fuzzy_chainsaw

[ QUOTE ]
Gilgamesh has a replacement, though no one will ever be able to fill his shoes.

[/ QUOTE ]

Because he stole them along with all the other office supplies (I swear there was a cubicle wall here just a minute ago...)?

Thanks for all the great articles. You added a whole lot of flavour to the game. (fondly remembers blimp story)

Woo! Juan's gone!

Now he won't be able to send lowbie on that "bust 10 vahz for a photo op/article" mission... BWAhahaha

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Ritiki bosses all switch to S/L / Ene once you close. CoT it really depends but even many of them will switch to S/L in melee. DE is almost all S/L with only a few using Toxic, at range again in melee they go S/L. Council use some fire and sonic but the vast majority are S/L.

[/ QUOTE ]

Ok, you pick! I just got to level 40 last week, and am taking on Carnies and Preatorians. Again, at Invincible, teamed and solo. You tell me what group is too tough for a tanker and I'll do some missions and see if it's possible. At some point it becomes objectively clear that "Tankers are not viable anymore" is not a true statement!

Say "Tanking the way I like isn't viable anymore" and no-one could disprove you unless you made an honest effort at co-operation. But the original statement just isn't true.

[ QUOTE ]
No actually unlike you I play a game called city of Heroes maybe you should try it.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm all for some good trash talk but this just doesn't make sense. What exactly would you call the game I'm describing, where you have to use all of your ingenuity, powers and teamwork to overcome impossible odds?

[/ QUOTE ]

Mother Mayhem would likely be the most difficult at the 45-50 range. Psychic Clock King between 40-45. A mission with mainly psychic attacks (and some psy/smash) would be the best test of the mad skills.

Now, one thing that the poster that SM replied to noted... that many switch to smash/lethal. Most do. It's a challenge to find those that don't. So... isn't it silly to base the argument on the exception to the rule rather than the rule (that you'll be mainly up against smash/Lethal)?

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Semblance of balance among the AT's in general, barring the notable anomolies of SR and Ice.

[/ QUOTE ]

i haven't looked recently, but i think the bubblers were underwhelmed, many
defenders (the ones with controller secondaries) were a little grumpy, DDDs
seemed a bit peeved, many invuln tanks weren't ecstatic about becoming
mandatory-herding-defense-tanks, and so on.

[/ QUOTE ]

*looks at my sig* Yup. Bubblers were hit. Somehow I'm still fine with it, though. I'm also not underperforming with my big three.

Many bubblers were underwhelmed. Mainly because the big 3 got hit and the rest of their powers are situational. The big three, though, *were* too powerful, IMO. Sure, there were situations which negate the bubles or reduced their effectiveness, but the majority of situations left me feeling like the group was on easy mode.

As for the other ones... when seen as a whole and in how things inter-relate to everything else then the semblance of balance remains. I've never said complete balance. Just semblance of balance.

sem·blance n.

1. An outward or token appearance: “Foolish men mistake transitory semblance for eternal fact” (Thomas Carlyle).
2. A representation; a copy.
3. The barest trace; a modicum: not a semblance of truth to the story.



[ QUOTE ]
you'll forgive me if i think "a semblance of balance except for those folks left
out in the cold" doesn't really cut it. global changes of this magnitude
should not leave ANYONE out. i don't think it's acceptible to say "things
are pretty good except for you folks over in the corner, but not to worry,
we'll think about you RSN." uh-uh. if there are ANY folks "over there
in the corner" then these changes are premature and shouldn't have been
rolled out.

[/ QUOTE ]

Note above definition of semblance. Additionally, I agree that the semblance doesn't cut it. We should be seeing things continually rebalanced both up and down, imo. Balance is a continual process, like someone riding a unicycle on a teeter-totter, rather than an absolute value.

Things have the appearance of balance, but really there's no appearance or even a barest trace of balance for SR and Ice.

What we do have is an outward or token appearance of balance instead of gross imbalance that there was before. No, it's not all good. Never will be, though. No, not everyone is satisfied. This would never happen. Yes, it's a semblance. No, it's not the finished product.

Agreed on the whole "don't roll out the changes while some people are left in the corner" parts. Not the best of form. But this is the problem with blanket changes. Someone *always* gets hit whenever there's a blanket change, simply because they are the exception.

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In I4 every tank I grouped with post-30 had the game set to Invincible. Every tank that had a lower difficulty either didn't know how to increase it or wasn't a good player (would consistantly forget to turn on toggles, would rush things before turning on toggles, etc.). In I5 far fewer are on Invincible. The highest difficulty setting now represents a degree of difficulty for players. Sounds like some semblance of balance has been found, even though it was through painful nerfs.


[/ QUOTE ]

my icer (low 30s) wasn't because Invincible + Ice Primary = Missions That
Take About A Week If You Do Them Solo. and a "semblance of balance" only
works if you acknowledge that it means some characters now bring nothing
of value to any team while others have an easier time at all difficulty levels.
which isn't my understanding of basic english, but maybe i missed a meeting.

[/ QUOTE ]

My bad. Forgot to re-add in the bit about excluding Ice when talking about tanker balance (it was in an earlier post of mine). In fairness I should also add in that I haven't seen a post-40 ice tank that wasn't PL'd to post-40. Ever.

