I just wanted to add a new bit of perspective to the discussion.
I am an extremely casual gamer (very busy and often travel due to work)
I have played CoX off and on since release, I have yet to get a character to level 50.
I am not a "farmer", nor do I have anything against it, I just do not care enough about progressing in levels to actively seek out the fastest way to exp.
My issue however, is that in my limited play time AE missions are really not worth it any more for me. You have to sift through quite a few bad/mediocre stories to find some gems, all the while getting reduced rewards or fighting enemies that mop the floor with you.
I understand the intent of lowering rewards to prevent exploits, but it seems to me that the powergamers will find a different avenue (in or out of AE) while a lot of us casuals just get turned off from the whole AE experience.
I do use the Architect regularily, but also think the rating-system and especially the search-window need some help.
The 5-Star system is really inaccurate and mainly used by many farmers to "bookmark" their favourite Arcs. Which, of course, leads to dozens of Arcs vanishing into Limbo because they get intentionally rated down to preserve the "bookmarks".
As shown by several incarnations of the ebay-rating-system a rating system with 5 levels just doesn't work. Ebay introduced a comparable system and began punishing sellers which didn't reach perfect 5er ratings. Of course I was quite suprised by this, because I had assumed 3 or 4 a fairly good rating when I first rated a seller.
The search-window on the other hand is just not very helpful. After sifting through pages and pages of "bookmarked" farming maps I mostly stumble on derelict Arcs and the occasional really good story. Of course I 1-Star every farming map I encounter, hoping they fall at least one page to the back. It just shouldn't be necessary.
I really love the Architect and I disagree with the assumption it wasted resources implementing it. The system has it's flaws (some of them really big) but it's a step in the right direction. There can never be enough developer-generated content created between Issues, it's just not possible. Creating a Taskforce which can be played 40 times before every (sane) player stops it is in every way inferior to creating tools to make own missions which leads to infinite amounts of content.
Quote:
In case it hasn't been mentioned to you before, the 'Stories and Lore' section for MA on these forums (look under 'For Fun!')will be an absolute goldmine for you when it comes to finding worthwhile arcs in terms of stories. Not all arcs have been whomped by the temporary nerfage, too.
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Originally Posted by Vargal
You have to sift through quite a few bad/mediocre stories to find some gems
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Yet he was worth his full XP. (or at least a lot of XP and inf)
Just saying that removing all rewards from citters whenever you remove a power is pointless while you can build something like that and get full XP for it.
Plus I am sure you can always put together a full-rewards group of canon critters that are the perfect match for your build (vulnerable to your damage type while you are highly resistant to their attacks) to plough through even if you dont fly.