A final, maybe stickieable, word on farming?
By
300_below,
Posted on: 2009-04-27 06:21 in Mission Architect
5x reward is exagerating. But that's just it, The extra reward is for killing them after they get their portal going... They used to have minion level exp, but all their summond mobs gave exp too.
Your choices are basically have a significantly harder minion(if you don't get them before the portals open) that only gives minion exp...or you give them elevated EXP based ont he fact that they CAN cause several more higher damaging mobs to show up that you get absolutely 0 reward for. Personally I like the current path just to balance out the slightly higher challenge for the fight.
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Like seriously....there are OTHER Lieutenants out there that can be used with ease, to gain XP and what not.
[/ QUOTE ]
To the best of my knowledge, those other things have lieutenant-level HP and do lieutenant-level damage. That's the difference.
[/ QUOTE ]
Not much of a difference. Farmers will still blaze through them. Not that big of a deal.
Like other have said the issue with the Ritki comm officers is that they provide way more XP than a typical minion (between 2500-3500 XP per kill in a recent run for my level 48). The XP is set that way because the officer is supposed to be able to summon in help. Teams get around this by using AoE to mezz/knockout the group before the portal opens. Bug abuse? I wouldn't call it that, but I think it needs to go away.
[ QUOTE ]
Like other have said the issue with the Ritki comm officers is that they provide way more XP than a typical minion (between 2500-3500 XP per kill in a recent run for my level 48). The XP is set that way because the officer is supposed to be able to summon in help. Teams get around this by using AoE to mezz/knockout the group before the portal opens. Bug abuse? I wouldn't call it that, but I think it needs to go away.
[/ QUOTE ]
*humor on*
/e gasp
Stratagy....heaven forbid...must be an Exploit, you are here by banned.
*hummor off*
FFS. The Dev should just change the damn Comm Officers already so that we may move on to another topic where people whine some more.
Aye, but until a patch hits test/live, or a notice goes out to the populace. I consider them a viable mob. Espcially since they were changed to do specifically what they are currently doing by the Dev's in response to loosing exp from their spawns.
Exactly, yet people are still crying foul. Oh well.
[ QUOTE ]
FFS. The Dev should just change the damn Comm Officers already so that we may move on to another topic where people whine some more.
[/ QUOTE ]
I've been farming Comm Officers for about 3 hours the other day, and went from level 1 to level 37. That's not normal for any standards, but the truth is, you can do the same thing by making LT's with no defense power, or bosses that have no range combat.
Nerfing Com Officers won't draw the attention away from MA, it will just change because MA will still be the best option for farming xp. What will most likly happen is XP will be nerfed for all MA content, and may be the easiest solution.
Replacing the nerfed XP with more inf or more ticket drops might be a good way to balance that. Honestly, I'm not really interested in powerleveling any of my toons other than my dark/em tank I just started who is now level 37 
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Like seriously....there are OTHER Lieutenants out there that can be used with ease, to gain XP and what not.
[/ QUOTE ]
To the best of my knowledge, those other things have lieutenant-level HP and do lieutenant-level damage. That's the difference.
[/ QUOTE ]
Not much of a difference. Farmers will still blaze through them. Not that big of a deal.
[/ QUOTE ]
Keep in mind, though, that the game will put more minions in a spawn than Lieutenants, so you'll get correspondingly more rewards from a Comm-only spawn than you would a spawn of any single type of lieutenant.
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
FFS. The Dev should just change the damn Comm Officers already so that we may move on to another topic where people whine some more.
[/ QUOTE ]
I've been farming Comm Officers for about 3 hours the other day, and went from level 1 to level 37. That's not normal for any standards, but the truth is, you can do the same thing by making LT's with no defense power, or bosses that have no range combat.
Nerfing Com Officers won't draw the attention away from MA, it will just change because MA will still be the best option for farming xp. What will most likly happen is XP will be nerfed for all MA content, and may be the easiest solution.
Replacing the nerfed XP with more inf or more ticket drops might be a good way to balance that. Honestly, I'm not really interested in powerleveling any of my toons other than my dark/em tank I just started who is now level 37
[/ QUOTE ]
You must play blueside. Because 3 hrs with a good farmer on a Lib TV run will net you that as well. The difference is now it is available to everyone, and everyone can participate in the killing instead of sitting at the door.
