Should XP be removed from AE?

I'm positive I'm not alone in this, but if XP was removed from AE then I'd rarely use it. I don't care how good the arcs or stories are. If I wanted just a good story then I'd read a book by a real author. If I spend an hour in AE doing XP-less content then I wouldn't be able to help but think that I could have spent that hour getting XP, progressing, and doing some good content all together in the real game.

It's a wonderful place to get through the 1-20 levels. No traveling across maps, different zones, hospital is right there etc... And for the long time vets who are just tired of the 1-20 parts of the game. Not to mention it was and is advertised as a place you can do all your leveling from 1 to 50 in one place.

Now, IMO, if you ask me, as a whole AE is just too much trouble than it's worth. I'd rather them spend their resources on the actual game then having to deal with all the exploits that AE has come up with.

It's now an EULA violation for using the tools provided in game for gain? If that were the case, every mission, every arc, every strikeforce.. is a violation. It's not the players responsibility to know the intention of every implemented feature, we aren't mind readers. Yes, the monkey stuff was abit absurd.. but the reality is the players were not really doing anything 'wrong' - Making maps that had a mob that was bugged.. sure, not really moral.. but at the same time, not their fault for the mistake in coding. It was fixed, maps were deleted, everyone's moved on to Alpha stuff but still people wanna rage and im sure will continue to do so for weeks to come.

There's a large difference between abuse and exploit.. I suggest a couple of you look into it. What's happening is abuse, not exploiting. The term exploit has been diluted from it's real MMO meaning for awhile now. Go back to 1999 and read up on an Everquest guild named Conquest killing "The Sleeper" if you really don't understand the concept. (although sadly you will probably get the polluted "we are innocent!" version)

Personally I don't understand the devs adversity to farming when they make the games natural reward system terribly slow. They've tried to stop it at every turn since the beginning dumpster diving, auto-follow 5th col. sweeping, libTV/Demon door sitting, Ouro flashback merit bonanza, and eventually AE. Players are going to find a way, it's not their fault to be honest.

Any time someone levels faster than you for whatever the reason, you guys seem to lash out and whine about it. I level'd a few chars legit faster than some of these (well not the recent monkey stuff) AE babies have.. and yet.. some people would still complain.

Mission Arc farming gives too much xp!
Resetting missions for farming gives too many recipies and money!
Tanker burn herding is working too well!
Dumpster diving 60 mobs at a time is killing my gameplay!
Door sitters are ruining my game!

These things all have something in common. They don't really affect you and the way you want to play the game in your care-bear-huggy-roleplaying-sit-under-the-Atlas-globe-and-dance world.

What if I wanted to make a really fancy story arc of my own and it just happened to have alot of XYZ mobs in it that happen to be tailored to my /ELA brute's strengths? Do I get a strike? Am I gonna get banninated?

It's really rediclious how uppity people get about AE, farming, and leveling in this game.

In short, yes, if EXP was removed from AE, it would die it's already slow coming death.

In response to the OP:

First off - if they removed Rewards: No way in **** would I play it! Unless: *new* and *cool* features were added that I couldn't get anywhere else (in addition to whats there) -- THEN I would consider playing AE

If they removed JUST experence - I MIGHT play it with 50s - falling back on reasoning above.

If they removed JUST experience and increased other rewards -- I'd still only do it with 50s most likely - more so than previously stated. Depends on the reward upscale.
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Would I still create something, yeah maybe. Who is going to play it though, besides me??

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Banning without warning is silly -- I think first offense would just be communicating "Hey - Stop ____ or else" -- Second offense = lock account out of AE permanently. -- 3rd would be like bye bye, permanent or extended amount of time will 2nd's stuff.

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Sure every system has problem... Question is who the heck tested that issue?? Just thinking back to launch was like wow!
Things always slip through the cracks, and they have made progress. (1.5years later lol)
Though I don't like some of the band-aid fixes that place stupid restrictions on things.
The continue to make those band-aid fixes and end up having to follow it up, which is what is the most aggravating, needs to work on that.

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I don't care what kind of missions people make -- Proper filter systems and make use of them.

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If you really think about it... your character is actually doing something - honing skills - which is literally gaining experience. Your accomplishments earn you influence and infamy, and prestige - just like the regular world. You aren't fighting real objects, so I totally can see why you don't get loot. Your loot is digital, like arcade tickets, play it, learn,have fun, earn a reward medium, and cash in the medium for real rewards.

Makes perfect sense to me.

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As for the folks that want to be able to screen farms out of their searches, try my method, acquired by asking myself a simple question: How many farms are more than one mission in length?

