issue 26 Patch Notes for September 10th, 2019

[QuiJon]

1 hour ago, Lazarillo said:

Sure, but one would assume that if, say, there are 10 people leeching a group of 200, then there are only a couple leeching a group of 50.  The Hive doesn't magically just give the leechers priority.

No it doesn't but what if those leechers get the luck of the draw on any particular night and get in before the zone shuts down and so you end up with all 10 lf those leechers on a team of 50. That is a 20 percent hit as opposed to a 5 percent hit to the power of the people actually doing something in the zone. And lets really get real here the vast majority of people are not leeching, at least not when it comes to the hamidon part of the raid, they are more likely sitting down during monsters and buds. So no matter if we have enough power to zerg him or have to do the slow mitos stages most people are not leeching during the hami assault. 

 

We can go round and round about leeching and the expected difficulty that gets skewed by having so many in the hive etc. But the fact of the matter is that having raid attendance governed by a population cap creates a situation that essentially gives the raid leaders no choices as to who they want on their leagues, and makes a very good chance that about 2 times as many good players are being left out of the raid then are getting to take part in it. I get wanting to fix the difficulty and such but I don't think this is the way. If anything go back to the capless zones, and work on the next patch to making these encounters instances like the incarnate trials. You can announce a raid take invites until the league is full and then launch on to your own personal mission to take down hami or the mother ship. This also makes it so no one has to compete for the zone. Any league can launch a raid and could have 5 raids going at a time it wouldn't matter. sBut this is a haphazard shitty fix that only punishes good players with exclusion.

[QuiJon]

1 hour ago, SchnauzerXL said:

Honestly instancing the raids, if possible, I think would be the ideal solution.  At that point we just need a staging zone that has greater than that cap (Since everyone needs to be in the same instance to use LFG tool) or a mission to start it and a door entrance for the raid.

Most zones have a larger then 50 player caps to begin with, even small zones. I mean Pocket D and Orroborus both are used as staging zones for incarnate leagues all the while still having their normal base of players in the zones. Which makes 50 seem like an arbitrary number to begin with. We don't get a new peregrine island every 50 players, or atlas park.... If that was the cap at times we have had 1500 players on the server we would have had to have had at least 300 instances of maps to keep them all in zones at 50 per zone. 

[Apparition]

The Abyss, The Hive, and RWZ were all capped at 50 players for years and Hamidon and Rikti mothership raids ran just fine.  It may take a re-adjustment period, but eventually they'll be just fine on Homecoming as well.

[QuiJon]

31 minutes ago, Squid Vicious said:

For the crowd already possessing tricked out, expensively-equipped enhancements, looking for a new challenge, you bet!   These are the Classic Wow purists who love their sandbox.

 

For those who are legitimately trying to earn merits via Hami each night, these heroes may now be potentially shut out of a raid because of a few vocal purists.

 

Who cares if the Zerg isn’t how Hami was intended to be taken out?   Apparently not the original devs - who clearly underestimated the power that IO sets and bonuses brought to this classic raid.

 

I’m not disputing the merit of learning how to take him down the original, Mito-clearing way.   I’m disputing the actual reasoning behind the timing of ‘fixing’ the population cap bug.

I guess here is my thing, if this change was really brought about by the purists wanting to have to take hami down "as intended" (which we wont get into the fact that is long gone from his original design to what we have now) we do have 2 zones that spawn hamidon. Seems like simple answer would be keep hive the same as it was with no cap and give villains a way to get in. And then cap the Abyss to 50 players. Boom now everyone has a hami they hare happy with, and I am sure villain players will like not having to constantly change alignments to take part in a raid. 

[JadeFalcon]

Getting this error in XP 32-bit shortly after the splash screen appears.

 

 

However, the new binary works fine when moved into the root game folder and launched from a manually created shortcut.

[Puma]

Wouldnt a much easier fix to the hami problem be making it so that zone does not allow incarnate powers?  Those, with that many heroes, are what really allowed the zerging, I think.  

 

Just an idea. 

