Pippy

[ QUOTE ]

Nope, and for the very reason you like the math: stacking works differently. Because stacking works differently with the two modes of defense, in a sense there is no "correct" correspondence between dispersion bubble with Defense and dispersion bubble with Elusivity/Anti-Accuracy because there is no value that would make Dispersion Bubble have the same strength relative to the defender and also the same stacked strength on all of his teammates that are bubbled.

[/ QUOTE ]

But see, with the multiplicative system, it would, for any value, have precisely the same relative effect on the defender as it has on his teammates: 30% defense would block 30% of incoming damage, whether you're a defender with no additional mitigation or an SR who's already dodging 60% of the time. (At least, it works this way until you run into the caps.)

[ QUOTE ]
A human being rebalancing defense sets one at a time is basically mandatory. If there was a way to do it automagically, I would have suggested it.

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't disagree with this -- and I realize that I'm not particularly clear on this point based on what I said earlier. (I might have gotten myself mixed up based on which formula I was thinking about at the time, FWIW). Still, I don't think it's a particularly difficult math problem to figure out how much mitigation you want from each set and adjust accordingly. If I thought that anyone would pay attention, I'd go ahead and come up with what the new values "should" be to keep the mitigation levels as they are currently in the absence of inter-set stacking -- this part is honestly quite trivial.

The tricky part then is looking at how they interact through stacking. As you note, they would stack differently than they do now: that's kind of the whole point, isn't it?

To do this, you have a number for overall mitigation from each set. You can find the overall mitigation from combinations by simple multiplication, and you just have to look and make sure these aren't broken. Obviously, then, you have to play test to make sure what you've got on paper ends up working in-game -- but doing the stuff on paper is a pretty simple process, and one which makes an overall defense rebalancing at least plausible.

[ QUOTE ]

1. If I'm designing the game, *I* say what positional defense means.

[/ QUOTE ]

Touche.

[ QUOTE ]
In more mathematical terms, at least most of the time (short of "Kryptonite") when a powerset offers X mitigation with defense, it should offer that same proportional mitigation in the face of all attackers. But when an inspiration offers Y amounts of incrementally better protection, there has to be a counter inspiration that removes that same level of Y protection, or else PvP breaks down.

[/ QUOTE ]

I must be missing something here, because I'm not seeing why a purely multiplicative mechanic wouldn't work. Just to be clear, by that I mean that all accuracy and defense powers stack multiplicatively:

p = Pi(Ai)*Pi(1-Di)*p0,

where Pi denotes a product over the index i, the Ai and Di are accuracy and defense adjustments (both buffs and debuffs) p0 is base accuracy, and p is final chance to hit. This formula -- with nothing additive -- is the simplest approach which, I believe, has the necessary balance (in all senses of the word) properties.

Let's say I have a powerset that I want to provide 75% mitigation normally, and I have two powers to do it. With a multiplicative scheme, I can have two powers which each provide 50% mitigation: then my incoming damage is reduced by a factor of 1-0.5*0.5=0.75. So that's the first part okay.

For the second part, I simply need my accuracy and defense inspirations to have a reciprocal relationship:

1+A=1/(1-D), or A=D/(1-D).

Then a 25% defense inspiration is precisely balanced by a 33.3% acc inspiration, etc. So it seems to me that this approach is successful both in the stability and counterbalancing depertments. I realize that the multiplicative stacking is basically what you're asking for with Elusivity. I'm simply claiming that you don't add significant value by including additive stacking as well.

In fact, having both kind of stacking stikes me as likely to muddy the waters, making mathematical balance more difficult to achieve.

(Incidentally, making resistances stack multiplicatively would also have a number of benefits -- for example, as you point out in the context of SR, you could make passives and toggles both stronger individually, while maintaining a consistent level of overall protection. Given the number of complaints about passive resists in Invuln, etc., this strikes me as an eminently good idea. Basically, it just means that now ALL of your mitigation is automatically layered.)

