Wepps

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Q) “If I powerlevelled a character, am I going to lose them?”
A) Probably not. Only the worst of the worst, exploitive, powerlevelled characters will be removed from the game. We don’t take retroactive punishments lightly, but some offenses are so egregious that no one would question their intent and those ill-gotten gains should be dealt with. I just want to emphasize that no one is looking to ‘punish’ anyone here, but rather remove the rewards of exploitive behavior.



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This is going to hurt....

It's unfortunate that you feel you have to do this.

But essentially you have not cleared anything up here, you have simply explained why you are therefore going to do it anyway in the face of the cancellations.

You are committing an injustice by doing this. Perhaps I shouldn't care, but any step taken that will severely reduce the population of the service directly affects ME.

At any rate, good luck Matt.

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Not just that, but it also included text you might have typed up to that point. It wasn't uncommon to see people saying "wwwwwwweeeeeqqqqeqwesssssdsdadddHi" in globals.

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I've been experiencing it where after spending time bidding at Wentworths, my next broadcast would say "10000198753333any teams?"

I didn't see that last night.

But for the first time, every time I typed after an engagement, I'd see "wwwaaassssssdddddddwhats everyone doing?"

It's not fixed yet.

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• Players that have abused the reward system egregiously may lose benefits they have gained - leading up to and perhaps including losing access to the characters power-leveled in this fashion.


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Though I believe that action is necessary, I would dispute that this is necessary or even warranted.

I get the impression that MOST of the players, especially ones who came here new to experience this content, have taken part in at least some form of power-leveling.

I feel to remove what they perceive they earned, not only in effort but in real money spent, would cause a serious reduction in population. There are precedents for this.

Just a thought.

Positron, your post terminated early...

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Farming!!!!

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Is that the name of the title she's working on?

OMG!

Ah there it is, the red smoke grenade signal on the clouds over the city. The commissioner is calling.

My bacon eating beer swilling cape missing caltrops throwing respec wannabe is on the way to serve Paragon right now.

Inform the media.

Are they married? Are they rich? Are they interested? hehe

And a BIG thank you S-Man

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The Dev's HAVE Given a clear answer to your question:

Statesman:[ QUOTE ]
Just to clarify something here. I said that I wanted every Archetype to be able to solo. In other words, if someone logs on, and they don't feel like teaming up with someone else, there's still something for them to do. All Archetypes can currently do this...but some builds are stronger in groups, others are stronger solo.

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That's taken from this thread here. The thread has been locked, but it's still open for reading.

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This here is exactly what I returned to find PMed to me from Statesman, this is what I am looking for.

As usual, a great bunch of caring developers with the genius to see that it is done RIGHT.

Gotta love these guys That's why I was concerned. If I had to leave this game I would really be disappointed. I just never foresaw it ever becoming an issue is all.

Fanboi: A Lemming of average intelligence that promotes things that HE tried, just to justify his purchase as viable to the world, regardless of whether or not he purchased a bag of dog crap.

Are you a fanboi? /shrug

I LOVE this game. Jack Emmert and his team are some of the brighest talent I have ever witnessed, and there is some real creative genius in there. I can't wait for Villains to see THAT!

Customer service is so far beyond the next guy down they have their own atmosphere to breathe.

They address the issues, they do it in a timely manner, and they do it with loving care, not a nerf bat.

Does that make ME a fanboi? No. That's just stating facts. In order for me to be fanboi, I have to be an A-hole about it hehe.

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But in this case, why should I listen to you?

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Because I copied over to the Test server and have played under the update?

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So have most of the others who have negative feedback. This doesn't make you any different than them. Only the opinions are different.

This is why I asked for a response from the DEV team, and not the fanbois.

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Frankly, I don't care if you play or not. But I do care about posts which are either factually wrong and based totally on hearsay (posts that simply continue the myth), or whiney rants with grand threats of quitting if their demands aren't met ... Basically ... Posts like your original in this thread.

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I'm simply asking the development team the question.

