20 replies to this topic

[Alistair Winter]

So in the latest (and second) part of Breakdown, a feature that started in February, developer Thomas Dziegielewski gives us some interesting details about upcoming changes.

• Seismic module will only work when you're standing still, it will also register impacts on the ground caused by weapons, and will register weapons firing.
  
• The screen will now shake when mechs fall over and die.
  
• The screen will now shake when someone uses airstrike or artillery

We can expect these things to happen the 4th of November, which is only a little over a month away.

Thomas, if you're reading this, I hope your next Breakdown includes a little explanation about why these changes are coming. To be honest, I haven't seen any fans make any requests about screen shake caused by dying mechs (out of interest, how much will the screen shake when a nearby Atlas keels over and dies, compared to when a nearby Atlas jumps of a cliff and falls 100 meters?), but I've seen a lot of fans request changes that would be easier to fix, faster to fix, and probably more appreciated by the fans.

The changes to seismic are nice, although I have no idea why you'd want to work on additional features that add very little to the game. I mean, yeah, it would be cool if seismic picked up on falling blocks of ice on Frozen City. But is that really a priority at this point? Is that the kind of features fans have been asking for since 2012?

[Joseph Mallan]

Alistair Winter, on 01 October 2013 - 05:26 AM, said:

So in the latest (and second) part of Breakdown, a feature that started in February, developer Thomas Dziegielewski gives us some interesting details about upcoming changes.

• Seismic module will only work when you're standing still, it will also register impacts on the ground caused by weapons, and will register weapons firing.
  
• The screen will now shake when mechs fall over and die.
  
• The screen will now shake when someone uses airstrike or artillery

We can expect these things to happen the 4th of November, which is only a little over a month away.

Who's screen The dead guy's or My screen? Why does a dead guy care if his screen is shaking?

[Alistair Winter]

Joseph Mallan, on 01 October 2013 - 05:34 AM, said:

Who's screen The dead guy's or My screen? Why does a dead guy care if his screen is shaking?

Presumably the screen of anyone standing near the guy who died. Since the camera immediately switches to circling 3PV when you die.

[Joseph Mallan]

i will assume it will depend on how close you are and how heavy the Mech is that falls...

[Lord Ikka]

The seismic changes aren't horrible, and I think the screen shake is just some fluffy atmosphere stuff that they can add in without too much work- since they already have screen shake for other variables (weapons fire) they just have to add it in to other events. I

[AvatarofWhat]

The screen shake features probably did not consume much manpower, I dont see a reason to be upset over it. As far as seismic is concerned, IMO it dumbs down the game by eliminating the need for information warfare for brawlers. If your in river city brawling, you dont have to guess which side of the building the enemy is going to come from, or whether the enemy has a firing line on the other side of the ridge on caustic...Its pretty much necessary in high-level play. Now we can play mindgames with people with seismic, a very welcome extra layer of strategy.

Edited by AvatarofWhat, 01 October 2013 - 05:43 AM.

[QuaxDerBruchpilot]

Well, why not have some minor improvements (well, the seismic change isn't something to be considered minor, tbh), if they can tweak it in. Combined with Bryans post on PGIs thoughts on Community Warfare, it looks to me that PGI is actually moving forward (in the right direction, that is ), which gives hope for this game's future.

[DaZur]

No offense A.W. but ... hey look a gift horse!

While I appreciate your sentiment and agree there are a wide range of things that need to be addressed, It's a little myopic to expect all future development to be based solely upon the greater community "wish list".

I'm pretty sure there are a litany of things that are in development / have been in development for some time that are only now on the table for public consumption.

That said... do they shelve these additions because... well, there are more important things to worry about or do they implement them in parallel to the fixes?

Admittedly stuff like this would make more sense in context if we knew they were in development phase 6 months ago... but then again, I have to admit I occasionally like surprises.

[TexAce]

Alistair Winter, on 01 October 2013 - 05:26 AM, said:

So in the latest (and second) part of Breakdown, a feature that started in February, developer Thomas Dziegielewski gives us some interesting details about upcoming changes.

• Seismic module will only work when you're standing still, it will also register impacts on the ground caused by weapons, and will register weapons firing.
  
• The screen will now shake when mechs fall over and die.
  
• The screen will now shake when someone uses airstrike or artillery

We can expect these things to happen the 4th of November, which is only a little over a month away.







Thomas, if you're reading this, I hope your next Breakdown includes a little explanation about why these changes are coming. To be honest, I haven't seen any fans make any requests about screen shake caused by dying mechs (out of interest, how much will the screen shake when a nearby Atlas keels over and dies, compared to when a nearby Atlas jumps of a cliff and falls 100 meters?), but I've seen a lot of fans request changes that would be easier to fix, faster to fix, and probably more appreciated by the fans.

