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Balancing Communication Line With The Dev's

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Poll: Balancing communication line with the dev's (36 member(s) have cast votes)

Worth while idea?

  1. Yes (13 votes [36.11%] - View)

    Percentage of vote: 36.11%

  2. No (22 votes [61.11%] - View)

    Percentage of vote: 61.11%

  3. Abstain (1 votes [2.78%] - View)

    Percentage of vote: 2.78%

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#1 zazz0000

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Posted 10 July 2013 - 09:46 AM

I'm a big fan of these forums as well as the game. In fact I probably spend more time on the forums, weighing people's opinions regarding gameplay balance and feature suggestions. I also note a lot of threads that address lack of communication from the dev's.

So here's a suggestion that may help establishing a better line of comms to the devs:

A website dedicated to balancing the game, and bringing up the best feature suggestions?

But here's the kicker - the site would only allow posts from the most regarded and active members of this forum. This way we'd be able to condense the information from 1000's of posts on this forum into something more manageable.

We could, say, have a nomination post, followed by a voting post, to appoint 3-5 spokesmen for the community. In meantime I (web designer) slap together a site, and within a week or two we have something up.

Surely (?) such an effort can not go unnoticed by PGI. Lets hear it guys, what do you think?

#2 Monky

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Posted 10 July 2013 - 09:57 AM

Basically, a player council. Eve did this and it is still going strong.

#3 Volthorne

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Posted 10 July 2013 - 09:58 AM

I think that's a godawful train wreck waiting to happen. You'll never get so few members "elected" and be able to stay neutral. Not to mention the largest majority of users never even visits the forums (or reads the patch notes. I have to tell my brother what's in them otherwise all he knows is that there was a patch and SOMETHING changed).

Edited by Volthorne, 10 July 2013 - 09:58 AM.


#4 Victor Morson

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Posted 10 July 2013 - 10:00 AM

Terrible idea. PGI just needs to email some of the top teams for feedback and actually listen to it. That's all there is to it.

Taking advice from any other segment of the community is asking for trouble, in particular the "TableTop Rule" die hards or any PUG that insists Frankenmechs can be "made to work."

#5 MustrumRidcully

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Posted 10 July 2013 - 10:10 AM

Finding the right people to speak for the communtiy sounds... difficult.

What I would like to see is simply more insight into their thought processes. Why certain things were done and stuff like that.

I ultimately want a form of two-way street of communication, but it doesn't have to mean that every or any of my personal posts or that of any other player gets replied.

There is just too much intransparency in the whole process. We know Garth and the rest of the communtiy report stuff to the devs, but what stuff? Do they actually represent what we say correctly, or do they miss aspects, misunderstand things (because we among ourselves do that, too.)?

We can only hope, we have no real insights into what is going on the in the heads of the players.

Recently I read some patch notes on balancing form Eve, and I thought that the explanations there were quite exhaustive. I don't play Eve, so they might still be all nonsense, but it gave a better feeling.

I played Startrek Online a lot, and the PvP there is an utter mess in terms of balance, and shows no rela signs of improving - but even there I have the feeling that the devs explained more about what they are doing or why they are doing since, and I also remember them actively asking questions. Their problem really is that PvP is a minor part of the whole game, and they don't devote many resources to it. But even then they had a complex patch and several weeks of beta testing on a test server with the community to improve balance (and I dare say that made the game work for the better, but new problems cropped up and a lot of stuff was introduced that wreaked havoc with balance again, and the clean-up so far hasn't really happened).

MW:O is PvP only. It's not like if we're getting frustrated with Quad PPC Stalkers everywhere, we can just restart the single player campaign and shoot some AIs. We only have PvP. And PvP depends on balance. It's such a critical part of the game that it needs to be in the forefront of development and in the forefront of communication.

#6 Monky

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Posted 10 July 2013 - 10:20 AM

View PostVictor Morson, on 10 July 2013 - 10:00 AM, said:

Terrible idea. PGI just needs to email some of the top teams for feedback and actually listen to it. That's all there is to it.

