Arcanaville

No.


And players aren't really historically proven to be good at judging this either.

Once upon a time flight had an accuracy debuff to simulate an effect similar to this. Interestingly Superspeed didn't, probably because conceptually someone with superspeed is moving "normally" compared to their perceptions and wouldn't have their accuracy thrown off by that motion. It did at one time have a defense buff, though, to simulate making it harder to hit a fast moving target (although that was extinguished in beta, or soon after launch).

The specific way I addressed this in Make Range Mean Something was to make accuracy dependent on relative range. I forget the exact numbers, but I believe they were something like attacks had an intrinsic 20% accuracy bonus when fired within 50% of maximum range, normal accuracy when fired up to 90% of maximum range, -10% accuracy out to normal maximum range, and -25% accuracy out to 1.2x their originally designed maximum range. And these numbers would follow range slotting, so someone that slotted an attack for range would not only be increasing their range, they would be increasing their accuracy at long range by bringing those targets deeper into the range envelope.

In this case, to gain the range bonus with a melee attack (currently seven feet of range) you need to be within 3.5 feet of the target. But a ranged attacker using an 80 foot range attack could get that same bonus just by being within 40 feet of the target. Today, I would probably make the extreme range penalty higher due to the proliferation of accuracy buffs that could saturate it out, and I would make them separate accuracy multipliers rather than accuracy strength buffs, but the basic idea is probably still sound.


And if you buy that, I also have an accuracy-based critical system to sell you.

The way I deal with Nova's crash is I pop a cab and hit conserve power, unless I've remembered to hit conserve power *before* using Nova (which to be honest I often forget to do). That works fine now because I only need enough endurance to carry me through the crash before normal recovery kicks back in. With your suggestion in force, this would no longer be viable except by using enough or strong enough cabs to return to near full endurance (or close enough to negate the recharge penalty).

Plus, now that I think about, it seems there's only two possibilities here. Either when you are full endurance you are recharging much faster than you are now, or else when you are at full endurance you're only recharging at normal rate or some moderate level above that. If the latter, people are still going to want to slot powers for recharge, because recharge slotting can cut recharge approximately in half. Being unable to do that would be a substantial nerf in many areas. But contrawise, if having full endurance causes your normal recharge to be at or superior to maximal recharge slotting, that would give an gigantic benefit to endurance management powers. Not only would stamina go from something that most people see as necessary to something everyone would see as necessary, most people would start saying that quick recovery plus stamina was necessary, because there would be a very strong penalty for not staying pegged at full endurance.

With the current mechanics, players can attempt to budget their endurance expenditures. With the proposed ones, every point you spend has negative consequences, and there is no such thing as freely time-shifting endurance expenditures. I don't think I like where that ultimately goes without a major rethink on what everything costs in endurance. Most things - particularly most attacks - seem to cost way too much for this type of mechanic to be practical.

Nothing is presumed "stationary" except mezzed and inanimate objects. Animate targets are usually presumed to be attempting to block or dodge you in some way, and the mechanics are too simplified to allow for very complex if...then hit logic.

Also, there are two kinds of "miss" in CoH (well, three actually). There's evasive misses (I dodge your strike) and there's deflections (you hit, but in a way that the attack bounces off for no effect) that are handled more or less identically by the game engine (there's also "absorption" which is conceptually that the attack lands, but in a way that the target is so immune to at that moment that it might as well have not done anything - MoG is a power with those form of conceptual defense).

When you are really close to a target, it *might* make it easier to hit the target if it is trying to evade you (but even that has caveats: it would also make it potentially easier for a Katana character to parry you, or a Super Reflexes character to dodge or interfere with the attack), but it is less likely to make it easier to avoid a deflection (and would have no effect on an absorption). That makes this a potentially very complex can of worms to open. A long time ago I posted a thread called Make Range Mean Something which proposed a similar accuracy/range effect, but it only dealt with the issue of attacker accuracy, not defender defense.


I'm not sure if "eliminates" is the right word here. Players would still want a way to slot recharge so that they could use more of their endurance. And endurance drain from crashing powers (Nova) or critter attacks would now become doubly dangerous.


