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Be nice though if we actually had this in the patch notes (if its a fix, it should be). If its a bug that was fixed - it should be. And since I don't think spawning missions counts as an exploit, it still should be.....
Thanks, NC Soft, for closing my favorite game ever without warning and with plenty of life still left in it, and thus relieving me of the burden of EVER wanting to buy, try or even hear about another game from your company. Will my decision make a dent, or persuade them in anyway, shape or form? Nope, obviously not. Don't care. NC Soft is dead to me. ~ PsyFox
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a) it's an anti-farming thing
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This is actually what it is, but
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b) this is actually how boss spawns were supposed to work in the first place, and it's actually been broken all this time
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is how it will be commented on, if a redname actually gets to it. I'm not a conspiracy theorist and I'd've slapped myself silly if I'd seen myself write this a year ago, but since the I13 PvP changes, I14 pet changes, PSW changes, and MA bans/deletions, I've got a somewhat cynical view of the way things are done around here - change things with little or no warning, don't ask for feedback, and then chalk it up to a long-standing bug when people find out something's different (PvP travel suppression anyone?).
That being said, it's not going to change my farming at all. My farming characters are more than capable of handling the odd boss or two - and besides, it's just another opportunity to drop a pool C or D recipe. 
@macskull, @Not Mac | XBL: macskull | Steam: macskull | Skype: macskull
"One day we all may see each other elsewhere. In Tyria, in Azeroth. We may pass each other and never know it. And that's sad. But if nothing else, we'll still have Rhode Island."
"One day we all may see each other elsewhere. In Tyria, in Azeroth. We may pass each other and never know it. And that's sad. But if nothing else, we'll still have Rhode Island."
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Hey, remember, AVs used to spawn in missions while solo before difficulty settings. Now that only happens at the max diff.
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I was responding to the possibility that bosses were supposed to work this way all along. AV spawning behavior has been explicitly changed several times, so we know for a fact that how it works now isn't how it was all along.
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Actually, what we know is that how AV spawning behavior works now isn't how it was originally supposed to work. We don't know that how bosses spawn now isn't how it was originally supposed to work, though. The original AV spawning rules I would think hints that it's not impossible that it -is- how it was supposed to work all along.
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I can see absolutely no correlation between AVs spawning, which through all versions of AV spawning change have only ever happened as part of an explicit foe placement, and bosses spawning willy-nilly as part of normal mission spawns (regardless of whether the mission contains a placed boss).
This is in the context of early discussions about how every mission did not contain a boss by design, because the expectation at the time was that not everyone could solo a boss, and the notion that everyone should be able to solo some of the time. (This itself doesn't seem to have been t a founding assumption, but the devs came around to it pretty early. Thus: Containment for Controllers.)
The change that allowed bosses to downgrade to LTs on Heroic was essentially a concession to the fact that you often could not complete a sequence of missions (usually a story arc) without meeting one or more bosses, so the utility of bossless missions to allow for weak soloers wasn't really a useful concession. The change that allowed for AVs to downgrade to EBs was provided later (I7, if I recall correctly), in response to player dissatisfaction with the number of AVs present in CoV's missions post level-30.
Blue
American Steele: 50 BS/Inv
Nightfall: 50 DDD
Sable Slayer: 50 DM/Rgn
Fortune's Shadow: 50 Dark/Psi
WinterStrike: 47 Ice/Dev
Quantum Well: 43 Inv/EM
Twilit Destiny: 43 MA/DA
Red
Shadowslip: 50 DDC
Final Rest: 50 MA/Rgn
Abyssal Frost: 50 Ice/Dark
Golden Ember: 50 SM/FA
The correlation is simple: Their original vision of bosses being un-soloable doesn't mean that they weren't supposed to spawn normally in missions to begin with since AVs which were definitely meant to be unsoloable spawned in missions.
The change for bosses downgraded to LTs was a consession to the fact that some people - not specific ATs or builds - couldn't solo bosses and/or didn't like the level of challenge involved in doing so.
Virtue Server
Avatar art by Daggerpoint
Remember, there was before the Difficulty Slider and after.
Before the Difficulty Slider, you had Jack Emmert saying Bosses should not be soloable and we had AVs in missions even when solo which meant we had to find teams to do the Peregrine Island arcs.
After the Difficulty Slider, a new ruleset was put in place. The Devs recognized that Bosses were soloable by most players and powersets, but, in a concession to newbs who didn't have the right builds, the Difficulty Slider suppressed Bosses for soloists on DifLevel 1. Also, the AV to EB rules were put into place.
