New player experience sucks pretty bad right now
By
Adult_Swim,
Posted on: 2009-07-09 22:48 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
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AE buildings out of Atlas, Galaxy and King's Row, yesterday.
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This, as well as Mercy and Port Oakes (for equality). I believe the only reason the devs haven't done it is they don't want to admit they made a mistake putting them there in the first place.
New players need to experience content. Ten levels worth is enough to taste what the game has to offer and learn a bit about it.
This leaves plenty of AE buildings to choose from. The farmers can pick up and move elsewhere, it isn't a burden. Anyone whining about removing the buildings from lowbie zones, IMO, is a farmer who just doesn't want to have to move his toons and whining about having his access to lowbie padders removed.
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I'm not a farmer. I mostly solo, and have never used lowbies to pad. I'll be very annoyed if the AE building gets yanked from Mercy. In order to force newbies to play the game a certain way, removing the AE from Mercy, at least, means limiting the options for more experienced players. The great thing about AE for villains is that it provides an alternative to running the same two missions over and over and over and over again.
Villain side already has fewer zones and a more limited selection of beginning story arcs than Hero side does. Also, the AE building in Mercy? Not that easy to get to. Unless you're a stalker, your only safe option is to swim halfway around the entire island and come in via the ferry door, and hope you don't get killed in the dash to the AE building and tp'ed back to the medical facility in Darwin's Landing. I think that's plenty challenging without making low-level alrs go to Cap--which means making the Mercy run plus getting to the Cap ferry and to the actual AE building.
"No boom *today*. Boom tomorrow. There's always boom tomorrow."
--Lt. Commander Susan Ivanova
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I agree, but if you've played the game before you should know how to run to the AE building in Cap or grab a teleporter there. It isn't hard.
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No? If you don't have a travel power, you have to go through all of Mercy to get to the Port Oakes ferry, then change to the Cap ferry, then get through half of Cap. That's not exactly what I'd call easy at level 1. Not everyone joins an SG immediately--maybe there's no one on at midnight Pacific Time to invite you, or maybe you just don't want to accept the first blind SG invite you get.
"No boom *today*. Boom tomorrow. There's always boom tomorrow."
--Lt. Commander Susan Ivanova
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Starting a new alt in Atlas last night, I saw several newbie heroes (no vet badges) out on the streets battling Hellions and Vahzilok. They're not all being sucked into the AE building 
The only thing those of us who dislike AE can do right now is, when we do find a newbie venturing onto a regular team, try to make sure that they enjoy it and see that it is actually more fun when the enemies put up a fight. It's no good to anyone if they immediatly get chased back to the AE by the lrn2play crowd.
So go on, vets - round up 7 AE babies and take them on an ITF today!
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MMOs are about balance and even if you take farming out of the equation, AE is not balanced.
-Regular missions have contacts you have to earn/find, then continually travel to until you get their cell. AE puts the contact right next to you.
-Regular missions have doors that can be on the other end of the zone or even in another zone entirely. AE always has the door right next to you.
-If you want to go to the hospital in a regular mission it could put you hundreds of yards away from the mission door, the AE hospital always puts you right next to the mission door.
-Random missions give you random salvage and recipe drops. AE tickets allow you to more selectively choose your drops.
-If you're having to buy enhancements with influence you will have to find a vendor selling your Origin, then you'll have to wade through the sometimes oddly named inventory list (curse you Magic Origin). If you use AE tickets you travel a few feet to a single person who offers not only every type of regular enhancement, they even have a nifty menu that lets you select the type of enhancement you're looking for.
These are just a few of the examples of how convenient AE is compared to regular content. Why does AE not have ANY downfalls to balance all of its amazing features that dwarf the regular content?
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This person asked "why does it not have any of these disadvantages?"
I suggest that it would be better for everybody if the regular content were made more convenient. The hero SO stores are pointlessly inconvenient, and before AE the tendecy of doors to be locataed at distant locations in other zones already led many teams to use scanners as their primary content.
I've attempted to run the basic hero content before and it seriously is not an asset to the game as is. Not only that but it is just about solo exclusive beause it's hard to find people willing to do that rather than scanners or whatever.
