Spiral Knights - Since I know you all desperately want a dev to answer your questions, I will answer some for you.

Since I know you all desperately want a dev to answer your questions, I will answer some for you.

18 replies [Last post]

Mon, 09/17/2012 - 08:43

Venomousbiohazard

I know we have been restless about the game for some time now. The 260+ comments on the Supporter to a hater thread confirmed that. However, I may add that I would only continue whining about the game after this Wednesday/Thursday. I am confident that the entire community will say how they love the developers and how they desperately want to make babies with them and raise a family. It seems, especially with Njthug ☺. I know that all the complaining is really just a little tantrum we all go through while waiting for content. However, I have been in the game since the start of closed beta, and I know how OOO operates by now. The developer team is very, very secretive when it comes to new content, and they almost never provide information about updates yet to come, and if they do, it is vague and reveals nothing. I know that they have made some bad decisions lately, and I think I can tell you why.

The Asian Servers: Due to all the complaints about how horrific the lag is in Asia and Australia (I know this horror, I live in Asia) OOO tried to make things better for the players. However, they could not afford the cost of setting up servers in Asia, so they set up a deal with GameCyber. These developers need more than just cheap ramen, peanut butter, stale toast, cornflakes, tentacle couch, and stale milk to survive, so from their perspective that is the only way they could possibly have a server for us is to make the deal with GameCyber. They probably felt as much pain as you did, knowing that you people would lose their progress.

The Stun Bug: As many programmers pointed out, Java is very hard to code, especially for a game like this. The bug could be ANYWHERE. It could be one letter that glitches stun. It is like trying to find a needle in a barn full of hay. The developers are trying to fix stun, but even if they find it and fix it, the entire game breaks and it is back to the drawing board. So that’s that.

The RSS fiasco: It seems that the dev team has always had something against the RSS; indeed, they tried to change it to full pierce before, but everyone said that it would break it (which was entirely true). Nobody really knows the reason behind the RSS. It seems, from Nick’s perspective, that weapons do certain types of dmg. Guns have range, bombs have AoE, swords do the most damage, and are close quarters weapons. Sadly, it seems that whoever is behind this is VERY nitpicky about this. Having one exception bomb was a TRAVESTY AGAINST GAMERKIND! I have always thought that the devs have not been kind to bombers, because they think they are Over Powered. It seemed that they did not ever want a pure bomber, so they did not want something that could hit switches and the such. They knew, however, that stun was broken, pierce was useless, the shards were glitchy, and the damage was pathetic. Perhaps this means that the devs are getting closer to unraveling the stun glitch. Their guilt=UV tickets, which entirely destroyed the UV economy. Another failure on their part. Just bad decision making.

"We want apologies!" Sadly, this will never happen. The devs may know the RSS fiasco was a **** up from beginning to the end, but they will never say this, at least never in the community forums. If they ever actually apologized, then they would admit that they wasted a lot of time to something that really sucked anyways. The poor devs would be given a lot of hate, even though all they want is a tiny bit of respect. They are human, and they do make mistakes. The RSS fiasco was a mistake. Maybe they might add the old shards or buff the new shards. Only time can tell.

Promos: "We want new and varied promos! They are getting boring." Well, they may be a recolor of armor, but they are really cool recolors of the same armor. However, with every recolor there is one or two new and awesome things, particularly auras. That flak jacket and hacked aura is Awesome! Also, the recolors make it easier for them to churn out promos and add new and awesome content, which we all want badly.

Side Note: Venom haz gud grammaz wen he want taz.

Mon, 09/17/2012 - 08:58

Eltia

The real danger about RSS fiasco

Dev's are blinded to what the gamer base have been doing and invented something that are in disagreement with their bread and butter;
this incident will be the "elephant in the room" that continues to fuel resentment against SK development and Three Rings;
the more we drag this on, the harder to repair the damage done between the Devs and their customers;
there is no contingency when the resentment grew big enough and eventually went out of control.

