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Monthly Archives: October 2005
City of Heroes – Mass nerfage makes everyone giddy!
(coverage also on Ethic’s blog and an old-style rant here)
A thread on Q23 grabbed my attention. I don’t play CoH and I know nothing about it but I remember one awful screwup a few months ago when the players were raging about a balance nerf with the devs justifying it with data completely wrong, just to discover that there was a gross bug on the test server that falsified the whole work they were doing. With the result of making the devs look like idiots since they couldn’t even notice how the characters on the test server were behaving completely differently from those on the live servers. Something that resembled closely to the “hunter bug” that hit Word of Warcraft in June. Again with the players having to scream in order to draw the attention of the devs and finally have the possibility to *explain them* how the game actually works.
In this case the problem seems different. At first I thought it was just a communication problem, my comment was:
—
When you go for a big change like this you don’t just post: we are going to do “x”. Instead you explain precisely the reasons that brought to the change, what are the goals, what are the trade offs, why the designers felt the need to go in that direction and so on.
Only *after* those premises you can obtain an useful discussion instead of 250 pages of screaming players.
From what I’ve read people just do not understand why the change was made.
—
Then I digged further in the official thread and I found enough details to understand what was going on, despite I never played the game. In the thread on Q23 EFLannum makes intelligent considerations about the implications of this new screwup and I further commented along those lines:
—
EFLannum:
What I was trying to get at was whether or not they actually broke the combat system or simply made levelling slower. The number I used wasn’t really important whether it be 3 times or 1000 times. In the first case they would be looking at a difficult fix whereas in the second case there are a lot of things they could do to provide some “grind relief” if they were of a mind to do so. Sometimes the difference between a good game system and a bad game system is simply a matter of scale and nothing inherently wrong with the system itself.
Speaking about the “system”, I’ve read some more about the changes and it could even finish in a *huge boost* instead of a huge nerf (if they so choose).
From what I understand each character has six slots where you can drop various enhancements. Before this patch you could drop six same enhancements to have a maximized effect. While after the patch they are trying to force the players to use different types of enhancements at the same time (they aren’t nerfing the skills, they are trying to force the players to spec differently).
We still don’t know why they want the players to move in that direction but they could still recalibrate the powers on the previous system. So that 3 same enhancements after the patch could correspond to the six enhancements available before.
This would also add tactics and versatility because then the player could choose to use the diversification for a major advantage or still keep focusing on just one enhancement to even go *past* the limit set before the patch (hence the boost instead of the nerf).
It seems again a poorly executed transition more than bad design.
—
Going a little deeper in this problem I can figure out what exactly went wrong, because, lets make things clear, this is *surely* a big screwup, and not a required nerf to make the game better. So lets start from the simpler points, taken from the dev notes and move onward:
Q: What if I don’t have more than 2 SO’s of any one type in my powers already?
A: Then you have nothing to worry about, your character will function exactly as they did previous to this feature being added.
This means that this changes will affect only the characters who use more than two same-type enhancement. If this happens they’ll have diminished returns on those powers.
From this perspective the upcoming change could have two possible goals:
1- Nerf highly focused characters (which is what the players are ranting about)
2- Encourage them to differentiate their powers instead of focusing the enhancements
Since I don’t know directly the game I cannot know the actual reasons why they would go toward the second path but it could be because they want to add some diversification between the characters and have more equilibrate and strategic builds that could make both the PvE and the upcoming PvP more interesting. So a positive goal to strive for. It’s also sort of silly to push this massive change with the nerf as the only purpose since it would be way easier to tweak the single powers instead of redefine the whole system, so the first path doesn’t hold.
Now, as I wrote above, the nerf is NOWHERE implicit in the change. If the devs only want to diversificate the builds this can be done in different ways and completely detached from the effectiveness of the powers. This is why they could recalibrate the powers so that using three same-type enhancement post-patch could correspond to the same bonus of six same-type enhancements before the patch. This not only would retain the current balance in the game that the players don’t want to be touched, but it would also offer a slight boost (if the devs so choose) so that the the slots that are left could be used to *further* enhance the powers, adding more same-types enhancement and incurring in the diminished return penalty (to not make them too overpowered compared to how they were before the patch), or to diversificate them and avoid the diminished returns to fully benefit from each slot (adding variation and a degree of tactics to the class development).
