398 replies to this topic

[fil5000]

Heffay, on 01 November 2013 - 09:41 AM, said:

Well, what should I do when people keep using a self-selected poll and try to apply it to the general population?

Probably point THAT out rather than taking a different set of statistics that you know to be useless and using them in response. Using fallacies of your own to attack an argument just makes you look like at best dishonest and at worst a shill.

[Heffay]

fil5000, on 01 November 2013 - 11:57 AM, said:

Probably point THAT out rather than taking a different set of statistics that you know to be useless and using them in response. Using fallacies of your own to attack an argument just makes you look like at best dishonest and at worst a shill.

So are we all in agreement that the original 3PV polls are meaningless and no one will use them to say what the will of the community is?

[fil5000]

Heffay, on 01 November 2013 - 11:59 AM, said:

So are we all in agreement that the original 3PV polls are meaningless and no one will use them to say what the will of the community is?

Sadly I don't speak for the community. Nor do I think you are likely to get enough of a representative spread of people in this thread to agree or disagree with your statement.

[Heffay]

fil5000, on 01 November 2013 - 12:00 PM, said:

Sadly I don't speak for the community. Nor do I think you are likely to get enough of a representative spread of people in this thread to agree or disagree with your statement.

So plan B is that I no longer point out how those surveys are flawed, and others continue to abuse statistics all in the name of mock outrage. Got it.

Edited by Heffay, 01 November 2013 - 12:31 PM.

[fil5000]

Heffay, on 01 November 2013 - 12:30 PM, said:

So plan B is that I no longer point out how those surveys are flawed, and others continue to abuse statistics all in the name of mock outrage. Got it.

I'd rather everyone else left them alone too, really. But I can't agree on their behalf that they will, which is what you appeared to be asking.

Edit: actually, upon re-reading, no - what I said was "stop using surveys that you know to be flawed to argue against surveys you know to be flawed". I specifically said you should point out that those surveys are flawed rather than picking flawed surveys to support your argument and criticizing flawed surveys that don't support your argument. I am suggesting you argue honestly.

Edited by fil5000, 01 November 2013 - 12:40 PM.

[Cimarb]

Tombstoner, on 01 November 2013 - 08:58 AM, said:

Did you also fix the PG gamer score as well.
Only a {Noble MechWarrior} cant see the issues with this game. 73/100 i could see, not 83/100
sorry but this game could have rivaled EVE.... anyone know what it scored ten years ago.

I don't need to fix the review, as I haven't read it nor care about it. I am playing the game, and have been for months, so what good does a review, written by someone with drastically less experience than my own, do for me? The only thing it does for you is irritate you because they rated it higher than you would have. This is like beating a dead Eridani, but "if you don't like it, go do it better yourself." Write your own review, promote that review to the masses, and see if they support your opinion. All this rage and frustration over a single person's review - such a waste.

Sandpit, on 01 November 2013 - 09:59 AM, said:

Discounting a poll where thousands of players voted is a fallacy in itself 90%? Doubt it, but that is a huge number for a poll on these forums. You know as well as I do that a vote of that magnitude represents a huge outcry from the community. It isn't 90% but we also know that a vote result of that magnitude and with such a lopsided vote distribution (I don't remember the exact numbers but I remember that those voting no on 3pv outnumbered the yes votes by thousands) shows that a majority of the player base did not want it.

Call people out on fallacies when they post stuff like that but don't introduce your own fallacy and bias as a defense if that's exactly what you're going to call others out on is all I'm saying. You and I disagree on a LOT of things but I still respect your opinions, even though I don't agree with them.

Trust me it's not just "one side" that trolls or makes ludicrous claims.

3pv is not accepted so much as you don' have a choice in the matter (which as also promised but that's another debate for another day). I still support the game out of my love for the Btech PI and because I love my robot warfare. This isn't, in my opinion, the best are greatest iteration of that IP but it is an iteration. Just because I buy things and spend money on it doesn't mean I agree with PGI's decisions sometimes. It means I like to pew pew pew and this is my only choice. I voice my opinion on things an give ideas and suggestions in the hopes that some of it might get heard and implemented or when I feel the devs make a bad decision they might understand why myself, and other like-minded players, didn't like it.

