40 replies to this topic

[Rebas Kradd]

FupDup, on 28 May 2013 - 07:52 AM, said:

The beta tag will only last for so long.

Yes...until release.

[Kragmore]

Rhent, on 28 May 2013 - 08:22 AM, said:

If the game developers don't want to get flamed then they need to put out a test server and let players go onto it and actually test out whacky Paul's ideas first before they are unleashed on the general population. When a game goes through huge and wild mood swings when it comes to gear, people get irate. Right now, only 2/3 of the weapon families are viable and its been that way for months with no fix in sight.

You can expect more flames directed at the developers. When the weapons stay the same and the flames die down, its a very bad sign. At least now people are still invested in the game to post. When those people quit posting and there have been no changes, it means people have left the game. The churn in what Piranha calls "Open Beta", has got to be a lot higher than what was the actual Beta.

You know you are playing on the testserver right? We are actually performing a test to give the developers data when it come to balance, performance, heatmaps, etc.

But I do agree that the balance updats come a bit to seldom. Minor tweaks and to the weapons would probably be good to send out every two weeks. That gives the Devs one week to gather data and one week to do more tweaks.
I would asume that this metod will be more common closer to the release as well as several months after release (ballance is a hell to do!). Right now it feel like they focus more on adding the stuff they want to be in before the game is released.

And remeber folks, beta is beta. Keep up the constructive feedback and tone down the Flame. This make it easier for developers to actually see the feedback the community presents.

[jakucha]

Cyke, on 28 May 2013 - 08:46 AM, said:

It took 2 months for any changes to missiles (after the post-LRMpocalypse nerf, which was just after the March Jager patch), and that's been reverted back to square one (or is it square two? Square zero?).

There are 4 months to go.

With that kind of response time, are you overly optimistic or simply uninformed?

They've gotten a bit over half of HSR working so far. Ballistic still has another part that needs to go up and then that's set, and missiles are the last group. Netcode has been their biggest hurdle, which prevents weapon balance from advancing. It's getting cleared, finally. After that point I'm guessing it speeds up in regard to weapon balancing. It would make no sense to make big changes to weapon balance before they all work within the netcode as they should.

Edited by jakucha, 28 May 2013 - 09:04 AM.

[Moku]

I don't really care if they call this beta or release. Whatever they add or change is not an experiment and is what we're playing now so unless you talk about it, complain about it, or flame the f out of it then it won't be fixed. They should have enough brains to filter out what are serious game issues and not have their feelings hurt.

[Deathlike]

Well, I kinda have an epiphany with respect to the matter. Hear me out...

I forget if it was Paul or Bryan, but they said something in some infamous quotes about balance... which effectively was like "we want your feedback, whether good or bad, as long as generates an emotional response".

I take it to mean... we should actually be operating in more of a flame/whining mode than we are before, instead of just being civil all the time.

When you hear people debating about balance in a forum, it is emotionally charged more often than not. Most of the discussion stops having much value having heard the initial arguments... for and against a change.

It didn't take that much effort for one person with an @Paul to get a response. Clearly, we have been doing this all wrong. We really should be more vocal, like effectively a Facebook/Twitter effect for things to happen to a game. This is essentially what PGI has been functioning on (even 3rd person), and so the discussions we have on these boards have minimal impact. A more serious way to go about it is to be "loud" about it... in the forms of media that seem to speak to PGI better than our forum whining.

So, we shouldn't flame the developers. We should however, LOUDLY question the decisions that they make, especially to move the game forward.. not backwards... which has been PGI's problem from the start. Focusing on twitter and other forms of media (have you not noticed Youtube/Facebook/Twitter in the mechlab?) is what we actually need to drill home the message to them. Otherwise, we are simply not going to convince them otherwise.

[Moku]

Deathlike, on 28 May 2013 - 09:01 AM, said:

So, we shouldn't flame the developers. We should however, LOUDLY question the decisions that they make, especially to move the game forward.. not backwards... which has been PGI's problem from the start. Focusing on twitter and other forms of media (have you not noticed Youtube/Facebook/Twitter in the mechlab?) is what we actually need to drill home the message to them. Otherwise, we are simply not going to convince them otherwise.

If we did that we would hurt the game. So that's why we keep it in here....

[Deathlike]

Moku, on 28 May 2013 - 09:08 AM, said:

If we did that we would hurt the game. So that's why we keep it in here....

And they aren't hurting the rest of us who tell them that it's hurting us in the first place? I'm starting to feel less sympathetic after each response given from them.

[Cyke]

jakucha, on 28 May 2013 - 08:54 AM, said:

They've gotten a bit over half of HSR working so far. Ballistic still has another part that needs to go up and then that's set, and missiles are the last group. Netcode has been their biggest hurdle, which prevents weapon balance from advancing. It's getting cleared, finally. After that point I'm guessing it speeds up in regard to weapon balancing. It would make no sense to make big changes to weapon balance before they all work within the netcode as they should.

