Feedback talk:Joe Kimmes/Archive Jan-Mar 2010

When Disconnecting.

After the security update, when one has an unclean disconnect the option to reconnect is no longer there, is it possible to "fix" this? Feel free to send this elsewhere, should it be more suited there. (I think this is a bug... hence why it's here...) - Jon Will 22:32, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

I successfully reconnected just a few hours ago, don't think there was an update since then. Rose Of Kali 23:05, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

Oh how strange, it's not let me reconnect the last two times it's happened. How odd, out of curiosity, were you playing on the character who you'd used as the securityquestion answer, a guildmember told me it had something to do with this, just wondering if this was the case here... - Jon Will 23:07, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

Incidentally, it was my security answer character. Rose Of Kali 01:47, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

How odd, I have the problem when I play on a character that isn't my security answer character, perhaps that's why I can't reconnect? - Jon Will 11:27, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

Try it with your security answer character (or change your security answer to the character you're playing). Un-plug your Internet for a sec, then plug back in. Wait for the connection to re-establish itself (check by opening a webpage), and once it's working again, try to reconnect. This will narrow down if it has something to do with the security answer character, or if it's maybe something else. I'll run the same test later, too, and let you know if it made a difference for me. Rose Of Kali 16:43, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

Well, seems that it will let me reconnect if I just disconnect from the network, but if I have a system lockup, when I used to be able to connect again I no longer can. I'll direct you to this page where I've been testing. - Jon Will 17:09, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

I'm getting the same thing today (as of 1500 EST)-- disconnect with code 050 and unable to reconnect-- with ANY character.Undouble 20:24, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

After some more testing last night, It would seem that if te game shuts down unexpectedly while you're in an explorable, the reconnect dialogue will only pop up if you log in by answering the security question with the name of the character you were playing when you disconnected. Dunno what might be causing this, perhaps it's because the character is selected upon logging back in? (I don't think Undouble is experiencing the same problem here, as that sounds more like the issues caused by the wintersday finale...) - Jon Will 10:22, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

This is being looked into by the programmers who worked on the security update, thanks for your reports! - Joe Kimmes 19:30, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks Joe! - Jon Will 10:52, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

Zos Shivros AFK Exploit

As it currently stands players are AFK'ing the Zos Shivros challenge mission to achieve incredibly high scores. Today's daily is about 17,000 points. While the faction gain isn't the best in the world at approximately 50 pts/min it's all done while AFK so it's completely painless to the exploiter. Unfortunately, this has the side effect of making it imposible for a legitimate player to even make the daily board on the challenge mission. Are there plans to fix this mission? Is exploiting the mission for faction gain in this way considered to be against the Rules of Conduct? Here is the link to the PvXwiki build, explanation and video: http://pvx.wikia.com/wiki/Build:Any/N_AFK_Luxon_FFMaven 21:27, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

The above poster is a filthy liar whose only intent is to waste your time. I would suggest ignoring any futher reports of such activity. ··· Danny Pew Pew 23:06, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

It comes down to who can go the longest without err7-ing.--98.238.169.189 23:20, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

This has been going on for well over a year. What's the point in fixing it? 68.32.65.101 09:38, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

There is none. The OP for some reason has a personal vendetta against PvX, the admin staff there, and that build. To this day I don't know why, but he's been dragging it onto Guru and here (always in the wrong places, as well). This isn't even the bug report page, Sir Cusfreak. Oh, and btw, it is borderline impossible to place on the scoreboard if afk'ing. You would have to do it for several days. Karate Jesus 09:42, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

It is an exploit, it isn't intended and a similar thing was changed about a year ago in Aurios Mines to prevent the abuse. When they find out about this exploit and how it is performed, it will be added to the list of things to fix. This probably isn't the right place for this report but I'm sure it will get to where it needs to go. 58.110.60.57 10:01, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

Then report it to the bug feedback page. This isn't really something for Joe's talk page. 72.181.47.223

You would have to afk for days to get a score of 17000. 2 points a min= 120/hr = 141.6hrs to get 17000. And gl on not getting dc.The decline 22:17, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Heroes/Henchman AI issue

Recently (not much more than the past 1-2 weeks) I've noticed (in PvE play) that NEITHER Heroes NOR henchmen pay any attention to flagging, OR to targeting as directed by the human player---------preferring to "hare off" in any/all directions and attack ALL enemies randomly. (I've seen Jora move to the right side of the bubble and swing at a target then IMMEDIATLY race to the opposite side and swing at yet another target and IMMEDIATLY move again and attack yet another "target"---- none of which is effective at all. Even when flagged to a location, I have seen Heroes (and Henchmen to a slighty lesser extent) ignore the flag and move outside of the bubble to agro a target force. Has this been noted by anyone else?? Undouble 02:32, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

Do you have them set on attack or defend or passive? That can make a BIG difference in how they react sometimes.Katherinezoltin 17:22, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Having Apply Poison on them also affects their targeting, I've noticed, as they will tend to only attack non-poisoned foes when they have Apply Poison up. -- Konig/talk 20:30, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Wintersday hat bugs

