Steele_Magnolia

Story.

There are already a boatload of identical farming arcs out there.

There is endless opportunity for stories.

[ QUOTE ]
Why is this bad? Prior to I14 the devs did every thing in their power to maintain the "weakness" that was incorporated into every AT by design even to the point of not creating any IOs that provide mez protection and only adding a trivial amount of mez resistance.

On top of the above the MA designer can easily add buffing "allies" to their missions eliminating the need (and marginalizing players that prefer the support role) for buffing classes in these missions. Blasters, Scrappers, and Controllers become power houses that chew through extreme content with out any risk, reaping far greater rewards, far faster than other ATs, because their weaknesses have been negated, by either forethought or negligence, through trivial means.

[/ QUOTE ]

And what weakness do these classes really have? A scrapper? A tank? A brute?

The scenario you're describing enables other ATs, particularly the defender, to solo.

I don't see this as a problem. I see it as a strength, not that I have seen the MA used in this manner. When I have seen allies used it has been as an assist against an EB/AV, not to fill in the weakness of a squishy AT on a player's own arc, although I'm sure it could be used as such.

As for the MA store it is past time that this option was available. When game balance overrides fun (in this case of arcane enemies, squishies, and mez protection) there needs to be a redesign of gameplay or the rewards system, or even better, both. If people en mass avoid a certain thing in the game... that means there's a problem with it. Personally I find Freakshow boring but I don't take my solo defender up against Circle of Thorns either because that's just masochistic.

MA Rewards: I enthusiastically welcome the alternative to being a slave to our market overlords.

[ QUOTE ]
Economics

- the rate at which tickets drop has made once valuable items drop drastically in value.

- the market is becoming "worthless" as there are now two alternative, often much less expensive, ways to attain the rare items people need.

[/ QUOTE ]

I agree about the Meow-50s. But this... this isn't a problem for me. I am not a marketeer, I don't play the market to exploit others. I am grateful for this change. I am excited, exhuberant, overwhelmingly in favor of this change.

Thank you, thank you, thank you devs for looking after the little guy. We can now support our characters, our alts, our SGs.

The marketeers can trade purples amongst themselves.

[ QUOTE ]
I really like the above suggestion of removing XP gain from AE missions. This would be a great way to reduce the feverish farming going on, and align the use of the AE missions for what they were meant for... Content!

[/ QUOTE ]

This will kill MA. Is this your intention?

MA missions already do not get an end of mission xp bonus. Removing xp entirely will cause the MA to become a ghost town. Forget content, if there is no xp reward then almost noone will play it. As much as I like new content and creative story lines, even I wouldn't want to play in it. MA would be nothing more than a curiousity, something to dabble in once in awhile out of boredom.

Gutting the best feature to come out in years for this game would make me go play LOTRO. And that is no joke.

The people screaming "nerf MA rewards" are overlooking the implied intentions beyond that of encouraging use of the MA system and allowing players to aquire things they can use for their characters: Making the market viable again.

I say: Do not nerf MA rewards. MA rewards are not the problem.

The problem is the ease of creating unbalanced farms. That is what needs to be addressed. I've said it before, I'll say it again. Fix the farms. Remove the exploits that allow players to create those unbalanced maps. The developers know what they are. The exploiters know what they are. And the farmers use those maps because they give the best rewards.

Rewards for playing real MA content are in line with what they should be. This is why rewards should not be nerfed across the board. To do so will kill MA and punish the players using the system as intended.

Farming will continue, but it should not be aided and abetted with a nod and a wink as it is being done now.

I've said it before, fix what is truly broken. I've joined some farms and seen what is going on.

1. Using comm officers in custom groups is a problem, the comm officers themselves aren't the problem, remove the ability to use them as was done with Cimeroran Surgeons.

2. Fix the one glaring exploit that I know is there and being massively used by farmers. (Positron knows what it is and what makes it an exploited bug, a friend and I noticed and my friend reported it for Bughunter. I am stunned it has not been yanked yet.)

Doing those two things alone would be a huge one-two punch that would set AE farming on it's backside. By comparison maps that don't use both of those get "slow xp" (as complained, which stunned me because even so the xp was faster than a steamrollered 8-man ITF on invincible). And I haven't seen any real farm that didn't use at least one.

The change in the upcoming patch to prevent kiting of melee custom mobs will help with farming of those. There will always be farming of custom mobs as farmers seek to build the most advantageous. And farmers will always seek out the next most useful canon mob to use.

Hopefully Farming Disneyland will come to an end soon. It wouldn't be that hard. It wouldn't take that much to put MA farming on equitable ground with regular game farming, radical steps like gutting the best features of the MA system aren't needed.

Edit: Oh, and get the MA out of the starter zones and give new players a chance to experience the game before being sucker punched by the farmers. It would also be nice to have events like the 5th Anniversary with simple event lag and not additional lag caused by MA farms, or spammed by MA farm broadcast.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]

No crossposting allowed. You posted this in the I14 feedback forum.

[/ QUOTE ]

I shared my veiws in there yes. o.0 I'm unfamiliar with cross posting, what does that refer to?

-C.A.