Polls are worthless, as they are biased and heavily weighted towards the negative. Work for a month in customer support and you will experience the same issue: people don't vote/call when they are happy - they do so when they don't like something that is going on. The only time you will get a bias towards positivity is when the people voting are so upset about the negativity that they actually start fighting against it. Otherwise, complacency is the status quo: if it ain't broke, don't fix it. In this case, if it ain't upsetting you, why vote?

Going back to my customer support example, when was the last time you called your favorite restaurant and told them how good of a job they are doing? Since your Internet is obviously working, why don't you call your IP up and give them a pat on the back? You won't, because it is working! Five seconds after your Internet goes down, or your food is jacked up, I bet you will pick up that phone and tell them what you think, though! Same thing here.

fil5000, on 01 November 2013 - 12:36 PM, said:

I'd rather everyone else left them alone too, really. But I can't agree on their behalf that they will, which is what you appeared to be asking.

Edit: actually, upon re-reading, no - what I said was "stop using surveys that you know to be flawed to argue against surveys you know to be flawed". I specifically said you should point out that those surveys are flawed rather than picking flawed surveys to support your argument and criticizing flawed surveys that don't support your argument. I am suggesting you argue honestly.

I agree.

[Sandpit]

No plan b should be pointing out their fallacies without introducing your own is what I am saying

[ShadowSpirit]

Heffay .. the little engine that could ... in every thread.

[Literally]

If you go to any thread and just read what Heffay writes, it's like we're on the Bioware forums talking about SW:TOR. He quotes other posters all the time but he doesn't actually care what they wrote, he always talks from the same script no matter what the topic is.

[Alaskan Nobody]

Literally, on 01 November 2013 - 01:46 PM, said:

If you go to any thread and just read what Heffay writes, it's like we're on the Bioware forums talking about SW:TOR. He quotes other posters all the time but he doesn't actually care what they wrote, he always talks from the same script no matter what the topic is.

He has been learning from the Black-Knights he has been fighting so often.
Just wish he was a worse student.

[Literally]

Shar Wolf, on 01 November 2013 - 01:49 PM, said:

He has been learning from the Black-Knights he has been fighting so often.
Just wish he was a worse student.

I see what you're trying to say, but the only "black-knights" in the game are the ones who actively try to hurt the game experience, and the only way to do that is to get ingame and teamkill or grief. On the forums, all you have to do is put someone on ignore and you don't have to 'play' with them anymore.

The other problem with your statement is that Heffay doesn't fight against actual forums trolls. The people he most often insults, quotes, and follows around the entire forum are Silent and fil5000, two posters who I've never noticed using insulting language or personal attacks on this forum. They discuss game mechanics and trends, and make comparisons to other games and developers. Then Heffay swoops in and makes personal insults and creates straw men to attack. If you're thinking that a "black-knight" is someone who trolls, makes personal attacks, and lowers the level of discourse on the forums, then it's Heffay. He is the problem. If he were a good "student" of his chosen opponents, then he would be getting better instead of just madder.

[Sandpit]

ShadowSpirit, on 01 November 2013 - 01:19 PM, said:

Heffay .. the little engine that could ... in every thread.

Literally, on 01 November 2013 - 01:46 PM, said:

If you go to any thread and just read what Heffay writes, it's like we're on the Bioware forums talking about SW:TOR. He quotes other posters all the time but he doesn't actually care what they wrote, he always talks from the same script no matter what the topic is.

Shar Wolf, on 01 November 2013 - 01:49 PM, said:

He has been learning from the Black-Knights he has been fighting so often.
Just wish he was a worse student.

Yea but here's the thing. Personally attacking one another does nothing. There's so many people that seem to take posts regarding the game personal. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion. Some like this game, some don't, some hate it. To each their own but that doesn't make their opinion "wrong"

White and Black Knights both throw out bad ideas, opinions and fact, and just plain old trolling posts. Call them on it when you see it but don't make the mistake of doing the exact same thing. Other times people throw out a stat or number, as all people do, and everyone wants to take it as literal factual evidence or out of context.

