Twitchy Questioning 8: BSN Questions Manhattan

I am very hesitant to ask this type of loaded question ("do you think this high price is fair" = loaded question). This type of question gets at real world pricing models that are almost certainly not within the dev team's control.

Everything in the game is still available for 'free' (not counting the $60 for the base game) given enough time and grinding. So I don't think complaining about the AP pricing model accomplishes anything.

This type of question was on the list for several weeks and they gave us Jumbo Packs to ease the pain somewhat. I consider that their answer so I'm not going to keep harping on it.

Yeesh, fine, I will harp on Shockwave.

Re: GIP, I anticipate everyone will be shouting about this but sure, it can go on the list.
(Now that I am the people's representative I basically want everyone in the Twitch chat to STFU so Bioware can answer only me and that guy from Reddit, but we know that's not going to happen.)

"Related question: the reduced Credit payouts for joining a GIP prior to Wave 3 hurts a lot, especially on Gold, when it makes it so you cannot even afford an Expert Pack (because you earn < 50K Cr). Would you consider tweaking the Cr payouts for GIPs?"

"Last week you stated the reason Shockwave does 50% less combo damage is because it can detonate “a whole bunch of dudes”. But in practice, Shockwave rarely catches more than 3 dudes, and it is also saddled with a slow cooldown, slow casting animation, and slow travel time -- esp. compared to other multi-detonators like Biotic Charge and Trip Mines. Would you consider revisiting the Shockwave combo detonation penalty to make it more competitive with other multi-detonator powers?"

It was a follow up to an earlier post of mine.

I do understand their answer, what I debate is they focus on 1 variable only: "can hit a bunch of dude".

They are right, Shockwave can hit a bunch of dude alright. I can't deny that in the slightest.

Where I diverged in opinion with Bioware and why I asked for JRandall0308 to try once more for Shockwave, is that Shockwave has multiple variables playing to its disadvantage.

As lennybusker explained in an earlier post, the other multi-detonators can hit just as many dudes as Shockwave, but they don't have any kind of combo damage penalty.

If you read the Numerical Data Master Workbook, the Combo Primer written by lennybusker explains how combos already cause enemies to be immune to combo damage for a certain amount of time, which reduce considerably the value of multi-detonators. As soon as a combo is detonated for 1 enemy, that enemy cannot be damaged by the same combo type for the next 4 seconds, which means that even without the 50% combo damage penalty Shockwave has, the multiple combos you could get out of it would have reduced effect the more combo it detonates. This mechanism applies to all combos, not only multi-detonators, so the combo damage is controlled and doesn't bubble up out of proportion.

Other variables playing against Shockwave are the casting time, the slow travel time, the non-tracking, the reach, the longer cooldown and of course the 50% combo damage penalty.

I'm simply trying to remind Bioware that "can hit a bunch of dude" should be revisited because that's not the whole story, especially with the combo cooldown mechanism already in place. Shockwave is affected by 2 different mechanisms trying to control the damage of multiple combo detonations, but by doing so they debuff Shockwave twice instead of only once.

I might have formulated my question all wrong, I'm sorry if that's the case, but I do think I'm fair in wanting Shockwave not to be saddled with so many downside at the same time. Only the Human Adept and the Human Vanguard have it, so it's not like it would completely unbalance the game if the downsides were reduced a little.

Anyway, I hope this clears up a bit more what I wanted to convey.

Also, thanks lennybusker for formulating what I tried to say better than I did.

Don't think they'll hire a community manager as that forces them to put a person on suicide watch.

To be fair, the guy that is the community manager for Anthem has also made posts on reddit regarding MEA. I'm assuming he's doing double time since he is probably more specifically supposed to be community manager for Anthem, but has also given what time he could to MEA.

Although, it would have been nice if MEA could've caught a community manager too. I don't blame whoever made the decision not to hire one though, because fans get rough. Death threats, rape threats, etc.

Added a question about Lance / weakspots.

= = =

Also thanks for the kind words about me. In truth a community manager would do much more than gather up question, as seen in this job description. In actual fact I am not even close to qualified for that job!

various destructible environment objects have various amounts of hitpoints (invisible health bar : we could do a table similar with the enemy hitpoints values) ..
those objects are also immune to debuffs

I wonder if there's a subtle way to remind them that they sometimes re-map powers on kits inadvertently. They acknowledged it the first time and released the skill points for player correction the following day, but they were directly tweeted about it. I've seen no indication that they are even aware they did it this last go.

It sure would be nice if they'd be more attentive about this.  I almost feel like I should record all of my builds and check them after every update - and even then, I'm left with some uncertainty about whether the values I see on the UI are correctly used in calculations.  They seem to be aware that some of them need to be remapped after an update (and release the points), while others go unacknowledged.

ETA: Also might be worth it to mention that rewards are incorrectly calculated in some cases.  I recently completed all 7 waves of a silver match and received only 1,250 credits.

They are 'aware' of the issues around inadvertent re-mapping of powers and incorrect credit payouts -- 'aware' meaning that one or more of the Bioware folks have reponded to Tweets about it.

For the re-mapping of powers I think you are probably going to have to suck it up and use a re-spec card. (It is only 15 MF, or they drop pretty regularly in packs.)

For the incorrect credit payouts I think people should open bug reports on EA Answers HQ and/or a helpdesk ticket with EA. That seems to get more traction.

In general I'm trying to keep the 'twitchy questioning' from becoming an endless litany of 'are you aware of this bug, that bug, the other bug' when there is already a mechanism to report bugs. By contrast questions about U.I., quality of life, design intent -- these seem like better topics while we have their attention on Twitch.

I'll submit the following for the next session:

"Every Twitch Way but Loose"

"BSNception"  where we ask questions about asking questions about BSN.


WRT questions...

Would they consider increasing the total number of skill points available?  Three more points would get us to a 6/6/6/5/4 build.  I'm a fan of of high level build diversity being driven by the choices you're allowed to make at rank 4/5/6 rather then by a scarcity of points.  Especially when so many points are locked behind 10 kit cards.

On Gold, how often to raiders and chosen actually miss?  Target acquisition is instantaneous with line of sight and sprinting, jumping or dodging to not seem to affect enemy accuracy.

I highly doubt they are going to change a core game mechanic like how many skill points/ranks are available. 6/6/6/6/1 is the same as what was in ME3.
(I don't want people to feel like I am pooh-poohing their questions but after 8 weeks of doing this I have developed a kind of feel for what they are going to engage with and what they won't.)

Re: enemy accuracy, there is a question for that: "Is enemy accuracy something you will look at? Enemies are pinpoint accurate from across the map even with shotguns or automatic weapons."

Re: boosters being consumed, they did say they could adjust on the fly when they are consumed so it is *possible* that has been done, but I will put it on the list to ask about.