What's the big deal? Powerleveling and the AE "nerf"

dirty secret:
For much of the game's history "the journey" hasn't been that interesting.

Things have greatly improved lately, but the game has a tradition of players finding their own fun dating back to day one.

Just as a comparison point to this one.

For about 2-3 weeks before I16 I was running Unai's To Save a Thousand Worlds arc from Ouroboros over and over and rarely saw anyone in Portal Corps.

Since I16 there are people there and often at the portals to the missions.

I think a lot of the PLing moved back to PI but not all of it so there was not a complete population shift from Atlas Park's AE to PI but that plus all the broadcasts about sewer teams in Atlas Park make me think we didn't lose people as much as they went back to old ways of playing. I think any online population drop could also be explained by Aion, CO, returning to school...

The reason is novelty. Many people play multiple alts simultaneously, not really caring how fast each character levels, because they don't feel like doing exactly the same thing each time they play. When you play that way you get something new and different most every time you play.

I agree about non-IOed characters feeling slow and clunky. That's why I start using IOs at level 7 or 12, and never bother with DOs and SOs. It's actually cheaper to add permanent common IOs as you level than re-outfitting with temporary enhancements every five levels.

I also start using IO sets when the main bonus starts to cap out due to ED. That's usually in the late 20s and early 30s. I don't mind that they don't have the maximum possible bonuses because the sets have 55-60% accuracy and 95% damage (or other main effect), which when combined with the accuracy and recharge bonuses I usually get with the sets I choose make the character very snappy and responsive.

Because my characters are fun to play pretty much the whole time I'm playing them, I really feel no need to PL. Most characters built this way can easily solo at +1/x5 or +2/x4, or team with another character or two at +2/x8. That combined with maxed-out Patrol XP (from playing so many alts) means you're basically PLing yourself whenever you play.

The other benefit of using IO sets early is that when you're exemped down, you retain the bonuses you had at that level.

Finally, the most tedious levels (1-stamina) now go by in just a few hours. I can see why people want to PL through that (always having to rest, never enough attacks), but the devs have cranked up the XP so much for 1-20 that it's barely enough playing time to get to know how the powers work together.

I'm not interested in getting lots of purples because of the time and expense involved, and, frankly, they don't have a lot of the bonuses that I want. Most of the purple sets have the same bonuses (recovery, regen, recharge, accuracy, toxic resist). While these are great bonuses you can get 50-75% of many of those effects with rares and certain commons. Some of the bonuses don't really offer much for most characters: they can't get enough regen to make a difference with burst damage, characters with IO sets rarely have end problems, and your to-hit caps at 95%, so global accuracy bonuses greater than 30-40% are overkill. The only generally useful bonus is the 10% recharge. If I really need that much recharge I'll take Hasten.

The bonus from IO sets that many people are looking for these days are the Defense bonuses, and only one purple set gives any defense bonus. There is a certain degree of "I must have it because it's the best" mentality with purples. Having six sets of them doesn't really do much for you unless you happen to need the bonuses they give, and most characters can get what they need much more easily elsewhere.

This (though I only made 2.1 billion). I use AE now to buy rare salvage and for random rolls to sell. Contrary to many people's beliefs, there are still over a dozen efficient (though not as much so as pre-I16) farms in MA that are excellent for ticket accrual. While leveling a newbie toon isn't quite as fast now as it was previously, it's still a helluva lot faster than normal teams can accomplish. Double XP weekend was well timed as it allowed me to push up through the boring (i.e. pre-20) levels the conventional way. But I still have quite a few more who need work and AE is better for that, for me.

Yep. It's also more efficient when you factor in travel time (or lack thereof), especially blueside. Running the Fusionette Task Force/MercyTown are MUCH more efficient than the comparable number of radio missions, for example. Much better storywise too, no matter how many times I've done them previously.

