Feedback talk:User/Tennessee Ernie Ford/MapQuest

/bonus is !fail

The idea is interesting. Just one small issue: the command /bonus already exists ;) Agaetis Ros 19:37, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

Good point! thanks.   — Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 20:02, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

No benefits to titles

No. No titles should give any amount of anything beyond a functionless emote or other such purely vanity thing. It's bad enough we already have other titles that do things. --Emkyooess 23:34, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

Why? What's wrong with titles that serve some purpose beyond vanity, especially if it reduces grind?   — Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 23:40, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

It'd increase grind -- grind for the title, as the title is made to do something else beyond vanity, the title becomes more necessary to grind for. --Emkyooess 20:39, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

Erm, don't we both seek a way to reduce grind? Is there any reason why players should have to figure out their way through the confusing terrain of the Maguuma Jungle every time they start a new toon? (Well, perhaps it wasn't as confusing to you as it was to me and my friends.) This particular title advantage is basically saying that, if you bother to uncover every shadow, it should become easier to find your way around. If you have an alternate idea of how to make it easier for players to get their Nth toon around, I'm all ears.

Incidentally, how can a title be necessary? As long as ANet doesn't require titles to win the game, there's no requirement to repeat the same task. I find it hard to believe that players truly spend hundreds of hours opening locked chests because they desire an extra 2% advantage in salvaging; I have yet to meet a person who claimed that as their rationale for gaining increasing Treasure Hunter rank.

I do not support title-based skills, such as the awesome Pain Inverter. (1) it is nearly impossible to gain such skills or increase their power without repeating activities on the same toon; (2) it creates an artificial similarity across professions (e.g. 8 different toons taking PI to kill a boss). However, neither issue is caused by providing a single, relatively narrow benefit to a title; it's caused by divorcing skills from attributes and by providing huge benefits. It's also easily solved by allowing toons to learn skills after meeting rank requirements, but ensuring that the benefits of the skills depend on professional attributes.   — Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 00:07, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

cartography benefit

Your click tracing stuff sounds like a nightmare to implement, and I don't think I'd find it very useful. You see, the shortcomings that you described are exactly the situations where I would need help navingating in the first place... What I would like is the ability to "unfog all map" once a character on the account has displayed Grandmaster Cartographer HoM trophy for a particular campaign (Note: requires EOTN, as opposed to just getting the title). Legendary Master of the North would be the EOTN equivalent for EOTN areas. As you said, we can read maps, and an unfogged map can help us easily "remember" the last time we ventured there with a different character. This can be a toggle-type thing, where you can unfog it with a checkbox somewhere, or fog it back up in case you want cartography with this toon as well or simply want the challenge of doing it the hard way again. Rose Of Kali 23:48, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

I like your idea. A lot. And yes, it would be simpler to implement. Have you created the idea yet? (If yes, I or you should add a see also link from this suggestion.)

Alas, I would still get lost, because I find a lot the current maps hard to read (particularly in Kaineng, Maguuma, and Echovald areas): routes that look like pathways are dead ends; things that look like dead ends are actually over/under passes. I don't think it would be hard to implement because (a) the AI already has to calculate short paths as I've described them and (b) the AI already uses some type of algorithm to get heroes from outside-compass distance to your location.

Regardless, I assume ANet won't bother unless it stimulates their creative juices and they have some idea of how to implement that fits into their budget. In many cases, I imagine the suggestion will spark an alternative idea. e.g. "here's somebody suggesting a bene for cartography. What about unlocking map travel sooner for new toons on the account?"   — Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 06:20, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

Well, heroes out of compass range simply "teleport" over impassable terrain, instead of finding a distant way around, or get stuck. Oh how many times has my party wiped while flagged, and when we res, they got complete lost how to get from the res shrine to the flag, theyd either run around in random directions and return to the res shrine, or stick to a wall somewhere. Which is why I said that this wouldn't work properly when you need it most. But I don't know enough about how they calculate this. Also, I haven't made this suggestion. Feel free to use it here if you like. Rose Of Kali 09:35, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

As far as I've experienced, Heroes do not simply teleport; they still use a pathfinding algorithm to find their way back to the player. However, when out-of-sight, if they encounter an impassable obstacle and pathfinding AI does not present an in-sight alternative, they will jump. It's easy to test the difference between "simple teleportation" and "there must be some way out of this mess": run around a VQ'd zone, flag heroes in out of the way spots and get thee to a location far, far away. Unflag the heroes and note that the three heroes and 4 hench do not appear within compass distance simultaneously (even the hench frequently show up at different times). If you want to get really tricky, time how long it takes you to get the player from Flag X to the zero point.

So, if I am right and the game already uses an in-sight path-AI plus an out-of-sight path-AI...then the suggestion here asks ANet to enable Legendary Carto accounts to use those AI-selected paths on the map. (If I'm wrong, then ANet simply won't consider the idea.)   — Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 18:49, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

I don't think that's how it works, at least not entirely. When I flag heroes, then run far far away, and simply unflag them, the often can't find their way to me. If I keep moving the flag around, some of them may find their way eventually. Furthermore, sometimes when I return within range of a flag with heroes standing on it, and release the flag while barely in compass range, they often run the other way away from me, which makes no sense at all. Also, there is the Dunes of Despair H/H teleport bug. AI pathfinding is not very effective outside of spirit range, as far as I've experienced. Rose Of Kali 23:35, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

Right — I'm not suggesting it's a great AI. I am saying, hey, the AI is already there, so please show it to me when I unlocked Legendary Carto." BTW: I've never had a situation in which they couldn't find me (just a question of being patient enough...which is sometimes very, very). I suspect that the "run the wrong way behavior" comes from the AI refreshing itself. And the Dunes of Despair anomaly fits the situation I described above; when the AI gets stuck out-of-sight, it cheats.

The short story for me: I think something is better than nothing. (On reflection, I'm liking fog/unfog better; it would also be easier to implement, which is always worth something.)   — Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 00:54, 20 November 2009 (UTC)