Ascension of Level 50 characters...

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Players who join a power leveling farm can often level up without landing a single blow, or offering a single buff or debuff. They can repeat the same mission over and over, ad nauseum, without having to negotiate the non-mission game world (an often dangerous place). The advent of AE farming means that players can get everything they need in one place, and even get mission-end bonuses to boot.
All the leveling and stuff of the actual game, but with none of the dangers.


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Once again, your suggestion would do absolutely NOTHING to stop PLing and Farming. It would AT MOST slow it down temporarily until people with level 50s got a new level 49 up to level, and then would turn off the XP and continue doing what they are doing.

So you'd harm to normal players, and do nothing to the farmers and PLers. Well done!

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Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming that I am persecuted whenever I am contradicted.
~Ralph Waldo Emerson

"I was just the one with the most unsolicited sombrero." - Traegus

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One of my other hobbies is building models. There are a few aircraft that, due to history and variety of users, I build quite a few of. Therefore, I *do* refer to specific pages over and over again without regard to the rest of the book. "What serial numbers were in range, where's that color chart," and the like. It's what those books were designed for.

Not all books are novels.

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Be that as it may, in this analogy, CoH IS a novel. It's a story that has a beginning, middle, and end -- an arc defined by a characters level. It is not a reference book. There are methods for players to replay moments from their past, essentially referring back to early pages in our analogy (Ourboros), but these are still stories.

My proposal merely suggests that they have an end.

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OP, Aett and the others have already laid out reasons why your very beginning presuppositions are wrong, as well as your ancillary presupposition that there is "nothing" to do at level 50 (as evidenced by your own behavior of deleting any character that gets to level 50). And now you've added

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since the majority of the game content is best played as part of a team.

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So many ways you are misreading what others have found fun and that *your* way to play is the only way.

And BTW, this is a terrible idea.

P.S. I'm not sure whether I'm "old guard" or not. My reg date is a while back, but my post count isn't "cartel" level. I hope it's OK if I also express my disagreement with the OP, since it seems to be breaking his idea of how the forums operate.

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Altoholic - but a Blaster at Heart!

Originally Posted by SpyralPegacyon

"You gave us a world where we could fly. I can't thank you enough for that."

Oh man how wrong you are. This would exponentially speed up farming. You suggested maybe a free month of CoX for the final mission. People would farm like no tommorow to get the free month. Imagine in 24 hours 100 free months given out. This would kill the CoX company.

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One of my other hobbies is building models. There are a few aircraft that, due to history and variety of users, I build quite a few of. Therefore, I *do* refer to specific pages over and over again without regard to the rest of the book. "What serial numbers were in range, where's that color chart," and the like. It's what those books were designed for.

Not all books are novels.

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Be that as it may, in this analogy, CoH IS a novel.

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COH is more of a series. Heck, if you look at a comic (given the genre,) you'll find people alive, dead, alive again, more or less powerful, almost randomly throughout the run of a comic.
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It's a story that has a beginning, middle, and end -- an arc defined by a characters level.

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See "Ouroboros." And auto-exemplaring in task forces. And SKing/Exemping.

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Once again, your suggestion would do absolutely NOTHING to stop PLing and Farming. It would AT MOST slow it down temporarily until people with level 50s got a new level 49 up to level, and then would turn off the XP and continue doing what they are doing.

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I'm not familiar with the possibility of turning off XP. How's this achieved, and for what reason?

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Are we allowed to say just "no" to this?

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~ Infinity Heroes ~
Dark Voltage - 50 NRG/NRG/EM Blaster
Shure Shot - 50 Arch/NRG/MM Blaster
Silent Shadow Blade - 50 Katana/SR/BM Scrapper
Uphir - 50 Fire/Fire/Fire Blaster

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Once again, your suggestion would do absolutely NOTHING to stop PLing and Farming. It would AT MOST slow it down temporarily until people with level 50s got a new level 49 up to level, and then would turn off the XP and continue doing what they are doing.

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I'm not familiar with the possibility of turning off XP. How's this achieved, and for what reason?

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Menu - Options - Disable Earning XP - Enable/Disable (as I recall the wording.)

Introduced a few issues ago, by player request as there were people feeling they were speeding past content too *quickly* with XP smoothing, debt reduction and the like. (Don't recall if it was the same time as patrol XP - I believe so.)

