[ QUOTE ]
My main point is that if they are going to keep trotting the way powers were intended to work out as reasons for changes, it would be nice to document just what they mean.
[/ QUOTE ]
They mean, explicitly, that they want powers to work they way that they want them to work. How that will be one Issue from now is not how it was one Issue prior to now.
What you're asking for is much less reasonable than the tone you're asking for it in. Continuing to ask for it in; you mentioned in your top post that you already suggested this in a thread that rednames have viewed and replied to. I'm glad you have a chance to vent your frustration with the other players, but I want to point out that that's exactly what this forum (and many of the others) exist for -- and what Mod 08 and others sacrifice their own peace of mind for. Players don't make posts primarily to comment on how happy they are to have the game... not only are posts like that usually uninformative and even downright boring, but over time they begin to feel forced or formulaic. (Read SexyJay's Costume Request thread for some examples of that!) Contributing back to the community ourselves is the only way we can really show support for the game.
Do you feel better now? The question is serious. If so, perhaps you should re-evaluate your wishes... and your timelines.
I'll go do that. Do you feel better now?
Hunter's Forty-Sixth Rule: If your head explodes, you were thinking too much, otherwise you shouldn't worry about the possibility.
Depends on whether or not you read and considered what I had to say, or are just being snarky.
I'll take "disinterested" for 500 inf, Alex. I can't relate anything you're on about to any of the thread above it. (Executive Summary) The discussion has been about engaging the extensive talents of the player base to help out the development team on an idea to expound their views on powers and foster understanding between the twain. With brief diversions into the in-game text of hover, a brief mention of ergonomics and timing, a fair number of comments about how much work it would take to make any such notion successful, and assorted witty quips and humorous comments by the participants.
How you got to a diatribe against my fellow players out of any of that is a mystery to me quite unworth the effort of decoding. 'Specially since at least once I made the comment that CoX has the best cut of players I've ever seen, an opinion quite unchanged at this time. In short, to quote the immortal words of Fezzik, "I do not think that word means what you think it means". And, of course, none of this has anything to do with the original topic, not that I care that much.
Hunter's Forty-Sixth Rule: If your head explodes, you were thinking too much, otherwise you shouldn't worry about the possibility.
[ QUOTE ]
The "vision," as you want to call it, is always changing. Whether through staff changes, finding new ways to work ideas in (or just plain ideas that come up,) ideas that look like they work one way on paper but, after some time seeing it live, are broken, or - as in the recharge bit so many are up in arms about - an elegant solution doesn't fix a problem, other solutions don't, so another that affects even more ends up being what is adopted.
[/ QUOTE ]
That also implies that they have a clear-cut "vision" that they could point to, which is pretty unlikely. It's far more probable that they have a general idea of how things should work, and when things don't work that way, they can point to that as a counter-example.
Rather than saying, "This power is supposed to work this way" for every combination of potential powers and enhancements and buffs and scenarios, they can simply say, "We didn't mean for it to work like that." Being exclusive instead of inclusive may upset people, but it's better than trying to be completely inclusive and inevitably failing.
We'll always have Paragon.
[ QUOTE ]
How you got to a diatribe against my fellow players out of any of that is a mystery to me quite unworth the effort of decoding.
[/ QUOTE ]
I didn't, and I'm not quite sure how you extracted that from the context around it. When I said, "with the other players," I meant, "along with," or "in discussion with."
[ QUOTE ]
And, of course, none of this has anything to do with the original topic, not that I care that much.
[/ QUOTE ]
Focus on the first three sentences of the post, then.
[ QUOTE ]
Honestly, did ANYONE besides the dev team ever even consider that hover was not rooting?
[/ QUOTE ]Honestly, I don't think even the devs realized it was happening until shortly before they changed it. I seem to recall Castle talking about using Hover for KB mitigation when he played the game, so the fact that it was mitigating the KB apparently didn't bother him. It also means he didn't realized that the Hover KB animation was preventing the rooting of his other powers.
