Remember when hitting 50 was actually an accomplishment?

I started a Sara Moore TF tonight with two newbies tonight. Course, the downtime ended the TF, but one only had the 3mo badge and the other didn't have any.

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Originally Posted by Dispari I don't know why Dink thinks she's not as sexy as Jay was. In 5 posts she's already upstaged his entire career.

There is always going to be something that doesn't jive with the entire base. I'm not for or against any one method of leveling to 50. I've traveled on both roads (more often the long road than the short) and tend to play the game my way. I just wish broadcast in Cap and Atlas wasn't so dilluted :P

I remember when street sweeping in Talos was all the rage...

Even before I14 and the AE box being in the store or the Game Card at 7-11, Rite Aid and other stores, I noticed a lot of new players since the start of this year. Not sure if it's caused by advertising of the game itself, associated advertising due to all the features written about CO and DCO or cheap game boxes at Big Lots. It could also be churn from other MMOs while players are waiting for new content there.

Protector is one of five servers I play on. I've sort of designated it as my "blue" server. Guardian is my "red" server and the others are mixed. I agree we could use more redsiders. Ah well. Maybe GR WILL balance things a bit. we'll see.

Feel free to stop by and see me. I'm the Gypsy juggling near Ms. LIberty. I'm there fairly often...when the servers are up that is...

I love dinging 50 even after doing it 20 plus times. Then I usually go back and look at my creation and see where I can make improvements. What I have been doing lately is going back and looking at some of my first 50's and finding ways I can make them what I call ULTIMATES with better slotting, or by adding new IO sets that were not available when they were conceived.

Sometimes my concept changes. The toon grows our becomes more powerful. He makes a new battle armor or a new expirement changes his ability. His mutation adapts and he changes.

I am getting excited about issue 16. New scrapper combos that I have always wanted... Metal Spines FTW !!!! Rad Blaster.. FINALLY !!!!! Electric Tank.. hmmm maybe its time for a another tank... then Going Rogue DUAL PISTOLS !!! yeah !!!!!

Just got my 63 month badge. Still got no Hero to 50.
Being part of a farm mission (just one run) yesterday i must say it was a nice change of pace. But ultimatly it was boring and i dont think i will do it much.

On an AE Team last night. 2 new players, both had multiple 50's.

They both said that they don't buy enhancements for their toons until lvl 40 or so.

Player, "this game is lol"

I really hate how AE is TF style so that it auto levels people to level 50 or whatever the AE mission is set for. These new players have no clue how broken their builds are.

You know, I don't think the AE is breaking the game. In many ways, I find it fun and useful to the game.

For one, lvl 50 characters can get tickets to roll for recipes that they would have to do TF for in a much shorter time.

It also gives players a freedom to expand their characters, to show who their characters are and create stories for those characters they worked hard designing and playing.

The second one is the reason I use AE. My missions aren't farms, and sadly...they are never played. I won't make a farm, I made a story, and I wanted it to be played for the story.

I do have recent worries with the AE, though. I worked my butt off to get my first 50. I have played since beta, and I can attest to the state of the game compared to then. I see a lot of new, so-called, AE-babies...and I agree they suck the life of my game.

I won't swear they all do, but I would put a fair percentage of 75 that they do. Why? Many reasons.

First, most have no knowledge of the game, the mechanics, or what all the little buzzers and dings do. The AE doesn't teach about enhancements, recipes, salvage, or anything else. Honestly, does anyone feel the AE is designed for NEW players? Honestly now.

I don't.

The AE is for the experienced players, the ones who know the rules and the methods of the game. When I see a lvl 40 tank who claims Greater Fire Sword sucks because he put 6 TO enchancements in it, I want to laugh...but instead I cry. I cry simply because this guy is on my team, and I have the esteemed previlege of ressurecting him ten times before he calls me stupid and quits.

Some of these players can be taught, but most can't or won't. I just had to put a guy on ignore yesterday because he called me names (and some racial slurs of which he was kindly reported). Why did he go off on me? I had a dark tanker who would not stand next to him and he died. Apparently, my death shroud would have saved him. He mistakingly thought it would give him stealth, and when I kindly attempted to explain otherwise...

My point is simple, really. New players SHOULD NOT be in the AE. They just shouldn't. There are things in the game that are hard enough to learn on your own without a free pass to 50.

Sure, you can level up quickly in other ways, and some would. But the thing about the "other ways" is that you are forced to learn the game along the way. You have to learn how to travel zones, enhancements, inspirations, and even learn about costumes, capes and auras.

You will learn about Task Forces, level pacting, and other great info.

The tutorial zone is only a crumb of what is in the game, and you CAN skip it.

