A Rant About i16 (undocumented changes to TFs lead to bugs...big surprise)
By
Aggelakis,
Posted on: 2009-09-20 12:49 in ALL ACCESS Gameplay Technical Issues Bugs
What gets me the most, even after the GM showed up to move the computer out so we could destroy it in the second mish, he didnt stay around to make sure we could finish the next two like missions.
At least there were green fireballs and blue imps. I guess that makes up for any irregularities in game play.
Bugged TFs... 
Bugged Support... (
Customer Service conversation while on a bugged TF:
GM_something -> Invite me to team
Us -> Um, its a Task Force. I can't invite you.
GM_something -> Well if your (sic) not going to cooperate I can't help you.
End of Customer Service...
Well, I think it is entirely likely that you are making too much out of this. Until we get official commentary from a Dev, I don't think it is safe to assume they are trying to make you unhappy, much less new players.
Recently some tweaks were made to enemy AI (Malta Robots began using attacks that had always been there, but that they never used). Perhaps that explains the "beefed up mobs" in Hess's TF. As to the KHTF, it may simply have been a one time glitch. Did you run it another two or three times to see if you can get the behavior to repeat? If not, then you really have no ground to stand on to assume that they changed it... ESPECIALLY without patch notes at any point in Beta or now on Live.
I think giving Occam's Razor a miss and jumping straight to an evil Dev conspiracy was in poor taste.
Edit: After reading the complaint by the poster you linked to, AI is totally and completely not the problem, as I suggested above. Still, I can't imagine that the change was made deceptively on purpose, it wouldn't make sense, to me at least.
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Somehow you have decided to make this post into a Dev conspiracy. I really have no problem with the effort to make changes to the TFs in round them out. I'm complaining about the lack of process in documenting said changes.|
Originally Posted by Thirty_Seven
Well, I think it is entirely likely that you are making too much out of this. Until we get official commentary from a Dev, I don't think it is safe to assume they are trying to make you unhappy, much less new players.
Recently some tweaks were made to enemy AI (Malta Robots began using attacks that had always been there, but that they never used). Perhaps that explains the "beefed up mobs" in Hess's TF. As to the KHTF, it may simply have been a one time glitch. Did you run it another two or three times to see if you can get the behavior to repeat? If not, then you really have no ground to stand on to assume that they changed it... ESPECIALLY without patch notes at any point in Beta or now on Live. I think giving Occam's Razor a miss and jumping straight to an evil Dev conspiracy was in poor taste. Edit: After reading the complaint by the poster you linked to, AI is totally and completely not the problem. Still, I can't imagine that the change was made deceptively on purpose, it wouldn't make sense, to me at least. |
In your edit, you imply that somehow that I fault the AI for problems with Hess. No, I am saying that I had the same problems as the other poster. Please read carefully. I am saying that 2 TFs over 10 issues old are getting tweaks and changes that are undocumented, leading to bugs, some of which are show stoppers.
Unfortunately, your Occam's Razor suggestion that there is simply some misunderstanding about how Hess had changed. When there are ENTIRELY NEW maps in place of old ones (just like in the last mission of Numina TF from the last issue), it is highly doubtful that someone made an 'oops' coding error in changing out 3 (4?) maps in Hess TF. It is more likely that someone went in and deliberately made a change. I never suggested this was some conspiracy over laziness and ineptitude.
My point, before you leapt up and started blindly defending the devs, was that if you are to make changes you NEED to tell someone about it, especially if you have a PROCESS to find bugs and squash them before it goes live, and even more telling when you have a Beta testing process specifically designed to catch bugs. If you missed it, the original post highlighted that portion in red.
With respect to the KHTF, I also stated that it was entirely possible that the hostage AI was collaterally damaged by some other change to the game, perhaps due to AE changes. This may or may not be true because the devs have stated and shown that portions of the game and changes can be firewalled from each other. If it wasn't KHTF, then *somewhere* there needed to be a note saying that global AIs were tweaked that could affect rescues and escorts.
As to your stated testing of the hostage AI, someone else made the same comment about it being changed so they noted a difference as well. When you mention the repetition and testing, you are entirely making my point. This needed to be done in beta, and not on live. Introducing 2 new players to the joys of waiting for support because of QA shortcomings is not a good way to grow your userbase.