I make no statement one way or the other, except to say that I am concerned about these changes based upon the feedback I have read so far. Therefore, DEV should drop in and answer the question CLEARLY. Is there a Design Decision to remove soloing as a viable option?

The fact that you read too much into it and now are angry to the point of not being able to make your day complete without 'saying something' is not my problem. You'll just have to get over it...won't you.

I prefer waiting and seeing for myself, rather than making a snap decision based on the negative feedback.

But in this case, why should I listen to you? Your statement suggests that you are a typical fanboi, and would promote the product regardless if it were badly designed or not. So, listening to your response is tantamount to that which you apparently despise the most...listening to somebody else's opinion which happens to be negative.

No, I'll make up my mind for myself as usual. It would be convenient if I didn't have to recycle the account and pay for that, when the developers intentions would wreck my game play forcing me to leave early after paying, though.

It all comes down to this:

This is a GREAT game. If they ruin it, it's only because they listened to the wrong people and took it in the standard direction that so many other failures have. Negative game play changes ARE negative changes to the game play. A = A. This always reduces the fun of a product. It's not a new challenge, it's less potential fun.

If we are being forced into playing a certain way that I cannot, then I cannot be a player anymore. And that would be sad, I love this game.

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Ah... I see. I assumed your concern was regarding access to missions & storyline. Oops. Silly me.

<shrug> I don't street hunt - with either my group or my solo character - because I find it boring. My soloer, however, is a claws/SR scrapper, & solos on missions, which means generally white-con minions, yellow lieutenants & orange bosses. At 22 she was able to upgrade half her enhancements to SOs & at 23 the other half; since influence becomes less of an issue with leveling, I don't think you'll have that much of a problem. At worst you'll have to wait a level to upgrade the second half of your SOs, which shouldn't be that much of a trial.

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Well, maybe. I will wait and see for sure, but the whole point of this post is to not get a cryptic answer, so to speak, but to get a specific Design Decision Statement...so that I know what action to take if any.

My account is coming due, and if these changes are so negative that I am reduced to rubble because of them, can no longer perform adequately without being forced to group, and therefore have all my (granted: limited) fun game play removed, then my purpose for playing has ended and it's time to move on.

I also make the point that I would be really sad about that, because I think this is the greatest game ever conceived! And I've said it before I'll say it again, I don't even CARE ABOUT SUPER HEROS! I'm not a comic store guy. If I did care, it would be to say that Archer AT should have been included, along with some others, only because as a kid I enjoyed those types of heros.

I play the game the way I do because I MUST play it that way. If this is changing so that my game play is being hammered at the complaints of a community that can't mind it's own business, and it's more important to address them than me, then I am left no choice at all.

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Wepps, you don't need to worry about influence for your level 32 upgrades. At level 30 you will notice a decent increase in the amount of influence you are recieving.

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This is true.

Right now.

But it appears to me that the changes coming will force my '30' to hunt lower level stuff reducing that return and costing much time on my part. Time I don't have.

Understand the situation?

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Door missions give more exp, and are slightly shifted in mob strength. This will help you level faster solo, greater rewards for doing 1 door mission a night.

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I'm not actually concerned with leveling exp, though it's an important positive change for many reasons. That's why my main is a level 30 and not a 50.

But my concern is with the acquisiton of enhancement rewards which determine my ability to perform in the field. Often, at these levels, you must hunt the outdoors to acquire these in order to sell, and purchase SO enhancers which address YOUR character build to create that nominal character.

If I can no longer experience THESE rewards, then leveling is meaningless as in 2 levels my enhancement situation reduces me to purchasing a whole new set.

In order to perform in many missions, my enhancements must be optimized or I get owned. This is the way the game is designed at its basic level. Getting my 30 to 50 tomorrow is not the greatest interest I have. This particular character has 10 souveniers, I do the missions and enjoy the sequence.

Now.