I think this sort of thing would cause the heads of most casual players of the game to explode. Plus, I think it would actually be harder in crowded areas to use effectively, because critters would be moving around and constantly altering line of sight to each other. Maybe as an optional feature, but it has to be something the players could turn off so they don't accidentally stumble into it.

I'm not saying anything of the sort. You're free to express whatever opinion you have about the change itself, and I'm not arguing against it either way. I'm stating what my own opinion is, and offering to have it challenged logically. But this is not a debate, because I'm not attempting prove my assertion. I'm only willing to defend it against all reasonable counters, to see if it has a logical weakness I've overlooked. However, the net result of that seems to be that if I don't accept an argument, it implies I'm obviously closed minded. Because it can't possibly be that the argument itself is insufficient when judged objectively.

Which again gets into the meta discussion of tit for tat. Whatever I say, anyone else can reply in kind. But since I'm the only one actually putting their logic and opinion up for grabs, a tie simply means I don't change my mind. That's just the way it goes.

When you state your opinion, and state you're prepared to change your mind if sufficiently persuaded, you get to decide what "sufficiently persuaded" is. In this case, I do.


It does beg the question if there exists any objective frame of reference that would make these types of discussions profitable. In the general case, I'm not sure there is. It usually seems to be the case in smaller closed situations, but never open ones. What's amazing to me is that there are people saying how unfair this process is that have absolutely nothing to lose, and everything to gain. This isn't me trying to browbeat someone else out of their opinion. The only opinion being judged harshly or otherwise is mine. And even under that totally voluntary situation, consensus even about terms, much less factual points, is extremely elusive. That's a bit disappointing to me, because it suggests to me that even under the most ideal conditions, aggressive advocacy is still better than discussion. Not only is it more profitable, its even weirdly less confrontational.

You're assuming that the arguments made are logically sufficient. I'm asserting they are not.


Fair enough. Specify the hurdle you are willing to state that, if I meet it as judged by others, and not yourself, you would agree to change your mind.

Where do you draw the line on what an unacceptable debuff is? In the past, similar arguments have come up for increase density, and for that matter some people think that speed boost itself is a potential griefing tool.

Is Mystic Fortune sufficiently heinous that its clearly an exception, in which case as I said the general principle is still that the power must be shown to actually be an exception, or is the general rule to allow the players control where ever they perceive the desire?

You're assuming that I have some unjustified motive for specifically asking for a line of argument counter to my own, without the need to act in kind. You're not appreciating the asymmetry here: I'm not interested in or attempting to change anyone's opinion on this matter. I'm volunteering to have mine changed, and I get to decide the rules of that exercise: the rules are that the train of thought must be logical, and supported by a very solid foundation. Otherwise, I'll go with my own. I'm not suggesting that if you fail in that endeavor, I win. I'm actually the only person putting anything on the table here, and therefore the only one with anything really to lose.

If it really is just all opinions, then that means mine's as good as anyone elses, and I should act accordingly. Which seems to be the best conclusion this type of exercise will generate at the present time.

This was not, by the way, a completely theoretical exercise. Actually, it was not in any respect a theoretical exercise. But having said that, I'm now going to terminate it, although I am still open to someone satisfying the requirements of convincing me to change my mind. I just won't continue to pursue the meta discussion of why the discussion is either meaningful or fair.

Sure it does: it simply means you can't die. And actually, there's a lot of people out there that think silly things like "game balance" are actually hurting the game as a whole, and would rather have conceptually unbound sandboxes where every character concept, including invulnerable ones, are allowed to exist.

Besides, if you think that the game doesn't function without damage, you can turn it on so the game works for you. A staggeringly large percentage of the forum population for Star Trek Online suggested that any death penalty be optional - and a dev suggested it might be as well without sufficient qualification. This is an equally ludicrous idea with amazingly large support.

But if you think that these things are "obvious" and simple common sense should tell a developer when to reject them and when to accept them, don't blame them when their common sense radically contradicts yours. It will eventually.

I've read all your posts. All of them state your preference, and your belief without support that your preference generates a better result. I'm not attempting to convince you of anything, I'm giving you the opportunity to convince me. If you do not wish to avail yourself of that opportunity, that's fine with me. I'm simply collecting information before making up my own mind, and acting accordingly.

Interestingly, this is the process everyone says the devs should use when contemplating game changes, because it will generate better results. So far, while some people's comments have been thought-provoking in different ways, overall I'm less than impressed.

