15 replies to this topic

[Njoror]

Week 2: March 11, 2015

 

Hello!

 

This week was very productive. A lot of bugs got reported, and more are in the process of gathering information for an official report. Progress has been made on discussing class skills, going over what is good and bad about each skill, and discussing ways to make everything more balanced. We expect to get those who wished to test into the test server by the end of this week. The test server will allow for checking skills under controlled circumstances as we check them for balance issues, as well as checking new or updated content for problems before it gets officially released. We are also looking at improving the testing cycles of patches so that new issues don’t slip through as easily.

 

Updates to VCR program members:

- Greven joined the program.

- Iskandar (Odin) joined the program.

- xBezelheim (Odin) changed his IGN to Decimated.

- Likometa (Odin) was removed from the program.

 

Hot Topics & Known Issues

• Card Dupe is under a constant re-investigation.

• A solution to Imoogi’s combat issue has been decided on. Gravity has decided that the battle restriction for water will be removed. This will be patched to the test server first, and we will be testing both the Imoogi boss and other areas that could potentially have water-related content for any problems that will arise from this fix.

 

Bug Report Summary

Reported issues are given one of the following categories:

• Critical - these are bugs that have game-breaking implications, interfere with gameplay or combat (especially PvP), or are exploitable.

• Moderate - these bugs present an annoyance to users, may confuse or frustrate players that don't understand them, but don't have a major impact on gameplay.

• Minor - these bugs are mostly visual issues or quirks; they don't actually have any substantial impact on gameplay but should probably be fixed anyway.

• Tweak - this is a suggested change to an existing part of the game that isn’t working right. Tweaks are lower priority than Minor, but are still evaluated by the development team.

For certain issues, we may ask members of the community (you!) to help us gather some information. These will be listed under “Needing More Information” with a description of what is being requested. Work will continue on the issue as normal, but will go faster and/or be more beneficial to everybody with your input.

 

Recently Reported

• [Critical] Messy Report: the Messy Report quest drop in Dark Whisper Lower will appear to have not counted if you log out before completing the quest. The quest will still complete properly if you complete all the parts.

• [Minor] Fail Invisible wall in Divided Plain: It's possible to bypass the NPC warp to Scar of Despair due to a flaw in the airlocks design.

• [Moderate] Escape while flying: Using the /escape command during a Kafra Flight gets the player stuck.

• [Critical] Silent cooldowns: some skills are under cooldown even though the icon does not display this. It occurs with certain skills under specific circumstances.

• [Minor] Magician skill prompts: Magician skill procs for Fire Emblem and Wind Emblem are inconsistent and confusing.

• [Minor] BM Fury Strike "F" Key Prompt: Fury Strike is in the prompt list because it used to require points. It no longer requires points and should be removed.

• [Minor] GreenSeed buffs cannot be cancelled: Shield and Cure buffs are not able to be disabled by the player.

• [Critical] Cannot Resurrect Dead Target: If you approach a dead player from too far away, they will show on your screen as standing and cannot be resurrected by skills or Yggdrasil Leaf

• [Moderate] Skills Disappear from Hotkeys

• [Minor] Payon’s Barrier Bug

• [Moderate] “Invalid Party” Error while in a party

• [Minor] Warp NPCs text doesn’t display correctly - this is mostly a localization issue that was reported to make the popups easier to understand.

• [Minor] Warrior School Cape can be dyed, but doesn’t change color

• [Moderate] Dayr Sidequest Temple Book: this issue was supposedly fixed this week, but still needs more work.

• [Minor] Visual issue with Eddga Monk equipment where the knuckle does not display properly.

• [Minor] Short Distance Kafra flights can cause characters to hold their weapons strangely.

• [Minor] Brygan Ore quest NPCs are not consistent - specifically, you can turn in the quest from five Repair Experts named Alex, but turn it in at only four.

• [Minor] Long Distance Flight from Morroc displays West Mt. Mjolnir, but (correctly) takes you to East Mt. Mjolnir.

• [Minor] Taking a Long Distance Flight to East Mt. Mjolnir places the character among aggressive Needle Fabre.

