Friday with Means - January 29th, 2010 - Explosive database

[Edta]

It should also be noted that these AOE nanos are not going to be "spammable" as they are now. AOE effects will have a cooldown...so randomly spamming these tools will not be as efficient a way to detect hidden players as it is now.

What can I do on parties then? I like my AoE nukes! I want attention mkay!

Seriously, while my AoE nukes might nearly be only useful for kiting and parties, they are so much part of the identity of NT's it would make me feel bad if they get nerfed. I'm curious how it is possible to make them not spammable without nerfing them, but I'm sure you figured/will figure something out.
If the intend is to nerf kiting, I'm not sure whether that is a good thing. I have dual feelings towards that. OST's are a bigger problem nowadays anyway.

Btw, I'm froob and I'm using big client all the time.

[Hacre]

What can I do on parties then? I like my AoE nukes! I want attention mkay!

Seriously, while my AoE nukes might nearly be only useful for kiting and parties, they are so much part of the identity of NT's it would make me feel bad if they get nerfed. I'm curious how it is possible to make them not spammable without nerfing them, but I'm sure you figured/will figure something out.
If the intend is to nerf kiting, I'm not sure whether that is a good thing. I have dual feelings towards that. OST's are a bigger problem nowadays anyway.

Btw, I'm froob and I'm using big client all the time.

AoE nukes don't unsneak people. One would hope they won't get teh nerfbattage.

[Means]

I love how each time there isn't anything new to show on Friday, it turns out there was some horrible completely unexpected disaster at the office.

At least get creative, say, for next week, Macrosun could have a little unexpected accident while performing a show with a flaming Hula hoop.

There were things to show this week...the texture swapping of armor/clothing being done is great news. I'll have to get that updated into this thread when the guy working on it "Parsed" gets back from his little vacation. That and the Atrox head you guys tell me I haven't shown yet.

Something horrible and unexpected usually happens every week..and often more often than that. But it is true what you say...when I actually manage to put together something "positive" for the week I tend to not bother to tell you all about the disasters. There is always a disaster or something on fire...I generally don't even tell the entire team about most of them.

I am glad you can see the humour in it at any rate. If I wasn't able to laugh about these things I'm certain I would be having a lot less fun myself

[Dancingrage]

Ditch the 'Small' client. Causes more trouble than good for n00bies.

'nough said

Actually this is an interesting idea, I think most MMO players are now accustomed to at least 2.5 gigs dedicated to any MMO they want to play, and that gets higher pretty quickly the more modern it gets or the higher resolution textures you are wanting in the client in question.

Perhaps putting up a poll to see if the froobish would be ok with going to the larger client? That would really solve a lot of the problems at hand and simplify things to a huge extent!

[McKnuckleSamwich]

Thanks for the update means!

Imo your DB host should have sent out warnings prior to taking down the DB.

Thats poor planning. I vote send them emails with porn links till they apologize.


Do you have anyone looking at the weird zoning issues?

Dagget has posted few times on this, as have I.

There are some medium-annoyances with zoning. I disconnect leaving LE missions, entering raid ships, leaving raid ships, occasionally on grid entry, city zoning, door zoning, Inf mish zoning, player shop zoning.

I've been told it might be my ISP, but, I've also been told by Anarrina that the GM's can sometimes fix it... so, if they can fix it, does that mean they are aware of the problem?

I've also been told it's a client issue, and I should try reinstalling AO. I'm not sure about this, and since it's time consuming, I'm not uberstoked on the prospect.

Thanks again!

[Krattonomic]

could you give us an update towards the breed changer you brought up a few weeks back that was said to of been coming out with daily missions?

[Gunfytr]

I'm ****ing leaving this game, I'm tired of how lazy you people are, instead of doing the things right, you always go with that shameful response of yours: "Working as intended". The skill system is there for a purpose, the counter to concealment is perception, not nano resist, you morons, you're pissing the community off with your laziness.

Yeah, and if you dare moderate this message, just because I'm not licking Menas' balls, I will ****ing cancel my account right away. If this isn't the place for real feedback between players and the Game Director then where?

That is not what I consider "constructive criticism".....and it was rude.

Cya

@OP: Good FWM....

[Gatester]

Mongo is not going to be unconcealing players is it? I am sure it could be changed to not hit players with that 1 point of damage, but I really would be against my taunting tool being used to pop players out of sneak.

[Technogen]

On the discontinuing the small client, while I personally dont use it, nor do I know anyone that does, FC would have download numbers to know the exact amount of users using it.