FWIW, I believe Arcanaville also made mention of her knowledge of the non-rooting Hover KB animation during that time period, though I'm not sure if she qualifies as "anyone besides the dev team". Aside from not being employed by NCSoft and knot having access to the codebase, she might as well be one of them 
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/36641/My-Little-Exalt
You probably have a point there. Arcanaville does not seem to miss much. The hover change was the most palatable of these weird little changes that have cropped up lately anyway. I think I even remember Castle making a comment like you describe, too.
Neverdark is likely right, they DON'T probably have written descriptions of how the powers are supposed to work. From Positron's explanation of how the whole "Reformed" badge thing went down it appears they do some change documentation, but clearly some of it depends on the memories and I'll bet saved emails of the staff who've been there for long terms.
Whoever commented that having such documents about would constrain the developer's choices is absolutely right. That is not an unintended consequence. It does not really constrain them in the end, because they can quite easily create events within the game world to explain any changes they deem necessary. Remember the backstory for power proliferation?
For years and many issues before that, certain powersets only existed for certain ATs. Yet, when the design team decided that the time had come to proliferate sets to new ATs they did so consistently, according to established rules, AND explained it within the reality of the game. None of which they had to do - they could have just announced a fait accompli like, say, this pet recharge thing.
BUT, they were wise enough on that big change not to. Having an established set of agreed rules that all participants know about IN ADVANCE helps the game and the fictional reality it exists in run well. Surely you can all recall huge arguments as kids about one make believe game or another when there was a disagreement about the imagined events? Or in a more advanced version of the same thing, if you ever did pen and paper RPGs, or live-action role playing games, the rules had to be clear and recorded ahead of time. Didn't stop new editions from coming out and being adopted, but at any given time the rules were clearly out there and known to any participant who cared to learn them.
For the most part we've got that here. Except that every once in a while, our "gamesmasters" suddenly announce that something we players thought was working fine is actually in violation of the rules. Even though in every way we can check it is in compliance. Except apparently with some secret rulebook we're not allowed to see. That is not healthy for a long term game. Granted, most players just plain don't care - until the changes rise to the level they finally notice, then there's hell to pay.
Hunter's Forty-Sixth Rule: If your head explodes, you were thinking too much, otherwise you shouldn't worry about the possibility.
Announcing a planned and much requested feature (Power Proliferation) is a far different thing than announcing that they are looking at certain powers in certain ways because they may or may not be performing outside of what the developers intend based on some impossible to adequately define "vision". What would the response have been if months ago when they started looking at fixing the problem of pets inheriting recharge, that they had announced it?
First, players would suddenly be made aware of the fact that this happened of which many of us were totally unaware (me, for example). Second, there would been exactly the same outcry of DOOM against any sort of change that there is right now, don't think that would change. Third, the Developers would have committed themselves to doing something about the situation rather than at some point down the line simply saying, "turns out there aren't any good solutions right now." That would be the worst scenario for a great deal of reasons but mainly because then players would feel secure in the existence of what the Devs have declared to be unintentional behavior. If then months later another problem comes along, and this problem wasn't immediately apparent as being related to the first, but that can also benefit from one of the "not worth it" fixes to the old problem, the players are going to freak even more. They'll claim that the Devs promised them that their exploit would remain unchanged and that they were lied to and deliberately mislead despite the Devs trying for honest disclosure.
The simple fact is that in such a world as MMOs everything is very mutable. The Developers cannot nail their foot to the floor and dedicate themselves to making a change or never making a change. Even if what you are asking for wouldn't do that de jure, it certainly would de facto. It would simply exacerbate the feelings of entitlement that the players have, that they should, for some reason that I cannot fathom, be allowed full disclosure of all potential changes that developers look at. Not only does this waste development time on unnecessary communications it sets a standard that the Developers are beholden to given courses of action.