There was a post from Positron, now lost to forum purges, which explained how a spawn and the foes in the spawn have a 'weight' for lack of a better word. So, e.g., using made-up values, a minion might have a weight of 1, a lieutenant be 3, and a boss be 5. If a spawn point is weighted as '4', then you can have four minions, or a lieutenant and one minion... but no boss.
If a spawn point is weighted as '10', then you can have 10 minions; OR 2 bosses; OR 2 lieutenants and 4 minions; OR a boss a lieutenaant and two minions, etc....
If two people on heroic merits a spawn with the weight of 5, then you'll have a boss. Bosses are only suppressed for soloists at DiffLev 1.
Only newbies to the game should find bosses so challenging that they need a setting to suppress them while solo. Even two newbies together should be able to take on a boss. The only ones who really *like* a team of six to have a full map with no bosses are farmers. A team of six should have no problem with bosses. Every TF produces lots of bosses from all sorts of factions and that doesn't slow down a TF team. But I can see how a soloist farmer who got fillers to spawn a map for six is going to find that map difficult now if there are bosses.
Since the Difficulty Slider was put into place, we had factions, like the Lost, who followed the rules spawning bosses for teams of 2 on DeffLev 1. But we had many factions that didn't spawn bosses until there were seven teammates. That always boggled me. If we're guaranteed no bosses for a soloist on DefLevel 1; then it would be logical to assume that for teams of 2 or more, or at DifLevel 2 or higher, then there would be Bosses. It always happened for some factions. It always happened on TFs. It should always happen for *all* factions.
This is how spawning should have always worked since the introduction of the Difficulty Slider
Speeding Through New DA Repeatables || Spreadsheet o' Enhancements || Zombie Skins: better skins for these forums || Guide to Guides
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The correlation is simple: Their original vision of bosses being un-soloable doesn't mean that they weren't supposed to spawn normally in missions to begin with since AVs which were definitely meant to be unsoloable spawned in missions.
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It does when taken in context of the discussions about how missions were constructed. You got bosses on large teams or when the mission authors explicitly placed one. That was explicit in the discussions of how people who couldn't/didn't want to solo bosses were able to solo any missions.
Blue
American Steele: 50 BS/Inv
Nightfall: 50 DDD
Sable Slayer: 50 DM/Rgn
Fortune's Shadow: 50 Dark/Psi
WinterStrike: 47 Ice/Dev
Quantum Well: 43 Inv/EM
Twilit Destiny: 43 MA/DA
Red
Shadowslip: 50 DDC
Final Rest: 50 MA/Rgn
Abyssal Frost: 50 Ice/Dark
Golden Ember: 50 SM/FA
Thank you for the great explanation, Zombie_Man 
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After the Difficulty Slider, a new ruleset was put in place. The Devs recognized that Bosses were soloable by most players and powersets, but, in a concession to newbs who didn't have the right builds, the Difficulty Slider suppressed Bosses for soloists on DifLevel 1. Also, the AV to EB rules were put into place.
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Just a clarification, the slider vastly predates the change that allowed AVs to downgrade to EBs. Looking at how you said it, I don't actually think you were saying they were coincident, but it can easily be read that way.
Blue
American Steele: 50 BS/Inv
Nightfall: 50 DDD
Sable Slayer: 50 DM/Rgn
Fortune's Shadow: 50 Dark/Psi
WinterStrike: 47 Ice/Dev
Quantum Well: 43 Inv/EM
Twilit Destiny: 43 MA/DA
Red
Shadowslip: 50 DDC
Final Rest: 50 MA/Rgn
Abyssal Frost: 50 Ice/Dark
Golden Ember: 50 SM/FA
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After the Difficulty Slider, a new ruleset was put in place. The Devs recognized that Bosses were soloable by most players and powersets, but, in a concession to newbs who didn't have the right builds, the Difficulty Slider suppressed Bosses for soloists on DifLevel 1. Also, the AV to EB rules were put into place.
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Just a clarification, the slider vastly predates the change that allowed AVs to downgrade to EBs. Looking at how you said it, I don't actually think you were saying they were coincident, but it can easily be read that way.
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By 'vastly', do you mean 9 months?
Speeding Through New DA Repeatables || Spreadsheet o' Enhancements || Zombie Skins: better skins for these forums || Guide to Guides
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By 'vastly', do you mean 9 months?
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Yes. Given that the game's 2-year anniversary fell in between the events, that was a long span of time in the scope of the game's existence.
And even on an absolute scale, events 9 months apart certainly aren't coincident.
