Feedback Winter Event - Bugs and Suggestions!
By
13th_Stranger,
Posted on: 2008-12-19 15:24 in Developers' Corner
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I wonder if they could create a "hockey stick" temp power, and use the ragdoll physics to allow us to actually play ice hockey.
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mechanically, should be pretty simple.
spawn an NPC named "Hockey Puck" that has 100% Resist Damage and 100% Resist Immobilize and 100% Resist Knock Up. (the last so it stays on the ground, in a rink.)
Hockey Stick melee power has a stick animation, the same effect of a snowball (ie: does nothing), plus "Special vs Hockey Puck: Knockback"
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I suppose you'd have to be very careful w/ how you handle the status protection & resistances of the "puck" - it'd have to have to be immune to holds & tp. It'd have to be immune to slows & repel. Would you just let people use force bolt & foot stomp to knock it around, though?
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Subjective:
Please, for the love of anything holy, NO MORE BABY NEW YEAR! And while we're at it, since the V-Day event is coming up, NO MORE SNAPTOOTH!
BNY is just, to put it bluntly, a pain in the butt. Escorts are amongst the least desirable mission types in the game, so what happens? Put it in for the event mission type.
How could this be resolved? Rather than actually taking BNY to the mission door, simply let the mission end once Snaptooth has been defeated. No need to escort him to the door, no need to deal with the rather...eccentric...escort code, no need to deal with hairpulling frustration.
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Actually, from about two days into the event the first year we had the ski chalet, I've never had a problem with keeping the brat following me, except for the one time I deliberately left Shadow Fall on to see what it would take to keep him in trail, which was painful.
I do think that a couple of changes could be made to the mission itself, however...
1) Change BNY to be 'recapturable', the way some hostages are in regular missions, so that people running speed missions can't just dash in, frag Snaptooth, and run back out dragging BNY through dozens of Redcaps. If he pulled off to be recaptured by any Redcaps you ran past, it would make it necessary to clear out most of the central room to be able to get him clear. That won't affect speed runs, since a high-level character could wipe the chamber in short order.
2) Increase the reward by adding 5 canes to each reward (to a total of 10 if you just want canes) and make all BNY mission mobs use the GM code. That would eliminate the 'player too high' issue, ensure that people who want badges and people who want XP could be on the same team, and level the playing field for everyone. It would, however, make speed runs harder, which is why I would raise the reward.
The presents in the zones should also spawn snowmen under the GM code; I rememeber the first year, when my level-12 character could hit the present near the Mutant quartermaster in Cap au Diable and get level-19 snowmen. Flattening that would, I think, result in more people wanting to clear the 'naughty' spawns instead of running from +6 mobs they can't hit.
"But in our enthusiasm, we could not resist a radical overhaul of the system, in which all of its major weaknesses have been exposed, analyzed, and replaced with new weaknesses."
-- Bruce Leverett, Register Allocation in Optimizing Compilers
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I wonder if they could create a "hockey stick" temp power, and use the ragdoll physics to allow us to actually play ice hockey.
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mechanically, should be pretty simple.
spawn an NPC named "Hockey Puck" that has 100% Resist Damage and 100% Resist Immobilize and 100% Resist Knock Up. (the last so it stays on the ground, in a rink.)
Hockey Stick melee power has a stick animation, the same effect of a snowball (ie: does nothing), plus "Special vs Hockey Puck: Knockback"
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I suppose you'd have to be very careful w/ how you handle the status protection & resistances of the "puck" - it'd have to have to be immune to holds & tp. It'd have to be immune to slows & repel. Would you just let people use force bolt & foot stomp to knock it around, though?
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dunno. I was just pointing out that within the confines of the current NPC generating system everything exists to do this. Whether that also includes Teleport and Repel protection is just as simple as any other power effects it might have. (and probably a good idea.)
It could have Force Bolt protection if it had 500 Mag KB Resist and the Stick did a 501 Mag hit to it. No need to be power-specific. Guess a whole lot of people could throw Force Bolt at once, but I have no idea how high those numbers could be turned up.
Objective: The Winter Lord will sometimes despawn in the middle of a fight. This will happen even if he was never 'left unattended' (i.e. our team spawned him and immediately attacked). Our damage output was relatively low (it was two teams of 12 emps total). To be sure it wasn't just a fluke, we tried a second time and had the exact same thing happen. It did not occur to me to time it.