In short (way too late), there are more guaranteed problems with this idea than there are positive possibilities.
50s: Anaxagoras - En/En/For Blaster, Vicious Kittie - Claws/SR Scrapper, Rad. Therapy - Emp/Rad/For Defender, Anaximander - En/En/Mu Brute, Marble Vanguard - Stone/EM Tanker
Current: Vitriolic - 42 Bots/Poison MM, Aseity - 38 DB/WP Scrapper, Tai Shar - 42 Earth/Storm
[ QUOTE ]
I remember hover used to provide KB mitigation. I remember in the description it even said this, and that if you got hit with a KB power, you'd spin in place, recover, then could attack again. But then the devs lengthened the recovery time and said "it was never intended" to give KB protection. For 10 issues it worked this way, but suddenly, it "was never intended"?
[/ QUOTE ]
Clarification here:
Hover has always, and continues to provide knockback mitigation. It does not, and never did, provide knockback protection. It was always true that when hit with a knockback power, instead of being knocked backward you'd flip in place. The time this took was always less than the time it took to be thrown down or back, and then stand up - and still is.
What has changed is that originally, the backflip animation that played had a pair of settings that were not set correctly in combination. First, the backflip animation was not set to root - specifically, it was not set as a CANTMOVE animation. *All* other knockback animations are flagged this way so that during the knock and while you are standing up the game prevents you from either moving** or executing a power. What most players then and now aren't aware of is that the part of the game that prevents you from taking an action when you're executing another action is actually the animation system, not the powers system*** and if the knock/flip animation of hover is not flagged as CANTMOVE, then unlike all other knockback animations you can actually act during it.
However - and this is the rosetta stone for the definitive proof that this is a bug and not designed as intended - that animation is *also* flagged so that other powers animations cannot interrupt it. In other words, if you are in the middle of the backflip and you execute, say, power blast, then power blast's animation will not play: the backflip will prevent it from playing, and the power will just execute without the player performing its assigned animation. Because of that, the CANTMOVE built into power blast's animation will never take effect either, because its animation is blocked.
*That* is the Hover bug: first, Hover's knockback animation doesn't root like all other knockback animations, and second it prevents all other roots from taking effect during its animation, because it locks out all other animations from playing. If you are hoving and something hits you with a knockback power, during the knockback effect you are essentially unaffected by knockback because the knockback animation doesn't actually *do* anything to you, and doesn't prevent activity, AND it actually makes you basically ignore the rooting rules of the game by blocking all roots from taking effect[/i]. An ability the player never has under any other circumstance, and has been called a bug in every other circumstance where it appeared.
To put it in terms above, if you got hit with a KB power, you'd spin in place, recover, and while this was happening you could move and shoot totally unrooted: no waiting required. And there's no way on earth that Hover was explicitly intended to provide that sort of buff.
Now, what took so long for the dev team to find it? Well, the simply fact of the matter is that its a subtle enough bug that not many people were even aware of it, and apparently no one thought to report it as a bug. Not even I did, although to be honest, I can say with reasonably certainty that if BaB hadn't fixed it when he did, I was about a month away from actually reporting it as a bug. I was already at the time investigating the "shadow maul unrooting" bug and feeding BaB information about that. I'm pretty certain I would have gotten to it fairly soon afterward.
And FYI Hover still provides knockback mitigation. Its backflip still strongly resists backward movement, and it still lasts for less time than a genuine knockdown. But it doesn't offer the prior root immunity/unrooted attacking capability that it used to, which no one can reasonably claim was a reasonable ability for the power.
** technically, it doesn't prevent moving, it prevents the player from giving movement commands - you could still fall, slide, or other movements that don't require player input or continuing automatic input, such as autoforward
*** to be precise, the powers system enforces cast time which prevents you from activating a power while another is under its cast time, but its the animation system that "roots" a player and prevents *both* movement and executing other abilities while a power is performing its mandatory rooted animation
[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.)
