Mission Select in I13
By
Blue Rabbit,
Posted on: 2008-12-03 06:56 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
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I just can't see much reason to implement it right NOW.
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What, a bit like the PvP changes are mostly for Arena or Base (now disabled) PvP, and zonal changes coming later? Yeah, don't see why they implemented THOSE now either. 
@FloatingFatMan
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
That'll teach me to post things in a hurry without full and detailed explanations...
Right this moment in time, the disadvantages of activating the feature seem to outweigh the advantages. Plus, since it doesn't appear in the patch notes, it seems to be a stealth insert.
Going to make something of an assumption, now, because I think that this has FAR more utility in Going Rogue than it does in the current state of the game - With Going Rogue, you may be able to have a variable morality, which would imply that there would be a third, Neutral, faction, who can team with both Heroes and Villains anywhere.
If that assumption is correct (and it would be an awesome idea), then the game will need to check if someone is appropriate for teaming, and since it can only check toons in the current zone, then this restriction makes a lot of sense, and it would make a lot of sense to implement the feature with Going Rogue, because then people would be able to see the reason why, very clearly.
However, as the game currently stands it appears as a major change to the casual teaming process for negligible gain.
That's why I don't understand why it's been implemented now.
The wisdom of Shadowe: Ghostraptor: The Shadowe is wise ...; FFM: Shadowe is no longer wise.
; Techbot_Alpha: Also, what Shadowe said. It seems he is still somewhat wise ; Bull Throttle: Shadowe was unwise in this instance...; Rock_Powerfist: in this instance Shadowe is wise.; Techbot_Alpha: Shadowe is very wise *nods*; Zortel: *Quotable line about Shadowe being wise goes here.*
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That'll teach me to post things in a hurry without full and detailed explanations...
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Oh I understood what you meant, mate. I was just pointing out that the same reasoning applies to the PvP changes and it really doesn't make sense to add THEM into the game without the rest of the changes, either.
So, seeing as they DID with PvP, you shouldn't be surprised that they do it with something ELSE too!
@FloatingFatMan
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
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Further, it makes a lot more sense to me if it's an anti-farming measure rather than a means to prevent incorrect characters doing one of two stoy arcs.
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It doesn't make sense as an anti-farming measure because it won't work.
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Humbly, PRAF, since when has that stopped them? Many a change has been tossed in to stop farming/PLing/whatever which the players looked at and said "well, I can see how to get around that no trouble." It hasn't stopped it being done though.
Sometimes, they reverse it again, like the anti-ghosting code they put in that made Stealth totally useless, but it always get put in.
Disclaimer: The above may be humerous, or at least may be an attempt at humour. Try reading it that way.
Posts are OOC unless noted to be IC, or in an IC thread.
BAB, on "stealth Nerfs":
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So devs are u trying to slip these in here unnoticed to prevent more forum trolling or what?
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Probably.
But "undocumented changes" are hardly new...
Whether intentional or not there are always dozens (if not hundreds) of undocumented tweaks in every new Issue.
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QFE
You guys were more than capable of figuring out what the numbers were before they were reported in game...even before people were able to pull them straight out of the data files. I don't think anyone here believes that you've lost that ability. Thus, it makes absolutely no sense to not announce any changes, positive or negative, that are made to powers. You guys are just going to figure it out anyway, and it'll [censored] you off in the process.
If you're not seeing a patch note about power changes it's one of four things:
1) It actually hasn't changed
2) It was changed to fix some kind of exploit.
3) It's a bug
4) It was changed, and the patch note was simply missed.
If anything has changed to player powers, especially for PvP...it is most likely the third or fourth. Pretty much every single player power was touched in some way for PvP, and it's not entirely impossible that some kind of bug was introduced or it was an intentional change that missed getting a patch note.
But a stealth nerf? Utterly pointless. What could we possibly gain from trying to sneak a change through that you guys are going to find out about?
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I really should do something about this signature.
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So, seeing as they DID with PvP, you shouldn't be surprised that they do it with something ELSE too!
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The difference being that they were clear that they were adjusting PvP based on datamines of Arena/Base-raids in this update, and that Zonal PvP would be looked at later, and that they were making the changes...
