483 replies to this topic

[Wales Grey]

The14th, on 12 August 2013 - 10:33 PM, said:

Do you? I've been playing for almost 6 years and have been roving Southern Null for 4. The design of the game was for people to start out in High-sec, cut their teeth on PVP in war decs and Low-sec, then eventually live down in the wild tracts of Null. All the game mechanics were with the intention that most of the player base would live down there. The fact that you don't understand that just proves all the more that you have no idea how game design works.

I'm still not sure how you expected Null to stay "wild", short of hamfisted developer intervention. More to the point, Null was never "wild", even from day one. Corporations hold as much territory as they can secure, and are willing to form alliances with other corporations to secure that territory.

Also, I got neck-deep in PVP within my first 48 hours of EVE because I got bored. You don't need expensive ships and stuff to do PVP, you just need to B. E. AGGRESSIVE and find other people to gang up with. EVE's design is based around character progression from basic ships to advanced ships and gear, not around nebulous "zones" for people to themepark in.

edit: I agree with other posters, EVE talk goes other places, but you still don't seem to 'get' EVE.

Edited by Wales Grey, 12 August 2013 - 10:40 PM.

[The14th]

Destructicus, on 12 August 2013 - 10:37 PM, said:

"Theory" was available in the 80's
You think TT developing robot loving nerds were experts on it?
I understand suspension of belief only goes so far but still...

No, but you do realize that a magnetically-propelled projectile weapon was already a well-established concept by the 80s right?

[Wales Grey]

Destructicus, on 12 August 2013 - 10:37 PM, said:

"Theory" was available in the 80's
You think TT developing robot loving nerds were experts on it?
I understand suspension of belief only goes so far but still...

Games have no adherence to scientific principals?! Next you'll tell me that D&D 3.5 isn't a physics engine, or that Battletech isn't a 1:1 perfect exact simulation of real giant robot violence! the horror

[The14th]

Wales Grey, on 12 August 2013 - 10:40 PM, said:

I'm still not sure how you expected Null to stay "wild", short of hamfisted developer intervention. More to the point, Null was never "wild", even from day one. Corporations hold as much territory as they can secure, and are willing to form alliances with other corporations to secure that territory.

Also, I got neck-deep in PVP within my first 48 hours of EVE because I got bored. You don't need expensive ships and stuff to do PVP, you just need to B. E. AGGRESSIVE and find other people to gang up with. EVE's design is based around character progression from basic ships to advanced ships and gear, not around nebulous "zones" for people to themepark in.

edit: I agree with other posters, EVE talk goes other places, but you still don't seem to 'get' EVE.

How many different ways to I have to state this? The biggest problem with EVE is that there are too FEW people in Null Sec. And if you think you don't need expensive gear to take and hold space you obviously have never seen a Titan drive-by. Small-gang PVP is enough for some people, but the biggest lure of the game has always been Null-sec. Until Sov mechanics and Capital balance gets sorted out EVE is going to continue to struggle, just like your understanding of game design.

[GySgtMurphy]

Destructicus, on 12 August 2013 - 10:37 PM, said:

"Theory" was available in the 80's
You think TT developing robot loving nerds were experts on it?
I understand suspension of belief only goes so far but still...

As a robot loving nerd, I take offense to that...

Edited by GySgtMurphy, 12 August 2013 - 10:50 PM.

[Lemming]

The14th, on 12 August 2013 - 10:21 PM, said:

If it was anything like the rest of the "game design" offered on the rest of the forums there was no need. Just about all the stuff that gets suggested is anti-fun, unfeasible, bad design, or a combination of the three.

I would appreciate it if you could point out which of the suggestions you feel meet this criteria specifically! Generally the suggestions are things like taking out Ghost Heat: The Magnum Opus due to its absurd complexity, rebalancing the weapons through changing their values (heat generated, weight, recycle time, projectile speed, etc), possibly increasing armor/internals so mechs last longer and you get more of a feel of a giant mech that doesn't just pop in 3-4 volleys, and instead lingers on the field for a long time and potentially survives with only a few weapons left, allowing group sizes that aren't 2-4 or 12, new game modes so we don't have to just play Assault or Conquest, just to name a few.

