59 replies to this topic

[cazidin]

Did Russ tweet that this would be the final iteration of the ED PTS?

[Cold Darkness]

Quote

A joke build, but it might work in pub queue: 8 cMPL TBR/EBJ/EXE, fire in groups of 4, 64 damage total. Yes you can spread damage but the whole point is to piss off people who praise ED for curbing down "laser vomit". That is if you care enough. I don't. I only tested it and I think it has a "potential".

my ernergy based clandeck has two 8mpl jaguars on live for month now

[Leopardo]

Heres mho its just a nerf. ed Changes nothing look at lpl damn

[Quicksilver Aberration]

cazidin, on 01 October 2016 - 06:55 AM, said:

Did Russ tweet that this would be the final iteration of the ED PTS?

No but the fact we haven't seen any updates since the last change is probably a good indication given they have been doing weekly updates.

[ScarecrowES]

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 01 October 2016 - 12:25 PM, said:

No but the fact we haven't seen any updates since the last change is probably a good indication given they have been doing weekly updates.

If we're extremely lucky, they're finally realizing what most of us realized a looooong time ago... ED is a dead end... and they're just trying to find the most sly PR way to back out of it.

Last week (or the week before), Russ basically said he thought most people had a positive opinion of ED, but admitted he never actually looked to see if that was true (*facepalm*)... you'd figure after this he probably had to actually look at his Twitter feed and the forums here to see that this wasn't the case.

It's a good time to reevaluate things.

[Sereglach]

ScarecrowES, on 01 October 2016 - 02:40 PM, said:

If we're extremely lucky, they're finally realizing what most of us realized a looooong time ago... ED is a dead end... and they're just trying to find the most sly PR way to back out of it.

Last week (or the week before), Russ basically said he thought most people had a positive opinion of ED, but admitted he never actually looked to see if that was true (*facepalm*)... you'd figure after this he probably had to actually look at his Twitter feed and the forums here to see that this wasn't the case.

It's a good time to reevaluate things.

OR . . . they're finalizing UI work and prepping for a "Live PTS Event" that they were talking about. Russ says he never said it's absolute that ED will go live . . . but on the other hand he said he sees it going live by November at the earliest. Thusly it stands to reason that they're going to do this "Live PTS Event" ASAP to get that feedback that Russ said he'd like to see . . . especially if they're shooting for a goal of November release.

Whether people like it or not, Energy Draw isn't dead . . . it's just a matter of when and what they'll be changing when it goes live. My only hope is that we can influence things enough in a decent enough direction that the game isn't destroyed when it does go live; and in fact maybe things will truly turn out to be at least halfway decent.

[Davers]

I just wonder if we are going to see the same changes from the last PTS on live, or will they be a new reworked system.

[ScarecrowES]

Wouldn't be the first time PGI abandoned an entire system that's been extensively tested on the PTS. And frankly, the stakes for PGI's bottom line are higher now than on any previous PTS. Get this one wrong, and it may very well be the end of MWO.

What we can say, pretty definitively about opinion on ED is that, at BEST, feelings are mixed, and support is not significant. Our highest level of favorability was about 50% against a system that nearly every player hates. That's not good. And that was WAY earlier in testing. Since then, I think it's fair to say that interest in placing ED on the Live servers has wained.

We can also say, pretty definitively, that the folks that have a favorable opinion of ED are just sorta "meh, it's better than GH at least" about it - not to discount their support... just to show that there aren't many that are strictly happy with how ED is turning out. But people NOT in favor of it tend to REALLY hate it.

Short of a significant investment into new game modes and other content, and straight up perfecting every core system in the game, it's going to be next to impossible to draw in a significant amount of new paying customers. ED is not likely to have a produce any positive increase in player investment, even among supporters. But it almost certainly will have significant negative results on the same... so the bottom line for PGI's financials is likely to take a hit if they put ED on Live. How big of a hit, it's hard to say... but it won't be insignificant.

This really is the reality we're working with here. What PGI does with that, I suppose, is up to them. Pushing ED to Live is not the smart choice here.

