CoH Devs: Oops!

[inde]

Looks like someone messed up the internal test server: http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showflat.php?Cat=&Number=2490569&page=0&view=collapsed&sb=5&o=&fpart=1#2490569

[Malibu Sally]

Looks like someone messed up the internal test server: http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showflat.php?Cat=&Number=2490569&page=0&view=collapsed&sb=5&o=&fpart=1#2490569


Is there a link to a specific post? Yours only puts me at the start of the thread and it's a mighty big one to sift through.

What kind of foul up are we talking about?

[Krypto]

Basically, they did a "test" with a Regen Scrapper against "+8" minions and bosses. They had ridiculous numbers like 20-50 +6 mobs, and 8 +8 bosses.
So Statesman said that Regen was overpowered, and that Invuln was even better, and it was due for a nerf.

Turns out, their internal testing was borked. The Combat Modifier was turned off, so it was like they were even level minions.

Maybe if Statesman had played his own game, he'd know that that kind of stuff was IMPOSSIBLE.

[Darknesse]

It frustrates me to no end. As it stands now, click builds dominate toggle builds and Defense is WAY more powerful than resistance because of Brawl and it's stupid 100% random toggle drop

[inde]

Because you asked :)

All I can say is: thank goodness for the boards. Thank goodness our players care.

Combat Modifiers affect the damage, duration and to hit chances of mobs +/- a hero's level. A bug disabled the damage combat modifiers in one of our testing branches.

Result? Scrappers (and all Archetypes) were doing more damage to higher level mobs than they should have. I should note that this is on our internal Testing Server only - not the Training Room.

If we hadn't posted the video capture, and you guys hadn't noticed the damage issue, we might have moved forward with the changes.

So what are going to do? First, APOLOGIZE. Yeesh what a mistake. Thank you all for putting me to task. Second, I've put a hold on pushing I4 live until we retest the Scrapper defensive sets (and we'll post the results again). If the changes are too much, we'll roll them back as we've done before. But under NO circumstances will the current Regen changes go live until we own up to our mistake and retest. And I'll continue to interact with the community on the results!

[Astartus]

This really really blows.

Cryptic wanted to bring out an expansion every 3 month but they already delayed issue #3. Now it is time for issue #4 and this one gets delayed further and further.

Sure, I really appreciate the work they are dedicating, and I understand the neccessarity to get the bugs out of the way.

But now that I also hit lvl 50 there is not much to do for me until issue #4. I already started a Warshade but I won't play him until issue #4 comes out (due to the new Kheldian Story arcs).

*mumbles*

[sheld0n]

Give the guys a break, its the first mmorpg they ever made. Silly mistakes like this one are bound to happen.

Props to them for being honest about it!

[Poison]

Mistakes happen.
I'm just peeved that we have to wait for the costumes and sliders forever because of balance issues.

[suburbanhell]

Give the guys a break, its the first mmorpg they ever made. Silly mistakes like this one are bound to happen.

Props to them for being honest about it!


Exactly -- the important thing is they are owning up to it and WILL fix it. For those of you who have played MMO's over the years you know that there are a LOT worse dev teams out there, those that will NEVER fess up to a mistake that alters / ruins the game, (see Ultima Online's facist Dev team), and many MMO's would actually make you PAY for each expansion, we get ours for free...

[Astartus]

Yeah, I know that the DEV's are doing an awesome job. But I have to agree with Poison's statement that we have to wait for the (in my eyes) important things just because some (relative unimportant to me) thing needs to be balanced.

They had this issue in internal testing before, why now this error?

Well, I want my new costume, body sliders and badges (man, I don't care for the costumes and sliders, just give me those damn badges......)

[Esbat]

and many MMO's would actually make you PAY for each expansion, we get ours for free...

But we do PAY more a month than other MMOs mang... O_o

[vyxzuw]

It frustrates me to no end. As it stands now, click builds dominate toggle builds and Defense is WAY more powerful than resistance because of Brawl and it's stupid 100% random toggle drop

Yeah. Too bad Dark Armor doesn't even have the OPTION of a click build. (Like the other three Scrapper sets.)

I like where he says that Dark Armor is at the level of Regen...

We tested Dark Armor alongside Regen over the past week and found that Dark Armor Scrappers fared about as well as Regen Scrappers. We'll post the results soon.

[inkblaster]

When I first red State's post yesterday, I had somewhat believed it, and was all like, OMFG! Regen needs teh nerf! And Invuln! And everything!

