Posi on Abusing Mission Architect
By
2wabbits,
Posted on: 2009-05-05 13:14 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
Hahaha. This is brilliant! The thunderous rumble you can hear on the background is the sound of all the farmers collectively [censored] their pants.
The official thread on the US forums is a goldmine of hilarity btw. Farm-monkeys hurling personal insults at Posi in all-caps etc. etc.
Joy!
Dr_mechano:
yes agreed, farming has always been around, it has just intensified ALOT after they released the mission architect, especially in Atlas park, u cant go through the map without seeing broadcast being spammed with "lff and etc" invites and people wanting to farm and what i meant generally was that farming ruins a really good game, iv been playing it for 4+ years now and i still enjoy it each time i login. It has just been really annoying lately, like someone said in this thread, u can take the prizes at WW for a good example, some silly things is now insane prizey, cause everyone doesnt play the game as before, they are farming and only power lvl their own toons..
There is no such thing as too much power
I am over the moon that finally something is going to be done about this MA farming problem and I firmly agree with my good friend Flammy, yes there has always been spamming in broadcasts but never at the the level since I14, its a get rich quick scheme and all good things must come to an end. Lets just hope that Posi and the devs stick to thier words and deliever on this. Hurrah.
Actually, in my view, yes common salvage my be insanely priced but it's balanced out by the recipes costing a hell of a lot less than they use to and the rare salvage price bomb as well dropping from 1-2 million down to 300k was a step in the right direction, overrall outfitting a character in set IOs (apart from purples but then they should always be pricey for what they offer) has become less grindy and much more freely available, this is a very good thing.
I like being able to outfit toons at a fractions of the cost they were prior to the MA baby boomers.
Sadly it'll be back to grinding merits for those lucky drops that net a sky high price or exchanging them for equally pricey IO recipes.
Edit: Though I can tell there is a problem, outfitting a character in set IOs actually costs LESS than outfitting them with generic IOs...
Badge Earned: Wing Clipper
A real showstopper!
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Edit: Though I can tell there is a problem, outfitting a character in set IOs actually costs LESS than outfitting them with generic IOs...
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I don't think so actually, just buy common salvage for tickets, they are really cheap.
Shadowplay - Scrapper DM/DA SL 50
Doctor Storm- Brute SS/Elec SL 50
"speed boosts someone in the face" - Cognito
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That's a herd mentality, it's lame, and always leads to bad outcomes for others. I didn't expect you to weigh in on the pro- side of that particular argument, even if herds (and farms I guess) are rather appropriate to your bovine side
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It is, but this is the nature of all voting; I'm not defending farming in general, I personally hate it as I've seen too many games ruined by market inflation and selfishness... but there's no point opening up anything to voting and then complaining people don't use the mechanism sensibly. It's human nature to be incapable of doing so, be it in politics or popularity or the repetition of "lulzworthy" memes...
So even if you removed every single badge from association with the Mission Architect, you're going to get horrible distortions of the voting pattern, because people are still going to have mixed motivations for voting as they will, and many of them are going to be downright dodgy reasons. The only way you can get Dev Quality canon is if the only flagged missions are ones that they themselves have seen and considered... not Johnny Public talking about what they've seen. It may be elitist, but that's the only solution, even if Johnny Public is still likely to be the mechanism through which they become noticed by the elite anyway (the Dev Choice thread mentions public buzz as a major factor).
But that's not what we were given; so to put it another way, if the herd is going one direction, even if it's a path that leads them over a cliff, it's not necessarily wrong to follow them that way... not if they are going to go that way anyway, there's something over there you can also personally use, but now you can walk across their piled up bodies to get to the other side of the cliff much quicker than otherwise. Badging, or achieving recognition of milestones in Paragon City is the only thing that really means much in the game for me at the moment... I'd be exceptionally foolish if I didn't take the opportunities available, just because the world (including the virtual one) isn't as I'd exactly like it.
