The 2008 State of the Game
By
Achilles_Rex,
Posted on: 2008-01-10 24:06 in News, Events and Announcement Discussion
Am I the only one that sees Doom here?
DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMMMM MMMMM!
Nah just messing around this is good stuff. Good job all the way around. 
More Co-Op zones though plz 
I have a question for you Reds...
Why now?(referring to the numbers being given to us)
Why, after all this time of people clawing and screaming for something like this, why now give it to us?
Did it have to do with split from Cryptic?
Just curious..
Thanks!
Very good news.
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This could have been in the planning before the divorce? Plans like this, I would imagine, are in the works for a long period of time. Software development, for any company, is not an "overnight" thing.
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Then lets in what I suspect about the divorce from Cryptic constituting the removal of a lot of red tape that slowed some things down.
Between coding not being fast, then all the testing, recoding and retesting that comes with it then throw in excessive red tape.... well as someone works in I.T. I can honestly say that I feel the dev's pain at times.
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Real Numbers
As a general quality of life improvement we will be adding new functionality in a coming version of the game to display the real numbers behind your characters and their powers. This includes a user configurable display of important characteristics such as movement rate, regeneration rate, resistances and many more! Additionally, you will be able to see how those statistics are affected in real time by buffs and/or debuffs affecting your character.
[/ QUOTE ] woo!
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Doesn't this imply an overhaul of the enhancement system? Or will this be separate?
Meaning if I'm about to slot an enhancement, will I see current value and future value on mouseover with an enhancement?
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I don't want to talk too much out of turn, so I will just say that its obvious that the real-time display Lighthouse refers to has to be something that is viewable within the normal game display, or else it would be worthless as a real-time display showing things like combat buffs. So by definition, its totally separate from how they would alter the enhancement/respecification screens, which shows powers and slotting in a completely different view.
I'm speculating here, but there's no need for a massive overhaul of the enhancement screen, since it already has tooltip help that shows enhancement percentage numbers. Theoretically speaking, those could be changed to "true" numbers instead, without radical alterations of the mechanics of that interface.
I think its also worth noting that by my mental count, there are at least six different places that "numbers" could affect the user interface if the devs wanted to so design, so we should presume that "numbers" are going to be phased into the game client over time, and not all in one big patch. The fact that Lighthouse has already seen and mentioned the real time buff doohicky suggests that that feature might be one of the earlier numbers-things we'll see over the next few months.
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Doesn't this imply an overhaul of the enhancement system? Or will this be separate?
Meaning if I'm about to slot an enhancement, will I see current value and future value on mouseover with an enhancement?
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I don't want to talk too much out of turn, so I will just say that its obvious that the real-time display Lighthouse refers to has to be something that is viewable within the normal game display, or else it would be worthless as a real-time display showing things like combat buffs. So by definition, its totally separate from how they would alter the enhancement/respecification screens, which shows powers and slotting in a completely different view.
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My assumption is that it will be a new UI window showing statistics. That is easy to turn off for people who don't want to see it, and could just pull the numbers out of the stream for display. Other numbers added to the UI would probably be tooltip/properties/info windows. This would allow reuse of existing interface resources, reducing the workload for the coders.
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I'll bet the numbers got its start as a debug tool. And then someone said Man this is Hot.... And then they stood around going .... Hmm, what if we let the players see this?
Lighthouse just confirmed in another thread that it is displaying the actual numbers being used by the game engine to calculate what is going on. Thus my thought about its start as a debugging tool. And given some of the comments by Castle and others I suspect they needed such a tool to figure out why things didn't work like they thought they should.
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Well, I was hoping the contents of the announcement would match the title.
Market hype and shinies != State of the Game.
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(On the subject of Real Numbers, accuracy of: I betcha they're simply exposing the numbers they are using, rather than adding a system to figure them out for you. My guess is any number you see will be what you're getting.)
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That would be a good bet. Of course, that's only half the story. If they just did that, you'd see "Focused Fighting: 1.85" which wouldn't make sense to anyone except those who already know and understand what the numbers mean. A lot of work has to go into the game client saying "Focused Fighting: [thinking ... 1.85 x scrappermod 0.075 + percent sign] 13.875% defense to melee" for every number in the game.
