106 replies to this topic

[Cpt Jason McCarthy]

Now everybody is running after new ECM mechs.

People are getting crazy about the Griffin 2N, they all want it !

Asking for an ECM Heavy for IS (Black Knight ?).

Saying how they love the future Shadowcat, just because it have MASC and ECM ... (I bought the complete pack BTW)

What Happened To The Ecm Council ?

Is now everyone OK with how ECM is working in this game ? Looks like it ...

I'm disappointed, I was really hoping for a change but it looks like it will never happen ...

Edited by Shadowpunisher, 21 April 2015 - 12:11 PM.

[FupDup]

It became Lostech.

[Gas Guzzler]

It was a fad that everyone got excited about and then fizzled out, because we are never going to have the player base agree on something.

I don't really care though. The LRM heads will just have to learn to play something else.

[Mcgral18]

People couldn't agree on what the Magic Jesus Box should, or should not do.


It is a very nice box, with properties from Guardian ECM, Angel ECM, Stealth Armour (or was it Null Sig?) with some anti lock magic sprinkled on.
Stealth Armour alone generates 1 heat per second...I think that's a nice downside to produce that magic, without costing the additional 13 crit slots or tonnage.

If you want to cool down, turn it off. Otherwise, deal with (essentially) Single HeatSinks.

[Tristan Winter]

Selling more ECM mechs was more profitable than spending hours trying to form a player council.

Let's see if our new community manager does anything about it. Seems like an appropriate job for a community manager.

Gas Guzzler, on 21 April 2015 - 12:06 PM, said:

It was a fad that everyone got excited about and then fizzled out, because we are never going to have the player base agree on something there was zero direction given by PGI, no official polls or as much as a finger lifted by PGI. Russ simply expected a fully working democracy / meritocracy to spontaneously explode into existence, from a state of total anarchy.

Which, in retrospect, was perhaps a bit unrealistic

Fixed.

[Gas Guzzler]

Tristan Winter, on 21 April 2015 - 12:11 PM, said:

Selling more ECM mechs was more profitable than spending hours trying to form a player council.

Let's see if our new community manager does anything about it. Seems like an appropriate job for a community manager.


Fixed.

It is pretty naive to think that PGI would invest time and resources into holding our hands and producing such a council.

All Russ said, was if you can come up with a clearly and concisely written solution for how ECM should function, and get some super majority (don't remember exact percentage) to agree on it, then PGI would work to implement that solution. The "player council" concept came from other players being like "hey wouldn't it be great if we had a player council to come up with this and future ideas?". I don't see why PGI would be interested in a player council, and frankly, you will never get such a majority, there are too many varying opinions and different playstyles.

Edited by Gas Guzzler, 21 April 2015 - 12:32 PM.

[Mystere]

Dead and buried as it should be.

[1453 R]

Russ told people to assemble a player council to come to a unanimous playerbase-voted-upon decision on how to change ECM, and only ECM, without any ability to touch the rest of Information Warfare or deal with closely related systems such as LRMs, and wanted this to happen within a couple of weeks.

Yeah.

It wasn't so much an invitation to more player input into the development process as it was Russ saying "You guys have no idea how impossible it is to please this mutinous morass of imbeciles collectively known as the MWO playerbase. Please try, so I can laugh at the results." It wasn't even really disguised as a player initiative very well - everyone knew right off that he was mostly just mouthing off at us, and only a few truly desperate individuals (such as myself, unfortunately) even made the attempt to take it seriously. On top of this, it got precisely zero support from Piranha even when some half-formed attempts started looking like they might be picking up steam and actually produce something viable.

So, in short - what happened to it was that Piranha let it die on the vine in favor of listening to Bishop's tweets on Twitter because apparently keeping tabs on the official forums for his company's game takes too much time out of his day, and also probably because Twitter is itself ideal for ensuring that players can't propose any sort of well-thought-out, properly researched solution that Piranha might actually have to think about trying to implement.