This is why I say that the system they are applying is nowhere tied to the actual effectiveness of the powers. That’s not how the design works. The effectiveness of the single powers is just arbitrary and can be tweaked anytime (this is why I say that if the goal was to nerf the players there could have been more efficient and direct ways to do it).
So, if we leave the effectiveness of the powers out of the discussion we can see how the proposed system is actually going in a positive direction: add more depth and varation in the class development. The goal works, the players would never rant against this because it would be felt as positive, as it, in fact, is. So what went wrong? Why there was a so massive and unanimous negative reaction?
I think I know the answer, again in the dev notes:
All the Issue 4 and 5 balance adjustments were done with this system in place internally here at Cryptic. All playtests, QA checks, difficulty adjustments and balances have been done with Enhancement Diversification in mind since March 2005.
See, I assume that “Issue 4 and 5” are patches *already released on the live servers*. Which basically means:
“We are sorry. It’s from March that you play with overpowered classes while we were tweaking things on the background in view of this last change. You have enjoyed the game on “easy mode” for seven months, now it’s time to bring the game back in line.”
Well, I think it’s kind of obvious that you cannot feed this to the players and expect them to react politely. Come on…
The design may be not bad, but the execution was surely awful. It even goes beyond of my definition of “what a nerf is”.
I explain DAoC mechanics to Mythic’s Code Warrior
…while hoping it’s not Lum anymore. God, they must be tired. From the Grab Bag:
Q: My question regards the Realm Ability, Avoidance of Magic. It states that(copy/pasted): “Reduces all magic damage taken by the listed percentage. (This only works on damage. Does not work on disease, dots, or debuffs and does not affect the duration of crowd control spells). Lvl1 – 2% / Lvl2 – 5% / Lvl3 – 10%…….”
I know that resist rates cap at 26% from item/spell crafted bonuses, does AoM’s bonuses stack ontop of that, making my imaginary 26% Energy Resist now count as 28% Energy due to AoM1. Or does AoM not stack with a capped 26%, but is instead designed to help my imaginary ‘gimped’ 15% Matter Resist, making it a 17% Resist due to AoM1?? Thanks in advance.
A: Oh, yeah, this one went straight to the Code Warrior: “Realm ability resist buffs (such as Avoidance of Magic) and spell resists are added seperately from item/spellcrafted bonuses. This is why in the bonus window they display seperately; in his example, if he had level 3 Avoidance of Magic and capped Energy resist bonus from items, he would see “26% / 10%” in his bonus window for a total of 36% Energy resist.
It’s not true that the total resist is 36%.
This was changed long ago (after endless discussions) as a band-aid to the insane high resists in the game and some “I-win” buttons like the old version of “Bunker of Faith”.
Firstly you apply the first value (26%) to the damage. Then you take the result and apply to it the second value (10%) to obtain the actual damage you receive.
To explain. Let’s say you are hit for 200 damage unmodified. And let’s assume you have 50% resist from items and 50% from Realm Abilities.
Following the explanation on the Herald you would have a total of 100% resist (50+50). Resulting in zero damage.
But this is false. In fact the game first applies the first 50% resist. So a 200 damage becomes 100. Then this 100 is again applied to the second 50% resist. For a total of 50 damage.
Which is obviously different from zero damage and that is coherent with the need to reduce the effectiveness of the resists.
But what is actually more important to understand is how clunky and overly complicated are DAoC’s mechanics. Just another example of those bleeding band-aids.
(“Balance Boy” got it right exactly two years ago)
The wound is still bleeding
—
Frott:
And this is just bullshit: if you normally play in the “off hours” wouldn’t it make sense to play on a server where your “peak hours” are most of the server’s peak hours? IE, play sorted by locale?You really come across at arguing both sides of the argument, with yourself.
No, that’s bullshit.
Having both coasts play on the same servers means that the population shifts and is kept uniform. Which means that the life cycle of each server for each day last more hours. The server is playable for more hours.
At the same time the population on each server is kept constant and doesn’t have high peaks and valleys. In WoW they had HUGE SERVER PROBLEMS because all the players on a server log ALL AT ONCE. Exactly because all the players on that server chose the same timezone.
