Discussion: Formspring.me 4/23 Dev Q&A Transcript

Right, you obviously missed my point mr drama queen.

Considering everything that's on the table with this game, not to mention keeping players hooked so they don't stray to competitors, you feel the loading screens are worth allocating resources?

As the saying goes, whatever floats your boat.

If the loading screens consisted of about 72 hours of labor then I would think, after nearly 6 years, they would have changed them a bit. This leaves two possibilities:

• the devs give a rat's anus to bother with them
• or they've decided to allocate resources to other areas of the game they felt were more important

The second option would suggest the loading screens aren't as simple as assigning an intern to work on them over a weekend.

So you all heard it here folks. I favor the devs concentrate on new power sets, proliferation, story arcs, greater costume customization....& Technogeek here wants them to spend time on the loading screens.

Have a great day.

Search the forum a bit. You'll find a *player* did new loading screens in not all that long. Ever think it's potentially "too simple to have noticed" until people brought it up? It improves the overall image of the game to not have loading screens stretched and showing "on release" graphics, especially with Ultra Mode coming up. (Note, on "being stretched," they've changed the ENHANCEMENT screen so it isn't stretched in the I17 beta now.)

See my Guides and Tutorials

Why?

I was entirely satisfied with the answer given- as a player, it tells me everything I need to know.

And the proof of the pudding is in the eating- since taking over for Cryptic the conga line of longstanding player requests finally getting some dev time hasn't stopped coming.

*rolleyes*

Actually, that's a short answer. If Castle was tasked with writing a memo on it, it would probably be about fifty pages long, a third of which would then be redacted.

What I didn't cover are difficulty thresholds, level progression, reward table construction, power design requirements, powerset progression rules, archetype balance, combat soloing thresholds, rank requirements, late-game difficulty shift, difficulty sliders, teaming reward modifiers, power caps and constraints, invention balance requirements, content repeatability, performance and balance margins, special case power restrictions, and critter AI limitations. Each of which would take pages of text just to explain what I know about each one, which is probably only about 75% of the total on average. Castle's version would be longer, and his version wouldn't necessarily be 100% complete either (he wouldn't know all of the specifics of reward table balance unless he discussed it internally, as that is not part of his normal day to day responsibilities).

And while Castle would have probably gotten 2 pages of kudos, he would have also gotten thirty pages of "what do you mean by that," "please explain this with actual numbers," "oh yeah, well explain this then," and "so why don't you fix this already." Which is why Castle is smart enough not to open that can of worms. Usually.

(Castle must also surely take note of what happens whenever I discuss balance issues - or any game implementation internals in general - on the forums and repeat things I've already discussed with him, only to have them nit-picked to shreds. He's almost certainly thinking "oh hell no: screw that I'm going back to working on Kinetic Melee." If I had a choice, I'd rather work on Kinetic Melee also.)

Again, you're engaging in a debate/arguement/exchange of opinions etc with respect to an issue which should be an absolutely non-issue.

Some of you keep trying to keep an meaningful exchange goin where none exists. Seems to me some are just in it for the aggravation, not for the health of the game.

Do some in the customer base think the devs should look into pvp some more? No, we need new loading screens!

How about some cool new power sets? Ahem, no where are my new loading screens?

& you managed to miss my point when you put yourself in the middle of my scrap with technogeek. If loading screens take the absolute minimum effort to create and introduce then I would think they would have made new screenies for every issue released to date.

And yet the arguement will commence.

I still don't get how some still fail to grasp my point. If a monkey can make new loading screens, then why hasn't it happened more often in the past 5+ years?

Again, the devs don't care about 'em or they in fact do require the kind of resources that would otherwise go to the development of new arcs, power sets, game mechanics.

Anyway, this argueing for arguement's sake is getting old pretty fast.

So I'll end it.

I'm wrong.

You're right.

I lose.

You win.

Moving on.

Lisa chimes in ...and we can solo our way to the other side

This made me very happy

Oh, wow...Excuse me while I snigger.

And;

Perhaps because the games graphics haven't changed in Five years? So, it wasn't needed? Whereas now the graphics will be updated for the first time in said five years. So, its now worth doing. And David obviously took a few to rustle up some new ones we can apprecaite when it hits live.