We can only hope that Tina keeps her ear to the ground and someday helps us figure out a better way to provide ideas and input than letting one guy spam Russ on Twitter while Piranha goes about cheerfully ignoring its own forums as much as it possibly can.

And yeah, I know, double post, but I just can't let this stand.

Mystere, on 21 April 2015 - 12:35 PM, said:

Dead and buried as it should be.

So...instead of a controlled channel through which well-done, thoroughly thought-out player proposals can be submitted to Piranha for evaluation, you'd prefer the current situation, which is Piranha ignoring everything we say at all times in favor of a handful of randomly selected Chosen Ones getting a few tweets out of these guys?

That's what you'd prefer, right? Good! Glad to know that you're satisfied with the status quo.

[Gas Guzzler]

1453 R, on 21 April 2015 - 12:36 PM, said:

Russ told people to assemble a player council to come to a unanimous playerbase-voted-upon decision on how to change ECM, and only ECM, without any ability to touch the rest of Information Warfare or deal with closely related systems such as LRMs, and wanted this to happen within a couple of weeks.

Yeah.

It wasn't so much an invitation to more player input into the development process as it was Russ saying "You guys have no idea how impossible it is to please this mutinous morass of imbeciles collectively known as the MWO playerbase. Please try, so I can laugh at the results." It wasn't even really disguised as a player initiative very well - everyone knew right off that he was mostly just mouthing off at us, and only a few truly desperate individuals (such as myself, unfortunately) even made the attempt to take it seriously. On top of this, it got precisely zero support from Piranha even when some half-formed attempts started looking like they might be picking up steam and actually produce something viable.

So, in short - what happened to it was that Piranha let it die on the vine in favor of listening to Bishop's tweets on Twitter because apparently keeping tabs on the official forums for his company's game takes too much time out of his day, and also probably because Twitter is itself ideal for ensuring that players can't propose any sort of well-thought-out, properly researched solution that Piranha might actually have to think about trying to implement.

We can only hope that Tina keeps her ear to the ground and someday helps us figure out a better way to provide ideas and input than letting one guy spam Russ on Twitter while Piranha goes about cheerfully ignoring its own forums as much as it possibly can.

I don't even think it had to happen in a couple of weeks. It was just do it, and yeah, obviously we aren't going to agree on something. We can't even agree on whether or not the Timber Wolf A left torso is unbalanced or not.

We are a community that is extremely difficult to please. They can't release a concept art or screen shot without people nitpicking on every little detail. There is no way that we would ever agree on how to implement ECM, it seems pretty obvious to me..

[Quicksilver Aberration]

Gas Guzzler, on 21 April 2015 - 12:32 PM, said:

and frankly, you will never get such a majority, there are too many varying opinions and different playstyles.

This is why it was doomed to fail from the beginning and needed some sort of interest from PGI. Any community will never agree on a topic as complicated as ECM (since it affects many different things) and part of the issue is we needed to convince PGI there was even an ECM problem to begin with so that they would actually take an interest in solving it. Unfortunately we failed at both...

Edited by WM Quicksilver, 21 April 2015 - 12:41 PM.

[Tristan Winter]

Gas Guzzler, on 21 April 2015 - 12:32 PM, said:

It is pretty naive to think that PGI would invest time and resources into holding our hands and producing such a council.
All Russ said, was if you can come up with a clearly and concisely written solution for how ECM should function, and get some super majority (don't remember exact percentage) to agree on it, then PGI would work to implement that solution. The "player council" concept came from other players being like "hey wouldn't it be great if we had a player council to come up with this and future ideas?". I don't see why PGI would be interested in a player council, and frankly, you will never get such a majority, there are too many varying opinions and different playstyles.

I know a little bit about your views. If you know anything about my views, I think you'll understand that the two of us will never come to agreement on this topic.

