Release Notes for 19.20090918.3T - 9/24/09
By
3dent,
Posted on: 2009-09-24 13:40 in The Global Training Room Test Server
Quote:
Good to hear some dev confirmation on this. Thanks!
|
Originally Posted by Horatio
The ability to have your difficulty slider affect your Task Forces and Strike Forces has been temporarily disabled. This was done to prevent people from running through a TF/SF with the difficulty set at -1 level in order to more easily get the Master Of... Badge. We know that many of you enjoy the challenge of running the higher-end TFs/SFs at increased levels of difficulty and we are looking at solutions that will allow you to do that once again. .
We apologize for the inconvenience. --Horatio |
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by PRAF68_EU
Dispari has more than enough credability, and certainly doesn't need to borrow any from you.
|
Quote:
Thank you very much for the confirmation.
|
Originally Posted by Horatio
The ability to have your difficulty slider affect your Task Forces and Strike Forces has been temporarily disabled. This was done to prevent people from running through a TF/SF with the difficulty set at -1 level in order to more easily get the Master Of... Badge. We know that many of you enjoy the challenge of running the higher-end TFs/SFs at increased levels of difficulty and we are looking at solutions that will allow you to do that once again. .
We apologize for the inconvenience. --Horatio |
Quote:
There's an easy way to do that: put the level slider in the TF Challenge screen alongside no defeats, time limits, and all that other stuff. Obviously, you'll want to leave out the -1 option. Unfortunately, I don't see an easy way to do this with spawn sizes, but allowing people to run the Statesman TF at +4 should be challenge enough.
|
Originally Posted by Horatio
The ability to have your difficulty slider affect your Task Forces and Strike Forces has been temporarily disabled. This was done to prevent people from running through a TF/SF with the difficulty set at -1 level in order to more easily get the “Master Of...” Badge. We know that many of you enjoy the challenge of running the higher-end TFs/SFs at increased levels of difficulty and we are looking at solutions that will allow you to do that once again. .
We apologize for the inconvenience. --Horatio |
Quote:
Thank you so much for the confirmation. Knowing that it is temporary should be very calming for those upset, and it's nice to know that you're fixing the -1 on "Master of" TFs.
|
Originally Posted by Horatio
The ability to have your difficulty slider affect your Task Forces and Strike Forces has been temporarily disabled. This was done to prevent people from running through a TF/SF with the difficulty set at -1 level in order to more easily get the “Master Of...” Badge. We know that many of you enjoy the challenge of running the higher-end TFs/SFs at increased levels of difficulty and we are looking at solutions that will allow you to do that once again. .
We apologize for the inconvenience. --Horatio |
Please try my custom mission arcs!
Legacy of a Rogue (ID 459586, Entry for Dr. Aeon's Third Challenge)
Death for Dollars! (ID 1050)
Dr. Duplicate's Dastardly Dare (ID 1218)
Win the Past, Own the Future (ID 1429)
Quote:
That's what I was waiting to hear. Hope the proper fix comes sooner than soon.
|
Originally Posted by Horatio
The ability to have your difficulty slider affect your Task Forces and Strike Forces has been temporarily disabled. This was done to prevent people from running through a TF/SF with the difficulty set at -1 level in order to more easily get the Master Of... Badge. We know that many of you enjoy the challenge of running the higher-end TFs/SFs at increased levels of difficulty and we are looking at solutions that will allow you to do that once again. .
We apologize for the inconvenience. --Horatio |
Be well, people of CoH.
I ran an 8 man Lady Grey TF on live Sunday and none of the missions spawned bosses in the normal spawns. Ambushes and patrols had bosses, but all of the regular spawns were boss free.
Yes, I had bosses activated. I tried switching the bosses feature off and then back on, but that did not fix it either.
Why Blasters? Empathy Sucks.
So, you want to be Mental?
What the hell? Let's buff defenders.
Tactics are for those who do not have a big enough hammer. Wisdom is knowing how big your hammer is.