Somehow you wish to make this a point of deception when I want to make this a point of process. There's nothing more disappointing than seeing amateurish behaviour from professionals.
If people can't give honest and genuine feedback, especially about a screwup like this, then we may as well skip the betas and launch things wholesale, since there will always be others who will leap to the devs' defense. Oh wait...
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orly? I think we can skip that assumption without even waiting for commentary. I also think it's ridiculous for you to take the discussion in that direction. No one suggested the devs deliberately sabotaged anything.|
Originally Posted by Thirty_Seven
Until we get official commentary from a Dev, I don't think it is safe to assume they are trying to make you unhappy, much less new players.
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| Recently some tweaks were made to enemy AI (Malta Robots began using attacks that had always been there, but that they never used). Perhaps that explains the "beefed up mobs" in Hess's TF. As to the KHTF, it may simply have been a one time glitch. Did you run it another two or three times to see if you can get the behavior to repeat? If not, then you really have no ground to stand on to assume that they changed it... ESPECIALLY without patch notes at any point in Beta or now on Live. |
Paragon City Search And Rescue
The Mentor Project
I have two qualifications that I think mean I get to vehemently agree with Pum on this.
- I was on this Hess TF with him.
- I work in a software delivery team in a fortune 100 company. (Appeal to unprovable authority, take it or leave it.)
There are only a few outcomes I can think of that explain how such a complete breakage of a TF could make it from beta to live.
- This was a completely unintentional change. No one knew to test for it, including the NCNC internal QA team. The problems are a side effect of some other change elsewhere.
- This is an intentional change that is undocumented. Given the historical quality of CoH's patch notes, undocumented changes are in no way unlikely (and this applies equally to liked and hated changes). In this situation, the change control process for the game completely broke down. Possibly because of the lack of documentation of the change, it was never internally QA tested and went live completely broken. Someone should be losing points on their annual review.
- This is a change the devs considered an explot "fix". It still should have produced path notes when it went live, even if they did not specify the alleged exploit. For example "Hess TF maps modified slightly." This case is a variant of the one above.
The only system failures that should be unexpected are those that are due to unexpected side effects or infrastructure failures, not intentional changes that weren't tested. Areas of known fragility, such as AI or animation, should receive special focus testing, with solid test cases for situations known to fail in the past.
I like this game, and I actually have a pretty high regard for its developers. However, I have extremely low respect for how they manage their software. In my professional opinion, something is wrong with their process, and despite modest improvements, it's been wrong for over five years.
Blue
American Steele: 50 BS/Inv
Nightfall: 50 DDD
Sable Slayer: 50 DM/Rgn
Fortune's Shadow: 50 Dark/Psi
WinterStrike: 47 Ice/Dev
Quantum Well: 43 Inv/EM
Twilit Destiny: 43 MA/DA
Red
Shadowslip: 50 DDC
Final Rest: 50 MA/Rgn
Abyssal Frost: 50 Ice/Dark
Golden Ember: 50 SM/FA
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An exploit? You mean something like...|
Originally Posted by UberGuy
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Originally Posted by PumBumbler
Most fast KH teams rescue Katie's Spirit and fly vertically to escape mob aggro, then horizontally to the exit and then fly down. ... Since everyone who we invited is used to knocking out a Hess in 20 minutes, it wasn't a big deal to check it out.
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I, too, get after the Devs for lapses in patch notes. But fixes for exploits (which includes design flaws which have 'legal' workarounds so that it's not working as intended, and a 20 minute Hess is definitely not intended) are not announced on Test and are not announced when they go Live, at least, not at first. When the Patch is deemed stable and won't get reverted, then they announce exploit fixes. Given that this past Issue needed an emergency patch last Thursday, it is reasonable to assume that the delayed announcing of exploit fixes got delayed further or were forgotten in the rush.
Not too mention Paragon Studios is experiencing a flu epidemic right now.
The Devs have always come clean with changes they made. After all, they have publicly made the statement that hiding changes indefinitely is just stupid because we can all plainly see them.
