Lucks and Insights do not work the way you think
By
Amarsir,
Posted on: 2006-06-06 11:23 in Player Guides
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I think, in fact, that Fraktal is actually correct in this case, the poor example aside.
If fifty diehard baseball players and fans are noticing there's something wrong with their swing and saying, "The bat feels light", you don't just check the weight of the bat by looking at the number printed on it. You don't demand that they each take 10000 swings and report the results.
You get a scale and check the bat, then call the factory and get them to fix their manufacturing process.
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But that example isn't very good either. You can get a feel for the weight of a bat by holding it. You can't get the feel for accuracy by making one attack
Also, in cases like this it's more like 4 out of 10 complainers have never held a bat before, 2 play once or twice per year, 2 are wielding tennis rackets, and one person is happily swinging a trout.
*Throws tomotoes at Castle's soap box*
GET BACK TO WORK, HIPPY!
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I have a rule. I just made it up right now, but it's a rule, nonetheless: If you're going to explain something to an American, use baseball or football analogies.
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Not to minimize your many previous informative and/or interesting posts Foo, but this is, I'm absolutely certain, your most accurate!
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I think, in fact, that Fraktal is actually correct in this case, the poor example aside.
If fifty diehard baseball players and fans are noticing there's something wrong with their swing and saying, "The bat feels light", you don't just check the weight of the bat by looking at the number printed on it. You don't demand that they each take 10000 swings and report the results.
You get a scale and check the bat, then call the factory and get them to fix their manufacturing process.
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But that example isn't very good either. You can get a feel for the weight of a bat by holding it. You can't get the feel for accuracy by making one attack
Also, in cases like this it's more like 4 out of 10 complainers have never held a bat before, 2 play once or twice per year, 2 are wielding tennis rackets, and one person is happily swinging a trout.
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That is not the case. No one's saying that all complaints be treated equally. I'd be VERY surprised if the Devs aren't aware of Circeus and Arcana by name.
This isn't a random sampling of 10 complainers. It's like Ken Griffey making a comment about the bat and then the coach just shaking his and telling him he's imagining it. It's in the Devs interest for these bugs to be tracked down.
It's not accurate to suggest that we're saying the bat weight example is analagous to "making one attack". No one has said that, and I doubt anyone would.
To be clear: taking a few swings in my example should be compared to a playing doing a few missions (or a few "at bats", if you prefer).
Also, if an analogy were 100% perfect, it would cease to be an analogy. Debating analogies ignores the actual issue.
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I think, in fact, that Fraktal is actually correct in this case, the poor example aside.
If fifty diehard baseball players and fans are noticing there's something wrong with their swing and saying, "The bat feels light", you don't just check the weight of the bat by looking at the number printed on it. You don't demand that they each take 10000 swings and report the results.
You get a scale and check the bat, then call the factory and get them to fix their manufacturing process.
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But that example isn't very good either. You can get a feel for the weight of a bat by holding it. You can't get the feel for accuracy by making one attack
Also, in cases like this it's more like 4 out of 10 complainers have never held a bat before, 2 play once or twice per year, 2 are wielding tennis rackets, and one person is happily swinging a trout.
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So, in your part of the world, diehard baseball players and fans swing trouts? And tennis rackets? Nice strawman argument.
The example as given is still valid, and accurate. If I spend hours, daily, working with software, and something isn't right, the only way I won't notice is if it was bugged that way from the begininng and I never knew what it was supposed to be.
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How many "alarms" can we check per day, while also generating and testing new content? I can guarantee we get more "alarms" than we have time to look at properly.
An easy reply to that is 'Hire more people.' Ok, so who do we let go to keep this in our budget, and isn't that just robbing Peter to pay Paul? Increasing the budget means either Cryptic or NCSoft loses income OR we increase the monthly charge for the game. None of these are really good ideas or feasible.
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Which is why 160k+ players paying $15/month just isn't enough money 
But seriously, I suspect things will get a bit better once CoH/V Korea launches.
That's hopefully a gazillion new box sales, subscription fees, etc.