This is why Blizzard needed to push more that 100 servers. Because all the servers filled up quickly instead of having a balanced population spread between the hours. If the servers weren’t matched with timezones the population during an evening would shift uniformly from the east coasters to the west coasters. On the same server.
The same server would hold a lot more players thanks to this uniform load because it wouldn’t have 3500 players logging ALL AT ONCE, to the leave en-masse three hours later, leaving the server in a “low” status (and hence the latest resort to mark the servers permanently “full”).
Everything I say was confirmed by Blizzard and all the problems they had. I’m sure you do not remember but Blizzard blatantly begged the players to log on servers flagged for different timezones from their own:
# When choosing your server for the first time, the server wizard will suggest a server with low load to improve your game-play experience. However, if you decide to pick your own server to play on, we suggest picking a server where the population is not high during peak hours (peak hours are 6pm through midnight in your local time zone).
Should I quote yourself again?
Frott:
wouldn’t it make sense to play on a server where your “peak hours” are most of the server’s peak hours? IE, play sorted by locale?
As you can see your idea isn’t Blizzard idea. They asked the players to go play on different timezones as they saw that the idea of localizing the servers had DISASTROUS consequences (should I remember you the situation of the servers in the first months? And should I remember how unbalanced they STILL are?).
Not only. Two weeks after launch they applied an EMERGENCY PATCH to REMOVE THE TIMEZONES from the UI.
Because they finally noticed, too late, how completely retarded were those ideas and how completely clueless they were about these problems.
Shopping HARDCORE!
Hahah, I like reading Brad:
Just for more clarity, I don’t want search abilities, etc. because I want price differences. Not just differences between regions, but probably within a city. To me, that creates an exciting player economy. Yes, one could argue it’s more work to have to go shopping as opposed to just bringing up a nifty screen that does all the work for you. But the shopping is the gameplay. It may not be for everyone, but neither is it necessary for a player to participate in this part of the economy and game.
Even the shopping will be hardcore in Vanguard!
See, I live here in Italy in a small town and every Thursday there’s a market. On the road, in the center of the town. I think over there you have something similar, but modern, called “supermarket”. Once again the reality surpasses the game and there isn’t really anything to learn from scratch or discover. You just have to simulate in the game what already exists. In the most natural way possible.
There are very good reasons why other games have practical search functions. Maybe they push the possibility too further but the same happened in the real life. Just in different forms. A supermarket or a commercial area in a city are structured and planned accordingly. This because it’s the seller that is going to meet the buyer, not the opposite. Without any form of structure to identify and categorize the shops, the “gameplay” will just turn out incredibly frustrating and pointless. The result is that noone will participate simply because it’s nowhere playable or usable. As in the real world, we tried to overcome these limits.
In the case of the town market above the most important trait is that the market, the same market, will be in another town the day after. This defines the job of people that search the goods for you and then bring them to you. It’s the seller that travels and makes available. It’s the seller to represent the “search function” we have today in other forms. You “browse” what they bring to you.
The whole problem is rather complex and includes even the role of the crafting (I explained some of my ideas here). In general the idea to bring back the vendor system in Ultima Online, where the limits represent a depth, may be interesting but we shouldn’t forget that it worked in that case because pretty much everyone had the possibility to mark runes and port everywhere, cutting out the problem of the travel and distance.
In the case of a new game like Vanguard it could be interesting to experiment something new and I wouldn’t renounce to give an usable and accessible shape to those ideas even if we really want to go back at the roots. Each village could still have a commercial center where the players could send their vendors. Deciding if to pay a fee to the village to take advantage of the common marketplace or keep the vendors at home avoiding the fee but without the benefit of the exposition.
A system that would be near to what happens in SWG. Giving a decent and usable structure to the market and still retaining all the original qualities that Brad doesn’t want to lose (and coherence with the setting).
Years pass, problems are still the same
I found a thread on FOH’s forums that reminded me my (futile) crusade against the localised and “timezoned” servers in WoW more than a year ago, with me in full berserk on any known forum. Today, my words are even more valid than how they were at that time.
This is what I replied today to that thread.
