Ticket Cap Real Numbers / Efficiency

Translation: Not everyone plays the same way you (generic you) do. Not everyone should have to.

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A better, more community friendly, solution might have been just flagging all the boss farms after the first one as duplicates and deleting them.

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There are over 20,000 missions. Missions that are found to be farms were already being deleted or banned as quickly as they could find them (presumably). Apparently, these measures were not sufficient.

Morreover, they are already being accused of banning arcs that fit the pattern of abusive arcs but are not 'intended' as such, like challenge arcs.

Moreover, apparently one practice is to publish a farm mission then unpublish it when it is not being used to prevent it being banned (undoubtedly part of why we have over 100,000 arc IDs used for less than 50,000 arcs).

I'm not sure the Devs yet know how far they may have to go to get things to a place where both they and we are happy.

Some extreme and seemingly incompatible thoughts have been competing in my head:

1) Having an Instant 50 option at character creation (and perhaps for existing characters) would remove all point in 'racing' to 50. It is precedented by Guild Wars. Due to the MA. there is now infinite content for level 50 characters (missions are being published faster than you can run them). maybe the players that would get bored and quit if they had insta 50s are users that you would lose anyway.

2) Create a Speed Limit, code it in as a Diminishing Returns or hard cap on rewards being gained faster than a certain speed. Now people can farm to their hearts content if that is fun, and they don't break the game. You lose only people that feel they have to beat the system (or are used to speeds far above 'gamebreaking'), and casual players are unaffected.

3) Let people buy purples and levels with real money.

Any of these would kill farming, if that's what you really want to do.

I don't think the Devs really want to kill farming per se. They just don't want people to feel they need to farm to advance at a good speed (whatever that is).

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Bingo the Dev's do not want to kill farming...
It's beyond amazing the on going war between the pro farmers and anti farmers... it might be me but it semms simple enough... WHO CARES.... you pay to play this game so play it... if you want to farm MA, regular mishes or whatever why should that bother anyone... the bottom line is people play to have FUN... remember that word? and if people are having fun doing the same mish over and over again and they get their toon to 50 really fast who cares... hate to burst anyone's bubble but you can get bored from this game playing it slow, fast or whatever... I am a farmer I also play for the content I play this game because of the people that play...why? MOST of them are cool and there are some... well if they left to play wow it would be better I have a number of 50's the first couple I did the hard way... went through all the content and to be honest after my second 50 I got bored with the game... doing the same missions and arcs
and whatnot but for me farming has been fun getting my influence up there as well as prestige and purping out my toons... well still working on that... but it gives me a reason to keep playing while this might not be fun for other people that's fine... if you just like playing the game to play the game that's fine too... The devs make this game to be fun for many reasons but they also have to make sure it makes MONEY and they do that by people paying for subscriptions
and trust me positron had that reality smack him in the head after his first post... the non edited version the zero tolerance
blah blah one... this is why he had to clarify his post...
losing any player base by pissing them off is bad business
and sure there are people saying fine let them leave who cares... let them find another game... trust me the devs do not want anyone to quit playing this game

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It's better to save the Mystery, than surrender to the secret...

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3) Let people buy purples and levels with real money.


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This just might kill multiple birds with one stone. People who want to speed-level get that option while COX makes a little money and those annoying "inf for cash" guys will get shut out by legitimate means.

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i would not EVER buy in game items with real money, i have seen many other games do this, but that is also because they are free to play. if CoX went and did that and STILL made us pay per month, i would stop playing.

i do like to speed lvl, i dont enjoy the pre-lvl 20ish game much at all because i would rather start out buying SOs instead of having to buy training/DOs at all during those lvls that you go through, at 22 i instantly up all my enhances to SOs and usually keep them every 5 lvls till they need to be upgraded. i dont usually worry about anything IO related till 50 because the lvl 50 IOs are as good as lvl 53 SOs and i have the inf to buy them.

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WHO CARES....

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People do. What people you might ask. People that have a strange desire to control and lord over what other people can or cannot do. That number is larger than most people think due to the ability of people that feel this way to hide it in plain sight.

I had an SG mate breakdown and admit that part of his anti-farmer position was irrationally based on his emotional feeling over people getting lewt he did not have. His RL obilgations prevents him from playing for large blocks of time and he misses a lot of TF opportunites. I thanked him for admitting something that was "obvious".

Some people just feel that it is within their right to control you or at the very least will make a strong effort in trying to do same.

Afterall, human bondage was the global practice for milennia.

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The development team and this community deserved better than this from NC Soft. Best wishes on your search.

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Playing a game "efficiently" tends to turn the activity to a monotonous grind which to me resembles a job on an assembly line


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Not true, you can play the game efficiently, and have fun at the same time. I enjoy running the ITF over and over, so it's not farming. Yet my running time continues to improve, so I can complete the ITF in about 45 minutes.

When I build an MA arc, I'll make it efficient. Once that's accomplished, I'll fill in the story line. Playing efficient isn't farming, it's playing smart.

