Changes in the Barrier Skill

[Delstro]

I don't think it should be an all or nothing thing.
I think that a skilled combatant with a decent barrier skill should be able to keep a barrier up while engaged. The point is that it would simply take less effort for them. That, and a hard hit to the head or a "reel" effect should knock down a barrier.

So again, IMO it should be changed so that it's not impossible for someone with a decent barrier skill and decent combat skill to keep barrier up while fighting. It should also be put in place that a hard hit to the head or being "reeled" should knock down your barrier no matter how good you are at it.

I severely dislike the change to it being impossible because it's not out of the realm of believability that skilled people could do this.

There have been some good code changes over the last few years. There have also been some pretty shitty ones too that I believe added nothing to the game and only succeeded in uping the dificulty of doing certain things that were unreasonably difficult in the first place.

I stand behind Jhunter's idea for barrier.

[Prince Prig]

If so, why not allow people to be contacted while you're fighting? Or remain in contact, rather. There's a number of ways people could devise to be 'twinkish' so to speak, about that. I see no one complaining if it was implemented...or not. 

In the end, I think it's just all rather silly the reaction that people are having to this change. Some folks just need to grow up. There will always be ways to twink if you look for it. Does that mean you should do it?

[brytta.leofa]

Make it very difficult for psionic skills to be initiated against someone who is currently fighting.

[Tzurahro]

Make it very difficult for psionic skills to be initiated against someone who is currently fighting.

This is an interesting idea, and is already part of the current discussion staff-side.

[Mood]

In the end, I think it's just all rather silly the reaction that people are having to this change. Some folks just need to grow up. There will always be ways to twink if you look for it. Does that mean you should do it?

I'm getting the impression that you don't know what the 'exploit' people are talking about is, or, if you do, you don't understand what it could do. It seems to me (and to several others, apparently) that this code change could allow a single (relatively low on the karma scale) class to kill pretty much anyone they come across. This is a big deal, and trying to pass the outspoken among us off as doomsayers will do nothing to help the discussion, or the game.

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

The best way for psionics to not reveal identity to the typical mundane would be this:

>contact Amos
You make contact with someone's mind.

>psi Hi.
You send someone's mind a telepathic message.
  "Hi."


That's all the change that is needed. If you get the wrong mind, oh well. If you get the right mind, somebody will contact you in return. There'll be no more identity issues based off of a mind. And psionists will still see what we all see now.

The code change would be minimal.

[X-D]

I have always agreed with the suggestion 7DV just gave.

Also, I posted something like what Jhunter said so, of course agree.

Lastly, and this is an idea some people might hate.

But, What if you just made it so the certain abilities that barrier protects against cannot be used on somebody who is under combat timer. Those abilities deserve a little nerfing anyway.

[Dalmeth]

This is an interesting idea, and is already part of the current discussion staff-side.

It is interesting.  I've always been curious about accounting for the target's state of mind when dealing with psionics.

[Is Friday]

Submit a player complaint if you feel as though someone is abusing something allowed by the code.

Sdesc sniffing is a controversial issue.  I think it should be brought up in its own thread, for what it's worth; I have heard interesting arguments for either side of the matter. 

Anecdote: I'd like to point out that I've felt like I've been sdesc sniffed quite a few times but in 3/4 of these situations, I only had a vaguely good guess of who it was.

[NoteworthyFellow]

In the end, I think it's just all rather silly the reaction that people are having to this change. Some folks just need to grow up. There will always be ways to twink if you look for it. Does that mean you should do it?

I'm getting the impression that you don't know what the 'exploit' people are talking about is, or, if you do, you don't understand what it could do. It seems to me (and to several others, apparently) that this code change could allow a single (relatively low on the karma scale) class to kill pretty much anyone they come across. This is a big deal, and trying to pass the outspoken among us off as doomsayers will do nothing to help the discussion, or the game.

It is fairly scary.  What we're talking about here was already incredibly powerful--it's just reached nigh-upon epic levels.

[manonfire]

Why not leave barrier as it was?

Bug or no, did anyone -really- complain about being able to have a barrier up during combat? Now, you've got this whole balance issue creeping up, which is never an easy fix.

Certainly time is better spent elsewhere, yeah?

You know.. like that new version of Arma that was supposed to be released a couple years ago?