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
My preference is to make the mechanics as simple (if I were being snooty, I'd say "as elegant") as possible. The whole point of the to-hit formula is to create a need to make sure that you can hit your targets -- and, conversely, to allow you to mitigate damage by dodging their attacks. You only need two things to do this: a way to make your attacks more likely to hit (either through acc buffs or def debuffs -- I count those as identical, since they are mathematically indistinguishable), and a way to make your enemies' attacks less likely to hit (either through tohit debuffs or def buffs -- again, mathematically identical).

[/ QUOTE ]

Technically, the only things you need after that are damage, and the ability to reduce damage. You don't need smashing, lethal, fire, energy, psionic - unless you actually feel making the game more complicated is worth introducing the ability to have different strengths and weaknesses.


[/ QUOTE ]

The difference here is that there is an obvious conceptual reason for different damage types -- different attacks do different things. Setting someone on fire at someone isn't the same as slicing his face off, and there isn't any reason to think that everyone should be equally vulnerable to both types of damage. (I would in fact argue here that more damage types are desirable -- whay are electricity, radiation and sound all "energy" damage? Sound waves should probably be pure smashing, but electricity needs its own type -- a leaden suit will block radiation but conduct electricity.)

Basically, damage types aren't unnecessary complexity -- getting rid of those would clearly detract from your ability to model realistic superheroics.

The situation is different with chance-to-hit: you aim at your target as best as you can, and try to hit him. He tries to dodge or deflect the blow if he can. That's it.
You might add some other features into this, like a "glancing blow," wherein rolls that are close to the boundary do partial damage. But there's little conceptual reason to make things more complicated than that.

[ QUOTE ]
If I was designing the game system from scratch, I might have considered making positional and damage-oriented defense multiplicatively stack with each other (basically, both get to be used separately against all attacks). I could then invent something called the "precision buff" that would act like tohit buffs, and counter positional defense, say, and something else called "penetrator buffs: that would act like tohit buffs, but counter damage-oriented defenses instead. They would be the accuracy-based versions of the concept of "armor-piercing" except one of them would represent the intrinsic ability to compensate for a moving target, and the other would represent the intrinsic ability to negate physical deflection-based protections.

[/ QUOTE ]

Two problems with this: (1) you're basically assuming that positional defense always represents a dodge, and damage-typed defemse always represents a deflection. That's not the case -- look at Heightened Senses, just as an example. (2) More importantly, having any form of accuracy buff that "penetrates" defense additively is prone to imbalance. Essentially, you're leaving the door open for exactly the problems that necessitated the I7 change -- the same amount of defense provides a different proportion of protection depending on the accuracy boost.

In fact I think that's the main reason I'm still objecting to your approach: it still leaves the door open for those additive buffs/debuffs. Those are always a bad idea, for reasons that are not always obvious, so I'd rather remove even the ability to include them.

[ QUOTE ]
But on a pragmatic level, there is another reason to keep both types of defenses around. Its a failsafe to prevent external overbuffing from getting out of hand. All other things being equal, it should be a lot easier for player Y to negate (but no more than negate) what player X buys, than it is for player X to buy it.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm not sure I agree with this at all, simply based on symmetry arguments: you seem to be saying that it should be easier to negate (but no more than negate), say, 30% def than it is to acquire that defense.

Conversely, it should also be easier to negate +30% tohit than it is to acquire 30% to hit.

I have trouble seeing how both can hold true at the same time, short of some kind of diminishing returns system. In any case, I don't see why buying X and buying -X shouldn't have roughly equal costs.

[ QUOTE ]

Whether it is or isn't is virtually irrelevant. The devs would not pull the mechanics of defense and rebalance every single defensive power and ability for both players and critters around a new version of it in a single giant patch if their very existence as a development house depended on it. Its simply outside of their concept of proper lifecycle support of the game.

And to be honest, even I wouldn't do anything that crazy.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm quite sure you're correct, and, to be honest, I doubt that at this stage, anything is going to happen at all -- hence my earlier remark that this discussion is likely more relevant to the question of how they should make CoX 2.