[Snow0wl]

34 minutes ago, QuiJon said:

No it doesn't but what if those leechers get the luck of the draw on any particular night and get in before the zone shuts down and so you end up with all 10 lf those leechers on a team of 50. That is a 20 percent hit as opposed to a 5 percent hit to the power of the people actually doing something in the zone. And lets really get real here the vast majority of people are not leeching, at least not when it comes to the hamidon part of the raid, they are more likely sitting down during monsters and buds. So no matter if we have enough power to zerg him or have to do the slow mitos stages most people are not leeching during the hami assault. 

 

We can go round and round about leeching and the expected difficulty that gets skewed by having so many in the hive etc. But the fact of the matter is that having raid attendance governed by a population cap creates a situation that essentially gives the raid leaders no choices as to who they want on their leagues, and makes a very good chance that about 2 times as many good players are being left out of the raid then are getting to take part in it. I get wanting to fix the difficulty and such but I don't think this is the way. If anything go back to the capless zones, and work on the next patch to making these encounters instances like the incarnate trials. You can announce a raid take invites until the league is full and then launch on to your own personal mission to take down hami or the mother ship. This also makes it so no one has to compete for the zone. Any league can launch a raid and could have 5 raids going at a time it wouldn't matter. sBut this is a haphazard shitty fix that only punishes good players with exclusion.

Putting thing back to how they are suppose to be and then looking at the issues is the only way to do it. You don't leave the broken piece in while working on to let it cause more damage. 

 

All your aggressive posting isn't trying to make things better. You're not a victim , something was broke they fixed it.  Regardless of what you post now you're only seen as someone who's crying because  they can't exploit the easy loot.

You're not entitled to keep using something that was broke regardless of the length of time  you've gotten use to it.

 

Also it's nice of you to try to be the self appointed champion of all the good players who somehow are going to be punished with exclusion lol ...please you're looking out for you and your desire for easy loot.

 

Those "good excluded players" can always form their own raid , it's not like either raid is hard anymore. Both were done with one TEAM  of Incarnates on live.  All it takes is teamwork and a knowledge of mechanics which good players should have.   

 

[Foxfyre]

23 minutes ago, QuiJon said:

and I am sure villain players will like not having to constantly change alignments to take part in a raid. 

Why constantly change?  Just go Rogue alignment and stick with it.

[Foxfyre]

10 minutes ago, Puma said:

Wouldnt a much easier fix to the hami problem be making it so that zone does not allow incarnate powers?  Those, with that many heroes, are what really allowed the zerging, I think.  

 

Just an idea. 

IO's contribute to toons OP'ness far more than Incarnates, IMO.

[MunkiLord]

All this arguing about Hami and RWZ raids makes me glad I get almost all my loot from using the market. 

[Bionic_Flea]

Will a new zone automatically be generated when the cap of 50 is reached?  If so, there's no reason to worry about people getting locked out of RWZ to run missions and TFs.  Just wait for the new zone to appear and run it there.   Although it might be better if the additional zone triggered at a slightly lower number . . . 35?  40?  That lets both the Raiders and the TFers to continue to recruit for their teams without taking space from each other.   A similar number should be applied to RWZ and Hive to allow folks to form their own raid, if desired.

[swordchucks]

7 minutes ago, Snow0wl said:

You don't leave the broken piece in while working on to let it cause more damage. 

You can absolutely leave something broken if fixing it will cause more damage than not. 

 

The un-capped state of things wasn't great from some perspectives.  It made it easy to leach (bad).  It made it easy to overload the server (bad).  It made a relatively easy activity and made it possible to faceroll it (bad). 

 

On the other hand, it made it was a large community activity that saw a large number of folks coming together to do something as a group (good).  On Everlasting, at least, it had a festive atmosphere that was celebratory in nature (good).  It made it relatively easy for a person newer to raiding to coordinate the activities, which is healthy for the game overall as the more raid leaders we have, the more active things are (good).  No population cap meant that it was feasible to invite absolutely everyone along, even if they were brand new (good).

 

The social experience of these raids was one of my favorite things over the last few months of the game.  I'm sad to see it go.

[QuiJon]

21 minutes ago, Foxfyre said:

Why constantly change?  Just go Rogue alignment and stick with it.