[jhunter]

The best way for psionics to not reveal identity to the typical mundane would be this:

>contact Amos
You make contact with someone's mind.

>psi Hi.
You send someone's mind a telepathic message.
  "Hi."


That's all the change that is needed. If you get the wrong mind, oh well. If you get the right mind, somebody will contact you in return. There'll be no more identity issues based off of a mind. And psionists will still see what we all see now.

The code change would be minimal.

This is something that I agree with as well.

Edit: I do believe that it should remain unchanged in this aspect for psionicists due to their expertise in this area they should be able to get more information through the use of psionics.

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

I do believe that it should remain unchanged in this aspect for psionicists due to their expertise in this area they should be able to get more information through the use of psionics.

Absolutely.

[Mood]

It is fairly scary.  What we're talking about here was already incredibly powerful--it's just reached nigh-upon epic levels.

Yes.

Why not leave barrier as it was?

Bug or no, did anyone -really- complain about being able to have a barrier up during combat? Now, you've got this whole balance issue creeping up, which is never an easy fix.

Certainly time is better spent elsewhere, yeah?

You know.. like that new version of Arma that was supposed to be released a couple years ago?

God yes.

[Clearsighted]

Yeah. Who was really burning the midnight oil, fretting about people having barrier up in combat after how many years now?

[RogueGunslinger]

Yeah? Why not make this bug into a feature? <--Serious question

[touringCompl3t3]

urgh, this could have been better handled.

I love you guys but this could have been better handled.

[cyberpatrol_735]

Agreed.

[mattrious]

And Who lived with barrier up for his entire life. all 70+ days and a rl year. These things should have been EASY for him to do ...

You, sir, are gravely mistaken. Your example is a perfect illustration of something that no one should be able to do, and yet thanks to mutated code is now doing something it was never, ever intended for.

Let me be perfectly clear:

1. Walking around with a barrier up 100% of the time is not the purpose for which the skill was designed.
2. Yes, the code allows you to do it now, with virtually no penalty.
3. This is why we are making changes.

So. Are you implying that players should not walk around with barrier up? Will they be considered abusing a bug if they do this? I always thought the skill was working as intended. What is the staffs position on the current state of barrier after this fix?

[Lizzie]

I interpreted it to mean that barrier wasn't meant to be used the same way a breastplate is used (which is also not exactly normal or RP-correct) - on, 24/7, without any regard to setting, mood, situation, personality, environment. Lots of people do put lots of thought into what they're wearing under their cloak, that no one else can see but themselves (unless peek lets others see it but most people don't have that skill so we're not talking about exceptions)....

But most people will find a suitable "torso-covering" and wear it all the time, and -maybe- only take it off for mudsex or repair if it gets to that point. No matter that your character's skin is probably blistered with oozing infected sores by now, it's been three years, your breastplate has kept you alive, and damnit you didn't really need that left tit anyway.

Barrier wasn't meant to be "worn" like that. It was meant to be used as a temporary protective measure against certain bad things, and perhaps just to shut people the fuck up when it gets noisy in your head because you're a leader type and everyone and their pet gortok NEEDS you constantly.

But I guess some people do "wear" barrier as if it were a breastplate, like it said in the post that Nusku responded to.

And Who lived with barrier up for his entire life. all 70+ days and a rl year. These things should have been EASY for him to do ...

You, sir, are gravely mistaken. Your example is a perfect illustration of something that no one should be able to do, and yet thanks to mutated code is now doing something it was never, ever intended for.

Bold for emphasis - people weren't intended to wear barrier 24/7. *NOT* that people aren't meant to wear it and walk around with it.

[Nusku]

So. Are you implying that players should not walk around with barrier up? Will they be considered abusing a bug if they do this? I always thought the skill was working as intended. What is the staffs position on the current state of barrier after this fix?

One of the trickier things about coding a game like Armageddon is matching up what the code does with how you expect the world to function. And there are times when player expectations and staff expectations aren't the same either. Frequently the way code works becomes a sort of de facto standard for both player and staff expectations, for better or for worse. Often the merit of that standard is judged (on the player side of things) by how it affects their current PC. Let me give you an example of how this works.

