So...About Those Badges

So, we removed nearly all the badges from the AE, and the ones that are left are all, but pointless. "Extract 1 hostage" = badge. It still disappoints me. Why?

Because the type of player that uses the AE to farm is less likely to be the kind of player that cares about badges, and removing badges from the AE simply removes incentive from the kind of player we want using the AE from using it.

Of course, it's been done, and is very unlikely to change, but my hope is that they might at least reconsider their approach to the AE.

As it stands right now, AE badges have no appeal, they generally means nothing, and most of the playerbase sees having only AE badges as a sure indication that you likely are farming.

"About that XP"
Reduced XP as well merely drives the average player away from the AE as well, which I can understand, but...that doesn't change the fact that most players avoid the the architech like the plague because of reduced rewards for even harder difficulty, when it is blossoming with loads of fresh, new content the playerbase needs. Now that the exploits are fixed, is this really still necessary? If punishing the entire playerbase because of farmers is how it's going to be, oh well, but this fact still remains, it drives 'normal players' away from the AE system.

((Of course, I'm really hopeful for the changes to custom critters to give xp 'within game balance limits', as that will allow more freedom.))

Back to badges. Since when do power levelers care about badges? Do you ever see an AE baby with an explore badge, or any badge they had to go out of the way to get? It's another loss of incentive for normal players to play the architech. I really enjoy the new content. I really do. There are so many fantastic arcs there to play. It's just...the incentives are lacking.

I can agree. I like AE, but not for Powerleveling. It's a shame that you get less reward for hard gameplay. It is just wrong.

honestly, i was VERY annoyed when they removed so many of the badges (some of the badges did need to be removed like the HoF and dev choice badges)

they removed 100 badges when maybe 20 badges needed to be removed

and being a big badger myself, i honestly just stopped using the AE for the most part because when they did remove most of the badges, i already had all the ones they had left, and the poor rewards didnt help either. i still play it every now and then, but i dislike the lower rewards for more effort

edit: i also thought about it some more and about half of the AE badges still remaining are account badges that get awarded to all your toons, which make it even more pointless to run AE stuff

Not to throw rain on your parade of woes, but you guys do know that the XP change was never a "final fix" right? And that they've announced it's being changed around with GR in ways that are supposed to keep it exploit-adverse but fairer than it has been? Right?

You may tell me that you don't expect these changes to "be any good" or something, that's your prerogative. But you'll never be able to level as fast in AE as you can with Freaks radio missions for example, no. That does not make it a failure.

No, it's not a failure at all. It's pretty excellent, in fact. I'm just making a point that removing the badges didn't and doesn't dissause the 'improper' use of the AE system.

I'm excited about the XP changes as well, they sound promising. Being able to actually 'customize' minions and still receive resonable XP is great. I just also threw in a point that reducing XP because of abuses of the system doesn't help encourage the 'average player' to use the system, it merely punishes them because of said farmers and exploiters, and because of that many new excellent story arcs are seeing much less play than they could/should.