Amarsir

Yes but pretty much all from leaks, which are older and constantly labeled "subject to change." The latter doesn't bother me much, but it's still no substitute for a straightforward conversation with direct information. I mean heck, I even have some of the more basic IOs slotted in a lowbie due to my irresitable curiosity during the Steel Canyon bug.

Both Paragon Wiki and that forum are great sources, but it's not about what I do or don't know. I'm asking for a more level approach to it all, right from the source. Player-compiled information from bugs, leaks, and exploits will never be as reliable as simply released information. Nor will feedback based on that data be as trusted.

Just for example, look at Arcanaville's great post "Still Early but Worried." As you'd expect from her, it was thoughtful and based on existing knowledge. And _Castle_ had a very reasonable response, not surprising from him either. But the overall tone of the response was "well you don't have all the info yet." Which is true.

But imagine how good the discussion would be if she (we) did?

You know what smacks me in the face about that "Dev Diary"? The lack of numbers. We see a spreadsheet snapshot and think "ooh, raw information" but the relevant parts are missing! It's not really all that useful to know that a "Temporal Analyzer" is one of the components, but I think it's pretty important to know what the percentages on the enhancements are, don't you? Or the magnitude of those "additive HP"?

It's 3 years ago all over again. Just when I think they've outgrown that "don't share details and no one will care" attitude, it happens again.

Just last night I was explaining to someone the difference between Design and Development, how mistakes can happen on either side and they need to be analyzed separately. But here, we continually get the attitude that their Design is infallible, but they'll accept our help stumbling into coding bugs.

And of course it isn't, no one's perfect. But by not being forthright with the information, it just takes longer for it to be obvious, requiring "balance patches" down the line. Sound familiar?

Look, if you devs want to limit traffic on the test server, fine. In the meantime, why not release your spreadsheets? You can print "this is subject to change" every 5 cm just to make sure we get it, but then you get more brainpower on it. I mean, by your own words there are many thousands of possible combinations, right? Are you really sure you've considered every possible one?

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That's just my take on the matter, I'm not sweating the story arc thing in the slightest.

[/ QUOTE ]I don't think it will be a problem for me personally, I've always been on top of my story arcs and I play a lot of alts.

That doesn't change the fact that this is somewhere between a small mistake and a huge one. If it was intentional that one pool is finite when the other 3 are not, then it's still a mistake to pick one where so many of those finite chances have already been used. And that's granting some huge benefit of the doubt. If it wasn't intentional to pick story arcs because they're limited, then this really does smell like design-by-dartboard.

Now the best solution is a brand new experience specifically for the Pool B salvage. It doesn't have to be much because resources are limited, but that not only solves the sourcing problem but it provides a new experience many people want.

And being completely unnecessary, it could even be a little harder than the existing difficultly level. Ideally I'd like to see not just difficult by level and AV rank, but strategically difficult - you know, the kind you'd get with a Malta Sapper, a Rikti Guardian, a Nemesis Sniper, a Carnie Illusionist, a Sky Raider Engineer, and a BP Death Shaman in the same group. But that's just a wishlist thing.

Seriously consider making a new Trial/TF/whatchamacallit for these Pool B drops. You can even limit it if in fact that aspect of the design was intentional.

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This makes 4 pools from which recipe rewards can come from. Pool A is enemies, Pool B is Story Arcs, Pool C is Task Forces, and Pool D is Trials.

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I love early information, especially early enough that it can be changed, but man did you ask for trouble putting it like this. You might want to at least elaborate the full thought process, lest we doubt there was one.

I get that you wanted to provide from different sources, not a bad idea. But what was the next decison?

Question: Was it intentional that Pool B is finite, while the other pools are not?

If so, can you provide followup on why you feel it necessary to cause that kind of scarcity? (And if not intentional, how embassing!)

You say you're discussing alternative Pool B options. Knowing if you're thinking finite or repeatable would give a lot more information.

Follow-up Question: Is it intentional that this finite resource not be equally available?

What effect do you expect this to have on those with less, or with none?

Though it wasn't even a "rant", here's an example of what I consider completely over-the-top censorship from about 2 weeks ago.

A poster read an official announcment saying not to modify .pigg files, and was curious what that means. He was quite clear that he had no desire to do so, simply wanted to know what they were. I gave an answer about what the files are and how they're used - that's it. Not only did I not say anything about how to mess around with them, I listed several reasons why it's a bad idea. We were both quite conservative on the topic, the intent being to end the curiosity.

Nevertheless, within an hour, thread deleted.