For some reason some people in Kamadan (myself included) reported that they did not get awarded with their hat despite being present in the district before the match started. Match ends, the avatar gives present but no hat in inventory. Some other people in other districts did get the hats. Jaxom 08:30, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

For more info: I was in Kamadan Inter 3, I had arrived here from LA inter 4 (where I got Dwayna's hat) few minutes before the scheduled finale time. The final DID start on time and Grenth DID win and start giving presents. After checking inventory, I found out that I had not received his hat. Most of the other players reported the same. Alliance friends reported the same thing from other district in inter and US. Jaxom 08:36, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

Gaile is already looking into this, and her page is exploding with reports, which is probably what's bugging out wiki for me every other time I click something... Rose Of Kali 12:16, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

Should you have looked at the dates, you would have noticed that I posted here 1st as soon as it happened for the 1st time and then went on Gaile's page. ;) Jaxom 12:48, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

Fixing this right now. - Joe Kimmes 17:36, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, Joe! :D And Jaxom, I didn't really look at times or your contributions, but that was just for anyone else stumbling into this, so they knew where to go. Rose Of Kali 19:47, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

Uuuuh

[1]

- Mini Me talk 22:41, 3 January 2010

ups. ··· Danny Pew Pew 23:46, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Gorgeous. Karate Jesus 00:12, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Who won? ---Chaos- (moo) -- 10:05, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Question

"Each henchmen is not actually one creature that levels/gains skills, but rather, each "version" of the henchman is their own, separate creature. "

This was how Andrew Patrick explained the "problem" of henchmen leaving your party even though they are actually in the same outpost. I just have a question about this, and figured I should post it here: Sometimes henchmen leave even though they are the same level and use the same skills, and sometimes they don't leave even though they level or gain different skills. Why is this? Seems rather illogical to me. - Mini Me talk 21:38, 5 January 2010

Give me an example of a henchman that leaves despite being the same level/skills in a specific area and I can check what's going on in that case. - Joe Kimmes 02:05, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

Little Thom anywhere past Dragon's Lair, if memory serves me right. Vili 点 07:51, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

Yesterday I left from Temple of Ages to kill Rotsale in HM. I had a full party of myself, heros and henchies, specifically which henchies I forget- a monk, warrior, mesmer and earth, but dont quote me on that. After killing Rotscale I went to map travel into ToA and it said my party was too large and kicked the henchies. Not exactly the inital questions problem but close enough I thought Id mention it.The decline 01:25, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

That's by design. If you're traveling to a town that has a smaller party size from a town with a larger party size, it will kick any henchmen necessary to fit the new, smaller party size. --The preceding unsigned comment was added by User:Daññy (talk).

TOA has a party size of 8 (not to mention that he left from that location and tried to go back to it). -- FreedomBound 14:52, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

ups. apparently i missed everything that happened in that question. ··· Danny Pew Pew 15:15, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Example: Claude, Dunham and Little Thom. If you have them in your party in D'Alessio Seaboard (outpost) and then map travel to Bergen Hot Springs, they will leave the party. Yes, they are diffrent level, but the others 4 henchmen are not leaving the party if you map travel between those to places.--Sharkinu 23:21, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Orion I'm able to map travel from Ascalon, to LA, to Augury Rock with and he won't leave party. I map travel with Claude however and he won't stay. It didn't do what Sharkinu put up there, for me at least, but mapping several outposts away he would drop, yet henchies like Orion would stay. If Sharkinu and I are getting different results, a glitch maybe? ~~000.00.00.00~~ 12:47, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Weapon Spells on Pets

Hello Joe. I wonder if some offensive Ritualist skills, like Splinter Weapon and Ancestor's Rage could get a higher priority to be casted on pets, without messing up the placement of defensive skills on henchmen & heroes. My Ritualist heroes rather cast splinter weapon on a wanding henchmen than on the pet, which is right in the middle of foes. Gorani 07:23, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

But for Splinter Weapon it doesn't matter if you're ranged or in the middle of melee, as long as you're attacking. And if they cast ARage on targets not adjacent to foes, that's a bug. Rose Of Kali 15:45, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Wanding henchmen attack faster than an unbuffed pet, so they are probably making a smart choice. -~=Ϛρѧякγ (τѧιк) 15:51, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

But the wanding henchmen will start casting spells again and will spend most of the time casting spells. The pet does attack continuously (and in the observed case even with IAS of 25%). That's why the placement on the pet might be a better choice. ARage gets cast on the pet from time to time, but it could be the target more often compared to H&H. Let's see what Joe can tell us about the question. Gorani 15:50, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

I think for offensive weapon spells like Splinter Weapon, pets should be prioritized the same as a party member wielding a non-caster weapon, nothing more, nothing less. Don't know if that's currently the case or not. For ARage, the only priority should be proximity to targets, so I don't see a reason to prioritize the pet over any other ally in the same position, which it currently sounds like you are implying. Rose Of Kali 18:16, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

Don't forget the difference between offensive and defensive weapon spells. Should the pet get def. because it's out in front, or should the casters get def. because they're squishy? If you have to choose only one weapon spell for each person (which you do), is it better to have offensive on the ones that are attacking no matter what, and defensive on the ones that need to not be hit? Or should your pet tank and you make your wand henchmen slightly less useless between casts? It's more complicated, I think, than it appears. | 72 (UTC) 19:03, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

