Create four tabs for a user to look at a listing of arcs, General, Dev's Choice, HoF, and Challenge. General is just a generic listing of arcs. Dev's Choice and HoF should be straight forward. Challenge is based on the number of times an arc is listed as being challenging and the average diff setting it is run on. This way farms for the most part get sorted to the Challenge tab and all the others should be left to non-farm content.
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Something to point out is that all arcs as of I15 were designated as Work In Progress with two other options the author can select; Looking For Feedback and Final. One longstanding request is that, since every arc that was released I14 but then abandoned got deemed as Work In Progress, WIP arcs should be hidden by default since authors want feedback and they are actually ineligble for Dev's Choice if not set to Final. Basically the concept of writers being willing to change settings is already in existance and not being taken advantage of.
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Originally Posted by Adeon Hawkwood
The problem with that is regulation. There isn't any practical solution to automatically filter for farms that wouldn't be trivial to bypass so unless Paragon Studios hires a bunch of people to spend all of their time vetting AE arcs to make sure they are in the right tab you're reliant on the arc creators to put them in the right tab. The moment story arcs give better rewards than farm arcs every farm creator will tag their farm as a story arc simply to get the better rewards. Any system designed to separate story and farm arcs should keep in mind the idea that farm arc creators do not (in all probability) care how their arc is tagged unless it affects rewards while story arc creators probably do care. I wouldn't go as far as to advocate farm tagged arcs giving better rewards (although that would be an option) but if I were implementing such a system I would do everything possible to make creating a farm tagged arc easier than creating a story tagged arc. Specifically:
1. All existing arcs are tagged as farm arcs (people who care about their stories will be more willing to update their arc than someone who created an old farm using an exploit that no longer works) 2. New arcs are set to "farm" by default (again, story writers will care enough to change this, farm creators are unlikely to) 3. The AE arc window defaults to the farm tab the first time you open it (after that it defaults to the last tab you looked at) |
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That is a a fair point and I'll admit that I am making generalizations about the people who participate in AE. I'll also say that the solution I proposed is not perfect. However, given the goal of "make it easier for people who want to run story arcs to find them" it's the best solution I can think of |
Originally Posted by Zamuel
Basically the concept of writers being willing to change settings is already in existance and not being taken advantage of.
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.An "opt in" option for story arcs is not a great solution and indeed goes against what the AE is intended for since it basically assumes that most people are using the AE for farming and that stories are the exception. However within the reality we operate in I think i is the solution that is most likely to actually work.
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Why would they need to? A proper farmer will max tickets on a map in 2 min give or take 30 seconds. A ticket bonus would do them no good.
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Originally Posted by SinisterDirge
I read your post the same way Eco did.
That says to me you are suggesting proper story arcs get a ticket bonus in arc completion over a farm. He is right. Farmers will find a way to take advantage of that bonus. |
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Because it means they save 10 seconds per run by slightly fewer enemies. Over the course of a few hours that adds up to more runs. The whole point of farming is to optimize rewards/time. If you get a larger "mission complete" bonus then you don't need to kill as many enemies during the mission.|
Originally Posted by Djeannie
Why would they need to? A proper farmer will max tickets on a map in 2 min give or take 30 seconds. A ticket bonus would do them no good.
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The thing is good farmers will always look for anything that maximizes their rewards/time. If someone found out that a bright pink spandex costume improved load times I guarantee you the next day the AE would be full of brutes in bright pink spandex. Similarly if you added a "give this arc more rewards" button (which is essentially the proposal) I guarantee farmers would select it just in case.
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I apologise for misunderstanding. However, if the devs altered the system so that story arcs got better rewards than they do now, then farm arcs would also see their rewards improved, since they use the same mechanics to create their rewards.|
Originally Posted by BeyondReach
People really should read people's posts. I was saying that story arcs should not provide superior rewards to farms. They should just provide better rewards than they currently do.
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Eco.
MArcs:
The Echo, Arc ID 1688 (5mish, easy, drama)
The Audition, Arc ID 221240 (6 mish, complex mech, comedy)
Storming Citadel, Arc ID 379488 (lowbie, 1mish, 10-min timed)
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Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
[The Incarnate System is] Jack Emmert all over again, only this time it's not "1 hero = 3 white minions" it's "1 hero = 3 white rocks."
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I'd actually be quite haoppy giving a smallish ticket/inf/xp/whatever bonus to arcs tagged as farms. Would farmers actiovely choose to tag their arcs as farms if doing so gave 10 more tickets and 1000 more xp? That's pretty minimal, but it IS a plus, so for min-maxers, it's more optimal than not having it, however small the advantage.
