New player experience sucks pretty bad right now
By
Adult_Swim,
Posted on: 2009-07-09 22:48 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
The Dev's are in a tough spot.
1 - Everyone loves to level. Related to that is the idea that L1-L20, especially the teens, can be quite boring/frustrating especially if you've done it before.
2 - They don't want to lose a whole crop of new paying customers.
3 - They don't want to lose many existing customers.
4 - They want the AE to be popular.
5 - They don't want the AE to dominate the game experience.
I don't know what they could do that would satisfy everyone. The speed of farm-leveling is way beyond anything any of us have ever thought possible, and that defines it as "not working as intended", therefore taking advantage of that to go from L1-50 in a day is by definition, an exploit. Of course, it's tough to tell someone what "fun" is supposed to be in a game.
The Dev's are in quite a pickle...
[/ QUOTE ]
They are, but the solution is to man up and do something like the following (these aren't the only things they could do, of course):
1) Force some standards on AE missions: i.e. missions must spawn like normal mission content. Custom groups must have at least one minion class mob, one lt. class mob and one boss class mob;
or
2) Nerf the rewards;
or
3) Set a minimum level to use AE or otherwise gate it;
or
4) Be absolutely ruthless in taking action on accounts that set up farming missions.
All of these will cause people to quit, will result in doom threads, etc. There are other solutions that are even worse. But really the devs have to get off the fence and decide what they want AE to be.
If they don't want it to be a farming tool, then they need to stop screwing around and fix the system. OR just let people farm and accept that their game experience will be a laughingstock.
[/ QUOTE ]
I said it before and I'll say it again.
The MA mission system should offer one set of exclusive rewards (ex. prestige).
The non-MA mission system should offer a completely different set of exclusive rewards (ex. xp).
As long as there's overlap, participants will always gravitate to the easier "attainment" system. A bunch of folks on my team this weekend discussed the pros/cons of each and most preferred not having to do zone runs when they can get the same rewards at a convenience in AP (and I agree with the original OP - it was a mistake to have lowbies/high levels co-exist in AP - an absolute quick fix would be to take the MA out of the lowbie zones completely and resituate them in "mid-level" zones that don't see a lot of traffic normally).
Personally, I like seeing the zones. War Witch and others put a lot of great effort into these common areas and they really add much-needed atmosphere that you just can't get from the MA mission room. Its a shame to overlook them completely in light of the MA buildings.
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
If you were going to change things about the zones, what would you do?
[/ QUOTE ]
The zones don't need to be changed, the players do.
If any new player would bother to read their mission text they'd realize there was more to the game than AP and AE. If they'd bother to look at the map and click the other tab they'd see there's more than one zone. Taking the AE out of AP won't fix stupid or lazy, but hey, they could take AE out of every zone for all I care.
Me, I'm going to CO when it comes out. Whether it sucks or not, at least it won't have AE and all the B.S. that seems to have accompanied it.
[/ QUOTE ]
This is one of the things that I feared would happen.
See the "conspiracy" part of this post ::
https://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthre...ue#Post13740503
I'm wondering why you are posting here though. Your signature indicates that you have been playing WoW instead of CoX since "4-9-08". You even go on to indicate that CoX has been dead since that point.
CoX is alive albeit not so well since the AE was released.
[/ QUOTE ]
I suppose if I cared I would change my profile but since I don't, I won't. 
I rarely play WoW anymore, and I left this game when the ads came in. Those flopped, I'm back killing time till I find another game I'd rather play. Maybe I'll still keep my account here, I usually have game accounts in 2-3 at the same time. As it is now, I play CoX once a week. I still pay every month and that entitles me to post.
So y'know, if you don't think anything I have to say is relevant you can put me on ignore. I won't cry, promise.
[ QUOTE ]
1) Force some standards on AE missions: i.e. missions must spawn like normal mission content. Custom groups must have at least one minion class mob, one lt. class mob and one boss class mob;
[/ QUOTE ]
I suggested this exact 'army list' approach in beta.
It's the obvious solution to the monoculture missions farmers adore.
Wargames have used this approach for a long long time. Details differ, but you basically end up with a lot of cannon fodder, some tougher guys to lead them and a couple of big guns at the top of the food chain.
