Weekly Dev Activities: 8/20/07

[Sadus]

A few characters will need to complete the quest 20 more times if they happen to have just completed their 20th (or 40th or 60th etc) run just before Module 5 goes live. We felt that it was better to give out early raid loot to most characters rather than having special case (i.e. risky) code to reset everyone to 0.

PROBLEM SOVLED!!!

I think the easiest solution to this is simply to have characters build up raid counters like say Enhancement points.....

All you do is add a second options to the raid reward npc.... that says...

"Hello I would like to cash in 20 of my Raid Points"

This would allow ppl to still get their normal end reward. I know I've gotten several nice items for Reaver End Rewards... +6 Stat items... etc...

This way when ppl do hit their 20th raid success they still get their normal end reward and can at any time after select the second option and cash in their 20 raids.... This would also allow ppl at the time this goes live to cash in all their raid counters... I believe I prob have several toons over 20+ on Dragon... Maybe a few 20+ on Titan and I'm sure I'll have several 20+ on Reaver Shortly and feel I should be rewarded for my active patronage

Put it this way it took Sadus 8-9 months of constant dragon runs to get his Dragon Belt... just was always unlucky on the drops 2 belt drops in 9 months... on raids he was on.... he got the second but it was prob 5 months in between. So Sadus prob has 40-50 dragon raids on his counter :P






I don't think this would be difficult to put in and solves a lot of possible conflict.

[Impaqt]

To go further... it seems to me that the modular division is just a really odd way to do it.

Someone with 19 raids will get their piece of raid loot next run. Someone with 20 raids will have to wait an additional 20 raids to get their loot.

I understand the "greater good" being served by giving most people less than 20 runs, but it isn't a strictly fair way to do it, either. If you're rewarding 19 runs more than 20 and 18 runs more then 43... the whole function is little more than a random number generator. (Not in practicality, but I can't speak definitively without looking at all the numbers)

I would presume most characters are under 20 raids for a character, but it still doesn't sit well with me to punish people for having raided 2 more times than someone with 18 runs under their belt.

This is especially true, as there is no way to check how many raids I've completed on a character. Between now and Mod 5, I have to make educated guesses on whether I should run a character or not. If I think I have somewhere between 16-20 runs on a character... should I just not run that character anymore in hopes that I don't get screwed over by the roll over?

Just do yourselves a favor, and award raid loot to people based on the whole number component when they first log in after Mod 5. It would have all the benefits of your above system AND it wouldn't needlessly screw over people that have completed the raid 21 times. The only downside would be the need to quickly code up a series of programs to offer the raid loot. And while that might be risky and/or difficult to do in the time allotted, it would be the far 'better' solution.

You think its Unfair for the people who raided 21 Times? The people who have had 21 Chaces at 2 Guaranteed Raid Drops?

If you havent noticed, No One is giving you any sympathy here in this thread.. Move on....

[Capstern]

The changes look great to me. It'll take me forever to run a raid 20 times anyawy, heh.

But with 20 raids 1:6 shots probability is likely you will have seen a couple items and then you get your for sure

Lord knows I have done the dragon at least 50 times on one toon and he has just 2 real pieces of dragon loot he can use....at least with this system he would have had 50 shots and 2 guarentees

That can make me content

[Serpent]

Just to point this out the devs said the raid loot drops will increase by up to 25% depending on the difficulty of the quest. So it is safe to say that Titan will remain near 1/6 chances for raid loot since it is obviously just as easy on any difficulty. The only real change is the amount of damage he does with his blast.

Chances are Demon Queen will also stay near the 14% mark since it is nearly the same on elite as well.

Discuss

[Riggs]

Yay. No more hobgoblins auto trip into an area. Huge huge annoyance in the game.

Raid loot.

Having a guarenteed item list is really nice. 20 times for a guanteed item is a bit low. The previous 16% chance was also low. Combining 2 low percentages (20 times is 5% essentially, so your technically increasing your odds on a normal raid from 16.67% to 21.67% over the course of 20 raids)

20 times to get a choice is really nice. But from only half the items ...considering at best thats 2 SOLID months of raiding...well the way static rewards are now, I have often ran a quest like Tangleroot 6 times and still not gotten what I was looking for. 50% doesnt mean you do it twice and your guarenteed, it just means you might get lucky, or maybe you have to run a raid 120 times before getting what you were looking for.

A better set of chances would be say 10 runs for the guarenteed list with half the items, OR 20 times for ALL the items to choose from.

That is still a LOT of raiding on one character, and most people have multiple characters.

And running a raid on elite....well true some maybe have different scaling...but you should at least double the chance of an item drop as on normal....and 33% is still only roughly equal to the odds a person has now of getting an item given that most raids are 6 people or less - and doing it on normal.

But otherwise a good move in the right direction.

(And magic missle yay - and did I mention trip?)

[Sadus]

You think its Unfair for the people who raided 21 Times? The people who have had 21 Chaces at 2 Guaranteed Raid Drops?

If you havent noticed, No One is giving you any sympathy here in this thread.. Move on....

So ppl who have been active since raids went live in this game... should be penalized???

I would say it's safe to say that on 60-70% of raids you get 2 "****" raid items... Run Reaver with 7 toons every 3 days and you'll see how fast u get a ring of lies on every toon with extra to spare. Or how many times u get a dual Rattle Charm... from titan or double Mauls from Dragon....

