issue 26 Patch Notes for May 30th, 2019

[jubakumbi]

One ad hominem attack after another, and still can't provide a single coherent point as to why this nerf was needed. My work here is done. And no, I won't get off your lawn. Make me.

 

Still haven't seen a coherent argument from one of the complainers about why this change hurt DFB so bad when DFB now can still level you faster than it did before the devs changed one line of code.

 

Bingo!

 

And, this is not a reatail game, the people running the server are not here to be your slaves and do your bidding.

 

If you don't like the way these servers are run, you have the option to exit through the door.

 

Personally, I LOVE IT when little things change like this, because it upsets the rules lawyers.

Why?

Rules lawyers are the Evil of gaming.

:)

 

So please, keep on kvetching, it is so fun to watch.

[Zolgar]

I also want to say that I am perfectly fine with the DFB xp change. I'll especially be happy with it once DXP works properly in DFB again. I like to use DFB for a quick jump to 14-15, and once DXP is working again, I will MAYBE need one more run to do that.

 

[Captain Fabulous]

I can confirm, double XP is not working on DFB at below level 10. The existence of an XP booster has no meaningful effect one way or the other in a >10 DFB run.

 

Not WAI. Looks like I need to modify the class definition tables to allow the kExperienceGain attribute to go over +100%, that was the default cap. I missed this because I only tested above level 10, since it was supposed to be unchanged until then. Assuming that's the problem, fix will be on the next patch.

 

Thanks Leandro for looking into it.

[Captain Fabulous]

Which completely misses all and addresses none of the points made. No, we no longer have the option of getting to level 22 as quickly as we could yesterday via DFB, which makes doing it beyond lvl 15 or so pointless. We tolerated the monotony because it was fast and efficient. Now that it's no longer efficient we are forced to slog to 22 via the other ways we CHOSE NOT to use but now have no other option. Doing DFB was always a choice. No one was ever forced into the speedy lane. But we have certainly been forced out of it.

 

You can pretend you chose to do it all you want, but this post shows exactly why it was needed: people were tolerating doing something they found tedious or boring or annoying only because it was the most efficient way to earn XP.

 

That is an issue!!!

 

You can argue leveling in this game is too slow, that it should somehow be sped up across all content, but doing the same tedious content over and over (anything becomes tedious once it’s repeated to no end) hurts the game, as people that can’t endure it but feel that’s the way to do things just quit.

 

Personally, I would like to see some other ways that are more varied to earn xp. Bigger mission and arc complete bonuses, maybe PvP match experience, TF xp, badge XP, monster hunter XP. But having just one content be ridiculously better than the rest is bad for everyone in the long run.

 

Sooo...the correct way to fix content that is boring and monotonous is to...wait for it...make it MORE boring and monotonous?

 

Got it. Seriously, are you guys done making our point for us yet?

[jubakumbi]

And no, I won't get off your lawn. Make me.

 

Oh no, it's not my lawn, that is the point, it is not yours either.

 

And I prefer that you stay and play.

If you hate it this much, you are just torturing yourself for the rest of us.

 

:)

 

[Lockpick]

 

 

Yes, I'm the same guy. I have no problem with change when it's rational and clearly needed. Change for the sake of change, or because someone has an agenda, is rarely ever good change. Such is the case here.

 

DFB didn't need to be changed. It was fine the way it was. XP naturally trailed off once you passed 20, which made it tedious to continue to do. With double XP one could easily get to 22 within an hour or so and in a position of having a nice selection of powers and ready to move into more enjoyable content. Nerfing it makes no sense, and accomplishes nothing. Not a single poster in favor of the change has provided even one legitimate reason why it needed to be changed, and no, "I hate seeing DFB in LFG chat" doesn't count.