Granted, this is true.

They can't properly balance weapon stats until the behavior (with regards to Host State Rewind, other forms of latency compensation, as well as general resilience of the netcode) of the game is perfected.
I agree that (for example) adjusting the stats for autocannons and PPCs wouldn't have made sense before Ballistic HSR, and the "PPCwarrior Online" state of the game (as people call it) is only here because those weapons have retained their pre-Ballistic HSR stats.
Meanwhile, they might be holding off on major missile changes until Missile HSR is done.

I understand it's hard, and the slow progress is probably not intentional.

Still, 4 months to go, you think they can make it?

[Ryokens leap]

Rabble, rabble, rabble, I'm entitled to my entitlements, rabble, rabble, rabble.

[jakucha]

Cyke, on 28 May 2013 - 09:12 AM, said:

Granted, this is true.

They can't properly balance weapon stats until the behavior (with regards to Host State Rewind, other forms of latency compensation, as well as general resilience of the netcode) of the game is perfected.
I agree that (for example) adjusting the stats for autocannons and PPCs wouldn't have made sense before Ballistic HSR, and the "PPCwarrior Online" state of the game (as people call it) is only here because those weapons have retained their pre-Ballistic HSR stats.
Meanwhile, they might be holding off on major missile changes until Missile HSR is done.

I understand it's hard, and the slow progress is probably not intentional.

Still, 4 months to go, you think they can make it?

If they can get the netcode unfuddled soon, then yes I think they can make it.

[Rodder]

They still have not managed to implement a chat. A online game without chat? Sorry, but this is not acceptable.

[Mawai]

Psychokreep, on 28 May 2013 - 07:48 AM, said:

I will admit that I, myself, have posted flaming topics about game mechanics. Those posts were written because of my frustration and getting my a$$ handed to me by superior players at no fault of theirs. I most likely changed my weapons, armor, tactics, something that decreased my effectiveness which caused my imminent demise at the hands of more skilled players. It wasn't PGI's fault or any of the developers trying to balance the current mechanics. These people need constructive criticism, not accusations that a weapon is overpowered or the new mech is garbage, etc.. THIS IS NOT A FINISHED GAME, IT IS A "BETA"!

I freely apologize for my previous rants about balance issues. The developers need constructive feedback from us players to better the game before mass release of finished product. We freely play this BETA to help get the best product for general release. Give PGI and everyone a break and describe the problem you are having so it can be corrected, don't scream and yell because you were bested by someone better than you.


Psychokreep

Hi!

I agree the developers could use constructive feedback ... but do you know why it devolves into flamefests? Lack of communication from PGI. The people on the forums actually seem to care about the game ... why else would they bother to have strong opinions or actually express an opinion about how the various weapons work. Many of the fans of mechwarrior on these forums have been involved with the franchise for decades ... in some cases longer than the developers have been alive. They played the board game or the video games or both. They are familiar with how the game works on paper, how the game has worked in the past and how it is working out now.

These people express their opinions on the forums and receive little or no feedback on their ideas.

The people who monitor the forums do not post saying that the ideas or concerns have been read and passed along. The monitors (if they exist) could easily post a summary of weekly issues/comments/suggestions ... including recurring topics of concern that have been brought up and noted. The official weapon balancing post gets a paragraph every 2 weeks or so which doesn't usually say very much. Due to the lack of communication, perhaps the community is losing faith in the developer to deliver the next generation mechwarrior product ... which ultimately results in flames and more vitriol in posts in the hopes that they will stand a better chance of getting noticed just due to the controversy and posts they generate.

Finally, although PGI is doing generally a really good job ... at least in my opinion ... there are some areas where they could improve and where critical comments are probably deserved.

1) communications
2) testing
- PGI mentioned they were planning a public or semi-public test server so that a larger community could test and report on each patch - they haven't done this yet to my knowledge.
- it isn't clear how the LRM changes that were put in recently made it through internal testing - the arcs and splash damage were issues that should show up in any number of automated tests (which they mentioned some time ago were in development) or just by playing the game


Anyway, an example of good communications from PGI was the description of the HUD bug and its resolution. It helped folks to understand the issue and why it took so long to fix. However, some of that communication while the bug was being worked on ... might have alleviated a lot of the community complaints about it.

[MustrumRidcully]

Quote

The people who monitor the forums do not post saying that the ideas or concerns have been read and passed along. The monitors (if they exist) could easily post a summary of weekly issues/comments/suggestions ... including recurring topics of concern that have been brought up and noted.

The people monitoring the forums say they do forward ideas or concerns.

Maybe they should actually write what they report? Having an idea of the level of detail - and maybe on facts gone wrong - might help.

