Remove/recreate purple caves

[tidge]

5 hours ago, SwitchFade said:

Why do people need to explain there likes and dislikes?

[Monos King]

I liked caves because of shadow cysts.

 

Just DO IT

[SwitchFade]

4 hours ago, Chrome said:

actually in a forum like this is it is considered very dismissive, at least with other people they state their opinion and say this is why i think this way, and it can be discussed, maybe coming to a compromise.  for example you love blue caves and want more maps to be designed in this fashion.  I can come in and say "thats dumb" ...or i can say hrm maybe instead of blue caves perhaps another added 3D style map that is more pleasing to the eye , and from there i would state examples...then of course you could come back and retort....it makes everything nicer , more polite, and reasonable.

this isnt a vote, this is a discussion, this may be why people are having issue with your simplistic responses.

You're mistaken. Here's no onus to explain why I don't like a proposed change beyond the fact I like the way it is. It's the burden of the person proposing the change to justify it.

 

Saying ,no vote, no thanks, I like them the way they are is an opinion and it's VALID.

 

Continuing to derided someone's preferences and demanding they justify them only further enforces the fact that you have intolerance for another's preferences.

 

I don't need to justify myself, because I'm not the one asking for change..

 

Blue caves are fine, NO VOTE.

[SwitchFade]

4 hours ago, Chrome said:

Ok first things first, you are comparing apples to oranges, if i am a paying customer in a restaurant i have every right to complain if the food is not worth what i payed for it.  In a Forum such as this it is usually a place for discussion and argument (not fight but classical argument).  Secondly if a person goes into a suggestion forum saying NO or this sucks, without reasoning, then how can that idea be improved upon.  I am sorry that you feel insulted buy what i said but maybe it is because you might agree with me and understand where i am coming from, you just do not want to admit it.  I am not a simpleton who feels respect is earned i give Respect until a person loses that respect via their own actions.  this is a place where ideas can be shared and worked on and maybe compromised to become good for everybody else.  so instead of coming into this from a place of contrariness, perhaps come forma place of discussion and that maybe an idea might be taken from a rough draft to a polished product.  This is why i feel like it is a horrible trend of somebody saying "this idea sucks" without thought or reasoning is a horrible trend and needs to be changed.

You are mistaken. I don't need to justify my food tastes to the chef, I'm the customer. I pay, he cooks, the end.

 

Do I demand you tell me your justification for your preference? No. If you don't like Charmin and prefer Scottie, good, wipe away.

 

 

[GM Tock]

52 minutes ago, SwitchFade said:

If you don't like Charmin and prefer Scottie, good, wipe away.

 

While not a Code of a Conduct violation... still, ew.

[UpandAtom]

I don't even mind the oldschool blue or cov brown caves. Pancake rooms ARE annoying and you hope you don't get them, of course.

the caves i hate? the nigh-unique (and very huge) Leviathan map and the reskinned Leviathan map that Dark Astoria story arcs use. ESPECIALLY the dark astoria version of it, gah the walls trick my eyes.

Edited June 18, 2020 by UpandAtom

[Chrome]

1 hour ago, SwitchFade said:

You are mistaken. I don't need to justify my food tastes to the chef, I'm the customer. I pay, he cooks, the end.

 

Do I demand you tell me your justification for your preference? No. If you don't like Charmin and prefer Scottie, good, wipe away.

 

 

I apologize for my mistake, i had thought you were interested in coming to these forums to have intellectual conversation regarding the game we all love, instead i now realize you dont care about anything and just here to say no vote or wrong and you are entitled to your opinion, i guess i feel like intellectual conversation is better.  to each their own.

[srmalloy]

9 hours ago, Six Six said:

I like caves.

Why?

Because they're hard to navigate (even with Reveal).
It's easy to lose your way, get confused.

You get caught in nooks and crannies.

You have to look for your enemies as well as your way around.

A mob might be waiting for you around the corner.

Things get in the way of your shot.

You can fall and lose your bearings. 
You can fall/slide and find yourself in the middle of a mob. 
You can't run away from a fight as easily.

Which forces you to think before you jump into action. plan your actions, plan a plan b (escape route) in case things go south. be aware of your surroundings.

Caves are my favourite especially on Hard Core (no deaths) toons.

All of these. For all that they're annoying to deal with, they make missions more than just a repeated "which mob do I pound first?" drag.

[Redlynne]

10 hours ago, Chrome said:

you are incorrect, this is not what a real challenge is, this is poor map design.