I'm really confused as to which of these are anti-fun, bad design, or unfeasible! Most of them seem pretty fun to me, since the game used to be a lot more fun since it was more balanced, most of them are pretty feasible considering they're either tweaks to the way the game already works, or are things that have supposedly been "in the works" for a long time, and none of them sound like bad design either!

Edited by Lemming, 12 August 2013 - 10:51 PM.

[The14th]

Lemming, on 12 August 2013 - 10:50 PM, said:

I would appreciate it if you could point out which of the suggestions you feel meet this criteria specifically! Generally the suggestions are things like taking out Ghost Heat: The Magnum Opus due to its absurd complexity, rebalancing the weapons through changing their values (heat generated, weight, recycle time, projectile speed, etc), possibly increasing armor/internals so mechs last longer and you get more of a feel of a giant mech that doesn't just pop in 3-4 volleys, and instead lingers on the field for a long time and potentially survives with only a few weapons left, allowing group sizes that aren't 2-4 or 12, new game modes so we don't have to just play Assault or Conquest, just to name a few.

I'm really confused as to which of these are anti-fun, bad design, or unfeasible! Most of them seem pretty fun to me, since the game used to be a lot more fun since it was more balanced, most of them are pretty feasible considering they're either tweaks to the way the game already works, or are things that have supposedly been "in the works" for a long time, and none of them sound like bad design either!

Most of the proposals fall into the same pitfall that you all accuse PGI of, they fix one problem but create others. Just look at any of the various proposals involving RNG accuracy and weapon spread, all of which are indirect buffs to armor values (amongst other things). Past that there are plenty more proposing removal of longtime features of the MW franchise (i.e. weapon grouping). The very special example of that is 3PV, which for some reason caught everybody by surprise after how many other games it was in. Are all of PGI's fixes perfect? Not really, but they sure seem that way after a trip through the forums.

[Lemming]

The14th, on 12 August 2013 - 10:56 PM, said:

Most of the proposals fall into the same pitfall that you all accuse PGI of, they fix one problem but create others. Just look at any of the various proposals involving RNG accuracy and weapon spread, all of which are indirect buffs to armor values (amongst other things). Past that there are plenty more proposing removal of longtime features of the MW franchise (i.e. weapon grouping). The very special example of that is 3PV, which for some reason caught everybody by surprise after how many other games it was in. Are all of PGI's fixes perfect? Not really, but they sure seem that way after a trip through the forums.

Wow, none of those things were what I put in my post! Would you care to address those instead of those other made up, admittedly terrible ideas?

[Chronojam]

The14th, on 12 August 2013 - 10:33 PM, said:

Do you? I've been playing for almost 6 years and have been roving Southern Null for 4.

You're adorable and I'd love to know your corp/playername so we can ****cage you sometime, but this is a thread about PGI and not about CCP's miraculous ability to consistently turn things around whenever the playerbase gets agitated, even if it takes a threadnaught now and then.

[The14th]

Lemming, on 12 August 2013 - 10:58 PM, said:

Wow, none of those things were what I put in my post! Would you care to address those instead of those other made up, admittedly terrible ideas?

Alright then, Say we try to fix the high alpha meta just through stat tweaks. History has shown that if the very nature of the weapon is the problem (in this case a high damage, pinpoint accurate cannon), simply moving a few values around doesn't work. Such weapon systems inevitably live in a binary state, either they are too powerful or fairly useless. The changes either go too far or not far enough, never finding an equilibrium point. The stealth system in LoL is a great example of this, unless characters like Shaco or Evelyn were nerfed into oblivion they were incredibly unbalanced and frustrating to play against. Riot Games had to overhaul the entire system to eventually fix it, using temporary filler mechanics as space-holders (see Ghost Heat). The very nature of the high-alpha weapon systems need to be addressed by PGI, which is something I get the idea they are struggling with.

Edited by The14th, 12 August 2013 - 11:11 PM.

[The14th]

Horrace, on 12 August 2013 - 11:22 PM, said:

Dude, at this point I'm pretty sure they are struggling with operating the office coffee machine.

Gee, what a useful post! I can't imagine why the devs limit their time on the forums with gentlemen like you around.