[Cold Darkness]

ScarecrowES, on 01 October 2016 - 07:45 PM, said:

Wouldn't be the first time PGI abandoned an entire system that's been extensively tested on the PTS. And frankly, the stakes for PGI's bottom line are higher now than on any previous PTS. Get this one wrong, and it may very well be the end of MWO.

What we can say, pretty definitively about opinion on ED is that, at BEST, feelings are mixed, and support is not significant. Our highest level of favorability was about 50% against a system that nearly every player hates. That's not good. And that was WAY earlier in testing. Since then, I think it's fair to say that interest in placing ED on the Live servers has wained.

We can also say, pretty definitively, that the folks that have a favorable opinion of ED are just sorta "meh, it's better than GH at least" about it - not to discount their support... just to show that there aren't many that are strictly happy with how ED is turning out. But people NOT in favor of it tend to REALLY hate it.

Short of a significant investment into new game modes and other content, and straight up perfecting every core system in the game, it's going to be next to impossible to draw in a significant amount of new paying customers. ED is not likely to have a produce any positive increase in player investment, even among supporters. But it almost certainly will have significant negative results on the same... so the bottom line for PGI's financials is likely to take a hit if they put ED on Live. How big of a hit, it's hard to say... but it won't be insignificant.

This really is the reality we're working with here. What PGI does with that, I suppose, is up to them. Pushing ED to Live is not the smart choice here.

your doing baseless assumptions. its common knowledge that the negative front is more vocal and most players dont even bother with testing the system anyways. you would not get representative numbers simply by reading the forum.
its also a largely the same people in every thread that argue for and against ED.

we also have not seen a final version of ED as of this point in time, because all iterations of the testrealm supposedly are only for collecting data with different variables. the endresult might actually be very different from everything that actually ran on the ptr.

it is also highly unlikely that ED in any variation would be the end of mwo, since thats just playerbitching. that happens with virtually every possible nerf in existance in every possible game in existance. its nothing new, and the game wouldnt be less fun because of ED.
your particularly favorited playstyle might end up being more fun, though. but thats a very limited view on the big picture.

i for one wouldnt mind it if my 1xx pinpoint+laser dwf without ghostheat wouldnt work anymore. and yes, that is supposed to be an extreme example of a currently working build. neither is it fun to play it, nor is it fun to be hit by it.

Edited by Cold Darkness, 02 October 2016 - 04:10 AM.

[SlightlyMobileTurret]

I am not against ED (I think GH is better though), but I'm concerned about the huge reduction of DPS affecting CW matches.

Matches already take a long time, atleast 20 minutes on a stomp and most fairly balanced matches go upto the last 4 minutes. With DPS reduction, attackers must be even faster and will have almost no leeway if they do not start moving the instant they respawn.

And they cannot just turn around and take omega and the ogens after dealing with enemy mechs, because you just don't have the heat capacity anymore.

I know this will sound good to some people, but all you are doing is reinforcing the chokepoint game.

[SlightlyMobileTurret]

Cold Darkness, on 02 October 2016 - 04:10 AM, said:

your doing baseless assumptions. its common knowledge that the negative front is more vocal and most players dont even bother with testing the system anyways. you would not get representative numbers simply by reading the forum.
its also a largely the same people in every thread that argue for and against ED.

we also have not seen a final version of ED as of this point in time, because all iterations of the testrealm supposedly are only for collecting data with different variables. the endresult might actually be very different from everything that actually ran on the ptr.

it is also highly unlikely that ED in any variation would be the end of mwo, since thats just playerbitching. that happens with virtually every possible nerf in existance in every possible game in existance. its nothing new, and the game wouldnt be less fun because of ED.
your particularly favorited playstyle might end up being more fun, though. but thats a very limited view on the big picture.

i for one wouldnt mind it if my 1xx pinpoint+laser dwf without ghostheat wouldnt work anymore. and yes, that is supposed to be an extreme example of a currently working build. neither is it fun to play it, nor is it fun to be hit by it.

The last vote on the ED PTS had something like ~46% players thinking GH > ED so cut out the vocal minority crap.

