AE is not ruining the game...(moved from I-15 C&D
By
Allstar_Guard,
Posted on: 2009-07-13 14:39 in Suggestions and Ideas
And again: you'll never get a barter-only system to work with people on a large scale. Never. Bartering takes far too much effort and attention, because the list of possible things is very, very large. Especially compared to auctioneering, which really only trades directly between item and currency, currency and item. With bartering, you'll instead have to go item to some number of items or some number of items to some other number of items.
In a small community, bartering systems work, because values are more or less common and accepted. No such thing exists amongst populations as large or diverse as a player community.
Also, bartering only truly works if buyers are buying things they cannot themselves produce. Given the option of either being only able to barter or to simply produce themselves, people will choose to just produce it themselves. This is, again, due to bartering simply taking more effort or requiring a common concept of value. Currency is easy to understand, as we use it practically daily.
So if people start only producing for themselves, with perhaps the odd barter here or there when the moons align just right, guess what's going to happen? Just to get to the levels where people are at even now, players will have to resort to higher ticket drop rates to get what they want, as they are forced to try to get what they want by going it alone.
This can only lead to a few possible outcomes:
1) people go back to the ol' SO or basic IO routine;
2) people feel even more justified to farm;
3) the devs drop reward costs greatly so that everybody has at least a chance of getting what they want.
None of those sound like ideas that are going to fly well, either with the community or with the devs--generally both. Even option 3 basically leads to higher burn out numbers, as it gives upper-level characters less to strive for.
As for the MA itself, I can only really suggest a small number of things:
1) keep closing those exploits, devs;
2) get rid of auto-SK--it's not really necessary, and having it greatly assists in PLing;
3) make the random arc button visible at the top level instead of two clicks in;
4) give incentive to use that random button, like an extra few percentage chance of ticket drops if the arc was chosen via the random button;
5) penalise repeated running of the same arc over and over in a 24 hr period (not sure if this might already be implemented) via diminishing returns a la TFs/SFs.
These suggestions come from a few things I've noticed about the MA:
1) exploitable enemies are exploitable (duh) and need to be fixed as found regardless;
2) mass PLing does more damage than farming to the in-game economy--farming, to some degree, is actually beneficial to the market, as it creates supply, especially considering particular recipes cannot themselves be bought, just random rolls or salvage;
3) there is a severe lack of playable low-level MA content;
4) most people's arcs are never played because there's no incentive to. It's important to give incentive for players to explore other people's creations;
5) in the event of people using the random button until exploitable content shows up, well...see 1), but it should still slow things down a bit for those who try to do that.
You are correct, AE is NOT ruining the game.
The players are.
Quote:
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Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison See, it's gems like these that make me check Claws' post history every once in a while to make sure I haven't missed anything good lately. |
The Term Barter was used rather loosely, set up properly it would take no more effort, actually would be less. What would the difference be if you trading (Merit/Ticket for Item) or (Currency for Item)? The new System would allow players to make exactly what they want, the "Barter" part would be a secondary function to be used if someone dosn't have a need for the Item they have, or they could sell the Item back for tickets and not worry about waiting for a trader. I thought that when you go to the market, your after something you want? So if you can produce what you want through your own work and effort that is wrong, people should not only produce for themselves?
So if people start only producing for themselves, with perhaps the odd barter here or there when the moons align just right, guess what's going to happen? Just to get to the levels where people are at even now, players will have to resort to higher ticket drop rates to get what they want, as they are forced to try to get what they want by going it alone.
This can only lead to a few possible outcomes:
1) people go back to the ol' SO or basic IO routine;
2) people feel even more justified to farm;
3) the devs drop reward costs greatly so that everybody has at least a chance of getting what they want.
So if players use SO's or Basic IO's until they can get the IO they want, that is something the players and Devs would not want? People are gonna farm, if they want, actually I have heard theat some like to "Farm". The Devs would not have to drop reward costs, the Item you want would be at a set ticket price and you would have to earn that many tickets to get it. Taking this from the top of your statement, "If People start producing for themselves" isn't that what we the player do now? I think you mean, If everyone can get what they want, no one can make a pfofit, is that what your getting at? Oh... and a set SK level limit would mean players would have to team with other player's characters of relative level, or go solo if they choose, I don't see that as goin it alone.
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And again: you'll never get a barter-only system to work with people on a large scale. Never. Bartering takes far too much effort and attention, because the list of possible things is very, very large. Especially compared to auctioneering, which really only trades directly between item and currency, currency and item. With bartering, you'll instead have to go item to some number of items or some number of items to some other number of items.
