How long will the exploits go on?
By
Acemace,
Posted on: 2010-11-24 20:30 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
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How is your fun spoiled by other people, exactly? Because of broadcast? You can turn it off. Because people don't act like you want to, don't team with you to do the missions you want to? Because people that would carry your roleplaying unoptimized build through content aren't there anymore to do that?|
Originally Posted by Megajoule
When the playstyle in question is all about breaking the game (to (a) get at the sweet sweet candy immediately and, IMO, without real effort and (b) to show that you're better, more clever, etc than the people who made it), then yeah.
I confess that some of my negative reaction is because I play this game to try to escape reality... but as soon as I log in, I'm surrounded by people, acting like people, with all that implies. Atlas Park broadcast on many servers is a fine proof of Humans Are (lazy, greedy, selfish) Bastards, as if we needed more. Throwing the detonator out the window is awesome in the movie, but let's face it: most people here would mash the button immediately if it meant saving their level 50s, and [bleep] everyone on the other ferry. Doubly so if you actually got xp for them. The Devs' biggest sin in creating AE was trusting and having faith that the players would be better than that. Well, you sure showed them, huh? That'll learn 'em to ever give you the benefit of the doubt! So yes, for me at least, it comes down to anger and disappointment at my fun being (partly) spoiled by my fellow humans' petty (not Epic) FAIL. |
Lazy, greedy, selfish... Fine words indeed to define people who want other people to behave and play a specific way to accomodate their own playstyle.
In City of Megajoule it might make sense, but here we're all equals and you're going to have to live with it, much like I have to live with arrogant self-righteous "holier than thou, but really no less of a crook than anyone else" (thankfully, they don't seem to actually be anywhere outside the forums).
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Whatever you do, for God's sake don't read every word I write. Only read the ones which fit into your predetermined point of view.|
Originally Posted by Panzerwaffen
Just like when you claimed earlier that no one could make the influence cap without exploiting or RMT, you're greatly exaggerating the issue here.
There are quite a number of desirable recipes that sell for less than "tens or hundreds of millions" influence. Crushing Impact, Doctored Wounds, Thunderstrike, Red Fortune and others. Even among the desirable rare sets like Positron's Blast or Obliteration, several of the pieces can be picked up for less than 10 million easily with a bit of patience. It's not the 'all or nothing' situation you make it out to be. Same issue with salvage. The only people paying 300K for anything other than rare salvage are impatient players who NEED IT NAO! Granted, the current common salvage market is pretty screwed up from the latest round of AE exploits, and will likely stay undersupplied for some time with everyone playing level 50 content with Issue 19. Even with all of that, a little bit of patience goes a long way, as it always has. |
Also,don't forget to put words into my posts in order to spin what I say to your skewed argument.
Oh wait... you're already doing that. Nevermind, carry on, Mr. Beck.
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If you don't need them right now put them up for sale for a high price and but a bid on them for about half or 3/4ths that.|
Originally Posted by Ironik
I save what I know I'll need in future and sell extraneous ones. The problem is that everyone wants the same bits, so those go for a million each. There's no point in selling the 3 or 4 I have because I need them too. On the rare occasion I manage to get, say, an extra Luck Charm, it goes on the market. But those times are few and far between, because you need Luck Charms for essential IOs. Almost no one makes Intangibility or Interrupt IOs, so the salvage used there goes unwanted. But Luck Charm, Masterwork Weapon, Inert Gas and Demonic Blood Sample are used for the more popular IOs like Accuracy, Damage and Range.
It goes back to my issue earlier in the thread, namely that IOs and salvage are "either/or" in terms of desirability. Either the IOs are going for tens or hundreds of million of Inf, or they go for zero. There's almost no middle ground. Same with salvage. It's either 300 grand a pop or there are 1,426 of them sitting there for sale. |
You'll find a lot of times you manage to buy a cheap replacement and sell for a profit.
If they swap before you need it you can dot his over again untill you do.
