ED to Ambush farms in i21

I still haven't seen someone provide concrete examples of how AE farming in its current state is bad for the game. The most egregious examples of PLing and loot generation were removed almost immediately after I14 launch, and the devs have been pretty good at stopping new examples as they pop up. These changes have had minimal impact on storytelling - don't try and give me the "my x or y is now worth less XP so people don't play my arc!" garbage, because if you were a good, serious storyteller people would play your arcs regardless of how much XP they gave. Once more, for clarity - less people using the MA for farming does not mean more people are going to play player-written arcs.

I'm also not sure why you think farming is bad, because of the whole part where it provides supply to the market, thus ensuring the items you want are available when you want them. PLing? *Shrug* I don't know about other people that play this game, but I'm intelligent enough to sit down in front of pretty much any build in the game and play it well regardless of whether I've spent time on it before. This game isn't hard. All the "AE babies" this section of the forums loves to cry about haven't affected my gameplay at all.

@macskull, @Not Mac | XBL: macskull | Steam: macskull | Skype: macskull
"One day we all may see each other elsewhere. In Tyria, in Azeroth. We may pass each other and never know it. And that's sad. But if nothing else, we'll still have Rhode Island."

MARTy's "promise" was that they wouldn't have to take servers down for an immediate exploit fix. And they're not. They're working their "exploit fix" into a larger patch, just as they promised they would.

Your post, she is false.

Originally Posted by Nethergoat it's NEVER too late to pad your /ignore list!

imo there are two answers to this one, one of which is sort of obsolete today.


1. Farming in general - not just AE - in the sense of PLing is (or at least used to be) detrimental to the game because it leads to the potential of creating lvl 50 players that have absolutely no idea how to play their toon and therefore cause a lot of grief on trials and TFs and teams in general. You see it a lot - a person PL'ers their emp def and then when they run a TF at lvl 50 their idea of "healing the group" is auto-clicking Heal Aura and putting the tank on follow. That's not healing, that's not playing your defender properly. The point of spending the average of 80-100 hours lvling to lvl 50 is to learn how to actually play the powersets you've chosen. It's called experience for a reason. So farming XP in AE or any other mission to PL potentially creates a lot of lvl 50s that are worse teammates than a lvl 1 "noob".

Now this is somewhat obsolete in the fact that a large amount of PLers nowadays are people who have played various powersets and characters and have multiple 50s and understand the game - and are simply just lazy and don't feel like working up to 50 the traditional way. There is a whole debate within a debate about whether or not that mentality has merit but that is neither here nor there. BUT with the game now opening up to a wider market and potentially getting more players to upgrade to VIP and such, there is potential that a lot of new players could come in and see this PLing method and we could see a lot of high lvl "noobs". I've personally already teamed with a lvl 46 player that had just the rookie vet reward, and who stated he had only been in the game for a week. And needless to say his skill on the team was far less than impressive...




2. The second answer is the cheesy canned answer but still the valid point for the devs. Farming, by its definition, does violate the intended route of the game's experience. XP is not meant to be earned at that rate. Inf and Prestige is not meant to be earned at that rate. Salvage is not meant to be that readily available on the market (economy 101 teaches us a little thing about the importance of supply and demand). And AE is not meant to produce farming, it's meant to produce storytelling by the player-base. Now again, there are multiple debates within this debate on the merit of these claims, but the fact is the claim by the devs that "AE farming is not the intent of AE" is valid - as creators of the system they have the right to punish those that - whether rightfully or not - exploit their system to earn rewards at a rate not meant to be achieved.



I'm not taking a side on either of the points but the answer to why "farming is bad" really boils down to those topics. If you spend hours, months, days, and years developing a system with an intended rate of return and someone comes in and exploits it - whether its your fault in poor programming or not - you do have the right as the owner of the system to change things in an effort to realign the reward rate to the original intent of your design.

"Memories" - The Evangel Farewell Video

And I have no problem with this whatsoever.

@macskull, @Not Mac | XBL: macskull | Steam: macskull | Skype: macskull
"One day we all may see each other elsewhere. In Tyria, in Azeroth. We may pass each other and never know it. And that's sad. But if nothing else, we'll still have Rhode Island."

All you're saying is that people would act within the published rules. There is nothing problematic about doing that. If the speed limit is 50, there is no problem with going 49.9. If the rule makers really meant for the speed limit to be 45, then they should have said so.

So the devs should say what they feel is an exploitive rate of reward. Be conservative. Even if standard teams can do hit that target, that's fine. Because people will be on notice. So if the devs believe that a solo player should not be able to cap tickets or earn ten levels in a MA mission, then they need to say so. Otherwise they have little reason to complain when people seek rewards in ways that appear to be valid on their face.

While I agree that the devs see us all as $ signs now, and while I think selling reward boosters for real money is just ridiculous, I gotta say your comparison of xp boosters to pling is apples to oranges.

The xp boost (and particularly the short amount of relative time it applies to the character) does not even begin to compare to even just one run of a "good" farm. You can walk away from an afternoon of farming with a couple dozen levels. The percentage boost you get from an xp booster is laughable in comparison. Now if you used the xp booster to farm then yes I see the argument but you are implying that playing the game the "proper way" with an xp booster is even remotely similar to pling in a farm - and that claim just does not have an ounce of merit.

