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What they really should do is not just specify a limit, but code that into the game engine.
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You'd think they would have by now. But then their doing that presumes a lot of truth about what is actually an exploit and what isn't
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What they really should do is not just specify a limit, but code that into the game engine.
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You'd think they would have by now. But then their doing that presumes a lot of truth about what is actually an exploit and what isn't
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Not really. It makes that almost irrelevant. The devs just have to decide what the upper limit of earning rate for each type of reward should be (and it's not like they couldn't adjust it as they felt necessary going forward). Doesn't matter how you get there. Also doesn't mean they wouldn't continue to eliminate certain loopholes. Even with a cap in place, reaching that cap easily and without any risk is probably something you want to deal with still. But it's not a disaster in progress like we had, where the devs were forced to act quickly.
Had Comm Officer farming happened with such a limit in place there'd be no talk of banning anyone and they'd have had plenty of time to just deal with it at the next opportunity. There might still have been crowds farming MA just because it was easier, but no one would be hitting 50 in a matter of hours or pouring obscene amounts of tickets into the economy.
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Ugh, another "Tell us where the line is" thread?
I'll just say the same thing I've said before in far fewer words.
They're not going to tell us.
Deal with it.
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Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison See, it's gems like these that make me check Claws' post history every once in a while to make sure I haven't missed anything good lately. |
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Ugh, another "Tell us where the line is" thread?
I'll just say the same thing I've said before in far fewer words.
They're not going to tell us.
Deal with it.
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LOL there really isn't a line. That's my guess why they won't say what it is or set a limit.
I love City of Heroes.
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We had ranged weapons added to every group in MA because hoverblasting mobs that couldn't hit back was aberrant play.
I'd call that sensible play.
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I call it "Welcome to five years ago." Ranged attacks were added to all developer-made NPCs shortly after the game went live, before I1, because many did not have them. Banished Pantheon Totems lacked ranged attacks until about I3, when they got their odd scatter attack. The range on enemy ranged attacks was increased several times, to the point where many enemies can shoot from out of Range Boosted Snipe range.
This has been the case for five years. You're a little too late to be surprised about this.
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Fixed that for you. "Range is a Blaster's defense." Yeah, right, and I've got some land to sell you; it's guaranteed to have water on at least one side.
"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 love City of Heroes.
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/signed
As far as the "no-ranged attack" exploit goes. I found that one by accident. I made a custome AV for my arc that used Fire Melee/Fire Armor. I ran it with several melee characters and noticed nothing strange.
Then I ran it with my sonic/devices hover-blaster and found that I had created an AV class enemy that would run all over the map because he couldn't attack me instead of holding still so I could kill him.
It annoyed me no end because I literally COULD NOT finish the mission, since his defeat was the main objective.
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Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison See, it's gems like these that make me check Claws' post history every once in a while to make sure I haven't missed anything good lately. |
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Ugh, another "Tell us where the line is" thread?
I'll just say the same thing I've said before in far fewer words.
They're not going to tell us.
Deal with it.
[/ QUOTE ]
"Ugh... another side-switching thread. They're never going to allow it! Deal with it!"
Sound familiar? I know I've heard it before. Maybe what you should "deal with" is that when people don't like something, they talk about it on the forums. And sometimes things change as a result. I can tell you one thing that has never changed anything on any game forum I've ever been on though:
The sanctimonious, "All you peope stop whining already!" post. But seriously, keep trying. I'm sure it will work one day. 
Villains: Annie Alias, Dr. Amperical, Shade Golem, Knight Marksman
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My 2 cents:
As for where the 'line' is, I don't care. I'm not trying to get anywhere as fast as possible. My L40 archer will get to L50 eventually.
If I had so much time to play that I spent hours and hours optimizing my inf/xp earning patterns, well, I probably need an additional pastime.
If I wish I had more time to play, I would enjoy my time playing as much as possible, and not be that concerned about how many levels per hour I gained.
Either way, it's not an issue for me.
Do I sometimes wish I could have a L50 IO'd out toon right away? Sure. Do I often wish I had a meeelion dollarz? Sure.
But when I wish I had my L50 IO'd toon, I remember - if I can, everyone else can, and for many of them, the game will become boring at that point, and they'll go elsewhere, and tell everyone how CoX is just a boring grind with no stories, and by the way, can you help me kill a hundred meelion ratses so I can get my Ratses badge and so on and so on...
And when I wish I had my meeelion dollarz, I relax and live my life, because I know the difference between a want and a need.
Perspective. It's what's for dinner.
