FredrikSvanberg
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Posts
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Joined
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Farms sure do get run a lot.
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Solution 1:
Let us report arcs as potential exploits.
When an arc has been reported enough times it should be locked, automatically. A GM will then inspect the arc and if the arc is not an exploit it is unlocked and flagged in such a way that it can't be locked again. If the arc is republished the flag goes away and it can once again be locked if it is reported enough times.
Should the arc upon inspection prove to be abusing an exploit it will of course not be unlocked and appropriate action may be taken against the author, such as revoking all MA publishing rights (and giving their slots to me as a reward for coming up with this idea).
Solution 2:
Change ratings from stars to like/dislike. This would make it harder to grief by rating down arcs. It would also remedy the current situation of only 5-star arcs being noticed in searches.
Solution 3:
Make every completed play of an arc count.
Right now, even if someone loves an arc so much that they want to play it on all their alts, only one play counts. This is bad, especially considering that one of the requirements for the Hall of Fame is a large (ridiculously so) number of plays.
Make every completed play count. That would more accurately represent an arcs true popularity. Maybe there should be a time limit to prevent farming or gaming of the system, but I don't really know if that's necessary.
Since it's apparently not obvious to everyone I'll point out that I don't think we should be allowed to RATE an arc with every playthrough. Just that each playthrough should count for the numbers of plays displayed, and for the purpose of things like Hall of Fame, etc. -
Quote:Silence, grown-ups are talking.Originally Posted by Marsquake2
tl;dr;go out and get some fresh air -
I'm just constantly amazed by ArcanaVille.
How do you have all this info? -
Didn't look like AP was talking to you when she said that. Looked like she was talking to exploiters. If we start fighting among ourselves over this non-issue, the exploiters have already won.
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Quote:Stopping it is probably not their ultimate goal.Originally Posted by Xanatos
The Developers will never be able to stop farming and powerleveling.
You just said it yourself; it has made the exploiters move on to something else. Leaving the MA closer to its original intent, as a tool for telling stories.Quote:The farmers have already moved on to something else. This "fix" has done nothing but infuriate mission architects.
This thread's very first post indicates that they aren't happy with the way this patch worked out, and that they are working on a solution. How you went from that to malevolent cackling glee is a bit of a mystery. And you have no idea of what the proportions of "regular users" and "exploiters" really are. I bet the devs do.Quote:The fact that the development team is happy to inconvenience the majority of players to combat a very small minority is disgusting.
It's quite possible that the vast majority of MA activity has been about abusing exploits. I certainly haven't noticed hundreds or thousands of plays on my story arcs while all these farms seem to thrive. If this was such an insignificant problem as you think, would they really disrupt MA functionality for over two weeks just to stop it?
I don't think so.
The exploiters must have reached a "critical mass" for the devs to take such drastic action. Just like every time before. -
That's actually a good question. Patrol XP doesn't give +100% xp though, just +50%.
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Despite an uncanny similarity that's not actually me.
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Quote:I decided to color code your post instead of trying to respond to each falsehood, lie, error, mistake or irrelevant rambling individually. Here's a handy legend:Originally Posted by OABAAB
Way to go devs. When you announced that CoX is going to implement content creation tool, many player warned that this will open a Pandora's Box but obviously it was an acceptable risk to you all. You said that you can deal with the bugs, unbalances, or exploits as they come and the overall potential for such a groundbreaking feature outweighs the risk. Now, those predictions have indeed came true and sure enough, you kept to your word and continued the tsunami of nerfs every few weeks in order to keep up with the authors that were *too* creative for their own good. As time went on, CoX population went through a continuous decline and AE use dwindled. This isn't a conjecture as anyone who has played for more than two years have made that very observation with their own eyes. As for those of us that can read financial reports and is knowledgable on currency exchange rates, the persistant decline in CoX is even more crystal clear. CoX sales revenue declined every quarter in 2009 from 6.8 million won in Q1 to 3.9 million won in Q4. That's a 43% drop in CoX revenue in the short span of one year. If revenue continues to decline at this alarming rate, barring a miracle, CoX will be in its death throes sooner rather than later. You don't even have to do any in depth due diligence to arrive at that conclusion but I digress.
My question for you devs is this. Given all that have transpired during the past year, what exactly was the point of AE? Why did you spend so much time developing, fine-tuning, monitoring and marketing (to the point of hype) the AE if it is eventually going to be little more than a niche feature that only a fraction of the population will actually partake in? Did you actually think that most people will only be motivated to use the AE for "storytellling" and "roleplaying" purposes when you went ahead with it? Maybe you haven't noticed but that vast majority of the "story" arcs on AE are amateurish in quality, full of typos, logical fallacies and simply aren't all that fun to play.
