AE system has ruined CoH/CoV for me...
By
Airhammer,
Posted on: 2009-06-25 10:11 in Mission Architect
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That's it, then surely you haven't brought your MM on some of the real game challenges. Go on take him on the Impervious TF see how much of a cake walk that is speeding threw with your army of guys, even with your nullify pain
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That's going for a specific TF, though, and I still see TF teams being formed at a decent rate. Anything other than TFs, however, are basically the same thing as the MA farms except with different scenery and (typically) more diverse enemies.
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I've also pointed out that putting the "main" AE training contact in the lower zones was done with out any fore-thought of what it could cause. Obviously, it immediately lured higher level characters to the lowest level zones for training and, well, I'm sure you can see how the dominoes of abuse logic start falling rapidly at that point...
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That's completely ridiculous. Regardless of where they placed that contact, people would have congregated in the zones they wound up using. AP arguably offers the most convenient and efficient access to WW and a base portal. Same goes for Cap redside. Without stepping it off myself, I do believe those two AE buildings are also the nearest to trainers.
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It's funny cause when I do manage to form a little team now, all the other people on my team are all saying the same thing. They can never find teams anymore and they hate AE.
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Do you wish to re-examine this statement for the logical inconsistencies? I'm just rolling around laughing from them.
"I just formed a team and everyone on the team is griping about being completely incapable of getting on a team"
That's essentially what you just said.
Your very argument puts the lie to your grievance.
Clicking on the linked image above will take you off the City of Heroes site. However, the guides will be linked back here.
1: No. Again, because it violates the devs precept of it being an alternate levelling (not POWER levelling) tool.
2: Again, no. For the exact same reason as #1.
3: Again, NO. Again, same reason as #1.
Level-gating AE or simply capping the amount of levels you can use AE to obtain simply destroys it's utility. No offense intended, but I don't use AE currently, but I'd have ZERO reason to slog through someone else's pretentious crap if I wasn't getting rewarded for it.
I'm an achiever. Badges? Doing them. Bases? Doing them. Challenges? Doing them. AE? Was doing them for a short while but decided to wait until the *BLEEP!*storm of snobbery died down.
Yeah. Don't worry. I'm patient.
But if you don't allow me to achieve the objectives I want (and PL'ing isn't one of them) in AE, then AE is useless to me and I'll find other things I want to do more.
Clicking on the linked image above will take you off the City of Heroes site. However, the guides will be linked back here.
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It's just sad that the majority of players are content farming day afetr day and don't actually care about playing the game and experiencing the CoX world.
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If these people are having fun, and it's not costing you money for them to play, why do you care? You are not your brother's keeper.
Clicking on the linked image above will take you off the City of Heroes site. However, the guides will be linked back here.
Less reason! MOAR DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!
Clicking on the linked image above will take you off the City of Heroes site. However, the guides will be linked back here.
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It's just sad that the majority of players are content farming day afetr day and don't actually care about playing the game and experiencing the CoX world.
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If these people are having fun, and it's not costing you money for them to play, why do you care? You are not your brother's keeper.
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Yeah he is not for sure. What would you call him if you saw him in Cap spamming broadcast for people to join his farm?
Yeah me too.
The development team and this community deserved better than this from NC Soft. Best wishes on your search.
I have seen so many people saying "Changing AE will not fix the problem". Well, I think MOST people will agree that AE has caused a fairly LARGE problem. So WHAT exactly will fix it if not changing something about AE itself?
My list of ideas:
Nerf AE xp to one half normal rate. (IIRC this was going to be the way it originally was anyway, and only "Dev Choice" arcs would get full xp)
Require one level 50 character to access AE.
Move MA buildings out of any zone with a level lower than Steel Canyon/Skyway City.
Require a minimum level of 25 to access AE. (If the one level 50 method is considered too severe...at least then a player will have HOPEFULLY played his way up to SO's)
Increase salvage/recipe drops in the main game vs playing AE.
Provide other benefits to playing Dev created content vs player created content. (Merits, etc)
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I have seen so many people saying "Changing AE will not fix the problem". Well, I think MOST people will agree that AE has caused a fairly LARGE problem. So WHAT exactly will fix it if not changing something about AE itself?
My list of ideas:
Nerf AE xp to one half normal rate. (IIRC this was going to be the way it originally was anyway, and only "Dev Choice" arcs would get full xp)
Require one level 50 character to access AE.
