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Update on a few things

Discussion in 'Announcements' started by Chris, Mar 31, 2020.

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  1. Chris

    Chris Tech Lord Moderator Ambassador SOTA Developer

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    The 10x quest experience bonus has been temporarily disabled. As frequently happens with number adjustments, this immediately exposed a number of issues that players were aware of but either hadn't reported or just didn't think were problems.

    One of those problems was a change I have long complained about and never wanted. It was made by a team member no longer with the team who did it without discussing it with others first. Once it was in, it was hard to undo. That change is the shared xp pool shared between multiple characters on the same account. While this might seem harmless at first, it opens up a ton of exploits. Those who watch my streams have probably seen me complain about it at least a few times.

    The challenge is that once done, it is hard to undo because we don't know how to fairly split xps between characters. The quest XP reward change made this even more obviously problematic and a handful of players exploited the problem to the max but creating alts, rushing them through a handful of one time quests, deleting the alts, making a new one and repeating the quests again. Those quests SHOULD be rewarding but sadly this is why we can't have nice things. :/

    This recent wave of players exploiting that was finally enough to make us dedicate some time to fixing the shared xp pool though. I spent some time thinking it over and came up with a solution to reverse the change without hurting legit players.

    Hopefully in a patch later today we will be turning off the shared XP pools between alts. Any xps currently in your pool will stay there and be shared between accounts. Any new experience will only go toward the one character that earned them. This should all be transparent to the players and no serer downtime for data migration will be needed.

    The 10x xps also uncovered a few unexpectedly repeatable quests without timers that were a fair amount. We'll be adjusting these quests today as well.

    As for those who exploited the new character experience, I tracked down those who used this "feature" and removed the xps they gained from it. While I heard talk of rampant exploiting of this issue in chat, it really came down to just a half dozen who did it. Again, only those who created and deleted multiple alt characters were dealt with.

    Also, we're aware the client is having some major issues including CTD on OSX and flickering lights and performance issues on all platforms. There is currently a build going to fix these but sadly it will delayed a bit as Unity decided to reprocess all assets in the project. This client was tested extensively but not on OSX and the other problems didn't show up in the test as they take time to build up and cause problems.

    Again sorry for the instability the past 12 hours or so and it is being fixed. Not sure on an ETA just yet but definitely by early afternoon.
     
  2. Drilikath

    Drilikath Avatar

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    Glad this non sense will finally be over. I can not believe that people still feel the need to cheat in this game. That is terrible on the Unity re-import ugh... Nothing like sitting and staring at a screen for 1-2 hours. Look forward to the hitching fix so we can get back to playing.
     
  3. kaeshiva

    kaeshiva Avatar

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    Thanks Chris for taking the time to post an update here and for your prompt attention to the issues.
     
  4. Warrior B'Patrick

    Warrior B'Patrick Avatar

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    Greetings all and to you @Chris
    I applaud your dealing with the abuse of such a cool game. Play the game and enjoy. Explore the map and and the scenes. If something requires you to do something that you would not do usually (Creating alts just to kill them off in a few minutes) you probably are not here to have fun.

    While you are looking at the pooled exp issue with Adventure/Producer is there a possibility of removing the pooled virtue also? Lord British was not happy with me when I suggested I wanted to have a good and a bad alt on the same account for role playing purposes. One to follow the True Virtues:) and one to follow the Anti-Virtues:mad:.
     
  5. Numa

    Numa Avatar

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    Agree 100% - never made sense to me that the actions of one character in his separate quest or activity would affect the alt. With the separation of adventure/quest XP it makes even less sense that virtue is a shared mechanic
     
  6. Smelly2

    Smelly2 Avatar

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    Good stuff @Chris !!! Thanks for being transparent with what happened, why it happened and how you are dealing with it. Sad that players take advantage of things but honestly every game out there has issues and players will always find those issues and exploit them so I guess not surprising.

    Also thanks for the double XP and the other benefits while we are stuck at home! This one may have been exploited but everything else is greatly appreciated and has been a help to many people!
     
  7. Browncoat Jayson

    Browncoat Jayson Legend of the Hearth

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    I understand the issues, but I do wish there was a better way to deal with this. You may not have liked shared xp pools yourself, but it was honestly the only way to have a non-combat character in this game. My "main" is my combat guy, and does all the gathering of resources in adventure scenes, brings them back to town and leaves them in my shop. My other characters are tradeskill guys, with different skill focuses and masteries. They have no need for "adventure" xp (so it just sits in the pool to make learning quicker on my main), but use all the shared trade xp to learn new skills until they can actually make things that are worth decent xp. Since tradeskilled items sell so poorly, I kind of have to rely on my main to get resources, since I can't possibly buy them.

    So if this is going to be a permanent change, please focus on the economy soon. I have two alts that I'll only ever log in to do masterworks now.
     
  8. Dhanas

    Dhanas Avatar

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    Finaly, i ve always said shared xp between charcter would have generated Many problems.
     
  9. Ostvel

    Ostvel Avatar

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    This is why I never created an alt on my main account, I didn't want my alt accidentally sucking up my mains xp lol
     
  10. Joe Zhudarak

    Joe Zhudarak Avatar

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    Set a 48h timer or more to delete a character ... and ban for some weeks those who create more than 3 times a new character
     
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  11. Galorn

    Galorn Avatar

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    I have had chats with a number of players that are really upset that they will have xp removed and be punished even though they do not have alt characters at all. They are convinced that xp was removed from their character. This misunderstanding is causing confusion.
     
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  12. Black Tortoise

    Black Tortoise Avatar

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    Thanks for your response @Chris

    I wasnt really familiar with these issues originally. Thanks for explaining the background resistance to shared exp (and also to the other forum members explaining it to me in another thread).

