Leagues!

Post by **Kinak** » Sat Oct 13, 2012 8:12 pm

So, I won't get too deep into spoiler territory, but Leagues are here. Wooooo!

What's here is really the first stage of Leagues, but let's get the foundations in place before we get too far ahead of our selves

Naturally, we tested the hell of things, but bugs are going to show up as more people use it. Let me know.

A few things off the top of my head that deserve mention up front:
Joining Leagues
Leaders of leagues invite players (from that player's profile page). They get an in-game message with a link and, anytime thereafter, can join the league.

If you're familiar with KoL or Metroplexity, invitations work as "white lists" including holding on to your status.

Accesses
At the moment, there are only two special accesses: Recruiter and Leader. Leaders are the admins for the league and can do whatever they want. Recruiters can invite new people and manage invitations.

Multi-Abuse
Honestly, the easiest and most fun way to make sure you're not engaging in multi-abuse with Leagues is to be in Leagues with other people rather than with a bunch of your multis. Past that it gets really weird.

I understand some people will want their characters are part of the same League just to chat. That's obviously fine, but as soon as you have multiple characters contributing to the League's or drawing from the League's resources, that's going to look like multi-abuse.

Cheers!
Kinak

Cristiona · Post by **Cristiona** » Sat Oct 13, 2012 8:38 pm

An application mechanism (and master list of existing leagues) would be nice. Currently, it seems that if you want to join a League, you'll need to send a private message to a member of that League and hope they can either send you an invite or notify someone who can.

Satan · Post by **Satan** » Sat Oct 13, 2012 11:18 pm

Also interesting issue, Olaf decided to make PFE a league and invited most of the members, giving me recruiter status and a few others leader status, however Olaf left back to his previous league and no one else had joined it, leaving me as the only active member (and thus a leaderless league). I'm asking Olaf to make me a leader so I can manage things (I am the official leader >.>), but shouldn't there be some kind of system to ensure a league can't become leaderless?

Post by **Kinak** » Sun Oct 14, 2012 6:17 am

Cristiona wrote:An application mechanism (and master list of existing leagues) would be nice. Currently, it seems that if you want to join a League, you'll need to send a private message to a member of that League and hope they can either send you an invite or notify someone who can.

If you're open for walk-up members, as it were, I'd suggest explaining the procedure in your league's description.

I plan to include some leader boards up front once things get rolling. In the meantime, if you need to see a list of everyone, you can use '%' in the search field if you want.

Satan wrote:Also interesting issue, Olaf decided to make PFE a league and invited most of the members, giving me recruiter status and a few others leader status, however Olaf left back to his previous league and no one else had joined it, leaving me as the only active member (and thus a leaderless league). I'm asking Olaf to make me a leader so I can manage things (I am the official leader >.>), but shouldn't there be some kind of system to ensure a league can't become leaderless?

It can't, at least not that way. Since the invites act as white lists, he can come back as a leader unless you kick him (and you'll need another leader to do that).

Cheers!
Kinak

Harry Dresden · Post by **Harry Dresden** » Sun Oct 14, 2012 6:19 am

A way to view other leagues and their members would be nice. Especially if someone receives multiple invites, they could look at who is in each guild so they know which one they want to join.

Post by **Kinak** » Sun Oct 14, 2012 6:48 am

Harry Dresden wrote:A way to view other leagues and their members would be nice. Especially if someone receives multiple invites, they could look at who is in each guild so they know which one they want to join.

Because of the ways invites work, current membership is not very indicative of anything. I can make it visible, but it's potentially misleading.

Cheers!
Kinak

Kurg · Post by **Kurg** » Sun Oct 14, 2012 7:17 am

Nice! In addition to what Harry requests, I thought something else...only leader can distribuite loot, but you can only have one leader. Isn't that a bit awkard if say people do an event but the leader's not around? Maybe some kind of officer/loot-distribuiting privileges flag...

