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Are the devs aware?

Posted: Mon May 02, 2005 9:15 pm
by systemv
One thing on the latest Q&A has made me wondering if the devs actually know how we play this game:

Xavier wrote:Second, it would open the way to exploits. For example, to kill a NPC boss more easily, you would be able to use the following technique : you would first fetch a hord of aggressive creature, then run to the NPC boss' guardians; the guardians would get the aggro, thus giving an easier shot to your group on the guardians, and allowing you to exterminate them more quickly and then getting more firepower for the boss.
As we, the players, all know the easiest technique to fighting a boss NPC is drag them out away from the guards and fight it in an isolatated spot. This is just as cheap if not more so than the "exploit" he describes above but we'll keep doing it as long as it's so easy :P Rarely have I seen anyone have to fight all the minions especially for herbie bosses and the bandit bosses, the only exception seems to be plants.

This brings up another question of do they know how we camp a spot and chain pull mobs? Did they really expect us to take those generic missions as a group and go out to complete them when there's no real positive to raising your fame and the former option is just easier?

Worries me a bit...

PS. This answer:

Xavier wrote:The colors that appear on top of the characters' head are there to give a clearer overview of what's happening during a fight. If you have kept the default values in the game configuration window, here are the different colors you can see and their meaning :

red : damages that a NPC is doing to me
blue : damages that another player is doing to me
orange : damages that I'm doing to my opponent
green : healing
grey : damages exchanged by others''"
Was soooo not what the question was about. When running around these colored numbers just pop over us randomly which seems like a bug but he side skirted it nicely.

Re: Are the devs aware?

Posted: Mon May 02, 2005 9:51 pm
by thexdane
systemv wrote: As we, the players, all know the easiest technique to fighting a boss NPC is drag them out away from the guards and fight it in an isolatated spot. This is just as cheap if not more so than the "exploit" he describes above but we'll keep doing it as long as it's so easy :P Rarely have I seen anyone have to fight all the minions especially for herbie bosses and the bandit bosses, the only exception seems to be plants.

This brings up another question of do they know how we camp a spot and chain pull mobs? Did they really expect us to take those generic missions as a group and go out to complete them when there's no real positive to raising your fame and the former option is just easier?

Worries me a bit...
actually no that's not what he's talking about at all

he's talking about the wandering tribes that go around each zone.

basically this is what would happen

i grab a mob and get it to aggro onto me
i run away with mob chasing me
i run by a wandering tribe
wandering tribe is attacked by mob
me and my party attack mob that's aggro'd onto tribe
we get kill with no real risk to ourselves
systemv wrote: Was soooo not what the question was about. When running around these colored numbers just pop over us randomly which seems like a bug but he side skirted it nicely.

actually yes it was exactly about that

the question was "what do these colours signify?" and well they explained it so it answered the question correctly and didn't skirt the issue at all

Re: Are the devs aware?

Posted: Mon May 02, 2005 10:02 pm
by xenofur
thexdane wrote:actually yes it was exactly about that

the question was "what do these colours signify?" and well they explained it so it answered the question correctly and didn't skirt the issue at all
the question was badly formed and thus allowed him to skirt the actual issue which would be: "why keep differently coloured numbers in completely insane values 20345 green -7890 blue keep on popping above my head when i am standing completely still and doing nothing?"

Re: Are the devs aware?

Posted: Mon May 02, 2005 10:05 pm
by systemv
thexdane wrote:actually no that's not what he's talking about at all

he's talking about the wandering tribes that go around each zone.

basically this is what would happen

i grab a mob and get it to aggro onto me
i run away with mob chasing me
i run by a wandering tribe
wandering tribe is attacked by mob
me and my party attack mob that's aggro'd onto tribe
we get kill with no real risk to ourselves
The original question was about the wandering tribes and his answer is fine in regards to that. He goes on to give an example of further exploitation in regards to NPC bosses. I quoted it in my original post but will quote it again highlighting what I mean since it seems you missed it.
Xavier wrote:Second, it would open the way to exploits. For example, to kill a NPC boss more easily, you would be able to use the following technique : you would first fetch a hord of aggressive creature, then run to the NPC boss' guardians; the guardians would get the aggro, thus giving an easier shot to your group on the guardians, and allowing you to exterminate them more quickly and then getting more firepower for the boss.

