City of Heroes: Live Forum Archive

Stop complaining ... or Hogwash?

AncientSpirit_NA

By AncientSpirit_NA,
Posted on: 2009-06-08 07:25 in Mission Architect

 

Posted

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If they "savagely" cut the rewards given in MA as you suggest. MA would be a ghost town.

The Devs spent over a year getting MA ready for us to use and used alot of their time and resources (money) to do it.

I don't think it would look good on them if MA was a ghost town. How would they explain that to their bosses?

It's in their best interest to show that it was all worth the money spent by having MA used as much as possible by all subs.

Making it appealing to only a small community of "authors" wouldn't cut it and someone would most likely get fired for wasting company resources.

You will never see them cut rewards to MA to the extent that you are suggesting.

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No, we won't see such cuts. Instead, the devs are opting for the opposite approach, of gradually paring off exploits and excesses. According to the potential Hicks-Kalder criterion, that should get the same result as a sharp cut followed by gradual additions.

The issue is the psychology of it. A continual series of small nerfs may cause more negativity than one big one followed by a series of buffs.

 

Posted

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The issue is the psychology of it. A continual series of small nerfs may cause more negativity than one big one followed by a series of buffs.

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The problem isn't how much negativity is caused, it's how much of your player base gets angry. With small cuts here and there to hit the outliers, the people who will notice for the most part are the people who were using the exploits and such to gain rewards at a higher rate than what was intended and those who visit the forums regularly.

However, if you make a big cut, more people are going to be affected, and in a bigger way. Those people may get so angry with this big cut that they unsubscribe, possibly never to resubscribe. Those people won't be appeased by the gradual raising back up, as they won't be around any more.

 

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You don't have an MMO run for 5 years by being stupid all the time.

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Fixed.

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That's true, Everquest is still running somehow.

 

Posted

Farmers, and I mean the grind-to-fifty mindlessly farmers, not the "I'm a lvl 50 fire/kin with massive IOs that wall sweeps for drops", do affect the way we play. Instead of joining normal teams and contributing to the game world by become skilled, knowledgeable players, they instead grind away in the Atlas/Cap AE, never actually engaging the core game. Which isn't so bad if you've already played the core game umpteen times; but if you're relatively new, we end up with people who can't find Steel Canyon and complain that they can't figure out how to get a cape.

 

Posted

Also, the AE building in Atlas is [censored] retarded. Like there wasn't enough going on there? There are like 5000 other zones in CoH....just remove the one from Atlas. That place is truly disgusting now. Makes the old Peregrine look like peacful walk in the park.

 

Posted

Yeah, but those people are outliers and don't rerpesent the entire spectrum of people that may farm up a toon.

Mindlessly 1-50 is mindlessly 1-50 reagrdless of how they got there. The singular type of individual you are talking about is the one outlier you run into here and there on a hastily put together poorly run/lead PUG team. Not a big deal.

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

 

Posted

I love all the activity in Atlas.

The place has a true City Of Heroes feel to it now. Steel Canyon and most recently Talos have had their time to shine, for now its Atlas and Cap. When Going Rogue comes out it will be somewhere else. Nothing new here at all.

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

 

Posted

To be honest, I kinda wish AE missions would give statically calculated, per mission (based on what's in, goals and NPC's alike), rewards at the end of each mission. Thus encouraging people to complete missions in the best way that suits their character and playstyle preference. This will also encourage AE Authors to build missions that you couldn't simply stealth through at all times.

Then I realize that even this could be exploited because a mission with one un-protected glowie would always be farmable. The AE gameplay would become INCREDIBLY boring, but somehow, I think the games' resident Efficiency Experts wouldn't terribly mind that!

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

 

Posted

What's the difference in getting a reward at the end of the mission vs on the fly like now? If its the same reward I don't understand the thought process going into the change?

Keeping in mind the PvE vs MA reward equality the devs intend to keep.

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

 

Posted

The thought process is that Rezzers or Summoner mobs will not be exploitable anymore because you do not get NPC rewards based on anything rezzed or spawned. Also, since you'd get the reward based on mission-completion rather than simply farming the NPC's in a mission to collect rewards, people would actually HAVE TO COMPLETE missions... and actually having to complete a mission also better promotes, at least in my opinion, the immersion the player is supposed to fill while playing the mission.