I've not seen a patch note that says "Team Leaders can no longer select a mission if all members of the team are not in the same zone".
Thus, it seems to me, that they felt the need to hide this change. Why? To allow more flexibility with future technology in the game? Tell us. To reduce the ease of filling? Tell us. Can't tell us? Tell us that, then, and we'll not moan about stealth-features.
The wisdom of Shadowe: Ghostraptor: The Shadowe is wise ...; FFM: Shadowe is no longer wise.
; Techbot_Alpha: Also, what Shadowe said. It seems he is still somewhat wise ; Bull Throttle: Shadowe was unwise in this instance...; Rock_Powerfist: in this instance Shadowe is wise.; Techbot_Alpha: Shadowe is very wise *nods*; Zortel: *Quotable line about Shadowe being wise goes here.*
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Humbly, PRAF, since when has that stopped them? Many a change has been tossed in to stop farming/PLing/whatever which the players looked at and said "well, I can see how to get around that no trouble." It hasn't stopped it being done though.
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Common forum logic:
They have done this because of X, but it won't work because of Y.
The implication being that the devs are to stupid to see Y.
When the truth is X is not the reason something has been done at all.
However, it becomes established wisdom that "the devs are often doing things for stupid reasons that don't work", when the truth is players are often wrong about the reasons.
I really should do something about this signature.
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However, it becomes established wisdom that "the devs are often doing things for stupid reasons that don't work", when the truth is players are often wrong about the reasons.
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Maybe, but we aren't wrong about the side effects. This is a major pain. Sure there are workarounds, but it seems like they are using a slegehammer on a thumbtack.
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...it seems to be a stealth insert.
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Just commenting on this quickly: the idea of "stealth" changes in a patch is a myth in the vast majority of cases.
If it's a deliberate change then its absence from the patch notes is a simple oversight. There's over 4500 words worth of patch notes there, and you can be sure the raw notes they were created from were enormous. I've been that person who has to compile patch notes before - it's phenomenally easy to overlook things, including major features that were announced publicly prior to the update. Take the notes you have seen: these are the polished notes, with extraneous and duplicate material removed. Now multiply those notes by a factor of at least 10 to get a start for knowing what the raw changelog might have looked like in terms of size.
If it isn't a deliberate change, then it's a bug.
It's that simple.
On the topic of this particular undocumented change, I'll ask and see what I can find out.
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...it seems to be a stealth insert.
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Just commenting on this quickly: the idea of "stealth" changes in a patch is a myth in the vast majority of cases.
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So you do do it sometimes!
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On the topic of this particular undocumented change, I'll ask and see what I can find out.
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Thank you.
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...it seems to be a stealth insert.
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Just commenting on this quickly: the idea of "stealth" changes in a patch is a myth in the vast majority of cases.
If it's a deliberate change then its absence from the patch notes is a simple oversight. There's over 4500 words worth of patch notes there, and you can be sure the raw notes they were created from were enormous. I've been that person who has to compile patch notes before - it's phenomenally easy to overlook things, including major features that were announced publicly prior to the update. Take the notes you have seen: these are the polished notes, with extraneous and duplicate material removed. Now multiply those notes by a factor of at least 10 to get a start for knowing what the raw changelog might have looked like in terms of size.
If it isn't a deliberate change, then it's a bug.
It's that simple.
On the topic of this particular undocumented change, I'll ask and see what I can find out.
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Hehehehehe.
Fair point, GR, and thanks, PRAF for that BAB quote earlier, too.
Yes, "undocumented feature" is a far more... reasonable way to describe this issue. You will note that I rather carefully avoided the use of the word 'nerf' anywhere, because I don't think of it as a nerf. It's a change to a feature of the game, and I can certainly see reasons to do it. I just can't see why it needed to be done now, and I can't see why something that fundamentally changes how teams select missions didn't get put into any of the patch notes on Test or the Live version (though I do fully appreciate what you mean about the quantity of data that goes into patch notes).
The wisdom of Shadowe: Ghostraptor: The Shadowe is wise ...; FFM: Shadowe is no longer wise.
