AE system has ruined CoH/CoV for me...

(I'm sure that a lot of people will not agree with me on this topic, but this is my opinion about it.)

I have been playing CoH/CoV for well over 4 years now and have seen a lot of changes to the game, the zones and the missions. Though I peruse the forums, I have never really posted anything here - until now...

IMO, The AE system as it currently is, has wrecked this game for me. The AE has made more players who have no clue about how to use their characters powers and has made more people more concerned about PL'ing than about actually playing the game. For new players, the fact that the only team that they can find is an AE team in Atlas further exacerbates this problem - this is only teaching the new players that CoH is only about doing AE missions and PL'ing. It is virtually impossible to get a normal mission team nowadays at any level.

The AE system is ridiculous. IMO, the AE buildings should be moved out of the lower level zones and should be for level 50 players ONLY.

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Well, you can look at AE like you're doing now... or you can take joy in actually teaching people with power-leveled characters who are at Lv50 now but know not how to actually play their characters.

About not being able to get normal mission teams? I'd bet you're experiencing that mostly because you're looking for PuGs. I have no trouble finding teams, even on low-level characters, because when I want to play with people, I first of all look at my friend-lists.

Restricting the AE now, especially after the Devs have promised it to be a tool for growing a character from Lv1 to Lv50, would annoy so many people (the Devs included) that it's quite impractical.

Make the best of the situation, adopt a n00b and have fun teaching them, or do what I did... take a break only to come back reinvigorated, but most of all... take a breath and smile, it's just a game you know...

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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

You're right in that I was looking for PUG's - but thats because I stayed on the game longer than my friends because they have all quit the game over this same issue.

You are also correct in that its just a game - but now its a seriously broken game. I won't be paying to play a broken game system. There are other superhero MMO's on the horizon to explore...

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So far today:

*Put up LFT tag* - no response
*Broadcast in two separate zones LFT* - no response
Team invite one (blind) - level 54 boss farm. *quit*
Team two - stands around for 30minutes and doesn't actually do a mission. *quit*
I broadcast for people to join my team - stating story rather than farm. No response.
Team invite three - leader quits on the first mission
Team four - I'm now the leader of team three. Try to recruit a few more. One guy quits because I'm not running a farm.
I give up and go and play something else.

Unfortunately LordX is right. You can't restrict it to vets or over a certain level now. Which is a real shame. It should have been a separate level-restricted zone.

It has ruined teaming in this game. It's ok to say teach people but they have to want to learn. All everyone wants to do in AE is farm. They don't even *consider* some of those story arcs are a) good and b) decent XP. No unless you start a map of purple bosses no one wants to know.

What's the point of an MMO where the devs make it harder to find a team.

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SAVE CoX info:
Titan Network efforts
Saving CoX events/FB info

DOOOM + 1

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While there are a few positive aspects of AE there have been way more negatives.

Positives-
Story/mission creation.
Ease of toon IOing through tickets.
Improved availability for common to mid range recipes on the market making prices decrease.

Negatives-
Disruption of game flow.
Limited story/mission creation options.
Noobs Pling that have no clue.
Most teams are now mixed level pugs which makes for a terrible mission experience.
Mostly farm farm farm even after bans.
Terrible first impression for noob players.
The cost of purples are way up.


My overall impression of AE is that it should have stayed a good idea on the drawing board until it was thought out more thoroughly.


Edit*
Negative-
Getting together a decent team to successfully run most missions.
Amount of crashes entering AE missions.
Bugs where some teammates cannot enter a mission forcing a reset.

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A very sad story about War Witch and the neglected kitty. http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=219670

Well, AE in Atlas Park was definitely a really poor idea. AE's should be strategically placed in hazard zones so that you have to meet a minimum level to get in or something. Until then, i'll keep Pling lowbies until they nerf it.

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On a few levels, I agree with the you, I have no idea what the fix is but its pretty clear to me that the MA has broken the game.

It took months for things to get back to normal after all the WL babies, I have no idea how long it will be to get the basic level of competence back up to normal after this fiasco if ever.

Cue the regular collection of people with their 'bad players are bad players' obviousness.

Yes there will always be bad players, some with 60 month vet badges, no one is saying otherwise, and we will still have those after this all hopefully gets sorted out.

But no one is talking about those people, what the OP here and that other recent thread are pointing out is all of the potentially GOOD/great/fantastic/dedicated/fun players who 'skipped' the game running around like a nice fellow I met yesterday with his 0 vet badge/tons of AE badges/lvl50 FF-NRG Defender with none of the 3 buffs, trying to be a blaster in IP.

I couldn't convince him to join my 24 respec I was starting he was too busy blasting the nearby Family mobs.

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If farming and PLing in AE reach levels that seriously impede attempts by players to do anything else, I have every confidence that the devs will address it. I don't know how, I don't know when, but I'm sure it'll happen. Because it's happened before.

In the meantime, I think people just have to adapt.