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i would not EVER buy in game items with real money, i have seen many other games do this, but that is also because they are free to play. if CoX went and did that and STILL made us pay per month, i would stop playing.

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IF they were to implement a cash based speed leveling solution, I'm pretty sure it would be an optional addition to the game, not a requirement.

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The problem is not that your SG mate wants to control what you do, IMHO. He wants to have what you have. He'll get there eventually, but he also wants to get to where you are much faster than he already is.

From the (projected) Dev point of view, it is likely that he is under the Speed Limit, whereas you may be over it. If you are over it, they are more likely to slow you down than speed him up. In any case, raising the Speed Limit does not help him or them.

I don't care if people farm, so long as:

1) It doesn't kill the game via burnout, jealousy or boredom.
2) The farmers enjoy it (see number one).
3) The nonfarmers are not affected (see number one).

This is another kind of Speed Limit.

You can have a game that has ultraoverperformers in it if you are prepared for everyone to eventually either move at that speed (so that effectively it is not ultraoverperformance), except for the minority that doesn't care. If your game is not set up for everyone to move at the speed of plaid, then balancing ('punishing' the best with nerfs and 'rewarding' the turtles with buffs) MUST happen, or everyone loses as the game dissolves.

Except: Due to the MA, the ultraoverperformers can no longer consume content faster than it can be made. This fact may change everything.

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Story Arcs I created:

Every Rose: (#17702) Villainous vs Legacy Chain. Forget Arachnos, join the CoT!

Cosplay Madness!: (#3643) Neutral vs Custom Foes. Heroes at a pop culture convention!

Kiss Hello Goodbye: (#156389) Heroic vs Custom Foes. Film Noir/Hardboiled detective adventure!

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After reading all your psots, LordXenite, I see the same theme through out your messages. ME ME ME ... I I I ... I've never seen someone so focussed on their own view point. The key to any discussion is looking at it from other people's perspective.

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See, in all I've said, I've expressed my opinion. I didn't say don't play as efficiently as you want, or don't grind, or don't farm. I do say however, that there are going to be consequences to however you wish to play the game.

You haven't convinced me yet that there's merit to allowing people the rate of efficiency that MA/AE allowed before the current nerfs, and I don't expect to actually convince you that playing the game for anything but character-growth is worthy of your time... so how again are we supposed to discuss this in a manner that will satisfy us both?

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I believe that a Kheldian Gold Standard should be based on SO's, and for anything above that... there's Platinum!

Save Ms. Liberty (#5349) � Augmenting Peacebringers � The Umbra Illuminati

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After reading all your psots, LordXenite, I see the same theme through out your messages. ME ME ME ... I I I ... I've never seen someone so focussed on their own view point. The key to any discussion is looking at it from other people's perspective.

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See, in all I've said, I've expressed my opinion. I didn't say don't play as efficiently as you want, or don't grind, or don't farm. I do say however, that there are going to be consequences to however you wish to play the game.

You haven't convinced me yet that there's merit to allowing people the rate of efficiency that MA/AE allowed before the current nerfs, and I don't expect to actually convince you that playing the game for anything but character-growth is worthy of your time... so how again are we supposed to discuss this in a manner that will satisfy us both?

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Actually, it was broke before the current nerf. Getting 9999 tickets in one mission is just wrong. The way it is now works, 1500 ticket cap per mission, is fine. That doesn't mean we shouldn't try to achieve that in as short a period of time as possible while having fun doing it.

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1500 tickets may be fine today, but tomorrow, as more people try to achieve the cap in as little time as possible, 1500 may turn into 750. So, my point is that I'm against the shock that people express when the Devs decide to re-evaluate their numbers and adjust the game, not against people trying to reach that cap.

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I believe that a Kheldian Gold Standard should be based on SO's, and for anything above that... there's Platinum!

Save Ms. Liberty (#5349) � Augmenting Peacebringers � The Umbra Illuminati

I am more than sure that for this issue like others there is a wide spectrum. He is at the point that not only does he want what I have, but he takes it a step further too, because he can't have it now, he doesn't want anyone else to have it now subconciously. He is not alone in being at that point on the spectrum.

I had to laugh a bit at the entire kill the game and jealousy. People are full of envy and jealousy and there really is not much that can be done about that.

I don't think that any form of non exploitive farming has any chance of ruining this game and it is one of the driving forces that keep re-subs each month.

Having experienced a large dose of RL jealosuy/envy I have zero tolerace for it in this arena. This is the principle reason I basically tell anyone trying to control what I do to pound sand as I know the origin of that kind of thought process, even if they don't.

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The development team and this community deserved better than this from NC Soft. Best wishes on your search.

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Playing a game "efficiently" tends to turn the activity to a monotonous grind which to me resembles a job on an assembly line


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Not true, you can play the game efficiently, and have fun at the same time. I enjoy running the ITF over and over, so it's not farming. Yet my running time continues to improve, so I can complete the ITF in about 45 minutes.

