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; Vanity Slots
: We don't have any solid plans for this, but I kinda-sorta expect to implement vanity armor slots as part of the "VIP package" -- the optional monthly subscription that gives you some little extra perks and features. I haven't planned out how they would work, but I liked the EQ2 system and thought it worked pretty well.
::06-25-2017
:: https://forum.projectgorgon.com/showthread.php?579-Vanity-Armor-Slots&p=4855#post4855
; Personal Quests
: Right now, I'm sticking to "personal quests", where each player gets their own copy of the quest and can complete it at their own pace. I really like the idea of "group events", and it's in the plans to support them, but right now the tech isn't ready yet. The existing "group quests" (guild quests and druid-event quests) each have some specialized code hacked in just for them, and they aren't very reusable for other activities yet. That will change as we progress with other content... and actually, I could "fake it" by using an NPC to tally completions, such as "NPC Bob needs 500 people to complete this solo quest" -- that would be a sort of hybrid solo-group activity. But for the next few events, I'm just going to stick to fairly straightforward solo-able quests.
::06-25-2017
:: https://forum.projectgorgon.com/showthread.php?573-Weekend-Events-Feedback-and-Ideas-official&p=4854#post4854
; Drop Rates
: Frankly, you'll just have to trust me that we already give you the very best info I have available. I think some of that should be obvious. I mean, in your example about making cheese more valuable, I was summarizing my specific recipe changes. Remember the list of exactly which recipes were changed? That's what I was referring to.
: We don't give drop-rate changes in exact percentages because I don't know those percentages. The systems don't work on percents or anything like them. They're complex nested tables with complex weighting systems that can vary per player and per monster. They work well, but they're hard to talk about. So I tell you what I know: something changed by a lot or by a little. That's what we got, so that's what you get.
: In general, the answer is always the same: we're doing our best to give you info. If there are places where just a day or three could dramatically improve the info we give you... those days have already been spent. We give out detailed JSON files with a tremendous amount of game data in them. As for testing, I spend much of my time writing automatic validation, because we have no dedicated QA personnel. But not everything can be automated or easily turned into numbers. I know that more info would always be useful, but there's not a lot of big easy-to-digest tables of numbers we're secretly hoarding over here.
: This is an ongoing project, and that includes our data and analysis tools. I've already talked about various improvements coming, including more logging, more JSON files, more automated testing that will rule out a lot more bug cases. But right now, right today, this is what we have. Please give the best feedback you can given what you know. That's all we can ask.
::06-20-2017
:: https://forum.projectgorgon.com/showthread.php?576-To-Citan-Comments-about-player-feedback&p=4825#post4825
; Elf Options
: They come from different countries, but there's currently no in-game difference (and the eventual difference will be minimal -- backstory differences).
::06-19-2017
:: https://forum.projectgorgon.com/showthread.php?575-Elvan-Subrace&p=4822#post4822
; Game Changes
: The other thing to remember here is that the complexities of the game mean there's lots of manual work involved. For example, I've tried to manually adjust recipes that use cheese-based ingredients to have something else nice going for them, to justify that extra work. But it's an entirely manual process. I may have missed some, not done enough, etc. Saying "high level recipes aren't good enough" doesn't help me fix any recipes. For people skimming this post, let me emphasize that point: Since almost all of the game's content is made by hand, I can't just change a number somewhere to fix all the problems -- I need to know what specifically needs fixing. That may be the value of certain items, the rarity, the potency (when eaten or used), the gifting potential, so on and so forth.
::06-14-2017
:: https://forum.projectgorgon.com/showthread.php?557-Long-Post-Concerns-about-Cooking-Butchery&p=4731#post4731
; Ability Damage
: Thanks for the feedback! We'll look at some balancing issues in a little while -- unfortunately nothing is as simple as it looks; boosting base ability damage would lower the potency of the mods, because they're all intertwined. But base damage itself is only a small part of the puzzle, and I suspect the bigger issue is a lack of synergies with other skills. For instance, Venomstrike is really designed to work with other gear that boosts indirect poison damage. What other skills are you using with it?
::06-01-2017
:: https://forum.projectgorgon.com/showthread.php?531-Knife-fighting-damage-too-low-balance-issue&p=4563#post4563
; Baking System
: Also, the "cruel" description of the baking system comes from srand after she heard the plans. I never intentionally make cruel designs on purpose! But I want different crafting skills to fit different kinds of player personalities.
: This one's not for everybody, but I think it's actually easier than, say, cheesemaking... as long as you're patient and good at timing things.
::05-30-2017
:: https://forum.projectgorgon.com/showthread.php?530-Dev-Notes-May-30-2017&p=4544#post4544
; Resource Bars
: I've basically held off on using stuff like a Rage meter because I don't want to add yet another meter to the game. Even if you don't count the metabolism bar (since it can be turned off), three resource bars is already a lot!
