ROT 90-98.9 additional explanation

[MoonglowMerchant]

Ok, first off, I'm glad for the changes. I wish they were a bit more aggressive, but it is progress.

Now, for the design flaw.

It is apparent that the calculations are being done under the assumption that everyone has time to maximize their gains each day.

That is why, in a previous post, Jeremy suggested that training from 90-100 would now be 33 % faster when I'm about to demonstrate that it will actually be slower.

The fact is that currently, the wait time between gains from 90-98.9 is 10 minutes. Under the new system, that wait time will be 12 minutes.

So, if I am at 90, under the current system in one hour I can gain .7. In two hours, I can gain 1.3.

Under the new system, in one hour I gain .6. In two hours, I gain 1.1.

I'm not a math major, but I know that 1.3 > 1.1.

What if I have three hours to train? Well, under the current system I would gain 1.9. Under the new system, I would gain 1.6.

Again, not a math major but 1.9 > 1.6.

I would have to train for more than 3 hours per day from 90-98.9 to see any benefit from the increased cap. If I train any less than that, gains are actually slower under the new system due to the longer wait timer.

This is the only bracket affected so it isn't a global problem. However, it is necessary to tweak the times between gains from 90-100 or the new system will actually be slower during that portion.

Remember, we are trying to make it faster, not slower.

 

[Jeremy]

That is an excellent point. We're almost certainly not going to get further tweaks in to 55, but we are definitely going to be watching closely to see what we need to do with this system later on, and we'll keep this in mind.

 

[MoonglowMerchant]

That is an excellent point. We're almost certainly not going to get further tweaks in to 55, but we are definitely going to be watching closely to see what we need to do with this system later on, and we'll keep this in mind.

My reaction to that is "business as usual".

You just told me you would rather publish a system with an obvious flaw than take a tiny bit of time to fix it before publishing. Now, you know that by publishing as is, you are making training times slower for 1/5 of ROT.

Sorry, but that is ridiculous, expected, but ridiculous.

 

[deadite]

Maybe they can just take the ROT changes out of 55 and push them back to 56 or later. Would that be better?

I don't think the entire 55 publish should be held back just because the ROT changes to a specific server ruleset aren't perfect.

SP should get it's own mini-publish anyways. Maybe its just asking for trouble to include SP-specific fixes in the regular publishes.

 

[MoonglowMerchant]

Maybe they can just take the ROT changes out of 55 and push them back to 56 or later. Would that be better?

I don't think the entire 55 publish should be held back just because the ROT changes to a specific server ruleset aren't perfect.

SP should get it's own mini-publish anyways. Maybe its just asking for trouble to include SP-specific fixes in the regular publishes.

I don't think it should be held up either. How long does it take to change a 12 to a 10 though?

12 10
12 10
12 10

Wow, I did that pretty fast.

 

[T_Amon_from_work]

MM? At least you got an admitted "ohhhh! good point!" ... I haven't played Siege since before ROT but have watched with interest. Good catch.

 

[deadite]

Something tells me it isn't actually that simple, friend.

I think all you can hope for at this point is a tweak in 56. There should be plenty of time for them to change those 12s to 10s.

My question is why QA didn't catch this to begin with? That seems very strange since a player caught it without even having to actually test it anywhere except on a calculator.

 

[Jeremy]

Because the problem was with the assumption, not the code - MoonglowMerchant is correct, we were looking at the total time to gain and not really thinking about players with a fixed amount of time to play per day. The code works exactly as intended - it's just that the intention is flawed.

And if it were as simple as changing three numbers, it wouldn't have taken eight months to get the changes out in the first place

 

[deadite]

Gotcha. I wasn't trying to throw barbs, just genuinely curious. Your explanation makes sense though...

 

[MoonglowMerchant]

Because the problem was with the assumption, not the code - MoonglowMerchant is correct, we were looking at the total time to gain and not really thinking about players with a fixed amount of time to play per day. The code works exactly as intended - it's just that the intention is flawed.

