Posi on Abusing Mission Architect
By
2wabbits,
Posted on: 2009-05-05 13:14 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
I'm not a farmer and I haven't used MA to farm, I get real satisfaction from making 50s without that. Like others the constant spamming of farm teams have annoyed me along with boasts from people who have made 1-50 in a matter of hours, when mine took me weeks.
However surely the simple answer here is to draw a line now and say no more, sure they need to make more tweaks, but I don't see the sense in punishing players for exploiting something that their bad design and short-sightedness allowed to happen and that's from someone who kinda disapproves to a degree. Thats unless someone is profiting from this, perhaps PL sites or selling accounts.
Rather than make what could be deemed as a possible threat to users accounts, perhaps an apology would be more in keeping. This should be a time to consolidate rather than alienating players further.
My deviantART page (warning some images nsfw)
GGRRR Comic Series GGRRR Comics on Facebook
lol jus realised that too and because posi is abusing Ma, in my opinion.
[ QUOTE ]
I'm not a farmer and I haven't used MA to farm, I get real satisfaction from making 50s without that. Like others the constant spamming of farm teams have annoyed me along with boasts from people who have made 1-50 in a matter of hours, when mine took me weeks.
However surely the simple answer here is to draw a line now and say no more, sure they need to make more tweaks, but I don't see the sense in punishing players for exploiting something that their bad design and short-sightedness allowed to happen and that's from someone who kinda disapproves to a degree. Thats unless someone is profiting from this, perhaps PL sites or selling accounts.
Rather than make what could be deemed as a possible threat to users accounts, perhaps an apology would be more in keeping. This should be a time to consolidate rather than alienating players further.
[/ QUOTE ]
Short, to the point! ...and spot on!
Looks to me like Saxtus did the title change from 'on' to 'is'.
By my mohawk shall ye know me!
my toons
Funny: Ee-Ai-Ee-Ai-Oh! #3662 * The foul-mouthed Handyman! #1076 * City of Norms #132944
Serious: To Save A Single World (#83744) * Marketing Opportunity (#83747)
Guilty.
/em enter ninja!
I like it! Bring on the @55 wooping Posi!
/em exit ninja
Got some questions about it so:
No, I can't be bothered doing that "The stoning of Positron" mission for SS brutes/tanks and/or the video of us stoning him today.
It will remain on the "to-do list" though. I think it would be a fun event we could "share" with the US by creating a chain of videos on Youtube. 
Whether the developers like to admit it or not, SOME farming can benefit the economy.
With farmers, more infamy and recipes are being driven into the black market (which with a player-driven economy is important)
Although the devs may say farming destroys the risk:reward ratio because it makes the game too easy, some farming needs to be done, because the extremely low drop rate (far less than 1% of enemies you fight it's safe to assume) would mean if everyone was a casual player, or NO farming was done, ALOT less purples would be arround.
A lack of purples, we could reasonably assume would deter people from making new characters because they won't be able to squeeze the absolute potential from their characters.
Alot of pvpers would be deterred from re-slotting their moves, and so less money is going into the market.
Without the recipes and infamy going into the market, any drops people get, unless they didn't need them, would ultimately be kept for themselves.
if in the worst scenario possible, the market runs dry, this would be a huge blow to the game and would take away a big social point in the game; the need to trade or interact with other players to be successful
I encourage the devs to take action when people are abusing a system, to horrendous levels, but the simple fact of the matter is, if the MA system was not ready to be released to the public in it's current state, the devs can only blame themselves for either not fixing the bugs during testing/quality control before release, or they can try to punish players for using an easy-way-out that's there to them.
AND, it is reasonable to assume if there is an easy way to do things, some, if not a significant majority of players will take that route. Like i keep saying to the devs: what can be farmed, WILL be farmed, at LEAST by SOME people.
The devs, by introducing this tyrannical punishment system for MA, are inadvertantly hindering the majority of players, for the sake of targetting farmers.
People should consider those 'farmers' are a SIGNIFICANT part of the ing-game economy, just as oil helps to keep the car running smoothly, farmers are an equalizer for any potential 'drought' in the economy of the game.
Most of you reading this, if you have ever bought a purple, have likely bought at elast 1 purple that was the result fo someone farming it.
Villains will die if you remove farming period. That is with the exception of the odd good players. That's my worry, it was declining then a mothah of all surges from MA brought hundreds then smacked them back to heroes. Shame, since I prefer that side.
Fury
You prefer villains or heroes? I think your post was trying to say you prefer villains, although i could be wrong. Don't be ambiguous please!