• [Moderate] Card Coating paper from Himmelmez Tokens is not working properly

• [Minor] Searching Auction House for “Cat” is not working as expected. The costume named “Cat” is unable to be found by searching.

• [Minor] “Superior DNA Random Box” is missing from the Auction House’s auto-complete list. It will still appear in a search for “DNA Random Box”

 

Needing More Information

• [Critical] Fall Damage issue was returned to us because it needs more information. This was last reported to Gravity on February 26, but was returned on March 2 because the developers want more video evidence. Any videos the community would be able to provide will be included to assist in the search for this issue’s root cause.

 

Recently Fixed

• “Strange Kid” NPC is really named Gabriel: This refers to the Prontera Area gear tokens from level 50 raids.

• Jehoon Chakra is no longer able to be stored.

• Visual bug with not being able to see back accessories with Wedding Dress costume has been fixed.

[HokaHoka]

.... Progress has been made on discussing class skills, going over what is good and bad about each skill, and discussing ways to make everything more balanced. We expect to get those who wished to test into the test server by the end of this week. The test server will allow for checking skills under controlled circumstances as we check them for balance issues, as well as checking new or updated content for problems before it gets officially released....

 

Yay, two surprises for us! I love surprises. 

 

[Minor] Magician skill prompts: Magician skill procs for Fire Emblem and Wind Emblem are inconsistent and confusing.

 

Ummm... by inconsistent and confusing, do you mean that the proc chance is low? 

[Arbalist]

Yay, two surprises for us! I love surprises. 

 

 

Ummm... by inconsistent and confusing, do you mean that the proc chance is low? 

Nope, the inconsistency refers to Fire Emblem's Burning Fire and Wind Emblem's Raging Wind "chance to activate" buffs.

 

With Fire Emblem active, you have a chance to activate Burning Fire buff when using Firebolt. When Burning Fire buff is activated, it appears in your buff list AND it appears in the middle for easy viewing.

With Wind Emblem active, you have a chance to activate the Raging Wind buff using Cold Bolt. However, when Raging Wind is activated, it only appears in the buff list, and not in the middle, so it can be tough to notice it in an intense battle or when you have a large number of buffs at the same time.

If that's not clear, I can take screenshots for you to show you what we mean.

[HokaHoka]

Ah I see. I usually rely on a charge meter which appears beside my toon.when Raging Wind procs......

[Greven79]

Yay, two surprises for us! I love surprises. 

 

Don't overestimate these two things though!  Yes, it's a big plus that VCRs are now able to preview fixes first and that skills are categorized on their severeness, but we are stilll far away from suggesting how to fix them or to foretell how this would ever end up in a gernal class balance.

 

Feedback so far:

When I joined the program last week, I was first overwhelmed by the masses of new informations. I had quite a lot to read and no idea how to response or participate properly. But you get used to that really quick. We basically use two programs - Trelo and Slack:

 

Slack:

An instant-messaging program similar to skype. The main advantages are that you can run it inside your browser (like a web page or forum), that the chat messages are logged and that other programs (like trelo) can leave a message there as well, so you won't miss any comments or updates.

 

Trelo:

If you're used to agile software development, it's a scrum board.... a digital todo-pinboard. The main difference to normal shopping notes is that the board is separated into "workflow stages" or "tasks". Todo-notes can be pushed around to indicate that a certain step is necessary next.

 

The "Recently Reported" list you see in the original post here are the notes that went through several stages to the "being reported" section of the board... and in regard of reporting bugs, the system seems to work pretty well.

 

It doesn't guarantee that bugs are addressed in the desired priority, but my initial concerns that this cycle might be interrupted somehow have proven without cause.

_________

 

So my first actions were to get the Warrior subsection running, adding missing notes (called cards btw.) and comments. In addition, I discussed the option to implement 1rupee merchants on the test server that would allow VCRs to get any important items without calling back to WarpPortal (f.e. via coins & HHBs).

 

Hopefully, we will also find a way how to obtain mastery points this way so that VCRs can easily create any character of any level they want to. Sady, I was quite busy last week, so the communication between me and Njoror had quite a big delay.