Taking advice from any other segment of the community is asking for trouble, in particular the "TableTop Rule" die hards or any PUG that insists Frankenmechs can be "made to work."


Actually, balancing from any one side alone is a recipe for disaster as you end up getting a game that only appeals to that one side.

It's better to create a game that appeals to as many groups as possible, thus the need for multiple voices from different perspectives.

Edited by Monky, 10 July 2013 - 10:20 AM.


#7 Unbound Inferno

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Posted 10 July 2013 - 10:29 AM

View PostVictor Morson, on 10 July 2013 - 10:00 AM, said:

Terrible idea. PGI just needs to email some of the top teams for feedback and actually listen to it. That's all there is to it.

Taking advice from any other segment of the community is asking for trouble, in particular the "TableTop Rule" die hards or any PUG that insists Frankenmechs can be "made to work."

What about those not in teams? You telling the rest of the players their opinion doesn't matter?

#8 MustrumRidcully

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Posted 10 July 2013 - 10:40 AM

View PostUnbound Inferno, on 10 July 2013 - 10:29 AM, said:

What about those not in teams? You telling the rest of the players their opinion doesn't matter?

No, it just means that teams that managed to actually get experience with the game system and see what worked and what didn't might just be the more convenient choice than trying to figure out if a single random player actually knows what he's talking about when he suggests that mixing an LBX-10, a Large Laser, an LRM5, 2 MGs and an SRM2 is just as viable as a Quad PPC Stalker, you just need to learn to play.

And I am saying that as a solo player.

#9 Homeless Bill

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Posted 10 July 2013 - 10:43 AM

The hard part is making is so that everyone feels included. Pinging the top teams is probably what they should do, but it leaves all the other players out. Likewise, any sort of election would heavily favor the forum crowd.

It's a good idea, but I don't know how to go about the execution.

#10 Bilbo

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Posted 10 July 2013 - 10:49 AM

Anything that discounts input from the vast majority of the community is a bad idea, in my opinion.

#11 Unbound Inferno

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Posted 10 July 2013 - 10:49 AM

View PostMustrumRidcully, on 10 July 2013 - 10:40 AM, said:

No, it just means that teams that managed to actually get experience with the game system and see what worked and what didn't might just be the more convenient choice than trying to figure out if a single random player actually knows what he's talking about when he suggests that mixing an LBX-10, a Large Laser, an LRM5, 2 MGs and an SRM2 is just as viable as a Quad PPC Stalker, you just need to learn to play.

And I am saying that as a solo player.

Convenient, yes. But its hardly the right pick.

The 'top teams' as it were are the ones using a mix of teamwork and most likely what is broken and allows them to win. I highly doubt they'd have the best interest of the game in mind if it meant they wouldn't be the 'top team' anymore.

#12 hammerreborn

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Posted 10 July 2013 - 10:52 AM

Know what happens when the internet decides how things are changed?

Snakes on a plane.

#13 Haradim

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Posted 10 July 2013 - 10:53 AM

The only real advantage of this over the existing forums is topic noise, and that's only a problem in Gameplay Balance (since it's the Unofficial General Discussion Forum).

Even on this forum, though, a community manager should be able to highlight the threads most reasonable to look into, which tends to be more of a presentation matter based on what devs have said in other game forums. A courteous, well-thought out post attracts better than ranting, or having a high post count.

#14 MustrumRidcully

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Posted 10 July 2013 - 10:54 AM

View PostUnbound Inferno, on 10 July 2013 - 10:49 AM, said:

Convenient, yes. But its hardly the right pick.

The 'top teams' as it were are the ones using a mix of teamwork and most likely what is broken and allows them to win. I highly doubt they'd have the best interest of the game in mind if it meant they wouldn't be the 'top team' anymore.

It's the best interest of the "top teams" to have an interesting competition. Pugstomping gets boring fast, but being surprised by new builds you haven't tried, that is interesting.