You are incorrect ... as others have already pointed out so I won't have to.

  

10 hours ago, Chrome said:

the fact that you believe that this is a challenge really makes me question your idea of challenge altogether.

Having played on too many task forces/strike forces where I had to guide people through the wedding cake and pools rooms successfully when no one else on the team had any idea of how to "attack" the rooms safely ... I've had to educate groups of Players on multiple (multiple...) occasions.  So I have personal experience with this phenomenon in actual gameplay on a recurring basis over multiple years with a wide variety of groups.

 

10 hours ago, Chrome said:

your dismissal of those people also make me wonder if you think this game is super hard and you are one of those elite that know better than everyone.

Some people have a problem with them.

Some people don't.

The people who don't have a problem with those map modules aren't calling for the maps to be removed from circulation.

Why?

Because they LEARNED how to deal with the unique challenges and environment(s) that those map modules created.

They LEARNED how to fight ... successfully ... through those map modules.

THEY LEARNED THE MAPS.

 

If you want to accuse me of being dismissive of people who would rather edit the world than LEARN and adapt how they play ... well ... yeah, guilty as charged.

I am kind of dismissive of the militantly intellectually lazy who think the world ought to change for their comfort, rather than adapting and growing themselves to better advantage themselves in the world they actually live in.

 

You can lead a man to water, but you cannot make him THINK ...

 

10 hours ago, Chrome said:

this game isnt hard

It's not inherently hard, no ... but as soon as somebody gets frustrated by something, you had better believe that they're going to complain about it on the forums and Work The Refs in an effort to make a mountain out of their personal molehill.  Meanwhile, at the same time, you've got other people pulling in the opposite direction complaining that the game is "too easy" and they want to make it harder.  These two counterweighted views can both be true at the same time for individual people, but extrapolating one person's problem (or even a superminority percentage of the server population's) problem into being one that is universally shared and which therefore MUST be FIXED is just vainglorious self-aggrandizement (that can turn into soapbox preaching like we see the Council doing on the streets of Steel Canyon in an effort to add Recruits To The Cause).

 

So the game isn't inherently hard ... and the few things that present even minimal difficulty/challenge to the Players should not be sacrificed on the altar of convenience.

 

10 hours ago, Chrome said:

this is the third thread i have looked at where you have just crap on other peoples ideas, i am beginning to believe you are just here to be contrary.

You're welcome to believe whatever you want ... but your belief does not inherently make what you believe to be TRUE.

And if this is only the third thread you've seen that I'm in ... there's a Bugs Bunny saying for that.

 

[JayboH]

8 hours ago, SwitchFade said:

You keep calling removing blue caves an improvement and accusing others of not wanting imrpovements.

Ohhhh maybe that's the whole problem then: you didn't read the title of the thread. 

 

Remove/recreate purple caves

[JayboH]

8 hours ago, MTeague said:

I do not object to the suggestion "get rid of these caves" being made at all.  People should be allowed to express displeasure with what they don't like.  And just having the discussion can open up alternate means of resolving the issue.  If the real issue is "I can't find the darn mobs", maybe there's other ways to address THAT, without ripping out the maps. 

 

I do enjoy the caves, and I do want to keep them, and I think the game would be diminished if they were removed.

 

If there were no good ways to make locating the mobs easier for those who feel frustrated by it, I will say I have no strong preference if the caves were taken out of the rotation for radio or newspaper missions. I'd miss them some, but as long as the caves were kept in place for story arcs and task forces, and tip missions, then I will continue to see them plenty often enough, and it would mean existing arcs / stories keep their "feel".   I think that's much less of an issue for the radio missions where I'm rescuing Joey Jones from the Circle of Thorns because of whatever 2-line intro the radio mission has. 

 

EDIT:  example alternate fix:   Maybe the Map should always show red arrows for mobs that are within X distance of you even if there's still 100 mobs left on the map, but continue to  only show you red arrows for EVERYTHING when the count is below a certain number.  Then you could still zip around the map, and you'd have a "radar" of sorts to find stragglers you missed far faster because of the "always on if within X distance" arrows.

This is why I was so specific - I mentioned possible recreation if not removal of the blue/purple caves only and we all know why they are so disliked.

 

Yes it is true that the torches problem for other maps are incredibly annoying but it is not what I am addressing in the thread.  I also like some other cave maps like I said earlier and never asked that all of them be removed.