Hardware · Post by **Hardware** » Sun Oct 14, 2012 7:20 am

Well, I'm familiar with Clans in KoL, so I'm guessing that the event is continuing in a "League dungeon" of sorts?

Post by **Kinak** » Sun Oct 14, 2012 3:22 pm

Kinak wrote:Because of the ways invites work, current membership is not very indicative of anything. I can make it visible, but it's potentially misleading.

Reading this again, it's not really a very good reason. I'll go ahead and add that when I get the chance.

Kurg wrote:Nice! In addition to what Harry requests, I thought something else...only leader can distribuite loot, but you can only have one leader. Isn't that a bit awkard if say people do an event but the leader's not around? Maybe some kind of officer/loot-distribuiting privileges flag...

Glad you like it

You can actually have as many leaders as you want and the stuff in the Vault sticks around. It's worth mentioning that, unlike KoL, you don't have a time limit for distributing them.

If leaders want people distributing items from the Vault without making them co-leaders, I can add an access level for that. I just don't want to clutter the access page with a bunch of things nobody wants.

Cheers!
Kinak

Post by **Kinak** » Sun Oct 14, 2012 4:30 pm

Member lists are in.

Cheers!
Kinak

xKiv · Post by **xKiv** » Sun Oct 14, 2012 4:36 pm

Kinak wrote:... you can use '%' in the search field if you want ...

I hope you are "Bobby Tables"-proof >_>
(I won't be trying that out myself)

Hardware · Post by **Hardware** » Sun Oct 14, 2012 5:38 pm

I'm curious about how bosses are going to work. Are they going to be event-only? Are they going to be constant, perhaps each one sticking around a few weeks to a month before the next one comes on?

Obviously, I know that a lot is still being felt out in the current stages. Just trying to get an idea of what to expect. A part of me wants to design my own league, but I want to see what people are going to make of them. I know that, at the moment, people are probably going to be changing leagues like underwear until they find one that fits. Given what I know about clans in KoL, I'm wondering what will be the same and what will be different. I don't just mean the game mechanics, but also how people view them.

Post by **Kinak** » Sun Oct 14, 2012 6:31 pm

xKiv wrote:I hope you are "Bobby Tables"-proof >_>
(I won't be trying that out myself)

That's a whole different ball of wax, yes

Hardware wrote:I'm curious about how bosses are going to work. Are they going to be event-only? Are they going to be constant, perhaps each one sticking around a few weeks to a month before the next one comes on?

I can't say where we'll end up, but looking forward I see individual villains coming and going while villainy is eternal.

Hardware wrote:Obviously, I know that a lot is still being felt out in the current stages. Just trying to get an idea of what to expect. A part of me wants to design my own league, but I want to see what people are going to make of them. I know that, at the moment, people are probably going to be changing leagues like underwear until they find one that fits. Given what I know about clans in KoL, I'm wondering what will be the same and what will be different. I don't just mean the game mechanics, but also how people view them.

This one's not up to me, so much. I'm excited to find out too

Cheers!
Kinak

zatade · Post by **zatade** » Sun Oct 14, 2012 6:43 pm

Not wishing to appear dim, but I really don't understand this thread. Presumably Leagues are some sort of player created organization, although how eludes me, but then people are talking about Leagues vs Bosses, what bosses ?

Sorry, but the thread seems an insider conversation, and I get the impression it was intended as something for everyone.

Post by **Kinak** » Sun Oct 14, 2012 6:50 pm

zatade wrote:Not wishing to appear dim, but I really don't understand this thread. Presumably Leagues are some sort of player created organization, although how eludes me, but then people are talking about Leagues vs Bosses, what bosses ?

Leagues (yes, player created organizations) can be created as part of the event that's been going on recently (regarding LI Inc.). The thread is intended mostly to clarify a couple of things for people that are already at that point in the event.

So, if it's completely gibberish you probably haven't gotten to that part of the event yet. But, if you want to ask around, some people might be looking for help.

