Confessions

Oh, really?



On this we can agree, for the same reason.

On topic (?!): I have never used Mids because the whole respec process soars far past my tolerance for complexity in a game, even though this sometimes forces me to abandon characters I am otherwise enjoying.

And in a related confession, I often felt that I had little to contribute to beta testing because the vast majority of test discussions focus on Arcana-esque mathematics, whereas my own interest is on the story and environment and general feel.

I think your keyboard's broken again.

I used Mids once for a build ...

But, honestly, I found the process so tedious I ended using paper and pen to figure out what powers I wanted and how many slots to burn on each power. Once I got the hang of the invention system, I had a pretty solid feel for the bonuses I wanted and how to get them.

One last confession -- when the last round of buffs to EA hit closed beta (I was early in i9, later in each of the following issues, and hadn't yet been invite to this particular issue), there was a bug that let in /everyone/ near the end of the process for a short period. I logged in, saw the changes, and spilled the beans on the forum.

I was never let in to another closed beta again, despite the fact that no one (well, almost no one) reads my posts. I generated, IIRC, no replies despite the threads containing nothing but speculation growing.

People who wanted to min/max were already doing a decent job of it. Yes, there were players who campaigned for more information to be provided in the game, but things like Real Numbers were added in large part due to recognition by the devs that systems like Inventions were unmanageable for most players without some sense of what the system actually did. Yes, Mids and Real Numbers enabled more people to min/max than might have been inclined to with less information, but it did so because without it, more people had no idea what their powers really did.

I'll confess that I don't think worrying about what min/max players will do with information about what a character's abilities actually do is worth keeping everyone in the dark.

I developed a thick skin about min/maxers from GMing Champions back when it was first released. I made those bas-- players pay for every sleazy disadvantage they took. They rued the day they thought five DNPCs and a vulnerability to wood were workable.

Oh, and I have always thought ED was a good idea. I don't have an opinion about the PVP changes, as I don't have a dog in that fight. So to speak.

Trickshooter's Characters | @Trickshooter @Brightside

ONCE.

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

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 hope this doesn't diminish some of your opinions of me but...

I'm extraordinarily Mids-stupid. The truth is I don't like planning my builds out. At all. Not in Mids, not using pen and paper (which, by the way, is an extraordinarily confident way to plan your builds--I'd expect most people to use a pencil), not even in my head. I honestly can't remember an occasion in which I've planned more than a power or two ahead, usually while I'm at the level-up screen.

Some of the other Titan developers used to ask me questions about Mids, and I'd always tell them, "I have no idea. Seriously. You do not want me working on this." Diellan has been a godsend for grokking it so well, especially considering how he came into the project. Now, they've all pretty much accepted that when it comes to Mids, I'm as useless as an ashtray on a motorcycle.

Also, I hacked the client files of Tabula Rasa. I had pixel-perfect maps of all of their zones and icons and stuff and was actually going to set up a Tabula Rasa wiki, but then I had a ton of City of Heroes stuff going on and just never got around to it. Eventually, well... You know what happened. And I started hacking the Star Trek client files right after it was released. As I recall, it used .hogg files instead of .pigg files (what's with the porcine extensions, anyway?) and its layout is quite a bit different. I actually got some meaningful data out of them and was making pretty good headway, but again, City of Heroes pulled me back and I stopped playing the game around a month or so after launch. Which hopefully speaks volumes about City of Heroes since I was a pretty hardcore Star Trek fan growing up and have met several of the actors.

The problem *I* had with "real numbers" were that... well, they weren't "real".

Take, for example, a recharge enhancement that says it reduces the recharge rate by 33%. Anyone with even a basic understanding of math soon realizes that even before ED, this isn't *really* taking off 33% of the recharge rate of a power. It reduces much, much less than that because only PART of the recharge rate is affected by the enhancement.

That part, though, isn't really communicated clearly. Not in the power. Not in the description. Not in the enhancement. You're left to discover it on your own.

What seemed like a straightforward percentage system-- heck, what was EXPLAINED to them as a straightforward percentage system-- wasn't. This leads to some significant backtracking for any new user "discovering the game mechanics on its own." The numbers mislead in a way that alternate power rating methods wouldn't.

Then, of course, you'd still see some confusion when they encounter ED, since my 3 +33% recharges don't add up to a +99%. ... and since there are enhancements & effects that "are applied after ED" you get the bizzarro world where something that claims to give a +3% bonus to something can be more powerful than something whose description gives a +33% bonus.

All of this is easier for those of us that "lived through" the changes, but for new players, learning the difference between "what's the game SAYS" and "how it is actually APPLIED" can turn the learning curve into a brick wall unless you have a guide explaining it all to you.


