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  • IceIX
    IceIX ADMINISTRATORS Posts: 4,313 Site Admin
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    Mizake wrote:
    A man after my own heart...

    Quick --- which is more likely....pulling a Green Thor cover from a standard token, or pulling a Ring of Royal Grandeur from an Act 2 cache? icon_lol.gif

    Here I would disagree. If you can get a *specific* 3* cover for 1250 HP, then the value of a *random* 3* cover should be less. For example, if you offered a 3* token for 1250 HP, I would not purchase it, because I could buy the exact cover I wanted for the same price. I guess you have to factor in people missing 3* covers, so for them the perceived value may be higher.
    Given that a RoRG comes out of an Act I cache, a Green Thor. icon_razz.gif But answering it in the spirit it was asked, and given over 1500 bounties so far with no ring to show for it, a Green Thor.

    Covers - Pretty much the last part you stated. People value covers at more than the single ability upgrade price because they have dual purposes.
  • Dayv
    Dayv Posts: 4,449 Chairperson of the Boards
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    IceIX wrote:
    It would be easy. You're using a pseudorandom number generator of some sort, likely MCG, Mersenne twister, R250, or Wichmann-Hill.
    To avoid bizarre clumpings, use the Sobol, Neiderreiter, or MKL pseudorandom number generators instead.

    I'm just gonna... step over here.... and copy paste this in entirety to one of the designers... then step away. Slowly.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sobol_sequence

    Here's what a typical pseudorandom (or completely random) sequence looks like. If clumping is okay, then these can be used
    200px-Pseudorandom_sequence_2D.svg.png

    Here's what a Sobol pseudorandom sequence looks like. These are used when clumping causes bad effects.
    200px-Sobol_sequence_2D.svg.png

    EDIT -- incidentally, don't use low-discrepancy pseudorandom sequences for tile generation. Those need clumpiness for the game to be functional. But the cover packs should not be clumpy.
    The clumpiness assumption here assumes that the seeding for generation of covers is unique per player, doesn't it? And can you really say that there's enough statistical sampling to know that any clumping is relevant? This smells a lot more like confirmation bias and accentuation of the negative, similar to how people are *sure* that the AI has better cascade odds than they do.

    I think that you'd have to look at a sample of thousands or more of token pulls to suspect an issue with their pseudorandom method.
  • Unknown
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    To Ice,

    I recently was defeated by a team with really low score, they took 25 pts from me, but to take revenge they were only worth 7 pts.

    Have you guys thought about revenge matches you at least get back the points you lost? Or even the points you lost plus 5 extra?
  • zulux21
    zulux21 Posts: 249 Tile Toppler
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    First off again thanks for answering questions... second off any chance of introducing standard token multipacks for iso. Sometimes I am feeling lucky and want to waste 5k iso on 10 standards, but it's tedious to do it one by one... my wife is out of characters to level and wants to risk her iso on 3 stars and wants to burn around 40k at once on standards but she can't get motivated to go 1 by 1 for that long, so something like a 40 pack for 20k iso would really speed that up. (perhaps a minor discount or slight improvement in getting non 1 stars could be involved as well)

    I'm mostly curious why there isn't something like this since every other set of tokens has options for buying them in bulk.

    Another thing I am curious about. Any chance of increasing the rewards for repeat missions in PVE at all? I mean 20 iso is just such a pitiful amount I'd almost prefer not to have to click through the animations and see that pop up then actually get that amount. Is there any major reason why pvp can give out a decent amount of rewards, but PVE only has the prizes from the nodes and then a slap in the face when you don't get one of those? I mean even setting it to 50 iso would feel like grinding for hours in a PVE event wasn't just a huge waste of time aside from placing a little better in the event. I suppose there might be minor worries about someone botting an easy node, but I would imagine it wouldn't be that hard to set up something to check if someone has played the same easy node over and over and over again for the last 10 hours. I also suppose there might be worries about what it could do to the economy, but it doesn't seem like the extra 3k or so iso you would get per event would be a huge deal... I mean that isn't even a level on any character level 80 or higher.

