740 replies to this topic

[Gwaihir]

Interspersed between each of those is also some flavor of MISSILEGEDDON, or festivals of Artemis, of various flavors. I can't even keep track of how many of those there were, it's at least 4 at this point. From all the way back in closed beta where heads were changed to take only 25% damage from missiles, to the 90 degree DEATH FROM ABOVE artemis arc, to the breaking of the 25% head damage from missiles reduction so that everyone was getting headshotted by LRMs and SRMs again, to the 10 meter wide MONSTER SPLASH of all missiles, to.. etc.

Good times.

(Along those lines, I don't think that the head damage reduction from missiles was ever fixed back to 25%, but since splash was removed entirely no one has actually noticed. Unfortunately, missiles of every kind deal double -at least- damage in testing grounds, making it quite obnoxious to check.)

Edited by Gwaihir, 29 July 2013 - 04:33 AM.

[Stalkerr]

Hi everyone!

The letter (https://docs.google....DfMZDUeBG8/edit) has been updated with even more unit signatures, as well as unit member counts. This should hopefully give PGI a real idea as to how many people are represented here. If you see your unit on the doc and I have the wrong member count, let me know and I'll correct it

In addition to 641 individual signatures, we have 16 unit signatures, representing almost 3000 MWO players

If you aren't in on this now, it's definitely time to get in.

EDIT: I've reached out to Garth to update him on our current numbers, since he forwarded on the letter to Russ/Paul/et al

Edited by Stalkerr, 29 July 2013 - 05:19 AM.

[Wilburg]

TheMagician, on 29 July 2013 - 02:52 AM, said:

....

That´s the point where I always get curious where the game had gone if PGI hadn´t listened to the community from the start and just did their thing. I really can´t emagine that the concept was that bad, I cannot get rid of the assumption that the whining playerbase played its mayor part in screwing it up and that PGI should have said FU!
Problem ... NOW it´s the wrong time for them to say FU

Edited by Wilburg, 29 July 2013 - 05:56 AM.

[Hubis]

Some more thoughts on Hit Chance and HP distributions in MWO versus Table-Top:

If you assumed 40% of hits would get the CT, another 40% would get the LT and RT, and the remaining 20% would be spread across the arms and legs and rebalanced HP accordingly, then you'd end up with much weaker arms and legs, and slightly weaker side torsos (relative to CT). At that point, you would actually have to think about your return-on-investment for what you were shooting at. Yes, shooting the CT is the still the fastest way to actually kill a mech (and would probably be the default mode of operation) but you would now have a real incentive to aim for that Centurion or Stalker's arms first, because it becomes much easier to disarm him before going for the kill (although at the cost of being a harder shot to make consistently). You can't have it be 100% reactive, but a little bit of rebalancing of the default would change the current status quo of "yeah, I COULD aim for something else, but it takes only slightly longer to just core him out that I might as well just focus on the CT".

For reference, a 50t mech has the following structure HP distribution in TT (not including the Head):

LL: 15%
LA: 10%
LT: 15%
CT: 20%
RT: 15%
RA: 10%
RL: 15%

If you multiply that by the expected chance of being hit (and then divide it by the CT) you get the normalized durability of each section:

Center Torso: 3.89 => 1.00
Side Torsos:  2.08 => 0.54
Arms:		 1.39 => 0.36
Legs:		 1.67 => 0.43

This is all assuming maximum armor on each component (i.e. that the total proportional HP for each section is the same as the proportional IS HP). So in tabletop, the flow of combat would be that on average you would lose your arms roughly 3x sooner than your CT, and that it would take about 150% longer to lose a side torso than an arm.

Of course, this is only *really* true if you're being shot with nothing but cluster after cluster of LRMs or a battery of small lasers, because weapons that have larger damage packets will basically make the results diverge much more from the average. This is a good illustration of why weapons like the AC/20 are so effective -- high DPS is great for whittling away an enemy, but he's going to be up and operational in some way or another for a long time, especially if he has good weapons in his torso; meanwhile, something with high damage focus can allow you to knock your target out much more quickly with a "lucky" shot.

