ED to Ambush farms in i21

Originally Posted by Crysys

Why not have the dev team do a system-wide purge of all AE arcs that implement any of the following:

Originally Posted by Megajoule

starting with the introduction of PvP and the changes made to the PvE game to accommodate it

Originally Posted by Kioshi

I'd even say they aren't a 'grey' group. I have three good farming toons, although I don't farm unless I'm bored. Two of them were leveled the 'hard' way and I enjoyed the ride. My SS/Fire brute was self pled in AE.

But except in cases like TopDoc's, who made a CEBR for every server just because he wanted to (and he plays the game as well since he's on Repeat Offenders and I team with him on lowbies! Who would guess?), there's no need to have more than one or two farming toons, and two if you farm every day because you'll want more mileage from the market slots and stuff.

Funnily enough, my SS/Fire is poor now because I was a bit bothered by my 20ish human-only PB and SD/MA Tanker end usage so I bought 4 health uniques crafted at buy it NAO prices, I'm helping the market am I not? Plus I sent the rest he had (750 mil) to my SM/Elec Brute to IO her since she's close to 50. Sooo are any of these three toons I spent money on lately optimal for farming or even soloing AVs/PVP? No, just like the myriad of toons I saw people who farm way more than me play.

By the way, usually when I farm with my SS/Fire it's because I feel like killing a lot of stuff and 'relax'. Because if I wanted to make money faster than I do with him killing hordes of 54s, I can get a shelved toon and buy recipes and sell crafted IOs, no resorting to flipping or etc. The toon who actually funded my SS/Fire was a 40 rad/psi def I don't play since I left in i12 - spent one week on the market doing this (buying desirable recipes for less than 50k infl each and selling the IOs for 10 mil, then I stepped up for more expensive ones), 20 minutes at a time, in one week he made more money than my SS/Fire ever did (the 1.5 bil I threw on the brute). And as I said, I didn't flip stuff or sold for over the asking price, so why is farming frowned upon since it's less profitable (although less boring for me, not every week I feel like marketeering)? I can do more money on a level 1 whatever/whatever toon (or several since at level one you have too few market slots) than with my 50+3 1.5 bil SS/Fire in a week just using WW.

And still, when I'm not bored/sick (I get sick a lot that's why I post so much on nights and weekends since I work by day), I may be farming and I'm always watching the server channels to see if there's a TF forming so I can go have fun be it on a Posi on a DO'ed toon or a LGFT on another one, even my farming brute has done most high end tfs because I wanted to take a break from farming. So yeah... we kinda 'mix', people who say 'farmers are a different kind of player' probably had one or two bad experiences with the two farmers out of 100 who think farming is 'the only way to play', but it's no different than the occasional stuck up RP'er/PVP'er you'll find (emphasis on 'occasional', because I get along just fine with a RPing team and when I was finally trying PVP - right before i13 landed - I was getting my **** handed to me, I was in a good arena team versus another vet arena team, on a non optimal PVP build, and all I got was friendly advice and that 'I was doing well for my first time in Arena Team PvP' even though it was not my impression lol).

Originally Posted by Captain_Karate

All this will really do for me, is increase the amount of loading screens I see. One mob, one ambush, and the second at 75% xp is still gonna cap my tickets, and level up my alts marginally slower than I can do now, which currently is 1-50 in 5 hours and change using my elec/fire brute on +4x8.

This change won't affect me, or my levelling, or inf generation much. I suppose that angers the coh "purist's" who think farming AE is evil or something, but I don't play this game to make THEM happy. lol. I've been playing for 6 yrs, and just don't see the point of grinding my way through 50 levels when I've already done the story arcs, and don't care much for the ''AE Lotto'' as I call it - wading through subpar arcs looking for decent ones. I'll just take my quick route to 50, and start playing endgame content - which is what I am interested in. Of course, I may not be the typical player, but then again, I don't want to be the typical player. :P

Originally Posted by macskull

Uhhh, can you name even one change (other than the Hurricane nerf) that was implemented specifically due to PvP concerns? I'll save you the time and let you know you can't, because that's the only one. I'd swear people that think this are playing a different game than I am.

Originally Posted by Thirty-Seven

I just started reading this thread, and so don't a have a full perspective on the discussion thus far... but I noticed this and figured I would comment.