Quote:
You guys could probably have save a lot of angst by getting that word out a bit earlier. That's not so much a complaint as an observation. Hopefully a superfluous one in the sense that you guys realize that.|
Originally Posted by Horatio
The ability to have your difficulty slider affect your Task Forces and Strike Forces has been temporarily disabled. This was done to prevent people from running through a TF/SF with the difficulty set at -1 level in order to more easily get the Master Of... Badge. We know that many of you enjoy the challenge of running the higher-end TFs/SFs at increased levels of difficulty and we are looking at solutions that will allow you to do that once again.
|
In any case, I'm pleased that you do intend to re-enable higher difficulty in some fashion.
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
Quote:
Is anything going to be done to rectify this mistake? ... |
Originally Posted by Horatio
The ability to have your difficulty slider affect your Task Forces and Strike Forces has been temporarily disabled. This was done to prevent people from running through a TF/SF with the difficulty set at -1 level in order to more easily get the Master Of... Badge. We know that many of you enjoy the challenge of running the higher-end TFs/SFs at increased levels of difficulty and we are looking at solutions that will allow you to do that once again. .
We apologize for the inconvenience. --Horatio |
It use to be that haveing the Master's badge was a symbol of a difficult hard earned accomplishment. But since this bug, there are thousands of toons that have it (earned the bug'd way). And really lessens the status and cheapens the accomplishment altogether.
Also on a side note, is anything going to be done to make the rewards match the difficulty of the TF/SF ect when this problem is fixed? ... As it is now, you get the same amount of reward merits reguardless of any limitations you choose.
Quote:
If you check the the rest of my post, I acknowledge that they exist, but I find them a tiny few. I do not believe it is reasonable or valuable to cater to the whims of every segment of the playerbase, no matter how small.|
Originally Posted by Golden_Avariel
Not true. I've seen "wait 1 level and do the mission again" lots of times. With -1 you no longer have to wait.
|
I have seen people posting what you're saying. They are usually soloing some of either the poorest soloing combinations or very poor builds, or both. There is basically nothing in this game you cannot defeat solo on Heroic with some inspirations. While I don't object to people having the option of playing at -1, I do object to the notion that they actually require it to succeed. Given that, I further object to the availability of that option restricting options that nearly everyone else uses at some point or other.
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
Quote:
You are aware that the new I16 settings allow +3 and +4 settings which never existed before, right?
|
Originally Posted by KingSnake
And well, that kind of kills me, because the PM you peraphrashed said something to the effect that letting people increase tf cirtter levels was causing all kinds of problems... so this has been an issue for 4 years now they are just addressing, or, what? I'm confused. I understand not wanting -1 tf's, god that's a joke, but +0 tf's aren't ususally much better...??
This make no since at all... |
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
Quote:
That was also God's final message to his creation. (In a Douglas Adams book.)|
Originally Posted by Horatio
We apologize for the inconvenience.
|
It's good to have confirmation that this is a temporary measure.
Also: i like Horatio's avatar. Inverse decimation FTW!
Dr. Todt's theme.
i make stuff...
Quote:
Why not just change the requirements of "Master of" to exclude -1 level?
|
Originally Posted by Horatio
The ability to have your difficulty slider affect your Task Forces and Strike Forces has been temporarily disabled. This was done to prevent people from running through a TF/SF with the difficulty set at -1 level in order to more easily get the Master Of... Badge. We know that many of you enjoy the challenge of running the higher-end TFs/SFs at increased levels of difficulty and we are looking at solutions that will allow you to do that once again. .
We apologize for the inconvenience. --Horatio |
@Blood Beret(2)Twitter
I am a bad speeler, use poorer grammar, and am a frequent typoist.
MA ArcID: 1197
You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life. Winston Churchill
Quote:
I am guessing they may not have an easy way to make those two interact. Think about the mission difficulty settings. They are per-leader, and per mission. If the devs base Mo* badge eligability on whether you do the TF on -1 or not, do they track every mission to make sure you don't just change it at the end? Do they have a place they can track that right now, regardless of whether the leader changes during the TF? If not, they'll need to add it, and that will likely take code and probably database table changes. (After all, TF status is persistent, so it needs to be stored somewhere.)|
Originally Posted by Blood_Beret
Why not just change the requirements of "Master of" to exclude -1 level?
|
They could try to enforce that "Master Of" prevents you from going down to -1 foes, but remember that there isn't actually a "Master Of" setting, per se. It's a couple of different settings on the TF start options. They might be able to check those both and somehow enforce that -1 becomes +0, but they also might not have any code for allowing those two things to interact. So they would have to add that.