It wouldn't have taken a lot of effort for a community manager to assist the players in forming a council, and then gradually arrange a number of official polls over time to find the lowest common denominator (i.e. find the most basic idea for an ECM redesign that 80% of players would have agreed with). Without direction, it was a pointless offer on his part. A hundred different threads appeared over night, and it was basically impossible to establish any kind of consensus. That goes without saying. It was an empty gesture.

[1453 R]

The real problem is that we actually do have a player council - the miniscule handful of folks Russ actually pays anyf*** attention to on Twitter.

We had no hand in selecting them.

They have no accountability, to us or to Piranha.

There's no framework or structure by which we and they work together to refine ideas or identify problems.

Half a dozen guys just get picked on Twitter to universally speak for the playerbase without any rhyme or reason, regardless of what the actual playerbase wants, because Twitter and its tiny character limit is a natural shield against actual opinions being presented by people with research or well-constructed logic they can use in defense of their opinions or ideas. Russ can scan a twitter feed for his chosen favorites, get their current opinions in 142 characters or less, double-check with the couple of guys at NGNG who collect a paycheck from Piranha in exchange for agreeing with everything Piranha says, and Piranha gets to feel like it's listening to the playerbase.

It's disgusting. It's absolutely hideous and it infuriates me that people are STILL badmouthing the efforts made by the players who threw their blood, sweat and tears into trying to organize a more effective, more transparent, and frankly more fair means of allowing players and developers to communicate.

And people still wonder why nothing in this game ever gets fixed?

[LordMelvin]

I haven't seen player councils work out generally. If the players are truly invested in the game there is a conflict of interest where they try to manipulate their power to turn the game in their favor. If they aren't invested then what the hell are they doing making decisions for a playerbase they don't care about?

EVE Online has a couple player councils, and all I hear is how corrupt and self-interested they are. Granted, it's easier in a game like that since the players with the most to gain hold "real" power in the game world, but the principal applies everywhere.

[Mystere]

1453 R, on 21 April 2015 - 12:38 PM, said:

So...instead of a controlled channel through which well-done, thoroughly thought-out player proposals can be submitted to Piranha for evaluation, you'd prefer the current situation, which is Piranha ignoring everything we say at all times in favor of a handful of randomly selected Chosen Ones getting a few tweets out of these guys?

That's what you'd prefer, right? Good! Glad to know that you're satisfied with the status quo.

I have just two points to make:

• The ugly side of player-led councils, and human nature, already started to rear it's head. I want nothing of that.
  
• Do you personally know of any truly "great" products that were "designed by committee"? I personally have seen none. But, what I do have seen is are mediocre "designed by committee" products become "much better" because someone took personal ownership of the project. YMMV of course.

Edited by Mystere, 21 April 2015 - 01:19 PM.

[Soy]

1453 R, on 21 April 2015 - 12:38 PM, said:

So...instead of a controlled channel through which well-done, thoroughly thought-out player proposals can be submitted to Piranha for evaluation, you'd prefer the current situation, which is Piranha ignoring everything we say at all times in favor of a handful of randomly selected Chosen Ones getting a few tweets out of these guys?

That's what you'd prefer, right? Good! Glad to know that you're satisfied with the status quo.

Hyperbolic ********.

[ZenFool]

Mystere, on 21 April 2015 - 01:03 PM, said:

I have just two points to make:

• The ugly side of player-led councils, and human nature, already started to rear it's head. I want nothing of that.
  
• Do you personally know of any truly "great" products that were "designed by committee"? I personally have seen none. But, what I do have seen is a mediocre "designed by committee" product become "much better" because someone took personal ownership of the project. YMMV of course.

Felt the need to quote for universal truth....

As far as the question at hand, I believe there have been plenty of solutions to ecm. The fact that we all agree its a problem should motivate the Devs enough to assign someone to work on it. That person can read any number of the "well thought out" posts and pick one to implement.

Too often things such as ecm, lbx, ac2, and now clan mechs get forgotten in the rush to sell the next big stompy. Now we've been told lbx will NEVER be fixed. ECM will likely NEVER change. Don't expect to see flamers, mgs, or ac2s get a rework.

