113896-9-16-nexus-report-tldr

== Content ==
			Welcome to my summary of the Nexus Report, for the people who didn't even want to see it once, but didn't mind reading what I had to say about it.  This one's an informative one that featured Frost inspecting some housing plots and features housing designer Aaron Chard, whose name sounds like he should be working in action flicks from the 90s.  Tony is in high spirits.  Frost looks like he mainlined heroin before the show.  When he arrives, Aaron Chard looks like the intern that just got called into the VP's office and told to do something he didn't completely understand, but knows he'd better ask someone else instead of look like he didn't know what he was doing.  Let's get started. -Nathan Winget is still running his artwork raffle for charity.  His Extra Life site is here.  Visit and donate please. -They mentioned the hotfixes for whatever happened at the last patch Friday.  They will be sending us 3 boom boxes to compensate for everyone who was logged in that day. -They are giving away more Gamescon codes (a hundred in total) between Twitter and Tumblr.  You can see Tony's thread on it here. -Chard joins the show.  It was a hot walk from his building to the other studio.  He's.... charred.... WAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! -DECOR LIMITS ARE BEING GREATLY EXPANDED!  They are taking the limit to 2000 decor owned, 1000 placed outside, and 1000 placed inside (later, also 40 lights outside/40 lights inside, in the interest of organization).  This will be in drop 3 and is on the PTR. -Frost's mic has been muted encountered technical issues.  He starts looking at built houses for the oohs and ahhhs. -Customizable terrain, to change the current grassland to something more fitting like a desert or winter wasteland, is on the PTR and will be in drop 3. -They have heard about cross faction neighboring suggestions.  They are considering it, but can't make any promises.  Chard, at least, seems to be more vocal about what they talk about.  I like this guy. -Frost needs to speak into Tony's breasts for his Shadowblades1337 impression.  Interactable decor is incoming and is on the PTR.  They will have sittable chairs and openable gates. -Frost is now unmuted has had his issues sorted out.  How very convenient, Tony. -A question is asked about dual skies, using a day-night or weather cycle using two different patterns.  This is a new suggestion for Chard, who says he will bring it up with the team. -They are kicking around designs for a visitors log so we know who is visiting our plots.  They are not done yet, but they have them and know we want them.  Frost is silenced for his heresies muted again. -They are prototyping guild neighborhoods, and are going to soon have player community housing, where five players' houses will be in the same area.  The latter will come sooner. -They are looking into a way to log who is coming and farming nodes at your house. -They have examined the idea of setting rewards for contents, though it seems easily exploitable if it is generating new items.  Not completely dead idea, though. -They have no immediate plans to expand the plots to have more plugs.  Tony wants to live in excrement and begins sobbing about his marital issues. -There are now light switches (lights to turn on and off) on the PTR. -They are discussing being able to change the physics, like movement speed and gravity, on plots.  It is not designed yet. -Tony wants to kidnap a player from their house using the area code in their name.  Non shoots him before he can expand on the idea.  We'll leave that kind of planning to NASA astronauts. -People should be sitting correctly in chairs.  If they are not, it's a bug, and you should enter a bug report. -Music and ambience changes are now on the PTR, so you can change the background music. -They are technically limited and presently unable to use two 1x1 plugs to fill a 1x2 spot.  They might be able to change it eventually, but it would be incredibly difficult. -Tony hasn't watched Magnum Force.  A man's got to know his limitations. -PartyOnGarth's question gets asked!  He asks for owner-only openable gates to protect his farm.  They aren't planning on that yet, but they do say there is going to be a separate permissions option for farming, so owners can keep visitors from farming their plants. -After some deliberation, the committee decides that the next question is asking for moving platforms, disappearing platforms, and other active platforms.  They don't have that planned yet.  They didn't ask my question about whether we can make rising and lowering platforms to use as elevators. -They think it would be cool to be able to build a dungeon on your plot, but that would be a LONG way away.  No systems are in place for that.  But it sounds cool. -It would be extremely difficult to make a "chopping" tool to break up and clip decor items for construction, and no plans are in place yet to design it. -Someone asks about account-wide decor crates.  Chard says they are thinking about it, but are still figuring out what the best thing to do would be, including just a system to send housing decor from character to character on the same account or to have account-bound decor pieces.  Long way away. -They have plans to make sure plugs can be rotated.  IT takes a lot of work, but it is definitely coming down the pipeline. -Someone asks about putting up a vending bot stocked by the player on the property or having someone be able to purchase things from their inventory.  They have heard this idea and are talking about it, but it may potentially remove the last reason to be in the capital cities, so that would take a lot of work with the economy team. -They are discussing, but have no designs or work done yet, or any triggers pulled, on moving the house around and reorganizing plugs. -They talk about the pirate invasion on housing plots events during beta.  Players disliked it as implemented and it was discarded.  They are still discussing ways that could be done, but they have other fish to fry at the moment. -New building blocks, like triangles and other more flexible items, are coming.  They are constantly adding decor. -They will have a way to turn off clutter, in case you don't want the longer grass or other items and just want flat ground. -They are working on a "blank" housing plug, which will be empty aside from just an above ground hatch, and there will be an entire underground interior accessed from that. -Here, they are increasing the lighting to 40 inside, 40 outside, from the original limit of 20. -Tony talks about his childhood and abuse.  Frost is the worst psychotherapist on the face of the Earth. -They are thinking of having extended permissions for account-level neighbors, but there are no other plans as far as neighbor permissions go for spouses as of yet.  Tony seems pleased at keeping the spouses from touching his stuff, especially his light switches. -Frost isn't your slave, he's said all he's going to say, and he's shutting your butt down, Tony! -They do not have any glass walls yet, but that doesn't seem too out-of-the ballpark.  They are putting in some curved walls, though. -Aaron Chard invites more questions on the forums.  His name here is Lamenth (he doesn't get a CRB_, apparently) and he is well liked on the housing forum. -Frost calls Aaron Adam.  He reveals that Aaron has an identical twin brother also working at Carbine who is named Adam.  The disrespect for the man mounts. -Lots of Chua and Draken art coming from the fans, but actually two human pieces, surprisingly.  But where's the Granok women love?  Right here, that's where!  Obviously, not with anyone who has any artistic skill... -Tony says a bunch of armed Chua look like Duck Tales.  He is rightly executed by firing squad for his treason. -...Tony references That's So Raven...  He is prompty executed again, and played outro music by Frost.  Again, we applaud the decision taken by the State to silence this foul traitor for speaking his lies against the Party. -Tony is now being trolled by the intro music from the art section.  He brings up IDestinia's Guardians of the Galaxy parody, Guardians of Nexus.  They apparently disseminated that around the office and enjoyed it immensely.  Tony reveals that the art that is used in the art section is printed and hung up in the office. -Tony asks if Frost has any last words.  Frost only has the intro music to say before throwing a dart at Tony's head.  It's been a day of hot tempers and slippery trigger fingers. They didn't ask my question about being able to delete things out of your crate.  If anyone knows a way to do that, let me know.  If there is no way to do that, I would appreciate if a dev could let me know if that's in the works.  I'm still worried that I might hit my owned limit on things I didn't want to use anymore. Until then, that's it.  Watch your back.  California's got worse gun crime than Flint at this point if you count Nerf weapons. EDIT:  Due to an excellent suggestion by Lemurian, I'll be using the tag NexusReportTLDR to demarcate these for people searching for them.	
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So... still nothing of substance about solo content/progression... le sigh...
 
