to skip.

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Wally's Mart had a sale on beach towels and crack that day?

I use DA on a lot of my tanks. I think it is a great set - especially for a farm tank. (Hate having to get SJ to get good KB protection, but hey, nothings perfect.) I do not skip Soul Transfer. Why would one skip their self rez - especially one that causes damage and disorient? If anything, and the few people whom I know that have a DA build, skip Oppressive Gloom.

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When I pay for this I know I'm paying for a game. When I pay for a meal at Deny's I'm not sure I'm paying for food.

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Oh man! That is too funny!

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I'm not arguing "pseudo-facts". First of all, there's nothing to argue. Further, there's nothing spurious about what I've been pointing out about the market. It isn't a matter of opinion or perception. It simply is what it is, readily observable to anyone who bothers to look. The numbers on the market are as real as any other numbers out there.

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Yes, yes you are. You are arguing pseudo facts because you do not have the raw data. During the few hours I play in the morning and then in the evening, I can say, the prices fluctuate thorough out the day. By the evening the prices have dropped dramatically, by morning the prices are way up there again. That is the only trend I have seen habitually in my year and half with CoX. (The numbers from my perspective support that.) Just because the amount of bids is 0, or the few prices listed there when you go to WW/BM appear normal does not mean more people are playing regular content. Off the top of my head, a couple of things can come to mind: more people are playing dev choice mishes; people removed their inventory and resold at a lower price; some vets, as I am with my brute, are playing old school farms to get debt badges needed for accolades. But, for all we know the average daily price may have dramatically increased from what it us to be since I14. Again, I say: Realistically, we can argue these pseudo facts and numbers for our point, but NCSoft has the real stats, and if it was not a huge problem, they would not have made it such a public problem and implement dramatic measures. That is a business fact no one can ignore.

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I've been asking for new content to level up my characters with for *YEARS* and now that we have it, I am ecstatic. Take away my XP and You won't be playing with me anymore, a contributing member to raids, channels, WW/Black Market, and PvP on the Pinnacle Server. I won't even think twice.

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Promise!

I am not anti-farming. I like to farm with my 50's. Here are some of the pros and cons:

PRO:
- faster way to level a toon for PvP/E, TF/SF, get inf, and rare salvage.
- most experienced players are now playing TF's like Posi more ofter to get the powered accolades for their faster leveled toons.
- the free market system has more competition.

CONS:
- fewer people play the dev choice content or reg mishs for boss, and now moving into AV farms
- what was a small part of the game, PL'ing and farms, are the main focus of the game.
- of the 10 newbs I have met, granted, four were my son and his friends, have already left the game. They loved the customization of the game, but never made head way because nothing took place outside of Atlas or Cap.
- of the chat channels I am on, and my global friends, there has been a sharp drop in the numbers of those online because the game has become more redundant and boring.

Can people argue that AE is revolutionary? No. It is.

Can people argue and become anti-farming? Yes. Farming is something I, and some people with whom I play this game did. However, farming is taking on a new definition with PL being a major part of the farming process, or, more apt, easily incorporated into the AE farms.

Here, let me pose this question:

When DC Online and Champions Online are playable, and there is a major shift from CoX to those games, is the revolution of AE worth the cost? Any good business minded person is thinking this at NCSoft, and other MMO's. Make no mistake, the other MMO are possibly kicking around the idea of their own AE system, but two things are for sure: one, they are possible waiting for the other superhero MMO genre to come online to see if there is a population shift from CoX to the others; two, the other MMO's are making sure not to incorporate their AE system as CoX did. Again, the reason is clear, NCSoft management made it publicly clear that the system has a major flaw. The flaw is not the system, but the people who use it. And for one to think that one will monitor themselves needs to grow up and look at the speed limit sign again.

