38 replies to this topic

[Khanublikhan]

In an ideal world, deployment of changes could be weekly. In an ideal world, if the game was designed a certain way, changes could be applied *live* without taking the servers down.

/dreams.

[PanzerMagier]

DrDXZ, on 16 May 2013 - 11:58 AM, said:

lets take what we can get.

if we can get them to even make balance changes in the bimonthly patches they do. i will take that.


also weekly balance changes are a little much. it does take time for things to settle after new things are introduced.

having a knee jerk reflex after only a week before the dust settles tend to cause unnecessary overnerfing. And produces more underpower problems which inturn need to be evaluated again.

Look the reason why I want weekly patches is because the changes WILL BE SMALL. Think of it as dialing in. No more major changes = no more major mistakes.

[Renthrak]

Seems reasonable to me. At a minimum, they should do this on some kind of separate test server that people can opt-into.

We're here to test, after all. Well, some of us are.

[GroovYChickeN]

That time frame is too short. It will take longer to see the lasting effects of a change. I wouldn't say every month there should be a look at balance. No necessarily a change though.

[Deathlike]

Balance changes need to occur every 2 weeks, with the occasional hotfix for the blatently overpowered/underpowered changes.

Edited by Deathlike, 16 May 2013 - 01:00 PM.

[Keifomofutu]

Jestun, on 16 May 2013 - 07:20 AM, said:

Yes.

Frequent small changes please.

[Jestun]

MaddMaxx, on 16 May 2013 - 09:03 AM, said:

I was under the impression these"small changes" would be made based on "Community Feedback". Can we expect that said Community would put their hand up and admit it was their "mistake", and politely ask the Dev to put it back where it was or just blast the Dev after they do what the Community has asked, like before...?

Then I suggest you read my posts in more detail, not once have I ever said that PGI should just blindly follow every suggestion / complaint posted here.

Community feedback would be a small part of it, but the metrics recorded during testing would be the primary tool for balancing.

Feedback is great to highlight potential issues. It is not as useful for measuring exactly how balanced things are.


I want regular patches and RESPONSES (not blind obedience) to hot topics.


Sometimes I think some people disagree purely because they want to disagree with someone. Things would be easier if they read the thread first.

[Keifomofutu]

Jestun, on 16 May 2013 - 01:04 PM, said:

Then I suggest you read my posts in more detail, not once have I ever said that PGI should just blindly follow every suggestion / complaint posted here.

Community feedback would be a small part of it, but the metrics recorded during testing would be the primary tool for balancing.

Feedback is great to highlight potential issues. It is not as useful for measuring exactly how balanced things are.


I want regular patches and RESPONSES (not blind obedience) to hot topics.


Sometimes I think some people disagree purely because they want to disagree with someone. Things would be easier if they read the thread first.

Naw man who would start an argument about a topic they didn't even care about just to get some jollies from it?

[Wispsy]

Jestun, on 16 May 2013 - 01:04 PM, said:

Sometimes I think some people disagree purely because they want to disagree with someone. Things would be easier if they read the thread first.

I very much doubt this is true, I think it is mostly just you.

[80Bit]

Anyone who voted yes on either of these has proven themselves to have a serious lack of understand on how competitive game balance works. I am not just saying this for hyperbole, I am genuinely blown away by the shear ignorance a significant number of players evidently have.

If you make changes, even small ones, so frequently, you will never be able to properly gauge the impact of those changes.

PPC boating is the "balance crisis" of the moment. Doesn't anyone remember that there was over a month lag from the major heat change that made PPC boating viable, to the time it become a dominating tactic in the game?

[Keifomofutu]

80Bit, on 16 May 2013 - 03:40 PM, said:

Anyone who voted yes on either of these has proven themselves to have a serious lack of understand on how competitive game balance works. I am not just saying this for hyperbole, I am genuinely blown away by the shear ignorance a significant number of players evidently have.

If you make changes, even small ones, so frequently, you will never be able to properly gauge the impact of those changes.

PPC boating is the "balance crisis" of the moment. Doesn't anyone remember that there was over a month lag from the major heat change that made PPC boating viable, to the time it become a dominating tactic in the game?

If you make small enough changes then you aren't going to completely wtfpwn the existing balance either. Better than the current situation of wild swings in balance on a weapon and then nothing for months. It can't take that long to get a bit of data on weapon usage and strength. They would have metrics for that kind of thing.

[Sephlock]

80Bit, on 16 May 2013 - 03:40 PM, said:

Anyone who voted yes on either of these has proven themselves to have a serious lack of understand on how competitive game balance works. I am not just saying this for hyperbole, I am genuinely blown away by the shear ignorance a significant number of players evidently have.

If you make changes, even small ones, so frequently, you will never be able to properly gauge the impact of those changes.

PPC boating is the "balance crisis" of the moment. Doesn't anyone remember that there was over a month lag from the major heat change that made PPC boating viable, to the time it become a dominating tactic in the game?

Its more an issue of mg, flamer, and lbx changes being LOL-inadequate, and few and far between.

Upping their frequency would help with that, since they can't be made to see reason with regard to how much they need to be buffed.

[Deathlike]

80Bit, on 16 May 2013 - 03:40 PM, said:

If you make changes, even small ones, so frequently, you will never be able to properly gauge the impact of those changes.

Agreed with that point.

