Reduced XP for Freakshow now

The problem with this is that often what they - and the nerfherders here - think is "good" is extremely discouraging and annoying to the people whom it affects. I cite as one example the multiple changes made to several task-forces in the name of "balance" which have removed every last iota of fun from them, and now no one runs them.

No one runs them. YAAAAAAY, BALANCE!! WHOOO! Because god forbid someone "exploit" by getting a reward... and so we get like, two merits for running the Khan TF. Truly, lawl. [Or however many it is. Sure felt like two.]

Because some people cannot behave, *I* get punished. You get punished. Every last person playing gets punished. I don't like being nerfed like that, and I seriously doubt I am alone in that. If you want to think otherwise, go for it. Your belief is less important to me than the fact that I see two people on /search in PI these days. I was in St Martial during a peak time the other day on Infinity and I was the only person on the map. Me. One. The loneliest number.

Maybe everyone else was /hidden, but you know.... I doubt it. This is one example of many I could cite, but will not bother since you in essence state that all anecdotes about the game are the result of personal bias. *eyeroll* Why are many servers ghost-towns these days? I don't know, but nerfing is probably a great place to start.

Then we have flat-out STUPID nerfs like the Hover KB nerf that still infuriates me to no end. This accomplished exactly zilch except annoying people like me who have a lot of squishies who Hover through missions. YAAAAAY!!! BALANCE! Because remember, *not* being as annoyed as possible every second you are logged in means you are an Ebil Exploiter and ought to be wearing a great big scarlet E on your chest so everyone will know.

If its so little, why bother at all? This is an annoyance that could have been left alone since this game is what, six years old...? But no. Now, suddenly after SIX YEARS Freakshow are An Ebil Exploit. If I didn't laugh I would weep at the sheer futility of it all. What exactly is this nerf supposed to prove? If they don't want people using Freaks in MA missions [which is what I would bet big $$$ this is related to], then disable the ability to use these NPCs in MA missions. Mission accomplished.

I was pretty specific about stating that this was only MY experience, but since the thread is full of others doing the exact same thing, you can see how far that horse will trot if you want to.

The larger picture is escaping you: what matters here is not whether you are right or I am right over exactly why people are leaving the game.

The important thing is that they're leaving.

That's an empty guess. I know at least a dozen people who left the game, NOT A SINGLE ONE OF WHOM LEFT BECAUSE OF NERFS. Every single person I have known who left the game did so because of burnout or because they found something new to play.

To quote Ceiling Cat: anecdotal evidence is anecdotal. And I am sick and tired of people overblowing their own problems and projecting their discontent over "a sizeable number" of other people with no evidence but a dozen of their friends. That's a dozen, maybe two, out of over a hundred thousand. And not a fair cross-section, either. People in-game naturally gravitate towards forming friendships with people similar to them. It is therefore very likely that what outrages one will outrage a good portion of them. Other, different people forming friendships with like-minded folk may ignore these "nerfs" altogether as a group.

This goes further into the forum population. It is an outright farce to believe that the forum population is either representative of the game's population as a whole, or even a valid cross-section of it. It's only a representation of both a small number of people and a small subset of mindsets. Most of us here are loudmouths who come to make our opinion known, and we are NOT representative of all kinds of people. "Outrage" on the forums, therefore, is nothing more than a tempest in a teapot. Subscription numbers are the only valid metric, and I don't believe we have access to those right now.

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

The rest of your post is more emotional drivel (you "cite" a nerf to TFs and then don't even bother explaining what the nerf was, you don't even know how much the Khan TF rewards but details like facts aren't important to your point, and you seem to think little problems that can be fixed or adjustments aren't worth doing just because), but the last bit of it resembles some coherence so it is worth token response.

They always will be leaving. Always. It's only important if there's a large amount of them, and that they share a collective reason for leaving. Anyone that claims to know one way or another if the AE nerfs or Freak nerfs will have any impact at all is simply being dishonest.

Unless they're me. I'm generally correct about just about everything.

I have said twice up there, very specifically, that my experiences are mine alone and I have no idea how many others are feeling the same way, or seeing the same things in-game that I do. I have said twice, I think, that there is no way we will ever know how many actually feel this way. I do not know how I can be more specific about it.

I'm seeing what I'm seeing. If you see different, great. Your experiences do not trump mine, however. Neither do mine trump yours.

I am sorry that it makes people nervous that these concepts be discussed; and when I see posts like this, what I see behind it is fear that the other party may be right, or partially right. This anger solves nothing. What it does do is obstruct the discussion.

You misunderstand: this isn't my problem. Its CoX's problem, and it looks like it might be a pretty big problem. They didn't start hiding sub. numbers for no reason, I'm guessing. Please do not displace your anger over such events as falling sub. numbers onto me. I have instigated no negative changes to gameplay [unlike many of our resident nerfherders]. Save it for the guilty.

It distresses me too; but you dont see me ranting at you about it. Frankly I expect more from you than this sort of post.

