lionheart_fr

This is one of those areas where it's tough to decide whether to be frustrated with the farmers for messing things up for the rest of us, or to be frustrated with the devs for being so paranoid about farmers that they hamstring the rest of us.

That said, I've yet to hit the ticket cap in a mission. I haven't played much AE since this change was put in place because my graphics card died, so I don't know how much this change will affect my playstyle. Luckily the PC is still under warranty, so it is being repaired. I've been without it for two weeks -- but I'm getting it back today.

I have a few kill badges for various critters (not many); never planned any of them. They just came through normal gameplay.

The potential for this has broadened with i16 when characters of multiple levels are teaming. Some higher level characters may well be doing lower level quests with their friends now. "Accidental" kill badges could become more common this way.

I get what Megajoule is saying; using "everybody does it" as a justification for any activity is a false premise. It doesn't make your chosen playstyle wrong at all, it just is not a valid argument. "Farming" for candy canes is different than farming for XP, inf, and so forth for the simple reason that candy canes were designed to be acquired that way, whereas XP, inf, and such can be obtained without farming at all just through normal gameplay (albeit at a much slower rate).

The only justification you need for farming is that you enjoy it (as long as it's not an exploit from the devs' point of view). That's it. No need to try to paint everybody with the same brush.

Me, I'm about as non-standard a gamer as you can find. I'm not concerned with leveling quickly, with getting rich in-game, with having the best gear or being fully slotted with the best IOs. All I care about is whether I am enjoying the stories, the combat, and the adventure, and that I can play with my family and friends or solo when I want to. Most of my time in-game is spent either solo or with my wife and/or daughter.

I can. My wife and daughter can. My brother and brother-in-law can. Our best friends in game can.

I have never entered the sewers starting off; I haven't done sewer runs at all. Ever. Not interested. I've only done three task forces (Positron, Synapse, and one of the Council TFs); never repeated any of them because I didn't enjoy them.

However, I don't hold anything against those who do. We have different playstyles, which is great. That is a strength of CoH; it caters to different playstyles and offers up a variety of ways to enjoy the available content.

I'm not going to dive into the farm vs. story debate, but I will put in my friendly two cents on this point.

When I play an MA mission, I do not view it as a Danger room mission. It is just as "real" to my characters as dev content. Just because the official spin is that it's a danger room (to protect the "canon" of the game) doesn't mean the players have to view it that way.

Exactly. I'm neither a farmer nor a PLer. I've always avoided sewer teams (pre-AE) because every description/invite I read extolled the fast leveling/XP. My thought was: "I don't want to farm or PL; why would I want to do a sewer team?"

Funny, I haven't experienced that extra XP in AE. But then, I never play farm or PL arcs, either.

Actual story-based arcs already gave lower XP than equivalent dev content. Hopefully, the attempts to curb abuses of the system won't impact those of us who use the AE as originally intended overmuch.

Too bad, because you're missing a lot of good story content. I love AE -- and I *never* farm or PL.

Just because some folks lack imagination doesn't mean everybody that uses AE does. AE is a fantastic boon for people who enjoy creating and playing story content. It's an RPers delight, great for SGs to develop themed content for themselves, and there are some very talented writers out there.

Finding what you want can be a little tricky sometimes, because of all the chaff mixed in with the wheat. But to ignore AE simple because of the farms is a bit of overkill.

AE is on of the best innovations in this game, from the perspective of a story player, not a farmer or PLer.

Actually, FR stands for Freedom Reborn, a supergroup I'm a member of. I'm American, near St. Louis.

Games only "vampire" your life if you let them. For us, it's just one pasttime. My daughter plays with us (and solo, with one of us nearby in case we need to answer tells; there's lots of nice people in game, but one never knows), but she has limits as well. She can't live on the computer. Toys and books (she's an avid reader) figure very prominently in the equation as well. Variety is good.

Not from Turbine, either (they are based near Boston). However, a couple of their devs got H1N1 at PAX as well. My brother is a LOTRO dev; hopefully he stays clear of it -- he and his wife have a new baby (two months old).

Take it easy and get well soon, Positron.

It's great fun.

She does have quite a few plants spread about the little base we put together on one server, but not a dedicated garden spot yet.

Start cultivating imagination early and often. Too many kids don't get that chance nowadays. It's great fun -- for the parents too.

Yep, she's fully decorated her house, plus her room in the Kinship house. She also decorated a small SG base (though she wants to do much more to it) in CoH.

She comes by it honestly; while we do like to advance our characters, we're in no rush. We like to enjoy the journey. I16 is going to extend the journey here even farther as we make more characters. We have no alts, just many, many mains.

You just described the way my wife, daughter, and I play -- though my wife prefers LOTRO, while I lean toward CoH, but we truly enjoy both games. I get both my superhero and fantasy games that way.

I16 is fantastic to me because it adds just that much more customization and creativity to our characters. And the AE provides a limitless source of actual content (we never farm/PL). Even my daughter (age nine) has written her own arc.

Of course, my daughter spends almost as much time in the SG base or her Hobbit house (depending on which game she is playing) as she does questing. She puts a lot of RPers I've known to shame with her imagination. Whereas many RPers I've seen seem to think spouting off lore tidbits constantly constitutes roleplaying, she spends time in her house or in the other areas of the game world playing the same way she plays with her dollhouse. She has her own little stories going on all the time -- and even manages to connect them to CoH/LOTRO as she goes. That is, she's aware of the game world and just weaves it into her own stories. It's fun to listen to her play.