[hammerreborn]

jakucha, on 28 May 2013 - 08:54 AM, said:

They've gotten a bit over half of HSR working so far. Ballistic still has another part that needs to go up and then that's set, and missiles are the last group. Netcode has been their biggest hurdle, which prevents weapon balance from advancing. It's getting cleared, finally. After that point I'm guessing it speeds up in regard to weapon balancing. It would make no sense to make big changes to weapon balance before they all work within the netcode as they should.

THIS!

How do you balance a game around broken mechanics/design flaws that are to be fixed in the near...ish future?

Honestly, I think PGI massively messed up choosing cryengine, either through inexperience (basically not knowing about the speed cap) or a leap of faith. As soon as the first commando hit 200 kph, leaving a trail of disconnections in it's wake as it literally ripped through the fabric of reality like a Guild Navigator on crack, they probably realized that none of their short term goals were going to be met.

There were a bunch of PPC balancing acts done through open beta that clearly point at balances to help negate the netcode issues. Projectile speeds were increased nearly across the board, meaning you didn't have to lead a fast mech too much to still achieve a hit, heat was lowered so that you didn't blow up on unregistered hits, and other various changes to make lasers not the end all be all weapons, or just face hugging each other (collisions were one of the first victim of the netcode). Streaks became the weapon of choice just because they were the only weapons that could reliably hit, and we had brawler central.

Then netcode began getting fixed. First was the lasers (and machine guns/flamers....technically), and just like there was light...THERE WAS LIGHT! In green, blue, and sometimes laughably the red variety. Large lasers were in vogue, and lights began getting their legs chopped off.

And then ballistic HSR arrived, and it was good. PPCs and ballistics now became the flavor of the month as high pinpoint damage took control over the steady beams of the lasers.

But the problem was that all those bonuses and buffs overtime just to deal with the netcode all of a sudden made them massively overpowered when the netcode was fixed, and you get the current meta.

I rather PGI work exclusively on fixing the netcode and having all weapons working properly (a common complaint is that ballistics still aren't hitting properly) before doing any sweeping balance changes. Balance can be resolved over time (hell, people keep commenting about blizzard making frequent changes and they still make near monthly balance changes), but having a fully functional game I think is far more important in the long run.

[Vila deVere]

No offense, but a lot of us have been around a long time, and this "it's just a beta" is wearing thin. Frankly, I expect a "beta" to be more feature complete than this one is. So far, it's a shoot-em-up with trappings of MechWarrior. We don't have units in the game. We don't even have factions. All fights are random maps with a mish-mash of allies and enemies. The game took a tactical dump when the limits to "pre-mades" were introduced, meaning almost every game is a tactical cluster-foxtrot. There are still plenty of 8-0 roflstomps, so I'm not sure what that particular achieved, other than stifling the nascent units that were forming. In my view, getting CW into the game with a NATURAL segregation of lone-wolfs from pre-mades would have solved the "problem" without killing unit tactics. And don't tell me about 8-mans. It takes forever to get an 8-man together. And then you're likely to have one disco on drop, and a another couple bugged in some way. And your opponent will probably be using some min-maxed "flavor of the week" Mech. In other words, the game is a bit of a mess right now. I'm really interested to see what the "creative director" has come up with, because so far, I haven't seen anything particularly creative.

[MeiSooHaityu]

Acid Phase, on 28 May 2013 - 08:05 AM, said:

If that is what they really were aiming for, which they are, why are subforums such as "Suggestions" exist? These forums will forever be known as "The childrens playpen". Keep the community busy here thinking we have a voice of opinion or that our feedback is important while they do their own thing.

Possibly, but I was reffering more to the whiners and complainers. People with legitamate suggestions that make sense probably are heard and taken into consideration. However, 90%+ of the people are just moaning and belly-aching because something gets nerfed or buffed. You know the type, the ones that end up insulting PGI. I am sure they are ignored by the developers. That was my point.

[Egomane]

Not really a game balance thread. Moved to jettisoned!

[Appogee]

FupDup, on 28 May 2013 - 07:52 AM, said:

The beta tag only lasted so long.

FTFY.

[blinkin]

flaming and anger is the natural outcome for most debates (i don't like it but i don't see human nature changing either). what i would like, is if we could at least avoid starting these threads in the useless impotent rage zone.

laying out specific reasons why something doesn't work or why changes need to be made is much more likely to convince the developers you are right than insulting their mother. i think much more would get done if players took a couple minutes to think about exactly why they are angry and what went wrong BEFORE they keyboard spam.

[Deathlike]

Niko Snow, on 28 May 2013 - 11:52 AM, said:

We update at least twice a month, not once every two or three months.

With respect to balance, what PGI is doing is an order of magnitude longer and at this point actually unacceptable considering the meta.

Edited by Deathlike, 28 May 2013 - 12:11 PM.