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Originally Posted by Ironik
Nevermind, carry on, Mr. Beck.
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"I've done all I can, lad."
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True. I can also not go to Atlas, or not log into the game at all. Or read anything on the net, or leave my house... it all depends on how much of my life I'm willing to give up in order to not come in contact with [censored].|
Originally Posted by Nihilii
How is your fun spoiled by other people, exactly? Because of broadcast? You can turn it off.
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| Because people don't act like you want to, don't team with you to do the missions you want to? Because people that would carry your roleplaying unoptimized build through content aren't there anymore to do that? |
I object to people who don't want to play the game the Devs have given us, but would rather find ways to break it for easy rewards or because their real satisfaction comes in competing against the Devs. I object to people who took advantage of the Devs' naive trust to exploit the MA system and render it practically unusable to anyone who doesn't want to farm, but who actually wants to experience interesting, well-written player-created content. (Sturgeon was right, yes, but it is out there... good luck finding it, though, amid all the obsolete farms and downrating gangs and the terrible interface.) I object to the distortion of the game's culture to the point where new players have no idea that this isn't supposed to be City of AE Farms, or what to do with their 50 that's never been outside of Atlas. I object to people who choose to be lazy, selfish and/or greedy - either because this is "just a game" and it doesn't matter how they behave here, or it's their nature and comes through here as it does in RL.
I don't want to be carried by such people. I don't want to team with such people. I would rather not be reminded that such people exist, let alone in such great numbers. It's [censored] depressing some days.
EDIT: I just thought of another way that the cheaters have affected me. Consider all of the time and effort the Devs have had to spend chasing them down and playing Whack-A-Mole, rather than improving and adding to the game. I estimate that if not for those wasted man-hours, we'd probably be at least one issue ahead by now. Just think: we could be playing Issue 20 right now if not for the distraction of the jackasses.
My characters at Virtueverse
Faces of the City
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Which 'predetermined point of view' would that be? The one that reflects in-game reality, rather than hyperbole and exaggeration?|
Originally Posted by Ironik
Whatever you do, for God's sake don't read every word I write. Only read the ones which fit into your predetermined point of view.
Also,don't forget to put words into my posts in order to spin what I say to your skewed argument. |
Put words into your posts? Don't read every word you wrote? What the heck are you smoking? You made two completely unambiguous statements, which I directly quoted:
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| Either the IOs are going for tens or hundreds of million of Inf, or they go for zero. |
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| Same with salvage. It's either 300 grand a pop or there are 1,426 of them sitting there for sale. |
Let's see... Last time, the exploits and RMT comment suddenly morphed to include farming and 'grinding'. This time, we're putting words into your posts...
'Level in the AE'
a la Workin' in a Coal Mine
Well we can level in the AE
Monkey around
Level in the AE
Woop! A new exploit found!
Level in the AE
Monkey around
Level in the AE
Woop! A new exploit found!
Level up in the morning
I'll ding fifty by one
Then I'll start it all over
Havin some AE fun
Well we can level in the AE
Monkey around
Level in the AE
Woop! A new exploit found!
Level in the AE
Monkey around
Level in the AE
Woop! A new exploit found!
Spam! Market fudged up! How long can this go on?
Lookin!
For a!
AE!
Woop! A new exploit found!
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The history of video games....heck, the history of the HUMAN RACE, should have tipped them off to the precise reception MA was going to get. |
Originally Posted by Megajoule
The Devs' biggest sin in creating AE was trusting and having faith that the players would be better than that.
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Even if they'd never cracked a musty tome of ancient lore or followed the news of their own industry, let alone the genre they create in...reading the beta forums would have clued them in to reality.
Their biggest 'sin' in creating MA was sticking to a release date come hell or high water. The initial wave of anarchy was more the result of hard business logic than any airy-fairy notions of the essential goodness of the modern videogame enthusiast.
The Nethergoat Archive: all my memories, all my characters, all my thoughts on CoH...eventually.