Thanks for putting in the work on this Vic; it's much appreciated.	
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So... still nothing of substance about solo content/progression... le sigh...
 
Thanks for putting in the work on this Vic; it's much appreciated.
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This weeks interview was with one of the housing staff..... obviously questions were going to be about housing :P
 
There are some crazy awesome solo things coming in the next drop btw :)
 
And seriously Vic, great job man. I don't know where you find the time to do this every week, but rock on!
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			WOW! So many words... and literally NOTHING important. Yes, this is subjective. Still, for me: nothing of any importance. I agree.. this seems to be all about housing.. which is ok... but there are hot topics which players would like to have adressed, like have members of QA been fired and what not... .	
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They've sure been avoiding talking about solo content. Would you happen to be able to point me towards a thread/interview/article/whatever where they've actually made some concrete statements about what's coming?
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WOW! So many words... and literally NOTHING important. Yes, this is subjective. Still, for me: nothing of any importance. I agree.. this seems to be all about housing.. which is ok... but there are hot topics which players would like to have adressed, like have members of QA been fired and what not... .
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They've sure been avoiding talking about solo content. Would you happen to be able to point me towards a thread/interview/article/whatever where they've actually made some concrete statements about what's coming?
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They didn't ask my question about being able to delete things out of your crate.  If anyone knows a way to do that, let me know.  If there is no way to do that, I would appreciate if a dev could let me know if that's in the works.  I'm still worried that I might hit my owned limit on things I didn't want to use anymore.
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Is this what you mean?
 
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They've sure been avoiding talking about solo content. Would you happen to be able to point me towards a thread/interview/article/whatever where they've actually made some concrete statements about what's coming?
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Vic and Toaster: thanks for the links. 
 