Quote

PPC boating is the "balance crisis" of the moment. Doesn't anyone remember that there was over a month lag from the major heat change that made PPC boating viable, to the time it become a dominating tactic in the game?

Yes, but various PPC changes made them incrementally used more. This even included the ECM disabling effect (which wasn't disabled in ECM counter mode for a while). It just happened that the Highlander and ballistic/HSR put it over the top.

[Hammerfinn]

I would like to see balance patches whenever they're ******* tested and ready, not on a ******* schedule.

[The Strange]

80Bit, on 16 May 2013 - 03:40 PM, said:

Anyone who voted yes on either of these has proven themselves to have a serious lack of understand on how competitive game balance works.  I am not just saying this for hyperbole, I am genuinely blown away by the shear ignorance a significant number of players evidently have.</p>

If you make changes, even small ones, so frequently, you will never be able to properly gauge the impact of those changes.

PPC boating is the "balance crisis" of the moment.  Doesn't anyone remember that there was over a month lag from the major heat change that made PPC boating viable, to the time it become a dominating tactic in the game?

The heat change made it plausible. It was the HSR that made it viable, and the boating became dominant immediately after the HSR went out.

Bi-weekly would probably be best. Imagine if they changed the heat on the PPC, or the projectile speed. With the current meta, they would have massive amounts of feedback in just a few days. If it wasn't functional, it could be re-adjusted within two weeks.

Look at the reaction to the BAP counter for ECM. People want to play streaks again. That would get a lot of test result back as well. People complain about LRMs, so you know they would get tested.

In fact, I can't imagine any weapon that wouldn't get tested to the fullest within a week if PGI put out a notice that it was going to be modified. This community is pretty vocal on both sides of the fence. They would get the pros and cons of any change within a weeks time, and would have another week to decide what, if anything, to do about it.

[Ralgas]

Hammerfinn, on 16 May 2013 - 09:25 PM, said:

I would like to see balance patches whenever they're ******* tested and ready, not on a ******* schedule.

^QFT.

The current meta evolved from lrmaggedon, of which the full fix is not far off being implemented as soon as it passes internal testing . If the changes went on every week/2 weeks while all that was being done, it would be a waste because we're only testing 2/3rd's of the true meta if that.

http://mwomercs.com/...ost__p__2315318 (last paragraph of that post for the non believers)


Same as when missiles get released everyone's just going to scream they're op because the majority of the player base is going to use and test them, same as when a new chassis comes out 1 week isn't usually enough to judge what we will make in oddball builds to try and break the game and figure how easily they are countered.


Edit: Oh and just as a side note, the original roadmaps did have weekly updates planned. IMO if they stuck to it deadline burnout on the coders and rushed to patch code would have the game in a far worse state than it is now.

Edited by Ralgas, 16 May 2013 - 10:57 PM.

[Kmieciu]

Two weeks between balance changes is enough. It took me 1 day to figure out to stop using missiles. Their effectiveness was decreased by more than 60%. When you drop from 1000 damage a round to about 300, you know it's not about having a bad day.

Make SMALL changes. 20% LBX spread decrease is a small change, I doubt it will make LBX more useful than a AC10. But it's a step in the right direction.

Plus, we already have patches every two weeks, so no extra server downtime is needed.

[Lupus Aurelius]

PanzerMagier, on 16 May 2013 - 09:48 AM, said:

Kid, this is a business. I'm a paying customer and as a paying customer I expect results. I am not gonna wait forever for PGI's long standing broken game. It's quite easy to spot that the MAJORITY players are not satisfied with the current meta. It only took a week to find it. There's your hard data. stop spewing all this nonsense. Do you enjoy waiting 9 months for change? What we might say may be opinions, but we're paying customers and caring supporters. So our opinions MATTER.

Boy, after almost 30 years of Quality Assurance, Industrial Engineering, General Systems Theory, and working with complex dynamic systems, I believe i have a clue concerning what it takes to identify Root Cause, formulate Corrective Action, and implementing Preventative Action. And 1 week is not even a beginning to properly address system wide issues.

And no, boy, the majority of players have not spoken out against the current meta. In fact, not even the majority of forum posters. Not even 10% of the members post on the forums, and those few who are adamant in their OPINIONS are the most frequent ones. Show me a 5 page rage, and 50%+ of the posts are by the same handful of ******** people. or those refuting them.

Also, boy, this is a Free to Play game, therefore you are not a "paying customer". If this was subsciption, you might have a case. If you have payed money for something, that was your choice to spend cash on pixels, and the devs are under no obligation to adjust their system to your demands. If you were a major shareholder, maybe. Go buy PGI stock...

Edited by Lupus Aurelius, 17 May 2013 - 10:49 AM.

[KuruptU4Fun]

PanzerMagier, on 16 May 2013 - 09:48 AM, said:

Kid, this is a business. I'm a paying customer and as a paying customer I expect results. I am not gonna wait forever for PGI's long standing broken game. It's quite easy to spot that the MAJORITY players are not satisfied with the current meta. It only took a week to find it. There's your hard data. stop spewing all this nonsense. Do you enjoy waiting 9 months for change? What we might say may be opinions, but we're paying customers and caring supporters. So our opinions MATTER.

So by that logic you're not off spending your money somewhere else why?? Truly dissatisfied customers only stick around to try and get their money back...