Achievements and Tales of Woe

For discussion of the Subeta pet site, including new colours and other features.
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Foghawk
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Re: Achievements and Tales of Woe

Post by Foghawk »

Oh, damn, Aqua, that's really nice! Seems like everybody on Subeta does tiny absolutely-positioned layouts; you are really breaking the mold there. @_@ (Also, that is one of the very, very few times I have seen "spacious" done right, on Subeta or otherwise. It is classy as hell and I salute you.)
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Seerow
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Re: Achievements and Tales of Woe

Post by Seerow »

Shit shit shit. I just deleted my shop.

I was on my phone and on auto-pilot and going to collect my shop till and instead somehow clicked on the "Delete Shop" button and didn't realize what I was doing until too late. I tried to back out of it but I no longer had the shop.

It had ~4mil in uncollected profits, roughly 2.7k items, and had in theory ~6 billion in unsold items according to the bottom of the page.

I've been selling off my old massive gallery and had already moved a bunch of my expensive cash shop items and various other expensive stuff too it. I'm feeling awfully sick to my stomach right about now. I sent in a ticket, but since it was user error I will be very surprised if they can do anything for me.

Shit.

Edit:
Nothing staff can do which doesn't surprise me.

Edit 2:
Just made a new shop...and man it's really throwing me having it at the bottom of my list now. I am so so used to it being at the top. I wish we could rearrange our shop/gallery order!
Wanna donate towards my drink gallery, the Golden Goblet.
Aqua
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Re: Achievements and Tales of Woe

Post by Aqua »

Ouch, sorry to hear that Seerow. :( I've always been afraid of accidentally deleting one of my shops - they need to move that option to somewhere where it's harder to accidentally do. I'd be crushed if I lost my Gallery of Grace because it has a couple of those stupidly expensive combo legend weapons, lol.

I bet you could use StyleBot (if you use Chrome) or another CSS altering addon to hide that button though.
lavender
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Re: Achievements and Tales of Woe

Post by lavender »

Personally, I think they shouldn't allow shop deleting unless it's empty (including profits). Or not have the option at all...
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Ierosbats
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Re: Achievements and Tales of Woe

Post by Ierosbats »

Bah, achieveawoe. I barely managed to defeat Bonesaw five times (seriously, fuck that guy and his crazy freeze/crit rate. Every win was pure luck) but he isn't dropping the Pretty Big Tooth this time around, only tomes. I bought one a while back for my armory, but I have a pet who collects teeth and I've been anxious to get a second one. I guess the reason is that the economy is already pretty saturated with them, which is fair, but... it's still a real bummer. 37 mil (the price at the time of posting) may be cheap for a weapon that good, but it's insanely expensive for a single treasure item. I guess the upside is I used one of the "free" tomes he dropped to finally create a Holy Deluge scroll. I'm not entirely convinced that was a great use of resources, but I'm gonna play around with it anyway.

At least Pylot is still dropping its special goodies. I've had my eye on that gutting knife for a long time. For some reason, getting five wins there was much easier than against Bonesaw, even though I'd guess they're about the same difficulty. That shark is a dick.
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Re: Achievements and Tales of Woe

Post by AngharadTy »

I guess having 5 in user shops is saturation? 37m is a cheap item somehow? My brain can't grasp that concept. My favorite part is "more people can beat him this time around so we didn't let him have a prize"--more people can beat him because they've been training in order to beat him (and others). What a nice slap in the face. I don't know why I bother with this site, especially battling, which just upsets me deeply, no matter how much time I put into training. The one good thing is that I guess I don't have to waste my time on him! Hooray!

I also really want the Pylot things, but I was so unlucky with my tries against him that I thought they disabled blessings. Turns out I am just unlucky! Haha! I guess I will throw myself at him more later!

