Wing_Leader

There is no such thing.

I have noticed that this is true to wildly different degrees depending on the industry we're talking about. I don't think it is accurate to make the blanket assertion that all (competent) programmers in all application domains are going to be equally rigorous or effective at debugging and testing. I can't speak to what is "typical" in the video game arena, but in the two industries I've worked in as a software engineer, the attitudes towards testing and debugging have been almost diametrically opposed.

The programmer culture has, in my 30-year experience, shifted significantly over the decades. Having the Master of Debugging badge seems to be something few programmers (that I've met anyway) aspire to anymore. Unit Testing is an alien concept to most. You describe these skills and knowledge sets as something any and all competent programmers do possess, but if so, the world is simply not composed of as many competent programmers as you imagine.

I would too. But mostly because programmer competence is but one small factor in an issue as large as this. What programmers work on on any given week is rarely even up to them. The product manager for COH has many priorities to juggle, and bug fixes is merely one of them. And it may not even be the highest one. With so many customers clamoring for new content, new power sets, new costume pieces, improved graphics, yadda yadda yadda, I'm sure the production map for this game is a dizzying thing to look at. I do not envy the guy who has to keep this train on the rails. If anyone here is qualified to do a better job, I strongly urge you to submit your resume to Paragon Studios, for all our sakes.

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Now, I understand the perspective that says paying customers aren't paying for buggy software. Unfortunately there is virtually no such thing as bug-free software, so the reality of our universe is that we are paying for buggy software, it's just that we're lucky if we simply don't encounter many show-stopping bugs that often. We as customers can stomp our feet and pitch a fit when we don't get what we want, but none of that changes the cold hard realities of large commercial software development. There are going to be bugs. Many of them will be classified as non-critical and will take a back seat to new features/content. Some of them will be maddeningly difficult to track down and solve. Some of them will take years to fix, and some of them will never get fixed. I think everyone has to come to terms with this or else they are going to find themselves forever miserable in this Real World[tm] we're stuck living in.

Furthermore, I think Claws is right in a sense. As a beta tester, one's efforts are paid for in the form of early access to the game. Implicit in the definition of "tester" is "bug reporter". If one isn't prepared to fulfill the role of tester (i.e., the job), then one shouldn't expect--nor be granted--beta access (i.e., the payment). The big difference, btw, between an unpaid beta tester and a paid in-house tester is that the paid testers are often told what to test and don't always enjoy the luxury of just running around playing as they normally would, having a good time without any management from a boss. A lot of the time a tester will spend countless hours testing one particularly tedious aspect of a game; it isn't fun, nor is it intended to be. So while the in-house tester is getting paid in dollars, the outside beta tester is getting paid in fun. Even if it is buggy fun. But the job is the same in both cases: report bugs (preferably with enough detail to actually help the debugging effort).

Absolutely! This is why I think the COH player community is the best to play with of all the MMOs I've ever tried.

I have to say, however, that even a +3 level shift doesn't necessarily tell the whole story. I have a 50+3 Brute, and yet I still feel like I am underperforming in the iTrials somehow. I mean, when I see how long it takes for me to make any significant headway through those Victoria boss hitpoints, I have to wonder what I am doing wrong in terms of my toon's build. When I see the league chew through the mobs in UGT (including the AVs), I am fairly sure it isn't because of my breathtaking damage output.

As a Brute (StJ/WP) I should be able to take on a Victoria without dying, right? I usually have to flee fairly quickly, and it is frustrating (if not a little embarrassing).

My toon has all four auto accolade powers, 2444 HP, 117 End, is set-IO'ed out everywhere, with set bonuses providing 740+% regen rate, 250+% recovery rate, +40% recharge, +12% ToHit, full sets of Crushing Impact/Detonation/Multi-Strike, resistance and DEF from secondaries all hitting ED, all the global (unique) +Regen/+Recov/-KB/+ToHit/+DEF/+AtckRate proc IOs available. I have tier 4 Spiritual, tier 3 Barrier, tier 3 Pyronic, tier 3 Reactive, and two different tier 3 Lore pets (including Warworks which has one of the highest dps averages). Clearly I am not lacking in the fundamentals. So why do I almost feel like a support squishie during the iTrials? Why am I getting one-shotted by AVs while the Dominator next to me is at full HP during the entire fight?

I doubt I am the only one with an underperforming level-shifted toon regularly joining iTrials and only barely pulling its weight. How in the world do other players who don't even bother with set IO's manage? Do they not bother with iTrials at all? Are the iTrials the gauntlet of pain that eventually turns every casual player into a Mids-dependent, minmaxing, optimized set bonus junkie?

Completely understandable.

On the other hand, if nobody reports bugs during open beta testing, then how are the devs ever supposed to know about them? And without detailed information to go on, how are they supposed to fix them in a timely manner?

There are whole categories of interaction bugs that simply don't arise until the system is tested under the stresses of a full-sized player base pouding away at the game simultaneously (equivalent, at least, to a typical live server environment). When these bugs do occur, they need to be reported, and described in sufficient detail to facilitate proper debugging. Beta testers are certainly under no legal or ethical obligation to participate in this process, but without a good number of them willing to do so anyway, there will remain many bugs that never get fixed, simply because they can't be properly isolated, identified, and characterized.

