Discussion: Live Patch Notes - 4/7/10

Someone tell Kalinda then that she's been breaking the rules for the last several years, having a mission with 6 Wolf Spider allies in it.

This is an assumption on your part with absolutely no hard data to support it.

but again, i know a few people who have quit, their highest toon (singular) being in the mid/high 20s and they were just frustrated with the lack of leveling.

QFT.


There are four types of authors: storytellers, mazers, killer GMs and farm builders.

These nerfs pretty much have been all targeted at the farm builders; not the farm players. And as with any kind of punitive action (don't care what is is), it spills over.... that's to be expected.

It doesn't take much effort to get caught up in being a farm player. With the way the market is now, it's almost a given (and don't give me that 'it's optional' crap - that's too much shiny for most to ignore and shiny has been the basis of most PC gaming since PC gaming began).

However, it does take effort to find, test and implement farm building. Aggressively trying to screw the system shouldn't be applauded or championed (in this environment).

Thanks to the farmers and exploiters, there is *every* reason you cannot have both.

The problem with your suggestion above is that “decent” XP is subjective. For most players it will default to the lowest common denominator (surprise!) of “It Must Give Max XP Possible or I’ll Never Even Look at it Twice.”

My one and only arc (made before I gave up on AE because of the constant nerfs requiring constant re-writes and the Gawd-awful farm missions clogging up the searches and garnering hundreds of plays while the *stories* languished) has four missions, the last three of which have the player working more and more closely with the PPD. Three of my four missions now have nerfed XP. XP which was already nerfed because I used custom critters in different groups (for story reasons) which all didn’t have a “balance” of minions, leuts, and bosses due to arc size restrictions.

Oh sure, I could totally and completely re-write the story to take out all the NPC’s. Just like I’ve had to re-write it so many times already. And then watch it still not get plays because it’s not the *latest* XP-gouging farm. Only to then have to re-write it again for the next go-around of nerfs.

No thank you.

She has been, hasn't she...

Some people just cannot comprehend that in a video game there is a lot more to a story arc that just story. This breaks the gameplay aspect of the story arc, which in turn for many affects the story aspect. There is a balance between the two that is needed for a story arc to achieve it's potential.

Your story arc can have the greatest story ever, but if the gameplay is tedious and the player is getting rewarded less than they would in another arc with a weaker story but better gameplay and rewards, which do you think most players are going to chose to spend their time on and tell all their friends about?

Remember that you're writing VIDEO GAME CONTENT, not a short story. If you just want to focus on the later that's what the RP forum is for.

Most authors try to strike a balance, and heavy-handed nerfs like this keep screwing that up while doing little to hurt the farmers that they target. And that gameplay aspect is extremely important if you want your arc to appeal to as many players as possible. It's been pretty obvious time and time again which most players care more about.

If someone could bring Conrad's "The Heart of Darkness" to the AE, I'd gladly play it if it didn't even give one inf. But as long as no matter how you dress it up its kill things till you run out of them and there is no chance of failing, rewards are going to rule.

...except they're not.

...except that even fewer people will bother now than ever did before, which was a vanishing few indeed.

...at least you got it right in the end.

Exploit fixes take priority over a lag issue. A lag issue that is in one misison in one spot on one TF. Taking that spot slow instead of trying to speed through it and finish the ITF in record time normally reduces or eliminates the lag. There is currently no work around to having a ton of people with 4 50s that have been only been playing a month or less so one of the main causes gets fixed.

Even with someone farming the arena, the drop rate is so terrible that you can make a billion doing normal, non AE farms in the same amount of time. I know quite a few PvP farmers and many of them also used AE to get their toons to 50 as fast as possible. The others could care less, more lvl 50 noobs mean easier prey if they try out pvp.

It is not fun for groups to have to rely on their own skills and powers to finish a story? What game are you playing?

Probably answered already but replying to posts as I go through. If you can target and hit a mob as they are popping up you can have them close to death or totally dead before they can attack you once. This in effect gives the potential for you to double the xp for the kill without having any additional risk.

Another please... I'm tired of seeing my ARCs lose XP rewards everytime I turn around, and kinda accept it must be, but i'd love to know if I was getting 50%, 70% etc XP when I select a mission, or how short my arc is.

You mean like the way they can do it to us when we use wakies? Oh right, that doesn't count.

There are plenty of acutal missions outside of AE that many players will need a team to beat.

The reason devs can do it and you cannot is because it is their game and they can decide if the mission that they make fits their guidlines. Currently they do not have a way to look at every single AE mish before it is published to make sure there are no exploits.

You can still use allies as storytelling but if you make it so there is much lower risk for the players, they will get less of a reward.

Wakies are a bit different. You can use a wakie and still act before the animation is finished. If you pop a BF right away you can run around before you would normally have finished the animation to get up. Rez powers for players have a brief (IMO too brief) time that you cannot be touched while the animation is taking place.

A lag issue that has been there since the beginning, almost 5 issues ago. If you knew me, then you'd know I don't form speed runs and do take it slowly, but there is always lag. I realize exploits need fixing before bugs, but really how long does it take to fix a bug?

Originally Posted by Nights_Dawn Hazy is right

That's not what it's doing though.

Right now you can have a buffing/debuffing ally who mezzes and debuffs enemies while making you harder to kill. Far less risk, same reward.

Or you can have PPD battling Arachnos as an event somewhere in the map. And as a result get -60% exp for the entire mission. No less risk, far less reward.

Originally Posted by PRAF68_EU Dispari has more than enough credability, and certainly doesn't need to borrow any from you.

Don't hate on the Devs, hate on the exploiters. They're creating the cheating situations the Devs are then having to react to.

Also, the Devs could care less about farming, they just don't want you to exploit system loopholes using AE as a "hack toolbox" to do it.

There is another solution... GM Approved Posting only. You create and edit at will, however a a GM or Dev has to check the pending published missions (and any subsequent edited versions) out before it's made available to the public. That would stop all the exploit farms from ever being published, without ever needing to patch another thing.

Of course... there would be that pesky wait...

It's 106 miles to Grandville, we got a full tank of gas, half a pack of cigarettes, it's dark and we're wearing faceless helmets

... Hit it ...