Walk To Command (Petition for Reversal)

Prythe

Cooper said:

Edit: if you really want to do this and can do it in a timely fashion and without the expectation of having to support the script, post here or DM me. I'll throw you 250 credits if something workable can be released in a week. No, it won't really be worth your time - but you'll be doing good for the community!

I can toss in some credits towards that 250, or offer an additional 50 of my own. I'll trust Cooper to tell us all whether it works. 

Do I need it for me? Not really. I'm old. I'm just back to my original methods.

Would I like it? Yes. I'm old. I'd like to revert to being lazy.

Can it help novices? Yes, and that's what is the driving factor behind me request.

Taryius

I think both Saonji and Veldrin's solutions are very close to what the admin had in mind, and honestly I really like it. Finding denizens and writing down their locations is a lot different than being able to track the exact whereabouts of moving denizens, event denizens, or denizens you've never seen before from anywhere in the game, instantly. 

It's not very far from using the current iteration of WALK TO to find your way to areas, and then exploring to learn which room is that specific Tsol'aa's laboratory so you know where to walk after arriving next time.

10/10.

Azram

Taryius said:

I think both Saonji and Veldrin's solutions are very close to what the admin had in mind, and honestly I really like it. Finding denizens and writing down their locations is a lot different than being able to track the exact whereabouts of moving denizens, event denizens, or denizens you've never seen before from anywhere in the game, instantly. 

It's not very far from using the current iteration of WALK TO to find your way to areas, and then exploring to learn which room is that specific Tsol'aa's laboratory so you know where to walk after arriving next time.

10/10.

Just a shame that only people with Mudlet get to experience it now though. I suppose people that want to write down the room number on nexus too.

Thaisen

Taryius said:

I think both Saonji and Veldrin's solutions are very close to what the admin had in mind, and honestly I really like it. Finding denizens and writing down their locations is a lot different than being able to track the exact whereabouts of moving denizens, event denizens, or denizens you've never seen before from anywhere in the game, instantly. 

It's not very far from using the current iteration of WALK TO to find your way to areas, and then exploring to learn which room is that specific Tsol'aa's laboratory so you know where to walk after arriving next time.

10/10.

It is pretty obviously not what the admin want with recent changes because if they wanted to exclude event denizens or wandering denizens they could have... but they didn’t.

My guess is there were frustrations around event and renown denizens and instead of actually addressing the problem they took a machete to the entire thing. Just like they did with seamonsters.

Taryius

Thaisen said:

Taryius said:

I think both Saonji and Veldrin's solutions are very close to what the admin had in mind, and honestly I really like it. Finding denizens and writing down their locations is a lot different than being able to track the exact whereabouts of moving denizens, event denizens, or denizens you've never seen before from anywhere in the game, instantly. 

It's not very far from using the current iteration of WALK TO to find your way to areas, and then exploring to learn which room is that specific Tsol'aa's laboratory so you know where to walk after arriving next time.

10/10.

It is pretty obviously not what the admin want with recent changes because if they wanted to exclude event denizens or wandering denizens they could have... but they didn’t.

My guess is there were frustrations around event and renown denizens and instead of actually addressing the problem they took a machete to the entire thing. Just like they did with seamonsters.

That is not what I said, but I know that trying to convince people set on an opinion is never going to happen. You are free to draw your own conclusions from what you perceive, even when new information is presented.

Marcella

Sobriquet said:

What do you expect when IRE is a business like any other? I would in no way suggest the team don't care about their players, because I know first hand that they do, and certainly with Mak, Nicola and Itchy you can see the passion in which they DO care, but when a totally unneeded class is released and the spending goes through the roof (Shecks said he alone spent $400 in one sitting for it, due to mutliclass) so can see where the development lies. WALK TO change might upset people, but it's never going to be enough to drive people away and they know that. This should be totally expected

The promotions aren't garbage, they are actually pretty good depending which you decide to spend money on. Seeing what Amranu and the guys earnt during the Stocking promo was insane

Yeah well, I never said that I don't like all the additions they have implemented, specially the new class which I personally love the theme and a lot of people are really interested about it. They are very awesome things, for the players and also for the business as you pointed out. As for the promotions, it is how they get most of their money I suppose and a business need to keep running and gaining income so... nothing wrong with them.
 