This also doesn't account for things like actual armor allocation. If you are in a mech that has a lot of its important weapons in the arms (like the Centurion, for example) then keeping your CT alive probably doesn't matter as much if your arm gets blown off anyways, so you can rebalance armor away from your torso a little to flatten out this curve.

Now, again, I wouldn't claim that even the derived tabletop numbers are necessarily the ones that we should be aiming for; however, because of several systems in MWO, these interesting game mechanics are completely missing. Since all of the lasers focus on one location, there's functionally no difference in terms of damage distribution between an AC/20 hunchback and one with 4xMedium Lasers in it's hunch. In fact, the HBK-4P ends up having much higher burst damage and concentrated firepower than the HBK-4G, which completely inverts the character of these mechs on the tabletop. PGI tries to balance this with the heat of Medium Lasers, but really the fact that the "feel" is so backwards in this regard to me indicates they're barking up the wrong tree. Meanwhile, because damage is so focused compared to HP distribution, it never really makes sense for a Centurion to shift armor from his torso to his arms, because as often as not his CT is the first thing to go (and if not, he's at least likely to lose the side torso that the arm is connected to).

Edited by Hubis, 29 July 2013 - 06:30 AM.

[Gwaihir]

Wilburg, on 29 July 2013 - 05:56 AM, said:

That´s the point where I always get curious where the game had gone if PGI hadn´t listened to the community from the start and just did their thing. I really can´t emagine that the concept was that bad, I cannot get rid of the assumption that the whining playerbase played its mayor part in screwing it up and that PGI should have said FU!
Problem ... NOW it´s the wrong time for them to say FU

Generally, a developer does need to listen to community issues, but masses on the forums are not really the place to do it. I would use SC2 as an example of the right way in general to go about things, because they have a couple of master league level players on staff that do balancing, as well as the feedback of the pro level teams.

You can't rely on only one, because they both have issues:
Folks on staff are not always able to devote the time to keep up with what is going on at the bleeding edge of play, so when relying on them alone you tend to get reactions to issues that are too slow.
Pro player teams, on the other hand, are by their nature always up on the latest and greatest, but might not always be the most impartial source of feedback and suggestions. Each group tends to have their own biases and preferences as to play styles which can color their feedback.

It's up to BOTH groups to work together to produce a balanced game. There needs to be both pro level folks on staff, and they need to work with the top community groups to keep their finger on the pulse of the metagame. Balance input from said groups, and use it in order to create a balanced game.

Edited by Gwaihir, 29 July 2013 - 06:26 AM.

[Hubis]

Gwaihir, on 29 July 2013 - 06:24 AM, said:

Generally, a developer does need to listen to community issues, but masses on the forums are not really the place to do it. I would use SC2 as an example of the right way in general to go about things, because they have a couple of master league level players on staff that do balancing, as well as the feedback of the pro level teams.

You can't rely on only one, because they both have issues:
Folks on staff are not always able to devote the time to keep up with what is going on at the bleeding edge of play, so when relying on them alone you tend to get reactions to issues that are too slow.
Pro player teams, on the other hand, are by their nature always up on the latest and greatest, but might not always be the most impartial source of feedback and suggestions. Each group tends to have their own biases and preferences as to play styles which can color their feedback.

It's up to BOTH groups to work together to produce a balanced game. There needs to be both pro level folks on staff, and they need to work with the top community groups to keep their finger on the pulse of the metagame. Balance input from said groups, and use it in order to create a balanced game.

Developer staff (and especially the designers themselves) also have an inherent and unavoidable bias of seeing the game through the lens of how things are "supposed to work" rather than just as an empty system of rules without intention which have to work on their own merit. This isn't really a fault, and really it's kind of inevitable; however, without external "reality check" testers who are know only the rules and now what they were designed to do, and who are often actively trying to push the system as far as they can to find the "best" (or most "broken") results you often end up with changes which either overlook balance issues because they don't use systems the way the designer envisioned, or you get very reactive changes which attempt to force players into the designer's frame of mind instead of embracing and balancing around the unintended consequences of a design.

