How to Fix AE Rewards, in One Step
My "solution" to re-incentivising people to return to AE and helping to reduce the farming capacity has always been to simplify the process as much as possible and make it as easy and straight forward to understand as it can be. Rather than coming up with tons of new rules regarding XP and custom mobs I would just do three things:
Big increase, possibly double, ticket drop rate. heavily cut XP gain straight across the board. No special rules based on power selection or whether or not a mob is custom. Just have everything be worth 50% XP. |
The majority of CoH players are broke. They have no idea how to use the market. Accumulating tickets and spending them efficiently can make you rich if you know what you're doing and think of long-term benefits. Most people just want to watch that XP bar go up. How many times have you been on a team and had people comment that the XP was good/lousy? Now how many times have you been on a team and had people comment that the drop rate was lousy?
Make it impossible to make a custom enemy group with just 1 class. Each group needs boss, lt, minion.* This way even the most optimised farmers are still severely limited and will probably realize that they'd be better off farming normal content for XP with a good amount of drops. |
People who play AE will still earn XP, but will also earn tons of tickets to spend on rolls. This has the added effect of drasitically increasing market supply of just about everything that isn't purple. |
I believe these changes if implemented would provide enough reward for players to still consider playing the AE, while also preventing the massive influx of farming and allowing players to not feel like they are being limited in their creative ability to design custom mobs to behave exactly the way they want them to behave. |
*Note that right now (unless they changed it since I re-subbed, been gone for a while) you can make an enemy group with just 1 class of enemy. Only problem being you earn 0XP for them. My proposed change would make it impossible to even create an arc without all classes being in your custom enemy group. You'd simply get the orange error message telling you to make more enemy classes. |
This does not mean that authors who do understand the (flawed) reward mechanic should be punished so that those who don't bother to learn would maybe possibly have some incentive to use MA again.
Eva Destruction AR/Fire/Munitions Blaster
Darkfire Avenger DM/SD/Body Scrapper
Arc ID#161629 Freaks, Geeks, and Men in Black
Arc ID#431270 Until the End of the World
I don't know if anyone else has this problem, but the Master Architect accolade badge never granted me the reward power, Invigorate. I sent a bug message to the support team bu they said they hadn't heard of them problem and weren't able to duplicate it, so I'm basically out of luck.
Just my unscientific observation, but this game seems to be more and more about penalties and limitations, and even though we were promised that in time ED would all make sence, I don't find Inventions to have been such a great boon to the game. It's definitly something else to do, but it's no more than a distraction as is AE now.
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I don't mean this to be snarky, but there are so many things you can do with IOs (and more specifically IO-sets) that you can give toons completely new functionality/dimensions. Do they do the damage of a pre- ED max damage blaster? Maybe not. But that same blaster now can have a number of tricks that allow him to be far more surviable... and that's just one example.
Even if you don't build for sets, frankenslotting allows for more return on less slots.
Way to prove the game used to be so much better than it is now by complaining that it's harder to grief newbies now. That's a fantastic argument right there.
![]() Also, nice of you to ignore (or even better, not even know) that when I was level 5-14, there was no Hollows. We spent hours lost in Perez Park and we liked--er... tolerated it. ![]() Not every change may be a good one, but the game is leaps and bounds better than it was when it first launched. |
Positron said as much as it should be equivalent, whatever BABs jokes about "alternative" not meaning equivalent. |
BAB wasn't joking, either. Alternative does not necessarily mean equivalent. In most cases, it's not. When you chose the alternative to something, you are making a conscious decision to live with what comes with going that route. In this case, it should be that by going all AE, or mostly AE, you are leveling, yes, but leveling slower than someone who does mainly dev created content. Alternative can also imply that any benefit you gain from choosing that route is not necessarily the primary benefit of doing said content. The Devs repeatedly said that AE was a method for the players to share stories, and create content for others to enjoy. A side benefit was that you gained rewards for doing it, but they never implied that AE would be just as good as running the old stuff, and it would be kind of silly of them to want folks to do the AE content instead of the normal stuff by making the rewards too good.
Will players choose to focus their reward-gathering in AE? Yes, same as some like to focus on PvP, or marketing. That doesn't mean the system needs to change to accomodate them.
Loose --> not tight.
Lose --> Did not win, misplace, cannot find, subtract.
One extra 'o' makes a big difference.
I don't know if anyone else has this problem, but the Master Architect accolade badge never granted me the reward power, Invigorate. I sent a bug message to the support team bu they said they hadn't heard of them problem and weren't able to duplicate it, so I'm basically out of luck.