It's an easy, obvious way to cut down min-maxing and I was genuinely surprised when they shipped AE without it, or something like it.
The Nethergoat Archive: all my memories, all my characters, all my thoughts on CoH...eventually.
My City Was Gone
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
If you were going to change things about the zones, what would you do?
[/ QUOTE ]
The zones don't need to be changed, the players do.
If any new player would bother to read their mission text they'd realize there was more to the game than AP and AE. If they'd bother to look at the map and click the other tab they'd see there's more than one zone. Taking the AE out of AP won't fix stupid or lazy, but hey, they could take AE out of every zone for all I care.
Me, I'm going to CO when it comes out. Whether it sucks or not, at least it won't have AE and all the B.S. that seems to have accompanied it.
[/ QUOTE ]
This is one of the things that I feared would happen.
See the "conspiracy" part of this post ::
https://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthre...ue#Post13740503
I'm wondering why you are posting here though. Your signature indicates that you have been playing WoW instead of CoX since "4-9-08". You even go on to indicate that CoX has been dead since that point.
CoX is alive albeit not so well since the AE was released.
[/ QUOTE ]
I suppose if I cared I would change my profile but since I don't, I won't.
I rarely play WoW anymore, and I left this game when the ads came in. Those flopped, I'm back killing time till I find another game I'd rather play. Maybe I'll still keep my account here, I usually have game accounts in 2-3 at the same time. As it is now, I play CoX once a week. I still pay every month and that entitles me to post.
So y'know, if you don't think anything I have to say is relevant you can put me on ignore. I won't cry, promise.
[/ QUOTE ]
Threadjack here, but I have to ask this...
Why would you leave because of ads that you can turn off? I can understand people being miffed about ads that can't be disabled, but seriously...you click "Disable ads" and the issue is resolved.
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
One of the features they promoted in the AE was levelling from 1-50 just in AE conent. They definitely delivered on that. I really don't think any curbing of low levels using the AE is going to happen.
[/ QUOTE ]
I wouldn't be surprised to see a new meter for Architect XP introduced, which worked a lot like Patrol XP except it would give you full XP in Architect missions instead of half XP (half XP being the new base rate). That way, people could still level from 1 to 50 in the MA, but would have an incentive not to stay there 24/7.
[/ QUOTE ]
I think it would be more useful for AE missions to increase your available Patrol XP, so that as you did more and more AE missions, you'd earn more bars of Patrol XP until you capped at 10 bars, then you'd have to leave the AE building and do regular missions to collect the patrol XP you'd built up in AE missions. Since (blueside as an example) your Security Level depends on the city's recognition of your demonstrated performance stopping crime in Paragon City, it seems to me that no matter how well you perform in AE missions, it's what you do out in Paragon City that determines your advancement. And what you do in AE missions should carry over; even if it's not recognized for advancing your Security Level, you're gaining experience with your powers that will speed your recognition by Paragon City.
"But in our enthusiasm, we could not resist a radical overhaul of the system, in which all of its major weaknesses have been exposed, analyzed, and replaced with new weaknesses."
-- Bruce Leverett, Register Allocation in Optimizing Compilers
[ QUOTE ]
AE buildings out of Atlas, Galaxy and King's Row, yesterday.
[/ QUOTE ]
The AE should be a separate zone, like Pocket D. Make it accessible from anywhere you like, but by not having the broadcasts and the 50s actually in Atlas, you push a lot of that out of the new player's radius.
That's the minimal adjustmet required for a weak save. I might go so far as to turn off AE on certain days of the week. They'll more likely settle for nerfing everything into oblivion until the AE building resembles the Arena. Sadly, I'm not even sure that's a bad thing.
[ QUOTE ]
What they needed to and still do need to do is start thinking like gamers and not like developers.
[/ QUOTE ]
I dunno - in one sense, as soon as you let design capability into people's hands, you ARE thinking like a gamer. At least a paper and pencil game designer.
Within a very short of time of D&D catching on, "Monty Haul" dungeons were figures of fun in the hobby. I know I saw ferociously "farmable," or if you like, high reward for no-to-low risk stuff being run for games I helped design in the p&p medium, at stores and even at cons.