And if it were as simple as changing three numbers, it wouldn't have taken eight months to get the changes out in the first place

Then the other flaw is in communication. If you had shared the plans for ROT changes sooner, I could have pointed this out when there was still time to fix it.

Now you have two things to improve. Unfortunately, in the meantime Siege is stuck with a "fix" that actually makes the situation worse in part.

 

[Hawkind]

You JUST posted the changes and it's already too late to fix? I mean why even bother with asking for feedback if you are just going to go on business as usual anyway.

 

[Lord_Puffy]

Because the problem was with the assumption, not the code - MoonglowMerchant is correct, we were looking at the total time to gain and not really thinking about players with a fixed amount of time to play per day. The code works exactly as intended - it's just that the intention is flawed.

And if it were as simple as changing three numbers, it wouldn't have taken eight months to get the changes out in the first place

So basically what your saying is your intentions were good although they ended up making some of it longer? I dont it? Why would you publish something that is flawed? Havnt you seen the on-going problem this has caused since the creation of uo in late 97? Seriously why dont you guys just do it right the 1st time? Lord knows we wont see any fixes/patches/pubs for another 8 months on siege. So do the righ thing and make it 7 minutes from 70-120 in between gains.

 

[Jeremy]

It IS shorter - in days. If you can't max your daily gains, though, it takes longer. It's a case we didn't consider.

I've submitted the request - I just don't know if it'll make it in to 55. Because this isn't something y'all can really QA, the QA time on our side is substantial. We were expecting to have to let it run live for a while to see how it worked out before we made any more changes.

 

[MoonglowMerchant]

It IS shorter - in days. If you can't max your daily gains, though, it takes longer. It's a case we didn't consider.

I've submitted the request - I just don't know if it'll make it in to 55. Because this isn't something y'all can really QA, the QA time on our side is substantial. We were expecting to have to let it run live for a while to see how it worked out before we made any more changes.

Thanks for submitting the request.

Perhaps next time, if there is a similar situation requiring extended QA you could share the plan first?

The lack of discussion on some of these changes has been and continues to be a significant issue.

 

[Crysta]

The lack of discussion on some of these changes has been and continues to be a significant issue.

In case you missed it, most of the time when they do that the playerbase goes into an uproar for the tiniest problems and stuff ends up getting yanked indefinitely because nobody can agree. If they ask us for our input every time, nothing would ever make it in because there would always be at least one group of people that disagree with it... ofttimes loudly for little reason.

And even as accomodating as the Siege community can be, I doubt they would be spared such problems.

 

[Skylark SP]

It IS shorter - in days. If you can't max your daily gains, though, it takes longer. It's a case we didn't consider

A case you didn't consider?!

The fact that most players COULD NOT max out gains under the current system during their normal gaming time simply because they NEVER played that long on any given day, was a chief complaint about the reason it took so long to complete templates under the system. It was discussed ad nauseum in threads on this forum when the polls and such about Siege RoT took place.

While I appreciate that the issue of RoT was considered for change, how such a fundamental "bad" part of the current system could be overlooked in design concepts for the new, and actually exacerbated in some areas, is absolutely astonishing.

/boggle

-Skylark

 

[MoonglowMerchant]

In case you missed it, most of the time when they do that the playerbase goes into an uproar for the tiniest problems and stuff ends up getting yanked indefinitely because nobody can agree. If they ask us for our input every time, nothing would ever make it in because there would always be at least one group of people that disagree with it... ofttimes loudly for little reason.

And even as accomodating as the Siege community can be, I doubt they would be spared such problems.

Then ask me. Or ask several players.

Form a players council that get to provide feedback on this stuff before it goes to everyone else.

They have people who are dieing to help them do their jobs well and they aren't utilizing them.

I don't care what your job is, you have to communicate.

I don't think I post here much, but in the same time that I've been registered, I've posted 150 more times than the community coordinator.

It doesn't stop there. There are webpages for "in concept" and "in development".

There used to actually be stuff in there. Now, that isn't utilized at all.

They have to try harder.