Semblance of balance among the AT's in general, barring the notable anomolies of SR and Ice.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Thanks States, great work on I5!

I was skeptical of the changes when they first went to test but I've been completely suprised by how well they added the fun back into the game. Good work. The new missions and new zone are fantastic.

[/ QUOTE ]

hey jack needs his laundry done and his dry cleaning picked up hurry im sure you can do that for him too. and you should practice the animal house battle cry and stance BEND OVER AN SCREAM THANK YOU SIR CAN I HAVE ANOTHER

[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah! Because, you know, heaven forbid someone have a differing opinion from yours. Heaven forbid that just because you don't like something their opinions would remain valid.

It's amazing mow many people who don't like I5 tend to resort immediately to personal attacks or fanboy/suckup references on people that like I5. Yeah, this goes both ways... (those that like I5 and those that don't) But it seems like more people call out personal attacks against those that support I5.

Ad hominem much?

[ QUOTE ]
Have you considered what it is to be a post-40 Invul tank who wants to solo?

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm imagining it's almost like anyone else post-40 that wants to solo, now.

[ QUOTE ]
Have you read the plethora of posts in the Tanker forum agreeing that Invul needed to be toned down, but not [censored]?

[/ QUOTE ]

Yep.

[ QUOTE ]
Are you aware that Fire and Stone both have better non Smash/Lethal resistances than Invul?

[/ QUOTE ]

Are you aware that there's more to being a tank than just raw resists? Fire also has damage but lacks defense. Stone can get those higher resists but at the cost of speed, recharge, and defense. Stone can basically choose S/L defense OR resist but can't have both at the same time

[ QUOTE ]
Invulnerablility was designed originally as a Resistance based powerset. Now, once you get Invincibility, it becomes a Defense based powerset. This isn't a change of tactics. This is a destruction of concept. You cannot build a playable Invulnerability Tanker whose concept is to stand there and take damage for a team. Not after lvl 20. What's more, is that in order to maximize the defense bonus for Invincibility, you have to herd. Have to herd. Believe it or not, there are Tankers who don't like to herd!

[/ QUOTE ]

So... A set with mainly resistance powers, but with some decent defense powers is a resistance powerset. Well, hate to tell you this but maybe you're not correct about that anymore. Maybe it's original design still stands today but people didn't see the benefit of the defense side of things until both were scaled back. Maybe it's supposed to be a resist/defense set, was designed that way, and people just focused heavily on the resist side.

Destruction of concept is unfortunate. However, the whole 'stand and take damage' seems pretty lazy, really. Now tanks have to be more active. You know, like everyone else. The tank that just stood around soaking up damage and taunt-botting always struck me as something of a useful xp sponge, but not much more than that though.

From a design perspective keeping an overpowered poewrset as it is in order to preserve the concept characters is absurd. Unfortunately for those concept builds, though.

[ QUOTE ]
I don't like to herd. I don't like PvP. I loved playing Tankers. I5 screwed me. I got the impression that you don't play Tanks. If you don't, then don't bother to tell me what you think my favorite AT needs. I get enough of that from Jack Emmert.

[/ QUOTE ]

You know, while herding wasn't specifically stated in my post it was implied. However... the point still stands; an I4 tank could handle the agro for multiple 8-man invince spawns. Multiple being more than one, up to and including every spawn on the map. But generally 2-4 spawns was a cakewalk for almost every tank I grouped with. Just about any non-ice, non-concept build (which are almost always exceptions to the rule as it is) tank could do this and stand a better-than-even chance of coming away relatively unscathed. This is unbalanced no matter which way it is turned or spun. Now the game off of easy mode for most builds. Some builds can still be uber, or a reasonable facsimile thereof. Even those builds, though, have to take a more active role in groups, now.

And PvP... can take it or leave it. It's never been my thing. I, therefore, haven't commented on it because I'm not qualified to comment on it on anythign other than general terms (lots of pvp experience elsewhere but none in CoH).

In I4 every tank I grouped with post-30 had the game set to Invincible. Every tank that had a lower difficulty either didn't know how to increase it or wasn't a good player (would consistantly forget to turn on toggles, would rush things before turning on toggles, etc.). In I5 far fewer are on Invincible. The highest difficulty setting now represents a degree of difficulty for players. Sounds like some semblance of balance has been found, even though it was through painful nerfs.

Oh, and I do play tanks. They were just so boring and easy to play before that they never held my attention long. Then... My highest was an Invince/Stone, set to invince at 20, retired at 34 because it was WAY too easy. Sure, things like Malta and Carnies would have made the 40+ game more challenging, but... meh. Couldn't be bothered to take it that far simply because of how easy it was before. Now... I rolled a couple of tanks, an Ice/Mace out of masochistic curiousity and Stone/Energy on coolness (Granite + Total Focus = one of my favorite visuals in the game).

Wow. Just... wow...

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
First, a big thank you to everyone who played on the Training Room server and helped I5 to be one of our best launches ever! We’re extremely happy about how I5 went live.