That's not just wrong on principle, it's flat out foolish. Someone who was curious enough to ask, and didn't get an answer, would logically next go to a little-known service called "Google." Search for that term and by the time you've found out what they are, you already know how to dive into them, what can be gained by doing so, and where to find tools to assist you. That's better?

And that's just a specific request for information, not nearly as inflammatory as the gripes that have been getting locked and deleted lately.

Momentary rash or rude statements - these are good things to remove. They're the kinds of posts a reasonable person would feel regret about later anyway. Anything deeper than that however, and deleting it from this forum isn't quashing the discussion, it's just chasing it to an outlet where you have no control.

If I want to complain about the game, and I do so here, even if I'm not initially constructive it can lead to something when written in a place Devs can see it. And worst case, it's only being read by people who already play and care about the game. However, if you were to chase me off, I could just as easily go to another forum you don't control. One with potential players who haven't experienced the game. In fact, the first place that comes to mind is one where Cryptic has actively tried to partner up for recruiting customers.

Who is better served by chasing the complainant there? Not you, not them, and not the other players of this game whether we agreed with the rant or not. Websites and dedicated fan bases have changed the nature of things somewhat, but a basic business truism remains: people who are unhappy with a product usually tell their friends. They don't often tell the producer.

Don't chase the feedback away, even if it's not that well stated. Moderate it. Parse it. But embrace it.

Though you jest well Red_Zero, there's more than a little truth to it. When starting small I decorated very concisely the entrance room on at least 2 bases, and now that it's bigger I have space I don't know what to do with becaues I packed a waiting room, office, and lounge all into that little room and it looks so correct to me now.

For example, consider this.

Aside from the fact that office stuff is rather out of place in a tech base (something I can't figure out how to reconcile yet) I really like the way 5 desks fit in one square without seeming cramped. Meanwhile, I've got a big 3x3 oversight room around the corner that's mostly empty.

"Give the players what they want" may make a catchy slogan, but I'd prefer something more tactile like "We solicit feedback from the players." This is starting to get old as an example, but it still fits:

Issue 5 and the beautifully designed Croatoa. When it was first announced, the forums filled with thoughtful explanations of why Croatoa should have been made 30-40 instead of 25-35. The answer coming back was "yeah that's a good point, but it's too late."

Which I'm sure it was. But there's no earthly reason why the level range for that zone couldn't have been communicated to the player base before it's too late. If it is about "giving players what they want," I'd like to see a much more open dialogue. And from a design side, it's much more cost effective to design things the way players would want it the first time than put it out there and have to change it later. (See also: Arena)

And lets not forget the infamous regen video and the missing purple patch. If you respect the players' opinions, that must have been a good moment - the players working with the developers to catch something. Of course, if you don't respect the playerbase and think they're just pets who yap loudly sometimes, that must have been embarrassing.

I'm sure it's the first. But I haven't noticed a huge number of internal test videos coming out since then...

Very impressive!

I have a theory on the relative scarcity of Illusion/Kinetics. At least it's a thought process I've had discouraging that combination and presumably others would have had the same.

The obvious first answer is knockback from Phantasm. Not like it was back with multiple phants per caster, but still Phantasm is somewhat known for that. And having your pet knockback your Transfusion/Transference target can be unpleasant. That may be a slight deterrant.

The larger reason IMHO is indirectly through Phantom Army. Kinetics is frequently taken as a secondary with intent to boost offense - as are, say, Rad and Storm. Naturally PA doesn't benefit from a Fulcrum Shift, as it doesn't benefit from any buffs. However, if I debuff resistance, PA will do more damage.

Therefore if I'm choosing from "boost the offense" secondaries I have a specific reason to take a debuff over a buff, increasing Rad/Storm/(TA?) and decreasing Kin. On the other hand if I was choosing secondaries with the intention of boosting defense I wouldn't care about buffing PA and would choose Emp/FF/Sonic however inclined.

To me this explains why Illusion/Kinetics negatively correlate.

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You've commented expertly on offense/defense considerations in powerset selections and also specific power synergies - probably the two most important considerations in pairing. I wanted to mention two more I feel worth note - not that they were left out but just to emphasize.

1. Early Bloom / Late Bloom: You mentioned in Earth/TA how two late-blooming sets can feel empty at early levels, very true. It's exacerbated by the controller being in a spot (say, level 4) where he has to take a power he's not crazy about because the more attractive stuff isn't open yet.

Using Earth/TA as an example, suppose I don't really want either the single or AOE immobilize for whatever reason. On the other hand I'm also not crazy about Flash or Glue arrows. (Not knocking the powers, just hypothetical preference.) Well like 'em or not, I have to take two of those four powers at levels 2 and 4. And every respec I do trying to fit more pool powers in among the later must-haves these choices will mock me.