In a small community, bartering systems work, because values are more or less common and accepted. No such thing exists amongst populations as large or diverse as a player community.
Also, bartering only truly works if buyers are buying things they cannot themselves produce. Given the option of either being only able to barter or to simply produce themselves, people will choose to just produce it themselves. This is, again, due to bartering simply taking more effort or requiring a common concept of value. Currency is easy to understand, as we use it practically daily.
So if people start only producing for themselves, with perhaps the odd barter here or there when the moons align just right, guess what's going to happen? Just to get to the levels where people are at even now, players will have to resort to higher ticket drop rates to get what they want, as they are forced to try to get what they want by going it alone.
This can only lead to a few possible outcomes:
1) people go back to the ol' SO or basic IO routine;
2) people feel even more justified to farm;
3) the devs drop reward costs greatly so that everybody has at least a chance of getting what they want.
None of those sound like ideas that are going to fly well, either with the community or with the devs--generally both. Even option 3 basically leads to higher burn out numbers, as it gives upper-level characters less to strive for.
As for the MA itself, I can only really suggest a small number of things:
1) keep closing those exploits, devs;
2) get rid of auto-SK--it's not really necessary, and having it greatly assists in PLing;
3) make the random arc button visible at the top level instead of two clicks in;
4) give incentive to use that random button, like an extra few percentage chance of ticket drops if the arc was chosen via the random button;
5) penalise repeated running of the same arc over and over in a 24 hr period (not sure if this might already be implemented) via diminishing returns a la TFs/SFs.
These suggestions come from a few things I've noticed about the MA:
1) exploitable enemies are exploitable (duh) and need to be fixed as found regardless;
2) mass PLing does more damage than farming to the in-game economy--farming, to some degree, is actually beneficial to the market, as it creates supply, especially considering particular recipes cannot themselves be bought, just random rolls or salvage;
3) there is a severe lack of playable low-level MA content;
4) most people's arcs are never played because there's no incentive to. It's important to give incentive for players to explore other people's creations;
5) in the event of people using the random button until exploitable content shows up, well...see 1), but it should still slow things down a bit for those who try to do that.
[/ QUOTE ] So the Devs should continue eliminating content from the AE as we "some of the players" exploit it? Do you think they want too? SK Level Limits would hinder PL-ing dramaticly if by PL-ing you mean a Level 50 sk-ing a level 2. Random Arc button is fine as is. I don't think the players would want their missions to have "DR" though I'll leave that up to them.
The Bottom 5 of you reply, 1) Exploitable enemie, that is up to the Devs to fix. 2) Auto SK was allowed to give those players who may not have a mentor or were not of appropriate level to run a MA story arc. 3) The level of the content in AE is up to the players you can easily make low level mission, but that is up to us. 4) XP, Tickets to get recipes, salvage, SO enhancements, prestige, is your incentives. Random button is still fine as is.
And I highly disagree with almost everything you've said other than the obvious "exploitable enemies are something Devs will fix."
Overall, getting rid of inf as a currency will never happen. It'd be like this game getting rid of, say, the AT system. There are too many other systems reliant upon it.
Simply making inf a non-tradable resource is still problematic, as it gets rid of one major and easy way for one player to help another out, meaning if that player wanting the help wants cash, they'll end up, guess what? Farming.
Again, explain to me how your bartering system would be easy and not time consuming? I've seen no evidence of this so far that would work on a large scale system.
OK, in this game, "Influence" is a tradable comodity that is used for what? Purchasing Recipes, Salvage, Enhancements. What else....anything? We allready have a Reward Merit / Reward Ticket system in place. It could easily be expanded to be the overall system in which we attain the items in this game that we want for our characters. As far as helping out other players by giving them "Cash" well what would they need the "Cash" for? Recipe's, Salvage. Enhancement's? As they play, they would be rewarded with Reward Tickets/Merits, to get those things for there character. It brings us back to the Risk for Reward statements that have been made. Time Consuming, lets see. (Example: Level a Character to 50 saving reward Tickets/Merits the whole way. I go to a Reward Merit Vendor I choose which recipe I want, I get the Salvage I need, I go make it slot it.) How does it work now? (Example: I Level a Character to 50 saving Influence the whole way I go to the market bid on the IO's, Recipe, Salvage I need....oh but wait do I have enough Inf because the costs for all this changes not daily but by the minute. Meaning I may not be able to enhance my character the way I want, because I had no way of knowing how much influence I would need.) Therefore taking a very long time to get my character the way I want.
