53 replies to this topic

[Greyfyl]

DaZur, on 27 May 2013 - 06:02 AM, said:

I don't think the volume of balance discussion threads is problem... It's the ancillary sub-text that is dripping with contempt, sarcasm and vitriol that turns everyone off, including the devs...

Apparently it's more important for everyone in the room to take notice of the "critical thinker" and their mastery of all versus voicing a cognitive message of concern to the devs.

Quite honestly a lot of the contempt is these forums was brought on by the developers themselves. You don't troll your own playerbase in the forums and expect positive results.

[jakucha]

Greyfyl, on 27 May 2013 - 07:16 AM, said:

Quite honestly a lot of the contempt is these forums was brought on by the developers themselves. You don't troll your own playerbase in the forums and expect positive results.

How so?

[Fate 6]

Maverick01, on 26 May 2013 - 05:54 PM, said:

Every other thread on this forum is about weapon balance. Don't people realize that weapon balance is an iterative process? I think Paul and the other developers are doing a great job! Changes have to be done carefully and in small steps to ensure they are not being counterproductive. Please understand this is beta and the game WILL get better with time. There is no problem sharing good ideas, but not ranting and raving. Have patience.

That's a funny way of saying "changes have been made sloppily and infrequently"

[DrBunji]

Renthrak, on 26 May 2013 - 07:32 PM, said:

We don't know what activity will actually motivate a direct response by the devs. Available information is contradictory or simply vague. What actually gets attention?

Is it a flood of whining threads?

Is it an on-topic thread with 10 pages of replies?

Is it a poll with many votes and clear results?

Is it a detailed, in-depth discussion of the problem and potential solutions?

Quite frankly, I can only think of a single clear-cut example of forum activity having an immediate and obvious result: the cooling module reveal. A potential implementation of the system was posted, and the forums exploded with angry protest threads. The result? A dev post saying that they were 'going back to the drawing board' on the cooling modules, abandoning the previous idea.

Unfortunately, that example isn't very helpful.

Actually we have confirmed that none of those gets any attention from the devs, because we hade all of them in spades against 3PV and they just ignored all of it. PGI will do what PGI wants, irrespective of player feedback.

[Ursus_Spiritus]

Asking people to stop complaining about X, Y, Z is akin to asking people to stop complaining about people complaining on internet forums. (sans sarcasm)

Edited by 8100d 5p4tt3r, 27 May 2013 - 12:39 PM.

[MaddMaxx]

Fate 6, on 27 May 2013 - 07:27 AM, said:

That's a funny way of saying "changes have been made sloppily and infrequently"

And you base that on your in-depth knowledge of gaming experience or Game Design and Development experience?

We really should have let the Armchair Dev's build this game. It was well known from the very get go back in the CB Forums. They just knew all the answers and could FIX anything easily and quickly. The Clans would be a piece of pie and CW would be a year old already, and done on a shoe string budget too don't forget.

Marvel.

Edited by MaddMaxx, 27 May 2013 - 09:28 AM.

[DrBunji]

MaddMaxx, on 27 May 2013 - 09:26 AM, said:

And you base that on your in-depth knowledge of gaming experience or Game Design and Development experience?

We really should have let the Armchair Dev's build this game. It was well known from the very get go back in the CB Forums. They just knew all the answers and could FIX anything easily and quickly. The Clans would be a piece of pie and CW would be a year old already, and done on a shoe string budget too don't forget.

Marvel.

You dont need to be a pornstar to know when someones rubbing their **** in your face.

[Odins Fist]

Maverick01, on 26 May 2013 - 05:54 PM, said:

Every other thread on this forum is about weapon balance. Don't people realize that weapon balance is an iterative process?

(iterative processing) a method of processing in which a control loop executes one or more processes multiple times..
.
So a year into this so called Beta, or more correctly an unfinished product that HAS been brought to market, then I would say "YES" they do understand the "LOOP" that the player base has been stuck in.
As a matter of fact I think even the most blinded of the brown nose fanbois are seeing what's going on.

