LET'S TALK: Lamannia

[zeonardo]

------ deleted ------

I'm not saying it again.

[Rinnaldo]

Can you change the way drinking pots (or using them on others) and, at the very least, using challenge items are labeled or whatever, so they don't fall under the same heading as "spell casting"?


I'd prefer for ...

I'm pretty sure this isn't a "label" they're heading all these with, but a mechanism. All these bits of code point to the same, main casting code, for the sake of expediency. In other words, it might take a lot of code to make something like the torches work if you use an all new way to lay them down and turn them on. Pointing this to the same code where "the players casts the spell" and these results happen is a bit sloppier, but, I'm certain, faster and easier. The bad part is these unintentional side-effects.

[Coldin]

Depends on how you look at it.

Take madstone boots for example. That began life as a request from Shade who complained, when playing Crystal Cove, that he couldn't use torches & teleporters. Behind the scenes, these two mechanics were really spellcasting. I filed a bug to make madstone boots work in this situation. Did I intend or expect the item to be changed in the way it was? No. Heck, the designer who made the change didn't exactly anticipate the results.

Sometimes a change is intentional on the part of the person who made the change, but not the team/management as a whole. Again, having stuff go out earlier to Lamannia means more stuff will show up there before it's formally reviewed.

I always knew Shade was responsible for everything bad in this game! Funny enough, he's one of the people complaining about the change to madstone boots.


I really love the earlier releases to Lamannia. It lets players that don't have special Mournlands privileges still feel like they can make a positive impression on the game. It's especially heartening to hear that the dev team has grown so large from the old days, and I hope that means good things for the future.

[smatt]

Depends on how you look at it.

Take madstone boots for example. That began life as a request from Shade who complained, when playing Crystal Cove, that he couldn't use torches & teleporters. Behind the scenes, these two mechanics were really spellcasting. I filed a bug to make madstone boots work in this situation. Did I intend or expect the item to be changed in the way it was? No. Heck, the designer who made the change didn't exactly anticipate the results.

Ha! I remember that post... I can say that often tiems people forget that within such a dynamic game as DDO people see things quite differently, people find uses and ways to use items the Devs could never imagine, things that are right in front of a one persons face or way off the map for the next person.

Sometimes a change is intentional on the part of the person who made the change, but not the team/management as a whole. Again, having stuff go out earlier to Lamannia means more stuff will show up there before it's formally reviewed.

I applaud these moves in total..... Hopefully, it works out the way it's iutended to... I do know that wading through the fourms, with the internet being what it is is VERY time consuming. But I'm betting that this change actually becomes a time benefit as oppossed to a timae liability. BUT, I'm hoping that too much weight isn't given to the loudest most voal types, in the way our current politcal dialogue works... That often times leads down the wrong road....


Here's the DDO devs for stepping out and shifting course!

[smatt]

I always knew Shade was responsible for everything bad in this game! Funny enough, he's one of the people complaining about the change to madstone boots.


I really love the earlier releases to Lamannia. It lets players that don't have special Mournlands privileges still feel like they can make a positive impression on the game. It's especially heartening to hear that the dev team has grown so large from the old days, and I hope that means good things for the future.

Unintended consequences... They riddle DDO

[Talon_Moonshadow]

Madstone boots.

Ok, I am not a person who uses these much.
Mostly because the two characters of mine that have them are spell casters (or in the case of my main, a melee char that depends on self-buffs)

I have always been curious just what kind of character thse boots were meant for.
Dex, Potency, and clickie that increases you physical abilities....but prevents spell casting.

And it took me awhile to understand what double madstones was. (and I still don't fully grasp this)

Besides preventing spell casting it prevents the use of many clickies as well (I think)

So... just who is suppose to benefit from these things?

Is being "double madstoned" a bug?

What is the reason/desired effects of the changes to the boots in U13?

I'd just like to know the answer to these questions.


Does the change to the boots prevent Madstone rage from stacking with Rage spell? and/or Barb rage?

What does the change to the boots actually change? (nerf)

What did the devs want to nerf about the boots?

