Remove AE!

Ok,i cant take anymore of the game play iv been experiancing latly.

Iv only got so long to play a day,due to daily life,a job,and other concerns.Im about to name off all the problems stemming from the addition of AE to the game.(my personal complaints,and what iv seen)

Ok,its pretty bad when you go and make a new Hero or Villian to play,and when iv made a Scrapper recently,i didnt look for AE missions,but at the same time,i have been on 5 diffrent sewer teams in the last 3 days,and all of them fell apart.Sometimes shortly after the first 3 mobs of the sewer.My Scrapper is lvl 6.Thats annoying.

Its even been voiced by atleast 3 people out of those doomed teams,that say,"Forget this,im gonna go do AE!".Thats there excuse for not working with the rest of the team,they see no merit in a mission lesser then a AE mission.

Thats starting to bug me.

On top of that,Atlas is now a haven for the worste lag iv ever seen in this game becuase soo many people are at the AE building,that we need a Atlas 2.

The Hollows are now HOLLOW,Skyway is empty 99% of the time,Steel Canyon is all but unpopulated for most the day,as well as most other map areas.

Trying to get a regular team going now,is close to impossible now.I dont mind soloing,but,theres a limit to just how much soloing you really want to do,no matter who you are.

When i finally do get on a team with ANY of my characters,i find that the team is roughly 4-6 players,and after 1 mission,half the team leaves....whats the point?!Sometimes the entire team breaks off,due to boredom or AE.

Theres also been a couple things iv noticed that have just urked me to no end...here this senerio i went through just yesterday.

Im running along in Atlas on my newby Scrapper,and im fighting,the next thing i know...another player...a level 1,asks me where to go for the trainer.heres how it goes...

"Excuse me,but where do i go to level up?"

(me) "You goto the trainer here in Atlas,look for a Ms. Liberty"

"Where is that at?Can you show me?"

(me) "Open your map,youll see a dot that will say her name,its towards the middle of the map"

"Well,can you just show me?"

(at this point,im thinking,"ok,its a new player,ill show them,i remember my first time on this game,i couldnt find anything",and so i take him to the Atlas Trainer)

(me) "ok,here you go,talk to this girl,and youll be able to train up your levels here"

"Thank you for the help!"

At this point,im finishing up dinner,and i go AFk for a few minutes.I finish up cooking,come back,and i get a /tell.its the same new player that i brought to the trainer,he was asking me where he should go now since he has trained.i said well,open your map,find a red dot,that says the Hollows,and he tells me he found it,then i told him id meet him there.I get to the Hollows gate in Atlas,where he is waiting,and i click his name,and i see a 50 by it.....

By this point,im acctually jealous and a bit ticked off.Here is a new player,that on his first freaking day,dings lvl 50,without knowing a single thing about the game,its content,and is now on the other side of his computer screen looking at me asking where to go,and what to do now.

I was rather pissed off,and i simply turned off my computer,and picked up a book,and read for the next couple hours before bed.

There was never a problem getting onto a team in this game,and there was certainly never a problem learning things in the game,becuase if you wanted it,YOU HAD TO WORK FOR IT!

Now days,thats simply not true.Im a well seasoned player,and iv been off and on since CoV Edition hit the shelves,i havnt been here since beta,or since just the CoH half of the game,i started up when Viallians came along.

I have a 2 year vet account,and this is my 6 month account.I dont even know everything about the game,and i certainly havnt exsperianced all the content yet either.

AE needs to get dropped off the map...completly..Its a flawed creation engine inside a game.The idea of making your own missions is great,but its destroying the community of this game,and bringing people who just want levels,and have no clue how to play the game.They will get bored,and leave the game.Leave for some other online game that hasnt hit rock bottom.

All games make a fatal Mistake,and this is one of those moments when a fatal mistake has been struck.AE will kill the game.Take it out like a splinter,and the game will start to go back to normal.none of the changes iv seen that have occured in this game before AE,have had this huge of a impact.

I have enjoyed this game over some time,i cant always play it,and i just want my favorite video game back.....and im not the only person that feels this way.There are tons more problems happening becuase of AE,other then what iv just listed.So here is the bottom line...

TAKE AE OUT OF THE GAME!!

/jra.....

oh wait we can't do that any more.


*weeps*

Sometimes the following will work: want to form a TF or regular misison team? No problem.