With that said, I don't understand why there's this concept of "rebalancing every defensive power" as some sort of a huge project. It wouldn't be. You simply have to come up with a relationship between current defense and new "anti-accuracy" -- i.e., describe a transformation from current defense to new defense -- which gives the desired behavior -- i.e. comparable to current protection at moderate levels, less broken at the margins -- and then with that formula in hand, you just go through and change the values appropriately. I'd budget two hours, tops, to get the math worked out. Then, obviously, you have to spend some time testing -- say, 10-15 hours. Then I guess there's also the time spend diddling around with the spreadsheets. The whole thing should be done in less than 20 man-hours, plus whatever time you have to spend recoding. (Since we're both talking about roughly equivalent code changes, I figure that the coding time is a wash.) A half a work week to fix and simplify tohit/defense, and to make it impossible to re-break it, seems to me to be a worthwhile investment.

Now, if their approach to balancing is "Hmmm... these numbers look about right. Let's test. Oh, guess not. Let's tweak some... how about now? No? Okay, how about this?" then it would be a huge project. But if you take the time to analyze first, then it's straightforward.

Of course, somehow I don't think Positron or Castle will see it that way.

[ QUOTE ]
Well, first of all, "getting the right numbers for proper balance" is a pretty good reason, and I explain what functionality each type of defense addresses in combination.

[/ QUOTE ]

I think we have a fundamental disagreement about game design which we've touched on in another thread. Correct me if I'm wrong, but it looks like you feel that diversity of game mechanics is a desirable goal in and of itself.

My preference is to make the mechanics as simple (if I were being snooty, I'd say "as elegant") as possible. The whole point of the to-hit formula is to create a need to make sure that you can hit your targets -- and, conversely, to allow you to mitigate damage by dodging their attacks. You only need two things to do this: a way to make your attacks more likely to hit (either through acc buffs or def debuffs -- I count those as identical, since they are mathematically indistinguishable), and a way to make your enemies' attacks less likely to hit (either through tohit debuffs or def buffs -- again, mathematically identical).

To me, having two qualitatively different ways to alter your chance to hit is just asking for trouble. It's confusing to the playerbase. And it makes the math more difficult for balancing purposes.

[ QUOTE ]
Basically, I'm adding one thing, taking nothing away, and changing nothing about the game that a powers designer himself doesn't actively want to change. No other defense/accuracy/tohit balancing solution makes that claim.

[/ QUOTE ]

This is a fair point.

I just question the extent to which "adding one thing" to an already combersome formula is a good idea -- at this point, I think subtraction would be more beneficial than addition.

That would, unfortunately, remove the ability to "phase in" a solution -- you'd have to do it all in one fell swoop.

Also, just to clarify:

Am I correct that the two primary issues that are to be addressed with Defense are (1) the ability of high-magnitude ToHit Buffs effectively to ignore Defense and (2) the ability of small amounts of Defense to add up to massive amounts of mitigation as you get close to the 45% soft cap (e.g., the ability to build perma-Elude SR scrappers, etc.)? Is there something else that I'm missing?

[ QUOTE ]
I don't think it is preferable -- it's just what we already have. TBH, I like your suggestion a lot more. Things would be a lot simpler and more understandable if they changed all of the ToHit buffs into Accuracy buffs and all of the Defense buffs into Arcanville's Anti-Accuracy. The thing is though, actually implementing the change would likely not be simpler.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm not clear on why it is that eliminating the distinction between ToHit and Accuracy (something I've been suggesting occasionally for about the last year) and making defense purely multiplicative (something I've been suggesting for even longer) is inherently more complicated than what Arcanaville is suggesting here, and maybe I'm just missing something.

But it seems to me that both approaches involve a fundamental change to the ChanceToHit equation -- the change you'd have to make to implement this Elusivity business is pretty much identical to what you'd have to do to implement my version. In fact, what I'm suggesting is essentially a special case of Arcanaville's suggestion, with what are currently called "Defense" and "ToHit Buffs" set identically to zero.

The coding therefore should be pretty much the same -- the only difference is in balancing. To be honest, since my version has fewer variables, I feel like it would be easier to balance.