A friend of mine left for quite a while from MWO, and then he came in to play a couple rounds the day of the last patch...
I will quote him "Wait, I thought they hotfixed this LRM months ago?", I told him they did, but they were playing with the balance again, and he said "It happened again?", and I asked him what he meant (trolled him) .

He's gone again, along with his entire Merc Corp/Fire Team, they have been gone, and he also reminded me that summer is here, and he has better things to do.

I recommended that he take another break, and come back in a while, maybe what was old & tired would be new again when he came back. I won't repeat what he said.

Myself, i'm grilling out today, just stopped in to read and post until the Venison, and Elk thaw out.
Half ground Venison some chopped Vidalia onions and half ground beef to add enough fat so it won't burn, same with the Elk = burgers that poor people will never have a chance to enjoy. Memorial Day cookout recipe.

Oh wait MWO..??? It's summer... NVM

[Fate 6]

MaddMaxx, on 27 May 2013 - 09:26 AM, said:

And you base that on your in-depth knowledge of gaming experience or Game Design and Development experience?

We really should have let the Armchair Dev's build this game. It was well known from the very get go back in the CB Forums. They just knew all the answers and could FIX anything easily and quickly. The Clans would be a piece of pie and CW would be a year old already, and done on a shoe string budget too don't forget.

Marvel.

Other than Clans, I would say the forums have come up with some very effective solutions for most of the problems this game has faced. And as for my actual comment, which you didn't really respond to, missile changes have been implemented poorly, PPC changes were definitely too much, ECM is broken beyond belief, mech hitboxes/models are poorly done...And changes DO happen infrequently. I don't need to be a game dev to see the list of past patches (and how the differ from the initial schedule).

[Rebas Kradd]

Fate 6, on 27 May 2013 - 03:47 PM, said:

Other than Clans, I would say the forums have come up with some very effective solutions for most of the problems this game has faced.

Most developers would, if they had 15,000 people working for them.

[cyberFluke]

MaddMaxx, on 27 May 2013 - 05:46 AM, said:

And some of the wondrous ideas found here are the solution? Please!

How would you make a 5 point weapons as good as a 10 or 15 pt weapon? You can't. Everyone wants their special toy as good as the others. You want real weapons Balance, make them all 7 pts. Done fixed enjoy. Make a Poll for that idea and see how it comes out...

Weapons Balance is the ultimate Catch-22 for any Dev Team. The ranting and ravings of the Forums is just more white noise they should simply ignore. Some will not be happy until the MG does 3 damage per pellet, so it is sort of in line with the AC20....

Actually, if anyone at PGIGP had sat down and designed the numbers ***before*** they started coding the game, assigning some of the numbers to be variable (some tweaks will be inevitable, player skill cannot always accurately be judged beforehand), we wouldn't be in this mess. You know, the game theory and design stage?

Hell, it's not even like they had to start from scratch, they've used BT TT as a base. From the outside looking in, it appears that they've gone into the project ar$e first, making major design decisions as they go, not having fully thought out exactly what the ramifications are. Hence the godawful, confused state of the game.

Edited by cyberFluke, 27 May 2013 - 05:02 PM.

[Deathlike]

We're going to keep whining about balance until they get half of it right.

And what I mean by half is that, half of the suggestions are usually pretty silly and the other half is more or less spot on.

I'm only surprised that some of the devs don't understand the meta they have created.

[SpartanFiredog317]

I agree with the OP insofar as Weapon balance is NOT the biggest 'balance' problem. The biggest problem is no in game voice communications. The most 'Overpowered' weapons are balanced by teamwork.

[Sephlock]

The Cheese, on 26 May 2013 - 06:07 PM, said:

How will they know that things are out of balance if no one tells them?

This is the Gameplay Balance forum. It is the one place where people should be discussing balance related issues.

That used to be the General Discussion forum, but we all saw how THAT turned out .

