Frosticus

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The problem isn't that it's Energy Melee, it's that it was set to hard, meaning it has build up. Build up, in my opinion, is too powerful for any rank of enemy. Set the guy to standard Energy Melee, and all he'll lose is build up. He should be fine as an AV then.

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I'm going to take it you are serious? *If* the problem was BU I'd really hope they don't change anything then. It is enjoyable to actually have to turn your brain on for up to 10 seconds for the odd encounter.

There are countless ways to prevent the npc from landing any hits while BU is active and unlike us they can't slot theirs for recharge so it won't be up for another 90 seconds.

The problem might more be centered around custome critters doing about double damage from what we are used to seeing. BU taking it up to 4x damage from normal for 9 seconds is scary, but now you know how the mobs feel when we use it on them

ok

I thought pvp was the source of all evil? now it is farming? or is it farming pvp'ers? or pvp'ers farming?

Because breaking clearly established laws = farming in Cox?
srsbusniss.

for every example of anti-farm you can list ( which is likely anti-exploit farming, but people are really struggling to discern the difference) I can probably list something the devs have added that is pro-farming and is still in the game.

exploit farming =/= farming.

Design > intent. The can intend for us to hold hands and sing songs all day while RP'ing, but they have DESIGNED the game to be very farm centric in every aspect.

You don't need to farm to achieve things in this game, but if you want accolades, badges, IO's, or more than one lvl 50 in any reasonable time you are basically presented with few options.

The INTENDED for this game to be a casual play experience and for many it is. They have attempted to extend the life of the game and turn people from casuals into more serious players through design. The design decisions have resulted in hard to obtain accolades, badges, and IO's.

And to this day the only way to level a toon is by defeating mobs. That design decision means that they can intend for us to do w/e they want, but as long as kills = progress people that move beyond the casual category will be tempted to farm in one form or another.

I disapprove of the recommendations made in this guide.

skipping blaze means you'd be better picking pretty much any other set.

dominator flurry. Hits harder than thunderstrike/total focus lol.

the anger is strong in this one.

500 mill me yo

Global Name: @Frosticus-
Home Server: Freedom, freedom, freedom, oy

1. i12 = 9, i13/14 = 1-2

2. B,C,G,I

3. 7

4. C first then A, but not adverse to B and D

5. 8, but if you are a carebear you probably shouldn't pvp anyway

6. 10, but the majority of them were garbage.

7. A, E

8. True?

9. D

10. Ask Castle to stop making pvp all about brawl+sprint please because we are wise to his goal. Not every build needs to be able to solo everything like in pve; pve =/= pvp.

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Heh, another thread with the word farming in it. If all these farmers were really farming they wouldnt have time to play the game

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Farmers are uber efficient, they can post and farm at the same time because they are so ebil and must be stopped at all costs.

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My only issue with the overly-prevalent farming activity is that it may end with the MA being eviscerated because the Devs didn't want us throwing away their content for a cheap knockoff created using a BETTER version of their tools.

You know, kind of like using the Rolex watchmaking equipment and training to manufacture imitations in China or someplace. Kind of insulting, when you think about it.

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Meh if they want works of art remove the rewards from MA. Real artists don't create for profit.

I think they realize that only a tiny number of people would even use MA then and it would be a gigantic failure.

They want MA to be a major success, so it has to appeal to the average player. The average player in this game has probably read less than 2% of the stories in vanilla and will continue to ignore stories in MA.

Embrace CoX as what it is - a really fun hack n slash/action game. The depth really doesn't go much beyond that.

If you do that and then look at that genre it becomes really easy to understand exactly why MA is being used the way MA is being used.

Creating a more powerful search function is probably the best thing they can do. Right now it is very difficult to browse through the content because it is just one big mess. If I could find rp/story stuff easier without having to wade through farm arcs I'd be happy. Conversely, if I want to play for character progression and don't want to learn about Harcore RP'ers character backstory I can find an more xp driven arc.

The search function blows and it is mashing everyone together, but everyone wants different things.

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Castle was fired?

*edit*

I was confused for a second Sig!



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I swear I remember reading about Castle being fired, and something about his 'last post', or something like that.

Would've been a hell of an April Fool's joke, though.

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My heart skipped a beat, thinking there was hope for pvp.

