AE system has ruined CoH/CoV for me...
By
Airhammer,
Posted on: 2009-06-25 10:11 in Mission Architect
First of all, you have to expect people to go and use The New Thing for a while. Frankly, I find the whole 'MA has ruined the game, everywhere else is a ghost town' complaint to be kinda premature. Maybe we should give it an issue or two before announcing the game's death? Just a thought.
Secondly, I'm also finding the complaint to be a tad overstated. The rest of the game can't be nearly as abandoned as some of the posts in this thread would lead us to believe. How do I know that? The market tells me so.
The supply on items that can only be gained through playing standard content keeps coming in. Yes, the pace is slower than it was pre-MA (and the prices are reflecting that), but it's nothing like it was when MA first went live.
For example, within the first week of MA's introduction, the recipe for Rocket Boots shot up in price to 20-30 million. This happened because hardly any were being listed. Hardly any were being listed, because hardly any were dropping. Hardly any were dropping, because practically everyone had their face in MA. On blueside, the existing supply on this recipe actually dropped to zero.
However, right now, there's over 60 for sale, and they're regularly selling for a few million. Those recipes are coming from somewhere, and they're coming in at a steady enough pace to keep the price from spiking. The only explanation for this is that a significant number of people are playing the standard content.
Third, as has been stated before in this thread, things change. The game isn't static. If you've a very particular playstyle and you're not willing to bend on it at all, well, you're probably going to have periods of difficulty. If that happens, it doesn't mean the game is dead, it just means the game is different. You can either roll with it, or not... your choice. But to expect the developers to railroad everyone else into compliance with your (narrow) preferences is probably going to lead to disappointment.
Everyone being in MA, if that were even true, is not actually a problem for the game. It's just a problem for you... and largely because you've made it one.
The Cape Radio: You're not super until you put on the Cape!
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AE should be made to work like Ouroboros combined with Radio/Paper missions: that is, you start the TF, then you have to run all over the city to do the missions. The missions should be assigned random locations in level-appropriate zones. You should get the contact's cell number immediately so you don't have to run back to AE.
This would alleviate the crowding in the AE buildings to a great degree. It would also mean that those auto-SK to 46 farms would all be assigned random (dangerous to lowbie) locations in Grandville and PI. Might cut down on the PLing speed a bit.
One of the easier fixes would be don't allow auto SK's and if a mission has a minimum level you have to be that level to attempt it.
Make farming tickets not as worth it as regular game content.
Cut Xp by 1/2 so the people who want to farm and PL will have to find another way out of MA.
These would all work but then the "story" writer will be no on is playing my story they are doing regular content.
Triumph
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Heroes of Justice and Liberty/Loved or Loathed
"NCSOFT doesn't fork for anyone but they might spoon you if they like you"
It's all a plot, see. It's a conspiracy, see. AE is funded by DC Online and Champions Online, NASA, and the JFK assassination people, see.
Really, it has ruined the game for me. It's sad cause I use AE too to raise the money I need for IO sets. It's sad cause common salvage will soon be the most expensive at WW/BM. It's sad cause a level 20 SoA asked me how do you get a raptor pack. It's sad cause Alt Farming and PL'ing is coming out of the wood work. It's sad cause almost every other zone is dead. It's funny cause NCSoft management knows this and there are going to shove it down our throats like Vista instead of admitting it's a bad idea and removing it. (Technically, the fact that management keeps it almost seems to sanction Alt Farming and PL'ing.)
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What's funny to me is that the AE in the RWZ is alwasy dead. I thought it would be the hub of everything under the sun when AE hit cause it allows CoOp teams.....but nothin.
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I thought sort of the same, but for people who didn't want lowbies on their team. Dose not matter what we post or say here. They are not going to remove AE. What I don't understand is why not have a AE/MA where you finish with a contact and you can create a mission for that contact (not your original contact) and for the lvl range of that contact, and go zone to zone, or within that zone. Something that is more rational or allow for regular teaming. For example, you create a new toon, start with Antonio Nash, do a story or arc. After done, you am introduced to Juan Jimenez. When you finsh Juan's arc, it unlockes the MA arc.option. When you click on MA Missions, you can play one that exits for this contact, or create one with your custom toons, and/or with the vills for that contact, in this case, Skulls and Hellions.
You know... I've actually met a few Lv50 characters who've leveled quite fast... too fast perhaps to gather all the information about the game that a Lv50 may gather through playing the normal story-arcs.