 

My hope is that this will allow us to create a complete & qualified overview. The goal is to be able not just to state that certain skills are broken but to argue about how much damage a skill in question should deal.

 

And it would help me to preview certain formula changes I have in mind.

__________

 

I tell you all this because there is a big difference to recognize a certain skill - f.e. Grimtooth - as broken and to come up with a good solution. We're currently at a state where Gravity could take our feedback to come up with their own ideas, but not so much on suggesting own "fixes", etc..

 

And those Trelo notes/cards are what they are: small reminders. They don't allow for detailed comments, etc. So I am still looking for a way how to push it beyond that... so let's see.

[Telovi]

We're currently at a state where Gravity could take our feedback to come up with their own ideas, but not so much on suggesting own "fixes", etc..

 

That was a smart business move from Gravity and should stay unwaveringly while the game still needs volunteers, since directly taking every inputs from a group of selective players just because they has a terrible track record of programming under one of the most buggy game engine and paying attention to the wrong part of their community, will not be revamping the game for the good of all versions. It will just turn this version into a private server. People don't escape to virtual world to relive their high school moments.          

[Greven79]

That was a smart business move from Gravity and should stay unwaveringly while the game still needs volunteers, since directly taking every inputs from a group of selective players just because they has a terrible track record of programming under one of the most buggy game engine and paying attention to the wrong part of their community, will not be revamping the game for the good of all versions. It will just turn this version into a private server. People don't escape to virtual world to relive their high school moments.

 

May I ask, what you do for a living?

 

I wonder because "taking every inputs from a group of selective" persons should be quite common anyways. I am a software developer, so I am used to get customer feedback or change requests. I have to adhere to support-level agreements, have to estimate implementation costs, respond to my team supervisor, etc. So the question is just how you organize it.

 

First of all, the VCR program is open to everyone

If you feel a certain opinion underrepresented or you assume that "the wrong part of their community" is supported, there are easy ways to change that: You could either volunteer directly OR contact any VCR. Because there are no class representatives, it's perfectly fine to talk to anyone you trust or like most!

 

If you think that a certain aspect should get more attention, I'm pretty sure it will make it to the VCR section . By coincidence, I just had a talk with another guy about a BT nerf the other day. And although I didn't agree with him on certain parts, I added his statements as well. So feel free to PM me, and I'll submit your ideas/concerns accordingly.

 

Secondly, VCRs aren't product owners.

The suggestions or "change requests" are still what they are: A customer feedback. So even if the most silliest suggestion would bypass the several workflow stages and would slip right though to the developers, I'm pretty sure that they are mature enough to evaluate it correctly.

 

My plan isn't to change that, but to improve the quality of this feedback. The goal is to reduce the number of test iterations, where changes are sent back and forth or where one part get fixed, but two new issues arise.

 

So let's look at the current situation:

The developers decided to buff Priests when they were considered overpowered, boosted Grimtooth and Cross Impact, implemented off-hand seeds, +50 runes in any rune slot, ridiculous item drop chances and messed up the formulas so that they allow perma-stuns, triple-pets and classes to exceed the original defense cap easily.

 

And you can't blame the game engine for it. Noone forced Gravity to allow duped cards f.e., the engine didn't cause Battle Tactics to cause a Shield Boomerang massacre. So these mistakes only happen, if the requests are badly formulated and the tests aren't working properly. It's best described in this picture.

 

 

So it's not enough to just state "Nerf Battle Tactics", "Lower Grimtooth damage" or "fix drop chances". In this way, you have a high risk that the result isn't suitable or causes more issues. And you waste too much time and money. So at least you have to describe what you're aiming for or be precise enough for the developers to set the right lewers in motion.

[ZeroTigress]

I think the first step the developers could do is explain exactly WHY all the game mechanics were changed in AOV when the main concerns were:

• Rangers and Sorcerers being too OP in PVP.
• Monk's Guillotine Fist animation making it retarded (and the Monk class being underpowered overall).
• War of Emperium being a sad version of the original in RO.
• Chef classes lacking any processing recipes.