My City Was Gone
In my recollection, the beta forums for that issue were disproportionately populated (or at least posted on) by "responsible" and hopeful mission authors who used it as an opportunity to get a head start on the story arcs they wanted to create. Alas, this probably gave the Devs an entirely wrong idea of how most people would use the system. Those who discovered MA exploits during the beta period kept them quiet, in order to use them immediately after the issue went live and the rewards became "real."
My characters at Virtueverse
Faces of the City
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I was in there too, delivering a reality based counterpoint.|
Originally Posted by Megajoule
In my recollection, the beta forums for that issue were disproportionately populated (or at least posted on) by "responsible" and hopeful mission authors who used it as an opportunity to get a head start on the story arcs they wanted to create.
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=)
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My City Was Gone
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BZZT! Wrong on both counts. I level alts quickly in the AE because 1. I'm entitled - YES! ENTITLED! to get at the "sweet, sweet candy" in a timely fashion, because I have paid my dues with this game. I have been here since 2006 and already know how to play, and am pretty familiar with both sides of the game. If you do not agree, I am sorry but we're going to have to agree to disagree on this one.| megajoule: When the playstyle in question is all about breaking the game (to (a) get at the sweet sweet candy immediately and, IMO, without real effort and (b) to show that you're better, more clever, etc than the people who made it), then yeah. |
2. Has nothing to do with "showing that [I] am better, more clever etc" than the developer, or better than anyone. What it SHOWS is that the lower levels are not all that fun to me. They'll be more fun with inherent Stamina, true, but I don't find level 5 all that scintillating.
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| I confess that some of my negative reaction is because I play this game to try to escape reality... but as soon as I log in, I'm surrounded by people, acting like people, with all that implies. |
So... everyone who does not find level 5 scintillating excitement is "lazy, greedy and selfish." Wow. OK.
How the hell long does level 5 even last? One mission? Maybe a half depending on the length of said mission?
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The original idea for MA was that there would be no rewards at all unless the arc was Dev Choiced (although I don't think that was the term at the time.) The biggest mistake they made was backing off from that stance because of the players. The second biggest mistake was not having plans for controlling exploits in MA.
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Originally Posted by Nethergoat
Their biggest 'sin' in creating MA was sticking to a release date come hell or high water. The initial wave of anarchy was more the result of hard business logic than any airy-fairy notions of the essential goodness of the modern videogame enthusiast.
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Being one of the people who got to closed-beta test the MA, you're exactly right.
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Originally Posted by Megajoule
In my recollection, the beta forums for that issue were disproportionately populated (or at least posted on) by "responsible" and hopeful mission authors who used it as an opportunity to get a head start on the story arcs they wanted to create. Alas, this probably gave the Devs an entirely wrong idea of how most people would use the system. Those who discovered MA exploits during the beta period kept them quiet, in order to use them immediately after the issue went live and the rewards became "real."
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My guides:Dark Melee/Dark Armor/Soul Mastery, Illusion Control/Kinetics/Primal Forces Mastery, Electric Armor
"Dark Armor is a complete waste as a tanking set."
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One mission as a level 5 is still far too long! ha |
Originally Posted by Slashman
How the hell long does level 5 even last? One mission? Maybe a half depending on the length of said mission?
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My tastes have evolved: at one time level 5 was interesting and exciting as I tried to get across Mercy with my little Dom. I've done that a million times now though, and have no compunctions about hitting Fast Forward.
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See, this, I think anyone can understand.|
Originally Posted by Bad_Influence
... I've done that a million times now though, and have no compunctions about hitting Fast Forward.
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However, the question is... when that fast forward button is available to everyone, what is fast enough/too fast?
It's a question that requires looking at it from beyond just simply one self and the game as a whole.
Is it a bad thing if new and old players alike fast forward through it just as often as others play through it?
If a development team actually chose to stick with such a fast forwarding system, the drop rewards, invention system and market may have to be altered to accommodate such a thing.