 

[kelmo]

Let's not push the messenger down the well. Mmmkay?

 

[MoonglowMerchant]

Let's not push the messenger down the well. Mmmkay?

It is a two way street Kelmo.

Jeremy may not be responsible for the design, but she is responsible for taking our feedback and effectively communicating it to the designers.

Perhaps she did that and they still failed, not entirely but in part.

However, this is not an isolated incident. We have publish after publish where things that take development time don't make it because of flaws that are obvious to players.

If there were better communication more of those issues would be avoided therefore less development time would be wasted and we would have a better game.

Now, if there are policies in place that prevent Jeremy from getting feedback from players or other policies which prevent players from offering feedback in time for changes to be made, those policies need to change.

That is something that needs to be communicated as well.

I choose not to accept "We know it is broken but it is too late for us to fix it even though we just told you yesterday".

 

[Lord_Puffy]

It IS shorter - in days. If you can't max your daily gains, though, it takes longer. It's a case we didn't consider.

I've submitted the request - I just don't know if it'll make it in to 55. Because this isn't something y'all can really QA, the QA time on our side is substantial. We were expecting to have to let it run live for a while to see how it worked out before we made any more changes.

Please just make the timer from 70-120 at 7 minutes in between gains Im sure everyone can agree on that. Its somewhere in the middle Meet us half way. I think we have been very fair about and dont really wana have to resort to blowing these forums up everyday with a pissed off siege community.


Just give us a 7 minute timer inbetween gains. That should be easy enough to code in considering you have the code for it for the what is it 70-80 skill gain? Just apply that code to every skill teir. Thanks and PLEASE respond... Let us (siege community your paying customers) know whats going on.

 

[Lord_Puffy]

It is a two way street Kelmo.

Jeremy may not be responsible for the design, but she is responsible for taking our feedback and effectively communicating it to the designers.

Perhaps she did that and they still failed, not entirely but in part.

However, this is not an isolated incident. We have publish after publish where things that take development time don't make it because of flaws that are obvious to players.

If there were better communication more of those issues would be avoided therefore less development time would be wasted and we would have a better game.

Now, if there are policies in place that prevent Jeremy from getting feedback from players or other policies which prevent players from offering feedback in time for changes to be made, those policies need to change.

That is something that needs to be communicated as well.

I choose not to accept "We know it is broken but it is too late for us to fix it even though we just told you yesterday".

I agree and just like th petball changes we pushed for AND GOT. I will be behind you 200% on this and make sure we get the correct changes to siege.. Not just the quick fix to try and shut us up.

IT WILL NOT HAPPEN THIS TIME, PLEASE COMMUNICATE BACK WITH US SO WE KNOW WHAT IS GOING ON. THANK YOU.

 

[Patty Pickaxe]

A case you didn't consider?!

The fact that most players COULD NOT max out gains under the current system during their normal gaming time simply because they NEVER played that long on any given day, was a chief complaint about the reason it took so long to complete templates under the system. It was discussed ad nauseum in threads on this forum when the polls and such about Siege RoT took place.

While I appreciate that the issue of RoT was considered for change, how such a fundamental "bad" part of the current system could be overlooked in design concepts for the new, and actually exacerbated in some areas, is absolutely astonishing.

/boggle

-Skylark

QFT! I think I would rather see the changes pushed back to Pub 56, rather than push out a flawed system.

 

[kelmo]

It is a two way street Kelmo.

Jeremy may not be responsible for the design, but she is responsible for taking our feedback and effectively communicating it to the designers.

Perhaps she did that and they still failed, not entirely but in part.

However, this is not an isolated incident. We have publish after publish where things that take development time don't make it because of flaws that are obvious to players.

If there were better communication more of those issues would be avoided therefore less development time would be wasted and we would have a better game.

Now, if there are policies in place that prevent Jeremy from getting feedback from players or other policies which prevent players from offering feedback in time for changes to be made, those policies need to change.

That is something that needs to be communicated as well.

I choose not to accept "We know it is broken but it is too late for us to fix it even though we just told you yesterday".

