Why is he still gaining Durability from Immunity if he is also gaining Incinerate as a result of the Fate Seal?
Are they both triggering? Does Spider-Man 2099's debuff pause (or whatever it is) still function?
Yep I found the exact same thing yesterday. Spidey’s debuff pause still works while fate sealed. He gains both the passive incinerate and pauses debuffs which I think is odd.
I thought it would be one or the other, it’s like he both gains the buff and it triggers his immunity, but also is converted into an incinerate.
DNA has a habit of going to extreme lengths to construct an explanation around why something works that he forgets to consider if that’s how it should work.
What is "should" except what the desginers intent?
What evidence do we have this was an intended interaction?
Why is he still gaining Durability from Immunity if he is also gaining Incinerate as a result of the Fate Seal?
Are they both triggering? Does Spider-Man 2099's debuff pause (or whatever it is) still function?
Interactions like this support the belief that this entire process hasn’t been fully thought out—which is fine and can be understandable, but not if there’s some subsequent attempt to retcon the description of what’s happening to fit what the text says will happen.
It’s weird to say the least.
@BitterSteel discussion of the class disadvantage interaction is interesting as well—not to say that all sciences should nuke all mystics, but that this aspect is a small part of what makes this interaction feel awry.
Going to throw a big wrench in and suggest the Precision buff attached to Dexterity is again at the root of issues—what happens if that buff is instead converted to a passive effect Precision?
Why is he still gaining Durability from Immunity if he is also gaining Incinerate as a result of the Fate Seal?
Are they both triggering? Does Spider-Man 2099's debuff pause (or whatever it is) still function?
Interactions like this support the belief that this entire process hasn’t been fully thought out—which is fine and can be understandable, but not if there’s some subsequent attempt to retcon the description of what’s happening to fit what the text says will happen.
It’s weird to say the least.
@BitterSteel discussion of the class disadvantage interaction is interesting as well—not to say that all sciences should nuke all mystics, but that this aspect is a small part of what makes this interaction feel awry.
Going to throw a big wrench in and suggest the Precision buff attached to Dexterity is again at the root of issues—what happens if that buff is instead converted to a passive effect Precision?
Dr. Zola
The problem with being a passive (as much as I want it to be a Passive for cases such as Dormammu) is, unfortunately, again Spider-Man 2099 and Red Guardian relying on the Buff to activate their abilities - and they have no other way to 'gain a buff'.
It seems that there are some benefits to Dexterity giving a buff, but it hurts in other scenarios (again, Dormammu; Buffet...)
DNA has a habit of going to extreme lengths to construct an explanation around why something works that he forgets to consider if that’s how it should work.
What is "should" except what the desginers intent?
What evidence do we have this was an intended interaction?
Dr. Zola
If I put gravity in my game, I don't necessarily explicitly intend every consequence of having gravity. I cannot foresee every possible future event related to gravity. That's not how things work in general. I intend things to fall under the influence of gravity. As a result, something may happen that might surprise me, or annoy me, or even that I would rather not happen. But that doesn't mean I change the rules of gravity to bend them to my whim.
The mechanics of the game are the rules of the game. They dictate the "physics" of how things work. Those mechanics are not always perfect or complete, but in general they should only be revised when they themselves are contradictory, incomplete, or in some way defective. They should be judged on that basis alone, *not* on whether they generate every result we want in every interaction everywhere.
This is a choice. People are fond of saying that games, including this one, should be about "skill." But they tend to define skill extremely narrowly, to mean "what I am good at" or alternatively "what I think everyone should be good at." But discovery and understanding are just as much skills as Parrying or Intercepting. Yes, the game's mechanics should be better documented and yes, they aren't always implemented in a non-contradictory fashion, but that's not the problem here. The problem here is that the interactions are non-obvious *unless* you take the time to learn the mechanics, and they aren't always beneficial. In my opinion, that is not a good reason to argue for changing them. That's no different than arguing that intercepting is hard and not something a player will either understand or be able to do immediately, so any content that requires it should be changed to remove that requirement. Intercepting is something you have to learn, you have to practice, you have to understand how to employ. If you don't, it is unlikely to come naturally to most players, and it will be a disadvantage to you to not acquire this skill.
Discovery and comprehension of the game mechanics is equally deserving. What a game mechanic does, in the literal sense, is something that should be communicated to the players. But what that *means* within the context of the game, and how that *interacts* with other things, is something players should not expect to be hand holded through. If everything is obvious and everything must produce only the kinds of interactions everyone expects, then there's absolutely no reason to test anything, no reason to experiment with anything or understand anything. There is no benefit to being skilled at learning how the game works.
To me, such a game is as woefully unworthy of spending any time with as many players would feel if blocking was the only combat mechanic in the game.
Asking if every interaction was explicitly intended is, I believe, besides the point. We can ask if individual mechanics are working *correctly*, but separate from that, however we discover they interact, we should accept. Only when it produces completely unacceptable results should we be considering changes, such as when they generate exploitive behavior. If we refuse to accept interactions we don't like just because we don't like them, we remove the option to discover unintended interactions and leverage them, because these are flip sides of the same coin.
Winning only matters if you can lose. If you can't lose, winning is meaningless. Discovering unintended interactions and using them to your advantage is meaningless if you also intend to change every unintended interaction you don't like.
Maybe these kinds of interactions were implicitly intended by the designers. Maybe they were not, and they are currently considering ways to mitigate them. That is their prerogative as designers. Which ever way they decide, I'll be fine with, so long as what they do doesn't make the underlying game mechanics less individually reasonable or internally consistent. But if the only argument is that the game doesn't work they way I expect it to work to my benefit, to me that's no argument at all.
While you may not get agreement on the principle @DNA3000 , there might at least be some (grudging) understanding of the decision to have things operate mechanically the way you’ve described if the team had explained the concept of buff immunity when they gave it to champions in the first place.