[/highhorse... but we all know better, don't we? 
]
Arc #6015 - Coming Unglued
"A good n00b-sauce is based on a good n00b-roux." - The Masque
This just in: Exploiters hate Choose Your Own Adventure books, too.
"How do I know if I've made the right choice, if the book doesn't tell me?"
--NT
They all laughed at me when I said I wanted to be a comedian.
But I showed them, and nobody's laughing at me now!
If I became a red name, I would be all "and what would you mere mortals like to entertain me with today, mu hu ha ha ha!" ~Arcanaville
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Perspective. It's what's for dinner.
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I myself am no farmer and where exactly the line is drawn won't directly affect me either. I DO however, think it would be good for the game and everyone in it if there was an earning rate cap. It's a backstop against future exploits and it prevents knee-jerk reactions like this from devs under pressure to "do something" while 50s are practically coming off an assembly-line.
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I have found with this whole situation that the developers feel righteous in their actions and how they handled this situation. Making posts asking for Clairification will get no reply and flame wars will continue on until people get numbed over by this.
The sad and simple truth is this: The developers have always had a smug attitude that they know what is best for this game. It started with statesman and it has trickled down to the new regime. They feel that they handled this situation well. If you disagree and that disagreement is at an impasse - the only thing to do is either live with it, or unsubscribe.
They will not give in. They have a proven track record of sticking by their hard decisions without caring what the community thinks. It takes time to prove whether their decisions were the best for the game and we haven't had enough time pass by to make that determination.
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What they really should do is not just specify a limit, but code that into the game engine.
[/ QUOTE ]
You'd think they would have by now. But then their doing that presumes a lot of truth about what is actually an exploit and what isn't
[/ QUOTE ]
Why would they do that? Doing that would make them actually accountable, why would they want to be accountable when they don't need to be?
By leaving everything as nebulous as possible they can do as they please.
Brother of Markus
The Lord of Fire and Pain
The Legendary Living Hellfire
Fight my brute!
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What they really should do is not just specify a limit, but code that into the game engine.
[/ QUOTE ]
You'd think they would have by now. But then their doing that presumes a lot of truth about what is actually an exploit and what isn't
[/ QUOTE ]
Why would they do that? Doing that would make them actually accountable, why would they want to be accountable when they don't need to be?
By leaving everything as nebulous as possible they can do as they please.
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BINGO !!!!!!!!!!!!
Not sure I follow the "accountability" problem. They're held accountable for everything they do, so how is this different than any given day on the forums? 
An earning rate cap actually makes them less accountable for exploits people find, provided those exploits aren't able to circumvent the earning rate cap. It's automatic, so they don't have to babysit and enforce as they would a verbally specified earning rate limit. The only problem is technical. i.e. Whether or not it could be implemented without eating up too many additional server cycles.
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Join The X-Patriots on Virtue!
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Not sure I follow the "accountability" problem. They're held accountable for everything they do, so how is this different than any given day on the forums?
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Not actually accountable. We try to hold them accountable, but they won't accept it and there's nothing we can do to force it on them. Hell, there isn't even any way to complain when we're mistreated. You happen to have any of the contact info for any of the NCSoft VPs handy?
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An earning rate cap actually makes them less accountable for exploits people find, provided those exploits aren't able to circumvent the earning rate cap. It's automatic, so they don't have to babysit and enforce as they would a verbally specified earning rate limit. The only problem is technical. i.e. Whether or not it could be implemented without eating up too many additional server cycles.
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Details...
The reality is that the reason we were given for them not setting an actual limit, declaring the actual rule is because if they did then people would go right to the line, and we all just nodded at each other as though we accept that value judgement.
But... that's just it, it's a value judgement. At no point have we been told WHY going right to the limit of the rule is bad. Not once. We're just supposed to accept that it is and swallow it. If they can justify the why of it, then fine, but so far they've not even so much as tried.
Brother of Markus
The Lord of Fire and Pain
The Legendary Living Hellfire
Fight my brute!
I have to admit, when I first read Positron's reasoning of why they can't tell us where the line is because people would play right at the line it made sense to me.
Then I read some of the speed limit analogies and it made less sense. If there is a level speed limit, why not just come out and say it?
The reason they can't is the same reason we have entire books on traffic laws. It isn't just the speed. It's all the other things that are unsafe.
If you drive the speed limit but weave in and out of lanes, drive on the wrong side of the road, taligate, or hit pedestrians, you still get a ticket. It may not be a speeding ticket; it might be reckless driving or a myriad of other less well defined violations.
