MadScientist

[ QUOTE ]
- A way to ensure they see the MotD periodically more than login.

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I'd certainly like the SG's MOTD to be the last MOTD shown in the chatbox. After all the global channel MOTDs.
Consider that if you change alts, the global channels are all probably on the same message, let them scroll away. Your new char might be in a whole different SG, though.

[ QUOTE ]
-Offline invites: makes pulling all the characters tied to a single account into an SG much easier. It also helps if two people can't always be on at the same time.
-Reverse invite requests/SG applications: For people who want in on an SG. The application should be targetted at the SG itself to minimize in-game spam, and an SG administration panel should allow the leader (or anyone with appropriate "invite" permissions) to accept/deny each application. If an applicant joins another SG, their application should automatically be deleted. An option should exist to close the SG to applications as well for any SG that is full or simply not recruiting.

[/ QUOTE ]

Gah! you beat me to it! I was going to copy that Application idea here, I just couldn't find the original. OK, let's see what I remember, let me expand upon what you wrote....

SG Application / membership requests.
Applicants go to the SG Register and look at the list of SGs. The Register window has an Apply for Membership button to apply to a selected SG. This calls up a small textbox to write a short message to the SG, similar to an LFT comment. Each character can apply to only 1 SG at a time, in that situation the Apply for Membership button instead says Cancel Application with a confirmation dialog. If the applicant joins another SG, it cancels their pending application.
The SG then has a new screen accessed from the SG Settings page. This can be used by anyone with Invite permission. There, they will see each applicant's Name, Archetype, Level, application date and their message. Each can be accepted, rejected, or left sitting there for later. If the SG is full, the accept button greyed out, full SGs don't block people from sending in applications. If accepted or rejected, the applicant will get a System message immediately (or when they log in).
Additional controls should allow a SG to turn off this system if they don't want new members, the button at the Register would grey out. Further, this may be a good time to add the ability to completely hide a SG from the Register list.

Advantages of this system include giving people a standard process to find a SG ("just go to the Register and search"); putting all that Register informaion to good use; and having a way for potential members to come to the SG without needing a SG Member to stand in Mercy Isle and announce themselves on broadcast.

This system would also enable getting your own alts into your SG. Just log on the alt, apply, log on the SG member, accept. Yes, it's an extra step, but if it accomplishes the goal then they won't need to code a way to email invites to your offline alts. (Which is potentially a spam problem.)

(thought I'd already said this, but it's not showing up, pardon me if I repeat myself.)


The additions to the list have slowed down. I think that's a sign it's about done.
Certainly the biggest stuff is on there, and there's always room for discussion later.


I think this was a worthwhile exercise.
Had Ex Libris let the initial thread run, we could have gathered this list from posts there, but it would not have been this easy.
Getting this list up-front should also help get more attention from the Devs than if we did this as the 347th post of the other thread.
This list has also done a good job highlighting existing threads, and showing where new ones had to be made, that should help organize the dicussion.


I thank you all for your help assembling this. I look forward to debating the individual points in the tangent threads.

Why is there a SG thread in the Base forum? Because there's no dedicated spot for talking about SG mechanics, and most of the people in this forum are as concerned about SGs as they are about bases.
There were a lot of SG issues that came up in the Base issues summary post. I figured this was a good place to discuss those in more detail (and to make sure this link got in that post).

(I had this in another thread a week ago or so. I'll repost it here in the more-official thread.)


The big change I'd make is to have 2 rows of tabs. All functional tabs would be 1 row, all decorative tabs in the other.