But I guess I'm just annoyed because now I don't know if my main character is even going to be legal, because I spent a fair amount of time harming no one else or their game experience, but running missions designed to achieve goals the Devs themselves put in for no one other than badgehunters to aspire to in the first place. Like the Test badges. Come on, how many players really would want 50,000 test kills, when you get no experience or tickets in those missions at all, but just badges? But the missions we set up to put maximum mobs in might now get us warned or even banned...
... as too would the fact that many of us have put a lot of time and effort into our arcs, only to have to see them potentially banned because they've got a tonne of ratings from fellow badgehunters too. It's a complete screw up, which even the most basic of knowledge of human nature should have forewarned about.
And I'm not even going to go into that I did report a tonne of bugs (and help solve them where I could) on Beta too; And Judgement Dave went above and beyond any of us... but none of which so many of us were talking about seem to been tackled regardless. So yeah, I apologize if I'm exceptionally cranky, but this whole issue has proven really rather a strain on a lot of people's patience. I can't even play as I would do normally until it all clears up, in case any of my badge hunting becomes retro-actively removed or even illegal.
*GRUMP*
Aye that's what I've been doing to be fair but the folks who are impatient and want to buy stuff straight off the market are paying 500k for a generic IO, I could probably knock up a set IO with decent bonuses for less or just over that even if I bought all the stuff off the market at the 'want it now' price.
Using Focused Smite as an example, keep in mind memory is kind of hazy with prices and as such are struggling to remember:
10k for the recipe.
100k for that one white salvage that costs a bomb..
300k for the rare.
50k for that other white salvage that costs a lot...
100k for the yellow that costs a lot.
that's only 560k + a meager crafting cost, so lets say 580k for one set IO, that's only 80k more than some of the pre-crafted generic IOs on the market.
Yes it works out to be a tad more expensive at 2,900,000 for a complete set...but considering that 5 x generic IOs will cost you 2,500,000...that's not too shabby for nifty set bonuses.
Badge Earned: Wing Clipper
A real showstopper!
farming isnt a bad thing. Everyone makes it seem as if someone farms they are not playing the game properly. well infact they are. its just a faster way of leveling and getting good influence/infamy seeing as a good build costs a lot. Also it takes for ever to get to level 50 too long i think, so farming is just a way speedingup this process. I know people complain about the spamming, and i agree it is annoying expecially when a level 1 is spamming it and basically looking for PL, but seriously deleting their PL'ed toons / banning account, do you not think that is a little far for some farming? i certainly do.
Scheses, you just don't WANT to even TRY to consider what the rest of us are saying:
WE AGREE: FARMING BAD!
WE AGREE: GOTTA DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT!
BUT! And it's a big friggin' whoppin' whoooopin' BUT:
They COULD have done something, but chose not to for days. They COULD have done a lot of things, but chose not to do any of them and NOW they're gonna PUNISH people for THEIR mistake (e.g. not doing anything once the problem surfaced) in a time when they're about to face some SERIOUS competition.
We can all agree on the idea of getting those "6-account 30 new 50s in a few days" a good slap on the wrist but if they do that, someone has to draw a very shaky line somewhere.
THEY dropped the ball. THEY chose not to pick it up, and I bet they'll go on a whining spree when the other team scores.
YES, players used something that was *very obviously there*. It wasn't hidden and it got so widely abused even us non-grinders just HAD to test it to seee if it was as bad as people said, and yes it was and they still left it in there for days. It's like going to a prison full of murderers and rapists, giving them a bunch of high powered weapons and a free pass to the nearest girls-only party. Yes, that was a blatant disgusting, outrageous comparison, but god(censored) it applies. So give me a friggin forum ban for it and see me moan about that! (It's what I do(tm))
I'm mosty annoyed about that: They did nothing. Going mental now, as they're doing is too much too late.
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I can't even play as I would do normally until it all clears up, in case any of my badge hunting becomes retro-actively removed or even illegal.