The changes to seismic are nice, although I have no idea why you'd want to work on additional features that add very little to the game. I mean, yeah, it would be cool if seismic picked up on falling blocks of ice on Frozen City. But is that really a priority at this point? Is that the kind of features fans have been asking for since 2012?

sometimes its the little details that elevate the product from mediocre to 'good'. If an engineer has a bit of time between big tasks and can afford to squeeze such changes in, then I welcome this.

What most of you guys are forgetting is that people like Thomas or any other one of them have special abilities, they do one task really good, thats what they are hired for. So he can only do stuff he is good at, now if he completes all his tasks you can't just make him model maps or do weapon balance stuff, because it's not his job. So if he got time to tweak those little things, my god let him.

I want CW as fast as possibile, but that doesn't mean that you can take all 3d modelers and concept artists and let them code the frontend and backend stuff for CW, that's ridiculous.

Edited by TexAss, 01 October 2013 - 06:01 AM.

[SumoRex]

Hmmm I have *multiple* seismic sensors... and very expensive they are too! Now they will not be a *must* have item I feel a little irritated at having bought them in numbers. Plus, just a few weeks ago I decided that the multiple advanced zoom modules I had were just clutter, and sold 4 of them, only for the upgrade to make them useful again! I'm like the Wall Street guy who buys high and sells low! Dammit!

[Alistair Winter]

TexAss, on 01 October 2013 - 05:51 AM, said:

sometimes its the little details that elevate the product from mediocre to 'good'. If an engineer has a bit of time between big tasks and can afford to squeeze such changes in, then I welcome this.

And sometimes, little details are pointless when there are more urgent matters that need to be addressed.

TexAss, on 01 October 2013 - 05:51 AM, said:

What most of you guys are forgetting is that people like Thomas or any other one of them have special abilities, they do one task really good, thats what they are hired for. So he can only do stuff he is good at, now if he completes all his tasks you can't just make him model maps or do weapon balance stuff, because it's not his job. So if he got time to tweak those little things, my god let him.

I have two issues with this point, which is often used on these forums.

• If I'm running a cake factory with 10 employees, and I have 5 janitors, then of course it's stupid to criticize the janitors for not making cakes. After all, they're janitors. But it's fair to criticize me for having 5 janitors in the first place. Now, if PGI has a bunch of people working features that aren't important, then perhaps this reflects a similar poor distribution of resources.
  
• Thomas is no janitor, and I wager he's not a professional cockpitshake effects director. If you have the ability to add entirely new abilities to the seismic module, then you're not just the guy who makes cockpits shake. He may have "special abilities", but I imagine he's able to do other things as well.

[TexAce]

Alistair Winter, on 01 October 2013 - 06:08 AM, said:

And sometimes, little details are pointless when there are more urgent matters that need to be addressed.


I have two issues with this point, which is often used on these forums.

• If I'm running a cake factory with 10 employees, and I have 5 janitors, then of course it's stupid to criticize the janitors for not making cakes. After all, they're janitors. But it's fair to criticize me for having 5 janitors in the first place. Now, if PGI has a bunch of people working features that aren't important, then perhaps this reflects a similar poor distribution of resources.
  
• Thomas is no janitor, and I wager he's not a professional cockpitshake effects director. If you have the ability to add entirely new abilities to the seismic module, then you're not just the guy who makes cockpits shake. He may have "special abilities", but I imagine he's able to do other things as well.

There are 40 people working in PGI.
I bet if you search a bit in the forums you can exactly see how many people are hired for what and you will see that they don't have 5 janitors, but they might have 5-10 programmers. Every one of them has his tasks and utilizes different applications for it, meaning has experience in some stuff, in which others have less experience.
You can't possibly know what Thomas' tasks are so your argument is bogus.

Edited by TexAss, 01 October 2013 - 06:15 AM.

[Heffay]

Alistair Winter, on 01 October 2013 - 06:08 AM, said:

• If I'm running a cake factory with 10 employees, and I have 5 janitors, then of course it's stupid to criticize the janitors for not making cakes. After all, they're janitors. But it's fair to criticize me for having 5 janitors in the first place. Now, if PGI has a bunch of people working features that aren't important, then perhaps this reflects a similar poor distribution of resources.

Does PGI have too many janitors?

And are they the ones who determine what is "important"? How do you define important?

[Alistair Winter]

TexAss, on 01 October 2013 - 06:15 AM, said:

There are 40 people working in PGI.
I bet if you search a bit in the forums you can exactly see how many people are hired for what and you will see that they don't have 5 janitors, but they might have 5-10 programmers. Every one of them has his tasks and utilizes different applications for it, meaning has experience in some stuff, in which others have less experience.
You can't possibly know what Thomas' tasks are so your argument is bogus.

