Please use this thread to reply to and discuss Jim Salabim's new article.
Cosmik, will you or someone at Funcom respond to the fact that perception range is >not< 40-80 meters in some zones, but considerably less?
In 2holes, for instance, it appears to be 25-40 meters.
I, for one, was particularly pleased to see someone from Funcom FINALLY issue this statement:
I agree that solutions of this kind would be the best, but it takes lots of time and resources to change, and we have neither right now. Our solution is the best we have at present.
Funcom has neither the time or resources to provide good solutions to the huge number of problems facing the game. These problems result from the game being released 6 months too early, and therefore resources that would have been devoted to working out bugs and implementing features had to be thrown into the black hole that customer service becomes when a product as faulty as AO was is put out. There are very, very few AO problems that cannot be traced back to their inability to listen to their testers when they almost unanimously advised them that the game was not ready.
As far as the Maximum Range issue is concerned, it is absolutely ludicrous to design a long-range assassin class in a futuristic universe and limit their range to what you could get out of a 20th century shoddy pistol. If that was necessary, why include the class at all? You should have made all weapons pistols, made up some hokey reason why no one can shoot further (the notum in the air slows bullets/energy/whatever down) and told Agents they were going to be playing short-range but accurate assassins. At least that would have been honest.
Scorus
Scorus
Starknaked is correct. There are many zones where the perception range is much less, sometimes down as low as 10 meters or less. Such zones have been pointed out repeatedly.. I can't even stomach to name them all anymore because they've been posted over and over and over..Originally posted by starknaked
Cosmik, will you or someone at Funcom respond to the fact that perception range is >not< 40-80 meters in some zones, but considerably less?
In 2holes, for instance, it appears to be 25-40 meters.
Yet to see a comment like "Your perception range is anywhere from 40 to 80 meters depending on where you and your target are standing in the grid" just boggles my mind. I can't tell whether one part of Funcom is just not speaking with the other, or maybe that you just don't believe us and refuse to physically go to these zones and check them for yourselves, or, heck.. I don't know what anymore.
Few things in this game are as frustrating as the communication breakdown that seems to linger over this forum like a dark, black cloud.
HeHe, It was me
Actually that quote came from me (just another AO player) and was solely based on the description of the problem as outlined in the article.Originally posted by Gyson
Yet to see a comment like "Your perception range is anywhere from 40 to 80 meters depending on where you and your target are standing in the grid" just boggles my mind.
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The current proposed solution will not work. Some of the main differences between the classes are their range and there simply isn't enough room under 40m to have usefull distinctions.
If you nerf a Soldiers range so that an Agent's 40m shot seems long, then won't a Soldier be just one step outside melee range. If that is the case, then how is a Soldier different from an Enforcer. For all practical purposes they will have the same range.
If you can some how figure that out, then what is the range sweet spot for Fixers or NTs. It starts to get ugly fast. H3ll, I think it is already there
As for the problem being too hard to fix, the part that just has the mob running towards the area of attack doesn't seem that difficult.
If it is too difficult, then do a temporary quick fix and not allow an attack if the mob is outside your perception distance. If you can't see him, you can't hit him. Now that is butt easy to code, just add it to your line-of-site routines. If the mob is outside of perception distance, it is out of site and every thing else will take care of itself. 1 hour fix.
Last edited by Crin; Jan 7th, 2002 at 07:12:15.
I realize that, Crin. It's just that your statement was supported by Jim Salabim, which bothers me because someone from Funcom is supporting a piece of information that's not true, and has been repeatedly pointed out as not being accurate. The comment, in fact, before your quote was "Some seem to misunderstand the difference between "attack range" and "visual range". I believe Crin's explanation is a good answer to that:".Originally posted by Crin
Actually that quote came from me (just another AO player) and was solely based on the description of the problem as outlined in the article.
If he really believes (your comment) that "Your perception range is anywhere from 40 to 80 meters depending on where you and your target are standing in the grid", then there are serious communication breakdown issues going on at Funcom. Their intentions may be to have visual range working this way, but it most certainly does not.
A lot of people have said things like this in a lot of threads, but I think I really have to say something in Funcom's defense. Game development is driven by money, just like everything else. Now, I don't know how FC were funding Anarchy Online, but from my experience of working in the industry, a fairly common situation is for a publisher to fund the development of a game in the hopes of seeing some return when the thing finally gets released.Originally posted by Scorus
Funcom has neither the time or resources to provide good solutions to the huge number of problems facing the game. These problems result from the game being released 6 months too early, and therefore resources that would have been devoted to working out bugs and implementing features had to be thrown into the black hole that customer service becomes when a product as faulty as AO was is put out. There are very, very few AO problems that cannot be traced back to their inability to listen to their testers when they almost unanimously advised them that the game was not ready.
So, imagine you're developing this game... You've been loaned a lot of money, there are still many bugs, you're not getting anything back from sales or subscriptions yet, and the investors are leaning on you and threatening to pull the plug. What do you do? Make the product as stable as you can in the time the investors give you, then release and start charging subscription fees in the hope that you can remove the rest of the instabilities with the extra cash, or refuse to release since the product isn't perfect, default on the contract, get hit by huge penalty clauses by your investors, watch the company go bankrupt and try to find a new job?