—
Kolle:
That’s all sad and terrible, but the conspiracy part comes into play with server listings. Some of you have probably noticed that the realm select list isn’t exactly accurate. I noticed this many months ago when I was searching for a new home loaded with PvP and PvE endgame. I quickly realized that I couldn’t judge things by the realm select list. This was a painful lesson when I bothered getting about 40 levels on a character before bothering to do a census on both sides during primetime to actually see what the truth was. The ‘full’ listing was anything but right. I only thought to check because I found out how dead the lvl 60 BGs were.
I can explain this.
Before they introduced the “full” flag the “high”, “medium” and “low” values weren’t dependent on “fixed” numbers. For example an “high” server during the offpeak was equal to LESS players. This because, instead of using a fixed value, the flags were set on a percent value based on the overall pool of players between all the servers.
This means that there were always 1/3 of the servers flagged for each category, no matter of the time of the day and the current population (for example you’d find about the same number of “high” servers even if checking during the early morning, when you would expect all servers to be “low” or “medium” at best).
When the “full” flag was introduced nothing in the system changed. The “full” flag was just an added “manual” flag, set directly by Blizzard.
This means that a “full” server will be always shown as full even if there’s just one player loggeed in. But this also didn’t change the previous system. The system still wants 1/3 of the servers for EACH category. With the difference that it considers the “full” servers as “high”. In fact you can see that, at any time, there are only 2-3 servers marked as high, while all the other available “spots” in the category are taken by servers *permanently* marked as “full”.
The division between “high”, “medium” and “low” is still correct (while the order WITHIN each category was broken by Blizzard and still is). Instead the “full” servers are manually and permanently marked as full, no matter of the population.
Kolle:
The situation is this: Several PvP servers are listed as ‘full’ when in fact they are low or barely medium.
If you follow what I wrote you can easily understand why this happens. The “full” flag isn’t set by the log-in server as it happens for the other three flags (high, medium and low) but it’s instead set *manually* and remains *permanent*. This means that it will never change, no matter of the actual situation of the server.
Blizzard decided to do this because servers like Blackrock had insane peak times, focusing on just a few hours to then descend to low or medium for most of the day when they were even surpassed by more balanced servers. This had the result of players rolling on those servers expecting to have them moderately crowded when instead they had just insane peaks and off-peaks. So they decided to brand them permanently “full” and discourage the players to create characters no matter of the time of the day.
Ultimately this is again the direct result of the retarded decision to divide the servers in different timezones and localize them as much as possible. Creating and making critical the peaks and off-peaks of the population.
Making a point: I ranted *endlessly* for MONTHS against this during beta. We were discussing and criticizing that retarded decision to localize the servers in September 2004. Quoting Walt:
WoW’s population peaks and valleys will be worse than most other MMO’s out there.
Having a worldwide server – like EQ – means that population lows in Europe, East Coast, West Coast and Asia don’t coincide – the servers remain relatively populated as players log in and log off throughout their peak playing hours.
WoW won’t have that – when they are at off-peak, they will *really* be off peak, and their server populations will be very low.
And we were discussing the problems of the BGs and the cross-server idea back in early June 2004.
And quoting myself again months ago:
Most of the problems they had about load balance are design problems before techincal problems. That they BLATANTLY ignored. In the same way they are having now SERIOUS population and faction balance issues that will become cronic six month down the road.
—
Right now the servers are starting to see the beginning of many problems that will become critical in the next months. In particular in the battlegrounds (but not only).There are simply not enough players and not enough balanced between the factions to support properly the battlegrounds and make them accessible and playable. While this can be tolerated on an high populate server, the possibilities to enjoy the PvP in a smaller server or during the off-peak are TINY. Tiny right now that the Battlegrounds are a novelty and everyone goes to check them. Now think to what happens six months down the road when pretty much everyone will be bored to tears to perma-catass an insane honor system that isn’t satisfying for anyone.
Why this belongs to this thread? Because it’s back about the role of the design into balancing BOTH the population between the servers AND between the factions. My simple point is: this is a relevant aspect of the game that CANNOT be ignored, it has the highest priority and you should start from there as you start to plan something. Surely not something you discover and figure out six months AFTER RELEASE.
Six months (and more) have passed. And I stand correct.