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http://wiki.cohtitan.com/wiki/Master_Architect_Badge
Main Hero: Chad Gulzow-Man (Victory) 50, 1396 Badges
Main Villain: Evil Gulzow-Man (Victory) 50, 1193 Badges
Mission Architect arcs: Doctor Brainstorm's An Experiment Gone Awry, Arc ID 2093
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And even if they fix that, you could still make a mission with no enemies in it that ends when you click a glowie. Again, you'd be violating the risk/reward ratio the developers are working so hard to maintain. __________________ |
And yet for the most part i can do this now by just being selective off which radio mission i take. The travel time would probably be a wash being radios are all in one zone. And with stealth+SS or many other mixtures of powers in the game its pretty easily to stealth a blinky mission. Yet we dont nerf rewards for standard mission now do we? God can you just imagine the outcry from all those that complained to get AE changed if bonuses and rewards in the real game were based off effort and risk also?
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2) You still have to kill at least the enemies in the final room, which for some maps is 3-5 spawns, out of the player's control.
3) You can LITERALLY create AE missions that complete as soon as you step in the door. You could make a 5-mission arc where all you have to do is zone in and out 5 times. You wouldn't even have to MOVE.
Dispari has more than enough credability, and certainly doesn't need to borrow any from you.
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Ok ill give you that the by definition that "alternative" doesnt require the system to offer equal rewards. But if it offers lesser rewards, it just simply wont be used. And i think that spending the time you all did on the system to try and get it right, emplies you wanted it to be used.
For instance, as an "alternative" to driving to work, i can take public transportation. However that requires 3 transfers, and waiting up to 45 minutes to catch the first bus when i get off work so the 6 miles i go to work takes about 90 minutes on public transportation but 20 minutes at most by car. So guess what i dont use public transportation when i can avoid it. Its alternative, but far substandard to driving.
The AE system already got rewards nerfed. Though the ticket system is nice, i dont really feel it offers the same level of rewards as running standard missions and getting randoms. It does offer choices which i did like. However if custome critters can not offer the same rewards as standard do, then i take 2 hits off using the system to level.
But when a developer uses a term like "alternative" IMO it emplies equality between the two alternatives. That one might have some things better the other might have other things it does well, but that in the end they reach the same objective in roughly the same effort is put into them. Well getting like none-75 percent of the XP to kill off mobs that have 2-3 times the powers as a standard mob, IMO doesnt get to the same place with the same amount of effort.
Wow i think we might have a new winner for the Jack Emmert double talk award.
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Ok ill give you that the by definition that "alternative" doesnt require the system to offer equal rewards. But if it offers lesser rewards, it just simply wont be used.
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"Why would a farmer care so much about what the devs-- Oohhhh, they stopped him from doing it!"
You see, I play a level 50 character. He's got a decent number of IOs, and the only ones I'm interested in are FAR out of my price range. What reason do I have for playing this toon if I'm not offering rewards?
Oh, that's right: FUN
You see, chum, back when you looked at the AE nerfs as 'OMG THE DEVS SCREWED UP!' I looked at it and said 'Alright, anyone who's using the system for not-exploitative play should have absolutely no problem'. Lo and behold, we have people clamoring that this is unfair, the devs dropped the ball, it's a PR nightmare, and SO much more that I don't care to get into.
You see, people don't ALWAYS play for the Reward. I've done the ITF about 7 times, haven't even attempted the MoITF, either. Why?
Because it's... Can ya' guess? FUN
Imagine that? People can have fun without gaining XP?
![](http://i643.photobucket.com/albums/uu153/Poyzinblud/coffee_beans.jpg)
Wow i think we might have a new winner for the Jack Emmert double talk award.
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Players do not have the word alternative in their vocabularly, only 'best'.
Even if two areas gave the exact same xp, unless they are identical in every way, one is 'best' and therefore used. It would come down to distance traveled, ease of use, enemy resistances.........something would differentiate two things and therefore one would be deemed best and that one would be the only one used.
This game is no different than any other in that regard.
Again, this is a player created problem. No dev, in any game, has ever solved this problem unless any two options were literally the exact same, which is either redundant or impossible, depending on what it is we're comparing.
One can argue 'alternative' vs 'equivalent' until they are blue in the face, but the "rule of best" states that no two options in such game are ever actually equivalent unless they are indeed the same option. To actually be different options, one would have to differ from the other in some aspect, and therefore one would be deemed 'best' and used to the near exclusion of the other.