Go to Atlas. Broadcast: "Regular mission team forming levels 12-15, give me a shout if you want invite."

You will probably be surprised at how many people who are bored of standing around trying to get onto an AE farm will respond. This also works well for upper-level task forces.

It is true that forming a regular team in your zone of choice is going to be tough these days. So don't. Go to Atlas, the *only* zone in the entire blueside game now.

[And yes, I view that as a problem but we have other threads devoted to that]

Man.....i remember back in my day...we didnt have to run all the way back to Atlas to grab people who might not stay in team long enough to travel several city maps to play a single mission.

POST IN THE OTHER 1300 THREADS ALREADY!

Thank you. That is all.

You can always join a global channel for your server and run with them.

Or, if you're dead-set on teaming, start your own team from people hanging around the AE and run story (non-farming) arcs. There's quite a few decent storylines in there.

With all the people complaining that there's no one running non-farms, you should be able to find people to team with.

Personally, I run Scrappers and Brutes, with the occasional Blaster, Corruptor or MM thrown in, so I don't really get the allure of teaming. But hopefully you will get whatever will make you the happiest.

I always suggest getting out of Atlas Park ASAP. Start in GC and head for higher ground as levels permit.

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Sometimes the following will work: want to form a TF or regular misison team? No problem.

Go to Atlas. Broadcast: "Regular mission team forming levels 12-15, give me a shout if you want invite."

You will probably be surprised at how many people who are bored of standing around trying to get onto an AE farm will respond. This also works well for upper-level task forces.

It is true that forming a regular team in your zone of choice is going to be tough these days. So don't. Go to Atlas, the *only* zone in the entire blueside game now.

[And yes, I view that as a problem but we have other threads devoted to that]

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Yep, the above works quite well. I have done it many times and always been able to grab up team members that way. If you get an AE baby this way they may need a little guidance & coaching, but I've never minded doing that.

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Skyway is empty 99% of the time

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I can see what you're talking about. That's quite an increase from the 96% of the time it was empty before AE came along.



(Was on a successful sewer team today -- they're not forming every 3 seconds like in the past, but we still made it all the way to King's Row and everyone got to level 8.)

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All games make a fatal Mistake,and this is one of those moments when a fatal mistake has been struck.AE will kill the game.Take it out like a splinter,and the game will start to go back to normal.none of the changes iv seen that have occurred in this game before AE,have had this huge of a impact.

....

TAKE AE OUT OF THE GAME!!

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There has been an on rush of like threads. Here's one in regards to new player and lower level issues ::

https://boards.cityofheroes.com/show...4284&page=

My solution to resolve some of theses issues is posted here ::

https://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthre...SID=&fpart=

I'm virulently anti-farmer at this point and I think Farming needs to be stopped as quickly as possible and as much as possible. I agree that the quickest fix is to yank out the AE all together.

I think that the MA in conception is a great idea, but it has become primarily a Tool of Exploitation. As it is not working as designed, it's time to pull it until it can work as designed - so maybe have it on the Test Server only for a while and see how that effects game play. (Yes, I have a pretty good idea of what that will do. The Test Server will become :: https://boards.cityofheroes.com/show...page=&vc=1 ) But then, at least, we can see if they City can recover from the devastating effects of the AE.

Honestly, I'm at the point now that I'm seeing some pieces of a puzzle falling together that I don't want to see come to be.

I made an MA Arc based on what I've seen go on in the past -
DEV d'Arc [232506] - basically an evolution of the game.

But what is dawning on me now is an even more sinister conclusion to the time stream than that.

What if this really is the end of this game?
What if once Champions Online goes live, this game has a massive exodus because so many people are tired of farming here and want to play actually play a "super hero" game without farming and switch to Champions Online?
What if that exodus is so crippling that CoX comes to an end?
What if some of the DEVs from Paragon Studios are suddenly re-employed by Cryptic?

It's a paranoid conspiracy theory, but then so is DEV d'Arc - However, up to my re-editing of the first mission to add in "farming" as a critical part of the final down fall - all the rest of it is pretty much what has gone on, and that is pretty much a conspiracy by Cryptic to make a new superhero game to replace City of Heroes even before they left working to work on one.