And you sound like a programmer who's too lazy to fix the bug cause "the code is not the problem" Any person who has really developed and coded, knows 80% of changes are just a simple change of a sub-routine(s), then send it to QA. (But then again, most programmers I know don't make simple, and easy sub routines in their code :P)

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I use the market quite extensively, so I can tell you you're flat out wrong here. The market trends clearly and inarguably indicate that a substantial portion of the player base has returned to playing regular content.

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No it has not. If you use search, you see almost every zone is barren. The only common salvage I have seen really drop in price is that which most common to lowbies. Mostly because they have gone back to doing sewer teams on blue, and Kalinda/Burke on red. I belong to four chat channels: one for finding Teams/TF's on Protector, Liberty, Pinnacle, and a cross server channel. The Pinnacle use to always have 200 to 250 people, but now it is in the mid 100's. Protector which use to be 125 or so is almost dead. The Liberty channel, which use to rank in the low 300's is low 100's. The cross server has dropped and mostly are asking for AE teams. Realistically, we can argue these pseudo facts and numbers for our point, but NCSoft has the real stats, and if it was not a huge problem, they would not have made it such a public problem and implement dramatic measures. That is a business fact no one can ignore.

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They got suck in the AE loop and found the game boring, and redundant.

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Right.......and the non-AE portions of the game aren't "boring and redundant." I guess repeating ITFs *or insert any other TF basically* over and over again doesn't constitute redundancy.


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You are right. Let me clarify, the game is MORE boring and redundant. You travel no where. 90% of the time you are in a farm repeating the same mission again and again. You pick up the slack for level 1 - 15 toons that cannot deal real damage, and/or limited to powers. Most zones are dead! (Even on Freedom and Virtue.) Hardly anyone is running story arcs, or other TF's. Getting or building a team, oh, say in Faultline, is almost impossible.

But the reality is this, no matter what we say, the AE system is not going to dramatically change. The few friends I have left on this game are doing the same thing I am doing. Waiting for Champions. Where we use to play an average of 3 to 4 hour a day, we barely play at all. Sometimes I start the app and stop it thinking, what for? Another farm on AE? Nah, and play something else.

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I guess we have different views on "what it was intended for." IMO, I would think it is to provide enjoyment to the customers, since well...they're paying. The game elements that produce enjoyment in players changes over time. It's not static, but rather fluid. *IF* the majority of players feel that "read the back stories" no longer provides enjoyment, then that particular game element ceases to be what the game is intended for.

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Just because that is what it was intended for does make it so. The Internet was originally intended as a means for military computers/installations to stay in contact during war; the web was intended for university's to share knowledge and ideas. Look at what they are now. To argue the intent for a system is not rational when the intent is not the problem. The INTENT should out weight the ACT when they are polarizing. What AE was intended for is not what it is being used for - it's being used to farm and power level toons. Before AE, PL'ing and Farming was much more limited and zones were active and looking for people for teams or help with AV's or EB's. Not now.

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Why not have a AE/MA where you finish with a contact and you can create a mission for that contact (not your original contact) and for the level range of that contact, and go zone to zone, or within that zone.
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Something that is more rational or allow for regular teaming. For example, you create a new toon, start with Antonio Nash, do a story or arc. After done, you are introduced to Juan Jimenez. When you finish Juan's arc, it unlocks the MA Options (MA Mission, Create MA, Exchange Tickets).
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When you click on The MA Missions, you can play one that exits for this contact, or this level (in this case level 5 -9). When you click Create MA, you can use custom toons/critters, and/or with the vills for that contact, in this case, Skulls and Hellions. When you click Exchange Tickets, you can exchange it for the same rewards, but limited to that's contact's level.
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It would reducing farming, PL, and zone congestion. Simple, rational, and easy to implement.

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You know, that's not a bad idea, and I personally would love it. However, I don't think it's possible to do without causing a lot of work for the Developers (believe me, being a Developer myself I know how things that look simple from the customer's POV are a nightmare both to design and implement from the Dev's POV), and of course you may eventually annoy plenty of Efficiency Experts.