So are you saying is that the reason for treating player actions differently from game engine actions is that players are more likely to be embarrassed to admit they wanted to turn damage off, but more likely to complain about the actions the game engine allowed other players to inflict? Because you are still stating axiomatically that what the game does to you is something you just have to deal with, but players are different. You're just escalating the axiom to "you do it because if you don't players will leave" or "do it my way because my way will make more money." But I can say the exact same thing.

If the devs don't add an option to disable critter damage, players will either leave or rant negatively, because I said so. So now explain why a dev team should honor your assertion and not mine? Gut instinct? If this all ultimately comes down to gut instinct, then I have no reason not to trust my own over anyone else's, and by extension the devs have no reason to trust any player's gut instinct over their own.


So far, I have:

1. Do it because you're not supposed to make players mad. But this rule sometimes applies and sometimes doesn't, arbitrarily.

2. Do it because the game is different from the players: what players do is just different, because.

3. Do it because complaints about what other players do is more valid than complaints about what the game does. Just because.

4. Do it when its more deleterious than what the game is capable of doing. Except not always.

5. Do it because its more fun. For at least one definition of fun.

6. Do it because there's no downside. Except there can be.


It still seems to be an ad hoc decision driven primarily by preference, not by any specific train of thought based on what's ultimately best for the game as a whole, that can be extended to handle any other situation in the game.

I think the situation is more complex than that. I think its like watching movies in a movie theater. I think that while some people just like the free air conditioning and the big screen, a lot of people go to see movies in the theater because of an ephemeral and difficult to describe experience of seeing it in a room with other people. Of course, no one wants to be sitting next to the people that are talking, putting their feet up on your chair back, or throwing popcorn around, but its also not the same if they are watching the movie in an empty theater where the sound and picture are the same, but there are no people to bother them.

I think MMOs have the same quality. I think most of the players that play them don't want to be *bothered* by the other players, certainly, but they want them to be there. The question for me is at what point do you make the other people so "optionally controlled" that they cease to really be there in a meaningful enough fashion to recreate that experience.

For us old-timers, the "other people" are sitting in our global channels. They are always there, and there's always evidence that they are there, chatting away. But for new players, the "other people" are so invisible due to instancing, that many feel the game is empty and lose their interest in the game for that reason. This is a very tricky thing to balance: by allowing established players to gain more control over their own local experience, they are removing themselves from the global experience that other players might want and need to grow an attachment to the game.

I'm not advocating against instancing itself, but pointing out the tradeoff that exists. The notion that giving players control is always a good thing, and only a good thing, is false. There is always a downside, and you have to be careful not to accumulate too many downsides in the pursuit of diminishing returns on the upside. No one thing is going to have a big effect here, so an option for Mystic Fortune buffs isn't going to radically change the game either way. But the principle which guides that change can, over time, have an overwhelming impact.

You're just declaring so. I know some people think this intuitively already. I'm interested to know why they think it. As of yet, I have no justification for honoring this expectation, except for the weaker design rule that player expectations should be honored when there are no other rules that supercede that. In this case, there are lots of rules which would supercede that expectation.

If you're trying to convince by assertation, that really isn't going to work on me. I'm not looking to convince anyone of anything at this moment, I'm only providing the opportunity for someone to make a convincing case that might cause me to change my opinion on this issue. However, in the absence of that I will continue to operate on the theory that this is a marginal perspective that needs to be acknowledged, but not necessarily reflected in game design methodology.


For the record, given my current opinion on the matter, if the problem was given to me, I would act accordingly:

1. I would make the buff animation no longer root.

2. I would remove the prompt.

3. There would be no other way to optionally disable the buff.

That would reflect my current game design priorities. If I was explicitly ordered to include a prompt by higher authority (say, War Witch or Positron), then I would:

1. Add the prompt back in.

2. Set the prompt to be disabled by default, with the buff automatically accepted.

3. Set a /command option and/or a menu option to enable the prompt which the player would have to explicitly enable for each character.

4. Recommend that in the patch notes and the option announcement it be explicitly stated that this is an exception to the general rule, and any attempt to declare this a precedent for adding more such options would be interpreted as a vote for removing the prompt and the option.