[/ QUOTE ]

Official Forum Rules and Guidelines

Cross posting is not permitted. As a courtesy to others before beginning a new thread, please look to see if an active thread on that topic has already been established using the Search feature. If so, place your comments there instead. Multiple threads on the same subject clutter up the forum needlessly and many good ideas may be lost. Use the Search link to keep discussions about one topic to one thread only.

[ QUOTE ]

Here's a repost of my farming thoughts o.@

Subjective Feedback:

I think one of the main issues I’ve found is that everyone’s got a knee jerk reaction to this. Farming has been happening regardless of this tool. Yes. It is easier now, but it will occur whether you wish it to or not. I agree with those that say it’s their money they should be able to play the way they want. I performed an experiment the other night and in one hour as a level 1 dominator I went from 1 to 18 in less then 45 minutes on one run.

Alot of the following is my opinion and a theory, take it as much!

This is somewhat frightening, but not doom. There may need to be something implemented and probably IS going to be. The reason they more then likely aren’t doing anything is that would skew their numbers. A launch that was delayed this long more then likely made shareholders or someone higher then Positron nervous and they wanted proof it was worth while. Solution? Reactivate all accounts. Full Exp and Inf for everything AE based. DO this for “x” amount of time. Datamine your numbers. Present. Then when it’s deemed alright, go in and fix the issues some have with it being a farm fest. This also frees up content to be created for a possible sequel game, a graphical upgrade, and pre-planning against the onslaught of CO and DCUO. You may lose some in the mix, but those are acceptable losses. Lets face it, we’re not important. The money is. That’s the way it’s always been whether anyone admits it or not, it’s about bottom line. I don’t like it, but I accept that.

End Theory

Now onto the feedback!

Something I recommend is that you implement a formula that could possibly punish for farming:
<ul type="square">[*]Use your data collectors to average out the high end levelers. Take the average amount of levels and put that as a cap you can safely attain PER 24 hours cycle. Any level after that runs a 10% risk of losing a level back to the safe cap. Each additional level then runs an additional 2% chance to roll back, capping at somewhere near 75%. This would encourage swapping and alting, one of the rather strong elements of the game. Roleplayers wouldn’t have an issues levels aren’t what RP is about. PVPers won’t have an issue since they don’t really do much as it is :P Casuals won’t be affected. Hardcores will know their numbers as any hardcore would. The only punishment? [u]Farmers.[u][*]Issues a three strike rule on farming maps, but by god make sure your maps your banning are farming maps. Make a support member actually play the thing, most of your support is canned responses from someone who is either too busy to deal with you or doesn’t care about their job. (Keyword:Most)
[*][u]1st strike[u]: a warning and an open forum with the support member who flagged it on how you see it as not a farming map and they do. Compromise. [*][u]2nd strike[u]: Ban for [u]72 hours[u], datamine their time and see where their account logs in the most. Hit them THERE at their peak times. Or let them be unteamable, there’s a code in there for that, you know it :P I’m sure a three day cruise of “I’m street patrolling” will let them think over their stance.[*][u]3rd strike[u]: A 6 month ban from the MA system, and all missions unpublished, remove badges remove any influence and exp obtained from such at no refund possible. Hit them in their superbase as well.[*]Datamine and obtained the names of anyone they’ve teamed with on their farms and anyone whose not reported it via cross-referencing. Issue them a warning for not turning in the content. [*][u]Additional Suggesstion:[u] After so many exp runs in the MA, reduce the exp and inf and prestiage gained by a mathematical formula eventually starting to take away from your stockpiles of all. Make this number [u]High[u]. Have the system issue a warning before and after the threshold.[/list]
Extreme? Maybe, but it sounds like everyone wants this to stop NOW. I’m not one of them but I’m getting tired of watching people argue in broadcast like we used to argue in PVP zones. No I shouldn’t have to turn off my broadcast :P That’s like the doctor saying “well don’t do that!”. :P

Now your star / ratings system, that’s a [u]whole new issue all together[u]. I understand that the idea of keeping the playerbase busy bickering with each other. It’s a fine idea. BUT, you empower them too much, and it’s possible for it to either explode, or level out. Highwire act in my opinion. :P Again, an entire other issue! =)

Regards,
-C.A.

[/ QUOTE ]

No crossposting allowed. You posted this in the I14 feedback forum.

Mothership Raid on Saturday May 2nd at 9:00pm EST.

[ QUOTE ]

Do you have a global channel i could join in order to get the raid times? My global is Freaknassy. I have a lvl 50 ill/force controller and a 35 fire/storm controller that would like to get in on them if possible.

[/ QUOTE ]

Send me a PM with your global and I will invite you later tonight when I log into the game.

I agree with what has been said, RP is alive and well on Virtue. Post on the Virtue board and you'll be swimming in RP contacts.

[ QUOTE ]
Awe.. there was a raid last night? Why wasn't it posted? I'm crushed.

[/ QUOTE ]

The raid was Monday and was posted. I had it in the LBx MOTD for two days, and posted here.

I will continue posting it in both places.

The arc in my sig is written to be solable by any AT. I tested it with my empathy defender.

