Undocumented cast, reuse and recovery speed adjustments?

[carpe_caminus]

Zoltaroth wrote:

This was an unintentional side effect of a small bug fix.  We are working on getting this changed back to pre-GU numbers.

EDIT:

So here is the deal on this bug:

The way the math worked, a negative casting speed % would have always caused you to cast at MAX cast length.  So even at -1% casting speed a 10 second spell would have taken 15s to cast.  When we fixed this formula, we flattened out the curve which caused the difference in casting speeds below 100%, this was unintentional. 

We have gone back and changed the formula in the following ways:

1) Casting Speed increases will work the same as before GU60.

2) Reuse and Recovery will once again apply adders *after* multipliers.

3) Additionally: Casting Speed will also now apply adders *after* multipliers (this was not the case before) so you should see a slight *increase* in casting speed compared to pre-GU60 numbers.

4) Negative Casting speed debuffs will now apply the correct amount of increases instead of max increase at all times.

Sorry for the inconvenience, I hope this post helps explain a little better what is going on.  Currently we are shooting for a hotfix of this tomorrow morning (not 100% certain we can do this yet but we are working on it now).

Ok now that actually makes sense.  That bug has been in for a LONG time.  At least since 2008, since that's when people were using the then-new Ring of Rage to max cast speed.  Thank you for the updated info and specifying what the actual goal of the change was.

[Lemilla]

Thanks Zoltaroth for the reply, and for making sure this issue is getting fixed.

[Proxopid]

Thank you, Zoltaroth.

[Hamervelder]

Zoltaroth wrote:

Nevao wrote:

Zoltaroth wrote:

This was an unintentional side effect of a small bug fix.  We are working on getting this changed back to pre-GU numbers.

Zoltaroth, thank you for responding, but can we get a more detailed explanation of what is really going on. This is far to vague for the ruckus it has caused. The numbers are going back to 'Pre-GU' values, but you were obviously trying to accomplish something. What was that? What is actually intended?

See my edit, I explained it in some more detail for you.

Your post didn't seem to address a rather peculiar side effect.  I don't know the cause, but myself and some of my guildmates noticed tonight that our casting speed had decreased by about 25%, but only when in raid.  For instance, my casting speed, both in my raid group and self-buffed solo, is 71%. Yet in the raid, my group cure took 1.27 seconds to cast, and when solo, took 1.01 seconds to cast.  The displayed casting speed in the persona window didn't change, but the actual casting speed did change, but only when in a raid.  When I grouped later in the evening, my casting speed was fine.

[ranga]

Banditman wrote:

Strait reductions should be cap neutral.  So if a spell has a 90 second recast, and I have AA's to reduce it by 30 seconds, those AA's should apply fully always.

So, with the AA's and no re-use at all, I get a 60 second recast.  With 50% re-use and the AA's I get a 45 second recast, and with the AA's and 100% re-use, I get a 30 second recast.

That might begin to offset this mess.

This ^

If for nothing else, it would do what it says on the tin. Plus you would have the advantage that everyone would understand it.

The crazy thing is that the devs don't understand that if they want to mess about with stuff, it should NOT be the mechanics, it should be the base numbers. If they feel a nerf is required, it should be done to the base AA or the item stats. Then we would be able to make informed decisions on which items to use or which aa lines to max.

Edit....of course the above assumes that the mechanics actually work in the first place.

Just read Zolt's explanation which seems fine on the face of it but for future reference, please do not tout bug fixes as exploit fixes. One might negate the other but that is not always the case.

[Fendaria]

Zoltaroth wrote:

This was an unintentional side effect of a small bug fix.  We are working on getting this changed back to pre-GU numbers.

EDIT:

So here is the deal on this bug:

The way the math worked, a negative casting speed % would have always caused you to cast at MAX cast length.  So even at -1% casting speed a 10 second spell would have taken 15s to cast.  When we fixed this formula, we flattened out the curve which caused the difference in casting speeds below 100%, this was unintentional. 