The thought process that gets me there is the thought process I've outlined. Its mutable, if someone can successfully attack its underpinnings. But I'm unlikely to change my opinion just because someone disagrees with the conclusions themselves.

Why? Is it because its ok if the players hate the developers, but not if they hate the other players? Or is it because you think players are more likely to take what the game does more in stride than what other players do? And even if that is true, does that mean your logic is based on a critical threshold of players you're willing to annoy? Or is there a more principled stance that somehow makes what the game does automatically worth the annoyance, but what other players do not?

This is interesting to me because as I said, I believe one of the features of MMOs that actually makes them desirable relative to single player games is the interaction with other players. But I'm wondering if a sanitized version of that interaction is actually worse in the long run, even if it has apparent benefits in the short term. What does it mean to the long term culture of an MMO playerbase when you encourage the belief that all player interaction is voluntary and they have the right for it to be maximally controlled. Where do you draw the line?

Suppose that the technology existed where if I'm street sweeping and someone kills a target I was about to engage, I could simply push a button and that target would reappear for me specifically to allow me to kill it. It would still appear to be dead to the other player. Essentially, everyone would be in overlapping instances. Ignoring the technical limitations, good idea or bad idea for an MMO?

From the instant resources became available to implement it? About six months from the moment work began until it was released in I17. Although some of the delay was due to synchronizing with I17: it was originally intended to be a Going Rogue feature, then was shifted into I17 when the I17 code branch was opened, but was actually more or less completed a couple months before I17 went live. Given the logistics of how development works, from inception to internal QA to testing to live, the minimum time it would take to add a feature of that magnitude that was scheduled for a major build (as opposed to a patch to an issue) that was theoretically implemented instantly is about four months.

Patches can happen faster, but major features or redesigns cannot.


Because it requires new technology that takes significant time to implement and test. And it actually is being fast tracked as far as I know. Black Scorpion still has to deal with the simple fact that when large scale exploits are uncovered and they are deemed, through data mining or other avenues, to be skewing the reward system, a change to close that exploit has to be made. However, I know he is well aware of the disruptive nature of these kinds of patches and is working to reduce or eliminate them down the road by making changes designed to either lessen their impact or prevent the need to incur them. But he's only been the MAST lead for a few months, and these things take time.

Deliberately doing that is harassment, and the game already has a remedy for that: you can validly petition such conduct. That's really dodging the point though, because the question I'm asking is what is the difference between restricting what the game does to you and what the players do to you. Resorting to conduct defined to be actionable griefing only clouds the issue.

Besides, that definition doesn't even cover the trivial example I gave: why can't I optionally shut off damage. The game engine definitely does follow me around and continue to do that. In fact, it does that to a higher degree than all other forms of objectionable activity combined.

Vahzilok's Disease. Lasts until cured, and cannot be removed arbitrarily by the player.

You could argue that there is an important story-based reason for the debuff, but all that says is that if the devs want to stick you with a long-lasting effect that you don't like, you just have to deal with it, but if a player does, you should have the right to override their actions. That is still an apparently arbitrary decision to me.

You could also argue that the debuff is avoidable by simply avoiding the mission that gives it, but that presumes you know which mission that is ahead of time. A game design rule can't presume that. Also, its no different really than avoiding ally buffs by avoiding allies. The question can be asked: why should a player be "forced" to avoid story content just because they don't want to be debuffed against their will.

I should point out that the movement speed buff is not a 15% movement speed increase. Its a 15% movement speed increase-increase. It buffs run speed strength, or to put it another way it acts like enhancements in your run speed powers. So you don't run 15% faster, Sprint gets 15% stronger. Sprint increases your run speed by 50% unslotted, with this buff it will increase your run speed by 57.5%, a 7.5% net increase in running speed. Cut in half, it will buff Sprint by 7.5%, increasing your run speed by 3.75%. If you aren't running Sprint, Superspeed, or some other run speed buffing power, the buff will have no effect at all.

Its the one buff that I think is questionable out of the set. The pack is pretty powerful already, but I think it makes more sense if the run speed buff was a direct buff to run speed, and not a buff to run speed strength. Or if it was a tiny bit stronger. Unless that is intended to be the booby prize of the random draw separate from the monkey.