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Thanks. But I've been developing for years too. The framework is already there. Just a case of changing some coding for contacts, mish start point, remove the buildings, some other minor points, and Shazam. For the most part this would be an easy and quick fix.

I'm not sure what needs to be done, but something needs to be done. From my personal experience, AE is not keeping newbies. Most newbies I am playing with are soloing in other zones and ask for help - in most cases there is no one there to help anymore. My son and three of his friends stopped with WoW, and Red Faction with the release of I14. They got suck in the AE loop and found the game boring, and redundant. They went back to WoW. My son and his friend are typical gamers. They played the multiplayer story line from Halo 3 for months, and continued to play the other multiplayer areas of Halo 3 for a few more months after that. Once Halo 3 got stale, and redundant, they moved on to another game. For me, AE has done this to the game: after the first few weeks of AE, I did my usual with a new toon. Did arcs in Mercy till level 5 then to Port Oakes to get my raptor. Got invited to an AE team (figured why not, quick level to 12 - 14 then get the Kings Mayhem so I can work towards The Invader Accolade). When I flew in a level 20 SoA asked me where did I get my raptor pack. After the initial shock, I explained about Mayhem mishes and The Invader Accolade, and other accolades in the game. He didn't care, just wanted to get to 50, then try some PvP. I do not know if he is still on the game, but I do not see how. After a week of PvP, I would think he had enough since he is somewhat clueless about the toons. On the other side, half the vets I play with do not pay as much because almost everything is AE. Some are just waiting for DC Online and Champions Online.

Personally, I think the fix for AE/MA is:

Why not have a AE/MA where you finish with a contact and you can create a mission for that contact (not your original contact) and for the level range of that contact, and go zone to zone, or within that zone - like regular missions. Something that is more rational or allow for regular teaming. For example, you create a new toon, start with Antonio Nash, do a story or arc. After done, you are introduced to Juan Jimenez. When you finish Juan's arc, it unlocks the MA Arc Option (MA Mission, Create MA, Exchange Tickets). When you click on MA Missions, you can play one that exits for this contact or the lvl. Click Create MA and create a mission with your custom toons, and/or with the vills for that contact, in this case, Skulls and Hellions. Exchange Tickets is the same, but limited to that contacts level. I feel this is rational because it continues what is enjoyable about the game. People still play missions, and have to unlock new contacts to create a new, and/or higher lvl MA mission. Will it eliminate farming and PL'ers. No. But they will be spread out more. And like a taskforce, you can ex down, but you have to be a minimum level to access the contact, or play the MA mish.

You can raise all the flags you want about the innovation of AE. Call it Ground Breaking! But none of that matters if it turns CoX into the Vista of MMORPGs. (It's pretty but serious broke.) Because one thing is for sure, the people who do MMO's are paying close attention to what is happening with AE because it raises flags, and is ground breaking.

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Still cant figure out how farmers ruined it for anyone, but im sure when i become brain damaged i will totally understand.

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It's not the farmers who ruined AE. It's efficiency experts who build one-mission farcs* that are designed to maximize rewards while minimizing risk....
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*Farcs (n) : Farm Arcs.

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Isn't that farming? Running a mish that is low risk, easy to kill maps, max reward, hence, farming/farmers. If that is farming, then your post is a contradiction and proving the point it is farming/farmers that are creating the problem.

Why not have a AE/MA where you finish with a contact and you can create a mission for that contact (not your original contact) and for the level range of that contact, and go zone to zone, or within that zone. Something that is more rational or allow for regular teaming. For example, you create a new toon, start with Antonio Nash, do a story or arc. After done, you are introduced to Juan Jimenez. When you finish Juan's arc, it unlocks the MA Options (MA Mission, Create MA, Exchange Tickets). When you click on The MA Missions, you can play one that exits for this contact, or this level (in this case level 5 -9). When you click Create MA, you can use custom toons/critters, and/or with the vills for that contact, in this case, Skulls and Hellions. When you click Exchange Tickets, you can exchange it for the same rewards, but limited to that's contact's level. It would reducing farming, PL, and zone congestion. Simple, rational, and easy to implement.