This is how I would have arranged the decorative menus....
<ul type="square">[*]Architecture - Pillars and stairs. (Stairs are not something I think of as a "detail", they're part of the room itself.) Floor Tiles can go here, too.[*]Tables - including Desks, Counters. Any large, flat surface that normally has stuff placed on it, even if you can't actually put something on top of the version in-game (like the SG Logo Tables)[*]Cabinets/Shelves - bookcases, wall-mounted cabinets, etc.[*]Furnature - mostly Chairs, but also the Beds.[*]Lighting (as it is now)[*]Small Details - anything that's small enough to put on a table. Phone, lab rack, papers, etc. Small Wall-mounted details would go here, too, such as vents and the fire extinguisher.[*]Large Details - anything that's usually put on the floor. Safe, plants, copier, etc. Large wall details go here, too, such as SG Banners.[/list]

Tech, Sewer, Arcane all work nicely as themed sets. I like the idea of grouping by theme. Maybe adding a few more groups could cut down the amount of horizontal scrolling in the other lists. You could add...<ul type="square">[*]Office - the pre-decorated desks, cubicle, copier, recycle bin, board room table (which helps, since it's tough to file as either Table or Seating above)[*]Supergroup - for all the Logo items[/list]Perhaps have 3 rows of tabs - Functional, Grouped, General Decorative.


So that's what I would do to clean up the item inventory. How about you? What do you think should be rearranged in the editor to make it easier to find?

The Resistance buffs are 2.5%, if I recall. (Correct that if I'm wrong.)

Perhaps the Devs fear is that making too good Resistances would lead to people buffing up this way and belittling the effects of armor sets, Rugged and various teammate buffs.

How about a different balance then a low percent?

Make the typed Resistances 15%, but limit you to having 1 at a time.
So you can buff up against Energy if you're about to take on Luminary, and it will be a noticable buff. But you can't also buff up on Lethal at the same time to protect you from the Freakshow that are hanging out in the room with her.

I think the biggest issue here is this[ QUOTE ]
Storage permissions don't match how most groups want to use them.

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Most people who come to this forum to talk about storage want a way to set different permissions for different people. Certain stored objects can be more public, others require a bit more trust in the SG members.

Certainly it's odd to treat storage all-or-nothing when it comes to permissions given the huge list of little things a SG can give permission for. You can change the SG Colors but not our Chest Logo. You can change the MOTD, but not the Motto. Yet storage is very broad.


Now a lot of people ask for Inspiration less secure than Enhancement, or things like that. That is a *subset* of the issue here. It's asking for &lt;This&gt; Storage to be different security than &lt;That&gt; Storage. Whether &lt;This&gt; and &lt;That&gt; are different types or the same type shouldn't matter and should not limit the solution. If this is going to get coding time, I'd hope it gets a solution that useful for the majority of groups. Permission by type would not be very useful to all the people who want Large Insps different from Small Insps, however a system by bin can easily have eacy type of bin given the same setting if that's what your group desires.


So how about a system by bin? How would that work?
The SG Security permission would be changed to "Set Storage Permission."
Each storage item then has a Settings button near the Log button. (Or in place of it, move the Log access onto the settings screen if you only want 1 button.)
The Settings Screen then has the 5 ranks with Add and Remove permission, which can be changed by people with the SG permission.
The Settings Screen could also have that short text message people ask for to label storage bins.


The slightly less complex solution would be 2 sets of Storage objects.
Most of the time I see posts talking about the idea setup as No Permission -&gt; Some Permission -&gt; All Permission. Instead of the current None -&gt; All.
Focusing just on that setup a minute, there may be a simpler solution: 2 groups of bins. One group of bins you can give permission to the people with "Some Access" and the other group of bins you hold off for only the people with "All Access".
This setup allows the often requested permission by type (just choose the first set of bins for one type of storage, the 2nd set of bins for the other) as well as a multitude of other setups. Yes, it's not infinitely flexible like the settings per bin, but we only have 5 security ranks, how much resolution can fit in there? It would definitely meet *most* group's needs for splitting storage permissions.
From a code point of view, this may be extremely easy. Make a new SG Permission just like the old one. Make a new set of bins just like the old ones except change which permission they check against. Sounds like a lot of copy+paste, instead of coding a whole new interface window. It's a huge bang for the buck.