That IS what is happening. There are boatloads of folks trying to make their own farming arcs and failing miserably at it (or continue to have old un-usable farm arcs listed) that really are making it harder to find the well written stories. It is the principle reason that I don't really use the AE for anything anymore: unless I already know the name of a good arc, it is pretty difficult to find one when I feel like it.

Originally Posted by Megajoule

Used to be that Phase Shift was a great "panic button" - it activated instantly and you could stay as phased as long as you liked/needed to. Nobody seemed to care when this was only against PvE, but I'm sure you can see the problems for being able to escape PvP ambushes at the click of a button and remain untouchable indefinitely, even if it is the final power in a pool.

Originally Posted by Megajoule

Used to be that Phase Shift was a great "panic button" - it activated instantly and you could stay as phased as long as you liked/needed to. Nobody seemed to care when this was only against PvE, but I'm sure you can see the problems for being able to escape PvP ambushes at the click of a button and remain untouchable indefinitely, even if it is the final power in a pool.

(I may be wrong on some of the details - I never actually got to use it, but was planning to take it on my notional pistol scrapper, back when he was going to RP Invuln as Intangibility. This is the same guy who finally got into the game as a Dual Pistols/Dark Defender.)

Originally Posted by Megajoule

Travel power suppression.
Phase Shift being rendered utterly useless.

Originally Posted by Reiraku

According to Castle, of the 8 major reasons for travel power suppression, only 3 were PvP related. Others included AI abuse in PvE and risk/reward ratios.

Originally Posted by macskull

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.

Originally Posted by Hydrophidian

I see this asserted a lot. But, frankly, I don't notice any evidence of it.

Originally Posted by Obsidian_Light

Do you happen to remember the day before i14 launched, and the 3 days after i14 launched?

Let me take you all down a memory lane stroll...

Day before i14 went live, the salvage market for commons was pretty cheap, uncommons were around what they are worth to a vendor, and rares were really the only thing that spiked to the 500k + mark.

Day 3 after i14 went live, practically ALL of the common salvage was GONE. Uncommons were selling for MILLIONS of influence, as were rares.

And it stayed like that for weeks because all of you 'story writers' and 'farmers' were busy piling into AE to write your 'epic' tale, or farm the pants off your new toon in 3 hours on a 'Rikti Doll' farm (which later turned into a Green Mito Hami farm).

Only recently has the market even began to even itself out, and still the things that were cheap as dirt, are still somewhat expensive to the casual player (So not taking this argument any further than it already has on casuals vs. hardcore vs. content vs. farmers vs. writers).

I sometimes wonder why people buy the 'gotta have it nao' Uncommon and Rare salvage from the market at anywhere between 50k - 2million inf, when you can buy ALL of those from AE with Tickets (-gasp- you mean tickets in mass means i can save a few million?)

Either way, long story short, NO ONE is right, and NO ONE is wrong. Farmers have always existed, you writers are just pissy because your precious amateur content is being overlooked by people who farm. And the farmers will immedately go on the defense to tell you that without them, you wouldn't have a stinking thing in the market, and they certainly wouldn't be around to take the labor pains of getting your content loving butts through those grind levels in just a few minutes of time.

Everyone has farmed something at some point in their game time existence. Don't tell me you haven't because it's complete BULL. It's just like saying you don't lie, which is an immediate lie.

Deal with us, because we certainly deal with you.

And yes, this was written by a farmer, a content player, a MA storyarc writer, someone with multiple 50's and multiple mid and low level toons, a hardcore player, and a rp'er.

Grow up.

Originally Posted by Evangel_NA

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?

Originally Posted by Warfarin88

above emphasis mine

"an" exploit. noun.

a striking or notable deed; feat; spirited or heroic act: the exploits of Alexander the Great.

I don't think you mean to offer dictionary definitions. Perhaps you meant as a verb?

"to" exploit. verb.

1. to utilize, especially for profit; turn to practical account: to exploit a business opportunity.
2. to use selfishly for one's own ends: employers who exploit their workers.
3. to advance or further through exploitation; promote: He exploited his new movie through a series of guest appearances.

Either way, I believe you are overlooking our context of the use of the word. From the CoH User Agreement, Section 8:

(d) Use, or provide others with, any "hack," "cheat," "exploit" or "mod";

That is the only mention of the term "exploit" that I am aware of in the user agreement. The associations drawn with cheats and hacks imply a much different interpretation of the term than it appears you are making.

EDIT: I wasn't paying attention to the thread paging. Whoops. Responses to three day old troll posts for the win. I'll finish my first cup of coffee before posting in the future. : )