Incarnates and Homogeneity

Just to offer a counter-point, the danger in all emotionally charged issues like the Lore pets is that the side opposed doesn't always realize there even exists a side in favor. The specific danger is when someone says something like this: the devs must be morons for thinking this was a good idea. That's actually a hidden slam on a lot of other players, whether the poster realizes it or not, because every single player that actually likes it the way it is, and may even prefer it the way it is, will consider that tantamount to calling *them* morons because in the devs place they would probably do the same thing.

I actually call the devs morons more than any other poster, but I'm really careful about it. I feel safe saying the devs made a stupid mistake when they, for example, misplace a decimal place in a number. Because I doubt many people are sitting at home saying "I object, if I were a dev I would be putting decimal points in random places all the time!" I'm willing to write off the two or three lunatics that actually think that. But I tend to steer clear of saying that a dev action proves mental defect when it involves something I know that whatever my opinion on the matter, there are lots of people who actually like what they did. Even if I think it was a stupid error, like, oh, say Shield Charge, I very narrowly say that the change was a stupid mistake given the rules the devs claim to follow. I don't say anyone who liked the broken power is obviously an idiot.

Most people know "I don't like it" is in bounds and "everyone who likes it is stupid" is out of bounds. Most people, I think, aren't aware that "the devs must be idiots for doing this" is over the line in a subtle way you aren't likely to notice unless you are one of those people on the other side of the issue and are thinking you'd do the same thing. And most posters won't give fair warning like I will, by saying "well, if you think the devs are crazy for doing that, if I was them I would probably have done something similar**." That's me saying "look: the devs are paid to take abuse, but you're also slamming other players who agree with the devs that don't have that as a job description. Tread lighter." And if they don't and in so many words say I have to be just as dumb, then at least there's no confusion about intent, and I'm free to respond accordingly.

Honestly, this thread has been really tame and I have no problem with it or any of its sidetracks personally, but the Lore issue now and especially the Solo issue before venture strongly into this territory more than once. And it can cumulatively set people on edge without other people realizing the cumulative effect over time. Even I feel it sometimes, and that's actually saying something.

I will also say that in every issue like this, this error eventually happens both ways, from both the players opposed and the players for. However, the asymmetry is that the players in favor far less often from out of nowhere say something like "I love this, and the devs are geniuses for doing something no one could possibly dislike." Its harder to cross this line *first* when you are in favor of something. Its far easier to cross the line first as an opponent. Then, once that is done, the threshold for the other side drops precipitously: "oh yeah, well maybe the devs are smart enough to make stuff for the majority, and not the insignificant minority of players." That's why its the players that oppose a dev action that have to be the most careful: they actually hold the keys to this door of using the devs as a bat to swing around. Its not about sparing the devs criticism: do it my way and you can criticize them all you want without incurring collateral damage among the other players. Its about not going nuclear first with the devs as the big red button.

Sorry for the side track, but as this post is more than a hundred words long, most people will skip over it anyway so the impact is probably low.


** For the record, under no set of circumstances would I have done, or recommended, that the Lore pets be what they currently are or connected to the Lore the way they currently are, because that is a high-pain no-gain design decision. That makes the decision, from a purely game design strategic perspective, a highly questionable one.

Haha!

As to the rest of the words in that post... I'll just say that "common sense" isn't so common, is it? And, if so (or "not", I suppose), it should be called something else.

One other caveat about my posts and thoughts on the topic of this thread... I don't have any emotional charge behind it. My personal playtime fun comes from certain aspects that some others share and some others don't. My playstyle and preferences are no greater and no lesser than anyone else's.

Further rambling (thus ensuring no one will read this either):

Most (if not all) design decisions come down to what and how much can be done within what amount of time and the prioritization of said possibilities.
Opinions, personal and of the whole picture, come into play in prioritizing and that is where we may disagree.