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Calling CoH, or more to the point any MMO, a 'novel' is rather limited. It's not a 'novel'... it's a 'collection'.

Each arc (CoH has far more arcs then other MMOs do, as quest-chaining is a very important part of the game) is a short story in and of itself that takes place inside a specific setting. Sometimes, these short stories link up into a greater story, but often they can be taken and enjoyed as a seperate story on an individual basis as well.

Infact, it's rather much like the story medium it's based off of: The humble comic book. Calling it a 'novel' is horrifically off-base.

EDIT: To further detail my point: When I like a particular short story, I may read it again and again. If I like a particular issue of a comic, or a plot-arc (Go figure, it's the same term. I wonder why? ), I may read all of those issues over and over again to the point I memorize it.. but still go back to read it again and again.

Some people do that with game content. The reasons and motivations for that are entirely theirs, and I won't speculate as to them except when discussing my own personal motivations.

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Once again, your suggestion would do absolutely NOTHING to stop PLing and Farming. It would AT MOST slow it down temporarily until people with level 50s got a new level 49 up to level, and then would turn off the XP and continue doing what they are doing.

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I'm not familiar with the possibility of turning off XP. How's this achieved, and for what reason?

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You can turn off XP gain by clicking, hard enough as it seems, the Disable XP button in your options menu in-game. It was put in so that people could stop gaining XP to prevent outleveling a contact, or other level-locked aspect of the game.

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Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming that I am persecuted whenever I am contradicted.
~Ralph Waldo Emerson

"I was just the one with the most unsolicited sombrero." - Traegus

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Be that as it may, in this analogy, CoH IS a novel. It's a story that has a beginning, middle, and end -- an arc defined by a characters level. It is not a reference book. There are methods for players to replay moments from their past, essentially referring back to early pages in our analogy (Ourboros), but these are still stories.

My proposal merely suggests that they have an end.

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But why do we need to have an END?

Your view of the game is that it's a novel with a beginning, middle and end. My view of the game is that it's a collection of stories, with more being added all the time. My characters can have all the stories I want them to have and are not limited to stopping at some arbitrary point in their careers.

It's more like the City is a comic book series. There are some stories in some of the books with a beginning, middle & end. Then the next book comes out and the story continues. As do the adventures of my level 50 character and her 60+ siblings.

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Altoholic - but a Blaster at Heart!

Originally Posted by SpyralPegacyon

"You gave us a world where we could fly. I can't thank you enough for that."

Just to go on with the "no need for an end" to help illustrate the fallacy of seeing this as a "level-guided novel" -

My first 50, an elec/elec blaster (elec/elec/fire, the elec APP didn't exist,) hit 50 in issue 4. PVP came out then, but I wasn't terribly interested.

Issue 5 - Croatoa. Whole new zone, almost tailor made for her (a very magic-based character.) Croatoa's level - 24 to 35. With your suggestion, not to mention "level based start-middle-end," she couldn't experience it.

Later issues - Time travel? Of course! And the Rikti invasion, a threat to the planet as a whole? Why shouldn't she have a chance to help in that? Don't forget the Midnighter club arcs... where not only is the group itself Magic-based, but the Rikti there are trying to *destroy* magic. Something she'd *absolutely* be interested in stopping...

Seeing it as a start-middle-end novel is just limiting yourself. Trying to say "This MUST have an end" is just trying to remove the enjoyment - even punish - other players.

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Be that as it may, in this analogy, CoH IS a novel. It's a story that has a beginning, middle, and end -- an arc defined by a characters level.

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But why do we need to have an END?

Your view of the game is that it's a novel with a beginning, middle and end. My view of the game is that it's a collection of stories, with more being added all the time.
It's more like the City is a comic book series.

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Well, if you're running the same missions over and over, it ceases to even be like a comic. It's actually the same comic, over and over again.

Playing City of heroes is just like writing the story of your hero -- it is a novel, even if it's told in fragmented, often unrelated pieces.

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I've personally read the entire run of Young Justice (particularly the Sins of Youth meta-arc) about 47 times, for various reasons over the years since it first came out.

How is reading the same comic over and over again bad, if I like the stories?

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enough with the "farming" sterotypes of 50's. you have no argument for why you would want this so just stop already. give up on trying to get an "end" to the game. in fact, why don't you try to keep a 50 around and do the things you missed, or do the things you like. maybe get some friends for once and help with their missions, or have them help you with yours. oh, and the next time you reply to someone try to keep "farming" out of it.