And seriously, what was Atlas Park before? Sewer teams. Trying to get a PUG that will do the super inconvenient level 5 maps is hard to start with. The team is of little use to those who aren't the person getting the maps, and rarely are any of the team willing to stay long.
I think it would be worthwhile for the devs to go through those, some of which are pretty neat and would make cool team content, and bring gameplay up to villain standards. In any situation that makes sense to the story, move the doors to the same zone as the NPC. Most importantly, set them to give out phone numbers after 1 job.
I'd also give the newbies some sort of 1-hour charge self-rez that they can use until level 10.
That inconvenience was intended to keep people playing longer, but I think that most everyone would agree that removal of such annoyances, and opening content that many would not do otherwise, would do more for subscription times.
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Agreed. Annoyance as a game-balancing factor is a bad idea. I routinely auto-skip arcs that I've done at least once till I get the contacts cell and some of them don't give you their number till you have done a lot of missions for them. CoV handles this much better.
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MMOs are about balance and even if you take farming out of the equation, AE is not balanced.
-Regular missions have contacts you have to earn/find, then continually travel to until you get their cell. AE puts the contact right next to you.
-Regular missions have doors that can be on the other end of the zone or even in another zone entirely. AE always has the door right next to you.
-If you want to go to the hospital in a regular mission it could put you hundreds of yards away from the mission door, the AE hospital always puts you right next to the mission door.
-Random missions give you random salvage and recipe drops. AE tickets allow you to more selectively choose your drops.
-If you're having to buy enhancements with influence you will have to find a vendor selling your Origin, then you'll have to wade through the sometimes oddly named inventory list (curse you Magic Origin). If you use AE tickets you travel a few feet to a single person who offers not only every type of regular enhancement, they even have a nifty menu that lets you select the type of enhancement you're looking for.
These are just a few of the examples of how convenient AE is compared to regular content. Why does AE not have ANY downfalls to balance all of its amazing features that dwarf the regular content?
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In theory, this is all balanced by there being no "end of mission" reward in terms of XP/Influence/Prestige. In practice...not so much.
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The problem is that its too easy. No searching for what you need. Thats what ALL MMOs have. AE made the game very boring. I try to not play it but honestly, i think whats the point.
It made things too easy and if its easy... why do the difficult stuff unless you are bored and want the content?
If there were contacts around the city and you could set it to them,
or if you could set mission doors instead of the same door inside AE,
or maybe just you had to travel to the AE building in atlas for the first mish and then the AE building in Steel for the next part and so on. (whatever the creator designs it to be).
Castle, the numbers themselves are balanced here, yes but not the gameplay itself or the mentality of doing a mission.
This guy you quoted said it great. ITs exactly why I think AE is going to, in the end, be seen as a misstep rather than an achievement (way down the line).
Its cool doing original player contect but... its borign cuz its RIGHT THERE.... everything... you never have to really leave.
For the casual gamer, this hurts us. We want to do some missioning a few hours a week. The allure of having evertyhing there draws us in. We play our missinos in the one spot and thats it.
But we get bored much quicker and leave much quicker and play less.
Its kind of like PLing. If you PL a toon from 1 to 50 asap. A day, a week, a month, whatever; you get bored with that character much much much much much quicker than if you worked hard and played the game. I know I experienced this in the past.
The toons I end up playing for months, lvling up and stuff, are the ones I enjoy the most and keep me here.
With the xp curve and other stuff... its just too quick, for me anyways.
If I would have hit lvl 50 back when coh released, as fast as I do today, I would have stopped playing after a few months.
Instead I didnt hit 50 until a year and a half later. I leveled so, casual player but I LOVE that it took me that long now. It brought me all around the game and kept bringing me back cuz I "Had to learn the next skill/power" and "I have got to get high enough to try this".
It let left me anticipating all the fun stuff that was just out of reach and it made it so so so much sweeter to finally do.
Now its all too easy. Any new guy I make is... soon boring. I have a few toons I go out of my way to not level up. Which sucks and its not the same thing but i can tell its at least closer than to what it used to be for me than the alternative.