There's nothing wrong with discussing opinions of prioritization and preferences.
Also, if some people act ridiculously in the name of such and such cause/belief... it doesn't make anyone who shares the same belief/preference ridiculous. So, let's not jump on people for discussing things of this topic's nature.
What was wrong, earlier on, is people making blanket statements about posters offering feedback and such.
If you want to admonish someone... quote them and deal with them directly. Don't try and put down the entire faction of people with such opinions.

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

I hadn't thought of it that way. Also, I did see another indirect insult of this kind (and it indirectly insulted me, by the way), and let it slide, both because I didn't want people to think I was jumping on people I disagreed with, and because that same person (not going to name them) also had a lot to say that was on-topic.

Also, one of the reasons I specifically responded to DanZero's (not the person mentioned above) post to thank him was that I made this thread more to hear the reasoning behind different opinions from mine, because I didn't feel that I'd heard much reasoning behind those who disagreed with me (and in the course of it, I've shifted my opinion due to those posts). If people popped in here, saw a bunch of people in agreement about how they like/don't like the powers or like/don't like whatever, they might say "meh, if I post my opinion, they'll belittle me for it" and leave. And DanZero thought exactly that (but fortunately posted anyway).

That being said, the derail led to both DanZero's full response to the OP, and the resulting comment from Void Huntress about new players thinking Praetoria is the "real world", which was something I'd never thought about.

Good advice.

This thread has gotten off-track enough times and gotten back on enough that I think I'm going to give up, and just hope that the signal outweighs the noise. Even if the noise is off topic from the OP, if it's interesting, that's worth it. And your post was. I do hope people continue responding to the OP though.

Since we had a sneak peek tonight, and the beta server will be open to everyone for 24 hours starting tomorrow at noon EST, I feel safe in relaying the following:

The Destiny power you're talking about is one of the Barrier powers. It provides both Res and Def to pretty much everything. It's also the only Destiny path with such intense graphical representation. The three other Destiny paths are much more subtle in their appearance. Also, the reason it probably annoyed you so much was that whoever was firing it off was doing so in the middle of Pocket D, with players already tightly-packed. The radii of Destiny powers vary, but within their effective radius every Destiny can effect up to 255 characters. So depending on the specific power, its likely that all those tightly-packed characters were all getting bubbled at once, which can be a bit overwhelming.

I'd try to convince you that it's not nearly as bad during a trial - even with multiple applications from different casters - but since you described yourself as one of those players for whom even ice armor is a major disturbance, I don't know if anything I say would even change your mind in the slightest.

This was around 9:30 or so, and so there weren't all that many people in Pocket D. I doubt there were more than the 24 the BAF allows. When I moved away from the group, I still had a very distracting bubble on me. Intense graphical effects like this that tell my brain "hey, wait a minute, what's this?" and I keep focusing on it instead of what I'm supposed to be looking at, namely the seer over there trying to scramble my brains, or where my teammate is going.

And oh yeah, back to those darned Praetorian pets....if I'm fighting Sky Raiders and there's a Traps user on the team, guess what I keep trying to do? Whenever I mention it in team chat I usually get an "lol, me too."

I'm afraid the NDA prevents me from specifically commenting on where the Rikti monkeys shoot out of.

To be honest, I don't think it's as one-sided. Yes, people whose heads explode and come to post about how unsatisfied they are do indeed cause problems, but all too often dissatisfied people will post their dissatisfaction, only to be beset by people saying things like "You're wrong." or "You can't make that claim without evidence." and even things along the lines of "You're stupid! I've been waiting for this for years!" There this almost palpable compulsion from quite a few people to shut dissenters up, lest the developers put their brains on backwards and listen to the "vocal minority" and roll back this much-vaunted change.

Yes, dissenters are often idiots and asking for it, that much I'll agree. But it's unfair to put a higher emphasis on their responsibility, when I know for a fact that most wouldn't start an argument if they weren't belittled and put in a position to defend their opinion and explain how they dare have such opinion. The simple fact is that if I come in and state I completely and utterly hate a new addition that many people like and leave it precisely at that, I'll still pick up flack for it.

