The doctoral cord's ability to allow non-active skillset defences to be used has always been immoral and unfair. This game is already a pay-to-win model, where the haves can steam-roll over the have-nots, not all the time, but a lot of the time. An extra 1000 credits to push it even more so? Screw that. If that's gonna be allowed. I'll pay 5000 and expect to have Nekotai and TK active at the same time, how about that? The prelude for this has already been done with the tradeskills. This should have been done back then as well. I have no idea why the hell it was not.
The implementation of this current solution is also, as Morkarion said, entirely lacking. If you're going to implement this, then implement it across the board. No single def or buff, trans or not, should be allowed to be active unless the skillset it comes from is active. Yes, wipe all defences when flexing skills. Who cares if this will be irritating for people who just want to hop over and test out stuff. And this change did not knock out every case of such abuse, simple as that. Lack of resources is no excuse for half-maintaining an unfair situation. Wipe them all out, stage by stage if you have to, but do it all. Not ask for a list of selectively "OP" abilities and say, "We're gonna do the rest at an unspecified date at a vaguely hinted at event called the combat overhaul". Ask for a full list, and group them into "We'll do this this month, those next month etc".
But no, so the envoy system came up with the brillant idea of doing it only for some skills. How is this fair? Well, this screaming is noise to my ears as well, but it's entirely justified. The principle is clear, and the verdict is clear. The cord's "unintended effects" should be wiped out entirely. It shouldn't even have been allowed in the first place, though that's another debate. Fact is, when there's selective implementation, there is zero room for argument that there is no bias. You can be an angel from heaven with triple halos, and still the fact is the list being implemented is biased: as long as there's a single defence left abuseable by the cord, this remains an unfair mechanic that screws with players who do not have 1000 credits to spare.
You all whine alot, and I know about whining. I see less solutions and more concerns about which skills are effected.
I said I would help with the list depending on the size Iosai wants. I think the skills removed seemed overly biased (enhancement is a much worse skill than credited so it looks like ALOT of targets were specifially monks).
That said I expect all of em to be removed but will compile a list to assist.
These are the criteria:
- It must be combat changing at some point, via DMP or effect.
- For dmp only skills it has to be considerable. 5dmp is not big.
- Stat changes are definitely looked at, some may not make it. Like +1 for an hour isnt the same thing as +1 for 15 minutes or +1 forever.
- It must be combat changing at some point, via DMP or effect.
- For dmp only skills it has to be considerable. 5dmp is not big.
- Stat changes are definitely looked at, some may not make it. Like +1 for an hour isnt the same thing as +1 for 15 minutes or +1 forever.
Simple enough, get to work
So, everything. Okay. We'll do that thing we were asked explicitly not to do.
I personally apologize that my input to the situation has caused certain people to feel jipped. I assure you that every piece of input I had was not led by spite, malice, or disdain for any particular class or person.
I also assure you that I don't have the freaking time to have a seventy-five post discussion on why Crowform should be taken off the list. There are at least thirty-nine other complete skillsetswhich can be skillflexed into and out of to look through. I have fourty-eight hours, IC responsibilities, and a life that exists outside of Lusternia to deal with.
So the least people can do is cut the freaking hostility.
And before anyone says, "but we're not talking about you, we're talking about [insert random envoy name]," I don't care, they're probably in the same boat as me.
Oh, and you're being a jerkface to some random person on the internet. Learn some manners before we devolve into the League of Legends subreddit.
Every primary/secondary/tertiary skillset has to be accounted for. What, why would we have to look at Nihilism (for instance)? Because you have seen our divine, they are fine with being a bit out of the norm and adding new primaries. If chems could keep their passives and still meld we would have issues.
There is a bunch of skills, I know quite a few of em. Can I list them in order? No. Can I tell you about the vast majority of skills? Yes. I know some things can be glanced over, and some things are of greater note.
I will post my list here, I havent even started, but I dont see it taking long honestly. It will take longer putting them in priority (so he can cut off wherever you think it becomes minor).
I do agree, skillflexing should never carry trades, but in case I missed it, the cords should be cheaper and a partial refund offered. Other than trades people, most people bought them for flexing defs I think.
I don't understand how some posters in this thread can genuinely express a belief that balancing skillsets is important while in the same post arguing to keep an unintended consequence of skillflexing which allowed stacking defs from mutually exclusive skills.