And once again, people asking for help on the forums are told, "Get a trident." Thank you, that is the least helpful advice you could offer to me. (Topher gave me some advice outside of NC and I'll adopt it and try Pylot later, but I'm too pissed now.)
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Cranberry
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Re: Achievements and Tales of Woe

Post by Cranberry »

Wow. I'm sorry, but the tooth's price would have absolutely tanked had we left it on as loot. When I said a lot more people can beat him now, I meant it -- the tooth would have plummeted to the price of a monthly challenger drop, and we didn't want to devalue a previously-good weapon. This was not a weapon that was ever supposed to come back in the first place; plot prizes are usually one-offs. We made an exception with the large gutting knife (and one other upcoming thing) because there were so few on site, and because many current battlers weren't even around for that plot. The tooth was given out just last year and not enough time has passed for us to reintroduce it.

A lot of thought goes into decisions like this; we compare the number of copies of a weapon on site to the number of battlers who can use it and try to keep things balanced. Reducing the price of one weapon can kill the value of others in the tier, especially in tiers 8-12, which don't have a lot of weapons in them.

In addition, we promised we wouldn't keep moving the goalposts, and we're not -- with recurring challengers like Careaper, the gelatins, and the Morostide opponents, as your pet grows, you will be able to beat more and more of them. This situation is something we've never done before, bringing back old plot opponents that were meant to be one-offs, and those rules don't apply. Bonesaw was never going to come back, so it's not like we're going back on a promise to leave him exactly the same so people could train and beat him and earn his drops in the future. (In fact, when people have asked for us to bring back old challengers, we've always pointed out that if we did, they would not come back the same, with their old loot and achievements and stats intact.)This is an event we pulled out of thin air Sunday night when we found out that the gelatin war had to be cancelled. Some opponents are retaining their loot, and some are getting new loot, depending on a variety of factors. I think we're doing well here, considering.

And I'll admit, I don't usually let complaining get to me, but it hurts my feelings a bit when you praise Purge and me after we implement some of your suggestions and also make it easier to win tier-appropriate weapons, and then turn around and accuse us of slapping you in the face when we remove one piece of loot that was never meant to be easy to obtain.
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Ierosbats
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Re: Achievements and Tales of Woe

Post by Ierosbats »

I know Ty is perfectly capable of speaking for herself, but in her defense I will point out she said she posted that right after losing a bunch of battles, a situation even more annoying when you really want the prize. We've all been there. You've said yourself, Cranberry, that at times Subeta's battle system can be very, very frustrating, and not that much fun. Most of that is long-standing and has nothing to do with you or Purge. I think (and hope!) most users know that, and that there's only so much you guys can do with the way the site is set up. When I rant about Subeta battling, which is a lot, it's never meant as a personal attack, and I think that's true for most of us here. However, I can definitely understand taking it personally after you've put so much time and effort into improving things.

I complain about this all the time, I know, but bear with me. I really do think Subeta's biggest problem is that so much has to work around the richest players. And I don't mean the regular-rich players. I mean the crazy, nonsense, oh-my-god-how-did-you-get-so-rich players. The people complaining about losing millions in bank interest when the cron doesn't reset for a day. I don't think I'll ever get my head around the fact that a Trident, which to many has become an absolute staple (like Ty said, so much advice on the battle forum is "get a Trident" as if they're naturally occurring) is 300 mil, and that's just... okay. Because people can afford that. 300 mil for one thing. I have to admit, the idea of reducing the price of other items in a tier seems like such a non-problem to me. I get why it is, in theory (have to reward the elite or they leave), but... I don't know. I don't know!

That's always what it comes down to for me. I don't know what's going on. I don't know how things could get better. I don't get how economies work, but I feel like this one is broken and at times that's scary. To me, it seems like the system is set up in a way that makes it very easy for the incredibly rich to just keep getting richer, and that everyone else will never be able to catch up. Maybe that's not true, but I know that I've given up on a lot of goals because I can't ever picture myself having hundreds of millions to spend on tier-appropriate weapons/scrolls/boosters/training etc.