Well there is a badge for sticking to one alignment for 7 days in game or something like that, they shouldn't have to give up that progression to get into the hive when the hive can just as easily be a co-op zone like RWZ or Abyss is. Just need to give them a door to it of their own is all it really needs. 

[Apparition]

4 minutes ago, swordchucks said:

You can absolutely leave something broken if fixing it will cause more damage than not. 

 

The un-capped state of things wasn't great from some perspectives.  It made it easy to leach (bad).  It made it easy to overload the server (bad).  It made a relatively easy activity and made it possible to faceroll it (bad). 

 

On the other hand, it made it was a large community activity that saw a large number of folks coming together to do something as a group (good).  On Everlasting, at least, it had a festive atmosphere that was celebratory in nature (good).  It made it relatively easy for a person newer to raiding to coordinate the activities, which is healthy for the game overall as the more raid leaders we have, the more active things are (good).  No population cap meant that it was feasible to invite absolutely everyone along, even if they were brand new (good).

 

The social experience of these raids was one of my favorite things over the last few months of the game.  I'm sad to see it go.

 

You left one bad out.  The uncapped raid zones made it far easier to grief raids, and there was a lot of that going on. 

[Foxfyre]

4 minutes ago, QuiJon said:

Well there is a badge for sticking to one alignment for 7 days in game or something like that, they shouldn't have to give up that progression to get into the hive when the hive can just as easily be a co-op zone like RWZ or Abyss is. Just need to give them a door to it of their own is all it really needs. 

Or....while you're working that toon through it's progression, you can bring a different toon to the raids.  And then when the first toon is done with alignment progression, you can switch.

[Lazarillo]

1 hour ago, QuiJon said:

If anything go back to the capless zones, and work on the next patch to making these encounters instances like the incarnate trials. You can announce a raid take invites until the league is full and then launch on to your own personal mission to take down hami or the mother ship. This also makes it so no one has to compete for the zone.

I'd be all for this, but Standard Code Rant applies; I'm not sure it's just as simple as shifting an entire zone into the LFG.  It'd definitely be cool if it were that easy, though.

[Foxfyre]

4 minutes ago, Lazarillo said:

I'd be all for this, but Standard Code Rant applies; I'm not sure it's just as simple as shifting an entire zone into the LFG.  It'd definitely be cool if it were that easy, though.

The LGTF did it already.  It shouldn't be that hard.

[QuiJon]

31 minutes ago, Snow0wl said:

Putting thing back to how they are suppose to be and then looking at the issues is the only way to do it. You don't leave the broken piece in while working on to let it cause more damage. 

 

All your aggressive posting isn't trying to make things better. You're not a victim , something was broke they fixed it.  Regardless of what you post now you're only seen as someone who's crying because  they can't exploit the easy loot.

You're not entitled to keep using something that was broke regardless of the length of time  you've gotten use to it.

 

Also it's nice of you to try to be the self appointed champion of all the good players who somehow are going to be punished with exclusion lol ...please you're looking out for you and your desire for easy loot.

 

Those "good excluded players" can always form their own raid , it's not like either raid is hard anymore. Both were done with one TEAM  of Incarnates on live.  All it takes is teamwork and a knowledge of mechanics which good players should have.   

 

I think I have said several times that I would, and have attended the raids in long and short form. That doesn't matter to me. And yes of course it is because of the amount of reward I can get, that is why we are all there. 80 merits is one of the highest awarding merit totals in one lump sum in the game. As for fixing it so they know what will happen, well they already know, it was not always uncapped. And when it was uncapped yes the raids took a few minutes long because we had to do mitos, but we also had several people that could not get in zone because the server locked them out. No cap and suddenly we have 3-4 leagues of  players most nights. That right there tells you what will happen if you cap things again. 

 

All I mean by good players was in relation to people saying that to many people leeched the raids. Good players as in not players with more skill but players that were willing to come and put in time and work for the reward no matter how we performed the raid. And sure groups can raid, but you also have to look that if I was one of those SG that liked the idea of F'ing with the raiders, I would come in an hour before the raid with my buddies and leave both Hamidons borked so the server couldn't raid that night until a reset of the server. And you damn well know that as people get locked out of raids that this will happen, it is the internet. 