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What's funny to me is that the AE in the RWZ is alwasy dead. I thought it would be the hub of everything under the sun when AE hit cause it allows CoOp teams.....but nothin.

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I thought sort of the same, but for people who didn't want lowbies on their team. Dose not matter what we post or say here. They are not going to remove AE. What I don't understand is why not have a AE/MA where you finish with a contact and you can create a mission for that contact (not your original contact) and for the lvl range of that contact, and go zone to zone, or within that zone. Something that is more rational or allow for regular teaming. For example, you create a new toon, start with Antonio Nash, do a story or arc. After done, you am introduced to Juan Jimenez. When you finsh Juan's arc, it unlockes the MA arc.option. When you click on MA Missions, you can play one that exits for this contact, or create one with your custom toons, and/or with the vills for that contact, in this case, Skulls and Hellions.

It's all a plot, see. It's a conspiracy, see. AE is funded by DC Online and Champions Online, NASA, and the JFK assassination people, see.

Really, it has ruined the game for me. It's sad cause I use AE too to raise the money I need for IO sets. It's sad cause common salvage will soon be the most expensive at WW/BM. It's sad cause a level 20 SoA asked me how do you get a raptor pack. It's sad cause Alt Farming and PL'ing is coming out of the wood work. It's sad cause almost every other zone is dead. It's funny cause NCSoft management knows this and there are going to shove it down our throats like Vista instead of admitting it's a bad idea and removing it. (Technically, the fact that management keeps it almost seems to sanction Alt Farming and PL'ing.)

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As someone who has played normally to 50 (multiple times) and been on both ends of the PL, I agree there should be a separate zone for farmers....


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Technically, it already exist. It's called AE. You can already create the type of zone/mish as described in the original post. You already auto SK people. This is not about a "zone," PL'ing, or farming. It is about creating a more rational AE without mission editing for sanctioned farming and PL'ing.


I have nothing really against farming. (For some people it is the only thing to do with their lvl 50's.) In some ways it is the only way to earn enough to buy the good recipes. Yes, there is a "dark" side to farming (Alt Farmers as some call them, and PL'ing), and all those problems have been emphasized by AE. But AE is not going to go away. No mater how good the intent is, and how much of a bad idea AE is, it'll exist in this game. It'll create and bring out more PL'ers and Alt farmers. (When a lvl 20 SoA asks you how to get a raptor pack, then you know there is a problem.) For those who don't like it. Guess what, as long as AE exist, PL'ing and Alt farming exist in droves. The game will be restricted mainly to Atlas, and Cap. AE has made the game dull, boring, exceptionally routine no matter what a player's style is, an Alt farmer's haven, and the lazy PL'ers dream. You want to reduce farming? You want to restore some of the balance? Then there is only one thing to do. Remove AE, anything else, is futile. (As one person said, "It seems COH has become the Vista of MMORPG.") Some people (most whom I know) are just waiting for Champions Online (CO). CO may be just as good, but it will not have AE and farmers and PL'ers crawling from the woodwork.

If anything I would prefer restructuring the lvl 20 options for travel powers. Replace group fly with a real combat flight. Reduce the def, but increase speed. Replace whirlwind with sonic boom, a PBAoE with moderate damage, disorient, and kb. Things like that. Adding new powers/options to the pool is not feasible as others have pointed out - what powers would you give up to have it? But realistically from my personal point, it doesn't matter what they do, AE is killing this game and, if Champions Online, DC Universe Online, or Star Trek Online is a decent option, I will be moving on to it.

I do not know if this has been suggested before.

Create more lower lvl co-op zones. Maybe turn certain Red Zones, e.g., Perez Park, Hollows, and Boomtown, in to co-op zones.