Discussion: Live Patch Notes - 4/7/10

Yeah, right. Like that's gonna happen.

Heroes, Villains ♦ Reviews ♦ Retrospect

Remember that one time that ED nuked the pacific ocean resulting in global holocaust for 2000 years? That one really sucked.

Sarcasm dude, sarcasm. I thought it was really obvious ...

What?

It's alright....lol, I won't expect you to understand!

Originally Posted by Nights_Dawn Hazy is right

You have to go look at all your posts and click on the 'rep' scales. I normally don't, but mine dropped and I was curious which post caused it.

I don't see the relevance of what you posted ... something might've gotten lost in translation or I'm just dumb, whatever, but I don't see it.

Where did I say anything about being content with being mediocre? And why would I need ideas to make this company better? I do plenty of that at my job, I don't need it in my hobby.

Also 300-400 k subscribers? CoH didn't have that many in its best days. If we have 150k at the moment I'd be surprised.

City of needs more advertising.

edit: I'm gonna positive rep everyone muahahahahaa!

She asks the Devs in PMs, and she has been helpful(/annoying) enough to them over the last half-decade or so that she has the credibility to get answers.

I have to assume from your post that ArcanaVille is a friend of yours since you are defending her and personally I like her arguements myself.

I do have one problem with her though. Her claims to special knowledge of the game is kinda like my own political party members (democrats) crying racist anytime someone disagrees with Obama. It can't be proven, BUT still stops all legitimate arguement on the subject.

Now if she has this special knowledge cool, but until she is given a Red Name or one comes out and admits her special place with the company, I will have to continue to be skeptical.

Still, I do like how she argues her points most times. (I am assuming she is a female for some reason, not sure why.)

It can be proven. It can be proven by providing evidence of this knowledge and having a redname validate said evidence.

however Until this "special knowledge" that the individual claims they have can be proven and validated by a red-name I rather the individual shut-up...

In Arcana's defenser, much of what Arcana has said HAS been validated by a red-name in the past.

Arcanaville is indeed female (I am as sure as I can be never having seen a picture).

The thing about her 'special knowledge' is that it's not really special: she just asks the Devs, like anyone else could or can. The 'special' part is that they usually answer her. This is just because she's spent a lot of time building up credibility with them, partly through her Mathjutsu.

Sure, I like her. But I don't always agree with her on things that aren't hard facts. In any case, people should be skeptical of nearly anything anyone claims to be fact on an internet forum.

But the thing about this particular argument is that everyone is on the same side!

Everyone wants the devs to be able to fix the problem with AE buffers without breaking the AE for legitimate missions, most especially Arcanaville.

When she says it's not easy, I tend to beleive she's not being obstructive: she has nothing to gain by it.

Remember, the AE is superior to the tools devs had for making missions before it existed.

Also remember that no code the Devs can write is going to be able to divine your intent in making an Ally or any other element for a mission. There is definitely going to be some sort of numbers-based solution that won't be perfect for everyone. Or soon enough, for that matter.

If the Devs have to go through all powers that have a buffing element and flag them to have some kind of xp gain rate debuff (my idea) when coming from allies, let's just hope that can be accomplished in days and not months.

I'll take your word on her special knowledge since trying to research anything on these forums is like pulling your own teeth. Well, except that pulling your own teeth is less painful.

Like I said earlier, I just like the way she argues. Most times she is so nice and even tempered but other people get all pissed off, it's funny as heck.

As for wanting AE fixed, your mostly right except for people like me that don't care for AE in general. I saw it's exploit factor on the very first mission I ran in there and was bored to death of it by the third run I was invited on. If anything though I really do think that "fixing" it will be harder than anyone can believe by at least a factor of 10. I do not envy the Devs on this front.

Let's face the facts that, for the most part, the only people really upset over this is the ones that were exploiting it in the first place. Me? I'll continue running missions and Ouro Arcs. They are more fun anyways.

You couldn't be any more wrong...

I would suggest you go back and re-read this entire thread.

Good suggestion and unfortunately for you I already had done that and then decided to do so again. I particulary like the post from Rodion on page two (post #40 I believe).

Want to know what I found? It seems the majority of people are either neutral to the fix and waiting to see what happens with the permanent fix in Issue 17 or like the fix.

Of the people who did not like it, that seemed to come from mostly farmers/exploiters who are upset they can't solo farm a mission at +3/x8 anymore. I admit that I am drawing a conclusion there, but since few of them complained about specific non-exploitative missions they had made, I feel justified I have drawn a good conclusion. I feel even better since many of these same people have admitted to exploitative behavior on other forums.

The only people I feel sorry for are the ones that tried to set up decent stories that are seriously affected by this fix. One player mentioned a Prison Riot mission that really sounded cool and I would have liked to see that (as soon as I can find it I will play it regardless of the rewards). Unfortunately it got nerfed because of the Allies involved. If the stories are good though, I will still play them with my 50's for fun, and recommend them to my friends, so I don't see that as a problem myself.

I especially do not feel sorry for the ones that tried to make an AV or GM soloable mission by adding buffbots.

Now for the people who try to argue that buffbots are not an exploit, well their arguement is flawed. The Devs would not have created this "fix" unless an unintended exploit was discovered. I will go along with the complaints that they should have seen this and not allowed it in the first place though. I will also go along with the fact that the fix should have been implemented a long time ago, but I won't push that one too hard since I understand prioritizing.

