Developer thougth process challange?

Recently we have seen an issue with a "solution" that was going to be implemented to solve an exploit.

Ok so here is what I see are the pit falls and problems surrounding these issues? Also how would you think they should be dealt with.

First hand one must ID the exploit, is it truly and exploit, or is it a in game mechanic players are taking advantage of and it being labeled Exploitive.

I have zero idea about what the real situation is this is just a made up example.

Look at Ranged and it actual Range Skill. Lets say that some place there is a situation that you can still be in LOS and able to hit a target but the target cannot truly pathfinds to you but stays hittable. True it could hit back but it is like one hilltop to another. Sooo in then end it truly does not violate any real mechanic it just was created because the Range has outdistanced the issues. Fixing it appears to be harder then just raising elevation of something to make a barrier.

Ok now a player reports this and it is identified but no easy fix. You see this player stopped "testing" it but now other player(s) then a group of player are now using this "Exploit" and are taking advantage of it. It is clearly a person (s) doing it over and over.

How do you fix it as a developer, you cannot just kill the skill because it works everywhere else. You cant not eliminate the MOB because it also works in many other place / situations.

Soo limited choices.

Now as I see it what they did (to fix a problem in the current situation) was to implement a "fix" with a Cap. No explanation, as it would lead to more knowing of this "Exploit" yet is has far reaching affects. And sets a precedent that is hard to allow. ((again this is just speculating for example)

How would you deal with it?

Honestly I would be up front as fast as possible and blow it out of the water. I would say hey there is an issue that we are having a time fixing but atm it could result in players exploiting this situation. This is what it is; Blah yadda, yadda, yadda, . . . . Now we do not want to destroy the skill or mob, however if you are found executing this abuse you will be banned immediately for ## days , and if repeated banned permanently.

We are working hard to make the necessary fix for this.

Or they could announce the problem and say "to prevent any further abuse we are temp suiting off this area, scene, skil,. . . . ."

Both these are up front informative and explanative. Players will respond to it sure some might be upset but it is blunt and honest.

Now if you wait until after the fact and it is abused to the nth degree, i.e. the stairs in Control Points, that resulted in millions of exp gained, and then fix it stealthily you are leaving the problem abused and abusers untouched. Get ahead of and stay ahead of by being upfront as fast as possible.

NOW if it is truly an exploit like the idiot who posted a picture of 1 million health, then yeah silence is key as long as the cat stays in the bag.

The problem really is when it involves a viable in game mechanic that fast assertive and forceful solutions and / or actins taken.

Now in the end any and all attempts to cap a skill can never be a solution in this game (period)
(pvp not considered, sorry. it is proven as needed there)


Developers have a hard job but open, honest, GLOBAL (one place as the standard) communication is the key.

 

Starr isn't bad at communicating. He's just often unavailable and overwhelmed.

Chris needs this guy, except in swapped roles. (I kid)



There's a lot of exploding threads that happen just because the there's no consistently open line of communication. Whether it's a community manager, or ombudsman, we need it. Not having one seems like as much an error to me as not having a customer service person.

 

OMG! Sh!t happens. Give it a rest.

 

"This is a temporary solution" in the notes would have prevented a TON of aggro over the last few days.

 

Not even going to get into it

last few days could have been avoided partially, hence why I pointed it out.

Caps BTW are never a solution

 

@Weins201

...and now you are going to lecture on how to communicate? Do you even realize how you come across??

Identify the problem:
Subject is misspelled. Thought not Thougth.

So - how to fix? Limited choices. We have spell checker of course.

How do you deal with it? Honestly I would blow it out of the water and just let the person know if they want to be taken seriously they may want to think about what they type.

>>rolls eyes<<

 

The way they make solutions is not my issue generally. Though posting what they plan to do and getting feedback helps avoid lots of problems.

I guess he is too busy, but Chris' daily blog used to work well for this.

My main issue is a lack of publish and understood design principles for the game. This is a sandbox with mechanics. No guidelines for us to judge what is an "exploit" verses what is working as intended.

If they had a list like.

A player should not be able farm more than X value of stuff per hour.
A player should not be able to kill anything that cannot fight back.
A player should never be able to more than X DPS sustained for more than Y amount of time.

This way when we find what other games refer to as emergent game play, then we can evaluate if it is broken, working as intended or simply working but was not intended.

If they want us to their primary testers, we need this information.

Regards
Spung

 

He can't. Obsession.

 

Afaik it was stated that it was temporary.

 

A ton of aggro fuled by he same people that always fule this kind of rant.

 

I used to be the same way, honestly. (just more privately) -- What helped me was first: shutting up and second: playing the game instead

 

Don't get me wrong. It isn't so much about the complains itself. Even Weins has a point here and there if i want to be honest. What is really getting to me is the amount of in-your-face sh!t posting i am seeing here off late. Seems like a couple of peopel lost every ability to post a normal, resonable complaint.

 

I know quite often the developers' chosen response or solution to a particular issue is often baffling to us.
More often than not, its because of one of two things:

1. They have more information than we do

In #1, they are, as the devs, able to look at what's happening on the back end, look at global metrics, and take note of things like, oh look, there is one player who in the last 24 hours has killed 500 cabalists and the next highest player has killed 12. Chris has even explained how looking at these metrics will often make them aware of a completely different problem, like abuse of scene reset mechanics or perhaps just scenes being bugged and not working as intended and players taking advantage. It happens all the time.

or

2. We have more information than they do.

In #2, often decisions are made that impact players in ways that can't be gleaned from looking at spreadsheets. Look at the mining respawn change, on paper it looks absolutely fine, until you actually put yourself in a player's shoes and see that they are standing idle for 10 minutes with nothing whatsoever to do in a scene due to respawn rate being woefully inadequate. That sure was an exciting stream to watch! This in turn leads to further questions and potentially further adjustments.

As players, and QA testers, and people who are invested in the success of the project, it is our responsibility to give our feedback. But we never have the full picture, and I agree that an explanation of design goals / what is trying to be achieved would help smooth a bunch of ruffled feathers, it would certainly improve the quality of feedback on our end and stop a lot of alarmist kneejerk responses. If they are relying on us to be the "playtesters" we can be used more effectively if we are given certain information.

 

Yeah - I don't mean to imply that we shouldn't bring up our grievances or ideas either for that matter.

 

If checkers was programed to only allow you to king your piece when you reached the other side of the board, but the way it was implimented was letting people king any of thier pieces, then only folks who know how to play checkers are gonna be doing it right and everyone else will argue that it wasnt an exploit and just a game mechanic they nerfed

 

Hit the nail on the head, Arkah.

Some things are obviously unintended, you find a chest you can open every 5 seconds = broken.

But for the edge cases, and what's an edge cases is subjective, so differ from player to player. In the absence of a rule book, the mechanics are the rules.


Regards
Spung