My solution to fix these types of problems, and I have stated this elsewhere before, is to put a stopper on the AE similar to EAT's. We have to hit 50 to get a Kheldian/Arachnos Soldier. Why? Those are advanced classes that you need experience to play effectlvely. They have a tendency to be harder to play, and require more experience with the game mehcanics to understand.

So why not put such a requirement on the AE? It doesn't have to be lvl 50, but something like 30 or 35 should be fine. By the time a player is lvl 35, if they don't know the game, they never will.

The AE wasn't designed with brand new players in mind, so I don't see why it's such a hard rule to input. Doing that won't stop farming, but it will require players to play the "real game" before they can use the AE. I think it's fair, and simple to do.

When I have a blaster quit the Posi TF on the fifth mission because he has only leveled up twice, and then has the nerve to say, "This is stupid, worse than the real game!"... I want to punch something. What does he call the "real game"? He was farming in the AE.

To each his own, I say. I too feel like the AE is cheating, lvl 20 in an hour...wow, how am I NOT exploiting right now? I feel I am...so I stay out of the AE.

I see it's potential, and I see it's flaws. Hopefully, there can be some way to make it work for everyone involved...but only time will tell.

Thanks for reading.
Phantom Staalker

I agree with OP, AE is lowering value of characters. At the moment CoX is farmers and powerlevelers paradise, notthing else. As for people saying there is other choises. Yeah, right. Who would waste weeks doing normal missions to get they charcater to level 50, when they can do same in few hours with AE missions.

In my opinion AE is destroying this game. I don't say AE doesn't have good points too, but the bad is alot worst than the good. AE system needs to be redesign so that it doesn't allow extreme powerleveling. Why they don't make so that players doesn't get access to AE missions, before they have at least one lvl 50 character or lower the amount of exp getting in AE missions about 90% less what it's now.

My first 50 took nearly 3 years of on and off play, I made that many alts and took them to 35 whilst going back to my main etc it took me years. When I dinged 50 I was so pleased with myself, couple of months later I had a 50 villain and was just as excited.

I remember when the game launched, seeing the odd level 50 hanging around under atlas, everyone around them, talking to them or just hanging out with a high level hero, that was awesome. In my oppnion that died a long time ago and AE nailed that door shut.

My recent PuGs with some AE-50's have been lame, I mean a lot of them really are bad players and bad people to be honest, PL and farming tends to breed children and cry baby communities (see WoW for example). My recent 50's have been done solo, I don't team much at all anymore and I only run TFs/Raids etc with people I've been doing it with for years. I don't enjoy teaming with level 50's anymore, AE has sucked the life out of this games content for some people, it's a shame really because they have missed so much and will probably burn out and leave CoH without experiencing half of the content.

This is not directed at people who play AE, I'm talking about the minority, the farmers, the inexperienced n00bs who believe they know everything because they PL'd to 50.

Since I started this post, I haven't had much to say since I've been busy.

First off, I am not against AE itself, or farming for that matter, hell I'm guilty of the latter myself many times over.

I am against AE being used by someone who buys the game at 9am and farms and farms and by 3pm he had a 50 and a 50 Kheldian.

It's a shame that they offered the AE edition as a purchase. If Issue 14 was just a free add on like the others, the easiest thing they could have done to stop noob abuse and all that was to make the AE unavailable to anyone who does not at least the 3 month vet badge. Yes, the new players could also farm in PI to get 50's but it would be much harder for them to do so as farms in PI tend to be closed to lowbies unless you have friends that will help you. This way you need to play the game at least 3 months and you would learn essentials like enhancing, mission selections, the different zones, etc.

But by having it as an edition to buy - you can't tell someone they just bought a game for a certain feature but can't use it for 3 months.

By this point its just getting sickening sometimes to play. Doing an AE farm (since that's about the only thing you can do now if you don't want to solo), with lvl 52 bosses, half the team quit because the 'xp wasn't fast enough, we should be doing lvl 54'. Even thouigh a lvl 1 went from 1 to about 10 in like 4 mob groups.

Or some toon that had whirlwind and while the tank was getting aggro by taunting the mobs, this jerk kept whirlwinding (is that a word? lol) into the mobs and scattering them all over.

To be fair, I've played with very good players who didn't even have the 3 month badge yet, but really were interested in learning all about the mechanics, and actually knew how to play the AT's really well, but I find that very rare.

AE is more busted to me than PvP but I doubt some PvPers are picketing the lines about that.

I have wasted so much money over so years to achieve what someone who joined last month has achieved.Actually..

I am not bothered. I would fail in my attempts at Stoicism if I was and that's something for me to worry like hell about.