Eco
MArcs:
The Echo, Arc ID 1688 (5mish, easy, drama)
The Audition, Arc ID 221240 (6 mish, complex mech, comedy)
Storming Citadel, Arc ID 379488 (lowbie, 1mish, 10-min timed)
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Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
[The Incarnate System is] Jack Emmert all over again, only this time it's not "1 hero = 3 white minions" it's "1 hero = 3 white rocks."
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Yes, it could. Removing all rewards would be far worse. At least right now, especially for those who don't get bent out of shape using outside resources like PW and Arrow Rose's threads to find arcs, the AE can be used by those of us with altitis who have done the dev arcs too many times. Make AE no better than fighting mobs of greys and almost no one will bother. I know I don't fight mobs of greys unless there is a badge involved, and even then it's only when I'm bored.
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Originally Posted by Venture
It could not possibly be worse than the current situation.
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@Doctor Gemini
Arc #271637 - Welcome to M.A.G.I. - An alternative first story arc for magic origin heroes. At Hero Registration you heard the jokes about Azuria always losing things. When she loses the entire M.A.G.I. vault, you are chosen to find it.
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EDIT: Misunderstood your post. As others have pointed out there might be some issues with this idea.
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Originally Posted by BeyondReach
If they do separate the two, they should make story arcs provide a boost in arc completion ticket rewards - not so much that they are superior to farms, but enough that those who choose to play real arcs instead of farms do get a little something.
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Blazara Aura LVL 50 Fire/Psi Dom (with 125% recharge)
Flameboxer Aura LVL 50 SS/Fire Brute
Ice 'Em Aura LVL 50 Ice Tank
Darq Widow Fortune LVL 50 Fortunata (200% rech/Night Widow 192.5% rech)--thanks issue 19!
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Seconded, as someone who sometimes only plays perhaps four hours a week.
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Originally Posted by Doctor_Gemini
Make AE no better than fighting mobs of greys and almost no one will bother. I know I don't fight mobs of greys unless there is a badge involved, and even then it's only when I'm bored.
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No that won't happen. have you actually farmed by chance? It's not a big deal if you haven't.|
Originally Posted by Adeon Hawkwood
Because it means they save 10 seconds per run by slightly fewer enemies. Over the course of a few hours that adds up to more runs. The whole point of farming is to optimize rewards/time. If you get a larger "mission complete" bonus then you don't need to kill as many enemies during the mission.
The thing is good farmers will always look for anything that maximizes their rewards/time. If someone found out that a bright pink spandex costume improved load times I guarantee you the next day the AE would be full of brutes in bright pink spandex. Similarly if you added a "give this arc more rewards" button (which is essentially the proposal) I guarantee farmers would select it just in case. |
Let me lay out a basic farm for you as seen in threads like cebr. You may already know this but others may not.
- usually use a map that can be frontloaded. There are a few good warehouses / labs that do this.
- Have either objects or bosses up front that when damaged spawn ambushes set to hard. Max seems to be 6 to a map instead of in the past where you could have like 30. These are set to front.
- Single glowie, floor or wall that's clicked to exit.
- on zone in the mobs are right at the front, you move a short distance into them and start killing/triggering the ambushes. These swarm you so fast that you max tickets within a min or so. A farmer won't stop and shave off 10 seconds because very very few try to monitor their tickets while killing stuff, they need to spam inspirations as they drop and watch what they're doing.
- They Only kill the front spawn/ambush and then click glowie to exit. Many times they only get a bonus of a couple hundred tickets if that due to how much they gain from all the ambushes.
- They are of course set on ?x8 (from 0 to 4).
- Most farmers stay to kill the rest of the foes for the extra inf that drops so a ticket bonus won't mean anything to them cause they'll cap no matter what.
'
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Originally Posted by MrCaptainMan
I'd actually be quite haoppy giving a smallish ticket/inf/xp/whatever bonus to arcs tagged as farms. Would farmers actiovely choose to tag their arcs as farms if doing so gave 10 more tickets and 1000 more xp? That's pretty minimal, but it IS a plus, so for min-maxers, it's more optimal than not having it, however small the advantage.
Eco |
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Originally Posted by Doctor_Gemini
Yes, it could. Removing all rewards would be far worse. At least right now, especially for those who don't get bent out of shape using outside resources like PW and Arrow Rose's threads to find arcs, the AE can be used by those of us with altitis who have done the dev arcs too many times. Make AE no better than fighting mobs of greys and almost no one will bother. I know I don't fight mobs of greys unless there is a badge involved, and even then it's only when I'm bored.