I admit I went a bit too far on my comment, sorry for that peoples I was angry...
I just think things would have went way more smoothly if they came here and explained to us why they did it, like... 'hey guys, we stripped the walkto because it has become a major problem for us for the reasons of x, y, and z' but instead they just remove it without any explanation (or obscure explanations that don't actually explain anything). It is very inconsiderate to the players who used the feature every day all the time for years, got used to it and suddenly found out stripped off it all of a sudden without any explanation.

Peak said:

You are a bad person. These people don't exist to please you. If it's a big enough deal to turn you into this big of a poisonous bitch, go play a different game. 

Oh thank you! I'm glad that you noticed I'm a horrible person. Makes me flattered, specially when useless people like you get tilted at what I say.

Thaisen

Taryius said:

Thaisen said:

Taryius said:

I think both Saonji and Veldrin's solutions are very close to what the admin had in mind, and honestly I really like it. Finding denizens and writing down their locations is a lot different than being able to track the exact whereabouts of moving denizens, event denizens, or denizens you've never seen before from anywhere in the game, instantly. 

It's not very far from using the current iteration of WALK TO to find your way to areas, and then exploring to learn which room is that specific Tsol'aa's laboratory so you know where to walk after arriving next time.

10/10.

It is pretty obviously not what the admin want with recent changes because if they wanted to exclude event denizens or wandering denizens they could have... but they didn’t.

My guess is there were frustrations around event and renown denizens and instead of actually addressing the problem they took a machete to the entire thing. Just like they did with seamonsters.

That is not what I said, but I know that trying to convince people set on an opinion is never going to happen. You are free to draw your own conclusions from what you perceive, even when new information is presented.

That's literally *exactly* what you said...if you meant this part "or denizens you've never seen before from anywhere in the game, instantly"...that is obviously not part of what WALKTO was ever intended to be because that would be absolutely ridiculous to implement server side...

Also what new information was presented...nothing...we got kind of a half hearted CYA explanation and then a new class was released and everyone moved on to that...just as planned...

There were three reasons

1) Integrity - this is very clearly referring to event and renown denizens, maybe reagent denizens....so just exclude them from walkto...easy...

2) Compromise - basically the idea that the original intent was it should be WALKTO AREA and never WALKTO DENIZEN....give me a break....WALKTO AREA was released FOUR years ago and now all of a sudden WALKTO DENIZEN is a problem?

3) Investment/Agency: Literally the reason for serverside curing was to even the playing field for those who can script extremely well and those who cannot...so why was it okay to trivialize all the hard work so many people did to make client side curing systems but now that some people are good at finding denizens due to scripts we can't devalue that skill...mmmkk


I honestly don't even care about the change that much, it doesn't really effect me as I have my own solution...I'm just sick of the trend of kneejerk decisions and then trying to explain it away...

Phaestus

There's a lot of people that still think that a) this change was a kneejerk reaction because of event troubles and b) that the changes were meant to address event (and/or renown) denizens specifically, and that as a result this change has affected way more than it was intended to in a negative manner. Makarios' post addressed a lot of high-level concerns around walkto, but I have a feeling plenty folks' eyes glazed over, and that some people (including myself) sometimes have trouble seeing how and where the more abstract concerns lead to a better game overall, especially when they're weighted against tangible benefits like the expanded walkto offered. These high-level concerns are important, and they're always a part of the conversation, but they're far from the only reasons the changes went in, so here's a bit more explanation on the change and some of the concerns regarding it.

This change was a knee-jerk reaction, and the admin couldn't possibly have considered their options thoroughly before making these changes

So, as Makarios mentioned, walkto has long been a thorn in our side. For a very extensive list of reasons (some of which are listed below), it keeps cropping up, usually at least once a month, and has done for literal years now, so we've all had plenty of opportunities to bandy about ideas and plenty of time to mull them over and consider what might be best. It's something we've had countless discussions on over the years, and this discussion was simply the one where we finally decided to sit down and implement the changes we'd been pondering.

This change was meant to address finding event denizens, but has impacted all these other uses for walkto

Event denizens may have been what kickstarted the latest discussion, but event denizens are a minority of reasons that walkto has come to our attention over the years. This is including but not limited to people outing hidden denizens, using walkto to know if and when certain denizens are alive to either immediately hop on renown or quest denizens with no risk to themselves in between from literally anywhere in the game, ordering mounts, pets, and other loyals to follow enemy players so they can be walked to on the fly, and players being able to efficiently loop hunting areas (/especially/ reagent denizens, some of which were killed almost immediately at every respawn by a small handful of players) effortlessly have all been concerns. Contrary to the beliefs of some, being able to walk directly to denizens didn't decrease automation, it just made it more effective for the people who used it.