But they didn’t. Regardless of whether this was part of a grand plan, it all appears ad hoc at best and at worst an after the fact rationalization to cover for an unexpected result—and one that likely can’t be undone because of the knock-on effects and effort required to undo it.
DNA has a habit of going to extreme lengths to construct an explanation around why something works that he forgets to consider if that’s how it should work.
What is "should" except what the desginers intent?
As a point on logic, just because it’s something the designers intend doesn’t automatically make it the best way to design it. They are human, and things can be intended one way and interact differently, or there could be a disagreement from the player base that what they’ve intended doesn’t make sense, or a great many other things.
Regardless of what you think about this one situation, as an argument ‘if kabam intended it then it should be in the game’ isn’t that strong.
I’ve been trying to wrap my head around this comment for a little while and I still don’t know what the point you’re actually trying to make is other than “if players think it should be this way that’s the way it should be”.
When a designer does what their job is, which is to say design something, then their intent is the only thing that matters, regardless of whether we as players agree with that intent or not. There is never a point where something is the “best design” because that design is always superseded by the intended outcome. The process of getting to that outcome is what matters, and that in itself is a design process. The only thing can change is the efficacy of the process to reach the desired effect, but to the consumer that is almost irrelevant to know. All consumers need to know is the intended effect, and if it working correctly.
The idea that the argument of “Kabam intended it, then it should be in the game” is the strongest argument of all, because while they can take player feedback and implement it, Kabam’s intent ultimately is the only relevant factor in their game. The only thing Kabam should do now is clarify with no vagueness, that this is the intended design for all buff immune champions. Other than that they don’t have to do anything to appease players ideals of how they think it should work.
So @DNA3000 what's your take on Buffet then? If the buff still happens like it does as you say for the wiccan or longshot situations before s99/red guardians immunity prevents it then why not for buffet node?
Purely a firing order situation and goes with whatever kabam decides to code it as?
We could just have easily had kabam code it so s99/red guardians own abilities trigger before any outside abilities but maybe that's too difficult and there's already a heap of inconsistencies with mephistos soul imprisonment where buffs will be blocked but others won't be on fight start.
One last one for you, how come when fighting against a bleed immune on masochism, the node doesn't trigger? The bleed is still applied right but the immunity triggers before the node?
So maybe kabam should release an order of trigger for fights?
Does it go: Attacker > defender > node Defender > attacker > node Node > defender > attacker ... Or any random combination depending on how kabam codes it at the time?
That’s an interesting point. People with knowledge, can you please tell why buffet and masochism with bleed immune trigger the way they do?
So @DNA3000 what's your take on Buffet then? If the buff still happens like it does as you say for the wiccan or longshot situations before s99/red guardians immunity prevents it then why not for buffet node?
Purely a firing order situation and goes with whatever kabam decides to code it as?
We could just have easily had kabam code it so s99/red guardians own abilities trigger before any outside abilities but maybe that's too difficult and there's already a heap of inconsistencies with mephistos soul imprisonment where buffs will be blocked but others won't be on fight start.
One last one for you, how come when fighting against a bleed immune on masochism, the node doesn't trigger? The bleed is still applied right but the immunity triggers before the node?
So maybe kabam should release an order of trigger for fights?
Does it go: Attacker > defender > node Defender > attacker > node Node > defender > attacker ... Or any random combination depending on how kabam codes it at the time?
Without directly addresssing the masochism question (because at the moment I don't have time to review that carefully enough to give an intelligent answer) I do want to address a misconception contained here. There's a presumption that Kabam "codes" things arbitrarily for each ability and situation. They don't, because even that presumes a misconception: that the Kabam developers code anything. For the most part, they don't.
Every ability and situation in the game is built on pre-existing component effects that already exist. A completely separate developer, or at least development process, constructs these component effects. Content designers just use them, and most have no idea precisely how they are implemented or have permission to alter them. These individual component effects are themselves constructed by using pre-existing game mechanics that are programmed into the game. It is only at this level that anyone "codes" anything.
How and why masochism and fate seal and buff immunity interact was never decided by the people who constructed those effects. How and why Spiderman 2099 interacts with these mechanics was also not decided by the designer of that champion. The reasons why these things interact the way they do was decided long before buff immunity was created, long before fate seal was created, long before Spiderman 2099 was created. They were decided when the underlying mechanics were programmed into the game engine.
In theory, anything can be changed: the game can work in any way you want. But in practice, you can't just change how things work without changing the underlying mechanics written into the game engine, which affect everything everywhere. Making such changes cannot be done arbitrarily, as they unavoidably will cause side effects.
More directly, there is no rule that says attacker -> defender -> node or anything else. The game engine doesn't care about attackers and defenders and nodes. It cares about mechanics. Mechanics decide what happens, no matter who possesses or uses them. There isn't one kind of gravity for humans and another kind for elephants. Gravity doesn't care about people. It only cares about mass. The game engine doesn't care how players think it should work, and the game engine doesn't even care how the developers think it should work.
Changing how the game mechanics work in the game engine is like changing how the rules of arithmetic work in Excel. Excel is a program, so anything is possible. However, don't expect things to continue to make sense in Excel if you change how addition works.
So @DNA3000 what's your take on Buffet then? If the buff still happens like it does as you say for the wiccan or longshot situations before s99/red guardians immunity prevents it then why not for buffet node?
Purely a firing order situation and goes with whatever kabam decides to code it as?
We could just have easily had kabam code it so s99/red guardians own abilities trigger before any outside abilities but maybe that's too difficult and there's already a heap of inconsistencies with mephistos soul imprisonment where buffs will be blocked but others won't be on fight start.