On the flip side, a lot of the time the side opposed is actually asking for more options and more additions, including the ones that already exist. In the case of the Lore pets, the request is for more pets that aren't tied to Praetoria (like how we asked for pets and powers that aren't tied to Arachnos), but not for the removal of the Praetorian pets as such. They're there, they're done, let the people who like them still have them. Removing them achieves nothing.

However, when responses to such suggestions come in to the tune of "Well, I got what I wanted, so now the developers should work on other things I want instead of expanding this into what you want." that being the equivalent of sticking your tongue out, pulling your eyelid down and going "Nuuuu!" it starts to seem like a lot of people have not the slightest wish to compromise.

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.

They do a little more than just "post their dissatisfaction."

IF that were all then there would be no problems. Many a thread has stayed civil when that happens. But posters who make veiled threats of quitting and act as if it's a great betrayal for the devs to create content like this cause the fights to start.

Well first off I'll say it takes two to tango, and if the dev defense force, weren't so patronizingly self righteous then there wouldn't be fights in the first place.

Secondly, people should be allowed to post their dissatisfaction, they should also be allowed to express that they feel betrayed. Or as the trainer at my work place says, "If you don't make people aware of why you are unhappy, nothing will be done about it."

Interestingly, that was another point of contention with Patron pools - everyone got an extra pet, except for Masterminds, presumably because they already had at least six.

However, I actually do support the mechanical proliferation that we've seen with Epics, at least. Their stated goal was not to give characters more of what they already have, but rather to give them things they normally wouldn't have access to, thereby broadening their range of abilities. Hence why Tankers got fireballs, Blasters got shield toggles and Scrappers got control power.

To my eyes, this broadening of ability and concept brings us tantalisingly close to having characters with a more diverse scope of abilities without necessarily walking into tankmage territory. For instance, if I want to have a character reminiscent of the Human Torch, this would require fire blasts, fire protection powers and fire melee attacks, all things that not a single AT has all of. NPCs have that combination, such as Behemoth Overlords, but we have no access to this as players.

Enter Pyre/Flame Mastery. A Fire/Fire/Flame Blaster has access to a wide assortment of Blasts and melee attacks, with some degree of fire protection from their Epic, while a Fire/Fire/Pyre Scrapper has many melee and protection fire powers, with some range and control in their Epic. Neither case is perfect, but both cases are broad enough to handwave, which is always a plus.

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.

How many people do you tell about a good experiance?

How many people do you tell about a bad experiance?

Good: 2 or 3 people
Bad: 7 or 8 people.

The old axiom of good news travels, but bad news travels faster (even if its *incorrect* bad news) holds very very true.

Hell, if you take the average of "bad posts" compared to "good posts" I am sure that the average is around that in general....

Also, on top of that, if you approve of something, you tell people about it, and then leave it at that.

If you are unhappy with something (at least in my experience of working in retail), is that you will generally keep on going on and on and on and on about it... and in some cases carrying further on even if your problem was resolved.

Bad news sticks, good news doesn't.

That's really an issue that's split between two different problems:
1) I think BAB told a story about how they initially had power customization, at least in terms of changing colors, for Mastermind henchmen. When they were starting out, he asked one of the art folks to apply a blue swatch to some MM zombies. They became bright blue smurfs.

Basically, they'd have to spend time making sure the color mapped to the right portion of the texture over the character model.

2) This isn't even considering the entirely new models and 'ugraded' bits they'd have to make for each model for them to make sense. I saw your suggestions in another thread, n' I thought they were kinda interesting. The art team is already overtaxed as it is, though, and implementing a new character model for play involves a bit more than fitting it over a generic humanoid animation skeleton. So, I don't know what their budget would be to do even just this part without having a reason to bundle it in with other content.

