150 replies to this topic

[Bishop Steiner]

CapperDeluxe, on 13 February 2017 - 08:07 AM, said:

"How can you like others if you can't even like yourself?" - Another deep thought by Jack Handy

well played sir. But still...don't be that guy.

Alistair Winter, on 13 February 2017 - 08:19 AM, said:

To be honest... there aren't a lot of forum warriors that I agree with on every major topic that is important to me. I agree with the hardcore competitive players on some issues, I agree with tabletop fanatics on some issues and I agree with the artboys on some artistic issues that seem irrelevant to other groups.

It's very much like politics. It's easy to agree on what the problem is, but things get tricky when people try to agree on how to fix the problem. For example, I saw one guy on the MWO forums argue that light mechs were extremely underpowered, which I agree with. His solution was to turn light mechs into NPC consumables that you could drop on the battlefield once per match. I mean... I don't even.

The discussion becomes extra hard because we have to factor in what PGI will realistically do in the real world. For example, we may agree that it would be better if PGI would have a PTS to try out 5 radically different ideas to replace ghost heat, and then we could get a better idea of which idea to build upon and improve with incremental balancing. But realists would argue that PGI is not likely to do any of that, so they will argue that we should stick with ghost heat, even if they hate it, just because they don't believe PGI is capable or willing to find a proper replacement.

Also, PGI doesn't really want to interact with the players unless someone puts a gun to their head, it feels like. Ask the devs, community managers, the roundtable roundbucket, the twitter polls... there are so many examples.

which is why PGI needs input from ALL the above.. because no one group has all the answers, or even considers all the issues.

[Tarogato]

Alistair Winter, on 13 February 2017 - 08:19 AM, said:

It's very much like politics. It's easy to agree on what the problem is, but things get tricky when people try to agree on how to fix the problem.

Well, at least could organise problems in order from highest significance to lowest so PGI knows what we want them to focus on.

[cazidin]

Tycho von Gagern, on 13 February 2017 - 08:40 AM, said:

That's the problem in a nutshell, isn't it? Even the OP's idea of a forum-warrior roundtable sounds okay until you ask, "Who's on it?" Then everything starts to break down, and we haven't even gotten to any of the actual ideas this roundtable might float, yet!

I've volunteered as tribute.

[Valdarion Silarius]

I like the idea, but it wont happen unless there is another event like the conspiracy floating around that PGI isn't IGP and vice versa. Really pathetic that was the last time we got a collective answer from PGI about something.

Edited by Arnold The Governator, 13 February 2017 - 08:48 AM.

[Bishop Steiner]

Tycho von Gagern, on 13 February 2017 - 08:40 AM, said:

That's the problem in a nutshell, isn't it? Even the OP's idea of a forum-warrior roundtable sounds okay until you ask, "Who's on it?" Then everything starts to break down, and we haven't even gotten to any of the actual ideas this roundtable might float, yet!


This is a pretty well-considered and IMO accurate assessment of the community, the feedback they offer, and the problems that stem from said feedback.

honestly.. PGI would have to simply choose. Good god.. anything like this based on community input becomes a massive screwup. Anyone recall when Russ asked us to come up with som ebetter ideas...and a couple people took that to me "elect a player council" (not actually what Russ said to do), and then it became a storm of Epeen, Cults of Personality, and other such stupidity, that devolved into the typical Trump-esque petty bickering, and in the end accomplished nothing.. likely the point and result Russ was hoping to make.

My problem with these "Roundtables" is they end up essentially like the whole Player Council crap with a bunch of people pandering to their "constituents" and a lot of nothing useful actually happening.

Perhaps if Russ had the wherewithal to actually just read the forums, and then using common sense, when he sees well thought out Topics and Posts on a subject, simply PM and communicate with the poster in question at the time... he would probably get a lot more beneficial information than any "Roundtable" where everyone's epeen starts tripping over each other, and people start trying to drown out the "other guy".