In any case, my sense is that the major barrier to anything being changed is creating new mechanics. If you can get them to admit that a problem is severe enough to write new code, taking the time to do the necessary balance is almost a given. (I could be wrong, of course, but I don't think so.)

In any case, the question at this point is not whether the current to-hit formulation is any good -- I think most mathematically-inclined people would agree that it's pretty lousy -- it's whether or not it's lousy enough to justify a fundamental alteration to game balance. And that's exactly what would be involved in Arcanaville's suggestion, and certainly in mine as well.

To be honest, I don't think any changes are likely at this point, and I'm not particularly convinced that they'd be desirable. So, as far as I'm concerned, this is more about how they should design CoX 2.

But hey, if someone's going to start talking about mathy-sounding stuff, I'll totally jump i with both feet, every time.

<QR>

Okay, reading comprehension FTW: for some reason, I thought that anti-accuracy would just add with accuracy, instead of multiplying.. Having gone back over the OP more carefully, I can see I was misreading, and that eliminates one of my major objections.

I wonder, however, how this is preferable to simply making all accuracy modifiers multiplicative, and eliminating the distinction between ToHit and Accuracy.

Just pulling numbers out of a hat as an example, suppose I've got Aim (+100% acc), 1 Acc SO (+33% acc) and I'm shooting at a guy running Focused Senses (+50% def) and Agile (+20% def). My base chance to hit is 75%. My actual chance to hit would be

75%*2*1.33*0.5*0.8=80%

Aside from getting the right numbers for proper balance, can anyone explain why it would be preferable to have two kinds each of +accuracy and +defense?

To me, that just adds unnecessary complexity.

An interesting idea -- and I believe I do remember the initial incarnation when it was Elusivity. My first thought is that it's a step in the wrong direction: the chance tohit formula is already too convoluted and confusing. I'm sure you know better than most how many people have gotten ToHit buffs and Accuracy buffs mixed up. The mathematical benefits and balance benefits aside, introducing two different ways to avoid being hit is likely to cause every bit as much confusion as having two different ways to make yourself more accurate.

I also have some concerns about how the proposed system would work when combined with accuracy enhancements (or bonuses, in the case of NPCs), but the math for that shouldn't be too hard to figure out.

In any case -- and I'll just throw this out there -- I would contend that any system that involves additive bonuses of any kind is going to include inherent imbalances when you look at different levels, etc. Therefore, what you really want is some form of a purely multiplicative system, which, of course, would involve actually mucking around with the equations.

I wonder if pets in general have 75% base to hit. I seem to get hit by Phantasms an awful lot...

Two things:

[ QUOTE ]
Low level villains attacking a higher level player are not affected by the purple patch.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm not entirely sure what you mean by this. Obviously, lower level villains attacking higher level heroes experience some decrement in damage and accuracy; that's why you can take a level 50 into Perez Park, and the Skuls will hit you 5% of the time, for 0.01 damage.

Do you just mean that this decrement is not as severe as it is for players; i.e., it's the same table that was used for players prior to the original purple patch going in?

The second point is one of those arcane numerical things that nobody but me will probably find interesting. Still, showing the ToHit rolls on Test makes it a lot easier to test these things.

It turns out that base to-hit drops below 5% for much higher-level mobs. Here's the table:


<font class="small">Code:[/color]<hr /><pre>+4 39%
+5 30%
+6 20%
+7 8%
+8 -10%
+9 -17%
+10 -20%
+11 -21%
+12 -22%
+13 -23%
+14 and up -24%
</pre><hr />

(I didn't test +1 through +3; I assume it's the same as what's currently in the table.)

This pretty much only has ramifications if you're trying to calculate chance to hit against very purple foes when you've got a large ToHit buff, i.e. Aim, FA, etc.

Just an FYI:

The damage buff from Empower is actually 12.5% for scrappers, 10% for everyone else.

I'll get that into the next version, as well as some updates on the combo mechanics.

Thanks, I'll try to add that stuff in sometime tomorrow.

Also, as I think about it, my explanation of combo mechanics is off in a couple of the details, so I'll try to sort that out and pester Castle about it a little more.

[ QUOTE ]
It looks to me this is a guide to Dual Blades for everyone except Stalkers?