OK One more thing , it's fine that you don't agree with my "SUGESTIONS", no ohter than just telling the Devs they need to fix this and that, since we're in a Suggestion Channel, do you have any Ideas? I have no power over anything the Developers may do with the further development of the game, but this is a suggestion thread for us to offer up our suggestions. If there are better suggestions I'm open to read, think about and discuss them. 
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OK One more thing , it's fine that you don't agree with my "SUGESTIONS", no ohter than just telling the Devs they need to fix this and that, since we're in a Suggestion Channel, do you have any Ideas? I have no power over anything the Developers may do with the further development of the game, but this is a suggestion thread for us to offer up our suggestions. If there are better suggestions I'm open to read, think about and discuss them.
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But, what if it is simply a bad idea? A barter system, especially at this point in the life of the game, would be very difficult to regulate, and it would require much more involvement on the part of the players in a game that is supposed to be casual friendly.
If those who disagree with an idea simply keep our traps shut, it gives you and others who read the suggestion a distorted view of the quality of the idea.
For example, while your idea might be relatively unique (I haven't seen it before), there are others that are very common because they come from folks who don't understand the differences between City of Heroes and most other MMOs. If the Devs saw the silence that followed every single time some nimrod came to the forums and demanded that they raise the level cap as the Community's agreement with the idea, then they might actually go through the process of ruining the entire balance of the game to add those ten+ levels because "the players want it."
If an idea is bad, or we feel that the system in place is more workable than the idea at hand, it is our responsibility to speak up.
Any rejection of an idea is not necessarily a rejection of the poster (unless the poster does something to make themselves a target of ridicule), it is a simple rejection of the idea. If we don't feel the idea has merit, there is no reason why we should knock ourselves out trying to refine it into one that we will like slightly more.
New story arcs coming soon (ARC IDs will be aded when I finish the arc):
So, you want to join the Hellions? (level 1-14 Villainous arc)
Sparks & Steel (level 5-20 Heroic arc)
and
So you want to join the Skulls? (level 1-14 Villainous arc)
I gave my suggestions:
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As for the MA itself, I can only really suggest a small number of things:
1) keep closing those exploits, devs;
2) get rid of auto-SK--it's not really necessary, and having it greatly assists in PLing;
3) make the random arc button visible at the top level instead of two clicks in;
4) give incentive to use that random button, like an extra few percentage chance of ticket drops if the arc was chosen via the random button;
5) penalise repeated running of the same arc over and over in a 24 hr period (not sure if this might already be implemented) via diminishing returns a la TFs/SFs.
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Basically, fix the MA with a few relatively (compared to some of your suggestions) small changes to try and boost the diversity of what gets played. That's all I think needs to be done to the MA: boost diversity.
OK, You think it is a bad Idea, thats fine, your not in agreement with changing the market system to a ticket/reward merit system over all, thats cool. You are also right that if someone dosn't think it's a good Idea, I wouldn't expect them to put any more thought in it. Tough as I said this is a suggestion and I am open to any other suggestions. FailSight you did offer suggestions, and I didn't agree with them, because I feel they are just temporary fixes, and that they would have to repeat those fixes every time the Players who going looking for something to exploit and find it. But what of the other Suggestion, (SK level Limits), the 2 main issues with AE is the Markets incredible fluxuations with it's prices, and the increased demand because of nearly Instant lvl 50 charaters. SO what are other suggestions you may have?
QR
The "Market is ruining the game" fight is so 2007. That fight has been fought and your side lost.
Issue 9 breathed new life into the game. The people who preached doom when loot came into the game were wrong. The people who preached doom when the markets opened were wrong.
The player economy (hero side at least) is vibrant, fluid and functioning.
/unsigned.
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.
OK, other than you think the market is fine the way it is, do you have any Ideas? Suggestions?
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OK, other than you think the market is fine the way it is, do you have any Ideas? Suggestions?
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Yes. That the devs ignore your suggestion because it is not needed. It is not difficult for any player to build a character they will enjoy. Merits and tickets already provide sufficient ability for players to "get what they want" while avoiding the markets.
Some people like the markets. If you don't. Ignore them. Between merits and AE, you really don't need to bother anymore if you want.
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.
They may very well, not consider it, but that is not a suggestion of Ideas, that's your opinion. To say that I don't really need to bother making suggestions in a suggestion channel, is Griefer remark, otherwise why are you bothering to reply, with no Suggestions or Ideas?
