Patch R58 Discussion - Live 7/29

Unknown

IceIX wrote:

sorcered wrote:

Thanks for the answer, and here's a new question as reward

Will you ever prevent alliance members from seeing and hitting on each other in PVP? It's both annoying to hit a teammate by mistake and an exploit when you do it on purpose... Thanks!

It's on our ten mile long list of "things to tweak when a programmer gets a spare moment to push in what *should* be a minor patch".

Were you just humoring sorcered or does this really mean the devs consider coordinated shielding and attacking an exploit? Seems like legitimate strategery to me

yogi_ wrote:

Are the two Magnetos' going to end up looking similar, skillset wise? ie. Torch and gold / lazy characters?

This would be awful. Just say no to laziness

Bowgentle

sms4002 wrote:

So how do team ups work on defense? Since they are consumables will your defensive team have whatever team ups you beat that team with? I can see this as being a game breaker. One example being you get 3 level 400 headbutts in your inventory and just always equip them but don't use them. That def team will be unstoppable since they have unlimited level 400 headbutts for every opponent.

Since team ups are going in the boost slots I assume they don't work on defense, like any other boosts.
Would be crazy too, going up against a team and getting hit by any old random ability out of the blue.

Unknown

Bowgentle wrote:

sms4002 wrote:

So how do team ups work on defense? Since they are consumables will your defensive team have whatever team ups you beat that team with? I can see this as being a game breaker. One example being you get 3 level 400 headbutts in your inventory and just always equip them but don't use them. That def team will be unstoppable since they have unlimited level 400 headbutts for every opponent.

Since team ups are going in the boost slots I assume they don't work on defense, like any other boosts.
Would be crazy too, going up against a team and getting hit by any old random ability out of the blue.

yeah you would think that but i dunno. they keep saying how enemy teams can have team ups too. How would that work? pve teams just have random team ups? Seems pretty unfair for defensive teams to not have anything while guys can come in with max level skills on offense where you already have the huge advantage of first move / boosts/ choosing who you attack.

Unknown

gobstopper wrote:

Were you just humoring sorcered or does this really mean the devs consider coordinated shielding and attacking an exploit? Seems like legitimate strategery to me

Don't worry, X-Men 1 will still be able to hit on X-Men 2,3,4 and 5. Unless the fix will be targeting similarly named alliances as well, in which case X-Men can just rename themselves Alpha, Beta, Gamma etc

IceIX

gobstopper wrote:

Were you just humoring sorcered or does this really mean the devs consider coordinated shielding and attacking an exploit? Seems like legitimate strategery to me

yogi_ wrote:

Are the two Magnetos' going to end up looking similar, skillset wise? ie. Torch and gold / lazy characters?

This would be awful. Just say no to laziness

Coordinating your shielding and hitting other players is something that we can't really regulate with any methods that wouldn't also cause a bunch of other knock on issues which would be just as bad. It's most likely in this case that we'd put something like a big red exclamation mark or something saying "This person is in your Alliance/FB Friends List! You may not want to hit them!"

Current plan is for them to look about as similar as they do now. I just wouldn't expect 2 AP Reds and 0 AP Blues to be the norm.

Unknown

IceIX wrote:

gobstopper wrote:

Were you just humoring sorcered or does this really mean the devs consider coordinated shielding and attacking an exploit? Seems like legitimate strategery to me

yogi_ wrote:

Are the two Magnetos' going to end up looking similar, skillset wise? ie. Torch and gold / lazy characters?

This would be awful. Just say no to laziness

Coordinating your shielding and hitting other players is something that we can't really regulate with any methods that wouldn't also cause a bunch of other knock on issues which would be just as bad. It's most likely in this case that we'd put something like a big red exclamation mark or something saying "This person is in your Alliance/FB Friends List! You may not want to hit them!"

Current plan is for them to look about as similar as they do now. I just wouldn't expect 2 AP Reds and 0 AP Blues to be the norm.

A lot of people accidentally attack alliance members. Similar to how you can't rate posts on the alliance section, why not just preclude alliance members attacking each other. Most would prefer or members don't even come up in our queues.

OnesOwnGrief

I for one would be all for alliance members to be filtered. Nothing would hurt worst if I knock an alliance member out of top 25 just because I decided they were worth the points to get myself up higher.

