FredrikSvanberg
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Posts
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Joined
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Quote:Clip those jungle nails!Originally Posted by Gaming_Glen
I approve of this suggestion.
It so ruins the immersion when my barefoot jungle girl walks across some surface that make it sound like she's wearing heels.
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Quote:You seem to think that this thread was somehow inspired by the latest patch. These suggestions are in fact things that have been discussed by MA authors over a far longer period of time, primarily in a global chat channel called "MA Arc Finder".Originally Posted by Wondering_Fury
Why are so many people making - in my opinion - pointless threads about the deficits and problems of MA, when all that brought it about was a change, and a temporary one at that, to allies...
You and I have a different opinion on what is wrong with the MA. You think "nothing" is wrong. I disagree. Other people have other opinions on what is wrong with it but they can make their own threads.Quote:There have been absolutely hundreds of people posting good and bad points about how to fix MA, when there really is nothing wrong with it.
I'm more concerned with rooting out exploits than preventing farming, since, like most people, I have realized that there will always be farming as long as there are (reasonable) rewards.Quote:What is, arguably, wrong with it is that there will always be a use for it in terms of farming and abusing it's true purpose.
The GM would only have to confirm whether the arc is abusing an exploit, not play it entirely. The reports would naturally have to describe the exploit so the GM can confirm it. We already have this system in place, my suggestion merely talks about how a certain number of reports should automatically lock a potentially exploitative arc until it can be reviewed and unlocked by a GM. Right now this is probably not very important since the latest patch seems to have scared off many exploiters, but nobody knows what might happen in the future.Quote:- Point 1: Relies on the subjectiveness of the player in question, and also do you know how many arcs a GM will have to go through a day if this is implemented? It would be a waste of time, otherwise spent doing better things. The GM would physically have to play the arc, read it, analyse it in case of a rebuttal from the player - not unlikely.
On the contrary. The way star ratings are averaged currently, a single 1-star rating has a far more devastating effect than a single dislike will have. You won't have a search filter for "like/dislike" since that doesn't make any sense in the first place and I think you just added that as a strawman.Quote:- Point 2: Griefing will always exist, swapping to "like/dislike" won't change anything, in fact it's far too simple and it will create a bigger mess trying to find a good arc via search function, with a search filter of "like/dislike".
If an arc currently has 999+ plays we don't really know how many people have played it, do we? If every play counted and we saw an arc sitting with "200,000 plays (183,202 likes, 322 dislikes)", it's far more information than "999+ plays, 4 stars average". And far more useful information. And I know all about "claiming tickets" - didn't I say that only one rating would count in the very first post? Oops, apparently I didn't - I've edited that in now. I guess I thought it was obvious that I was talking about plays and not ratings. Counting every playthrough is not the same as allowing every playthrough to add to the ratings. Besides, you can't "like" an arc more than once anyway. Stars ratings must go away, remember?Quote:- Point 3: It is really depending on your own opinion of MA, I don't experience it enough to realise my efforts in an arc are not counted via a lack of number of players. In all honesty, if an arc has 999+ varied players thats the arc you want to play. I like the current system more. In my opinion, this could be easily abused, have you heard of claiming tickets?
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Quote:We're not talking about someone's life here. I disagree - far better to get anything suspicious out of the system as soon as possible, and under the scrutiny of the GMs, rather than let it sit and fester for months. I don't know how the current system with reporting arcs works but apparently it's not working well enough - or it is, and things could have been EVEN WORSE. It's hard to make suggestions for improvements when you can't tell what works and what doesn't.Originally Posted by SpittingTrashcan
Far better to let 100 farms go free than unjustly lock one innocent arc. The community can't be made watchdogs - if we could be trusted with that responsibility, there wouldn't be farms in the first place.
Another problem might be that the people who are likely to report exploits in the first place aren't the ones looking for them, and will in fact avoid anything that resembles one. -
It's called "coincidence".
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Quote:To be reported as exploits? No.Originally Posted by Aura_Familia
EDIT: Keep in mind you are also saying that the arcs in question have to be actually played.
For each play to be counted? Yes.