Currently, we do not have code that allows you to bash a door down. Amos the mul has been locked in a room by some malicious folks, and starves to death. We (staff) gets a res request that looks something like, "Hi, I'm Amos the mul, and I'm really strong. I should have been able to bash down this thin wooden door but I couldn't get any staff help with it and I starved to death." Well... for better or worse, there's no door-bashing code, so codedly Amos is well and truly trapped in that little room. We have to turn down the res request. Player expectations for the environment (this is a thin door, I'm strong, I can break it) didn't match up with the code.

But let's say that Amos wished up while he was starving, and some immortal decides to take pity and assists Amos in "bashing down the door." Along comes Malik the human, the guy that locked Amos in, and Amos has escaped and the door is broken down. Now we're going to get an email from Malik's player - "Hey, I locked this mul up and there was no coded way for him to have gotten out. The immortals are trying to eat my brainz by letting Amos go!" You see, Malik's expectation was that the world conformed to the de facto coded standard - that is, there's no coded escape, therefore there's no escape.

Which of those two players is being "unrealistic" or "unreasonable"? In a way, both and neither. What you see, however, is that both players are arguing on whichever side happens to benefit their own character. Amos is going to argue that he should have some way to escape, Malik is going to argue that he should have some way to prevent Amos from escaping.

So staff looks at this dilemma, and decides to implement door-bashing code. The door-bash code is greeted quietly by players of muls and half-giants with approval. Meanwhile, the discussion board suddenly fills up with players complaining that the new door-bashing code is going to set off a wave of half-giant burglars who just smash into apartments instead of picking the locks. But for better or worse, the door-bash code becomes the new de facto standard. The immortals have decided This Is The Way The World Works.

Back to your question on barrier. Code-wise, you can keep a barrier up all the time. It has been that way for years. This leads to the player expectation that this is How It Should Be. Do we (staff) think that people shouldn't walk around with barrier up 9 hours a day, 11 days a week? Yes, but we also recognize that we're contending with an existing de facto standard; it's probably unreasonable for us to try to enforce some new standard just through roleplay. That means that if we want to change the way in which people use barrier, we have to change the code. And when we change code, it means that staff is setting a new de facto standard for how something ought to be used, even if the old code was responsible for setting up the expectations that players had about the way the world worked.

Short answer to your questions:
Ideally, I'd like to see players not walking around with barriers up all the time. I also recognize that if that's going to change, it will have to be enforced by code somehow.
It will not be considered abusing a bug if you do walk around with barrier up all the time.
Staff position on the current state of barrier after the fix is that we may tinker with it more, or we may leave it alone. Either way, we will do so with the best interest of the game at heart.

Edited to add:
Also, Lizzie is correct. The breastplate analogy is one I hadn't thought of, but it's a good one.

[Nyr]

I've seen a few questions that I'd like to respond to, since if I were only a player and didn't see the staff side of this clearly, I'd be asking the same things.

Is this [tendency for people to leave their barriers up 100% of the time] a bug?
No, it is merely an unforeseen side effect due to several things that were somehow balanced by this one skill but could/should have been balanced in other ways.  Much like it is possible to spamcast a magicker into the realm of super power, or spamcraft a merchant into the realm of super rich, it is possible to walk around with a barrier up 100% of the time.  That is not the way the skill was designed to work, but it is the way that the skill has been used on the whole.

Why are we focusing on this now?
A coder was fixing his old code to be the way it was intended.  The only reason the coder saw this code was out of line was due to staff members discussing how to improve upon some existing code and correct some imbalances within the current game having to do with that ability.  The coder saw it, the coder corrected it, and it was done.  The fix got pushed to the live port after maintenance on Monday (or Tuesday?), which happened before an announcement.  In the vast majority of code changes that affect the game, staff members usually announce it.  This wasn't one of those cases, since it got moved faster than expected.  Oops.  Our bad.
However, I think a lot of people are still missing the point here:  we were already discussing how to improve upon some existing code and correct some imbalances within the game related to this particular skill.  We are well aware of the potential for imbalance due to this change because we were already talking about other ways of fixing it.  We have not stopped talking about other ways to fix these problems.