If I can no longer hunt for the enhancements without interfering with somebody else of a lower level, because I must face blues now instead of yellows, I end up in a situation where the return on my time put into playing has been reduced to the point where it becomes more grief for me than normally dealing with the KSers out there, and group griefers if forced to go that way. I end up spending twice the time at least to accomplish the same goal...

...just to go back to doing the missions once I am properly optimized.

The problem I face is with mission rewards.

When I do nothing but missions, the enhancements returned to me are not enough to gain the influence to purchase that whole new set every few levels.

Therefore, I have to hunt outdoors to get enough of them. For example, at level 30, I am still 250,000 influence short of completing the level 30 set of SO enhancements I require. Gaining THAT should take me no more than a couple hours of devoted hunting. Maybe complete by Wednesday if I am lucky and have the time.

But, all this does is fill me with Gray enhancers, and already I must be thinking of the level 32 acquisitions. Doing the missions MIGHT return more experience, but to me this is a negative change because I will reach 32 before I can even come close to affording the needed enhancements.

...and I won't be able to solo the outdoors nearly as well, causing me to spend more time with debt and griefers than I intended originally. A lot more time.

THIS game is all about enhancement management at any level, from the strategic standpoint, and inspiration management at the tactical level. If this is messed with in the wrong manner, it changes the entire game in a negative way that I might not be able to overcome simply by saying "Oooh, a new challenge".

This may be the only game in history that I will be forced to give up for this issue. Usually it's because the customer service treats me like I owe them something :P

I see, so if I posed the question in this manner...

"If I solo 1 hour every other night, am I not rewarded now?" perhaps it will be cleared up.

It's not a debate. If I have the perception that I am no longer rewarded for casually playing the game, then I will no longer play. But I do deserve a direct answer on this issue, and therefore I am asking.

Sometimes it's simple to sit back, and address the majority of players by making sweeping changes to the game. Each time this happens, a number of people (for whatever reason) feel it's time to move on.

Playing a game, in my case, means that I expect to be rewarded for the limited time I put into playing it.

If those expectations are no longer met, because the 'majority' or 'core community' are now all that matters, then I no longer have a choice and must withdraw from the service, because my rewards will be minimized instead of addressed.

In other words, if MY reason for playing has been removed, then playing is no longer an option. I don't have the time to test this product, and I don't know what changes are coming except for some of the alarmist posts I have been reading. However, if they are true, I have to cancel my account and that would be a great loss in my opinion.

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How you play the game is your choice, the fact that the Devs are making it a challenge again shows that they understand the concept of Risk vs Reward.

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It's not a matter of choice in my case, perhaps I didn't make that clear.

If the game is changed so that I am forced to group, there is no way I can proceed, and that is an issue that concerns me. Challenge is nice, for those who have the time to pursue that challenge.

On the other hand, OPTIONS are better than challenge, because options mean FUN...not to mention the ability for me to play the product.

Yes it's been said, and yes there is an official post, but this issue touches me on a level greater than just organizing my questions into a single thread designed to be ignored.

Certain AT power-set combinations were designed to be more solo friendly, according to statements made in the past.

However, I am seeing a general trend in these posts, and reports from test server, that the ENTIRE GAME is about to become group-only in order to survive in the field.

I chose my primary character because his power-set combinations were capable of soloing on a casual level. I just don't have the time to locate 'good' groups who aren't there just to grief me, and take the proper time to devote my attention in support of those groups.

If I could take ONE reason why I play this game, aside from the obvious wonders of good customer service and creative geniuses at development, I would say it's because I CAN SOLO.

I have no choice. Taking this from me means I just won't be able to play this game anymore.

Therefore, in fairness, I need to be told whether or not this is the intention of the development team. If my game play changes during online play, that's one thing. But completely removing my ability to play is quite another.

The product that I purchased is certainly not the same product it is today, and many good things are coming in the future. But without the ability to play the game I simply won't be able to take part in your fine production, and that would be a shame.

So, which is it? I need a straight answer. I feel I have the right to know, being a paying customer, what your intentions are from this end of the argument.