This is due to my total lack of playing a scrapper for a long time, my highest scrapper(recently deleted), was a spines regen, and that was only low 20s.

I'm glad the scrappers stuck to their guns, and I'm really glad they found that bug on their test server, or else I don't think we'd have seen just scrappers get the nerf bat.

I also hope this isn't where most of their datamining comes from. I was under the impression that when they say datamining, they're looking at the live servers for most of it. If they were just running scenarios on their test setup...<shudder>

edit, read Poz's post, the bug apparently just affected damage, not accuracy, and was introduced a couple of weeks ago.

[The Widowed]

...and many MMO's would actually make you PAY for each expansion, we get ours for free...
*coughcoughAnarchyOnlinecoughcough*

[Tsarmina]

Mistakes happen.
I'm just peeved that we have to wait for the costumes and sliders forever because of balance issues.
Couldn't they release the costumes and sliders in issue 4A and then the rest in issue 4B??

[Moon Jump]

Couldn't they release the costumes and sliders in issue 4A and then the rest in issue 4B??

Yes! I agree. Give us the costume options NOW and the arena can come out at another time. Because I play a Defender I could give two *****s about the clickable toggalebble power crap. I put two bubbles on people and I'm finished.

Just give me my Sliders!

[Jade_Dragon]

Yeah, the thing is, I have seen so many MMORPGs in which the devs absolutely refuse to admit that there's anything wrong. I've got to assume that it's a lack of feedback, it's just that those devs are silent about EVERYTHING. The devs of CoH not only talk to and listen to their players, they actually ADMIT to bugs in the code! They've always been consistent about it.

Being a programmer myself, it makes me feel comfortable with the game. I know there are bugs (there are ALWAYS bugs...) but I'm fairly confident that if I need to adapt to them, then I'll find out about them, and even if I don't, the devs are on the job and working on them.

I think the datamining DOES show that there are a large number of Invulnerability and Regeneration Scrappers that have abilities well above the norm. Their testing fouled up the testing of the situation, however, and made it look much worse than it was. So there may still be nerfs, but at least they will apply to the real situation and not be compensating for a testing error.

[Jade_Dragon]

Yes! I agree. Give us the costume options NOW and the arena can come out at another time. Because I play a Defender I could give two *****s about the clickable toggalebble power crap. I put two bubbles on people and I'm finished.

Just give me my Sliders!

While I wish they would do this, I kind of doubt they will. They're not going to release the update without the Arena.

Then again, they could release the Sliders NOT as the update. Just push it to live as part of a regular patch. No one says the SLIDERS have to be part of I4.

[the_starcrosser]

Meh. I'm willing to wait for my pressssciousss cosssstumessss and the other sliders if it means we get honest, flexible devs and FREE expansions (up to 4 a year is pretty good!). ;)

[Moon Jump]

Then again, they could release the Sliders NOT as the update. Just push it to live as part of a regular patch. No one says the SLIDERS have to be part of I4.

Ah! I like the way you think Jade. Sliders now, maybe costumes in another patch then the Arena in the major patch. I know I want to make a really fat tanker and call him The Lard Lad. :chuckle:

[Tarkenchi]

Hmm, While some games may make you -pay- for expansions, a old (5 year old) MMO namely Asheron's Call had monthly updates, with new monsters, more armor, new quests. THose were monthly, and for halloween, they gave us enemy clothing, (ala, helmets, suits, etc.) And when city of heroes is only pumping these out maybe once every 4 month is sad in comparison, Yes, its their first MMO but they have -NCSOFT- backing them. O_o

[Randomus]

I would imagine Asheron's Call, being 5 years older, is a helluva lot easier to update.

[BvS]

Ah! I like the way you think Jade. Sliders now, maybe costumes in another patch then the Arena in the major patch. I know I want to make a really fat tanker and call him The Lard Lad. :chuckle:

I suggested that I4 was 'poorly planned' (over on the official board) and got flambasted as a n00b that had no idea how programming works by people claiming to be programmers. ::cough::brown-nosers::cough::

In the real world, projects are departmentalised. There is nothing saying that the arena and the new costume options had to be written as a single patch from a logistics point of view.

Of course, which ever part they did release first would have those wanting the other one up in arms over it.

[Mahaf]

Yeah, I know that the DEV's are doing an awesome job. But I have to agree with Poison's statement that we have to wait for the (in my eyes) important things just because some (relative unimportant to me) thing needs to be balanced.

They had this issue in internal testing before, why now this error?

