Goblin Squad Member
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So, here we go again...... Same issue for months now.... I had to ask the clerics / healers in my group to "Please do not heal me, I'm already at -3800 rep, and I'd rather just die."
Yep, auto targeting your healers while in combat is now the new flavor of unintentional reputation loss.
I will say this again..... Your targeting system sucks and you apparently don't know how to fix it, even with solutions staring you in the face.
1. A toggle to switch on / off PC targeting. If it is off, you can not target PCs.
2. Beneficial Feats do not act as a trigger for auto targeting..... Derp!
Until they fix this I woukd suggest you avoid getting heals in combat, especially if you are using ranged combat. Because you can't always see what you are shooting at.... You get no indicator of your target on your screen and you can still shoot crap behind you.
Oh and on a final not. I hear that the rep recovery is now 1 point for first hour, 2 points for second... Etc, but it caps at 10 points per hour. So it will take you 100 hours per thousand to dig yourself out if that hole due to their craptastic targeting system.
Good luck getting players who are innocently getting nerfed to resub after EE starts with that.
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Goblin Squad Member
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So that's what happened. I had a party member lose a lot of rep lately while I was healing him. He showed up in my tab targeting rotation, too, as if he were a hostile. I guess he whacked me instead of the enemy a few times, when his targeting auto-cycled to me.
I agree, this should be a very high priority fix. If healing still sets up the healer as the healed person's next target when EE arrives, then healing should be self-only until that's fixed. If restricting healing to self-only would be too hard to implement, then healing orisons and spells should be disabled until this is fixed. Getting healed should never make the healer the next auto-target.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Before any get the idea that I have a problem with the Reputation System, I actually don't. I don't mind losing Reputation when I'm out PVPing and decide the Reputation loss is worth the gains.
What I do mind is that 80% of the time I've lost Reputation was the result of PVE-Escalations and accidental targeting.
I have said previously, there are on screen alerts that GW should adopt to help prevent the second hit.
The Red Indicator that is nearly microscopic on the far right-hand side of the screen, should be the size of a dime and dead center, just above your tool bar.
At the center-top of the screen, you should clearly see that name and health bar of your current target.
The fixing of the targeting system should have had a priority over Banking / Auction House, because.... you know.... you can't use the bank/ah if you can't enter a town.
As for the slower rep recovery, I don't really care as much with only a few weeks to go before character wipe. Bluddwolf is stuck at negative rep for the remainder, and I have two other characters with training points to spend.
If anyone else is in the same boat, and wants to spend the remainder of Alpha doing PVP Roams, send Bluddwolf a /whisper.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I just joined the stress test and would agree this is a major issue, a few innocent hits don't just tarnish your halo on the good/evil axis, they label you a full blown murderhobo to the system. Rep regain doesn't really seem to be a problem its the rep loss side that is seriously flawed. This should be a priority because this is a game where we are each others content, flawed game systems destroying the ability to engage in cooperative play will not be tolerated come EE. Cut the system out entirely and let us try self policing if that system isn't ready but right now the cure is more damaging than the disease.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Fully agreed that the manner in which friendly fire affects reputation needs to be solved before EE begins (either with a permanent solution or any of the multiple stopgaps available).
The fact that playing with other friendly players has a significant chance to ruin the reputation of your friends, yourself or both is currently a major deterrent towards grouping.
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Goblin Squad Member
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...100 rep/hour...
Did they change it again? I've not done the stop-watch work in 9.1, but the previous build was 12 seconds per point, or 300 per hour. I was wondering whether they'd be edging us toward the "real" rate of Reputation-gain over the builds, but I've not put myself in harm's-way lately, so I'm maxxed out, and kinda forgot about checking Reputation.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Bludd, this is only after Live, you should have a base of 100 rep/hour right now....you just have to stay in game.
I was in game, for an hour during the escalation, and I recovered 1 point. We will see tonight when I log in, if I'm around -3400 or so. Then again tomorrow, if I am at -2400 or better.
10 points per hour, is 100 hours per a thousand. That is way to long, as long as there are ways for innocents to end up with a negative rep.
If things remain the way they are, people will tell Clerics to keep away from them in combat. Death is easier than the rep loss.
Targeting has been an issue since build 6, and it just got worse.
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Goblin Squad Member
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These are long term fixes but here is how you fix this issue entirely.
1. Parties, Companies, and Settlements can have friendly fire enabled or disabled. If joining a party/group with it disabled you get a pop-up warning. You are also notified and given a brief timeframe to leave before it takes effect if it changes once you are in a group.
Most of these style of games already have party/alliance kills disable any negative consequences for this very reason. I realize Ryan sees it the opposite way, and I've been warning him all along sooooo...
The first of many...
Cut the system out entirely and let us try self policing if that system isn't ready but right now the cure is more damaging than the disease.