This change was meant to address walking to renown denizens, but has impacted other uses for walkto

See above.

This change increases the gap between Mudlet and Nexus users

Not really. Walking directly to denizens on the fly no matter where they are isn't something that either client can do. Checking if denizens are alive from anywhere in the game is definitely not something Mudlet can do. While the Mudlet mapper is a powerful tool, the biggest gaps between Nexus and Mudlet in that regard are its customisability and its use of long-distance travel.

This change makes it harder for newbies to get into the game

Yes and no. Walkto does streamline the newbie process, and allow new players to get comfortable with other aspects without getting entirely lost, but if you're using it for everything you do (and plenty of players were) it's definitely a crutch that doesn't do you good in the long term. Awareness of your surroundings and the ability to walk from one place to another is a huge benefit, and it's just not something most people learn unless they have to. Anything newbie-related should be able to be walked to at present, and city denizens should be the same (if there are city task denizens that aren't walkable, please file a bug), but as with any other system there comes a time where newbies have to stand on their own two feet and learn. This isn't really a contributing reason to the change, but newbies were definitely considered, and they're not as horribly done by this change as some are making them out to be.

The big kahuna

Ok so, you may have gotten this far and disagreed with every point, but there's one more huge consideration that contributed to this change, and it's this one that means the change is very unlikely to be reverted at any real scale, even if we were to be convinced otherwise on all the other issues mentioned previously. It's also the reason that walkto doesn't support all the bits and bobs that the Mudlet mapper does, in regards to various class abilities and artefacts. That concern is just how much time it takes to process walkto pathing on the fly to various locations.

Pathfinding to a location is expensive, and it's especially expensive when it's being used to path to somewhere you can't get to (such as in the case of checking if certain denizens are alive). When we're talking about walking to landmarks or between areas, landmarks are static, every area has certain entrances, and paths between areas/landmarks don't really change, so we can make all sorts of optimisations and cache those paths ahead of time for multiple uses, but when we're talking about walking to a set of fully arbitrary locations that may be changing from second to second, we have to calculate every potential path for every player using walkto.

Players spamming walkto to check denizens, or to a lesser degree after every single kill so they can loop hunting areas, is a massive, massive burden on the server. Calculations for paths can take anywhere up to a quarter of a second, sometimes a bit more. Which may not seem like much, but when you consider that Rapture is single-threaded, that means that in that quarter second, literally nothing else is getting done. No denizen attacks, no player commands coming through, nothing. And at high-population times, when several players are using walkto regularly to check renown denizens, to hunt reagents, or just to loop bashing areas, that becomes a problem. It's something that affects the entire game, and it's absolutely not something that's sustainable. Period.

Some of you are going to wonder why this couldn't be addressed like we did with the change to honours, by adding a balance requirement, but honours was being spammed thousands of times per minute and took a fraction of the time that walkto pathing takes. Even with a balance knock, walkto would still have a hefty impact on gameplay, especially at peak times or during events with heavy player involvement.

Lastly

We understand that this was a huge boon to quality of life for a very long time. It sucks to have something as integral to your play ripped away. But, it's not something that should have ever been implemented in the first place, and it's not something we should have left in the game for this long. That's our bad, it really is, but the longer we leave it, the more players are going to depend on it, and the worse these problems are going to get. We've put this change off for long enough, and it's not a great situation, but it's far better done now than never.

Shirszae

It would be far more easy to believe this was not a knee jerk change if you had included all those wonderful reasons when walk to was changed. Mind you, I am not saying they are not truth, I fully believe you. 

There's just two aspects to this. The change itself, whether good or bad, and how it came about. Like, seriously, was there such a hurry to change it after it had been in for so long that you could not put down a nice little post explaining the situation, specially knowing how often people used it and how much they depended on it? 

Instead it sneaks by on a CHANGES post with barely a word, the first and last most of us see being Nicola being mad at people using walk to. 

So I guess that's where I am. I could accept this is for the good of the game, but maybe you guys can or should spend a bit more time wondering how things will be perceived in the future. 