Even if we only added another 200k subscribers from Korea, that would DOUBLE Cryptic's revenue, which should be enough to address having a full-time bugfix team, even if that team starts out with only one to three members.
Anything extra is gravy.
Suppose CoH/V Korea gets 400k or 1 million subscribers? Then, not only do they have more revenue, but can be very picky about who they hire too.
So, Castle, drop whatever you're doing and get CoH/V Korea out the door so we can clone you
Oh, I forgot to mention this, but I honestly believe that the best way to get a good signal to noise ratio is to specifically target and read the posts of provenly reliable, and insightful/accurate posters like the aforementioned, and perhaps even go as far as to PM them, or encourage them to PM you about issues of concern.
Also, you can often tell who is and isn't an accurate tester by the tone of the post, and the amount of detail (especially insightful detail) it has, if you don't know the person's track record very well.
People often drop telling statements/little details into their posts (or don't, which is equally telling, or even say the opposite of what a knowledgeable person would say) that give hints to how much they've tested things, and how much real insight they have into the issues they've tested.
Arc Salvo: Okay hold one sec guys, we can't just rush in blindly vs these Nemesis, they've got these ranged aoe's tha-
Teammate1(charging in): Shut up, Arc Salvo, you lame*$% Viewtiful Joe wannabe! What do you know?!
Teammate2(also charging): yeah, ST#& arc salvo u PWR RANGR U!
Arc Salvo: *sigh*
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So, Castle, drop whatever you're doing and get CoH/V Korea out the door so we can clone you
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Clone Pohsybs instead, they pack into boxes better and don't require "vintage" rock music
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Clone Pohsybs instead, they pack into boxes better and don't require "vintage" rock music
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"We all lose in the end, that is the intention" --Emanuel Lasker
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So, Castle, drop whatever you're doing and get CoH/V Korea out the door so we can clone you
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Clone Pohsybs instead, they pack into boxes better and don't require "vintage" rock music
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I was going to suggest genetically crossing pohsyb and Castle and making a Developer Queen that can go anywhere and do anything, but I've already been accused of being too obscure several times this month.
[Guide to Defense] [Scrapper Secondaries Comparison] [Archetype Popularity Analysis]
In one little corner of the universe, there's nothing more irritating than a misfile...
(Please support the best webcomic about a cosmic universal realignment by impaired angelic interference resulting in identity crisis angst. Or I release the pigmy water thieves.)
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How many "alarms" can we check per day, while also generating and testing new content? I can guarantee we get more "alarms" than we have time to look at properly.
An easy reply to that is 'Hire more people.' Ok, so who do we let go to keep this in our budget, and isn't that just robbing Peter to pay Paul? Increasing the budget means either Cryptic or NCSoft loses income OR we increase the monthly charge for the game. None of these are really good ideas or feasible.
There is an old engineering adage to the effect of "You can have it Fast, Good, or Cheap -- pick two." It basically refers to the fact that time, money and quality are all inter-related. Time and Money are often fixed quantities ("We need this in three weeks! No, we aren't increasing your budget for it.") which means features are designed to, or cut to those parameters.
One last thing to consider, you as players represent thousands of times more manpower than we have here. No matter what, you will almost always find bugs that we miss here. Statistically, that is almost a certainty.
None of this is meant as an excuse. We have a lot of bugs, and as many get introduced each new patch as get fixed. So long as new content is being added, that will likely remain the case (although, since we have had a QA dept. here at Cryptic for the last 10 months or so, things are improving in that regard.)
We are trying to make CoH/CoV the best game possible -- we work on it every day, and constantly discuss ways to improve the various systems we have and how to prioritize changes and/or fixes. Sometimes, we screw up, but most of the time, we succeed.
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I understand this completely. I've discussed this several times in the forums and tend to be ignored. Aside from that however I'd like to congratulate you and the others at Cryptic for all the hard work you've put into making this a great game. It's a shame that rather than enjoy the game that many players would rather complain. One can point out problems with the game without complaining and in general stirring things up and making people miserable. I often get called a fanboi for pointing out my observations, probably because I tend not to include many negative comments or criticism about the developers or their work. I see most of the subjects I would comment on, when I do notice some flaw in the game, already being discussed to the point that there is no need to add any further comment. Especially when my comments would most likely be lost amidst the outpour of venom I see here in the forums daily. As for something that matter to me though, I'd like to ask if there is any ETA for costume fixes (especially the readdition of older costume options to the newer more flexible system)? I'd be willing to pay for an expansion that deals with only costume updates/additions to get this in the pipeline.