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Unless you're an "egregious" abuser of the MA you should be fine. So should everyone else, if you read what Posi's actually saying.
Singstar, It's all good and well you saying us 'antifarmers' aren't considering your argument, but you keep overlooking the one really important point.
Nobody. Made. You. Farm.
As for the devs not picking up the ball as quickly as they could have, it's their ball and they can do with it whatever the hell they like.
What matters now is that they are picking up the ball and wiping mud off it too.
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I can't even play as I would do normally until it all clears up, in case any of my badge hunting becomes retro-actively removed or even illegal.
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Unless you're an "egregious" abuser of the MA you should be fine. So should everyone else, if you read what Posi's actually saying.
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Yeah - it was pretty carefully worded - there were no definites, just possibilities - "you might" instead of "you will".
Maybe Positron knows that only a Sith deals in absolutes?
@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork
...also... as long as you friggin pay the sub, you friggin play the game whatever way you want. Get off those friggin high horses you all high and mighty "I did it the right way" whiners. Whatever you think about any farmer, no matter how they farm, the PAY FOR YOUR FRIGGIN GAME as much as you do. Without them your game would be Tabula Rasa, Auto Assault, whatever.
Yes, get it: Without them you'd be forced to play some worthless, even more boring, grindy or farm'ish game payed for by yes, oh, maaaan: OTHER FARMERS!
It's really as simple as that: People pay for the game: People play the game THEIR WAY: Game stays alive. People don't play the game: Game dead!
That means we NEED a (balanced) supply of all types: grinders, farmers, pvp'ers, casual players, chatterboxes, whiners'n'moaners, and ohmygod, even people on their high horses telling others they can't play whatever way they want because it's "wrong"(tm). But it sure would be a nicer world if people could at least TRY to get along and leave those they can't get along with alone.
So far I've yet to see anyone, ANYONE, give a single example of how farming hurts those that don't farm. I personally think it's mind-boggingly boring, but if others enjoy paying to work (after all, that's what farming is) that's bloody fine with me: I get cheaper stuff at the market. Those that can't make as much on the market, also get the opprtunity to buy cheap so they hardly get "hurt".
And leave B. Spears alone! 
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See now i call exploits getting under a map and shooting foes that cant shoot back.
Not this.
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And shooting comm-ofs from under 20-something forcefields (which pretty much ensures that they never hit) is different how? (And yes, it still could be done, even after Sky Raiders patch.)
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Not everyone had 20 bubbles.
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But still there were farms like that, plenty of them. If that's not an obvious exploit I don't know what is. I may agree that "plain" farm, w/o bubbles etc. might not be an exploit, but not something like that.
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As for the devs not picking up the ball as quickly as they could have, it's their ball and they can do with it whatever the hell they like.
What matters now is that they are picking up the ball and wiping mud off it too.
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We've all paid for their ball, and their muddy pitch, the stadium with it's fancy lighting, VIP boxes and associated paraphernalia. But it all comes down to the fact that they're the ones telling us what to do with their ball.
They set us some rules, fine, to operate within. They 'give' us trinkets they've developed with our money. Some of us don't like the trinkets, others desperately love them, and others dip in and out when they feel like it.
Oh, you used a particular trinket in a way that Posi said isn't cool? RAWRCRUSH.
Principle, dude, principle. They expected it, they didn't listen, they didn't fix it beforehand, nor during. They never listen, of course, they're Devs. So now they bring down the godly fist of doom and I, for one, don't like it. Had I not gone near the MA, I still wouldn't like it - they've broken their game and in attempting to fix it are going too far the other way.