One last one for you, how come when fighting against a bleed immune on masochism, the node doesn't trigger? The bleed is still applied right but the immunity triggers before the node?
So maybe kabam should release an order of trigger for fights?
Does it go: Attacker > defender > node Defender > attacker > node Node > defender > attacker ... Or any random combination depending on how kabam codes it at the time?
That’s an interesting point. People with knowledge, can you please tell why buffet and masochism with bleed immune trigger the way they do?
According to Auntm.ai,
"Whenever the Defender is inflicted with a Debuff, it is immediately Purified..."
From my understanding, you have to have a Debuff at all in order to Purify it.
That said, does Apocalypse shut off Masochism? Judging by this wording, he should...?
DNA has a habit of going to extreme lengths to construct an explanation around why something works that he forgets to consider if that’s how it should work.
What is "should" except what the desginers intent?
As a point on logic, just because it’s something the designers intend doesn’t automatically make it the best way to design it. They are human, and things can be intended one way and interact differently, or there could be a disagreement from the player base that what they’ve intended doesn’t make sense, or a great many other things.
Regardless of what you think about this one situation, as an argument ‘if kabam intended it then it should be in the game’ isn’t that strong.
I’ve been trying to wrap my head around this comment for a little while and I still don’t know what the point you’re actually trying to make is other than “if players think it should be this way that’s the way it should be”.
When a designer does what their job is, which is to say design something, then their intent is the only thing that matters, regardless of whether we as players agree with that intent or not. There is never a point where something is the “best design” because that design is always superseded by the intended outcome. The process of getting to that outcome is what matters, and that in itself is a design process. The only thing can change is the efficacy of the process to reach the desired effect, but to the consumer that is almost irrelevant to know. All consumers need to know is the intended effect, and if it working correctly.
The idea that the argument of “Kabam intended it, then it should be in the game” is the strongest argument of all, because while they can take player feedback and implement it, Kabam’s intent ultimately is the only relevant factor in their game. The only thing Kabam should do now is clarify with no vagueness, that this is the intended design for all buff immune champions. Other than that they don’t have to do anything to appease players ideals of how they think it should work.
It’s quite a simple point really. Developers can get things wrong. Yes they clearly have the most weight because they design it, but it doesn’t make them 100% right 100% of the time.
There are two scenarios here. Either 1) a developer said “I think buff immune champions should take damage from Longshot when the buff fails to proc. Or 2) it’s an interaction that simply occurred from layering the game, adding Longshot’ fate seal, adding buff immunity and seeing what happens when they interact. Like setting up a simulation and seeing what the outcome is.
I tend to think number 2 is more likely after discussing it with DNA, but I could of course be wrong.
If it’s number 1, then we have a developer saying “I think this should be the way it works, so I’ve coded it as such”. In that case, it is entirely within the players right to say that we don’t think it’s a very logical or good interaction, and updating it to a different interaction makes more sense. It is then entirely within the developer’s right to tell us to sod off - that’s how communication works.
If it’s number 2, then the developers themselves may think “hmm, this interaction is unintended (in the sense that they didn’t specifically spell out that it will happen. It’s intended in the context of how we say bugs are unintended), should we update it so it works a different way?” All this thread is, is an ask for the developers to consider changing the interaction.
Should it be updated 100% of the time just because the players asked? No, I’ve never said that nor should you imply it. Is there a possibility the developer got this one wrong whether it’s scenario 1 or 2 and would wish to change it? Yes of course. There’s a chance.
Maybe they see the feedback and think “hmm, it is odd that a buff immune champion can have a buff nullified. Even though it makes sense with the rules we’ve created, let’s take a look at those rules and fiddle with them so they’re a bit more logical to our players”. Yes the rules are correct now, yes they work logically from a game mechanics point of view, but that’s now what my argument is.
My whole point is that just because Kabam intended something to be in the game, it doesn’t mean that’s the be all end all final option, best option, no ifs no buts. Hood’s buff was intended to be in the game, that was changed after player feedback. (I’m not drawing a direct parallel from a failed buff to an odd interaction and saying they’re the exact same, simply that things that are put in the game are subject to change - don’t read any further into that point).
Kabam run the game yes, but it would take a certain kind of maniac to suggest that they get everything right every time, or that they don’t change their mind ever. Kabam would admit they don’t. I’m not demanding they change it, I’m not saying bow to player pressure every time. I’m saying there’s a chance they got this wrong, please consider it. I’m not sure what’s controversial about that.
There are two scenarios here. Either 1) a developer said “I think buff immune champions should take damage from Longshot when the buff fails to proc. Or 2) it’s an interaction that simply occurred from layering the game, adding Longshot’ fate seal, adding buff immunity and seeing what happens when they interact. Like setting up a simulation and seeing what the outcome is.
I believe it is a third option.
Consider this: champion A is designed to be immune to X. Champion B is designed to inflict X, even if champion A is immune. Now, I think we would both agree that Champion B should override champion A's immunity, because it seems to have obviously been designed that way. Yes, if a player only reads champion A's description they might think champion A is just plain immune, period. But that's just the way it goes. Champion A's description made sense when it was created, but things change.
Except, what if champion B was created *first*? Then what? Here's where we can get into the weeds. A reasonable person might say since champion B overrides immunity, it should override A's immunity. But another reasonable person might say that since champion A was created after champion B, clearly A's immunity was supposed to work against everything else that existed at the time, including B. Suppose champion A said it was immune to X, and this immunity could not be bypassed by any means. This would muddy the water even further.
The problem is the game engine doesn't understand English. Regardless of what was made when, the game engine was told something specific for both champions that makes what will happen *unambiguous*. Software doesn't get confused. Software is going to interpret what you tell it in one, and only one way. It will be unambiguous to the game servers. But what the game servers were told is not going to be exactly the same thing the players were told. There, it is possible for the English (or any other language) to be ambiguous.
