Fortune go my wife killed

'Sokay, I'll vouch for you. Mods, he's with me.

Why not just make it an option you can set, like several of us suggested, and make both sides happy?

I don't have a particularly strong option on this particular buff, but I do have a very strong opinion on options like this in general. I think that the principle behind such options strays into the dangerous territory of very delicate compromises put into MMOs with regard to what players are supposed to tolerate vs what they are supposed to have control over. I wasn't exactly joking when I suggested the devs put a prompt to accept damage from a critter. It was intended to highpoint a point. Its clearly unreasonable to put such a prompt into the game, but the question is why? The reason its unreasonable is that the individual player's desires are *not* paramount in the game. The game has rules, and those rules override players' desires to circumvent them. If a critter shoots you, you take damage. If the game would be more fun for you if you didn't take that damage, you have to find a different game to play. There's nothing else to be said there.

Conversely, because players act far more unpredictably than critters, and sometimes far more maliciously, the devs cannot simply allow players to do *anything* to other players. In particular, a decision usually has to be made as to whether to allow non-consensual PvP or not, and usually the decision is to disallow that. That's a compromise, though, against the general principle that if it happens in an MMO, you're supposed to deal with it. And in fact, in declared PvP zones, that rule is still in force 100%: if a player takes action which kills you in a PvP zone, then short of them using a game feature that would have been an exploit anywhere else, the fact that they killed you against your will is not a problem the game intends to address.

Ally buffs sit in between critter-mandated foe effects and exploitive non-consensual player activities. Arbitrarily stating that those effects are things the players should have control over, because its "obvious" that players should *always* have control over such things, is in my opinion a dangerous game design decision to make by fiat without very careful consideration. Because you do not, in general, have the final say in what happens to your characters. Because you do not have that say, there really isn't an obvious choice between players buffing you and you being able to refuse the buff. There's no intrinsic requirement for the game rules to honor one of your expectations over the other. But adding the option without careful consideration sends the (possibly incorrect) signal that there is an actual intrinsic requirement for the game to honor your expectations over others.

One of the things that is usually considered a fundamental design principle of MMOs is that each player is given the power to affect their fellow players, in sometimes good ways and sometimes not so good ways. Short of directly killing them outright, its possible and by design that one player could negatively affect the performance of another player. That's both the power and the responsibility that MMOs give to their players, and one of the critical ways in which an MMO distinguishes itself from a single player game. Its not a feature to be trivially discarded, because once gone you can't really get it back. The isolationist mindset it fosters in your playerbase when that is removed is something that is virtually impossible to reverse.


I don't think all such options are bad. I agree with the teleport prompt, for example. But I think all such options should be very carefully considered before being added, and I think the burden of proof for needing them should be extremely high. For example, the fact that the animation roots is evidence in favor of having a prompt, but on a scale of one to 100 where 100 would cause me to decide unambiguously that the prompt was needed, that fact would score about a six for me.

And yet, with this buff, any player can, at any time, drop an option box right over the middle of my screen while I'm engaged with a foe, which hampers my view of the combat.



I'm not asking for anything that in any way impacts another persons enjoyment of the game, nor anything that unfairly affects any one character over another. I'm asking for an option to not have a window pop up in the middle of my screen any time another player decides I need some playing cards hurled at me.




One major difference here is that if I ignore the TP prompt for a bit, it goes away. However, I am forced to deal with the MF prompt when it pops up, or try to ignore it and hope my view of anything I think important is not obstructed, or take time during combat to drag it to the side of the screen and out of the way until I take the time to decide if I want the buff or not, or develop some bind which would help but still takes a keystroke to dismiss the window instead of a keystroke to make an attack on a foe.


The fact that this "buff" can have a negative effect during combat (such as a not insignificant loss of hit points) is all the more reason, to me, to make accepting this an option for the players to be able to choose to accept or not in an ongoing basis. This is why I think the option setting would be beneficial, or at least acceptable, to nearly everyone.


On the Dark Ether scale of annoyance, having a window pop up during combat is much closer to 100 for me than your 6/100 for the need to do anything.

The option I'm concerned about is whether to make the buff optional or not, and by extention whether having an optional pop up to control that option is a good idea. I'm not saying I want the pop up itself to be mandatory. The option I was commenting on is the root option of whether the buff should be optional, which extends to whether the option to accept the buff or not should *itself* be optional. If the option itself is considered by the devs to be a good idea, its a tenet of good user interface design** to allow the player to preset the answer to that question to either yes or no to eliminate the UI intrusion.


** That tenet is "never change a critical component of the user interface without the user's permission at a time when they might be in the middle of using it."

If it's made non-optional, there would be no need for the prompt either, which would be fine with me. I can, however, see that some might disagree that it should be non-optional since one of the "buffs" does damage, which could be dangerous in the wrong circumstance. Apparently someone with enough stroke thought that the non-optional buff was not the answer either, since here we are again with a prompt popping up in the middle of the screen.

For that reason, I'd rather not have something that's forced on a character if there is another way to be equitable to everyone. That's the crux of the matter to me, and I think the option solves that issue equitably.

This loops back around to my original point, which is how do you reconcile this game design principle with a player who asks for damage to be optional? Its a serious question, and not intended to be sarcastic.

I reconcile this by knowing that this is a buff we're talking about, and not a part of the combat that is one central point to the game. In fact, it was not a part of the game for a significant amount of time, and therefore should not be considered as anything that needs to be balanced, other than internally to the power itself.

However, my point is not to ignore the affects per se - I want to be able to get rid of the prompt. I realize there are a number of people that want to be able to reject all buffs, but that was not really the basis of my disagreeance with this issue.

