AnTi90d, on 27 August 2016 - 07:24 PM, said:
Hey, I just noticed #3 has two, "strongly agree." I don't think anyone would select, "strongly disagree," for that option, but I believe that it was an intended selection.
Sorry, just noticed that. Fixed it. Still, thank goodness it was pretty obvious what the selection intended.
Dracol, on 27 August 2016 - 06:56 PM, said:
One of the least biesed polls I've seen on these forums. Wel done. Now hopefully we'll get more people here to vote on it. 60/70 people ain't going to be a significant sample of the, what do the leaderboards say... 25k pilots or something like that.
Anybody get this to reddit already? Did y'all tweat the twatt out of it?
... if only PGI had a link from the PTS main screen to this at the least....we can only hope for some direct PGI feedback requests from less vocal pilots.
The poll itself was intended to be unbiased and more detailed than is typical on the forums for this sort of thing.
Unfortunately, I don't believe people are answering entirely truthfully. I believe there is a question or two in there... whether my own fault for the wording of it, or because people want to represent the systems a certain way... where the answers being given in the poll directly contradict what most people are saying in their feedback. And that's unfortunate. I think some of the numbers are a bit more skewed in favor of ED than the forum feedback is.
The great thing about the questions I chose and the ratios of responses is that you see clear trends and can pick out demographics - if you know what you're looking for. Even in those areas I expect the numbers are skewed to ED, there is no sign of favor for the system, so the message is still clear.
Still, even given these preliminary numbers, there is little reason to push ED forward with its current mechanics. The poll numbers show anything but a ringing endorsement for the system. The very minor favor is strongly tepid, and dependent on the notion that the glaring problems in the system can and will be fixed.
Polling shows a strong belief amongst testers that the system is not meeting its primary goals. And moreover, it shows that PGI has more to lose in terms of play time and monetary investment by instituting the system than it does just leaving GH where it is.
Basic polling theory holds that the people most likely to invest time or energy into a process such as this are the ones who have the largest vested interest in it. As such, by percentage, the larger portion of PTS population will contain players who have a significant dislike of the current system. The rest will be made up of those who strongly dislike the proposed system, strongly like the existing system, or are merely curious. This will be a smaller minority than the majority who dislikes the current system.
Generally, those people who are satisfied with a current system, but don't feel strongly about it, will not show up to test its replacement.
Thus, we can assume that the PTS populations SHOULD skew largely in favor of the new system. If that system lived up to expectations even remotely, you SHOULD expect to see a landslide of support for the system. Instead, you have merely just over 50% direct favor, and largely only in the "somewhat" category. A very poor sign.
Most players seem to believe that the heat system in MWO should encourage build variety, and this is often reflected in the viability of mixed builds in the live game. Something that is very strong right now, under ghost heat. It can be said that the health and viability of mixed or sub-optimal builds shows the overall health of balance and gameplay.
It is a very good sign for balance when players feel they do not have to use optimized meta builds to be successful, and players seem to strongly encourage that systems support this. However, players do not seem to believe that ED is doing as good a job as the live servers at encouraging a variety of builds - in the mid 40's favorability. This one I think is highly skewed, as most players report that build variety suffers under ED, and that there are clear winners and losers even with only a week of testing.
Reducing complexity and increasing easy of use for players is a hallmark of the ED system. It has always been a primary stated goal and one that supporters tout often. Only half of testers feel that the system is meeting that goal.
Improving the quality of matchplay is perhaps the most important overall goal of any change to a gameplay system. Half of testers do not believe that matches will improved under ED. This alone would be enough to scrap the system outright, though there is heavy support to continue development to see if the problems can be ironed out.
If ED is implemented on the live servers, only around 35% of players believe they would invest more time and money into the game, versus around 30% who would play less. The negative response to ED is shown to be stronger than the positive response. PGI stands to gain a mere net 5% of player interest, at best, and what interest they gain will be more tepid than what they lost.
However, if ED is not implemented, life will pretty much just go on as normal. As expected, some players who feel strongly positive about ED will not handle it's abandonment well. However, most players will gladly continue playing with just what we have now. PGI has little to gain by implementing ED, and a lot to lose.
As expected, the percentage of players who wish for development to continue on ED aligns somewhat closely to overall favorability of the system. However, in this category you would expect a lot of players who do not feel strongly AGAINST ED would vote for continued development. Th percentage in favor of continued development should be MUCH higher. This perhaps demonstrates a slight lack of confidence that problems with the system can be ironed out, and many players (more than half) would prefer a different solution.
Tepid favorability, clear signs that system goals are not being met, a lack of confidence that the game will improve through its implementation, and a general notion that MWO will lose more player interest than it will gain - all very very bad signs.
It's good to show that players are not necessarily enamored with Ghost Heat. While all indication is that players look on the current state of the game, build variety, and balance highly favorably, there's no sign of love lost if PGI replaces Ghost Heat with something else.
It just seems that most people don't think that ED fits the bill.
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