The reverse is also true. Consider Illusion/Rad. Of the first 4 powers on either side, none are easy to skip and most are hard to even push back. Therefore, ideally I'd like one early- and one late-blooming set in the pair.

2. Another thing worth thinking about is how busy a set is during combat. I think one reason I've seen a lot of Ice/Empathy is that it's fairly easy to lay down an Ice Slick, maybe have Arctic Air running, and spend most of combat watching players to heal/buff.

On the other hand Illusion relies more on single-target effects making it pretty busy during combat. So I might pair that with Force Field which does its buffing between fights and demands little during.

As an altaholic who tries to use every set and keeps a notebook of builds on my desk, these are considerations that have occurred to me in hindsight on several characters and that I now think about before creating new toons.

And here's a screenshot of motorcycle pants clipping during animation on a female. At the moment I have motorcycle boots underneath but the boot selection didn't seem to make the difference.

This is hard to describe and maybe a tad outside your area, but hopefully the screenshots make it easier.

Because I run in SG mode all the time, I want to deselect supergroup colors to see my costume as designed. However, costumes 1 and 2 seem to be cross-linked - meaning I cannot deselect SG colors in one without forcing them on in the other.

Here's costume 1 the way I like it:
Costume 1 - Correct

Then I switch to costume 2. Here's how it looks immediately, and I've drawn in arrows to show how I change it back to make it look the way I want.

Costume 2 - incorrect

So I make the changes indicated by those arrows. Then I change back to costume 1, and look how it's changed. (drawn in Xs show changed variables)

Costume 1 - incorrect

And of course if I change those again, costume 2 will be affected, on and on forever. Whereas if I leave one in the "altered" state, the other will be fine - it's not changing costumes itself that causes the problem.

Jay is sexy if he can fix this.

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I?ll work it out a little more fully here with the To Hit Formula. Taking that boss mentioned above, his To Hit would work out like this?

(0.5 - 0.4372) * 1.3 = 0.0816 or 8.16%.


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This example does not take into account that the boss now has a .2 resists factor to tohit debuffs.

Even con boss with 2 SO in RI:
(0.5 - 0.4375*0.8) * 1.3 = 0.195 or 19.5%.

You should also probably note that ToHit debuff are also resistant by level, same example with a +2 boss

(0.5 - 0.4375*0.8*0.8) * 1.3 * 1.2 = 0.342 or 34.2%.

With 3 slotted RI:
(0.5 - 0.48*0.8*0.8) * 1.3 * 1.2 = 0.30 or 30.0%.


Edit: Before I7 ToHit debuffs were double-penalized for level difference. Now they are double-penalized for level difference and rank. Was this really warranted??

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You know, that "explanation" wasn't all that well written when Statesman posted it the first time. (Terms used without explanation for example.) This subsequent snipping has only made it worse. Now we have phrases like "let's take Radiation Infection again, without mentioning it the first time. Not to mention numbers (like "0.3123") popping up with no explanation where they came from.


Then there's the ToHit Debuff mess, inaccurately left out the first time, corrected, and apparently raising its' head again. Thank God for the Ladioss_Sopp/MrQuizzles spreadsheet. But I believe disco_ is entirely correct here, and fear what CuppaJo quoted was off the original, uncorrected version.


I know I'm grumpy, but it really bugs that even when I like the change I can't stand the explanations.

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Being defeated in a PvP zone will carry debt if any of the damage to you was caused by NPCs. The amount of debt is directly proportional to the amount of damage you took from NPCs vs. how much was done by opposing Player Characters. The more damage dealt to you by NPCs means more debt when you are defeated.

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Whoa, wait a moment. Let's say I'm reduced to 10 hit points by a combination of equal amounts of player and NPC damage. Someone then heals me up to half hit points, and I then get killed by a player.

Does the healing remove player damage or NPC damage first? Is it a case of first dealt, first healed?

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My concern as well. If I'm fighting over a hotspot in Siren's, of course I'm taking damage. But I expect and regulate that damage. At 50% life, I'd generally consider that fairly safe. Except for an Assassin's Strike, something by definition I'm not predicting. Now I can get killed by a player from what would otherwise be a safe position, and I get debt from it?

Sounds like you made it worse.

And, didn't CuppaJo say "added to the patch notes?" As in it was already done and and you're only now putting it in the notes? Again? Isn't that getting embarrassing?

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Defeat 100 Shivans (any type)

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If I'm not mistaken, like many other badges, it runs on the tiered system, so that it's: 300 Shivan minions OR 200 Shivan lieutenants OR 100 Shivan bosses OR anywhere inbetween.