I should also point out that I'm totally biased because I'm stuck in the badlands known as t10. I saw an interesting breakdown on the forums a few weeks ago that showed, on average, how many stat points you can get per day in each tier based on your training times/battle quest opponents. t10 was right at the bottom of the list, and then you get a boost up when you hit t11 and 12. I'm definitely feeling that. Can't beat Saggy, can't beat GE. People with pet stats way below mine beat them easily because of better weapons. Don't have the millions required to get a "better" set. Sigh. Just gotta wait it out, I guess, but it's hard to stay motivated.

ramble ramble ramble battle ramble I don't even remember what my point was. Hopefully at least 30% of this is coherent. I think what I was trying to say is that losing always sucks, but it sucks even more when you find out that if you can win, you won't be able to get the thing you want.
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AngharadTy
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Re: Achievements and Tales of Woe

Post by AngharadTy »

I definitely didn't mean anything personal by it. I guess I hadn't thought of them as one-time-only challengers and was really happy to have the chance to earn the tooth now that my pet is higher, because why else would I work so hard to make my pet higher? I can't go back in time and earn one. Especially because I read on the forums earlier today that the harder challengers weren't having their loot changed. Possibly I misunderstood.

Also, you have to understand that I was ranting in general. I like your work quite a lot, not just the implementation of some of our recommendations. There's a lot about the base combat system that isn't fun and I know you guys are working on that, which is great. You spend a lot of time on it and that's wonderful for Subeta and for the users. I'll admit that I only have a point of view of a single player and you see the whole scope of things. I still feel like 37m is expensive for one item and it's hard to concede that Subeta doesn't agree with me, hard to agree that it's a problem when there are things that sell for hundreds of millions. I know logically that removing the tooth prize wasn't actually directed at me personally, but that's the way it felt right then. Because I had just come from flailing against a brick wall. I finally got my blessing to go off and he froze me through it. I can't even deal with how frustrating it is to know I should be able to win but only through a combination of luck and luck and more luck. And my blessing wouldn't go off at all against pylot. I'll try more, but I was reaching the point of tearing my hair out, y'know?

I'm not trying to hurt your feelings at all, and I'm sorry that I did, but I had to vent, and it wasn't directed at you. It was an incredibly frustrating experience and I came here to rant. This is my home, too. You are awesome, please don't hate me.
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Cranberry
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Re: Achievements and Tales of Woe

Post by Cranberry »

It's not the complaining that bothers me... I agree that the system itself is limiting and frustrating. It's more the suggestion that we're actively trying to hurt the less-wealthy battlers, the "slap in the face" thing. I know it was out of frustration, so I get it. (Edit: Wrote that before I read your post, Ty -- I just read it and I feel better now. :))

We are really working hard to make battling more accessible. Just in the past few months, we've released cheap yet good weapons in tiers 7 (Twisted Rift Blade), 8 (Ice King Clawed Gloves), 9 (Malignant Rift Staff, Bludgeon of Mass Extinction), 10 (Plague Claw), and 11 (Paintbrush Blades), with more to come (and that's just the higher tiers -- we've released a lot of good lower-tier stuff, too). We re-released the t8 Large Gutting Knife today and a bunch went out. This is one of our biggest things, actually, trying hard not to only do stuff for the top battlers, to make it fun and fair for all levels. As a player, I always felt that the previous admins only had fun creating the hardest challengers and the godly weapons, and I felt left out. I don't want people to feel that way about us.

I said this in the news comments, but we can't make every weapon cheap (and I do consider buyable to be cheap, if we're talking about a weapon that heals more than 5% per turn and has a strong attack and some defense). The monthly and time-travel plot weapons are already filling that niche ("too cheap" for how good they are). It's not just about the economy, but about strategy, too -- if everyone can obtain the best weapons in their tiers, then everyone uses the same strategy. It's boring. It also makes battling kind of useless because you don't feel like you're accomplishing anything, moving closer to your goals. Most battlers do enjoy racking up losses trying to find the perfect strategy and squeak out five wins.