Do these people genuinely believe that conflating abilities from skills which were designed to be available only in fixed combinations (e.g. one primary, one secondary, one tertiary) is conducive to better, simpler or more even class balance? If so, could you please explain your logic?
o When forgetting, temporarily or permanently, any non-trade skill, the majority of defences will be cleared from your person. This is as per the decision of me, in accordance with a number of Envoys, and as a result of discussion upon Report #856 / Changelog 360. Any defences stripped by death or logout that are not lost on forgetting a skill should be bugged. >-----------------------------------------------------------------------------<
I do agree it's exceptionally draconian to lose defences unrelated to a skill. Skillflexing already comes at a cost, whether it's by lessons or an expensive artifact that limits usage. It doesn't need to punish the player further.
The divine voice
of Avechna, the Avenger reverberates powerfully, "Congratulations,
Morkarion, you are the Bringer of Death indeed."
You see Estarra the Eternal shout, "Morkarion is no more! Mourn the mortal! But welcome True Ascendant Karlach, of the Realm of Death!
Dismissing concerns with "It's not going to be this way forever, just wait" (paraphrasing) responses is utterly pointless. Imagine if every envoy report got told that over concerns in game balance now that will be fixed with the overhaul.
Iasmos was spot on, skillflexing already has a cost of one form or another, it doesn't need to further punish the user by completely stripping them bare.
The divine voice
of Avechna, the Avenger reverberates powerfully, "Congratulations,
Morkarion, you are the Bringer of Death indeed."
You see Estarra the Eternal shout, "Morkarion is no more! Mourn the mortal! But welcome True Ascendant Karlach, of the Realm of Death!
My full defup takes around a minute and a half, with every def being queued and entered as fast as I have bal and eq. I go through this every time I die or dc. This change basically makes switching combat skills, cord or no cord, equivalent to a death/dc in terms of defup.
The ability to switch combat skills on the fly with zero downtime uised to be a strategical advantage, and the loss of such is a pity, of course. But it's a price well worth paying, in my opinion, than to continue to have a system where people can have what effectively amounts to more than the usual 3 guild combat skills active at the same time just because they had an extra 1000 credits to spend.
Edit: What I wanted to say is, a long defup, or the need to redef is not a new kind of torture this change has brought on cord users only. It's something everyone has to do in the first place, and I'm sure quite a lot of you have it better than I do. The only downside is that skillflexing now has a slightly less strategical advantage, which is fine.
Yes, that was the report solution and that's what's going to happen. That solution requires an overhaul of how defenses are currently handled, and for this reason it'll take a bit of time. This is why the current solution was taken for the time being, in order to hold us over. It was never meant to be perfect and is supposed to be entirely temporary.
No, not everything comes telepathically from the Envoys channel to the general masses.
I have tried, over and over and over to tell you this, dude. What do you think I meant when I kept saying it's not possible with the given code and constraints, so we're working in the confines Iosai gave us? x.x
Everyone wanted just the skillset's defenses to fall, but it's not something that can be done right now. Unfortunately, this is a quick fix probably until the overhaul, where the defenses will be put into a system where this can happen. Yea, it sucks. But it's a way more fair than having people try to decide what should stay and what should go.
It's kinda like having the choice between stabbing yourself hands or stabbing yourself in the feet. At least if you stab yourself in the feet, you can still operate the magic box!
See previous comments about this creating new problems while trying to resolve old ones.
Telling people "It won't suck forever, just wait" is still a terrible argument to be content with something, if that's the mentality to take, what's the point of envoying anything before the overhaul?
And saying "this is a temporary" measure means "they're working on it now and something should be up, give it a few weeks." "Wait until the overhaul" is a crass idea of temporary, and I refer to the line above once more.
The divine voice
of Avechna, the Avenger reverberates powerfully, "Congratulations,
Morkarion, you are the Bringer of Death indeed."
You see Estarra the Eternal shout, "Morkarion is no more! Mourn the mortal! But welcome True Ascendant Karlach, of the Realm of Death!
EDIT: Eh, nevermind. I'll just get rid of the rest and cut to the chase.
What are you asking for, @Morkarion? That Crow be given a waiver, an exemption to the new change? Are you saying that otherwise mutually exclusive skillsets shouldn't also have exclusive defenses?