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There is no such thing as a Tiered system for badge defeats. A defeat is a defeat, no matter if its a minion or an archvillain.

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The observations that minion 7th Gen Paragon Protectors count less than boss PPs - has this been a false measurement or an exception?

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Don't we WANT the devs to find the bugs and exterminate them? Do people really prefer playing a BUGGED game?

And yet, apparently some people do. I just don't get it.

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I agree. I also believe that some people are so sensitive to criticism about anything they like, that they'll irrationally reply with something negative as a knee-jerk reaction without even bothering to think about the subject being discussed, because they love their opinion more than they love anything else, even the truth.

It's a psychological thing, imho, and I think it's even more obvious when you discuss something that's a problem that's not so numbers-related, or more tangentally numbers-related than what we're discussing now.

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Psychologically speaking, don't underestimate that you're talking about the defense of authority figures. A lot of perfectly nice, well-meaning people are raised to think "be good, do what you're told, respect authority, and don't make trouble." In that paradigm, it's very easy to view anyone with an issue as a "troublemaker."

Without getting into detail, I'm reminded of a time in college when some of us had a very specific issue with a particular professor. What struck me was not that some students defended him, but that in conversation they would fabricate excuses on the fly in order to do so. I actually had this conversation:<ul type="square">Them: "Well it's the best he could come up with on a day's notice."
Me: "Day's notice? He's been teaching this class for at least 5 years."
Them: "Well maybe he lost his notes and had to replace them."
Me: "Older students say he did the same thing when they had him."
Them: "Well maybe the department never gave him the syllabus to begin with."[/list]I suppose that attitude helps provide stability to the world but at times it does stand in the way of progress.

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One last thing to consider, you as players represent thousands of times more manpower than we have here. No matter what, you will almost always find bugs that we miss here. Statistically, that is almost a certainty.

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Fair enough, but you also neglected to mention an important counter-balance. For a player to check something requires hours upon hours of precise measurement. For a Dev to check something, you look up the number.

Nice post Them30OtherGuys, it's hard to follow up someone else's idea and keep the tone. My favorite part:

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Recharge reducers are a waste of precious influence and slots. The devs--and especially Statesman--have spent a great deal of time confirming that every power is at its optimum performance speed "out of the box". If the power hasn't cycled back up yet, you obviously don't need it yet, do you? When the power is ready to use, the right time to use it is now.

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Good guide!

Just wanted to offer an option 1.5

If you're not crazy about the Empowerment Station (you want to save salvage for permanent growth or just don't need buffs yet), you can save 115,000 prestige. You don't need a workshop room at all because you can put the Inspiration, Enhancement, and Salvage bins in the Infirmary, Power, and Control rooms (one per room). This will get you the infirmary and storage bins for a total of 970,000 prestige.

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It drops ONLY in SG mode. I know, I've tried.

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That can't be true. I've never played 1 second in SG mode and I have salvage. But I can certainly believe it comes faster

Unearthing this a little bit, so I'll start with a brief story.

Tanking for Manticore, first mission. You'll recall it's a large lab tileset, and those sometimes have big rooms that can be bad aggro spots. So just in a few tougher spots I ask people to stay back (showing the spot) and taunt/pull/herd to a corner. Or try to. First time a scrap and a blaster jump in as soon as I get the aggro. Well, at least I have the attention, so I scold a bit after but the fight's fine.

Second time a room needs that, same instructions. This time the same blaster and a different scrapper jump in when I'm partway back (it was only about 50 feet, not a long move). More work to keep aggro, blaster dies even, and a little more scolding and I hope we got it.

Third time's the charm, and good we'd practiced because it's that one with the circular platform overhead and a medium landing, know the one? Same "stand here" instructions, I get a group and duck to the side of the door. No one ran forward, looks good. Then just as the first mob gets w/in 5 feet of the spot, the controler Fire Cages! It's hard to imagine a group more spread out. Now they're not in anyone's damage AOE, way too far for effective gauntlet control, it's just ridiculous. His reason? "You ran away from them and hid, I thought you were in trouble!"

So by that quick estimation, 50% of the population does not understand aggro and geometry management.

OK, here's the main advice I can give. Pulling is not about single pulls or group pulls or target selection or effective taunting, though those are all good reasons to do it. The point of pulling, as evidenced by the name, is making the enemy come to you. Situations will vary, but that's what a good pull always means.

