Asherons Call: Ken Troop Answers More Questions

Will the ability to recall to where you logged off ever be removed?

Here's a semi-longish answer to this:

A long time ago, maybe 15 months or so, back when I was a Content Designer on AC, we fixed this so that you could no longer summon a portal to a logout spot.

At the time, for reasons I don't remember, but I assume having to do with tech, we didn't remove the "you can recall to a logout spot, if you've never used a portal"

Because back then, that was the deal: you couldn't use a permanent portal, and do this, and so we thought the matter was mostly dead. However, now with the "absolute non-recall" portals, the problem has come up again.

Yes, at some point, we would like to fix this.

Hmm, maybe that answer doesn't make sense to some of you, but the summary is in the second-to-last sentence.

Ken

What about forcing new characters to use a fixed portal first thing?

That is a good idea. It's funny, because that was going to be our original Training Academy dynamic, but we had to cut it because there were too many other issues with it.

I think I'd prefer a straight out code-approach to it, but we'll see.

Ken

So we aren't likely to see this fixed in the February patch?

No probability of Feb. Possible in March, but not likely.

Ken

*snide comment about Turbine's CoC (Catering our Cheaters)*

See, this is what really gets under my skin.

If I ignore inflammatory/insulting posts:

1) Then I get upset, because sometimes people have a right to be upset, and I'd like to focus on the problem and fix it, or at least make them feel that someone is listening.

2) We get accused of never responding to tough questions

If I respond/answer to inflammatory/insulting posts:

1) We get accused of only responding to inflammatory posts.

2) People begin to increase the amount of inflammation/insulting in order to provoke response.

That's one of the main reasons why it's just easier to never post on this board.

Aren't there any tough questions presented in a non-inflammatory manner?

Touche. Yes, there are.

But there are a number of significant issues with me being able to see them.

1) The signal-to-noise ratio. I don't have time to read every post on here, or on AC Vault. So I skim a lot when reading (usually from home), looking for hot-button issues or for posters I generally recognize as not being idiots. Since there is a lot of "noise" on this board, it becomes even harder for me to separate the gold from the dross here.

2) Time in general. I wish my full-time job was to spend all my time on boards like this, talking to people about AC, helping issues get escalated and articulated. But one of the reasons why I am able to talk about AC, is because I spent and spend so much of my time developing for it. If I didn't put in that time, I wouldn't be able to give specific answers.

In any case, if I want to get stuff done, I have to spend my work time making sure we're getting our Event finished. That's my job. That's why we're not on the boards anymore, not because we like seeing people upset over the lack of communication, not because we think it's fun to keep people in the dark, not because we hate these boards (although they are occasionally annoying), but because our jobs require us to spend most of our time actually developing the content.

People who proclaim that the "old dev team" was "on the boards all the time" and that the developer/Dev Board poster relationship was "just great!" make me wonder about the assumption that people share a common reality. Cuz that sure wasn't the Dev Board I saw back then.

Here I am, at 10:10 PM at night, writing this note. This is when I have the time to do this. Honestly, I'd rather be at home with my wife right now. But occasionally, when I can carve a small section of time here, I make the effort to come here and address questions that people post.

I honestly think me doing this makes little difference to our overall subscription rates, to whether the money that Turbine makes from AC rises or falls. This so-called "period of doom" in which Turbine stopped talking on the Dev Board?!? -- AC subscriptions went higher during this period. Go figure.

I do this because I enjoy it. When I go through phases in which I don't enjoy it, I don't come here.

But enough sob stories. You were mentioning tough questions.

I'll be here for another 45 minutes or so. Is there a specific question someone had in mind?

Ken

I'm sure most concerns are eventually heard, we just like some confirmation that this is the case and they aren't being ignored.

As you said, one way or the other, almost every issue here of merit eventually works it way back to us.

Ken

With the exception of Martinate Minions, Hollow Minion experience sucks! Their AI is also frustrating.

I agree that the Minions should be worth more xp. It's one of the main problems I had with minions for a long time, and why I designed the Martinate minions to give off as much as they did.

I don't foresee their AI changing anytime soon.

Ken

Any chance of bringing back the old Obsidian Plain spawns?

We probably aren't going to be reversing them anytime soon. While some people have problems with the new spawns, there were *lots* of people who had problems with the old spawns.

We are tinkering with ideas of a new high level playground.

Ken

What about low level dungeons surrounded by high level monsters?

Yeah, this stuff really bugs me because it's so annoying, but it's a question of having the time and resources to fix it.

So the answer is probably that it would take awhile to sort those things out.

Ken

I wish Turbine had addressed High AL Mobs in the chat. I hope the fix for these isn't higher damage melee weapons.

I agree that higher weapon damage is not the fix to ultra high A.L. creatures.

There will be fewer of these creatures in newer content, however.