Edited by Hubis, 29 July 2013 - 08:05 AM.

[Gwaihir]

Hubis, on 29 July 2013 - 06:43 AM, said:

Developer staff (and especially the designers themselves) also have an inherent and unavoidable bias of seeing the game through the lens of how things are "supposed to work" rather than just as an empty system of rules without intention which have to work on their own merit. This isn't really a fault, and really it's kind of inevitable; however, without external "reality check" testers who are know only the rules and now what they were designed to do, and who are often actively trying to push the system as far as they can to find the "best" (or most "broken") results you often end up with changes which either overlook balance issues because they don't use systems the way the designer envisioned, or you get very reactive changes which attempt to force players into the designer's frame of mind instead of embracing and balancing around the unintended consequences of a design.

I love it when you talk dirty to me.

[MustrumRidcully]

Wilburg, on 29 July 2013 - 05:56 AM, said:

That´s the point where I always get curious where the game had gone if PGI hadn´t listened to the community from the start and just did their thing. I really can´t emagine that the concept was that bad, I cannot get rid of the assumption that the whining playerbase played its mayor part in screwing it up and that PGI should have said FU!
Problem ... NOW it´s the wrong time for them to say FU

I think it kinda boils down to this:

You don't need to listen particularly much to your player ideas. If you know what you're doing, and have good ideas on your own, your game will work and you can pretty much only listen to general trends. But if you know what you're doing, there is no harm listening in to the players, because you can figure out the difference between good and bad arguments and separate the good from the bad ideas. Listening in to players might speed up things for you, since everyone's mind works differently and someone might have a good idea before you have it, but you can still identify it as such - but often you already have the good idea or a better idea than the players.

IF you don't really know what you're doing, it doesn't really matter if you listen to your players or not, because you wouldn't be able to separate the good from the bad ideas. You will probably make a lot of wrong turns and steps along the way. Maybe you learn from this and start getting a feel for what you're doing. Or you just stumble around until Open Beta or until launch.

Of course, regardless of whether you know exactly what you're doing or are still figuring things out - you will always need feedback and figure out if the system is used and works as intended.

Edited by MustrumRidcully, 29 July 2013 - 07:26 AM.

[fil5000]

All of this is helped by telling your players what your intention is.

[Hubis]

MustrumRidcully, on 29 July 2013 - 07:22 AM, said:

I think it kinda boils down to this:

You don't need to listen particularly much to your player ideas. If you know what you're doing, and have good ideas on your own, your game will work and you can pretty much only listen to general trends. But if you know what you're doing, there is no harm listening in to the players, because you can figure out the difference between good and bad arguments and separate the good from the bad ideas. Listening in to players might speed up things for you, since everyone's mind works differently and someone might have a good idea before you have it, but you can still identify it as such - but often you already have the good idea or a better idea than the players.

IF you don't really know what you're doing, it doesn't really matter if you listen to your players or not, because you wouldn't be able to separate the good from the bad ideas. You will probably make a lot of wrong turns and steps along the way. Maybe you learn from this and start getting a feel for what you're doing. Or you just stumble around until Open Beta or until launch.

Of course, regardless of whether you know exactly what you're doing or are still figuring things out - you will always need feedback and figure out if the system is used and works as intended.

You don't let your players tell you what to do, but you pay attention to what they're saying to you can do a sanity check on how you *think* things are working.

[Tegiminis]

Communication is the cornerstone to good multiplayer development.

To wit, I look at the open beta for MWO and the open beta for Warframe, and they couldn't be further apart.

Warframe's developers, despite having made nothing of particular note besides outsource work for the likes of Unreal and BioShock and maybe The Darkness 2, listen fervently to their players. When there was significant outrage over the progression systems, they revamped them. They hold regular, substantive events that give players new exclusive items and introduce new maps and enemies. They are constantly overhauling their game so as to be more user-friendly and focused on player enjoyment. Each patch brings a host of tuning changes to the way weapons work, damage, and feel. Players are regularly responded to, both on the forums and through official announcement channels.