Sometimes the process has lapses and sometimes it's delayed. Whenever we've inquired about it, we've been answered. Just don't expect answers from a flu-ridden studio over the weekend.
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Just because the devs have said that something is their standard operating procedure does not make it correct or defensible. "Correcting" things like the speed with which people can run TFs is not a change deserving of complete lack of patch notes. Announcing things like "some maps for the Hess TF have been modified" does not announce to the player base that there is an "exploit", nor does it explain to them how to execute it on live. The cost of such total obfuscation is that no one gets to test the changes.|
Originally Posted by Zombie Man
I, too, get after the Devs for lapses in patch notes. But fixes for exploits (which includes design flaws which have 'legal' workarounds so that it's not working as intended, and a 20 minute Hess is definitely not intended) are not announced on Test and are not announced when they go Live, at least, not at first. When the Patch is deemed stable and won't get reverted, then they announce exploit fixes. Given that this past Issue needed an emergency patch last Thursday, it is reasonable to assume that the delayed announcing of exploit fixes got delayed further or were forgotten in the rush.
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I agree completely with you that things like ways to crash zones to "dupe" enhancements, how to form a team so that extraordinary and unintended XP is produced, or that certain IOs were producing millions of points of damage do not need patch notes.
In brief, your definition of "exploit" is needlessly extreme.
However, things with no patch notes, whether or not we agree with what they should be, need to be internally tested. If this was an intentional change to the Hess TF, QA completely fell on its face in testing or validating it. The TF is completely unplayable without GM assistance in multiple successive missions. There is absolutely no way that's excusable.
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| Not too mention Paragon Studios is experiencing a flu epidemic right now. |
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| The Devs have always come clean with changes they made. After all, they have publicly made the statement that hiding changes indefinitely is just stupid because we can all plainly see them. |
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| Sometimes the process has lapses and sometimes it's delayed. Whenever we've inquired about it, we've been answered. Just don't expect answers from a flu-ridden studio over the weekend. |
Blue
American Steele: 50 BS/Inv
Nightfall: 50 DDD
Sable Slayer: 50 DM/Rgn
Fortune's Shadow: 50 Dark/Psi
WinterStrike: 47 Ice/Dev
Quantum Well: 43 Inv/EM
Twilit Destiny: 43 MA/DA
Red
Shadowslip: 50 DDC
Final Rest: 50 MA/Rgn
Abyssal Frost: 50 Ice/Dark
Golden Ember: 50 SM/FA
Definitely broken. I'm in the 2nd mission and no computer to be found. Pretty big screw-up on their part - leaving out the mission objective when they changed the maps. The map change SHOULD have been in the patch notes. Also, I don't see how this is an exploit fix since it doesn't slow you down much, if at all. You can still rush in and blitz the computer (in the first mission, where you can FIND it).
Edit: GM showed up and helped in under 10 minutes. Bad news: 4th radar station has the same problem as it uses the same map. First and 3rd radar stations are okay. This statement assumes the maps aren't selected randomly.
2nd Edit: In the 4th mission, quick GM response again. The GM moved me to the computer so I could destroy it. The computer was INSIDE the first raised platform in the big room, at ground level.
Paragon City Search And Rescue
The Mentor Project
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Heh, yes... It may add 5, maximum 10 seconds to the mission: time to find computer and that's it...
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Originally Posted by Ironblade
Definitely broken. I'm in the 2nd mission and no computer to be found. Pretty big screw-up on their part - leaving out the mission objective when they changed the maps. The map change SHOULD have been in the patch notes. Also, I don't see how this is an exploit fix since it doesn't slow you down much, if at all. You can still rush in and blitz the computer (in the first mission, where you can FIND it).
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Aside from the broken mission what's wrong with a challenge and some change?
It's amazing how easy this game is. 30 minute Master ITFs, 50 minute master RSFs. It's silly. SILLY!
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1) That's not really what we're discussing.|
Originally Posted by FitzSimmons
Aside from the broken mission what's wrong with a challenge and some change?
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2) Can you show anyone where meaningfully increased challenge is? See The two posts above yours.