We had an argument comparing real life crimes before, so I thought I'd pitch in another one:
IMHO, there's now the potential for the IP holder to punish players for being players...
...according to many religions AND state laws sexual encounters and/or some sexual activities (let's not go further than that) are forbidden. There's even people getting, yes, stoned for far less than that. Just being eternally damned for using some sort of "protection" is really harsh. It's punishing people for being people, for being human.
A slap on the wrist, "don't go there again" in this case might be ok, but really, this is just the constant "war" between the players seeking an edge and the devs, balancing the game. It's the devs job to keep balancing it even if it's a never-ending near-impossible job, and you might even argue it's our duty to keep pushing them by looking for the "next exploit/unbalanced whatever".
I have no problem with them going as far as banning people for using blatant, obvious exploits in the future, since they've made it clear they might use the full arsenal from now on. but like the devs we might need to give it one more thought: At this very moment, what's best for the game and its future?
I personally agree that this was rather more of a VERY unbalanced thingy, than an actual exploit, but that's marking words and really doesn't matter that much. What matters now is, it's been fixed and no matter how much you may dislike some people, annoying people or in any way whatsoever decreasing the player base, especially EU side, redside, defiant, would be oh-so-foolish.
Give them a warning, heck, give them a hall of shame title so everyone can see they've been naughty, but for the love of purples, don't drive any more players away from the game.
The devs should NOT punish people for powerlevelling to 50 by using the MA. The MA was designed with features in mind that would allow players to set their own enemy setups and so on.
If the devs could NOT foresee any problems like this happening, they should really refrain from developing new features to the game.
Players using purpose designed features to level up is not an exploit, nor does it imbalance the game, nor does it make it too easy. Some players want it easy, and that's where the devs and elitists come in.
Some people complain farmers spam broadcast. These are the same people that petition someone who blind invites them as 'harassing'
The simple fact of the matter is, if devs are going to give us tools to play the game with, they should let us use them the way we want, provided there is no detriment to the game community, population, or quality of gameplay.
In fact, an influx of level 50 players would motivate players to do more missions, to buy more purples on the market, to SELL more purples on the market.
The devs should consider this powerlevelling a potential boost to the economic engine of the game, and SHOULD have taken their time and observed the situation before rashly developing a system to punish us.
Ech had to turn off Atlas broadcast because of the raging debate.
Someone keeps banging on about creating a channel to petition the devs for a farm sever (not server, sever) and lodging protest.
Look guys, if you REALLY don't like what Positron is doing, as those before you did, take your money elsewhere.
I don't mean this as a GTFO kind of way, I mean if you want to show your real displeasure at the way Posi is handling this and I mean if it has really, really ground your gears to the point where it makes the game unenjoyable, take your money elsewhere as a protest...that's the only kind of protest that NCsoft would understand, lodging a petition is going to amount to bupkiss in all reality and I wouldn't be surprised if they authorised the GMs to teleport the protesters into space (joke).
Badge Earned: Wing Clipper
A real showstopper!
Actually, because i have already paid my subscription for 6 months, if i decided to leave now and not play, that would be 6 months wasted.
And seeing as i have paid, i have every right to complain, and WILL do, when devs do something the players see is a) completely unnecessary, and B) hurts more than helps.
well yes..if you've already paid you're stuck here and can complain but for those who pay monthly...well the option is there to cancel their sub at any time and upsticks.
To be honest Posi is just as bad at PR as Jack, he really should get War Witch to proof read his statements before he puts them out.
The thing is...complaining about it wont do the damndest thing in reality, you can complain but they're not going to listen to you. The only way complaining will get things done is if the massive majority (and I mean 90% of the players) all complain about the same thing at the same time, otherwise it's just white noise.
It is quite funny seeing most of the people moan at those who left recently because of the way Positron handled himself on the test server are now themselves complaining about him...
Feel free to complain, you have every right as a paying customer to complain but don't expect anything to change because of it sadly.
Badge Earned: Wing Clipper
A real showstopper!
I think Posi was 100% spot on this time, and those who don't agree can just moan a lot. Good, I'm glad that's settled, then.
Please fight My Brute: http://2hero.mybrute.com
Mission Architect 54161 - Michael Mundano, Megan Malloney and the Secret Senate.
Mission Architect 91838 - Constantinople Jones' Family Secret. A One Mission Story arc.
i have not plvld any character from 1-50 in a day (even though GG inferred it) but i have to say that each to their own if the system was there, then the guys that did it (and lets be honest most of the people just saw uber xp) never appreciated that they were "cheating" or doing anything wrong.
