Issue ##: OVERHAUL - The QoL Issue...

A wonky thought I had in someone else's thread comes to mind here. The devs are constantly under pressure to produce NEW STUFF. New powersets, new maps, new content, new lore, etc etc etc.

But I'm curious.

How many players would be willing to forego an issue (of major size, not just a .5 or update or something) of new content and whatnot, STRICTLY for the purpose of the rednames throwing all available resources that would normally be allocated to an issue at updating/QoL changes?

This could include stuff like:

• Fixing all the spelling/grammar mistakes. Since QA won't be testing new powers or maps or graphics, put them to work.
• All maps, NPCs, groups, etc, get added to the AE. Paging Dr. Aeon...
• Those items in the longstanding "known issues"? Fix.
• All the numbers-crunching to balance/fix stuff. Arcanaville, you're ready for your closeup now.
• Lore fixes - now's the time. EVERYTHING is adjusted to fit one proper, intelligent, well-thought-out timeline. We know the devs read the ParagonWiki - hit the In_game_Timeline page and start from there.
• Costumes - Dink, we love you. Time to make sure that parts are available across the genders. THAT INCLUDES GIVING MEN THE VENUS SYMBOL AND WOMEN THE MARS SYMBOL.

The idea of an "all QoL" or "all bug fixes" issue comes up from time to time, but I've never seen much support for it. I mean, I could do without new content for a while, but it just doesn't seem to be economically viable. And the worst part of it is you'll never get them all. With bugs it's obvious, but even with QoL, there just isn't enough time in the day to fix everything in just one issue, nor is there really any direct consensus on what QoL really is needed. For instance, I don't use the Architect so adding all maps to it doesn't help me. On the flip side, I want to see all unlockable costumes in the Paragon Market, but is that even a QoL?

I think the best you can get is a QoL-heavy issue where most of the work is "under-the-hood" so to speak, so there's more to show for it in a list of features.

Quote:

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.

Yes, please. And fix AE, while they're at it. Make it actually worthwhile again and let us use words that show up in the English dictionary again.

It would certainly give me a chance to catch up on badging and alts.

Crap, I forgot to add:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dark_Respite Legacy bases - they stay as they are. No support, no new stuff, nothing. You get to keep your old base, but you keep all the old problems. New bases - new tech, new stuff, problems fixed. You have to rebuild from scratch, but now you get access to all the spiffy stuff.

This I could get behind. Frankly, I feel the current base editor is a load of old wank, to quote Yahtzee for a minute there, and I've had nothing but rage issues with using it. It CAN be used, granted, but it's just not fun doing so, and even then it's greatly limited.

Personally, I feel a more MineCraft-like editor - with grouping abilities - would be far superior, much easier to use, more flexible and actually fun, as opposed to work.

Quote:

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 would love to see a poll on QoL issues so that players could vote on ones to fix.

I also wonder about paragon points. Imagine if 1,000 paragon points would get a map imported into AE for everyone. Whoever wanted could contribute points to the cause.

A QoL I would like to see would be a simple clean up of old contacts. Remove all patrol and defeat X missions from them - only door missions left. No new content so it shouldn't be a lot of work.

Not really, no. Content first. Revamped content is fine.

'Wow, I may have run out of stuff to do but these newspaper missions are really gramatically correct' is an example of something I don't see myself saying.

More hero/villain hero tips. More newspaper missions in blue and red zones plus in DA 2.0. And another SF for CoV please. Thanks.

I feel the QoL in this game improves by leaps and bounds every year so I'd rather keep on getting new stuff every issue.

I'd love to see a QoL/Bug Fix issue that focuses on correcting all (or as many
as possible) of the many, many irritants and inconsistencies in the game.

I'd also love to have them take a crack at graphics/network lag and comm optimisations
as well.

I'm not in any way adverse to new content, new missions, etc. but not a single
play session goes by without me running into bugs that are both needless, and
annoying.

That said, I'm probably more sensitized to this stuff than most, but I'd be all
for one significant issue release that focussed on fixing it.

/signed.


Regards,
4

If they're going to do it, then the next issue is a good point to do so. With the incarnate trials finishing off Praetoria's storyline and the Battalion hinted at but not revealed or built up, it would make sense to provide new bases/PvP/MA tweaks during issue 24's spot. Maybe drop something further hinting to the Battalion, but the bulk being towards making sure they're getting the most bang for the buck on their existing tools.

Also maybe access to Valkyrie's fiery broadsword.

Do this issue as soon as possible, especially the timeline part, it's only going to get worse if it's not fixed soon.

Heck no! I have to be entertained by shiny new things endlessly or I'll just go away...



Alright, enough with the jokes. IMO overhauling bases, AE, PVP(?), some tip and radio missions, instanced maps, zones, and all that stuff itself can be considered new stuff since it is, indeed, all new to the players. Sure, it isn't necessarily a new storyline or some new power set, but I'll sure as heck enjoy using my old powerset on an instanced map that isn't Large Warehouse #3.

This comes up in every game I've worked on. Anecdotal observation has shown me that, while benevolent in nature, updates such as this never go over well with the largest, and most vocal, segments of the Community.

There always has to be at least *some* new hotness. Now the thing of it is, revamping old content can often times count as *new* content, so it does pull double duty (I've yet to talk to someone who doesn't call Dark Astoria "new content".) Ideally, you can work it so that you're killing two birds with one stone.

Besides, the things you're talking about would likely take much more than a single issue of development time.

Yeah, your starting point is one thing, but some of the details are possibly pie in the sky... if expected within a single issue.