Move MA buildings out of any zone with a level lower than Steel Canyon/Skyway City.
Require a minimum level of 25 to access AE. (If the one level 50 method is considered too severe...at least then a player will have HOPEFULLY played his way up to SO's)
Increase salvage/recipe drops in the main game vs playing AE.
Provide other benefits to playing Dev created content vs player created content. (Merits, etc)
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Your ideas create a problem just as large, if not larger, as they will render AE a ghost town. So, an entire issue and enormous chunks of development time, not to mention one of the most interesting and promising MMO features ever, will go largely to waste.
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Why? Because I have friends and I belong to a supergroup.
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I have a list of global friends that I largely don't recall and who mostly don't play any more. Continually trying to add more people to that list who I will not remember a week from now if they're even still around, and who probably won't be playing a character that is convenient for me to team up with seems like a futile endeavor.
Supergroups either seem to be rather inactive or else expect a commitment to the game that I just don't have. As an example, the last supergroup I joined with two characters, I set those two aside for a bit to play other characters and when I came back to those two characters they had been booted from the group for inactivity.
I cannot maintain a vast social network. Nor can I commit myself to supergroup activities. Thus, I thrived on PUGs. Until AE came along. Now those seem all too rare.
Goodbye may seem forever
Farewell is like the end
But in my heart's the memory
And there you'll always be
-- The Fox and the Hound
No most people do not agree with that.
You offer up those retread ideas as if they were new, they are not. The are also against the stated intent of the feature which has been said countless times at this point.
AE is in need of no fix at this point. People do need to refocus their attention on their fun though.
The development team and this community deserved better than this from NC Soft. Best wishes on your search.
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I have seen so many people saying "Changing AE will not fix the problem". Well, I think MOST people will agree that AE has caused a fairly LARGE problem.
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You sure it's really "most" people? If the observations are, in fact, true about not being able to find people to do non-AE activities, then it would seem that "most" people wouldn't agree with your statement because "most" people are enjoying the AE in whatever way they see fit to have fun.
IMO, the "problem" I see is a minority of people trying to force others into doing what they want to do at the expense of everyone else's enjoyment of the game.
You should realize that the aggregate playerbase has made their choice. AE is the norm. You have become the outlier.
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I cannot maintain a vast social network. Nor can I commit myself to supergroup activities. Thus, I thrived on PUGs. Until AE came along. Now those seem all too rare.
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It seems like you put yourself in this situation. There are alot of things you "can't" do. Perhaps, you should adapt to the everchanging tastes of the playerbase.
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It seems like you put yourself in this situation. There are alot of things you "can't" do. Perhaps, you should adapt to the everchanging tastes of the playerbase.
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I didn't put myself in this situation. It wasn't I who unleashed AE on the game, after all. But I'm sure I'll adapt, it'll just take time. At this rate, I estimate I should be adapted by early September. 
Goodbye may seem forever
Farewell is like the end
But in my heart's the memory
And there you'll always be
-- The Fox and the Hound
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I didn't put myself in this situation. It wasn't I who unleashed AE on the game, after all. But I'm sure I'll adapt, it'll just take time. At this rate, I estimate I should be adapted by early September.
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Well....you kinda did....
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I cannot maintain a vast social network. Nor can I commit myself to supergroup activities.
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Well....you kinda did....
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I cannot maintain a vast social network. Nor can I commit myself to supergroup activities.
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Fish breathe water. If you suddenly change their previously watery environment to air they didn't put themselves in the position of drowning.
Goodbye may seem forever
Farewell is like the end
But in my heart's the memory
And there you'll always be
-- The Fox and the Hound
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I cannot maintain a vast social network. Nor can I commit myself to supergroup activities. Thus, I thrived on PUGs. Until AE came along. Now those seem all too rare.
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Well, if you can't maintain any type of community relationships in a massively multiplayer online game, then you are pretty much out of luck, I guess.
I have to agree with the OP on this one. AE has definitely changed the game for the worse. Its a GREAT idea with poor implementation... I have seen some of the worst teaming and horrific builds that I have seen in the 5 years I have been playing this game... I am seeing people that are level 50 in Atlas that dont know where Galaxy City or Steel Canyon is..
maybe AE should have been broken down by levels and zones.. 1-6 in Atlas.. 5-10 KR etc etc... maybe the xp available needs to be toned down... I dont know... Sub level 30 toons are basically ignored by many..
ts hard to even get teams to want to try peoples content becaause all they want to do is fight level 54 bosses for huge xp and influence.
