Lady_Sadako

Test's back up, btw. Teeny tiny patch.

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Hi guys, im from CoH WarCry. Assuming there are no hitches, you can expect it up by Friday.

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ooh, thank you very much for the update!

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This should be fixed on the Training Room server currently. Give it a shot and let me know if it's still a problem.

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*waits for Training Room to come back up....*

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In a nutshell, It's a partnership. We want to spread the love and by collaborating with the Warcry network we bring wider coverage than just doing something here in our corner of the web.

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Works for me. Thanks for the answer!

Without wanting to come across as whiny (because Dev Q&A sessions are paradise for information freaks like me, and I love them wherever they happen), why is this happening over on WarCry, instead of here on the game's own forums? Isn't this just the sort of thing the community could do with in the run-up to I9?

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I've tracked down the issue and am working on a fix.

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You absolutely rock. Thanks.

To reiterate, since the thread was snipped:

On a full team of 8, I was getting only 3 points to my Dom bar per attack. I should have been getting about 6.5 points.

Can anyone confirm that the team size buff to Domination is working for them?

Serious reality check needed here:

Is the buff that increases Domination build with team size actually working?

I just did the five AV Viridian mission with a full team of 8, and Domination didn't seem to build any faster than when I was soloing.

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But here's the 64K question: what the hell is it doing lately to evolve and revolutionalize itself or the genre?

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Hard to answer that without knowing what's in future Issues.

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Is there even going to be a Winter Event this year?

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Yes, there is.

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World of Warcraft seems to handle it just fine.

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Well, here's what was asked for:

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We want bug free updates with lots of new stuff to do, and new costumes options added every now and then, and we don't want to have to wait six or seven months at a time to get it.

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Lots of new stuff to do? In WoW? Roffle.

New costume options? In WoW? Double roffle with maple syrup.

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However, the malaise felt by some players stems from a restlessness in lack of variety.

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It doesn't help that we're in the most frustrating stage of the issue release cycle.

1. New issue teasers are announced. There are interviews. Hints are dropped. Clues are given. People go crazy with anticipation. They watch the Test server for signs of the new issue.

2. The new issue hits Test. Whee, novelty! Explosion of excitement.

3. People settle into the new issue on Test, grumble a bit about bugs, and begin to anticipate the fun of playing with it on Live. Meanwhile, people who don't go to Test are learning about what's coming and getting excited about it.

4. (Where we are now.) The initial euphoria of finding out what's in the new issue has waned, and impatience sets in as people wait for it to go live. There's no point in getting excited about the next issue down the line, as it's too far away. The longer the wait goes on, the more frustrated people get.

5. The issue finally hits the live servers and everyone rejoices. Soon after the excitement has begun to pass, teasers for the next issue are announced and the cycle begins again.

This stage in the cycle is the most trying, because the issue is here and yet it's not. We're waiting for the other shoe to drop.

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'A Council of War' simply added the Kheldians and their story arcs.

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And Striga Isle, don't forget.

And EPPs for heroes.

And Lusca, the Ghost Ship and the Clockwork Paladin.

Issue 3 did a lot more than 'simply' add Khelds.

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Police Band Missions/Safeguard Missions
1) Coding. Massive amounts of coding. I don't claim to know the exact method they use for generating those random missions, but I'm willing to bet it involved either a) Making lots and lots of lists for a random generator to pull from or b) Making lots and lots of missions in a list. Neither one had to be very fast.

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And not all of the police band missions are just random. Some are bank robberies, some have assaults on a police station, some deal with stores being robbed. There's a lot of new stuff in there along with the randomised missions in caves and offices.

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I sort of have the feeling that CoH is yesterday's news.

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Oh, I really can't agree with that. If that were true, the Devs wouldn't be so constantly surprised with issues being delayed. They'd be a lot more resigned to it.

The impression I get is that they're as frustrated as we are, if not more so.

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But the hero "protect" missions aren't brand new....they're a copy of the mayhem missions...shouldn't that have helped make them a bit easier?

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They're not an exact copy. But yes, it looks like this will be a six month delay rather than seven, as I7 was.

