I cancelled my account this week to CoX. It is getting to the point where peoples' "Find" messages are "AE Farm Only." It has been weeks since the disruption started, and it is only getting worse.

I can count on one hand the amount of groups I've found that I wanted to stay with for more than 1 mission since the release of the Mission Architect. A great idea, but practically speaking, it has killed a very enjoyable game for me, my wife, my brother, and anyone I happened to group with that wasn't on trial.

It was a lot of fun over the years, CoX, but now its on to the next, I guess.
 

Originally posted by nolf

I cancelled my account this week to CoX. It is getting to the point where peoples' "Find" messages are "AE Farm Only." It has been weeks since the disruption started, and it is only getting worse.

I can count on one hand the amount of groups I've found that I wanted to stay with for more than 1 mission since the release of the Mission Architect. A great idea, but practically speaking, it has killed a very enjoyable game for me, my wife, my brother, and anyone I happened to group with that wasn't on trial.

It was a lot of fun over the years, CoX, but now its on to the next, I guess.
 

Talk about extreme over-exageration. I play on freedom and there don't seem to be that many more people farming.

Bye.

Hmm, maybe you should be able to rank the player created missions? Then you could see what other players though about them before agreeing to do them, and also how many runs that done them?

The idea in itself aint bad but there must be restrictions or the whole game will fall apart.

Originally posted by Kyleran

Originally posted by Wikkedbowtie

I love the whole, "I can't prove it, but the game is losing subscribers" thing. Yes the game did lose the "hardcore" pvpers around I13 and I admit that players are leaving the game. But, even though people are quitting playing there are also more people joining up. You wanna make a claim you gotta back it up.

 

Not really, empirical evidence can serve as a point of discussion, even in the absence of hard data.

Since game companies are generally cagy about honestly reporting sub numbers there's really no better way than to go by player perceptions, stats reported by XFire etc.

It seems the game is still doing fine, but with regards to the OP, I can see where these player created instances could pull people out of the main game, which is why I'm against anything like this.

well, if you go by mmochart.com, i believe it's showing coh around 130-140k subs.

plus, as far as the pvp thing, i'm not keeping up with all the pvp changes; because, quite honestly, pvp tacked on a couple of years after a game was created - is going to be shyte.  period.  HOWEVER, i have noticed the pvp sets, which give you an extra 6 buffs (for a full set) during pvp.  so, i wouldn't say pvp is being ignored.

i like the fun/funny arcs.  i went on one the other day ( i can't remember the name), but we rescued states and he helped us for the mish.  we fought all sorts of the standard mobs (about half a dozen normal mob types, ranging from carnies to crey to council, etc).  we rescued obama, biden, clinton, etc.  they all had funny/ironic sayings for current events.

i've done missions where the villains were 'fashion horrors' and had funny sayings about how they looked good.  i've created a pie/clown mission, where the villains are out to destroy Old Lady Parker's Pies (think Sara Lee), and you have to rescue Old Lady Parker, save her corporation and hunt down the pie haters.

but, i've also leveled a few toons that i wanted to play, but just had hell getting teams and getting the toons past the teens.  i mean, once you've leveled 6-10 toons to 50... AND you play thru normal content... you're REALLY not going to see anything new.  when their 1 or 2 a year issues come out... that content REALLY doesn't last until the next issue (5-10 months later).

so, i dunno.   i know that AE is going to help create a TON of lvl 50s that have no clue about how to do anything.  i've already been in missions with people in their 30s, talking about how they just made that toon earlier today... and they're asking about enhancements, like... as in... what are enhancements... or, "how do i level? do i have to talk to someone? etc".

so yeah, AE is going to make lvl 50, the new level 3, as far as noobs and incredibly basic questions.  which, in turn, will have people getting frustrated and quitting cuz the game is "too easy"... and their noobness is going to frustrate and piss off people playing with them (in non AE situations). 

so... who knows... long term, will it be good or bad?  will it be better if AE is only for tickets (ie no xp), or would that kill ae?  who knows.