I do think it's possible to apply customization to Incarnate abilites. There's already weapon customization for Mace Mastery and Munitions Mastery, though this works a bit differently than changing the shader color for FX powers. However, I think they would have to change things so that every player already has every Incarnate ability, but they only become visible/usable/active when they have the appropriate enhancement slotted. Similarly, each player has the power in their power customization list (or whatever it's called) but all save the one they're currently using are locked and invisible.

Note that I have no actual idea how the costume/power customization code works.

In any case, I'd have the actual mechanics for the Lore slot ingame before any tweaking is done on it "for fun."

All I'll say about that is that you started off by saying you don't think its as one-sided as I claimed it was (when I didn't actually say it was one-sided in the way you mean), then concluded by saying you know most of the instigators are actually on the other side. That's the sort of thing writers tend to not notice, but (emotionally invested) readers do.

What I said was that when it comes to indirectly attacking players by commenting on the devs its far more likely to come from the side that opposes the devs first, simply because its far easier to indirectly attack players by attacking the devs than it is to indirectly attack players by praising the devs.

People on both sides of issues directly attack each other all the time, but that wasn't what I was commenting about. I was talking about the case where people who don't intend to add fuel to the fire do so sometimes without fully appreciating it.

"The devs would have to be complete morons to abandoned the end game, because its completely stupid to have the game just stop and given level 50 characters no way to continue advancing. What sort of retard would develop an MMO that way?" Have I just insulted Positron, or you? *That's* the problem I was trying to illustrate. If I say "Sam's a marginal nut for not playing MMOs the way God intended" there's no confusion about what my intent is. You know I'm directly attacking a player, and I know it, and there's no opportunity for me to mulligan that one. I can't say "you started it: you're the one that had to go be nuts, I'm just observing." But a lot of threads polarize when the dev-opposed side attacks the devs for doing something a lot of other people like, in a way that denigrates those players for liking it, and then thinks the counterattack is a first strike, when its not.


That too is a vast oversimplification. If someone says "I would like more options" only die-hard trolls would attack that, and they tend to get called out on it. The problem I observe is that many (not all) people who ask for more options believe its impossible for adding more options to ever be problematic so long as the resources to add it are theoretically available. In other words, they believe its self-evident that the only reason not to add an option is that there's no one available to add it to the game. Other than that, its a cosmic law that adding options - any options - is axiomatically always good. So when someone says there might be a problem, *that* is perceived as an irrational objection by definition. It *has* to be an irrational objection, because no matter how smooth sounding it is, adding options cannot be wrong. So its just irrational, and there's no need to prove that. I get that one all the time. What's striking to me is not that I get that all the time, but that the very objections I often make end up being perceived as nonsensical right up to the point when they actually happen. Having called bullseyes on that repeatedly, I'm not really given very much slack the next time. I'm just accused of being opposed to anything the devs haven't already done.

The Lore pets specifically have complex entanglements people are glossing over. Personally, I *hate* the backstory of the Lore pets. I don't want to be, as Venture put it, an Incarnate necromancer. However, that's besides the point. *If* the Lore pets are what they are because of a backstory element that is entangled with the future storyline, and that future storyline itself dictates downstream content, then changing it isn't trivial. Even *adding* to it isn't trivial, because it can cause ripple effects in downstream content if the backstory has to be changed. This isn't always easy to spackle over. It might have been a mistake to even *have* this kind of dependency in the first place, but now that its here its not self-evident that we can just look the other way and do whatever we want and ignore the downstream glitches that occur.

I used to say this about BaB, but I think its equally relevant here. Players think there's two possible motivations for the devs: do what makes sense, or do what the players want whether it makes sense or not. However, the players are ignoring a rather inconvenient fact. The people who believe the former tend to become game developers. The people who believe the latter tend not to. If you don't have strong convictions about how things should be, you're far less likely to choose game design as a career. And if you don't have a sense of professional integrity that says there are things you will do and things you won't do, you're far less likely to be *hired* as a game designer.