Anyways, personally hoping this is realized and addressed. If a game is too easy and quick, a person gets bored with it that much quicker.
Thats my rant. Got to get back to my computer (on a very old cruddy computer that cant do a single thing but minimal browsering and Word) and try and remove this really nasty virus that is kicking my tookus. Might not even be able to play the game for a while cuz of it. 
Thanks,
-Sin
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MMOs are about balance and even if you take farming out of the equation, AE is not balanced.
-Regular missions have contacts you have to earn/find, then continually travel to until you get their cell. AE puts the contact right next to you.
-Regular missions have doors that can be on the other end of the zone or even in another zone entirely. AE always has the door right next to you.
-If you want to go to the hospital in a regular mission it could put you hundreds of yards away from the mission door, the AE hospital always puts you right next to the mission door.
-Random missions give you random salvage and recipe drops. AE tickets allow you to more selectively choose your drops.
-If you're having to buy enhancements with influence you will have to find a vendor selling your Origin, then you'll have to wade through the sometimes oddly named inventory list (curse you Magic Origin). If you use AE tickets you travel a few feet to a single person who offers not only every type of regular enhancement, they even have a nifty menu that lets you select the type of enhancement you're looking for.
These are just a few of the examples of how convenient AE is compared to regular content. Why does AE not have ANY downfalls to balance all of its amazing features that dwarf the regular content?
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This person asked "why does it not have any of these disadvantages?"
I suggest that it would be better for everybody if the regular content were made more convenient. The hero SO stores are pointlessly inconvenient, and before AE the tendecy of doors to be locataed at distant locations in other zones already led many teams to use scanners as their primary content.
I've attempted to run the basic hero content before and it seriously is not an asset to the game as is. Not only that but it is just about solo exclusive beause it's hard to find people willing to do that rather than scanners or whatever.
And seriously, what was Atlas Park before? Sewer teams. Trying to get a PUG that will do the super inconvenient level 5 maps is hard to start with. The team is of little use to those who aren't the person getting the maps, and rarely are any of the team willing to stay long.
I think it would be worthwhile for the devs to go through those, some of which are pretty neat and would make cool team content, and bring gameplay up to villain standards. In any situation that makes sense to the story, move the doors to the same zone as the NPC. Most importantly, set them to give out phone numbers after 1 job.
I'd also give the newbies some sort of 1-hour charge self-rez that they can use until level 10.
That inconvenience was intended to keep people playing longer, but I think that most everyone would agree that removal of such annoyances, and opening content that many would not do otherwise, would do more for subscription times.
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Agreed. Annoyance as a game-balancing factor is a bad idea. I routinely auto-skip arcs that I've done at least once till I get the contacts cell and some of them don't give you their number till you have done a lot of missions for them. CoV handles this much better.
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You said it yourself, you skip arcs that youve done at least once.
You've already done them, so of course that inconvience bugs ya.
But I think if you did it for the first time and it was easy and uber convienant, you would have not enjoyed it as much and possibly not stuck with the game.
Of course this is speculation but there is the fact that you skip it AFTER you've done it at least once.
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I agree, but if you've played the game before you should know how to run to the AE building in Cap or grab a teleporter there. It isn't hard.
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No? If you don't have a travel power, you have to go through all of Mercy to get to the Port Oakes ferry, then change to the Cap ferry, then get through half of Cap. That's not exactly what I'd call easy at level 1. Not everyone joins an SG immediately--maybe there's no one on at midnight Pacific Time to invite you, or maybe you just don't want to accept the first blind SG invite you get.
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Villain side already has fewer zones and a more limited selection of beginning story arcs than Hero side does. Also, the AE building in Mercy? Not that easy to get to. Unless you're a stalker, your only safe option is to swim halfway around the entire island and come in via the ferry door, and hope you don't get killed in the dash to the AE building and tp'ed back to the medical facility in Darwin's Landing. I think that's plenty challenging without making low-level alrs go to Cap--which means making the Mercy run plus getting to the Cap ferry and to the actual AE building.