 

I have posted a few things saying both I am fine if they made him tougher to reflect the higher numbers in the zone, but it would need to scale to player count, and also making the event an instance so they can be run by multiple teams at the same time. But when you have 250 people wanting to raid and only 50 can, that is 80 percent of the players that want to take part that are locked out from taking part. Even if you ran two raids in both zones, you still lock out 60 percent of your players. Capping the zones again is a solution to nothing. It is simply excluding players. If they want to do a fix I say fine find an actual fix but don't half ass it until you do, just leave it alone and make a fix.

[kenlon]

5 hours ago, Leandro said:

Yes, that fix was a dud. There is another fix on the queue but it's part of the "page 3" update branch with all the PVP and tanker changes which will hit the testing server later today, so it will be a while before it makes it to the live servers.

Forget these patch notes, give us those already! 😄

[Lazarillo]

2 minutes ago, Foxfyre said:

It shouldn't be that hard.

"Shouldn't be that hard" are famous last words, 'round these parts, though.  It sounds easy, but spaghetti code and all that.

[QuiJon]

20 minutes ago, Apparition said:

 

You left one bad out.  The uncapped raid zones made it far easier to grief raids, and there was a lot of that going on. 

Grifers in the uncapped raids were a pain int he butt and annoying, but nothing that putting someone on ignore couldn't really help. However now what if all those griefers get together every day and start a raid in both zones specifically to fail it just to leave Hami in a screwed up state of spawned mitos just to prevent the raids on the server for the night until a reset? This actually IMO gives griefers more power to screw with people. 

[GM Capocollo]

Just now, QuiJon said:

Grifers in the uncapped raids were a pain int he butt and annoying, but nothing that putting someone on ignore couldn't really help. However now what if all those griefers get together every day and start a raid in both zones specifically to fail it just to leave Hami in a screwed up state of spawned mitos just to prevent the raids on the server for the night until a reset? This actually IMO gives griefers more power to screw with people. 

If that happens, report it and GMs can reset the maps (and hand out punishments).

[Apparition]

11 minutes ago, QuiJon said:

Grifers in the uncapped raids were a pain int he butt and annoying, but nothing that putting someone on ignore couldn't really help. However now what if all those griefers get together every day and start a raid in both zones specifically to fail it just to leave Hami in a screwed up state of spawned mitos just to prevent the raids on the server for the night until a reset? This actually IMO gives griefers more power to screw with people. 

 

Putting someone on ignore didn't help when people were TPing whole leagues to directly next to Hamidon, causing whole league wipes.  Or when multiple people spawned team TP jets, asking everyone nearby multiple times if they would like to TP to a mission.  Or when people spammed the heck out of Dimensional Shift and/or Black Hole.  All of those happened, some of them repeatedly.

 

IIRC, zones in Homecoming disappear after a few hours of non-use, so leaving Hamidon in a screwed up state wouldn't be permanent until a server reset.  Even if I'm wrong, it would be relatively easy to force open a second The Hive map, or, as @GM Capocollo stated, just /petition it.

[Foxfyre]

19 minutes ago, GM Capocollo said:

If that happens, report it and GMs can reset the maps (and hand out punishments).

What if a bunch of them get together to just prevent a league from being able to fully form?  Granted we could just move to Hive 2 if that happens, but I foresee this being a problem.

Edited September 10, 2019 by Foxfyre

[Snow0wl]

250 wanting to raid , guess what they all can we just get 5 hive/abyss instances not one of them would be left out.

 

Yes those scary organized Grifers ,  guess what having zone cap actually helps with that. If they did get together and left the Hive and Abyss with multi bloom mess to grief, having zone caps solves that by letting a raid max out that instance then switching when another instance opens . So thank you@QuiJon for showing a potential issue and proving that fixing the zone caps was a good thing and not having a zone cap is bad.  

 

It's not half assing restoring things to how they were suppose to be. Then looking at it and what could be done if there is an issue. It a responsible way to handle it. 

 

 

 

Edited September 10, 2019 by Snow0wl