The way things are now, AE fast forwarding can apparently jack things up a little in those regards.
That's just one element that affects other players.
What about new players learning this fast forward means of progression and seeing and judging the game from that outlook?
How fast is too fast for the good of the entire game? For the good of interesting players?
Are sewer runs too fast, too slow, just right?
Red-side might could use some sort of sewer run system.
I'm not saying I am for or against any of these things.
Just throwing in some thoughts.
@Zethustra
"Now at midnight all the agents and the superhuman crew come out
and round up everyone that knows more than they do"-Dylan
and round up everyone that knows more than they do"-Dylan
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Apparently so, as I would say that you (and I) are entitled to nothing besides access to the service and to the characters you have already put in the time and effort to level, and to the veteran rewards given for time subscribed, for so long as you maintain your subscription. Nowhere in those rewards is a "start a new character at level 14/22/32/50" button. There are various rewards that grant some powers early (like the one which allows taking Tier 3 pool powers as soon as the pools open up), but none which let you speed up or shortcut the leveling process just because you feel you deserve to.|
Originally Posted by Bad_Influence
I level alts quickly in the AE because 1. I'm entitled - YES! ENTITLED! to get at the "sweet, sweet candy" in a timely fashion, because I have paid my dues with this game. I have been here since 2006 and already know how to play, and am pretty familiar with both sides of the game. If you do not agree, I am sorry but we're going to have to agree to disagree on this one.
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And I've been playing since '04, so by your sort of logic, I'm more right than you.
EDIT: Well said, Slashman. Thank you.
My characters at Virtueverse
Faces of the City
Electric-Knight makes some valid observations.
This goes beyond simply one side being 'purists' and another side being 'efficient'.
There are Vets who want to level up as many alts as they can past the 'boring' parts of the game. But those guys will still be here 2 years from now. Nethergoat's still here. And probably will be after I die.
When you hand that power over to newbie, low level players though, it creates a different perspective for a customer who may suddenly not be interested in sticking with your game past the first AE sprint to 50.
When AE first hit and the PL farms were rampant, I had the 'pleasure' of being around the forums of several popular gaming websites. And without fail, whenever someone asked about if COX was worth playing, there was always someone there to say: 'Nah. You just sit in a farm til 50 then there's nothing to do. It's so stupid. The game is worthless now. Play MMO x or y instead.'
To which the inquiring person would say 'Oh. too bad. Thought it might be fun to try something different.'
That scenario happened over and over again unless I or someone else who played the game was there to actually try do do some kind of damage control.
In any case, level 5 may be the most tedious thing for us Vets who have 3 or 4 servers full of alts and who just want to get on with it, but that same level 5 experience also helped to shape our connection to the game because we all went through it at least once.
Do more things need to be done to smooth the grind of low levels for Vets? Are the Vet rewards like travel powers at level 6 and now Inherent Stamina not enough to make things bearable? I dunno. That's something that the Devs would need to decide.
I was with a level 50 on lady greys taskforce who didn't know what a hold was 
I blame you Dr. Aeon!!!!! :|
Mew
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At last, his sinister plot is revealed!|
Originally Posted by Rosen_ice
I was with a level 50 on lady greys taskforce who didn't know what a hold was
I blame you Dr. Aeon!!!!! :| |
Architect Entertainment is clearly Dr. Aeon's mechanism for reducing the professionalism an competence of the higher level heroes!
Brilliant!
Wait, no, on second thought, that can't be a villainous plan, since it also makes more high level heroes than before, and high level villain rivals for him...
On third thought, that sounds EXACTLY like a Dr. Aeon plot. Brilliant at first, but with some "unexpected side effects" (i.e. Implications to the plan he didn't quite think through...)
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******MA Arcs****
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He is trying to cause chaos! By diluting the pool of quality heroes and villains, he is leaving open the world to be invaded by the coming storm!! The quality heroes will be so spread out that they won't be able to put up a fight as they can't count on their allies! (even if they have the bodies of level 50 heroes)|
Originally Posted by Shagster
At last, his sinister plot is revealed!