It would be better to isolate the defenses of each skillset as it's being flexed, but we can't do that. So, what?
No, not asking that at all. Since the defence removal now affects all specs equally there's no discussion on what's overpowered and what isn't anymore, keep up. Dunno what agenda you're trying to push there, but you're trying too hard, stop.
What I'm asking for is what you say can't be done, because it can be done. People have objections to how skillflex now strips all defences which is overkill, and those concerns are silenced with "Just wait, it'll get fixed one day" which is a crap attitude to take. Hey guess what, double defences was going to be fixed too with the combat overhaul, but people didn't want to wait for that, so it got fixed. Other things are going to be fixed with the overhaul, and people don't want to wait for those so they too get reported for being fixed.
Basically the attitude of "combat overhaul will fix it, so stop complaining and just wait" is a terrible one to take, moreso when you're selective with it.
The divine voice
of Avechna, the Avenger reverberates powerfully, "Congratulations,
Morkarion, you are the Bringer of Death indeed."
You see Estarra the Eternal shout, "Morkarion is no more! Mourn the mortal! But welcome True Ascendant Karlach, of the Realm of Death!
Sorry, I'm just trying to figure out why you are still going on about this. You're also correct: it can be done... but it's not something that we can wave a magic wand and have. Quotes from the envoys post:
(Iosai:)
"One of the things we'll do with the overhaul is bring them all under one unified system, which will make getting information about specific defences, adding them, clearing them, switching them, deactivating them, etc easier and more natural. "
"We have one routine that implements all of the methods required to wipe most/all defences, but to do remove specific defences means removing each one individually and that is a somewhat laborious task."
"Note that after the overhaul, class-based defences will be stripped automatically when forgetting skillsets, temporarily or permanently - probably just the defences associated with that skillset."
From what I've been led to believe, taking the code as it currently is and wrestling it into what you're asking for would require a large scale jury-rigging to create bracketing for each skillset that calls all the different methods by which that skillset handles its defenses (which appear to be varied even within skillsets) to manage removing defenses as skillflexing happens. This would require getting different (likely idiosyncratic) bits of old, possibly even legacy in some cases, code to work together in all kinds of different combinations, a huge task.
The resource-appropriate options for a monthly report were given to us as follows: Call all a clearing of all defenses, as there is already code that does this OR select a list of defenses which the skillflexing function directly checks and clears. All defenses, or a list of specific defenses. There were complaints and problems associated with the second option (rightfully so), and they outweighed the complaints/problems generated by the first option... so the first option was taken.
We can demand with fire and pitchforks that our coders make a new system in which each of a skillset's possible ways of calling defenses (which may differ even in the same skillset, from what I can tell) are grouped under a heading and can be swapped in and out as the skill is flexed RIGHT NOW... but why? Why demand that drain on resources when we've just had it confirmed that an entire overhaul to our skillsets, both back-end in the code, and front-end by changing the very way afflictions and combat works in Lusternia are forthcoming. On one hand, you get your way on this one issue. On the other... many of the systemic and incredibly frustrating issues with classes and the state of combat in general may potentially be fixed, or at least improved.
So whatever. Yes, you are correct: The cleanest method, with the smallest collateral, would be to have each skillset organized such that there is a distinction between general defenses and skillset defenses, and only those that shouldn't cross to the new skillset would be cleared when swapping. That is the plan. In fact, an entirely new system of handing defenses is being coded with accommodating that kind of shuffling kept in mind. You are getting your way.
Why are you still vilifying envoys and admins? This is one of those times that administration has done a really great job of explaining the reasons behind their decisions, responding to feedback, and going out of their way to help players understand the limitations of the system and of coding resources. There were problems with selectivity and omission, which were fixed in the most absolute and fair manner.
Considering it's something that's being done for the combat overhaul, why not implement it as soon as it's done as oppose to waiting for the general overhaul?
Yes it's resource intensive, but if it's being done anyway, why wait? It's not a case of can't but "this will take time, is it worth the significant investment?" Personally yes, I think it is.
The divine voice
of Avechna, the Avenger reverberates powerfully, "Congratulations,
Morkarion, you are the Bringer of Death indeed."
You see Estarra the Eternal shout, "Morkarion is no more! Mourn the mortal! But welcome True Ascendant Karlach, of the Realm of Death!