 

It's not going to get people to start slogging thru low level TFs that take 2+ hours. It's not going to get people to slog thru low level story content where you're lucky to get half a level of XP in an hour of spending more time running from one end of King's Row to the other than you do fighting. All it's going to do is push people into doing 5-10 more runs of DFB than they had to do yesterday, and all for absolutely NO GOOD REASON. DFB requests in LFG chat aren't going to lessen. The ability to find people to team with in KR and SC isn't going to increase. People choose the path of least resistance, which in this case will be to continue playing DFB until they get to 22, exactly as they did before. The only thing that will change is that it will now take more runs, and more time to get there than it did yesterday.

 

This is not a change worth supporting, as it solves no problem, and accomplishes nothing.

 

And if the nerf is as minor as you claim, then why bother doing it all? Just leave it as it was. Don't fix what isn't broken. The original devs put DFB into the game for a reason -- as a fast lane to SOs for those that choose to take it.

 

Completely agree that there was no need to change DFB.

 

The original Devs put DFB in as a fast lane and Paragon Wiki states :Death from Below (DfB) is a "sewer trial" introduced in Issue 21 available to both Heroes and Villains, but not Praetorians. This trial can be run at any level and provides exceptional rewards, including experience point bonuses and Single Origin Enhancements, making it an excellent and popular tool for players looking to level new characters quickly.  This trial in some ways replaces the Sewer Network, which was similar but completely unstructured."

[Super Homer]

Sooo...the correct way to fix content that is boring and monotonous is to...wait for it...make it MORE boring and monotonous?

 

Got it. Seriously, are you guys done making our point for us yet?

 

DFB is a fun low level trial, if you do it once or twice. It’s too simple to not become monotonous if farmed exclusively.

 

Again: you feel the leveling experience is too slow (even with 2xp) then there are way much better feedback paths to improve leveling speed that don’t rely on “please help me bore myself further by making a single thing the optimal leveling thing!”

 

Given the volunteer work force, I’d also say “make tons of new equal trials” is not a viable solution either. But hey: how about making PvP matches give tons of XP?

[Lockpick]

 

 

Create a badge for having a certain number of alts above level 22 (perhaps 10 or 20), which then enables a free "boost character to 22" option in the P2W vendor.  If this badge was per-archetype, that's fine too, with a reasonably-lowered number to match it (perhaps 2 or 3).

 

 

If some alternative to the early levels is being worked (but not yet public), I wish the DFB XP change would have been delayed until that solution was ready.

 

This is a great idea.  SWTOR has a insta-boost to 50 that you can buy and I have used it to try out new combinations.  I think a free boost to 22 would solve many of the challenges people have and maybe have an insta-boost to 50 that can be purchased for Inf or merits.

[praxidicae]

 

Sooo...the correct way to fix content that is boring and monotonous is to...wait for it...make it MORE boring and monotonous?

 

Got it. Seriously, are you guys done making our point for us yet?

 

Okay so I had a sarcastic response to your heavyhanded sarcasm already drafted but thought better of it at the last minute.

 

The risk/reward balance for DFB was always vastly out of skew from the rest of the game, which incentivised players (both experienced and new) to use it as a levelling tool far beyond the original intentions of the trial.

 

Now to balance this, the Homecoming team could hike up the risk, make the whole thing much tougher in general, but that sort of ruins it as a lowbie "intro to teaming/trials". instead (as they have done) they could cut down the reward, leaving the trial as a decent 'introductory adventure' and allowing people to move on to other content.

To be honest, they haven't even cut it down that much, there is still a steady return for much of the period that people were originally intended to run the trial and only towards the latter part of the level range does the XP truely drop. (at which point if you really want to run your character to 50 as a Morlock you can move to Drowning in Blood, otherwise there is a plethora of content in the game that you can join, a shiny shiny new world of contacts, trials, task/strikeforces, zone events, raids, badges and flashback missions).

 

If the content was as boring an monotonous as you mention...why run it over and over again? That seems (a) masochistic and (b) not very fun. And this is a game:

 

 

Game

/ɡeɪm/

Noun

• An activity that one engages in for amusement or fun.
  