Blue
American Steele: 50 BS/Inv
Nightfall: 50 DDD
Sable Slayer: 50 DM/Rgn
Fortune's Shadow: 50 Dark/Psi
WinterStrike: 47 Ice/Dev
Quantum Well: 43 Inv/EM
Twilit Destiny: 43 MA/DA
Red
Shadowslip: 50 DDC
Final Rest: 50 MA/Rgn
Abyssal Frost: 50 Ice/Dark
Golden Ember: 50 SM/FA
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I think the issue is that it seems a gratuitous change. I can't imagine what the goal was. It surely doesn't add any 'challange'. It's particularly irksome when an apparently frivolous change flat-out BREAKS the task force.
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Originally Posted by FitzSimmons
Aside from the broken mission what's wrong with a challenge and some change?
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Paragon City Search And Rescue
The Mentor Project
I have no problem with them making changes to powers, missions, and systems for "balance" and to correct "exploits." I may ultimately disagree with the changes, but I respect their right to make them.
But I have no respect for making an unannounced change and then leaving it unfinished or broken. As much as I like this game and the dev team, there is no excuse for that.
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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I am sorry that my ability to kill lots of mobs quickly, load quickly, and click on glowies quickly is considered an exploit to you. Do you also consider skipping to the end on the last mission of the ITF, killing Romulus, and then clearing the rooftops to be an exploit, since it's significantly faster than doing it the "normal" way? Do you consider stealthing to a glowie (which is the only mission objective) an exploit because it's faster? If so, you have a lot more in common with our good friend The_Alt_oholic than you might like to admit. The only example of an "exploit" in a TF I can think of recently is the geometry exploit in the Eden trial, where you could teleport or fly through the second wall. When this was fixed in I12 it added maybe another minute or two to the total time and speed teams were still banging Edens out in under ten minutes.|
Originally Posted by Zombie Man
An exploit? You mean something like...
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The problem here is, there were no exploits fixed in these changes. In the case of the KHTF it might have been an unintentional side effect of some behind-the-scenes AI changes, but I find it much more likely that it was an intentional change to make the TF take longer. Likewise, the change to the glowies in the Hess TF might just be due to the new maps that are being used, though I'm guessing something wasn't fixed when the TF was changed and now things are broken. If you're going to try and adjust a task force, you should inform people of the change so they can test the changes during beta when that testing is supposed to happen.
@macskull, @Not Mac | XBL: macskull | Steam: macskull | Skype: macskull
"One day we all may see each other elsewhere. In Tyria, in Azeroth. We may pass each other and never know it. And that's sad. But if nothing else, we'll still have Rhode Island."
"One day we all may see each other elsewhere. In Tyria, in Azeroth. We may pass each other and never know it. And that's sad. But if nothing else, we'll still have Rhode Island."
People, who are doing more than required by mission objectives, are durty XP/Inf/Prestige/Drops farmurs and exploiters
I dont think the change to Hess was to stop speed runners, as much as to stop regular teams that actually kill most/everything from completely the mission before everyone is in it (which is easy for any team, speed or not, to do). Those teams don't split up to the 4 stations and only send 1-2 in each, for someone on the team to repeatedly end up ending a mission /as/ it is completed is a bit of an annoyance. Having 4 missions like that spread out across the volcano's fringes in a row is more annoying to nonspeeders (with the old maps) than it is to speeders with either map type.
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Hence my edit?
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Originally Posted by Ironblade
orly? I think we can skip that assumption without even waiting for commentary. I also think it's ridiculous for you to take the discussion in that direction. No one suggested the devs deliberately sabotaged anything.
Did you not read the post??? He said there were DIFFERENT MAPS. |
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You misunderstood. My edit was meant to correct ME, not YOU.
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Originally Posted by PumBumbler
In your edit, you imply that somehow that I fault the AI for problems with Hess. No, I am saying that I had the same problems as the other poster. Please read carefully. I am saying that 2 TFs over 10 issues old are getting tweaks and changes that are undocumented, leading to bugs, some of which are show stoppers.