"Memories" - The Evangel Farewell Video

Eh, you get more milage out of the [Experienced] vet power then you do the XP boosters.. the Experienced vet power gives you 1/2 a level of rested XP.. rested XP is 50% increase, and doesn't work in AE.

the XP booster is only a 25% XP increase for an hour... with 5 uses. You get 15 uses from Experienced by the time your a t7 VIP...and the experienced is free.

I am saying that by nerfing the AE farm maps they allow people to achieve a similar rate of XP gain ONLY IF they pay them extra money. Its Basic Pay2Win. Lots of people want to PL to 50 as fast as they can. The devs are just not being shy about making an extra few bucks on the journey.

And yes. I am saying that by removing the "farms" and adding the Booster the devs are now offering their own version of Pay for PL. It may suck but that's what they are doing.

Anyone who uses an XP booster on anything but a farm is pretty much throwing money away because of the amount of time spent traveling between missions.

Only way this not a money grab is IF they disable XP boosters in AE AND nerf the XP on the Live farms.

Agreed. The devs have created hundreds of stories and dozens of arcs. Amateur efforts are a waste of server time. Farms serve a real purpose that is unaddressed by the devs.

AE Story arcs have no value in this game.

25% XP boost for 1 hour != 75% reduction in XP per ambush.... just saying.

Even with the 25% Xp booster active, your not going to hit the same XP levels as before the nerf. Its simple math.

the XP boost will negate the first ambush, but the second one will still give 75% XP.. then the 3rd will give 75% xp of the second, etc etc.

The XP booster will not make up for the ambush nerf. Your better off using it on non AE farms, as those aren't hit basically at all by the ambush nerf.

Sorry, your math understanding on this - and therefore your point - still just doesn't match. Make no mistake, I'm not defending farming (as is obvious in this thread I am fairly against farming - particularly for xp) but even attempting to imply that an xp booster could come anywhere close to comparing to the windfall of xp you get from ambush and other farms is just an embarrassing comparison to make. The math has been pointed out by others so I feel no need to reiterate it, but simply put - 1 hour of a very slight xp gain, even in a farm has no comparison to the high-xp yields you get from xp farms with ambushes. Even putting the %25 boost to xp to use on a good ambush farm, you're increasing your xp gain by 25% on a gain that already is over a 100% gain to normal rating, so you're adding decimal points to an already astronomical number which means the boost is basically approaching zero.


XP boosters only benefit a player who plays the game "properly", and in that respect you are right - they are charging you to level faster. But it can hardly begin to attempt to compare to increase you get in PL'ing. Your argument has merit in a thread that's about how the devs are money-hungry pocket-pickers looking to charge you for every little thing they can. But in a thread about using ambush xp to PL your character, your argument just doesn't have any ground to stand on. This is hardly an instance of the devs saying "Oh no, people are farming ambushes instead of buying xp boosters, we should cut the ambush xp!!" Those two points of interest don't even belong in the same meeting room for the devs. 100% unrelated.

"Memories" - The Evangel Farewell Video

Heroes, Villains ♦ Reviews ♦ Retrospect

cAn i hAs A sLiCe oF pArAnOiA cAkES?

This is an elaborate 100+ word response that could easily be done in two:


"I'm lazy"



Conserve your words! Shorter posts are always better!

"Memories" - The Evangel Farewell Video

Try taking some of your own advice, if you're going to be so rude to everyone that disagrees with you.

This is an elaborate 500+ word post that the poster could have wrapped their opinions into two concise statements:

1) Play the game the way I prefer to play it, and if you prefer leveling faster than I do, or like to farm for drops, then you're doing it all wrong and you're hurting the game.

2) I inaccurately define farming as exploiting.

Thanks for your time.

Personally, I think the devs shouldn't squash the efficient ways people have come up with for PLing or farming. It's futile, really. There's always going to be something else that pops up. Eventually, you'll just strip down the system too much for it to be useable for anyone. As long as exploits aren't being used, then leave it alone.

OMG! 100 words?! Wow. Am I taking too much of your valuable time away from your colossal grind to 50? lol

Or in your case, not posting at all.

@macskull, @Not Mac | XBL: macskull | Steam: macskull | Skype: macskull
"One day we all may see each other elsewhere. In Tyria, in Azeroth. We may pass each other and never know it. And that's sad. But if nothing else, we'll still have Rhode Island."

Pretty much anyone loafing around playing a video game about comic book characters is lazy. Its a game, not like it adds any value to the planet. Its a past-time and just a mindless entertainment medium. Its not like getting to level 10, 30 or 50 represents any kind of achievement that matters to anyone other than yourself.

So if someone prefers to get to level 50 in the most efficient manner possible in the game (farming), they are in fact far LESS lazy of a person than someone who plays out each level on normal PVE content. Because they aren't loafing around behind the keyboard for such extended periods of time.

That's per your logic, at any rate.

I did use sarcastic orange...


Hate to tell you, PL'ing via farming, is - by its very definition - an exploit. Earning any form of reward at a rate higher than intended by the designer of a system is an exploit. I can provide dictionary definitions for you to solidfy that point but that would rude, don't you think?

"Memories" - The Evangel Farewell Video