I love this game and have invested a lot of time, energy, and creativity into playing this great game.
It is not the "perfect" super hero game. I do think that "Champions the RPG" Online with a "farm-free" mission interface would have had a chance at being that. Champions Online is not that by any far stretch of the meaning as it does not include the mechanics (Which some till call the "Hero Systems" but actually originated in Champions The RPG :: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Champio...-playing_game) ) which is exactly what made "Champions the RPG" the stand-out and excellent game that it was (I haven't seen the new versions so I won't say "is", but I know that it was up to the first hardbound ... at least). Instead Champions Online uses the archetype structure, plus some minor power purchasing system due to all the complaints about it not being true to the original RPG. Of course, their take on why it is "Champions" Online is because it has the "Champions the RPG" Signature Characters. Now they add micro transactions for an increasing level of greed. So it goes.
DCUO, of course, is also coming along to abduct citizens from the City. I for one find the only reason to play a DC Comics based game on the ability to play characters that are DC characters or to join DC super groups at the very least (JLA, Green Lantern Corps, JSA, Teen Titans, Legion of Super-heroes, etc.). I don't think this is the case. It appears that you can't start out as a Kryptonian or a Green Lantern let alone be part of a DC staple superhero group. So I have to say, is my dream of being a superhero really to be a lesser hero in a world of supers?
To some extent I have those complaints about these same things with City of Heroes. By and large, I do the same thing that I did when I was playing "Champions the RPG" - I act like the Signature characters never existed. It is about us. It isn't about the Signature characters. Why? Because WE aren't PLAYING the Signature Characters. If it was a platform game then we would be PLAYING the Signature Characters, and, therefore, it is obvious why they are in/part of the game.
So that's the flaw. It's a critical flaw for DCUO. It was a critical flail for Champions Online to keep the Signature Characters and throw out the system.
By and large, WE in the CITY no longer care about the Signature Characters. WE are what makes the CITY super. Or WE did.
Now the City is falling into ruins. Outside of the digital world of AE the streets run rampant with crimes. Farmers farm the digital world and become powerful digital heroes with no "real world" skills and come out brain-washed and not knowing how to get to a train or to travel to other zones in the City.

Yes. I will be here to the bitter end probably, but it does seem like the end times ... or at least a crippling blow that will allow at least Champions Online and maybe DCUO a good chance to lure a far greater percentage of players away to experience their games and possibly switch to them for good.

It will be a bitter end when it comes, because MA is the mechanic that could have launched this game so far ahead that others couldn't have caught up.

It's really a shame. CoX was already King of the super MMORPGs. Apparently, some people didn't realize that.

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I agree that the quickest fix is to yank out the AE all together.

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Yeah, there was no farming before AE!



Oh, wait.

We've been saving Paragon City for eight and a half years. It's time to do it one more time.

You have some interesting ideas to reduce/remove the farming problem. I just don't agree with all of them.
Perhaps a few major revamps are in order, because the minor steps they have already taken have proven as succesful as spitting in the river to watch the tide rise.

Remove the AE altogether? No, I'd rather not see the baby thrown out with the bathwater. Selfishly, I'd rather not have wasted the time I spent writing, editing and re-writing the stories I published.
I was unhappy about the "X number of players have rated your arc" badges getting pulled, but they did that already.

Remove XP/Inf/rewards from the AE? Not if they want anyone to use it, other than such a tiny amount that it wouldn't be worth it. It's supposed to be an alternate method to level to L50. Not L1-L50 in a few hours, but eventually.

Crack down on AE farming by banning? If they are doing to do another round of bans, then they will have to do a lot of banning, or don't even bother.

ANOTHER [censored] THREAD?!

Yep. There weren't enough of them.

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ANOTHER [censored] THREAD?!

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Well duh. Starting your own thread gives you the maximum amount of lewt!

We've been saving Paragon City for eight and a half years. It's time to do it one more time.

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ANOTHER [censored] THREAD?!

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Well duh. Starting your own thread gives you the maximum amount of lewt!

[/ QUOTE ]You not only get your own post count padded by one, but by the number of replies as well.



+1

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I agree that the quickest fix is to yank out the AE all together.

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Yellow is not a slimming color for an idea that bloated with idiocy.

Two comments here:

1st: Sewer teams are EXACTLY like AE teams. They are teams that want fast levelling through great xp. Only it happens in the sewers not in the AE. For 5 years I've never understood sewer teams: fast xp of course, but multiple deaths and incompetent players most of the time.And now, I don't understand why AE is worse than sewers.