Originally posted by Loke666

Hmm, maybe you should be able to rank the player created missions? Then you could see what other players though about them before agreeing to do them, and also how many runs that done them?

The idea in itself aint bad but there must be restrictions or the whole game will fall apart.

you can rate any arc you play - 0 thru 5 (click on 1 rating twice and it will tell you that you've chosen 0).  but... you'll see a lot of ae farms with 4s or 5s for their ratings... and if someone is in a big sg, they could have a couple of hundred raters and a 4 or 5... and it still be a non-good arc...

Originally posted by Wikkedbowtie

Originally posted by nolf

I cancelled my account this week to CoX. It is getting to the point where peoples' "Find" messages are "AE Farm Only." It has been weeks since the disruption started, and it is only getting worse.

I can count on one hand the amount of groups I've found that I wanted to stay with for more than 1 mission since the release of the Mission Architect. A great idea, but practically speaking, it has killed a very enjoyable game for me, my wife, my brother, and anyone I happened to group with that wasn't on trial.

It was a lot of fun over the years, CoX, but now its on to the next, I guess.
 

 

Talk about extreme over-exageration. I play on freedom and there don't seem to be that many more people farming.

Bye.

go to cap.  all you see in bcast is either people forming a farming team, or people looking for a farm, and people are being retarded with it and SAYING "farm" and talking about how they made lvl 1-40 in a couple of hours.

and you CAN get to lvl 25ish after like two missions.

Originally posted by damian7

you can rate any arc you play - 0 thru 5 (click on 1 rating twice and it will tell you that you've chosen 0).  but... you'll see a lot of ae farms with 4s or 5s for their ratings... and if someone is in a big sg, they could have a couple of hundred raters and a 4 or 5... and it still be a non-good arc...

Yeah, if I have one complaint with the new AE system, its that new arcs don't ever seem to get played unless the creator of the arc in question has a few dozen friends willing to play the arc as soon as its finished and give it five star ratings. Then the result of that is a lot of arcs end up with five star ratings which don't deserve them either. I'm baffeled as to how a lot of the developers choice arcs got those positions considering they usually are maybe four star worthy at best.

And I played a five star arc with 100+ votes the other day which was just awful. It was about time traveling Kung-Fu masters searching for magic scrolls that make things explode. The story was like something out of Dragon Ball Z and was filled with multiple spelling and grammar errors. I'm assuming the creator of this arc got a bunch of his buddies to give him five star ratings to get him started and then everyone after that just gave more five star ratings to be nice. I don't send people rude messages if I don't like their arc, but I will atleast give it the rating I think it deserves.

A lot of people are farming, yes, but from what I recall there were a lot of people doing that before the AE too. I knew one guy who did the demon farm atleast five times a day, every day, right before logging off for the day. Plus people farmed the hell out of ITF and KHTF because they were short task forces. It was almost impossible to find people doing any of the other task forces in the game. Now instead of sitting around Portal Corp and looking for people to join their demon farm, these guys are sitting around AE lobbies asking for people to join their new farm they created themselves. I'm not sure a lot has changed other than the location they farm in and what they farm.

*sigh*

I got a tell last night asking me if I wanted to join team. I asked if they were farming and he checked with his team - that's what they wanted to do. So I declined. It was so nice to not get a blind invite and then the farmers had to go and ruin it...

After that, I started editing my search status to add "no farming" to "no blind invites." And took out the "please" after some numbskull tried to blind invite me 3 times in about 30 seconds.

Originally posted by Wikkedbowtie

Originally posted by nolf

I cancelled my account this week to CoX. It is getting to the point where peoples' "Find" messages are "AE Farm Only." It has been weeks since the disruption started, and it is only getting worse.