What we're going to be seeing is the translated version of the numbers that the game uses. Translated into people-speak, from gameengine-speak. What will improve matters greatly from, lets say the Prima Guides, is that there will not be a human editor making interpretation mistakes since the translation from gameengine to human readable text will be fixed in the game code, and converted on the fly to be appropriate for the character being viewed.
One thing players will have to learn is that what they see isn't what everyone else sees. A scrapper who sees "1.875% defense" in combat jump that tells his tanker friend that combat jump is 1.875% defense will be wrong for a tanker. For that matter, I'm pretty certain the devs (pohsyb) will incorporate level-scaling, so things like mez protection and movement powers that scale with level will be giving their security-level appropriate values for the character - meaning what you see at level 15 won't be what you see at level 35.
Basically, because of the complexity of the system, players will have to get used to the fact that what they see is really only guaranteed accurate for them, when on that character, at that level. Unless you understand the system, you will still not fully understand how to translate what you see on your blaster for what you would see if you rolled a scrapper. You'd have to roll a scrapper and see (or break out the pocket calculator and learn the scaling formulas).
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Sounds freaking awesome.
I'm definately looking forward to the new year.
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My dorky husband wants to know if our characters will actually be able to get married in some sort of a Valentines Chapel?
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Yes. But only on Virtue. 
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(On the subject of Real Numbers, accuracy of: I betcha they're simply exposing the numbers they are using, rather than adding a system to figure them out for you. My guess is any number you see will be what you're getting.)
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That would be a good bet. Of course, that's only half the story. If they just did that, you'd see "Focused Fighting: 1.85" which wouldn't make sense to anyone except those who already know and understand what the numbers mean. A lot of work has to go into the game client saying "Focused Fighting: [thinking ... 1.85 x scrappermod 0.075 + percent sign] 13.875% defense to melee" for every number in the game.
What we're going to be seeing is the translated version of the numbers that the game uses. Translated into people-speak, from gameengine-speak. What will improve matters greatly from, lets say the Prima Guides, is that there will not be a human editor making interpretation mistakes since the translation from gameengine to human readable text will be fixed in the game code, and converted on the fly to be appropriate for the character being viewed.
One thing players will have to learn is that what they see isn't what everyone else sees. A scrapper who sees "1.875% defense" in combat jump that tells his tanker friend that combat jump is 1.875% defense will be wrong for a tanker. For that matter, I'm pretty certain the devs (pohsyb) will incorporate level-scaling, so things like mez protection and movement powers that scale with level will be giving their security-level appropriate values for the character - meaning what you see at level 15 won't be what you see at level 35.
Basically, because of the complexity of the system, players will have to get used to the fact that what they see is really only guaranteed accurate for them, when on that character, at that level. Unless you understand the system, you will still not fully understand how to translate what you see on your blaster for what you would see if you rolled a scrapper. You'd have to roll a scrapper and see (or break out the pocket calculator and learn the scaling formulas).
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Ooo... and glee!
Bring on the Buffometers!
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Im sry im being a little slow can somone please explain the smoothing out the level curve to me?
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Im sry im being a little slow can somone please explain the smoothing out the level curve to me?
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What the devs mean is that they believe that the players are having a more difficult time levelling at some security levels than others, whether that is because the critters are harder than they thought, its harder to find teams, players are running out of missions, the amount of XP necessary is a little too high whatever. Point is, its taking longer for the average player to get from 31 to 32 than from 21 to 22 (just for example, making up some numbers). So they are going to try to change that by adjusting the XP you get at those levels, so that its not that much harder to level at those levels than other levels.
[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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This could have been in the planning before the divorce? Plans like this, I would imagine, are in the works for a long period of time. Software development, for any company, is not an "overnight" thing.
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Except that the Statesman based Cryptic rhetoric was that for our own good and the better enjoyment by all of the game, the mystery surrounding "Real numbers" was integral by design.
My guess is that with the minor reporting of percentages when powers are moused over this became feasible but more information than those generalities were still with held because Daddy knew best. I think the software is now all there, the ridiculous faulty (no matter how well intententioned) design barrier removed, and this will mostly be a matter of gathering and packaging up the relevant data for display.