Could I give some beneficial input? On some things, yes. Other things, a lot less so. Same is true with McGral, Quicksilver, Deathlike, or literally ANY "notable" name on the forums. None have all the answers, and none are immune to confirmation bias and agendas.

All can give some useful input though. But I just don't see Roundtables, or the like as really accomplishing a dang thing.

[Bud Crue]

Bishop Steiner, on 13 February 2017 - 08:50 AM, said:

Perhaps if Russ had the wherewithal to...

I assumed you were going to write "provide a vision for this game and stick with it". Then when I saw what you actually wrote, it made me start laughing. Thanks for that.

[Gas Guzzler]

Tarogato, on 13 February 2017 - 07:57 AM, said:

Legitimate question... who's that?


The comp regulars that I know of on the forums are Mcgral [-SA-], Ghogiel [old CSJx?], Lukoi [-SA-], Quicksilver [SJR], Aresye [SJR], Terciel [RAWR], PhoenixFire [BSMC][MRBC ref], Deathlike [NS], Guzzler [NS], me [ISEN]...

He is referring to Ultimax from SiG

[Alistair Winter]

Tarogato, on 13 February 2017 - 08:44 AM, said:

Well, at least could organise problems in order from highest significance to lowest so PGI knows what we want them to focus on.

Surely if the goal is simply to create a list of problems, sorted by their significance, then we could just do a big poll. And indeed, many such polls have been created already, to no effect. Come to think of it, I'm not sure I've ever seen any poll that had a real impact on MWO that wasn't created by Russ on Twitter, except the one about whether PGI should be able to sell the Phoenix mechs again.

I'm not strictly opposed to the idea, I'm just not very confident that I'll agree with the community more than PGI. The issues that are most important to me seem to have limited importance to the community as a whole.

What things would be at the top of your list?

[Bishop Steiner]

Bud Crue, on 13 February 2017 - 08:55 AM, said:

I assumed you were going to write "provide a vision for this game and stick with it". Then when I saw what you actually wrote, it made me start laughing. Thanks for that.

oh, I gave the whole "vision for this game and stick with it" spiel last year.

Needless to say, that's never going to happen, despite the fact that a huge part of the issue with this game's development is precisely because they have never done that.

[cazidin]

...Wait. Why do we need Russ to make this? Why not get one or two of the popular MWO streamers to host their own and tweet about it to him? We could have an unbiased discussion without NGNG's influence or softballing and maybe he'd take our suggestions seriously.

[C E Dwyer]

To counter the lack of trolls the blind fanboi's should be omitted as well, fairs fair

Shiroi Tsuki, on 13 February 2017 - 08:17 AM, said:

You can like yourself (as in having self-esteem) and not like your own posts. Like the old saying in Facebook "Liking your own posts is like sucking your own... uhh.... lower CT"

Is this what you were talking about when you said this would go down well Bishop ?

Yes I probably would like my own posts if I could reach that far down

[Lostdragon]

This is going to sound really jaded but I honestly think it would be a waste of time and energy. The FW roundtable was. They never even bothered to do the follow up session that was supposed to happen and I don't think there was any productive discussion about the real issues with FW. I think PGI only takes player feedback seriously when they think it will hurt them financially not to do so. They are definitely not going to agree to a roundtable that is not moderated by themselves or NGNG (essentially the same thing) which virtually assures that even if this did happen there probably wouldn't be any in depth discussion of the difficult issues.

[Tarogato]

Alistair Winter, on 13 February 2017 - 08:56 AM, said:

What things would be at the top of your list?

Handing quirk balancing over to somebody that actually plays the game well, understands the present imbalances, and has experience with a very wide variety of mechs.

Lostdragon, on 13 February 2017 - 09:11 AM, said:

This is going to sound really jaded but I honestly think it would be a waste of time and energy. The FW roundtable was.

You might have missed them because they were kinda under the radar, but there were pre-roundtable roundtables. And they were actually a LOT more productive than the actual ones that Russ came to. Having PGI and/or NGNG present at a discussion tends to ensure that not much will get discussed or suggested.