[A Man In A Can]

Arrachtas, on 12 August 2013 - 04:41 PM, said:

PPC/Gauss being off-set isn't a bad idea, and can be accomplished by a BattleTech fiction idea; PPC's needing a charge time. It doesn't have to be long, but fiction frequently referred to 'charging' the PPC. It makes sense, and even a half-second or full-second to charge the shot would offset the PPC an gauss, or make syncing them more difficult - especially for pop-snipers.

Should be interesting to see how things work out.

I support this. Make the entire PPC firing mechanic fundamentally different than what it was since closed beta. An instantly firing Gauss Rifle is functionally incompatible with PPCs that need to charge before they fire (or vice versa) with a single click.

[SmallandBlue]

The14th, on 12 August 2013 - 11:11 PM, said:

The very nature of the high-alpha weapon systems need to be addressed by PGI, which is something I get the idea they are struggling with.

Maybe they could balance them the same way literally every shooter game ever made balances sniper rifles and similar types of weapons. Make them have a long range and easy to hit with from far away(which we already have) but a comparably low DPS so a short-range focused mech will still beat them in a brawl. What's maddening about this is that in MWO THIS ALREADY USED TO BE THE CASE. The whole snipergeddon was caused by a few small nerfs to the brawling weapons combined with a few small buffs to the sniping weapons coinciding with the hit detection changes. If PGI actually wants to fix it they could maybe start by rolling back those buffs/nerfs first and then seeing how it affects the game instead of introducing insane patchwork systems like the Ghost Heat that do pretty much everything else except hurt the snipers.

I mean, now apparently PGI is going to "desynchronise" the PPC:s and the rifles. I'm kind of afraid here that this means they are going to introduce some kind of delay between pressing the firing button and the weapon actually firing which again would be a perfect example of a feature that is just plain unintuitive and annoying. At best, it's going to mean they will make the gauss rifles and PPC:s have different projectile speeds again which is good(and incidentally one of those buffs that probably needed rolling back) but even that alone is just going to force people to fire the gauss rifles and the PPC:s separately instead of together. Forcing people to fire their 4 PPC stalkers guns two at a time did not make them practically any less dominant and neither will this affect the 2PPC1gauss combo without other changes.

Also the fact that PGI actually pretended to include the question about #sawemwo in the list of chosen questions and then still ignored it is probably the most hilariously blatant "**** you" I've ever seen a game dev send to their community. Yep, we saw your complaints about lack of communication, now watch us ignore you

[N0MAD]

Arrachtas, on 12 August 2013 - 09:34 PM, said:

Let us also not compare a massive company with literally limitless money to develop games to a F2P title from a small-time company. People have ridiculous expectations. We have a stable game with some balance issues; all PvP games have balance issues, even ones like WoW and EVE that are a decade old - even after over ten years, they still have problems with balance. Get used to it, it's part of online gaming.

Why not compare companies? they are both trying to sell us a product, am i to buy said product from One because i pity them? Ohh poor litle PGI lets spend money on their product because they are small and helpless even if the product is well ummm inferior, sorry bud i work hard for my $ ( and BTW i earn this $ by keeping my current customers happy while trying to get new custom by good word of mouth) and i already support worthwhile Charities.
Stable game? are we playing same game? bad networking (constant drops from near everyone)over the last year, Constant Graphics glitches, Bad Hit detection stemming from bad coding and networking, Low frame rates ( their fix is to tone down graphics to pre 1980s lvls) Features like Zoom, collision taken out cause its to difficult for them, no SLI support, no DX11, no ingame chat or lobbies or Tutorial, and the list goes on,, notice this list does not include gameplay balance (oh god Forbid).
Lets also not mention the rudeness like telling paying customers they are not target demographics or on an Island, a vocal minority not to be bothered about.
Yep PGI and MWO is in great shape
Heres some hard numbers for you, dozens of my friends and I all hardcore MW fans who put up $120 without a problem Gone finished with this title, thats what PGI has done for this title.