Bottom line is this (in my opinion of course)

This game is not a top 25 of all time anything
It has a pretty good combat engine
The mech selection is getting to be pretty awesome
It has balancing issues (as jsut about any game will)
There's no storyline
There's no CW
There's no lobbies
There's no way to congregate except the forums
There's no way to coordinate and talk strategy outside fo the forum (or 3rd party software)
There's only 2 game modes (Which honestly is one game mode just slightly varied)
There's no reward or consequence for winning other than a larger amount of c-bills and exp
There's no game outside of individual map strategies and mech builds
There's no soundtrack
The graphics and art are pretty awesome
Hero mechs are way too expensive for what you get (don't even get a mech bay for $30. Really?)
Many players want to blame everything but their individual skill levels for losing

That's not an 85 game in my opinion when you look at all the "There's no" points

[Cimarb]

Sandpit, on 01 November 2013 - 02:35 PM, said:

<wut he said>

I 100% agree with your post, with one notable exception: regardless of how you rank it, this is most definitely in the Top 25 of all MechWarrior games (mind you, there aren't 25 mechwarrior games in existence...).

Still a great post though, as it has constructive, if sometimes critical, points, without any insults or accusations.

[Sandpit]

Cimarb, on 01 November 2013 - 03:22 PM, said:

I 100% agree with your post, with one notable exception: regardless of how you rank it, this is most definitely in the Top 25 of all MechWarrior games (mind you, there aren't 25 mechwarrior games in existence...).

I stand corrected! Maybe that's what the review really meant lol

[Alaskan Nobody]

Literally, on 01 November 2013 - 02:32 PM, said:

I see what you're trying to say, but the only "black-knights" in the game are the ones who actively try to hurt the game experience.

And there are none of those in the forums?
Comes across as a little defensive to me
But that may just be me

Sandpit, on 01 November 2013 - 02:35 PM, said:

A fairly decent list of the games failings and strengths

Well done, and I second the concept that it was rated more against the other mechwarrior games, as opposed to games in general, but at the same time admit that I may be (and quite possibly am) a nutso-lunatic, who has no idea what he/she/it is talking about.

[Texas Merc]

heffays issues go back further than this but i digress

[Silentium]

Sandpit, on 01 November 2013 - 02:35 PM, said:

That's not an 85 game in my opinion when you look at all the "There's no" points

I think that's pretty fair.

My read is that the combat/simulation carried a lot of weight with the reviewer, which is fine; I don't have 5000+ games under my belt either. I understand that it gets to the point where a player starts to want more.

[Windies]

A large problem most have I think is the fact that most of us have been here for so long and we have almost two versions of what MW:O should be, What it is now and what it was sold as a year ago and what we hoped it would turn into.

If you strip away what we want or hoped MW:O to be, then by itself it's really not that bad for what it is. A repetitive Battle Arena type game in the style of World of Tanks. By itself I would give it maybe a 65 or so on average based on the fact that the feel of combat is solid and they have nailed some artistic aspects of Mechwarrior and the feel of being inside of a Mech. It still has a lot of problems in it's own right even if you strip away the aspect of "what we wanted MW:O to be".

I think that's where the reviewer was trying to come from and trying to be as "gentle" as possible. I don't agree with him whatsoever, but I can see where he is trying to come from. That's all reviews are, an individual's perspective on something, and if you don't try to understand that then reviews are pretty much pointless for you. I find numbered reviews to be rather pointless, I would rather read the review and understand the reviewers POV and perspective rather than take an arbitrary number at face value as some sterile measurement of quality among such a diverse spectrum as video games are.

Case in point, the review in it's words is probably closer to a 50-60 score than it is to an 85, if you want to put an arbitrary score next to it. Again though, it's all subjective.

[Riptor]

MustrumRidcully, on 27 October 2013 - 11:26 PM, said:

false.

1) It's not a module in game terms.
2) The damage isn't prevented, it just doesn't transfer beyond the side torso it occurs in or was transferred to.
3) There isn't much to exploit in the scenario he describes, high level play or not, and in fact, since you never know whether someone uses CASE or not, you could never really rely on what it might do.

It is true that it's useless for an XL Engine user, since the damage to the side torso isn't prevented and if the side torso is gone, so is the engine, and so is the mech.