Why not leave barrier as it was?
I think the real question here was "why not roll the change back until you fix the other stuff?"  I'll answer both, though.
I'm not a coder by any stretch of the word.  I can manipulate some of the javascripts in the game and on occasion, I've added a javascript or edited one.  I offer feedback to the coding staff when they ask for it, and sometimes I offer suggestions for things to be coded.  With that said, I don't think there's a technical reason why we could not roll this change (or bugfix) or any other change (or bugfix) back.  We can always do that.  I doubt we will, but we always CAN roll changes back.
Let's go back to that discussion I was talking about the staff having over imbalances and problems to be fixed. 
Last night, Morgenes posted that there was a code change going into place that would fix one of these perceived imbalances or problems, and also deal with a really old problem that had nothing to do with barrier at all.
We are still moving forward and making improvements.  Moving it back to the way it was before is a Band-aid (at best) for several problems. 

Don't you guys have better things to do than "fix" code in Arm 1--you know, like build and code Arm 2, that game we've waited on for nearly two years?
Some of the concepts we try out (or fix) in Arm 1 may or may not make it into Arm 2.   I don't think the existence of Armageddon Reborn as a goal means that we should not focus any more code efforts on Armageddon as it is now, though.  We could have ignored this bugfix (I'm sure) and several other changes made over the past months (ride code, parrying, flaming dildos of doom, etc) and put them all in for Armageddon Reborn.  I think it would be a bad decision to ignore potential for improvements in the current game in the interim.
 
Yes, it's taking a while to complete this new game, and that can be frustrating to wait for--and I figure it's just as frustrating knowing that we are holding back some information and documentation because of its secretive nature.  I've even got one of my Staff Responsibilities listed as "Arm 2 Project (secret stuff)."  I'd love to share with you, but I can't.  (It'll be awesome when I can, though.)

Hopefully that helped answer those questions.

[LittleLostThief]

I'll throw in something here and I hope that I can state it in such a way to not get this post removed.  I'll try to use terminology that has already been used and not thrown out.

I see no problem with this barrier change.  You argue that low level karma [guild] with [ability] is epically powered now.  I don't think so.  If you're complaining about this you already know some things about how [ability] works.

The truth is, [ability] was pretty worthless before, because the majority of people know about it.  This change is only making [ability] useful again where it was relatively useless against everyone except n00bs who didn't catch your IG innuendo (and often meta-gaming) about why you should always take [action].

Let's take a look at the time delay caused by certain things.

You are afraid that [guild] will run in and attack you, then use [ability].  Add the attack delay and [ability] delay together, and you're looking at a powerful combo but one that takes a while to complete.  You should have enough time to have a chance to survive.  It is not going to be something totally overpowering.

Worse case scenario, they run in and use [ability2] and then [ability] behind it, diminishing their total lag by only a few seconds.  Lucky for you [ability2] isn't applicable in many situations.

I'm for this change for several reasons.  I think your fears are completely unfounded.  They are simply giving life to relatively unusable and worthless [ability].

[X-D]

As to people saying you should not wear it all the time, or it was not intended to be worn all the time. I find that is a straight jacket to a PC in personality.

Like IRL. There are people who carry that cell phone every where, call people all day longt and simply cannot leave a ringing phone un-answered.

Now, myself, I cannot stand to be bothered or a phone slave, I almost never call any body, do not have a cell phone and normaly leave the ringer on my phone off and might check my voice mail once a week.

If we had the same psi abilities IRL as we have in arm, believe me, I would have learned how to keep my barrier up every waking moment and maybe even sleeping.

And LLT, I'm sorry, but nobody is thinking that at all. But if said class(es) were to instead have a friend to attack you or simply wait for you to attack that jozhal so now you are in combat delay or wait for that agro mob to attack you. Least that is what I would do and is MANY times faster then the method you thought of.

[Riev]

I'm sort of with X-D here. I can think of quite a few possibilities to keep a barrier up whenever it comes to mind in a few cases. Granted, I don't think Joe the Street Sweeper needs to have barrier up all day, but sometimes having barrier up is helpful when visiting certain places or talking to certain people.


And as far as the OP class is concerned, I think it is completely viable to do, but it would be difficult. I knew someone that played [class] and would have a hard time using [ability2] before people would run and it was ineffectual anyways, never mind getting off [ability1]. Its pretty tough, and n00bles may get caught off guard, but I think its might be better overall. If not, the staff will quash it.