I think it may promote Story-farming vs NPC farming... you know?

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

 

Posted

[ QUOTE ]
I love all the activity in Atlas.

The place has a true City Of Heroes feel to it now. Steel Canyon and most recently Talos have had their time to shine, for now its Atlas and Cap. When Going Rogue comes out it will be somewhere else. Nothing new here at all.

[/ QUOTE ]

Atlas has always been the hot spot for lowbies and 50s alike. Great place for costume contests and sewer runs, or just to hang out under the Atlas statue and BS with folks. Now it is a constant barrage of spamming AE Farms and broadcast is useless. You can't even get a sewer team going. It is disgusting and ridiculous. The worst part is all the farmers are standing around in the same [censored] building but refuse to use the Local channel. Idiots.

I really wish they'd just remove the AE building from Atlas and put one in Peregrine so things could go back to normal. They say they are against farming, but they turn Atlas into the farming capitol of CoH?

 

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Your average player probably doesn't care too much if he can't use the burning forest map in AE anymore, but if you cut his experience, he's going to notice, and he's going to be pissed...

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I guess I'm not "average", since I very nearly drove down to Paragon Studios in person to [censored] at them over this one. Seriously, if they pull that [censored] again people will quit writing stories. After a point it becomes just not worth the hassle to rewrite every patch.

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

 

Posted

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What's the difference in getting a reward at the end of the mission vs on the fly like now?

[/ QUOTE ]

I've been stewing on this one quite a bit for a while now. Having gone back and forth between AE and regular PvE several times on several characters, my personal experience is that PvE is *significantly* more rewarding for solo play.

There are 3 main reasons, all of which ironically affect people people playing through missions to the end more than people farming or PLing:

1) No patrol XP in AE. This is a big one, and IMHO should be a priority fix. The fact is that anyone using the AE to power-farm is going to blow through their patrol XP in no time flat, so this really only affects the "regular" players.

2) No mission XP bonuses. In theory, mission bonuses cover travel time between missions, and since there is no travel time in AE, this should be a wash. But not so fast: much of the "travel time" is actually load time, which the AE has just like regular PvE. Actual cross-zone distancing is significant but not as dominant as you might think. In addition, the mission XP bonus is larger than travel time accounts for - this is why newspaper missions were (and still are, sometimes) such a popular choice for high-XP-rate teaming for so long. Again, though, power-farmers aren't loading maps very often anyway, so this change really disproportionately affects people running short missions in quick succession.

3) No story arc bonuses. This one's obvious - PvE gets it, it's inconsistent in magnitude but adds up over time, story-playing AE players get nada and power-farmers never cared anyway.

IMHO, all three of these should be changed.

EDIT: I forgot #4, allies steal XP in the MA but not PvE. For arcs like the RWZ arcs, this is a huge penalty for running equivalent content in the MA rather than in regular PvE.

In this particular case I estimate that were I to recreate the RWZ arcs in the MA (which I can't due to some missing features, but set that aside for a moment) - the result would only grant 1/4 to 1/3 the amount of XP as the PvE version (presuming a full level of patrol XP). That's a pretty stiff deterrent.

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

 

Posted

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[ QUOTE ]
Your average player probably doesn't care too much if he can't use the burning forest map in AE anymore, but if you cut his experience, he's going to notice, and he's going to be pissed...

[/ QUOTE ]



I guess I'm not "average", since I very nearly drove down to Paragon Studios in person to [censored] at them over this one. Seriously, if they pull that [censored] again people will quit writing stories. After a point it becomes just not worth the hassle to rewrite every patch.

[/ QUOTE ]
Defendable objects will be getting a nerf too ... It's unfortunate since I really enjoy fighting 100+ enemies at once. It makes my toons feel super.

 

Posted

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[ QUOTE ]
Your average player probably doesn't care too much if he can't use the burning forest map in AE anymore, but if you cut his experience, he's going to notice, and he's going to be pissed...

[/ QUOTE ]

I guess I'm not "average", since I very nearly drove down to Paragon Studios in person to [censored] at them over this one. Seriously, if they pull that [censored] again people will quit writing stories. After a point it becomes just not worth the hassle to rewrite every patch.