[Bishop Steiner]

Lostdragon, on 13 February 2017 - 09:11 AM, said:

This is going to sound really jaded but I honestly think it would be a waste of time and energy. The FW roundtable was. They never even bothered to do the follow up session that was supposed to happen and I don't think there was any productive discussion about the real issues with FW. I think PGI only takes player feedback seriously when they think it will hurt them financially not to do so. They are definitely not going to agree to a roundtable that is not moderated by themselves or NGNG (essentially the same thing) which virtually assures that even if this did happen there probably wouldn't be any in depth discussion of the difficult issues.

very much this. Same way that NGNG always screened the townhalls to ensure Russ largely got lobbed softballs.

I think though, that often Russ does do these things just to "prove" who little the community can agree on anything, and thus, who should he listen to?

Which of course is a disingenuous approach also, as one should always be skimming the community for ways to make the product better, and thus increase sales and player retention, by extension. But that seems lost on them.

One doesn't get loyalty and accolades THEN provide a good product... but the other way around... yet it seems like PGI want's to get these accolades without actually providing. You can only ride an IP's reputation for so long.

Tarogato, on 13 February 2017 - 09:21 AM, said:

Handing quirk balancing over to somebody that actually plays the game well, understands the present imbalances, and has experience with a very wide variety of mechs.



You might have missed them because they were kinda under the radar, but there were pre-roundtable roundtables. And they were actually a LOT more productive than the actual ones that Russ came to. Having PGI and/or NGNG present at a discussion tends to ensure that not much will get discussed or suggested.

and just how representative of the actual community were these little "pre-Roundtable" soirees? I have a feeling that while those present may have found them productive, a lot of others may have disagreed with focus of many of the agendas addressed.

[Alistair Winter]

Tarogato, on 13 February 2017 - 09:21 AM, said:

Handing quirk balancing over to somebody that actually plays the game well, understands the present imbalances, and has experience with a very wide variety of mechs.

That would be nice. But I think PGI is aware that we want that to happen. They prefer to use the guy who decided to make normalizing UAC jam quirks for the Mist Lynx a top priority.

[Sjorpha]

From a developer perspective the most useful is to create a focus group of people with a proven track record for being productive, respected and reasonable.

Forum warrioring is not a good qualification at all, because some of the most unconstructive people tend to post the most. On of the best warning flags here is if that poster has a habit of throwing insulting generalizations about "tryhards" or "potatoes" etc in either direction, because whether that person has useful ideas or not you can be pretty sure he/she wouldn't work well in a mixed feedback group.

Instead they should look at a mix of people who successfully organize events, creates fan made content of various kinds, has a long time good competitive record, successfully creates and leads units (casual or comp). In a game that is moddable mod creator teams tend to be very good people to work with, but since we don't have that you'd have to look at other types of fan made resources.

In essence, people who evidently spends time creating useful things and organizing stuff, as well as people who reach a high level of success in gameplay, are more likely to also be productive and serious in a feedback process than someone who just makes a shitload of forum posts, even if those forum posts are of good quality.

I have experience of this from the development of Dominions 4, where illwinter reached out to the community and we managed to shake out a selection of the most productive people. We has three of the best modders, one focused on balance and one on creative content, one server admin who had created the best PvP service for Dominions 3, and two of the most accomplished veteran players.

This group was able to give very high quality feedback and use their long earned respect in the community to handle communication and gather feedback.

Something like this should happen, in every game development project that has an established fanbase, PGI could do that.

I think they are partly justified in ignoring many of the forum warriors though.

Edited by Sjorpha, 13 February 2017 - 09:41 AM.

[Bud Crue]

Alistair Winter, on 13 February 2017 - 08:56 AM, said:

What things would be at the top of your list?

I realize you were directing that question at Tarogato, but I, like a good forum warrior am reading it the way I like and am thus sticking in my two cents.

