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Getting Closer to LIVE™: What do YOU think about the latest patch?


  

41 members have voted

  1. 1. Overall, how would you rate the July update?

    • 1 crusty, mouldy cardboard star: I don't care for it - gameplay has gotten considerably harder and more time-consuming/grinding for levels or farming for credits
      9
    • 2 cheap brass stars: I'll deal with it, but think that while loot was too abundant and mobs too weak, the devs could have used a softer touch, and/or gradually increased difficulty over a longer period of time instead of this "sudden jarring change".
      9
    • 3 silver stars: I think the changes were good, but did not go far enough: MOBs could be toughned up even further, and/or loot made even more rare (i.e. especially L8-L9 drops or endgame mob drops)
      2
    • 4 gold stars: I think the changes are just fine, and brings us closer to what existed in Live™ for mob strength and loot tables.
      16
    • 5 platinum stars, and free beer for the Devs from my next donation: I think these changes are absolutely spot-on, and the devs are on the right track
      5
  2. 2. In terms of difficulty of content and rarity of desirable loot: Should the Emulator be made as close to Live™ as possible?

    • No, it should be scaled downward to the user base (lower population of mostly older people who have RL jobs and families, and may not be able to devote dozens of hours to online gaming as some did in Live™)
      9
    • No, difficult should be scaled (down) somewhat to reflect the smaller, older average user base... but L50+ mob content and any raid should require grouping
      15
    • Yes, the emulator should be made as close to Live™ as possible, regardless of server population or gaming time people can spend
      11
    • Yes Emulator should be as tough as Live™, and perhaps there might be room to actually make content HARDER than Live™, since there may actually be more powergamers/hardcore EnB'ers than the silly poll author thinks there is...
      6
  3. 3. How about those Loot tables? Good, Bad, or Too Much Ugly?

    • Good: Great move! Spot on! About time the Devs mucked out that barn and nerfed certain people from hogging the drones and other moneymaker mobs.
      12
    • Bad: Changes were needed, but this is a little too tight (note: Devs ARE considering upping the vendor sales value of trash loot)
      13
    • Too Much Ugly: This nerf has effectively gimped my farming toons since it costs me more to farm for junk loot even using Archos/Zets and vendor ammo... I might have to go back to mining, or shield nova-ing scuttlebugs... (see note above about junk loot)
      5
    • I've only got a miner toon, and this really doesn't affect me, at least until pop roids are put into game.
      3
    • Boy, do I hope some of them phat lewts that were reduced from farming mobs make it into hulks...!
      8
  4. 4. Mob strength. Too much, not enough, or just right? (Choose as many as apply to you)

    • Too Much: My lower levels toons (under OL120 or under CL40) and this change has made the game nearly unplayable at my current level (example: L36 sporemothers vs. balanced OL120 toon is reportedly very difficult)
      18
    • Too Much: My high level toons (over OL140, balanced) with a fair amount of FB/GoBB/Controller and elite PM gear... and farming mobs near my CL and non-raid/boss endgame mobs have both gotten much more difficult
      5
    • Just Right: I see no particular change in combat difficulty for my lower level toons (under OL120)
      11
    • Just Right: I see no particular change in combat difficulty for my high level toons (over OL140, balanced)
      9
    • Not Enough: My PRIMARY lower level toon (under OL120 or under CL40) can solo mobs with substantially higher CL's than me, and I am NOT a missile user.
      2
    • Not Enough: My PRIMARY lower level toon (under OL120 or under CL40) can solo mobs with substantially higher CL's than me, and I AM a missile user.
      1
    • Not Enough: My PRIMARY high level toon (over OL140, balanced) can EASILY solo raid/boss/other end-game mobs, and I am NOT a missile user.
      1
    • Not Enough: My PRIMARY high level toon (over OL140, balanced) can EASILY solo raid/boss/other end-game mobs, and I AM a missile user.
      3
  5. 5. Grouping and Difficulty of Raid, Boss MOBs (FB bosses, Warder, GoBB, Controller, etc) and farming L60+ mobs