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I've been on plenty of teams that tried to do the final mission that way and it took way longer because they failed at the quick kill and faceplanted on the rooftop herding 5 spawns at once.|
Originally Posted by macskull
I am sorry that my ability to kill lots of mobs quickly, load quickly, and click on glowies quickly is considered an exploit to you. Do you also consider skipping to the end on the last mission of the ITF, killing Romulus, and then clearing the rooftops to be an exploit, since it's significantly faster than doing it the "normal" way?
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Now, I know what you'll say, "that was a crummy team, a good team can surgically kill Rommy and quickly clear the towers."
And to that I say, "Such a good team can quickly clear the path to Rommy and quickly take him out in the same time, only, by clearing first, they don't run the risk of a mistake."
You still have to kill 300 Cimerorans. Doing it backwards, if it does save any time, is an insignificant saving of time.
But to answer your question about exploits: As I mentioned above, which you neglected to quote, when there is a design flaw which allows players to 'work around' the intended investment of risk and time, then taking advantage of that design flaw is an exploit. I know, I know, exploit is so wed to the notion of a *bug*. But when a TF that is designed to be an hour's worth of work -- even for a good team -- gives the reward for an hour's worth of work; but is done in 20 minutes... then there is a exploit involved... whether through a bug, or players cleverly leveraging the mechanics in a 'legal' way, it's an exploit.
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| Do you consider stealthing to a glowie (which is the only mission objective) an exploit because it's faster? |
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| The only example of an "exploit" in a TF I can think of recently is the geometry exploit in the Eden trial, where you could teleport or fly through the second wall. When this was fixed in I12 it added maybe another minute or two to the total time and speed teams were still banging Edens out in under ten minutes. |
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| The problem here is, there were no exploits fixed in these changes. In the case of the KHTF it might have been an unintentional side effect of some behind-the-scenes AI changes, but I find it much more likely that it was an intentional change to make the TF take longer. |
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If I were to hazard a guess, I would say: having smart friends. Most people would not slap that "stigmatizing" of a label on something that, to them, increases their fun. Heck, I'm not sure that I would want to either, and I agree with your assessment.
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Originally Posted by Zombie Man
well, if you don't call it an exploit, then what would you call it?
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You should come along on one of our Hess TFs (after they get fixed) and we'd be glad to have you point out exactly what we're doing that's an exploit (hint: you won't find anything).|
Originally Posted by Zombie Man
But when a TF that is designed to be an hour's worth of work -- even for a good team -- gives the reward for an hour's worth of work; but is done in 20 minutes... then there is a exploit involved... whether through a bug, or players cleverly leveraging the mechanics in a 'legal' way, it's an exploit.
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You make the mistake of assuming that anything done significantly faster than the time it's designed to be completed relies on an exploit. I already used the Eden trial as an example of how that's not true - even after the geometry hole was fixed, people were still running them in less than 10 minutes (which includes the hunt at the beginning). This is the reason Eden is worth 6 merits (is it 6? I don't remember, but I remember it was 2 at I13 launch) - because that's how quickly the average Eden team was completing it, not because that's how fast the devs expected you to run it. The thing about TFs/SFs/flashbacks and indeed any mission is that there is a basic requirement or multiple requirements which must be met to finish it. Essentially when content's written the writers sit down and say "okay, we'd like teams to complete these objectives." Obviously, some teams will do it faster than others - I've done a defeat-most invincible ITF and it still took us less than 40 minutes. Given that the merit reward for the ITF is 26, which assumes a 130-minute completion time, does that mean we're exploiting because we're finishing in 1/3 the time that it's "balanced" around? If stacking defense buffs from multiple characters, steamrolling missions, and hitting only the objectives before moving on is an exploit, I'm not sure what to say.
In the example of the KHTF, the first mission was set to be failable in case you had a team that couldn't handle the AV spawns. That worked fine before IOs when the only reward was an SO (whee) but after IOs it became clear that the TF was being run too fast for the reward it gave (that doesn't mean it's an exploit, only that the risk and reward were not in line), so it was adjusted. On the last mission, teams that fly Katie out, without having her aggro a whole crapload of mobs, aren't exploiting - they're simply using a legitimate means to shorten the task force time. If the devs want to go through and intentionally make TFs take longer to complete, that's fine, but to say that's the case because of exploits is false.