[JayboH]

As far as the challenge argument goes, I'd say that only applies to aggro management specifically in the cake room.  The rest of the blue/purple cave design aren't a challenge at all and is more of an aggravation issue and as has been mentioned many times by others a mob spawn problem.  Navigation is not confusing to me at all as I've had them committed to memory a long time ago, rather movement and restrictions are just a chore and only a challenge in the sense of not letting the annoyance get to you.

 

As far as removal over recreation goes, I was fairly specific about radio missions in the OP.

[Chrome]

5 hours ago, Redlynne said:

You are incorrect ... as others have already pointed out so I won't have to.

  

Having played on too many task forces/strike forces where I had to guide people through the wedding cake and pools rooms successfully when no one else on the team had any idea of how to "attack" the rooms safely ... I've had to educate groups of Players on multiple (multiple...) occasions.  So I have personal experience with this phenomenon in actual gameplay on a recurring basis over multiple years with a wide variety of groups.

 

Some people have a problem with them.

Some people don't.

The people who don't have a problem with those map modules aren't calling for the maps to be removed from circulation.

Why?

Because they LEARNED how to deal with the unique challenges and environment(s) that those map modules created.

They LEARNED how to fight ... successfully ... through those map modules.

THEY LEARNED THE MAPS.

 

If you want to accuse me of being dismissive of people who would rather edit the world than LEARN and adapt how they play ... well ... yeah, guilty as charged.

I am kind of dismissive of the militantly intellectually lazy who think the world ought to change for their comfort, rather than adapting and growing themselves to better advantage themselves in the world they actually live in.

 

You can lead a man to water, but you cannot make him THINK ...

 

It's not inherently hard, no ... but as soon as somebody gets frustrated by something, you had better believe that they're going to complain about it on the forums and Work The Refs in an effort to make a mountain out of their personal molehill.  Meanwhile, at the same time, you've got other people pulling in the opposite direction complaining that the game is "too easy" and they want to make it harder.  These two counterweighted views can both be true at the same time for individual people, but extrapolating one person's problem (or even a superminority percentage of the server population's) problem into being one that is universally shared and which therefore MUST be FIXED is just vainglorious self-aggrandizement (that can turn into soapbox preaching like we see the Council doing on the streets of Steel Canyon in an effort to add Recruits To The Cause).

 

So the game isn't inherently hard ... and the few things that present even minimal difficulty/challenge to the Players should not be sacrificed on the altar of convenience.

 

You're welcome to believe whatever you want ... but your belief does not inherently make what you believe to be TRUE.

And if this is only the third thread you've seen that I'm in ... there's a Bugs Bunny saying for that.

 

honestly i normally havent had much issue with your posts, and i have actually been shocked at the amount of negativity coming from your posts lately and it made me think differently about you...those layer cakes caves are not especially hard and while i admit that i have never had to lead people through them as you have, i dont look at that as challenging content, just maybe people who are new to the game or something like that, i dont want to take challenge out of the game but any idea i have posted about increasing difficulty has been met with sarcasm, abrupt dismissal, and brick walls.   I apologize for anything i might have said in a negative light about you as looking back it was uncalled for.  i honestly would prefer if the devs went through and FIXED those caves to look nicer, work better, but almost any argument in favor of this "amount of work" always ends up in that would take to much dev time, they are all volunteers and they have better things to do.  so my addition to this topic was to possible remove the layer cake cave and update it with something better , while maintaining the three dimensional aspect, or at the very least maybe same basic design but using the snake cave style of caves instead, this wouldnt remove what you like about those caves, it wouldnt take away from the learn the map style layer cake functionality but it would widen the tunnels a bit so i can create a taller character and not have my head through the roof.

 

Again i apologize for speaking out of turn in regards to my assumption about your negativity,  my fault for reading between the lines without reading the lines.

 

I will disagree with one of your points, i learned the maps, its not something that was a challenge for me , but i am asking them to at least be changed to work better, so at least one person would like to see work done on those maps for the better,and removing them wouldnt offend me at all.   if they took the time to actually redesign them and make them more functional and better looking then i would be happy but after so many times of being told that "that would take too much dev time" i wonder if just removing them would be the only answer or ignoring it and i just grumble about it when i get those maps randomly.

 

i am more than a little irritated when "too much dev time" is a valid argument against ideas being put forward.

 

i over reacted towards you and i shouldnt have

 

 

 

 

[tidge]

5 hours ago, Chrome said:

 if they took the time to actually redesign them and make them more functional and better looking then i would be happy but after so many times of being told that "that would take too much dev time" i wonder if just removing them would be the only answer or ignoring it and i just grumble about it when i get those maps randomly.