No one asked for an extensive rewrite of the game mechanics, the removal of 140+ quests, and the even further unbalancing of the job classes. So it's only natural people are hesitant of the VCR program when the CMs and the developers were receiving constructive feedback from day 1.

I'm among those who want to (continue to) give suggestions and feedback on the old mechanics because there's very little to like about the current mechanics and leveling systems. There are people who would rather have the old systems back than refine the current systems.

Edited by ZeroTigress, 16 March 2015 - 12:58 PM.

[Chidorie]

 

 the engine didn't cause Battle Tactics to cause a Shield Boomerang massacre.

 

LoL right... this is what I call that Shield Boomerang skill as of current: Massacre

 

War between guilds on PVP maps is no fun when you arrive fully buffed and prepared but a second later got an instant dead by a 80k-100k Flying Pan CRITICAL damage. LoL... and it happened to 8-10 of my guildsmates since this is war and we use Urgent Recall and Knight class is really a mainstream class on our server.

Edited by Chidorie, 16 March 2015 - 10:40 PM.

[jhay1825]

I think the first step the developers could do is explain exactly WHY all the game mechanics were changed in AOV when the main concerns were:

• Rangers and Sorcerers being too OP in PVP.
• Monk's Guillotine Fist animation making it retarded (and the Monk class being underpowered overall).
• War of Emperium being a sad version of the original in RO.
• Chef classes lacking any processing recipes.

No one asked for an extensive rewrite of the game mechanics, the removal of 140+ quests, and the even further unbalancing of the job classes. So it's only natural people are hesitant of the VCR program when the CMs and the developers were receiving constructive feedback from day 1.

I'm among those who want to (continue to) give suggestions and feedback on the old mechanics because there's very little to like about the current mechanics and leveling systems. There are people who would rather have the old systems back than refine the current systems.

+1

Changing over old mechanics for no apparent reason, a question and concern most of us were asking ever since Day 1 of AoV.
Correct me if im wrong coz ive only heard about from a couple of friends but i think WoW had the same fiasco where all their formulas and mechanics were changed after one big content patch, but eventually they brought back the old system which enticed some of the old players to come back.
Im not sure if this is possible for Ro2 to make that happen or if the developers are willing to put a lot of work for the future of the game which could change a lot of things for the players gameplay experience and probably could bring back some of the players who already gave up giving hope.
But who knows..with the way things are going i really cant honestly see something.
The way things are now, players are only entertained temporarily by splashing a lot of freebies( HHB, March Treasure Box etc ) but the current state of the game doesnt improve whatsoever.
So this i ask, when will you focus to repair/enhance the gameplay and essence of the game thats been lost and stop bribing players with these freebies just so they couldnt realize whats the real problem of the game.

Edited by jhay1825, 17 March 2015 - 05:21 AM.

[Telovi]

May I ask, what you do for a living?

 

I wonder because "taking every inputs from a group of selective" persons should be quite common anyways. I am a software developer, so I am used to get customer feedback or change requests. I have to adhere to support-level agreements, have to estimate implementation costs, respond to my team supervisor, etc. So the question is just how you organize it.

 

First of all, the VCR program is open to everyone

If you feel a certain opinion underrepresented or you assume that "the wrong part of their community" is supported, there are easy ways to change that: You could either volunteer directly OR contact any VCR. Because there are no class representatives, it's perfectly fine to talk to anyone you trust or like most!

 

If you think that a certain aspect should get more attention, I'm pretty sure it will make it to the VCR section . By coincidence, I just had a talk with another guy about a BT nerf the other day. And although I didn't agree with him on certain parts, I added his statements as well. So feel free to PM me, and I'll submit your ideas/concerns accordingly.

 

You don't get what I said in my previous post, while raising several points to support mine and taking my context out of context. Disregard my day job, some people - in case anyone wondering - do actually play the game as a game of challenging themselves to be an overachiever and an adept player by using their brains to overcome every single obstacle as it comes and putting themselves in a higher position on the scoreboard. Not everyone is keen to use this game as a career launchpad into White House. So some people like me perfer to play the game and let the professional developers do their jobs. Or perhaps you don't think they qualified for that title because of the continuos buggy game and poor designs - according to you and others- on a buggy game engine. Clear now? 