These are all things PGI should be doing. They are all things any dedicated free-to-play game developer should be doing. Digital Extremes, despite being a relative no-name in the game industry, understands this. PGI doesn't seem to.

You can't apply the same principle of "clam up and never communicate" that works fine for normal game development, because MMO development is an ongoing process. If you don't really understand your game - and, with the exception of the art team, I don't think PGI really "understands" MWO - you can't make changes without consulting players.

I'm not really a fan of "only pros consulted" because that inevitably leads to disaster (see: CS:GO). But when pros are dismissed, even ridiculed, then something is wrong. These are the players that, for better or worse, define the metagame. Their strategies and tactics are disseminated among the populace. They should be listened to, acknowledged, and talked with. They are the players that break your design and figure out the unintended consequences because of their drive to win. When they acknowledge the only way to win is through PPC spam, and the average game is full of PPC spam. don't you think there might be a PPC spam problem?

Edited by Tegiminis, 29 July 2013 - 07:48 AM.

[Hubis]

Jackson Jax Teller, on 29 July 2013 - 07:04 AM, said:

Tell us when it gets past 5000. cause then, since competitive players count for more than regular players youll have passed the old polls here.

The thing is, this isn't about making the game design a democracy -- no one is saying that just because 600/2000/5000/10000 people voted or signed on for a change, it has to happen; rather, this is about getting a large number of people to support the same specific complaint, rather than a bunch of individual posts, to demonstrate that it's not just the personal biases of one group or another towards or against a certain play style, but a problem for an entire segment of the community as a whole.

It's always been about the quality of complaint and idea rather than merely the quantity of supporters; however, a certain degree of broad consensus does serve to strengthen the argument. This is also why allegations that this movement is just a "vocal minority" are meaningless -- being a minority wouldn't change the validity of our arguments in the least, and the fact that the rest of the player base is not necessarily vocal does not mean that they're opposed to these ideas. After all, who's to say we're not just the vocal segment of a largely silent majority ourselves? You can't argue that way -- all you can do is present a strong case, and then support it by having groups who might otherwise disagree a lot on balance questions all lend support to the assertions by way of agreement.

Edited by Hubis, 29 July 2013 - 08:56 AM.

[Stalkerr]

I'll throw my experience in here.

In my time as a game mod developer and later as a game design lead, I learned some extremely valuable lessons (the hard way) about engaging the community as part of development.

Quote

Mistake 1: I thought only I truly understood the "right" vision for my game's design, and even though competitive players and regular fans clamored for something different, I asked them to trust me because I KNEW they would love what I was building, because I loved it.

I was hilariously wrong. As it turned out, some things I thought were awesome, when seen through the view of someone who had never played the game before, seemed ludicrous. A major segment of my design basically had to be excised because it really wasn't fun, even though I thought it was brilliant. I honestly felt like my design had been gutted, but looking back, it really made what was left over a simpler and more fun experience.

Quote

Mistake 2: My core community testing group was only made up of my biggest and most vocal fans.

I thought that it made the most sense to have my core testing group from the community be people who shared my vision. Who better to test than the folks that really "got" me and understood what I was trying to accomplish? Surely those folks would be a pleasure to have test? When I released a beta version to them, they all fed back to me that it was amazing, and all that needed fixing were a few art assets.That ended up being a great ego boost to me. Of course, when the design got out into the wild, tons of bugs (some incredibly game-breaking balance issues) showed up, such as a mid-range unit that was less expensive than it deserved to be and thus was perfect for building en-masse. Who found these bugs? The people who played my game religiously and competitively.

EDIT: I should note that I'm not advocating that competitive players are the only good feedback mechanism. My mistake was not including them at all, along with a diverse group of casual players, to provide a balanced look at my game's design early on.

Quote

Mistake 3: I kept the game development process closed off from the diverse community of potential players.