Those are different things. Or did I misunderstand what you meant. -
Quote:Thanks for the link, that's exactly what I'm talking about.Originally Posted by SpittingTrashcan
http://techcrunch.com/2009/09/22/you...s-are-useless/
Of course, YouTube has a considerable advantage over CoH here: people don't ragequit YouTube.
People do ragequit YouTube, but it hardly makes a difference. -
Quote:Griefing already happens, and is much easier to do with the star ratings system. We don't know whether they have the manpower to do this because none of us know anything about the number of GMs or their normal workload.Originally Posted by Venture
1) will lead to griefing. Also, the CS staff doesn't have the manpower to do what it needs to do now.
Then a change is needed now more than ever.Quote:2) will not help. We don't have four-star oblivion now; we have five-star oblivion. There are over 100 pages of five-star arcs, so even if you have a five-star arc it's being thrown into a pile no one is going to grovel over to find it.
There won't be many farms around once 1) has been in use for a while, I hope. "Gaming" the system is already in effect but in a different manner, which is much easier. If you think it will be easy to get a bunch of people to play your arc over and over on different alts if the arc isn't also fun and worthy of replay, then I salute you in your ability to herd cats.Quote:3) helps farms more than legit arcs and will exacerbate gaming the system.
I noticed a lack of alternative solutions. Oh well.Quote:So that's a "no" all the way around, I'd say. -
Quote:The wiki probably is correct but the text it references is not. The Kora fruit used to yield large inspirations, but when players complained that villains couldn't get them and that this was "unfair for pvp" and so on, they were changed to medium inspirations.Originally Posted by DarkGob
I've gotta be honest, I totally forgot that Kora fruit was even a thing, and have never done any of those missions. It's kind of hard for me to get excited about a mission whose reward is a medium-sized inspiration, which are already dropping quite a bit by level 40 anyway.
This is also kind of funny, from the ParagonWiki trivia section for Dr. Huxley (the Kora fruit contact):
Unless the wiki is out-of-date, they don't even grant the most powerful inspirations!
EDIT: Otherwise your idea is cool.
And it's not one such inspiration per mission. It's 5-10 of them, maybe more, and you get them by clicking glowies. -
Quote:Thanks.Originally Posted by Umbral
That's...
A very well thought out and lucid solution to a valid concern. Brava!
Not a new zone, just instanced missions, and the "Deep Coral Mines" is just a label I slapped on there. We could call it anything, really.Quote:The only problem I can imagine would be if the "Deep Coral Mines" are intended to be a new zones of some kind.
Yeah, it almost always seems easy but for some reason the devs never do it. I wonder why.Quote:For the villain group, I don't think it would be too hard to add some additional ranks to the existing Coralax to spruce them up for 40+ combat. 
What I really meant were the "Coral Guardians" that Calystix the Shaper summons. http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Coralax#Calystix_the_Shaper; Coral Warders and Coral Sentinels. Those make more sense.Quote:I don't think the Slag Golems would work particularly well since they're intended to be more formed of debris rather than the coral that animates them, which wouldn't make sense unless the caves are intended to be in a garbage dump. -
Quote:Similar systems are in use in other places and they seem to work. Sure, an arc might become unavailable for a few days while it gets sorted out. If I was the GM and I discovered that someone had gathered 20 people to report an arc that didn't need reporting I would hand out some temporary bans for griefing. Or whatever they do to griefers these days.Originally Posted by macskull
So this way I can get a bunch of friends together and report-grief someone's arc so it gets locked and can't be played until a GM reviews it (which could be a while), and then they have to deal with support headaches? Sounds great!
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I call them "Kora fruits" because the idea I'm about to present isn't actually about Kora fruits, but instead about coral. Yes, the magical coral that Sharkhead is practically made of would serve as the villainous version of the Kora fruits heroes can harvest in the Shadow Shard.
I propose that a new contact is added to Sharkhead. This contact would hand out endless missions for villains level 40 or above, to go into the recently discovered Deep Coral Mines to try to harvest coral fragments. The missions would all be similar to the Kora fruit harvesting missions that heroes can do in the Shadow Shard, with a few exceptions noted below.
