Paragon Market Releases (WHY U NO STAFF?)

Wow this degenerated fast.

In before the lock.

/revels in the irony of a red name having to lock their own thread

And yeah, uh, where did the idea come from that there aren't closed betas any more?

And no, I haven't been in one lately. That doesn't mean there weren't any.

With that said stating that closed betas are only filled with people who kissed the devs butts is completely ridiculous dreck.

I and many others in past closed betas have asked that such things in the state that BM was NOT get pushed out early.

There are definetly folks who constantly ***** at the devs over the years and still get invited. Hell, if betas were only for butt kissers I MYSELF should NEVER have gotten into any.

That idea stated, implied or even hinted at, is patently silly on it's face.

Honest, serious question here:
Is there any rational reason why people should think that the unlocking of BM (if it is for sale or not, it is in the coding already, just as Staff Fighting currently is, if I'm not mistaken) somehow creates and/or removes a bug affecting all Pet AI?

Whether or not there is a pet AI bug that is worthy of being a show-stopper is another matter... but is there any basis within reality for blaming the release of Beast Mastery as the culprit of such a bug?

People have a right to their own opinions and they are welcome to express them in an intelligent, respectful, and concise manner on these forums.

I do not look favorably upon calling out people for expressing their satisfaction or disdain for a particular subject, and the continuing discussion is unnecessary.

In response to both Electric Knight and Arcanaville.

Yes it's not just the fact that they "released Beast mastery first" that upset people which is what you seem to be driving at.

It's the fact that Beast mastery was not only incredibly buggy it was also underpreforming after the same people that you say play closed beta said it was, you know, those people that without we'd be "stuck in the dark ages".

It's a fact they were willing to push a set which was in an unfinished state out onto live than a set that had been sitting finished since the end of January, that just doesn't make any sense to me at all. If anything the release schedule should have been reversed.

That remains the most confusing part for me. Everyone on Beta was screaming for them to be reversed in release order, even the ones that had no desire for Staff and only wanted BM.
They were willing to wait to get the kinks worked out.

For my own theory, I think the bad vibe surrounding BM, with the whole Bear ordeal et al, really soured the Dev's on it and at that point, they just wanted to be done with it. As they have altered the 'set in stone' releases in the past, notably Incarnates from GR, I don't see that being the issue. It not being ready for primetime but getting pushed live regardless while something that is ready goes into hiding, is a bit of a head scratcher.

*Shrugs*

Had to fix the title. Carry on.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nethergoat it's NEVER too late to pad your /ignore list!

Oh, I think it is pretty clear what has been said. You don't have to rexplain it to me (And I'm pretty sure I can speak for Arcana on that that one notion as well. She's likely got it).
The only reason I chose that one paraphrased quote was because it was just an example that was quoted earlier that lead into the specific discussion about beta testers (and their value, as opposed to their detriment).
You can replace the quote with any other complaint in here, it makes no difference, regarding what was actually being conveyed in the exchange we were having - people complaining about not getting the beta feature they wanted when they wanted it. Period.
Complaints about their decision is fine. They've been repeated ad nauseum, at this point.
We all know what went down and obviously they had a marketing decision/direction for the release order of the sets.
No where have I argued that BM first was better or right or anything.
The only thing I've talked about was that this thread was about April 3rd and the unsurprising lack of Staff Fighting.
When it was announced that BM was going first, in March, it was a surprise to many (including myself). And concerns and opinions were shared. That's the recorded past (and the opinions have likely been noted).
Now, another Tuesday rolls along (without a rough road map for releases, as we had in March, from WW's letter) and people are clamoring for SF, even though it's pretty obvious that a marketing team that divides up these power sets for timed release is not going to only wait 1-2 weeks between these two powersets (think about it).

Debate all about whether this or that should have happened, but today, the debate is just about what should go on sale this Tuesday (and the next, and so on). The whole, this or that should have, would have, could have been done has been hashed out and recorded... and now people are just bringing it back up because they're frustrated that they still don't have what they want.

I thought SF seemed more primed and more popular as well. As far as marketing decisions and schedules... you will get NO love from me for those things, lol. I've made my opinions on those aspects pretty clear... but it doesn't stop 'em from being the reality of how one can expect things to be handled.

Now the frustration from some posters has bled onto other posters trying to be reasonable and onto closed beta testers. It is just ridiculous and I have no qualms saying so and being attacked by more ridiculousness.

But yes, the paraphrased quote I used is certainly not what I believe the main arguments to have been... of course not. If it were... I would have mocked such comments earlier in the thread. I have no problem with reasonable dialog. It was the unreasonable that I was taking issue with.