2nd: If you don't want to play in the AE, ignore it. I've got a bunch of characters that I've created after AE went live, and I've played them exactly like I did before: grind to 5 in Atlas, then move to KR and do newspapers and arcs.

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I agree that the quickest fix is to yank out the AE all together.

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Yellow is not a slimming color for an idea that bloated with idiocy.

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Agreed. I guess I just haven't seen the devastation of Paragon City that others have -- and I don't even play on Freedom that much.

Sometimes I think the anti-AE crowd fixates on the farming aspect because it can best be portrayed as a big negative (and I can agree that the extreme PLing can be, to a certain extent).

However, a nice big chunk of us who use AE never farm/PL; we enjoy creating our own content and playing other creative player content (as well as dev content).

Only the devs know for sure, but I'd be willing to bet that the positives outweigh the negatives for the AE's impact on the game.

There is room for tweaking, for sure (as with any new features). But the angst some people on the forums show just goes 'way overboard. Forums do tend toward drama, I guess.

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Two comments here:

1st: Sewer teams are EXACTLY like AE teams. They are teams that want fast levelling through great xp. Only it happens in the sewers not in the AE. For 5 years I've never understood sewer teams: fast xp of course, but multiple deaths and incompetent players most of the time.And now, I don't understand why AE is worse than sewers.

2nd: If you don't want to play in the AE, ignore it. I've got a bunch of characters that I've created after AE went live, and I've played them exactly like I did before: grind to 5 in Atlas, then move to KR and do newspapers and arcs.

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Exactly.

Sometimes I think that the main problem people have is that it is now harder to get:

1. Sewer (farm) teams.
2. Newspaper/Police band (farm) teams.
3. TF/SF teams to do (farm) the same content over and over again.

For the record: I've never touched the sewers; always seemed too much like farming for me. I do radio mission for fun, but generally until I get the safeguard for that zone, then don't do them there anymore. Don't feel like farming them. I rarely do TFs/SFs. Just don't enjoy them.

So what are my main areas of play? Dev mission arcs and AE mission arcs.

I won't lie, I'm not a fan of AE and I really don't like any mechanic that lets someone get a toon to level 50 in a matter of hours. I haven't liked it in any MMO I've played, yet it continues to be something that happens in every MMO that I've played.

People say let people do what they want, play how they want, let them be etc... that's fine. It doesn't mean I will agree if I feel it is something that is out of balance compared to regular gameplay.

As you said its the Devs decision where to call the shots, but as long as people perceive an unfair advantage they will continue being vocal. The same thing happened in WoW when they tried to fundamentally change the Warlock class and how they mitigated damage compared to their HP ratio. There were tons of people outraged on the forums over it.

Forums do tend to be dramatic, with lots of opinions and perceptions about how things are or should be. The example I posted above about how people react demonstrates that pretty well.

Post deleted by MunkiLord

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I'm virulently anti-farmer at this point and I think Farming needs to be stopped as quickly as possible and as much as possible.

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Alt, this is never going to happen. It is in fact not even possible.

When you finally find that perfect MMORPG with NO farming anywhere at any time, please do pop back in and let us know which one it is. I think we will be waiting a while, since my understanding is that in other MMOs, farming is much worse than it is in CoX.

Good luck tilting at windmills, Don Quixote.

you know whats funny about people complaining that they cant find sewer teams because of ae? i run the regular contacts and was annoyed way back that everyone was in the frelling sewer and I couldnt get a normal mission team together. I beleive a canadian former child star has something to say about this. I still find teams, and maybe they are better quality with some of the less serious players screwing around with ae nonsense. or maybe not, either way i find fun groups, and thats worth it for me.

Take the Magic: The Gathering 'What Color Are You?' Quiz.

AE won't be removed, or given the nerfing it so richly deserves (removing the auto-sk and/or reducing/removing Xp)because way too much time and effort has been put into it for the Devs to be ready to declare it a failure. That, and people are now buying extra story slots, with real money.

That said, I'm absolutely certain that AE will be nerfed into oblivion before Going Rogue is released. Perhaps Tyrant will tap into Dr. Aeon's power sources and open up his invasion portals inside the AE buildings - leaving nothing but smouldering craters surrounded by bemused noobs who don't know where to go next

*Points the Door to the OP*

If you cant take it... thats the way.