I would say that it's your last statement that is indeed bogus.

If a PGI employee announces that he's adding a dance animation for every mech, then I don't really need to know what said programmer's tasks are. I just need to know that the dance animation feature is unnecessary, and from that I can deduce two possible explanations:
1) Said programmer has the ability to do something more sensible, but isn't doing it, for whatever reason.
2) Said programmer doesn't have the ability to do something more sensible, so he's doing the only thing he can.

It's also important to note that I'm not blaming Thomas personally for anything, I was just directing the question towards him in the OP because he's writing the Breakdown. He may only be working on some of the stuff (e.g. cockpit shake) while other programmers are working on some of the other stuff he mentioned (e.g. C-bill rewards)

[Jestun]

TBH it's been a while since I read an official post which I actually agreed with.

While the changes mentioned are small when you compare it with all that needs to be done (e.g. CW with all the depth that we hope it brings) I agree with the proposed changes.

I'd like to see further tweaking though with the weight and perhaps speed of the mech affecting how tar away it can be detected.

So in my eyes it is at least a step in the right direction.

[Alistair Winter]

Heffay, on 01 October 2013 - 06:18 AM, said:

Does PGI have too many janitors?

I assume you mean janitors as in "people whose abilities are being wasted or aren't needed". And I don't know the answer to that. I imagine some of the people working on the game aren't working full time, for example the people doing concept art or sounds. I haven't heard many new sounds lately, except some ambient sounds like the river in Canyon, and Alex Iglesias seems to work very fast indeed, so if he's working full time, then he's probably drawn 1000 different mechs by now.

Heffay, on 01 October 2013 - 06:18 AM, said:

And are they the ones who determine what is "important"? How do you define important?

PGI determines what is important, and they ultimately need to balance their own artistic vision with the demand of their consumers, not to mention their critics.

I won't get into a strict definition of what's important, but I'll just say this. The only reason I haven't bought the Phoenix Package and Saber Reinforcement Package yet is because I'm worried about the longevity of the game and I'm afraid a lot of players will leave the game behind if PGI continues to be delayed and if they continue to change their vision of the game as presented to the fans. Quite frankly, I'm worried that I'll invest heavily in a game with a shrinking fanbase and that it might even become unavailable to play in the near future.

Apart from the artistic vision of PGI devs, I think the important issues are the issues constantly requested by fans who are on the verge of leaving the game, the issues raised by potential customers in the desired demographic, who get put off by certain things, and, of course, some of the issues raised by the critics who review this game and give it mediocre or slightly above average scores.

[Sybreed]

I'm actually liking the seismic changes a lot. I'm not seismic user myself, but I know how powerful it is just by spectacting other players with it. The proposed changes make sense and will keep the module in line.

[Gideon Grey]

While I appreciate that Seismic needs some tweaking, I'm a bit annoyed that PGI takes such a simple approach to things like this while throwing in ridiculously complex "fixes" like ghost heat.

I think requiring everyone to be stationary for seismic to work is a bit too much and too simple. Make it a scouting tool. Make it work stirs optimum when stationary but let it work at reduced effectiveness while moving. Let the detection range depend on mass and speed of target mechs and let the effectiveness be reduced by interference based on the mass and speed of the detecting mech. In other words, lighter Mechs interfere less with their detecting while moving, somewhat enhancing the scout role. Seismic is treated too simply. Why is a spider as easy to detect as an Atlas if both are going the same speed? Seismic cries out for some complexity. It could be an awesome but not overpowered tool. Or it can bounce from OP to UP with simplistic blanket changes.

Edited by Gideon Grey, 01 October 2013 - 12:08 PM.

[Darkcloud]

You've missed the most important question this poses, though!

If a mech dies and falls over in Forest Colony and there's no one there to see it, does screen shake?

[pbiggz]

Alistair Winter, on 01 October 2013 - 06:26 AM, said:

I would say that it's your last statement that is indeed bogus.

If a PGI employee announces that he's adding a dance animation for every mech, then I don't really need to know what said programmer's tasks are. I just need to know that the dance animation feature is unnecessary, and from that I can deduce two possible explanations:
1) Said programmer has the ability to do something more sensible, but isn't doing it, for whatever reason.
2) Said programmer doesn't have the ability to do something more sensible, so he's doing the only thing he can.

It's also important to note that I'm not blaming Thomas personally for anything, I was just directing the question towards him in the OP because he's writing the Breakdown. He may only be working on some of the stuff (e.g. cockpit shake) while other programmers are working on some of the other stuff he mentioned (e.g. C-bill rewards)

Silly Mechwarrior, Programmers dont animate 3d models! Animators animate 3d models!