 

Secondly, VCRs aren't product owners.

The suggestions or "change requests" are still what they are: A customer feedback. So even if the most silliest suggestion would bypass the several workflow stages and would slip right though to the developers, I'm pretty sure that they are mature enough to evaluate it correctly.

 

My plan isn't to change that, but to improve the quality of this feedback. The goal is to reduce the number of test iterations, where changes are sent back and forth or where one part get fixed, but two new issues arise.

 

So let's look at the current situation:

The developers decided to buff Priests when they were considered overpowered, boosted Grimtooth and Cross Impact, implemented off-hand seeds, +50 runes in any rune slot, ridiculous item drop chances and messed up the formulas so that they allow perma-stuns, triple-pets and classes to exceed the original defense cap easily.

 

And you can't blame the game engine for it. Noone forced Gravity to allow duped cards f.e., the engine didn't cause Battle Tactics to cause a Shield Boomerang massacre. So these mistakes only happen, if the requests are badly formulated and the tests aren't working properly. It's best described in this picture.

 

 

So it's not enough to just state "Nerf Battle Tactics", "Lower Grimtooth damage" or "fix drop chances". In this way, you have a high risk that the result isn't suitable or causes more issues. And you waste too much time and money. So at least you have to describe what you're aiming for or be precise enough for the developers to set the right lewers in motion.

 

Right, because this community - including you- doesn't have a knack of persuading and making the publisher and the developers to see the way your guys want them to. But I understand where that coming from, since Gravity didn't buffed Cross Impact and other Assassin skills as per request from that class first generation VCRs; they totally didn't introduce new runes to fulfill their promise to native players during that time when they were being a complete jelly towards the immigration's maxed seeds; they certainly didn't improvise all classes hit rates to allow sure DOTs and sure oneshots, after months of whining from the community. Devs and WP never listen and care right?    

[Greven79]

You don't get what I said in my previous post, while raising several points to support mine and taking my context out of context. Disregard my day job, some people - in case anyone wondering - do actually play the game as a game of challenging themselves to be an overachiever and an adept player by using their brains to overcome every single obstacle as it comes and putting themselves in a higher position on the scoreboard. Not everyone is keen to use this game as a career launchpad into White House. So some people like me perfer to play the game and let the professional developers do their jobs. Or perhaps you don't think they qualified for that title because of the continuos buggy game and poor designs - according to you and others- on a buggy game engine. Clear now?

 
See, I am 35 years old, so I think it's more or less 25 years now that I am able to differentiate between playing a game and participating in a game. The same way, I can drive a car and repair it. I can go out for lunch or prepare a meal on my own. You might live in a country and still encourage yourself in neibourhood /// community projects.
 
So I'm fine if you want to stick to the customer role. Nothing to say against it. But I find it strange that you even care about the rest of us.
 
So it might be surprising for you, but many projects are now either croud-funded, have fully-fledged mod editors or allow to shape the ingame world to your wishes (Minecraft, Star Engineer). Do all these guys candidates for the White House? Or is it just the joy to participate in what you like anyways?
 
I never met or talked to a developer, nor do I have the intent to do so. I just want to participate by giving an elaborate feedback.
 

Right, because this community - including you- doesn't have a knack of persuading and making the publisher and the developers to see the way your guys want them to. But I understand where that coming from, since Gravity didn't buffed Cross Impact and other Assassin skills as per request from that class first generation VCRs; they totally didn't introduce new runes to fulfill their promise to native players during that time when they were being a complete jelly towards the immigration's maxed seeds; they certainly didn't improvise all classes hit rates to allow sure DOTs and sure oneshots, after months of whining from the community. Devs and WP never listen and care right?

 
See, I never tried to "persuade" them, so let's see how it works out.

