Earth and Beyond Emulator(lol)

[lod]

emulated behavior closely resembles the behavior of the real system.  for one id like to thanks devs there for a while we got close to emulating live but now i think emu is off base.  so many things are broken and not fixed then more broken things get added. some things like heal agro are off base not like i have seen in any mmo thinking of casting a heal should not cause agro maybe when the heal hits but never as soon as button is hit. i loved to play in st4 i could solo like i did in live and not heave a healer with me.  mobs chain fearing and calling mobs from 2 or 3 navs away never seen that in live.  i know your trying to make it better but the makkers of d3 thought that same got off base and that game sucked compared to d2.  so ill leave you with this please do not screw up a game i loved to play cause of right now i find it hard for me to even log on never mind to play 

Edited June 1, 2013 by lod

[wmtyrance]

I hate to say it because i feel the same. ST4 was probably the best time i've had with this EMU. But i try to login once in awhile to see whats happening. I still have hope that they will get it sorted out soon.

[Falstar [MOD]]

The Devs have often said their goal is not to make it exactly like live.  Your comment about healer aggro has already been made, discussed and an adjustment put in.  For other 'broken' things please report them so they can be fixed.  Simply saying so many things are broken and more broken things are added does not help them get fixed, or help you understand how they may not really be broken.

[wmtyrance]

If their goal is not to make it like it was in live then where is that posted? It seems like alot of the old time players find this game and after awhile notice that its not the same game and either complain in game on chat or post something here. Last night someone ingame posted their feelings about it in chat and got nothing but grief for it. I'm sure they quit and are telling thier friends about it.

[Kyp [LDEV]]

I've said many times in many posts in various ways just that.

 

I'll say it again though:

Live is a baseline only and we will in any event that something was flawed, make attempts to balance it and correct such issues.

 

That do it? 

 

Rather than just changing descriptions to match bugs, or allowing bugs to exist that make the game into easy-mode, they will be fixed. All of the STs had greatly inflated experience as compared to the live game. Yet the things we do switch back to 'live-like' get hated on too. For example, job experience. We have screenshots of the rewards from live, when we reduced it we were accused of war on the player base. Admittedly, this wasn't the only reason we did it, and the backlash changes nothing but the above logic is pretty flawed.

 

Here's something else I've said a lot and i'll say again:
 

If you think there's a problem, describe it in detail and OFFER A SOLUTION OF YOUR OWN.

 

My team does this for free, thereby you do not gain any right to bash them and so on. Admittedly, the OP here didn't really directly bash any dev, but if you want people to keep giving their free time to give you a game, don't tear down the things they do without offering a constructive solution. This is not an AAA studio, these guys are mostly learners in their own rights and are doing their best to give you the game back with those changes. I fully understand if they read something you say that's blasting something they did and just stopping there and ignoring whatever it is you had in mind. I would too in most cases, were I not handling the overall project.

 

If you want to bash someone for system-wide balance it should probably be me because i'm doing what's best for the game state, and not 'what the players want' because players inherently and subconsciously want easy/quick-gratification. Please don't try to 'correct' me on that, I've been to school for design, and I've had experience and in the vast majority this holds very very true.

[Rezwalker]

What seems broke to one player might be part of the plan so some things are not clear cut, for instance, past few months I found 6 lvl 7 Unidentified devices, 5 of them turned out to be aa Eghtag an, TE only, as a JE it pisses me off, makes me think its fixed, a scam, no way it could be random, with 7 lvl 7 aas to pick from how could it be random that 5 turned out to be the same.

 

On the other hand we have reported bugs that have not been fixed, for instance the Quartermaster, its been like 5 months now that they disabled selling to him do to some bug we reporter back when, did the DEVs forget about it? did they just hit the easy button and disabled him instead of fixing? we don't know, we just have to live with it like so many other bugs, cant blame peeps like the OP, a lot of us feel that way.

Edited June 2, 2013 by Rezwalker

[Kyp [LDEV]]

Math is f'd up like that. ;)

 

e.g. say you've got 3 items in the common table, and 3 items in a rare loot table.

 

Psuedocode follows:
 

A typical calculation upon mob kill says I need to make a roll to determine how many pieces of loot you're going to receive. roll. store roll.

Now, I need to make a roll to determine what tables to choose for each loot slot, out of the common or rare table for that mob. Store that set of rolls

Now I look at the percentage chances set on each piece of loot (which may say 30 or 40 percent in a given table of loot). Make a roll and if number falls within given range (won't give this here so as not to really reveal how it works)

I will select X piece of loot from this table.

 

Psuedocode ends:

 

That's given you have a 30 percent chance of getting that item if that table is selected, but players always consider a 30 percent chance as a flat 30% chance period which isn't the case given that math. Do you see what I mean? It IS a 30% chance for the item, but it could be a 5% chance of getting the table selected. Thereby reducing the actual percentage over the course of Y number of mobs being killed. Make sense?