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No, it's not hard at all. I've run the dash to the MA buildings in Mercy and Cap on a level 1 SoA and dominator respectively. I run to the tailor all the time at lowbie levels to fix my costume or change something. If you can't duck the mobs stay out of MA until you learn how. I think that's a pretty good "must be this tall to ride" guideline.
I too have done the Kalinda and Burke content more than a few times and am sick of snakes too. I would rather run mine and some friends' arcs, hit level 5 or 10, and then head to Port Oaks or Cap to get a flight pack or jump pack and start playing the rest of the game. (And MA too. For me SFMAs are like candy, the canon of the game is regular food).
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The solution is simple. You know how EATs unlock at level 50, right?
Well, don't allow a new account to access AE until they get any single character to at least level 25. I think that's fair, and will give them time to learn the game. And I think 25 is just fine to open up access to AE.
Once you get a character to 25, then AE is unlocked for the whole account.
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I said this in the I15 thread, and was flamed for it, shame though, i thought it was a good idea
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/signed (with a caveat)
I'd open it at level 20.
However, I would also remove the AE buildings from the lowbie zones, remove the auto-SK feature, and I'd tie the level of missions available in the AE building to the zone. So:
<ul type="square">[*] You can't access AE until level 20 (or thereabouts).[*] No AE buildings in Atlas, Galaxy, or Kings Row.[*] You're not auto-sidekicked[*] The missions in the zone are appropriate to the zone in which the building resides[/list]
All this is with an eye towards getting new players to experience content outside of the AE building. It has nothing whatsoever to do with farming. Even removing the auto-sidekick feature is intended to do that (it helps to ensure that when a new player does get onto a team, it's appropriate to his or her level, and the player stays that way, unless a teammate sidekicks the player intentionally.)
It is a shame that we've reached this point. AE has so much potential, but the AE building in Atlas has just become an S&M club, and finding teams outside of AE is extraordinarily difficult the vast majority of the time (on Virtue even, with a wide array of different archetypes). I'm disturbed that new players get to level 50 in such an astonishingly short period of time without ever leaving the introductory zone, and have no further knowledge of any of the other zones in the game:
- Galaxy
- Perez Park
- The Hollows
- Kings Row
- Steel Canyon
- Skyway City
- Boomtown
- Independence Port
- Terra Volta
- Talos Island
- Dark Astoria
- Striga
- Croatoa
- Founders Falls
- Eden
- Brickstown
- Crey's Folly
- Rikti War Zone
- Peregrine Island
- Pocket D
- Oroborous
- Bloody Bay
- Siren's Call
- Warburg
- Recluse's Victory
- The Abyss
- Cap au Diable
- Grandville
- Mercy Island
- Nerva Archipelago
- Port Oakes
- St. Martial
- Sharkhead Isle
Then let's talk about all the enemies they may be missing out on because they haven't moved out of Atlas (or Cap):
- Arachnoids
- Arachnos
- Axis America
- Banished Pantheon
- Bat'Zul
- The Cabal
- Cage Consortium Guards
- Cap au Diable Demons
- Carnival of Shadows
- Cimeroran Traitors
- Cimerorans
- Circle of Thorns
- Civic Squad
- Clockwork
- Contaminated
- Coralax
- Council
- Council Empire
- Crazed
- Crey
- Devouring Earth
- Dockworkers
- Escaped Prisoner
- The Family
- Fir Bolg
- Freakshow
- Freedom Phalanx
- Generic Heroes
- Ghosts
- Gold Brickers
- Hamidon
- Hellions
- Hydra
- Independents
- Infected
- Knives of Artemis
- Krylov's Creations
- Lanaruu
- Legacy Chain
- Longbow
- The Lost
- Loyalists
- Luddites
- Malta Operatives
- Midnight Squad
- Minions of Igneous
- Mooks
- Nemesis
- Nemesis Automatons
- Nictus
- Outcasts
- Paragon Heroes
- Paragon Police Department
- Paragon Protectors
- Prison Guard
- Prisoners
- Psychic Clockwork
- Red Caps
- Rikti
- Rogue Arachnos
- Rogue Island Police
- Rogue Isles Villains
- Rogue Robots
- Scrapyarders
- Security Guards
- Shadow Shard Reflections
- Shivans
- Skulls
- Sky Raiders
- Slag Golems
- Snakes
- Soldiers of Rularuu
- Spectral Pirates
- Spetsnaz Commandos
- User:StarGeek/Nemesis
- Trolls
- Tsoo
- Tuatha de Dannan
- Turrets
- Undead Enemies
- Vahzilok
- Vanguard Sword
- Vindicators
- Void Hunters
- W.I.S.D.O.M.