[/ QUOTE ]

Yep, that was my original intention. DB for stalkers I just felt was too different to make it into this draft. Also, I wouldn't be too surprised to see some changes to Stalker DB over the next couple patches.

With that said, if you have any of the numbers for Stalkers, and wouldn't mind doing the legwork as far as figuring out cast times and such, I'll update this with a Stalker section.

Two Swords as One: Pippy's Guide to DB and Combos

It is, as the name implies, a guide to the Dual Blades and the new Combo system.

This guide is intended to be a repository of information for the Dual Blade sets and the Combo system for scrappers, brutes, and tanks. I won't provide advice as to which powers you should take. Instead, I hope that the information compiled here will enable you to make your own well-informed decisions about which powers are best for your playstyle. I provide as many numbers as possible. I've tried to format it as neatly as possible, so that if numbers aren't your thing, you can skip them easily.

There are 3 sections:

1.) Powers
2.) Combos
3.) Mechanics (of the combo system).

SECTION 1: THE POWERS

Dual Blades has 8 attack powers; all of them are used in at least one combo. Here is a table listing the damage, cast times, recharge times, and endurance costs for each power:

<font class="small">Code:[/color]<hr /><pre>Nimble Strike: 0.84 dmg, 1.07 s cast, 3 s rech, 4.37 end
Power Slice: 1.15 dmg, 1.25 s cast, 5 s rech, 6.03 end
Ablating Strike: 1.32 dmg, 1.07 s cast, 6 s rech, 6.86 end, -7.5% def for 10 s
Typhoon's Edge: 1.14 dmg, 2.03 s cast, 12 s rech, 11.9 end, PBAoE
Blinding Feint: 0.80 dmg, 1.33 s cast, 12 s rech, 7.80 end, +10% ToHit, +37.5% dmg for 10 s
Vengeful Slice: 1.64 dmg, 2.50 s cast, 8 s rech, 8.52 end, Knockdown
Sweeping Strike: 1.70 dmg, 1.25 s cast, 11 s rech, 11.1 end, Cone
1000 Cuts: 2.36 dmg, 3.20 s cast, 16 s rech, 15.3 end, Cone, knockup </pre><hr />

The cones both have 90 degree arcs.

The damage numbers are in terms of the damage scaler: to get the actual (unenhanced) damage for each power, you'd multiply these numbers by the appropriate AT modifier, available from City of Data here. A level 50 scrapper, for example, has an AT modifier of 62.562, so his 1k Cuts would do 2.36*62.562 = 147.65 damage unenhanced.

SECTION 2: THE COMBOS

There are four combos: Weaken, Empower, Attack Vitals, and Sweep. The basic effects of each combos are listed in the table below.

<font class="small">Code:[/color]<hr /><pre>
Weaken: -10% tohit, -10% def for 20 s
Empower: +3.125% ToHit, +8% (all but scrapper) or +10% (scrapper) dmg for 10 s
Attack Vitals: 5x0.2 lethal DoT
Sweep: 0.57 lethal dmg, knockdown
</pre><hr />

Here is a more detailed list of what each combo does, including the power sequence, level of availability, damage output, cast time, and recharge time, as well as damage per activation second. Note that Sweep is the best combo for AoE damage, while Attack Vitals is the best single target damage.

Weaken: Nimble Strike+Ablating Strike+Typhoon's Edge, available at lvl 6

<font class="small">Code:[/color]<hr /><pre>
Effects: -10% ToHit, -10% Debuff to struck targets for 20 s (PBAoE)
Total Cast time: 4.17 s
Longest Recharge: 12 s (Typhoon's Edge)
Total Damage: 3.3 (1.14 PBAoE)
Total End Use: 23.13
DPA: 0.79 </pre><hr />

Empower: Nimble Strike+Ablating Strike+Blinding Feint, available at lvl 8
<font class="small">Code:[/color]<hr /><pre>Effects: +3.125% ToHit, +8% dmg (brutes, tanks, stalkers), +10% dmg (scrappers) to self for 10 s
Total Cast time: 3.47 s
Longest Recharge: 12 s (Blinding Feint)
Total Damage: 2.96
Total End Use: 19.03
DPA: 0.85 (0.27 PBAoE) </pre><hr />