(FYI, we tried a 3rd time and succeeded with the exact same teams.)
Paragon City Search And Rescue
The Mentor Project
BNY mission and in general, fix the escort AI. Escorts should follow like pets and stop when they encounter mobs. 'Nuff said.
I avoid escort missions like the plague and drop them whenever I can because of the garbage AI.
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BNY mission and in general, fix the escort AI. Escorts should follow like pets and stop when they encounter mobs. 'Nuff said.
I avoid escort missions like the plague and drop them whenever I can because of the garbage AI.
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I don't understand the problems people are having with the BNY escort. I've done this mish a few hundred times this year and haven't had a single problem.
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BNY mission and in general, fix the escort AI. Escorts should follow like pets and stop when they encounter mobs. 'Nuff said.
I avoid escort missions like the plague and drop them whenever I can because of the garbage AI.
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I don't understand the problems people are having with the BNY escort. I've done this mish a few hundred times this year and haven't had a single problem.
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In my experience, the "problem" w/ NPCs that have to follow you only occurs when people want to just free the NPC, then run off back to the goal at full speed. They don't want to make the frequent stops to let the NPC catch up, since it's slower.
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BNY mission and in general, fix the escort AI. Escorts should follow like pets and stop when they encounter mobs. 'Nuff said.
I avoid escort missions like the plague and drop them whenever I can because of the garbage AI.
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I don't understand the problems people are having with the BNY escort. I've done this mish a few hundred times this year and haven't had a single problem.
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In my experience, the "problem" w/ NPCs that have to follow you only occurs when people want to just free the NPC, then run off back to the goal at full speed. They don't want to make the frequent stops to let the NPC catch up, since it's slower.
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Well, heck, that's not a problem. That's just the way things is.
This year and last I got a bug in which Baby New Year is led to the cave exit. New Year is targeted and standing next to the Player. Click on the door. You appear outside and Baby New Year instead is shifted deep below the map into the distance. This is only seen if the character is targeted. As the targeted NPC is shifted into the distance he becomes untargeted. The escort NPC is impossible to find on the map or within the cave system. Cant quite determine the cause of this. But this did happen several times today. And several times last year.
Total count for this year:
Toy Collector x2
Winters gift Complete set x2
Winters gift Slows (additional) x7 (3 for SG mates)
2005, 2006, 2007, Gifted/Holiday Flight Pack x4
Given away candy canes to SG mates: 100+
That's way too many BNY missions. I have done the winter event steadily the entire time it has been live and spent 14 hours doing them on Saturday. I leveled a character (solo) from 14-24 on them, and nothing else, while getting enough CCs for everything she needed, and yet another from 17 to 26 (also solo).
And that is not even close to what I would have liked to have achieved.
In the name of mercy, why is it so hard to get the old badges and costume pieces?
Together we entered a city of strangers, we made it a city of friends, and we leave it a City of Heroes. - Sweet_Sarah
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A ice skating lake to play hockey on besides the luge and Ski slopes.
Ran or was on FBNY missions majority of time event took place. Several bugs reported almost all involving reward text, or rewards not appearing properly etc.
but it would be nice to have an Ice skating ring for speed skating course, and hockey games. That would be awesome.
Valor
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Decide that this will be another day in which you Walk The Talk.
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Sentinel Of Liberty SG
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Total count for this year:
Toy Collector x2
Winters gift Complete set x2
Winters gift Slows (additional) x7 (3 for SG mates)
2005, 2006, 2007, Gifted/Holiday Flight Pack x4
Given away candy canes to SG mates: 100+
That's way too many BNY missions. I have done the winter event steadily the entire time it has been live and spent 14 hours doing them on Saturday. I leveled a character (solo) from 14-24 on them, and nothing else, while getting enough CCs for everything she needed, and yet another from 17 to 26 (also solo).
And that is not even close to what I would have liked to have achieved.
In the name of mercy, why is it so hard to get the old badges and costume pieces?
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You don't "need" any of that stuff. YOU chose to keep doing the mission over and over again. Would it be nice for there to be a way to get CCs reliably in other ways? Sure. Do you "need to" or "have to" keep grinding the same mission over and over again? No.
Add a candy cane keeper outside the chalet door in Pocket D once its closed. I'm sure there will be more people wanting to redeem thier canes after the event.
