QuiJon

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Of course...this does not address the issue of farming and very rapid power-leveling, and there seems to be a consensus, at least based on what I've read on the forums, that those are issues that require addressing.

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They are only issues that require addressing if you honestly believe that they will be able to stop it. Which the history of this game is you cant. They have put timers on missions, changed the basic nature of powers like with the wolfs, change the nature or taunt, and attacks like Burn, but overall nothing the devs have done put any serious crimp in the Powerleveling, farming communities designs to increase their own leveling rate or rate of rewards.

So the question has to be entertained IMO of exactly at what point will attempting to end the farming, start to diversly effect the general player base. Those that might casually farm even, but overall wanted the MA to have fun with it.

The big cry IMO from the community of "play my way or no way" seemed to be that they felt that when they search on the MA menus, they basicly can not tell the difference between a farm map and a story arc. So they complain that they get so many returns that end up wasting their time if they dont want to farm, or actaully want to expeirence or read a story.

Simply allowing for missions to be published but not directly searchable would help relieve that problem, and allow those that are creating story driven content to see more of their arcs be played more often, but not prevent those that want to toy with the system from pushing the envelope.

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So we're all stupid?

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I said nothing about anyone being stupid or even suggested that in any way. If you feel stupid that is your own thought. This is just my opinion on the set.

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A: Here is proof that Energy Assault is not as good as the other assault sets
B: You just don't know how to use it
A: ... Uh, okay?

If you need your assault set to provide you mitigation, you're not paying attention to your primary.

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There is a difference between NEEDING it, and it just Giving it. I dont need energy to provide mitagation, however if its there anyway, ill take it.

I finally got a chance to try my grav/nrgy dom on test tonight, and frankly energy seems really nice under the new lay out. Now granted its AOE is still weak sauce, but the set is finally doing the expected damage it should. Now when you factor in the knockback, stun/dissorient for the set, with what is now good ST damage, IMO energy isnt to much the red headed step child of assault sets anymore.

I know you can still argue that all sets got a buff in some way, but when i play a dom i am concentrating on how that dom plays, not how it plays compared to Dom X. Energy IMO now plays saticfactory. Now i would love it if they gave it build up, but i know that is not going to happen so ill have to live with soul drain from the patrons for some extra damage.

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Many players wanted custom villains or villain groups for their stories.

Hey, I'm just saying that's what the devs said when they were working on it. It was a tools for players to exercise their creativity in storytelling. The more options you have within the system, the more options you have for storytelling, so they do go hand-in-hand. The conclusion that "the system lets me create difficult missions, so therefore its purpose was to allow us to increase difficulty" is faulty.



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And the idea that creativity adheres to a predetermined set of acceptable and nonacceptable levels of threat is also false.

You would need to pay attention to a normal progression of a comic book. Take spider-man. In one story arc he could be fighting the Vulture, a meaningless easy criminal for him to face. But in the next story arc a couple months later he is fighting the Sinister-Six, a pile of AV quality enemies that have the ability to beat him down harshly.

So yes i do consider that the ability to create storylines and arcs of variety of difficulty to be a centeral draw to any system like this. The purpose was perhaps not singularly to create more difficult missions, it was to allow players to exhibit their particular wishes and creativity in the form of missions and arcs for this particular game.

That expression IMO requires the ability to up the odds. Frankly as i have said the ability to create a truely no win mission (or atleast one that is much much more difficult then the standard) is a corner stone of this. I skim the mission info at best. I dont really read every single word. What i want is challenge. A challenge that is severly lacking in dev created content. (i simply think that after all the whinners from when the LRTF was created the devs go gun shy to make missions that killed players in mass) So now players can create those tough missions, and the devs dont have to take flak from the players about how hard they are. A "get all" mission is a get all mission no matter what the text says your doing. A "kill X" mission is still a boss kill mission, no matter who that boss is. A "Defend X" mission is still a defend X mission no matter what the object is or the reason to defend it. So anything that the system allows the players to create that goes above and beyond that standard non-threatening dev mission log, IMO should have been, and IMO IS the soul purpose of the MA to begin with. Be that difficulty, custom mobs, making truely villianous arcs not hampered by teen ESRB ratings or whatever. And if to keep that freedom i have to put up with some farmings as a result, then so be it. I have endured the farmers for 5 years already why is this any different then being send tells to pad for someones mission?

