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Thread: Monthly Development Update - April 2016 (Let's Talk)

  1. #1

    Funcom employee Monthly Development Update - April 2016 (Let's Talk)

    Hello everyone. April has been an...interesting month. While not everything went as planned, we at least have things to talk about.

    18.8.13 Update
    Over April, we launched the 18.8.13 patch onto Live. This update has introduced Arbiter Palmiero's missions and all the associated rewards. Arbiter Palmiero is a mission-giving individual who will be available in his office, within ICC HQ's 'Holodeck' tower, every other week. The mission he gives out will rotate after each appearance. He currently has a Dust Brigade mission, Kyr'Ozch mission, and a PvP-oriented mission. These missions all offer unique sets of rewards for completing them. Additionally, these missions offer 'ICC Commendations' which can be used to purchase some new rewards from the shop within the Arbiter's Hall. Finally, for characters seeking additional XP gains, or those who cannot participate with Palmiero's missions, his handy Drone offers a set of missions, based on your level.

    In the future I hope to add some more sets of missions and rewards to the rotation, now that the foundation has been established. Additional Commendation rewards are also planned to be added through future updates.

    The 18.8.14 update will be coming shortly, but its main purpose will be to fix issues introduced with 18.8.13. Content for the anniversary patch is already in the works.

    Systems Changes
    It has been a little over a year since 18.7, Arete Landing, and the first stab at Systems Changes made it to Live. It has been enjoyable reviewing these changes again, looking at the changes made, and recalling where the inspiration for it all came from. That said, it's no secret that additional changes have been needed, and I plan to provide some. After addressing some of the most obvious issues, I will continue to move through the professions as I can, to try to keep all of this better tuned. More will be revealed as these updates progress and start to reach Testlive. Sorry for the delay on these fixes.

    Veteran Points & Membership Rewards
    This update introduced a new set of rewards for time subscribed, while also adding items to the Veteran Shop. The functionality to determine the amount of time subscribed was moved from the Veteran Points system to support this new system, so the ability for Veteran Points to naturally increase has been lost. That said, periodically, I intend to have points manually applied, in attempt to keep this system running.

    There have been characters/accounts who seem to have lost Veteran Points during this transition from one system to another. With the next update, we hope to restore some of the previous Veteran Point sharing functionality that was seen with paired accounts. If multiple accounts are grouped under the same Funcom account, the account with the most Veteran Points will share that amount with the others - This will hopefully resolve a number of the reported incidents. There were some instances where characters loaded with Veteran Points were transferred to accounts that had far fewer Veteran Points; it is still possible that characters transferred via the previous system came from a different Funcom account which was entitled for a different amount of Veteran Points. If things continue to see very out of sorts after the upcoming Veteran Points changes, please feel free to /petition and we will investigate your situation further.

    When designing the Membership Rewards, the intent was to mostly work with existing items, and to introduce more social/convenience than actual power. While the bulk are social items, however, some were designed to be sought after. To address a couple specifically: the Uriel Blades and Gnuff's crystal. The Uriel Blades were designed to be 2h versions of having dual Polychromatic pillows, with a nicer visual, based off an existing set of items that we offered with a previous Subscription Offer (the Hiisi Blades). Gnuff's Crystal may be the 'newest' item, though it is based off an item that was introduced with Will To Fight, several years ago. I do not know why this item was lost from Gnuff, but it served as the inspiration, while also being re-added to Gnuff himself. It is not a perfect substitute, but it is now possible to hunt Gnuff in the Will To Fight to gather a consumable Shadowrift crystal; the next update will shorten Gnuff's spawn time, increase drop count, and reduce the cooldown of his dropped version of the crystal.

    It was my attempt to be fair when assigning where these reward items would be placed, between the ICC Commendation reward items, Veteran Shop items, or Membership Rewards; the item shop itself only had 1 addition, which can be randomly earned when completing the 'Freelancers Inc' mission from Palmiero's drone. As a part of future updates, I will be further enhancing the Veteran and ICC shops accordingly, while adding Membership Rewards as the months move by. The purpose of these Membership Rewards was to genuinely reward people who remain subscribers, as opposed to being egregious "P2W" bait to convert non-subs. Our playerbase is already mostly subscribers, so this seemed like a method to reward those people, new and old. Subscribers will eventually get all the rewards, should they choose to pay month-to-month, buy via GRACE, or take advantage of a subscription offer. The Veteran Shop will continue to exist and grow, as an additional way for our Veterans to obtain items unique to that vendor.

    Thank you!