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Add a candy cane keeper outside the chalet door in Pocket D once its closed. I'm sure there will be more people wanting to redeem thier canes after the event.
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/unsigned
It takes away the uniqueness of the event. It also will devalue the winter gift IO set that some of us have worked hard for in order to put on the market latter this summer. If people can just go and buy CC any time then turn them in anytime, there would be no real value in theses items. Also the Candy keeper sells temp powers that could make the game embalanced if they were left avalible full time. (A cheap self rez, flight, hold, and Debt protection.) Everyone knows the dates to complete what needs to be done. Too bad CC will be worthless in a couple of hours.
Suggestions for candy cane unlocked costume options:
Carrot nose (under details1, maybe?)
Coal eyes (though insect eyes does in a pinch)
Corn-cob pipe
Coal nose
Maybe those freaky 'pit' eyes like the winter lords have?
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Total count for this year:
Toy Collector x2
Winters gift Complete set x2
Winters gift Slows (additional) x7 (3 for SG mates)
2005, 2006, 2007, Gifted/Holiday Flight Pack x4
Given away candy canes to SG mates: 100+
That's way too many BNY missions. I have done the winter event steadily the entire time it has been live and spent 14 hours doing them on Saturday. I leveled a character (solo) from 14-24 on them, and nothing else, while getting enough CCs for everything she needed, and yet another from 17 to 26 (also solo).
And that is not even close to what I would have liked to have achieved.
In the name of mercy, why is it so hard to get the old badges and costume pieces?
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You don't "need" any of that stuff. YOU chose to keep doing the mission over and over again. Would it be nice for there to be a way to get CCs reliably in other ways? Sure. Do you "need to" or "have to" keep grinding the same mission over and over again? No.
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No, I don't "need" to these things. I don't need IOs, I don't merits, I don't need badges, I don't even need to play this game.
I want to. These are "shinies". They are incentives, meant to encourage us to play, meant to enhance the play experience.
For a game that has for the life of its existence encouraged alts, the cost of the badges and costume items does not do so. The Winters Gift set should remain expensive.
Edit/Note: One of those Winters Gift: Slow IO recipes was lost to a secure trade that failed, recipe disappeared, petition w/Senior GM pending. (I know it disappeared, secure trade was with best friend of 17 years.)
Together we entered a city of strangers, we made it a city of friends, and we leave it a City of Heroes. - Sweet_Sarah
BOYCOTT NCSoft (on Facebook)
https://www.facebook.com/groups/517513781597443/
Governments have fallen to the power of social media. Gaming companies can too.
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Edit/Note: One of those Winters Gift: Slow IO recipes was lost to a secure trade that failed, recipe disappeared, petition w/Senior GM pending. (I know it disappeared, secure trade was with best friend of 17 years.)
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The old fake a friendship for 17 years to steal an IO recipe scam. 
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No, I don't "need" these things.
I want to. These are "shinies". They are incentives, meant to encourage us to play, meant to enhance the play experience.
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I fail to understand why the availability of those optional "shinies" needs to be dumbed down to make it easier for you to acquire them en masse without investing much time. You just stated a pretty good case for leaving the difficulty to get them right where it is.
A no attack "Group-Friendly" Defender is like a "Team Friendly" basketball player who won't dribble, run, or shoot, under any circumstances. "I'm a PASSER."
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For a game that has for the life of its existence encouraged alts, the cost of the badges and costume items does not do so. The Winters Gift set should remain expensive.
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Wrong. The winter event is something put in place for fun. Remember that little word, "fun"? If something in this game ceases to be fun for you, stop doing it. If YOU are forcing yourself to do something to fulfill some "need" you have, then whose fault is that?
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For a game that has for the life of its existence encouraged alts, the cost of the badges and costume items does not do so. The Winters Gift set should remain expensive.
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Wrong. The winter event is something put in place for fun. Remember that little word, "fun"? If something in this game ceases to be fun for you, stop doing it. If YOU are forcing yourself to do something to fulfill some "need" you have, then whose fault is that?
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If too many people stop doing things for fun, and stop doing too many things for fun, they may stop paying for fun.
When the developers introduced the Zombie apocalypse, they deliberately set the numbers at a point so that people with many alts could get all the badges. That seemed like a reasonable explanation, perhaps overly generous given that the Zombie apocalypse is spawnable. So why not apply that same reasoning to the badges and such that have a very hard limit of time?