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And stripping down the AE to the point you can make nothing more challenging then a normal mission defeats the prupose of having it in the first place.

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Actually, the purpose of the AE wasn't to allow people to create more challenging missions, it was so that the player base could create their own stories. The fact that you could create something more difficult that a "normal mission" doesn't mean that it was its sole purpose.

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The purpose of the AE was for the player base to express its creativity. Limiting the difficulty of the missions to that of the standard missions the dev created, goes against that purpose. I can play a kill mission anywhere, i can play a pick the flashies anytime, a defend object etc. If i want to play one that truely with test my abilities and play style i pretty much have to use the AE, cause just about anything short of an AV in this game is totally solo-able to just about any AT.

The AE allows for a player to create a mission that amps up the difficulty level for even a standard solo player. That is a level of creativity that i dont think should be lost simply because it can be farmed. Those that farm, have always and will always farm. If they dont use the AE, they will simply go back to using the family farm or the TV farms or whatever people used before issue 14 went live.

Killing the level of customization availible to kill farming is simply hurting all the players. And those complaining about the farming and forcing the Dev's hands in this reguard as just cutting off their own noses to spite their faces. When the AE is totally wattered down and no one can make or see their ideas come to light anymore, no one will use it and those that complain about the farmers will still have no missions to play, and no teammates that want to join them anylonger.

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I'm starting realize, this revamp may actually make permadom more needed accross the board then it currently is. Going perma solves two big issues now, endurance troubles and the new increased recharge times.

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It's only "needed" if you define what you need as having a constant attack chain available and fueled, even though in doing so you will be dealing more (single-target) damage than you were before, including Domination.

This is a happy problem.

It's also exactly how other ATs achieve their peak performance. Not with permadom, of course, but with builds that strive for high recharge so they can optimize their DPS attack chains for maximum output. A Dominator who does this happens to get the added bonus of always-on mez protection and a periodic endurance refill.

Meanwhile, everyone else who wasn't a permadom gets to dish permadom DPS full time (not counting the +rech, just the damage per attack).

Maybe I've missed out on some niche playstyle that Dominators found previously, but to me this makes Doms simultaneously more practical at low levels / casual builds while opening up their high-end build capabilities (again, primarily for single-target damage - AoE capabilities didn't really benefit here).

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I would tend to agree. Though now like all ATs the dominator benefits from gaining recharge bonus, achieving permadom is not so much the ultimate goal. A modest recharge bonus easily overcomes what recharge increases that have been added. Still will benefit the over all character, and still will benefit you in recharging Domination faster.

As for end, dominators have two patron pools that offer end gain, one being one of the most popular becaue of Soul Drain. So frankly as for end concerns in the later game i dont see it. Between taking a patron AOE end regen power and basicly having (even on a non-permadom) the ability to pop domination every 3 minutes or so, i personally dont see a end consumption problem really at all.

The +end though is an intresting thing IMO. Since part of this change was to help make dominators easier to play at lower levels it seems that some of these end increases do kinda go against that grain. I will have to try out the changes to really get a feel for them, but though i could say that the recharge and damage changes were ok, it seems like the end changes basicly undid a reduction in end cost that doms got some time back.

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The change to Lift intrigues me, though.

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And what about Propel?

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There might be people who think that any mission with all-boss or all-lieutenant factions should be banned. So it's not entirely clear to me that this was a matter of griefing rather than someone getting on their high horse.

Not that that makes it right.

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Not sure that I see the difference. The people on their high horse ARE griefers.

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Yes and no. I am not defending them, but someone that truely believes they are reporting a bad arc are not griefing. They are following their own judgement. In much the same way that some players might have sent a petition if they saw a regen/claw scrapper named LoganX or Wolvereeeeeeen, were other thousands of players might have ignored him entirely.

The real problem with this system, is IMO not farmers v. Players. Its based on the judgement of HOW someone chooses to play and spend their time. Farming is not going anywhere. It hasnt for the entire run of this game. However now you can get a slightly better return for time with the AE.

But many players just want to create fun content for them and thier friends to play. And stripping down the AE to the point you can make nothing more challenging then a normal mission defeats the prupose of having it in the first place. Sure it would mean your words can replace a devs, but ultimately the mission options in the AE are the exact same ones we get in normal missions, (find these, kill these, kill him etc.)