Morkarion, you've honestly been playing every single side of the field,
First it was 'Oh no, some skills are being unfairly targetted and they aren't OP'
Now it's 'Stripping all defs is too draconian and too much'
Stop it, seriously, or at least make up your mind.
From my angle (and I'm sure a lot of others), you got nerfed hard and are now crying because it affects you, a lot. This isn't anything other than you complaining because you can't stack your defenses anymore. Nothing else.
I'm sure you'll claim strawman or whatever, but to be frank, I don't give two shits about that because at least I realize that deffing up isn't a big deal and you're being kind of a bitch about the whole situation. Maybe you should eat a Snickers or something.
Specific skills were being selected when you dropped their specific skillset, it was selectional and unfair, and the criteria questionable. Now it affects every skillset which is great, and everyone's on the same page, but you're losing defences that have nothing to do with the skillset you flexed out, that's overkill and punishes people for skillflexing when it already has a cost.
If you can't tell the difference between the two, then discussing with you is pointless. Your angle is irrelevant, go troll elsewhere.
The divine voice
of Avechna, the Avenger reverberates powerfully, "Congratulations,
Morkarion, you are the Bringer of Death indeed."
You see Estarra the Eternal shout, "Morkarion is no more! Mourn the mortal! But welcome True Ascendant Karlach, of the Realm of Death!
Hitting a defup alias and being afk for a minute or so at most once an hour, and having to pay at most ~40 power when you retool your character's skills on the fly isn't very expensive. The cost is dwarfed by the lesson cost for characters without a cord, and characters with a cord demonstrably can afford it.
Comments
The implementation of this current solution is also, as Morkarion said, entirely lacking. If you're going to implement this, then implement it across the board. No single def or buff, trans or not, should be allowed to be active unless the skillset it comes from is active. Yes, wipe all defences when flexing skills. Who cares if this will be irritating for people who just want to hop over and test out stuff. And this change did not knock out every case of such abuse, simple as that. Lack of resources is no excuse for half-maintaining an unfair situation. Wipe them all out, stage by stage if you have to, but do it all. Not ask for a list of selectively "OP" abilities and say, "We're gonna do the rest at an unspecified date at a vaguely hinted at event called the combat overhaul". Ask for a full list, and group them into "We'll do this this month, those next month etc".
But no, so the envoy system came up with the brillant idea of doing it only for some skills. How is this fair? Well, this screaming is noise to my ears as well, but it's entirely justified. The principle is clear, and the verdict is clear. The cord's "unintended effects" should be wiped out entirely. It shouldn't even have been allowed in the first place, though that's another debate. Fact is, when there's selective implementation, there is zero room for argument that there is no bias. You can be an angel from heaven with triple halos, and still the fact is the list being implemented is biased: as long as there's a single defence left abuseable by the cord, this remains an unfair mechanic that screws with players who do not have 1000 credits to spare.
I don't understand how some posters in this thread can genuinely express a belief that balancing skillsets is important while in the same post arguing to keep an unintended consequence of skillflexing which allowed stacking defs from mutually exclusive skills.
Do these people genuinely believe that conflating abilities from skills which were designed to be available only in fixed combinations (e.g. one primary, one secondary, one tertiary) is conducive to better, simpler or more even class balance? If so, could you please explain your logic?
Entered by: Iosai the Anomaly Date: 2013-10-04 17:03:12
o When forgetting, temporarily or permanently, any non-trade skill, the
majority of defences will be cleared from your person. This is as per
the decision of me, in accordance with a number of Envoys, and as a
result of discussion upon Report #856 / Changelog 360. Any defences
stripped by death or logout that are not lost on forgetting a skill
should be bugged.
>-----------------------------------------------------------------------------<
Yes.
The divine voice of Avechna, the Avenger reverberates powerfully, "Congratulations, Morkarion, you are the Bringer of Death indeed."
You see Estarra the Eternal shout, "Morkarion is no more! Mourn the mortal! But welcome True Ascendant Karlach, of the Realm of Death!
The divine voice of Avechna, the Avenger reverberates powerfully, "Congratulations, Morkarion, you are the Bringer of Death indeed."
You see Estarra the Eternal shout, "Morkarion is no more! Mourn the mortal! But welcome True Ascendant Karlach, of the Realm of Death!
Iasmos was spot on, skillflexing already has a cost of one form or another, it doesn't need to further punish the user by completely stripping them bare.