Also, when you make a non high alpha/UAC spam Dire work, please tell me. Because I am finding it impossible to consistently beat even a battlemaster with the Gauss/LPL/ML dire.

When was the last time you got alphaed by a Dire anyway? I see like one every 3 games, but 3 KDKs every game.

Yes, this is another extreme example.

Edited by Keshav Murali, 02 October 2016 - 05:36 AM.

[Cold Darkness]

Quote

non high alpha/UAC spam Dire

hardpoint limitations for heavy energy and ballistic layouts with a bare minimum on available missile points and critical slot cap make that quite the stupid request. if you request something, do so in terms of what the game currently offers.
or play 4 lbx 10/20 even though those will most likely perform worse then uac builds.

also: just because ridiculous alpha builds are not meta, doesnt mean they are not possible. and since pgi doesnt seem to adjust ghostheat groups, ED will deal with potential future issues alot better then ghost heat currently does. even if it means hurting srm/ac brawling in the process. and since the community is so loudly against all kinds of convergence simulation mechanics or even a 1degree cone of fire mechanics, weapons will always be to precise to allow this kind of precise high burst damage in a battletech setting.

for the voting:
only a fraction of players uses the forum
only a fraction of forumites used the ptr
only a fraction of those ptr players played all versions
only a fraction of those actually cast votes

and since people that are happy are less likely to voice their opinion because they simply have no reason to give a ****, it is very likely that you are not speaking on behalf of "most players" based on the outcome of a vote that was 46% against ED

like what the hell man

[SlightlyMobileTurret]

Cold Darkness, on 02 October 2016 - 07:02 AM, said:

hardpoint limitations for heavy energy and ballistic layouts with a bare minimum on available missile points and critical slot cap make that quite the stupid request. if you request something, do so in terms of what the game currently offers.
or play 4 lbx 10/20 even though those will most likely perform worse then uac builds.

The dire can mount more energy than the nova. Hardpoint limited for heavy energy, really? You can also get 3 missile on the S variant and 2 capable of taking LRM20+A. I'm all for mixed builds if they can compete against the meta. ED kills builds that are not homogeneous.

The maximum you can do on a whale is 2LBX20 2LBX10, which cannot win a brawl against a medium mech, because, Dire Whale. (Yes, 4 and 3 LBX10 are decent)

Super high alpha builds are possible. Doesn't mean they're good. Heck, the Cicada can mount two AC20 and mount two tons of ammo. The dire can easily touch 120 alpha, as seen on mechspecs, without breaking ghost heat. It's also a build you never use unless for shits and giggles.

It doesn't matter whether they're possible or not, it matters whether they're viable or not. There's a difference.

As for your voting part, I have no idea how polls work, but you're basically saying a very small fraction of the playerbase voted. If my player base is of a certain composition, and I take a small sample of it, will the composition definitely vary?

If it always did, why are there polls held for elections, when they have a sample size of 1000 voters when the amount that votes is in the number of several million?

For instance, in the last general election held in my country, 550 million people voted. The closest poll had something like 80k in the sample size. The difference in magnitude is huge.

Lots of people were vocally for, and against ED. What I don't get is ED supporters running this vocal minority nonsense.

Edited by Keshav Murali, 02 October 2016 - 08:28 AM.

[Cold Darkness]

Quote

Lots of people were vocally for, and against ED. What I don't get is ED supporters running this vocal minority nonsense.

thats simple: because people always come up with ******** like "the majority of players wants this" or some **** like this, as seen in this very thread. you have no representative data to support such a claim, which is why this term is used to point this out.
does that mean that i think i talk for the majority of people? no. i do not.


edit:

as for politics:

unlike a game, there is kind of a need for a government to run the country, regardless of what people think about that. you cannot exactly force your population to do the voting and you need to base your government on something.
in a game that is not the case, because regardless of what you decide on doing in the end, you have not have the same grave importance as in politics.

edit 2:

it is also pretty much irrelevant of if they are viable RIGHT now, as ED and GhostHeat are both systems with potential future changes to the metagame in mind, because the metagame is a dynamic process. this should be clear with the rise of the kodiak, which changed the metagame in quickplay TREMENDOUSLY.