"Outrage"? Well, maybe. I think it's an outrage when there are five people in PI during peak times, when there used to be 40-50. Even Atlas is taking a population-hit these days. Let's all hope for the sake of the game that these numbers are a "tempest in a teapot."

Ah, but are they joining in sufficient numbers to stem the outflow? This is the thing you are conveniently sweeping under the rug as you bring on the ad-hominems in an effort to shift the argument.

If you can prove to me that they are and that my eyes are deceiving me, we have something to discuss. If all you have is more ad-homs, save it. Not interested in posturing, thanx.

That ain't how MMORPG subscriptions work, generally. The business model isn't about ever-increasing numbers. It's like I'm talking to Aceman all over again. Do I need to make more graphs or something?

So, anecdotally you're sick of anecdotal evidence? ;-)

Going back to the original point - Freakshow having their xp rates reduced means very little. The farmers / powerlevellers will just move on. Battle Maiden appears to be the current preferred option of some farmers.

And again I find it odd that the devs make a change like this while also opening up the ability to set mission difficulty levels up for maximum farmage.

I agree that MMORPG subscriptions are generally not about namecalling and accusations: in this sentiment you are correct.

However, you have once again sidestepped the problem that MMORPG subscriptions are also NOT about ever-falling numbers. This is the relevant point: are there fewer people in the game these days? You say no, I say it may well be.

[Before you start, I don't consider some graph you made up out of whole cloth "proof" of anything; you would have to actually be a developer for me to take such a graph seriously. Just saving you a little time tinkering around in whatever art program you use.]

There are other games that have a positive trend line other than WoW, too . Those operate on a different business model, than CoH and WoW and other major players (very front-loaded costs and income goals, punctuated by expansions to regulate the gradual erosion of player base). You start out with small development costs, you start with a small player base, you keep your operations scalable, and you build your player base gradually rather than focus on trying to achieve maximum saturation in the first quarter.

Existentialist nonsense. I am not "afraid" you may be right. I am "afraid" your argument is completely groundless, and I'm tired of people inventing arguments to preach doom, which they turns around and feeds their own argument. Yours is a malicious argument backed up by circular logic. THAT is what bugs me the most.

I misunderstand nothing. You are presenting these problems as "CoX's problem" when they are quite evidently YOUR problems which you are projecting over the entire game. In fact, it contradicts your very point. "This is my opinion" doesn't work when you claim your opinion is fact. This is a problem for the entire game? Really? Prove it. Because from where I'm sitting, I'm not seeing any of it. I'm quite simply not going to take your word for it, especially when it contradicts my experience.

See, this is what bugs me. People keep stating their experiences and then basing global conclusions on them, conclusions which could simply never be justifiable in the absence of data that the people making these claims clearly lack. There are only 4-5 people in Peregrine Island than there were back when Peregrine Island was THE ONLY ONE, SINGLE ZONE WITH ANYTHING FOR LEVEL 50S TO DO? You don't say!

Stop grasping onto the one explanation you want to believe and approach this a bit more objectively, please. I'm as worried as anyone about the game bleeding population, but I'm not about to jump into panic because I didn't see many people on once in a while.

And one more thing: please stay away from the embarrassing straw men. Trying to invent alternate agendas for your opponents and paint them as small, deluded minds so that you can then patronise them in an insultingly passive-aggressive tone does not help your argument. Facts do. Have any?

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

I'll be the first to say that dropping Freakshow experience THAT low was stupid. Freaks may not be that threatening or difficult, but they are certainly not any LESS threatening than the Council, and those still get the baseline 1.0 experience. To me, it's just a silly overbalance reflecting an even sillier overreaction. Make them baseline, by all means. But don't make them a waste of time compared to the much easier Council.

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

Originally Posted by Zwillinger GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.

Originally Posted by Captain_Photon NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.

What a riot. "Play the game as meant" indeed.
So I take it that players are not, in fact, supposed to be able to kill large numbers of enemies within a reasonable time frame? Despite all the "Kill X" badges that exist, and all the AoE powers in this game? Really? You can sit there and say that with a straight face?

I am continually amazed at the hatred toward farming in CoH. It just strikes me as odd, since every single other MMO I have played requires farming of some form or another to accomplish a variety of goals. I often wonder how many of the people that hate farming purchase purple recipes provided by those same farmers.

Yeah, what he said.

I think a lot of it is that until Issue 9, CoH had very little along the lines of economy or gear. I know that personally, a lot of the reason I initially took to the game is pretty much precisely that. I'd just come from EverQuest, and I was overjoyed to find a game where I didn't need to grind, camp, raid, twink, or spend six hours a day in a marketplace shouting 'WTB SHINY HELMET OF RAT-KILLING!!!!' to outfit myself, nor would I ever join a team and find myself completely overshadowed because somebody else on the team had put more time into those activities than me.