Why is this all so important? It's not really about Leader Privledge. The trouble with storage comes down to trust and education. Can you trust this person who you only know as an avatar to not be gluttonous and take the SGs stuff? Can you teach this other person that bringing every IO to the auction house is not the best way to fund his costume change? Its hard to do that if you expose everything at once. Opening up some storage, however, is a way to identify potential problems early.

[ QUOTE ]
I wish they would stack also.

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I wish they were strong enough that we didn't consider needing to stack them.

can't believe we didn't have one of these with the amount of discussion we have about Storage. So here's a place to focus some feedback on the storage issues.

For reference, these were included in the summary of Base issues.
<ul type="square">[*]Inability to edit while people use Storage, because storage keeps repainting the base and resetting your edit[*]Storage needs to be sortable, or simply default sorted by item instead of by time (such as using the same sort order as an NPC store)[*]Storage permissions don't match how most groups want to use them. Some enhancers should be more secure than others, and so on. (Permission by table would be ideal, a whole tier of more-secure tables would probably give enough flexibility to be useful.) In general, the all-or-nothing nature of the permission, combined with the need to educate new SG members makes it difficult to trust people with any storage permission at all.[*]Storage log can be spammed to remove history - should something be guaranteed to exist for a length of time before being pushed off the list?[*]Storage doesn't always remember who placed an item, and definitely forgets it all if you move the storage to a new room.[*]Lack of a way to pool Invention Salvage and Recipe resources among a SG. Thouse should have SG Storage items.[*]Whatever happened to seeing Storage from a Worktable/Empowerment?[*]Adding more personal storage would prevent people from trying to retask group storage for personal means[*]Inf storage[*]Text labels on Storage item interface since people have many systems for how to file their group's items (eg, "Magic Enhancers only in here")[/list]

Are Empowerment recipes too boring? Most of what Empowerment does is duplicatable (or even done better) by Inspirations.

The only "unique" things they have are...
Grant Invis
End Drain Resist
Regen
Recovery
Travel Buff (and those are way too weak.)

Would more unique recipes be useful?

[ QUOTE ]
_Ilr_'s exploit is essentially this:

You're a level 50 /SR scrapper, and you want to beat up people in bloody bay. Get yourself killed, hosp to base, pop elude, and zone in.

The elude effects are still there waiting for you when you zone in.

Now, you could still do the same thing from the regular zone entrance, but with bases you can essentially pop up anywhere in the zone, sans 30-45 seconds of your buff due to zoning and the PvP countdown.

[/ QUOTE ]

That part I bolded is telling me this is totally possible from ANYWHERE. That could also include hopping inside a PVP zone mission, firing Elude there, and hopping back out to the zone - an even easier exploit since you don't have to die to use it.

This is a PVP issue, not a Base issue. Bases do not enable this exploit, nor do they make it any worse (eg, you still have a 30 second countdown timer upon zoning from your base).

[ QUOTE ]
(I'm more than Happy to Repost it if you honestly overlooked it somehow)

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yeah, I've never seen this list before. Sorry bout that. (and to share blame, 2 people PM'd me and asked how they can help and I suggested they scour the recent posts for what I missed.)

[ QUOTE ][*]"Going to Hospital" in a PvP Zone... allows multiple Teir-9, INSP, and Buff exploits. FIX 1ST PLZ

[/ QUOTE ]
ooooh, that's a new one. Are you saying going to your base acts different than stepping outside a PVP zone to the city zone? (If city zones have the same problem then it's not really a base problem, it's a PVP problem.) I'm not sure how to phrase this as a base problem.

as for "fix 1st", the summary list has no priority other than Bug/Flaw/Wish. and this would certainly sound like a bug. I can't start playing favorites.

[ QUOTE ][*]Item of Power: Mez Protection -- Way way overpowered. Plz tone it down before allowing CoP again

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I'd hope that's already obvious. or that we'd at least throw fits when it's on Test. (if it's ever returning.) but good catch, worth going on record here.

[ QUOTE ][*]We don't need Base-Raiding while PvP's still so Unbalanced, just fix the CoP for PvE.