    Finally please don't ever leave IceIX, you are the only person I ever see responding to stuff, thus you are awesome icon_razz.gif
  • Unknown
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    So this may have been covered already, but if it has I've lost it in the thread. Is anything being done to incentivize taking on challenging players in PvP, and to a lesser extent in PvE? I enjoy pushing the limits of my characters, but currently the cost in points and health packs makes it not worth the risk.
  • Unknown
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    Hi IceIX,

    We all appreciate you coming onto the forums this way to answer some concerns but my main concern, burnout, has been mentioned twice in this thread and it appears as your treating it as a non issue. Your answers are direct and to the point and honest.. but it's those answers which are leaning me towards quitting the game entirely.
    When season 2 came up the second season 1 ended my hear sunk, we'd all put so much effort into maintaining our top 100 ranking and our personal rankings in season 1 that i was exhausted..it had become a second job..it was no longer fun and the financial commitment no longer seemed worth it.
    If however a break of a day or two between seasons was there then everyone would have a chance to recuperate and be happy to spend more...
    As for every single PvP event in a season counting towards the final .. well you mentioned some of the less popular events perhaps throw some of them in and have them not be part of the season, i could almost gaurantee on your metrics that these events would go up in popularity.
    Please consider having some events not count towards season total.
    Also, in a previous question some fine soul brought up the 80% member solution to burnout, and you basically said other developers said this doesn't work.
    Maybe ..maybe not.
    What I can tell you, both from within my own Alliance and from being a forum addict (mostly not posting) is that despite what your metrics may tell you, it appears you're burning out your player base. If your metrics say everything is fine.. well good i suppose, but the answers you replied with today regarding burnout made my heart drop almost as much as when season 2 popped up.
    Your game sir is no longer fun... i love it, but the fun has faded.
    ..and when it's no longer fun well then my competetive side takes over but when that in itself becomes like, as someone has already mentioned, "a second job", then there's only one way to go.

    So my question, what do the devs have planned to avoid player burnout when the season 2 metrics come back?
  • Unknown
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    zulux21 wrote:
    First off again thanks for answering questions... second off any chance of introducing standard token multipacks for iso. Sometimes I am feeling lucky and want to waste 5k iso on 10 standards, but it's tedious to do it one by one... my wife is out of characters to level and wants to risk her iso on 3 stars and wants to burn around 40k at once on standards but she can't get motivated to go 1 by 1 for that long, so something like a 40 pack for 20k iso would really speed that up. (perhaps a minor discount or slight improvement in getting non 1 stars could be involved as well)

    I'm mostly curious why there isn't something like this since every other set of tokens has options for buying them in bulk.

    Another thing I am curious about. Any chance of increasing the rewards for repeat missions in PVE at all? I mean 20 iso is just such a pitiful amount I'd almost prefer not to have to click through the animations and see that pop up then actually get that amount. Is there any major reason why pvp can give out a decent amount of rewards, but PVE only has the prizes from the nodes and then a slap in the face when you don't get one of those? I mean even setting it to 50 iso would feel like grinding for hours in a PVE event wasn't just a huge waste of time aside from placing a little better in the event. I suppose there might be minor worries about someone botting an easy node, but I would imagine it wouldn't be that hard to set up something to check if someone has played the same easy node over and over and over again for the last 10 hours. I also suppose there might be worries about what it could do to the economy, but it doesn't seem like the extra 3k or so iso you would get per event would be a huge deal... I mean that isn't even a level on any character level 80 or higher.

    Finally please don't ever leave IceIX, you are the only person I ever see responding to stuff, thus you are awesome icon_razz.gif

    Or at least scale the default ISO reward in PVE to match the levels of enemies faced during the battle. 100 ISO after beating 3x 274s might sting a bit less than 20.

    But not much.