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Lots of lost staff,

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Cryptic haven't lost any staff, they've taken staff on. NCSoft have lost staff, which may or may not have had an impact on QA.

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* Increased game complexity (that is, issues contain features for both Heroes and Villains; also may include bugs caused by enhancing engine features, such as PhysX support and advanced graphics)

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Sounds most likely to me. I7 was mostly late because of Mayhem Mission tech and all that PhysX stuff, if I remember rightly.

The more innovation there is, the later the issue seems to come. Adding straightforward 'content', like zones and missions, doesn't seem to snarl things up in the same way. The new Faultline doesn't look like it played much of a part in delaying I8.

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That difference in flavor between the two really resulted in me enjoying the “style” and the stories of CoV a lot less then the style of CoH.

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I think what CoV needs is a few contacts whose story is that they work for you, rather than the other way around.

CoV kept the old 'go and do missions FOR Contact X' model from CoH. But I'd have liked to see contacts who you get passed on to because they can help you, not the other way around.

For example, you could have a contact who's a filthy little Rogue Isles urchin, who calls you 'boss' and tells you where to find other NPC villains' lairs to raid. Or a contact who's a technical genius, and so helps you raid Crey labs or Longbow stations for tech that he then grants back to you as temp powers.

CoV seems to have very little in the way of contacts who look up to you and who send you out on forays for your personal gain, and a lot in the way of contacts for whom you are working to pay the bills.

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- Originally, the Shivan Shard temporary power from Bloody Bay would transform YOU into a Shivan?

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Yes! I remember them saying that!

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That'll give the PvP community a good rep with the rest of the Co* community if we keep it civil and friendly.

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Yes. IT WOULD.

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Thank you for taking the time to write me. The Arenas have been a topic of some conversation here, given the additional spotlight they will be getting under Issue 8 with the new terminals to access them from Pocket D. Hopefully that will lead to some more action on what I know has been a long standing issue.

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O_O

Woo!

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Are you seriously going to level a character through 15 levels of content you've already done a hundred times, just to experience 10 levels of new content?

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Totally! And with my new Veteran Award Sands of Mu from level 1 onwards, it'll be easier than ever before!

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My post was meant to show WHY Cryptic is doing what they are doing and why it makes sense from a business position.

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I think you may have elected yourself spokesperson for Cryptic a little prematurely!

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You are arguing how you would like to see it done. Yet your very statements show that it is from emotion, not business point of view.

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You couldn't be more wrong. Firstly, please don't try to claim that I'm arguing from emotion - that's patronising. Secondly, I've run a business, and I know about business.

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from a business POV, PvP is a small percentage of players

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PvP isn't players. PvP is features. Players respond to those features. The better it works, the more people use it. THAT is simple business. Players who enjoy PvP have left CoH because the PvP wasn't working properly. That, too, is simple business.

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and the resources necessary to make most of the changes the PvPers want are better spent on other areas.

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The 'changes the PvPers want' are called 'fixes'. Are you seriously trying to tell me that fixing what has already been introduced, so that it works the way it was supposed to, is less important from a business point of view than introducing new stuff?

Let me put this into business speak. Every feature in the game is an asset. Every feature that doesn't work properly is an asset that is deprived of value.

Fixing PvP assets brings back lost PvPer custom, while detracting nothing but small amounts of programming time from the remainder of the playerbase.

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Resources ARE limited. You put your resources to where they do the most good.

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Resources are not so limited that there has to be triage between fixes and new content.

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Do you honestly think that business DOESN'T work based on popularity of product?

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Of course it does. I just think you have very simplistic ideas of what popularity entails.

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Yes Failed, at least as far as cryptic is concerned. A handful of people using PvP zones does not make them worth the investment of money.

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You don't speak for Cryptic, and to be frank, you're not saying anything that any Cryptic employee has ever said. All you're doing is drawing your own conclusions from Lighthouse's posts, then presenting them as what Cryptic thinks. I'm afraid I don't agree with your conclusions, and I very much doubt that Cryptic would endorse them, either.