Architect Entertainment is clearly Dr. Aeon's mechanism for reducing the professionalism an competence of the higher level heroes! Brilliant! Wait, no, on second thought, that can't be a villainous plan, since it also makes more high level heroes than before, and high level villain rivals for him... On third thought, that sounds EXACTLY like a Dr. Aeon plot. Brilliant at first, but with some "unexpected side effects" (i.e. Implications to the plan he didn't quite think through...) |
Then, he will swoop in and save the day with one of his genius gadgets and take over the world like emperor cole did! Arrrrg! Genius!
Mew
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I'm running out of analogies. Ok, lets try this. Suppose I were to say that, if after side-switching was introduced, I would be concerned if the devs datamined that the net number of characters switching from red to blue was many times higher than the total number of red side characters being created that wouldn't mean I was opposed to side switching. If someone said "who cares, with side switching its all one side now, so it doesn't matter any more" they'd be missing the point. The point would be that the net result of that metric is what few characters actually play within the entirety of the Rogue Isles would be dropping in an unsustainable way. It suggests that players don't want to play villain content, they just want to play villain archetypes. And that suggests that the justification for supporting the Rogue Isles as a viable part of the game is itself increasingly suspect, and that there is a serious flaw with the content explicitly designed for villains.|
Originally Posted by UberGuy
I too am unclear on the basis of the concern about the "red" economy. Given that currency on both sides is identical and freely mobile between sides, and both share a common market. I'm not even sure what a "side" is from a market perspective any more.
The only issues I can see are those relating to whether you have access to content that produces comparable reward rates over an appropriate range of expected playstyles and/or teammates. That could certainly be a problem, especially teammates. Edit: To be clear, the above means I'd be interested in learning more, not that I dismiss the notion. |
I think we all suspect that, but this would be proof that the net result of that wouldn't just be an imbalance, but a potential death of the red side content as a viable component of the game, except increasingly as a degenerate single playeror insular oddity. I'm not saying side switching is doing that, by the way, I'm just saying that *if* the datamining showed what I mentioned above, that would be strong evidence it was happening.
People keep thinking I'm saying there could be a potential problem with the red side economy when I've said nothing of the sort. I've said those metrics would suggest a problem with the red side period. There is no more red side economy as a discrete entity. I only mention the phrase "red side economy" to refer to activity originating or terminating on the red side, rather than have to say "all economic activity which either originates or terminates with a sale or purchase by villain or rogue characters within the Rogue Isles."
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http://www.cityofheroes.com/communit...urposeful.html|
Originally Posted by Megajoule
There are various rewards that grant some powers early (like the one which allows taking Tier 3 pool powers as soon as the pools open up), but none which let you speed up or shortcut the leveling process just because you feel you deserve to.
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"I do so love taking a nice, well thought out character and putting them through hell. It's like tossing a Faberge Egg onto the stage during a Gallagher concert." - me
@Palador / @Rabid Unicorn
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Is this "don't arrest the prostitutes but arrest the Johns" or "don't arrests the pusher just the user" approach?
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Originally Posted by FredrikSvanberg
Come on, don't blame the actual authors. Blame the cheaters. Rarely do they turn out to be the same people.
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There are quite a number of desirable recipes that sell for less than "tens or hundreds of millions" influence. Crushing Impact, Doctored Wounds, Thunderstrike, Red Fortune and others. Even among the desirable rare sets like Positron's Blast or Obliteration, several of the pieces can be picked up for less than 10 million easily with a bit of patience. It's not the 'all or nothing' situation you make it out to be.
Same issue with salvage. The only people paying 300K for anything other than rare salvage are impatient players who NEED IT NAO! Granted, the current common salvage market is pretty screwed up from the latest round of AE exploits, and will likely stay undersupplied for some time with everyone playing level 50 content with Issue 19. Even with all of that, a little bit of patience goes a long way, as it always has.