    @IceIX: Ever consider putting a bitcoin wallet link in your sig? Some of these people seem genuinely appreciative...
  • Unknown
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    IceIX wrote:
    laoahpeh wrote:
    Hey, thanks for the reply. I will continue to shoot you with more non-related questions

    1) what is the current size of the dev team and are there plans to increase this given the popularity of the game?
    2) what other games do you play other than diablo?
    3) the World Cup is coming! who are you rooting for? personally I am a Spain fan
    4) The Surface Pro 3 looks cool, should I get one?
    1 - Haven't done a headcount lately. Want to say 28 dev, 10 publisher right now? And yeah, both D3 and Demiurge are on the look out to expand (a little). We both like staying small and agile over all though, despite the headaches it sometimes give in having to wear 8 hats a piece.
    2 - Currently my jams for play time go in order of: MPQ, Diablo 3, Warframe, Dynasty Warriors 8 XL (insert whichever is the newest DW/SW/WO here), random indie game/iOS game. Gonna have to play through Watch Dogs here soon too.
    3 - Germany, mainly because my wife is a huge fan of the team. Looking forward to June 26th when I get to watch them trounce the US team next to a couple friends that are fans of the locals. icon_e_smile.gif
    4 - The Surface Pro 2 is the single best purchase of computer hardware I have made and I am drooling over the Pro 3. My single gripe about the Pro 2 is that it's only running an Intel HD 4400 and the Surface Pro 3 is the same. It's good enough for games right now as long as you're OK with low/mid quality graphics, but I would love a real card in there. Shocked the Pro 3 didn't come with an Intel Iris Pro like a lot of the Steam Machines have.

    can i have your Surface Pro 2 once you upgraded to the Pro 3? (doesn't hurt to ask icon_lol.gif)
  • kensterr
    kensterr Posts: 1,277 Chairperson of the Boards
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    IceIX:

    1. Can you expand more about changes to Prologue Healing? I certainly won't be rioting if you removed it but expand on the number of free self-regenerating Health Packs, or reduce their regen time by a considerable amount. Or you can significantly reduce the price of Health Packs or change it to payment by ISO.
    2. A lot of people are complaining about the featured packs. Any plans to bring back guaranteed characters, but maybe set at a different price or same price but lesser tokens? I don't really need to buy the packs but I feel very bad for newer players who don't get guaranteed *** characters as I used to buy a few when I started playing months ago.
    3. Recent PVE is a refreshing change in terms of reduced/removed rubberbanding but the grinding made my scaling too crazy. Is the code being tweaked to reduce scaling by a bit more, and more decay in personal scaling over time?
    4. Can we expect a permanent non-competitive PVE to add on to the Story tab? Please? Pretty please?
    5. Last but not least, Emma Frost! When!? icon_e_smile.gif

    Sorry if you have replied to similar questions before this but it seems this thread is too popular and have too many pages for me to catch up on.
  • noobprime
    noobprime Posts: 403
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    IceIX wrote:
    aflynn wrote:
    what can be done about players exploiting OBW and other covers healing abilities in prologue to gain a higher pt total afterwards in PvP events
    We've got an idea about that. It's currently in test at the moment. If it works out, you can expect rioting in the streets on the forums when we talk about what we're planning for a change. Mainly because Prologue healing has been status quo for so long that any change to that is going to make people HULK SMASH angry.

    dammit guys. look at what you have done.
  • donnwyt
    donnwyt Posts: 7
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    Hi IceX,

    Question:
    1. Are you guys going to highlight alliance members in the PvP? Too many times team members are killing each other off because they can't be bothered with looking at the name.

    Suggestion:
    1. With the overall points contributed by everyone to open a node up in the PvE, why not introduce progression rewards? e.g. reach 1 million points; node open with 1* covers, 2 million = node with 2* cover, etc (something to that extent)

    2. Expand the puzzle quest universe and make a new game based on dynasty heroes / three kingdom characters icon_mrgreen.gif

    cheers
  • Unknown
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    You might not be able to put a clown suit on wolverine but can you put a santa hat on Hulk for Christmas?
  • Unknown
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    dsbol wrote:
    To Ice,

    I recently was defeated by a team with really low score, they took 25 pts from me, but to take revenge they were only worth 7 pts.

    Have you guys thought about revenge matches you at least get back the points you lost? Or even the points you lost plus 5 extra?