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The OP's has a strange idea of how people actually play there 50's.

Who, besides Amish_Justice, knew I should have been playing a single mission over and over with them (never done that).

Evidently I've been doing it wrong by breaking them to explore new content, run new AE missions, etc.

My bad.

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I'm not familiar with the possibility of turning off XP. How's this achieved, and for what reason?

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How: An Options Menu choice.
Why: Any reason the player wishes.

Are you seeing a theme to the design philosophy here? The reason to use a feature or play in a given way is: any reason the player wishes, within very broad limits.

Do you see any lack of congruence between the notion that there is a one-true-way philosophy of play and the much more free one that is apparent in the design of the game?

I dunno. I have been gaming since D&D first edition - brown paper covers. I have been on the design team for several sets of RPG rules over the years, when there was still more of a paper and pencil market out there. And one sees one's "child" led in very strange directions indeed when you release the manuscript to the printer and the customers get their hands on it, let me say.

I have seen Monty Haul gamers, storyteller gamers, tactical gamers, grand story arc gamers, ruffling street bravoes in backwater cities and Heroes of the Age, number crunchers, munchki9ns, rules lawyers, minmaxers, roleplayers, you name it, depending on their tastes, and with variants within the campaign, the rules set, and the GM.

I have never found much use in that "past life" for one true way interpretations of adventure gaming. I don't see it as any more admirable or desirable a stance in this medium.

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My scrapper doesn't need an AoE. She IS an AoE.

Dear lord no!

I haven't even read the anything after the OP, but I hope the idea has received the beating it deserves.

I like my 50s just fine for perfectly fun play, and taking them away on reaching the ascenscion point would kill any motivation to level them in the first place.

just ICK.

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How in heaven's name did this even come about? What possible worth could taking people's 50s away from them serve, other than to irritate? I mean, sure, if people want to give up their 50s and say they ascended, good for them. Let them. Why take MY stuff?

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If you're reading a book, and you come to a page that you really like, and you choose to read that page over and over again, that's fine. It's a little banal, but it's fine.

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I am so sorry to hear you have never encountered a literary passage that plunges itself so deeply into your soul that you feel compelled to read it again - perhaps even again and again.

I would feel bereft if I could not savor, oh any of dozens of passages over again, either in the same reading or a later re-reading.

The end of The Count of Monte Cristo ("Wait, and hope"). A good deal of material by a man named Shakespeare. Or Blake. Or Heinlein. Most of Cyrano. Zelazny at his best. Pratchett. Twain (oh Gods, the smallpox hut or the scene with the young mother at the scaffold in Connecticut Yankee, or Huck's epiphany that it would be better to go to hell for stealing a valuable slave than to betray his friendship with Jim).

In performance art I assume you are not saying hearing something once is to hear all the rest. When the Brannagh Henvy V came out on videotape, I spun the Olivier and Brannagh "St. Crispin's Day" speech from both, back to back, much as I might play - I dunno - Callas and de los Angeles both doing Carmen's seguidille on the same day. I realize this must violate what Shakespeare and Bizet had in mind, of course.

If you are fortunate, you will encounter some passage which so compels your admiration and profound response that you cannot do anything but read it again, right away.

Even at the risk of being banal.

Mind you, nothing in this game comes close to literature on that plane. But then very little does. But your analogy is really inane when referring to the art of the novel, so I felt I had to go on this little digression.

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My scrapper doesn't need an AoE. She IS an AoE.

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How in heaven's name did this even come about? What possible worth could taking people's 50s away from them serve, other than to irritate? I mean, sure, if people want to give up their 50s and say they ascended, good for them. Let them. Why take MY stuff?

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The OP has stated in another thread that the only reason he can't find people to team with is because they're all SK'd to 50's who are farming. The obvious solution in his mind is to delete everyone elses 50's. That way people will finally play with him.

That's some truly interesting entitlement issues in my opinion.

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So, this is a serious suggestion, and one you're not likely to support, but hear me out. It's based on a couple of assumptions.

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I see what your thinking is with this but it is a pretty bad idea. I mean just from character names alone... Do they get put back in the pool or what?

Most people have been playing the same character for years and are extremely attached to them, as I am. It's an interesting idea but I'll say unworkable in any practical way and impossible to get any support for from anybody.