This isn't to insult the player authors but rather pointing out a reality in the world of arts/literature when it comes to the talent divide between the haves and the have nots. If every amateur storyteller were so adept at their craft and hobby then practically anyone can publish good literature or conjure up compelling scripts for movie/television. That is simply not the case.
As some other people have said before, if I wanted a good story, I'd go read a book or watch a movie. I certainly do that constantly but in an online game? Not so much. Obviously not everyone will share that sentiment but enough surely do. Yet you choose to go the route of trying to mold AE into an exclusive story telling club as if to alienate those who care more about rewards. Are you so confident that GR is going to replenish your subscriptions and coffers? Here's a reality check. Engineers and programmers are quite often bad with the finances and if you all actually do expect GR to have that kind of impact, you fit firmly into that stereotype. You're introducing a paid expansion and revamping the graphics of a game that's already 6 years old. That's not to mention that there's literally a log jam of competitors out there so consumers aren't exactly short on options. To be brutally honest, GR is not going to make a huge splash as you think and it certainly wouldn't bring it a massive amount of new subscribers for a sustained period of time. Certainly not enough to make up for the 43% revenue decline over the course of 2009. After all, no game except for WoW, (and *maybe* EQ1) has exhibited such persistent staying power over that lengthy time frame in the U.S. market. As a matter of fact, the entire U.S. MMO market is suffering from a drastic decline in subscriptions numbers and CoX is not going to be the game to buck the trend, economic recovery or not.
P.S: Going back to the original point of introducing AE and the inevitable train wreck of nerfs that will surely follow it. I would just like to say, I told you so. You made your own bed and now you have to sleep in it. And no, more nerfs is not going to be the solution because it hasn't worked so far, hasn't it?
Red text = Lies.
Orange text = Things you know nothing about.
Blue text = Irrelevant for the discussion in this thread.
White text = More or less blatant insults.
Green text = Actual true statement. -
Quote:Me neither because I still have a faint hope that they will make a better fix for this when they have more time. Like, checking allies for powers and reduce XP only for buff-bots.Originally Posted by Venture
I don't. I'm not changing any of my arcs on account of this.
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Quote:Design does not equal intent. Oh wait, I've already said that.Originally Posted by Captain Fabulous
STOP CALLING IT AN EXPLOIT. It's not an exploit. No one was breaking any rules. None of these allies were broken, mis-coded, malfunctioning, or in any other way not WORKING EXACTLY THE WAY THE DEVS DESIGNED THEM.
Oh I don't know about that. Using a game element in a way that was not intended in order to gain an unfair advantage sounds like an exploit to me.Quote:Now you may say people used this aspect of AE in ways the devs never intended. Ok, I'll give you that. But that's still not an EXPLOIT.
That sounds like a bug of some sort which can be used as an exploit. That's not the only kind of exploit.Quote:An exploit would be if you discovered a flaw or error in the way something worked and used it to your advantage, something that clearly was not supposed to be. For example, an ally Dispersion Bubble that gave +100% def instead of +10%. THAT'S an exploit. Or if you discovered that jumping up and down 3 times with Ninja Run active and the Blackwand out gave you unlimited recovery. THAT'S an exploit.
But it can be if it's used in a way that was not intended. Allied NPCs were not intended to make gaining rewards trivial. No matter what you think or say I'm 100% certain that was not what the devs intended NPC allies to be when they allowed us to put them in AE missions.Quote:Creating an AE map using assets that are 100% working as designed is NOT AN EXPLOIT. -
Quote:I was talking about the exploit farms that this particular patch was aimed at, not any and all possible exploit farm that might exist now or in the future.Originally Posted by Zubenelgenubi
...except they're not.
No big difference there then.Quote:
...except that even fewer people will bother now than ever did before, which was a vanishing few indeed.
Where's my eyeroll smiley when I need it?Quote:...at least you got it right in the end.
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Quote:Design does not equal intent.Originally Posted by Captain Fabulous
Stop calling it an exploit. It's not. And exploit is when you take advantage of broken mechanic or bug. This is not the case here. The system was designed to allow allies to help you. This is not by mistake.
