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Thread Statistics | Show CCP posts - 14 post(s) |
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CCP Bayesian
1154
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Posted - 2014.08.26 17:55:00 -
[1] - Quote
I've actually been prototyping some additions to Hacking as part of a small side project in my "20% Time".
The first is a distance indicator that tells you how far away the last node uncovered is from "good stuff". This helps with second by second decision making by letting you follow trends. This also helps determine which Defense Software to attack first. On top of which it generally needs less clicks to complete a hack. I'm experimenting with definitions of "good stuff".
The second is to help with having more strategic decisions whilst actually hacking. I added multiple cores which unlock explicit bits of the loot in the container. This gives the hacker the ability to balance more of the risk vs. reward themselves as they go rather than it being an all or nothing thing.
Both of these changes give scope for more interesting Defense Software and Utilities. I'd like to alter the Restoration Node substantially as well to make it less overpowered and generally more interesting.
I want to make clear that there is no real ETA for when these changes might hit TQ but I wanted you to know that the state of Hacking is definitely something I and others care about and something someone is actually working on. EVE Software Engineer Team Space Glitter |
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CCP Bayesian
1155
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Posted - 2014.08.26 18:49:00 -
[2] - Quote
I'm on Team Space Glitter and our mission right now is to basically improve gameplay content related stuff. We're committed to doing a lot of tools work to speed up all the designers as well as fixing and creating new content.
Currently we're making NPC Authoring easier whilst our design focused people (FoxFour and Affinity) are coming up with some new stuff and plans for fixing some existing content that badly needs work.
Hacking sort of fits into that but I'm working on it because I had a big hand in designing it and it's never made it to the quality the team who worked on it liked particularly. The current implementation is functional but shallow and misses some key features of the original design as well as the ideas we had for improving things as we worked on it. I'm working on it as part of some self-determined time we get to work on these sorts of projects that otherwise fall further down our priority list. EVE Software Engineer Team Space Glitter |
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CCP Bayesian
1155
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Posted - 2014.08.26 19:21:00 -
[3] - Quote
Jeremiah Saken wrote:CCP Bayesian wrote:The current implementation is functional but shallow and misses some key features of the original design as well as the ideas we had for improving things as we worked on it. I'm working on it as part of some self-determined time we get to work on these sorts of projects that otherwise fall further down our priority list. Can you be more specific on this 'key features of original design"?
Sure, it's also worthwhile reading through my older posts from this time last year for more context.
Originally we planned for Utilities to be something you could harvest from Hacking attempts, sell on the market and then fit to your Hacking module. This fitting decision and harvesting is pretty important for adding strategy to the original design but not sufficient I think. There is also a greater number of Utilities and Defense Software that do more interesting things that have been designed out but were cut from implementation to polish other areas and help keep balancing straightforward. In particular more 'things' would help out the easier systems with more variety as well as posing different problems. EVE Software Engineer Team Space Glitter |
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CCP Bayesian
1155
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Posted - 2014.08.26 19:30:00 -
[4] - Quote
Vol Arm'OOO wrote:Antillie Sa'Kan wrote:I kind of like it. Its a nice blend of character skill and actual skill. Just saying. You sir are completely out of your mind. There is no actual skill involved. It is simply a button click fest. Actually, I take that back. There is some player skill involved. Pressing that button faster and faster is a kinda a player skill.
We actually have an AI we use for testing which does a lot more than clicking quickly and doesn't cheat. I'm not going to say there is a huge skill ceiling but there certainly is one particularly in the harder systems. I've not yet seen a guide online that hits all the points we use. Granted they get the majority of really meaningful things correct and Hacking in hostile space is a bit different to a computer crunching.
I actually quite like the idea of remaking the AI to be used in EVE, dumbing it down a bit and slowing it up so people can choose to fit an Auto-Hacking module. You'd be less successful overall but it'd be nice for people who don't want to Hack themselves. EVE Software Engineer Team Space Glitter |
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CCP Bayesian
1155
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Posted - 2014.08.26 19:59:00 -
[5] - Quote
Jeremiah Saken wrote:CCP Bayesian wrote: Sure, it's also worthwhile reading through my older posts from this time last year for more context.
Originally we planned for Utilities to be something you could harvest from Hacking attempts, sell on the market and then fit to your Hacking module. This fitting decision and harvesting is pretty important for adding strategy to the original design but not sufficient I think. There is also a greater number of Utilities and Defense Software that do more interesting things that have been designed out but were cut from implementation to polish other areas and help keep balancing straightforward. In particular more 'things' would help out the easier systems with more variety as well as posing different problems.
Indeed some of this was mentioned before. Are you planing to implement some of those in the future or just scraped it and starting from zero? Harvested tools and improving hacking modules are promising. I was digging in hacking minigames lately, EvE has original concept of it but if it required less clicking with more strategy it would be great. Luck factor is also needed but let's not make it prime for every hack attempt.
I'm basically tackling things in the order of what makes the most sense to improve Hacking the most with the least effort. To that end I'm mostly restricting myself to things that wouldn't take much additional effort on behalf of our team to bring forward. Bigger projects will have to wait until we can schedule it into our main development time. EVE Software Engineer Team Space Glitter |
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CCP Bayesian
1167
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Posted - 2014.08.27 09:28:00 -
[6] - Quote
Sargeant Hellian, no, I said we use AI for testing, I didn't say that was the only testing we do and it isn't. It's just a massive help for volume in a quantitative sense. We still do a bunch of manual qualitative testing.