Second, we’re still scouring the boards for bugs and other issues, but we’ve finished making large changes to the power sets. We’ll still be looking at issues as the arise. For instance, there are issues with Defense builds; we’re going to look at that problem more carefully (the Damage Resistance Inspirations are a step, but there's a little more to come).

Thanks for all your great feedback!

[/ QUOTE ]

bolded for emphisis

oh reeeeeeealy?

Soi gues Enervating Field, Stealth, Phase Shift, Quantum Flight, Nebulos Form, uh i miss any?

Arent power sets.

[/ QUOTE ]

No, those individual powers do not constitute powersets. However, when you change a power within a powerset (this would by simple extension include power pools and inherents) you change the set.

[ QUOTE ]
I gues LYING about reducing EF,even goign so far as to pot inthe past notes "changes to EF shave been coming in since I2, still not true" your own words, not mine. the stating in the "missing patch notes" "EF change to be brough in line with similar powers cause it was over powered, done at the begining of I5" again your own words isnt a Change toa power set?

[/ QUOTE ]

You put it in quotes, yet I highly doubt those are his own words simply because I've never seen any of the developers use such atrocious spelling or grammar. That would be misquoting.

[ QUOTE ]
i guess reducing the STEATH AND DEFENSE component of STEALTH and makingit non STACKABLE dont count as changes?

making phase, QF and NF timed toggles that shut off or increase their end cost affet X seconds dont count as changes?

REAAAAAAAAAAAALLLLLY that interesting, you know in the legan system saying one thing in print that a complete and total lie is called libal. And while it is often used in the terms of defimation of character the essense emains the same.

You need to have somoen approve your posts Jack because what your saying is a direct contrdiction to what your doing.

and thats

Simple
As
Fact

[/ QUOTE ]

You know, I'm often not one for direct flaming but what the deuce are you smoking?

Simple concept. Unless you want something in legalese you often have to say things in such a way that reading comprehension will fill in the gaps.

So when an individual power is changed, and that power is part of a powerset... it's a very simple step to say that the powerset has been changed.

When something is said in print *about a person* that is a direct and intentionally malicious in nature it is libel. When someone lies it's dishonest but far from illegal.

Additionally, I'd rather have a human being posting on the boards, unfiltered and making mistakes, than a corporate entity posting only filtered stuff. Yeah, mistakes and miscommunications happen but at least when this happens it's a human element in an already de-humanized environment.

-----------------

As for the I5 changes... Some hurt, but some were sorely needed. I list Force Fields and Tanks (with the exception of Ice Tanks) as having need of toning down. Force Fields through experience and Tanks through inference.

The big three in FF were too powerful, from a balance perspective. When I'm on a team it's like switching the game to cheat codes. Honest and true. The only enemies I *ever* had a problem with was the rularuu and auto-hitters (Envoy of Shadows in particular). What hurt about FF is that the situational nature of every power outside of the big three and over-reliance on knockback. I can't think of any powerset in which the great body of people who have used it for any extended amount of time don't see the overwhelming advantage to investing heavily in the primary set. Honestly, I'd like to see the decision to take or not take powers become tougher.

And for tanks... this is something of a strange one for me. I've always seen them as overpowered. They were the only class in the game in which there was never really any desire to have more than one on the team. One tank could usually handle the agro for multiple 8-man spawns. Any more than one tank and things were usually so easy that the rest of the team could toss the occasional buff and let the blasters and tanks and scrappers mop everything up.

Any class that has a 90% resistance to the most common forms of damage *and* a way to avoid getting hit at all is quite simply overpowered. Yeah, you may have felt super. This is all well and good... but it was far too easy. It's like playing on cheat mode.

Any class that can herd and take down an entire 8-man spawn at the level cap and on the highest difficulty setting needs serious looking at and rebalancing. Sometimes it's hard to objectively look at something you have such an emotional investment in. And it is quite hard to see your character brought down to the level where they're only *sometimes* the star of the show instead of being the star and sole actor, for the most part.

Now we're at a point when the tank can't hold agro with ease for the entire team. When the team has to support the tank and the tank has to support the team. So far all the tanks I've regularly grouped with have adapted to the new situation. They're thriving. The basic difference is that they simply looked at the new environment, adopted new tactics that were more appropriate to the situations, and are now thriving like ever before. Just not quite as show-stopping.

The tanks I've grouped with that have been having trouble are universally attempting to force their old tactics to work in new situations. These are also the ones that I've noticed complained more about I5 than anyone else. Lots of people are now using multiple tactics instead of the simple (and boring for me) tactic of buff tank, tank goes in, wait for mission complete.

One change that I'd like to see for tanks that would likely make their jobs a whole lot easier would be to allow Gauntlet to be slotted for Taunt Duration.

As it stands, though, people are still able to do their jobs. In group environments, though, they just need to adopt different tactics and actually work together. You know, be a group.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
It's just a badge. If I'm missing something here, please fill me in. Otherwise you're just coming accross as a whining rules lawyer who's upset that theey didn't see something that they aren't obligated to point out.