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How many players were on and how long did it last?

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Masses, and it went on all weekend if I remember rightly.

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I have taken time to try to get an idea as to these figures.

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Indeed you have, and that's laudable, but (as I pointed out, and others have too) your method is so flawed as to be useless. Furthermore, if it shows anything, it shows that even the problematic PvP in CoX has significant support. That ought to be an indication of how serious player support for PvP WOULD be if it worked properly.

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Which sounds like the real situation?

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Neither. Personally, I think it's a bit more chaotic than that. The Devs are in the midst of I9, which will bring a lot of new, cool stuff. To be totally honest, I think they're so excited and distracted by Inventions that they've lost sight of the fixes that PvP needs. For example, they've put Arena terminals into Pocket D, complete with helpful NPCs to explain how things work, and a whole new Monkey Fight section which must have taken a lot of time, not to mention adding a new Pocket D map to the Arena, and yet the Arena still hasn't had the fixes it's needed since I4.

Now tell me, how does THAT work? They go to all that trouble to do something which is PURELY based around PvP, but don't fix the actual PvP at the core.

If your theory was correct, then the coming changes to Pocket D in I8 would make no sense at all. The recent release of the CoP trial would make no sense, either. Nor would working on base raids to get them to work, which they've said they're doing. And so on.

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No cryptic has a responsibility to make money and keep as many costumers as it can happy and paying.

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My emphasis. In business, when you invest in an asset, and it doesn't work properly first time, you don't just abandon it if it can be fixed. Instead, you fix it. Fixing what's already there takes fewer resources than introducing something totally new. That's business sense.

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PvP is Irrelevant to Cryptic AT THIS POINT IN TIME.

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You're wrong. Cryptic's own activity indicates it.

PvP is not 'irrelevant'. Not by a long way. This is taking Lighthouse's words and spinning them way out of their original meaning. If PvP is irrelevant, why make a big deal over the new Arena addition to Pocket D? Or the CoP trial, which leads to PvP base raids, which they are apparently working to fix even as we speak?

Let me underline it again: this is about FIXES to what's in already. Fixes demand programming time. You are not about to tell me that Cryptic intend to leave things permanently broken.

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Worse still there is little evidence that pouring more money into fixing these will draw in new players.

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There is plenty of evidence that leaving them unfixed lost players. I refer you to the post about whole SGs leaving.

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You are continuing to confuse what YOU want with what is in Cryptics best interest.

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Not at all. I'm pointing out that it's simply inconsistent to promote with one hand, then leave unfixed with the other. Why make a fuss about putting an Arena in Pocket D and not fix the Arena? Why create a brilliant zone in RV and then give a gimpy temp power as a reward? The fixes we're talking about are not large, compared to the work of introducing the feature in the first place. It's like buying an expensive car, then abandoning it because you got a puncture.

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They add items to the menu, find they take to much kitchen resources and to few people are ordering them and they pull them off the menu.

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And you miss the point that the reason 'too few' people are ordering the chilli is that the chilli was made too hot in the first place. Vicious circle. Again.

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You continue to view this from "What you want".

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No, I view this from the perspective of what makes sense. I don't think you should be so keen to speak for Cryptic - to be fair, you have said it's just your interpretation, but your interpretation doesn't fit the facts.

What Lighthouse actually said:

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The intention of my post was not to dash all hopes of any change in PvP, but to help illustrate why those changes hadn't been a hot topic with design.

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Hadn't been. Not 'are not'. That's not Cryptic saying that PvP is 'irrelevant'. That's Lighthouse explaining what they're busy with right now. And the message we're sending is that it makes no sense to abandon PvP like you seem to think they have.

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Ooo I hadn't thought of that. It would be nice to have some new life breathed into the Posi TF.

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If anyone did the Posi TF while I8 was on Test, they haven't said so.

We still have time.

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Sounds like this might be a targeted gravity effect, since it effected two areas, Faultline Dam *and* Paragon Harbor (new Underwater Zone?)

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I'm guessing Paragon Harbor is that bit to the north of Steel Canyon that's getting expanded into in I9.