IMO the devs should live and let live. Yes hitting level 50 in 15 hours should not be allowed, but the basic level of customizing and play options shouldnt be killed to achieve the balance. It seems to me the biggest complaint over-all is that those that seek true story content feel that finding all the 1-2 mission arcs that are built to kill you are basicly a waste of their time to sort through. And i do agree. So before any other changes, bans, etc, IMO what the MA needs is the ability to publish and arc for play, but not have it come up on searches accept under specific terms, like a global name search.

This allows me to make a tough as nails mission to kill my firends fire tanker, share it with him cause my friend will know to search under my global for it, but not have it come up off general rating, lenght, etc searches if its not truely intended for general player use.

I honesly feel that one change could fix a ton of these issues. It allows for the level of mission you want to make, but also allows it to be kept from general public veiw and thereby keeping it from the eyes of those that might judge it based on a preconceived idea of what makes a arc vs. a farm if the mission was never intended to live up to that judgement in the first place.

I cant help but think there has always been a "people wont play with me cause they farm" attitude in this game. Be it all the way back to the early days of peregrine island that i can recall.

The MA has made this somewhat easier, due to auto SKing, and ease of travel, but frankly if farming was removed from the MA, let say they decided MA missions dont grant xp, guess what?

Ya all you busy bodies that want to say its wrong cause all people do is farm, will be claiming you cant find a team to run MA missions at all because those that do farm will simply go back to running their missions that were providing the best results for xp gain from before hte MA was introduced.

So my response is stop your [censored]. If you want to run missions then find missions and avoid the farms, if you dont want to run MA then dont. Yes MA is a great tool, but its not like your doing anything that really doesnt already exist from dev content, you just think you are cause it says someone else wrote it. But its sill a get flashie, still a rescue X, still a kill X or whatever.

But those that farm will and have always farmed. They arent planning on playing with you anyway, so forget them, forget theirmissions and arcs, and go play with yourself.... i mean by yourself, or make a team that wants to do what you want to do.

I was looking for a easy way to give my MAs a little more meat to them when I or someone is running them solo. The MA seems to kinda suffer from much the same problem as normal missions in that solo, they tend to be kinda easy unless you throw in a AV or something, and i dont always want to do that.

So i was looking at the destructable objects, which spawn ambushes when they are triggered. However i dont want to create a situation where the missions fail if the object is detroyed, i want to be able to have the normal mission goals still be able to be completed, but have that extra umph from the ambushes.

So i was wondering if I added the destructable objects, but didnt make them mission complete goals so the player could take or leave them at their wishes, if one happened to be destroyed would the mission still fail, or is that only if the objects are mission complete goals that they would cause an interuption of the story arc?

I seem to see alot of Fire/psi, mind/psi and a smattering i think of "what goes best with /psi" talking on these forums. And infact i would guage that in almost every "advice" post someone posting information about their /psi toon.

Those i think of us that really like doms are probably not overly obsessed with psi, but there is enough talk here on the forums and obviously the new to doms see the farms running using psi and i think that puts the impression that psi is the set to use.

And with one of the biggest compliants of dominators being damage output, obviously i also would say the set that gets the best rep for damage is going to seem to be the best shinny to use. Electric has certianlly taken some of that steam over the last couple issues, but i think that centers mostly for the solo small team players. I still think Psi has kept the rep for the strongest secondary, and its all because of 1 power.

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Psi Shockwave isn't an overpowered attack, but maybe it doesn't have a high enough end cost?

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I think if the end cost were balanced correctly people would probably complain. What's the point in having a power on a 10 second recharge if it costs 50 end?

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People always complain when they lose their "I Win" button. But i think that is the complaint here, if you took the power out of the set, the set is kidna subpar honestly. Or atleast not really as much of a pure win set as it was. Isnt that the very nature of a broken set?

I dont usually call for nerfs, and i am not sure i am doing so here by any means. But i do know that IMO Psi Assualt is a problem in that that one power in the set makes the set seem SOOOO good that it then i feel makes people say every other set sucks. Its to stand out. Now granted i would love to see the other assualt sets get a boost rather then psi taking a hit, and frankly i dont really care at all. Idont like Psi and wouldnt even if it one hit Infernal. But this is the same problem that has existed for many years with other power ATs. Where sets like regen or invul seemed to so far outshine others it was like the general public just figured why bother being anything else.

