Redlynne

A side effect of doing this however is that we might not be able to Endurance Reduction the cost of running our Kheldian Shields using this workaround.

Note that the above was posted on 12-14-2010, 04:02 PM in this very forum. Do a search for the term "unloadgfx" and you can find posts mentioning it as far back as 2006(!!).

As for whether or not the game "surely knows" what details are needed and no longer needed ... all available evidence points to the game client being very STUPID about memory management, at this point, and that it has been for at least the last 5 years. Here's hoping that Second Measure will create a Mission for the Programming Team to go into the Code Matrix and Defeat All Memory Leaks. Extra special bonus points to Second Measure if he makes it a Timed Mission ...

The former of these two, typed in manually will "work" but the latter will not when done as a macro or a keybind. And to be honest, I've never been able to figure out why these things would parse differently whether they're typed into the chat window or produced by a macro/keybind.

Well ... now I've found another one of these "weird discrepancy" behaviors with the /releasepets command.

If I have a Ninja (Jounin) Pet named "Yon" and I manually type in
or even
then only the 1 Pet named "Yon" will dismiss.

But, if I'm using a keybind (from a /bindloadfile) that is
or even
and I use the key combo of Shift + Decimal (on the numpad), then not only "Yon" will be dismissed, but ALL OF MY PETS dismiss ... not just the one that I am directly (attempting) to address to be dismissed.

Note that the exact same formulation for Pet Controls so as to issue commands like Attack/Stay/Defend/Aggressive/Passive/Defensive/Goto all work they way they should regardless of whether those commands are issued via typing in the chat window, or via macro or keybind when addressing them to any combination of all Pets or a singular individual Pet. This makes the "indiscriminate" nature of the /releasepets or /dismiss behavior extremely odd, since they only work "globally" for all Pets and will not work in a targeted/individual fashion.

Needless to say, this seems (to me, anyway) to be a *NEW* behavioral discrepancy between how commands are parsed by the game in Issue 21, as prior to this point I could use my /bindloadfile keybinds to issue /releasepets commands to all of my Pets, specific tiers of pets (Genin, Jounin, Oni, in my case) or even individual Pets by name in Issue 20. And the root cause for this discrepancy appears to be how the game processes commands differently depending on whether they come from the chat window (manually typed) from from a macro or keybind (including keybinds from /bindloadfile).

Request investigation/analysis for why this should be so ... that there are any "differences" between manual typing and the use macros/keybinds to issue what would appear to be Identical Commands to the game.



Also, as a side matter for QA to discover the Root Cause ... when my Ninjas receive a /dismiss or a /releasepets command, they will do their Dismissal animation and vanish (as Ninjas are prone to do) ... but their shadows remain on the ground and are easily visible in (halfway) decent lighting conditions during daytime. What is weird about this is that the shadows of the /dismissed Pets continues to replay, over and over and over again, the animation used for the Dismissal. After *several* repeats of the shadows of my Ninjas doing the /dismiss emote, they will all suddenly "pop" out of sight very suddenly.

This tells me, that for Ninja Pets (at least), there were some ... shortcuts ... taken with the Dismissal animation/emote which yield peculiar behaviors when seen using the better graphics now possible in today's game (ie. better shadows). And while this may not be a high priority/"game breaking" bug, since it's more cosmetic than lethal, it could perhaps point towards something ELSE which it might prove wise to tidy up (if the people responsible for this sort of thing ever are given the opportunity to).

Yet more proof that Black Pebble ought to buy you lunch.

"Yeah, I was ambushed by a dogpile of crazy 5th Columnists, but I managed to escape from them without any trouble."

"Really? How? What did you do?"

"I caught a bus."

"..."

"Y'know ... a bus. At a bus stop."

"..."

"Look, once I was on the bus, I knew they couldn't follow me."

"Is this the part where I'm supposed to swoon and cry out 'My Hero!' as I fall over in a dead faint, because you caught the bus?!?"

The problem with this is that if you can use Pool Powers while shifted, why can't you use Kheldian Powers while shifted ... namely the Bubble Shields. It rapidly devolves into a problem "If This, Why Not That" once you open that can of worms. The ultimate end state of that process then is that the Form Shifts need to wind up losing their signature defining powers (ie. you don't get 4 powers extra with Nova and 6 powers extra with Dwarf) and instead the Forms just wind up applying modifiers to the Base Human Powers instead.