It's been stated they knew about Rikti farms in the beta. They knew farming was a possibility, hince why they keep trying to tell us not to do it. (which IMO was ineffective) And they KNEW FOR SURE a day two after AE went live and the forums exploided with farming stories, but still left it, and stayed silent on the subject for like, 2 or 3 weeks.
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Oh here we go with this bull**** defense again. Trying to use farming to justify abusing exploits.
If the devs were truly against farming they would simply make the content non repeatable by making each mission timed, and not letting us reset the missions once started.
And I think we might have a new winner for the 'Snide Self-Importance' Award.
I read this far before I stopped and thought to myself; "Why would a farmer care so much about what the devs-- Oohhhh, they stopped him from doing it!" You see, I play a level 50 character. He's got a decent number of IOs, and the only ones I'm interested in are FAR out of my price range. What reason do I have for playing this toon if I'm not offering rewards? Oh, that's right: FUN You see, chum, back when you looked at the AE nerfs as 'OMG THE DEVS SCREWED UP!' I looked at it and said 'Alright, anyone who's using the system for not-exploitative play should have absolutely no problem'. Lo and behold, we have people clamoring that this is unfair, the devs dropped the ball, it's a PR nightmare, and SO much more that I don't care to get into. You see, people don't ALWAYS play for the Reward. I've done the ITF about 7 times, haven't even attempted the MoITF, either. Why? Because it's... Can ya' guess? FUN Imagine that? People can have fun without gaining XP? |
* no mission bonus
* less xp from mobs if they are harder than regular mobs
* no patrol xp.
To me that is not only not equivalent but inferior.
With that said I've gone back to using the AE for fun stories from the few authors I know write well. And only in between running regular content, and only once in a while.
I DON'T play stuff I've never heard of on the forums EVER.
The dreck from some of the "authors" (and I use that term loosly) is easily avoidable. I tend to find a lot of what some of our "authors" consider fun, to be not.
EDIT: To clarify, the AE is more fun since the release of the issue 16 difficulty options.
Blazara Aura LVL 50 Fire/Psi Dom (with 125% recharge)
Flameboxer Aura LVL 50 SS/Fire Brute
Ice 'Em Aura LVL 50 Ice Tank
Darq Widow Fortune LVL 50 Fortunata (200% rech/Night Widow 192.5% rech)--thanks issue 19!
![Big Grin](images/smilies/biggrin.gif)
Oh here we go with this bull**** defense again. Trying to use farming to justify abusing exploits.
If the devs were truly against farming they would simply make the content non repeatable by making each mission timed, and not letting us reset the missions once started. |
With that said it sure as hell is NOT ******** that the AE issue was released with obvious holes for obvious reasons. Which they WERE warned about by beta testers. For reasons already discussed for ages, they probably had NO CHOICE but to release it when they did.
Blazara Aura LVL 50 Fire/Psi Dom (with 125% recharge)
Flameboxer Aura LVL 50 SS/Fire Brute
Ice 'Em Aura LVL 50 Ice Tank
Darq Widow Fortune LVL 50 Fortunata (200% rech/Night Widow 192.5% rech)--thanks issue 19!
![Big Grin](images/smilies/biggrin.gif)
AE might be inferior in terms of EXP/INF gained (even though I gained 7 bars of exp over 5 missions in AE running 2 arcs at level 36), but it's SUPERIOR for obtaining set recipes.
I can run solo for hours running non-AE arcs and obtain only a handful of set recipes, but after 2-3 arcs in AE I can walk away with 20 set recipes easily. After turning in tickets, of course.
AE might be inferior in terms of EXP/INF gained (even though I gained 7 bars of exp over 5 missions in AE running 2 arcs at level 36), but it's SUPERIOR for obtaining set recipes.
I can run solo for hours running non-AE arcs and obtain only a handful of set recipes, but after 2-3 arcs in AE I can walk away with 20 set recipes easily. After turning in tickets, of course. |
You can also generate recipes that cap out at lower levels, many of which are highly desirable.
Eva Destruction AR/Fire/Munitions Blaster
Darkfire Avenger DM/SD/Body Scrapper
Arc ID#161629 Freaks, Geeks, and Men in Black
Arc ID#431270 Until the End of the World
All this is fine and good, but doesn't change the fact that the AE is an inferior tool for those who do care about xp/leveling.
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* no mission bonus
* less xp from mobs if they are harder than regular mobs * no patrol xp. To me that is not only not equivalent but inferior. |
And if you REALLY feel that the lack of xp is so very limiting on you? You will ALWAYS have the option to, and follow me here, step back from AE and do developer-made content. Did you know that it gives bonus xp? Like... DOUBLE the experience! And sometimes there's some weird stuff that gives you double THAT!