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Clone Pohsybs instead, they pack into boxes better and don't require "vintage" rock music
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This just in: Pohsyb does hourly searches for his own name on the forums! 
Pohsyb caught egosurfing-- pictures at eleven.
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As for something that matter to me though, I'd like to ask if there is any ETA for costume fixes
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True story: the day I tested Rikti Mesmerists against my MA/SR and discovered SR had no defense against them, I noticed for the first time her skirt didn't have those patchy clipping problems that the short skirts have.
The weird thing is I wasn't sure if that was a net plus overall or not.
[Guide to Defense] [Scrapper Secondaries Comparison] [Archetype Popularity Analysis]
In one little corner of the universe, there's nothing more irritating than a misfile...
(Please support the best webcomic about a cosmic universal realignment by impaired angelic interference resulting in identity crisis angst. Or I release the pigmy water thieves.)
[ QUOTE ]
It's a shame that rather than enjoy the game that many players would rather complain.
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Dude, this is either really off-topic, or really off-point.
No one here is complaining. We're talking about how to reliably convey information about bugs without getting a knee-jerk runaround.
This isn't complaining, this is QA testing to make the game better.
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This isn't complaining, this is QA testing to make the game better.
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Foo, do you ever get the odd feeling that a certain number of people who play the game and post to the forums don't want the game to get better? It seems inconceivable to me that this would be so (if you play the game, and pay for it, why would you not want the best you can have for your money?), and yet it seems to be. Almost any time someone dares point out that accuracy seems not to be working right, or damage is off from what one would expect, or anything like that -- frequently even when there ARE good numbers to back it up -- there is no shortage of people coming out of the woodwork to gainsay them.
And I just don't really understand it. If there really is a bug that's making the streak-breaker not work, for example, and the streak-breaker is SUPPOSED to work, then why would you try to shout down someone who had posted evidence that the streak-breaker is broken? If Luck is supposed to be a +25% buff and has been for 2+ years, and you find out that it isn't, why in the world would someone flame you for posting it?
Don't we WANT the devs to find the bugs and exterminate them? Do people really prefer playing a BUGGED game?
And yet, apparently some people do. I just don't get it.
F
Some people believe that any posting about a perceived problem or balance issue is whining. That every such post is a thinly veiled attempt by someone to get a buff for a character they like. That making powersets within ATs have parity is always driven by jealousy.
Some people can't accept that other people might like balance as an abstract concept, and strive for their peception of what's balanced as a goal unto itself.
Blue
American Steele: 50 BS/Inv
Nightfall: 50 DDD
Sable Slayer: 50 DM/Rgn
Fortune's Shadow: 50 Dark/Psi
WinterStrike: 47 Ice/Dev
Quantum Well: 43 Inv/EM
Twilit Destiny: 43 MA/DA
Red
Shadowslip: 50 DDC
Final Rest: 50 MA/Rgn
Abyssal Frost: 50 Ice/Dark
Golden Ember: 50 SM/FA
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One last thing to consider, you as players represent thousands of times more manpower than we have here. No matter what, you will almost always find bugs that we miss here. Statistically, that is almost a certainty.
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Fair enough, but you also neglected to mention an important counter-balance. For a player to check something requires hours upon hours of precise measurement. For a Dev to check something, you look up the number.
I for one am glad to have players like Foo, EvilGeko, Arcana, Circus etc here. They provide good information to other players, bring information/bugs to the dev's attention that need to be brought etc.
Between them, the Devs, etc I always find the CoH/CoV gets better each time. Plus the information provide is always better, and makes it easier to understand why things are happening that happen.
Thanks again for the information - and keep up the good work Arcana.