Lastly, Tokyo, I did some further research. It was on you. Why is it that you so often attack people you don't agree with? I am not talking about responding rudely to the people who were rude to you first. I can understand that and have done it a time or three myself, though most times people seem to misinterpret my being blunt with being rude.

I was actually rather surprised to see your Neg Rep after you responded to one of my previous posts since that one was walking the line of rudeness but had a hard tilt to the side of just being blunt. After doing my little bit of research though, I see that almost any time you disagree with someone, you are either sacastic, demeaning, or down right rude. Please try to be a little less thin skinned about it.

To end this on a positive note, even though I dislike farmers, marketeers, and power gamers in general; I have to say your play on the Communist Manifesto was Awesome. Very creative.

You're going to need to read the thread a few more times then.

People are complaining because 1) this patch is bugged and penalizing players for every single ally, hostage, rescue, or friendly NPC on the entire map, 2) it doesn't stop buffbotters; in fact it encourages everyone to use one (because there's no penalty for using one) and make sure to never ever use an offensive pet -- especially more than one

I've created the following arcs. None of which have buffbots. None of them even have a single ally with a single buff power. However, all of them give reduced rewards because of this patch:

David and Goliath - Two missions have you rescue scientists from super-advanced Trolls. Another has you save cops. This patch reduces exp in those missions.

Nocturnal - This arc has 4 missions with allies. The main ones are DP/MA and Mercs/Traps. They don't buff. They take exp already because they deal damage. In addition to one of the missions having both of them as allies (for story purposes and so I have more people who can talk), one mission has 3 additional allies who turn on you when you start to fight a boss. Now, these count as allies even if you don't rescue them, and you get reduced exp.

My Date With a Celebrity - This arc is five missions, mostly a joke arc, with very little fighting. As such, most of the maps are full of friendly patrols, friendly bosses, friendly ambushes, captives, and other things. Not one of them is a buffbot, and only one of them (the "celebrity") ever follows you -- and she's MA/regen. Now even the small amount of exp you do get for doing this arc is reduced to almost nothing.

Not only that, but I looked through the list of Dev Choice arcs. Of every single Dev Choice arc currently existing, only one single arc has no objectives that would result in reduced experience by this patch. One, out of more than two pages. That's something like a 95%+ hit rate on things that weren't exploiting, cheating, or buffbotting.

You are flat out wrong if you think this only affects exploiters, cheaters, farmers, and buffbotters. The fact is this affects more than half, if not more than 90% of all arcs in the entire game. Almost every legitimate arc out there has been hit by the patch catching "allies" and giving an exp penalty to the mission.

People are mad because this causes damage to almost every arc that exists, legitimate or not. Not because they're all cheaters.

Originally Posted by PRAF68_EU Dispari has more than enough credability, and certainly doesn't need to borrow any from you.

Don't you dare take away his broad brush! How will he get his conclusions painted so quickly if he cannot use his broad brush! If he can't use his broad brush, he may have to admit the devs put out a bad patch instead of calling everyone who dislikes it a cheater!

Seriously, if what you just cited has no effect on his opinion, he better ask someone to cut an airhole in that box his head is shoved in.

Dispari, personally i think you have invested WAY to much emotion into this, but that is your right. I am not going to waste my time correcting your misunderstanding of my post except to say this:

I just got done testing two different arcs that are buffbot arcs (and no other ally types period), with two different toons. I then used the same toons to test an arc that has no buffers, no allies, and no clickies. In short it is a straight kill the leader to win. If buffbots are not affecting anything then why was my reward for a lvl 53 boss about 1/3 of what the non-buffer mission was?


TehHippeh, as for your comments. I see you flame most anyone who disagrees with you as well. Too bad. I do enjoy a good arguement.

Since this thread has degenrated in nothing more than a flame-fest, I'm done with it. The rest of you are welcome to continue though until Issue 17 comes out as is your right. I'm just not investing any more energy into it.

Having one (1) single ally does not impact your exp via penalty. If that pet happens to be a buffbot, they won't take any experience whatsoever, because they're also not dealing damage.

If you have more than one (1) ally, even if those allies are friendly bosses, captives, escorts, or whatever, you start to get a global experience penalty for all enemies killed in the entire mission.

Additionally, any enemies that actually deal damage will take experience based on the amount of damage they deal. Therefore, while attacking pets have always given a penalty, you can still use a single buffbot ally and not have it impact your experience.

I said, and I quote, "it encourages everyone to use one (because there's no penalty for using one)." Using one single buffbot will not impact your experience.

Originally Posted by PRAF68_EU Dispari has more than enough credability, and certainly doesn't need to borrow any from you.

*puckers up*

Oh I get pulled back in because I see I did misunderstand your post there and I have no problem admitting that.

I still just can't understand the hang-up though since a permanent fix is supposed to be coming out with Issue 17. As I said earlier, this all could have been avoided by the devs or fixed earlier, but I understand priorities. I will admit that the heavy handedness of the temp fix seemed rather overdone but since it has been done, I am waiting to pass judgement on this whole affair even though I do approve of it personally right now.

Now, I am done. No more on this please. Here is my *pucker* for the kiss and make up.