I am as interested in seeing this done right as any one. *nods* State your piece. Just do not let your frustrations get the better of you. Jeremy is pretty much the only one I know of on "our side".

Some of the Devs may make a passing comment, but it has always been the Player Rep that seems to be on our side. This may very well be an "appearance" and a shield for the Devs. I do not know.

All I ask is that we treat Jeremy with professional courtesy. I am pretty sure she is aware of the feedback for her Siege constituents, if the feedback is coming through proper channels. Stratics is not really that channel.

Stratics may be the largest and the most vocal of fan sites, it may not be. *shrugs* It is the site I use and volunteer my time to. Stratics is what it is, a fan site. Favored, yes. Official? No.

I really appreciate the attention we get here. *coughs* I am rambling.

Back to my point. Jeremy is the ambassador. Chosen by Mythic Entertainment as the point person between the paying customers and the devs. Above them all are the suits.

Don't kill the messenger. Send your messages, praise or constructive criticism. Discuss your dissatisfaction. Your peeves. Even the things you like and enjoy. Bash the company if you feel it will help. Bashing the method of communication is counter productive.

That is all. I did not mean to go all QZ. *winks at Miranda*

 

[Sir_Bolo]

Hey MoonglowMerchant,

it's been a long time since I trained a character on Siege Perilous, but if I remember correctly you're missing something in your analysis...
You're assuming that people are going to train one skill at a time.
Normally, people will train 6/7 skills in parallel instead.
If I remember correctly, the timer between skill gains is applied individually to skills, while the daily cap is applied globally.

The actual rate of skill gains in the 90.0-98.9 skill window would be:

1) Under the current system:

0min (login): 6x0.1 skill gains in 6 different skills - daily total 0.6
10min: 6x0.1 skill gains in the same 6 skills - daily total 1.2
20 min: 6x0.1 skill gains in the same 6 skills - daily total 1.8
30 min: 2x0.1 skill gains in 2 of those skill - daily total 2.0, cap reached, no more training for the day

2) Under the Publish 55 system:

0mim (login): 6x0.1 skill gains in 6 different skills - daily total 0.6
12min: 6x0.1 skill gains in the same 6 skills - daily total 1.2
24min: 6x0.1 skill gains in the same 6 skills - daily total 1.8
36min: 6x0.1 skill gains in the same 6skills - daily total 2.4
48min: 6x0.1 skill gains in the same 6 skills - daily total 3.0, cap reached, no more training for the day

In other words - it does take longer to hit the daily cap, but the time is still completely reasonable for a normal playing session...

Or is my memory completely wrong about this?

If your template is almost complete and you're just trying to train a single skill, however, it's true that you have to login at regular intervals for many many hours to hit the daily cap (Up to 7h30 in the 100-109.9 window, which is unreasonable).

 

[Spree]

Why wasn't this new rot system posted before it was put in to code? Any one that plays the game could see it flawed. How many people play the game 5 to 7.5 hours a day to get max gains?

 

[Lord_Puffy]

Why wasn't this new rot system posted before it was put in to code? Any one that plays the game could see it flawed. How many people play the game 5 to 7.5 hours a day to get max gains?

I dont know maybe back in 97 when I was a kid on summer vacation? I really do not get this system or understand why it is still going to be put it even though it is FLAWED.

 

[IanJames]

Here's a thought,

Why can't Siege have it's own Test Center so the changes they want to make can be properly tested for the facet ruleset we have instead of making a bunch of changes and saying, "well we can't test the Siege changes you guys are on your own."

 

[Draxous]

Let's not push the messenger down the well. Mmmkay?

This.

 

[HD2300]

You guys have been asking for years to speed up ROT skill gains, because it will attract more players to SP.

Why dont you just ask to eliminate ROT instead?

 

[FrejaSP]

You guys have been asking for years to speed up ROT skill gains, because it will attract more players to SP.

Why dont you just ask to eliminate ROT instead?