Seriously. I simply don't search ANYthing there with an arc length of less than 'medium'. Have yet to encounter a single farm that way. Granted, some of the arcs still stink, but the amount is only slightly higher than the percentage of low-quality fiction on the average bookstore shelf.

QR, did not read any of the thread nor do I care what the reasoning is for the request. The answer to the question in the title is NO.

Remove the XP? Baby... bathwater... you know how that saying goes.

Remove XP? No.

Reduce XP by 50% and enable badge credit for damage taken, heals, inf gained, and defeating foes? Maybe.

Take the Magic: The Gathering 'What Color Are You?' Quiz.

Switching the focus and/or most common form of abuse from inf and xp farming to badge and accolade farming would not, IMO, be an improvement.

My suggestion, have an event that nukes all the AE buildings from orbit.

In the same issue, allow story writers to put their stories as part of existing in world contacts. Let me explain: If a player walks up to a contact, and clicks "What else is going on" a list of MA story arcs opens up that are level appropriate to the contact. For ex, Azuria would only be allowed to be the contact for lvls 1-5 content, and would only display levels 1-5 mission arcs. Put in a "suggest a contact button" for MA authors who aren't familiar with the level ranges of every zone and contact, which would suggest a contact and a zone for an author's story.

Make it so that All MA stories must be at least 3 missions long. Normalize all xp so that it's the same xp you get from regular missions. For custom critters, put in a slider for authors: one side says "customized" the other side says "100% xp". The more you move from one side of the slider to another the more you lose the other option.

Keep tickets as is. Keep inf as is. Mark clearly when an MA story is a custom critter fest. Perhaps use the old "this might be tough without friends" line.

Hire a full time team of GMs to specifically watch for when exploits are used. (Anyone who thinks the current customer service team is of adequate size to do anything about the exploit issues is fooling themselves.) Use the 3 strikes you're out system.

Farming should be left as is. If someone wants to farm, as long as they ARE NOT using exploits let em. Just put in a button in the contacts window I mentioned above that says "do not show farms", or "do not show combat only". Not going to dwell on this part of my suggestion as i couldn't care less if someone farms or not, as long as they aren't using exploits.

Get rid of stars, HOF, and other stupid dev awards. Just put in a thumbs up or thumbs down system. Those stories with high thumbs show up higher in the "what else is going on" menu for contacts. You MUST complete at least the FIRST mission of an arc (remember I suggested all arcs be a minimum of three missions above). I used to be against having to complete a mission before rating an arc, but no longer care if it improves the AE.

Reward authors who get many thumbs up. For every 10 give them a free AE story slot. Allow all authors the ability to earn up to 10 free ones. Once they get to more than 100 free AE slots, and get the 110th one, drop a random Pool C in their email. (Remember you have to complete at least one story in an AE arc until you can rate it.)

Disallow all the old auto complete tricks that allowed a person to finish a mission by just walking into it, killing one mob (unless it's an EB, AV), clicking one glowie to auto end a mission, etc, etc.

Those are my suggestions. Have at them.

For the 100th time, remove AE exp or other rewards for that matter would make the system irrelevant and ignored by the vast, vast, vast, vast, vast majority of players. It would be the final death knell for the MA feature. What was the point of spending months or maybe even *years* developing such a "ground breaking" feature (as the devs put it) only to have it become an afterthought? It would also validate the pre-MA-launch opponent's stance of players will be finding ways to abuse the system which in turn will cause its demise.

My primary goal for playing MMOs is the advancement of my alter-egos. As such, I personally wouldn't touch AE unless it has decent rewards. I certainly don't give a hoot about the stories, much less player generated ones. For really good plots or stories, I prefer to pick up a good book, read an online article, watch a stimulating TV program or catch some foreign films. MMOs probably won't even crack the top 10 of my list. Maybe my standards are a bit high due to my artistic background but the point is that I, like many others, do not come to MMOs to search for good fictions. Let's not try to get all fascist about the "interpreted" primary intent or usage of the MA shall we.

It is possible to PL outside the AE you know
Remove XP from all content, that will fix it.... duh!

As many times as this has been discussed, I always express the same view.

As long as exploits can be stamped out, the AE system needs XP/rewards to provide incentive to use it. Ideally, I would prefer these be equivalent rewards for other content. As it stands, non exploit using players receive moderately less rewards for running AE content.

I miss back when the AE was new and all the talk/focus about exploits wasn't as big, and the AE was simply a fun alternative place to run content. Still is, albeit less appealing these days.