I'm reluctant at this point to push to reopen old monsters' A.L.

Ken

So why are their more creatures in game like this? Is it a bug or are you a liar?

You shouldn't have given me the opt-out of it being a bug. Just go straight with the "liar" part. It's far more exciting.

Hmm, so much more I want to write. So many sarcastic possibilities, so little time.

But, yes, I understand the frustration, so here is an honest attempt at an answer:

Again, this is a case where the person who originally designed these creatures is now working on a different project.

I believe the goal at the time was to make these monsters require multiple people to kill. Yes, I fully acknowledge that that is not how the dynamic plays out. Again, I am reluctant to have my content people focus on fixing old content -- I'd rather them work on new content. This may be an unpopular answer for many of the denizens here. I believe it is the right answer for the overall benefit of the game.

As for Boss monsters -- ideally, I'd rather fix the problem by introducing new content. I believe that that is ultimately the best use of resources.

As for the definitions of "there will be fewer..." and "I'm reluctant to push to reopen...", please be more specific as to what you do not understand. I meant them exactly as they were written.

Ken

The changes we are seeing in AC, are these a harbinger of what is coming in AC2?

Not really. This is more of a combination of factors:

1) New people on the Dev team.

2) Continued evolution of our ideas on the game and what is fun.

AC2 is going down their separate path in a lot of ways. Oh, some of their cool ideas are infecting us over here :), so, if anything, AC2 is a test for us!

Certainly, the AC2 team will continue to observe AC1 dynamics and learn from them, but AC2 already has much of its basic foundation set, so what we do here in AC1 doesn't have that much effect.

Ken

Off topic, will we be seeing some more information about AC2 at the upcoming game conference?

I would imagine so.

Ken

First, thanks for the answers in the chat.

Second, are new skills coming?

Third, interface bugs going to be fixed? Like:

a) Coordinates not showing under the Radar even when it is turned on

B) Missing icons when you ID an item

C) Crash when hitting the inscribe area on an item you don't control

D) Ghost images when you change from a Backpack to a Bag.[/b]

1) You're welcome.

2) Truly new skills are not being planned at this time. We are still trying to schedule a revamping of Appraisals (hi, Wicca! My team wanted to put in the appraisal stuff for Feb, but I said, "Then what reason would Wicca have to post? Move it out to July!" (That's a joke. Yes, I know it's not funny, Wicca)) , but if and when we do that, ideally we would let players "opt" out of the appraisals since the new function and their old function would be so radically different, and then let them opt back in if they wanted.

Please keep in mind that:

a) I can't make any promises about changes to appraisals

b) I can't make any promises that we would in fact be able to offer people the chance to refund their appraisal skill credits if we did change appraisals (or even if we didn't)

So, truly new skills? No.

3)

A) I think the coords bugs should be all fixed in Feb.

B through D) No active plans to fix these right now. Although I know C) especially is annoying. I'll see if we can schedule it in at some point.

Ken

The Tumerok Banner Quests, so the final rewards aren't in game and not likely to come soon. Can you tell me if there is a hidden use for these yet?

The designer who originally designed this quest isn't working on AC right now.

So while I know the general gist of what the end result of the quest for the various weapons was supposed to be, I don't know off the top of my head what some of the specific dynamics were supposed to be.

I'm 99% sure, though, that there are no current "hidden" use for them in-game.

Ken

Any plans on adding the Invulnerability spell to items that aren't shields? What about Bow and Crossbow mastery on gauntlets? What about some more melee defense mods on Quest Crossbows?

We don't have any current plans to add invuln to non-shield loot items. I can't right now think of a good reason why not.

We are planning on adding bow/xbow/tw mastery to gauntlets and sollerets. No firm date on when. I'd like to see it in March.

You'll see some melee D on quest archery items soon. No current thoughts to making having be a more generalized thing.

Ken

The @fillcomps question confuses me. Rumor had it that it was changed to nerf macroers, is the answer at the chat confirming that?

That rumor is not true.

It is being left in, because ultimately, we would like to...I can't answer that right now. As someone kindly pointed out in a thread below, Vaporware is cool.

It is being left in, because I think I can use my coding resources in better ways to fix other things at this time. I think my dev chat answer accurately expresses the possibilities for the future.

Ken

So @fillcomps was nerfed on purpose?

My understanding is that it was indirectly nerfed due to our fix for the platinum scarab bug.

Our desire was not to break @fillcomps.

If it looks like all this cryptic-maybes and what-ifs that I'm referring to aren't going to happen, I'll make sure it gets fixed.

Ken

Will Unarmed Combat be receiving some bonuses soon?

Unarmed will be receiving some bonuses. More than some other weapons. Less than others.

Ultimately, we want to make each weapon worth its relative spec cost.

Daggers/Staves being relatively equal, UA slightly above, Spear slightly above UA, Mace/Axe slightly above them, Sword above all.