Because we love RoT, just try to make a tamer, poisoner or legend crafter on Siege, it's alot cheaper than on normal shards and for all skills, it's less doing the same thing over and over to get your gain. When it's time, you will gain.
It's sure much faster without the tweak than skill gaining was year 1997-98 so I guess the problem is, skill gain are way to fast on normal shards.

 

[Alrich]

Honestly, most siegers don't mind rot in concept. TBH I think it is a great concept.

THE FLAW WITH IT HOWEVER, is once you hit 99 (or even 90 under pub55) is, if you are only working ONE skill, it will take almost 6 hours to max your gains for the day. Now when you are traning a new character, this is more like 1 hour because you work multiple skills simultaneously, but if you are just finishing those last 2 skills or so, I don't think anyone likes to sit at their desk for 6 hours resetting an egg timer every 15 minutes to get their 0.1 gains.

With alacrities and such, you can fully train a 6x 120 char in about 2-3 weeks already. That isn't the problem.... the problem is it taking 6 hours of logging in every 15 minutes to do it!

No need imo for timer between gains to be any longer then 10 minutes. Seriously

 

[FrejaSP]

Here's a thought,

Why can't Siege have it's own Test Center so the changes they want to make can be properly tested for the facet ruleset we have instead of making a bunch of changes and saying, "well we can't test the Siege changes you guys are on your own."

Testing it on Siege will work fine, noone want to test skill gains on TC and use hours for that.

Only thing they need to do is to make it so they can roll it back and remove the RoT tweak again if something goes wrong so we can way gain to fast.

 

[FrejaSP]

Honestly, most siegers don't mind rot in concept. TBH I think it is a great concept.

THE FLAW WITH IT HOWEVER, is once you hit 99 (or even 90 under pub55) is, if you are only working ONE skill, it will take almost 6 hours to max your gains for the day. Now when you are traning a new character, this is more like 1 hour because you work multiple skills simultaneously, but if you are just finishing those last 2 skills or so, I don't think anyone likes to sit at their desk for 6 hours resetting an egg timer every 15 minutes to get their 0.1 gains.

With alacrities and such, you can fully train a 6x 120 char in about 2-3 weeks already. That isn't the problem.... the problem is it taking 6 hours of logging in every 15 minutes to do it!

No need imo for timer between gains to be any longer then 10 minutes. Seriously

Keep in mind, the RoT tweak is done to get more players to Siege and make it faster for them to get a playable char close to GM in skills.

It will work fine for new chars training several skills.

Now the limit in time for the high skills are done to make it more slow to train skills for soulstones I guess.

If you have unlimit time to play, you can get one skill from 70 to 120 in 5 days, that's fast.

Now if you only have 2 hours a day to play, it may take you 2 weeks, that's still not bad even when I know, 2 weeks with a low skill on your main char is not fun.

If we get a second char slot, you could train your new skills on a new char and then switch them around when done and your main char won't be weak for 2 weeks and you would get some fun playing a newbie char and try to stay clear of WyRm and Krystal

 

[IanJames]

Testing it on Siege will work fine, noone want to test skill gains on TC and use hours for that.

True, just thinking at some point in the future, there may be a different thing being tweaked that would be worth testing.

 

[FrejaSP]

True, just thinking at some point in the future, there may be a different thing being tweaked that would be worth testing.

I guess tweaking the Siege code and it on testing on TC do cost EA resources and they rather use this resources on normal shards.

We are happy when we get some love

 

[Skylark SP]

Here's a thought,

Why can't Siege have it's own Test Center so the changes they want to make can be properly tested for the facet ruleset we have instead of making a bunch of changes and saying, "well we can't test the Siege changes you guys are on your own."

They did give us a Siege Test Center once when they were making a major change for Siege a couple of years ago. It was great - they made a clone of the existing shard so you were able to test with your own char with their own normal stuff just as they were or use Test Center commands & the bank available goodies to change their templates around instantly & experiment with high end stuff.

-Skylark

 

[MoonglowMerchant]

Looks like they went ahead and published it.

Ugh.