: I may eventually just say "screw it" and add some more resource bars, and Rage is a good choice... but for now I'm trying to work with the bars we have.
::05-25-2017
:: https://forum.projectgorgon.com/showthread.php?438-Where-s-my-rage-meter&p=4498#post4498
; Ensouling
: The exact features of ensouling are still in flux so I don't want to say much about it right now, but you can't do anything with souls right now. But you will in the future! And yeah, sentient weapons are one of the ways that can go.
: But I will spoil a tiny easter egg on that particular claw, because I'm not sure how well it works: it is supposed to be able to emote in text, making hissing sounds, purring, mewling, etc. depending on what you're doing (and whether you're paying it enough attention). It's very similar to how ur-bacon can talk. But I'm not sure if it's noticeable enough. Have you ever seen it happen? I want it to be very occasional, not more than once every hour or two, but happen enough to notice if you carry the item around a while.
: (The chance of it happening is actually higher than Ur-Bacon, but people usually carry a big stack of ur-bacon, which is why it seems so chatty... each strip has a chance of talking.)
::05-25-2017
:: https://forum.projectgorgon.com/showthread.php?521-Ensouled-Gear&p=4497#post4497
; Storage
: I should mention again that we're also planning some bigger storage-management features as well. The biggest feature is that all the storage boxes in a particular land area (e.g. Serbule) will be accessible from a tabbed GUI interface, letting you quickly manage all of them without having to run from building to building. It will be a while before that feature's ready, but we're slowly evolving things in the back end to make that possible.
::05-07-2017
:: https://forum.projectgorgon.com/showthread.php?468-Item-Search-feature&p=4088#post4088
; Missing Blog
: We don't have time to keep the wordpress blog software (and its plug-ins) up to date, and after it got hacked for the second time in a year, we just took it down. But we'll bring it back eventually!
::05-05-2017
:: https://forum.projectgorgon.com/showthread.php?467-Old-Eldergame-Blogs&p=4074#post4074
; Scamming, Success, and "Being a Dick"
: Since this thread seems to somehow just keep going, I figured I'd weigh in with some thoughts.
: First, I don't want scamming in the game, where players lose items or valuables to other players due to trickery. That's a form of PvP, really: it's tricking another player and causing them misery for your joy. It's a terrible fit for this PvE game.
: However, unless we're a crazy-huge success, I can't imagine having the personnel to deal with a huge number of scamming complaints. A few, sure, but a ton? No. So we'll need to do our best to make the game scam-resistant via tech. But that's often MUCH harder than it sounds, though -- for instance, letting people craft something with your materials, then give you the result, while making sure nobody steals anything or changes anything up in the process? VERY hard. Not on my immediate todo list. Maybe not happening ever. Instead, we've moved toward more scam-resistant game systems, like augment gems. Augmentation has that extra step in the middle of the process specifically to make it easier to trade them. In time I expect more systems to work like that.
: And of course, when that fails, we'll just ban for griefing. I realize that right now, someone who's banned could just make a new account, but when we're on Steam and B2P, banning is a significant deterrent.
: ---
: Lastly, I want to talk about the broader topic of "being a dick". Scamming is one way of being a dick, and it's not allowed. But there are a few ways of being a dick that ARE allowed. These are basically practical-joke level dickishness. They involve tricking other players, but they aren't scams, because there aren't huge or devastating consequences for the victim.
: An example is poisoned food. You can poison food with iocaine powder and give that food to other players. They can eat it and DIE. That makes you a dick, but it's really not that big a deal to die in Project: Gorgon. Even if you're Hardcore Mode, you'd just go get your stuff. It's a prank.
: Another example? Words of power. You can be a dick and trick people by giving them bad words of power. Trick somebody into dying with one? Ha ha, you're a dick, but it's okay. However, there are exceptions even here. Tricking newbies into saying a word of power that gives them Leprosy (a much worse fate than death)? That's not a practical joke: it might make the newbie unable to play until somebody cures them. That's way too dickish. On the other hand, tricking a level 100 player with leprosy? Eh... it's not as dickish because it doesn't impact them nearly as much.
: Some people like to say "if the game allows it, it should be okay", but that attitude is how you get shitty, limited, boring, terrible games. For instance, bad names: we don't allow you to call people names in chat. You can exclaim "motherfucker!" once in a while, we don't mind that, but you can NEVER say "you're a motherfucker" to another player. It's true that the game technically lets you do it, but that's because the alternative would be horrible draconian chat filtering.
: Another example? Stealing kills. A high-level player can follow a newbie around and steal their kills just for laughs. That's not a joke, it's griefing, and obviously against the terms of service. The game technically allows it because the alternative would be draconian locale-restrictions that would make the game suck.