Because he's replying to your suggestion/idea, and saying he doesn't like it. There's nothing wrong with that, so long as he isn't being abusive and explaining why he doesn't like it.
It's fine that he said he didn't like it, but to say not to bother anymore, is to kill the topic and not add Ideas or suggestions. I think you and I have disagreed but we have offered suggestions, that all I was looking for, I came up with some 'Suggestions" and rather than give alternatives the suggestions are attacked. You agree fine, you don't fine, if thats your reply fine, If you have alternative Ideas or Suggestiond then tell us.
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They may very well, not consider it, but that is not a suggestion of Ideas, that's your opinion. [u]To say that I don't really need to bother making suggestions in a suggestion channel, is Griefer remark, otherwise why are you bothering to reply, with no Suggestions or Ideas?[u]
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I said your suggestion was not needed. You have the right to post whatever suggestion you wish. And while I have no call to attack you personally, as I have not (but you have to me), I have every right to attack your IDEA.
Your idea is unnecessary and would eliminate a portion of the game that people enjoy. I don't have, nor am required, to present responsive suggestion as I'm arguing that the status quo should be maintained.
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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It's fine that he said he didn't like it, but to say not to bother anymore, is to kill the topic and not add Ideas or suggestions.
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I was very tempted to attack after reading this response, but I will demur. I did not say that you didn't need to bother to post your suggestion.
I said that people don't need to bother with the markets anymore if they don't choose. Please do not misrepresent what I said to make your point.
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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FailSight you did offer suggestions, and I didn't agree with them, because I feel they are just temporary fixes, and that they would have to repeat those fixes every time the Players who going looking for something to exploit and find it. But what of the other Suggestion, (SK level Limits), the 2 main issues with AE is the Markets incredible fluxuations with it's prices, and the increased demand because of nearly Instant lvl 50 charaters. SO what are other suggestions you may have?
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Yes and no regarding temporary fixes. Fixing exploits is necessary regardless. That's about the only fix that's temporary.
Removing auto-SK or making auto-SK'd players earn xp/inf/tickets slower are non-temporary fixes. It moves the MA more in-line with the rest of the game.
I think that the random button is really the heart of what the MA should really be about: trying something new, and perhaps stumbling upon a hidden gem. The random button itself shouldn't be a hidden gem, it should be prominent and enticing. Thus having it top level and perhaps with added (ticket earning boost only, not xp or inf) incentive are there to give carrot, where other parts of the MA might get some stick.
Another idea (on top of the others) is to give diminishing returns (to any combination of xp, inf, or tickets that the devs desire) upon excessively repeated arcs and/or particular enemies.
As to your suggestion about SK limiting:
This is simply a no. Non-farming, non-PL'ing players should be able to play with friends who are at a vastly different level. That's what the SK system is for in the first place. Making people play with only people around their level range means you might as well get rid of the SK/Exemp system altogether.
Also, I still want to know how you'd set up bartering to be quick and easy.
A quick lesson in basic economics: bartering was a system used in personal one-to-one transactions, or amongst small groups of like-minded people, often within a tribe or nation. In other words, terms could be reached via dialogue to what particular items are worth compared to other items.
Currency made this much simpler: instead of having to argue whether a musket is worth 10 loaves of bread, 8 salted hams, and 3 bottles of mediocre wine--but only 1 fine wine--currency becomes an intermediate factor. That musket becomes worth 2 gold dubloons, from which you can buy however many loaves of bread, salted hams, or wines of whatever quality as you choose.
But what of, say, a ship? How many muskets, loaves of bread, salted hams, or bottles of various qualities of wine is a ship worth? What if the buyer doesn't have exactly the numbers available that the seller wants?
Taking this to in-game examples, if someone has a Numina unique to sell, what are they going to set the value as? How many of what set and what set? What if nobody has the exact combination of items to match the value of the one on sale?
I'll give you the answer: they talk about it and hammer it out person-to-person. But guess what? That option has always been available to players: we've had the ability to trade items character to character for far, far longer than the market has existed. But it's slow and personal. A person can't "set and forget" an item on a market, but actually has to wait for buyers to approach them to hammer out the details. That's not what I want to do in a video game designed around superheroes.
That is why a non-currency (and currency is only currency if you trade goods for it) system makes it more difficult and time consuming than an auction system. Currency is key to having the ability to buy and sell high value items, as the high value items can potentially be worth a much larger combination of various other items.