Anyway, I just think the devs need to look at this change closely and answer these questions.....for themselves at least.

These boots have been all the "rage" for many characters for a long time.
so I just think they are important enough of an item to warrent close examinatiion and justification for change.

[Flavilandile]

Some of you already know this, but for those who don't, I wanted to get the word out.

Beware you have a Kobold Tribe lurking behind you lead by one named MajorMalphunktion.

Lamannia used to be known as a 'preview' server - a chance for players see what changes were going to occur on the live servers, for the devs to gauge initial reactions and to find out if there were any show stopping bugs (crashes, etc). It was also used to gather info for the first patch.

Over the past few updates we have been releasing to Lamannia earlier in hopes that we can get more feedback and effect changes before the update goes live. Overall it has helped and we're going farther in that direction this year. Update 13 is on Lamannia very early (so early in fact that I don't think we're even announcing the release date until this upcoming week).

For this to happen, us developers have had to change the way we work. We need to get more 'core' work done earlier. This means you will see less 'polish' and many more bugs, mishaps, mistakes, etc. This is both good and bad.

You'll over the time it is good... because once you survived to the initial onslaught you will have time to sort through the bugs we send back to you and actually do something about the important ones before it it's live.
I reported 3/4 bugs during my last two hours on Lamannia... some may not be bugs and unpolished things, but others are important. The idea is to to put a Kobold in charge of sorting what needs to be dealt with now, what needs to be solved asap, what needs to be solved when we have time and what is a false alarm.

For example I work in Telco, in Telco we have 4 level of alarms ( beside no alarms ) :
- Immediate/critical ( you have to deal with it right now, it cannot wait the end of your coffee break )
- delayed/Major ( you have to deal with it ASAP, but it can wait a bit )
- Minor ( you can solve that when you have the time )
- Observation/Human ( alarms generated by the human being behind his keyboard... usually to try to fix things, Statistic outputs... Timestamps, ... )

The immediate reaction to any sort of change that affects character builds is typically very emotional. This is totally understandable, especially given past history on Lamannia has been 'what you see is what you get'. What I want to point out here is that while a change on Lamannia that you find undesirable should definitely be highlighted and discussed, you shouldn't jump to conclusions that it is going to go live.

Sadly the last few updates ( say the U11 UI ) did prove the contrary. We told you ( Turbine ) the UI was going to stay stuck in every healer throat, you still rolled it out. But that can change. I know there's things that were modified following an uproar in Lamannia before it hit live ( say some cannith crafting stuff ).

There's no doubt in my mind that in order for us to make DDO the best it can be, we need your feedback. The days of a few clever designers making decisions in a vacuum are in the past. We now have tripled the size of the team in the hopes of not only delivering bigger and greater new stuff, but fixing more existing issues, whether it be class balance, broken AC, or items not working as described. It also means we have more devs reading feedback and participaing in design decisions - a good thing imo.

You'll have a lot of work to fix AC, good luck.
Don't worry AC breaks too in Monty Hall PnP [which in DDO is due to the many powerful items... everybody is carrying around a backpack of legendary artifacts].
In PnP, that's the GM job to keep the control of his game [and the items he gives his players].
In DDO, you cant put that kind of control, it would drive players away. ( no more than 1 +2 tome by player, no +6 Stat items, 1 or two +5 at best, plain +5 weapon, or +1 prefix or +1 suffix [ no +1 prefix of suffix ] ... that would require a wipe to effect followed by a tightly controlled loot table. Which you are not going to do, it would kill DDO )

The scary thing about all of this (as far as us devs are concerned) is that you will see more work-in-progress and broken things. The latter both because versions are going to Lamannia before QA gets to bang on it and because we have new devs that are undoubtedly going to make mistakes.

*shrug* you have no idea how many broken things i see at work... My job is to fix broken telco things. ( and to determine what is broken and where it is broken along the way )

Please keep all of this in mind.