Setting aside the can of worms this opens up when it comes to documentation, a game designer has to recognize they live in this world where they can only expect to happen what the game environment they live in allows to happen. They have to live by the rules, same as we do. Their intentions can only ever truly be local. Which is to say, they can intend something they make to press these petals and strike these keys. But the music that gets played is dictated not just by their actions, but also by the instrument being played. Whatever they intend, a piano will always sound like a piano.
Which is all to say, a game designer can expect certain results from their design, and the farther away it gets from that expectation the more likely they are to think the design is in error, but they don't, and aren't allowed, to treat this binarily. It isn't what they make exactly fits all of their intentions or not. It is really about whether it does so closely enough, even with unexpected things happening.
So maybe, "guided simulation" would be a better description. It isn't that the don't care where the simulation goes, it is more like they recognize they don't have the power to control every aspect of it. So they try to set things up in such a way that the simulation evolves in the directions they want, even if all the details are not what they expected.
Wasn't there a wording from Kabam about what is stronger? Like "never" counters "will not" or so?
There where much fuss about that Back then. And the Outcome was that Kabam wants to be very specific in Future discriptions.
Also, at some Point (2 or 3 years?) They changed how debuffs work. They Always will try to be applied. Which does Something for redhulk or bwcv and many Others. Do buffs Work the Same way? In Case of bwcv, yes.
In this Case the node or abillity of the opponent triggers before the Players Champ abillity.
The question is, is this Always the case, or for the buff immune a exeption?
DNA has a habit of going to extreme lengths to construct an explanation around why something works that he forgets to consider if that’s how it should work.
What is "should" except what the desginers intent?
What evidence do we have this was an intended interaction?
Dr. Zola
If I put gravity in my game, I don't necessarily explicitly intend every consequence of having gravity. I cannot foresee every possible future event related to gravity. That's not how things work in general. I intend things to fall under the influence of gravity. As a result, something may happen that might surprise me, or annoy me, or even that I would rather not happen. But that doesn't mean I change the rules of gravity to bend them to my whim.
The mechanics of the game are the rules of the game. They dictate the "physics" of how things work. Those mechanics are not always perfect or complete, but in general they should only be revised when they themselves are contradictory, incomplete, or in some way defective. They should be judged on that basis alone, *not* on whether they generate every result we want in every interaction everywhere.
This is a choice. People are fond of saying that games, including this one, should be about "skill." But they tend to define skill extremely narrowly, to mean "what I am good at" or alternatively "what I think everyone should be good at." But discovery and understanding are just as much skills as Parrying or Intercepting. Yes, the game's mechanics should be better documented and yes, they aren't always implemented in a non-contradictory fashion, but that's not the problem here. The problem here is that the interactions are non-obvious *unless* you take the time to learn the mechanics, and they aren't always beneficial. In my opinion, that is not a good reason to argue for changing them. That's no different than arguing that intercepting is hard and not something a player will either understand or be able to do immediately, so any content that requires it should be changed to remove that requirement. Intercepting is something you have to learn, you have to practice, you have to understand how to employ. If you don't, it is unlikely to come naturally to most players, and it will be a disadvantage to you to not acquire this skill.
Discovery and comprehension of the game mechanics is equally deserving. What a game mechanic does, in the literal sense, is something that should be communicated to the players. But what that *means* within the context of the game, and how that *interacts* with other things, is something players should not expect to be hand holded through. If everything is obvious and everything must produce only the kinds of interactions everyone expects, then there's absolutely no reason to test anything, no reason to experiment with anything or understand anything. There is no benefit to being skilled at learning how the game works.
To me, such a game is as woefully unworthy of spending any time with as many players would feel if blocking was the only combat mechanic in the game.
Asking if every interaction was explicitly intended is, I believe, besides the point. We can ask if individual mechanics are working *correctly*, but separate from that, however we discover they interact, we should accept. Only when it produces completely unacceptable results should we be considering changes, such as when they generate exploitive behavior. If we refuse to accept interactions we don't like just because we don't like them, we remove the option to discover unintended interactions and leverage them, because these are flip sides of the same coin.
Winning only matters if you can lose. If you can't lose, winning is meaningless. Discovering unintended interactions and using them to your advantage is meaningless if you also intend to change every unintended interaction you don't like.
Maybe these kinds of interactions were implicitly intended by the designers. Maybe they were not, and they are currently considering ways to mitigate them. That is their prerogative as designers. Which ever way they decide, I'll be fine with, so long as what they do doesn't make the underlying game mechanics less individually reasonable or internally consistent. But if the only argument is that the game doesn't work they way I expect it to work to my benefit, to me that's no argument at all.
First: I respect your opinions and the time you put into responses. So please read the remainder of my post with that in mind.
I think you are using the “for my benefit” aspect of your argument as a kind of ad hominem and, frankly, as a bit of a crutch to defend a convoluted game interaction.
The issue is neither “addition” nor “gravity”—it is a phone game interaction coded in by developers, not mathematics or physics.
I don’t recall mentioning anything about personal benefit (while I do have a R4 SM2099, that really doesn’t cloud my judgment here—in fact, he’s used so infrequently that I wish I had ranked a different Science champ). Nor did I complain about things not behaving in a way that I “wanted”—I simply think the number of mystic champs who deal damage based on buffs that are definitionally unable to accrue to specific science champs is something other than just a clever interaction waiting to be discovered by the devoted player. Because I have concluded that, it doesn’t mean I want to go back to the dull, old block-pro days.
Who knows? Maybe a savvy dev decided to play with the liminal space between buff activation and buff immunity in an effort to spice things up. Or maybe some code got added and it just worked that way, and the explanation we have been given is a bit of a retcon (and more efficient than editing existing code for champs who have already been—in large measure—monetized).