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so basically your saying that all the missions in MA should be click glowie. or did you forget about all the dev created content that says kill(defeat is the same thing) all? or are you saying that because you got several tickets and badges for doing the 5 mission long arc that it's a "farm"? did it maybe come into your thoughts that maybe someone was poking fun at the "farmers"? just some food for thought.

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No, the person was not "poking fun" of farmers. It was an exploit and it got pulled fast. And if you farmers were half as smart as you think you are, you would know by now why a 5 mission story arc designed for farming would constitute an exploit.

(It was literally jaw dropping bad.)


And as for comparing these player created farm missions with dev content, are you nuts?

You're comparing missions with a plot, contact dialogue etc. to "FARM FARM FARM" Kill Kill Kill." especially those missions where all the farmer puts on the map is a custom group consisting of one creature in the default costume?

Oh, and btw, those farmer missions are rarely kill all missions. (At least the ones designed by half-way intelligent farmers). The smart ones put that no thought custom group in and then put one mandatory mission objective in. That way they can leave if they have to (for what ever reason) and still get the mission complete bonus.


You know, right now I have the strong urge to put together a farming mission, publish it, run through it once and post the results. Just to have an illustration as to why this is a problem.

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And it hasnt occured to you at all that these crappy missiosn are being designed not to even farm but to just earn those tickets.

If i want to make a farm mission, i will likely make a custom group that is tailored to be fought buy a good farm toon. Maybe making sure they dont have knockback powers and are primary fire damage if im using a fire tanker or brute etc.

But i dont make the mission to be light on content. I might make it light on story yes, but as i have said i have run into many farm missions that have a basic story, somethng like "Dude X is bad go beat him down and kill his minions, get back the X he stole"

This is obviously not a heavey handed story line, but it doesnt mean the mission is not fun to play for people that like to play rather then read. One such mission i found had like 20 protect objectives, each one spawning a ambush. It was probably obviously a farm mission. And though i choose not to farm it, it was a hella fun mission to play through. I died a couple time, was taking on huge mobs and spawns, it was a blast to PLAY.

But if i wanted to farm tickets, and i was in a big SG, i could easily publish 3 crappy arcs that had little to do, and just ask my many SG mates to run through them in 5 minutes and give me 5 stars and go collect tickets for having done practicly nothing.

Again i personally feel like your taking a hatred of farmers and saying they have no right to use a new game feature as they wish to use it.

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You know, right now I have the strong urge to put together a farming mission, publish it, run through it once and post the results. Just to have an illustration as to why this is a problem.




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And what would those result be? That your characters earned good xp and infulence/infamy? Oh my that is terrible. Or that they earned 2k tickets? Again holy crap thats the ruin of the game.

You know since the merit system was introduced we have heard nothing but complaints of how it killed the market. People were hording tickets not getting random roles not feeding the markets, and choice was drying up and becoming way to expensive. MA tickets, farmed or not, will help to eliminate this. We once again have a source of fast earning of random roles. Many of those rolls will end up being sold on the market, feeding the communities needs. Im not saying farming is a humanitarian effort, but i know i would rather spend a couple million less for the IO i need on the markets because they are in good supply rather then have to run multiple TFs or Trials to earn enough merits to buy it.

So again i say, your incontrol of your MA experience. Saying anything less is just not being truthful. You select the mission. Read the story before hand, then if it seems decent play it. If you go into the missions and it doesnt seem like your cuppatea then quit it. There is NO limit on how many arcs you can begin and quit. Unlike normal mission contents limit to 1 per 3 days.

Also keep in mind that there will always with a system like this be more crappy content then good. Many players will want to take the time to make good thought out stories, but many more will just play with the system. They will slap together missions that are just intended to try things out, or even just intended to kill a friend off with there difficulty, and yes just intended to farm for tickets or whatever. But again this is their choice.

I fail to see why if players were farming say Katie TF for merits, and running it 3-4 times or even back for random rolls, taking like 45 minutes a run, why that would be ok cause its "Good" content, rather then them taking that same 45 minutes to play "bad" content to get a reward. Its the players choice.