They're still not giving us a clear picture to what endgame progression will look like for non-raiders, which still feels like it's the same old "push all players towards raids" junk that hasn't worked for any other MMORPG, but seeing that they are brining in more than just dailies is good.	
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Vic, you've been able to delete crate stuff since day one. O.o How haven't you seen it? xD
 
Just open your crate, click the (crated) item you want to delete, click delete... boom.	
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Vic, you've been able to delete crate stuff since day one. O.o How haven't you seen it? xD
 
Just open your crate, click the (crated) item you want to delete, click delete... boom.
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			Well, people are trolls. You should know that by now! xD	
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Well, people are trolls. You should know that by now! xD
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			Hm, I'm not sure if it was disabled for any amount of time. I generally don't buy things I know I won't use. Though, as far as I know, it's always been there. :P	
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			finally more lights!!!!	
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Hm, I'm not sure if it was disabled for any amount of time. I generally don't buy things I know I won't use. Though, as far as I know, it's always been there. :P
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Vic and Toaster: thanks for the links. 
 
They're still not giving us a clear picture to what endgame progression will look like for non-raiders, which still feels like it's the same old "push all players towards raids" junk that hasn't worked for any other MMORPG, but seeing that they are brining in more than just dailies is good.
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You'll probably want to check out the last few of these I did.  It looks like they're revamping gear into more of a linear gear progression, so there will be reasons to do things outside raids.  Vet shiphands are coming.  At least there will be a lot more to do.  Raids will always be at the top of a linear gear progression; they require the most coordination and logistics, so they're rewarded higher.  But at least you can't buy gear into GA anymore, as they're nerfing crafted items by some amount.
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However, when Gaffney was doing the rounds last year talking about the rewarding solo experience they had planned, he indicated that gear progression was going to look something like this:
Raiders: Tier 1 -> 2 -> 3 -> etc. (additionally, raiding gear would also have unique stats that would be required in raids that non-raid gear would not have)
Non-Raiders and Soloists: Tier 1 -> 1.5 -> 2 -> 2.5 -> etc. (additionally, specific crafting materials were supposed to be restricted to solo and small group content)
 
That was a genius notion, but is nowhere to be seen in the game today and the Devs have not addressed this once since the game went live. 
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While not perfect, this was / largely is the case. 
 
AFAIK Strikethrough was the stat that was stacked on raid gear while crafted gear gave good main stats at the expense of secondariness such as Strikethrough.
 
While we can argue over how well it worked (gear obviously needed some serious TLC at launch), the intent was there, and the system was, if not practically there, theoretically in place. 
 
JTal has posted ad nauseam about the gear changes he's implementing; that's probably a good place to check for whether or not they will keep strikethrough as a necessary raid stat or not.
 
 
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Yay!  Is that in the game now or the PTR?  Last time I asked this, I had to kind of just eat the crate space lost.
 
To be fair, it was a long time ago.
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			They didn't say anything about being able to repair for multiple weeks eh? I don't enjoy when my plot breaks in tbe middle of the night while I'm sleeping.... my neighbors need my thickets!	
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I know that a lot of this comes down to itemization being completely screwed up, but at the same time I really don't see how a parallel system like this works in a loot dependent system.
 
If the elder gem store is "opened up to the public" and rep system made to work in conjunction with it, then I can see how it can be made to work so that raiders and non-raiders can have separate progression tracks. But right now, and I've heard/read nothing about this changing, everything on the elder gem vendor is walled off behind group based achievements, and you can't even get a full set of any type of gear via a vendor anyway. If that isn't changing, then they're not addressing the issue for two-thirds of the MMO consumer base. 
 
I guess the issue that I'm having is that they're not just laying it out on the table with a "this is how progression is to work after Drop 3" Nexus report. I've been playing MMOs for nearly 15 years, but I haven't really played the WoW-styled themepark games until relatively recently (most of my experience is in  SWG and CoH prior to a few years ago), and so loot dependant progression is abhorrent to me; I don't mind an either/or system where you can get upgrades via vendor or loot drop, but being beholden to the RNG for gear progression is something I just can't do. If I'm looking at having to grind out rep in a daily zone that I may or may not enjoy for a month to possibly buy new pants and gadget while simultaneously crossing my fingers that I get a 1/10000 loot drop to upgrade my gloves, I just don't see myself able to stick with this game. 
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			I don't normally read these, but I did today and was pleased. I guess I haven't been in touch with the community outlets Carbine prefers. Carbine should change to suit my browsing preferences.	
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And on the topic of housing, I wish someone would have asked if they were going to remove item limits by category: I had a plan for a theater on my plot, but was restricted by the amount of lights that I could use... #sadface
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They didn't say anything about being able to repair for multiple weeks eh? I don't enjoy when my plot breaks in tbe middle of the night while I'm sleeping.... my neighbors need my thickets!
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Well, here's the problem with a branching system, because we kind of had it at the lower levels.  There were multiple ways to get everything.  The reality was, people follow the path of least resistance.
 