The divine voice of Avechna, the Avenger reverberates powerfully, "Congratulations, Morkarion, you are the Bringer of Death indeed."
You see Estarra the Eternal shout, "Morkarion is no more! Mourn the mortal! But welcome True Ascendant Karlach, of the Realm of Death!
The ability to switch combat skills on the fly with zero downtime uised to be a strategical advantage, and the loss of such is a pity, of course. But it's a price well worth paying, in my opinion, than to continue to have a system where people can have what effectively amounts to more than the usual 3 guild combat skills active at the same time just because they had an extra 1000 credits to spend.
Edit: What I wanted to say is, a long defup, or the need to redef is not a new kind of torture this change has brought on cord users only. It's something everyone has to do in the first place, and I'm sure quite a lot of you have it better than I do. The only downside is that skillflexing now has a slightly less strategical advantage, which is fine.
Not every defence under the sun that's unrelated to it.
Furthermore, remove or extend the limit on the amount of times you can use the cord in an ingame day.
The divine voice of Avechna, the Avenger reverberates powerfully, "Congratulations, Morkarion, you are the Bringer of Death indeed."
You see Estarra the Eternal shout, "Morkarion is no more! Mourn the mortal! But welcome True Ascendant Karlach, of the Realm of Death!
The divine voice of Avechna, the Avenger reverberates powerfully, "Congratulations, Morkarion, you are the Bringer of Death indeed."
You see Estarra the Eternal shout, "Morkarion is no more! Mourn the mortal! But welcome True Ascendant Karlach, of the Realm of Death!
Telling people "It won't suck forever, just wait" is still a terrible argument to be content with something, if that's the mentality to take, what's the point of envoying anything before the overhaul?
And saying "this is a temporary" measure means "they're working on it now and something should be up, give it a few weeks." "Wait until the overhaul" is a crass idea of temporary, and I refer to the line above once more.
The divine voice of Avechna, the Avenger reverberates powerfully, "Congratulations, Morkarion, you are the Bringer of Death indeed."
You see Estarra the Eternal shout, "Morkarion is no more! Mourn the mortal! But welcome True Ascendant Karlach, of the Realm of Death!
What I'm asking for is what you say can't be done, because it can be done. People have objections to how skillflex now strips all defences which is overkill, and those concerns are silenced with "Just wait, it'll get fixed one day" which is a crap attitude to take. Hey guess what, double defences was going to be fixed too with the combat overhaul, but people didn't want to wait for that, so it got fixed. Other things are going to be fixed with the overhaul, and people don't want to wait for those so they too get reported for being fixed.
Basically the attitude of "combat overhaul will fix it, so stop complaining and just wait" is a terrible one to take, moreso when you're selective with it.
The divine voice of Avechna, the Avenger reverberates powerfully, "Congratulations, Morkarion, you are the Bringer of Death indeed."
You see Estarra the Eternal shout, "Morkarion is no more! Mourn the mortal! But welcome True Ascendant Karlach, of the Realm of Death!
Sorry, I'm just trying to figure out why you are still going on about this. You're also correct: it can be done... but it's not something that we can wave a magic wand and have. Quotes from the envoys post:
Yes it's resource intensive, but if it's being done anyway, why wait? It's not a case of can't but "this will take time, is it worth the significant investment?" Personally yes, I think it is.
The divine voice of Avechna, the Avenger reverberates powerfully, "Congratulations, Morkarion, you are the Bringer of Death indeed."
You see Estarra the Eternal shout, "Morkarion is no more! Mourn the mortal! But welcome True Ascendant Karlach, of the Realm of Death!
Specific skills were being selected when you dropped their specific skillset, it was selectional and unfair, and the criteria questionable. Now it affects every skillset which is great, and everyone's on the same page, but you're losing defences that have nothing to do with the skillset you flexed out, that's overkill and punishes people for skillflexing when it already has a cost.
If you can't tell the difference between the two, then discussing with you is pointless. Your angle is irrelevant, go troll elsewhere.
The divine voice of Avechna, the Avenger reverberates powerfully, "Congratulations, Morkarion, you are the Bringer of Death indeed."
You see Estarra the Eternal shout, "Morkarion is no more! Mourn the mortal! But welcome True Ascendant Karlach, of the Realm of Death!