We have gone back and changed the formula in the following ways:

1) Casting Speed increases will work the same as before GU60.

2) Reuse and Recovery will once again apply adders *after* multipliers.

3) Additionally: Casting Speed will also now apply adders *after* multipliers (this was not the case before) so you should see a slight *increase* in casting speed compared to pre-GU60 numbers.

4) Negative Casting speed debuffs will now apply the correct amount of increases instead of max increase at all times.

Sorry for the inconvenience, I hope this post helps explain a little better what is going on.  Currently we are shooting for a hotfix of this tomorrow morning (not 100% certain we can do this yet but we are working on it now).

What is a casting speed, reuse, or recovery multiplier?

And I assume you haven't changed the caps as well?  (ex at 100% casting speed + AAs that reduce casting speed by a fixed amount still cap out at (base ability casting speed/2) )

Fendaria

[Hamervelder]

Did the "fix" go in today?  If so, then it's still a nerf vs pre-GU60.  I'll use my group cures as an example again.  My group cures took 1.01 seconds to cast before GU60.  Now, they take 1.16 seconds to cast.  In addition, recast on my group cures used to be 12.5 seconds.  Recast is now 13.2 seconds.  That may not seem like much of an increase, but it certainly is.  The time needed to cast my spells has increased by 15%.  That's massive.  That, combined with the 0.7 extra seconds of reuse on my group cures adds almost a second to the total cycle time.  That's unacceptable. 

[RogueSpideyChick]

Elhonas@Antonia Bayle wrote:

Did the "fix" go in today?  If so, then it's still a nerf vs pre-GU60.  I'll use my group cures as an example again.  My group cures took 1.01 seconds to cast before GU60.  Now, they take 1.16 seconds to cast.  In addition, recast on my group cures used to be 12.5 seconds.  Recast is now 13.2 seconds.  That may not seem like much of an increase, but it certainly is.  The time needed to cast my spells has increased by 15%.  That's massive.  That, combined with the 0.7 extra seconds of reuse on my group cures adds almost a second to the total cycle time.  That's unacceptable. 

not sure what ur seeing but my fury's r back to normal. at 102.2 cast speed, 48.4 ability reuse & 8 spell reuse, my group cure is capped at 1 sec & reuse at 12.8. after the update, shell, porcupine & rw cure had over 10 sec added onto the reuse (depending on which spell it was), now theyre all back to normal (pre-gu60).

[technologically]

Zoltaroth wrote:

This was an unintentional side effect of a small bug fix.  We are working on getting this changed back to pre-GU numbers.

EDIT:

So here is the deal on this bug:

The way the math worked, a negative casting speed % would have always caused you to cast at MAX cast length.  So even at -1% casting speed a 10 second spell would have taken 15s to cast.  When we fixed this formula, we flattened out the curve which caused the difference in casting speeds below 100%, this was unintentional. 

Can you help me understand how you could do work on a fundamental game mechanic, and have it pushed to the live servers without noticing this? 

I'm glad you guys are fixing this problem, and went through the pain of submitting yet another hot fix, but what I'm really hoping for is that in addition to fixing the code, you are addressing the exploit in your testing system that allowed this bug to be pushed to live.

I'm not trying to place any blame for the mistake in your math; formulas with negative curves are not fun. We all joke about live members paying you for the privilage of testing your code, but from this incident it would seem that you do zero automated testing of any kind.  Do you really not run automated scripts of characters with multiple levels of gear and a preset cast order to compare damage or heal output before and after any changes? Let alone fundamental mechanic coding? 

[Nevao]

technologically wrote:

Zoltaroth wrote:

This was an unintentional side effect of a small bug fix.  We are working on getting this changed back to pre-GU numbers.

