Patch Notes - R63 (Live, 10-20-14)

DrStrange-616

CrookedKnight wrote:

The AI team only gets one team-up. They changed it in a patch a few months ago.

Thanks. I could swear that in some recent battles the AI had more than one team-up and/or not the one shown. Will pay closer attention. Maybe I dreamt it.

ZeiramMR

Hmmm... Blade with an attack power that steals health would be a new way to have a healing character. As long as he is stealing health from the enemy team and not a teammate!

atomzed

Vairelome wrote:

atomzed wrote:

Thus far, I am quietly confident about d3 ability to steer the ship in the right direction.

Based on what? Granted, a number of the changes D3 has made over the past month or so have been very good and much needed. However, this has been a recent development following *several* months of jaw-dropping incompetence.

It looks like the company is *finally* headed in more or less the right direction, and that's a good thing--see my post above. They still have to dig themselves out of the massive crater they nuked in their own reputation, due to fairly epic mismanagement. To be sure, I *hope* the positive trend continues, but I see no reason for the type of blind confidence that ignores D3's history.

It's a matter of expectations. While I see many missteps I also see much effort in improving things. I perceive them as a small company and not some big juggernaut with deep resources. Because of that I cut them some slack (which you probably say too much slack).

Of course, there are many others like you and Rio perceive their missteps as utter incompetence, and that the company may be better run by someone else. I respect these people opinions. Hence we are expressing it and having a discussion here. hopefully no flame war

DD-The-Mighty wrote:

I believe _RiO_'s issues are more with the nature of d3 fanboys (at least some of them), and their penchant for belittling those they feel besmirch their fair maidens good name. Particularly the forumites that love to White Knight specific company posters.

As you said. opinions go both ways.

That's the thing. While those on one side perceive people as white knight ing, the other side perceive it as expressing their genuine opinion and support for the company.

It is funny how you use the word fanboy. Because in some sense, those who criticise the game harshly, are also fanboys of the game too. They "love" the game enough to express their opinions constantly on a forum.

People like Rio may be able to dichotomise his love for the game from the developer. But there are others who see the game, however many flaws it has, is still a product from the developer.

Unknown

While I agree that some lack of communications and mismanagement has existed, I would like to point out another fact. The fact that most of the people in here treat D3 like they are similar to Blizzard or EA. As they already said themselves, they are a relatively small group of people that are gaining experience throughout the course of this game. We cannot expect them to be extreme businessmen and politicians, but they are not the completely opposite either. They stand somewhere in between. They all seem to love Marvel Universe and the game in general.

There are many issues that need to be addressed. While this patch has some good material, many others are out there just waiting. However, considering the two latest issues addressed (Token drops & PVE goon tiles), I think we should tone down the negativity to just normal talk. We can be negative every time they drop the ball, but being constantly negative or inconsiderate does not help them or us. There is a positive trend that has started several days ago (Since the Thor LRs specifically for me). We should let it continue and see where it takes us.

I have had my ups and downs in this forums. Most of you read my thread and know about my meltdown and furious raging against that Heroic Venom. At the end of it, not only I got all progression rewards, I also got to be T150 and snatch the 3* Lcap. I consider my post an overreaction that was mixed with game frustration and real life stuff. I got it out of my system and I also tried to send a message while I was there. However, if I was a bit more patient and taken a better look at the event (Apart from the fact that Heroics suck), the progression rewards offered some of the featured characters in the game at considerably reachable thresholds. So before you know it, I had a full team up and running for those covers.

They do make some sense in the events. There is some connection here and there and a feeling of continuation. It is not just random repeatable events to suck Health Packs and force us to buy HP. And personally, I would rather like them to prioritize new heroes and materials rather than adding the lower graphics setting for example. And I am glad they have done so, else all the veteran players in my alliance would stop competing and I would not get those T50 covers from them and HP.

And before saying anything else, have you checked the rewards in Unstable ISO. I mean those progression rewards are nuts. 150HP, 2 tokens and a red LCap at only 40k points in a 6.5 day event with double ISO still going? If that is not an improvement then what is?

_RiO_

Okin107 wrote:

The fact that most of the people in here treat D3 like they are similar to Blizzard or EA. As they already said themselves, they are a relatively small group of people that are gaining experience throughout the course of this game.