1: The maps would preferably use the coral cave skin instead of the dry brown caves. This is a minor preference and not really necessary but it would be nice.
2: The enemies would of course not be Shadow Shard denizens. Instead a new high-level group based on Coralax and Slag Golems would be created, with powers appropriate for the new level range and perhaps similar in function, if not appearance, to the enemies we would face in the Shadow Shard.
3: If creating new enemies is too much trouble, we can come up with a good reason for why Shadow Shard creatures are lurking beneath Sharkhead; probably something related to Darrin Wade. Let's say that the coral in the deep mines form natural portals that let Shadow Shard denizens in, and by harvesting the coral the villains are not only getting their paws on some powerful mojo but also at the same time closing the portals and preventing further infestations.
If we go along this route the contact could be a Midnighter working to prevent Darrin Wade's crazy scheme to release the Rularuu. -
Quote:No, let's.Originally Posted by AnonymousNeg-repperLet's not and say we did.
Or tell us why you think the current system is fine, because it isn't. -
That works for me.
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It was a trap.
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Quote:Fine, you pointed out something we've discussed a few dozen times over the last year already. I forgot about Confront, I admit it. It's pretty much the only power that needs to be changed. You know why? Because every blaster secondary doesn't have to be identical to every other blaster secondary. Devices is not anything like what you describe. Martial Arts for blasters (or "Self Defense" as we dubbed it last time we talked about it) could be the very offensive option with more melee attacks than any of the other secondaries.Originally Posted by Adeon Hawkwood
Ummm.... yes it is necessary. Martial Arts is a Melee Set. Blaster secondaries (mostly) include melee abilities but they are not melee sets. They are a mix of melee and control powers with some self buffs or weak debuffs and maybe a damage aura. They don't have 6 melee attacks and they certainly don't have Confront.
Things that can replace Confront at the drop of a hat: Stealth, Caltrops, a Placate-like power, Power Thrust, an always-on power that grants low Resistance to Smashing/Lethal, an always-on power that grants +recharge and bonus jump and running speed. Some of these have been suggested before as replacements for Confront, some of them I just came up with in five minutes. The only difficult part is to figure out which one to pick since they are all thematically appropriate and good things for Blasters to have.
All power sets don't have to be equal, but see the list above.Quote:Additionally you'll notice that the Tier 1 is always a power to keep enemies out of melee range (generally a single target ranged immobilize) this is deliberate to help Blasters solo (especially at low levels).
Just one is necessary.Quote:Realistically making a Martial Arts based Blaster secondary would require putting in at least two new powers.
Assume nothing. Crane Kick is one of the best attacks in the set, it should not be reduced to Power Thrust. Instead Confront can be replaced with Power Thrust (sans glow) and the power list reshuffled to put it at tier 1 (once again, see the list above).Quote:Assume that Crane Kick is changed to the same stats as Power Thrust and made the T1 (i.e. lower damage and recharge than the scrapper version).
All sets are weaker than Energy Manipulation. I'd be pleased if Self Defense was about as good as Devices, but I know it will be better at certain things and worse at others. Just like all other sets.Quote:Then add Cobra Strike, Focus Chi and 3-4 of the damaging melee attacks from MA. That still leaves 2-3 new powers required and a set that, frankly, looks like a weaker version of Energy Manipulation.
I know plenty of people who play Blasters with almost exclusively melee attacks and they usually survive just fine. You might have heard about "Blappers", they were quite popular. There's nobody forcing anyone to pick or even use the weak controls that some secondaries provide, and I'm sure many of us would prefer something more interesting than another weak immobilize as the tier 1 for half the sets out there.Quote:And since someone will bring it up, Blasters were Ranged/Melee in the original alpha version of the game. This was changed because they just didn't have the survivability. -
Quote:Yeah, exactly like Dual Pistols is just like Assault Rifle with different animations and glowy effects.Originally Posted by Mr_Grumpums
Seems like it would just be /Energy with different animations and no glowy effects.