And you know if you choose to see it, which im sure you wont, there is another positive to this system. I dont thnk i have gotten one "will you join me to spawn a map" tell since issue 14 went live. So like it or not, farming will always exist, and the MA gives farmers mor tools to do what they will do anyway, with smaller impact to those of us that dont farm for a living in the game. It also gives me as a mostly solo player the ability to earn some of those rewards that up until now were mostly only going to get earned by playing through lenghty TFs (which many night players cant get in on) or having to team on PUGs to take part in the content that earned the merits and such quickest.

So yes i could sit back and say "OMG i had to quit like 3 missions that were just blatent farms" or i could say "wow i have earned like 10 random roles playing the MA content since the week it went live. And i havent had the chance to do 10 TFs in the last year even." And take what benefits you from this system, and ignore what doesnt.

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How about rather then getting all torked about them, simply dont search for "short" MA arcs. I would imagine its a safe bet that many farms will be 1 mission arcs.


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The problem is, there are farmers trying to disguise their farm missions. That includes making them more than 1 mission in length.


I have hit Medium/Long Missions where you get a two sentance intro dialogue, get into the first mission and the only other text you get is "Farm" or Kill". And as I stated in the first post, the mission that started this thread was an arc 5 Missions in length. Not a "Very Short" Mission. In addition, it involved an exploit.


BTW, why should I be forced to avoid missions of a certain length just to avoid the rude, obnoxious and potentially exploitable actions of another player? Shouldn't the onus be on the player misbehaving?

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What I am saying is different strokes for different folks.

Just because you say that a mission with a 2 sentence intro built on a kill all is a waste, doesnt mean all feel it is. Many missions that the devs created are simple kill all Xs in the warehouse. Hell most the radio and paper missions have little to no introduction at all beyond somthing like "<Enemy group> has stolen a new metal, it would earn you decent cash go get it, leave no witnesses."

If you start a mission from the MA, and you go into the door and see that its not a mission you want to do, then you have the ultimate control for yourself. You exit the mission, quit the story and choose another.

Getting all bent outta shape or going on some rant or petition spree because its offensive, or exploitive to you, is setting the idea that for some reason your the ultimate controler about what is right or wrong to play. I have played several missions that i am sure could be considered farms, however you know i still had more fun playing those missions that atleast usally used a new unique enemy group, then i did playing the same old same old from the devs creations for the 10th time.

My point is you control your MA experience. If you dont want to run a mission a player created quit it. But dont get all holier then thou that you have the ultimate judgement of what is or isnt appropriate to play for others. Its basicly the same argument that has existed on farming forever. If you dont want to farm then dont. But playing someone's basic short, story light, arc or mission one time to expereince it for the simple joy of it being different i hardly call farming. Is playing the Dreck map 1 time and completing it farming? Then why would playing the MA mission one time and rating it and moving on be considered content only good for farming?

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I keep running into those stupid farm missions. No plot, little if any dialogue, just go kill. I finally hit one that was designed in such a way as to constitute an exploit. (And no, I am not telling anybody what it was, not until it's addressed. Yes, I reported it).

I'm tired of the farm missions any way. I want real content. If this finally forces the Dev's to come up with some way to stop these farm missions (mostly because they will all eventually be designed like the one I encountered) all the better.

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How about rather then getting all torked about them, simply dont search for "short" MA arcs. I would imagine its a safe bet that many farms will be 1 mission arcs.

I would personally just say an adjustment to your thinking is going to yeild better results then getting worked up and reporting the arcs. First off, if someone wants to make a farm mission they are going to do it. Secondly, I give it about a month before those that would make the farm missions will realize the best way to keep it live will be to keep it in their local folder, and publish it when they want to run it, and then unpublish it afterward so that it doesnt sit around to be noticed.

There is no way to change farming. The devs have tried over and over. If the MA allows for some type of exploit, that might be different, but i think we all knew that people were basicly going to make their own dreck, wolf ect maps when they announced this. The only possible fix would be to remove rewards from the MA to prevent the want of farmers. Which will prevent players from wanting to use the system also essentially killing what is a great new addition.