BaB used to take flak for saying "I could do that, but it would be ugly" and players would say they didn't care. But BaB cared, and anyone who becomes a professional game animator is likely to care. People who don't care what stuff looks like at a visceral level aren't likely to be animators. Similarly, we can tell the devs to just reverse course and cut out of the game this horrible error, and if that causes problems elsewhere so be it: the problem is too unpalatable to care about that. But the most of the designers there will care. The writers will care. We may disagree violently with the way they are taking the story, but while we can try to convince them to see why its going the wrong way, we cannot ask them to not care. We can ask Positron to place a higher priority on design elements of the Incarnate system we think are more important, but it seems he thinks is less important. But we cannot ask him not to care about resulting collateral damage if changes are made.

People often say the customer is always right, and even people who purport to be professionals and business executives say this. I don't doubt they believe it. However, the customer is not the most important thing to a customer support professional. I cannot speak for Paragon Studios, or anyone else for that matter, but I can say that for myself, the most important thing about being a customer support professional is not the customer, its about being a professional. The one thing I will not sacrifice for my customers is professional integrity. Lots of people *would* sacrifice professional integrity for customers. That's why big accounting firms no longer have consulting arms, and why there are a lot less big accounting firms period.

The devs will try to do what they think we want, but they won't do what they think is nonsensical, even if we think its perfectly acceptable. And we cannot ask them to not care about that problem. *If* the problems created by rewriting the backstory of the Lore pets doesn't have these kinds of entanglements, *then* I'm all for changing them. I'm even all for changing them if there *are* these entanglements. But I acknowledge that *if* these entanglements exist, changing them may not be a trivial process. It may delay Lore indefinitely. And that means asking for "more options" isn't free from substantial collateral damage. In asking for more options, we can be in effect asking to take away the option to have it at all from many players for a very long time.

I don't ask for such things lightly, and neither should anyone else.

The thing is though, I've been getting the distinct impression since i17's clone arcs that much of the game's "writing" has been an excuse for the mechanics. It wasn't that they wanted to do a story about Protean and developed Doppelganger tech to make it happen. The clone arcs read very much like they developed Doppelganger tech and then used Protean to make it happen. They wanted to use a "stop the escape" mechanic for whatever reason (possibly because of the player-base's "love it or hate it" response to the "Stop 30 Fir Bolg mission?) so they came up with the Mindwashed prisoners excuse. Why do we fight our doubles in Positron's Task Force? Oh, it's maaaaaagic.

It should be pretty obvious by now that I think the writing has suffered terribly for it; in fact the only thing since...well since before i17, but this approach has only been really painfully obvious since then, that I'd consider remotely decent have been some of the arcs in Praetoria. And those had their priorities straight. They were there to give you background on the world, not show off a new shiny.

So if they're willing to write around a mechanic just to show off Doppelgangers, or pick up an established piece of lore and work it into their new storyline just to give you an excuse to mow down hordes of Legacy Chain, why shouldn't they be willing to tweak their future storyline to accomodate a cosmetic change many players obviously feel very strongly about? Because no matter what they do with the Well storyline, people who hate and resent its involvement in everything will still criticize, people who like it will probably still like it, people who don't care still won't care, and people who are willing to handwave away the parts they don't like will find it just that much easier to handwave away this specific part.

I'm not saying they shouldn't care. I'm actually saying they really really should care. I'm saying they should take a good long critical look at any planned future storyline developments and ask themselves: Is this really so compelling as to drive every aspect of the game's storyline from here on in?

Obnoxiousness is not reflective of position. Meaning that you don't really need to be pro or con any particular issue to act uncivily. The message boards are a tough place to live. Even the mildest posters eventually get ganged up on for their opinions, and it's also easy in the heat of conflict for otherwise rational people to become more volatile than they might otherwise be. I'm as bad as anyone, and though I feel like I should know better, still catch myself posting un-nice things when I let my guard down and (in particular) respond emotionally to what I perceive as an attack (and, in fairness, sometimes is).