But seriously? AE can never be equivalent. Do you know why? Because even before the huge exp nerf, it wasn't equivalent; it was SUPERIOR. It gave you rewards that had little to no risk attached to them. If the devs had to make the choice again, I'd hope they do it all again.
![](http://i643.photobucket.com/albums/uu153/Poyzinblud/coffee_beans.jpg)
they probably had NO CHOICE but to release it when they did.
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The devs work for a business and businesses have deadlines. You do the best you can to put a product out in the timeframe allowed. And correct me if I'm wrong but wasn't the AE release date pushed back at least once already? For some reason I remember that the AE was suppsed to come out with I13 but they had to delay it. If my memory is faulty I apologise.
This!
The devs work for a business and businesses have deadlines. You do the best you can to put a product out in the timeframe allowed. And correct me if I'm wrong but wasn't the AE release date pushed back at least once already? For some reason I remember that the AE was suppsed to come out with I13 but they had to delay it. If my memory is faulty I apologise. |
AE was held off to finish up the custom enemy options.
Hence the weird split in Issue 13 getting day jobs... before they were ready. AE being moved to I14. I15 being light on content in an attempt to make the 5th anniversary. I16 being mostly made of bug fixes.
And the fact that the people that were hunting for the next exploit as fast as the devs shut them down, and came up with code words to identify which missions in the AE were designed to take advantage of the exploits defeated any defense they made that they didn't know they were breaking the rules.
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"HOW DARE YOU FARM IN MAH GAME!? IMMA E-CHOKE YOU AND TAKE YOUR MONEYZ"
Dispari has more than enough credability, and certainly doesn't need to borrow any from you.
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Having watched my thread for several days now, I think I'll step back in and make some points:
1. There's a lot of anti-farmer anger here. I really could care less about farming. I wasn't even here during I14 and I15. Farming has nothing to do with my post.
2. If you look at what I wrote, I think it's fairly hard to claim that the system I propose in any way enables uber power leveling.
Let's do a little math, shall we? Someone on the first page claimed that 'people would just level up multiple toons' - they would use the 3 level per week gain in an exploitative way.
Assume that there are 3 desirable servers a user wants to play on. Further assume that he/she has 12 slots open on each server. If he/she is going to powerlevel through trivial content using the capped system, then it is going to take on the order of 17 weeks to do that (4 months). It takes me around 3 months to get a 50, using ordinary mission-ing. How is AE providing superior rewards?
Bear in mind also the extraordinary effort it would take to find farm teams on 3 separate servers at the right times (people would exhaust their 3 levels asynchronously), the annoyance factor of logging in 36 separate toons...and the fact that you still actually have to fight stuff in order to get your 3 levels. TFs, radio missions... there are many ways that I could level up faster than this.
Are we somehow enabling Korean 1-50 in 48 hours people? Uh, no, because they are advertising 48 hours... not 4 months.
Who is my system hurting exactly? Are you hurt, because someone spends 4 months leveling up a bunch of toons? Is the game hurt? I'd hazard that less than 1/10 of 1% of people would actually play the game in the way that I've described above. Those people were going to exploit any system they were given, anyway, so I'm going to go out on a limb and say it's safe to say we don't care about them...
3. Kitsune appears to be one of the few people who actually read my post before launching into some fit of nerd rage. Like she said, gating leveling speed to whatever the Dev's intended benchmark is achieves the goal of making user-designed content a plausible alternative route for leveling. There is no need to introduce complex mechanics or weighting schemes - just let people design how they want to design.
4. AE content is not just for 50s. If that's how you want to play AE, fine. But many of us would like to explore different missions and gain XP at similar rates as if we were doing 'vanilla' missions. Ultimately, this behavior is to the game's benefit, because we won't burn out from boredom.
Comments welcomed. Thanks to those who have kept flaming to a minimum. That's not what this thread is about - bein' constructive here.
Happy Friday.
-IridiumMaster
And I think we might have a new winner for the 'Snide Self-Importance' Award.
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I read this far before I stopped and thought to myself; "Why would a farmer care so much about what the devs-- Oohhhh, they stopped him from doing it!" |
You see, I play a level 50 character. He's got a decent number of IOs, and the only ones I'm interested in are FAR out of my price range. What reason do I have for playing this toon if I'm not offering rewards? Oh, that's right: FUN |
See i can have fun playing a level 50, i can have fun playing a level 30. But obviously i want to see progression in the character that i play, if its availible to him. Its less so availible to a level 50 because of the cap, but why if i want to level my level 30 character, would i choose a system that not only didnt offer me patrol xp, bonuses, and inluence at the same level as a standard mission, but then also fight tougher enemies for less xp?