So to now threaten with a ban is beyond all reason imo.
If after all that has been said, someone manages to create mssions that are now considered cheating, then yes i agree they are wrong and should be punished.
But i can't see how punishing the people that have already been involved with the MA (and thats loads of us) can do anything other than alienate the player base even further
Oh, mental note, change payment plan to monthly asap!
[ QUOTE ]
i have not plvld any character from 1-50 in a day (even though GG inferred it) but i have to say that each to their own if the system was there, then the guys that did it (and lets be honest most of the people just saw uber xp) never appreciated that they were "cheating" or doing anything wrong.
So to now threaten with a ban is beyond all reason imo.
If after all that has been said, someone manages to create mssions that are now considered cheating, then yes i agree they are wrong and should be punished.
But i can't see how punishing the people that have already been involved with the MA (and thats loads of us) can do anything other than alienate the player base even further
[/ QUOTE ]
They didn't appreciate the fact they were 'cheating' because they weren't
[ QUOTE ]
To be honest Posi is just as bad at PR as Jack, he really should get War Witch to proof read his statements before he puts them out.
[/ QUOTE ]
If they made War Witch the public face of CoX it would only be a matter of time before the self-appointed "everyone" hated her.
sorry was kind of what i meant
hence the "cheating" reference
[ QUOTE ]
(Not targeted at anyone specific)
As far as perception goes I think you can probably turn around a quote Positron said in Pocket D on 5th Anniversary about if you feel a nerf is coming then it probably is.
I say, if you feel that you have abused the MA system enough that you may lose some progress or even your character, then you probably will. If you don't then you're lucky. You knew the farming was wrong when you were doing it, or you wouldn't be worried now, so you really have no recourse for complaint if you get punished.
[/ QUOTE ]
This is the core of why the current imbroglio has disappointed me so much; Because it effects so many of us, even though we've not changed our behaviour in any way. Again, I'm talking specifically only about badge farming, not XP etc but these kinds of "farms" have been part of the game since 2004, when the badges were first introduced. One of my happiest moments in game was a late night Illusionist farm on an American server back then, where we all ran a rolling team with one mission so people could join up and finally crack what was one of the then hardest badges to get. It's the very nature of Badging that it be repetitive and grinding and aberrant from the normal nature of the game, but we took pleasure in seeing each new member of the team get to that personal milestone. This is what we've always done. It's how it's always been. Be it trawling for Rikti monkeys or hunting skuls in areas way below our level. It's what content was often set up to give us, it's what kept us in game.
But now, because of a colossal screw up with releasing the MA far too early, you now can't know for sure which badges you are going to actually keep, or are even supposed to be after in the same ways as you've always been. Last night it seems the requirements for some of them were even lowered; I suddenly got credit for 5 badges involved with Mission Arcs (number of plays/average rating)... yet these badges are the ones most likely to be the subject of tackling badging "cartels", which were set up to increase the chances of plays and ratings of course. Which illustrates why I feel as unsettled as I currently do; suddenly nothing in the arena of badging makes any kind of sense... as a consequence I've no real urge to log my main, badgehunting character in until I've seen a clear statement of where the game is going from a particular date; because everything he does is going to remain in flux, a flux which could have drastic consequences for a character I've had since the game went live.
But again, I have to point out that's separate from farming which damages the wider structure of the game, in particular that which dumps influence into the economy. I haven't done that, so it doesn't affect me. But the current mess does. And the longer it persists, the less my heart is in the game, because it's core for my main character is being torn out or undermined.
Sorry, but that's just how I feel.
Farming does not damage the wider structure of the game or it's economy, because although it turns infamy and purples INTO the player driven market, it also creates demand.
Infamy farmers may buy purples from people who have successfully farmed recipes, for example.
As long as there is economic exchanges in which people are not struggling to find what they want, then there is no problem with the ingame economy.
I have obviously left some people to forget their manners for too long. I am locking this thread as a result.
If you wish to continue discussing Positron's announcement, please do so on this thread.
Please do however bear in mind that being angry does not provide an excuse to be abusive on our boards, whatever the circumstances.
Support Centre for our English European players
Support Centre for our North American players
Plateforme d'assistance pour les francophones
Support-Center f�r deutschsprachige Spieler
At what point did "Posi on Abusing Mission Architect" become "Re: Posi is Abusing Mission Architect"?
(italic emphasis my own)
Blueside Union: Starblayde (Blaster), Pax Imperia (Tanker), Pax Britannia (Defender)
Redside Union: Natasha Redshade (Stalker)