Edited by Cold Darkness, 02 October 2016 - 08:39 AM.

[ScarecrowES]

Cold Darkness, on 02 October 2016 - 08:30 AM, said:

thats simple: because people always come up with ******** like "the majority of players wants this" or some **** like this, as seen in this very thread. you have no representative data to support such a claim, which is why this term is used to point this out.
does that mean that i think i talk for the majority of people? no. i do not.


edit:

as for politics:

unlike a game, there is kind of a need for a government to run the country, regardless of what people think about that. you cannot exactly force your population to do the voting and you need to base your government on something.
in a game that is not the case, because regardless of what you decide on doing in the end, you have not have the same grave importance as in politics.

edit 2:

it is also pretty much irrelevant of if they are viable RIGHT now, as ED and GhostHeat are both systems with potential future changes to the metagame in mind, because the metagame is a dynamic process. this should be clear with the rise of the kodiak, which changed the metagame in quickplay TREMENDOUSLY.

You're saying ED impacts meta. I think that's such a poor distillation that it's doing a disservice to the facts. ED doesn't just affect which meta is working best at a given time. It's a continental shift for how the game is played. And that change is in a direction that a significant majority of the population simply doesn't want to go.

Supporters of ED have always rested their favorability of the system on the idea that PGI can "get it right some day." What we know of the system is that it will never be "right." The system couldn't stand on its own. It failed at its job from day one, and necessitated this sweeping set of changes to every other system and weapon stat just to get it functioning on a basic level. And THAT turned a LOT of supporters off.

Saying that this is not the final iteration and that Live will be different is NOT a good notion. Players should be testing the "final" iteration and giving their stamp of approval. And noting that the direction changes have been heading have been largely pissing off ED supporters, it's unlikely that there will be significant support for whatever the "final" iteration will be.

As for "grave importance..." One could readily argue that, regardless of who is in office, a country continues running because an individual politician has no impact on the reality of the laws and quality of life in that country. However, in a game, a single significant change can be the death of that game. Citizens aren't likely to pack up and leave the country in droves just because a politician they don't like got elected. Players WILL pack up and leave a game in droves just because a core system got changed in a way they don't like.

I can certainly point you to dozens of major, highly profitable games that shut down within a year of making significant and unpopular changes to their game. And ED is anything but popular.

[Cold Darkness]

and there we go again with "MAJORITY of players"

show me one single supportive datasheet for this specific argument. you cant? doesnt suprise me one bit. might be, because >most likely< the MAJORITY of players isnt even readong the god damn forums, yet cares about this whole **** anyways.

you want to test and stamp the final version of energy draw? why? people would vote negatively regardless of how it turns out to be, simply because they are pissed of at earlier versions of it. i doubt that every nay or yay sayer even tested all versions of the systems anyways. i dare say that their might be a chunk of people that voice opinions without actually having played ANY version of it.

also, it doesnt matter who sits in the government? yeah, i dont care for single individuals, but we dont vote for that ****, we vote the whole partys. that IS important as ****, because while generally all of them have decent things they want to do, some of them bundle them with the stupidest **** you have ever seen. but unlike a game, where people can leave, you cannot do so in your country without major preparations or a certain pool of money you can fall back on.
but thats the good thing about votes in games, because it is highly UNLIKELY that the MAJORITY of players will leave because of energy draw, just because in some random supersmall voting sample, people voted for ghost heat ... and that vote still failed, mind you (based on information recieved from you guys, didnt confirm, because why).

anyways:

just in case no one noticed: im actually neither for ED nor GH, because i am able to see that both have their big issues (and i would be fine with ghost heat, as long as they actually updated penaltygroups to somewhat reflect the current metagame, which is essentially evolved out of exploits of ghost heats weaknesses), if it was about me, which it isnt, id go for >MINOR< cone of fire (think about 1 or 2 degrees for starters) and see how it works, because that is most fitting for a battletech game (battletech being dicerolls and everything and actual convergence being ruled out by HSR [or whatever its called] and stuff).

on a side note:
who is governing your country is of grave importance, because without those *******, your country would most certainly be exploited by other countrys to the death (at least if your stately institutions like the police didnt stop existing first because lack of funds and the country decents into anarchy), which will make everyone suffer in the long run, so yeah, it is of grave importance that theres somone at the top, even if you dont agree with most of them.