[Abraxus]

Is there absolutely no trust that perhaps the Devs had legit reasons for doing the things they did?  Judging from a good portion of the responses, I'd say that's a "No" in those cases.  We may think we know, and we tend to supposition our own reasons for what was done, based on how it affected us personally.  One thing I'm pretty confident about.  They didn't do them just to change your play experience to the extent where you get mad, and leave.  I tend to believe that these things are done for the good of the many, rather than catering to the needs of the few.  Sometimes, things must be done for long-term viability.  You don't have to like them.  You just have to decide for yourself if you can still find in yourself to play under these conditions.  If the answer is no, then by all means, go to one of the servers where this is not an issue.  You have that choice now, where it did not exist when the game was live.  Or, set-up your own server where CoH can be whatever you want.  I'm not trying to tell anyone to leave, but if you're not happy with the conditions here, isn't that better than complaining about decisions that have already been made, and there is little chance of changing without empirical evidence (not emotional) that it should be changed?

 

I get that some are unhappy, disappointed, or whatever.  However, I think the points have been made, and the truth is that most of us are not privy to what goes on behind the scenes, and we really don't have enough information on which to complain effectively, beyond the obvious.  Adding to that, this is all run by volunteers who are under no obligation to serve this community, save for their love of the game, and the community; and it makes even less sense.

[Remidi]

Our first nerf war.  I missed these.  *wipes away tear*

 

Oh wait, no I didn't.  But I suppose it was inevitable.  Me, I have no problem with it, mainly because I'm one of those weirdos who turn off xp so they don't outlevel content.  I haven't run a single DFB, and it will probably be Get-the-Badges-and-Done, like I treat TFs and trials.  Except Katies.  I used to run Katies constantly because they were fun as hell.

 

Btw, the people talking about merit drops should check the merit store.  I'm seeing prices of 50 merits on recipes that my old spreadsheets - which I still have because I'm a complete packrat - say were 240.

[Dr. Gemini]

You act like this would be different if they PI door piked to 50. It wouldn't. But that's somehow okay, I guess, because reasons? Where's the calls to nerf that?

 

The person who does this already knows the game. I very much doubt there will be "LFG to PL" from level 50's all over the server to make brand new people believe that is how the game is played in the manner that the DFB spam does.

 

It appears that the devs and GMs are not looking to have a server that freezes a moment in time for nostalgic people to just come and play on until their nostalgia is sated and they go away. They appear to want to continue to develop and expand the game as best they can. This means, even if they don't have to worry about the game having an income, they do have to try to attract new players. As we already saw when AE was first introduced, if a newbie's first exposure to the game is leveling to 50 in a few hours, they'll be gone in even less time after that. That's why its bad for the game for DFB to be taking up 90% of LFG chat. Making it still viable for getting through the first 20 levels (which it is, even nerfed), but not as attractive to exclusively do, is a good compromise between what's good for the game as a whole and what the players want.

 

That's the problem. Players always want what they want without concern over the consequences. People running a game have to think about those consequences, and that means making decisions that people won't like, without having to give reasons those same people will like or accept.

[Abraxus]

Truth! ^

 

No change(s) is every going to be good with everyone.  As I have said many times, it is then that those that are unhappy have to decide what to do about it?  Since it is unlikely that their concerns will be enough to change the outcome (no matter how many times they say it, or how emphatically they say it); do they see it as a step too far, or do they find a way to adapt, and overcome?  That's really what it comes down to.  Everything else just becomes a circular argument that we have already seen play out here on this thread, and others that accomplishes nothing more than pointing out what everyone already knows.  No changes please everyone.  I don't begrudge you the right to state, and re-state it, but I do point out the ultimate non-effectiveness of doing so.

[jedc22]

A few of my friends were going to quit because they couldn't find teams to do anything BUT DFB. They wanted to actually play the game and not farm DFB.

 

I never said these friends weren't silly in their logic. I do think his friends are silly because DFB is still there and apparently they love to farm it ...which they still can. My friends could have gotten xp as well...albeit at a much reduced rate because it would have only been teams of 3-4 fighting actual enemies that required you to use some strategy to gain xp.

