Discussion - Release Notes for 18.20090422.5T

you deliberately missed my point.

you know what I mean.

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Okay, let me try to understand this logic, please:

<ul type="square">[*]1) CoX exists without the MA system. The players are reasonably happy for 5 years.[*]2) The developers introduce a new MA system on April 8th, which includes its own reward system. The players are still reasonable happy.[*]3) The developers take away (let's be a little extreme here) 75% of the rewards on May 12th, a little over a month after the Issue was released. Many players are upset and some are even thinking about quitting.[/list]
Huh?

So, why does 3) somehow make the game worse off than 1), before the MA system existed at all?

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You need to check your facts...

CoX has been steadily losing players over the years and with the eminent release of not one but two competitors, which it has never had before, things may go south quickly. At this rate CoX is in real danger, if one of these new guys on the block is a real hit. The population of the game has stabilized recently and might have even gotten a bump with the whole “reactivation event” that just went through but that won’t last if the whole reason people came back is sliced and diced into something else.

I agree that MA was a great idea, but in the execution it felt a bit lacking and a vocal minority threw their weight against these same boards and got what they wanted...an empty AE bldg where they and their friends can go and RP to their hearts content.

Nerfing the system as it was originally set has just begun a process that may not show it's real teeth until mid July after CO comes out and has a thorough workout by the public...If it's good then say bye bye to thousands of players...then whenever DCOL happens, if it's good...stick a fork in CoX as it is, because a MMO with too few players is not really an MMO now is it...

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CoX has been steadily losing players over the years

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Proof?

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Okay, let me try to understand this logic, please:

<ul type="square">[*]1) CoX exists without the MA system. The players are reasonably happy for 5 years.[*]2) The developers introduce a new MA system on April 8th, which includes its own reward system. The players are still reasonable happy.[*]3) The developers take away (let's be a little extreme here) 75% of the rewards on May 12th, a little over a month after the Issue was released. Many players are upset and some are even thinking about quitting.[/list]
Huh?

So, why does 3) somehow make the game worse off than 1), before the MA system existed at all?

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You need to check your facts...

CoX has been steadily losing players over the years and with the eminent release of not one but two competitors, which it has never had before, things may go south quickly. At this rate CoX is in real danger, if one of these new guys on the block is a real hit. The population of the game has stabilized recently and might have even gotten a bump with the whole “reactivation event” that just went through but that won’t last if the whole reason people came back is sliced and diced into something else.

I agree that MA was a great idea, but in the execution it felt a bit lacking and a vocal minority threw their weight against these same boards and got what they wanted...an empty AE bldg where they and their friends can go and RP to their hearts content.

Nerfing the system as it was originally set has just begun a process that may not show it's real teeth until mid July after CO comes out and has a thorough workout by the public...If it's good then say bye bye to thousands of players...then whenever DCOL happens, if it's good...stick a fork in CoX as it is, because a MMO with too few players is not really an MMO now is it...

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no its not, and the sad thing is, getting the people in control, the ones that call the shots, to see this to actually care about what we care about might be a pointless fight in itself.

another thing that bothers me is it "seems" that these people in control are doing what they can to manipulate the media, forums and try to sway popular beliefs with their alt accts. you can see it with the appearance of new faces that astutely challenge, shot down, belittle and basically shred someones post insisting that their way is the right and only way of thinking.

what is truely disturbing about this is all of that energy could be conserved for other things if there was direct, clean, polite and honest communication.

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another thing that bothers me is it "seems" that these people in control are doing what they can to manipulate the media, forums and try to sway popular beliefs with their alt accts. you can see it with the appearance of new faces that astutely challenge, shot down, belittle and basically shred someones post insisting that their way is the right and only way of thinking.

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I have to hold you up right here. I have to grant the possibility
of many dissenters being alt accounts, because I have no way
to confirm or deny identities of anybody.

But I consider it unlikely, because forums for any internet game
that's at least moderately popular, are routinely made up of us
overopinionated trout-sniffers.