So I think that while your idea makes a great deal of sense, it may not be as simple to implement as it seems at first consideration. If it was, they probably wouldn't have put in this half-measure instead.
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
Quote:
Pretty sure the current implementation means that +0 means AVs spawn at 50 even if they're supposed to be 53 or 54, which is still easier than it's supposed to be. -1 isn't the only problem.
|
Originally Posted by Blood_Beret
Why not just change the requirements of "Master of" to exclude -1 level?
|
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by PRAF68_EU
Dispari has more than enough credability, and certainly doesn't need to borrow any from you.
|
Quote:
Standard code rant applies. Putting the option in the UI is easy, sure, but right now it can't actually do anything. Since the difficulty implemented as per-player, and the challenge settings aren't directly connected to it, it would probably take pretty extensive changes to the difficulty code in order to do it. Add in a new communication protocol in order to transmit those settings to the server, and validate them. Then there's all the regression testing to make sure it actually works and doesn't break anything else.|
Originally Posted by MowDownJoe
There's an easy way to do that: put the level slider in the TF Challenge screen alongside no defeats, time limits, and all that other stuff. Obviously, you'll want to leave out the -1 option. Unfortunately, I don't see an easy way to do this with spawn sizes, but allowing people to run the Statesman TF at +4 should be challenge enough.
|
Making changes in the code of an MMO, which involves hundreds of subsystems with complex interactions, and many thousands of users who are constantly banging on the system with all sorts of inputs and variables you might not have thought of, is never "easy".
Quote:
Sure, they can remove them, right after they remove them from everyone who soft-loaded before that was removed, everyone who spawned an O-portal when they would draw away aggro before that was removed, everyone who started with a dead teammate for Vengeance-bait before that was removed, and everyone who has ever been carried through it while they are at it.|
Originally Posted by Morbid Star
Is anything going to be done to rectify this mistake? ...
It use to be that haveing the Master's badge was a symbol of a difficult hard earned accomplishment. But since this bug, there are thousands of toons that have it (earned the bug'd way). And really lessens the status and cheapens the accomplishment altogether. |
With all of the ways that people have been able to game these badges, they've never been that great of a symbol, and I've personally never made an assumption about anyone who had it if I didn't know them personally.
"I wish my life was a non-stop Hollywood movie show,
A fantasy world of celluloid villains and heroes."
Half expecting to get shouted at by folks, but I'm personally hoping they can find a way to keep the -1 option for TFs.
No, I'm not looking for easy access to badges, or even easy Merits... I just think that there -is- an accessibility factor here. In my case, I'm a mild autistic, and I find most TFs as designed exceedingly stressful, to the point they're almost totally off-limits to me. This is particularly compounded by the fact that a lot of them require large team sizes, and it's nearly impossible for me to arrange a team of the appropriate size for the necessary duration of people I know and trust not to crank up the stress.
I understand they're meant to be the 'challenging' content, but despite my neurological status I enjoy trying to experience all aspects of a game, and this had the hope of providing that.
If they could maintain the option and have it disallow badge access and reduce merits, that'd suit me just fine.
I hadn't had the chance to really utilize it to see if it will help yet, since my normal friends who team with me on such things haven't been available, and now it looks like I won't get the chance. I do know that for regular content and ESPECIALLY AE content (which is ABSURDLY hard a lot of the time -- and I mean actual story arcs, not farms), it's made a huge difference.
Oh well, I've made it two years without actually seeing these things. It won't hurt me to go longer. 
Edit: Oh. Um. About the zombies... 'Too fragile'? I'm more or less forced to abandon any zones they show up in, whenever they do. About the only character I have out of my complete stable that can actually survive around them is my 50 mastermind, and the rest are pretty much doomed to hosping. Am I alone in this?