I only certianlly hope that the majority of players can adopt a live and let live attitude then going on a farmers hunt and screaming about changes. It doesnt take much more then a basic level or intelligence to get a good idea if the mission is for farming or not before you click play.

Thanks

In the arc i want to make. In the first mission i rescue an old commrade. Is there a way to make him instantly my ally at the begining of the second mission without having to rescue him again?

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I have never heard anyone call a Fake Nemesis an easy kill either.



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Fake Nemesis' are easy kills.

There now you cant say that anymore. But seriously, they are not hard kills, there just a boss.

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I assume people reported it for being a farming mission. Weather or not that is against the rules I don't know.

What power sets did you give these "easy kills"

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I would imagine that the answer is also in the title. Your basicly saying that this is a farm map. Pretty much created with no story, for no other purpose then to provide a "Family" style farm map.

The MA does take some server resources obviously to save all the content and such. So i would have to imagine that they will not be allowing people to publish stories that are simply created to be a farm for players. Its not like there are not enough of those in the game already without using the MA.

Try remaking the arc. Give it a real name, a real story, even if you do make custom critters that resemble those in farm maps, atleast your not advertising the fact the mission is their to farm for anything, xp, tickets etc.

I have played plenty of single mission stories so far that are so basic that im sure they were created for no other purpose then to make a easy farm. But they atleast took the effort to hide it in a story. You've made no such effort and simply even announced you created it for farming.

Pickle started playing LotR:O when it launched. She left the game for a while for that game full time. Then came back about 7-8 months ago, around the time the issue with powerset proliferation came out, whenever that was.

Due to work and time constraints, she left again to concentrate on only one game a few months back. So last i talked to her, she was exploring the mines of moria exclusively.

My no.1 highlight is probably the time i spent with HDS in the month before Hamidon first fell. That was a total blast. Though it was a great feeling of saticfaction when he was finally beat, the really fun part was the countless hours spent in the hive just trying to figure out a way to beat him senseless with alot of great players.

HDS, like them or not, was a group full of alot of great players, that wanted to have fun. Like all groups it suffered from some internal strife toward the end, but its still some of my best memories playing with those people.

As far as notable players i have passed time with....

Well first on the list would be WaterBoy. Long since gone, he was a real life buddy i worked with that got me to try this game when i was sorely bitter at Star Wars Galaxies for expecting me to grind off killing wamp rats when i wanted to be a galactic hero.

My second most notable friend/buddy would be Pickle. She was a constant friend in game. She was one of the most knowledgable players in game, she played to have fun. She is also the one in HDS that finally noticed that her combat logs showed a application of Char hitting hamidon that made us concentrate on holding him to avoid the mitos spawns. But overall for a long time she gave me my reason to log in, pick a new alt and play and have fun.

But there are also alot of others, many im sure i will forget the names here,

Whomping Willow
Armor Assasian
Revolver Law
mac Daddy b
Retro Knight
Helly
Shad
Violator
All The LEGION
most off of the members of HDS

And oldly enough alot of my most fun came from the agruments(just how i roll) so in that way i would draw attention to .

CandiMan
Most all the Freaks
Drac-x
All the Accolades (if anyone recalls them)

Oh and well if Drac was the first one to earn his name back, then i guess i was the second. That was a fun time also.

And though there is no way to remember all the names of people, my most fun usally comes from taking on a TF or SF with a less then optimal team that actually wants to play through the content, instead of just speeding and stealthing the missions. Many times this caused issues of real challenge, team wipe outs, but honestly some of the most fun i have in the game comes from these times. So though no way to remember all those names from all those PUGs, thanks for the memories. Nothing sticks out more then finding ways to fight AVs like pulling Burkholder in the lava because all but two of us have quit the TF and its all we can figure out to finish it off.

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Im not down with atlantis, we already are kind of dealing with atlantis with the cot and mu, but for a general water zone, then i'm with you on this. we have been sitting on the coralax storyline for about 8 issues now, Id be all for lots of underwater stuff, gimmie a water themed at, water powersets, a water zone, a glass of water..yeah all signed. people can cry ripoff of lemuria all they want, coralax predate the existance of co by quite some time. jsut lets have it be a segregated access zone, not co op, a hero instance and a vill instance, with properly flavored missions.