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There are plenty of non farmers or farmer lites who run AE to try and help themselves out with tickets for salvage and IOs for their characters advancement.
Again if you want to stop farming address the core problems in the game that cause farming. Don't try to cure the symptoms of farming. That accomplishes nothing.
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"Once the avalanche has started, it is too late for the pebbles to vote" -Kosh
You cannot "cure" farming. Not even if you address the core problems in the game because the core problem is human nature.
People will find the fastest and easiest way to level and then repeat that activity until their goal is reached. I think the devs have finally realized this fact and only seek to stop "exploits".
There is no hard and fast definition to what an exploit is, but I think that the devs define it as any activity that causes a large number of players to gain rewards at an unreasonably high rate.
They can tackle exploits and succeed at eliminating them, even if it's only one at a time. But farming cannot be eliminated because a significant number of players will always go to the next best thing.
I anticipate that CEBR will result in some corrective measure in the near future. My guess is that TopDoc had that result as a goal . . . as he laughs his way to the bank.
50s: Inv/SS PB Emp/Dark Grav/FF DM/Regen TA/A Sonic/Elec MA/Regen Fire/Kin Sonic/Rad Ice/Kin Crab Fire/Cold NW Merc/Dark Emp/Sonic Rad/Psy Emp/Ice WP/DB FA/SM
Overlord of Dream Team and Nightmare Squad
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Farming is not just about leveling BionicFlea, you know that |
Originally Posted by Bionic_Flea
You cannot "cure" farming. Not even if you address the core problems in the game because the core problem is human nature.
People will find the fastest and easiest way to level and then repeat that activity until their goal is reached. I think the devs have finally realized this fact and only seek to stop "exploits". There is no hard and fast definition to what an exploit is, but I think that the devs define it as any activity that causes a large number of players to gain rewards at an unreasonably high rate. They can tackle exploits and succeed at eliminating them, even if it's only one at a time. But farming cannot be eliminated because a significant number of players will always go to the next best thing. I anticipate that CEBR will result in some corrective measure in the near future. My guess is that TopDoc had that result as a goal . . . as he laughs his way to the bank. |
it's also about inf gain to buy stuff now that we've had an "economy" in the game since issue 9.IOs make a character by far more powerful then SOs ever could and in most cases then Hammi O's.
I do agree that you can't really stop farming in it's various forms but you can curtail it by addressing the core problems that cause people to farm...within reason of course.
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"Once the avalanche has started, it is too late for the pebbles to vote" -Kosh
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Barring the addition of a checkbox: Farm. in either the creation of the mission/arc, or in the feedback by the players, I had some thoughts/questions about AE.|
Originally Posted by MrCaptainMan
But the farm arcs aren't even comic books in the eyes of the creative types. I don't mean 'competition' in the sense of 'oh, someone prefers a farm arc to my story arc', to me, that's like I've got a restaurant and someone posts a review saying 'This restaurant fails badly at selling me lapshades' lol. By competition, I mean that both farms and story arcs are 'on sale' in the same place, the AE interface. And because of the mechanics of how farms are played, ie over and over, repetitively, they're going to rise to the front pages.
Please understand that it's not about 'popularity'. However many people like and play a farm arc is irrelevant to me, because I don't write farm arcs. if there was a farm tab and a story arc tab in the AE interface, I'd never open the farm tab, and my arcs placing in the story arcs tabs leaderboard would actually be meaningful because it would be in a place where it would be judged amongst its peers. I try to avoid using language like 'legitimate' and 'genuine' arcs for story arcs, since a farm arc, as long as its not an exploit, is as legitimate as a story arc. They are both arc, but they are not the same in terms of what they're for or how they're made, and they shouldn't be gathered together in the same place. Eco. |
1. Is the "default" order in which one sees the missions in the search engine determined by the number of plays it has gotten? If so, maybe changing it so that fast, repeated plays by the same toon contribute a decreasing amount to this value. IMO 100 plays by the same toon in a day should not count the same as 100 different toons playing it once each within the same period.
2. When a toon plays the same mission again, the player is given the opportunity to rate it again. Does this rating count with the same weight as their original rating? If so, why? Wouldn't it be more accurate to view it as an update to the original rating instead of a completely separate rating unto itself? IMO ratings by the same toon shouldn't count the same as one rating each from 100 different toons. IMO this goes for both Farms and non-Farms.
Before AE there were Sewer Runs, The Wolf's Throat, and other areas that could be "Farmed", though not usually as quickly repeatable as AE allows. Maybe AE missions should have a "respawn time"?