One particular place I think we should be cognizant of how our attitudes come across are in making comments on people's builds; if someone asks for a sample build they are often told to stop being lazy and make their own, and when they do post one, are often told how terrible that build is and how they must not know anything about their AT. I know I personally have gotten into blood matches with people over builds, sometimes in regard to a specific power.

Heh, I can already see someone sigging this.

On this topic, I once had the opportunity to get what I would consider to be my absolute dream job. I did well on the test (or at least, I got the impression that I did), and they flew me there for an interview. I made a ton of mistakes in that interview (some of which are hilarious in retrospect), and I'd say this is the number one mistake I made: I did not give them the impression that I cared or thought deeply about the questions they asked, or game design in general. If I gave an answer that I thought they disagreed with or didn't like, I immediately shut up and didn't defend it or further clarify myself. I tried to answer their questions literally, instead of saying "well, let me give you a better example of what I think you're trying to learn about my thought processes when it comes to game design". I was so terrified of expressing an opinion they would disagree with, assuming that it would lessen my chances at getting hired, that I think I gave them the impression that I had no professional integrity.

I thought I was maximizing my potential for landing the job by showing that I was willing to compromise, when I was actually minimizing it.

So you would think, but I don't say these things in theory. I draw on precise experience, retelling events that have happened to me, personally, just without naming names. I was, in fact, told to my face by at least one poster that he would prefer the developers don't work on a solo path (from when I still wanted that) because he didn't need or want one and he wanted "developer resources" instead redirected to more things that he wanted to see. This poster was never called on what he said by anyone other than myself and the, like, two or three other people who were making arguments like what I was.

Most notably, this poster was never called on posting this by the people who had made it their mission to "refute" every post made to the detriment of the Incarnate system, at least none that I saw. I trust you can see how that could give me a more cynical outlook on your idealised situation.

I disagree, at least partially. I won't say "most," but "many" people that I've personally seen suggest adding more options tend to do so from the standpoint of running through the list of things they feel more options could break, and explaining them all away. Yes, I'm well aware that "It won't break anything!" is a poor argument for why something should be done, but that's the approach I've seen most serious suggestions take.

By contrast, many of the responses I've seen to these come down to /jranger, if you pop down over the the S&I forums. "Oh, it would take too long to make. I want the developers to work on something else." It's gotten to the point where I've had to invent a self-imposed rule to never bring developer resources up at all, and only discuss direct merit. In fact, it's more than a little ironic to see how many suggestions get shot down by people who just don't care about the suggestion and would like something else instead. Granted, I know for a fact it's not by the same people who praise Incarnates now, so I'm not accusing them, but it's the general principle that I find a little ironic.

This has always been a sore spot for me. Yes, I can look at established canon and see how bad writing could make sense within context. But far from accepting this as an excuse, this simply raises the follow-up question of why the developers chose to write themselves into a corner. Yes, I can appreciate the futility of clamouring for a change that "makes sense" in regards to nonsense canon, but at the same time I feel it must nevertheless be clamoured for, if just as a point of principle.

To be more specific, I don't feel an obligation to only ever raise a complaint if I feel something can be done to fix it. I'm not a developer, I don't know enough about the process, it's not my job to come up with solutions. I will when I think I can, but I am still determined to bring up problems when I see it, even if I have not the slightest idea of how that could be fixed. I want these problems to be in the developers' minds as they go about their business, so that THEY may eventually come up with a solution and do something about it. Or they may never do anything at all, which while not ideal, I can still deal with.

In fact, a frequent bone of contention is the fact that a lot of the time if one raises a complaint about a feature another likes, then the "well, there's nothing that can be done about it" card is played as a justification for not doing something. "I can't do it" is not a justification for not doing something, it's an explanation for why it isn't done. We've already seen additions and changes made to the game that took six or seven years to happen, and were dismissed out of hand many times, such as inherent Stamina. At this point I put nothing past the developers to change and readjust, given enough time and inclination.

