Discussion: Live Patch Notes - 4/7/10
By
Adeon Hawkwood,
Posted on: 2010-04-07 09:43 in News, Events and Announcement Discussion
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I understand now. You're having difficulties understanding what my issue is at the moment, so you decided to try and sound like you had something valid to add. Unfortunately, you failed miserably. I'm not complaining about fixes. I'm not complaining about what needs to be coded. My issue is this horrible habit the devs have for trying to excuse their mistakes by trying to pass the buck to us. "We didn't think the playerbase would do that." is BS.|
Originally Posted by Horusaurus
blah blah blah
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Let's not even touch the fact that it's now coming to light that several of the "fixes" we've been getting as of late are things the devs were warned about in closed beta! Before it even REACHED live. You're welcome to keep your blinders on, but I won't.
Anyway, weren't you busy grabbing Castle a coffee?
We'll see....
Castle doesn't even like coffee 
<Why is it that most Announcement Discussions always end up in a death spiral? Friendly community indeed >
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My point is that coding takes time and they have probably have a list o' priorities. But I suppose I have to spell it out to you.
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Originally Posted by Flameshot
*whine whine blah blah hey I can do this too*
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I'll always be a "Champion" at heart. My server away from home.
"When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty." - Thomas Jefferson
"With great moustache comes great responsibility" - Zee Captain
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lol |
Originally Posted by obsidius
castle doesn't even like coffee
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We'll see....
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I wish I had your foresight, you incalculable wisdom and computer game creating skills, I would be rich and not playing this game just like you don't . . . Oh, your not perfect either? But you expect others to be?|
Originally Posted by Flameshot
So....you're not a "power gamer". And? Just because you don't specifically like to game this way, doesn't mean others don't. Quit acting like it's your decision how other play the game. I'm not a "power gamer" either. People have a right to play as they see fit. If the devs don't want a player to play with something specific and or don't wish the players to use something a specific way, they have the ability to stop it from happening. But to use the excuse "we didn't know!" isn't good enough anymore. There is no valid reason why any of these alleged exploits should be sitting on the live server for several months to several years.
I'm sure some of you are perfectly ok with paying to play a game where at any given moment anything at all (including creating a character) can be taken away with the excuse "You're doing it wrong!". I on the other hand, am not. Then to top it all off, not only is the fix heavy-handed, but it doesn't even work like it's suppose to! How long before the fix gets "fixed"? If you're naive enough to believe that this is acceptable business practice, I have some land I'm looking to sell. Un....believable. |
Come on, anyone who has been playing this game since AE came out KNEW it was only a matter of time until this fix came out. We saw the writing on the wall even more firmly a little while back when they edited the ticket rewards.
Stop whining over what you knew was coming and find something else instead or since you are so fed up with the "Devs Rules" well then . . .
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It doesn't help much that the primary influence sink (enhancements) has been largely supplanted by IOs, which mainly push inf from one player to another instead of sinking it.
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Originally Posted by Zubenelgenubi
Well, you're forgetting how very easy it is to make influence in this game. Supply is only one aspect. Because we are all essentially "printing money" every time we play, our currency undergos constant inflation.
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Taking time to fix a bug you KNOW is there would be acceptable at a few weeks. Not several months or years later. I suppose I have to spell that out for you |
Originally Posted by Horusaurus
My point is that coding takes time and they have probably have a list o' priorities. But I suppose I have to spell it out to you.
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To add to that, there wasn't anything stopping them from telling us not to do/use something they allegedly felt wasn't working as intended. You know, rather than "fixing" it 16 months later. Or 2 years later. Or 5 years later. *rolls eyes*
We'll see....
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I'm sorry, you're under the mistaken impression that I actually care about the fix itself.
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Originally Posted by GMan3
*snip*
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We'll see....
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I'm sure they know of quite a few bugs. But *refers back to priority list and release/fix conversation* But I'm sure you were to busy listening to yourself to hear that. This conversation is to circular to be of anymore importance to me. Gonna go play the game. Good day.
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Originally Posted by Flameshot
Taking time to fix a bug you KNOW is there would be acceptable at a few weeks. Not several months or years later. I suppose I have to spell that out for you
To add to that, there wasn't anything stopping them from telling us not to do/use something they allegedly felt wasn't working as intended. You know, rather than "fixing" it 16 months later. Or 2 years later. Or 5 years later. *rolls eyes* |
I'll always be a "Champion" at heart. My server away from home.