[Lemming]

The14th, on 12 August 2013 - 11:11 PM, said:

Alright then, Say we try to fix the high alpha meta just through stat tweaks. History has shown that if the very nature of the weapon is the problem (in this case a high damage, pinpoint accurate cannon), simply moving a few values around doesn't work. Such weapon systems inevitably live in a binary state, either they are too powerful or fairly useless. The changes either go too far or not far enough, never finding an equilibrium point. The stealth system in LoL is a great example of this, unless characters like Shaco or Evelyn were nerfed into oblivion they were incredibly unbalanced and frustrating to play against. Riot Games had to overhaul the entire system to eventually fix it, using temporary filler mechanics as space-holders (see Ghost Heat). The very nature of the high-alpha weapon systems need to be addressed by PGI, which is something I get the idea they are struggling with.

Haha, what? First off your LoL example is completely useless, you give no specifics or details and don't show at all how the situations are similar, so I'm going to ignore it. Also "History has shown"? What is this, a 5th grade English paper?

Your entire argument boils down to this statement:

Quote

the very nature of the weapon is the problem (in this case a high damage, pinpoint accurate cannon), simply moving a few values around doesn't work. Such weapon systems inevitably live in a binary state, either they are too powerful or fairly useless.

This is pretty much nonsensical. Why can't high damage pinpoint weapons be balanced? You're just saying that's true without any corroborating evidence, which is dumb. There are plenty of games where such weapons are balanced, like Quake3 and CS 1.6, so your argument falls flat on its face already.

In the interests of further backing up my position, I'll try to elaborate a bit on the idea of balance between brawling and sniping strategies, which is really what the core balance issue is right now. Time and time again, we've tried to point out that PPC balance is not the core problem, it's the difference in overall effectiveness of different strategies. So, with brawling and sniping, you could balance them in a lot of ways. One of the most important is that this is actually a team game, so you have to take that into account. Right now, the dominant meta is a team of snipers. They can get a bead on an opponent at range and take them out with concentrated fire very, very quickly. The issue here is that if you're a brawling team, ideally you could get into short range and take apart the snipers very quickly, but unfortunately, due to the relatively low power of short range weapons compared to weapons like PPC and Gauss, the sniping team can take out way too much of the brawling team before they get into melee, and once they do, they are still very good brawling weapons. Values for weapons, like heat, cycle time, weight, etc, can be tweaked such that you get a result where if a brawling team played correctly, and is of an equal skill with the sniper team, they could get into close range and brawl the sniping team to death roughly half of the time. This would require doing things like buffing short ranged weapons so that a brawling loadout would be significantly more powerful than a sniping loadout up close, and obviously weaker from far away.

None of this is impossible. It's true that it's not necessarily easy, but that's the point of a beta; what PGI should have been doing from very early on is rapid adjustments of weapon/armor values, with a lot of iteration to get the balance to where it should be. Instead, PGI ham-handedly implements large changes that don't succeed in their goals, wasting a lot of time and resources to go nowhere fast.

So this is a better overview (although I'm not nearly so good at putting together a comprehensive summary of all the things that need to be considered as some of the people who have been managing the town halls) of some of the view of balance that people involved with #savemwo have been discussing. Could you please point out how these sorts of changes would be anti-fun, unfeasible, or bad design?

Edited by Lemming, 12 August 2013 - 11:55 PM.

[Snowcrow]

Can't wait for the buff to mediums!!

[Archon Adam Steiner]

N0MAD, on 12 August 2013 - 11:49 PM, said:

Why not compare companies? they are both trying to sell us a product, am i to buy said product from One because i pity them? Ohh poor litle PGI lets spend money on their product because they are small and helpless even if the product is well ummm inferior, sorry bud i work hard for my $ ( and BTW i earn this $ by keeping my current customers happy while trying to get new custom by good word of mouth) and i already support worthwhile Charities.
Stable game? are we playing same game? bad networking (constant drops from near everyone)over the last year, Constant Graphics glitches, Bad Hit detection stemming from bad coding and networking, Low frame rates ( their fix is to tone down graphics to pre 1980s lvls) Features like Zoom, collision taken out cause its to difficult for them, no SLI support, no DX11, no ingame chat or lobbies or Tutorial, and the list goes on,, notice this list does not include gameplay balance (oh god Forbid).
Lets also not mention the rudeness like telling paying customers they are not target demographics or on an Island, a vocal minority not to be bothered about.
Yep PGI and MWO is in great shape
Heres some hard numbers for you, dozens of my friends and I all hardcore MW fans who put up $120 without a problem Gone finished with this title, thats what PGI has done for this title.