Blueside Union: Starblayde (Blaster), Pax Imperia (Tanker), Pax Britannia (Defender)
Redside Union: Natasha Redshade (Stalker)
"we have to maintain a risk:reward ratio. This is a ratio we've spent years attempting to achieve"
you have to try to make a game ppl wanna play too.
i have been playing this game of catch up for a long time, and with every nurf it just got worse.
i don't wanna be told i'm doing something wrong, not when i'm paying for it and it's there to do, then some group "tree huggers" moan about how much those that farm are.......bla bla bla.
enough i say. going to cancel my 4 account, and you will find that all my 50s never got farmed too.
this game has been turned into a joke by those that dont want farmers, while im not a farmer, i think this is the final straw.
let me make it clear, taking advantage is in our DNA.
if i can't go mental on somethings when i want, then i will find someone who will make a game that will let me.
it's just all this talk about farmers that really has done it for me, who gives a f... realy, WHO?
bye all hope i get to play with u online again.
Think my one example for not liking farmers, would be the fact of how many farming mission there were on M.A, how many different ways can you farm why didn't they just name one Rinse and REpeat and all got on with that one, instead it left loads of peoples time and effort lost in the infinite of them.
Too many 50's to list here's a few you may know.
Slazenger, Area51, Area53, Area54, Erruption, Mind Plague, Thresher, Sheath, Broadside, Debt
Great thread this.
Posi reacts in a way that some of us knew he would, and only now the brown stuff hits the fan from the playerbase.
What the hell did we all expect he was going to do?
A light slap on the wrists? A mild rebuke? A 'please don't do that again'?
He has reacted exactly as I expected him to.
I would expect the devs to reduce all 1 day PL'd level 50's to around level 20. To simply lock that slot is pointless. To delete the toon is a bit harsh, seeing as they have been playing the game.
The winners will be the newbies who would probably not even get close to level 20 in 6 or so hours play.
Players who wrote obvious RCM farms may well have a temp ban, but I think it's more likely that a warning will be given to desist from using MA in that manner.
Will non MA farmers be punished? I don't think so, nor do I think that should. Non MA Pl'ing is another matter. That could also be targetted now, but again I don't think it should.
Just my opinion on this.
Proud member of FOXBASE ALPHA and coalition associates.
Hero 50's - 25
Villain 50's - 1
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Singstar, It's all good and well you saying us 'antifarmers' aren't considering your argument, but you keep overlooking the one really important point.
Nobody. Made. You. Farm.
As for the devs not picking up the ball as quickly as they could have, it's their ball and they can do with it whatever the hell they like.
What matters now is that they are picking up the ball and wiping mud off it too.
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You just don't stop do you!
1. I didn't farm!
2. READ THE FRIGGIN POST AGAIN!
3. How's that warshade going?
I just guess you can't respond to it, so you chose to repeat nonsense because that's all you got.
I don't give a bloody (censored) about farming/non-farming or even Posi going on a total Ban all accounts spree, besides one single important thing:
HE'S FRIGGIN' KILLING OUR GAME!!!
Yes a few loud-mouthed whiners will be happy to see some people leave the game, but those people are PAYING for OUR game, and no matter what you think about any players playing this game any way, every single player is important to keep the ball rolling.
Since you're obviously not gonna read my other post again:
Doing SOMETHING about that farm was not the wrong thing. They just did what needed to be done too late and now they're over reacting, doing more harm to the game, than good. It's ok to do something like this if you're head of WoW, or Steam. Doing it in this game... Insane!
I don't care about the farmers! I care about the friggin' game!
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Great thread this.
Posi reacts in a way that some of us knew he would, and only now the brown stuff hits the fan from the playerbase.
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Positron is a comic book and computer game character, who is bad at PR.
I bet he's not even real
Blueside Union: Starblayde (Blaster), Pax Imperia (Tanker), Pax Britannia (Defender)
Redside Union: Natasha Redshade (Stalker)
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Scheses, you just don't WANT to even TRY to consider what the rest of us are saying:
WE AGREE: FARMING BAD!
WE AGREE: GOTTA DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT!