I was representing your remarks (Quote: That the Devs should ignore your suggestion as it is not needed) and (Quote: You really don't need to bother anymore if you want.) Your and You are the words you chose in response to my post. I do agree that I do not want to turn this into a argument, and I resend the Griefer remark, I was just looking for Suggestions and Ideas.
Yep, Exploits need to be fixed. The SK level limit is just a suggestion to prevent PL-ing, I'm sure the PL-ing issue is being looked at, if you remeber Posi's post not too long ago.[/list]The Barter suggestion, well I have said I use the term Barter Loosely, as it is an option not a nessasary means of transaction. We allready have 3 types of Trading. The Auction house's WW/BM, Reward Merit Venders, AE Ticket vendors. WW/BM is an Auction house of sorts, you can buy/sell but not trade. The AE ticket Vendor gives you a random item, for a certain # of tickets. My proposal was to Expand the Reward Merits system, making it easier to get exactly what the player wants, as you get exactly what you want for the exact # of Reward Merits. The WW/BM Auction houses would work for those who have Items on hand they don't need or want. They can use the Auction house to, Sell the Item back to the store or offer it up to trade.
Actually, we have one type of trading, one type of auctioning, and a few kinds of purchasing, all on top of a random drop system. Outside of character-to-character trading and random drops, the influence/infamy pseudo-currency system is very important.
Market prices for IOs, sets, and just about everything tradable in the auction house are pretty much predicated on fixed values at stores or crafting tables, as those provide base amounts of worth to basic items (regular or common IO enhancements), and everything else pretty much works off this basis, with the rules of supply and demand affecting prices relative to this.
Ticket/Merit vendors aren't really trading, because you're using a type of earned currency in order to acquire an item. That's more along the lines of crafting or producing from a general element. The item isn't being exchanged to another person for their usage, it is being instantaneously created from what is earned via supposed playtime.
Again, this is why every player is a producer, and why non-currency trading isn't very helpful.
Currency provides a way to shortcut progress by spending a resource to trade with another person, who can in turn trade that resource to get what they want. If you have to potentially trade a good--something with inherent value--for another good when the ability to simply spend time to produce it is available, guess what is going to happen? More producers producing for themselves.
AE is not ruining the game...
#13746134 - 07/13/09 10:49 AM Edit Reply Quote Quick Reply
I know there have been a lot of passionate posts about AE ruining the game. As I see it, AE is not ruining this game, INFLUENCE/INFAMY, is ruining the game!
The main reason people are running AE missions is not to experience a new mission arc but to earn large amounts of INF or fast XP. Why do players need large amounts of INF? Look at the Markets (WW/BM) some of the desirable IO's are very, expensive. With the way the player base can now gain large amounts of INF in a short time you would think that the Spam-Mail Farmers/INF peddlers would go out of business. It's actually the opposite they know they have to make it harder still for you to get the IO's you want for your characters so they manipulate the market driving up the Price for these IO's. There is also obvious market manipulation going on.
Running non-AE missions doesnt yield the same rewards as AE. (I know there are also a few players who have learned to use the market to make a good sum of INF for them selves and I'm not pointing at them, as this is a capitalist system).
Fast XP...well I have 12-lvl 50 characters and I can see that after leveling so many that there are points in the game that has become redundant. AE was supposed to allow us to fix this ourselves, giving us enough creative control sob that we no longer have to make the same mission-Arc runs over and over again.
So how do we fix this, so that there are no more Email-Spam INF peddlers? How do make the game more enjoyable for veteran players who have become exhausted with the same mission grinds? We "Eliminate Influence/Infamy"!
The untradeable ticket reward system can be used to allow us to purchase Recipes, Salvage, IO's and enhancements. Recipe's, Salvage, IO's enhancement would still be tradable.
For those who have earned a large amount of INF on their characters, we should provide an opportunity to exchange INF for a fair number of Tickets. This system would allow the player base to earn the IOs they want. It would make the AE system the tool it was supposed to be making new story arcs. Some players would try and farm tickets, but as the Tickets are untradeable, they would be working to enhance their own characters. This would keep the WW/BM from being manipulated.
Some may still want to power-level their characters, but many more may want to go back and enjoy the AE system as it was intended. Players will have a way to enhance there characters without having to farm for large amounts of INF.
Well that is my rant on the AE is ruining COX, I think rather than just throwing a fit about it, look for a way to fix it! I know not all will agree with me, and thats ok, but how about offer a way to fix it. Now be honest but be cordial with your responses please.