 

Like I ALSO said... I personally don't care. But I mean if he is going to throw out anecdotal "evidence" then some am I. There are two sides to this issue. One side was hurt because a lot of people avoided actual content until their 20's-30s because "lolz DFB." Those people can still mindlessly spam a few powers to their heart's content, but it may take a few more runs of it to achieve the same results. And now my friends who actually enjoyed doing missions, using their powers as they leveled up, etc... have said they have less issues finding teams... everyone wins.

 

Me... couldn't care less. I just get annoyed with the hyperbole and tantrums over something so trivial in a video game. I will continue to avoid DFB and continue PLing my (and my friends) alts to 50 so we can do incarnate stuff, IO our toons, get accolades, and challenge ourselves with duo/trio runs of TFs etc.

 

So no... nothing hypocritical at all in my statement. I think most people arguing on the internet over a hero video game are silly...especially when it's free and boosted beyond the original in so many ways.

 

 

I had friends who were thinking of quitting because they hated doing DFB over and over and instead wanted to do things like Hollows, but finding people to do those things was rough because "lolz I can get to 22 in an hour from DFB." They have decided to stay and said that finding teams for 10-17 is already way easier.

 

Your friends sound silly - especially with the xp boosters being free. They would have never survived on LIVE where double xp was a rarity limited to a few weekends a year. Maybe as a friend you should have explained to them the various ways to get to 50. As for "leveling properly" uhhh if perma double xp wasn't enough to get them to stay - I doubt they would have stayed no matter what was done.

 

I’m happy about DFB. God I hate running as a level 5 for 5-6 runs to get to 22 with every character with every other option just being inefficient in comparison...

you realize nothing else was changed right? so those other options are still just as inefficient, just now DfB is inefficient as well. It's a common tactic, nerf things down to be as bad as everything else instead of buffing things to be as good as other options.

 

I had a couple of friends that I played with, who have actually quit the game because of this (not this change to dfb, the fact that nothing else really gives any kind of reward equal to the time being put in). To quote one of them

"Idk, while DFB was the reason for me quitting it should also be said that while it was nerfed if nothing else was buffed to fill the void of leveling properly then that will be a very annoying thing for me. If DFB can barely move you past 15, and DIB stops being effective at 30, something needs to pick the pace up. And if all there is left is questing for hours per level I won’t feel the wish to play."

 

Let me get this straight. His friends were silly for quitting  due to their play style being restricted, but your friends wanting to quit because they chose to do DFB even though they didn’t have to aren’t? Hypocritical much?

You seem to have completely misunderstood the post. I even outlined it right in the post that this was not because of the DfB change, they quit before it because it was the only thing that was actually "efficient" to the point it made all else kind of pointless and it became boring very fast, this we clearly agree on. The problem is, you nerf DfB but you change nothing else, so now everything is just as inefficient as it was, and now just bringing down DfB to that level.

 

Now, you say you couldn't care less, but you clearly care enough for the ad hominems, the dismissing of my friends opinions as "silly" and "anecdotal", and "just throwing a tantrum". So ya, there are a few things hypocritical in your statement, more than the other guy pointed out.

[Sanguinesun]

Its a shame to hear on the DFB change.  Losing choices in the manner this seems to have been done seems to reflect an implementation philosophy is a bit disconcerting.

[Saikochoro]

 

The changes to DFB/MSR we’re not improvements in the sight of all. Nor were they supported by the entire community as this thread alone has shown. Several people do indeed support the changes, and several people do not. The community is split on the issue. The devs just happened to agree that change was needed. However, it is wrong to say the community needs and supports it, as only part of the community sees it that way. There are always two sides.

 

A quick count of people disagreeing with the changes in this 11 page thread is 6 vocal people everyone else seems fine with the Dev's balancing efforts.