Just like one does not need to be a film-maker to praise or complain about movies, so a player doesn't need to have a solution to a problem in order to complain about said problem.

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 don't speak hypothetically either, unless I explicitly say I am. Its worth noting that saying "I would prefer the devs not spend time working on a solo path, I would rather they prioritize other things" is not intrinsicly inflammatory: its just a personal opinion. It is *no different* than saying you'd rather they *did* prioritize a solo path to the detriment of everything else they could be working on.

Its only when someone says all other personal preferences are intrinsicly wrong that there is a problem in my opinion.

I trust also you can see that suggesting my view is "idealized" implying yours is more closely aligned with the truth is an example of the kinds of implicit attack I've been talking about. What I said happens "generally" "often" or "most of the time" I'd be prepared to prove statistically if I was asked to, to the limits of what the forums would allow.

The great irony being, in the past I *used* to actually do that, to my detriment. Its surprisingly easy to dismiss an argument on the forums by accusing someone of clearly spending too much time constructing it. That charge has, in the past, been saved almost *exclusively* for me, beyond just TL;DR.


Statistically speaking, I think it would be even easier to demonstrate that while what you say happens pro forma, not much effort is placed beyond saying by fiat that those options wouldn't cause problems. Its *said* problems wouldn't occur, but not why. If "many" people do what you describe, it would be easy to find "one" that did. While I cannot say no one ever did, I cannot recall one recently. If you can, please provide a link.


Honestly, I don't browse S&I as much as I used to, but I agree suggestions have always been dismissed far more casually than they should have been. I used to try to combat that, but I was literally a drop in the ocean.

That is no excuse for propagating that fight into every other discussion of an issue.


Nor should you. Complaints require no knowledge of how to resolve them. On the other hand, direct comments *about* the development process do call into question a poster's knowledge and credibility to make statements about that particular field.

Once again: from direct experience. People complain about how certain things work all the time and suggest changing it. Quite often, the problem is that their actual understanding of the thing itself is faulty. Its not enough that they say they want X to be fixed or changed. They feel confident in saying *how* it should be fixed, or dismissing suggestions the problem is a little more complex than they are giving credit for, because they just know it should be easy. If I was willing to out players, the list here would be extremely long and encompass years.

If you don't know the mechanics of the game, don't complain about specific mechanics you don't know. Describe your problem in terms you can actually back up. If you don't know how MMOs are written, coded, designed, or implemented, don't address those topics. If you do, your ignorance is fair game. If you stick to your observational complaints, I have no problem with that. I'm not saying others won't, but they'd be wrong.


I'm going to prove that virtually no player has clue one what is and is not hard in this game. Which of these things is harder than the other:

1. Make all players unrooted in PvP.

2. Make all player powers recharge twice as fast in PvP, regardless of slotting.

Answer: I know how to do #1. Step by step, change by change, I can do that if the devs asked me how. Trust me: if you think this is technically impossible even if you are a red name you're probably wrong**. On the other hand, I have no idea if #2 is doable at all given the limits of the game engine, even with large amounts of development time short of rewriting the way recharge works.


** BaB bet against me on power animation customization, and he ultimately lost, obviously.

The obvious (from a perspective of ignorance ) solution to #2 would be a PVP-zone-wide unresistable recharge buff.

But how do you make all powers recharge twice as fast? I think Arcana put a trick in there. The buff could give say a 100% recharge buff, but that's not going to make all powers recharge twice as fast because people won't be starting from 0% recharge buff.

This is why I reject Arcana's math voodoo!

I just work from the assumption that the zone buff applies first, ergo all powers are recharging twice as fast before other factors come into play.

It looks like this might be a valid concern, since it looks like the nukes have a 90 second recharge.