They could very easily define what the speed limit on leveling is. For the sake of argument, let's say they defined it as 1-50 in ten hours. But if someone found a way to press a clicky to get 1-49 in 10 minutes that would still be exploitive and would need to be addressed.
Don't misunderstand me. I don't think they handled this well. I thought the tone of Positron's post was wrong, I thought the punishments were too severe, and in several cases punished innocent individuals. But I don't think they can define "exploit" . . . at least not without having entire volumes of books dedicated to all the different ways one could exploit. And then having to amend those everytime someone found a new way.
I play City of Heroes because it's fun. I don't think I'd find City of Lawyers to be as much fun.
50s: Inv/SS PB Emp/Dark Grav/FF DM/Regen TA/A Sonic/Elec MA/Regen Fire/Kin Sonic/Rad Ice/Kin Crab Fire/Cold NW Merc/Dark Emp/Sonic Rad/Psy Emp/Ice WP/DB FA/SM
Overlord of Dream Team and Nightmare Squad
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The reason they can't is the same reason we have entire books on traffic laws. It isn't just the speed. It's all the other things that are unsafe.
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My own thought process went in a different direction. If you ask a casino manager how they feel about winners they will tell you that they love them. What they won't tell you is that they love them only when they are at somone elses casino. The dream that you can win brings people into casino's the reality that almost everyone loses is what makes them profitable.
I think the devs are operating like casino managers. They are willing to allow some to win, just as long as the overwhelming majority lose. The people who do manage the outlying feats keep everyone else trying to do the same, and as long as they are trying and its not reasonably possible for them the devs are happy.
I should have posted this awhile back. It was the point I was trying to illustrate in the initial post. I had kind of hoped that people would see it for themselves and then poke holes in my logic.
Your hypothesis is only correct if everyone accepts your definition of "winning"
Your casino analogy makes a certain amount of sense. There is a tolerable limit of winning. In fact, some winning is required to give others hope while they continue to throw money at the table or coins down a slot.
But if one person wins too much, he gets escorted out or dragged downstairs and roughed up by Lawrence Fishbourne (I just saw 21 on CD last night). If too many people win, the casino loses money and goes out of business.
Going back to my traffic analogy, you could argue that society allows a certain amount of speeding or lawlessness. We don't have cops on every street at every moment giving out tickets. Even if it was self sustaining and the tickets paid for all the cops most people would agree that it's not an efficient use of resources.
50s: Inv/SS PB Emp/Dark Grav/FF DM/Regen TA/A Sonic/Elec MA/Regen Fire/Kin Sonic/Rad Ice/Kin Crab Fire/Cold NW Merc/Dark Emp/Sonic Rad/Psy Emp/Ice WP/DB FA/SM
Overlord of Dream Team and Nightmare Squad
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Your hypothesis is only correct if everyone accepts your definition of "winning"
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Why do you say that ?
I don't follow the reasoning.
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Going back to my traffic analogy, you could argue that society allows a certain amount of speeding or lawlessness. We don't have cops on every street at every moment giving out tickets. Even if it was self sustaining and the tickets paid for all the cops most people would agree that it's not an efficient use of resources.
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I think we are kind of close but if we try to talk more we will wind up destroying both of our analogies.
On the subject of how it was handled I think we are both in agreement. I think positron wanted to use fear to get people to put on the breaks and it backfired.
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On the subject of how it was handled I think we are both in agreement. I think positron wanted to use fear to get people to put on the breaks and it backfired.
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Well, it did work to a certain degree. It scared some people right out of AE, and others right out of the game.
"Sorry bucko, but CoH and CoV are the same game." -BackAlleyBrawler
"Silly villain, CoX is for Heroes!" -Saicho
What they really should do is not just specify a limit, but code that into the game engine. If it were not possible to earn more than X amount of a certain reward per minute then much of the "farmers/powergamers are ruining it for everyone else by causing nerfs" complaining just goes away. Who cares if you can exploit a particular feature of AE if you don't *need* to to hit the earning-rate cap? They could even tighten down that cap a little more in AE missions to encourage farmers to do their farming away from AE, if that's what they want.
It also removes the urgency of dealing with those exploits promptly and gives them more time to more carefully consider and implement changes if the forums aren't currently burning down with DOOM over the latest problem.
Casual gamers would never hit this cap. Wouldn't even worry that it's there. You'd have to farm to bump up against it consistently, but the level would be, of course, far less than what was seen in the current Comm Officer farm mess.
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