    This saddens me, but I understand the full story. I happen to have an advantageous exp pool right now, but am concerned for players that dont - when this change goes live, if they split exp like I do, theyre just kinda stuck there.

    Great point.
     
  13. Cryptomancer

    Cryptomancer Avatar

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    For how to fairly split the shared pool between alts, I thought the earlier bug that caused XP to show up as an inventory item might have been a solution. An heirloom/account-locked stack of XP, let the player split it as desired, pick it out of the bank and use it on alts.
     
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  14. Sator Faryn

    Sator Faryn Avatar

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    Thanks @Chris for looking into this. I will do more performance tests on my two Alienware (R6 and R8) computers once the new build is out to fix the performance issues.
     
  15. Vladamir Begemot

    Vladamir Begemot Avatar

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    A good leader accepts responsibility instead of passing the buck.

    Every time I hear "This is why we can't have good things" it makes me cringe, because most of the time we could have them if you would address the issues instead of creating more halfway complete systems to add to the list of the problems.

    Specifically from this post:

    Some players didn't report; How would you know? The QA system was such a mess that it could very well have been reported multiple times. Additionally we never know exactly what we are looking for. Never once was there a direction to report quests that can be turned in regularly (the generic blame of players in the first sentence is vauge, so I'm just guessing that's what you're talking about).

    It's your fault for not giving your free labor direction or any confidence that they will be heard. I know there is progress now, but it's going to take a while to rebuild the lost trust and excitement. And even then, it's not the players fault. Never say that again.

    Reporting continued; it takes only 40 hours to complete the main story. For the owner of the company to not have dedicated 1 hour a day for 2 months in order to root out these problems first hand is uncacceptable, particularly 2 years after launch. It's your fault for not playing the game.

    Blaming a long gone developer for a problem you know exists, we know exists, everyone has stood around and had a pizza party about its existence, instead of just fixing the problem is once again your fault for not fixing the known problem.

    During my time in the military, the most respected Officers were those who accepted the blame even when it was clearly screwed up by someone or something outside of the control. The most reviled were those who constantly passed blame.

    Please start accepting responsibility. It is scary at first, but once you start doing it you will feel better about yourself, and everyone looking on will be impressed at what a great leader you are. It will also change your outlook so you will get ahead of problems like this, instead of waiting for them to explode in our faces.

    And we won't have to cringe while you blame players/Unity/former developers, etc. any more.
     
    Last edited: Mar 31, 2020
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  16. Sentinel2

    Sentinel2 Avatar

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    Years ago there was a solo game I really enjoyed. I thought how cool would it be to use cheats and really pound the bad guys.

    It wasn't fun anymore. Totally screwed it up for me. Never played the game again. It was just TOO easy and not worth the effort. I was left unsatisfied. I learned a hard lesson that day and never forgot it.

    I realize some people try to monetize games today. I get it. But for those of us just playing to enjoy. Nah. Not worth it.
     
  17. Widsith [MGT]

    Widsith [MGT] Avatar

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    It's a well-worn truism of engineering and product management that you can pick any two of: Cheap, Good, Fast.

    It's a given that SotA has been and always will be Cheap. Kickstarters don't yield as much money as venture capital or studio contracts, and no one will be putting more investment capital into what amounts to a personal holding LLC.

    Leaving a choice between Fast and Good. The PortNip culture has been Fast, and that's understandable. Getting something that could be vaguely justified as a Launch out the door before the Kickstarter money ran out was essential to life. But that culture is still being perpetuated, contrary to public assertions, and yesterday's patches give the lie to the claim that Good is now the goal.

    Talk is cheap. Culture change is hard - but hopefully not too hard when so few people are involved.
     
    Last edited: Mar 31, 2020
  18. Artomus Sumotra

    Artomus Sumotra Avatar

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    Man up and get it done. You know what to do... It is difficult but you have been on board all along so don't act like the issues are something that can be overlooked. You know what to do. So do it before it is a game killing problem. I have been here since day one and I never could wrap my head around the "Don't Lawyer me Bro" Motto... To me that is passing the buck before it happens. That is all I have to say about it.
    I still pay my Subscriptions in hope that it helps get the game on track. It has been making a lot of progress recently. I know it can be done and this game can be a Monster. But my faith is not without limit. Also if you are not banning everyone that is doing crap like this at least put a place with a public notice as to who they are. Then they can be known for who they are by the people they have caused discord for.
     
    Last edited: Mar 31, 2020
  19. Rhunen

    Rhunen Avatar

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    Thanks Chris and all your fellow devs for putting in long hours trying to sort this all out. Personally I'll probably never make an alt on my main account since I like playing my character too much. However, I can see where people would want these things split off to have their alt be different in alignment, guild, exp pool, whatever floats their boat.

    (Edit: Fixing just-woke-up grammar mistakes :))
     
    Last edited: Mar 31, 2020
  20. Tiina Onir

    Tiina Onir Avatar

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    Now, I've never use the alt slots on my account (I do have a alt with a different account), but I find it a bit disingenuous to call this exploiting.

    @Chris You knew full well that accounts share XP, and that each character on the account could run quests for the XP. The reason it hasn't been an issue before now is that XP for the quests have always been about right for the effort it took to complete them; if someone wanted to do that, it ultimately didn't matter. The only reason there's a problem is that you decided to break game balance by bumping quest XP by 10x.

    Until now, it wasn't an exploit, it was things working as intended. At most this should result in the XP being rolled back. It's not reasonable for you to change the rules without telling us then slam down the ban-hammer for people doing things that were just fine before.
     
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