 

Thanks for all your hard work Dev's

 

There are plenty of thread about it all with differing opinions. The original comment I responded to implied that the community in whole needed and supported this change. That is completely false. There is a part of the community that does not support it. I never said one was bigger than the other. Only that it is wrong to assume the community supports it as a whole. It is better to say, “part of the community supports this”. That is undoubtedly true. Saying the community needs this however is fully subjective and shouldn’t really be said at all. I’m not going to say the community needs DFB nor will I say the community needed it to be nerfed. Either statement is purely based on opinion. I will says that the nerf was definitely wanted by some and very much opposed by others.

 

Actually, not false, validated by data. 6 people disagree. Out of multiples of 10 agreeing. So, the majority approve, therefor in a community, that is majority support.

 

Not everyone agrees with mandatory seatbelt laws. However, the majority approve, thus, the community supports it.

 

You clearly have a problem understanding representative statistical samples. This thread is not representative of the population and cannot be used to accurately gauge the community as a whole. It can however show that the community is at least split on this issue purely due to the fact that there is more than one opinion expressed. Even if all posts were positive or all posts were negative it still would not be an appropriate statistical sample. That’s why I didn’t say, the community is not in support of the DFB change. I said, part of the community doesn’t support it. That is a true statement.  Saying the majority of the community supports it is false and is not backed up by real data.

 

Also, comparing a computer game to seatbelts is ridiculous. It’s just like in the open letter announcement someone comparing computer game opinions to gun safety. One is real world and one is a game. One has no influence on real world safety. One can result in real world death.  That is not a good faith comparison in the slightest.

[Saikochoro]

A few of my friends were going to quit because they couldn't find teams to do anything BUT DFB. They wanted to actually play the game and not farm DFB.

 

I never said these friends weren't silly in their logic. I do think his friends are silly because DFB is still there and apparently they love to farm it ...which they still can. My friends could have gotten xp as well...albeit at a much reduced rate because it would have only been teams of 3-4 fighting actual enemies that required you to use some strategy to gain xp.

 

Like I ALSO said... I personally don't care. But I mean if he is going to throw out anecdotal "evidence" then some am I. There are two sides to this issue. One side was hurt because a lot of people avoided actual content until their 20's-30s because "lolz DFB." Those people can still mindlessly spam a few powers to their heart's content, but it may take a few more runs of it to achieve the same results. And now my friends who actually enjoyed doing missions, using their powers as they leveled up, etc... have said they have less issues finding teams... everyone wins.

 

Me... couldn't care less. I just get annoyed with the hyperbole and tantrums over something so trivial in a video game. I will continue to avoid DFB and continue PLing my (and my friends) alts to 50 so we can do incarnate stuff, IO our toons, get accolades, and challenge ourselves with duo/trio runs of TFs etc.

 

So no... nothing hypocritical at all in my statement. I think most people arguing on the internet over a hero video game are silly...especially when it's free and boosted beyond the original in so many ways.

 

 

I had friends who were thinking of quitting because they hated doing DFB over and over and instead wanted to do things like Hollows, but finding people to do those things was rough because "lolz I can get to 22 in an hour from DFB." They have decided to stay and said that finding teams for 10-17 is already way easier.

 

Your friends sound silly - especially with the xp boosters being free. They would have never survived on LIVE where double xp was a rarity limited to a few weekends a year. Maybe as a friend you should have explained to them the various ways to get to 50. As for "leveling properly" uhhh if perma double xp wasn't enough to get them to stay - I doubt they would have stayed no matter what was done.

 

I’m happy about DFB. God I hate running as a level 5 for 5-6 runs to get to 22 with every character with every other option just being inefficient in comparison...

you realize nothing else was changed right? so those other options are still just as inefficient, just now DfB is inefficient as well. It's a common tactic, nerf things down to be as bad as everything else instead of buffing things to be as good as other options.