People complain a lot about AO being released unfinished, and sure, it was: but it may have been the only chance they got to release it at all. All over the net I've seen people whining about how such-and-such a game was released pre-beta, and how that's clearly fraud or actual robbery, and how dare the company do that, and now that poster is going to boycott them, or sue them, or otherwise act outraged... And it strikes a nerve every time. The games industry is extremely brutal, and the developers almost never get any say in when a game is released.
Sorry about the rant, there. Thanks for your time.
Melee Maximum Range
If I missed this in my skimming of the topic forgive me and redirect me please.
But I was curious how the maximum range concept interacts with Melee based mobs. It seems to be my experience playing a fixer that there is no or at least a long range for melee based mobs. For instance, when casting "Halt Flight" (the fixer low level root) I see the mob is affect (he doesn't move) though reguardless of how far I back up, his melee weapon still damages me. He has not moved, and soon the root breaks, and hes up close again, but for that 30 seconds or so he seems to have a long range.
I'm running a 1Ghz machine with plenty of ram and a 64 meg G force 2 card, with DSL so I doubt the problem is lag of some sort. '
So is there a range max, if so why does it seem that melee mobs can go over this? In my oppinion melee weapons short of polearms should have about a 3m max accounting for arm length.
So I shouldn't have to back up far to be beyond their reach. In my career I've been encountering many melee mobs and I'm finding that my Nano is near useless.
Cyress "Grisum"
Omni-Tek Trafficer of Perfectly Legal Goods (Fixer)
"Honesty runs through my veins as surely as Cheetos and Coca-Cola"
"And blood right?"
"...That... too..."
Id have to agree with the above post by Chris. If its that bad, dont play. So you spent 50 bucks on the game, and 13 bucks for a month of play. Suck it up and take your losses. Im sure that you bought a pair of pants or something that you really liked and they ripped by no fault of your own(Ive actually had this happen). Well the store wont take em back cause their ripped. So what do you do? you go find another pair (aka another game)
I think the limited view distances in many of the zones is terrible and the view distance should be the same no matter where you are. Often it is so short that by the time a mob appears it is already within attack range. You have no chance to run around it, the monster upgrade for the map is also worthless. As the attack range is capped at 40m I think we should always be able to see a little further than that to allow us the chance to avoid the trouble. Is the view distances in some of the zones deliberatly short or is it a bug? Perhpas someone from FC could explain this. If it is intentional why?
I would also love to see in the map window your surrounding area upto your view distance regardless of whether you have the map or not. You can more or less get this if you are in 3rd person view anyway, but I mostly play 1st person, but that is another issue.
chris agreed, its been said here numerous times by people around here. Alot of the whiners just don't care though, they want their burger king and they want it now.
I'm disappointed that Jim could twist Tekkor's question into a nerf. He apologized to Tekkor via email for his poor choice of wording, but never bothered to change what he said in the article or release a public apology..
I can put up with the hundreds of bugs like most of us can, heck the game crashes 10 times a day for me. However this view distance problem is ridiculous, if all the afflicted zones were suddenly removed, would that many players notice? care less? Mostly ppl have gotten used to not going to those places because its near impossible to hunt in them, the most I see when I wander around them is, very rarely, someone flying a Yalmaha to a mission site.
Thing is though, the game world is pretty damn small when you subtract those zones...
Well, i have not been one of the "whiners" Ive been here from beta and I will stay and help to try to see the game succeed.Originally posted by ChrisF0001
A lot of people have said things like this in a lot of threads, but I think I really have to say something in Funcom's defense. Game development is driven by money, just like everything else. Now, I don't know how FC were funding Anarchy Online, but from my experience of working in the industry, a fairly common situation is for a publisher to fund the development of a game in the hopes of seeing some return when the thing finally gets released.
So, imagine you're developing this game... You've been loaned a lot of money, there are still many bugs, you're not getting anything back from sales or subscriptions yet, and the investors are leaning on you and threatening to pull the plug. What do you do? Make the product as stable as you can in the time the investors give you, then release and start charging subscription fees in the hope that you can remove the rest of the instabilities with the extra cash, or refuse to release since the product isn't perfect, default on the contract, get hit by huge penalty clauses by your investors, watch the company go bankrupt and try to find a new job?
People complain a lot about AO being released unfinished, and sure, it was: but it may have been the only chance they got to release it at all. All over the net I've seen people whining about how such-and-such a game was released pre-beta, and how that's clearly fraud or actual robbery, and how dare the company do that, and now that poster is going to boycott them, or sue them, or otherwise act outraged... And it strikes a nerve every time. The games industry is extremely brutal, and the developers almost never get any say in when a game is released.
Sorry about the rant, there. Thanks for your time.
However, that does not excuse this industry's lack of concern regarding quality or CS on or about a release.