She's giving feedback to the developers of something she found less fun. It may not have reduced your fun, but it affected hers. So she provided it. If the devs weren't interested, they probably wouldn't have started this thread.
My arcs are constantly shifting, just search for GadgetDon for the latest.
The world beware! I've started a blog
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If the devs weren't interested, they probably wouldn't have started this thread.
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QFT.
Remember that there are two types of gamers who play CoH/CoV.
Those who like to:
* farm, power level, badge hunt, accolade hunt, [censored] and abuse every kind of possible aspect of the game to further themselves.
* people who take it easy, go through the game to level at their leisure. Etc. etc.
With the ratio of drops of canes from the presents to being "naughty" realistically the only viable option to receive those gifts of the store was to farm 24 times to just get the IO winter set, farm 5 times and pay 30K of inf to get the winter badges of yesteryear, farm an additional 4 (or was it 5) times to get this year's winter gifts and badges.
Really the items like badges and the like SHOULD be toned down, TREMENDOUSLY!!! Like say 10K of inf and 5 canes.
The IO set should be hard to get, farming 24 times isn't hard but is a bit tedious when it's the same mission over and over and over. ((Hint Hint: Add other missions...))
With the bugs that were present that made it difficult to actually farm these missions, maybe some tweaking of these numbers in general is appropriate.
Nonetheless, I'm definently holding onto my canes from this season and waiting until December for that season's gifts. And to give myself a head start.
I'll also add one bit of a suggestion: Enable Hero to Villain and vice versa cane sharing.
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Long List:
Snowman head akin to the Pumkin head of Halloween.
Emotes: Snow angel, build a snowman, and caroling
Convert 1 PvP area into a giant snow covered snowball fight, with snow forts, and no powers.
3 on 3 Ice hockey
Option at end of all TF/SF during holiday event to get equal number of candy canes instead of merits.
snowman invasion ala zombie invasion
Replace blimp in Atlas with Santa & reindeer
Xmas trees replacing some of the trees in the zones
costume pieces: Fur lined skirts, mittens, elf cap, reindeer antlers
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/sign
And put a big Christmas Tree in front of City Hall!
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Remember that there are two types of gamers who play CoH/CoV.
Those who like to:
* farm, power level, badge hunt, accolade hunt, [censored] and abuse every kind of possible aspect of the game to further themselves.
* people who take it easy, go through the game to level at their leisure. Etc. etc.
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Firstly, WAY over-simplified. Everyone is either an easy-going player or an exploiting weasel, eh?
Secondly, you're not describing two types of players, you're describing two extremes on a spectrum.
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The IO set should be hard to get, farming 24 times isn't hard but is a bit tedious when it's the same mission over and over and over. ((Hint Hint: Add other missions...))
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Or even have ANY mission during the winter event drop a single candy cane (or two).
Paragon City Search And Rescue
The Mentor Project
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Long List:
Snowman head akin to the Pumkin head of Halloween.
Emotes: Snow angel, build a snowman, and caroling
Convert 1 PvP area into a giant snow covered snowball fight, with snow forts, and no powers.
3 on 3 Ice hockey
Option at end of all TF/SF during holiday event to get equal number of candy canes instead of merits.
snowman invasion ala zombie invasion
Replace blimp in Atlas with Santa & reindeer
Xmas trees replacing some of the trees in the zones
costume pieces: Fur lined skirts, mittens, elf cap, reindeer antlers
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/sign
And put a big Christmas Tree in front of City Hall!
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man those are some of the best suggestions I've seen in a long time. I remember when all lakes were frozen, that really made an impact. The christmas/winter event shouldn't be confined to just one zone - and personally I think it should last all of December.
Member of Top Ten since 2005
Arc 98079: Hay Fever hits Heroes Hard
Arc 53357: Family Business is not Men-only
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I wonder if they could create a "hockey stick" temp power, and use the ragdoll physics to allow us to actually play ice hockey.
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mechanically, should be pretty simple.
spawn an NPC named "Hockey Puck" that has 100% Resist Damage and 100% Resist Immobilize and 100% Resist Knock Up. (the last so it stays on the ground, in a rink.)
Hockey Stick melee power has a stick animation, the same effect of a snowball (ie: does nothing), plus "Special vs Hockey Puck: Knockback"