I can count on one hand the amount of groups I've found that I wanted to stay with for more than 1 mission since the release of the Mission Architect. A great idea, but practically speaking, it has killed a very enjoyable game for me, my wife, my brother, and anyone I happened to group with that wasn't on trial.

It was a lot of fun over the years, CoX, but now its on to the next, I guess.
 

 

Talk about extreme over-exageration. I play on freedom and there don't seem to be that many more people farming.

Bye.

As I have been saying, it is not that EVERYONE is doing the AE farming, just that the VAST MAJORITY of the population is. People's search messages changing slowly to AE farms is just an indication that this problem is here to stay,

I have characters on Freedom, Infinity, Protector and two others that don't get much action. If you truly think farming hasn't increased, than you clearly have just started this game up again. The amount of farming that occurs since the release of the MA had increased astoundingly. For someone who didn't know how to use the search function, you should realize your opinion isn't worth so much here. It just shows that you are newer to the game, and your opinions therefore cannot encompass the scope of change I am speaking of here.

You want to talk about freedom? I have (until they expire) 2 accounts FULL of characters on freedom (with my extra slots added to that server as well). I think I would know about the state of the server much better than someone still learning the fundamental features of the game. It may be easy to get to 50 now, but the game is suffering for it.

The FACT of the matter is, the game and its community have gone through a massive and quick change for the worse due to this system being implemented. The proof is in the putting. I am not imagining my experiences over the last month, and have plenty of memories from prior to this last month to compare them to.

I'm not here to say this game is failing or crap on it in any other way. I love this game, it has just taken a turn I don't want to go down. So I'm parting ways, as simple as that. Whether a guy who doesn't know how to use the search function agrees with me or not is pretty irrelevant, as you are clearly still learning this game.

Well, I don't know. I am seriously thinking of subscribing BECAUSE  of the mission creator.

So perhaps it will pull in people with more of a creative bent.

I have just started playing CoH/CoV about three weeks ago. I signed up to play as a second MMO (actually 3rd but that one I am leaving). I signed on BECAUSE of the AE primarily but also because of the other asspects of the game. I probably only do a couple of AE missions a week. The rest of the time I am having fun out leveling one of my now 7 Heros or Villians. While I consider CoH/CoV my second home, I have racked up a lot of hours there without logging  much onto my main MMO.

Now, I understand there is a "new" superhero MMO coming in July. Will that effect CoH/CoV, probably. Will I be out of luck, no. These are just games and if CoV/CoH would die then I would just go elsewhere. Until then, I will have fun with it.

Originally posted by Sovrath

Well, I don't know. I am seriously thinking of subscribing BECAUSE  of the mission creator.

 

So perhaps it will pull in people with more of a creative bent.

Undoubtedly, it will draw in the more creative types.  Hopefully, over time the ratings by the players of the missions reflect this creativity, and NOT farmability.  Right now many of the top rated mission aren't stories at all, just farms where people didn't even bother to name their MOBs.  I had freakin WOOD over the MA when I heard about it, and was really excited about the release of it.  Then 3 days after release, reality began to set in.  Creativity is NOT what is driving the MA at this point.

Hopefully, over the long term things shift towards the creative end.  With CO and DCU on the horizon, the super-hero market is no longer going to be cornered.  Hopefully when that happens, all that will be left in CoX will be folks less interested in farming and more interested in RPing and storytelling.  If and when this happens, I'll be back.  That is unless I find a new home in one of the newer games which has a much more likely chance of happening IMO.

Nolf, I'm probably walking into a minefield by asking this, but something about your story seems very strange to me.

You say that you have been playing this game for years, that you have multiple accounts which are all full of characters (I'm guessing that means you have hundreds of characters) and that you play on multiple servers. It seems that you take this game VERY VERY seriously.

But how is it that someone who takes this game as seriously as you seem to is not apparently part of an SG?