Martial Arts is perfect as a blaster secondary already.Quote:The devs would have to retool it a bit, including some new random power which there is no analogue to and likely taking out attacks. they might even cut out the attacks you LIKE to make room for something like Exploding Shuriken.
They don't need to retool anything, remove attacks, add "random" powers or anything else. All they have to do is make sure the numbers are correct and it'll be good to go. They might decide to change things anyway but it's not really necessary. -
Quote:I can't tell if you're serious.Originally Posted by Hard Kisses
ok sounds good, i want AR blast as a secondary for brute tho
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Quote:You want non-anthropomorphic children?Originally Posted by Tokyo
Think of the Children! the innocent, hairless, non-anthropomorphic children!
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Quote:Originally Posted by McBoo
The amount of work it would take to vet every conceivable combination to avoid this kind of behavior boggles the mind.
The costume generator can already be abused as it is, in countless ways. Nobody is sitting around looking at every costume that is made to make sure it's fine. The GMs take action when they get reports about copyright infringement or other questionable costumes. This would not be an exception. -
Quote:I wanted the same thing ever since I found out how Penetrating Shot was going to work.Originally Posted by Eiko-chan
While playing my Grav Controller yesterday, I had a realisation on what would really help Propel, both thematically and balance-wise: make it a narrow cone, like Penetrating Shot from Dual Pistols. You're launching a large, heavy object directly at someone. That it hits everyone in between and possibly those behind as well just makes sense.
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I actually had the exact same idea but I couldn't think of any situation where I would find it useful.
Well, right now I figured out a good reason: when you want to check the slotting of a power without moving away from the normal game view, for example while crafting or shopping. It would help to be able to see what enhancements you need to craft or buy without switching to the enhancement screen. -
Your optimism is refreshing.
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Those things are already handled by categories, keywords and the arc's description. If you're going to introduce ratings for all those things we have as keywords now it will just cause an even greater mess, since the basic problem with ratings is that there is no yardstick by which everyone measures these things. Something that is 5-star Action for you might only count as 3 stars of Action for me, and 1 star for someone else. And so on.
Since it's all subjective anyway, why try to put a number on it? You either like it or you don't; that's entirely subjective and easy to figure out, and by finding out how well liked an arc is (ratio of "likes" to total number of plays, for example) everyone can see that an arc is either generally well liked or not. If a lot of people like an arc it's a good chance that other people will also like it, including you, so try it out and see. At least with a different kind of ratings system there wouldn't be a cut-off at 5 stars below which nobody can find anything. Searching for arcs would no longer depend upon the almighty 5-star rating.
Another reason for changing the ratings system would be to make things easier for everyone. We have today a problem with people thinking that they must click each star in order to get to the number they want, so they start out by clicking star number 1, then 2, then 3, etc. The author gets a note saying that someone has voted for his arc, but no tickets, so he knows someone voted less than 3 stars and thinks that is the final score, but the final score is in fact the last star the player has clicked. This is not intuitive! If you only can choose "like" or "dislike" - heck, there doesn't even have to be a "dislike" option - it is less likely to cause similar confusion.
I haven't even started talking about people who don't rate arcs because they don't know what the stars mean; or because they only rate farms; or because they don't want to rate an arc if they can't give it 5 stars because they don't want to punish the author by condemning the arc to 4-star oblivion. And I'm sure there are many more reasons out there for why someone won't rate an arc they have just played. I'm equally sure that a large number of those reasons can be solved by making the entire process simpler. -
Quote:Yeah, right. Like that's gonna happen.Originally Posted by GMan3
Touchdown as the buzzer sounds. Thank you FreckledAvenger. Maybe now people will stop complaining and actually wait to see what happens.
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Quote:I would do the opposite but judging by the content in this post you would probably not read it this time either.Originally Posted by Aura_Familia
I'll leave it to AE authors who are well known to explain why this patch is is not a good idea.
It limited the farming that was abusing the exploits that were plugged by the patch. I'd even say that it stopped that kind of abuse completely. The normal kind of farming isn't affected, and wasn't targeted by the patch.Quote:Oh, and this didn't really limit the farming.