NCSoft, Please reconsider your decision to close down CoH. It has an extremely loyal following and enjoys a great amount of free support from the larger community.
I invite everybody to add the above image to your signature as a petition to reverse NCSoft's decision.
I invite everybody to add the above image to your signature as a petition to reverse NCSoft's decision.
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Any infl gain I make from tickets and mobs in AE is nothing compared to what I make marketing in less than 10 mins a day. I farm because I like to crush enemies. Solving any of the "core" issues you describe will make little impact on how much I farm.|
Originally Posted by Djeannie
Farming is not just about leveling BionicFlea, you know that
it's also about inf gain to buy stuff now that we've had an "economy" in the game since issue 9. |
I will take it one step further and say anyone who farms and doesn't enjoy it should have their priorities re-examined.
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You are kidding me? People are stupid enough to pay.. influence for something they can do themselves? Suckers every minute I guess...
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Originally Posted by MaestroMavius
Step in to Freedom's Atlas and wait about oh... 0.01 seconds. You'll see the PL for Influence broadcasts before then probably.
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Over the weekend I heard someone on the liberty channel say they liked to farm the first mission of Two Tickets to Westerly (my Dev Choice arc). That was a very weird feeling. And, say what? Why farm Skulls?
@PW - Police Woman (50 AR/dev blaster on Liberty)
TALOS - PW war journal - alternate contact tree using MA story arcs
=VICE= "Give me Liberty, or give me debt!"
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Luckily, the devs feel exactly the same. The way you describe how it "should" work is actually how it does work. Yes, that means at least 1000 farmers have played and 5-starred crey's fire cyborgs.| 2. When a toon plays the same mission again, the player is given the opportunity to rate it again. Does this rating count with the same weight as their original rating? If so, why? Wouldn't it be more accurate to view it as an update to the original rating instead of a completely separate rating unto itself? IMO ratings by the same toon shouldn't count the same as one rating each from 100 different toons. IMO this goes for both Farms and non-Farms. |
The default order arcs show up is in order of average rating, with # of individual rates breaking ties, if my understanding is correct.
Mission Arc: Metatronic Mayhem (Id 1750): A tale of robots gone wrong, rogue robots gone right, and madmen gone every which way but loose.
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Then we would have more farms since they would just max out their slots with multiple versions of the same farm (although it appears some do that already).
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Originally Posted by Fortress_NA
Maybe AE missions should have a "respawn time"?
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@Doctor Gemini
Arc #271637 - Welcome to M.A.G.I. - An alternative first story arc for magic origin heroes. At Hero Registration you heard the jokes about Azuria always losing things. When she loses the entire M.A.G.I. vault, you are chosen to find it.
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I don't really farm much myself (largely because I don't enjoy playing melee characters) but I do make it a point to know how the farms work before I talk about them.|
Originally Posted by Djeannie
No that won't happen. have you actually farmed by chance? It's not a big deal if you haven't.
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In any case it doesn't really matter it's human nature to want to get something for nothing. Add a "give me better rewards for no extra effort" button and people WILL use it. Even if their style of play doesn't really need it they will select it "just in case".
If you want to separate farms and stories and want to do so in a way that will work and doesn't require constant policing you can't provide better rewards for declaring an arc to be a story.
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True. You can farm for XP, inf., tickets, recipes, or any other reward that is in the game.|
Originally Posted by Djeannie
Farming is not just about leveling BionicFlea, you know that
it's also about inf gain to buy stuff now that we've had an "economy" in the game since issue 9. |
My disagreement was regarding the "cure." I think that developers mislead themselves to believe that farming can be cured. I believe the original team thought that they could cure farming but the remaining group and the newer additions seem to have realized that the best policy is to fix exploits and move on.
Finally, I think that farming means different things to different people. But I think the best definition is repeating a certain behavior in a specific place to obtain rewards. That definition works for corn farming as well as gold farming.
50s: Inv/SS PB Emp/Dark Grav/FF DM/Regen TA/A Sonic/Elec MA/Regen Fire/Kin Sonic/Rad Ice/Kin Crab Fire/Cold NW Merc/Dark Emp/Sonic Rad/Psy Emp/Ice WP/DB FA/SM
Overlord of Dream Team and Nightmare Squad
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Sure it would impact your farming. A well built farmer makes 3 mil inf a min. In order for you to match that level of income in 1 hour you would need to make 180 mil in sales per hour.|
Originally Posted by SinisterDirge
Any infl gain I make from tickets and mobs in AE is nothing compared to what I make marketing in less than 10 mins a day. I farm because I like to crush enemies. Solving any of the "core" issues you describe will make little impact on how much I farm.