She doesn't require other players to interact with to have fun with her own stories, any more than when she's playing with her toys by herself. The other day in CoH, she had one of her characters being a super Longbow agent. For a while, she ran all over Atlas Park looking for Longbow patrols. She would check in with the leaders, give instructions, and move on to the next one. If they were in combat, she would join, and act concerned if any were knocked out or nearly defeated.

In LOTRO, one day I noticed she had her little Hobbit girl (a Guardian) in, dressed in a dress instead of armour, and walking around all the bushes in her yard, pausing every now and then. I asked her what she was doing; she replied that she needed to trim the bushes. She said that there wasn't an emote for that, so she just pretended that's what she was doing.

A few days later, her Hobbit invited a couple of our characters (both Hobbits, of course) over for a party. While we were logging in, she ran her character over to the neighborhood shop and pretended to buy food and such for the party. The she ran back to her house and pretended to cook. When we arrived (having doffed our armour and donned more party-appropriate clothing), she served several courses (from appetizers to desserts), then we went outside and played party games (e.g., tag, hide-and-seek).

We didn't gain a single point of XP, we didn't "progress" our characters one iota -- but we had a blast using our imaginations and playing together as a family.

The next day we geared up and stomped some Orcs together. That was fun too.

Altitis is not a disease to be cured, it's a gift to be nurtured.

And yes, mine will receive much nurturing with i16 as well.

I still can't help but wonder if the reason we're getting so much in the way of QoL and mechanics changes is that they're gearing us up for Going Rogue. That is, what we're seeing is part of the game enhancements that are coming, with major resources going to developing new story content and enhanced gameplay systems for GR.

As one who has not seen anywhere near all of the content currently available (even after three years), I can say that the changes we've seen from AE to power spectrum to ssk and so forth is phenomenal to me. These are some of my favorite issues overall.

But I can see where players who have "seen it all" would be seeking new storylines. I also like new storylines (story is one of the most important parts to me, although AE helps there since I enjoy developing my own). I'd like to see more content like the Faultline revamp for lower levels, as well as new stuff for players with high level characters.

You can't have too much content; having multiple story paths for leveling different characters enhances replayability overall.

As a major proponent of the benefits of the MA, I actually kind of agree with you here. Since this is a brand new starter zone with new content and mechanics associated with the storylines, it would be nice to have players come there to play that content initially. We will all be "new" players there.

The MA could be added later after GR has matured a bit.

I play mostly custom critter arcs -- and my highest level character is 35. I have a couple of characters that only play MA; unless mission creators are setting everything to extreme, there is no reason lower level characters can't handle them.

They're tougher than standard critters, but it really depends on how the mission author designs them. If you design them specifically for higher level characters, then yes, mark them as such. Otherwise, it's not that much of an issue.

That's why I'm glad the devs toned down the custom critters with i15; they just hit 'way too hard even on standard. The one arc I've published thus far (Granny Granite and the Senior Moment Gang) was actually very tough -- more so than I wanted -- on the last mission. There were a couple of bottleneck points that were murder to get through.

Since i15, it may be a little too easy now, although I've only had one player send me a comment to that effect. But custom critters being too overpowered by default was one of the weaknesses of AE to me at the outset. I think the devs have done a good job of alleviating that (though players can still design OPed customs if they so choose).

One reason that I like custom mobs though is for just the reason you mentioned -- they can be designed to look different from other NPCs in the game. The give more visual variety when well done. I do wish that we could give them some of the stock NPC powersets; I also don't want all of the minions to be incredibly unpredictable. They should be minions; leave the more complex stuff to the supervillains and leaders.

The other thing I like about AE is that I can design custom *supervillains* and actually fight them in-game. Nothing bugs me more about some dev content than when you get to the end boss and he looks just like every other mob on the map, just with a different powerset (maybe). *That* is boring. I want to fight some costumed villains, not just another thug-of-the-month on steroids.

That said, in the Granny Granite arc, I don't really have "costumed" villains, but the bosses do have distinct looks in comparison to the minions.

Then you've got players like me -- and my wife and daughter -- who like to do both. We love the AE, but we also love the dev content. No reason for there to be some demarcation line between them.

I've spent a lot of time in AE since it came out, without running ANY farm missions. I actually level more slowly in AE than in RC for this reason.

Admittedly it bothers me when I see posters who equate AE with farming/PLing. At lot of us who use AE never touch farms, nor do we PL. But I have a feeling many of us who use the AE "as intended" per se don't feel the need to run full 8-character teams; we're perfectly happy running with a small group of family/friends/SG mates or even solo because we're more interested in the story and the adventure than we are about leveling fast or getting rich fast. (No, this doesn't mean reducing rewards for AE; getting new powers and such is still part of growing our characters.)

Frankly, the only thing that has changed about my gameplay since AE came out is that I have more story options than I had before. Being able to design and write my own content is a major draw right there.

Hopefully with the new super sidekicking system and the new difficulty slider, the farm spam and padding spam will be reduced. If not for that spam, many players would never even know it was an issue.

My highest level character is 35 -- after over 36-months of play. Hitting 50 has never meant anything to me; the journey is where it's at. Endgame? Nah. Between dev content, AE content from other players, and AE content I can write for myself, there is no end in sight. Add in power customization, powerset proliferation, the new sidekicking system, GR and so forth and the sky's the limit.

Yeah, but I'll never get it. You have to gyre and gimble on the wabe to get there, and that just looks silly.