    This month did not go entirely as planned, but I do hope everyone is enjoying the Palmiero's Quests and any new Veteran or Membership Rewards they were eligible to obtain. I am sorry to anyone who has fallen on the wrong side of Veteran Points being missing...we will try to remedy this, either by the planned matching of points across a Funcom account, or the gradual infusion of points over time. I am also sorry for the terrible lack of forewarning with the removal of Veteran Account creation, Account Merging, and Character transfers. We have restored Character Transfers, but only between accounts under the same Funcom account; this was mostly to prevent certain abuses of these systems, and because they weren't as relevant with the new systems that have been put in place...it was a good time to remove these, but the lack of warning was inexcusable. All of that said, the Anniversary update is coming along nicely. I very much look forward to celebrating Anarchy Online's 15th anniversary, and then continuing work to ensure we will be here for another 15 years. Thank you all and have a great May!
    Henry "Michizure" Senger
    Lead Designer
    ___________________________________
    Twitter - Welcome to Testlive - Customer Service

  2. #2
    Worst ever changes that nobody asked for ...
    Today's crap with new Alien mission from Arbiter (changed to pvp mission) was a disaster!
    Look like you wasted 1 month ... or even made some ppl quit with unwanted changes to veteran points system.
    Awikun 220/70/30 Ranged adv - my Main that I hardly ever log
    Awisha 220/70/30 Shade - Can solo 95% of all bosses
    Cratawi 200/70/30 Crat - S7/DR Solo farmer
    Awiken 220/70/30 Eng - Pvm Eng
    Nukiwa 200/70/30 NT - almost forgotten (awaiting retwink)
    Awidoc 200/70/30 Doc - 200 fun pvp twink
    Awix 200/70/30 Fix - 200 fun pvp twink
    Awienf 220/70/30 Enf - tanked every single boss (and still lives)
    Soldawi 220/70/30 Sol - Pvm Sold
    Awima 150/xx/xx Ma - best S10 MA farmer
    Doctorawi 220/70/30 - Pvm Doc
    Awienfo 200/70/30 - Atrox with Pande red belt and 2xQL300 hammers
    Macierewicz 220/70/30 - Pvm Crat
    Zlakobieta 220/70/30 - max complit +top tradeskiller

  3. #3
    I personally do appreciate the work you have put into trying to make this game better, Michizure. Unfortunately, due to the poor Funcom management of this game I am letting my paid accounts expire and will be playing out my last 11 months. In case I do not get a chance to come back onto the forums I do wish you the best, Michizure!

    Regards,
    Guapo
    Guapo - Advisor in Unity of The Rose

  4. #4
    Michizure, of all the people involved with FC, you are the only one I have had any real respect for; you actually want AO to be a better game, so do I.
    I know that my efforts on Youtube help in a very small way to bring old and new players to the game, but I can't be uncritical of something that's just wrong, the changes to historic vet points was universally terribly received.
    While that may not have been the intention, that is the reality the only players that do not mind the changes are those it did not affect; the short notice period [less than 24 hours] was also very poorly judged and has cost AO subscribers.

    I'm glad that you are where you are in the company, and that you will continue to do as much as you can, for as long as you can.
    Caloss2 LVL 220 melee VANGUARD (semi retired).....Llewlyn 220/30/70 meepmeep.....Boooocal 220../30/70 Soldier.......Knack 220/30/70 Keeper.....Hiesenberg 215/xx/xx NT NERFED Neytiri1 220/30/70 Shade Knacker220/30/70Meat shield
    https://www.youtube.com/user/caloss2 for guides/walkthroughs/letsplays and all your other AO needs
    Quote Originally Posted by Mastablasta
    In my special design documents that I feed to the FC devs, who are my willing slaves.

  5. #5
    nerf some professions and i dont care what you do with vet points, future point systems, contents whatever.
    pvp is broken.
    can it realy take that much time to change back agents perks from attackrate to rifle as they used to be?
    Last edited by Le-Quack; May 2nd, 2016 at 00:29:57.