"When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty." - Thomas Jefferson
"With great moustache comes great responsibility" - Zee Captain
Quote:
Toodles.|
Originally Posted by Horusaurus
I'm sure they know of quite a few bugs. But *refers back to priority list and release/fix conversation* But I'm sure you were to busy listening to yourself to hear that. This conversation is to circular to be of anymore importance to me. Gonna go play the game. Good day.
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As for this:
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| Finally just because something may go on for a while before it is fixed does not mean that the dev staff was ok with it going on. They just had other things that were higher priority to deal with |
This however, is not acceptable for something like....oh I don't know...stacking a particular set of IO's for 16 months. Creating missions with buffbots for over a year....Or am I completely insane for thinking this?
We'll see....
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I'm currently trying to think of a more elegant solution, actually. It isn't quite that simple. For example, an ally with nothing but radiation emission debuffs would not buff the player, but could debuff the critters in a comparable way that made them both easier to kill and offensively ineffective. But if they only debuff and don't do credible amounts of damage, confuse-like code won't account for them either.|
Originally Posted by Dispari
That, but also I'd rather see a more elegant approach to the system. One that actually considers what each pet is doing. The issue, I believe, is that pets who actually attack are taking their share of experience while pets who buff aren't. Pets who buff should get a special trigger to take an amount of experience off the top, whether you only have one of them or 20 of them.
The current "you're limited to X number of pets" enforces a DOUBLE penalty for offensive pets, and doesn't do anything against a small number of buffing pets. In my opinion, that does nothing to stop farmers from using buffbots (in fact, I believe it encourages them to use at least one), but causes a ton of collateral damage to legitimate missionmakers. |
The only ideas I have that might work correctly would require code, and that means they would likely take a while to implement, assuming you could get resources allocated to implement them.
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There is this thing called "literacy." You see, when a developer sits down and TYPES WORDS on the keyboard, those words are transmitted to the rest of us. Those of us who learned the "reading" skill in school can look at those words and understand the ideas that those words convey. No mind-reading is involved. |
Originally Posted by Flameshot
Interesting. Please explain how you know what the devs define as an "exploit". Seeing as the devs themselves won't actually tell anyone, you must have some pretty awesome mind-reading abilities!
*rolls eyes* *wipes the brown off your nose* |
(Although to be fair, those without the "reading" skill can be often intimidated by those who have it. Sometimes they even resort to crude personal attacks. I recently read an excellent example of this, by the way.)
The Devs have *repeatedly* explained what they do and do not consider exploitative. They do this in a very broad, general way so as to (1) not give hints about existing ways to exploit the game and (2) not give the rules-lawyers hooks onto which they can hang objections. One of the most fundamental of the general concepts of what is and is not an exploit is basic risk vs. reward. Clearly multiple buff-bots making a player invulnerable to harm reduces risk to near zero, breaking the risk vs. reward balance. Anyone with the literacy skill can see this, of course.
"OK, first of all... Shut Up." - My 13-Year-Old Daughter
29973 "The Running of the Bulls" [SFMA] - WINNER of the Mighty Big Story Arc Contest !
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Sarcasm aside....|
Originally Posted by Zubenelgenubi
There is this thing called "literacy." You see, when a developer sits down and TYPES WORDS on the keyboard, those words are transmitted to the rest of us. Those of us who learned the "reading" skill in school can look at those words and understand the ideas that those words convey. No mind-reading is involved.
(Although to be fair, those without the "reading" skill can be often intimidated by those who have it. Sometimes they even resort to crude personal attacks. I recently read an excellent example of this, by the way.) The Devs have *repeatedly* explained what they do and do not consider exploitative. They do this in a very broad, general way so as to (1) not give hints about existing ways to exploit the game and (2) not give the rules-lawyers hooks onto which they can hang objections. One of the most fundamental of the general concepts of what is and is not an exploit is basic risk vs. reward. Clearly multiple buff-bots making a player invulnerable to harm reduces risk to near zero, breaking the risk vs. reward balance. Anyone with the literacy skill can see this, of course. |
We wouldn't really be having this conversation were the devs forthcoming with what is considered an exploit and what isn't. So, you can cling to whatever it is you thought you got out of some random vague definition one of the devs decided to post late one night, and I'll continue to express my distaste for current business practices. If you're happy with excuses, there's not much I can do for you.
Darn! I said sarcasm aside! Sorry!
We'll see....
Since it keeps on coming up...