Given that the game languished for over a year because of coding decisions that, at one time long ago, probably seemed expedient (before they became debilitating), I’m going to bet the latter is closer to truth. And I think that matters precisely because of the way it’s been messaged, both beforehand and afterwards. And because if it’s just a “found” interaction, then it isn’t anywhere near as elemental as “gravity” or “addition.”
I understand you believe the existing internal logic is defensible. Maybe it is. I believe it would be just as defensible if the game checked for immunity before it checked for activation. I also think it would be a great idea to revisit Dexterity (a mastery introduced in the early years of the game) and re-analyze where it is, as @GrandOldKai says, “being awkward.” The game is nearing its 8th anniversary, and the masteries structures may be found to be nearly as outdated as the old game engine was.
This is not like adding gravity to a game, I think that’s a poor analogy. Gravity is one of the base elements of a game, similar to buffs in this scenario. Adding gravity and adding buffs as the foundation of the game is more comparable. If you want to use gravity as an analogy it’s closer to specific characters who have interactions with gravity - maybe one is massless and is not affected by gravity. Maybe another punishes anyone with mass, and there’s a weird interaction where they’re able to punish the former even though they cannot have mass.
Using a simple thing like gravity as your argument really is a fallacy to further a point, because nobody in their right mind would say “well gravity shouldn’t work, let’s change how that works”. But in this scenario, we have a buff immune champion being punished for getting buffs. It’s not the same as saying let’s change gravity, it’s saying someone who is buff immune shouldn’t be punished for having buffs.
Again, it makes sense in the game mechanic logic aspect. But I think it’s a poor decision to keep it this way unless changing the way it works would cause the game to crumble around it.
This isn’t a call to have pro player interactions over everything. For me, it’s about the game logic more than it benefitting me on offence. I think it’s illogical for this interaction to happen, and if I thought something illogical was happening to a defender I’d argue the same point.
I think the best thing that could happen here is if Jax or Miike talked to the game developers and discussed with them what the consequences of making this change would be - so that buff immune champs could no longer be punished for proccing buffs. If that happened, then we could have an informed answer about what the actual impact would be. I appreciate DNA’s educated guess, but at the end of the day we can only get an official answer from the people who make the game.
If it ended up that making this change would have a butterfly effect catastrophe on the mechanics of the game, then fair enough, this will be a cross we have to bear, but if it would work then I feel strongly it would be a good decision.
Despite DNA thinking this is just so it’s player positive, or that interactions should always remain the same because then it rewards learning (even though a changed interaction can still benefit learning), this is not about changing things just so it benefits the player. This is about changing things so it works logically in the game that has been set up. If a champion is immune to buffs, it stands to reason they should not be punished for gaining buffs. I think it still encourages learning because the player will see their buff immune champ and think, oh, they can’t get buffs I’ll use it to counter this champion who punishes buffs triggering.
I think it’s a little disingenuous of you, DNA, to say “if we refuse to accept interactions we don't like just because we don't like them, we remove the option to discover unintended interactions and leverage them”
This isn’t just because we don’t like them. There are other interactions I don’t like in the game that don’t benefit me, I’m not asking for them to be looked at. This situation is one I would like looked at because it’s not logical to me.
Sure are a lot of words trying explain fate seal not caring why the buff was prevented just that it was prevented leading to the interactions champions abilities have with fate seal and also why you see s99 and RG able to also activate their abilities in tandem.
This isn’t just because we don’t like them. There are other interactions I don’t like in the game that don’t benefit me, I’m not asking for them to be looked at. This situation is one I would like looked at because it’s not logical to me.
I can only respond to what people say, and speaking generally, no one has stated a reason why "buff immune should not be affected by buff prevention" except in terms of what people think champions should and should not benefit from, when that's completely irrelevant. Buff immunity does not logically imply protection from buff activation failure, because buff activation failure has nothing to do with buff immunity.
To connect the two requires making a purely arbitrary leap, that the *purpose* of buff immunity is for some other positive benefit. Or if "positive" is somehow a loaded word, then some protective benefit to the champion in question would be the more wordy version. I can see no reason to make such a leap, except in subjectively beneficial terms. However, if someone has a way to do that in a purely objective way, I'm willing to hear it.
It should be bug, otherwise the whole point of buff immunity is invalid. Buff immune champs are suppose to take the most annoying mystics
When a champ is inmune to a debuff appear the legend "bleed inmune, or poison inmune pe whatever debuff you apply, that mean that the debuff is applied even if the champ is inmune or not, that happens with buff inmunity, even if he inmune the buff trigger and you take the damage.
I think it’s a little disingenuous of you, DNA, to say “if we refuse to accept interactions we don't like just because we don't like them, we remove the option to discover unintended interactions and leverage them”
This isn’t just because we don’t like them. There are other interactions I don’t like in the game that don’t benefit me, I’m not asking for them to be looked at. This situation is one I would like looked at because it’s not logical to me.
Agreed. As I said earlier, it's extremely similar to the Wiccan situation, which has two issues: 1 - Where Wiccan punishes an opponent for trying to gain a buff, even though they can't actually get one 2 - Where Neutralise itself bypasses Immunity to AAR, even though it functions through AAR. As I recall, the Dev/whoever DNA spoke with at Kabam agreed that this was an unintentional situation that shouldn't really happen, and might eventually get a fix in the future.
I agree with Dr Zola and Bittersteel that this situation is one that deserves reviewing, just as point (2) has been.
It may make "logical" sense based on the existing game engine/coding, but it is absolutely 100% counter-intuitive.
No ordinary player could be reasonably expected to predict that a champion with buff Immunity/inability to gain buffs will be punished for trying (& failing) to gain them.