EDIT:

So here is the deal on this bug:

The way the math worked, a negative casting speed % would have always caused you to cast at MAX cast length.  So even at -1% casting speed a 10 second spell would have taken 15s to cast.  When we fixed this formula, we flattened out the curve which caused the difference in casting speeds below 100%, this was unintentional. 

Can you help me understand how you could do work on a fundamental game mechanic, and have it pushed to the live servers without noticing this? 

I'm glad you guys are fixing this problem, and went through the pain of submitting yet another hot fix, but what I'm really hoping for is that in addition to fixing the code, you are addressing the exploit in your testing system that allowed this bug to be pushed to live.

I'm not trying to place any blame for the mistake in your math; formulas with negative curves are not fun. We all joke about live members paying you for the privilage of testing your code, but from this incident it would seem that you do zero automated testing of any kind.  Do you really not run automated scripts of characters with multiple levels of gear and a preset cast order to compare damage or heal output before and after any changes? Let alone fundamental mechanic coding? 

The problem was this was pushed to Test, but without any notification. At the time I just assumed it was server lag giving me a bad night. Now I know better of course, but there was no reason to think otherwise since there were no test notes letting us know that there was any kind of stat change. If it had been posted we probably would have caught it.

[Hamervelder]

Arica@Guk wrote:

Elhonas@Antonia Bayle wrote:

Did the "fix" go in today?  If so, then it's still a nerf vs pre-GU60.  I'll use my group cures as an example again.  My group cures took 1.01 seconds to cast before GU60.  Now, they take 1.16 seconds to cast.  In addition, recast on my group cures used to be 12.5 seconds.  Recast is now 13.2 seconds.  That may not seem like much of an increase, but it certainly is.  The time needed to cast my spells has increased by 15%.  That's massive.  That, combined with the 0.7 extra seconds of reuse on my group cures adds almost a second to the total cycle time.  That's unacceptable. 

not sure what ur seeing but my fury's r back to normal. at 102.2 cast speed, 48.4 ability reuse & 8 spell reuse, my group cure is capped at 1 sec & reuse at 12.8. after the update, shell, porcupine & rw cure had over 10 sec added onto the reuse (depending on which spell it was), now theyre all back to normal (pre-gu60).

The more of my guildmates that I ask, the more I think that my warden is at a spot on the curve (he's at 71% casting speed and 48% reuse) where he used to get a bigger benefit than he now does.  The only solution, I guess, is to get more casting speed, somehow.

[technologically]

Nevao wrote:

The problem was this was pushed to Test, but without any notification ...  If it had been posted we probably would have caught it.

So the barrier of entry you are comfortable with for pushing patches to live is that they noted what they hoped their patch is doing, so that an untrained player on test server will "probably" catch an error in fundamental mechanics?  Even though they have complete knowledge of the mechanics and could run a monte carlo to test any formula changes they were considering before they even bothered to code them in?

[Nevao]

technologically wrote:

Nevao wrote:

The problem was this was pushed to Test, but without any notification ...  If it had been posted we probably would have caught it.

So the barrier of entry you are comfortable with for pushing patches to live is that they noted what they hoped their patch is doing, so that an untrained player on test server will "probably" catch an error in fundamental mechanics?  Even though they have complete knowledge of the mechanics and could run a monte carlo to test any formula changes they were considering before they even bothered to code them in?

You're making assumptions that such things are easy for them to script test or that script testing is possible at all in their software. I think you are reaching in said assumptions and shouldn't be making them without knowing more about how they are setup. I have worked in software development long enough to know what I don't know and I'm not about to start telling someone how to automate their testing on something that I have no design specs for or basic understanding of the architecture and interfaces into it. If you feel you have intimate enough knowledge of their sytems to do so more power to you, but my guess is that you probably don't.

That said we can only work with the tools they give us, and the only way for us to use those tools properly is to be alerted to those changes. I think you sell the player base short. We may not catch a zone bug but they had announced that they were changing the casting/reuse/recovery formulas a slew of people would have taken a look know that it's a "fundemental mechanic".