Granted some are more obnoxious than others -
DOOOOMcriers, brown-nosers, and certain folk I've seen lately
who I guess learned debate from hannity and colmes. But it's
nothing new or exclusive to CoX. It's just the way us nerds are
on the internet.

As in the DracoPosi threads, I saw as many "new" faces
ragequitting, as I did brainlessly touting the party line, I think
it's just enough people have gotten agitated lately to bother
coming to say something.

Let me say a couple of things here.

The map I ran for that was, I'll say it again, very short. Tiny, in fact. Takes, probably, 5 to 10 minutes at most (not counting the time running back from the hospital after one of ambushes bags you).

Somewhere in the vicinity of 150 to 200 tickets for a 5 to 10 minute mission does not seem that horrible to me, rather the opposite. Then again, I'm not much of a 'max reward' type farmer. Oh, I like the rewards just fine, but my motivation to play is closer to the 'enjoy my characters and spend time with people I like, interspersed with sudden violence' school of thought. So, others may have different opinions regarding that level of reward.

. . .

A procedural note for those attempting to replicate what I've seen: I hit the limiter (if, indeed, thats what it turns out to be) on a feature packed map (for it's size, at least), running at difficulty level 4. When I went back and ran it on difficulty rank 5, the lower number of defeats reduced the in-mission ticket gain to somewhere in the 60's and I did not get the 'tickets not rewarded' message.

So, the limiter does kick-in pretty high. It may be that it's only noticeable in such a tightly packed and contained map, and that most small and medium maps won't have this issue at all due to the spacing of enemy groups, the lowered value of feature-to-spawn point ratio, or something of the kind.

. . .

Regarding Arcanaville: I've not read everything she's posted, and I know she's been in a few board-scraps which I've largely ignored or missed. As far as I know I've never teamed with her in the game, or even had an exchange with her on these boards. But, from what I have read it seems clear that she's been of immense value to this community and this game. I hope I'm lucky enough that she (or someone very like her) is a prominent part of any game I play in the future.

I don't have the time, inclination, deep knowledge of the guts of this game, and very possibly the talent to test and analyze the way Arcanaville does. I certainly didn't take The Player's invocation of her as any slight to me and I'd be happy to hear she'd glanced at this little issue.

. . .

Finally, I still don't think I have enough information to take a firm position as to the value of these recent changes to the AE system. I think it likely that it would've been a profound mistake to leave things as they were two weeks ago. It's probable that the changes made are not perfect, few things are. This is, perhaps, too much philosophy for this venue (or this time of the morning) but even if these changes are a mistake, I'm happy to see new mistakes being made rather than old ones. It tells me there's life in this thing yet.

As you were.

Well said. If only everyone on the forums were so reasonable....



.....our post counts would be much lower.

active posts = active game = happy

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How could they remove the chicken tug??? This completely screws up all of my fantastic RP arcs! Why do the devs hate RP??? I pay $15/month, I should be able to play the way I want! If this change is permanent, I may have to cancel my account! We'll see how long CoX lasts THEN!

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It is truly a sad, sad day when a player can't tug his chicken in the privacy of his own home.

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"Been a long time since anybody but me took ahold of my plow." -Malcolm Reynolds

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Not possible, unfortunately.

As I said, it was a very small map, two or three spawns, one glowy, and an ambush or two. Even on a very difficult setting I don't see anyway that the tickets granted from defeats could be more that 75 to 100, and even that's pushing it a bit.

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Then this should be investigated and quantified. Let's get Arcanaville on it right away, seriously.

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WTH does he have to do with anything? Last i looked he wasnt a redname unless its a devs alt account. If thast the cas. you may want to keep that under your hat so to speak. he may not want that getting out. but idk.

Plz explain why his testing is so superior to others and how SaintTzu is too incompetent to test this issue out. An issue that he found and brought it to light in this thread.