 

i am more than a little irritated when "too much dev time" is a valid argument against ideas being put forward.

Folks may not feel this way, but I think the 'pancake' cave rooms are actually well designed, and a clever game element. Here's my reasons:

1. Those rooms have means of moving between levels for grounded toons.
2. I can't recall (at least not since the level limit for a travel power was lowered) ever not having a travel power by the time I was given a mission with such a room.
3. The spawns are pretty much always in the same spots in the room.

On point 3, I agree that (like many other maps) if the spawns 'wander' it can be annoying to track them down. I believe that the glowing objectives are often in similar places in that room, but (thankfully) there are not that many missions I can think of which place objectives in such a room.

 

As a very long time player, I feel like these rooms are just one of those things a player can eventually come to understand. In life, not everything that frustrates you requires that you 'speak to the manager'.

[Zeraphia]

Am I the only one who honestly isn't as bothered by cave maps nearly as much as the dreaded Circle of Thorns maps with the several tunnel torches that will get you stuck extremely easily? I really come across that issue far more often than I've had with any cave map I can think of off the top of my head... but boy when I get stuck on a torch...

[Vanden]

I find the CoT torches way more annoying than anything in the blue caves. That, though, I feel like could be solved by just deleting all the collision geometry in that prop's model.

[Sovera]

23 hours ago, Redlynne said:

 

Seriously people, the "wedding cake"/"pools room" modules of the cave/Council maps is a multi-layer 3D space to clear, instead of a 2D space like every other part of those maps, and it's honestly pathetic to see people STILL complaining that they're "hard" to deal with ... when all that is needed is for the Player(s) to go to the effort(!) of LEARNING how to clear them.

 

I know ... heresy ...

LEARNING

 

Challenge? Learning?

 

Wut...?

 

We complain that they are too small, our camera is shoved nose deep into our FX. Suddenly the screen is nothing other than ocean of particles. And then the injury added to the insult the caves are filled with little protruding hitboxes so we are constantly having to jiggle the mouse to make sure we are not stopped because a pixel is on the way.

 

I have minimum sized costumes -just- for the caves since large characters have their camera trailing metaphorical sparks the way it drags against the ceiling.

 

 

I'm fine with you and your posts, Red, but you're very willing to do grandiloquent soapboxing more often than not mocking what you oppose. I suggest going easy on the giant gifs and large chunks of purple prose.

[Solarverse]

If they just gave them more headroom and wider tunnels my giant Tank would appreciate it.

[tidge]

2 hours ago, Zeraphia said:

Am I the only one who honestly isn't as bothered by cave maps nearly as much as the dreaded Circle of Thorns maps with the several tunnel torches that will get you stuck extremely easily? I really come across that issue far more often than I've had with any cave map I can think of off the top of my head... but boy when I get stuck on a torch...

There is one bend in Council maps where I will frequently get stuck under a pipe. I realize that the pipes are actually there to serve as visual reminders (of T-junctions, etc.) but I get frequently get stuck at the point where the pipe is at 'head level'.

 

[Coyotedancer]

On 6/16/2020 at 6:56 AM, Giovanni Valia said:

My suggestion: Remove all cave maps from the game. Especially Circle of Thorns caves.

 

>_<

No, you. 

 

(That said, I wouldn't mind seeing the Layer Cake room go the way of the dodo on kill-all missions. It's just a royal pain in the rump there. Too many goons get stuck in odd, out-of-sight places. Under other circumstances? Eh. It's not THAT bad.)

 

 

Edited June 18, 2020 by Coyotedancer

[plainguy]

I don't like the caves because I can get motion sickness in them sometimes.. The angle on occasions forces me to go first person and that causes me issues.  

Plus even being a Mastermind kind of guy even with the push through fix I won't argue it can be a pain in the ass and even worse if you have more than one mastermind.

 

For the life of me though I really thought they were going to redo all the caves before closing or I thought it was discussed you could go to other zones to get the big cave and sewer missions appropriate for your levels.. 

 

So there was a fix or a work around being discussed..  

 

 

[Redlynne]

19 hours ago, Chrome said:

i am more than a little irritated when "too much dev time" is a valid argument against ideas being put forward.