Attack Vitals Ablating Strike+Vengeful Slice+Sweeping Strike, available at lvl 26
<font class="small">Code:[/color]<hr /><pre>Effects: 5x0.2 DS lethal DoT over ~5 sec to struck targets
Total Cast time: 4.82 s
Longest Recharge: 11 s (Sweeping Strike)
Total Damage: 5.66 (2.07 cone)
Total End Use: 26.48
DPA: 1.17 (0.43 cone)</pre><hr />

Sweep: 1000 Cuts+Power Slice+Typhoon's Edge, available at lvl 32
<font class="small">Code:[/color]<hr /><pre>Effects: 0.57 DS lethal damage, knockdown to struck targets
Total Cast time: 6.48 s
Longest Recharge: 16 s (1000 Cuts)
Total Damage: 5.22 (4.07 cone/PBAoE)
Total End Use: 33.23
DPA: 0.81 (0.63 cone/PBAoE) </pre><hr />

For Stalkers, the combos are a bit different:
<font class="small">Code:[/color]<hr /><pre>
Weaken: Sweeping Strike -&gt; Power Slice -&gt; One Thousand Cuts
Empower: Build Up -&gt; Assassin's Blades -&gt; Placate
Sweep: Build Up -&gt; Assassin's Blades -&gt; Ablating Strike
Attack Vitals: Ablating Strike -&gt; Nimble Slash -&gt; Vengeful Slice

Stalker Empower is +20% damage, and +13.3% ToHit for 20s (as opposed to 10s).
</pre><hr />

(Thanks to Natsuki for providing the Stalker combo info!)

A quick word on the "mitigation" combos: Sweep and Weaken. Since both finish with Typhoon's Edge, it can be difficult to use both of them. Therefore, it might be useful to know which offers better damage mitigation. I won't go into the work behind this here, but the answer is a definite "It depends."

Weaken is affected by the purple patch. Therefore, it is comparatively more effective against lower levels than higher levels. It also stacks very nicely with defense.

Sweep doesn't suffer from the purple patch. Additionally, it tends to provide more mitigation the higher the chance your enemies have to hit you -- if everyone is missing you, knocking them over and causing them to lose an attack isn't preventing much damage from getting through, whereas if they all would be wailing on you if they weren't picking themselves back up, they do.

Therefore, Weaken offers more mitigation for defensive powersets (until you get to the magic 45% def, in which case it's sort of wasted), whereas Sweep tends to pull ahead for resist- or regen-based sets.

SECTION 3: THE MECHANICS

Here I discuss the mechanics behind the new combo system. These won't as a general rule have much, if any, affect on gameplay, but it might be interesting for those of you who are curious about the inner workings. Also, if you have any creative ideas for how to improve the combo system, it would be good to keep these mechanics in mind.

I've run this by Castle and he said that it was essentially correct. However, any errors or omissions are mine and mine alone.

1.) The combo system is implemented as conditional effects within the actual powers themselves. This is maybe sort of an obvious point, but it's important to realize that the combos are implemented as part of the powers in DB themselves: there doesn't seem to be a separate "combo system."

2.) A power which begins a combo or continues a combo in progress causes a buff to be cast on the player. This is the same mechanic as is used for other buffs that require a tohit check (Twilight Grasp, Kinetics, etc.) -- upon a successful ToHit check, it summons a pet which applies the buff to the caster.

3.) A power which does not begin a combo or continue a combo in progress causes all of these "combo buffs" to be terminated.

4.) If the first two buffs are present and the third power in a combo is activated, then the effects of that combo are added
to the finishing power. The effects are affected by the slotting in that power -- i.e. Sweep and Attack Vitals benefit from damage slotting, Empower benefits from ToHit slotting. Since Typhoon's Edge doesn't accept Def DeBuff or ToHit DeBuff enhancements, Weaken cannot be enhanced.