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As long as you are talking about repeating an action (or sequence of actions) that leads to a better result with each iteration, that is grinding, and/or farming if it's done solely for the sake of the rewards themselves.

I also play the ITF over and over because I like to play the ITF. Especially with PuGs because I always get different groups to play with. I also like to see improvement in how long it takes my team to complete the ITF, but if for example the team leader is pushing for us to use well-known ITF exploits, I will quit the team then and there and look for another team, or put together a new team.

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When I build an MA arc, I'll make it efficient. Once that's accomplished, I'll fill in the story line. Playing efficient isn't farming, it's playing smart.

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When I build an MA arc, I first and foremost think of the story, then about maps I'd like to use, then the different mission goals, then how mission goals would link to one-another, then about critters, clues, dialogs and all that.

I actually never, ever, spend any time thinking about how to make my story-arc grant anyone the most efficient amount of tickets.

You're not making MA arcs, you're making obstacle courses for CoX Athelets and while there's nothing wrong with that, at least don't call anything else dumb, and by extension, people who build their arcs differently, stupid!

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I believe that a Kheldian Gold Standard should be based on SO's, and for anything above that... there's Platinum!

Save Ms. Liberty (#5349) � Augmenting Peacebringers � The Umbra Illuminati

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...I don't think that any form of non exploitive farming has any chance of ruining this game and it is one of the driving forces that keep re-subs each month....

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I agree. I think however, that the Devs get to definie what is considered non exploitive farming, not the playerbase. Agreed?

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I believe that a Kheldian Gold Standard should be based on SO's, and for anything above that... there's Platinum!

Save Ms. Liberty (#5349) � Augmenting Peacebringers � The Umbra Illuminati

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at least don't call anything else dumb, and by extension, people who build their arcs differently, stupid!


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I never said anything like that. If you want to make an arc soley on story, there's nothing wrong with that, as long as you don't mind getting a 0-3 star rating from me.

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I never said anything like that. If you want to make an arc soley on story, there's nothing wrong with that, as long as you don't mind getting a 0-3 star rating from me.

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I don't mind, you can vote however you like. I on the other hand, when faced with an Arc I dislike, solely based on it having no story, I simply abstain from rating it.

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I believe that a Kheldian Gold Standard should be based on SO's, and for anything above that... there's Platinum!

Save Ms. Liberty (#5349) � Augmenting Peacebringers � The Umbra Illuminati

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...I don't think that any form of non exploitive farming has any chance of ruining this game and it is one of the driving forces that keep re-subs each month....

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I agree. I think however, that the Devs get to definie what is considered non exploitive farming, not the playerbase. Agreed?

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Yeah they do as a team not as one dev going off on a rant, then having to comeback and recant the majority of what was conveyed in the original rant.

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The development team and this community deserved better than this from NC Soft. Best wishes on your search.

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...I don't think that any form of non exploitive farming has any chance of ruining this game and it is one of the driving forces that keep re-subs each month....

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I agree. I think however, that the Devs get to definie what is considered non exploitive farming, not the playerbase. Agreed?

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Yeah they do as a team not as one dev going off on a rant, then having to comeback and recant the majority of what was conveyed in the original rant.

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You know... the last time I let my Developers meet as a team and affect the direction of were our product is going, we all ended up regretting it and having to "correct-course" later on and take the exact route I originally described to them.

I think you were talking about the Lead here going off a rant, right?!

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I believe that a Kheldian Gold Standard should be based on SO's, and for anything above that... there's Platinum!

Save Ms. Liberty (#5349) � Augmenting Peacebringers � The Umbra Illuminati

Yeah, but he calmed down and wrote what I thought was an excellent second post to fix thing up a bit.

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The development team and this community deserved better than this from NC Soft. Best wishes on your search.

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Some extreme and seemingly incompatible thoughts have been competing in my head:

1) Having an Instant 50 option at character creation (and perhaps for existing characters) would remove all point in 'racing' to 50. It is precedented by Guild Wars. Due to the MA. there is now infinite content for level 50 characters (missions are being published faster than you can run them). maybe the players that would get bored and quit if they had insta 50s are users that you would lose anyway.


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I'd like to see every Vet badge > 60 months reward the subscriber one insta-50 token.
If you use this token then it will cost you an additional month's subscription.

For all others < 60 months...you can insta-50 at the store, but it will cost you 3 months of subscription costs and you can only insta-50 once every 3 months.

The difficulty lies in how this would be rolled-out/activated.

If there was only 1 release date for this then the Markets would suffer Zimbabwe-type inflation and then dry-up in about 72 hours.

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Repeat Offenders

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Yeah, but he calmed down and wrote what I thought was an excellent second post to fix thing up a bit.

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And we just had a team-meet and we're stirring things back on-course... it's all good then

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I believe that a Kheldian Gold Standard should be based on SO's, and for anything above that... there's Platinum!

Save Ms. Liberty (#5349) � Augmenting Peacebringers � The Umbra Illuminati