 

I had a couple of friends that I played with, who have actually quit the game because of this (not this change to dfb, the fact that nothing else really gives any kind of reward equal to the time being put in). To quote one of them

"Idk, while DFB was the reason for me quitting it should also be said that while it was nerfed if nothing else was buffed to fill the void of leveling properly then that will be a very annoying thing for me. If DFB can barely move you past 15, and DIB stops being effective at 30, something needs to pick the pace up. And if all there is left is questing for hours per level I won’t feel the wish to play."

 

Let me get this straight. His friends were silly for quitting  due to their play style being restricted, but your friends wanting to quit because they chose to do DFB even though they didn’t have to aren’t? Hypocritical much?

 

You expressly indicated that his friends were silly and did not qualify your own friends with the same adjective. Hence it definitely gave the appareance of hypocrisy. I agree both accounts are anecdotal, but they were portrayed differently so as to make one favorable and the other not.

 

You also continuously paint anyone who does DFB or power levels as mindless imbeciles. You may not have used the word imbecile, but your contempt for them clearly shows. I never said doing story arcs Is for stupid players, but you have definitely given the impression that the opposite is true. That gives even greater weight to the fact that many people seem to believe that you must play the same way as they do or you are a lesser person. That is complete BS and is not a good reason for change. Though that seems to be the majority of the reason people wanted the change in the first place. People enjoyed doing DFB. But their enjoyment is not important. Neither is their definition of content according to people like you. So yes, very hypocritical.

[Saikochoro]

Sooo...the correct way to fix content that is boring and monotonous is to...wait for it...make it MORE boring and monotonous?

 

Got it. Seriously, are you guys done making our point for us yet?

 

DFB is a fun low level trial, if you do it once or twice. It’s too simple to not become monotonous if farmed exclusively.

 

Again: you feel the leveling experience is too slow (even with 2xp) then there are way much better feedback paths to improve leveling speed that don’t rely on “please help me bore myself further by making a single thing the optimal leveling thing!”

 

Given the volunteer work force, I’d also say “make tons of new equal trials” is not a viable solution either. But hey: how about making PvP matches give tons of XP?

 

It may be monotonous, but so are radio missions and the like. Just because you don’t enjoy something doesn’t mean others don’t enjoy it. People always had the choice to do other content if they felt DFB was boring. Those who enjoyed getting passed the low levels quickly with an accessible trial found fun. But apparently to many in this thread they don’t matter.

 

I don’t think more trials need to happen. I think that it was an unnecesssry change. Pure and simple. Why fix what isn’t broken? I’d be fine with PVP giving XP. I don’t see how that could hurt anything.

[Super Homer]

It may be monotonous, but so are radio missions and the like. Just because you dont enjoy something doesnt mean others dont enjoy it.

 

The pattern I have seen is that nobody enjoyed it, it was just ran over and over because it was too efficient not to. Even people arguing against the nerf keep bringing up how boring and tedious it was.

[Abraxus]

Plus, if you pop an XP pill, and run it, you're not really losing that much at all.  I have said from the beginning, there are ways to compensate.  But, we just can't seem to move beyond the fact that it happened.

[Seipherwood]

Any idea when the Hotfix for DFB will be patched in?

[Abraxus]

Any idea when the Hotfix for DFB will be patched in?

 

The change to the XP Curve for DFB, unless I am mistaken, was part of yesterday's patch.

[Seipherwood]

Yeah but Leandro stated he found the bug for pre-10, i know its not huge but just curious.

[night atom]

I can confirm, double XP is not working on DFB at below level 10. The existence of an XP booster has no meaningful effect one way or the other in a >10 DFB run.

 

Not WAI. Looks like I need to modify the class definition tables to allow the kExperienceGain attribute to go over +100%, that was the default cap. I missed this because I only tested above level 10, since it was supposed to be unchanged until then. Assuming that's the problem, fix will be on the next patch.

 

Thank you very much for listening to the feedback and taking a look at this.  Great work to all of you guys for running and maintaining this service...

 

So to clarify the updated change will push lower than 10 back to 100% plus any XP booster...and then the chart will kick in plus any XP booster.  Am I understanding that correctly?

[Frakk]

It was nice to see the different groups forming last night.