It's not a UNC saying that. ;)
2. Friendly and Hostile tagging system. Players should have the ability to set up settings that allow them to mark targets as friendly and hostile. Here is how I would set mine:
[H]Aggressive NPCs
[F]Non-Aggresive NPCs
[F]Party Members
[F]Company Members
[F]Settlement Members
[F]Allied Companies
[F]Allied Settlements
[F]Neutral Players
[H]Red Players
[H]Targets with Aggression Timers
[H]Feud Targets
Friendly targets would only be target-able with beneficial effects. Hostile targets would only be target-able with aggressive effects.
Additionally you throw in basically a safety switch. For instance if I press the "]" key I manually set a target to friendly while the "\" key manually sets them to hostile. Regardless of any auto-flagging settings.
The other nice part is because I have targets with aggression timers on auto-hostile I can respond if someone starts hitting me.
Finally you could set some flags to take precedence over others. For instance the friendly status of "Settlement Member" may outweigh the hostile property of "Red Players." Or the other way around, depending on what settings you want to go with.
3. A rep safety needs to be in place. In Wurm you can toggle two tabs called "lawful" and "faithful". While "lawful" is on you cannot take any action which is against the law. The game blocks you from doing it. While "faithful" is on you cannot take any action that would offend your deity. Disable them, and you can do whatever you want.
They worked extremely well.
PFO needs a similar safety that stops anyone from taking an action that harms their rep unless they turn it off.
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Goblin Squad Member
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The layered Friendly/Hostile system would probably take too long to develop before EE. It sounds like an excellent addition to the game eventually, though.
A rep safety switch sounds like a great idea, too. I have no idea how easy or hard it would be to implement.
In the party I described earlier, I initially thought that my party member/attacker might have been using an AoE melee attack, and I might have been getting clipped by the edge of that attack. We then confirmed that he had no AoE attacks slotted. At that point we had no idea what was going wrong. It never occurred to me that the system couldn't distinguish between a monster attacking him, and me healing him.
I suspect that 99% of new people will have no idea why this happens to them. That will be bad. As I said earlier, I'd rather see no healing in EE than healing that drives people away from the game.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Bludd, this is only after Live, you should have a base of 100 rep/hour right now....you just have to stay in game.I was in game, for an hour during the escalation, and I recovered 1 point. We will see tonight when I log in, if I'm around -3400 or so. Then again tomorrow, if I am at -2400 or better.
10 points per hour, is 100 hours per a thousand. That is way to long, as long as there are ways for innocents to end up with a negative rep.
If things remain the way they are, people will tell Clerics to keep away from them in combat. Death is easier than the rep loss.
Targeting has been an issue since build 6, and it just got worse.
I'm pretty sure you would have to leave your character logged in overnight to see those results. I don't think you regain any reputation when you're logged out to character select, or not running PFO at all. Unless it works differently now, and I missed the change (very possible).
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Goblin Squad Member
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Yeah its rather amusing actually though will not be funny in EE.
My main crafter who is probably the only character in Keepers capable of making +3 axes, battleaxes and swords is stuck on -5800 rep for no apparent reason.
I am thinking potentially it might have come from him healing and buffing with reactive damage feats still slotted but not really sure :D
Its rather an odd system.
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Goblin Squad Member
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To amend your first idea:
I would suggest that instead of turning off friendly fire, you can not take reputation hits when hitting party members/company members.
Your second idea, I believe they already have that kind of tagging at the company level, when it is implemented.
Last idea, I 100% agree with. If we had a button that would stop us from creating accidents it would go along way towards making the current reputation system more palatable.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Any of the changes mentioned here would be programmer labour heavy... It has already been made clear dozens of times that 'solutions' to problems in-game need to be within the realm of possibility.
Unfortunately, I think the quickest option would be to disable healing until the auto-target problem is fixed.
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Goblin Squad Member
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If any GW folks are following this, could we get some confirmation that this is happening the way we think it is, or if not, a quick description of what's really happening? Normally, I wouldn't push you guys for an answer, but if this system works the way we think it does, then clerics will have a really hard time in EE.
Edit: "Don't heal me until I'm down. Don't buff me at all. My reputation can't take another hit! Come to think of it, why do we have a cleric in the party, anyway?"
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Goblin Squad Member
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Any of the changes mentioned here would be programmer labour heavy...Certainly less than AH tweaks. What Andius describes isn't a big job.
How do you know that? What may not seem like a 'big job' to us may very-well be to GW at this crucial, crunch time count-down to EE. From the way Ryan has been talking, I am thinking that they are focusing on way more important things than this. And perhaps rightfully so.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Any of the changes mentioned here would be programmer labour heavy...Certainly less than AH tweaks. What Andius describes isn't a big job.
You state this with a lot more certainty I could muster. Are you a programmer or have other experience related to the question of how hard a given system would be to implement?
Not looking to be combative, just trying to gauge if you are speaking authoritatively here.
Goblinworks Executive Founder
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How do you know that? What may not seem like a 'big job' to us may very-well be to GW at this crucial, crunch time count-down to EE. From the way Ryan has been talking, I am thinking that they are focusing on way more important things than this. And perhaps rightfully so.