A quick search found this definition that pertains specifically to online gaming:
An exploit, in online games, is the use of a bug or design flaw by a player to their advantage in a manner not intended by the game's designers.
Now, based on the latest change that the Developers made... I think it is safe to say that the way some players were using the AE to create buffbot allies was not an intended game design of the developers.
Hence, we can intelligently surmise that they considered this a design flaw that worked against their intentions and thus... it could be referred to as an exploit.
Words/labels/names don't matter to me. The ease and reward of the offense was clear. The Developers' changes (regardless of the poor implementation) make their opinions clear. Continued debate about defining this instance and questioning knowledge of the Developers' definitions are beyond redundant.
What is in a name? That which we gain far too easily and without risk, by any other name, would be just as lame.
@Zethustra
"Now at midnight all the agents and the superhuman crew come out
and round up everyone that knows more than they do"-Dylan
and round up everyone that knows more than they do"-Dylan
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You did it a couple times just to see? and deleted them both? You'd think once would have sufficed to satisfy curiosity. Heck, you'd think one run of the map would suffice to realize the leveling rate was exceeding "normal content".|
Originally Posted by GMan3
Well, the Power Gamers are going to hate my post so I am almost assured of getting some negative rep for this one (I am at -20 now for simply stating my opinion). Here it goes anyways:
You want to fix AE? Kill all the XP for it Kill the money rewards as well Then just for good measure, remove all drops except for inspirs and Lastly, remove tickets or make it so you can only but inspirs with them. If the Devs do that, people will play AE missions for the content, not the overblown rewards. I mean, come one, lvl 1 to 50 in 10 hours is just rediculous, yet I have seen it many times. I even did it with a couple toons just to prove it could be done and deleted them immediately after since they were useless to me. |
Why were they useless though? I can pick up any toon from any archetype at lvl 50 and play it well. The game isn't hard.
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| Seems to me that AE was intended not for farms (though people obviously exploited it that way) but to create more content for the game. Heck, good enough reviews even means it can be added as core content which is awesome. |
I can intend to just enjoy the breeze by walking down the street nude, but reality will come crashing down pretty quickly. That is AE to me. The dev's intended for puppies and unicorns in a make-believe world and seem incapable of handling the reality of the situation.
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| I personally can not understand Power Gamers. Growing the toon up seems the real fun to me, playing a toon at Lvl 50 forever is boring. But that is just my humble opinion. |
You being incapable of comprehending that is your weakness, don't pin the fault on anyone other than where is belongs.
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If the developers modus operandi is a short-term fix to a problem they lack the time/resources to analyse and improve; then what I suggested would be ideal. Surely removing a few select powers from allies is a better short-term fix than nerfing XP accross the board?|
Originally Posted by Arcanaville
If the patch is counting non-supporting critters, its broken and should be fixed or rolled back. That's my opinion on the patch, period.
However, having said that, these sorts of "see how easy it is" posts are pretty worthless. That would address the issue in the same sense as trying to fix a hole in the geometry by putting a sign in the game pointing at the spot that says "hole in the geometry." For a suggestion that is free, you're charging too much. |
I appreciate the bad analogy and witticism. Although I have no idea why you're being so hostile. The patch obviously needs to be rolled back, but the problem of "jellybean" farms also needs handling by the developers.
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You make some decent points. I still can't agree with you, but I can still see your points. To bad I consider them wrong. Oh well.|
Originally Posted by Frosticus
You did it a couple times just to see? and deleted them both? You'd think once would have sufficed to satisfy curiosity. Heck, you'd think one run of the map would suffice to realize the leveling rate was exceeding "normal content".
Why were they useless though? I can pick up any toon from any archetype at lvl 50 and play it well. The game isn't hard. Of course this is what it was intended for, but to pretend that game modders don't behave in a predictable manner in every single game that promotes modding is what causes me to scratch my head. Which really seems like what has happened at Paragon. It is baffling. I can intend to just enjoy the breeze by walking down the street nude, but reality will come crashing down pretty quickly. That is AE to me. The dev's intended for puppies and unicorns in a make-believe world and seem incapable of handling the reality of the situation. This is your opinion, as you say. It is no more valid than that of someone who does enjoy playing their lvl 50's. I'd say a large draw of the game is now the loot system. The loot system is inherently geared toward playing high level toons. It is a perfectly valid form of game participation and heavily encouraged by the dev's just as constant reroll is heavily encouraged. You being incapable of comprehending that is your weakness, don't pin the fault on anyone other than where is belongs. |
Was that last attack really necessary though? Not that it hurt or anything, just seemed unnecessary.