And then theres the fact that if you opened an oponents side torso the next alpha you fire will destroy that entire spot anyways so counting on an exploding gauss rifle in your game plan is pretty much a no argument.

In all honesty the review and the final score are completly mismatched. MWO as it stands is a flawed product simply because its missing meat to its bones. Solid as they might be we are still only looking at a skeleton of a game here.

[Dr Herbert West]

Heffay, on 01 November 2013 - 11:59 AM, said:

So are we all in agreement that the original 3PV polls are meaningless and no one will use them to say what the will of the community is?

Heffay, on 01 November 2013 - 12:30 PM, said:

So plan B is that I no longer point out how those surveys are flawed, and others continue to abuse statistics all in the name of mock outrage. Got it.

I’d like to point out that Heffay tried this line of argument in this thread (http://mwomercs.com/...also-needs-1pv/) and demonstrated that he does not understand how statistics, population samples or polls work. He even claimed to work with statistics every day, which is obviously not true. Do not hesitate to remind him of this any time he starts arguing about polls in a thread.

The forum polls about 3PV were the largest recorded, most unified, community response to any issue ever. I’ve been here since the first month of open beta, and the only thing I can remember coming close was the poll on “should SRMs have damage upped to 2 from 1.5” (another overwhelming “yes”). The first poll, made when PGIGP first introduced the idea of 3PV back in the spring, had more than 3000 votes, <90% of which said that 3PV shouldn’t even be in the game at all. In the thread linked above, a current poll indicates that a full 30% of users who still browse the forums and reply to threads don’t play because of 3PV.

The idea that forum polls have no informational value is at best a misunderstanding and at worst a lie. It’s a misunderstanding that betrays a lack of understanding of how samples work and why its important for them to be random, or it’s a lie designed dismiss information that doesn’t line up with the liar’s world view, or rather what the liar wants your world view to be.

I’ll repost here my last argument against the “forum polls have no value” idea from the linked thread:

Heffay, on 01 November 2013 - 05:02 AM, said:

Instead let's just say that anyone who believes that a self selected sample is an accurate representation of the population as a whole clearly has no idea what they are talking about and I doubt that any amount of evidence will manage to break through your confirmation bias, so let's just agree to drop it?

Not going to drop it because you're dead wrong, and I'm not conceding that point to you. This lie/error is a key pillar of belief for the shills/knights of PGIGP that must be knocked down if the game is to improve.

First of all, I will admit that the data that we have (forum polling, player/website/magazine reviews, etc.) is not ideal. Ideal data would be a polling a sample of every individual who has ever played MWO, not just those currently playing MWO. While it would be possible for the devs to do the latter, the former is probably impossible.

Second, that does not mean that there isn't information that can be gleaned from forum polls. In fact is is the ONLY information that we have. Dismissing the forum polls and then coming up with some sort of explanation for why they're wrong isn't creating new information, its dismissing the only information you have which puts your argument on shakier ground than anyone using forum polls ... in fact it makes your arguments groundless.

Third, there is no a-priori reason to assume that the self-selected population of forum users isn't representative of the population of MWO players at large. The fact that someone uses a forum and posts on it is indicative of a higher level of motivation and dedication to the game. Level of player motivation and interest is not conceivably correlatable with specific opinions about that game.

Fourth, as I stated before, the existence of feedback forums, containing polls, for MWO and every other game out there now is an implicit assumption that forum users are at least a reasonable approximation of the game population at large. The existence of these forums rests on the assumption that there is useful information to be gathered from them. Of course that doesn't stop bad devs and their shills from dismissing this information when it doesn't fit their pre-conceived worldview.

Finally, self selected populations are used when necessary in other fields. The entirety of drug and biomedical research involving human populations rests on self selected populations (especially the healthy controls). You can't force people to participate and you can't randomly call people and ask them to participate (as you might do in a phone poll). You put up advertisements and the most interested and motivated (sound familiar?) individuals apply. I'm pretty sure the same approach is used in marketing focus groups. In each case there is no way to account for the """silent majority""" of individuals who were not motivated enough to participate ... and yet these studies are treated with validity.