- Wailers
- Warriors
- Werewolves
- Winter Horde
- Wyvern
If new players are missing out on all this content, then yes, by all means we need to do something about it. Soon. I don't care if it's my suggestion, or something else entirely. But keeping them locked up in the introductory zone where they never encounter any of the zones or factions available outside of it is a Monumentally Bad Idea.
Anyway, that's my two cents.
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I'm guessing you played with her on Freedom?
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It's on Virtue too. I'm pretty sure it's everywhere at this point. AE doesn't discriminate apparently -_- something about equal opportunity (skewed at that). Sure I could solo, sure I could try and form my own team. The case being maybe I'm not in the mood for a Taskforce/Strikeforce, or not in the mood to solo, or maybe I (or by example someone else) just got in from work and simply isn't in a leading mood. Should they suffer for these reasons and be forced to join an AE team (most of the time as a fram member) just to have teamage period? No. Not everyone has a hard time finding a team. But as I have seen more often than not nowadays, people being more specific over what they want on a team (i.e. H34lzors *rolls eyes* or kin this kin that yata yata. And I'm not saying this is a new problem, just a worse one). Now as I have plenty of defenders (emp and kin) I don't have anything against the AT's but by god there are more out there (and I only used those 2 as an example for this, so calm down), and I -DO- often find it VERY hard to find something for these (other) characters (say Trick Arrow, god forbid I cant heal you or rez you, say). I feel AE has skewed alot of perspective on what's effective, and I find the majority that value just about any AT/Powersets are most often not of the new player base.
I quite often prefer teams, which is part of my frustration here, and am not always up to being Ms. Leader Extroardinare (I'm kinda the follow type LOL which is probably part of my problem though), nor am I always up for a TF/SF, as casual teamage can be and is nice. And I don't mean AE casual. Old content/non flashback casual.
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With AE in Atlas and Galaxy, there is very suddenly a mix of experienced players with high level characters, experienced players with new characters, and inexperienced players with new characters. The inexperience players get thrust into activities the more experienced players are doing via AE missions.
A frequent groupmate told me yesterday he was grouping with a level 6 Kheld in King's Row doing newspaper missions. The Kheld was a new player. He'd started less than two weeks before. He was ecstatic to learn that there were other zones in the game and other stuff to do other than AE missions. He didn't know what a Taskforce or a Safeguard mission were.
This guy got really shortchanged by his new player experience. He fell in with a group of high-level players who power-leveled him to 50. His initial impression of the game is that you go into the Atlas AE bulding and never come out.
What changes should we make to avoid this kind of bad NPE?
I'd like to avoid debate topics here that should go into the farming thread. I want to exclusively focus on what steps can, should, and should not be taken to make Atlas and Galaxy more friendly and more conducive to hooking and landing new players.
If you were going to change things about the zones, what would you do?
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Now I have to agree with MOO on the state of some of these new players, as it's getting a bit ridiculous. Yes, there is always going to be PL of some kind, and my view on this is biased as alot of my 50's were leveled with regular teams and Taskforces/Strikforces (including my first), and some others a bit faster. However, the fact that people are so willing to miss out on learning so damn much their first time through, (story content and game dynamics and...and so much more) upsets me. AE didn't really bother me much at first, but now it's startin to wear a little. Teaching new players isn't all bad, don't get me wrong but as in that case when you have an Epic AT not knowing what some basic things are, something needs to be re-evaluated IMO. At any rate, it's the PL'ed players loss for missing so much. Some may become decent players, and some dream to be l33t PL'ers or whatever, but the experience with them can still be extremely daunting. AE was a good idea, but it's frustrating how it's turned out. (I've seen some pretty fun arcs though =D )
Anyway, I think taking the AE building out of Atlas and maybe even Galaxy (Cap is a bit tough as its kinda a hub zone, although it's no less annoying to have there) may be a good start. *shrug* Would make it less cluttered for the newbies/lowbies to find eachother. And it may even encourage new players to -learn more- before finding the location of one ;p
Or to be even more strict, actually ENFORCE the set level of said AE missions. No auto sk'ing say. Like a TF/SF that it supposedly sets you up similar to. That'd be harsh, and would make people sad, but *shrug*. I'm sure others thought of it first.