Now I also advice this: if you're in a mission where you have to do careful single pulls every group just to survive - exit the mission, lower the difficulty, and reset. That's assuming you care in the slightest about xp/min or action, and most people do. As others have said, I too lack the patience for repeated single-target pulling.

However, the situation does arise. And separating one group from another, or even splitting a group in half is useful. The key is making them come to you. That's why they call it "pulling."

Statesman, I for one never expected bases to be available to non-CoV people. However, this is yet another example of your commitment to murkiness biting you in the rear.

Full disclose, early and often. Facts are your friends.

Hey Arc_Salvo, ever read "The Comedy Bible" by Judy Carter? Excellent analytical tool about comedy writing that you might enjoy reading. I did, and I'm not the slightest bit funny.

Anyway, you're correct that in a professional setting Mighty Storm's guide could use a polishing re-write, tightening up a few spots. But in this venue it works great. Overall I found the piece to be quite amusing, with some wonderfully-worded lines. Seems more reminiscent of Douglas Adams than Kaufman or Monty Python IMHO.

I only wish the url was short enough I could more easily recommend it in-game. Good job Mighty Storm.

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The number isn't 3.5% base - it's 1.5%. To be honest - I don't know where the data came from that led to 3.5%.

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Same place 99% of the data for this game comes from - unofficial sources. See what happens when you don't provide numbers to your players? Don't assume your policy of keeping players in the dark always works to your advantage. . .

Statesman, I hope you recognize that the people in this thread so far who are supporting the stealth change do not seem to accurately understand how it is working. Specifically, Link and LiquidX on the first page alone are describing behavior that would be fair and realistic, but is not the current implementation.

On Live, stealth turns off when an attack lands or misses. The target (if still standing) and anyone else in his aggro group sees you. Makes perfect sense.

On Test, stealth turns off when the attack initiates. This means that particularly for a slow attack (Propel for example), they turn around, fire, and villains hit me before I have affected them in any way. Something more ridiculous: Smoke Grenade turns it off so they attack while the grenade is in the air. I'm standing stealthed so they can't see me, I use a power that doesn't generate aggro, and yet somehow they saw me.

How is that realistic in any way?

You can avoid these problems by using your powers from greater range (terrain permitting) but then what good is stealth? Isn't it supposed to reduce your aggro range? Is it really doing what it's supposed to if I can only get close enough to stand there and watch, but for some reason can't get the first shot off?

Leave stealth effects working at the old system which is realistic and fair. Realistically the suppression of Super Speed would be the same way, but I know you stopped listening to anything anyone said about that a long time ago.

Also, can you at least explain the logic of shutting off stealth effects for 10 seconds? I finish a fight, have stealth on, sprint out of the room and turn a corner, and they can see me? They weren't in the room, they weren't in the fight, they weren't in line of sight, but somehow my stealth doesn't work on them? What, am I sweating too hard? This will, at best, introduce an arbitrary 10 second pause after each fight. Again, thorougly unrealistic.

I just don't get it. You want to lower the defense, fine. That makes sense in the larger picture. You want to turn the defense off completely? OK, I guess. But this? Stealth doesn't provide stealth? Please change it back or explain the logic in detail. No more of that "risk-free combat" nonsense you tried to pass off as an explanation last time.

Thanks.

I have a fire tank who likes to use Burn. But then I also have a storm defender who uses Freezing Rain. I hope you see where I'm going with that. Anyway, I can finally say

HALLELUJAH!

(OK, actually I said that two weeks ago when the AI change came in, but now I have a thread for it.)

Ever since Issue 3, I was thinking you had a blind spot to the most abusive power and therefore the most abusive AT in the entire game. Now I can respect your balance attempts as serious.

My test results: One burn patch, one application of Whirling Hands, and ongoing Blazing Aura (not slotted for dmg) will take out as big a pack of even-con minions as I can find in under 30 seconds. For +1s it took another patch (about 40 seconds total) which depending on the villain type may or may not require a second herding, but that's not a problem.

A Fire/Ice tank, which has already been very FOTM, would get even more use out of the burn patch.

I think the changes are fine. If you're going to scale back on any of the changes, keep the instant-fear of the AI intact, but increase the patch duration. I would actually say double the duration and half the damage again, but with the current AI that would actually be another nerf now wouldn't it?

The only thing I'd like to see for Firey Aura is knockback protection in one of the powers, which would not be out of line now that the sets best utility power has been reduced. If CJ/SJ/Acro stopped being a default choice for Fire tanks, I think you'd see more variety in the long run.

Late to the party but wanted to chime in. Disliked the original proposal, but this is good. I can think of situations where it's still an unintended penalty, but they no longer overwhelm the benefits. Cheers on the change.