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To play devil's advocate here: Real Numbers are meh. It'll help settle some arguments that are based around assuming certain values, as well as start new ones when people are able to compare exact values, but it is really only going to be the min/maxers or number freaks who care. I also hope the devs are ready for an onslaught of posts about how power X is so much better than power Y because the Real Numbers say so (and by devs, I mean Castle). Two weeks after Real Numbers come out and all the FOTM builds have been min/maxed to within an inch of their lives, no-one will care apart from numeriphiliacs.
The two changes that will actually resonate long, long after Real Numbers have been forgotten are the Server Hardware Upgrade and the XP Smoothing. First off, it's my understanding that the servers currenlty max out at about 3500 concurrent users each - I'd be interested to know if the server upgrades are going to increase that number.
Secondly I'd love to know if the server upgrades are going to see a change in the reliability of the Consignment Houses and reduce their lag. It would also be good if the new server hardware would be able to reduce lag redside in some of the more lag-ridden zones (although this may just be wishful thinking).
Thirdly, this is actually the first sign of re-investment into CoH/V that we players will be able to see at work - new servers mean hopefully a better play experience.
Finally, the smoothing of the XP curve is actually the greatest announced change to the game for a long, long time - if done right, it could see a lot of players return to at least check it out and see if the 'lvl hump' still exists. Changes to XP rates will have the greatest lasting impact in-game out of the announcements made.
Real numbers mean very little long-term. The fact that NC^2 is willing to spend the money on new server hardware and tinker with the xp curve (via providing more per 'drop') shows that it is believed that CoH/V has a greater potential to attract and keep players than it has currently achieved.
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Im sry im being a little slow can somone please explain the smoothing out the level curve to me?
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Contacts come in 5 level tiers. So, there's a set of contacts in the 20-24 range, in the 25-29 range, in the 30-35 range, etc...
At lower levels, it's easier to level up (less xp needed between levels). At higher levels you need more xp to get to the next level. And so, we find in the later game starting around 30 and getting bad at 38 there is a tendency to run out of contacts. All the contacts and all their missions don't give enough xp to level up into the next tier of contacts. Many, many players find that at level 38 that they exhaust all their level 35-39 contacts. And now, in order to get the xp needed to level up to 40 and start the level 40-45 contacts, they have to street sweep, do many safeguard/mayhem missions, or team up with others and keep repeating each other's missions in their tier. Many players don't like street sweeping, doing endless rounds of mayhem/safeguard missions, or teaming up (they like to solo).
Smoothing the level curve would mean finding a way that by simply completing all the contacts' missions in a 5 level tier, that there is enough xp produced to get to the next tier of contacts.
That's how the game should have been designed in the first place.
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Smoothing the level curve would mean finding a way that by simply completing most of the contacts' missions in a 5 level tier, that there is more than enough xp produced to get to the next tier of contacts.
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I've fixed the above to reflect my opinion on this - it's better that players could outlvl content than the 'just enough' xp via contacts because it will mean that a portion of the content will remain fresh to players since they won't be doing it alt after alt. Also, given that Ouroboros exists, outlvling content isn't the issue it once was if you are really desparate to do a certain arc.
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Smoothing the level curve would mean finding a way that by simply completing most of the contacts' missions in a 5 level tier, that there is more than enough xp produced to get to the next tier of contacts.
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I've fixed the above to reflect my opinion on this - it's better that players could outlvl content than the 'just enough' xp via contacts because it will mean that a portion of the content will remain fresh to players since they won't be doing it alt after alt. Also, given that Ouroboros exists, outlvling content isn't the issue it once was if you are really desparate to do a certain arc.
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This delegate accepts the friendly amendment of my esteemed peer.
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I am VERY disappointed that there was no mention of fixing some of the bugs when dealing with BASES and adding some much needed work to BASES. What do we have to do before anyone pays a little attention to BASES?!
i guess this is just a personal peeve, but i wish youd stop calling game updates 'free expansions'.
every pay to play online game updates and expands there game as it progresses through patches, these are not some unique 'free expansions' we are getting, they are simply patches and updates to the game just like every other paid mmo you can subscribe to.
i guess its just semantics, but calling them 'free expansions' makes me feel like you think you are talking to idiots who dont realize every single paid mmo has the exact same thing, but they just call them patches.
Everything is simply awesome. Another great year of gaming ahead in Paragon!