Years ago, I used to PUG quite a bit. Then my character got into the 40-50 game, and things changed. It was very hard to find a team that wasn't a PL arrangement. And when I hit bridge-range, oi. Blind invites every time I turned around, /tells promising "huge xp" seemingly every few minutes... and when I joined a team that seemed legit, I'd arrive in the mission only to discover that it was yet another PL arrangement, which they 'forgot' to tell me about. "Now that you're here, you might as well bridge."

Uhm... no.

That's when I stopped doing the PUG thing... and I really haven't done it since. Instead, I got involved with smaller communities that had play interests more in line with my own.

Anyone can do this, and it's a lot easier now than it was then. Shop for SGs, join global channels, make some posts on the server board, and build a friends list.

Eventually, the devs effectively addressed the overwhelming PL presence in the 40-50 game. It was still there, but its profile diminished significantly. However, by that time, my play habits had changed to something I find to be much better.

Maybe you'll find that to be the case as well. Give it a shot.

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The Cape Radio: You're not super until you put on the Cape!
DJ Enigma's Puzzle Factory: Co* Parody Commercials

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You're right in that I was looking for PUG's - but thats because I stayed on the game longer than my friends because they have all quit the game over this same issue.

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Most of my old in-game friends have also left, that's why I constantly make new friends.

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You are also correct in that its just a game - but now its a seriously broken game. I won't be paying to play a broken game system.

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While I myself would have designed and implemented AE quite differently than the Devs, I definitely cannot consider the game seriously broken because of AE. Even when the most wonderful Kheldian trick of being able to double-stack a form power together with a Human-form power was taken away from us, I never thought the game was broken, and for a while, that change has put me off of playing my Kheldians... but having a game mechanics that affects the game community in a way that is reasonable considering the Human tendency to attempt and find short-cuts to sweet-spots? I mean... come on... that's not broken, that's just natural.

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There are other superhero MMO's on the horizon to explore...

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See... to me, this all sounds like you're just trying to convince yourself it's time to migrate to another Superhero MMO. Allow me to make life much easier for you... you don't need reasons! Just quit CoX and enjoy the other MMO. No need to find justifications because really, you owe nothing to no-one. It's your time, your money, your fun and you're free to seek it wherever you may find it.

By definition, an MMO is a game where you play with others, and as long as you can do that, the game isn't broken. That definition does not include the exact specific nature of the gameplay activities... does it now?

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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

Would it be so bad if the level requirement were small? Say level 10 or 15?

To be honest, I just want AE out of Atlas. At least give the new ones some time to break in their shoes.
Although villainside still poses an issue...

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See... to me, this all sounds like you're just trying to convince yourself it's time to migrate to another Superhero MMO.

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Actually, I already made that decision to leave CoH over this issue and to goto another MMO long before I even considered this post. I'm not trying to convince anybody to think the same - they can all come to their own conclusions. But if I'm thinking this and all of my friends and SG members left over this, the Devs might consider taking a serious look at this and attempt fix it - but I'm not going to wait until that happens...

I haven't logged in for over a week. I was hoping that things might be different today (wishful thinking), but when I did log in today it was exactly the same BS in the AE system. I ended up logging off after being on for less than 30 mins because of it.

It's been a good 4+ year run though and I had fun while it lasted... This game just isn't fun anymore.

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That is obviously your choice and right and I wish you well.

For me and my friends the MA means we can easily sculpt our own experiences for our characters ourselves without having to depend on dev content that happens to fit us. AE made the game much *better* for us.

Different strokes and all that I guess.

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I had an interesting experience in PI last night on broadcast. The four players in-zone (myself included) had a conversation containing complete sentences, some observations, and several LOLs. Not once was "LF anchors" or "PL meh pls" heard.

Please understand, I am not promoting this as the "way things should be", but passing it along as an anecdotal contrast to the "way things have been." "LFT" and "anchor" spam in broadcast doesn't really bother me, I tune it right out.

Casual PUGs outside of the AE, the mainstay of my multiplayer exposure in COH, have vanished into the aether; although I did receive one invite to an ITF last night (unfortunately just prior to bedtime!). Outside of that, the last month or two has been soloing in the vast regions of silence which lay beyond the walls of Atlas Park.

AE would have worked at lot better if it at minimum required travel beyond a single AE location to pick up each mission of a story arc in sequence.

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Some days I just wake up cranky. Today might be one of those days...

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I had an interesting experience in PI last night on broadcast. The four players in-zone (myself included) had a conversation containing complete sentences, some observations, and several LOLs. Not once was "LF anchors" or "PL meh pls" heard.

Please understand, I am not promoting this as the "way things should be", but passing it along as an anecdotal contrast to the "way things have been." "LFT" and "anchor" spam in broadcast doesn't really bother me, I tune it right out.

Casual PUGs outside of the AE, the mainstay of my multiplayer exposure in COH, have vanished into the aether; although I did receive one invite to an ITF last night (unfortunately just prior to bedtime!). Outside of that, the last month or two has been soloing in the vast regions of silence which lay beyond the walls of Atlas Park.