Now I aint quitting or leaving for the shiney new tow in the box when it comes out but something needs to be done.. Zones are largely empty except Atlas... Level 50 in PI AE building.. EMPTY.. not a soul.. in fact I was the ONLY person even in PI.
Now ive been able to do some ITF's and LGTF's which are fun and some raids.. which are always cool.. But i was always able to get a team uo to do some AV missions or something...
The gane has changed and I jope it changes for the better.. at this rate people I think people will get bored eventually and think that CoX has nothing else to offer but farming and leveling and that is so not true..
Its a great game IMO that people HAD to explore before.. they HAD to seek new zones and new foes and new arcs to keep progressing..which leads to new friends etc etc..
Now you can just sit in Atlas... or Cap redside...
The hard things I can do--- The impossible just take a little bit longer.
If numbers are so much more important than a teammate who is fun to play with, forget about the game altogether and go play with a calculator instead. -Claws and Effect-
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So WHAT exactly will fix it if not changing something about AE itself?
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Most of the proposed "fixes" simply break AE worse.
That's like saying "Your leg is broken, lemme break your other one for symmetry".
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Nerf AE xp to one half normal rate.
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You ALREADY don't get mission completion bonuses. Further gimping of XP earnings simply because "It's AE", would make the system useless to people looking to level (NOT POWER LEVEL) using AE as the devs intended. And again, I'm not slogging through someone else's pretentious aspirations of artistry when I could be advancing my character normally (or even faster) on regular content.
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Require one level 50 character to access AE.
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This ship has sailed already. Moreover, you have people here who've been playing for YEARS and don't have an L50 yet due to chronic altitis. You're proposing they simply can't use a major system in the game simply because they don't play the way you do? AE is a significantly more interactive portion of the game than HEATS/VEATS.
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Move MA buildings out of any zone with a level lower than Steel Canyon/Skyway City.
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Makes it difficult/dangerous to use as a levelling tool (as the devs promised), and you simply get a repeat of the PI farming situation. Also, this doesn't SOLVE the problem. It merely moves it out of sight.
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Require a minimum level of 25 to access AE.
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What part of "the MA is supposed to be an alternate way to level your character" was unclear? What was given to us was NOT "an alternate way to level your character from 25 up".
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Increase salvage/recipe drops in the main game vs playing AE.
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You're ALREADY seeing more drops in the regular game than you do in AE due to ticket caps. Tickets are just more flexible than fait-accompli, defined salvage drops in the main game.
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Provide other benefits to playing Dev created content vs player created content. (Merits, etc)
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Already been done.
Clicking on the linked image above will take you off the City of Heroes site. However, the guides will be linked back here.
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Why? Because I have friends and I belong to a supergroup.
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I have a list of global friends that I largely don't recall and who mostly don't play any more. Continually trying to add more people to that list who I will not remember a week from now if they're even still around, and who probably won't be playing a character that is convenient for me to team up with seems like a futile endeavor.
Supergroups either seem to be rather inactive or else expect a commitment to the game that I just don't have. As an example, the last supergroup I joined with two characters, I set those two aside for a bit to play other characters and when I came back to those two characters they had been booted from the group for inactivity.
I cannot maintain a vast social network. Nor can I commit myself to supergroup activities. Thus, I thrived on PUGs. Until AE came along. Now those seem all too rare.
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Just wanted to say ditto, and add that most of my charcters aren't the SG type anyways. I tend to be a soloist that enjoys pug teams, adding globle friends now and then when I have an exceptionally good time on a pug team. I have my own SG and VG and the only members are my own characters.....so that makes it hard to find teams by joining a SG/VG. I am however trying to find some good coalitions.
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Fish breathe water. If you suddenly change their previously watery environment to air they didn't put themselves in the position of drowning.
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Fish still breathe oxygen, just like us. I assume you mean they breathe underwater.
Anyways, back on topic....the issue is that you chose to be a fish in the first place, even though the game was geared towards terrestial life (i.e. all that social stuff). Now, it's up to you to speed up your evolutionary process.