: The point is that I'm not making a game for children, so I'm not willing to take out all the fun things in the game just to prevent people going over the line. That means you can't use the notion of "if the game allows it, it's okay". If you go over the line, we'll just have to ban you, even though the game technically allowed you to do it.
: I also realize that some people have a hard time with social concepts like "practical jokes". (I'm not being snide or sarcastic here -- it can be tough for some people.) If you can't tell the difference between a practical joke and griefing, you should avoid doing either so that you don't get banned. We're not going to try to list every possible joke, or where the lines are. If you don't think you can tell where the line is... just don't do it at all.
::05-05-2017
:: https://forum.projectgorgon.com/showthread.php?163-Scamming-What-s-your-take-on-it&p=4072#post4072
; Flammable Dwarves
: Hundred-year-old beard hair goes up like kindling!
::04-25-2017
:: https://forum.projectgorgon.com/showthread.php?414-Dwarven-Culture-(Warning-strong-language)&p=3882#post3882
; Optional Cursor
: An optional custom cursor is on the to-do list. It's pretty far down the list, but it will happen eventually!
::04-22-2017
:: https://forum.projectgorgon.com/showthread.php?433-The-In-Game-Cursor&p=3833#post3833
; Treasure System
: Hey guys, when it comes to the treasure system, I usually need VERY specific info, right down to the exact mods, monsters, items, and skills in question.
: I'll use the discussion about transmutation as an example. You say there aren't enough mods showing up when Transmuting? There's at least three possible causes for that:
: It could be because the item is designed for lower-level monsters but is being dropped by a high-level monster by mistake. In that case, the item's internal "points" won't be enough to afford good high-level mods, so all it can afford is a few crappy ones. If that's the case, the problem is that the monster shouldn't drop that item! I'd need to know what exact item it is, what level mods of it has, the item's skills, and what monster you got it from.
: But that's only one possibility. Mods can have rarity restrictions -- a few mods can only show up on Epic and Legendary items. If the item's rarity isn't good enough, Transmuting will never give those mods. But that's rare, since only a few mods are set up that way.
: Much more common is that its dice-roll weight is too low or too high. Each mod has its own chance of showing up, and some mods are intentionally MUCH more common than others. For instance, the mods that boost base-damage multiplier are 5x to 10x more common than other mods. So sometimes, what you're seeing is intentional. But sometimes I just didn't set a number right somewhere. To find that, I'd again need to know everything about what you're doing, and which mods you're seeing in Transmute, and which ones you think you should be able to, but are never showing up.
: There's lots of other possible causes, too. Without a really thorough report, I can't do much. I know it's tough to get all the info, but it's necessary because the treasure system is SUPER complicated. It's a huge part of the game, and it does a LOT of things! There's literally 100,000+ numbers involved in there, so finding a bad number is like looking for a needle in a haystack.
::04-22-2017
:: https://forum.projectgorgon.com/showthread.php?335-Armor-crafting-augmenting-and-legacy&p=3831#post3831
; Brewing
: All possible buffs and benefits will be brewable by every player. The recipes to get those results will just be different!
::04-12-2017
:: https://forum.projectgorgon.com/showthread.php?415-Dev-Blog-April-9-2017&p=3655#post3655
; Performance Problems
: Let me rein the problem in a little here: there are lots of known performance problems! But most are caused by problems with the assets or the level design -- there's too many visible monsters around the lake in south serbule, for instance. Those will get fixed in time. Even I get framerate spikes when turning in Serbule and South Serbule (more often at high graphics settings than low). But my FPS display bobbles when that happens, at least a little bit.
:: 04-08-2017
:: https://forum.projectgorgon.com/showthread.php?412-Stuttering-Choppiness&p=3549#post3549
; Loading
: prior to the April 1 update, the game did in fact load every asset it could need when you entered each zone. And with an 8gb video card you wouldn't have needed to even swap assets. After the April 1 update, it loads-on-demand for some resources, but slowdowns due to loading would definitely be visible in the FPS display. (And a little hourglass would appear in the top right for a split second -- near where the "sprinting" and "in combat" icons are.) What FPS do you get when it ISN'T locking up?
: The FPS display not hiccuping is a big clue because it rules out a lot of causes. Hm, it could be caused by constant exceptions in the client's main thread, maybe -- can you grab the output_log.txt from your installation and email it to [email protected]? It might have a clue. (It'll be in a subfolder of wherever the game has been downloaded to -- but NOT the patcher's output_log.txt, that's just for the patcher program.)