Or so my idealism says. Maybe I am wrong, and secretly top players always just want to Pugstomp. But my experience with Pvp suggests otherwise.

#15 Sybreed

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Posted 10 July 2013 - 10:55 AM

View PostVictor Morson, on 10 July 2013 - 10:00 AM, said:

Terrible idea. PGI just needs to email some of the top teams for feedback and actually listen to it. That's all there is to it.

Taking advice from any other segment of the community is asking for trouble, in particular the "TableTop Rule" die hards or any PUG that insists Frankenmechs can be "made to work."

what I'm afraid of top teams having control over the game is that they'll just make the game unfun

#16 Victor Morson

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Posted 10 July 2013 - 10:57 AM

View PostMonky, on 10 July 2013 - 10:20 AM, said:

Actually, balancing from any one side alone is a recipe for disaster as you end up getting a game that only appeals to that one side.


I entirely disagree. Competitive players want a balanced and deep game and every pushed change would reflect that end, benefiting everyone.

Versus those with the agenda of wanting this to be a 1:1 TableTop recreation, who really want to see MW:O as something other than well balanced for what it is. That is the difference.

Much of the reason the OP won't work is a lot of the guys with high post counts = massive TT fanatics that have been busy posting dice-rolling charts up since closed beta.

Edited by Victor Morson, 10 July 2013 - 10:58 AM.


#17 Deathlike

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Posted 10 July 2013 - 11:01 AM

I don't think there will ever be a perfect system... but there has to be some semblance of communication that goes on between players and devs that don't involve their PM box being filled with complaints about the smallest thing.

What would be interesting would be an debate-team like discussion... having people occasionally forced to pick the opposing view and discuss stuff. That would make for some interesting drama, but also allow biases to be revealed (well, sometimes you can see it coming for something that they argue aggressively about).

The reality is that no matter what the solution, there will be someone that doesn't feel like they are heard, or someone that doesn't agree with the result... so it's also a matter of just filtering out the signal from the noise... which doesn't ever happen here...

#18 Victor Morson

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Posted 10 July 2013 - 11:01 AM

View PostSybreed, on 10 July 2013 - 10:55 AM, said:

what I'm afraid of top teams having control over the game is that they'll just make the game unfun


We fought against PPC meta before it was a thing.
We fought against missile nerfs before it was a thing.
We fought against pulse laser nerfs before it was a thing.
We fought binary ECM before it was a thing.
We've pushed for better ballistics from the start
.

I could go on and on and on but I have no idea why people are convinced of this. The fact competitive players are known for power gaming is the very reason you want them providing active weapon feedback - both on the current state and direction they think they should go - frequently. If more than a few groups are ID'ing a massively powerful combination, you can effectively work to fix it before it even becomes a problem.

I will never understand this "People with knowledge of a system having a say in said system? Hogwash!" mentality. It'd just mean better weapon balance for everybody, with the goal that every single gun should have a usable niche.

#19 zazz0000

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Posted 10 July 2013 - 11:02 AM

View PostVictor Morson, on 10 July 2013 - 10:57 AM, said:

Much of the reason the OP won't work is a lot of the guys with high post counts = massive TT fanatics that have been busy posting dice-rolling charts up since closed beta.


You have over 3000 posts, and judging by your statement you're not a massive TT fanatic...

#20 Unbound Inferno

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Posted 10 July 2013 - 11:03 AM

View PostMustrumRidcully, on 10 July 2013 - 10:54 AM, said:

It's the best interest of the "top teams" to have an interesting competition. Pugstomping gets boring fast, but being surprised by new builds you haven't tried, that is interesting.

Or so my idealism says. Maybe I am wrong, and secretly top players always just want to Pugstomp. But my experience with Pvp suggests otherwise.

Need to PvP more.

there are those two sides, but its the majority that's usually on that pugstomp side with the idealistic more rare. It does happen, just not frequently.





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