the MA is fun... for the first 3 days, you get to make your own enemy group and concept story arc but after that it ends up being a debt train with most missions, and AE pugs are absolutely horrible. I also noticed that the AE has completely changed the face of the game's community, much harder to find teams (non-AE), TF/SFs and some zones got very quiet like Granville. And practically no one talks in broadcast anymore.

I'm already sick of the AE and so are many people I've teamed/talked with the past week, my sub is up next week and I doubt I'm going to renew.

Originally posted by sookster54

the MA is fun... for the first 3 days, you get to make your own enemy group and concept story arc but after that it ends up being a debt train with most missions, and AE pugs are absolutely horrible. I also noticed that the AE has completely changed the face of the game's community, much harder to find teams (non-AE), TF/SFs and some zones got very quiet like Granville. And practically no one talks in broadcast anymore.

I'm already sick of the AE and so are many people I've teamed/talked with the past week, my sub is up next week and I doubt I'm going to renew.

Can I have your stuff?

Lets be honest here, yeah there is a lot of farming going on. You can not honestly say you didn't expect that. The funniest thing about it is that everyone was complaining about farming in PI before I14. Now, there is virtually no farming being mentioned in PI chat ad people are STILL complaining.

I am enjoying the MA emmensely. Sure I die more then in regular missions, but your patrol xp is not used while running MA arcs so I never have to worry about paying off debt. It gets taken care of as fast as I get it. In a week or so all of the novelty will wear off and people will go back to doing the regular content just like they always do.

Try joining your servers badge channel. I still see tf teams forming on my server.

Originally posted by gestalt11

Originally posted by Wikkedbowtie

Come on damian, the mission in AE that says in the title and the description "ticket farm" Is pretty obvious. Those are the ones I report.

 

Do you report Fire/Kin that keep a perpetual Demon farm mission?

Nope, in fact I have that same mission unfinished on my fire/fire tank. If I am in the mood I might run it one or two times.

The difference is intent. I don't care if a person runs the same mission over and over again without finishing it. I do care if the same person designs themselves a mission to reap the most reward for the least risk.

And this once again comes down to what the devs have asked us the players to do. I report people for trademark infringment too. If the person is on my team I will still report them and then laugh my butt off when I see them get genericed. If I find a MA arc titled "farm" I will look at it, go through to see what its like and then report it based on what I find. If there wasn't that little "report for content" button on the rate screen I wouldn't do it.

Personally, I think it'll have huge repercussions unless something is done about the farms. There are TONS of farms flying around, and more and more put up and re-published. 1-25 in an hour? Easy. 45-50 in 2 hours? Easy as well. Farms will give you anywhere from 400-700 tickets per mission. if you have the right team you can easily make 4000+ tickets in a day.

I can't get in on normal story arcs unless I actually seek them. Otherwise, most AE invites I get are for farms. However, I'm at fault as well. I run Boss farms on my 50 Brute quite a bit. Personally I find it fun, but I only try to take high levels on my runs since I don't like powerleveling lowbies. I only try to give those experienced players their last few levels...as I know those can be a REAL bitch to go through.

EDIT: Reporting farms does little to be honest. Players do not get in trouble for publishing them, as far as I know, and they can simply re-publish them under a different name. I actually have a few friends who can make an effective Boss farm that will get you 47-50 in an hour. They take about 5-10 minutes to make it.

Originally posted by Thunder_Head

Personally, I think it'll have huge repercussions unless something is done about the farms. There are TONS of farms flying around, and more and more put up and re-published. 1-25 in an hour? Easy. 45-50 in 2 hours? Easy as well. Farms will give you anywhere from 400-700 tickets per mission. if you have the right team you can easily make 4000+ tickets in a day.

 

I can't get in on normal story arcs unless I actually seek them. Otherwise, most AE invites I get are for farms. However, I'm at fault as well. I run Boss farms on my 50 Brute quite a bit. Personally I find it fun, but I only try to take high levels on my runs since I don't like powerleveling lowbies. I only try to give those experienced players their last few levels...as I know those can be a REAL bitch to go through.

EDIT: Reporting farms does little to be honest. Players do not get in trouble for publishing them, as far as I know, and they can simply re-publish them under a different name. I actually have a few friends who can make an effective Boss farm that will get you 47-50 in an hour. They take about 5-10 minutes to make it.

i haven't had much time to play in AE since that last page a couple of days ago...

but, solo, i was getting 900 or so tickets on a map.  i'd run it with an 8 man team and end up with MAYBE 200 tickets.

and like i said before (not talking to the quoted) - how exactly are the devs against farming?  one of the DEV'S CHOICE mission arcs consists of three missions - mish 1- click 2 glowies, mish 2 - click ONE glowie, mish 3 - click a glowie and whoop an EB.  BOOM, collect story arc bonus XP and prizes.

seriously, devs are against farming but make that "arc" a dev's choice?????