EDIT: Another example - the Dr. Q TF gives 120 merits, which equates to a 600 minute (TEN HOUR!) completion time. My team completed it in less than three hours. Can you tell me what exploits we were using? (Hint: there were none.)
@macskull, @Not Mac | XBL: macskull | Steam: macskull | Skype: macskull
"One day we all may see each other elsewhere. In Tyria, in Azeroth. We may pass each other and never know it. And that's sad. But if nothing else, we'll still have Rhode Island."
"One day we all may see each other elsewhere. In Tyria, in Azeroth. We may pass each other and never know it. And that's sad. But if nothing else, we'll still have Rhode Island."
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Doing it backwards has a huge advantage over going 'forwards.' Simply making the statement that you've seen plenty of teams face plant and fail in trying to go fast doesn't invalidate the fast method. It's risky, that's the point of doing it. There are some people who like riding motorcycles and go boarding, too.|
Originally Posted by Zombie Man
I've been on plenty of teams that tried to do the final mission that way and it took way longer because they failed at the quick kill and faceplanted on the rooftop herding 5 spawns at once.
Now, I know what you'll say, "that was a crummy team, a good team can surgically kill Rommy and quickly clear the towers." And to that I say, "Such a good team can quickly clear the path to Rommy and quickly take him out in the same time, only, by clearing first, they don't run the risk of a mistake." You still have to kill 300 Cimerorans. Doing it backwards, if it does save any time, is an insignificant saving of time. |
Since you have 2 objectives, one where you have to defeat 300 Cims and take down Rommie and his 3 Nictus AV friends, the time in which you are downing Rommie can also be done concurrently with defeating Cims. Each time Rommie gets dropped a Cim ambush spawns as well, giving the team the added benefit of defeating Cims that count towards the 300. Doing it in reverse doesn't give you that bonus.
The additional mobs also has the added benefit of allowing AoE debuffs to work continuously and at their maximum benefit. With aggro caps being so low having the entire team run as many Cims to Rommie and his gang is like throwing gasoline onto a fire. Certain powersets even benefit from having the mosh pit of doom going as well, like kinetics and Brutes. Rain powers and immovable pets like Lightning Storm also benefit because of obvious reasons as well.
This is more like a feed forward reaction rather than just surgically taking down Rommie. A good team can take him down quickly but a great team can do that and as many Cims as they can aggro at the same time.
A great team can defeat Romulus in the same time a surgical strike team can and have about 160 or 170 Cims left to defeat at the end of the Rommie defeats. That puts the entire team just under 50% the Cim body count. If you have a push herder you can also conglomerate the two towers worth of Cims and finish the TF in two spots alone.
While some people may not like doing things in that manner, some people like pushing the limits of the game. It makes going fast a challenge, rather than moving slowly and cautiously. So they can get things done faster, why is that viewed somehow as a punishable offense or exploit? At least the ones who took that the chance of face planting actually felt like they took a risk and got a well deserved reward, the time is just a bonus.
I'd say that doing it the fast and risky way saves about 3 to 5 minutes on the last mish alone. When you can do the entire TF in about 23-26 minutes on average, time savings wind up to be 11% to 21%, which is significant enough. Without the lag inducing herds I'd suppose you might be able to tag 20 minutes if you're lucky.
The biggest benefit to doing it fast is that you can leave the TF when you're done, or you can clean up the mobs in the last mission. I've done it both ways, and it simply allows you to get on with another mission, or starting dinner to reduce Significant Other aggro, or read bedtime stories to your kids. Going slow means you are 'stuck' with your teammates and slogging your way through.
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Originally Posted by Zombie Man
But to answer your question about exploits: As I mentioned above, which you neglected to quote, when there is a design flaw which allows players to 'work around' the intended investment of risk and time, then taking advantage of that design flaw is an exploit. I know, I know, exploit is so wed to the notion of a *bug*. But when a TF that is designed to be an hour's worth of work -- even for a good team -- gives the reward for an hour's worth of work; but is done in 20 minutes... then there is a exploit involved... whether through a bug, or players cleverly leveraging the mechanics in a 'legal' way, it's an exploit.