Unknown

I don't mind that we can hit alliance members, or be hit by them. I'd just like to see the alliance name under the player name on the node, instead of having to click through to their roster.

Unknown

j12601 wrote:

I don't mind that we can hit alliance members, or be hit by them. I'd just like to see the alliance name under the player name on the node, instead of having to click through to their roster.

Imo, this should be the #1 priority for UI changes.

Unknown

j12601 wrote:

I don't mind that we can hit alliance members, or be hit by them. I'd just like to see the alliance name under the player name on the node, instead of having to click through to their roster.

You say that till I attack you and start the longest retaliation war ever.

Actually that sounds fun. Something else to do when rags is PvP rewards.

Unknown

stephen43084 wrote:

j12601 wrote:

I don't mind that we can hit alliance members, or be hit by them. I'd just like to see the alliance name under the player name on the node, instead of having to click through to their roster.

You say that till I attack you and start the longest retaliation war ever.

Actually that sounds fun. Something else to do when rags is PvP rewards.

Or when we're both just bored and it's still the first day or so. Although, everyone else seems to have been queuing you up lately, but the only other Djangos I've seen are tu1, chococat, and tonight I got bk.

Oooh... we could do alliance pvp bingo!

Unknown

IceIX wrote:

locked wrote:

Surprised no one asked yet, but Ice, are you сontent with how sharding works at the moment? Seems same as S1 so far, not complaining as I bully lower level players enough to get my share of tough, but it may be unfair for those same lower lever rosters, too. Instead of 2-5 crazies in a bracket they may now get 10-15!

Edit: oh noes, he disappeared already

Nope, haven't disappeared. Trying to get a setup on multiple devices so that I can double check on that earlier question about Team-Ups appearing for enemies in Versus. Can't remember off hand if you need to keep it stocked or not. Pretty sure you don't, but trying to get the setup on the QA servers is taking a bit longer than I expected.

As for sharding, it's working better than it first was but not great yet. Still tweaking how people get shunted between shards to keep things
A) Even between shards for any given Event. Doesn't help to shard things if one gets overloaded and servers explode as a result.
Good feeling of opponent variety within each shard, especially if you rise or lower a bunch in scaling/rating during an Event.

We're definitely doing far better on A, still working on getting B in a place that we're happy with.

3 issues/questions

1. You changed season reward to see affect on players, but you changed nudging/sharding, so how will you know what impact the reward change had? Any change could be attributed to either factor.

2. Speaking of *fun*, everyone I've talked to agrees that s2 and s3 PvP brackets were less stressful and fun, but the fury reward created stress and burn out. Why would you change something you were doing right? Why has there been no readjustment so far this session; since clearly there have been a plethora of "death brackets" this season.

3. Are you aware of the problem of pve end times for euro players? When (if ever) will this be addressed?

Thanks

* I live us central, but I comprehend the burden that is placed on these players.

Unknown

j12601 wrote:

stephen43084 wrote:

j12601 wrote:

I don't mind that we can hit alliance members, or be hit by them. I'd just like to see the alliance name under the player name on the node, instead of having to click through to their roster.

You say that till I attack you and start the longest retaliation war ever.

Actually that sounds fun. Something else to do when rags is PvP rewards.

Or when we're both just bored and it's still the first day or so. Although, everyone else seems to have been queuing you up lately, but the only other Djangos I've seen are tu1, chococat, and tonight I got bk.

Oooh... we could do alliance pvp bingo!

How many people should be included in the retal war?

Edit- how play PvP bingo,,? Characters, players, alliances, etc.?

over_clocked

Ice, any chance of improving the in-game chat? PMs to teammates? The current chat is very tough to use and it conflicts with some Android keyboard features (swipe I believe). The 50 messages limit is bad, the 'read from bottom to top' is bad, the tiny white text is bad, the update glitches are bad, etc.

Can we also look for any players in a separate 'Players' search tab (in case we don't know their alliance) and/or be able to PM them? Maybe with some limit, but you already ban urls... Using the game itself and not some third-party app/the forums for direct communication would have been terrific.

mohio

locked wrote:

Ice, any chance of improving the in-game chat? PMs to teammates? The current chat is very tough to use and it conflicts with some Android keyboard features (swipe I believe). The 50 messages limit is bad, the 'read from bottom to top' is bad, the tiny white text is bad, the update glitches are bad, etc.