[Tincan Nightmare]

Well even before closed beta, when the forums first went live and players were waiting for the game, numerous posters were practically begging PGI to not let MWO turn in to MW4 multi-player of loading up on Lg. lasers, PPC's, and gauss and sniping and poptarting. So you do have to wonder if PGI listens to players at all since that is now the game we have. Unless they did that as some sort of screw you to the player base. I mean this isn't a project that's coming from nowhere, with no previous feedback to go on, when there have been numerous MW games prior to this. I mean wasn't the hardpoint restriction an attempt to address boating issues from previous titles? Yes, if MWO was the first attempt to translate BT to a video game I would be clamoring for players to have more patience as well, but unless they were ignorant enough to not examine the other games in the series to see what they should build on, discard, or change they are not coming at this cold.

[Sephlock]

^ They do listen, just not for very long.

[ZonbiBadger]

People want to rave and rant. It doesn't matter if they understand why the devs are taking their time. They just want to complain. It makes them feel better about themselves.

[DaZur]

MustrumRidcully, on 27 May 2013 - 06:47 AM, said:

No, it's frustration. Maybe from "critical thinkers", e.g. people that have seen certain things coming long time ago in Closed Beta or observers of the general the slow progress (if we can call LRMs being broken in one patch and nerfed to the ground in a hotfix progress) in balancing.

Not everyone who is critical of PGI are "critical thinkers"... Only the ones who are so arrogant to to refute any other argument other than their own and make effort to denounce anything contrary to their opinion.

Frustration I understand... If it's because of the manor and pace of development and or concerning development processes. If it's because someone stood on a soapbox declared their idea was MW:O's salvation and PGI's failure to implement it... you lost my attention.

You do realize balancing something requires a certain amount of trial and error and often requires momentum swings to find the center-of-balance? If your idea of "balance is an exacting science... we need to go elsewhere and discuss chaos theory.

Greyfyl, on 27 May 2013 - 07:16 AM, said:

Quite honestly a lot of the contempt is these forums was brought on by the developers themselves. You don't troll your own playerbase in the forums and expect positive results.

Agree and understood... That said, firstly, there was a time when this community didn't take themselves quite so flipping seriously and this "trolling" was rather viewed as playful banter... Secondly, a probably less mature of a response... I'm not quite sure how many days I could take a "critical thinker" informing me what a blither id10t I am, what a piece of drek my product was and other insensitive attacks on myself, country, employment and due diligence I could take before I lasted out...

Yes, it's not very professional... but then again, I cannot say this community has been a picture of social perfection.

Edited by DaZur, 27 May 2013 - 07:48 PM.

[PanzerMagier]

Maverick01, on 26 May 2013 - 05:54 PM, said:

Every other thread on this forum is about weapon balance. Don't people realize that weapon balance is an iterative process? I think Paul and the other developers are doing a great job! Changes have to be done carefully and in small steps to ensure they are not being counterproductive. Please understand this is beta and the game WILL get better with time. There is no problem sharing good ideas, but not ranting and raving. Have patience.

you know what? This is life. Some people do not have patience. And if this game isn't fun, people won't pay. So quite frankly, I'd rather come and complain on the forums rather than just quitting the game altogether. And I'm sure PGI would agree having that way.

tl;dr Shut up, people come to complain on the forums. As simple as that.

[Asmudius Heng]

DaZur, on 27 May 2013 - 07:46 PM, said:

Yes, it's not very professional... but then again, I cannot say this community has been a picture of social perfection.

I work in product development and if i took what some of my customers said to me to heart I would be very upset.

However, some of them might be rude and make me want to punch them int he face - oftentimes, they are not WRONG in what they say. You look at the product a little less emotionally and yes professionally and you balance what they say.

I hope they completely ignore those who post angry tirades mind you - but there are MANY people here who might get a little bit snarky at times but mostly put thier points very well - the developers should be looking at those people as a starting point essepcially when soem of those posters have a lot of support.

As much as i hate the garbage that goes on in here sometimes I find it very hard to accept that the developers have such a thin skin they cannot take a little bit of flaming to sift into the real issues. I feel for them when people **** upon thier work which by and large is excellent on many fronts, but they must understand the average player ONLY cares about the fun they have in the game which comes down to the vague term of 'balance' - which will never be perfect for all but thier idea of a polarised fanbase on balance is only going to lead to disater.