Take Care,
BinkDeBook
Virtue: CaptainMayhem-50 Inv/SS Tank; NaomiArmitage-50 DM/Inv Scrap; Captn Randomizer-50 MC/Kin Cntrller; Murky Thecat-50 Claws/SR Scrap; Professor Junk-50 Bots/Traps MM; +Others Arc Id #77311, #227436
The only time I step up as you say when someone is posting about bugs, is when people make statements like "accuracy isn't working" when all they have to go off of is that they were fighting in this one mission and seemed to miss more than usual. Or attacks seem to be more drainy. Or recharges seem to be less or more. Or whatever. Because 99% of the time, they are wrong. Accuracy isn't nerfed, recharges aren't higher, and endurance usage didn't just go up.
I don't mind people posting bugs, but if someone believes there is a bug, they should test it and get some reliable numbers before getting everyone worked up about things.
I don't think that's too much to ask. If you think you've found a bug, test your bug and make sure what you think is happening is happening.
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I think, in fact, that Fraktal is actually correct in this case, the poor example aside.
If fifty diehard baseball players and fans are noticing there's something wrong with their swing and saying, "The bat feels light", you don't just check the weight of the bat by looking at the number printed on it. You don't demand that they each take 10000 swings and report the results.
You get a scale and check the bat, then call the factory and get them to fix their manufacturing process.
[/ QUOTE ]
But that example isn't very good either. You can get a feel for the weight of a bat by holding it. You can't get the feel for accuracy by making one attack
Also, in cases like this it's more like 4 out of 10 complainers have never held a bat before, 2 play once or twice per year, 2 are wielding tennis rackets, and one person is happily swinging a trout.
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That is not the case. No one's saying that all complaints be treated equally. I'd be VERY surprised if the Devs aren't aware of Circeus and Arcana by name.
This isn't a random sampling of 10 complainers. It's like Ken Griffey making a comment about the bat and then the coach just shaking his and telling him he's imagining it. It's in the Devs interest for these bugs to be tracked down.
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I'm sorry if I read too much into it, but it seems to me that an argument is being made that the devs should listen more carefully to "veteran" players. I'm simply pointing out that a potential problem is that it's not uncommon for "veteran" players to make claims that are about as silly as playing baseball with a trout.
The forums are an environment filled with noise, and that makes it harder for the devs to glean the useful information. That does of course not mean that they shouldn't try.
And pointing out Arcana as an example for why the devs should listen more carefully to the players doesn't help the argument much if they already do listen to her.
This can't continue any more! What you're doing is not acceptable, we demand that in the future you do exactly what you're doing now!
We all know that Arcana doesn't swing trout (well, maybe on her spare time, but that's none of our business), but that doesn't mean that that VeteranPlayer001 and VeteranPlayer002 can be assumed to follow the same standard.
For most definitions of "Veteran Players", you will find a number that are not above using trout as more than a source of food.
Enough about trout.
For now.
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It's not accurate to suggest that we're saying the bat weight example is analagous to "making one attack". No one has said that, and I doubt anyone would.
To be clear: taking a few swings in my example should be compared to a playing doing a few missions (or a few "at bats", if you prefer).
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You don't demand that they each take 10000 swings and report the results.
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Sorry if I assumed too much, but it sure seemed as if you implied that people are currently expected to take 10000 swings in order for their opinions to be considered.
Some extreme people prefer having sample sizes upwards 10k to make conclusions about the values involved. I doubt many would "require" more than a few k to acknowledge that a value seems to be off by a significant amount.
If one "swing" corresponds to a larger number of attacks, it seems like the 10k number would be off by several orders of magnitude.
But I probably just read too much into the presence of that number. I can be fairly good at that...
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Also, in cases like this it's more like 4 out of 10 complainers have never held a bat before, 2 play once or twice per year, 2 are wielding tennis rackets, and one person is happily swinging a trout.
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So, in your part of the world, diehard baseball players and fans swing trouts? And tennis rackets? Nice strawman argument.
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In my part of the world, people usually don't play baseball at all.
However, in my part of the forums, it is not uncommon for people posting about matters related to accuracy to be swinging trout.