I know thats not what you directly said but you definitely implied that. Just not in as many words.

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For what its worth, in my own opinion the data SaintTsu provided is sufficiently credible sounding to warrant further investigation. Its on my list of things to look at on the weekend. But as you say, I don't have the patent on testing: everyone interested in the issue should be investigating it to whatever extent they feel appropriate (not all players want to or should be required to test the game).

It definitely sounds like the ticket cap is enforcing a lower limit based on mission detail factors. But it would take more data to tell what the actual pattern is. I have a pretty busy weekend coming up, but hopefully I can engineer some tests to determine what is going on exactly.

&lt;-- look, happy!

. . .

Ok, I've replicated the issue and made a mission to showcase it. #172150, 'Tester Mission' (I know, I'm a naming genius). My initial run through, at difficulty level 4 on my 50 Widow-er, yielded 112 tickets for defeats, 100 tickets at completion, and the, 'One or more architect tickets were not rewarded because you have reached the ticket limit for this map.' notice.

Run it and see for yourself. It's a tiny map, won't take long. Let me also say that I couldn't bring myself to put in weak 'farm-fodder' enemies, so the group is *not* a bunch of pushovers. Clicking the glowy will end the mission, so don't hit it 'til you're done clearing the ambushes if you want the full results.

And, if while you're there you should happen to give me a push toward those shiny authorship badges, I'll try not to complain.

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How could they remove the chicken tug??? This completely screws up all of my fantastic RP arcs! Why do the devs hate RP??? I pay $15/month, I should be able to play the way I want! If this change is permanent, I may have to cancel my account! We'll see how long CoX lasts THEN!

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I admit I lol'd.

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I don't know which is funnier...

(a) someone is threatening to quit over losing his chicken tugging emote...

or

(b) This wild future scenario: (50 years in the future -- a bunch of developers from another game, discussing changes to their animation)

BabBles : Dude, I spent 4 weeks making that duck-plucking animation. I even got it so the soft downy feathers fluffed off, and the duck would quack.

PosiTive : Look, as lead Dev, I have to answer to the players about this, seriously, the duck plucking is being abused by all the lazy farmers in game. Every time they pluck-a-duck, some level 1 newb goes from 1 to 20. All they are learning is how to be lazy duck-pluckers.

BabBles : *sad face*

SynUs : Could we change the duck to a peacock? Or a squirrel!

War Woman : Can I go? If this meeting is just about ducks and feathers, then I'd rather be.. *interrupted by Lord RecKless*

Lord RecKless : THIS is MORE than just being about ducks being plucked. You all remember what happened to that old hero MMO back in the early 2000s right? What was it called... Heroes of the City or something...

SynUs : It was City of Heroes. How could you not know that? If YOU were half the geek I am, you would have had 4 servers full of 50s like me and almost all of them fully badged out, except I could never quite beat that Beefcake guy...

Lord RecKless : Shut up nerd. MY point is, that old hero game removed some chicken animation from the game and *interrupted by SynUs*

SynUs : It was the Chicken-Tug animation. Chicken-tug!

Lord RecKless : *gives SynUs the evil eye* Right... chicken-tug. Anyhow, they removed this chicken thing from the game, and then one player cracked a mental over it. And he was then followed by a mass exodus from the game, and the company went broke. It was like SWG all over again, but over a fowl. My point is, PosiTive, we need to consider this before we make changes.

BabBles : *looks towards PosiTive with hope*

PosiTive : Fine fine. Bunch of sooks. BabBles, change the animation so when the npc is disturbed, they throw the duck at the enemy. Make it lay an egg when it lands and have some feathers float about. Now, next order of business - who is actioning that list of base improvements?"

That was awesome. This should totally be a web series.

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&lt;-- look, happy!

. . .