::04-08-2017
:: https://forum.projectgorgon.com/showthread.php?412-Stuttering-Choppiness&p=3545#post3545
; Bat Form
: I wanted to drop a note about the bat form. The old bat was a store-bought model -- we use third-party art for a lot of our monsters, and then alter them as needed -- that lacked some of the technical bits that would make it look good in the future. As we slowly evolve the game's graphical assets, we need to phase out models that lack things like normal-maps, because eventually they'd stick out really badly. SO! When the artist who made the original bat had an "upgraded" version of the bat, we grabbed it, because it has the missing technical bits. However, it wasn't an upgrade -- it turned out to be a complete remake.
: It's hard to gauge the overall popularity of this model versus the other, especially since the old one isn't readily available to look at. But I'll keep listening (in this thread and others). In the last major update, I turned off the blood on the bat's fur. Whether this is an improvement or not is up in the air -- what's your opinion?
: I'm hopeful that we can make this bat work, but if not, there are some other third-party bat models out there that might work, and of course we do have monsters custom-made for us -- though the queue for customization is pretty long, so a fully custom bat wouldn't happen soon.
: As always, we're reading even when not responding, so keep giving feedback! Thanks!
::04-08-2017
:: https://forum.projectgorgon.com/showthread.php?298-Bat-Form&p=3533#post3533
; Skill Purpose
: In general the question "why does one skill work differently than another" comes down to design intent and balance concerns. In this case, I wanted to give support characters another interesting choice for offhand weapon without requiring them to drop one of their two main combat skills. If you're building a mentalism+psychology healing setup (for instance) and decided you wanted some extra ranged power, crossbow is for you.
: Remember that there will be literally hundreds of sidebar abilities in the final game and most of them won't be useful to every player. If every sidebar ability was useful to every player in every situation, then only the six "best" abilities would get used. Right? So let's not do that. Over time there will be lots of powers with different requirements and restrictions.
::03-21-2017
:: https://forum.projectgorgon.com/showthread.php?305-Crossbow&p=2885#post2885
; In-Combat
: Thanks guys. The ten-second thing seems like it might be relevant somehow -- there is a ten-second check in a certain situation (mainly, part of the PvP in-combat checks)... I can't see how it would apply when fighting monsters, but if it's lasting exactly ten seconds, that's a pretty interesting clue. I'm exploring that part of the code now.
: The intention is that you should stop being in-combat about 4 seconds after killing the last monster that knows about you. Regarding groups, anyone in the group who's "in combat" will keep all nearby group members in combat. That's by design to prevent exploitable situations (such as when a support character has basically infinite Power by staying out of combat the whole time). For similar reasons, if your pet is in combat, so are you, and vice versa.
: DoTs that monsters put on you are supposed to keep you in combat. But DoTs you apply to monsters should only keep you in combat until the monster dies.
::03-20-2017
:: https://forum.projectgorgon.com/showthread.php?340-Lets-slow-it-down-way-down&p=2845#post2845
; Combat System
: As you know, we're still working on the in-combat system, specifically in making combat end quickly. But finding the exact scenarios that cause problems are difficult. Most reports are just "I'm in combat too long", which doesn't help us any. We need specifics! We need to work out the situations where it's happening so we can fix them.
: First step is to see WHY you are in combat. Hover your mouse over the "in combat" icon at the top right of the screen. It will say, for instance, "You are in combat with Rat and two other enemies" or whatever. How long does it stay that way? Is it just one creature, far away, keeping you in combat? Does the rat ever show up? What is going on? Do you see a pattern?
: The more details you can give, the better we can work on the problems. Thanks!
::03-18-2017
:: https://forum.projectgorgon.com/showthread.php?340-Lets-slow-it-down-way-down&p=2796#post2796
; Direct Damage
: The way it works is this: "direct" damage is the number at the top of the ability description. If it says it does 500 damage, that's direct damage. "Indirect" damage is damage added on from other sources. If it says at the bottom of the ability "deals 40 damage over 10 seconds", that's always indirect damage. Direct = the attack's actual damage, indirect = anything else.
: : It's still pretty fuzzy, but I haven't figured out a better terminology yet. I considered calling all the indirect types by other names, so direct fire damage would be Fire and indirect would be Heat damage (for instance). The problem there is that we have buffs that boost all direct or indirect damage types. So giving them other names just seems to make things more confusing, not less.
: : It's still a problem I'm mulling over, I'm sure there's a better presentation than we're using now, I just don't know what it is yet.
::03-16-2017
:: https://forum.projectgorgon.com/showthread.php?253-Trying-to-understand-Ring-of-Fire-Backfire&p=2745#post2745
; Bug Report Time
: We're a tiny team, just a couple of people. We try to read over bug tickets daily, but we can't possibly respond to a ticket within minutes or hours or sometimes even days. And frankly, dealing with tickets like yours, that don't actually have a bug, are very low priority. This is alpha, the game is very far from being finished, and the top priority is finishing the game. So alpha testers must have patience -- that's a requirement of playing at this time.