Blue
American Steele: 50 BS/Inv
Nightfall: 50 DDD
Sable Slayer: 50 DM/Rgn
Fortune's Shadow: 50 Dark/Psi
WinterStrike: 47 Ice/Dev
Quantum Well: 43 Inv/EM
Twilit Destiny: 43 MA/DA
Red
Shadowslip: 50 DDC
Final Rest: 50 MA/Rgn
Abyssal Frost: 50 Ice/Dark
Golden Ember: 50 SM/FA
These bosses are great and all for my higher level toons, but getting a Skulls boss every mob when duoing with my brother on level 3 Peacebringers is a tad bit too hard.
I'm liking the change, because now the Sky Raiders spawns are actually containing a variety of Lieutenants: Porters and Wing Raider Officers instead of the rare Captain, and when in a duo Jump Bots are spawning whereas before I'd only seen them in scripted spawns.
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"Chew Electric Death, Snarling Cur!"
Now they just need to fix the whole "double XP when exemplared" thing.
As it stands now, we only get a mob's XP value as inf. without getting the regular inf. reward when exemplared... which means we're only getting a quarter of the inf. from bosses as compared to what we get at normal level or SK'd, where the Inf. reward is double the XP reward for a boss. Meanwhile, fighting minions while exemplared gives a 30% bonus to inf. rewards because their XP value is 30% more than their normal inf. value, but since there are likely fewer minions spawning now, we're getting less inf. for more risk.
Now with bosses spawning more frequently, this dosen't really jive with the whole "risk vs. reward" mantra.
Heh? We never got regular inf while exemplared. It's working as designed and I expect this never to change since the XP value used is relative to the character's actual level and not the level they are exemplared to.
Now during double xp weekend are you not getting double xp converted into influence?
As for "risk vs reward", it use to be 3 minions per team member ( difficulty 2 and 4 adds bumps the count up one) and then substitutions are made to bring the spawn size down by exchanging minions for lieutenants and bosses at roughly 2 minions to a lieutenant and 4 minions for a boss. This excludes spawns with named bosses of course.
Father Xmas - Level 50 Ice/Ice Tanker - Victory
$725 and $1350 parts lists --- My guide to computer components
Tempus unum hominem manet
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Heh? We never got regular inf while exemplared. It's working as designed and I expect this never to change since the XP value used is relative to the character's actual level and not the level they are exemplared to.
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And numerous manuals and online sources have also presented that we should've been getting "double XP" when exemplared (regardless of the character's "real" level), not to mention there was a loading screen tip that said the same (which the dev's would've had to put in when they added the loading tip feature to the game).
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Now during double xp weekend are you not getting double xp converted into influence?
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IIRC, the last double XP weekend actually had things working almost correctly in that people were getting 4x the XP value converted into inf. while being exemplared-- double for being ex'd, and doubled again for the event. The only problem there was that it should've been using the inf. reward as the base value instead of the XP value converted to inf.
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As for "risk vs reward", it use to be 3 minions per team member ( difficulty 2 and 4 adds bumps the count up one) and then substitutions are made to bring the spawn size down by exchanging minions for lieutenants and bosses at roughly 2 minions to a lieutenant and 4 minions for a boss. This excludes spawns with named bosses of course.
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I know how spawning worked before, and get how it works now. That's not what I'm talking about.
My point is that because we get the XP value translated into inf. when exemplared, when you kill a minion while exemplared, you get about 43% MORE XP than you would if you killed a minion of the same level relation at your natural level (the natural inf. value of a minion is 70% of it's XP value). When we kill a boss while exemplared, we get 50% LESS inf. we'd get when we're NOT exemplared and kill a boss of the same relative level because a boss's natural inf. value is 200% of it's XP value (i.e. it's XP value is half it's inf. value).
Here's a theoretical numerical example where the level relation with the player is the same in all cases:
Given a minion that's worth 100 XP:
--Rewards at normal level = 100 XP, 70 inf.
--Rewards while exemplared: 100 inf. (~43% increase)
Given a boss worth 1,000 XP:
-- Rewards at normal level = 1000 XP, 2000 inf.
-- Rewards while exemplared = 1000 inf. (50% decrease).
The long and short of it is that, while exemplared, we're getting a 43% "buff" in reward for fighting weaker mobs while getting a 50% "penalty" in reward when fighting stronger mobs... thus the risk vs. reward doesn't jive.
With the spawn-code changes fit into this is since, I'm assuming, we're supposed to see more bosses than before, and bosses give a less-than-proportionate reward while exemplared, it would be nice if they'd fix the exemplar rewards.