I will take it one step further and say anyone who farms and doesn't enjoy it should have their priorities re-examined. |
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Originally Posted by Adeon Hawkwood
If you want to separate farms and stories and want to do so in a way that will work and doesn't require constant policing you can't provide better rewards for declaring an arc to be a story.
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Originally Posted by Bionic_Flea
True. You can farm for XP, inf., tickets, recipes, or any other reward that is in the game.
My disagreement was regarding the "cure." I think that developers mislead themselves to believe that farming can be cured. I believe the original team thought that they could cure farming but the remaining group and the newer additions seem to have realized that the best policy is to fix exploits and move on. Finally, I think that farming means different things to different people. But I think the best definition is repeating a certain behavior in a specific place to obtain rewards. That definition works for corn farming as well as gold farming. |
- Lack of mid range recipes
- Extreme prices forcing people to RMT, Farm, or do without
Increase market supply of recipes would drop all prices. We know this by looking at what happened to Costume recipes. This could be done in a variety of ways, such as...
- Any recipe sold to a vendor appears on the market for it's base vendor cost.
- Increase drop rate of uncommon/rare recipes
- Redo uncommon/rare recipes that people don't use due to crappy set bonuses making them more desired and removing the need for the few good rares (+def, rech, acc, dmg bonuses instead of +debt prot, confuse reduction etc..)
- Lower merit vendor prices on recipes
- Allow 10 tips a day, doubling the rate of Alignment merits.
- Allow tickets to actually buy a recipe instead of just randoming on it.
- Merge all recipe levels into one recipe that just levels with you, cutting out tons of recipes.
Now you wouldn't want to implement all of these but some of them would make a large impact on what's available to the populace.
As to power level farming. Don't think there's much that can be done about that. People were farming Dreck with bridges way back in issue 1 and they'd keep farming missions today if AE gave no rewards, with the bonus of purple drops. Maybe allow X year vets to start a character at L22 would help curtail some power level farming.
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I made about 5 billion in five mins worth of marketing last weekend. Thats a billion a minute spent on the market. Anything I make through farming is supplemental to what I make on the market. I am not saying it is the only way, but it works best for me and the amount of time I have to play.|
Originally Posted by Djeannie
Sure it would impact your farming. A well built farmer makes 3 mil inf a min. In order for you to match that level of income in 1 hour you would need to make 180 mil in sales per hour.
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| As to power level farming. Don't think there's much that can be done about that. People were farming Dreck with bridges way back in issue 1 and they'd keep farming missions today if AE gave no rewards, with the bonus of purple drops. Maybe allow X year vets to start a character at L22 would help curtail some power level farming. |
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5 bil in 5 min....crafting time included? buying time of recipes & salvage included? If so then congrats, you've just outdone most of the marketers in the marketing forum |
Originally Posted by SinisterDirge
I made about 5 billion in five mins worth of marketing last weekend. Thats a billion a minute spent on the market. Anything I make through farming is supplemental to what I make on the market. I am not saying it is the only way, but it works best for me and the amount of time I have to play.
I dont think it would curtail it that much. It takes about 15 minutes to hit 22. |
It may not curtail it that much being able to autolevel to 22 for an X year vet but the devs aren't going to let you start out at L50, hence my earlier post of doubt they'll stop powerleveling-farms. Even curtailing it a little would help.
It would probably also help that any mission published that hasn't been played in a year or so gets deleted from the AE listing unless it's a dev choice or hof. Might clear up the AE a bit.
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"Once the avalanche has started, it is too late for the pebbles to vote" -Kosh
Therefore the change would encourage farmers to declare their farm arcs to be stories in order to get the better rewards in which case we end up exactly where we currently are with farm arcs and story arcs all mixed up. If you want to separate stories and farms in a useful manner then the system needs to be designed to, at a minimum, provide no incentives for a creator to lie about their arc.
Now there is a possible compromise setup that could be used to give a goal along the lines you want without penalizing creators for tagging their arc as a farm, call it "Reward Normalization". What you would need to do is have a scaling arc completion bonus that provides a larger completion bonus the smaller the total rewards gained during the arc were. The problem is how do you balance this? You can't do rewards/time or someone would leave their character logged on overnight in order to get a large arc completion bonus (it took 12 hours and I got 1 ticket). You can't base it on arc length (it's almost as easy to make a 5 mission farm as a single mission farm). If you make it a static "X Tickets per mission minus the number you got in the mission, if less than 0 no bonus" then that provides incentive to simply make an arc with a lot of "get the glowie" missions speed through it and get the arc completion bonus.