I'm sure @DrZola will recall the situation years back (here) when Domino was introduced and there was a mini-uproar that she was inflicting Critical Failure in situations where the opponent had zero chance of success (like Archangel inflicting Poison on his SP1/SP2, or Unawakened Ghost Rider 'failing' to gain a Fury on MLLLM). She was subsequently adjusted to not do that any longer. Isn't this issue comparable?
No ordinary player could be reasonably expected to predict that a champion with buff Immunity/inability to gain buffs will be punished for trying (& failing) to gain them. ?
What does immunity do? It prevents effects, in the case of s99 it prevents buffs.
What does fate seal do? It prevents buffs, in the case of Longshot when a buff is prevented he places a bad karma instead.
When you combine the two you get s99 preventing buffs while Longshot’s fate seal incinerates his opponent when a buff is prevented.
Comments
At all.
Why is he still gaining Durability from Immunity if he is also gaining Incinerate as a result of the Fate Seal?
Are they both triggering?
Does Spider-Man 2099's debuff pause (or whatever it is) still function?
I thought it would be one or the other, it’s like he both gains the buff and it triggers his immunity, but also is converted into an incinerate.
Dr. Zola
It’s weird to say the least.
@BitterSteel discussion of the class disadvantage interaction is interesting as well—not to say that all sciences should nuke all mystics, but that this aspect is a small part of what makes this interaction feel awry.
Going to throw a big wrench in and suggest the Precision buff attached to Dexterity is again at the root of issues—what happens if that buff is instead converted to a passive effect Precision?
Dr. Zola
It seems that there are some benefits to Dexterity giving a buff, but it hurts in other scenarios (again, Dormammu; Buffet...)
The mechanics of the game are the rules of the game. They dictate the "physics" of how things work. Those mechanics are not always perfect or complete, but in general they should only be revised when they themselves are contradictory, incomplete, or in some way defective. They should be judged on that basis alone, *not* on whether they generate every result we want in every interaction everywhere.
This is a choice. People are fond of saying that games, including this one, should be about "skill." But they tend to define skill extremely narrowly, to mean "what I am good at" or alternatively "what I think everyone should be good at." But discovery and understanding are just as much skills as Parrying or Intercepting. Yes, the game's mechanics should be better documented and yes, they aren't always implemented in a non-contradictory fashion, but that's not the problem here. The problem here is that the interactions are non-obvious *unless* you take the time to learn the mechanics, and they aren't always beneficial. In my opinion, that is not a good reason to argue for changing them. That's no different than arguing that intercepting is hard and not something a player will either understand or be able to do immediately, so any content that requires it should be changed to remove that requirement. Intercepting is something you have to learn, you have to practice, you have to understand how to employ. If you don't, it is unlikely to come naturally to most players, and it will be a disadvantage to you to not acquire this skill.
Discovery and comprehension of the game mechanics is equally deserving. What a game mechanic does, in the literal sense, is something that should be communicated to the players. But what that *means* within the context of the game, and how that *interacts* with other things, is something players should not expect to be hand holded through. If everything is obvious and everything must produce only the kinds of interactions everyone expects, then there's absolutely no reason to test anything, no reason to experiment with anything or understand anything. There is no benefit to being skilled at learning how the game works.
To me, such a game is as woefully unworthy of spending any time with as many players would feel if blocking was the only combat mechanic in the game.
Asking if every interaction was explicitly intended is, I believe, besides the point. We can ask if individual mechanics are working *correctly*, but separate from that, however we discover they interact, we should accept. Only when it produces completely unacceptable results should we be considering changes, such as when they generate exploitive behavior. If we refuse to accept interactions we don't like just because we don't like them, we remove the option to discover unintended interactions and leverage them, because these are flip sides of the same coin.
Winning only matters if you can lose. If you can't lose, winning is meaningless. Discovering unintended interactions and using them to your advantage is meaningless if you also intend to change every unintended interaction you don't like.
Maybe these kinds of interactions were implicitly intended by the designers. Maybe they were not, and they are currently considering ways to mitigate them. That is their prerogative as designers. Which ever way they decide, I'll be fine with, so long as what they do doesn't make the underlying game mechanics less individually reasonable or internally consistent. But if the only argument is that the game doesn't work they way I expect it to work to my benefit, to me that's no argument at all.
When a designer does what their job is, which is to say design something, then their intent is the only thing that matters, regardless of whether we as players agree with that intent or not. There is never a point where something is the “best design” because that design is always superseded by the intended outcome. The process of getting to that outcome is what matters, and that in itself is a design process. The only thing can change is the efficacy of the process to reach the desired effect, but to the consumer that is almost irrelevant to know. All consumers need to know is the intended effect, and if it working correctly.
The idea that the argument of “Kabam intended it, then it should be in the game” is the strongest argument of all, because while they can take player feedback and implement it, Kabam’s intent ultimately is the only relevant factor in their game. The only thing Kabam should do now is clarify with no vagueness, that this is the intended design for all buff immune champions. Other than that they don’t have to do anything to appease players ideals of how they think it should work.
Every ability and situation in the game is built on pre-existing component effects that already exist. A completely separate developer, or at least development process, constructs these component effects. Content designers just use them, and most have no idea precisely how they are implemented or have permission to alter them. These individual component effects are themselves constructed by using pre-existing game mechanics that are programmed into the game. It is only at this level that anyone "codes" anything.
How and why masochism and fate seal and buff immunity interact was never decided by the people who constructed those effects. How and why Spiderman 2099 interacts with these mechanics was also not decided by the designer of that champion. The reasons why these things interact the way they do was decided long before buff immunity was created, long before fate seal was created, long before Spiderman 2099 was created. They were decided when the underlying mechanics were programmed into the game engine.
In theory, anything can be changed: the game can work in any way you want. But in practice, you can't just change how things work without changing the underlying mechanics written into the game engine, which affect everything everywhere. Making such changes cannot be done arbitrarily, as they unavoidably will cause side effects.