Thaisen

Phaestus said:

The big kahuna

Reasonable and should have been mentioned two weeks ago... I also agree with @Shirszae that however you try to slice it, it still looks like a kneejerk reaction.

Astarod

Phaestus's quote:

This is what I believe most players were looking for. Would the Garden consider some nexus commands so that we can pull out room #s and whatnot a little easier? Without coding Javascript, is what I'm pondering. 

Kaios

For what it's worth, I really appreciate that response. All I wanted was to have a clear understanding as to the reasons that the change had occurred. It's also nice not to be treated like we wouldn't understand or appreciate the technical aspects of the walkto implementation because for that reason alone I'd agree that it makes limiting its use entirely reasonable. Thank you @Phaestus

Argwin

Would the Garden consider some nexus commands so that we can pull out room #s and whatnot a little easier? Without coding Javascript, is what I'm pondering. 

The mapdb package does quite a lot towards accomplishing this. Depending on what exactly you're looking for it might cover exactly what you want.

Linky: https://forums.achaea.com/discussion/6062/nexus-contest-submissions

Accipiter

IRE needs to hire better PR people and stop letting Nicola post. Not disparaging her talent or dedication and I am sure she is a very nice person but every time I see something from her it seems like she is mad people are playing her game wrong. This is a change that was always going to raise emotions and coupling it with 'you guys used this to break an event so we are taking it away' just serves to drive anger.

Peak

Imagine for a minute that you had a lot of fun playing a game... so much so that you wanted to be a part of making said game, but couldn't play it anymore if you did that.

Now imagine there are a bunch of people breaking the rules of said game using a feature that was capable of much more than it was intended, so you remove the feature.

Now imagine that the people that play the game (that is now work for you) having a toddler-like reaction to you fixing a problem. Okay, now have them accuse you of not giving a shit about them even though you turned a game into work (effectively for them). Okay now have them accuse you of being selfish/money grabbing.

Okay now have them treat you like you're not allowed to have a life outside of the work (which used to be fun, but definitely isn't anymore) you do. 

Make sure they treat you like no effort you make is good enough.



Some of you are the "Karens" that will walk into a restaurant 15 minutes before happy hour ends and insist on happy hour prices, be loud and unruly, complain about everything, bring your own bag of wine in your purse for when you're no longer getting happy hour prices, and then leave a bad tip when you finally go.



Start treating Admins like people with lives, feelings, and other problems outside of Achaea. 

Shirszae

Imagine you tallk about treating people like they have lives and feelings yet immediately resort  to calling someone a toxic bitch for having an opinion different to your own.

It's all fine that you don't agree with people's grievances, but trying to guilt people for airing them is probably not the greatest way to go about it.

Peak

@Shriszae imagine complaining about Achaea removing a walkto feature, but still running an auto-harvesting script that still included walking between 3AM and 4AM CST February 5, 2021. I guess you don't really have to imagine, though.

There's voicing an opinion, and then there's being a dick to people that work a thankless job. This is pretty similar to how I would respond to someone being a dick to their waiter at a restaurant. 

Shirszae

Peak said:

@Shriszae imagine complaining about Achaea removing a walkto feature, but still running an auto-harvesting script that still included walking between 3AM and 4AM CST February 5, 2021. I guess you don't really have to imagine, though.

Jokes on you because I don't harvest or really have tradeskills beyond the crafting ones but trying to make up shit about people who disagrees with you really brings up the sad hilarity of your point. 

Saonji

Peak said:

@Shriszae imagine complaining about Achaea removing a walkto feature, but still running an auto-harvesting script that still included walking between 3AM and 4AM CST February 5, 2021. I guess you don't really have to imagine, though.

There's voicing an opinion, and then there's being a dick to people that work a thankless job. This is pretty similar to how I would respond to someone being a dick to their waiter at a restaurant. 

                             

Peak

Shirszae said:

Peak said:

@Shriszae imagine complaining about Achaea removing a walkto feature, but still running an auto-harvesting script that still included walking between 3AM and 4AM CST February 5, 2021. I guess you don't really have to imagine, though.

Jokes on you because I don't harvest or really have tradeskills beyond the crafting ones but trying to make up shit about people who disagrees with you really brings up the sad hilarity of your point. 

"harvest" was a catch-all. The turing tests should be fun, though.