You know what though? Some of those folks were very pleasant to talk to, and very eager to learn and asked real questions. Others, were quite annoying in their refusal to engage in anything that didn't bring them direct results (i.e. more INF/ticket).
It's not AE that ruined the game for me. In fact, the game isn't ruined foe me, and I just created a new main character, joined a new Supergroup on a new Server and I'm having loads of fun... just not in the AE yet, because if anything, AE is being bombarded now with a storm of changes and tweaks that hopefully will make it ready for all the things I want to do with it.
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
Save Ms. Liberty (#5349) � Augmenting Peacebringers � The Umbra Illuminati
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Dear Forcewrath,
I'm sorry you're having such a poor experience. To a degree I understand your problem. But changing the way the AE works isn't going to fix it.
There's a lot of anecdotal evidence on the boards that states "No one will play with me, people only want to farm."
I don't have these problems (I don't farm, not for "moral" reasons, but rather because I find it boring.)
But I rarely have trouble finding a group.
Why? Because I have friends and I belong to a supergroup.
Your RL friends may have left for their own reasons, but there are still lots of players here. There are still lots of players that will team with you and play story missions in the AE or even the regular dev content.
We have an entire forum just for supergroup recruitment.
Maybe you should jump in there and see if you can find any SG's with philosophies similar to yours.
I assure you that there are people who will play this game with you the way you want to play it.
It'll just take a little effort to find them.
But once you do, won't that be nice?
The AE farm groups will die down in a little bit. They'll always be there, but as those players get bored and move on, the rest of us will still be here, ready and willing to group with you.
Take a look at the SG forum, you'll find something. If you don't, maybe ask yourself why that is.
Peace.
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Jee i say the same thing and im labeled a troll.....guess people that can Learn to PLAY are trolls.....
Please people, if you are a retard and cant form your own teams, quit. Give me all of your stuff which i will sell for 1 and tears, delete your account and never pick up an MMO again.
Pokemon blah blah is out now, go play it.
This is not a diffucult game. Teaming is made incredibly easy compared to other MMO's. Make your own teams if you cant find one. Sure you wont have any controllers or defenders blueside Virtue because i took all the ones available.....but theres plenty of the other 3 At's left and they can make incredible teammates. If you dont play Virtue then youve got it made with a full 5 At's.
Thats just blueside....you can make anything work redside because the At's theres are generalists.
The only limitation is you. I know, I must be a troll because the problem is you....and not everyone else. Im not a politician, Im not going to lie to your face just so you can like me.
If you dont agree with me you are wrong. That doesnt make me a troll.
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It's sad cause common salvage will soon be the most expensive at WW/BM.
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Wanna bet?
The Cape Radio: You're not super until you put on the Cape!
DJ Enigma's Puzzle Factory: Co* Parody Commercials
AE in of itself isn't doing anything to the game.
AE as an alternate leveling option isn't doing anything to the game.
Abuse of AE - blatant, exploitive farming, creating anomalous situations via the MA that the game's design was not intended to handle (all Bosses/LTs/whatever, objects or allies that make challenging, high-risk high-reward enemies trivial, et al), is a problem. Either the game's design needs to be adjusted to accept these situations, or the ability to set up the parameters that causes them needs to be removed or mitigated.
The incentive distribution between MA and 'Real' missions being stilted in favor of MA could be considered a problem - or it could not be. Tickets don't need nerfing, if you ask me, but things like merits from Story Arcs and the like could stand to be buffed so that players have reason to play "real" missions. Because, let's be honest here - the tickets you get from MA are fairly significant, but the merits you get from a story arc are fairly trivial.
I, honestly, dislike the centralization of MA - one thing that might help reduce crowding is the ability to have "simulated" contacts and doors throughout the city, with mission designers being allowed to designate which zone they want them to spawn in. You could even have an "MA Phone" to access the MA from anywhere, as opposed to having to run back and forth between the MA and your "fake" contact. It would help reduce the sense of sitting in the same room talking to the same hologram and jumping into the same portal ad nauseum, and mitigate the crowding, but honestly, it's such a minor problem that the only real reason to "solve" it would be to have a nifty new feature.
Long story short, MA is fine, it just has a few design kinks that need working out. Par for the course in any "new feature" of an MMO, honestly.
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Long story short, MA is fine, it just has a few design kinks that need working out. Par for the course in any "new feature" of an MMO, honestly.
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Which are usually a heck of a lot more complex to fix than implementation kinks. 
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
Save Ms. Liberty (#5349) � Augmenting Peacebringers � The Umbra Illuminati
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Wanna bet?