In short ... there's a "you can't get there from here" limitation called The Cottage Rule that is preventing moving in the direction you're advocating, unless you're willing to pull out a Clean Sheet Of Paper and rebuild Peacebringers from scratch ... at which point you're not "tweaking" them anymore, you're engaged in Urban Renewal.

On what grounds? What is the supporting reason/rationale for such a thing, other than "I want it, GIMMIE!" Without a supporting argument, your request literally has no standing.

Quite unnecessary. If anything, Nova Form should have the +45% Damage Buff granted by the form "removed" from the Nova Form Power itself, and instead have the damage values of all of the attack powers used by Nova increased by +45% damage. Basically, "bake in" the Nova Form damage advantage into the attack powers, rather than applying it as a buff for being in the Form.

S imple
E asy
E ffective

... not being done.

Unnecessary ... again ... and also harkening back to the problem of "I want ALL of my powers in ALL of my Forms!" again, which would essentially (once again) require a Clean Sheet Of Paper approach to rebuilding Kheldians from the whiteboard on up into something playable (again).

I will however concede that it would be "nice" if White Dwarf Step were changed away from being a Travel Power copy, since Peacebringers "don't need" another Travel Power beyond Energy Flight, into being something far more akin to Shield Charge. If White Dwarf Step operated like a Shield Charge on a 20 second(!) recharge (as opposed to Shield Defense's 90 second recharge) it would go a tremendously long way towards giving White Dwarf its badly needed 4th Attack Power so as to smooth out the White Dwarf's Attack Chain relative to that of the Black Dwarf for WS.

This is just more extension of the "I want to access ALL of my powers at ALL times!" demand you made in #1. And as I have already said, the only way that is happening is if the Devs go for an Urban Renewal of Peacebringers that involves the Clean Sheet Of Paper approach to development.

Ironically enough, the necessary "tech" to do this sort of thing already exists within the game, courtesy of the Dual Pistols Powerset. It would (of course) require a recoding of pretty much every single Kheldian Power that grants Knockback (greater than zero) so as to account for/accomodate the changes though, but that is "doable" as a project.

Essentially what would happen is Kheldians would be given an Inherent Toggle which would function much like Swap Ammo does for Dual Pistols, which calls for different effects (damage, damage types, mez, debuffs, etc.) depending on whether the Toggle is ON or not. In this case, for Kheldians, it would simply be a matter of:

IF Toggle = ON
THEN Knockback = Full in Powers
ELSE Knockback = +0.67 Maximum in Powers (not including Enhancement)

The underlying game mechanics here is, much like in Dual Pistols, that the Powers Themselves contain the two alternates, and the Toggle "controls" which one of those two alternates is "active" at any given time. And because the controlling Toggle would be an Inherent Power, in the case of Kheldians, rather than a Taken Power, like Swap Ammo is for Dual Pistols ... it could also be coded such that Form Shifting does not "shut off" this Toggle, meaning it could be used not only for Human Form powers, but also for Nova and Dwarf powers equally.

It basically involves a bit of "trickery" and reprogramming/recoding ... but given the example of Dual Pistols, it would seem that this is something that is perfectly POSSIBLE TO DO given existing game tech. It would just require a place on the schedule for the Powers Team to implement it (and the Budget that that would require).

Try 6-slotting Gale with Kinetic Crash and using it as a "Super Scooper" to hurl everything into corners. You get KB Protection (-3 Mag), +Regen and +7.5% Global Recharge out of the combo ... and the KB Mag on your Gale goes high enough to overwhelm most KB Protections, meaning you can toss Cimeroran Traitors around like toy soldiers. Gale is fantastic as a Tier 1 power for */Storm ... so long as you use it and know how and when to use it.

Gee ... you'd almost think that it would have been "smart" of Paragon Studios to recruit some Mac Community Members who are knowlegeable about these things EARLIER IN THE BETA PROCESS so they could have found out about these problems a lot sooner than they did, so they would have had more time to ... y'know ... fix them before going Live. Do we even *HAVE* anyone in our Mac Users Community who fits that description...?

Samuraiko Productions: Now with more AWESOME!!!

What are these "Bases" of which you speak? Are they something in the game? Or are we talking about a pastime sport of the former 'Merikan States that involves hitting a ball into people?