Cheers!
Kinak

Hardware · Post by **Hardware** » Sun Oct 14, 2012 7:07 pm

I guess that I'm really curious as to if any of the leagues will add a roleplaying element, actually acting like a "superteam" instead of just players getting together to fight the VotD (Villian of the Day). I was briefly in a group for City of Heroes, and we had character bios, stories, roleplayed discussions, etc.

Cristiona · Post by **Cristiona** » Sun Oct 14, 2012 7:40 pm

Kinak wrote:You can actually have as many leaders as you want and the stuff in the Vault sticks around.

I'm... not seeing how to add multiple leaders. Not that I want to share my power, but still...

Satan · Post by **Satan** » Sun Oct 14, 2012 8:48 pm

If you give someone the All access, it counts them as leader.

Cristiona · Post by **Cristiona** » Sun Oct 14, 2012 9:06 pm

Ah, right.

Now we just need the ability to give Li Inc. 500k chips for multiple VILLAINs per day!

Cristiona · Post by **Cristiona** » Sun Oct 14, 2012 10:01 pm

Kinak wrote:I plan to include some leader boards up front once things get rolling. In the meantime, if you need to see a list of everyone, you can use '%' in the search field if you want.

What would be nice is if, via Li Inc., you could access the search box even without being in a league. And mentioning "%" on the search page would help. Right now, it's kind of hard to find a league to join if you aren't in one.

Edit: Also, some kind of league-only message board would be great, especially for trading around dart components.

Satan · Post by **Satan** » Sun Oct 14, 2012 11:49 pm

Adding onto that, the obligatory league storage unit :p

Harry Dresden · Post by **Harry Dresden** » Mon Oct 15, 2012 8:09 am

Maybe I'm not seeing it, but is there a place for someone not in a league to look at them? People enter chat asking what leagues are, and the only thing I can really say is "Create one or ask for an invite to find out" instead of being able to say "Look at x location Downtown (or wherever) and you can see the current Leagues".

xKiv · Post by **xKiv** » Mon Oct 15, 2012 11:04 am

Harry Dresden wrote:Maybe I'm not seeing it, but is there a place for someone not in a league to look at them?

Very roundabout:
1) Find somebody who already is in a league.
2) Click on them to get to their public profile.
3) At the top, where it says their name, it will also say "of $leaguename".
4) Click that part to get to that league's "front door".
5) You can't actually do anything significant there, other than gawk at the "trophy case" and search for leagues by name.
(does it even show any contact name that can be harassed for an invite?)
6) Put % in the searchbox and search, you will get a list of all leagues.
7) Marvel (or DC, or whatever your preference is) at your inability to do anything useful with that.

Olaf · Post by **Olaf** » Mon Oct 15, 2012 12:26 pm

xKiv wrote:6) Put % in the searchbox and search, you will get a list of all leagues.

Only the first 20, alphabetically.

Post by **Kinak** » Mon Oct 15, 2012 2:27 pm

Satan wrote:Adding onto that, the obligatory league storage unit :p

Yeah, I think the Vault's as close as you're going to get on that one. I don't foresee a future where I want items moving through Leagues.

Harry Dresden wrote:Maybe I'm not seeing it, but is there a place for someone not in a league to look at them? People enter chat asking what leagues are, and the only thing I can really say is "Create one or ask for an invite to find out" instead of being able to say "Look at x location Downtown (or wherever) and you can see the current Leagues".

There is now. I just wanted to give it a while to get enough Leagues that it made sense having lists.

You can now tell people "check out LI Inc. downtown."

Cheers!
Kinak

Satan · Post by **Satan** » Mon Oct 15, 2012 3:38 pm

That surprises me. I imagine it'd be very useful for gathering together community use VIL slaying parts. Oh, also, there's no indication of who is a leader/recruiter when an outsider looks at a league, which might be useful.

Theo · Post by **Theo** » Mon Oct 15, 2012 4:29 pm

Well, I messaged someone, forgot who, about joining a league. If anyone is active with a league and wants a new member let me know. I also go by Theo in-game. Cheers!