Note that in the EULA you accept before playing the game includes a gem like this:

[ QUOTE ]
THE SERVICE, THE SOFTWARE, THE ACCOUNT, THE CITY OF HEROES GAME AND ALL OTHER SERVICES ARE PROVIDED ON AN "AS IS" BASIS, PROVIDED AT YOUR OWN RISK, AND TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, NC INTERACTIVE HEREBY EXPRESSLY DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, WRITTEN OR ORAL, EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR STATUTORY, INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION ANY IMPLIED WARRANTY OF TITLE, NONINFRINGEMENT, MERCHANTABILITY, QUIET ENJOYMENT, ACCURACY, OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. Without limiting the foregoing, NC Interactive does not ensure continuous, error-free, secure or virus-free operation of the Service, the Software, your Account or City of Heroes, and you understand that you shall not be entitled to refunds for fees based on NC Interactive’s failure to provide any of the foregoing . Some states do not allow the disclaimer of implied warranties, and to that extent, the foregoing disclaimer may not apply to you. This warranty gives you specific legal rights and you may also have other legal rights that vary from state to state

[/ QUOTE ]
(emphasis mine)

[/ QUOTE ]
You did not emphasize the rest of this sentence:
, and you understand that you shall not be entitled to refunds for fees based on NC Interactive’s failure to provide any of the foregoing.

This is the reason that those lines are in the EULA.

If there is a bug that is preventing you from completing a mission, getting a badge, crashing the game, erasing your character or whatever, it is up to the devs to fix the problem, and up to the GMs to decide if they will remedy your situtation. Whether or not they do so has nothing to do with the language in the EULA, which simply says that you cannot get a refund.

[/ QUOTE ]

While that's the reason there's also the important wording involved in the use of the word 'and'.

It states that the program is provided AS IS, that NC Interactive does not ensure..., and that you understand that you shall not be entitled...

The wording seems to indicate that both are not necessarily inclusive of each other.

Hell, in the As Is section it even lists Quiet Enjoyment in the implied warranty bit.

So the bit following the As Is seems to indicate that they are two seperate but connected things more than one thing that cannot be seperated. That's how I read it. You may have read it differently.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
You know, there's a good chance that the known issues weren't put in large flashing bold letters because they really do affect a small portion of the population.

[/ QUOTE ]

That's the same kind of elitist thinking that is indicative of self-righteous conceit. Right, just because it doesn't affect the masses, it isn't important. So I suppose just because AIDS infects 0.6% of the US population (http://www.avert.org/aids-america.htm), it's not worth warning people about. A stretch? Maybe, but relevant by your standards.

[/ QUOTE ]

No, it's both a *very* large stretch (known as the fallacy of Goal-Post shifting) and irrelevant.

The only people this particular known issue affects are those that A) are level 45+, B) know about the task force, C) have tried to do the task force since I5 was released, and D) didn't read the known issues page. The worst consequence of doing this tf successfully is in not getting a badge.

Whereas with AIDS... the worst consequence is death and unknowing transmission (leading to more deaths).

If you want to see how much of a stretch your analogy is just take this same argument to a message board for people with AIDS. Let's see how well that's received there.

Just because it doesn't affect the masses isn't the sole reason, but it's up there. The rest of the post also hammered in that those the bug has affected has done so in what is ultimately a trivial way. You didn't get a badge. That's it. It's not like you're going to DIE because you didn't get the badge. And if you do die because of that... well... you've just become fodder for tabloids.


Self-righteous? Conceit? Maybe. Maybe not.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Those that do know about these also tend to be board readers.

[/ QUOTE ]

What about casual players who don't read the boards or compulsively read the "Known Issues"?

[/ QUOTE ]

Someone posted their email exchange with support. Note that they put a link directly to the known issues page in the email.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
That having been said... Because the known issues are not game breaking they really don't need to be front-page-bold.

[/ QUOTE ]

This is a matter of opinion, not fact.

[/ QUOTE ]

This is true. And you saying otherwise is also opinion and not fact.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Until then... there's a whole lot more game to play than that one tf. Why not go do that then?

[/ QUOTE ]

You must be referring to the other three Shard TFs, or the repetitive Shadow Shard missions, which are the only available content for my level 50's now. I've done the three TFs three times now (Justin Augustine four). Sure, I roll alts, but I love my 50's more. I guess I should just suck it up and repeat the same "free the captives" missions over and over again? Oh that's right, level 50's are a minority. We don't matter.

[/ QUOTE ]

Then go play something else. Or exemplar and do lower missions with people. Or retire your 50s until the new level 50 content is released. You have options, but many of them are options you don't like. Just because you don't like the options at hand by no means makes them less valid.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
To those that say "I pay my $15/mo to play therefore I'm entitled..." You got your play in.

[/ QUOTE ]

See my above point. Sure, i get my play in, but I get the same thing. Over, and over again.

[/ QUOTE ]

Don't like it? Feeling left out of new content? Maybe a break from the game would be in order. Again, you have options that you're choosing not to use.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I, however, see the validity in being a spiteful [censored] and say that *my* $15/mo is equally valid to *your* $15/mo and feel that you should not now, nor ever, be rewarded this badge out of spite for being a whiney oik. Is my money more valid than yours? No. That's why they're not doing this. Nor are they doing your solution either.