thexdane wrote:actually yes it was exactly about that

the question was "what do these colours signify?" and well they explained it so it answered the question correctly and didn't skirt the issue at all
I guess the original question asker is the only one who can answer that but I neglected to post the question and will do so here:
Once in a while, I will see the floating numbers (green, blue, red, yellow, white, that can be positive valued or negative valued) above my character's head. What do the colors signify if any?
The "once in a while" part made me think he was referring to the times when once in a while where you're just walking around and see numbers floating above your head. I mean the colors and their damage other than maybe the PVP blue seem very intuitive to me already I didn't take into consideration someone really didn't know what they mean. I appologize if I misconstrued the question but I guess my once in awhile random floating colored numbers question will be in the next Q&A thread in the hopes that it's answered.

Edit: Original question referenced white and yellow numbers which are only seen when the random standing/walking bug occurs(which furthers my opinion that the question was about the random numbers) and is not posted in Xavier's answer.

Re: Are the devs aware?

Posted: Mon May 02, 2005 10:33 pm
by thexdane
xenofur wrote:the question was badly formed and thus allowed him to skirt the actual issue which would be: "why keep differently coloured numbers in completely insane values 20345 green -7890 blue keep on popping above my head when i am standing completely still and doing nothing?"

or he could be asking simply what the colours mean not why they appear, which is how both me and obliviously xavier read the question and so should most ppl but you and systemv didn't


if he asked "why do these appear randomly when i run around?" then yes xavier skirted the question totally but he asked "what do the colours signify?" which xavier answered 100% correct

Re: Are the devs aware?

Posted: Mon May 02, 2005 10:47 pm
by xenofur
in my opinion the task of a cm is not to only take everything at face value, but to actually think about the customers and to try to get an understanding of what they want. in this case the mentioning of negative numbers makes it clear that he isn't talking about the normal over head displays, but i guess that xavier simply lacks experience of the ingame situation...
like i said, the question was malformed, so the actual intent was easy to dodge or simply to misunderstand

Re: Are the devs aware?

Posted: Mon May 02, 2005 10:54 pm
by b00ster1
the only exception seems to be plants.
No.
Not assured or all, but some "boss-plants guards" do not react if you attack from the long distance with elem. spell

Re: Are the devs aware?

Posted: Mon May 02, 2005 11:01 pm
by xenofur

Re: Are the devs aware?

Posted: Mon May 02, 2005 11:14 pm
by systemv
b00ster1 wrote:No.
Not assured or all, but some "boss-plants guards" do not react if you attack from the long distance with elem. spell
That's a shame as I thought it was the one fight you couldn't exploit :( Thank you for the correction.
...but i guess that xavier simply lacks experience of the ingame situation.
This is exactly my fear. I honestly don't think he intended to sideskirt anything now or in the past but it seems to me, based on some of his answers, that they aren't in touch with how the game is played. Maybe my fears are unfounded but I don't see them mentioning a "fix" to how it's currently being played - hell they seem to ignore the issue every time it's brought up - so maybe this is what they intended and Outposts are the end result.

That's all fine and good but be upfront with it in my opinion or the word of mouth that you so hope for will continue to be negative not positive. People unfortunately have a preconception of what an MMO should offer from their EQ/SWG/WoW experiences that when they see all the grind they quickly abandon it. Their loss of course, but I don't want their loss to be the cause of mine as well.

Re: Are the devs aware?

Posted: Mon May 02, 2005 11:15 pm
by systemv
xenofur wrote:http://ryzom.de/forum/showpost.php?p=152263&postcount=5
what was that about "not skirting"?
Wow... just... wow.