 

So why not complain about the seeds... it was right to do so. And it was fine to state that Cross Impact was too weak. But I bet that all those "jelly native players" had a certain fix in mind. So my intention is to make sure that those ideas don't get lost along the way. The same way, the developers will prefer a certain fix anyways... maybe a one that sells quite well. So whereas it was a surprise package before without much hope to prevent them from rushing ahead, it's my intention to establish a faster and more precise response.

 

So the concept doesn't change, but the efficiency might be.

 

[ZeroTigress]

+1

Changing over old mechanics for no apparent reason, a question and concern most of us were asking ever since Day 1 of AoV.
Correct me if im wrong coz ive only heard about from a couple of friends but i think WoW had the same fiasco where all their formulas and mechanics were changed after one big content patch, but eventually they brought back the old system which enticed some of the old players to come back.
Im not sure if this is possible for Ro2 to make that happen or if the developers are willing to put a lot of work for the future of the game which could change a lot of things for the players gameplay experience and probably could bring back some of the players who already gave up giving hope.
But who knows..with the way things are going i really cant honestly see something.
The way things are now, players are only entertained temporarily by splashing a lot of freebies( HHB, March Treasure Box etc ) but the current state of the game doesnt improve whatsoever.
So this i ask, when will you focus to repair/enhance the gameplay and essence of the game thats been lost and stop bribing players with these freebies just so they couldnt realize whats the real problem of the game.

So far the only "benefits" of the new mechanics and systems is more reliance on pay-to-win (which equals more short-term cash from players). Launch version of RO2 was not horribly bad, but the systems in place were much better than the current ones. I'd be more willing to work on refining that version of the game over this RNGesusRO2. I don't see how GRAVITY can justify keeping the current version of the game when their stock dropped drastically with the implementation of AOV. Bringing back the old systems would likely shoot it back up to where it was when RO2 launched.

CMs can go on about how the old version of the game is not coming back, but it's very much a possibility considering iRO's launch of its own Classic server.

[Telovi]

 
See, I am 35 years old, so I think it's more or less 25 years now that I am able to differentiate between playing a game and participating in a game. The same way, I can drive a car and repair it. I can go out for lunch or prepare a meal on my own. You might live in a country and still encourage yourself in neibourhood /// community projects.
 
So I'm fine if you want to stick to the customer role. Nothing to say against it. But I find it strange that you even care about the rest of us.
 
So it might be surprising for you, but many projects are now either croud-funded, have fully-fledged mod editors or allow to shape the ingame world to your wishes (Minecraft, Star Engineer). Do all these guys candidates for the White House? Or is it just the joy to participate in what you like anyways?
 
I never met or talked to a developer, nor do I have the intent to do so. I just want to participate by giving an elaborate feedback.

 

Let's make one thing perfectly clear; I only signed up to play a game which has difficulties and challenges coming directly or indirectly as the result of developers' decision. Meaning I never agreed to put up with the pile of craps and messes somebody else made up and left behind. No player in this game is under contract to stay. Anyone can leaves at anytime. I know I came out as someone who is getting in the way of you and others in trying to fix the game. But please keep this in mind; don't get in the way of people trying to play the game as it is. Yes, the game is irregular, but the RO2 team developer haven't entirely quitted their job and decided to enter Korean boyband bandwagon with duo PS, last time I checked. The game is still in development. It would requires effort in playing and patience to wait for players to overcome the irregularities provided by the game. Although this community would like to disagree with me.         

 

 

See, I never tried to "persuade" them, so let's see how it works out.

 

So why not complain about the seeds... it was right to do so. And it was fine to state that Cross Impact was too weak. But I bet that all those "jelly native players" had a certain fix in mind. So my intention is to make sure that those ideas don't get lost along the way. The same way, the developers will prefer a certain fix anyways... maybe a one that sells quite well. So whereas it was a surprise package before without much hope to prevent them from rushing ahead, it's my intention to establish a faster and more precise response.

 

So the concept doesn't change, but the efficiency might be.

 

 

Oh, good lord. But I think I can trust a seasoned software engineer's judgement. Hopefully. 

[Chidorie]

ummm... no new report this week? #justasking

[Njoror]

New one is up!

 

Sorry for the delay. It was my fault, I was out sick.