On the subject of the OP: the devs have said for a very long time now that its an unavoidable but undesirable and unintentional bug in the game that if they want a power to be slottable for X, Y, and Z, but not A, B, and C, they cannot prevent an enhancement that provides X and A from only passing X to the power. Its all or nothing, and this bug and this statement that it *is* a bug goes all the way back to Hamidon enhancements (a generalization of this issue seems to affect inheriting modifiers from caster to pet). We all knew, or should have known, that this was unintentional. So asking the devs for a "powers vision document" in this case would not have improved the situation. All it would have said was what they had already said: this behavior is not intended, currently technically unavoidable, but there are no current plans to address it.
In this case, however, they had the existing bug that these modifiers were being passed to powers in an unintended manner, AND the invention system has continuously increased the amount of recharge exposed to the bug AND there was a separate issue involving critter AI which was determined to be affected by changing recharge. And there's no way the devs can write a vision document that says "we won't change it unless this, this, and that occur" because that's impossible to predict.
We also have a precident for what the devs have done in the past when they've decided, upon reflection, that this is too strong of a bug to ignore. We clever players decided to exploit this bug in the past by slotting melee attacks for range and there were all sorts of bizarre rationalizations for why this was actually a good thing by some of the players doing it. The devs thought differently, and it was actually *that* exploit that caused them to originally put the technology into the game that actually *allows* them to make powers ignore some buffs - the very same tech now being used to make pet powers ignore recharge. Same problem, same remediation. Surprise, surprise.
Now, am I in favor of publishing such documents anyway? Absolutely not. First, we have the melee range slotting issue of the past. Even for something *that* obvious, we had players arguing that it should be allowed. Just imagine all the design document rules the devs would have to be arguing over on the forums and in PM for years after such documents were published. Second, at the moment we have players making the claim that Castle promised [u]never[u] to change existing powers to make them immune from recharge buffs, and the actual fact that he said that decision was subject to change in the future if game conditions changed is legal technical mumbo-jumbo.
Given the fact that the devs cannot trivially protect themselves from either circumstance, I don't believe such documents could provide more benefit than harm.
[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.)
And here I read the topic title and thought this would be a suggestion for some sort of "Vision" power pool. Oh, well.
There need to be objective, quantifiable, and measurable standards. Anything less is a recipe for endless chaos, of the sort experienced by those who lived through the debacle that was SWG.
Hunter's Forty-Sixth Rule: If your head explodes, you were thinking too much, otherwise you shouldn't worry about the possibility.
[ QUOTE ]
There need to be objective, quantifiable, and measurable standards. Anything less is a recipe for endless chaos, of the sort experienced by those who lived through the debacle that was SWG.
[/ QUOTE ]
And you know what would be a way to stop all crime? If you passed a law against doing illegal things!
That's ridiculous, a form of bureaucratic legalism no better than doublethink. No amount of documentation would have saved SWG any more than the lack of it has doomed any of the dozens of games which didn't have it.
As I said before: I would love to have talks with the developers about their vision behind the powers. But it's impractical.
If you are serious about this suggestion, find another way to go about it... and when you have that, think about who might be better to address it to than the players who read this forum. Since you're trying to promote community, a community rep, perhaps?
[ QUOTE ]
There need to be objective, quantifiable, and measurable standards.
[/ QUOTE ]How wonderfully ironically humorous.
No, there does not. Such a thing would serve a game that is designed to be finished, not an eternall expanding game with its only conclusion being a kind of death.
Ok, it took some searching and compilation but I believe I've got Power's vision statement.
I think we should get more Prestige per kill, or make everything cost less. If you are alone it takes fore ever to get a lot. It is hard to get poeple that want to join your SG and have them keep super group mode on.
Ok.... I know you know what I am going to say so I guess I'll just slip it out and wait....
I think you should marry a citizen, and have a baby... Then when it older it can fight with you.