Obviously I don't know if you are in an SG or not, but it seems very odd to me that you have not mentioned any SG participation in your rather long list of reasons why you know what you are talking about when you discuss this game. See, whenever I've been as serious about an MMO as you are about this one I've been in a guild. In fact, in games where I was as serious as you are I was usually RUNNING my OWN guild. And when I was in a guild I usually tended to group with the other members of my guild. I usually was not overly concened with what the rest of the community was doing with their time. As long as they stayed out of my way I was happy to stay out of theirs and focus on my guild. They could all be hacking the game to get free gold and it wouldn't have mattered to me at all as long as I knew the people in my guild were still serious and trustworthy players.

So... it just seems WEIRD to me that a guy who claims to be as good at this game as you claim to be is so worked up about what everyone else is doing without mentioning what your own SG is doing. You should be more interested in yourself and your own SG than what the "community" is doing. Its been my experience that if you rely on the "community" of a game to enjoy the game then you are almost always going to be dissapointed.

Originally posted by Raltar

Nolf, I'm probably walking into a minefield by asking this, but something about your story seems very strange to me.

You say that you have been playing this game for years, that you have multiple accounts which are all full of characters (I'm guessing that means you have hundreds of characters) and that you play on multiple servers. It seems that you take this game VERY VERY seriously.

But how is it that someone who takes this game as seriously as you seem to is not apparently part of an SG?

Obviously I don't know if you are in an SG or not, but it seems very odd to me that you have not mentioned any SG participation in your rather long list of reasons why you know what you are talking about when you discuss this game. See, whenever I've been as serious about an MMO as you are about this one I've been in a guild. In fact, in games where I was as serious as you are I was usually RUNNING my OWN guild. And when I was in a guild I usually tended to group with the other members of my guild. I usually was not overly concened with what the rest of the community was doing with their time. As long as they stayed out of my way I was happy to stay out of theirs and focus on my guild. They could all be hacking the game to get free gold and it wouldn't have mattered to me at all as long as I knew the people in my guild were still serious and trustworthy players.

So... it just seems WEIRD to me that a guy who claims to be as good at this game as you claim to be is so worked up about what everyone else is doing without mentioning what your own SG is doing. You should be more interested in yourself and your own SG than what the "community" is doing. Its been my experience that if you rely on the "community" of a game to enjoy the game then you are almost always going to be dissapointed.

First off, let me clear something up.  I'm not that good at this game.  The only thing I am truly good at is Emp Def.  I am mediocre at best at most of the other classes.  To answer your question, the SG I was in was on it's last legs as it was when the AE hit, as many of the members grew discontent (as many have) over the lack of PvP concentration of the game, and they grew tired of the game.  The couple dozen that were left over the last, oh 6 months or so we the PvE crowd (myself and my wife included).  Out of the roughly 40 of us there were left, at least half have left the game in the last month or so.  There are 2 or 3 devoted AEers, who make decent missions who I'm sure will be staying.  And I'm sure like many who play, the 15 or so who haven't left yet are probably staying in the game as well.

I didn't bring up the SG, because as I said the way things were going, it seemed to be dying off anyway.  And I did NOT want to imply the AE had anything to do with its decline (as it was dying off already).  Maybe this decline in my SG compounded my need to rely on the general community for my experience, so when the AE hit, it hit me harder than most.  Also, as I play a lot of alts on 2ndary servers, I don't have SGs on those servers and was always dependant on the general community if I wasn't planning to meet up with anyone prior to logging in.

I won't say you're wrong about not relying on the community to enjoy a game, just that I disagree wholeheartedly.  The best MMO experiences I've ever had were because of the general community.  The community is what makes or breaks an MMO for me, in the end.  I spent a long time in this one (roughly 2.5 years off and on over the years, not including the preorder beta) because the community as I knew it to be was very strong.  This is no longer the case, in my experience, and this has caused me to part ways with the game.

No hard feelings, and I'm honestly gald the MA was done.  I love it in theory, and I hope future MMOs learn from the things that were done both well and poorly.  One of the downsides of this new feature happened to be a game-breaker for me, but that doesn't mean I think the game of the AE is a failure.  It's just not for me anymore.