If I had kept the process open to the larger community from the beginning, the game I would have built would have been more geared to them out-of-the-gate, rather than geared toward me and my hardcore fans. It's a careful balance, making sure the core vision is there, yet also making sure it's tempered with the good feedback coming in from the community. It takes time to vet suggestions and time again to incorporate the ones that make sense. I did this after launch, which was ultimately more painful than it should have been and probably turned early players away (since they got the "fun for me, not for you" version).

-----

This may not all be true for MWO, but I certainly see some of the same patterns emerging. If I had it to do over again for myself, I would have put my ego on the shelf and actively engaged the community in the design process, throwing my numbers and assumptions out there, and seeing if any good points were brought up that caused me to reevaluate my thinking. I know that, for myself at least, I can't be trusted to design a game as though I'm on an island with my team... I need the community to balance me in order to bring them a satisfying product.

Anyway, that's what I've got on that front.

Edited by Stalkerr, 29 July 2013 - 08:47 AM.

[RG Notch]

Hubis, on 29 July 2013 - 07:52 AM, said:

The thing is, this isn't about making the game design a democracy -- no one is saying that just because 600/2000/5000/10000 people voted or signed on for a change, it has to happen; rather, this is about getting a large number of people to support the same specific complaint, rather than a bunch of individual posts, to demonstrate that it's not just the personal biases of one group or another towards or against a certain play style, but a problem for an entire segment of the community as a whole.

It's always been about the quality of complaint and idea rather than merely the quantity of supporters; however, a certain degree of broad consensus does serve to strengthen the argument. This is also why allegations that this movement is just a "vocal minority" -- being a minority wouldn't change the validity of our arguments in the least, and the fact that the rest of the player base is not necessarily vocal does not mean that they're opposed to these ideas. After all, who's to say we're not just the vocal segment of a largely silent majority ourselves? You can't argue that way -- all you can do is present a strong case, and then support it by having groups who might otherwise disagree a lot on balance questions all lend support to the assertions by way of agreement.

LOL this is the same argument that PGI made when it pushed 3rd person. Apparently there is a huge silent majority that wants 3rd person. I assume the argument could be made that the silent majority is perfectly happy with the game as is and the complainers are on an island no? Or is that logic only applicable when it suits you?
It must hurt to be in PGI's shoes now, trying to argue that you know more than the player base at large based on well pretty much nothing but a bunch of people claiming to represent hundreds. Why are your arguments more believable than PGI's?
Also, I'd say there's some pretty clear evidence that this is a vocal minority. PGI would actually listen if it weren't, if it's not and they aren't listening, again why would anyone have hope for the future?
If the whole purpose is just to show the obvious issues that PGI has mostly acknowledged as issues, really why bother? Oh I forgot people get some recognition and attention. I fail to see how summarizing the issues that have been evident on the forums since OB is on any use, other than to get high fives and forum likes.
All you are in fact doing is helping PGI keep on keeping on by giving vague confirmation that they have seen this list of issues they already know about. With no end game plan for what to do if this is ignored like all the other times these issues have been brought up, all you're accomplishing is giving PGI time to slough towards launch with no real pressure.

[Tegiminis]

I'd just like to give kudos where kudos is deserved.

The MechWarrior Online art team is incredible. The new mech designs are fantastic (I want to see EVERY SINGLE TABLETOP MECH in this style, I love it so much), the textures are great, and the feel of the visuals and sound is spot-on. In terms of art, this is the first real "MechWarrior" game we've ever had. I'd buy tons of figurines using the models and textures designed by the art team.

You guys really have it together, and you've made a game that is extremely beautiful and visually compelling.

Edited by Tegiminis, 29 July 2013 - 08:25 AM.

[Stalkerr]

Jackson Jax Teller, on 29 July 2013 - 08:21 AM, said:

Mistake #4: disregarding everyone else who plays the game. Competitive ppl arent the only ppl you should listen to either.

I think my point was that I had almost completely disregarded the competitive folks who weren't slavish fans. They were ultimately the ones that really ended up testing my game, and I wish I would have included them as part of a more diverse feedback team.