Part of the implicit understanding between developer and beta tester is that a trade of sorts is occurring: early access to the game in exchange for useful feedback, including meaningful bug reports. A developer who ignores fixable bugs is not holding up their end of the bargain (to say nothing of their obligation to paying customers), while a beta tester who refuses to engage in bug reporting is not holding up theirs. Being a beta tester isn't just a clever way to get free/early access to a game, it is an important part of the debugging cycle, and if you don't want to (or have the time to) be a part of that, then don't be a beta tester, because your contribution as nothing more than a bandwidth load on the server is minimal at best.

That would require an unlikely change in player customs. Despite how the devs intended the LFG queue system to be used, the fact remains that 99% of the time, pre-formed teams/leagues gather before entering the queue, and that method isn't likely to ever change. Instead, providing a variant of a command already used as the primary lever, one guaranteed not to lead to a fail state, would be much more effective, I think.

Well, people playing the Incarnate content shouldn't have to move their toons to Exhalted just to avoid this problem. Either a VIP-only zone for Incarnates to gather, as you suggest, or an adequate set of league management functions would take care of this. For example, a new command called Invite to Incarnate League would do the trick. It would simply fail if it was tried on a non-VIP player or on a VIP currently teamed with any non-VIPs. Problem solved.

I'm not talking aesthetics or design. I'm talking basic OpenGL texture stretching. There's a huge difference. Even an "ugly" texture has a right way and a wrong way to get mapped to polygonal geometry. It's like somebody didn't have time to make a decent set of uv coordinates for the model, and they just relied on primitive planar or cylindrical mapping instead. Unfortunately, on a model with as many unusual surface angles as the demonic axe, that just ain't gonna cut it.

This also avoids the annoying problem of inviting non-VIP 50s to the league and not being able to queue up for the trial. There really needs to be a way for league leaders to isolate which toons do not meet the necessary requirements for play before sending invites.

Ah, okay.

That demonic axe has severe texture stretching problems. I hope they clean that up before release!

To say nothing of the Incarnate powers themselves, Destiny in particular. And woe to the toon who isn't optimized for set-IO boosted +DEF/+Res/+Regen/+MaxHP/+mez prot. Being/becoming an Incarnate is serious business!

Unless they make having at least a +2 level shift a prerequisite for entering the new trial(s). It might help push the devs into giving league leaders tools for filtering out ineligible toons prior to queueing up; such as an invite option that fails if sent to non-VIPs (and non +2's if that becomes a prereq, for instance), etc.

How many times did it take to reach that point, though?

I've been through Lambda several times already, and I still can't grok the layout of the acid/nades levels. Everyone else on the team zips around so fast that I can never get my bearings. Try as I might to "contribute" to that phase of the trial, sometimes it's all I can do to simply play Follow the Leader so that I don't take a wrong turn into three aggro'ed IDF mobs and get myself good and dead.

After several runs of Keyes, I've finally managed to get a better handle on it, though I've found that unless there is some reasonable attempt at league management of duties, the whole thing can turn into an aimless fustercluck that just makes the whole thing an unpleasant ordeal. And you'd be surprised (or maybe not) how many league/team leaders seem to think everyone is an expert who has done Keyes a hundred times and could do it in their half-sleep like you can, and who seem to think we are all endowed with telepathy and the ability to magically self-coordinate the terminal power-ups.

I keep doing these trials in the hope that someday I will be less dependent on good leadership, more capable of adapting tactically to the situation, and better equipped to make a greater (smarter?) contribution to these trials overall. But I can definitely relate to the frustration others, especially newbies, experience on all the trials (except BAF where the only frustration comes from the time it takes to form a 24-person league of people who know that they are VIPs, and who know that they have to click the damn green button in order for it to start).

Then how do they propose to prevent insta-tier-4s via stockpiled resources without making an impossibly steep build trajectory for everyone else?

But don't weapons scale with the character size?

Then perhaps they shouldn't have invented new merits that could be converted into threads, or used to purchase Incarnate components. They pretty much created the very problem they appear to want to avoid with that bit of "convenience and flexibility."

I guess we can expect new Cosmic Threads which will be used to create the new components provided just for Mind, Genesis, Hybrid, and Vitae. And new Celestial Merits which can be converted into Cosmic Threads or components. These will be good for the next four slots. And for people with stockpiled Empyrean merits, there will be the 100 EMs for 1 Celestial Merit exchange rate to help give them a teeny jumpstart.

And then, for the final slot, we'll get Omega Threads and Blessing of the Gods merits. I doubt such a moderate currency proliferation would get in the way of any serious Incarnate-devoted players.

If you are going to do iTrials instead of TFs, then I think you have two main options:

1. Exchange astral merits for shards via vouchers. The exchange rate for shards is actually better than the conversion rate to threads (4 vs. 5 for common, 12 vs. 15 for uncommon, etc.).
2. Forget shards all together and just farm iTrials for components and merits. Run through 4 or 5 trials and carefully select trial rewards components based on what is needed for your Alpha and convert astral and empyrean merits into threads for the components you still need (I didn't do the math for you, but you may already have enough astral and empyrean merits to get an Alpha slot to tier 3).