Devs, I know you guys are very good with tech. But please keep in mind your proficiency in tech does not necessarily transfer to managing social aspect of the people using your works. So please think twice about what you have done and repair the damage before it's too late. I, for one, do not want an elephant in the room to continue to hamper the relationship between the gamer base and the Devs.

Mon, 09/17/2012 - 09:25

Byas

The devs may know the RSS

The devs may know the RSS fiasco was a **** up from beginning to the end, but they will never say this, at least never in the community forums. If they ever actually apologized, then they would admit that they wasted a lot of time to something that really sucked anyways. The poor devs would be given a lot of hate, even though all they want is a tiny bit of respect. They are human, and they do make mistakes.

I can't say for everyone, but if they did apologize here I would go back to supporting the game and respecting them. After all, doing that shows that they can acknowledge their mistakes and care about the customer's opinion, while keeping quiet about it shows more of a "we don't give a damn" feeling (even more when admitting or not we already know that "they wasted a lot of time to something that really sucked anyways", keeping quiet about those updates is like trying to hide a trash dump's smell by using some cheap perfume).

Mon, 09/17/2012 - 09:21

Serell

Yes

Mon, 09/17/2012 - 09:45

Venomousbiohazard

Well.

When I said that, I did not include the more gentlemanly people that roam the forums. Like you guys. :P

Mon, 09/17/2012 - 10:04

Eltia

I also want to add that

The non-negotiable stance as stated in the COO's letter is not helping the situation. What I haven't told Mr. Schofield are the risks that leaving the RSS incident drags on and it eventually becomes the single, biggest event in SK history that would continue to haunt us (both the P2P and SK Devs) down the road, eroding the trust of the community and damaging the credibility of Three Rings.

The way it is now, nobody benefits. It's sad to see a good game like SK unable to fulfill its full potential.

I also urge the management of OOO to disclose the developer(s) who is / are responsible for the shard bomb patch and the decision to remove RSS. This not only helps us pinpoint the source of the problem, but to help us direct our F2 messages to the right source while allowing the the remaining developers to focus on more important updates (such as Guild Hall). I believe this is the best compromise between the benefit of P2P who are involved in the RSS decision and the rest of the community, because it is not our goal to tie the hands of SK development to deliver good contents to the rest of the community.

So Devs, I already put myself in the light when I sent my letter to Mr. Daniel James. Do you have the courage to do the same?

Mon, 09/17/2012 - 10:27

Doctorspacebar

Byas and Eltia explained it well.

Rather than parrot the same thing, I'll just say "what they said".

(And again, sorry for posting 100000 digits of Pi in Nj's thread. I'll leave the trolling for groups... mwahahaha, Nitronome >:D)

EDIT: On the other topics, yeah, I agree. The Asian Server fiasco has to suck; however, perhaps there'll be a way to transfer characters in the future. Java's tricky, but it can't be that tricky, and Sega is involved in both the GameCyber server and the Three Rings servers.

As for Promos... I love 'em. They give me cheaper CE, and while the Hunter items looked a bit pukey (except that Leafy Aura), the Surge recolors- especially the new Flak Jacket and Hacked Aura- look so freakin' cool. While the UV Tickets are a bit annoying, at least there's less of 'em this time, and hey, you could get way lucky with a UV ticket!

Mon, 09/17/2012 - 10:30

Hollafamer

inb4rage

BRACE YOURSELVES NJTHUG IS COMING!

Mon, 09/17/2012 - 12:21

Ghret

RE: Doctorspacebar

Java's tricky, but it can't be that tricky.

Trust me, when you get enough code, no matter what the program itself is, there will be dragons everywhere; and I do mean everywhere.
But really, there is no way we can tell how complicated the code is. Then again, you throw enough man-/woman-hours at something then something has got to give.

Mon, 09/17/2012 - 12:30

Trying

Complex systems cause complex problems

Mon, 09/17/2012 - 12:55

#10

Acck

Still have yet.....

to hear from anyone why a programmer would implement a known bug on a new item.

