AE :: Monitoring XP and XP Curve for AE Arc Length

This is two suggestions.

Monitor XP in AE missions
By keeping track of XP earned in an AE mission and relating it to the XP earned by defeating the same number of foes of the same level in a normal Mission. It should be pretty easy to gauge who's intentionally exploiting the system.
Once an exploit has been located - lock the AE arc and any characters that are in the mission until the situation can be investigated.
Once it is determined if exploitation has occurred, proper action can be taken to resolve the situation.

XP Curve for AE Arc Length
If the AE is really designed for story-telling, then it should be obvious that a 1 mission arc isn't telling a story.
I, honestly, don't think any XP should be rewarded for a 1 mission arc; it isn't an arc - it's just one mission. One mission arcs are going to be primarily farming arcs as anyone that wants to tell a story is going to have more than one mission in their arc (especially now that these can be much larger files than they once were).
In order to promote story-telling, I think that there should be an XP Curve where a 5 mission arc grants full XP and XP decreases as arcs get shorter. As I said, I don't think one mission arcs deserve any xp at all - as it is not a story; it's just one mission.

[Disclaimer :: I'm not going to argue with posters I have on ignore. I'm not going to argue at all. I've made my points. If you are an exploiter, go ahead and make it clear you are exploiting the game so that the DEVs can take action against you. Thanks.]

i think both suggestions are fairly good, but might need some tweaks

the first thing, there are a couple enemy groups in standard mishs that give a slight bonus to xp (their xp modifier is slightly higher than 1.00, but the bonus is maybe 1.05 or 1.1 for most things that have a bonus, with of course 1-2 of exceptions but for good reasons), so this wont be perfect in all situations, but if your assuming a standard, then i could see it working

for the 2nd idea, it definitly makes sense, but i dont think you should have to require 5 mish story arcs to get full xp, at least 3 mishs to get full xp. but 1 mish arcs should give a reduction in xp, at least something because if you require more than 1 mish to get full xp, a player is smart enough to make the the first mish the farm and then make some BS mishs to follow it so that it will give full xp to the first mish. this is the only issue with requiring people to have a certain number of mishs because most farmers would just add in "filler" mishs to still give their arc full xp

other than that, i think your suggestions are more valid than just "removing all xp" or the current system

How do you compare the force field defender soloing on -1 x 1 to the IOed brute going at +4 x 8?

How do you compare defeating 80 minions and 20 lts to 60 minions, 20 lts, and 20 bosses, or EBs, or AVs.

You really can't fairly compare one mission to another.

Please stop trying to impose your morality and vision of the game on the rest of us. I don't want to play the game that you propose. Luckily for me, you don't get to make these decisions.

P.S. I am not an exploiter. I have never been banned, or even warned. But, of course, you will claim that I am for the mere fact that I disagree with you.

If there weren't AE missions that can level me to 50 in a couple of hours (Have since been nerfed so dont bother looking for em) I would have quit the game. I'm so sick of running the same arcs, and the same task forces. And I consider myself a decent player since I've played since '04 so don't spew that crap about my idiocy ruining your fun. And if I'm really that bad then don't invite me to your team. (Or just don't run PuGs at all >.>)

Alt, just shut up. Get over the fact that not everybody plays your way.

The more you tighten your grip on XP exploits, the more of them will slip through your fingers.

WARNING: I bold names.

In the end, reading the story gives you no extra xp. Does a long, drawn out story with weak mobs provide more risk than a single very intense mission? I thought it was risk/reward, not time/reward.

I can tell a story in one mission. That others choose not to is a separate issue.

Any simple heuristic to separate exploits from non-exploits is enormously easy to defeat. The defining characteristic of exploits is that they give high rewards in a short amount of time, and nothing else.

That said, there is a method to detect exploitive behavior which is by definition impossible to spoof. Take a snapshot of every character's earned rewards periodically, and look for large jumps that cannot be explained via something like level pacts. The only way to avoid such a detection system would be to not gain rewards at a noticeably higher rate than anyone else, which pretty much defeats the purpose of most exploits. It won't catch rewards that are high for the effort expended, but given that the game essentially allows you to get free stuff just by dropping a mission every 3 days, I don't think that that kind of exploit is high on the devs' radar.

Of course, implementing the above system is a small matter of programming. And by trial and error, players will eventually discover the numeric value of the exploit threshold, which is something that the devs have explicitly stated they do not wish to provide.

I really wish, people would just mind their business... They all too often compare their own performance to others and when they loose, they easily conclude the other had to be cheating; there is no way the other player could be better! Then even worse, many of these players, truly believe they are the best thing since we discovered we could put butter on toast, and thus we all should play CoX as they do, or surely we are the scum of the Earth.

Smokefire

After reading the Alt's post I decided to see just how fast I could create a farming story arc. Took two hours to create a four mission arc, complete with a story based on a dev arc in the game and using dev-created critters. I haven't published it, since I have no need to, but I could without being concerned about a GM taking away my arc slot.

I have a demon and Freak farm so I don't need the AE one.