AE would have worked at lot better if it at minimum required travel beyond a single AE location to pick up each mission of a story arc in sequence.

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I completely disagree with you and think everything you're describing sounds like heaven. I play with a big group of people (when I have time to play) and haven't had the misfortune of playing with a stranger in a long, long time. Not everyone has that built-in team raring to go, but PUGs embody everything I dislike about MMO's and I just say no to them in the first place.

MA 4 lyfe!

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It's been a good 4+ year run though and I had fun while it lasted... This game just isn't fun anymore.

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Good luck with whatever and where-ever you decide to join.

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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

It seems pretty odd to me that someone would say that their 'whole SG' quit because AE made it impossible to find teams for doing regular missions. Why the hell weren't they just forming their own teams within the SG to run regular missions and completely ignore the AE, if it bugged them all that much? That makes little to no sense at all. I think there's a lot more to it than people leaving over AE. Sounds more like it was a mass exodus to another game, instead. Maybe they all booked over to 'the game which shall remain nameless' to kill time waiting for the new 'hero' replacement to be released.

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No AV/EBs Deal with The Devil's Pawn-207266 Slash DeMento and the Stolen Weapons-100045 Meet the Demon Spawn-151099 Feedback

I think you have things all wrong about MA. I also have to say something seems off about your post, 4 year vet all friends are gone no ability to find like minded people to be friends with now that AE is here? Yeah something is off about that for sure.

No worries though, you sound as if you are halfway out of the door. Let me have your stuff before you leave ok mate?

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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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It seems pretty odd to me that someone would say that their 'whole SG' quit because AE made it impossible to find teams for doing regular missions.


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Your reading too much into it. Obviously "Impossible" was an exaggeration.

I think "Extremely Frustrating" would be a suitable replacement for the nit-pickers.

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I think you have things all wrong about MA...

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Im suprised you didnt tell him to shutup, or state erroneous facts. But you did make sure to question his motives and talk down to him a bit.

So your post sorta delivers -> 3/10.

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Looking at the confrontational approach you have taken in your 40 posts in this forum, this kind of superfluous attack is expected. You win the hat.

Is that all you got mate?

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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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Would it be so bad if the level requirement were small? Say level 10 or 15?

To be honest, I just want AE out of Atlas. At least give the new ones some time to break in their shoes.
Although villainside still poses an issue...

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Villianside? Whats that????

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So far today:

*Put up LFT tag* - no response
*Broadcast in two separate zones LFT* - no response
Team invite one (blind) - level 54 boss farm. *quit*
Team two - stands around for 30minutes and doesn't actually do a mission. *quit*
I broadcast for people to join my team - stating story rather than farm. No response.
Team invite three - leader quits on the first mission
Team four - I'm now the leader of team three. Try to recruit a few more. One guy quits because I'm not running a farm.
I give up and go and play something else.


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Ironically enough, that's exactly what I remember happening when I first started playing the game in the fall of '04, with the sole exception that instead of farming level 54 bosses people were farming Proteans in Perez Park.

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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

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I think you have things all wrong about MA...

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Im suprised you didnt tell him to shutup, or state erroneous facts. But you did make sure to question his motives and talk down to him a bit.

So your post sorta delivers -> 3/10.

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No offense, since when is a players opinion a "fact"? The Op stated an opinion not a fact. Noone can say what anothers opinion or emotions regarding a subject are.

I agree with the Op's opinion and emotion as far as this game is going.

It's fine if other posters do not. However, just because a player doesnt agree does not make the Op's position less valid.

Sorry. I have been getting extremely irritated by nit picky forumites lately. Theres a little too much narcisism , "play my way or hit the highway", "bloody farmer scum"," stupid pvp'er", "ebil marketeer","RP'er idiot", etc etc etc. Not necessarily in that order.



It makes the game and the forums not fun for alot of people all the way around.

I do not know if MA caused a deficite of teams or if a cumulation of events caused the lack of people.When I play there are definitely less people in a /search than before and most are interested in MA rather than regular missions. Thats my experience and my opinion. Not a fact but quite valid from a player that pays the same 15.00 a month as ANY OTHER PLAYER OR FORUMITE.

-YMMV

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IMO, The AE system as it currently is, has wrecked this game for me. The AE has made more players who have no clue about how to use their characters powers and has made more people more concerned about PL'ing than about actually playing the game. For new players, the fact that the only team that they can find is an AE team in Atlas further exacerbates this problem - this is only teaching the new players that CoH is only about doing AE missions and PL'ing. It is virtually impossible to get a normal mission team nowadays at any level.

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The existence of other players is not to be your teammate. Why should other players change their playstyle to fit your needs, when you're the one that wants to team with them.

If some paying customers in CoH want to PL, AE farm, and be noobs, then that's what they're paying to do. They're not paying to please you. What you're suggesting is to restrict the enjoyment of other players to increase your own enjoyment.

Perhaps, you should be the one to adapt to doing more AE farms, if you want to team with others.

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