Originally Posted by Zwillinger GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.

Originally Posted by Captain_Photon NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.

I agree. I really really want a Moon zone.

I've been waiting for over 5 years now....

thank you, i was looking for the info on paragonwiki for the initial launch price, got nothing. I only got the regular one because..well, my job paid a good bit less back then. but couldnt remember what the launch price was. surprised lemur or zombie didnt help me out there, they usually are the detail guys.

Sez you.

My burning question is, will they ever change the startup artwork for CoH (the pic with all the heroes rushing the camera) to reflect that Statesman now has a cape?

David Nakayama said in that same thread that they were going to update loading screens... So that question was already answered.

I don't understand what you are saying. Are you saying that making new loading screens is a waste of time? Because if so the devs obviously disagree with you since they are indeed making new loading screens.

Also, wouldn't the art department be working on loading screens? Why would they have anything to do with PvP or power sets? I think the Paragon art team is great, but I wouldn't let them anywhere near that stuff. In the same vein I wouldn't allow the powers guys or those working on PvP to touch the loading screens.

So, if the art lead thinks his department can swing making a few loading screens, then who's to say differently (unless War Witch has something urgent for them to do. And that most certainly wouldn't have anything to do with PvP or powers, it would probably have something to do with, you know, the art assets of the game.)

Ya, you're right & I was wrong about this.

Thanks again

Though it'd be cool to have additional body types available, the reality of the situation is that it'd take many, many months of Art time to go back and create Huge Female versions of the thousands of parts that exist in the game currently. Then consider that all future costume parts would have to be built with that fourth category as well, and you'll start to understand the problem: if we did this, all other character work would grind to a halt.

It's not that Huge Female is a bad idea aesthetically. Rather, the opportunity cost is just way too high. I'm sure you'd rather have a year's worth of new costumes, new enemy groups, and new allies than one Gigantica, right?

We want to give you guys as much cool new stuff as possible as quickly as we can, and that's why it's off the table. Hope that makes sense!

It makes sense that there's no fixing it now, but I am stating now how much I disliked the original decision. Not for pointless griping, but as something to keep in mind when going forward with future design decisions.

Thank you for the interview, and you are all fantastic.

Except one of you. You know who you are... you rapscallion.

Amusing, not saying I agree with the neg rep, but 11 paragraphs to say what fun is ?

If Castle had of said it, it would have been official and we would have a guideline of what to expect. As it stands there is now an interpretation of an interpretation that given recent inclusions in the game, and nerfs to things in the game is not shared or well communicated amongst all the developers.

And if you refer back to that post in any discussion you can expect "Thats what she said" as the response.

Out of curiosity, would simply tweaking the existing sliders be considerably more/less/same in difficulty? With the basic male body the upper end isn't THAT far off from a Huge character; the main difference is Huge has the smaller head and different stance. Given what has been hinted about CoX possibly getting 'stances', allowing female characters to be taller/wider and possibly a second choice of stance seems to be an idea.

Heck, even without the stances, allowing a bit more latitude in the sliders would be nice... presuming the models wouldn't warp all out of proportion then. In a comic-book world where body types don't even remotely have to resemble 'reality', the standard of a female model having to be curvy and shorter/less massy than the male seems kinda silly.

That's what she said...and it was pretty darned accurate both in the original post and the followup. The truth is there isn't one balancing factor but dozens; many of which Arcanaville pointed out.

When you can't get a Dev; Arcanaville. The closest thing

Originally Posted by Zwillinger GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.

Originally Posted by Captain_Photon NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.

I hope now. I love that screen, I think it's pretty Iconic and I hope it never changes. It's one of the few things in this game I don't want to change. That and the music in Atlas Park

Then how bout some actual insight into where the game is going in terms of balance. Sorry my moral compass kind of died the last time I stopped a fight by turning the people doing the fighting into pincushions ?

At least its now official and a guideline of what to expect in the future:

Arcanaville is "pretty darned accurate" and "points to the truth" raves Paragon Studios official spokesperson Castle.


I'd like that to be my new forum title if it will fit: "Pretty darned accurate truth-pointer."


(Thank god Castle saw this post before BaB, or I might have been "a fun ride for the whole family" instead.)