(Yes, I do live! Spent the last 6 months extremely sick and recovering from surgery-related infections.)

Satan · Post by **Satan** » Mon Oct 15, 2012 5:49 pm

Theo wrote:Well, I messaged someone, forgot who, about joining a league. If anyone is active with a league and wants a new member let me know. I also go by Theo in-game. Cheers!

(Yes, I do live! Spent the last 6 months extremely sick and recovering from surgery-related infections.)

The Cult of Satan can always use more disciples >.>

Hardware · Post by **Hardware** » Mon Oct 15, 2012 7:14 pm

Since the bosses, at least the current one, resets after each day (I'm assuming), it would be helpful if there would be some way to know if anyone else has contributed to the fight without wading into combat to see what stage the villain is on.

Theo · Post by **Theo** » Mon Oct 15, 2012 9:45 pm

Well, I joined a (random) league that invited me, thanks everyone! Time to get back to the grind of this game

Glad to see some new content, woo!

Olaf · Post by **Olaf** » Mon Oct 15, 2012 10:07 pm

Hardware wrote:Since the bosses, at least the current one, resets after each day (I'm assuming), it would be helpful if there would be some way to know if anyone else has contributed to the fight without wading into combat to see what stage the villain is on.

I agree with this. Having the records room end-of-fight log (or something similar) before the fight is over (but make it clear it isn't yet) would be good.

Post by **Kinak** » Tue Oct 16, 2012 5:27 am

Hardware wrote:Since the bosses, at least the current one, resets after each day (I'm assuming), it would be helpful if there would be some way to know if anyone else has contributed to the fight without wading into combat to see what stage the villain is on.

It now displays who's joined into the fight when you check on the roof. Yay for early morning updates!

Theo wrote:Well, I joined a (random) league that invited me, thanks everyone! Time to get back to the grind of this game Glad to see some new content, woo!

Welcome back

Cheers!
Kinak

Cristiona · Post by **Cristiona** » Tue Oct 16, 2012 8:31 pm

Kinak wrote:It now displays who's joined into the fight when you check on the roof. Yay for early morning updates!

Not seeing anything. Unless it only displays other people who have joined.

Okay, I see it now. There's an error in the link however:

showchar.php?charid####

Missing an =

Edit again: some kind of logical sorting in the Waiting room would be nice. Alphebetical by name is... less than useful. Status -> Rank -> PlayerID/name would be more useful.

Post by **Kinak** » Wed Oct 17, 2012 4:57 am

Cristiona wrote:Missing an =

Fixed that.

Cristiona wrote:Edit again: some kind of logical sorting in the Waiting room would be nice. Alphebetical by name is... less than useful. Status -> Rank -> PlayerID/name would be more useful.

It's the way it is now because doing it differently is a flaming pain. I'll give it some more thought, though, and change it if I come up with a decent way to do it.

Cheers!
Kinak

Satan · Post by **Satan** » Wed Oct 17, 2012 12:21 pm

Kinak wrote:
Cristiona wrote:Missing an =
Fixed that.

Cristiona wrote:Edit again: some kind of logical sorting in the Waiting room would be nice. Alphebetical by name is... less than useful. Status -> Rank -> PlayerID/name would be more useful.
It's the way it is now because doing it differently is a flaming pain. I'll give it some more thought, though, and change it if I come up with a decent way to do it.

Cheers!
Kinak

The easiest way I can think of is a group by on status (active or inactive), with a double sort on rank ASC and ASC id/name. That's assuming that you made rank a numerical value with 0 being leader, 1 being recruiter, and 2 being member (DESC if opposite order). If you made leader and recruiter separate columns with 0 or 1, then I believe doing ORDER BY leader DESC, recruiter DESC, id/name ASC should fix the problem. If the ranks don't have numerical values or they aren't ordered numerically in some fashion by importance... Well you messed up >.>

Edit: But I suppose you could still rig up comparison on non-numeric values to achieve the same effect but with a more cluttered query.