    • We are still in a testing phase, and these kinds of MOBs should be doable with a single group of 2-4 OL150+ toons (various reasons may apply), please post WHY you think this might be a good answer...
      9
    • We are in a testing phase, but are late enough in the stress test and there are more than enough unique (i.e. non duo-boxed) OL150 toons to field at least 3-4 full groups on raid bosses. MOB AI vs. massed player formations needs testing too...
      13
    • Regardless of testing, 3-4 full groups is probably ideal for raid/bosses. Seeing TEs soloing GoBB/Controller or TE/TTs duoing them is wayyy overdone.
      7
    • Raids should vary in difficulty (Kuei in its *current* configuration, and GoBB perhaps a tad easier, and Controller & Warder being tougher) for the number of groups required (2-3 for "easier", and 4-5 for "harder")
      7
    • Damn the (Hellbore) Torpedoes, and go for the mixed metaphor gusto: raids should be a massive server-wide event requiring 40+ OL150 toons. Between VonCorp, Static, Builders Inc. and everyone else, WE KIN DOOO EEET!
      5


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Right, just to address a few concerns:-

Trash loot on Tengu and Drones is getting its value increased, to take into account that rare items no longer have 90% drop rates :-)

The spawns in the Fishbowl are been adjusted so player won't have to fight all the bosses at once, the trash mobs should be easier for groups to farm for ammo comps

Prototype Alpha has been added to the BBW spawn tables

These changes will not go in until I've tested them on our test server though, they will require a server restart as well, so it maybe a few days atleast until all these changes are ready.

I'm looking into mob damage and scan ranges, I 'think' I may of figured out the scan ranges on mobs, where they can see you from large distance, I need to do more tests on it still.

I actually require some assistance in figuring out the mob damage issues, I need screenshots of mobs doing damage from live so I can double check the system I'm using, see the following thread:-

https://enb-emulator.com/index.php?/topic/2623-help-required-screenshots-of-mobs-doing-damage/

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I think the voltoi nonstackable loot was worth around 20k each. It wasn't too pricey but people used to throw their loot in their vaults at Antares 1 so they could carry more. I can understand why 1k or 2k wouldn't be nearly enough and I would expect the trash loot value increases to drastically affect that loot.

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Ouch...We work very hard to try and balance things out. Sometimes things get broken, but we have a VERY small dev team...unlike WOW and many other games, and they still get it wrong. It is very hard to work on an MMORPG.

I know the Devs work a good bit on this game, but from what I've seen, understood (since direct answers are rare-ish) is that most content is placed on Dev server to make sure nothing completely breaks.

I'll use for Example, this is the 3rd or 4th time Ten-gu have gotten Gravity Link. In each of those times, they completely eliminate engines till re-installed or logout. The bug tends to happen with lower ends, or lower thrust speed.

Then currently some buff don't always work 100% of time when you use it. Warrior's Heart, Steingard, Kraken, RR(not +) to name a few I tested/used some. They just don't apply sometimes, sometimes they do. Then with WH it uses the CD and Shield, but doesn't give reactor. I mean, How can items that should be commonly used get slipped through the Dev server.

I'm all for the Devs. I just dislike that 'simple' things which should be easily noticeable before transferring code or whatever you want to call it. Personally I told Kyp I might try to be become a Beta Tester, but the team has gotten so tight. I don't think I'd want to waste time to get a no.

Also the HDC comment from the One Dev, and other things. I myself report things. The HDC thing probably would be non-noticeable because most players wouldn't let their hull get hit in first place unless "one-shotable" NPCs.

Currently Summon can freeze mobs and they won't turn when summoned. (About 1% chance after about 300 mobs, got 3 like that, but they would attack TT then after summoned they wouldn't do anything)

Another thing that came out, or might not have is if you have low sig, but buff yourself near aggressive mobs though out of range for them to see, they'll come to you. Not 100% if its if a other player is there, or just anytime.

Btw, Especially on the HDC Comment. WHY, would you not test the numbers to see if it even works? It's like giving them a skill, then saying it might work, but haven't psyhically tested. Which is very easy to test. Go to mob, have them get to hull, see average hits with a TT/JT with Hullpatch around. Then add points slowly, see if each level does its job till you get max. It'd take me about 20 minutes to fully test a PW or less to see if skills are possibly exploited.

I like the Team and all. It's just I try to play and help in my free time when not trying to competitive (lolPvP). It just boggles my mind how some people agree. Let's go through with it! Then things are painful for players for few days, course some don't even want to play at that point to even test things. I mean, Personally. If I had to log out every time to kill a Ten-gu or loot it when I need to farm for looted Archos. I'd rather do something else.

I like being honest, I mean stuff happens and so on. I like generally most of the team, but I like to give feedback, be overly critical or what.

All in and all. I would say good job on the game.

Usually when you want feed back, you only get the bad side of things. You don't want me telling you Critical targeting works perfect! I mean, it crits. That's what it does, it has the 100%, but I could tell you CFB is overpowered because PWs get 100% crit, and using any other gear won't get you 100% making it by far the best DPS shield in game pretty much.