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The notion that somehow good gameplay should not be more efficient and also unrewarded (and possibly even punished) would lead to the homogenization of the entire experience. A sense of fair play should also be balanced with the idea that competitive play is an acceptable manner of playing as well. Lumping them all as an exploit demeans the idea that good players should get better rewards, whether it is realized as time saved or more loot.
The concept of cleverly leveraging mechanics is central to the point of good gamesmanship. If a controller casts a rain power from around a corner as to not get hit by return fire, is that somehow an 'exploit'? Should that controller stand point blank in the center of a mob and cast that power? If that is a sign that the player is using an exploit, I guess I want that exploiter on my team.
If you take all the metagaming aspects out of the game itself you will wind up having a boring unmemorable experience. Then we may as well have speed limiters on every mission in the game, where every mission is timed to a certain benchmark and you could not get the subsequent mission until the previous mission timer has counted down. And everyone would get a reward at the end of it, whether they successfully completed the goals or not.
You can make a valid point that a great team might be 200% more efficient than a standard team. Certainly there are limits to the variance that might be too great for the developers to stomach. But the developers need to be more clever about how to ensure the range of gameplay doesn't vary so much between the teams, rather than attempting to put roadblocks up that make the game less fun and engaging.
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Originally Posted by Zombie Man
Actually, that design flaw was considered an exploit by the Devs. That's why stealth now suppresses when you click, when before, it didn't. See... design flaw exploited... design changed to stop the exploit.
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Originally Posted by Zombie Man
If the Eden exploits are fixed, then why is its Merit reward still so low? Twenty minute Edens are still possible, thus, the low Merit reward.
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Originally Posted by Zombie Man
Good ol' Katie, the poster-witch of design-flaw-becomes-exploit. When it was made widely known that the first mission could be bypassed through purposely failing, Posi said basically, at the time, "hey, that's how the mechanics work, what could possible go wrong?" Well, a few thousand 15 minute KHTFs later, they realized what could go wrong. The design flaw was recognized as such precisely because it was so thoroughly exploited. And so, the first mission was changed to stop that.... well, if you don't call it an exploit, then what would you call it?
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If there is a set time needed to do a tf and not be an "exploiter", the devs need to post it(preferably an ingame countdown) to let us know. Here I thought we did a tf following a series of objectives, not a time clock.
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Originally Posted by Zombie Man
I've been on plenty of teams that tried to do the final mission that way and it took way longer because they failed at the quick kill and faceplanted on the rooftop herding 5 spawns at once.
Now, I know what you'll say, "that was a crummy team, a good team can surgically kill Rommy and quickly clear the towers." And to that I say, "Such a good team can quickly clear the path to Rommy and quickly take him out in the same time, only, by clearing first, they don't run the risk of a mistake." You still have to kill 300 Cimerorans. Doing it backwards, if it does save any time, is an insignificant saving of time. But to answer your question about exploits: As I mentioned above, which you neglected to quote, when there is a design flaw which allows players to 'work around' the intended investment of risk and time, then taking advantage of that design flaw is an exploit. I know, I know, exploit is so wed to the notion of a *bug*. But when a TF that is designed to be an hour's worth of work -- even for a good team -- gives the reward for an hour's worth of work; but is done in 20 minutes... then there is a exploit involved... whether through a bug, or players cleverly leveraging the mechanics in a 'legal' way, it's an exploit. Actually, that design flaw was considered an exploit by the Devs. That's why stealth now suppresses when you click, when before, it didn't. See... design flaw exploited... design changed to stop the exploit. If the Eden exploits are fixed, then why is its Merit reward still so low? Twenty minute Edens are still possible, thus, the low Merit reward. Good ol' Katie, the poster-witch of design-flaw-becomes-exploit. When it was made widely known that the first mission could be bypassed through purposely failing, Posi said basically, at the time, "hey, that's how the mechanics work, what could possible go wrong?" Well, a few thousand 15 minute KHTFs later, they realized what could go wrong. The design flaw was recognized as such precisely because it was so thoroughly exploited. And so, the first mission was changed to stop that.... well, if you don't call it an exploit, then what would you call it? |
Lots of 50's yada yada. still finding fun things to do.