As for bosses: A "boss" doesn't have to be an EB/AV. Why should a soloing player be locked out of 99% of the MA, virtually every arc has mission(s) with "defeat a boss". It is far easier for a writer to put [EB/AV] in his description they have gone to the effort of making them as such.

I knock a star off the rating if I run into unnannounced EB/AVs. It could be the best arc I've ever run into, it won't get higher than 4 stars if it doesn't state in the description that EB/AVs are used or a team is suggested.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Back alley brawler just spawned..4 kronos titans, 6 adamastors, 5 babbages, Honoree, hro-dothz, Lusca, and a rikti raid among other things in Infinity Atlas.

EPIC WIN.

[/ QUOTE ]

lolz heard BABs signed into Infinity AP and said "hello Virtue" &gt;.&gt;

[/ QUOTE ]

Now that's cool. He was greeting two servers at once!

I &lt;3 BABs!

Enough about ninjas.. I'm at the point now I flat out avoid anything with the word "ninja" in the title, description, or mission brief.

Mary Sues where you fight the writer's character and those of their friends all set on extreme, particularly when surrounded by annoying minions (thugs with gang army come to mind). I can handle learning about a character's origin, saving their SG, playing alongside them as long as I'm the star of the show. Showing up to be pummeled to the ground by Ninjitsu set on extreme or fighting the SG's Thug minions with Gang Army every 5' in a cave is not cool.

Heroic arcs that have the player "kill".

Any arc that treats the player as too stupid to catch on to what the contact is doing.

Any arc with a mission that is written to make the players fail. There's no excuse for this in my book. It's a waste of time.

And for goodness sake, playtest a few times before hitting publish!

It's pointless to be anywhere other than Atlas heroside, you can't find teams and the GM/AV spawns are rare and sporadic. And the lag is Atlas is horrendous, good luck if your machine isn't very high end.

I wish I could find teams for the invasions, but I can't.

Badges for fighting AVs/GMs are being awarded rarely, something is not right. Merits are working properly.

The gold titles are being handed out individually... this results in their being very few, and very coveted. I wish they were handed out zone-wide.

I was really, really hoping to see Rikti Motherships in the sky.

[ QUOTE ]
To me, it is a little bothersome that the devs are publicly pretending its not happening. I certainly hope its a priority to all the devs. Because this game can't afford to drive away players who repeatedly show up to team and can't solo thanks to all the nerfs we've endured over the years and a Create-Your-Own-Farm-Mission creator.


[/ QUOTE ]

QFT.

This concerns me too. While it is nice that the farmers can all find one another and no longer resort to padding requests, the "I made it to level 40 in 5 hours" and "I made it to 50 in 9" as I heard today on a team makes me cringe. These were their first characters too. They were newbies. This is what they knew of the game.

When I search the MA mission list and over half what I find are obvious farms and over half what is left beyond that looks like it came from a 3rd grader it makes me very, very sad. I wish that players could have seen MA as it was in beta when the only content in it was story-driven arcs and the vast majority had a serious effort of proofreading and testing prior to hitting the publish button. It was a very different MA. Now finding quality content is like searching for a needle in a haystack.

Comm officers and other mobs aren't effortless xp gain, there's no such thing in MA. Low effort and low risk xp gain is another argument. On large teams with sufficient firepower or control mowing through comms officers is not hard, soloing them on many characters is not easy by comparison.

Being able to put comms officers into custom groups is something they should have fixed a week ago when it was clearly apparent what was going on.

Elite Paragon Protectors attack one another and friendly allied mobs.

Several different patrols each with their own chat
Several different battles each with their own chat

My whole arc is filled with unique chat.

And in the mission 15 battles. They end too fast for the player to encounter them all, the players might run into two if they're lucky. It makes for something nifty to find on replay.

Have there been any new Dev's Choice arcs since beta?

[ QUOTE ]
I love MA! The City now has infinite game content!

However, two-day 50s will kill this game. Devs, you know it.

Cut the benefits of MA arcs, and cut them quickly. Halve the experience and influence on an arc. If not...

Why even bother to have a City out there at all?

[/ QUOTE ]

Non-farm MA arcs give appropriate rewards. Don't just cut MA rewards willynilly. Doing so will kill the MA. Cut the obvious farm mules, and we all know what they are and what the tricks are.

11am-midnight EST is 8am-9pm PST. Those are reasonable working hours for a major event for NC Soft staff...hmmm... Devs controlling major NPCs again?

Maybe Hero One and his team will come back from the Rikti Homeworld.... and Rikti Motherships will again fly the skies of Paragon City AND the Rogue Isles for an invasion like the end of beta and release of the game to Live five years ago?

I plan on ordering pizza and only taking bathroom stops. I *might* take smoke breaks, but we'll see how my nicotine gum holds out.

Join a global channel (or two) for your server and meet other serious players, join teams with similar playstyles. You'll have better odds finding teams there than in /broadcast and in /search in the current environment.

I know I've started hiding from search to avoid the farms.

Subjective: The ceiling of 9999 tickets held is too low. When a gold class roll is 5000ish, I would like the ability to save up tickets and make a few rolls at once rather than having to make them one at a time.