City of Heroes: Live Forum Archive

Really getting tired of Bugs/Nerfs (rant)

Amberyl

By Amberyl,
Posted on: 2009-05-10 13:09 in Mission Architect

 

Posted

OK, so I've got mission 3 of my arc 53420, balanced upon the unavailability of anything less than a 52-52 character. Since that NPC is central to my arc, all mobs in the mission turn out to be a whopping 52, regardless of difficulty.

So I have to balance the mission so someone on heroic level can finish the EB in it, especially a non-uber hopped up toon. I put in some allies (40-54) which were up to the task of helping out. Since the last boss is supposed to be epic, it wasn't a stretch that the signature allies couldn't beat the boss by themselves but you could help tip the scales. I would have preferred the mission to be set at level 50 so the PLAYER could be more of a decisive factor, but since the NPC was 52-52 que sera sera.

Ally NPCs conned pink, EB conned pink, you get to contribute. Not the biggest deal, right? BZZT. Wrong.

Since the latest patch to MA, my allies con pink (level 52) just like they did before. Until you rescue them. Then they auto exemp from 52 EBs to 50 EBs. Now you get to face down the uber end Boss who has spawned with 3 or 4 52 Bosses as well. Your 'signature' allies can barely face down the surrounding Bosses, let alone the EB who proceeds to tear you and your allies a brand new orifice.

The 'auto-exemp' is either a bug, or a bait-and-switch. Now without knowing that this issue has been thrown into the MA during the patch, I merrily dismissed the reports that the mission was tough...I knew it was tough when I wrote it, but I had spent a lot of time balancing it out so it wouldn't be a player-kill fest. Which it is now.

I'm not surprised that people would rage quit my arc and possibly 1 or 0 star it. It's turned from a carefully balanced arc that a decently SO'd 50 could play to an exercise in cruel and unusual punishment, even for purpled toons. It might as well be from Arcana's scrapper challenge (no disrespect intended).

So now I'm mad because people who have referred my arc as being fun are now looking bad for duping people into a horrible arc they cannot finish. I can barely patch or fix anything to change the balance since:

A) the Story is highly integrated. Yanking and pulling out stuff is going to massively change the NPC text throughout the mission. To do so without knowing whether another patch/change/nerf will fix/change/destroy the balance again would be masochistic.

B) my Arc is sitting at 99.34% of the file size. Adding a single ally with 5 characters in the name is all I can do before it gives me a warning that I am overlimit. So I could try and rebalance the arc with a 52-52AV thrown in just to allow the player to finish the mission, which would have no text or description on why they are thrown in, and make the player feel even less of a participant in their arc. Nuh uh, I've already had to work with everything being +2, this would be even more ludicrous.

I look like a jerk because I have just told people, 'you just have to figure out how to approach it,' not knowing that it is basically a Kobayashi Maru scenario.

Now I understand the devs are working hard to make the system as good as it can be. I understand that there are changes that will break things as well. But for heaven's sake, can we get a decent patch notes system so that people know what the heck will be broken BEFORE we find out from the players of our arcs?

Already people have noted that there are missing maps, emotes and HTML text length issues that prevented previously published missions from being played. But this is even more insidious when existing missions that are publishable are punishing the players because of balance issues.

I would like to get a clarification on what is going on with this auto-exemp ally issue. Will players now be screwed thinking that they get to Rescue their +2 ally to help only to see that ally con orange when they auto exemp to the same level as the player as soon as the ally is 'active'?

Is it a bug that's going to be fixed?

Right now the only thing I can do is put a huge warning not to play that arc because it is [censored]. I can't unpublish or suspend my arc without losing the ratings or arc ID. I've gotten lots of excellent feedback from the original arc before the patch, including some that had suggested it be Dev Choiced, but now it is basically unplayable.

PS. apparently you can't even use the word 'regent' in the ally name because it is copyrighted. So you can't even name a boss 'Regent Korol' even though you can use the NPC toon.