Jumping in at the 15-page mark... I haven't read the whole thread, but I did skim and look for Zwill's responses at least. My thoughts:

A big part of my frustration (and I don't seem to be alone here) is that Staff Fighting has been on Beta so much longer than Beast Mastery ever was -- people logging on to test out Staff discovered a clearly-not-for players'-eyes version of Beasts that ended up there by accident, with placeholder animations and un-textured pets. And as far as pretty much anybody who doesn't work for Paragon knows, Staff has been 100% ready (or at least as ready as it's going to get, since I doubt the sound effects are being reworked again) for something like two or three months now. The perception at this point is that it's just being sat upon, and in my case that's been compounded by the practice of, until this thread was started, spending the past month and a half completely ignoring (as far as I know) any questions about the delay except to occasionally tell people on Facebook not to bother asking any. As annoying as all the "nope, the staff here isn't fighting, we all get along great" jokes got after a while, at least someone was acknowledging that the players were asking about it at all.

Oh, and also this, pretty much word-for-word:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Reiska Just saying: there would not be a controversy here if not for the following facts: Staff Fighting was opened on the beta earlier than Beast Mastery. Staff Fighting was acknowledged by the majority of testers on the VIP beta as being clearly ready for release outside of minor FX issues as early as the end of January, as evidenced by testing data across all level ranges on the VIP beta servers, including Incarnate content. There were complaints about the set's sound effects, which were addressed, and there was an animation bug involving Assassin Strike on Staff Stalkers, which was addressed. Beast Mastery, in contrast, was widely acknowledged to be underperforming by a substantial percentage of the testers who were actually skillful Mastermind players and who were not too busy squeeing over the pets' appearance to actually pay attention to the numbers. Chief among the set's acknowledged issues were the fact that none of the six pets in the set have gapless attack chains (in fact, all six have large gaps), and the fact that there was an observed correlation between Beast Mastery's introduction to the beta servers and a sudden significant degradation in pet AI performance which affected all Mastermind primaries. The fact that the introduction of Beast Mastery to the VIP beta servers exposed a bug causing pets - Mastermind pets, Lore pets, Controller pets, any kind of pets - to uncontrollably charge mission and/or trial bosses while ignoring mastermind pet commands, including stay/heel, (most noticeable in various phases of the Underground trial, and also with Marauder at Lambda Sector, but it manifests in non-Incarnate content as well) should have been an absolute show-stopper to the set's release; there is no universe I am aware of in which an update that fundamentally breaks the functionality of one archetype and significantly inhibits the damage-dealing functionality of two other archetypes should have been considered acceptable. Nonetheless, Beast Mastery was released to the live servers without addressing any of its problems, in the midst of a continuous wave (which is still ongoing) of new Paragon Market items obsessively using the four-legged animation rig first introduced by the German Shepherd vanity pet. As of right now, April 3, 2012, all of the above mentioned issues, which were identified on the VIP beta in February, are still present on the live servers. We are then told that the timing of the release of Beast Mastery - which should not have been pushed live in this state - is the primary reason that Staff Fighting has not been released to the live servers, because "if we release too many Powersets too quickly, it could be seen as a grab at your Paragon Points, and subsequently, your money." However, either the development team apparently does not consider a black wolf vanity pet that is documented to require, on average, the purchase of over one hundred dollars in Super Packs to be a grab at our Paragon Points, or that excuse is patently devoid of truth.

As to the idea of a posted monthly release schedule, four things:

1. If you put it on the forums, you'd only reach about ten percent of the playerbase? If you don't put it anywhere, you'll reach exactly ZERO percent of the playerbase.
2. It's happened twice before on the forums (well, one and a half times, since War Witch's letter didn't technically promise anything with specific dates. Though the order listed there did turn out to be spot-on) without anything going up on the main page.
3. How much of the playerbase frequents the main page? I can't imagine there are too many people checking it daily or anything, what with all the important news showing up in the Launcher and all. The site, forums notwithstanding, seems like it's more useful as a means of informing and advertising to new and unfamiliar players than people already invested in the game.
4. Seriously? Months? I could code it by hand in Notepad in a few days at most, and I'm not even that good.

Regarding vanity pets: They're useless to me, too. I might re-think that if they weren't so danged expensive, and I understand why they are from a development perspective, but from a consumer's perspective, I look at it this way: I happily pay 400 points for a costume set with, let's say a dozen items in it. Asking me to pay 600 for what basically amounts to a single costume item (after all, it has no in-game effect other than to look pretty) is ludicrous.