To be honest I love the MA and yes I agree that farming has spiked considerably, especially since there are ways to lock a mish at a certain level thus all members are auto sk'd to it.

However I don't see MA as a game-breaker and I suspect there are many changes and yes nerfs coming to MA to "rebalance" it. However stripping XP from it completely would kill MA.

Farming will always occur, no matter what the devs do. 

Have I made a story mish? Yep, and I constantly tweek it.  Do I have a farm mish also? You betcha. 

However for me I made the farm mish due having my playtime badly shortened of late due to RL considerations, and I have a bad, bad case of alt-itis a.k.a. too many alts.  However as a 42+ month vet I know how to play the game and have seen and done all the normal content.  So yes I am accelerating my alts via MA to 50.  Some will retire, some will continue on.  If some new player rapid levels an alt in my mish, so be it. It's up to them to learn how to play.

My complaint about the MA is that it's way too easy to screw around with the ratings of the arcs.  People get their buddies to inflate their star rating then say "Oh look, that jerk we all hate because he doesn't worship the ground I walk on has made an arc! EVERYONE ONE STAR IT!".

Author names should be anonymous until the mission becomes a Hall of Fame mission.

Also there have been some cheat missions that instantly end upon characters entering it thus giving cheap progress on some of the badges and of course enable the creator to work towards the Bard badge and of course to get undeserved star ratings/bonus tickets/rating badges.   Those are missions that should be pulled, not xp farms.

Originally posted by nolf

Originally posted by Raltar

Nolf, I'm probably walking into a minefield by asking this, but something about your story seems very strange to me.

You say that you have been playing this game for years, that you have multiple accounts which are all full of characters (I'm guessing that means you have hundreds of characters) and that you play on multiple servers. It seems that you take this game VERY VERY seriously.

But how is it that someone who takes this game as seriously as you seem to is not apparently part of an SG?

Obviously I don't know if you are in an SG or not, but it seems very odd to me that you have not mentioned any SG participation in your rather long list of reasons why you know what you are talking about when you discuss this game. See, whenever I've been as serious about an MMO as you are about this one I've been in a guild. In fact, in games where I was as serious as you are I was usually RUNNING my OWN guild. And when I was in a guild I usually tended to group with the other members of my guild. I usually was not overly concened with what the rest of the community was doing with their time. As long as they stayed out of my way I was happy to stay out of theirs and focus on my guild. They could all be hacking the game to get free gold and it wouldn't have mattered to me at all as long as I knew the people in my guild were still serious and trustworthy players.

So... it just seems WEIRD to me that a guy who claims to be as good at this game as you claim to be is so worked up about what everyone else is doing without mentioning what your own SG is doing. You should be more interested in yourself and your own SG than what the "community" is doing. Its been my experience that if you rely on the "community" of a game to enjoy the game then you are almost always going to be dissapointed.

 

First off, let me clear something up.  I'm not that good at this game.  The only thing I am truly good at is Emp Def.  I am mediocre at best at most of the other classes.  To answer your question, the SG I was in was on it's last legs as it was when the AE hit, as many of the members grew discontent (as many have) over the lack of PvP concentration of the game, and they grew tired of the game.  The couple dozen that were left over the last, oh 6 months or so we the PvE crowd (myself and my wife included).  Out of the roughly 40 of us there were left, at least half have left the game in the last month or so.  There are 2 or 3 devoted AEers, who make decent missions who I'm sure will be staying.  And I'm sure like many who play, the 15 or so who haven't left yet are probably staying in the game as well.

I didn't bring up the SG, because as I said the way things were going, it seemed to be dying off anyway.  And I did NOT want to imply the AE had anything to do with its decline (as it was dying off already).  Maybe this decline in my SG compounded my need to rely on the general community for my experience, so when the AE hit, it hit me harder than most.  Also, as I play a lot of alts on 2ndary servers, I don't have SGs on those servers and was always dependant on the general community if I wasn't planning to meet up with anyone prior to logging in.