We've also opened up a bug forum on Lamannia. This is because we continuously see posts to the effect "this was reported on Lam and it STILL went live". Having a bug mentioned somewhere in a thread is dicey. Hopefully the separate forum will help.

Already visited it. *grins* and used it.

And about nerfs: We've done this too casually in the past, I know. It would be my preference to avoid these like the plague, but sometimes it is truly warranted. In those cases, it is my intention to use these 'Let's Talk' threads to discuss these changes in advance - or at least as they hit Lamannia - so that we can ensure we have time to discuss and make the right decision. Obviously the paramount goal is to make our player base happy with the game (without this there's not much reason for DDO to exist), but ultimately that means fair and balanced. If you see a nerf that wasn't accompanied by a discussion thread, please point it out.

Can we open the pandora's box of past nerfs ? ( say Blade barrier scrolls, firewall scrolls for example )

Again, we're going to make mistakes. Do call us out on them, but please don't jump to conclusions that everything is intentional or done with malice.

I give you the benefit of the doubt, but sometime I do wonder.


Side note : Shade's suggestion are not always for the best of the game or of other classes... Furthermore Shade play the game at the very top of the high end content, which is not the majority of your players who are casuals with a few hours a week to spand in game. Fixing the end game so that Shade is happy will ban from said end game the majority of your customers.

[Zenthalas]

So while reading Madfloyd's post in my mind it sounded like Morgan Freeman reading it. I am strangely comforted now.

[smatt]

So while reading Madfloyd's post in my mind it sounded like Morgan Freeman reading it. I am strangely comforted now.

Uh oh......

[DarkSpectre]

For one I'd like to have this reset...

http://my.ddo.com/charactercopy

As two of my characters recently failed to copy to "Llama land" and my other 3 are outdated...

Then I will consider going over to pet the Llama's

[LeslieWest_GuitarGod]

Take madstone boots for example. That began life as a request from Shade.....

[LeslieWest_GuitarGod]

Very happy to hear that you were serious about the change to Lammania, should help us all out!!

[MadFloyd]

I'm pretty sure this isn't a "label" they're heading all these with, but a mechanism. All these bits of code point to the same, main casting code, for the sake of expediency. In other words, it might take a lot of code to make something like the torches work if you use an all new way to lay them down and turn them on. Pointing this to the same code where "the players casts the spell" and these results happen is a bit sloppier, but, I'm certain, faster and easier. The bad part is these unintentional side-effects.

^^^^^ Yes.

[redspecter23]

Depends on how you look at it.

Take madstone boots for example. That began life as a request from Shade who complained, when playing Crystal Cove, that he couldn't use torches & teleporters. Behind the scenes, these two mechanics were really spellcasting. I filed a bug to make madstone boots work in this situation. Did I intend or expect the item to be changed in the way it was? No. Heck, the designer who made the change didn't exactly anticipate the results.

Well I think the simplest solution to the problem is to just not equip the boots in challenges after the first time you notice you can't drop torches. The boots don't HAVE to be equipped all the time I compare that to the player that stands in an easily avoidable force trap and takes damage then complains the trap needs to be fixed so he can live while standing in it. The solution really should be, move yourself out of the trap or just don't stand in it in the first place.

But since you mentioned an interest in raising discussion threads about nerfs, I'd really like to know your feelings specifically on the tactics nerf from a few updates back. I'm interested in knowing from a dev perspective why it was felt that offhand procs for tactics were overpowered enough to require a nerf. Shade's thread has more details than I can possibly post here, but so far, I've not seen any dev response on the issue other than the U13 Lam release notes stating that the coming monk nerf (which is already on live by the way) will bring everything in line. No reasoning or discussion on the nerf at all.

[Dark_Helmet]

Depends on how you look at it.

Take madstone boots for example. That began life as a request from Shade who complained, when playing Crystal Cove, that he couldn't use torches & teleporters. Behind the scenes, these two mechanics were really spellcasting. I filed a bug to make madstone boots work in this situation. Did I intend or expect the item to be changed in the way it was? No. Heck, the designer who made the change didn't exactly anticipate the results.