Also, QoL features, changes and additions are one thing, but actual bug fixes aren't something they can just say, "Okay, now we're gonna fix that!". If they could fix it, they likely would... but I know you know that.

For whatever it is worth... I'm one of the types of players that'd be more than cool with such approaches. I tend to enjoy little improvements, fine-tweaks and expanded customization over new fancy shiny things.

I also think that they do a nice job of including a good amount of that stuff in most issues anyway.

I'd forgo an entire issue for power pool, epic pool, and patron pool customization. Straight up. Hell, at this point, I'd probably forgo two issues just to turn off the Hasten effect... I have pretty awesome gloves, but you'll never see them...grrrr

This gets suggested a lot, though this is the first time I remember it being suggested by someone the fora respect. Considering that we have a lot of people complaining that i23 is "too light," despite all the stuff it contains, I have to agree with Zwillinger that something like this wouldn't go over well, despite the fact that absolutely everyone, including me, ends up complaining about QoL things from time to time.

Even beyond that, we have to deal with a problem Samuel Tow brought up: what is "quality of life," anyway? Pool power customization, more costume parts, and a change to the AE filter would all improve my enjoyment of gameplay, but I don't think that makes them "quality of life." I certainly don't think "rewrite the lore so it's consistent with the players' [which players, for one thing?] vision of it" is "quality of life," but someone certainly does. Everyone will draw that line somewhere different, and everyone will complain, "They ignored [X problem]! The devs are lazy!" (They do this now, but they'd feel even more justified in doing so.)

Finally, this sort of idea presupposes that things like bugs and simple errors, whether mathematical or textual, are being intentionally ignored in order to create "new shiny." I just can't believe that's so. Development of Hat Melee being neglected in order to develop Carp Blast and Clown Manipulation? Sure. There's only one set of powerset designers, and they can only do so much at once. Grammatical errors persisting due to development of Clown Manipulation? Not so much.

Most players tend to think of development as a methodical, step-by-step process where individual tasks are completed (or left incomplete) in a particular order, much the way an individual writes a novel or paints a picture. Years of developer and OCR posts have convinced me that isn't the case. While the devs are sitting in meetings with a whiteboard that reads "i26: 1) Battalion attacks 2) New debuff set? 3) Secondary level shift system 4) PvP revamp" or what-have-you, Protean is writing the text of a mission for i24, Positron is holding forth on how big the endgame raid currently in the conceptual stage should be, the Dink is creating the set the players pushed for at the Plummet for release as soon as it finishes, Synapse is creating the new autohit AoE debuff for the Geek Manipulation set scheduled for i25, and two overworked QA checkers are reviewing i23 code. Dozens of balls are in the air at once, and bugs and mistakes and design decisions players don't like can creep in anywhere. They are not leaving those things in to irritate us. They are doing it because they are lost in the shuffle, or fixing them would break something else, or they're not in the code branch that's being developed right now. There will never be a single track of development, and even if it were possible to agree on and then catch every error, without that, there can never be a "totally fixed" game.

That leaves us with an issue totally devoted to "some" fixes. And, while players who haven't worked with large organizations may disagree with me here, I can't see how that would really differ from what we get now.

At the companies I've worked at, release (or escape if you will) schedules are set by the marketing/sales department and revolve around three major themes.

1) Opening up an untapped market by adding requested feature;

2) Satisfying a big name customer by adding requested feature;

3) Competitor just added a new feature that we don't have, regardless if any of our customers has asked for it or even know what it would be used for (XYZ just added to their retro-encabulator the ability to sort widgets anticlockwise, we have to close the anticlockwise sorting retro-encabulator gap).

And sadly the software development is forced to sit back and watch the pile of non-critical bugs and ideas for QoL features grow from release to release because the scheduling is so dominated by marketing that any time that isn't devoted to duct taping new features from any of those three categories is time that can be used to duct tape yet another new feature onto the product.

However Zwill is right, many players will never notice such fixes because they've either never notice or encountered the problems or have learned to work around the issues so they wouldn't notice if fixed.

Personally I would be happy if they came up with a procedure that guarantees we will never "lose" a costume part, mix up an animation, graphic or sound effect from an previously existing power ever again when a patch is released.

Put it this way. If we wanted to see a cleanup/spruce up effort like this, we'd have to do it in three steps.

1. Actually come up with a specification for a cleanup/spruce up mandate. Not just "fix it all". There'd have to be goals, milestones, etc. A real project spec document would need to be drawn up, plans for how to achieve it and everything.
2. Get NC/Paragon to agree to abide the project spec/mandate if we can put the capital together. They'd have to cite us a number with a $ in front of it as a target budget. There'd be a contract and everything.
3. We would actually fund the mandate (Kickstarter, etc).

Clicking on the linked image above will take you off the City of Heroes site. However, the guides will be linked back here.

The one thing in this vein I would love to see done would be an issue dedicated to updating as many of the most-underperforming powersets as they could fit in, and I would not mind whatever costs that had to us in terms of new stuff even if the Powers, Animations, and VFX people were busy with it for a full development cycle.

I24 Proc Chance = (Enhanced Recharge + Activation Time) * (Current PPM * 1.25) / 60*(1 + .75*(.15*Radius - 0.011*Radius*(360-Arc)/30))
Single Target Radius = 0. AoE Non-Cone Arc = 360.

I don't think one issue would be enough to cover all of these sorts of fixes. And in any case, I'd rather see them fix these things in a trickle whilst putting out more stuff.