You might have gotten 21 shots at 2 raid drops... but chances are you prob only saw the items you WANTED!!!!! 3-4 times and then... you had TO WIN THE ROLL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Sadus]

BTW for ppl who haven't done Dragon on Elite... just so you know... she hits up to 120+ non-crit on Elite.... so don't be thinking... she's easily doable on elite :P


I recently did her on Elite with my WF pally and I KNOW I am immune to crits.... he has alot of hps... so he could weather a few hits... but I didn't have any below 80 and highest was 121...

[Freeman]

So ppl who have been active since raids went live in this game... should be penalized???

Not getting rewarded is not the same as being penalized. Everyone is being treated the same way, whether you have run zero raids or 1000 raids.

[Aspenor]

All you people complaining can't seriously be for real. Wah wah wah boo hoo. Give me a ****in break. The compromise is what it is. You'll never make everybody happy, Turbine. Ignore them.

[Capstern]

All you people complaining can't seriously be for real. Wah wah wah boo hoo. Give me a ****in break. The compromise is what it is. You'll never make everybody happy, Turbine. Ignore them.

I like the compromise

[Kire]

Na you give me a break... the only 20 numbers is just "****" it's just coding laziness.... its the difference of about 5-6 lines of code vs 10-15 on a don't screw some ppl option....

Do you have any coding backgrounds? Prolly not. So how do you know? Some of the simplest things may take a bunch of coding. Then you have to factor in they have to get the mod up this month which has 10 days left. So in that 10 days they would have to code that in test it, Fix any bugs they find with it, Throw it on risia to see how it works live and finally throw it in the forums to get a response from us. You go ahead and try that k Sadus?

~Kire

EDIT~ Oy! Ninja!

[Sadus]

All you people complaining can't seriously be for real. Wah wah wah boo hoo. Give me a ****in break. The compromise is what it is. You'll never make everybody happy, Turbine. Ignore them.

Na you give me a break... the only 20 numbers is just "****" it's just coding laziness.... its the difference of about 5-6 lines of code vs 10-15 on a don't screw some ppl option....

[Aspenor]

Na you give me a break... the only 20 numbers is just "****" it's just coding laziness.... its the difference of about 5-6 lines of code vs 10-15 on a don't screw some ppl option....

http://www.turbinejobs.com

Why don't you do it for them?

[Aspenor]

Do you have any coding backgrounds? Prolly not. So how do you know? Some of the simplest things may take a bunch of coding. Then you have to factor in they have to get the mod up this month which has 10 days left. So in that 10 days they would have to code that in test it, Fix any bugs they find with it, Throw it on risia to see how it works live and finally throw it in the forums to get a response from us. You go ahead and try that k Sadus?

~Kire

EDIT~ Oy! Ninja!

QFT

Gotta love how people start spitting nonsense about how much coding something will take, especially when they don't know a thing about the code.

As was obvious from Graal's postings on this issue, the counter was kept as simple as possible for the reason of possibly dangerous coding. I prefer him keep the game stable and safe than cave in to a bunch of whiners and the day of patch I log in to find all my character data corrupted.

[Kire]

QFT

Gotta love how people start spitting nonsense about how much coding something will take, especially when they don't know a thing about the code.

As was obvious from Graal's postings on this issue, the counter was kept as simple as possible for the reason of possibly dangerous coding. I prefer him keep the game stable and safe than cave in to a bunch of whiners and the day of patch I log in to find all my character data corrupted.

Amen to that. Rather simple and a little bit more work then have 3 days of hotfix's then a +1 loot weekend to compensate. /shudder.

~Kire

[Sadus]

http://www.turbinejobs.com

Why don't you do it for them?

Prob because I'd have to take a pay cut

Kire I would say taht YOU have little to know coding experience as I can clearly demonstrate how simple the basic call method would be to determine if a character was able to cash in 20 raid counters... and I'm sure someone who does programing professionally should be able to do this with less lines...

Ok I'll take a CS Program 201 shot at it... bear with me as I haven't don't any hard coding since college since I work in Hardware

for (raidcounter = totalquest;raidcounter >= 20; totalquest - 20)

Obviously the code is a bit more complicated than that... but to write a simple raidcounter FOR statement... is FAR from difficult...

[Aspenor]

I like the compromise

You weren't complaining

[bobbryan2]

You think its Unfair for the people who raided 21 Times? The people who have had 21 Chaces at 2 Guaranteed Raid Drops?

If you havent noticed, No One is giving you any sympathy here in this thread.. Move on....

Yes, it's unfair to make someone with 20 raids under their belt make 20 more raids to get loot, and someone with 19 raids (1 less) gets it next time.

By definition, it would be unfair.

Now.. if you aren't anywhere near 20 raids, and you don't care that it screws over other players... that's perfectly fine. But that doesn't make it a fair way to deal with the issues.

[Aspenor]

By definition, it would be unfair.

By definition of what?? Looks pretty fair to me.

The system needs to have a starting point.

[Kire]

Yes, it's unfair to make someone with 20 raids under their belt make 20 more raids to get loot, and someone with 19 raids (1 less) gets it next time.

By definition, it would be unfair.

Now.. if you aren't anywhere near 20 raids, and you don't care that it screws over other players... that's perfectly fine. But that doesn't make it a fair way to deal with the issues.

Heres the choices:

1. Go with teh Dev's have decided and be happy with the chance of minimal Bugs.

2. Whine and complain until the Dev's do it your guy's way and them having to push it with barely any time. Chance of bugs are great because of the Programming as said by Graal above. It's not laziness. Just dificult coding with 11 days left in the month.

Theres the choices. No comprimises other then those two.

~Kire

BTW i choose 1. I know i have ran dragon and dq over 20 times on alot of my toons. But i'll take this risk rahter then maybe have the game down for 3 or 4 hours while they fixed it.