<3

Edit: To person that said GMs frontline thing, I don't think I've seen about any GM posts, besides the rare few on classes or reporting things and such. I don't report usually to GMs, due to I don't care what others do (chat,abuse etc) it's just a game for me. As long as they don't exploit something I find stupid (1 shotting mobs or something, etc) The main GM post I can think of, is ######'s post (censored cause I don't want to call them out) telling someone who was suspended they can do w/e if they find fit, no need for warnings I can remove if you break a 'rule' in this case, I believe they used the "d" word (not using word, because I'd get 100 tells from over-zealous people) in which it was used in hate. I believe they died or something, or failed a item. I can't remember. The post kind of made be upset due to the GM was acting like he could do w/e.

Edit 2: If you are Shy/Want to see seem, I don't mind relating discussions for people. In feedback threads, I give feedback, not praise. In praise threads(good fixes or adds) I praise. How I roll.

Edit 3 cause I don't like making new posts: If you need information on something feel free to ask me for my Xfire. Always on it, going to try and be on TS more. I try not to drown my posts with bugs, previous bugs. Happens outside of examples and such. I try to report, but I don't want to stress someone out by PMing them 30 bugs in one go.

Edited by Heirku
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When it comes to inadequate testing I think you're partly right. We could do a bit more testing, but at the same time it's really hard to test at times. There are SO MANY simple things you would think us devs would notice, but we often don't. I for one don't really play the game too much, so I don't get to test a lot of popular equipment to make sure it's working. I know that part of why I rarely play is whenever I start playing I hear about a bug or remember something I need to work on. I usually just sit around answering player's questions rather than actually leveling my characters.

Whenever coders make a change there are tons of things that could go wrong and sometimes they do. It's very difficult to test all these factors. Even when our coders test their new code on their own servers it doesn't always transfer over perfectly to the play server.

We do like honest feedback. Good feedback is not about agreeing with everything we say nor is it about putting us down. When you make good feedback you should think about how the changes affect you and how it affects other players and the game as a whole. This update may have made the game harder for you, but for the game as a whole I think it was a step in the right direction to where mobs are balanced and items have value. It wasn't perfect but it was necessary.

I know these new updates made the game harder, but their purpose for the most part was to standardize mobs. Before we didn't really have a system for loot tables. teams just populated the tables as we needed them. This made the loot tables very unbalanced, with some devs having different opinions of how rare drops should be. Some mobs were dropping very little, some were dropping mass quantities of items. the items dropped often differed in level range. These new changes ruined the best farming spots in the game by making them more in line with other hunting spots but it also boosted the mobs with terrible drop rates to be more reasonable.

We will continue balancing the mob drops and their strengths.

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I wouldn't worry too much, at this time, about the mobs being harder. I think we still have much love to receive in the equipment department, both in terms of things that were in Live but aren't in game yet, like the Mordana loot, equipment for the new classes, and the things that will be added as the storyline progresses, especially to places that weren't in live, the Mars Construction Project had some nice equipment rewards for JE/PE in live (Some equipment will have to be added to reward Scouts). There was even a plasma beam that a JE could build, the Gaze of Amah, provided he had a build skill maxed, but he couldn't trade it, and it required 16 passes worth of specific ores to obtain (15 for the recipe, plus 1 for a specific part). One pass required 2 or 3 full stacks of specific refined ores. (It was a boatload of mining & refining to get the needed passes)

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  • 2 weeks later...

In some ways it is getting closer to what live was, but I see things that are a totally different, too.... (unless you mean live as it relates to the emulator)

faction- starting with the negative faction removes some choices in gameplay. To gain faction will be a mind numbing grind

Progen- the never ending "bonus" missions and agrippa tech???? seems they're forming their own game with no indication of working with the rest of the team on development and no consideration for the players asking for some form of information about said missions.

Jenqui- very close to live, but with factions instead of seeing progen as neutral they are red with auto negative faction at start

Terran- same as above

Currently I'm confused about which direction the emulator is going because depending on who is online/chatting/forums I see different versions of what is going on...

Please don't take this wrong I'm not bashing or blaming, I'm just looking for some clarification. My understanding was that it would be brought back as close to live as possible then move forward with the storyline.

What I see is the races being torn apart with Terran/Jenquai going one direction while Progen are going in their own direction.

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faction- starting with the negative faction removes some choices in gameplay. To gain faction will be a mind numbing grind

This is the same as live....