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Some people believe that any posting about a perceived problem or balance issue is whining. That every such post is a thinly veiled attempt by someone to get a buff for a character they like. That making powersets within ATs have parity is always driven by jealousy.
Some people can't accept that other people might like balance as an abstract concept, and strive for their peception of what's balanced as a goal unto itself.
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I agree. I also believe that some people are so sensitive to criticism about anything they like, that they'll irrationally reply with something negative as a knee-jerk reaction without even bothering to think about the subject being discussed, because they love their opinion more than they love anything else, even the truth.
It's a psychological thing, imho, and I think it's even more obvious when you discuss something that's a problem that's not so numbers-related, or more tangentally numbers-related than what we're discussing now.
Arc Salvo: Okay hold one sec guys, we can't just rush in blindly vs these Nemesis, they've got these ranged aoe's tha-
Teammate1(charging in): Shut up, Arc Salvo, you lame*$% Viewtiful Joe wannabe! What do you know?!
Teammate2(also charging): yeah, ST#& arc salvo u PWR RANGR U!
Arc Salvo: *sigh*
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Some people believe that any posting about a perceived problem or balance issue is whining. That every such post is a thinly veiled attempt by someone to get a buff for a character they like. That making powersets within ATs have parity is always driven by jealousy.
Some people can't accept that other people might like balance as an abstract concept, and strive for their peception of what's balanced as a goal unto itself.
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I agree. I also believe that some people are so sensitive to criticism about anything they like, that they'll irrationally reply with something negative as a knee-jerk reaction without even bothering to think about the subject being discussed, because they love their opinion more than they love anything else, even the truth.
It's a psychological thing, imho, and I think it's even more obvious when you discuss something that's a problem that's not so numbers-related, or more tangentally numbers-related than what we're discussing now.
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Yeah, this is very true. Its just as irrational as the people posting emotional fueled rants about how the game is doomed, and just as unproductive.
Back on topic, in regards to player testing, the developer team would have done it self a large favour had it provided the playerbase with the numbers on powers a long, long, time ago. I'm glad that they've started to provide numbers for us to consult via the Prima Guide for I7, but its long overdue.
As Castle says, there are thousands more of us players than there are Devs. In order to capitalize on those thousands of players, we need some sort of reference. Otherwise, its far too difficult to know if something is a bug or working as intended. With the new Prima Guide numbers, if I think something is wonky with my villain's powers, I can consult the guide, and see if a power's recharge, endurance cost, and so on is working properly.
Personally, I've never bothered to do a lot of testing things like new powers or changes to powers in the past, precisely because of this issue. Now that Cryptic has produced numbers that can help me help them, I'm much more likely to test and report possible bugs.
Now, if we could just a little more useful detail in patch notes, we'd be well on our way.
Heroes
Dysmal
Lumynous
Sam Steele
Pluck
Wile
Slagheap
Pressure Wave
Rhiannon Bel
Verified
Stellaric
Syd Mallorn
Villains
Jotunheim Skald
Saer Maen
Jen Corbae
Illuminance
Venator Arawn
Taiga Dryad
Tarranos
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They are tohit buffs.
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Arcanaville, have you experimentally verified this?
In one of the earlier issues my testing indicated that Burn was being affected by Insights.
The same testing also suggested that Burn in PVP had a base accuracy of 75% and that lucks were 12.5%. (I think it was I5.)
I most definitely get what you're saying, _Castle_, Cryptic has only a finite number of resources, and you definitely have to prioritize...
...but I've got to say that if a lot of people seem to agree on a topic, or even a large percentage of the most informed players who observe and test things in detail, and report their findings reliably (Arcanaville, Circeus, and Pilcrow, among many others being examples of these types of players) say that something's off about something, then I would say there's an issue to look at.
Arc Salvo: Okay hold one sec guys, we can't just rush in blindly vs these Nemesis, they've got these ranged aoe's tha-
Teammate1(charging in): Shut up, Arc Salvo, you lame*$% Viewtiful Joe wannabe! What do you know?!
Teammate2(also charging): yeah, ST#& arc salvo u PWR RANGR U!
Arc Salvo: *sigh*