Damn right. Why would they allow us to play any way we want? No other game does that, and if it does it's hardly a game. More like some kind of weird simulator where you can change anything you like to see what happens.Quote:This is a nerf to curb what the devs deem to be undesirable behavior. It's more of them telling us that we can't play the game we pay for the way we want to, only the way they want us to.
Goals like getting to 50 in one hour? Yeah that's difficult to accomplish on purpose for a good reason. Getting to 50 isn't difficult, though.Quote:They set up a situation that requires certain behavior to attain goals they have purposely made difficult to get, but then constantly nerf and nerf and nerf whenever we get creative in finding ways to quickly achieve those goals.
They removed the MA badges that people were farming to get. People complained about that too.Quote:It's like hanging a carrot in front of a horse and chiding him for knocking the stick down and eating the carrot instead of blindly following it till he drops dead of starvation. If you don't want people to farm stop putting **** in the game that requires farming to get. 6 years of this never-ending cycle you'd think they'd be done with it by now. Well you'd be wrong. Some boneheaded dev mentality I guess you just can't break no matter how many years pass by.
Nobody's making CoH 2. Yet.Quote:Why bother with CoH 2 when you clearly haven't learned any lessons from 6 years of CoH 1? -
Quote:Let's see...Originally Posted by Lazarus
And once again it's a fix that will hurt non-farm arcs far, far more than the actual farms.
Exploit farms: dead in the gutters.
Story arcs: still perfectly playable for the story.
Yeah, I can see how story arcs are far far worse off than the exploit farms. -
Quote:No they haven't.Originally Posted by EvilRyu
They have pretty much ruined the story telling part of AE with all the nerfs.
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Alan Moore, and I don't care if it's not to his taste, this is wishful thinking.
Warren Ellis.
Robert Kirkman.
Me. -
I will be revisiting the 1-10 arc when issue 17 comes, to fix things like that. Thanks for playing!
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Issue 10 was nothing special.
If anything it's every 6th issue that is "special".
I6: CoV.
I12: Midnighters.
I18: Going Rogue. -
Thanks for the review.
When i17 arrives there will be some changes to the final mission. You won't have to face the Arbiter again... And as MCM pointed out, he's optional anyway.
The character in Chess is actually called The Arbiter, and my sense of humor demanded that I used an actual Arachnos Arbiter for the role. Unfortunately we only have one actual Arachnos Arbiter to choose from. I think Sands' bio works as is ("Arbiter Sands is considered a somewhat unconventional member of the Arachnos Arbiter Corps."), but I guess I might change it to point out that in his position as referee for the arena games he is not protected by the will of Lord Recluse.
Pohsyb and Castle were chosen because, well, Pohsyb is Bishop backwards, a chess piece, and Castle is a chess move. It just had to be them. Castle is also responsible for the "recent" PvP changes so he's got another connection to the Arena that way. I'm planning to ask them to play the arc when it's finalized and find out what they think. -
You can call one of them "Safe" and the rest "Safe " with a space after the word. That's different enough for the MA but won't look different in the mission. You can add as many spaces as you want to create more groups.
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Thanks for your review. Man, you're fast.
It's not intentionally "Vimes", it's just that I always think that's her name and so I ended up writing it like that at first and then I realized I had made a mistake and it ended up a mess, like you pointed out. I'll go through it right now and try to catch them all.
The arc is a bit silly, I confess. It's for a reason. It's all just one big reference/easter egg, which is explained in the Souvenir. You might say that I "adapted" the original story to City of Villains.
And no, the Rogue Isles isn't a part of the U.S., it's a sovereign nation, or at least the U.N. seems to think so. The U.S. does not acknowledge or approve of this, however. Or something like that. The politics surrounding this is quite a mess.
Edit: I've given it another pass and I think I've caught all the "Vimes's" now. I gotta stop using that NPC, she always makes me confused. -
"Arena" ID #390921. Arena Gladiator fights have degenerated into mere propaganda in the cold war between the U.S. and the Rogue Isles. Arachnos has assigned you as security during the World Championship in St. Martial's Golden Giza arena.
This is a tribute arc. To what? It's revealed in the souvenir, if you don't figure it out sooner. -
I played "Teen Phalanx" and "Flower Knight Task Force" today.
It would be great if you could review "The Warburg Connection" (#364832) and "Arena" (#390921).
Thanks! -
Meanwhile, in the real world, City of Henchmen went live 10 issues ago.
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Thanks for the review, glad you liked it!
Maybe if you play as anything other than a Natural origin you can just pretend that Desslock doesn't really know what your origin is? *shrug*
Anyway, good to hear that you enjoyed it.