This loops back around to my original point, which is how do you reconcile this game design principle with a player who asks for damage to be optional? Its a serious question, and not intended to be sarcastic.

The option I'm concerned about is whether to make the buff optional or not, and by extention whether having an optional pop up to control that option is a good idea. I'm not saying I want the pop up itself to be mandatory. The option I was commenting on is the root option of whether the buff should be optional, which extends to whether the option to accept the buff or not should *itself* be optional. If the option itself is considered by the devs to be a good idea, its a tenet of good user interface design** to allow the player to preset the answer to that question to either yes or no to eliminate the UI intrusion.


** That tenet is "never change a critical component of the user interface without the user's permission at a time when they might be in the middle of using it."

Your complaint should then be that the devs should find better ways to deal with the exploits, not ignore them. And that complaint would be entirely valid.

I don't have a particularly strong option on this particular buff, but I do have a very strong opinion on options like this in general. I think that the principle behind such options strays into the dangerous territory of very delicate compromises put into MMOs with regard to what players are supposed to tolerate vs what they are supposed to have control over. I wasn't exactly joking when I suggested the devs put a prompt to accept damage from a critter. It was intended to highpoint a point. Its clearly unreasonable to put such a prompt into the game, but the question is why? The reason its unreasonable is that the individual player's desires are *not* paramount in the game. The game has rules, and those rules override players' desires to circumvent them. If a critter shoots you, you take damage. If the game would be more fun for you if you didn't take that damage, you have to find a different game to play. There's nothing else to be said there.

Conversely, because players act far more unpredictably than critters, and sometimes far more maliciously, the devs cannot simply allow players to do *anything* to other players. In particular, a decision usually has to be made as to whether to allow non-consensual PvP or not, and usually the decision is to disallow that. That's a compromise, though, against the general principle that if it happens in an MMO, you're supposed to deal with it. And in fact, in declared PvP zones, that rule is still in force 100%: if a player takes action which kills you in a PvP zone, then short of them using a game feature that would have been an exploit anywhere else, the fact that they killed you against your will is not a problem the game intends to address.

Ally buffs sit in between critter-mandated foe effects and exploitive non-consensual player activities. Arbitrarily stating that those effects are things the players should have control over, because its "obvious" that players should *always* have control over such things, is in my opinion a dangerous game design decision to make by fiat without very careful consideration. Because you do not, in general, have the final say in what happens to your characters. Because you do not have that say, there really isn't an obvious choice between players buffing you and you being able to refuse the buff. There's no intrinsic requirement for the game rules to honor one of your expectations over the other. But adding the option without careful consideration sends the (possibly incorrect) signal that there is an actual intrinsic requirement for the game to honor your expectations over others.

One of the things that is usually considered a fundamental design principle of MMOs is that each player is given the power to affect their fellow players, in sometimes good ways and sometimes not so good ways. Short of directly killing them outright, its possible and by design that one player could negatively affect the performance of another player. That's both the power and the responsibility that MMOs give to their players, and one of the critical ways in which an MMO distinguishes itself from a single player game. Its not a feature to be trivially discarded, because once gone you can't really get it back. The isolationist mindset it fosters in your playerbase when that is removed is something that is virtually impossible to reverse.


I don't think all such options are bad. I agree with the teleport prompt, for example. But I think all such options should be very carefully considered before being added, and I think the burden of proof for needing them should be extremely high. For example, the fact that the animation roots is evidence in favor of having a prompt, but on a scale of one to 100 where 100 would cause me to decide unambiguously that the prompt was needed, that fact would score about a six for me.

Ignoring exploits is not an alternative. The biggest mistake the devs ever made with the AE was launching with exploits they did not consider to be important enough to close prior to launch. Essentially all AE problems ultimately derive from that one singular mistake. That's the punishment for ignoring exploitability. And every time the devs ignore that rule, the universe will punish them again. And they will deserve it. They could sooner opt out of the force of gravity.

That seems to be a reasonable compromise, if Elite Bosses genuinely don't suffer the problem to a sufficient extent.


I do wish people would stop acting surprised when the devs take action to address exploitation, though. It suggests that there is any other alternative that has any non-zero chance of happening in this or any other MMO. Quite honestly, that's like being angry at gravity when you trip and fall, as if gravity could simply choose to act differently for your benefit, and you're disappointed it never does.