Jeremiah Saken, no real plans for expanding it elsewhere but many ideas floated. Most of these sorts of things require more art, audio and basically more people working on it for a feature that needs it. This is a small project I'm working on reasonably slowly in the scheme of things but the codebase is good so additions are pretty easy.
DeMichael Crimson, thanks for the suggestions. I think there is a video of an early version of the Avatar prototype that was shown at a Russian player meet floating around if you want to have a little more evidence to help that belief.
A loot revamp primarily looking at the imbalance between Data and Relic sites is planned in the not too distant future by the other guys on Space Glitter. EVE Software Engineer Team Space Glitter |
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CCP Bayesian
1181
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Posted - 2014.09.01 21:42:00 -
[7] - Quote
Jeremiah Saken wrote:Lastly, how do you distribute tasks beetwen ppl in teams? You are working on hacking, someone else on loot tables etc. Wouldn't be good to assign ppl to specific works and keep them there when in need? Like, you've done hacking, project closed, now someone else want to do some tweaks, for example Fozzie, without knowledge about hacking, and messes with your vision and aproach to part of exploration by puting space invaders in it. Or it's just whole Space Glitter working and brainstorming on task? Sometimes it feels like some devs being punished and being assigned to ungrateful works.
Usually we work quite collaboratively, with each discipline area taking the lead for their own work. I'm a bit odd as although I'm a Software Engineer by title I've also throughout my career at CCP and other game studios done a lot of design work. For example a lot of the 'exploring ships as an avatar' prototype came from myself (and the rest of the team working on it). It's interesting because we made it before survival sims became popular and it shared a lot in common with them. I've also talked extensively about our prototyping at Fanfest and you can find the talk on the CCP channel.
The 'bad' old way with six month releases often meant we got reassigned to something new at the end of a release with no time to work on it further. With the current new awesome model there is a lot more freedom for the people making changes to the game to control their own work. We still don't get to work on *anything* but are much less micro-managed as long as we have a good case for what we're doing.
Space Glitter primarily exists to beef up our content creating capabilities. For example right now we're making it considerably easier for Game Designers to create new NPCs without needing a lot of specialist knowledge. As part of that we're also visiting old content and systems that could do more than they are. Currently we're looking at Escalating Path missions and adding in some more dynamic content to the game using the underlying systems that are the basis of Incursions.
We have 20% time which is an idea that Google created to drive innovation. It means we can elect to spend 1/5th of our time working on projects we want to. In my case that's making Hacking better. We still need to follow all the same process that gets a feature out of the door in a release but we get to explicitly pick exactly what we work on.
I hope that clears up whats going on a bit behind-the-scenes. EVE Software Engineer Team Space Glitter |
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CCP Bayesian
1181
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Posted - 2014.09.01 21:43:00 -
[8] - Quote
Also to add that I really appreciate the feedback both positive and negative and the generally constructive or humorous manner it's been given in. EVE Software Engineer Team Space Glitter |
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CCP Bayesian
1189
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Posted - 2014.09.02 08:18:00 -
[9] - Quote
Fonac wrote: Am i reading this correctly, that your're looking at escalation mechanics, for exploration?
On OP - I must disagree with mechanics being crap. I actually like them very much.
No, we're looking at them in their own right. EVE Software Engineer Team Space Glitter |
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CCP Bayesian
1192
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Posted - 2014.09.02 09:36:00 -
[10] - Quote
Flamespar wrote:I'm curious (without wanting to raise hopes) if some of your 20% time has been used to look at more stuff to do with avatars?
Sadly no, it's beyond the scope of a 20% project really. EVE Software Engineer Team Space Glitter |
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CCP Bayesian
1220
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Posted - 2014.12.02 10:03:12 -
[11] - Quote
I thought I'd pop in here and say that one of these changes is out on Singularity and coming to TQ with Rhea next Tuesday.
EVE Software Engineer
Team Space Glitter
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CCP Bayesian
1220
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Posted - 2014.12.02 10:03:22 -
[12] - Quote
*double posts*
EVE Software Engineer
Team Space Glitter
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CCP Bayesian
1256
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Posted - 2014.12.08 15:18:45 -
[13] - Quote
Hopefully I'll be able to put out some more improvements as I get time to work on them.
EVE Software Engineer
Team Space Glitter
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CCP Bayesian
1264
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Posted - 2014.12.12 11:20:56 -
[14] - Quote
Jeremiah Saken wrote:Undocked with Astero to check the hacking change. Did one data in hisec. I think it a very good feature. It will help a lot with hardest can types. Especially in the end when only few nodes left. I've noticed i slow down the clickfest to check the numbers, it may be dangerous a bit for explorers in lower sec regions. CCP Bayesian wrote:Hopefully I'll be able to put out some more improvements as I get time to work on them. You have more of them? There was something with more than one system core.
Yeah I've implemented multiple cores as a prototype which works pretty nicely. The idea is to give people a little more finesse in balancing their own risk vs. reward by splitting the loot up between cores. I'm also looking at multiple levels so you'd go deeper into the systems for more special reward and as a kind of precursor to making it viable to hack in an offensive way which probably needs something a bit more complex. The biggest requirement for this sort of stuff is a feature to tie it into though.
In the meantime I'd like to put in some more utilities and defensive software to up the variation a bit more. I did actually add in a counter defensive software to the direction indicator and there are some obvious utilities to help out with that. We'll probably put these out as we get time.
EVE Software Engineer
Team Space Glitter
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