[/ QUOTE ]
A) the COP *is* a PVE challenge.
B) when it was live, it didn't open up the SRS yet.
so C) this is more of a PVP balance problem, and I don't really want to go down that tangent here since we have PVP boards for it. (SG Stuff doesn't have another home.)
I'll fit in some mention, though...

[ QUOTE ][*]Track "Damage-Mitigation"... Healing shouldn't be the only Metric used to gain an Insp store!!

[/ QUOTE ]
um... Snow_Globe, you're the master of the Badge Issues thread. Want to take that one into your realm?


[ QUOTE ][*]where's the NEXT upgrade to the Medi-Doc store? LUCKS &amp; BREAKFREES are more necessary 30+ game!

[/ QUOTE ]
Breaks are in the Combat Log. As for needing upgrades to *that*, already mentioned.

[ QUOTE ][*]Too much Base Invention JUNK, no reason for there to be that many different kinds of Salvage

[/ QUOTE ]
You want them to spend coding time removing something that's not bugged? The base salvage system is nowhere near as complex or nitpicky as the Invention salvage system. I'm not understanding your problem here.

[ QUOTE ][*]needed: Coalition access to Storage or Cross-Coalition "community bins".

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I hate to say "never going to happen" but... well... never going to happen. You're not going to find a SG that places a storage bin and leaves access to it dictated by who the *other* SG invites/promotes. We have enough ways to grief a SG thru storage already.
But, my personal take aside, this too much of a specific item request to put in a summary post. Please take it to the Items We'd Like To See thread, or the Storage tangent thread.


on your Empowerment request... again, bit too specific, but you raise a good example of how Empowerment doesn't do a lot that's unique and interesting. It's mostly mimicking a partial Rugged effect.
Lemme start an Empowerment tangent thread. take that there, please.

Tangent threads are a good thing - they're a place for a Dev to focus on a discussion that would probably be burried if we had conversations on all the larger topics stepping all over each other in a single thread.

Pardon me for being blunt...
Why do so many people think Empowerment Stations suck?

gonna be brief, I see a lot of posts to catch up on....

on kicks...[ QUOTE ]
Those would benefit from being slightly longer and without a Details link (if Ex is going to be taking this list to the devs, I don't think she's going to be able to click a link on a piece of printed paper).

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I rephrased them. I'm gonna leave the details link for now (proof, reproducability, whatever) but make it clear to Ex Libris they're not essential like the tangent discussions are.

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To avoid hoarding (which the devs don't want) this item should be limited to one per base (so a single SG can keep, say, 50 recipes and 100 invention salvage in their base).

[/ QUOTE ]
That's the type of situation of a specific solution detail that's not terribly important to solving the problem. I'm trying to keep such details out of the summary unless they illustrate how the solution would help.
It's better to just leave the problem and let the Devs decide how to balance the amount of storage space. (we have the Test Server to say "30 recipes per 150k bin will lead to hording you need to make this 1-per-plot instead.")
I'd hate to see a Dev get caught up on a non-essential piece like 1-per-base and have that complicate or delay a possible solution.




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The way it's set right now, nobody will complain about having to do a lot of work because they really really want the combat logs, it's just an extra.

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It's still an issue people raise. Again, I'll let the Devs decide how to address it. Maybe they can make it more interesting without crossing that line to essential and better-then-the-AutoDoc.



[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
How can base editing be "tiered" to allow different amounts of access to different ranks?

[/ QUOTE ]Or simply, "this room can be edited by Leaders only. This room can be edited by Members and up". Attach the edit permission to the room itself.

[/ QUOTE ]
yeah, that would address the issue and allow different amounts of access to different ranks. Again, Dev decision. The place to debate the merits of each setup is really in the tangent thread for the base editor.


[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
# Total loss of Personal Items upon deletion. This is a big factor in the previous problem of not enough people being trusted to edit the base.

[/ QUOTE ]
This was made to avoid someone crafting the AutoDoc (or other unlockable items) in a big SG, then joining a small SG without the requirements and dropping it there. Harsh? Sure. But that's the reason.