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Apparently I'm to stupid right now to make an awesome link with a picture and stuff but neverthelss sign the petition! [u]http://www.change.org/petitions/ncso...city-of-heroes[u]

Hmmmm... it's an interesting idea but I think the whole issue is moot as there are simply too many entrenched aspects of this game that would be rendered meaningless... Of course if it was simply an option that one could select at any point once they turn 50, I think everyone would at least try it once... I would anyway.

The end game of CoX is lame anyway you slice it and your suggestion wouldn't necessarily improve it. I fail to see how having "the option" to ship your character to a VIP server is a bad thing but making it mandatory would be stepping on too many toes and most people in the world are too sensitive for such toe stepping (see this entire thread).

The best way to ruin a character is to hit lev 50. Let players move their toons to an exclusive server or let them slum around with friends and go shopping... Neither is as fun as kicking the c-rap out of Frostfire for the billionth time with a new, interesting character.

I've met a lot of players recently that despise the AE missions and really enjoy teaming with people playing actual in-game content... I think the developers just found a way to further divide a player base that's too small to begin with. I really hope they bring things around in a new/creative way in the "Going Rogue" issue.

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Once again, your suggestion would do absolutely NOTHING to stop PLing and Farming. It would AT MOST slow it down temporarily until people with level 50s got a new level 49 up to level, and then would turn off the XP and continue doing what they are doing.

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I'm not familiar with the possibility of turning off XP. How's this achieved, and for what reason?

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Memphis Bill

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Menu - Options - Disable Earning XP - Enable/Disable (as I recall the wording.)

Introduced a few issues ago, by player request as there were people feeling they were speeding past content too *quickly* with XP smoothing, debt reduction and the like. (Don't recall if it was the same time as patrol XP - I believe so.)

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Aett Thorn

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You can turn off XP gain by clicking, hard enough as it seems, the Disable XP button in your options menu in-game. It was put in so that people could stop gaining XP to prevent outleveling a contact, or other level-locked aspect of the game.

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So Amish. Why are you avoiding these answers? Is it because of the fact that by off xp we can prevent any benefit you imagine would be gained by your flawed suggestion?

If the devs do get rid of characters once they achieve level 50, what is going to stop players from turning off their XP at level 49 and continuing to play the game using that as the new level cap? No characters get deleted and they can continue to as you put it "farm".

Another thing you claim that your idea will stop people from running thru the same content over and over yet you seem to be conveniently overlooking that each and every single time you start a new character you are running thru the same content again.

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Farming has a negative effect on the game for one very simple reason. It encourages players to do the same thing over and over.

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*Lex Luthor* WRONG!

Farming "encourages" NOTHING. It's merely one of several styles of play within the game. The REWARDS of farming are not "encouragement" either. Merely the byproduct of that particular play style.

The perception that farming brings things more EASILY than regular mission hopping? THAT could be construed as encouragment. However, that's not the fault of farming in and of itself.

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As far as I'm concerned, all the proof you need is a level 31 Warshade asking other players where Striga Island is

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Your problem here is POWER LEVELLING by less experienced players. This is one TYPE of farming. But it is not the whole of farming. And farming is not to blame for these "pro newbs".

Please understand what you're arguing for/against here. There's already enough confusion as it is without you adding your own.

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All your precious level 50's cease to have meaning when players who've been in the game for less than a month, and who've only explored 1% of the game content, have multiple characters of that level.

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And what, pray tell, is the "right" speed? Several people here took YEARS to hit their first 50. I've been playing 10 months. I have 4 (and 2 more within 10 levels of the goal).

And NO, MY toons don't "cease to have meaning". Why? BECAUSE *I* made them, not some power leveller. I played them. I advanced them. I learned how to operate their powersets. While, on the surface, this might not be visible, once I'm in-mission, the difference will DEFINITELY be noticeable.

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But, I repeat, this was never meant to be a discussion of whether farming is good or bad. I'm presupposing that it IS bad, and based on that assumption, I'm suggesting a possible resolution.

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Again, your assumptions are WRONG. The devs do NOT have a problem with farming. They don't particularly care that the game is played that way, but they aren't looking to kill farming. What they're looking to do is kill EXPLOIT farming. Their problem is with the EXPLOITS portion, not the farm portion of the equation.

This has already been said in the past. It's been repeated ad nauseam. A few seconds of searching, even on this forum's broken search utility, would have turned this up.

Stop shopping around a "solution" for a "problem" that isn't.

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