Don't toy with people like that

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I believe the proper wording is :

THE RATING SYSTEM IS FINE.
(copyright Talen Lee)

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Rachelthulu

All of your points are made off of a false assumption that the Devs are against farming, and your wrong, they are against exploiting, and all of the things you have pointed out about the changes the Devs made are to stop exploits, not farming, but farming exploits.

Stop thinking that farming = exploit because your wrong.
Think about this, if the Devs were truly against farming, then they would have put a hard stop to it by now. Ok?

Get over it

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The devs recently gave that buff to Infernal's Demons/Behemoths, and changed the Family's salvage drops to Tech. Both of those seem like movements AGAINST farming.

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And then they introduced MA, which is a farmers paradise.

If what you are arguing is that actions speak louder than words they are screaming that farming is OK right now.

The dev's aren't stupid they know a large portion of the player base farms stuff. All of their actions are to prevent exploits from being farmed, tbh they seem to actively encourage normal farming.

If you take a hack n slash game (which CoX pretty much is) and add highly desirable rewards for grinding/farming what do you expect to happen? Please tell me you don't believe the dev's are so naive they actually expect the majority of their player base to be rp motivated?

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Of course not. Hell, I've almost got my own Architect C badge from all of the maps I've run.

But the point is that the Mission Architect is NOT just a simple farm mission. The mission was a single waypoint of farming, and people used it as an exploit.

And correct me if I'm wrong, but there has been talk of peoples' farming missions being REMOVED by the moderators.

Again, completely neutral here, but it seems like the case is more for the Developers being more against farming than trying to support it. Please tell me you don't believe the dev's are so naive they actually expect the majority of their player base to be completely-farming-motivated?

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So far I've only seen and heard of maps that had exploits being pulled and while the majority were farm maps I know of some "story arcs" that had those exploits in place that were invalidated. And I have no issue with exploits being canned, most people don't after the initial shock. I'm not talking about one specific mission, I'm talking about the game as a whole.

Of course I don't think the entire population is farm driven. I'm sure there are plenty of people that play the game for the story. But the devs have made it so mob defeat is the only thing that progresses the game and tied it to a powerful loot system. To deliberately rp your way through the game is actually contrary to how they have designed it even if they claim that is the intended way.

intent meets design and design will always win as it is the path of least resistance.

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Rachelthulu

All of your points are made off of a false assumption that the Devs are against farming, and your wrong, they are against exploiting, and all of the things you have pointed out about the changes the Devs made are to stop exploits, not farming, but farming exploits.

Stop thinking that farming = exploit because your wrong.
Think about this, if the Devs were truly against farming, then they would have put a hard stop to it by now. Ok?

Get over it

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The devs recently gave that buff to Infernal's Demons/Behemoths, and changed the Family's salvage drops to Tech. Both of those seem like movements AGAINST farming.

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And then they introduced MA, which is a farmers paradise.

If what you are arguing is that actions speak louder than words they are screaming that farming is OK right now.

The dev's aren't stupid they know a large portion of the player base farms stuff. All of their actions are to prevent exploits from being farmed, tbh they seem to actively encourage normal farming.

If you take a hack n slash game (which CoX pretty much is) and add highly desirable rewards for grinding/farming what do you expect to happen? Please tell me you don't believe the dev's are so naive they actually expect the majority of their player base to be rp motivated?

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The point Aura and several other forumites have made is to simply reduce the 'annoying' interaction other players may have with farmers, such as being asked to bridge/fill/pad etc.

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The opposition to this makes me think the whole "its the spam" that I'm annoyed at comment most folks keep claiming is the real issue, is BS.



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I think it is too in a lot of cases. People get pissy if their rp mission is being outranked by a "farm" mission. Farm missions getting frequent plays and ratings push the other stuff down through the pages.

Then there is the jealously factor that basically states: if I can't have it then no one can.

There is incredible sense of entitlement on both sides of the fence, but imo it is much stronger on the side that is against farming because ultimately farmers do put in a lot of hrs to get what they get. The anti-farm group either expects equal rewards with no work, or they want to remove the rewards for hard work.

