Live Patch

Cap has a BM and a university within one SJ of each other, no other zone does.

Hence why people idle there from level 20 to whatever.

Devs can never hit the target right.

MA Allies are not a problem, what is an exploit are allies who cast constant buffs like Sonic Dispersion and Dispersion Bubble or use Leadership (certain Longbow bosses) but are set to not attack at all. What they should be doing is FINALLY coding it so that a critter who has not been rescued or is set to never attack does not turn its toggles on in the first place!

All this does is screw over a lot of arcs just because they happen to have an ally in it, even if you don't rescue the ally.

Way to go Devs.

Fixed.

Perhaps you are right and coding the AI to act differently is the best way to avoid such problems, but you should know by now that coding of that nature takes time and this was an exploit fix. Not to mention the AI in this game isn't the cream of the crop.

What I'm trying to say is, the devs could be squashing the exploit just to squash it. Then they will assign the lengthy task of fixing the AI the correct way which avoids punishing legit users of the allies.

The RPing VGs that use it on a weekly base disagree!
And therefore i'll defend AE to the death!
And besides, people will abuse anything that can be remotely abused - always have, always will (some do it because they think it makes them clever, others do it out of pure laziness, etc...).
I still respect the Devs for having the guts to go through with such an experimental system in an MMO.

The game is stingy. AE exploits can be a method of coping with the stinginess.

No, people are just greedy. They want lots of shiny things NOW! Ideally for little or no invested effort.

(please see .sig)

I consider, say, 4 hours of continuous play in a video game to be a significant amount of invested effort. 10+ hours is starting to get ridiculous, being more than an average work day invested in a game. If I don't get worthwhile returns on that, the game is stingy. In all my hours of play I think I've received one interesting drop. The few other items of worth I have on various characters had to be purchased at extremely gratuitous cost.

And that's before even getting into the ridiculous merit system and associated prices.

This game is so stingy that I've honestly begun to expect every salvage/recipe drop I get to be named "VARISTA."

Now, I don't actively seek out farms and such, but I'm also not extremely picky about teams. I generally take invites where I can get them. And in the early AE craze I ended up on more than one AE farm team. The ticket influx almost helped alleviate the stinginess. If not for limited item availability and horrible prices it may have.

Yup.

As for 'the game is stingy', really, cry me a river. I didn't get a really decent drop until very recently, which means around three years of play time with mediocre drops.
Then I happened to get two purples in one missiong. On a level 8 who was being SK'd.

It's called chance, and she's a fickle little b****.

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.

Then an MMO might not be the right type of game for you. For a Single Player game, then absolutely; 4 hours is a lot of time to play in one go, and 10 is an incredible amount. Goodness knows I felt beyond dead losing track of time in XCom, Civilization or Oblivion and feeling stupid at myself for playing them so much in a single go.

But in the world of MMO's time is different. The game isn't set up to give you a lot of big name rare rewards in 4 hours of play, but more like 4 months of play. For instance, Purple IOs don't drop but for an extremely lucky few; I've talked to SG mates who, while playing about 4-6 hours per day, have yet to get a single Purple since they came out. I myself have gotten I think 4 since Purples were added to the game, and I play in upwards of 6-8 hours per day.

Yep. I play to "pew, pew!" Drops are bonus fun.

I'm quoting myself because it seems my initial thoughts were correct based on the post from Dr. Aeon.

No, AE has been a great, very fun addition to the game. It has done a lot of "good", providing hours of fun for those who enjoy creating and playing their own stories, whether it be individuals or supergroups. Rage threads on the forums are going to be there regardless, if not about AE, then about something else.

A lot of people are enjoying developing their own content; just because exploiters throw a fit on the forums when the bugs get fixed doesn't mean the rest of us can't still enjoy it.

Bingo! We have a winner.

I'm wondering how exactly one would go about not playing the game just to play the game. What does that even mean?

If the implication is that it's just running around punching things with no regard for any of the rewards, be they XP or drops, I'd say that's somewhat of a unrealistic ask on any more than a personal scale.

Tenzhi isn't greedy, he's just a curmudgeon.

No, it is the total package, but it just depends on where one's priorities lie. I don't play any games just for loot; I actually prefered CoH before the invention system/auction house was in place. It was refreshing to play a game not based on loot, but on the adventure itself. That doesn't take away from the fact that enhancements and inspirations dropped, or that we gained XP and new powers as we leveled. But loot itself was not the focus.

For me, in whatever game I'm playing, loot drops when it drops, I level when I level, and so forth. As long as I'm enjoying the adventure itself, it's all good. If I'm not enjoying the story and adventure, loot isn't going to miraculously fix it for me.

I'm not the one who brought up invested effort, I merely replied to the notion.

No, the game is stingy. The fact that there are items in it and that the chances of getting them are far too low equates to stinginess. Wanting more than practically nothing, on the other hand, is far from greed.

Of course, if my superheroes didn't feel so far from "super" to me, I might be less concerned with items to improve them.

This may have escaped your notice, but getting items is part of playing the game. That said, I generally don't focus on items since they are nearly impossible for me to acquire. The grind to level 25 or so and acquiring a set of basic IOs rather than the horrible expiring SOs is tedious enough. The reason I jump on with my 50s and play is because all their powers are already setup, so I don't have to worry about building them up to where they should be or lacking power selections. Life before level 25 or so tends to feel like a lengthy, tedious bout of character creation for me. Whilst life after that tends to fail to live up to my superheroic expectations.

Believe me, I'd *much* prefer this game to be a single player or limited multiplayer game. Unfortunately, there's not a lot of choice in the vein of create-your-own-superhero games, and despite the problems I have with this game it remains the most palatable of what choices there are.

Yes, it's a horrible, common design amongst MMOs, and CoH certainly isn't the worst among them.

I do - I'm 50, fully IO'ed, full purple sets in my base storage, and Inf capped at 2 billion, and only a few badges left to get - and I still play most evenings

I've never personally acquired a single purple IO. And I probably don't even have 100 million Influence between all 23-27 of my characters, including four level 50s. And while I've had some marathon sessions in the past as well as long stretches of regular play, right now I'm playing about once or twice a month on average.