[/ QUOTE ]
Nope, talking about the problem that if I remove the AutoDoc from my base it evaporates and I need to re-craft it. Not about deleting things from Personal *Inventory*. Seems the original point may be unclear.



[ QUOTE ]
this suggestion

[/ QUOTE ]
Like other suggestions, that should file in the Base Items We'd Like To See thread, and not in a generalized summary thread. This summary list is to help call attention to that other thread. (This keeps from either bloating the list with minutiae, or having to make an evaluation of whether each suggested item is worth listing.)
I'll tweak the category list from "grass" to "outdoor" though, so I'm not accused of totally ignoring ideas.

[ QUOTE ]
Add one word:
* Placement of decorative items (including Trim) in doorway squares

[/ QUOTE ]
Assuming they don't make other types of items to place there, such as actual doors.

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[ QUOTE ]
Costs were balanced for a 75 player SG, but most groups are only 75 CHARACTERS, not players, so costs are too high for "full" groups. (This is a flaw in recognizing how players utilize SG Rosters and Alts. Perhaps the solution is not to change costs, but to fix the rosters?)

[/ QUOTE ]

Not to drudge up this old horse again, but changing the cap from 75 characters to 75 accounts will do little if anything at all for small and medium sized groups. IMO the cost issue is more a direct result of these parts:

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A smaller group isn't running up against the roster problem, though.
Maybe that's where the bullet point wasn't clear. This isn't so much a general cost issue, it's a problem with the things like the Fusion Generator badge which were balanced as "for a group of 75 it's only 10 kills per person". I'll rephrase it to focus just on top-end stuff.

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[ QUOTE ]
There is no tangible benefit to supergroups working as a group. Such as bonuses teaming with your SG.

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As mentioned in the threads about this (IIRC you were the one who suggested it), there should be a bonus for teaming with your SG mates.

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I think you're referenceing the SG Mission thread. In that case, I wrote it more to say "SG Missions shouldn't require SG Teams, but should reward them when they're used." The bullet point is simply a generalization of that. People have often said SGs are just glorified chatrooms.

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Were members able to still earn prestige without having to worry about a loss to influence gain, SG/VG prestige earnings would be a lot less of a headache.

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yeah, but somehow I doubt the Devs would rethink that whole system at this point. I'll make mention of it, though.

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She clearly stated that the requests must be short, concise, and in orderly form to prevent the thread from degenerating and to be handled efficiently.

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note also the way the Devs have done this in the past. Such as the Bug threads in their own board during Issue Testing, as compared to the major amount of discussion thread in the normal Issue board. IMHO, I was surprised Ex Libris even posted the request in this forum the way she did, knowing how much she likes short, organized lists to pass to the Devs.

_Ilr_, what is it you think is missing? there's a lot of ideas out there, things can get missed. that's why this is a *draft* still.
heck, it's sounding like I missed your whole post! (especially if the things you see were duplicated by other people.) sorry about that. Please understand there's a lot of informaiton out there, and I did some of this late last night. Which post is it? I'll get it into this draft.

as for a big chunk being SG stuff... I count 116 total bullets, 23 of which are SG, and not all of those 23 are completely independent of base issues. (look at how much base building discussion is tied to how large a player's SG is.) other people have posted SG issues they'd like in the thread, I don't want to eliminate your ideas, I don't want to eliminate their SG ideas. The only thing I'm leaving out is detailed tangental discussion that would bog down a summary post, and that gets a link so it's not completely lost.

This list isn't trying to exclude anything. Nor does it exclude other posts. But collecting all those thoughts in one place makes it easier to get Dev attention, hence why Ex Libris agreed to the original idea to pause the first thread while we gathered.

[ QUOTE ]
MS you want me to upload the doc tonight, or email you it today so you can look it over.

[/ QUOTE ]

let's archive what finally gets posted to Ex Libris's thread. Not just this collective post, but also any anything else that gets put there.
and who knows... there may actually be some red-name discussion in that thread that's worth saving, too.