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I dont think it would be a rip off of Lumiera, i just say why do it at all? The physics alone in the underwater zones i have played in are terrible and basicly totally would probably make me want to avoid the zone.

Putting a pure underwater zone in this game would IMO be as stupid as adding some time travel zone that makes you fight roman soldiers......

Oh wait....

But i say space, moon, whatever you want to call it, i want to take the fight to the rikti in some way or another.

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Poster: MadScientist
Q: Have you considered simply adding 1 Merit per AV?

A: Yes, Archvillains and Monsters are just too easily farmed. There are missions where they are very easily ghosted to and defeated.


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And with Diminishing Returns I don't see a problem. First AV/HERO/GM 1 Merit, Second AV/HERO/GM 0.5 Rounded up to 1 Merit ... Third AV 0.25 Rounded down to 0.....

So someone can get 1-2 Merits in an afternoon, big deal. To prevent farming: Tie the Merit to the (Completion of the Mission + Defeat of the AV (AV Only, EB doesn't Count)) so that the mission cannot be outright farmed. Easy, and then it's not meaningless if someone gets a wild hair and decides to go Kill <insert Zone AV GM> or Whatever then Run a few missions out of their Patron Arc. They get at most a couple of merits for an afternoon's play. That sounds more than fair to me.

You could even make it Limit 1 only per 24 hours for a GM/HERO/AV, but if you did that, I'd make it 3 separate timers.

You CAN reward casual play without creating farming havens.


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I would just say outrightly you cant earn more then 1 merit per AV per mission. If you think about the arcs that really concentrate on AVs like maria Jenkins, that a fricken hella long arc to begin with for the small reward for the arc completion. Figure 1 merit per av 1 time per mission raises the value of that arc and those like it to a more acceptable level for the effort. Not only that but would encourage people to join teams running these arcs that might not be sticking around for the whole arc to earn the reward.

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There are a few of us that just want to PLAY the game and not neccessarily make missions. With all the fanfare we keep hearing about the Mission Creator, I do hope there is something in there for us then just Shields, PD and a few more Cimerora missions.

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You do realize that you will be able to PLAY all the missions that others are creating for you with the mission creator?

First off the cost of influence or infamy is based also on the server you want it on. Less population servers tend to cost more i have noticed.

Second keep in mind doing so supports the BS spammers in game and makes them want to stay.

Third providing your credit card info to a chinese gold farmer in and of itself i would never do. They dont respect the humanity and rights of there workers but they will respect my credit card number? I dont think so.

But over all i have no problem buying something from NC Soft, there primary concern is maintaining me as a customer. Farmers primary concerns are making money in any way possible.

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We all pay money every month 15 bucks on up. that money needs to be spent on developing content and fixes for the game as it is now. seem that they just used our money and developed a way to make more money by charging 9.99 for a respec.

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Your monthly fee is going towards development of the game, paying salaries, paying for servers (power, bandwidth, maintenance, maintenance staff), etc. And I believe the money from the sales of "extras" goes towards increased development too (recall the wedding pack sales let them do the VEAT's a whole issue early).

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Technically, your monthly fee is paying for access to the game servers. That's it.

What NCSoft as a company chooses to do with the revenues from subscriptions or micro-transactions is really a different matter all together.

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I think what the poster was trying to associate BAB is that like running any business there are inherent costs to making money. Yes our subscription gives us access to the game. That is infact what we are paying for. However that money is revenue to NC Soft. And the revenue they earn from there products has to pay for the support of the product. If i ran a small business say selling groceries. The prices i charge my custumers are my revenues i use to support the business. Which would include things like cleaning supplies, cost of the product on my shelves, employees, rent, electricity, etc. All those behind the scenes things are supported off the sales you make. In a MMOs case, its supported off subscriptions and box sales, and in an ever increasing way, microtransactions.

What NC Soft does with the money is there business of course. However i think it would be safe to say that a game that they dont predict to have a good income stream would first not have been recently purchased by them outrightly, but more so, not stay in business to long. The revenue that COX earns its publisher is I would think be a deciding factor in how NC Soft choose to finance its future.

So im not sure i get all the hate for these type of transactions. I like COX, i dont plan on quitting anytime soon, so i would just like to see the company that runs it feel its a profitable enterprise for themselves and keep my fix availible for me. If these help assure that, im all for it.