I know it's frustrating to miss out on a plot weapon, but we've all been there... even with a t12 and a lot of SP, I'm still there with some opponents. There will always be another good weapon down the line, though. And with monthly challengers and plot prize shops, you can now cheaply obtain weapons that ARE actually useful. More useful than the pretty big tooth, actually. We've been seeing a LOT of battlers being able to beat challengers this year that they couldn't last year -- they're earning lots of loot and tomes to sell and making some of the money they spent training back. And these aren't the super-rich people, either. :)

But I am always up for suggestions of how we could improve things, especially for people in tiers below 11 or 12. I mean it. :)

Edited to add:
Especially because I read on the forums earlier today that the harder challengers weren't having their loot changed. Possibly I misunderstood.
We're only leaving that gutting knife and one more thing (on an impossible challenger). The other resurrected opponents (which include an easy, medium, hard, very hard x2, and impossible) will all have new loot (mostly non-weapons -- the resurrected very hard will have a new weapon, but the other impossible will not).
Last edited by Cranberry on 26 Jun 2013 06:53 am, edited 2 times in total.
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AngharadTy
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Re: Achievements and Tales of Woe

Post by AngharadTy »

Real quick, wanted to add that I actually want the tooth (like Topher) cause it's a neat item. I'd probably use it in my set sometimes, but I just like the item itself. That's also why I want to beat Pylot so badly--great items themselves. Hopefully the challengers are not going away tonight.
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Cranberry
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Re: Achievements and Tales of Woe

Post by Cranberry »

All of the challengers will be around until Monday evening. One OTHER thing I disliked about past plots was that the opponents weren't out long enough! :)
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Ierosbats
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Re: Achievements and Tales of Woe

Post by Ierosbats »

(Should this stuff be split into its own post? I feel like pretty regularly we take over AaToW with battle stuff. Maybe we need our own Battle Chat. Then we can all post the junk we win from Shinwa every day, just like in the official one!!!)

I do think it's good of you to point out that there's a difference between "cheap" and cheap. There's a totally alternate standard for the battle aspect of the site. Like I mentioned before, if you're buying treasure items or wearables (excluding custom items because... ugh, the price of csc) 37 mil for one item is not at all cheap. I'm at my most frustrated when those standards overlap ie. when I want a battle thing for non-battle reasons.

A suggestion for that is to have a stricter standard for what kinds of things can be weapons? Maybe? That's not very inspiring for the artists, I guess. And there will always be exceptions. But if you have a pet that collects swords/shields/gauntlets/typical weaponry, generally you know what you're getting yourself into. If you have a collection of teeth/bones, like me and Ty, then it's frustrating when an unusual item that fits that theme is released into the battle system under battle prices. That said, I know a shark dropping like... a helmet or whatever doesn't make a lot of sense. Maybe in that case have the opponent drop a scroll? Oh, while I'm at it, any chance some of the monthly challengers will drop special scrolls instead of weapons? I would have preferred a "t10 appropriate" scroll to the Plague Claw, which I find kind of weak for t10 and don't use much.

While I'm bothering you for stuff, can I ask how popular the stat boosters in the battle shop have been? I assume they were very popular in the beginning, but are a lot of people still buying them? I ask because I absolutely despise the time limit when trying to buy crystals. Crystals are the only aspect, in my opinion, that add true strategy/customization to the system. I would have modded my set differently today to face Bonesaw than Pylot, but I couldn't because of the long wait. I'd absolutely support removing the boosters from the shop if it meant no wait times again. I get that the boosters were added for price stability, and I know why the limit is in place, but it's seriously so annoying. Any chance we could at least get separate shops or something?
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Cranberry
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Re: Achievements and Tales of Woe

Post by Cranberry »

Yeah, I agree that we could probably remove the time limit now that people have spent a bunch of their battle token stashes (we had the timer added initially because some people had huge stockpiles of tokens and we didn't want tons of boosters going out at once when we first added them). I'll ask someone about that tomorrow; should be an easy reversal.

We don't really want to limit what the artists can draw for loot... the loot is based on the opponent, of course, and we don't tend to be too specific about opponents because we know the artists like to have freedom. We might say "big burly thing" or "sea creature" or "X NPC," or tell them we'd like a book or weapon or sticker loot, but they go from there.

Scrolls instead of weapons is something we discussed for the monthly guys... might be too late now (it would have been nice for the t9 or 10), but if we continue this next year, we're going to have to get more creative. That's a lot of inexpensive weapons going out in a year. :)
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Re: Achievements and Tales of Woe

Post by Ierosbats »

Really? Awesome! That would be rad.

Now we're back to posting achievements! Full circle, people.
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