In general, it seems the AI is pretty poor about considering pets as a viable target for attack-buff type spells; I'll keep this in mind for when I have the chance to take another long look at the Hero AI (improvements are, as always, much needed but a long time coming). - Joe Kimmes 19:04, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

Future Bugs

I have a feeling this may come up in the near future. With information being shared that spells will stop life stealing, make sure it's coded in such a way that RoF doesn't catch the 3/5 vampiric damage off a weapon hit. 68.32.65.101 03:14, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

QA actually brought this up earlier, so no need to worry - vampiric weapons will remain unaffected by RoF and other spells that defend against lifesteal. - Joe Kimmes 18:57, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

I was meaning more specifically that it doesn't catch the 3/5 and let the 10-100 actual hit through. I'm not sure which order the damage triggers and checks itself against RoF or other spells. If something like Shielding Hands wants to prot that low level vamp damage, fine by me, it was the RoF trigger in particular I was checking on. 68.32.65.101 21:46, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

Whee for edit. Shielding Hands would be pretty awesome if it worked on both damage packets from a vamp weapon. As much as it may sound like a bad idea to the design team, it'd give skilled players another reason to weapon swap (once your vamp output is reduced extra furious/sundering might be the better choice for a few seconds). 68.32.65.101 21:48, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

Different Bugs

First Bug: /aion and /zrank work on the same timers. (Doing one prevents using both emotes for the 30 second delay.) Second Bug: In Dragon Nest, if people leave the district you lose opponents. For example, a match starts off with 8 people. 7 of them leave. It says "you beat 0 opponents", you only get 11 tokens, you get no gamer points. Even if they left 1 second before the end of the game. Can you keep a list of scores (prevent afkers winning) but don't give leavers what they placed. 68.32.65.101 03:17, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

/Aion and /zrank sharing timers was intended so that you can't spam the emotes back to back - it's inconsistent with /rank though, so I'll try to figure out if it can at least work the same for all special emotes. As for Dragon Nest, that sounds like a problem but it may be a side effect of systems preventing abuse of the minigame; I'll look into it when I have the time. Thanks for reporting these issues! - Joe Kimmes 20:17, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Just a reminder, bugs should be reported on the most appropriate bug reporting page, not here. QA regularly monitors those pages and will properly channel the reports as needed. Thanks! -- Wyn talk 20:39, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Wait, did you mean that you'd also like to put /rank on the same timer as /aion and /zrank? is for Raine, etc. 22:30, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

I'd rather them all have their own timer, spamming all 3 back to back just means you... wait 30 seconds again anyways. As for reporting on bug pages, I'll stick to reporting to Joe. He always offers interesting insights and things happen when he's on the case instead of bugs being "properly channeled". 68.32.65.101 00:06, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Frequency of 3 uses/30 seconds =/= 3 uses/90 seconds. And it all filters up to Joe and the rest of the team, whether or not you report it by protocol or not. | 72 (UTC) 00:45, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

What's the point of having more than one emote, then? :\ is for Raine, etc. 02:33, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Because they signify more than one accomplishment?... Unless you only ever see people for 30 seconds at a time, the extra wait doesn't ruin having multiple emotes, I think | 72 (UTC) 03:38, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

"Hey, stand still for 30 seconds so I can /zrank, too!" is for Raine, etc. 04:42, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Why, it's almost as if people who play the game so much as to get 3 magnificent titles have no friends who would stay around for more than 30 seconds if there weren't rank emotes involved! Oh, wait... | 72 (UTC) 22:42, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Ranks are for... your... friends? Silly me, I was emoting my dead opposition. is for Raine, etc. 23:03, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

For the record, reporting things via the bug report pages is vastly preferable for tracking reasons - if I fix something, it has to go through QA before it can be changed on the live servers, and it's way faster if they're already tracking the problem.

I doubt all the special emotes will be put on the same timer. - Joe Kimmes 23:55, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the confirmation, on both concerns. ♥ is for Raine, etc. 00:15, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

how did you manage

to smiters-boon smiters boon ? o__O even after teh text bug removal today it is bugged in function 127.0.0.1 00:47, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Req7 Max Dmg Items

Hey, I was wondering this like forever. I know Gaile answered like 2 years ago that Req 7 items to still drop but not a single new drop got confirmed in all that time.

Could you please take a look at the code and figure out whether Req7 Max Dmg Items still have a chance at all to drop, or if they were removed with the Nightfall update? Maybe changes to the drop code to accomodate for inscriptions caused a bug that disallows Req7 Items from dropping?

I would really appreciate to get an answer on this!--83.196.194.25 14:17, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

I've seen various items selling in Kamadan, but without being able to recall which weapons they were, exactly, I can't make a solid statement. However, I wouldn't be at all surprised if there were q7 Conch's floating around. Not to mention, item drops from previous campaigns have never been changed, so it would still be able to acquire them in Prophecies at the very least. ··· Danny Pew Pew