After wading through that rant, I'll address it.

Comparing things is fine; we can compare anything - I will grant that. Is it a fair or reasonable comparison, though? Do we tell children their art or marks in school are garbage because they can't compare to somebody's achievements at the university-level? Do we compare a great amateur sports team to a professional one? No.

PGI versus Blizzard-Activision, EA, or even CCP is like apples and oranges... with PGI being a very small apple. If PGI even has 1/50th of the operating capital of Blizzard, it would be shocking. If they have even 1/10th the staff, even more shocking. If, then, two entities are so incredibly dissimilar that the advantages of one entity over the other are manifestly evident to everybody with the grade-school-level ability to reason, why even compare them? MWO is a F2P game released by a small-time studio; F2P means that you don't have to pay the developer a single dime, and if you did, it's only because you chose to. Other MMO's (like Warcraft or EVE) are games that are a decade (or more) old with vastly superior resources due to their pay subscription nature. We cannot reasonably expect PGI to produce comparable results, yet the fact that some game balance issues are the worst things that we face is, in fact, pretty damn remarkable.

As to complaints about stability, poor customer service, or other game issues - granted. If these are problems for you or other people (and some are problems for me too - I don't like current game balance fixes very much), then they are real problems. They are not unique problems to MWO, though. All MMO's have these sorts of problems. Stroll over to the boards of Warcraft or EVE and take a look at how much ranting and raving there is there. I say this not to exculpate MWO, but rather to show that the problems that affect this game are not some sort of singular disaster that is unprecedented in the history of online gaming. The problems here are very real, but very normal, and very common - even among far older, and far better-funded game titles. They still haven't balanced the classes for PvP or PvE in Warcraft, and it's over ten years old (including development), and has more resources than any normal human being could conceive of. If Blizzard struggles with that problem with that much money and that much time invested, do we really have any reason to think PGI should somehow be immune? Come on now. Reality, people. It's over here.

As a last note, 'dozens' of your personal circle of friends amounts (statistically) to very little in reality. This game has had over one million registered accounts. Even if only a fraction of those were to remain, 'a dozen' people is a drop in the proverbial bucket.

On a personal level, the thrust that I and others are getting at is not that MWO is perfect, and it certainly isn't ardent defense (nor being apologists) of PGI. The thrust instead is that some of the problems people describe are valid; the game has balance issues and anybody in the game (particularly competitive players such as myself) are aware of them. That said, the balance problems that MWO has are also entirely and inherently normal in any online game, and yet most of the complaints around the forum (including the laughable 'save MWO' garbage) are of the opinion that some unprecedented and exceptional disaster has befallen this game... a game that is in Beta, is only an F2P title, and has a fraction of the resources that other games do. If people put their expectations more in accordance with the fiscal and man-power realities of this developer and title, they'd be a lot less angry.

I too have concerns about the game, but I see a developer attempting to fix problems; whether the developer fixes them as some people want them to or not is fundamentally a matter of personal perspective, not a question of neglect. This game is PGI's livelihood; fun for us, the ability to eat and pay a mortgage for them. I guarantee that they care more about the stability and future of this game than any of us, and the opinions of forum-goers (a vocal minority in any online community) are seldom the sole practical weather-vane for directing a business.

Edited by Arrachtas, 13 August 2013 - 01:34 AM.

[Wieland]

I still say, sized hardpoints would have been the better solution.

[sarkun]

So the general feeling of this AtD is:

"Umm, we would maybe like that but we're swamped with work cause release is near".

Which is understanadable and perfectly fine. This was to be expected.

I refuse to freak out 'bout the gauss & PPC de-sync... because I don't know what it is. But I seriously think, that anyone who decides to post a vague one liner about something the community believes is the greatest balance problem the game has now is a good idea...

Should not be speaking to people. You are not good at this, stick to writing code or modelling or whatever. You either write "we are working on it" or give a detailed answer, not this vague crap.