Furthermore, it's an optional power that not all players have, with an effect (prompt box) that a number of players consider to be unwanted, and undesirable in some instances.

I agree with the importance of factoring what should and should not be in the player's control and the careful balancing act that you speak of.

From this case, I have found that I reconcile it by the duration and ability to avoid/lose the effect.

I've, personally, never ever been one to have any issue with player buffs and such (No knocking anyone for their own tastes though).
They last 4 minutes maximum.

The old Mayhem/Safeguard buffs last for hours of in-gametime. The Developers removed the visual effects that they used to have... and you could always delete them yourself.

Mystic Fortune lasts for 20 minutes of in-game time. A player cannot avoid it by not doing Safeguard/Mayhem missions... but can by declining the option to be given the buff. It cannot be deleted (And shouldn't be, due to its random nature). It also cannot be lost by defeat (Intentional or otherwise).

So, my thought on when the player should or shouldn't have the option is (In this case) based on how long it lasts.

Basically... As a game designer, how long am I willing to potentially stick someone with something that they're not happy about?

(As an aside):
Part of this (And I say only "part", because this whole topic has opened my eyes to players that do not wish to have any numerical advantage granted from other players for their extreme solo play... Whether this is something the game cares to support/nurture or not, it is not my place to dismiss it)... Anyway, part of this can be solved with Power Customization (of sorts). Some games have options for hiding armors and/or other items/effects that work in your favor, but may not be to your visual liking.

Clientside options for some of the visuals (Leadership Pool, Inspirations, all those CoH standard, floating accuracy, damage, defense, etc) to be hidden for that player (And that player only) wouldn't be out of line within CoH, with its great grasp of personal appearance customization.

The Electric-Knight ______ Malfaz _____ Zox'Oculox

@Zethustra

"Now at midnight all the agents and the superhuman crew come out
and round up everyone that knows more than they do"-Dylan

www.pauldamonthomas.com - Original Music

Such is the life of a MMO game developer...le sigh.

That actually sounds pretty good. I like the ability to turn down non-team-mate buffs, and probably would, given the chance.

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

I was listing those as opposing options not as a whole package.

Vahzilok's Disease. Lasts until cured, and cannot be removed arbitrarily by the player.

You could argue that there is an important story-based reason for the debuff, but all that says is that if the devs want to stick you with a long-lasting effect that you don't like, you just have to deal with it, but if a player does, you should have the right to override their actions. That is still an apparently arbitrary decision to me.

You could also argue that the debuff is avoidable by simply avoiding the mission that gives it, but that presumes you know which mission that is ahead of time. A game design rule can't presume that. Also, its no different really than avoiding ally buffs by avoiding allies. The question can be asked: why should a player be "forced" to avoid story content just because they don't want to be debuffed against their will.

Deliberately doing that is harassment, and the game already has a remedy for that: you can validly petition such conduct. That's really dodging the point though, because the question I'm asking is what is the difference between restricting what the game does to you and what the players do to you. Resorting to conduct defined to be actionable griefing only clouds the issue.

Besides, that definition doesn't even cover the trivial example I gave: why can't I optionally shut off damage. The game engine definitely does follow me around and continue to do that. In fact, it does that to a higher degree than all other forms of objectionable activity combined.

That's not a good comparison, as it misses the context of the matter. The Vahzilok disease only happens once in the character's entire lifespan, unless you DELIBERATELY seek it you again via Oruroboros. After I run through the Vahzilok disease, my chances of acciedntally being afflicted with it again are precisely nil.

It's also missing the fact that the Vahzilok disease is initiated by MY actions, whereas the Mystic Fortune buff is initiated by OTHER PLAYERS. You make the argument that it's "the developers" that give me the Vahzilok disease, but that's not exactly true, because there isn't some developer running around in-game slapping the Vahzilok disease on people. The disease is a consequence for MY actions, not something applied to me as a result of somebody else's actions.

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

Some time between posting that and when getting out of the house today, I realized that I should have said, "As a game designer, how long am I willing to let other players potentially stick someone with something that they're not happy about?"

The answer to how long I'd be willing to let the game/NPCs/Special Results do it, as opposed to other players, is different.

I have encountered many people who would have loved to have been able to get rid of the Vahzilok's Disease. That struck me as odd, because I had encountered that with my main hero and thought it was great. Then, when people explained that they were robots and such, I realized how tough it is to do awesome things with diversity. Sometimes you have to just let it go and have some people not as happy as others (Whether this particular case is one, is a matter of opinion, of course).


Personally, I think the Vahzilok's Disease arc is a great experience and shows players, things can happen to you (Although, besides the Hamidon Lightning thing... what else is there?). Most of the people who may have been bothered by their character concept not matching the disease thing likely still saw that it was a cool idea... if it fit better with their concept... and know it was a neat attempt (And the developers are somewhat limited in how wide a gap they can cover).

I don't think that a player cast power with a relatively short recharge that can be acquired for $10 which included some seriously popular clothing items and can be used by any AT and character on the account really compares to the unique scenario of the Vahzilok story arc.

Just my thoughts.

The Electric-Knight ______ Malfaz _____ Zox'Oculox

@Zethustra

"Now at midnight all the agents and the superhuman crew come out
and round up everyone that knows more than they do"-Dylan

www.pauldamonthomas.com - Original Music

By "meaningless" downside, "if it exists", you're referring to the supposed inconvenience of the prompt?

The Electric-Knight ______ Malfaz _____ Zox'Oculox

@Zethustra

"Now at midnight all the agents and the superhuman crew come out
and round up everyone that knows more than they do"-Dylan

www.pauldamonthomas.com - Original Music