Most pressing issues in this game are all related to the NPE.
PGIs reliance on the prospective player being fully aware of and even familiar with the IP and past iterations of the game is huge flaw. You want more than old nostalgia players for your great e-sport future? Then you better start marketing the game to those that are coming to the game for an e-sport experience. Even if you want to stick with the whole pretence that this is a "battletech game" you still need to educate potential new players on what exactly that means. In short you need to identify your markets and then advertise this product to them. And you need a sales pitch that advertise the product on its own merits.

Directly related to that is how to get folks interested once they are aware. You need to provide for a far greater explanation, tutorial, and initial learning experience than is currently provided for. Consider that the only description of most mechs is found on an external website. How does such a circumstance aid the potential new player who has no clue what a clan vs an IS faction is, what a Highlander is or why it is different than a Timber wolf. Yet this game assumes that basis of knowledge in every player regardless of skill or background. That is ridiculious.

This then leads to an aspect of the game that drive new players and some old ones away: Perpetual beta.
So, a new player, despite the odds, finds out about this game, plays it, learns a bit and buys their first mech. Then PGI nerfs it and provides an oh so helpful statement along the lines of: "it was performing above its internally created performance target values." The new player does not experience this and think " wow given the TT nature of this IP and the underlying difficulty of mathematically balancing mechs with diverse hardpoints, hit boxes and numerous other disparate conditions, I totally understand why PGI has done what they have done, and I shall now endeavor to keep at it and try a different mech". No. What they think is: "This is total BS. Screw this game." And they leave. Then they get reddit and tell everyone what a crappy game MWO is. Many of us understand and even sympathize with the never ending balance issues with this game, but PGI has actually been known to post things along the lines of "balance is fine" or that "all mech are designed to have equivelant value". This sort of outright cluelessness of their own game does nothing to get new or old players to be sympathetic to their difficulties. So either balance the game in fact, or regularly interface with the community in an honest manner about your difficulties.

Edited by Bud Crue, 13 February 2017 - 09:36 AM.

[C E Dwyer]

Is there actually any point.

Long Tom the bad idea Russ said was going to be great new addition.

I looked at energy draw as a possibly working solution, it was a pig that needed to be put down, and most people saw how badly it was going to effect the game, P.G.I didn't understand why it was railed against.

Skill tree

Again it's taken weeks, no months of work, only to have the community show P.G.I in under two days that the negatives clearly out weigh the positives, of introducing it and it needs a big rework before it goes live.

They also seem oblivious to the fact that introducing a system that clearly favours even more single weapon boating than ever before, is going to severely impact sales coupled with the removal of the rule of three.

They seem either incapable of understanding what they need to do, or those that have clear insight feel they won't be listened to, or that arguing against it could have their contract ended, so say nothing negative.

Under those conditions how is a round table going to effect anything, as they'll just gasp on one word, like Buckets, and everything else will be blanked out, no matter how sensible it might be.

Still if people are going to try this good luck, though only sycophants seem to get anywhere with P.G.I.

You only have to look at the live twitch streams and how they're hosted and by whom, to see the proof of this.

[Lostdragon]

Tarogato, on 13 February 2017 - 09:21 AM, said:

Having PGI and/or NGNG present at a discussion tends to ensure that not much will get discussed or suggested.

Well not having them present is basically just a circle jerk. If PGI doesn't participate or at least review these things then they won't ever realistically have any impact on the game.

[Bud Crue]

Cathy, on 13 February 2017 - 09:40 AM, said:

Is there actually any point.

Again it's taken weeks, no months of work, only to have the community show P.G.I in under two days that the negatives clearly out weigh the positives, of introducing it and it needs a big rework before it goes live.

And that right there answers your question. When they bother to involve the community they do in fact get real feedback and that real feedback be it with the Skills Tree, ED or infotech, has been a mover of how they (PGI) proceeds. It's when they don't involve the community (see mini-map, see initial flames redo, etc.) is when sh7t goes south real quick. So yes there is a point and it is one they need to keep being reminded of: the game exists because of the community so it might be a good idea to at least occasionally engage with that community even if it is a cluser f**k of different opinions and ideas.