[/ QUOTE ]

You're right. The currency you pay to play this game makes your opinion as valid as mine. So when you complain about Blasters' bonus damage (citation I will support you, even though the issue does not affect me. Or when you comment on the new weakness of the stealth pool I will support you, even though it doesn't affect

[/ QUOTE ]

You know, the bug *does* affect me. I just had the foresight to pay attention to the known issues page after a patch gets released. Yeah, this bit is self-righteous.

Now... just because you support my comments doesn't mean I'm in any way, shape, or form obligated to support your comments. Opinions are just that. Opinions. In a discussion forum things are open to discussion.

The bug does affect me, but ultimately it's trivial. This is why I'm not more sympathetic. When people make a huge deal out of trivial things I have great difficulty either respecting their whine and rants or even relating to them.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
At least they said why they're not rewarding badges retroactively. Take that as a small grace.

[/ QUOTE ]

Positron announced why they would not be rewarding badges earned pre-Issue 5. The bug started with Issue 5. The developers had the opportunity to start recording data for those who completed the Justin Augustine TF, but decided not to. Your point is invalid.

[/ QUOTE ]

Now, Positron announced something *like* that, but didn't actually say that.

Positron announced that they wouldn't be datamining for completion of the shadow shard task forces. *not* for badges earned pre-I5.

This is what Positron said:

[ QUOTE ]
If you would like one of the new Task Force badges, you will need to re-do the content. We made it as easy as possible for you to re-do the content with the Auto-exemplar feature. We're sorry, and apologize to players who feel they have to re-do content that they don't want to, just to earn a reward they feel they should already have.

Customer Service is NOT able to grant you these badges for any reason. Petitioning to get the new badges will not get you the new badges, only a polite reply that it is not possible to do so.


[/ QUOTE ]

Note the language and how what you said differs from it. The wording could easily be extended to the bugged Augistine tf, particularly once the known issue is fixed. Nothing specifically mentions pre-I5, even though it is greatly implied. Additionally, known issues are generally special exceptions to the rule.

Your exchanges in PM's may be different than this but I really can't comment on those because that is not information made known. It's up to you to prove your side. :P If you can find an example of him saying otherwise then by all means quote it, because I missed it.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
You have evidence that they released buggie content.
My advice... chalk it up to experience and move on.

[/ QUOTE ]

No, I have evidence that they, despite internal compulsion to reconsider, released buggy content without issuing a substantial warning to players. I have evidence that a top-level employee warned the Developers of the customer service ramifications this decision would have. I have evidence that they ignored this warning, and are now getting what they deserve.

[/ QUOTE ]

Which is quite different from what you originally posted:

[ QUOTE ]
Again, I have firm evidence that the Devs released I5, knowing the TF would not award a badge. They knew this, released the issue anyway, and did NOTHING to warn players. I am currently awaiting permission to publish this evidence, and will do so when that allowance has been made.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yet the known issues page is there. Those that didn't find it were directed to it by customer support in email exchanges.

So they are getting what they deserve? And what would that be? A whole lot of people are starting to come around on I5. There are many more serious issues (like Storm Controllers actually doing better than Storm Defenders) than the non-award of a badge. It's just a badge. If I'm missing something here, please fill me in. Otherwise you're just coming accross as a whining rules lawyer who's upset that theey didn't see something that they aren't obligated to point out.

Note that in the EULA you accept before playing the game includes a gem like this:

[ QUOTE ]
THE SERVICE, THE SOFTWARE, THE ACCOUNT, THE CITY OF HEROES GAME AND ALL OTHER SERVICES ARE PROVIDED ON AN "AS IS" BASIS, PROVIDED AT YOUR OWN RISK, AND TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, NC INTERACTIVE HEREBY EXPRESSLY DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, WRITTEN OR ORAL, EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR STATUTORY, INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION ANY IMPLIED WARRANTY OF TITLE, NONINFRINGEMENT, MERCHANTABILITY, QUIET ENJOYMENT, ACCURACY, OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. Without limiting the foregoing, NC Interactive does not ensure continuous, error-free, secure or virus-free operation of the Service, the Software, your Account or City of Heroes, and you understand that you shall not be entitled to refunds for fees based on NC Interactive’s failure to provide any of the foregoing . Some states do not allow the disclaimer of implied warranties, and to that extent, the foregoing disclaimer may not apply to you. This warranty gives you specific legal rights and you may also have other legal rights that vary from state to state

[/ QUOTE ]
(emphasis mine)

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
At least they said why they're not rewarding badges retroactively. Take that as a small grace.

[/ QUOTE ]

They've said why they aren't rewarding the badges retroactively for those who did the TFs before I5 went live. It was understandable, albeit did not speak well that they were so shortsighted they didn't put in tracking before I5.

For them to release I5 where one of the features is that all TFs grant badges, for them not to change the text from the TF granter warning you that it's broken, and then refuse to do anything is very poor form. And in a service business, poor form is poor business.