: : We've never banned anyone due to the contents of a single bug report, regardless of what it says (so far, at least), but sending in DOZENS of back-to-back tickets is intentionally clogging up our ticket system, and that wastes our precious development time. So stop it.
: : Then you broke the code of conduct by trying to raise shit about a ban on the forums and in chat. Milking bans for drama always makes things worse, not better, so we don't allow it. This isn't some crazy new idea -- "don't bitch about bans on the game's forums" is hardly some weird new rule you've never seen before. So stop it. If you disagree with a ban you should contact [email protected] so we can review it.
::03-16-2017
:: https://forum.projectgorgon.com/showthread.php?329-Banned-ingame-for-submitting-a-bug&p=2737#post2737
; Trash Loot
: Also, just a note on "trash monsters" -- there are some trash monsters, but Elites are never trash. They drop top-tier equipment and have a chance for top-rarity mods. Even if the only thing your group can do in GK is kill elite monsters, you will still accumulate great loot and wealth, and that's by design. I know rewards are always perceived relative to other rewards, but elites are NOT trash in my book!
::03-11-2017
:: https://forum.projectgorgon.com/showthread.php?319-Dev-Notes-March-10-2017&p=2626#post2626
; Behaviour Report
: Thanks for the feedback and help with playtesting this! I've made some small tweaks to the /behaviorreport command for the next snapshot, and will be adding some more functionality to make it easier to do these in the future. But I could still use more ideas regarding how to keep egregious "twinking" behavior from running rampant -- it's a shared world, so some level of interaction is going to be unavoidable even in a "challenge" contest like this, but I'd like to come up with some ways to reduce its impact, or at least tell when it's happened. (The most important "twinking" scenario being "a high-level guy goes ahead of you and kills the bosses in a dungeon, so you get credit for killing bosses without being in any real danger." And similar scenarios.) If you have ideas that aren't in the thread yet, please voice them!
: : Also congrats to Cocytus, who is the winner of the unofficial contest!
::02-22-2017
:: https://forum.projectgorgon.com/showthread.php?214-Unofficial-quot-Iron-Man-quot-Permadeath-Challenge&p=2129#post2129
; Ring of Fire
: The effects are rolled separately, so you have two separate 5% chances to take damage when you use the ability. (It's rolled per ability use, not per target). I suspect what you're seeing is just one of the mods going off (the 128 one), but your indirect boost is applied, like this:
: : 128 * 1.96 (your indirect fire mod) = 250
: : 250 - 32 (your indirect + generic fire mitigation) = 218
::02-18-2017
:: https://forum.projectgorgon.com/showthread.php?253-Trying-to-understand-Ring-of-Fire-Backfire&p=2015#post2015
; Streaming
: Yep, you're allowed to stream the game on twitch or put gameplay footage on Youtube. We ask that you mention in the title or description that it's alpha footage; otherwise there aren't any requirements or limitations.
::02-18-2017
:: https://forum.projectgorgon.com/showthread.php?236-Posting-In-game-Content-on-Youtube&p=2014#post2014
; Loot
: Well, no system is perfect, but I actually found the opposite. As a templar in EQ2 I routinely helped out others, just for the sake of being nice, and because of the locking system, it was understood as a nice gesture instead of an attempt to steal a kill.
: : In Gorgon right now, you can "help" somebody, but if you do more damage than them against a solo creature, you stop being a helper and start becoming a kill-stealer. And since XP is split right now, many players will resent your "help" because you're inevitably slowing down their leveling.
: : I guess the bottom line is that the current system is obviously not going to cut it in the long term because the loot system heavily rewards mega-groups. Mega-groups are actually really boring, even if the rewards are good. It's not healthy for the long-term of the game. The best system I've seen is EQ2s. If you have other systems to propose, that's cool and I'm all ears! But we can't stay with the exact system we have now forever.
::02-11-2017
:: https://forum.projectgorgon.com/showthread.php?219-The-Zerg&p=1789#post1789
; Zerging
: Hey guys, love getting feedback but this thread feels very vague. It'd be really useful if people gave any sort of specifics. "Zerging" where? What levels are you? How many people are involved? Without specifics I can't give specific feedback. Here's some general feedback that I've posted before on the old forums (more or less):
: : Some low-level dungeons, I honestly don't care if you bum-rush them with a million people. If a high-level player wants to organize a bunch of newbies to kill Gajus? I can't really bring myself to give a crap. It's not important in the scheme of things. But if you're doing high-level content in groups of eight or ten, that's a bigger problem, one that we're aware of and that's on our to-do list to fix.