So, how does assisting Bioware with porting Mass Effect to PC fit into that picture?
Or being brought in to assist with the final cycles of development for Titan Quest?
Or supplying the arena challenges in Gearbox's Borderlands?

GothicKratos

_RiO_ wrote:

Okin107 wrote:

The fact that most of the people in here treat D3 like they are similar to Blizzard or EA. As they already said themselves, they are a relatively small group of people that are gaining experience throughout the course of this game.

So, how does assisting Bioware with porting Mass Effect to PC fit into that picture?
Or being brought in to assist with the final cycles of development for Titan Quest?
Or supplying the arena challenges in Gearbox's Borderlands?

You realize that's the ORIGINAL Borderlands and the ORIGINAL Mass Effect. These were years ago. I don't know what Titan's Quest is, but I'd be willing to bet it is too.

Pylgrim

How does the "linking" of goons to their CD tiles work? It says that you must tap a character to make their corresponding tile pulsate, but when you do, you get the big dialog window with the character's colour strengths that covers most of the board, so if there is any pulsating you cannot see it.

Lidolas

_RiO_ wrote:

Okin107 wrote:

The fact that most of the people in here treat D3 like they are similar to Blizzard or EA. As they already said themselves, they are a relatively small group of people that are gaining experience throughout the course of this game.

So, how does assisting Bioware with porting Mass Effect to PC fit into that picture?
Or being brought in to assist with the final cycles of development for Titan Quest?
Or supplying the arena challenges in Gearbox's Borderlands?

The pattern here is that they helped with those games. They were not alone. Demiurge provided some outsourced expertise and man hours.

GothicKratos

Pylgrim wrote:

How does the "linking" of goons to their CD tiles work? It says that you must tap a character to make their corresponding tile pulsate, but when you do, you get the big dialog window with the character's colour strengths that covers most of the board, so if there is any pulsating you cannot see it.

When you switch a character to the front, all of their CD tiles "pulse" (the little skull icon kind of makes itself known). It's not the best implementation, but it's a start (and much appreciated).

PuceMoose

This may have been mentioned already, but it seems like when downing a character there's a slight, "slow-motion-Matrix-y-effect" occurring - maybe just a quarter or half of a second, but I didn't notice it before. Has anyone else observed this, or am I hallucinating, or has it always been there and I somehow never noticed it?

Unknown

Puce Moose wrote:

This may have been mentioned already, but it seems like when downing a character there's a slight, "slow-motion-Matrix-y-effect" occurring - maybe just a quarter or half of a second, but I didn't notice it before. Has anyone else observed this, or am I hallucinating, or has it always been there and I somehow never noticed it?

Are you playing on iOS? I have both Android and iOS, but when I play the game on iOS feels like all the graphics take 2/10 of a second longer to load up creating a fading in effect. I don't know if that is the same to what you are experiencing. And I also noticed after the R63 patch.

Unknown

_RiO_ wrote:

Okin107 wrote:

The fact that most of the people in here treat D3 like they are similar to Blizzard or EA. As they already said themselves, they are a relatively small group of people that are gaining experience throughout the course of this game.

So, how does assisting Bioware with porting Mass Effect to PC fit into that picture?
Or being brought in to assist with the final cycles of development for Titan Quest?
Or supplying the arena challenges in Gearbox's Borderlands?

Like other posters said, those games are old (Titan Quest is awesome though. I don't know why it is so underrated in general, I loved playing my creepy, half naked Greek heroes running into the woods). They offered some source code, but it does not mean the project was entrusted to them. I am not sure if D3 has ever created something solely on their own other than this game. And they did mention it themeselves in a post (I don't remember which, might search it later if I feel like it) that they are a relatively small group of people that love Marvel Comics and this game.

They do, of course, have experienced stuff. At least I like to believe that. However, even the most experienced companies out there mess up games. Did you check Diablo 3 the 2 first years it came out? I mean, they must have tried very hard to mess up a game that has a huge fan base and you know what they like because you had 2 titles before that. Nobody's perfect.

yogi_

I think size is largely a distraction to whatever the discussion here is.

Imagine the game had half the number of characters, all continually and well balanced. Would it be a better game? Maybe yes, maybe no, but it would be the game we are presented with. Imagine the game without True and False Healing, shield hopping or that annoying time when you get your 542nd M.Storm cover. Would it be a better game? Probably yes, but it's largely irrelevant, as it's the game we have.