p.s. No I haven't read the entire thread, and I know my post is a little late, but I felt I should add my 2 cents to this anyway. Take it as you will. *shrug*
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AE buildings out of Atlas, Galaxy and King's Row, yesterday.
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And Mercy, Port Oakes, Peregrine Isle and Grandville. Also, any zone it makes no sense to have a "public entertainment facility" in... such as the Rikti War Zone.
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OK so AE in Pocket D DOES make sense huh? lol as that's a public entertainment area *hides from the D'ers* That way the RP'ers could have their custom RP missions AND their precious D all in one place!! OK...I'm really done.....lol
</sarcasm> 
I think level gating AE and removing the auto-SK is a mistake and this is why:
Auto-SK is a big feature of MA. The ability to have mixed level teams facilitates teaming in a way that PUGing and TFing never can. "Bring whatever you like!"
Level-gating won't stop AE farming and PLing. Established players already have the level required characters. Determined new players will very quickly get them. The time needed to code this is wasted before it is even begun and it will only frustrate and bewilder players who see a double standard.
Slash and burn shouldn't be the first step. Don't nuke from orbit to be sure, you might kill your playerbase's interest in MA entirely. Take a measured approach. Get the AE buildings out of the lowbie zones first; this hurts no one and gets them out of the impact on new players and stops the constant PL/farm bombardment the minute they step out of the tutorial.
Wait and see the effect on the game before taking further steps. At least think in less drastic terms than "throw the baby out with the bathwater."
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Slash and burn shouldn't be the first step. Don't nuke from orbit to be sure, you might kill your playerbase's interest in MA entirely. Take a measured approach. Get the AE buildings out of the lowbie zones first; this hurts no one and gets them out of the impact on new players and stops the constant PL/farm bombardment the minute they step out of the tutorial.
Wait and see the effect on the game before taking further steps. At least think in less drastic terms than "throw the baby out with the bathwater."
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I do agree with that though.
However I prefer to channel Stewie Griffin for this response *clears throat*
"The ruptured capillaries in your nose belie the clarity of your wisdom. "
Edited for humor >.>
Automatically remove the /b and /AE channels from the filters on creation. Let people figure out the chat system before letting people snag them into it through spam.
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I disagreed with most of this thread.
Then I did an AE team this morning. Lot of bad players there with no Vet badges who didn't care what nonsense they spouted. Thankfully, there were a couple of Vets.
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I think level gating AE and removing the auto-SK is a mistake and this is why:
Auto-SK is a big feature of MA. The ability to have mixed level teams facilitates teaming in a way that PUGing and TFing never can. "Bring whatever you like!"
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The ability to Auto-SK also opens up a larger variety of content for people looking to do Story-focused arcs. Players don't have to stick to content of your level, and authors don't have to use the largest level range possible to get a decent number of eligible players. Setting an arc's level to 40-54 is like slapping a warning sign on it: "This is epic, it's a challenge designed for high-level players, lowbies enter at your own risk." It allows the author to up the difficulty, while still allowing lower level players to risk it, if they choose.
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Mrs. Moo wanted to play a new scrapper this evening, so I rolled up a cold defender that I'd had an idea for. We went through the tutorial and then went to Atlas Park, simply for ease of travel to various locations. Usually we'd go to Galaxy to avoid the zone spam.
As we leveled to 5 (in a level pact), I heard several things that really bothered me. Most them would go in the farming thread, but a couple things really stood out:
"Looking for a team to fight enemies that hit back!"
and
"Aren't there any people here my level to team with? Where do I need to go to team with people under level 5?"