 

Posted

And yes, I have bugged this issue.

 

Posted

How can Regent be copyrighted? It's a word that basicly means "King's advisor". That's like saying Captain is copyrighted.

 

Posted

[ QUOTE ]
How can Regent be copyrighted? It's a word that basicly means "King's advisor". That's like saying Captain is copyrighted.

[/ QUOTE ]

You can't use the word "thing" in a title. Like "Little green thing" as an objective. Or "Strange Thing" as a destructible object.

Marvel owns the English language, didn't you know?

 

Posted

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
How can Regent be copyrighted? It's a word that basicly means "King's advisor". That's like saying Captain is copyrighted.

[/ QUOTE ]

You can't use the word "thing" in a title. Like "Little green thing" as an objective. Or "Strange Thing" as a destructible object.

Marvel owns the English language, didn't you know?

[/ QUOTE ]

Closer to the thruth than you might think. A friend that writes comics professionally once pointed out that Superhero is a joint trademark of Marvel and DC

 

Posted

Although it is in violation of the TOS, has anyone gone through the .pigg files to find out the verboten word list yet?

 

Posted

Hmm.
Nope. I don't expect anyone would answer that.

I think the DBs you are wondering about are on the server side though.
Might be wrong, of course.
.

 

Posted

[ QUOTE ]
Although it is in violation of the TOS, has anyone gone through the .pigg files to find out the verboten word list yet?

[/ QUOTE ]

Pretty sure that the filter is serverside, otherwise people would be tempted to 'edit' it.


"City of Heroes. April 27, 2004 - August 31, 2012. Obliterated not with a weapon of mass destruction, not by an all-powerful supervillain... but by a cold-hearted and cowardly corporate suck-up."

 

Posted

I was hoping it would be clientside with validation serverside on publish. Happy bday stever.

 

Posted

Too bad you can't use the capital i in place of the lowercase L for it since it wouldn't show up in searches.

 

Posted

Any creative use of letters, numbers, and symbols to bypass the filter is a punishable offense.

 

Posted

[ QUOTE ]
Any creative use of letters, numbers, and symbols to bypass the filter is a punishable offense.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm not sure if you're being sarcastic with a sig like that.

 

Posted

Actually I am serious about both the post and the signature

 

Posted

Yes it would suck to get banned just for trying to use the name of a dev-created entity.

I googled it, apparently the Slingers was the name of some obscure Marvel superteam. So obviously in the case of Gunslingers, you're not making any reference to "a profane or copyrighted term." Chalk up another point against the filter.

Eva Destruction AR/Fire/Munitions Blaster
Darkfire Avenger DM/SD/Body Scrapper

Arc ID#161629 Freaks, Geeks, and Men in Black
Arc ID#431270 Until the End of the World

 

Posted

[ QUOTE ]
Too bad you can't use the capital i in place of the lowercase L for it since it wouldn't show up in searches.

[/ QUOTE ]

You COULD just use "Singers" and give em all sonic attacks... like a evil band of vocalists who are out to dominate the eardrums of the world with their infernal crooning.

And the "Gunsingers" could be interesting... they sing songs about guns while they shoot you. That'd be pretty neat.

But yeah, the word filter needs some serious help.

Quote:
Originally Posted by eltonio View Post
This is over the top mental slavery.

 

Posted

I think the filter is massively busted/under developed since they have built provisions in MA to filter out profane words but not block out when those combinations of profanity are a subset of a non profane word.

For example you can use the word slinger but not slingers. You can use gunslinger but not gunslingers.

You also cannot use A followed by two Ss on its own, but you CAN type assume safely. Why can't MA even be configured such that 'slingers' would not be flagged like 'assume' would?

And if they are going to ban you for typing A$s then they might as well ban you for using such hacks such as anus, buttocks, rear orifice etc.

 

Posted

Those words aren't considered swears. And I did find it kinda funny having that error message pop up every time I typed "assassin."