Peak

Saonji said:

Peak said:

@Shriszae imagine complaining about Achaea removing a walkto feature, but still running an auto-harvesting script that still included walking between 3AM and 4AM CST February 5, 2021. I guess you don't really have to imagine, though.

There's voicing an opinion, and then there's being a dick to people that work a thankless job. This is pretty similar to how I would respond to someone being a dick to their waiter at a restaurant. 

                             

This is just one of my biggest pet peeves, is all. 

Accipiter

You are acting like we should be happy for any scraps that might be thrown at us. Achaea has terrible customer service for anything that doesn't involve credits. There were super elementals on the fire plane left over from a GH for like a year that made several rooms instant death and would of taken all of a couple of minutes to get rid of, even if it was just sending an immoral toon to kill them manually. Left over stuff from events that don't do anything but confuse people. For a long time broken quests, trade guilds having wildly inconsistant standards.

If they can't be bothered to fix the easy stuff in the game why should they get the benefit of the doubt when they do stuff like this?

Colden

Just injecting that using a feature of a game is not breaking the rules. Players can't be blamed for using a feature that was specifically coded into existence by some admin. I assume that nothing was bugged. Whether an outcome was intended or not, that does not fall onto the players' shoulders. We are not mind readers.

Carry on with the festering hatred.

Also, the higher levels of administration here get paid. Most of the sacrifice comes from volunteers.

Saonji

Peak said:

This is just one of my biggest pet peeves, is all. 

When you're paid to do a job, you're generally expected to do it right. While I won't speak for some who have indeed gone way overboard in their incessant whining, most have been rather tame in their (very valid) criticisms that they'd put forth.

When you're putting out a product that you're profiting considerably from, you don't make people wait weeks (or even months) to fix problematic things. If you do, you 100% should expect complaints and heavy criticisms. Ignoring those complaints, or taking forever to even so much as address them, is literally never going to be beneficial. Let alone trying to address them in a dismissive, condescending way.

Also, the 'thankless job' argument only works when it's either a volunteer, or addressing someone who doesn't have the power to enact any sort of change. It's not really applicable when you're talking to the ones who literally create/fix the product you're complaining about. If 'one of your biggest pet peeves' are people very validly voicing displeasure, about something they expect better of (again, disregarding the ones outright insulting), then perhaps you need to reconsider some things.

Prythe

I just want to insert my "You're not using the term 'Karen' properly" rant here. 

Thank you.

Caelan

So, two sides..  I tgink people can complain, but theyve also been ramping up, and that shit is just too much drama. Knock it off. Nothing makes admin dismiss and condescend like being insulted. You are shooting yourself in the foot - and Im the only one here that can get away with that as a party favor.

Other side.. I cant locate the quote where @Makarios  said he enjoys seeing things used as unintended because people thought outside the box.   Out of context paraphrase there, and Mak is nothing if not uber helpful.

But...  that might be what happened.  It took this for them to go "oh that is way more than intended".  A discussion should be had - and not just the ACC - about it.  But they arent going to fix shit if yourr not rational.  I wouldnt.  I will sit back and revel in the tears.

edit: but even I would say "we should probably fix these fuck tons of old bugs"

Adrik

I mean. That DB is gonna make foozle super fun and easy. Just mark every denizen type that you can/want. Go buck wild.

Saonji

Adrik said:

I mean. That DB is gonna make foozle super fun and easy. Just mark every denizen type that you can/want. Go buck wild.

The past meaningful foozles have all introduced new creatures, specifically for those foozles, for exactly this reason.

Nicola

Just to clarify, because I don't think Makarios covered it in his post, my comment to the leaders about the credibility docking wasn't for people walking to a denizen in an event, it had nothing to do with the student and did not affect how the overall event proceeded.

It was people spamming walk to on words dropped by Rahul while they were talking to him outside the blocked off Ghezavat and then using the feedback from the command failing to garner the Hatun of Ghezavat's actual name and then reference it in conversation with Rahul as if they had IC knowledge of the Hatun's name (Atropa), and others. This is metagaming and if it continued during the event would have resulted in credibility losses. Using information that your character has no reason to know IC is metagaming.

Spamming commands to parse the information passed along in the command failure line is one of the common ways that players farm information that their character has no reason to have access to and is something the team is always striving to fix. It falls under HELP HONOUR.

Archaeon

Nicola said:

It falls under HELP HONOUR.

how?