It may stand in higher relief in the more concentrated social terrain of these kinds of games, but making the tools available to tell stories, design dream (or nightmare) combinations of enemies, etc. seems like a very gamer kind of thing to do...and concentrating on the ways minmaxers, rules lawyers, and other kinds of munchkins could distort the toolbox would be more a developer kind of concern.
Or do you mean the developers should have been thinking like gamers of the ilk of the old Monty Haul GMs to see the problems coming and try to head them off?
My scrapper doesn't need an AoE. She IS an AoE.
I mean that they should start thinking of ways that the systems can be abused, misused and exploited. They are not thinking outside of their box in my opinion. Seriously, if you are going to allow people to do whatever they want, why would you think that they would not look for the easiest route to "victory" possible? Because they say so? Not gonna happen.
This latest exploit is laughable, and the n00b players coming out are horrid.
"Sorry bucko, but CoH and CoV are the same game." -BackAlleyBrawler
"Silly villain, CoX is for Heroes!" -Saicho
Erm, why exactly is the kobold leader wearing the Invulnerable Coat of Arnd?
To protect him from the hobgoblin in the next room. He has the Ax of the Dwarvish Lords.
I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.
Thomas Jefferson
[ QUOTE ]
All of these will cause people to quit, will result in doom threads, etc. There are other solutions that are even worse. But really the devs have to get off the fence and decide what they want AE to be.
If they don't want it to be a farming tool, then they need to stop screwing around and fix the system. OR just let people farm and accept that their game experience will be a laughingstock.
[/ QUOTE ]
Or they could do what they actaully should do that wont cause any adverse effects, and boost the rewards from standard missions to compensate for the AE effectivness.
1-rework all content to limit the city running that it requires. Keep missions in the zones of the contacts so that you are not running here and there to just talk to a contact and run back.
2-increase the drop rates of purple rewards
3-increase xp and influence by about 10-15 percent acrossed the board on everything. Increase the mission and arc bonuses based on a scale like the AE uses for ticket rewards where its higher for a more complete mission run.
4-give merits for all mission completion and a bonus for milestone completion like an arc, or completing a safeguard/mayhem mission. Increase merit rewards for TF/SF
The funny thing to me is that for a while, it seems the devs took the attitude that they didnt want the game to be about grinding. (which i know it was to and extent) The lack of desire to increase the level cap IMO reflects this attitude. This IMO made COX more about leveling, and then making an alt, which i love dont get me wrong. I would much rather spend time making a character i like, hit 50 do some content and start an alt then hit 50 and 6 months later after getting him all decked out have to hit 60 then 70 etc.
However it feels like lately the concept is moving away from this alt attitude. Inventions is requiring more money to "finish" a character. And the nerf to merits etc, was clearly an attempt to limit the ability to earn the completion of your character.
Now here is the thing that tears at me. I like to play. When i have a character i think is fun, i love this game. However i have started characters i lose intrest in. Now i could delete those toons and start over, but frankly after 5 years im getting pressed to find new combos that are fun. So ya im getting a bit burned out.
However the AE system is buying me time during waiting for going rogue. Alot of those characters that had not logged in for 300 days and were sitting in the mid 30s are not getting time. Yes it might be farming them to 50, but im earning money, tickets for recipies for other toons, prestige for my sg/vgs of which i am the only member in each....
Im most doing this solo. I am not taking players out of the game for other people to team with. And if i couldnt do this, its likely right now i would be watching movies, or playing a console game rather then logging infor extended play sessions to COX right now.
So why do i like the MA? Well frankly again, i get better rewards, and notjust from leveling. I love the ticket system, i can get rewards from the ticket system that i could never get from merits, i simply just dont get on during the opprotune times to get on TFs, and i dont see the point in running 4-5 arcs to earn one random roll which always seemed to never give me what i needed anyway.
So the MA has ENHANCED my playing experience. My ability to play and slot my characters. I can understand this might not be true for everyone, but the only real solution i personally can see working is to make the MA buildings there own zones. A co-op zone area for both heroes and villians, which removes i guess atleast the tells from atlas etc of "looking for AE teams" which then makes a new player wonder what the AE is.