Argument fails because none of those examples you use were ever the case previously. No 'random mission door in Talos' was ever packed to bursting in the past. No random trial or TF/SF contact was ever packed to bursting in the past (not even when the TF/SF was first released, i.e. STF/LRSF/ITF or the 'Speed Katie' period). Reason being, there are too many of them and there was never a time when a level 2 could do Katie Hannon. You can't compare the 'AE craze' to any other period in CoX history. It doesn't compute. As many have said previously, it was a perfect storm of conditions that led to what occurred during that time. Between easily exploitable custom mobs (i.e. mobs with no ranged attacks, mobs with bloated xp values for their rank, etc) and auto-level scaling regardless of natural level, extreme reward slant (pre-ticket cap, as the most glaring example), and so forth, trying to compare it to standard content that was never able to take advantage of those things, is an exercise in futility.

AE is "dead" (and I use the term in strictly tongue in cheek fashion) because its reward structure isn't as overwhelmingly dominant over normal content anymore. It still has utility and it's still useful to those who look beneath the surface, but most people aren't interested in doing that. It's no longer what "everyone" is doing and the initiators (i.e. the people starting and running those teams) are no longer there so the sheeple aren't there anymore either.

In my case, this is absolutely false. I've been playing this game since May of 2004 (with a couple breaks to play elsewhere). I've seen this game pre and post-Purple patch, pre and post-Smoke Grenade nerf, pre and post-Burn nerf, weathered all the various Regen nerfs, seen the highs of I4 Invuln and the lows of I5. In fact, I signed up for my first yearlong subscription term (on two accounts)....three weeks before I5 hit Test. I've been here. Even with the Founder's Club sub in LOTRO (that I never use) and the lifetime sub in Champions, I still took advantage of the year sub promotion offered by NC.....a month after I had resubbed both accounts for a year (so I'm here for 2.5 more years, just about). Fast advancement means nothing to me....as long as I can still buy more character slots. And taking a wild guess here, I'm thinking it'll take me more than 2.5 years to level and fully IO out 704 characters (11 servers, 32 characters per server, 2 accounts), even with pre-I16 AE leveling speed.

Yeah, I'm an extreme case (if only due to having two accounts) but using the logic that 'giving the players a fast rate of advancement will fuel your subscriber churn' sells short your longtime players who don't see that as be-all, end-all. There are people right now who have two dozen (or more) 50s and they're still playing.

While I don't agree with the 'I pay $15, I should be able to do what I want and have everything I want' crowd, I also don't think you should pander to the opposite end of the spectrum (which I would pretty much be a part of, given the fact that 'Asian grind MMOs' don't affect me in the least). The answer lies somewhere in the middle, where AE is a viable alternative to standard content. We're not quite there yet (many of the recent changes have mainly impacted story writers far moreso than farm creators) but hopefully we will be soon enough.

BS. See me registration date? I have been playing and paying since the game launched. Or shortly after. I have not taken breaks, or let either of my accounts lapse. And i farmed my *** off when the AE was cranking. For no other reason then it was fun to do. It was fun to advance a character quickly through the game i have played for 5 years and more now.

A blanket statement like "...difference between a player staying..." is utter BS. MMOs live and survive for years on the hardcore dedicated fan base that doesnt go anyway. Though new players might drift in and drift out, having a basic base that is there no matter what is what keeps any MMO going. Its when that base starts moving away that the game really starts to falter.

If a player comes in and buys a box and sticks around for 2-3 months while they see everything and then leaves, but in order to keep that 2-3 months the devs have made a game that someone that has paid, and would be willing to keep paying after 5 years, and they leave, who is the bigger loss to the company?

Well said my man.

That new rep feature is pretty useless. The way it's being used here, you'd almost feel like you were in high school again. I'm sure whoever -rep'd you sure showed you to never get out of line again! Muhaha... etc.

Does this look like home to you Francis?

Close but no cigar.

You mean, this isn't high school all over again?

I treat Rep (+ and -) the same way I did most of my fellow students in high school. I ignore the rep. although, some of the comments can be humorous...when comments are actually left.