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And numerous manuals and online sources have also presented that we should've been getting "double XP" when exemplared (regardless of the character's "real" level), not to mention there was a loading screen tip that said the same (which the dev's would've had to put in when they added the loading tip feature to the game).
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Well, they might have changed it, but the new online CoH Manual says on page 85 of the PDF:
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When you receive XP as an Exemplar, you will receive an amount
appropriate to your original level. This XP can only be used to pay
off XP debt. If you have no XP debt, then you will earn influence at
double the normal rate.
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As well, the loading screen tip (from the Wiki list ) says:
When you Exemplar/Malefactor to someone you fight at their combat level, losing access to powers you gained after that level. You will stop gaining XP, instead gaining double Influence/Infamy
All that aside, I do see your point, that the system should be double XP rather than double inf because of the boss XP > inf rewards ratio.
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"Chew Electric Death, Snarling Cur!"
First, the "wrong way" exemplaring has been quoted as fact for so long it's become part of the "race memory" of the players. That doesn't change the fact that it's incorrect.
When exemplaring, your character earns XP based on the character's actual level however, if you are in XP debt all of it, not half like normal, is used to pay off XP debt. Any left over or if you weren't in XP debt to begin with is converted at a 1 to 1 ratio into inf. You receive no normal inf reward ever while in exemplar mode, any and all inf comes from XP->Inf conversion. It has been this way since I first encounter exemplaring in September 2004 when Issue 2 was released.
So while it's correct to say XP debt is payed off twice as fast but it's not because you earn twice as much XP, the XP earned is simply not cut in half. The problem is too many people explain this as double debt reduction which is then interpreted as double the XP and then the "double" idea gets moved over to inf when not in debt and a myth is born.
Father Xmas - Level 50 Ice/Ice Tanker - Victory
$725 and $1350 parts lists --- My guide to computer components
Tempus unum hominem manet
I was pointing out that the manual and loading screen tip do not say
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"double XP" when exemplared
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as sigma1932 had stated.
I do find it interesting that it does say
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If you have no XP debt, then you will earn influence at
double the normal rate.
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and both you and sigma1932 do agree that it is actually XP converted straight (1 to 1) into inf. You would think that they would have corrected that when they released the newly revised manual which now includes the Invention and AE systems.
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"Chew Electric Death, Snarling Cur!"
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As I said in the prior discussion of this, I love the change. Not for anti-farming purposes, but because I -like- fighting bosses, and seeing them spawn when solo more than just the "scripted" bosses is awesome. If it is an anti-farming measure, it's the kind I can wholeheartedly approve of. One that doesn't screw over the honest players as well as the farmers.
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This.
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I do find it interesting that it does say
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If you have no XP debt, then you will earn influence at
double the normal rate.
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and both you and sigma1932 do agree that it is actually XP converted straight (1 to 1) into inf. You would think that they would have corrected that when they released the newly revised manual which now includes the Invention and AE systems.
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That simply shows how pervasive the "race memory" is.
I'm sure whoever they tossed the manual updates to they are 1) low on the totem pole, 2) are not thoroughly versed in all the features and systems in the game, 3) only added new sections to the manual plus minor changes elsewhere to tie them in and 4) did not do a full fact check on all aspects of the manual.
At some point in the past somebody simply documented it wrong, either because they or whomever they asked misremembered how it worked or because that's what the majority of players believed if asked so they didn't bother to check any further.
The zone screen tips still refer to wikia as the place to find ParagonWiki. So while generally useful to new players, they aren't 100% accurate either.
Father Xmas - Level 50 Ice/Ice Tanker - Victory
$725 and $1350 parts lists --- My guide to computer components
Tempus unum hominem manet
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First, the "wrong way" exemplaring has been quoted as fact for so long it's become part of the "race memory" of the players. That doesn't change the fact that it's incorrect.
When exemplaring, your character earns XP based on the character's actual level however, if you are in XP debt all of it, not half like normal, is used to pay off XP debt. Any left over or if you weren't in XP debt to begin with is converted at a 1 to 1 ratio into inf. You receive no normal inf reward ever while in exemplar mode, any and all inf comes from XP->Inf conversion. It has been this way since I first encounter exemplaring in September 2004 when Issue 2 was released.
So while it's correct to say XP debt is payed off twice as fast but it's not because you earn twice as much XP, the XP earned is simply not cut in half. The problem is too many people explain this as double debt reduction which is then interpreted as double the XP and then the "double" idea gets moved over to inf when not in debt and a myth is born.