Well, I want my new costume, body sliders and badges (man, I don't care for the costumes and sliders, just give me those damn badges......)
Actually, from a game standpoint, balance issues would be WAY more important than any strictly aesthetic feature would. If you're more interested in the glam, then I'd say there are other, more beautiful MMOGs out there. Not trying to tell you to move to a different MMOG, just saying that balance issues SHOULD come before things that make absolutely no difference on the gameplay.

[Quilan]

it could have been worse, they could have dumped PVP, or all the sliders.

[BvS]

Actually, from a game standpoint, balance issues would be WAY more important than any strictly aesthetic feature would. If you're more interested in the glam, then I'd say there are other, more beautiful MMOGs out there. Not trying to tell you to move to a different MMOG, just saying that balance issues SHOULD come before things that make absolutely no difference on the gameplay.

While there are probably just as many paying customers that will agree with you as disagree, the idea that they'd try to cram this much upgraded content into one massive patch (which is all these 'issues' are) is entirely unprofessional.

The new/old costume options not being compatable with the geometry sliders is a massive problem to fix.
The PvP Arena system is a whole new game within a game.
Either of these upgrades require everyone who's qualified at Cryptic to devote all of their working time on the problems that have arisen. They're a lot more complicated than adding a few missions to a couple of npcs' mission strings, and a new map set or two.

Then we have the ever impatient customer, who wants what he wants now (be it PvP or more costume options and geometry tools, for whatever reason) who will add to the stress of getting the job done.

Cryptic would have been much better off dividing these into two (or more) smaller patches, each with a team being responsible for that particular planned feature, and dropping one on each of two test servers.

While I commend Cryptic for recognising that there are two different interest camps to be catered to, I am entirely unimpressed with their having lumped it all into one monstrous wad of code. One team works on one new feature while another works on the second.

Cryptic is pretty good at telling its customers when it has screwed up. NO ONE would begrudge them if this update was planned, from the start, to be two seperate patches and one took longer to tweak than the other.

I'll close before this becomes a fullblown rant...um...too late.

[Mahaf]

I can agree with you that they bit off more than they could chew, but I do think if they delay anything, they'll delay it all. They probably won't take Costumes or Arena live without taking the balance fixes live. Which is kinda crappy, but that's the way I think they'll go.

[BvS]

Agreed. They're pretty much committed to having to release the whole thing at once.

[Tarberetta]

Just waded through that thread and am REALLY happy that the devs found their mistake. The numbers and what they said they were doing seemed to totally bogus you cannot believe.

So now, regen is not getting the bat (for now) but they have a bunch of retesting to do (on more than just us).

Maybe for you guys you'd rather see the issue go live but a person who's main is a /regen....I'd rather wait than have a totally broken AT based on borked internal test builds.

[Esbat]

I say break it up into two updates, release the Aesthetic stuff first (Costumes, Sliders, Badges, Missions, etc.) and then the Arena and call it a "Two-Parter" or "Double-Sized Issue"...

[Randomus]

Giant Sized City of Heroes Annual!

[Esbat]

Giant Sized City of Heroes Annual!

RIGHT ON, Rando! :o

[Jade_Dragon]

While there are probably just as many paying customers that will agree with you as disagree, the idea that they'd try to cram this much upgraded content into one massive patch (which is all these 'issues' are) is entirely unprofessional.

Well, while I think just about everyone knew that this would be a massive update, and a testing nightmare, I don't think anyone could have done anything about it.

Let's be serious here. This isn't something they could have shoved out piecemeal. PvP is a HUGE addition. The arenas, the options, the battlefields, the teleportation system, the Powers, the balance, it's ALL got to work right. They had their internal testing, of course, but there are some things that just don't come out until you have actual players trying it. It's like the original release of the game, all over again. There isn't anything specific to individual character abilities that isn't touched by this update in some way.

And really, compared to that, the sliders and new costumes are minor. I mean, there have always been glitches in the costume graphics, just as an example there is the "hunchback" hump in the cape, which was put there to eliminate a clipping problem on the Huge model. One graphic problem that could only be fixed by causing another, and the devs went with the lesser of the two. They can always add new options now, and adjust them later. As you said, it ISN'T gamebreaking.

I don't think that the Arena could have been released as a "smaller" expansion, and I KNOW that it isn't going to be released quickly. It doesn't have to work perfectly, of course, but most of the problems need to be hammered out, and that's going to take time. Maybe not much more time, but I don't expect it to be a shorter wait than we've had with the other updates, and I'm not surprised that it's taken as long as it has.