More directly, there is no rule that says attacker -> defender -> node or anything else. The game engine doesn't care about attackers and defenders and nodes. It cares about mechanics. Mechanics decide what happens, no matter who possesses or uses them. There isn't one kind of gravity for humans and another kind for elephants. Gravity doesn't care about people. It only cares about mass. The game engine doesn't care how players think it should work, and the game engine doesn't even care how the developers think it should work.
Changing how the game mechanics work in the game engine is like changing how the rules of arithmetic work in Excel. Excel is a program, so anything is possible. However, don't expect things to continue to make sense in Excel if you change how addition works.
"Whenever the Defender is inflicted with a Debuff, it is immediately Purified..."
From my understanding, you have to have a Debuff at all in order to Purify it.
That said, does Apocalypse shut off Masochism? Judging by this wording, he should...?
There are two scenarios here. Either 1) a developer said “I think buff immune champions should take damage from Longshot when the buff fails to proc. Or 2) it’s an interaction that simply occurred from layering the game, adding Longshot’ fate seal, adding buff immunity and seeing what happens when they interact. Like setting up a simulation and seeing what the outcome is.
I tend to think number 2 is more likely after discussing it with DNA, but I could of course be wrong.
If it’s number 1, then we have a developer saying “I think this should be the way it works, so I’ve coded it as such”. In that case, it is entirely within the players right to say that we don’t think it’s a very logical or good interaction, and updating it to a different interaction makes more sense. It is then entirely within the developer’s right to tell us to sod off - that’s how communication works.
If it’s number 2, then the developers themselves may think “hmm, this interaction is unintended (in the sense that they didn’t specifically spell out that it will happen. It’s intended in the context of how we say bugs are unintended), should we update it so it works a different way?” All this thread is, is an ask for the developers to consider changing the interaction.
Should it be updated 100% of the time just because the players asked? No, I’ve never said that nor should you imply it. Is there a possibility the developer got this one wrong whether it’s scenario 1 or 2 and would wish to change it? Yes of course. There’s a chance.
Maybe they see the feedback and think “hmm, it is odd that a buff immune champion can have a buff nullified. Even though it makes sense with the rules we’ve created, let’s take a look at those rules and fiddle with them so they’re a bit more logical to our players”. Yes the rules are correct now, yes they work logically from a game mechanics point of view, but that’s now what my argument is.
My whole point is that just because Kabam intended something to be in the game, it doesn’t mean that’s the be all end all final option, best option, no ifs no buts. Hood’s buff was intended to be in the game, that was changed after player feedback. (I’m not drawing a direct parallel from a failed buff to an odd interaction and saying they’re the exact same, simply that things that are put in the game are subject to change - don’t read any further into that point).
Kabam run the game yes, but it would take a certain kind of maniac to suggest that they get everything right every time, or that they don’t change their mind ever. Kabam would admit they don’t. I’m not demanding they change it, I’m not saying bow to player pressure every time. I’m saying there’s a chance they got this wrong, please consider it. I’m not sure what’s controversial about that.
Consider this: champion A is designed to be immune to X. Champion B is designed to inflict X, even if champion A is immune. Now, I think we would both agree that Champion B should override champion A's immunity, because it seems to have obviously been designed that way. Yes, if a player only reads champion A's description they might think champion A is just plain immune, period. But that's just the way it goes. Champion A's description made sense when it was created, but things change.
Except, what if champion B was created *first*? Then what? Here's where we can get into the weeds. A reasonable person might say since champion B overrides immunity, it should override A's immunity. But another reasonable person might say that since champion A was created after champion B, clearly A's immunity was supposed to work against everything else that existed at the time, including B. Suppose champion A said it was immune to X, and this immunity could not be bypassed by any means. This would muddy the water even further.
The problem is the game engine doesn't understand English. Regardless of what was made when, the game engine was told something specific for both champions that makes what will happen *unambiguous*. Software doesn't get confused. Software is going to interpret what you tell it in one, and only one way. It will be unambiguous to the game servers. But what the game servers were told is not going to be exactly the same thing the players were told. There, it is possible for the English (or any other language) to be ambiguous.
Setting aside the can of worms this opens up when it comes to documentation, a game designer has to recognize they live in this world where they can only expect to happen what the game environment they live in allows to happen. They have to live by the rules, same as we do. Their intentions can only ever truly be local. Which is to say, they can intend something they make to press these petals and strike these keys. But the music that gets played is dictated not just by their actions, but also by the instrument being played. Whatever they intend, a piano will always sound like a piano.
Which is all to say, a game designer can expect certain results from their design, and the farther away it gets from that expectation the more likely they are to think the design is in error, but they don't, and aren't allowed, to treat this binarily. It isn't what they make exactly fits all of their intentions or not. It is really about whether it does so closely enough, even with unexpected things happening.
So maybe, "guided simulation" would be a better description. It isn't that the don't care where the simulation goes, it is more like they recognize they don't have the power to control every aspect of it. So they try to set things up in such a way that the simulation evolves in the directions they want, even if all the details are not what they expected.
Unfortunately not
I think there are a few things he can do via synergies, but I don't think that's relevant
Like "never" counters "will not" or so?
There where much fuss about that Back then. And the Outcome was that Kabam wants to be very specific in Future discriptions.
Also, at some Point (2 or 3 years?) They changed how debuffs work. They Always will try to be applied. Which does Something for redhulk or bwcv and many Others. Do buffs Work the Same way? In Case of bwcv, yes.
In this Case the node or abillity of the opponent triggers before the Players Champ abillity.
The question is, is this Always the case, or for the buff immune a exeption?
I think you are using the “for my benefit” aspect of your argument as a kind of ad hominem and, frankly, as a bit of a crutch to defend a convoluted game interaction.