Restless Silly Hype
On various forums people are commenting the enigmatic teaser that Blizzard put on the Battle.net site. As it always happens when something is only hinted, everyone starts to have all sort of crazy ideas and expectations. So we have Starcraft 2, World of Starcraft, WoW’s expansion with Starcraft races and so on.
The truth, despite still only a voice, is that all this hype is unexcused and what Blizzard is going to launch is just about a tornament that will involve all Battle.net games. So no new games or other similar things. Which was also kind of obvious. What else would you expect from an announce on Battle.net slated for tomorrow (today), coming out of the blue and cycling images from all the three classic games?
But the point is another. In the last months we had leaked patch notes, insider informations and all sort of screw ups. You really think that if there was an important announce we wouldn’t have known already? The reality is different and so distant from the hype and expectations. Blizzard is barely able to keep up with WoW. All the live patches are coming out slowly with art assets continuously recycled and all based on lengthy grinds in order to spare time. While they made a lot of money with the game they also lost and continue to lose many developers that made Blizzard what it is today. And that’s something that cannot be bought with money.
We always speak of PUG groups in games but the industry isn’t so much different. The talent cannot be created from the money and it’s a type of resource that you build slowly, with a lot of dedication. It is precious and RARE. And to this you have to add the synergy of a team. Something definitely not easy to achieve and another of those elements that need to mature at their own pace. Again, as I wrote, Blizzard became what it is today as the result of a VERY LONG journey. And not in a couple of days. Money hats or not you cannot now go in a hiring spree, build a PUG of devs and expect “quality” as a result. Too many developers left, it seems, and replacing them with equally or more talented people will require *time*. Because all transitions and transformations cannot be done in a day and it’s always very hard to rebuild something that already crumbled.
I share what Darniaq wrote in this comment, the fact that so many developers decided to quit is probably because “Blizzard has not got anything on their docket at this point”. And maybe also because of the gripes with Vivendi. Or both: the lack of control over what they can do. Because after you reach a so huge success all the eyes will be on you and you won’t be anymore as free to impose your standard as before. You’ll get bought and emptied of all value.
The reality is that Blizzard cannot announce anything worth the hype because they just don’t have anything to show. They already showed all they can as quickly as they can. They emptied their pockets. The public demands more and expect Blizzard to have a number of secret projects going on, like the release of Diablo 3 in a couple of months, or another mmorpg, or a Starcraft sequel or ports to the Nintendo DS. But the fact is that Blizzard had to buy back “Starcraft: Ghost” because it was going horribly and then disbanded Blizzard North because it basically crumbled in their hands after all the defections. The expectations they have now are just unsustainable and totally crazy.
As I wrote on QT3 I’d be surprised if they are able to release WoW exp before April of the next year and still continue the live update. New games? And who will work on them?
Blizzard will need a serious reorganization and plan out its future. They need to rebuild their teams and no matter how much money they have: this will require time. As Thor Alexander anticipated (found via Ubiq), Blizzard didn’t survive WoW. And if only they now want to go past it they’ll need to cut with the past and restart on NEW premises. New teams, new ideas, new processes and a whole new journey. Whatever Blizzard will become from now onward, will be something completely new and different.
And then we have rumors. Rumors so much more believable and coherent than Starcraft 2, Diablo 3 or yet another mmorpg that wouldn’t be out before 2010:
I have a friend working at blizzard, and WoW has been running on a skeleton crew of programmers for nearly six months now. Problem was, blizzard expected all the people who put four years in to finishing WoW to continue working on it forever. Few people weren’t willing to accept that, so that’s what caused the exodus.
It’s really not important whether this is true or not. I just would say to not expect anything from tomorrow’s announce on Battle.net, nor anything spectacular from BlizzCon, when WoW’s expansion will be revealed in all its underwhelming glory. We already saw how some leaked patch notes can be so more exciting than the reality.
They are already doing the best they can and using their resources at 150%. With this pace the hype will just sweep them away.
Slow News Day
Been busy trying to keep my DAoC guild moving. So not a lot of time to write about stuff. If anything I think I would write something about DAoC, but then I’m rather tired of being negative and uselessly redundant. So not much interest to put my gripes in words.
I’ll keep giving the next expansion some hype before starting to dig it.