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Softcapping an Invuln is fantastic. Softcapping a Willpower is amazing. Softcapping SR is kissing your sister.
|
Quote:
Nope, you're not alone. I find them incredibly hard too. They're incredibly tough. Especially compared to the crappy Rikti raids.|
Originally Posted by Void_Huntress
Edit: Oh. Um. About the zombies... 'Too fragile'? I'm more or less forced to abandon any zones they show up in, whenever they do. About the only character I have out of my complete stable that can actually survive around them is my 50 mastermind, and the rest are pretty much doomed to hosping. Am I alone in this?
|
With Halloween coming up again (I assume we're due another spate of random, unexplained Zombie Raids for no real reason other than "It's Halloween") it'll be "avoid the zombied zone" time again.
Yayyy. I may or may not quit depending on if you can fix this within 2 weeks. Don't pull another CoP
Quote:
Good thinking!|
Originally Posted by The_Coming_Storm
Yayyy. I may or may not quit depending on if you can fix this within 2 weeks. Don't pull another CoP
|
I bet right before this post the devs were contemplating fixing this issue in a month, but after knowing you'll quit in 2 weeks they have upped the resources and it will be done in 13 days, 23 hours and 59 minutes.
/sarcasm
Quote:
This.
|
Originally Posted by Bill Z Bubba
If the cost of allowing a -1 setting is that we won't be allowed to increase the difficulty of TF/SFs, then that cost is too high and the -1 should be removed from the game.
If you have characters that can't handle +0/x1/No/No difficulty due to build choices or whatever, that's a great time to start utilizing the dual builds feature. |
Originally Posted by Megajoule
We're being invaded. Again. This time, instead of aliens, zombies, or eyeballs with teeth, it's the marching band.
Wonders if TF's and SF's can have a default lowest value of 1 (or whatever alue the Devs concider WAI)?
As mentioned upthread, probably not, or that's what they would have done.
Given time, anything is possible. What we get will probably have a lot to do with what's simplest and most maintainable.
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
To paraphrase:
Dear players, we recognize and understand that many wish to and enjoy having the ability to alter the difficulty levels of their missions. As such, we have thought it thoroughly through and decided to improve on the current system.
Now you can range from -1 difficulty to +4 (from the old 0-+4). We realize that there are occassions where, for whatever reason: be it time, or degree of character slotting (not required for play, of course), or even if you haven't used that toon in a long time, or maybe your toon is an AE baby... for which a -1 Choice really is a reasonable option to have. A continuation of up to +4 is also enjoyed by a great many, had we not learned to try avoiding preemptive hinting too long before initiating new innovations, we might consider clueing in at a difficulty setting that's a little past +4 even... After all, personal choice is something we respect and wholly encourage.
We've also added the options to increase just how big a team you are considered to be. (Let player's choose their challenge factor and stop the annoying 'anchor/padding/filler/whatever call outs)
Even further respecting personal choices, we've added bosses and EB/AV scale options as well.
Based on request and feedback, we know this system to be innovative and respective of our player base's tastes, desires and choices on a vast scale. From the time limited, or PUG teams to the 'let's do some +4 uber boss/ AV smashing!'
***************
Bulletin: Due to not realizing our players really actually would use our diverse new system and exercise these new found innovative options, we've decided to cut a bunch of it out until we find a more developed way for you to choose what we want you to choose... While we sort of respect choice, it must ONLY coincide with what we WANT you to pick, not just what to pick FROM, but what to actually pick. We'll keep you posted.
____________________________________
It's a 'duh' thing. The new system was innovative and beyond expectation. If a team wishes to +4 their TF, FINE. If a team wants -1 for their TF, FINE. LRSF/STF, other SF/TFs - have the Heroes/AVs otherwise -1 from what they were before, FINE. Master runs - a make sense auto set option when pulling the run, FINE. Why continually complicate an opinion-based 'problem'?
Thanks, hopefully we can find a solution soon.
"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."