We are currenly working on adding the 3 new classes also so this makes us have to do a balancing act, so in order to add them you have to change some things. Factions are currely having a lot of issues once this is worked out factions will be alot closer to live.

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In Live, I first started my JW on 6 Jan 03, and my JE on 31 Mar 03 there was 1 faction that was negative when I started those toons The Red Dragon. The Progen hadn't declared war on the V'rix at that time, although when the war was declared, my JE went from low green to +yellow, and my JW went from +yellow, to -yellow. At that time one could not put one's cursor on the bar and get an exact reading (I had given the V'rix Mordanite back when it was bugged and you could give more than 1). When my TT & PE were started after Sunset announce they had -RD 5000 and -V'rix, but -Vrix (-3000 I think) was significantly less than -RD on Torrie (my PE). I was able to raise V'rix and RD on her at the same time by killing construction drones in Primus, V'rix turned yellow first, RD second. Torrie did not get kicked out of the Sabine, due to Endriago-Tarsis jobbing, but her Collegia was yellow.

Edited by Terrell
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  • 1 month later...

When it comes to inadequate testing I think you're partly right. We could do a bit more testing, but at the same time it's really hard to test at times. There are SO MANY simple things you would think us devs would notice, but we often don't. I for one don't really play the game too much, so I don't get to test a lot of popular equipment to make sure it's working. I know that part of why I rarely play is whenever I start playing I hear about a bug or remember something I need to work on. I usually just sit around answering player's questions rather than actually leveling my characters.

Whenever coders make a change there are tons of things that could go wrong and sometimes they do. It's very difficult to test all these factors. Even when our coders test their new code on their own servers it doesn't always transfer over perfectly to the play server.

We do like honest feedback. Good feedback is not about agreeing with everything we say nor is it about putting us down. When you make good feedback you should think about how the changes affect you and how it affects other players and the game as a whole. This update may have made the game harder for you, but for the game as a whole I think it was a step in the right direction to where mobs are balanced and items have value. It wasn't perfect but it was necessary.

I know these new updates made the game harder, but their purpose for the most part was to standardize mobs. Before we didn't really have a system for loot tables. teams just populated the tables as we needed them. This made the loot tables very unbalanced, with some devs having different opinions of how rare drops should be. Some mobs were dropping very little, some were dropping mass quantities of items. the items dropped often differed in level range. These new changes ruined the best farming spots in the game by making them more in line with other hunting spots but it also boosted the mobs with terrible drop rates to be more reasonable.

We will continue balancing the mob drops and their strengths.

I can attest to the fact that when something is put on the play server it may not act the same as on the dev server. This is why we are here, to help the devs iron out the bugs and fix them so they don't happen again.

I personally have spoken with Kenu about a couple of missions, one that was working on test server and the other couldn't be checked at the time due to the dev server being down.

If we find a bug, or something that isn't working right lets; 1-try some simple tests and see if we can get it to repeat 2- post in bug section with what happened and the results like relogging or re- eqipping did this or that. The more information we give them the better so it can get fixed.

I know everyone wants to "play" but, we need to keep in mind things are still a work in progress and being reverse engineered so we need to give as much clear information about a "hitch" as we can.

While I understand loot tables are being re-organized can we please please please look to see that items are dropping at all? For one there is a post about the cygni 9 reactor and the bio-extractors. I know some of us have been camping them for weeks with no luck and I have read/heard of only 1 or 2 dropping, it seems the cygni is the only thing they won't let go of, but the sumpter VIII they give willingly or perhaps the drop rates are off for items. To be honest I'm not sure how to tell if the drop percentage is correct or not. Anyway not to derail this thread, but how can we help/tell if a drop rate/item is correct? Currently the databases aren't matching and I'm not sure which to look to to find information.

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I think we are missing the fact that we are playing an MMO who's servers were shut down forever 6 years ago. Once again, "WE ARE PLAYING AN MMO WHO's SERVERS WERE SHUT DOWN FOREVER 6 YEARS AGO." Oh, and we are playing it for free without getting sued. And the dev team actually listens to player input in some fashion. They even give us progress updates. Anyone who played in live will remember that the EA devs were mystery people who we never heard from. All we ever got was the occasional vague update from a PR spokesperson which was usually little more than an attempt to candy coat the fact that the game was getting its budget cut once again.

Think about that for a minute and then please say "thank you devs". Bugs, broken missions, messed up loot tables, screwed up raid bosses and all. I'm just happy to be plying the space lanes once again.

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  • 1 month later...
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