I don't know if they've stated their reasons anywhere, but I know they are against some simply because they keep removing them. Daily.

Originally posted by Thunder_Head

I don't know if they've stated their reasons anywhere, but I know they are against some simply because they keep removing them. Daily.

ok, but the point i'm making, is about that dev's choice arc.   i've only played one dev's choice and that was the one i played.  if all of the dev's choice arcs are that way...

Originally posted by damian7

Originally posted by Thunder_Head

I don't know if they've stated their reasons anywhere, but I know they are against some simply because they keep removing them. Daily.

 

ok, but the point i'm making, is about that dev's choice arc.   i've only played one dev's choice and that was the one i played.  if all of the dev's choice arcs are that way...

There is a difference between a farmable arc and an arc designed to be farmed. They don't seem to care if you  farm, but they didn't make the MA to make it easier to farm. The fact that they remove the farm missions kind of proves that.

Originally posted by Wikkedbowtie

Originally posted by damian7

Originally posted by Thunder_Head

I don't know if they've stated their reasons anywhere, but I know they are against some simply because they keep removing them. Daily.

 

ok, but the point i'm making, is about that dev's choice arc.   i've only played one dev's choice and that was the one i played.  if all of the dev's choice arcs are that way...

 

There is a difference between a farmable arc and an arc designed to be farmed. They don't seem to care if you  farm, but they didn't make the MA to make it easier to farm. The fact that they remove the farm missions kind of proves that.

Strictly speaking virtually any mission be it AE or normal can be farmed in some way.  Yes the AE makes farming and PL easier then ever and you know what? Big deal. It was inevitable and I'm sure the devs knew it and anticipated it.

Can the arc I made be farmed? yep. Was it designed to be a farm? Nope.  Is it still up? Yep.  

As to the tickets that one gets, yes you can rack up tickets fast in AE but go look at ticket prices for some items: 4000 tickets for a random gold level recipie roll that could get you something great like Luck of the Gambler +7.5% recharge....or something lousy like Trap of the Hunter.   Other items are cheap yes, but still there are some pricey stuff in the AE Vendor.

As to AE killing the game, no I don't think so. Yes this is the initial excitement, and yes there are many veteran players like myself that have seen and done pretty much all the normal content and the Task/Strike Forces that are planning on spending the bulk of their time in the AE, but so what?  We still play, and NC Soft gets paid.  Also you cannot earn any of the normal badges in any AE mission, including Dev Choice and Hall of Fame.

Example: all the money you rack up in an AE farm will NOT count toward the money badges. Shame too since my main badger needs the last 2 money badges.   Nor can you make a mission full of Outcasts for villains to easily farm for the Weatherman badge that can normally only be gained from ONE mission redside. 

You can have the bulk of the Architect badges within a day if you do it right, but good luck on the Virtual Badge for 50,000 kills.  Few people seem to be going for that since there are no rewards in Test mode of an architect mish.  

Also the badges you get for your mission or arc being star rated.....bascially the entire rating system of AE missions is nothing more then a popularity contest.  All the "good buddies" of a player will 5 star their mish then at the same time, trash a mission of someone that they don't like with one or two star ratings so that it never becomes "Dev Choice or H.O.F" no matter how well crafted it is.

Case in point, there is a player whose name I will withhold that I once respected as a player and a badger that has uploaded a mission that instantly ends as soon as you enter it.  Thus u gain cheap and fast progress on the mission completion badges, villain themed mish badges and the non mission objective badge set.  Now how fair is that?  What burns me is that this mission is soaking up a lot of star ratings, which means this player gets a lot of extra tickets, plus the star badges, plus this cheap cheat mission could well become a Dev Choice if they don't wake up and yank it.   It's missions like THAT one that will kill AE over someone's farm map.

Removing farm missions is going to be a losing battle. Farmers will get better at disguising them, or they'll just get lost in the mass of other arcs. If it just a brainless farm mission then by nature it's very easy to make, and if you really want to keep it from being erased just publish when you want to play and unpublish when you're offline.

It's fight they can't win. Which it always is when you try to fight the way players think.

Consider Rikti Comm Officers. Originally you would just fight the guys that came out of the portals, and get xp for what you defeated. "Farmers" would let the portals spit out a lot of guys on purpose, to result in large groups, all of whom give appropriate XP. Others would either stop the Comm Officer up front and get appropriate XP for what they killed, or accidentally let stuff come out and get xp for what they killed. IMHO this was the most fair system but it's the one they clearly ruled out.