But yeah, its well worth looking into, it would save them the hassle of having to update both clients from this point on as well as there are going to be a boatload of updates soon.

[wormx]

...we are also doing our best to resolve all the old issues concerning Alien pathing in player-made cities...

Yay, thanks! No more treeliums!

... I can't actually remember at this point if we showed you the test head they did for us of the Atrox...

Kintaii did, afaik. atrox01 atrox02 atrox03
But by all means, if you got fresher pics, please share

...There will no longer be a "message" when you appear or disappear that will notify everyone in the area of your presence....

Ugh, that was a good way of telling you it is time to move around some while hunting for social toys around halloween...

...It should also be noted that these AOE nanos are not going to be "spammable" as they are now. AOE effects will have a cooldown...

I hope you know that this will have an impact on PvM too.

Personally I don't care much if people can hide from me in BS. Even if I do have maxed perception on one of my 220 fixers...
And with the risk of being edited; There seem to be many people with the knowledge on how to both hide and see hidden people without spending any IP in conceal and perception.

You have a great weekend too!

[Ebondevil]

Questions from last week

People being brought out of sneak by AOE effects. Yes this is intended. If you resist the nano you will NOT be exposed. There will no longer be a "message" when you appear or disappear that will notify everyone in the area of your presence. It should also be noted that these AOE nanos are not going to be "spammable" as they are now. AOE effects will have a cooldown...so randomly spamming these tools will not be as efficient a way to detect hidden players as it is now. Either way...any hostile effects that hit you in sneak will likely continue to expose your position in the future. Players concealing will have to watch out for AOE professions as much as they have to watch out for concealed players...the advantage is still on the side of the concealers. Please check out test to try out the new conceal code..looks pretty good.

Cool, okay, does this mean that Agents and Shades will get an AoE nano which has a -3k AAD debuff on it, a 55% NR/300% level Def check, heck even a 90% NR def check would do, which doesn't effect us if we cast it on ourselves. Of course we wouldn't want it spammable, one cast every minute would be fine I'm sure! That way we won't need to spend any IP in our attack skills to be able to hit people, like people with AoE roots don't need to put IP in Perception to spot people who IP concealment.

P.S. Thanks for leaving Conceal broken, wait, I'm sorry, making it more broken and useless with the upcoming balance changes where it's not even needed for Aimed Shot. Guess that's some IP I can save myself.

P.P.S. 100% land rate on self using the 55% NR/300% level Def check Nano, while suffering -140 Nanoskills debuff, I'm sure Crats can do better, or they could if there was better than 100% land rate...

[Hacre]

Cool, okay, does this mean that Agents and Shades will get an AoE nano which has a -3k AAD debuff on it, a 55% NR/300% level Def check, heck even a 90% NR def check would do, which doesn't effect us if we cast it on ourselves. Of course we wouldn't want it spammable, one cast every minute would be fine I'm sure! That way we won't need to spend any IP in our attack skills to be able to hit people, like people with AoE roots don't need to put IP in Perception to spot people who IP concealment.

P.S. Thanks for leaving Conceal broken, wait, I'm sorry, making it more broken and useless with the upcoming balance changes where it's not even needed for Aimed Shot. Guess that's some IP I can save myself.

P.P.S. 100% land rate on self using the 55% NR/300% level Def check Nano, while suffering -140 Nanoskills debuff, I'm sure Crats can do better, or they could if there was better than 100% land rate...

Yeah. That's the same.

[Wurble]

--snip--

Such VARIETY!

Engine Variety

Work of course continued this week on the engine...this week CLOTHING/ARMOR seems to be in and complete. This seems to be almost the last (crosses fingers) of the integration work...everything that "should" be there is now actually there. SO some work began this week in the OPTIMIZATION phase of this little project.

PICS! Or it didn't happen.

It was discovered that in the conversion process between using AO ground and using DreamWorld/Cheetah ground that the ground file increases a bit on the way. Up to about 290 Megs PER PLAYFIELD. As AO has about 100ish playfields at this point I required a new pair of shorts and smelling salt noseplugs. The coders managed to get this down to 8-32 Megs by the end of the week...so the sky is no longer falling...and I'm sure they can make it even smaller as we go.

Meh. AOC is over 30gb. Wouldn't be the end of the world.

The clothing looks better...less pixelation of textures as you "move" away from the character either with the camera or with your character...was nice to see those smooth edges.

Again, pics or it didn't happen :P

[Ebondevil]

Yeah. That's the same.

AoE roots bypass 3k Concealment, so why not?