Sometimes a change is intentional on the part of the person who made the change, but not the team/management as a whole. Again, having stuff go out earlier to Lamannia means more stuff will show up there before it's formally reviewed.

Ironic that Maj is preaching the other way, saying posting on the boards is not the way to go, but we need to bug report in game.
You see, numerous people have reported that bug in game (on Llama and production) and on the forums, yet a vocal member of the boards gets your attention and your bug report gets action.

[Claransa]

Yay 3x as many developers!

Maybe one of them can do something about restoring Draconic Vitality to all the people who lost it when lesser reincarnating and dropping splashes. A bug first reported years ago on... oh yeah Lamannia. (and still in game)

[Melcena]

I am happy to hear about the changes to Lammania, however, it begs to mind an odd question.

[My2Cents]

Thank you very much, Mad, for the open communication, I think its fantastic!

And please accept our apologies for the few in the player base who overreact to "works in progress."

[smatt]

Ironic that Maj is preaching the other way, saying posting on the boards is not the way to go, but we need to bug report in game.
You see, numerous people have reported that bug in game (on Llama and production) and on the forums, yet a vocal member of the boards gets your attention and your bug report gets action.

Nope, what MF is saying is that posting bugs on the forums is haphazard to say the least... Such things assume that a Dev reads EVERYTHING in a particular forum, and every post in a thread. Sorry that's way too much to ask... Trying to sift through everything posted everyday.. The only peopel that could possibly do that are people that don't have a job and lots of spare time, or people that pike A LOT at work...

Setting up a Lama bug forum is a great idea... It at least attempts to narrow things down to one patrticular part of the forums for a Dev or 2 to concentrate on. No matter what they do, Lama will have a small playerbase, one that will again limit the amount of sifting required. They can also flag particular bug threads for more information, enough information, read, etc...

The live game itself needs a fully functioning bug reporting system INGAME..... It's convienant for the VAST majority of DDO players who have no interest and or time in coming to the forums. Whereas MOST Lama players msot certainly frequent the forums.

[Cam_Neely]

For this to happen, us developers have had to change the way we work. We need to get more 'core' work done earlier. This means you will see less 'polish' and many more bugs, mishaps, mistakes, etc. This is both good and bad.

I have not read though any of this thread besides this OP, but this statement is not a fact, purely an assumption that you decide to work with. Being that, I think its one that you guys need to review and decide if you want it to be 'fact'.

I'm sure those above you are always trying to get out new content quicker, but recently DDO has greatly sacrificed quality for quantity. More and more of the end product that is making it to the consumer has major exploits, incomplete upgrade systems and poorly thought out decision. If I ever supplied a product like that to the customer I would frankly be embarrassed.

That being said, why does 'core' work need to be done sooner? Why not release stuff to Lamannia at the same point you did before (what you considered 'polished', although I would debate that) and then look for feedback? Why submit a inferior product for review. Add a few weeks to the development cycle to get a quality product out and leave more time to re-polish.

The DDO game has one of the best combat and character creation systems in any MMO I've seen. The world is immerse and intriguing. But why am I constantly trying out new games? Because these types of exploits and problems display issues behind the scenes that do not bode well if left unchanged.

*EDIT*
made it thought the Devs responses here, and this one stood out.

Take madstone boots for example. That began life as a request from Shade who complained, when playing Crystal Cove, that he couldn't use torches & teleporters. Behind the scenes, these two mechanics were really spellcasting. I filed a bug to make madstone boots work in this situation. Did I intend or expect the item to be changed in the way it was? No. Heck, the designer who made the change didn't exactly anticipate the results

MF, if you are going to do these input threads, lets be honest. The issue was when Shade complained? The issue was when a Dev decided to take the easy way out and code every pot, clickie, spell, teleporter and torch in the game as a Spell. The next issue was when whoever check the ideas, said 'ya lets do that' the the next issue was when it got though QA as a good idea and when live. The madstone boot change did not begin its life when the forums favorite bad guy complained that something obvious was broken.