That's simply a function of the fact that Dev Time™ is not only a precious resource but also a by definition a demonstrably FINITE one.  There simply isn't a nigh infinity of man hours of Dev Time™ lying around sadly unused.  It's a logistical consideration that even professionally paid developers lament, and they're making "the big bucks" compared to what our staff of volunteers is getting paid to do what they do.  I had THAT lesson imprinted on my consciousness by no less a person than Cuppa Jo at the Tabula Rasa War College event, where a few select high profile Players were brought to the NC$oft offices in Austin, Texas for 2 days of meetings and conversations with the Tabula Rasa Devs (I also got to meet Manticore, Cricket and Avatea while I was there, among other former City of Heroes staffers).

 

The Tyranny Of The Almighty Schedule they called it.

AND THEY WERE RIGHT.

 

So yeah, it would be great if there was vastly more Dev Time™ available to be expended on all kinds of things ... but since there isn't, we make do with what we have ... and that means setting priorities.  And when you have to budget your priorities, how much of the demonstrably FINITE resource of Dev Time™ can be expended on an effort (any effort) becomes a major consideration (if not the controlling consideration in a lot of cases) as to whether it is "worth it" to pursue that particular endeavor on the menu.  This is why whenever I make suggestions in the forums, I try to demonstrate the requisite expenditure of Dev Time™ that the suggestion would likely consume ... with an eye towards making it as simple as possible to execute with the least disturbance to the Almighty Schedule that controls the work that they're allowed to do.

 

So you're right ... it's NOT fun to be told your great idea will take "too much dev time" to implement.

The problem is, in a lot of cases ... it's very very VERY TRUE.

Which is sad ... but it's still true.

[Chrome]

10 hours ago, Redlynne said:

So you're right ... it's NOT fun to be told your great idea will take "too much dev time" to implement.

The problem is, in a lot of cases ... it's very very VERY TRUE.

Which is sad ... but it's still true.

i guess i would be ok with it more if the actual devs said it, opposed to randoms who have nothing to do with development.  it often seems like people use the "dev time" reason when they dislike an idea, instead of actual inside knowledge or direct confirmation.

[Redlynne]

Destruction can be done quickly and relatively easily.

Creation is a long and arduous process that can often times take way longer than you might assume at the outset.

 

As proof of my statement, I would offer the multitude of examples found in the Show Off! thread in the Base Construction forum.  While there are numerous examples of what it is possible to make ... the sheer investment of TIME ought to be rather obvious just at a cursory glance.  For a lot of those bases, I would put the time investment at 100+ man-hours MINIMUM, with the majority of them likely taking WELL in excess of that amount of time to finalize (especially on the larger plots).  That's a decidedly non-trivial amount of time investment by those individual creators.

 

Now take that same expectation and apply it to the job of creating map modules for instances.  Even if there's some degree of modularity involved that allows you to copy/paste in replacements, the amount of TIME needed to create those spaces and get them thoroughly proofed out and tested and vetted is going to be decidedly non-trivial for what ought to be obvious reasons.  These aren't the kinds of things you can just whip up in 5 minutes (although @Dacy might be able to do them in 10... and that's a joke, just in case anyone wants to deliberately misinterpret what I'm saying here) and I shouldn't have to point that out because of how obvious the obvious is in this regard.

 

Creating environments, sometimes called World Building in this context, is a remarkably time intensive process ... and that isn't a point of contention that ought to be up for debate.

 

The entire point, purpose and context of this topic thread is to CHANGE MAPS.

Doing ANYTHING in that direction is going to be a remarkably time intensive process.

There shouldn't be any contention or debate about the validity of that statement, for that reason, in this specific context.

 

CAN the charge of unnecessary demands on dev time be made while the validity of the charge is ... somewhat shaky ...?  Of course!

But in this context, for the purposes of this discussion, I sincerely doubt that the assertion that there is plenty of dev time to edit maps (not just one of them, but dozens of them!) holds the necessary degree of validity to it.  Editing maps is NOT a cheap or easy "quick fix" thing to do ... just ask any Base Builder ... when it comes to time investment.

Edited June 19, 2020 by Redlynne
grammar

[SwitchFade]

6 hours ago, Chrome said:

i guess i would be ok with it more if the actual devs said it, opposed to randoms who have nothing to do with development.  it often seems like people use the "dev time" reason when they dislike an idea, instead of actual inside knowledge or direct confirmation.

Which is implying that people you don't personally know are "randoms" and have no experience in the field. There's a reason that this exact resource constraint is mentioned so prominently, because many of us have experience in and currently work in fields that involve computer, software, firmware and design engineering.

 

@Redlynneis exactly on point.