I hope that this guide is informative and sufficiently well-organized to be useful. If anyone has any corrections, comments, or suggestions, I would love to hear them.

[ QUOTE ]
Wow, someone's a few IOs short of a set bonus.

[/ QUOTE ]

I LOL-ed pretty hard at this.

WoW has CoX outnumbered 50 to 1... it's like 8 million gnomes and elves against a mere 150,000 heroes and villains.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
What about pohsyb? He's a programmer and posted sometimes. Is he coming with us?

[/ QUOTE ]

Actually we acquired the whole COH team +1 pohsyb is coming with us!

Ex

[/ QUOTE ]

YAY!!

pohsyb is awesome.

*sends cookies to everyone involved*

250 influence says just about everyone else in Santa Cruz was too stoned to notice it.

Edit: Glad to hear the Cryptic offices are okay -- you guys must've been pretty close to the epicenter.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Yeah, tell that to jranger who didn't break any rules.

[/ QUOTE ]

No? Because I seem to recall these two being long time rules:

[ QUOTE ]
2. Keep feedback constructive.
3. Keep feedback high-quality.

[/ QUOTE ]

That the mods chose to overlook violations doesn't mean the rules didn't exist. Whether or not repeated "No"s can be viewed as constructive is highly debatable -- and I lean heavily towards no -- but it's certainly not high quality. He spammed the boards repeatedly with his banal monosyllabic retort. Personally, I'd be surprised if he even read half of what he was "no"ing.

[/ QUOTE ]

From Ex Libris, 10/02/07, 7:08 p.m.:

[ QUOTE ]
Whether you feel a certain response is rude, it is not against the rules of this forum and therefore action will not be taken against someone who states a dissenting opinion, even if it is very short and not backed up with an argument.

[/ QUOTE ]

If she wants to revise that policy, then that's all well and good. If she wants to ban people for violating that policy, even if the violations occured before said policy was implemented, well, I think that's pretty poor form, but it's within her authority as Community Rep to do that.

But let's not sit here and pretend that the rules were clear, and that certain individuals were knowingly flaunting those rules, because that's pretty clearly not the case.

The anti-"/no" criterion is brand new.

&lt;QR&gt;

Something else that's been bothering me about this that I think I've now figured out how to put into words.

There's a pretty consistent trend among some posters to consider any criticism of their idea to be "trolling." Any negative feedback, according to these individuals, is by definition unconstructive and should be disallowed.

I know that Ex doesn't agree with this position. Bit I worry that this new policy will lend support to those that do subscribe to that position, especially given that very few people will likely be reported for posting "/signed," whether that's technically within the rules or no.

The question that arises is how much detail one has to give in a negative response before it becomes "constructive feedback." "No" is now considered "unconstructive." How about "I'm afraid I don't agree with that idea, for reasons that I can't quite put into words right now?" How about "/unsigned, for the reasons given above?" How about "/unsigned, for the reasons given above, particularly X, Y, and Z?"

I very rarely post outright rejection of a suggestion. But I will now be less likely to respond to an idea that I don't like, because there's a non-trivial possibility that one of the "Don't say \no!" crowd will report it, and the acceptability of my response will at that point be left to the discretion of the moderator. Frankly, at this point, I don't have that much faith in their judgment, so it's easier and safer just not to respond unless I like an idea.

I doubt I will be the only person to have this response; therefore, the free flow of legitimate discussion is impeded by this new policy.

Posting "No" or "/unsigned" might not be the most constructive feedback possible. But disallowing this feedback has the unfortunate side effect of inhibiting other, more desirable discussion. Even if one were to concede that one-word responses are "wrong" -- and I don't -- it's pretty clearly a situation where the cure is worse than the disease.

Sometimes it's okay for something to be "wrong" without making it against the rules.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
So ... you advocate an atmosphere of suspicion and paranoia towards your fellow posters? You advocate a climate in which we must suspiciously eye every single word or letter posted by someone to whom we wish to respond, on the merest off chance that they might have slipped up?

[/ QUOTE ]

Are you always so overly dramatic about everything? Sheesh, it must be exhausting.