[/ QUOTE ]


Positron at the start of the thread:

[ QUOTE ]
We are going forward with the situation as it is. If you would like one of the new Task Force badges, you will need to re-do the content. We made it as easy as possible for you to re-do the content with the Auto-exemplar feature. We're sorry, and apologize to players who feel they have to re-do content that they don't want to, just to earn a reward they feel they should already have.

Customer Service is NOT able to grant you these badges for any reason. Petitioning to get the new badges will not get you the new badges, only a polite reply that it is not possible to do so.

[/ QUOTE ]

And the relevant patch note:

[ QUOTE ]
All Task Forces now award badges upon completion.

[/ QUOTE ]

*and* the relevant known issues quote:

[ QUOTE ]
The Justine Augustine Task Force is not granting any rewards (enchancement, experience, influence or badge) when the task force is completed

[/ QUOTE ]

Put all three together. There's conflicting information. In situations of conflicting information people tend to latch on to whatever information favours them the most. That of 'all tf's offer badges, I did a tf and did not get a badge, I should be reqarded a badge' in many cases on this thread.

So... viewed with a different omission of information: '[i]I did a tf. The patch notes said that this tf is not currently rewarding a badge. Positron said that Customer Service is NOT able to grant badges retroactively for content that did not previously offer.'

You see the problem with conflicting information (over just wrong information)?

Think of it like tiers of information. The order appears to be Dev posts > Known Issues > Patch Notes.

The polite version would be along the lines of 'while this is regrettable...' yada-yada-yada that no one would like anyways. The rude version would be along the lines of 'Not our fault you don't see the information the same way we do.'

Yes, they should change the notes. That they haven't is not good form. However, this is still honestly quite a small issue and don't see what all the fuss is. On one hand some people put a few hours in and didn't get a reward. On the other hand it's still a very small segment of the population and there are known issues posted about this already. Additionally, it's just a game (this point is occasionally forgotten, it seems, and people take things WAY too seriously).

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Please ensure that anyone who wishes to obtain a badge accrued by defeating a numerical amount of members to a villain group must /exemplify to a level where these villains are also worth experience.

Also, it might be good to note to any observer at what "objective level" a badge was gained and what date. By objective level, I mean the character's normal security level at that time, as opposed to the character's modified level from /exemplar and /sk functions.

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How about... no.


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Otherwise:

1. It becomes far easier to have "badge completion" in third party sales, although most hunting badges are not actually worth anything within the game, most people who buy these characters aren't familiar with the game or only scantily familiar with it.

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Third party sales? You mean artificially inflated ebay character sales? Caveat Emptor. People who buy their high levels characters do not need any sort of catering to. especially since character sales are against the TOS.

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2. Badges are worth less to distinguish a character's focus and interest if they can be very easily obtained at higher levels.

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In and of themselves, yes. However, what badge you display gives an extra little bit of flavour to the character. Not only that, though, some badges take distinctly more time to obtain (Trailblazer, for example) and do denote focus (or just level 50 boredom).

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3. We have hordes of high level characters swarming upon an area and eliminating bosses much to the chagrin of lower level characters of newer players, older players who are trying to work with a lower level character without exploiting, and players who genuinely try to /exemplar to gain lower level badges.

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So we can have hordes and hordes of people competing heavily for badges for a long time or have sweep-and-clear level 50s fly in, get what they need, and get out. This will result in a *much* faster return to normalcy and reduction of competition for the people who are normally found at these levels. Such activity is usually clear within a week as those who have high levels interested in badges will get them quickly and those that aren't interested won't bother.

Badges really aren't worth much (with the exeption of the Accolades). Why such a fuss?

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P.S. As to datamining badges, I suggest that you limit these datamining to characters who were of a level to recieve that achievement badge from the time the achievement badge existed and any time thereafter. A series of qualifying modifiers to this datamine might exist...

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Datamining is already a difficult process for something like this. This much has been made clear. What you're suggesting makes it even more complicated and lengthy. Essentially you're suggesting devoting manpower and many, many manhours and/or processing time to something that's almost a non-issue in game. I can sum up my entire reason for having a badge hunting character in two words: "oooh! Shiny!" And this is really all that badges are worth (with a few exceptions).

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1. Only gather characters who were (x) level when achievement was released. (Yes, I know, this isn't fair to people who were /sk to gain these achievements, but it swiftens datamining)

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This would reduce the datamining required and has been suggested elsewhere. While it's a reasonable response for tf's, especially before auto-exemplar, it's still only effective to reduce the numbers when looking for level dependant features. Other things have a very wide level range (6-50 for CoT mages, for example) and would not really reduce the numbers to datamine at all (statistically).

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2. Only gather characters who have the contacts necessary for the achievements with finished missions that indicate they recieved the achievement.

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So no rewards for teammates on badge missions. This would restrict almost every origin from getting the Atlas Medallion (Spelunker is only available through Magic Origin contacts that not everyone gets by level 10)

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3. First, only gather datamine information on characters who are of active accounts. Secondly, of these, gather information in initial search on characters who are "most active" of a character's roster and that character (or characters) of highest level. Thirdly, all other characters who might have been left out from this but fit other categories, might be datamined once the initial results have come in.