 

We disabled the quartermaster for the most part because we are working on a better solution, but you wouldn't know that unless you ask the advocate to find out ;)   We have better ideas for that.

 

Note, I am not 'blaming' the OP, i'm telling you that its flawed logic because you THINK you know what is happening, and you also expect instant/fast turnaround from a volunteer team. If I could employee these people and pay them it would change how this worked, but since I cannot, you have to deal with whatever timeframe works :)

[Rezwalker]

Tks for the response Kyp, perhaps more input like this from the DEVs will ease the tension.

[Torren001]

I'm gonna butt in here a sec.

I only recently came back to Net-7 to play EnB. I was in ST4 for a bit and it was far buggier than the game we have now.

I find some mob grouping and pathing to be a bit wonky but that's it for now really.

I mean the Devs have done an immensely amazing job of putting this together, and if they take it in a new direction I'll still keep playing because its put together pretty well.

 

Now, lets put this into perspective.

Kyp does not have a a Development studio. If he did, he would probably have redone the entire game engine while preserving the aspects we like and so on. In fact, this is a volunteer team, kind of like the Science Club at a school trying to make an electric car.

Will they make it work? Absolutely.

Is it going to be the crazy Karma? Nope, but it will work damnit, for all of its flaws they have done an amazing job and with what they learn from the project they can then improve upon it.

 

As for the Devs being in contact with us players, that is what the Advocate is for. They are there to make sure the Devs don't have to keep trolling the forums for activity and take them away from development and production time. Despite the fact that Kyp and Team is a group of volunteers they do have schedules for certain things from what I understand. Are these schedules met? Depends on how much we bitch about stuff being broken that may or may not be broken.

How can we find out if something is really broken? Report it via bug tracker, and/or as the Advocate. That is what they are there for.

This was we don't cut into what schedules the team has and we can keep playing with whatever knowledge we are supplied with.

 

This is how I see things here, and that's fine by me.

At the end of the day I am still playing a game I enjoy.

[Manfredjinsinjin]

I've said many times in many posts in various ways just that.

 

I'll say it again though:

Live is a baseline only and we will in any event that something was flawed, make attempts to balance it and correct such issues.

 

That do it? 

 

Rather than just changing descriptions to match bugs, or allowing bugs to exist that make the game into easy-mode, they will be fixed. All of the STs had greatly inflated experience as compared to the live game. Yet the things we do switch back to 'live-like' get hated on too. For example, job experience. We have screenshots of the rewards from live, when we reduced it we were accused of war on the player base. Admittedly, this wasn't the only reason we did it, and the backlash changes nothing but the above logic is pretty flawed.

 

Here's something else I've said a lot and i'll say again:
 

If you think there's a problem, describe it in detail and OFFER A SOLUTION OF YOUR OWN.

 

.

Kyp, I'm not sure if you read the suggestions forum, but if anyone actually acts on what you said - describes something they see as broken / inadequate and offers an idea of their own - they basically get climbed on by people who seem to live for defending the status quo on the forums. There's very little point in trying what you say if the place where it's supposed to happen is frequented by people who are anywhere from reactionary against to dismissive of the problem you perceive. 

 

I suggested in the Meet the Devs channel making the Suggestions forum a truly moderated forum so that problems and ideas could actually be discussed. The dev's response was "we don't want to moderate as a solution". That's up to you, but if you don't provide a means to do what you are saying we should do, we can't be expected to do it.

[Kyp [LDEV]]

Kyp, I'm not sure if you read the suggestions forum, but if anyone actually acts on what you said - describes something they see as broken / inadequate and offers an idea of their own - they basically get climbed on by people who seem to live for defending the status quo on the forums. There's very little point in trying what you say if the place where it's supposed to happen is frequented by people who are anywhere from reactionary against to dismissive of the problem you perceive. 

 

I suggested in the Meet the Devs channel making the Suggestions forum a truly moderated forum so that problems and ideas could actually be discussed. The dev's response was "we don't want to moderate as a solution". That's up to you, but if you don't provide a means to do what you are saying we should do, we can't be expected to do it.

 

I don't know if you've ever been to a forum before this, but that's how they operate. ;) Offer counter points or ignore the people that are irritating you, as long as you aren't blasting us with hatred and offering good constructive concepts, I promise you we read them. The point of such a thing is building support of your idea, or you can use the route through the advocate of course (when he's around, something seems to have happened to him).

 

We don't want to moderate as a solution because the developers have more important things to be working on, if we had more moderators for such discussion that might work. Now, that being said we do provide a means, two of them. We can't help if you get discouraged by disagreement, that's the nature of any debate.

[Amethyst]

ST4 was fun, agreed.  Leveling was easier, MOBs easier.  But it WAS incredibly buggy with profession missions broken, stability issues, glitches, unavailability, stuck toons, and generally borked but improving all the time. 