This conversation thread about changing the AE system reminds me eerily of the arguments about balancing characters, which resulted in wide-spread nerfs to character powers and enhancements. Many people quit playing CoX because the changes were so drastic.
Fast forward many months, and a fun new release comes out
and here come the arguments... By all means Devs, do something about the Rikti Com Officers, which seems to be the concern of the week.
BUT: The problem I see is that there will always be something for people to complain about. My concern is that the Dev response to these complaints may be overly drastic, again.
Note to the Devs - I do not enjoy being given something, only to have it taken away, especially for a game that I pay to play! Please be careful not to throw the baby out with the bathwater, again.
--------------------
Read this carefully, Devs. Enjoying ourselves in a recreational game that we pay for is FAR MORE IMPORTANT than your misguided and obsessive need to "challenge" us. -Myrmydon
No worries. New Patch Notes are going to be in effect soon.
yep...new patch notes, down with comms, up with freaks
Nerf the comm officers. If the XP is based on pets that don't appear, then the XP shouldn't be there. Or should be there at about 10% of what it is now (estimate of number of portals that might appear in a big mob). If the system supports it, make XP dependent on number of minions summoned. Or move the XP back to the minions.
I know the farmers will just go on to the next best solution, but that can be addressed at that time. Farming outside the AE seems pretty lame in my experience, but I'm sure it took time and iterations to get to that point.
The current farming has led to an abundance of tickets that has brought down the cost of high-end recipes and dried up the otherwise massive amounts of some recipe ingredients (not sure why the expensive ingredients got cheaper though). Salvage is interesting again, for marketeers. Perhaps it is a better world now, just need to ensure the rewards are not just for farmers.
Arc: 379017: Outbroken See all your old friends in the Outbreak Tutorial sequel!
Arc: Coming Soon: The Incarnate Shadow Shard of Fire and Ice Mender Rednem needs you!
Massively.com opinion poll: Please Help Save CoH!
[ QUOTE ]
Outstanding post, and well said.
[/ QUOTE ]
The City of Heroes Community is a special one and I will always look fondly on my times arguing, discussing and playing with you all. Thanks and thanks to the developers for a special experience.
The arguments are often because one man's exploit is another man's efficiency.
My view on conventional farming is fairly extreme and I don't expect many people to agree with me. I don't believe that it was intended for most of the team to be out of the mission while the farmer sets the badguys, and then he (and his SK if XP is wanted) takes all the XP/inf/drops. If the devs intended that, they'd have made number of players an option on the difficulty slider.
I consider that an exploit, most people consider it efficient farming. There are also a couple of ITF exploits that seem to have been around for ages that seem to still be active.
I like what the AE farming is doing to the market, but dread getting on high level PuGs with some of the muppets it's producing.
It's true. This game is NOT rocket surgery. - BillZBubba
For what it's worth:
I think from what I have heard that the devs have altered MA - the comm issue I think is no more, and a few other things that we thought could have been things for devs to address, they have.
I think its also important for all folks to really admit that this issue is not and never was about comm officers or any specific method. As I said in the original post at the top of the thread, I think it's basically up to the devs to balance and alter the game as they see fit - and that's a continuing process. That's OK, and to be expected.
But so is the truth that within the range of whatever is currently permitted, for people who want to, to explore ways to maximize the harvesting of rewards. The fact that some folks (apparently quite a few of them) want to pursue maximized rewards is simply no more wrong than the devs chaning the game as they go to continually bring it in line with their goals.
It's like when two people want to split a piece of pie - the common solution is that one person divides the pie in two, while the other gets to choose which half he wants.
Well, the devs get to set the permissible actions in the game, but the players get to choose which actions they use (and where and when they use them). The players each get to decide for themselves how they will play the game, within the framework created, monitored, and adjusted by the devs.
I don't think it gets more clear than that.
Now, that doesn't mean I agree with all the devs' decisions, of course. For example, I thought the massive merit nerf, where they made it take MUCH longer to get IOs made the game much worse - but then again, I had the same thoughts about most of the big nerfs, like ED or the original purple patch. I am certainly willing to admit being that many of the devs' decisions I find great fault with.