; Techbot_Alpha: Also, what Shadowe said. It seems he is still somewhat wise ; Bull Throttle: Shadowe was unwise in this instance...; Rock_Powerfist: in this instance Shadowe is wise.; Techbot_Alpha: Shadowe is very wise *nods*; Zortel: *Quotable line about Shadowe being wise goes here.*
An undocumented change often refer to a 'positive'or neutral change. Stealth change refers to a undocumented change, yet resulting in a negative gameplay experience.
Pre-travel, not taking the temp powers in account, its a freaking nightmare to travel from 1 place to another, from Hollows to KR or sortlike, the entire team has to wait for you. US has little problems, as each zone is widely populated and rather easy to get a team whitin your zone, such isnt the case in EU servers. 1-0 for City of Solo 
I cant, even if i try i would fail, see any reason why changing this system, dispite it might give problems with a few missions (wich may be like 0,1% of all missions?)
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Right this moment in time, the disadvantages of activating the feature seem to outweigh the advantages. Plus, since it doesn't appear in the patch notes, it seems to be a stealth insert.
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Maybe we should all bug report it, after all if it isn't in the patch notes it might be a bug. We're all assuming the change was intended, perhaps it was.
Edit: Wrote this before seeing GR comment, might still be a bug though I'd suggest not bug reporting it as he's finding out.
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Anyone know if this also applies to different instances of the same zone?
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As if this would be a problem on Defiant
hehe instantly devaluing the TP to Mission that Mac Owners get
"Well, they found my diary today.
They were appropriately appalled
at the discovery of the eight victims
They're now putting it all together.
Women wrapped in silk
with one leg missing
Eight legs, one body, silk,
spider, brilliant!"
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I gotta say, PRAF, this smacks as a rather ham-fisted anti-farming measure, rather than a mechanism for getting coop teaming to work better.
If you could find an actual quote saying otherwise, then cool, but eveything I've seen suggests they changed the missions to non-coop because they wouldn't work, rather than this being something to fix it.
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You can blame Bruce Harlick and Vince D'Amelio for this... and it was indeed developed with co-op in mind. Pity they didn't consider the other implications (apparently).
source
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For anyone who doesn't know what I mean - you can no longer select missions for your team until all team members are in the same zone.
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You've got to be kidding me.
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I gotta say, PRAF, this smacks as a rather ham-fisted anti-farming measure, rather than a mechanism for getting coop teaming to work better.
If you could find an actual quote saying otherwise, then cool, but eveything I've seen suggests they changed the missions to non-coop because they wouldn't work, rather than this being something to fix it.
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You can blame Bruce Harlick and Vince D'Amelio for this... and it was indeed developed with co-op in mind. Pity they didn't consider the other implications (apparently).
source
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That was where I thought I'd find a reference to this, but it seemed to me like they solved the initial problems by splitting a coop arc into two non-coop arcs. I couldn't see references to this issue. Did I miss something?
Disclaimer: The above may be humerous, or at least may be an attempt at humour. Try reading it that way.
Posts are OOC unless noted to be IC, or in an IC thread.
QR
I've not teamed much since the issue went live, but is it possible to invite people to a team once the mission has been selected, or does it somehow cancel the picked mission until the non-zoned teammate is in the right area?
Hi all,
This is an unintended side-effect of other changes. We'll be adding the below to the known issues list:
<ul type="square">[*]Currently, any mission that can be accessed via Flashback, and any mission in a shared zone that is available only to Heroes or Villains, can only be selected as the active mission of a team if every member of that team is in the same zone.[/list]
which means its going to be fixed soon along with the chat / text issue... 
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Thanks, GR. Could you give us any indication of the reasoning behind this?
Disclaimer: The above may be humerous, or at least may be an attempt at humour. Try reading it that way.
Posts are OOC unless noted to be IC, or in an IC thread.
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any mission in a shared zone that is available only to Heroes or Villains
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It's what I said it was, a consiquence of the code to stop players doing opposite faction missions in co-op zones.
Maybe you will believe me next time?
I really should do something about this signature.
Because they will have lots of other stuff to do then and because they wanted to use it in a minor way now (to see how it works if nothing else).
I really should do something about this signature.