Sweet, Negative 64 Rep as of this post!
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How come your name isnt red? oh wait
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
I'm currently trying to think of a more elegant solution, actually. It isn't quite that simple. For example, an ally with nothing but radiation emission debuffs would not buff the player, but could debuff the critters in a comparable way that made them both easier to kill and offensively ineffective. But if they only debuff and don't do credible amounts of damage, confuse-like code won't account for them either.
The only ideas I have that might work correctly would require code, and that means they would likely take a while to implement, assuming you could get resources allocated to implement them. |
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Im happy to put aside the sarcasm if you leave off the personal attacks. Deal? |
Originally Posted by Flameshot
Sarcasm aside....
We wouldn't really be having this conversation were the devs forthcoming with what is considered an exploit and what isn't. So, you can cling to whatever it is you thought you got out of some random vague definition one of the devs decided to post late one night, and I'll continue to express my distaste for current business practices. If you're happy with excuses, there's not much I can do for you. Darn! I said sarcasm aside! Sorry! |
Now Flameshot, you and I certainly agree on one thing: That problems like this should be fixed sooner rather than allowing them to drag on for months. We ALSO agree that this fix will not stop farmers. We ALSO agree that by now the Devs should know and understand that a certain percentage of their players will take whatever steps they can to increase reward and minimize risk.
Where we part company is the whole Ill play how I want to and the Devs have no right to restrict that attitude.
And I also believe that the Devs have been as forthcoming as they can be about what they consider an exploit. And I think that nobody can legitimately say they didnt know that dozens of buff-bots in an AE mission was an exploit.
I also dont know where you got the idea that Im happy about this current situation, or how they handed down all the AE nerfs in the past. Hell, Im still annoyed when I think of Jack and his no more power changes statement that was followed by ED, oh so many years ago.
In the current case, Im EXTREMELY disappointed with the fix they rolled out. I have been thinking of doing a little re-working and re-vamping of my story arc, should the rumored increase to AE memory limits actually come about. I wanted to add a few more custom critters to round it out a bit, perhaps a GM in the last mission just for fun (and one last gawd-awful joke). But Im wondering now why I should even bother.
So if you like, we can agree to disagree here, and agree to agree as well. I see no reason for us to get into a flame war over it. (God knows Ive been involved in enough of those damn things, and often for less reason too.)
Peace out. Gotta go to work.
"OK, first of all... Shut Up." - My 13-Year-Old Daughter
29973 "The Running of the Bulls" [SFMA] - WINNER of the Mighty Big Story Arc Contest !
- The Stellar Wind Orbital Space Platform
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I think a lot of us here WISH the Devs would just hire Arcanaville! But my guess is they can't afford to pay her nearly what she's worth. |
Originally Posted by Marsquake2
How come your name isnt red? oh wait
|
"OK, first of all... Shut Up." - My 13-Year-Old Daughter
29973 "The Running of the Bulls" [SFMA] - WINNER of the Mighty Big Story Arc Contest !
- The Stellar Wind Orbital Space Platform
They aren't going to accurately define an exploit because it would be pointless to do so. At best you'd have these cheeky long-winded definition which would then immediately be changed as soon as the players figure out some other way to bend the rules.
I seriously doubt anyone thought that being able to effortlessly glide through a mission with absolutely no chance of death wasn't broken.
Furthermore, it made AT's who would normally be buffing/controlling/tanking obsolete because a swarm of NPC's is already filling that role, turning the game into City of Blasters/Scrappers. That's exploitative *and* damaging to those who enjoyed a certain play style which is no longer necessary.
I'll agree that they could have fine tuned the patch better, and I assume they probably will. But this needed to be done yesterday, or the day before. It's good that they've addressed it.
Also, do we really need to go "WHY WASN'T THIS DONE SO LONG AGO" for every god damn change? The answer is probably "They were doing something else". I rather doubt they have a team of 50 people just sitting on their *** all day laughing at you.
Not that I don't see the appeal in hiring 50 people to mock someone, but I don't run a business either. Mostly because the government keeps declaring my ventures as terrorist organizations, the jealous bastards.