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Last night there were higher levels complaining about too many lowbies in Atlas. As if the Lowbies should level their starting zone to make the 35+ happy. Makes me wonder if the 35+ knew they could go to RWZ and not have any lowbies at all.
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Last night there were higher levels complaining about too many lowbies in Atlas. As if the Lowbies should level their starting zone to make the 35+ happy. Makes me wonder if the 35+ knew they could go to RWZ and not have any lowbies at all.
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That's just flippin' ridiculous...
"City of Heroes. April 27, 2004 - August 31, 2012. Obliterated not with a weapon of mass destruction, not by an all-powerful supervillain... but by a cold-hearted and cowardly corporate suck-up."
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I don't think AE needs to be level-gated or moved out of the low-level zones. If you want to head there at level 1, go for it.
My suggestion to expand the tutorial would allow an improved new player experience without impacting veteran players at all. Let new players to level up higher and learn more about the game before throwing them into the chaos of the regular zones.
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Its the attitude of some people, always trying to say that theirs is the only truth, and that their vision of the game is sacred and cant be stained by the AE. People that "decide" that they "know" whats best for everyone.
Thats what makes me sick.
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I see people expressing an opinion, but I haven't seen anyone state that their beliefs represent objective truth.
Perhaps the sickness came from what you had for dinner? 
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But the fact remains is that whether you agree or not, this is a real problem for the long term health of the game.
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So is that an objective opinion or objectve truth, cause i thought fact ment it was a truth?
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You win. I misspoke. I'm going to go back to arguing about the topic.
The City of Heroes Community is a special one and I will always look fondly on my times arguing, discussing and playing with you all. Thanks and thanks to the developers for a special experience.
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I would definitely want to see Architect buildings removed from any zone under level 10. This means Atlas Park, Galaxy City, King's Row, Mercy Island and Port Oaks. People keep citing "But I've done it levelventy billion times!" and conveniently forget that the POINT of this is to keep NEW people from getting sucked into the cycle of powerlevelling to 50. Missing good developer-made content? You betcha! As amazing as it may seem, not everyone is a five-year veteran who's seen everything a zillion times over. Some people, and indeed the people we need to do the most for, are brand new to the game, looking for a cool new game that's worth $15 a month to play. Is anyone here seriously suggesting that the first thing they should be exposed to is a grinding farm to 50? Seriously?
I've said it before and I'll say it again - I don't want to meddle in other people's affairs. You want to farm and grind, go for it. I do NOT, however, want this to be the public face of the game that all new players get to see. I don't want them to think that that's all there is to the game, because there isn't. This is becoming seriously hurtful to the game, and at this point I DO want to meddle in other people's business because this is NOT what new players should be seeing. It cannot be said enough times.
I believe putting an Architect building in EVERY DAMN ZONE was a mistake, specifically since you can't do cross-building arcs anyway. In very much the same way, I believe putting half a dozen Merit Vendors in every zone and at every location one might stop at was a mistake, as well. There's no need for these things to be all over the place and in everybody's face.
Putting the Architect buildings in higher-level zones does nothing to keep the "jaded veterans" from getting to them, as anyone who's been here for a while can get to, say, mid-town Steel Canyon or up to Cap Au Diable. It takes a bit of practice, but that's what you get by playing the game a lot. What you accomplish, however, is keeping the broadcast spam and the constant invitations to "AE Farms" out of the way of new players until they've gotten at least SOME feel for the game.
Let 50s farm all they want. Let 50-month vets powerlevel their alts to their hearts' content. But keep them AWAY from new players to the game.
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Well put.
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I see people expressing an opinion, but I haven't seen anyone state that their beliefs represent objective truth.
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I take it you haven't visited the Farming Thread then? =P
sorta on topic, it's all one game and AE isn't a problem except as a flashpoint for dev temper tantrums and overreactions.
Old timers played one game, uphill both ways in the snow and all that. Newbies play a different game where they can level in catered luxury if they like. If not, hey the rest of the game is still out there waiting.
The game has been migrating away from the "level 1-50 in our linear model" for a good while now. AE is just the next stone in the path of a much more free-form experience.