In case you didn't realise I think both are retarded and was using one to illustrate just how retarded the other is.

[Technogen]

But by all means, if you got fresher pics, please share

Yeah, those were the product that they sent to china, the ones they sent back are even better.

[Edta]

AoE nukes don't unsneak people. One would hope they won't get teh nerfbattage.

They often do... If you keep nuking long enough they usually get irritated enough to attack you :P. Just got to make sure NSII is ready or you're death .
Seemed to me Means was talking to AoE in general, but I guess nukes might be an exception yeah.

[shadowgod]

AoE roots bypass 3k Concealment, so why not?

In case you didn't realise I think both are retarded and was using one to illustrate just how retarded the other is.

i see the confusion here.. you're getting nano resist mixed up with concealment.

[If6was9]

Glad to hear progress is being made. Look forward to the new engine. Hope that all the elements incorporated into Conaan's character creation will make it to the next iteration of AO.

[crude4gone]

Means could you tell us if this cooldown on AOE effects means you guys plan to prevent kiting as it takes place now?

And if this is part of the whole plan, or it's just one side effect of placing those cooldown timers?

[Ashes2Ashes]

Cool, okay, does this mean that Agents and Shades will get an AoE nano which has a -3k AAD debuff on it, a 55% NR/300% level Def check, heck even a 90% NR def check would do, which doesn't effect us if we cast it on ourselves. Of course we wouldn't want it spammable, one cast every minute would be fine I'm sure! That way we won't need to spend any IP in our attack skills to be able to hit people, like people with AoE roots don't need to put IP in Perception to spot people who IP concealment.

P.S. Thanks for leaving Conceal broken, wait, I'm sorry, making it more broken and useless with the upcoming balance changes where it's not even needed for Aimed Shot. Guess that's some IP I can save myself.

P.P.S. 100% land rate on self using the 55% NR/300% level Def check Nano, while suffering -140 Nanoskills debuff, I'm sure Crats can do better, or they could if there was better than 100% land rate...

Was hoping for a better answer myself to AoE roots unsneaking people. Definately dissapointed in the decision that was made to keep it the way it is. Had my hopes with rebalancing / reworking of nano's that this would of been one of the things in the list to get changed. I'm one of 'those' people that sacrifice to put IP into perception, and conceal. I get perception buffs when fixers / advy's are around on BS. The same goes with getting conceal buffs.

I think it's unfair that one can cast a nano an unsneak someone, especially with the super low def checks attached on some of those roots. For some professions (Agent, Shade), conceal really is an integral part of thier toolset, an to have it bypassed in such a way that it doesnt cost the other person IP to unsneak someone is kinda messed up imo. Even if AoE's are going on a cooldown.

I can see why Tlatoani's is pissed, I am too, thou I don't think the way he expressed himself was the right way to do it. I don't feel anyone should be immune to AoE roots. For sure let it check vs. nano resist, but please don't allow it to unsneak someone. That seems a bit cheap imo. If the person gets rooted fine, but a big no, to when you don't resist, that it pops you out of conceal.

The FC crew is doing a great job, I am excited about all the changes, it will feel like a new game. But please, try an give this idea another thought. Lets fix some mechanics, an not just leave em as they were. Now is the time, while you are redoing nano's. Fix conceal once an for all, IP into perception, + buffs to spot someone. Not some hokey AoE to bring them out of conceal. Conceal is both defensive an offensive tool. You pay the price by spending IP into. For someone to overcome this, just by centering an AoE on themselves is just meh...

Thats my 2 cents from a concerned player.

P.S. If you decide not to change this, how about giving those concealed a nano resist bonus = to the ammount of conceal skill they have. It's only fair, if this mechanic remains imo broken. Those who sacrifice IP, should benefit from IP'ing the skill. This would counteract some of those crazy low defense checks on the AoE's.

As an example:
Total Nano Resist: 2300
Total Conceal Skill: 2400
2300+2400= 4700 total nano resist concealed.

Using Mass Illusory Paralysis as an example, it has 55% def check...

4700*.55= 2585 that we subtract from our 4700 total, which leaves us with an effective NR of 2115. They will still probably land that on the concealed person, but the odds are much better than 55% straight check. See the way things are currently, are hugely in the favor of the person casting the AoE root... This is why so many are wanting conceal vs. AoE to be fixed. It's just too easy to pop someone out of conceal. If they want to spot someone, let them spend the IP, an get the buffs, instead of destroying part of someone integral toolset with a borked game mechanic....