Oblivion21

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I hope that this whole farming situation has made it apparent to the devs that a lot of people perceive the game's slow leveling speed to be an issue. I don't like farming, and I'm glad they're taking a hard line on it, but just dismissing the whole thing out of hand without examining why it became so prevalent would be a mistake

CoH and CoV are the most altitis-inducing games I've ever played. I've been playing for almost five years and there are still dozens of powersets I've never tried. And I probably never will, because every time I think about creating a new character, I look at all the ones I already have that have been mired in the 20s and 30s and 40s for years. I love playing every one of them, but it's hard to keep at it when you feel like you're not making progress.

Maybe it wouldn't have been such a good idea a few years ago, but I think the game is at a point now where a faster path to 50 wouldn't such a big deal. You don't have to worry about missing content anymore, thanks to flashback and TF exemplaring. And, if you want to be cynical about it, now that we can buy character slots, altitis is good for NCsoft's bottom line.

Farming is bad, and it needs to be curbed, but people do it for a reason, and ignoring that reason in the rush to condemn would be a missed opportunity.

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I've had a lot more fun recently than I've had in a very long time with CoH. I got to try a lot of new powersets and get them leveled into the 20s where I actually get some powers that improve the gameplay experience (stamina being a huge one). And let's face it, we really don't get to "feel" heroic until we really start filling out our attack chains and defense/resist in the 30s.

I think that's where we get a lot of frustration. It seems that many people on these boards hate the PL'ers and farmers, but what does it say that as soon as you create a feature that allows people to level much quicker than normal, server populations explode. There were plenty of times that I logged to see Freedom was full.

I'll admit, I took full advantage. The AE powerleveling allowed me to experience the only new content I have left, new powers and characters. And although I'm sure there are people out there making extreme missions meant only for the most IO'd out lvl 50, just how exactly am I supposed to experience these? I've played for 3 years and have 2 lvl 50s, and neither has that many IO sets. And let's say I want to play that mission with a 50 spines/fire, that's great. All I have to do is spend the next few months to a year grinding it out. It's just not worth it.

I think this powerleveling should be left as is (or was, before the nerf). People say that players will get bored. In case you haven't noticed, players already are bored. At least now they get to play with new alts. People also claim that players are missing the content. What content? I've played against every mob type available with my different characters. Maybe once, I actually read the storyline. The rest was just grinding through dev missions to achieve a new power, enhancement, or accolade. This game just isn't varied enough to make it about the journey from 1-50 for many players. For me, it's always been about my character and developing their powers. The AE powerleveling farms were awesome for me, and now my experience just got nerfed.

I'll repeat what I said in the other thread:

Firstly, some history. I believe I just received my 36 month badge, so I've been around for awhile, but not as long as many. In that time, I've leveled two characters to 50. It took me forever to do so. I have numerous characters in their 20s and 30s. Now, onto the good stuff.

Who really cares that much about farming? I tend to play in cycles. My fiance and I will play a lot for a few months, then get bored, then the accounts will languish for a few months. The first time I logged in and played an AE farm I was hooked. My fiance and I have been playing quite a bit, more than what we usually play.

For us, this was a chance to see genuinely new content. This content being new powersets and powers that we've never used before. I used these "farms" to take numerous characters from one to mid-20s very quickly, and one of my favorite characters from low 30s to low 40s. To us, this is new content, and it kept us playing. I was able to experiment with a ~20ish Warshade for the first time. I was able to take a DM/SD scrapper to mid 20s (my first shield alt, btw). I was able to take a spines/DA scrapper into the mid 20s (my first experience with a spines scrapper over 10 and DA over low teens). It only took me a couple of hours to see that he was going to be an endurance hog. So last night I rolled a spines/fire only to see that people were broadcasting messages about the nerf. That's when I came here.

What is wrong with what I did? For the first time in a long time, I got to use genuinely new content (for me anyway). And on the way, I got lucky with a roll and got a LotG: global recharge. I've only ever had this IO once before, and it came after spending about 40 million received by, guess what, "farming." Most of my tickets I spent on SOs, which are far more affordable via this means than the traditional "missions for influence" means. I was actually feeling good about my new alts.

Yes, "farming" is boring. And I keep quoting "farm" because I do not really know what it means. Every newspaper, story arc, or TF mission I've ever been on was about going from spawn to spawn as fast as possible and killing as fast as possible. This is exactly what I was doing on the farms. Only instead of being in a cave or cavern where I couldn't see, move, or find anything (often resulting in the PuG splitting and dying), these farms are in the open where it's easy for the team to see each other, gather the enemies, and distribute maximum punishment.

In fact, in many ways they made me feel more heroic. To be honest, I don't really have anything that really sticks out about my 1-50 experience with my controller and scrapper. I just have this clouded blur of a memory where I killed the same things over and over. The only really recent "heroic" memory I have occurred recently, on a "farm" with my wp/fire tank. I gathered a couple of spawns when we must have been ambushed by one or two more. My screen was covered with red mobs and my team quickly wiped, except for me. I popped a couple of purples, RttC spiked off the chart, and I stood toe-to-toe. I did this long enough that the rest of my team rezzed and got back into battle. For that short time, it wasn't just a grind, it was monumental. It brought a big smile to my face.

I guess I just don't understand why people want to stop the powerleveling. I'm telling you right now, the mob content is not enough to keep people in this game. The reason I always played in cycles was because I always got quickly bored. I did not think that going to rikti spawn after rikti spawn was particularly fun (but no worse than any other mission I play), but it allowed me to quickly access new content that I've never seen or used. It allowed me to take a new character to a level where they start to come into their own, and skip those levels where you feel helpless and are always sucking wind. I didn't hurt anyone in the process, and I genuinely enjoyed myself. It was certainly enough to keep the money from my two accounts every month.

Now, the spines/fire I just rolled will likely languish at low levels for awhile. I really really hate the 1-20 game. The other alts I powerleveled (assuming they aren't taken from me) will continue to "farm," only now it will be mission arcs, newspaper missions, or any other mission where I hop from spawn to spawn killing as quick as possible (that's all of them). Maybe I'll do that arc in Faultline where I can kill the 3 AVs over and over. I can't tell you how many levels I've gotten from that one in the past.

And to those who are happy the "farmers" are about to be punished, so what? I have several characters that I would say were powerleveled. Not to 50, but I would certainly say that I received more than 50 levels in aggregate from my different alts running AE farms. I did this not because I was forced to but because I liked the results. It was entertaining enough for me to play CoH instead of any other game. I'm not emotionally attached to these characters. If the devs want to "punish" me by deleting them or removing my access from them, I won't take it personally and I won't cry. I'm not a prisoner, this is just entertainment. If the devs want to remove my access to their entertainment, I'll just remove their access to my money. It's not that hard and there are plenty of good games out there (and more on the way). I was playing Empire:Total War a lot before running the AE farms, and I'll likely just go back to that for awhile. Eventually, if it's no longer worth the money I'll just cancel the account. No tears here.