However i think keeping in mind that new players have forever been subjected to invites to express their way through low levels, i really dont think this is a solution. Last few characters i made before MA i had gotten invites to sewer teams within 5 minutes of hitting atlas. Mid level players still hung out in paragrine looking for farms before the AE.
Now if they want me to join in the party, why not give me rewards for doing it. Whats the problem, i level a little faster? So what. I earn more Influence/infamy? Again so what, it supports the economy in game. I earn more drops? So what again supports the BM/WW and other players to have more choices on the markets.
The real problem is the MA offers rewards that are IMO truely equal to what the game should offer at a rate that seems rewarding and fun and not so grindy. The way to keep customers and keep players happy and wanting to play is not to nerf those rewards, its to make sure that no matter what route a player takes, be in AE 1-50, city play or a combination, that the rewards keep a player intrested in playing. Making city content equal the reward and convience of the MA is maybe not easier, but it would be much more welcome by the player community IMO.
[ QUOTE ]
Cut the XP in half for everything and soon people will find that farming regular missions works out better.
[/ QUOTE ]
You know how often i see this comment and i cant help but as WTF is the point then? Look this really becomes a arguement about farming v not farming IMO. And what your basicly saying is make farmming a normal mission better then an AE mission.
I can just as easily, and have many times, run a level 2 to portal corp (infact its even easier now with SG teleporters) to get PLed in a farm as i can run a block to get to an AE building. Now you ask how this impacts though new players? Easy when running farms in the normal world, i have to pad a team up to get good spawns. So what do i do? I search for lowbies and ask them to join in for acouple minutes. Or even make a team and pad it with lower levels. Point being that i take 4-5 players off the grid to maintain a real world farm, when i need no one but my 2 accounts to maintain a AE farm that i am happy with my personal progress from.
[ QUOTE ]
Or they could do what they actaully should do that wont cause any adverse effects, and boost the rewards from standard missions to compensate for the AE effectivness.
[/ QUOTE ]
So your solution for AE over-rewarding is to make everything else over-reward too?
Brilliant!
I hear Sony is hiring!
The Nethergoat Archive: all my memories, all my characters, all my thoughts on CoH...eventually.
My City Was Gone
[ QUOTE ]
Threadjack here, but I have to ask this...
Why would you leave because of ads that you can turn off? I can understand people being miffed about ads that can't be disabled, but seriously...you click "Disable ads" and the issue is resolved.
[/ QUOTE ]
That might be good enough for some people. That might even have been good enough for the hypocrites that wanted to reap the rewards from ads while keeping ads turned off themselves. But for me it was the principle of the thing. I am against the whole idea of in game ads and I backed it up by quitting.
It's like the AE mess. I didn't get banned, or lose any characters, nor do I know anyone personally that did. That doesn't mean that I agree with the way it was handled by Posi. It's the principle of the thing.
I respect your position Nance.
I think we were equally vocal in opposition at the time, but I just turned them off and waited for the other shoe to drop.
Happily, the whole thing was a dismal failure.
The Nethergoat Archive: all my memories, all my characters, all my thoughts on CoH...eventually.
My City Was Gone
[ QUOTE ]
Since I can find a lowbie team pretty much 24/7 without leaving my global channel, I trump your completely unverifiable evidence with my own!
Also, since we recruit actual "new players" (not just people with 4 years in-game making new characters) and treat them like gold, walking them through what's great about this game like proud little parents, I call BS on that too.
My anecdotal evidence beats yours so I win!
Stop giving solutions to a problem that doesn't exist and go form a task force or something, people.
[/ QUOTE ]
quit stealing my anecdotal evidence!!!!!
News flash! inviting people to a team and showing them what is fun in the game helps make friends that will stick around longer than AE is shiny!!! Nudes at 11
Lots of 50's yada yada. still finding fun things to do.
Cthulhu loves you, better start running
I�! I�! Gg�gorsch�a�bha egurtsa�ar�ug d� Dalhor! Cthluhu fthagn! Cthluhu fthagn!