    Points you lost plus 5 could lead to huge scale point inflation. In the current pvp, I just skipped an alliance mate. He has a lower level roster than I do so had I beat him, he'd have a tougher fight on his hands, but...
    I certainly could have used a team he could have beaten, and if we communicated (say through alliance chat even), we could just hit each other over and over again until we both had a shiny new red X-Force cover.

    With that said though, I definitely agree that sometimes the retaliations offered are a bit too low. Losing the skip tax on retaliations would be great.
    I haven't started really on SHIELD training, but at around 300 points currently I am finding new opponents (ones who are certainly not cached for me) in the 1600 point range, giving me 50 points each time. They'll be offered 1 point to hit me back. On top of that, they'll have to lose 10 ISO to clear me off their nodes. That doesn't encourage playing.
  • Unknown
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    Are we going to see PvP event where, within the event itself, there is a reason to have more than 3 characters on your roster? I guess I wasn't clear the first time, but even if you've a limited roster, say Avengers only, right now there is zero compelling reason to switch do a team different from whatever you believe is your best 3 for the duration of the event, minus perhaps some defensive substitution before you prepare to take a break.
  • mohio
    mohio Posts: 1,690 Chairperson of the Boards
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    Phantron wrote:
    Are we going to see PvP event where, within the event itself, there is a reason to have more than 3 characters on your roster? I guess I wasn't clear the first time, but even if you've a limited roster, say Avengers only, right now there is zero compelling reason to switch do a team different from whatever you believe is your best 3 for the duration of the event, minus perhaps some defensive substitution before you prepare to take a break.
    Not to speak for Ice, and I wouldn't mind an answer myself, but from some earlier responses it seems that that's perhaps their idea behind getting rid of prologue healing (or maybe ALL healing?) and forcing people to use Health Packs. If you have a larger stable of usable characters then you'd have an advantage over most others since you could keep playing for longer before needing to wait for your Health Packs to regen.
  • over_clocked
    over_clocked Posts: 3,961
    edited May 2014
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    Ice,

    1) Are queued retaliations beyond the three oldest, visible ones intended to disappear if you open/close the game? Have had it happen a lot, it's a minor thing but a player relies on retaliations to score good points again.

    2) Can we have Bewilder changed to purple? Instant meta shift and an added tier of viability for Psylocke.

    3) Can you change 'Sell all' button to 'Sell all 1* and 2*' by default? So that 3* and 4* covers are sold manually each. Or have a checkmark like 'Don't sell 3* and 4* by default'.

    PS. Tab switches on Steam, skipping to one and the same person, boost previews in the beginning of the match are EVIL.
  • Unknown
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    Question: None. icon_e_smile.gif I would just like to extend my appreciation to you for taking time to answer questions this forumbase throws at you. It gives us (or me at least) the peace of mind that someone on the other side is listening. Again, very much appreciated. Kudos to you!
  • TheHueyFreeman
    TheHueyFreeman Posts: 472 Mover and Shaker
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    Whats the inspiration behind your name? Is it the Zero Escape series?
  • Unknown
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    IceIX wrote:
    It would be easy. You're using a pseudorandom number generator of some sort, likely MCG, Mersenne twister, R250, or Wichmann-Hill.

    To avoid bizarre clumpings, use the Sobol, Neiderreiter, or MKL pseudorandom number generators instead.
    This post <---
    |
    |
    |
    |
    My head <---

    I'm just gonna... step over here.... and copy paste this in entirety to one of the designers... then step away. Slowly.

    Just a note - you almost certainly *want* clumping in your RNG. Because if you avoid clumping you avoid the negative but you also get rid of the positive - that time when you get a bunch of great cards back to back. And without the excitement of that, I think the packs become even less attractive.
  • Unknown
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    locked wrote:
    3) Can you change 'Sell all' button to 'Sell all 1* and 2*' by default? So that 3* and 4* covers are sold manually each. Or have a checkmark like 'Don't sell 3* and 4* by default'.

    My daughter accidentally sold her freebie Sentry that was buried in a bunch of one stars. She's 9 and obviously doesn't process what the warning popup means. Plus she has her 7 year old brother over her shoulder saying "just press that button."