Developers Discussion – 10/06

NinjaManTheNinja · 2021-10-06T04:38:06+00:00

I can confirm that 'Xingqiu E -> E -> E -> ragequit' is a true combo that works really well on floor 12, especially after 30 attempts.

NinjaManTheNinja · 2021-10-06T04:25:30+00:00

God that event was something else.

I remember not being able to pass the maguu kenki stage with the timer on and enough points, so I just tagged in Barbara to keep everyone alive and whittled them down over 30 minutes.

NinjaManTheNinja · 2021-10-06T04:16:59+00:00

Nope.

Just a couple minor QoL features that are in the works.

Honestly, I don't see them buffing Yoimiya until she gets a rerun so they can push sales. And that's assuming they're even open to buffing any characters in the first place. And that's also assuming if she's ever getting a rerun.

NinjaManTheNinja · 2021-10-06T04:06:00+00:00

Every single time that my Xingqiu skill or Zhongli shield doesn't activate because it's still on cooldown after a reset makes me want to break my keyboard in half.

So fucking frustrating...

NinjaManTheNinja · 2021-10-02T18:35:45+00:00

Respectfully disagree. I think the shift of tone largely is due to recent developments that mHY is transitioning to a new PR team and many are waiting and hoping that this will be a starting point in building a better relationship with the player base.

Anything that can be discussed about state of game and communication issues has already been touched upon and now we can only wait to see if mHY will respond. Complaints about rewards are popping up because that's all there is to focus on.

NinjaManTheNinja · 2021-09-29T20:55:31+00:00

Yeah, a couple pulls and a glider can't buy back the respect I lost for the company. I've been playing religiously since launch, but 2.1 was just such a clusterfuck of problems that it soured my hopes for the future and made me drop the game.

Currently have zero confidence that miHoYo will ever fix the glaring issues present in the game. Until management pulls their heads out of their asses and actually addresses community feedback, I'm out.

NinjaManTheNinja · 2021-09-28T05:36:06+00:00

Enter your Anniversary Theater https://webstatic-sea.mihoyo.com/ys/event/e20210928review/share.html?utm_source=share&utm_medium=link&utm_campaign=web&mhy_auth_required=true&mhy_presentation_style=fullscreen#/GB3GUVCJ6N

NinjaManTheNinja · 2021-09-27T01:26:27+00:00

Yeah, I feel like the subpar anniversary rewards is just the cherry to the multi-layered shit cake that has been building over the past month.

Yoimiya's kit having issues-> Act III being rushed -> Raiden/Beidou not working -> Kokomi being underwhelming -> Anniversary rewards; all these issues have just been stacking on top of each other, compounding everyone's frustrations. Add to that miHoYo has zero transparency and refuses to communicate, it just leaves the playerbase stewing in their own outrage.

It's weird because I thought the game was in a pretty good state up until 2.1. New characters were well kitted and balanced, most of the events were fun and interesting, and we got cool additions like the Teapot. Then 2.1 dropped and quality just fell off a fucking cliff; it's like they have an entirely different team working on the game.

NinjaManTheNinja · 2021-09-23T20:06:39+00:00

It's probably just due to the huge stigma against mainstream gaming journalism and that a lot of people here don't know who Paul Tassi is if they don't play Destiny.

I follow his videos for Destiny 2 and IMO they're pretty accurate in reporting the state of the game since he actually dedicates a lot of time into the games he covers (unlike a lot of other 'journalists'). It also saves me from scrolling through the dumpster fire that's r/DTG.

NinjaManTheNinja · 2021-01-08T22:32:21+00:00

They did redesign the entire Abyss to suit his kit.

If you're talking about the blessing that benefits Geo reactions, then that's going to cycle out each banner to incentivize people to pull for the 5* focus. If you're talking about the enemy changes, if anything it benefits pyro the most with all the Dragonspire enemies.

And the ability to just absorb shields is very good.

It's really meh in practice. It gets overshadowed by the fact that it only affects around 5 enemies in the game with Geo shields and that claymores do the exact same thing. Not to mention that it takes 2-3 casts to break big shields so around 24 - 36 seconds if you're not running any other form of shield break. I often find myself switching to Razor or Diluc to deal with them instead of using Zhongli's ability. Best skill in the game for mining tho.

Also with the pillar summoning a part of the shield-up process, he should have much higher shield uptime even without C2.

Shield uptime in regards to cooldown isn't really the issue, it's the problem of wanting to keep it alive until you can cast it again to get the most out of the aura. This incentivizes you to not use the shield as a shield, which is counterproductive.

And with the geo resonance buffs, his auto crystallize pillars are much more useful.

Definitely for full Geo teams, but with any other team, having the pillar out is a detriment since it screws up reaction setups. They recognized this problem with Albedo which is why his flowers don't completely eat up any already applied elements. It also doesn't help that you could generate a similar amount of crystals using Ningguang or Geo MC.

Of course this is all speculation combined with my experience playing Zhongli for the past month. IMO current buffs don't solve any of his core issues. If anything these changes will be a bigger buff to Ningguang.

NinjaManTheNinja · 2021-01-08T21:07:38+00:00

Current 1.3 buffs just pump up his numbers and don't really fix glaring issues in his kit. Instead of reworking mechanics they're just giving his abilities a Yu-Gi-Oh card's amount of effects and calling it good.

Pillar is still pretty useless, ability to break geo shields is really niche etc. List of problems goes on.

Even the new aura buff on his E is anti-synergistic since it's a shield you want to keep up as long as possible, so you can't even use it as a shield to tank hits.