 

Live is (at least for me) stable, a lot of fun, with more content, more end-game interest.  If I get bored with one toon, there are 8 other professions to work on.  As for recreating Live and maintaining it as an exact replica (which bit exactly?) I don't think it flies.  If we just replicate the game at Sunset boredom will set in.  Every game moves on, and I trust our developers to create engaging storylines and new content to explore.  We hear people saying there is not enough content to keep interest alive and I'm all for extending the game further.  The Devs ask for, and get, input.  Being negative without constructive proposals won't move the game on.  I cannot wait to see more systems opened up, more missions, new equipment, more MOBs.

 

Long Live the Emulator!  Long Live the Devs!

[Manfredjinsinjin]

I don't know if you've ever been to a forum before this, but that's how they operate. ;) Offer counter points or ignore the people that are irritating you, as long as you aren't blasting us with hatred and offering good constructive concepts, I promise you we read them. The point of such a thing is building support of your idea, or you can use the route through the advocate of course (when he's around, something seems to have happened to him).

 

We don't want to moderate as a solution because the developers have more important things to be working on, if we had more moderators for such discussion that might work. Now, that being said we do provide a means, two of them. We can't help if you get discouraged by disagreement, that's the nature of any debate.

Pardon, but you're completely wrong. I don't know if you've ever done content management administration before, but I assure you that the first thing you do to ensure constructive discourse is to deliver swift justice to destructive criticism. There can be no "debate" when people are not addressing the point of the poster in a constructive manner, there can only be argument, and that serves only people who want to argue.

 

 

If you don't have the manpower, that's one thing. But re the "mob rules" mentality practiced on unmoderated internet forums set up for freehand "whatever" discussions, that's completely different from one specifically targeted at suggestions for a product. Good, bad or completely stupid, those suggestions are both free IP for your effort and give you insight into the perspective of players who care enough to post them. If you can't or don't want to protect them from people who can't post constructively, then that well gets poisoned. 

 

/off soapbox, gluck with it

[Kyp [LDEV]]

I said forum, not content management. Yes I've done both, and I'm not going to be the heavy handed / long arm of the law, as indicated previously in other places I believe as well as possibly here, none of us are being paid for our troubles. We are volunteering our time to make the game work. You can choose to behave like adults, or not but know that if you choose the latter we won't pay any attention to you.

 

I have one moderator and he's here when he can be. If more want to step up to do that and be even handed about it, talk to Dakynos but if you just want a power trip over the forum I don't want you. I've had enough of that out of past staff candidates and need no more. There is an ignore function for a reason, after all.

[Torren001]

You know, time and again, I think the heart of the matter is often forgotten.

When we something we don't like in the game, or want to be helpful about something or another, we make a SUGGESTION.

Why did I caps Suggestion? Simple. That's because it is only that. Nowhere is it set in stone that any and all Suggestions will be implemented without proper constructive feedback, or if the server will allow for it because maybe it can change or break something else somewhere that we don't know about.

 

Is it okay to feel a bit hurt a suggestion wasn't taken up? Certainly, its only a natural human reaction. To say people suck or don't know how to listen to good ideas, however, is not the way to go about getting yourself heard. I'm not a Dev, but even I will ignore you for being like this.

There are proper channels to go through in regards to suggestions for content, and please...be prepared to defend your ideas because people will pick them apart. Don't say "Well because so and so said it would work, that's why", be concrete. If you don't know, say so. I work in a job that deals with the public and also deals with a lot of very smart people. If you can truthfully tell someone you don't know and come off as honest about it good and intelligent people will respect that (sometimes they will even help you find out why it will or will not work). You can discard the rest.

 

I agree with Kyp in an earlier post (I can't remember where I saw it, it's too late for me to go look anyways).

The last thing this game and forum needs is a bickering fight over how content is managed or how Forums are Moderated.

You'll destroy the community far more quickly that way.

 

So, for those TL;DR people, here's the summary;

Suggestions are just that. Suggestions.

If you make one, be prepared to defend it against criticism.

And no one said that Suggestions were the changed that WILL be made.

 

I've said my piece on this subject.

[Evilbadguy]

OP did say something truthfull diablo3 sucks

[Phorlaug[IS]]

There are ways that a Healer and/or their group can prevent aggression incapacitation.

The DEVs just have not told you or disclosed how to do it.

 

The idea is for you, your group mates and Guild (If they will listen) to experiment and figure it out.

If your a solo multiBoxer your chances of pulling this off are not as good.

IMHO, This is one way how they have limited Multi-boxing 5 toons at a time. Kudos to the Dev's for it.

It was that or Limiting IP addresses.

 

I won't explain in detail the technique or tactic, I'll just tell you that, DO NOT underestimate the importance of every classes

abilities and their devices.

 

Every week, every day (Megan Hour?) every Patch something is added they don't tell you about, weather its a Tweaking of a Skill to make it more effective or Finally getting a device to work as it is suppose to or intended.

Read the small print in some of the patch notes you may see something about item changes or fixes, the hints are there. :)

 

Side note edit: The drop rates although some may not like it the way it is now, has created an economy

conducive to a good NEW game. (Maybe tweaking needed here also). Kudos to the Dev's for listening.

 

Phor