: : My current plan is to basically use EQ2's system: hunting groups have a max of 6 people, monsters become "loot-locked" (and XP-locked) to the first person or group that attacks them, and a little icon shows that the monster is locked. There are simple level-range restrictions on the group, as well, to keep a level 100 from carrying a group of 50s. This system works well for keeping the game's challenge level up. But it has down sides, mainly that you HAVE to group up in order to share loot and XP from a monster -- casual "nearby grouping" stops working. It also opens up some dumb abuse situations, like "high level guy runs to boss and keeps him perma-locked for hours just so that you that can never kill him", but in practice that's pretty easy to fix. We first disincentivize the abusive situation as best we can (e.g. after the third repeated boss kill, you get literally nothing from it), then if people continue to be dicks just for fun, we ban them.
: : But as I said in the Big Dev-Info Roundup post, these plans will come later this year. The main hold up is that I need the GUI revamp to be done first. I don't currently even have a way to show a little "locked" icon overtop monsters. I could hack something in, but I'd just have to re-code it again in the new GUI. So that's wasted work, which I try to avoid.
: : In the mean time, please try to exercise a little self-restraint. Yes, you can abuse the limitations of the alpha and run a dozen people through a dungeon. But you should understand what you're doing: you're twinking yourselves. There are literally no dungeons in the game right now where a group of more than 6 should be needed -- and most dungeons are balanced for a group of 3 or 4 -- so if you have more than six, you're playing on an "easy mode" that is only going to be available until I can change it.
: : Why should you care? Because once you twink yourselves, your feedback becomes worthless. You don't really know how hard or easy things are, so you stop being able to help me balance content. Plus, the combat metrics generated by oversized groups are worthless, so I can't balance it that way either. I know that there are level ranges where it's hard to level, and dungeons that need work, and skills that need improvement at certain level ranges... but I don't really know where they are exactly, and I need your help -- your untwinked help -- to find and fix them.
: : The game isn't finished yet, but stuff like this won't be a problem forever. In the mean time, I'd like people to use their sense of restraint. It's not hard! Try it
::02-10-2017
:: https://forum.projectgorgon.com/showthread.php?219-The-Zerg&p=1787#post1787
; Multiboxing
: Eh, okay, I'm pretty convinced that multiboxing is going to cause too much trouble in the long term. The problem is that it's very hard to differentiate "fair multiboxing" with "bot-assisted multiboxing". Detecting bots is already hard enough without giving people more wiggle room.
: : So, starting now, I'm rescinding my temp-approval. You are not allowed to multibox for anything other than item-muling. Sorry, fans of multiboxing! We'll adjust the code of conduct to make this explicit.
: : Also, just to hammer this home: botting's not allowed, whether it be multiboxing or not. Please remember to report any combat-macroers you find. We have indeed banned people for combat-macroing already. But auto-detecting it is not foolproof, especially during alpha, so it's very helpful to have your reports to corroborate the logs.
::02-06-2017
:: https://forum.projectgorgon.com/showthread.php?179-Multi-boxing-multi-account-activty&p=1466#post1466
; Broken Items
: There's no fixed duration for tombstones to exist. They clean themselves up when there's too many other items on the ground in the same zone. Hardcore players' tombstones are higher-priority than non-hardcore tombstones, meaning that they will last longer. But their duration can't be guaranteed.
: : As others have said, though, the tombstone is just a shortcut. It's the item itself that stores where its "broken pieces" are. Broken items can be right-clicked to track down your death-spot, and right-clicked again to repair the item. The interesting thing about this is that since it's stored on the item, not the player, there's no time limit: as long as the item exists, it can be repaired by going to the right spot. So you can store your broken items for later, or even give them to a friend to go repair for you -- anyone can repair it!
::02-05-2017
:: https://forum.projectgorgon.com/showthread.php?190-Death-penalties-damaged-gear-and-lost-tombstones&p=1458#post1458
; Hammer Bonus Levels
: It was an oversight. Most of Hammer's bonus levels will come from skills that aren't done yet, but a few existing skills such as mining and blacksmithing should have bonus Hammer levels. This will be fixed soon!
: : If there are other combat skills that don't have bonus levels (but do have abilities that can't be obtained without bonus levels), those would be bugs too, so please report them! (Via the in-game ticket system.)
::02-05-2017
:: https://forum.projectgorgon.com/showthread.php?186-Bonus-Hammer-Levels&p=1457#post1457
; Behavior Badges
: This is very cool, and it's something I imagined the "behavior badges" would eventually be useful for. For instance, if you want to do a no-shirt challenge, and you live long enough, you'll eventually get the Shirtless behavior badge, which is proof you didn't cheat. The down side of the current system is that you have to stay alive for a few weeks before the badges kick in. But it's something we might be able to evolve in a way that helps make player-challenges more enforceable. If this challenge (or challenges like this) catch on, we might give that tech a bit more priority than it would otherwise have.
:: 02-02-2017
:: https://forum.projectgorgon.com/showthread.php?152-Community-Challenges-Guilds&p=1351#post1351
; Bandwidth
: I haven't gauged bandwidth usage in a long time, so there's no official answer to this right now.