BUT! And it's a big friggin' whoppin' whoooopin' BUT:
They COULD have done something, but chose not to for days. They COULD have done a lot of things, but chose not to do any of them and NOW they're gonna PUNISH people for THEIR mistake (e.g. not doing anything once the problem surfaced) in a time when they're about to face some SERIOUS competition.
We can all agree on the idea of getting those "6-account 30 new 50s in a few days" a good slap on the wrist but if they do that, someone has to draw a very shaky line somewhere.
THEY dropped the ball. THEY chose not to pick it up, and I bet they'll go on a whining spree when the other team scores.
YES, players used something that was *very obviously there*. It wasn't hidden and it got so widely abused even us non-grinders just HAD to test it to seee if it was as bad as people said, and yes it was and they still left it in there for days. It's like going to a prison full of murderers and rapists, giving them a bunch of high powered weapons and a free pass to the nearest girls-only party. Yes, that was a blatant disgusting, outrageous comparison, but god(censored) it applies. So give me a friggin forum ban for it and see me moan about that! (It's what I do(tm))
I'm mosty annoyed about that: They did nothing. Going mental now, as they're doing is too much too late.
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Not entirely true.
1) They put that paragraph GG pointed out.
2) They put farm-related terms into banlist in the very first patch.
3) They tried to fix most egregious exploits, like aforementioned multi-bubbling.
That's hardly "nothing".
Now, the only mistake they made is that threat of retroactive bannhammer, which made many people (including me) nervous. But, TBH, almost everything else they could do would cause adverse rreaction of some sort. (First Law of MMO, - devs never do things right, never ever.) Either some people would complain that measures were too harsh and indiscriminate or they would complain they weren't enough.
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Singstar, It's all good and well you saying us 'antifarmers' aren't considering your argument, but you keep overlooking the one really important point.
Nobody. Made. You. Farm.
As for the devs not picking up the ball as quickly as they could have, it's their ball and they can do with it whatever the hell they like.
What matters now is that they are picking up the ball and wiping mud off it too.
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And knowone made you not farm, but you dont see everyone shouting about that.
People pay for this game and as such should be able to play how they want and not get shouted at by some on these forums who seem to have a stick up there [censored] about it, and worse now we have the we said no devs, this game has taken a turn for the worse.
I dont agree that people should be PL from 1-50 in a day by that i mean new players , but for some who have been here since the year dot why the hell not we are not missing anything we simple want to try a new high lvl toon.
I have seen every dam bit of content in this game many times over and to be honest i fail to see what im missing if i start a new toon and want to get it to travel power or stamina lvl before i play it.
If you or anyone want to tell me how to play thats fine you or positron can pay my subs until then take the sticks out of your butts and wake up to the fact not everyone is as up tight about farming as some,
What a pathetic decision by Posi in my opinion.
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Your the silly one, why on earth would people choose to level their toons to 50 over 400+ Hours when they can do it within 24 - 36.
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Because they enjoy the journey?
Because there's not much to do when you hit maximum level anyway?
Because the journey, the gradual exploration of different powerset synergies on different archetypes and the added replay value that brings when compared to other MMOs, is one of the main things this game has going for it?
Because trivialising/shortening that will render the game pointless to a lot of people?
Because if you can get every powerset/archetype combination you'll ever want to play to level 50 inside a month or two then there will be little reason to stay subscribed, and you'd have to look for a new MMO which you may not enjoy as much?
I'm in with the "I love it" camp I'm afraid.
And for all you lovely people who say "they can't do this". Actually, it's their game, and they can do what they hell they like.
I'm glad to see Posi finally growing a set and coming down on what has been the blight of this game for far too long. Sure there'll be a fair few farmers who quit because of it, and good riddance. I'd imagine that there'll also be people who are prepared to play the game how it was intended to be played, absolutely delighted and coming right on back. Me being one of them.
@SteelRat; @SteelRat2
"Angelina my love, I'm a genius!"
"Of course you are darling, that's why I married you. Physically, you're rather unattractive"
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