Yes, I know that is not remotely how it works right now.

Ken

Just make sure you talk to us about upcoming balance changes to melee!

I'm going to respond seriously to this -- what do we do when you guys disagree? Or when I have Mr. UA telling me, "Ok, this is what you do..." and I have Mr. Mace telling me, "No, no, this is what you need to focus on!"

I have no doubts that many of you here spend more time thinking about AC than I do (and I do it a lot). But that doesn't mean that you're right.

I'm not against taking in tons of feedback from a lot of you about what direction this game is going. I do that all the time. To echo Allan's point in the Dev Chat: I can't imagine anyone looking at the changes this game has gone through over the past 2 years and *not* seen specifically how player feedback has decidedly shaped this game.

But I do have an issue with this concept of this board being our "partners" on these issues. The Game Issues Board as a gestalt is not a very good partner.

I'm not slamming you here, Sand Dancer. I respect the time you've put into AC, and I generally respect your analysis. But ultimately, I don't view myself as being an agent of this community. I view myself as an agent and driver of the shared MS/Turbine vision, of which community input and feedback plays an important part.

Bah, maybe this is just semantics, but it's something I felt needed to be said. Ideally, yes, it would be interesting to give people here more heads up on changes, and get your feedback before we make them. But there are a lot of problems with that dynamic as well, and we run the risk of driving off a lot of people who either a) don't read or care about the boards, or b) aren't compelled to post on the boards.

Ken

We just don't want bandit daggers to show up again.

I certainly agree that dynamics like that could cause a reasonable desire to want to have input on future dynamics.

Ken

So no Bandits for the gimped melee classes?

I think the "hilt" dynamic is cool. I just want to see it without the hilts.

Ken

Pretty good chat, although the question about sugar coated questions seemed contrived.

The point I believe that Allan was trying to make by posting that question was: "Umm, hi, yeah, I know this whole virtual anonymity thing is cool and all, but we're real people here who care deeply about this game and community."

Was it a touch defensive? Sure. If I had to deal with trying my damnedest to pick good and interesting questions from hundreds of options, and get slammed no matter how hard I tried, I might be a touch defensive, too.

Shrug, you guys say you want "real interaction" with the developers. Well there was some real interaction for you.

But come on, Zuzax, you just wrote 5 paragraphs there and I didn't see one word about housing. I suddenly feel a lot less secure about my world view.

Ken

It was hinted in the chat that characters with few or no magical skills could become equal in power to those with magical skills. Is there a tenative time table for this?

Tentative timetable is over the next 6-8 months with probably the first instance of it in March.

(This is one of the reasons why we don't talk about these things, because I originally wanted to roll out the first installment in December.

The Wheel of the Monthly Prop grinds exceedingly fine)

Are these changes going to be introduced slowly or will it be a new system that is introduced slowly?

Both?

Serious answer.

"...I know there are a lot of pitfalls with being too specific too early and I know there's value in dropping cool surprises in our laps..." Any hints on the revised appraisal skills?

As much as I would love to go into great detail about all of the wonderful things we have planned, I think I'm going to just agree with your first sentence.

Ken

Are we ever going to get some more magic or only melees going to get new toys each month?

*Cough*

Asbestos, I think that your post above is about as non-irritating as you can be, so it's almost worth responding to just for that effort.

But instead, I just want to point out the irony of something that amuses me greatly.

If there were some way to call up the Dev Board page of 14 months ago, you know what that Board would have been *filled* with?

Complaints about how War Magic sucked. Disbelief that specced War Magic could cost 28 points.

Wow, well we sure fixed that one!

Actually, it all boils down to Life Magic. But we ain't changing Life Magic, so the onus still falls on us.

In response to your question: No, we have no current plans for any new spells. As I said in the Dev chat, first we are going to make some attempts to redress some melee/missile balance issues. Then we will focus in on some magic issues.

Ken

The warning about maintenance costs is hard to understand.

Yes, it is oddly worded. (And that's sad, because I'm the one who wrote it).

I'll see about getting it changed.

Ken

Will it ever be possible to receive the experience reward from the Olthoi Queen and not have your title changed?

It's silly that it's not imped this way. (Well, actually, I may be wrong about that. A designer could say, "Hey, you have to make a choice: if you want the xp bonus, your character changes as a result. It may not be the change you want, but sometimes that's good gameplay" I don't necessarily agree with that viewpoint, but it's certainly a defensible viewpoint)

But like my answer to many of the posts below: it's a question of time and resources.

I'll put it on the list, though.

Ken

It is apparent from your interactions with us that you care about the players. Thanks.

Thank you, I appreciate that.

Ken

[b]Do you have implants baby?

Why do you think I don't wear underwear?

(Ok, I do wear underwear. Sorry, this whole thread is gross. Don't read this!)

Ken