: The bandwidth won't depend on your screen resolution or other graphics settings. (It used to matter if you had "Experimental Optimizations" checkbox on, but currently no configuration options affect bandwidth.) But bandwidth WILL change based on the number of players and moving monsters in your general area. Standing in Serbule with dozens of people and pets running all around is a pretty high-bandwidth scenario. If I had to guess where the worst-case bandwidth area is, it'd be standing just outside of Rahu, where there's like 200 monsters walking around in one small patch of desert.
: In terms of BEST-case scenario, the place with the least bandwidth would probably be that little sewer you can Enter The Light to -- unless other players are in there dancing, of course. Dungeons like the Serbule Crypt are also pretty low-bandwidth, because none of the monsters in there wander around.
: The tl;dr of all that is: movement and combat are what consume the bulk of the bandwidth.
: But even in the worst-case scenario, bandwidth usage should still be good compared to, say, an FPS or a moba. I tried to be pretty bandwidth-conscious when building the networking, and MMOs in general can get away with optimizations that many other kinds of games can't.
::02-02-2017
:: https://forum.projectgorgon.com/showthread.php?178-Project-Gorgon-Data-usage&p=1332#post1332
; Unarmed
: It's intended that you can make really good energy-shield-oriented Unarmed builds... the idea is that the shields last longer than one combat, so you can stack them up. That said, I'm sure they are wildly imbalanced at the moment, and may or may not make sense at various level ranges. It's something on the list to work on eventually.
::02-02-2017
:: https://forum.projectgorgon.com/showthread.php?182-Unarmed-shielding-mods&p=1331#post1331
; Multiboxing
: The very honest answer is we haven't decided yet whether multiboxing will be allowed in the final game. But I am leaning towards not allowing it. In games where multiboxing is actually hard, it's not much of a problem, but when it's easy, it creates a lot of envy and anger from other players, and I don't need that. And would it be hard here? Probably not. When I add features like auto-follow, and when you've found powerful "hands-off" support builds (a battle chemistry/mentalism combo comes to mind), it's a pretty dramatic increase in power for little effort, and it's something that has historically pissed other players off.
: Yeah, I can tweak the game to make multiboxing harder and more "fair", but I don't want to have to think "wait, what does this design decision mean for multi-boxers?" every time I make a change.
: On the other hand, when a game is older and I'm making an alt, it IS fun to multibox. I multiboxed WoW and enjoyed it. But that was after it'd been out for five years and other players didn't care nearly as much if I was power-leveling an alt. So if history is any evidence, we'll similarly worry less about this as time progresses.
: In the very short term (like today), it's fine. You can multibox during the alpha, at least until further notice. But since no launch decisions have been made, I wouldn't pay for an extra account if you only want to use it to multibox!
:: 02-02-2017
:: https://forum.projectgorgon.com/showthread.php?179-Multi-boxing-multi-account-activty&p=1329#post1329
; Fun Areas
: So basically the areas with more of their content completed are fun, and the ones that aren't done are not fun. Thanks for the feedback.
: Seriously, though... obviously there are mechanics we're still working on, like cold weather. They take time to iterate on. You're allowed to find them un-fun, and I want you talk about them, and I appreciate the feedback when they aren't fun -- or when they are.
: Bet let's leave that aside for a moment. I can tell that you're frustrated with the game in general, based on all your insults and complaints, and here's the thing: you are completely right that you're at a grind. And that won't change until the game is more complete. It won't happen next month or the month after that or the month after that -- we'll add more content and add/evolve game systems, but the game will still be far from complete. You will continue to hit grindy areas and run into game mechanics that suck. Finishing this game will take all of 2017, and it will be evolving that whole time. That includes both the content AND the game mechanics. And the art and GUI too, for that matter.
: So either you can deal with some grinding and annoyances and nerfs while we keep working, or you can go play something else for a while. I completely understand doing so. Lots of long-time players take breaks, and I think that's healthy. Your character will be here when you come back.
::02-02-2017
:: https://forum.projectgorgon.com/showthread.php?157-Objective-Analysis-of-PG-for-now&p=1328#post1328
; Lycanthropy
: Yes, you have to occasionally find time to play during a full moon to get the most out of lycanthropy. That's not a bug, it's a feature. In exchange, werewolf players, and ONLY werewolf players, can buy their level-ups and abilities before they meet the prerequisites. They can also pay for it in "tokens", which, it turns out, are a whole lot cheaper than Councils. I'm sorry that the full moon falls pretty far from this update, though.