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10-15 kills would make it a little too easy to farm by an organized team in the arena, and it might even be profitable. The last thing we need is people seeing that it's easier to just farm the drops than to actually PvP. Make it 1 every 50 kills or so and we have a winner. Since i14 went live I've spent all my time in CoX PvPing (probably amounting to over 300 kills) and I've only gotten one drop. Personally I don't mind, because I spent most of my in-game time PvPing before i14 anyway. However, if the devs wanna use PvP drops as an incentive to draw a couple more people into PvPing then they might want to increase the drop rate to approximately 1 every 50 kills.

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probably right. Isn't the cool down in place to help dissuade farming though?

I dunno, guess we'll just have to wait and see what the drop rate ends up like and determine from there the dev intent.

If it is intended to attract people to pvp then it may be too low. If it is intended to reward active pvp'ers then it is probably ok.

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HOF missions losing their status is ridiculous.

The bar is high enough that getting over it represents a major achievement and a guarantee of a certain level of quality- where's the logic in 'losing' them at some future date?

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

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We declare the popular vote legitimate enough to get it there, but then say it is no longer relevant if that same group votes it down?

I dunno I'm on the fence, but if we have "faith" in the voting system to work then you can't really pick and chose just because one outcome isn't desirable.

If the people vote you down then you should only have 3 spots just like everyone else. If the mission is strong enough it will achieve a solid HoF and maintain it indefinitely. Assuming we have "faith" in the voting system that is.

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I'd rather look at the extra slot as a one-time reward for acheiving hoF. You don't ask an Olympic Gold Medalist Sprinter to keep winning the event every week in order to keep his medal. If someone gets into the HoF, they should get an extra slot for doing that. if they drop out it doesn't reverse time and change their past success.

Eco.

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sure, but popular vote doesn't decide who wins Olympic medals... (in most sports )

I look at it as HoF being elected representatives and while they can get nestled in there pretty well, if enough people speak up they are yanked.

I don't "like" that the slot can be pulled away, but at the same time I've been attacked for saying that the rating system is flawed by people saying it works well and we need to put faith in the players. I see no reason to have it both ways and whether it is a result of shortsightedness, intent, or maybe even a bug, the dev's seem to think that as well.

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HOF missions losing their status is ridiculous.

The bar is high enough that getting over it represents a major achievement and a guarantee of a certain level of quality- where's the logic in 'losing' them at some future date?

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

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We declare the popular vote legitimate enough to get it there, but then say it is no longer relevant if that same group votes it down?

I dunno I'm on the fence, but if we have "faith" in the voting system to work then you can't really pick and chose just because one outcome isn't desirable.

If the people vote you down then you should only have 3 spots just like everyone else. If the mission is strong enough it will achieve a solid HoF and maintain it indefinitely. Assuming we have "faith" in the voting system that is.

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Yes, these are really rare, but from what I've been reading, they are dropping. You'd think they'd be a little less rare if they are supposed to be an incentive to get people into PvP.

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From the people that brought you the requirement to damage farm for multiple nights just to earn an accolade....

IMO 1 drop for every 10-15 kills would seem like a good ratio with a 10 min cool down. Not falling from the sky but not like the pvp equivalent of purples. Then anyone that jumps into the fray for a half hour or so will likely get a drop and they will be so happy

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I know I have a list of powers that gets an automatic 1 star from me.

Any summoned pets, glue arrow, caltrops, confuse, basicly powers that really slow you the heck down really tick me off.

So no matter how good a story is any of those powers show up and its a 1.

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I like missions that use very difficult stuff provided they state it is high level content and it will be difficult. Nothing like glue arrow at like lvl 15

haha i14: everybody hates everybody

maybe villains are the favored group?

hmm, interesting viewpoint.

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Read's Frost's post.

Read's Frost's sig.

*laughs*

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my sig is a mockery of the system in an attempt to make the dev's fix their mess considering people presented them with well reasoned logic, but we ended up with a very weak rating system.

I rarely farm anything during my playtime and that includes farming ratings.

edit: doesn't mean I won't answer the call though and I have no interest in divulging my ill-gotten gains heh.

It's pretty sad, but by allowing you to drop and vote without even entering the arc they really opened the door up for abusing the system in both directions.

Seriously, if you had to enter the mission for even 2 min it would probably halt the vast majority of 1 star griefing and you'd likely only see it if/when you pissed someone off and they attempt to "get even".