You are in a maze of twisty little passages
[ QUOTE ]
1) Force some standards on AE missions: i.e. missions must spawn like normal mission content. Custom groups must have at least one minion class mob, one lt. class mob and one boss class mob;
[/ QUOTE ]
I wouldn't like this one, it would ruin the Hero group you fight in my low-level villain mission, and I'm planning a hero mission where you fight an all-Boss Villain group.
I've wanted to fight teams of villains/heroes in this game for a long time, so I'm happy it's finally possible.
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
The Dev's are in a tough spot.
1 - Everyone loves to level. Related to that is the idea that L1-L20, especially the teens, can be quite boring/frustrating especially if you've done it before.
2 - They don't want to lose a whole crop of new paying customers.
3 - They don't want to lose many existing customers.
4 - They want the AE to be popular.
5 - They don't want the AE to dominate the game experience.
I don't know what they could do that would satisfy everyone. The speed of farm-leveling is way beyond anything any of us have ever thought possible, and that defines it as "not working as intended", therefore taking advantage of that to go from L1-50 in a day is by definition, an exploit. Of course, it's tough to tell someone what "fun" is supposed to be in a game.
The Dev's are in quite a pickle...
[/ QUOTE ]
They are, but the solution is to man up and do something like the following (these aren't the only things they could do, of course):
1) Force some standards on AE missions: i.e. missions must spawn like normal mission content. Custom groups must have at least one minion class mob, one lt. class mob and one boss class mob;
or
2) Nerf the rewards;
or
3) Set a minimum level to use AE or otherwise gate it;
or
4) Be absolutely ruthless in taking action on accounts that set up farming missions.
All of these will cause people to quit, will result in doom threads, etc. There are other solutions that are even worse. But really the devs have to get off the fence and decide what they want AE to be.
If they don't want it to be a farming tool, then they need to stop screwing around and fix the system. OR just let people farm and accept that their game experience will be a laughingstock.
[/ QUOTE ]
I said it before and I'll say it again.
The MA mission system should offer one set of exclusive rewards (ex. prestige).
The non-MA mission system should offer a completely different set of exclusive rewards (ex. xp).
As long as there's overlap, participants will always gravitate to the easier "attainment" system. A bunch of folks on my team this weekend discussed the pros/cons of each and most preferred not having to do zone runs when they can get the same rewards at a convenience in AP (and I agree with the original OP - it was a mistake to have lowbies/high levels co-exist in AP - an absolute quick fix would be to take the MA out of the lowbie zones completely and resituate them in "mid-level" zones that don't see a lot of traffic normally).
Personally, I like seeing the zones. War Witch and others put a lot of great effort into these common areas and they really add much-needed atmosphere that you just can't get from the MA mission room. Its a shame to overlook them completely in light of the MA buildings.
[/ QUOTE ]
Or, they could man up and go fix up some of those pita story lines that send you to 5 different zones. And pick 1 tf per issue to update. Start with posi. Just a gesture to show they do actually give a damn.
Lots of 50's yada yada. still finding fun things to do.
Cthulhu loves you, better start running
I�! I�! Gg�gorsch�a�bha egurtsa�ar�ug d� Dalhor! Cthluhu fthagn! Cthluhu fthagn!
You are in a maze of twisty little passages
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Cut the XP in half for everything and soon people will find that farming regular missions works out better.
[/ QUOTE ]
You know how often i see this comment and i cant help but as WTF is the point then? Look this really becomes a arguement about farming v not farming IMO. And what your basicly saying is make farmming a normal mission better then an AE mission.
I can just as easily, and have many times, run a level 2 to portal corp (infact its even easier now with SG teleporters) to get PLed in a farm as i can run a block to get to an AE building. Now you ask how this impacts though new players? Easy when running farms in the normal world, i have to pad a team up to get good spawns. So what do i do? I search for lowbies and ask them to join in for acouple minutes. Or even make a team and pad it with lower levels. Point being that i take 4-5 players off the grid to maintain a real world farm, when i need no one but my 2 accounts to maintain a AE farm that i am happy with my personal progress from.
[/ QUOTE ]
Actually, it was being used as an example of what would happen. the rest of the quote is.