So instead of grinding against RNGesus, people bought gear and stacked their assault stat like they were planning for the drought.  That meant the original plans to have raid and solo gear be different simply didn't work; everyone stacked AP because it was weighted so heavily.  That's on Carbine and is being addressed.
 
I think the biggest problem with splitting solo and raid content and giving progression paths in both is that solo content gets done so fast.  People forget that almost the entirety of drop1 was solo-oriented, while drop3 will be the first raid added since launch (along with a lot more solo content).  So it's not like solo stuff isn't getting attention, it's just so damn easy to complete that solo content tends to be a fleeting blessing.  Drop1 is already done, forgotten, and scorned for being so easy to get through and for being full of dailies.
 
Are there ways around this to make solo content that matters, is variable, difficult, and doesn't revolve around the daily grind?  Sure, I've suggested a few in the past.  But they're extremely labor intensive, and likely at the planning stages if they exist yet.  Meanwhile, raids have a better time v reward ratio since DS isn't even done yet.  Their problem there has been making sure the content isn't gated too harshly beyond people's ability to organize for them.
 
In the end, I think Carbine's doing what they can to progress the story and keep solo players following a trail of crumbs.  We'd have another solo patch already if it hadn't been pushed back for this megadrop.
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Vic, thanks for the reply. I understand that a big part of my feeling of "sputtering out" in this game has everything to do with messed up itemization at the game's launch. But, it's really not all that different from every other game out there on the market: if you don't raid, your character's progression will be halted shortly upon hitting level cap. To me the issue with the separate progression tracks is that they didn't take the concept far enough: I think they literally need to create the same level of separation that exists between PvP and PvE gear and apply that type system to Raid gear and Non-raid gear. No sarcasm: I love dailies. Love 'em, love 'em, love 'em. I can grind for months and months; no issues with that. I just have to feel like I'm working towards a goal, but in a RNG dependent system it feels like you're just waiting for your number to pop so you can yell "bingo!" New content is always welcome, but if it's content with no end goal for me, I kind of lose interest fast.
 
Anyway, I feel like I'm hijacking this thread, which is supposed to be a discussion of what was talked about in the Nexus report, and I'm turning it into a discussion of what wasn't talked about, so I think it's best if I bow out of this thread right now and start one about this specific topic. 
 
Also, good to know about the lights. 
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Are there ways around this to make solo content that matters, is variable, difficult, and doesn't revolve around the daily grind?  Sure, I've suggested a few in the past.  But they're extremely labor intensive, and likely at the planning stages if they exist yet.  Meanwhile, raids have a better time v reward ratio since DS isn't even done yet.  Their problem there has been making sure the content isn't gated too harshly beyond people's ability to organize for them.
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The first MMO that puts in a continuous, randomly-generated dungeon crawl a la Diablo, with a similar scaling system to what Carbine used for the housing expeditions, will be the first MMO to have a truly endless PvE end game. It has aspects that would appeal to players who enjoy dungeons, it would be accessible to solo'ers, it wouldn't be negatively impacted if friends wanted to cooperate, and the randomized environments would appeal to explorers as well. ANet caught onto this with GW2's Fractals, but fell well short of a truly randomized dungeon.
 
IMO, raids only have a better time vs. reward ratio if players are actually playing the content, and participation seems to be extremely limited right now, judging by the paltry number of guilds and groups Carbine just mentioned on Nexus Report this week or possibly last week.
 
I don't begrudge anyone their respective new content, but MMO devs need to start thinking way outside the box when it comes to PvE endgame. New zones and a continuation of the core story are important, but it's been proven time and time again that that alone isn't going to hold anyone's attention for long, and not everyone even sees raids as an eventual goal.
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You know, to be honest, Wildstar's got the best excuse for this kind of randomized dungeon system using pre-programmed and randomized plugs.  They have entire IC virtual environments.
 