You see, chum, back when you looked at the AE nerfs as 'OMG THE DEVS SCREWED UP!' I looked at it and said 'Alright, anyone who's using the system for not-exploitative play should have absolutely no problem'. Lo and behold, we have people clamoring that this is unfair, the devs dropped the ball, it's a PR nightmare, and SO much more that I don't care to get into. You see, people don't ALWAYS play for the Reward. I've done the ITF about 7 times, haven't even attempted the MoITF, either. Why? Because it's... Can ya' guess? FUN Imagine that? People can have fun without gaining XP? |
At its heart the purpose of the AE was to allow players to make content. And other players to play that content. Now however it would seem the vast majority of players dont play the content. So ask yourself why? Because the rewards arenot on par with standard mission content is really the onlyreason i could think of.
I mean seriously if all things were equal why would i want to do a standard story arc for the 20th time rather then playing something new. And just as when the AE was in beta we told the devs about how all the ways people were farming and exploiting the system and the devs launched anyway, we also told them that with the proposed changes to the custom critters that hte AE would turn into a ghost town, and it has done so again.
I have been playing the game for over 5 years, i have played every AT availible, if i didnt find the game fun i wouldnt still beplaying it. That doesnt mean im going to not offer my opinion and crawl up the devs brown-holes when i dont feel they are making good decisions just because they are the devs. And i certianly dont need to hear from some 2 year vet about how i am a farmer or whatever your glitch was because i find fun in different ways then he does. Seriously ohhh you did the ITF 7 times, big whoop, i prob have also. But since it was for fun and not for reward im sure you decided to waste those merits on only buying trap of the hunter IOs right?
Not every minute of my playing time can be spent on a team running TF or other such social things. And when i am playing and friends and such are not availible, then yes my attentions turn to more things like leveling, xp, influence etc. So what, i also find that fun. You have a good time sticking to idea of fun and why not try to not tell other people what they should consider fun or not.
Players do not have the word alternative in their vocabularly, only 'best'.
Even if two areas gave the exact same xp, unless they are identical in every way, one is 'best' and therefore used. It would come down to distance traveled, ease of use, enemy resistances.........something would differentiate two things and therefore one would be deemed best and that one would be the only one used. This game is no different than any other in that regard. Again, this is a player created problem. No dev, in any game, has ever solved this problem unless any two options were literally the exact same, which is either redundant or impossible, depending on what it is we're comparing. One can argue 'alternative' vs 'equivalent' until they are blue in the face, but the "rule of best" states that no two options in such game are ever actually equivalent unless they are indeed the same option. To actually be different options, one would have to differ from the other in some aspect, and therefore one would be deemed 'best' and used to the near exclusion of the other. |
Yes the AE have several issues upon release that contributed to a overblown farmersville. But the response to this shouldnot have been to nerf the rewards to thepoint where even the non-farmers sat back and said screw it, that it would not be worth thier time to use. Which IMO is where we are at right now.
No Patrol xp, no influence bonuses, no xp bonuses. Then add in probably less earning of recipies and salvage then a standard mission with the ticket purchasing. Now top that offby taking the one feature that they new people wanted, that they delayed the AE to give us, that of custom characters, and make it basicly so backward for xp that anyone using custom characters will prob never see their arcs being played much at all.
As is a standard custom character earns less xp then most standard game spawned mobs. However in most cases these standard custom characters have more attacks and defenses then those standard mobs. And if they dont, then they are worth nothing.
As is right now the AE is not an alternative means to leveling, its a inferior means to leveling. I would take a little more time to level by way of playing new stories and arcs if it was just a bit slower. But when factoring in most things its not just a bit slower, its alot slower, unless your farming.
A farmer can still make mobs that are custom built to his toons, that go down easy and can be spawned and killed in mass, use the AE to limit traveling of lower level toons etc. So basicly i can build a good farming map that out xps a standard mission, i cant so much build a standard mission arc for general gameplay that meets the difficulty level to xp that a standard mission offers.
IMO this is what needs to be fixed. I know people will still say its to slow or slower then normal, but atleast it wouldnt be so slow that those actually wanting new experiences and willing to give back a bitof time to get them wouldnt have to give up on the system.
I agree with you that it would have been better to delay the launch of the AE a month or two in order to fix the major exploits (Mito farms et. al). I guess getting launched > the backlash of the players who used it as intended and now have to live with the consequences of the farmers.
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