Take the percentages away- give a rating system, for example- and much of that incorrect expectation goes away. The final numbers as they're applied to the character could still be visible, but any expectation for a direct-percentage match would be gone, and with it, the frustration of learning a system that says one thing, but does another.

but enough of that rant.

Back on topic:

Confessions:

- How I got "Bug Hunter"

While tracking down a persistent but difficult-to-reproduce bug during one of the betas, I joked that I'd let them remote into my PC (which always encountered the bug) or even mail it out to them. I got back an "if you're serious..." PM and so I FedEx'ed my PC out to Paragon Studios.

So while others reported exploits that could have made them virtual millionaires had they kept silent... or gave detailed analysis of the code.... or really really hammered hard in testing to break things... I got it for licking a stamp.

Looks like we had similar plans. Soon after the close of beta (or the launch of the retail client), i already had a GLM file extractor that would just rip all the files out of their containers.

It was a good way to get the music files (and also "name that tune" for the ones that were not titled.. >.>). Oh, and the base announcements, some of them were *very* funny

That's awesome.

Confessions:

1. I've never had one of the old school Master Of badges
2. I hate Regen
3. My first character was specifically designed to pander to the wrong kinds of people, and to get me teams. She was a small, female, teasingly clothed emp/rad defender named Lollipop Candi. I still have the character and actually made a nemesis rad/pain once her story evolved and she stopped being pedo/team bait.
4. In highly technical threads I will often skip through looking for Sam or Arcana and read their posts as gospel on the topic, unless it's about WS or Dark* at which point I also add Dechs to the list.
5. City of Heroes caused me to quit SWG before the NGE
6. I PL'd my first Dominator (mind/psi) from 46 to 50 because I LOATHED mind control, and still do.

Naaaah, not at all. I always thought of Mids (and Hero Builder) as another way of playing the game, like marketeering or PvP. And some elements of gameplay simply aren't for everyone. The interesting bit is that this particular element of gameplay was driven by the players -- and thank you for helping to support it!

Honestly, while levelling (note: I haven't levelled a toon 1-50 since time came out) I'd always wing it. Between earned respecs, freespecs, vetrewardspecs, and recipes, I always figured I could fix things on the fly. And it was for the respecs that I'd open up the enhancement screen, look over the powers, think about what I didn't like (bonuses, recharge times, cones or no cones, control v. damage) and fix things. With columns for primary / secondary / pool / epic, I'd open up the enhancement screen and write down the powers I'm keeping: every time I swapped one power out, I'd sub in a new one; every time I swapped a slot, I'd add it somewhere else. And then I'd just keep some of the basic rules in my head (travel power, or facsimile thereof early, for exemplaring, damage procs in otherwise low damage but spammable powers, RoF as soon as it opens, etc.).

In general, I don't think I ever had the uberest of the uber toons, but ... I do think Burning Up, my fire / fire dom, was a thing of beauty.

Hmmm ... that reminds. I think I /did/ use Mids to extract Burning Up's build from live. And then I posted it. So ... twice

That was incredibly slick. Say thanks to the mids devs for me

*nods* Still, I was refering to the 'how dare you take my stuffz' attitude he displayed. As far as I'm concerned, if he was that 'ist MINE, ALL MINE' he shoulda made a sg of just himself. Granted he maybe thougth thats what he inheritied, but... never assume.

Well, it does tell you what the recharge of a power will be after slotting a recharge enhancement now. And I think recharge/interrupt/end reduction are the only really confusing enhancements, beyond the concept of ED itself (which can be summed up as "don't slot more than 3 SOs or something). Everything else is just a straight % modification, like 33% more damage, or hitting 33% more often. But really, being able to use 3 recharge reductions to make a power recharge instantly would have been overpowered.

Agreed, but if (made up numbers) only 50% of a recharge time is reduced by a recharge-reduction item that claims to be 30%, why not just call it a 15% reduction?

Actually I'm one of the few people who like Rob Liefeld, so my version is a bit more affectionate

The problem is that a) the devs were mathematically challenged, and b) even if they weren't the players were.

An even level recharge SO increases the recharge strength of the power slotted by thirty three point three percentage points.

The average player doesn't actually know precisely what I just said.

Knowing that, I'm actually very much in favor of not using "percentages" *anywhere* in MMO systems just because I know 98% of all game developers and 99.9% of all MMO players will just screw it up.

Incidentally, I have no idea what you mean by "only part of the recharge rate is affected by the enhancement." On its face, that statement is false.

To be fair dude, Teamspeak made Lolli funnier. And on that note, for all these years I've worn the nickname I got from Teamspeak (Juicy, for the uninitiated) like a badge of honor... because it's hilarious.