Companies make decisions every day to do or to not do certain work - in this case, it's a game about made up characters; no one is solving real issues that impact real people. We move one thing on a screen to another part of the screen - let's break it down for what it is. Apart from a basic need to match tiles and follow certain licence requirements, no one is forcing the devs to make the game in a particular way and the direction they choose to take the game (or not) is largely at their discretion.

If it was my game, I'd have single characters that all max level at 100, an active and continuous balancing program, a single roster training system where you could much more intimately level and work with characters and add ons like costumes and other variant type things; but it's not my game, so it largely doesn't matter.

You can have huge companies that do terrible work, tiny single person projects that change the world and every variation in between. Like all companies what you say about yourself, what you don't say about yourself and the work you do all sort of mashes up together into an end result.

As the saying goes, it's not the size that matters, it's what you do with it.

turul

Dont know if the stealth change was listed yet, but since update selling 100+ covers actually works...

simonsez

Are countdowns placed as a teamup supposed to pulse as well? If so, I don't think it's working.

atomzed

yogi_ wrote:

I think size is largely a distraction to whatever the discussion here is.


You can have huge companies that do terrible work, tiny single person projects that change the world and every variation in between. Like all companies what you say about yourself, what you don't say about yourself and the work you do all sort of mashes up together into an end result.

As the saying goes, it's not the size that matters, it's what you do with it.

Absolutely disagree with you. You spoke as if resources doesn't matter and that all it matters are decisions to do things.

That's absolutely false.

Just take the request to flip to portrait and landscape mode on the fly. As someone has mentioned, implementing it requires a lot of effort and maybe even a total rework of the game source code. That takes manpower and time.

The company have to weigh the benefits and costs in their decisions. If they have more resources they can do more things in a reasonable amount of time.

Take your example about changing the roster system into something more "intimate". Say add on costumes. Adding the costumes will involve 1) finding the right comic cover for the skin 2) getting approval from marvel 3) designing the skin for in game, 4) designing a UI that will allow you to choose the skin, 5) packing all these features into the game in a decent sized patch.

Just one idea involves a whole lot of developmental effort. Especially the UI, that may take months to do. Effort that can be channeled towards parts of the game.

Look, I love the idea of having different skins. I take the idea further and make it a game trophy, say top 2 alliance gets to keep this "champion" skin in their stash. So whenever someone plays against this alliance, they will say "this is so cool, they are the champions".

But I am a practical person and I acknowledge that such changes takes time to implement. And ultimately the company have more knowledge about their resources and they make their decisions.

GothicKratos

simonsez wrote:

Are countdowns placed as a teamup supposed to pulse as well? If so, I don't think it's working.

As far as I am aware, Team-Ups that create CD Tiles are not supposed to be tethered to any particular character.

GrumpySmurf1002

simonsez wrote:

Are countdowns placed as a teamup supposed to pulse as well? If so, I don't think it's working.

Since one of the patches said they detached TU assignment from any single opponent, I would imagine it is not pulsing because of that.

yogi_

atomzed wrote:

Absolutely disagree with you. You spoke as if resources doesn't matter and that all it matters are decisions to do things.

That's absolutely false.

Actually, you totally supported my argument. There are finite resources and the devs choose to use them in a particular way - no one is holding them at gunpoint to do things in a certain way. You gave a list of things that they COULD do, if they wanted to but they are doing what they want. They could stop creating new characters and start rewriting the entire game tomorrow - they won't, but they could. They COULD do a new viewing mode - they are not going to but if they slowed down or stopped something else and reallocated, they could. They could do a model for skins, but they have other priorities.

In their other Q and A, they made mention a few times about risk. So they are a pretty risk averse project / company. Were this game with a different studio maybe it would be structured or updated differently. Were it with another company still maybe it would be different again.

I'm just pointing out they are on a path, entirely of their own planning and they can do what they want with whatever resources they do or don't have but what they do and how they do it says something and what they don't do also says something.

simonsez

GrumpySmurf1002 wrote:

Since one of the patches said they detached TU assignment from any single opponent, I would imagine it is not pulsing because of that.

Totally missed that... this isn't a happy change. Can't even luck into killing someone to get rid of it