[Leopardo]

simply as i see ED - its just like GH but different way and that way is wrong too!!! we going to have a weapon nerf and sinks nerf and quirks nerf and skill tree nerf omg - after that **** look at it all parts of system is broken and nerfed for what???? wheres god damn BASE whers THE IDEA - okay we have the energy that used by all weapons and no GH- mmmm okay -- and to prevent the high alpha we have what? - yeah heat cap lower - okay - why do i need ALL that crap ( series of nerfs atc) to lower HEAT CAP? - I DONT - just need to tune all ! lower heat cap and give that penalties for overheting - and as suggest SCARECROW - the bar with the that penalies. as i see the PGI simply have all we need !!!!!!!! but they DONT PLAYS THE GAME OMG!! they dont know! what to do with it!!!! dont need to nearf all to dead omg....just TUNE ALL THAT STUFF!!!! and add that overheat penalties Let that guys fire 100500 lazers and then explode if they want!

Edited by Leopardo, 02 October 2016 - 11:21 AM.

[Leopardo]

im really dont get - guys with that series of nerfs we gonig to have boring game play i dont like the power creeps but - what tha hell men i dont like that i cant go with 100500 lasers too...i mean whats the hell. let them fire all that lasers and then have theyr penalies and let them cooldown longer - free theyr hands - let the pilot have the build under that system....with different style WEAPONS - after ED we have nerfs to all - and wepons become not so worth theyr tonnage and game play will go down.... and patches for the god of patches once again!

Edited by Leopardo, 02 October 2016 - 11:33 AM.

[Kaptain]

Cold Darkness, on 02 October 2016 - 04:10 AM, said:

it is also highly unlikely that ED in any variation would be the end of mwo,

Sorry, major changes in long established core systems have heavily damaged (if not destroyed) the player base in other online games. MWO is not immune to this potential outcome.

I'm openly against ED now. Things are pretty good on live and I would rather live with GH than trust Paul and his dart board of "balance".

If we are to change things lets give ScareCrows heat penalty system a go.

Edited by Kaptain, 02 October 2016 - 12:38 PM.

[Cold Darkness]

@ leopardo:

what makes you think the weaponnerfs stand in relationship with ED ?

@ kaptain:

every change has the potential to do that, this change however isnt big enough to achieve that. why? because the game still plays very similar to before, despite what many people seem to think about it. at the end of the day, it slows down gameplay and extends facetime. it also makes the game more battletech by doing so.
sure, it overthrows the metagame we have right now, but a new metagame would develop within a week or two till the top players have figured stuff out and the braod mindless masses start copying their builds.

not quite sure what scarecrows heat penalty system is, since i didnt read every thread in these forums. if it is about penaltys dependend on mech heatlevels, sure. just dont make the mistake that those would fix anything. such systems are not for standalone usage and would fullfill their purpose better in combination with ED or GH. if it is yet another alternative to GH or ED i just hope it isnt that one with the heat-penalty-curve for damage, because yeah.

anyways. im fine with any decent solution. i just think that the current ghostheat is not healthy for the game and the essentially all versions of energy draw where superior to it. however, i also think that this would change with even minor adjustments to the current ghostheat groupings. ghost heat has glaring weakpoints that need to be fixed either by adressing them or by replacing the system. since pgi seems to rule out further adjustments for unknown reasons, my vote will be for ED. (even though my favored option to both systems is still a minor cone of fire as stated above, but thats just always shot down by the same people that cherish the exploitable version of ghostheat)

now that i think about it, it is kind of disturbing that all people (including myself) come up with all kinds of alternatives to ED but no one bothered to fleshing out ghostheat as an alternative. instead everyone either wants the new or the old system or their own special one.