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Ok, so sue me... I put "XP" in some places I should've put "Inf." The concept is still the same-- As Katze and I have both pointed out now, it says something different in at least two recently-updated official sources:
From the official online manual (updated as recently as issue 14):
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Higher level heroes can artificially lower their Combat level in order
to adventure with their lower level friends as well. This process is
called Exemplaring. The lower level hero in this case is called the
Aspirant and the higher level hero is the Exemplar. The Aspirant asks
a higher level hero to become his Exemplar by right clicking on them
and selecting “Invite to Exemplar” or by using the command /exemplar
. There is no level restriction on Exemplaring.
When you become an Exemplar you will fight at the Combat Level of
the Aspirant and lose access to any power you chose after the level
of the Aspirant. So if you Exemplar down to level 15 you will not be
able to access any power you chose at level 16 or higher. You will
still have all the Enhancement Slots in your powers, however the
strength of those Enhancements will be artificially reduced to the
strength of Enhancements you would have at the lower level.
When you receive XP as an Exemplar, you will receive an amount
appropriate to your original level. This XP can only be used to pay
off XP debt. If you have no XP debt, then you will earn influence at
double the normal rate.
Additionally, higher level heroes can enter lower level task forces
and trials through auto-exemplaring. It is similar to exemplaring, but
does not require another hero to bring you down to that level.
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From the loading screen tip (which was put in by Devs in issue 12):
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When you Exemplar/Malefactor to someone you fight at their combat level, losing access to powers you gained after that level. You will stop gaining XP, instead gaining double Influence/Infamy
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Considering that these official sources are far more recent (which lends itself to the idea that this is how it was supposed to be working all along), how are we quoting it wrong? We're NOT getting double the normal rate of inf. like it says we should (i.e. a 100% increase in all cases), but instead we're getting a 43% increase for weaker mobs , and a 50% decrease for stronger mobs. Nevermind that this isn't what we're being told we should get, but it also doesn't jive with the risk vs. reward mantra, which further lends itself to how it's working now not being correct.
Okay, I think we're all saying the same thing about the double inf rewards anyway. The documentation is wrong about exemplaring (when compared to what actually happens in-game), and it's just XP converted to inf when there is no debt involved.
I also can see sigma1932's point in that by using XP->inf when exemplared you get shortchanged on bosses.
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"Chew Electric Death, Snarling Cur!"
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Considering that these official sources are far more recent (which lends itself to the idea that this is how it was supposed to be working all along), how are we quoting it wrong?
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Exemplaring still works the way it always worked since it was introduced and documented in Issue 2. Since you are quote happy.
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Higher level characters can now help out their lower-level friends easier than ever with this "reverse Sidekicking " feature. Exemplars artificially lower their level to that of the Aspirant. Exemplars will lose access to powers gained after the level they have been lowered to, and their Enhancements will have an appropriate reduction in effectiveness as well. Exemplars do not receive Infuence or Enhancements for arrests or missions. They do receive XP and Inspirations. 100% of XP received by an Exemplar goes towards debt reduction. If there is no more debt to get rid of, further XP gained will be converted to Influence.
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Because the current documentation states otherwise doesn't imply anything other than when it was added to the manual, it was documented incorrectly.
The thing is there's been a contingent of players who never liked exemplaring going as far back as when it was introduced. They didn't see a good reason to and this was back when the debt cap was much, much higher and perma-debt was all to common. People crunched the numbers and found no advantage to their character when running in exemplar mode than not, including influence generation. But that wasn't the purpose of exemplaring, the purpose is to allow a higher level player to join a team of primarily lower level characters just as sidekicking allows a lower level character to join a team of primarily higher level characters. It was a method to facilitate teaming, nothing more.
It just ticks me off every time someone believes that some aspect of the game (sidekicking, exemplaring, leveling pacts) should grant benefits above and beyond normal game play when such features were added primarily as social benefits.
Father Xmas - Level 50 Ice/Ice Tanker - Victory
$725 and $1350 parts lists --- My guide to computer components
Tempus unum hominem manet
Interesting change. I've been noticing a lot more bosses in the missions I've been running with my lvl 32 brute today, and I definitely won't complain, since I've been wanting a change to the 1 lt + 1 minion or 3 minions set up.
This could be pretty challenging on a mission that already spawned a disproportionate number of bosses. Anyone done Darrin Wade's arc recently?
Edit: Ashley McKnight mission - 2 Behemoth Overlords and an Agony Mage, all lvl 34, in a single room. Solo, diff 4. Um... 
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I've noticed this as well. Great change, I love seeing the bosses as it gives you someone to pound while the AOE's do their work.
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i blah-blah-blah our boss overlords.
Dr. Todt's theme.
i make stuff...