  6. #6
    Time flows dynamic and changes everything, ao will nvr be the same, we will nvr be the same. Everything has its own entropy, and AO is at the end of its process.
    . . . everything in creation is impermanenT

  7. #7
    6th! and achievement unlocked! (don't think I've ever been on the first page before )

    There's been a steady stream of new players checking us out and old players returning. Bor over the last couple months has been annoyingly laggy and almost feels like its old self. (this is a good sign.) But AO needs more to retain those old and new players. I think they hit a wall around level 100 and the 8 deadly word nano lands on them.
    Last edited by Literary; May 2nd, 2016 at 03:34:50. Reason: took too long :( :D

  8. #8
    Quote Originally Posted by Michizure View Post
    I will continue to move through the professions as I can, to try to keep all of this better tuned.
    Send me a PM or gimme a yell on Skype before you mess with my engies, the other profs don't matter, and no one cares about them, but gotta get my engies right!
    Quote Originally Posted by egadsrk2 View Post
    In the case of this little drama, Party A created a situation. Party B perpetuated it with name calling. Party A finished it with violence...
    I was "party A"

  9. #9
    Michi, I know the Let's Talk thing was to point out your side of the history about vet points. It still sucked, you should have asked what we thought about this, and not hearing all people complaining because it's already done. Anyways you have done good changes for the game, but this one wasn't the one we needed. We need more balance in PvP, and getting rid of MBs in PvP. I know it's a good income for you guys, but let the boxes stay at PvM. They don't hurt anybody there. People are starting to Multi-Box in Battlestations (this is getting ridiculous). It's too broken, you know it.

    As a side note, I wanted to start a Multibox to try to balance stuff if you're not planning to do something about it (I guess we have to adapt), but now I can't create more accounts under the same domain, neither I can transfer chars to newly created accounts. This is an example of the repercussions your changes made. Please think about this.

    Keep the good effort, I know you're part of the few in FC that have some interest in saving this ship
    Last edited by Eladamrri; May 2nd, 2016 at 05:49:03.
    Inside my empty bottle I was constructing a light house, while all the others were making ships.

  10. #10
    Quote Originally Posted by Le-Quack View Post
    nerf some professions and i dont care what you do with vet points, future point systems, contents whatever.
    pvp is broken.
    can it realy take that much time to change back agents perks from attackrate to rifle as they used to be?
    Let the AR check as it is an rise def check. Will help lots more ....
    Carolus Hekthor Priamos - Advisor of S.I.N.C

  11. #11
    Quote Originally Posted by Eladamrri View Post
    As a side note, I wanted to start a Multibox to try to balance stuff if you're not planning to do something about it (I guess we have to adapt), but now I can't create more accounts under the same domain, neither I can transfer chars to newly created accounts. This is an example of the repercussions your changes made. Please think about this.
    I think this is exactly why the changes were made, to stop new MB from being made that easy.



    I think its a good sign that Michi is acknowladging their mistakes over the last few months. I'd rather have a guy who makes more mistakes and then stands up and appologise and works towards fixing them, than someone who makes less but refuses to accept critisism.

    That being said, there are more work to be done with these missions Michi. They missions need to be doable for atleast 1char/day, OR rework some of them as a weekly mission. And lastly, make the Arbiter permanent, but change missions every week. 6 weeks between each time you can get the rewards from a certain mission is to long. Make the game playable on our terms and schedule.

    And also: Fix Gauntlet please!

  12. #12
    Last!
    Ekarona 220/30 Female Solitus Engineer, long term member of Northern Star and proper "poor" gimp.
    Ekaslave 220/low Female Solitus Trader, FLAT(TM) pricing TS, almost all can do!
    Ekaros almost there/almost there too Male Solitus Martial-Artist.
    Ekadv gimp/gimp Female Opifex Adventurer

  13. #13
    Quote Originally Posted by Michizure View Post
    Hello everyone. April has been an...interesting month. While not everything went as planned, we at least have things to talk about.

    18.8.13 Update
    This update has introduced Arbiter Palmiero's missions and all the associated rewards..
    Why is he giving my level 63 MA a mission to "Cull Cultists" in ToTW? My MA has been 63 for several months, so it wasn't that I leveled out of the instance shortly before or after the mission. How about looking into that?

    Not impressed with this update for the most part. But, that's just me.
    'The problem with the gene pool is that there's no lifeguard.' - Steven Wright

  14. #14
    CAN'T VETERN JUST BE ABLE TO COMBINE ALL THE HIIS WEAPON THEY'VE FROM PRVIOUS SUBSCRIPTION AND GET THE :the Uriel Blades and Gnuff's crystal. The Uriel Blades were designed to be 2h versions of having dual Polychromatic pillows, with a nicer visual, based off an existing set of items that we offered with a previous Subscription Offer (the Hiisi Blades).

    SEEMS LIKE IT'S ALWAYS...BETTER TO WAIT TILL AND NOT "BUY THE PS4" SINCE THE NEW "PS4K" WILL BE COMING SOON.

    PLEASE REWARD THE VETERANS.
    "Don't think...feel, it's like a finger pointing towards the moon"

  15. #15
    Michizure: Perhaps in future you might give us testers some time to actually TEST these things before you patch them to Live...