[/ QUOTE ]
The burning forest map was horribly bugged. Collection objects would spawn in midair, and I can't count the amount of times that missions on the burning forest map were impossible to complete due to bosses not spawning. I'm sure it'll be back.

But again, I was more pointing out that a small change to MA will piss off a small amount of players. A global reduction in rewards will piss off pretty much every player. As this game is a subscription based product, pissing off a few players at a time with changes is far better for them financially than pissing off a lot of players at once.

 

Posted

[ QUOTE ]
Atlas has always been the hot spot for lowbies and 50s alike. Great place for costume contests and sewer runs, or just to hang out under the Atlas statue and BS with folks. Now it is a constant barrage of spamming AE Farms and broadcast is useless. You can't even get a sewer team going. It is disgusting and ridiculous. The worst part is all the farmers are standing around in the same [censored] building but refuse to use the Local channel. Idiots.

I really wish they'd just remove the AE building from Atlas and put one in Peregrine so things could go back to normal. They say they are against farming, but they turn Atlas into the farming capitol of CoH?

[/ QUOTE ]

Well, I15 will have an AE channel, but I am afraid the attempt at broadcast spam sympathy is tired old and played out. The complaint dejour prior to AE was all the useless CC spam, sewer team spam, give a lowbie some money spam, hollows run spam, RP ppl spam etc... spam in Broadcast.

This is nothing new. You can filter it out and if you choose not to do that or ignore it, then there will NEVER be a remedy to your problem.

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

 

Posted

If you ignore Broadcast channel in Atlas you will have a pretty hard time finding a sewer team....all the other "spam" you speak belongs in Atlas and is just fine. Lvl 54 boss farm spam does not belong in a lvl 1-10 zone. Period.

edited to correct an error*

 

Posted

[ QUOTE ]
The thought process is that Rezzers or Summoner mobs will not be exploitable anymore because you do not get NPC rewards based on anything rezzed or spawned. Also, since you'd get the reward based on mission-completion rather than simply farming the NPC's in a mission to collect rewards, people would actually HAVE TO COMPLETE missions... and actually having to complete a mission also better promotes, at least in my opinion, the immersion the player is supposed to fill while playing the mission.

I think it may promote Story-farming vs NPC farming... you know?

[/ QUOTE ]

Well, IDK mate that does not seem to be very well thought out. Certainly not to the degree that your Q-Powerset for Khelds was.

You get xp/inf for killing self rezzed freaks and others that are rezzed by NPC's, that would have to continue to be the case. I think a very easy solution to the rez exploit is a longer timer on the NPC that rez others as suggested by someone else. Simple is better for this issue, IMHO.

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

 

Posted

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[ QUOTE ]
What's the difference in getting a reward at the end of the mission vs on the fly like now?

[/ QUOTE ]

I've been stewing on this one quite a bit for a while now. Having gone back and forth between AE and regular PvE several times on several characters, my personal experience is that PvE is *significantly* more rewarding for solo play.

There are 3 main reasons, all of which ironically affect people people playing through missions to the end more than people farming or PLing:

1) No patrol XP in AE. This is a big one, and IMHO should be a priority fix. The fact is that anyone using the AE to power-farm is going to blow through their patrol XP in no time flat, so this really only affects the "regular" players.

2) No mission XP bonuses. In theory, mission bonuses cover travel time between missions, and since there is no travel time in AE, this should be a wash. But not so fast: much of the "travel time" is actually load time, which the AE has just like regular PvE. Actual cross-zone distancing is significant but not as dominant as you might think. In addition, the mission XP bonus is larger than travel time accounts for - this is why newspaper missions were (and still are, sometimes) such a popular choice for high-XP-rate teaming for so long. Again, though, power-farmers aren't loading maps very often anyway, so this change really disproportionately affects people running short missions in quick succession.

3) No story arc bonuses. This one's obvious - PvE gets it, it's inconsistent in magnitude but adds up over time, story-playing AE players get nada and power-farmers never cared anyway.

IMHO, all three of these should be changed.

[/ QUOTE ]

WHOAH! This is a surprise. I actually "don't" think they should add those things for AE.