This just got more pronounced when WoW hit--I did know several players (anecdotal evidence again, I know) who praised the game for being that one MMO that wasn't a second job. I never really saw the concrete anti-farmer stuff start popping up until after i9, so hey, there's my theory: People resent the game moving away from its original roots as the MMO where somebody who played once a week and a min-maxer who played 18 hours a day could easily have similar builds.

At least, that's why I used to hate the farmers: I got on a team with a completely IO'd out permadom and found my own dominator rendered basically superfluous. Eventually, I just shrugged and spent a few weeks marketing to make my own permadom, so nowdays I just want i16 to hit so the farmers can get back to work making purples for me to buy. D:< If you can't beat 'em, join 'em or come to appreciate the low-cost goods they produce!

tl;dr: I think people dislike farming because pretty much every other MMO requires it.

This echoes my own stance on the matter. All those other games that consist of grinds and farms and the sort can go to hell for all I care. I've tried a lot of them, and I've always left with a sour taste in my mouth when it finally dawned in me how much WORK I had to put in my GAME after a certain point, because the game was designed to expect that I would.

City of Heroes wasn't like that, and even today still isn't like that. Oh, sure, we have fat loot for those who can't live without it, but from where I stand, all it's good for is chest-beating. Since I don't care about being the best or even more powerful than I need to, I have the very real option to NOT get locked into the rat race, ignore the whole thing and play the game like it was 2004.

And while I'm certainly not going to go out of my way to tell people how to play or not to farm and so forth, I am NOT a fan of this need to farm and level quickly becoming the overriding theme of the game, and I'm certainly not going to shed any tears if anti-farming changes are being instituted, so long as they're not stupid and heavy-handed (like the Freakshow experience reduction - WAY too low). Let people farm as much as they can, but this shouldn't be a game ABOUT farming, and so really shouldn't be instituting its changes AROUND farming.

Plain and simple.

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

You wanna party like it's 2-0-0-4?

Well said, and if most of the player base bothered with these forums you'd see many more people around here agreeing with that point of view.



The word "typical" popped up in reference to anti-nerf replies.


What's typical is the same old forumites cheer leading each new nerf, as if it were a newly introduced game mechanic.


This thread is filled with them. The tiny, but loud group of unofficial representatives of gameplay, who speak on behalf of the other 90% of subscribers who seldom, if ever bother with these boards.



They've consistently through the years provided cover for the devs as nerf-enablers, swooping down in force to decry anyone who doesn't sit, shut up, and take the latest nerf imposed on something a plurality used to enjoy (I'm referring to general nerfs effecting gameplay, not major exploits that should be fixed).


The thing is, even they wouldn't want to play their ideal vision of the game, even after the majority of us nonconformists had left their utopia.


I'm not at all talking about big exploits farmers and badgers have used, I'm talking about every little nerf and reduction being protected and cherished like a precious porcelain ornament by the same old people.


From MA critter nerfs, to Freak nerfs, to even Tanker and PvP nerfs last year. Areas were you never see them, until the latest nerf summons their defense.


You may not like the nonconformists among us, but if none of us spoke up, the devs history of hardcore nerf, dialed back to playable levels before it goes live, would've simply skipped the second step.


And that would make you all omnificent Jack Emmerts.
No thanks.

I actually have to drastically change my planned builds should I ever get a Purple. Most of the time, with my 6-slotted powers are 3-3 split with 2 IO Sets to maximize as much as I can. I usually can get at least 3 or 4 stats to about 73% with the others being a fair % around 47 or 60. Since I try to get everything the power can do as maximized as I can get without overslotting. My thinking in this style of slotting is so I can almost always hit, do fair damage, cost little end, recharges at a fair rate, and do a fair amount of any secondary effects, thereby letting me use the power all the time and let it do what it does.

Though when I DO get a Purple, I kinda feel like when I found a secret spot in Mario 64/Sunshine by accident. ^_^

Weren't we just talking about straw men? You just invented an entire hidden conspiracy of mindless, self-destructive Illuminati who come to the forums with the sole purpose of defending positions they disagree with for no reason other than because they were made by the developers. And you think you proved something by telling these imaginary, easily-defeatable people off? This is the Internet equivalent of shouting at your shadow.

It is also getting embarrassing how a lot of people who cry "fan boys" never seem to be able to put forth anything actually convincing, restricting themselves to unfounded conspiracy theories and groundless propaganda, never being able to say "I" or "my," but rather always "we" and "ours." Why is it that I am perfectly capable of standing on my own position and opinion without claiming to speak for an overwhelming, yet silent majority, yet you can't seem to speak for yourself without insinuating some self-righteous justification why your actions and opinions are somehow more valid?

Shotgunning character assassination into the aether and patting yourself on the back serves no purpose whatsoever. If there are issues to be addressed, address them. But for Pete's sake, stop preaching.

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

I don't, I just sell it. I've had exactly 4 purples drop ever.... never slotted one.

Case in point.

No interest in taking you up on your offer. Apparently.