You could do a new mission save your kid. Also you could buy and house.
I guess you well need a new zone for the houses, or make it like a base. We have so much money lets spend it!
I know this is more silly then some of my other ideas, but it would be cool.
I just thought of a good tiltle~
I know this is a crazy idea but it would be funny : P Make it so you go into Champoins Online universe and same with DC . I know they can't do this yet since those two aren't out yet. They could make it so you can go in, unless you haven't pay for that game.
And the other two univers can come to CoH.
Superman girefriend went in to and univers where she was dead, and we already have portals. I don't know how to spell her name.
I think it would be cool to have one of your own guys with you. They could cut the xp so it will be slow. It you would still need to find poeple for the TF/SFs. I don't seen how this could go wrong!! It is the best one I ever thought of!!
Sorry, that's as far as I was able to get before my brain started bleeding.
This did get me thinking though. I don't believe Power has actually come up with an idea for super vision. Maybe I should send him a pm and see what he comes up with.
Don't count your weasels before they pop dink!
[ QUOTE ]
Then don't publish them live in the first place. And CERTAINLY don't wait 2 and 3 years to make such jarring changes to correct problems only the devs are even aware are an issue.
[/ QUOTE ]
If they tested everything to the point where all possible kinks could be observed and worked on it until all possible problems were rectified, the game would still be in beta. And when it came out years after today, players would STILL find ways to break it that the developers hadn't foreseen and had no means of fixing.
Problems crop up and problems get fixed. I would rather prefer having a game to play in-between those events.
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
|
[ QUOTE ]
A whole damn lot of smart stuff
[/ QUOTE ]
And
[ QUOTE ]
Another, smaller lot of just as smart stuff
[/ QUOTE ]
For the love of Gord, somebody give this woman a colored name already. Make it purple, name her the Community Explainer, just do SOMETHING.
Signed,
SkarmoryThePG
He who keeps a search open next to the digests.
What shall claim a Sky Kings' Ransom?
PPD & Resistance Epic Archetypes
Skarmory, I'm not belittling Arcanaville, but that's basically what Castle and the respondents in this thread already said. =P Hers has more variables and a different example, but it's the same substance.
...Of course, if the OPer listens to -her-, then I'm with you 100%.
[ QUOTE ]
An ability the player never has under any other circumstance, and has been called a bug in every other circumstance where it appeared.
[/ QUOTE ]
Peacebringer Light Form prevents rooting.
Winner of Players' Choice Best Villainous Arc 2010: Fear and Loathing on Striga; ID #350522
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
An ability the player never has under any other circumstance, and has been called a bug in every other circumstance where it appeared.
[/ QUOTE ]
Peacebringer Light Form prevents rooting.
[/ QUOTE ]
As far as I'm aware, Light Form doesn't root you, but I don't recall it specifically blocking all other combat roots. However, I'm not in a position to test that at the moment. If it does have that behavior, its almost certainly due to some weird Kheldian mode bug and not deliberate. I'll certainly take a closer look at it at some point when I have more time.
Another area where there exists a (currently) unavoidable lack of rooting is during the interruptible window of Sniper attacks. It wasn't well known (except to players that used the power extensively) that slotting interrupt reduction into sniper attacks would reduce the interruptible window, but not reduce the interruptible animation. The interruptible animation is not rooted, because its left unrooted so you can move or be moved, which would interrupt the power. But when you slot interrupt reduction, the duration during which you can be interrupted and break the power gets lower, while the duration during which you can actually *move* doesn't - the combat engine does not instruct the interruptible animation to stop playing.
So: its actually possible to do this:
Activate Sniper blast (slotted for interrupt reduction).
Wait one second
Move in some direction (i.e. towards or away from your target)
Sniper goes off without being interrupted
That lack of root should *also* be considered a bug, and subject to change at any time without warning (and the fix probably wouldn't be that hard, if they ever decided to get around to it).