So the next system was to put all the XP in the portal. Farmers would intentionally spawn the portals, then kill only the portal and skip ths spawns, and get big xp for that. (Or something I admit I was good at - let the portal spawn but remove it before anyone comes out.) Regular people would either stop the Officer up front and get XP for the one minion, or accidentally let him spawn and get portal xp plus non-xp for summons. Or in the worst case (and it happened a lot) the officer would summon the portal, then the portal would despawn without taking damage later. Which results in your team fighting the comm officer and extra LT/minions/monkeys for one minion's worth of XP.

That situation begged to be farmed, because there was a big reward for farming and a huge punishment for being sloppy. And that was their "fix".

So now there's system 3. Portal gives nothing, spawned guys give nothing, officer gives LT experience in a minion body. Smart thing to do: get the officer fast, and you're getting above-average XP. Accidentally miss him, and get punished by xp-less spawns. It's still an advantage to those who know what they're doing, and a punishment to those who don't, which is exactly the basis for farming.

Some day that will go too. The fix will be that Comm Officers are back to minion xp. And then the trick will be to just skip Rikti, because the risk isn't worth the reward and there are better choices out there. Farmers are always one step ahead because they are willing to change their behavior while "regular folk" just plod through randomly.

Now that's not to say that an instant-end mission or enemies without attack powers aren't an issue. They are. But the devs have made this battle much bigger than it needs to be, and one way or another they will lose.

----------

Now as for the Architect system overall, I was disappointed. What I want to do is what I've always wanted them to do: create a challenge through cleverness, not power. I would like to put snipers on balconies, hide sappers in alcoves, and do other things that require players to have tactics. None of that is remotely possible. Instead I can will a mission with incredibly difficult enemies with crazy powers like fast regen, one-hit damage, or 100% end drain. Those are a challenge in their own way, but they just require the right build and a stack of inspirations, not tactics.

So overall I say that the Character Creator, which was what they moved from October to April for, is very well done. Tons of options, if not everything you could want. However, the actual Mission Architect is limited to a sort-of Scanner Mission Mad Libs, exactly the way I'd feared.

There is always stuff to keep you busy. But nothing in this changes the way I play the game. And after this time, that's what the game really needs.

Originally posted by grimmstone

Originally posted by Wikkedbowtie

Originally posted by damian7

Originally posted by Thunder_Head

I don't know if they've stated their reasons anywhere, but I know they are against some simply because they keep removing them. Daily.

 

ok, but the point i'm making, is about that dev's choice arc.   i've only played one dev's choice and that was the one i played.  if all of the dev's choice arcs are that way...

 

There is a difference between a farmable arc and an arc designed to be farmed. They don't seem to care if you  farm, but they didn't make the MA to make it easier to farm. The fact that they remove the farm missions kind of proves that.

 

Strictly speaking virtually any mission be it AE or normal can be farmed in some way.  Yes the AE makes farming and PL easier then ever and you know what? Big deal. It was inevitable and I'm sure the devs knew it and anticipated it.

Can the arc I made be farmed? yep. Was it designed to be a farm? Nope.  Is it still up? Yep.  

As to the tickets that one gets, yes you can rack up tickets fast in AE but go look at ticket prices for some items: 4000 tickets for a random gold level recipie roll that could get you something great like Luck of the Gambler +7.5% recharge....or something lousy like Trap of the Hunter.   Other items are cheap yes, but still there are some pricey stuff in the AE Vendor.

As to AE killing the game, no I don't think so. Yes this is the initial excitement, and yes there are many veteran players like myself that have seen and done pretty much all the normal content and the Task/Strike Forces that are planning on spending the bulk of their time in the AE, but so what?  We still play, and NC Soft gets paid.  Also you cannot earn any of the normal badges in any AE mission, including Dev Choice and Hall of Fame.

Example: all the money you rack up in an AE farm will NOT count toward the money badges. Shame too since my main badger needs the last 2 money badges.   Nor can you make a mission full of Outcasts for villains to easily farm for the Weatherman badge that can normally only be gained from ONE mission redside. 

You can have the bulk of the Architect badges within a day if you do it right, but good luck on the Virtual Badge for 50,000 kills.  Few people seem to be going for that since there are no rewards in Test mode of an architect mish.  

Also the badges you get for your mission or arc being star rated.....bascially the entire rating system of AE missions is nothing more then a popularity contest.  All the "good buddies" of a player will 5 star their mish then at the same time, trash a mission of someone that they don't like with one or two star ratings so that it never becomes "Dev Choice or H.O.F" no matter how well crafted it is.