"Suspicion and paranoia?" You have to make sure you're not directly quoting something that's offensive or a violation of the rules, not ensure your fellow forumites aren't plotting your death.

And all of this is, at this point, purely your conjecture. I have yet to see any official word that you can be punished or even held accountable for quoting something.

[/ QUOTE ]

Well, if it's basically automatic and they just base it off of how many time you've been edited during whatever time period, then it sounds like you would get nailed, even if the reason for the modding is a portion of a long quote that you somehow overlooked.

I would hope that this new system is just a first pass, and that once they have their five names on the watch list, that they go and actually examine the nature of the violations which required their editing. For example, if someone got edited once for posting links to some hate group, and someone else got edited five times for basically harmless fluff posts, I would hope that the priority is on dealing with the first poster.

It's not obvious from the Notification that this is what would happen. In either case, some red name clarification would be welcome.

[ QUOTE ]
Yeah, you're getting shot down, but if you took a look at the field, there are quite a few Anti-Aircraft guns that should have taken into account before you started barrel-rolling.


[/ QUOTE ]

Heh. Heheh. Bwahahahaha!

Aaah, that cracks me up.

Pax has a 271-word version of /no somewhere that I'm too lazy to look up at the moment, but that will, I suspect, be getting quite a bit of use in the future.

Outstanding guide, Arcanaville. I have to pick a nit with your level scaling info for accuracy.

These are the numbers I got from Pohsyb back in I6. Unless you're privy to some updated information, they should be the correct ones. (It's identical to yours until you get to +6, where it drops off more quickly.)

[ QUOTE ]
Foes your level have not changed. You have a 75% chance to hit and your powers are 100% effective.
Foes 1 level above you - You have a 65% chance to hit and your powers are 90% effective.
Foes 2 levels above you - You have a 56% chance to hit and your powers are 80% effective.
Foes 3 levels above you - You have a 48% chance to hit and your powers are 65% effective.
Foes 4 levels above you - You have a 39% chance to hit and your powers are 48% effective.
Foes 5 levels above you - You have a 30% chance to hit and your powers are 30% effective.
Foes 6 levels above you - You have a 20% chance to hit and your powers are 15% effective.
Foes 7 levels above you - You have a 8% chance to hit and your powers are 8% effective.

[/ QUOTE ]

It's not so much championing Jranger as a folk hero as disagreeing with the overall approach to moderation that seems to be in evidence.

Vicious personal attacks go unnoticed, unmodded, and unpunished. Responding to suggestions you dislike with a simple "No," however, is now grounds for punishment -- even retroactively, it appears.

On the one hand, I don't want to tell the moderators how to do their job, because it's their job, not mine, and I'm sure it's a difficult, frustrating, and often thankless job. I don't want to denigrate the effort that they put into maintaining the forums, nor do I doubt for a second that whatever Ex Libris does is motivated entirely by a love of the game and of the community. (And I mean that in all sincerity.)

On the other hand, I've spent a pretty huge amount of time on the forums over the last couple years; I have no less of an interest in the health of the community than the moderation team, except insofar as I'm not actually emplyed by the forums. And if I see the community being directed in a direction that I consider harmful, even for the best of reasons, I feel like I owe it to myself and everyone else who spends time on the boards to say something about it. I will remain calm, I will remain courteous, but I will not remain silent.

If that means I'm somehow "banging on about teh ebil debs and censorship" and making baby Jesus cry, then so be it.

If that means I end up running afoul of the mod team and have to accept the consequences, then I can live with that, too.

&lt;QR&gt;

I'll just add that when I post a suggestion, and somebody posts "no" or "/unsigned", I do consider that constructive criticism of my idea. It's obviously not as useful as a detailed explanation of the objections, but I would rather have a short response from an individual than no response at all.

As another example, I started a poll in the Market section a while ago. The purpose of the thread was to get a sense of where the community stood on a particular question. I was also interested in people's rationale, if they chose to explain themselves, but eliminating "yes" and "no" responses would've totally defeated the purpose of that thread, which now has 500+ replies.

It's the personal attacks, not "/jranger," that cause the problems.