I won't say you're wrong about not relying on the community to enjoy a game, just that I disagree wholeheartedly.  The best MMO experiences I've ever had were because of the general community.  The community is what makes or breaks an MMO for me, in the end.  I spent a long time in this one (roughly 2.5 years off and on over the years, not including the preorder beta) because the community as I knew it to be was very strong.  This is no longer the case, in my experience, and this has caused me to part ways with the game.

No hard feelings, and I'm honestly gald the MA was done.  I love it in theory, and I hope future MMOs learn from the things that were done both well and poorly.  One of the downsides of this new feature happened to be a game-breaker for me, but that doesn't mean I think the game of the AE is a failure.  It's just not for me anymore.

 

In regards to PvP:  it was a late addition to the game which automatically meant troubles.   For many issues of the game, many characters in PvP had what amounted to an instant "I WIN" button due to all the IO' bonuses one can conceivably get to energize their character with.

Ish 13's: Diminishing Returns removed the instant "I WIN" from many, which in turn caused may so called "Skilled" PVP'ers to leave.

Ish 14 has added PVP centric IO's which I have yet to study as I'm not really into PvP.  If someone wants to take on an alt of mine, presuming I'm bored enough to bother with such a thing: I always take it to the arena in the first place.  One on One, Mano y Mano combat, sometimes with certain restrictions like no bonuses, no pool powers etc to keep things more or less even. 

The PVP zones should be altered to remove diminishing returns and to neutralize all NON PVP IO sets.  Or better yet, turn them all in to special Hazard zones, add more incentive to go into them such as Giant Monsters, or specialty foes or missions and relegate PVP To the ARENA only, which frankly is where I think it should be.  You can have teams or be one on one in arena, no fears of some third party coming up to gank the whole thing.

Well me and 3 others resubbed and my god the game is dead farming has killed it..

we tried doing a tf took 1hour 30 mins to get it together..

Rest In Peace CoH   you was my first love :(

Champions Online ftw

Originally posted by lisarob

Well me and 3 others resubbed and my god the game is dead farming has killed it..

 

we tried doing a tf took 1hour 30 mins to get it together..

 

Rest In Peace CoH   you was my first love :(

 

Champions Online ftw

Once again a completely pointless post that really adds nothing to the discussion.

You all are acting like farming never happened before. It was always there, it was just kept in PI before AE came out. Right now it is easy to get xp and tickets. Thats why so many people are doing it. Heck, even I have been doing it a bit. But, its not going to last much longer. The new build on the test server has things in it to help balance the risk/reward ratio that is skewed way out of whack right now.

Originally posted by Wikkedbowtie

Originally posted by lisarob

Well me and 3 others resubbed and my god the game is dead farming has killed it..

 

we tried doing a tf took 1hour 30 mins to get it together..

 

Rest In Peace CoH   you was my first love :(

 

Champions Online ftw

 

Once again a completely pointless post that really adds nothing to the discussion.

You all are acting like farming never happened before. It was always there, it was just kept in PI before AE came out. Right now it is easy to get xp and tickets. Thats why so many people are doing it. Heck, even I have been doing it a bit. But, its not going to last much longer. The new build on the test server has things in it to help balance the risk/reward ratio that is skewed way out of whack right now.

? well look i played coh for 2 and a half years and for me the game is dead.. my fire tank that could round up the first half of the dreak map..  Is dead and i was letting people know how me and my buddies feel about i14.
 

Your reaction i believe is a completely pointless post :P

Rest In Peace CoH

So, because you can not exploit things like you used to the game is dead?

I have no problem with people saying how they feel about the game. But, the "Champions FTW!!" is just trolling.

The fact that you say farming has killed the game and then follow it with how your fire tank can't round up half the dreck map also makes you look like a troll.