You are correct on your later points... it takes experience. The more you really engage a community for feedback, the better you get at filtering that feedback against your vision and the direction for your game. Community feedback then becomes a key part of design, rather than just a thing you do to mollify the folks that want updates.

Edited by Stalkerr, 29 July 2013 - 08:32 AM.

[Adridos]

Tegiminis, on 29 July 2013 - 08:24 AM, said:

I'd just like to give kudos where kudos is deserved.

The MechWarrior Online art team is incredible. The new mech designs are fantastic (I want to see EVERY SINGLE TABLETOP MECH in this style, I love it so much), the textures are great, and the feel of the visuals and sound is spot-on. In terms of art, this is the first real "MechWarrior" game we've ever had. I'd buy tons of figurines using the models and textures designed by the art team.

You guys really have it together, and you've made a game that is extremely beautiful and visually compelling.

That's really nice and they really did a great job and a possibly great Singleplayer game, but since they made this a multiplayer experience, there are other factors that need additional work/reevaluation by the rest of the team.

[Wilburg]

Stalker, I just love your detailed explanations, thnaks for that.
But that´s also why I asked in the meeting where the line between whining and constructive approaches is. Because it is not only about how the post/feedback is written/said. Whining on an eloquent level can apparently be constructive and taken for that while it is still a try to get advantages for oneself or a certain group. I think I haven´t been able to express that, but I also fear that an apparently constructive dialogue could get abused to tore the game in a certain direction, eg. making it more competitive on one side and letting the beginners and/or casuals fall off.
Let´s take it to the extreme again. If the "pro ppc-boating pin-point alphaing fighting on 1.000 m community" got the DHS to work with 2.0 heatefficiency while the "more casual BT-fanbase nostalgic community" says 1,4 are enough because otherwise it´s too close to clans, we´d not have an healthy dialogue with the developers.

[Gwaihir]

RG Notch, on 29 July 2013 - 08:12 AM, said:

All you are in fact doing is helping PGI keep on keeping on by giving vague confirmation that they have seen this list of issues they already know about. With no end game plan for what to do if this is ignored like all the other times these issues have been brought up, all you're accomplishing is giving PGI time to slough towards launch with no real pressure.

Stop being obtuse. No silly ultimatums, demands, or other polemics from us would even be worth the digital bits they're written on.

All we can say is hey, look, we (this very large group of players) used to really enjoy this game, and used to have a ton of people playing it. Now, we have vastly fewer people playing, for these reasons. If you (PGI) starts showing real progress on fixing (Stuff), then folks will probably come back, and keep playing and buying stuff. If not, then populations will likely continue to dwindle and die.

No "Fix this or else!", just rationally laying out what we've all seen happen over the last 7+ months.

[Stalkerr]

Wilburg, on 29 July 2013 - 08:35 AM, said:

Stalker, I just love your detailed explanations, thnaks for that.
But that´s also why I asked in the meeting where the line between whining and constructive approaches is. Because it is not only about how the post/feedback is written/said. Whining on an eloquent level can apparently be constructive and taken for that while it is still a try to get advantages for oneself or a certain group. I think I haven´t been able to express that, but I also fear that an apparently constructive dialogue could get abused to tore the game in a certain direction, eg. making it more competitive on one side and letting the beginners and/or casuals fall off.
Let´s take it to the extreme again. If the "pro ppc-boating pin-point alphaing fighting on 1.000 m community" got the DHS to work with 2.0 heatefficiency while the "more casual BT-fanbase nostalgic community" says 1,4 are enough because otherwise it´s too close to clans, we´d not have an healthy dialogue with the developers.

Fair, and I think any effective community representation or feedback group needs to include clear representation from all the major demographics (as it were) within the community. In our case, from a high level, we need small competitive groups, larger groups with a mix of competitive and casuals, small casual groups, and "lone wolves" all represented. I may have missed some, but that's the general idea.

Does anyone disagree?