Cthulhu loves you, better start running
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You are in a maze of twisty little passages
OK, so far I've been fairly accepting of i16 and the power customizations, most everything there seems to be working smoothly enough.
However, before Justice's Hami raid today, I decided to help a couple of longtime friends show some WoW people around the game. I would be a great way to show them the whats and wherefores of why CoX is a fun and fast paced experience, and not just a bunch of AE farms.
They wanted to try a Task Force. Given the time crunch (for me) and that normally my friends and I steamroll TFs, I didn't want to give them the whambamthankyoumaam experience.
I chose KHTF for that reason. Now given that KH has been around for 10+ issues, I had a bunch of friends volunteer to come along as well. Sure is nice to have friends who know what they are doing and want to welcome new players to the game/server.
Well, everything goes swimmingly well until we get to the last mission. Most fast KH teams rescue Katie's Spirit and fly vertically to escape mob aggro, then horizontally to the exit and then fly down.
It didn't work out that way this time. It appears as if there is now a delay that has been programmed into Katie such that she will not fly for about a minute or two after she is rescued. Now I have no problems with this, since this gives a chance for the ambush to catch up and forces the team to fight in lieu of bypassing most of the mission.
However, after a few mobs were cleared, I led Katie up and over to the mission exit and then proceed to go down. At which point Katie stopped in mid air and refused to follow me, or anyone else any further. She would go through her 'lost' and 'reacquired' dialog, but she'd stubbornly refuse to move. The team leader put a petition in support, but in the 20 minutes we were waiting no one showed up to help. I suppose they were all busy helping people fix the colours of their fire imps.
Everyone had to abandon the TF at that point since most of us were committed to going to the Hive for the Hamidon raid so we had to leave it at that.
==
Successful Hami raid and some misc. TF/SFs later...
==
Someone had mentioned that Hess TF was bugged and so a bunch of us decided to confirm the original poster's claim. Since everyone who we invited is used to knocking out a Hess in 20 minutes, it wasn't a big deal to check it out.
We basically had the same experience as this fellow's post.
I can say for certain that the 4 (well 3 of the 4) radar station maps were changed and it appears that the mobs are beefed up so it is harder to destroy the computers and drop out to the next mission. This makes it pretty clear that it wasn't an 'oops I forgot to relink something error', there was some level of effort put in to change the content.
However the computers that need to be destroyed do not show up and cannot be hit by single target attacks (splash damage needed to destroy them, if you can find them).
We stopped at the 3rd radar tower mission since we couldn't proceed along the mission progression. The mission didn't 'drop out' after everyone exited, even though it said complete on the nav bar.
At this point everyone got tired and bailed.
Obviously there will be bugs in any new launch. However my question is why aren't these bugs and changes documented anywhere until now? We had an open beta and a fairly prolonged one at that, yet no one saw fit to note any changes to these Task Forces. Are there any other hidden errors from undocumented changes to any other Task Force?
And why didn't anyone beta test this stuff? Hmm, perhaps it is because NO ONE AT PARAGON STUDIOS decided to document these changes. Both Hess TF and KHTF have been around for years, and if someone decides to muck around with those TFs because they feel it needs rebalancing, it is a simple matter to DOCUMENT the changes so at least we don't feel like we're in 2004.
I think it is quite simple. You want us, the players, to give you feedback on things before they go live, so that we can help you deliver a better product. I would suggest that you TELL US what changes you make such that we can help you help yourselves.
It is highly embarrassing to try to show some new players around, especially players from a highly respected and polished MMO, just to find out that something that's been working well for years is BUSTED just because someone decided to make some hidden changes. It is NOT a good sales pitch when your presentation falls flat on its face.
Granted, some changes can be a side effect of another overall change, but when I see maps being replaced on some TFs without documentation it gives me the sense that the CoX ship is being steered willy nilly and its only a matter of luck that it hasn't run aground.
In the future, please ensure that changes to existing content get QA'd properly by telling the beta testers about them. This whole fiasco has made a bunch of long term players very dissatisfied tonight.