Actually not. At level 46 the grind isn’t anymore avoidable and tolerable. You cannot excuse or metabolize it. If WoW was able to hide and disguise it so well to the point that you could even pretend to have forgotten it, “Catacombs” shamelessly made it obvious.
You see, the treadmill is considerably shorter compared to a year ago. But it also became so much more intense and blatant. It imposes itself on you and you just cannot avoid to see it for what it is. “Catacombs” slapped it in your face in the crudest way possible. Exp grinds, treadmills, timesinks, farming. Are these the only traits that define a “RPG”? Is there really nothing else? Running Task Dungeons for hours and with the experience considerably stealth-nerfed in the last patch really makes you ask questions. What’s the purpose? Why there’s such a shabby and monotonous gameplay in this game?
“Catacombs” made the treadmill shorter. But it also removed from the game any depth that was left. Any pretense of depth. Even a glimpse of illusion that you could ingenuously believe. It tried to solve a problem radicalizing it even more. Making it even more critical and unacceptable. How this can be good for a game I really don’t know.
Oh, and I noticed that all the characters with goatee look like Walt (Yarbrough, or Doc Strange, they are the same guy). Scary.
And I swear that the “community” (the larger community, not the one specific to a game) is dead. It doesn’t budge at all. Yohoooo~!! Is there someone alive out thereee?
DAoC: Darkness Rising – How it works?
I write this more to try to understand it myself than explain how it works to others. Besides, I have no clue since I’m not in beta and all my informations come from reading the forums.
Basically there will be two alternate advancement paths available in the expansion and accessible starting from level 30:
– You can go through a number “champion quests” (PvE) starting solo and ending in more difficult dungeons requiring at least a full group.
– You can progress through five “champion levels” by gaining specific experience points through both PvE and PvP. Each level requires the exact same amount of xp points.
Both these alternative paths grant you a “champion weapon” at the end so that you can choose the path you like more. This means that the PvE content available in the expansion is absolutely optional.
The champion quests (first advancement path) are divided into three chapters:
– Chapter 1: run errands around the realm
– Chapter 2: clean an instanced dungeon and kill the final boss mob
– Chapter 3: clean another dungeon and five different bosses – plus find and kill the demon of the realm
The champion weapons, between the other statistics, have two usable effects that must be unlocked. Completing the second chapter grants you the champion weapon, but with the two effects locked. To unlock them you need to complete the two parts of the third chapter and become “Champion of the realm”.
While each champion level (second advancement path) grants:
– level 1: one subclassing point – a title – advanced horse
– level 2: one subclassing point – a title – first saddlebag
– level 3: one subclassing point – a title – second saddlebag
– level 4: one subclassing point – a title – third saddlebag
– level 5: one subclassing point – a title – fourth saddlebag – Champion weapon
In this case the champion weapon is given to you completely unlocked if you achieve champion level 5.
It should be evident that the full access to the other features like horses, subclassing and saddlebags happens only with the second advancement path, which involves RvR and is the main purpose of the game, so the natural drift of every players. Completing the quests will still give you champion experience to progress through the levels and you can continue getting more PvE exp to gain the five levels.
The positive is that the PvE “grind” is optional if you like RvR. And the RvR is optional if you like the PvE grind. Best is playing both if you are eclectic like I am.
This digression leaves out the subclassing system, other possible PvE drops and content, different types of horses, craftable armor for horses and possible vendor items available in the armory and throne room. Maybe more.
EDIT: There’s a guide on the herald explaining all the various horse types. I add here the informations needed and missing from that page.
Horse types and requirements:
– Basic: level 35 + 350 gold + specific horse quest
– Advanced: level 45 + 1 platinum
– Champion Level 1: CL1 + 2 platinum
– Champion Level 2: CL2 + 3 platinum
– Champion Level 3: CL3 + 6 platinum
– Champion Level 4: CL4 + 8 platinum
– Epic: CL5 + 15 platinum + epic horse quest
All the horses from advanced to epic have the same speed and can be used in RvR zones (but never in combat), no other differences beside the more or less “badass” look. The basic horses are slower, cannot be used in RvR zones and are available to all players even without the expansion.
Particularly funny (or scaring) are the Ku Klux Klan horses.
I wonder if they go: OOoOooooOOOOoOOoOooOOo