SerlingIII

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Well, that's why you find it hilarious... You're misreading what people are saying. Yes, they're frustrated at the "AE babies", but few to none are saying that AE is "killing the game".

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Well I'm saying it, as have a number of others. But enjoy that "see/hear/speak no evil" approach to life. It seems to be serving you well so far.

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Then you don't team with those people.

Don't deliberately make the game non-fun for yourself.
Do what you need to do to have fun in this game and let others do what they need to do to have fun.

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Ah, yes, because everyone who goes 1-50 in AE has a glowing icon next to their name that says "AE Baby." How silly of us all to miss that!

Oh, wait, there's not?

So, pray tell, short of being psychic....

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Look at the info on a toon and then look at their badges. If they're all AE with absolutely no vet badges, then it's a pretty sure bet these toons will suck.

I think it's hysterical that the majority of people on these boards are now condemning MA/AE when some of us saw this writing on the wall in beta and the day it was released. My gawd, I was practically crucified on these fora for daring to suggest AE was killing the game, killing teaming in zones other than AP, and creating a bunch of players who know nothing about the game or playing their toons!

Well now you'll forgive me if I come here to gloat and say "We told you so!" The devs really, really screwed the pooch with this one, and they deserve the blame for creating a system designed as nothing more than an express lane to 50 for anyone who wants in.

I have an idea for the devs: why bother? Why not just let players create a level 50 at the character creation page, complete with all the influence and enhancements they need to really muck the game up? Better yet, sell the influence in the on-line store, since the AE seems to be nothing more than a means by which to make NCSoft's "bottom line" look better.

In the meantime, mapserver crashes system-wide seem to be at an all time high, and there are so many other annoying little bugs in the game, it makes me wonder what these devs do all day. They don't seem motivated to actually fix things, (unless it's nerfing powers, which is the only thing they've always done really, really well).

Well, enough of my rant. Off to do something more productive, like watching grass grow.

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Simply remove the incentive to level at all, and you make the content - not levelling - the reason for playing the game.

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Do that and you eliminate all incentive to even play the game.

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Obviously the devs feel as you do: the content alone (despite the fact that they call it "great content") is not enough to keep people engaged in the game.

So levelling is the carrot and nerfing is the stick and all the devs care about is how much money they can milk from the cattle that pay to play this "nerfed-up" mess.

As to the rest of your post, I won't even dignify it with a response. I'm posting from the second of two accounts that have either expired or will shortly, and don't plan on renewing unless the devs put the fun back in the game.

Maybe they'll replace me with another sucker, maybe not. But I'm not going to pay to play a "grind-fest" anymore, and that's precisely what this "game" with the release of I4 has become.

YMMV.

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Flashbacks and exemplaring are wonderful things, but in most cases, people leveling through a PL are trying to skip those in order to hit the "good stuff", which they equate to as high a level content as they can experience. They want to be "uber", and do the "uber" stuff.

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Actually, someone else has suggested a better idea for eliminating pl'ing: eliminate levelling altogether.

The reason people want to level as quickly as possible isn't necesarily to skip lower level content (although after your first 50, levelling alts through The Hollows can be a tedious grind), but to get the powers that come with advanced levels.

Why not simply make all the powersets and power pools available at the character design screen, and let people outfit their toons there (including all the slots you would get for a lvl 50)? Damage and powers would be still be scaled to level, and missions would reward with enhancements, TF's with respecs for people to tweak their builds as they learn what works and what doesn't.

PL'ing exists to get powers and enhancements. Let people have them all up front, and you eliminate the need to PL, and the missions become worth doing again, just to get the enhancements you need to fill slots. At that point, SK'ing becomes more fun, too, because you have the powers to go with any advanced level you might play.

Furthermore, creating alts and trying new builds becomes more fun, too.

I've always thought the notion that you had to work through levels to earn powers is a stupid way to get them, and leads to a lot of the problems all these other workarounds are trying to solve.

Simply remove the incentive to level at all, and you make the content - not levelling - the reason for playing the game.

If the devs are as confident of their content as they claim to be, then make it the reason to play. At that point, we'd really see whether the content alone is really worth paying for to play.

Doing this, however, would require the devs to put up or shut up about content, and I'm not sure these people are up to that.