I wouldn't be surprised to know this continuous randomized dungeon idea is on a markerboard somewhere.
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			Any idea when these changes will be released on the PTR to test ??	
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Any idea when these changes will be released on the PTR to test ??
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A lot of them already are on the PTR.  At least for housing.  For everything that isn't, they didn't say any ETAs.  But a lot of the stuff he mentioned was definitely on the PTR, like the item limit increase, lighting increase, ground, music, etc.
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			Not sure how, but once I seen the possibility, on live, to destroy items from the crate. I can't remember if it was by right-clicking the item or simply dragging it out of the crate to the world, but I'm sure I once saw there was a way, a few weeks ago...	
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Ok that's strange because i have the PTR downloaded and up to date but the item limit in housing is still 300 and there is no option to change the Terrain. Though the music change is in.
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Not sure how, but once I seen the possibility, on live, to destroy items from the crate. I can't remember if it was by right-clicking the item or simply dragging it out of the crate to the world, but I'm sure I once saw there was a way, a few weeks ago...
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Yeah, he definitely said in the stream that the terrain and item limit increase is on the PTR, at least according to my own summary (and I don't usually write it unless I heard it on the stream).
 
You can always head over to the PTR forums and ask, or head to the housing forum.  Chard is on the forums a lot.  His username is Lamenth.
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yeah i'll do that :) Thanks for writing up this post
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Yeah, he definitely said in the stream that the terrain and item limit increase is on the PTR, at least according to my own summary (and I don't usually write it unless I heard it on the stream).
 
You can always head over to the PTR forums and ask, or head to the housing forum.  Chard is on the forums a lot.  His username is Lamenth.
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yeah i'll do that :) Thanks for writing up this post
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Yeah, it's apparently been there since launch, according to most people.  Which is strange, because I distinctly remember not being able to destroy anything, not having a delete button, and asking about it to be told that there was no way yet.
 
I have no reason to doubt anyone, though.  God only knows what was going on.
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Thing is, I swear I couldn't delete anything out of the crate, or I wouldn't have asked (I did seriously look at the interface).  Was there a period where they had it disabled?
 
I mean, it kind of helps I've never had to delete anything; I don't have a ton of stuff I don't use.
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I had that problem too. Ive reselected all types and got the delete button working properly. Seems to be a small glitch.
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			+1 for the mainline heroin intro haha	
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Chua actually just watched video......
Did Tony and Frost make fun of Chua in housing video.....?	
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Chua actually just watched video......
Did Tony and Frost make fun of Chua in housing video.....?
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They're racists.
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			That is a lot of housing stuff.	
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That is a lot of housing stuff.
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			Oh man, this stuff is all awesome. I love the underground plot.	
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Oh man, this stuff is all awesome. I love the underground plot.
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The first MMO that puts in a continuous, randomly-generated dungeon crawl a la Diablo, with a similar scaling system to what Carbine used for the housing expeditions, will be the first MMO to have a truly endless PvE end game. It has aspects that would appeal to players who enjoy dungeons, it would be accessible to solo'ers, it wouldn't be negatively impacted if friends wanted to cooperate, and the randomized environments would appeal to explorers as well. ANet caught onto this with GW2's Fractals, but fell well short of a truly randomized dungeon.
 
IMO, raids only have a better time vs. reward ratio if players are actually playing the content, and participation seems to be extremely limited right now, judging by the paltry number of guilds and groups Carbine just mentioned on Nexus Report this week or possibly last week.
 
I don't begrudge anyone their respective new content, but MMO devs need to start thinking way outside the box when it comes to PvE endgame. New zones and a continuation of the core story are important, but it's been proven time and time again that that alone isn't going to hold anyone's attention for long, and not everyone even sees raids as an eventual goal.
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I am going to buy the game three extra times just so I can upvote this more*.  I was about to post a similar idea, but you got to it already.  I'm reminded of games like Angband, only not so primitive.   Huge variety of enemies,  infinitely variable terrain (especially in some of the variants).  Make the major rewards take longer to achieve than in raiding (to compensate for being easier to organize) and a bit less powerful (see below), but make incremental increases in character power small but very frequent.
 
To point to D3, lot drops hand over fist, and once you start end game gearing,  increases in power tend to be small incremental increases.  The game is popular because rate of reward seems about right - there's gear, Paragon, legendary gems etc.  All small changes,  but with a few set breakpoints that feel like bursts to keep you going for the next big increase. 
 
 
 
As far as differentiating raiding and small group gear, create an effect on any gear obtained through raiding "Stats on this item are increased x% when in instanced end-game raids", but otherwise have the same stats as other comparable gear from other tracks.  That way, they're focused at excelling in a raid environment, but everyone has parity in the normal outdoors environment. 
 
Voila!  Raiders feel special, everyone has content, everyone gets progression, it can still be all hardcore etc. And we all get to have fun in the manner of our own choosing. 
 
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* DISCLAIMER: no I'm not. 
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