Case in point, there is a player whose name I will withhold that I once respected as a player and a badger that has uploaded a mission that instantly ends as soon as you enter it.  Thus u gain cheap and fast progress on the mission completion badges, villain themed mish badges and the non mission objective badge set.  Now how fair is that?  What burns me is that this mission is soaking up a lot of star ratings, which means this player gets a lot of extra tickets, plus the star badges, plus this cheap cheat mission could well become a Dev Choice if they don't wake up and yank it.   It's missions like THAT one that will kill AE over someone's farm map.

And if i played the mission you just mentioned I would report it. If you know its there and haven't reported then you are just as guilty as the person who made the mission.

Originally posted by Wikkedbowtie

Originally posted by grimmstone

Originally posted by Wikkedbowtie

Originally posted by damian7

Originally posted by Thunder_Head

I don't know if they've stated their reasons anywhere, but I know they are against some simply because they keep removing them. Daily.

 

ok, but the point i'm making, is about that dev's choice arc.   i've only played one dev's choice and that was the one i played.  if all of the dev's choice arcs are that way...

 

There is a difference between a farmable arc and an arc designed to be farmed. They don't seem to care if you  farm, but they didn't make the MA to make it easier to farm. The fact that they remove the farm missions kind of proves that.

 

Strictly speaking virtually any mission be it AE or normal can be farmed in some way.  Yes the AE makes farming and PL easier then ever and you know what? Big deal. It was inevitable and I'm sure the devs knew it and anticipated it.

Can the arc I made be farmed? yep. Was it designed to be a farm? Nope.  Is it still up? Yep.  

As to the tickets that one gets, yes you can rack up tickets fast in AE but go look at ticket prices for some items: 4000 tickets for a random gold level recipie roll that could get you something great like Luck of the Gambler +7.5% recharge....or something lousy like Trap of the Hunter.   Other items are cheap yes, but still there are some pricey stuff in the AE Vendor.

As to AE killing the game, no I don't think so. Yes this is the initial excitement, and yes there are many veteran players like myself that have seen and done pretty much all the normal content and the Task/Strike Forces that are planning on spending the bulk of their time in the AE, but so what?  We still play, and NC Soft gets paid.  Also you cannot earn any of the normal badges in any AE mission, including Dev Choice and Hall of Fame.

Example: all the money you rack up in an AE farm will NOT count toward the money badges. Shame too since my main badger needs the last 2 money badges.   Nor can you make a mission full of Outcasts for villains to easily farm for the Weatherman badge that can normally only be gained from ONE mission redside. 

You can have the bulk of the Architect badges within a day if you do it right, but good luck on the Virtual Badge for 50,000 kills.  Few people seem to be going for that since there are no rewards in Test mode of an architect mish.  

Also the badges you get for your mission or arc being star rated.....bascially the entire rating system of AE missions is nothing more then a popularity contest.  All the "good buddies" of a player will 5 star their mish then at the same time, trash a mission of someone that they don't like with one or two star ratings so that it never becomes "Dev Choice or H.O.F" no matter how well crafted it is.

Case in point, there is a player whose name I will withhold that I once respected as a player and a badger that has uploaded a mission that instantly ends as soon as you enter it.  Thus u gain cheap and fast progress on the mission completion badges, villain themed mish badges and the non mission objective badge set.  Now how fair is that?  What burns me is that this mission is soaking up a lot of star ratings, which means this player gets a lot of extra tickets, plus the star badges, plus this cheap cheat mission could well become a Dev Choice if they don't wake up and yank it.   It's missions like THAT one that will kill AE over someone's farm map.

 

And if i played the mission you just mentioned I would report it. If you know its there and haven't reported then you are just as guilty as the person who made the mission.

Go back and reread my statement  "a player whose name I will withhold that I once respected".    I am withholding it from the board here,  but you can rest assured that this mission and the person that made it has been flagged and tagged by me and quite few players that I team with, and I have even sent a petition on it to support and after reading their automatic canned response told them to send it to senior support.  Of course it's been a dew days and the mission is still up, go fig.

The creation of said mission is what made me lose respect for that person, not that they would care obviously but there are certain principals that I play by.   Badges should be earned, not just obtained for waltzing in and out of a mission that ends as soon as you enter it.   It disgusts me to see the star rating score this person has obtained as it means they have all sorts of tickets to claim and of course are gaining progress on the badges you get for having your arcs star rated.  Further proof that the entire rating system of the AE is nothing but a popularity contest.

The AE should be changed so that authors can leave their name as anonymous if they so choose and instead of frivolous star ratings, there should be a counter that shows how many times the mission has been run, after the counter reaches a certain point, the devs get a flag and check it out and see if it is worthy of Dev Choice.  From that point if it is played enough times, then it becomes Hall of Fame.