Ok, I've replicated the issue and made a mission to showcase it. #172150, 'Tester Mission' (I know, I'm a naming genius). My initial run through, at difficulty level 4 on my 50 Widow-er, yielded 112 tickets for defeats, 100 tickets at completion, and the, 'One or more architect tickets were not rewarded because you have reached the ticket limit for this map.' notice.

Run it and see for yourself. It's a tiny map, won't take long. Let me also say that I couldn't bring myself to put in weak 'farm-fodder' enemies, so the group is *not* a bunch of pushovers. Clicking the glowy will end the mission, so don't hit it 'til you're done clearing the ambushes if you want the full results.

And, if while you're there you should happen to give me a push toward those shiny authorship badges, I'll try not to complain.

[/ QUOTE ]You've sent the devs a message about this, yes? With this concrete, reproducible example?

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You've sent the devs a message about this, yes? With this concrete, reproducible example?

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Nothing beyond what's in this thread. It's just a bit of odd behavior, and probably working mostly as intended. If my hypothesis about it's cause is correct then it's something that probably shouldn't even be visible to the vast majority of players. It seems likely that the '1500 ticket cap' is just a simplification of the changes they made.

I don't necessarily see a bug here, there doesn't seem to be anyway to call it out as an exploit, and it may only be visible due to the specific parameters of a single Tiny map. In my judgement this isn't something that needs to take up developer time right now.

All that said, I know Moderators and the occasional Redname read these threads, if they think it needs attention then I'm sure it'll get some. Also, Arcanaville is planning to give it a look, and on this issue I'd trust her judgement as to whether the matter is urgent or important over my own.

Arcanaville, plz dont take my post as an attack against you. i know you have help out the community with testing and posting guides. i lurked on the fourms LONG before i actually reg and posted. Im full aware of what you have done. And by no means was it meant to undermind or downplay what you have done. We all tyvm for your contributions to the game. It was just met to show that others are just as capable. im pretty sure you knew what i meant but i just want to make sure.

Ty SainTzu, im off today and when i get a few moments ill run your test mission then run a papper mission and compare. May take some time to get it all writen down and posted though. i have alot going on today.

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Arcanaville, plz dont take my post as an attack against you. i know you have help out the community with testing and posting guides. i lurked on the fourms LONG before i actually reg and posted. Im full aware of what you have done. And by no means was it meant to undermind or downplay what you have done. We all tyvm for your contributions to the game. It was just met to show that others are just as capable. im pretty sure you knew what i meant but i just want to make sure.

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No offense taken. The important thing is not the person doing the testing, but the testing methodology taken. The more systematic it is, and the more precisely it is reported, the easier it is for the rest of the players - especially the ones that do a lot of heavy testing of the game, of which I am just one - to recognize the potential issue being reported and follow up with additional testing to confirm.

My suspicion is that this will turn out to be a "working as intended" and not a bug. However, I would like to collect my own set of data before asking the devs about it, as they appear to be slightly busy at the moment.

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Arcanaville, plz dont take my post as an attack against you. i know you have help out the community with testing and posting guides. i lurked on the fourms LONG before i actually reg and posted. Im full aware of what you have done. And by no means was it meant to undermind or downplay what you have done. We all tyvm for your contributions to the game. It was just met to show that others are just as capable. im pretty sure you knew what i meant but i just want to make sure.

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No offense taken. The important thing is not the person doing the testing, but the testing methodology taken. The more systematic it is, and the more precisely it is reported, the easier it is for the rest of the players - especially the ones that do a lot of heavy testing of the game, of which I am just one - to recognize the potential issue being reported and follow up with additional testing to confirm.

My suspicion is that this will turn out to be a "working as intended" and not a bug. However, I would like to collect my own set of data before asking the devs about it, as they appear to be slightly busy at the moment.

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ty for understanding. I completly agree with ya about the method of testing is far more important then who is testing. I was gonna try to test some thing just out of self curiosity today but unfortunaly thats looking slim atm. ive had some things come up where i cant atm barely have time to reply to a few posts..

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You've sent the devs a message about this, yes? With this concrete, reproducible example?