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The price has taken a huge nosedive, at least villain-side for me. All of the normal white salvage (barring Luck Charms) was going for its average of around 250-500.
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Wanna bet?
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The price has taken a huge nosedive, at least villain-side for me. All of the normal white salvage (barring Luck Charms) was going for its average of around 250-500.
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MA's launch gutted the existing market supply on a lot of things, including common salvage, so price spikes are currently typical behavior for several items, and the average prices have lifted almost everything out of the status of "vendor trash".
However, incoming supply seems to be gradually reaching pre-MA levels. So, the "common salvage will soon be the most expensive at WW/BM" prediction doesn't look very likely to me. To put it mildly.
The Cape Radio: You're not super until you put on the Cape!
DJ Enigma's Puzzle Factory: Co* Parody Commercials
I'd say move AE out of AP and Galaxy City. And possibly remove auto-SK. That fixes the problem with new players getting sidetracked into the farm PL and missing the game the first time around.
Older players will find a way to PL their alts. There are just so many times I know I personally want to run through AP/Hollows/SC/Fault/Striga, etc.
On that note, I recall times when other hot farms were sucking groups into them. The old WarWolf farms, Drek, TV farms, rikti monkey farms, portal farms... this problem ebbs and flows.
No DOOM.
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Yes, I like Force Fields.
I'm not sure what the Devs expected to happen when they gave us a building that you never have to leave, that auto SKs you, and allows you to fill missions with all bosses, and get normal XP and Inf. To top it off they put it in starting zones so you only have to run about 100 yrds to get PL'd to 50. They created a gaint farm machine and now they don't seem to care.
Some say AE has ruined the game, other say the game hasn't changed. Only time will tell.
Got home early from work today and saw 15 went live, so I thought I'd jump on and run the new SF before the wife and kid got home. I've been trying for 25 minutes now and can't find a single person that will try a brand new SF....yet the AE is crammed full of farmers as usual. Yep, everything is perfectly normal.
Yes, but I bet most of those PLers are not high enough level for the SF/TF. Farming's being done mostly by lower levels and is affecting the low to mid content due to that.
Though Virtue and Freedom seem to have it the worst for farming. On Victory and Protector where I usually play there's a decent balance (heck, Protector red side has very little AE activity at all.)
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Got home early from work today and saw 15 went live, so I thought I'd jump on and run the new SF before the wife and kid got home. I've been trying for 25 minutes now and can't find a single person that will try a brand new SF....yet the AE is crammed full of farmers as usual. Yep, everything is perfectly normal.
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Uh, it's Monday night and most people aren't going to be home from work yet.
Also, I know I've spent most of my playtime today (took a vacation day for completely unrelated reasons) in the AE updating my arcs to take advantage of the tags and such.
I'm sure if you saw me in there, you thought I was a dirty farmer, though. 
The game has not changed one bit... Only the players have made there choice to play how they want, and once again were given a easy way to do this.
I dont belive for a min tha the original intent of AE was to PL but i am happy there is a way to use it in this fashion as well. I for one am happy to see teh Dev team sticking to their promise of "you can build it and run it how you want" and you know waht WE ARE!.
The overwhelming lack of interesting content in most of teh pve of this game has driven plp to make it to 50 in the shortest time period possible, i hope mostly to engage in the only true end game PvP.
I for one have bin able to try out new power combos that i would never have tried out for fear of investing tons of time that i dont have ( i work 58+ hours a week) into a build only to find out it sucks, now i can get to lvl 28 in a few hours and test out a build and see if i like it or will delete it.
MA and AE are not the evil things here nor are teh plp who like to farm, and yes some plp liek to jsut make money and farm, its your game play how you want but dont for a minute think of complaing about "oh i cant find a team, Damn you AE" cause that just means you are not looking in teh right places.
Or even dare i say it BUILD A MA mishion and set out to find a group of plp that want a challange and will rise to meet what ever you can throw their way. 
I did see you! And it was so nice to see everyone using the new AE channel instead of spamming the broadcast......not.
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because folks go from 1-50 in the Atlas AE and don't even know how to play thier charcters is ok
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This isn't totally aimed at you, I'm just sick of seeing this particular reason thrown around for the evils of AE.
This game is not difficult or complicated. At all. Anybody who spends a bit of time playing a 50 has enough of a grasp to fulfill their role. If they can't, they're mentally deficient or just don't care to learn.
Again, not totally directed at you. I just can't even begin to describe how tired I am of hearing this nonsense, as though mastering this game is somehow a herculean task.