Oh, and about #saveMWO - I didn't really believe that they'll come out and say "wow guys you're right!" but pretending it never happened... kinda sad.

Edited by sarkun, 13 August 2013 - 01:51 AM.

[N0MAD]

Arrachtas, on 13 August 2013 - 01:11 AM, said:

After wading through that rant, I'll address it.

Comparing things is fine; we can compare anything - I will grant that. Is it a fair or reasonable comparison, though? Do we tell children their art or marks in school are garbage because they can't compare to somebody's achievements at the university-level? Do we compare a great amateur sports team to a professional one? No. PGI versus Blizzard-Activision, EA, or evem CCP is like apples and oranges... with PGI being a very small apple. If PGI even has 1/50th of the operating capital of Blizzard, it would be shocking. If they have even 1/10th the staff, even more shocking. If, then, two entities are so incredibly dissimilar that the advantages of one entity over the other are manifestly evident to everybody with the grade-school-level ability to reason, why even compare them? MWO is a F2P game released by a small-time studio. Other MMO's (like Warcraft or EVE) are games that are a decade (or more) old with vastly superior resources. We cannot reasonably expect PGI to produce comparable results, yet the fact that some game balance issues are the worst things that we face is, in fact, pretty damn remarkable.

As to complaints about stability, poor customer service, or other game issues - granted. If these are problems for you or other people (and some are problems for me too - I don't like current game balance fixes very much), then they are real problems. They are not unique problems to MWO, though. All MMO's have these sorts of problems. Stroll over to the boards of Warcraft or EVE and take a look at how much ranting and raving there is there. I say this not to exculpate MWO, but rather to show that the problems that affect this game are not some sort of singular disaster that is unprecedented in the history of online gaming. The problems here are very real, but very normal, and very common - even among far older, and far better-funded game titles. They still haven't balanced the classes for PvP or PvE in Warcraft, and it's over ten years old (including development), and has more resources than any normal human being could conceive of. If Blizzard struggles with that problem with that much money and that much time invested, do we really have any reason to think PGI should somehow be immune? Come on now. Reality, people. It's over here.

As a last note, 'dozens' of your personal circle of friends amounts (statistically) to very little in reality. This game has had over one million registered accounts. Even if only a fraction of those were to remain, 'a dozen' people is a drop in the proverbial bucket.

On a personal level, the thrust that I and others are getting at is not that MWO is perfect, and it certainly isn't ardent defense (nor being apologists) of PGI. The thrust instead is that some of the problems people describe are valid, but that they are also entirely and inherently normal in any online game, whereas most of the complaints around the forum (including the laughable 'save MWO' garbage) are of the opinion that some unprecedented and exceptional disaster has befallen this game... a game that is in Beta, is only an F2P title, and has a fraction of the resources that other games do. If people put their expectations more in accordance with the fiscal and man-power realities of this developer and title, they'd be a lot less angry.

Sabes me encanta que no estas contento como escribo la lengua Ingles.
Si voile te parlo en Italiano, o si quieres en Espanol?
Cant understand that without google? get educated.
Sorry you had to wade through my bad grammar and spelling, my intention isn't writing an English essay.
Children we are not dealing with, so let me skip that.
Yes i do compare an armature team vs Professional team, I expect better from the pro, and that expectation motivates the armature to strive to professional status, for all the obvious perks. But size doesn't have anything to do with quality.
Other games/Developers are not my concern here, and by citing that others have problems doesn't make incompetence acceptable to me, you may have lower expectations/standards than others, i can accept that, but that doesn't make it right for me. Do i have to settle for substandard because its becoming the norn? because people are accepting substandard rather than demanding quality and value?
Yes my couple dozen friends are a drop in the pond, but something what seems forgotten by you and obviously PGI is WORD OF MOUTH, any company will tell you that that is one of your greatest assets a GOOD reputation.
If my friends will not recommend it to others and then those will not give favorable comments to others etc, etc, etc,, and then that drop creates a ripple that travels all the way up the pond.
Could it be that people who settle for substandard ( because insert excuses here) are the cause of the multitude of inferior products we see offered to us? and what, we are expected to just quietly settle for it? no thanks.

Edited by N0MAD, 13 August 2013 - 02:13 AM.