[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 ]
As far as I'm aware, Light Form doesn't root you, but I don't recall it specifically blocking all other combat roots. However, I'm not in a position to test that at the moment. If it does have that behavior, its almost certainly due to some weird Kheldian mode bug and not deliberate. I'll certainly take a closer look at it at some point when I have more time.
[/ QUOTE ]
I can confirm that Light Form essentially unroots everything.
I'm going off very hazy memories here, but from what I recall the Big Floaty Glowball look of LF is technically a bug, but it proved popular enough with players that the I3-era dev team decided to leave it in in favor of whatever it was really supposed to look like.
I haven't looked in a demo file to see what's happening with Light Form, but I assume it works like dwarf or nova and actually swaps the player model out entirely. I'm guessing, at least originally, the model was missing or misnamed, resulting in a glob of FX hovering around some best-guess node. Either way, my more or less uneducated guess is that when the game says "Hey, play the animation for Incandescent Strike!" the animation system looks at whatever model or lack thereof Light Form uses, says "Uh, dude, there's nothing here to animate," and decides to chuck the whole thing.
Sadly, I can totally imagine certain parties circa I3 seeing nothing wrong with that. We're probably lucky peacebringers don't turn into Col. Burkholder.
(Actually--hazy memory again--wasn't there a problem long ago where kheldians sometimes turned into Mek Men?)
You may also want to look at the Bane power Poisonous Ray, which not only doesn't root but doesn't actually appear to have an animation at all. I may have seen it play an animation once. Once.
[ QUOTE ]
Now, am I in favor of publishing such documents anyway? Absolutely not. First, we have the melee range slotting issue of the past. Even for something *that* obvious, we had players arguing that it should be allowed. Just imagine all the design document rules the devs would have to be arguing over on the forums and in PM for years after such documents were published. Second, at the moment we have players making the claim that Castle promised [u]never[u] to change existing powers to make them immune from recharge buffs, and the actual fact that he said that decision was subject to change in the future if game conditions changed is legal technical mumbo-jumbo.
[/ QUOTE ]
Preach it. You sit with venerable poise atop a sandstone pedestal and it is awe inspiring. Your complete disregard for the crumbling foundation and the subsequent fall empowers us all.
Thank goodness your throng of followers don't pvp, or else they'd be exposed to your legacy failing worse than anything put into the game so far.
Preach on, but do us a favor and just leave it at preaching in the future, I don't think I could handle your deific touch damaging another aspect of the game like your elusivity idea did to pvp.
Your services as a dev interpreter and personal assistant to the stars is invaluable, so please don't take what I'm saying the wrong way. I really hope you got MMO pvp development out of your system and hopefully the devs don't do another "bring your kid to work and let them run stuff day" in the near future.
Other than that keep on keepin on, your pve efforts are always appreciated.
OP, your idea is a pipe dream, it is unrealistic to imagine a business publicly releasing their plans for the upcoming year in such detail. I'd be happy if they just made use of the "known issues" a bit better and if the patch note writers were occasionally given complete and detailed information. Not to say I dislike your idea, or your intent behind suggesting it, but it just isn't realistic.
So defence being a joke in PVP is OK, but being slightly Over adjusted (and tweakable) is ruining PvP ?
@Catwhoorg "Rule of Three - Finale" Arc# 1984
@Mr Falkland Islands"A Nation Goes Rogue" Arc# 2369 "Toasters and Pop Tarts" Arc#116617
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Yeah, my observations of Bill over the years lead me to agree with ya. )
[/ QUOTE ]
o,O
*closes blinds*
[/ QUOTE ]
(laugh) I have the advantage of y'all, been reading your posts for the better part of 3 years. There's a lot of us around who only read the forums in self-defense. Over time you figure out who to pay particular attention to - you may not always agree, but worth reading.
Hunter's Forty-Sixth Rule: If your head explodes, you were thinking too much, otherwise you shouldn't worry about the possibility.