Because I have a minimum experience in that. I am not saying that's not a supplementary work, but that's not a big thing.
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Goblinworks Executive Founder
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You state this with a lot more certainty I could muster. Are you a programmer or have other experience related to the question of how hard a given system would be to implement?
Not looking to be combative, just trying to gauge if you are speaking authoritatively here.
Andius is asking for a verification of state, when an event is launched. That implies just to add "if" when the attack is launched, to simplify. If condition X isn't met, the attack isn't launched. Just like the attack isn't launched, if the distance condition isn't met.
AH tweaks are probably freaking harder and complex.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Andius is asking for a verification of state, when an event is launched. That implies just to add "if" when the attack is launched, to simplify. If condition X isn't met, the attack isn't launched. Just like the attack isn't launched, if the distance condition isn't met.
AH tweaks are probably freaking harder and complex.
I'm sorry, I don't mean to be combative, but I really do not agree with you. I think "just adding an 'if' " is a gross over-simplification of the issue. What about all of the correlated tech and systems? What impact will this 'if' have on them?
I think it is pretty easy to say "oh, it would be easy to just do 'this' " when we are on this side of the interwebs.
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Goblinworks Executive Founder
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I'm sorry, I don't mean to be combative, but I really do not agree with you. I think "just adding an 'if' " is a gross over-simplification of the issue. What about all of the correlated tech and systems? What impact will this 'if' have on them?
I think it is pretty easy to say "oh, it would be easy to just do 'this' " when we are on this side of the interwebs.
Did you ever code or not ?
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Goblin Squad Member
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Did you ever code or not ?I'm sorry, I don't mean to be combative, but I really do not agree with you. I think "just adding an 'if' " is a gross over-simplification of the issue. What about all of the correlated tech and systems? What impact will this 'if' have on them?
I think it is pretty easy to say "oh, it would be easy to just do 'this' " when we are on this side of the interwebs.
I really don't see how that is relevant. I gave myself some stitches once, with some fishing wire, while camping. I sure wouldn't start calling myself a doctor, though.
You and I have no real idea of what the coding of this game is like; therefore, it is really presumptuous to assume that what we think would be easy really is easy.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I have coded, and I'm not prepared to assume that any change in a piece of code this complex is as simple as you think. It could be. Or it could be tied into a system that has repercussions across dozens of modules. AH tweaks (which are primarily restricted to how the contents of a database dispalys) shouldn't have any effect outside the AH, except possible connectors to character inventory and a minimal tie to the bank.
Targeting is the first step in everything that happens. Changes to targeting are going to tie to (at the very least) any combat interactions, which is at the core of a huge chunk of the activity and could impact subroutines for things like selecting trainers, selecting guards, selecting nodes, calling up identification for other players.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Adding a conditional argument is simple prima facie, but a reactive targeting module is unlikely to be simple and whatever reactive targeting also does may be convoluted indeed. Everything related must be thought-through and all consequences of even the simplest change must not only be projected but documented since this programmer is unlikely to be the only programmer that ever has to code the product.
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Goblinworks Executive Founder
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@Dazyk : It's relevant because for people who never coded a game, there is a big tendency to think that some things are hard, while thinking of other things are easy, but usually, it's the other way around.
@Cal : Obviously, I don't know how PFO is made, and I would be happy to shut up if a GW developer told me "Yes, you are wrong, it's a very odd to do". But without knowing nothing about this particular game's architecture, I think that if you are honest, you will agree with me that saying "Any of the changes mentioned here would be programmer labour heavy... It has already been made clear dozens of times that 'solutions' to problems in-game need to be within the realm of possibility.", is a very very exaggerated statement, based on ignorance.
And I'm not using the word ignorance as an insult, it's ignorance just like it was ignorance when I asked to my surgeon if he could make surgery on me with a local anaesthetic, because I can't be completely anaesthetised because of my handicap. Well he told me that the anaesthetic isn't the problem for me, the problem is the body reaction of contact with the intestines. It was probably very obvious for him, but not for me because of ignorance.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Cal : ... I think that if you are honest, you will agree with me that saying "Any of the changes mentioned here would be programmer labour heavy... It has already been made clear dozens of times that 'solutions' to problems in-game need to be within the realm of possibility.", is a very very exaggerated statement, based on ignorance.
Not quite. I can agree with parts of your statement. I agree that we can presume Dazyk has an ignorance of programming, because he hasn't said he's coded and probably would have if he has. We can't, though, assume that he doesn't have a strong grasp of logic, which might be as important as programming experience in assessing the results of altering a system with which we are unfamiliar. No, I won't agree that it is a very exaggerated statement, though I do agree that it is based (at least partially) on ignorance (as defined).
All of that said, there's not much point in getting frustrated by Dazyk's statement (or mine, or yours), since the only statements about programming that matter are from the GW team, and they haven't addressed it.
Our role here is to tell GW what we think they should do next. Their role is to make the decisions. None of us should be telling each other what to suggest or not suggest or criticizing each others' preferences, except as a function of saying why we want what we want.