It seems to me that the Devs have been looking for "quick" fixes to problems for years now while allowing problems with no easy answer to languish.

[Otto Cannon]

The council was just an attempt to shrug off the responsibility for balancing a broken mechanic at a time when Russ was absolutely desperate to avoid further criticism.

A fix doesn't have to be exactly what everyone wants, it just needs to work well enough that most players can see it's good enough. You're not really supposed to try game development if you're not good at solving issues like ECM.

A pretty simple fix would be simply removing the area effect of ECM and have it only affect the mech carrying it. That way they could leave everything else pretty much unchanged but solve the biggest issue. Teams could still do stealthy flanking with a single scout or a lance who all have ECM, but entire teams would no longer be cloaked by one mech.

ECM would still be overpowered for its weight even then, but that would be balanced somewhat by ECM mechs having fewer quirks.

[cSand]

Mystere, on 21 April 2015 - 12:35 PM, said:

Dead and buried as it should be.

amen

letting the clowns run the circus is always a bad idea

[Mystere]

Otto Cannon, on 21 April 2015 - 01:23 PM, said:

The council was just an attempt to shrug off the responsibility for balancing a broken mechanic at a time when Russ was absolutely desperate to avoid further criticism.

A fix doesn't have to be exactly what everyone wants, it just needs to work well enough that most players can see it's good enough. You're not really supposed to try game development if you're not good at solving issues like ECM.

A pretty simple fix would be simply removing the area effect of ECM and have it only affect the mech carrying it. That way they could leave everything else pretty much unchanged but solve the biggest issue. Teams could still do stealthy flanking with a single scout or a lance who all have ECM, but entire teams would no longer be cloaked by one mech.

ECM would still be overpowered for its weight even then, but that would be balanced somewhat by ECM mechs having fewer quirks.

Here's the rub: I like ECM as is. And I am not alone.

Here's another rub: I like it for reasons different from most people here.

[1453 R]

Mystere, on 21 April 2015 - 01:03 PM, said:

I have just two points to make:

• The ugly side of player-led councils, and human nature, already started to rear it's head. I want nothing of that.
  
• Do you personally know of any truly "great" products that were "designed by committee"? I personally have seen none. But, what I do have seen is are mediocre "designed by committee" products become "much better" because someone took personal ownership of the project. YMMV of course.

Who's taking personal ownership of the things that need fixing in MWO? A ship needs a captain and not a committee, yes, but it also needs a course. An objective, a destination, a Place It's Going, or it just sits in port eating money doing f***-all.

Nobody, but nobody, BUT NOBODY, likes the current implementation of Information Warfare. Or, to be more precise, the not-implementation of Information Warfare since the entirety of IW consists of one question and one action.

IW in MWO:

"Does the 'Mech have an ECM hardpoint? [Y/N]
"If [Y], equip ECM. If [N], cry."

The state of IW in MWO is so incredibly dismal that it restricts Role Warfare as well. There's no real scouting role, there's no EW specialist, nor is there any need to run scout hunters or ECCM or any of the other things that might actually encourage tactics beyond random-deathball-in-the-middle. It's incredibly awful, everyone admits it, SO WHY AREN'T WE DOING SOMETHING ABOUT IT?

The job of a player council is not to captain the ship. The job of the player council is not to plot the course. The job of a player council is to provide a solid notion to Piranha of where the destination needs to be, so that we stop getting Reinforcement Packages or more useless Commodity Warfare tweaks and start actually getting our sterling captain to chart his course towards things like fixing awful weapons, or implementing ACTUAL Information Warfare, or other things players have been wanting for years but can never manage to get Piranha to pull its head out of its ****** long enough to get done.

Or we could keep squawking like idiots on the forums we all know they never read and accomplish exactly nothing, the same way we've been accomplishing exactly nothing since the game was conceived, while a half-dozen Chosen Ones on Twitter do the job of a player council except without any actual player input beyond their own personal agendas.