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No good for those who have multiple high level characters. No good for those that are on any sort of break or leave from the game (a couple of people in my sg are currently on leave from the game... I think one of them is serving in Iraq, but I'm not 100% on this). No good for too many people, really. Discriminating against one customer in favour of another customer is not always a good business tactic (especially since this can be illegal in some places). Sometimes, yes. In this case... I see no benefit. Especially since this option will require datamining to determine who to datamine.

Combined with your other suggestions... your reductions in who to datamine come at the cost of an increase in datamining and database architecture (isolating and flagging specifically who to datamine for what) to the extant that it may be more efficient to not datamine using your methods at all in favour of the previous method that was already deemed too inefficient to use.

Summary rundown of what you would have to datamine (without the reasons of why it's a bad idea beyond the technical):

Account activity - easy enough to do by determining who has active billing. Would still be time consuming as there are over 150,000 active accounts. Combined with inactive accounts I'll say that there's about 220,000 total accounts (extremely conservative number).

Flagging said accounts for filtering purposes - may entail special modification to database. Especially to re-flag inactive accoutns that reactivate as eligible for datamining.

Character Activity - Characters on different servers will likely present the first comlication. What basis character activity occurs is the second complication... what if you have two characters and one is more active in one way (total hours) over another (recent activity)?

Flagging said characters - this would likely require a special tag (most active character). Modification to the database required, especially since this would have to be dynamic and check against all your other characters in future datamines.

From there doing a check against every contact and every mission and every enemy kill to determine level eligibility for the badge at time of release. Including filtering too high (many mission badges aren't offered to people who outlevel the contact). This is probably the killer one for time concerns... combing through logs to determine the level ofteh character at a given time, then the relative level of an enemy at a given time. From there the datamining has to occur to see if they did the badge or not. All of a sudden one datamine becomes three (even if you're reducing the numbers to be datamined this will still be a horrendous number.

Your time-reducing solutions are welcome suggestions but highly unfeasable, especially when considering how much work is involved for how little it honestly matters (they're just freakin' badges... At most the shard tf's represent 30 hours lost player work. At least the decision not to datamine represents zero hours of lost player work).

Just ask yourself the important question; would you rather they devote man-hours to game development or to datamining for badges that really don't change the game in any way? Hiring more people isn't an answer because you then have to choose to hire people for datamining or for programming. Same dollars divided a different way.


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This would constitute mildly emergent datamining, datamining through exclusion of characters that are not frequently used, do not seem like they were focal during the achievement, and do not appear to be unplayed at present.

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*mildly* emergent? That's a *mild* understatement. I want you to think about how someone would go about flagging a character for this.

Not frequently used? How non-frequent would be non-frequently enough?

Non-focal? Now, try and determine this one and how would one quantify it *for the purposes of a database*. Quantify something that even in the heart of a situation wouldn't be easy (in some cases) to determine. Would a character that heals as being focal to the achievement count? What if those heals were spammed onto full-health characters? What about controllers against hold-resistant enemies? Too many situational things to datamine, especially since most of these aren't being tracked currently and would require massive change to begin tracking.

This brings the final point that appears distributed throughout the post; Is it worth it? Now, honestly ask yourself this... Is it worth their time (months) to award a handful of people 5-6 badges that have *zero* effect on game other than effort put in, completion, and bragging rights?

Is it game breaking enough to warrant massive database changes? What if this means taking the databases offline for massive maintenance and upgrades? Would you want to see 8-12 hours of downtime just so you can have a few extra tin bits displayed under your character?

To me the answer is no. Sucks for some people, yes. Is it worth the work which would likely take longer than the total time it took for every player that did said tf's to complete said tf's? Ask yourself this honestly, and try to do so without personal regard.

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I have been told it is "unknown" if they will datamine for the Justin TF.
I would think the least they can do is datamine back to i5 release date.
I spent 4 hours to complete this with no reward received. Oh, wait, I got influence - which I dont need.
Yes, I had fun, but Ive done the TF before and the ONLY reason I was doing it again was for the badge.

Anyone else who has run into this issue - make your voice heard. A datamine needs to be done and those heroes who completed trials/TF's since i5 release MUST be given their rewards.
After all the nerfs the ATs have encountered, its the least that can be done.

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My team of 8 encountered the same problem. Sure it's listed on the Known Issues page, but it's not like the Known Issues page appears when you start CoHUpdater.exe. In fact, special attention isn't even drawn to the LINK for the page. The text "known issues" appears in the same font and color as the other links, with the exception of "PATCH NOTES". That appears in bold red.

What does it say on the PATCH NOTES page? "All Task Forces now reward badges upon completion". Interesting.

I have firm proof that the Devs released I5 with the full knowledge that this TF was bugged. They released it, knowing the TF would NOT award a badge upon completion, and did NOTHING aside from two lines of text on an obscure Issues page to warn players about the flaw. They could have disabled the TF, or put in an additional line of text that would appear when agreeing to start the TAsk Force letting the leader know that NO BADGE would be awarded.

Again, I have firm evidence that the Devs released I5, knowing the TF would not award a badge. They knew this, released the issue anyway, and did NOTHING to warn players. I am currently awaiting permission to publish this evidence, and will do so when that allowance has been made.