Can we also look for any players in a separate 'Players' search tab (in case we don't know their alliance) and/or be able to PM them? Maybe with some limit, but you already ban urls... Using the game itself and not some third-party app/the forums for direct communication would have been terrific.

I second the in-game chat comment. We have a handful of alliance members that simply don't/can't chat in client (and are often too busy to post in our forum chat) simply because swype doesn't work and they'd have to go through some change settings dance just to type a message or two on the awful default keyboard.

hurcules

sms4002 wrote:

Bowgentle wrote:

sms4002 wrote:

So how do team ups work on defense? Since they are consumables will your defensive team have whatever team ups you beat that team with? I can see this as being a game breaker. One example being you get 3 level 400 headbutts in your inventory and just always equip them but don't use them. That def team will be unstoppable since they have unlimited level 400 headbutts for every opponent.

Since team ups are going in the boost slots I assume they don't work on defense, like any other boosts.
Would be crazy too, going up against a team and getting hit by any old random ability out of the blue.

yeah you would think that but i dunno. they keep saying how enemy teams can have team ups too. How would that work? pve teams just have random team ups? Seems pretty unfair for defensive teams to not have anything while guys can come in with max level skills on offense where you already have the huge advantage of first move / boosts/ choosing who you attack.

Pretty sure IceIX mentioned defensive team will have TU ability too. As for how it works, let's hope IceIX can shine a bit more light on that.

Oh, and on equipping L400 Headbutts, this:

IceIX wrote:

TheHueyFreeman wrote:

For negative effects to moves (self damage on sunder/headbutt or self stun from recharge), who takes that effect?

For the most part, those sorts of abilities aren't Team-Up applicable. Doesn't make much sense for Sentry to Sacrifice himself when that Sacrifice means nothing.

Bowgentle

mohio wrote:

locked wrote:

Ice, any chance of improving the in-game chat? PMs to teammates? The current chat is very tough to use and it conflicts with some Android keyboard features (swipe I believe). The 50 messages limit is bad, the 'read from bottom to top' is bad, the tiny white text is bad, the update glitches are bad, etc.

Can we also look for any players in a separate 'Players' search tab (in case we don't know their alliance) and/or be able to PM them? Maybe with some limit, but you already ban urls... Using the game itself and not some third-party app/the forums for direct communication would have been terrific.

I second the in-game chat comment. We have a handful of alliance members that simply don't/can't chat in client (and are often too busy to post in our forum chat) simply because swype doesn't work and they'd have to go through some change settings dance just to type a message or two on the awful default keyboard.

Just abandon the **** in game chat and start using the Line app.
Our alliance communication has improved by approximately 9 billion % with that. And you can also talk across alliances with it (helpful for retirement alliances).

over_clocked

I would strongly prefer to use the game itself for chatting and not a third-party app - not because it would inconvenience me, but my teammates. I suggested to use another app some time ago, only 3 members of the alliance were willing to use it at the time.

hurcules

Bowgentle wrote:

mohio wrote:

locked wrote:

Ice, any chance of improving the in-game chat? PMs to teammates? The current chat is very tough to use and it conflicts with some Android keyboard features (swipe I believe). The 50 messages limit is bad, the 'read from bottom to top' is bad, the tiny white text is bad, the update glitches are bad, etc.

Can we also look for any players in a separate 'Players' search tab (in case we don't know their alliance) and/or be able to PM them? Maybe with some limit, but you already ban urls... Using the game itself and not some third-party app/the forums for direct communication would have been terrific.

I second the in-game chat comment. We have a handful of alliance members that simply don't/can't chat in client (and are often too busy to post in our forum chat) simply because swype doesn't work and they'd have to go through some change settings dance just to type a message or two on the awful default keyboard.

Just abandon the **** in game chat and start using the Line app.
Our alliance communication has improved by approximately 9 billion % with that. And you can also talk across alliances with it (helpful for retirement alliances).

Yup. We use Google Hangout instead. Only use in-game chat for some members who refuse to install yet another chat client (in which case, communication with said member would be minimal), or ask a new member to join us in Hangout.

Avalokitesvara

LakeStone wrote:

UI
- (Android Only) - Fixed an issue preventing some in-game graphics from displaying properly on some Android devices such as the Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 Model SM-T211

Hallelujah.