[ QUOTE ]
Great work MadScientist,...

[/ QUOTE ]

/em sheepish...
well, this is technically the, what, 4th revision of a list I've had since around Issue 7. so it's not like I pulled it all out of thin air. and it wouldn't exist at all without a board full of posts to collect it from.

[ QUOTE ]
How about an entrence aux item ...

[/ QUOTE ]

devil's advocate here a moment.
why ask to add an Aux item, and to alter the Portal to accept an Aux attachment (which obviously can't be easy to code seeing how long the Rez Rings have been broken) and have it work together to change the entrance's menu?
why not just come in this thread and ask "How about making the entrance take you to other bases, too?"

I want those targeting dummies that are in the RWZ armory. The ones that I can hit with Siphon Speed.
Add to that the items on the targeting range in Agincourt (photo coming later) and you could build your own danger room.
Could the code that makes the Rikti Dummies shootable be applied to the Agincourt Targets?
What else in the game is shootable but not destroyable? (other than NPCs in Mayhems.)

Thinking this may be too long,
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Would it be possible to have a bit more Developer presence in this forum? There are a number of questions raised frequently that would be easily settled with some understanding of your design goals, or your view of the entire system. Some of what we list here as flaws may be working as intended, but we don't understand why. Some good suggestions may be completely uncodable and a simple explanation of that would stop people from harping on them. (Something like the "not a current issue" section of the Badge Issues thread - a short answer from Positron silenced much of the talk about the sorting in the badge window.) It would be very interesting to get Dev feedback on this list, to know which issues you consider most important.

[/ QUOTE ]

Would it be possible to have more Developer presence in this forum? We could provide better feedback if we knew your design goals. And sometimes a short explanation from a Dev can clear up debates quickly.


(Not that there was anything wrong with the long version, but I don't want it to overshadow the previous paragraph. Getting more official feedback threads would, IMHO, be the single best way to improve future base development.)
Thoughts?

Yeah, good idea.

I think we're close to being done. I'd love to have this finished by tomorrow. Right now it has to be good, not perfect, and we're about there.

Maybe you should ask Ex Libris to lock this thread, too, to focus discussion on that new draft?

When you place a new room, it should enter play with the styles, tint and lighting of the room you're currently standing in (instead of defaulting to Tech 1). That's an easy way to apply the style of your base to a new room, without having to use the button that overwrites that one room that was in a different color, or having to figure out why the lighting looks a bit off in that one new room.

[ QUOTE ]
A "room holder" that allows a room and all of its contents to be held outside of the plot temporarily. This is to help re-arrange rooms in a "full" plot without having to delete and rebuild from scratch.

[/ QUOTE ]
that just strikes me as insanely complex. What if you leave the editor with a room being held? What if you crash out of the game while in the editor with a room being held?
Is it better to just deal with the reluctance to delete rooms? Stop trashing crafted items when they're removed!

Let me wrap this in with your Copy Room idea, though, and propose this...
Add ways to save and use architectural plans.
The problems with copy and off-plot clipboards is that things can still be "in play". Move the room copy out of play.
Save a version of the room in a pre-made room lists. Now you can create a copy from there. for moving, you don't need to worry about picking up a room and shuffling it to a sandbox area, you simply trash the room and then (if you want) recreate it from the saved plans.
this also would help undo massive base editing, you could save and restore old versions of the rooms if you don't like the new look. (or if a SG Member went and trashed it all.)
Take it a step further... maybe SG members can create rooms in that listing (a simulator type of base editor) and only certain people in the SG can put them into play. Now anyone can create a base design, but only Leaders could change the actual base. What would that do for edit permission?

[ QUOTE ]
A "copy item" button. Does not have to work with crafted items. Creates a copy of the selected item, with the same facing/orientation.

[/ QUOTE ]
That's an interesting and simple way to handle a "Favorites" shortcut to get many of the same item. I like.