It's called market projection. You do the math beforehand to attempt to see if the market will still be interested and supportive enough - given other titles being projected for release at the same time, whether it fits a niche or is competing against other already established, etc. - and then you base your R+D time upon how much time/money those projections allow. If what I have heard is correct, AO was far and away allowed WAY more time than other devs in this genre to develop their product. Problem was they spent most of that time on developing the engine and the game style/mechanics which admittedly, is much better than any other game in this genre. That does not excuse them though for neglecting the testing of the game, and allowing enough time to work on the actual mechanics of playshifting, server capacity and load given their very demanding graphics/data streaming, etc etc,... all the flaws we saw at realease.
The game "design" is great, custom characters, well thought out premise, QL's to discourage twinking (although that failed to an extent) , personal dungeons to avoid camping...a lot of the problems that plague other game are just not present here. The quality of graphics is not even comparable to the genre; all other games looking pixelated and bland in comparison to AO - nothing is as good as AO in this category.
But to excuse the gaming industry and by extension Funcom for not having balls and telling investors "hey, ur either in, or ur out" is not easy to stomach. IF im wrong, and Funcom was given more than ample time to develop and release, and actually ran overtime and THEN the investor's pushed....well, that's another story. But investor's are not stupid either, they are not (usually) the same type/quality of "investor" that people think of when they go on Ameritrade...that's not "investing," that was "playing." REAL investors realize that an investment is that, by definition, they are NOT *rolling the dice,* instead they are taking a calculated risk by putting money in, and most smart investors ARE patient. They dont GET twitchy, in fact in the "real" world in investments NOT involving game development, investors make their investments for long term.
Last edited by Noe; Jan 9th, 2002 at 09:44:30.
I agree with many of the posters here especially Noe's rebuttal of ChrisF001.
I don't know who is necessarily responsible but someone screwed the pooch with this game. For me its not how much money I spend on a product but rather the principle of the matter.
I can handle a great deal of bugs and problems but this game is now 6 months past initial release and may have more bugs than it did at release. I must say stability has improved but that is relative to what it was upon release which was unplayable.
A free market and competition will determine what companies thrive and which ones will die. Personally though I am heartbroken that such a wonderful concept and design has been so poorly implemented and so much of the player base alienated that this game will not survive.
HI NOE!
Just wanted to say hi before i go, will be back in 3-6 months, when some bugs are worked out or when the second season of the story starts again, whichever comes first.
Anyway just wanted to say take care since I won't be seeing you for a bit, nice chating with you on VN/IGN and here, good luck 2 u!
Bah! Tir, Newland, Omni Trade was packed today around the Whompas and grids. I haven't seen it this busy since opening week and during that time everyone was lowlevel and needed to be there. Many people on this board are too hung up on the past and the bugs and are blind to the extrordinary parts of this game.Originally posted by Dealingdeath
Personally though I am heartbroken that such a wonderful concept and design has been so poorly implemented and so much of the player base alienated that this game will not survive.
Forgive and forget and move on. AO is a good experience, if Funcom continues to make improvements like they have during the last few months, AO will be a great gaming experience.
hey Ultra1 !!...sorry to see ya go but obviously i can understand...
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See, this is depressing...more people come to the game, but at the same time, some old stalwarts are leaving...and Funcom should pay attention.......people are leaving again......
You cant just announce that you are doing better, announce that you will try harder....you have to deliver.
This is so sad. We arent just making this stuff up folks.
Things are broken, and to stay on topic, the things that are broken are broken because you nerfed range and then attempted to fix range...
Are plants really that integral to the storyline that if they suddenly disappeared that anyone would be distraught?
You finally fix range extending nanos, that are A LINE OF NANOS SOLELY IN THE REALM OF NT's, and then you take away range, because your game cant handle the newly found range ability...
Quick fix...
Here it is, Ive listed it so many times ad nauseum I cant believe Im doing this again.
How to fix mobs 101:
If you think that nuke a mob Plant or otherwise is an "exploit", then dont change mechanics that affect other aspects of the game.
if player x is > 80m {
allow NanoDamage==0; (you can call this super nanoresist)
elseif
player x is < 80 AND > 40m
allow NanoDamage = (place complicated formula here);
( allow only % chance of hitting based upon the nearness of the MobY and the MC of Player x vs. Nano Resist of Mob Y modify % for the NanoResist)
elseif < 40m
allow NanoDamage==1; (all other coded modifiers for interupts, fumbles, resist, etc would now apply)
}
Also you do the same algoritm for attacking based upon what the attacked mob's ability "range" is, or add that as the modifier in the "between" case.
This is not rocket science here guys...but with your convoluted explanation you are attempting to make it seem so. If you have MADE it rocket science based upon your perception zones A, B and freaking C and D, bla bla...go back and fix it.
Also, I heard a rumor, probably in this or the other thread, that the short term solution would be to shorten the range of all other classes abilities/guns.
I cannot think of a MORE STUPID thing to do, than go and nerf other people.
For now, LEAVE IT AS IS except FIX the MOBS attack RANGE.
It has been proven that the MOB CAN ATTACK > 40m
GO FIX IT.
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