[ QUOTE ]
. But then, the forums will assplode with people complaining about blind invites, PL spam in PI, bridge and fill requests all over again.
[/ QUOTE ]
In other words, the Devs have painted themselves into a corner with AE.
Hense the
[ QUOTE ]
Six in one hand, half dozen in the other with no way to win.
[/ QUOTE ]
I am a farmer. I admit it. I farm SF's, TF's, missions. I farm for what I need to farm for. I am NOT anti farming. I AM anti-sucky player however, and that is what AE in the lowbie zones is breeding.
When I take three level 50 MM's on a SF, and not a single one can control their pets, I have a problem with that. When I try to help out a lowbie and teach them a few things, and the next thing I get is a tell asking you to help them level in AE, I have a problem with that.
And seriously, If you have to get people to pad for a normal mission farm, you are farming the wrong missions. There ARE some that will give you huge spawns no matter how many people are on the team. No, I'm not going to post them.
"Sorry bucko, but CoH and CoV are the same game." -BackAlleyBrawler
"Silly villain, CoX is for Heroes!" -Saicho
I would agree with taking AEs out of all the low-level zones with one modification to the plan: add an AE branch to Pocket D. It's both easy to get to and out of the way, and would allow hero and villain players to co-op AE material before level 35.
(And honestly, a virtual-reality arcade in Pocket D makes a lot more sense than one in the Rikti Warzone - that shiny new building sticking out of the wreckage and bombed-out city just looks weird.)
how did cappadabba get to be the AE place to go to anyway and not mercy?
[ QUOTE ]
When I take three level 50 MM's on a SF, and not a single one can control their pets, I have a problem with that. When I try to help out a lowbie and teach them a few things, and the next thing I get is a tell asking you to help them level in AE, I have a problem with that.
[/ QUOTE ]
The scene: my level 47 Bane is trying to beat down Agent Crimson when I see the following:
n00b: wanna help me and my buddy run some missions?
me: [immediately suspicious, i wait till Crimson runs off like a little girl and pull up /search. Sure enough this is a level 18. I'm almost surprised, I was expecting him to be a level 2]. What you need help with?
n00b: Me and my buddy want to level really fast. Can you do it for us?
me: [Crimson is back. Gah, what an annoying mission, I am dropping this thing.] Dude, you're a level 18 and I'm 47.
n00b: Please help us level!
me: [in between dodging this annoying [censored] of an EB] Best thing I can suggest is that you form a team of people near your level and you guys run some missions. You'll level fast like that.
n00b: Are you saying you're not gonna help us level? We wanna level really fast, we need to.
me: No, I am not. Sorry. Fighting an EB just now.
n00b: what's an EB?
And at that point I quit responding. I should have told him what an EB is, but I was busy and it wouldn't have mattered anyways. He wasn't interested in learning, he wanted a free ride. Should have told him, "Go run a few actual missions and you will find out what an EB is in fairly short order. Have fun!"
If many of these n00bs ran into Blechly The Council Vampyre solo, I think they'd probably have a heart attack and then quit the game.
[ QUOTE ]
how did cappadabba get to be the AE place to go to anyway and not mercy?
[/ QUOTE ]
I'm guessing because no one wants to hang around Mercy longer than absolutely necessary. Also Cap has easy access to the market and the Rogue Isles ferry, so it's become more of a gathering spot.
Anyway, I would be fine with AE buildings being removed from AP and Galaxy, and Mercy I guess. I would not be fine with XP being removed from AE missions. As things stand now, my husband and I play AE missions for the stories and the varieties of content. We do enjoy XP and leveling occasionally though. It's sort of the mainstay of playing a MMO.
No we don't PL, and I won't cry if some of the obviously exploitive holes get removed. I won't cry if the grievous abusers get smacked down. However, that being said, I wouldn't want them to remove maps that are actually challenging. Some of the AE content is actually more challenging than dev content, and also delivers a large share of rewards. I think stuff like this is fine and should stay as-is.