The issue is neither “addition” nor “gravity”—it is a phone game interaction coded in by developers, not mathematics or physics.
I don’t recall mentioning anything about personal benefit (while I do have a R4 SM2099, that really doesn’t cloud my judgment here—in fact, he’s used so infrequently that I wish I had ranked a different Science champ). Nor did I complain about things not behaving in a way that I “wanted”—I simply think the number of mystic champs who deal damage based on buffs that are definitionally unable to accrue to specific science champs is something other than just a clever interaction waiting to be discovered by the devoted player. Because I have concluded that, it doesn’t mean I want to go back to the dull, old block-pro days.
Who knows? Maybe a savvy dev decided to play with the liminal space between buff activation and buff immunity in an effort to spice things up. Or maybe some code got added and it just worked that way, and the explanation we have been given is a bit of a retcon (and more efficient than editing existing code for champs who have already been—in large measure—monetized).
Given that the game languished for over a year because of coding decisions that, at one time long ago, probably seemed expedient (before they became debilitating), I’m going to bet the latter is closer to truth. And I think that matters precisely because of the way it’s been messaged, both beforehand and afterwards. And because if it’s just a “found” interaction, then it isn’t anywhere near as elemental as “gravity” or “addition.”
I understand you believe the existing internal logic is defensible. Maybe it is. I believe it would be just as defensible if the game checked for immunity before it checked for activation. I also think it would be a great idea to revisit Dexterity (a mastery introduced in the early years of the game) and re-analyze where it is, as @GrandOldKai says, “being awkward.” The game is nearing its 8th anniversary, and the masteries structures may be found to be nearly as outdated as the old game engine was.
Dr. Zola
This is not like adding gravity to a game, I think that’s a poor analogy. Gravity is one of the base elements of a game, similar to buffs in this scenario. Adding gravity and adding buffs as the foundation of the game is more comparable. If you want to use gravity as an analogy it’s closer to specific characters who have interactions with gravity - maybe one is massless and is not affected by gravity. Maybe another punishes anyone with mass, and there’s a weird interaction where they’re able to punish the former even though they cannot have mass.
Using a simple thing like gravity as your argument really is a fallacy to further a point, because nobody in their right mind would say “well gravity shouldn’t work, let’s change how that works”. But in this scenario, we have a buff immune champion being punished for getting buffs. It’s not the same as saying let’s change gravity, it’s saying someone who is buff immune shouldn’t be punished for having buffs.
Again, it makes sense in the game mechanic logic aspect. But I think it’s a poor decision to keep it this way unless changing the way it works would cause the game to crumble around it.
This isn’t a call to have pro player interactions over everything. For me, it’s about the game logic more than it benefitting me on offence. I think it’s illogical for this interaction to happen, and if I thought something illogical was happening to a defender I’d argue the same point.
I think the best thing that could happen here is if Jax or Miike talked to the game developers and discussed with them what the consequences of making this change would be - so that buff immune champs could no longer be punished for proccing buffs. If that happened, then we could have an informed answer about what the actual impact would be. I appreciate DNA’s educated guess, but at the end of the day we can only get an official answer from the people who make the game.
If it ended up that making this change would have a butterfly effect catastrophe on the mechanics of the game, then fair enough, this will be a cross we have to bear, but if it would work then I feel strongly it would be a good decision.
Despite DNA thinking this is just so it’s player positive, or that interactions should always remain the same because then it rewards learning (even though a changed interaction can still benefit learning), this is not about changing things just so it benefits the player. This is about changing things so it works logically in the game that has been set up. If a champion is immune to buffs, it stands to reason they should not be punished for gaining buffs. I think it still encourages learning because the player will see their buff immune champ and think, oh, they can’t get buffs I’ll use it to counter this champion who punishes buffs triggering.
I think it’s a little disingenuous of you, DNA, to say “if we refuse to accept interactions we don't like just because we don't like them, we remove the option to discover unintended interactions and leverage them”
This isn’t just because we don’t like them. There are other interactions I don’t like in the game that don’t benefit me, I’m not asking for them to be looked at. This situation is one I would like looked at because it’s not logical to me.
To connect the two requires making a purely arbitrary leap, that the *purpose* of buff immunity is for some other positive benefit. Or if "positive" is somehow a loaded word, then some protective benefit to the champion in question would be the more wordy version. I can see no reason to make such a leap, except in subjectively beneficial terms. However, if someone has a way to do that in a purely objective way, I'm willing to hear it.
1 - Where Wiccan punishes an opponent for trying to gain a buff, even though they can't actually get one
2 - Where Neutralise itself bypasses Immunity to AAR, even though it functions through AAR. As I recall, the Dev/whoever DNA spoke with at Kabam agreed that this was an unintentional situation that shouldn't really happen, and might eventually get a fix in the future.
I agree with Dr Zola and Bittersteel that this situation is one that deserves reviewing, just as point (2) has been.
It may make "logical" sense based on the existing game engine/coding, but it is absolutely 100% counter-intuitive.
No ordinary player could be reasonably expected to predict that a champion with buff Immunity/inability to gain buffs will be punished for trying (& failing) to gain them.
I'm sure @DrZola will recall the situation years back (here) when Domino was introduced and there was a mini-uproar that she was inflicting Critical Failure in situations where the opponent had zero chance of success (like Archangel inflicting Poison on his SP1/SP2, or Unawakened Ghost Rider 'failing' to gain a Fury on MLLLM). She was subsequently adjusted to not do that any longer. Isn't this issue comparable?
What does fate seal do? It prevents buffs, in the case of Longshot when a buff is prevented he places a bad karma instead.
When you combine the two you get s99 preventing buffs while Longshot’s fate seal incinerates his opponent when a buff is prevented.