But we are talking about something much deeper than that here. We are talking about the base two-sided covenant of MMOing here. First, the devs have the right to continually adjust the game however they want, so long as they realize that their subscribers if made sufficiently unhappy by changes can simply quit. Secondly, the players have the right to play the game in any non EULA breaking way they want, but need to accept that the game itself changes and options possible one day are not necessarily available the next.
If we all simply admit this base truth, we can maybe come to a meeting of the minds vis-a-vis farming, and go back to arguing about things like how badly merits have screwed us. 
(heh heh)
For Great Justice!
What about level limiting MA missions so that you aren't auto-skd? You'd need an actual mentor to sk/lk you.
That'd put MA in line with the rest of the game and you wouldn't have to reduce xp rewards. You could still 'farm' if you want to, but you'd have to have a team with enough higher levels to sk/lk the rest.
Please buff Ice Control.
This has been suggested before. Of course as explained before it defeats the entire purpose of the "feature" of auto/sk. It is there to make it easier for me and my mates of various levels to experience great MA content like Above Mars Part 1-The Wellington together across a wide variety of levels without "having" to worry about balancing the "wider" band level of toons.
The development team and this community deserved better than this from NC Soft. Best wishes on your search.
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
A good point. I hadn't even thought of why the ordinary Freak bosses weren't available for customs, but it makes a lot of sense... in the context of the Feakshow itself they're fine, outside that context they're exploitable. Give the Comms the same treatment, which is no doubt coming in the next patch, problem solved.
[/ QUOTE ]
First..an exploit is using a loophole in the code. There is no loophole here. no exploit. WAI. Using comm officers opens you up for those annoying no xp mobs that pop out. They could always restore the xp they give and drop comm officers back down.
[/ QUOTE ]
I also would hesitate to call a faction of all comm officers an exploit. But, similarly, I wouldn't call a faction of all comm officers working as intended. They're only balanced in terms of risk and reward when used as part of the whole Rikti faction.
But, to try and get ahead of the usual, incredibly pointless definitional twiddling over "farm", "exploit", etc, regardless of what we call it, they give an unbalanced reward. I wouldn't expect them to stick around the way they are for that much longer.
[/ QUOTE ]
I didnt expect them to stay. But there is no risk vs reward balance in this game. that is a line of BS.
Lots of 50's yada yada. still finding fun things to do.
Cthulhu loves you, better start running
I�! I�! Gg�gorsch�a�bha egurtsa�ar�ug d� Dalhor! Cthluhu fthagn! Cthluhu fthagn!
You are in a maze of twisty little passages
[ QUOTE ]
What about level limiting MA missions so that you aren't auto-skd? You'd need an actual mentor to sk/lk you.
That'd put MA in line with the rest of the game and you wouldn't have to reduce xp rewards. You could still 'farm' if you want to, but you'd have to have a team with enough higher levels to sk/lk the rest.
[/ QUOTE ]
And then you go back to pay farms being rampant....
I do hope the devs leave in the auto-sk feature of AE - not because I use it a lot (I mostly solo AE) but because I think it's nice that it makes grouping easier.
In fact, I wish they would allow multiple people to be sk'ed to one mentor, but that's another topic.
For Great Justice!
[ QUOTE ]
The ae is fine, the exp is fine. If they would just give all custom mobs a generic pistol/pistolwhip ranged/melee attack so they would be able to hit anyone from any position, I would be perfectly happy and I am a farmer 
[/ QUOTE ]
They just did.
[ QUOTE ]
All melee power sets have an additional ranged power added. Any ranged attack normally in a melee set will now be available at all levels, difficulties and ranks.
[/ QUOTE ]
As for the curious:
Claws/Spines/Super Strenght/Stone Melee already had a ranged attack.
Elemental sets got a blast from their blast equivalent.
Martial Arts/Katana got a shrunken.
Battle Axe/Broad Sword/Dual Blades/War Mace all got throwing Knives.
Almost all of these are on 8s timers. The gaze I gave on test seems not all are doing the same damage despite recharge. throwing knives do have a DOT but other attacks may be bugged and not looking at the right modifiers.
[ QUOTE ]
Like seriously....there are OTHER Lieutenants out there that can be used with ease, to gain XP and what not.
[/ QUOTE ]
To the best of my knowledge, those other things have lieutenant-level HP and do lieutenant-level damage. That's the difference.
And for a while things were cold,
They were scared down in their holes
The forest that once was green
Was colored black by those killing machines