Re-edit: Oh, and of course, if status is a 1 or 0, tack on status DESC before leader DESC

Post by **Kinak** » Wed Oct 17, 2012 2:50 pm

Satan wrote:If the ranks don't have numerical values or they aren't ordered numerically in some fashion by importance... Well you messed up >.>

They're not intended to be sorted numerically, no. At present, obviously, it would be simple but that will change as more accesses are added.

Cheers!
Kinak

Satan · Post by **Satan** » Wed Oct 17, 2012 3:27 pm

Kinak wrote:
Satan wrote:If the ranks don't have numerical values or they aren't ordered numerically in some fashion by importance... Well you messed up >.>
They're not intended to be sorted numerically, no. At present, obviously, it would be simple but that will change as more accesses are added.

Cheers!
Kinak

I would say the best way to future proof that is make a mini-table with rank and a priority number by it. That way, you can give different ranks the same numerical priority and it gives you a viable sorting method.

Kurg · Post by **Kurg** » Thu Oct 18, 2012 5:02 am

So, for bosses: any plan to 'fix' the 'if you log later in the day, no boss for you!'issue? I know it's still the early stages, but maybe, dunno, the potential to get multiple bosses in a day for a cost/diminishing returns as Cristiona suggested?

Also, shouldn't defeating the boss give some XP to everyone who contributed, based on damage dealt? Even if they're offline. Could be like 1 XP per damage dealt. And it would not be affected by regular +/- XP modifiers, just like discs.

xKiv · Post by **xKiv** » Thu Oct 18, 2012 7:31 am

Satan wrote:I would say the best way to future proof that is make a mini-table with rank and a priority number by it. That way, you can give different ranks the same numerical priority and it gives you a viable sorting method.

Which is kind of industry standard, at least where I work ... of course, our standard is also Oracle. which is a whole different set of cans ...

Kurg wrote:So, for bosses: any plan to 'fix' the 'if you log later in the day, no boss for you!'issue? I know it's still the early stages, but maybe, dunno, the potential to get multiple bosses in a day for a cost/diminishing returns as Cristiona suggested?

If you mean bosses for people who didn't get to fight ... just get another dart and create another league.
More bosses per hero ... you need to find some serious jiggawatts. Not sure if I want that.

Also, shouldn't defeating the boss give some XP to everyone who contributed, based on damage dealt? Even if they're offline. Could be like 1 XP per damage dealt. And it would not be affected by regular +/- XP modifiers, just like discs.

+1

Post by **Kinak** » Thu Oct 18, 2012 2:49 pm

Satan wrote:I would say the best way to future proof that is make a mini-table with rank and a priority number by it. That way, you can give different ranks the same numerical priority and it gives you a viable sorting method.

Actually, the best way to future proof something is always to avoid adding the feature at all.

That said, I did sort out a way to do this without it messing up anything later. It'll take some recoding, but I'll try to get it in when I get some spare time.

Kurg wrote:So, for bosses: any plan to 'fix' the 'if you log later in the day, no boss for you!'issue? I know it's still the early stages, but maybe, dunno, the potential to get multiple bosses in a day for a cost/diminishing returns as Cristiona suggested?

I would be absolutely shocked to ever see anything like this.

Kurg wrote:Also, shouldn't defeating the boss give some XP to everyone who contributed, based on damage dealt? Even if they're offline. Could be like 1 XP per damage dealt. And it would not be affected by regular +/- XP modifiers, just like discs.

I'm pretty gunshy about that, to be honest. That's one of those things that, if I screw up the formulas, will result in some very negative gameplay. And if I get the formulas right, nobody will notice they're there.

You're right that it makes sense in-world to get XP from the fights, though. If I end up doing that, it'll probably be at the end of each fight (win or lose) rather than when the boss is defeated, because waiting until defeat interacts strangely with retcons and recycling.

xKiv wrote:Which is kind of industry standard, at least where I work ... of course, our standard is also Oracle. which is a whole different set of cans ...

Look on the bright side: at least your company has standards

Cheers!
Kinak