The devs explicitly stated that leveling 1-50 was one of the design goals of AE. They put AE buildings in starting zones. They want people using it, they want new players using it, they want new players and longtime players teaming up, they aren't concerned if someone spends their whole 'career' in the AE building.
I don't see much meat on the bones of the "omg ae is ruining things' argument beyond a nostalgic fixation on how a lot of us veterans are used to playing.
It's new, it's different, and a lot of people prefer it to the 'real' way to play. That isn't a bug, it's a feature.
The Nethergoat Archive: all my memories, all my characters, all my thoughts on CoH...eventually.
My City Was Gone
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I would definitely want to see Architect buildings removed from any zone under level 10. This means Atlas Park, Galaxy City, King's Row, Mercy Island and Port Oaks. People keep citing "But I've done it levelventy billion times!" and conveniently forget that the POINT of this is to keep NEW people from getting sucked into the cycle of powerlevelling to 50. Missing good developer-made content? You betcha! As amazing as it may seem, not everyone is a five-year veteran who's seen everything a zillion times over. Some people, and indeed the people we need to do the most for, are brand new to the game, looking for a cool new game that's worth $15 a month to play. Is anyone here seriously suggesting that the first thing they should be exposed to is a grinding farm to 50? Seriously?
I've said it before and I'll say it again - I don't want to meddle in other people's affairs. You want to farm and grind, go for it. I do NOT, however, want this to be the public face of the game that all new players get to see. I don't want them to think that that's all there is to the game, because there isn't. This is becoming seriously hurtful to the game, and at this point I DO want to meddle in other people's business because this is NOT what new players should be seeing. It cannot be said enough times.
I believe putting an Architect building in EVERY DAMN ZONE was a mistake, specifically since you can't do cross-building arcs anyway. In very much the same way, I believe putting half a dozen Merit Vendors in every zone and at every location one might stop at was a mistake, as well. There's no need for these things to be all over the place and in everybody's face.
Putting the Architect buildings in higher-level zones does nothing to keep the "jaded veterans" from getting to them, as anyone who's been here for a while can get to, say, mid-town Steel Canyon or up to Cap Au Diable. It takes a bit of practice, but that's what you get by playing the game a lot. What you accomplish, however, is keeping the broadcast spam and the constant invitations to "AE Farms" out of the way of new players until they've gotten at least SOME feel for the game.
Let 50s farm all they want. Let 50-month vets powerlevel their alts to their hearts' content. But keep them AWAY from new players to the game.
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Well put.
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...indeed =X
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AE buildings out of Atlas, Galaxy and King's Row, yesterday.
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To say I'm shocked is an understatement. But I'm shocked to say I completely 100% absolutely agree with Bad_Influence. 
But it's MY sadistic mechanical monster and I'm here to make sure it knows it. - Girl Genius
List of Invention Guides
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[u]The devs need to find a reason to make players want to come out of the farms, many will always take the path of least resistance[u], the question becomes how watered down do we want the standard game to become to achieve the goal of playing as intended?
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Correct. The answer is for AE not to be the path of least resistance. Someone above put it quite well. Take out the farms and AE is still providing outsized rewards because you can just sit in that building and never leave, except maybe to vendor/craft if you use IOs.
I'm not saying nerf AE rewards into the ground, but I AM saying recognize that normal content is at a disadvantage right now. The normal content provided a fair leveling experience. AE is the new thing. Nerf it, so that it provides a reasonable leveling experience.
If you want to kill bosses all day, that's cool. But give then them less exp so that it's no better than fighting a normal exp rich mission on Invincible.
The City of Heroes Community is a special one and I will always look fondly on my times arguing, discussing and playing with you all. Thanks and thanks to the developers for a special experience.
Here's a simple idea...put the AE buildings in the pvp zones only. Then everyone with anger management issues about farming, newbies, etc..can just beat the snot out them when they leave the AE buildings.
And well the devs want people to try PvP...
My level 50 Dominators:
Madame Mindbender 50 Mind/Energy
Fly Agaric 50 Plant/Thorn
Nate Nitro 50 Fire/Psi