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Note that bolded bit; Currently NO online game does this unless it's game breaking. What you DO get from CoH is a link to the known issues on the patch page and it's right there beside Patch Notes link. Just because you didn't click it or take the time to learn more about the game doesn't mean they're miraculously responsible for awarding you a badge that they say elsewhere isn't being awarded right now.

You know, there's a good chance that the known issues weren't put in large flashing bold letters because they really do affect a small portion of the population. Those who happen to do one of the Shadow Shard TF's. Many people honestly do not know where the shadow shards are, let alone that there's four task forces in there. Those that do know about these also tend to be board readers.

Those that are board readers also tend to be more savvy about the known issues, and know to check the list after patching.

That having been said... Because the known issues are not game breaking they really don't need to be front-page-bold. That it *is* on the front page says quite a lot. When you visit www.cityofheroes.com you can see there's a Known Issues section that you even have to scan down past to get to the Community section. From there you can search the forums for Known Issues and quite likely will find a current list of known issues.

Take a look at World of Warcraft, for contrast. Go to their support section and you'll find a whole lot of mess but no solid list of known issues. It might be there but I can't find it easily even when specifically looking for it.

Or Everquest 2... The known issues is under support, but not under a front page pull-down like most of the other sections on the site. Clicking on it... well... it seems to be a dead link, or just heavily loaded down. Either way, though, I had to go out of my way to find it and even then I'm still unsure of what known issues there are and how game breaking they are.

In summary; they're really under no obligation whatsoever to make known issues front page news. You pay for the service. You get the service.

And to those that say "It's the least that they can do" well, you're just wrong there. Technically the least they can do is nothing, and that's what they're doing. When the known issue is fixed then you'll be able to do the tf and get your badge. Until then... there's a whole lot more game to play than that one tf. Why not go do that then?

To those that say "I pay my $15/mo to play therefore I'm entitled..." You got your play in. You just didn't get one small thing in game. I, however, see the validity in being a spiteful [censored] and say that *my* $15/mo is equally valid to *your* $15/mo and feel that you should not now, nor ever, be rewarded this badge out of spite for being a whiney oik. Is my money more valid than yours? No. That's why they're not doing this. Nor are they doing your solution either.

At least they said why they're not rewarding badges retroactively. Take that as a small grace.

The bit about 'Currently awaiting permission to publish'... You really don't need permission. The majority of your stuff is posted on a public board. The only bit you'd need to get permission for, technically, is the emailed conversations with Support that usually have a 'don't publish this' note on the bottom. In this case you're simply not likely to get permission. You may as well move on.

But go ahead and publish. This raises the interesting question of 'to what end?' You have evidence that they released buggie content. Wow... that's front page news in the gaming community! An online game released buggie content?! Never!

My advice... chalk it up to experience and move on.

Now you know to check the known issues page, and knowing is half the battle.

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Why am I not surprised to see people actually complaining about this bonus damage Blasters were given without anything having been taken away? Keep in mind Blasters also got a nice health bonus as well, so being below 50% isn't quite as dangerous as it used to be.

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Because many are being told they're being given bonus damage but that bonus damage is too dangerous to access reliably.

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True, Defiance isn't something you're going to want to use intentionally all the time. It would be far too powerful if you could do that. As described, it's supposed to be a last-ditch adrenaline-rush sort of thing -- a chance to pull your bacon out of the fire at the last minute.

I don't use it on purpose, but it has saved my life more than once, and I am very glad to have it. My sincere thanks to the developers for a clever idea that has been well-implemented.

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At level 24 I have yet to use it more than once, and that was for about a 10% boost (the bar had climbed a little before dropping off due to being dead).

Essentially, if a blaster is receiving damage then things tend to go from bad to dead quickly, especially since, due to having low hp (even after being boosted), being 1 or 2 shotted is quite common. Bosses being the most dangerous where one can go from 100% to 0% HP fast enough that your second attack may be boosted, but not by nearly enough to save your hide. Even at 500%.

What it comes down to, for me, is luck. A blaster can luck out and get hit down to that golden 500% damage boost but that still doesn't help them much because (and I'm not sure how many times I've restated this in this post) once a blaster starts taking damage they will continue to do so. I'd rather not rely on luck to give me a huge boost instead of skill.

Defiance is too dangerous to be relied upon, and ideally you shouldn't see it used at all. For those less-than-ideal situations I'm finding that I'm usually too dead to use defiance.

Additionally, the interface really isn't clear. A bar with a number listed 0.0/1.0 as a standard state. For someone who doesn't read the board this numbering is useless. What does a 0.5 mean? What does a 1.0 mean? It's not intuitive.

So far it's looking like the ideal solution for me is to completely ignore the defiance bar and play like it isn't there. Occasionally I may see a bonus from it. But I'm to the point that I don't want to see the bar, don't want to think about it, and don't see the benefits from it.

Containment - Very visible bonus available quite often
Punchvoke - Constant effect
Scrapper Crit - Available roughly 10% of the time. Noticable when it happens
Defiance - Very rarely seen to it's full benefit, rarely seen to *any* benefit, survival so far hasn't been affected by this in any manner
Defender Inherent - doesn't exist. :P