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The analogy was specifically intended to highlight the fact that while you might think eliminating a couple of powers solves the bulk of the problem, in fact it wouldn't even scratch the surface of the problem. Honestly, fortitude is a more serious offender in buff bots than force fields. In other words, its only a better fix in the sense that it does nothing, whereas the current patch seems to be doing too much.|
Originally Posted by Xanatos
If the developers modus operandi is a short-term fix to a problem they lack the time/resources to analyse and improve; then what I suggested would be ideal. Surely removing a few select powers from allies is a better short-term fix than nerfing XP accross the board?
I appreciate the bad analogy and witticism. Although I have no idea why you're being so hostile. The patch obviously needs to be rolled back, but the problem of "jellybean" farms also needs handling by the developers. |
My hostility, such as it is, is specifically directed towards the notion that complex problems have trivial solutions, when basically none of those trivial solutions ever seems to be either workable, or even actually address the problem. Exploit-related (actual exploits, and general exploitive activity that isn't actionable exploits) issues are usually acted upon when the devs have direct datamined evidence of that activity. My guess is that the devs have dozens, maybe hundreds of examples of this sort of thing going on, and the directive is not just some generic vague "fix buff bots" but rather "fix everything on this list, and everything that isn't on the list but is related to things on this list. Today." Suppressing two powers isn't a "better fix" because its not a fix: it almost certainly doesn't satisfy the mandate.
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In one little corner of the universe, there's nothing more irritating than a misfile...
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Deal |
Originally Posted by Zubenelgenubi
Im happy to put aside the sarcasm if you leave off the personal attacks. Deal?
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| Now Flameshot, you and I certainly agree on one thing: That problems like this should be fixed sooner rather than allowing them to drag on for months. We ALSO agree that this fix will not stop farmers. We ALSO agree that by now the Devs should know and understand that a certain percentage of their players will take whatever steps they can to increase reward and minimize risk. |
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| Where we part company is the whole Ill play how I want to and the Devs have no right to restrict that attitude. |
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| And I also believe that the Devs have been as forthcoming as they can be about what they consider an exploit. And I think that nobody can legitimately say they didnt know that dozens of buff-bots in an AE mission was an exploit. |
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| In the current case, Im EXTREMELY disappointed with the fix they rolled out. I have been thinking of doing a little re-working and re-vamping of my story arc, should the rumored increase to AE memory limits actually come about. I wanted to add a few more custom critters to round it out a bit, perhaps a GM in the last mission just for fun (and one last gawd-awful joke). But Im wondering now why I should even bother. |
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| So if you like, we can agree to disagree here, and agree to agree as well. I see no reason for us to get into a flame war over it. (God knows Ive been involved in enough of those damn things, and often for less reason too.) |
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Peace out. Gotta go to work.
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We'll see....
Well, at 20 pages now, i only read the first 6 or so, but here is my two cents.
Why I farm lowbies:
Stamina at 20 is too high, playing pre-stamina SUCKS on 95% of toons, at least for me.
It takes until level 22 to really tell if your gonna like a character, for me and many players. Playing a toon through regular content only to get him to high 20s or early 30s to realize you lost interest in the build takes a long time. I prefer to get him boosted quickly to 20-22 then stamina and SO him out and run some TFs and teams.
Then again, most of this is a non-issue if you don't suffer from altitis, but for me after 54 months trying out new powers/builds and ATs is the only thing keeping me playing this game. I would say the amount of end game content is lacking, but I'm not sure thats really the issue, but that after 54 months all the end game is repeating something you've already done.
As far as the update, THANK YOU DEVs. I know its kinda hypocritical to thank you for nerfing and exploit that I enjoyed using to skip the VERY TIDIOUS EARLY LVLS where you don't have stamina and almost wanna slot rest with recharge just to be able to go through missions quicker. I do hope 90% of players online won't be in AE, but I know they will just be in PI instead.
I think another issue with why people farm is that the rate at which purple's drop, any probably recipes in general is too high. People farm for quick levels, which that demand will never go away( unless for me end costs went down or stamina was available earlier), or influence and/or drops. Make drops more common and this would in two ways make farming less common. One in that the drop themselves would not be as rare, so you woudln't have to farm as much to get them, and two, it would reduce the auction house prices of them, so you wouldn't hvae to farm as long to get the $ you need to buy them.
Well I guess thats more like my three fitty not 2 cents.
"OK, first of all... Shut Up." - My 13-Year-Old Daughter
29973 "The Running of the Bulls" [SFMA] - WINNER of the Mighty Big Story Arc Contest !
- The Stellar Wind Orbital Space Platform