This game has always had its share of PLing and farming, and honestly nerfing the MA is not going to change that. As I've said before, I don't even know if they should try to wipe out PLing. I think discouraging it is fine, so it's not so annoyingly ubiquitous in chat channels, but really there will always be a subset of PLers. If they go about their business quietly and don't bother everyone else, I don't really care.
Anyway, I don't agree with heavy handed nerfing of MA. If they want to do something more targeted to the abusers, that's fine though.
I'll add this too. Someone messaged my husband on his 50 scrapper last night.
Noob: Can you help me get to 50 fast?
My husband: Why? what are you going to do at 50?
Noob: 50 is were the real game starts.
My husband: Um I think you may have forgotten what game you're playing...
(no response from noob)
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
When I take three level 50 MM's on a SF, and not a single one can control their pets, I have a problem with that. When I try to help out a lowbie and teach them a few things, and the next thing I get is a tell asking you to help them level in AE, I have a problem with that.
[/ QUOTE ]
The scene: my level 47 Bane is trying to beat down Agent Crimson when I see the following:
n00b: wanna help me and my buddy run some missions?
me: [immediately suspicious, i wait till Crimson runs off like a little girl and pull up /search. Sure enough this is a level 18. I'm almost surprised, I was expecting him to be a level 2]. What you need help with?
n00b: Me and my buddy want to level really fast. Can you do it for us?
me: [Crimson is back. Gah, what an annoying mission, I am dropping this thing.] Dude, you're a level 18 and I'm 47.
n00b: Please help us level!
me: [in between dodging this annoying [censored] of an EB] Best thing I can suggest is that you form a team of people near your level and you guys run some missions. You'll level fast like that.
n00b: Are you saying you're not gonna help us level? We wanna level really fast, we need to.
me: No, I am not. Sorry. Fighting an EB just now.
n00b: what's an EB?
And at that point I quit responding. I should have told him what an EB is, but I was busy and it wouldn't have mattered anyways. He wasn't interested in learning, he wanted a free ride. Should have told him, "Go run a few actual missions and you will find out what an EB is in fairly short order. Have fun!"
If many of these n00bs ran into Blechly The Council Vampyre I think they'd probably have a heart attack and then quit the game.
[/ QUOTE ]
And this differs from the tells i would get from lowbies asking for team spots with my 40+ characters exactly how?
I am not saying that there are not going to be iratating PLing requests, there always have been and will continue to be. Its the idea that the MA/AE is responsible for it all that IMO is false.
If i put on 30 pounds in a month because a local fast food place is selling free chillicheese fries with any chillicheese dog puchase and i eat nothing else 3 meals a day for a month, its not the fries fault i got fat. They existed before the sale, and nothing made me subsist on them alone for 30 days.
PLing has always existed, PLing requests have always existed. To use that evidence that the MA is breaking the game because of PLing is blaming the game for the abuse of a particular mechanic.
Plently of people would see the deal on the chillicheese fries and take moderate advantage of it and not gain 30 pounds. Its not the the sales fault if a few [censored] hats abuse the sale and get fat. Just as its not MAs fault that a few [censored] hats think they will go from 0-50 in a day with your help.
Everyone acts like it ruins the game when people reach high level and dont know what they are doing. I find it funnier then all hell to get a team with a couple ignorant fools and watch them die over and over not understanding why spamming their AOE immbl on full mobs is a stupid thing to do. Seriously, and when they start acting like they dont understand what is happening its all i can do to stay upright in my chair i laugh so hard. And frankly even more fun is to get a brute or tanker out, and get into a mission you can work up a nice big mob and then drop your taunt aura and stop attacking and watch them all die over and over. Then when you figure they are about debt maxed, tell them you have to log off and thank them for the team.
The MA creating stupid players is IMO one of the best forms of entertainment this game offers.
[ QUOTE ]
n00b: Me and my buddy want to level really fast. Can you do it for us?
[/ QUOTE ]
Not seeing how this is AE's fault.
I've been getting PL requests from total strangers almost as long as I've been playing the game.
The Nethergoat Archive: all my memories, all my characters, all my thoughts on CoH...eventually.
My City Was Gone
[ QUOTE ]
I'm not saying they're turning it into The Sims
[/ QUOTE ]
You say that like it's a bad thing.