I have played this game on and off since the beta of City of Heroes an age ago. I gave up on it initially because I grew tired of the same old missions over and over again.
The last time I came back when I joined groups to do missions I was too busy buffing everyone and controlling my pets or healing or locking targets down that I could not really spend any time reading the conversations or the smart comments the villians or characters say. I used to rue that often.The only time I truly appreciated a story arc was when I soloed them.
Let's face it when you pug and run around doing other people's missions you are not actually paying attention. So when you really want to savour this game the best option is to do it alone or with like minded folk.
I do not think AE has changed that. It instead has opened a whole plethora of player made missions and ideas which when I finally find some way of actually finding a way to weed through the pharm ones I will be able to enjoy.
Perhaps it is showing a not great side of CoX but then when I used to wait about in Nerva waiting for some one to come help me with my mission it was not much fun either. At least of late in Freedom and Virtue the population seems to have grown.
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I have seen so many people saying "Changing AE will not fix the problem". Well, I think MOST people will agree that AE has caused a fairly LARGE problem.
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Please speak for youself - don't assume "Everyone" agrees with you. The MA is the LARGEST breath of freash air to ANY MMO recently period - and I hope they continue to EXPAND its capabilities.
Oh, and BTW:
1) Have never used AE for farming myself (just doesn't appeal to me - Farming that is; and yes, Farming IS a staple of EVERY MMO out there...EXPLOITIVE Farming, which is what the Devs would like to cutail in the MA, which I understand and support).
2) have never done, or been into the online 'immesrse yourself in the character' RP aspect of MMOs, ever.
3) Been playing CoH off and on since closed beta back in December 2004; (Took a long break after issue 5; came back for good after Inventions got added in I8); so I've definitely 'been around' in this game, and NO, the MA hasn't been the cause of Level 50 players who don't learn to play their toons well (In TFs and such). Those type have been around in ALL MMOs - and yes, there are people who virew MMOs as causual chat rooms with more stuff to do.
So, honestly, with regard to XP, and rewards, the MA is fine as it stands; and honestly, if you think the MA farmers would join your group and 'play the right way' if MA were truely gutted as suggested, you're wrong. Those folks would just cancel and move on. (I know I would at this point if the MA was really gutted or removed).
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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.
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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Make new friends?
Join an SG.
I mean, no offense, but even without AE, I rarely if ever bother with pugs anymore. theyre just not worth the risk of idiot players (who existed way before AE did)
Though from the rest of this topic, looks like you're one of those braindead buffoons who thinks he can force other people to play his way rather than the way they enjoy by whining enough.
Want comedy and lighthearted action? Between levels 1-14? Try Nuclear in 90 - The Fusionette Task Force!
Arc ID 58363!
I'm a new player; been here a little over three months now. And I am sorry you are no longer enjoying the game. I, personally, am loving it - both the standard content and MA. So far, I've been doing mostly standard content after maybe levels 20 - 25, but have started doing almost all MA with my lowbies. That's because I like to try out different Archetypes and character concepts. I don't keep all the characters I create, but I like to try different things, at least briefly, or sometimes try different secondaries and powers on the same character (by recreating them from scratch).
I'm sure you, as a veteran player, are all too familiar with just how fast one can learn those low-level missions by heart, particularly if you tend to have 'favorite' origins. For me, MA has been fantastic for actually making those lower levels as varied and interesting as the higher level content seems to be. Sure, an argument could be made that you blow through them so fast, it doesn't really matter, but it matters to me. So, while I realize that the existence of MA seems to be affecting your game experience in a vastly different way than it is mine, for my own selfish reasons, I really hope the devs never adopt the idea of limiting MA only to certain levels.
EDITED: For typo. And I still probably missed some.
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If you can't find a team, start one. If you can't find enough players in your level range try switching characters (levels) and/or servers. Don't forget that the [Help] channel is accessible by using /hc [message]. If you call out that you are looking for a "normal" mission team on the [Help] channel you may get people willing to team with you.
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I've got to point out here that using the Help channel to try and find teams is not an appropriate use of the channel, in my opinion. It is for players that have questions to be answered. Personally, if I see someone spamming the Help channel with team requests, they get placed on ignore.
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If you are on Freedom, it seems time to jump ship.
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This is excellent advice here. Get off Freedom. Other servers tend to have more of a "community" feel to them and some of the best players are on the smaller servers in my experience.