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

 

Posted

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If you ignore Broadcast channel in mercy you will have a pretty hard time finding a sewer team....all the other "spam" you speak belongs in Atlas and is just fine. Lvl 54 boss farm spam does not belong in a lvl 1-10 zone. Period.

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There is something fishy about your posts on this issue. Number one, Mercy is NOT a big hub for AE activity like Atlas, its "CAP". Number two there are no "sewer" teams in Mercy on Vils there are "bank" teams and no I don't buy that you just mixed things up. You sound like you are just parroting and the wrong stuff at that.

The last statement you made reminds me of a post about Costume Contest spam and how it didn't belong in Atlas and needed to be moved to Pocket D. You need to get over this because spam is spam wherever it is and since you are not spamming you don't get to decided where or what that is.

That's right mate you need to get over this.

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

 

Posted

[ QUOTE ]
Also, the AE building in Atlas is [censored] retarded. Like there wasn't enough going on there? There are like 5000 other zones in CoH....just remove the one from Atlas. That place is truly disgusting now. Makes the old Peregrine look like peacful walk in the park.

[/ QUOTE ]

Move MA to Dark Astoria, that way no one will ever find it!

 

Posted

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[ QUOTE ]
If you ignore Broadcast channel in mercy you will have a pretty hard time finding a sewer team....all the other "spam" you speak belongs in Atlas and is just fine. Lvl 54 boss farm spam does not belong in a lvl 1-10 zone. Period.

[/ QUOTE ]

There is something fishy about your posts on this issue. Number one, Mercy is NOT a big hub for AE activity like Atlas, its "CAP". Number two there are no "sewer" teams in Mercy on Vils there are "bank" teams and no I don't buy that you just mixed things up. You sound like you are just parroting and the wrong stuff at that.

The last statement you made reminds me of a post about Costume Contest spam and how it didn't belong in Atlas and needed to be moved to Pocket D. You need to get over this because spam is spam wherever it is and since you are not spamming you don't get to decided where or what that is.

That's right mate you need to get over this.

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Simply typed Mercy by accident. I obviously meant Atlas....not Mercy. I stand by the rest of the statement 100%.

 

Posted

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If you ignore Broadcast channel in mercy you will have a pretty hard time finding a sewer team....all the other "spam" you speak belongs in Atlas and is just fine. Lvl 54 boss farm spam does not belong in a lvl 1-10 zone. Period.

[/ QUOTE ]

I will have a pretty hard time finding a sewer team in Mercy even without ignoring broadcast

 

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My biggest problem with the MA is that Peregrine and Grandville are now ghost towns.....can't find anyone to team with to do lvl 50 stuff except AE farmers. I.....Guess it just shows that the majority of players are perfectly happy farming away rather than playing the game.

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No.

Your logic is flawed.

Logic flow is not:
<ul type="square">[*]Peregrine and Grandville are now ghost towns[*]can't find anyone to team with to do lvl 50 stuff except AE farmers[/list]- therefore -
<ul type="square">[*]the majority of players are perfectly happy farming away rather than playing the game[/list]
It is, however, logical from your first to facts that this logic flow is true ::

<ul type="square">[*]Peregrine and Grandville are now ghost towns[*]can't find anyone to team with to do lvl 50 stuff except AE farmers[/list]- therefore -
<ul type="square">[*]the majority of level 50s are perfectly happy farming away in the AE located in zones other than the level 50 zones, rather than playing the game[/list]
I don't even really think we can say majority, but your facts are about ::
<ul type="square">[*]The highest level zones on both sides of the game - where Level 50's would normally be - lack 50's[*]Level 50's are farming in the AE in other zones.[/list]
I have an issue with this too.

Here's part of my solution to the problems in the MA and it would directly help fix the situation that you are experiencing ::

https://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthre...SID=&amp;fpart=

And it does so without impacting AE mission building or selection at all.

In fact helps solve issues with the /broadcast channels in the lower level zones directly without having any impact on costume contests, sg recruting, etc.

I do think steps need to be taken to stop the exploiters. If they constrict my options a bit, that's fine. Constricting my options doesn't nerf my creativity. In fact, I have to be more creative than before to figure out how to utilize the tools that I have available to reach the goals I want to achieve.