The issue isn't "what is considered profanity and why are people so hung up on certain words?" it's that the filter is blocking perfectly legitimate words.

Eva Destruction AR/Fire/Munitions Blaster
Darkfire Avenger DM/SD/Body Scrapper

Arc ID#161629 Freaks, Geeks, and Men in Black
Arc ID#431270 Until the End of the World

 

Posted

Hacking the .pigg files is verboten at any rate - aka breaks the EULA

 

Posted

[ QUOTE ]
Those words aren't considered swears. And I did find it kinda funny having that error message pop up every time I typed "assassin."

The issue isn't "what is considered profanity and why are people so hung up on certain words?" it's that the filter is blocking perfectly legitimate words.

[/ QUOTE ]
Are you still getting error messages for "assassin"? I used the word assassin several times in arc 2134 with no errors, and that was published within a few days after Issue 14 went live.

 

Posted

[ QUOTE ]
Now I understand the devs are working hard to make the system as good as it can be. I understand that there are changes that will break things as well. But for heaven's sake, can we get a decent patch notes system so that people know what the heck will be broken BEFORE we find out from the players of our arcs?

[/ QUOTE ]

I had a thread about this that was deleted I believe. Basically it came down to "no you can't." People were posting things that were not in the patch notes and saying they were in the notes. Yeah, these things were posted somewhere, but not on the page you go to when you click on the "patch notes" link. The real notes are buried somewhere. It's a friends and family thing, if you are one of those than you will know where to find the info. If you are not, may you have the best of luck. You'll need it.

 

Posted

[ QUOTE ]

Closer to the thruth than you might think. A friend that writes comics professionally once pointed out that Superhero is a joint trademark of Marvel and DC

[/ QUOTE ]

...only in the US. Place the servers in Belgium and use any word you like. Welcome the internets.

Any and all spelling, grammar and logic errors are intentional so this post will blend seamlessly into the Internet
---------------------------
Unbelievable. You, [subject name here], must be the pride of [subject hometown here]!

 

Posted

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
How can Regent be copyrighted? It's a word that basicly means "King's advisor". That's like saying Captain is copyrighted.

[/ QUOTE ]

You can't use the word "thing" in a title. Like "Little green thing" as an objective. Or "Strange Thing" as a destructible object.

Marvel owns the English language, didn't you know?

[/ QUOTE ]

Marvel doesn't own the language, but the way our wonky US tax laws are written, they HAVE to pursue (read: sue over) any possible copyright theft to retain their copyright.

Have.
To.

Or else they risk losing it in a court case later when they really do have grounds to sue.

On top of that, Marvel has many many lawyers and while our friends the devs can afford many lawyers themselves too, it's best to be too carefull than not careful enough as merely phoning a lawyer starts costing you hundreds of dollars just for him to hear it ring, much less picking up the phone itself.

So at that point it sadly becomes a form of soft censorship, whether to risk wasting money or not on a futile case that would keep the copyright laws happy. Money always talks; sometimes it keeps others quiet.

So if I were to use "Thing" in the game somehow that "might possibly be mistaken for Marvel's Thing*", and they saw it...?

US copyright laws need some serious going over, but there's not much hope of that anytime soon on the horizon. In the meantime, the devs do what they gotta do and we have to go along with them because there's no other way to fight city hall on it right now.
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* I cannot believe I just said that, ew.

 

Posted

[ QUOTE ]
Closer to the thruth than you might think. A friend that writes comics professionally once pointed out that Superhero is a joint trademark of Marvel and DC

[/ QUOTE ]

Superhero is not a basic word/term in the English language. Copyright laws in the U.S. are so wonky though. At first, you couldn't even copyright a celebrity likeness. But now, you can copyright anything so long as you can prove that your version is unique. I'll even call the copyright laws anti-trust, as it gives the copyright holder a wide leverage to sue. Thus stifling the competitive creative process which is supposed to be at the heart of a free market.