::01-23-2017
:: https://forum.projectgorgon.com/showthread.php?129-January-22-2017-Update-Discussion!&p=774#post774
; Raven
: Generally the problem here is that raven is not an animal form. Animal Town citizens can smell that you're still a druid, and it doesn't count. Switching any forms is also unlikely to work -- you need to stay in one specific animal CURSE form -- deer included, although it's not a curse when druids do it -- for three hours of in-game time. We'll work on making this clearer somehow in a future update.
:: 01-20-2017
:: https://forum.projectgorgon.com/showthread.php?100-Animal-Town-NPCs-still-rejecting-me&p=609#post609
; Underwater Nodes
: Thanks for the feedback! Underwater nodes are intentional, and they're supposed to be a logistical problem to figure out. I'm open to improving how things work there, but in general, I don't remove content because it's too hard -- I want to refine systems until it's achievable instead.
: So it sounds like the key problem is not having enough breath? There are ways to increase your breath meter, including randomly-generated treasure items, low-level words of power, and raising your Endurance. Are these not easily accessible, or have you found them and they're still insufficient? I can certainly add more ways to raise max breath -- in fact there should be a low-level alchemy potion for it coming soon. (The potion exists already, but can't be crafted, only found.)
::01-19-2017
:: https://forum.projectgorgon.com/showthread.php?49-Underwater-Motherlodes-have-to-go&p=566#post566
; Feedback
: Thanks for the feedback! I consider newbie-questions to be invaluable feedback, because it shows what isn't intuitable about the game. Not everything is supposed to be instantly intuitive, necessarily, but most game mechanics should make sense within their own context. But because we change things around a lot, systems that may have made sense once don't always stay sane. Boss monster difficulty is one such area -- bosses were once easier than they are now, and while I toned some bosses down when we changed monster difficulty, it's especially hard to find the sweet spot for newbie bosses, because it's hard to tell how powerful you're going to be at that point.
: The rhino boss in the crypt is almost certainly too difficult ... or, perhaps another way to fix that is that the monsters near there need to be tougher. But probably just toning down the boss in this case. Another SUPER-unfortunate boss is 'Tremor' in the myconian dungeon. His curse is supposed to be annoying -- back when basic attacks weren't that important, it was an annoying curse. But we made Basic Attacks much more important recently, and now Tremor's curse is one of the worst in the game... and it's in a low-level dungeon. (We'll fix it soonish, but the point is just that changes do have unexpected side-effects, and I rarely find all of those on my own -- I only realize there's problems when I get feedback.)
: As far as finding research components, it's supposed to be time consuming and/or expensive. Keep in mind that other skills have other time-consuming and/or expensive aspects that aren't necessarily obvious. For instance, to make the Staff skill really shine, you need to find the Hoplology skill, which is in a difficult level 40 dungeon. Prior to that, the skill is good, but not amazing. Similarly with Mentalism -- some of the best powers will be missing for a bit until you can come back and get them from the myconians.
: But saying it's supposed to be expensive and time consuming is just the general goal. Precisely how difficult should it be? I dunno. It's alpha; we're mostly winging it based on feedback and, sometimes, metrics. And it can see-saw back and forth a bit. I suspect part of the problem with fire magic is that I recently made getting Fire Dust a bit too easy, so it seems extra-weird that the later components are so hard to get. The fix is probably to make fire dust a bit less common while also making higher-level components a bit more common. You'll see in each snapshot build's patch notes where I attempt to tackle one or two of these kinds of things each time. (How many arrows should a "bundle of arrows" generate? How hard should it really be to level up First Aid? On and on it goes.)
: Bottom line is mostly: it's alpha, I dunno, please give feedback (as you have!) when something seems amiss -- either too hard OR too easy -- nobody ever reports the too-easy stuff. We're going for an organic difficulty, where not everything is necessarily as hard or easy as everything else, and that means we don't have to make everything perfectly orthogonal, but it can also be an excuse that hides major content problems.
: I'll talk with Silvonis about setting up an area of the forum where newbies can give their first impressions about things in a safe environment -- that is, one where people don't say "learn to play noob" etc. (That doesn't happen much around here, but when it does happen, it makes newbies shut up, and that's bad.)
: In the short term, the advice in this thread is pretty good. If you have trouble with boss difficulty levels, the wiki can help. If you can't find something you need, try checking the Used tab of vendors; if that doesn't work, try using the user-requested-items board in the back of Serbule. There's no level or skill requirements there. It acts as a sort of reverse-auction-house. Try requesting 1 saltpeter at whatever price you can afford, and see how it works out. And having level-appropriate gear is at least as important as having level-appropriate abilities, so when you're stuck on one, try working on the other.
: Alpha can be a rocky time, but it definitely has its up-sides, too. Hopefully you can work around the difficulties, and if you continue to give us feedback when you find them, the game will get better as a result.
::01-18-2017
:: https://forum.projectgorgon.com/showthread.php?97-Seeking-Understanding&p=537#post537
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===== The Second Forum =====
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