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Nothing beyond what's in this thread. It's just a bit of odd behavior, and probably working mostly as intended. If my hypothesis about it's cause is correct then it's something that probably shouldn't even be visible to the vast majority of players. It seems likely that the '1500 ticket cap' is just a simplification of the changes they made.

I don't necessarily see a bug here, there doesn't seem to be anyway to call it out as an exploit, and it may only be visible due to the specific parameters of a single Tiny map. In my judgement this isn't something that needs to take up developer time right now.

All that said, I know Moderators and the occasional Redname read these threads, if they think it needs attention then I'm sure it'll get some. Also, Arcanaville is planning to give it a look, and on this issue I'd trust her judgement as to whether the matter is urgent or important over my own.

[/ QUOTE ]Good point. Cool.

The reason why I suggested Arcana take a look at it is because I already know that she has a consistent method of testing.... and I'd just never heard of SaintTzu before.

can the player base speak, or its just a forumite forum?
Release Notes for 18.20090422.5T didnt change anything for me. do you guys do all the fuss because you where previously abusing? just asking.

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can the player base speak, or its just a forumite forum?


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For someone that's been barely registered for a month and already has more posts than I had in my first YEAR of playing, you should not be trying to make that distinction, sir.

We are ALL part of the playerbase.

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Ok, I've replicated the issue and made a mission to showcase it. #172150, 'Tester Mission' (I know, I'm a naming genius). My initial run through, at difficulty level 4 on my 50 Widow-er, yielded 112 tickets for defeats, 100 tickets at completion, and the, 'One or more architect tickets were not rewarded because you have reached the ticket limit for this map.' notice.

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I managed to find some time to test this arc substantially, and it does in fact appear to have a 212 ticket cap being enforced on it regardless of circumstances. If you run it on an odd difficulty level solo, its almost impossible to hit that cap, but on an even number difficulty its possible, and it always triggers at 212. Furthermore, that cap seems to be enforced on all players of a team: when I tested with multiple players on a team (2 and 3) each individual player could earn up to 212 in my testing (although my 3 player team isn't conclusive since none of them hit the cap and I didn't have time to test multiple runs with that composition).

It seems that beyond the 1500 ticket cap announced there is a separate cap that is computed based on some statistic of the mission itself, possibly map size (probably not, although not definitively not spawn size).

Going to do more testing this week, although my time will be a little limited for the next week or two.


UPDATE: Synapse tells me that separate from the 1500 ticket cap, there is another ticket limit that is based on the number of spawns in the mission. I'll try to zero in on what those parameters are, unless a red name trumps me first by posting them.

One thing that's really disappointing me about the game recently is the cost and availability of IO's. My favorite thing about this game is building toons - I've got a lot of alts and would like to IO out most of them up.

I have a few fully tricked out, but it took forever, and atm it looks like its getting harder and harder. First, market availability seems to be dwindling, and what is available is insanely expensive. And with AE out now, it's much harder to find a team running task forces for merits, and now AE is nerfed.

How does nerfing rewards and making it so difficult to use IO's, which are a really fun part of the game, help the game? It doesn't. It forces people to 'play' the market or farm, which are two things I, and many other players, despise. Odd that the devs nerf the rewards to stop farming, but by nerfing the rewards, they make farming the only way to IO out toons and take advantage of one of the games most enjoyable aspects for many.

You want to stop farming? Make regular game play more rewarding, then there would be no need to farm. But logic doesn't seem to apply here. Hey look guys, shiny new PVP IO's to get people to pvp more! But we're gonna reduce the effectiveness of IO's, but only in pvp. And you have to get a few thousand kills just for a chance at one. Or you can buy one on the market for 500 million. Maybe I'll start farming so I can afford to try one of them out.

All of your answers are here. In short-short: Make your own teams, work the market, BE PATIENT.

Or, just keep complaining about how hard it is to get the virtual "stuff".... that works too.