Mon, 09/17/2012 - 13:07

#11

Diamondshreddie

@Aack

I think te only reason is: "Yeah theyre bright! like the sun! and, yknow, it'll be pretty stunning when they explode into retina-searing rings of source light and self illumination! :D ... right? ... ?"

Who knows, they may be missing a single Semicolon in a perfectly valid and functional code.

Mon, 09/17/2012 - 13:44

#12

Capt-Chopper

Ima stun you!

RSS was the one weapon that gave bombers firepower in PvP and PvE against single targets, replacing it with a slow bomb that does very little damage and has special code to prevent multiple hits on single target/use in tight spaces due to disappearing shards is pretty much the biggest nerf possible in the game.

I'm willing to give up RSS if they only make the bombs powerful enough so they aren't heavily out damaged by same star level brandishes in a group setting, Brandishes do 5 explosions with a strong status effect(Except Acheron) with great range. I WISH there was a bomb that did heavy damage AND a status effect at the same time.

Another thing is that all the blast bombs seem to do pretty much the same exact thing, why not change damage type they do or status? There are 5 normal damage type bomb lines compared to the single elemental damage bomb.

Mon, 09/17/2012 - 15:33

#13

Acck

Corporate culture

Should be like this from a company that has been around since 1812.

"Sell good merchandise at a reasonable profit, treat your customers like human beings, and they will always come back for more."
and
"Above all, we wish to avoid having a dissatisfied customer"

-L.L. Bean

Mon, 09/17/2012 - 21:34

#14

Zeddy

Shoot me if I'm wrong here, but am I the only person to think putting stun on the new RSS was a good idea, bugged or not? Let's review the facts:

-The pattern in which it explodes makes it kinda crap against Trojans.
-It's a pure piercing weapon that does horrible neutral damage.
-From this we can infer that the only intended targets for it are greavers, silkwings, devilites and beasts. All of these targets either get interrupted by sun shards or aren't even affected by stun bug in the first place.

Stun on RSS is one of the reasons why the new ones are actually pretty great against devilites. As soon as it hits, you can easily chain them up for constant interruption until they die without them even having the time to begin attacking you.

The bomb is abysmal in general, and the whole line needs serious help, but it works better against its intended targets than against other stuff, and stun is helping in this regard.

Mon, 09/17/2012 - 22:25

#15

Sgt-Brownie

"The developers are trying to

"The developers are trying to fix stun, but even if they find it and fix it, the entire game breaks and it is back to the drawing board."

Maybe WE should go back to drawing board to see what is the cause of this bug.

So what IS the Stun Bug?
It's when a stunned enemy does double the damage.

How does the Bug work?
It makes the enemy do a double attack via two same attacks in a row: First attack is when the enemy model prepares to do the attack, and the second is when the enemy model is doing the attack.

Why does it happen?
When you think about it, it's really easy why. Enemy Movement and Models are slowed down when stunned, but not Attack Speed. This is really easy to see on a stunned skeleton about to lunge you: his model prepares to lunge you, but the attack was already undergoing.

The Solution
Now we know the problem lies in the attack speed. Now all it needs to be done is to check the attack speed variants of one monster and then experiment with it until we found out the one variant change that slows down attack speed upon stun status and finally apply the same variant change to all the other monsters.

Tue, 09/18/2012 - 05:25

#16

Venomousbiohazard

@Brownie

Yes. They probably know that already. Now it is only a matter of finding the needle in one haystack, and then FIXING it so that the game does not break. They might have found it, but they are trying to untangle it and not give themselves a thousand more bugs to fix. Easier said than done, I have to say.

Tue, 09/18/2012 - 06:53

#17

Aumir

#1 1983 Kryptonian single

I am not trying to sound douchy, but we could put this discussion to add to the 270+ posts onem which even a GM said they were looking at. I mean, it has already sunk to the 2nd page and it would be a shame to lose all that or this part of the discussion... not that this one is bad, I mean.

Sun, 09/23/2012 - 07:38

#18

Acck

Hum.

Search

Since I know you all desperately want a dev to answer your questions, I will answer some for you.