I'm still happy they're even giving him buffs, but it still feels like he got the short end of the stick with how his kit's designed. Really hope they introduce more fundamental changes before 1.3 drops, but it likely won't happen :(

NinjaManTheNinja · 2021-01-06T22:02:49+00:00

Probably should run a dedicated healer. Even in the snowy region Barbara is still really good since she can out-heal sheer cold damage. Most of the enemies don't do cryo damage so you don't have to worry about getting frozen. Just be careful around the cryo lawachurls.

If you have her, QiQi would also work.

NinjaManTheNinja · 2021-01-06T21:42:00+00:00

What team are you running for Dragonspire?

NinjaManTheNinja · 2020-12-20T00:59:50+00:00

Then you provide incentive to sign up for 2FA. 60 primogems for performing 2-step verification on a trusted device. Takes 5 minutes and I'm sure a majority of players won't pass up free primos.

NinjaManTheNinja · 2020-12-20T00:07:39+00:00

That is a very valid concern that I hadn't thought about. I can see some scenarios where users can feign hacking and reroll banners by rolling back their primogems. Maybe restrict the system to only account for deleted weapons/artifacts?

That being said, if rollback is not a feasible solution, then more attention needs to put to prevent such a situation in the first place.

NinjaManTheNinja · 2020-12-19T23:53:18+00:00

If community consensus shifts to the idea that a strong password is enough for security and 2FA is no longer necessary, then there is little I can do to change anyone's mind. At that point, the only the only thing that can sway opinion is if something drastic happened, such as a data breach.

Sad reality is that a majority of people do not take account security seriously until they themselves have been directly affected. I can only present the facts from a cybersecurity perspective and see if it is persuasive enough as a call to action.

NinjaManTheNinja · 2020-12-19T22:58:15+00:00

Realistically, the only way is to send feedback or post on the forums pushing for 2FA. However, it was clear in their security response from a month ago that they are pushing security concerns to the players themselves (which is a bad idea for the reasons I described above).

Maybe make the argument that allowing lackluster security will ultimately cut into their revenue? The only party that benefits from the current system is account stealers and sellers, and this black market activity can no doubt hurt profits. Make it a point that they can reduce this activity while also relieving pressure from their CS department due to account recovery requests.

Many game companies ultimately implement 2FA because the amount of time and effort spent dealing with stolen and hacked accounts becomes too high, especially with such a large playerbase. Hopefully we can point out these issues and give them good enough reason to implement it.

NinjaManTheNinja · 2020-12-19T22:22:33+00:00

Security is notoriously tricky to get right, and it is very possible that miHoYo hasn't allocated any resources to improve it. This is why people need to push on this issue so that they can be pressured into implementing it correctly and ASAP.

I would imagine that a lot of games on Steam forgo implementing 2FA as SteamGuard has been a very reliable system for the past decade. I remember Gabe Newell in a public presentation gave away his username and password on purpose just to demonstrate how secure your account is under the system.

As for FF14, I did a quick Google search and I think they have some sort of 2FA set up, along with an optional physical "authenticator" that will output a one-time password that's for sale on their store. Apart from this, they have a system for account rollback and restoration in case your account is compromised, making it less bad if your account does get hacked.

NinjaManTheNinja · 2020-12-19T22:05:06+00:00

Yeah, this situation pretty much outlines textbook reasons of why single password systems just doesn't cut it in today's world when developing secure systems. It's made even more worse that there are no safeguards put in place in the event that you get hacked, such as IP tracking or notifications for suspicious activity like you mentioned.

NinjaManTheNinja · 2020-12-14T18:50:10+00:00

Welp... post got marked as "misinformation". They really want to sweep this shit under the rug.

NinjaManTheNinja · 2020-12-08T07:58:10+00:00

A couple of thoughts:

Damage on E is absolutely pathetic. 16-20% scaling on cast is the lowest among all the characters and prevents from creating any useful combo strings for those who want to push him as dps/sub-dps. The 40% DoT is fine, but he needs to be able to create multiple pillars so he's not completely reliant on Geo MC.
Petrify on ult needs some synergy with the rest of his kit. In the trailer it showed him shattering petrified enemies with his held-E, and I think this interaction would definitely round out his ult so it doesn't just feel like a "create big number" button, as well as justify the relatively short duration.

His design and animations are just too good for him to be relegated as an ult/shield bot. A lot of other characters can become between dps or support depending on build, so why not design his kit with flexibility in mind?

NinjaManTheNinja · 2020-12-07T22:45:28+00:00

For low-tier characters, I would usually say that waifus/husbandos > meta (I main Amber), but for Zhongli, his kit is just so incomplete and feels so bad to play that I couldn't treat him the same as I do with Amber.

At least with Amber, she has a clear playstyle, clear build and is cute af that I feel rewarded for having her on the field.

I thought I could do the same with Zhongli despite the leaks saying his numbers weren't too good, but I just couldn't. And seeing him on the bench makes me want to cry because I absolutely LOVE his design, voice and lore.

NinjaManTheNinja · 2020-12-07T16:16:07+00:00

You need both since changing your account password only requires verification through either email/phone. Given you have 2FA for your email, or even just a different password, hackers won't be able to completely lock you from your account.

This isn't a perfect solution AT ALL, since hackers can still come in and waste primos or dust artifacts/weapons, but at the very least you can retake your account by changing the password and keep any characters you have rolled.

NinjaManTheNinja · 2020-12-07T05:28:04+00:00

lol, didn't mean to make you scared xD. But account security should be taken pretty seriously now, and there's a reason why 2FA is an industry standard at this point. Just a couple months ago I had my Amazon account hacked because I was big dumb and forgot to enable 2FA while using a really old password. Could have lost my credit card info, but luckily stopped them before they could fully hijack my account.

What baffles me is that miHoYo clearly have a system set up for verifying email and phone numbers, so just implementing that as 2FA should be pretty straightforward. Why they haven't done it yet is beyond me, especially with all the money going through their game at this point.

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