    Y'know, that's kinda what the TEST SERVER is for after all. I don't think any of us appreciate things like this getting to Live with only a day or so on the Test server...

    Just a thought...
    One profession to RoO them all, one profession to proc stun them, one profession to calm them all and in the darkness Exp perk them!

    Crataiken 220/30/70 General - Primal Evolution - 3rd AI 30 'Crat on RK 1 Setup
    Calms 220/30/70 General - Primal Evolution
    Medicaiken 220/30/70 General - Primal Evolution Setup
    Newen 220/30/70 President - The Galactic Milieu
    Mettagirl 220/20/** General - Primal Evolution
    Krataiken 150/18/40 General - Primal Evolution Setup

  16. #16
    You are doing a great job with everyone on you (FC and players).
    Keep up the good work no matter what they say. I enjoy new content and I'm sure all that is wrong will be fixed !

    For all the haters : after 10 years someone is really doing something and you jump on him with the knives - shame on you !
    Be a bit more positive and write down what is bothering you in a civilized manner.

    I go enjoy the game for now ...
    Operator : "Are we safe from russian hackers ?"
    Support : "Da"

  17. #17
    Quote Originally Posted by Hunni View Post
    Why is he giving my level 63 MA a mission to "Cull Cultists" in ToTW? My MA has been 63 for several months, so it wasn't that I leveled out of the instance shortly before or after the mission. How about looking into that?
    He gave my level 75 shade the same mission!


    A lot of the items they put into the veteran shop also are a bit too pricey ... I've only subbed since 2005 and if I get all the stuff I want, I can't obtain some of the other items because they've thrown a good bit in there for 50 or even 100 points.
    I know all those that whined about wanting new items have 300++ points, but really... making it only possible for them? Really sad now that you aren't giving out veteran points.
    Characters:
    Legendfluff (with many accounts of froobs)

    Froob Level 5 Collar: http://i.imgur.com/I19c92X.jpg
    Froob atrox Lv5 Collar: http://i.imgur.com/2zVqTX9.jpg

    With the onset of awakened beast armor, we can now equip Alpha chest on Atrox Soldiers & Alpha Brain on Atrox Doctors.

  18. #18
    Quote Originally Posted by Michizure View Post
    If/when official policies are put into writing will depend on if/how things have changed with changes to /assist, and another tweak or so, have gone Live. With all of that said, I have no intention of changing how PvM is played...these changes will only be targeted towards PvP aspects of the game.
    Quote Originally Posted by Michizure View Post
    Ah sorry, I forgot to mention that case. It will still be possible to pull the target data if a NPC being assisted. If this change does nothing but benefit cheaters, we do have alternate and additional options available...this is only the first stab.
    When?

  19. #19
    Quote Originally Posted by Shadowforcee View Post
    When?
    Seriously.

    My Soldier escaped with a sliver of HP left after poking her head around a corner for about 10 seconds at Miners yesterday. AMS, Deadlock HUD, every heal she had, and survived with less than 1/4 HP left. Couldn't land anything on any toon, anyway.

    Attacked by *** x6 instantly, so the assist changes didn't help at all. I'm not much of a PvP'er, and stuff like that sure makes me wonder why I even bothered.

    I just left and looked for something else to do. That ruined it for me.
    Vinkera - Soli NT - 426k DPM - Setup
    Robbey - Soli Crat

    Lone anarchists - Tower of Babil

    Celez - Soli Doc
    Loaloa - Soli Enf
    Wondershot - Nano Soldier
    Robzor - Soli Engi
    Proserpexa - Opi Agent

    Trying out civilization - Storm

  20. #20
    Quote Originally Posted by Vinkera View Post
    Seriously. ***snipped*** I just left and looked for something else to do. That ruined it for me.
    I deleted this mission outright. So far, this addition has been a major fail for me. Other than the Complete 3 Daily Missions (and they seem to be a hit and miss as to which ones will update the counter), I am unimpressed with the "content" and "restructuring" (using that term loosely) of veteran points and veteran rewards.

    How about fixing the "Beta" engine problems? Like crashing EVERY TIME you zone into Rome Red.

    Don't get me wrong, as a player that has had an active subscription (or 4) for 14 years, I appreciate the fact we are getting content. But for me, it seems that things are just being thrown into the game with little thought.

    So, I'll end with my usual (I saw the monthly update and I'm not impressed)...

    /rah
    'The problem with the gene pool is that there's no lifeguard.' - Steven Wright

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